Allegiance of Honor (27 page)

“That’s brilliant, Ivy.” Sascha’s eyes bled to pure black. “With Sophia alone, we have only guesswork, but if we can find a second mind that’s helping the Net to heal, we can compare similarities and differences.”

“But wouldn’t your Es have already spotted such sections?” Sahara pressed her fingers against her temples, as if she’d caught Ivy’s headache. “I first heard about Sophia from one of them.”

“I’m going to alert the entire Collective to be on the lookout,” Ivy said, already drafting that message in her head. “That might be enough to jar loose important memories—because if the area is small, an E might not have noticed except to think he or she felt good when passing by.”

Ivy hoped that was the case, because the other scenario was bleak: that Sophia’s was the solitary healthy area.

VASIC ARRIVED AT
the coordinates he’d been given by Miane Levèque to find himself on one of their floating cities. The BlackSea alpha was dressed in camouflage gear, her face painted with stripes of black and her above-shoulder-length hair scraped back into a small tail. There were five others with her, including a large male Vasic recognized as Malachai Rhys.

“Vasic.” Eyes softening, Miane touched her fingers lightly to his forearm. “Thank you for coming.”

He accepted the tactile gesture of sympathy with a quiet nod. “Where do you need to go?”

Miane held out her hand. On it was a small disk that she pressed down on to bring up a detailed hologram of an old pier. The battered sign at the end identified it as Edward’s Pier.

Vasic looked at the image, tried for a teleport lock, achieved it. “This is perfect. How did you get the original image?”

Miane and Malachai exchanged a look before seeming to decide to trust him. “We sent in a packmate who can shift into a snake—freshwater,” Miane said. “He’s unusual in that his snake form is relatively small. We took the risk that it wouldn’t set off any sensors calibrated for changeling water creatures.”

Vasic nodded, realizing they’d asked for a ’port because a bigger team couldn’t replicate that stealth sweep. “Let’s go.”

“It’s not dark there,” Miane said. “Your uniform—”

Vasic had touched a control on his shoulder as she spoke. It was usually located on the left wrist, but had been moved to the left shoulder for him. One touch and his uniform morphed into a camouflage pattern.

“Handy.” Malachai took in the change with interested eyes. “Want to share that tech?”

Vasic took the grease pot Miane held out, striped his face. “Talk to Aden.” He knew it was unlikely his friend and the leader of the squad would agree to it. Arrows still needed certain advantages and this technology was cutting edge, created by scientists the squad had saved from death and who now worked for the squad—not under duress, but because the squad gave them the funds and the freedom to explore their ideas.

Throwing the grease pot to one of Miane’s people who was dressed in civilian clothing and who had just finished checking the earpieces to be used by the incursion team, he said, “Move into a tight formation around me.” He could teleport the six-strong BlackSea team at one time, but only if they minimized the distances between their bodies. “I’m going to ’port us into the area between the trees to the left of the shot.”

It took three seconds for them to organize as he’d requested and then he was making the ’port. The team melted against the trees and into the long grasses the instant after arrival, and so did Vasic. They were good, Miane’s people. If he hadn’t known they were there, he might not have seen them immediately.

On his first visual scan, he saw nothing except the pier, along with scattered trees. The knee-high grasses waved in the breeze. There were no indications that their slender forms had been pressed down by the passage of even a single pair of feet. That didn’t rule out teleporters, but given that there were a limited number of teleport-capable Tks in the world, the possibility was low. Not negligible, however.

It was on his second visual sweep that he spotted something on the other side of the most open patch of grass directly beyond the pier. Making a sign for Miane to wait, he teleported to the site. It was what he’d suspected—a surveillance unit. A closer look showed it to be dead.

Taking it back to BlackSea, he pointed out the water damage and
ingrained dirt. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s bothered to maintain it.” As if this location had been abandoned.

Miane’s jaw tensed. “We still stay low, stay quiet, on alert.”

“Agreed.” He let the BlackSea team take the lead because he needed to be able to see everyone so he could pull them out if there was a problem. With them now spread out, he’d have to do it in bursts.

Two seconds after they began, the entire team froze at a gust of sound, but it was only waterfowl taking flight from the waterway beyond the old wooden pier.

It took an hour for them to move from their start position not far from the water’s edge and up along a line following the open strip on which there were no trees, only what appeared to be the kind of grasses and weeds that grew quickly on land that had been cleared by outside forces.

Miane clearly believed this had once been a dirt track. She was proven right when a couple of minutes after the hour mark, they turned a slight corner and came within visual sight of a squat man-made structure.

Vasic hadn’t asked for an earpiece to match those worn by the BlackSea team, now realized that had been a mistake. If he had one, he could’ve spoken to Miane, who was in the lead, told her it made the most sense for him to teleport there. Even as the thought passed through his head, the BlackSea alpha turned to look at him. She made a motion toward the structure.

He teleported, taking care to ensure he didn’t end up right next to the building but nearby. Then he made his way closer with painstaking focus, crawling there on his front. Having only one upper limb made the task a little more difficult, even given his Tk—this was a situation where one of Samuel’s prosthetics might’ve come in useful.

He knew they were too late the instant he saw the slightly open door, spotted the browned leaves piled in that narrow gap. Still, he took no risks. Retrieving a low-tech tool from a thigh pocket, a tool that was basically a slender piece of metal with a small angled mirror at the end, he used it to look inside the building.

All he saw were signs of neglect.

Including thick cobwebs that crisscrossed the space and couldn’t have been spun had anyone been moving in the area even a week earlier. He was too much an Arrow, however, to take it as a given that one empty room meant the entire structure was empty. Sliding away the mirror, he made his way around the side of the building and to the back. There was a small hole at the bottom that looked like damage caused by wear and tear.

Again, he used his tool to look inside.

More cobwebs.

The structure had no other rooms from what he could tell.

Lifting his hand, he waved Miane’s people over. They came in quiet as ghosts, but one look inside the structure and it was confirmed they were weeks, more likely months, too late.

“She
was
here,” Miane said, striding to a dusty corner and pointing to a green bracelet that appeared to have been forgotten there. “I saw her wearing this at our last Conclave.”

Vasic glanced at her. “Why aren’t you picking it up?” It should’ve been an instinctive act for a woman born in a tactile, emotional race.

“Because I’m hoping we can get a psychometric in here.” She looked at her people. “Everyone out. Let’s leave this place as clean as possible for the Ps-Psy, if we can get him.” Miane turned to Vasic. “Can you ’port me back to Lantia? I need to make some calls. The others will stay here and we can move them out on water transport now that we know this location is abandoned.”

Vasic got her to the floating city, said, “If you need someone to take the psychometric to the site, I’ll do it.”

“We’re starting to owe the Arrows far too many favors,” Miane said without heat. “Thank you. Now let me see if he’s willing to do this.”

•   •   •

VASIC
was both surprised and not when the Ps-Psy proved to be Tanique Gray. Anthony Kyriakus’s children had never been ordinary and, given their father, their rebel leanings were almost to be expected. Because he’d seen psychometrics at work before, Vasic kept Tanique within sight once
he’d ’ported Miane and the young male to the location of Leila Savea’s captivity, ready to get him to a medical unit should it be necessary.

He didn’t think Miane and the other changelings realized the cost of a Ps-Psy’s abilities. Likely because psychometrics were rare and tended to work mostly with museums and the like. That didn’t negate the danger; it simply kept it out of public view. The last emergency Vasic had heard of, had involved a Ps-Psy who’d been asked to verify the provenance of an old sword.

He’d been paid a considerable sum to handle the weapon because most psychometrics wouldn’t touch anything with a known history of violence. As it happened, the compensation could never have been enough. The Ps-Psy had managed to scream that the weapon had been used in a
recent
massacre before he stopped talking and started convulsing.

He was still in a high-dependency unit in a private medical facility. The chances of his waking up were slim, but he was kept alive because there
was
a chance, and Ps-Psy were valuable enough that no one wanted to squander the opportunity, should it exist.

Today he saw Tanique freeze to a stop on the floor of the main room, well before he reached the entrance to what must’ve been Leila Savea’s cell. The younger male’s muscles contracted, his hands fisting as his breathing turned ragged.

Vasic didn’t hesitate. He teleported the other man out of the building and into the trees just outside.

Miane spun around to face Vasic. “What the hell? He was getting something.”

“He was about to go into a seizure.” Shifting on his heel, Vasic walked to where he’d teleported Tanique.

Faith NightStar’s brother was bent over with his hands on his knees, his chest heaving as he sucked in gulps of air.

“What’s wrong with him?” Miane asked, but didn’t wait for an answer before pulling out a bottle of water from the pack of a nearby BlackSea soldier and walking over to put it by Tanique’s feet.

Vasic liked her better for the action, for her awareness that her packmate’s
life wasn’t the only one that held importance. Waiting until she’d returned to his side, he said, “A psychometric picks up echoes. The older the object, the duller the echo. The newer the object, the harsher and louder.”

Frowning, the BlackSea alpha said, “He wasn’t handling anything at the time.”

“Why do you think he took off his shoes before he went inside?” The building itself was an object and Tanique’s bare feet had been on a critical part of it.

Realization chilled Miane’s features. “Leila was tortured on that spot,” she said in a cold, hard voice. “And that kid relived it?”

That “kid” was a highly gifted psychometric who cost hundreds of thousands to the institutions that hired him. But yes, he “felt” young. Innocent. Enough that Vasic was compelled by the urge to protect him as he would young Arrows who were out of their depth. “We’ll find out soon.” Because Tanique was picking up the bottle of water and drinking.

“Is he sensing things from the bottle?” Miane frowned. “Shit, I didn’t even think about it hurting him.”

Vasic shook his head. “He can shield against his sensitivity to physical echoes the same way powerful telepaths can shield against the noise of the world.” Tanique had to deliberately lower his shields to sense anything from the objects around him.

“I’m glad for him.” Miane folded her arms. “It’d be hell to walk through life never knowing what object or place might send you right into a nightmare.”

The psychometric finished half the bottle, capped it, then came to stand opposite them, more on Vasic’s side than Miane’s. “Thank you,” he said to Vasic, his pupils still hugely dilated. “I’ve never been near such a recent violent event.”

Some might have been surprised by that, since Tanique was Anthony’s son and Anthony was known to be a ruthless operator. But Anthony didn’t think in terms of exploiting his family. He had to understand what Tanique’s ability demanded from him, must’ve ensured his son was never asked to take on tasks that could permanently compromise him.

Vasic inclined his head. “Did you pick up anything useful that might help us track the BlackSea changeling?” He’d phrased the question very deliberately so Tanique wouldn’t feel forced to detail Leila Savea’s torture.

That would help no one, and while Miane Levèque could put on the appearance of calm, Vasic knew she was changeling under the skin, had the same primal drives. There was no point in enraging her any further.

“Nothing,” Tanique said after shooting Vasic a grateful look. “I think I should focus on the doorway. Since it’s the only route by which they could’ve left, I stand a higher chance of picking up facts about their departure.”

“Wait.” Miane went as if to touch Tanique’s upper arm, dropped her hand partway. “Do you sense things from people, too?” she asked, though Vasic didn’t think that had been her original intention.

Tanique shook his head. “Only inanimate objects, though the size of the object doesn’t have a bearing on my ability. I have picked up echoes from trees in rare circumstances, but that’s about as close as I get to reading a living creature.”

“Good to know.” Miane accompanied them back to the doorway. “Did you pick up anything about the people who are keeping Leila captive? Are they Psy?”

Tanique took several seconds to reply. “You must understand,” he said at last. “What I see, I have to interpret. It comes in kaleidoscopic pieces in a massive rush . . . like I’m standing in a wind tunnel with images blowing past me at rapid speed, and those images are in splinters.”

The young male had left out a critical word: “emotion.”

That was the secret psychometrics had somehow managed to keep through Silence—that when they read an object, they felt the emotional resonance attached to it. It was why so many of them had switched to dating
only
paintings or other objets d’ art. Things that were highly unlikely to have an intimate history of violence. Weapons had been off the agenda for most Ps-Psy for far longer than the span of Silence.

“You’re telling me you can’t say anything with certainty?” Miane asked, and though she had to be fighting a brutal tumult of emotions, her tone
was even. “Without that clue about Edward’s Pier, we’d never have got this far.”

“It’s different with people,” Tanique said. “Especially when it comes to race. Unless a changeling shifted right at the moment I pick up, or a Psy used his or her ability in an obvious way, all I can give you are my impressions.”

Again, he was leaving out the impact of emotion. A holdover from when he’d had to hide that aspect of his abilities under Silence?