Blaze of Memory

by Singh, Nalini

  Katya put a hand on Jessie’s arm when the other woman shifted forward, as if tempted to deck the cop. “It’s the eyes,” she muttered. “The color threw me off but you have the same eyes.”

  Michel’s smile widened. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

  “Name Devraj ring a bell?”

  “I might have a cousin called Dev, but you know, it’s not that unusual a name.”

  Certain now that there was no way Michel would let her leave, Katya turned to Jessie. “Thank you.”

  Jessie was still scowling, but she hugged Katya tight. “You ever need help again, you call me. You got my number, right?”

  Katya nodded, having memorized the cell code. “So,” she said to Michel, “where to from here?”

  PETROKOV FAMILY ARCHIVES

  Letter dated December 24, 1978

  Dearest Matthew,

  It’s Christmas Eve, but the world is strangely hushed. Normally, the changelings would be playing their yearly tricks—I always half expect to find a tiger sitting on my porch come midnight, as I did once when I was a child. He’d brought me a fresh bough of holly, can you imagine?

  But this year, even the human carolers have stayed home. All of us are waiting for the ax to fall—the Council is nearing a decision. If it goes the way I predict, anyone not in the Net will become forever cut off from those we love.

  The Council has acknowledged that adults can’t be fully conditioned, but those who stay in the Net will have to follow strict guidelines. If they don’t, their children will be taken from them—so that they can be conditioned the proper way. My hand is shaking as I write that. No one will ever take you or Emily from me.

  Mom

  CHAPTER 33

  Dev made his way from the airjet to his cousin’s home—just south of the border with British Columbia—using the snow-capable rental Maggie had organized. Given the airjet’s speed, he wasn’t that far behind Michel taking Katya into “custody.”

  Arriving at his cousin’s place, he got out and strode straight to the front door. Michel opened it as he was raising a fist to knock. “She’s all yours, Santos.” Thrusting his hat back on, Michel said, “If I were you, I’d don body armor.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  His cousin tipped his head and walked off to his own vehicle. Trying to get a handle on a temper that flat-out refused to respond to the cool brush of metal, Dev walked through the door and followed the echo of Katya’s presence to the kitchen—where he found her calmly eating a huge blueberry muffin, a cup of what looked like hot chocolate at her elbow. Jesus—there were even marshmallows in the damn chocolate. “Looks like Michel took good care of you.”

  A glance that told him nothing. “He knows how to treat a woman.”

  Okay, that bit. “As opposed to?”

  A shrug.

  He watched as she picked out a blueberry and popped it into her mouth. “Did you really think you were going to get away?”

  “Giving in is not what I do.”

  It was a slap. And it poured the most frigid water over the temper he’d irrationally feared would turn him into his father. What the hell had he expected Katya to do? Sit meekly while he held her captive?

  The woman who’d survived Ming LeBon’s brand of torture wasn’t the sitting-around kind.

  Blowing out a breath, he folded his arms across his jacket. “How close are you to wherever you’re going?”

  She froze, then seemed to shake herself out of it. “I’m getting closer.”

  “Still no certain location?”

  “It’s northwest . . . I think possibly Alaska, though it could as easily be in Yukon.”

  Dev stepped close enough to play with a strand of her hair. She didn’t pull away, but neither did she deviate from the concentrated destruction of her muffin. He was being ignored again. He realized that should’ve irritated him, but it made his lips curve. Releasing her hair, he moved around to stand at her back, placing his hands palms down on the counter on either side of her.

  She took another bite of the muffin.

  Grinning, he brushed aside the fall of her hair and pressed a kiss to the delicate skin of her nape.

  A shiver. “Devraj Santos,” she said with quiet forcefulness, “you are not going to charm me into going back.”

  He kissed her again, along the slender curve of her neck. “Who said anything about charm?” he murmured, nibbling at her earlobe. “I’m planning to seduce you.”

  She put down that damn muffin. “Dev, why aren’t you yelling at me?”

  Another kiss as he rose to his full height and wrapped his arms around her, dropping his chin on top of her head. “You’re too stubborn to respond to yelling.” She’d survived something he wasn’t sure even he could survive—a man would be stupid not to respect that kind of will in his woman.

  “But you’re still going to drag me back.” Her hand closed into a fist on the counter. “Why? I’m no threat this far from you.”

  “I have to consider what you might’ve learned in the time you’ve been with us, whether you’ll circle back and strike.”

  That hand flexed, then closed again. “Nothing I say will change your mind, will it?”

  He knew what he should do. Until he’d walked into this kitchen, there hadn’t even been a question in his mind. But—“I can give you three days.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Dev?”

  “We’ll take the airjet as far north as you’re comfortable, then hire a car.”

  “I’m glad you’ll be with me,” she said to his surprise, leaning into his embrace. “Part of me is so afraid of what I’ll find—what if there’s nothing there?”

  “Katya?”

  “It would mean my brain really is damaged,” she whispered. “If I have this compulsion and there’s nothing to back it up.”

  He suddenly understood her hunger to follow the compulsion far better than he had before. “You aren’t brain damaged,” he told her, squeezing her tighter. “If you were, you sure as hell wouldn’t have managed to sneak out from under my bloody nose.”

  Katya heard the disgusted edge in that comment and it made her heart lighten. “I did good, didn’t I?” Her smile faltered. “How’s Tiara?”

  “She opened book on how far you’d get before I caught up to you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, and she placed the bet for the longest distance.”

  “And Tag?”

  “Let’s just say he’s not your new best friend.”

  She winced and went to ask about the boy before realizing that might get him into trouble.

  Dev chuckled. “The kid is fine—and we’ve learned to be extra careful with his shields.”

  “He’s strong,” she said, apprehensive about what that might mean. “If the Council finds out the Forgotten have that level of psychic ability . . .”

  “Let me worry about that.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, allowing her to turn so they faced each other. “Tell me everything you can about this pull you feel to go north. Do you have any other information?”

  “No. But I know I heard something. There ... in the black room.”

  Rage reignited, dark with the need to draw blood. He had to consciously focus to form speech past the vicious power of it. “Why would they have spoken of anything sensitive in your hearing?”

  “They made a mistake,” she said, her voice halting as if she was reconstructing fragments of memory. “Ming broke me, but even broken, I had ears, I had eyes. He treated me like I was an insect he’d crushed under his boot, not worth bothering about.”

  The rage in him was a wild thing, animalistic in its anger... its anguish. “What,” he forced himself to ask, “did you hear?”

  Katya looked up at the sound of Dev’s voice, that raw blade. His anger was a lash in the air, a whip of fire. But somehow instead of inciting fear, it made her feel stronger. “Lots of things.”

  Dev watched her with those amazing eyes, and she knew, she knew he would
kill for her. It shook her, the knowledge of how deeply they’d bonded with each other. What if—

  “No,” Dev said. “Don’t think about anything but this task. We’ll figure out the rest later.”

  She nodded, her movements jerky.

  “I don’t have all the pieces yet, but I know I have to go. I have to see.”

  His hand against her cheek. Warm. Protective. “You have no idea what you’re searching for?”

  “Something bad.” She turned into his touch. “When I think of it, I get this oily sickness in my gut.” Evil, she thought. It was something evil waiting for her, a thing her mind refused to show her, but whose malevolent shadow overlay every other thought.

  EARTHTWO COMMAND LOG: SUNSHINE STATION

  17 September 2080: Productivity has dropped fifty-seven percent in the past three days as staff members complain of increasingly severe headaches.

  It may be advisable to consider a recall of all personnel until the area has been thoroughly tested for biological and/or chemical contaminants. Please advise.

  CHAPTER 34

  Dev pressed a kiss to her forehead, the unexpectedly affectionate gesture making her eyes burn. “We’d better start as soon as possible.”

  She knew the three days he’d given her would cost him, but he was going to take the hit—for her. “Dev . . . I could be leading you into a trap.” In spite of how far she’d come, her mind remained a savage maze, full of holes and deception.

  Dev rubbed a thumb over her cheek. “Still don’t get it, do you, Katya? I take care of what’s mine.”

  “I don’t want you to get hurt,” she began, but the set of his jaw told her she was wasting her breath. “Were you born stubborn?”

  “My mother used to say I was half mule.”

  It made her smile. “That would make one of your parents a mule. Your mother?”

  “She never admitted it.” His eyes filmed over with a sadness so deep, she felt her throat lock. “Never had the chance.”

  She hesitated, unsure of her instincts, of her mind, her soul . . . but not of her heart. “What happened to her?”

  “My father killed her.” A stark response that stole her breath.

  She was still trying to find the words with which to respond when he continued. “That was when I first understood why some of our ancestors chose Silence. My father—he was never abusive. It was his gift that turned him into a killer.”

  Reaching out a hand, she closed it over his.

  “The ShadowNet,” Dev said, looking down at their linked hands, “is a completely different animal from the PsyNet, but we have some similarities.”

  “Dev,” she said, cutting him off though it was the last thing she wanted to do. “You mustn’t tell me any more.” If she betrayed him, even if it wasn’t by choice, it would shatter her—and she knew she wouldn’t rise again. Not from that.

  His face was suddenly that of the conqueror she’d once seen in him. “We’ll break you free, Katya. Even if I have to kill Ming LeBon himself.”

  “No.” She grabbed both his hands. “He’s my monster to slay. I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

  “Don’t you think I can take him?”

  She stared at him, at his cool eyes, his muscular body, his soldier’s patience, and said, “I know you could. And that’s what terrifies me.”

  A waiting silence.

  “I don’t want you to become what he is,” she whispered, knowing that Dev had a ruthlessness in him that could turn him cruel, an assassin with a single, brutal objective. She had no doubt that he’d achieve that objective—but he might lose himself in the process. “I’m afraid that if you hunt him, it’ll change you, make you a reflection of Ming.”

  He didn’t reply, and she knew that if push came to shove, Dev would go after Ming. And if that happened, there’d be only one choice. One she’d make without flinching. She was becoming Dev’s weakness. Excise her from existence, and that weakness would no longer exist.

  Dev got the phone call from Aubry ten minutes after they took off, the airjet set on a steady course north. Katya wasn’t officially on the passenger manifest, which meant they’d technically be smuggling her over the border if they needed to land in Canada, but Dev had ways around the problem if it came to that.

  “What is it?” he asked, conscious of Katya putting on her headphones and turning up the music.

  “Jack thinks you’re dicking him around—he’s pissed.”

  Dev squeezed the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Can you keep him calm for three days?”

  “He’s going to last maybe one more day—two at the most.” Aubry’s tone changed. “Dev, what he’s saying, it’s not out of his ass. He’s making sense.”

  “I know Jack’s making sense.” Dev had seen Jack’s son William after the first episode, had held Jack as the other man broke down. He had a bone-deep understanding of the anguish that drove his cousin’s every action. “That’s the hell of it. Look, I’ll call him.”

  “And you’ll be back in New York in three days?”

  Knowing Tag and Tiara would be able to handle Cruz now that Sascha had become involved, he said, “Yeah. Set up a meeting with Jack.”

  “I guess you can’t escape some things,” Aubry said as he hung up, and Dev knew he wasn’t talking about the meeting.

  Coding in the number for Jack’s cell, he waited. The other man answered after a couple of seconds. “About time, Director.”

  “Cut me some slack,” Dev muttered. “You’d think we weren’t related, the way you’re out to string me up.”

  “Don’t pull the cousin card on me.” But his tone became less harsh. “You been avoiding me, Dev?”

  “No. We’ve had some other shit hit the fan.” Thrusting a hand through his hair, he leaned back in the seat. “What you’re saying—I’m listening.”

  “Good.” A pause. “Fuck, Dev, I didn’t set out to be a pain in your ass, and I sure as hell don’t want to rake up old memories, but we’ve got to deal with this.”

  “There’s no way I can support what you want—you know that. Our ancestors gave up everything for our freedom. How the hell can you turn your back on that?”

  “Because my son is so terrified of his own abilities that he’s too scared to make friends.” Jack’s torment filled the line. “He’s a baby, but he’s so afraid he’ll hurt someone that he stays in his room all day. You deal with that every day and then you tell me the choice isn’t mine to make.”

  Catching the break in Jack’s voice, Dev straightened. “What aren’t you telling me? I thought Will was stable for now.” He’d believed they had time to find another answer—one that wouldn’t destroy the very heart of Forgotten identity.

  “Something happened. I don’t—” A jagged breath. “I need to confirm it. But I know that Will’s getting worse.”

  Dev thought of the seven-year-old boy who called him Uncle Dev, thought, too, of the others on the edge. “It’s circled back.” The strange new abilities arising in the Forgotten were bringing with them the same madnesses that had driven the Psy to Silence. “But you’ve seen how Silence isn’t the answer to everything—they’re not the example we want to follow.”

  “You go cold, Dev,” Jack said. “I’ve seen you do it. You mainline the machines and you go cold. What if you couldn’t?”

  Dev knew all too well what it felt like to skyrocket out of control. Especially now, with a woman who slipped beneath the metallic layer as if it didn’t exist. “I might go cold, but I stay human, Jack. I feel.” Too much. Too strong.

  “It’s a bad choice, I know,” Jack admitted. “But if there are only bad choices ...”

  “We’ll find another way.” Dev wouldn’t lose his family, his people. “I’ve got Glen and his team on it night and day. And I’m working every contact I have—just . . . don’t make any hasty decisions. Can you give me a few more days? Can Will?” Because if the boy had gone critical, then Dev would turn the plane around. He had every faith that the woman by h
is side would understand.

  “What’s so important that you can’t talk to me today?”

  Dev glanced at Katya’s head, turned toward the window of the plane. “I’m fighting to save another life, another mind.”

  Jack sucked in a breath. “Damn, you know how to sock it to a man. I’ll give you a few more days.”

  “Call me the instant anything changes.” Because—and though Dev’s protective instincts screamed in violent repudiation at the thought—small, big-eyed William was their barometer, the closest to snapping the threads of his sanity. Swallowing the knot in his throat, he didn’t even make an effort to hide his own worry for Will. “You call me and I’ll come. You got that?”

  A pause filled with things unsaid, and Dev knew Jack understood the brutal truth, a truth no father should have to face. “Yeah,” his cousin finally answered. “I gotta go—Melissa’s home. This is fucking messed up.” The last sentence was tired.

  As Dev hung up, he felt the same. Turning, he found Katya looking at him. She took off the wireless headphones only when he slid the phone into a pocket. “I want so much to ask what’s put that look on your face,” she said, reaching out to place one hand over his.

  “Katya, there’s a chance we might have to turn back.” He tightened his fingers on hers. “But if we do, I’ll bring you back. I promise you that.”

  And though he knew how badly she wanted to reach her destination, she gave an immediate nod. “Your promise is more than enough for me.”

  His heart expanded, until he couldn’t even remember what the metal felt like. “How secure is your mind?”

  “It’s a vault. Nothing can come in or get out into the Net. But like you said, Ming must have the psychic key to open that vault—he could use it at any time.”

  He understood what she was telling him, but the possible benefits outweighed the risks in this case. About to ask her what he needed to know, he frowned. “You have a nosebleed.”

  Making a small sound, she lifted a hand to her nose, taking the tissue he ripped from the pack provided in the seat pockets. “It’s the altitude,” she said.