Allie's War Season One (131 page)

They couldn’t even be bothered to use their violence in the cause of seer rights. They’d thrown their lot in with the great oppressors instead, embracing the human expansion by profiting off its worst excesses.

Balidor told her the Rooks had been well-connected there, back when the Pyramid still existed. Part of that was pure geography, though. The 8th was as close as the Rooks could get to Seertown legally and still not break treaty.

Cass was still watching Balidor’s face when the shots came.

Two of the nearby Adhipan dropped at once, ducking behind cover to return fire. Balidor grabbed Cass’ wrist before she could turn her head.

He dragged her into a small grove of trees, pushing her up against a wide trunk. He held his gun but did not fire, shielding her with his arm and holding her against the thickest part of the tree. She touched her own gun, but he gave her a warning look, taking her hand off the holster.

More protection. He didn’t want to be responsible for killing the Bridge’s human. It occurred to her also that he might not be firing to disguise their numbers. She’d heard the seers talk often enough to know they did their best to obscure their forces in one direction or the other in most engagements.

So she stood there, wincing whenever bullets struck near enough to throw up chunks of wood. She watched Balidor’s face. He still held her against the trunk with one arm, using hand-signals to communicate with the other seers.

Then he froze, as if listening.

Cass saw shapes whisper by them, running down the hill so fast they looked like ghosts. She watched two in the Adhipan run after them. Balidor hesitated, then gave her a fleetingly apologetic look. He leaned his mouth by her ear.

“Find cover...don’t go into Seertown. And be careful! I don’t feel any more, but don’t stay here...go higher. I’m leaving Pradaj with you.”

Kissing her on the cheek, he ran down the slope after the others.

She saw him briefly silhouetted as he ran off the edge of a small cliff. She heard a faint crashing sound as tree branches swayed in the ravine below.

The sounds receded. When she glanced to one side, she saw Pradaj, another middle-aged seer, but a bit more beat up than Balidor. His dark face was scarred, and he looked East Indian. She raised a hand in greeting and he smiled wanly in return, as if amused with her wave in the aftermath of a gunfight.

She was about to speak, when a shot rang out.

Pradaj collapsed. Falling to his back, he lay there and didn’t move.

Cass stood there, paralyzed for a few seconds more as she stared at his body, realizing he’d been shot in the head. He’d been dead instantly...gone before she could emit so much as a sound.

Out of nowhere came a voice.

“Men,” it said, clicking ruefully. “They’re just not reliable, are they?”

Cass turned, feeling something twist in her belly. She found herself facing a smile she recognized, on a face she didn’t.

“Your friend Chandre wouldn’t have left you in the lurch like this,” he said, pointing his gun at her chest. “...would she?”

Cass felt her belly knot so violently her bowels nearly voided. She gripped the tree’s trunk, staring at a face she’d never seen before, but that she recognized nonetheless. The Asian man smiled at her, his black hair twisted into a clip at the back of his head. His trench coat was stained white with ash and smoke.

“How are you, Cassandra? You’re looking well.”

She fumbled frantically to unholster her Glock.

“Uh, uh...no.” He motioned with his hand.

She looked down to where his gun already pointed at her.

He waited for her to make up her mind, smiling as he studied her eyes.

“We’re old friends now, you and I,” he said. “...and while we could do this the usual way, with me shooting you, or overpowering your feeble worm mind, I’d rather have you see reason.” His voice grew cajoling.

“...Lose the gun, lover. I won’t hurt you this time. Promise.”

Staring at his hand holding the gun, she tried to disobey. She would rather be dead than go anywhere with him. But her hand wouldn’t do what she wanted, and she found herself staring at him, fighting to breathe, nearly gasping with the effort of trying to lift the gun higher, to aim it at him.

He’d been lying of course, like he always lied.

He was in her mind, controlling her; it was all just another one of his twisted games.

He reached out, closing his hand around the Glock.

He took it from her, his fingers surprisingly gentle. Cass watched her gun disappear to an inside pocket of his coat, feeling every nerve in her body scream. Adrenaline coursed through her limbs, causing them to shake. She wanted to attack him, to rip at his face with her bare hands.

He clicked at her, and it held a tinge of amusement.

“Give me the book, Cassandra,” he said.

Reaching into the bag slung across her shoulder, she opened it, her hands shaking. After a brief battle between her limbs and mind and heart, she gripped the thick, leather-bound book and handed it to him wordlessly.

“Good girl,” he said. “Now turn around. We’re going for a little walk.”

For another collection of seconds, she struggled to disobey.

She was still standing there, half-panting from the exertion, when a massive form appeared from behind the largest of the nearby trees.

Cass looked up at him, doubting her senses.

The giant put a thick finger to his pink lips. Black eyes stared at her from a flat, broad, Asian-featured face with pale skin. He looked like a Viking...a half-Chinese albino Viking wearing animal skins, with some kind of fancy organic headset wrapped around his skull. She focused on the Viking’s hands.

He carried what looked like...

Holy bejeesus, it was a sword.

She was still staring when the Viking plunged the four-foot, serrated blade through the middle of this new Terian’s abdomen.

Cass could only stand there, paralyzed, as Terian screamed, lifted off his feet by the sword with the jagged teeth. The giant cut him nearly in half, using the sword to slice up through his rib cage and solar plexus. The blade got jammed on something around where his neck met his shoulders, but the giant grunted, shaking the body like a dog might shake a rat.

Shoving the body forward to brace it with a tree, he yanked upwards to free the blade. Whatever Terian had been using to hold Cass released her the instant the sword vacated his flesh.

Right about the same time, he stopped screaming.

What remained of Terian collapsed to the ground.

Cass watched it twitch, still spurting blood in a few places...until the blood stopped too.

She looked up at the giant.

For a moment, the two of them just stood there.

Then, reaching down, the giant picked up the leather-bound book and brushed it off with his thick fingers. Smiling, he handed it back to Cass. He patted her head affectionately, gesturing at her upper arm. Cass looked down at where the blue and white sword and sun tattoo stood out on her tanned skin, the skin still reddish as it healed.

Lifting his own shirt sleeve, the giant showed her a replica of the same mark only as a brand, not a tattoo...and much older. Glancing between the burn on his arm and the sword and sun on her own skin, Cass felt herself relax.

The albino motioned at her with his head and arm.

Making the seer gesture for ‘yes,’ she tucked the leather-bound book back into her shoulder bag, fastening the leather straps.

Without a word, she followed him into the trees.

BALIDOR STOOD INSIDE a circle of white-skinned trees. Moss-covered statues lined a path of white stones dotted with cairns and granite benches. The garden beneath the House on the Hill was almost as old as the structure itself.

It had started to rain. One of those late-in-the-day summer storms that were so common in this part of the Himalayan foothills.

Gregor Cardesian, the United States Army general the Americans called “The Apostle” chose the location. Balidor found it an odd one, but this had been a day of things he couldn’t comprehend. Exhaustion was starting to wear on him, and he knew most of it wasn’t physical. He let his gaze run over lines of blue and camouflage uniforms, only half-seeing them.

He shouldn’t have left Cass.

He’d come in at Vash’s request. He understood the request, given what had happened, but he didn’t fully agree with it. He’d sent a few of his people to the 8th to ascertain the severity of the situation, but of those who weren’t dead or injured from the carpet bombing, he’d sent the majority to find Allie and her mate.

His eyes paused on burning strings of prayer flags over one section of the garden. Looking up the hill at the blackened, white-trunked trees and ash-filled sky, Balidor found that the gardens looked ancient to him suddenly.

So did Vash.

The Apostle parted lines of infantry, gazing perfunctorily around at fires dotting the water-logged buildings of Seertown. He’d gotten the name “Apostle” in the last set of seer purges. It struck Balidor that even if he had been an extremely young man at the time, that put Cardesian northward of seventy human years.

He looked a great deal less. His iron-gray hair managed to remain absolutely in place to spite the wind and rain; his close-set eyes sparked with intelligence, and not a small amount of arrogance.

Ignoring Vash, the Apostle strode directly to Balidor.

He laid long fingers on his shoulder and squeezed in a friendly manner.

“It is good to see you, Mr. Balidor,” he said. “I do wish that the circumstances were less...formal.”

Balidor sighed internally at the implication that he should feel honored to be so singled out. Human politics were so heavy-handed as to be entirely obnoxious...at least when he couldn’t afford to find them amusing.

“Formal?” he said. “I think we can preclude with pleasantries, Cardesian. Your presence alone violates at least three post-war treaties. As for the bombing—”

“We didn’t do that.”

Balidor raised an eyebrow. “Really? So those weren’t American planes I saw dropping bombs just now...killing old men and children?”

The Apostle frowned, removing his hand.

“I see that your species’ penchant for dramatic overstatement hasn’t lessoned.” He looked around, as if assessing the location anew. “We have a few choppers nearby. We came to offer assistance...”

“Assistance?” Balidor looked at Vash.

The ancient seer stood unconcerned, despite his bound wrists.

Near him stood three seers Balidor recognized. There weren’t many at their level he didn’t know, no matter who they worked for. One, Eldrake, he remembered in particular. He’d worked under Galaith since the time of the Nazis. Balidor ran into him a few times in Eastern Europe, including at the death camps.

“Yes,” Balidor said. His eyes swiveled back to Cardesian. “Your intentions seem perfectly friendly. That’s why you have bound and collared the most respected holy man in our city.” He gestured pointedly at the lines of troops. “And pardon my asking...but if they were not
your
American planes, whose American planes were they, General?”

“We’re working on that.”

“What does that mean, precisely?”