Psy-Changeling [12] Heart of Obsidian

by Nalini Singh

  Leon Kyriakus gave her a steady look out of eyes of deep blue. “No, but I have confined myself to writing academic papers in the afternoons. Does that make you happy?”

  “Yes,” she said, not the least bit sorry for hounding him about his health.

  After she hung up, Sahara decided it was time to go back into San Francisco. She intended to be careful about it, but she had earned her freedom and no bounty hunter was going to steal that from her. She also wanted to run some informal tests to gauge the development—or lack—of her ability with languages.

  Catching a ride with Mercy when the other woman swung by after a routine perimeter check, she rubbed the eagle charm on her bracelet.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the company,” Mercy said as they drove out, “but why didn’t you hop in with Vaughn? I saw him leaving as I came in.”

  Blowing out a breath, Sahara fixed the knitted cap that hid her hair. “He’s developed a distinctive protective streak when it comes to me.” There was no way her cousin’s mate would’ve left her alone in the city, and it was something she needed to do, to prove to herself that she could.

  Mercy, by contrast, raised an eyebrow when Sahara asked to be dropped off near Fisherman’s Wharf, but didn’t attempt to stop her. “According to my orders, we’re meant to provide a safe harbor, not imprison you. And if that gun I glimpsed at your ankle’s what I think it is, you’re smart enough not to need a babysitter.

  “Still, put this number into your phone.” She passed over a card. “Any trouble while you’re there, call that and a packmate will come get you—our city HQ isn’t far.” A wry smile. “I mean in case you don’t feel like being teleported by the scariest man on the planet.”

  Sahara was still smiling an hour later, her mind lingering on the way that scary man had held her against his heart throughout the night, when she noticed the gathering crowd in front of one of the large public comm screens on Pier 39. Unlike with a sports game or musical performance, the group was deathly silent.

  A single look showed her why.

  A night-draped Hong Kong was burning, the smoke so thick, it was a roiling cloud over the glittering steel metropolis that was home to a majority Psy population and a minority human one, their combined numbers near to four million.

  With the skyscrapers so close together, and the fact that the flames seemed impervious to the fire-retardant building materials used in most inner-city areas, the death toll could be in the hundreds of thousands. Horrified, she lifted her hand to her mouth, just as an emblem flashed on the right-hand side of the screen: a black star with a white P at its center.

  “. . . whether or not it is a purposeful echo,” the Psy reporter was shouting into the camera in an effort to be heard over the cacophony of rescue vehicles and the voracious roar of the flames.

  On the other side of the screen flashed a single silver star.

  “The silver star is Councilor Kaleb Krychek’s highly recognizable emblem. With their new symbol, Pure Psy appears to be issuing a direct challenge to the man who has stopped or mitigated a number of their recent attacks.

  “Our contacts in fire rescue tell us this fire is unlike anything they’ve seen. Their normal methods are having zero effect, and the size of the blaze means it’s too dangerous to be contained by even a team of Tks without Councilor Krychek’s assistance. He is the only individual who may have the power to contain, if not end, this inferno.”

  Sahara’s heart stopped at the reporter’s final words.

  The one question she hadn’t been able to ask Kaleb now burned red-hot across her irises, as fear for him—because she knew without a doubt that he’d soon be in the burning city if he wasn’t already—mingled with terror for what he might’ve done. She couldn’t bear to think that his soul was that pitiless, couldn’t bear to accept that she was too late, her heart clenching so hard within her chest that it was a physical pain that threatened to bring her to her knees . . . but the one thing she couldn’t avoid, couldn’t refuse to hear, was the evidence of his own words.

  “I don’t have empathy, Sahara. I can’t feel for those who are going to die. It would be akin to asking a falcon to take flight when his wings had long been hacked off.”

  * * *

  KALEB had planned to sit out the next major Pure Psy attack. It would not do for people to become suspicious of his motives. The situation in Hong Kong, however, threatened to be so cataclysmic as to require a drastic change of plans.

  Ordering his own teams in the region to respond, as well as giving the same command to all available telekinetic Arrows, he arrived to discover that Ming, the only other former Councilor with significant personal military might, had appeared with a Tk team. An interesting move for the telepath who ordinarily preferred to keep his face out of the media, and one that showed Ming was learning this war would not be won in the shadows.

  Too bad he’d already lost it.

  Acknowledging the other man with a nod, Kaleb turned to Aden, the blast of heat from the fire roaring a block away causing sweat to bead on his temples and plaster his long-sleeved T-shirt to his back. Aden shoved back sweat-damp hair before he spoke. He’d already been in the city for a meeting with other members of the squad based in the region and had reacted quickly to hook himself into the communications network.

  “It’s obvious Pure Psy has a source for high-grade military-spec explosive charges,” the Arrow told him as the last of the Tks close enough to ’port in without exhausting themselves completed the transfer. “This operation had to have been put in place over months. The entire central core of the city was mined to blow, but the initial blasts only did minor damage—it’s the fire that’s the real assault.”

  Kaleb looked at the images Aden had obtained of the devastated city center. The flames burned white-hot with an abnormal green tinge. “Fire retardant?”

  “No effect.” Aden touched his finger to his ear. “Report from one of the fire crews—sky drops of water and retardant are both failing.”

  Ming, having examined the same images, said, “They’ll continue to fail. These flames are distinctive of ‘scorch’ charges, meant for use in erasing isolated targets surrounded by large areas of rock or desert or water. Once lit, the fire will burn until every possible consumable is gone.”

  Meaning after it engulfed Hong Kong Island, it would sprawl outward in any direction not marked by a water boundary. “The primary bridges and tunnels to Kowloon,” Kaleb said, pointing to a team of four Tks. “Collapse them, then take care of the secondary access routes and any physical links to outlying islands.” The other bridges weren’t as sturdy, with a lesser risk the fire would crawl across, but they needed to go as well.

  “The squad,” Aden said as the four-man team left, “is unaware of such a weapon.”

  “It was developed two decades ago,” Ming replied, “and shelved because of its ferocity. Given its lack of subtlety, I deemed it of no use to the squad.”

  And that, Kaleb thought, was why Ming had lost the Arrows. He had treated them not as the highly intelligent, dangerous men and women they were, but as his personal army of assassins. It had been a fatal mistake. “Vasic,” Kaleb said to Aden’s thus far silent partner, “did you do a telekinetic test?” Not every fire reacted the same way to their ability to manipulate the destructive energies.

  “Yes. It’s a viable option, but”—the teleporter’s gray eyes locked with Kaleb’s—“the size of the blaze means it’ll be unstoppable without direct intervention by a Tk of your strength.”

  Not answering the unasked question, Kaleb took charge of the amassed telekinetics. No one, not even Ming, demurred. As Vasic had pointed out, Kaleb could do things they couldn’t even as a group. “Rescue must be a secondary aim,” he said, and it was a ruthless decision that needed to be made. “If we can stifle the flames, the non-Tk teams can go in to provide assistance.”

  “This is a map of the area currently on fire or under threat,” Aden said, putting a small device on the road where
they stood. A touch of his finger and a holographic map sprang up. “The central core is gone, no hope of survivors.”

  It had to be significantly over a thousand degrees in that core, Kaleb thought. No one could survive such an inferno without specialist equipment and clothing, a single breath burning the throat and lungs to ash.

  “This swath of homes”—Aden marked out a rough circle around the leading edge of the flames using a holo-compatible pen—“has been successfully evacuated.”

  “Can we push the fire inward?” Ming asked, putting his hands together as if around a neck. “Strangle it of fuel?”

  Aden was the one who answered, though Kaleb guessed the response was Vasic’s. “Not with the core burning as violently as it is—we’d concentrate the entire energy of the fire in one area, risk creating a massive firebomb.”

  Kaleb agreed with Aden’s conclusion, which left a single option. “We go outward,” he said and drew a second rough circle inside the first, the real-life distance between the two approximately five hundred meters. “One team inside the fire, the second in the evacuated zone, the aim to compress the fire in between and suffocate it.” The large surface area of the ring would mitigate, if not eliminate, the risk in concentrating the energy to that extent.

  “I’ll go in first, into the core.” Kaleb shrugged into the fireproof gear Vasic had ’ported in for him, the Arrows already suited up. “Soon as I’m in, I’ll push the fire outward. Your task”—he pointed to the Tks who’d be positioned in the evacuated zone—“is to make sure the fire spreads no further. Ming?”

  The telepath nodded as the rest of the group started to get into their gear. “I’ll coordinate external placements to ensure total coverage.”

  “Easiest way for the internal team to get in position,” Aden said, “is to run in the five hundred meters from the external ring.” Getting no arguments from his Arrows against what would be a hellish run through deadly flame, he continued. “Once Kaleb has pushed the fire to this point”—he tapped the inner circle—“you keep it there. If you can’t stifle it, then you let it burn out. Understood?”

  A sea of curt nods.

  “If,” Kaleb added, “you feel the ring is about to fail, I want you all to ’port to the external perimeter to make sure the fire doesn’t spread. I’ll hold the internal section. Otherwise, I’ll assist in stifling the flames as soon as the ring is stable.” Glancing around to make sure the message had been heard, he said, “Get in position.”

  The Tks began to ’port out to the external points using images provided by the fire and medical teams working around the city.

  Kaleb, however, had no available image to use to get inside the blazing core. Which was why Aden and Vasic flew him up in a jet-chopper, hovering right over the center of the fire. Using high-definition binoculars, he captured a viable mental image and ’ported . . . just as the jet-chopper exploded from the proximity of the heat.

  Aden?

  We’re fine. Vasic was monitoring the fuel tank.

  Consumed by the white-hot core, the heat so violent as to create a dangerous level of warmth even inside his fire gear, Kaleb knelt down on one knee and spread his arms outward, palms pushing against the flames that crawled over every inch of his body.

  The suits won’t last the expected sixty minutes, he told Aden. Anyone caught in a backdraft will have forty minutes maximum.

  I’ll warn the others.

  A single calm breath of the air reserves built into the suit, his mind a sea of black ice . . . he unleashed the force of the power that lived in him.

  Chapter 38

  “INCREDIBLE.”

  Sahara echoed the anonymous gasped judgment in frozen silence as the comm station successfully linked to a satellite that had zoomed in on Hong Kong, showing its viewers what was happening in the metropolis: the impossible. From the noxious core that reporters had stated was burning at a staggering five thousand degrees at least, according to the most recent estimates by scientific experts, the flames were being pushed outward in a perfect sphere, while the ragged edge of the fire remained stationary, as if held in stasis.

  Fear gripped her chest, ice in her veins, but she bit down hard on her lower lip to fight the urge to reach out to the man she knew had been in that cauldron of flame until he shoved it outward. To distract him now could mean his death. Instead, she watched an event so phenomenal even the news anchors had gone quiet, the only sounds that of the seals in the bay and the seagulls overhead.

  The blackness inside the conflagration continued to grow as the fire was pushed farther and farther away from the core. And then it came to a halt, a perfect ring of flame in the center of the island that burned a violent white against the night sky in that part of the world.

  For two minutes, nothing happened.

  Then the fire began to collapse in on itself, slowly but surely, as if it were being compressed by invisible walls. Exactly twenty-seven minutes later, the last flame went out, the glittering lights outside the fire zone making the smoking, darkened core so much more blatant a scar.

  Squeezing her arms around herself, Sahara walked away from the comm screen and surrendered to need at last, reaching out across the vast distance that separated them, and hoping Kaleb would pick up her psychic signal with his far greater reach as he always did. If he didn’t, if there was only silence . . . no, he was fine. He had to be fine. Kaleb? Are you all right?

  * * *

  IT took Kaleb a second to understand the question.

  No one had cared if he lived or died for over seven years, and he found he didn’t know what to do with the knowledge that Sahara did, as she’d always done. As if his life was worth something quite separate from hers.

  Halting with the fire suit hanging off his hips, his upper body drenched in sweat, he said, I’m uninjured, all the while aware that Sahara was wrong in her belief. His life was one that should’ve ended in the cradle, the genetic legacy inside him stifled like the fire had been, while he was too young to understand what it made him.

  Now the only value he had was in keeping Sahara safe.

  You promised me you’d never lie to me, she said, the words holding a weight of emotion he could feel even through the distance that separated them.

  I never have. It was the one untainted point of honor in his life. What do you want to know?

  The pause was long, her question a psychic whisper. Did you help create this incident?

  The black ice shuddered, fractured. No.

  I’m sorry.

  Don’t be. It was a rational question given my history.

  But I hurt you, and no one has the right to do that. Fierce words. Not even me.

  Another fracture in the ice, this one deeper. Pure Psy did reach out to me, but our goals don’t align. He glanced around at the rubble of Hong Kong Island, thinking of how Vasquez had refused a face-to-face meet, suspicious of Kaleb’s motives. He’d been right to be. Kaleb would’ve executed the other man on sight. You know my stance on Silence—and I have never had anything against the humans or changelings.

  Turning to the leader of the Arrows when Aden jogged over, he listened to the damage report and update on rescue efforts. “Am I needed?”

  At Aden’s nod, he removed the fire gear and threw it on the pile where the Arrows were shedding their own. His cargo pants were as sweat soaked as his T-shirt, but there was no point in changing. The fire might be dead, but the heat hadn’t yet seeped out of the ruins of the city.

  Take care, Kaleb. A kiss against his mind. It would break my heart if you were hurt.

  The city lay devastated around Kaleb as he jogged in the direction Aden had pointed him, yet he saw only the midnight blue eyes of the woman who, as her earlier question proved, knew exactly what he was capable of, but claimed him all the same. Always Sahara had seen him. And always she had refused to walk away.

  The last time, it had cost her seven years of her life. This time, he’d lay the world itself at her feet. I’ll come to you when this is o
ver.

  I’ll be waiting.

  The promise kept him going through the grim hours that followed, his main task to assist in maintaining the structural integrity of buildings while rescuers, including changeling teams who had come in via watercraft, combed the floors for survivors, their heightened sense of smell a priceless advantage. For every burned and barely alive survivor, they found ten corpses.

  “We saved millions of lives,” Vasic said once the final telekinetic task had been completed, “and yet it doesn’t seem enough when you see them bringing out curled-up bodies, skin blackened from the fire.”

  Kaleb thought of the ash that was all that remained in the core, no bodies, no bones. “Vasquez intended this to be a demonstration of Pure Psy’s power.” He’d studied the leader of the fringe group, knew how his mind worked. “That’s why he deliberately chose a high-profile island rather than a larger landmass.”

  “He knew we’d collapse the bridges and the water would’ve acted as a natural firebreak, containing the fire to within Hong Kong Island.” Vasic nodded. “A logical plan, but instead of proving Pure Psy’s power, he gave you a stage on which to demonstrate yours.”

  Kaleb would answer questions, justify his actions to only Sahara. As he’d noted earlier, however, Ming’s mistake had been in thinking of the Arrows as his servants rather than his partners. “Pure Psy,” he said, giving Vasic an oblique response to his unasked question, “must be extinguished. Tell Aden that is no longer the Arrows’ top priority, but the squad’s only one.”

  Vasic, his eyes on the charred and broken remnants of a once-tall skyscraper, said, “Kill or capture?”

  “Kill.” The Arrows might believe Kaleb’s intent was to get rid of the group after they’d outlived their usefulness, but that wasn’t a supposition he could refute with any expectation of being believed. The lethal squad would do its own investigations, make up its own mind—the one thing they would no longer find, of course, was evidence of Kaleb’s plan to annihilate the Net.