Storm of Visions

by Christina Dodd

  Beside the barrier, the police gestured and shouted, “Move back. Move back! We’ve got more fire engines coming in. Move back!”

  Tyler and Samuel whipped out their cell phones and took photos.

  Everyone was taking photos.

  Worse, twenty-five feet away, a television news crew was setting up their cameras.

  Recovering his wits, Caleb said, “Turn those off and put them away.”

  “Excuse me?” Samuel said in chilly astonishment.

  “If we’re lucky, none of the Others know you’re alive. But if they’re watching for your GPS—”

  Tyler snapped the phone off and put it in his pocket.

  Caleb had to give him credit. He was a smart man.

  Samuel followed suit, more reluctantly and with a great deal more suspicion.

  “Pass the word,” Caleb said. “Turn them off.”

  Jacqueline paid no heed; she still stared at the wreck of the Gypsy Travel Agency building.

  “We’ve got to get away.” Forcibly Caleb turned her around, and picked her pocket as he did. He turned off her phone and slipped it back into place. Then he said, “Come on,” and headed up the street away from the disaster, from the cameras, from the onlookers who might recognize him, or Jacqueline, or any of the other new Chosen.

  One quick inspection proved they followed close on Caleb’s heels.

  Aaron walked at the back, herding them like a sheep-dog. Tyler held Isabelle’s arm. Samuel walked briskly, brow furrowed, being a lawyer, no doubt, and sifting through the evidence. Aleksandr shambled along at Charisma’s side, and both kids were wide-eyed and scared.

  They probably had a better sense of smell than the others, for the stink of danger was thick in Caleb’s nostrils. The skin crawled on the back of his neck, and he watched for anyone out of place, anyone who showed an undue interest in the new Chosen. Whoever or whatever had managed to get past the safeguards at the Gypsy Travel Agency demonstrated an evil skill unsurpassed in all the centuries that had gone before. If he . . . they . . . it realized these callow Chosen had been spared, Jacqueline, Faa, Aleksandr, Charisma, and the others would be taken, tortured, killed. . . .

  People rushed past them, heading toward the disaster. Fire engines screamed along the street. But as the Chosen Ones passed from one block to another, traffic thinned, became New York City-normal. Caleb began to plan transportation to get nine people to Zusane’s apartment. Cabs, yes, or he could call on Zusane’s connections. Whom did he distrust more? As he scrutinized the street, making his decision, he became aware of a situation.

  A 1952 classic Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith limousine with dark-tinted windows tracked them at walking pace.

  Charisma tugged at his sleeve. “There is an excellent limousine following us.”

  “So I see.” Good news? God, he hoped so. They could use some luck.

  Caleb watched the Rolls slide to a stop at the curb beside him.

  Jacqueline recognized the limo. Her eyes lit up, and she tried to leap forward. “Irving!”

  Caleb held her back. He pulled his pistol. “Wait. If they could blow the Agency building like that . . .”

  She froze in place.

  The chauffeur leaped out of the driver’s door, his hat askew, his coat buttoned crooked.

  “It’s McKenna.” Jacqueline sounded so relieved, Caleb hated to crush her hopes.

  Still he said, “Wait.” Because right now, he didn’t trust anyone.

  The short, stocky Celt rushed around the car, opened the back door, and Irving Shea, ninety-three and sharper than the thirty-year-olds who had replaced him, leaned out and snapped, “Hurry up. Get in!”

  For the third time, Caleb said, “Wait.” With a gentle hand, he moved Irving back and looked into the interior of the limo.

  It was empty.

  “It’s safe.” Irving put his shaky, age-spotted hand on Caleb’s wrist. “They haven’t got me—yet.”

  “All right.” Caleb gestured to the Chosen Ones. “Get in.”

  Chivalry was not dead. The men pushed the women ahead of them into the roomy interior, then followed close on their heels.

  “Get ready to drive,” Caleb said to McKenna, who scuttled around to the driver’s seat.

  Caleb stood guard, pistol held unabashedly in his grasp, observing the street, the traffic, the pedestrians, the buildings.

  He saw nothing. No one. Had they really been lucky enough to escape?

  “Caleb!”

  Jacqueline called him. Her voice was rough and impatient, but at least she called him. She cared. Whether she acknowledged it or not, she did care.

  He slid into the limousine, shut the door behind him, and counted heads. Even with two bench seats, one facing forward and one back, they were packed into the luxurious Rolls. On the seat facing Caleb, Aleksandr had squished his narrow rear into the corner. Jacqueline sat next to him, and Irving was beside her, tall, dark-skinned, white-haired, healthy, yet fragile with the constantly increasing burden of years. Isabelle was wedged into the other corner, and for a woman who had just hiked five blocks in heels, she looked cool, calm, and reasonable.

  Martha sat on the floor, her back against the far door, her knees drawn up and her head bent. She held the whisk broom in her hand and waved it in a slow circle, watching the movement as if fascinated—or frightened.

  Charisma sat on the floor on the other side, eyes closed, holding her bracelets and taking deep breaths.

  The four guys sat facing forward, their shoulders bumping.

  McKenna released the brake and glided away at a dignified pace, heading north toward Central Park and Irving’s nineteenth-century Upper East Side mansion.

  Next to Caleb, Aaron Eagle said, “I hope we aren’t chased.”

  Caleb faced him. “You would not believe the engine in this car. It moves.”

  “I know about this car.” Aaron’s mouth quirked; obviously, he recognized what a Silver Wraith could do. “But what about the driver?”

  Caleb laughed, a brief explosion of misplaced mirth that brought a glare from Jacqueline. “If necessary, I can drive.”

  Tyler leaned around the other two men, looked at Caleb, and said, “I’d love to see what her speed would be with one of us at the wheel.”

  “Now would be great.” The plodding pace had clearly irritated an already edgy Samuel Faa.

  “New York’s finest tend to get a little twitchy when buildings blow up, Mr. Faa, and the last thing we want now is to attract their attention.” Irving smiled serenely at the man across from him, proving not only that his intelligence was sharp as ever, but also that the batteries in his hearing aids were charged.

  Caleb scrutinized Samuel and made a decision. “I want your cell phones. All of them.”

  Every pair of eyes fixed on him in horror.

  “Come on,” he coaxed. “I know they’re hard to give up. That’s why I want them. But you can do it. I want to be damned good and sure those GPSs are not functioning.”

  Isabelle plunged her hand into her purse and handed hers over. “I want that, too, Mr. D’Angelo. Wherever we are going to hide, I want no one to know.”

  “Are we going to Irving’s?” Jacqueline asked with open hostility. “Because I know and you know the Others will consider his home as our first refuge.”

  “The longer they don’t know we’re alive, the easier it will be to survive,” Aaron told her, and slid his cell phone into Caleb’s hand.

  One by one the cell phones came his way. He checked each one to make sure it was off, then slid each one into his jacket pocket. At last, only Jacqueline’s remained to confiscate. “This isn’t the time to take a last stand,” he told her softly. “There are too many lives at stake.”

  With a flounce, she tossed him her phone.

  McKenna used the car’s size to muscle his way smoothly through the crippling traffic.

  Caleb watched out the window for anything that could be construed as a danger. The odd thing was—everything looked normal. New Yor
kers walked briskly, heading for the theater or the restaurants. Tourists gawked or consulted maps. Cabs raced each other through the intersections. As dusk settled over the city, lights came on in store windows and on signs.

  Yet Caleb knew nothing would ever be normal again. He had left his duty to Zusane . . . and now cared exclusively for her daughter.

  Jacqueline ... she resented him so much. Yet never had she needed him more.

  She held Irving’s arthritis-twisted hand, and one by one she introduced the Chosen Ones to him. Then in slow, precise tones, she said, “Our rescuer is Mr. Irving Shea, the retired director of the Gypsy Travel Agency. He still sits on the board, and goes to work there every day. They ask him for advice—”

  “And sometimes even take it,” Irving said.

  The Chosen Ones, seven men and women flung unprepared into the front lines in the ancient battle between good and evil, chuckled and visibly relaxed.

  McKenna drove beside Central Park, then turned east, then north again, maintaining a constant, decorous speed as they glided past museums, hotels and universities, through some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

  “How did you escape, sir?” Caleb asked.

  “I went home for my nap. I merely went home for my nap, and on my way back, I heard the report on the radio. My whole world has gone up in flames.” Irving started strong; then his voice got shaky, old, and feeble, and tears trembled on the ends of his sparse eyelashes. He closed his eyes and fought for control. Squaring his shoulders, he discarded the burden of age. He looked up at Caleb, and his dark eyes pierced the midnight corners of Caleb’s mind. His voice changed, became the commanding tone of a director of men, and he asked, “What do you know?”

  “I know only one thing for sure.” Caleb took a breath, then told the unvarnished truth. “The Gypsy Travel Agency was sabotaged by someone . . . on the inside.”

  Chapter 10

  Later, much later, that night, Caleb stepped in from the darkness and the rain. He put down his gym bag, handed Martha his jacket, shook the water out of his hair, and asked, “How are they?”

  “The Chosen Ones are fine, sir. No injuries, although their spirits are depressed.” Martha walked to the security panel and set the alarm, then faced Caleb again. “But I suppose that is to be expected.”

  Martha had always been a tight-ass about Caleb and his privileged place in the Chosen Ones’ world, looking down her noble gypsy nose at Zusane’s bodyguard. But now she stood holding Caleb’s jacket and looking so pitiful, Caleb had to ask, “What is it, Martha? Has something happened I should know about?”

  “No, sir.”

  Caleb’s anxiety took a sudden jump. “Jacqueline is still here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He relaxed a little. “Have you heard from Zusane? Is she all right?”

  “I haven’t heard, but as far as I know, she’s fine. Everyone here is fine.” Martha glanced around and lowered her voice. “I made an assumption that you’d gone out to scout the city for information.”

  “Yes.” This afternoon, Caleb had walked into Irving’s mansion, made sure Jacqueline was settled, then walked out again. He’d briefly checked in with his mother, then spent the last hours riding in cabs, drinking in bars, chatting casually about the explosion at the Gypsy Travel Agency, listening to opinions and theories, and seething with anger and frustration.

  How had this happened? How had someone gotten past the safeguards the Gypsy Travel Agency put in place? Would the Others seek them here, or would they assume the fledgling Chosen Ones had been killed in the blast?

  Martha continued. “I was wondering if you found . . . anything or anybody from the Gypsy Travel Agency?”

  Martha was anywhere between sixty and ninety, had been a part of the Gypsy Travel Agency for as long as anyone could remember, yet she was not and had never been one of the Chosen Ones. The Romany had secured her job, and she had worked as a servant all the years of her life. She was always present when the seer approved the new slate of the Chosen Ones, and as a sign of their trust and with their help, she had been allowed to create the spell that hid them from the subway passengers. She had no gift, but she knew everybody. She knew everything. She never gossiped. And now she was breaking her own immutable rule.

  Caleb supposed it was to be expected. Martha was such an integral part of the Gypsy Travel Agency; she would desperately want to know what had happened to cause the explosion . . . or perhaps she wanted to know if her own treachery had been exposed.

  Because after all, who better to betray the Gypsy Travel Agency than an ungifted, resentful, and trusted servant?

  Caleb watched her closely as he said, “It’s quiet out there. I didn’t find any Chosen. That’s not to say some of them didn’t escape, but if they did, they’ve gone underground. I had hoped some would show up here.”

  “No, sir, but you know they gather at headquarters to wait for Zusane’s confirmation after she has met the new recruits. I don’t expect that any have survived.” Martha’s voice trembled, and she cleared her throat. She certainly looked devastated, but after all, if she had been the faithful servant, she had lost the people she’d known and with whom she’d worked. On the other hand, if she had opted to betray them all, a little acting would be required . . . and not worth mentioning. “Did you find any of . . . the Others?”

  “Not a sign of them.” Which was not strictly true, but he wasn’t saying more right now, at least not to Martha. “Maybe they were watching me from behind their enchantments and laughing. But they won today. Why hide?”

  “May they all burn in hell.”

  “We can be sure of that.” He loosened his tie. “But how soon? That’s the question.”

  Martha roused herself from her apparent misery. “The company is at the table. They asked that you join them when you arrived.”

  “Thank you. I will. I’m starving.” And a variety of succulent odors called to Caleb. Picking up his bag, he strode into the dining room, a cavernous space of dark-paneled walls, a cherub-painted ceiling, and gilt-edged mirrors. The long table could easily seat thirty, and the Chosen Ones huddled there, seven unwilling strangers brought together by disaster. Irving sat at the head, Jacqueline at his right hand, and the burning look of scorn she shot Caleb worried him not at all. She was still here and safe. That was all he cared about.

  But while he put up with whatever crap Jacqueline handed out, he wasn’t ready to listen to the rest of them dish it out—and they started in right away.

  “Why did you leave without asking?” From Sam uel Faa, an arrogant son of a bitch who needed to be brought down a few notches.

  “He does whatever he wants whenever he wants to.” From Jacqueline, always willing to stab him with a sharp comment.

  “What did you find out?” From the golden boy, Tyler Settles, another man far too used to getting whatever he wanted.

  “I would not think, Mr. D’Angelo, that you’d indulge in this kind of suspicious behavior without a reason.” A softly voiced yet stern comment from Isabelle Mason.

  Irving tapped his wineglass with his spoon. “Gentlemen! Ladies! Mr. D’Angelo is no doubt tired and hungry. Let’s finish our meal, let him eat, and then we’ll hear what he has to say.”

  “Thank you, Irving.” Caleb inclined his head. “And for the rest of you—it’s worth noting that while I am employed by Zusane and take orders from her, I am not answerable to any of you for any reason. In the future, please remember that.”

  Samuel started to speak.

  Caleb held his gaze.

  Samuel subsided.

  Caleb seated himself at the empty place next to Tyler and across from Charisma and Aaron, two people who seemed to have quickly formed an unlikely friendship. He stashed the bag under the table, and at once McKenna appeared at Caleb’s elbow offering two kinds of wine, a white and a red, and a variety of dishes kept warm in the kitchen. As always at Irving’s home, the food was exquisite: a garlic-crusted rack of lamb on a bed of ratatouil
le, and twice-baked potatoes. With an Italian’s appreciation for a good meal, Caleb told McKenna, “Give my regards to the chef.”

  “I had to order out, sir. I wasn’t prepared for such a crowd. But thank you for your compliments; I will certainly use the restaurant again.” McKenna was probably forty-five, an accomplished butler and Irving’s trusted aide in every matter.

  Another suspect.

  The Chosen Ones finished their dinner with varying amounts of enthusiasm; apparently nothing kept Charisma or Aleksandr from a good meal, while Tyler cupped his cheek in his hand and picked at his food. Isabelle kept her gaze on her plate, while Samuel’s gaze wandered far too frequently to her face.