The Golden Bond

Chapter 47

There was a quiet knock at the door. Gabriel was rarely outside of the Club. If anyone ever needed him, they'd almost certainly find him in his office. That's where he was now, too.

"Come in, Ben," he said. He knew who was behind the door even before it opened.

Ben walked in and sat down nervously on a chair opposite his Master.

Gabriel looked up from the computer tiredly at one of the few agents that were still there. "Well? What's so urgent?" he asked.

Ben cleared his throat. He didn't know how to begin. In fact, he didn't even want to imagine what this news could mean. Neither of them had ever come across anything like this before. In fact, the whole Club had never encountered anything like this before – neither of the Clubs had, ever since they'd come into existence.

The Master sensed Ben's worries so he prompted him to answer once more. "Well? Why the apocalyptic energy, if I may ask?"

Ben smiled almost invisibly. "Sir," he began at last, "I don't know what to do with Eve. She still can't properly remember who she is. A few fragments here and there, but that's about it. The bridge, on the other hand..." The charismagician paused. He really didn't know how to phrase what he was about to say.

"Well, spit it out, Benjamin." The Master was patient although he sounded urgent.

"You know, at the moment it seems like Eve has more of his conscious mind than of her own. Franz's, I mean. As if her subconscious mind is trying to get as much of that connection as possible and therefore suppressing its own memories. If our Eve is somewhere in there – a trained charismagician – she would do exactly that. Well and..." he paused for a moment again in order to take a breath, "and she really knows a lot. Since that first moment when she told me about Adam and his journey to Rome, she's reported more and more. Mostly they're routine affairs of the Umbra Club, nothing that we wouldn't know without her. But today it was different. She seemed to reproduce a whole phone call. Adam and Franz are in contact. That imbecile appears to have a need to constantly brag in front of the young one. Eve relayed it to me almost word for word, even though she had no idea what she was talking about."

The Master sat there silently and listened. Ben was clearly putting off what he was supposed to say next. "Get to the point, Benjamin," the Master said tiredly.

Ben gulped and then finally said it. "Sir, that Snow has found the professor..."

Gabriel suddenly jerked. Sofia had found the professor, thanks to her Gift which had given her the information, God knows why. If the Gift had revealed the most secret modern weapon of the Lux Club to her, it would probably give her anything, anything that could destroy them forever. For some strange reason, her abilities were unlimited, regardless of the fact that she was with the Umbra Club. From historical records they knew that if a Gifted person joined the Umbra Club, his or her abilities usually shrank considerably. The person was able to cause damage, but not to such a fatal extent like Sofia was about to. In fact, she'd already started it – whether she was aware of it or not. She'd joined Valentina and by her side, she represented the Lux Club's worst nightmare. No one else could understand as well as Gabriel what was going on. He was the only one who knew Valentina's whole story and Sofia had more in common with her than she'd even dreamed of.

Ben sat quietly opposite the Master and waited.

Gabriel thought for a while and then ordered the agent to summon the Council for the very next day. "It won't take long for them to hack the professor and then crack the cipher. We have a few days, maybe even weeks. For now, we have to do everything to prevent them from decoding our security system. Thank God for Eve! If we hadn't known this, we could all be dead tomorrow."