Romani Armada (6 page)

Tally’s smile warmed. Then she gave a small, soft laugh. “Relax, Deonne. I’m teasing. I can see from your expression that this is all new to you. You’re not going to step into that room until you feel like a woman Justin can drool over, so let’s get you suitably dressed.” She glanced at the readout over Deonne’s shoulder. “We’d better make it fast.”

Deonne sighed. “Now I just feel stupid,” she confessed. “And about sixteen years old.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tally told her. “But let’s hurry.”

* * * * *

The meeting room was a historical reproduction—a massive throne room from an ancient Viking’s hall. It had stone floors and thick tree trunks for beams, iron bands binding them together and round shields decorating the walls. Torches flickering with real flames provided additional lighting. There was a huge fire pit in the middle of the room and what looked like a hole in the roof, but was really a vented window protecting the room from the elements while filtering the smoke and heat from the fire below.

Reproduction tables and benches were normally spread about the fire pit, enough to seat a few hundred people, for the branch often rented out the hall for weddings and other events as a useful subsidiary income. For now, two of the big tables had been joined end to end, which gave them enough seating for everyone at the meeting. The area around the tables had been cleared and the fire had been lit and was crackling merrily.

Ryan worked his way over to the table where most of the senior staff and advisors waited for them. “Is everyone here?” he asked Nayara.

“Deonne and Tally are yet to arrive.”

“We can deal with other matters until they get here,” Ryan decided. “Everyone, have a seat.”

There was a shuffling and murmur and some laughter as they clambered over the benches and good naturedly settled shoulder-to-shoulder along the tables.

Ryan sat on the high chair that had been set for him at the symbolic head of the table, while Nayara took the chair at the other end.

He settled the cane against the ancient timbers that made up the table and studied everyone. Brenden, Christian, Demyan and Fahmido ranged to his immediate left, while Ophelia, Rob, Kieren, Pritti and Justin sat on the right. There were spaces at the end closest to Nayara where Tally and Deonne would sit, and the table would be full.

Cáel’s absence was a heated wound, reminding him of the unfinished business he had before him.

“It’s been a hard few weeks, hasn’t it?” he said, addressing the table. “I’m sorry I let this happen. Cáel—Stelios—warned us and I didn’t believe him. I didn’t take him as seriously as I ought to have done.” He spared a thought for the secret visit from his future self, who had tried to warn him, too. He’d been too distracted by the man’s prediction that Nayara would be lost to him. Even now, the thought sent a shudder through him.

He looked down at his hands and saw that they trembled and frowned to himself. Why was he experiencing so many human reactions?

Nayara spoke up. “I think you’re all aware of our two major priorities for right now, but I’ll repeat them for everyone’s benefit. One, we have to do everything we can to ensure the location of our home base remains a secret from Gabriel’s psi group. So far, so good. Gabriel’s psi-filers will force-read a mind as they see fit, but as long as we all remain in our contemporary time, they can’t read ours unless they are within physical touching distance of us…and we think only Gabriel can do that, so far.”

“For now,” Brenden growled.

Nayara ignored him. “Our second priority is to bring back all the travelers that were back in time when the station was destroyed. None of them are aware that the station doesn’t exist. If they try to jump back to its location, we’re not sure what will happen but even the best scenario is bad enough; they arrive in raw space saturated with nuclear waste.”

“It’s possible a vampire would survive a few seconds’ exposure,” Fahmido said, her voice a weak echo after Nayara’s strong tone. “Enough to jump to a safer location.”

“Vampires might,” Brenden growled, “but their companions wouldn’t. Even if they did, exposure to that level of radiation would be lethal.”

Nayara nodded agreement. “So our first, most urgent task is to find all our stranded travelers and bring them back here.”

“I had a thought about that,” Demyan said, lifting his hand a little to get attention. “Why don’t we just jump back in time to before the station was destroyed and take a record of the itinerary board?” He spread his hands as if it were an obvious thing to do.

“You can’t,” Brenden objected.

“Why not?” Demyan asked reasonably.

“Because,” Brenden shook his head, “you just can’t. I can’t tell you a single moment in that security center when there wasn’t a dozen people around. You’d never find a strong enough marker and even if you could, it wouldn’t be empty.”

“I’m not suggesting we jump right to the security center,” Demyan said evenly.

“You’d be breaking a dozen statutes and codes,” Ryan warned. He lifted a hand. “I’m not saying ‘don’t’, but keep it
sub-rosa
.”

Brenden was scowling. “I tell you, it can’t be done. I’d remember—” He stopped suddenly, as if a switch had been flicked off.

Demyan stood up. “You remember something,” he said softly.

Brenden held up an imperious hand for silence, frowning hard.

Ryan could see Pritti shifting restlessly on her section of the bench, making Justin move out of the way. When Ryan’s gaze fell on her, she froze like a rabbit under a search light. Her eyes widened.

“What is it, Pritti?”

Pritti shook her head.

Demyan stood up, walked around the table and over to the girl. He picked up her hand and drew her back to the other side. Fahmido moved along the bench to make room and Demyan sat Pritti next to him at the end. One of his hands rested on her shoulder. Despite Demyan’s reassuring hand, Pritti was vibrating with nervousness. Almost fear. Then she glanced up at Ryan and he realized with a start that she was afraid of him.

Surprise rippled through him.

Brenden thumped the table. “Got it...goddam! I have it now, Demyan.” He reached for one of the boards laid along the table and turned it on. He wrote quickly. “This is the time marker,” he said and handed the board to Demyan. “You can jump back to the arrival chamber at that time. I know it was clear then.”

“Why do you know? Nayara demanded sharply. “I’m not sending Demyan back unless you convince me, first.”

“Because he’s already done it,” Brenden said simply. “I remember it. I came into Security right after the opening of the New Olympic Games last month. It’s a marker, because, well, the bloody Greeks were hosting, weren’t they?”

Ryan hid his smile. Despite thousands of years, Brenden had managed to keep many of the prejudices he’d learned as a Spartan and human. Even Ryan remembered the day, for Brenden had been in the foulest mood over the imagined slight to a Sparta that no longer existed except in Brenden’s memory.

“I found Demyan taking photos of the itinerary board and when I asked him what he was doing, he gave me some bullshit answer about administrative record keeping.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” Demyan murmured. He looked at Nayara. “Any objections?”

Nayara shook her head. “Don’t get caught.”

Demyan grinned. “I didn’t, did I?”

Pritti leaned in to Demyan’s shoulder and spoke into his ear. He listened and shook his head. “No, you must tell them,” he said.

“Tell us what?” Ryan demanded.

Pritti turned to look at him, her eyes enormous. She bit her lip. “You must know. I went back, too. To the station.”

Nayara glanced at Ryan and he could almost hear her thoughts.
Tread cautiously!
He studied Pritti. “When did you go back to?”

She drew random patterns across the table with her finger. “To when
they
came.”

“Gabriel’s people?” Ryan asked. Everyone had gone very quiet around them.

She nodded, her big eyes very wide and locked on his face.

“Why, Pritti?”

“To take more off the station.” Her voice was almost a whisper, as if she was admitting to the most heinous crime.

“But you took Ryan off the station,” Nayara said, sounding surprised.

“He was the third,” Pritti said.

Ryan pushed aside the fresh surprise slithering through him from the revelation that little Pritti had been the one to bring him safely off the station before it had been destroyed. He kept underestimating the power of her abilities. They all did.

“Pritti brought Stephano to me, too,” Fahmido said, from the other table.

Ryan considered Pritti once more. “You mention this for a reason, Pritti,” he said as gently as he could manage.

She nodded.

“Why?”

“I watched Gabriel use his weapon.”

Nayara leaned on the table. “You know what the weapon is, don’t you?”

Again, Pritti nodded slowly, as if she feared the consequences of her confession.

“Tell us,” Ryan urged her.

Pritti bit her lip once more. Demyan stroked her shoulder encouragingly.

Then she eased herself from the bench and walked the length of the table. It was a slow, measured step and Ryan realized that it had been a while since he had seen her bounce or twirl, or even give one of her little coos, as she had always done before.

Well, they were all more sober and serious since Gabriel had ripped their world apart.

Pritti stopped facing Ryan. “Put up your hand,” she told him.

Ryan held up his hand.

“As if you are telling me to stop,” she added and he adjusted the position of his hand so that his palm was flat and facing her.

She closed her eyes for a moment and her breathing increased. Ryan could feel the tension building in her and it made his own heart pick up speed, which wasn’t something that should happen when he was in his own time—not this easily, or this often.

Pritti’s shoulders braced, then she lifted her hand and pointed the index finger like a gun. She cocked her thumb, then bent it sharply like it was tugging on a trigger.

Something slapped into Ryan’s palm and knocked his whole arm sideways, wrenching at his shoulder. A hot rush of
something
swooshed through him and he clutched at the table with his good hand, as nausea gripped him. He was panting, now.

Nayara was suddenly next to him. “Ryan? Pritti, what did you do?”

He could feel Pritti next to him, too, a blinding white shape in his mind. “I can fix this,” she murmured.

Her tiny hands were on his face, lifting it, making him look at her. He struggled to meet her gaze.

Then her white hot shape encompassed his mind, covering it, containing the chaos, smothering the feelings, like a soft blanket of snow. Muffled peace descended, until finally, he found he could loosen his grip on the table. The nausea faded.

“Better, yes?” Pritti whispered, her eyes still focused on him.

“What did you do?” The words emerged as a croak.

Brenden made a sound that was half snort, half growl. “Shoving things around with your mind ain’t anything out of the ordinary.”

Ryan shook his head. “It wasn’t telekinesis. This was something more.” He looked at Pritti. “Tell me what you did.”

“I did what Gabriel did. I watched him. Later, I went back and dipped into his mind when he fired his weapon at you. He sent....” She frowned. “He sent himself. The essence of himself. All the power, the rage, the hatred. All of it. Focused on you.”

A profound silence greeted her words. Ryan knew that none of them doubted her. The depth of the silence was proof of that.

“But Pritti,” Nayara said gently, “Gabriel was aiming at Tinker. I was watching him.”

Pritti shook her head. “He knew one of you would protect the human. He was very, very happy it was Ryan. It made him send even more of himself.”

“Do you mean he…shot a more powerful burst of the whatever?” Brenden clarified.

Pritti pressed her lips together, as she glanced around the table. “He sent all of himself. He sent everything.”

There was a little tick of silence as they all absorbed this news.

“That would explain why only Ryan has suffered after effects,” Fahmido said, her tone cool and steady. “Rob, Christian and Tally were all targeted with the same weapon but all of them have returned to perfectly normal vampire physiology and health now.”

The silence this time was longer.

“Jesus wept,” Brenden said at last. “You mean, Gabriel
himself
is the weapon? The rifle we took off him was...what?”

“A pointing device,” Ryan replied.

Pritti pointed her hand at Brenden, the fingertip aimed at him. “Bang,” she said softly.

“A psychic blast of some sort. Is that what is was, Pritti? Focused and channeled power?” Nayara asked.

“Power...and more. All of him. All the hatred, all the emotion. All of it.”

Brenden rubbed the back of his neck. “Makes sense, when you think of the old muskets we used to use. The musket itself was the aiming device. Same with Gabriel’s gun. The powder propelling the lead shot—that would be Gabriel’s telekinetic power. The shot itself....” He looked at Pritti. “Emotions, you say?”

“Yes.”

Brenden pursed his lips, considering. “Hurling emotions at people.” He shrugged. “I don’t know much about physiology. Didn’t, even when I was human. But it makes a strange kind of sense. Emotions affect people physically.”

Ryan kept his expression neutral, but felt a lurch of unhappy recognition. Was this what was happening to him? Fallout from the weapon Gabriel had used on him?

Fahmido stood up to look at Ryan. “That would fit with what I observed while you were unconscious, Ryan. Your symptoms were typical for overwhelming emotional reactions. It didn’t occur to me before, because vampires don’t typically suffer physical reactions with their emotional responses.”

Rob held up a hand. “Wait. Are you saying that because Ryan is vampire, the weapon was...blunted, somehow?”

Fahmido nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Rob shook his head. “It knocked him out for over a week. What would it do to a
human
?”