Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine

by Andrijeski, JC

  That warning coldness and pain and charge faded as Jon watched, leaving her blank again, as if lost in the possible vagaries behind his question. Jon felt her puzzlement return. The heat that sparked there briefly just…went out.

  Like it had been extinguished by a wet cloth.

  That nothing bled into her entire expression by the time she spoke.

  “I just told you,” Allie said, the puzzlement reaching her voice. “I’m going to Denver, Jon. With Chandre and the others. I need to talk to President Brooks. I need to make sure they don’t nuke China.” Her frown deepened. “Don’t you understand? I can’t risk going with the rest of you now. Not when they might use Revik to track me. You have to go with Lily and Maygar without me…I’ll find some way to be with you later, okay?”

  Jon stared at her in disbelief.

  He opened his mouth, about to speak again.

  That time, Wreg laid a much more insistent hand on his arm.

  When Jon started to pull away, Wreg gripped him tighter, refusing to let go, holding him hard enough that it hurt. Jon met his gaze, a pulse of anger leaving his light. Using his own aleimi, Wreg smacked him back, hard.

  It was enough to silence Jon, briefly at least.

  Then to hurt his feelings.

  He opened his mouth, but Wreg cut him off, using his mind to push at him again.

  She’s in shock, brother… Wreg sent, his thoughts insistent. Listen to me, goddamn it. You need to stop. Now is not the time for this…

  But she’s leaving! Jon sent back, glaring at him. She’s fucking leaving, Wreg…when would be a good time, exactly?

  Wreg shook his head, once.

  Not now, brother. You need to control yourself…or this will go worse for her. For all of us, if she loses control of her light… Wreg’s voice turned threatening, even as he continued to pulse warmth at Jon’s aleimi, fighting to calm him down. You are not helping her right now, ilyo. I know you’re trying, but now is not the time. Trust me on this. You need to stop. We will try to speak to her later, when she’s rational again…when she can hear us. Yes?

  Jon opened his mouth, but another voice interceded.

  He’s right, Balidor sent.

  Startled, Jon turned, meeting the Adhipan seer’s gaze.

  Once he had, he flinched, lost in the expression in those light gray eyes, in the handsome, human-like features of the middle-aged seer.

  Balidor looked…

  Gods, he looked defeated.

  Like really and truly defeated.

  Jon had never seen the Adhipan leader look like that before. Not even when things had been their bleakest, back when they were with Revik in San Francisco. Balidor hadn’t looked like that when Allie took off for China by herself…or when Cass had all but killed her.

  Maybe the mere fact of seeing the Adhipan leader look like that was enough to shut Jon up. Whatever the reason, he found himself backing off, even as his own light seethed around him in a sharper coil of fear and frustration.

  He fought to control it, but he couldn’t do that either.

  So…what? he sent, addressing both of them that time. Jon felt the defeat bleeding into his own light. He fought it, but couldn’t really push it back. We just let her leave? Let her go to the United States…probably get herself killed by SCARB or the U.S. military? And we let Revik, what? Commit suicide in Singapore?

  There was another silence.

  That one felt heavier.

  Wreg and Balidor exchanged a look.

  Did you know this was coming? Wreg asked the Adhipan seer. All of those private sessions with you and Nenz and the old woman…what did he want? Was it about this?

  Balidor shrugged with one hand, barely perceptible.

  Jon wondered why he bothered to hide it. Allie seemed pretty damned oblivious to them. He watched her stare over the edge of the building in the direction of the afternoon sun, focusing on something that probably didn’t even exist.

  Wherever she was, she wasn’t with them.

  Did I know this was coming? Balidor sent bitterly. That the Sword would leave his wife and daughter on some fucking martyr quest to negotiate with Shadow? He exhaled, his thoughts openly angry. No, brothers, I did not. Perhaps I should have known…I can see hints of that in what he wanted from me now. Perhaps I should have seen the signs for what they were…but I did not. Nor do I think anything we taught him will keep him alive. If he thinks he can infiltrate Shadow on his own, when it is so obvious why he would try to do such a thing now, he is deluding himself massively. Both of them are…

  He motioned towards Allie with his chin.

  Jon flinched, hearing and feeling the implications behind his words.

  You think she knew he would do this? he sent. Allie?

  Turning, Balidor met Jon’s gaze, his lips twisting into a scowl.

  Knew? he sent, his thoughts harder. Perhaps. Suspected? I would say definitely. From her reaction alone, I believe Alyson must have guessed what her husband intended. Even beyond how she is behaving now, there have been other things…for weeks. From both of them… His anger flared hotter. I knew something was wrong. I knew there was something neither of them were telling me. I’m a gods-damned fool for ignoring all of it…

  Like what? Jon sent. What things did you notice?

  Balidor gave him another hard look.

  Then, clicking under his breath, the Adhipan seer shook his head.

  It does not matter. Not anymore. Suffice it to say, I should have paid closer attention…and not assumed this was something I could address with them at a later date.

  Looking directly at Wreg, Balidor added, sharper,

  But I do not think this is shock, brother. Not precisely. I agree that trying to reason with her will do absolutely no good right now…but this is not shock. She knew this was coming. She fucking planned for it, if I am reading her light correctly. Her liaison with Chandre the other day may even have been an attempt to blackmail her husband out of what he intended to do.

  He gave another of those subtle shrugs, his eyes cold.

  …If so, clearly it did not work. But I am not seeing surprise on her, my brothers. Not in the slightest. I am seeing a mate grieving the loss of her partner…but there is no denial or confusion in her light about what has occurred.

  Jon’s fingers clenched on the table.

  He turned over Balidor’s words, fighting to think, to even make sense of them. He found himself in agreement, though…even without knowing what Balidor knew.

  Allie wasn’t surprised. Whatever the hell was going on with her right now, surprise wasn’t a part of it. Balidor was right. She’d at least suspected this was coming.

  Seeing the bitterness in Balidor’s eyes and his light, Jon realized Balidor thought it was more than that, though. Still thinking about the seer’s words, he followed the Adhipan leader’s gaze to Allie’s face. Was he right about all of it? Had Allie known this was coming? Not just suspected but actually known Revik would do it?

  Was she in on it somehow? Was this something she and Revik decided together?

  It would explain everything and nothing.

  Balidor was definitely right about one thing: she’d been acting strange for weeks. Both her and Revik. The fact that they hadn’t been sleeping together only compounded that strangeness. But why would she ever agree to something like this? Had Revik threatened her somehow, in some twisted attempt to save her and their daughter’s lives?

  Then again, did he need to threaten her?

  Their very lives were interdependent. Lily’s life was now dependent on theirs, as well. Revik had the ultimate bargaining chip with his wife, even beyond how they felt about one another.

  Allie herself had just implied that Revik had done it to protect Lily. It was the only thing that felt remotely plausible. It was also the only thing that might explain how Allie was reacting to all of this…how she’d been behaving for weeks now. Ever since Dubai, really.

  Revik must have given her no choice.

 
He’d forced her to go along with this, thinking it was the only way to keep Lily safe. It would be maddeningly like him to do it. It fit Revik’s m.o. with his loved ones, for sure…along with his never-ending willingness to stake himself to a cross to help those he deemed more worthy of life and love than himself.

  Jon felt his jaw clenching when Balidor spoke into their minds again.

  As for what he wanted in those training sessions, brother, the Adhipan seer continued, his thoughts colder as he glanced at Jon. What the fuck do you think he wanted? He wanted Tarsi and I to help him get rid of the trigger. He wanted me to teach him to shield so he could keep that dugra a’ kitre child-fucker out of his gods-damned light.

  Jon winced, glancing at Balidor in surprise.

  The Adhipan leader rarely swore.

  He never swore like that.

  If Balidor heard him, he barely gave Jon a glance, still thinking at both of them angrily.

  We knew it was about Lily and Allie, even then, Balidor sent. He asked me to teach him all of the things Allie learned when she infiltrated him at that u’hatre davos rebel compound in China…along with a few tricks Tarsi designed after we mapped that construct in New York. He had us do everything we could to activate that fucking trigger in his light too, to see if we could replicate what that shit-fuck, Menlim, had done to him in Dubai…

  Jon winced again.

  He didn’t look at Balidor that time, though.

  Why the secrecy? Wreg sent.

  Jon glanced at his mate.

  Wreg didn’t look away from Balidor’s face. His dark eyes were focused, intense, infiltrator-sharp. Jon definitely got the sense that Wreg intended to milk this talkative mood of Balidor’s for all it was worth.

  Even as Jon thought it, Wreg added, …Was it really about some inner-circle leak that Feigran warned the Bridge about? Or was there more to it?

  Balidor exhaled, emanating a darker, more complex set of emotions.

  I don’t know, he sent, making a vague gesture with his hand. I think so, yes. And if it reassures you, brother…I’m not in any way sure he trusted me, either.

  What makes you say that? Jon sent.

  Balidor glanced at him, raising an eyebrow.

  Instead of answering his question, however, he only shrugged, using the hand that lay on the wooden table not far from a porcelain cup filled with black coffee. The coffee had to be cold by now, Jon thought. It didn’t look like Balidor had even touched it.

  I suspect he chose me because I had no prior history with Menlim, Balidor sent, addressing Wreg as if Jon hadn’t spoken. I think after Dubai we were all on the potential enemies list, my brother. Me. You. Jon. The Children of the Bridge. The ex-rebels and ex-Seven. The Adhipan as a whole. Tarsi didn’t seem to have his full confidence anymore, either.

  Balidor shrugged, pausing before adding,

  Perhaps his own wife had made that list by the end.

  You think she had? Wreg pressed.

  Clicking, Balidor sighed, shrugging again. I honestly do not know. I know they were fighting a lot. And that he refused to sleep with her…until last night at least. He would not do it without others present…and she was not happy about this.

  Wasn’t that just a security thing? Jon said, skeptical.

  Balidor gave him a look. There were ways around that, my brother, he said. The Sword chose not to pursue any of those other ways. Not alone with her.

  Jon shook his head, still skeptical, even if he couldn’t articulate to himself why exactly. He remembered something else. He was pretty pissed off about Chandre, he pointed out. Did you hear about what he did in that downstairs restaurant? How he went after her?

  When neither answered, Jon looked between them, adding,

  I was there. He dragged her out of a booth and hit her…in the face. I haven’t seen him that pissed off since San Francisco. It took me and Deklan getting between them to get him to back down. He was shouting at her. He threatened her, too…

  Jon frowned when neither of them answered.

  He watched Wreg and Balidor look at one another.

  Some kind of understanding seemed to pass between them.

  Jon found himself thinking that it was more than what Balidor had just said, but he couldn’t feel anything at all about what it meant. He definitely got the sense that Balidor and Wreg were in perfect agreement about…something. Perhaps simply where their own loyalties lay now, even apart from Allie and Revik themselves.

  Jon wasn’t sure that reassured him.

  At the end of that silent stare, Wreg only nodded.

  He picked up his own coffee cup in the same pause, sipping the remaining dregs as he stared at the surface of the wooden table.

  Then, simultaneously it seemed, both infiltrators shifted their gazes to the female seer sitting across from them at the long rectangular table.

  Allie’s light eyes reflected sunlight, once more focused distantly on the horizon. Jon could feel nothing in her light again. It was like she’d already died.

  Perhaps she simply watched that death approach.

  Perhaps she could see it, somewhere in their not-so-distant future.

  I was in our room, packing.

  Well…my room now, I guess.

  It wouldn’t be mine for much longer, though.

  I’d given them a short window. I had twenty minutes to get downstairs. Thirty if I decided to slide past the deadline I’ve given my small team. I didn’t really want to do that, though. I wanted to catch Chandre before she got to Mumbai, which meant we had to get moving.

  I didn’t bother to look up when the door notification went off.

  I didn’t check the virtual feed for who it was, either. With twenty minutes remaining before I left this group behind, there was only so much yelling they could do at me before I walked out that door.

  I’d already said goodbye to the people I’d needed to say goodbye to.

  Lily had been the hardest. She’d seen Revik before he left too, which had been difficult to take, but also strangely reassuring. I hadn’t gotten a real goodbye from him, but at least our daughter had. It didn’t make her any less confused, of course.

  She’d cried when I told her I was leaving too, and no amount of explaining why really reached her.

  I cried, too. I tried not to, to smile and reassure her, but yeah, I couldn’t help it.

  Lily would have felt it on my light anyway. Why pretend?

  Neither Revik nor I had ever really been those kind of parents.

  They were moving her out that night, but I wouldn’t let anyone tell me anything about where. Kali and Uye were waiting for them. Maygar, too. Balidor, Wreg and Jon would take her, along with the tank inside the armored truck and most of our team. Most of the civilians would be going with them, as well.

  Hell, just about everyone I knew would be a part of that convoy now.

  But yeah, even apart from all of that, only a handful of people knew where I was.

  Right now, I mean.

  Even fewer would have come up here to bother me.

  I just hoped it wasn’t Jon.

  Jon was the one person I honestly wasn’t sure if I could take right then.

  He’d already come after me once after that initial meeting. He’d cornered me up here and all but accused me…or Revik, really…of planning this thing in advance. He accused me of going along with some fucked up plan of Revik’s, of Revik blackmailing me into being complicit with some martyr bullshit infiltration scheme that would get all three of us killed.

  He’d accused me of letting Revik bully me, or maybe he thought I was in on it…or that I might be bullying Revik…I honestly couldn’t tell.

  Jon himself didn’t seem to know, which was a lot of it. He was just operating on some kind of hunch or maybe a hunch of Wreg’s…or Balidor’s…but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with when he started yelling at me. Or when he started crying.

  The truth was, I couldn’t get out of there soon enough.

  I knew they’
d keep hammering me and hammering me about Revik.

  I knew Jon would never understand why I wouldn’t go after him. I knew his anger and disbelief wouldn’t end as long as I was here, so I figured I’d let them chuck a few more rocks at me as I aimed my feet for the door and that would be the end of it.

  And I hadn’t been lying.

  I needed to go the United States.

  I’d planned to go there anyway…not only to talk to Brooks, but to see if I could speed things up by leading my own hunting party for Network seers. With Revik gone, the Network seers were totally on me now, and it wasn’t safe for me to hang around the others anyway.

  There was also the Feigran thing.

  Or the Dragon thing…whatever.

  So yeah, with all that in my head, I didn’t bother to check who stood at my door.

  Using a mind-trigger command, I let them in even as I lugged the heavy canvas bag I’d been filling with clothes and equipment up onto the bed. After crawling under the bed frame, I yanked out the weapons cache Revik had left behind, too.

  Tossing that on the bed near the satchel, I unlatched the black case and flipped up the lid, looking through the guns and magazines pressed into organic molds. I found myself weighing the advantages of bringing the whole case, even though most of these guns were more fitted to Revik than to me. I could always use them as back-up for the team more generally.

  I tended to go with Berettas, like Balidor and Neela. But my favorite gun these days was the same kind Jorag wore a lot. It was also one of the first guns I’d learned on, back when Revik and Ullysa had been teaching me to shoot: an organic-modified Desert Eagle.

  Most of the guns in the case were in line with Revik’s “highly-modified Glock fetish,” as Wreg jokingly termed it––although he had a Desert Eagle and a few older models pressed into the molds, too. I knew Revik wore other guns besides these, as well.

  One of his favorites was actually a Browning hi-power, which I’d already noticed was missing from the drawer when he left.

  Forcing that out of my mind, and the tightening in my throat that accompanied it, I stared down at the case without really seeing it for a few seconds more.

  I was still staring down at it, hands on my hips, when the person I’d let in addressed me from the doorway to the bedroom.