War_Apocalypse

by JC Andrijeski

  Given what I’d just been thinking about, his words forced an ironic smile to my lips.

  “I thought security vaults were your specialty,” I said, glancing at him.

  “Not the wife kind,” he said, his eyes still on mine.

  I saw those glass-like eyes turn sharply appraising.

  “Come on,” he said, cajoling. “Tell me.” His voice remained light, but the underlying edge grew more prominent. “There’s something you haven’t told me.”

  I laughed, unable to help it. “Pot. Kettle… as usual.”

  When I glanced over that time, I was startled to see color rise sharply to his face and neck.

  “And… wow. Caught. So caught.” I tilted my head up, squinting at him. “Just how big is this big secret of yours anyway, husband?”

  He butted into me again, and I felt another flush of that heat, along with what might have been embarrassment.

  “Stop distracting me. Mine is personal. Yours isn’t. So tell me.”

  “Personal, huh?” I smiled more. “How personal?”

  “Allie,” he growled. “Come on. It’s cute… but not that cute.”

  Sighing, I realized he was right. I didn’t really have a good reason to keep my secret from him at this point, and maybe he had a good reason for not telling me his. Anyway, he’d just asked me the one thing I hadn’t wanted him to ask, meaning a direct question. So now I either had to lie to him––which I’d just stood up in front of a lot of people and promised I wouldn’t do––or bite the bullet and tell him now, or tell him to wait, which he wouldn’t like, either.

  “All right,” I said, reluctant. “We should probably get the others.”

  “Others?” Revik said. “You mean Balidor and Wreg?”

  “And Chan. Yumi, too, if she’s around. I wish Tarsi and Jon were here, but we can talk to them when we get to New York.”

  “Allie, we can’t pull all of these people right now.” Revik glanced around the bridge. “Balidor is definitely too busy. He’s talking to SCARB in New York, and Yumi––”

  “Fine,” I said. “Just you, me, Chan and Wreg, then. Unless you want to wait.”

  “No,” he said at once. “Wreg’s in the infirmary. We’ll go there.” Revik raised an eyebrow, looking from one of my eyes to the other. “Should I be worried?”

  Rather than answer, I caught hold of his wrist, tugging him down the catwalk towards the corridor that would take us off the bridge. Giving me another slight frown, he touched his earpiece without resisting my pull.

  After a pause, I heard him say, “We’re coming. No… stay there.”

  Another pause grew as the person on the other end answered.

  Eventually, Revik cut in, “Wreg, you need to let it go. I’m sure Jon’s fine. No one strong-armed him down there, okay? And Allie wants to talk to us.”

  Another silence went by where he listened.

  Then Revik gave a humorless snort.

  “Well, don’t take any more until we get there. And call Chan. Get her to meet us, too. I don’t have her new headset ID yet.” Pausing at something on the other end, he snorted another laugh. “Yeah, well, I promise not to remind you we’re in a submarine. Just tell them no more painkillers. You sound overdosed already.”

  After he hung up, he looked at me.

  Despite his humor with Wreg, his light eyes still shone that more intense light.

  Without another word, he caught hold of my hand from where I’d gripped his wrist, and began leading me off the catwalk. Tension already vibrated his skin, enough that I found myself thinking I should have waited, after all.

  13

  DEFINITELY DEAD

  LUCKILY, THE WALK was short.

  Chandre beat us there, somehow. She nodded to both of us from inside the oval door of the exam room as we reached the end of the narrow corridor that housed the infirmary.

  As soon as I passed through that same opening, I found myself facing Wreg, who sat, shirtless, on the padded table. His tattooed upper body shone under the overhead lights, a darker brown than I would have expected under all of that ink. Even so, I couldn’t help noticing that despite his somewhat bulky appearance in clothes, the seer didn’t have an ounce of excess flesh anywhere on him. He looked like he’d been carved out of rock.

  I glanced up in time to see Revik scowl at me.

  I stared at him in disbelief. Holy crap. You’re as bad as Jon. Hypersensitive much?

  Not right now, Allie.

  You mean you don’t want to talk about it right now? Or you don’t want me to notice a half-naked man right now? Even when he’s sitting right in front of me?

  Revik looked away, clicking in irritation.

  Rolling my eyes at a smiling Chandre, who only shrugged, I followed Revik’s gaze back to Wreg in time to see a medical tech checking an organic patch he’d placed over the bullet wound he’d cleaned, after removing our somewhat hastily-applied field dressing.

  He’d already removed the bandage I’d made out of the T-shirt I’d worn under my armored vest. Seeing my shirt lying in pieces in a metal tray where the tech had cut it off, I frowned.

  “That was my favorite shirt,” I muttered.

  I felt a pulse of humor off Wreg at my words, strong enough that I shielded from his light, even as I glanced at Revik again, in spite of myself.

  That time, Revik wouldn’t return my gaze.

  Wreg must have picked up on some of our back and forth. Smiling at me, he motioned towards Revik with a blood-stained hand.

  “Don’t be too hard on him, princess,” Wreg said, his voice affectionate. “I know he’s an asshole, but the pup’s got reason to feel sensitive at the moment. He’s only going to get worse, you know, when you––”

  “Shut up, Wreg.”

  I flinched, turning, but Revik glared only at him, his voice an open threat.

  “––Now. Before you lose something you won’t grow back.” He glanced at the medical tech, who was looking between the four of us in amusement. “You. Out. We need the room.”

  The tech’s smile faded, right before he bowed, making signs of both the Bridge and the Sword as he backed out of the room. Once he was gone, Wreg chuckled again, deliberately flexing his arms and chest under the bandage.

  “I don’t know what you’re so touchy about, Illustrious Sword. I mean, who wouldn’t want to look at this? I am the stuff of fantasies, am I not…?”

  I burst out in an involuntary laugh, unable to help myself.

  Revik rolled his eyes, clicking in irritation, but I saw him smile a little that time, too. “You call me an asshole. I’m showing Jon this conversation,” he added. “Word for word.”

  Chandre gave him a puzzled look, but Wreg only laughed again.

  Seconds later, though, I saw a more pained look touch Wreg’s expression, along with a frown that teetered into overt emotionality. I remembered what Revik had said about painkillers, and noticed Wreg’s eyes were glassier than usual, and not only from fatigue.

  “Jeez, a drugged out Wreg,” I muttered. “Scary.”

  Chandre grunted in agreement.

  Wreg seemed to brighten, though. “Think of the possibilities, princess,” he said, winking at me. “Although clearly, you’ve done that already, from the way your man is looking at me, yes?”

  That time, Chandre burst out in an involuntary chuckle.

  “…Let’s not get off track," Revik growled, clearly still unamused. Giving me an openly irritated look, he held up a hand before Wreg could say anything more. “Allie is going to tell us something. Aren’t you, wife?”

  Wreg and Chan both looked at me in interest, although that flicker of something else passed over Wreg’s expression again, right before he frowned, glancing at me.

  “Jon should be here,” he muttered.

  I frowned back at him, puzzled, but he only waved me off.

  “Never mind.” Sighing a bit, he motioned towards his head. “Probably the drugs. Making me a little crazy… more than usual, that is.”
/>
  Deciding to let it go, I nodded, then sat down on one of the swivel chairs that had been bolted to the floor next to a desk and terminal. Glancing around at all three of them, I took a deep breath, clearing my throat.

  “Okay,” I said. “There’s a longer version around the context to all of this that Revik already knows, that has to do with why we robbed that bank in New York.”

  I took another breath, glancing at Revik, who frowned, still watching my face.

  “…But the short version is this. At one point, I went to Feigran for help. I was hoping he could verify or refute some of the visions I kept having, primarily in dreams. Since he has visions too, and he’s accurate more often than not, I thought using him might be as good as I could get, given where the information was coming from.”

  Wreg gave a humorless snort.

  Clearly, he wanted me to know exactly what he thought of the idea of using Feigran to validate my delusions.

  Ignoring him, I plowed on.

  “So,” I said. “When I asked Feigran who owned the security box at the bank, he showed me a bunch of drawings he’d done. Detailed drawings, over half of them in color.”

  I glanced at Revik, then shrugged, keeping my voice matter-of-fact.

  “Look, I think we need to assess the possibility that Menlim might be alive more seriously. I know the consensus is that Shadow conjured that mirage of Menlim in Argentina to screw with us…” I tugged nervously on my shirt under the armored vest, not looking up. “But I’d swear to any one of you, the drawings Feigran showed me were pictures of Menlim. I even asked Feigran, point blank, and he agreed. He also told me the man in the drawings ‘whispered’ to him. He called him ‘uncle’ a few times, too, and said he watched Revik.”

  Hearing the silence this produced, I shrugged.

  “Feigran said ‘uncle’ came to him in dreams, asked him questions. He promised Feigran rewards for his obedience… rewards from the Ancestors and the gods themselves. Feigran told me ‘uncle’ promised he would walk with the chosen again, whatever that means.”

  Revik flinched.

  When I gave him a questioning look, he just shook his head.

  Shrugging, I added, “He repeated that a bunch of times, like it meant something to him. He mostly seemed afraid of him, though… Feigran, I mean. He claimed ‘uncle’ put some kind of worm in his brain. He also kept repeating he was here, right here, but I never really got out of him what that meant.”

  Hesitating, I glanced between the three of them again.

  “…To be honest, a lot of it was gibberish,” I admitted. “He would go into one of his less-coherent states whenever I tried to question him in detail. He’d start using his fingers to draw symbols on the walls. That kind of thing.”

  There was another, deeper-feeling silence.

  When I glanced between faces that time, I saw Wreg frowning at me. Really, it was more of a scowl. Chandre’s lips were pursed, but her stare remained grim.

  Revik just stood there, his face devoid of expression entirely.

  “Allie,” Revik said finally. “We saw him die. Wreg and the others… they saw him dead. Feigran either made a mistake, or someone sent him those images. They did it to unbalance us, like we talked about.”

  “Could you have made a mistake?” Wreg cut in, the question directed at me. “Salinse and that motherfucker… they looked a lot alike, even back then. Are you sure it wasn’t Salinse, ilya? The rest of it would have been consistent with him, too. The two of them, they talked a lot of the same talk.”

  The last person I expected to weigh in, at least directly, interrupted Wreg.

  “No,” Chandre said. “She didn't make a mistake.”

  I turned towards her. It dawned on me as I did, that she’d spent time with Feigran, too, at that château in Argentina.

  “He told you the same thing,” I said. “Feigran.”

  Wreg and Revik’s eyes swiveled to Chandre. The hunter sighed, her sculptured lips curling into an expressive frown. She leaned against the bulkhead.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “We talked. They kept us all together, perhaps in the hopes that we might influence one another...reinforce one another’s fears. Or perhaps so we would reveal more, in an effort to reassure one another.”

  She glanced at me, then back at Wreg. Her last look fell on Revik, and I couldn’t help seeing the caution in her eyes.

  “…Feigran showed us drawings, too. Some were of this ‘Shadow.’ I only met Salinse once, but I would swear it was not him. Feigran claimed to have met Shadow in person, too. He told us he was negotiating to get the worm out of his brain, if he behaved.”

  Revik grimaced openly at that, but still wouldn’t meet any of our gazes.

  “He talked about you, too, Esteemed Bridge,” Chandre added, looking at me. “He told the rest of us that you knew the truth. He said you were the only one who believed him, because you were his sister.” Chandre’s frown deepened as her gaze swiveled to Wreg.

  “…He also talked about Jon. He seemed particularly obsessed with Jon. How Jon was doing, whether Jon missed him, whether the rest of us knew how important Jon was. He worried Menlim would ‘find out about Jon’ from ‘the worms.’ He definitely thought Menlim was talking to him in his dreams… and that Menlim and Shadow were the same person. He worried he couldn’t keep secrets from him.”

  “Fantastic,” Wreg muttered, leaning back on his good hand.

  Revik continued to stare at Chandre, as if trying to make sense of what she’d said, or somehow work it into a different explanation.

  Finally, he shook his head.

  “He was lying,” he said flatly. “Or confused. This isn’t just Feigran anymore.” He looked around at the rest of us. “It was Terian, remember? Partly, at least. He was playing some kind of mind game… consciously or not. Or it’s a hallucination.”

  “I thought that,” I said, before Chandre could answer. “I thought that, even at the time. But honestly, I just can’t see why he’d go there. He was genuinely terrified of Menlim. And anyway, he doesn’t know enough about that part of your past, does he? Not in detail––not enough to really fuck with you. Besides, if that was all it was, why talk to me about it? Why not you?”

  “I wasn’t in there enough––” Revik began.

  “You were still in there.”

  Revik’s voice hardened. “He might think it would be more credible coming from you––”

  “That crazy fuck could have found out about Nenz’s past,” Wreg cut in. “He was Head of Galaith’s damned network, right? Long enough to have access to all their intelligence. He’d know everything Galaith collected over the years.”

  I looked at Wreg.

  “He was Head, yes,” I agreed. “But would he have found out anything about Menlim? I’d be surprised if Galaith knew most of that stuff. What he did know, he kept off the network. We found those books of his, remember? When the boy first appeared, we got all of our intelligence from primary sources, most of them hand-written.”

  I glanced at Revik, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. His face was like stone, his eyes trained on the far wall. I looked back at Wreg and Chandre.

  “…Terian tried to find out things about Revik’s past from me when he held me captive in D.C.,” I added. “He told me he found the boy through some old journal of Revik’s, but he couldn’t figure out what most of it meant. I didn’t see anything in Galaith’s journal about Revik’s past, either. Not in terms of details. Whatever Galaith knew, he didn’t risk writing down. The few references he made, even about Revik’s true identity, were oblique, to say the least.”

  “Again,” Revik said, anger edging into his words. “How do you know Terian wasn’t lying, Allie? We’ve seen plenty of evidence that he picks things up, even wearing a collar. Things there’s no way he could have known unless he was reading us right through the damned things. Even the prescience displayed through the collar, so why couldn’t he have gotten information from you? Or Salinse? Or Shadow himself?”


  I looked at him. Caution slid over my light when I saw his expression, but I kept my voice noncommittal.

  “He could have,” I conceded. “I didn’t say anything at first because I wanted to be reasonably sure it could be real. I was going to try talking to Feigran again, after that interrogation with Surli, when Surli hinted something similar about Shadow’s identity.”

  Seeing Revik’s jaw harden more, I shrugged, holding up my hands in a seer apology.

  “Look, you heard what he said. You were there.”

  “You omitted a few things about that conversation, Allie,” Revik growled, low. “To the rest of us, I mean. To me.”

  Only halfway apologetic, I shrugged. “Like I said, I chose not to bring it to the group until I had time to process it on my own. I knew this would be potentially divisive. I didn’t want to make an issue of it unless there was a good reason.”

  At the silence this produced, I glanced at Wreg and Chandre.

  “…Then Feigran was taken by Shadow’s people, and I didn’t get the chance to talk to him again. Between that, and what happened in Argentina, I thought we should discuss it at least. Talk about how it might change things, if it’s true.”

  Hesitating, I went back and forth for a few seconds in my mind, then said it anyway.

  “I’ll be honest… it feels true to me. I can’t explain why, but it does.”

  Wreg frowned, glancing at Revik. He didn’t speak.

  I looked at Revik too. Noting the hard look in his eyes, I shrugged.

  “I really think Feigran believed it, too. Even in my last conversation with him, he didn’t act like someone who was playing games, intentionally or not. He was afraid, like I said.” I looked at Revik. “He was also very curious about you. He wanted to know if the pictures ‘uncle’ showed him about you were true.”

  Revik flinched outright at that, moving away from me slightly.

  Repositioning himself more in the middle of the room, he refolded his arms, not looking at any of us now. I felt the aggression in his light, almost a warning to stay back.

  I felt a whisper of sickness coil around my light from his, too.