Authors: JC Andrijeski

Allie's War Season Three (117 page)

"We're close," Wreg said back.

"Where's Jon?"

"He's here."

I nodded, feeling my jaw clench. I'd seen Jon swing at Wreg, when the seer tried to prevent him from frying himself in the OBE. I'd also seen Wreg knock him to the tile. I couldn't honestly say I would have done any different, given the alternative.

I was worried about New York, too. If they'd drawn us down here, it might be for a reason.

Revik shook his head though, tugging lightly on my hair.

"No," he said, still fighting to form words. "...Cass."
He wanted us to come for Cass,
he finished in my mind.
He wanted us to know about Cass...he knew we'd only believe it if we saw it ourselves. He wants war. Real war.

Is it Menlim, Revik?
I sent him tentatively.

He shrugged, squeezing my shoulder again, albeit weakly.
It doesn't matter, Allie,
he sent, sliding his light into mine.
It's the same thing, either way. Same beings. Same agenda. We know what they want. We know what they'll do to get it...

I nodded, relaxing.

He was right, of course. It didn't matter, not really.

It was still a relief to hear him say it.

In any case, we'd known all along that the whole thing would be a trap. We hadn't figured on the elaborateness of the charade, put on before us like a well-staged play, but we'd expected deception and power-plays, misdirection and distractions. Shadow hadn't even been here. He'd left 'Yosef' here, or whoever he was, to play the master of ceremonies. Why, I could only guess, but I assumed so they could yank us around, hurt us, and intimidate us as much as possible. Obviously, they'd wanted us to come in person, but I found myself wondering if Cass was really the only reason.

It doesn't matter, Allie,
Revik repeated.
Thinking about them too much is what they want. They want us to obsess on them, on what they're doing. But we don't have to. We'll go back, find the rest of the names on the list...train the infiltrators we have. Then, when it makes sense, we'll go after Cass and Feigran. They're the only ones who matter...

I nodded, sending him another pulse of warmth.

"Okay," I said.
But what about the disease? Do you think they were telling the truth? Could they really have dumped it in the water supply of another twenty cities...?

Revik frowned, glancing out the opening where the stained glass windows had been before the impact shocks shattered them in their frames.

I don't know,
he sent finally.
But we'll find out, soon enough. All we can do is keep trying to find a cure. Save as many as we can...

I nodded, about to answer, when Gar spoke up from under the staircase.

"Got it!" he announced triumphantly.

"You're sure?" I said. "We can't afford to be wrong about this one, Gar..."

"He's got it," Wreg affirmed. "I feel them coming down."

I sighed a little, glancing up the staircase. "Where is everyone at with recon?" I said, raising my voice. "...Anything?"

I felt Wreg's negative, even before he appeared around the edge of the staircase, making the corresponding sign with his free hand. His other hand held Jon's. I noticed Jon's eyes still looked deadened, only half there. He followed after Wreg willingly enough though, and didn't resist when the seer wrapped his arm around him, pulling him closer.

"The house is clean, Esteemed Sister," Wreg said.

I sighed, nodding. "Yeah. I figured." Glancing up at Wreg again, I shrugged. "I still say we raze it to the ground once we're all out of here..."

Wreg smiled, and for the first time since this whole mess started, the smile looked genuine.

"I'll vote for that, princess...put me down as a solid yes in that column."

"Feeling vindictive, Wreg?" I said, my voice faintly teasing.

"Most definitely." After a pause, though, Wreg's voice grew serious. "This fucking house is alive, princess," he said, glancing around at the walls as he pulled Jon closer, rubbing his shoulder. "I say we kill the damned thing..."

Nodding, I found I wholeheartedly agreed.

"All right," I said. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Before Wreg could answer, Garensche appeared in the same space behind the staircase, smiling from ear to ear.

"Can I give the order to the boats?" he said. "Once we're out. I know just where to hit this bitch..." Glancing at me, he smiled apologetically. "...In a manner of speaking. I mean I know where the primary hardware lives, underground..."

"Did we check down there?" I asked, hearing my voice sharpen. "Chan and Stanley said something about an underground dock, didn't they?"

"Deklan and Pori checked it out," Wreg affirmed. "It's empty. Definitely a dock...probably for a submarine, or some other underwater vehicle...but everything was gone. Equipment too. We found storage lockers, fuel tanks, empty crates that might have held weapons, but all of it had been stripped, just like the house..."

"Okay." I nodded, reluctant. Some part of me hoped they would have left something behind that might help us, but I'd pretty much known they wouldn't. "Do we know where Terian and Cass are...?"

"Gone, Esteemed Bridge," Wreg said.

"But gone how?" I pressed. "By land, or..."

"Helicopter picked them up, in the main square of the village."

"Helicopter?"

Wreg gestured an affirmative. "The carrier saw it...but there wasn't much they could do."

"Would it take them to Ushuaia, do you think?"

"Thinking we could chase them?" Wreg said, a glint in his eye.

I glanced at Jon, then back at Wreg. "I'm thinking why not?"

Wreg nodded. "I'll notify the ship....get them to send one of the Ospreys."

"No." I shook my head. "Send Balidor. Have his team do it."

Wreg nodded, giving me a quick salute. As he did, Garensche moved towards me, offering to take Revik from me. I let him, with a sigh of relief. Even with Jorag there, Revik's weight started to pull my back unless I moved every few seconds. Even when I did, my shoulder hurt. The two larger seers supported him easily, though, carrying him towards the door.

"Be sure and scan," I said, following after them. "No mistakes."

"No mistakes," Jorag and Garensche repeated in tandem.

Wreg and Jon were right behind me, and I found myself falling back a step, catching ahold of Jon's hand on his other side. Seeing Wreg smile at me when I did it, I smiled back before glancing up at Jon's face. He still looked crazy pale.

"Hey," I said, shaking him by the hand a little. "You okay, Knight-guy?"

Jon looked at me.

He nodded, but I saw that pain in his light. Before I could wonder if I should try and do anything to help him, Wreg's light wrapped into his, even as his arm pulled him closer. Feeling Jon's light expand into the other seer's, and the relief that went with it, I found myself nodding, even as I released his hand.

Glancing at Wreg, I saw him smile at me again. He sent me a pulse of warmth even as I looked at him.

Thanks, princess...I owe you one...

I smiled back innocently.
For what, brother Wreg?

He rolled his eyes, clicking at me.

And he was right. I knew exactly what he meant.

Looking ahead, I watched Revik enter the reddish light of sunset outside the door of the mansion. They were helping him down the driveway then, and I found myself walking faster to catch up. Falling in step alongside Garensche on his right side, I held up a hand to my eyes, trying to see the aircraft carrier, which should be coming around to the side of the peninsula that housed the village. I wondered if the humans there would give us any kind of a hard time for blowing up their master's castle. It turns out, I needn't have worried.

It was Jon who noticed, first.

"Oh, gods," he said. He came to a dead stop, halfway down the paving stone driveway. I looked back at him, only to see him staring down the rougher cobblestone and dirt road that led into the village beyond the gates.

I saw them then, lying on that same road.

All of us stood there, motionless, as we watched a woman stumble out of a nearby, whitewashed stone house. She clutched her throat while I watched, coughing up some dark fluid that had to be blood. She crumpled to the dirt before I could take my eyes off her, falling face forward without any attempt to break her own fall.

That's when I saw the rest of them.

Bodies lay in doorways, and alongside houses. I saw a child-sized one in a pen of goats, where the animals bleated in distress, pulling at their tethers. I saw a man with gray hair not far from the front gates of the hacienda, as if he'd been on his way to their master, to ask for his help. I stared out over the stretch of dirt and bodies, and that sick feeling in my gut, the same one I'd been fighting since we ran into those first bodies in San Francisco, abruptly returned.

I remembered the words of Yosef, and his diamond-studded hair clip, and realized things were about to get worse.

Much, much worse.

That thing that I'd been kidding myself that I could prevent somehow, or maybe delay for a couple hundred years, was here.

The Displacement was finally here.

WAR

Allie’s War Book Six