Kendra pressed her ear against the wall to hear the conversation on the other side. She recognized one of the voices. It belonged to Akhom.
“You told me the old man would kill them both, but no, he had to toy with them first.”
A softer second voice replied, but Kendra couldn’t make it out. She moved forward a few paces, better.
“--just have to go myself.” Kendra recognized Xenopoulos’ voice.
Go where? Kendra’s heart rate increased.
“You have found the way to travel in time?” Akhom asked, confirming Kendra’s fear.
“Yes. We don’t need Tanagawa anymore. In fact she’s a threat to our plan.”
“I will kill her.” Akhom sounded happy.
“No. I have a better plan. When I’m done, neither she nor her research will ever have existed.” Xenopoulos laughed, and Akhom joined in.
What?! Kendra heard them kiss, and was so surprised that she lost her balance and staggered a little.
“Down boy,” Xenopoulos said in a playful tone. “Time for that later. We need to get to the lab. I’ll take care of Tanagawa right now.”
“You’ll take care of Alex and Regis next?”
“Yes, Love. The vampires in this country will look only to you. We’ll fix the world after that. Let’s go.”
Kendra flattened herself against the wall behind the support beam a few feet away, and prayed that the lab was in the opposite direction. If Xenopoulos and Akhom walked passed her, she would be discovered. The door hissed open. Kendra stopped breathing.
“What will you do with Tanagawa?” Akhom asked.
“You have your methods of dealing with troublesome beings, and I have mine,” Xenopoulos said, her voice fading a bit with distance.
Kendra was in luck, except for what sounded like a death threat. With Akhom’s acute hearing in mind, she waited a few seconds before she drew one quiet breath, then another. With both hands over her pounding heart, she tip-toed after the giant and the spy.
To follow a being with preternatural hearing was no easy matter. Kendra had to stay so far behind that soon the choice of which way to go at each juncture became a tortured guess. She left her shoes at the first one, and adopted the habit of racing ahead on the balls of her stockinged feet to discover whether she had picked the right corridor. With the strong suspicion that she guessed better the less she thought about it, Kendra soon developed a pattern, and turned her thoughts to Xenopoulos. The spy clearly meant to go after LB. What would she do with the girl--seduce her? Get her hooked on some drug? Kidnap her? Or--Kendra shuddered--will she kill her?
Kendra had stopped walking, realized it, and ran to the next juncture. That guess failed her. She ran down the passage to her left as far as she dared, then stopped and forced herself to listen--nothing. She raced back to the juncture and took the path to the right, nothing. Kendra spun back toward the crossways. Her throat swelled with the fear that she might at any minute disappear from the present timeline. She choked back the sob of frustration that struggled to burst from her throat and broke into a run.
She hadn’t taken more than three strides when a hum came through the wall to her right--a jump machine! With her right ear inches from the wall, Kendra sidestepped quickly along the wall like a basketball player guarding an opponent. The hum was loudest near the far support beam. She backed up a few steps, then walked right at that spot wall. The hum stopped at the same moment that the door slid open. Xenopoulos must have jumped out of the present. Kendra didn’t see her anywhere. She took one step toward the computer. Akhom moved to cut her off, but Kendra was ready. She tossed the auto-return stick at him. Instinctively he caught it, but kept coming.
Kendra dodged. She had to stay out of his grasp for three seconds. One thousand one--she made it to the far side of the bench and shifted to keep it between them. With a growl of impatience, Akhom leapt over it easily. One thousand two--Kendra dove under a table. Akhom threw it across the lab. One thousand three--Kendra slid under a desk. Akhom lifted the desk, and disappeared with it.
Kendra raced to the computer, found a mark on the floor, and with no time to check anything properly, pushed the button on her fob. She landed on her feet in a bathroom stall with short walls--surely not. She slammed out of the stall in time to see the door of her elementary school’s bathroom close behind Xenopoulos.
The spy was easy to catch. She carried a large duffle bag, a wiggling duffle bag. The moans and grunts that came from the bag were not loud enough to be heard in the classrooms, where teachers droned on behind closed doors.
“Help!” Kendra shouted. “Kidnapper! Help!” She tackled Xenopoulos, who swore as she crashed to the vinyl-covered floor.
Doors slammed open. Teachers ringed the two time travelers tangled on the floor. Xenopoulos still clutched the duffle bag.
“Get the bag away from her and open it, quick!” Kendra shouted to the stunned faces above her.
The adults shifted nervously and began to ask questions. The kids did better. Two boys darted between the teachers and pulled the bag away from Xenopoulos just in time.
The next thing Kendra knew she was back in the spy’s lab at American Missile with her arms wrapped tightly around Xenopoulos’ legs, and an oscilloscope pressed into her solar plexus. Strong hands lifted her off the oscilloscope and away from the spy. Kendra spun in the arms that held her to look up at Alex’s smiling face.
“Get her fob,” she said urgently, remembering at the last minute not to shout.
Alex nodded to William, who held Xenopoulos. His hand closed over the spy’s just as Xenopoulos pressed the fob. The spy’s body shimmered and dimmed. An anguished cry came from her beautiful throat. The sound faded strangely. After several seconds William grunted with surprised and lurched forward, arms empty. Xenopoulos had vanished.
“Damn!” Kendra jumped out of Alex’s arms, and raced to the spot on the floor.
“Wait,” Alex said, his gaze fixed on William, who jerked and lurched like a marionette on the strings of a mad puppeteer.
Kendra and Alex stared, dumbfounded.
“She’s in here--” William forced the words out in a strangled voice.
“Aaaaaaa!” The long wail came from William’s throat. Alex and William covered their ears, but in the next second William’s hands tore at his own face. “Get me out of this bloodsucking demon!” The feminine alto tones of the cry might have been funny in other circumstances, but just then the hell of the joined form in front of them washed over Kendra and Alex as each imagined being caught within or forced to host an enemy. Which was worse? Kendra glanced at Alex and saw the same question in his eyes.
Xenopoulos succeeded in tearing off a chunk of William’s face. That was enough to pull Alex from his shock. He restrained William’s arms.
Kendra slapped William’s face. “Snap out of it!” she shouted to Xenopoulos, somewhere inside William. The vampires flinched, and covered their ears again.
“You’re alive. I suggest you adapt,” Kendra said, wagging her finger in William’s face, “and be nice to William. He’s a good vampire.”
William relaxed a little in Alex’s grasp. The wound in his cheek had shrunk. “You can let me go,” he said in his own voice. “I think she fainted or something.”
Alex released him, and William took a few trial steps, then stretched and rolled his shoulders.
“Think of all the women in the history of the world. Why couldn’t I be possessed by Princess Grace, or Madonna?” he asked with a wry grin.
Kendra and Alex did laugh then.
