Tribes of Man: The Beginning [Tribes of Man] (Siren Publishing Classic) (20 page)

Gideon wanted to understand what he was talking about, but just didn’t. “I don’t get it.”

Eric looked surprised. “You don’t know about scrying?” He sounded incredulous. “Scrying is a way of using a mirror or water to see things—usually the present or the future, but sometimes even the past.”

Gideon looked at Kristano in confusion. “I thought only Raina was able to do that?”

“The child of Air is the most diverse of all of you. He’s able to do a little of everything, but his real power is in magic.” Kristano looked at Eric steadily. “Isn’t that right?”

“Witch Extraordinaire at your service,” Eric said with a sardonic smile and a bow. Then he held out his hand to Kristano. “And you are?”

“I’m Kristano, your guardian.” Kristano took his hand. When he did, their joined hands glowed.

* * * *

Looking at their glowing hands, Eric’s stomach began to jump. He knew the power was real because he’d felt it coursing through his body. He even saw it in things he had done, but this was something totally different. He also felt that he should hide his nerves. Looking into the startling golden eyes, he realized that he would be keeping no secrets from this man. “Holy shit.” Eric didn’t know what was going on, but he knew they were coming. He also knew danger was coming. He didn’t sense it from these people, but he knew it to be true nonetheless.

The other man and the woman were quite a pair. She was average height, but very slim and wore sunglasses inside the store. She had long, curly hair with one long stripe of white in the front. She looked a little like Rogue from the
X-Men
comic book series. Eric wondered if she was trying to make a fashion statement.

Unlike the woman, the man was a little frightening in his looks. He was bald with scarring beginning on his head above his ear and traveling down the left side of his face and, presumably, his body. He would have guessed that the man would have been fairly intimidating before the injury. After it, he was terrifying.

Eric turned to the couple. “And you are?”

“Raina Kallan and Gideon McConnell,” Gideon answered. “I run Phoenix Detective Agency, and Raina is a student of ancient studies.”

Eric gestured to the back room. “Shall we go back and have some tea? Actually, I might throw a bit of the Irish in mine. I consider myself closed for the day, and I have the feeling I’m going to need it.”

“I think I’ll stick with just the Irish itself,” Gideon said with a grin. “I’ve been through this exposition once before. I know I’ll need it.”

“Raina and I will just have tea,” Kristano added.

“Hey, what if I wanted a bit of the Irish, too?” Raina sounded a little petulant, and Gideon looked at Kristano oddly.

Kristano looked like he wanted to say something but just shrugged.

“You don’t like whiskey, Raina,” Gideon said softly.

“I know,” she whispered back, “but he’s been on my case about what I’m eating and drinking for a week.”

Gideon looked concerned. “What’s the matter with her? Is she sick?”

“No,” Kristano said so immediately and sincerely that Eric believed him. “I just know she’s getting run down, and I’m worried about her, that’s all.”

Eric looked at him sharply and was about to point out that while he sounded sincere when he said no, he was clearly lying now.

Suddenly he heard Kristano’s voice in his head.
She’s pregnant. They don’t know. I know you’ll sense it if you touch her. I’ll tell them when it’s time.

Eric shook his head abruptly. “What the hell?” Gideon and Raina had been heading toward the back room when Eric said it.

At his words, Gideon immediately turned and dropped into a fighting stance. “What’s the matter?” Gideon asked.

Eric felt his stomach clench again in foreboding. If Gideon was that jumpy, it was going to be bad. “Nothing, I just heard a voice in my head.”

“What did it say?” Raina asked, her hand on Gideon’s back.

“It was me,” Kristano admitted. “I just wanted to reassure him. I didn’t warn him first.”

“Yeah, that was it.” Eric wasn’t about to reveal the secret. “How did you do that?” he asked Kristano.

“You can do it, too. It just takes practice. Let me explain it all over that Irish.” Kristano gestured for him to go.

In the back room there were tables and a sideboard with tea. Eric ducked through a doorway and came out with a bottle of Irish whiskey.

“Help yourself to some tea if you’d like it.”

“I’ll get yours, Raina,” Kristano said.

Gideon was looking around the room while Raina sat at a table and kept her head perfectly straight. Suddenly she said, “This is a lovely room. What do you use it for?”

“We have tarot and psychic readings in here. I also rent it out for small events.” Eric noticed that she still didn’t move her head.

“Do you use the mirror for divination?” Raina asked.

Eric didn’t know how she could have seen the scrying mirror. It was behind her against the wall, and Gideon was blocking it.

“That’s what I saw you all in. Frankly, I bought it simply as decoration. I’ve never been able to see anything in it before.” Eric decided to ask the question on his mind. “How did you know it was there? You couldn’t possibly have seen it from where you are.”

Gideon wandered back to the table and sat down. Kristano placed Raina’s tea in front of her and also sat at the table.

“Actually,” Gideon answered for her, “Raina can’t see anything. She’s blind. She can only see through my eyes.”

“Remote viewing?” Saying he was surprised would have been a huge understatement.

“Not exactly,” Raina took up the reins. “I’m clairvoyant and precognitive to a point, but I’m not able to send my vision out there. Gideon and I have a connection, and I can see through his eyes. It’s a bit complicated to explain.”

“All right. Since I know there’s more to it than this, I’d like it all laid out for me. There’s danger. I know it. I don’t know how or of what kind, but I know I’m involved.”

Eric watched as Gideon took Raina’s hand, and Kristano laid his hand on her shoulder for comfort. They were a unit, he realized. He felt achingly left out, the way he always had.

He saw Kristano watching him steadily and knew that he was sensing how Eric felt. He leaned back negligently in his chair as though he hadn’t a concern in the world.

“Fill me in.”

It took over an hour before Kristano got all the information out there. About ten minutes into it, Eric got up to pace. He occasionally asked clarifying questions like “If she was immortal, how did Adder kill her?” and “What exactly is this prophecy supposed to do for the world?”

Toward the end of the explanation, Gideon and Raina began adding what they knew. Gideon told him about the magnetophosphene gun, Raina’s tortured roommate, and the school shooting. Raina explained about her research on the prophecy and what she thought it all meant.

In the silence that ensued, Eric sat back down in his seat, poured an inch of whiskey into his empty tea cup, and tossed back the amber liquid before saying, “OK, let me get this straight. There used to be four tribes of people with powers. An immortal guy killed an immortal woman, no one knows how, and started a war. In response the gods took away everyone’s powers and scattered them all over the globe. This Adder guy is trying to stop the prophecy, which if I understand it, is going to give the people all their powers back, and you are trying to protect the ones who are supposed to make the prophecy happen. You’re both vampires, but he’s bad and you’re good. Raina is one of the Water tribe and Gideon is one of the Fire tribe.

“Do I have all that right, so far?” Eric didn’t know if he believed them or not. “So where do I fit into this again?”

“You are a child of the Air. Your power is magic.” Kristano had been quiet, letting Eric’s doubt wash through him. “I’m not sure what the extent of your magic is yet, everyone is different, but I’m sure at this point you have at least the basics.”

“Which are?”

Kristano picked up his cup of cooling tea and tossed the contents at Eric. Everyone jumped back in surprise, and Eric threw his hand up. As soon as he did, the droplets froze. It looked like stop-motion animation in a movie. Eric didn’t know he could do that and looked at it stupidly for a second.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

Kristano shrugged. “Make them disappear.”

Eric had no idea how, so he just pictured them gone and snapped his figures. The droplets turned quickly to steam then disappeared.

“Wow,” Raina said. “You just made them evaporate.”

“I remember reading that even magic had to follow the basic tenets of the universe. I knew I couldn’t just make them disappear so I changed their form to gas.” Eric was looking at his fingers.

Kristano nodded. “I think you may be farther along than I imagined. You began with the basics of magic already in your head from your interest in the occult.”

“How did you get interested in witchcraft?” Raina asked.

“Actually, until recently I would have considered myself Wiccan rather than a witch. Wiccans believe in a balance of nature and the power of the individual spirit. It’s not a faith that’s about magic.” Eric thought about it and frowned. “Wiccans don’t believe in magic as literally as witches do, so I guess witchcraft is more accurate.”

“Actually,” Kristano interrupted, “you’re an exception since your magic is real. I’d still consider you Wiccan.”

Eric shrugged and then continued to answer Raina’s earlier question. “I don’t know exactly when I got interested in the occult across the board. As a kid I was interested in the typical stuff, witches, werewolves”—he nodded toward Kristano—”vampires. But I never really believed in them, not really. Dad sold real estate and, after making a killing on that and the market, left my mom for his secretary.”

Eric paused and then continued ruefully, “It would be a cliché, except that his secretary’s name was Mark, and Dad was great about making sure that mom and I were taken care of. A few years later he died when his plane went down over South America. When he died, I suddenly became interested in the occult in an academic way. I became Wiccan.” His voice saddened. He missed his father every day of his life. “In the meantime, my mother went back to her high-society family. She’s been married twice since and is horrified that I’m a ‘freak’ as she calls it.”

“It looks like your father was the keeper before you.”

“Um, I hate to ask,” Raina said, squirming slightly, “but can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure,” Eric got up and took her by the elbow. Gideon followed. He led her to a small bathroom in the back. Gideon went in first, looked around, and then left.

When Eric looked at him curiously, Gideon said, “Figured I’d show her the layout of the room.”

“Makes sense. Will she be able to make it back OK or should one of us wait for her?”

Gideon began walking back. “She’ll be fine. She’s good at moving through rooms and missing major objects. It’s like she can sense them.”

“Can I ask you something?” Gideon asked Eric as they headed back out to the main room.

“Sure.” Eric shrugged.

“Why aren’t you more freaked out than this? I mean, I argued until it was proven to me that this was true. Even though I can blow things up, I still have a hard time believing it,” Gideon said just as they walked out from the back room.

“Like I said, I knew you were coming. Besides”—Eric raised his arms and all the furniture in the room levitated off the ground. Kristano and the chair he was sitting in were the only things left on the floor. After a moment, Eric lowered the tables and chairs very carefully back down—“How do you argue with that?”

Raina was vaguely aware of what was happening in the other room. She went to the bathroom, again, and washed her hands. She felt crummy and was truly starting to worry that she was sick. Maybe she was coming down with a bladder infection or something. She certainly had been going to the bathroom a lot.

Raina’s looked down at her hands while she washed them just in habit. She saw what looked like blood flowing from a spout. Before she could open her mouth to scream, a gunshot rang through the air.

Hands still wet, she stumbled out of the bathroom and ran, calling Gideon’s name. All she could see was her hands and the blood nearly pouring off them.

When her upper arms were grabbed, Raina screamed.

“Raina, honey, it’s me, Gideon.” Raina heard the strain. “My God, it better not be happening again. I can’t feel her in my head.”

His panic was making it worse. Her breath started to hitch. “Shot, I heard a shot. There was a shot.”

She was getting light-headed when she suddenly felt a hand on her back. As soon as she did, everything went numb and black, and for a brief moment, silent. Sound was the only thing to come back.

“Get your goddamn hands off her.” Gideon’s voice was as angry and frightened as she’d ever heard it.

“No,” Kristano said. “Look at him, Gideon! He’s taking on her pain.”

“Blood.” Eric’s voice was dreamy. “She saw blood on her hands. Blood in the water. And a gunshot. Someone is shot or will be shot. She doesn’t know which.”

“OK, Eric, let her go now. She’ll be OK.” Kristano’s voice had a compelling quality to it. Even so, she felt Eric’s hesitate for a second before letting go. As soon as he let go, Raina felt normal again.

“What the hell just happened?” Gideon asked. She could feel the fear and rage pump out of him. She wrapped her arms around his middle, and he calmed down.

“What happened?” he asked again more softly.

“I saw blood coming out of the sink and heard a gunshot. I think it hasn’t happened yet, the shot. Someone is going to get hurt.” Raina was shivering.

“I couldn’t sort through it. I thought someone had already been shot. As soon as Eric touched my back, the feelings went away, and I could think.”

She pulled slightly away from Gideon and reestablished the visual connection. She saw Eric looking pale, wiping his hands like Lady Macbeth. She stilled his hands with her touch. “Thank you.”

“I’ll never let you hurt like that if I can help it,” Eric said. “I can’t stand to see anything in pain.”