Allie's War Season Three (183 page)

Revik didn't answer.

Luckily, he didn't have to pretend an emotional reaction that time, either.

Another low rumble of explosions shook the walls and floors of the heavy cement pipe, knocking loose silt on either side and sending rocks tumbling into the water at the bottom of the curve. The underground passage felt deeper than what Revik remembered from him and Allie robbing that bank, what felt like a hundred years ago now. It also smelled older, mustier, more caked in mud and mold and layers of old water. His aleimi didn't like this place; he could feel that much, even with the collar. He wondered if he was feeling more of that secondary, city-wide construct that he and Allie had noticed being built, when they first docked the submarine on Manhattan’s shores.

The thought made him swallow, when he realized how long ago that felt, too.

Still, that focus didn’t waver. He didn’t let specifics through, but he continued to scan the walls with his eyes. He already knew his exact range of motion with the chains. He knew where he was injured, as well as how it might slow him down. He’d marked every fork in the tunnel, every direction, the slope of the floors, how many steps he’d taken...

The cement walls trembled again.

Revik wondered if Wreg and the others knew where they were. If so, they had to know also that they risked a cave-in, coming at them from above.

It was also possible they were under attack, too.

Once Ditrini averted his gaze, Revik glanced at Jon again, and saw the same understanding on his face. If Wreg and the others were breaking out the heavy firepower already, they knew Allie was gone. Things were going to get hot, fast. Revik had no doubt that Wreg would pull out the stops, at this point less for him than for his own mate. Balidor would be with him, Chan, Yumi, Jorag and whoever else would be coming, too. The last rumble originated from far enough away that Revik assumed they must have cut his team off from the main basement, well before Ditrini and his minions forced them down into the sewer tunnels.

So, along with whoever had Allie, Ditrini also had a significant head start. Enough of one that he could lose them, assuming he had some kind of transport lined up.

“Cass took her,” Jon managed. “I brought her to Cass...”

Revik turned sharply, staring at him. “You’re remembering?”

“Yes.” Tears filled Jon’s eyes, even as he shook his head. “Gods, Revik...”

“It’s not your fault,” Revik said sharply.

That time, he even meant it.

His mind did, anyway.

Still, it was Jon’s confession that first threatened to break through the more logical veneer. A hard pain rose in his chest, swallowing his mind in a feeling of helplessness that he briefly had to fight to control. The logic fought to kick back in, shifting back and forth. He felt it waver, right before the emotion receded, leaving the rest bare, little more than words in the empty rooms of his mind.

He tried to decide if it would be better to try and escape now, or let Ditrini lead him to Allie. Ditrini would be going wherever they had Allie. That much, Revik knew. The thought echoed, even as Revik tried to think around his other options. He didn’t let thoughts of Allie's condition into his mind at all, or how frightened she must have been, blind, and suddenly finding herself betrayed by her own brother.

Shunting the images soundlessly from his mind, he thought through the spaces where he could still maneuver. He defined whatever wiggle room he still had, however small.

Ditrini still only had a few people with them at this point. It might be the most vulnerable he got. Eventually, there would be an opening. However small.

There always was. Transports of this kind were never clean.

Ditrini had the levels on all three of their collars cranked up so high that Revik had nearly knocked himself unconscious the one and only time he ventured to test those limits. Even so, Revik had spent enough time studying the intel on both Shadow and Ditrini to be able to hazard a few guesses on how they planned to get him out. In this case, the possibility of Shadow being Menlim might actually help him. He remembered his uncle well enough to know a number of things he
wouldn't
do, at the very least.

Assuming that either of them had been the ones to plan this extraction, that is.

Revik now strongly suspected that Cass might have been more involved than he'd initially let himself contemplate. He didn’t know where the feeling came from, but he trusted it. She was one of the Four. Of course he would have insight into her mind, however small. Her connection to Allie only strengthened that likelihood.

Revik honestly couldn't decide if Cass planning things was the good news or the bad. Revik dealt with Allie's own unpredictability on that front often enough to know it couldn't be wholly underestimated, whatever she might lack in direct military experience.

Anyway, Cass had Ditrini to help her with that end. Feigran, too. If Shadow hadn’t planned this, he could easily be acting as an advisor, or worse, manipulating her outright.

For now, Ditrini was his immediate problem.

The bastard hadn't even bothered to gas them. He seemed to want them awake, Revik especially, maybe just to prove he didn't consider him a threat. Maybe he was still pissed off at what Revik had done to him in San Francisco, and kept him awake to prove a point, or maybe he just didn't want to carry either of them, given how much it might slow him down.

Maybe Ditrini wanted to keep Revik conscious to use him to control Allie, assuming he intended to reunite them soon.

Or maybe he just did it because he was a prick.

Either way, Revik's jaw, temple, kidneys and ribs hurt from the ten or so minutes of hand-to-hand that preceded them finally getting him down on the ground. The Lao Hu training was good, he'd give them that. Allie had warned him as much, but it still gave him a small pulse of satisfaction that it took four of them to get him down long enough to cuff him. It was a pretty hollow satisfaction, all in all, but it kept him from thinking about the rest, for a little while, anyway. Like the fact that he might not be able to do anything at all to help Allie at this point, not even with his physical body.

Clearly someone had told Ditrini that Revik's telekinesis had been knocked out. If they hadn't, he never would have dared to voice that taunt over the loudspeaker of Maygar's cage in the first place, much less open the door to go after him physically.

He'd definitely known Revik couldn’t hurt him.

Jon got hit with a taser before he could begin to fight.

They didn't use the same on Maygar for some reason, but set two guards on him, instead, to subdue him by force, like they had with Revik. Maybe they were worried that the voltage could trigger some kind of telekinetic response?

Revik would have to look into that, as well, because of everything that happened in that organic cell, that was the thing that felt the most like it carried Menlim's stamp.

Or someone else who knew a hell of a lot about telekinetic seers.

Maygar fought, too...and well, Revik couldn't help noticing.

Even so, two more guards, either Lao Hu or well-trained disciples of Shadow, eventually took him down, as well.

Of course, Ditrini made a point of putting the collar on Revik personally.

Which also meant he was the only one who would be able to take it off, apart from cutting the thing off his neck, which Revik had no doubt he would have to do, if he ever wanted to be free of it. Revik definitely got the impression that the personalized collaring was intended to be symbolic, too.

Clearly, Ditrini wanted to continue the games he'd played with Allie while he had her imprisoned in the Forbidden City. Revik knew that, even before the seer told him as much. Ditrini made a point of painting pictures a few times, too, especially while he had Revik facedown on the floor of that cell.

The difference was, unlike Allie, Revik had played that game before...and with sadists a lot more intelligent and twisted than this rotting piece of
ridvak
carcass.

Ditrini chuckled, sparing him a glance.

The four guards pushed Revik, Jon and Maygar rapidly down the dark hallway, using only a handful of dimly-sparking yisso torches to light their way. All three of the captives were bound both at the upper and lower arms, as well as by the wrist. Ditrini also had a second chain that circled Revik’s throat, so he could choke him unconscious if he so desired it, in addition to yanking him along like a dog.

Revik felt the infiltrator thinking that through as he stared down at him in that cell.

He felt more than a few thoughts about Allie in that, as well.

He also caught something along the lines of an exchange, one that he found he understood without having to read the other seer for specifics. Ditrini was in this for Allie, in part if not in all, at this point. He wanted his toy back, since in his mind, he hadn’t finished playing with her. Whatever that spelled out in terms of specifics with Cass and Shadow, was almost immaterial.

Revik also learned something else.

For Revik himself to have felt even that much off Ditrini’s light, directly at least, Revik had to assume that Ditrini must have enough of the Adhipan’s drug and wires left in his system to have affected his ability to shield.

In any case, the chain configuration itself wasn't all that different from what Revik had worn in the tank when Balidor first locked him up. Revik had already tested the bounds of those chains. He knew he didn't have a lot of hope of getting out of them without keys.

Still thinking through this almost clinically, Revik again glanced at Jon, right as another explosion rocked the walls of the pipe, that one a lot closer. In fact, it was close enough that Ditrini stopped dead in the water-logged tunnel, jerking Revik and then Jon and Maygar to a stop with him when the guards halted alongside the other two.

Revik found himself watching the Lao Hu seer's face when Ditrini touched his ear to activate a communicator.

"Yes," Ditrini said. He used modern-style Prexci, adding, "They're breaking through.” A pause. “...Yes. Faster than you told us."

There was another pause while someone on the other end spoke.

"...Regardless," Ditrini said with another of those faint smiles, glancing at Revik as he made a slight flourish with his fingers. "Your calculations appear to be off. Our friends are feeling motivated...presumably because they found out too soon that you’ve absconded with our precious girl. I would suggest you change your strategy somewhat, my most respected friend...or neither of us will end up getting what we want from this..."

Just then, another bang hit from overhead, loud enough that both Revik and Jon's eyes jerked up. The ground shook under their feet, forcing Revik to rearrange his stance just to keep his balance. Even so, he leaned heavily into the guard holding him on the left, and the man put out a hand to compensate by touching the tunnel wall.

Revik felt his heart pounding from the nearness of the jolt that time, even as it occurred to him that something was wrong.

That hadn't sounded...or felt...like explosives.

Remembering the earthquakes earlier that week, he glanced at Jon, then at Maygar.

Their faces had paled, probably as his own had, but he couldn’t read anything into their expressions. Feeling the receding tremble of the cylindrical pipe even as he looked back at Ditrini, Revik was surprised to see an equally wary look on the senior infiltrator's face. Of course, he couldn't trust anything the seer did or said, certainly not in terms of emotions. He couldn’t have trusted them even without the collar.

Yet, even collared, something about the expression rang true to Revik.

Whatever had just happened, Ditrini hadn't been expecting it.

Revik remembered the reports of disasters in Asia and the Pacific, and felt the tension in his muscles increase. Allie always used to say that an earthquake in New York would be unlike anything they'd ever seen in San Francisco, mainly because no one in New York really planned for something like that, despite the protective walls in the event of tsunamis, and despite the recent spate of seismic activity in previously quiet parts of the world. New York wasn't really earthquake savvy in terms of building codes, and not only because those codes were violated half the time, anyway, due to bribes or union scams or whatever else.

He and Allie had talked pretty extensively about the possibility of natural disasters when they'd been reviewing the hotel specs for security weaknesses. If Revik remembered rightly, Vash had been the one to bring it up first.