Spartan Resistance (24 page)

Billy shrugged. “I guess it’s my season for looking back. If it helps, my mother always called me Billy when she caught me doing something I shouldn’t. Which was most of the time.”

Brenden grinned. “When I did something I shouldn’t, I was whipped.”

“By your mother?”

“I didn’t live at home. Not once I turned seven. I was sent to…well, the closest equivalent these days is military school.”

“Of course. Sparta. Discipline, courage and…something else.” Billy shrugged. “You got off easy. There were over twenty virtues I was expected to demonstrate.”

“
Twenty?
”

“Loyalty, obedience, punctuality, discipline, frankness, determination, courage, austerity, braveness without self-pity, diligence, humility—I had a lot of trouble with that one, personally. There were others.” Billy smiled. “The most virtuous soldiers I knew were complete bores, but my, how the King loved them!”

“Prussia,” Brenden guessed, for military history had been a personal interest his entire life. The mention of virtues, a king and soldiers made it almost certain that Billy came from the German-Austrian Democracy’s most successful military empire. “William the Great,” he said and looked at Billy for confirmation.

“My namesake,” Billy confirmed.

“Then Christian was right. You
do
have a military background.”

Billy just looked at him.

“We have a master swordsman…well, more than one, but Christian is in a league of his own when it comes to blades. He recognized Lazlo’s footwork. You trained in Spain?”

“In the early eighteenth century, yes. I didn’t like military life, but there weren’t many other professions where a shady background and no references could be overcome. I’ve done my share of mercenary work.”

Brenden smiled. “I think you’ll find that most of us that have been around for more than a few centuries have resorted to paid soldiering at least once.” He considered Billy for a moment. “Now a lot of mysteries about Laszlo are starting to make sense.”

“Not to me. Not yet.”

“For some reason, you’ve—sorry, Laszlo has come back to the twenty-fourth century, from somewhere in the future, where you—
he
—knows about time travel. He must have been trained and had access to the right clothes and research. That probably means he’s an agency member.”

“That sounds like a promising future,” Billy said softly. “A vast improvement on my life at the moment.” He said it matter-of-factly. Self-pity was absent.

“Lazlo would have had it drilled into him by someone like me about the dangers of changing the course of history in any way. If he was being a good traveler, he should have played it cool and careful. Except he’s run afoul of politics, got mixed up with Gabriel’s crew, infuriated every anti-vampire hater in the country, if not the world and put the agency in debt to the tune of two hundred thousand credits, all while seducing a woman so far beyond his usual type she thought it was a joke. All that, while getting himself splashed across the media with more effectiveness than usual. He wouldn’t do that if he was a trained traveler. Travelers blend in. They stay disengaged, they don’t get involved. Yet everything says he must be a traveler, so what the hell is he doing
?
”

Billy turned his hands over and back, looking at them. “I don’t know,” he said at last, lifting his head to look at Brenden. “It sounds like he was trying to be me and overselling it. Not by much, because my life really
is
that fucked up right now.”

“You’re right,” Brenden said, with a small jolt. “Lazlo couldn’t move around under wraps, not in this day and age. You, Billy, are too notorious. So he was forced to be you, but he was overcompensating.”

“Perhaps because Lazlo of the future has forgotten how to be Billy here and now. Christ, I hope so,” Billy said fervently. “Couldn’t we just confront him and ask him? Or does the world implode if we spot each other?”

“Time doesn’t work that way,” Brenden said absently. “It’s basic relativity.” He thought hard. “I’m tempted to sit him down and ask frank questions. But there are a few reasons why we shouldn’t.”

Billy rested his elbow on his knee and balanced his chin on his fist. “I’m listening.”

Brenden shifted his rear on the hard ground, feeling a touch of discomfort. “You were right when you guessed that Laszlo pissed me off. I don’t like him. Well, no, that’s not true. I don’t know him, but everything he’s done since he got here rubbed me up the wrong way. On the other hand, you seem like a decent man. You’ve backed yourself into a cul-de-sac that isn’t working for you, but we’ve all been there at least once. I spent five years running a whore house in Katmandu because I was so down on my luck that I was seriously considering becoming one of the whores. Then the owner found out I could read and add figures together and made me her manager. Took me all five years to raise the money to travel back to Rome, where I could get at my funds.”

He gave a small shrug of his own. “It seems to me that you’re the real Wolffe, not Laszlo, who is pretending for reasons we can’t see from this point in time, so I’m going to use you as my reference point. You don’t strike me as the sort of man who would try to pull off a masquerade like Laszlo has without some very good reasons. Without those reasons, you would have jumped back here and declared yourself up front and openly. But he didn’t. Whatever the reasons he jumped back here, he’s being forced to keep them to himself. I’m going to trust that he’s doing that because none of us can afford to know the truth. I’m going to trust
you,
in other words.”

Billy straightened up. “Thank you,” he said gravely. He settled his hands on his knees, in a precise movement. “So, we let this play out?”

Brenden hesitated. For a moment, he could smell her perfume so clearly it was as if she was standing before him once more, her small fingers brushing the underside of his chin as she tied his tie for him. He scrubbed at his hair, uneasiness spearing him like javelin. “I don’t like it,” he growled, “but I can’t see how else to do it.”

“Because you have to string the lady along?” Billy asked.

Brendan blew out his breath. “She deserves to know exactly who she has in her bed, but I can’t figure out how to tell her without also tipping off Laszlo. She doesn’t have a dishonest bone in her body.”

“It’s not ideal,” Billy said slowly. “If you’re right and Laszlo is really me but overplaying it, then I can say with certainty that he won’t hurt her. I have never been deliberately cruel, not to someone who gives me their trust.”

Brenden let out a long sigh. “I believe you.” Something relaxed inside him. Then he grimaced. “I should warn you. She’ll neuter both of us when she finds out. And she
will
find out.”

“That sounds like an appropriate punishment for deceiving her,” Billy said gravely. “Perhaps I might be able to meet her, sometime soon? She sounds formidable.”

Brenden wanted to argue that Mariana was anything but formidable. She was soft and curved and gentle, efficient and smart, earthy and straight-forward…but then he recalled the chill in her eyes when she had challenged him about using agency resources to coordinate his social life with unavailable women…. “There’s steel in her, although you’d never suspect it to look at her,” he said.

He got to his feet and Billy flexed upwards, supple muscles bunching and stretching.

“I’m going to jump you back to a place I know in the twenty-first century. A room over a bar. Have you ever been to New Orleans?”

“Never. I like waltzes, not jazz.”

“Good. Then you won’t meet yourself there and the media of that period won’t give a damn about you, because you’re not a Hollywood film star.”

“Anonymity. It sounds heavenly.”

Hammerside, Detroit-Rocktown Supercity, 2265 A.D.

Marley and Gawaine positioned themselves in the corner of the kitchenette, which was as far away from Marley’s tiny bedroom and their new guests as it was possible to get in the little apartment. The door to the bedroom wouldn’t close properly because the frame had swollen, but the happy sounds the baby was making as it fed would help mask their voices if they spoke quietly.

Wedged into the corner, they spread their combined wealth out upon the scratched and faded Formica. It was a miserly collection of state-issued credits, in coinage and notes. Neither of them owned a credit card, which was part of the reason they were living in Detroit in the first place. Without a legitimate credit card it was impossible to live anywhere normal humans liked to congregate.

“I can’t kick Karolina out,” Marley whispered. “She’s still weak from her labor and the baby won’t survive a night on the streets. She can’t earn income with a baby in her arms. But I don’t know how we can afford to feed her, either.”

“I can’t believe we went through all that money Demyan gave you already,” Gawaine murmured, fanning the tiny pile of notes out.

Marley almost laughed. “That was nearly a year ago,” she pointed out.

“I suppose it was,” he said, sounding surprised. “What about hitting up the agency for money?”

Marley sighed. “I think we might have to,” she said. “But it’s dangerous to have them pay me anything at all. If the World Medical Association finds out I’m practicing and I’m not taking any money for it, I could argue that I’m doing it for humanitarian reasons and they’d maybe take it easy on me. But if they find out I’m taking money for it…”

Gawaine shook his head. “Vampires are used to scamming the system. They’ve had to do it forever just to survive. Ask Nayara to set it up so you look like you’re being paid for secretary work or something like that. Admin duties.”

Marley stared at the floor, doubt gripping her.

“Besides,” Gawain added, “if you really do cross paths with the WMA, you can point out that your clients are vampires, who aren’t classified as humans in the first place, so you’re not really breaking any laws.”

“Except that it’s not true. I spend as much time tending humans that work for them. Plus humans that get scratched up by vampire girlfriends.”

Gawaine grinned.

Marley smiled a little, too. “I don’t mind treating non-vampires,” she added.

“Including Karolina,” Gawaine finished. “And how long before every psi-filer in the city hears what you’re doing? Their gossip network runs faster than any neural net I’ve ever seen and most of them don’t have access to computers.”

“I won’t turn away people that need help.”

“Marley…?” It was Karolina, calling from the bedroom. They had let their voices lift higher.

“Ooops,” Marley whispered. She grimaced and went to the bedroom door and pushed it open.

Karolina was sitting up on the bed, her back against the bare wall and the baby in her arms. Marley was still astonished that Karolina had been able to feed the baby at all. She was emaciated and her dark eyes were huge in her thin face. But her smile was almost angelic. “I don’t have any money,” she said softly.

“I didn’t mean for you to hear that. I don’t want to charge you. But we do need food and we don’t have a lot of cash. I’m sure we’ll figure it out, though.”

“We will,” Gawaine said firmly, from behind her. “Something will come along.”

Karolina gave them another beautiful smile. “You should buy an instant lottery ticket.”

“Me?” Marley was startled.

“Him.”

Gawaine snorted. “No one sells lottery tickets in this city. No legitimate ones, anyway.”

“The store in this building does,” Karolina said placidly. “Go and buy the ticket now. There is a ten credit coin in your pocket that you forgot about. Use that.”

Marley looked at Gawaine over her shoulder. She had watched him dig every last coin out of his pockets when they had begun their discussion. All their combined wealth was lying on the counter at the moment.

Gawaine’s eyes narrowed as he considered the psi-file woman. Then he dug into his pockets, one after another. His eyes widened and he opened up his hand. A ten credit coin laid on his palm, a battered and dirty bronze and silver. “I guess I’ll go and see if Basit has lottery tickets.” He turned and headed for the apartment door.

Marley studied Karolina. The woman was watching her still-unnamed baby as he fed.

“How much is Gawaine going to win?” Marley asked.

Karolina looked up at her. “It would be nice if he did win, wouldn’t it? Nine hundred credits would help you with food and rent and it’s under a thousand credits, so he would be able to get the money instantly, instead of going through registration like he would for anything larger.”

Marley drew in a slow breath, feeling tension loosen inside her. “Yes, that would be very nice,” she agreed.

Gawaine came back twenty minutes later, looking like he’d been hit too much with a pillow. He was dazed. “Nine hundred credits.” His voice was strained. He dropped the small wad of credits on top of the rest on the counter and stood back to watch it, like it might disappear if he looked away.

But the money didn’t vanish.

The next morning there was a tap on the door just after breakfast. The psi-filer wanted an infected scratch tended to. He had a two-liter jug of fresh milk in his arm that he handed to Gawaine as Marley opened her medical bag.

Gawaine studied the milk with the same heavy consideration he had given the credits the night before. Then he silently poured out the dregs of the milk that was on the point of turning sour and stashed the new jug on the shelf in the cold cupboard.

That was the last discussion they ever had about making ends meet.

* * * * *

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

Mariana returned to work the next day like nothing unusual at all had happened. She showed up in the command center, wearing a dress that seemed to be designed purely to wrap around her waist and declare to the world that it really was that small.

Brenden already knew that Laszlo had left the villa not long after dawn. He had watched him climb into a taxi and switched cameras to track the taxi all the way off the property and through the gates.

With some careful tapping of public feeds, he had been able to watch Laszlo get out of the taxi twenty five minutes later and head into his hotel.