Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine

by Andrijeski, JC

  Walking out into the night air, he heard the fountains splashing water over rocks, the whisper of winged creatures, what might have been bats…but otherwise, it was totally silent.

  It had to be three in the morning to be so quiet. Give or take a half-hour.

  His mind felt entirely clear now, for the first time in days.

  Whatever alcohol remained in his system seemed to have evaporated, too.

  Taking a deep breath of the cold night air, he exhaled silently, then began to walk, keeping his light cloaked as he headed west and then south, aiming his feet for the main gate.

  He knew exactly where those paddocks were.

  Some part of him found it almost humorous that he had been looking so hard with his light for Rigor and Tan and the rest, and they’d been under his feet all this time.

  It was the kind of irony Menlim would appreciate, actually.

  Shoving all of that from his light, Revik darkened his cloak still more, receding from the Barrier with his conscious mind even as he bounced another portion of his aleimi back at the consort hall, causing it to feign sleep as Balidor had taught him.

  He knew it wouldn’t work for long, not here…but it might buy him some time.

  He knew the entrance to that underground chamber would be guarded too, especially if this was what he thought it was…but he’d deal with that when he got there.

  He didn’t have time to be cautious about this.

  He didn’t have time for some elaborate plan, or even the normal precautions.

  He didn’t have the time for much of anything anymore.

  He fought Allie out of his light as he thought that, too, but a voice in the back of his mind told him exactly where that fear really came from. He knew enough about his own light to know exactly how focused he was…on her, on his wife falling in love with another seer, on running out of time to save his marriage…on running out of time, period.

  He had to get out of here.

  He had to get the fuck out of here before he lost his family for real.

  24

  MAUSOLEUM

  Revik found the entrance more easily than he thought he would.

  They had it hidden through physical means mainly, so knowing roughly where it was in that respect helped immensely.

  He sent up another silent pulse of gratitude to that unwilling––Charlie, he was pretty sure her name was, her nickname, at least––and the fact that she’d trusted him enough to tell him about this, even after she realized her mistake in assuming he already knew. He might never have found this on his own, certainly not as quickly as he had with her help. The lack of constructs here, or any kind of Barrier security, made it strangely easy to miss.

  Revik used his physical eyes to scan the area, staying out of the Barrier as he watched the two armed guards linger by the lit entrance to the cave, smoking hiri as they talked quietly between themselves. Even in the dark, he could see their armor-clad arms resting on the automatic rifles they wore in straps around their shoulders.

  So the protection appeared to be physical, too.

  Revik looked for cameras hidden anywhere in the row of trees where he stood, but saw none. He knew they might be hidden but suspected they might just not have any, for the same reasons they kept the rest of the security minimal. He would have noticed a shift in the power if it got routed to that part of the compound, given the constraints they were under in that regard.

  His eyes returned to the cave’s entrance, which from a distance struck him as a strange cross between old and new. Like a stone tomb mixed with the organic labs he remembered from working with Terian.

  Next to that yellow-gold light shimmering from the opening, a long, probably-organic door with an iron-looking ring lay on soft earth that looked like it had been recently dug up. The patch of disturbed earth spanned about ten meters, shielded from the footpath and field by the horse barn and the high outer wall, as well as the trees and bushes lining this edge of the paddock, the same area where Revik now stood. He could feel the OBE field over the opening. The thing had to be set to physical controls only and blended with the OBE on the wall behind it, he realized; even so, he felt the charge on his skin and light, even without using the Barrier or his aleimi to scan for it deliberately.

  Which meant the levels on that thing had to be cranked through the fucking roof.

  Thinking about that, he wondered about the power issue again. Maybe he’d been wrong about the cameras. Maybe they brought in their own power source for this.

  His options were limited, regardless.

  He wasn’t carrying so much as a pocket knife. They wouldn’t let him conceal-carry inside the City, or anywhere really: Menlim’s rules while he operated outside a collar or other sight restraints. Physical take-downs weren’t a good option, even if he managed to obtain a gun in the process. Anyway, he knew just the ordinary security construct would pick up unauthorized gunfire in a heartbeat and set off an alarm that would pull military and guard personnel from this whole half of the compound.

  Unless he left this for a night, he really saw only one option.

  He wasn’t going to leave it, though. Not tonight.

  He had a strange feeling he’d come too far for that already. Meaning, if he left it, the security would have changed entirely by tomorrow.

  He fought not to think about the implications of that feeling, either.

  Stepping out from behind the line of tall trees, he straightened to his full height, making his light visible in the immediate area by expanding his shield to encompass the guard station and the far wall...versus dropping that shield entirely. It should have the affect of making him visible to the guards, but no one else.

  Another trick Balidor had taught him.

  Because he didn’t make a big deal out of showing himself, the guards didn’t even see him at first. By the time they swung around, aiming those rifles at him, he was already at the edge of the ring of light emitted by the cave’s opening. Once they faced him, the lights on their uniforms ignited, washing him out and half-blinding him with semi-organic sentry torches.

  “Hey,” he said. Holding up a hand to shield his eyes, he let his voice come out in more of a slur. “Do you mind?”

  “Halt!” the first one said, his hiri now smoldering at his feet. “Identify yourself.”

  Revik kept his voice entirely calm, but still drunk-sounding. He also continued to walk, his steps and light casual but not particularly graceful.

  “Dehgoies Revik,” he said. Pulling his second hand out of his pocket, he held both up in mock-surrender. “First Lieutenant under Menlim of Purestred…well, last I knew.”

  He let out a low laugh, smiling at the nearest seer.

  Still walking more clumsily than usual, he let the alcohol be visible on his light as he stepped into the circle of physical illumination that glowed out from the opening. Once the security torches flicked off, he lowered his hands, again meeting the gaze of the guard closest to him. He waited until he saw recognition in the male’s gaze before he continued.

  He didn’t miss the flicker of disgust there, either.

  “Do one of you have a hiri I could smoke, brother?” he said. “Or do you really need me to go get my formal ID just for that?”

  Revik saw the two guards glance at one another, then back at him.

  Neither lowered their guns.

  “This area is restricted, sir,” the guard closest to Revik said. His voice slid into a formal cadence that time, but remained wary. “Halt, brother!” he said, raising the gun higher, his voice sharper when Revik continued to walk.

  Revik slid smoothly to a stop, keeping his expression and light calm.

  “What?” he said. “Kind of jumpy tonight, aren’t you brothers?”

  The second guard’s voice sounded only marginally less hostile than the first’s. “I’m afraid you cannot be here, sir. I am sorry, but you must turn around.”

  “Why?” Revik said, glancing at him.

  The two of them lo
oked at one another. Revik felt exasperation on the first guard, like he thought maybe Revik was soft in the head.

  He walked closer to them once more, and the first one aimed the gun back at his face.

  “Brother,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

  “You would shoot me?” Revik said, letting amusement touch the alcohol in his voice. “For running out of hiri? That strikes me as extreme.”

  Revik was close enough now that he could feel their lights without reaching out.

  He looked from one to the other, took the specs in a mere snapshot.

  “Brother,” the second guard said, exhaling with a clicking sigh without lowering the gun. “We’re going to have to ask you to––”

  Igniting the telekinesis, Revik knocked them both out.

  He did it fast…crude, in less than a second.

  His light flared into the construct in a single pulse. He yanked it back the instant it had, before he’d even completed the motion to get them on the ground.

  Then he stood there, heart pounding.

  Fighting to control his light, he held his breath…waiting.

  He could hear nothing. No doors opening, no alarms igniting in other parts of the compound. He hoped like hell he’d truly been fast enough––that he hadn’t set off the construct alarm. Most Barrier shields had controls built in to prevent the alarm from being set off by a random anomaly from the Barrier itself, since those were fairly frequent. Flares from Barrier beings. Shifts that were more global in nature than individual.

  Revik had hoped to hide within the cracks of those controls.

  If he hadn’t been successful in that, he knew he had seconds…if not less.

  Then again, if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t likely know it until they were upon him; any additional security protocols that might pick him up in the Barrier lived somewhere outside of hearing too. He doubted he would miss the physical cues of others approaching, given how sound traveled out here, but really, that was a kiss in the dark, too.

  Being fast was all he had really.

  In the same vein, he didn’t wait to know for sure if they were coming.

  Walking closer to the first guard, he bent his knees, lowering his weight smoothly to the ground. Holding his fingers under the nose of the first one, he listened for a moment. Letting out a low curse, he laid those same fingers to the man’s throat.

  He cursed again, softer that time.

  He’d killed him. It hadn’t been his intention, but he’d known it was a risk. Being that fast also meant being a hell of a lot less precise.

  Nothing he could do about it now.

  Muttering a brief prayer for the seer’s light, he shoved a hand into the guard’s jacket, feeling for the gun harness he’d seen pushing out his vest on the left side. Seconds later, he took out a handgun. American made…a Desert Eagle, but with some organic enhancements. No DNA trigger at least. Or if there was, it was disabled.

  Clicking the release, he checked the magazine, then pressed the full cartridge back in, igniting the safety before he shoved the gun into the back of his belt.

  He felt over the guard’s head then and found his headset.

  Fitting it over his ear, he used his light…carefully that time…to try and determine the sequence to disengage the OBE.

  First, though, he disengaged the network controls over the gun. The last thing he needed was someone turning the dammed thing off long-distance.

  Or worse, making it self-destruct in his fucking hand.

  A few minutes later he had the secondary sequence for the OBE field. It took longer than it should have…mostly because he couldn’t use his light very well and expect to remain unseen, but also because he was still feeling the effects of the alcohol, he suspected.

  By the time he’d finished, he was starting to worry about time for real.

  Someone would definitely notice the downed guards.

  They would noticed the OBE being down as well, but the guards bothered him more for some reason. Even if their being conscious wasn’t tied to a specific alarm…and it might not be if they were trying to keep people from knowing this was here…Menlim would still have someone watching the entry passively on surveillance, probably via flyers or something else that made a regular circuit. Since he still hadn’t seen or felt any stationary cameras out here, not even through the headset, and they’d kept the construct itself purposefully light, again to avoid attracting attention…he guessed it was flyers.

  Which gave him about ten minutes. Maybe.

  Once he got the OBE down, he would have to move his ass.

  That would definitely be tied to someone’s security link.

  By now, despite the difficulties with his light, he was feeling extremely fucking sober.

  Checking the second guard’s pulse, he was vaguely relieved to find that one alive. He knew both would be needed to disengage the OBE, so he took the headset off that one’s ear, too. Once again, he fought to imitate the light of the fallen seer to trick the mechanism into engaging with him. That time, he managed it a lot faster.

  When he got the command to go through, he heard a soft, static-like crackling noise behind him, right before the OBE went dark.

  Rising swiftly to his feet, Revik left the security link with the guard’s body, knowing it would have a GPS tracker on it. He walked straight to the opening, hesitating only the barest breath before crossing the line where the OBE had recently stood.

  He could feel it gone. Moreover, he could see it; the gold-tinted light brightened marginally without the dense field in front of it. Even so, that line made him hesitate, remembering Garensche cut in half when he tried to enter Gossett Tower in New York.

  But nothing tried to kill him.

  He crossed the line without incident and exhaled, moving faster again, until he found himself at the very entrance to that yellow-lit cave opening.

  Leaning over the edge, he looked down, frowning at the steep steps.

  He could feel the tunnel stretching down well past where he could see. He barely glimpsed what must have been the first landing a good forty meters below where he stood.

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  Normally, no amount of alcohol would have gotten him down there, given how deep he could feel it went.

  But he didn’t have the luxury to let his hang-ups slow him down, either.

  Clenching his jaw, he began walking straight down, moving fast.

  He kept his mind carefully blank, now as much for the feeling of the walls closing in on him as to move unseen in the Barrier space.

  He wasn’t positive they wouldn’t shoot him for being down here, but he was betting they wouldn’t. He knew a range of other things existed that they might do to him instead. Including take the excuse to hook him to wires and try to break down his mind for real.

  He didn’t want to think about that either, though.

  He’d known that was a risk long before he washed up on that pier in Hong Kong.

  He managed to get down four of those steep, endless-feeling flights of stairs before the claustrophobia started to creep past where he was able to ignore it effectively.

  By the time he got down two more, he found himself struggling to breathe, to even think clearly. He’d also slowed down.

  He forced his legs forward anyway, clicking into a part of his light that nearly detached him from his body altogether. He knew it would slow his reaction times, too––quite possibly more than was safe. He also knew he’d never make it down if he didn’t do it, no matter what mental dialogue he came up with to convince himself.

  His claustrophobia had gotten worse in the last few years, not better. He’d talked to Balidor about it…and Allie. Both seemed to think it likely stemmed from regaining the specifics of his memories that caused the claustrophobia in the first place. Allie thought engaging Menlim’s construct in New York hadn’t helped much, either. Whatever the cause, what used to be a minor annoyance had turned into an actual opera
tional limitation…which didn’t thrill him, for a lot of reasons.

  Allie had promised him she would help him with that.

  The thought tightened his throat.

  He couldn’t think about her right now.

  He made it down two more of those long flights of stairs before his light being detached ceased to help him. By then, he felt his chest compressing; he was sweating too much for the level of exertion…he was also breathing too much. He could tell he was losing rational functions…although the fact that he could tell that much told him that the distancing technique with his light was helping him to keep his mind clear, at least.

  He imagined he felt people following him now.

  That part, he felt less sure about. Meaning, he didn’t know if that was the claustrophobia speaking or some higher part of his light.

  He did feel an increasing pressure to get inside this thing somehow.

  He was also beginning to think he wouldn’t be able to reach the bottom.

  At the seventh landing, he found himself staring at a door in the organic-hued wall. The outline was faint, but he could see it, and his Elaerian light confirmed it was there when he did a brief snapshot-check from those higher structures.

  He’d been staying out of his light otherwise, so couldn’t feel anything on the other side.

  He felt no organics in the door itself, really. The metal felt dead, but there was something strange about it, too.

  It was the first door he’d encountered down here…that he’d noticed, at least. Given how strange this whole structure was, if only in terms of the depth and the sheer size he sensed, he didn’t feel confident he wouldn’t have missed things, though.

  He felt no construct down here, either, but he knew he couldn’t trust the more passive areas of his sight for that. He couldn’t do a directed scan without risking being seen, so he laid a hand on the door cautiously, trying to decide if he should risk another flare from the telekinesis to get it open. Feeling that pressure again in the higher areas of his light, he made up his mind.

  This would all be for nothing if he didn’t manage to get out of the damned stairwell.