Allie's War Season Four (206 page)

Balidor advised us to walk inland for as long as we could before we called in air support.

We did have one emergency landing and take-off, though, practically at the gates of the city itself. One of the carrier’s smaller helicopters came in for the sole purpose of picking up Dalejem and Revik. They took Feigran with them, too, but left the remaining Terians with us, including the Revik lookalike and the one with those opaque orange eyes.

I wasn’t positive what Balidor intended to do with Feigran once he got him on board.

But yeah, I could guess.

I wondered if the Terians could guess, too. If so, they didn’t let on as they trekked with us across those glistening white dunes in the dark.

We walked in silence mostly, although I could hear murmurings here and there as stories were exchanged on several sides, including between the new Listers who had joined us and Wreg’s and Loki’s teams. Most of those stories were being told by the seers who had been with us in that warehouse on the furthest edge of The Waterfront.

I didn’t join any of those discussions, but not for any particular reason.

Neither did Chandre, I noticed, who walked silently next to me for most of the night, still wearing the rifle slung around her back that she’d used to take out Menlim.

I had a lot of questions about that, too. I knew Revik had put her up to following us to that warehouse. I knew it had partly been so she could cover our backs like she had done––and take out Menlim in a key moment so we could escape cleanly. I also suspected there was more to that little maneuver than it appeared. Whatever that “more” was, knowing Revik, it likely had something to do with finding a way to eliminate Menlim more permanently.

In addition to me and Chandre, I noticed Kat kept herself apart from the other seers as well, huddled inside a robe someone had given her, likely to cover the ridiculous clothing we both still wore as much as for the chill of the desert night air.

The sun was coming up to our right when I heard Wreg make the call to bring in the real air support, the ones meant to get us all out of there. As soon as he’d done it, I understood why––meaning why he’d decided to pull the plug now, before the sun got too high in the sky.

We couldn’t be walking out here under the sun.

Those beautiful white dunes would heat up in no time if we stayed out here, even if we only walked until mid-morning.

Anyway, we were probably far enough from the city by now.

I’d found out only after we’d reunited with Wreg and Jon that Balidor and the others had abandoned the carrier totally, even moving the last segment of the Barrier-containment tank and all of the animals to smaller ships, which they’d spread across the Arabian Sea, presumably to hide among the other ships operating in the area. Balidor told me over the same link that so far it seemed much easier to hide our numbers and purpose disguised as a more fluid caravan.

It was a good thing they did it when they did.

I would find out the next morning, after I’d slept for over ten hours in the bunk of a much smaller ship, that someone had dropped a half-dozen missiles on our old carrier in the middle of the night, not long before Menlim and his black-clad army of infiltrators showed up in that warehouse. They sank it to the bottom of the Gulf––probably right around the time Terian was bashing in my husband’s head with a metal pole.

So Terian’s stars did fall from the sky that night, in the end.

They didn’t look like I’d expected them to look, but for the most part, that was the good news. Even so, I felt a denser pulse of gratitude for Kali, maybe for the first time since I’d met her on that beach on Sri Lanka.

She’d probably saved Lily’s life, in the end.

That morning, however, staring out over the endless-seeming expanse of white sand, watching the sun rise over more distant dunes, I didn’t know any of that.

All I knew was, I was exhausted, Revik was alive, and so was Lily.

So was Dalejem, for that matter––although I knew it might be touch and go still with him.

I continued to stand there, gazing out across all of that sand, when I realized someone was standing next to me.

That time, it wasn’t Chandre.

I turned my head, expecting to see Jon, or Wreg, or maybe Wreg and Jon.

Instead I saw Terian standing there, his long reddish-brown hair out of its clip and being tugged around his neck in the warm breeze that had risen over the dunes. I studied his handsome face, probably feeling more conflicted about him than I ever had, even with the rest of what we’d just been through.

He stared out over that sea of sand, smiling faintly as the wind gusted over a swath of it. I watched him follow with his eyes as a few handfuls of fine white grains twirled up into a small cyclone before the wind pulled them back away from one another again.

When he turned, he grinned at me, raising his eyebrows suggestively as he glanced down my still scantily-clad body.

I snorted, rolling my eyes.

“What?” he said, grinning wider. “No thank you kiss?”

“Maybe later,” I grunted.

“No thank you?” he said, folding his arms as he grinned at me again.

Sighing, I lowered my hand from where I’d been using it to shield my eyes from the sun, and let out another exhale, clicking humorously in spite of myself.

“Thank you, Terry,” I said, using the formal version of Prexci.

As I finished, I executed the formal bow, too, lowering my head.

“You’re very welcome, my dear,” he said, using the same language, and giving me a faintly mocking but mostly well-executed counter-salute.

Rolling my eyes, I let myself smile at him again, however.

I was still standing there, watching a small fleet of helicopters make its way towards us over the dunes, when Terian suddenly fell to his knees beside me.

I stepped back, frowning, even as he looked up at me, another smile teasing at his full lips.

Then his eyes rolled back as I watched, that bare smile still visible on his face.

He fell forward onto the sand, and I winced, in spite of myself.

Even before that, though, I understood.

Well enough to think to myself, in those last few seconds before he collapsed, that we now knew the answer to that question, at least. Meaning, we now knew for certain what happened to Terian’s bodies when we put Feigran inside a Barrier containment tank.

The thought didn’t bring me as much relief as I’d thought it would.

Instead, staring down at his auburn head, the longer strands still being lifted and ruffled by the wind, I felt a near pain hit me in the chest.

I remembered my mother, Mia Taylor. I remembered Jon’s hand... what Terian had done to me in D.C., what he’d done to Cass.

All of that was still real to me. All of it still mattered.

Even so, I didn’t walk away from him, not right away. I lingered there, wavering, feeling I
couldn’t
leave, somehow, not until I spoke to him again.

“Thanks, Terry,” I said finally.

My words were stripped of the sarcasm that time, which I guess was something.

“Go with the gods, brother,”
I said, quieter. Hesitating a bare second, I found myself going on, finishing the quote. “
...Until we meet again in that more beautiful place. Where the oceans meet the end of the world. Where the water shines like diamonds...”

I knew that place. Those words actually meant something to me.

I could only hope he knew that place, too, assuming he didn’t return to Feigran when we let him back out of the tank.

Assuming we ever
did
let Feigran out of the tank.

Regardless of what happened to Feigran, though, I knew that whatever Terian had been, and however that part of him might integrate into the wider personality of Feigran as a whole, Terian himself, as a viable, separate entity... was dead.

We’d finally killed him. Well, assuming Feigran hadn’t killed him already.

He didn’t answer me, of course.

He didn’t even hear me, I’m sure.

But I’m glad I said it, anyway.

* * *

CONTINUE READING WITH:

DRAGON (ALLIE’S WAR BOOK NINE)

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THE ALLIE’S WAR SERIES
is a dark, unique and gritty psychic romance involving a young woman grappling with her role in bringing about the end of one world and the start of a new one. Follow Allie Taylor and her antihero partner in crime, Dehgoies Revik, as they fight terrifying enemies and one another in a passionate story spanning centuries, and filled unpredictable twists.

QUENTIN BLACK MYSTERY
is a dark, gritty paranormal romance and mystery series starring brilliant and mysterious antihero Quentin R. Black, along with his partner, psychic forensic psychologist Miram Fox. For fans of Sherlock Holmes and paranormal romance, the series spans continents and dimensions as Black tries to redeem himself by making the world safe for his kind.

THE ALIEN APOCALYPSE SERIES
is a dystopian new adult romance about a tough girl named Jet Tetsuo who grew up on Earth following an alien invasion. Forced into living among her conquerors, she has to navigate a treacherous world full of enemies who pose as friends, even as she becomes their most famous fighter in the Rings, a modern day version of the coliseum.

THE GATE SHIFTER SERIES
is an unusual shifter romance centering on shifters from another world altogether, called morph. Earth humans remained blissfully ignorant of the existence of alternate dimensions until Nihkil Jamri tries to save private detective, Dakota Reyes, while he is surveying Earth. Part urban fantasy, part detective series, part paranormal romance, part science fiction adventure, the Gate Shifter series explores crime solving, interstellar warfare and alien romance with the least likely candidates imaginable.

* * *

Read More from JC Andrijeski

http://jcandrijeski.com

“Seeking Truth in Made-Up Worlds”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I’m a USA TODAY bestselling author who writes paranormal mystery, romance and science fiction, often with a sexy, metaphysical and apocalyptic bent. My work has been featured in anthologies, online literary, art and fiction magazines as well as print venues such as
NY Press
. I travel extensively and have lived abroad in Europe, Australia and Asia and from coast to coast in the continental United States, but currently I live and work full time in Bangkok, Thailand.

To learn more about me and my writing, please visit jcandrijeski.com.

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