Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine

by Andrijeski, JC

  Even Chandre.

  He’d been spending a hell of a lot of time locked up in private meetings with Tarsi and Balidor, which was part of it.

  I knew Wreg was a little offended at being cut out of those meetings. I pointed out that I hadn’t been invited either, but that didn’t seem to reassure Wreg much…or Yumi, for that matter, who also seemed vaguely offended about the same thing.

  I knew they all wanted to help Revik figure out whatever was wrong with his light, in terms of the trigger Menlim put there. I also understood why Revik kept that list short. We couldn’t afford to let anyone in who might end up being that mole.

  Even so, it was hard not to react when I felt some of our closest friends taking Revik’s secrecy thing personally. I knew it wasn’t personal, but it was getting harder and harder to convince anyone else of that. Revik was just paranoid, and cautious…and well, paranoid. But convincing Wreg and Chandre there wasn’t more to it hadn’t been easy.

  Now with Feigran talking about inner circle moles, that paranoia would only get worse. Moreover, I could already feel Wreg putting two and two together and wondering if Revik trusted him as much as he’d always assumed.

  And yeah, that hurt.

  I couldn’t see how it could be helped, though. I knew all of that shit would get worse before it got better, too.

  What do you think? I sent to Revik.

  I felt him let out a disbelieving sound. What do I think? I think there’s a mole, Alyson. We knew that. Now it’s confirmed. It doesn’t change shit. He paused briefly, then added, And don’t worry about Wreg.

  I nodded, but didn’t really feel it.

  Biting my lip again, I glanced back at the virtual horizon, watching the clouds.

  You don’t think this is some kind of game, then? I sent. With Feigran, I mean.

  No. And it would be irrelevant, even if it was, Revik sent. His thoughts remained hard. How the fuck could he know those things, Allie, without a mole?

  I swear I could hear his accent even through the Barrier. It always tended to get stronger when he was angry or upset about something.

  I stayed silent though, listening to him.

  …Even if Terry’s fucking with us, Revik added. He still knows things he shouldn’t. He’s given us enough evidence and from a wide enough time span that the implications are pretty hard to dispute. Anyway, it’s irrelevant, like I said. Them leaking the facts to us deliberately doesn’t make those facts not true.

  I nodded, my jaw hardening a little more. What if he got all of that off us? While we were in Dubai? I pressed. Is that possible?

  Again, I felt Revik shake his head.

  No, he sent. I didn’t even know some of that stuff back then. Are you saying Menlim or Terry hacked Balidor while we were in Dubai? Balidor wasn’t even in the Dreng construct, Allie…and if they can hack ‘Dori we’ve got a fuck of a lot bigger problems than a mole.

  I pressed my lips together, not answering.

  Even so, I looked down at Feigran, wishing I could read him better.

  The next time Revik spoke, his thoughts felt subdued.

  I’m sorry, he sent.

  I sighed but felt a flicker of relief.

  What’s up with you? I sent. Seriously. Are you okay?

  Not really. He took a breath; I almost heard that, too. I felt him hesitate somewhere in that breath, right before his thoughts turned harder again. Did you really send Chan down to the front lines? To that wall, where the humans are detonating suicide bombs?

  I paused on that, momentarily confused.

  Yeah, I sent. So?

  I felt a ripple of irritation off his light. I wish you’d talked to me first.

  Sorry, I began, still taken aback, but recovering enough to realize he was right, that I hadn’t checked with him at all. I figured she fell under me and ‘Dori now, because of––

  Okay. Right. I get it. Can we talk about it later, Allie?

  Still reacting a bit, I nodded, using my fingers to comb hair out of my eyes. It was getting really long again. I probably needed to cut it.

  It’s fucking sexy, Revik sent, sending a pulse of heat.

  I felt a peace offering in that and smiled. Even so, I rolled my eyes a bit.

  I sent, You are such a guy.

  A guy?

  The long hair thing.

  I felt him shrug, but also back off with his light. His next thoughts came out polite. I don’t care about that. Cut it, if you want.

  I laughed, shaking my head. Liar.

  I’m not lying, he sent.

  I smiled, refocusing my eyes on Feigran. In terms of talking later, I’ve already asked Wreg and Jon to babysit Lily tonight. I hope that was okay.

  Dead silence.

  Revik might as well have disappeared; I couldn’t feel him at all.

  Revik… I sighed.

  Alyson. He cut me off. Of course it’s okay.

  His tone said anything but. It also held an open warning.

  I understood that warning, too. Forcing a shrug, I gestured in seer––at no one, really, since I was in the cab of the truck alone.

  So… I said, still fighting to keep my reactions to myself. Should I try to get any more off him? Feigran? Or leave it for now?

  I’ll ask ‘Dori. Give us a minute.

  Still fighting to keep my expression and light neutral, I just nodded.

  I found myself wondering what the hell I was doing in here. I’d felt a pull to come down here, strong enough to get me off the roof in the middle of a job. It felt important. A lot more important that talking in circles about a mole that Feigran couldn’t tell us jack-shit about. I wondered if my radar was off again…then I wondered if Feigran had called me down here himself. Maybe he’d been bored. Who the hell knew with him? After all, he’d already demonstrated his skill in sidestepping rigorously intense security protocols.

  Even Barrier containment tanks.

  Folding my arms, I replanted my feet, gazing into the virtual horizon while I felt Revik talk to ‘Dori in the observation room. As I did, my eyes drifted down to Feigran’s hands.

  They refocused at once.

  I found myself looking…really looking…at what Feigran was drawing.

  Unfolding my arms, I moved closer, until I was standing directly behind him in the virtual construct. I looked over his shoulder, watching as he continued to fill in details with the charcoal pencil, fleshing out an image he appeared to be about halfway through completing.

  “Who is that?” I said.

  Feigran looked up at me.

  When he didn’t speak right away, I crouched behind him, leaning closer to the image. I stared down at it, taking in the heavy and light black lines.

  “Feigran?” I said, pointing. “Who is that?”

  “Dragon,” he muttered.

  Dragon. That was a first.

  He usually drew people I knew.

  “Dragon?” I said. “Who is that?”

  “The anchor,” Feigran said.

  He glanced up and over his shoulder at me. It struck me suddenly, looking at his face and those serious amber eyes, just how close I was to him. Closer than I’d let myself get to his body even in virtual, maybe since we’d taken him captive. I knew he couldn’t hurt me in here, even with the life-simulation controls; moreover, I seriously doubted he would.

  Even so, I usually kept my distance.

  I don’t know why. Habit maybe.

  Or maybe because, as much as I knew this wasn’t Terry, my memories of Feigran’s more sadistic alter ego hadn’t dissipated enough for me to want to get all that close.

  “The anchor?” I pursed my lips. “The anchor of what?”

  I didn’t move away from where I crouched, and Feigran grinned at me, our faces less than a foot apart. When he didn’t answer in words, I leaned down, tapping the charcoal with my finger.

  “And what are these?” I said.

  “Bombs,” he said promptly.

  “Bombs,” I muttered, still staring at the image
.

  That answer surprised me less. After all, I’d been dreaming pieces of Feigran’s drawing since I was a kid. Bombs falling on an Asian city…a city that looked a hell of a lot like how I remembered Beijing looking when I’d been there last.

  Of course, my dreams had surround-sound, in addition to the horrifying images. In my dreams I heard air raid sirens, screaming, honking horns as people tried to evacuate in a panic…and eventually I heard faraway impact concussions, too.

  In the foreground of Feigran’s skyline was an image of what had to be a seer.

  He stood at somewhat of an angle, looking backwards towards the two of us.

  I could see part of his face as a result, even though Feigran had drawn it partly in shadow. I could see most of his back, too. Unlike the rest of the seers and humans depicted, his light eyes didn’t focus up at the buildings and falling bombs.

  Instead, he seemed to be glaring at me.

  Truthfully, he looked a little like Revik…but the light signature behind the image, what Feigran had woven into the picture in terms of aleimi, felt nothing like my husband.

  His black hair looked matted, mane-like where it twisted windblown around his neck and shoulders. He wore a strange collar, connected to some kind of armored helmet over his face and wrapping around the back of his dark hair; it included what looked like a metal gag, some kind of restraint over his mouth, nose and jaw. I might have thought it was an elaborate sight-restraint collar but for that strange gag covering most of his lower face.

  He looked…feral. That was the only word for it.

  Like a genetically-designed soldier.

  His clothes hung off him, tattered by burns and cuts apart from the organic helmet and two crossing bands that might have been weapons’ harnesses. He wore military-style boots, but those looked half-destroyed, as well. His skin, where it showed, was filthy, coated in smoke…patterned in dark streaks that might have been dirt, cuts, bruises, dried blood.

  He didn’t have an ounce of spare flesh on him, but the seer’s muscles stood out under his skin in hard cords. I saw his collar bones in the glimpse of his upper chest that Feigran drew, but also a thick bunch of muscle at his shoulders and along his arms.

  The detail kind of blew my mind.

  I could almost feel a presence there. Moreover, something about that presence…assuming, again, that I wasn’t reading way too much into this…felt familiar, too.

  Familiar enough to make me glance to my right, where I knew a one-way window lived outside the cab of the truck. I couldn’t see the window of course, much less through it, but I knew it was there, behind the virtual projection. I also knew a make-shift security booth stood there, along with the interface with Dante’s machines.

  Getting no response from the link I wore or the Barrier, I turned my frown back towards Feigran himself.

  “Why is he wearing that?” I asked, pointing at the muzzle-like device. “Feigran? What is that thing over his mouth?”

  “He is Dragon,” Feigran said, as if that explained it.

  “Yeah. I got that part. What does that mean?”

  Feigran blinked, glancing up at me. “He breathes. Life with words…with his tongue. He breathes life…in and out, in and out. He wants to be free. He wishes only to be free.”

  I settled my weight on my heels, frowning deeper.

  Then I slid closer to him, so that we nearly touched. Reaching out, I laid a hand tentatively on the seer’s narrow shoulder. “Help me out here, Feigran,” I said, soft. “What does that mean, to breath life? Is he some kind of weapon?”

  Feigran leaned into my hand, resting his head on my chest.

  I knew it was virtual, but to say it felt weird was putting it mildly.

  “It’s a small part,” Feigran muttered, tilting his face so he was speaking directly to me, albeit in a low voice. “Very small. But it shines. It shines…he keeps it safe…keeps it hidden. He will not let it go. He will not. In through the out door…out through the in.”

  I froze, staring at Feigran’s downturned head.

  When he didn’t go on, I exhaled, clicking under my breath as I fought to untangle his words. So far on this thread I was mostly lost. However good I’d gotten in learning to decipher Feigran-speak, it always seemed to break down at the critical moment.

  “In through the out door?” I said, my voice softer still. “Like with Revik?”

  Feigran shook his head, clicking, but I honestly couldn’t tell if that was a no or not.

  I pressed him again.

  “Feigran…are you talking about Revik?”

  “The Sword, yes. It is always about the Sword. And the Bridge.”

  “What is? What is about us?” Hesitating at his blank look, I bit back my reaction as well as I could. “This seer. Does he have something to do with Revik, Feigran?”

  “He is the anchor,” Feigran said. He looked up at me, still leaning his head against my chest as he enunciated carefully. “He keeps it alive, sister. It is most important to him…most important. He is the anchor…”

  “What does he keep alive, Feigran?” I said, fighting for patience.

  “The world.” Feigran looked up at me. “The world, sister Bridge. He is Dragon. He is life.”

  I fought to make sense of that too, couldn’t.

  So I tried a different tack.

  “Is he in Beijing?” I said. “This ‘Dragon’…he’s in China?”

  “No.” Feigran shook his head, his eyes distant once more. “No, no. He is under the rocks. Later, he will come for his brother…not before. After he is free.”

  Once more, I could only stare at him.

  I hoped like hell he’d elaborate. Preferably in English.

  He didn’t.

  “Feigran.” I bit back frustration. “What does any of that mean?”

  But the seer only gave me one of those infuriatingly conspiratorial smiles. I was still looking at him when he raised a charcoal-smudged finger to his lips, still smiling up at me when he reached past the sight restraint collar and the tank and directly into my mind.

  Shhhhhh… he sent to me softly.

  I have no memory of an image being sent, or any more subtle, more deeply packed thoughts, but somehow, I felt a second meaning communicated in Feigran’s light. There was a secret here, yes…but Feigran wasn’t warning me to keep it from just anyone.

  He was specifically warning me to keep that secret from Revik.

  Even as I thought it, Feigran smiled wider.

  He looked almost comically relieved as he clasped my hand with his charcoal-coated fingers, leaning deeper into my chest. I knew I wasn’t really touching him, but it felt like I was. I even felt the warmth of his skin, the slight scratchiness of the layer of charcoal on his fingers, the softness of his hair and pajama top.

  I barely noticed.

  I thought about why Feigran might be warning me. I didn’t get the sense he feared for his own life. Nor did I get the sense he feared Revik particularly. But then, I rarely got the impression Feigran thought much about his own life at all.

  It was a pretty big difference between him and Terian, actually. Terian had been equipped with an almost preternaturally fine-tuned survival instinct.

  More and more, I suspected Feigran didn’t think in those terms at all.

  I thought about what he’d said, that second, cryptic reference to the trigger in Revik’s light. I couldn’t help wondering if the “brother” Feigran mentioned was Revik, too.

  Feigran could get very affectionate with Revik at times…unnervingly so.

  He definitely saw me and Revik as family.

  Regardless, I had no idea what this specific warning meant. I just knew that Feigran didn’t want to answer any of my questions about this Dragon where Revik might be listening. And wherever this Dragon was, it sounded like he was being held underground…and not in China. But maybe he would be in China.

  I was about to release Feigran, to rise back to my feet…when the auburn-haired seer gripped my hand t
ighter.

  Look for the book… he whispered in my mind.

  When his amber-colored eyes met mine, they looked almost clear. I could see a man behind them, an actual person. The difference shocked me more than his actual words.

  I knew what book he meant, though.

  There could only be one book…the same book that had been in the security deposit box along with the Displacement Lists. That book had disappeared right before the first big tsunami hit New York, right around the time Cass kidnapped me.

  We’d assumed Shadow had it.

  I’d asked Kali about the book too, but she hadn’t been able to tell me much. She admitted she’d put it there along with the data key holding the Displacement Lists, but she told me she’d only done it because her dreams told her she should.

  Which yeah, not super helpful.

  When I asked where she got the book in the first place, she said one of her agents found it in the mountain caves that Syrimne’s rebellion used during WWI.

  Apparently, Kali got that from her dreams, too.

  But the book. We’d never figured out anything in terms of the significance of that damned book. It had been full of symbols and writing no one could read, or even identify. According to Kali, no one in her group could identify them, either.

  Looking at Feigran now, I decided to take the chance.

  How? I asked, barely thinking the words. How do I look for it, Feigran? Who has it?

  There was another lingering pause before he answered.

  She knows, he whispered, the words lingering as if floating on a faraway breeze. The red-eyed one…the hunter. She knows…

  I knew who he meant that time, too.

  Even so, I wasn’t Feigran. I couldn’t reach my light past sight-restraint collars, or military grade constructs. I couldn’t reach past Barrier containment tank walls, either.

  Hell, I couldn’t even hide most things from my own husband.

  So I knew I’d be pressing my luck, if I tried to pursue this any further.

  So, yeah…I didn’t ask.

  Anyway, he’d given me a place to start.

  5

  KISS

  Chandre stood on the high wall, looking southwest.