Page 51 of Kiss Across the Universe
She lowered the phone, aware that Kit was watching her closely. She dropped her gaze to her knees and let her hands and shoulders and head relax. It was easier to reach the timescape if she wasn’t tensed up.
Instead of merely touching the timescape with her mind, she went there with her whole mind…and as far as she was aware, her whole body, too. It was the way she initiated compound jumps. First, go to the timescape. Second, look for the bookmark that would be there, the bookmark that called to her, that told her where and when to go. Then let herself be drawn to the bookmark, pulled across the timescape by its call, to be delivered to a different time and place.
But this time, she merely accessed the timescape with her mind and being, and hung there, looking around. The coolness, like the soft touch of a sea breeze on a balmy afternoon, bathed her.
How had the coolness begun? She wasn’t sure. Except, the first time she had noticed it was when she had been afraid, when Iron Grey had been chasing them. She had wanted to hide from him, to hunker down while the master predator moved on…. Ah!
Even though she didn’t have a body that she could perceive while on the timescape, Alannah was merely human, and used to having a corporeal presence, so it alwaysfeltlike she was still in her body even though she couldn’t see it. So now she straightened up, as if she had risen from a hiding place and was stepping out into the light.
The coolness withdrew, almost as though she had thrown off a cloak.
Alannah withdrew from the timescape and said into the cellphone; “Can you see me on the timescape now, Aran?”
He didn’t answer for three seconds. Then, “Yes. You’re somewhere north of me. In the middle of nowhere, it feels like.”
“That’s one way to describe it,” Alannah agreed, looking up at the mountain peaks all around them, their white tips showing above the tree tops, glowing in the starlight.
“What did you do?” Aran said. “To hide?”
“I can’t explain it. But wait…” She slipped back to the timescape, this time just enough to see it there. Then she mentally hunkered down as she had earlier in the day, as if she was hiding behind a rock, and pulled a mental camouflage sheet over her. The coolness slipped over her like satin against her skin.
“And you’re gone again,” Aran breathed. “Alannah, what the hell?”
“Jesse can shout across the timescape. I guess I can hide from it,” Alannah said, withdrawing from the timescape completely.
“Well, hide from anyone on it who might be looking for you,” Aran said. “Later, we must explore this. See if you can teach me and the others.”
“Later,” Alannah agreed. “First, we have to sort this Iron Grey bastard out.”
“You sound just likeAthar,” Aran said with a chuckle. “Let me talk to Kit. Strategize.”
“I can strategize,” she said, irritated.
“You know how to walk out of wherever you are, then?”
She held her teeth together against the need to swear. Then she looked at Kit. “Back to you,” she said and tossed the phone in an arc high enough to clear the firepit.
He caught the phone and said into it; “I can walk us out. It’ll take two days. But no one will find us in the meantime.” Then he listened.
Had he heard everything Aran had said? The man had phenomenal hearing.
Kit nodded a few times. He didn’t smile. Then, “Bringing them here might increase the risk.”
Aran must have told Kit he was bringing Jesse and the kids to the house. Alannah knew that Aran’s response to the higher risk was to point out that he was the jumper, and that Jesse could shout for help, anyway, so if they were with him, the risk was considerably less than having Iron Grey come after Jesse and the kids in England, which was where they were currently living, in a three hundred year old cottage that was bursting at the seams with five children in it.
Besides, Aran could always have Jesse shout to Alex and Rafe and Sydney, and Remi, Neven and London, and have them jump to the house with little or no delay…and they were all superior fighters. All but one of them were vampires, too. They’d soon sort out Iron Grey if he dared show up at the house.
Kit nodded as Aran replied, then said, “You’re the expert. I’ll leave that side of it to you. Two days, then.”
He disconnected the phone and considered Alannah.
“Aran is bringing Jesse and the kids to the house. Possibly the rest of the family, too,” Alannah said.
“You heard that? Good.”
“I was extrapolating.” She ate a cheezie, grimaced, and put the bag aside. “What’s at the end of two days?”
He rubbed his jaw. “If you can keep up, we’ll reach the Stoney foothills.”
