Back then, they just liked her.
It was almost worse that Cass couldn’t pin down the exact reasons the real guys always seemed to like Allie more than her. Maybe it was some fragrance of the seer thing, even then. Maybe the quality came from something less definable, something Cass could only understand if she’d had more of it herself. All Cass knew was that she got the drunks and cheats and drug addicts and low-lifes, and Allie got the guys all the other girls wanted. Sure, Allie got stuck with the weird stalkers, too, but even that somehow contributed to her allure, if nothing else by bringing out that protective thing or whatever that a lot of guys seemed to have.
Then, yeah, Allie had Revik.
While that whole thing had its ups and downs, only Allie would end up married to a guy like Revik. Only Allie would have the most infamous seer alive in her bed, or hell, doting on her to the point of mental instability...
Cass's mind stuttered again, echoing with that faraway shot.
...Allie was in charge, the First of the Four. The Bridge. Intermediary. Elaerian. Fabled lover of the Sword. Leader of her people. She was the darling of the Seven, the Adhipan, and now even the rebels. Given all of her lofty titles and important meetings and whatever else, she probably barely missed Cass in all the months since they’d seen one another.
Hell, she’d probably been too busy screwing Revik's brains out to even notice Cass had been gone.
Cass’ head started to pound, hurting her in waves through her thin skin.
She’d been happy once.
Even recently, Cass had been in a happy place...a stupid, childish happy place, but a happy place nonetheless. Behind her eyes, she saw red rocks in the desert, Bags’ dark eyes and wide-lipped smile as she told him about a trip she’d taken with Allie and Jon when they’d all still been in high school. She chatted to him about cave drawings and cactus, vortexes and new age stores, asking his opinion on whether she should get another tattoo. She told him how she planned to check them into their room, seduce him into screwing her for a couple of hours so they could end up on the patio of the hotel’s restaurant before the sun went down, eating kick-ass Mexican food and drinking salt-rimmed margaritas...
All of those images, sounds and smells were gone in a single flash of metal and smoke, only brighter for the harsh glare of the Arizona sun.
Cass knew that echo would stay with her, forever really. Burnt into her mind by the sheer happiness that she’d felt, only seconds before.
But that was Cass’ problem really. Her mom always thought so, anyway.
Cass couldn’t just let things go.
Allie could let go of things. Her dad, her mom, Cass, Jon, Vash, Dorje, Yerin, even Revik...she’d let go of all of them, at one point or another, when she thought she had to. Allie compartmentalized, she fragmented, she avoided or simply sidelined anything that got in the way of the primary objective, which seemed to Cass to consist of something along the lines of 'keep going, no matter what.' Where exactly, Allie was going, had always been the question.
Either she was super zen, or some kind of sociopath.
I like the way you are, a tentative voice said. It whispered in her mind, just as softly, I think the way you are is very good, just as it is, my most Formidable darling...
Cass smiled, in spite of herself.
Will you come back to bed? he whispered. ...After you speak to him?
Cass looked around, coming to a halt on that metal floor. She’d been walking. The bare feet were now stationary below her, and for the first time, Cass realized she was entirely naked. The realization would have bothered her before, but somehow, now it didn’t.
You are beautiful, War Cassandra, the voice murmured, quieter.
Cass felt a flicker of his warmth, the desire that underlay it.
“You are, indeed,” another voice confirmed, holding a faint note of humor.
That one came from outside, from only a dozen yards away.
Cass turned, lifting her eyes from her beige feet with the chipped nail polish.
She gazed at the apparition cutting a shadow over a view port on the side of the floating metal boat that had become her home. The beast had its own heartbeat, its own way of swimming through the waves beneath the waves, its own blood circulating and nervous system and mind that governed every one of its movements.
Cass looked at the man standing there, and saw him looking at her, too, his expression untainted by lust or even that less-definable but ubiquitous want, the one from which no one, seemingly, could escape.
But he did want something from her, Cass remembered.
He was like all the others, really.
Maybe he was worse, if she could believe Revik.
The man felt some fragment of this, because he smiled.
"It is true," he conceded gently. "I do want things, Cassandra. And yes, I want them from you. But realize this, my dearest of intermediaries...it only seems the world wants in this way, hungers in this way, because of who you are. To others, there are only things to want, things that elude them. You are powerful, War Cassandra. The weak always hunger after the strong..."
The gaunt man turned to face her more fully, clasping long, white hands in front of the tailored jacket he wore. His expression didn’t change, apart from a slight lift of his chin.
"...Powerful people are desired,” he added. “Sought out, pressed upon for aid, coveted and envied, secretly loved and just as passionately hated." He shrugged eloquently with one of those pale hands. "...I am not above this, it is true.” He smiled. “Yet, I wish to give you things too, War Cassandra.”
He gave her another of those gentle-seeming smiles.
“...This is partly selfish on my part, too. But it is also what I consider my sacred duty. To help the most powerful of the Four to attain her mission here in the manifest world, as the scriptures dictate, would fulfill me in ways you cannot imagine. This is the true source of my love, pride and conceit..."
Cass frowned. She didn’t look away from him though, studying his face where he stood against the lighter blue-green of ocean, lit by the submarine's lights on the outer hull. Her eyes were pulled briefly by a cruising shark that paced the ship's motions through the water. One of its black eyes rolled white, yellow in the submarine’s lights, right before the knife-like fish darted back into the darker reaches of water.
Still turning over the seer's words, Cass gave a derisive snort.
"Your conceit, huh?" she said, giving him a hard look.
He nodded, his face unmoving. "Yes."
"You don't really believe that," she said.
The seer remained unmoved. "In which respect?" he said only.
"You don't think I'm the most powerful of the Four.” Cass folded her arms, looking past him to that school of fish, their silver sides flashing in the lights of their underwater fortress as they fled the shark. "...Not next to Allie. Certainly not next to Revik...your precious Nenzi."
The man’s thin lips rose in a perceptible smile.
"That's funny?" Cass said, frowning harder. "Really."
"I would never presume to flatter you, Formidable War," he said, clicking mildly under his breath, even as he laid a pale hand on the metal rim around the window. "I am quite serious about what I said. And while I may be deluded about myself and my own motives...I feel I am most definitely clear about you, War Cassandra."
"I'm human," she reminded him bluntly.
"To the undiscriminating eye, yes," he conceded, albeit cryptically. "So was our departed brother, the Shield, if you recall."
"He was Elaerian.”
"He was," the seer agreed at once, smiling faintly. He tapped a long finger thoughtfully on the organic metal edge of the window into the deep water. "...Yet, he chose to incarnate in the same form as you, for much the same reasons, I suspect." His eyes shone amusement briefly from the dark. "...And what race would you presume your soul to be, my dear? Have you forgotten that the Four are also, by definition, of the First Race?"
"Fam
ily," Cass muttered, looking back out the window past him.
"Family, yes," the seer said thoughtfully. "...Indeed."
There was another silence.
Exhaling a bit, Cass folded her arms, gazing into the blue water.
“You really think I’m her, then,” she said, speaking almost to herself. “War.”
The seer smiled, his eyes openly amused.
"So?” Cass said, blowing at her bangs to get them out of her face. “What 'reasons' were they, exactly? Why would I come back like this? Why would Galaith?" Cass gestured down at her own body. “What’s the point, to be only half of what I am?”
"Empathy," the seer said at once. "A deeper understanding of the challenges faced by those of the last race." He paused, as if letting her think about his words. "Tell me something, Formidable Sister. What would you be doing now, back in your home town, as a human? Respectfully...if you were not the most exalted of the Four, but only the lowly human to which you pretend...where would you be? If you had never known the Bridge or the Sword, but continued to live as a human in San Francisco?"
“I’d be dead,” she grunted. “Like everyone else.”
“Pretend that your home town remained intact,” the seer suggested smoothly. “Or that you had moved to a different city, in the intervening years.”
Cass felt her lips purse. After a longer pause, she realized he expected an actual answer and let out an involuntary snort.
"Probably getting drunk at a bar on Haight Street," she said, stuck somewhere between embarrassment and irritation. "...Bitching about one crap job or another. Or some guy I was sleeping with who'd stolen my money." Trailing when an edge of anger crept into her voice, she looked up to see the seer smiling. "...And fuck you," she added, sharper. "If that was supposed to be some exercise in showing me how worthless all of us are."
His smile grew more serious.
"Not worthless," he corrected gently. "Confused, War Cassandra. And whether they were once or not, they are not your people anymore, Formidable One.”
Cass gave him a harder stare.
"If they aren't my people, then who is?" she said. "If you mean Allie and Revik––"
"I do mean them," he cut in. "I also mean Feigran and Galaith and all of those who chose to stay behind for the betterment of the lesser races."
"You're saying I'm Elaerian," she said.
"Most certainly you are," he said, patient. "Was there ever any doubt?”
Cass blinked, then felt her mouth twist in a frown.
"Am I telekinetic?" she demanded.
"That, I do not know," he said, sighing a bit as he folded his hands. "I would very much like to help you find out, though, War Cassandra. I suspect that you have come to this incarnation much more heavily armed than your wildest dreams would suspect. Whatever words and beliefs best suit your living form at this time...”
Cass stared at him warily.
She strongly suspected she knew what he meant, when he said he’d like to ‘help’ her find her abilities. Cass had seen Revik's back...up close and personal, in fact. Cass also sat holding Allie one night after Revik turned back into Syrimne, listening while her friend cried and told her and Jon in excruciating detail, exactly how Revik got a lot of those scars. Maybe because she was upset, or maybe because she didn't think about what Jon and Cass had already seen Revik endure at the hands of Terian, Allie told them a lot. She told them pretty much everything she knew that Revik’s uncle had done to him, or paid to have done to him, primarily to wake up his telekinetic abilities.
Cass had seen the scars. She knew Allie hadn't been exaggerating.
Layers upon layers marred Revik's skin, covering his back from his collar to his waist, bad enough in places that his skin shone nearly white. Baguen told her once how difficult it was to scar a seer. They healed so much more quickly and completely than humans, especially when they were young––
"It won't be like that for you," the ancient seer told her softly. "The Sword's path is the hardest in this...as all the scriptures foretell."
"You made sure of that," she muttered, feeling her jaw harden.
The ancient seer went on as if she hadn't spoken.
"....He is the first to arrive. His is the sole light on this world, with the responsibility to reignite that flame...'so that, like the first Light, he could touch it to the others and thus share what he has wrought through blood and sweat and effort.’” The seer purred softly, inclining his head. “It is his honor. And his curse."
"More scripture," Cass muttered, watching a sunfish as the submarine glided past. "I'm sure he appreciated that, growing up. I'm sure it was a real comfort for him."
"He grew to understand his role, yes. He accepted it."
"Bullshit," she retorted. "He had no choice.”
"...Nor do any of us," the seer reminded her softly. "I did not design his fate, War Cassandra. He understood that, too, once upon a time. Until his wife corrupted his mind." Pausing, he held his lips tightly together before continuing. Cass saw the cold hatred that flared there, right before he slipped back into his usual repose. "...For her, the time spent among humans was a handicap, not a benefit.”
“According to scripture, she’s in charge,” Cass reminded him.
The seer made a noncommittal gesture with one hand.
“Not the scriptures I believe,” he said. Pausing, he added, “There is more to that piece I quoted above. Would you like to hear it?”
She didn’t answer, but he seemed to take her silence as permission.
“‘...The last spark of all will need the least to ignite, for Hers shines the brightest, in the very darkest of times...’”
Meeting her eyes, he made his voice more stern, almost a command.
“You are wrong, War Cassandra,” he said. “It is not you who refuses to let go of the past. It is her...your sister, the Bridge. You remember what is important. She remembers what is convenient...whatever allows her to retain her previous views on the world. It has always made her weak, this refusal to face reality.” The Sark shrugged eloquently with the same hand. "Perhaps it was too easy for her. Perhaps she was too sheltered by the Seven in those formative years, when she most needed an education."
An image flickered in Cass' mind, of her own father, drunk, kicking in the door handle to her room, his face shining with sweat from the hallway light. She heard her mother's voice rising on the other side, even as her father’s eyes lit on Cass herself. She saw the hatred there. He shouted at her in Thai, then in broken English, then more Thai...his words slurring until Cass was almost grateful, almost relieved when she could no longer make sense of what he said.
The old seer’s voice broke into her reverie.
"Yes," the seer agreed, his voice soft. "Yes, it was hard for you, War Cassandra. You know what they are capable of...more than most. More importantly, you face that truth honestly, with dignity. With truth itself." He sighed, giving a graceful wave of one hand. "That is not 'holding on,' my dearest of friends. That is learning. That is taking what you need from the experience your incarnation offered you, and using it to benefit."
"And what 'experience' will you offer me?" Cass said. She let the sarcastic edge hit her voice harder that time. "...Will they be filled with butterflies and puppies and rainbows?"
"Oh, most assuredly, they will hurt," the seer conceded smoothly, his face and tone unapologetic. "But you are stronger now, War Cassandra. You have proved that. You have proved it again and again. And the duration will be short, even in terms of subjectivity. A mere blink in the totality of this life that spreads before you..."
"Like Revik?" She gave him a harder look.
"No."
"How long?" she pressed.
"A fortnight at best," he replied without hesitation, surprising her by being specific. "As much as ten months, if you are particularly resistant to the process. But I don't foresee that you will be, and I am rarely wrong about such things." Pausing again, as if waiting for her to think about his words,
he added, "As I said, I am rarely wrong about such things. I also generally estimate in the conservative."
She snorted a little. "I bet."
"Without exception," he said. “We all have our basic natures, I’m afraid.”
Still watching him warily, Cass finally shook her head, but not really in a 'no.' Her eyes shifted back to the dark-green waves. Now she could see nothing but vague shapes in the curl of water pushed backwards by the prow of the underwater ship. After watching the water shimmer past for a few seconds more, she sighed again, feeling her stomach growing cold.
"What do you want from me?" Cass frowned, remembering Revik's back, the scars that now practically defined him. The echoes of pain from her time with Terian followed, the memories from that ice-like cave under the snow of the Caucasus Mountains.
The flash of a gun under the Arizona sun.
"...Besides my body, that is,” she said. “Besides my ability to withstand pain?"
"You will not withstand this, my dear," the seer told her, his voice holding the barest tinge of sadness. "Not in the way you mean."
Cass nodded, folding her arms tighter as she glanced back at the green water. Something about his honesty was a relief. She followed bubbles with her eyes as they cascaded up and back across the thick, organic pane, moving faster as they reached the widest edge of the curve.
Her shoulders slowly began to relax.
She knew, in the way a person always knows such things, what she wanted.
Maybe she’d always known.
Either way, the decision had already been made.
1
HUMVEE
I THOUGHT I knew about death.
I knew enough to know that you never get used to it.
You don't get used to it when it happens gradually, like from a disease like multiple sclerosis. You don't get used to it when it happens suddenly, like seeing a friend gunned down in front of you. The how of it is incidental, really, when it happens to someone you love.
I thought I'd gotten past the soul-crushing finality of it, though. I thought I’d outgrown that feeling that nothing would ever be right again.
Allie's War Season Three Page 78