Allie's War Season Four

by JC Andrijeski

  Revik felt his indecisiveness worsen.

  Being so close to the other male, his light now skirted and wove into the other seer’s, without his really willing it. In fact, with the other’s hands on him, his face only a foot or so away, Revik couldn’t really keep him out.

  Yet he knew he wouldn’t see anything definitive there, even if he could scan him. Terian’s light didn’t work like that of most seers; it never had. It’s why collars didn’t work on him, why they could split his mind and it didn’t kill him, how he knew the future in more than just dreams. Whatever happened to him, no matter how fucked up he got, that higher part of him always, magically, remained untouched.

  It was how Terry was able to see things through them that no other seer could see, not even Allie. Not even Kali.

  “Revi’, please...” Terian begged, clutching at him again. “Please help me! I will give you all of the seers I have from your List. I will give you whatever you want! But you must help me! He will not let me stay alive for much longer. It is a clicking clock, tick-tock, tick-tock. You must know, if I die now, it will not be good for me...”

  Revik stared into those eyes, at the expression there, the light he saw shining behind it.

  All he could see was fear.

  Terian, or whoever the fuck this was... was afraid.

  “Get her off that fucking stage,” Revik growled. “Get her off there, and take us to the seers on the List. Then we’ll talk, Terry.”

  Revik hadn’t even finished speaking when a smile split that face, relief pouring through Terian’s eyes and light so intensely that Revik winced back.

  “No promises!” Revik snapped. “I mean it! I answer to her.”

  “Thank you!” Terian said, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you so much, brother... thank you! Thank you!”

  “Terry... cut it out. Jesus...”

  “I’ll suck you off, if you want,” he offered, still clutching his arms. “Or you can do me, and your wife can watch. She would like that, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she like that, Revi’?”

  Revik grimaced. “I highly doubt it.”

  Even so, something in the way Terian said those words finally caused Revik to relax.

  They also made him want to laugh more than punch the other seer in the face––probably because he’d sounded a hell of a lot more like Feigran just then than Terian.

  Revik glanced at the stage as he thought it.

  Allie was already walking off the long platform, aiming the stiletto heels towards the dark blue velvet curtain on the far end. Disappointed calls from the audience accompanied her, but when her eyes flickered back over her shoulder, Revik saw them shift up, and again he found himself thinking she was looking in his direction.

  Before he could make up his mind for certain, she winked.

  ...Right before a bare smile crossed her lips, and she looked away.

  For a long moment after that, Revik felt nothing but pain.

  31

  WATERFRONT

  I MET THE rest of them in the lobby of the club.

  They’d taken off my collar by then. The orange-eyed seer met me on the other side of the stage, grinning down at my half-naked and now sweaty body before he twirled a finger in the air, indicating for me to turn around. He took the collar off me after using the retinal scanner to open the lock, and once he had, he kissed the back of my neck.

  I jerked away, giving him a dirty look, but he only laughed.

  I changed my clothes out of the stage gear, too... although, really, I wasn’t thrilled with what I’d been given to change into, also by the orange-eyed seer. I didn’t have anything else though, so I worked with what I had, ignoring the jerk who continued to stand in the doorway of the dressing area, making the occasional lewd remark that I ignored. Even so, I could tell he was watching me through the material of the thin partition.

  The new outfit was better than the stage outfit, sure, but not much.

  I was overly conscious of eyes on me as I exited through the door leading out of the backstage area and made my way across the open floor. It didn’t help, of course, that I got a few drunken gropes as I passed, mostly from the same guys who’d been cat-calling me from the foot of the stage moments before. I felt Revik’s light snake out at the first of those. It didn’t relax even after I jerked away, then promptly smacked the offending hand. I did it hard enough that the guy let out a surprised cry followed by a hurt-sounding whimper.

  It didn’t stop the next guy from trying it, though.

  ...Or from sounding offended when he got the same result.

  People. Jesus.

  I felt Terian’s goons following me at a distance, although the orange-eyed seer didn’t emerge from the backstage area. As for the other goons, I only marked their locations in passing with the bare edges of my light, focusing most of my attention on the group of seers waiting for me just inside the black, double doors of the club.

  Revik stood in front, next to the Terian with the auburn hair.

  I found myself struggling to look at Revik as I got closer to where they all stood.

  I found myself adjusting the skirt I wore instead, smoothing it down to make sure it covered as much of me as it could and ignoring the fact that I still wore the crazy-high, fuck-me stilettos. I felt Revik’s eyes on me though, and when I got closer, I felt his relief, too, enough that I found myself glancing nervously up at his face.

  His eyes held mine for a few seconds longer than usual.

  Then his gaze drifted down, looking at me in the skin-tight black dress with the open back. His eyes lingered on my legs... then the shoes... before making their way back up to my face.

  “Do you mind?” I smiled a little in spite of myself, smacking his arm. “Jeez, husband. Be a little subtle, why don’t you?”

  Something in my words... or maybe the smack, seemed to knock him out of his trance.

  He held up a hand in a seer’s apology, right before he used that same hand to grab ahold of my arm, and pull me up against his body. He wrapped his arm around me before I could get my breath, or even my balance, and then I was fighting not to react to the currents I felt sparking dangerously through his light.

  The relief was still the strongest, however.

  “There,” Terian said from next to us. “You see? Safe and sound. As promised.”

  Revik gave him a look that could have cut glass, even coming from anyone else. It made him appear positively dangerous right then. I saw his eyes spark faintly in that same pause, and wrapped my arm around him more tightly in reflex. Feeling him respond to my touch, as well as the heated coil of light and reassurance I sent through his aleimi, I fought to relax, too.

  I sent him another heated pulse when his arms tightened around me more, reminding him that he couldn’t go telekinetic in here, whatever Terian was up to.

  Given who owned this place, Menlim would have his eyes all over it.

  At my thought, Terian’s gaze flickered directly to mine.

  “I have you shielded, sister,” he said, his face and voice serious, as it had been when I first conversed with him in that penthouse apartment in Burj Khalifa. “If I did not, trust me when I tell you... we would not be standing here right now.”

  “You have a means of circumventing the construct?” Revik asked him.

  “Of course,” Terian said with a shrug.

  Revik frowned, glancing down at me, right before he looked back at Terian.

  I felt skepticism in his light, but like me, he seemed to have decided to take Terian’s claims at face value, at least for now.

  “Fine,” Revik said, gruff. “Are we going?”

  I could feel part of the source of that gruffness around his light, even as he squeezed me tighter against his side. I heard the relief in his voice that time, too, however.

  “But, of course,” Terian said, beaming at both of us again. He motioned gracefully towards the door and I frowned at him, even as I let my skepticism show in my light. “...I have t
ransportation awaiting all of us, just outside,” he said with a bow.

  I glanced up at Revik, who returned my frown a second time.

  Again, I felt the part of him willing to follow this a little further, if only because we might actually find the List seers if we did. Whatever Terian claimed or didn’t claim, he was part of this construct. Moreover, he had to know that construct well, if only from living here.

  Moreover, he could call Shadow and his minions any time he wanted, and either he hadn’t done that yet for some reason...

  Or, yeah, this was a trap.

  Revik glanced at me again, gripping me even tighter.

  Terian was smiling at the two of us when I looked up.

  “It is most charming, to see the two of you... most charming,” he said.

  When I quirked an eyebrow, Terian blew me a kiss, grinning at me right before he turned and headed for the main door to the club in his fluid gait. The affection that radiated from his light, and the near... happiness... I felt there was weirdly disarming, too. It had been during that first conversation I’d had with him in his upscale suite, even after he informed me that I was going to dance for Revik, or else he would be forced to drug Revik and leave him in the club while we went after the Listers.

  I still didn’t know if that had been an empty threat or not.

  At the time, I hadn’t been willing to risk it. Because yeah, Terian. Happy or not, sincere or not, he was still completely fucking crazy. Even so, something about him right now, as he looked at me and Revik, was so sincere-feeling that I fought not to return the smile, despite the odd eddies and fluctuations still sliding around his light.

  I felt another set of eyes on me then and glanced to the side.

  Jax stood there, along with Chinja, Dalejem and Deklan. They had Kat with them, too, so apparently Terian had taken me at my word when I told him she needed to come with us. I saw Revik looking at her, puzzlement on his light, and clenched my jaw a little. All of them avoided looking at me directly, despite what I’d felt in their light... Chinja, especially, who had her arms folded and stared stubbornly off to the side.

  The sole exception was Dalejem.

  Dalejem stared right at me, but I couldn’t read his expression at all.

  I saw his eyes on my legs, right before they slid up the rest of me.

  I felt pain on him, too.

  Before I could even react to it, Revik shoved at the other seer with his light, and not particularly gently. The pulse of anger that flared off his aleimi took me aback.

  “Fuck off,” he growled, as if his message wasn’t clear.

  Behind Dalejem, Kat jumped a little, blanching. She looked around at the other seers, as if requesting an explanation, but none of them returned her gaze.

  There was a silence, a loud-feeling one that time.

  Then Dalejem shrugged, taking a step back with his body as well as his light, his expression unmoving. Even so, I saw something flicker across his eyes, right before he motioned neutrally towards the front door with one hand.

  “Are we going with him, laoban?” he asked, his voice openly deferential.

  Revik followed the gesture with his eyes, even as I felt another flush of indecision on him, coupled with a denser irritation at the other seer that made me wonder again.

  I knew Revik might be pissed off that Dalejem gave me to the trader.

  I knew he might be pissed off because Dalejem had his hands on me before, too, while he’d been playing the part of drunk, horny guy. But something about this felt different from either of those things, in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Did something happen between the two of them? Something more recent, that is?

  The thought brought a flicker of uncertainty into my own light, along with a paranoia intense enough that I had to fight to control it, even with Revik holding on to me.

  Revik must have felt it. He looked down at me, holding me tighter, even as his mouth curved in a slight frown.

  “What do you think?” he said. Seeing the question in my light, or possibly in my eyes, he blew away my concern, trying to get me to focus on the immediate issue. “Terian. Do we follow him? Or do we end this now?”

  Looking up at him, I sighed, then looked around at the others.

  “Do you really want to abort the op?” I asked him softly.

  I pulled at his light, just enough to make my point, and his pain abruptly worsened.

  “If he’s causing this...” I said, then trailed. “What do we do? Just live with it? Take the chance that he won’t be able to use us to get at Lily?”

  Revik’s jaw tightened.

  I felt him thinking, and I shivered slightly, feeling him turn over what I was saying. I felt a glimmer of his actual thoughts then, even beyond the issues he and I were having with our light, and whatever Terian was doing to our bond.

  We could bolt, now, cut our losses.

  Revik didn’t think we would get out of this without losing people, though. Not at this point. With Terian knowing where we were, any chance of a clean exit had already passed. At the same time, I could feel him thinking that we would likely lose fewer people now... meaning if we broke cover and just make a run for the city limits... than we would if we followed Terian and it turned out to be a trap. We’d also less likely end up imprisoned. Or as slaves.

  “We’d be abandoning them, too,” I reminded, quieter. “All of them.”

  His narrow mouth firmed.

  I didn’t need to spell that out, either.

  As Revik stood there, gazing off into the darkness of the club and thinking about my words, I sent a vague question through his light, nothing in words, but asking him about the general deployment of the others. I wanted to know if we still had back-up, essentially. Loki’s team had to have made it here in some form, if Jax was here, but I didn’t know if the rest of them were still within response distance. I didn’t know if they were still in touch with Wreg.

  Without looking at me that time, Revik gave a bare nod.

  Then his eyes showing him to be thinking again.

  He could tell I wanted to follow this, that I wanted to try and get at least some of the Listers out with us. He could also tell that I thought we should follow Terian to accomplish that goal, and that we should try and get him and Feigran out, as well.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell him why I thought that.

  Or why any part of me would think that could be safe.

  I knew I didn’t have a logical leg to stand on, and Revik felt that, too.

  I got that much off his light, that he knew what I thought we should do, and why. I also felt him pick up on all of my doubts around proposing that course of action, given the risks. I felt him thinking about the different aspects of that, using his military mind, as well as our experiences in the past. I felt him thinking about the bank job in New York and all the other times my impulses had paid off for us, if not always in the most obvious or direct ways.

  The realization made me nervous, though.

  I couldn’t help doubting myself, given where we were, and who we were allying with, even if it wasn’t a real alliance in any true sense. I couldn’t help questioning those weird impulses of mine as well, even as I hoped I was right about where they came from, given that we were operating inside a giant, multi-layered construct of the Dreng.

  I couldn’t help worrying I might just get us all killed.

  I was still thinking about that, fighting not to worry in the silence before he answered, when Revik seemed to let out a held breath. Taking ahold of my hand, he lifted it to his lips and kissed my palm, sending a denser, more deliberate thread of love through my light... coupled with a heated relief that I was okay and that I was with him again.

  Both things came through strong enough that they cut my breath, and caused me to cling to him even tighter. The pain only worsened in that pause, until eventually I had to back away.

  “Okay,” he said, sighing. He loosened his hold on me. “Okay, wife.”

  He ki
ssed my hand again, and I felt another shiver of pain.

  “Okay,” he said again, smiling at me.

  Funnily enough, that time, I think he was trying to reassure me.

  About my own whacky, semi-reliable visions, that is.

  I didn’t bother to answer in words, but followed the motion of his hands and legs as he turned with me, then began walking both of us towards the door. He never once let go of me as we made our way out into the pre-sunset street.

  He never let go of my body or light, not even for an instant.

  TERIAN DIDN’T TAKE us back to the Burj Khalifa, like I thought he would.

  I saw it through the window in the distance, but we drove past it, and directly towards the Gulf instead, and the densest part of the walled shields that surrounded the city.

  I found myself conscious of the OBE fields that stood with those, making this an exit we would never breach, no matter how we tried to pull it off.

  We were now about as far from any true exit as we could possibly be.

  I tried to keep my worry around that point out of my light, even as the lights of the ships and smaller recreational boats grew nearer.

  We ended up at The Waterfront, an exclusive area of man-made land, connected by an elaborate series of canals that wound around a curved jetty shaped as a crescent moon.

  I remembered it from the planning sessions.

  From the air, Revik told me––while we pored over maps during the strategy meetings back on the carrier––this segment of the city could be seen as the crescent moon and star, visible all the way from space. Loki explained that it depicted a human symbol of Islam that used to be used on the old flags and artwork for this part of the world.

  Loki showed me he still wore the same symbol on the inside of his arm in black seer’s ink... the same arm where he wore the sword and sun symbol on the outside, and as part of the same armband. I didn’t know Loki very well, so I never asked him about it beyond that. However, Wreg told me that before Loki joined the rebels under Salinse, he’d fought in protracted wars in Afghanistan and Iran, some of which went on for decades. Maybe even centuries.