Shadow Boxer: NA Fantasy/Time Travel (Tesla Time Travelers Book 2) (13 page)

He lets out a big breath and positions his hand a few inches from my back, ushering me toward the couch. “Come, tell me of your time travel.”

Though he never touches me, he’s obviously perfected the art of moving people where he needs them. In the center of the room, a small love seat sits flanked by two chairs. I take a chair, leaving him options.

He pauses at the edge of the arrangement and glances at the door, staring at it a few moments before responding, “I remember him.”

“Who? Ilif?”

He nods slowly. “At one of my first presentations. He sat in the front row. Younger though, much younger… ”

That freaks me out more than I’m willing to admit. Clearly Ilif has been working on using Nikola’s inventions from the very beginning. That disturbs me on a level I’m uncomfortable admitting.

“He needed my assistance.”

“With what?” I whisper. My throat constricts painfully.

“Interesting that he’s here… now,” he says, still staring at the door. He absently ruffles the hair behind his ear. “Even then, Ilif’s work in the scientific community lent him both credibility and access to top secret projects. By the time he came to see me, he’d become an international liaison, working with dozens of governments.”

An icy knife presses against the small of my back. “Gaining him what?”

“That’s what’s so interesting about the whole thing. His efforts were not for his own gain, but rather what he sought for others. For centuries, countries have stifled the work of scientists—even my own Serbia. Ilif’s international exposure benefited many. Word spread and he became something of an underground railroad to move scientists and their work. He even went so far as to publish works under his own name to keep others’ involvement secret.”

That sounds nothing like the guy I know. The one with the agendas inside agendas. “Was it really that helpful?”

“Had he been allowed to continue, he’d probably have impacted hundreds of lives.”

“What stopped him?”

“His wife had other plans.”

“His wife?”

He waves my outburst away. “A Spaniard. Legendary in her own scientific advancements.”

I gulp in air. Bits of Ilif’s final rage in Spain overwhelm me. He was hell-bent on eliminating a certain Spanish scientist. Surely he hadn’t mean his own wife…
 

“There was another woman who used to work with him… Penny, or some such name.”

“Penya,” I croak, crossing my arms across my stomach and rocking forward.

He snaps. “Yes, that’s it. Brilliant mind.”

Oh… what have I gotten involved in this time?
Penya is in more danger than I knew. I should have saved her first. Ilif’s threats may be more real than I’d given credence to.

“So did you help him?” I whisper.

“I did. He only needed verification of a simple theory. One I’d solved a year before. Seems he was working on something with a European group.”

The information swarms me. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember where I am in history and when things get nasty, but I think we’re still a few decades out. I inhale and squeeze my elbows.

Nikola perches on the edge of the other chair, his knee almost touching mine. “Yet you say he’s involved with your time travel now. Tell me of it, and maybe we can figure out this Ilif character.”

Ha! There’s no figuring out crazy. I swallow and loosen my vise-grip on my arms. Freaking out won’t solve this for me. I need to think and chill. Inhaling, I settle back into the cushions.

I spend the next few minutes telling Nikola how I travel, and though he presses me for the scientific methods that I have no answer for, he seems satisfied with what I’m able to share. While we talk, his easy camaraderie calms my permanent edginess. I talk more with him than I’ve ever talked with anyone. Constantine and I may spend more time together, but we use our bodies instead of our words. With Nikola, I can’t use touch or even body language to punctuate and stress my points because he’s oblivious to both. He hears words and only the literal meaning. I’ve never worked so hard on a conversation or cared so much to get it right.

He leans back in his chair with a slouch, the first relaxed posture I’ve seen him take. A wide smile caresses his face and he steeples his fingers at his chin, with a look at supreme satisfaction. If I thought Nikola ever explored anything as chaotic or messy as sex, I’d say this is what his O
face looks like.

“One other thing.” I spread my palms. No longer constrained, the lightning comes alive inside me, battering against my senses where I’ve kept it in check. The electric snakes furl and coil together in my palm, sizzling against each other.

Nikola grows as still as death. Then, like a corpse rising from the grave, he leans forward until his nose nearly touches my palms.

My lightning expands to the size of a soccer ball.

Nikola stretches his hand toward the electricity. “No wonder you’re not scared of my lightning.”

He studies it, and I watch, fascinated as he calculates things in his head, pausing just millimeters away. I pull my hand away before he accidentally touches it. With what Constantine and I learned, I don’t want to injure Nikola.

“May I?” He cups his other hand like he’s asking for me to toss him a grapefruit.

I pull my hand back a few inches. “That’s not a good idea. It tends to scorch people.”

“Only when used as a weapon. In this state, it is harmless.” He reaches for it again.

I jerk it back. “How can you know?”

He lifts his gaze to me, one eyebrow quirked upward. The mockery is gentle, but effective.

“Okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The lightning responds, stretching toward his hands. One tendril at first, and then it multiplies until the coils link between our hands and wrap all the way around. I watch his face for a reaction, but he’s deep in thought, studying.

The tendrils don’t leave my hand completely, but entwine his with mine. Nikola lifts his hand, drawing the lightning back and forth like taffy. First, it extends into a long, thick rope as he draws his arm away then retracts like a bungee cord, obeying his movements. I’m as mesmerized as he is. The lightning isn’t crackly and angry like it is when I use it. With him, it seems calmer, more obedient. “I don’t understand.”

“Lightning is energy. You and I are energy.” He rolls his hand above mine, palm down, and the lightning halves itself, creating another ball. Mirrored one above the other, they seem… content.

“I’ve never seen it behave like this.”

“Emotions disturb energy. When you travel, are you calm or agitated or angry?”

“Hardly ever the first.” Under attack, lusting, scared, never calm.

“Yet we sit here now, calmly discussing science.”

“And it’s picking up on our mellow state?” Interesting.

He studies it and lifts his gaze to mine, but it’s a thousand-yard stare. “I understand now the piece I’ve been missing in my own work. It will take some configuring, but I know what I need to do.”

I hear the wonder in his voice, but also the artist’s strain. Happens to me all the time when I’m seeing a bike for the first time in my mind. I have yet to meet an artist who can do this phase in anything other than solitude, and he can barely do
anything
with people around as it is. “How much time do you need?”

His voice is far away when he answers, already lost to the art. “Possibly a few months.” His eyes focus on me finally. “I apologize, but what we had planned for you will have to wait. This will take all my time.”

My stomach clenches, and the lightning fractures. Nikola jumps and reaches toward my hand then recovers.

Super. I probably just screwed up history by letting him play with my lightning. And not the way I’m supposed to. “How will you raise the money you need?”

He can barely concentrate on me long enough to answer. “J.P. will have to handle it.”

“Who’s that? Did I meet him last night?”

“J.P. Morgan.” He waves a hand. “He missed last night.”

I take a breath and chill. The lightning calms and snuffs out. Nothing will happen while I’m not here and he’s working in whatever new direction. I get to trust this thing that leads me, trust my intuition, my lightning, my power. This alteration will work exactly as it must, and if I leave now, I’ll return exactly when he needs me.

I stand. “I’ll let you get to it.”

“Will you come back?”

“I will.” There’s something about Nikola, and far beyond the scientist. Someone I want to know, truly know. I like him. He makes me different. Around him I don’t have to defend my actions. I just am. Constantine accepts me as a warrior, but he still pushes me to be more. Nikola accepts this now. It’s… nice.

He could easily become a brother to me… Sometimes older, sometimes younger, but still that strange bond that tugs at the hearts of siblings, an invisible string pulling you both closer and yet irritating at the same time.
 

There’s an excitement around him now, and I can tell he’s eager to get back to work. I move back to the desk, sweeping my papers off the edge in a stack. Careful not to touch him, I hand him the documents. “But I still think you can do this marketing… Make one of the wives or this J.P. do it. But you’ll need to do these, not just for the money, but for the contacts, and their approval.”

His gaze narrows.

“I know you don’t need their approval. I get that. What I’m saying is they need to give you their approval to make themselves feel better about what you’re doing.… To make it less scary.… And to go on this journey with you into the unknown. Whether
you
need it or not is irrelevant.
They
need to give it to you.”

His gaze hasn’t strayed, and I can feel him weighing my words. Gauging the truth beneath them. With a nod, he takes the papers from me, touches the corners precisely, and folds them with a smart crease. Then he slips them into his breast pocket and clasps his hands at his waist. “You’re right.”

I understand how difficult that is for him. Heaven knows I’ve been there. There’s nothing worse than having to seek approval for something your heart knows is right. Too bad that’s the world we live in.

Emotion surges into my chest and I blink back the rush of curious tears. I want to tell him what a difference he’s going to make in every life. How his inventions will touch every human being. How he’ll be responsible for everything from getting people to work by car and rail, to changing their lives with radios and televisions. I want to tell him that he’s the father of the twenty-first century.

For now, that praise will have to wait.

I walk him to the door and we pause together in the opening. With a half bow, he bids me goodbye.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

“Somewhat,” he says. “I think you’re smarter than my assistants… But I don’t want you to hate me, and that’s what always happens when people work with me. It’s necessary for you to like me, and if that means making you wait a few months until I can poke my head out of the lab, then it must.”

I smile at him. “I do like you.”

The corner of his mouth lifts in a teasing smile. “Then I’d better leave now.”

I watch him go and lean against the open door. At the elevator he turns. “Thank you. For everything.”

I return his half bow as the elevator arrives.

Basking in the small success tonight, I wander aimlessly through the room for a few minutes and ponder my next move. An arc to anywhere will bring me back here to the right time. I pace the length of the room again and turn and make my way back, trailing my fingers across the top of the brocade couch.
 

Even though part of me is dreading the repercussions, it’s killing me that I don’t know how Papi’s doing. I need to see him. I need to hug him. I need to hear him forgive me. I pause and let my hands drop to my sides. The tips of my fingers tingle and—

A knock snuffs my lightning.

I smile and jog to the door. Nikola must have forgot something… I tug the handle and freeze.

Two men in black suits stand shoulder to shoulder. Identical brown haircuts, white shirts, black ties. Everything about them screams FBI.

“We’d like to speak with Mr. Tesla.”

I push the door closed. “Just missed him.”

Dark Suit Number One slaps his palm against the door, holding it open. “May we come in?”

“No.”

“What’s the nature of your relationship with Mr. Tesla?”

“None of your business.”

“It is if we make it our—”

“Great.” I slide the door closed a few more inches. “Come back, then.”

“Are you intimate?”

I slam the door and flip the lock with trembling fingers.

C
HAPTER
14

P
API
’
S
FRONT
LIVING
room comes into focus as a piercing scream fills the air. I spin.

Tiana stands in the kitchen entryway, staring at me with her hands clapped against her open mouth. That was stupid. I’m too used to it being me and Papi here. Still reeling from the FBI episode, I collapse onto the couch and wave her over.

“What… the… hell?” she stutters.

Sparks erupt from my fingers, and she jerks away.

“Sorry! Sorry, that was dumb. Is Papi here?”

“He and Mami are at the hospital. What—”

I flinch off the cushions. “Again? Is he okay?”

“Just a checkup. Said they’d be back in a few hours. What are you?” She fidgets, torn between hugging me and fleeing.

“It’s fine. Come here.”

Like a puppy coming for a beating, she cowers her way across the room.

“Ti. It’s fine. Really.” I hold my empty hand out. She skirts it and rests half a butt cheek on the edge of the cushion. Apparently, Papi hasn’t told her anything about riding. So much for breaking the cycle and fixing his own father’s omissions.

Tiana never quite grew out of being a pixie-sized adolescent. Probably doesn’t help the image that her dark hair is always in a perfect bob curled under to brush her jaw. She’s delicate and dainty, quiet and reserved.

Unless she’s with me.

Her silly, excitable side gets reserved for our time together. Not sure if I can get her there today now that I’ve scared the crap out of her. I inhale and remember the time we plastered Papi with water balloons. I focus on making my energy joyful… and big enough to engulf her fear.