“Well?” Uncle demanded. “Did he—”
“It’s complicated,” Drift interrupted irritably. “Give me a moment.”
I frowned too. “It’s complicated” was not an answer I had expected. How could it be “complicated”? Either he had gotten that fang-face into the tunnel, intending it to attack me, or he hadn’t.
The medic tried again. “Did you arrange for the vampire to be in that section of tunnels?”
Ace mumbled something that didn’t quite make it through two sets of speakers, but Drift gave an abrupt nod. “As I said, it’s complicated,” she repeated. “Ace did not personally plant the monster in the tunnels, nor did he smuggle it past the Prime Barrier. He did know that something unpleasant would be planted there because he transmitted Hunter Joyeaux’s scheduling information to someone.”
“Transmitted how?” Uncle asked sharply. “Every frequency transmitting into and out of Hunter HQ is closely monitored! And outside of the HQ, every moment of a Hunter’s activities is recorded!”
“Who were you working with when you attempted to murder Hunter Joyeaux at her Trials?” the medic continued.
“Yes, well…if you find a way to monitor psychic transmissions, I would very much like to hear about it,” Drift replied dryly. “Because, according to what is in his memory, he ‘transmitted’ it by thinking about it, while he was patrolling.”
Uncle’s face was unreadable. Drift’s was more than unreadable; she looked like a wax sculpture.
“Now, if you would be so kind, shut up, Charmand,” Drift continued. “I’m following memory traces and I don’t need any distraction.”
I held as still as ever I had while stalking my prey on the Mountain. If Drift could be trusted to tell us the truth—if Ace’s partner had been a Psimon, she probably would never tell us—
But there’s the problem. It might have been a Psimon, but it might not have been, I could not help thinking. Because Folk had psionic powers too. And we didn’t know how strong they were. Could they read thoughts from outside the Barriers? Maybe. Hadn’t I been perfectly prepared to believe they could pick up mere thoughts about them from the playgoers watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream?
“It seems,” Drift said, her voice curiously uninflected, “that his first contact with this…unknown…occurred while he was taking a little excursion to a private party outside the Prime Barrier, shortly after your niece arrived and began making such a splash. The excursion was authorized, a ‘fan service’ visit to one of his admirers who possessed a highly protected and fortified villa and vineyard out there. Ostensibly, this was a simple meet and greet, but there was psionic contact with an unknown person that Ace obviously did not bother to report. There was a suggestion that if Ace’s position as number one in the rankings was seriously challenged, the contactor was prepared to help him reestablish himself. Ace assumed the contact was either from one of the guests who had hidden Psi-talents, or from a Psimon in the employ of one of the guests. Knowing what we know now, however…”
Uncle nodded. “It could have been a human with Psi-talents. Or it could have been one of the Folk.”
Drift made some notes on the pad. The medics continued to question Ace. Drift concentrated on following Ace’s thoughts, which were surely wandering at this point. “Ace was subject to several more attempts at contact, all of them when he was away from your HQ, and all of them when he was Hunting solo or visiting wealthy or otherwise important fans. He ignored them, although he did not report them; my sense is that he was waiting for a…” She paused. “A ‘better offer.’ I am not sure what a ‘better offer’ would be, and I’m not sure he had anything concrete in mind. However, once his brother died, he answered the next attempt that was made at contact. That was when he transmitted Hunter Joyeaux’s schedule.”
Uncle nodded. “I think we can deduce the rest, although I would like you to confirm the deduction, Drift.”
“That when the initial attempt failed, and Joyeaux elected to attempt the Elite Trials, Ace transmitted this as well, and instructions were given him as to how to proceed at the Trials themselves.” Drift’s mouth thinned into a hard, angry line. “I do see him acquiring the laser himself, however, though he was told where it would be and how to conceal it on his person. So there was never a point of physical contact between himself and his associate.”
“Convenient,” Uncle said dryly.
Convenient for Ace? Or convenient for Drift? Would one of the Folk even know what a laser was? We tended not to use them against Othersiders, since they healed up too fast from any injury that wasn’t caused by iron or steel.
“Then, once he was imprisoned, the contacts continued,” Drift went on, ignoring, at least outwardly, any implications in Uncle’s comment. “And before you ask, he was unable to tell if this was the same person over and over, or two or more people. The memory he has is of a mental voice with no suggestion of gender, and no images at all. That was how his escape was arranged. And at that point, the Folk he was with spoke to him directly. So he was never able to tell which one of them—if any—was his patron.”
It didn’t have to be a Psimon or a Folk Mage, I thought to myself. There’s no reason why it couldn’t have been both. Working together. But I had no proof, other than the fact that I really disliked Abigail Drift in particular and Psimons in general.
Uncle gave me a little hand signal that told me I should go back to his office and wait for him there. Although I was really curious to hear what else was forthcoming, I obeyed, using the private elevator, a couple of barely used corridors, and a secret back door to get from the interrogation rooms to the office without encountering anyone. So when he returned—without Drift, I was happy to see—I was where I was “supposed” to be.
He was rubbing the back of his neck as he entered. “I sometimes think I wear a Psi-shield around Drift as much to irritate her as to keep her out of my head.” He chuckled, motioning for me to remain seated. “She really, truly hates being around people she can’t read. Here.” He handed me a memory stick. “The recording of the session with Ace and the recording of Drift and myself are both on there. If you catch anything I didn’t, let me know through Kent. Otherwise, erase it when you’re sure you have everything you want to know.”
“Then I’d never erase it,” I pointed out. “Because what I want to know is probably not on there. I’ll erase it when I’ve memorized it.”
Uncle sat down at his desk and took care of a few things while I fast-forwarded to where he’d sent me away, but I didn’t learn anything. Drift was angry and evasive and gave away nothing. Ace rambled like someone talking in his sleep. I sighed and pulled the stick out of my Perscom and tucked it into a pocket sewn—by me, and by hand—into the inside of my tunic.
“One other thing, Joy,” Uncle said, without looking up from his keyboard. “During the first attempt by the Othersiders to destroy a pylon, you recall when PsiCorps came riding in like the cavalry to save the day?”
I made a face. “I’m not likely to forget.”
“And you may recall that a great many of those Psimons collapsed before it was all over.”
I nodded. He swiveled one of his monitors to face me. “Not all of them recovered. This is what the dead ones looked like.”
I found myself staring at vid of a dead Psimon being collected by PsiCorps med techs. An apparently ancient dead Psimon, who looked almost exactly like the ones I had found in the storm sewers under the Hub. My jaw dropped, and Uncle swiveled his monitor back around. “And thanks to all the vid taken at the Barrier, we know, for a fact, that before they collapsed, those elderly Psimons were quite young and healthy Psimons. That’s why they could only field a quarter of their numbers the second time.”
“But what does that mean?” I asked, bewildered.
“Probably that Drift is exposing some, if not all, of her Psimons to some experimental procedure, which has unintended consequences, a procedure she doesn’t want the rest of us to know about.” Uncle shrugged. “T
he reason is obvious. Drift will stop at nothing to have PsiCorps supplant the Hunters as the primary guardians of Apex and the territories. I suspect that she intended to paint PsiCorps as the real saviors of Apex, and not the Hunters, but she assumed that the one attempt at breeching the Barrier was the only one there would be. And I don’t think she realized that what she’d done to her Psimons would be fatal in so high a percentage.”
I had very mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was begrudgingly grateful to PsiCorps because the appearance of the Psimons at the Barrier really had pulled our fat out of the fire at a point where we were seriously outgunned. And I could not in good conscience feel anything but horrible that it had cost so many of them their lives.
On the other hand—I was really, really, angry at Drift. First of all, that she’d done this to her own people; second, that she’d tried to pin the initial deaths on me; and third, that she hadn’t done the smart thing and worked with the Hunters on this. If she hadn’t thought of herself and her power games first and foremost, we’d probably have a lot fewer dead Psimons—
Uncle was watching my face closely and nodded as I looked up at him, making no effort to hide my anger. “Drift is a fool, but she’s a ruthless fool,” he said. “And she is not someone I care to turn my back on. My hope is that she’ll go hunting through the Psimons still left alive for whoever was working with Ace, if only to get some kind of advantage out of the information. I personally don’t believe she’ll find anything. But…”
“But?” I prompted him.
“It’s possible she’s playing an even deeper game than I thought,” Uncle admitted, looking very troubled indeed. Then he shook it off. “But it’s equally possible that she will find a renegade or at least the traces of one. Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof.” He got up and gestured for me to join him. “Now I have starved you long enough. Let’s go up to lunch.”
We passed Josh coming into the office just as we were leaving it. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a giant hand, but I nodded to him in a cool but cordial fashion. He nodded back to me, though his eyes had a hurt look to them as he opened the door for us.
As I could have predicted, we were just about to order dessert when my Perscom went off. I looked at it and sighed. “Drakken at a coastal weather station,” I said apologetically. “I have to go.”
“There’s a helipad on the roof,” Uncle said immediately, doing something with his Perscom. “The elevator—”
But I was already running for the elevator, which opened at my approach and went up a floor instead of down. I emerged on the windy rooftop, and within five minutes, a chopper came in hot, with Hammer beckoning to me from its open door. I groaned a little as I ran for it, and took his hand so he could pull me in. Playing bait again.
They’d brought my load-out with them, and as I kitted up and the chopper banked sharply to head toward the coast, I got a good long look at the side of the building that held Uncle’s office. You couldn’t see anything, of course, except for the blank wall. Nobody had the sort of glass-wall buildings anymore that they’d had before the Diseray. It was all armor plating, from first floor to last. Even the Sky Lounge didn’t have actual windows, just vid-screens repeating what cameras placed on the outside of the building saw. But I knew where his office was, and that only served to remind me that I was playing bait for more than just Drakken. In fact, I’d been playing bait from the moment I arrived here; just now, I was aware of the fact.
And I thought I might know what it was Uncle had thought of but had not said. If Abigail Drift was ruthless enough, it was entirely possible that “deep game” she was playing involved her—and the Folk. Because she’d had to have gotten this dangerous new technique of boosting the power of her Psimons from somewhere, and the Folk knew more about psionics than we did.
That, however, was above my pay grade. There were Drakken that needed slaying.
And a City, and Cits to defend.
And I am a Hunter.
MERCEDES LACKEY is the New York Times best-selling American fantasy author behind the Heralds of Valdemar series, the Elemental Masters series, the Five Hundred Kingdoms series, and many more. She has published over one hundred novels in under twenty-five years.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About the Author
Elite: A Hunter novel Page 31