What the hell am I doing here? she demanded of herself. I had to have the college experience? I had to research why Humans are developing their abilities? Why? Does it really matter? What is wrong with me, anyway?
It seemed suddenly as if she had gone insane for the last year and a half, and had lost sight of what was important to her.
“That’s it! That’s what I sensed the first day, when she walked right by me!” Pete exclaimed, rushing toward her from a side path and pointing wildly. Three men followed him, looking at her doubtfully. One of them was the big guy who had stepped forward to help her out with Alan, but then had been too interested in her supposed abilities to remember to do it. She wasn’t too surprised to see that he was recruited to harass her.
She hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings as she had been taught to do, which gave her another reason to be mad at herself. The list of her sins was getting longer and longer as the night went on.
Any other day, she might have been more compassionate, or at least understanding, but Pete’s arrival had come at a bad time for him.
“I’m not interested, Pete. Leave me alone.” She sidestepped him and moved to quickly go around his friends, her mind on the list of people she needed to contact in the morning.
She stopped and stared at them when they intercepted her.
“What is this?” Belatedly, her attention was pulled from miles away and centered on the men that now surrounded her. She narrowed her eyes, and really looked at them for the first time.
Stupid. She was so stupid. It was as if he hadn’t taught her anything. No, he had been teaching; she was the one who hadn’t been learning.
To make sure she was assessing the way they were standing and readying themselves correctly, she asked, “Are you guys really going to assault a woman right here outside of the library?”
They weren’t really just outside of the library, she realized. They were in that one little spot where the path bent around a maintenance building for a moment and blocked it from view. During the day, people lounged and studied at the tables and benches that were scattered throughout the area, but there was no one around that late at night; she was alone with them, which made them very confident.
“No one is assaulting you, Karin…” Pete said mockingly, as if she were overreacting.
“So you’re not going to touch me? Why are you surrounding me, then? Why don’t you let me by?”
Two of them hesitated at that, looking at Pete and then at each other as if they weren’t sure how things were really going to go. That was nice. A little confusion in the ranks was always welcome.
Pete and Mr. Helpful, however, looked like they knew exactly what they were doing, so she gave them her full attention. She felt everything sink down in her body until she was nice and settled and ready.
Their eyes widened and they assessed her more closely as soon as they noticed the change in her, but she could tell that they still weren’t too worried. After all, there were four of them, and she was not big enough to put up much of a fight.
Her rescuer-turned-assailant Mr. Helpful said, “We just want you to come with us for ten minutes. We only want to talk…” He stepped forward and reached for her.
The others held back. Good enough. One was better than four any day.
Turned out that Mr. Helpful was really slow for such a young guy. She easily made it in past his guard and cracked him one on the nose, before giving him the perfunctory self defense nut cracker. One hasty swipe from his hand connected with her arm before he crumpled into a half crouch. She grimaced; her arm hurt like hell and was going to have a bruise for sure. It was time to put a quick stop to all of this nonsense.
She started screaming, “Help! Pete and his friends are trying to rape me!! Help! Rape!!”
It didn’t take them long to clear out. Since she really wasn’t interested in filing a report or being asked a bunch of questions, she hurried off to her dorm room to pack. As soon as she was halfway there, she started trembling. She hadn't been in any real danger, but...she guessed it had still shaken her up a bit. Well, she consoled herself as she headed up the stairs to her room two at a time, at least she hadn’t used her power. She certainly didn’t want to be making a big mental splash like that right in front of Pete.
In fifteen minutes, she was done but didn’t have any place to go; the bus she needed to take wouldn’t leave until morning. She didn’t feel comfortable staying in her room, so she shrugged on her backpack, grabbed her suitcase and went up to the third floor.
Cord’s door was locked, but that wasn’t really a problem for her. She focused her power tightly and sent it into the lock, easily breaking the mechanism. If she had to, she could have damaged the doorjamb enough to push the door open, but that would have been much noisier. She turned on the light to make sure that no one was there, and then turned it off again. She deposited her bags on the floor, pulled the mattress over until it was right up against the door, and lay on top of it for a long time before finally falling asleep.
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Scythe dropped down onto the hard packed earth, and folded into a crouch. He sniffed the air, waited, listened and then moved. He passed through the orchard as close to the trees as possible without touching their low branches. It was some work to keep from knocking his head against them as he rushed by. It had to be apple trees. Halfway through, he stopped and reassessed the area. Still nothing.
Nothing was a big problem. There was never nothing. He sighed, and considered backtracking and abandoning the project. Thanks to their team’s work, the Scere was in a better position to combat the recent antagonism and conspiracies that threatened them, and they knew where the attacks were coming from now, which gave them a huge advantage in dealing with future problems. He didn’t think there was significantly more to gain from Tiburon’s plans for the Scere.
However, Scythe had found a few strange pieces of information in the Scere database after the interrogation with Justice that he wanted to investigate, and something Tiburon had said made him think a talk with him would be insightful. So, he debated, and then he decided.
They became impatient and began to move. He hadn’t detected them before so they must have been pretty far off, two blocks at least, or more likely in the neighboring houses, although that should have caused an uproar in that highly exclusive area. Either way, they started coming over the fence behind him and on each side. In front of him was the house, which was dark in this wing except for Tiburon’s study. He could hear the evidence of a late night family gathering floating toward him through the trees from a distant section of the estate.
Hmmm. He could make it easy or hard for them. An old impulse, one that he constantly fought even now, reminded him that easy was safer, but hard was more fun. Since he was still alive, he figured that they wanted him alive, so he could use that to his advantage to shave off a little of the risk factor.
They were within visual range now, and he could see that there were a good number of them, enough to make him think they were expecting a team instead of just one man. They had sprung their trap for the Scere team, and he had walked right into it. He guessed they hadn’t heard that the interrogations were canceled because the lead interrogator had abandoned the team...or maybe they thought he’d come anyway. In either case, they had dedicated a lot of resources to playing it safe; some lead security officer was feeling pretty smug right about now.
Tiburon had been impossible to locate after Scythe had left the Scere team, and Scythe figured that he had gone into hiding on the recommendation of either Justice or one of the other members they had interrogated. So he had dropped in on Heron to get a feel for the man’s whereabouts. Perhaps to regain some of his lost honor, Heron had volunteered the information about his uncle without hesitation; he said that it was common knowledge within his family that Tiburon was keeping to a second estate, one that was up in the hills that bordered two sides of the capital. He ate in his study and did not leave or accept vis
itors.
Scythe hadn’t asked him for any other information or for his help; he didn’t want to endanger him or his new wife. For his part, Heron didn’t volunteer anything else either, and Scythe didn’t blame him. Crossing Tiburon would have been very dangerous for a person like Heron and the pretty Melode, whether they were family or not.
Time to go, he thought, shifting his balance forward and digging his front foot into the dirt. He then sprinted forward through the last of the trees, took a sharp turn to the right and ran along the edge of the orchard until he reached the end. There were little puff sounds coming from behind and to the side of him and small darts flew past him. One hit his thick jacket at a bad angle and bounced off. Tranquilizer darts. Well, that settled the dead or alive question.
He ducked down and practically sewed himself to the trunk of the last tree, reached down and yanked open a flap on his pant leg. He pulled out a cloth pouch and unwrapped it, removing a small self-injecting syringe. He jabbed it into his neck, squeezing his jaw tightly at the sharp pain. He replaced the syringe and the pouch and then, shaking his head a little, straightened his legs until he was standing. That should counteract any typical trank for at least forty-five minutes.
He unholstered his pistol and aimed straight ahead. Two shots was all it took to break the majority of the glass. One more to knock off the large shard sticking up in the corner. Then he holstered the gun again, left the shadows behind and made for the window right in front of him. They shouted and continued shooting as soon as he was in the moonlight, but that was only a matter of seconds. One quick leap and he left the ground and flew through the window, his eyes scanning the room as soon as he passed over the sill. Then he tucked, rolled and came up running through the center of the dark and virtually empty room.
Beside the open door, he stopped, turned and pointed his gun at the guard in the corner opposite him.
He had a dark blue uniform with the house insignia right at the neck. He also had his gun pointed at Scythe. It was not the type that used tranks.
Sigh.
Since he hadn’t been shot immediately, he was betting on the probability that the guy had received the no kill orders. “Drop it, or I’ll shoot you right now,” Scythe warned. On the word ‘shoot,’ Scythe shot him in the right shoulder. The gun across from him went off, sending a wild shot to his right, and then was dropped when the man spun a quarter turn and hit the wall with a grunt. To his credit, he kept his eye on Scythe, his free hand grasping his shoulder and his right arm hanging useless at his side. Scythe could see from where he was that he had hit the bullet proof jacket like he had wanted to. It wasn’t a serious wound, but it would still hurt like hell and his arm was going to be useless long enough for what Scythe needed.
Scythe crossed the room, ducking down to avoid making a target of himself through the window, and approached the guard with his weapon trained on the man’s face.
“To the left,” he said, giving his command emphasis with a wave of the gun. The guard nodded and inched his way out of the corner and along the wall. Meanwhile, Scythe located the other gun, picked it up, put on the safety and tossed it through the broken glass.
When he got to the edge of the window, the man stopped.
“Keep going.”
His eyes widened and Scythe watched him weigh his chances. To encourage him to think clearly, Scythe moved in on him quickly. The man, with his back to the window, stepped to the side, while trying to warn his team outside.
“It’s Kenilin! Don’t shoot!”
His body jerked again and he cried out, moving slightly forward from the shock of the impact. Scythe grabbed him and pulled him from the open space to where he was standing by the window. He put the man face down on the ground with a quick sweep and a strategic push, following him down until he sat in a crouch with his gun pressed to the back of the neck. Then he yanked the trank out, ignoring the man’s yelp.
As the seconds went by, Scythe held up the trank to the light and gave it a closer look. He smelled it and then dropped it to the ground, satisfied with his preventive measure. At thirteen seconds, the body slumped into unconsciousness, and Scythe returned to the doorway.
The ones that were in position when he first glanced over the other room hadn’t moved, but four more were added to their number. The door was completely covered and the window behind him was as well.
“I just want to talk,” Scythe called. “If you don’t want to lose any more people, get Tiburon out here.”
A couple of them laughed, but not all. One spoke for the rest, “It’s you who’s in hot water, so why don’t you just throw your gun out here and come out nice and slow.”
As soon as he said “come,” Scythe moved from one side of the door to the other and shot two of them. Bullets and darts flew past the door just as he pushed his back against the wall. Hmm. Not everyone was on the same page, he thought with a glance at the small holes in the wood paneling across the way.
Scythe sent his power forward. Like a wave, it washed across the room, lightly touching and then passing two guards before resting on the one he wanted. He heard a gasp and then some shuffling; that made one a sensitive and the other a null. Then he was busy with the third for a handful of seconds. He tightly held onto the man’s mind and rifled through it.
If he did it right, he could release the guard in a way that would be very disorienting and cause bouts of dizziness and nausea. He planned on doing it extra rough, so he would be down for a few minutes at least.
“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be shooting live ammo, Yastim.”
There was a soft thump when Yastim fell. That left five very uncomfortable guards; the sensitive was more spooked than the rest and was whispering frantically into his mic. Scythe sent his wave to run over all of them, brushing their minds lightly so that they all became very jittery.
“Either move out, or I’ll put each one of you down,” Scythe made it a promise. He grabbed another one and made him fall like Yastim. That was enough for them.
“Fall back!” They retreated through the door on the south side of the building. With a quick glance, Scythe noticed that while they had to pull out the unconscious two, the guards that Scythe had shot were able to make it out with just a little help. That was good. The shots were more a message than an attack, so he had done his best to hit the jackets.
Scythe advanced into the room on the tail end of the retreat, crossing to and then sliding along the wall until he was at the far door, the one that opened to Tiburon’s study. He was hoping he could get some good information from Tiburon; it would have been a shame if all this were for nothing. His power began to wash into the next room. Before he had a chance to locate the man, he heard the smooth, confident voice he recognized from a handful of memories.
“That will be enough, I think. Back up, I’ll finish this.” He waited until the sounds of their retreat to the other side of the room faded before he continued, “My nephew said you only wanted to talk. I prefer to talk on my terms, but I can see that will be problematic today, so let’s try to find a compromise, shall we?”
Scythe grabbed on to him. Hovering just outside his mind, he said, Send them all out. The man’s initial reaction was typical: surprise that instantly mutated into a deep rooted fear. Finding that someone can just enter the mind at will always terrified people. Scythe knew from experience that the subsequent resentment and hatred toward him was reasonable, and even justifiable, so he wasn’t offended when the disturbing images of what the man wanted to do to him spread over Tiburon’s thoughts.
Scythe showed him with a brief image some of the things he was prepared to do to get the man’s cooperation. It didn’t take long for Tiburon to decide.
“All of you, get out, and shut the door.” He barked at those who hesitated, “Get out!” You, too, he snarled at Scythe. Get out of my head.
“No, I don’t think so,” Scythe said, stepping through the door and closing it behind him. He strode to the window, the only
opening to the room that remained a threat, and stood against the wall. Then he studied the man who had contrived to destroy his life.
Tiburon was not a big man, but he gave off the impression that he was. He sat behind his desk and it was hard to tell if he thought he was a judge about to pass sentence, or an invading general, ready to accept a forced surrender. His skin was a deep, rich bronze and his dark brown hair was cut close to his head, remarkably unstylish for a man as prestigious as he was. Tiburon wasn’t interested in image, he was interested in stark reality. Only tangible things interested him, things he could hold in his hand...things he had the power to shape, or crush, at will.
Scythe had not met him when he was in the Capital four years earlier. If he had, he would have been instantly alerted by two things in his eyes: hunger and calculation.
Want was something everyone experienced. Want was necessary because it motivated, it moved people, it created a reason to strive, build, invent, achieve. Want helped people get through the hardship of the now for the prize that waited in the later.
But Tiburon’s eyes, and the festering boils that permeated the man’s mind beyond them told Scythe that he was way beyond a healthy want. He craved, he lusted, he coveted...and those perversions of want were the things that made the man sit at his desk and look across at a person and see a tool.
Dangerous is what Scythe thought of him, of anyone who saw lives as tiny cogs in their intricate machine.
Tiburon, feeling Scythe’s mental flinch from the depravity that surrounded his ambitions, threw off his initial fear and put on his usual coat of arrogance. He chuckled and said, “Not as bad as I had thought. But then, nothing is. I always over plan. My wife scolds me for it, because it takes so much effort and keeps everyone scurrying; but in the end it’s worth it, because I always get what I want.”
Halfblood Legacy Page 17