When I woke up, I felt more drained than rested. My lower back and kidneys hurt, and my head felt fuzzy, to say the least. It took splashing cold water on my face from one of the nearby streams to even get my eyes fully open.
Revik looked just as tired as I felt. In fact, he looked worse than he had before he laid down to sleep, which actually reassured me in a strange way. Meaning, I could tell he'd been trying to fight it off. We ended up making out and sharing light for about a half-hour, watching the sun come up over the lower hills...but both of us were a little too conscious of the construct at that point to feel like sex was such a great idea.
More than anything, I couldn't get over that feeling of being watched.
The idea of those eyes watching me get naked with Revik didn't exactly turn me on...regardless of how much pain we were both in. It felt like having a creepy neighbor staring in the window of our bedroom. A creepy neighbor who exuded an arrogant, pervy entitlement which made it even yuckier.
As we took the last winding bit of trail over the mountains to the valley where Shadow's headquarters supposedly lived, I could feel the heaviness hanging over the whole group. A few times, I worked with Balidor in the space, trying to find some way of lifting everyone out of that cloud, but 'Dori seemed to think it might be better if we waited. He didn't want to give Shadow any reason to flex that construct, not until we had a better idea of what he had in mind.
As a compromise, Balidor did his best to keep reflecting back the illusions of that space to the seers in our group, so they could at least try to keep their minds clear.
I have no idea if it helped. As long as I was awake, I had my focus on Revik, on trying to keep his light free of those silver threads. I'd already gone over with him––verbally of course––outlines of the different plans Balidor and I had bandied about in our attempts to work around Shadow's construct. Revik and I talked about the strongest of these, then ran them by Wreg and Holo and a few of the others.
By the time we reached the opening of that last stretch of trail, we'd already chosen the leadership party that would accompany us up to Shadow's house.
We even had a plan.
Given our past track record with plans working out the way they were supposed to, and the fact that Shadow might be listening to every word we shared, having that plan was only a dim comfort, but it was better than nothing.
JON DIDN’T FEEL all that hot.
He knew from Allie that some of that might be because of the construct they all currently shared, courtesy of this Shadow guy. Knowing that didn't make it any easier to think clearly, though. It also didn't make Jon feel any better that he, and pretty much everyone he cared about, were in the process of walking directly into the spider's trap. The only thoughts that kept him moving revolved around Cass, and the fact that she might be waiting for them on the other side.
The village on the further end of the mountain pass looked deserted.
Well, not deserted...entirely. He glimpsed a few kids, barefoot despite the cold, running down a dirt path in the distance. Goats stood tethered outside cottage doors, or in pens behind the larger of the stone houses. Down here, the mountains looked small compared to what he'd seen when they parachute-landed at the edge of that final curve of the Andes Mountains in Chile, but the tree-covered cliffs still rose above the sea in jagged shapes, particularly the ones where Casa Shadow itself appeared to be nestled.
Even without knowing the whole score with this guy, 'Shadow' (and who but an egomaniac would call themselves something as melodramatic as 'Shadow' anyway?), Jon pretty much hated the whole setup. Rich asshole on the hill, with his own private pool of human slaves running barefoot and milking goats for him. Meanwhile, he was likely up there sipping chianti while he watched the feeds and ate imported caviar, his feet propped on European-made furniture and encased in designer shoes.
Not a whole lot he saw impressed him so far, although Jon could tell it was designed to seem impressive. He could imagine this Shadow dick smiling down magnanimously at the 'peasants' who adored him for providing them with the occasional headset and working feed monitor. Oh, and for not stealing their wife or daughter to play hide-the-salami up in the big house when he and his upper-echelon minions got bored...
Hearing Wreg snort in amusement, Jon glanced at him, wincing. It occurred to him that he wasn't exactly shielding his thoughts as well as he should've been, given that they were in the middle of some big military thing.
Instead of looking at Jon askance though, the seer gave him an openly affectionate smile, right before he wrapped an arm around Jon's neck and gave him a rather forceful hug. In the same set of seconds, he sent a pulse of pain strong enough that it actually made Jon weak in the knees...and hard...and fighting to breathe for a few heartbeats. When he raised an eyebrow at Wreg in question, the seer smiled wider and leaned down by his ear.
"My fearless, crazy commander," he said, his voice a murmur as he leaned closer to kiss Jon's cheek. "...Half of my men are shitting their pants, scared of this dugra-te di aros, Shadow, and you're yelling insults into the construct as loud as you can think them..."
"Sorry," Jon muttered. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he glanced up at the gated driveway leading to the cliffside house.
"Do not apologize!" Wreg said, smiling again. Still gripping Jon around the neck, he sent him another, denser pulse of pain, lowering his mouth to his ear. "You just gave me a massive hard-on, is all," he murmured. "Distracting, yes, but I can handle it, little brother. Especially if you promise to help me with it later..."
Allie, who was walking not too far away, holding Revik's hand, burst out in a laugh. When Jon glanced over at them, Revik was smiling, too, rolling his eyes.
"Okay, okay," Jon said, waving them off. "Can we focus now, people?"
"You're the one distracting my men," Revik pointed out.
Allie laughed again, even as Jon clicked at them.
"Just...you know, watch that throwing stones thing..." Jon said. "You guys weren't exactly quiet this morning, you know..."
"Whatever you say, Commidante," Revik murmured, giving Allie a wry smile before he glanced up the hill.
It wasn't until then that Jon noticed a man standing at the bottom of that hill, right by the massive organic gate that separated the cobblestone path leading to the village from the hacienda's main driveway.
Well, cobblestone wasn't really accurate. Outside the gates, that 'road' turned into cobblestone briefly, then packed dirt when it met the main thoroughfare into the one-road town. On the other side of the fence, however, the driveway itself looked as slick as glass, despite the stones making up its surface. It appeared as if someone had lain every square inch with hard, rock tiles, chosen in different but similar-appearing colors and sizes. The effect resembled an impressionistic mosaic with the sheen of polished metal, and somehow lent a more elegant but austere introduction to the 'castle-like' vibe of the house above.
The man standing at the gate didn't speak.
Nor did he take his eyes off their party. If the number of seers approaching that gate bothered him in any way, no ripple of that showed on his large-featured face. He wore a neat beard streaked with gray, looking to be a little older than Balidor.
Jon assumed him to be a seer, at any rate. He stood nearly as tall as Revik. Also, his eyes shimmered a bright, new-leaf green, closer to the color of Revik's when he used his telekinesis than Allie's during normal times. He looked like he belonged in a different time period, anyway. Jon could picture him wearing medieval armor, and carrying a jousting lance.
At the thought, Jon glanced behind him, at the hills overlooking the town. The rest of their motley group spread over the cliffs directly above the town and along the winding road that formed the only land access to the area. All of them had pretty much direct line-of-sight to the castle-like house on the hill. Wreg had left the squadron leaders in charge, along with specific (verbal) instructions on what to do, given different situations that might occur with the
smaller party housed inside.
Jon knew their positioning had to be deliberate. As a message if nothing else.
He couldn't help but find the sheer number of them impressive, and somewhat intimidating. He knew only about a third of those 'soldiers' were physically visible, meaning with eyes alone, but the others weren't exactly hidden, either. Wreg assured him that being inside this guy's construct made it pointless to try and disguise their numbers in a real way, so he'd positioned them more to cover as many sides of the house as they could manage, given the geographical constraints. The construct made anything like an ambush pretty much a moot point, so he, Revik and Allie decided they had no reason not to show themselves or their assets plainly. Of course, they still had absolutely no idea what this Shadow guy had at his disposal.
From the lone dude he left at his gate to greet them, Jon couldn't help thinking he didn't seem too worried, though.
In any case, he certainly wanted them to know he wasn't worried.
The gate opened in front of their smaller group of maybe seventeen seers.
Jon started to walk forward, but Wreg stopped him, holding up a muscular arm wrapped in black, organic armor. He sent a pulse to Jon in the same instant, entirely of information that time. Through Wreg's eyes, Jon saw what looked like a web of electrical current. Not electrical exactly...it moved as if the flickering strands and coils were actually alive, climbing over and around the fence like twisting snakes. Jon didn't need Wreg to tell him that the writhing field of whatever-it-was would have killed him instantly, had he touched it.
His light recoiled involuntarily, as if from poison-filled fire. He found himself standing closer to Wreg once he'd recovered, breathing a little harder.
"What the fuck is that?" he muttered.
Wreg's hand squeezed his shoulder briefly. "OBE," Wreg murmured, which told Jon nothing. "Damned powerful one. Makes the one we have on the roof in New York look like a woven basket. Bastards left it up as a warning, I think. They wanted to scare us..."
"It worked," Jon retorted. "Hurray for assholes the world over..."
Once again, Allie burst into a laugh. So did Revik, Holo, Tenzi, Poresh and a few other seers standing near enough to have heard him.
Revik glanced at Wreg, raising an eyebrow.
"You asked why we needed Jon along?" he said innocently.
Wreg shook his head, laughing a little, maybe even at himself. "I will never question you again, laoban," he said, again squeezing Jon's shoulder in his hand. "If we can keep him from killing himself, he will certainly be an asset..."
Jon glanced around at the rest of their immediate party, only half-listening.
He knew most of those who had been chosen to attend dinner inside the hacienda itself. They were essentially the same group invited to the bigger meetings at the House on the Hill hotel in New York. Wreg made the decision to put the outside troops in the hands of the newcomers, and keep their more experienced seers inside. Therefore, as Jon looked around at faces, he saw Holo, Garensche, Jax, Tenzi, Poresh, Sanjay, Chinja, Raddi and Vikram. Illeg came along too, although she still moved stiffly from that fiasco on the beach in San Francisco. Jon knew she'd been in a bad space ever since Revik and Allie broke it to her on the aircraft carrier that her sister, Inge, had been murdered in New York, when Feigran was kidnapped. For the same reason, she'd been adamant about coming along, and neither Wreg nor Revik had really wanted to refuse her. Jon saw Neela towards the back, too, carrying one of those big guns and looking strangely small sandwiched between Jorag and Deklan.
Frankly, Jon had been surprised they'd let him come along.
Of course, they couldn't really guarantee his safety outside, either. Wreg probably wanted him where he could keep an eye on him, in case Shadow attacked the others once Revik and Allie were locked inside his castle.
Jon also got the feeling that Revik wanted him inside, too.
Again, he couldn't help thinking that was probably in case Cass was there.
He watched the guard hit through a key sequence of some kind on the wall of the small security booth by the gate. Once the male seer finished, Jon felt those poisonous snakes begin to retract. The hair on his arms remained faintly raised from his close call with the OBE whatever-it-was, but immediately that tension in his chest loosened. The air itself seemed to flow again, enough that he took a few deeper breaths.
Jon remembered again how close they were to the Antarctic when a gust of wind rolled down from the cliffs and the sea beyond.
Shivering, he glanced at Wreg. The seer's eyes remained hard as he stared at the guard, but when the man waved them forward, Wreg stepped up to take the lead.
"You might have lowered the field before we were in danger of stepping into it...brother," Wreg said, giving the seer another stare as he passed. "Or are these theatrics meant to send us quaking in our boots to the doors of your masters?"
The seer's expression didn't move.
"I was told these would be the ranking infiltrators of the Adhipan," the man replied, without a ripple touching the smooth cadence of his formal Prexci. "...With such a group, I had assumed there would be no need of such caution. A thousand apologies if I was mistaken in this, my blood brother. I assure you...your arrival here is most warmly received..."
Wreg snorted, then glanced back at Jon. His eyes shifted to Revik shortly after.
"Well, laoban?" he said, his hands on his hips. "Do I give the order?"
Revik glanced up at the cliffs, to the house itself, and then back to the line of ex-work camp seers covering the hill over the village.
He nodded to Wreg, once.
"Yes." He looked next at the guard, and that time, his eyes glowed faintly, green rings emanating from his narrow face. Jon couldn't help but think he looked pretty intimidating like that, even to him. "Yes," Revik repeated. "We will accept your master's invitation. Let us hope for his sake it is meant in as good of faith as you suggest. I would hate to think one of our own would wish to provoke open war, in times as troubled as this...?"
The man bowed to him, his hand respectfully in the sign of the Sword.
Jon noticed, however, that he didn't answer Revik's implied question.
Frowning a little in Wreg's direction, Jon walked through the gate along with the rest of the group, rejoining the Chinese seer on the other side when Wreg motioned subtly in his direction. Yet, as Jon crossed the metal tracks that housed the weight of the organic gates, he couldn't help feeling like he'd just been invited into the gingerbread house.
He knew everyone else in their group felt the same way, but that provided a pretty thin comfort, really, given how blind they were, going in.
He glanced again at Allie, and saw that her jaw had hardened. When Revik nudged her, she took his hand, almost as an afterthought. Her eyes focused up at the house then, her green irises darker than Jon remembered them appearing in the past, even during this trip. They held a narrow focus that felt alien to him. He knew the thing with Revik and this Shadow-dick's construct the day before scared her, but now she looked ready for all-out war. He found himself moving closer to her without noticing he did it, until Wreg caught hold of his arm, forcing his attention off her as he pushed Jon to walk faster up the slick, tile-covered hill.
"Are you ready for this?" Wreg asked him softly.
Jon nodded, but his body tensed anyway. He knew what Wreg meant.
They had no idea what kind of condition Chandre, the seers Stanley and Varlan...even Maygar...might be in, when they finally saw them. It was feeling more and more likely Cass would be here, too. Wreg warned him that everything they'd seen with this Shadow so far implied he knew how to use psychology as a tool in getting what he wanted. If he wanted something from them...some compromise from Revik or Allie or both of them, then he would certainly up the ante with those they'd come to rescue.
"...He'll want us to feel we have no choice but to get them out," Wreg had warned him. "He'll want the pressure on the Bridge and the Sword, especially...which mea
ns those nearest and dearest to them. Which means your friend Cass...possibly Nenzi's son." Wreg had been watching Jon's face closely the whole time he explained this, speaking slowly as he did. "...Nenzi knows this, Jon," he said more gently. "He knows it well. It's not so long ago he might have ordered his own people to do the same, if he greatly desired compliance from a powerful rival..."
Hesitating, Wreg added, still watching him, "It's not so long ago I would have done such a thing for him, Jon...if he asked it of me."
That thought hadn't exactly reassured Jon, but he got the basic logic of it.
He knew Wreg was also probably trying, in his own way, to open up to him. Or at the very least, attempting to be transparent. Maybe he wanted to ease him into some of the grimmer facts around who he was...or, at the very least, who he had been. Jon could tell sometimes that the seer worried how Jon might react to him if he knew more, but he appreciated that Wreg wasn't trying to hide those facts about himself, either.
Jon was still turning over Wreg's words when they reached the last stretch of driveway before the front door.
The door itself stood comically large.
Painted dark red and covered in wrought-iron details that again looked more medieval than modern, Jon found his mind comparing it to some of the enormous doors of the Forbidden City in China. In the same moment, he remembered the simple elegance of the Old House on the Hill...the real one, the one that lived in Seertown. That door had been large too, but something about that white, stone building always made Jon feel calm, as if he'd stepped into a cathedral, not some warlord's mansion.
He and Wreg started to slow before the closed door, when someone inside opened it.
More than one someone, Jon soon realized, seeing the row of white-clad servants wearing gloves who stood inside the shadowy entrance of the room. As Jon passed through the opening and into the house, those servants stopped him long enough to pat him down, and Wreg, too. Taking Jon's Glock and even the knife he had tucked into his boot, they smiled politely, assured him his weapons would be returned upon his leaving the castle, and signaled for him when it was okay to pass.
Allie's War Season Three Page 72