“You’re sure Jon is down here, too?” Balidor said.
Wreg gave him a hard look. “We traced the mole. It was Jon.”
“Jon?” Balidor blinked, staring.
When Wreg didn’t speak, Balidor’s voice turned hard.
“Wreg...that’s not possible. You must know that.”
Wreg shook his head. “He’s not an agent of Shadow. Someone got him on the docks...before we got on that fucking sub...” He finished with another gun and handed that one to Balidor, too. “...I’d been wondering how he got down to that crate,” he said, his voice harder. “I couldn’t get a straight answer out of him. I couldn’t get anyone else to admit to having done it, either...”
Wreg’s scowl deepened, turning his face into a mask.
“...I thought they were afraid I’d be pissed off that they’d touched him. But something about Jon not remembering how he got there bugged me. I should have put them all through security scans, found out for sure...”
Balidor felt another cold layer of shock settle over his light, but he only shook his head. “Do not waste thoughts on regret now, brother,” he advised. “We need your mind elsewhere.”
Wreg gave him a harder look, but only nodded.
He barely paused before saying, "Chan’s got Jorag and Neela trying to get through the walls down below.” His voice grew toneless once more. "They say the whole wall's caved in on that side. They’re cut off from the security area entirely..."
"That was the explosion," Balidor muttered. "They've got sewer access, I assume?"
"Yes."
"Tell them not to wait. Have them try to get around that way.”
"Already did,” Wreg said with a nod. He didn’t look up from shelves covered in hand-held explosives, his black eyes sharp. “...They’re stuck down there now,” he added emotionlessly. “Chan claims there’s too much structural damage. They'll only cave the whole basement in if they try to break down the walls from that end. I have them moving stone manually...called everyone down to help without leaving the upper floors unprotected..."
Balidor nodded, but the knots in his chest and stomach only hardened.
“What about the Bridge?” he said. “Any word?”
“Helicopter left the top of the building twenty minutes ago,” Wreg said.
Balidor felt that sick feeling worsen, but shunted it aside. “Ditrini?”
“Cell’s empty. I’ve got orders out to kill that fucker on sight.”
Balidor only nodded to that, too, but felt his jaw harden to granite, realizing how close he’d come to solving that problem himself, less than a week earlier.
“Are they trying to extract the Sword too, do you think?” Wreg asked.
Balidor shook his head, his mind still elsewhere. “I don’t know. We have to proceed as if that were the case. We’ll need him to track Allie...” Feeling that sick feeling worsen, Balidor tried to shake it off, even as Wreg clasped his arm, tight enough to hurt.
“Hold it together, Adhipan,” the ex-rebel said, his voice a near-threat. “We need you, too. You fall apart right now, and I’ll shoot you myself, I swear it...”
Balidor nodded, smiling wanly in spite of himself. “Noted.” Forcing clarity back to his mind, he said, “She might want them. Cass, I mean. She might want Nenz. Jon, too.”
Wreg didn't look surprised, but Balidor felt the coil of pain that came off his light, along with a pulse so dangerous that Balidor flinched, stepping back from him in reflex...no mean feat, given Balidor’s own mental state. Without waiting, Wreg had turned and was already heading for the door. He didn’t bother to look back to see if Balidor followed.
Somewhere in that, Balidor imagined he felt Cass, too.
Watching them. Perhaps even orchestrating this, even more than Shadow at this point.
"Yeah," Wreg said, from next to him, handing Balidor another of those small, cylindrical grenades as he reached over to fill his other vest pocket with flares. "I feel it, too. They're screwing with us, for sure. I feel that fucker Ditrini now, too..."
"A diversion, to keep us from following her?" Balidor muttered.
"Too much bait?" Wreg said grimly. "Agreed. I’m not sure we have much choice, though. We’ll need Nenz to find her now..."
Balidor glanced at him, and in the ex-rebel’s obsidian eyes, he saw the same understanding that had reached Balidor himself. Of course, Wreg also clearly knew that it wouldn't make any difference. Knowing they were being funneled into a trap didn't change anything. Knowing they were being lured, that their construct had been breached, that everything felt orchestrated to make them so desperate that they did something stupid, none of it changed the basic facts. It might make them marginally more cautious, but truthfully, Balidor doubted that, too.
“We play his little game then,” he muttered, glancing at Wreg.
“Or hers,” the ex-rebel agreed.
He didn’t slow his muscular strides down the hall as he said it.
Without slowing his own strides in the hallway, either, Balidor found himself thinking about how Jon must feel right now, knowing he’d likely just led his own sister to her death. He wondered if he even knew yet. If he was with Dehgoies, he’d be lucky if the Elaerian didn’t kill him. He glanced at Wreg as he thought it, but the seer only shook his head, once.
"He won’t,” Wreg said. “The rest of it doesn’t matter. Let’s get them out, first...pick up the pieces later.”
Balidor nodded, but he felt the swell of grief on the seer as he said it, and knew the same thought had occurred to Wreg already, meaning about how Jon would likely react to this once everything fell out. Neither of them wanted to think about where the Bridge was by now, nor what Shadow might do to her, pregnant or not.
“What about Cass?” Balidor said cautiously. “If she’s telekinetic, do we take her out?”
“Nenz’s call,” Wreg said, gesturing dismissively.
“It may have to be ours,” Balidor warned him.
Wreg glanced at him, without slowing his strides as he continued to round the corner. “I vote yes. Especially if she’s telekinetic. If Chan’s right, she’s traumatized. Shadow activated her prematurely, just like he did with Nenz. Probably broke her mind in the process, if she’s turned on Jon and Allie this fast. We can’t risk it...we take her out...”
Thinking about this, Balidor nodded slowly.
He didn’t disagree with the ex-rebel’s reasoning, but the idea still gave him pause. Not only was Cass clearly an intermediary, she was one of the Four. Further, Allie herself might never forgive either of them if they killed her, even if they did it to save Allie’s own husband.
More than any of those, however, Balidor himself didn’t want to do it.
The idea of killing Cassandra Jainkul, the person Balidor knew and cared about and worked alongside and even briefly had a crush on, made him feel sick. Whether she was telekinetic or not, to kill Cass now, before any of them had a chance to talk to her, much less to assess whether she could be brought back, felt wrong in a way that Balidor couldn’t even adequately communicate to himself, much less to Wreg.
“Yeah,” Wreg sighed. “Jon will never forgive me, either.”
Balidor only nodded to that, not answering.
"But we need to get right with it,” Wreg added sharper, looking at him. "So will Jon. Either we kill her now, when she's only a baby demon, brainwashed and brow-beaten by Shadow and Terian and whoever else...or we face the full-grown hydra later on...” Pausing, he made his mouth a grim line. “You can't possibly tell me that you don't think we'd be doing her a favor at this point? Or do you really want to see her go through what Menlim did to Nenz?"
Balidor nodded, feeling his jaw clench more.
Even so, he made himself say it aloud.
"Yes,” he acknowledged. “...I agree. If we cannot capture her, and the opportunity presents itself, we should kill her...”
Wreg only nodded in reply.
They made the final turn towards the section of tunnel
that had been blocked by the first set of explosions. As Wreg pinged that part of the construct to give the excavation team warning of their arrival, Balidor glimpsed the aleimic signatures of Illeg, Deklan, Loki, Torek, Gunte and Oli, along with at least a dozen other seers, some of whom Balidor knew only by their aleimic signature, charted for security purposes.
Seconds later, he saw them, too.
It only took a few more seconds before he found he recognized the explosives they were stacking in key pieces around the debris.
“Are you ready for this?” Wreg asked him grimly.
Balidor nodded, his eyes still on the explosives as he unholstered his gun. “Do it,” he said. “Now, brother.”
18
CALCULATIONS
REVIK GLANCED AT Jon first, when the next set of explosions started.
Despite the collars around both of their necks, it seemed almost as if Jon felt the tremor in the rock the same way Revik himself did. Perhaps Jon even felt it through him somehow, some kind of sympathetic ricochet through both of their light.
Unfortunately, Ditrini seemed to feel it, too, well enough to ID the source.
"Adhipan..." he murmured. He glanced at Revik, giving him a thin smile without slowing his pace. "He is not happy at all, about our acquisition of our precious girl...”
Revik didn't let himself respond.
Even so, something in his face must have struck the older infiltrator as expressive anyway. Ditrini chuckled, yanking sharply on the chain he had attached to the collar around Revik's neck. Revik let it jerk him forward, not fighting him. Despite everything, that crystalline sharpness hadn’t left his light...or his mind. If anything, it had grown more intense.
“Don’t worry, brother Sword,” Ditrini smiled. “I fully intend to let you play this time. Our sponsors have promised that I could invite you both over for parties, when you’re feeling well enough...perhaps even your lap dog here, too,” he added, tugging on Jon’s neck.
Revik ignored that, too.
He knew the purpose of the chains, symbolically and otherwise.
He got a few other smatterings of Ditrini’s thoughts before they cut off his sight, all of them aimed at screwing with his head, and likely meant to enrage him beyond where he could think clearly. Revik didn't care. He barely registered Ditrini at all at this point, other than as an obstacle. He remained silent because logic told him it made the most sense.
He would think about the actual captivity once he was faced with it. Still, if Ditrini thought things would go that smoothly with Revik himself in that area, or that he would be that easy to break with torture, he really was an idiot.
That, or Shadow had been lying to him, too.
Ditrini chuckled again, glancing at him.
"Perhaps I'm simply more skilled at training wives than you are, Dehgoies," he said, smiling. "...As well as husbands. You didn't get to see how compliant she was while we were together before. I look forward to showing you everything you missed out on, my brother..."
Revik didn't answer.
Luckily, he didn't have to pretend an emotional reaction that time, either.
Another low rumble of explosions shook the walls and floors of the heavy cement pipe, knocking loose silt on either side and sending rocks tumbling into the water at the bottom of the curve. The underground passage felt deeper than what Revik remembered from him and Allie robbing that bank, what felt like a hundred years ago now. It also smelled older, mustier, more caked in mud and mold and layers of old water. His aleimi didn't like this place; he could feel that much, even with the collar. He wondered if he was feeling more of that secondary, city-wide construct that he and Allie had noticed being built, when they first docked the submarine on Manhattan’s shores.
The thought made him swallow, when he realized how long ago that felt, too.
Still, that focus didn’t waver. He didn’t let specifics through, but he continued to scan the walls with his eyes. He already knew his exact range of motion with the chains. He knew where he was injured, as well as how it might slow him down. He’d marked every fork in the tunnel, every direction, the slope of the floors, how many steps he’d taken...
The cement walls trembled again.
Revik wondered if Wreg and the others knew where they were. If so, they had to know also that they risked a cave-in, coming at them from above.
It was also possible they were under attack, too.
Once Ditrini averted his gaze, Revik glanced at Jon again, and saw the same understanding on his face. If Wreg and the others were breaking out the heavy firepower already, they knew Allie was gone. Things were going to get hot, fast. Revik had no doubt that Wreg would pull out the stops, at this point less for him than for his own mate. Balidor would be with him, Chan, Yumi, Jorag and whoever else would be coming, too. The last rumble originated from far enough away that Revik assumed they must have cut his team off from the main basement, well before Ditrini and his minions forced them down into the sewer tunnels.
So, along with whoever had Allie, Ditrini also had a significant head start. Enough of one that he could lose them, assuming he had some kind of transport lined up.
“Cass took her,” Jon managed. “I brought her to Cass...”
Revik turned sharply, staring at him. “You’re remembering?”
“Yes.” Tears filled Jon’s eyes, even as he shook his head. “Gods, Revik...”
“It’s not your fault,” Revik said sharply.
That time, he even meant it.
His mind did, anyway.
Still, it was Jon’s confession that first threatened to break through the more logical veneer. A hard pain rose in his chest, swallowing his mind in a feeling of helplessness that he briefly had to fight to control. The logic fought to kick back in, shifting back and forth. He felt it waver, right before the emotion receded, leaving the rest bare, little more than words in the empty rooms of his mind.
He tried to decide if it would be better to try and escape now, or let Ditrini lead him to Allie. Ditrini would be going wherever they had Allie. That much, Revik knew. The thought echoed, even as Revik tried to think around his other options. He didn’t let thoughts of Allie's condition into his mind at all, or how frightened she must have been, blind, and suddenly finding herself betrayed by her own brother.
Shunting the images soundlessly from his mind, he thought through the spaces where he could still maneuver. He defined whatever wiggle room he still had, however small.
Ditrini still only had a few people with them at this point. It might be the most vulnerable he got. Eventually, there would be an opening. However small.
There always was. Transports of this kind were never clean.
Ditrini had the levels on all three of their collars cranked up so high that Revik had nearly knocked himself unconscious the one and only time he ventured to test those limits. Even so, Revik had spent enough time studying the intel on both Shadow and Ditrini to be able to hazard a few guesses on how they planned to get him out. In this case, the possibility of Shadow being Menlim might actually help him. He remembered his uncle well enough to know a number of things he wouldn't do, at the very least.
Assuming that either of them had been the ones to plan this extraction, that is.
Revik now strongly suspected that Cass might have been more involved than he'd initially let himself contemplate. He didn’t know where the feeling came from, but he trusted it. She was one of the Four. Of course he would have insight into her mind, however small. Her connection to Allie only strengthened that likelihood.
Revik honestly couldn't decide if Cass planning things was the good news or the bad. Revik dealt with Allie's own unpredictability on that front often enough to know it couldn't be wholly underestimated, whatever she might lack in direct military experience.
Anyway, Cass had Ditrini to help her with that end. Feigran, too. If Shadow hadn’t planned this, he could easily be acting as an advisor, or worse, manipulating her outright.
For now, Di
trini was his immediate problem.
The bastard hadn't even bothered to gas them. He seemed to want them awake, Revik especially, maybe just to prove he didn't consider him a threat. Maybe he was still pissed off at what Revik had done to him in San Francisco, and kept him awake to prove a point, or maybe he just didn't want to carry either of them, given how much it might slow him down.
Maybe Ditrini wanted to keep Revik conscious to use him to control Allie, assuming he intended to reunite them soon.
Or maybe he just did it because he was a prick.
Either way, Revik's jaw, temple, kidneys and ribs hurt from the ten or so minutes of hand-to-hand that preceded them finally getting him down on the ground. The Lao Hu training was good, he'd give them that. Allie had warned him as much, but it still gave him a small pulse of satisfaction that it took four of them to get him down long enough to cuff him. It was a pretty hollow satisfaction, all in all, but it kept him from thinking about the rest, for a little while, anyway. Like the fact that he might not be able to do anything at all to help Allie at this point, not even with his physical body.
Clearly someone had told Ditrini that Revik's telekinesis had been knocked out. If they hadn't, he never would have dared to voice that taunt over the loudspeaker of Maygar's cage in the first place, much less open the door to go after him physically.
He'd definitely known Revik couldn’t hurt him.
Jon got hit with a taser before he could begin to fight.
They didn't use the same on Maygar for some reason, but set two guards on him, instead, to subdue him by force, like they had with Revik. Maybe they were worried that the voltage could trigger some kind of telekinetic response?
Revik would have to look into that, as well, because of everything that happened in that organic cell, that was the thing that felt the most like it carried Menlim's stamp.
Or someone else who knew a hell of a lot about telekinetic seers.
Maygar fought, too...and well, Revik couldn't help noticing.
Even so, two more guards, either Lao Hu or well-trained disciples of Shadow, eventually took him down, as well.
Allie's War Season Three Page 120