Allie's War Season One (7 page)

Then I heard another series of shots.

Thwup, thwup, thwup...

I fought to rise, but my back lit up like a Christmas tree in an electrical fire. Spots flashed before my eyes as an odor like sulfur hit my mouth and nose. Gunfire. Not like I was an expert, but I’d heard gunshots before, living in a city.

My fingers fought for purchase on the wet bark. I was in full-fledged panic mode now, but also in shock, a deer in headlights. I couldn’t figure out from which direction the shots had come.

The man with the black hair was on the ground. I felt a sharp pain where he held his shoulder. I smelled blood and my panic worsened.

I tried to stand, but another volley of shots peppered the clearing, bringing me swiftly back to my knees. That time, I knew from which direction the shots came at least. Whoever they were, the shooter was close now. Scrabbling on my hands and knees, I slid halfway around the base of the thick trunk, putting the tree between me and the gun.

When I looked back at the clearing, the black-haired man was gone.

He’d left me. Great.

A crackle of branches being shoved aside caused me to turn back in the direction of the gun. I found myself face to face with the shooter, and recognized him at once. He still wore the same blue suit and blood red tie. Flipping aside a longer greatcoat, he extracted a fresh magazine from an inside pocket, and deftly replaced the one he let fall to the ground.

He stared directly at me, his amber eyes reflecting light like a cat’s.

“Interesting.” He snapped in the fresh magazine, chambered a round, and raised the gun so it pointed at my face. “Was he
flirting
with you just now?” Pausing, he grinned. “Please tell me, if so, for that is simply too delicious for words...”

He began walking towards me when I didn’t answer.

In seconds, he stood directly over me.

Reacting belatedly, I pushed my body off the trunk with my palms and slipped, landing hard on my tailbone on a protruding root. I gasped, closing my eyes, bracing myself to be shot.

I was in shock. My mind acknowledged this, as if from far away.

In front of me, the man with the amber eyes fell to a crouch.

When I opened my eyes, our gazes were nearly level.

His amber colored eyes studied my face. I found myself looking back at him, unable to help myself from studying him in return. Reddish-brown hair framed his high cheekbones and a sensual mouth. As I continued to look at him, his eyes caught some unseen light, reflecting a glow that made them look distinctly inhuman to me.

They didn’t glow like mine had, though.

“Are you hurt, sister?” he said pleasantly.

“Umm...no.” I fought to control my voice. “I’m okay. I think.”

He smiled. “My deepest apologies for scaring you.” Unlike the black haired man, this one had no discernible accent beyond a bland American one. Even so, the construction of his sentences remained foreign-sounding to my ears somehow.

Seer,
I found myself thinking.
He has to be another one.

He gave me a faint smile. “This man,” he said then. He gestured towards the trees with the hand holding the gun. “He is a criminal, you see. He has been harassing you, yes? Following you? Am I mistaken in this?”

When I remained silent, his mind prodded mine.

“No,” I managed. “You are not mistaken.”

“I am Terian.” He waited, as if expecting me to introduce myself next, as if we were at a cocktail party. Even as I thought it, he prompted, “...And you are? What? Another Sark, surely. Living among the worms, trying to pass. Succeeding too, or so it would seem. And Dehgoies felt obliged to out you, did he? Such a gentleman.”

Terian chuckled, resting the gun on his thigh.

“I’m sure you’ll be jumping into his bed at any moment for that favor,” he grinned. “Am I right?”

His gaze sharpened above the smile then, flickering down my body.

“So tell me. How old are you, sister?”

I stared at his yellow eyes...

…and dark clouds intervene.

Briefly, his face shines with flickering, metallic lines. His eyes are yellow lamps in that other place, emitting cold, fast-moving, highly-structured silver light above the densely drawn lines that make up his body. Above his head in miniature rotates a Pyramid.

The Pyramid is there...sharp, crystal clear in the space.

Then, it is gone.

...and I lay crumpled on water-drenched ground in Golden Gate Park, my head throbbing with a dull pain. Rain dripped down from the trees, making me blink, sparkling on the black coat the man wore, contrasting the yellow of his eyes.

“I am sorry for the gun,” he said.

The warmth of his heart felt almost real. He tugged me deeper into him, trying to modify how he appeared to me.

I fought him, but it was like fighting smoke.

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

It started raining for real. Larger droplets hit my face, disorienting me.

“He warned me about you,” I told him. “He warned me you were dangerous.”

Terian rose to his feet. His smile grew a touch cold.

“Did he?” That time, I almost heard an accent. Clicking softly like the other one had, Terian made a low snorting sound.
“Gaos di’lanlente.
My dear old friend Dehgoies isn’t very subtle these days, is he? Since he has already begun his pathetic attempt at indoctrination, let us cut to the chase. You are the Bridge, are you not?”

I frowned, remembering what the black-haired man had called me.

Of course, I had absolutely no idea what it meant. I could recall something from history classes in college, some mythology that mentioned a religious figured they called “The Bridge,” but I had no memory of the significance. It had something to do with that telekinetic seer, Syrimne, I was pretty sure...but I couldn’t remember.

In response to what must have been a blank look from me, Terian’s smile widened.

“He woke you and didn’t tell you? Classic Dehgoies.”

I shoved my body backwards in the mud with my feet.

Following my retreat, Terian once more bent his knees, sidling forward like a crab. He caught my wrist, staring into my face.

“Let me enlighten you, my dear,” he said softly. “You are the Bridge. In fact, I can see that it is so, clearly now that we are so close...it is written all over your
aleimi.
We have been looking for you...the whole seer community has been trying to find you...for more years than you have been alive. I do not know how the Seven managed to locate you first, or to hide you...or to keep your sight powers from showing, or your blood hidden from SCARB, but they
did
do all of those things, somehow...”

“What are you talking about—”

“You’re going to kill all the humans for us, Allie love.” Terian smiled, but his eyes shone cold as ice. His voice grew into a caress. “Every last one of them. You’re going to save us. You’re going to restore your race to its birthright, lover. To its former, unabashed glory...”

My fingers clenched the mud.

I was probably dead either way.

I threw the handful of mud directly at his eyes, scrabbling to get away. He lunged after me easily though, catching my ankle, then my arm.

“There, there, little girl—”

“Let me go!” I shouted, hoping someone, anyone, might hear. “Seer!” I screamed louder. “Seer! Crazy fucking terrorist
seer!”

Terian dragged me to my feet, his fingers gripping my wrists like iron bands.

His voice remained friendly, if indifferent.

“It will not help you to pull the authorities into this, Alyson,” he said. “...Not anymore. I would not relish hurting you, like my old friend, Revi’ might, but I will, if I must. The hard part...” He paused. His grin stole wider. “...Well, the hard part for
you,
of course, is only beginning I’m afraid. But Dehgoies lied. We do not wish you dead. Quite the contrary—”

“Get your hands
off
me!”

“––There is a necessary, ah, assimilation period, of course,” he said, still smiling. “It is difficult of course, I will not lie. But I will do what I can to ease it for you, my sister. Or to hasten it, if you prefer...”

“Get off me! Now! Get the
fuck
off me...!”

A dark form dropped silently from the trees behind him.

Terian smiled down at me warmly, his voice still collegial.

“The pain will be entirely worth it, I promise you. It will be brief, you will forget it...and when it is finished, we have such wondrous things to show you, my young friend! I myself regret not a single instant of my time with the Org. Neither did Revi’, whatever he might say now. He once was one of our most ardent soldiers. A true believer, through and through—”

“Help!” I jerked my arms, bucking against him, trying to get away. I found myself aiming my words at the shadow standing behind Terian. “Help me, please! I’ll go with you! I’ll go with you! I’ll do whatever you want!”

Terian whirled, looking behind him...but too late.

Metal glinted as the shadow swung his arm.

Then Terian was kneeling on the needle-strewn ground. He clutched his throat, making choking, gurgling sounds.

He raised the gun, pointing it at the shadow, who knocked it sharply away.

I only stood there, paralyzed, as the shadow forced Terian to the pine-carpeted ground. The taller man knelt on Terian’s chest, holding his forehead with pale fingers. I just stood there, watching, as he cut directly into Terian’s throat with the same sharp object, sawing through cartilage and flesh above a bucking, writhing body, finishing the job with a methodicalness that bordered on rote.

A fountain of blood pulsed up, dark in the moonlight. It splattered his hands, face, neck and chest. Watching it, smelling it, brought bile to my throat in a thick rush.

I was panting, breathing too much, my back against the tree. It felt like all the blood in my body now pooled in my feet.

When he finished his task, the shadow straightened as if pulled vertical by steel cables.

“We cannot stay here,” he said.

I screamed. I must have screamed again. Before I could get too far into it, he threw himself forward in a crouch, clamping a sticky hand roughly over my mouth.

“Sleep,” he commanded. “Sleep now.”

The trees, the rain and the dead body disappeared.

5

BARRIER

I DIDN’T QUESTION the motion of the car at first.

It was kind of soothing, even if I struggled finding a comfortable resting place for my arms. A bump in the road brought my eyes abruptly open. Sky through a dirty windshield showed the faint pink and gold of pre-dawn.

The silhouette of a saint statue broke my view. It was glued to the dashboard above an old-fashioned FM radio with silver knobs.

My eyes traveled left, meeting an angular profile framed by black hair matted to a pale neck. Almond-shaped eyes sat above high cheekbones, taking in the road. He had the beginnings of five o’clock shadow. Flecks of a familiar-looking brown stained his shirt, which bulged from a crude, homemade bandage on his shoulder.