Susan Squires - [Da Vinci Time Travel] (6 page)

He sat on the bed. His gaze roved over her. “It is customary for a warrior to take a comely woman to his bed on the eve of a victory,” he said. How could he have the energy to even think about that? But he was thinking it all right. The bulge in his towel said so. Revulsion washed over her on some elemental level she couldn’t explain.

“Hold on. I didn’t see a victory,” she protested, backing toward her bedroom.

“I lived.” He held out a hand. “Come. With your powers and mine, the world is ours.”

“I do not have power,” she hissed. “I have told you that.
And I will not be a marker of your victory.” Indeed, the whole thought of bedding him made her just go
ewwwe
, inside. Her gaze darted to the great sword leaning against the desk. “Keep your hands to yourself or leave.”

He held up his hands, palms out. “Forgive me, my lady. Our ways are different. I shall not touch you. My honor is my promise.”

She chewed her lip. She couldn’t throw him out. (A) it was cruel to abandon him in a world he didn’t understand, and (B) she wasn’t sure she shouldn’t be bundling him back to the fifth century. Oh, this was bad on so many levels. She had no idea what to do. “You will sleep there.” She pointed to the fold-out bed. “I will sleep in my bedroom.”
With the door locked.

She was bone tired, but still she was drawn to the front window again. She drew back the drapery. Her stalker moved into the pool of light and there was something infinitely attractive about him, Most horrifying of all was that she wasn’t horrified at that.

Maybe tomorrow it was time to buy a gun.

The man with her was dressed in fifth-century chain mail and had a sword. He’d seen them at the museum and entering the apartment, not up close, but you couldn’t mistake chain mail. He could hardly swallow. His mouth was dry. Where had she gotten him? How?

Or maybe this man had come to keep her from fulfilling her destiny, whatever that was. Was she in danger? It took all his restraint not to burst into her apartment and strike down the man. But if he burst in now, without preparing her, she’d be even more frightened of him. She might call the police. He knew where that would lead for someone like him. Then he would have failed his father once again.

Still, he had to know if she was in danger.

He slid across the street in the darkness. He stood in front of the door to the apartment building, ignoring the keypad. He laid his palms flat on the glass and willed his center to stillness. His eyes went unfocused and his breathing slowed.

Mist. I am mist and darkness,
he sang to himself.
I am fog.

He felt himself dissipating. His center would not hold. His molecules fanned out in infinitesimal thinness. He slid between the door and the jamb, the lock irrelevant.

Inside, he gathered himself, molecule by molecule, in a whirling mist that grew more solid by the second. Warmth caressed his coalescing body like heat lightning.

He was in. The experience of dissipating always left him a little weak and breathless. He took a moment to gather himself before he slid silently up the stairs and down her corridor to hover outside the door. He listened. They were talking and eating. Everyday. Ordinary.

“You can sleep there. I will sleep in my bedroom.”

That was a relief. She was not taking this stranger to her bed. The very thought had a green monster choking his throat and then, as he imagined her lying in her bed, the quilt pulled up over her breasts, her beautiful hair splayed over the white linen of her pillow, his body reacted almost violently, just as it had the first time he saw her.

He flushed.
How pure are you?
he taunted himself, willing the painful reaction to subside. Not effective. Inside the apartment, he heard the man agreeing to the sleeping arrangements. Well, whoever this man was, she was in no immediate danger. But he would stay near, in the street, in case something went wrong and she cried out. That also left him near enough to enter her dreams and prepare her to trust him. He trotted silently down the stairs.

Why hadn’t she recognized him? Surely she would
trust him once she knew who he was. But in several encounters she hadn’t.

No need for dissipation this time. He simply walked out the front door.

He stood under the streetlight and saw her come and stand, silhouetted, against the light in her window. She looked down at him. Her gaze locked with his.
It is I!
he wanted to shout. But she twitched the draperies shut. Did she know him and yet push him out of her life?

It didn’t matter. He leaned against the lamppost. He was here for the duration.

She was walking down the colonnade of the Palace of Fine Arts next to the Exploratorium. Fog drifted in among the giant columns until she could hardly see the huge angels that hovered at the capitals. Dusk was deepening into night and she was alone. Maybe. Or maybe someone or something was lurking in the fog. It swirled around her feet, coming in fast off the bay in a way that hardly seemed natural. She glanced behind her, but the columns disappeared into a wall of gray. She hurried forward, passing columns in the mist. They seemed to go on and on.

What was that noise? A scraping sound . . . a chink. She looked down. There was a golden bracelet on her hand, covered with what looked like primitive runes. From the bracelet hung a delicate golden chain that disappeared into the fog behind her. Where had that bracelet come from? It was rather like a handcuff, what with the chain. The chain scraped across the asphalt of the path. She pulled and it puddled at her feet. She tugged again but met resistance. It was fastened to something.

She wanted to run through the fog to her car, but she couldn’t because of the chain. Fear circled around her, though she felt it from somewhere far away. What she
refused to do was walk back into the fog toward whatever was at the other end of the chain.

She heard a step behind her. The fog magnified all sound. It was a solid wall of swirling night gray that circled her. The chain went slack. More steps. Something was coming toward her down the path between the columns.

Damn it all.
She wasn’t going to be afraid. Not everything you couldn’t understand was bad. Maybe what was at the end of the chain was her parents, still tied to their earthly existence. Wouldn’t she welcome the chance to see them one more time? The steps came closer.

“Dad!”
she called. Tears mingled with the damp of fog on her cheeks. “Mom?”

Out of the wall of mist stepped the man who had been following her. She couldn’t help the squeak of surprise. He was wearing a leather jacket, and his dark hair hung over the collar, damp from the mist. His eyes were the color of the fog and serious, his brows knit in a frown. He was one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. The bulk of him, his strong hands, the way he filled his jeans, all washed over her and made her acutely aware of her nipples. The figure put out a hand. Was it in threat or solace?

He wore a bracelet connected to the other end of her chain. She wanted to run from him. But part of her wanted to run toward him, to bury her face in his chest and let him soothe her.

Soothe her? He was more likely to strangle her.

“You!” She tried to catch her breath. There had been a monster in the mist after all. She felt the pull of his body on hers. She’d been reading too many romances. She must resist that pull.

“Why are you following me?” she practically wailed.

“To protect you. Trust me.” His voice was a baritone growl, intensely seductive.

Too creepy! He was the one she needed protection
from.
She turned and ran as the chain played out behind her. Columns loomed out of the mist and faded behind her. How long was the colonnade? How long was the chain? She could just make out the open area beyond the corner pieces that marked the entrance to the colonnade. The parking lot was just beyond that. She was going to make it. She’d get the tire iron from her trunk and pry off the bracelet or the chain.

The chain pulled her up short.
No!
She turned to face her nemesis. There was no escaping him; she knew that now . . .

Diana sat up with a gasp. What kind of a dream was that? It felt both real and unreal and she couldn’t seem to sort out which was which. She was handcuffed to the stalker? They were connected somehow? It had been so clear—every detail of his face, the sound of his voice. He’d said he was protecting her. Right. All stalkers probably said that.

Okay. She had a good imagination. That was all. He was haunting her daytime, why wouldn’t he haunt her dreams?

She was definitely buying a gun.

The next morning was Monday, which meant ten to five at the Exploratorium. She felt like warmed-over seafood—definitely past its prime. Not enough sleep. How could she sleep when her dreams had been invaded? It felt like a violation.

She realized, when she saw Medraut dressed once more in leathers and his bloody shirt, that she’d been so preoccupied with her stalker she hadn’t thought about what to do about her houseguest. He’d seemed so sincere when he promised not to touch her. Maybe his advances last night were just a cultural misunderstanding. . . . God, she didn’t know
what
to do.

She scrambled Medraut some eggs and showed him how to work the television. She loaned him one of her oversized sweatshirts and helped him get it on over his bandages, told him to take more pills at noon. Then she got her shoulder bag and keys. The weight of Leonardo’s book was comforting but not essential. That was both a relief and a disappointment. In some ways, her obsession with the book had given her life purpose. She had always had the possibility of looking behind the door marked:
Danger.
Now she’d looked, and acted, and everything was worse.

“Don’t leave this house for
any
reason,” she warned. “I’ll be back at dusk.”

“You are not happy I am here,” he said, carefully. “I can pay you for my care.”

“There is no need,” she said, feeling small.

He got his pouch from beside the bed and dumped a considerable pile of coins on the table. They glinted gold and silver, sharply cast, almost like new. She spotted a man with a hook nose and a laurel wreath, and some had a ship with a Viking prow and . . .

“These . . . these are worth a fortune.”

“You may take as much as you need for caring for me.”

Was this a test? “I will take nothing.” He didn’t know he couldn’t just use these in a grocery store. But they
were
a way to his independence if he was going to stay in this time. “We use paper money now, but you can trade them for paper money if we can find a dealer.”

“Excellent,” he said with great self-satisfaction. “You will help me do so.”

“When I get back from work.” Those coins would keep him in venison and chain mail for quite a while. Maybe she’d get him a room at a boardinghouse, sign him up for English as a second language . . . She shook her head. Or maybe she should get him back to the fifth century. To certain death? She wanted to scream. How were you supposed to know what to
do
?

She had to get to work. That’s what she had to do. No stalker skulked in the back parking lot or on the street. No SUV lurked ominously. Even stalkers needed to sleep, apparently, if they spent all night invading your dreams. Of course he hadn’t really invaded her dreams. The whole situation was just getting to her, and she was having dreams about it.

It was hard to work that day, knowing the time machine waited behind the door marked:
Danger.
Knowing
it really worked and that she’d brought back a guy from Camelot weighed on her. And she couldn’t even consult anyone.

She hurried back to her apartment after work, having used the computer in the office to find a reputable dealer in antique coins on Angie’s List. No one sat in the cars on San Jose Street. It was empty of pedestrians, except for Mrs. Gable unloading her three kids from day care at the house squished between apartment buildings down the street.

Medraut greeted her at the door, opening it before she could use her key. “Don’t do that,” she scolded. “I might have been anyone. This time is dangerous.”

“I knew it was you by your step. I watched your automobile turn into the drive.”

She froze. She’d spoken in English and he had answered back in kind. She gaped at him.

He gave a sly grin. “It is my gift. The languages are close. I studied by watching the glass scrying pool.”

“You learned a new language in one day from the television?”

“And by listening last night in the healing place. And I scanned some books. You have many books. They are common now, and not just for monks or kings, yes?”

“The languages aren’t close at all. English is based on Anglo-Saxon, and you speak early Celtic.” Learning a language in twenty-four hours was not natural. Yet . . . hadn’t she herself learned English quickly once? The social workers thought what she spoke when she was found was a made-up language, brought on by some sort of trauma. But it wasn’t. It was Proto-Celtic. And she’d learned English just like Medraut, by listening, though not in twenty-four hours.

Medraut shrugged, as if to say,
Don’t believe me then
.

She glanced at her watch. “Yikes. We have to go if we’re
going to get to the coin shop before closing time. Bring one coin only, one of the Roman ones.” Guilt stabbed her. “I forgot to ask, are you feeling better?”

“Yes. The wound heals, and the tablets take away the pain. Thank you, my lady.”

Let’s see, he’d had one at noon. She grabbed the bottle and dispensed another one. That would hold him.

She pulled out of the parking lot onto the sidewalk, peering into the oncoming traffic to her left for a break. So she wasn’t looking for pedestrians coming from the right. Her stalker practically ran into the passenger side of the car as he strode down the sidewalk.

She gasped and Medraught snapped his head around to look at the man.
Here? In front of my apartment building, in broad daylight?
The stalker was getting bolder. This was
so
not a good sign. But as the stalker’s gaze fell on Medraut, her nemesis was the one who gasped.