Romani Armada Read Online Free PDF Page B

Cáel told her. “I’ll catch the next g-train and meet you there. Full staff meeting.”
    “You’re still in session. You have to stay there,” Nayara protested. “If you leave mid-session, straight after Gabriel’s revelation, you know they’ll put together in two seconds that your loyalty is with vampires. You have to stay there,” she repeated.
    He closed his eyes as he clutched the handset. “I can’t do anything from here,” he ground out.
    “No, you can’t, but Ryan and I will manage. This is just an opening salvo. Gabriel is warming up. We’ll be fine for now. We’ll call you—our big gun—in when the going gets really tough.”
    Cáel gave a dry laugh. “You’re flattering me. A puny human could never be anything but moral support for you two, but it would make me feel better to be there. I’ll stay here for now, Nia, but I warn you, I’ll break ranks and screw keeping up appearances if I think Gabriel is coming after you or Ryan personally…or anyone at the base. You hear?”
    “I hear…and I love you, Cáel Stelios. Go and get some sleep.”
    “Get Deonne. You’re going to need her.”
    “I will.”
    Cáel disconnected and watched the screen. Gabriel had finished his canned announcement and was taking questions from the eager journalists.
    “Here comes the blow,” Cáel murmured.
    * * * * *
    “We’re going to get hit now,” Justin said, leaning forward.
    Rosa sank down into one of the visitor chairs. “How do you know that?”
    “He left a massive opening in his speech. He wants someone to ask him a leading question so he can tell them all about it and say afterwards it was dragged out of him by the media.”
    “Why not just say it in the speech—” she began.
    Justin held up his hand for silence, concentrating on the screen.
    One of the journalists was speaking. “Gabriel, you said that others were allowed to live unmonitored and unchecked. Were you referring to vampires?”
    Gabriel spread his hands. “Apart from humans and psi, there are only vampires. Draw your own conclusions.”
    “Gabriel! Gabriel!” the cry went up.
    “A follow up, please,” the journalist insisted. “Vampires are monitored. The Historical Defense Bureau was constructed to monitor vampire activities.”
    “The Bureau monitors the activities of the Chronometric Conservation Agency, not vampires,” Gabriel replied. “The Bureau is designed to ensure history is kept intact for human preservation and that is all. Outside Agency regulations, vampires can do what they please…and they have.” He gave a grim smile. “Think about that for a moment and then consider that psi-filers are catalogued. Numbered. Now, our very numbers are limited.”
    “Oh, shit,” Justin breathed. “They’re going to kill us now.”
    “Why?” Rosa asked, sounding bewildered.
    Gabriel was still talking. “We are controlled. We’re not even allowed off planet. But vampires…. They can jump anywhere they please, even into history. And just how many of them are there, anyway?”
    * * * * *
    “Ah, fuck,” Cáel said softly, staring at the screen. “This is already a disaster and he hasn’t dropped the bomb yet.”
    “Assemblyman?” came the soft query beside him.
    “Go home, Iason,” Cáel told the assistant. “It’s late and I’m going to be lousy company, now.”
    * * * * *
    “Do you know how many vampires there are?” came the question.
    “No,” Gabriel replied, “and that scares me. I know there’s more vampires out there, passing as humans, than have ever come forward and declared themselves for what they are. Humans didn’t dent their numbers at all during the Censure years. While we psi have steadily lost all our rights, one by one, including our right to reproduce, they have stealthily added to theirs through misdirection and subterfuge.”
    * * * * *
    “He’s making it sound like we plotted the conspiracy of the fucking century,” Brenden said, scowling at the screen.
    “We didn’t do