Rook (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #1): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  “He’s gone!” she shouted above the spray. “You killed him!”

  “Are you going to kill me?” I said.

  “No,” she said, spitting water. Unbelievably, she smiled. “No, Bridge. Not today. I wouldn’t kill the mate of the man who exacted the only revenge anyone on my team got against those bastards.” Her red irises sharpened. “Besides. If you’d been working for him, I don’t think you would have wanted him dead so badly.”

  Hearing her words, I looked up the steep sides of the ship, and my throat closed. I looked down at my hand. Somehow I still clutched Revik’s ring.

  …15, 2, 1, 111, 99, 3326, 1, 42, 47, 15, 15, 12, 996, 651, 222, 231, 244, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 27, 13, 15, 15, 21, 66, 24, 89, 97…

  At that exact moment, the sky caught on fire.

  34

  FIRE

  THE EXPLOSION FLARED out of the darkness.

  It blew back the nearest of the helicopters, causing it to careen into the one flying alongside it. The propeller clipped the vehicle’s hull, splintered like dry kindling.

  Galaith watched in a kind of slow fascination as the bird in front of him fell in a nearly straight line, breaking apart as it slammed the surface of the dark water.

  The booming from the ship continued.

  Shock waves from the second explosion reached the part of sky where Galaith’s larger transport helicopter maintained a safe distance. It shook the metal under his legs, forcing the pilot of the craft to compensate. A third explosion rattled the glass.

  Galaith heard the pilot curse through his microphone, forgetting himself momentarily as he leaned on the cyclic, moving them sideways below the cloud deck.

  Frowning in disapproval, Galaith decided to let it pass, gazing down at the long, white cruise ship, which had unmistakably come to a halt on the dark water.

  Plumes of fire rose to the low deck of clouds, staining them red and gold.

  Galaith watched the flames mix with the early dawn’s light, reflecting against the falling rain. Another blast lit the nearby land mass, illuminating dark, featureless hills. His eyes studied the scrub evergreens and broken boulders, blinking against the sudden brightness. People the size of ants jumped off the tall sides of the ship as he watched. Even under the steady pulse of the helicopter’s blades, Galaith heard screams, and impact sounds as they hit.

  Feeling the other occupants of the helicopter looking at him expectantly, Galaith made the sign of the cross.

  Then, fixing his brow and mouth in the proper display of anger and grief, he signaled to the pilot with his hand, pointing towards the shore.

  It wouldn’t do to be caught gawking at the scene.

  Anyway, for all intents and purposes, his work here was done.

  Alyson’s last known location was the starboard end of the stern, where his team set and detonated the first set of explosives. Galaith would have his seers look for her in the aftermath, and retrieve her body if at all possible, but it was over.

  It had not been an easy decision to make.

  Still, he was convinced it was the right one.

  Better to send her back to those beyond-the-Barrier shores of which she was so fond. Better that, than let her go alive to Terian and whatever dark scheme he had in mind. Galaith knew of Terian’s ambitions, however well the young seer tried to hide them. He knew Terian likely wanted to use the newly-awakened Bridge to take his place at the head of the Pyramid.

  It was an alliance Galaith could never permit.

  Even apart from protecting his own position, he had the rest of the world to consider. Given her reincarnation status, he could not help but think that such a combination would bring the Displacement crashing over them as surely as drought brought fire.

  It was a good thing he’d had that second team in place, watching Terian.

  Even so, he’d almost reacted too slowly.

  Whatever had been set in motion on the ship a few hours previous, it appeared to have been less a plan by Terian than a reaction to an unexpectedly opened window of opportunity. Perhaps Terian had even imagined it would be so. It was the only way he could have moved his team swiftly enough to avoid any ripples of warning through the Pyramid.

  Terian had that knack at times, Galaith knew.

  Ironically, though, it was she who called him here.

  It was a genuine pity he’d arrived too late to reason with her.

  As for Terian and whatever he’d been up to––

  “I’ll be back for you, old friend,” he muttered under his breath.

  He didn’t let himself think too closely about the loss of Dehgoies. That would have to be contemplated another day.

  “Sir?” the pilot shouted.

  Galaith met his questioning look, wiping his face with one hand. Luckily, the gesture fit the moment, and played all the more convincingly for its sincerity, whatever its true cause. One of his secretaries, Martha, touched his arm in sympathy, and he clasped her fingers, letting his face show a flicker of gratitude.

  He told the pilot, “Take me to the airport, Gene. We’ll coordinate the rescue teams from there.”

  “Aye, sir.” The man saluted, grinning with obvious pleasure that Galaith had used his first name. Popping the wad of gum jammed into one corner of his mouth, he let out a half-shout above the rotary blades, “Wow! What a day!” Seeing Galaith’s dark look, his smile faded. “Of course it’s terrible, sir. Terrible. All those people. No one deserves to die like that.”

  Galaith did not give him a reassuring smile.

  Still, he found the man’s comments amusing in their blatant insincerity.

  Pity there was no way he could let any of them live.

  ABOVE ME, ROSETTES bloomed in a pale gray sky. Clouds shone red and gold in billowing tongues of reflected flame.

  I was still pretty sure I was dead.

  Then a wave rolled up, filling my mouth with salt water.

  I choked, only to be fully submerged. Physical pain brought my world sharply into focus as my head and mouth once more broke the surface. Salt sank into cuts on my skin. My knee felt pulverized. I forced my limbs forward through the blue liquid ice. I gazed at the fire and a dense wave of pain hit me, not all of it physical.

  Water filled my mouth and I spit it out.

  Somewhere in that lull, it hit me. It really hit me.

  For a moment, I disappeared.

  Shouts overhead and nearer screams snapped me out. Another wave submerged my head as I groped around for something to hold on to, something to support me. I grabbed at something as it floated by. It turned out to be a soaked life jacket.

  I let it go, paddling like a wounded dog with one leg.

  Trying to follow the others, I gasped out steam, glimpsed the burning white hulk behind me as I pumped my arms harder. The ship continued to belch smoke, but it no longer produced a churning wake. Instead it sat lower in the water, like a child squatting in a stream.

  I had to find Jon.

  The thought repeated, irrational.

  Rain had begun to fall, along with soot, white ash, pieces of fabric and paper. I heard screams all around me. I closed my eyes, still trying to get my limbs all working in the same direction, when someone grabbed my arm.

  When I turned, Chandre’s reddish eyes met mine.

  She looked afraid. I gazed up at black-tinted clouds, a white tower rising from the middle of the ship where a blue, tail-like fin rose to meet the sky. A burning figure stood on the fourth deck, fighting to climb the railing. The wind flared the fire on his body.

  Chandre yanked harder on my arm. “Come. This will get ugly, and fast! The Rooks are exterminating witnesses.”

  She began to drag me through the water, and I let her. A plane skimmed overhead, lights ablaze. No one paid any attention to us.

  Revik’s face rose in my mind. My sight flared, bringing even more pain.

  More death rose in that glimpse of darkness. Images of falling bodies ripped apart by ice-cold water. Mom’s face. Dad’s. I missed Jon so badly it hu
rt. I needed him, had to find him. I floated, fighting to push past it, dragged through the current.

  Chandre didn’t stop pulling on my arm. It felt like she’d pull it out of the socket.

  “There’s some chance,” I managed. “I saw him. Alive. There were doctors there. Terian could still have him. They could’ve saved him.”

  Chandre looked at me. Like me, she struggled words out between breaths as she stroked hard with her free arm, pulling me with her.

  “No,” she said. “Different light signature. We tracked it. Saw him die.”

  I shook my head, trying to free my arm, but she only pulled harder.

  “You must feel it.” She looked at me. “Separation sickness… it will get worse. You have to stay out of the Barrier. Do whatever you have to, Bridge. He will have died for nothing.” Her mouth firmed. “Don’t let them see you.”

  I didn’t answer, remembering Eliah saying the same thing.

  When I didn’t fight after a few seconds, her expression softened.

  “I am sorry, Bridge,” she said.

  I didn’t answer.

  We remained a few hundred yards from shore when a sudden, sharp boom jerked both sets of our eyes back towards the ship. Like something from a dream in the rising light, yellow and orange plumes billowed upward. The ship sank fast after that. I saw glass blow out as windows exploded, pouring water, flames––more smoke. The wind changed, bringing us screams, the smell of charred flesh and burning plastic.

  Chandre resumed swimming.

  Between strokes I heard her speak through clenched teeth.

  “Hopefully they will believe we are dead, as well…”

  A wolf runs on the tundra, tongue lolling past its blood-stained grin—

  When I came to, I was aware of hands on me, people pulling me out of the water. Rough gravel and dirt met my bare skin. My legs dragged like dead weight. I couldn’t move my knee. My thigh felt numb, weightless, like it wasn’t there. Someone wrapped a coarse blanket around my back, talking over my shoulder to Chandre.

  I felt grief on the man holding me and realized I didn’t know him, or the woman standing next to him, watching me with pity in her dark eyes.

  Only Chandre’s voice remained.

  The rest stood silent, emotional despite their weapons and training, unable to tally what they’d lost.

  …the wolf runs, his feet sending up puffs of white snow.

  I want to tell them it’s all right.

  I want to tell them they are safe.

  The wolf is no longer looking at us. He runs at a single dark form marring the white plain. Again it is dawn, and a black shape burns in the distance on the horizon.

  My chest feels as if someone has taken an ice pick to it, hitting it again and again, digging out a delicate, pale light at its core.

  It is a feeling worse than death.

  35

  INDIA

  NEWS FEEDS RAN nonstop in the background.

  I tried not to look at their fast-moving images, or hear anything the avatars said. Still, fragments reached me, no matter how hard I tried to block them out.

  “…dead now tallied at four hundred and sixty-two… over a hundred still missing, most of whom are also believed to be dead…”

  “…President Caine lays responsibility for the cruise ship bombing on terrorist Alyson May Taylor. He calls for international cooperation in bringing her and her terrorist cell to justice, calling meetings with SCARB branches in Russia and China. Initially thought to be killed in the attack, it is now believed Taylor escaped alive and is still at large, following…”

  “…last seen in Europe, at a café in Spain where she…”

  “…eluded authorities outside a train station in Munich, now believed to be headed east as she reunites with the larger terrorist cells that placed her all those years ago as a sleeper agent in San Francisco. Every member of her adoptive human family is now dead or missing…”

  I heard my name, over and over. I saw my face.

  I saw pictures of people I loved, heard strangers argue about how many of my family and friends were dead versus accomplices fleeing the authorities. I listened even though I didn’t want to, until my brain fuzzed over. I crouched in hotel bathrooms to get away from feeds blaring in the adjoining rooms, hands over my ears, counting tiles while infiltrators pounded on the door, trying to get me to let them in.

  I traveled everywhere in a faceless cloud of seers.

  They bought me wigs, wrapped scarves around my head, gave me earpieces to wear, make-up, different configurations of prosthetics, contact lenses. They forced me to eat, drugged me when I wouldn’t sleep in the constructs we hopped in and out of, shoved me into vans and cars and trains to move me every few days, scolded me when I drank too much or stood next to uncovered windows.

  I stared at the landscape of different cities across land masses I didn’t recognize through the windows of whatever vehicle they happened to put me in. We traveled nonstop, it seemed, going for days at a time where I couldn’t sleep, could barely tell where I was.

  They treated me differently now. All but Chandre, anyway. Despite their attempts to keep me alive, most of the seers seemed afraid of me. It was a reverential kind of fear, like they saw the end of the world reflected on my face, but none of them got too close.

  I got through it by sleeping every chance I got, and, let’s face it… a hell of a lot of alcohol.

  Through it all, the feeds ran.

  Some cult started worshipping me. The cult’s followers petitioned for space on the US feed network and got denied because of my terrorist status, causing a wave of sensationalist headlines both for and against. There had been protests. At least three actual riots happened. The biggest took place in Los Angeles, mostly between Christians and human Third Mythers.

  Innocent seers got dragged into it, too. I saw pictures of a young female seer being beaten with tasers and pipes. The newscasters on the feeds clucked about it in regret, but none put down their cameras long enough to stop the men doing it—men who would never be able to afford a seer like her, even for a few hours.

  Rumors spread about me being the Bridge.

  Black market feeds had whole sites devoted to me and Revik. Human women loved Revik, especially after it got out that we’d been married.

  It didn’t seem to matter that he was dead.

  World governments were already negotiating over rights to my telekinetic “powers.” The United States and China dominated those discussions, but Russia, Germany, England and Japan vied to be allowed at the bargaining table, hiding behind the veneer of scientific curiosity. Speculation erupted that I might have been impregnated by Revik before he died. Telekinetic rumors and rumors of sightings spread, more so after I was officially blamed by the World Court for the sinking of Royal Faire cruise ship, The Explorer. People who lost loved ones in the bombings posted bounties, wanting me dead.

  The feeds fed on the hysteria, fanned it.

  More people went missing.

  One was my brother, Jon. Another was Cass, who I’d known almost as long.

  Cass and I had finger-painted together while Cass’s mom worked and her father drank. By high school, Cass had her own section of my closet. Every year she celebrated two of every holiday, one at my place and one with her mom and dad and her deadbeat Uncle Phan.

  I couldn’t think about Jon being missing at all.

  With the last two people in my family gone, I didn’t much care what the world thought of me.

  Weeks passed. Longer.

  I waited for sleep. I craved it, but it didn’t help when it came.

  I can’t reach him, no matter how often he asks. The asking hurts, more than the other pain ever did, and I feel him in pieces now––love, grief, sadness, hope, despair. The layers of him are infinite. Yet in some ways, they are simple, too.

  Still, he doesn’t feel alive.

  I know he isn’t alive. My mind grapples with that knowing, argues with it.

  The number
s won’t leave me alone.

  They are separate from him, but connected somehow. I dream of my father, the engineer. He jokes that numbers are our secret language, so we can speak to one another in code. They are an autistic’s mantra, a broken song I can’t get out of my head.

  …17, 10, 42, 12, 1, 57, 12, 20, 332, 178, 12, 102, 9, 13, 15, 2, 2, 2…

  I AM SOMEWHERE else.

  I’ve never been here before, but it feels familiar somehow, or maybe just closer in feel to places I recognize. After the clean, picturesque towns, mountains and chateaus where we’d spent the last few weeks in Europe, the grittiness of this new place is strangely welcome.

  We’d been traveling through farmland for months. We stopped in seer safe houses to sleep. Churches, warehouses, hotels, mosques, a winery in the hills, a bombed out Jewish temple. I told myself I didn’t know what was worse: the nights where I wasn’t able to sleep, or having to suffer through the dreams and pain when I could.

  But that was a lie, too.

  I missed him by the time we hit the next construct, by the time I could dream again. I missed him, looked for him, and when I found him, we would––

  Here it was dirty, loud, colorful, hot, poor, crowded.

  I walked up a dusty street where a mound of brightly-colored trash covered an open sewer grate, stinking already at seven o’clock in the morning. A shrine draped in winking Christmas lights and gold foil stood in a crack between buildings; on it, a monkey god cavorted among flowers and stick fruit covered in buzzing flies. A caramel-colored cow stood chewing over a pile of rotting greens and egg cartons and chicken bones.

  When I paused to pat its backside, it didn’t look up.

  Most of my face was wrapped in gauzy cream cloth, but I nodded anyway to a monk in red robes on his way up the street, wearing sunglasses and carrying an espresso in his hand. I felt oddly content with the horrible smells of human excrement and sweat and rotting melon and maggot-covered meat. Even with the stench slowly heating in the morning sun, for some reason I felt like I could almost breathe here.