Allie's War Season Three (169 page)

"No...Revik." I shook my head, fighting impatience that time. "Shadow. He's messing with your light again. He's found some way to gain control of our construct, probably through––"

"No, Allie."

"Yes, Revik...he has. I know you think this is you, but it's not. I swear it's not..."

"No,
Allie." His voice was harder that time, but when he shook his head, I saw some of that fire in his eyes dim. "No...that's not it."

I stared at him, affected more by his tone than by his words. I could hear
him
in it again. I recognized Revik, not that person under the influence of the Dreng. Even so, I found myself looking at his eyes warily, swallowing.

"How can you be sure?" I said finally.

"I'm sure, all right?"

"Then what is this? What's wrong with you?"
 
Hesitating, I spoke again, before he could answer. "...Is this somehow connected to what's going on with me?"

He shook his head, but it didn't feel precisely like a 'no' that time.

"Are you sure, baby? Even earlier, in the room, something was going on with you. You even said––"

"I'm fine, Alyson. It's not
Shadow,
okay?"

At my worried look, he clicked shortly, putting his hands on his hips. I watched him stare hard at the floor, as if indecisive.

"What?" I said. "What aren't you telling me?"

He gave a short laugh, glaring at me.

"Nice diversion, wife. Really fucking nice..."

"I'm not
diverting
you," I said, frustrated. "And I'm not ignoring the thing with Ditrini! I know I was in the wrong there...but it was a snap decision. I didn't do it that way out of some intention to deceive you...I did it because I was in a hurry. I wanted to know what was wrong with me, and I knew you and Balidor would put me through a million protocols and probably make me wait through days of you interrogating him before you let me near him..." At the anger building in his expression, I cut him off. "I knew what you'd say, okay? I knew...and I understood all of the arguments, and I didn't want to wait..."

He let out a humorless sound, right before he gave me a hard stare.

"Look," I said. "I know it was a jerk maneuver...I know it, okay? But it's made me realize a few things about how things run around here..."

"How things run around here?"

"Yeah," I said, feeling my own anger sharpen. "I had to threaten them to get Tenzi and Garend to listen to me, too...and pull rank. I'm pretty tired of it. Either I have a position of authority here, or
 
I don't. If I don't, then you need to tell me that...now. Because I don't see anyone around here questioning you..."

There was a silence while he stared at me, his eyes now holding something like disbelief. When he finally spoke, his voice mirrored the same emotion.

"Wife, Balidor kicked me out of meetings for
months
...not just interrogations of high risk prisoners, actual
planning
meetings. With
our
people..."

"That was an unusual circumstance."

"And so is this!"

"We had
Vash
then," I snapped. "I
trusted
Vash, okay? I trusted him to keep his personal feelings out of important decisions, at least in terms of his recommendations to me. He let me do risky things if he thought they'd get a result. Hell, he
encouraged
it at times. He wasn't constantly telling me to second-guess my own instincts..." Seeing Revik's incredulous look, I added, "I trust Balidor too, but in a different way. Frankly, he moves too slow for what's going on right now. You know it. You've agreed with me on this. So he can't be in charge of this kind of thing...not in an emergency..."

"But what on Earth does that have to do with––"

"Because when it comes to me, you're too slow, too," I said, my voice sharp. Seeing the startled look coming to his face, along with what looked like a deeper emotion, I added in a subdued voice, "Look. We can talk about this later, but you wanted to know why I did it and that's why. That's the honest truth. I wasn't willing to wait through what to me seems excessive caution...not from you or 'Dori or anyone else...” Hesitating, I added,

“...I also knew I had the advantage with Ditrini in that he doesn't view me as a threat, either...more like some kind of kid wearing a tiara. For the same reason, I thought he might actually
tell
me something, intentionally or not, because he wouldn't have his guard up in the same way he would with you and 'Dori. That was my hope, anyway." Seeing Revik's expression closing once more, I added,

"When I realized the issues with my light might have started as far back as China, I felt like I couldn't wait any longer, whether you or Balidor approved or not..."

Hesitating again, I watched his face warily.

"Are you
sure
you're okay?" I said. "You feel like yourself?"

"I didn't say that, Alyson. I didn't say either of those things," Revik said, looking at me, his eyes hard, but only faintly brighter than usual. "I never said I was
okay.
I just said I didn't think Shadow is manipulating me through the construct..."

"Then what's wrong with you?" I said, feeling my frustration rise. "What aren't you telling me? You know something..."

"...I don't know anything," he cut in, giving me another warning look. "I asked Balidor and Wreg to take a look at my light again on the plane, which they did, while you were asleep. I told them I was having problems with it, and asked if either of them thought it was from what Shadow did to me in his construct. Neither one of them think this particular problem is from Shadow. They thinks it's something else."

"What?" I said, keeping my voice even with an effort. "What do they think it is?"

Revik shook his head, but again, not in a 'no.' Instead of answering, he clicked at me angrily.

"You're really not going to tell me? Even now?" I said, biting my lip. When his expression only grew angrier, I felt my jaw harden, too. "Do you need to yell at me before you can tell me if you're all right? Because if you do, I wish you'd just
do
it and stop beating around the bush..."

He glanced at me, raising an eyebrow before he let out a snort, almost involuntarily that time. The anger remained in his light and his eyes, and that tighter expression still colored his face, but I felt something in him give, too.

After another few seconds where he seemed to be struggling against his own emotions, he walked backwards. Not away from me exactly, but further from the elevators, closer to an un-renovated segment of the basement that housed part of an old wine cellar. I knew the main wine cellars could only be reached by a different set of service elevators, the ones closer to the lobby-level kitchen of Park Place South. That part of the basement housed mostly food stores anyway, not weapons or prisoner interrogation cells, and it was a maze all of its own, since they'd had a massive overstock of food long before we'd gotten here.

Seers had a tendency to think in terms of contingency planning anyway, even when there wasn't a Displacement going on. Most of the older seers remembered those initial purges and the years of starvation that followed as they found themselves dependent on human food supplies for the first time, as well as a human economy from which they were initially excluded.

Since we’d taken over large chunks of the massive underground tunnels under the hotel for our own purposes, the hotel owners had built out several of these levels even more. That was another thing I'd learned about seers. They tended to utilize underground spaces...a lot...maybe from so many lifetimes lived in the massive caves of the Pamir.

All of this swirled around somewhere in the back of my mind as I followed Revik deeper into the older, faded-yellow-painted corridor of the original hotel's basement. I watched as he walked into a small tasting room across from the original wine cellar. After a slight hesitation, I followed, but only after he looked back, motioning a semi-polite request with one hand.

Once he'd closed the door behind us, leaving us both in the small, featureless room with the white walls and a solitary chair near a plain, wooden table, I found myself studying his face again, trying to decide what his expression meant.

He was still making me nervous, I admit.

I wasn't even sure why exactly, if it was that his eyes still glowed with light, or how tired he looked after our too-short nap, or the heaviness I still felt around his aleimi. It occurred to me that he felt stressed out. Really stressed out, and not just about Ditrini.

Mixed with all that were those erratic currents in his aleimi, the ones that made him move as if he were gearing for a fight.

I glanced around at what looked like plaques on the wall, along with a few pictures of famous people who'd been brought down to the cellars to taste this or that bottle, likely before it had been served to a larger number of guests upstairs. I saw images of movie stars from the early part of the last century standing with human
maitre d's
and what might have been the previous owners in tuxedos and expensive suits. Thinking about the green organic machines in the next room, I couldn't help feeling strangely old and young at the same time.

It was strange to think of Revik in that light; he'd probably been in his forties or fifties when most of those pictures had been taken. Older than I was now.

When Revik turned towards me again, I saw his eyes appraise mine.

His continued to glow, but they now held a denser, more focused emotion, one I also couldn't effectively read, not even through the bond. As I thought it, it occurred to me again that I had likely been compensating for whatever was wrong with my light by leaning on his. Something, incidentally, that had gotten increasingly more difficult to do since he'd been injured in Argentina, much less now, when he was actively shutting me out.

He must have heard me think that, at least part of it, because I saw his eyes change, right before he relaxed back out of that near-fighting stance.

Stepping away from me, he folded his arms, leaning on the wooden table.

"So what do you think now?" he asked me. His voice was deep, almost gruff, but I still jumped a little when he broke the silence. "...Now that you've talked to him, what do you think? Do you still think they did something to you?"

Sighing a little myself, I fingered my hair out of my face.

Thinking about his question, I nodded.

"Yeah," I said. "I do. I have no idea what, but yeah...I don't know how else to explain what's wrong with me, unless it's something Shadow did." Seeing Revik frown, I added, "I left a note with Balidor to that effect. I also advised him that he shouldn't bother trying soft approaches with Ditrini...especially given what's going on in China."

Hesitating at Revik's continued utter lack of expression, I shrugged with one hand.

"...I recommended that they start him on wires. Immediately, that is. I don't think drugs will be enough," I said then. Seeing Revik's frown deepen, I cleared my throat. "Do you have a problem with that?"

His eyes narrowed on my face. Right before they flickered away.

"Do I have a problem with my wife recommending torture?" he said drily. He shrugged with one hand, his face unchanging. "I don't know. What do you think?"

I felt my own face redden, but only tightened my jaw. "You think it's the wrong move?"

"I think you're looking for revenge. Not answers."

Feeling my jaw harden more, I nodded.

Then I folded my arms, too, forcing myself to shrug. "Well, I'm open to other suggestions. I also considered calling Voi Pai to see if we could discuss some kind of information trade," I added, keeping my voice neutral. "...It's pretty clear Shadow betrayed her, too...possibly using Ditrini to do it. I thought she might own up to what she did to me, if I made it worth her while. From what Tenzi and the others tell me, they're pretty desperate over there..." Again I paused, watching his face. "Do you think it’s worth even discussing a trade with the Lao Hu? Or should we just put a bullet in Ditrini’s brain and be done with it?"

Revik's jaw hardened. When I didn't go on, he took his weight off the table, his eyes still fixed on my face.

"I saw the note," he said, his eyes back on the white walls. "I know all of this, Alyson." His mouth hardened once more. "Of course, you might not have known that. I had to threaten them to even get them to let me look at it..."

I sighed, rubbing my forehead with a hand. "Sorry," I said. "I wasn't specific about who could read it. I should have––"