Storm of Visions by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online Page B

exactly keen on teenagers who do dumb stuff.” Aleksandr shook back his shaggy blond hair. “While we were in the emergency room, I thought my mother and grandmother were going to rip me a new one.”
    “So it was bad?” Charisma prompted.
    Aaron figured the kid was exaggerating the extent of his injuries to impress Charisma.
    Then Aleksandr held up his hand.
    Burn scars rippled the skin, and two of the fingers were fused together.
    Charisma winced.
    “What the hell made you do that?” Snapping at Aleksandr made Aaron feel as old as the kid’s grandfather, but . . . good God. That looked like hell, and he bet it had hurt forever. Maybe still did.
    “We were out in the woods. My cousins were there. The Wilder cousins are younger, and I didn’t care what they thought. But my grandmother’s family is Rom, and they’re all so wild and tough.” Aleksandr hunched his shoulders and mumbled, “I wanted to impress them.”
    “Okay. I get that.” Aaron did. He’d been a dumb kid himself once.
    Charisma shook her bracelets at Aleksandr. Shook them again, and frowned. “You really don’t have a gift?”
    “Not that anybody can figure out,” Aleksandr said.
    “And you’ve got family? You weren’t abandoned?” Aaron stared at the old woman standing on the outside of the circle, the one who had led them here, the one who was apparently some sort of dedicated servant of the Gypsy Travel Agency. “Hey! You! Martha!”
    The woman turned to face him. Her brown face was creased with age. Her gray hair was long, braided, and wrapped around her head like some Austrian yodeler. Chalk dusted her gnarled fingers.
    “The board of directors said there’d be seven Chosen,” Aaron called.
    “Sh!” Martha hurried—well, hobbled, really—around the outside of the circle toward him.
    Aaron continued. “They said that we all had gifts that we’d received because we were abandoned.”
    “Mr. Eagle. We do not discuss this in public!” Martha stood inches away from Aaron, her toes almost on the circle, and stared at him with black, unblinking eyes.
    Look at that. Aaron had just found the gypsy in the Gypsy Travel Agency. “Then we shouldn’t be standing in the middle of a subway station, should we?”
    “This is where Suzanne’s powers are at their greatest.” Martha spoke as if Aaron should know what she meant. “But I am not supposed to talk to you. Not while you’re in the circle!”
    “Then quietly, tell me about the kid.” Aaron had Martha over a barrel.
    And Martha knew it.
    Charisma and Aleksandr edged closer.
    In a low voice, Martha said, “In the last seven cycles, the gifts have been fading.”
    The Abandoned Ones were chosen every seven years. So, seven cycles times seven years . . . Aaron did the math. In the last forty-nine years, Martha was saying. “The gifts have been fading? What the hell does that mean?”
    “Mr. Eagle, let us not mention hell when we’re so close to its mouth I can smell the brimstone.” Martha sounded so fierce, so convinced, Aaron looked around for the flames. “I mean the gifts given to you six are mere shadows of the gifts given in years past.”
    “Really?” Aaron had always been pretty impressed with his gift. But actually, lately, it had been fading. That was what had gotten him into this mess to start with. “Does anybody know why?”
    “There is some talk that we’ve wandered away from our purpose, or that modern life has corrupted us, or—” Martha stopped herself.
    “What do you think, Martha?” Charisma asked.
    “It’s not my place to say,” Martha said primly.
    “It’s not your place to say, or you don’t want to talk about it so close to hell?” Aaron hated this pussyfoot ing around.
    “Are we done speaking in such an inappropriate manner?” Martha turned away.
    Aaron started to reach out and grab her. And something zapped him, something like static electricity, but . . . dangerous. Much, much more dangerous.
    Martha looked back at him,