Clicking out briefly from her work in the Barrier, she grew conscious of the sunlight turning more orange, deepening and coloring the clouds.
It occurred to her that she hadn’t been monitoring the time very well. A few hours remained in the day, but not so many as she would have liked. She had intended to pull together her small squad for one more planning session that day.
The Sword wanted her to leave soon. Within the next few days.
Out of the city, north and west to Bangladesh, then into India. Then arranging for a boat or plane out of Mumbai or Kolkata and back to North America.
The thought of returning to that place, to what had been called the United States, made Chandre tired. The thought of leaving her people behind was not a welcome one, either…nor was the thought of once more being separated from the Bridge and Sword.
Because of that, the distraction with the Thais was perversely welcome.
So far up here, she’d been using her light skill more than her skill with conventional weaponry, mainly to help push back the horde aiming to overrun the newly-created opening in the wall. She wasn’t working it alone. Jorag had just come down here to assist in crowd control in person, while Deklan, Oli and Anale assisted remotely.
It should have been an easy task for just one seer.
But the raging mob had “help,” if one wanted to call it that, in the form of seers pushing the crowd to rush the wall from the other side, even if it risked their lives.
As a result, using the chaotically structured light of the mob itself only worked in short bursts. Chandre could feel at least six seers working the other side of that wall with the Mythers. They systematically unraveled any calm she, Jorag, Deklan, Oli and Anale managed to descend over the mass of desperate humans. Chandre herself would get a portion of the crowd to snap out of their frenzy only to have to return to that same section moments later as the Myther seers injected jolts of fear back into the group light.
A few dozen Thai soldiers stood just outside of the broken part of the wall, guarding the engineers as they struggled frantically to repair the hole and the corresponding semi-organic containment fields. They would get there eventually Chandre knew, but she wondered how many would die before that occurred.
She’d stopped flinching at the gunfire at least an hour ago.
The automatic gunfire continued, unabated, nearly steady in the background as she did her best to save lives in the only way she knew how. Most of the gunfire came from the Thai soldiers, who had little choice but to mow down the crowd every time it surged violently for the opening.
The people trying to get in weren’t only Thai, Chan noticed.
She saw humans and seers who appeared to be from other parts of Southeast Asia, as well as humans of European descent, some of African descent and a lot of East Indian and Chinese. Grimacing as she watched another line of running bodies ripped apart by automatic rifle fire, she focused back on her work in the Barrier…
Then jumped when someone laid a hand on her shoulder.
Chandre jerked and turned.
Her hand already gripped her sidearm.
The person standing there was probably the last Chandre would have expected.
“Esteemed Bridge.”
Chandre released her gun at once. She bowed, making the respectful sign for her intermediary with one hand as she lowered her head. As per custom, she straightened only after Allie herself made an impatient version of the counter-sign.
Raising her eyes, Chandre looked up and down the length of the upper wall only then.
She grew conscious that they felt alone.
The Barrier held no other seers nearby. Not on the wall at least, not unless they were heavily shielded. Jorag remained down below, near the physical wall breach so he could assist the engineers in addition to providing light coverage.
Chandre hoped the Sword had accompanied the Bridge out here and was simply occupied with the Thais and Jorag downstairs. The thought that the Bridge might have walked out here alone, where she might have been recognized and ID’d…
Still seeing no one and feeling no one with her light, Chandre swallowed, her nerves worsening. She grew conscious of the Bridge’s light focused on hers then, almost invasively. Meeting the steel behind Alyson’s gaze, Chandre decided it wouldn’t be a good time to question the Bridge’s judgment in coming out here unaccompanied.
“Is there something I can do for you, Esteemed Sister?” Chandre said, using the polite form of Prexci. “I was not aware you intended to witness this?”
Allie’s scrutiny sharpened.
Then it faded.
A small smile touched her lips, right before she shrugged with one hand, seer-fashion.
“I wouldn’t mention it to Revik or Balidor if I were you,” she said, giving Chandre another of those quirky, wry smiles. “I suspect I’ll hear about it, if so.”
Chandre could no longer feel herself being scanned by the Bridge.
Even so, her light felt charged, on high alert, in a way she couldn’t explain, even in the more finely honed areas of her aleimi.
Something about that unconscious alertness was…unnerving.
She met the Bridge’s gaze again. That harder edge had returned to those light green irises. She stared unapologetically that time, and Chandre fought not to react.
“Is something wrong, Esteemed Sister?” she said, trying again.
Allie lifted one eyebrow, then let her eyes shift away.
Taking a step closer to the edge of the wall, she leaned out over it to look down.
Her visibility and proximity to that one hundred-plus meter drop caused Chandre’s heart to clench in her chest. She bit her lip to remain silent, watching Allie’s eyes scan the mob at the base of the wall and the crowd of humans massing just out of range of the Thai guns.
Chandre forced herself to remain silent, unmoving.
Still staring down at the base of the wall, Allie’s eyes narrowed as another section of crowd rushed the opening, causing the Thai soldiers to open fire.
Chan continued to help Jorag and Anale attempt to calm the crowd as she watched the Bridge warily. It struck her suddenly that the Bridge was working that crowd too, albeit carefully, and via the proxy of Chandre’s own light. In the process, she seemed to be in Chandre’s light more than Chan had realized.
It alarmed Chandre, not only that invasiveness, but how it had crept up on her. She’d scarcely noticed the Bridge’s presence until it had more or less saturated her own light like water filling hairline cracks in sun-bleached rock.
“I’m going to ask you something, Chan,” the Bridge said, glancing back at her.
Chandre restrained an urge to tell the Bridge to move away from the edge. She knew they couldn’t be identified from the ground at this height, that the VR fields meant neither of them would be visible by flyers, but she could not calm the panic in her light.
“…I want an honest answer,” Allie finished, still staring at Chan’s face.
Chandre nodded. She made the respectful sign of the Bridge a second time.
“Of course,” she said.
She heard the nerves in her own voice.
She knew the Bridge heard them, too.
“What happened to the book, Chan?” Allie said.
That more penetrating scrutiny returned to her light green irises.
“Book?” Chan stared at her, not hiding her confusion. “What book, my sister––”
“The book we got in New York…out of that vault,” Allie said, the warning hitting her voice. “The one with all of the symbols. The one my mother left for us to find.”
“Esteemed Bridge, I––”
“I know you had it, Chan,” Allie said, her voice hardening to steel. “I’m not asking you that question. Nor do I want to debate that particular point. I want to know what you did with it. Who you gave it to. I’m assuming you don’t still have it yourself?”
Chan swallowed, feeling her muscles tense.
Images fl
ashed behind her eyes, just like that human cliché about death. Some part of her imagined going head-first off the wall…being picked up and thrown off bodily by Alyson’s telekinesis. Even now, she felt the denser streams of light sparking the aleimi of the Elaerian seer. Of course, she knew the fear was irrational. She also knew Alyson wouldn’t need to toss her off the edge; she could simply snap Chandre’s neck.
The Sword had been training her and his son, Maygar, for months now.
Unlike with the Sword, Chan had never really witnessed the Bridge do such a thing, apart from the feed recordings from Brazil.
Chandre had zero doubt that Alyson was capable of it, however.
“Sister,” Chandre said. Her voice turned gruff, even as her vision blurred, disorienting her. She held up a hand. “I had to vow––”
“I am revoking that vow,” Alyson said, the warning sharper. “I will answer to the gods for you, my sister. But I must know the truth now. Or I cannot let you anywhere near our command structure…I am sorry. No matter who you are to me. Or to my husband.”
Chandre swallowed.
Somehow, the thought of having her spine snapped hit her less hard than the threat the Bridge had just made.
“I did it for Sister Tarsi,” Chandre blurted, feeling her face heat in shame as she said it. Whether it was shame for breaking vow or for hiding the information from the Bridge in the first place, she could not decide. “…I gave the book to her, my beloved intermediary. She asked me to retrieve it for her just prior to the tsunami, so I did.”
Seeing Allie’s jaw harden, Chandre felt tears well up in her eyes.
They blinded her briefly, running down her dusty cheeks.
“I am sorry…” she began, her voice thickening. The thought of being banished hurt her, in a place she thought she could no longer be hurt. Without thought, she reached out, catching hold of the other’s arm, holding it in both of hers. “My dearest friend, I am so sorry…I trusted the old woman and Vash to keep you safe. Tarsi told me she had to protect you from the book. From what was inside. That it was not safe for…”
She choked on the words, unable to get them all the way out.
But understanding had already flickered through those light-green irises.
“…For the Sword to know where it was,” Allie finished in a mutter. “You were hiding it from the Sword. So you couldn’t let me know where it was, either.”
Chandre let out a slight gasp, then nodded.
Relief flooded her light that the other understood.
She didn’t release Allie’s arm and Allie didn’t move away. They only stood there, neither looking at the other, but neither creating distance between them, either. It hit Chandre in those same few seconds that the Bridge’s light was open to hers once more.
Also that the Bridge was crying.
Something about the second thing touched Chandre in a way few things had touched her, especially of late. Like the rest of them, Chandre had been forced to harden her heart, to steel the softer parts just to survive these past years.
It also created a grief and affection warring in her light that nearly overwhelmed her. The Bridge had been fully prepared to kick Chandre out of her team if she had to. At the same time, Chandre could feel how that idea hurt the Bridge, paining her nearly physically. Chandre felt more in the intermediary’s light too, things about her husband that Chandre steered clear of, things about their child…about her fears of a mole in their leadership team.
Her fears of the future.
Chandre didn’t mean to do it.
Something in the emotion there overwhelmed her briefly.
She moved impulsively, which was not her usual way, not even for this…but the Bridge’s light was so soft just then, so yielding and enveloping that Chandre found herself wrapping her arms around the other female without thought. She pulled the Bridge into her body, wrapping her fingers into her dark hair, holding her against her chest and shoulder. She cradled her there, like she might a lover…or like she might one in her family.
The Bridge was her family, Chandre realized.
She loved her more than she’d ever really let herself feel, more than she’d come close to admitting to herself. She loved her and would protect her to the end, no matter what that ended up meaning for Chandre herself.
Her arms tightened around the smaller female as she thought it.
Allie didn’t fight her. She leaned there, opening her light more.
After another few seconds, Allie let out a sigh, pressing her face deeper into the armor that covered Chandre’s shoulder. Looking up, she met Chandre’s gaze. Chan found herself lost in the brightness of those green eyes. She felt the relief that still seethed off Allie’s light.
That touched her, too.
“I’m going to need you to escort Feigran and Cass out,” Allie said, wiping her face and below one eye with the back of her hand. Sniffing a little, she smiled, still not removing herself from Chan’s arms. “…Sorry about the drama,” she said, exhaling. “Feigran just confirmed we have a mole…one that’s high up in our structure. I can’t fucking tell you how much I hated the thought that it might be you, Chan.”
Pain slid off the Bridge’s light as she spoke the words.
Chandre didn’t answer.
She could feel there was more going on with the other female. She knew it wasn’t only about Chandre herself. She knew that Allie probably wanted to talk about whatever it was, too, if only because she seemed unwilling to disentangle herself from the embrace.
Chandre waited to see if she would say more.
She couldn’t tell if the Bridge had made up her mind on that point yet, either.
Just as Chandre decided she would not speak, Allie did.
“Things aren’t…good,” she said. She cleared her throat, shaking her head. “With Revik, I mean. Since that thing in Dubai…”
She trailed. Then, as if realizing what she’d been about to say, she flushed.
Chandre fought her own discomfort at the information.
Allie shook her head, as if feeling that, too.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just…everything seems to keep getting harder.”
Feeling the vulnerability waft off the light of the other female, Chandre fought her own light reacting to that openness. Unfortunately, it now reacted in more than one way. The intensity of that secondary reaction caught Chandre off guard. It also made her uncomfortably aware of how long it had been since she’d had a partner.
Chandre wanted to be there for the Bridge.
She wanted to be a good friend, to be there for her, but now she was thinking she should probably let go of her. Physically, that is.
Still, somehow, Chandre did not.
When Allie looked up next, searching Chandre’s eyes more carefully that time, the vulnerability there caught Chandre’s breath. It also brought a coil of pain so intense she averted her eyes. She looked back only when the Bridge spoke to her again.
“I’m sorry,” Allie said.
Chandre didn’t think that time, either.
Which, in retrospect, had not been wise.
She lowered her head…and she kissed her.
She just kissed her.
She didn’t stop to question why…or why it might be a bad idea. No intention touched her mind at all, not for those few seconds. She hadn’t done it to seduce her.
Well, she did not think she had done it for that.
Chandre didn’t know why she’d done it. Affection and comfort and friendship figured in there somewhere, as much as the possibly less-honest, baser motivations. Whatever it was, a hunger of sex or good intentions twisted into something with less integrity…whatever it was, it pulled at Chandre’s light so strongly she found her mouth on Allie’s before she knew what her body intended. When the Bridge softened against her, perhaps caught off-guard as well, Chandre’s light slid abruptly out of her control.
The kiss altered as her light did.
She pressed the Bridge
into the stone wall of the walkway, moving her away from the edge of the wall. She forgot why she’d been sent up there. She forgot what she’d been doing for the Thais with Jorag, Deklan, Oli and Anale…that whole thing slid out of her mind’s grasp entirely. Her hands curled around different parts of the Bridge’s body, gripping her and exploring her in places she knew she shouldn’t, even then. Using her tongue and her light in the next kiss, she let her hand fight its way under the Elaerian’s combat vest. She gripped her ass in the other, massaging her with strong fingers, bringing a surprised sound to the Bridge’s throat.
Pain slid through Chandre’s light, along with a more distant disbelief.
She wanted to fuck her…
The thought came unbidden, intense.
Chandre had never been conscious of wanting the Bridge before.
In flickers, sure. Idle stares and pulses of pain when she’d been particularly hungry, or the Bridge had been more open with her light than usual…or she wore clothes that emphasized the changes in her body since she and Chandre had first met. Chandre had seen imprints and Barrier records from the others that affected her, too.
In particular, some of the memories the others carried of their time in New York featured the Bridge in a number of graphic sexual fantasies of one kind of another.
Chandre hadn’t been there in person for most of that. Even so, the combination of the dramatic changes in the Bridge’s body, her dressing habits and the added structures in Allie’s light from working as a consort of the Lao Hu affected her.
She was no more immune to the differences there than the rest of them.
…Like when Alyson had worn those consort clothes after she got back from Beijing. Several of the seers, Jorag especially, still seemed to use those imprints semi-frequently as masturbation fodder. Chan also saw records and memories of what the Bridge had looked like when they rescued her from the Forbidden City.
Chandre hadn’t been the only one to react to those things.
Just about every seer on their team had been hungry for her that day. They’d also been conscious of keeping those impulses far, far away from the Sword and his light.
But Chandre hadn’t taken those whispers of interest and hunger seriously.
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 8
