Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (43 page)

“And they don’t even have a fucking bike lock on this thing?” he said, motioning towards the door. “Not even to keep them in…much less anyone out?”

I didn’t answer.

I felt my unease worsen.

“Afraid you wouldn’t come…” Feigran muttered in front of me. “Happy you’re here, very happy…happy with Feigran.
Very
happy with Feigran…give the dog a bone. Lots of times, over and over…make him beg…”

I felt a thick flush of heat off Feigran’s light and winced.

I really hoped that didn’t mean what I thought it meant.

“Who’s afraid, Feigran?” I asked, ignoring the rest of what he’d said.

I watched Dalejem pull open the heavy metal door. I continued to keep my eyes on his broad back as he peered inside, likely using the infrared on his headset. Whatever he used, his light or virtual, he stared into that dark for a few seconds, his eyes sweeping the corners.

I looked at Feigran, realizing he’d never answered me.

“Who wants us to come?” I said, my voice sharper.

Feigran only shook his head though, clicking softly under his breath.

I spoke louder, mainly in an attempt to reach him. “Who, Feigran? Who wants us to come?”

“Surprise…” he muttered. “Wants a surprise.”

Dalejem grunted, giving me a level look. Frowning, I looked back at Feigran.

“I’m not a fan of surprises,” I told him. “Who is it, Feigran? Tell us.”

When the Elaerian didn’t answer, I made my voice warning.

“You don’t want to die, do you, brother?” I said.

He shook his head.

“Then tell me who it is,” I said.

But Feigran only shook his head again. He went back to muttering once he had, too low for me to hear the words. I couldn’t feel him in the Barrier anymore, either.

I sighed, even as Dalejem looked back at me, meeting my gaze.

“Are we going forward?” he said.

From his tone, I couldn’t tell if he was for or against the idea.

“Both,” he said. “Neither.”

At what must have been an annoyed look from me, he sighed, clicking.

“I admit to being intrigued,” he said, tilting his head. “Put it this way, if I was alone, I would go…and probably rationalize it as a need for intelligence.”

I snorted, smiling and clicking in spite of myself.

“…Which isn’t altogether untrue,” he mused, almost as if I hadn’t made a sound, despite the harder look he aimed at me. “As it is, I am
not
alone, Esteemed Bridge. Moreover, I have the highest ranked seer in existence with me…the one on whom the outcome of the Displacement itself may very well rest.”

Making a sideways slashing gesture with one hand when I rolled my eyes, he frowned.

“…As much as you like to pretend otherwise, you
are
irreplaceable, Esteemed Sister,” he said. “I suspect Balidor would have my head on a pike already if he knew where we were right now. Especially if he knew I’d let you come this far with nothing but me and that rambling idiot as companions…”

I snorted at that, too, but less humorously that time.

“You
did
notice I didn’t bring brother Balidor to Colorado with me?” I said drily.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, brother,” I said. “I also remember the primary condition you agreed to when I let you accompany me on this little jaunt. You agreed not to question me…and to follow orders. So far, I mostly hear a lot of old man Adhipan whingeing. I also hear a lot of questions. And, like you just pointed out, I could have invited Balidor if I’d wanted that…at least he’s earned that right with me.”

Exhaling in another series of clicks, Dalejem hardened his voice.

“Fine,” he said, motioning sharply for me to follow him. “If you are going to do this crazy thing…and force me to be your accomplice…we should do it fast.”

I nodded at that.

Finally, something we could agree on.

The cooler wasn’t a cooler but a passageway…which we’d already pretty much guessed.

It contained a false back that led down a staircase, so I guess that made it sort of a cooler, too. Or would have, if there’d been anything in it besides the three of us. And if it had been switched on.

As it was, the airless, over-warm cooler was the first place since the stairwell with no illumination whatsoever.

Dalejem found the back panel quickly with his infrared.

Opening it happened fast as well, since the hidden panel also had no lock.

Once Dalejem got that secondary panel to retract, he walked directly through in front of us, his rifle raised to shoulder-height.

I followed cautiously and after a short staircase and an even shorter passageway that we all had to duck to get through, we found ourselves in another tunnel, this one with a lower ceiling and narrow walls. Like the cooler, it wasn’t lit…which wasn’t a big deal because of our infrared settings on the headsets and the Barrier but still created an even more intense feeling of claustrophobia.

I wondered if we’d end up lost down here, trapped in some kind of underground maze.

Terian didn’t have a headset, but the dark didn’t seem to bother him. He continued muttering just like he had been, not slowing either his blurred speech or his shuffling footsteps.

I found myself thinking again that Revik would absolutely hate this.

I doubt we could have gotten him down that tunnel at all, to be honest…not without heavy sedation. Maybe not even then.

Shoving my annoyingly ever-present husband out of my thoughts yet again, I gritted my teeth, as if that might somehow help me to stop thinking about him.

Strangely, it worked. More or less.

I could feel the lights of those other beings stronger now.

I could also feel their pain. The majority of that pain didn’t feel new. It felt like it had been there for longer than most of those beings could remember, like it had bled out of them so long they’d almost ceased to notice.

Some of it felt new, though.

For some reason, the newer pain bothered me more.

Like had been true all over the complex, I felt those strange threads of organic material in the walls, clearly alive in some way but dormant…asleep. I didn’t try to figure out how it was possible this time, either, but took snapshots with my light and let it go, concentrating instead on the living beings I could feel on the other end of these angular but snaking passageways.

Sharp turns broke the lines of the tunnel probably every hundred or so feet, making it pretty much impossible to gauge the distance with anything but time.

We’d been in here too long.

An awareness of that fact lingered in my mind, too.

I found myself watching the timepiece compulsively inside my headset. Another twenty or so minutes passed as we navigated the featureless tunnel in the dark.

I felt the person on the other end pulling on me again.

Impatient now. He wanted us to hurry.

He…

I gripped my gun tighter, remembering it only then, even though I held it in both hands. I kept it pointed at the floor instead of straight ahead like Dalejem, but the fact that I’d almost forgotten it still gave me an idea of where my head was at. My throat went dry as we reached another corner in the tunnel.

Something told me this was the last one. We were close now…

He was close.

“He’s waiting for us,” I muttered. “Do you feel him, Dalejem?”

Dalejem flinched, then glanced at me.

“Yes,” he said, his voice neutral.

Somehow, amusement found me, even in that. “Is it okay for me to call you by your first name?” I said. “If that was too familiar, I apologize, brother. I heard the other infiltrators calling you Jem. If you prefer, I can––”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said at once, cutting me off. “It’s fine. Either is fine.”

He didn’t lower the rifle. Nor did he look at me.

I felt a lot more behind that than he was saying. Now was definitely not the time to get into it with him though, whatever the story there might be.

You probably don’t want to know the story anyway,
my brain thought.

Even as I thought it, I realized my stupid brain was right. Whatever it was he’d reacted to just then, it had something to do with him and Revik.

I didn’t have much time to think about that, either. Thankfully.

Dalejem turned the next corner, following the square lines left. Within a few more steps, both of us faced a metal door. A strange dark red in color, the metal showed up shockingly bright in the infrared. It took me a few seconds more to realize the organics in this door and panel weren’t dormant.

No, these ones were wide, wide awake.

Not only that, the door was thick. Crazy thick…like maybe four or five feet of solid organic, semi-organic and dead-metal material combined. My aleimi explored the different layers in curiosity, only able to see the functionality there in bits and pieces. Whatever lived on the other side of that door, the mechanisms in the door blinded me to it.

My suspicions had been right.

Feigran had been showing us what lived behind that red door. Jem and I wouldn’t have felt it on our own. Like he could with our tanks and collars, Feigran could see past that wall. He was helping me and Jem see past it, too.

I wondered if whatever or whoever stood on the other side might be able to see through that wall, as well.

“Sorry, sister…” Feigran muttered. “Sorry, sorry…”

Dalejem looked at him, frowning. “What are you sorry for now?”

I shook my head, dismissing both things with a slashing gesture. I knew what Feigran meant. He was apologizing for deceiving us. But it was too late now, and I didn’t see the point in explaining to Jem how our light had been manipulated.

We could talk about the particulars later.

For now, I wanted us out of here as soon as fucking possible.

“Is it locked?” I asked Dalejem.

My voice was low, nearly a whisper.

“Yes,” he whispered back, equally soft. “But the lock is strange…”

I slid my light into it, cautiously…

When suddenly I felt Feigran there, in my light. It happened so fast I barely knew he was there…then I was watching him do something inside my light, something I could barely feel at the higher levels of my aleimi.

Abruptly, I felt the mechanism in front of me shift…

Then the lock I’d just started to look at disengaged.

Flinching, I turned, staring at the other Elaerian in the dark.

He had already retracted his light. He huddled on the far side of the door, muttering in a slow stream under his breath as if nothing had happened.

“Did you just open the fucking door?” Dalejem said, incredulity in his voice.

“Sort of,” I muttered. Feeling Dalejem’s attention sharpen on my light, I sighed. “Feigran did. But he used my light to do it. Don’t ask me how.”