Allie's War Season Three

by JC Andrijeski

  Feeling strangely more like myself again, I looked back at the couch.

  That time, I found a pair of blue eyes staring at me that shocked me. The last time I'd seen those eyes, in person anyway, had been in this very room.

  Jaden stared back at me, the look on his face somewhere close to shock. He looked at me like he didn't know me, or maybe like he didn't quite believe his eyes. I found I couldn't hold his gaze more than a few seconds, and even that was too long for pouty lips, who smacked him on the arm, hard enough that he flinched.

  "Are you seriously checking that bitch out?" she demanded. "You motherfucker!"

  I looked away from the two of them, at the nearest inanimate object my eyes could find, which happened to be the oil lamp. With its green and orange copper cover carved in Halloween-style faces and covered in smears of melted candle wax, the lamp looked eerily familiar, too.

  "You have no electricity," I said then, looking at Deklan, who had been the one to ignite the flame. He lit a couple of candles around the room as well while I watched, nodding in acknowledgement.

  Like the others, he looked surprised to see us, too...but especially me.

  "What are you doing here, Esteemed Bridge?" Garensche said, crossing the room in a few strides to stand in front of me. "Did you not receive our warning? We sent that infiltrator back...Surli. He said he would warn you not to come!"

  I stared up at him, feeling my chest clench. "You sent him? Surli?"

  "Of course!" Garensche said angrily. "Did he not tell you?"

  I felt my jaw harden, right before I looked up at Revik.

  "Must have slipped his mind," I muttered.

  Revik only frowned. I found myself wanting to calm him down, to reassure him in some way, even though I still couldn't tell what exactly was going on in his mind. Maybe I could just feel him, taut as a stretched wire, where he held me against his side.

  Garensche looked at Revik too, his eyes openly accusing.

  "Sir, we didn't think you'd let her come here in a million years," he said. "That Lao Hu fucker has been waiting for her to show up. He's had a tag on this house for over a week. We've sent out every communiqué we could, trying to convince him and others that there was no way in hell either of you would ever come here..."

  When I glanced up at Revik again, his jaw had tightened.

  "Why didn't you tell Balidor that? In one of the transmissions?" I said to Deklan.

  Gar answered me, clicking in irritation. "That fucker Ditrini has a tap on all of our communications," he said, practically spitting the name. "It works in part using key words. We tested it, once we realized...your name in any form sets off sparks for about a hundred damned miles, ilya. We sent Surli instead when he approached us in quarantine...we thought when Balidor told us he was there that you'd gotten the message..."

  I just swallowed, nodding.

  When I glanced at Revik again, his eyes looked positively murderous. I didn't get closer to his light to find out the cause. I could guess, anyway; he probably wanted to strangle Surli with his bare hands. Right then, I couldn't even say I blamed him really.

  He didn't let go of me, though, but continued to hold me tightly in his hands, flush with his body. I felt the possessiveness in his light, too, a near-aggression happening somewhere in the less-conscious parts of his aleimi, and realized suddenly that Jaden was affecting him, too. Glancing back at the crushed velvet couch, the one that Jaden and I had thought was too funny not to buy when we found it at a yard sale one afternoon in the Castro, I found myself looking at Jaden himself. Pouty-lips, the groupie I'd slashed at with a broken bottle in a bar one night, what felt like a million years ago now, was still glaring at me.

  "I'll ask again," she snapped furiously. "What is that psycho bitch doing in my house?"

  Gods almighty, I hoped her name wasn't on the list.

  "It's not," Garensche said, glancing at me and smiling a little. That strain remained around his eyes, but I could see now that at least part of that was exhaustion. "...And you're not the only one thanking the Ancestors beyond the Barrier for that one, believe me, ilya..."

  Laughing, I moved away from Revik long enough to grab Garensche in a hug.

  The seer clutched me back, and I felt the gratitude in his hands.

  "Do not think we are not glad to see you either, ilya," he said, kissing me on the cheek. He glanced at Revik then, giving him an apologetic smile. "...Even if we are all more than a little pissed off that you didn't wait for us on the wedding so we could come, too..." Garensche grinned at me, raising his eyebrows suggestively. "I hear it was quite a party...."

  As if noticing something, he glanced at Jon then, curiosity in his hazel eyes.

  With the appraising look that drifted down Jon's body came a heated pulse that had to be pain.

  I smacked his arm, pointing a finger at him warningly.

  "You don't want to be going there, brother Gar," I warned him. "Trust me on this."

  When Garensche looked at Revik, I saw Revik nod, giving a wan smile in Jon's direction before he made a conciliatory gesture with one hand.

  "She's right," he said. "You'd better feel strongly about it, if you do, my brother. Because you're in for one hell of a fight..." he added, softer.

  Jon looked annoyed. Shaking his head, he clicked at all three of us, then folded his arms, glancing around the candlelit room as if trying with all of his being to pretend we didn't exist. I could tell, though, even in the lamplight, that his ears were turning red again.

  "I hear from Jax that your cousin is quite the sexy little thing..." Garensche added to me, as if to dispel the tension. "Am I allowed to seduce her?"

  I smacked him on the arm again, laughing.

  "I'm glad you're all right, you pervert," I told him, smiling. "But leave my cousin alone, okay? And Jax has a big mouth, if you ask me..." When Garensche only gave a shrug at this, smiling, I added, "And sorry for not filling you in beforehand, but we had no choice."

  I glanced at Revik, who still seemed to be watching Jaden warily on the couch. Feeling my stare then, he glanced at me, his expression softening slightly before he gave me a nod, indicating with one hand for me to keep going.

  "We had a reason for coming like this..." I said, looking back at Garensche.

  He glanced at Revik, all business again, hands on his thick waist. "I figured. Got tired of everyone pissing in your punch, eh?"

  "Yeah. Something like that," I said, rubbing Revik's chest briefly as I sent him a pulse of warmth. "He sucks at playing the mouse..." When I smiled at him, a pulse of pain left his light, even as he took my hand in his.

  "So what's the plan then?" Deklan said, walking closer.

  He looked tired too, I noticed, as did Poresh...but I could feel both of them starting to relax, as if a less-tangible tension had started to loosen over the room. They'd definitely been due for some reinforcements, whatever they said about not wanting me there.

  At Deklan's question, I glanced at Revik, who made a gesture with one hand that it was okay for me to tell them. Before I could start, another voice rose, this time from the nearer couch in the room, the one directly under the now-covered bay window where I used to sit for hours sometimes, drawing and staring out the window at the park. This voice was more plaintive than aggressive, but I couldn't help but jump at its familiar tones.

  "Hey!" it said. " ...Is anyone going to tell us what the hell is going on? Or are we just like...the furniture or something? Jesus H..."

  I looked over in surprise.

  Staring at me with a round face and dark eyes above with a patchy goatee was Sasquatch, the Samoan cook from Lucky Cat, the diner where I'd worked for an embarrassing number of years. He and I had engaged in more than one drinking contest in the back kitchen while closing up, doing shots on the metal counter while he made passes at Cass, who he'd had an enormous crush on for at least three years.

  Now he sat with his mouth slightly open, stiff as a poker, his side flush with that of a small Japanese girl w
ith green-streaked hair whose face also hit me like a punch to the gut. She wore combat boots under a black frilled skirt that looked like a bona fide antique. Tattoos covered her bare arms and most of her neck. Seeing the tattoo of the bridge symbol on her arm, right next to the golden lotus I'd done for her myself a few years back, I gaped at her a little.

  I hadn't seen my friend Frankie since I'd done my last job at Fang's, a tattoo parlor on Geary where both of us did freelance designs back before...

  Well, everything.

  I looked between her and Sasquatch, feeling suddenly like I'd walked through some kind of time portal. Somehow, Jaden and his groupie girlfriend had been easier to ignore.

  "Jesus H..." Sasquatch said again, swallowing. "That really is you. What the hell happened to you, Allie-baby? You look like...all amazonian...like über-buff...Xena-tastic..."

  "Allie?" Frankie said. "Is it Allie...right?"

  Before I could answer, Sasquatch burst out, "What the hell is the deal here, anyway? Did you send these seer goons to collect us? Round us up like cattle? Prime rib for roasting when you're done getting your rocks off with the deadly virus thing...?"

  "No," I said, still looking between them. "No...no, I didn't. We were trying to protect you guys, I swear..."

  "Did you seriously grow?" Sasquatch said, looking around at Jaden and the others. "Am I the only one seeing this? She's taller, right? Like...mondo taller...?"

  "She's definitely taller," Frankie agreed, still staring at me. Only she seemed to be looking at me like I was some kind of celebrity, or movie star. "Is that him, Allie? Is that Syrimne?"

  "Jesus H," Sasquatch breathed. "You're really fucking Syrimne. Like...that's the guy you play hide the salami with. What the hell, Allie-cakes?"

  I glanced back at Revik, who raised an eyebrow at me, suppressing a smile.

  At a loss, I looked at Jon. "You might have to handle this, Jon."

  Jon frowned. "Really? You're putting 'subdue the natives' on my list of job duties now?"

  "It says 'command', right?" I said, gesturing a little sharper. "Command means command, Jon...as in, these are your people. They fall under you..."

  "Sure," Jon said. "Okay. Fine. But you need to tell them something, Al." He lowered his voice, glancing around the room. "They're your friends, right?"

  I looked at Sasquatch and Frankie, and then glanced at Jaden and his girlfriend, Tina. Somehow, I'd always managed to avoid learning her name up until then, but I supposed I couldn't get away with calling her 'pouty lips' to her face now. Or one of the less-flattering names Cass came up with that night we'd gotten drunk after they let me out of jail.

  "Yeah," I said with a sigh. I raised my voice, addressing all of the humans in the room, of which I now realized there were at least eleven or twelve. "Okay. Listen up. You probably all know already that most of your names showed up on a list of humans, right? A list of humans who are supposed to be important during the coming war?" At the silence my words produced, I added, "A list of humans that we're trying to protect...to keep from being killed by a bunch of other seers out of South America and China who don't want you to live that long...?"

  They all stared at me blankly, their faces slack.

  I noticed my friend, Angeline, was with them, too, sitting on the other side of Jaden and Tina, along with at least three other people I didn't know. One was a teenaged African-American girl wearing skinny jeans and a bright red T-shirt. One was a man in his mid-forties wearing a suit that looked like it had been slept in for about a week. The third woman looked like a thirty-something soccer mom, complete with mom hair and a designer hand bag.

  "Yeah, okay." I looked back at Deklan. "What do they know?"

  He glanced around at the ring of humans on the carpet and the couches, shrugging.

  "They think we're terrorists, Esteemed Bridge," he said, matter-of-fact. "We told them you sent us to try to get them out of the city safe, to protect them, but only that one..." He pointed at Angeline. "...Seemed to believe us. They'd been hearing on the news that you'd been dead...or maybe worked for the Chinese. Oh..." Deklan added, almost as an afterthought. "...and they're probably traumatized. At least in shock. Two days ago, they saw a few thousand humans herded down the street and shot for being infected with the disease..."

  "What?" I said, turning on him, feeling my stomach drop violently.

  Revik stood beside me again before I could react fully, holding my shoulders in his hands. He directed his words at Deklan, though.

  "Those bodies we saw? In the park?"

  "Yes, boss," Poresh said, nodding. "Some of them. They've been dumping corpses from the medical centers there, too, so I don't know which you saw. We still don't know why they did it exactly. Someone in SCARB with an itchy trigger finger, maybe...? In any case, there seems to be a plan to eradicate the infection no matter what the number of casualties. They're not even waiting to see if people might develop an immunity. They brought them all here, maybe because they planned to create some kind of mass grave in the park...or maybe because they plan to burn the bodies once the disease starts to wind down inside the quarantine. We even wondered if the Lao Hu were behind it. But then the riots started in the Mission District, so they pulled the military out of this part of town. Since then, there've been fires in a different part of the city just about every night..." He glanced at me again. "The Wharf was the biggest one last night...as far as we could tell..."

  "I thought the incubation period for the disease was, like, nonexistent," Jon said, glancing at Poresh. "How could they even identify the sick before they were on the verge of being dead?"

  Poresh was too busy staring at Jon, though. I could feel his light reacting to what he felt on him, and not in an entirely neutral way. I gave Revik a look, but Revik was already on top of it. He pinged Poresh, enough to get him to back off...at least with his light.

  "What happened to you?" Poresh said, looking my brother over more carefully.

  "Never mind that," I said, my voice short. "Leave him alone, Pori." I looked back at Garensche. "Why did you say we shouldn't have come here? What do you know?"

  Garensche pointed at Jaden, then at Angeline. "Those two. They're bait. That fucker in the Lao Hu got to them before we even reached the city. He's put trackers on both of them...and he's had his people watching this house from the Barrier ever since."

  "Trackers?" Jon glanced at Jaden, who he'd never really liked, I remembered suddenly. "Why didn't you just remove them?"

  Garensche looked at him, his dark eyes sober, and tired again.

  "Because, young cousin," he said with an exhale. "...We can't. Not without killing them. They aren't ordinary trackers...he attached them to their spines, same mechanism as with sight-collars, only he set them up with explosives. They've also got Barrier tags attached, so the second we try to move them, they'll know. That's why we haven't moved, and why we didn't try to change the rendezvous point...it wouldn't have done any good. We finished going through the lists of those in the area last week..." Garensche glanced at me, then at Revik. "We figured you wouldn't want us to just shoot them. Their names are on the list."

  As if realizing suddenly what he'd said, he gave me a slightly more apologetic look.

  "...Honestly, we had half a mind to just leave them here," he confessed. "It's probably what we would have done, if we hadn't heard you lot were coming. We thought maybe we could try and come back for them later. Then we got the call about reinforcements, so we kept this place as the rendezvous, thinking maybe fresh minds might come up with something..."

  I glanced up at Revik. "That's why they didn't bother tracking us," I said, quieter. "They knew we'd come here."

  "So they might be on their way now," Revik muttered, looking at me.

  "Maybe," I said. I could tell where his head was going, and I found myself rubbing his arm. "Maybe, Revik. But probably not. They'll wait to see what we'll do..." Quieter, I added, "It's too early to start rethinking our approach..."

  He shook his head. "I
don't want to leave you."

  "You won't be," I told him, my voice a warning.

  Frowning, I glanced around the room and found myself looking at Jaden again.

  "Ditrini's betting I won't kill them," I said, my voice low as I thought aloud.

  I didn't really think about the fact that I was staring at Jaden as I said it. Not until I saw him turn ghost white, even in the dim light.

  Clicking impatiently under my breath, I looked up at Revik again.

  "...That's what Surli meant," I added. "He said I had to do the thing Ditrini would count on me not doing...be willing to give up the thing that Ditrini was betting I wouldn't give up." Irritated, I clicked again, louder. "...I hate these stupid mind games. Terian was bad enough. Now we have to deal with another crazy, arrogant weirdo..."

  When I glanced around the room again, I saw that all of the faces of the humans in the room looked pale now, with the exception of Jon's.

  They all seemed to be training frozen stares on me, as well.

  "Nice one, sis," Jon murmured, nudging me. "They all think you're going to murder them now...so, yeah. Thanks for that."

  I rolled my eyes at him, but frowned at his words. He was right. I needed to snap out of my military mode long enough to reassure these people. Probably. The truth was, I didn't have a lot of bandwidth left to play nice. I could tell Revik was struggling right then, too, and he had to be my priority, given what came next. I also wasn't sure how much time we had, either, based on what Gar and Deklan were saying about Ditrini and his exploding trackers. Given all that, I honestly wasn't sure if I could afford to let myself think of them as my friends right then...especially when I had no idea if we could get them out of there alive.

  I glanced around at the seers. "We need suggestions." I gave Revik a look, motioning at Garensche and the others. "...Can you fill them in? It's probably time to tell Yumi and Neela and Jorag everything, too. Right?" When he gestured a 'yes,' I kissed him, tugging on his fingers. "I need to do some damage control...is that okay?" I met his gaze, trying to assess how he was doing. "Don't freak out, okay? There's no need to change the plan. Not yet."