Spartan Resistance (7 page)

The physical damage to his body imparted by such retreats had horrified her. Marley had found ways to keep Gawaine focused and active in the physical world ever since. He had always cooperated in that respect and she suspected he had agreed to her moving in just for this reason—to pull him out of his mental funks. “You’re starting to dive,” she said gently. “You know that and you know why.”

Gawaine let his hands fall away from the pad. He sat back in his chair and blew out his breath. His gaze didn’t meet hers. Instead, he looked out the dirty window next to the end of his desk, which was a salvaged door resting on crates. With the light falling on his cheek like that, the faded bruise was clear.

Marley had patched up his scratches and scrapes in her medical suite at the agency before they had come home, three days ago. He had limped into the surgery, bleeding from the lip. She could almost feel his fury. Silently, she waved him to the examination table and set about cleaning him up and tending the bruises.

The worst was the one on the back of his hip. None of them was serious and there was no permanent damage, but they had all added up to some sort of physical fight.

Marley had patched up too many drunks and fools with busted knuckles and fractured fingers and wrists to not recognize what had happened to Gawaine. Someone had ruffled him up. Not a lot, but enough to make his ego stagger.

She figured it was some man who had taken offence at Gawaine’s sometimes painful social skills, until Gawaine muttered into his folded arms where he was resting his face as she worked on his back. “It was that Mavourneen woman.”

“What did you do to make a vampire toss you around?”

His answer was a long time coming. “I guess…the same thing I do that makes humans want to throw me.”

It wasn’t the first time some Neanderthal had got pissed at him although with Marley’s coaching, Gawaine had got a lot better at recognizing when his usual manner of dealing with the world wasn’t being well received. He wasn’t social inept. Far from it. When he focused and put his mind to it, he could be charming. It was just that most of the time, the world moved too slowly for him. He was already six responses and five minutes ahead of everyone, including Marley more often than not. He wanted everyone else to get there
now
, instead of waiting out the five minutes of discussion, conversation, or social oil required to get everyone else there. In his impatience to cut to the chase, he sometimes spoke bluntly.

“It’s been a long while since something like this happened,” Marley pointed out.

He grunted into his arms. That was his version of agreeing when he was grumpy.

“So are you upset because a vampire got the better of you, or because it was a girl that dumped you on your ass?” Marley asked.

He sat up and picked up his shirt. “You about done for the day?”

And that had been nearly the last time he had spoken. They had been delivered home by one of Rhydder’s lieutenants and Gawaine had headed straight for his desk. Apart from biological breaks, which had diminished as the hours ticked on, he had not moved from his chair.

Marley watched him now as he stared out his window and wondered what else she could say. She wasn’t hitting the right buttons yet.

But Gawaine surprised her by turning to face her squarely. He looked her in the eye for a second, before his gaze skittered away. Then back again, more firmly. “She was smart,” he said flatly.

Marley stayed silent, not understanding.

“She knew exactly what I was talking about. I wasn’t talking over her head at all. But she got pissed anyway, because I was touching her stuff.”

“Mavourneen Beraht is talented, Gawaine. She’s created environments for clients around the world and off world, too. No one can match her for her creativity.” She had done a little research on Mavourneen Beraht since the vampire had given Gawaine his fat lip. “You didn’t touch her stuff. You were threatening to change her work. Any really talented artist would get upset about that.”

Gawaine shook his head. “She
understood
me,” he insisted. “I wasn’t trying to change the end result, just the way she was getting there….” He trailed off, thinking about it. “She wasn’t afraid I’d change it….” he said slowly. “She just didn’t like being
wrong
.” Astonishingly, he smiled. “She didn’t think anyone would be able to figure out how she had programmed everything. I surprised her and I told her she was wrong in the same breath.”

“And that makes you happy?” Marley asked cautiously.

He stood up. “It wasn’t me being a social moron at all. Well, it was. I was too focused on trying to show her that it was dangerous. My mistake. But it wasn’t just me.” He grinned. “She threw a tantrum because she didn’t like that I had spotted her mistake.”

Marley frowned, even as she was smiling. She couldn’t help smiling, because it was so good to see Gawaine back in the physical world once more. “So you aren’t upset that a girl tossed you around?”

He shook his head. “She’s a vampire. She could probably drop kick me into orbit if she put her mind to it. I got off light.” He stepped around his desk and headed for the cold cupboard. “She’s the first vampire I’ve met who acts just like a human. The others are all too ancient or something—their reactions get warped and faded after a while. Hers are still fresh and normal.” He opened the cupboard. “I’m
starving
,” he said, sounding surprised.

Marley smothered her laugh.

“And she’s smart, too…”Gawaine murmured to himself as he pushed items around inside the cupboard.

Someone rapped on the apartment door and he lifted his head up to look at it.

“I’ll get it,” Marley told him and put the chair back under the table, then answered the door.

A woman stood on the other side. She was gaunt, dark-haired and short, with great big brown eyes that had dark patches beneath. She was also hugely pregnant. Her swollen belly looked distended. Marley didn’t know her, but that was all she had time to think.

The woman stepped closer. “Please…help me.” She staggered and instinctively Marley lifted up her arms and caught her before she fell.

Despite her wasted frame, she was heavy. A full term baby and all the fluids and material that surrounded it were adding weight and throwing her balance off.

“Gawaine, help,” Marley called.

Gawaine strode to the door and scooped the woman up in his arms. “Where do you want her?”

Marley saw the arc of her belly move and laid her hand against it. Her heart squeezed. “My bedroom,” she told Gawaine. “She’s in labor.”

“Arthur on a unicorn….” He moved into the tiny second room Marley called her bedroom. There was just room for a mattress and a bedside table, but it had a door that shut.

Gawaine laid the woman on the mattress and straightened. “Who is she?”

“I have no idea,” Marley said. “Please, would you get my medical bag?”

The woman was breathing raggedly through her contraction. Marley doubted she had heard either of them. But when Gawaine left the room, she opened her eyes and Marley was once more bathed in the woman’s calm, brown-eyed gaze. “You helped Pritti,” she whispered.

Marley had already mentally slipped into doctor mode, so she found it easy to hide her surprise. The woman’s statement explained a great deal. “You’re a psi-filer?” She rested her fingertips against the woman’s wrist and felt the frantic pulse.

“Karolina,” the woman gasped and bit back a moan, the tendons in her neck straining as she white-knuckled her way through another contraction.

Marley hid the frown that wanted to form and got to her feet. “I’ll be right back,” she promised and stepped out of the room and closed the door.

Gawaine was three paces away, her big medical bag in his hand. Marley gave him a stiff smile. “She’s in second stage labor,” she told him. “The contractions are quite close together. I’m going to have to deliver her myself.”

“Here?” Gawaine asked.

“There’s no time to get her anywhere else. And besides, she’s psi.”

Gawaine’s eyes widened. “Pritti,” he muttered, putting it together.

“My reputation has preceded me,” Marley said dryly. She took the bag and went back into the bedroom.

The room was empty.

Marley put the bag down slowly.  “What the hell?”

“Where is she?” Gawaine asked over her shoulder. “I thought she was about to have the baby.”

“She is,” Marley agreed. She stepped out, still not fully understanding what was happening. She looked around the main room. “Karolina?” she called.

Gawaine went to the window by his desk and looked out. “She might have gone out the window,” he proposed, scanning the street below.

“Not in her condition,” Marley said. “Not that fast.” She went back into the bedroom, to see if the window had been opened, anyway.

Karoline laid on the mattress, her eyes closed, her hands curled into tight fists. She wasn’t breathing.

Marley dropped down beside her, her concern for her patient overriding the mystery of where she had just been. “No, you have to breathe through it,” she said quickly. “Pant like a dog. Didn’t anyone coach you?”

Karolina opened her eyes. “Who?”

Marley sighed and pulled her bag closer to the bed. “I’ll have to explain. Next contraction.” She rolled up her sleeves. “Let’s see how soon your baby is going to be with us.”

As she settled in to deliver the baby, she reflected that in a year of stunning firsts and unexpected novelties, this one took the cake.

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

Laszlo, being human, didn’t have the luxury of jumping wherever he wanted to. But he did have resources, which Mariana discovered when she met him in the main courtyard in front of the big fountain, as he had suggested.

It was five p.m. and too early for dinner.
Wear jeans or something casual
. But that was the only hint his message had given about their destination.

Mariana didn’t wear jeans. The wardrobe staple that had been in fashion for five centuries already, was simply not flattering on her. Her hips were too big, her waist too small and her thighs…well, best not to go there. No amount of swimming made them slender.

She had spent two hours in the pool that afternoon, doing laps and working off her nervous energy. Then she had headed for Cybelia’s shop and tapped on her door, feeling relatively calm.

Cybelia and her clothing had become an haute couture brand in the last year. At Mariana’s suggestion, Cybelia had begun a small garage business, constructing ready-to-wear garments based on her own designs, especially those she developed for the more public figures in the agency, like Nayara and Deonne. Everyone but Mariana had been stunned when the first shipments sold out almost overnight. Cybelia had been sprinting to keep up with demand ever since.

As Cybelia’s fashion business brought in a very nice stream of revenue for the agency, Nayara had agreed to a development budget that Mariana had hammered out for Cybelia and put into place. Cybelia’s shop now took up a whole wing, with a factory workshop for commercial garments and a suite for haute couture clients. Cybelia’s lounge office was located just off the client suite, but Cybelia was in the showroom, fussing over a rack of wedding dresses.

“Really? Wedding dresses now?” Mariana asked from the door.

Cybelia glanced over her shoulder and grinned. “A private client wanted one and another one spotted the dress and wanted one for herself. It’s snowballed from there. These are all bought and paid for.” She waved to an assistant. “The beading on this one, here on the bodice. It’s loose. Would you ask one of the sewers to reattach it?”

The assistant hurried away.

“I’m surprised you have time left to build outfits for the travelers.”

“That always gets first priority,” Cybelia said soberly. “Plus, it’s a commercial division of its own, now.”

“Right—Orzci De Orvi,” Mariana said. The Italian film director had reached out to Cybelia, asking if she and the agency could flip back to medieval France, research the clothing of the period and reconstruct it for a movie he was making. His budget had been generous and Nayara had negotiated a deal that had paid very well indeed.

“Not just De Orvi,” Cybelia said. “The University in Prague asked me to redesign their graduate gowns to look like the originals the scholars would have worn when the university was established.” Cybelia grinned and pushed her fingers through her silver, spiked hair. “Brenden had a pink fit, trying to find someone that knew the location.”

“It will do him good to sweat a bit,” Mariana said complacently, recalling Kieran’s words about Brenden’s ego. “Everyone needs a challenge or two to keep them awake. Speaking of which….”

Cybelia just raised her brows. “A challenge?” she asked, sounding interested.

“Not for you,” Mariana assured her. “But it’s a challenge for me. I need something casual, the equivalent to jeans. There’s nothing in my wardrobe that comes close to laid-back.” All her clothes were for work.

“Why would you want jeans?” Cybelia asked, wrinkling her nose. She had the same opinion about ‘canvas trousers’ as Mariana did—they were the least flattering garment a woman could wear.

Mariana could feel her cheeks heating. “Well….”

Cybelia clapped her hands to her face. “A date! You have a date!”

“Shh…” Mariana said quickly, looking around.

“Who is it?”

Her cheeks began to glow. Mariana took a breath and made herself say the name. “Laszlo Wolffe.”

Cybelia’s eyes grew very wide. She kept up with society news because most of her private clients came from the rich and famous, so she would know exactly who Laszlo Wolffe was. “No! Really? But that’s wonderful. I didn’t know he was back from that thing with the model.”

“Actress. He went to Evergreen, but yes, he’s back.”

Cybelia nodded. “I have just the thing for you to wear.” She had given Mariana a dress from her ready-to-wear samples. “I know it will fit you because I designed it for someone with your shape, which is the shape of most normal women. Well, perhaps not quite as curvy as you, not with that little wasp waist you’ve got now. But it will stretch. Go…go and have a good time and promise me you’ll tell me about it tomorrow.”