Allie's War Season Three (99 page)

They would still probably get stopped by the Coast Guard at some point to verify their status, but Revik and Allie had seemed less worried about that for some reason.

Jon glanced at Revik once more, to try and get a read on his mood now, and happened to catch him putting something in his mouth...or maybe taking something out of his mouth? Jon stared at him, his face openly questioning, but all he got from Revik was a hard stare in return.

Shrugging it off as another hallucination, Jon shook his head, shivering in a sudden gust of wind. His cut hand was really starting to hurt, between the wind and salt.

To distract himself, he watched Illeg hauling Jaden up the side of the same flat piece of rock where he and Revik crouched only a few minutes before. He saw Jaden's face tighten as he fought to hold onto the rock walls, just before Illeg got his legs all the way up. He looked like he was in shock, Jon thought.

Jon's eyes shifted to where Angeline huddled on the same flat outcropping of rock, soaked from head to foot, but looking more coherent and alert than the other two. Tina sat next to where Angeline crouched, her back propped against the cliff. Black makeup had turned her eyes into a raccoon's dark rings, and her face looked so pale it actually made Jon nervous.

He looked back when something blocked the sun.

They were approaching the larger fishing boat. Jon looked up to see shadowed faces peering down at them, and in the same second, a jolt of nerves hit him. He knew these people were supposed to be Balidor's friends, but the sheer number of them made his stomach clench.

Or maybe it was something else.

In any case, when he glanced at Revik again, the seer's face was unreadable. He seemed to be looking at the wash of faces too, but Jon couldn't tell what he was thinking precisely.

Jon was still trying to get a read on Revik's exact expression, when the Elaerian flinched violently, right before he clapped a hand over his own neck. Jon sat up, reacting before his mind could put words to what he'd seen. He saw Revik yank something out of his own throat, right before his eyes rolled up...

And he collapsed.

"Holy
fuck!"

Jon was on his feet, shouting, even as his brain lagged behind. He lunged for Revik, rocking the boat violently in the process, but a pair of strong hands grasped him from behind, yanking him back. Before Jon could writhe away, another set of hands had hold of him, too, and together, two people started dragging him up the side of the larger boat.

Jon realized only then that two of the seers had already descended a ladder down the side; he hadn't seen them, too busy staring up at the silhouettes above to notice those crouched in the shadow of the boat itself. As his legs made it over the railing, Jon could see another seer jump down to hold the small-looking motorboat, tying a rope to the oar hole on the side to keep it near the ladder. Jon tried again to writhe free of whoever held him, but the seer twisted Jon's arm behind his back, forcing a yelp out of his throat.

He stood there, panting, leaning against the chest of a seer that had to best him by at least a foot in height. Jon watched, struggling futilely, as they hoisted Revik over the railing. Jon fought harder when one of them pulled a sight restraint collar out of a pouch hanging cross-wise across his chest, and clicked it around Revik's neck.

Jon just stood there, his muscles taut, as the seer who'd collared Revik straightened, and gave Jon a thin-lipped smile. The silver irises of his eyes sparkled in the sunlight, making them look nearly metallic.

"Jonathan Sebastian Taylor, I presume?" he said, giving him a bow that felt more than a little ironic. He used that older-sounding version of Prexci, Jon noticed, the one Jon associated with Asia, and especially China. While he didn't wear the full-on Hanfu outfit that Jon remembered from the Forbidden City, he wore the trademark black sash around his waist, tied in the same knot Jon remembered, only around what looked like armored pants.

The seer seemed to be enjoying Jon's appraisal of him.

"...It is an unexpected gift, to have you as my guest. It seems I'm now in possession of both of my precious Alyson's favorite men..." He waited for Jon to look up.

"Do you know who I am, cub?" he said then.

Jon didn't answer, but of course he knew. He could guess anyway.

The seer smiled that thin smile again, his silver eyes following the progress of Revik's body as two of his men dragged it into a corner of the hull and cuffed it to the side.

"You are correct, of course," he said. "I am Ditrini. Our beloved Alyson told you of me, then? I am so very flattered..."

At that, Jon found himself speaking.

"Told
me of you?" he said, keeping his voice indifferent. "No. But I've listened to her talking with the others about how best to kill you..."

The smile on the seer's face faded, but the look in those silver eyes didn't change. "Even you must know there's a thin line there at times, yes? Between violence and desire?"

"She sounded bored, man. You were an obstacle...a fucking irritant, like a mosquito..."

That time, the seer's eyes grew colder.

Something in that stare made Jon pause, at least long enough to wonder why he was goading
 
a seer who, at least from everything Jon heard, was clearly unstable, and who would probably just as soon shoot him in the head and dump his body overboard as look at him.

Then he realized that was exactly why. He fully expected the seer to kill him, so he figured he had nothing to lose.

He was about to say something else when a voice emerged in his head, loud enough to make him jump.

That's Ditrini?
it said.
Right in front of you?

Yes,
Jon sent, unthinking.

It didn't occur to him until after he'd sent it who the voice sounded like, or the whisper of presence that came with it.

The next thing he knew, Ditrini's feet had left the deck, and he was scrabbling at his neck, as if strangling. One of his arms waved in the air, and his mouth opened, as if he were trying to scream, but he couldn't seem to get out more than a breathless, choking sound.

The other seers cried out, looking down at Revik in a numb kind of shock. One of them kicked him where he lay, as if to get him to stop what he was doing.

Tell them I'll kill him,
the voice said in Jon's head.
Tell them to cut the collar off Revik...and unchain him...or I'll kill him right now...

"It's Allie!" Jon blurted, jerking his weight off the seer who held him. The other seers stopped what they were doing to stare at him, their eyes wide. "She'll kill him!" Jon added, pointing at Ditrini once he'd freed his arm. "She says to cut the collar off the Sword, and unchain him...or you're all dead..."

There was a moment where they all stared at him. No one moved; only the boat rocked up and down in the choppy surf, Ditrini choking into the silence above them.

"Now!" Jon snapped. "Or she'll kill all of you...get it?"

The seer who had just kicked Revik after locking him to the hull moved first.

Giving the levitating Ditrini a hard stare, he bent down and began unchaining Revik's wrists. None of the others made a move to stop him. Once the seer had Revik free of the cuffs, Jon realized that Revik was also awake. His pupils looked freakishly dilated, and he moved different than usual...but instead of seeming out of it and dopey, he looked more like he was on methamphetamine. Once he'd regained his feet, he motioned sharply for the seer holding the cutting tool to hand it over. Then he walked to Jon, motioning just as erratically for him to be the one to wield the blade so close to his neck.

Jon carefully cut the collar off Revik's neck, but managed to nick him when the Elaerian tried to jerk away from him too soon.

"Ow!" Revik snapped.

"Hold still, man!" Jon said. "Jesus..."

Even so, he realized his hands were shaking. Once he'd cut Revik free, however, he didn't have to do much but get out of the way. Ignoring Ditrini, who appeared to be unconscious now, where he levitated over the deck, Revik motioned to the closest of the remaining five seers.

"Collars!" he growled, still bouncing on his feet, looking like a caged animal.

The seers looked at one another, paling.

"I know you have more," Revik snapped in Prexci. "I know this, because I need to collar every seer we keep alive. No collar, no life...understand?"

The lead seer, or at least, the lead seer now that Ditrini hung unconscious above the deck, seemed to get Revik's point the quickest. Wearing an identical outfit as Ditrini, including the Hanfu sash, he glanced at the remaining Lao Hu infiltrators after a pause, and then made a submissive-looking gesture to Revik, ending on the hand signal for the Sword. Bowing, he remained low, keeping his eyes below Revik's as he motioned towards a heavy-looking storage container bolted to the deck.

Revik pulled the gun out of the man's belt and aimed it at his face.

"Get them. Enough for everyone."

Once the infiltrator had done as Revik asked, Revik handed all of the collars to Jon. "I'll cover you. Lock them on their necks," he said, gruff. "You know how, right? There's a retinal scanner..."

"I remember," Jon said, waving off his words. "Chill out, man."

Even so, it felt strange to have the first seer kneel so he could fit the collar around his neck. Activating the thumbnail switch, Jon leaned over to let the scanner slide up and down over his eyes to personalize his imprint to the lock. When the collar activated, digging into the flesh at the back of the seer's neck, Jon couldn't help but wince along with the seer.

The one after that was easier, but not much.

Somewhere in that, Ditrini's body collapsed on the deck not far from where Revik stood. Revik hesitated over the prone form for a moment, as if indecisive. Jon saw his eyes blur briefly, and figured he was conferring with Allie again.

"You sure, baby?" he said, his voice a murmur.

After another pause, he nodded, but his jaw had hardened.

Then Revik clicked his fingers for Jon to toss him one of the collars.

Jon did so, then paused in his own work to watch Revik bend down over the unconscious seer, fitting the collar roughly around Ditrini's neck. Revik locked that one to the seer personally, then dragged him over to the side of the boat by the collar itself, which probably would have hurt the seer, had he been awake. Jon watched Revik cuff the seer's wrists, elbows and legs together, and also to the side of the boat. He added an additional set of cuffs to his upper arms, forcing the seer's back poker-straight.

"What about the rest of them?" Jon said.

Revik glanced at him, then at the door leading into the lower hold. "We'll lock them down there for now. Balidor will have them transported somewhere before we head south..."

"She really wants you to bring Ditrini along?" Jon said.

Revik shrugged with one hand, staring at the fallen seer.

"Leverage, Jon," he said, quieter.

"You planned this," Jon said, his voice faintly accusing. "You planned for this to happen all along...didn't you?"

Revik gave him a wry smile, but his eyes were humorless. "You were at the wedding, Jon. What did you hear us say?"

Jon let out a sigh, clicking in spite of himself.

"No separations," he said, rolling his eyes, but at himself that time.

"We needed Ditrini," Revik explained. "We couldn't afford to have him in the equation, and we couldn't go to South America without neutralizing him. Allie guessed he'd come after me...I was the best leverage he had against her. Given that, it made sense for us to come to San Francisco together..." He shrugged, smiling again faintly. "She guessed right."

"So this whole thing with Jaden and everyone..."

Revik shrugged. "We wanted them alive. But it wasn't the priority." Seeing Jon's expression, Revik sharpened his voice. "...It wasn't the priority
right now,
Jon. Getting Ditrini was necessary before we went after Shadow. We couldn't have the two of them coming at us from both sides. We needed Ditrini...and we needed the Lao Hu out of this fight. We're hoping we can accomplish both this way, if we keep Ditrini alive..."

"I thought the two of you were scary individually," Jon muttered, then raised his voice against the wind. "Together, you're worse. You know that...right? A lot worse, man..."