Allie's War Season Four (73 page)

Wreg shook his head again. “No. It is unlikely...for the same reasons.”

“But I’ve heard stories,” Jon said. He glanced at Revik again, then, for some reason, at Maygar. “Isn’t there some way to keep a bonded mate alive? Maygar? Didn’t you tell me that once?” he asked. “That there’s a way to do it?”

Maygar flushed a dark red, glancing at Revik. He didn’t answer.

“They could try to re-bond him somehow,” Wreg said, making another dismissive gesture with his tattooed hand. “But truthfully, brother, this is mostly myth, too. Re-bonding is nearly always a failure. With the previous mate already dead, I would say failure is closer to one hundred percent. Re-bonding only works if the bond between mates is already weakened. Meaning, if one in the pair were having an intimate affair, or if for other reasons the two of them have pulled apart. Both of those things are extremely rare with seers who have developed a physical dependency on one another. At the very least, the surviving seer would have needed to be immersed in their new bond-mate’s light long before their first mate died.”

Maygar frowned at that, staring at Wreg. “But it’s been done before?” he said. He glanced at Revik. Nerves touched his eyes, along with a flicker of what might have been guilt. “It’s been done, hasn’t it? I read about this, in one of the feeds...”

Wreg made another non-committal gesture with his hand.

“The experiments they’ve done with that, with re-bonding,” he clarified. “...They are highly publicized, little brother, for the inherent drama for seers and the wishful thinking in some cases. In ninety-nine percent of these cases, however, the attempts to re-bond do not even prolong the life of the surviving seer. I have only ever heard of
one
successful re-bonding following the death of a life mate, and in that case, the male seer in question fell in love with the woman they re-bonded him to
before
his first wife died. The two of them, this male and his new mate, they had some unusual light connection, too, which facilitated the transition. Perhaps if the Sword had been bonded to another prior to meeting the Bridge, then he and the Bridge could have re-bonded following his first mate’s death...you see? It would have to be that type of connection. Or something equally unusual, something that transcended this particular life.”

Wreg looked at Revik then, his eyes holding a faint apology.

“...It is like the holy grail to some seers, to poach a bonded mate,” Wreg added. “Fixated seers, like Ditrini. That sick fuck is not unique in this...in the wanting of one who has established a life-dependent bond with another. But it is fantasy. Pure fantasy. Usually, this does not work even when both seers are cooperating. If the seer in question does not cooperate...”

Wreg trailed, making a vague but expressive gesture with his hand.

“...It is beyond unlikely, my friends,” Wreg finished. “Menlim would be a fool to pursue such a thing, particularly if it endangered the intermediaries already under his control. Much less the daughter of the two oldest souls known to exist in the physical plane.”

Loki nodded at Wreg’s words, his eyes showing full agreement.

Maygar had paled the longer Wreg spoke, Revik noticed. Looking at his son, he frowned slightly, but didn’t probe him to understand the reaction. He had a feeling he could guess; it wasn’t something he really wanted or needed confirmed.

For a long moment, none of the seers spoke.

Revik looked back at the stone archway. He’d been about to speak, to muster them all into movement once more...

When the room altered around them again.

Or maybe, that time, Revik was the thing that altered.

Maybe they’d finally taken what remained.

REVIK PLUNGED INTO dark.

The floor once more fell away. He dropped, fast that time... completely out of control.

Free-fall. Nothing touched his body that time, not even to hurt him. He could feel nothing under him as he fell, nothing confining him, nothing to grasp at, to even touch at first. He could feel nothing with his light, no glimpse of what the building had done around him.

It felt like a trap door had opened under his feet.

Revik continued to try, fighting to track the physical plane with his light.

He looked for Jon...for Maygar...fighting to hold onto the anchors in their lights, the shield Jon held around him, even in the seconds leading up to the change.

As he realized himself as falling he reached out, grappling, looking for walls, feeling his fingers touch and slide against something slick and cold, like a tunnel of ice. He imagined freezing cold metal, maybe stone. The images evoked the cave again. Panic locked his heart, his lungs...he spiraled into a lost feeling, of being lost to die alone in the dark. He threw his body at the nearest wall, again trying to grab hold, conscious of being alone, of having lost the threads holding him first to Maygar...then to Jon.

They’d taken him. Only him.

Revik cried out, feeling the shield go, even as he fought to stop his fall.

Seconds later, he hit, hard.

Revik bent his legs instinctively, letting his body go soft even as he rolled to his side. Even so, his knees hit hard, as did his feet, jarring his ankles. He had his hand on the holster of his gun even as he came to a stop. He didn’t try to move other than to pull out the Glock, aiming it up before he could see in the wash of light that met his eyes.

Wherever he was, it was bright––too bright.

Panting, he stared up, using his light cautiously without the shield. He held up his free hand, fighting to see against the brightness after all of that dark, and even the dimness of the light in the medieval hall above. He found himself staring at a similar set of faces as what he’d seen above, even in similar clothes.

His childhood guardian, Menlim stood in the center, as before.

“We tried it the polite way, nephew,” Menlim said, his voice soft, almost melodious under a layer of sadness Revik could hear. “I’m afraid that now we’re going to have to be more
direct,
as you phrased it...”

Revik stared up at him, fighting his mind back on line, fighting to think, to assess his own light, the state of his body. He watched numbly as the tall Sark checked his wrist, looking down at a watch that Revik recognized from years and years past, seeing it as clearly in his mind as he did on the bony, white wrist, despite the passage of time.

He stared up at Menlim, still trying to control his light.

He shifted his gaze then, looking at Terian, the old woman with the lizard-like face, Cass, Eddard, the Middle Eastern seer in the expensive business suit, the older white man he’d shot in the stomach upstairs...

Revik looked around at all of them, and realized his time was up.

For a split second, he considered killing himself.

They’d been kidding themselves, thinking any outcome but this one would occur. He’d been kidding himself, too angry and blinded by grief to consider any possibility that didn’t include him taking at least one of them with him on his way out.

But even that didn’t matter anymore. Even revenge felt hollow. Pointless.

He lay there, thinking about Allie. Thinking about their daughter, what he’d be leaving her to, if he put the gun to his temple now...if he left her with these people.

Would Allie ever forgive him for that, either?

He lay there, paralyzed with indecision.

He should kill himself. Or maybe, quite probably, that would be playing into their hands, too. He’d always done what they wanted, even when he thought he wasn’t.

“Please don’t die, nephew,” Menlim said, his voice low. “Believe it or not, I will permit it, if you still wish it. But I would implore you to hear me out, first. To make an informed decision, with all of the relevant information at your disposal...”

Revik felt nausea overcome him, pain, feeling a thread of that silver light penetrate his aleimi as his uncle probed him in silence. Fear slammed his light...a kind of despair as he realized the Dreng really believed they weren’t through with him yet, even after all this time.

He stared up at those faces, and yet the only one he could see was that of the child Cass had been holding in her arms in that wall monitor of the suite he’d shared with his wife. He could see her clear eyes, rimmed with green. Allie’s eyes, at least in shape. Allie’s mouth, although she hadn’t grown into it yet. Allie’s face.

It was a cruel image, a betrayal of biology...even of light.

Don’t die,
a voice whispered in his head.
Don’t die, Revik...please. Please...

Without his willing it, tears came to his eyes.

He lay there, looking up at them, and felt lost, like someone had ripped open his chest. He thought he’d managed to close it down finally, after he found her in that house in San Francisco, only to have her open her eyes and hurt him again, even more. Then he thought it was really gone...really and truly, gone forever...when Allie died in his arms in that hotel suite. He knew, finally and for good, that it was finally over.

He’d come here out of duty, not out of love.

It was too much, what they wanted of him. It had always been too much.

“Gods,” he managed, choking on the word. “Just kill me. It’s over, isn’t it? Just fucking kill me...end it.”

Menlim’s mouth firmed into a small line.

He exchanged looks with Terian, then with Cass.

Terian frowned down at Revik, a strange, unreadable look on his narrow face, turning almost puzzled inside those amber-colored eyes. Cass only smiled, her light brown irises glinting with a kind of triumph, as if she’d expected this, or perhaps only hoped the end would happen this way. Menlim looked away from both of them.

Gazing down at Revik, he made a concessionary gesture with one hand.

“If you wish it,” Menlim purred softly, sadly. “...We will, nephew. I vow it.”

22

SNIPER

BALIDOR COULD FEEL them now.

He climbed the stairs steadily, using the quiet setting on the anti-grav boots, even as he used the sensors on the gun via his headset to look for signs of any movement ahead. So far, he hadn’t picked up anything other than what the breach alarm told him about the roof. The security fields below that level all appeared to be intact...well, intact for those floors as high as Balidor had already climbed, at least.

It didn’t make sense, not if Ditrini’s people had been the ones to take Tarsi and Dante, as well as Allie’s body. From all appearances that Balidor could see, Ditrini’s people hadn’t yet even determined how to reach the lower levels of the hotel from the roof without getting fried in the secondary security measures.