Sunder (16 page)

She locked her eyes with Emilio, terrified of what she knew she had to do. He looked so afraid, but as she stared at him, he steeled his eyes into a determined stare and mouthed,
Go
.

Emilio was on his own.

She took off at a heavy sprint, not toward the tree, but right at Cædda. Her sudden jolt forward must have registered in his periphery, and Cædda’s eyes flashed at her as he moved to stand directly in front of Emilio.

I’m not coming to rescue him, sweetheart.
Barreling toward him, shoulders down, she saw the baton resting at Emilio’s feet. That made her plan even easier. Almost upon the trio now, she saw the great lord of Shaftesbury raise his enormous sword with both hands, the chain from the crucifix still dangling out of his fists. She dropped to the ground and slid directly into him, allowing her foot to smash into his knee.

Cædda had not been expecting that, and fell forward with a pained grunt, losing his grip on the sword. And the crucifix.

With one swoop of her left hand, Isabella snatched the beacon and the baton from the ground. Hopping to her feet, she shoved her “master” back into Selwyn, keeling them both off balance, and she ran once more to the tree. This time she made it, hurdling over Garrick, who was still in the fetal position.

She could hear nothing as she climbed the tree, as she climbed up and up and even farther up. She could not hear Cædda’s scream of fury, Emilio’s groan of agony. She did not, would not, hear the sick sound of the blade being shoved through Emilio’s body. She heard nothing, not even the clacking of the bare branches as they struggled to support her weight.

She did not hear her own panicked gasp of breath as she dropped down on the other side of the wall; she did not hear the pop in her ankle as her feet connected with the ground.

She did not hear Emilio’s body drop into the dead leaves.

She heard nothing—nothing at all—as she ran through the night as fast as she could toward the woods that would hide her.

***

Voices hovered all around Annis as she floated aimlessly through time and space. She could feel the floor beneath her, and yet she felt weightless as she shivered in the terrible cold. They were talking all around her, but she could not identify the voices or even open her eyes to see.

Then she felt his arms—his strong arms around her, holding her close. Breathing in the warmth of her husband, she knew her prayer had been answered.

“Did you kill him?” she murmured out.

“Yes, my love,” he whispered.

She felt furs being draped over her body and Cædda’s breath graze her cheek.

“Deorca? Did you kill her too?”

“Soon, my love,” his whisper caressed her ear. “Very soon.”

13

Hi there, Kiddo. You remember me?

Alfredo stared at the girl in the dim light of the launch station, not bothering to respond to her question. She looked so…different. It had taken him a moment to recognize her, even though her face was unchanged from the last time he saw her. It was he who had changed, but even after all these years, his heart skipped when he recognized her beautiful face, just like it had all those years ago. Oh yes, he had always remembered her.

“Alfredo? Do we know this young lady?” Padre asked cautiously. Perhaps it was her use of ‘Kiddo,’ or more likely it was the fact she spoke English, but Padre seemed to already know where this intruder came from.

“This is Shannan Fitzroy, Padre.” He stepped toward her and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “She was my teacher once.” He continued to look down on Shannan, wracking his brain to remember whether or not she understood Spanish.

Shannan did not back away from him. She held her ground, looking up into his face in a brief, probing way before allowing her mouth to turn downwards in a disappointed frown.

“Apparently, I didn’t teach you as much as I’d hoped.” Her voice, velvety smooth as it ever was, quavered subtly. “If I had, neither of us would be here.”

The uncharacteristic tremble in her voice told Alfredo she knew the thin ice she was skating on. But, he wondered,
why
is she nervous? He remembered her words as he had bolted into the room, calling for Isabella:
I’m afraid not, sir. But I have news of…
Perhaps it was such terrible news that she feared to tell him.

The disappointed frown on her face remained as Shannan reached out her hand to Alfredo’s still bleeding forehead, her cool fingertips grazing his skin.

“If you have a first aid kit, I can bandage that for you.”

Oh, I see what you’re doing.
Cursing his momentary nostalgia, Alfredo batted her hand away and stepped back so he was once again standing next to Padre.

“The only thing I need from you is answers. What the hell are you doing here? Your emergency beacon should have brought you back to 2073, just like mine did.”

“I used Isabella’s.”

Her simple pronouncement hung in the air between them.  She did not simply have knowledge of Isabella; she knew her. Had Shannan been a stranger, perhaps Alfredo would have concluded she might have stolen Isabella’s beacon. But Alfredo knew very well that Shannan would sooner cut off her own hand than take something that did not belong to her. No, Isabella must have given Shannan that beacon.

He bore his eyes into her dress, her hair—anything that would indicate a precise year and location. As he studied her, the dust of Alfredo’s memory cleared enough for him to remember that long-ago day; he was just nineteen and preparing to travel to 1688 London.

Shannan had the departure slot directly before his own, and he had blushed so furiously when he ran into her in the hallway. The dark ages dress—the same dress she was wearing now—so clearly showed the curve of her waist, the heavy sway of her breasts as she walked. She had probably noticed his bashfulness, but she would never laugh at him, never dismiss him as the silly boy he was. She just made light conversation. What had she said? W
hat a coincidence, Fredo. You and I are going to the same country.

“England,” he said thickly as his mind returned to the present. “You were going to England too. And you found Isabella there?” he asked desperately.

Her nervous smile turned into a taunting, condescending look, one he recognized. She used that face in class when calling on a student who didn’t quite know the answer.

“Yes. But can you remember what year?”

That mocking smile bit into Alfredo’s throat like a rabid dog and rage coursed through his blood, stinging him in waves of memory—his panic after the explosion, the hysteria of his realization that Etienne would never talk, the crushing defeat at having Padre stop his plans to save Isabella—all of it culminating in a single memory of a twelve-year-old Isabella, laughing and waving at him as she did her first successful back handspring in the front yard.
Papi, look at me!

Everything he had shoved down since his little girl had been ripped from this world exploded out of him, and he lunged at Shannan.

“Do you think this is a joke?” In one swift motion, he curled his hand around her throat and shoved her into the travel console, arching her backwards over the screen. “She is my daughter! My child! Now tell me where she is!”

“Alfredo,” Padre called warningly from behind him. But the pounding in his ears drowned the priest out as Shannan scratched at his hands around her throat, her mouth distended in the hysterical panic that only appears on the face of one who thinks she is dying.

“Please,” she wheezed, a single tear falling from the side of her eye.

“Peace!” Padre’s voice intermingled with the sound of the pistol cocking, and Alfredo froze.

Perhaps on a different day, he would have ignored that sound. In the grip of his fury, Alfredo had ceased to feel the pain through his whole body or the not-yet dry blood still oozing from his head. But the sound of the pistol cleared his senses enough to feel all that again; he was ready to believe the priest would shoot him, if only in the leg.

He released Shannan’s throat and stepped back as she dropped heavily to the floor.

“Have you lost your mind?” Padre raged at him, grabbing him roughly by the arm to bring him in close enough to hiss in his ear. “What do you think she’ll tell us now?”

“Anything I want to know,” Alfredo said through ragged breaths, only to once again feel Padre’s withered old hand slap his face—harder this time.

“She is guilty of no crime, and therefore is entitled to due process. We have procedures for temporal refugees, Fredo!”

He opened his mouth to curse the priest as a coward, but then he stopped. Still breathing hard, Alfredo shifted his eyes down to the pretty girl on the floor, shaking badly and trying to stifle her crying.
She’s from 2073.
The thought rang out in his head, calming his ferocious heartbeat and bringing his breathing under control. Travelling forward was forbidden, for obvious reasons, and the Agency had very clear protocols to deal with violators—secret protocols that kept the offender completely sequestered, imprisoned, until such time as a decision was reached about their fate.

Shaking himself loose from Padre’s grip, Alfredo took a moment to adjust his disheveled clothing.

“You are correct, Padre. Thank you for reminding me,” he said tersely.

With one last glare at Shannan, Alfredo walked out of the launch station and across the hall into the prep room. He tapped the screen of the wall-mounted comm to bring up a list of extensions, then selected the button for security. The screen came alive with the image of Sergeant Bullock, the doughy Anglo night dispatcher for the Agency’s main campus. He took one look at Alfredo and blanched.

“Sir! What happened to you?”

“Sergeant,” Alfredo said calmly, “I need an extraction team for sit-code Alpha 714. And also a medic would be lovely.”

Bullock, to his credit, only paused for a beat. “I’m dispatching them now, sir.”

“Thank you, Bullock.” Alfredo signed off from the comm.

He heard a sob drift out of the launch station, and he let the realization take him that he could have killed her back there. She didn’t deserve that; she had always been kind to him, always helped him along with his studies whenever she could. Back then, he would have done anything to impress her. But things were different now.

Since they had parted ways, Alfredo had lived a lifetime, building a new life from scratch for himself, for Monica, and then for Isabella; he had risen to the top of his profession—to the top of society at large. Forty-one years had passed, and Alfredo Jaramillo was a juggernaut of power.

Shannan was still a 24-year-old graduate student, a nice girl who believed violence was never justified, a Quaker who called strangers “Friend.” With the passage of time, his whole perception of her had changed. No longer did he look on her and see a confident older woman; rather she looked to him like a naive little girl. And so she was, if she thought for one second she could get the better of him.

Yes, he saw very clearly what she was here to do. That silly gesture of offering to bandage him… trying to engender trust so she could convince him to help her “set things right.” But he had already done that. He had
fixed
this world, and there would be no changing it back. She had information he wanted; it was just that simple. If she told him what he needed to know, then there was no reason for further ugliness. He had no wish for her to feel any more pain. But it was up to her.

The sound of boots squeaking against the wax floors let him know the extraction team was here. Spreading his arms out to his sides, Alfredo stepped slowly out into the hall so they could see him, squinting against the flashlights that immediately fell on his face—flashlights affixed to the barrels of assault rifles.

“She’s in there.” Alfredo jerked his head to the doorway of Launch Station One, and the beams of light left his face.

Alfredo did not follow the masked men into the room; he merely listened. He heard the sudden, terrified shriek of Shannan Fitzroy, the hiss of the tranquilizer gun, and the way her scream pinched off. He listened to the sound of zip ties and the groan of a man lifting something heavy. Then he watched the men leave as silently as they had come with the unconscious body of Shannan swaying gently as she hung over the shoulder of the largest man. She belonged to him now.

Alfredo would get his daughter back, and he would get her back tonight.

***

The shrill ring of the comm panel jolted Council Vice President Gabriel Ruiz out of a deep and peaceful sleep.

“What the hell is that?” Reyna mumbled, rolling over and covering her ears. “I thought you had the next few days off?”

“Maybe not,” Gabriel said hoarsely. He pulled himself out of bed and stumbled to the console, not bothering to put on a shirt.

Jamming his finger onto the answer key, he silenced the annoying ring. “Ruiz here,” he mumbled.

“Uh… yes sir, this is Sergeant Bullock from dispatch.”

The pale face of the night dispatcher completely filled the comm screen, as Bullock was leaning unnaturally close and speaking in a whisper. This did not bode well.

“Yes, Sergeant, I can see you. What’s going on?”

“Well sir, that potential situation involving Councilman Jaramillo you mentioned? It happened—he’s here.”

Damnit, Alfredo!
Of course Gabriel had known deep down that the council president would attempt to travel in time to stop the tragedy with his daughter, but he had fervently hoped that for once, Alfredo would actually abide by the laws he enforced.

Gabriel let out a disappointed sigh. “Thank you for notifying me, Sergeant. I’ll be there directly. I trust—”

“Excuse me, Councilman, but there’s something else.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow and waited for the nervous looking man to continue.

“Councilman Jaramillo called in an Alpha 714.”

“Beg pardon?”

“An Alpha 714, sir. A Caucasian woman in her early 20s wearing dark-ages European clothing is being held in the launch depot holding cells.”

“Why hasn’t she been transported to main campus holding? She needs to be processed.”

“Father Lopez-Castaneda ordered my men to keep her at the depot, sir.”

How interesting.
When the council met earlier to discuss taking the depot consoles offline in anticipation of Alfredo’s actions, the priest had made no mention of “staking out” the depot to catch Alfredo in the act.

“How long has Lopez-Castaneda been at the depot?”

“Since 10 p.m., sir. About four hours prior to the Councilman arriving.”

Gabriel took a breath and slowed his speech, wanting to emphasize the importance of his next question. “Do Councilmen Jaramillo and/or Lopez-Castaneda know you have contacted me?”

“No sir.” Bullock’s answer was firm, definitive. He had always been a trustworthy fellow. Not many of the guards could be counted upon if it came down to doing something behind Alfredo’s back. With the current roster of Agency security, Bullock was only one of four Gabriel could trust.

“Good, keep it that way. I’ll be there soon, and we’ll talk some more.”

“Yes sir.”

“And Sergeant? Keep that extraction team sequestered until I get there. Do not allow either the priest or Councilman Jaramillo to utilize them. It’s possible I may need them.”

“Will do sir,” and Bullock signed off.

Gabriel let out another sigh, this one more frustrated. What in the world was Alfredo up to? In Agency history, there had only ever been one front-jumper, and that had been a verifiable accident. Now, on the very night Alfredo attempts illegal time travel, another front-jumper all of a sudden appears. Could it really be coincidence?

“What’s an Alpha 714?” Reyna mumbled from beneath the covers.

“If I was able to tell you that, it probably wouldn’t have a code in the first place, now would it?” Gabriel snapped as he pulled a wadded pair of trousers off the floor.