Tangle of Need p-11

by Nalini Singh

  “Agreed.” There were too many of them, strong and weak, critical and peripheral. “However, we can send out an alert to each region, advise the authorities in charge of the anchors to beef up security.”

  “Warn them of the possibility of a strong Tk being involved,” Vasic added, his eyes on the bloody dents in the wall. “At least 8 on the Gradient.”

  “That’s going to be problematic. There are very few people stronger than a Gradient 8 Tk.”

  Kaleb was right—which meant more anchors were going to die unless they ran the architect of this attack to ground. “If this is the start of a Pure Psy campaign,” Aden said, considering how to narrow down the possible targets, “certain regions are more likely to be hit.” Nikita Duncan and Anthony Kyriakus hadn’t only been part of the coalition that had defeated Henry’s fanatics, they’d also been vocal in their anti-Pure Psy views. More crucially, their region was becoming a magnet for those whose Silence was fractured or otherwise suspect—anathema to Pure Psy’s aim of absolute purity.

  “This location would seem to argue against Pure Psy involvement,” Vasic pointed out. “It has no strategic or political importance.”

  “I’d theorize this was a training run in a quiet region of the Net.” Aden acknowledged his theory had a flaw, in that it required the aggressors sacrifice the element of surprise, but that didn’t disqualify it—not when irrational behavior was becoming a hallmark of Pure Psy operations. “We shouldn’t discount it being the work of an unknown group, but it’s reasonable to give Nikita and Anthony specific warning.”

  Kaleb nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Vasic broke his silence. “Preliminary reports are coming in—four hundred and seventy confirmed dead so far.”

  And the region that had collapsed, Aden thought, was tiny, with a sparse population. A single sector collapse in San Francisco would take tens of thousands of lives with it.

  “At least eighty-five of the dead are children.”

  Aden met Vasic’s eyes in a silent warning, but Kaleb wasn’t paying attention to the Arrow who was both Silent and broken. “I have to go,” the former Councilor said after a ten-second pause. “Release the general security notice, Aden.” He blinked out in the next breath, his power so vast the teleport took him little to no effort. The only other person in the Net as fast was Vasic, and he’d been born with the ability. Kaleb had learned it as a Tk.

  “He could have done it himself,” Aden said, staring at where the cardinal had stood. “We’d never know with the speed he teleports.”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  KALEB teleported into Nikita’s office to find Anthony Kyriakus already there. Since Anthony was a telepath with no teleport-capable ability, that meant he’d either used one of his Tks to arrange an immediate ’port … or he’d been with Nikita at the time of the attack. Very late for a political meeting.

  Unbuttoning his suit jacket, he took a seat beside Anthony, on the other side of Nikita’s desk. “A de facto Council?”

  “I have no reason to want the Net to suffer a catastrophic failure,” Nikita said instead of answering, her ruler-straight black hair brushing her shoulders. “Neither does Anthony. Neither do you.”

  “So certain?”

  “You want to control the Net, Kaleb. Broken, it’s useless to you.”

  He said nothing to that, betrayed nothing. Nikita thought she understood how his mind worked. She didn’t, but it was to his advantage to let her misapprehension continue. “There’s still no sign of Henry, and Shoshanna has bunkered down somewhere in England behind heavy shields.” None of which would protect her when the time came. “Tatiana and Ming are the wild cards.” Kaleb had his suspicions about Ming’s involvement in the Pure Psy assault in California, but the military mastermind had been very careful to bury his tracks.

  “There are others who have reason to want to damage the Net,” Anthony said, and the three of them went through much the same conversation he’d had with Aden and Vasic.

  Aden, he thought with a corner of his mind, was the center around whom the Arrows rotated. While the telepath wasn’t the most powerful member of the squad in terms of raw psychic ability, he was the one the rest of the Arrows looked to for leadership. He also had the support of Vasic, the only teleporter in the Net faster than Kaleb himself. To own the squad, Kaleb would have to have Aden’s loyalty. And he would. Because Kaleb had plans Nikita couldn’t even guess at, and having a squad of lethal assassins behind him would make things both deadlier and smoother when he played his endgame.

  “Now that the violence has a shape, will your foreseers be able to predict the next strike?” Nikita asked Anthony.

  “I’ve given the order, and I’ll forward any pertinent information, but chaos on this scale skews and warps the timeline.” Anthony glanced at Kaleb. “We’ll ensure our anchors are well protected.”

  “I can offer you a certain number of my troops.” He knew the two ex-Councilors had limited military resources of their own, would find it near impossible to cover the anchor network in the area.

  “Thank you,” Nikita said, “but I’ll decline.”

  Anthony’s response was much the same. Kaleb hadn’t expected anything else—if he were on the other side, he wouldn’t trust himself either. “The offer remains on the table, should you change your mind.”

  Rising, he buttoned up his suit jacket at the same time that he soothed the panic of the NetMind. The neosentience was scared, and while Kaleb didn’t feel, he had learned to differentiate the moods of the DarkMind and NetMind both. Now he gentled the NetMind and reined in the DarkMind, the darker sentience stronger in the wake of the murderous violence. “If you’ll excuse me. I need to return to my own region.”

  A second later, he teleported into another room on another continent. “Ming,” he said. “Tatiana, I see you’ve heard about the attack.”

  Chapter 58

  AFTER A NIGHT spent curled around the woman who had healed something broken in him, then held him as the wound tore open again, Riaz woke with his world back in focus. “Good morning,” he said, brushing aside the inky strands of hair that clung to Adria’s cheek.

  “Morning.” A faint smile, the caution hidden but present.

  He felt like he’d been punched all over again, but he told himself to be patient. His not-so-tough soldier had had a shock, too. Leaning down, he nibbled at her lower lip in a playful kiss, one hand splayed over her rib cage, his other arm braced above her head.

  She ran her own hand up his chest and around to his nape, petting him with the same affectionate laziness, her smile growing deeper. “This is a nice way to wake up.”

  “Yes, it is.” He went to say something else, but the comm beeped, Riley summoning him to an urgent lieutenant meeting.

  He didn’t want to go, wanted to love Adria sweet and slow, show her who she was to him, but he was a lieutenant as she was a senior soldier. Dashing into the shower, he walked out to find she’d scared up a cup of coffee for him. “I hope it’s not another attack,” she said, eyes of blue-violet dark with worry.

  Cupping her cheek, he pressed his forehead to her own for a single, precious moment. “I hope the hell not. I’m guessing whatever it is, the seniors will all be briefed soon as we’re done.”

  She nodded. “Go on.” A quick kiss, the warmth of her lips still with him when he walked into the conference room a few minutes later.

  “Is that coffee?” Indigo groaned as she walked in behind him.

  Putting down his mug, Riaz poured her a cup from the carafe on the table, aware the other lieutenant had worked until nightfall with Felix’s team, then returned to supervise her novices in a night training exercise. Riaz had offered to handle the latter, but Indigo had wanted to personally judge their progress since a couple were edging toward full soldier status. “Don’t tell me your boy toy isn’t treating you right,” he said as he handed the coffee over.

  Indigo swigged half of it before saying, “I shall deal wit
h you later,” in an ominous tone stripped of its menace by a jaw-cracking yawn. “Do you know what this is about?”

  “No.” Grabbing a seat, he turned toward the monitors as Alexei’s and Jem’s feeds came online. “You two have any idea what’s happening?” he asked.

  “My guess—something’s up with the Psy,” Jem said. “I went for a street run this morning like I sometimes do, and I don’t know how to describe it; there was this eerie quiet on the face of every Psy I passed.”

  “Whatever it is,” Alexei pointed out, “if we’re having a meeting and not going into emergency mode, it’s probably not an imminent threat to the pack.”

  Tension level dropping a notch because the young lieutenant was right, Riaz went to ask Alexei about the wolves who wanted to merge with SnowDancer when Hawke entered with Riley and Judd. Conversation stopped for a minute as the other lieutenants started to come online. Kenji, Tomás, Matthias, and Cooper all snapped into focus one after the other. Coop was as bright eyed as if he’d been up for hours, and Kenji appeared to have come in from a night shift, but the others didn’t look impressed.

  “I thought the war was won,” Tomás groaned, a giant mug in his hand. “This was my sleep-in day.”

  “I thought that was yesterday,” Cooper said.

  “Shut up. Just because you’re getting laid on a regular basis doesn’t mean you have to be smug about it.”

  Coop’s smile was slow and definitely smug.

  Tapping the table with a finger on the heels of that smile, Hawke called the meeting to order. “Judd, Lucas, and I,” he said, “had a very interesting conference call with Anthony and Nikita a few minutes ago.”

  Everyone quieted. The pack’s relationship with the two powerful Psy was shaky at best. There was no doubt both had done their share of the heavy lifting when it came to protecting the city from Henry Scott’s army—they’d provided combat-ability troops, used their own considerable telepathic powers to repel the intruders. However, that didn’t mean they could be trusted.

  “Good news is,” Hawke said, “it’s highly likely we’re no longer target numero uno as far as Pure Psy is concerned.”

  “Why aren’t you celebrating?” Indigo asked, reaching for the carafe and pouring herself a second cup of coffee, topping up Riley’s when he held it out.

  Hawke’s expression was grim, the words he spoke even grimmer. “Because the civil war in the Net isn’t a possibility—it’s begun. The most recent casualty count is five hundred and seventeen.”

  “Shit.” Matthias rubbed his face, his dark skin gleaming in the light of the little table lamp he hadn’t yet turned off. “An explosion of some kind?”

  Judd was the one who answered. “Part of the Net collapsed last night.”

  A shocked hush.

  “The victims’ separation from the Net was so violent,” he continued, “they would’ve had no chance to attempt to reintegrate. Men, women, children … entire families wiped out.”

  “Angry as this makes me,” Coop said, his scar white from the force of his emotions, “we can’t affect the Net. Why did Nikita and Anthony contact us?”

  “The Net collapsed because the anchor in the region was murdered, as were all his fail-safes,” Judd explained. “Anchors are protected on the psychic plane by permanent shielding that’s close to impossible to break. However, they’re still mortal.”

  Riaz saw it then, what Nikita and Anthony wanted them to do. “They need our help to protect the anchors in the territory.” It was a historic request … especially when Riaz thought it through and realized the two Psy were willing to trust SnowDancer with the locations of people who were the greatest vulnerability of their race.

  “Yes.” Judd pushed his hand through his hair, a rare physical betrayal of his emotions. “Before we make up our minds on that, there’s something I’m not sure you all realize.”

  “Wait,” Indigo said, pushing over a cup of coffee. “Drink this first. No offense, gorgeous, but you look like hell.”

  Judd gave Indigo the faintest of smiles, obeyed the order. “Ever since the discovery that SnowDancer protected Marlee and Toby from rehabilitation,” he said, after drinking a good third of the cup, “a lot of the Psy in the area are looking to DarkRiver and SnowDancer for some kind of leadership. At the heart of it is the knowledge that you protected the defenseless their own leadership sought to destroy.”

  “Changeling packs,” Riley said in his measured way, “have managed to retain our sense of identity, to survive being sucked into the Psy machine, because we’re careful about who we call our own.”

  Changelings would fight to the death to protect the pack, Riaz thought, but gaining the trust of that pack was a hard thing—as Judd himself knew. However—“It doesn’t sit right with me that we turn our backs on people who trust us to help.”

  “With me either,” Riley said as the other lieutenants nodded. “At the same time, our wolves would go insane trying to protect such a large ‘pack.’”

  Because once a dominant took responsibility for a group, he took full responsibility.

  “Hell of a mess,” Matthias muttered.

  Having tipped his chair back on two legs, Hawke now brought it down on all four. “Putting that aside for now, first we need numbers. Judd?”

  “Twenty anchors across the state,” the lieutenant replied. “Two hundred backups—ten per anchor.”

  Tomás whistled. “That’s a damn low number on which to pin the lives of millions of people.”

  “There are others, like Sophia Russo, Max’s wife, who also help stabilize the Net, but they can’t hold back a collapse, so they aren’t targets.” Judd drank the rest of his coffee. “Three of the twenty are cardinals and technically the only true anchors in the network. However, the secondary anchors, trained since childhood, are just as integrated into the psychic fabric of the PsyNet, have the same vulnerabilities. While the cardinals control exponentially larger areas, taking out a single secondary hub will mean tens of thousands of deaths.”

  Alexei leaned forward, his blond hair tied back with a piece of string. “How long would we have to maintain the watch?”

  “Not long,” Judd said to their surprise. “There are very, very few Tks who can teleport to people rather than places. The odds are excellent that the telekinetic behind the anchor murder doesn’t have that ability. Which means he needs images of his targets’ living spaces—and those he’s probably sourcing from the ‘in case of emergency’ files kept on anchors.”

  “Anthony and Nikita are arranging new bolt holes,” Coop guessed. “Clever, simple, and effective.”

  “We can do it,” Riley said, having had his head together with Indigo while the rest of them spoke. “Factoring in DarkRiver, the Rats, and WindHaven, along with certain trained humans we know we can trust in the city, we have more than enough people to cover all the anchors and backups twenty-four seven.”

  “Will it leave the territory vulnerable?” Hawke asked, the question that of an alpha whose primary goal was to keep his people safe, even if that meant making a ruthless choice.

  Indigo shook her head. “No, we’re in very good shape.”

  Hawke’s pale eyes scanned the room. “Yes or no. The decision will affect every single sector of SnowDancer territory, and if we say yes, it puts us on one side of the line in this civil war.”

  Riaz’s wolf knew there was only one choice. “Like it or not,” he said, “as the most powerful group in the area, we have a responsibility to the region now.” As Riley had pointed out, changeling packs were insular for a reason, but they were not and had never been, blind to the outside world.

  “Riaz is right.” Cooper’s voice. “We can’t just look away while our neighbors are slaughtered.”

  “That’s not who we are.” Jem’s statement was echoed by every single lieutenant in the room.

  Hawke’s nod held a quiet pride that said he’d expected no other answer. “But, it can’t be permanent.” Implacable words. “Our wolves aren’t ma
de for that kind of political maneuvering—and I have no desire to rule this region or any other. We protect, and when the dust settles, we help the Psy population find their feet.”

  An immediate round of agreement, and then they got down to the hard question of exactly how they could protect themselves and the anchors from a Tk. Judd had a simple answer. “Attack with deadly force as soon as they ’port in. No warning.”

  HAWKE walked into his office to find Sienna standing to the right of his desk. Her attention was on the wall and the map that showed the land currently in the process of being replanted—work that was set to hit completion this week. Knowing how it haunted her, what she’d almost done to SnowDancer, the lives she’d taken to protect the pack, he didn’t offer her any platitudes. Instead, tugging her against his chest, he rubbed his chin over her hair, his wolf soothed by her mere proximity. Her arm came around his waist in return, but when she spoke, the words her voice shaped were unexpected.

  “Judd gave me the latest update on the deaths in Cape Dorset.” Quiet. Solemn. As she’d been when he’d woken her to tell her the news. “If they obliterate an anchor point in this region, the casualty count will be catastrophic.”

  He should’ve learned by now how good she was at ignoring her own emotions to focus on harsh reality, but she still surprised him at times. Would continue to do so, he thought, as long as he lived. There was nothing predictable about Sienna … except for the love he saw in her eyes every single morning, his own personal dawn. “We’ve agreed to help with the protection detail.”

  “I want to—”

  “No.”

  Pulling away, she frowned. “I know you’re worried about Ming, but he’s got to have other priorities right now. I can wear a disguise like I did when I went out with Evie and her family.”

  He folded his arms. “That disguise only worked because of the context.” It was the sole reason he’d been able to let her go—because no one would expect Sienna Lauren Snow, cardinal X, to be walking around the city shoe shopping. “You think the people planning to attack an anchor won’t scan the area? The instant after they figure out you’re Psy, they’ll know who you are.” They’d also know the value of that information to those who sought to harness the fury of an X.