Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (89 page)

I could almost see Balidor shaking his head, possibly looking at Wreg as he did it, his hands on his hips as he exhaled in irritation.

“Fine,” he said, letting that irritation be audible. “In the room where the victim was found, he’d written on one of the walls in the victim’s blood. The message was in Old Prexci and read, ‘You were not invited.’ In the bedroom, he’d written ‘Where is my sister? Has she forgotten all her vows?’”

I felt myself wince.

Enough that Jem looked over his shoulder at me, his posture stiffening.

We were definitely becoming way too connected.

“I’d noticed that,” Balidor said, his voice a touch harder. “So has brother Wreg. And brother Jon. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that Revik will notice it, too?”

“Not now, ’Dori––” I began, but he barreled right past me.

“I heard he threatened several of Jasek’s people,” he added. “…and Surli back at Langley, among others. So am I to assume the two of you are under agreement now? Or is he just exerting rights as if you were?”

“‘Dor––” I began again.

But apparently he wasn’t in the mood to be put off.

“Alyson, this plan is fucking
suicide,
” Balidor said, his voice openly angry. “Everyone here thinks you’ve lost your goddamned mind. We had to excuse Jon from this meeting because he openly admitted he would not be able to speak to you rationally about this…at this point I don’t know if he’s worried about you more or less than he is fucking
angry
with you, Allie…”

When I didn’t speak, Balidor’s voice grew colder.

“He thinks we should bring you in,” he added. “…Forcibly, if necessary. He also thinks Dalejem’s a goddamned spy…and he is not alone in any of these things, Allie.”

I bit my lip, silent.

I’d wondered why Jon wasn’t there, but hearing Balidor spell that reason out didn’t exactly help, and not only because I’d already guessed part of it.

“It would be suicide even without the complication of Jem and you,” Balidor went on, his voice still angry. “If you think Revik hasn’t
felt
this thing between the two of you by now, you are deceiving yourself massively, Alyson…he will kill Jem on sight, and probably kill you too, by now…or at least put you in the fucking hospital. That’s assuming Menlim doesn’t just trigger him to murder you outright. Have you forgotten Dubai? When he didn’t even have a
reason
for wanting to harm you…?”

I shook my head, but still didn’t speak. My eyes flickered to Jem again, right before I strengthened the shield around my light.

When Balidor didn’t go on, I sighed, clicking softly under my breath.

“This isn’t about that, Balidor,” I said, switching to sub-vocals. “I have to get there before Dragon, or Revik is dead. That’s all I can care about right now. If I don’t do that, it won’t matter how he feels about me and Jem…because I’ll be dead. So will he. So will Lily.”

“Assuming Menlim hasn’t found some way to break the bond between the two of you already,” Balidor returned shortly. “…And assuming Dragon isn’t there to create an alliance with your husband, versus killing him.”

I shook my head.

I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew that wasn’t it.

“How could you
possibly
know that, Alyson?” Balidor said, feeling the thread of my thoughts. “I know you rely on these ‘feelings’ of yours, but in this case I think that’s taking the whole Bridge thing a bit far, don’t you…?”

“Maybe,” I muttered through the sub-vocals.

My hands tightened on the armrests as the plane lurched into motion. The engines rose to a higher-pitched whine as we began to taxi towards the military runway.

“‘Dori,” I said. “How the hell do I know
anything?
How does my mother? And why would I stop trusting that now, when it matters the most?”

The Adhipan seer grew quiet, but I could feel his frustration.

“Look,” I said. “Balidor…I’m not staying away from Revik because of Jem. I’m not. So all of you need to just…I don’t know. Get over it.”

Wreg made a disbelieving sound, the first I’d heard from him since Balidor started in on me.

I ignored it, going on as if I hadn’t heard.

“I know I have to get to Revik before Dragon does,” I added. “I don’t know why. I don’t plan to waste time defending that, either, not when I can feel the clock ticking louder over my head every friggin’ second. To be honest, I don’t even know what Dragon
wants
exactly, but I know we’re all connected to him in some way…”

“You and Revik, you mean?” Balidor said.

“Me, Revik…Feigran.” I sighed. “Probably Cass. Maybe even Stanley and my mother and the other intermediaries.”

I felt a pulse of disagreement from Balidor at that, even as he started clicking.

I could almost see him gesturing a negative, even though the visuals remained off.

“No. That does not appear to be so,” he said. “Your mother cannot feel anything about this Dragon, Alyson. Nothing. She did not even know he existed before you found him, and she cannot see him even now. She tells us she sees a black hole where his light is, that occasionally she gets pictures, sounds, but not premonitions…more like a realtime image of his light and mind, or so she thinks.”

Sighing, he made his voice sharper again.

“Her husband…your father…has forbidden us to ask her about it anymore,” Balidor added. “He told us what she did not admit to us…which is that she passes out cold when she looks for him. She starts muttering about stars, making no sense. ‘Darkness that is light’ and something about the place where all light originates. So whatever it is you think you know about Dragon, you might be on your own with it, Alyson. Your mother can provide no insight.”

I nodded. “Okay. So how different is this from how her normal visions function?” I said. “Why did Uye forbid you to ask her about it?”

“Because he’s afraid she might not come back from these,” Wreg said, speaking for the first time, his voice harsh. “Her visions are normally painful, Esteemed Bridge…sometimes even traumatic. They can harm her physically. But they do not usually pull her so far from her body. So unless you want your own mother dead––”

“Painful?” I said, startled. “Her visions are painful? Why?”

The other end of the line grew silent.

It hit me that they were both stunned I didn’t know this.

Moreover, despite Wreg’s jab, they obviously felt they’d overstepped in sharing something personal about one of my parents with me.

Realizing we didn’t have time to talk about that, nor did I have time to navigate seer etiquette around familial relationships, I waved off my own words.

“Forget it. I’ll ask her later.”

Feeling both of their relief, I glanced out the window, watching the horizon move even as seers around me continued taking their seats, buckling into seat belts with a casualness totally unlike any commercial plane I’d ever been on. I noticed Jem stayed up front with the others, maybe to give me privacy. Pushing him out of my mind, I fought not to think about the animosity I could still feel on Wreg’s light as I focused back on the link.

“So Uye thought attempting to trigger visions about Dragon might actually kill her?” I said, my voice neutral. “Or am I misunderstanding you?”

“You are not,” Wreg said, his voice equally stripped of emotion. “Brother Uye was concerned about this killing her, yes. He seemed to think it may not even be intentional on Dragon’s part, but something to do with the qualities of Dragon’s light.”

Thinking about his words, I fought back and forth on whether to ask it, then did anyway.

“What about the Myth?” I said. “Any help there?”

Silence.

Balidor was the one to break it that time.

“What about the Myth, Esteemed Bridge?” he said politely.

“The Commentaries,” I said. “The ones about the Old God. The ones about Dragon. Can either of you use those to glean any additional information about what I might be up against?”

I felt both Wreg and Balidor react on the other end of the line. I could also feel Wreg listening harder than before, although his anger didn’t lessen.

When neither of them spoke I plowed on.

“Jem…” I said, trailing when I felt them both react to that as well. I cleared my throat, making my voice businesslike. “Brother Dalejem said the Myths talk about Dragon a lot. He mentioned specific commentaries.”

“I was aware of that, yes,” Balidor said drily. “Brother Wreg and I are both aware of that, Esteemed Sister. We were trained in the Pamir as well as brother Dalejem.”

“So?” I said, ignoring the implication that I was listening to Jem over the two of them, even as I let sarcasm leak into my voice. “What can you two ‘experts’ tell me then? Jem had some theories. He’s been studying the texts he has access to here as well as he can, but he mentioned some that can’t be transcribed into electronic form for religious reasons. He thought those might actually contain more of the real information about Dragon as an actual entity. Most of the later commentaries say Dragon doesn’t take corporeal form anymore…which has more or less been disproven at this point, I’d say…”

Forcing my voice calmer, I added,

“I wondered if the two of you had discussed that with him. Jem. Or if you had your own theories based on what we’ve seen so far.”

“If I talk to that fucker, it won’t be about commentaries,” Wreg growled.

“Wreg,” I said, my voice cold. “Get over it. Now. I need your fucking head in the game. The priority is Revik on this…and stopping Dragon. I don’t want to hear jack shit from you about anything else until both of those things are addressed.”

Silence greeted me. Then the Chinese seer exhaled more anger.

“Understood.”

I opened my mouth to say more, then glanced to the front of the plane, feeling something in my light. Staring down that aisle, my eyes focused on the blue curtains at the end, the ones that separated the two different segments of the cabin.

Through the crack in those curtains, I caught a bare glimpse of the face of that same seer who had interrupted me earlier, the one with the odd sun tattoo. He, alone among all of the others, remained standing as the plane’s taxi picked up speed. I watched as he closed the door to the bathroom and relaxed slightly, realizing he’d just come from there.

But he didn’t re-enter the main cabin.

I couldn’t see him anymore, but I had to assume he was standing in the alcove between segments of the plane, concealed behind those curtains.

My eyes sought out Jem.

He sat in the front row, next to Jasek and two of his other infiltrators.

He was talking to Jasek now, not paying attention to the alcove at all.

I felt more than saw when something changed.

Releasing the latch on my seatbelt, I stood, igniting the telekinetic structures over my head.

Jem turned at once. I saw the motion in my peripheral vision, but that time, I didn’t glance at him, only felt his reaction via his light as his puzzlement turned to alarm.

My light snaked out, feeling for the seer behind those curtains...

“Allie!” Balidor said in my ear. “What the fuck is going on?”

Ignoring him, I continued to look at the other seer, not even sure what I was looking for at first. I just knew something was wrong.

I hit a shield...scanned it.

Unknown origin.

It was enough to flare the telekinesis hotter.

But he must have felt me looking...or seen me, maybe. One or the other thing was enough to propel him into action. I felt a gun in his hand suddenly. I felt it before I knew how it got there. I felt it activate...still feeling nothing at all from the person holding it. Then I saw him aim, saw the person at whom he aimed the gun’s sights.

I didn’t stop to think. Cracking the gun in half, I used the telekinesis to throw the body of the person holding it backwards in the same motion.

I might have overcompensated a little.

Okay, maybe a lot.

The sharp crack of the gun exploding happened almost at once. I heard gasps, a few yells from the seers in the rows ahead of me in the cabin.