Prophet: Bridge & Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  I wondered if the Terians with me could guess, too.

  If so, they didn’t let on as they trekked across those glistening white dunes with us in the dark.

  We walked in silence mostly, although I heard murmurings here and there as stories were exchanged on several sides. Most of the exchanges occurred between Loki, Chinja and Wreg’s teams, but I heard some of the new Listers join in the discussion as well. Most of the stories being told were by seers who’d been with us in the boathouse.

  I didn’t join any of those discussions.

  Neither did Chandre, I noticed, who walked silently next to me for most of the night, still wearing the rifle slung around her back that she’d used to take out Menlim.

  I had questions about her part in all of this.

  I decided those could wait.

  Anyway, I could guess the basics. She’d been another contingency––a way to cover our backs, and to take out Menlim if Revik failed. There were details that nagged at me, like how she managed to follow us into the Waterfront complex without tripping security, but I figured Revik was probably behind that, too.

  Chan already told me at the boathouse that he’d given her a mobile construct to use in the event of emergencies, something he and Balidor cooked up on the side.

  I didn’t need to know any more than that.

  Not right now, anyway.

  As we walked over the white dunes, I noticed Kat kept herself apart from the other seers as well, huddled inside a robe someone must have given her––likely to cover the ridiculous clothing we both still wore, as much as for the chill of the night desert air.

  The sky was growing lighter on the horizon ahead when I heard Wreg make the call to bring in air support. I couldn’t suppress my relief once I made out his words.

  I was exhausted. More than that, the last thing I wanted was to be walking out here when that Arabian sun rose higher in the sky.

  Chandre handed me her canteen, clearly overhearing my thoughts. I tilted my head, taking a long couple of swallows before handing it back to her with a grateful nod.

  I gazed back out over the sand while she drank, watching it start to pick up diamonds from the rising sun. Right now, the soft dunes were beautiful––pink and gold in the new light––but those beautiful white dunes would heat up in no time at all if we stayed out here, even if we only walked until mid-morning.

  Anyway, we were probably far enough from the city by now.

  I found out only after we reunited with Wreg and Jon that Balidor and the others had abandoned the carrier totally, even moving the last segment of the Barrier-containment tank and all of the animals to smaller ships. They’d spread those ships across the Arabian Sea, presumably to hide among other boats operating in the area, and to act more as a caravan.

  Balidor told me over the same link that so far at least, the tactic seemed to be working to keep us inconspicuous to Shadow’s agents.

  It was a good thing they did it when they did.

  I wouldn’t find out until the next morning, after I’d slept for over ten hours in the bunk of a much smaller ship, that someone dropped a half-dozen missiles on our old carrier in the middle of the night, not long before Menlim and his black-clad army of infiltrators showed up in that boathouse on the Persian Gulf.

  The U.S.S. Vashentarenbuul sank to the bottom of the Gulf, along with everything in it––probably right around the time Terian was bashing my husband’s head with a metal pole.

  Terian’s stars did fall from the sky that night.

  In the end, everything he’d told me more or less came true––if not exactly in the way I’d expected or hoped.

  I also felt a dense pulse of real gratitude for Kali when I learned the news, maybe for the first time since I’d met her on that beach on Sri Lanka.

  She’d probably saved Lily’s life.

  She’d saved a lot of lives that night.

  That morning in the desert, however, staring out over the endless-seeming expanse of white sand, watching the sun rise over an uneven horizon, I didn’t know any of that.

  All I knew was, I was exhausted.

  Revik was alive, so was Lily.

  Dalejem was alive––and Feigran––although I knew it might be touch and go with either of them, depending on how things went back on those boats.

  I continued to stand there, gazing out over all that sand, when I realized someone different stood next to me now. Someone not Chandre.

  I turned my head, expecting to see Jon, or Wreg, or maybe Jon and Wreg.

  Instead I saw Terian standing there, his reddish-brown hair out of its seer clip and hanging around his broad shoulders. I watched as a warm breeze that had risen over the dunes tugged at it, floating it around his neck as he followed my gaze to the sun.

  I studied his handsome face, probably feeling more conflicted about him than I ever had, even with the rest of what we’d just been through.

  He smiled faintly as the wind gusted over a swath of pearly white sand, pulling it into small twisters and eddies. His eyes followed as a few handfuls of fine white grains twirled up into a perfect cyclone before the wind pulled them back away from one another, scattering them in different directions.

  When he turned, he grinned at me, raising his eyebrows suggestively as he glanced down at the skintight black dress.

  I snorted, shaking my head.

  “What?” He grinned wider. “No thank you kiss?”

  “Maybe later,” I grunted.

  “No thank you?” he said, folding his arms as he grinned at me again.

  Sighing, I lowered my hand from where I’d been using it to shield my eyes from the sun. Looking at him, I clicked humorously in spite of myself.

  “Thank you, Terry,” I said, using the formal version of Prexci.

  I executed the formal bow, too, lowering my head and hand.

  “You’re very welcome, my dear,” he said, using the same language, and giving me a faintly mocking but mostly well-executed counter-salute.

  I let myself study his face a second time, once more fighting that conflict in my light.

  “It’s going to get harder now, you know,” he commented.

  I frowned, shielding my eyes. “More prophecies, Terry? Really?”

  “Just one.” He glanced sideways at me, that wicked smile tugging his full, perfectly-shaped mouth. “Don’t give up on him.”

  I just stared at him in the silence after he spoke.

  Then I snorted. “If you mean my husband, I wasn’t planning on it, Terry––”

  He cut me off.

  “You’ll want to,” he said, matter-of-fact. “Don’t.” Tilting his head sideways, he winked at me, then looked back at the desert. “It’ll all be for nothing, if you do.”

  I stared at him, bewildered for real that time.

  I was still standing there, watching a small fleet of helicopters make its way towards us over the dunes, when Terian fell to his knees.

  I stepped back, reaching for my gun in reflex.

  But it wasn’t a trick, or any kind of ruse––not that time.

  He looked up at me, another smile teasing his full lips. Then his eyes rolled back, that bare smile still visible on his face.

  He fell forward onto the sand.

  Staring down, I frowned, releasing the handle of the gun strapped around me over the black dress. Even before I knelt beside him, checking his pulse, I understood.

  The good news was, at least we knew.

  We now knew exactly what happened to Terian’s bodies when we put Feigran inside a Barrier containment tank.

  The thought didn’t bring as much relief as I thought it would.

  I stared down at his auburn head, the longer strands still being lifted and ruffled by the desert wind. As I looked down at him, a pain rose in my chest, one I couldn’t begin to understand with my rational mind. Still kneeling beside him in the white sand, I glanced up as the helicopters pounded closer, remaining near him as the warmth first began to leave his flesh and sk
in.

  I remembered my mother, Mia Taylor.

  I remembered Jon’s hand. I remembered what Terian had done to me in D.C. What he’d done to Cass in that mountain prison under the Caucasus Mountains.

  There was a good chance Cass wouldn’t be War––not without Terian.

  All of that was still real to me.

  All of it still mattered.

  Even so, I didn’t walk away from him right away, like I thought I would have. I lingered there, feeling I couldn’t leave somehow, not without saying or doing something.

  “Thanks, Terry,” I said finally.

  My words were stripped of sarcasm that time.

  I guess that was something.

  “Go with the gods, brother,” I said, quieter. Hesitating, I finished the quote, in spite of myself. “…Until we meet again in that more beautiful place. Where the oceans meet the end of the world. Where the water shines like diamonds.”

  I knew that place.

  Those words actually meant something to me.

  I could only hope he knew that place, too, assuming he didn’t return to Feigran when we let him back out of the tank.

  Assuming we ever did let Feigran out of the tank.

  Regardless of what happened to Feigran, I knew somehow, Terian was dead. Whatever Terian had been, however that part of him might integrate into the wider personality of Feigran as a whole, Terian himself, as a viable, separate entity, was dead.

  For the same reason, he didn’t answer me.

  He didn’t even hear me, I’m sure.

  But I’m glad I said it, anyway.

  * * *

  WANT TO READ THE NEXT ADVENTURE FOR ALLIE & REVIK?

  Check out the next installment in the BRIDGE & SWORD WORLD:

  DRAGON (Bridge & Sword Series #9)

  COMING SOON!

  “He is Dragon...He breathes.”

  After the nightmare in Dubai, Allie and Revik are on the run, dragging the remains of their army to stay ahead of Shadow. Revik knows they can’t run forever, and comes up with a plan… a plan that might mean sacrificing himself to keep his family alive.

  Meanwhile, Allie returns to America to hunt Shadow’s network, working with the remnants of the human government to forge a cross-race alliance. Knowing that Menlim might kill her husband, that her own leadership team has been infiltrated...as has the presidency of the United States...Allie fights to stop the remaining world powers from being manipulated into nuclear war.

  Then Dragon appears, another broken intermediary with unbelievable power. He might just be the most dangerous seer Allie’s ever encountered…including her husband, who Dragon seems determined to hunt for reasons of his own.

  ~ or ~

  WANT TO READ ABOUT SEERS IN A WORLD CLOSE TO OURS?

  Check out the Quentin Black World, starting with:

  BLACK IN WHITE (Quentin Black Mystery #1)

  Forensic psychologist Miri Fox has an uncanny sense about people. When police think they've nailed the "Wedding Killer," she agrees to check the guy out, but the suspect, Quentin R. Black, isn't at all what she expects. When he confronts Miri about the nature of her peculiar insight, she is drawn into Black's bizarre world and a game of cat and mouse with a deadly killer who just might be Black himself. Worse, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Black, a complication she doesn’t need with a best friend who’s a homicide cop and a boyfriend in intelligence.

  * * *

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  THE BRIDGE & SWORD WORLD is a dark, unique and gritty apocalyptic world and alternate history of Earth. It features a young woman grappling with her role in bringing about the end of one world and the start of a new one. Follow Allie Taylor and her antihero partner in crime, Dehgoies Revik, as they fight terrifying enemies and one another in a passionate story spanning centuries, and filled with unpredictable twists, turns and betrayals.

  QUENTIN BLACK MYSTERY WORLD encompasses a number of dark, gritty paranormal mystery arcs with science fiction elements, starring brilliant and mysterious Quentin Black and forensic psychologist Miriam Fox. For fans of realistic paranormal mysteries with romantic elements, the series spans continents and dimensions as Black solves crimes, takes on other races and tries to keep his and Miri’s true identities secret to keep them both alive.

  THE ALIEN APOCALYPSE SERIES is a dystopian new adult romance about a tough girl named Jet Tetsuo who grew up on Earth following an alien invasion. Forced into living among her conquerors, she has to navigate a treacherous world full of enemies who pose as friends, even as she becomes their most famous fighter in the Rings, a modern day version of the coliseum.

  THE GATE SHIFTER SERIES is an unusual shifter romance centering on shifters from another world altogether, called morph. Earth humans remained blissfully ignorant of the existence of alternate dimensions until Nihkil Jamri tries to save private detective, Dakota Reyes, while he is surveying Earth. Part urban fantasy, part detective series, part paranormal romance, part science fiction adventure, the Gate Shifter series explores crime solving, interstellar warfare and alien romance with the least likely candidates imaginable.

  * * *

  Read More from JC Andrijeski

  http://jcandrijeski.com

  “Seeking Truth in Made-Up Worlds”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JC Andrijeski is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author who writes paranormal mystery, along with apocalyptic and cyberpunk-y science fiction, often with a metaphysical bent.

  JC has a background in journalism, history and politics, and currently occupies herself by traipsing around the globe and reading whatever she can get her hands on. She grew up in the Bay Area of California, but has lived abroad in Europe, Australia and Asia, and from coast to coast in the continental United States.

  She currently lives and writes full time in Bangkok, Thailand.

  To learn more about me and my writing, please visit jcandrijeski.com.

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  PROPHET

  Bridge & Sword Series #8

  by

  JC Andrijeski

  Copyright © 2018 by JC Andrijeski

  Published by White Sun Press

  Cover Art & Design by Damonza.com

  2017

  Link with me at: http://jcandrijeski.com

  Or on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/JCAndrijeski/

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Table of Contents

  SYNOPSIS

  ONE: Macau

  TWO: A Different World

  THREE: Dulgar

  FOUR: Legion of Fire


  FIVE: A High Place

  SIX: Plan B

  SEVEN: Seer Proof

  EIGHT: Finding Listers

  NINE: Bad Intel

  TEN: A Few Odd Occurrences

  ELEVEN: Who Is This Fucking Guy?

  TWELVE: Walked In On

  THIRTEEN: Jealous

  FOURTEEN: A Problem of Light

  FIFTEEN: Did I Miss Something?

  SIXTEEN: Don’t Worry, Cousin

  SEVENTEEN: White House

  EIGHTEEN: No Easy Exit

  NINETEEN: Restless Nights, Restless Mornings

  TWENTY: In Through the Out Door

  TWENTY-ONE: Compromising Position

  TWENTY-TWO: Not Kidding

  TWENTY-THREE: Mutiny

  TWENTY-FOUR: Tank-1

  TWENTY-FIVE: Pulling Rank

  TWENTY-SIX: Taking Command

  TWENTY-SEVEN: And Then

  TWENTY-EIGHT: I Know But I Don’t Know