Storm of Visions by Christina Dodd Page B

don’t do something.”
    Jacqueline tucked her hand through Irving’s arm and allowed him to lead her into the foyer.
    With a scraping of chairs, the Chosen Ones stood and followed.
    The library was as warm and cheerful as McKenna had promised, with walls painted the color of mustard, mahogany shelves filled with leather-bound books, and wide sweeps of antique Aubusson rugs on the floor. A massive fireplace, with an opening as tall as Caleb and as wide as his outstretched arms, blazed merrily. Comfortable seating clustered around it, the gaming and pool tables dominated the center of the room, and heavy blue velvet curtains kept out night’s menace.
    Aleksandr spoke for them all when he picked up a pool cue, weighed it in his hand, and said, “Very . . . cool.”
    Even the dour McKenna looked pleased at the approbation. He and Martha hustled around, filling their drink orders, and when that was done, the two servants disappeared.
    The group quickly divided into the players and the watchers. Isabelle selected a cue and Tyler as her partner. Aleksandr waited for someone to partner him, and when Samuel took up a cue, the teams were formed.
    The others settled down to watch, drinks in hand, and Jacqueline surveyed them all.
    Charisma sat on the floor beside the fire, brandy snifter hanging carelessly from her fingers.
    Aaron stretched out on a love seat, a mug of coffee clasped between his palms.
    Irving sank into his worn leather easy chair and accepted a small Waterford glass of tawny port.
    Caleb . . . had vanished on his way to the library. Potty break, Jacquelilne supposed.
    So these people were all that were left of the Chosen Ones.
    Was that good? Was that bad? Jacqueline didn’t know. She had visited the Gypsy Travel Agency many times in her life. The company had been a constant in her life. The board of directors employed her mother, sent her on trips, encouraged her romances, all in the name of keeping the world safe from the devil’s machinations. Except for Irving, Jacqueline had never liked any of them . . . and occasionally, she suspected that if she’d known Irving during his heyday, she would have disliked him, too. To her, the directors seemed to be cold, self-absorbed men who directed the mon eymaking part of the business with enthusiasm while maintaining their saintly reputation for protecting the Chosen Ones.
    She sank down on the cushions thrown in careful disarray against the window seat and sipped from a glass of Grand Marnier.
    She knew the traditions of the Chosen Ones. Ideally they would first struggle and argue, then find a natural leader, then settle down to the job at hand. Usually that job was finding and rescuing others like themselves . . . the Abandoned Ones. If they found the babies in time, the children would be adopted into families and disappear into the real world to live out their lives in obscurity. If they failed to retrieve the babies, the Others would take them. Sometimes they sacrificed them. Sometimes they raised them to be steeped in evil. Always they reminded the children that the Chosen Ones had not cared to rescue them. Always they cultivated resentment against the Chosen Ones.
    Sometimes the mix of the Chosen was less than ideal. Sometimes there were two leaders, or three, or four, and the group fought fruitlessly, never establishing a rapport. Sometimes the Chosen were born into a time that required physical strength and acts of heroics, and they had become bulwarks in the struggle against evil.
    Right now, with the strife and the arguments, it seemed this group would be one of the insignificant Chosen.
    Yet . . . they needed to be so much more.
    The pool players racked up the balls. Isabelle broke, and ran five balls before giving over to the other team. She watched and chalked as Aleksandr placed three balls in three pockets, then turned to face Irving. “I need to call my mother, let her know where I am, what I’m doing,” she said.
    “This is a delicate situation.