Spartan Resistance (21 page)

“Says they’re honorable war wounds.”

“Trophies,” Marley reinterpreted. She hesitated. “I’ve heard….”

“Heard what?”

“What’s it like, being bitten?” she asked curiously. “I’ve heard that there’s something in their bite that….” She drew in a breath, feeling awkward. “That makes sex incredible,” she finished in a rush.

Gawaine looked down at his hands. “There is.” He was smiling to himself and the warmth of his expression was a better answer than his confirmation.

Then he reached for the remote and turned up on the volume on the screen. They had been watching the news station while eating breakfast, until Gawaine had asked with a touch of bashfulness if Marley could tend to his back once more. The TV had been forgotten, but now with the sound turned back on, it reminded her that there was a world outside the walls of the Agency, a world that didn’t like vampires all that much.

Gabriel was on the screen.

“Oh lord,” Marley whispered.

“Shush. This guy is brilliant.” Gawaine tugged his shirt back into place absently, all his attention on the screen.

“You’re joking!”

“Sick, but brilliant,” Gawaine said. “He knows exactly what buttons to press and how to press them. No wonder they keep giving him free air time. Shush for a bit.”

This was no press conference. The lighting was dim, making it hard to see behind Gabriel. He was sitting in a chair of some sort with a high back and lots of room. It made Marley think of a throne.

Whoever was holding the camera was an amateur. The camera was steady enough, but they didn’t pan smoothly. But it didn’t matter. The subject was more than sufficient to keep her attention.

Gabriel was speaking slowly into the camera.

“He looks sick,” Marley murmured softly. “Look at the way his face is drooping under his eye.”

“He doesn’t look as pretty as he did last time,” Gawaine said.

Which was true. Last time, Gabriel had looked vaguely like an Italian video star, with limpid eyes and dark Latin good looks. That impression was gone. His jaw was thicker than Marley remembered, his nose was bigger and lopsided, too. His eyes, though, were as mesmerizing as she remembered.

“...you believe we are vanquished, that the short-lived victory of the vampires was all it would take to defeat us. You were wrong.”

“Shit,” Gawaine breathed. “I hope they’re watching this.”

“They will be.”

“I will not fill your ears with empty rhetoric. Not today,” Gabriel said, then paused.

“He’s weak,” Marley said. “He’s resting in between sentences. That’s why he’s talking so slow.”

“Gabriel weak? That’s not what Kieran said about him.”

The most powerful psychic in the world
was the way Kieran had described it. As Kieran’s own skills were considerable, he had both the authority and the experience to measure Gabriel’s talent.

“Something has exhausted him,” Marley said as Gabriel opened his mouth to speak once more. The camera jiggled and steadied once more.

“Today I will demonstrate why acts such as those of the Chronometric Conservation Agency and their allies last year do not go unrewarded.”

A chill touched Marley’s neck, making her shiver. “This isn’t good.”

Gabriel smiled and it was a wretched expression. The left side of his face stayed still, the lips drooping, while the other side of his mouth opened to reveal yellowed and decaying teeth. It wasn’t a smile. It was a rictus of hatred.

“Bob,” Gabriel said calmly. “Are you listening to me very carefully?”

“Who’s Bob?” Gawaine asked.

“Bob,” Gabriel said. “Take a walk.”

The feed switched instantly to black. Then the studio anchor flickered back into place.

“Bob, take a walk?” Gawaine repeated, sitting up and looking at her.

From the floor above them, someone screamed and they both jerked their chins up to look at the ceiling.

“Robert! Robert, stop!”

From out on the street came more screams and cries of panic.

Horror swept through her as Marley realized what Gabriel had done. “It’s not just a single Bob,” she said, racing for the door. “It’s
every
Bob!”

She heard Gawaine thudding after her as she ran for the stairs at the end of the corridor. People were opening their doors, checking to see what the sounds of panic were about. Checking to see if they were in trouble.

Some of the doors shut once they figured they were fine. Others stayed in their open doorways, watching them run past.

At the stairs, the volume of the cries and the shouting jumped. Marley stepped onto the landing and leaned to look up through the railings to the next floor. Gawaine climbed halfway up the flight. Then he turned and looked.

Someone was coming down the stairs, their shoes loud on the old linoleum. There was more than one person on the stairs, though. Marley listened, trying to sort through the babble of voices, the hysterical crying and the fear that both generated.

Gawaine could see more clearly than her and his eyes narrowed as he watched. He moved back down a step at a time, as the babbling and noise came closer. Then Marley could see what he was watching.

There was a man in the center of four people, a woman and teenaged kids. The man was walking down the steps at a steady pace, despite all four of his family trying to physically halt him. One of the kids was hanging onto his leg, trying to anchor him down, weeping as she clung, but it didn’t change his gait.

His face was placid, completely neutral. Neither the cries of his wife or the pleading of his kids was stopping him. He put one foot in front of the other, then the next.

This was just one Bob. Marley realized that similar things were happening to other Bobs, who were obeying Gabriel and walking. Just walking. Nothing was stopping them.

“Gawaine, try hitting him. Like a hysteric,” Marley said quickly, raising her voice above the noise. Other people were stepping into the stairwell now, to see what was happening.

Gawaine nodded and moved aside as Bob stepped past, zombie-like in the rise and fall of his feet. As he passed, Gawaine pushed the woman aside and swung his fist in a round-house. It landed clean on the man’s jaw, making him stagger. He missed his step, then tottered down two more before his balance returned and he stood upright. Then he began to climb down again.

Marley moved out of Bob’s way, studying his eyes. “Hypnosis?” she wondered. Hypnosis was an ancient mental technique, but worked very well on a subject who accepted suggestions easily. But Gabriel had not selected which Bob. It had been a universal command.

“Some sort of psychic hypnosis?” Gawaine asked, climbing down to the landing once more. They watched Bob and his alarmed family descend the next flight.

“It must be,” Marley said slowly. “Come on.” She turned back to the corridor.

“Agency?” Gawaine asked.

“I have a feeling they’re going to come for us.”

Back in the apartment, Marley picked up her medical bag and stuck her head through her bedroom door. Karolina was nursing her baby and looked up at Marley placidly.

“Did you hear what is happening?” Marley asked her.

Karolina nodded, her eyes grave.

“We’ll be back,” Marley assured her. “But we’ll lock up everything tight in the meantime.”

Thank you
. The woman’s voice sounded in Marley’s head.

Gawaine was synchronizing his computers and stuffing boards into his battered satchel.

Then Marley became aware of a sound that was normally part of the background noise of their neighborhood.

“Oh, Christ,” Gawaine said, looking up. “A train.”

They both hurried to the window over his desk and looked out. Bob was still walking. He had reached the corner and had turned south, which would take him across the train tracks and past the front of the stadium.

Marley pressed her hand against the glass, as if that might urge him back, or forward faster.

“It’s going to be close,” Gawaine breathed.

Bob marched steadily and now his family was beyond hysterical. They could see and hear the approaching train, too. They began to tug on his arms and legs. His wife climbed onto his back, trying to bring him down to the ground. But she was slender, underweight for her height as so many people in Hammerside were. Her efforts were in vain.

“Knock him out,” Gawaine begged.

“They won’t be able to,” Marley whispered, horrified.

One of the kids tried. He picked up a big stone, bigger than his own fist. But he hesitated.

“Could you do it?” Marley asked Gawaine.

“If it was the only way to stop someone I loved from stepping in front of a train? You bet I could. But that kid is maybe thirteen and that’s his dad.”

“We’re too far away. We won’t get there in time,” Marley said.

“Look! There’s Basit from the café,” Gawaine said, pointing.

The short owner of the coffee shop and bar on the corner was running after Bob now. Two of his staff followed him. When they reached Bob, they all piled onto him, using pure bodyweight to hold him down. Bob disappeared under a small hill of bodies.

Marley drew in a shaky breath. “That will hold him until the train passes.”

“And then what?” Gawaine asked. “He starts walking again?”

“I guess...yes.” She didn’t like the answer.

“How long until he reaches another train, or a car, or a semi ballistic landing just as he walks across the strip? When does he get to stop?”

Marley didn’t answer him because she didn’t have answers. She was almost relieved when one of Rhydder’s lieutenants appeared in the cleared-out corner of the kitchen and announced he had come to take them back to the Agency.

Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2265 A.D.

Cáel stayed in a corner far out of the way of everyone who had legitimate work to do in the command center and watched the controlled chaos. There were many screens in the room, in a long row marching around the walls, plus the table itself had been divided into dozens of screens. Every screen was jacked into a different net feed and from every corner of the world, reports were coming in of Bobs and Roberts walking...somewhere.

Kieran was also watching the screens with hawk-like scrutiny, his thick arms crossed. Cáel stepped carefully around everyone else and up to his side. “Can you stop this?” he asked quietly.

Kieran grimaced. “I could probably reach into the minds of one of them and wrench it back out of Gabriel’s control, but there must be millions of Bobs in the world. I can’t halt all of them. That is something he counted on. Sheer numbers of lemming-like Bobs to make his point. We’re lucky that Bob is an Anglo-Saxon name. He could have picked something more universal and it wouldn’t be just the countries in the western alliance with people taking walks. But I think that was his intention, too.”

“It will split popular opinion in the Assembly,” Cáel murmured. “The countries least affected will have the least interest in dealing with him.”

“That’s another thing,” Kieran said. He looked around the room, then at Cáel. “I’m assuming that he’s using some sort of mental domination for this. It makes the most sense. But his reach! It’s
global
. I’ve never heard of anyone having that sort of mental power. Neither has Pritti.”

Cáel blinked. “You talk to Pritti?”

Kieran gave a shrug. “I have all her memories. It makes me think of her in the present tense.”

It was the first time that Kieran had ever revealed to Cáel, or to anyone that he was aware of, details about the power and expertise Pritti had passed on in her dying moments. “That must make life interesting,” Cáel said mildly.

Kieran grinned. “I’m just thankful Demyan has disappeared for a good bit. It’s giving me a chance to sort it all out. I imagine I’ll be looking at him in a slightly different way when he does get back.”

“I don’t imagine that will be reciprocal. You don’t look anything like Pritti.”

“Da! Da!” The piping voice of a child caught their attention and they both turned to look. Tally was just inside the main doors, baby Jack in her arms. He was leaning forward, his arms outstretched toward Rob, who was standing at one of the desks along the wall.

Jack was barely a baby anymore. He was two years old, robust and cheerful as only a child that is doted upon and showered with attention from dozens of aunts and uncles could be. His hair was still baby-fine, but thick and tousled. He had his father’s eyes and his mother’s firm chin.

Rob picked him up out of Tally’s arms and hugged him, while Jack chattered with barely-formed words. Tally looked around the room, which had come to a general halt as they watched the child of vampires gabble and smile. Jack rarely failed to lift the spirit of a room and he wasn’t failing this time either.

“Sorry, everyone, but Rob hasn’t been home for nearly seventy hours. Jack was fretting,” Tally said.

Brenden clapped Rob on the shoulder. “Go and play family,” he said. “We can cover this for a few hours.”

Jack reached out and clapped Brenden on his stomach, the only part of him the boy could reach. His tiny hand paddled Brenden’s shirt the same way Brendan had dropped his hand onto his father’s shoulder. The big man looked down, astonished. He raised his brows.

“Aye, definitely time to provide some attention,” Rob agreed and bounced Jack, making him gurgle happily. He settled Jack into the crook of his arm and pulled Tally so that she was tucked under the other. “I’ll be back later t’ catch up.”

They left the control center, passing Deonne at the door. Deonne nodded at Nayara where she stood at the top of the table, then at Ryan. She glanced around the room and her gaze paused for a moment on Cáel before moving on.

“You can speak freely,” Ryan said.

Deonne pressed her hands against the edge of the table. “It’s bad, of course. He specifically named vampires, which puts you at the forefront of everyone’s attention. The media have already pointed out that no vampires were touched by Gabriel’s spell—”

“They’re calling it a spell?” Ryan asked sharply.

“Some, yes,” Deonne said. “An Irish stream was the first place I heard it, but there have been others.”