Allie's War Season Three (39 page)

"But they can't possibly think they can take you on," I said, my voice skeptical.

He shook his head, once. "You're talking a major military op then, Allie. I'd prefer if that wasn't our Plan A. There are too many risks involved, even with a telekinetic seer. And they know about me. They would have prepared for my coming already..." He paused, meeting my gaze directly. "In any case, it means a lot of dead seers, Allie. Hundreds. Maybe thousands, for all I know. If this guy is smart enough to do what Vash is suggesting, then he will be ready for me...it means he'll have numbers. Constructs I can't operate in..."

His eyes grew slightly harder.

"Remember, I was heavily shielded, even back in the day. By the Dreng, Menlim, and usually at least a dozen seers in addition to the two they had side by side with me at every single military campaign after the first. That was then, too, when the number of military-trained infiltrators was far fewer..." He hesitated, letting his eyes grow more meaningful. "You already know it's possible, Allie...to cut me off from that ability."

Realizing what he was referring to, I felt my face redden. I shifted my eyes away, nodding.

"There is another development, too," Balidor spoke up from the other side, sitting forward in his chair. He glanced at Wreg, who gave him a hard look...a look that told me that whatever this new development was, Balidor likely hadn't seen fit to share it with him.

"...We were approached by another party two days ago," Balidor said, ignoring the increased glare in Wreg's dark eyes. "This party came to us directly with a request for audience with the Sword. In fact, she refused to leave until it was granted...so we have her in custody."

I couldn't help noticing Wreg's countenance darken further.

"And who is that?" Revik said.

Balidor glanced at him, then at me. "...Elan Raven."

Folding my arms, I made a grunting noise. "And the fun just keeps getting funner..." I let my words trail when Revik gave me a warning look.

"What does she want?" Revik said.

Balidor shrugged, one-handed, still avoiding Wreg's stare.

"I do not know precisely," he said. He avoided my eyes in that bare pause, and something in the way he did it made me wonder if he was lying. He shifted his gray eyes away again, an instant before adding, "...She claims it's important, Nenz. She also claimed a connection to 'our friends in Argentina' and Chandre's disappearance..."

I stared at him. "How could she know about Chandre?" Thinking, I answered my own question. "...Voi Pai?"

Balidor shrugged, pausing briefly as he seemed to notice Wreg's glare fixed heavily on his face. "I really do not know. But she said that there is a time element involved, with this information she would like to share..."

Seeing Wreg's eyes widen further, Balidor made his voice curt.

"...I told her nothing from our own end, of course," he added, folding his hands on the surface of the table as he glanced around at the others. "...And of course, as Allie mentioned, we are all very aware of her ties to Voi Pai and the Lao Hu...as well as her history with Terian and Galaith. It is unlikely not to be a trick of some kind..." Hesitating, he shrugged again, once more avoiding my eyes. "...But she subjected herself to a number of very thorough scans. She allowed us to restrain her, and collar her...and agreed to remain in the hotel as our prisoner until we were able to arrange for her to meet with the Sword in person. She is particularly insistent on that, the need for a direct audience..."

"Which is why we shouldn't give it to her," I muttered.

Glancing briefly at Wreg, I saw him agree. Something in his expression told me he'd encountered Raven before, too.

Balidor made a noncommittal wave of his hand.

"Perhaps," he said. "However, she claimed that the Sword himself would have a strong personal interest in her news...that he would not thank us if we were to deny her, given that the truth is likely to come out in some other form, as she put it..." Seeing me staring at him once more, he made another of those conciliatory gestures.

"...So she claims."

"The truth about what?" I said.

Again, Balidor gave me only an eloquent shrug.

Feeling my fingers curl slightly on the table, I forced my emotions to one side, annoyed that Raven still had that power over me, given everything.

"Fine." I said. "Can't she give her message to someone in the Adhipan? Why all the drama about seeing Revik personally?"

"She claims it is the only way," Balidor said. Briefly, his eyes leveled on mine. "She claims the Sword will not believe her unless she is able to present the information to him in a context where he can determine for himself that what she speaks is no more and no less than the
absolute
and unequivocal truth. She claims he will be resistant to the information, otherwise...and that it is imperative that he be made to see the truth. She claims it is a matter of life and death..."

I glanced at Revik. His eyes had narrowed at the Adhipan leader, almost as if he were scanning him. I knew there was a good chance he was, and that chances were just as good that he wouldn't get through, given 'Dori's usual nuclear-bunker-style defenses.

"So face to face then," I said, nearly in resignation.

Balidor made a more formal gesture of affirmation. "Yes."

"And what do you think, 'Dori?" I said, my voice more pointed. If nothing else, I thought it might help Revik in his scan. "...Do you think she is telling the truth?"

Balidor hesitated, but only for an instant.

"I think she has information for the Sword, yes," he said carefully. "Whether or not that information is truthful, I have no idea."

The calculated neutrality of his words made me stare at him again, even as I felt my shoulders stiffen. He definitely knew something...or suspected something, anyway. If he wasn't lying to me outright, he was playing fast and loose with that line. Seeing the warning in his eyes, I looked away, stripping the thoughts once more from my light. That warning held the promise of more information, but I had no idea when that would be, either.

I glanced at Revik again. Whatever 'Dori was referring to, from Revik's expression, I could tell he had no clue either.

After another exchanged look with him, I nodded at Balidor.

"She's still here, I take it?"

"Downstairs, yes."

"Then set it up." I gave him a hard look. "There is no precaution too paranoid, okay? I don't want her in a position to so much as spit on him..." I glanced at Wreg. "I want you there, too. With a boot on her neck, if necessary..."

Balidor gave me a faint eye-roll at that, but Wreg smiled.

"Of course, Esteemed Bridge," the rebel leader said, bowing his head.

"So let's start there," I said. Realizing that this meeting had gone as far as it would go, at least with all of us in the same room, I rose to my feet. "And I want to see those lists..." I added, to no one in particular. I glanced at Revik, before looking back at Balidor.

"...All three of them."

"Of course, Esteemed Bridge," Balidor murmured, bowing subtly.

But something in the way he glanced at Vash, an eyebrow raised, made me wonder if he was lying about that, too. Everyone was standing though, including him...everyone but Vash and Jon, who were busy talking at the other end of the table like old school chums. Given the spread of ex-rebels and Adhipan in the room, I decided to wait on pulling Balidor aside until it would be less obvious...like maybe in the restaurant downstairs, or in his own room later.

Or at the very least, when Wreg wasn't in hearing range.

I leaned over the table to grab the water pitcher, and ended up meeting Revik somewhere in the middle when he leaned over it, too. He caught my wrist as soon as I was close enough, and I looked up, startled.

"I want to talk to you," he said, his eyes holding a sharper meaning.

I lowered my voice. "Can we do it downstairs? We both need to eat...and I should catch Vash before he goes back into meditation, or –– "

"It's important, Allie. I have an idea I want to run by you...about South America."

I met his gaze, studying his eyes more closely. "Now?"

"Yes. As soon as they're gone." He hesitated. "I want us to agree first. Before we bring it to the rest of them..."

Without thinking, I touched his face. For a moment, with the way he was looking at me, it was hard to pull my mind back to the others in the room.

I did though, and nodded again.

I was about to answer him in actual words, when my eyes were pulled to someone else entering the room. Normally I might not have noticed, given all the movement around us, but something in the energy of his entrance twanged my light...not quite in warning, but in...something. I watched as the seer squeezed in through the middle set of doors, even as the others were mostly leaving. A few paused to clap him on the back and rib him about being late.

Balidor was already gone, probably slipped out when he saw me distracted with Revik, to avoid me cornering him. Wreg was speaking into his headset by the door, likely trying to find out where they had Raven stashed downstairs.

So when Dorje appeared at the conference room's double doors, looking flustered, his face pale above a dark leather jacket, I think I was the only one to really
look
at him at first...at least long enough to notice something might be off.

I remember being startled by how he'd appeared. I'd never seen him like that before, I guess...he was usually so calm. This time, he'd been breathing hard, his skin both too pale and too flushed on different parts of his face and neck. His eyes shone brightly under the overhead lights, both wider and more dilated than usual...he almost looked drained of light, like maybe he'd been hit hard by something in the Barrier.

I was about to speak up, to ask him what was wrong...

But Jon noticed him before I could.

The instant he laid eyes on Dorje's face, he must have seen the same thing I had.

Immediately, he straightened up from where he'd been bent over with Vash.

"Dorj," Jon said. His voice sounded caught in that strange wasteland between concern, confusion and irritation. "Where were you, man? The meeting's already over..." He looked at his old-fashioned watch, frowning. "You're over an hour late. I tried to reach you...multiple times. Did you turn your headset off...?"

Dorje just stood there, still seeming to be out of breath. Despite his panting, I really couldn't tell if he'd actually been exerting himself, or if he was in shock or something.

"Dorj?" I said. "You okay? What's wrong?"

He looked at me, but didn't seem to see me.

Jon's voice pulled his eyes back to the front of the room.

"Where'd you go?" Jon said. I could see worry winning out over the other emotions. "I know you didn't forget. You're the one who told me to be here at one..."

Dorje just stared at him, still seeming to be fighting breaths in his chest.

I felt Revik stiffen next to me, but I was already reacting to something jangling in my own internal spidey sense. Warning bells were starting to go off in my light, and I found myself grabbing Revik's arm, almost protectively, even as he started to pull away from me. Everything moved too slow and too fast, barely seconds between when I first saw the Tibetan-looking seer at the door and when I could comprehend that whatever I was feeling on him was actually happening. Before I could say anything, or even put words in my mind to what I suddenly knew...Dorje was holding a gun.

"I'm sorry, cousin," he told Jon.

He choked on the words.

"I'm so very, very sorry..."

I saw the tears in his eyes, heard the deadened sound of grief in his voice. The warning in my light exploded into a four-alarm bell.

I felt Revik hear it or feel it on me too...felt a bright pulse of light expand off his aleimi, sliding up to the structures above his head...

But neither of us was fast enough.

Dorje didn't wait.

Aiming the gun, he fired four 9mm rounds in rapid succession.

The last two veered off course, impacting into the wall...coinciding with a hard pulse of light off Revik, one that felt nearly physical to me since I leaned so close to him.