Storm of Visions (36 page)

“How did he get picked to become one of the Chosen Ones?” Aaron asked.

“If he was already in communication with this dead man, he may have been able to use the dead man’s knowledge of the Chosen Ones and his own skill in controlling minds to inveigle his way into the organization,” Samuel suggested.

Aaron sat back and looked Samuel over. “The way you think is a little scary, too.”

Samuel had never looked so wicked. “I
am
a lawyer.”

Martha freshened Jacqueline’s coffee, and as she poured, she asked, “But what about this dead man? He has to have been associated with the Gypsy Travel Agency to be able to give up the code. How are we going to find him?”

“Where is he buried?” Aleksandr asked.

“I saw a street in New York. There’s a hospital, an abandoned church, and a graveyard. The only clue I have is that he can hear water dripping . . . a constant, eternal torment.” Jacqueline listened in her head, and sighed. “I can hear that water dripping right now.”

“So all we have to do is figure out who knew or
knows
the protective codes for both the Gypsy Travel Agency and this house and go looking for him in a cemetery.” Aaron obviously didn’t completely believe Jacqueline’s vision.

Jacqueline didn’t mind. She thought it was stupid herself. If only she hadn’t heard it and seen it. “There was a voice speaking in his mind, offering him a new chance at life.” She wrapped her hands around the warm cup. “All he had to do was betray the ones who had betrayed him. I recognized the voice.”

“The devil’s voice,” Irving said.

Samuel shook his head and smiled.

Irving drew himself up with all his elderly dignity. “I assure you, Mr. Faa, I am not an enfeebled old man.

I recognize the devil’s modus operandi. Offering temptation is a tradition with him.”

“Yes, it was the devil.” Jacqueline was really chilled now.

Caleb took off his jacket and wrapped it around her, engulfing her in his heat and scent, reminding her how much she had gained when she fell in love with him.

Gratefully, she took his hand.

“What is the dead man? A vampire?” Aleksandr’s voice rose incredulously. “Because my grandfather says there’s no such thing, and in this case, I’d like to believe he’s right.”

“No. It’s nothing like that.” That hadn’t even occurred to Jacqueline. “He’s not hungry for blood. He’s all human. But he’s in the dark in a tomb where nothing ever changes.”

“So in your vision, you were in the dead man’s head.” Charisma wet her lips. “I’ve been reading as much as I can of Irving’s library, trying to see if I could help you, and your visions—they’re dangerous. Only the first seer could transport herself to another setting and really be there, and only three other seers could be one with another person, and none of them could do both.”

“Dangerous.” Caleb repeated the word that had snagged his attention. “How?”

Trust him to go right to the heart of the matter.

“The other seers were all members of . . . the Others,” Charisma told them.

Caleb gave a bark of laughter. “Then that is further proof that the world is changing, because Jacqueline could never turn to evil.”

His certainty warmed Jacqueline’s heart.

“What if she gets caught in a vision?” Charisma asked. “It’s happened. People go mad.”

“Charisma, don’t worry so much.” Jacqueline leaned forward and spoke earnestly. “When I had my first vision, I was in real danger of being killed. I think Tyler was right. I think I could have been killed, and Zusane saved my life by pushing me out of the plane. But when I had that vision, I was alone and afraid. Today, when I went into the vision, I knew no matter what, Caleb loved me, and that love grounded me in the real world.”

“Awesome.” Charisma’s bracelets rattled as she applauded Jacqueline and Caleb. “So his love strengthened your gift.”

“Exactly.” Jacqueline smiled as joy burst in her. “That’s it exactly!”

Everyone in the kitchen joined in Charisma’s applause.

Caleb lifted Jacqueline’s hand in his. “I’d like you all to be the first to know—Jacqueline and I will be married as soon as the state of New York will allow.”

Now everyone came to their feet to hug and kiss. Martha and McKenna gave up their displeasure with the invaders in their kitchen, and bustled around dusting champagne flutes, popping corks, and laying out another round of exquisite hors d’oeuvres.

Jacqueline hugged Caleb, wondering how she could have been fool enough to run from him when everything she wanted . . . was here.

In her lovely soothing voice, Isabelle said, “Jacqueline and Caleb have won us our first victory. We’re starting to become a cohesive group, and I am so glad. But we have to decide what our next move will be. We have decisions to make and there will be times when we must make them.”

Caleb pulled Jacqueline onto the bench. “Isabelle is right.”

Everyone shuffled into their seats.

McKenna and Martha set the hors d’oeuvres on the table.

Isabelle remained standing. “I think it would be best if we first voted on a president, and then used Robert’s Rules of Order to direct the meetings.”

“She’s right. We need a leader,” Aaron said.

“It should be Isabelle.” Samuel projected an authority as weighty as any judge’s.

Everyone looked between him and Isabelle.

“Isabelle,” he repeated. “She has been trained to run her sorority, to raise funds for charities, and to organize elaborate parties in honor of politicians and bankers. She never raises her voice, she never breaks a sweat, and she never fails. Is there anyone here who would resent taking orders from Isabelle?”

Aaron scratched his chin and declared, “I’m good with it.”

“Me, too,” Aleksandr said.

“That is too cool!” Charisma leaped to her feet and threw her arms around Isabelle.

Jacqueline beamed at Samuel. If he kept this up, she might come to like him. “See? I knew we could do this.”

“You’re warm and dry and fed, surrounded by safety and by each other, and your first adventure came out well.” Irving poured the first flutes of champagne and passed them down the table. “Are you prepared for the adversity that follows? The Others are better manned, more learned, and so far, they have defeated us in almost every way. I promise, until we find the prophecy that will give us direction, matters will only get worse—and even then, there’s no guarantee of improvement.”

“Irving’s right. To merely survive will take all our skills and dedication.” Aaron had never appeared more serious, more intense.

Jacqueline had to speak. “It’s going to take something more important. I met you all only a few days ago. I didn’t know you. I didn’t want to know you. I didn’t want to be part of this mission. But as I stood outside the chalk circle, I felt something . . . a blast of heat, and the cool wind of change, and I knew I couldn’t be a coward. I had to step inside. With you. In the days since, I’ve gotten to know you all.” She looked at Isabelle and Charisma. “I like some of you.” She looked at Samuel. “Not all of you.”

“Thanks.” Samuel leaned back, unfazed.

She looked at Caleb. “And I love you.”

Caleb kissed her once, hard.

She continued. “But now I know one thing. When we stand alone, we are all targets for our enemies. But if we stand together, we can defeat them.”

As she spoke, she stripped off her gloves. “We are only six—some call that the devil’s number—and until the seventh makes an appearance, I swear on my soul I will watch your back. I want to know that you will watch mine.” She put out her right hand, tattoo clear and bright and healed. Then she offered her left hand, with its newly etched mark of power.

A collective gasp went around the table.

“Yes. This is proof. Things can happen for the better.” She placed her right hand on the table, palm up. “So will you swear on your soul and everything you hold holy to be true to us, to the Chosen Ones?”

Six hands came out and the palms slapped, one by one, on top of hers.

She looked toward Caleb. “You, too. And you, Irving. And Martha. And McKenna.”

The two servants stiffened and looked around, uncertain of their place in this new order.

“It’s really not proper,” McKenna said.

“I have no gift,” Martha agreed.

“And we are not seven, as we should be, but only six,” Samuel said.

With the vigor that accompanied her every word, Charisma said, “Yet we can’t sit idly by while we wait for the seventh to show her—or his—face. We have to forge ahead in a new direction.”

“We have never needed our allies as much as we do now, and you all know more than we do. We depend on you to tell us the traditions of the Chosen Ones, and to be tolerant when we are forced to make new ones. Please do come.” Isabelle was soft-spoken, yet her authority could not be denied.

Martha placed her soft, wrinkled hand on the pile; then McKenna placed his atop hers. Irving’s long, dark fingers were next, then Caleb with his hand palm down, and Jacqueline’s left hand atop them all.

It was as if she closed an electrical circuit. Something warm, bright, and hot flashed from the mark on Jacqueline’s hand up through everyone’s palms and back through her.

They all jumped.

They laughed, and slowly, one by one, they pulled their hands back.

“It’s a sign.” Irving raised his champagne flute in a salute. “We are doing something right.”

Everyone raised their glasses.

“Because of you, Jacqueline.” Caleb caught her bare hand and kissed her palm. “Because of you.”

 

Not far away, in a private New York hospital, a nurse’s aide bent over the comatose form of Gary White. She bent his legs, back and forth, trying to slow the atrophy that ate at his muscles. She rolled him from his side to his back, trying to ease the bedsores that had formed under his hips and spine. She switched the empty IV bag for a full one, checked to make sure the drip was the same steady drip as it had been for the last four years, delivering fluids and nutrients to a hopeless patient.

As she prepared to leave, to finish her rounds, something caught her attention. A movement from the bed.

She turned toward the patient, sure she was mistaken.

But for the first time in four years, his eyes were open. He was staring at her, and she froze, mesmerized by his gaze.

Slowly, using muscles that were thin and wasted, he worked himself into a sitting position. Balefully, he glared at the dripping IV bottle. Viciously, he ripped the tubes from his arm. “Get me my clothes. I’m getting out of here.”

She backed away, groped for the door, and ran shouting down the corridor. “Doctor. Doctor! Come at once. Come and see. A miracle has happened!”

“I’m looking for the antiquities librarian. I have an appointment. I’m Aaron Eagle.”

“Yes, Mr. Eagle, I’ve got you on the schedule.” The library’s administrative assistant was gorgeous, lush, and fully recognized his eligibility. She smiled into his eyes as she pushed the book toward him. “If you would sign in here.” She pointed, handed him a pen, and managed to brush his fingers with hers. “And here.” She pointed again. “Then if you don’t mind, we’d like your fingerprint. Just your left thumb.”

“I’m always amazed at the security required to visit antiquities.” Aaron smiled at her as he pressed his thumb onto the glass set into the desk. A light from beneath scanned his thumb.

“The Arthur W. Nelson Fine Arts Library antiquities department contains some of the rarest manuscripts and scrolls in the world, and we take security very seriously because of it.”

“So if I made my living stealing antiquities, you’d know.”

“Exactly.”

“If I’d been caught.”

“Thieves always eventually get caught.” She had him stand on the line and took his photograph.

“I would certainly hope so.” He stepped onto a grate that shook him hard, then through an explosives screener that puffed air around him.

She riffled through the piles of paper on her desk, compared them to the information on her computer screen, and smiled with satisfaction. “But you seem to be exactly who you say you are.”

“I do seem to be, don’t I?” He leaned back over the grate. “Perhaps we could discuss your job tonight over drinks?”

“I’d like that.”

“I’ll get your number on the way out, and we can arrange a time and place.”

She nodded and smiled.

He smiled back, headed down the corridor, and as he walked, he peeled off his thumbprint and slipped the micromillimeter-thin plastic into his pocket.

“Just take the elevator down to the bottom floor,” she called after him.

“Thank you, I will. I’ve been here before.”

“That’s right. You have.” Her voice faded.

The corridor was plain, painted industrial gray, and the elevator was stainless steel on the outside and pure mid-twentieth-century technology on the inside. The wood paneling was obviously plastic, the button covers were cracked and the numbers worn, and the mechanism creaked as it descended at a stately rate.

But this was the Arthur W. Nelson Fine Arts Library, and their funding didn’t include upkeep on nonessen tials like a new elevator for the seldom-used antiquities department. They were lucky to have updated security in the last ten years, and that occurred only when it was discovered one of the librarians had been systematically removing pages from the medieval manuscripts and selling them for a fortune to collectors. If he hadn’t decided to get greedy and remove a Persian scroll, he might still be in business, but Dr. Hall had been the antiquities librarian for about a hundred and fifty years and he caught on to that right away.