Spartan Resistance (2 page)

Mariana watched as Neena’s crackling energy and enthusiasm for her work seemed to relay itself to the workmen she was directing. They hurried away with energy and purpose.

“Faster, people! Faster!” Neena cried as the last of them stepped away. She clapped her hands. “This is a most important project! A most distinguished client!”

“Who is
that
?” came the question from just behind Mariana’s shoulder. She shifted the reading board to her other hand and turned to look. It was the short blond man that most often accompanied Marley, their in-house geneticist doctor. Well, he wasn’t
short
short, as he stood higher than Mariana. Gawaine. Such an ancient name.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Mariana pointed out. “It’s a controlled environment.” Well, it would soon
be
a controlled environment. But Neena had emphasized that she didn’t want people gawking until her work was complete. She had said it with the full hauteur of someone who knew their worth and expected compliance. Her manner had made Mariana study her with renewed interest. Mariana couldn’t imagine speaking in that sort of tone to anyone. For any reason.

“I’m looking for Nayara,” Gawaine said, watching Neena as she moved around the banks of computers, feeds and more, tapping screens and humming to herself. “Marley wants her. She wasn’t in her office, so I headed for where all the noise was coming from. What
is
she doing with that?” He tilted his head, a furrow between his brows.

“That’s Mavourneen Beraht,” Mariana said. “She’s—”

“I know who Mavourneen Beraht is,” Gawaine replied. “That’s really her?”

“I hope so. She signed over Mavourneen’s name on the contract.” Mariana smiled. “She’s colorful, isn’t she?” For Gawaine was watching her with a peculiar sort of intensity.

“She’s really screwing up those feeds,” he said to himself.

Mariana raised her brow. “I think she knows what she’s doing. She’s been building custom environments for—no, wait, Gawaine!”

But he didn’t hear her, or chose to ignore her. He strode across the dun-colored and dried out summer grass, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his denim jacket.

Mariana pressed her fingertips against her temple, then decided that both Gawaine and Neena were grown adults. They could sort it out themselves.

“Marion, where the hell is Nia?” Again, the question came from behind her, but this time Mariana knew exactly who was speaking to her. Bellowing at her, to be precise.

She turned, clutched her reading board in both hands and smiled up at Brenden with her sunniest smile. “Nayara isn’t available right now.”

Brenden was scowling and there was another reading board in his hand. Mariana had to adjust once more to the change in his appearance. For months, he had been wearing a full beard, which had made his black-on-black hair all the more intense and along with his black eyes had given him a dark, brooding look. Brenden had withstood a week of teasing from other Agency members when he had first begun to grow it out, but then the neural nets had started to talk about his new companion, the recently widowed and very, very rich Stephanie Delaney. Her departed husband, James Delaney the Third, had always worn a full beard. When the images of the pair of them had hit the nets, the comments had intensified and Brenden had glowered for another week or two, putting up with it with a mulish stubbornness.

And now, suddenly, it was gone again. Did that mean Stephanie Delaney had gone, too?

Personally, Mariana preferred him without the beard. Brenden had fair skin, unlike Cáel Stelios, the one other Greek descendant she knew. Cáel always looked like he was tanned. Brenden’s black eyes and black hair played well against his flesh.

Mariana registered the furrow between his brows and the board in his hand. Something related to administration had annoyed him. That was why he was looking for Nia.

“What do you mean, she’s not available?” he demanded.

“She is somewhere where she doesn’t want to be disturbed.” Her response emerged with an uptight note to it. She was reacting to his displeasure. He was getting under her skin.

Not good.

“I’m the head of bloody Security!” Brenden snapped. “She’ll see me.”

Mariana squeezed the reading board. “I have full authority to deal with matters during her absence,” she said as calmly as she could. “What is the problem?”

The corner of Brenden’s mouth curled up in an expression that was very close to a sneer. He thrust his board at her, forcing her to swap her own to one hand and take his with her other.

“I can’t scan all these people, these humans!” he protested. “Not all at once. I have to do background checks and DNA analysis and they all want access to the ground yesterday or sooner. That bloody woman is bringing in a three ring circus!” And he shot a dark look toward Neena. “What the hell is she doing, anyway?”

“Some work for Nayara,” Mariana answered truthfully and distantly, as she ran her gaze over the long list of names on the board. “Why do you need to scan them all?”

Brenden blew out his breath, clearly exasperated. “Do
you
know every person on that list?”

“No, but—”

“They’re all
human
. Without scans and checks, we could be letting who the hell knows in here. Psi-filers have passed our normal checks before.”

Mariana’s gut tightened. She bit her lip. “You’re right,” she agreed and scrolled to the next page.

“Hell’s bells, you’re not actually reading the list, are you?”

Mariana looked up at him, surprised. “How else am I to know who is on it?”

Brenden snatched the board from her hand. “I can’t stand here waiting for your human-slow brain to get it.”

Mariana sucked in a quick, hurt breath. “You have no objections to human-slow reactions in bed, though.” And she mentally caught herself, shocked. Why had she said that?

Brenden had already started to move away but he whipped back to face her. His expression grew thundery. “What did you just say?” He didn’t drop his voice the way she had heard him do in the past when he was on the verge of physical action. Instead, his volume seemed to double and although she was facing him squarely, Mariana could almost
feel
heads turning to look at them.

Her pulse jumped and she cast about for something to say, to find a halfway sane response. She considered apologizing, then discarded the idea. She wasn’t sorry she had said it. He had been less than nice himself and deserved it.

But this was
Brenden
. One of the senior vampires of the agency and very much higher in rank than she was—even if Nayara continuously disputed that there was ranks or seniority in the agency. Brenden was older than any other vampire in the agency, except perhaps for Nayara herself and she kept her real age a closely-guarded secret. Brenden had emerged from Sparta as the Persians had conquered it and had been roaming the earth ever since.

She was baiting a man that had survived wars untold. What on earth did she think she was doing?

In the end she said nothing. She straightened herself to her full height—which was somewhat less than his—and looked him in the eye.

Brenden took another pace toward her. There was fury in his eyes.

A heavy hand fell on her shoulder and squeezed. Mariana mentally sighed. Would people ever stop coming up to her from behind like that? It was the third time this morning.

Kieran moved around to stand next to her. “Is there a problem?” he asked in his deep voice. Kieran was one of the few people that could look Brenden in the eye, because he was just as tall. He wasn’t as big across the shoulders but that didn’t seem to matter with Kieran. He was ex-Universal Wardens and one of the best para-military men in the world. Perhaps it was that which gave him the confidence to confront a very pissed vampire.

Brenden hissed his annoyance.

Mariana quickly explained to Kieran what the problem was. She omitted anything about human-slow responses.

Kieran held his hand out for Brenden’s board and the vampire pushed it into his fingers with what sounded like a sigh.

Kieran flipped through the pages quickly. “You’re right. This would take a month.” He handed the board back. “What if I scanned them, instead?”

Brenden frowned. “You can do that?”

Kieran gave brief smile. “Deep enough to wrinkle out any psi that might be among them. It won’t take me a month, either.”

Brenden lifted his hand up from his side. “Then I would owe you a great debt. Thank you,” he added sincerely.

“Do you have them corralled somewhere?” Kieran asked.

“At the front gate.”

“I’ll meet you there in five minutes.”

Brenden blew out his breath. Then, with a sideways look at her, he strode toward the front courtyard.

Mariana looked at Kieran. “Thank you,” she added. “I wouldn’t have asked you to do it, even if I had known that you could.” She had heard that Kieran was somewhat sensitive about his recently acquired psi abilities.

Kieran’s grey-green gaze studied her frankly. “It’s part of my job, now.”

“Your…talents?”

“Nayara hired me because of my skills and my talents, too. If I can use them to help, then I will.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mariana told him. “Except that I don’t really know
what
you can do.” Nor did most of the agency. She suspected even Kieran was still figuring that out.

“Next time, if you think I can help in some way—any way at all—why don’t you ask?” He turned his head to look at Brenden, who had reached the end of the gallery now and was heading for the big doors out onto the courtyard. “You won’t be able to score points off me. My hide is too thick.”

Mariana could feel her cheeks heating and hated it. But then, Kieran could probably read every thought in her head. He had acquired all Pritti’s training, abilities and expertise when she died and she had at the very least been able to broach human minds.

Mariana looked at him, trying hard to meet his gaze without flinching. “Brenden isn’t usually like that.”

“I know.”

“He’s just frustrated.”

“I know that, too. But you do seem to be able to rile him up quicker than anyone else in the agency.”

“Brenden’s very old,” she explained. “He has an inbred intolerance for humans. Vampires his age used to think of humans as pets or slaves or just food. But he works hard to overcome his prejudices.”

“Especially in bed, huh?” Kieran asked dryly.

She winced. “That was a very inappropriate comment,” she admitted. “I should apologize.”

“Don’t,” Kieran said shortly. “It’ll do him good to know that there’s at least one human who doesn’t think he’s wonderful.” There was a tilt to the corner of his mouth and a sparkle in his eyes that told her he was teasing. Just a bit.

Mariana relaxed. “I’m glad you left the Wardens,” she said impulsively. “You’ve become a nice person.”

Kieran’s brows rose. “Don’t let the secret out, hmm? And now, I must go scan the incoming or Brenden will be after me, next.”

Mariana smiled to herself as he walked away, moving fast down the gallery, following Brenden. It was one of the few nice moments in her morning and it lasted only another few seconds, until the scream broke out behind her.

Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2265 A.D.

Gawaine had always had a thing for systems, especially electronic and neural ones. While others, even experts, had to patiently trace out the tides and paths and the neo-limbic systems, he could see the overall pattern in a moment or two of study. Neural nets were a bipolar system of electronics and neural relays and he understood the interactions of the two instinctively.

That’s why he knew what the woman was doing with her feeds was all wrong. Dangerously so.

He walked over to the first relay dashboard and studied the configuration, taking in what she thought she was doing, while assessing how she
should
be doing it. There wasn’t any impatience driving him. It was a nice, late summer day, Marley would be busy for hours yet and he was free to wander around the Chronometric Conservation Agency, to poke and pry as he was so moved.

The inner workings of the agency never failed to fascinate him and once the vampires that worked for the agency understood that he was Marley’s friend and that she didn’t go anywhere without him, then they were happy to answer his questions—as long as the questions weren’t personal. Dealing with Rhydder had quickly taught him not to ask anything about a vampire’s past, but that was fine. Personal histories weren’t nearly as interesting as what was happening right now, although the vampires seemed to set a high value on a long history.

So Gawaine stood in the bright sunlight and mentally traced the paths, feeling a contended peacefulness.

“And who are you?”

He looked up. Then down a little. The woman, Mavourneen, was standing in front of him, her hands on her hips, and a bright enquiring smile on her face. Her eyes, he noticed, were a chocolate color that would have been warm and friendly except for the glint of ice in them.

“Hiya. I’m harmless. Don’t worry about me.” He went back to the dashboard.

“I’m sure you’re quite harmless. That wasn’t what I asked.”

He looked up again. “Gawaine,” he said patiently. “Ask anyone at the agency about me. They’ll vouch for me. Do you always run your neural tides along the electronic circuits like this?”

“Do
not
touch that!” She stepped forward, closer to the dashboard. “That is proprietary work. You shouldn’t even be looking at it. Who let you in here?”

“I told you—”

“You’re harmless,” she finished with a snap that made Gawaine wonder if her red hair was quite as enhanced as it appeared. There was a temper in there and it was simmering.

For the first time, Gawaine considered that he might be offending her. “Look, hey, I’m just curious, that’s all. I wasn’t going to touch it, but if I could just look at the neo-limbic core—”

She crossed her arms. “No.”

He had upset her. Marley was always on his case about letting his geeky side run too wild and he’d done it again. He held out a hand, signally peace. “I’m sorry. Really. My roommate says I have all the social skills of an elephant in mating season and sometimes I think she’s right. Not always, but neurals always make me switch off that part of my brain, which is kinda ironic, really.”