Four
Jane’s heart pounded as she stared at the handsome invader who’d just turned her life upside down. “But you said you’re from the future!”
Baran sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “Do you know everything that happened centuries before you were born?”
“You know this guy’s coming after me!”
“Temporal Enforcement told me only as much as they had to. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t much.”
“Temporal…?”
“Enforcement. They’re the agency that regulates time travel.”
“In the future.” A new question occurred to her, and she asked it cautiously. “How far in the future?”
He shrugged. “Three hundred years.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely the future.” She blinked, studying her brawny captor. Weren’t future people supposed to be scrawny eggheads with big eyes? This guy looked as if he’d just stepped out of the cover of an old Viking romance, the kind where the hero tied the heroine up and pillaged her repeatedly.
Which, she had to admit, sounded like much more fun than it had any business being.
Baran watched as she rocked back on her heels, both hands still bound behind her back. The pose thrust her high, pretty breasts into prominence and drew his attention to the hard pebbled nipples behind her bra. He found himself battling the completely inappropriate urge to pull up her shirt and suck and tongue and tease those luscious points until they flushed red.
Sometimes his Warlord libido had a rotten sense of timing.
But perhaps the timing would improve. He’d scented her response more than once tonight, particularly when he’d kicked her feet apart. A seduction wasn’t out of the question.
But since she’d apparently decided to cooperate, he’d have to explore that avenue another time. And he would. Now, however, she was too busy trying to process what she was learning—while he tried to decide how much information to give her.
He hadn’t intended to tell her even this much, but she’d seen through the cover story those sloppy bastards from Temporal Enforcement had given him. They apparently hadn’t anticipated how well Jane knew her own government and its workings. And Baran didn’t have enough knowledge of her time to come up with a more believable lie.
So he was stuck with the truth, or at least as little of it as she’d let him get away with telling.
“So this…time agency…” Her brows drew down in concentration over her dark, narrowed eyes.
“Temporal Enforcement.”
“…sent you. What do they care if there’s a serial killer in Tayanita County?”
“This particular serial killer is also from the future.”
Her full lips parted. “Oh.” For a moment she looked rattled. Then she rallied enough to manage an indignant snort. “What, they don’t have women he could kill back in his own time? He’s got to come back three centuries to find somebody to butcher?”
“Evidently.”
“Why me? Why would somebody from three hundred years in the future want to target a reporter at a small-town weekly?” Her soft, sweet mouth curved down in a puzzled frown. “And I still don’t understand why you’d care enough to come all this way to stop him.”
He glanced from her rich brown eyes to her tempting lips, then down to the lush, promising contours of her breasts. “I can think of a number of reasons.”
She blinked. “Umm.” A flush heated her cheeks. “Well.”
Baran smiled, watching those tempting nipples slowly peak under the soft fabric of her shirt. This mission was definitely looking more interesting all the time.
How did he do that?
One look, and he had her feeling as if she was about to burst into flames. It was humiliating.
“TE gave me a skull jack crystal on this time,” the wolf announced, breaking into Jane’s embarrassed arousal. “There are a couple of image files of the Jumpkiller in it. Could make things a bit more clear.”
Baran glanced at his furry partner and nodded. “Let’s see them.”
“What’s a skull jack…whatever?” God, her life was beginning to sound like an episode of Star Trek.
“Crystal. It’s a memory unit I insert in my skull jack—that’s the implant at the base of my right ear I can use to access data,” the wolf added, seeing her open her mouth to ask.
“Where is this implant?” She moved cautiously closer and started to kneel, but her bound hands threw her off-balance. Impatiently, she looked at Baran and held her arms out straight behind her. “Look, can we lose the bondage? I get it now: You’re the good guys. I have no intention of running away.” She grinned. “In fact, you couldn’t drive me off with a stick. I’m dying to learn more.”
He gave her an appraising look, then nodded slowly. “But the minute you start giving me a hard time, I’m tying you up again.”
Promise? her libido whispered. She told it to shut up. It quivered anyway as her handsome captor stepped behind her and went to work on her bonds. As the cable fell away, she stepped quickly away and turned, rubbing her wrists.
He tucked the restraints into a pocket of his coat, giving her a level, warning look.
Ignoring it, she crouched beside the wolf. “Okay, now about that implant…”
Freika helpfully angled his head, giving her access to the ear in question. Something that looked like a glowing blue gem glittered against his dark fur.
“So this crystal is some kind of recording medium?” She touched it. It felt warm and smooth under her fingers. “And it plugs directly into your head?”
“Right.”
“Didn’t that hurt?”
“Nah. I was just a pup when they did the procedure. Don’t even remember it.”
She looked up to find Baran watching her steadily. “Do you have one, too?”
He shrugged. “Not a skull jack, no. Any data I need, I get by downloading it from Freika.”
“That way he doesn’t have to worry about viruses,” the wolf told her.
She sat up. “They still have computer viruses in the future?”
“Yeah, and they can be fatal.”
Jane blinked, feeling more than a little boggled. “Fatal?”
“My computer controls my autonomic nervous system,” Baran explained. “If I downloaded the wrong virus, it could stop my heart or paralyze me.”
“Owww.” She winced. “That doesn’t sound like fun at all.”
He looked grim. “Believe me, it’s not.”
She was opening her mouth to ask for details when a man appeared in midair, floating a foot above the wolf’s head.
Jane jumped, but when everyone else studied the figure calmly, she realized he wasn’t real. Curious, she rose to examine the image. It was so sharp and three-dimensional, the man looked solid. Which pretty well finished off her last lingering doubt about whether they really came from the future. “Who the hell is that?”
“Kalig Druas,” Freika said. “The Jumpkiller.”
“He’s the one who wants to kill me?”
“Evidently.” Baran’s face was utterly expressionless, his body so still he could have been carved out of ice.
Looking at him, Jane felt a chill skate her spine. That, she thought, is a man with a very long fuse. But I don’t think I want to be anywhere around when he blows.
She turned her attention to the image that had inspired such cold hate. “Huh. Somehow I don’t think we’re going to have any trouble spotting him in a crowd.”
A series of metal rings placed on edge appeared to sink halfway into the man’s skull, forming a thick ridge across the top of his shaved head like a steel Mohawk. A second set of rings were implanted around the back of his head, stretching from temple to temple.
“And I thought nose rings were bad,” Jane said.
“Skull implants are considered high fashion on Xer.” Baran curled his lip. “Among other things.”
“What’s a Xer?”
“A planet.” He moved closer, staring up at the floating figure. “About twenty years ago the Xerans invaded my world, Vardon. It took us five years to evict them.”
Jane studied him, reading the cold anger in his eyes. “I’ll bet that was unpleasant.”
“You have a gift for understatement.” He squared his shoulders. “Recently we found out they were planning to have another try at taking us over. We’ve launched a preemptive strike.”
“So what happened?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. The battle hadn’t begun yet when the Temporal Enforcement agent showed up and took me off my ship.” Baran’s gaze turned brooding. “When this is over, I’ve got to go back and complete the mission he interrupted.”
Something about the way he said the word mission sent a chill down her spine. It also thoroughly deterred her impulse to ask for details.
Dragging her attention away from Baran’s grim face, she looked back at the Xeran. Despite the gothic hardware in his skull, the Jumpkiller’s features looked human enough. In fact, the bone structure of his angular face was almost handsome, though his eyes were a bit too narrow and a bit too small. The color of his irises, though, was a distinctly nonhuman and very demonic red, complete with slit pupils. Add that hawk nose and tight, thin mouth, and you had the poster boy for meanasasnake.com.
Enhancing the reptilian effect, he wore a one-piece suit covered in what looked like tiny black scales. From what she could tell about the body under the suit, he was almost as thickly muscled as Baran. What do they feed them in the future, anyway? Jane wondered.
On second thought, she really didn’t want to know the answer to that one, either.
In one fist he held a knife with a long curving blade that widened toward the point, almost like a machete. “What is that? It looks like a bowie knife on steroids.”
“A Xeran sevik,” Baran supplied.
“He’s good with it, too,” the wolf said, twisting his massive head around to gnaw at a patch of fur over his haunches. “At least judging from the trid he made for his subscribers.”
“Subscribers?” Jane frowned. “What kind of subscribers? And what’s a trid?”
Frieka gave his butt a lick. “A tri-dimensional recording.”
“And the subscribers are Xerans who pay to see women murdered,” Baran added.
She gaped at him. “People subscribe to things like that? And it’s legal?”
“Xerans have a…flexible legal system.” His tone was so intensely bitter, she wondered what they’d done to him. “The more money you have, the more flexible it is. These men have a lot of money.”
“But—”
“If you’d just let me go on, we’ll all find out everything we want to know,” the wolf interrupted with an impatient rumble.
“Be my guest, furball,” she muttered.
Freika chose to ignore the crack. “His name is Kalig Alrico Oth Druas…”
“Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?”
“…a Xeran cyborg mercenary with a very bad temper and a tendency to kill those who irritate him. Including his commanders, which would probably explain why he hasn’t worked in several years.”
“So why isn’t he in jail?” Jane asked. “Or on a penal colony, or whatever the futuristic equivalent is?”
Baran shrugged. “As I said, it’s Xer.”
“Aka Planet of the Psychopaths.”
Evidently refusing to dignify her comment with a response, Baran looked at Freika. “Capabilities?”
“Basically, he’s got enough nano-cybernetic muscle implants to match your strength.”
“Even in riatt?”
“I doubt it, but it’ll be close.”
“Can I make a request?” Jane demanded, thoroughly frustrated. “Can we go five minutes without using futurespeak?”
Baran contemplated the question. “Probably not.”
“Smartass. So how did the twenty-fourth century’s answer to Jeffrey Dahmer get into the entertainment business?” If she asked enough questions, maybe all this would start making sense. Maybe.
The wolf cocked his black head, studying the image. “Basically, he needed money. From assorted records TE managed to acquire, it seems he supported himself the last few years working for various criminal enterprises. However, he must have been too unpredictable even by underworld standards, because that finally dried up, too.”
Baran frowned as if a question had suddenly occurred to him. “Where did he get the temporal armor he uses to make his Jumps?” To Jane he added, “Access to T-suits is very tightly controlled. Possessing a suit without authorization is a capital crime. And TE is not picky about legal niceties when they catch you at it.”
She digested the concept and wrinkled her nose. “So where did he get it?”
“The short answer is, TE has no idea,” Freika said.
“But I’ll wager they’re working very hard to find out,” Baran said, stretching his long legs out in front of him and lacing his big hands together over his flat belly.
“You’d win that bet.” The wolf moved to lean against his knees. “Do you mind? That damn jack itches every time I access it.” Baran reached down and scratched the spot obligingly. “Thank you. Where was I? Oh. However he got the suit, Druas quickly started using it in a series of temporal thefts, bringing back two previously unknown Da Vincis and one of Shakespeare’s first folios—”
“Wait a minute,” Jane interrupted. “Are you saying that people go back in time to steal?”
“Why do you think there’s a TE?” Freika yawned, displaying a set of intimidating dental work. “Anyway, in the course of one of his thefts, he ended up murdering the wealthy female owner. Rather spectacularly.”
“And probably raped her while he was at it,” Baran noted, absently running his long fingers through the wolf’s fur.
“Exactly. And either for his own amusement, or because there’s a market for that kind of thing on Xer, he used his computer implant to record the crime. He gave a copy to a distributor, who put him in touch with other sick bastards with the same tastes and a great deal of money.”
“Ewwww,” Jane said.
“Indeed. Soon afterward, somebody came up with the bright idea of actually paying Druas to jump through time and commit well-known but historically unsolved crimes. This is his latest release.”
The killer’s image was replaced by a six-foot hole in the air. Inside it, a woman in a long dress walked through a narrow arched doorway built of rough brick.
Taking a closer look, Jane realized it wasn’t really a hole, just another of those three-dimensional images. This one, however, was projected in the shape of a globe. When she tried to walk around it, the angle of the image seemed to follow her, giving the impression that the globe was rotating. “That’s a really weird effect.” She cocked her head and considered it. “So, is he carrying some kind of camera around, or what?”
“He has a computer implant in his brain,” Freika explained. “It records what he sees.”
“Through his eyes,” Jane said, the light dawning. “That’s how you get the three-dimensional effect. And why the angle doesn’t change no matter how you move.”
In the image the woman pushed open a door and stepped inside, then smiled flirtatiously as the killer moved after her. She was plump, pretty, and young, probably in her twenties, with dark hair piled on top of her head. Judging from the unsteadiness in her step, she was also more than a little drunk.
Jane frowned. The brunette wore a long shabby wool gown and a red jacket. “When is this? That dress looks Victorian.”
“Very good,” Freika said, his eyes shuttering with pleasure as Baran absently rubbed the top of his head. “According to the file, this trid was recorded in 1888.”
Jane frowned. There were several famous Victorian murders that immediately leaped to mind, of course, but it couldn’t be one of those.
At least, she hoped not.
The brunette lit a candle, revealing a tiny room. It couldn’t have been more than twelve feet square—there was barely room enough for a narrow bed and a small, rickety wooden table.
A male voice spoke from the trid, sounding very English and upper-class. “Sing for me, pretty Mary Kelly.”
The little brunette smiled and unbuttoned her coat. “Wouldn’t you like me to do somethin’ a little more interestin’ than sing?” There was a hint of Irish music in her accent that gave it a sweet lilt.
“Wait a minute,” Jane said. “Why is she talking to that freak? I’d think a Victorian woman would take one look at those things sticking out of his head and run screaming.”
“He must be using an imagizer,” Baran said.
“Which is what, exactly?”
“His computer projects a three-dimensional image around him that makes him look like someone else.”
She frowned. “If he can do that, how are we supposed to spot him?”
“I have sensor implants,” Baran explained. “Xeran metabolism is different from the original human rootstock, so I should be able to detect him despite the visual shield.”
“Besides, it’s not a particularly effective disguise,” Freika added. “The first time you touched him, you’d know something was wrong. If you’ll notice, he’s a lot taller than she thinks he is.”
Jane looked closer and saw that the girl’s eyes were aimed roughly at chest level, as if that was where the man’s face was.
“You have such a pretty voice,” Druas said. “What was that you were singing earlier?”
“It’s just a little ditty,” the brunette said, a dimple winking in her cheek. Despite the slight slur in her voice and the fact that she was visibly tipsy, there was a flirtatious charm about the doomed woman that made Jane wince. “It’s called ‘Sweet Violets.’”
“Sing it again. I want to hear it.”
“Oh. All right.” Softly at first, then more loudly, she began to sing, “Scenes of my childhood—”
“Undress for me,” Druas interrupted. There was a note of menacing anticipation in that cultured voice the brunette was evidently too drunk to recognize. “And keep singing.”
That girl is about to be murdered, Jane realized, as the reality of what was happening sank in. Oh, God, I don’t think I want to see this.
Obediently Mary went on singing as she unbuttoned her shabby dress in the flickering light of the candle. “…This small violet I pluck’d from mother’s grave…”
“This is sickening,” Jane said, looking away.
“Granted,” Baran said, his eyes cold and grim. “but I’ve got to review it anyway. I need to know as much as possible about the way this bastard operates.”
She subsided. He had a point.
Mary lifted the gown over her head, leaving only a thin linen chemise that was stained and torn in places. Folding the gown, she put it on the chair before going to work on the buttons of her chemise. Work-roughened fingers busy on the horn buttons, she turned toward Druas, still singing. “…They all have left me in…”
There was a blur of movement, so fast Jane almost missed it. The girl’s eyes widened as she made a choked, helpless sound.
Two enormous hands were wrapped around her neck, hoisting her into the air as her feet kicked helplessly.
Druas was much, much taller than she was.
“I always like this part best,” the killer told her, his voice bright, laughing.
She kicked at him, clawing at the hands that were slowly choking her to death. Her open mouth gaped as she fought to breathe, her face darkening.
“You’re going to be famous, Mary Jane Kelly,” Druas purred, holding her effortlessly. “For hundreds of years the photograph of what I’m going to do to you will make people stare in horror, wondering what you used to look like before I sliced away your face.”
Her blue eyes widened helplessly in terrified realization.
“That’s right, Mary, sweet Mary,” he said. “You’re Jack the Ripper’s last victim.”
Jane stared at the trid in helpless horror as her head began to swim. “Sweet Jesus God.”
Mary’s face darkened still more, the whites of her eyes going red as tiny capillaries burst. Her frantic kicks weakened.
Finally Druas tossed her on the bed to flop bonelessly. Something silver flashed, followed by a spray of red flung by the knife as he made his first cut.
Baran stepped toward Jane as she swayed, looking as if she was about to fall in a heap. He caught her elbow, and she sagged against him. “Stop the playback, Freika.”
“But we need to—”
“Later.”
Before the wolf could argue, Jane tore herself from his arms with surprising strength and bolted across the room. Baran strode after her as she raced into a small alcove and collapsed on her knees in front of a shiny porcelain chair his computer identified as a toilet. Flinging her head down over the hole in its seat, she began to retch violently.
Baran watched for a moment, instinctively trying to maintain his emotional distance, but her misery was too much for him. With a sigh he knelt beside her and helped her gather her long hair out of the way. She ignored him, heaving in helpless rolling spasms. “Jane, he’s not going to get the chance to do that to you. That’s why I’m here.”
She looked up at him, wild-eyed, her face tinged green. “You mean”—she stopped to gasp—“I really am a target for Jack the fucking Ripper?”
She jerked her head down and started heaving again, more violently than before.
Wincing, Baran could do nothing for her but support her head. He’d seen so much bloodshed and suffering over the years that normally he was able to maintain a certain detachment.
Yet though he’d done his share of killing, there’d been something different in the way Druas had attacked Mary Kelly, a vicious joy that was deeply disturbing.
And then there was Jane. Watching her struggle to control her rioting stomach, he felt a twist of pity. She’d fought him with such clever bravery, it hurt to see her reduced to this helpless, sick horror.
Finally the spasms were over. She climbed wearily to her feet and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Refusing to meet his eyes, she mumbled, “Thanks.”
Baran shrugged, battling the uncomfortable impulse to put his arms around her. That, he knew, was a very bad idea. It was one thing to feel a healthy lust for her, but anything more was an emotional trap he couldn’t afford to fall into.
So he hung back as she stepped to a small counter with a basin in the center and twisted a knob. Water poured from a metal projection over the basin as she picked up a small brush and started a procedure his computer called brushing her teeth.
Finally she turned to look up at him again. Her skin was still tinted a faint, unhealthy green. “All right, I’m ready. Let’s finish looking at the recording.”
Baran frowned at her. Knowing the Xeran taste for overkill, he suspected it would only get worse. “That’s not necessary. I’ll review the rest.”
She shook her head, that delicate chin taking on a stubborn angle. “No, we need to stop this guy. He can’t be allowed to go on doing this.”
“Granted, but that’s my job.” Leaning a hip against the countertop, he studied her. “You don’t need to be involved in it. Especially considering that the trid is only going to get worse.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jane swallowed and took a deep breath. “But I have to understand this guy, what motivates him. What his M.O. is. And the only evidence we’ve got is what’s on that recording.”
“You’ll be running in here again in five minutes,” Freika said from the doorway. “He starts getting artistic next.”
“Then I’ll run,” she snapped. “And I’ll come back and I’ll watch the rest.”
Any other civilian woman he knew would have been glad to let him handle the whole bloody, revolting mess. “Jane, it’s not necessary.”
“Yes, Baran, it is. Look, you guys don’t know this time, and you don’t know this culture. You need my help, and that means I have to know as much as I can about that sick bastard.”
Baran sighed, caught between admiration for her courage and irritation at her stubbornness. “Actually, I’m more than capable of handling the hunt without your input. Whatever I need to know about your time, my computer implant can tell me.” And if the recording did get worse than what they’d seen already, she didn’t need to be exposed to any more of it. He didn’t want her nerve to break completely. Not when she was supposed to be the bait.
He frowned. What if something went wrong? A chill rippled over him as his mind instantly supplied a terrifying image of pretty, delicate Jane confronting that sadistic bastard. All her courage, all her beauty and intelligence, all destroyed, flayed away by Druas and his knife. Like Liisa.
No, he decided, straightening his shoulders. Not Jane.
This one he was going to save.