He looked at him almost like a friend.
A comrade, at the very least… possibly an ally.
Whatever the precise meaning of that look, it was like nothing Revik would have expected, particularly given the conversation he’d been having with this male’s boss.
When he looked back at Balidor, Revik saw the older seer smiling at him, too. The warmth in those gray eyes may not have been as prominent as the warmth in that younger, more handsome, more seer-like face––but Revik saw it clearly, irrefutably.
Again, he spoke before he knew he intended to.
Even he heard the surrender in his voice.
“Fine… fuck.” He shook his head, clicking as he exhaled. He looked between the two of them, feeling his jaw harden. “When do we go?”
Four
The Guardian
They briefed him on the way down the mountain.
Revik sat crammed knee-to-knee and shoulder-to-shoulder between the male seer with the green eyes on one side, and Balidor on the other.
Five other seers sat on the same and facing benches, with four on each side.
Revik didn’t recognize any of them.
He assumed they must be Adhipan, as well.
He couldn’t help noticing all of them were male.
Even Mara, the female with those stunning hazel eyes, didn’t ride down with them, not even in the front seat, so he had to assume the truck behind them contained all of the female seers in the group, including her.
He couldn’t fail to take that as a message.
It crossed his mind to remind them that gender might not make a hell of a lot of difference to him right then.
The green-eyed seer snorted a laugh.
Revik glanced at him, frowning.
The other only smiled wider, apparently undaunted. Reaching over with a grin, the seer Balidor had called “Dalejem” patted Revik’s leg in a friendly way, letting his hand linger briefly to massage his thigh.
At that, Revik jumped nearly a foot.
Balidor looked over sharply when he did, then down at Revik’s leg and the other male’s hand. Balidor gave the green-eyed seer a hard look, one with a clear meaning behind it.
The handsome seer with the long, black and brown-streaked hair and those jade-green eyes removed his hand at once, making a gesture of apology along the lines of, oops, I forgot.
Revik waved it away, but not before his face flushed with heat.
Christ. This was going to be a shit-show.
He couldn’t help thinking he wasn’t going to be able to handle this, dealing with all of these non-monk seers. Infiltrators, as a general rule, were touchy and horny as fuck just in the normal course of their interactions. Hell, most seers were touchy and horny as fuck. They wouldn’t do it on purpose, and it definitely wouldn’t be personal, but they’d probably be setting him off every five minutes.
And Revik hadn’t even dealt with the females yet.
Female seers were generally more sexually aggressive than a lot of males. That was doubly true for female infiltrators.
When Revik glanced around the back of the truck, he felt more eyes on him.
From what he could tell of their demeanor and light, he wouldn’t have to worry about most of this lot making passes at him, anyway, at least not anytime soon. Unlike the green-eyed seer and their leader, Balidor, most of the seers crammed into the back of that Jeep appraised Revik like he was some kind of animal––one that would definitely bite them, given the chance, if not try to kill them outright.
Revik supposed that shouldn’t have surprised him.
They clearly knew who he was.
They knew he was an ex-agent of the Org.
If they all really were Adhipan, they likely had some awareness of his record while he’d been a Rook. They’d all know how close he’d been to the Rooks’ leader, Galaith.
Balidor ignored their stares, so Revik did his best to do the same.
He didn’t miss the off-and-on flickers and probes from their light, however, or the wariness that came off the snaking trails of their aleimi.
He also caught them exchanging words with one another about him, even though he couldn’t hear the words themselves. They spoke about him in a private area of their military construct, a kind of “psychic channel” where they could speak without being overheard by anyone not on the same frequency.
Because of that, Revik only caught the vaguest flavor of what was being said, even though he sat right next to all of them.
It was just enough to make him paranoid.
He tried to focus on what Balidor was telling him, ignoring the others, clenching his jaw against the pain in his light and wincing as the Jeep jostled and jumped over the uneven road down the side of the mountain.
“…As I said, her mate, Uye, got picked up by SCARB when he tried to stop them from taking her,” Balidor was saying now.
He clasped his hands between his jostling knees, likely in part to keep them from knocking together.
“…He got hit with several additional criminal charges as a result, but we’re negotiating with our contacts now, to try and get him out of the high-security section of the camp where he’s currently being held. Right now, they have him in a holding cell underground… separated from her. It will make it significantly more difficult to extract both of them.”
Revik frowned.
Before he could speak, Balidor gave him a serious look.
“You should know another thing, too, brother,” he said, lower.
Revik stiffened, seeing the hesitation in the other man’s eyes.
“She is pregnant,” Balidor said.
Revik flinched, feeling his chest constrict.
Sighing, Balidor made a kind of conciliatory gesture with his hand.
“…More than pregnant,” he added. “She is close to term. According to her husband, she could have her child any day now.”
Revik felt a slow burn grow in his chest. It gradually shifted into a harder pain, until he found it difficult to breathe. It wasn’t separation pain that time, but something else.
Without meaning to almost, he found himself thinking of Kali’s husband.
He thought about if it had been him, stuck in a SCARB holding cell, being interrogated by Org agents, kept apart from his blind, pregnant, kidnapped wife, without having any idea what might be being done to her in the main prison yards––without being able to help her. Just being separated from a pregnant mate would be enough to make most seers lose it, much less having to think about hardened criminals doing gods-knew-what to her.
For the first time since he’d met Kali, Revik found himself glad he wasn’t her mate.
He also finally managed to focus totally on the debriefing, rather than on the current state of his own body and light.
“How the hell did they pick her up, if she is pregnant?” he said, sharp.
Balidor shrugged, holding out his hands.
The Adhipan leader’s expression remained flat.
“That’s completely illegal,” Revik growled. “How the fuck could they have arrested her and put her in a camp while pregnant? Did they not know of her condition?”
“They knew,” Balidor assured him. “As I said, she is close to term, brother. There is no possible way they could not have known.”
Revik stared at him. “How is that possible?”
“They broke the law,” Balidor said. “Obviously.”
“Under orders?”
“Obviously.”
“And you think Galaith ordered this?” Revik frowned, thinking as he glanced at the other males in the back of the truck. “You think he took her? For the Rooks?”
“We don’t know who did it precisely, but it’s possible it was Galaith.”
“It is possible?” Revik stared at him. “Who the fuck else would it be?”
Balidor gave him another of those inscrutable looks.
Revik felt his jaw harden. “And the husband. You know where they are holding him?”
Balidor nodded. “Yes. We have his location. We are still not certain if they intended to take him initially, but in the end, they more or less had to.”
“Why?” Revik growled. “Because he might complain to the authorities that they stole his pregnant wife from their goddamned marital bed?”
Balidor and the green-eyed seer exchanged looks.
Balidor looked back at Revik. His voice grew mild.
“Well, yes… that is certainly one reason,” he said. “Given the illegality of their actions, they could hardly let Kali’s mate go free. He also killed a number of their agents when they broke into his and Kali’s house. Hardly surprising, given his wife’s condition. He killed a few more at the camp itself, when they touched his wife. That’s when they threw him in solitary.”
“They put him in solitary for that?” Revik growled. “And charged him with… what? Being mated? Being a rational fucking seer?”
A few seers sitting across from him grunted.
Revik heard agreement in their grunts.
He gave them a glance, then looked back at Balidor.
Balidor sighed, clicking under his breath before answering in a tired-sounding voice.
“More or less, brother,” he said. “It is likely they confined him partly in retribution for the killings… but the fact that they picked up a pregnant seer in the first place is so unprecedented, we have little to go by, in terms of what is ‘normal,’ or what rationales they might be using for their treatment of either one of them.”
Balidor gave him a grim look.
“I will say, we no longer think Uye’s treatment is being engineered from the outside… if that is what you are implying. It seems the Black Arrow and Sweeper guards at the work camp are unaware of Kali’s true identity. There is quite a bit of chatter inside the camp about her ‘condition’ and how they are supposed to accommodate that, and keep her safe from the other prisoners. Arguments ensued from the moment she arrived. Mainly around the illegality of her arrest, and how holding her violates treaty with the Seer Nation, as well as World Court law. Our intelligence operatives tell us many of the seer guards are quite unhappy with her being there.”
“Where do they have her?” Revik said, frowning. “Which camp?”
“Guoreum,” Balidor said.
Revik frowned. “Guoreum? That’s pretty extreme. What did she do?”
“She didn’t do anything, brother.”
“I mean… what are they saying she did?”
“As far as I know, they have not charged her with any crime. Which is why this worries us, brother. Even beyond the conditions in Guoreum itself.”
Exhaling, Balidor re-clasped his hands.
“There are a number of agents of the Org fighting to keep Kali’s mate confined. We think this is partly in an attempt to pull intelligence off him. But we also think, based on intel we’ve received from the inside, that it’s because of his sight rank, which is quite high. That’s the good news, really. Better that, than because they know who he is specifically.”
“Which is who?” Revik said. “Who is he, precisely? This Uye?”
“He is Kali’s mate,” Balidor said, giving him a flat look.
Revik frowned.
He opened his mouth, about to ask another question.
He got distracted when he felt eyes on him and turned, glancing surreptitiously at a particularly large male sitting on the bench across from him.
The seer was enormous––big enough to make Revik slightly nervous. He was big enough to have Wvercian blood in him, despite his dark hair and complexion, and his bright hazel eyes. Despite his size, and his lingering stare, he watched Revik with noticeably less hostility than most sharing the Jeep with him.
If anything, the look there was curiosity––or possibly puzzlement.
Revik couldn’t help noticing the giant wore a Nazi scar from the concentration camps across his face. It made him look a bit like a pirate.
Revik glanced back at Balidor when the Adhipan leader went on.
“…We think the Org’s got Kali’s mate targeted for recruitment,” Balidor explained. “Which is why they won’t release him back into the general population. His potential is statistically rare, and he’s got a fair bit of training… including some military, which they managed to discern, despite his attempts to hide it. Uye is also unreg’d with any of the agencies and has been his entire life, so I imagine they are very curious about him… both in terms of his reasons for being off-grid, and the fact that he managed it successfully for so long.”
“How did he manage it?” Revik said.
“With Kali’s help, to a degree,” Balidor said, motioning vaguely with one hand. “But Uye is a formidable seer in his own right. His marriage to Kali has actually made it more dire for him to hone his skills, not less. Simply being married to her has put his own life in a great deal of danger, of course.”
Revik nodded.
He swallowed his questions that time, even though he still didn’t really know what the “of course” meant, not exactly.
“So where are we going?” he said finally.
“South America,” Balidor replied. “Guoreum is north of Manaus. In Brazil.”
“Yes.” Revik’s voice grew impatient. “I’m aware. And I understand the Org holding Uye if they have targeted him for recruitment. But why is she still there? Is she not yet sold? And if not, why not have your people buy her? If they do not know who she is––”
“Brother.” Balidor cocked an eyebrow at him. “She is not for sale. There is no listing for her… on the Rynak, or elsewhere.”
Revik frowned.
The Rynak was the seer black market––one of them, anyway, and the largest.
Any major sale of a seer would be listed there. A pregnant female seer, close to term, would definitely be listed there, especially one with Kali’s probable sight rank.
“Why the fuck not?” he said.
Balidor clicked softly under his breath.
“There is really only one possible reason,” he said. “Clearly someone knows what or who she is. She never would have been picked up in the first place, if that were not so. As I said, she is very pregnant, brother. Both her and her offspring are worth a considerable amount… and they were taken illegally. The fact that she was not immediately sold and moved means she is already owned. They likely stuck her in Guoreum to hide her.”
Revik’s frown deepened. “But you said the guards––”
“––do not know of her, yes. But just because the guards don’t know, doesn’t mean no one does. We assume someone will come for her soon.”
“Galaith?”
“Possibly Galaith. Yes.” Balidor frowned, making another noncommittal gesture. “…Possibly someone else.”
“Like who?” Revik asked again, frowning harder.
Again, Balidor made that noncommittal wave.
“We do not know,” he admitted. “That possibility worries us more, frankly. Yet, it also seems strangely more likely. Galaith is usually pretty good about honoring treaties. It is difficult to imagine him picking up a pregnant female… even Kali.”
There was a silence.
Revik just stared at those unreadable gray eyes, fighting the conflicting emotions warring inside his light. He knew what lived outside of the human city of Manaus. Hell, he’d been there, on the ground, while it was being built. Maybe he couldn’t remember all the details of those years, but he clearly hadn’t forgotten everything.
He even remembered how the camp got its name.
It had been some flight of fancy of Terian’s, Revik remembered.
Terian had been Revik’s old partner in the Org.
Terry named it Guoreum, after a mythological, crow-like bird, often equated to one of the Four in the seer pantheon. Guoreum––or “Rook,” as the being was more commonly known––was said to live in the spaces between dark and light, good and evil.
It was the same being from which the Org itself got its nickname–
–a name that generally wasn’t meant as a compliment. The being, Guoreum, acted as a kind of “Trickster” who played both sides of the fence. In the old stories, Guoreum was a liar, a thief, a conman, a killer, one who manipulated and distorted reality, often pretending to work for the “higher good” in order to twist people into giving him what he wanted.
Revik supposed most of the religious seers saw the Org that way, as well.
Naming a prison camp after a pantheon being, any pantheon being, never made much sense to Revik.
But then, Terian always had a strange sense of humor.
Whatever the name, there was nothing whimsical about the camp outside Manaus.
Guoreum was commonly considered the worst of the high-security camps built by the Org in the post-World War II period. It was designed specifically for hardened criminals in the seer world, and contained some of the most extreme measures of deprivation and isolation of any other camp its size, along with the most dangerous inmates.
The Org reserved the cells of Guoreum almost exclusively for terrorists and political prisoners of some rank, as well as other criminal threats to their “New Order.”
Revik himself had sent seers there, not all that long ago.
The thought brought up a thick wave of nausea.
“How the fuck did they even find her?” Revik said after the pause. “Why did Uye not take her into hiding, once she went blind?”
Balidor sighed, running a hand through his chestnut-colored hair.
“He did,” he said, his voice heavy. “They were even protected by us, to a degree. I do not know how they were found… or why.” He looked at Revik, his gray eyes holding a more difficult-to-read emotion. “You are aware of who Kali foresaw her offspring to be?”
Revik returned his look.
Then, swallowing as he remembered Kali’s words to him about this, he nodded. His voice turned gruff.
“Yes.”
Something in Balidor’s eyes relaxed.
When he next spoke, his tone grew almost gentle.
“There is something else I must tell you, brother,” he said.
Seeing the knowing in the other man’s eyes, Revik felt his jaw harden. He didn’t look away from that steel-colored gaze.
The Defector Page 4