Blaze of Memory

CHAPTER 51

Swallowing tears, Katya picked up his cell phone and input a number she’d found embedded in her memory.

Ming’s voice was an ice-cold blade at the other end. “Councilor LeBon.”

“I have him,” she whispered, letting her desperation, her fear, her anguish flood her mind.

A pause. “This is unexpected.” The crawling brush of fingers slithering over her mind. “A double cross, Ekaterina? I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”

Nausea roiled as those fingers probed and violated. “I want to live.” She kept her thoughts mired in the torment she’d felt the instant Dev understood what she’d done. “You promised you’d release me if I delivered Devraj Santos.”

“I ordered you to kill him.”

“I thought you’d prefer him alive if you could get him that way.” The fingers retreated from her mind, but she didn’t breathe a sigh of relief.

“True.” Another pause. “Where are you?”

She gave him the coordinates. “There are sharpshooters waiting for you.”

“I see that. Since I’m without a teleporter at the moment, I’ll drive to you. Wait for further instructions.”

Hanging up, Katya dropped her forehead to Dev’s, wanting to sob but knowing she couldn’t indulge the need. Instead, she shifted back into the driver’s seat and took a deep breath, feeling her chest muscles strain against the pressure. Her fingers trembled on the steering wheel, but it wasn’t from fear. She was losing more and more pieces of her body, her self.

The cell phone rang seven minutes later.

“Drive out of your current location,” Ming told her. “There’s an empty lot ten blocks to the left.”

“I’m on my way.” Closing the phone, she started up the engine and headed out into the late evening darkness. Dev’s phone rang almost immediately. She knew it was his team, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

She snapped the phone open. “Change of plans,” she said to Aubry. “We’ve been directed to another meeting point.”

“Where? I need to get my men to—”

She gave him the coordinates to a location ten minutes from the correct one. “Hurry.”

“Give the phone to Dev.”

Knowing the other man would never believe anything else she said, Katya hung up. And drove like a bat out of hell, certain Aubry and his people wouldn’t be able to get to their vehicles fast enough to follow her.

She screeched into the empty lot behind a huge warehouse less than five minutes later. Ming’s dark sedan was waiting for her, the windows opaque. Bringing her car to a stop beside it, she got out, her left leg shaky but still capable of keeping her upright. And her fingers . . . they were strong enough to complete this.

The back window lowered to reveal Ming’s face. “I have to admit,” the Councilor said, “given what I glimpsed in your memories, I would have expected you to have turned traitor.”

“I want to live.” Repeating her earlier words, she folded her arms as Ming’s driver/bodyguard got out—pinning her with a cool stare from the other side of the car.

“Your memories didn’t come back early enough,” Ming mused, looking at her as if she were an experiment. “Unfortunate that you were handicapped for such an extended period. The amnesia was only meant to give you a cover long enough for them to trust you.”

She ignored his words. “You said you’d be able to fix me.”

Ming leaned back in his seat. “You’ve left it too late. There’s no way to repair the damage.”

“Stop it advancing then.”

Ming spoke to the driver. “Get the Shine director.”

As the Arrow—and the driver was unquestionably part of the Council’s most lethal private army—came around the front of Ming’s sedan, Katya said, “Stop.”

Of course he didn’t. She turned to Ming, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise as the Arrow reached Dev’s side of the vehicle. “You lied, didn’t you?” she asked, letting him hear her anger. “You were never going to be able to undo what you did to me. The shield is unbreakable.”

“Yes, and as the lines of programming are linked directly to it—ah, you didn’t know that.”

“I was dead the moment you took me.”

“You did well, Ekaterina.” Pincers closing around her brain. “If I’d known you’d prove this useful, I wouldn’t have anchored the shield in your brain, but what’s done is done.”

And now, she thought, hearing the Arrow push back Dev’s door, it was time for her to die. “You know, Ming,” she said, as a line of wet trickled out of her ear, as her left leg began to spasm, “I’m really not as stupid as you think.” Bringing out the sleek little gun hidden in her lower back, she shot him in the head.

A solid thump sounded from behind her. . . the impact of a body hitting the ground.

Blood covered her, having spurted through Ming’s open window, but her attention was elsewhere. “Dev?”

“He’s down. Stunned.” Getting out of the passenger seat, Dev ran to her. “Damn it to hell, Katya, he could’ve—”

She shook her head, dropping her gun hand to her side. “No. Part of me always knew it had to be a lie. You can’t undo a trap that severe.”

Something flickered on the other side of Ming’s vehicle.

“Get in the car!” Shoving her inside, Dev crashed in behind her. As he spun them out of the lot and away, the car reacting unbelievably fast, she turned to look.

Ming’s car had somehow collapsed inward, as if someone had crumpled the frame like so much paper. “Dev?” she whispered.

“Turns out that frame had some metal in it” was his cryptic answer. “How many men teleported in?”

“Four.” She could see them silhouetted against the New York skyline. All were wearing the unrelieved black of the Arrow Squad. The fact that they were still at Ming’s vehicle as Dev’s car disappeared around the corner made her jaw tighten. “Ming’s not dead.”

Dev hung up the phone, meeting Katya’s eyes as she sat on their bed, her arms locked around raised knees. “You’re right, the bastard survived.” DarkRiver’s Psy contact had come through again. It made Dev wonder how high up in the superstructure that contact was, but he wasn’t idiotic enough to jeopardize the man’s cover by asking too many questions.

“I shot him in the head.”

“He has the devil’s luck.” Climbing onto the bed, he sat with his legs bracketing her, his hands cupping her face. “The bullet blasted through and straight out the other side, along the very top of his skull. He’s unconscious but predictions are he’ll make a full recovery.”

“Will it all come back on you? On Shine?”

“No, baby.” He moved his body closer around hers, hating to see her like this, so quiet, so shattered. “This is simply another chapter in a war we’ve been fighting since my ancestors dropped from the Net. It’s just out in the open now.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Yes.” He could still remember the sheer panic he’d felt at being trapped in the car while she stood so close to Ming. “You weren’t supposed to actually knock me out.” The dose had been small—he’d started to come out of it even as they peeled out of the first meeting spot, but the injector had been meant to be empty.

“Because I know how thorough Ming is,” she said, her fingers curling into his T-shirt right over his heart. “He’d never have missed that. I had to make him think I’d pulled off the ultimate double cross, made you believe I cared for you . . . then delivered you up to save my own life.”

“And he’s so sure of his power, he didn’t bother to look beyond the surface.”

“No.” A tight smile. “I’m nothing to him—he can’t comprehend that I might have a mind of my own.”

He locked his arms behind her, his fingers clenched. “Where did you get the gun?”

She’d wondered when he’d ask her that question. “Guess.”

“My grandmother.”

“Yes.” Katya had expected an immediate “no” to her request. Instead Kiran Santos had looked into her eyes for a long moment before reaching into her purse and retrieving the weapon. “At first, I couldn’t believe she trusted me, then I realized it’s you she trusts.” She spread her fingers over his heartbeat. “Will you tell me about why locks open for you?”

“Figured that out, did you?” A lighthearted comment, and yet his soul went cold. Because if she was asking him for secrets . . . “No.”

“Please—I’m so curious.”

And because he could deny her nothing, he told her about his affinity to metal. “At first, it was just metal. I could sense it, feel it, taste it. The chill of it keeps me calm when everyone else is exploding.” Except with her. Never had it worked with her. “As I grew older, I found I could manipulate objects with metallic components, like deadbolts.”

“Did it develop further?”

“This year,” he said, “I’ve begun to ‘connect’ with machines that have very few metallic components—I’m talking a single circuit. I can now command computers on a basic level, such as those in cars. In time, I might literally be able to ‘talk’ to much more sophisticated systems—Glen and Connor think it’s possible I could grow beyond the need for metal altogether.”

“Extraordinary,” she whispered. “You’re developing the ability to interface with machines on the mental level.” For an instant, the pain receded from her voice as the scientist took over. “It’s a skill specific to the technological age.”

“That’s what the docs say.” Releasing the death grip he had on his own hands, he cupped the back of her head, stroked her nape. “Want to see a cool trick?”

A little nod, weak, too weak. Pain shot along his jaw, down his spine, but he didn’t let the emotions out, didn’t break when she needed him to stay strong. “Watch.” Focusing, he drew metal to him.

“Oh!” Katya ducked as a small metal sculpture attached itself to his arm. “You’re magnetic?”

“No.” He pulled the sculpture off, placing it on a nearby table. “Though the effect is the same. You should see me with spoons.”

A smile that tried so hard to hold on. But he knew. “Katya?”

“I’m so sorry, Dev.” She blinked in a rapid burst. “I can’t feel my lower legs anymore.”

His entire body jerked. “No. Not yet.”

“Not yet,” she agreed. She couldn’t let him go. “We don’t have to worry about any other embedded compulsions—I’m not strong enough to be dangerous.”

“Ming?” A single harsh word.

“As long as Ming’s unconscious, his Arrows won’t be able to find me. He did too good a job of hiding me.” She’d been his pet project, his little perversion. “But when he wakes—”

Dev kissed her, halting her words. She surrendered, more than willing to delay the inevitable. Just a few more days, she thought, a few more hours with this man she adored to the deepest core of her soul.

Dev wanted only to hold Katya every second of every minute, but the director of the Shine Foundation didn’t have that luxury. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he told her the next morning as she lay curled up on the sofa in the sunroom of his Vermont home.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” She glanced toward the hallway. “Your friend Connor will be here.”

“I can’t leave you alone when you’re so getting so weak,” he said. “Don’t ask me to.”

“According to your grandmother, I should disagree with you on principle, but you already have bags under your eyes.” Lifting a hand, she placed her fingers on his pulse in that way she had. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

He kept that promise close to his heart as he walked out the door. Cutting the travel time short by using a jet-chopper instead of driving, he arrived in New York twenty minutes later. His first task was to check in with Cruz. He’d talked to the boy on his cell phone a couple of days back, but it was good to see that dimpled smile on-screen.

“He’s even starting to like me,” Tag said when Dev transferred over to Cruz’s current guardian.

“You okay on your own?”

“Cruz is behaving. And Ti’ll be back after the meeting today.” A pause. “Good luck, man.”

Dev knew he’d need that luck as he walked into the meeting. With Jack having withdrawn his appeal for Silence, the fractious situation within the Forgotten had calmed, but it was by no means over.

“I can’t stop any of you who want to practice some kind of conditioning,” he now said to the men and women around the meeting table. “But here’s what I think—we found a way to help William, could be, we find a way to help the others, too.”

“Lot of coulds and maybes, Dev.”

He met Tiara’s distinctive eyes. “Case-by-case situation.” He’d thought this over, would go to the floor to save his people. “And Aubry had a point—can you honestly tell me you’d be happy living a life where you didn’t spend half of it teasing Tag? Jesus Christ, his balls must be fucking purple by now.”

“Way past,” Aubry muttered. “I’m pretty sure the pitiful things are about to fall off.”

Tiara’s cheeks went red as several people around the table snickered. But she wasn’t one to back down. “Since when are you interested in other men’s balls, Aubry? Something we should know, hmm?”

Another round of snickers as heads turned toward Aubry.

“Look at us,” Dev said, rescuing his second-in-command, “we’re on opposite sides and still able to laugh about it. That doesn’t happen with the Psy.”

A few nods, troubled glances. “But Dev,” another woman, a solid member of the board, said, “this is the tip of the ice-berg. What if we can’t find a way forward?”

“The Forgotten have always been known for their courage under fire. We will find a way.” He had to believe that—not only for his people, but for his Katya. “I’d like to read you all something,” he said. “This is a letter that my great-great-grandmother wrote to her son. She was an M-Psy, her husband a foreseer. It’s dated November eighth, 1984.”

He waited to ensure everyone was listening. “‘Dearest Matthew, ’ ” he read, “ ‘We buried your father today. Do you know what his last words were to me? “Damn stubborn woman.” ’ ”

A ripple of restrained laughter.

He continued reading. “ ‘You better believe it. I wasn’t going to leave my husband behind when the Council’s murderers came after us, no way, no bloody how. We only had two more years together, but those two will last me a lifetime.

“ ‘So now you know—you come from the stubbornest stock this side of the equator. No one is going to stop your star from shining.’ ” Putting the page on the table, he met each gaze in turn. “Zarina buried her husband, and still she fought for her children’s right to be free. How can we do any less?”

The meeting disbanded an hour later, with the unanimous agreement that they’d make no move toward any kind of a Silence program. The Forgotten had fought too long, and too hard, to give in this easily.

Dev called Katya on the comm panel as soon as he was able. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Her lips curved. “Connor brought me a smoothie—he said you threatened to cut his legs off at the knees if he forgot.”

“Damn straight.” Heart a forever ache in his chest, he simply looked at her for a long moment. “I should be home around eight tonight.”

“How did the meeting go?”

He’d stopped hiding things from her the instant he’d understood the truth, understood how little time he had to share his world with this extraordinary, beautiful woman. “There are going to be no easy answers for the Forgotten. We’ll have to ride the tides and see where they take us.”

“That’s freedom, Dev,” Katya whispered. “Don’t ever give it up.”