Menlim’s eyes narrowed.
Some of that humor-that-wasn’t-humor faded from his eyes, as did the put on regret, or pity, or whatever the other had been. The seer in the gray dress shirt frowned, leaning back into the cushions of the tiger-skin couch. His back remained perfectly straight as he wove his own hands together in his lap, halfway mirroring Revik’s pose.
“So…a hired gun?” Menlim said politely, a tauter smile playing at his bone-colored lips. “Is that what you propose to be to me, brother Dehgoies?”
Revik scarcely hesitated.
Making an assenting gesture with one hand, he tilted his head in acknowledgment.
“I would probably think of it that way, yes,” he said. “I would not discourage you to think of it the same.”
He glanced at Eren where he stood by the wall, then at Tan, who sat nearer, on the couch.
Revik added, “I would think such a thing might still have value to you…despite the number and quality of your current assets. I would not be willing to aim myself at my wife or anyone in her camp, of course. But I thought I might be of some use in other areas where you have designs for…” He waved a hand. “…Expansion. Or security concerns, perhaps.”
“Such as?” Menlim said, his voice still formally polite.
“China,” Revik said at once, meeting that empty gaze. “Macau. Perhaps Moscow, if my information is correct about the bulk of Russia having recently fallen to a coup orchestrated by seer unaffiliateds. I hear you are running across problems in several places, in fact…ever since those crime families began signing treaties with one another in an attempt to carve out territory of their own. I am told the new military power in Moscow has strong ties not only to Macau and the Ukraine but also increasingly to Mexico City, Rio and Chicago. Again…assuming I am not mistaken in the information I have received on those places.”
Revik opened his hands in a smooth, conciliatory gesture.
“I also thought you might have an interest in London,” he added, glancing at Ute. Seeing the hostility there, his eyes shifted to Rigor before returning to Menlim.
“…Possibly Cairo, as well as Saigon…and Bangkok, of course. Those four places remain detached from the crime family strongholds I’m told…for now, at least…but you and I both know they will be targeted soon, if they haven’t been already. I’m sure you’re aware there were terrorist attacks on Bangkok while I was there. Vancouver, too, is still in dispute…again, assuming my information is up to date and accurate.”
When he finished speaking, he saw a few of them exchanging looks.
Ute frowned at him openly, glancing at Tan in a way that made Revik think they were likely talking inside the Barrier, either arguing about what he’d said or about what they saw in his light as he said it.
It made sense. They would be assessing his light as he spoke, along with his words. They would be looking for lies, for any attempts to manipulate or deceive.
They’d also be trying to assess his mental state more generally.
They were probably already trying to pull intel from him, too…although from what Menlim just said, he clearly had other and likely better sources inside Allie’s camp for that.
“My wife’s not a threat to you anymore,” Revik said. His voice hardened as he looked back at Menlim. “Neither is my daughter…or my son. Let them go.”
“And the remainder of the Four?” Menlim said, his voice smooth as glass. “Shall I simply ‘let them go’ too, nephew?”
Revik met his gaze. “Yes.”
Ute swore from the other side of the couch.
Next to her, Salinse shook his gray head, clicking under his breath. Revik felt more than heard reactions from Tan and Rigor, too.
Only Eren and Kidi remained silent from where they stood over by the wall.
“You don’t need them,” Revik said. “You don’t. Leave them be.”
But now Menlim shook his head, too.
He gave Revik another of those questioning looks…or perhaps the look there was simply disbelief. In either case, when he clicked at him softly, his light exuded a pale cloud of contempt.
“And why should I do that, brother?” he said, holding his hands out in a question. “Would you yourself so quickly abandon your friends…your beloved children? Clearly, you feel some familial obligations yourself, brother Dehgoies…or you would not be here. Yet you expect me to have no such loyalties of my own? You expect me to abandon War Cassandra to her mortal enemy the Bridge? And Feigran? Do you intend for me to leave him locked up in one of her ‘tanks’ for the rest of his life? They are as much family to me as you are, brother…more so, one could argue. Certainly in terms of their loyalty…both theirs to me and mine to them.”
At the end, his voice was dipped in steel.
Revik nodded, expressionless. “I understand. I knew this might be a sticking point.”
“Did you?” Menlim’s thin lips hardened in another small smile. That time, the contempt rose to the surface. “Well…dazzle me, brother. Tell me what it is that you can offer me that would make me as disloyal, ungrateful and arrogant as you.”
Revik felt his jaw harden.
He didn’t look up.
Clicking softly, he combed his fingers through his hair, then glanced at the other seers on the couch. “Would you perhaps agree to a compromise on the point of my brother and sister of the Four?” he said politely. “A time-bound one?”
“What compromise would that be?” Menlim said.
“Give me one year. One year as your…employee.” Revik made another flowing gesture with his hand, one that connoted the future. “At the end of that time, we will do one of two things. Discuss a change in terms in regards to your construct and my light…” He let that dangle before adding, “…Or, if we cannot agree on modified terms, I will hunt down and kill the other two of the Four for you.”
Ute let out a disbelieving snort.
Revik glanced at her, but only just.
He looked back at Menlim, narrowing his eyes.
“Surely that would not be objectionable to you?” he said. “After all, I would be releasing their souls for more fruitful undertakings…?”
Revik let his voice drop to a harder note.
“More to the point,” he said. “I would be taking them away from the Bridge and her allies, brother. For good.”
Menlim’s eyes changed slightly, holding a more intent sheen as they studied Revik’s.
“Then this current agreement,” he said. “The one you initially propose…this ‘hired gun’ contract you are offering me now…I take it from your words it does not include your full integration into our construct here?”
“It does not,” Revik affirmed, making a negative gesture with his hand. “I will work for you. I will follow orders and offer counsel when asked. I will keep no relevant secrets from you or your people. But I will not be your ‘nephew’…”
He hit the word hard, infusing it with deliberate contempt.
“…Nor will I acknowledge any other bullshit euphemism for acting as your personal puppet. We will pretend no loyalty or ties of affection or family between us, Menlim. I will be a prisoner here, albeit under contract. If that means wearing a collar, so be it. I will conform to any security measures you desire to make my presence here harmless to you. Anything beyond that would need to be negotiated separately, as I said. I will not try to escape, but I will also not be yours. I am offering a trade for services…nothing more.”
Menlim continued to watch him, a more concentrated look playing at his eyes and lips.
He frowned then. Revik saw a faint, quizzical look form there.
That one felt almost real.
Even as he thought it, Menlim refolded his hands, deepening his frown.
“What makes you so certain we will not simply force you into our own relationship with your light, brother Dehgoies?” the gray-haired seer said. “Why would we bother to wait for your consent? We could use wires along with any number of cruder mechanisms to f
orce your light to conform to ours. Surely you know this. Given the utter lack of loyalty you’ve shown to me over the years…why should you think I would even hesitate?”
Revik felt his throat tighten.
Anger lived there briefly.
He knew Menlim likely saw it, or felt it pulsing off his light.
Revik didn’t much care about that, either. Nor did he bother to point out that they’d cut his child out of his wife’s body, leaving her comatose in the wake of that action, mere months before they tried to kill her again in New York.
“I won’t waste either of our time arguing the semantics of your notions of ‘loyalty,’ brother,” Revik said, giving him a harder look. “I strongly suspect there is no way we will ever see our personal history together in remotely the same terms. I will say only that if you do that, you will never obtain access to the higher areas of my light. Specifically the telekinesis, of course, but also the parts of my light I suspect you would like to access for other purposes…structural purposes having to do with the nature of your network here on Earth.”
Revik’s voice grew colder, even as he clenched his fingers more tightly together where they rested between his knees.
“You seem to be all right with the two of us being blunt,” he said. “…All right, I’ll be blunt. I’ll make sure I’m entirely fucking brain dead before I give you access to any of those structures without my consent, brother. Further, I’d let myself, my wife and my daughter die from the bond before I’d let you turn me into a slave that might harm my own family.”
Menlim’s smile grew more shrewd. “Fine,” he said neutrally. “Do you have any further stipulations, nephew?”
Revik didn’t bother to ask him not to call him that.
Waving with one hand, he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “There is one more thing…the trigger. What you used on me in Dubai.”
“What about it, Nenzi?” Menlim said politely.
“I would like it removed,” Revik said.
Menlim smiled. That time Revik felt a coil of harder amusement on the Dreng’s light. Before Menlim could speak, Revik raised a hand, giving him a cold look.
“I recognize that is probably not on the table.”
“It is not,” Menlim said, his voice ice.
“Fine,” Revik said, nodding once. “Then I will trust you not to activate it, in the event I fulfill my end of any contract we enact between us.”
Menlim chuckled outright at that.
Shaking his head, that amusement still on his lips, he held out his hands expansively, that smile widening with his arms.
“Again…I am overwhelmed with emotion at the trust you place in me, nephew,” Menlim said, his voice a smile. “Why in the name of the gods would I do that, brother? Truly, why would I not simply activate it now…send you after that traitorous, whore cunt of a wife of yours this very afternoon?”
Revik flinched, feeling his jaw harden, but didn’t move.
“…A wife that clearly sent her husband here…at great personal risk to him, I might add…to do her underhanded bidding? What makes either of you think for a single second that I would hesitate to kill her before she can get one hundred miles out of Bangkok? Tell me, brother. For I am quite curious on this point.”
Revik felt his throat tighten.
Even so, he only shook his head, once.
“You will not,” he said, his voice uncompromising. “For several reasons, I suspect. One, if you could kill the Bridge so easily, you would have done so already. Which means one of several things. I’m betting that, in part, this is because the trigger can only be activated effectively under certain limits. I would guess a particular period of time? Perhaps until I go unconscious once more due to sleep or whatever else? Or perhaps it only operates inside a construct controlled by your wider network.”
Menlim gave a concessionary nod without confirming any of Revik’s implied questions.
Leaning back, he gestured with one hand.
“Go on,” he said, his voice polite.
Revik let his hand glide into another seer’s gesture of concession.
“If that is true,” he continued. “Then using me in such a way is not a workable option for you unless you already have my wife and I in reasonable proximity to one another. I don’t intend to let that happen…not until I am satisfied that my conditions can be met.”
“Again,” Menlim said, smiling even as he exhaled in some impatience. “Why would that be much more than an inconvenience, brother? I could simply drug you. Throw you on a plane. Make you conscious once we have you within a reasonable proximity to your wife.”
Revik held out his hands in a ‘so what?’ gesture.
Giving an impatient flick of his fingers, he frowned back at the aged seer.
“To what purpose?” he said. “Which brings me to the real reason I am not concerned. If you had me kill my wife, she would be dead, yes…but I would also no longer work for you. Which means the outcome would be the same as if I had not come here at all…if you simply continued to hunt us down and kill us senselessly. My wife would be dead. My daughter would be dead. I would be dead. You would gain nothing that you do not already have. By agreeing to my terms, you would lose nothing…but you would gain the benefit of my services. Even if I did not die via the bond, I would no longer be a willing servant to you, either.”
Menlim nodded, his eyes expressionless. “So you simply wish me to end this conflict with your wife?” he said. “To call a cease-fire, so to speak?”
Revik nodded, emphatic.
“Yes,” he said. “End it. Let them colonize a remote part of this world…sign a fucking treaty, I don’t care. But end it. She is not a threat to you. She and her people have no interest in fighting over the spoils, or starting a war with organized crime lords in Asia or Mexico or anywhere else. They do not have the manpower or weaponry to establish linked colonies anyway…even if they desired such a thing.”
Revik made another expansive gesture with his hands.
“They simply wish to grow and perpetuate their own kind, like any species,” he said, his voice subdued. “Let them do it in peace. They will not touch your numbers, not for centuries, if ever. Certainly not in any number of generations that you and I might imagine we could survive.”
Before Revik had even finished speaking, Menlim was already clicking softly however, shaking his skull-like head.
“This is not the Bridge’s charter on this world, brother––” he began, his voice quiet.
“Nor is committing suicide unnecessarily,” Revik retorted. “You won, Menlim. Be a little fucking gracious about it. Leave my family alone.”
Menlim only looked at him, unblinking. His yellow eyes held a sharper glint.
“In exchange for you?” he said. “…Or as much of yourself as you will give me?”
Revik nodded again. “Yes.”
“And your wife is all right with this?” he said, softer still.
Revik let out a humorless laugh.
“Is my wife ‘all right’ with this?” he said incredulously. “No. Of course she isn’t ‘all right’ with it. But I made it crystal fucking clear to her what would happen if she did not go along with me on this. She loves our daughter too, brother…arguably more than she loves me. She knows how serious I am about protecting more than simply their physical lives, or a single incarnation of their lights. She knows it was not an empty threat. I released her from all vows. She will not dispute this.”
At the mention of vows, Ute looked over sharply.
Glancing at her, Revik saw her frown, disbelief in her eyes.
Ignoring her, Revik turned back towards Menlim.
“She will not fight it,” he repeated. “I know her, and she will not…not anymore. She and I spoke in confidence before I did this, in one of the Barrier containment tanks. Months ago. None of the others knew what I intended, but Alyson did. The note was for them, not her.”
His voice thickened when he looked up, even as anger touched his word
s.
“She already knew, Menlim,” he said again. “…and given my threats and arguments, in the end, she agreed to let me go. In the end, she even agreed that it might be the only way that we could reliably keep our daughter safe. For the same reason, she and I agreed to dissolve our union…out of necessity.”
He made a “more or less” gesture with one hand.
“The bond cannot be dissolved of course,” he added, staring at the carpet. “But as that is the main leverage I have over her, the continued presence of that bond works more to your advantage than not, I would think.”
Revik glanced up, meeting Menlim’s gaze.
He still couldn’t read anything there, but he hadn’t expected he would.
Gesturing again with a hand, he added, “Before I left, I asked brother Balidor to train me in advanced shielding techniques. Essentially, the same techniques he taught my wife when she infiltrated me at the rebel compound. I asked my biological aunt, Tarsi, for help in the same. Between the two of them, I should now be able to keep most of my private life, as well as the work I do for you, away from my ex-wife’s light…”
Swallowing a little at what he’d just called her, he shrugged again with his hand.
“…Particularly if you aid me to that end by granting me access to elements of your shielding from your own construct,” he finished gruffly.
That time, the silence stretched longer.
Revik stared at the carpet through most of it, hands once more clasped between his knees. He fought not to think about how they might be reacting to his proposal or whatever they might be currently reading off his light.
He had nothing to hide, not anymore.
Rather than try to second-guess where Menlim might take things next, he instead focused on minute details relating to where his gaze rested for those few minutes. The pale yellow-orange of the rug was a lighter shade of the tiger skin’s tawny fur he realized. It was also not dissimilar to the color of Terian’s eyes back when he’d been the dominant personality split from Feigran’s aleimi. Revik found himself remembering the tiger skin rug on the wall of that faux-colonial bar on the cruise ship he and Allie rode most of the way to Alaska.
Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine Page 21
