Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine

by Andrijeski, JC

  Fucking Feigran, man.

  “Why do you trust that piece of shit?” Dalejem said, his voice louder over the engine and the bump of the shocks and tires on rocks and ruts.

  I glanced over and saw Dalejem staring at me again, his green eyes hard as stone. I could see the scrutiny there. It made me nervous for some reason, although I had no issue with the particular question he’d just asked.

  More and more, I got the feeling Dalejem was a lot better at hiding what he was thinking and feeling than he pretended. I also got the feeling he picked up on a lot more than he pretended, which made me slightly nervous, too.

  Even so, it was all the more reason to keep him closer than not.

  “What makes you think I do?” I said.

  I gripped the steering wheel with my hands, jerking it periodically to avoid larger debris. I glanced away from Dalejem’s face back to the windshield in time to swerve us around a larger rock than I wanted to risk going over, even with the higher undercarriage. Getting stuck out here would not be my idea of an acceptable op deviation.

  I’d only taken us out this way to avoid the worst of the barricades anyway.

  I still couldn’t feel any protection grids of any kind. Nothing in the Barrier…nothing in the physical, either. No OBEs. No electrical activity at all, at least not strong enough for me to feel with my light. Being Elaerian, I should have been able to pick up on it if anything like that existed out here.

  The lack of security might be evidence against Feigran’s visions…or it might not.

  From the satellite feeds, the planes were mostly gone before a month passed after the outbreak of C2-77. The fuel had to be long gone by now, too. Whatever was left initially would have been stripped bare months ago.

  Food would be gone, too, even from the vending machines by now.

  From what I knew, Denver had been hit hard. The few enclaves that made it past those first six months had gunned down without mercy any attempts to breach their walls.

  So yeah, who besides us would even be out here, investigating something that technically didn’t exist? And why call attention to something by covering it with high-grade security if your main strategy for protection had been invisibility from the start?

  So yeah, I still believed it might be here.

  Did that mean I trusted Feigran? Hell no.

  The SUV met up with the main road and I gunned it, getting us down and then up the slight ditch and onto the asphalt going about sixty miles per hour. I’d calculated it so we rejoined the road just after the long disjointed line of broken storage crates and abandoned truck cabs. Most of those, especially the crates, looked like they’d burned at one point.

  From the looks of the wreckage I wondered if there’s been some kind of shootout out here, probably over the remaining stores of jet fuel.

  If there had been, it was long over now.

  Even so, I didn’t want to risk that someone might still be using those crates and smoked out cabs as barricades to jump unwary travelers. I kind of doubted it, all the way out here…for the same reason I doubted there was anything left to steal inside the terminal that loomed in front of us. I just didn’t see any reason to risk it.

  I cranked the wheel, turning us onto Peña Boulevard, now going closer to seventy.

  The back wheels skidded that time, but the thing cornered pretty well. I barely slowed as we fish-tailed briefly then aimed straight for the arrival gate, since that brought us to the lower level of the main terminals.

  I already knew what we wanted lived underground. I also knew from Feigran’s drawings that he’d ID’d the entrance on the west side, below a small security station.

  I heard Dalejem muttering again as we slid under the overpass and I accelerated in the shadow of the overhang.

  That time, I didn’t bother to look at him.

  Instead I drove us right up to the entrance of the airport, as far west as I could go along the loop where cars used to come to pick up loved ones from business trips and trips to grandma and Las Vegas and wherever else. I shoved that out of my mind as I pulled us right up over the curb, parking directly in front of the blasted out glass doors.

  I didn’t see any reason to get out of the car without cover.

  And yeah, if the SUV wasn’t here when we came back out, so be it. That was more or less the least of our worries, frankly. If we found what I came here to find, I’d be perfectly okay with calling the others in for backup if we managed to bring it out with us.

  I had a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy, though.

  Really, when was it?

  They live underground.

  In the dirt, sister, where he won’t go…

  The words echoed softly in my mind.

  I felt those words in a deeper part of my light than when Feigran first spoke them to me in Bangkok. They wove in and out of the other thing I now felt, what grew increasingly loud in my light, the deeper we descended into the dark.

  I hadn’t heard the other voice, though.

  Not down here. Not since I woke up that morning.

  Sub-basement twenty-four now.

  Twenty-four. Christ.

  As an Elaerian, I had the ability to feel physical objects with my light. That meant I could feel the actual cement and metal and stone and earth of the tunnels around us, not just the aleimic imprints left on those things or any organics or semi-organic composites, which is all a regular seer would feel.

  So I could see the staircase turning at precise right angles above and below us. I could also feel at least thirty more floors below the one where we stood now…which just about blew my mind, frankly.

  Even with my Elaerian abilities, I couldn’t wrap my head around how big this space was. I also couldn’t stop wondering why I hadn’t felt any of it before we got past those blast doors under the security station in the basement of the Denver Airport terminal.

  I wondered how no one had ever discovered it. I also wondered how the hell it had been built in the first place, without anyone noticing.

  It was pitch black in here.

  No electronics hummed behind those walls. I hadn’t felt a single living thing, including any semi-organic metal or stone, full organic machine or full-sentient, since we started descending the stairs.

  And yeah, you’d never get Revik down here.

  Hell, I was having a claustrophobic reaction…and I’m not even particularly claustrophobic. Of course, I was never claustrophobic at all before I married Revik.

  They live underground. In the dirt, sister, where he won’t go…

  I should have paid better attention to the pronouns.

  “You can feel them too, sister?” Dalejem murmured next to me.

  His voice was slightly out of breath as we continued to descend the cement stairs.

  I sent a pulse of acknowledgment, feeling that pain in my chest worsen.

  I could feel them. I wasn’t entirely convinced I would have felt them on my own, without Feigran there. I felt the other Elaerian’s light more entwined with mine than usual, especially at those higher levels of my aleimic structure. I wondered if he’d found some way to communicate that information to Dalejem too, or if I was doing that.

  Either way, I didn’t see a need to share that information with Dalejem himself. He already didn’t trust Feigran. If he thought the Rook had led us down here and was manipulating us to feel the lights of other seers, he might mutiny on me for real.

  And frankly, by that point, I was glad to have him.

  I could feel the beings that Dalejem referred to, however the information came to me. I could also feel that there was something really fucking wrong with them.

  They felt like seers. They had to be seers…but they didn’t feel like normal seers, or anything like Elaerian. I found myself reminded of Revik telling me how the Rooks used to run genetics labs back in the days of the Pyramid. Labs where they cut up and spliced together and experimented on both races.

  Like so many awesome things, that started duri
ng World War II.

  I wasn’t sure if I was ready for what we might find at the end of this little scavenger hunt, given that. I preferred not to get my imagination involved, in any case.

  Even so, I couldn’t help thinking that whoever was down here, there were definitely more than three of them. So we’d be outnumbered, for sure…which might be bad if they ended up being hostile. Hell, we’d be outnumbered if there were only three of them, given that Feigran wasn’t exactly a fully-functioning member of the team.

  Coming down here without a larger military group may have been a mistake.

  In the dark, I heard Dalejem let out a snort.

  I didn’t bother to grace that with a response.

  I also didn’t slow my steps on the cement stairs. Dalejem moved fast, I noticed…as fast as any in the Adhipan…so he must have kept up his training under the Children of the Bridge. I’d thrown a shield over all three of our lights before we got that vault-like door open inside the supply closet of the security station. I’d gotten even better at shielding in the past few months, working on it almost as much as Revik had been, in part to help him.

  Even so, I knew I couldn’t count on us being invisible down here.

  “What is it you expect to do, exactly?” Dalejem asked under his breath. “…when we get down there, I mean?”

  I didn’t answer that, either.

  We were getting closer.

  Even as I thought it, Feigran started to hum. I felt a flush of panic off Dalejem’s light as the noise echoed in the stairway corridor. Since we walked so close to one another right then, I also felt Dalejem thinking he should have gagged him.

  “Shush!” he hissed softly.

  Feigran made his humming softer, but didn’t stop it altogether.

  “Quiet, or I’ll silence you myself,” Dalejem said, his voice an open threat, despite how softly he spoke. “Quiet!”

  Feigran’s humming grew even softer, but he still didn’t stop.

  “Feigran,” I said. “Be silent. Now.”

  He stopped humming.

  The instant he did, he started sending pictures to me via the Barrier in a flood.

  I barely glimpsed one before he flung another at me. The pace continued to accelerate. They grew increasingly visceral, too…until I started to flinch at the more intense ones. Pain. The smell of urine. Unwashed bodies, scalpels cutting into flesh. Whimpering voices, chaos in light, screams in the dark. Drugs filtering down through intravenous tubes, organic metal cages. Dirty water, maggots in the meat, bloody drains…

  Pain.

  A lot of fucking pain.

  More than I could handle.

  I fought to shield myself from it, to at least dial back the volume. I saw people screaming from inside shining green-metal cages, hanging on the bars like animals, screaming…

  “Figures he would listen to you…” I heard Dalejem grumble.

  It hit me that Feigran wasn’t sending the images to Dalejem, only to me.

  Without thinking about whether it was particularly wise, I opened my light, letting Dalejem see what I was seeing. He sucked in a light breath as I did, faltering in his steps for the first time since we’d left the basement landing.

  It only occurred to me after I’d done it that I maybe shouldn’t be sharing this…especially since I had no idea what it meant. I felt a swell of frustration at Revik at the thought, even as it occurred to me why I was being so open with Dalejem.

  I trusted him. Worse, I didn’t trust him because of anything I’d felt in my own light; I trusted him because Revik did.

  I trusted him because my husband told me I could.

  For some reason, the realization angered me. It also brought a shiver of fear as it hit me that Revik’s views on Dalejem might be coloring mine too much. Moreover, Revik’s feelings about the ex-Adhipan seer might be coloring Revik’s views of him too much, too.

  Revik wasn’t here. I couldn’t afford to rely on him anymore.

  Just then, Feigran bolted past the two of us.

  He ran, full-tilt down the cement stairs.

  I heard Dalejem grunt in the dark, jerked forward by the leash that still tied the two of them together. He stumbled, started to fall down the stairs and grabbed the railing after I grabbed for him. I felt him trying to activate the lock on the leash as he wrapped his hands around the pole, but Feigran’s light got in the way somehow…enough I felt a bolt of panic off Dalejem.

  I gripped Dalejem’s vest, fisting my hand around the thick material and he caught hold of my shoulder with the hand not gripping the railing.

  Feigran didn’t slow.

  Collars really were fucking useless on him.

  Worse, Feigran apparently had control over our headsets when he wanted to. So really, the whole idea that Feigran was our prisoner might be a joke.

  Even as I thought it, I released Dalejem, feeling he had his balance back…and lunged after Feigran himself. I caught hold of the leash in the process, seeing it in the dark with my Elaerian light. It burned my hands as it ran out and I gasped, releasing it at once.

  I was about to use my telekinesis to knock Feigran out…

  When the leash abruptly stopped running on its own.

  Reaching out tentatively with my light, I kept my aleimi behind the shield as I looked for Feigran.

  Luckily, I found him easily.

  He huddled by a metal door on the next landing down.

  Focusing my aleimi, I exhaled in exasperation. Even as I did, I got another snapshot with my light…again possibly from Feigran himself. In it, I saw the light signatures I’d felt on the other side of that door.

  Only then did I turn back towards Dalejem.

  I could see with my light that he now gripped the banister in both hands. Now he used that same railing to regain his balance…then to push himself back to his feet. I could feel him coming to the same conclusions about his headset and Feigran’s light as I had.

  Meaning, that Feigran must have released the leash-lock somehow.

  “Fuck,” he muttered in English.

  Once he’d straightened, he started taking the stairs two at a time, heading swiftly towards Feigran. I followed without speaking, noting that the organic leash retracted as we walked. Apparently Feigran had returned control over the mechanism to Dalejem.

  When we reached the closed door, Feigran just watched us, huddled against it. I could see him pressing his ear to the metal, his palms and fingers pressed to the smooth surface as well.

  “Feigran,” I said. “Calm down.”

  “They are there,” he muttered. “They are there, sister. They are unhappy…so unhappy.” Pain wafted off the seer’s light. I felt it create conflict in his aleimi, a multitude of reactions, some negative and some borderline aroused. “They hurt. We should go to them…we should go now, sister…find them…” He whimpered.

  Again I felt that confused flicker off his light.

  Grimacing, I decided to ignore the parts that felt titillated and focus on the parts still capable of compassion. I guess it was reassuring that Feigran seemed to feel compassion more strongly than the other. Really, I was amazed compassion made the list, given who Feigran used to be.

  While it wasn’t hugely reassuring, it did make me more sympathetic to his distress.

  “We’re going,” I told him, soft. “We’ll help them, okay?” Hesitating, I added, “Anything we need to know before we do, brother? Do you feel others in there? Seers? People with guns? What should we be expecting?”

  There was a silence.

  Then Feigran shook his head, slow.

  Only him, he sent to me, so soft I barely heard it. He wants to come out…he wants it so much, sister. He begs me for it…

  Him? I thought back, equally soft. Who, brother? Realizing I knew the answer to that already, or I probably did, I frowned, still thinking. And why would they have no guards? Where is everyone, Feigran?

  Not time yet, Feigran sent back in a whisper. Too early.

  Too early for wh
at?

  For the war… he sent, softer still. Not time for the real war…too early…

  I felt a shiver go through my light. Thinking about Brooks, I frowned again.

  So this is for a war? I sent to the muttering seer. This complex…was it built for a war, Feigran? Is that why it’s so big?

  “Not time,” he whispered aloud, his fingers still splayed against the metal door. “It is too soon for the others. The brothers and sisters down here…they are from before. They are the old ones…are supposed to be dead now. Dead and gone…but he keeps them alive. He breathes…life. He breathes…”

  Feigran trailed, as if unable to think of the right words.

  Listening to him, I felt that conflict in my light worsen. I tried again to decide what to do.

  I hadn’t actually expected to find Dragon down here. Clues, yeah. Something that might tell me where to look for him. But I didn’t really think he’d be down here, unguarded. Surrounded by…what? Genetic experiments that had been left down here to die by Galaith?

  I’d nearly forgotten Dalejem, but now he spoke up, his voice a murmur.

  “How soon, Feigran?” he said, quiet. “When will the others be coming here?”

  I felt Feigran startle, which made me think maybe he’d forgotten Dalejem, too. He took his head off the metal-paneled door and leaned close to both of us, speaking into Dalejem’s ear. I felt him clutch at Dalejem’s arm and flinched a little at the intensity of the contact.

  “Soon, brother,” Feigran said softly. “They will come soon. He will take them from the cities. He will take them out…then they will come. They will all come here…”

  I stiffened, realizing Dalejem had picked up on something I’d missed.

  This compound had been built by Shadow. It was for his people.

  All of the protected cities…that was all bullshit, too.

  He was really going to do it. He was going to kill everyone.