Collision: Book Four in the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  “So, you can see me, and you can hear me too?” he asked.

  She nodded slightly, feeling odd about this whole conversation. This wasn’t how things had always gone before. Ghosts realized she could see and hear them, and they’d come to attack her with the only weapons they had; sound, words, and their own actions. Even if they couldn’t actually hurt her, what they did was still scary. But this one wasn’t attacking her.

  But this one was here during the day. And this one had chased off the others.…

  “Those others—the ones I chased off—you could see and hear them, too?” he continued.

  She felt herself on the verge of crying. Was he going to let them come back? “Y-yes,” she replied, as a tear finally burned its way out of her left eye, making her vision blurry on that side. But she wasn’t going to beg him to keep them away! She’d tried begging with the ghosts before, and nothing good had ever come of that!

  But his expression softened, and he made an abortive little move, as if he wanted to brush that tear away and then realized he couldn’t. “Hey, kiddo, don’t cry,” he said, his voice so friendly that it made her want to cry even harder. “I’m not gonna let those crazy things back here to scare ya. Okay? I thought only I could see and hear them, and they just annoyed me. I finally got tired of all the creepiness and the howling and got rid of them. If I’d known they were scaring you, I’d have run them off even quicker.”

  Pike had finished his breakfast, and clearly saw she was talking to something. With the ease of someone who has practiced not being noticed a lot, he ambled over to her without making it seem as if he was heading towards her. He stopped to talk to Joey, then Brit, then Tanya, before plopping down indifferently at the wall next to her.

  “You talking to one of them?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth. Lacey’s Guy turned to level that stare at Pike.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Lacey’s Guy. He’s the only one here. He chased all the others off and none of ’em come back.”

  “Can’t he hear or see me?” the ghost asked before Pike could do more than nod.

  She shook her head. Pike examined his ragged thumbnail critically. “Is he okay? Like…not bothering you? Cause it looked like you were gonna cry.”

  “He’s…nice,” she said, trying not to cry again. “It’s…it makes me wanta cry ’cause he’s nice.”

  Both of them reached for her at the same time. The ghost’s hand went through her shoulder, as Pike’s connected. “Hey,” they both said at once. “It’s okay.” Then the ghost chuckled, a little uncomfortably, as Pike added, “Been a long time since anyone was nice to us,” with a sad, sad look that made her reach for him.

  The other kids looked deliberately away when they both broke down a little. You did that, here. There was no privacy, so you created artificial privacy when it looked as if someone needed some. It didn’t last long; they both broke the embrace and wiped each others’ faces after only a little bit. Then Pike smiled weakly, and got to his feet.

  “Guess he’s your boyfriend after all, huh?” he said, and ambled off.

  “Big brother?” the ghost asked. She nodded. The ghost sighed a little. “I never had any brothers or sisters. Not much family, actually. Maybe that’s why—” Then he shrugged, not finishing the sentence. “—doesn’t matter. Since you can see and hear me, you can help me.”

  “I—” she gulped. What was he going to ask her to do? Get Lacey out? How was she supposed to do that? And if she didn’t help him, couldn’t help him, would he let the other ghosts come back, and start screaming at her himself?

  But he was already talking before she could say anything. “We need to get her awake. And…I need to talk to her. I mean, you talk to her and tell her I’m here and what I say.”

  Penny sighed with relief. At least that was something possible. “But…before you got here, all she did was cry and moan,” Penny told him. “I don’t—I don’t think she’s right in the head.”

  The ghost’s expression darkened. “She looks like she’s been tortured.”

  Penny nodded. “The Devil takes us away and hurts us. He hasn’t been back since you came, but he does that. There’s a bunch of rooms with more kids in them, and he comes and takes one, sometimes more than one in a day, and hurts us, then brings us back to our rooms. We don’t know why, and we never know who he’s going to take, or when he’s coming. He’s only taken her once, before you got here, but he could come back for her, or me, or anybody, any time.”

  The rage that came over his face scared her, but it passed quickly, and turned to determination. “Well then—what’s your name, kiddo?”

  “Penny—” she offered.

  He smiled at her. It was a funny, lopsided smile. Tentatively, she smiled back.

  “Well then, Penny,” he said. “You and I will just after to figure a way to make her sane again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Hurricane: Storm Front

  Mercedes Lackey and Dennis Lee

  Strangely enough, there was part of Bella that intellectually understood Harmony. She’d gone over the recordings with Scope, and there was that part at the beginning, when Harmony talked about being desperate.…

  Bella was still linked, somehow, with The Seraphym; maybe some of her dispassionate compassion, even for people that were trying to murder her, had percolated over. Maybe it was a touch of the sort of…alien mind that could forgive anything…that gave Bella some understanding of alien thought now.

  Maybe it was both of those things, or neither, and something else entirely. But Bella understood it; the desperation, being reduced to the state of a cornered animal, when you already were not human and didn’t have the same concerns and mindset of a human. She could understand Harmony in that moment. Even, to a certain extent, accept it.

  But she wasn’t The Seraphym. She couldn’t quite forgive.

  But Harmony had suddenly asked for her, and Bull wanted her to come talk, on the chance that, up close, Bella might pick something up of the way Harmony was working. Bull didn’t ask much of her, and she was guilty of asking so much from him; it would have been wrong not to do what he asked, even though she couldn’t imagine what good it was going to do even if they found out how Harmony was doing what she did. It wasn’t as if they were going to be able to replicate it.…

  So here she was in Top Hold. In Harm’s cell, not in Bull’s office; she was confident at least of Vickie’s ability to shield her, and her ability to shield herself, to take the risk of getting this close. She entered the room, carefully. Harmony watched her from inside her cube within a cube. Bella took a seat on the chair that someone had left there for her.

  “Well,” Bella said, after a long silence, and her mind always filled the silence. Always that terrible anxiety, that looming responsibility. I never wanted to be a leader. And I know The Seraphym said…but I’m responsible, responsible for all of them…what if I make the wrong decisions? What if I don’t ask for the right advice? How many could I kill… “I’m not sure what to call you, anymore. None of the names you’ve used are you, are they?” And you sure as hell aren’t “Harmony.” “Maybe I should just call you ‘Enigma.’”

  “That’s…better than what you could call me.” Harmony gave Bella a long, level, look. Bella thought her eyes looked cold. Reptilian, almost. Had they always looked that way? Had she just never noticed? “Stick with ‘Harm.’ After all, it fits.”

  Bella nodded, slightly. It did fit. If I had touched her even though she told me not to, would I have known what she was in time to save Bruno? How many times have I slipped up like that? How many mistakes are still hidden, just waiting to surface?

  Harm regarded her calmly. “You worry too much.”

  Bella snorted. “In my position, there is no such thing as worrying too much.”

  “No, you worry too much about being a leader. Good leaders aren’t always the obvious people to lead.” She smirked. “Take politicians, for instance.”

  This time Bella rolled
her eyes. “Anyone who wants to be a politician shouldn’t be. And probably ought to be taken out and shot.”

  “It would probably do them a world of good,” Harmony agreed. She pondered that, and smiled. “You know, I even know of someone, not unlike you. Here, let me show you.”

  There was no warning. Suddenly Bella was no longer sitting in that chair in Harm’s peculiar prison cell. She was watching men in Redcoat uniforms at the bottom of a hill, with a river to one side of them. Someone in a fancy uniform had just been shot dead and was being carried off the battlefield.

  But there was something more going on here. Not only could she see what appeared to be the middle of a battle between British and—American?—forces, she could feel everything that the men there were feeling. Despair, mostly. This was their beloved General, shot down in front of them, and the enemy had superior numbers and what was more, had the superior tactical position.

  But then, one of the other officers stood on a rock and began speaking. She couldn’t tell what his rank was; she wasn’t familiar with the rank-markings of British colonial forces. An officer, was all she could tell for sure, as he addressed the eighty or so men around him. He was wounded. He held a lifeless arm to his side, a bloody bandage at the shoulder. The wound would have to be cleaned, but he paid it no mind as his voice rang out to the men, his men, now.

  She was too far away to tell what he was saying, but she could feel what he was feeling, and what the men around him were feeling. He had never wanted to be a leader. He was a lawyer by trade, and a politician, and had joined the Militia out of a sense of obligation. He…he had been the aide-de-camp to the general who had just fallen and was content in that position. But now, now the Yanks were on Canadian land, threatening to take the tiny town behind them, and the men were leaderless and afraid. Well he was afraid, but someone had to lead them, and at least he knew what the General…General Brock?…had been planning.

  She felt what the men were feeling. This man, this officer Macdonell…they knew him as a good man, as one of them. They knew him as someone who had always taken care of them, and maybe it had been the General who had sent him into the camp every night, seeing to it that their needs were met…but they thought it was more likely his own concern for their well-being. They also knew, absolutely, that he would never ask them to do something he was not willing to do himself.

  They knew that Brock had been confident in him. They knew that Brock had shared the battle plans with him. They knew he was brave and intelligent, and unlikely to make stupid mistakes. And they knew that he believed in them.

  He paused, for the briefest of moments, and glanced at his shoulder. They had removed the bullet, but the damage had been devastating. He would never use the arm again. It was likely that it would have to come off. Such things had terrified him, in all the days leading up to now. As he looked at his men, he felt such fears fade away. What was one arm, compared to the brave souls that stood with him? What was his fear, when there were soldiers to rally and lead against their foes?

  He might not have wanted to be a leader—but he was a man that other men would follow, knowing that if they won, they would win together, but if anyone fell, he would place himself in the line of sacrifice first.

  And as their confidence rose again, his voice rose enough to be heard from the distant place where Bella was. “No mair speeches, laddies!” he cried out in a rough Scots burr. “Let’s take back the Heights!”

  And then, as the men rallied behind Macdonell, chanting his name, the scene faded.

  Bella blinked in shock at Harm. She had no idea how Harm had just done that. It had just…happened.

  “Some of the best leaders never intended to be one,” Harm said flatly. “What they had in common is a conviction that what they were doing was right. Not just that conviction, though. They cared about their people. Even when they were leading them into harm’s way, they did their best to protect them.”

  Bella sucked on her lower lip a moment. People weren’t following her because they had to, but because they wanted to. She knew that; hadn’t they actually voted her in? And they could, at any point, vote her right out again.

  That’s their choice.

  And Gairdner…he’d been an officer. He sometimes suggested something different than her ideas (and she usually took his suggestions) but never once had he ever said she should give up on being the CEO.

  Hell even Yank was following her lead, and if anyone had the right to be in the main seat, he did. And…why?

  “They know you aren’t a glory-hound, Bella. They know you don’t want to be there, and they know you aren’t the CEO because you want fame or attention. They know you won’t put them out there as cannon fodder. They also know you always look for people who are experts to give you advice when you’re not an expert. And you take it.” Harm shrugged. “That doesn’t kill confidence in what you’re doing, that builds it, and it’s confidence well placed. I think, anyway.”

  “Why are you…doing this?” she asked, finally, as she felt some of the weight of doubt slowly lifting from her shoulders. She didn’t ask how Harm was doing this; she knew the woman—creature?—wouldn’t answer that question. It felt just like I was there. Was that a memory? If so… But that was impossible. The figures looked to be from the early 19th century. If she had actually been there, Harmony would have to be at least two hundred years old. Bella shook her head. Just another piece to the Harmony puzzle. Well, maybe giving the images and feelings a good going over would start to answer some questions. She typed into her PDA. Bull, Harm just…did something with me. Explain more when I’m out. Give me the best third-degree you can, and we’ll see if we can learn something.

  Harm smirked. “Why am I doing this? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Let’s just say I’ve got some history to work past before I can continue on my journey. For now, I can help you, as much as you will let me. So let me.”

  “Why wouldn’t I believe you?” Bella asked.

  “Bella,” Harmony sighed. “Would you truly believe me when I say that when I’m not scurrying about in an effort to amuse myself, the things I do are for love? A sick and twisted love by your standards, I would suspect, perhaps muted, a shadow of what you might feel, but love nevertheless. No, I don’t see how you could grasp that. But for the record, I’ll say it. I can see a point within you that is sore and unnoticed and simply begging for attention, and I want to help you with that, out of love.”

  “Love for me?” Bella said.

  “Yes,” Harmony nodded.

  “Bull told me you were planning on killing me.”

  Harmony spread her arms wide and rolled her head back in exasperation. “I said it was sick and twisted, didn’t I?”

  “You told him you loved him,” Bella said. “Right before you sucked him dry.”

  “He told you about that, did he?” Harmony grinned. “You two really are the genuine article. Truthful, open… you don’t even need safety words, do you?”

  “He’s never spoken about it,” Bella said.

  “Oh!” Harmony gasped, feigning surprise. “Then however did you manage to… ah, of course. The security feed. You watched it yourself, didn’t you?”

  “You told him you loved him…” Bella repeated.

  Harmony chuckled and shook her head. “Yes, as I love you. You thought I meant something else. No Bella, there was none of that between us. You want to pretend the thought doesn’t bother you, but it does. I feel it rotting inside of you. I told you, I’m here to help, as much as it suits me to. So tell me, if I meant to hurt you, would I bother to tell you that nothing ever happened between me and your boy toy?”

  Bella just looked back at her, speechless.

  Harmony yawned.

  “That should do it,” she said curtly. “Interview’s over.”

  Harmony lay down on her cot, turning her back to Bella and the door.

  Bella left, her mind racing with what had just happened. Since inheriting a boost to her abilities from t
he Seraphym, Bella had struggled at times with the consequences of that boost. Her healing capabilities had grown much stronger, to be sure, but she was still adapting to how sensitive her empathic abilities had become. Some people were perhaps a little too open with their feelings. When she was around Mary Ann, Bella found she had to clamp down firmly, or be faced with an onslaught of whatever emotion Einhorn was wallowing in at the time. With Harmony, there was nothing. She had cranked it up, and felt nothing, nothing that Harmony didn’t want her to. It begged the question again: What are you, Harmony?

  She felt like she’d been played, that Harmony had led her by the nose and fed her answers to suit her own mysterious agenda. Still, despite her confusion, Bella couldn’t help but feel…better. For once, this wasn’t something that she could feel coming off someone in waves. Whether they were being truthful, whether they could be trusted. It came from her instincts, and her instincts told her that Harmony had showed her the truth. About leadership, about doing the job, and about Bull.

  It felt as if a boil she hadn’t even known was festering had been lanced. The relief was…considerable. There had never been anything between Harmony and Bulwark.

  And she was right about something else, Bella thought. Together, Bella and Bulwark were open and truthful and… good. She was going to march back to her office to meet him and let him grill her mercilessly about her talk with Harmony. She would answer everything, completely and truthfully, and offer up anything he might miss, and then they were going to dissect everything Harmony said and did, in every which way they could.

  They could do this, because that’s just how they worked. They were that good.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Start Shootin’

  Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin

  Red Saviour lit up a cigarette and scowled as it went out. She knew better than to try again. That nekulturny meta that ECHO kept around to prevent her from smoking in the building was hard at work. All he could do was to detect and extinguish very small fires within a limited range, mere sparks or coals, really. If she ever found out which room they kept that person in, she’d have…choice words to share with him.