Romani Armada by Tracy Cooper-Posey Read Free Book Online

room from an ancient Viking’s hall. It had stone floors and thick tree trunks for beams, iron bands binding them together and round shields decorating the walls. Torches flickering with real flames provided additional lighting. There was a huge fire pit in the middle of the room and what looked like a hole in the roof, but was really a vented window protecting the room from the elements while filtering the smoke and heat from the fire below.
    Reproduction tables and benches were normally spread about the fire pit, enough to seat a few hundred people, for the branch often rented out the hall for weddings and other events as a useful subsidiary income. For now, two of the big tables had been joined end to end, which gave them enough seating for everyone at the meeting. The area around the tables had been cleared and the fire had been lit and was crackling merrily.
    Ryan worked his way over to the table where most of the senior staff and advisors waited for them. “Is everyone here?” he asked Nayara.
    “Deonne and Tally are yet to arrive.”
    “We can deal with other matters until they get here,” Ryan decided. “Everyone, have a seat.”
    There was a shuffling and murmur and some laughter as they clambered over the benches and good naturedly settled shoulder-to-shoulder along the tables.
    Ryan sat on the high chair that had been set for him at the symbolic head of the table, while Nayara took the chair at the other end.
    He settled the cane against the ancient timbers that made up the table and studied everyone. Brenden, Christian, Demyan and Fahmido ranged to his immediate left, while Ophelia, Rob, Kieren, Pritti and Justin sat on the right. There were spaces at the end closest to Nayara where Tally and Deonne would sit, and the table would be full.
    Cáel’s absence was a heated wound, reminding him of the unfinished business he had before him.
    “It’s been a hard few weeks, hasn’t it?” he said, addressing the table. “I’m sorry I let this happen. Cáel—Stelios—warned us and I didn’t believe him. I didn’t take him as seriously as I ought to have done.” He spared a thought for the secret visit from his future self, who had tried to warn him, too. He’d been too distracted by the man’s prediction that Nayara would be lost to him. Even now, the thought sent a shudder through him.
    He looked down at his hands and saw that they trembled and frowned to himself. Why was he experiencing so many human reactions?
    Nayara spoke up. “I think you’re all aware of our two major priorities for right now, but I’ll repeat them for everyone’s benefit. One, we have to do everything we can to ensure the location of our home base remains a secret from Gabriel’s psi group. So far, so good. Gabriel’s psi-filers will force-read a mind as they see fit, but as long as we all remain in our contemporary time, they can’t read ours unless they are within physical touching distance of us…and we think only Gabriel can do that, so far.”
    “For now,” Brenden growled.
    Nayara ignored him. “Our second priority is to bring back all the travelers that were back in time when the station was destroyed. None of them are aware that the station doesn’t exist. If they try to jump back to its location, we’re not sure what will happen but even the best scenario is bad enough; they arrive in raw space saturated with nuclear waste.”
    “It’s possible a vampire would survive a few seconds’ exposure,” Fahmido said, her voice a weak echo after Nayara’s strong tone. “Enough to jump to a safer location.”
    “Vampires might,” Brenden growled, “but their companions wouldn’t. Even if they did, exposure to that level of radiation would be lethal.”
    Nayara nodded agreement. “So our first, most urgent task is to find all our stranded travelers and bring them back here.”
    “I had a thought about that,” Demyan said, lifting his hand a little to get attention. “Why don’t we just jump back in time