Spartan Resistance (36 page)

Mariana let out a breath that shook. “Then the date, all of it…you already knew….” He had been in love with her all along and had hidden it.

“Our future?” Billy repeated. He sounded just as dazed.

“The three of us,” Laszlo said flatly. He picked up Mariana’s hand again and this time she didn’t have the strength to withdraw it. He kissed the back of it and his green eyes met hers. “I’m sorry for the deception, my sweetest love. I know how much you hated that I was lying to you. It has not been easy for me, either.”

“How did you know…?”

He smiled. “You told me. You
will
tell me. In detail and with blows to match and I deserve all of it.” He kept hold of her hand and looked at Nayara. “Now that the loop has been closed, events can proceed as they will. I must return to my own time.”

“You’re a traveler, aren’t you?” Brenden said.

“Trained by you,” Laszlo replied. He got to his feet and everyone else stood, too. Everyone, except Ryan.

Laszlo looked around the room and his gaze settled on Billy. “I’ve paved the way. You must walk the rest of it. Don’t let either of them go. They’re going to give your life the meaning you’ve been looking for.”

Billy blew out his breath. He sounded as unsettled as Brenden.

“How did you know to come back?” Ryan asked, raising his voice to get Laszlo’s attention. “I don’t know how far in the future you’ve come from, but Billy could decide tomorrow to jump back to a week ago to pretend to be himself. What if that is the wrong time? How are they going to know when it’s time to close the loop?”

Laszlo nodded. “The perfect question, at last. Thank you.” He dug inside his coat and walked over to where Ryan was sitting. He put a photoprint in front of him and tapped it. “That told me it was time to come back. I remember that photo—
Billy
will remember the photo, because it is something we’ve kept for years, since the future Laszlo I remember gave it to us.” He tapped the photo. “That was taken two days before I jumped here. I know that, because I took it. When I saw it, I knew it was time.”

Ryan looked at the photo, then at Mariana. His gaze was sharp and filled with surprise and a growing…
something
.

“What is it?” she asked.

Ryan glanced at Nayara, who leaned over to look at the photo.

“Show her,” Nayara said quietly. “The loop says she must know.”

Ryan slid the photo across the tabletop and it spun as it slid, to land almost perfectly aligned for her to look at it. Billy leaned over with her to study it.

It was a picture of her, standing behind a podium. She looked exactly as she did now. There were no visible signs of aging, so it was impossible to tell how far into the future it had been taken. But there were lights reflecting off the polished wood behind her in the photo. It was the intense sort of light that Mariana had already experienced, from dozens of media cameras. Flags hung to either side of her and there was a seal on the front of the podium.

Mariana began to shake. “What is that seal?” she whispered.

Billy looked at her. “You don’t recognize it?”

She did, but she didn’t want to be right. She didn’t believe it.

Brenden picked up the photo and looked at it, then at her. “That’s the President’s seal.”

“President,” she repeated, her lips working stiffly.

“The President of the Worlds Assembly,” Ryan added.

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

Mariana knew she was still in shock, because she couldn’t get her mind to function properly. Even something as simple as deciding if she should sit down again, or go back to her room was too difficult to process.

So she sat, because that required no thought at all.

Laszlo—the future Laszlo—had already left.

Brenden was in the corner with Cáel Stelios, talking fast and softly.

Nayara and Ryan were speaking with Billy. The
real
Billy, she reminded herself. Laszlo William Wolffe. One of the men she was supposed to love.

But right now that seemed like a far off impossibility. Anything more complicated than just sitting here was impossible.

Brenden turned her chair so that she was facing him and she jerked in shock. She hadn’t noticed him finish his conversation with Cáel. She had been…drifting.

He shoved the chair next to her around and sat on the edge of it, so he was closer to her level. “Cáel has agreed to let us use his house on Spetsopoula. No one in Greece cares much for vampires, or for famous people like Billy and it’s a private island. We can be completely undisturbed there.”

Mariana swallowed. Her sluggish mind tried to encompass why he would want to go to a private island.

“To talk, Mariana,” Brenden said gently. “Just to talk. Or not even to talk, if you’re not ready to do that.”

“If I can get my brain unstuck, I think talking might be good,” she whispered.

Brenden’s gaze flickered over her face. “You’re very white. I’m sure Cáel has food there. Good Greek food.” He stood up and held out his hand.

Mariana looked at it blankly.

“You think you can get to your own feet without help?”

She reached out and took his hand. It was big and it was… “Warm,” she said, surprise trickling through the miasma that was stifling thought.

“You’re not the only one dealing with shock,” Brenden said softly. He touched his chest with his other hand. “I haven’t been able to stop my heart since Laszlo arrived.” He tugged her to her feet.

The insight into Brenden’s state of mind and knowing that she wasn’t the only one that was mentally staggering while trying to deal with everything Laszlo had revealed, did much to help her pull herself together.

By the time Billy moved around the table to where Brenden and she stood waiting, Mariana was starting to think clearly again.

Brenden held out his arm toward her.

“We’re jumping?”

“I’ve been there dozens of times,” Brenden told her. “That’s why I asked Cáel if we could camp there for a while. It’s a no-brainer jump for me.”

“That’s probably just as well,” Billy said. His expression was strained. “I couldn’t steer a stray thought right now.”

That was reassuring enough that Mariana was able to step into Brenden’s arm. Brenden hooked Billy’s elbow and dragged him close enough to do the same with his other arm. “Let’s fix that,” he said and bent his knees. He didn’t have to coordinate the jump with them. He was strong enough to lift them both off their feet.

* * * * *

Spetsopoula.  Private island in the Aegean, 70km from Athens, Greece, 2265 A.D.

They ended up staying on
Spetsopoula
for four days. It wasn’t planned. It seemed that all of them needed that time.

When they first arrived, Brenden was the most coherent of all of them and he knew his way around Cáel’s simple but well-functioning house, so it was he who put together a meal of cold sliced lamb, cheese and olives for Mariana, along with a crusty bread loaf and oil to dip it in.

They sat at the rustic table in the kitchen while she ate. Outside, seagulls were squawking. Farther away, the sea rolled in constant, reassuring waves. The sounds came through the windows and the big doors that were propped open, giving access to the shady patio outside. The sounds were so clear because none of them spoke.

Mariana ate only because she knew it was one of the best ways to recover. But she had no appetite, even though the food was delicious.

Billy cleared his throat. “Do either of you feel…well, angry?”

Brenden looked up from the knot in the tabletop he had been tracing with his thumb. “Pissed enough to break things,” he said shortly.

Mariana put the cheese back on the plate. “Because we’re being told what to do,” she added, as she recognized the frustration she was feeling.

“Ordered about by the future,” Billy finished.

The silence fell once more. Mariana ate mechanically. She could already feel that the meal was making a difference. The knots in her stomach and chest were easing. She could think again.

But with clear thinking came resentment for the predicament they were in. She glanced at Brenden. He was back to scowling at the table top. Billy had his head turned. He was looking out the window.

“I was falling in love with both of you,” she said quietly.

Brenden’s head lifted and Billy looked at her. “‘Was’?”

“I was,” she confirmed. “But now I don’t want to give in to how I feel, because it feels like I’m playing along with…with….”

“Fate,” Brenden said softly. “My people believed in fate, in a future that was set, even though we didn’t know it.”

“Is that why you are coping with this better than us?” Billy asked.

“I don’t like it any more than you.”

“I don’t know how to think about it,” Billy confessed. “I barely know Mariana.” He gave her a small smile. “You’re a lovely woman, but I met you after I met Brenden. It didn’t occur to me to even think of you as a possible lover, because Brenden was there.” He pulled in a breath and let it out as a sigh. “And now I’m told that not only do I love you, but you’re the love of my life.” He glanced at Brenden. “Both of you.”

Another pensive silence built. They were all struggling with this. They were all dealing with resentment.

“Perhaps this was his plan,” Mariana said.

“Laszlo’s?” Brenden asked.

She nodded. “It just occurred to me that all three of us are the type of people who, if we’re told we’re to do A, with no discussion and no choice, we’ll do B instead, just because we don’t like being told what to do. It’s the principle of the thing. B could be the worst choice on the planet for us, but we’ll do it anyway, just to prove the point.”

“That we can’t be shoved around,” Billy finished. He looked at Brenden. “That’s
exactly
what I would do. That’s exactly what I’m feeling right now. I’m tempted to leave and never come back just because I’m being told to stay. Maybe he counted on that and he’s really trying to pull us apart. Mariana is right—we were all moving toward each other before this happened. It was probably only a matter of time.”

Brenden was frowning heavily. “We need to think this through. I don’t like being told what to do any more than you.” His gaze flickered toward Mariana, then back to Billy. “But as much as I resent it, I don’t want to give up on…us. The possibility of us.” He stopped running his thumb over the table top and laid his hand on it, the fingers spread.

Truth time
, Mariana realized.

“When I first realized what he was saying, I was relieved,” Brenden said. His voice was low. “It solves every dilemma and problem in one simple solution. It gives me exactly what I want.” He hesitated. “What I
thought
I wanted,” he added. “Now, I don’t know.”

“We need time,” Billy said. “Time to think.”

Mariana stifled a huge yawn. The shock was passing, but the bone-deep weariness from her restless night was returning.

“And sleep,” Brenden added. “So, let’s do that. No one should leave the island. Not yet, anyway. Not until we’ve all come to a decision. Whatever decision that might be. But for now we should all do exactly what we want to do. No pressure and room to think.” He stood up. “I’ll show you where you can sleep,” he told her.

The room he showed her to was clearly a guest bedroom, for it lacked any personal items and everything was neat and clean. The floor was cool tile and soft curtains fluttered at the open windows.

The open windows bothered Mariana. “Was someone here before we arrived?”

“Staff look after the house when Cáel isn’t here. He sent a message before we arrived, warning them. We won’t be interrupted while we’re here.”

Reassured, she slept for ten hours and woke to the cool of the evening. It was dark outside and in, but somewhere in the house, she could hear Brenden and Billy talking. She dressed and went to find them.

They were on the patio, where a sea breeze laden with salt was rippling the vines overhead. A small fire burned in the fire pit. As neither of them would feel cold or heat the way she did and it was not a cold night, the fire had been lit for the atmosphere it provided. It did look inviting.

Mariana sat on the broad stone bench built into the wall and curled her legs up on the colorful cushions. Brenden was sprawled on a cane loveseat, to her left. Billy was sitting opposite him, on a more modern cuddle-chair that had wrapped around his shoulders and hips and was rocking him gently.

Brenden got to his feet as she settled on the cushions. He picked up a straw-covered bottle and poured a glass of colorless liquid. “Ouzo.” He held the glass out to her. “Cáel’s family label. It’s very good.” He dipped the tip of his finger into her glass, then licked it. “You won’t feel any cold after that.”

“I don’t feel cold at all,” she assured him, but sipped the ouzo anyway. It was a strong flavor, but the aftertaste was mellow. “What have you two been doing while I slept?”

“I went swimming,” Billy said. “Brenden cooked. There’s dinner waiting for you when you want it.” He grinned. “I can put a meal together when I have to, but Brenden is better at it.”

“I interrupted your conversation, just now.”

“We were talking about fate.” Brenden spread his arms along the back of the loveseat and nodded toward Billy. “The Prussians had some fancy ideas about fate and predetermination. So do the Greeks and the Romans. The philosophers wrote whole books about fate.”

“There was a twentieth-century writer who said ‘
Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess and you don’t find out 'til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.”
 

Brenden laughed and Billy looked at her with a raised brow.

Mariana shrugged. “It seems to fit with how we’re all feeling, right now.”

Billy leaned forward. “I don’t
want
to feel this way. I don’t want to feel that I have no choice in the matter.”

“Vikings believed that fate is predetermined,” Brenden said. “That it doesn’t matter what you chose to do, or how much you try to duck your fate, your actions will all lead you inevitably to where you are supposed to be.”