by Deanna Chase
Something about looking at these unnerved him.
He forgot sometimes, the age of her soul. Looking at her drawings felt like interacting with the Bridge...not with Alyson, the girl and now woman he’d been tasked with protecting. It was easy to forget, sometimes, why all of this was so important.
He saw more of the boy, too.
Often he sat in the grass, under the mountains. Always, he had dark hair.
Revik didn’t see any others of his face, however.
He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, when a sudden, sharp ping vibrated his light. He checked the time via the virtual display inside his headset...and cursed.
Alyson was leaving work.
He had ten minutes. Assuming she came straight here.
And assuming she walked, rather than taking a cab.
Swiftly, he stood, and began gathering up the drawings, which he’d kept in the same order, even as he’d gone through them carefully. Stacking them up into a pile that looked more or less how he remembered the first one looking...hopefully close enough for any human, if not a seer...he carefully put them back inside the portfolio case and zipped it up, leaving the top open the way he’d found that, too.
He got the portfolio put away, did another quick circuit of the room to make sure he hadn’t left anything else behind, then he began making his way to the backyard.
He could already feel her heading up the street.
Two minutes now.
Plenty of time to get out.
Still, he found a part of himself regretting it.
He hadn’t seen her in the flesh in a long time.
Another, different part of him knew maybe that was for the best, as well.
He stood on the edge of the park.
He had direct line of sight over a street.
One house in particular.
He made sure he was well-covered, invisible from that same street and house. He knew the house on the inside by now, too, even apart from the research he’d done via his contacts in the local police department. He recognized it from Barrier images he’d gotten off Allie the night Jaden brought her back here.
He also now knew exactly what Jaden had given her that night.
He’d suspected the truth already, just from what he’d seen, but he confirmed it by tracking down the dealer and reading him for every detail of the sale.
It had been what Revik thought: the seer drug, Iluvren. What most now referred to as “the aphrodisiac drug.”
Revik hadn’t done it himself, but he was aware of it, of course.
When Iluvren first hit your system, it knocked you on your ass, then put you in a state of extreme pliability once you regained consciousness. In the case of most seers, that usually included extreme sex-hunger, particularly in group settings, which is where it was often used in fetish clubs and so on. The drug upped the libido of the average human, too, but not like it did with seers. Moreover, seers were more likely to go unconscious for longer.
There was also a blackout period when the drug wore off, similar to Rohypnol, where the person remembered nothing of the period that they’d been under the influence. That generally lifted after between eight to twelve hours.
Allie reacted to the drug like a seer. Pretty much down the line.
Jaden had done it to get his rocks off. He’d done it hoping he could talk his new, sex-crazed girlfriend into a group session with his best pals. He convinced himself it was like doing X with her or something…only forgot about the part where he didn’t ask her.
Revik checked the chamber of his gun, then the magazine, and shoved the latter back in with a click, looking back at the house.
He’d put this job off, but not out of reluctance.
He’d done it deliberately, strategically.
He wanted a few days to go by since Allie’s last appearance in this house. He wanted her alibi to be unassailable, which meant he needed witnesses on both ends, preferably SCARB-run cameras, so the date stamp was beyond dispute…which meant he needed an airtight exit strategy, or he’d end up in a cell himself. As much as any of those things, he needed some time to pass for his own sake. He wanted to know he was thinking clearly, so he didn’t do anything stupid.
Something that might tie this back to her in some way, or cause her problems.
Those first forty-eight hours, clarity and rationality hadn’t been high on Revik’s list.
Rage didn’t begin to cover it. Over time, however, it turned his light and his mind cold, stripped of feeling. It turned him back into a murderer.
Which, in this particular case, was just fine with Revik.
A murderer, unlike an emotionally wounded seer, could think clearly.
A murderer could be patient.
Revik knew he couldn’t wait too long, though.
The Council would have sent someone already. If not in person, then they would have someone––maybe even a handful of someones, maybe even members of the elite force of the Adhipan––watching over Revik from the Barrier. They would never let him use the Barrier for something like this. They’d simply blind him, like they had that night in London. They might even knock him out, leave him somewhere for one of their agents to pick up.
They’d definitely pull him...if they hadn’t decided to do that already.
Revik left London without permission.
He’d come out here under Barrier silence, mainly by controlling his own mind and light. In that sense, the block almost helped him. He’d made it out because he hadn’t waited. He’d taken every step while he’d still been Barrier-blind, knowing the window they’d given him in the physical world would be short.
It was short, too...he hadn’t been wrong about that. But they clearly hadn’t expected him to react as quickly as he did, either. By the time they figured out Revik’s intent and he got the direct order to remain where he was, he was already on the plane.
Vash had not been pleased.
Revik got the sense that Vash had taken it better than most of the Council, though.
Since then, Revik had been threatened. He’d been warned. He’d been reasoned with, in various ways. He’d been bargained with, bribed, appealed to. He’d heard nothing but a barrage of warnings, threats, spiritual appeals, psychological appeals, emotional appeals and lectures via the Barrier for the past twenty-four hours.
Then he’d fallen asleep. He crashed out on a hotel bed in the Tenderloin, wearing all of his clothes. He barely paused long enough to kick off his shoes.
That happened after he’d spent a few hours at the police station, checking to see if Allie reported the incident with Jaden, looking up Jaden’s physical address and stats, looking up the addresses and other information of every member of Jaden’s band...along with current information on that asshole, Mickey, who tried to drag her out of the bar that night, before Jaden got his hands on her.
By the time Revik paid cash for the hotel, he hadn’t slept in over two days.
He woke up about six hours later.
He knew they would have scanned him up, down and sideways while he slept. The second they could locate him in the Barrier, meaning the second Revik went unconscious, they would have been all over his ass, picking apart every aspect of his light to see every detail of where he’d been and what he’d been up to in the time since they’d last felt him there.
Since then, it had been radio silence. From the Barrier, at least.
Yet that clock ticking over his head had gotten louder.
He’d wrangled a concealed carry permit for the plane, utilizing his connections with the British government. He’d expected that to get stopped in the works, too, by someone in the Seven who might be monitoring those channels, but again, he squeaked by without notice, probably because he left so fast. He’d been threatened with being picked up on the United States side of the flight, too, but in the end, they backed down, not wanting to call attention to him, or the fact that he was entering the U.S., much less that he’d come to San Francisco fo
r a particular reason. In that, Revik knew they were protecting the Bridge...not him.
For the same reason, Revik traveled under an alias. A human one.
The creds he’d gotten for concealed carry had him down as a member of Seer Containment, part of SCARB’s human division. When Homeland Security scanned his barcode at the gate, they didn’t so much as blink at the “H” tattoo on his arm. The blood patches Revik wore backed up the human race-cat and linked directly to the fake ID…although Revik technically could have used his own blood and passed protocol, given his security clearance.
He just hadn’t wanted his entrance linked to any known aliases he’d used in the past, especially not in this country.
Especially given that he’d come here, essentially, to perform a hit.
Dehgoies.
Vash’s thoughts slid gently through his mind.
Don’t do this, brother. Please.
Revik didn’t answer.
Brother...we’ve spoken to Kali...
Revik felt his lips curl into a frown.
Kali was birth mother to the Bridge. Revik hadn’t known Vash or the Council were even in contact with her still.
...She agrees with us, Vash sent. She agrees that this human should not die. There are reasons, brother. You must trust us both on this. This human is not quite what he seems to you, however reprehensible his actions...
Revik shook his head, not wanting to hear that, either.
Then, remembering what he’d seen when they finally raised the block on his light, Revik felt a dense rage surge back through him.
Brother, I understand, Vash sent, softer. I know this pains you greatly. Please. It pains us, too. Trust us on this. Kali seems to think it is important that this human not be killed. It is for the greater good, brother Revik––
Fuck your greater good.
Revik sent the words before he knew he meant to answer.
What followed was a more laden silence.
Revik. The old seer’s thoughts steeled. Brother, you promised me. You promised you could listen to the wisdom of the Council in this, that you would be able to put aside your personal feelings when it came to decisions that affected the general welfare...
Revik shook his head again, gritting his teeth.
Then, feeling his rage worsen, sparking into a furnace-like heat in his light, he shoved the old seer out of his head. Once he had, he swiftly wove a dense shield.
Within seconds, that shield turned into a solid block of light.
He wrapped it around his aleimi against all of them...Kali, too. Moreover, he left a spark of his anger on the outside of that field, the energetic equivalent of a hanging “fuck off” sign so they’d know it wasn’t an accident.
He might not be able to overpower them, or get past the blocks they put around him when they wanted to hobble his sight...but he could sure as hell keep their voices out.
Once free of the distraction of their thoughts and lights, he focused back on the craftsman-style house across the street from where he stood. Keeping his light and mind out of the Barrier so they couldn’t drop him, he slid his body slightly to the right so he could see better from behind the trees where he stood. He glanced up and down the length of the street, noting how quiet it was, even on a street running alongside the park.
Then again, it was midday, and this was a residential neighborhood. Everyone was at work.
Well, most people were.
Jaden would be leaving for work in approximately three to five minutes.
Given no limitations, Revik would have kept this simple.
Used his light to get the human to walk out in front of traffic...maybe even throw himself off the Golden Gate Bridge, since that was a popular suicide destination. He couldn’t do any of those things, though. No way would he be given access to his light for such a thing.
Then again, a gun was pretty damned simple, too.
A little harder to explain away, but as long as it couldn’t be tied to Allie, Revik didn’t much care. Crouching down lower in the trees, he leaned his side against the cobblestone wall he’d also picked out the night before. Unholstering his gun from under the long leather coat he wore, he checked the chamber and the magazine, even though he’d checked both moments before.
He’d considered more elaborate scenarios.
He’d considered staging a mugging, maybe in the park.
In the end, he decided that was too risky. There might be witnesses.
No, better to just snipe the fucker, even if it raised questions. Generally speaking, musician programmers didn’t get killed in professional hits, but the local cops got weird things like that sometimes. Mostly, they just ended up in an “unsolved” file somewhere.
Shifting his weight back so he faced the house, he deepened his lean into the low wall, propping his gun hand and the Glock on his forearm, which now rested on top of the wall itself. Steadying both his body weight and his aim, he relaxed his breathing, and settled in to wait. He didn’t want to be here long, in case someone happened to notice him, either from the park side, or, even less likely, from the street.
As a result, he hadn’t wanted to get into position too soon. Normally, he would dig in for an hour or so before he expected the target, but this would work better if he could be in and out and gone before anyone apart from the Council knew he’d come to California at all.
He’d just eased out from behind the wall and tree when the door opened at the front of the house. Revik tensed, watching as Jaden turned, hitching his backpack up when it fell down his arm before he dug into his jeans pocket to retrieve his keys. Revik saw but didn’t hear him curse when he dropped the keys on the porch decking, and paused to put down his travel mug full of something steaming, probably coffee, before he bent to retrieve them.
Revik held his breath, steadying the gun.
He could see the human well enough. He saw the flash of silver of his wristband, the pale green wrap of his headset. The strategically mussed black hair, dark leather jacket, designer jeans, red shirt clinging to a muscular but slim body.
He could see him just fine.
Even so, he would wait for Jaden to get out of the shade of the porch.
As he thought it, the male human finished fiddling with his key in the front door lock. Finishing with the deadbolt, he turned a few seconds later, slung his backpack higher on his shoulder once more and picked up his coffee cup.
He began descending the stairs…
When Revik heard a noise behind him.
Turning sharply, Revik saw a tall seer step out of the shadowed thicket. She wore all black, what had to be body armor under a long coat. He glimpsed the seer’s dark eyes, the midnight blue, tribal tattoo covering half of her face.
...right before he saw the gun gripped in her hands.
He jerked his own gun off the wall and around. He aimed it up at her instead of at the human leaving his house, oblivious as he prepared to work at a software company located down by the ferry building at the end of Market Street.
Revik was fast––damned fast, even on a bad day.
In this case, not fast enough, however.
Before he could fully raise the Glock…
The hunter with the tribal tattoo had already squeezed off a shot.
10
RESTRAINED
Revik woke up in his own crappy hotel room in the Tenderloin.
Hangover didn’t begin to cover it.
His head pounded the second he opened his eyes, worsening abruptly when the flickering, florescent bulb in the overhead light fixture blinded him.
Groaning, he raising a hand to his eyes, shielding them against that light, lying on his back on the lumpy bed with the cheap, quilted bedspread. His head continued to throb, each pulse slamming through the back of his skull like someone rhythmically hitting him with a mallet covered in nails and glass shards.
A chuckle reached him somewhere through that fog of pain and too-bright light.
“They weren’t kidding,�
�� the voice said. “I thought that much tranq would kill you, pup.”
Female, his mind catalogued, even through the pain.
Slight Asian accent.
Seer, from the lilts...common in those of his race who grew up speaking primarily the seer tongue, Prexci, versus a human dialect as their first language.
Moreover, he recognized the voice. Vaguely, at least.
A few seconds later, the imprints in his light identified it.
“Yumi.” He exhaled the name, nearly a groan. He continued to squint against the light, his hand over his eyes. “Fuck. They sent you here. Really?”
“Not only her, brother,” a male voice joked.
Revik turned his head, meeting the gaze of the seer standing there, even as the other smiled and continued speaking.
“…Do you really think sister Yumi could carry you, all by herself?”
Seeing the seer grinning at him from the other side of the room, where he sat on a scuffed up wooden chair, Revik grunted.
“Poresh,” he said, unnecessarily.
His eyes drifted around the rest of the room, having finally adjusted to the light. Dalai grinned at him from another chair, her green-blue eyes shimmering in the tacky light.
“…Gods,” Revik said. “Did he send all of you?”
By “he,” Revik meant Balidor, of course, leader of the Adhipan.
Clearly, Yumi knew exactly who he meant.
“Perhaps brother Balidor holds us responsible, pup,” she snorted, folding her muscular arms from where she stood over him. The midnight blue tattoo conformed around the feral angles of her oval face. Her shaved bald head looked more dramatic than Revik remembered, somehow emphasizing her extreme height, which nearly rivaled Revik’s. “...You fell under my command first, after all,” she added. “Perhaps he sees this as my mess.”
Revik closed his eyes again, rubbing his head.
“What the hell did you hit me with?” he muttered.
“Horse tranquilizer,” a fourth voice said.
Revik turned in surprise, realizing he’d somehow missed the giant-sized Garensche, who stood over by the window. He looked the barrel-chested seer over now, noting that his seven-foot-plus frame still wore full body armor, just visible under a longer, forest green shirt and black leather coat. He stood by the one window to Revik’s musty room, keeping an eye on the street.