From my other side, Feigran patted the hand I rested in my lap.
I hadn’t fully realized it was him who sat there, and I jumped.
“The labs,” he whispered, his voice serious. “Arms and legs all wrong, sister. Broken. Hearts outside. Eyes inside. Teeth outside. Dying. Shitting. Bleeding. Screaming.” I heard him grin at me in the dark. “So much beautiful screaming––”
“Shhh,” Balidor said, from somewhere to Feigran’s right. “Don’t talk aloud, brother.”
Feigran switched to my mind, without missing a beat.
Instead of words though, he showed me pictures, making me flinch.
I saw things I remembered from some of Revik’s memories during World War II and after, when he still worked for Galaith. I saw labs filled with shiny organic metals and walls, mirrored and morphing around creatures in cages.
Like Feigran said, some of them were all wrong.
Arms were fused to legs, or missing totally. Necks were absent, or couldn’t hold up the heads. Some of them screamed nonstop, unable to help themselves. Some appeared to have animal or machine parts fused to them. One woman I saw had a webbed hand, and a webbed piece of skin attaching that arm to her side. All of them were naked. Some couldn’t move at all, but only lay or squatted in their cages, making sounds.
I saw a male sitting naked on the floor of his cage, removing his own skin in long strips with his teeth and razor-like claws he had on one hand.
In the cage next to him, a female with enormous teeth, teeth that belonged to some other animal, gnawed on the bars of her cages, drooling and grinning up at the scientists. I saw one of them get too close, saw her hand dart out, right before she bit off two of his fingers and part of his hand. His scream grew hysterical as another tried to pull him off. The second man also got attacked, his arm pulled inside her cage. She grinned at him, at both of them, still snarling as she sank those razor sharp teeth into his forearm––
Yes, Revik sent, his thoughts nauseous, sick-feeling. Yes, it reminds me of that.
Another image rose in my head.
I saw Revik standing over those cages, a grimace on his face, pain in his light. Revik wearing a German military uniform, his face contorted in shock, his eyes lost in disbelief as he stared around at the creatures in the cages.
I saw him unsnap the holster of his sidearm, take out his gun.
I saw scientists shout, waving their arms to intervene but Revik only glared at them, right before he began shooting those miserable beings behind the rows of green-metal bars, putting them out of their misery with a bullet to the head, then another to the chest.
I saw some of the creatures thanking him, begging him to do it.
I saw Terian grab at his arm, wearing a lab coat. I heard Terian try to talk him down, telling Revik he was being foolish, that they still had value as test subjects.
I saw Revik shove him off violently and into an organic cabinet, causing Terian to fall to the floor, gasping, his amber eyes widening up at Revik in shock. I saw Revik turn on him, his face a dark mask as he yelled at the other seer, telling him he was a fucking psychopath, that he was worse than any of the worms who’d worked the camps under Hitler, cutting up and experimenting on their own people.
Before the image faded, I saw Revik turn back towards the cages, shooting the female with the disturbingly large teeth between the eyes as she cackled at them both.
Darkness erased the lab from my view, if not from my memory.
You think that’s what we’ll see? I sent to Revik, fighting the sickness in my light. You think we’ll see creatures like what Galaith had Terian make, during the war?
I don’t know what we’ll find out here, wife, Revik sent grimly, yanking hard on the organic rope to pull the raft over the water. I think that was probably the beginning, though. The beginning of whatever this is.
Nodding, I swallowed.
I could feel Feigran watching me still, likely seeing me through the dark with his sight. I tried not to connect that eager, interested feeling coming off his light with what I’d just seen about those labs.
I tried not to think about him at all.
Instead, I listened to the sound of the boat being dragged closer to the waterfall, the four seers pulling hard, muscles straining, to skim us over the top of the dark water.
I listened to the sound of the waterfall as it grew louder.
I remembered the female with the giant teeth, gnawing on the bars of her cage until blood seeped from her gums, hissing at blank-faced men in white lab coats. I thought about what her descendants might look like, the beings who came after her.
I thought about why Galaith might have wanted to create them in the first place. I thought about why Shadow would have ordered him to.
I tried to push her face from my mind, even as I hoped like hell Revik was wrong.
32
BAD BLOOD
IT SEEMED TO take forever to cross that dark lake.
At the same time, I was shocked when the edge of the raft hit up against the rocks, to the right of the deafening crash of the waterfall, which, from the sound, was now more or less right on top of us. In reality of course, the white water crashing into boulders ended about ten yards to our left and about twenty yards up from the line of the lake.
I could feel it there, and see it through Revik’s light. I saw it fall through a gaping hole in the rock ceiling, a good three stories above us, but the sound was so deafening, it was easy to get confused by distances in the dark.
I felt the raft moving then, dipping and rising rhythmically as our people climbed off the other end. Using my light, I watched Dalai and Holo tie it somehow to one of the rocks on shore, presumably so the current of the waterfall wouldn’t push it away.
Revik and I were the last to get off.
Once Feigran and Cass climbed out of the raft and onto the shore, Revik took my hand, helping me over the spongey material until we were climbing up the slippy rocks, trying to get closer to the edge of the waterfall, where we could all feel the presence strongly now.
It wasn’t easy going. The rocks and boulders were coated with various layers of slime, probably algae or moss from the smell. Even my boots struggled to grip the wet surfaces without me sliding down into the water.
Balidor and Varlan led the way.
It struck me that maybe that wasn’t very smart, or safe for either of them––then I realized Cass was with Balidor, and telling them where to approach the wall. I felt from Balidor that Cass had done this before, that she’d somehow found one of these openings in the past.
In Asia, Esteemed Bridge, Balidor affirmed. She found the cave with the controls for Feigran’s space capsule, remember? At the time I thought it was strange that she would know so much, but she convinced me she got it all from studying Galaith’s diary.
Pausing, he added,
We would never have brought Feigran down without her. I helped her, yes. So did Baguen, who was with us. But it was Cass who knew what to do.
Remembering all that, I frowned.
Don’t worry, Esteemed Bridge, Balidor sent. We’ll find a way in. Cass thinks the entrance here is similar to what they used to disguise that cave in Asia.
Biting my lip, I tried to decide if I should call them back, or at least tell them to wait for me and Revik. Before I’d made up my mind, I felt Balidor’s light shift.
His aleimic imprint disappeared right in front of me, vanishing from my awareness. I looked for Cass, using Revik’s light, and realized she was gone, too.
There was a bare pause.
Then Varlan disappeared behind them.
“Goddamn it,” I muttered, silent under the crash of the waterfall.
Revik’s fingers tightened on mine. Helping me up the last boulder, he brought me with him over a flat area of rock, covered with smaller pieces of stone and sediment. It was still slippery, but nothing like the rocks closer to the lake.
In seconds, we stood with the rest of the remaining seers of ou
r group, in front of the rock wall where I’d just seen Balidor, Cass and Varlan disappear.
Where the fuck did they go? I asked Revik.
He pushed his way through the group, still holding my hand, bringing us to the exact segment of wall where I’d last felt Cass, Balidor and Varlan.
We stood right in front of it then.
No one in our group spoke.
Truthfully, we couldn’t have spoken to one another really, apart from inside the Barrier, given how loud the waterfall was to our left. Now that we were almost under it, the water hitting the rocks echoed in a deafening roar against the stone walls, making it hard to think. I shivered, using Revik’s light to watch him feel over the wet rock wall with his free hand.
Even here, with the massive hole in the ceiling creating the waterfall, there was no physical light at all from what I could tell. If we hadn’t had our Barrier sight, we would have been completely blind. The rocky outcrop where we stood and the slick rock wall would have been nothing but more pitch black, like the lake and the opposite shore.
We would have been forced to rely only on our ears and our sense of touch.
Truthfully, I’m not sure how a human could have gotten as far as we had.
They would have had to swim the length of the lake, no mean feat in the dark, even apart from how cold the water was. Moreover, they’d have no idea of knowing where they were going, or even where the lake ended on the other side.
Watching Revik use his Elaerian sight on the rock wall, I shivered, wiping condensation off my face from the spray drifting over to us from the waterfall.
I was about to ask him if he could feel Cass or Balidor on the other side––
When his arm disappeared.
I stared through his Barrier sight, seeing his arm half-embedded in the rock. Blinking, I tried to use my higher structures to see and couldn’t. I clicked back to Revik’s lower vision, and again saw his arm half-vanished into the slick rock, missing most of his forearm and his hand.
I gripped the hand I held tighter.
Hey! Be careful.
He gave me a bare glance. Then I felt him smile.
Still holding my hand, he pulled me with him into the wall––
Then through it.
We emerged on the other side, with me gasping, staring around the dry space, in shock at what had just happened. I was about to ask him about the others, when a hand appeared in the wall behind me, grasping at air. I grabbed it back, and it gripped my fingers, then began moving towards me.
As it did, it occurred to me I could see in here.
As in, I could see with my physical sight.
The walls glowed with some kind of gold-yellow phosphorous substance.
Whatever it was, it let off enough light that I could see Revik standing next to me, looking absurdly tall in the hewn-rock corridor, his long hair wet and stuck to his neck, still tied back from his face by some kind of thong. The gold light illuminated and emphasizing his high cheekbones, making him look even less human than usual.
I turned back towards the wall, and now a face emerged, grinning at me.
It was Holo.
His other arm remained outside the rock, but now he pulled it forward.
Another hand clasped his––it turned out to belong to Dalai.
Feigran, Stanley, and Illeg followed.
That was all of us, with Varlan, Balidor and Cass somewhere ahead.
As everyone stood in the corridor, shivering and wet, breathing hard, huddled together in the narrow corridor as they gazed around at the gold-lit walls, I looked down the passageway closest to where Revik and I stood.
Looking at the floor of the mostly-dry cave, I saw wet footprints heading down that corridor. Two large-sized boots, and one significantly smaller one.
I looked back at our group.
“Is everyone ready?”
They all looked at me, their eyes reflecting gold in the dim light.
Without waiting for their answer, I began following the wet footprints on the bottom of the cave, still holding Revik’s hand, who followed behind me.
Why didn’t they wait for us? I grumbled in Revik’s mind.
Before he disappeared into the wall with Cass, Balidor told me they’d check it out. Do a security pass first. They were supposed to ping us when it was safe for us to come in, or come back for us, if they couldn’t reach us through the walls and whatever construct might be inside.
I grunted, giving him an annoyed look. Because that makes sense. Leave the two most highly-trained telekinetics behind.
Revik shrugged subtly with one hand.
He didn’t say it, but I suspect it was Cass’s idea.
I bit my lip. Figures.
Again, that subtle shrug from Revik.
Maybe, he sent. I got the impression from ‘Dori that she’s trying to prove herself. To provide some value to the group. He hesitated. To you, specifically. This is one area where she’s had objectively more experience than anyone else on our team. She and Balidor are the only two who’ve ever seen anything like this before.
I didn’t answer right away.
In the end, I didn’t respond to his comments about Cass at all.
So why did you follow them in here anyway? Didn’t Balidor say to wait? I scanned ahead down the corridor without slowing my pace. Why didn’t you tell me this outside?
I was cold, he said, smiling through his light as he squeezed my fingers. My wife was cold. Anyway, I didn’t see the point. We said we’d all do this together. I would have told Balidor that, but he went through the wall before I got a chance.
I nodded, biting my lip.
I fought back and forth on whether to say it.
Then I sent it anyway.
Why are you giving her a pass? I glanced up at him, at his clear eyes reflecting gold light. Cass? I thought you hated her even more than I did.
Surprise rippled Revik’s light.
I’m not giving her a “pass,” wife, he sent, that surprise still in his thoughts. But you gave me a chance to change, with what you did for me in the Tank. You gave me a chance to be different without the Dreng. Our whole team gave me a chance… even Balidor, who had more reasons to hate me than anyone, given what I’d done to him during the war, and with you. In the end, even he forgave me for who I was before. Even while you were in Beijing, he accepted me. Hell, he and Vash put me in charge, once they realized my light had truly changed.
Pausing, he added, his thoughts gruffer,
I figure I owe him. Balidor.
I looked back at him, surprised.
It hadn’t occurred to me that this would be about Balidor for him, but the longer I thought about it, the more sense it made. Remembering how hard I had to fight Balidor over Revik at the time, how bewildered I’d been to see them friends when they came to get me in China, I didn’t have a response at first.
Then, thinking about Cass, about being on that bed in my mother’s house, I felt a pain deep in my gut, sharp enough to make me bite my tongue.
What about me? I sent. Do you owe me anything, husband? Or Lily?
Revik’s light grew frustrated, but also softer.
She’s different now. I can feel it. You can, too––even if you don’t want to. Even if you don’t want to trust what you feel. She’s not who she was when she was with Shadow. She’s not who she was when she did that to you, Allie.
When I looked back, giving him a disbelieving look, his mouth firmed.
I’m not saying all is forgiven, he sent. I’m not fucking saying that, okay? But what kind of hypocrite would I be, if I wasn’t willing to keep that door open? She defended me. Her and Jon both. And I was no different from her––
You were different, I cut in, giving him a warning look.
To you, I was, yes. His thoughts grew harder, but also more patient. I loved you. Fuck. I head-over-heels adored you, wife, even then. I was angry as fuck at you, but I never lost sight of who you were to me, even as betrayed as I felt. I focused mos
t of my hatred on Balidor.
He grunted a little.
He made that damned easy at the time.
He gave me a direct look when I glanced back at him.
So no, I didn’t hurt you the way Cass did… but I was a mass-fucking-murderer, wife. You can’t say that about Cass, no matter how badly she hurt us. Her issue with you was personal. Menlim stoked that, warped it. He connected it to all the trauma and abuse she experienced as a child. He used it to turn us against one another. But she didn’t do what I did. She never even came close, in terms of what she did.
She fucking enjoyed it, I snapped, giving him a cold look. She enjoyed it, Revik. She didn’t do it out of some sense of higher purpose, like you did. She didn’t believe the prophecies were guiding her hand. She got off on doing that to me––
He clicked at me, cutting me off with his thoughts.
Allie, you know how the Dreng work. Menlim broke her. He convinced her she’d suffered for a higher purpose, that everything in her life happened for a reason. He gave her something she’d probably wanted her whole life––a fucking reason. A reason why her parents did what they did to her. A reason why no one loved her as a child. He turned that into a virtue, into a sign of her superiority. He convinced her she could give Lily a better life. He flattered her, told her things she’d probably wanted to hear since she was a child.
Hesitating, he added,
The whole time you were growing up, she believed she was shit, that she was the dark force in your life. Menlim reversed that whole narrative. She felt vindicated, for the first time. She felt like it was finally her time to step into the light.
I clenched my jaw. Well, that makes it all okay––
I didn’t say that, he sent, frustrated. I’m saying it’s less evil than it is sad. Balidor told me his biggest barrier in working with her was her own self-hate. Her utter conviction that if she faced the lies Menlim told, she’d have to go back to being nothing. To being shit.
I didn’t answer.
I knew that about Cass. I’d known it since we were kids.
I’d tried to reverse that narrative, too. So had Jon.
Fat lot of fucking good it did either of us.
Sun Page 42