"You're quite the big man these days...aren't you, Jonny-boy?"
Jon didn't answer, or take his eyes off her face. He let Wreg steer him back over to Neela, who pulled him behind her where she squatted near to the floor.
"What about Revik?" Allie said then, her voice hard. "What did you do to him?"
Yosef gave her a contemptuous look. "You have no one to blame but yourself, Esteemed Bridge. If you had not brainwashed him so thoroughly to hate his prior guardian, we would not have miscalculated as to his probable reaction to seeing him. We made it perfectly clear in our invitation that we desired our differences to be resolved in the most harmonious way possible..."
The seer paused, his voice growing cold.
"...Which does not mean that we would be foolish enough to invite two telekinetic seers into the home of our master without some safeguards in place," he said. "You must realize that to think otherwise is beyond naïve..."
"And who is your master?" Jon asked, blurting the words before he knew he intended to speak. "Why don't you just cut the crap, and tell us? Is Menlim really alive?"
Every eye in the room turned to him.
Their stares made him pause, but only the barest breath.
"Well?" He made a dismissive gesture with one hand, still fighting that pain in his chest. It worsened whenever he let his eyes stray to Cass. "Will we be having the privilege of his company, as well? Or are we all meant to be shit-scared, thinking it's Menlim, when really it's you? Or maybe that old woman who used to work for Galaith? Or Salinse? Who else do you have behind door number three? Is any of this real, or is it all just bullshit? Are we supposed to be impressed because you managed to convince our traumatized friend that you can offer her real protection...that you can help her, when we all know it's nothing but another wank so you can torture her into being your new pet intermediary?"
Next to him, Neela smiled.
Wreg seemed to be smiling too. His eyes, however, looked fierce.
Jon glanced back at where Allie knelt, and saw her looking at him too, a faint whisper of admiration in her eyes.
Yosef seemed less impressed, however. Looking away, he gave a dismissive-sounding sniff. When he spoke next, he aimed his words at Wreg.
"Was it really necessary that you bring this toddler human into our house, brother?" the seer asked, his voice holding a thread of disdain. "Clearly you enjoy violating him, and fair enough...they've certainly done the same and worse to our kind over the years. Still..." He gave another sniff, his eyes boring into Jon's before he gave him a once-over that exuded disgust. "Is it so difficult to find a lover among your brothers and sisters that you must you resort to rutting with animals? How can even your cock be sated by that...much less your light and soul?"
Wreg's jaw hardened, his dark eyes growing cold.
Jon was about to speak up, to try and keep Yosef focused on him instead of Wreg...when a new form appeared out of nowhere, standing at the blue-eyed seer's side.
It was Dorje.
He wore the leather jacket Jon remembered on him the last day Dorje had been alive. Under that, he wore the Radiohead T-shirt Jon had given him, and a brown leather belt, dark jeans. He looked so completely the same that Jon's heart stopped, clutching in his chest.
Dorje looked straight at Jon, then at Wreg. His mouth tilted into a frown.
Jon knew it couldn't be real. He'd seen Dorje die. He'd stood there, watching him convulse from the poison...he'd even felt his light leave his body after his face turned blue, his eyes filled with burst blood vessels as he gasped his last breath. So Jon knew it had to be bullshit, but his throat went so dry he couldn't speak...he couldn't get enough spit to even swallow. The illusion felt like a punch to the solar plexus, or maybe the groin. It didn't just look like him, it was him. Jon recognized the tenor of the Tibetan-looking seer's light. He could feel his presence all around him, and as soon as he acknowledged that much, sensation washed over him, that feeling of the other in his light for real...dense enough that he gasped for breath. Pain met that illusion of contact...more pain than he'd felt since that first night after Dorje died. That night where all he could do was lie there, in Allie's lap, wishing he could be dead, too.
"Jon!" Wreg said. "Jon, no!"
"I knew, Jon," Dorje said quietly, looking only at Jon.
"Jon, don't listen!" Wreg said. "They're only doing it because you snapped the rest of us out...you broke the attack, so they're trying to neutralize you before they try it again..."
Jon couldn't tear his eyes off the apparition of Dorje, however.
"I knew he wanted you," the Tibetan-looking seer said. "Even before we got to New York...I knew. You must have seen us fighting about you...you must have seen that, but you hung around him anyway. Every time I turned around, looking for you, there he was..."
"That's not true," Jon managed. "You're lying..."
"Jon!" Wreg said. "Listen to me, please brother. Hear my words!"
Jon shook his head, trying to clear it. His own words grew confused, straddling both sides. "You're not real...you're not him," he said to the image of Dorje. "He betrayed all of us. Killed Vash...why did you kill Vash?"
Dorje didn't avert his gaze. "You knew," he said. "You had to have known...didn't you, Jon? You wanted him. I knew you'd be too terrified to ever admit it to yourself...much less act on it. But you wanted him. You fantasized about him, just like he did about you. You dreamt about him. I could feel how your light got around his. I could feel you reacting to him, even when you were in bed with me –– "
"Fuck you, Dorj! I never cheated on you!"
"Jon, it's not real!" Wreg said. "Don't engage with it! Please, brother..."
Jon shook his head, but not in disagreement.
Closing his eyes, he tried to force the pain out, along with those cloying strands of light, the image of Dorje's face, the feel of his presence. He could feel that suffocating pull of light around all of them now, as if they were all being slowly squeezed inside a giant fish bowl. Memories swam forward in his light, the first time he and Dorje kissed, back in that cave in the Pamir. It had been Jon who made the first move that time, too. They played chess every night for weeks, first in the common room, then in Dorje's room...then in his...
"Jon!" Wreg shouted. "Jon...no!"
Neela's fingers dug violently into Jon's arm.
"Ow! Jesus!"
He turned, staring at her. It didn't occur to Jon that she'd been holding him before then; he hadn't felt her until she actually hurt him. With that pain came a hard pulse of light, strong enough that Jon yelled out even as his mind began to clear. When he looked up that time, he found her eyes on his, hard as glass, and so familiar...
She shook him, gripping his arm harder with her nails and he cried out again.
"Ow!"
"Stop it!" she said, her voice harsh. "Right now!"
That time, Jon's mind clicked abruptly back into focus. The room seemed to level with his mind, enough for everything and everyone in it to swim back into clarity, devoid of that blurred, smoke-filled filter. It was as if someone had shaken the entire image, removing a swarm of flies. What remained looked flat once more...almost untouched.
"Just a little longer," Neela told him, her voice a sharp whisper. "Please, Jon. Just hold out a little longer. Just a little longer, I promise..."
Jon didn't understand her words. He stared at Revik down on the floor, who still looked half-conscious, although his eyes remained open. Even as he thought it, Allie bent over him, touching his face lightly with one hand, as if trying to get him to look at her again. There were tears in her eyes as she stared down at him.
The image of Dorje had vanished.
Jon fought to breathe, to level his mind, feeling Wreg and Neela's light in his, as if holding him in place between them. He glanced at Cass, and felt something in his heart hurt, enough that he could barely hold back the pain. She stared back at him, still wrapped in Feigran's arm, her eyes indifferent as she watched the scene play out in
front of her.
Jon looked at Chandre, who still looked exhausted, and Stanley and Varlan. He looked last at Maygar, whose eyes appeared as vacant as Cass', although nowhere near as cold.
"I'm sorry to say," Yosef said, pulling Jon's eyes back to his. "...But this meeting is now at an end. I would like to thank you all for your presence here. Although it did not go as smoothly as we had hoped, I think we all share a common understanding now, at least..."
As he finished speaking, silence descended over the room. Jon found himself staring around, bewildered, like he expected the lights to come up at the end of a play.
Instead, a booming sound shook the windows.
Right before it blew them out altogether.
28
REVERSAL
"GET DOWN!" NEELA yelled next to him.
Jon barely had time to comply when she shoved him face-down on the tile floor, right as the stained-glass window exploded overhead. Jon saw her barely flinch, her eyes focused on the blue-eyed seer...right before there was a loud, cracking sound, and his body twisted into a strange configuration, his head seeming to stay in one place while his body move in an erratic jerk under him. Then, the tension in his body departed.
Yosef, the blue-eyed seer, crumpled to the stone floor...
But Neela was already focused on the line of guards behind him.
Jon heard another crack...then another and another as the guards fell behind him. A gun rose and exploded in the same instant, blowing a hole in a guard's chest and ripping off the arm of the guard standing beside him. Another gun exploded, seemingly a second after the first, throwing yet another body within a few feet of the fire.
"Holy fuck!" Jon yelled. "What the hell is going on?"
He barely got it out when another series of cracks made him wince, even as the floor shook under his hands. That time, it felt like an explosion, as if something had hit another part of the castle-like house, hard enough to shake the foundation. He heard rocks fall, smelled smoke even as dust kicked up in the room itself, maybe through the fireplace...or one of the holes where the stained glass windows had stood. The chandeliers swung overhead.
Jon turned his head back towards the windows, just in time to see that most of the seer guards had vanished from behind the chairs of Rex, Stanley, Varlan, Chandre, Maygar, Feigran and Cass. Jon watched the last seer fall even as he glanced up...he saw the guard's eyes flare out wide as he looked around, as if trying to determine the source and direction of the attack. His eyes settled on Allie, but by then, it was too late, and anyway, Allie crouched over Revik, as if to protect him from falling glass and debris.
Jon was still lying there, gasping for breath, when Neela released him abruptly, and darted over to where Revik lay on the floor.
The building shook again as she knelt beside him. Jon stared in shock as Neela caressed Revik's face, leaning over him as she seemed to be doing something with her light. His jaw fell when he saw Neela kiss Revik a second later, pressing her face against his.
His mouth still hanging open, Jon glanced at Allie, even as Wreg was unlocking the collar from around her neck.
Of course, by then, he'd figured it out.
Neela was Allie.
Allie was Neela.
Jon had no idea how they'd done it, but he didn't think about that for long, either. His eyes darted to Cass, who had already vacated her chair, standing with Feigran and backing towards the door near the fireplace at the other end of the room. He got to his feet, ready to go after them, but Wreg jumped up, grabbing his arm.
"No!"
"But he's taking her!" Jon yelled, trying to shake off the seer's grip.
"Jon...don't!" Wreg warned. "You heard that fucker, Yosef! They're protected...both of them! If Allie tries to go after them, the same thing will happen to her as what happened to Nenzi!"
"But how did she..." Jon looked around at the other bodies, at Yosef and the guards.
"Balidor," Wreg said, still speaking loudly over the sound of the guns. "After the attack on Nenz, he was able to tell her which of them to avoid with the telekinesis..." His mouth hardened as he stared at Yosef. "Guess he wasn't that valuable, after all..."
Just then, another volley of loud explosions seemed to shake the house. "And what is that?" Jon said, as another shock trembled the building.
"The aircraft carrier," Wreg said. He continued to hold Jon's arm when Jon's feet kept trying to pull him towards Cass. "No, Jon...we have to let them go! The Bridge already made the call..."
"I'm not in her goddamned army!" Jon said angrily.
"Yes, you are, brother..." Wreg said, his voice hard. "And she's right. He'll kill Cass if we try to take her...don't you understand?"
"How do you know that? How could you possibly know that?"
Wreg nodded towards Feigran, who held a gun to Cass' head. Jon's eyes followed his. He continued to watch them as they made their way to the door by the far fireplace. He saw Feigran do something to the wall panel then, right before he stepped through the opening. Seeing them about to get away, Jon followed at a run, jerking his arm free angrily when Wreg tried to stop him. Wreg followed as Jon bolted after Cass. He reached within a few yards of them before they managed to disappear through the door altogether.
"Cass!" Jon yelled, loudly enough that both she and Feigran turned, just as they were about to let the door swing shut behind them. "Cass...don't do this! Please! I don't know what crazy shit they've been feeding you, but this isn't you. You wouldn't do this...you've been Allie's best friend since we were all kids!"
"Jon," Cass said, her voice hard as glass. "Go home!"
"I won't leave you!"
"You don't have to," she retorted. "I'm the one who's going..."
"Cass!"
"Stop! Do not take another step!" Feigran tightened his fingers around the gun, his eyes nervous as he licked his lips. He glanced at the doorway, then back at Jon. "Please, brother. Don't try to stop us..." he said, his voice worried, openly concerned. "Please. I won't let them hurt her, I promise...but you can't follow us any further. I don't want anything to happen to you!"
"You're out of your fucking head, Feigran!" Jon snapped.
"I will not hurt her, Jon!" he insisted. "But you must go back!"
"Let her go! Please, Feigran! We were friends, weren't we? I was good to you, man...even when everyone else wanted you dead..."
"I know, Jon. I know." The seer's eyes looked pained. "I am so very sorry to be hurting you like this. I know this must be painful for you..."
"Then LET HER GO! Let her go, damn it!"
Feigran shook his head, his eyes holding compassion. "I can't, Jon. I'm sorry, but I really can't." He pressed the barrel of the gun tighter against Cass' head. "I'm sorry, Jon...but you're just going to have to trust me. You can't follow us. She'll be all right, I promise..."
Jon started to jerk after them, but that time, Wreg snatched and held his arm.
"Stop, Jon! He's right!"
"Let me go!" he said, fighting him. "Now, damn it!"
"There's an OBE at the door...you'll get us both killed!"
Jon tried to jerk away again, but Wreg gripped him harder that time, catching hold of both of his upper arms with his muscular hands. Jon dropped his weight, trying to sweep the larger man's legs with one of his own, but Wreg stepped around him, moving with him. When Jon slid under his grasp, twisting enough to get one arm free, he swung at Wreg. The seer blocked him with his forearm, then punched him in the face, knocking him down to the tile floor.
"Goddamn it!" Wreg snapped. "Listen to me, Jon! We have to get out of here!"
He was down on the ground next to him a second later, grabbing him by the arms once again. Staring up at him, Jon felt his throat close. He fought the other's hands, but couldn't get free. Tears filled his eyes again, even as Wreg grabbed him around the back, holding him against his chest.
"You have to let her go, brother," he said, his voice emotional now. He sent a pulse of warmth into Jon's chest, strong enough t
hat Jon couldn't breathe past it. "You have to let her go, Jon...just for now, okay. Just for now...please, brother...please..."
"No." Jon shook his head, still fighting the other's hold. "No, we can't...don't you see? It'll be too late...it'll be too late then..."
Wreg held him tighter, still half-crushing him in his arms.
"It already is too late, brother," he said, caressing Jon's face. "I am sorry..."
I SUPPORTED REVIK with my arm and shoulder, gripping him around the waist as he leaned against me. Jorag helped me on his other side. We really needed Garensche, but I needed him more where he was now, working to figure out the mess of organic controls that powered most of the house, including some of the more tangible of the constructs.
I fought not to think about what I could feel wrong with Revik's light. Balidor was working on him already, along with Tarsi...trying to find and weave back the worst breaks in his aleimi, including whatever had happened to knock him out cold.
I could feel the dead areas though, and the darkness in structures that shouldn't be dark, even with him unconscious.
Whatever they'd done to him, we wouldn't be able to fix it overnight.
But I couldn't think about that now. He was alive. Right then, I cared about that more than anything; it filled me with so much relief it still managed to wipe out all the rest. I fought to hold onto that feeling instead, at least until I could get the rest of us out of there in one piece. For the same reason, I couldn't think about Cass at all, or where she might have been going with Terian when they broke out through those OBE fields before the aircraft carrier had finished pounding the upper walls of the castle and the outside grounds.
It had been more than a little touch and go there, for those last few minutes.
It had taken longer for Balidor and his team to find us within Shadow's construct than we'd hoped...but at least he'd cracked it. They couldn't start firing on the house until they knew where we were, and I couldn't use the telekinesis until I knew for certain I wouldn't end up writhing on the floor like Revik. The risk of all of us getting killed would have been too great for either scenario. Once Balidor had us, though, his orders had been clear. He was to give the signal to the aircraft carrier to attack the rest of the house, especially any weapons they managed to pick up on their sensors, and give me direct pings on anyone I could drop.
Allie's War Season Three Page 76
