Allie's War Early Years

by JC Andrijeski

  “Are you about to tell me I’m going to die, sister?” he said.

  It looked like an attempt at humor. It even sounded like one, but she didn’t feel anything like humor in his light.

  “No,” Kali said, smiling at him. “Nothing like that.”

  His frown deepened. She watched him tilt the glass with the bourbon, causing the ice slivers to swirl lazily inside the amber fluid. He looked up at her again.

  “But you came all the way here,” he said. “It can’t be trivial.”

  “It’s not,” she said, her voice more serious that time. “Particularly not to me.”

  He nodded, but his eyes appeared distant once more.

  She wondered if he were attempting to scan her again, even as his mind seemed strangely preoccupied with sex, still, and the woman in the pool, as well as the shape of Kali’s own body outlined by the form-fitting dress. It seemed almost to be a defense mechanism with him, however. She felt more of a pushing away from the invasiveness of his light than the reverse, and wondered if he’d learned to keep others away from him by being inappropriate in that regard, as well.

  But he must have heard that, too, or some small part of it.

  His light retracted.

  “Apologies, sister,” he murmured. “I am simply confused.”

  “I would be surprised if you were not,” Kali said.

  Still, the politeness touched her.

  Leaning closer impulsively, she clasped his arm, sending him a pulse of warmth.

  The gesture made him wince, both with his body and his light, but he didn’t pull away. He didn’t look up from his glass, either.

  “I mean you no harm, Revik,” she told him, quieter.

  “Why would you wish me anything else, beautiful sister?” he said, smiling faintly, but without humor.

  “I wish only to help you,” she assured him, ignoring the hardness behind his words. “My reasons for this may be selfish in part, but they are no less sincere for that... and no less urgent.”

  He raised those clear eyes that time, meeting her gaze directly.

  The bitterness there lay undisguised.

  Rather than pushing her away, however, Kali found that the look there drew her that time. He was a person, after all... and a seer. She could glimpse both things behind that silver intensity of light. Enough so that she felt that silver, strangling light react to Kali’s own aleimi with colder, darker sparks of anger. She had hurt his feelings with her admission of selfishness, as much as she knew she could never persuade him to admit that fact. Whoever held his leash these days did not like him opening himself up enough to make himself that vulnerable.

  The fact that he still could open himself, though, at least to a degree, reassured her.

  “I will have a daughter,” she said, direct. “In a number of years.”

  Again, that wince. Again, a flicker of surprise crossing those clear eyes.

  Again, he did not interrupt her, however.

  She liked that about him, she realized.

  Taking another breath, she continued.

  “...For you to be with her, at least in the way you are meant to be with her,” Kali added carefully. “You cannot remain with this group... the Org. You cannot. It is of the utmost importance that you hear me on this point, Dehgoies Revik.”

  He gave her an incredulous look, his narrow mouth now curled in a suspicious frown.

  “You cannot,” Kali repeated. “I do not mean this as a matter of morality––”

  His hard voice cut hers off.

  “What do you mean it as, then, sister?” he said.

  That angry bitterness had fallen back over his light, closing him off, even touching his eyes, turning them into one-way glass rather than those clear panes she had just witnessed.

  Kali took another breath, without letting go of his arm.

  “I mean it as a matter of practicality,” she explained, stroking his brown skin. “I mean, you will not find her through them. It will separate the two of you, if you remain with them... it will be more of a barrier than either of you can surmount.”

  He gave her another, deeper look of disbelief.

  Then he leaned back abruptly in the wooden chair.

  He moved fast... hard enough to force a loud creak from the chair’s hinges.

  He slid his arm out from under her touch as he did it, but did not move it any further than that. Despite the distance he had forced between them, Kali found herself aware of the reality of him once more. She could smell his sweat, feel the flicker of nerves and confusion in his light, like feathers over her own. She found herself noticing a white scar that curled up his neck from under the collar of the jacket, and a dark stain on the lower part of his black shirt, a smudge of dirt and dust on the other side of his neck. She found herself aware of the bones of his chest showing in the V made by his t-shirt’s neck, the faint shadow of stubble on his cheeks.

  It was difficult not to touch him. The aloneness there was overpowering, when she sat so close to him. She wondered if his girlfriend helped him at all with this.

  He gave a low, humorless grunt, his eyes hardening as he raised the glass to his lips.

  She watched his adam’s apple move as he took a long couple of swallows.

  But his light didn’t change, despite the distance in his eyes.

  She felt his light continue to touch hers, in fact, almost compulsively now, a kind of panicked tremble there, somewhere, in the vicinity of his heart, along with a harder desire, something that probably wouldn’t be slaked by the woman in the bikini who now sidestroked through the pool in front of them, still trying to catch his eye.

  “Why should I care about your daughter?” he said, lowering the glass.

  “You will care,” Kali assured him. “In fact, I strongly suspect you will care deeply, even if you choose to remain with your Org. You have a past connection, you and she...”

  His mouth curled into a harder frown.

  Seemingly caught in indecision, he abruptly leaned back over the table towards her. She saw the sweat on his forehead, sticking his black hair to his temples and the sides of his neck. His light swam over hers, seeking information, but also seeking contact for that other pull.

  She felt it more clearly than the whisper of air from the fans behind where they sat.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he said, his voice a near-growl.

  She almost heard his heart beating in his chest.

  “She is the Bridge,” Kali said simply.

  The angry arrogance faded from his eyes, leaving them nearly blank.

  “...She will be, anyway,” Kali added, softer. “And you are meant to know her, little brother. You are meant to know her well...”

  He blinked, once.

  He didn’t lean back, though, or move away from the touch of her fingers that time, which she found herself running over his skin a second time, maybe to reassure him, or to keep him nearer to her. His breath seemed to catch, and she didn’t see him let it out again.

  Kali kept on talking, knowing she might lose him anyway, that this might be her only chance to get it out before he got up and walked away from her entirely.

  “I am risking much by telling you this,” she added quickly, her voice growing increasingly tense as her mind toyed fearfully with the truth of her own words. “...You must realize how much I risk. I am risking the lives of myself and my mate. I am risking our incarceration... as well as hers. I am risking her very life, even knowing its preciousness... and not only to me. I am risking that you might share this information with your current masters, and try to take her from me...”

  Kali met his gaze, her voice firm.

  “But I have no choice,” she said. “You are too important for me not to tell you the truth, brother... whatever you tell yourself now, about your lack of connection to the rest of us...”

  Kali knew that the polite veneer of her speech and light had fallen by now, even before she heard the denser note that seeped into her wo
rds, making them resonant, but also trembling his aleimi from where he stared at her, speechless.

  “You must know what is at stake,” she said, subduing her voice. “And you must know her, brother Revik. She will utterly fail here in her work if you do not.” Taking another breath, Kali heard that resolve seep back into her voice as she added, leaning closer to him, “If you do not get away from these people, brother, you never will know her. You will try, brother, yes. She will try, too... you will not be able to help yourselves. But you will fail...”

  Kali leaned closer, boring her stare into those colorless eyes.

  “Do you understand me, brother?” she whispered, studying his face, following every nuance of expression. “...Do you understand what I am saying to you now?”

  Dehgoies Revik stared at her, his eyes still lost in that shock. That time, the flicker she saw glance over his expression was easier to read, at least in terms of the base response.

  It was fear.

  HE LEFT NOT long after that.

  Kali had suspected he would, as soon as she saw that fear begin to take over his light. She couldn’t even remember the exact excuse he had given in order to remove himself from her presence, and, more especially, her light. His words had borne so little relationship to what she felt from him, they hadn’t remained in her mind long enough for her light to record their essence.

  Once he had gone, her own fears returned, sharper than before.

  He could be returning to his masters, even now.

  He could be reporting her to them, telling them what she’d said.

  Or, perhaps worse, he could be telling that other seer, the one he’d befriended in another odd, ironic twist of fate or cosmic accident.

  The one they called Terian, for now, at least.

  Kali knew him by other names as well. She also knew, from watching the two of them together from behind the Barrier, that Terian tended to bring out the very worst in Dehgoies Revik, in terms of his baser instincts and impulses. The one exception to that rule seemed to reside, again oddly, in that strange protective streak Dehgoies seemed to harbor in regards to Terian himself. While roughly the same age, Dehgoies Revik somehow maintained the role of older brother or mentor between the two of them, taking a kind of fraternal interest in the other’s overall emotional state and stability (or lack thereof, as the case often seemed to be). He also seemed to have taken it upon himself to try and curb Terian’s more obvious excesses due to his predilections and lack of self-control.

  He even got Terian to retain most of those baser instincts into a single, indivisible form. That same form appeared to be the one that spent the most time with Revik, and the same one that Revik spent the most time both indulging and helping to control. Given that Terian formed a unique type of ‘experiment’ for the Org, in the sense that he’d been granted the ability to split his person into more than one form, by housing pieces of his aleimi in different bodies... Dehgoies’ ability to influence Terian’s schizophrenic make-up as a result of this splitting process was no mean feat.

  Kali strongly suspected that Terian would have created many more versions of himself, if it hadn’t been for Dehgoies’ influence. As it was, at Kali’s last count, Terian had at least six bodies now, housing different parts of his memories, personality traits, and skill sets. She also knew, from watching those bodies from the Barrier, that some were entirely psychopathic in nature, while others had the temperament of a monk or a kindly schoolteacher.

  Kali actually thought Terian might be a few years older than the dark-haired Dehgoies, but that did little to impede the older-brother to younger-brother relationship dynamic between them. That same dynamic also seemed to thrust them together, again and again, within the auspices of the Org’s own operational structure and assignments.

  The flip side of that, of course, was that when Dehgoies himself was feeling the desire to indulge that baser side of his own personality, Terian was generally the first person he called.

  If Terian learned of the impending birth of the Bridge, Kali would have to flee, she knew.

  She knew Terian and Dehgoies both shared a preoccupation with the ancient Myths. She knew why, too, although they may not have known the truth themselves. That Terian would react to news of the Bridge’s impending incarnation, Kali did not doubt in the slightest. From what she had read of him, Terian would turn the news into an obsession, not resting until he had both Uye and Kali in his custody, and doing whatever he could to bind himself to the fetus before her birth.

  Kali knew Uye likely had watched their interaction in the Barrier, and was following Dehgoies to see what he would do now, too.

  She wondered if the reality of their daughter’s life felt any more real to him now, in seeing, up close and personal, this man who would inevitably cross paths with her following her birth.

  For, whatever Dehgoies’ final decision, he would know her.

  Even as Kali thought it, her mate’s presence grew stronger in her light.

  You did that clumsily, he told her, his mind holding a sharper rebuke.

  Feeling the worry there, Kali did not take offense.

  I know, she answered only, sighing. But now he knows.

  Now he knows, Uye agreed. But what will he do with that information, my love?

  That is up to him, my love, Kali reminded him gently.

  Uye didn’t answer that in so many words, but she managed to get his opinion of her views on Dehgoies Revik’s relative free will and its likely outcomes, anyway. Sending him warmth through the connection in light they shared, Kali eased out from under his direct inspection and that almost suffocating worry, mainly so she could think about what to do next.

  She could not leave Saigon, not yet.

  She definitely suspected Dehgoies Revik would want to talk to her about this again. She saw no reason to make that difficult for him, and she still needed to know what he would do with the information she had given him already.

  He would definitely wish to talk to her again.

  She just didn’t know when... or in what form that would manifest.

  Nor did she know if he would try to talk to her before or after he attempted to imprison her in the name of his Rook masters, so that they might have ownership of her future offspring.

  Kali gave herself a few minutes before she rose from her own wooden folding chair. She watched the white woman from before ascend the steps of the pool, shaking out her long hair before she draped herself over a sunbathing lounger. When she looked back over her shoulder to where Dehgoies Revik had previously sat, Kali saw the flicker of disappointment in the female human’s light. She seemed to get over it quickly, though, arranging herself comfortably on the cushioned lounger and placing a white towel under her head before she closed her eyes.

  The men at the bar continued to look at both the woman in the bathing suit and Kali herself periodically, but they were on their second round of drinks by now, and their tongues had loosened. They downed scotches even faster than Dehgoies had, discussing the politics of the world in loud, sharp voices, displaying their cynicism and attempts at worldliness with every other word... often without realizing they were often the same thing.

  Kali didn’t really listen to their dissection of the current state of Saigon itself, or the war, either, or their observations about the scandal around Watergate, including Nixon’s final words and actions leading up to his recent resignation.

  She wondered how long it would take Dehgoies Revik to come looking for her.

  Somehow, she knew she wouldn’t need to find him the next time.

  At the thought, she again felt her mate.

  I do not care who he is, Uye told her, his voice a quieter murmur. Anger seeped into his words, coloring his light, and hers. I do not care how much you confuse him, for what you are, Kali. I will kill him, if he rapes you... if he abuses you in any way...

  He will not rape me, she assured him.

  But after she had again disentangled herself from Uye, Kali found her
self hoping she was right about that, too.

  She was just rising from her chair, when the sound of gunfire jerked her eyes up from the languid quiet of the pool.

  The men at the bar fell silent, too, and the woman in the bikini sat up, staring at the glass doors leading into the hotel, almost as if she expected someone to walk through them, holding an automatic rifle and lobbing grenades towards the pool.

  Kali was just about to continue her walk to the doors of the hotel, when a loud booming sound shook the ground under her feet.

  IT SHATTERED THE glass doors that led into the hotel, even as smoke rose in a black column from the other side of the building, where the street stretched across the front.

  Kali dropped to a crouch, half under the table, without thought.

  She moved faster than any of the humans.

  Then again, she’d likely seen more wars than any of them, too.

  Without sparing the men or the white-jacketed bartender more than a glance, Kali headed for the alley to the side of the hotel, walking at a fast crouch for the street itself. She’d learned over the years that it was generally better to know what was going on before attempting to decide on the best course of action in response.

  She couldn’t quite make herself believe her interaction with Dehgoies had anything to do with whatever this was, but a part of her needed to verify that for certain, too.

  She found a gravel footpath leading out to the main street.

  A few of the kitchen staff crouched outside a doorway, forgotten cigarettes clenched between lips and fingers as they stared out at that same plume of smoke without getting any closer. She wished she knew Vietnamese well enough to ask them what had occurred, even though she doubted they knew much more than she did... other than the fact that they would have more specific guesses, she assumed, given that they’d been enduring war in their city for years now, between the French and now the Americans, as well as their own home-grown terrorists, rebels and revolutionaries of various persuasions.