Allie's War Season Three (151 page)

Ditrini’s thick lips curled into an expressive frown.

Briefly, though, Balidor saw something else touch those silver eyes.

"You're lying," Ditrini said. "No collar could prevent me from feeling that. Esteemed Bridge or no...she wouldn't see that before I did. Neither would you, famed Balidor of the Adhipan..."

"You're so sure of that?" Balidor said.

Ditrini’s eyes didn't move.

Balidor nodded, letting a faint smile touch his lips. "Yes. All right, then.”

There was a silence where neither of them looked away. Then Ditrini’s harder look devolved into a faint smirk, right before he sent another flicker of images Balidor’s way. Balidor stepped back without thought, grimacing again in spite of himself.

Once more, he had to fight anger, along with a cloud of darker disgust.

"Enjoy your little game, brother," Balidor retorted. "Clearly you want these last few hours to pretend you're in control, so enjoy them. They will slip by faster than you can imagine." Balidor tapped his own temple. "Tick tock, my Lao Hu brother. Remember, when your Lao Hu family dies, there won't be anyone left to which our Esteemed Bridge will be bonded. Not from your ugly little corner of the world. Not even you, my brother."

The older seer's eyes narrowed as he stared up at Balidor, almost as if he were trying to read him again through the collar. Feeling another coil of that separation pain in his light, Balidor stepped back, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get out of the Lao Hu seer’s cell, and as far away from his light as possible.

Even so, he’d gotten the answer he wanted. One of them, anyway.

He was about to leave for real, when Ditrini abruptly spoke.

"Remind my precious girl that it's not me they'll be coming for," he said. "It won’t be her husband, either. It’s her they want. It’s always been her...” His voice held a thread of that pain again, even as the smile returned slowly to his lips. "Whatever your confidence in this quaint little fortress you've built, Adhipan Balidor, you can't hide her away forever. Neither can the Illustrious Sword. I promised her I would see her again, and I won’t break that promise...” At Balidor’s disgusted frown, Ditrini smiled wider. “You know what they say about promises in war-time, don't you, brother?”

“Easy to make,” Balidor retorted. “...Easier to break.”

“Yes, well,” Ditrini said, smiling. “That may have been true of her husband. But I’m afraid you’ll find it’s never been true of me."

Balidor felt his fingers coil back into fists.

He didn’t fully get the reference about Dehgoies, but, not for the first time, he suspected Allie would, if he repeated the words to her...which he had absolutely no intention of doing. He suspected a lot of Ditrini’s words were lobbed at him in the hopes that Allie would hear them at some point; it was one of the many reasons Balidor remained grateful she had no interest in being involved.

Even without knowing the details, Balidor picked up enough of the flavor to feel slightly sick, and to question why, exactly, they were bothering with him in the first place. Reminding himself again where his orders came from, he shook it off, taking another step backwards.

“Enjoy your fantasies, brother,” he said. “We will have more words soon.”

Ditrini only laughed, his silver eyes sparkling.

Ignoring him as best he could, Balidor again opened his mind to the wider construct, specifically towards the station by the door.

Are you still there, Tenzi?
he sent.

The door opened almost before he’d finished thinking it.

Balidor walked directly to the opening and to Tenzi himself, who stood there, a darker fury coloring his normally light-skinned face. His fingers touched the handle of his sidearm, as if he were struggling with the same questions that Balidor himself had, in wondering why they didn’t just kill Ditrini now, before something else happened to prevent it.

Even with Tenzi standing there, armed, Balidor didn't turn his back on Ditrini as he exited the cell.

"You're right to be afraid of me, brother," Ditrini called after him, his silver eyes strangely vacant. "...She is, too. First order of business when I get out will be that tattoo on her back, the one her husband likes so much. I haven't forgotten my promise to my precious girl about that. Getting rid of his mark will only be the beginning..." Ditrini’s eyes turned colder, into the killer's eyes that Balidor had first seen in Wreg’s mind. "...Tell her husband
that
, my honorable brother of the Adhipan. And tell him I'd be happy to give him a full tour of his wife’s training. I'll even demonstrate some of the finer points, in case he's missed anything from what he's sampled so far. He seems to be fairly detail-oriented, if our intelligence on him is at all correct. He'd likely appreciate some of the...
nuances
...don't you agree, brother?"

Balidor did his best not to give the older seer a reaction, but he doubted he succeeded entirely. Ditrini smirked again, including Tenzi in a sideways glance of those shimmering, mercury-colored eyes.

"...One shouldn't be in possession of such a rare property without a detailed instruction manual,” he added. “Do you not agree, my good brother?"

Right then, it was probably a good thing that Tenzi shut the door.

It cut off the older seer’s voice, connecting with the wall with a hollow clang. Once it had, Balidor gave Tenzi a grim look, opening his mind to the wider construct even as he patted the younger seer reassuringly on the back, seeing the fury still shimmering in his dark eyes.

We might have a problem,
Balidor told them, once the channel opened.

Yumi spoke up first.
Other than that sick fuck still being alive?
she sent.

Feeling the fury pulsing off her light, Balidor sent warmth to her heart.

Different, yes,
he replied, sighing into the Barrier.

Feeling that he had all of their attention that time, he went on.

Ditrini already knew about China,
he told them.
He wasn’t surprised at all when I told him of what is occurring in Beijing. Nor did this information distress him particularly.

Pausing a beat to let that sink in, Balidor exhaled again, resting his hands on his waist.

...I am thinking now that Ditrini works directly for Shadow,
he said, giving Tenzi a grim look.
I don’t know when the switch occurred, or if this has always been the case, but his allegiance appears to be to Shadow alone at this point, with little concern for the fate of the Lao Hu.
Making a vague gestured, he added almost reluctantly, ...
I also suspect he knows exactly where we are holding him. His confidence in his position, which I think is genuine, could mean a number of things, but I think he truly believes he will not be our prisoner long enough to break his mind.

He concluded more grimly,

...
I think we need to warn the Bridge and the Sword that we should be prepared for an attack on our facility here.

Feeling the silence this produced, he added in a more subdued flicker of thought,

...I also think we need to warn them that there is a good chance Shadow is in Manhattan. Perhaps he has been here, in some capacity, all along...

10

EARTHQUAKE

JON COULDN’T FIND Wreg when he finally got through the quarantine protocols.

He’d asked around, of course, if in a casual way.

He heard that a group of seers, including Revik and Allie, ate a big breakfast in the Third Jewel, but they’d scattered by the time Jon reached the lobby. He spent a little time wandering around, partly in the hopes he might see Wreg walking from one meeting to another. He knew Wreg. The seer wouldn’t sleep until he’d ensured all the protocols he’d set up had been put in place, even if it took hours.

Jon didn’t see him, though, and after a few more turns around the lower floors, he gave up. Not wanting to make a big deal, or interrupt him if Wreg was working, Jon decided to take a shower and a nap before something else happened to put them all back on high alert.

He was most of the way to the fifty-seventh floor, when it hit him that he'd never changed rooms.

He'd shared Wreg's bed most nights after the wedding, finding himself there almost without either of them really talking about it, but he’d never officially moved out of the room he’d once shared with Dorje. Now, remembering the apparition of his dead, traitor, ex-boyfriend at the chateau in Argentina, Jon stopped cold in the middle of the hotel corridor.

He didn't really want to sleep in there.

In fact, he didn't want to sleep in there at all.

He wondered if he could talk the front desk into giving him a key card for a different room.

Jon just stood there for a moment, thinking through the logistics of how he might move his stuff, if he should do it now, or take a shower first, deal with the rest of it after he’d at least donned clean clothes. But he could feel he was stalling.

It struck him why, suddenly.

He frowned, even as it occurred to him where he really wanted to sleep. He knew the seer probably wouldn't mind, but Jon found himself hesitating anyway, trying to sort through his own motives, at least as well as he could. After another moment of thinking, he decided he needed to chill out. It was too soon for him to start crashing at Wreg's full time.

He needed to get a new room.

As soon as the thought solidified, he turned, aiming his feet back towards the elevators.

He'd just leaned over to press the 'down' button to call back the elevators, when the corridor shuddered. When it stopped, Jon just stood there, hearing his heart beat louder in his chest. His hand remained extended towards the button on the wall. He took another breath, about to complete the motion, when a sudden, hard jerk nearly threw him off his feet.

That time, he fell into the elevator doors, then heavily to one knee.

“Jesus...” Jon stared around at the walls and ceiling.

Still kneeling there, he contemplated using his link to find out what the hell that was, when another wave hit. He gripped the edge of the elevator door’s opening, panting as he tried to decide if he should try to get back to his feet. Another, harder jerk caused the lights to flicker, just before a low groan issued from some part of the steel girders inside the walls, or maybe the elevator itself. Jon’s mind went at once to that bomb in the hotel in Delhi.

Panic hit at the thought of an attack on the hotel, even as a more logical part of his mind churned in the foreground.

He thought about how large a bomb would have to be to shake the foundations of a building this size. His mind went to the outside storm, to aircraft carriers, bombers, underground gas lines...none of it made sense. The ground moved under him in another series of sharp pulls. A post-modern painting in an accent alcove fell off the wall. Jon watched a glass vase vibrate off the table in the same alcove, bouncing on the carpeted floor without breaking. Adrenaline trembled his limbs, even as some other part of him caught up, remembered an alternative explanation, one a lot simpler, and one that immediately felt more true.

Earthquake. This was an earthquake.

The ground jerked sideways again.

Jon glanced at the nearest doorways, wondered if he should do the standard earthquake thing and try to shield himself under one of them. The elevator wasn’t a good option, or the stairs really, but the only room for which he had a key lay at the other end of the hall.

The shaking died down again while he thought about it.