Divided: The Alliance Series Book Four (7 page)

Gervene squinted at me. “I’ve no idea how they’d go about doing something like that, but…”

That has to be it.
If the Alliance did it, it’d explain why they held such a grudge. A former friend of mine, Skyla, had gone as far as to murder people at Central when information on the research project she’d been an unwilling part of had surfaced again.

Not just her. I swallowed hard against the lump rising in my throat, desperately trying to push back the image of Kay bleeding on the ground.
He’s alive. He has to be alive.

“Where?” I said. “Had any of you guys seen those Stoneskins before they picked you up?”

“Picked up.” Long-Toothed Guy snorted. “Not kidnapped or anything.”

“Well?” I said. “It might help.”

Head-shakes, from a handful of people. The rest didn’t look at me. Maybe they didn’t understand, maybe they just didn’t want to know.

“Okay,” I said. “Have they mentioned any particular worlds? Where they might have come from?”

“Hmm,” said Gervene. “I did think it was odd when they brought up Thairon. They can’t be travelling there, it’s closed off.”

Huh? The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I didn’t know anything about that particular world.

“That’s not Alliance,” I said slowly.

“It was supposed to be,” said Gervene. “Before they turned on the Alliance and killed a bunch of people.”

“Wait, what?” I stared at her. “What happened?”

“I don’t know the details. Supposedly the Alliance sent Ambassadors in, and they’d set them a trap… there was a cover-up, but I know someone who worked at Neo Greyle’s branch in Valeria at the time. Thairon used to be closely linked with Valeria and Klathica, before they withdrew from the Alliance, but they never expected them to slaughter a bunch of people. It stopped all Alliance negotiations in their tracks. Last I heard they were closed off.”

“Wow,” I said, because there was nothing else I
could
say. Of course, Ambassadors did a risky job, but going in to negotiate and being murdered instead? Damn. “What did they say about it? The Stoneskins?”

Gervene shook her head. “Not much. I caught a few words of a conversation.
Don’t forget Thairon,
one of them said. That was it.”

“Hmm.” Unhelpful, or it seemed so anyway. I was willing to latch onto any information I could find. Maybe they were originally from that world. Closed off. Like this place.

“Quiet, they’re coming back,” hissed Long-Toothed Guy. “I’m not letting your babbling get me killed.”

Aric shifted and Long-Toothed Guy pitched headfirst into the swamp. He surfaced, spluttering and cursing in what sounded like three languages mangled together.

“Is there a problem?” A voice carried over the group.

I held my breath. I hadn’t realised the Stoneskins were so close—or they’d moved so quickly. Two of them had come right close to us.
Please don’t let them have heard us.

“No,” Long-Toothed Guy muttered, shaking muddy water out of his hair.

Most of the others studied the ground, hardly seeming to breathe.

“Good,” said the voice. “We are leaving now. It would be a shame to lose any of you.”

It’s okay,
I told the part of my mind that wanted to start panicking.
It’s okay, you’re safe.

As safe as it was possible to be in a monster-infested swamp, in the company of monsters made out of unbreakable rock, anyway.

Kay is alive. I’m going to find him.
I repeated it in my head like a mantra.

He was alive. I couldn’t let myself believe otherwise, or I’d fall into a darkness deeper than any chasm.

CHAPTER FOUR

KAY

Get up.
Someone was shaking me, hands dug into my shoulders.
Get the hell up.

Disjointed, stark images flashed before my eyes, too quickly to make sense of.

Get up. Now.

I sat bolt upright, striking out with my fist.

Saki moved out of range, glaring at me over her clipboard. “What in the Multiverse is wrong with you?”

No one had touched me. I’d imagined it. I blinked, totally disoriented. I was in one of the med-rooms, on a fold-out bed. Nobody else was in the room but her, and she was lucky I hadn’t hit her. “What did you knock me out for?”

“You were acting out and causing a scene,” she said, bluntly.

I blinked again, realising someone had removed my torn, bloodstained shirt, and my Ambassador’s jacket hung over a nearby chair. I had one hell of a collection of bruises across my ribs.

“Ada,” I said. “Dammit.”

“She’s out of range. Half the guard patrols are looking for her instead of keeping up our security.”

“I should be looking for her,” I muttered, brushing my hair out of my eyes.

“You’re on probation.” Saki gave me that look again. She was far from the first person to dislike me on principle because she’d had the misfortune of meeting my father, but this level of contempt was more than I wanted to deal with right now. I just wanted to get to Ada.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Ask your boss. You’re the one who violated Alliance code.”

Hell.
My head wasn’t in the right place. Not at all. “Yes, and one of our employees was carried off by monsters powerful enough to subdue a wild magic force
and
a Cethraxian Vox leader.”

“You aren’t making any sense,” said Saki, tapping a pen on her clipboard.

“I’m not delirious and I’m not making this shit up,” I said. “If no one acts, the whole Alliance is going to be in trouble. Whoever those Stoneskin bastards were, they almost destroyed the Multiverse once already. They’re the ones who knocked off the Balance.” I pushed to my feet, ignoring the pain in my ribs. I could deal with pain.

I couldn’t deal with the rest. Not lying down.

“I’m to keep you here until you’re ready for questioning,” said Saki, moving in front of the door. “You’re not delirious, despite your violent and unstable behaviour. But you’re clearly confused—”

“Don’t,” I said. “Please—don’t. I’m not lying and I’m not confused. I know what I saw.”

“There are no other witnesses. You might want to check how you speak to the council.”

I rubbed my forehead. “My colleague just got kidnapped right in front of me, I almost died three times, and you stabbed me with a syringe. If you wanted a friendly conversation, now’s not the best time.”

Saki sighed, some of the anger fading from her expression. “It’s a precautionary measure. I’m sure Ada’s fine. We’ve had guards go off-grid before. Though I have good news: nothing’s broken. Those are old scars.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I said. With all the blood, I must look like a wyvern had clawed me open again. Old news. “Don’t suppose there’s a spare change of guard uniform lying around? Mine’s at my apartment, and I need to speak to the council as soon as possible.”

“Yes, your boss has requested to speak to you,” she said. “There’s a shower through that door. And a change of clothes. I don’t know what happened to you, but you don’t have any serious injuries. What did you do, run into a wall?”

“A chalder vox. Amongst other things. You wouldn’t believe me if I told the full story,” I said, the words echoing hollowly. Even Ms Weston wouldn’t, which meant I had no chance of getting through to the council.

Even showered and changed into clean uniform, I felt like hell. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with the council now. I had to make a plan. But I kept getting stuck—there
was
no way to track a person from here. Even with a world-key, even with an amplifier. I needed to figure out which world it was.

Half-formed ideas weren’t enough. I needed to talk to a senior Alliance member who knew the workings of the Passages. If Carl wasn’t forthcoming, there must be someone else here at Central. If not…

“I want to speak to the council,” I told Saki.

“Ms Weston says you’re to do no such thing.”

I stared. “You what?”

Saki tutted. “The council are in meetings until the end of the day. They’re fielding questions from seven Alliance branches about the ruckus you caused on that other world. If you want to persuade them to put out a cross-world search warrant, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow at the very least.”

I leaned on the wall as dizziness made the world tilt under my feet. “You can’t be serious,” I said. “An Alliance member has been kidnapped by dangerous offworld creatures—ones that aren’t even in the Alliance’s files.”

“Yes, so
you
say, but the council are well aware of your habit for rash actions. You can’t walk in here dripping blood everywhere and raving about monsters and expect the council to rewrite the laws on your behalf.”

“Right,” I said, and my voice sounded distant, like someone else spoke. “Is that it? Can I leave now?”

“Your boss wants to speak to you once she’s finished informing Ada’s family of the… unfortunate accident.”

Unfortunate accident.

I’d heard those words before.
It can’t happen again.

The opposite ledge of a cliff, wreathed in smoke, close but not close enough, slipping away by the second.

“Kay?”

Goddammit.
I clenched my fists, breathing heavily. “Yeah.” Again, my voice might have come from somewhere far away.

“I said, you can leave.”

“Right.”

I had no recollection either of leaving or climbing the stairs to the first floor, but I must have. Markos the centaur came out of the office and I almost collided with him.

“By the gods, human. What’s happened this time?”

I shook my head. “Ask the dragon.” I didn’t much care if Ms Weston heard the unflattering nickname.

“I wouldn’t do anything rash, human.”

But I’d already knocked on her door, and opened it before she invited me in. She looked up from a stack of files on her desk, tapping at the screen of her communicator. I let the door close behind me, and saw the files were the reports myself and the three other people who’d been to Vey-Xanetha had given her. Only yesterday.

“Kay. I do hope you’re prepared for a civilised discussion.”

“I don’t know what more I can say. I told you the truth. There’s a threat to the Alliance, and they took Ada.”

“Yes, I’ve had to relate the same story to Ada’s guardian.”

The floor gave way under my feet. Ada’s guardian. Her brothers. Thanks to me, they’d lost her.

“You should have let me tell them.”

Ms Weston gave me her iciest look. “Kay Walker, I’ve had quite enough of you telling me how to do my job. You’re on probation, as of today, and it’ll be up to me to judge when you’re fit to go on missions as an Ambassador again.”

Missions? I couldn’t even conceive of getting on with the job without—

Stop. Thinking.
Dwelling on Ada wouldn’t help me think clearly. I needed someone high up in the Alliance on my side now more than ever.

“Are you not going to send anyone to the hidden Passage, at least?” I asked. “Someone has been using it. The evidence is all there. You can’t deny Cethrax has taken advantage. It explains the anomalies, the unexpected attacks. That Passage goes on for miles, even I didn’t see how far.”

“We have enough on our hands keeping up with regular patrols,” said Ms Weston. “Especially losing so many members. I’m in charge of the investigation, and I’ve put out a message to Valeria and Alvienne. The other Allied worlds are considerably displeased with the chaos they experienced while you were on Vey-Xanetha. Your profile’s plastered all over it, unfortunately, and considering the stories of you raving in the Passages have spread already, they’re demanding more evidence. The hidden Passage will be under guard until further notice, but nobody has found so much as a trace of these
Stoneskins
you speak of.”

Oh, crap. Our battle with the mad god was bound to have caused a major disturbance, but I hadn’t expected half the Multiverse to back out of searching for Ada.

“And the Stoneskins?” I asked.

“As I said, with no evidence—”

“I can find evidence,” I said. “If you’d let me.”

“You, Kay Walker, are going to stay here, on Earth. Your past behaviour does you no credit.”

“I acted in the way I saw fit to protect the Alliance and my fellow Ambassadors. To save human lives,” I said. “I’ve never violated our mandate. Every time, I put the Alliance above everything else. If you think I’d ever do anything like that on purpose, you promoted the wrong person to Ambassador.”

I braced myself for her to hit me with everything. She couldn’t punish me any more than I could myself.

“So that’s where you stand, Kay? You’d defend your own actions to the last, even though you’ve put one of our members in enemy hands?”