Chains of Ice (33 page)

Jacqueline gave a pleased sigh. “Ohh.”

“What is it?” Charisma peered between the two women.

“It’s what I need to find the prophecy. May I?” Jacqueline asked.

“Of course.” Genny placed it in her cupped hands.

Jacqueline held it. Just held it, eyes half closed, and seemed to be listening to music no one else could hear.

Charisma put her hand on Genny’s arm.

The two women exchanged glances.

Jacqueline shook herself, and with sudden enthusiasm, said, “Come on. Let’s go to Irving’s office.” She led the way out of the library and up the stairs.

Genny followed.

Charisma brought up the tail.

Genny felt as if she were being corralled.

“Why do you say it belongs to the Gypsy Travel Agency?” Jacqueline called back.

“Because I owe them for the price of my education, and it’s the only thing I’ve gathered in my travels that I believe would be of interest to them.” Genny suspected the matching bag at her father’s house would also be of interest to the Chosen Ones. In fact, she suspected it had come from the Gypsy Travel Agency, one of the relics he had stolen and not returned because everyone thought it without value.

But she didn’t have possession of it, and couldn’t take possession unless she went to her father’s house. And that was a visit she did not desire to make.

Yet it had to be done; she knew it did. For two and a half years, her father had believed her dead. She’d seen his lament on the online networks, knew the bitterness of the truth—he cared so little for her, he had used his grief and loneliness to attract women.

When he realized she was alive, would he once again try to force her into the business world? Or would he recognize the changes in her?

She was betting he would once again try to use her. She suspected it would be a very unpleasant visit.

Now Jacqueline opened the door to a large room. Genny walked in and stopped.

Behind her, Charisma laughed in a wavering way. “Weird, huh? It’s Irving’s study, and the stuff he has in here is positively spooky.”

“But
this
is what we’re interested in.” Jacqueline walked to the table, to an open medieval manuscript, where a leather sack identical to Genny’s, except for the color of the string, sat waiting. “Early this morning, I woke and I knew there was something about this purse. I had Irving find it for me, because I believed I should be able to use it for a vision, an important vision. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get beyond the first stage. Now, this afternoon, you bring me this? Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

“Whoa. Cue the
Twilight Zone
music,” Charisma said.

Genny nodded at the sack with the red string. “What’s inside that one?”

Jacqueline smiled and carefully untied the blue string on Genny’s purse. “Bones.” She poured the bones out of Genny’s sack, then the bones out of the sack on the table.

Eighteen finger bones rested on the table. Eighteen finger bones, yellowed with age, the same lengths and widths . . . the same hand.

“More spooky,” Charisma said.

The three women sank into chairs around the table.

Jacqueline sorted the bones, carefully keeping them in separate piles. She picked them up, a sack’s full worth in each hand, and shook them like dice. “Hm,” she said.

“How did you find that, Genny?” Charisma was asking questions, but her gaze was fixed on Jacqueline, waiting . . .

Genny watched, too, fascinated and on edge, waiting for something profound to happen, and at the same time chatting as if nothing mattered. “When I first received the bag, I thought it was simply an odd old relic. Then as I traveled, it seemed to help me out. Guided me to shelter when I thought I was going to die. Helped me when I was attacked. Once, I even lost it, and it found its way back to me.”

“Yes, there’s something very powerful here.” Jacqueline pushed the two piles of bones into mounds, then placed her hands over them. “I can’t quite figure out how to . . .” She stiffened. Her head fell back against the chair.

In China, Genny had seen women and men who claimed to be oracles. When a vision possessed them, they frothed and fell, shouted and writhed.

Jacqueline was calm, coherent . . . here. She opened her mouth to speak.

Genny waited on the edge of her seat.

Jacqueline’s eyes closed all the way. She relaxed and sighed. Opening her eyes, she looked at Genny and Charisma and shook her head. “The prophecy is there, just beyond my reach, but it won’t quite coalesce. It’s like this is a puzzle with a piece missing.”

Didn’t that just figure?
Genny wanted to bonk her own head on the table.

Instead, she pushed back her chair and stood. “I know what’s missing. Give me a couple of hours. I’m sure I can get it for you.”

What she couldn’t do was become the woman her father had envisioned.

How would he react to her return? Would he even know her?

Because here on this street, people looked, but no one recognized her. She was a ghost.

The truth was, she would rather fight her way once more through that snow in Kazakhstan to the shelter of that yurt and try to communicate with people who spoke almost no English or Russian than to try to speak to her father.

With a sigh, she put the key back in its hiding place and rang the doorbell.

Avni opened the door.

Genny stared, slack-jawed. “Avni? What . . . ? How . . . ?”

Avni looked as she had in Rasputye: tall, thin, eastern Indian, smiling. Yet Genny saw differences . . . “Genny. I was hoping you’d come home today.”

“Come home today? How would you know I was even here?”

“It’s your father.”

“What about my father?” Genny couldn’t make sense of this turn of events. “Is he sick?”

Avni grabbed her wrist. “Come on!” She gave Genny a tug, pulling her across the threshold and into the dim entry hall.

The furniture hadn’t changed since her grandparents’ deaths. It looked like a nineteen-sixties sitcom in here, and for a second, she stood frozen in the memory of her youth.

The door shut behind her.

She whirled around.

Brandon stood there, his back pressed against the door. He was thin to the point of gauntness. His white T-shirt was torn; his jeans sagged around his hips. He looked at her with sorrow, eyes full of tears. “Why did you come back? Why didn’t you just stay away?”

Then something hard slammed into the back of Genny’s head. She fell to her knees. Looked up. And saw Avni lifting the bookend once more.

John was making his hundredth circuit of the waiting room, his gaze on the clock, when his cell phone vibrated. He stopped pacing, glanced at the caller.

“How is he?” As always, her voice was quiet, restrained, but he could hear the anxiety behind it.

“No one has come out for two hours. He’s been in surgery for over five.”

“What are they doing in there?”

“Orthopedic surgeon is replacing his hip and his shoulder joint. General surgeon is fixing anything else. How did the mission go?”

“Pretty standard. We followed the Others. Had a fight. We won.” She paused. “I wish you’d let us know about Irving.” She was angry.

He didn’t blame her, but he’d had his reasons. “I didn’t know if you were going to have to fight today, but there’s always a chance and I didn’t want you to be distracted. I didn’t want to be pacing the floor for you, too.”

“We’re on our way down. Caleb, Samuel, and I.”

“See you in a few.” John hung up.

He couldn’t believe he’d been talking to Irving just that morning. They hadn’t really settled the issue of John’s powers. Irving seemed remarkably unconcerned by the problem, while John . . . Carefully, he targeted a chair across the waiting room. Slowly, with great control, he lifted it a few inches off the floor. Everything was working normally now. But for how long?

“Mr. Powell?” A weary-looking doctor stood beside him. “I’m Dr. Rodriguez. Mr. Shea is out of surgery and in recovery, if you’d like to follow me.”

John stayed right on the doctor’s heels. “What’s the prognosis?”

“He’s old. There was a lot of damage done—broken hip, broken shoulder, concussion. Dr. Allen replaced both joints. The good news is, Mr. Shea is still alive. Most men his age wouldn’t have survived at all, much less live through five-plus hours of surgery. But add the internal injuries and the concussion . . .” The doctor looked troubled. “The next twenty-four hours are crucial. Even more crucial is whether he wants to live, and you know more about that than I do.”

“He has a full and busy life with a lot of people who love him.” But did Irving want to live? If this was the sacrifice he was contemplating, he would go before the sun set—very soon.

The doctor gestured toward a closed door. “Talk to him. Remind him of that full and busy life. I’ll check in before I leave.”

They shook hands.

John quickly sent a group text to the Chosen Ones and their support staff, repeating the doctor’s comments. Then he entered the room where machines beeped and huffed.

A woman dressed in black was leaning over Irving, speaking in a soft voice that sounded, to John, faintly familiar.

A curl of unease twisted through him. “Hello?”

She turned.

It was Dina. Dina from the street corner. Dina who smelled of cigarette smoke and who spoke so clearly in his mind. Her dark eyes met his—and she had been crying. “Hello, John.”

“What are you doing here?” He strode to Irving’s side, looked at the old man stretched out on the mattress.

Irving’s face was gray and sunken, his eyes were closed and his nose was swollen. Tubes and tape covered him.

“You may have suspected—we have a history, Irving and I.”

“Then you should leave.”

She shook her head. “No. Right now I’m the only one he can hear, and trust me, he needs to hear my voice. Don’t worry about leaving Irving with me. I will take care of him.”

John couldn’t believe Dina’s nerve. “Why would I leave him with you?”

“Because your woman is in danger.”

“My woman?” Dina was crazy. He rang the call bell. Got ready to forcibly evict her. “Charisma? Isabelle? Who . . . ?”

“They’ve got Genny at her father’s house.”

That stopped him cold. “Genny?”

“Isn’t that her name? Brown hair, gold eyes, just arrived from Timbuktu?”

“She did not!” But the doubts of this morning returned to plague him. Was Genny alive? Was she here in New York City?

“She came to the mansion. Give your friends a call and check it out.”

Striding forward, he grabbed Dina’s arm and wrenched her around to face him. “How do you know this?”

Dina wasn’t a bit intimidated by John’s strength, by his fury. Coolly she asked, “Isn’t it obvious? We’ve been watching her.”

John released Dina’s arm. “Why?”

“She’s a person of interest.”

“Genny is at her father’s house?” John hadn’t liked Kevin Valente when Genny spoke of him; he hadn’t liked him when he had met him. And after Irving’s revelation of this morning, that the Gypsy Travel Agency hadn’t sent Genny to Russia . . . the idea of Genny at her father’s house sent a chill up John’s spine.

“Kevin Valente is a real prick.” As if she heard a call, Dina glanced at Irving, leaned over him and smoothed his hair.

For a second, just a second, Irving’s eyelids fluttered.

In a distracted voice, she said, “You’d better go. If you don’t get there in a hurry, you’ll lose your Genny . . . again. And this time, it will be forever.”