Kendra followed Alex to his room at the back of the second floor. It had no windows, of course, yet the entire room was a riot of color. Every square inch was covered with a rug, tapestry, or banner of one sort or another. Embroidered coats-of-arm on fields of yellow, blue, red, or green punctuated the scenes shown on the many tapestries: ladies, each with a retinue, rested by brooks or oceans, or sat side-saddle upon horses brown or white; fawns danced in a circle around a unicorn; knights jousted or laid siege, and kings, stern or merry, ruled each with or without a queen at his side. Kendra’s favorite tapestry seemed quite new. In it Queen Elizabeth I watched over a harbor full of ships.
“Have you met her?” Kendra asked and pointed to Queen Elizabeth.
Alex laughed as he unbuckled the wide belt he wore over his jerkin. “Only a monarch from a foreign land may be introduced to our Queen. I am not a royal, nor have I been presented at court. Vampires do not seek notice.”
He seemed much more relaxed with his belt off, but over-dressed with the jerkin hanging in a way that masked his wide shoulders and slender waist…she’d hardly formed the thought before Alex pulled the jerkin over his head and tossed it on a chair.
Kendra laughed.
“What amuses you so?”
“Your puffy shorts--“ Kendra gasped and pointed until she recovered enough to apologize. “Sorry. I’ve seen pictures of the costumes from this time,” she gestured to her own clothing, “but I…in my time I suspect you would not be caught dead in those things.”
For a moment Alex looked puzzled, then he looked down at the short hose he wore over the netherhose that covered his lower legs like thick thigh-high stockings, and burst into laughter.
“I am dead,” he squeaked out, then laughed some more.
Eventually they stopped laughing. Alex reached for the waistband of his puffy hose, as if to take them off.
“Wait!” Kendra stopped him, panicked. Did Elizabethan men wear boxers, or was she about to see him naked? Better the puffy shorts.
“Ah, yes,” Alex smiled, but kept his hands on the fastenings at his waist, teasing her. “The modest maiden.”
Kendra felt a most inconvenient tingle. She ignored it. “If we’re going to save Regis and stop Akhom, then we need a plan.”
Alex, suddenly sober, tossed his jerkin off the room’s only chair and pulled the chair around to face the bed. He gestured for her to take it, while he sat on the bed.
“American Missile will send their henchmen to this time to kill you and the other vampires.”
“If these henchmen differ, as you do, from people here, then we will be able to find them.”
“They will blend in better than I do, and they will hunt you in the day,” Kendra said thinking aloud. “Can you live in groups and sleep in shifts so that at least one of you is on watch at all times?”
“Many of us prefer to live alone or with a lover. Groups attract attention.”
“Nevertheless, where possible, it would be safer to form teams. Can you get word to your brothers?”
Alex nodded. “It will take a few weeks for me to get word to Regis. The rest of his family will spread the news. In a year all the vampires known to us will have been warned.
“A year?! You may all be dead in a year.” Kendra sighed. “You must vary your activities from night to night. Do not be predictable.”
Alex nodded.
“If necessary, I will return with more of these.” Kendra drew the auto-return unit that LB had designed. She put it on the table near him.
“What is it?”
“Just press the button and put it on a henchman within three seconds. It will return him to a future ahead of my time. That will give us some time in my timeline to figure out what to do.”
“What do you mean when you say, ‘If necessary’? Is the necessity of your return here not a foregone conclusion?”
“No, it’s not. Each time I visit the past my present--our present--changes.” Kendra pulled from her bodice tightly folded papers bound with a rubber band. “Here is a copy of the equation you wrote--will write--to describe time travel, and here is the one that I use to jump.” She unfolded the three sheets of paper and smoothed them on the bed.
Alex looked at them. “I do not understand these scribbles,” he said, frustrated.
“You will. When we met in the future you told me you studied math and the stars starting now.”
“I did read one of the tomes in the library at King’s College after your first departure, but failed to grasp its meaning,” he admitted.
“Hire a tutor until you do. As soon as possible, please work on how to send vampires back in time. If I don’t figure that out in four more days, then Akhom will bind you in the sunlight.”
Alex winced, then nodded. “What will you do?”
“American Missile has a device that allows them to sense electrons that have been altered by time travel. We need to steal it, or at least replicate it. How many vampires in this time could you recruit to watch for the henchmen from American Missile?”
“Regis and half my brothers will be able to bear the knowledge you bring, say twelve of us.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Why do you wish to save vampires?” he asked, eyes narrowed with suspicion. “We prey on you.”
“Logic demands that we preserve all species. We cannot foresee the consequences of extinction.”
“No more than that?” Alex asked, and took her hands in each of his.
Kendra shivered, and it was not only a response to the chill in his touch. He really is so much more than smart, dead and handsome.
Alex took her in his arms, and kissed her for a long time. As the kiss went on, his lips warmed and Kendra enjoyed their slip and gentle tugs even more. His tongue, however, was too cold. She broke their embrace.
“Two more things--”
“Must you always think?”
“If it keeps us alive in the future, then yes. When regis builds his house in California in the eighteen hundreds, make sure he includes a secret means of communication from the conference room to the lab, something that not even Akhom could find.”
Alex nodded. “The second request?”
Kendra smiled. “I need to bring something back to my time, something that will convince my guards that I was here.”
Alex thought for a moment, then grinned wolfishly. “Do these two have anything to do with the stench on your outer wrappings?”
“They do,” said Kendra, intrigued.
“Go fetch the rest of your robes. I shall have your proof when I return.” He turned toward the back door.
“Remember that I bring this proof to my lab, and we haven’t perfected landings yet,” she cautioned.
