Allegiance of Honor (33 page)

Hawke nodded, his husky blue eyes holding the wolf’s hunger for the hunt. “BlackSea’s going
in.”

AS PER THE
plan he’d worked out with Miane’s team, Vasic teleported in alone to the compound that might hold the vanished BlackSea woman. The location he arrived in proved to be as perfect as the neighboring lynx pack had stated: a corner of the property swathed in shadows because of large trees the owners had probably left up in order to further shield the back of the property.

There were lights on the fence but they didn’t penetrate much deeper than a few feet. The house itself was only lit up in one discrete section. Between the house and this spot lay a large area of lawn and foliage. Teleporting right to the house would’ve been easier, but he had no way of knowing what security measures were in place; it was better to be patient than to set off a sensor.

Having pulled on his night-vision goggles, Vasic was calculating the best route to the house when he felt a telepathic scan pass over him.

Psy guards.

They wouldn’t have picked up his presence. Arrow minds were too well shielded—but this wasn’t a one-man operation. Miane hadn’t been arrogant about BlackSea’s involvement, had told him that if he could pull out Leila or any other captive on his own, then he was to do it. However, once Vasic did a scan of his own and realized the number of guards, he ’ported back to BlackSea’s floating city.

Then, he, Miane, and Malachai overhauled the plan in light of his reconnaissance. It took precious time and he could feel the changelings
straining inside their skin, but they forced themselves to remain calm and controlled. Every member of the team knew that this would be no empty substation in the wilderness but a heavily guarded fortress they’d have to breach with stealth.

“Close in,” Vasic said after everyone in the team had been briefed on the updated plan; he then teleported without delay.

The first part was simple—to get to the house without alerting or harming the perimeter guards. It would slow their progress but give them longer to search the property before an alarm was raised—because the instant that happened, if Leila was here, she might either be harmed or moved.

Upon arrival, the team split up as agreed and each individual made his or her way to certain points. Four of the changelings would remain outside, ready to pick off guards should they come running in from the perimeter in response to an alarm. Vasic was already using his telepathic abilities to conceal their presence from a psychic sweep.

He, Miane, and Malachai would go inside.

The plan was to do it as quietly as possible, to confirm this was the right place and these were the right people, before they made any lethal calls. There was, after all, a chance that the house was, in fact, occupied by a celebrity or plain old drug dealer or another individual with a need and/or desire for extreme privacy.

Psy bodyguards were all the rage in certain quarters.

In the darkness, the BlackSea people became ripples of black against black. Vasic saw them, but he was highly trained at night ops, and from what he could tell, most of the property’s guard complement was far from well trained. Good enough to guard an isolated home. Not good enough to spot men and women who knew how to move in the dark.

Part one went off without a hitch.

Meeting at the closest entrance, from beyond which Vasic could pick out no light, he and Malachai waited while Miane tried the old-fashioned door. It was locked. The BlackSea alpha pulled something out of a thigh pocket, used it on the door. The next time she twisted the handle, it opened. No audible alarms.

Instead of rushing inside, Vasic used a miniature low-beam flashlight to check for any electronic beams or signs the door was wired for a silent alarm.

Nothing.

The other two moved at his nod to clear the room; the three of them had worked out their responsibilities and tasks back on Lantia. Entering behind them, Vasic closed the door so it would remain a viable exit should Vasic be separated from the others and unable to ’port them to safety.

If no one knew they’d come this way, no one could lock it on them.

“It’s an office,” Malachai said in a near-subvocal whisper, his bulk behind the black wedge of a desk.

Flicking on a narrow-beam flashlight of his own, he ran it over the papers on the desk. “Shit, it’s all decades old. Must’ve been left here when the property went into foreclosure.”

That explained the leaves Vasic could feel underfoot, the damp in the air. “They didn’t bother to clean up this section.”

“Let’s go,” Miane said, already at the other door.

Vasic did a telepathic scan of the corridor beyond, indicated for them to go. He wouldn’t have sensed someone as highly shielded as himself, but he doubted there was anyone with that level of mental discipline here. He was proved right. The corridor was lined with a moth-eaten carpet and empty of all life. They went quicker now, checking any rooms they passed but aiming for the section of the house that had been lit up when they arrived.

Vasic caught the first hint of voices almost five minutes later; the sounds were followed by whispers of light. He and the changelings crept right to the edge of the light, listened. Vasic knew that if BlackSea changelings had the same level of hearing as terrestrial changelings, then Miane and Malachai had to be picking up far more than him, but he picked up enough.

“. . . on the road. Barring any unexpected delays, she’ll arrive at the drop-off point in twenty-four hours.”

“You’re sure she’s broken?” A male voice. “The damn fish held out forever.”

“Broken and ours,” confirmed the second speaker, a female. “All she needs is time to regain full physical health, and she’ll be primed and ready to hit whichever target we point her at.”

Vasic knew the three of them could’ve backed off, allowed this place to continue existing so they could use it to track down the other vanished, but that wasn’t the changeling way. They wouldn’t sacrifice one for the many. The squad functioned the same way.

“Male speaker is Psy, female is human,” he said in a tone so low he could barely hear himself. “First is protecting the mind of the second, and he’s strong enough that I’d have to kill him to neutralize him psychically. The backlash might take out the female.

“A telekinetic hit could put them out of commission, but there’s a slight risk the male will have a chance to blast a telepathic warning to his guards or to his superiors.” Telepathic communication was near impossible to block. “Do you want me to strike?”

Miane’s back was a furious line in front of him as she shook her head. “Mal.”

“Be easier if one or both moved this way.”

“Keep the human alive,” Miane ordered. “Psy is too high a risk.”

“I’ll get them out into the corridor,” Vasic warned before he teleported some distance back down the way they’d come and deliberately knocked over an old vase.

It didn’t take long for the Psy male to start down toward the noise. He was being stealthy, but he was focused on the origin point of the noise, far down the hallway. Vasic ’ported back in time to watch Malachai rise up behind him and snap his neck. Miane was already moving toward the room from which the dead male had come.

By the time Vasic walked in, she had the human female facedown on the ground, her knee on the other woman’s spine and the woman’s arms wrenched behind her back. Miane’s gun was pressed to the back of the woman’s head, explaining the woman’s silence.

A small communications unit lay on the ground. “She didn’t get out
an alert,” Miane said in a voice as cold as the frigid darkness at the bottom of the ocean.

Vasic was already in the human female’s mind, taking everything she knew about Leila Savea, the vanished, and the Consortium. It appeared the Psy male had bolstered her weak natural protections as well as extending his own shields over her, but with the latter gone, the former wasn’t difficult to disassemble without causing brain damage. “I have it,” he said quietly.

“Did she torture Leila?” Miane’s eyes were chips of black ice when she glanced at Vasic.

Vasic thought of what he’d seen in this woman’s mind, of how she’d taken pleasure in carving up Leila’s face while the changeling screamed, and knew this was no time for mercy. “Yes.”

The woman opened her mouth as if to beg or scream for help, but it was too late. Miane had slit her throat using a knife Vasic hadn’t seen her pull out. “Are there any others here?” the BlackSea alpha asked after wiping the blood on the back of the woman’s shirt and rising to her feet.

Vasic shook his head. “According to her memories, it was meant to be a long-term containment facility. Leila was the test subject. They moved her out this morning.”

Jaw a hard line, Miane said, “Let’s exit. Quietly as we entered. The longer the guards are in the dark, the longer we have to track down Leila without interference.”

Vasic got the entire team out without incident, then told Miane what else he’d discovered in the woman’s mind. “She was in charge of only Leila Savea.” Another example of the fragmentation practiced so effectively by the Consortium. “Her job was to break Leila and train her to follow orders, even if those orders were to kill.”

Interestingly, the torturer had believed herself equal to all others in the Consortium, which Vasic knew for a fact wasn’t true. The CEO the squad had captured previously had been in the innermost circle, part of the decision makers who held power over the more disposable pawns below.

However, those details he’d share later. Currently, only one thing was important. “Leila was taken away in an SUV with the following number plate.” He wrote it down for them. “Though the woman wasn’t meant to and didn’t know the final destination, one of the drivers slipped up and mentioned they were heading toward the Yukon.”

“Can we hack into the traffic systems?” Miane asked Malachai.

The big male nodded. “I’m on it, but even though we’re only searching a certain corridor, the country has a lot of uncharted roads that aren’t used enough to justify traffic surveillance. If I was doing something illegal, I’d stay on those uncharted roads—and if I did take the main highways, I’d do it at night and make sure my plates were too muddy for the scanners.”

Miane swore. “We need people looking for that SUV, but even if we alert all our people and the changeling packs our allies know, it won’t be enough. There aren’t enough of us.”

Malachai paused, blew out a quiet breath. “There are a lot more humans on the roads, including truckers who travel at night and everyday individuals who drive back and forth to their homes and work.”

Vasic could see Miane struggling with the decision she had to make. Send out a request across the Human Alliance network for information about the SUV and possibly find it—or have that information end up in the hands of the enemy, who’d either hide Leila once again . . . or eliminate her as too big a risk. The good news was that the latter would have to be a last resort: they’d put too much time and effort into her to discard her so quickly.

“I’ll talk to Bowen Knight,” Miane said at last, her hand fisted. “Request he ask his people to report any sightings of the vehicle.”

“It’s the best choice.” Malachai held his alpha’s gaze, his brown eyes appearing to glow as if backlit. “At least it gives Leila a shot before she’s forced to kill, because once she does, we won’t be able to bring her back. She isn’t built for that.”

“No, Leila is built for science and exploration and writing scholarly papers.” All but vibrating with anger, Miane stalked to the comm. “Bowen
Knight doesn’t need to know why I’m asking for this—I don’t trust him enough yet. I’ll bargain a favor for a BlackSea IOU.”

“Actually, the Alliance owes us one,” Malachai said. “I tipped Bowen off about an anti-human Psy cell we picked up on in Venice.”

His alpha paused midstep. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

“I was going to brief you, but then we heard about Leila’s message and it didn’t seem particularly important.” Malachai shrugged. “It was only a fringe group of fanatics, nothing major, but they were apparently planning to storm the Alliance offices with weapons.” He folded his arms. “Bowen confirmed our intel was right, thanked me. I told him one day, we’d call in the favor.”

Miane’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Sometimes, Mal, I think that brain of yours is a dangerous weapon. Good thing you’re on my side.” She input the call after Malachai moved out of the shot.

Vasic teleported home to Ivy before the call connected. His part was done. Leila Savea’s life now depended on countless pairs of human eyes.

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

November 3, 2076

Nina,

I’ve crossed many borders in the past year, somehow ended up making a home in San Francisco. I have a church, a congregation. They call me Father Xavier. It felt too big a thing at first, the respect inherent in it unearned, but I’ve come to accept my place here.

I may be but a humble man from a distant mountain village—but in this big city, there are many broken souls who need solace. I attempt to provide it, even as I fight my own demons, fight my own anger.

I’m no longer surprised when I find Psy sitting in the pews. They used to leave when they saw me, as if afraid I’d turn them in for believing, but now sometimes, they stay and we talk. I was such a fool before, Nina, thinking they weren’t people but automatons. There is nothing that separates us but a twist of biology—they have psychic abilities and we don’t. That is the only difference. Beneath the skin, they are as human as you or I.

My Psy friend though, he’s as different from the parishioners as a rabbit is from a bird of prey. He is always in such control, so cold. Frigid as ice, until it would be easy to believe that he is an unfeeling robotic killer. Yet I’ve seen this man take a bullet to protect a child.

Heroes, I’ve learned, don’t always wear white.

Sometimes they come from the darkness, shadows among shadows.

Your Xavier