Dragon: Bridge & Sword: The Final War (Bridge & Sword Series Book 9)

by JC Andrijeski

  I felt my jaw harden.

  Then, shrugging, I told him the truth.

  “Because I can’t risk any of you turning on me in the field.” Feeling the shock in his light, I looked him in the eye. “My husband may have trusted you…” I swallowed, forcing a wave of emotion off my light. “…I’m hoping you will not be offended if I say I’m still reserving judgment, my brother. Particularly where my own life, and the lives of my family are concerned. In any case, I have only your word for it that Revik asked you to come with me at all.”

  I stopped, still battling emotion out of my light.

  “I mean no offense.” I used formal Prexci, making a polite symbol with my hand. “I’m sure you understand why I might need to be careful. Surely you can’t begrudge me that?”

  “Why don’t you just look?” he said.

  His voice came out gruff.

  It was more than that. I felt emotion there. A lot of it.

  More than I wanted to deal with right then, truthfully.

  When I glanced over, he was studying my face. That same emotion lived in his eyes, intense enough that it was difficult to hold his gaze. I did it anyway, still trying to decide what I was seeing in him.

  “Just look.” His voice held a note of surrender, his light opening even as I felt a darker coil of anger on him. “I give the memory to you, sister. All of them, if you desire more from me than the specific one I offer. Look. Look at me in entirety. Then perhaps you will believe me and we can stop wasting time with this fucking dance. I’ll let you see any part of my light you want, if it will reassure you.”

  I was already shaking my head.

  I felt the openness in his light. I felt the sincerity of the offer. I could tell he meant it about the offer being open-ended.

  I couldn’t go there. Not now.

  He didn’t need to spell it out. I could plainly feel that his and Revik’s conversation had been emotional. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to watch my husband have an ex-lover’s spat with a seer who obviously still had feelings for him.

  “No, thank you,” I said, stiffly polite.

  Dalejem let out an incredulous snort. Shaking his head, he clicked at me.

  I heard the understanding there, even before he spoke.

  “Gaos. You really are hanging on by a thread, aren’t you… sister?” he said. “This whole military front is nothing but a load of shit. Just a big fucking avoidance.”

  I heard scorn in his voice, but felt something different on his light. His aleimi pulsed with a complex mix of anger, understanding and empathy.

  Somehow, I flinched more from the empathy than the anger.

  “You can’t even bear to hear his fucking name,” Dalejem continued, still staring at me with that understanding in his eyes. “You can’t bear to have him mentioned at all, can you? Now you won’t look at a memory of him. A fucking memory. Even if it might save your life. Why? Because you don’t want to be reminded he exists?” Lowering his voice to a growl, he hit out at me with more light. “Or are you afraid of seeing something you don’t want to see? Do you really trust your husband so little, sister?”

  My jaw hardened. Enough to hurt my teeth.

  I didn’t lower my gaze.

  “You’re willing to risk your life to avoid knowing whether or not you can trust him with me?” he said, his voice bordering on incredulous. “Because I think that’s pretty fucking childish. Don’t you?”

  I forced myself to look away.

  Making a polite motion with my hand, I placed my hands on my hips.

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” I said.

  He let out another incredulous snort.

  My temper surged hot before I could stop it.

  “What the fuck business is it of yours how I feel? Or what I want to avoid? Who the fuck do you think you are, asking me about that?”

  Seeing his eyes change, I forced myself silent, averting my gaze.

  “He left you, too,” I said, colder. “Does it somehow reassure you when you can mock me for the same? Does that make us ‘even’ in your eyes?”

  When I glanced at him that time, Dalejem stared at me. His expression bled into open bewilderment the few seconds I watched, even as he opened his light, startling me again by the sheer amount of himself he seemed willing to have me see and feel.

  Most of what I felt was confusion, though.

  Waving off what I saw forming there, I went back to arming myself, shoving a knife in my boot sheath and pulling a few more magazines out of the open crate.

  Shaking my head, and maybe regretting my own words by then, I let my voice grow more subdued. “An offer of your memories is enough for me right now, brother. Make of that what you will.” Still scanning weapons with my eyes, I added, “I don’t have time to get in a pissing match with you about Revik. However, if you stick around long enough, there are plenty of others here you can spar with on that front. You don’t need to do it with me.”

  I started to move past him, towards the door where my armored coat hung, but he stepped directly into my path. I looked up, sending out a pulse of heat with my light.

  I didn’t turn it into anything other than that, but I felt myself restraining it that time.

  “Get the fuck out of my way,” I said.

  “Take me with you,” he said, blurting the words. “If you’ve decided to trust me on the one point, you should trust me on the rest.”

  “Should I?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “Yes. You should. For tactical reasons alone, my Esteemed Bridge.”

  I stared up at him incredulously, then clicked again, shaking my head.

  “You don’t fucking give up, do you?”

  “No,” he said, blunt.

  I forced myself to dial down my light. It wasn’t easy.

  “What tactical reasons would those be?” I said.

  His voice and light grew openly deferential. “You need someone to watch your back. Anyone would. Even on a scouting mission. I will ask you no more questions. I will follow orders––” At my derisive snort, he made a further deferential gesture. “Please, Esteemed Sister. It is better if you have a second aleimi and a second pair of eyes… if only for the fact that you are bringing a prisoner with you.”

  He spoke faster, maybe in response to the resistance he felt in my light.

  “You said yourself that having him with you increases the risk,” Dalejem repeated. “There are those who will risk more for both of you than they might for only one. Take me with you, and I can at least hold the Rook for you. I can keep him from distracting you at a critical moment.”

  Looking up at him, I felt my frustration turn back into anger. On the other hand, it struck me that maybe refusing him on principle wasn’t the best idea right now.

  I needed to think like Revik would on this. Strip out the unnecessary bullshit.

  Pure tactical. Nothing else.

  Fighting not to think about him beyond those narrow confines, I jerked my eyes off Dalejem’s, trying to think.

  Maybe he was right. If I was going to trust him, why not actually use him? I couldn’t tell him everything, of course––especially now. But chances were, I’d have to confide in someone in our group. Eventually. At least about some of it.

  The truth was, I knew he was right.

  I could use him. He was a good infiltrator. I’d seen that much already.

  He seemed to watch me think about this.

  His light opened more, again disarming me.

  “If I don’t go with you, you can be damned sure I’ll watch from afar,” Dalejem added, motioning at the door. “And I’ll involve the others, if I think you are in danger.”

  I let out a disbelieving laugh. “You go from begging me to threatening me?”

  “I will do whatever I have to do, Sister.”

  He started to say more, then bit his lip. Even so, I felt enough off his light to know what he would have said. He would follow me, whether I gave him permission
or not. Worse, he would pull the others in at the slightest chance I might be hurt or killed.

  He could fuck up everything, in other words.

  Exhaling more in irritation that time than anger, I glanced at Feigran, conscious suddenly that he was watching us both silently, listening to us argue. When I looked at him though, I saw his amber eyes focused over both of our heads, as if the conversation going on up there was infinitely more interesting that the one coming out of either of our mouths.

  Giving a low snort in spite of myself, I looked at Dalejem, appraising him openly. After a few more seconds, I conceded defeat, just like I had in Bangkok.

  “Fine,” I told him. “Don’t get in my fucking way.” I glanced back at Feigran. “And keep him alive, brother. I mean it. If he dies, it’s on you. You won’t like the repercussions, I promise you. Whatever you tell yourself now.”

  Dalejem was already nodding, relief pulsing off his light.

  That relief came through so intensely, I couldn’t help but pause, staring at him. He didn’t wait, but immediately bent over the weapons crate. I watched him for a few seconds more as he grabbed a Beretta and four magazines, cramming them into the pocket of a vest even as he lobbed that same vest over one shoulder, shoving his arm through the hole.

  Eventually I turned away, walking the rest of the way to get my coat.

  Pulling it off the rack, I slid an arm into one sleeve, still watching in my peripheral vision as he loaded up on grenades, noticing only then that he already wore more or less full combat gear, if minus the vest he’d just donned. He even wore anti-grav boots, and I saw a row of flares worn at his belt in a neat row of light-green cylinders.

  Looking at him, I shook my head, clicking softly in spite of myself.

  No wonder he and Revik ended up together.

  But that thought pained me, too.

  Enough that I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds after it passed through my light.

  He joined me at the door in less than a minute, Feigran in front of him, one of his thinner arms held firmly in Dalejem’s muscular hand.

  “Can you tell me where we are going?” he said politely, following my hand with his eyes as I reached for the door handle. “Or is that privileged information, as well?”

  Thinking about the question, I sighed.

  “We’re going on a hunting expedition, brother.”

  Dalejem studied my eyes, his mouth held in a harder line. His voice remained unerringly polite. “And what is it we’re hunting precisely, most Esteemed and Unquestionable Bridge?”

  I flipped my hand sideways, ignoring the faint jab.

  “Maybe another seer in Shadow’s Network.” I hesitated, then shrugged with the same hand. I found myself thinking fuck it, I might as well just tell him everything. “…Maybe an intermediary,” I admitted.

  Dalejem stared at me. “An intermediary.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “But how is that possible?” He frowned. “I thought you had identified all nine of the living intermediaries.”

  “All but one,” I corrected. “Two were blacked out. We only ID’d one of those as Cass. War.”

  “But your daughter is surely the ninth?” Dalejem said.

  I shook my head, clicking.

  “No. Well… maybe not. I talked to Tarsi about that. And Kali.” Seeing Dalejem’s eyebrow go up as he tightened his grip on Feigran’s arm, I made another expansive gesture. “Kali thinks maybe there are nine intermediaries down here at all times. Meaning, regardless of the Displacement. She wrote down the nine that would be here at the start of the ‘pre-wave.’ Meaning, the events leading up to the Displacement itself. When Galaith died––”

  “It left a spot open,” Dalejem muttered, finishing the thought.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “Lily is Galaith’s replacement,” he said, looking sharper at me. “So there would still be the last spot. The one you never identified.”

  I made another of those vague, more or less signs. “It’s a theory. And Feigran told me about another being. The name he mentioned is the same as one of the beings from the pantheon.”

  “And what name is that?” Dalejem said.

  I’d already started to leave through the door.

  Stopping, I started to answer him, then gritted my teeth, deciding against it for some reason. Shaking my head, I clicked softly as I walked the rest of the way out of the hotel room. I didn’t look at him long enough to gauge his reaction, but I felt his stare. I also felt him looking at my light, but subtly, almost like ‘Dori would have.

  His voice sharpened.

  “Did Revik know? About this other intermediary. Did he know before he left?”

  I flinched. Then I shook my head, once. “No.”

  “You didn’t tell him?”

  “I was going to.” My voice held an edge. “I didn’t get a chance.”

  Dalejem nodded, but I felt a whisper of skepticism off his light. Choosing to ignore it, I walked, eyes focused on the patterned carpet.

  I’d committed to bringing him with me.

  I’d already told him more than I’d intended to tell anyone about this. He’d just have to fucking deal with not knowing all of it––and stay out of my way, like I’d said.

  If not, I might end up having to kill him myself.

  I winced at the thought, not wanting to imagine what Revik would say if I killed his ex-boyfriend out in the field, whatever my reasons. Even if he agreed with those reasons in principle, I knew him. It wouldn’t go over well at all. It might even be one of those unforgivable things, since he’d admitted to me he still loved Dalejem.

  The truth was, I had to think about it that way.

  I didn’t have any choice. We were all-in at this point.

  Everyone was expendable in this.

  Even my husband’s ex-lovers––even the ones he loved still.

  I was expendable, too, apart from the fact that my life, Revik’s and Lily’s currently all balanced on the same sharp-edged knife. Every seer here was expendable, regardless of how I felt about them, or who they were to me. I couldn’t kid myself on that point.

  So yes, Dalejem was potentially expendable. Whatever I owed him.

  Whoever he was to Revik.

  Dalejem might have even felt that.

  Right after I thought it, he stopped asking me questions.

  21

  DENVER AIRPORT

  FEIGRAN DIDN’T GIVE me a lot of clues.

  Then again, I would have liked more than six days to grill him on everything he hinted around during that first talk in Bangkok.

  He wouldn’t talk to me in Bangkok itself––not apart from the one time. He’d been insanely paranoid about us being overheard. He remained adamant he could not be overheard by Revik in particular, not when it came to anything to do with this “Dragon.”

  That being said, Revik leaving hadn’t really helped.

  Feigran didn’t seem to want to be overheard by anyone monitoring the constructs in Bangkok. He’d been wary of Balidor, Tarsi, Yumi––pretty much anyone who wasn’t me.

  I wondered why he trusted me, but I didn’t want to ask. My luck, it would’ve just flipped his paranoia in my direction, so I didn’t open that door.

  Since we got to Colorado, he’d told me more.

  More than words, he’d drawn me pictures.

  One of those I held in my hands now, as I looked over the nearly empty plain outside what remained of a state wildlife park.

  The stretch of burnt and dried-out nothing to the east of us housed distant rows of white tent-like structures making up what used to be Denver International Airport.

  Between it and us, I saw only a few hollowed-out vehicles lying in different segments of road. They all looked abandoned, even via the binocular setting of my VR headset.

  I knew I couldn’t trust that impression, though. Some bandits had signal blockers that would prevent an accurate scan.

  We’d gotten this far driving a SUV that Dalejem
procured a few blocks away from the hotel. It had roll bars and everything, so I wondered where and how he’d gotten it exactly, since it was a vehicle with obvious use in this new world.

  Also, whoever “donated” it left us with a full tank of gas.

  I didn’t ask.

  I left information on the infiltration channel that should keep the others from freaking out when they noticed me, Feigran and Dalejem missing––in theory, at least, and assuming we weren’t gone for too long.

  I’d left strongly-worded orders around not following us, but I knew seers could be unpredictable when it came to their ideas of duty and loyalty.

  Especially with me, given who I was.

  Revik seemed to think my being the Bridge made them feel entitled to me in some way, even though I was their superior officer. Which made sense––sort of. It still irritated the hell out of me when it got in the way of something I was trying to do.

  I suspected it irritated Revik for different reasons.

  Shoving that out of my head, I refocused back on that row of white, tent-like spikes.

  The wetlands park gave us some shelter via trees and a few structures, which is why I’d opted to come in from this direction even though it was closer to the Denver suburbs.

  The proximity to Denver made me nervous.

  We’d come across enough land vehicles in use that we didn’t stand out as much as I’d feared, but being outside the main enclave was risky as hell, even as seers. From what the others told me, they’d spent most of their driving time here ID’ing and pushing humans who were trying to ambush them from barricaded roads, buildings, and alleyways.

  Dalejem and I had been forced to do the same.

  Even with our distinct advantage via our sight, it was unsettling. I’d seen enough images over the past few months to know how these things generally unfolded once they got physical. A lot of these roving bands acted little above animals.

  Holding the drawing up so I could compare it to our view of the airport to the East, I frowned as I looked through the binocular vision provided by my headset via virtual reconstructions of our last satellite feeds. I had to hope the maps were more or less up to date, since we had no way to access current satellite images out here––nor would I risk trying to access them, even if we did.