Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Coming Home ❯ 43 ( Chapter 43 )

43

"Eddies in the space-time continuum!"

Over the next few days, we worked our way inland, leaving behind the stink and chaos of the docks in exchange for steadily increasing crowds. Along the way, I figured out how to use the new camera Brad had stashed in my bag while he accumulated newspapers and I accumulated random photographs and mental noise. Several times an hour, I checked to make sure my shields were working properly. So far, they were damn near right again. Maybe that time spent with Yohji had done me more good than I knew.

With a pang I wondered if I would ever see him again. I heaved a sigh and reminded myself that I was with my team, where I belonged.

(Does anyone truly belong anywhere, Schuldig? Where do you want to be?)

"You all right?"

I looked up. Brad was frowning at me, clearly waiting for a reply. "Yeah, I'm fine." The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I realized I'd just lied to him. I couldn't be fine if I had no clue where I was, or when: time had just skipped a beat.

"As I was saying," Brad continued, though I had no idea what he'd been talking about, "I want each of you to go through your bags and discard anything you don't absolutely need. Whatever we don't need, we sell." He paused to adjust his glasses, a faint smile touching his lips. "We'll do this over a few days, as we travel. I want a nice, random spread of junk. Nagi, I will need you to do a large part of this, I'm afraid. You can pass for a runaway. I know you find it distasteful, but it is necessary to our escape."

"I will do whatever you need me to do, Crawford," Nagi stated with a hint of wounded pride.

That's right, we were in a small hotel suite somewhere in China. We'd been here a few days at least. Brad had said something about activity in Japan, they were trying to track us down…

I found my attention wandering again. Reflexively I checked my shields; no, I wasn't under attack, and I wasn't exhausted. Maybe it was boredom?

"Schuldig, are you in this discussion or not?" This time, Brad wasn't frowning. He looked genuinely concerned. ::What's wrong?::

::Jet lag?:: Aloud I said, "Sorry, I guess I'm just tired."

"Okay, meeting's over, then." Brad stood and stretched. "Get some sleep," he said, more to me than to the others. "We're going to be busy for the next few days, I want you to be well rested."

"Do you want company?" I asked as Brad headed for the larger of the two bedrooms. I asked, though I knew what he would say. I just couldn't give up.

Brad paused. I could see his jaw tighten. "No, Schuldig."

Farf curled up in the large wicker chair, and Nagi slipped into the smaller bedroom and shut the door, leaving me with the tiny sofa yet again. No wonder I was fried, no one over 5'3" could sleep on the damn thing. Yet Brad had assigned the other bed to Nagi, which I wasn't about to argue with. The kid needed rest if he was going to recover fully and regain use of his powers.

I folded myself onto the loveseat and tried to get comfortable. Every little sound sliced through my head, startling me out of any real sleep. I resigned myself to dozing fitfully, and hoping tomorrow would find my head a little better attached than it had been of late.

A noise like the whine of an injured animal roused me from unexpected slumber; my mind became alert before I even realized I was awake. From Brad's bedroom came another whimper, then mumbled words, growing louder. I crossed the distance to his room without thinking and stood by his bed, uncertain what to do now that I was actually here.

Brad's eyes were tight shut, and his head lolled from side to side on the sweat-soaked pillow. His mouth moved, forming silent words as he gripped the sheets so tightly his knuckles went white and the tendons on his hands stood out in sharp relief.

I strongly considered reaching out to his mind, to try waking him up from the inside. I'd done it before, but it was risky, and I hated going into sleeping minds. Not knowing what he was dreaming about put me at the disadvantage - by the looks of things, Brad would certainly come up fighting, and I'd be too disoriented to be useful.

"Nnno," Brad moaned, the sound drawn out. I wasn't sure if he was actually saying "no" or if that was part of another word. He mumbled some incoherent sounds; I couldn't even tell if they were words and if so what language they were in. Then, a choked-off shout: "No! Please, no! Nando!"

I had to do something, but the last time I'd tried I'd gotten punched for my effort. Looking around frantically, I saw a half-full glass of water on the table. I grabbed it and flung its contents at his face.

Brad let out a yell and sat bolt upright, his eyes wide and staring. He held onto the covers and sat, panting, for several seconds before focusing on me and snarling, "Schuldig! What the hell?!"

"You were dreaming," I stated, standing well out of reach, arms folded across my chest. "You were talking in your sleep."

His mouth closed in a thin line and he looked away from me. I could almost hear his mental shields slamming shut. "It's nothing."

"Uh huh." I didn't move.

Brad regained a measure of calm and then asked, "Did I wake you up?"

"No, I couldn't sleep. You gonna tell me about it - this time?"

"Drop it."

Striding back toward the bed, I jabbed an accusing finger at him and growled, "Look, if it's something important, I need to know! Just like you need to know what's going on with -"

"Drop. It."

A mixture of pain and anger colored his shields. Beyond those, I couldn't read anything. "Fine. Good night, then. Sorry to have bothered you."

He lay back down, shifting away from the sweat-damp bedding. "Good night."

Bowing my head in defeat, I retreated to the couch. From the wicker chair, one golden eye gleamed in the faint light. As I sank down onto my makeshift bed, Far whispered, "Eddies in the space-time continuum."

I sighed. "Yes, and this is his sofa. You've said that before, and I still don't know what the hell you're talking about."

The tiny lamp of his eye winked out.

I reclined sideways on the loveseat, my legs stretched out on the cushions, and tried to make sense of what had just happened. I knew Brad could get nasty nightmares from time to time, but this one seemed unusually intense, and it was a repeater. The horrible wailing from that other time blended in with his words this night, making a grotesque Noh drama I couldn't understand. If I could just figure out what he'd been saying… It had sounded vaguely Japanese, so I tried to remember words that sounded like "nando". Something like "what" or "how many," or something like that. I snarled to myself in frustration. Japanese was a perverse language with too many goddamned homonyms for my sanity.

Far's non-sequitur echoed in my head, becoming strangely logical in hindsight. Brad's dreams could be of any time, future or past. Maybe that's what was going on now. But, something in the future? Or, something in the past…

Moved by sudden memory, I vaulted off the lumpy cushions and grabbed my travel bag. I reached inside, groped past my clothes and CDs, and grinned as my fingers touched paper. The battered little tourist dictionary might help, or it might not, but at least it was something. I took the worn paperback over closer to the lamp and flipped through it.

Reaching the appropriate pages, I groaned. Just as I'd thought, there were at least six possible translations for something that sounded like "nando". I frowned then; Brad had pronounced it wrong, with a flat "A" like his own name. He usually wasn't so careless. Still, this was the only thing I could think of at three in the morning, so I clung to it for all it was worth.

If I'd heard him correctly, he could have been saying "how many times" or "how often", but neither of those made sense to me as the keystone of a nightmare. Could be a variation of "what," that might make sense but it told me nothing useful.

A little further down the page, another meaning caught my attention. I had to read it over a few times before it registered. Then I set the book down with a shudder.

"Closet…"