Storm of Visions (21 page)

Everything was different now. Thick, black smoke filled the cabin. The oxygen masks hung from the ceiling. An alarm shrieked in the cockpit. A dozen people shouted and stumbled from wall to wall while the plane pitched back and forth like a bronco ride in a cowboy bar.

The aircraft twisted, throwing Jacqueline off balance. She slammed against the table, scattering playing cards and breaking a bottle. For one second, the sharp licorice smell of ouzo washed the air clean.

Her hand hurt. She looked down. A shard of glass stuck out of her bare palm, cutting her tattoo in half. She pulled the glass out. It was sharp and wide and thick, and blood welled up, bright and crimson.

She’d been flung headfirst into a disaster.

The electricity flickered and went off. It was dark outside. And Jacqueline saw sparks blowing off the left wing.

Low-level emergency lights flashed on in the cabin.

As if the smoke had found her again, it rose off the floor and like a boa constrictor coiled around her, blinding her, filling her lungs. She coughed, tried to get a breath, coughed again.

The jet pitched. She slammed into the far wall, banging her hip against one of the seats.

But this didn’t
feel
like a vision. She
was
choking on the smoke. The blood
was
sticky in her hand. Her hip
was
bruised and throbbing. She wanted to close her eyes, plug her ears, get out of this vision, but she didn’t dare. She was here. On this plane. And it was disaster.

Another alarm went off. Some guy in a uniform shouted, directing the passengers, handing out life jackets.

No, not life jackets. Parachutes.

My God. The steward—or was he the pilot?—was going to open the door. She wanted to look out the window, see if there were lights, if they were over land or headed into the sea.

Then across the cabin, something moved and caught her eye—a woman, speaking calmly to the man in the uniform. But . . . that dress, sparkling with gold sequins. That form, so opulent and curvy. That elegant coiffure of glorious blond hair, held up with a diamond clip . . .

“Mother!” Jacqueline screamed.

Zusane looked up.

Their eyes met.

And Zusane
saw
her.

The lurch and roll of the aircraft grew in intensity.

Zusane fought her way toward Jacqueline.

Jacqueline fought her way toward Zusane.

“I never saw this,” Zusane shouted. “You shouldn’t be here!”

“Mother, you have to take a parachute. You have to save yourself!”

“It’s too late for that.”

Jacqueline made a grab for her.

Zusane evaded her. “Don’t touch me!”

Hurt, Jacqueline dropped her hands, and looked at them. The one still bled freely, blurring her tattoo.

Was Zusane worried about blood on her gown?

Or was she worried that Jacqueline had ruined her gift with the slice through her palm?

“Darling, don’t be that way,” Zusane said. “I don’t know why or how, but you
should not
be here. Don’t make it more real than it already is.”

Jacqueline didn’t understand what she meant. She didn’t know what
any
of this meant.

The uniformed man got the door open. Cold blasted into the plane, clearing the air . . . except where Zusane stood. There the smoke coiled, dense, dark and oily. Zusane waved her hand. Her gesture seemed to call the smoke. It wrapped her, wrapped Jacqueline, tightening its coils.

Frightened, Jacqueline shouted, “What is it?”

Zusane looked over Jacqueline’s shoulder, through the dense smoke. She saw something, something that made her eyes widen and her head jerk back as if she’d been slapped. Lifting her arms as if to ward off a blow, she clearly said, “Oh, Zusane. You fool.”

Bewildered, Jacqueline turned and followed her mother’s gaze.

A man stood there, bald, middle-aged, of slight build and dressed in a black, tailored suit. He looked like just another of her mother’s wealthy boyfriends . . . until he looked straight at her.

A blue flame lit his eyes . . . from the inside.

In panic, Jacqueline gasped, choked on the smoke, and coughed, and coughed.

She knew who he was. She had always heard tales about him, always been warned about him . . . but no one ever really saw him. She had thought, hoped he was a myth.

Now she knew better.

One by one, the passengers donned their parachutes, rushed to the door, and leaped into space. The girl in the YSL gown jumped without fastening her parachute. It flew back into the cabin, and they heard her scream as she plummeted toward the ground.

Dear God, this was hell.

“Not yet.” Although she hadn’t spoken aloud, the man answered her.

“Mother, come on!” Clutching her aching chest, Jacqueline headed toward the uniformed steward.

Zusane followed close on her heels.

A freezing wind blasted through the opening.

The smoke hung close to them both.

Grabbing a parachute, Jacqueline shoved it at her mother. “Take it,” she shouted. “Take it!”

“There’s no point in jumping.” Through the alarms, the shrieks, the blasting wind, Jacqueline clearly heard the man with the flaming eyes. His voice was quiet, calm, informational—and pervasive, invading every molecule of air, speaking in her head and in her ears. “The ground’s too close. The parachutes won’t open. You’re both going to die.”

Fear gripped Jacqueline by the throat.

He was right. Of course he was right. He had engineered this whole scenario to destroy them both.

Her mother knew it, too. Knew it, and blamed herself. Yet she smiled. She was calm. “Darling Jacqueline,” she said, “there’s only one thing to do. Come on. Let’s step close to the door.”

As they did, the man in the uniform strapped on a parachute, and jumped. And screeched.

Only three people were left on the plane.

Zusane. Jacqueline. And the man with the flaming blue eyes.

With a panicked glance over her shoulder, Jacqueline saw him moving toward them. He walked with an ease that belied the rocking plane—because he was making it rock.

“Always remember, I love you.” Zusane almost touched Jacqueline, almost cupped her cheek.

Jacqueline wanted to scream in fear. But the smoke still clung to her, filling her lungs, making her voice nothing but a scratch. “Mother! Hurry!”

“Yes.” Zusane jerked the parachute out of Jacqueline’s hand, throwing her off balance. Placing her hand flat on Jacqueline’s chest, she shoved her backward out of the plane and into nothingness.

“J
acqueline.” Caleb held her in his arms and spoke sternly. “Jacqueline, stop shrieking.”

At the sound of his voice, Jacqueline froze. Her eyes were still closed tightly. Her fists were still clenched, her knees drawn up.

But the wind no longer blasted her face. A battered airplane no longer plummeted through the air beside her. The screams of the falling passengers no longer assaulted her ears. The lights on the ground no longer hurtled toward her.

The memory was so clear, she jumped and, in an agony of fear, opened her eyes wide.

Caleb’s face was the first thing she saw, so close she could feel his breath, his worry.

Beyond that . . . she was in the attic.
In the attic.
Earlier this afternoon, she had stood in this same spot. Now the square of sun had moved on, and she shivered with cold and shock.

So the airplane, the crash, her mother . . . none of that was real.

“Jacqueline,” Caleb said. “Speak to me.”

Lifting her hand, Jacqueline looked at the gash in her palm. The blood had obliterated the mark of her gift.

If the eye had been blinded, was she no longer a seer?

“The crystal ball broke one of the floorboards,” he told her. “You cut your hand on the wood.”

She looked where he pointed. The globe was burrowed into the floor, and shards of hardwood were scattered like . . . like a broken bottle. . . .

In her brain, she heard words chanting over and over.
If he looks into it, he will die. If he looks into it, he will die.

She tried to speak.

She couldn’t.

She put her hand to her throat.

“You’ve been screaming. And screaming.” Caleb looked pale, strained. Angry.

“My head.” Her voice. A hoarse whisper.

“You bumped it when you fell.”

“I didn’t fall. Mother pushed me.”

The silence in the attic was deep and dark and concerned.

“What do you mean, she pushed you?” Caleb asked, his voice carefully neutral.

“She pushed me out of the plane. She pushed me out of the plane.
She pushed me out of the plane!
How much more clear do I have to make it?” Jacqueline was sitting up, her lungs ripping with strain as she yelled at Caleb—and she faced another nine pairs of horrified eyes.

Irving. And Martha, McKenna, Isabelle, Charisma, Tyler, Aaron, Samuel, and Aleksandr. They looked shell-shocked, embarrassed, curious, frightened. . . .

In a clear, calm voice, Isabelle asked, “What plane?”

“She was in his airplane. We were. The jet. Caleb, you remember, we used it to get from California to New York City. His . . . It was him. . . . He did it. . . .” Jacqueline started out loudly, insistently, wanting them to see, to believe. But her head hurt so badly. Inside her brain, voices babbled and screamed, memories flashed and flamed, and over and over, the oddest phrase repeated in her head.

Wildly, she whipped her head around, wanting to cover the crystal ball, to make sure no one looked into it and died. But she couldn’t hold herself up anymore, and collapsed.

Caleb caught her.

Her head throbbed and throbbed. Lifting her hand, she touched her aching forehead, and again she heard the words.

Her hand felt funny, numb and burning at the same time. She looked at it, tried to move her fingers. Nothing worked right—had the nerves been severed? More blood oozed from the two-inch wound.

She tried to explain again. “Mother’s boyfriend . . . his plane was in flames. Mother saw him. I saw him.” The constriction in her chest got worse and worse. She could barely breathe. She coughed. She clawed at the neck of her T-shirt. Her lungs felt scraped and raw.

“All right.” Caleb wrapped his arms around her. “We need to take you to the hospital.”

“No!” Irving spread his arms and pushed the men back. “Let Isabelle help her.”

Jacqueline stared, trying to understand what Irving could mean.

“How is she going to help her?” Caleb demanded. “Is she a doctor?”

Isabelle stood quietly. She wore a pair of jeans, scrounged from a secondhand shop, a large blue T-shirt that looked sloppy on her slender form, and a pair of cheap flip-flops. Yet still, she looked every inch the lady, and not happy about being in the spotlight.

“She’s a physical empath,” Irving said. “That is her gift.”

“What does that mean?” Tyler asked.

“She can absorb Jacqueline’s pain and injuries. She can share them, and heal her.” Irving turned to Isabelle. “If she will.”

Samuel crossed his arms, the epitome of knowledge and skepticism.

Lifting her chin, Isabelle knelt beside Jacqueline. In that precise Boston accent, she said, “If you will let me, I can be of assistance to you.”

Caleb held Jacqueline against his chest, his face still and cold. “I want to take her to the hospital.”

“We
can’t
.” Irving sounded impatient and dictatorial. “She just had her first vision, and it was powerful enough to do
this
to her. We can’t drive her to a hospital and try to explain how all this occurred, and take the chance she’ll tell them her mother pushed her out of a plane. At the very least, they’ll take her in for a psychiatric evaluation. Probably they’ll decide you’re abusing her and demand she press changes. She’s a new seer. She can’t control what’s happening to her, and while she’s there, she might have another vision.
And
we cannot have her visit a hospital without attracting the attention of the Others. I assure you, Caleb, there is no one they want to eliminate more than our psychic.”

Isabelle paid no attention to Irving’s rant, or to Caleb’s resistance. Her focus was on Jacqueline. In her soft voice, she said, “I have to touch you. I won’t hurt you. Can you trust me?”