Her head popped up, and clearly, she was standing on the other side facing him. “I made it!” She wildly waved her arms.
“Where are you?” he called.
“I can see a house down below. And people. I think I came out on the other side of the highway.”
“Makes sense!”
“I’ll send someone to dig you out right away!”
“I’ll see you on the outside.”
She stood there as if undecided about . . . something.
“Go on now,” he called. “Be careful!”
“I am. I will. Bye, Samuel. Bye!” One moment she was there.
Then she was gone . . . leaving him with the irritated sense that something had just gone very wrong.
Chapter 32
The sign read:
WELCOME TO HOLYROOD, WEST VIRGINIA
POPULATION 14
Aaron Eagle pulled the van to a stop, and the Chosen Ones peered out the front window and down the main street—the only street—of the town.
“This is the place.” Charisma could feel a tingle in the stones that ringed her wrists.
Holyrood hid secrets, special secrets. She didn’t know what they were, but the earth knew. She could hear its singing.
“Where are the fourteen people who live here?” John Powell was their leader, the man who had received the e-mail asking for help and made the executive decision to make the drive from New York City to this tiny hamlet deep in the Appalachians.
He didn’t have to do it. Maybe it was bad idea. But he had said, There’s no use us sitting around worrying and grieving about Samuel and Isabelle. We’ve got to go out and do something, and this message—he tapped the paper he’d printed out—if it’s really from one of the Chosen who has retired . . . well, we need to respond. He asked for our help. We need to make contact.
“More to the point, where’s this Billy Pemrick character?” Caleb D’Angelo looked like what he was—a bodyguard, tough, strong, fierce, and right now tense with suspicion. “He said he’d meet us at the mayor’s office, but surely he heard us coming up that last grade.”
Everyone nodded.
There were six of them in the van: their driver, Aaron, an art thief with an impressive extra talent; John Powell, the guy with the power; Jacqueline D’Angelo, their psychic; Aleksandr Wilder, Chosen but not gifted; and Caleb, who wasn’t one of the Chosen at all, but was Jacqueline’s husband and the man they depended on to have their backs.
And Charisma Fangorn, well aware that she was out of place in this rural environment. She was out of place almost everywhere she went, no big deal, but some people really did have problems with her tats, her piercings, her pop clothing, and her black-and-yellow hair. She figured once they got to know her, they would love her.
And usually, they did.
The ones who didn’t were stupid.
“So is this a trap?” Aaron asked.
“If the Others are going to set a trap for us, it would have been easier in New York,” John said flatly.
John was nothing if not logical.
“It’s not a trap for us. But everything is not as it seems.” Jacqueline stared out the dark-tinted side windows at the forest that pressed close to the road.
“Are you having a vision?” Caleb hovered close to his wife, always ready to protect her when a prophecy seized her.
“Not exactly.” She put her hand on his arm. “But I’ve got some really strong intuition working here.”
Charisma cranked around in the seat. “It’s wonderful the way your gift keeps developing!”
“Either it’s developing or I’m wrong and we’re driving into a minefield,” Jacqueline said.
“Don’t sugarcoat it, honey; give it to us straight.” Caleb opened the panel in the floor and pulled out the firearms—cleaned, loaded, and ready. Since the Chosen Ones had first come together, Caleb had been training them in the use of firearms. Some of them were better than others, and Caleb decided who got what. He handed out pistols to everyone, rifles for him, for Aaron, for Jacqueline, for Aleksandr. Charisma had an astigmatism that made her pull to the right, and John, with his ability to project power, was more useful with his hands free.
They all wore bulletproof vests, now standard equipment for the Chosen Ones.
The trip into the Appalachians had been everything they’d expected. The freeway had become a highway, the highway had become a road, the road had gone from two-lane paved to gravel washboard, and the higher they climbed, the denser the forest, the more primitive the atmosphere, and the narrower and more winding the road. During the trip, Charisma had felt as if she’d gone from twenty-first-century New York City to colonial America—or even earlier.
“Is the town empty?” Aleksandr moved his shoulders uneasily.
“No, there are people here.” Aaron eased his foot off the brake and let the van glide forward at an idle.
“Are you developing a psychic gift?” Jacqueline asked.
“Better than that, I’m a thief.” Aaron’s eyes shifted from side to side, scrutinizing every bush, every window. “And if a thief doesn’t have a pretty solid sense about people watching him, he’s soon going to be dancing with Bubba at the prison prom. Or be pushing up daisies at the local cemetery.”
Holyrood was a pretty standard old mountain town. The newest building was the store, built in the forties after the war. A dozen small, square homes in various states of old age and disrepair sat back from the street. Picket fences surrounded each patch of grassy yard. The garages were set toward the backs of the long, narrow lots.
“Someone is watching us,” Aaron concluded, “and watching us really hard.”
“Yes, and there’s been gunfire,” Charisma said.
“Your stones are telling you that?” Aleksandr asked incredulously.
“Bullets are made of lead, lead comes from the earth, and . . . Yes, the stones are telling me a lot of stuff. Mostly to be careful.” Charisma glanced in the back. “So be careful.”
“Instead of the usual reckless idiots we usually are?” Aleksandr suggested.
She turned and grinned at him.
He didn’t grin back, and that startled her.
Aleksandr was the youngest member of their team, now in graduate school at NYU. When he’d first joined the Chosen Ones, he had been raw, gangly, an overgrown boy with overgrown brains. He’d been brought in because he was one of the famous Wilders, but Aleksandr had no gift. He’d been born into a loving family; magic gifts weren’t given to infants who were welcomed and loved.
Yet because of his background, everyone liked him. He was polite, he was generous, he was inventive, he didn’t have issues. He was great with the computer, which as far as Charisma was concerned was better than woo-woo. . . .
But today, he appeared to be different.
Maybe she just hadn’t really examined him for a while, but he didn’t look like a kid anymore.
He was a man, tall, broad-shouldered, serious.
It made her feel funny to stare him in the eyes. She’d always felt older because her early life had been so rocky, but they were actually close to the same age. She was almost twenty-three, so he must be twenty-four.
She faced front.
Probably he had grown up so abruptly because they had lost their friends and allies. Because with every day that passed, it looked more and more as if Samuel and Isabelle were . . . gone . . .
Charisma couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t. She would know if they were dead.
“Any bets that that’s the mayor’s office?” Caleb pointed at the sign on the small, square building next to the store. “Park off to the side of the garage. Um, to the right—there’s an old truck parked to the left.”
Aaron turned abruptly, changing from a leisurely drive down the street to a fast skid into the driveway and into the unoccupied spot beside the garage.
He turned off the motor and waited.
Nothing. No sound, no motion.
Twisting to face the bac
k, he asked, “What do you think?”
“I think no one can see in the van, the Others can’t see who we are and there’s a pretty good chance they don’t want to fire on innocent people,” John said.
“Because they’re such nice folks?” Aleksandr asked sarcastically.
“Because we might be tourists, and they have instructions to keep this operation as clean as possible,” Caleb said.
“Right.” Aaron nodded. “So Charisma and I are going in. Cover us.”
Picking up his rifle and the rounds of ammo Caleb had placed beside him, he concealed them beneath his coat, then swung the door open.
Charisma did the same.
Still nothing.
They got out and walked toward the mayor’s side porch.
The back of Charisma’s neck itched with the knowledge that too many eyes were upon them.
They climbed the steps, tapped on the door.
No one answered.
“Mr. Pemrick?” Charisma called. “You sent an e-mail to John Powell asking for—”
The door flew open.
A broad-shouldered old Clint Eastwood sort of a guy grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her inside.
Aaron followed.
And a blast of buckshot followed them both.
Chapter 33
The old guy got the door shut and glared at Aaron. “You John Powell?”
“I’m Aaron. This is Charisma.” Aaron gestured. “John’s in the van.”
Aaron and Charisma stood in the mayor’s office, all right: a single large room, three desks, six chairs, one large metal file cabinet, and, through a narrow, open door, a tiny restroom.
Glass and shards of wood crunched under Charisma’s feet. Every window had been shot out. Chunks of the windowsills had been blasted away. The shades were peppered with holes, hanging crooked or fallen to the floor. Rifles and ammunition had been strategically placed throughout the room.
“It looks as if you’ve already been through a war,” Aaron said.
“Sorry I didn’t tidy up. I wasn’t sure I was having visitors,” Billy said in his slow West Virginia drawl. “Or at least—I wasn’t sure I was having welcome visitors. If we stay back here a ways, they can’t see us. But it’s a good idea to stay down, because they send in a shot every once in a while.”
“You’re hurt.” Charisma didn’t need to see the blood matted on the back of Billy’s shirt to know that. Her stones were vibrating.
“They got a few shots in,” Billy allowed. “Mind if I sit down?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. He slithered down on a desk chair.
His thinning hair was still red, his faded eyes were blue, but what should have been a ruddy complexion was gray with exhaustion and drawn with pain.
Aaron pulled out his cell. “So I can bring in my people—where are the shooters?”
“I’ve got three in the house across the way. Two in the houses on either side.” Billy used four fingers to point. “One somewhere in the general store, although I think he isn’t doing as well as he thought he would when he went in. Might have got a good shot in myself.”
“None in the woods around us?” Aaron asked.
“No, they’re city folk. They don’t like all them trees and such.” Billy’s face crinkled in disdain.
“Anyone out there with powers?” Aaron was assuming the worst.
“The sweetest-faced little gal you’ve ever seen—she’s about eighteen, but I can’t quite figure out what her job is. She’s sitting in the house across the way, watching the whole operation and waiting for . . .” Billy sighed. “I don’t know what she’s waiting for, but she scares me. I think she’s here to make me talk, and I think she’s got some kind of pretty nasty gift that could do it. I’ve been thinking that today was a good time to die. My Ruby Lee is going to be glad you got here before I did.”
While Aaron dispensed the information to the group in the van, Charisma commanded, “Billy, take off your shirt.”
“If I had a dime for every time a pretty girl like you said that to me.” Billy pulled his shirt out from beneath his belt, unsnapped it, pulled it off.
“Wow!” She ogled the carefully etched marks across his belly. “Awesome tat!”
“Thank you, little lady, but as I’m sure you must know, it’s not exactly a tattoo.” He said the word as if he were correcting her grammar. “Had a dag-blasted Varinski shape-shifter attack me while my attention was elsewhere. Gave me my mark and taught me a lesson I never forgot.”
“What was that?”
“Don’t assume an enemy’s going to attack from the rear.” He turned the chair and straddled it so she could view the damage.
He’d been peppered with buckshot more than once, and from close range. Blood rose from wounds that looked like hamburger, and buckshot clustered so closely together he would need surgery to get it all out.
“Those bastards,” Charisma said softly. She didn’t really know what to do, how to fix him.
If only Isabelle were here.
But Isabelle was . . . missing. Not dead. She was missing.
“One of the silly fools with a shotgun did attack from the rear. He sneaked up to the window while I was firing out the front. Brought me to my knees, he did.” Billy turned his head and smiled coldly. “But if you go look out in my garden, you’ll see he is now fertilizing my roses. The first-aid kit is right there on the desk. I was trying to fix myself up for another go-round.”
Aaron stepped to the door. “The rest of our group is coming in.”
“I wish I could help protect ’em”—Billy’s head sank onto his arms crossed on the back of the chair—“but I’m starting to feel sorta poorly.”
“I imagine you are.” Charisma ran her hand over his back, feeling the lead pieces, flicking the easiest ones out with her fingernail.
The shooting started, loud, abrasive, so many blasts it sounded like a machine gun.
“Unless you brought something to stop those bullets, your people are dead,” Billy said.
“John Powell will stop the bullets. He’s like Darth Vader without the breathing problems,” Charisma told him.
Aaron yanked the door open, and called out names as the Chosen entered, introducing them as they piled in. He slammed the door on another barrage of shots.
Caleb pointed Jacqueline, Aleksandr, and Aaron toward windows. They took their places in the shadows.
Caleb strode to the front door, cracked it, knelt, and shot.
Across the street, someone screamed.
Billy looked them over. “There aren’t enough of you. There aren’t seven.”
“Two of our team are gone,” Charisma told him. “In Switzerland.”
“Gone? Is that a euphemism for . . . ?”
“No! The rescuers are still looking for them.” Charisma didn’t say the search had officially changed from rescue to retrieval.
“John?” Jacqueline beckoned. “Can you come over here and push over that gardening shed next to the house on the left? If you can do that, I’ve got a clear shot.”
John went over, looked out. Gently he moved Jacqueline aside, lifted his hands, and from across the street, Charisma heard wood creak, then blow apart.
Someone yelled.
Jacqueline moved into place and shot.
The yelling stopped.
“I take back all the bad things I’ve said about the younger generation.” For the first time, the muscles in Billy’s broad back relaxed.
John strode forward and shook Billy’s hand. “Mr. Pemrick? John Powell. It was good to hear from you. Really good. We thought we were pretty much the only Chosen left alive.”
“There are a few of us hanging around, out in the sticks mostly, the ones who didn’t much approve of the Gypsy Travel Agency and how they handled matters,” Billy said.
Charisma picked up the tweezers. “How did you find us?”
“It took me a while,” Billy said. “I tried to contact the Gypsy Travel Agency. But they’re gone.”
&nbs
p; “For almost three years,” John told him.
“For a while I thought the Gypsy Travel Agency had managed to destroy themselves and the Chosen Ones completely. But then I figured, no, we’re isolated up here, and we’re hillbillies”—Billy’s West Virginia drawl grew more exaggerated—“but I would have heard if the country had collapsed completely. Would have seen it on my computer machine.”
Charisma laughed softly.
“What?” Billy turned around to look at her, and his faded blue eyes twinkled. “You don’t believe I’m a hillbilly? Born and raised right here in the heart of the Appalachians.”
“No, sir, I believe you are a hillbilly if you say you are. But I think you might have seen a little of the world in your day.” Charisma picked more buckshot out of the old man’s powerful back.
Aleksandr smoothly raised his rifle and shot.
Billy said, “I’m glad to know someone taught the Chosen Ones how to use firearms. It’s a useful skill.”
“Yes, sir,” Aleksandr said. “My grandfather was a stickler about useful skills.”
“Who’s your grandfather?” Billy asked.
“Konstantine Wilder,” Aleksandr said.
Billy twisted away from Charisma’s touch. “Really? You’re a Wilder?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Last I heard about the Wilders, they’d broken their deal with the devil and caused old Lucifer a whole lot of heartburn.”
“We do what we can,” Aleksandr said.
“So you can’t shape-shift?” With each piece of shot Charisma extracted, blood trickled down Billy’s back.
“Don’t know. Never have. Never tried.” The tone of Aleksandr’s voice was off.
But Charisma was too busy slapping first-aid tape on each bleeder—lousy nursing, but she had little practice—and she didn’t have time to delve into whatever was bothering him.
“You keep it that way,” Billy said. “A deal with the devil is a slippery road right to hell.”
“You and my grandfather would get along really well,” Aleksandr said.
“Since when do you want to change, young Aleksandr?” Caleb must have heard that tone in Aleksandr’s voice, too.