Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (84 page)

Balidor told me he’d been courted by the Adhipan too, but had declined out of respect for his parents, who apparently hadn’t wanted him to be disappeared into the caves of the Pamir for however-many years.

Honestly, that made me kind of like him, too.

He was on the List, too, the seer one…and as a Level 1, which is part of why I’d known his name so well from recruitment meetings. There had been some discussion about relocating him and his mate to be with the main group of Listers since there were legitimate fears he might be gunned down if anyone found out who and what he was.

We didn’t have a lot of seer Level 1s.

Six in total, which was more than the other two lists, but still not a lot.

Wreg and Balidor were two of them, along with Jasek and a female seer they thought was still in China somewhere. We didn’t have a location on the last two, although they’d both been born in the Americas...one in South America and one in North America...and both were female. No one in our group had recognized either of their names, as far as I knew.

We’d noticed a lot of sex-pairing like that. Only two humans had the Level One designation on the human List, Jon and Dante, so one male and one female. The Level Ones on the intermediary List were the Four––me, Revik, Feigran and Cass––so two and two.

And yeah, with the seer List, it was three and three.

Brushing that from my mind, I looked out the long window to my right and the view of Hyde Park, which looked wilder than I remembered, more overgrown.

It was strange to be back in London. I found myself fighting not to think about the first time I’d come to this city…or how close we were right now, relatively speaking, to Revik’s old apartment just off Belgrave Square.

I agreed with Dalejem, though.

This was our third hit on the map, and the third dead body.

It was also the third time we’d come up with diddly-squat in terms of new intel.

The first body we’d found, that of Eddard, had been the most unnerving in a way, if only because I’d known him a little. Seeing his dirty brown eyes open, the irises already turning a milky color, his thinning brown hair even more limp than I remembered over his bland and now blank features…it was like seeing a broken doll version of someone I knew. I think I stood over him the longest, just staring down at him, trying to even see him as real.

At that point, it hadn’t yet felt like a pattern.

Both Dalejem and I had assumed we must have simply gotten there too late, like we had with Novak. The glowing dots on the map continued to glow for about an hour after we arrived…so well after the network seer was dead…then it shifted on to the next one.

So whatever shut off the one light and ignited the next had to be tied to us, not to the death of the seers themselves. That, or it got triggered by the murder scene breach, although we hadn’t been able to find any kind of tripwire or sensor to indicate how he might have done it.

Dalejem pointed out that the map itself pointed to some kind of Barrier-slash-satellite technology, but even with his mad skills with organics, Jem hadn’t been able to source it back far enough to know how it actually worked.

We had to assume Dragon knew exactly where we were right now, though.

Unlike us with him.

“Is the next one showing yet?” I said.

Dalejem nodded, clicking under his breath. Giving me a grim look, he used his mind to point out the new brighter dot on the map, even as he blew out the projection, showing me a more detailed map of the physical coordinates.

Cairo.

Fuck.

That would be a lot harder.

More and more, I was with Dalejem. This was a wild goose chase. At best, Dragon was getting his jollies leading us around by the nose, leaving us his morbid little breadcrumbs for reasons I couldn’t fathom at all. At worst, he was distracting us from what was going on in China right now, as well as the bases we’d left behind in Colorado and Langley.

I exhaled, fighting that nagging feeling that we were missing something, that we weren’t looking at this right. The variables were starting to mess with my head. This stupid map. The missing book. Dragon. Feigran and his crazy visions. Whatever Revik had been feeling while we were looking at this stuff on the ship.

I was still turning it all over in my mind when I frowned.

“Why would he do this?” I said.

“What do you mean?” Jem said.

“I mean why bother with this at all,” I said, frustrated. “Why one body at a time? We already know Shadow’s got whole warehouses of these somewhere…so this wouldn’t do shit, right? I mean, if he’s not going after the storage area for the bodies themselves, then what good is killing one body going to do?”

Jem shrugged, his eyes flat. “We already know he’s not stable,” he said.

“But this has a purpose,” I said, frustrated. “You know it does.”

“Crazy people can have plenty of purpose,” Jem said. “They can have elaborate, well thought out purpose. They are still crazy, Alyson.”

“Did anyone ever look through that book for parallels to the network?” I said.

Seeing the blank look on Dalejem’s face, I realized I’d still only shared about half of my thoughts with him.

“…The book Kali found. Dragon’s book.”

Dalejem frowned. “I thought your husband did that. And Balidor.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t know anything back then,” I said. “That was in New York, and we didn’t even know Menlim was a part of this then.” I studied his face. “The Children of the Bridge had the book for years. Did anyone ever check to see if there were resonances or structural similarities between the material in the book and the network itself? Even the Pyramid?”

Jem gave me a strange look. “Structural similarities? What kinds of structural similarities?”

Realizing I hadn’t included him in that part of my thought processes either, I sighed. I was too used to working with Revik on this stuff. He was usually about ten steps ahead of me when it came to anything semi-dimensional, especially structural design.

Jem let out a low grunt.

“Yeah,” he said. “Whereas I’m about twenty behind.”

“I didn’t mean that,” I said, my voice carrying a thread of impatience. “…And hardly. It’s just different when you’re bonded.”

Jem nodded, but I saw his jaw harden.

Shrugging, I added, “Anyway, Revik’s a total weirdo with this stuff. His brain is like…wired for it. Even he will admit that…assuming he’s not doing one of his ‘playing dumb’ things, which he does a lot more than you might think.” Clicking, I gave Jem a grim smile, adding, “He’s disturbingly good at it. Which makes sense, given how he was raised…but yeah, disturbingly good. A little too good, honestly…”

Seeing Jem looking at me again, his eyes holding a faint scrutiny now, I flushed.

Clearing my throat, I gestured up at the network diagram.

“I meant similarities in terms of the equations listed in the book, brother,” I said, extending the politeness to my tone. “Mathematical interpretations of the drawings. Your people knew more about the larger Dreng network back then…more than we did in New York, for sure.”

Jem’s green eyes studied my face. “Do you think they are connected in some way? Dragon’s book and Shadow’s network?”

I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. But given Feigran’s insistence that we find that damned book, I thought there
might
be a connection.”

“I thought he wanted to find it for Dragon,” Jem said.

“Yeah,” I said patiently. “But why does Dragon want it?”

Jem didn’t answer at first. After a longer pause, he nodded.
 

“All right, Esteemed Bridge,” he said. “But let us say they are related, as you suggest. How does that help us, exactly?”

I sighed, my hands on my hips. I glanced out the floor to ceiling windows, noting that smoke was now coming from one of the buildings I could see to the north.

“Dunno,” I confessed, still watching the plume of smoke. “But I want to know why Dragon went to so much effort to get that book back. I can only think of three possibilities.” I ticked them off with my fingers as I spoke. “He wants to destroy it, he needs something that’s in it.” Pausing, I added, “…Or he thinks someone else needs what’s in it.”

“Like us,” Jem said, his voice wary.

I shrugged. “Or like Shadow,” I said.

Feeling Jem’s scrutiny intensify once more, I bit my lip. For a few seconds, I fought back and forth with whether to say it, then finally did.

“I think until we know that, meaning what the point is of killing these individual bodies…and what the book means…following this map is a waste of time,” I confessed. “I think we should probably stop. At least until we have a better idea of what he’s doing.”

“You want to go to China,” Jem said, watching me shrewdly. “You want to go there instead of Cairo.”

I shrugged, conceding his words with a wave of my hand. “Yes.”

Dalejem sighed, clicking softly.

He moved his arm, but the projection remained stable, shifting trajectories from the wristband to continue to show the network diagram. Feeling some of the different things skirting the surface of his light, I cut him off before he could go there.

“Dragon was manipulating her,” I reminded him. “…Novak. Just like Menlim did with Revik. That’s what Dragon wanted me to see. That’s why he left that recording for me. That, and he wanted me to know the book was his.”

Jem pressed his lips together, not answering at first. He seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything at all, then blew air out his lips, motioning sharply.

“So?” he said.

“So, I disengaged Revik from Menlim,” I said.

“What does that mean?” Jem said, staring at me.

His eyes still held scrutiny but I could feel that frustration there again. I realized it was because he still wasn’t following my train of thought as well as he’d like, even now.

“It means I don’t think Menlim had access to Revik’s mind in Dubai…not directly,” I said, exhaling. “Which means someone else did. Which means the words might not have been aimed at Revik at all. Or if they were––”

But Dalejem whistled, catching up all at once.

“You think Dragon’s the fucking trigger?” He stared at me, his eyes holding an open incredulity.
“Gaos,
Allie…how long have you believed this?”

I shrugged, shoving my hands in my pockets.

“Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” he said.

“Because I don’t know who’s
listening,
Jem,” I said, sharper than I intended. Realizing how that sounded, I rubbed my forehead with a hand. “I don’t mean you,” I clarified. “I mean Dragon…Revik…Menlim. I don’t know who has access to us right now.”

Dalejem didn’t look offended. “I understand.”

There was a silence where we both just stood there, then Dalejem stepped closer, curling his hand around my upper arm. He lowered his head, sliding his other arm around my waist.

“Let’s get out of here, Allie,” he murmured, nuzzling my face.

I let out a disbelieving laugh. “Jesus, Jem…really?”

“Yes,” he replied, no defensiveness in his voice as he met my gaze. “Let’s get out of here…find food. Fuck. Sleep. Then we’ll talk about what to do next.”

I shook my head, clicking at him, but he tugged on my arm, bringing me closer.

“Allie,” he said, softer still. He pushed hair out of my face, tucking some of it behind my ear. He caressed my jaw with his fingers. “I want to talk about this some more…but not here. Jasek’s people can provide us with a real construct here. Let’s take advantage of that. Maybe even get some rest.” Feeling resistance on me, he kissed my cheek, murmuring. “You haven’t slept in forty-eight hours. Let me help you crash, at least.”

He quirked an eyebrow, still watching my eyes.

“I’ll give you a foot rub,” he offered. “And a back rub, if you ask nicely…along with other various…parts…”

I turned over his words.

Or maybe more the meaning I felt behind them.

Despite the flirting, he was worried about me. He thought I was burning out.