by Jaye McKenna
His thoughts drifted until a flash of crippling darkness caught his attention. Not Draven’s pain; he knew the taste and texture of Draven’s pain far more intimately than he wanted to. Not Tarrin’s, either.
It was a new mythe-shadow, one he’d never sensed before, torn and bleeding, bristling and spiking with the darkest colors of pain. Oily black streamers of grief-loss-empty-hurt permeated the mythe around it. It was deeply familiar, and at the same time, utterly repulsive.
Miko drew back, not comfortable with that confusing combination of fascination and revulsion. He tried to ignore it, but it wasn’t long before he was seeking it out again, mesmerized by those dark, glittering colors, by the feeling that he almost recognized the mythe-shadow generating them. It was like chasing down wisps of dream fragments when he was half awake: a familiar feeling, a flash of memory too brief to grasp, and then it was gone, leaving Miko with nothing but the certainty that somewhere in the city of Iral, someone was in agony. A psion, most likely, and a powerful one, if the strength of that intriguing mythe-shadow was anything to go by.
Slowly, reluctantly, Miko let his awareness drift back to the surface.
If it was a psion in distress, then someone needed to go and help. Normally, he’d notify Cameron, who would assign a search-and-rescue team to investigate. But Cameron was gone, taking care of Draven, and Kyn was overwhelmed trying to deal with all the extra work Cameron’s absence was creating. Miko didn’t want to add to Kyn’s stress, so he made his way to Luka’s apartment. Luka was a search-and-rescue operative, and one of Miko’s closest friends. He wouldn’t look at Miko strangely, or question how he could possibly sense something as far away as the city.
Miko sensed Luka and his husband, Damon, long before he reached the apartment. They were awake, so he didn’t hesitate to knock.
Luka answered the door and didn’t seem at all surprised to see him. “Hey, Miko. C’mon in.”
Miko stepped into the apartment. Damon was leaning against the kitchen wall, talking quietly into his phone. He gave Miko a quick wave and a grin before returning to his conversation. Miko waved back and followed Luka into the living room. Luka’s black hair looked mussed, but that was how it always looked, sort of shaggy and spiky, so Miko wasn’t sure if he’d interrupted something or not.
“I was gonna call you after lunch,” Luka said. “Figured with Tarrin and them gone, you might want to hang out with us. What do you think? Lunch downstairs, then maybe play some Goblin Alliance?”
Luka did love his VR games. Miko couldn’t help but smile as he shook his head no, then lifted his hands and signed, I’m all right, but I need your help. Someone’s in trouble. In the city.
“You picking up something psionic? Or in the mythe?” Luka asked. He was one of only a handful of people Miko knew who understood the distinction.
In the mythe. But it feels like a psion.
Luka cocked his head. “You want me to take you out there?”
If you’re not busy, Miko signed, glancing meaningfully at Damon, who had finished his phone call and wandered in.
“We could head out there now. The snow’s stopped. We could grab some sandwiches from downstairs and take a flyer.” Luka glanced at Damon. “What do you think about a trip into the city? Miko’s sensing something that might be a psion in distress.”
“The wind’s still quite fierce,” Damon said, “but we’ll probably be all right if we take one of the heavier flyers from the vehicle pool.”
Tell him he doesn’t have to come, Miko signed. I know it’s his day off.
Luka translated for Damon, who said, “If there’s a psion in trouble, you might need a healer along. We just can’t be back too late — I’m working the early shift tomorrow.”
“I thought you were off tomorrow.” Luka’s pretty green eyes narrowed, and he wrinkled his nose.
“I was, but that was Eleni on the phone a minute ago. She said something came up, and she doesn’t think she’ll be back until late tonight. I said I’d fill in for her.”
Luka grinned. “Something like Trevor, you think?”
“She didn’t say, but it sounded like she was in a hurry.”
“Trevor, for sure,” Luka said, grin widening.
“Well, I don’t mind helping her out if it means she’s having a little fun,” Damon said. “She’s always giving Cam a hard time about working too hard, but she’s just as bad.”
Luka nodded and turned to Miko. “Okay, I’m thinking we run this like a standard search-and-rescue op. That means we’re armed with stunners, and we bring a drug kit. If we’re looking for a psion in distress, we’re gonna need Anarin. We’ll grab lunch, and swing by the infirmary on the way out. Miko, you want to go grab your coat and meet us in the dining room?”
Miko nodded. Thank you, he signed.
“Don’t thank me, man,” Luka said. “This is my job, you know?”
On his way to fetch his coat and mittens, Miko kept his mythe-shadow drawn in tightly. It didn’t help as much as he’d hoped, but anything that cut down the intensity of that crying, hurting mythe-shadow was a good thing.
* * *
Draven’s skin was still crawling. He lifted his head from the pillow, eyes fixed on the plastic bag of needlepaks Cameron had left on the nightstand.
“I don’t know if I’m doing you any favors leaving this in plain sight,” Cameron had said before he left, “but I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, and I don’t want you to forget where it is.”
Like he’d forget.
Cameron had been an addict once. He’d remember how it felt. The shaking hands, the blurry, doubled vision, the burning, gnawing need that never really went away, not even after a hit.
How long had it been?
Was it time? It had to be time…
Draven squinted at the battered wind-up clock sitting on the shelf above the woodstove, trying to make out the numbers.
Eleven?
Cameron had only been gone for two hours. That meant two more hours to wait before he had another hit.
Draven dropped his head back onto the pillow, torn. It had been awkward as hell, facing Cameron after his breakdown last night, but now he wished he’d come back. He needed someone to distract him from that damned bag full of sweet relief. Sweat trickled down his back, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
Two hours.
His fingers itched, and every muscle in his body ached.
Two hours.
Time dragged, and Draven experienced every excruciating second of every endless minute.
Outside, the wind howled and shrieked. He tried not to think about Cameron, alone out there in a tiny flyer that wasn’t designed to withstand this kind of wind. How far away was the Institute, anyway?
His eyes strayed to the clock — no, clocks — there were two of them now, and neither would stay still long enough for him to read the time.
Didn’t matter. It wasn’t time yet… wouldn’t ever be time.
He couldn’t wait anymore. Couldn’t be strong for one minute — one second — longer. Supporting himself on one elbow, he reached for the bag.
His hands shook as he tore the wrapping and positioned the needlepak against his arm. He slapped it in, barely feeling the bite of the needle as it pierced his skin. The wrapper fell on the floor beside the bed and he eased himself back down, waiting for the pain to stop. He promised himself he’d hold out longer for the next one, though he wasn’t sure why it mattered anymore.
He’d be dead soon. The riptide would kill him — the drug itself or the lack of it. Either way, it wouldn’t be pretty.
Soon, the pain in his muscles melted away, but the tearing heat in his belly didn’t. Cold shivers gripped him, and Draven burrowed under the covers in a futile effort to get warm.
The hallucinations started soon after that. At least, he thought they were hallucinations.
Hoped.
Things crawled down the walls and over the floor, and more things slithered across his skin. He heard the wet,
oozing sounds they made as they flopped around on his belly, on his arms, and he slapped at them, trying to make them go away.
A low, droning buzz coming from across the room had him struggling to lift his head. Something dark was creeping out from behind the stove. Draven whimpered and buried his head in the pillow.
The gnawing pain flared again, and he couldn’t get comfortable. Another whimper slipped out, but it didn’t matter. There was no one to hear, no one to care.
He was freezing and burning all at once. It hurt so much, and the crawling things were back, so many of them. Crawling, crawling everywhere… over his belly, across his legs, on his face, their tiny claws rasping over his lips. He was breathing them in, drowning in them, and he couldn’t stop screaming…
Chapter Four
“I still ain’t sensing any psionic fireworks, Miko,” Luka said as Damon guided the flyer over the city in yet another sweep.
Miko let only the tiniest tendril of his mythe-shadow drift out to taste the currents. He’d been hoping Luka would sense the psion so he wouldn’t have to do this. The hurting mythe-shadow was close by, brilliant in its agony, and leaking oily blackness into the mythe around it. It drew him in and made him uncomfortable in ways he couldn’t even begin to articulate.
Miko pointed to the right. That way, he signed.
“To the right, Damon,” Luka murmured.
Catching his lower lip between his teeth, Miko steeled himself and focused on the spiky, pain-filled mythe-shadow. That building… the one with the blue spire on top.
“The Royale?” Luka wrinkled his nose. “That’s, like, one of the classiest hotels in the city, Miko. You sure?”
Miko nodded solemnly. Don’t you feel it? he signed. It hurts so much.
Luka’s eyes unfocused, and he frowned as Damon set the flyer down on the roof of the hotel. “Yeah… I got something… a psion, for sure, but it don’t feel like psionic distress to me. Whoever it is, they’re shielded.”
They might be shielded, but they’re bleeding…
“Blood and guts on the floor bleeding? Or mythe-shadow bleeding?” Luka asked.
Mythe-shadow.
“Who’s bleeding?” Damon demanded. “Are we walking into a medical emergency?”
“No, man, it’s okay,” Luka said. “It’s not a psion in distress… not the way we usually see ’em, anyway. This one’s shielded. Sleeping, too. In the middle of the day… so maybe sick?”
Miko shrugged, and Damon said, “Well, let’s go see. We’ll knock on the door, and if everything looks all right, we’ll apologize and say we got the wrong room.”
What if they’re hurting too much to answer the door? Miko signed.
Luka grinned and pulled a fistful of cables out of his coat pocket. “Then we invite ourselves in.”
Miko resisted the urge to roll his eyes. My way is faster, he signed, and less likely to get us noticed.
“Had a feeling you were gonna say that,” Luka grumbled as he shoved the cables back into his pocket. “Gonna lose my golden touch, if I never get to practice.”
“Unlikely,” Damon said. “How many times last week did you hack our apartment door open?”
Luka shot him a scowl. “That ain’t even a challenge anymore.”
Miko arched an eyebrow. I could make it a challenge. I could put an encryption algorithm on the locking codes that you’ll never break.
Luka’s grin returned, wider this time, and his eyes sparkled. “I’ll see your encryption algorithm and raise you dinner someplace decent. If I hack in, you’re buying.”
And if I keep you out, you’re buying, Miko signed.
“Deal,” Luka said, pulling on his bright red mittens.
In the rooftop lobby, Luka only had to produce his FedSec ID to get them in. Damon and Miko were logged as his associates, and the three of them were admitted to the building with no fuss.
It didn’t take long for Miko to find the wounded mythe-shadow. There was a magnetic quality to it that riveted his attention and drew him unerringly toward it. When he stopped outside a door on the fifth floor, Luka’s eyes unfocused as he scanned the area.
“Yeah, we got a psion in there, all right,” Luka said in a low voice. “Feels like a guy, but it don’t feel like he’s hurting. Not right now, anyway.”
His mythe-shadow is bleeding, Miko signed emphatically. He’s in pain.
“You sure about that?” Luka asked. “Because if he decides to make trouble, Cam’s gonna bust my ass.”
I’m sure, Miko signed. I can’t shut him out. I’ve been trying. You and Damon can leave if you want. I’ll take full responsibility.
Luka’s eyes widened and he put a hand on Miko’s shoulder. “I ain’t leaving you, man, I just want to be sure we’re doing the right thing, okay? Just because I ain’t feeling it don’t mean there’s nothing wrong. If you think someone needs our help, I ain’t gonna argue. You see all kinds of shit the rest of us don’t.” He fished his stunner out of his pocket and knocked on the door.
After almost a minute of silence, Luka knocked again, louder.
“Whaddya want?” came a deep growl from the other side of the door.
“My name’s Luka Valdari, and I’m with—”
The door opened.
“—holy bleeding fuck,” Luka finished in a whisper.
Miko went cold, inside and out, as if an icy wind had just blown through his mythe-shadow. His chest tightened, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
Rafe Azziani.
He’d seen the man’s picture before, knew how much alike they looked, but he’d told himself it was just a coincidence, a case of nearly identical strangers.
Now, though, facing the man in the flesh, he found himself looking into a dark mirror. There were differences, certainly. Azziani had black hair, cut short and sticking up all over the place, as if he’d just woken up. Black eyes, too, so dark the pupils were invisible. But the rest of him… it was his own face Miko saw… his own hands, with the same long, slender fingers… his own body, with the small stature and slight build…
Azziani stared at him, eyes wide. “Miko?” he whispered.
Miko couldn’t move, could barely think. Azziani wasn’t hurt, not physically, not psionically, but his mythe-shadow was screaming, bleeding, dying. This close, the pain was impossible to ignore. Miko tried to pull his own mythe-shadow in tight, wrapping it about himself, but it kept drifting toward Azziani’s.
“Miko?” Azziani said again, lifting a hand to reach toward him. “Don’t you know me? It’s me, Rafe. They told me you were dead.” The words ended on a broken sob, but it was the voice, not the sob, that finished the job of freezing Miko to his core.
It was the same deep, resonant voice Miko used when he spoke in the mythe.
His own voice, if he had one.
A trembling hand came down on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Miko?” Luka’s voice was shaking. “You okay?”
Miko couldn’t answer. The ragged shreds of Rafe’s mythe-shadow streamed through the mythe, pouring out pain and emptiness. It was like trying to breathe oil. He wrapped his arms about himself and shot a pleading look at Luka and Damon.
Couldn’t they feel it?
He flinched as Rafe reached out slowly and lifted a strand of his hair, white-blond to Rafe’s black, and long enough to brush his hips. Dark, pain-filled eyes met Miko’s. “What happened to you?” Rafe whispered. “Your hair… your eyes…”
Unable to bear the blackness of Rafe’s mythe-shadow a moment longer, Miko edged away. The strand of hair slipped through Rafe’s fingers, and Rafe dropped his hand. “Where’s the link?” he demanded. “Why can’t I feel your thread?”
Miko lifted trembling hands and signed, My thread? What do you mean? Do you see the Pattern, too?
Rafe stared at him, clearly taken aback, and Damon nudged Luka, who blinked and said, “Sorry, man. Miko wants to know what you mean by his thread. He wants to know if you can see the Pattern, too.”
Rafe’s m
outh opened, but no sound came out.
Who do you think I am? Miko signed, hands shaking so much it was hard to make the signs. Luka caught them, though, and spoke the words for him, his voice sounding a little steadier now.
Miko took another step back into the hallway, trying to distance himself from that torn, crying mythe-shadow. Thankfully, Rafe didn’t try to move closer, but he did lift a hand and hold it out to Miko. “You… you’re my brother. My twin. Don’t you… don’t you remember?”
His brother.
His twin?
A wave of nausea swirled through his stomach. If Rafe was telling the truth, he was from the Before Time.
Before the Mathilde.
Before Aio.
If he was telling the truth.
Miko’s eyes shot to Luka, who was watching him closely, waiting for more signs to translate. Lifting shaking hands, he signed, Is this real?
“Yeah, it’s real, man,” Luka murmured.
“What happened?” Rafe asked. “They took you away. The thread broke and you were gone. I thought you were dead, and it damn near broke me. And your voice… what happened that you can’t speak to me?”
The black cloud of pain surrounding Rafe was so thick, Miko could hardly breathe. He backed away even farther, vision blurring, mind screaming in denial. He’d accepted that he’d never know where he’d come from, who he was. The solid foundation he’d fought so hard to build for himself was shifting under his feet, and Miko couldn’t find his balance.
He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear the sharp waves of Rafe’s pain slicing through him. His knees buckled, and he went down, but he was gone before he hit the floor.
Gone into the mythe, the only place he’d ever felt truly safe.
* * *
