Wilder (7 page)

Chapter 10

T
he five Chosen Ones and their mates huddled close in the confines of the Swiss bank’s underground steel-lined vault.

Samuel reflected that there wasn’t enough room to do anything
except
huddle close. The room was long and narrow, cool, and austere, containing only a marble countertop and a safe.

The bank president, Adelbrecht Wagner, used a handprint reader, a series of voice commands, and a key to open that safe. “There you have it,” he said, as if everything should be easy. Removing a long gray metal box, he placed it on the marble counter. “I will leave you alone now to discover the contents of your safety-deposit box. I hope you have better luck this time than those other times when Samuel visited.”

“Ha, ha.” Samuel laughed feebly and without humor. He’d been here half a dozen times trying to figure out how to do nothing more complicated than remove the safety-deposit box from the room. Last time, whatever was inside had zapped him so hard he’d been unconscious for a half hour.

“I will lock you in. This is our highest-security area, and no one is allowed to wander unsupervised.” Wagner was six-foot-six, fair and blond, with long arms, long legs, and big fists. He was not a man who encouraged challenge.

Yet John Powell, the leader of the Chosen Ones, six-foot-five and a man who wielded power with supernatural ease, stood toe-to-toe with him. “Why lock us in? I thought there were guards at the door.”

Samuel wanted to snort. This whole stupid idea of all of them coming together to free the contents of the safety-deposit box was John’s, and now . . . he had the guts to challenge the restrictions of this top-security Swiss bank?

Good luck.

“Yes, of course. Well-trained armed guards. Should any unauthorized person wander through this level, they aim to kill.” Wagner stared unblinkingly at John.

“Good to know.” John stepped back. “I feel safe.”

“Exactly our intention. Now I will lock you in.” Wagner gestured at the button on the wall. “When you’re ready to leave, ring that and I will come to release you.”

Samuel offered his hand.

Looking a little puzzled, Wagner took it and shook.

“Thank you, Wagner. It’s always a pleasure to see you again.” Samuel used the moment of contact to make sure that Wagner’s mind was still firmly under his control.

It was. Wagner had no ulterior motive except to protect the clients of his bank.

Yet as he shut the door behind him, as the thick steel closed so quietly and the turn of the key in the lock was so final, the Chosen Ones looked uncomfortable . . . except Aaron Eagle, who, as the world’s most proficient thief, had spent more time in closed bank vaults than the rest of them.

Aaron strolled to the box and fiddled with the latch, then shook his head and backed away.

Isabelle restlessly rotated her shoulders. “Sammy, couldn’t you have controlled Wagner’s mind and made him leave the door unlocked?”

Isabelle Mason was Samuel’s wife, the love of his life, with a high-class Boston accent, delicate bones, and exotically slanted blue eyes. She never raised her voice; she never broke a sweat—and oh, God, how could he forget? She was the healer for the Chosen Ones.

That meant she absorbed injury in order to heal them, and in doing that . . . she absorbed their pain.

He couldn’t stand to see her hurting. That was why he tried to keep her away from trouble.

Not that she ever listened to him.

But he did everything he could to make her happy, so now he said, “I could try. But when it comes to mind control, it’s best to keep it simple, to never go against ingrained behavior—and Wagner’s compulsion to protect the stolen billions in cash and jewels is ingrained in him. I convinced Wagner that we all have the right to be in here. For now, that’s enough.”

“You’re right.” Isabelle smiled at Samuel, her lips trembling. “Ever since you and I were trapped together, I get a little uneasy underground.”

He caught her hand and placed a warm, intimate kiss in her palm. In a deep voice that both reminded and enticed, he said, “Some good things occurred while we were trapped together, too.”

Her smile strengthened. “I know.”

“Nothing like those good things are going to happen now with the rest of us here,” Aaron said. “Right, Samuel?
Right?
”

Samuel grinned at his friend. “Right.”

John Powell, who harnessed the power of the universe and, as needed, kept the Chosen Ones focused on their goals, took a long, patient breath. “Guys, stop joking around. Let’s see if this works.”

They stood in a circle—actually the shape of the vault created more of an oval—and one by one they prepared for the ritual they could only pray would release the contents of the safety-deposit box.

First their seer, Jacqueline Vargha, joined hands with her husband and their director of security, Caleb D’Angelo. Then Jacqueline joined hands with Aaron, who joined hands with his wife, the antiquities expert and librarian Rosamund Hall. Then Rosamund joined hands with John, and he took the hand of his wife, Genny.

In their infancy, Jacqueline, Aaron, and John had been given supernatural gifts, and although Caleb, Rosamund, and Genny were not gifted, each Chosen had found the perfect mate. And since John and Genny had first met, Genny had developed the disconcerting ability to see talent in other people.

Now Samuel and Isabelle were left, still separate from the others.

Isabelle took Caleb’s hand and placed her other palm against the side of the box.

Samuel leaned his cane against the wall. He took Genny’s hand and placed his other hand on the other side of the box.

And they waited.

“Nothing’s happening, John,” Samuel said.

“I know nothing’s happening,” John said irritably. “Samuel and Isabelle, try joining your hands.”

Samuel put his hand over hers, gently turned her hand up, and intertwined their fingers. And although he was tired of standing, grumpy at being here, and worried to death, still the touch of Isabelle’s skin against his brought all his love for her rushing back to him.

He glanced up with a smile, expecting to meet her gaze.

But she was staring at the box with a startled expression.

“For the hundredth time, John,
why
does Isabelle have to be here?” Samuel picked up his cane and leaned on it.

John Powell fixed his icy blue eyes on Samuel, and he looked like a linebacker scoping the new tackling dummy. “For the hundredth time, Samuel, Isabelle has to be here because we’ve all, one at a time, tried to unlock the safety-deposit box and failed, so we needed to try opening that box together.”

“I’ve never tried by myself,” Isabelle said.

Of course. She would say that.

“I feel responsible.” Jacqueline sagged against Caleb. “I’m sorry, everyone. I saw everyone here, and when John suggested that if we did our thing where we held hands and got that jolt of approval that we get when we’re all together, maybe the magic that guards the box would dissipate and hand over its contents . . . well, that seemed sort of a good idea.”

“It was worth a try.” Rosamund gave her a hug.

Genny joined in the hug.

Samuel waited for Isabelle to rush over and do the female thing and hug and pat and reassure.

Isabelle still stood there. “I could try,” she said dreamily.

Samuel was pretty freaking pleased with his level tone when he said, “Isabelle, you’re our healer. How does having
you
try to free the safety-deposit box make any sense at all?” Samuel turned back to John. “And maybe having all of us here might be the key, except all of us are not here. We’re missing Aleksandr and we’re missing—”

A stifled sob interrupted him.

“Crap.” He glanced around. The embracing women had gone from sad to desolate. They’d lost Charisma less than two weeks ago, and even
he
knew he’d been insensitive.

“If Charisma were here, it might work.” Jacqueline’s voice rasped with the effort to hold back her tears.

“We can’t give up on her.” Genny held Jacqueline’s arm. “I know that your visions will help us find her.”

Samuel felt bad. It was all so bleak. Charisma was like a kid sister, annoying, smart-assed, tattooed, rebellious, strong, careless. . . . He had never gotten along with her. Yet she had been a part of his life for almost seven years. She had mocked him. She had exulted when he’d at last won Isabelle. She had protected his back in every battle.

But how to say what was in his heart without embarrassing himself by . . . by sobbing? “Look,” he said, and he used his hearty voice. “I’m sorry. I miss Charisma, too. You know I do. No one except Isabelle has ever managed to give me as much hell as Charisma. That woman was born to be the boss.”

Still crying, Rosamund took off her glasses and wiped the lenses.

Jacqueline stood with her hand over her wet eyes.

Genny buried her head in John’s dark shirt.

And Isabelle stood with her back to him and her head bowed.

The guys were glaring at him.

“I’m sorry.” Samuel really was. “I’m sorry I said anything.” He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. But he couldn’t keep quiet now. “I’m just so tired of visiting this bank every damned year trying to open the damned safety-deposit box when we don’t even know for sure what’s in it.”

Just like that, Rosamund stopped sobbing and exclaimed, “I know!”

Chapter 11

“I
know you know,” Samuel said hastily, trying to head Rosamund off before she got rolling about Lucifer and the feather and the prophecy and all that other stuff she loved so much because she was an antiquities librarian and such cool stuff was her specialty.

Not that he didn’t agree it was cool.

It was just that he’d heard it. So. Many. Times. Before.

But there was no stopping Rosamund. “It makes sense, Samuel.”

Agree with her. Just agree with her.
“I know. You’re right. Really. I know.”

“God’s beloved angel Lucifer tried to lead an insurrection against God, and God expelled him from heaven.” Beneath her glasses, Rosamund’s violet eyes shone with conviction. “As Lucifer fell to earth in flames, his angel wings incinerated—”

“Except for two feathers, one from each wing.” He flapped his hands like tiny wings. “Yes. Yes. I know.”

Rosamund was exactly like the stereotypical librarian: She never wore makeup, her curly hair rioted wildly around her head, and she loved telling the details of her research.

Every single damned detail.

She continued. “Lucifer descended into hell, where he rules today, but as the devil he continually walks the earth trying to corrupt the souls of men. Occasionally he takes possession of a body, and occasionally he is invited into the soul of a wicked person. Right now, that’s Osgood.”

Rosamund’s husband, Aaron Eagle, leaned against the wall and smirked at Samuel.

“Osgood had one of the feathers buried in the foundation of his building to conceal it, so no one could use it for good, and as a charm to ensure the building would stand forever. But Charisma said”—Rosamund’s voice quavered for a minute—“Charisma said nothing could contain the feather, and it was working its way from the concrete foundation into the earth under the building. So if
this
safety-deposit box contains the second feather, and we think it does, we have them both.”

“Except that we don’t have the first feather,” Samuel pointed out in a level tone.

“We just have to
find
it,” Rosamund said.

“Yes, but, Rosamund, even if your theory is correct, we don’t know whether having the contents of the box is going to help us.” Caleb had heard all this before, too. The smug bastard was goading her.

“It will!” Rosamund said. “Jacqueline’s prophecy says—”

“I’ve heard the prophecy,” Samuel said.

Nothing could deter Rosamund. “It says, ‘Some must find that which is lost forever. For rising on the ashes of the Gypsy Travel Agency is a new power in a new building. Unless this hope takes wing, this power and this building will grow to reach the stars, and cast its shadow over the whole earth, and evil shall rule.’”

“The key word here is
wing
.” Jacqueline loved her prophecy, sought new meanings in it every day.

As far as Samuel was concerned, prophecies were tricky things, and he saw no use in looking too hard at them. “I got it!” he said.

John checked his watch. “Look, Samuel. We don’t have forever to fool around in here before the president of the bank shows up with the Swiss police and slaps us all in prison for trying to retrieve something we don’t have permission to retrieve.”

The injustice of that statement made Samuel want to pound his chest and roar. “I know that. I’m the mind controller who’s holding the guy in check!”

John continued. “Even if Rosamund is wrong about what’s in there, and I don’t think she is, it’s still something that could help our cause. The Chosen who put it here had to be safeguarding something important. I don’t know how it will help us. I don’t know why. But we’ve got to try something, because right now, we’re getting our asses kicked and
we’ve got no time left
.”

“Believe me, I know we’re getting our asses kicked.” Samuel pointed to his hip. “My hip is still broken from having that cooking show bitch who just happened to be an Other throw an industrial-size smoothie maker at me with her damn mind. . . . It’s not funny!”

Everyone tried to wipe the smiles off their faces.

“We know it’s not funny,” John said. “You were hurt, and that’s not funny at all. But, man, when I realized you were mind-controlling the wrong person and that sweet little cooking show diva suckered you. . . .”

Aaron gave a crack of laughter.

“Really,” John repeated. “It wasn’t funny at all.”

Samuel glared. He knew they all thought he should let Isabelle cure him.

But he was tough enough that a cracked hip wasn’t going to do more than slow him down, and he couldn’t stand to know that she was taking his pain as her own. . . .

Come to think of it, where was Isabelle? Usually when he got into a fight with the other Chosen, she stepped in to mediate.

He glanced around.

She was still standing with her back to him, facing the safety-deposit box, and her head was cocked.

“Isabelle, what are you doing?” He started to reach for her.

Jacqueline caught his wrist in her hand, her grip strong. “Leave her alone.”

“Why?”

“She’s listening.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know. I can’t quite hear it. But she can.”

Immediately the silence in the small vault grew intense, profound, and held the faint, bitter hint of desperation.

The Chosen were here because they needed what was in that safety-deposit box. They needed something that could give them an advantage in the fight to defeat Osgood. All the chatter, the explanations, the teasing masked the frantic worry of eight people who stood, backs against the wall, mourning their losses while trying to find the proper weapon to battle the forces of evil before those forces controlled the world.

Now, at last, someone had made a breakthrough.
Isabelle
had made a breakthrough. And even Samuel knew that if Isabelle had to suffer to find that weapon, she would choose to make the sacrifice—and he would have to let her. His heart squeezed with fear and love.

This time, would he lose her forever?

Reaching out, she stroked the gray metal safety-deposit box. “So much pain is contained within. So much loneliness. So many years of being imprisoned.”

The Chosen exchanged glances.

“Is it a person?” John asked quietly. “Like a genie?”

“It is a piece of a puzzle that waits to be moved into position.” With a sure hand, Isabelle flipped back the latch of the safety-deposit box.

“Wait a minute.” Genny’s voice, too, was quiet. “Could we have done that at any time?”

Aaron was their expert thief. “First thing any self-respecting burglar tries is to see whether the door is left open. I tried it. It was locked.”

Isabelle smoothed her palms across the metal again, then flicked her wrists as if clearing away the dust of years. Or perhaps she had just wiped away the magic, because at once she lifted the long, narrow lid and looked inside.

Samuel stepped forward, at her right shoulder, prepared to protect her.

Everyone else crowded close, unafraid, curious.

The reality of the box’s contents made Samuel sigh with disappointment. “Just once,” he said to no one in particular, “couldn’t we find some ancient artifact encrusted with jewels? Do we always have to end up with dry bones and sandstone tablets and”—he gestured—“this?”

A ripple of assenting laughter went through the Chosen.

A three-foot-long, twelve-inch-wide, black iron sword case rested inside the box. Patches of rust discolored the hinges, and the massive utilitarian lock looked like something out of the Old West.

“We’re going to need WD-40 to crack that baby open.” Caleb reached out to touch one of the corners.

The sword case shimmered as if gathering energy. A spark arced.

Caleb slammed against the far wall as if a giant hand had shoved him.

“Caleb!” Jacqueline ran to his side.

He sat up, shaking his head as if his brains were scrambled. When he recovered enough to see everyone staring anxiously, he said, “Apparently it’s going to take more than WD-40.” With Jacqueline’s help, he staggered to his feet and in an apologetic tone said, “I’m fine. Really. That’s what I get for grabbing at a magic object. I do know better.”

John studied the sword case. “The thing is, an angel’s wing feather would fit in there. I mean, theoretically—I’ve never actually seen an angel’s wing feather. But—”

Samuel interrupted. “But have we got the safety-deposit box open? Only to be unable to take the contents?”

“Another test?” Genny asked.

“Another puzzle to solve?” Aaron asked.

“Why does every damned thing have to be so hard?” Rosamund asked.

Everyone stopped and stared at her.

“What? I’m not allowed to get discouraged?” she snapped. “Isn’t the next question always, ‘Rosamund, what should we do now?’”

“You know a lot of stuff, Rosamund, and you usually
know
what we should do now,” Aaron pointed out.

“Probably there’s something in a book in Irving’s library about a rusty sword case that gives off sparks—but I’m
here
.” Rosamund ruffled her long, carroty curls. “Underground. The guards took away our phone and tablets. How do you expect me to do research?”

“Cranky,” Samuel muttered, but he really wasn’t paying attention to anyone except Isabelle.

Isabelle studied the case as if it were a foreign friend whose English she didn’t quite understand. Cautiously she stretched out her hand over the box, then withdrew it. Stretched out her hand again.

No one else was watching her; they were squabbling about what to do next.

So only Samuel saw her lean forward, pick up the rusty iron sword case, and turn to face the room. “Okay.” She started toward the door. “Let’s go.”

The squabbling stopped. Everyone stared at Isabelle, sensitive, noncombative Isabelle, holding the magical case that shimmered . . . and seemed to embrace her.

Samuel knew exactly how the case felt. He liked to embrace her, too.

Jacqueline clapped her hands and laughed.

Aaron said, “The box wanted a woman’s touch.”

“Maybe the box needed to be healed of a long-ago hurt?” Genny suggested.

“It’s what’s in the box that was hurt.” Isabelle’s eyes half closed. “All these years it has barely survived in loneliness and pain. Now it has hope, so it chose to come to me.”

Everyone started toward the door.

John stopped them with a gesture. “The Others are watching, and now that we’ve freed the box, they’ll try to take it. So remember the plan. Each couple is going to get back to the States by a different path. Be cautious. Be observant. Especially you, Samuel and Isabelle—you’ve got a precious cargo there. No cell communication, no Internet, no way for the Others to track us.
They are watching
.”

“We remember, but we need to go now.” Isabelle seemed itchy, worried, as if the feather were urging her on. “Let’s
go.
”

Samuel looked at his friends, his comrades, the Chosen Ones. “You heard what the lady said. Let’s go.”