Red Hot Bikers, Rock Stars and Bad Boys

by Cassia Leo

  “What?” he said, barely hearing her as he scanned the pier for available boats.

  “Do not tell her about me. When you meet her. Do not tell her of this...”

  Revik turned at that, momentarily forgetting the boats. “Why would I need to tell her anything? You’re her mother, right?”

  “Just promise me that you won’t,” she said, her voice firm.

  After a pause where he just looked at her, he nodded, making the gesture for a formal promise with one hand. “I vow it,” he said.

  “Where will you go?” she asked him.

  “I’m not telling you that, either...” He hesitated then, looking at her again. “...But I have a feeling you already know. I’m hoping they follow me, anyway...not you. I have a feeling they will follow me, especially Galaith, but for the love of the gods, sister...don’t be stupid. Stay out of the Barrier until you’re well away from here...”

  She smiled at him, and he felt a pulse of warmth from her, so strong that it briefly stopped his breath, fluttering his heart in his throat.

  He pushed it aside, catching his stride as he started walking again, in the direction of the next pier down, without returning her stare. He focused on the muddy banks, instead, on the boat people he could see, washing clothes at the edge of the river.

  “I understand, brother,” she murmured then, still watching his face.

  Smiling at him a second time, she surprised him then, taking his hand.

  The gesture was simple, not laden with anything but a warm affection and that deeper feeling that had briefly heated his chest. That time, he accepted it without question...and without feeling resentful that she hadn’t offered more. Increasing the length of his strides, he brought her with him down to the greenish-brown water as he waved down a Vietnamese fisherman. The man was older, with a completely gray head of hair and wrinkled skin, but Revik found he liked something about his light, which was what he’d been looking for, almost without knowing he did.

  The man waved back when he caught sight of them approaching the short, wooden pier, and Revik called out to him in Vietnamese, letting go of her hand long enough to fish in his pockets for the cash he’d stolen out of the safe he and Terian had shared in the Majestic.

  “I’m not calling you ‘mom,’ either,” he muttered to her, flipping through bills.

  Seeing the faint smile tugging at his lips, Kali laughed out loud.

  It was a cheerful, delighted and melodious sound, and it warmed something in his heart that maybe hadn’t been warm in quite a long time.

  ***

  ENDINGS

  He ran, all-out, ignoring branches as they slapped at his face and arms, even when they cut at his skin, forcing a gasp from his lips. His lungs ached, partly from the altitude, he could guess, and partly from the cold...but mostly because he was running out of wind. He’d hit his very breaking point, and he knew it, even as he pushed his body harder, feeling his heart hammer painfully in his chest.

  He didn’t have much time.

  He knew his body was shutting down.

  Not only from the lack of water, although that was a factor. Not from the gunshot wound in his shoulder...or even the one in his leg. Not from the lack of food, either...or from the enforced detox over his month-long flight across five countries and what now had to be thousands of miles...

  He felt the exact instant when he crossed over the line.

  He knew precisely when he entered that other construct.

  He felt it, and didn’t know if he should scream in relief, or leave out the other side, the same way he had come...

  Pain hit him, as he felt himself cut off from that silver light of the Org. That same silver light had been hunting him for weeks, though...what felt like months, years, an endless stretch of time. Terian, who got off both of the lucky shots that actually hit him, trying to drop him without killing him, on the streets of Kolkata.

  Raven, too, who had been with him, and who had that fucking helicopter try to drug him from the skies...

  Friends of his, from all over North America and Europe, hunting him.

  Young seers he’d recruited, trained with his own hands and light.

  He’d felt them all in his head, for days now.

  Yelling at him. Whispering to him.

  Reasoning with him.

  Threatening him.

  Now, for the first time since he’d run from the Majestic Hotel...it was silent.

  Not completely silent. But almost.

  He had been noticed.

  Of course they would feel him here. He was forbidden here, like anyone who carried the markers of the Org. The treaty was unambiguous...and now he could feel others coming for him, from the other side of that invisible line. Invisible to humans, at any rate, and to anyone who couldn’t see the edges of that dense construct with their aleimi.

  When he shoved his way through the last grove of trees, crashing through branches in the not-trail he’d forged through the woods, his breath came out in plumes that turned rapidly to crystals in the frozen air, and there was snow on the ground, and ice where a small creek used to run. He came to a staggering halt when they raised their guns, putting his hands up in the air, panting so hard he couldn’t speak at first, could barely hold himself upright.

  “Sanctuary...” he said, gasping the word once he could. “I request sanctuary...please!”

  “You are trespassing, Rook!” one of the seers said, raising his weapon to aim at Revik’s head. “You are breaking our agreement...slaves of the Pyramid are not welcome here...”

  “Sanctuary...” Revik gasped. “Sanctuary...please...”

  “Did he say ‘sanctuary’?” another muttered, looking at the first one that had spoken.

  Revik gestured affirmative, nodding as well.

  He took a few more steps forward, then slid in the ice-covered leaves at the base of the nearest tree. He fell to one knee, and couldn’t quite muster the strength or the will to pull himself up, so he remained there, in the mud and ice and snow, feeling water seep through the knees of his pants as he fought to catch his breath, to slow his heart in his chest.

  The strange seers stared at him, wide-eyed, but didn’t lower their guns.

  “Gaos...is that who I think it is?” one of them muttered, the second one who had spoken. He looked at the older seer, the one who had to be their leader. “It’s him, isn’t it? The second?”

  “It is,” the older one said.

  The one who spoke that time had a narrow, smooth face and black hair tied in a ponytail that hung down his back. He wore a kind of robe, even in the cold, with a coat over it that had a fur-lined hood. He, alone among all of them, did not seem to carry a gun.

  “...That is Dehgoies Revik,” the seer finished, matter of fact. His Prexci was textbook perfect, spoken in a near purr, washing over Revik’s aleimi like liquid light.

  “D’Gaos...” the third amongst them muttered.

  “It can’t be,” the first breathed.

  “It is,” the older one said.

  “He really said sanctuary?” the third muttered again.

  “I believe so, yes,” the older one confirmed.

  The first who had spoken reinforced his grip on the gun, still pointing it at Revik’s face. He and the other youngish seer approached him cautiously, following the older one with the ponytail and the musical voice and those jet-black eyes. The guards fell silently into flanking positions as they walked behind their leader, watching Revik seemingly for any false move.

  The one in the center walked directly up to Revik, however, and without any change in the calm of his overall expression. Revik could tell the other was looking at him with more than his eyes, but he didn’t get any impressions beyond that one thing.

  The man’s face looked familiar somehow.

  “Yerin?” Revik said, his voice doubtful.

  The seer nodded, smiling at him. “Greetings, brother Revik. My father mentioned you might be visiting us today.”

  Revik blin
ked, looking between them, but he didn’t speak.

  Instead, he just remained there, on his knees, half-sprawled in the leaves and snow. He continued to fight for breath as he felt his body start to let go, each lungful of oxygen cutting into his throat and chest as his legs continued to tremble with exertion.

  “Sanctuary,” he said again, his hands still in the air. That time, he managed to get the words out relatively level. “Please. Sanctuary. They’ll kill me...”

  The seers in the back looked at one another again, doubt in their eyes as they took a step nearer.

  Neither of them lowered their guns.

  *

  Revik could hear them talking about him, even before he got inside the room. He didn’t care at that point, couldn’t bring himself to listen with more than a small part of his conscious mind.

  ...Detoxing from some kind of chemical...

  ...clearly drug addiction...malnourished from days, if not weeks of...

  ...multiple gunshot wounds. Most serious one was in the leg, but it didn’t seem to...

  ...still connected to them. We have to deal with that first...

  ...well, what makes you think he will agree to...

  ...either he agrees or he goes. It’s that simple...

  Revik closed his eyes, swallowing as he fought to block it out.

  He felt sick. Sicker than he had for days. Pain flickered around his light, mixing with the pains in his body. They’d offered him food, but he couldn’t eat. He’d cursed at them, barely knowing why. He’d threatened them, when they wouldn’t leave him alone. He woke up with a collar on, which he should have expected, but the realization that they’d done it to him while he slept turned him briefly insane with fury. He’d slammed his body against the walls of the cell where they’d been holding him, screaming every obscenity he knew, in every language in which he was fluent.

  Now, they’d sedated him.

  They’d tried anyway. After all the heroin, it barely did more than mellow him out slightly. Hell, if anything, it made him feel the closest he had to normal in over a week.

  He was going to their leader now.

  The head honcho. The head kneeler.

  The guard behind him held his bound arms, and Revik had to clench his jaw to keep from fighting back, from elbowing the fucker in the face, breaking his nose. He could get free. He could get free, even now, and they were too stupid to know it...

  “Undoubtedly you are right, my friend,” a melodious voice said, breaking into his mind.

  Revik blinked, and found himself in a bamboo-paneled room.

  He still stood there, unmoving, as the guard behind him uncuffed his arms and hands. Revik barely gave him a glance as the seer who led him there removed himself, leaving Revik standing alone in the middle of the room, now completely unbound.

  Open windows displayed a view of the snow-covered Himalayas...a view dramatic enough that it made him pause. It might have caught his breath if he hadn’t felt like throwing up on the woven, multi-colored mats he saw scattered across the wooden floor. Revik stared out at the frozen prayer flags fluttering stiffly in the breeze, seeing glowing electric lights and candles in the nearby buildings, and a lone monkey on a roof, its tawny fur covered in icicles by his mouth and ears. He could smell incense and the barest whiff of a wood fire somewhere nearby, maybe even from this very room. He looked back out the window, taking in the low-hanging gray sky and the few flakes of snow, before he turned to look at the old seer who had spoken.

  Compared to the guy in the woods, who appeared to be middle-aged, which for a seer meant somewhere in the vicinity of three hundred or four hundred years old, this one looked positively ancient. He had to be six hundred years old, minimum...if not more. The similarities were more than the differences, however, and Revik found himself swallowing as he stared at the old man, feeling a kind of pain building in his chest as he recognized that dark-eyed stare.

  Before he could put any of the conflicted feelings into words, the man had already crossed the room. Revik barely glimpsed the tears in the old man’s eyes before he clasped Revik around the back with his long arms, pulling his body up against his chest.

  “My friend,” the old seer said, choking on the words.

  The ancient seer held him tighter, tight enough that Revik felt his light wavering, trying to incorporate the light of the old man, then trying to push it away and failing. He fought to harden his heart, to distance himself from the warmth he felt on the other...warmth that made the glimmers of affection he’d experienced from Galaith feel like a distant dream. A carbon copy of a carbon copy, like a movie version of love compared to the real thing.

  He felt his throat closing, and his voice turned harsh.

  “Vash,” he said. “The mighty Vashentarenbuul...”

  “Yes,” the old seer said, smiling widely at him as he separated their bodies. “Or, the head kneeler, as you so aptly put it...”

  Revik met his gaze, but found he could not hold it.

  His jaw tightened as he stared around the room. It occurred to him only then that the two of them were alone, that the other seers he had initially felt talking about him had cleared out of the room, either right before he arrived or in those few seconds while Vash had embraced him.

  “Revik,” the seer said seriously. “I must speak with you.”

  Revik nodded, still not looking at him, but out the long window. His body was starting to hurt again, along with his head. His shoulder ached from the gunshot wound, but he didn’t try to move it, or to change the position of his arms.

  “...I must ask you something,” Vash said.

  Revik looked at him that time, but still didn’t speak.

  The older seer was watching him with pained eyes, his hollow cheeks prominent under the curtain of his iron-gray hair. Unlike his son, Yerin, Vash wore his hair down, outside of the traditional seer clip favored by many males.

  “My friend,” Vash said. “I have spoken to your old master.”

  Revik felt his jaw harden, almost without him willing it. “You’re going to cut me loose, aren’t you?” he said, hearing the bitterness in his own voice. Nodding, he didn’t know whether to feel relief or anger. It felt more like someone had stuck a knife in his chest, and whatever will had remained there had already begun to drain out of him. “When?” he said coldly.

  Vash took his arms, squeezing them in surprisingly strong fingers so that Revik would look up at him once more. It occurred to Revik only then that the aged seer was taller than him, by at least a few inches.

  “No, Revik,” the seer said gently. “Galaith has agreed to honor your free will in this. It is a part of the treaty between our two peoples...” The old seer hesitated then, studying his eyes almost openly. “Have you changed your mind, brother?”

  Revik let out a low snort, but that compression in his chest worsened. “Why would I go back?”

  “Why would you stay?” Vash answered softly.

  Revik looked up at him, thinking about the question in spite of himself.

  He thought about the woman with the green eyes, about what he’d felt, right before he’d shot Terian and Raven in that hotel room. He fought with how to put all of that into words, but there were no words that would have explained why he’d done what he’d done. Trying to find them just made him doubt himself again, and wonder if maybe he had made a mistake.

  In the end, he only shook his head.

  “If you want me to go, just say so, old man,” he said.

  Vash’s fingers tightened on his arms, hard enough to hurt. “I would keep you here by force if I could, brother Revik,” he said, his voice suddenly steel. “But I know you. I know how futile that would be. You must tell me that you desire this. You must say it to me, before I can do what must be done to separate you from them...for at that time, and for some time after, you will be so far from rational that we will not be able to trust anything you say...”

  Revik swallowed, but something in his shoulders relaxed at the man’s w
ords.

  “I will stay,” he said, looking back out the window.

  He felt the old man watching him, his light hesitant.

  “It will hurt,” Vash told him.

  “I said I will stay,” Revik said, giving him a harder look.

  Vash himself seemed to relax at this, and a faint smile once more ghosted his narrow lips. He didn’t let go of Revik’s arms, though, and after another moment, he spoke to him again, his voice subdued once more.

  “There is one more thing, brother,” the old seer said cautiously.

  Revik looked at him, waiting.

  “You will have to forget some things,” he said, clicking softly. “It is also part of our agreement, between myself and your old master. You cannot be allowed to remember things that could damage him in the future. I cannot help but see his point in this...”

  Revik thought about it, too, turning over Vash’s words. For a few seconds, his mind rebelled at the idea, not liking the thought of losing part of himself, even if he saw the logic in it.

  Then he remembered his last days in Saigon.

  The naked seer children with bite marks on their breasts. The pile of coke in the hotel suite at the Majestic. The girl in the red bikini, and what Terian had done to her later that night.

  Nodding, almost to himself that time, Revik didn’t look at the seer when he answered.

  “Fine,” he said. “Erase it. All of it.”

  Vash released one of his arms, startling Revik by touching his face. Turning his jaw gently so that they faced one another once more, the old seer studied his expression, his light exuding compassion, so dense that Revik felt it like a hot pain in the middle of his chest.

  “You will still be the same man, brother Revik,” Vash reminded him gently. “I cannot change that. I can only make you forget what you chose to do with that once...”

  Revik thought about that, too.

  Pain reached him again, but it felt softer that time, in a way he couldn’t explain to himself.

  He exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he held, nodding again.