Elite: A Hunter novel

by Mercedes Lackey

  I put the book on my nightstand, ordered the lights out, then, under the cover of the dark and the concealment of the covers, I slipped the message to Bya.

  After that I cuddled with him until I fell asleep. I’d been doing that a lot since Ace vanished. I’d been having nightmares on and off. I would leave the Glyphs burning on the floor, and at some point, when Bya was sure I wouldn’t have nightmares, he’d slip out of bed and go Otherside, and the Glyphs would vanish. Tonight, he’d just go carrying my message as well.

  Knowing that, and knowing that even if they didn’t have any answers for me immediately, at least I had been able to consult with the best Hunters and finest magicians I knew of (not to mention the people I trusted most in all the world). For the first time in a couple of days, I fell asleep easily.

  I could tell by the look in Bya’s eyes when I brought the pack over for the sewer Hunt that he had some sort of message for me. There was that knowing look he got. The way he looked right at me and held my eyes for a good long moment before nodding slightly.

  Urgent? I asked.

  No, he replied. He yawned casually, as we all formed up in our usual order. I will give it to you some place where there is no distant eye.

  By “distant eye,” he meant a cam, of course, and it would not be too terribly hard to avoid them down here. Cams were placed farther apart in the storm sewers under the Hub than they were out where the regular Hunters patrolled. Before things started getting weird, this part of the storm sewer network was supposed to be safe, so you wouldn’t need full coverage. Hunters hadn’t come down here, only Apex police and maintenance workers.

  This tunnel was in another section of the storm sewers where we hadn’t been before—but it was going to end up very near where we’d found that dead Psimon. I wondered if there would be anything at that site left to investigate.

  There might be. If magic had had anything to do with the Psimon’s death, there might still be traces of it about. Unless PsiCorps had brought a magician down here to get rid of such traces.

  “Stupid,” I said aloud, chiding myself. Of course they would. I wasn’t thinking. There wouldn’t be anything there; I wasn’t dealing with feral Folk, or amateurs. PsiCorps was nothing if not thorough. And I had better keep my mind on Hunting and not off on some other tangents that had nothing to do with Hunting, because a Hunter with a wandering mind generally doesn’t get a second chance to make that kind of mistake.

  There wasn’t a trace of moisture down here today, and it wasn’t even all that humid. There wasn’t a trace of scent either, and the ’crete of the tunnel was so clean it looked scoured. In fact…I noticed as I looked more closely, the ’crete had been scoured, most likely by stuff carried down here in the storm. I wondered if we were going to get another day of Hunting for next to nothing.

  We don’t mind, Myrrdhin told me. When you get calls to go outside the Great Fences, we eat like kings.

  Now I wondered if Myrrdhin and Gwalchmai had talked as much to Ace as they did to me. “Great Fences.” Well, that is as good a way of describing the Barriers as any.

  I was glad Myrrdhin had told me that. I worried about my Hounds, worried that so big a pack would never quite get enough manna to eat. I guess I needn’t have worried.

  “Myrrdhin,” I asked as we began our long walk, “did you talk much to Ace?”

  He looked back over his shoulder at me. No, he replied, and I got the faint hint of…sadness? No, he gave orders, and we obeyed. There was not much talking.

  “You guys speak up whenever you want, all right?” I said impulsively. “I like hearing you. And I prefer partners to drones.”

  Thank you. We will. The sadness had lifted. When he looked over his shoulder at me again, his eyes were warm and he was doggy-grinning. So was Bya.

  We were thorough, and that was how we always worked. We checked out every side tunnel routinely, so no one would think anything out of the ordinary when we ducked down one out of sight of the cams. I got out my water bottle for a quick drink, and Bya trotted up to me, the note in his mouth.

  I took it from him (grateful Hounds have nice, dry mouths) and unrolled it quickly. It was not from Master Kedo, but from Master Jeffries, the actual head of the entire Monastery, the most senior Master. He didn’t waste any time on salutations; he cut straight to the chase. Your information is troubling, and we will need to study the situation and our records before we can give you detailed advice. We do not know what the death of the Psimon you found means, but the mere fact that a senior Psimon gave you such explicit warnings suggests that this was not an accidental death and PsiCorps has a vested interest in hiding it. As for the new monsters appearing, I can tell you that this has happened before. It should be in the Apex records since it is in ours. This has always happened when the Othersiders found a way to counter human defenses, and we here have no reason to think that is not the case now, since you are also finding monsters where none should be. We believe that the defection of Mage Sturgis is a part of this; we will need to consult some very old records to determine if humans lost to the Othersiders have ever appeared again as allies of Otherside. The fact that the One you encountered at the train offered you a sort of position suggests this is possible. But as for the high-ranked Othersider who warned you…we are baffled. Nowhere, in any records we have, is there such a thing as an Othersider that has taken it upon himself to do such a thing. It may be a deception, although on the face of things, none of us can reckon what such a deception was intended to accomplish.

  When we know more from our studies, we will have more for you. In the meantime, trust your Hounds, even when you can trust nothing else.

  IT TURNED OUT NOT to be an uneventful trudge through the storm sewers after all. About halfway into our patrol, we ran into trouble, definitely the sort of trouble a squad of APD would not have been able to handle.

  This time it wasn’t something new; it was an Ogre and its mate. I’d Hunted Ogres before this; they are not uncommon in the mountains around the Monastery, and unlike Trolls, they can handle sunlight just fine. I did manage to knock the pair into the wall of the tunnel and unconscious, and then the Hounds finished both of them off.

  Ogres do turn to stone when they die, and then the stone crumbles into gravel, then sand, leaving a pile of sand on the floor of the sewer tunnel to be washed away with the next big rain. Or the next time maintenance sent down a remote-operated cleaner—whichever came first. We were very near the spot where I’d found the dead Psimon, and I wanted to be sharp when I got there, in case (against all odds) there was something subtle left behind that I could pick up on.

  I needn’t have worried. “Subtle” was not going to be an issue.

  The Hounds practically ran over the top of another dead Psimon when they turned down the shunt tunnel that linked the one we were patrolling with the one we’d been in before. We all stopped stock-still and stared, and the Hounds all came skittering back to me. For a while, we all clustered together, staring, while I calmed my stomach back down again. Then we backed up in a group, fast, so we’d hopefully avoid muddling evidence too much.

  This time, before I called it in, I looked the body and the area over for signs that anyone had been performing magic in the area…but there was nothing. Just a pathetic, too-slender corpse in a PsiCorps uniform, lying in a tangle of limbs as if she (it was a woman this time) had just dropped dead right where she stood.

  Dropped dead—where she stood.

  I suddenly realized that was what was odd about it. The body was not lying in a way that would have made me suspect that someone had murdered her elsewhere and brought her here to hide the body. I might not be a police person, but I have seen far too many dead human beings in my short life. I’ve seen bodies hauled and left, bodies dropped and left, and bodies deliberately hidden. And this one, like the first, if I hadn’t known the Psimon was dead, I’d have thought she’d just passed out cold for some reason. The clothing wasn’t disarranged. The hair lay splayed on the ’crete pr
operly. I could go into more boring detail, but I knew that Psimon lay just as she had fallen, and just where she had fallen.

  I stood there after I finished looking for magic traces, just staring, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Because it didn’t make sense, just like the first time. It didn’t make sense that a Psimon would be here in the first place, given that there was a Hunter, an Elite at that, assigned to check down here. It really didn’t make sense that there would be a second dead Psimon down here. Sure, the Psimon could have picked up the Ogre’s mind and—then done what? Come down here looking for it? Why? That was the job of a Hunter. Unless for some reason the Psimon was supposed to try and take control of the Ogre’s mind….

  But that made no sense either. There’s not a lot you could do with a captive Ogre. And the Psimon would have known that the mate was down here too. A Psimon might take control of one mind, but never two. Oh, Psimons who’ve been particularly bold—and stupid—have tried in the past, but the result has always been fatal for the Psimon, as both “subjects” broke free and objected to being controlled in a very bloody manner.

  And no, that was not the case here, because just like the first Psimon, this one hadn’t a mark on her. An Ogre would certainly have bashed her about, and then probably ripped a limb or two off for a snack, even if it wasn’t particularly hungry.

  I studied the body for as long as I thought I could get away with it, and surreptitiously took some vid with my Perscom.

  Then I called it in. And that was when I belatedly remembered what Josh had told me about how to ID a Psimon. I aimed my Perscom at her, and I maybe got a weak signal, but I didn’t dare get any closer.

  Just as before, I was told to exit the sewer. And just as before, the same stone-faced senior Psimon met me when I came out of the little bunker that sealed off the entrance. I thought he’d given me the stink-eye before, but that was nothing compared to the cold glare he gave me now.

  “You touched nothing?” the Psimon asked me sharply.

  I shook my head. “My Hounds stumbled over the victim, but I called them back, and I don’t think they muddled the scene much.”

  The Psimon snorted. “I’m not concerned about Hounds,” he said, inflecting the word in a way that made me think he equated them with dogs. “As long as you didn’t meddle with the…victim…that is satisfactory.”

  That is satisfactory? Is that how you talk about a dead—possibly murdered—comrade when you’re a Psimon? I’d thought this guy was creepy-cold before, now I figured he must have ice water for blood, and every single emotion cauterized. And I really, really did not like the way he was looking at me. Like he was looking at someone he considered to be inconvenient…or was considering me as a possible scapegoat. I was glad now I hadn’t gotten any closer to the body.

  And the way he’d hesitated before he said the word “victim” had all my suspicion nerves tingling.

  I’d better go to the expected response.

  “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sure the Psimon was a valuable member of your community and will be remembered fondly and missed,” I said flatly, and called for a pod. His pod was already there, and once again, he didn’t bother to offer me a lift. Then again, I would have turned it down if he had. I don’t think I could have stood to be confined in the small interior of a pod with this guy.

  “Thank you,” he replied, just as flatly. “The same conditions apply as last time, Elite Hunter. You will speak to no one about this.”

  Funny, it didn’t seem to have occurred to him that if someone—like my uncle—who ranked above both of us were to order me to talk, then I’d have to talk.

  Okay. Maybe he’s just making sure I don’t gossip….No, he specifically said “no one.” Which would mean…no one. Not even Uncle. This isn’t good. I was getting a very creepy vibe off this Psimon, creepier than normal, that is. It felt as if he had been willing to accept I had discovered one dead Psimon by chance, but accepting I’d found two “by chance” was just not going to happen. So now, I was about to come under the magnifying glass.

  I picked my single-word reply very, very carefully, just in case my Psi-shield and my mantra failed me. “Understood,” I said. Which was absolutely true. I did understand. I didn’t intend to obey him, but I certainly did understand.

  He took that at face value and got into his pod and left just as mine arrived. I was actually so relieved to be away from him that all I did in the pod was sit back in the cushions and just not think about anything.

  I waited until I was back at HQ, I had made my report, and was sitting in my own rooms to view the vid footage. I thought about putting the footage up on my vid-screen, then thought better of the idea. If, somehow, PsiCorps was having me monitored, anything I threw up on the big screen might be visible to someone else, so I kept it on my Perscom.

  From all I could see, it still looked as if the Psimon had simply strolled down there and dropped stone dead. No marks on her. No sign of a struggle. No sign she was brought there. No scuff marks on the wall, no drag marks on the bottom of the tunnel. That pose she was in still looked exactly as if her knees had folded up under her and she’d collapsed straight down. Her hair—

  Wait a minute—

  I zoomed the tiny view on my Perscom in on her head. Okay, this was odd. Her hair was white. And not white-blond, or some sort of bleached white, the way Dazzle’s hair was pink. No, this was old-lady white. And what I could make out of her face was wrinkled, with that delicate, fragile look that the skin of old people gets.

  She was old! And…thin. Now that I looked at her closely, her clothing fit a little too loosely on her, and under it, she seemed little more than skin and bones. And sure, someone that old and frail could easily have dropped dead…but how had she gotten down there in the first place if she was that old and fragile?

  I’d never seen an old Psimon. Hunters, if they lived that long, retired to become teachers of Hunters and emergency backup, but what happened to old Psimons? Did they retire? Did they keep working in some lesser capacity? Did their Powers get stronger as they got older, rather than weaker, so sending one alone into a sewer tunnel to track something dangerous was actually a reasonable thing to do?

  Or…what if PsiCorps didn’t want old Psimons around? Holy crap, was this what PsiCorps did with its elderly? Dumped them down in the sewers and let them wander till they died?

  Had the first victim been old? I couldn’t remember. I’ll have to ask Uncle, I thought. But he might not know. Did I have vid of the first body? I couldn’t recall taking any, but I couldn’t recall not taking any. I’d have to search back through the Perscom memory to find it. All this had my guts in knots and the hair on the back of my neck standing up. I could ask Myrrdhin, but he might not remember either; my Hounds had funny memories when it came to people, as if what we looked like on the outside didn’t matter all that much to them.

  The next thought I had was an odd one. Should I tell Josh about this? If someone was murdering Psimons without a trace, he had a right to know. But if someone was just kidnapping elderly Psimons and dumping them in the storm sewers to wander around until they dropped dead…well, maybe he still ought to know. Unless he already knew and wasn’t telling me about it, and if I told him, then this was just turning into one big hot mess.

  My Perscom alarm went off, reminding me that I had a training session with Hammer and Steel and Mark. If I didn’t want to attract PsiCorps attention, I had better act normally. I drank down a protein drink from my cool-box, changed into workout clothes, and headed for the session.

  “Damn, boy,” Hammer said, bent over his knees, and panting as if he had been running for miles. “I think you’re ready.” He glanced over at the armorer, who was leaning up against the wall with me, both of us in the same, near-identical pose, with our arms crossed over our chests. “Whaddya think, Kent?”

  “Ready enough,” the armorer said as I did my best not to show my glee. “Ready enough to pass, as long as he doesn’t screw up.”

/>   Knight looked from Hammer to Kent and back again, as if he thought they were joking. “Really?” he managed at last. “Seriously?”

  The armorer shook his head. “Would I have said so if I didn’t think you were? Yes. Really. Seriously. I’ve had the arena set up and waiting for the last week. Do you want more time to prepare, or would you rather get it over with as soon as possible?”

  “Get it over with? Tomorrow?” Knight breathed, as if he was still afraid that Kent would say no.

  “Certainly.” Kent pushed off the wall and walked over to him, slapping him on the back. It was hard enough to stagger most people. Mark didn’t move an inch. “I’ll get it scheduled. Unless there’s a full-team callout, your Trials will be the first thing in the morning.”

  Mark whooped, and then grabbed the armorer’s hand and shook it like a balky pump handle, babbling his thanks. It kind of surprised me, actually. Mark was always so reserved and so rarely showed any emotion at all, that this was…astonishing. I guess he really does love that girl of his, was all I could think.

  “I hope she’s worth it,” Kent observed, with a slight smile, echoing my thoughts.

  “Oh, she is, sir, she is. We’ve known each other since we were kids, and I’ve never…” Mark seemed to realize that he was gushing at that point and reined himself back in, becoming the restrained White Knight I recognized. “I mean, she’s a fine young woman, sir. No doubt about that.”

  Now we’ll just have to see how the girl feels about him. Hopefully the same. Hopefully she wasn’t some minx who’d enjoy pulling his strings because that was the only sort of power or control a good little Christer girl had. I’d seen things turn out that way a time or two among the Christers….

  Don’t borrow trouble, I reminded myself. Even though I could think of oh, so many ways this could go horribly wrong for Knight.