It didn’t matter. She was magnificent.
Taking her hand, he kissed the fingers. “It is good to see you again, Zusane.”
“Charm is such a rare thing in an American.” She placed one hand on his chest over his heart. For a long moment, she looked into his eyes, and he felt almost light-headed, a fly caught in a spider’s seductive trap. “But in your business, it is a necessity, is it not?”
“One of many,” he said.
“You will do very well,” she said.
“Thank you.” He supposed.
She lifted her hand away, and at once he was freed from her spell. He watched in curiosity and amazement as she turned to Charisma and offered her hand. In a brisk, businesslike tone, she said, “Hello, dear, how are you doing today?”
Charisma took the pale, slender hand. “I’m thrilled to meet you. You’re a legend, the most famous of them all.”
“Do not be misled by the glamour.”
“I’m not.” Charisma’s enthusiasm was boundless. “I read about you in When the World Was Young: A History of the Chosen Ones.”
“You are having a wonderful time at the Gypsy Travel Agency, are you not?” Zusane took possession of Charisma’s wrists, stones and all, and held them.
“Oh, yes!”
“Will you be ready for the challenges ahead?” Zusane’s smile disappeared, and she looked almost grieved. “For you will be greatly challenged.”
“I’m going to study. I’m going to prepare. And when it’s my turn, I’ll do what has to be done.” Charisma was so young, so sure of herself.
“You will be afraid, and in the dark.”
Charisma stared into Zusane’s face, closed her eyes so slowly, she might have been falling asleep, then opened them again. When she did, Aaron was startled to see the irrepressible Charisma’s eyes fill with tears. “Yes. I see. I am such a coward.”
“No. A coward you are not.” Zusane kissed Charisma’s forehead, then turned to Aleksandr. In a voice like a whiplash, she said, “Look at me, Mr. Wilder. My eyes are up here!”
Aleksandr yanked his gaze from her cleavage to her face, and blushed scarlet.
“Let me see your hands, both of them!” she said.
He showed them, palms up, then on her signal, turned them so she could see the backs.
She slid her cupped hands beneath them. Whipping around, she glared balefully at Martha. “This boy would be better in college.”
“Yes, Zusane,” Martha said. “He is in college.”
She turned back to Aleksandr. “Where? What are you studying?”
“Fordham. Engineering.”
Aaron didn’t have to be a psychic to know what Zusane was thinking. The kid was no dummy.
“Good.” She nodded. “Sometimes life doesn’t turn out like we wish, and we need something to fall back on.”
“So you don’t see a gift?” Aleksandr whispered.
“No. But there’s something here. . . .” She slid her gaze from Aleksandr’s left shoulder and across his chest. “The tattoo?”
“It’s there.”
“It came at adolescence.” She sounded certain. “Does it resemble your father’s? Your grandfather’s?”
“The colors, yes, but the pattern has never been seen before.” Aleksandr shifted awkwardly. “Or so my grandfather says.”
“He would know.” Zusane patted his cheek. “All right. Don’t worry. Study hard. Make your family proud.”
“I always do,” Aleksandr said.
Zusane smiled at him and headed toward the others in the circle.
In an undertone, Aaron asked Charisma, “Zusane is the most famous what?”
“Psychic.” Charisma really did know everything. “She’s the current psychic for the Gypsy Travel Agency.”
“And the psychic is always a woman?” Aaron watched as Zusane approved Isabelle Mason.
“Not always, but the guys never seem to quite get it right.” Charisma watched, too, all her attention focused on the drama playing out before them. “The guy who’s here—Tyler Settles—calls himself a psychic. Zusane has always been very vocal about her disapproval of male seers. This is the first time the directors have tried to bring one in.”
Zusane waved her hands around Tyler, close to his skin, but never touching.
Tyler preened, flattered by her attention.
She frowned.
He spoke to her, smiling all the while. Brought her gaze up to his.
And after a tense pause, she laughed and relaxed.
“Martha would tell us that because of the lack of talent this year, they had to stoop to trying out a male seer,” Aaron said to Charisma.
“Yes. I think you’re right.” Charisma shivered. “Spooky, isn’t it, to think we’re the weakest group since the Chosen Ones were formed.”
“I don’t really know what difference it makes,” Aaron said indifferently. “It’s not like we have to do anything but what we’re good at.”
Charisma shot him a cautious, sideways glance.
Remembering the directors’ slick description of his duties, he mulled and realized—they were paying him well, promising him protection, and if they were telling the truth, they asked very little in return. “What can go wrong?”
“In ordinary times, a job at the Gypsy Travel Agency is dull.” Charisma positively sparkled with reassurance.
He wasn’t buying it. “In extraordinary times?”
“Ohhh . . . I suppose you could say that in the past, extraordinary times have been . . . exciting.”
“Is that a euphemism for ‘dangerous’?” He’d joined up to get away from “dangerous.”
“You really ought to read that book,” she told him.
“As soon as I get out of this circle,” he promised.
Zusane stood between Isabelle Mason and Samuel Faa, and her frown returned and deepened. She threw her arms out in a wide, encompassing gesture. Her sequins shimmered in the fluorescent light. Her fingers, manicured with red, formed wide stars. “Never in my experience have I sensed something like this.”
From outside the circle, Aaron heard a ripple of amusement.
Zusane paid no attention. “There is something very wrong with this combination, a whiff of something rotten, and until I can discover what is wrong, I cannot release this team.”
The laughter in the subway grew, and Aaron did a quick check. The New Yorkers were pointing at this suit-wearing, dangerous-looking Italian guy carrying a long-legged jean-clad blond girl. He had her in a fire-man’s lift, she was kicking and shrieking, and the odd couple was headed straight for them.
Didn’t that just figure? Because right now, this subway station was the epicenter of oddness.
Relentlessly, Zusane plowed on. “Each of you, come close so I can discover the discordance. . . .” She caught sight of the Italian and the girl. Her voice trailed off. Melodrama fell away from her like a discarded cloak. She tapped her toe. She narrowed her eyes. She looked like a shrewish wife—or a disapproving mother.
The Italian strode forward, ignoring the laughter, ignoring the blonde’s kicks to his ribs. He kept his gaze fixed on the circle.
Just outside the chalk line, he dropped the girl to her feet, steadied her with his hands on her arms, and looked down at her, demanding . . . something.
The girl almost flamed with fury. “I won’t!” she shouted at the guy.
The guy didn’t move. He simply stared at her.
Zusane glared at her.
The girl set her jaw and said, “I won’t!” again. But the words were softer now, almost dreamy. Perspiration popped out on her forehead, and she lifted her hair off her neck. Her chest rose and fell with her breathing, a slow, hypnotic motion, and Aaron could almost see her consciousness fade.
Everyone in the circle, everyone outside it, watched, spellbound by anticipation.
Drawn by a certainty he couldn’t explain, Aaron looked at Zusane. She leaned forward, hand on her chest, yearning etched on her face.
She loved the
girl, but she wanted something from her. Or maybe . . . she wanted something for her.
In that instant, the girl snapped back to place, to the moment. She pushed at the Italian’s chest, said, “All right,” and moving like a dancer, she leaped into the circle.
In that second, Aaron fell in love. Whoever she was, she was built, she was blond, she was graceful, and she had a radiance that reminded him of Zusane at her best.
Zusane’s mask of beauty cracked with disappointment. For the first time, her voice lost its husky warmth. “At last. Our seventh member has arrived. She could have been on time. She could be dedicated. She could be organized. She could wear something more respectful of this momentous event. She could occasionally clean her room.”
The girl glanced around at the Chosen in the circle. She rolled her eyes, and with a gesture at Zusane, she mouthed, Sorry.
With a shrill edge, Zusane continued. “She could at least do as well as the Wilder boy and attend college when her mother pulls every string to get her admitted to Harvard even though her grades weren’t good enough to—” Zusane stopped and gathered her composure.
The girl waved at the others, one of those tiny, embarrassed waves. “Hi, everybody. I’m Zusane’s daughter, Jacqueline.”
So Zusane was a mother, Jacqueline’s mother, and no matter how glamorous Zusane appeared, she was just like any other mother—frustrated as hell with her rebellious daughter.
Beside him, Charisma waved back at Jacqueline, and pointed. “Aleksandr Wilder. Isabelle Mason. Samuel Faa. Aaron Eagle. Tyler Settles.” With another little wave, she said, “I’m Charisma.”
Zusane glared, and her voice swelled majestically. “Are we done?”
“Yes. Sorry.” Charisma’s voice squeaked.
“Mother. Don’t be rude,” Jacqueline said.
But Charisma sounded unrepentant when she murmured to Aaron, “But Zusane can’t be her real mother. It’s not possible if she’s one of the Abandoned Ones.”
“Maybe she’s like Aleksandr—an experiment the directors are trying,” Aaron replied.
“Hm. Maybe.” Charisma indicated the guy who’d carried Zusane’s daughter to the site. “Look at him.”
He remained immobile where the girl had left him, staring blindly, waiting.
Charisma shook her bracelets at him. “He’s involved with Jacqueline.”
“Obviously.” Aaron didn’t need singing rocks to see that.
“He’s not gifted, because he knows we’re in here, but he can’t see us,” Charisma said.
“Right.” This was one weird situation Aaron had gotten himself into.
Taking Jacqueline’s left wrist in her hand, Zusane turned her palm up and looked at it. She expressed her disgust eloquently, Aaron thought, although he didn’t understand a word of the language she was speaking.
Jacqueline wore fingerless gloves in a leather that almost matched her skin tone.
“So it’s come to this,” Zusane said. “You contain your power behind a shield.”
“A glove is hardly a shield.” Quickly Jacqueline added, “And I don’t have any power.”
Zusane smiled triumphantly. “Then take it off.”
“Fine.” Jacqueline stripped away her glove.
“Look.” Zusane held Jacqueline’s palm up to Jacqueline’s face. “The most powerful sign, one not seen since the first two Abandoned Ones.”
In an undertone, Charisma explained, “The mark on her hand must be a stylized eye, done in black lines.”
Aaron craned his neck, but couldn’t see the mark.
“The bad twin,” Jacqueline said to Zusane. “Remember, Mother. She was the bad twin.”
Zusane rolled on, ignoring her daughter’s fierce objection. “You push your gift aside, deny it, claim that you can’t take my place!”
“I can’t!” Jacqueline leaned closer to Zusane and sniffed. “Have you been smoking?”
“Certainly not!”
“Hanging around in a cigar bar again?”
“No.”
Jacqueline sniffed the air around her. “Can you smell that?”
“You are trying to distract me.”
“No, I’m not. Something’s burning,” Jacqueline said with assurance.
“I don’t care if something’s burning. I only care about what I’ve seen . . . I’ve seen . . .” Zusane tilted her head. Her eyes became unfocused. Her body remained, but Zusane—her personality, her self—was no longer here. Beneath the expertly applied cosmetics, her complexion changed from pale to a light green, and her mouth worked helplessly.
“What’s wrong with her?” Charisma whispered.
“I don’t like this,” Aleksandr muttered.
“Mother?” Jacqueline gripped Zusane’s hand. When she did, her eyes fluttered closed and she paled, too.
Zusane shrieked. Shrieked so loudly, Jacqueline jumped, opened her eyes, and shook her head as if waking from a trance.
“Look out!” Zusane screamed. She writhed. She flung out her arms. “Look out! It’s going to blow! There’s a bomb! Run!”
Chapter 8
In Zusane’s whole lifetime of convenient visions and relentless overacting, Jacqueline had never seen her behave like this.
“Oh, God. Oh, God!” Zusane’s gaze was fixed, her eyes wide and horrified. “Look. Look! It’s blown up!”
“Mother!” Zusane was scaring Jacqueline, scaring her to death. “This bomb. Where is it?”
Zusane shouted, “Fire! Fire! Oh, my God! The relics. They’re gone. The carnage! Look at the bodies. Blood. So much blood!”
Jacqueline tried again. “Is it here?”
“It’s gone. It’s—fire! Fire!” Zusane broke into a sweat and whimpered as if the flames burned her skin.
“Mama, please. You’re going to hurt yourself.” Jacqueline wrapped her arms around Zusane, trying to contain her violent gestures, her wild thrashing.
Nothing stopped Zusane. Nothing—no consoling murmurs, no reassuring pats—comforted her. Although Zusane was shorter than Jacqueline, she was solidly built and strong, and her struggles would leave bruises. But Jacqueline couldn’t leave her alone. She might hurt herself. She might break the circle, and Jacqueline knew all too well how dangerous that was.
The other Chosen looked as if they didn’t know whether to lend a hand or run away.
Desperately, Jacqueline glanced toward Caleb.
Zusane’s shrieks had penetrated outside the circle, for he’d discarded his thin veneer of civilization. His eyes were fierce slits, his mouth compressed and his nostrils flared. The bodyguards had their weapons drawn, and Caleb gave orders that put them into high alert. Turning, he prepared to leap into the circle.
Martha body-tackled him.
Caleb threw a punch, realized at the last second who had brought him down, and barely avoided breaking Martha’s face.
Martha held Caleb, talked fast, while Caleb stared into the circle. He wasn’t really listening, Jacqueline could tell, but he, too, understood the power of the circle.
Zusane began to sob in deep, wrenching sounds that were all the more painful for lacking tears. “They’re all gone. They’re gone. Everything is gone. What will we do? What will we do?”
The subway passengers turned and stared, hearing a commotion, but not quite able to see the figures inside the circle.
“Are we safe?” Isabelle asked.
“Inside the circle, we are,” Charisma answered. “It’s protected by—”
“Chalk?” Isabelle looked remarkably calm, but her voice cracked with strain.
“Enchantment,” Charisma whispered doubtfully.
“Fire . . . gone, all gone . . .” Zusane’s voice was fading.
“Mother. Talk to me. Where’s the fire? Who’s gone? What’s happened?” Frantic to get through, Jacqueline shook her.
Zusane blinked once. Twice. Like a marionette on strings, she turned her head in little jerks. She looked at her daughter. She saw her—and collapsed into her arms.
&nb
sp; Beneath her mother’s limp weight, Jacqueline staggered and went down.
The men leaped forward. Tyler clutched at them; then under the combined load, his grip failed. Aaron and Samuel caught them a split second before their heads hit the concrete floor.
Jacqueline freed herself from Zusane’s clutches, then ordered, “Lay her down.”
Storm of Visions Page 6