Allie's War Season Four (78 page)

That time, she glanced at Tarsi, but the old woman only shrugged.

Chandre turned her gaze to Varlan next. The older seer motioned with a hand behind his back, on the side opposite from where Vikram walked. He hadn’t picked up on anything.

If he didn’t find anything, Chandre rationalized, no one probably would.

Even so, she found herself hesitating. She trusted Varlan a lot more than she had when this whole thing started, but Chandre still tended to hesitate a little when she had only the ex-Rook’s word to go on...which happened a lot more often than she would have liked, given his obscenely high sight-ranking in actual.

Then again, they had someone with an even higher sight-rank with them now.

At the thought, Chandre turned back to the old woman.

Tarsi met her gaze directly that time.

He’s clean,
she sent.

Chandre nodded, feeling her shoulders relax. She couldn’t see Varlan’s expression, but saw that he hadn’t lowered his weapon from where he aimed it up one of the side streets leading to East 79th, either, regardless of his words. She found herself glad for his caution, although she found herself wondering if there might be more to that, too. Sometimes Chandre hated that she couldn’t read Varlan’s light with any accuracy. She knew she likely wouldn’t have been able to read Varlan’s face in direct sunlight, either, given his training. In general, trying to read Varlan came close to trying to read a wall of solid granite.

“He is clean,” Varlan said, mirroring Tarsi’s words.

“I carry only a sidearm, sister,” Vikram added, as if he’d heard both of them.

Chandre could see Vikram’s outline now, as he came close to where Stanley stood, in the darkness of another recessed doorway built into the base of the Tower.

Vikram was holding up his hands. The slightly-built, East Indian seer’s form had an impact on their newest recruit however.

“Vik-man!” Dante said. She said it quietly, but Chandre shot her a warning look anyway. Dante switched to her headset. “What are you doing here, you crazy icer?”

Chandre felt Surli flinch next to her, reacting to the racial slur.

Dante didn’t seem to notice. She started to walk towards Vikram, but Chandre held up an arm, speaking aloud that time.

“Stay where you are,” she commanded. Switching to her headset, she pinged Stanley. “Frisk him, okay? And Varlan...make sure you’re right about his light.” Switching channels again, Chandre directed her words at Vikram himself. “...No offense, brother. We’re not inclined to be trusting right now.”

Vikram stood where he was, his hands still above his head, as Stanley approached.

Chandre watched Stanley frisk the Indian seer. Stanley was thorough. Chandre saw him check each of Vikram’s boots, the inside of the leather and feeling over his socks as well as instructing him to lift his feet to check the soles, feeling over the edges for hidden panels. Rising smoothly to his feet, he checked Vikram’s armored pants next, checking his inseam, then his belt, his vest, the lining of his coat. He took the gun off of Vikram’s holster in the process, showing it to Chandre by holding it up sideways, then shoving it into his own vest.

Chandre glanced at Varlan again.

The older seer nodded. He’d scanned Vikram’s light a second time...probably a third, since he’d been trained in both the Adhipan and the Org.

He’d found nothing.

Chandre felt her shoulders relax.

“Okay,” she said through the link. “We need to move.”

“Now?” Rig asked her.

“Yes,” she said, deciding even as she spoke. “...We’ll finish this indoors.”

Looking at the car, she motioned to Damon and Anale with a few quick gestures.

Bowing slightly with no discernible irony, Varlan gave her a solemn nod, too, then walked to the car, where he opened the door next to where Tarsi sat. He bowed also to Tarsi, extending a hand to help her out of the car. Chandre glanced over to see Yarli approach from the east, standing guard as Damon and Anale approached the car to help Varlan.

Stanley and Vikram approached, too, but Stanley kept his hand on the smaller seer’s shoulder in an obviously cautioning gesture. He didn’t let Vikram get too close to the armored car, but steered him directly towards the now-open door at the back of the Tower.

When Chandre looked back to the building itself, Surli held open the door, with Dante once more hunched over the flat console she held in both hands. Stanley stood with Vikram to one side of that door, a yard or so from Dante, who kept grinning at Vikram, and trying to communicate with him with hand signals. Stanley motioned for both of them to cut it out, and Vikram did, but Dante ignored him, and kept gesturing with one hand to Vikram until Chandre clicked at her, making a sharp motion.

“Stop,” she said.

That time, Dante did, but she rolled her eyes at Chandre, blowing up her raggedly cut bangs to emphasize the point.

Chandre ignored both, although inside, she couldn’t help but smile a little.

Teenagers. Gods.

Looking back to the armored car, Chandre watched as Anale and Rig picked up the Bridge’s body, pulling her carefully to the edge of the car. Varlan stood to one side, Tarsi’s fingers gripping the ex-Rook’s arm in an almost comically grandmotherly pose.

Then Rig bent down, picking the Bridge’s body up by himself. He hoisted her easily against his chest, his arms under her shoulders and knees.

Chandre found herself looking at the lifeless face of the Bridge once it faced the sky, her dark hair hanging down from behind Rig’s arm. Her face looked as pale as marble, lifeless without those sharp green eyes. She could have been asleep, though, not dead. Only the complete absence of her living light distinguished her from that other, less-permanent state.

Feeling her jaw tighten, Chandre forced her eyes off that smooth face, looking at the old woman, instead. She fought with an emotional reaction, trying to suppress it.

Instead, she ended up aiming that emotion at Tarsi.

“You want to tell me why we’re dragging the Bridge’s corpse around with us, old woman?” she said. “Or is that a secret, too?”

She spoke aloud, across the several yards standing between them.

Hearing her own words, Chandre winced at the sound, then realized that any noise they made now likely wouldn’t matter anyway. If someone watched them from inside or outside the building, they wouldn’t need to rely on sound to find them. Thinking about this, Chandre frowned, again looking at the light-less body hanging limply from Rig’s arms.

Her shoulders tensed as she stared.

“I have a feeling her husband wouldn’t approve of this,” Chandre said, her voice lower that time. “Or her brother,” she added. “...Are you thinking we won’t see them inside?”

Tarsi shocked her, giving her a grin.

“Stop being such a baby,” she said. “We need to get her closer.”

“Closer?” Chandre’s frown deepened. “Closer to
what,
old woman?”

“To the child,” Tarsi said, as if that much were obvious. “...And to the Sword.”

Chandre’s felt her muscles tighten all over again.

She didn’t answer right away, though. Mostly because she had no idea where to start.

She followed Tarsi with her eyes as the old woman walked, still clutching Varlan’s jacketed arm in one pale hand. The two of them and Damon followed after Rig, who held Allie out in front of him, his arms supporting her as delicately as if the Bridge’s body were made of antique china. Chandre’s eyes returned to Tarsi seconds later, maybe to avoid staring at that overly-pale face that lacked all of the life and expression Chandre remembered.

Tarsi herself looked misleadingly frail as she hunched against the wind, blinking up at the rain that had once more started to fall, her dark hair already damp and glistening in the light from the nearby consoles. Wearing nothing but a traditional black dress from Asia, the old woman leaned on Varlan’s arm with one hand as she walked, navigating her cane with the other.

She really did look like one of Vash’s people. Perhaps she had been living in ice caves for too long. Perhaps the old woman had lost sight of how the world worked.

“I heard that,” Tarsi muttered.

“Maybe you were meant to,” Chandre retorted, without missing a beat, irritated with the ancient seer all over again for some reason.

“Hmmph,” Tarsi said. “Another brat. Figures.”

Chandre rolled her eyes, clicking. “Who was the first one?” she said.

“Who you think?” Tarsi said in her oddly lilting patois. She clicked softly, too, even as a smile crept up her face. “...The Bridge. Only she quiet now. No smart mouth
now,
eh?”

Tarsi chuckled at her own words.

For some reason, Varlan found the old woman’s words amusing, too. He winked at Chandre as they passed, smiling at her as he clicked softly in humor.

Chandre followed after them, unsure if she should be irritated or appalled.

She glanced back at Yarli when the African seer slammed the door shut on the armored vehicle. Yarli took her place in the line entering the Tower, following Tarsi, with Stanley falling in behind her. Chandre saw a faint smile on the African woman’s face, too, and felt her own mouth and forehead tighten in frustration as she turned to watch Rig carry Allie through the dark doorway. She stepped into the line behind Tarsi, still watching the street, her gun gripped in her hand.

In front of her, the old woman walked carefully but steadily over the segmented pavement, guiding Varlan to skirt trash and broken bottles, looking both ways down the street without slowing, and altogether acting as if their location, the time of night and their current circumstances were the most natural and inevitable thing in the world.

Tarsi touched Dante’s cheek fondly as she passed through the door, and the kid grinned at her, looking like a teenaged scarecrow in her hoodie sweatshirt and too-large jeans cinched by that silver-studded leather belt. The belt looked more like a dog collar than an article of clothing to Chandre. Behind her, still holding Vikram by one shoulder, Stanley burst out in an involuntary-sounding laugh.

Ignoring him, Chandre smacked the kid, Dante, on the shoulder to get her to stop signing to Vikram and to go inside with the others. When the girl looked over with a scowl, Chandre met her gaze unflinchingly, motioning with her head for the kid to go through the opening––or else––even as she caught hold of the organic-paned door with one hand.

“Inside,” Chandre told her, her voice abrupt, but not harsh. Grunting, she motioned towards the door. “Don’t stand out here like some servant. You are wonder girl, are you not? Get inside, before someone decides to shoot you...or to not give you that car.”

“Yeah, right, like that would ever happen,” Dante snorted. “And hey, what’s with the manhandling? Vik’s one of the good guys. Where’ve you been?”

“Nothing can be certain anymore, little one.”

“Vik is,” she said, her voice holding a warning that time.

Chandre smiled, in spite of herself. “I hope you are right, cousin. I myself, I know very little these days. Now get your ass inside...or will you make me drag you?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Dante grinned.

“She just might,” Stanley muttered.

Chandre glared at him, feeling a surge of real anger. “You do think little of me, brother. This one is less than a cub...she is still a toddler!”

When Chandre turned that time, she scowled openly at the teenager. “Inside, or I will become like a human parent and spank you. Would you prefer that?”

“Whatever you’re into,” Dante said, rolling her eyes.

That time, Chandre felt her cheeks flush hot with fury, but when she looked at the young human, she saw her grinning at her. Just then, Vikram burst out in an involuntary laugh, too. When Chandre glared at him as well, he motioned her off with an apologetic wave.

“It is not you, sister...it is her. She embarrasses me in such ways all the time.” He gave Dante an affectionate smile. “Don’t be angry...she is just a cub.”

Still fuming, Chandre glared back at Dante.

Dante grinned at her, winking. “I didn’t say I’d mind,” she said, shaking her hair out of her face as she stared at Chandre defiantly. “...What are you so bent for? From what I hear, I’m exactly your type...right?”