Jon shrugged. His jaw hardened though.
A beat later, her shoulders unclenched.
“Sorry,” she mumbled “Sorry, Jon. I’m not...” She exhaled sharply. “...I’m just not...feeling myself. I’ll be better in a minute. Promise.”
She ran her fingers through her hair...getting them caught on one of the jeweled combs. Pausing to untangle the metal teeth from her dark strands, she dragged it out of the curls and more of the pile fell down. It startled him, how long her hair had gotten. He noticed that her make up was smeared too.
“It’s been a hell of a night,” she agreed, as if hearing him.
He still forgot sometimes, that she was like them.
He laid a hand on her leg, hesitating in spite of himself as he remembered the male seer’s words. His jaw firming, he left it there anyway.
“I saw him,” he repeated. “I...talked to him.” She turned, and he met her gaze. “I get it now, Al. What you were trying to tell me before.”
For a long moment, she just looked at him. He saw her face open slightly, enough that he glimpsed the grief underneath. It occurred to him for the first time that she was barely holding it together.
Worse than that, she was ashamed.
He saw her eyes close, longer than a blink.
She lifted the bottle and took another drink of the champagne, tilting her head back. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand when she finished, and he noticed her knuckles were bruised. Seeing his eyes on her hand, she shrugged.
“I punched him.”
Jon nodded. “Yeah. I figured.”
“Don’t remember why...” she muttered. “The D.C. thing...”
He said, “Is there anything I can do?”
She smiled, but there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it. “I don’t see how.”
“Allie,” he said. He hesitated, then said it anyway. “Allie, what do you think he’s doing here, in Delhi?”
She rolled her eyes, holding up a hand before letting it drop to the couch.
“I have no friggin’ idea,” she said.
“He wanted us to stay here,” Jon said, then clarified, “...in this room. He didn’t come out and say it, but he didn’t want you to leave, at least not anytime soon. I think the clothes were an excuse, honestly.” He hesitated. “...Do you think he could have wrecked them on purpose? To keep you here, I mean.”
She looked over at this, her eyes sharp. “What did he say?”
“Nothing...exactly.” Jon deliberately didn’t think about their earlier conversation. “...It was more a feeling. He made some comment about wanting me to wait with you here, for the clothes he was sending up. He said he didn’t want you wandering around like this...” He motioned towards her dress. “I know he’s possessive, Allie...” He swallowed, biting back what he would have liked to say. “...but it felt like there was more to it.”
He found himself glad he’d said it when he saw her eyes click back into focus.
She looked almost like her old self again...if a bit on the predatory side. Even that had to be an improvement though, he thought to himself.
Given everything, it certainly couldn’t hurt.
“Where’s Balidor?” she said.
Still looking at her, Jon nodded, almost to himself.
“Looking for you,” he said. “Downstairs. Last I knew, they were sending out two teams...three others jumping from the Barrier to coordinate. He assumed Revik took you somewhere...offsite, I mean.”
She gave him a measured look.
“Yet you came up here?” she said.
“Well,” Jon said. He shrugged. “Yeah. I guess I did. Revik said he ‘called’ me.”
“You felt that? Him pinging you?”
“No.” Seeing her eyes sharpen, he shrugged. “I don’t know, Al.”
For a second, she only looked at him. Then she nodded again.
Getting to her feet, she held out a hand.
It took her mouth pursing into a frown for him to realize she was asking for his VR link. He’d forgotten it until that moment, but pulled it readily off his ear, handing it to her. He watched her fit it to her own head carefully, saw her eyes fall out of focus as she slid into the Barrier at the same moment.
“Balidor?” she said. “It’s me. Yeah.” A pause. “No. In the hotel. Yeah...” She glanced at Jon. “No...he’s gone. He may have left the building by now.”
Jon saw her eyes tighten.
Then they grew annoyed.
“I’m fine...” Her mouth firmed. “...I’m fine, ‘Dor. Listen, can you focus? Jon thinks he’s up to something.” Another pause. She glanced at Jon, her green eyes glowing faintly in the firelight.
“...Yeah, I believe him. He’s dead on with things like this...haven’t you figured that out yet?” Winking at Jon, she paused again. “Yeah, he talked to him.” Still holding Jon’s eyes, she smiled thinly. “...I have no idea, but it must have been bad, because he won’t think about it at all around me...”
Jon shook his head, but smiled in spite of himself.
“...Yeah, we’re coming down.”
Jon motioned at her in the negative, but she waved him off.
“...yeah,” she said, firm. “Now. Meet me by the service elevator.”
“Allie,” Jon said. “No!”
But she’d already hung up on the Adhipan leader.
She turned on him, raising an eyebrow quizzically. “You thought I would stay, just because Revik said so?”
Jon felt his patience ebbing. “I think he’s psychotic, Al, but he still loves you...and if he told you to stay, it was probably so you wouldn’t get killed.”
Her eyes grew cold. “Don’t, Jon.”
“Don’t what?” he said, hands on his hips. “Don’t point out that he can be crazy and still want to keep you alive?”
“No,” she said. “Don’t act like you and he are still pals. I mean it.”
“You slept with him,” Jon accused. “Don’t tell me I’m the one letting things blur...besides, he gave me the worm speech, never fear...”
That time she didn’t answer.
He saw her start to, then bite her lip, looking out the long bay window.
Seeing the hard look coming to her face, he almost regretted saying it.
He was still watching her eyes when a distant rumble of vibration trembled the floor under his feet. He thought he’d imagined it at first, but when he looked out the bay window, he saw the skyline vibrate...enough to blur the image.
When he turned, Allie’s eyes darted to his. Her skin had paled to chalk under the bruise on her neck...he saw understanding reach her expression.
“Christ,” she said.
He opened his mouth, but she’d already flipped back into VR.
“Balidor?” She grabbed Jon’s arm, dragging him towards the suite’s main door. “Balidor! Answer me! What just happened?”
Jon followed after her as she entered the outside corridor. The lights looked almost hospital bright after the darkness of the penthouse suite, but he could still see the skyline through the long window on the outside wall.
“Balidor!” she said. She cursed, then must have hit through another link ID. “Chandre? Cass! Dorje...is anyone online?”
They’d almost reached the alcove housing the service elevator when Jon noticed she was barefoot.
She had fallen silent, but Jon could almost feel her trying to reach people through the Barrier. He let her tug him along by the wrist.
When they stopped at the end of the hall, he looked back out through the floor-length windows accented by potted palms. He realized he was listening with all of his might, looking for more vibration as they waited for the elevator to reach the top floor. He stared at the column of smoke for a full minute before he realized what he was seeing.
Allie turned and sucked in a breath.
Her fingers tightened on him hard enough to hurt.
He felt pain in her, what might even have been physical, and when he looked at her, she had an arm across her stoma
ch, as if holding something inside. She hunched over, looking like someone whose appendix had just burst.
“Al!” He caught her arm. “Jesus, Al...are you all right? What is it?”
“Goddamn it...”
Tears welled in her eyes when she looked up at him.
“Goddamn it...that son of a bitch...”
The look of desperation on her face hit him like a punch to the gut.
“Al,” he said. He caressed her hair. “Hey...Al. Listen to me. It’s not your fault. Whatever he did...it’s not your fault...”
“I led them here...I should have known he’d come. Lambs to the slaughter...”
“No. Allie...that makes no sense. You didn’t do this!”
She let out a choking sound, looking away.
She looked like she wanted to say something, but didn’t.
At that exact moment, the sprinkler system went off, sending water down on them in curved sheets of drops.
For another few seconds Jon just stood there with her, him holding her arm, her holding her stomach while the falling water drenched them to the skin. When she finally looked up, her eyes were hard again, almost determined.
“The stairs,” she said, meeting his gaze.
Without another word, she wrenched her arm free, walking past him and back down the hall. Hesitating only another heartbeat, he followed her.
When he caught up to her, she was trying the handle to a heavy fire door labeled EMERGENCY in large, red letters.
It was locked.
He was about to speak when she laid a hand over the combination lock to the right of the panel. He flinched when a screech of metal assaulted his ears, loud over the sound of the falling water from the ceiling sprinklers.
Smoke erupted in a small puff from where the door met the frame.
It dissipated quickly in the shower from the sprinkler nozzles, so that Jon doubted if he’d seen it at all...but when she looked at him that time, her eyes glowed a pale, bright green. They reminded him of glow sticks, or really more like the iridescent bands of color he’d seen on deep water fish in aquariums. Despite the unreality he felt, seeing those shimmering irises staring out of the face of his sister, there was something distinctly biological about their appearance.
He stared at the mangled panel housing the locking mechanism.
“Since when can you do that?” he said.
“Don’t fuck with me right now, Jon!”
Jon swallowed, holding up his hands. “Okay. Great.”
He watched as she laid her hand back on the door handle. She flinched a little as she touched it, withdrawing her hand sharply, as if the metal burned her fingers. Using the sleeve of his tuxedo jacket, she wound her hand around it again and yanked the door open.
As Jon passed through the opening after her, he saw the buttons on the keys had melted, as if something had fried them from the inside out. Scorch marks flared on either side of the lock, but Jon didn’t stop to look as he followed her down the gray-painted stairwell.
Barefoot, she pattered down the stairs in front of him in the tattered dress. Her hair was down entirely now. Somewhere along the way, she’d lost the last of the jeweled clips Cass and that PR seer had spent so much time over while they’d been getting her ready earlier that evening.
He found himself thinking that, all in all, it was probably good they were higher than forty floors.
A few dozen floors later, he felt less glad of that. It seemed like they had been walking for hours. Mindless, trudging down steps, Jon jerked his attention back to his feet periodically, to keep himself from falling when his thoughts roamed too far elsewhere.
He could smell smoke by the time they reached the twentieth floor.
By the tenth, the air appeared denser...although the fortress of the stairwell itself remained intact.
They reached the landing of the third floor when he caught up to her again, grabbing her arm before she reached the next flight of stairs. Her face was flushed, damp with a sheen of sweat, both from the heat shimmering up from below and her vaulting down the stairwell at a near jog...but her expression when she looked up held nothing but impatience.
“Al...you can’t go out there,” he said. He pointed at the third floor door. “You open that, and this whole stairwell will become a wind tunnel...it’ll shoot fire up about twenty stories...”
She turned away, trying to shake free of him.
He caught hold of her again. “No! Alyson! I’m serious. You can’t—”
“He hit the lobby,” she snapped. “The basement’s all right, Jon...I’m going to get out there.”
He stared at her, seeing the hardness in her eyes. For a moment, he wondered how much her connection to Revik might be affecting her in other ways...beyond her seeming inability to say no to him, at least in terms of their physical relationship. But he didn’t let himself think about it for long. That time, when she wrenched her arm free of his fingers, he let her.
She once more began taking the stairs two at a time, the dress trailing behind her as she moved her legs and feet faster.
He caught up with her again on the first floor, looking warily at the smoke coming out in threads around the fireproof door. He had no doubt solid flames filled the other side. He coughed in reflex, flinching back from the billowing heat as they passed. The paint was melting he noticed; the metal seemed to be softening, too.
He found himself exhaling only when they reached the landing below.
She went down three mores flights, to the third of the subfloors.
“Parking?” he asked her, when she stopped at the door.
She nodded, gripping the metal pole bannister in one hand as she reached the bottom landing. She wrenched open the door, looking up at him. Her eyes were glowing again.
“Hurry up, Jon,” was all she said.
Before he could answer, she disappeared through the metal plated door.
He vaulted out after her, and immediately gunshots had him ducking and running in a half-dive towards the nearest cars.
He ran without thought, head low, and found her hunkered down behind an SUV with dark-tinted windows. He reached her seconds later, and crouched beside her, breathing as quietly as he could. He had no idea if it was humans shooting at them, or seers, but he grabbed Allie’s arm when he saw her irises flicker back into life.
“No,” he whispered, quiet. “Who is it, Al?”
His question seemed to snap her back. He saw her eyes slide out of focus as she entered the Barrier.
Seconds later, they clicked back. She looked at him.
He knew the answer from the look on her face. He was about to ask her anyway when a voice rose from the other side of the cars, echoing in the underground space.
“Hold your fucking fire, goddamn it! What is the matter with you?”
Not recognizing the voice, Jon frowned at Allie.
But she wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her expression held something close to fury.
He was about to try and calm her down when she pulled herself abruptly to her feet. Jon snatched at her arm, but she wrenched it away from him, walking around the car even as he whispered loudly for her to stop.
Biting the inside of his cheek, he dragged himself up after her, following as she walked down the nearest aisle of cars in the direction from which the voice had originated. Jon hung back as she approached a line of what had to be seers. Most of them looked Asian in one way or another, but Jon saw a few who looked more like those Eastern European seers he saw sometimes.
Each one of them sported the sun and sword tattoo, and wore enough organics to be in violation of several dozen sight containment codes.
She walked right up to the seer standing in the middle.
“Do you know who I am?” she demanded.
She didn’t flinch when he rolled the gun he wore back on its jointed harness, so that the barrel pointed skyward. The seer, a burly, Indian-looking male whose appearance matched that of a twenty-something human, looked nervous.
“Esteemed Bridge...” he stammered. “...We humbly offer our most abject apologies. If we had in any way known it was you...but you were so effectively shielded that you and your companion took us by surprise...”
He was afraid of her, Jon realized.
The realization didn’t please him as much as it might have, especially since Allie’s eyes glowed as she stared around at the line of seers. The tuxedo jacket covered her...barely, Jon noticed...but the male seers closest were still staring at her body, and not as surreptitiously as they might have been, given the circumstances.
As if he’d heard Jon, the one in front snapped at the staring males, his eyes holding an outright fear.
“Show respect,” he snapped in Prexci, the seer tongue. His voice lowered. “...If only because he’ll skin you if he sees otherwise...”
“Where is he?” Allie said.
The young seer bowed even lower. “He is not with us, most Esteemed Bridge. He is busy on top...”
“Why?” she said, her voice still holding a controlled fury. “Why did he do this? What is the meaning of this...interfering with my work here? What right have any of you to be here, when I am conducting my own business here?”
Looking at the young seer’s face, Jon almost felt sorry for him.
Clearly, he felt caught in the middle of something.
He’d gone a paler shade, and bowed again, his voice and face showing an open dismay. “No disrespect is meant...I assure you, most holy Bridge!” He gripped his gun, offering his hand in a seer gesture of peace. “He is merely defending your honor...a sign of his affections...”
“What?” Her voice was cold as metal. “What did you say?”
“The woman who imprisoned you...she was the primary target, mistress. She was the first to feel his wrath...”
The seer must have flashed an image at her, because Allie’s expression went from furious to something closer to stunned. He saw recognition in her eyes, just before she turned once more, looking down the line of seers.
“Donna,” he heard her murmur incredulously.
Jon found himself remembering that name, somewhere...
“You killed all these fucking people...” she snarled, her voice holding a furious disbelief. “He did this...to get at...one...bitch...reporter?”
Allie's War Season Two Page 7