Shadow (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #4): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

“Yeah, I know,” Jon broke in. “I know all that, what they tried and what happened. But she’s going to do it herself, man. That’s why Vash thinks it might work. Before they couldn’t reach you. They had no access to your light before. But you can’t keep Allie out. You can’t, even if you wanted to. She’s already a part of you.”

  There was a silence.

  Revik only stared at him through it.

  Crouched over his chained ankles, he held the recently lit hiri in his fingers, forgotten as it burned down to only a single, glowing ember, like an eye in the dark weed.

  “What?” he said then. “What did you say?”

  Jon hesitated, staring at the Elaerian’s face.

  He saw the fear again in the other man’s eyes.

  It wasn’t a shadow that time, or a shimmer in the background, or hidden behind one of the Elaerian’s many masks. It stood out on the other male’s face like a shell, a hard visage that changed the set of his jaw, even the way his skin seemed to configure around bone.

  Looking at him, it crossed Jon’s mind that no matter what Allie told herself about what she was doing, or how hard this would be––it would be harder.

  He recognized the set of the face in front of him.

  Not from Revik himself––but he’d seen similar things in students of his when he’d been a martial arts instructor in San Francisco. From time to time, he got sent people who were recovering from traumas of whatever kind. War veterans. Police who had shot people, or been injured on the job. He got mugging victims, rape victims.

  They even sent him someone from SCARB once––a human though, not a seer.

  Jon learned a few things, in terms of who he could work with, and who he couldn’t, who might soften, and who would hold out, who would become a reliable fighter, and who needed a few years of therapy before they could be trusted in the ring.

  Looking into Revik’s face, Jon knew, from the very core of his being, that the Elaerian wasn’t going to cooperate with Allie’s attempts to reach him. Whatever lived there, it scared him worse than any desire he might have to get better. It scared him more than torture, more than being locked up, more than anything they could do to him.

  He would fight her, every step of the way.

  He would fight her to the death, if he had to.

  Jon had another grim thought, as he stared at the male seer.

  Until that changed, there was no way Allie could really help him.

  8

  LOCKER ROOM TALK

  CHANDRE STRODE INTO the locker room attached to the firing range and training center, scanning faces, noting those she knew and those she didn’t.

  Locating the correct number range, she stopped in one of the narrow aisles of the segmented room, unhooking the front of her vest and tugging at the heavy nylon tongue of her weapons belt as she came to a stop in front of her assigned locker.

  Two other females, both seer, stood by adjacent lockers on the aisle across from hers, each having just gotten out of the showers. Without looking over, Chandre listened to them speak as she used her thumbprint to open the metal door in front of her.

  “…the coup is still going on in the East,” the taller of the two seers was saying. “But it's skirmishes mostly, according to Durek. My guess, the Rebels are using whatever resources they have left to look for their leader. They definitely don’t have the numbers to go after the Lao Hu now, if they ever did…”

  Chandre’s hand halted in its path.

  Hesitating only a heartbeat, she lay her gun belt on the bottom of the locker, glancing over at the seers only for half a breath.

  “…The Bridge herself hasn’t surfaced.” The first woman gave a scornful laugh. “She won’t, if she’s got half a brain. She’d be lucky to live the day in a city with any seer population at all. Especially after that stunt she pulled in Hong Kong.”

  “She definitely did that, then?” her companion asked, putting on deodorant with her blouse hanging open. “The Bridge?”

  Her friend shrugged, tossing her towel to the bench and standing there naked.

  “She hasn’t claimed responsibility, but who else could have pulled off that shit?” The female’s Asian accent came out stronger. “Spraying the demonstrators with some kind of deadly nerve agent? Gaos di’lalente… why not just paint a fucking target on her chest while she’s at it? That and the chest of every other seer in the free world!”

  Exhaling a snort of disgust, she hooked her bra, twisting it around so that the cups were in front and threading her arms through the straps.

  “…Anyway, she’s life-bonded to the Sword, they say, so the Rebels, at least, won’t kill her. They might torture her for a few years though, maybe throw her in a work camp or a brothel for the rest of her life, once they’ve retrieved her mate.”

  “So you think he’s alive?” her companion said. “The Sword?”

  That time, Chandre turned.

  The first woman shrugged. “He has to be, right? Even if she’s as cold as they say, she’d have to be suicidal to kill him outright.” She smirked. “No, she’s probably got him locked away somewhere. Playing with him when she gets bored.” She glanced at her friend. “You’ve seen him, right? The Sword?”

  Her friend laughed. “Yeah. He’s young. Kind of worm-bait, too, but he’s hot as fuck anyway. And he’s got that Elaerian thing, so you know his light is fucking amazing.”

  The taller woman grinned. “Yeah, I hear he worked as a pro, even in seer clubs. With seer clients. I don’t think his bed is going to be empty, no matter what a cunt his wife is.”

  Chandre frowned. She couldn't help herself.

  As she did, she focused on the two females sitting on the opposite bench, looking at them directly for the first time.

  The one who had spoken the most, the taller, younger, willow-thin brunette, Chandre remembered as Draya. She knew her to be one of the agents who worked directly with Secret Service. She helped guard the White House shield constructs.

  Not many seers were allowed free access to the White House since the incident with the last president, so Chandre knew she had to be well-connected within SCARB’s hierarchy.

  Even a seer like this would have human handlers, however. Given that she was female, the likelihood that she took human lovers within the hierarchy was high. It wasn’t a cause for accusation, even disapproval. It was merely a statement of reality.

  Anyway, the female seer was attractive.

  She also seemed to know it.

  Draya turned her dark blue eyes to the side, shuffling through a locker identical to Chandre’s. She still wore only the bra on top and now a short skirt that looked like the bottom half of a business suit.

  “Lao Hu against the Rebels… d’Gaos! It should solve our problems here anyway, yes? But nothing is so easy. And who knows what that bitch will do next? She seems to follow no codes at all, nor does she hold to any real alliances. The hierarchy is going crazy, trying to figure out her strategy, and how to get someone in her inner circle.”

  Draya arched an eyebrow at her companion, snorting.

  “They don't seem to understand that bitch may not have a strategy. Or perhaps her only real strategy is to look out for number one. To hell with whoever gets in her way, even if she happens to be married to them.”

  Chandre clenched her jaw, unable to hide her emotional reaction entirely.

  Feeling her chest constrict, she glanced at the woman’s companion, a dark-haired, Asian seer named Talei. Talei’s dress marked her as an insider, too.

  Neither of these women were running field ops, or jogging beside limousines.

  Noticing her stare, Talei gave Chandre a warning look.

  Draya clicked softly, a humorless sound that pulled Talei’s eyes back to her.

  “What do you think?" Draya said. “She still has him, right? It has to be her. His wife. She either has him, or she sold him to the Chinese. It has to be true, yes?”

  “I do not know,” Talei said, noncommittal. “It seems likely, yes,
but there is not concrete intel. None I have seen, at least.”

  Feeling a stare, Chandre turned and found Draya looking at her. The brunette seer appeared to have noticed the reaction in Chandre’s light.

  “Is our conversation entertaining you, kneeler?” she said, hostile.

  Chandre didn’t answer. Pulling the braids out of her face, she tied them with a scrap of cloth she’d left at the bottom of her locker, then sat down on the metal bench, unlocking the straps holding the high leather boots to her feet.

  She didn’t glance up as Draya continued speaking.

  Still, she could not help but hear every word.

  “They think now the whole alliance between the Sword and Bridge was staged by her.” Clearly knowing Chandre listened, Draya spoke more loudly. “She infiltrated his compound, tranked him in his own bed. I wonder if she fucked him first, or just knocked him over the head before dragging him out. What do you think, Talei?”

  Snorted in low amusement, Draya shook her head.

  “I don’t know if the cunt deserves a medal or the gas chamber. I suppose it will depend on who she sells him to in the end.”

  Talei frowned, her light gold eyes narrowing.

  Again, she glanced for the barest breath at Chandre.

  “Gaos,” she said. “That’s cold. She did that to her own mate?”

  Draya clicked under her breath, rummaging in her locker. “From what I hear, the Bridge isn’t exactly a warm one with any of her brothers and sisters.” Her blue eyes shifted to Chandre. “She let that Lao Hu bitch clean up. They stripped the Rebel’s fleet, took their weapons, all of the equipment they had assembled. The seers they took, they gave a choice. The high-ranked ones were offered an apprentice position in their infiltration team. If they refused, the Lao Hu murdered one of their brothers and sisters in front of them. The low-ranked ones were either butchered right there, or had to swear off their allegiance to the Sword.”

  She glanced at Chandre, her voice colder.

  “She burned the tattoos off them, sister Talei. The sword and sun, a sacred brand… she burned it right off their arms. The way they do those tats, they’d lose a quarter-inch of flesh getting those off.”

  Chandre felt her jaw harden, but she didn’t look up, rolling socks over her feet.

  Standing, she threw a sweatshirt over the T-shirt she’d worn under her armor during exercises, then sat down again, picking up her lighter running shoes.

  “What about you, kneeler?” Draya’s voice rose from the other side of the aisle. “You must have seen her over there, when you worked for those hypocrite monks?”

  Chandre considered not answering. Tugging on one of her running shoes, she tied the laces, yanking them tight over her socks.

  She conceded then, with a flowing gesture of her hand.

  “I saw her, yes.”

  “Could she have done this?” Talei, the Asian with the gold eyes, asked.

  It struck Chan that Talei’s voice held shock, rather than anger. Shock and a genuine wonder. Thinking about her question, Chandre felt her lips purse.

  Keeping her thoughts shielded, she shrugged again.

  “Yes.”

  Draya smiled, her indigo eyes knowing. “I told you.”

  Her tone set Chandre’s teeth on edge.

  Without looking up, she spoke before she knew she intended to.

  “She is the Bridge,” she said, curt. “It is not her place to make the easy choices, simply to gain the approval of the masses she leads. The Sword belongs to her.”

  Draya rolled her eyes in the exaggerated manner of seers.

  “Ah. So kidnapping and torturing her mate… or handing him over to those worm-loving Lao Hu, who show nothing but contempt for the rest of us. That was a religious act, was it?”

  “Perhaps,” Chandre said. “Perhaps it was an act of love.”

  The other two women looked at her blankly.

  Then Draya laughed.

  “If I were the Sword, I would be wishing she loved me less,” she smirked.

  Tugging a brush through her long, chestnut hair, she didn’t see when Chandre came up behind her. Before the woman could turn, Chandre caught hold of her shoulders. Gripping her with both hands, she slammed Draya’s back into the locker door.

  The younger seer cried out, giving a low squeal of fear when Chandre jammed her gun up into the soft part of her throat just behind the jawbone.

  “What the fuck are you doing? Crazy dirtblood––”

  “Watch your tongue,” the East Indian seer said, dangerously soft.

  Chandre pushed the gun harder into her flesh, forcing the other’s chin up. She watched the blue eyes widen, the woman’s coppery complexion pale to parchment.

  “You are talking about intermediary beings,” Chandre added, hammering each word. She cocked the gun. “You are also talking about my friends.”

  “Hey!” From the side, Talei held up a hand, a peace gesture. “Hey… Chandre, right? That’s your name, isn’t it? She doesn’t mean anything. It’s just talk. There is no need for violence… it is just talk. We are all upset at what is happening over there, na? All of us sisters, yes? And she is young. Too young to cause such offense.”

  Chandre glanced at the shorter seer.

  After a deliberate pause, she flipped the safety, removing the gun from Draya’s throat.

  “I don’t kill my sisters,” she said. “But I expect them to behave as such.”

  The woman Draya gasped, choking from the pressure being gone from her windpipe. When Chandre gave her a warning look, she swallowed, eyes wide with fear.

  “Out of your fucking mind…” Draya muttered, as Chandre moved away.

  “Be silent!” Talei shushed her. “She is a hunter. Do you not see the marks?”

  That time, Chandre didn’t bother to react.

  Realizing she’d blown a chance at connecting with a seer who could have granted her access to the inner sanctum of SCARB, and in the capitol city no less, she just shook her head, clicking softly as she shoved the gun back into her shoulder holster.

  It didn’t matter.

  The Western seers mostly hated her, anyway.

  She was a foreigner, at best––a “kneeler” at worst, meaning one who grew up in a sheltered religious enclave in India, and therefore had no idea of the lot of Western seers. Chandre didn’t bother to correct that impression, or to tell them she’d grown up in the same work camps they had, likely under worse conditions.

  Most of the seers here, especially the females, were sold as children to the United States government. It wasn’t an ideal fate, but the regulations here meant their treatment was mostly tolerable, even if they were still slaves.

  It wasn’t until Chandre walked away, closing the locker and heading for the exit with her daypack, that she realized she was mostly angry at herself.

  9

  GEORGETOWN

  CHANDRE SAT IN a bar in Georgetown, nursing the same drink she’d ordered when she came in, almost two hours earlier.

  She’d been approached, of course, as humans frequented the place.

  It happened so often she hardly noticed anymore; she was female, and couldn’t hide her race as well as many seers working in the United States. Anyway, a certain kind of human seemed to relish approaching seers who weren’t conspicuously owned.

  Chandre adjusted. She had no choice, not without opting for major surgery, which she refused to do.

  Even contact lenses over her red irises didn’t help much, given her height and the overall shape of her face. She simply moved like a seer, as Tenzi chided her once, during one of their infiltration field ops under the Seven.

  Chandre could shake all of that for deep ops, if the need was dire enough, but it usually required wearing prosthetics to soften her cheekbones and the shape of her eyes, as well as a retooling of all her mannerisms. So far on this assignment, that hadn’t been necessary. No one contested her ownership papers here, given that they wore the federal stamp.

  She
stayed out of the seer ghettos at night, where most of the attacks occurred.

  The humans still hadn’t gotten over the attack on the White House and Wellington’s death. They still acted like their capital city existed inside enemy territory. The large seer ghetto circling a good percentage of D.C. didn’t help.

  Chandre was shielded from the worst of that paranoia, by working overtly for SCARB. Her placement ensured that most humans would see her as one of the “good ones.” It was enough protection that Chandre didn’t bother with the effort of concealment.

  Realistically, passing might not have kept the human males at bay, anyway.

  It might have kept them slightly more polite, however.

  “How much?” a young human in a suit smiled, his words slurred through his grin, his face flushed from alcohol. From his age and the caliber of his rumpled suit, Chandre pegged him as an intern––possibly a congressional aide, or an employee of one of the many nonprofits dotting the city’s core.

  When Chandre ignored him, he seemed to think volume was the answer.

  “How much?” he said, louder over the talking crowd. “You working, gorgeous?”

  She didn’t turn until he laid a hand on her shoulder.

  Her knife was out of her boot and to his throat in a heartbeat.

  She gripped his arm, turning him so the blade wouldn’t flash in the bar lights, or get picked up by the surveillance feeds. Pulling his face near to hers, she met his gaze.

  “Yes, I am working, worm. Do you think you’d still like to hire me?”

  The kid, who probably hadn’t yet seen twenty-five seasons, given that he was human and they aged more quickly, went white as a sheet.

  “N-no,” he stammered. “No, no. Sorry. My mistake.”

  “I think it was a mistake, yes.”

  She retracted the knife. Flipping it quickly in her hand, she reinserted it in her boot, glancing swiftly around to ensure no one who mattered had seen her do it. Without giving the human boy another glance, she turned her back on him, facing the bar.

  When she did, she found the bartender standing there, a bemused quirk in his lips.