Some of their seemingly-benign advertiser holograms were equipped with sonic weapons of various kinds, in addition to the usual security alarms and surveillance.
I was still looking over the perimeter of the main wall around Vatican City via the virtual display from my headset, noting weak areas and any areas not covered directly by surveillance, when a warm hand clasped my arm.
Clicking out of the virtual space, I found Revik standing over me, those blue-green eyes staring down strangely as he gave me a narrow smile.
Looking up at his face, I found myself frowning, then touching his jaw, tracing where a bruise still showed along his jawline, even with the prosthetics.
His eyes flinched briefly when I touched him there, but he didn’t pull away.
“Did you put ice on that?” I asked him.
He tilted his head, noncommittal. “It’s fine.”
I met his gaze, and found him looking at my mouth.
My separation pain flared, making my stomach hurt. His fingers tightened on my arm, right before he pulled me closer, leaning down to murmur in my ear.
“Hey… don’t.” Kissing my neck lingeringly, he pressed his cheek briefly against mine. “I’m trying to be good. If you don’t want me molesting you in your sleep again––”
“I didn’t mind that,” I cut in, sharp.
Raising his head, he grunted, his lips curving in a half-smile. I didn’t feel much humor on him though, or see any in his eyes.
“You sure as fuck seemed to mind earlier, wife. You brought it up more than once. Not just in the ring, but––”
“Because it wasn’t enough,” I said, cutting him off a second time.
Glancing around where we stood, I dropped my voice enough that neither Dante nor Gina would hear it.
“…Getting pissed because it frustrated me isn’t the same as getting mad that it happened at all,” I said, quiet. “I’m mad a lot now. It’s called being pregnant… and horny.”
He winced, still studying my gaze. Another whisper of pain left his light.
Then he tilted his head and hand, noncommittal.
“Well, it’s good you don’t mind,” he said. “Since I can’t promise it won’t happen again before we’re done with this. Not if you keep opening your light to me while we sleep.”
I let out a humorless snort. When he raised an eyebrow, looking down at me, I clicked softly, then frowned at the bruise on his face a second time.
“We’re not doing that again,” I told him, watching his eyes flicker from my mouth back up to mine. I touched the bruise on his jaw, lightly that time. “I don’t want to do that again… not like that. I don’t want us hitting each other.”
He blinked, his eyes showing a faint surprise.
“Allie,” he said. “It was my idea. Hell, I basically forced you to do it.”
I nodded. “I know. But I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want to hit you again… not like that. In sex, it’s fine. I don’t care about that. I don’t care if it happens while we’re just sparring and screwing around. But you said before we shouldn’t hit each other in anger, and I agree with that. I don’t think either of us should ever do that again. Not for any reason.”
I glanced to my right, feeling and seeing Dante back away from us, moving over to stand on the other side of her mother.
Adjusting her headset, she clicked back into her virtual space while I watched.
From the slight pinkness that had come to her cheeks, I found myself thinking she’d heard my comment about sex, and sighed, realizing I hadn’t said that as quietly as before.
I looked back up at Revik.
His eyes were still studying my face.
“I’d rather we deal with these things directly,” he said, his voice careful. “I don’t mind a few bruises, Allie. As long as we agree with it beforehand, I don’t mind.”
Pausing, he fingered a few strands of straight, reddish-brown hair out of my eyes. Brushing the curtain of hair gently off my face, he kissed my temple, then once more met my gaze, his eyes serious through the colored contact lenses.
“I agree with what you’re saying in principle,” he said, his voice still careful. “But I’d rather have you open to me than just about anything else. I worry when you bottle everything up. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for either of us. I’m happy to do just about anything to help with that, as long as we both agree to it.”
I nodded, frowning as I thought about his words.
“Maybe we won’t need to after this,” he added reassuringly. Pressing his cheek against my face, he murmured, “Maybe once we’re fully bonded, we won’t need to do anything like that ever again, wife.”
Still frowning slightly, I nodded again.
I knew he was right. I also didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.
But I felt strongly that I was right, too.
Maybe it wasn’t a decision we needed to make together. After all, Revik had never hit me in anger. He hadn’t hit me in anger that morning, either––or the last time he tried to use physicality to shake me out of closing my light to him.
Only I’d done that. For the same reason, maybe I was the only one who needed to make a decision to stop.
Still thinking, I nodded, more to myself that time.
I looked up, about to speak again––
When he gripped my arm, tensing.
His light flipped into full combat mode in less than a heart beat.
Quiet, he murmured in my mind.
I made my mind utterly silent, blending my light into our surroundings.
Turning his head, he aimed his gaze up at a stack of crates that rose high up from the edge of the wooden deck. He shifted his body as he turned, so that he stood directly between me and his line of sight. My eyes followed his up, but I couldn’t see anything.
Given the damned blindness in my light, I couldn’t feel anything, either, even though I’d been told the construct from the ship should protect me out here.
Run when I tell you, he sent. Get behind the crate. Your seven o’clock.
My muscles tensed, ready to spring.
My eyes continued to scan the crates, looking for what he could see, although I already knew he hadn’t seen it with his eyes.
From what our team determined when they did their initial circuit of the docks, the crates had already been looted. They found rotting food in a few, a few filled with clothes, several with rope, flotation devices, textiles, and other relatively worthless materials, but the bulk were empty. They’d been stacked up mostly to function as a barrier to the docks.
Frowning back at Revik, I saw that his eyes still hadn’t left the same segment of crates.
I was about to ask him what he’d felt––
When gunshots erupted on the dock.
REVIK SHOVED ME backwards and to the side with his hands, yanking me in front of him to shield me without letting go of me. His grip kept me on my feet, even as I felt a hot flare from his light as he did something with the telekinesis.
A bullet whizzed by my ear, so close I gasped, feeling the air displacement.
More shots echoed over the dock.
Revik hit out with his light in rapid bursts.
Then he was shoving me harder, bringing both of us behind the crate he’d instructed me to hide behind before.
Breathing hard, cursing the blindness in my lower light structures, I started to peer around the edge of the crate, but Revik yanked me back by the shirt.
“Let me do this!” he growled. “You’re blind, goddamn it!”
I bit my lip, knowing he was right, but no less frustrated. I hated being useless.
“You’re not useless,” he muttered. “I wish to fuck you were, Alyson. If you were useless, you wouldn’t be the goddamned target all the time.”
I fell silent, still gripping his arm as I let him stand in front of me.
I heard another volley of gunshots erupt, that time from the carrier.
Revik’s light flared
a few more times, and I felt him diverting bullets, not all of them aimed at the two of us. Remembering Dante and Gina were out there, I fought to see around him a second time, and caught a glimpse of them hiding behind another stack of crates, nearer to the ocean and the ship.
More shots fired from the ship side, where our people were trying to pick off shooters from roughly the same elevation as the crates.
Revik was talking on his headset then, mostly using sub-vocals.
He nudged me to listen in, mouthing the channel frequency.
I switched my headset over to the same line.
“Have you got eyes on all of them?” Revik said. I heard nothing but gunshots from the other side before he went on. “…I counted five. Two sniper rifles. Three automatics. They definitely ID’d Allie. They fucking knew who she was, even in the prosthetics and inside the construct shield. I felt it right before––”
“We have that, sir,” Yumi broke in, speaking loud over the gunfire on their side. “We’re tracking their transmissions now. Wreg was able to ID one of the mercs personally. Freelance bounty hunter, primarily works out of Asia and Africa. They’ve got light and ID markers on the Bridge, including that she’s with child.”
I felt a surge of fury leave Revik’s light.
“Not both of us?” he said. “Only her?”
“You’re down as a secondary target, as is your daughter––” Yumi began.
“They’re definitely targeting the Bridge,” Wreg said, cutting her off, also speaking loudly over the guns. “We’ve got six now. Two appear to be with that Myther group. The rest are mercs. The bounties are high as fuck, laoban. There’s also a time parameter, with huge bonuses for getting her some time in the next few weeks––”
“How the fuck did we miss this?” Revik growled. “Was it on the Rynak? One of the other bounty sites?”
“We’ve got Dante and Vik looking now… and I don’t know how the fuck we missed it, boss. We’ve got people monitoring those channels 24/7. Balidor’s with Vik, assessing the Rynak listings now, along with those on two other channels… but they haven’t picked up anything yet. ‘Dori’s theorizing they might have enclave-only feeds now, coming out of the quarantine cities, where they’re posting to on-site mercs. I’ve never seen such high bounties before, laoban. According to the guy whose construct we broke, they’re sending out notices with all the tracking details attached, routed through an encrypted site attached directly to the bounty… so it’s essentially public. You’ll get amateurs going for this, given the money involved.”
He paused, either reading something or talking to someone else.
“We’ve got it,” Wreg said. “Balidor’s people found the originating site. It’s some kind of public channel set up by those Myther fucks. Dante hadn’t picked it out of her feeds list yet, since they have their own satellites. So everyone in a quarantine city would have seen it by now. Moreover, they’re broadcasting all their intel on your wife’s last known locations, live. Anale says Istanbul just hit the feed channels––”
“Can you have Vik and the others alter the tracking ID?” Revik said.
“The kid’s working on it now.”
I gritted my teeth, clicking silently under my breath.
Trust Dante to be attempting a hack of a Myther feed she’d just learned about five minutes ago. The damned kid was probably furious with herself for missing it in the first place.
“I’m covering Dante,” Revik growled, glancing over his shoulder at me. “Stay behind me, Alyson… and stay out of the fucking Barrier. We haven’t found all of them yet.”
I ignored him, speaking to Yumi through the sub-vocals.
“Where did the bounties originate?” I said. “Is this all coming from one of the quarantine cities? Or is that simply the feed source?”
“Both, Esteemed Bridge.” Balidor that time, his voice curt, business-like. “I suspect the Rynak and the smaller black feeds will pick it up soon. The news will travel fast when that happens, and you’ll get mercs outside the enclaves coming after you, too. The original listings all came out of a single location, however.”
“Let me guess,” I muttered.
“––Rome,” he finished, speaking loudly over the gunfire on his side. “The ID specs they have of you are incredibly detailed, Esteemed Bridge. They more or less render the prosthetics useless for anyone utilizing networked ID tracking. They have individually identified heart rate, organ placement quirks from your having been raised human, heat signature, exact height and weight, bone density, the exact age of the fetus you’re carrying, as well as imaging of your face under various combinations of prosthetics. Much of this, we didn’t even have, frankly.”
“I’m bringing one of the Mythers down alive,” Revik cut in. “I’m going to drop him to the deck. Try to keep the others from shooting him.”
He sent a snapshot with his light.
I was close enough to feel it, but too blind to actually see it.
“Got it, sir,” Yumi affirmed.
I felt Revik’s light flare again––brighter that time.
Through him, I tracked the seer as he fell from behind one of the higher crates down to the dock. Revik cushioned his fall enough to keep from killing him, but not so much I didn’t wince when I felt him smack the wooden dock.
I felt a reaction in Revik’s light and clutched his arm.
“What?” I said, aloud that time. “What is it?”
Revik gave me a grim look, then answered my question through the sub-vocals to the security team as a whole.
“I should have knocked him the fuck out,” he told me. “I think he took something. As soon as he realized what I was doing. We might not get much off this one.”
Realizing what he meant, I clenched my jaw, not answering.
The gunshots were gradually dying down.
Another flash of light left Revik. I heard a succession of sharp, explosive reports that echoed in the space between the wall of crates and the ship.
Shortly after, I heard through my headset that Revik had broken four of their guns.
Wreg shot one of the mercs down from his perch, and Revik started to cushion his fall too, like he had with the Myther. The seer was still about halfway to the dock when Revik released him with his light, letting him drop.
I was confused at first, until I realized Wreg’s shot had already killed him.
Revik tried to bring down the other Myther, then cursed when that one shoved a handgun into his own mouth and fired before Revik could knock him out.
“Goddamned fanatics,” he snapped.
I didn’t bother to answer.
I listened to the security team talk back and forth as they confirmed they’d accounted for everyone they’d found in the Barrier. I heard a whirring, whining sound, and realized Wreg had released four of the flyers we’d stolen off that military base in New York.
Revik kept me behind him, holding my arm tightly in one hand, while we waited for the final all-clear.
In the distance, there was another series of gunshots––then a higher, sharper sound as the flyer fired back on whatever it was, using explosive-tipped darts.
As the echo of that final explosion faded, Wreg’s voice rose wearily in my headset.
“All clear,” he said. “That was the last of them.”
“Do another pass,” Revik growled.
“That was three passes, brother. We didn’t kill him until we’d scoped the entire site three times, for fear of alerting any others. It’s all clear.”
There was a silence, then Revik turned, looking at me.
His eyes shone through the blue-green lenses, and for the first time, I realized his irises were glowing from the telekinesis.
Before I could make sense of his expression, he stepped towards me, releasing my arm long enough to wrap his other arm around my waist.
He yanked me up against him, stealing my breath. His mouth was on mine as soon as he lowered his head, and I found myself kissing him back with bar
ely a hesitation. Winding my leg around his, I stood on tip-toe with my other foot, wrapping my arms around his neck to bring him down closer. It didn’t really occur to me until later how much of my body I’d wrapped around his, or how tightly I pressed against him.
When I started pulling on his light, coiling it deeper into his, he let out a low groan.
Pain came off him in a sharp cloud, but he didn’t let go of me.
He wrapped his other arm around me instead, half-crushing me in his arms.
“Gaos, wife.” He kissed my face, pressing his cock harder into my leg. “Have some mercy… please.”
“You started it,” I reminded him.
“I’m about to finish it,” he said. “In my fucking pants, if you keep doing that with your light… unless you feel like doing in real life what I did to you in the Barrier last night.”
I clicked at him in real annoyance. “If I thought for a second you’d actually let me do that, I wouldn’t be pulling on you all the goddamned time, now would I?”
Pain left Revik’s light in a denser cloud.
I felt a whisper of conflict there, too, what might have been frustration.
“Allie––”
From my headset, there was a delicate cough.
I jerked back, mostly in reflex.
…right as a voice rose in my ear.
“Hey,” Wreg said, somewhere between annoyed and amused. “You’ve both got your transmitter mics live. Maybe switch off before the public sex acts, eh? Some of us are trying to work. Mainly to keep your sorry asses alive, na?”
Somewhere in the background, I heard Jon burst out in a laugh.
21
ON THE ROAD
I LEANED MY arm against the edge of the front passenger seat window, exhaling as I looked through the dusty glass, fighting to see through a layer of grime to the landscape we were passing through on either side of the road.
We’d left the last of the city of Istanbul behind only about an hour earlier.
Sun Page 28
