Shield (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #2): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  One way or another, he and Allie––or he, Allie and the Adhipan––would have neutralized him.

  Instead, he’d let them take her.

  The pain worsened, twisting deeper.

  He’d let his guard down. He’d let the Adhipan handle security instead of telling the Council to go fuck themselves and taking her someplace on his own. He could have waited a few weeks, set things up right, made sure no one knew where they were, not even Vash.

  Instead, he’d let his dick make the decisions.

  That and his paranoia about Maygar or some other jackass trying to pull something on her when she was already vulnerable.

  Anger and pain mixed with fear, making his head throb.

  He stood, shakily, and bit his tongue, almost thankful for the pain in his leg.

  Walking the edges of the room by balancing his shoulder lightly against the wall, he limped to the door. Turning around, he tried the handle clumsily with his bound hands. It was locked.

  Reaching out with his light, he fought to scan, trying to get above the room. Gritting his teeth against the thread of pain from the collar, he saw faint walls, more cells, a corridor of iron doors set in rock. He didn’t see anyone. No humans.

  The whole complex seemed to be underground.

  Glancing up, he saw a tiny eye of God in one corner of the ceiling. A camera.

  “Hey!” He yelled at it, though he doubted there was audio. He slammed the door with his shoulder, yelling as loudly as he could. “HEY! LET ME OUT!”

  He tried several languages.

  None of them worked.

  His shoulder started to hurt when he continued to slam himself up against the door. Eventually, he forced himself to pause. Sitting heavily on the floor, he leaned his back against one of the legs of the table, and tried to think.

  He had to get out of here.

  He stared at the rusted bolts that held the table’s legs to the cement, wondering if he could pry them up. The table was the only thing in there heavy enough that he might be able to use it to batter down the door. Then again, they’d likely chained him this way precisely so he couldn’t do what he was contemplating doing.

  After pulling at the bolts for another span of minutes, he decided it wasn’t getting him anywhere. Water had rusted them to the metal plates, and the angle of his bound hands made it impossible to get leverage.

  Leaning against the table leg, he closed his eyes––

  When the door opened with a squeal.

  He jerked upright, even as his muscles clenched.

  By then, he fully expected a Terian body walk through that opening.

  Instead, the leader of the Wvercians who’d found him walked in, wearing a clean set of clothes. Revik moved his feet to straighten his back against the iron table leg. When more seers entered the room, he tried to decide if he should risk trying to climb to his feet.

  Then he got a good look at the man entering behind the Wvercian, and his throat constricted.

  He remembered him––somehow.

  Tall, with Chinese-looking features and a broad, muscular body, he wore a uniform that Revik knew mainly from historical sims. Military. Everything about him said career military, especially the way he carried his body. Still, the familiarity went deeper than that.

  Even the man’s scars looked familiar.

  He looked Revik over with opaque, nearly-black irises. He seemed to take in every part of him, though his expression remained incurious.

  Finally, the man smiled. It didn’t touch those odd-colored eyes.

  “Dehgoies. That’s your name now. Isn’t it, runt? Dehgoies Revik?”

  Two more seers walked in behind him, stopping just inside the door.

  Revik glanced at them. Another of those two looked vaguely familiar. The one standing next to him was young though, obviously a new recruit. Neither of them shocked him like the face of the Chinese-looking seer standing over him.

  Revik’s eyes returned to him.

  He took in the man’s thick black braid, the corded muscle of his arms. A tattoo of the sword and sun stood out on his bicep, the inks scarcely faded, although the tattoo itself looked old, and had been done in the highly stylized traditional style.

  It looked similar to the one on Revik’s back. Too similar, maybe––the slight tint difference in the inks was the only difference he could discern.

  Whoever he was, he looked exactly as Revik remembered him, even down to the uniform itself.

  He decided to take a chance.

  “Hello, Wreg,” he said.

  The giant Wvercian frowned, looking at the seer with the Chinese face.

  The latter only smiled, pulling a hiri out of his coat pocket. He lit it with a silver lighter, and even the lighter struck a note somewhere in Revik’s mind.

  “Wreg? A little informal, wouldn’t you say? ‘Revik?’” The opaque black eyes glanced up, doll-like, shining as if made of obsidian glass. “Are you trying to piss me off? Or is that the kind of crap they tolerate in the Adhipan? I’d heard Balidor was a bit on the informal side, compared to his predecessors.”

  “I don’t know your current rank, sir.” Revik felt his jaw harden. “I didn’t know you still had a rank, sir… or that I fell under it. The war ended. Maybe you heard.” He motioned with his head. “Rebellion uniforms? A bit melodramatic, don’t you think? Do they have Halloween in India now?”

  “You’re not in India anymore… Revik.”

  The dark eyes stared into his. They betrayed no emotion at all.

  “Since we’re on the subject,” Wreg continued. “What brings you to Asia, Revik?”

  He ashed the hiri on the cement floor, gesturing fluidly with the same hand.

  “We knew of you, of course. The infamous defector, Dehgoies Revik.” Wreg grunted, giving him an ironic smile. “We had you tracked as a Westerner. Worm food, and a traitor who played both sides of the fence. Now that we know who you really are, can I assume you simply avoided returning to Asia until now?” The thin smile returned. “…I’m fairly certain I would have noticed.”

  There was a silence.

  Revik looked around at faces, then at the whitewashed walls. His mind ran ahead of his facial expression. Something was wrong here. Did these people know him from when he was a Rook? Something didn’t feel right.

  He matched the other’s tone.

  “I guess I did. Too many bad memories, maybe.” He did his best to keep his mind still, knowing that was about all he had by way of defense. “Did I do something wrong? I didn’t realize my birth status had been revoked. Or that my being in Seertown would piss you off so much.”

  Relighting the hiri, the older seer exhaled smoke, clicking his heat coil shut.

  “You’re still a ballsy little shit. You’re on the ground in manacles and you’re asking me questions.” Taking another drag of the hiri, he waved a hand around at the mold-smelling room.

  “I thought you were dead… Revik,” he said. “A lot of people did. It was one of our few compensations from that op in Trelimn. It almost redeemed you… in a few people’s eyes, at least.” A humorless smile hovered on the seer’s face. “And yet here you are, looking just like you did then. Explain that to me, Revik. Tell me how you managed to rise from the dead. Without so much as a scratch.”

  “There are a few scratches, sir.” Revik shifted his weight, trying to get feeling back in his legs. He fought to keep his mind still.

  “You must know I can’t answer your questions.” He glanced around at faces, pausing on the Wvercian, then the two seers who stood behind him, listening. “I can guess from context, but I don’t know the specifics of––”

  “Yet, you remember me. Why is that, Revik?”

  Revik shrugged. He didn’t really have a good answer for that, either.

  Seeing the other’s scrutiny intensify, he forced his expression blank.

  “I don’t remember you, sir. Not really.” He controlled his voice with an effort. “What do you want? You must know that you too
k me illegally. You must also know it wasn’t the best timing, from the perspective of our people.”

  “My men saved your life.” The seer spat hiri resin on the cement floor. “Why, is beyond me. You can pretend you don’t remember all you want, Revik, but I can’t help but think it’s awfully convenient.”

  Revik frowned. “Why do you keep saying my name like that?”

  Wreg glanced at the Wvercian, then smiled.

  “Right. Because we should say your traitor name with respect.” The black eyes filled with contempt. “You deserted. Right when we needed people the most… even shit-blood pricks like you. You’re going to tell me you don’t remember that, either? That it all just conveniently ‘disappeared’ when you ran back to the Seven for absolution?”

  He pointed the hiri at him.

  “Go fuck yourself… Revik.”

  The Wvercian grunted a laugh, folding his arms.

  Revik stared at the wall, fighting to hide his impatience.

  “Bet you’re wishing you could scan me now, aren’t you, Revik?” Wreg focused on the mud-streaked ceiling. “Of course you are. You never had a modicum of decency with your fellow brothers and sisters. Is that the dirt blood in you? To treat others like tools? Like pieces to move around on a game board for your own amusement––”

  “Do you have a point… sir?” Revik bit his tongue. “Or did you bring me here to rehash some grudge I don’t even remember the cause of? There are places I’d rather be.”

  “Yeah.” Wreg grunted. “I bet.”

  Revik stared up at him, trying to decide how far he could push this.

  If they wanted him dead, he would be dead. Even so, he was having trouble keeping calm. Did they work for Terian? This couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, not with Seertown being bombed, much less Allie being taken.

  He was still trying to decide what to say when Wreg reached into his coat.

  He pulled out a square image reconstruction.

  Getting up off the stool, he placed it on the ground between Revik’s feet.

  “Who is he?”

  Revik stared at the image, feeling something in his chest constrict. He glared up at the muscular seer. “How the fuck should I know?”

  Wreg crouched down, tapping the image. “Look again, Dehgoies Revik. Think real hard before you answer.”

  Revik let his eyes trace the outline of the boy’s round face. The dark eyes stared out of the image, still as death under jet-black hair. Revik felt his jaw harden, remembering the way those eyes had looked at Allie.

  Like he owned her.

  “I told you.” He looked up at Wreg. “I have no fucking idea. Is he one of those seer kids who died recently? In the news?”

  “Something like that, yeah.” Wreg leaned back on his heels, staring at him. “I would have thought you would show more interest. Given who your wife is.”

  Revik felt something in his stomach grow cold.

  Wreg smiled. “A reaction. At last. Hallelujah.” His smile turned colder. “Where is she, Revik?”

  “You’re asking me that? Your goons said you’d help me find her!”

  “Yeah,” Wreg conceded. “They did. But I need you to explain a few things to me, first, runt.” Looking between Revik’s eyes, he said, “We hear she took out one of yours. Little shit who tried to claim her before you got your cock in her.”

  He smiled when Revik averted his eyes.

  “Eye witness said she threw him a good thirty meters. Nearly killed him, too, from what I hear.” He paused, studying Revik’s face. “Is that true?”

  Revik stared at the large-boned seer, but didn’t answer.

  Folding his hands between his knees where he crouched, Wreg shrugged.

  “Apparently, we’d been vastly misinformed,” he said. “Someone told us she was untrained.” The broad face creased in another humorless smile. “Funny. I wonder who could have possibly trained her?”

  Revik didn’t answer.

  Staring at the cement floor, he fought to process this, to catch up. They had someone there, at Seertown, probably in the Guard. They knew about Allie.

  Jesus, did they think he’d trained her?

  Sure, the thought to try had crossed his mind, especially after Maygar, but he had no idea where to even start. He’d been playing around with a few ideas along those lines, to distract himself mostly, those nights they sat in front of the fire at the cabin.

  Ironically, he’d been trying to map the boy’s structures from memory, to see if he could figure out which he’d used for telekinesis so he could show Allie.

  Pain hit him.

  For the first time, he let himself remember, to really feel what had happened over the course of however-long they’d been together.

  Despite how he’d brought her there, in the end, it had been her who seduced him. Even after, it’d been her who kept pushing him to go further, to stop holding back. She told him things. Once he’d made it clear he wanted her to, she told him whatever he wanted to know, even when he continued to hide behind silence.

  They hadn’t finished.

  He’d been consciously aware of that, even at the time. He’d looked forward to more, to drawing it out. Then there’d been that thing with her light––that thing that drove him half-insane with wanting, that turned both of them nearly violent.

  She’d been pushing him with that, too, asking him for it even after he told her he couldn’t, that he was afraid he would hurt her if they kept trying.

  She hadn’t cared.

  He remembered the way the boy had looked at her, and his pain turned to overt fear, intense enough that he barely heard Wreg’s next words.

  “…Needless to say,” the Sark added. “We couldn’t find this Maygar. But the rumor is, he’s alive.” He grunted, hands resting on his thighs. “I guess the wife’s got a forgiving nature, eh, runt? Come to think of it, why didn’t you kill him? I would have. If someone pulled that shit on my mate, I would have torn them to pieces.”

  When Revik didn’t answer, he prodded him with a foot.

  “We found her, Dehgoies.” He waited for Revik to look up, then smiled a little at his expression. “You should have told us that ex-Pyramider has her. Terian. We now know he has the boy, too.” He gave Revik a half-smile. “You want to tell me again how you don’t know who he is?”

  Revik stared at the floor of the cell without seeing it.

  He didn’t think he was moving until his wrists started to hurt, and he realized he was grinding the chains together, his heels dug into the floor.

  “Are you going to tell me where she is?” he said finally.

  “Ah.” Wreg smiled. “A bit touchy about the wife.” Still studying Revik’s, the black eyes turned shrewd. “I have to say, that surprises me. Back in the day, you seemed pretty willing to stick your dick in anything that didn’t try to cut it off. I guess even shit-bloods like you can grow up. A little, anyway.” He straightened fluidly.

  “That’s good,” he said. “That’s really good.”

  Before Revik could answer, Wreg kicked him, hard, in his good leg.

  Revik sucked in a breath, gasping. The kick caught him off guard, so it hurt like hell. When he looked up, fighting to breathe, the other seer was appraising him again, his opaque eyes expressionless.

  “You ready to cut the crap now, Revik?”

  “Why am I here?” Revik snapped, still gasping in breaths. “If you knew about Terian, why take me? I’m not with them anymore. I haven’t been for years!”

  “Maybe it’s not you we’re after.”

  “Terian won’t trade me for her. And I can’t help her, not if you’ve got me locked up here. Let me go. I’ll find her, goddamn it!”

  Wreg smiled. “Think you can rescue the missus, Dehgoies?”

  “He’ll kill her.” Revik met his gaze, hearing emotion leak into his voice. “He could do it on accident. She’s never worn a collar before. She won’t know when to stop… and he jacks up the limits too high. She’s telekinetic, so he’l
l be afraid of her––he’ll overcompensate.”

  “What makes you think we care?”

  Revik looked around at the others in frustration, but met only blank stares. His gaze paused at the door, focusing on the young seer guarding it.

  He said, “I may not remember specifics, but I know who you are. I know what you want. You want the Bridge––alive. Let me go, and I’ll get her back.”

  “You don’t strike me as all that battle-ready, friend.”

  Revik bit back fury, glancing at the door.

  “What do you want?” he said. “What do you want for my release?”

  Wreg smiled. “Now you’re asking the right question. Finally.” He picked the hiri up from where he’d left it on the floor, taking a drag and exhaling sweet-smelling smoke.

  “Salinse wants to see you,” he said.

  Revik looked up, feeling his breath stop. “Salinse? He’s alive?”

  Wreg smiled. “Yes. He is.”

  34

  MEMORY

  MINUTES LATER, REVIK was limping down a passageway carved from solid rock. He focused on moving his legs, testing the limits of the one with a hole blown through it, hopefully without damaging it further.

  It was something to think about. Something to do.

  He’d given up trying to remember how he knew these people. He didn’t care. He’d been a kid during WWI, so whatever this was about, it must have happened while he was with the Rooks after WWII, or in the period he’d operated out of Germany before that.

  It didn’t matter to him.

  He knew a little about Salinse. He’d studied him and his followers while working for the Seven, along with any seer terrorist cells big enough to show up in the security documents he had access to while working for the British government. He’d retained a curiosity about what went on in Asia, maybe more so because he wasn’t allowed back.

  That Salinse’s “Rebellion” may have had ties to Galaith and the Pyramid Rooks had been a pretty well-substantiated theory of the Adhipan’s.

  Yet the exact nature of those ties remained unknown.

  They’d never been absorbed into the Pyramid itself. While they claimed to be the remnants of the group that fought alongside Syrimne during WWI, there was little to prove that, either, other than Salinse’s bloodline, which seemed to be relatively solid.