Allie's War Season Three (98 page)

He heard Revik cry out, felt him grab for his arm, but Jon was already running, his booted feet pounding across the sand, feeling like he was wading through Jello, despite the rocks dotting his path. He heard another explosion in the trees above him, even as air whizzed by from bullets. He reached Jaden and Tina and grabbed Tina on the other side, where Jaden had been once more trying to hoist her to her feet. Between them, they got her moving again, half-carrying her across the sand while she fought to hop on her remaining leg.

Tears were running down her cheeks, Jon noticed. He seemed to notice a lot of details right then, actually, which didn't strike him as strange until later. He felt pretty sure he'd just committed suicide, but couldn't quite make himself regret it either.

Somehow they were still moving though, half jogging with her...and with each pound of their feet in the sand, the cliffs loomed closer. Jon heard another booming sound behind him, and then he saw Revik running across the sand too, even as a curl of black smoke came off the mountain above. Jon heard another, louder explosion then, seemingly from directly overhead.

He didn't connect the dots until he found himself with Illeg and Angeline, safe under the cliffs. Then his mind clicked back on, and he understood the source of the second set of explosions. There had been cars parked up there, just below the Cliff House and overlooking the sea. Revik must have ignited their fuel tanks.

Feeling a giddy sort of optimism, Jon half-dragged Jaden along with him under the shelter of the rocks, supporting him almost as much as they supported Tina. They'd already reached the safety of the cliffs when another hand caught him by his left arm, dragging him off Tina and Jaden and half-throwing him under the deeper protection of the cliff wall.

"You ever do something like that again, and I'll
collar
you, I swear it!" Revik hissed at him, not bothering with the headset. He shoved Jon against the wall, hard enough that Jon knocked into a protrusion with his back. The pain forced a gasp to Jon's lips, but Revik didn't seem to notice. "You
hear
me, goddamn it? You fucking
disobeyed
me in the middle of a live op! I swear to the gods, Jon...this isn't an idle threat. I'll beat the living
hell
out of you if you do it again!"

Jon just stared up at him, wide-eyed, but when Revik still seemed to be waiting for an answer, he nodded.

"Okay, man. Sure."

"Sure my ass. I should have pushed you...turned you into a puppet like the other worms!"

"I'm sorry, man," Jon said. "Seriously. I don't know why I did it..."

"Bullshit! You know exactly why!" Some of the fire dimmed in Revik's eyes, but his jaw remained hard. "You're just like your fucking sister..."

Jon didn't answer that, but continued to watch Revik's eyes glow, the sparks of current sliding through the veins in his irises. They were dimming already, and briefly, Jon felt a surge of fatigue off the seer. Along with fear, and not for himself.

"Hey," Jon said. "You all right, man?"

Revik didn't seem to hear him. Gripping his arm tighter in his hand, he began dragging Jon down the line of the cliff to the water. He paused by Illeg only long enough to look at her injuries, laying a hand on the one that seemed to have grazed her thigh. There was a lot of blood, but Jon found himself relieved when Revik pronounced the wound to be mostly superficial.

"Can you get to the boat?" Revik asked her. "I can come back to help you..."

"No, I've got it, sir."

"What about the others?" Revik glanced at Angeline, Jaden and Tina, his eyes still narrow, and still holding a faint glow. He didn't let go of Jon's arm, but he didn't look at him, either.

"The girl is hurt...but it missed the artery," Illeg said, as she scanned the three of them. "The male has a shoulder wound. Again, it is not particularly dangerous...it will slow them down, is all. They do not appear to have been shooting to kill..."

"Fine," Revik said with a curt nod. He was already walking away, bringing Jon with him. "...Move them as best you can," he called back to Illeg. "Try to get them to the rocks...I'll be back if you need help."

He marched Jon with him as he strode across the sand, keeping him firmly to his right, so that Jon remained primarily under the edge of the cliff. Revik's long legs moved fast, though...fast enough that Jon had to struggle to keep up, even though he wasn't hurt at all, and not even all that out of breath, considering the shot of adrenaline now pumping through his veins. They reached the edge of the water and Revik simply plunged in, still walking fast as he forced his feet and then his legs through the surf. He brought Jon with him, seemingly oblivious to the waves smacking against them on their way to meet the rocks of the cliff. He held Jon tightly enough that Jon found himself getting tense, watching the force of the waves increase as they approached the larger rocks closer to where the boat was coming around the small jetty.

"Are there more of them? More seers with guns, I mean?" Jon managed, panting as he fought to keep up with Revik through the freezing cold water. He gasped when a wave hit him hard in the crotch and thighs, and remembered it was November.

"Yes," Revik said gruffly, not looking at him. "The fire should slow them down...it'll fuck up their visibility, if nothing else. We have to move before the smoke dissipates..."

Jon nodded, more to himself than Revik, who wasn't really looking at him, but only at the boat and occasionally up at the cliffs themselves. The seer seemed to be waiting for something...or looking for something perhaps. Whatever it was, it felt like something specific, but Jon didn't really have time to think about that, either. He chanced a glance backwards at the cliffs himself, but nearly fell when the next wave hit him, soaking his jeans up to his ass and making him gasp aloud as his scrotum and balls climbed back up into his body. He glimpsed black smoke behind him, blooming up from the three or so cars Revik had exploded with the telekinesis. He found he understood the preoccupied look on the Elaerian's face, too; despite his words, he must still be scanning for another attack.

They were waist-deep in freezing cold salt water when Revik nudged Jon sharply towards a flat outcropping of rock, one that rose a good few feet above the highest edge of the water. Even so, the rock was covered in moss and spray, and slippery. Revik caught hold of his waist, and Jon realized the seer planned to hoist him on top of the flat section of rock.

"Can you get up there?" Revik said, no longer bothering with the headset.

In the wind, with the crashing waves, it was doubtful anyone would hear them anyway, and Jon could feel Revik's worry about time. He understood, too, when he glanced up at the cliffs again. The smoke continued to cover most of the back part of the cliff, but they were already mostly past that section of cliff, and potentially visible from the Cliff House Restaurant as well as the wall of rock around the Camera Obscura. Jon felt another jolt of fear when a larger wave slammed into him, making him cough salt and water, even as it threw him against the outcropping of rock. Revik held him to minimize the impact, but as soon as the wave hit the rocks, he was pushing at Jon again, shoving him towards the rocks.

"Climb up!" he said. "Before the next wave, Jon!"

Jon nodded, and did his best to grab onto the slippery, seaweed-covered rocks.

Barnacles hurt his hands and he found himself wishing he wore gloves even as he dug his boots into the underground portion of rock. With a boost from Revik, he managed to pull himself on top of the rock less than a minute later, shivering and gasping like a dunked cat.

He didn't have time to look around before he was gripping Revik's jacketed arm, helping him make the final jump up to the rock beside him. Only after he let go of Revik and saw the smear of blood on his jacket did Jon realized he'd opened one of his hands on the rock. The cut bled at first, in a seeping kind of pulse, but Jon's fingers and palm were so cold he barely noticed. More distractingly, the salt water burned on the cut, as well as a smaller one on his other hand. The cold numbed the pain of that too, and seemed to close up the wound faster as it whitened against his skin. Revik looked at Jon's hands briefly, frowning at the larger cut, then glanced at the boat approaching the other side of the rock.

"Come on."

He grabbed Jon's wrist, leading him around the edge of the cliff and across the flat expanse of rock. Jon could see the boat more clearly now, and realized they'd sent a small motorboat out that now skirted back and forth in the waves not far from the flat rock where Revik and he now stood. The man in the boat held the rudder carefully, keeping the wooden craft from getting too close to the rocks, and compensating for the waves. Jon could also see why Revik wanted them up here. The flatter protrusion where they stood would serve as a makeshift dock, if they managed to move quickly enough. The motorboat should be able to dart in between the larger waves to get them...then all three could push them off the rocks.

Still, it wouldn't be easy, and Jon found himself thinking the guy in the boat had to be a seer, or he wouldn't be able to time the pick-up right.

"What about the others?" Jon said, shouting against the spray and the wind.

Revik gave him a warning look. "Don't worry about them. I'll go back for them, Jon...not you. We have to get you out first..."

Confused, Jon just nodded, glancing back at where he could just see Angeline and Illeg supporting Tina. Jaden followed behind them, holding his shoulder and looking overly pale. The four of them were only at the edge of the water now, and seemed to be taking their time as they made their way to the flat rock after them. They fell out of sight altogether around the curved protrusion of cliff when Revik dragged Jon closer to the edge where the boat was somewhat protected from the wind.

They waited, holding the rocks, when another wave came in, forcing the man in the boat to compensate, and Revik to crouch down, holding the rocks in his bare hands as he braced them both against the shock of spray. Soaked to the skin now, Jon's face and arms felt the wind like a blunt knife when it buffeted the cliffs; his teeth chattered as he gripped Revik's hand in return.

The small boat darted in, seemingly before the spray from the last wave dissipated.

Before Jon could wrap his head around it, Revik yanked them both up.

"Jump!" he said, moving even as he made the command.

Jon felt the prod in his mind, sharper than in his ears, and found his legs and body obeying before he'd made a conscious thought. He moved alongside Revik, feeling the push but not resenting it this time as it synched up his weight and motion with the more agile seer's. Jon found himself landing in the boat before he had time to be afraid of missing it.

Once they reached the bottom of the rowboat, Revik released him, and Jon stumbled. He fell towards the stern, bumping against the guy holding the rudder on the way down. The seer gave him a bit of a hard look, but didn't speak, merely watched, no expression on his long face, while Jon scrambled into a sitting position. By the time he'd made it more or less upright, Revik was already helping the seer push the boat away from the rocks with a booted foot. Between the two of them, they managed to get the boat turned around well enough for the seer to fire up the motor. He aimed them at the larger boat, which floated in the water not far from the seal rocks.

Jon found himself looking back up at the cliffs, and at the Cliff House itself, which had been a San Francisco landmark for a few hundred years, although there had been different versions as more than one had burned down. Briefly, his eyes caught movement. Half-convinced he'd seen a person watching from up there, he decided a few seconds later that it must have been a trick of the light. Sun peered through the clouds now, half-blinding him where it reflected against hard glass of the Cliff House itself, as well as windshields of the remaining parked cars. Raising a hand, Jon found himself staring at the area around the Camera Obscura, which had been one of Allie's favorite things as a kid. He tried again to catch that flicker of movement, but after a few more minutes, he still hadn't seen anything.

Still, some of Revik's paranoia around wanting to get out of the open air was rubbing off on him. He found himself tempted to paddle with his hands, in the hopes it might help get them to the larger boat quicker, and off the open water.

Not that the larger boat was all that large, really. More than anything, it looked like a well-worn fishing boat, half covered in rust. Jon knew it would be taking them only part of the way down the coast, just far enough to get them safely out of the quarantine zone so they could reach an airport, probably in Santa Barbara or possibly north to Santa Rosa. Technically, they shouldn't even
be
in these waters, but Balidor knew people in SCARB who helped him to get a temporary pass, masquerading as a SCARB pick up for infiltrators dropped into the quarantine zone.