Time Eternal (23 page)

As Skyla dressed in front of the mirror, her face was still blushing from the passionate afternoon that she had shared with Rei. Her body and mind had finally surrendered to him, to them. With each regained memory, Elizabeth was awakening more within her. Yet her mind continued struggling with coming to terms with her past, with the wide-eyed, innocent girl whom she was no longer. It was still incredible to know, to actually feel, how completely reliant Elizabeth was on Rei and how absolute her love was for him. The Elizabeth that Rei remembered was a true innocent. She was soft and full of laughter, whereas Skyla had been hardened by the evils she had seen and fought against. She wished she could be Elizabeth again, but the price of giving up her independence would be too high. Now that she remembered why she had taken such a grave risk to escape, she could and would never leave herself vulnerable to any man again. Too bad; it would have been such a great love story, and Skyla had always been a fan of great love stories. Her impressive collection of romance novels, from epic to modern to dark and edgy, was a testimony to that.

A light rapping noise cut off her thoughts. “Skyla?” It was Knox’s voice coming through the door.

“Just a sec,” she called out and quickly pulled on her long-sleeved thermo and pulled her hair into a ponytail below her nape. The mirror showed her cheeks were still flushed, her lips were still swollen. Knox would know immediately they were from Rei’s thorough loving. For a brief second, she wanted to tell Knox to come back later. But likely that would raise his alarm as she had fainted earlier. He would definitely insist on coming in to check on her. Squaring her shoulders, she headed to the door and opened it.

“Hey, Knox. What’s up?” She smiled her best smile and ushered him in, hoping he didn’t notice anything different in her.

To her surprise, Knox looked troubled and was distracted, very unlike his usual mission-focused mindset. Shadows showed in his normally steady, sea-blue eyes. If he noticed her blushing cheeks and swollen lips, he didn’t let on. He closed the door and said quietly, “I saw the woman again.”

“The woman Rei said was one of the handmaiden of his gods?”

He nodded. “She gave me a warning. She said danger is fast approaching and beware of love and betrayal.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” She knew she was saying it rhetorically. “A traitor among Rei’s men?”

“Likely. That’d explain the trap at the dock,” Knox agreed.

“And what does love have to do with betrayal?”

“That’s likely about you and Rei, the long lost…”

She held up her hand before he could finish his sentence. “That’s ancient history. I do not know Rei anymore, nor am I interested in knowing him again.” She was lying, of course, and as soon as those words came out from her mouth, a voice in her head went, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” She almost groaned out loud.

Knox loomed over her. “Skyla, whatever is between you and Rei, you need to accept it and then make a choice. Until you accept what you and Rei had and probably still have, you won’t be able to make any choices.”

She knew he was right. That was the funny thing about free will. One could not truly exercise free will until one had acknowledged the truth of the situation to oneself.

“Fine.” She opened the door and gestured him through. “Let’s go talk to Rei, then.”

•●•

“How did Antonio get past our men guarding the townhouse?” Rei spoke quietly, but his tone was laced with fury. He poured the scotch into two old-fashioned doubles made from antique Venetian glass. He found the glasses in Prague just as World War I was starting. It was July 1, 1914, two days after he finished his little assignment from the gods in Sarajevo, and he was on his way to his ancestral land to get ready for the next move by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. As soon as he saw the glass set at a flea market in Prague, he immediately recognized the craftsmanship. It was an art lost during the fourth crusade in the
twelfth century. When Constantinople was sacked, many of the master glassmakers fled to Venice; hence the name Venetian glass. His mother used to collect this type of glassware when she was alive. He was only twelve when she had died in childbirth. Over the centuries, the pain from his memory of his mother, his family, had gradually dulled to an ache. He wished he could go back in time to save them, but it was forbidden, just as he was forbidden to go near Fernando. All the gods promised him was vengeance, but they had never specified when vengeance would come. Some of his men got their vengeance immediately after they traded their souls to the gods; some, like him, were still waiting for their day of retribution against their enemies. Rei was tired of waiting. His mind had already been made up. Now that Elizabeth was found, the game would end here, whether the gods wanted it or not.

He went over to the leather armchair by the fireplace where his brother was sitting and handed him one of the doubles. His brother’s posture was rigid and tense, which was very unlike his normally carefree self. Out of all his brothers, Sloan had the most easygoing personality, although he was no less deadly and ruthless than any of their father’s sons. A warning bell set off somewhere far back in his mind, but he thought no more of it. The tension was probably from the surprise of finding out Antonio also had the ability to leap through time.

“Why now? Why after almost five centuries?” Rei took a swig of the amber nectar, welcoming the fiery sensation scorching down his throat.

Sloan mirrored him and also took a healthy swig of the scotch. “Antonio must have gotten a hold of the prototype we worked on with his father and made improvements to it. After all, he’s his father’s son. He was supposed to be every bit as brilliant as his father. Remember the old man kept going on and on about his son during the months we were there?” He finished the rest of his drink in one gulp. “And he must have helped his son, even after he’d promised us that he’d not tamper with such a machine again.”

After a brief pause, Sloan lowered his voice, and his expression turned cold and fierce. “We should’ve killed Antonio when we had our chance instead of yielding to Elizabeth’s father’s plea for his worthless hide.”

Rei remembered the day Edda, the handmaiden, told them that the gods had ordered them to leave Florence immediately with the only explanation that the Medici family was too powerful through history to be harmed or manipulated; even the gods were weary of them. That had shot down his plan of disposing of Fernando to hell. So he had settled for exacting vengeance from Elizabeth’s cousin…

He sneaked into Giovanni’s workshop in the barn, hoping to find his son before he and Sloan had to take off, and there was he was. It had been months since he had last seen him. Antonio had never come by while he and Sloan were working with Giovanni on the second time machine, or Rei would already have finished this part of his revenge. Now was not too late, though.

He stood behind the bookshelves on the other side of the room, observing Antonio’s careful, quiet movements; clearly he didn’t want anyone to know he was here. Rei would have bet his last coin that Antonio was up to no good again. Using the shadows of the mechanical equipment and tools to cover his movements, he moved farther into the barn quietly, unseen like a ghost. Not until he was right behind Antonio, the careless bastard wasn’t even aware that he was not alone.

“Don’t…” he sneered quietly while his forearm crushed Antonio’s neck tighter, “…move.”

It would have been so easy to snap his neck and be done with it, but he needed Antonio to know who had taken his worthless life and why. “One move and I’ll break your neck right here.”

Antonio ceased his struggle, from his warning or from recognizing his voice, Rei cared not.

“What do you want?”

The loathing in Antonio’s voice was music to his ears, and he smiled, knowing he had his prey now, his to toy with just as Antonio had let Fernando toy with Elizabeth. That revolting thought and the knowing Elizabeth was lost in time were enough for him to just end Antonio’s worthless life right here, but he needed information. He said through clenched teeth, “That should be my question to you.” He crushed his forearm even harder against Antonio’s throat but not hard enough to snap it. Yet. “What are you doing here, in your father’s house, tip-toeing like a thief?”

Antonio’s breathing was erratic and heavily labored. Rei knew he should finish it. He knew he should avenge Elizabeth right here and now. The fact that her cousin was lurking around searching for something was an alarming sign. No good would come from it. Just as he was about to apply deadly pressure to Antonio’s neck, Elizabeth’s father walked into the barn carrying scrolls of documents in his arms. When he saw Rei holding his nephew, he dropped the scrolls and rushed up to them.

“Rei! Antonio! What are you two doing here?”

“It’s none of your concern. I’m going to finish this bastard for taking Elizabeth from us.” One more crush, and it would be over. He and Sloan would be on their way to serve the gods, and he would start looking for Elizabeth through time, however long it might take, even if it would be for eternity.

“Stop!” Elizabeth’s normally mild-mannered, scholarly father went at Rei like a mama bear rescuing her cub, desperately trying to pry his forearm off Antonio’s neck. “Stop! You dishonored my daughter! You brought the Medici’s wrath upon my family. Stop it right now!” The no frills accusations from Elizabeth’s father momentarily froze him in place, his grip loosening a fraction. It was true. It was he who had lied to Elizabeth and her family about who he really was. It was he who brought danger to them and left Elizabeth no choice but to vanish in time.

The momentary distraction allowed Antonio to wrench himself free from his hold. Antonio raised his arms behind him and grabbed Rei by the back of his shirt collar, flipping him over. Rei was flung against the drawers lined along the wall. Shelves and tools crashed down on him while he watched as Antonio charged at him with a saber of his own but was stopped short. A sharp blade was against his neck, and then Sloan’s face emerged from the shadows behind Antonio.

“Move and I will slit your throat. Unlike my brother, the old man’s plea means nothing to me.” His brother’s low rumble vibrated like thunder in the silence. A metallic clink sounded off from the stone floor. Antonio was wise to drop his saber.

It took him a moment to push out of the littered mound of shelves and books. He picked up Antonio’s saber and pointed it at the traitor’s chest, ready to pierce it through his black heart. But Elizabeth’s father suddenly stepped between them, just as Elizabeth had the last time he and Antonio faced each other, the day she was lost to him. His heart ached deeply at how alike Elizabeth and her father were, still believing in the lying bastard Antonio just because he was family.

“No!” Elizabeth’s father took a determined step forward, pressing his chest against the saber held in Rei’s hand. “You will not kill my nephew. You’ve killed my daughter already. You shall not kill my nephew too.”

He knew Elizabeth’s father did not know they had been working with his brother, Giovanni, trying to rebuild the time machine. Giovanni insisted no one know about it because he was afraid word would get back to Fernando, and Fernando would force him to build another, not to look for Elizabeth but to wage wars. The grief and anger in the old man’s eyes was too much for Rei to bear. He knew the look. He and Sloan had felt the same after their father, their brothers, and most of their people had been slaughtered by the Turks not half a year ago. He lowered the saber and signaled Sloan to do the same with his blade. Not waiting for Antonio to make another move, he pushed Elizabeth’s father aside and grabbed the front of Antonio’s garb. “Get out of my sight. The next time I see you, you die.” It was not an idle threat, but a promise. It took all his might not to finish the traitor right here and right now. His hands didn’t let go of him for a long, anguished moment. Finally, he shoved him away.