Elite: A Hunter novel

by Mercedes Lackey

  He laughed. “Then you’re eating better than I am. It’s military meals for us here.” He made a face. I didn’t blame him. I’d had MMs a time or two; they were packaged meals that would probably outlast the heat-death of the universe, and while nutritious, they were…well…utilitarian. So bland they came with hot pepper in a packet on the side, just to make them taste of something.

  “Where’s here?” I asked.

  “The office. Those of us that didn’t get home before the storm hit—and don’t get the use of armored pods—have to live here for the duration. Cots, MMs, and a lot of vid and games. We don’t even get a spectacular view of the storm; the metal storm shields come up over all the windows.” He waved his hand around. “I’m lucky. I get the privacy of the prefect’s supply closet to sleep in and the use of his private bathroom, and he lets me keep clothing here so I’m not stuck in my uniform. So there’s that.”

  “What about my uncle?” I asked. “Do you know where he is?”

  “He’s gone to a meeting in an armored pod; he should be back soon, and I think he’s planning on bringing something other than MMs back with him anyway.” He raised one eyebrow. “Your uncle might be the most dedicated man I’ve ever met, but if he went somewhere that has a kitchen, I know damn sure he’s going to bring some decent food back with him. ‘Dedicated’ doesn’t mean ‘stupid.’”

  I laughed at that, as I was supposed to, but that meant Uncle hadn’t told Josh where he was going, or why. Dammit. Why didn’t he know? Would Uncle tell him later? This sucked. I felt a flare of anger, followed by resignation, and I reminded myself it wasn’t Josh’s fault he didn’t know. So I’d keep that to myself unless and until Josh said something indicating he knew that I was doing the sewer prowl under Apex Center.

  “Hey, since we’re both stuck, you want to play a vid-game?” he asked.

  I flushed. “I know this makes me sound like a turnip all over again, but I don’t exactly know how,” I admitted, feeling exceptionally awkward. “That’s not something we do back home.” Because we’re too busy farming and making and hunting and Hunting, I thought, a little resentful now of the leisured lives of city-dwellers.

  “Well, how about if I teach you?” he offered. “You’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly. I’ve got a cooperative mystery-puzzle game; I’ll send you a link and we’ll start it together.”

  So that was what we did for the rest of the morning, after he moved to the secretary’s desk to use her vid-screen instead of his Perscom screen; and I have to admit it was an entirely novel experience, and fun. More fun than I expected. It was a game set in Victorian London, a murder mystery with magic and horror elements. Whoever had plotted it out was really good; it was like being in the middle of a movie, or somehow walking into a really immersive book and becoming one of the characters. Just about when I was thinking I wanted a break for lunch, he froze the scene we were in.

  “Time to save and leave it for later,” he said before I could ask what was up. “I hear the prefect in the office, so I need to at least see if he needs me.”

  “More like you want to see what food he’s brought,” I teased as the game setting on the vid-screen faded away, showing our two avatars frozen and the words Saving and Exiting superimposed over them. Josh’s face returned to the screen.

  He smirked. “Are you sure you’re not a Psimon?” he teased back. “All right, Joy, I’m sure you’re as hungry as I am, and you probably want to go shoot a target anyway, since you’re not shooting monsters. I’ll catch you later tonight.”

  “Bet on it!” I replied, and closed the connection so I wouldn’t be tempted to stretch out our good-bye to keep him there.

  Lunch, a workout, and a session at the indoor range took up most of the afternoon. I did make the experiment of trying to use magic on my bullets the way Knight did, but I had no luck with it. It just didn’t feel right. It was a little frustrating, since intellectually it seemed as if I should be able to make it work, but I guess my gut didn’t agree. Stupid gut.

  BY DINNERTIME, PEOPLE HAD gotten over being unnerved by the storm, and things were as back to normal as they were going to get. You’d be insane to go outside, of course, unless you took an armored pod straight out of the garage and to another garage. But people weren’t huddling together in a herd in the lounge now. They were doing what I had done: range time, working out, swimming, games.

  I hit the mess at the usual time for dinner. It was full. I got my tray and looked around for a place to sit. Luckily for me, Hammer and Steel spotted me and waved me over to one of the tiny tables meant for no more than three. I squeezed myself in between them with a nod of thanks.

  And that was when—appropriately enough, all things considered—my subconscious hit me with the association of their call-signs. He picked up a hammer and a little piece of steel—“All right, I think I got it,” I said, by way of conversation, after I’d gotten a few bites in. “Are your real names John and Henry?” I could have looked it up, of course, but this was more fun.

  They exchanged a look that was partly startled and partly delighted. “Congratulations, Ms. Sherlock,” said Hammer. “You know the song?”

  “It took me a while to put it all together,” I admitted. “But I remembered the song ‘John Henry.’” I sang the first verse quietly—my voice is nothing to brag about. “‘Well, John Henry was a little baby, sittin’ on his daddy’s knee, he picked up a hammer and a little piece of steel, and cried hammer’s gonna be the death of me, Lord, Lord, hammer’s gonna be the death of me.’ We have a lot of amateur musicians back home.” Which, of course, we did. It doesn’t take electricity to run guitars and other instruments, and winter nights up on the Mountain get pretty long.

  “Our mother’s a folklorist,” said Steel. I nodded; that pretty much meant nothing like what it used to mean back before the Diseray. Now it means someone who’s going through all the pre-Diseray records, looking for folktales and myths and cataloging the magic and the monsters found in them. Even pre-Diseray fantasy fiction is fair game because a lot of it was based on obscure myth we haven’t found the records for. “And our father’s a musician. He collects folk songs for mother, goes out to places like that Anston’s Well of yours, when he’s not performing. He’s brought back some interesting stuff….” He shivered. “I just hope the song he brought back about the Hide-behind isn’t true. Makes me glad we don’t work the night.” I nodded. I knew that song. It was about someone in the remote hills who is walking home one night from meeting his girl and hears something behind him. It’s like a Diseray Othersider story before the Diseray. It doesn’t end well.

  “Well…there are those I’d like to see meet one. I wouldn’t mind it a bit if Ace met up with a Hide-behind,” Hammer growled, his brows furrowed into a solid line of anger. “The sooner, the better.”

  That seemed to come out of nowhere. “Not that I’m arguing with you, but what brought that on?” I asked.

  Steel tried to calm his brother down with a gesture, but Hammer wasn’t having any. “Word is, he’s been spending time outside the lockup. Too much, if you ask me.”

  That made all the hair on my head stand up because I had not for one second forgotten about Ace, and it sounded like the brothers knew things I didn’t. Well…thanks to the storm, all the Hunters were here in HQ together at once and perfectly able to call up old friends outside HQ and chat, like I’d chatted with Josh. And nothing spreads like gossip. “He’s dangerous,” I said flatly. “He’s still dangerous. Not just to me, either. He’s probably decided all the Hunters are against him, and I don’t think there’s any chance he’s suddenly come to understand the error of his ways.”

  “Well, if he thinks all the Hunters are against him, he’s right,” Steel agreed. “He’s already put up a good front of being all repentant and cooperative. He’s probably betting that they’ll let him completely off the leash.”

  So, that just put all my alarms on full. “You know stuff I don’t.” I said. “Tell!”

&
nbsp; “I have friends in the army; I know they’ve already let him mix with the other Mages,” Hammer said flatly. “Ace isn’t dumb. He has to make himself real useful to the army, so I bet he’s picking up new tricks as fast as he can cram them into his skull.” The look in Hammer’s eyes told me if he ever got a shot at Ace…the result would not be pretty. Now, pretty much nobody here liked Ace anymore, but this sounded kind of personal to me. I wondered what Ace had done to Hammer. I glanced over at his brother; Steel was just shaking his head. Steel gave me a sidelong glance and sort of shrugged, like I can’t do anything with him when he’s like this.

  Finally, Hammer let out his breath in an angry puff, and seemed to cool off a little.

  Steel tapped his finger against his glass thoughtfully. “Here’s the thing, Joy. We’ve worked with army Mages, and they’re not like the APD Mages your uncle has under him. Being with other army Mages is only going to give him a bigger ego than he had before. Army Mages think Hunters are some sort of second-class magic users. By now they’ll have him convinced that having his Hounds ditch him was a sign he was destined for greater things.”

  “Wait, what?” I replied, bewildered, because while we have Mages up at the Monastery (quite a few of the Masters are Mages rather than Hunters, and each one of them has an apprentice), that didn’t sound like the Mages I knew.

  “The army Mages I’ve met have egos the size of a planet,” Hammer told me sourly. “We used to have a friend that popped Powers, turned out to be a Mage, and joined the army. Magically, they’re more powerful than most Hunters, and their notion is they can do anything that a Hunter can do without needing to depend on Hounds. The minute Ace is allowed to mix with the Mages…If he was a problem before, he’s going to be four times the problem. They’re like the Psimons, basically, in that way.”

  “Except they aren’t cold fish like the Psimons are,” Steel added. “Other than that, they’re two of a kind. Both Psimons and Mages think Apex doesn’t need us, and they could do everything we can do in half the time and a quarter of the effort.”

  I nodded; I could certainly believe that. And sure, the Mages I’ve seen can do things we Hunters can’t. But a single Mage is just one mind and set of powers against the monsters. A single Hunter is several minds, bodies, and sets of powers. A Mage can’t be everywhere at once. Sometimes we Hunters can, thanks to the Hounds.

  So while technically, one-on-one, a Mage might be able to do more than a Hunter, he’s just one person. A Hunter, depending on how good his bond is with his Hounds, can be a small army all on his own. The army likes to use Mages more than Hunters, according to my uncle, because the army doesn’t really trust Hounds. Hounds are Othersiders too, and the army doesn’t really trust any Othersiders.

  “I’ve never seen an army Mage that wasn’t a colossal—” Steel coughed. “Egomaniac.” I knew what he was going to say….My people back home get pretty salty in their language, even if most of us up at the Monastery try to keep it reined in. “They won’t give regular army the time of day, and only answer to officers—if then. Ace should fit right in,” he added sourly.

  “Well, let’s hope my uncle managed to drum into their thick skulls that Ace is not to be trusted, and he’s only there and not in the deepest, darkest hole he could be stuffed into because Uncle’s judgment got overruled,” I reminded them. “But you are right. Anytime he shows up around us, we need to keep one eye on him. Or at least, keep a Hound’s eye on him.”

  “Do you think his two might go back to him?” Hammer asked, an expression of worry crossing his face.

  I shook my head. “Not a chance. They’re disgusted with him. So much so that when they talk about him, I can feel how disgusted they are. He’s like something nasty they stepped into by accident, and they can’t wash him off fast enough.”

  Hammer’s face cleared. He and Steel have really close bonds with their Hounds, almost as close as mine.

  “Can you guys ask your friends in the army to keep an eye on him, or at least talk to people who can?” I asked. I tried not to make it sound like I was begging, but I was. Hammer nodded and gave me a pat on my shoulder. “We’ll have a chat with them and see what they can find out about Ace, what kind of leash his keepers have him on, and whether or not he’s managed to talk his way into loosening up the terms and conditions he’s being held under. We’ll get back to you.”

  “I’ll see what Uncle can find out too,” I told them. And Josh, I added silently. Because Josh had means of finding out things only a Psimon has, not the least of which are the things other Psimons have picked up and are talking about.

  Hammer changed the subject then, since we seemed to have talked that one dry, and we ended our dinner laughing over stupid jokes. The lounge was crazy-packed, and people were mostly dancing; the cameras for the regular Hunters were crowding the ceiling, and I decided to skip the festivities. I plopped down on my sofa and checked the weather before I tried connecting with Josh. I could scarcely believe the total for the rainfall; those storm sewers I had so blithely patrolled were probably 90 percent full of rushing water that was moving along at the speed of a train. I almost felt sorry for the Othersiders that were caught down there.

  Almost.

  It looked like the storm was going to clear sometime in mid-morning, moving out to sea. Well, the kinds of ships out there were built for that sort of thing. They were few and far between, a small percentage of the traffic that had once moved pre-Diseray, but it was safer to send things to other continents by ship than it was by air. Heck, it was safer to go suborbital than it was to go by air, and our suborbital flights had a habit of augering in so often when Othersiders noticed them that they’re operated as drones, and the nickname for them was “Giant Darts.”

  So about midmorning I could expect to get a callout. But Uncle wanted me down there right away, and I wouldn’t be able to do what Uncle wanted and patrol the tunnels under the City Center until…

  Hmm. “Question. What agency monitors the flow of water in the storm sewers?” I asked aloud.

  “Apex Power and Water, Reclamation Division,” the room’s computer replied. It had a female voice. I’m not sure why.

  “Question. Can I access the Apex Power and Water, Reclamation Division flow monitors for the storm sewers?” You had to be careful how you phrased questions, or the computer got confused.

  “Affirmative.”

  “Order. Notify me when the Apex Power and Water, Reclamation Division storm sewer flow monitors beneath Apex Central register zero flow, and/or less than one percent water present. One-time notification.”

  “Affirmative. Order logged.” There. Now I’d know when it was safe to go down there.

  As for my getting caught down there if a storm blew up…well, that was a possibility. And given that someone had tried to kill me already, I was going to go to Kent and make sure he made it a priority that I got storm warnings, even if he had to call me himself.

  My alarm went off at the usual time, and my vid-screen popped up with Report to armory for briefing. A hand to the wall told me that the building wasn’t vibrating anymore; the storm was over, or at least moving off, and it was time to get back to work.

  And to reinforce where I was going to be this morning, my alert from Power and Water told me that the flow in the sewers was at 3 percent of capacity, and dropping.

  I grabbed breakfast with Knight; it was fun hearing about my people through the eyes of his, and he had a lot of questions about the ones where his folk had settled. I was happy enough to answer them, and he left looking pretty contented with his world. I headed for the armory briefing room.

  Kent already had the vid-screen up and running, and he waved me to a seat. “This will be short. You’ll have the map on your Perscom. There is a maintenance crew that will want your escort today. They are probably the only Cits that know about the danger down there; they’re handpicked and hard to rattle.”

  Well, that was a piece of good news. “Armed?” I asked.

  “So
me of them,” Kent confirmed. “Licensed, obviously, and they get regular range tests.”

  Also good news. People who can defend themselves are always an asset.

  “Pick your kit and get ready to bounce. I’ll have a pod to take you to the south entrance.”

  I didn’t get much chance to breathe the storm-washed air as I ran from the building to the waiting pod, but the little I did get I inhaled gratefully. The sky was completely cloudless, everything was a little damp, and the sun seemed especially bright. Too bad I wasn’t going to get to appreciate it. I’ve always loved the hours after a storm passes; it seems as if the world is shining and new.

  The pod dropped me off at what looked like a little concrete bunker, a door set in the middle of it with an ID checker beside it. There was also a group of six people in bright yellow coveralls and hard hats—the repair crew that Kent had said might be waiting for me. They looked excited and relieved, all at once, to see me.

  “I didn’t know we were going to get you, Hunter Joy,” said the one in the only bright blue helmet, who must have been the crew chief, as the pod drove off by itself. His face was actually lit up with pleasure. A sturdy girl with short, dark hair dug her elbow into his side before he could say anything more.

  “Job first, Kelly. Fan service later,” she said with a hint of a smile.

  “Let’s get this job started, then,” I said, and the crew chief presented his Perscom to the ID checker. There was the sound of the door unlocking, but no one made any move to open it.

  Smart people, I thought with satisfaction, and cast the Glyphs and opened the Way for the Hounds.

  Given we were going to be in a sewer, which meant limited space, all my originals had come in greyhound form. I opened the door, and five of the eleven crowded in, looked down the ladder, and bamphed.

  The ladder is safe, said Bya in my head, and I went into the little bunker and started climbing down the ladder. At the bottom, I held out my arms, and Hold and Strike jumped down to be caught, one at a time, while Myrrdhin and Gwalchmai bamphed down with Kalachakra and Shinje. “All clear!” I called up the ladder, and waited for the maintenance crew to get down while the Hounds and I surveyed the sewer as far as we could see.