Allie's War Season Four (63 page)

Just then, Jorag dropped free of the ropes.

His legs and arms windmilled even more wildly in the air, but he fell straight down, even as Revik moved sharply to the side, holding out a hand, maybe to focus his concentration. The light green in his irises flared, enough that Jon flinched.

Right then, Jon felt a slam against their shield, the first real one he’d felt since the op started, and a lot heavier than anything he’d felt on the airfield that morning. He managed to hold on to the shell around Revik, but let out a surprised gasp, even as pain exploded in his head. It felt as if someone had just hit him in the temple with a mallet. Maybe a mallet covered in razors. Jon did his best to compensate but he could still feel someone trying to worm their way in.

He could feel them messing with him, too, trying to get him to react, trying to get at pieces of his mind through his emotions, even as Balidor’s presence abruptly overwhelmed his, along with Maygar’s...and then Ullysa’s and Tenzi’s.

Impressive, Jon-boy,
Cass murmured in his mind.
...I have to say, that’s very impressive indeed for a little half-worm like you. I guess it’s true that you’ve got a little seer in you.. I think you’ve just given your pal Terian a hard-on...

In the background, Jon heard Terian laugh.

It’s true,
he told Jon cheerfully.
Gods, I do so want to fuck you, Jon, my friend...I miss your blow jobs like you wouldn’t believe...

The seer’s words seemed to echo off the walls inside Jon’s skull, sharpening the pain to unbearable. Jon gasped, gripping his forehead as he watched Revik.

“Hurry up,” he managed. “Fuck, hurry up...”

Another hand grabbed his arm, and some of the pain lessened.

When Jon turned his head that time, he found Maygar looking at him, his brown eyes glowing in faint yellow-tinted rings in his face.

Jon hadn’t seen Maygar’s eyes glow very often, even during the training sessions in San Francisco, and never had he seen them so close up. He found himself staring, unable to look away for a few beats as he lost himself in those gold-green flickers and sparks. It couldn’t have been long, though, given that Jorag hadn’t even reached them yet.

“Easy, brother,” Maygar said. His eyes held sympathy, maybe more than Jon had ever seen on the Asian seer’s face before. “You’re doing very, very well, brother...don’t panic. They want you to panic, it’s the easiest way in. You are not weak. Don’t believe them. Don’t let anything they say get to you...”

Jon let the other’s light sooth his, and nodded.

Taking a deep breath, he nodded again, letting his light calm.

Slowly, that feeling of presence he’d felt from Cass and Terian faded. It turned gradually into a murmur, then into complete silence. The background of Jon’s mind grew still once more, almost peaceful. Unfortunately, the headache didn’t.

Fade, that is.

“Good, brother,” Maygar soothed. “Very good. You are doing great...just remember to ask for help if they hit you like that again...”

Jon nodded, clasping the other man’s arm in gratitude.

More gunshots went off from above.

When Jon looked up that time, he saw Chinja and Neela firing back, using the rifles they’d worn slung around their bodies on their trip down the elevator shaft. Now that they’d reached the bottom and stashed the rappelling gear, they’d locked the weapons back onto their waists and shoulders with smaller, lighter harnesses that looked organic. Whatever those harnesses consisted of, they had a kind of ball-joint swivel feel to them, in terms of how they moved, which gave them a strangely animal quality as they slid soundlessly and precisely at the lightest touch, almost like an extra limb.

Jorag had nearly reached them.

In all of that time with Maygar, which felt interminable to Jon, barely a handful of seconds must have passed. Now Jax was free-falling down the shaft, too, both of them moving so fast Jon couldn’t help wincing back, fearing they would slam into the metal, beam-laden walls even before they exploded at the bottom.

He realized then, Jorag’s fall had already begun to slow.

A few seconds later, Wreg called out to Chinja and Neela. “Cover me!”

Neela gave a short nod.

Then both of them were firing up the shaft and around Jax, even as Wreg ran out to catch Jorag. He caught hold of the tall seer a few seconds later, staggered, nearly fell, then shoved the taller man roughly to his feet, pushing him in the direction of the alcove even as Wreg looked up once more, reading himself to catch Jax. Maygar moved away from Jon to catch hold of Jorag and begin unbuckling the harness from around his body.

Wreg caught the smaller male with a lot less strain, Jon, noticed, although Jax cried out as soon as Wreg had a hold of him. He was gripping one of his thighs, and the first thing Jon thought was that, fuck, somehow Chinja or Neela had...

“A little faith, brother,” Chinja snorted, giving him a hard look as she stopped firing, pretty much the second Wreg had Jax under the alcove. “...It wasn’t us.”

Jon realized his mistake, and remembered that guards had been firing down the shaft, too. He felt his face flush, although he supposed, as far as Jax was concerned, the difference constituted more of a technicality, anyway. Jon continued to focus on the shield around Revik, biting his lip at the pain in his head when it flared again.

“We need more people on Jon,” Revik said, speaking into the link. “They’ve figured out he’s the main connect for the shield...”

“We’re working on it,” Balidor answered.

“Work faster, goddamn it,” Revik snapped. “Protect him! Pull Tenzi if you have to...I need more people on him. Now.”

He clicked out before anyone on the other end could answer.

Jon gave him a grateful nod when they met gazes briefly, but Revik barely seemed to notice. He motioned Chinja over to keep an eye on Jon, then focused up above the alcove, his still-glowing eyes concentrated. Jon’s head hurt so bad by then he found it difficult to even see Revik clearly in the shadow at the bottom of the shaft, Barrier light or no.

Jon watched as Revik climbed up to the double doors just above the alcove where they stood. Wreg climbed after him within seconds, and Jorag quickly followed, practically vaulting to the top after he’d grasped the rough edge. Jon saw Neela yanking off her own belt after she got off Jax’s harness. The smaller, dark-haired seer now cinched that belt around Jax’s thigh. Jon saw Jax’s face screw up in pain, even as he gripped her shoulder, groaning when she tightened the belt still more. Jon could see the gunshot wound now. He couldn’t tell how serious it was. They got him in the leg, so likely, Revik had been right; they weren’t trying to kill them.

He wondered why.

Given Revik’s approach to their people, and what they’d done to Garensche, it struck Jon as uncharacteristically restrained, especially now.

“We’re back in the hall of mirrors, little brother,” Chinja muttered to him, clearly hearing his thoughts from where she helped protect his shield. “Best not to try and psychoanalyze things too much. I have a feeling they want us to do that.”

Jon turned, looking at her.

Chinja’s light orange eyes remained focused on the level above, and her gun on the elevator shaft above that. Revik and Wreg continued to work over the door, jammed into the edges of the metal beams on one edge of the platform to avoid the bullets that continued to rain down on them from above. The sound struck Jon as deafening now that he wasn’t focused on anything else. The bullets let off sharp reports in the near-silence as they ricocheted off metal, the sound at both ends echoing down the shaft as they set off sparks.

He had no trouble hearing Chinja, though.

He remembered her words back in that castle down in Argentina. She’d been one of the first to notice and point out the illusory nature of the construct there, too.

“Yeah,” he muttered.

He suddenly wondered exactly what they would find behind that door.

“Let us know if that shield starts to go for real,” Chinja told him, her voice slightly more sharp. “We can’t afford to let them take the boss down, like before. We go fully to guns and grenades on your mark...got it?”

Jon nodded, feeling that sickness in his chest worsen once more.

He heard a metallic clanging sound then, a lower, duller thud than the bullets, and looked up to see Revik and Wreg wedging a metal rod into the crack between the two elevator doors, the same type of tool Jon had seen Jax using upstairs. Looking at Jax, Jon saw him more or less on his feet again. His skin looked pale, almost deathly so in the dim light, and Jon could tell without using his light that the other man was in a lot of pain. Even so, Jax tested his weight on the leg with a kind of methodical focus, and after a few more minutes, he let go of Neela.

When Neela continued to stand there, watching him, Jax gave her a nod and a few more hand gestures to tell her he would be all right. He pulled his gun a few seconds later, and Neela gave him an affectionate slap on the shoulder. Still watching him, she rotated her own rifle back around on its harness, yanking it down slightly and forward so that it aimed in front of her once more, but still up the shaft.

Jon looked up as Maygar joined Wreg, Jorag and Revik at the door.

Jon couldn’t help smiling a little, even through the pain in his head, when he saw Maygar shove Revik back from the opening none-too-gently, giving him a hard stare when Revik seemed about to protest. A short, muttered discussion ensued between Maygar and his father, too low for Jon to hear, but Jon got the gist when he saw Maygar replace Revik in the door’s opening, working with Wreg to force open the doors. Revik receded deeper into the protective cavity between the beams, Jorag standing over him with a gun.

The gap in the door was almost two feet wide now.

“That’s our cue,” Chinja said. She patted Jon on the shoulder, then swiveled her own rifle forward once more, firing a few shots up the shaft. “...Get up there, brother. I’ll cover you and the others until you’re on the platform. I’ll be right behind you, so don’t wait if the boss tells you to go through that door. I’m sending Neela and Jax up, too...”

Revik glanced down, snapping his fingers at Jon, his face expressionless.

“Listen to her, Jon,” he said through the link. “Up here, now. You and Neela help Jax up first, if you can...”

Gritting his teeth against the pain in his head, Jon only nodded.

Jax went up first, like Revik said, with Neela and Jon pushing him up to the beam from below. Again, Jon could tell it hurt the other man like hell, pretty much whenever he put weight on that leg, but the Chinese-looking seer didn’t make a sound other than breathing a little harder than normal as he climbed up the metal beam to reach the top.

Jon watched as Jorag walked out of the alcove to grab Jax’s arm at the top, helping him up the last piece without taking his gun sights off the shaft above. Once he got Jax on the platform, Jorag released him, retreating back to cover Revik even as he continued to fire up the shaft to cover Jax until he could get to shelter, too. Jax crawled along the platform to reach the others, remaining on his hands and knees until he reached the edge of the second alcove. Once there, he used the wall to pull himself to his feet.

By then, Jon had already started hoisting his own upper body up onto the platform.

He paused once he had most of his weight on the next level, looking back to offer Neela a hand. The female seer had already started to yank herself up to the top of a second beam, though, climbing so fast Jon couldn’t help smiling. She waved off his offered hand with a head-cock of thanks and a smile, right before she vaulted the rest of the way up. Jon followed her, feeling clumsy in comparison, and gave her a grateful nod when her light flooded his, reinforcing his shielding briefly, along with Chinja’s, who still held him from below.

Neela ended up holding out a hand for him at the top.

Jon took it gratefully, along with the increased focus of her light on his.

“Thanks, sister,” he murmured.

She grinned at him.

Jon let her pull him to his feet. When the gunfire started again, Neela pulled him deeper against the wall, even as Maygar and Jorag disappeared through the opening between the two doors. Chinja was following the rest of them up now, her rifle now slung over her shoulder.

“Don’t wait for me, boss...” she sent through the link.

“Understood,” Revik said.

Jax and Jon covered Chinja as she climbed, firing up the shaft with handguns when they felt more seers and humans up there. Jon felt a signal through the headset that Revik was going through the doors with Wreg, even as he felt Revik shut down the communication channels so that they wouldn’t be using the hotel’s network. It would cut them off from Balidor and the others, at least temporarily, but Jon figured Revik must have his reasons. He always did.