Allie's War Season Four (186 page)

“You just let them take my wife to a slave auction, brother,” he said, his voice cold. “I’ve killed people for less than that.”

Dalejem flinched perceptibly, but his expression didn’t change.

“Brother, we are going there now,” he said.

Dalejem looked up at him then, studying his face.

Despite the flat look in his eyes, Revik felt another wince from the other seer as he studied Revik’s expression. Again, Revik grew conscious of his own light, of the fact that he was barely holding it in check. He felt Dalejem watching him cautiously, almost warily, and stepped back from the green-eyed seer as an effort of will.

He ignored the flush of pain he felt there, too.

“...The auction is where our target will be,” Dalejem added, his voice even more subdued. “Surli tells me that he never misses the auctions, brother. Never. And he never fails to bid on the interesting merchandise, if any happens to be available. With any luck, he will buy her, and we will have a means of tracking him...as well as locating his List seers...when we follow him to extract your wife.”

Hesitating, Dalejem stared up at Revik’s face.

Ignoring the worry he felt whisper around the other male’s aleimi, even though he could feel it with the two of them standing so close, Revik muttered, “With any luck, the guy who probably works for Shadow will buy my wife.” He glared at the other male, letting out a humorless grunt. “Perfect. That’s just genius, Dalejem.”

“Brother, you must calm yourself,” Dalejem said. “Please.”

“He wants my wife
dead
...what part of that don’t you understand?”

Dalejem winced again, but shook his head.

“I must remind you, brother,” he said, his voice holding a faint warning. “We do not know this person’s precise affiliations. All we
do
know is that he’s kept the List seers alive so far, which is the opposite of what Shadow’s other agents have been doing.” Speaking louder to be heard over Revik’s angry clicking, Dalejem added, “...It also points towards a potentially different motivation than what you fear. At least in theory.”

Revik’s scowl only deepened more.

When he didn’t speak, Dalejem clicked at him again.

“Brother, this is not outside the parameters of this exercise. We can adjust to this...we
will
adjust to this. It might even simplify things for us, to have one of our own on the auction block. At the very least, it will save us time in tracking this person down through some far riskier means.”

At Revik’s colder look, Dalejem clicked at him again.

“She knew this was a possibility,” Dalejem said, quieter. “You saw how she dressed. She brought it up in several of the planning meetings, that she might need to visit the slave areas first hand. Or did you suppose she meant those words in some other way?”

Revik bit his tongue, but again didn’t answer.

Dalejem sighed, clicking again. “It will let us know how well this person
sees,
at the very least, will it not? If he is unable to identify her?”

Revik growled, “We have no reason to think he will buy her at all, Jem.”

Dalejem’s jaw hardened. It struck Revik that it was because he’d used the seer’s nickname. Dalejem hadn’t liked that, when they’d been together.

But fuck him. They weren’t together now.

Whatever bothered the other male, though, it was there and gone. When Dalejem next spoke, his voice was toneless once more, businesslike.

“Precisely my point,” Dalejem said, motioning with a hand. “If he buys your wife, despite her operating under an alias, it might give us some idea of his motivation and, perhaps even more importantly...his abilities.” The seer studied Revik’s face openly once more. His mouth hardened in a frown as his gaze grew more penetrating. “Brother. You need to calm yourself. You assured us...you
both
assured us...that you could handle this, despite the difficulties you are both experiencing with your light. If you cannot, you need to tell me that now. So that I and the others can adjust for that fact. Or pull you, if that ends up being necessary.”

Revik felt his jaw harden more.

“I’d love to see you fucking try,” he muttered, staring back out over the desert.

“Oh, I have no doubt at all that you would
not
love that,” Dalejem said, his voice colder. “I work for your
wife,
brother. If I have to drug you and drag you out of here to keep you safe on her behalf...rest assured, I will. Without a second’s hesitation.” He paused, his stare meaningful. “Or would you really jeopardize this entire operation by using your light in inappropriate ways, brother...putting her in
real
danger...just to thwart me?”

Revik fought to control his light again, not answering.

His eyes picked up a glimmer of brighter illumination from the skyline, now heading swiftly towards them in a straight line.

The sharp light continued to aim directly for them as he watched, leaving the long row of skyscrapers and making good time over the darkened sand dunes between the city and the pier. Those same skyscrapers cut dramatic lines cut into the sky a good ten miles from the docks, lighting up the darkness of the desert and the ocean like something out of a virtual landscape.

It looked unreal, almost, and strangely silent.

Revik could feel the construct laying heavier over the buildings in the distance.

He understood Dalejem’s worries about his light. He understood them all too well. That understanding didn’t manage to fully pull Revik out of his own head, however.

Nor did it ease his mind in terms of where Allie might be.

“So what if this fucker
can’t
see?” he said finally, his voice still holding more charge than it probably should. “What if she’s bought by someone else?”

“Then we extract her, of course,” Dalejem said. “Without delay.”

Revik’s scowl returned, and Dalejem’s voice grew openly warning.

“Brother,” he said, catching hold of his arm. “Trust me when I say this to you: neither I nor any of my people will allow anything to happen to your wife. Not if there is anything
whatsoever
we can do to keep her out of harm’s way...do you understand me? In case you are missing my implication in those words, we are willing to die to keep her safe. I was not lying to her, when I said my loyalty is entirely with her...and only by extension, to you.”

Revik nodded. He fought to relax as he did it, to hear the other male’s words, but he couldn’t get the harder knot in his chest to unclench.

The truth was, he trusted Dalejem.

He trusted Kali, too.

That fact didn’t quite remove the impulse in his light that wanted to punch Dalejem in the face at that particular moment. Not only for handing Allie over. Not even for speaking about her sale with that vile specter of a seer on that dock.

Dalejem had his fucking hands on his wife.

He had his light in hers, enough to turn her on... and she’d been pulling on him with those damned Lao Hu structures. Revik understood the reasons. He knew Allie had been playing her part, too. But he didn’t like it. He knew that was irrational, that his reactions stemmed at least partly from the problem he was still having with his light, and with hers.

He didn’t care.

“You should have let me do it,” he muttered, not looking up.

“You would not have been capable of it,” Dalejem said.

At Revik’s angry look, Dalejem cut him off, holding up a hand in a peace gesture.

“...Not the way it needed to be done,” Dalejem clarified. “I do not mean that as an insult, my brother, believe me. I have been around enough of these traders by now to understand their rationalizations... as well as the easiest ways to distract them from what is rapidly evolving into a brutal culture, one that might have killed us, if we said too many of the wrong things. I have witnessed the evolution of their thinking towards their brothers and sisters, too... the ones they consider ‘foreigners,’ at least. Trust me when I tell you, I was as gentle as I could be, without raising suspicion.”

Thinking about his words, Revik nodded to that, too.

He still couldn’t make himself feel it, though.

He could, however, remember that his feelings were irrational.

Or, at the very least, out of proportion to the circumstances.

Forcing a breath out of his lungs, Revik combed his fingers through his hair, fighting again to pull his light under control. He took another step away from Dalejem as he did it, feeling the other seer reacting to the pain in his light a second time.

The truth was, Revik was nearly panicking from the lack of proximity to his wife. Realizing that much as the seconds ticked past, he fought to regain his calm, to breathe through it in some way. He bit his lip when he felt that part of him wanting to look for her in the Barrier, too. He forced the impulse back, along with the one that still wanted to threaten Dalejem’s life for what he’d just done to Allie.

“Fine. Where is it?” he said, shifting his eyes back to watch the light of the approaching train. “Where’s the goddamned auction?”

“We are going there now, brother,” Dalejem assured him. “It was never my intention that it be otherwise. This train will take us within walking distance, and within only a few minutes. Even if we were late, it was always my intention to take both of you there. Several of our people will be stationed in the audience already, waiting to make contact with the buyer.”

Revik nodded, still watching the train approach.

He winced again when he felt the seer reacting to the pain in his light, and took another half-step back. That time, neither of them looked at the other, but Revik thought he felt something like regret on the other male.

Shoving that out of his mind, Revik blanked his thoughts as best he could, if only to be more in line with the strategy they’d outlined in regards to operating unseen inside the construct. He knew an argument wouldn’t get picked up by Barrier security, but if he started obsessing too much on his wife it might, especially if they felt him thinking about the auction...or List seers...or any other combination of key words they might scan for.

He’d nearly succeeded in forcing all of that deeper into the background of his light by the time he could make out the engine car of the train as it approached the station. The wind blew sand up from the nearby dunes as the train approached, biting into his skin and peppering his clothes as he got another whiff of the hot desert air, which smelled almost like burnt glass, even in the middle of the night.

From what Revik could tell, both from tastes of the construct and the brightness of the skyline lights, not much of the city was sleeping right now.

Staring at those tall buildings, some in the shape of pyramids and giant sails, Revik realized he was struggling more than usual with his light, even apart from Allie. He didn’t really want to think about how much that might be influenced by the construct, either. He didn’t want to think about the fact that the construct itself would get exponentially harder to sidestep once they were inside the city. Pulling the cloak more tightly over his light, he managed to blank the more charged of his thoughts.

He still felt sick, and increasingly off-balance.

He felt Dalejem in his light again, and clenched his jaw more.

He knew why Allie reacted to the other seer.

He understood her jealousy, whatever he might have told her to try and minimize her reactions. He knew why she didn’t trust Dalejem, too, and why she got angry when Revik downplayed the other male’s behavior.

Really, it was more or less the same reason Revik struggled around Jaden.

For the same reason, the situation with Dalejem needed to be handled, just like the Jaden situation needed to be handled...and preferably before Revik ended up breaking the human’s neck. He’d already asked Allie to talk to Jaden. He brought it up a few days previous, during one of their late night, post-sex talks, which had been happening with increasing frequency lately.

She hadn’t done it yet, but she promised she would, once they got back from the op.

Since then, Revik realized he wanted her to talk to Jorag, too.

Before that, though, he definitely needed to hear from her that she’d made things clear with her ex-boyfriend. Revik basically told her that if she didn’t talk to Jaden, he would...and both of them knew that probably wouldn’t end well.