Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (40 page)

Coming down here without a larger military group may have been a mistake.

In the dark, I heard Dalejem let out a snort.

I didn’t bother to grace that with a response.

I also didn’t slow my steps on the cement stairs. Dalejem moved fast, I noticed…as fast as any in the Adhipan…so he must have kept up his training under the Children of the Bridge. I’d thrown a shield over all three of our lights before we got that vault-like door open inside the supply closet of the security station. I’d gotten even better at shielding in the past few months, working on it almost as much as Revik had been, in part to help him.

Even so, I knew I couldn’t count on us being invisible down here.

“What is it you expect to do, exactly?” Dalejem asked under his breath. “…when we get down there, I mean?”

I didn’t answer that, either.

We were getting closer.

Even as I thought it, Feigran started to hum. I felt a flush of panic off Dalejem’s light as the noise echoed in the stairway corridor. Since we walked so close to one another right then, I also felt Dalejem thinking he should have gagged him.

“Shush!” he hissed softly.

Feigran made his humming softer, but didn’t stop it altogether.

“Quiet, or I’ll silence you myself,” Dalejem said, his voice an open threat, despite how softly he spoke. “Quiet!”

Feigran’s humming grew even softer, but he still didn’t stop.

“Feigran,” I said. “Be silent. Now.”

He stopped humming.

The instant he did, he started sending pictures to me via the Barrier in a flood.

I barely glimpsed one before he flung another at me. The pace continued to accelerate. They grew increasingly visceral, too…until I started to flinch at the more intense ones. Pain. The smell of urine. Unwashed bodies, scalpels cutting into flesh. Whimpering voices, chaos in light, screams in the dark. Drugs filtering down through intravenous tubes, organic metal cages. Dirty water, maggots in the meat, bloody drains…

Pain.

A lot of fucking pain.

More than I could handle.

I fought to shield myself from it, to at least dial back the volume. I saw people screaming from inside shining green-metal cages, hanging on the bars like animals, screaming…

“Figures he would listen to you…” I heard Dalejem grumble.

It hit me that Feigran wasn’t sending the images to Dalejem, only to me.

Without thinking about whether it was particularly wise, I opened my light, letting Dalejem see what I was seeing. He sucked in a light breath as I did, faltering in his steps for the first time since we’d left the basement landing.

It only occurred to me after I’d done it that I maybe shouldn’t be sharing this…especially since I had no idea what it meant. I felt a swell of frustration at Revik at the thought, even as it occurred to me why I was being so open with Dalejem.

I trusted him. Worse, I didn’t trust him because of anything I’d felt in my own light; I trusted him because Revik did.

I trusted him because my husband told me I could.

For some reason, the realization angered me. It also brought a shiver of fear as it hit me that Revik’s views on Dalejem might be coloring mine too much. Moreover, Revik’s feelings about the ex-Adhipan seer might be coloring Revik’s views of him too much, too.

Revik wasn’t here. I couldn’t afford to rely on him anymore.

Just then, Feigran bolted past the two of us.

He ran, full-tilt down the cement stairs.

I heard Dalejem grunt in the dark, jerked forward by the leash that still tied the two of them together. He stumbled, started to fall down the stairs and grabbed the railing after I grabbed for him. I felt him trying to activate the lock on the leash as he wrapped his hands around the pole, but Feigran’s light got in the way somehow…enough I felt a bolt of panic off Dalejem.

I gripped Dalejem’s vest, fisting my hand around the thick material and he caught hold of my shoulder with the hand not gripping the railing.

Feigran didn’t slow.

Collars really were fucking useless on him.

Worse, Feigran apparently had control over our headsets when he wanted to. So really, the whole idea that Feigran was our prisoner might be a joke.

Even as I thought it, I released Dalejem, feeling he had his balance back…and lunged after Feigran himself. I caught hold of the leash in the process, seeing it in the dark with my Elaerian light. It burned my hands as it ran out and I gasped, releasing it at once.

I was about to use my telekinesis to knock Feigran out…

When the leash abruptly stopped running on its own.

Reaching out tentatively with my light, I kept my aleimi behind the shield as I looked for Feigran.

Luckily, I found him easily.

He huddled by a metal door on the next landing down.

Focusing my aleimi, I exhaled in exasperation. Even as I did, I got another snapshot with my light…again possibly from Feigran himself. In it, I saw the light signatures I’d felt on the other side of that door.

Only then did I turn back towards Dalejem.

I could see with my light that he now gripped the banister in both hands. Now he used that same railing to regain his balance…then to push himself back to his feet. I could feel him coming to the same conclusions about his headset and Feigran’s light as I had.

Meaning, that Feigran must have released the leash-lock somehow.

“Fuck,” he muttered in English.

Once he’d straightened, he started taking the stairs two at a time, heading swiftly towards Feigran. I followed without speaking, noting that the organic leash retracted as we walked. Apparently Feigran had returned control over the mechanism to Dalejem.

When we reached the closed door, Feigran just watched us, huddled against it. I could see him pressing his ear to the metal, his palms and fingers pressed to the smooth surface as well.

“Feigran,” I said. “Calm down.”

“They are there,” he muttered. “They are there, sister. They are unhappy…so unhappy.” Pain wafted off the seer’s light. I felt it create conflict in his aleimi, a multitude of reactions, some negative and some borderline aroused. “They hurt. We should go to them…we should go now, sister…find them…” He whimpered.

Again I felt that confused flicker off his light.

Grimacing, I decided to ignore the parts that felt titillated and focus on the parts still capable of compassion. I guess it was reassuring that Feigran seemed to feel compassion more strongly than the other. Really, I was amazed compassion made the list, given who Feigran used to be.

While it wasn’t hugely reassuring, it did make me more sympathetic to his distress.

“We’re going,” I told him, soft. “We’ll help them, okay?” Hesitating, I added, “Anything we need to know before we do, brother? Do you feel others in there? Seers? People with guns? What should we be expecting?”

There was a silence.

Then Feigran shook his head, slow.

Only him,
he sent to me, so soft I barely heard it.
He wants to come out…he wants it so much, sister. He begs me for it…

Him?
I thought back, equally soft.
Who, brother?
Realizing I knew the answer to that already, or I probably did, I frowned, still thinking.
And why would they have no guards? Where is everyone, Feigran?

Not time yet,
Feigran sent back in a whisper.
Too early.

Too early for what?

For the war…
he sent, softer still.
Not time for the real war…too early…

I felt a shiver go through my light. Thinking about Brooks, I frowned again.

So this is for a war?
I sent to the muttering seer.
This complex…was it built for a war, Feigran? Is that why it’s so big?

“Not time,” he whispered aloud, his fingers still splayed against the metal door. “It is too soon for the others. The brothers and sisters down here…they are from before. They are the old ones…are supposed to be dead now. Dead and gone…but he keeps them alive. He breathes…life. He breathes…”

Feigran trailed, as if unable to think of the right words.

Listening to him, I felt that conflict in my light worsen. I tried again to decide what to do.

I hadn’t actually expected to find Dragon down here. Clues, yeah. Something that might tell me where to look for him. But I didn’t really think he’d be down here, unguarded. Surrounded by…what? Genetic experiments that had been left down here to die by Galaith?

I’d nearly forgotten Dalejem, but now he spoke up, his voice a murmur.

“How soon, Feigran?” he said, quiet. “When will the others be coming here?”

I felt Feigran startle, which made me think maybe he’d forgotten Dalejem, too. He took his head off the metal-paneled door and leaned close to both of us, speaking into Dalejem’s ear. I felt him clutch at Dalejem’s arm and flinched a little at the intensity of the contact.

“Soon, brother,” Feigran said softly. “They will come soon. He will take them from the cities. He will take them out…then they will come. They will all come here…”

I stiffened, realizing Dalejem had picked up on something I’d missed.

This compound had been built by Shadow. It was for his people.

All of the protected cities…that was all bullshit, too.

He was really going to do it. He was going to kill everyone.

A denser, more nameless kind of fear swam over my light. I found myself looking around at the walls as it hit me we only had Feigran’s word that this place was empty. We could have tripped alarms already and not even known.

I felt Dalejem thinking about all of that, too.

He stood close to me again, so I felt the confusion of emotions in his light. He’d come to the same conclusions I had, though. On the big stuff, at least.

This was Shadow’s bunker. He’d had it built to protect his people, once he decided to pull the final trigger, whatever that ended up being.

Nuclear war, probably.

I couldn’t fathom the why…but then I’d never been able to, not when it came to the Dreng. I got the bare bones. A new world. Run their way, according to their rules. Humans and seers all slaves. Yadda, yadda. Shadow would control infrastructure and the social order, probably even some semblance of his perversion of religion.

He would breed the humans who remained like cattle. The seers he allowed to live would act as light collectors for the Dreng, just like the Rooks always had in the Pyramid.

There would be a new Pyramid. A stronger one, with fewer on the outside.

None, probably, if the Dreng got their way.

Feeding pools. Wires. More slavery.

I felt Dalejem sigh, a purring clicking kind of sound.

Then he was pushing gently on Feigran’s hands and light, getting him to back off of his person and then off the door with his body and aleimi. I felt Feigran let go of Dalejem reluctantly, and that time, that clingy vibe I’d noticed grew more intense.

“Don’t make me go alone,” Feigran said, soft.

“All right, brother,” Dalejem murmured. “We won’t. We will go all go in together now, yes? We will find these beings who were left behind…we will help them.”

Feigran nodded seriously.

I could see him through the Barrier again, his light-formed eyes focused intently on both me and Dalejem in turns. I could tell he wanted to catch hold of Dalejem’s arm again…or any part of him, really…but he seemed to sense that he’d been given a command.

Dalejem moved towards the door then.

“Pardon me, brother,” he said to Feigran courteously.

I watched as Feigran slid out of the way.

Again, I felt a pulse of arousal off him. That time, it was unmistakably aimed at Dalejem. I bit my lip, knowing my humor primarily came from nerves. Even so, Dalejem must have felt something because he gave me a hard look.