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.
Chapter Twelve
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.”
“I heard one, too,” Nayara said and tapped the screen in front of her.
“But that’s the least of your concerns. Humans are staggering now, trying to encompass how powerful Gabriel really is. They’re starting to wonder what else he might do. He made it sound like he was doing it as revenge against the vampire attack on his base, so it won’t take long for humans to get pissed at vampires for bringing this down upon them. Vampires not being affected by his ‘spell’ is just going to rub salt into the wound.”
“He did do it to pay us back,” Nayara pointed out. “But anything else he does will be overkill. If he makes another move, he’ll look spiteful.”
“If he even has the power for another attack,” Kieran added softly from his place at the back of the room.
“I don’t think you can afford to wait for another possible attack,” Deonne said. “Human perception of vampires has always been shaky, but on the whole they held no animosity. They didn’t know vampires and didn’t understand you, so their ignorance made them wary. Now, though, hundreds of thousands of humans have personal reasons to resent you. Their friends and family will, too.”
“They won’t blame Gabriel at all?” Ryan sounded calm.
“He looked sick. Weak and vulnerable.” Deonne shook her head. “They’re going to demand you fix this and the longer you take to do it, the hotter their fury will burn.”
Cáel kept his mouth shut, his heart thudding unhappily. He knew better than anyone in this room that Nayara and Ryan weren’t ready to take on Gabriel. They had been reluctant to prepare for war and had deliberately withheld from attacking, in the interests of better human-vampire relations.
Gabriel’s strategy had flipped that equation on its head.
He caught Ryan’s quick glance at Nayara. Then he shifted on his feet to face Deonne properly…and staggered.
Kieran took a half step forward and even Cáel flexed upwards, until he squashed the instinctive surge.
Ryan thrust his foot out and gripped the edge of the table. He kept his head down, concentrating on regaining his balance.
No one spoke. Deonne’s eyes were wide and her lips had parted. She looked at Nayara, then at Cáel.
Cáel shook his head.
Ryan lifted his head and turned to face Deonne, as if the moment had not happened. “Thank you, Deonne. We’ll need a high-level briefing outlining PR strategies. For now, we will not include you in any discussions about possible retaliation. You understand why?”
Deonne nodded. “Knowing what you plan will affect my own decision making processes and it might tip Gabriel off. You still don’t know if he can read my mind.”
“While you’re in the villa, he can’t,” Kieran said.
“You’re shielding the villa, Kieran?” Nayara asked.
Kieran crossed his arm. “I figured out how. But it takes concentration, so for now, I don’t want to stretch too far.”
Ryan smiled at him. “This is good news.”
Cáel agreed. It was the only good news that had come out of the meeting. As everyone stirred and went back to their assignments, or left for other places, Cáel watched Ryan carefully.
Ryan stayed at the table, swiping at screens, watching footage unroll. It looked like he was busy, but his hips were propped against the edge of the table, holding him steady.
Cáel made himself stand up and reach for Ryan’s cane, which was propped up against the desk where Ryan had been working before the general meeting had begun. He moved over to Ryan’s side and leaned the cane against the table, so that it bumped against Ryan’s thigh. Then he looked down at the stream Ryan was studying so hard.
Ryan’s hand rested against Cáel’s for a moment. Then it lifted away.
Cáel turned and left. He just barely made it through the door before his stinging eyes betrayed him.
* * * * *
Nia found him, forty minutes later.
Cáel sat up from the slump he had fallen in to, as she settled on the stone bench under the arbor next to him. She looked ahead, at the white roses that were glowing in the moonlight.
“He won’t talk to me.” Her voice was full of pain.
“Or me,” Cáel said and sighed. He took her in his arms and her head dropped to his shoulder.
“What do we do, Cáel?”
“Trust him, for now. Trust that he’ll tell us what he needs to, when he needs to.” He kissed her cheek. “We just have to wait.”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Nia whispered.
I don’t know if I can do it, either. But Cáel kept the doubt to himself and held her instead.
* * * * *
Christian looked up as Brenden’s dark shadow moved silently through the perfumed night air, toward the villa steps.
“Are you waiting for me?” Brenden asked. “Or hiding from someone else?”
Christian grinned. “I could give you grief and tell you that you’ve been working Rob so hard that now he’s got a moment to spare, I was forced to shove off and give him some alone time with Tally.”
Brenden climbed the broad steps up to where Christian was sitting on the topmost step. He stopped two steps down and put his foot on the step above and leaned on his knee. “Is that how you three work it?”
“It might be,” Christian said. “But Jack tends to take care of any illusions we have that time is ours to do with as we wish.”
Brenden grinned, then said, “So, you were waiting for me.”
“Kieran said you were down at the gate, seeing to something.”
“Making sure the last of the contractors were well off the property for the day.” Brenden lifted a brow, silently encouraging Christian to speak his mind.
“I wanted to talk to you about Laszlo Wolffe.”
Brenden stiffened. Then he tried to cover it up by shifting his weight. He stopped leaning on his knee. The big hands dropped to his sides.
That’s interesting, Christian thought to himself.
“What about him?” Brenden asked, his tone even.
“There are some things about him that don’t…seem right,” Christian said carefully. Rob had warned him in his salty way that Brenden didn’t like the agency’s newest custome
r, although it was hard to think of him as a client now that Mariana had nominated Wolffe as her lover.
“He was scanned and checked every conceivable way possible, then twice for good measure,” Brenden said. “I checked the results myself. He’s the genuine thing.” He sounded pissed about it. “Unless the psi have come up with a way to mask DNA traces, but Wolffe would be the last person they’d want to use for something like that.”
“Too notorious,” Christian said in agreement. “It’s not that. I don’t think he’s a mole. I’m not sure what I’m thinking. There are a couple of things he’s said and done and normally I would dismiss it, but…” He blew out his breath. “Okay, you’re free to tell me I’m making way too much of this. But he uses Spanish sword fighting footwork.”
Brenden was silent.
“I trained in Seville in the nineteenth century,” Christian explained hurriedly. “So I know what it looks like. If you train long and hard enough, if you go at it for years, the way I did, then the footwork gets ingrained. You end up using it for everyday things, like standing and stepping around objects. That’s what Wolffe does.”
“Walks like a sword fighter?” Brenden clarified.
“A Spanish trained swordfighter, except the Spanish schools shut down centuries ago and no one these days even thinks of sword fighting as a sport. There’s not enough spectacle in it for the nets.”
Brenden put his foot back on the step and leaned on his knee again. “Anything else?” he asked.
“He’s not left handed, but he uses his left hand to catch.” Christian recalled the way Wolffe had snatched the silver spike out of mid-air. “He’s practiced at it.”
“Because he’s used to having a weapon in his right.” Brenden leaned closer. “Justin said Wolffe told him he had military in his background and he stands like a soldier. But there’s nothing in his public records.”
They looked at each other. Christian could see that Brenden believed him. So he got to his feet. “Well, I’ve told you. It could be nothing. But I say he’s keeping secrets.”
“Sounds like it,” Brenden agreed gruffly. “But there’s no law says you can’t keep secrets. The man can’t take a pee without someone wanting to report on it. He’s entitled to keep what secrets he can locked up.”
Spartan Resistance Page 17
