A small, round, antique mahogany table with ornate Chinese carvings on the face and legs had been positioned beside Irving. That damnable crystal ball had been placed in the middle on its carved wood base. As she seated herself, the globe inevitably drew her gaze, pulling her into the play of colors on its surface, and into the complex maze of visions it cradled deep within. The sound of dripping water grew louder in her head. . . .
Someone spoke right in her ear, startling her.
If he looks into it, he will die. If he looks into it, he will die.
She jumped. Looked around.
Next to her, McKenna was filling Charisma’s coffee cup.
“What did you say?” Jacqueline asked.
McKenna glanced behind him, then back at her. “I didn’t say anything, miss.”
“Well . . . did you hear that?”
McKenna and Charisma looked at Jacqueline oddly, and McKenna said, “Hear what, miss?”
“Nothing.” Just some dripping water and a disembodied voice. “I thought I heard . . . My ears are still ringing from the concussion, I guess.” Searching the room, she found a silk throw tossed over the back of a chair. With elaborate casualness, she stood, walked over, picked it up and shook it out, then placed it over the crystal ball to hide it from sight.
Turning back to her chair, she discovered every eye was on her.
She smiled with carefree insouciance, and seated herself.
If she behaved with a little more circumspection, the men in the white coats would come to take her away.
“Could everyone be seated, please, so we can get started?” Tyler gestured in a circle.
There was the usual shuffling and coughing; then everyone looked at him expectantly.
“I called this meeting because I don’t believe we’re getting anything done sitting here waiting for doom to take us.” Jacqueline didn’t need a gift to know Tyler had assumed the leadership of the group.
Caleb interrupted. “Where is Samuel?”
She also didn’t need a crystal ball to know Caleb had disputed Tyler’s leadership.
Irving sighed deeply. “Yesterday, after Jacqueline’s vision, he left the house.”
“He hasn’t returned?” Caleb asked.
“He hasn’t returned,” Irving confirmed.
For a moment, anguish touched Isabelle’s face. Then her expression smoothed, and she was serene once more.
“Damn it. I’m going to search his room.” Caleb lifted his eyebrows at Jacqueline.
She nodded. She would be fine here with the others.
Caleb slipped out.
Tyler waited until Caleb was gone, then rapped on the table with his knuckles to reestablish his authority.
Personally, Jacqueline didn’t give him a lot of chance.
Tyler said, “With all due respect to Caleb, who is doing his best, and Irving, who is retired, it seems to me that hiding in this house is counterproductive. If the Others don’t know we’re alive, it would be best to get out there and do something to thwart their evil plans before they can be carried any further.”
“Their evil plans?” Aaron raised his eyebrows. “Is that what we’re calling them now?”
“With all due respect to you, Mr. Settles, you’re a faith healer. What makes you the expert on our next move?” Irving had obviously been stung by the retired comment.
“I ran a huge corporation based on my talents, Mr. Shea, and no one questioned my guidance.” Tyler was obviously stung in return.
“My family said to do exactly as Irving instructs, and in matters concerning the Chosen Ones, he’s the expert.” Aleksandr was young, but he spoke like a man, and one who knew his mind.
“But then, you’re a student,” Tyler said.
“Exactly. Which is why I listen to my family.” Obviously, Aleksandr wasn’t about to take trouble from anyone.
“What does Jacqueline think?” Charisma asked. “She’s our seer. She’s the one who’s proved herself.”
With that, everybody started talking at once. Arguing. Trying to make their views known.
Jacqueline looked wildly from one to another. “We’ve got to be calm. This is just the kind of chaos the Others want for us.”
Nobody was listening.
Then she noticed Tyler. As if something drew him toward the crystal ball, he leaned toward it and with an elaborate flourish, drew the silk throw away.
The globe shone with the colors that slipped across its surface, and he stared into its depths. He stretched out his hands to cup the globe between his palms, and froze.
One by one, the Chosen Ones noticed and fell silent.
“A vision?” Charisma murmured to Jacqueline.
“I don’t know,” Jacqueline whispered back. “It doesn’t look like one of my mother’s, but—”
With an unearthly cry, Tyler snatched the crystal ball off its stand and held it before him. His arms shook as if it weighed him down. With a surge, he came to his feet, and said, “He’s here.” He whispered the words, but they rolled through the room like thunder. “He’s here. He’s in New York City. He’s directing their operation himself. He knows our every move before we do it.”
Jacqueline swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.
“Who is here?” Irving asked his question calmly, as if he’d directed many a vision.
“He’s middle-aged. Thin. Short. Unassuming. But he possesses a soul of pure evil, and when he looks at you . . .” Tyler suddenly turned his head, stared into Jacqueline’s eyes, and his voice swelled with power. “You saw him. You saw him on the plane. He saw you, too. How could you not tell us about the man with the blue flame in his eyes?”
Right away, Irving knew whom he meant.
So did Charisma and Isabelle.
Aleksandr tugged at his crewneck T-shirt. Of course. With his background, he knew, too.
Aaron muttered, “Shit,” so he’d been reading the Chosen Ones manual.
Everyone faced Jacqueline, accusation in their eyes.
But she didn’t owe anyone an explanation. Certainly not a man in a trance. “Go on, Tyler,” she instructed in a cool voice. “Tell us what else you see.”
“I see an explosion.” Tyler still held the globe at arm’s length, and he swung around in a circle. “An explosion, greater than the last one! Wiping out all remnants of the Chosen Ones, leaving only a legend that will soon fade from memory. . . .”
In a forgotten corner of the room, Martha stood against the wall. Now she gave a sob, then pressed her fist to her mouth.
Compelled by the drama, Jacqueline sat forward in her chair. “Where is this explosion?”
He halted, swaying, staring into space. His beautiful voice grew thick and harsh. “Here. The explosion is here. Before it’s too late, we’ve got to get out of Irving Shea’s house.”
He collapsed onto the antique flowered rug.
The globe slipped out of his grip, and everyone watched in fascination as it rolled toward Jacqueline, and came to rest at her feet.
Then the room burst out in a cacophony of voices.
One rose above the others. “Shut up!”
Chapter 27
Just like that, the library was silent once more, and every eye turned to the door and Caleb.
“What in the hell is going on here?” He observed Tyler, struggling to sit up. Jacqueline, white-faced and frightened. Aaron, tight-lipped and furious. Charisma, holding her bracelets. Isabelle, thoughtfully watching her cohorts.
Tyler staggered to his feet and put his hands to his head. “What happened? What did I say?”
“He had a vision,” Isabelle told Caleb. “He says the devil is in New York City.”
“I don’t think there was ever any doubt about that,” Caleb responded.
As if he’d caught her by surprise with his humor, Isabelle smiled briefly. “True, but he’s talking about the real devil, the one who possesses and corrupts men’s souls.”
Oh, Caleb knew. So did Jacqueline.
But how had
Tyler figured it out? Had he overheard Jacqueline talking to Caleb?
No. Not unless Tyler had planted bugs in every room in this house, and he couldn’t have smuggled in the electronics. Caleb considered Tyler with new eyes. Perhaps the guy actually had had a vision.
Isabelle continued. “He also said the devil was on the plane and Jacqueline saw him.”
Jacqueline gave Caleb a short nod.
“I see,” Caleb said.
“So it’s true?” Tyler demanded. “The devil was on the plane that went down with Zusane?”
“Yes, it’s true.” Obviously, Jacqueline had been caught, and she didn’t see the sense of lying now.
“Why didn’t you tell us? This makes all the difference in the world!” Irving looked toward Aaron.
Something passed between them, some message Caleb didn’t understand—and he didn’t like not understanding.
“Yes, Jacqueline. Irving’s right.” Tyler sounded both persuasive and reproachful. “Knowing what we know now, that the devil himself is in charge, means the danger is greater and more immediate than we could imagine. It means we’ve got to approach our defense differently.”
“The devil’s not in charge,” Charisma said patiently. “He’s not allowed.”
Tyler swung on her. “What?”
“The rules are older than even the existence of the Chosen Ones and the Others. Moreover, they’re eternal. The devil isn’t allowed to take a direct hand in the running of the world. He can offer rewards, as he did with the Wilders, allowing them to turn into predators to work his will. He can corrupt men, as he apparently did with this man Osgood, who walked away from the plane wreck—and now we know why. But he isn’t allowed to come here and put a bomb in Irving’s house and blow us all up. He’s not allowed,” she repeated. “He’s not in charge.”
Tyler flushed. “I think it’s not as easy as you imagine.”
“I think he’s right,” Aaron said. “According to When the World Was Young: A History of the Chosen Ones, the appearance of demon possession signals new and terrible trouble in the world.”
“What’s this about the devil blowing up this house?” Tyler asked.
With an authority Caleb admired, Isabelle took over, giving him and Tyler the details of Tyler’s vision. She finished with, “The question I’m sure we are all thinking now is—is Tyler’s prophecy correct, and if it is, when will it occur? Should we abandon this house today, or investigate further?”
“My visions are never wrong,” Tyler said.
“That may be true, Tyler, but I’ve never met a seer who had put a date on her—or his—predictions,” Irving replied. “Perhaps we should ask Caleb if he found anything in Samuel’s room.”
“There’s nothing there,” Caleb reported. “Nothing to indicate he ever occupied it. He took his clothes, his toothbrush, everything.”
Isabelle looked down at her hands.
Caleb hated to ask, but he had no choice. “Did he say anything to you, Isabelle?”
Isabelle raised her gaze to meet his. “I haven’t seen him since we were in the attic.”
“If he’s the man who has somehow activated this bomb, he’s cleared out for a reason,” Tyler said.
“A persuasive argument, Mr. Settles, but I won’t leave my home.” Irving nodded at them all. “I do understand if you all wish to flee, but please, be careful out there. This has all the markings of a trap.”
“Maybe Jacqueline could have another vision?” Aleksandr suggested. “I mean, we’ve got two seers; we might as well utilize them.”
“No, I won’t. . . .” Jacqueline shuddered; she cradled her injured hand in her arm, and a sheen of sweat covered her suddenly pale forehead. “That is, I can’t call them up at will.”
It didn’t take clairvoyance to know she feared another vision. She feared being hurt again.
Irving didn’t care. “But you did when you tried.”
Damn the old man. Caleb liked him less and less, for he was willing to sacrifice anything and anybody for his cause. “Let’s let her heal from the first vision before we ask for another one,” Caleb said.
“When you’re thrown, it’s always best to get back on the horse at once.” Irving glanced at Caleb’s stiff jaw, and added, “But of course, we’re grateful to have had a vision from both our seers.”
Aaron cleared his throat. “If you would allow me to speak about something of which I do have some knowledge?”
“Please, Mr. Eagle, we would appreciate any guidance,” Isabelle said.
“I have no parents, of course, but I was raised in the midst of a small Indian tribe in Idaho. Our reservation was poor, the roughest, steepest, most unforgiving part of the Sawtooth Range, and whether we liked it or not, we had to work to survive. So in ways you can’t imagine, we lived as American Indians have done for thousands of years. I bathed in an icy stream every morning of my life. I learned to track and hunt. I was taught to smell danger as it approached, and dodge before fighting.” Aaron spoke without pride, as a man would give his credentials, yet in his voice Caleb now heard the cadence of an Indian’s speech. “The stench of danger is strong in this city, and I would leave Irving’s home if I smelled danger. But I don’t. I respect Tyler’s vision as I would my own, but my advice is to stay together, and stay put.”
“Tyler, what will you do?” Caleb didn’t blame the guy if he wanted to take off. “It must be difficult to ignore your own vision.”
“I don’t remember the vision, and that makes it easier to ignore.” Tyler yielded easily, and smiled with crooked charm. “I can’t leave the Chosen Ones. I believe we’re stronger together than apart. But I still don’t understand why Jacqueline didn’t tell us about the devil. Did I miss that part, too?”
Caleb could see they weren’t going to let this one go. “She didn’t want to alarm you.”
At the same time, Jacqueline said, “Because I didn’t see what my vision got us except early knowledge of something we were going to know anyway.”
“But it was an important element,” Irving said. “For you to discover that the devil himself has found a willing servant who does his bidding and whom he protects . . . That’s exactly what we were trying to discover when we—” He stopped in midsentence.
“When you sent my mother to seduce him?” Jacqueline’s voice, her demeanor, grew icy.
“Not seduce.” Irving’s protestations were feeble, and he knew it. “We never suggested your mother do anything she didn’t want to do.”
“But you knew perfectly well she was attracted to powerful men.” Jacqueline came to her feet.
Caleb had seen Jacqueline in the throes of passion, of fear, of anguish. He had never seen her in such a rage, flushed and trembling.
She had a right to her anger.
“We simply sent her out to check out people, men, of whom we were suspicious,” Irving said weakly.
“You hit the jackpot this time, Irving. My mother’s dead, but hey, at least you know the devil’s abroad in New York City.” Jacqueline walked toward the door.
Caleb moved aside to let her pass.
“Come on, Caleb,” she said, her voice rich with contempt. “The rest of the Chosen Ones can stay with Irving Shea if they want, but I’m out of here.”
Chapter 28
Caleb walked behind Jacqueline. He was sympathetic, yes. He was in agreement with her rage, yes. But however disreputable it might be, his attention was mostly taken up with his appreciation of her magnificent figure as she stalked toward the front door.
The woman knew how to convey displeasure, and look good while she did it. She’d learned more from Zusane than she’d realized.
McKenna hustled ahead of Jacqueline. “Miss Vargha, Mr. Shea would never have asked Miss Zusane to do anything if he thought it was dangerous.”
“Don’t play me for a fool.” Her contempt widened to include Irving’s manservant. “Am I supposed to approve of him sending my mother into a relationship with the devil himself?”
“He didn’t know for sure. . . .” McKenna seemed to realize that argument wouldn’t fly.
“He suspected.” She swung on him. “Supposedly he loved my mother. Supposedly he admired her. Yet he willingly sent her into hell?”
“He did love and admire her,” McKenna said. “We all did.”