War_Apocalypse

by JC Andrijeski

  After touching the handle with his fingertips, he tugged the ends of his jacket closed in front, moving to lead Jon through the open door.

  28

  CURIOSITY

  JON FOLLOWED REVIK to the elevators, still feeling like he’d been punched in the gut at least five or six times in a row, and maybe kicked a half-dozen more, just for good measure.

  He grew conscious of the fact that he still wore combat clothes––clothes that never got a real wash in Albany, that he’d sweated in for hours since, even before he finally passed out in the Humvee and then the crate.

  Thinking about where his head had been at, even before they left for Argentina, he scowled. He’d already been pissed off at Allie for staring at Wreg more than once, even right in front of him. Wreg blew it off as nothing, making a joke about how good he looked in a suit, but Jon hadn’t really been able to laugh it off then, either.

  The truth was, Wreg did look damned good in a suit, all of his bravado crap aside, and whether or not Revik cared about his wife’s gawking, Jon sure as hell did.

  He’d never felt competitive with his sister before. Never.

  It had never come up between them, not once.

  More importantly than any of that, at least in Jon’s mind, was the fact that he was thinking this way at all, whether about Allie, Wreg’s ex-wife, those female seers at that orgy with the Rebels, or anyone else. Given what happened in Argentina, what was happening outside of New York right now, something warring between shame and disbelief paralyzed him.

  That this would be what caused him to lose his shit, given everything.

  Truthfully, it made him feel sick.

  The more he thought about it, the more his anger at himself grew. Even apart from Cass, Shadow, human-killing viruses and the threat of nuclear holocaust, the base stupidity of his own thoughts made him angry enough that he couldn’t think straight for that reason alone.

  He knew he didn’t have to worry about Allie.

  It wasn’t just that he trusted her––which he did.

  It was her.

  Allie was crazy about Revik.

  Head-over-heels, would basically throw herself in front of a bullet or a moving car for the guy crazy about him. She’d already nearly died for him more times than Jon could count. Her blatant disregard for her own well-being when it came to Revik was one of the things about both of them that drove Jon completely nuts.

  The idea of Allie hurting Revik to sleep with Wreg was absurd.

  It was beyond absurd.

  Anyway, she would never do that to him, meaning Jon himself.

  Once the thought solidified in his mind––the instant Jon let it in, really––he felt his shoulders abruptly relax.

  He knew how true all of those things were. It wasn’t even a question.

  He felt the man standing beside him in the elevator car relax in the same set of seconds, as if exhaling a held breath. As Jon glanced over, Revik leaned down, punching the “L” button.

  Revik glanced at him, too. Gratitude shone in his clear eyes.

  “Thank you, brother,” he murmured. “I needed to hear that right now.”

  “What’s going on?” That time, Jon heard concern in his voice, and was relieved to note it sounded real. When the Elaerian’s expression relaxed still more, Jon realized his brother-in-law heard the difference, too.

  “I don’t know,” Revik confessed. He gave Jon another cautious look before he added, “She was acting strange when I left the room. And it really bothered her, that she hadn’t noticed more of the changes in you, Jon. She didn’t say much, but I could tell it worried her. She thinks something’s wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Jon snorted, shaking his head as the words sank in. “What’s right, man? Half the planet’s dead or dying. We have no idea where Shadow is, or even who he is… and each of our theories is more depressing than the next. Cass is working for him now. Feigran is working for him. The Lao Hu and most of the humans want us all dead––and the rest think she’s responsible for the disease, including her own friends. We’ve got a list of people to save, but no way of finding most of them. We’re locked in a quarantine zone with a bunch of rich, heartless fucks who may have conspired to kill a good chunk of their own species. Oh…” he added. “And her brother nearly went to her room and tried to beat her up today, just because he’s having ‘adjustment issues’ with his new boyfriend. Why would anything be wrong with Allie, man?”

  Revik gave a dark laugh, conceding Jon’s words with a tilt of his hand.

  “Yeah.” His eyes and voice grew distracted, and worried, as if he were thinking out loud. “She thinks the problem is her, though. She thinks something is wrong with her… and I’m not sure what to tell her. I need to tell her something, though. I just don’t want to stress her out more. I wanted to wait until things were more stable here.”

  “Tell her something?” Jon stared at him as the elevator car settled to a stop. “Tell her what? What’s wrong with Allie?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with her,” Revik said, giving him a warning look.

  “Then why does she think there is?” Jon said, puzzled.

  The elevator car doors let out a ping, sliding open in front of them.

  Without answering him, Revik walked out.

  Still watching the Elaerian, Jon saw what he’d missed on him before, in his little freak out about Wreg.

  Revik looked tense.

  Tenser than usual maybe, and definitely tenser than he had before they left for San Francisco. He also felt evasive, like whatever was going on with him and Allie, he’d only given Jon a fraction of the story. Jon felt something else on the male seer, too, something in his energy that made it spark around him in odd currents.

  He was wondering if it had something to do with the damaged telekinetic structures, trying to look closer, when Revik pushed him roughly off his light.

  “Do you mind?” Revik groused at him. I’m not exactly in the mood to have Wreg try to beat the crap out of me right now, if it’s all the same to you.

  Startled, Jon jerked back.

  As he stared at Revik’s back, it occurred to him that the Elaerian was serious. He really thought Wreg would take his simple curiosity as some kind of sexual thing. He was already beginning to make connections in his own head, about what Allie said about her being more interested in Wreg simply because she knew he and Jon were sleeping together, when Revik spoke up in a mutter.

  “Curiosity isn’t a crime, brother,” he said, taking long strides as they crossed the busy lobby. “But it’s dangerous in the vicinity of you and Wreg right now.” Revik gave him a meaningful look. “And yeah, just ask Allie… in case you missed the reference there.”

  “No, I got it,” Jon muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets. His face reddened more when he realized the other unspoken context.

  Namely, that Revik had heard Jon thinking that Allie wanted to sleep with Wreg.

  “Sorry, man,” Jon mumbled, walking to catch up with Revik’s longer strides.

  The taller seer made a dismissive gesture, but Jon frowned.

  “No… really. I’m sorry. I get how crazy that was.”

  When he sped up so that he was walking alongside the black-haired seer, Revik was smiling, clicking his tongue in more genuine humor.

  “Welcome to being a seer, Jon.” Revik smiled, clapping him on the shoulder. “Karma is a bitch, isn’t it? Just don’t let your psychotic boyfriend kill me for no good goddamned reason. Oh, and…” His voice grew more openly warning. “Don’t hurt my wife. Or you and I are going to have a serious problem.”

  Jon rolled his eyes, but gestured in acquiescence. He used the formal version of the motion, and only half in jest.

  He found himself looking around in bewilderment at all the activity then, watching as Revik fielded a number of greetings, a lot of them from ex-Rebels, but almost as many from Adhipan and Seven. Most of the humans who’d been sitting around the lobby earlier, looking lost, had vanished, as had their
luggage, but Jon saw more from the seer refugee population wandering around, along with members of the old team who’d stayed behind.

  Everyone who got back that morning was probably sleeping it off in their rooms. Jon noticed that particular pile of luggage was mostly gone.

  “Yeah,” Revik remarked, his voice distracted. “Balidor even crashed out finally, from what I hear. They decided to leave most of the interrogations and debriefings for tomorrow. Balidor did some checks on our security station downstairs, making sure the specs on restraints and the construct will hold up after what we saw in Argentina.”

  Jon frowned. “You mean like Maygar? And Surli?”

  “No. I meant the high security prisoners. The ones we sent ahead, before we left for the final assault on Argentina…”

  His expression blanked. He trailed as his clear eyes slid out of focus.

  Jon glanced up as the seer missed a step, half-stumbling.

  When Revik resumed walking and talking, his voice sounded almost as if he hadn’t noticed his own lapse.

  “…We’ve got the humans from San Francisco all staying in one suite for now,” he went on tonelessly, eyes still distant. “They’ve got guards on the door, like a lot of those on the List, but the suite is large and they’ve got enough beds and two bathrooms and clean clothes, so they should be comfortable. Allie thought it was better to house them all together, so they could start to talk things through without feeling any pressure from us.”

  Jon nodded, but continued to watch the Elaerian’s face, conscious again of the tension emanating off the taller man.

  “So where are we going?” Jon said warily. “The bar in the atrium is an orchard now, right? Or some kind of sprouting wheat field…?”

  Revik clicked mildly, motioning him to the right with a flick of his hand. “The seers have staked out the bar in Park Place South. Apparently that’s become more of an infiltrator hangout. Declan said the List humans seem to prefer the Third Jewel.”

  Jon nodded, feeling his apprehension rise as they neared the entrance to the more upscale restaurant. He’d only been in there once, and that had been with Wreg, too. The seer had insisted on taking him out for what he called “real” seer food, on their one and only formal date after Allie and Revik’s wedding.

  Shoving aside his concern and his attention on Revik’s weird behavior, Jon blanked his mind as they entered the restaurant’s dimly-lit foyer. Half-envisioning a drunk, angry and now potentially retaliatory Wreg, Jon braced himself as they passed the maitre d’s podium. They only paused long enough for Revik to throw the seer standing there a wave, and for that same female to smile and point them in the direction of the bar, to the right of a giant fish tank that started near the entrance and curved back into the darker room.

  Jon found himself uncomfortably aware of the female seer’s light on his, even as it skirted around Revik’s, probably out of respect for Allie since even Jon could tell Revik was in pain.

  Jon had started to notice that Allie and Revik got a lot of attention from other seers, even when they seemed to be shielding. The one time he mentioned it to Allie, she waved it off, saying it was something to do with their position within the construct.

  In the same set of seconds, Jon felt Wreg.

  Not for long, though.

  Jon felt the seer’s touch for the barest instant before Wreg’s light vanished. It wasn’t anywhere near long enough for Jon to get a read on what he should expect.

  He knew Wreg was still in the bar. That was about it.

  Feeling his nerves shift back to a harder anger, just from that brief touch, Jon shoved his hands into his pockets. As he did, he saw Revik give him a wary look. The taller seer continued to watch him as they made their way alongside the fish tank towards the bar. The way Revik looked at him, he half-expected Jon to stab him with something sharp.

  “Are you okay?” Revik said. “I can tell Wreg to meet you upstairs… in the private suite, if you want.”

  Jon gave him a hard look. “I won’t shoot him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Not the only thing,” Revik muttered under his breath.

  They came to the end of the horseshoe-shaped fish tank.

  Jon entered the dimly-lit bar behind Revik, and realized he’d never been on this side of the restaurant. The back of the bar had another giant fish tank behind the glass shelves covered in bottles, only that one stood tall enough to reach the high, vaulted ceiling. The tank was lit, and the lights, and the shadows of the fish inside the tank, shone through the different-colored bottles, creating odd patterns on the patrons, the walls and the floor.

  Jon noticed that the fish in both tanks weren’t your typical aquarium fare, but larger, meat-producing varieties. They must have replaced the tropical fish to make room for these, just like they had with the koi in the fountains and canals of the atrium. As a result, the shadows moving across the space of the bar were probably a lot larger than they once had been, and moved more slowly, making Jon feel like he’d walked into one of his slow-motion dreams.

  He was still looking around, trying to get his bearings and allow his eyes to adjust, when he felt a stare and turned. He caught the edge of Wreg’s look, even as the Chinese seer moved it away. He sat at the far end of the bar, to Jon’s left, next to Tardek and Illeg.

  Well, at least up until the two of them saw Jon.

  Both got up and moved quickly away from Wreg, scraping their barstools in their haste to put distance between themselves and the tattooed seer. Noting their nervous glances with a humorless smile, Jon looked at Revik.

  “I can’t possibly be that scary,” Jon said.

  As he said it, he heard the hard edge of anger in his own words.

  Revik gave a noncommittal shrug, then patted Jon––briefly, Jon noticed––on the shoulder.

  “You’re on your own,” he said. “Just remember, we’re all armed… and most of us are fond of Wreg, even if he is a psychotic ass.”

  Jon snorted humorlessly, even as he shook his head, clicking half in irritation. When Revik moved over towards the other end of the bar, following Illeg and Torek, Jon took a breath, expelling as much of the anger in his chest as he could.

  Following that same breath, he walked directly up to Wreg.

  “Are you going to ignore me now?” he said, once he was near enough.

  Wreg turned, his eyes holding bewilderment as he stared up at Jon.

  Jon was already in his light, just from standing so close. The seer’s exhaustion hit him in a cloud, along with a jolt of pain that briefly made it difficult for Jon to think clearly. He barely heard Wreg’s words as the seer answered him, speaking after a pause that felt long, but was probably only a few seconds.

  “No, brother,” he said. “Gaos. I’ve been waiting here… hoping you would come. Why would I ignore you, now that you are finally here?”

  Jon exhaled, feeling his anger lessen a little more, without relaxing any of his limbs. As he continued to stare at the older seer, it hit him that it wasn’t even anger he was feeling. Not exactly. Not anymore.

  “Can I talk to you?” Jon said, gesturing with the hand missing two fingers. “Alone, I mean.”

  Wreg nodded, climbing off the barstool with that odd grace of his, even as he took a last drag off the hiri he’d been smoking before he stubbed it out in a glass ashtray.

  “Do you want a drink, brother?” Wreg asked.

  Jon shook his head, motioning for the seer to follow him.

  After the barest pause, Wreg did.

  29

  LITTLE BROTHER

  INSTEAD OF LEADING him out of the restaurant, Jon brought Wreg to the back, where he knew the private rooms lived from the last time Wreg brought him here. Walking into the first open room he saw once they reached the right corridor, he held the door for the taller seer.

  Following Wreg inside, Jon closed it behind both of them, locking it.

  Only after he had did he look around at the wall-to-wall fish tanks that fille
d the smaller room. These appeared to house all of the tropical fish that had vacated the other tanks. There were so many of them Jon felt sorry for the little things.

  In the center of the square-shaped room stood a low table surrounded by wooden benches and cushions for sitting cross-legged on the floor, Japanese style.

  “Brother.”

  When Jon turned, Wreg was watching him with heavy eyes.

  “Brother, I am sorry,” he said. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I have thought about this since you left, how I would feel if I knew such a thing about you, or about you and Nenz.”

  Jon felt his jaw harden.

  Before he could speak, Wreg kept going.

  “I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I was insensitive about this, and not thinking about how such a thing would feel for you––”

  Before the seer could finish, Jon closed the distance between them.

  He wrapped his hand into Wreg’s straight, black hair, which still hung down from his bath earlier. Without a single thought in his head, he pulled the seer’s mouth roughly to his. He let go of his light in the same instant, realizing only then that he’d been holding it back. He’d been shielding from Wreg since he’d left the penthouse over an hour earlier.

  Wreg tensed when he first grabbed him, then a flush of pain left his light when Jon kissed him, followed by a heavier sound from deep in his chest when Jon opened his light. He caught hold of Jon’s neck and waist, pressing the length of his body against his. Instead of pulling away, Jon gripped the seer tighter, using his weight to push him backwards towards the cushions.

  He could feel Wreg’s attempt to catch up––in his mind at least––but somehow, the fact that he’d managed to throw the seer off-balance only worsened Jon’s pain. That pain verged into unbearable when he felt the hesitation on Wreg, his unwillingness to make any kind of mistake.

  Jon yanked on the seer’s belt, forcing Wreg backward with his hands.