Alex peered outside at the sky. Then he asked to see the topographical map of Persia again. He scanned it, glancing at a compass he somehow had on his person. Because that was Alex; he always seemed to be prepared.
He pulled out what looked like a comm, with a simple screen, about the size of a small book. He thumbed it on.
“What’s that?”
He smiled, but kept his gaze on the device. He nodded to himself, switched it off. “Something I’ve got to be very careful about using. A position locator, linked to a Support satellite network.”
My stomach knotted up. “Could Support tell you were accessing it?”
“Not unless I keep checking. I did a passive location check. But the system will locate the comm unit if I do it again.”
I stood straighter. “So, now we have to hike down to Sanctuary.”
He put the device away. “We don’t have the supplies, the water, and the terrain is rough. Plus, we don’t know how to get inside, remember?”
I sighed. “So, aside from needing to get supplies, you’re saying it doesn’t matter because we don’t know where the entrance is? Why not just scout the area out.”
“Because if it were that easy to find, SAVAK would have found it,” he pointed out. “The Imperial Persian Security force. And they would have tipped off Support.”
“So, how did you think your original scheme of hitch-hiking all the way would have gone down?” My face was hot. Alex could be frustrating.
He looked at me calmly. “Traveling by more conventional means would have led us to the same place we need to go now. The Revealer’s.”
“The Revealer?” A chill ran through me.
“He’s a man named Bey. He runs a criminal network in this part of the world, and is also a rogue Empowered.”
“Why isn’t he dead or in prison?” I asked.
“Because he provides information. But mainly, because he has connections with the Peacock throne. He’s helped the Shah’s family on a number of occasions.”
“He plays both sides.”
“He plays his own side,” Alex replied.
I wanted to argue with Alex, but he made sense. I pushed away my doubt. Alex knew the situation. “Okay, so where is Bey?”
“Tehran, the capital of Great Persia.”
“The capital? Won’t that be dangerous?” I asked.
He nodded. “It will be.”
I crossed my arms. “Well then we should totally try to avoid it. We could trek across the desert, move at night.”
“We can’t,” he said. “We don’t have the supplies for it. Besides, Bey can give us the entrance, as well as landmarks. So, we have to go to Tehran.”
“You seem awfully sure about this guy. How do you know so much about him?”
He tapped his head, gave me a sly smile. “Because it’s my job to know things. It helps if you have a great memory.”
“But how will we find our way around Tehran?” I asked. “Buy a map? You can’t use your wonder gizmo again, right?”
“No, I can’t,” he agreed. “But I have a good idea of the layout.”
“You do?” I blinked. “You’ve been there?”
“Yes.” His smile widened into a boyish grin.
My feet ached, I was hungry for anything that wasn’t a protein bar, and I could use a long, hot shower. But his grin made my worry fade away, at least for that moment.
We caught a bus at the nearest highway, a couple of miles from where we’d emerged. It looked like a Trailways bus only it was painted brown and had letters in Farsi. Alex told me that was what the language was called. Alex took the lead, speaking in Persian to the driver, who didn’t bat an eye. Guess Alex’s accent was passable.
We sat in the back. There was a party of well-dressed people in the bus, sitting together. I tried not to stare, but I’d never seen people dressed in shiny, flowing robes in a rainbow of colors.
Alex leaned next to me, his lips almost brushing my ear, which made me feel warm and light inside. “Fire worshippers.”
“Don’t know what that is,” I replied.
“Official state religion. They must be heading to a ceremony.”
Persia was the far side of the moon for all I knew. Alex had told me I was rushing things. Well, good thing I had him there with me.
The bus was newer than I’d imagined, with an engine that rumbled as it drove.
Tehran was filled with trees. Sycamore trees that were strangely muted, like they were huddling in fear. Turns out that they were anticipating something.
We turned onto a really wide street, filled with cars, shops lining it, with tall buildings with many windows at the far end. Then the sky turned an ugly shade of brown, the wind picked up, and the bus rocked as it drove.
Ahead was a checkpoint. Men in dark brown uniforms, with other men in combat armor, examined people’s papers. The bus slowed as it reached the back of the column of vehicles waiting their turns. Beyond the checkpoint were a pair of armored cars, turreted guns pointing in our general direction.
I hunched down in my seat. I recognized security when I saw it.
“SAVAK,” Alex said. The Persian Imperial Security force, he’d told me about them. Support worked with them in this region. They provided security and Intel for the West Asian region and the South Russian Reclamation Zone. Keisha would have laughed her ass off at me knowing all this stuff.
I sounded like someone who actually knew something about the world. That’s what hanging out with Alex for a few days did to me. I really didn’t want to know about the world outside of Portland. I had enough there to keep me busy.
The fire worshippers chattered to each other and the driver. He answered back, voice calm. Trying to sound reassuring, I thought, but since I had no clue to the language I couldn’t be sure. The fire worshippers talked louder, then their speech became sing-song. Praying, maybe?
“What are they saying?” I asked Alex in a whisper.
“The wrath of the evil one,” he whispered back. “The driver says it’s just a sandstorm, but they aren’t buying it.
Evil one? I didn’t believe in the devil. I’d seen too many devils in the world to believe in one that came from someplace else. Trapped in the bus with a bunch of worshippers, not exactly what I had in mind when I’d agreed to head this way, instead of Sanctuary.
“Do they mean SAVAK?” I asked.
“No.”
“We still need to get off the bus.” I didn’t trust our chances with Imperial security. I’d stick out like a sore thumb.
“That might look suspicious,” Alex pointed out. “I can talk our way past them.”
Maybe he could, but I didn’t want to stake our lives on that.
Just then tall buildings at the far end of the wide street, maybe a mile away, disappeared behind a swirling brown curtain that raced toward us.
The driver started talking louder, and the worshippers yelled something at him, insistently. The SAVAK checkpoint guards disappeared into their armored cars.
“Sandstorm,” Alex said. His voice was calm.
My chest tightened. The storm roared through the street and slammed into the bus, howling like a thousand demons. The Sycamores screamed in my mind. I shook, clenched my teeth. I threw up a wall in my mind, pulling my power behind it. Alex looked at me, concerned. I shrugged.
I leaned close to Alex so he could hear me over the storm. “How close are we to where Bey is?”
He nodded his head to the left. “About a mile or so north of here.”
Now was the time. I hefted my bag, went to the side exit. I half-expected Alex to be hissing my name, trying to get me to stay, but he was right behind me, hefting his own bag.
I pushed the door open. The storm’s howling filled my ears. Flying sand stung me.
This was crazy, but not as crazy as wanting to be captured by a bunch of security goons.
I hunched against the scouring wind and ran forward at a crouch, weaving between parked cars, by touch. I pulled my hood c
loser around my head. My arm brushed against a thrashing shrub. The plant’s screams filled my head despite the wall in my mind. I forced myself to keep moving.
Trust in Alex to get us to where we needed to be. Assuming there really was a revealer, and that that revealer would reveal the location of the Sanctuary entrance to us.
I reached a corner and hunched down, trying to keep the sand from scouring my face.
Alex joined me, leaned in close and yelled over the storm’s howl. “Put this on!” He wore a pair of wraparound black goggles and a face mask.
He pushed a set of goggles over my head and onto my face, the mask covering my mouth.
I could breathe again.
And I could see again. It was like wearing a pair of night vision goggles, only this made everything look like a clear day.
I let Alex take the lead and followed him through a maze of streets that seemed to go on forever. They were deserted, everyone must be hiding inside from the storm.
With the goggle specs or whatever they were, we made good time, moving past parked cars and buses, until we reached a narrow alley. We slipped down the alley, across, down another, and over to a third. It was like being stuck in a Support facility. I couldn’t tell one alley from another in this confusing maze.
My feet were sore and my mouth was drier than the sand that pummeled us.
The buildings became what looked like tenement housing, with the odd tin-roofed shack in between.
This part of Tehran was a dump.
Alex must have some kind of super-secret navigation system. I hadn’t seen any, but he moved with confidence, never hesitated when we reached a cross street. He either continued on the path, or he turned down the side street and kept going.
After what felt like forever, we rounded the corner of a half fallen building, metal roof vibrating from the sand storm, and reached a wide space, like a big garden; a big garden in the middle of the capital.
Sycamore trees whipped back and forth in the wind. The trees were glowing in my special sight; it was like they were showing me their secrets. There was a low stone wall right in front of us, covered in moss. I stumbled and grabbed the wall to keep from falling. My hand brushed the moss. It whimpered to me, and seemed to crinkle in my sight.
Had I finally lost it?
Beyond the swaying trees was a big house, three stories tall, with shuttered windows. The roof had at least two holes in it.
“He can’t be inside there,” I told Alex, leaning against him so he could hear me.
“That’s where he is.”
“Smells like a trap,” I said.
Alex shrugged. “If it is, it’s the trap Intel shows is our destination.”
I cocked my head. “What do you mean, Intel shows?” He wouldn’t give me a straight answer anymore. He never really had, but now he seemed even more slippery on that front that usual.
He ignored me, the bastard. “Come on, let’s get inside.”
So we dashed into the garden, through the open part of the wall and up to the trashed front of the house. Garbage blew past us, and one of the shutters was loose, banging against a broken window.
Alex looked at the door. I thought he’d bang on it, but instead, he pulled out a fancy looking lock pick thingy and unlocked the door, pushed it open and went in.
I followed him, my exposed skin raw from the stinging sand.
He closed the door behind us, and locked it.
The place was dark, lit for just a moment before Alex closed the door. I saw a huge room, with a big spiral staircase, like something out of an old movie. The staircase was covered in garbage.
The place smelled like garbage.
I gagged.
Alex frowned. “This place is trashed.”
I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. “No shit, Sherlock.”
A lot of people would have glared at me for throwing that stinky old sarcastic reply out there.
Alex just shook his head and grinned.
Right there, in the middle of a creepy old run down mansion, in the middle of a foreign city I never in a million years imagined I’d go to, for any reason, with a sandstorm howling outside, and no place to go but into worse danger, Alex’s never-get gloomy-attitude, letting things roll off his back, made my heart flutter. Me. I never thought that would happen either, but it seemed to be.
“Alex,” I said, struggling to say something a lot more than his name, though his name held so much in it for me these days that maybe that would be enough
He widened his eyes, and smiled.
“I—” Damn, this was hard.
“Yes?” I swear his eyes sparkled in the dim light that came from the couple of windows whose shutters weren’t on all the way.
I swallowed. Why the hell had I started this?
There was a faint sound of something opening, and the room lit up with bright light. I couldn’t see for a moment. I whirled around, fists raised.
I blinked, my eyes watering in the blinding light.
Alex had a weapon in his hand, not sure if it was a pistol or a stunner.
“There’s no point in making a show of force,” an accented voice said over what sounded like a PA system.
There was an open door, the sliding kind, across the room from us. Two men stood to either side of it, pointing automatic pistols at us.
Movement on the garbage strewn stairwell, caught my eye and a third dude crouched there, pointing an automatic rifle at us.
We raised our hands.
So far, this wasn’t going so well.
9
The guards came and took away Alex’s pistol and zip-tied each of our hands together. They weren’t nearly as rough as they could have been.
Professionals.
A big guy came through the open door. All the men were dressed in jeans, knit polo shirts, tennis shoes. The big guy had a shaved head that gleamed in the bright light. He wore a gold ring on his left ring finger.
“Why are you here?” he asked. That was the voice we’d heard a moment ago over the hidden PA system. He was calm looking, matter-of-fact about things.
“To see Bey,” Alex said.
“Breaking into Bey’s home is not the contact procedure.” The big guy’s tone didn’t change, still calm, still matter of fact. “It’s also not proper behavior for a guest. No, it’s a thief’s behavior.”
Alex shrugged. We didn’t have much choice,” he said. “It was either that or get scoured by a sandstorm and probably picked up by SAVAK.”
That provoked something more from the man. His gaze hardened. “SAVAK following you?”
“No. But they would have.”
“No surprise,” one of the other men said. “They are obviously not local.”
I didn’t get it. “Why, you’re wearing jeans, and we’re wearing jeans?” I pointed out.
The man shook his head. “Of course an American wouldn’t see it.”
“Enough of this,” the big guy said, giving the other man a hard look. “We’ll take them to holding and see what the boss wants to do with them.”
“We’re prisoners?” My eyes narrowed.
“You aren’t prisoners yet,” he answered. “More like guests under guard.”
“There’s one I haven’t heard before.”
“I take it you’ve been a guarded guest before?” His eyes twinkled.
I shrugged. A prisoner was a prisoner as far as I was concerned.
They took us through the open door to an elevator, and up two floors. The rest of the house was not trashed. It was well lit, with fancy wooden floors and big rugs with elaborate woven designs.
They took us to a parlor, not a cell. We sat in wing-backed chairs, were given water and fed sandwiches. Eating the sandwiches with zip-tied hands was a royal pain in the ass. A couple of new guys watched us from either side of the chair, also in the polo shirts and jeans and tennis shoes uniform these guys all seemed to wear.
There was a potted palm tree in one corner, and little climbing fl
owers in a vase on a shelf behind me. I closed my eyes and listened to the plants. I watched their life force dance in my mind. I hadn’t been able to take the time to use that part of my sense, the newly awakened aspect. It was like watching a fire that pulsed. I eased my special sense into the climbing flowers. They burbled a happy, wordless song.
Time passed. I lost myself in the connection with the flowers. I hadn’t lost myself in my power for a long time, and it felt good to let go of everything else, all the worries, concerns, frustrations, all of it, and just experience the happiness of flowers.
It couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t.
The door opened with a loud creak. I pulled my power back from the plants.
The big bald dude looked at me from the open door. “Bey wants to see you,” he said. “Release them.”
The two men on either side of us seemed to relax. Made me wonder what they would have done if he hadn’t wanted to see us.
They helped us up, and cut the zip ties. I stretched my wrists.
We were taken down a long corridor to a set of double doors. The bald guy knocked on the door. As he did my skin began tingling, the thousand-needles-pricking-my-flesh feeling Empowered got when they were around another Empowered, especially one they hadn’t encountered before.
There was definitely an Empowered inside. In fact, given the rapid pricking, it felt like there might be two. Yeah, it could be convenient to have an early warning of another Empowered, but it wasn’t easy to tell if there was more than one.
Only the intensity would give any kind of clue. And this felt like a thousand red hot needles jabbing at me.
The doors opened. Two big guys stood there, one on each door. They stepped to either side. No weapons, but they were as buff as the rest of these guys, moving smoothly. Had to be martial artists. They’d hand me my ass before I knew it was gone.
The room was big, with a huge rug with a giant tree design woven on it, with stars above the tree.
There were potted palms along the walls and a big glass chandelier hung over the rug. On the far side of the room were two high-backed chairs made out of what looked like mahogany.
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