Heart of Obsidian

Chapter 41

“ANTHONY,” SAHARA SAID, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I can call him. He’ll be able to advise Nikita—they’ve both made it clear Pure Psy is unwelcome in their region, and they may have on-the-ground data you can’t access.”

At Kaleb’s nod, she turned to make an audio-only call on the mobile comm beside the bed, while he used his cell phone to contact Judd—and for the first time, their conversation was not between the Ghost and a former Arrow, but between Kaleb Krychek and a SnowDancer lieutenant. When the other man ended the conversation, it was to speak to his alpha, as well as get word to the leopard alpha. “I’ll call you back in five minutes,” he said and hung up.

In the interim, Kaleb contacted Enforcement’s central command in the United States and asked them to issue updated bulletins to their officers in California and the surrounding states. “Warn them not to approach if Vasquez is sighted,” Kaleb said. “He’s a high-level telepath trained in hand-to-hand combat and sniper-grade shooting.”

“Does this request come via the Council?” the commissioner asked.

“No. The Council is gone. This comes directly from me—I trust Enforcement has no difficulty with that.”

“Enforcement has no issue cooperating in the hunt for the criminal Andrea Vasquez. Future cooperation, however, will depend on the circumstances.”

“Very well, Commissioner.” Kaleb had so many moles inside Enforcement he could get anything he wanted at a moment’s notice, but he saw no reason not to be civil.

Hanging up, he glanced at Sahara. “Anthony is getting in touch with Nikita,” she said, zipping up a hooded sweatshirt over the jeans and T-shirt she’d pulled on. “He didn’t say, but I’m guessing he’ll also connect with the others in the region, changeling and human.” A questioning look. “Your invitation?”

Kaleb began to dress. “Pending.” The fact was, he’d be going in with or without it. Vasquez was too big a threat to leave to even the packs’ capable hands.

His phone rang on the heels of that thought. “You and the Arrows are cleared,” Judd told him. “Strategy meeting at DarkRiver’s Chinatown HQ, twenty minutes.”

Since the SnowDancer den was some distance from that location, Kaleb guessed Judd and the wolf alpha would be teleporting to the meeting. “I’ll be there.” Hanging up, he finished getting into clothing indistinguishable from the black combat uniforms worn by the Arrow Squad, the clothing made of bulletproof material that would also repel a certain level of laser fire.

Unbeknownst to Sahara, all her jeans, as well as the hooded sweatshirt she was currently wearing, had the same properties as the combat gear. He hadn’t been able to swap out her T-shirts and other tops as yet, but one of his companies was currently working on a superfine version of the rougher, heavier combat fabric. “Keep that sweatshirt on throughout,” he told her, and when she smiled at him, he realized she’d already figured out what he’d done.

Her intelligence had always been one of the most attractive things about her.

“Can you get me to a location like this?” she asked as he took a seat on the bed to put on his boots, sending him an image of a busy concourse, people moving every which way. “I think I might be able to help gather information.”

What she was proposing, he understood when she sent him another image, would be akin to standing in the middle of the data streams of the PsyNet, except on the physical plane. She’d pick up hundreds, thousands of random thoughts as people passed by.

“It’s getting close to crossing a moral line,” she said with a solemn expression, “but it could mean saving countless lives. And since I have no intention of ever taking control of the minds that brush past me, it’s a decision I can live with.”

“Are you sure?” Sahara’s conscience was a powerful force, one that could crush her from the inside out if she took the wrong path.

She nodded. “I must have this ability for a reason—and this conscience, too. I have to trust in myself and my intention to do no harm.” Blowing out a breath, she said, “It might end up being a fruitless exercise anyway.”

“It stands as much a chance of success as any other.” Vasquez was a man trained to be a shadow, and San Francisco was a city of millions. “You need protection. I’ll organize an Arrow escort.” Kaleb would trust her safety to no one he didn’t think capable of repelling Vasquez.

But Sahara, fingers working to weave her hair into a neat braid, shook her head. “An Arrow will stand out in such a changeling-heavy city—they may be trained in covert ops, but there’s no doubt they’re lethal, and it puts people instinctively on edge. I saw that in Geneva.”

He got to his feet. “You want a changeling guard.”

“It’s safer. People will assume I’m a human packmate,” she pointed out. “I don’t look, act, or sound like the stereotypical image of Psy.”

It was a clever and more than plausible argument. “You risk exposing your abilities to the changelings.” The more people who knew, the greater the chance of a leak.

Sahara wrapped an elastic tie around the end of her braid. “I won’t tell them what I’m doing. I’ll say I’m putting myself in prime position to have a useful flash of backsight.”

The part of him that lived in the void, possessive and obsessively protective, wanted to state a vocal negative to her plan . . . but paradoxically, that same part would fight to the death for her freedom. “Even a hint of trouble and you call me.”

“Done.” Rising on tiptoe, her hands on his shoulders, she claimed a kiss, her gaze tender. “I won’t underestimate Vasquez.”

Trusting her promise in a way he trusted no one else, he said, “According to Aden’s latest report, Vasquez is already on the ground. The central skytrain station is a better option for you than the airport.”

FIFTEEN minutes after the conversation with Kaleb, Sahara glanced at the amber-blond male who stood with her. Both of them leaned casually against one of the thick columns that ran along the center of the massive station, just another two bored travelers waiting for a long-distance connection. Adding to that impression were the duffel bags at their feet, the battered fabric thrown into harsh relief by the bright afternoon sun pouring through the massive skylights.

“You’re too good-looking for this,” she said to Vaughn. It was happy chance that he’d already been at DarkRiver HQ when she’d requested an escort. “That woman almost missed her skytrain, she was so busy eating you up with her big, brown eyes.” Sahara fluttered her lashes as the hapless brunette had done.

Vaughn shot her an unsmiling look, but she saw the amusement that prowled behind it. “Get to work, Ms. Kyriakus.”

“I need a little time to get my zen on, as Mercy would say.” She nudged his arm with her shoulder, comfortable with him in a way she was with very few men aside from Kaleb. “Was it Faith? The unnamed NightStar foreseer who saw Luxembourg and Paris?”

A small nod, Vaughn’s lazily feline posture attracting another admiring glance to which he seemed oblivious, though she knew those eyes of jaguar-gold missed nothing. As Kaleb would probably snap the neck of any other woman who tried to touch him without invitation, she knew Vaughn would respond with claws and teeth. Skin privileges, she thought, were not to be assumed lightly with men of this caliber.

“Better for NightStar to handle the press and imply the F was one under their command,” Vaughn added, “than to draw further specific attention to Faith.” Reaching out, he tugged the front of her ball cap a little further down.

He’d given her the cap when he met her and Kaleb in the deserted service corridor Kaleb had used as a teleport lock. According to him, the cap, branded with the logo of the champion local baseball team, would make her far less apt to attract attention, even if she spent hours in the station. Since she’d already seen a number of other people with the same cap, she couldn’t argue.

“How’s Leon?”

“Good. Really good.” Sahara spoke to her father every day and had already planned a visit in the coming days, no matter what. But first, she had to do what she could to help stop another wave of violence. “Okay”—a deep breath—“I’m ready.”

It was the first time she’d attempted anything of this magnitude, and from what she’d heard of telepaths who had allowed their shields to drop in similar situations, she had to brace herself for a crushing blast of noise as a thousand different minds crashed into her own. Ninety-nine percent of individuals, Psy, human, or changeling, had a “public” mind, an upper level of inconsequential thought that was rarely shielded; that would be bad enough, but Sahara intended to scan the next layer down.

Here I go, she said to the Tk who was her own.

I won’t let you drown.

Holding on to that promise, she opened her senses the smallest fraction, ready to shut everything down the instant she hit overload. Except—

Oh!

It wasn’t the same as with the telepaths. Her ability was unique, her mind created to filter data from other minds in a streamlined fashion. The thoughts of passersby were clearly delineated, her mind visualizing each individual as a separate, understandable strand . . . shimmering silver for Psy, a haunting, luminous blue for humans, and a stunning wild green for changelings.

It was a multihued sea as extraordinarily beautiful as the PsyNet.

Not feeling the least stretched, she expanded her senses bit by bit and had to bite the inside of her cheek to stifle her excitement. Her reach wasn’t only two to three inches around her body. It was far, far wider. At fifty percent strength, she could understand the thoughts of every individual passing within the walls of the station . . . including those of the changeling next to her, and changeling shields were meant to be impenetrable.

What she caught made her want to grin—Vaughn was humming a nonsense tune clearly meant to obfuscate his thoughts. It worked, and it told her Faith had her suspicions about Sahara’s abilities. That didn’t worry her. Her cousin would never betray her. Now, after consciously blocking Vaughn’s mind, she began to scan and discard thoughts at a speed that turned the strands into a silver-blue jetstream vibrant with sparks of wild green.

KALEB didn’t teleport inside DarkRiver’s HQ after leaving Sahara and Vaughn at the station. He walked through the door in a gesture of goodwill that had him receiving a curt nod of welcome from the leopard alpha. The green-eyed male was around Kaleb’s height, with the sleek, muscular build so common in the feline changelings.

“Krychek. You’ve beaten Anthony here.”

The head of NightStar walked in two minutes later and Lucas gestured for them to follow him into a large meeting room dominated by an oval-shaped table that currently held seven people. Kaleb caught Judd’s eye, noting the other man sat beside the wolf alpha, Hawke. Next to Hawke was a male Kaleb ID’ed as Nathan Ryder, DarkRiver’s most senior lieutenant.

Nikita was on the other side of the table, next to Max Shannon, her security chief. According to Kaleb’s informants, Max’s wife, Sophia, an ex-J with a huge network of contacts, had also quietly become one of Nikita’s most trusted advisers. Her reliance on the couple was a fact many in Nikita’s organization struggled to understand, since Max and Sophia were apparently as often in conflict with Nikita as they were in agreement.

Kaleb understood. He didn’t employ the weak, either.

Now Max Shannon caught his gaze and nodded in a silent thank-you.

Kaleb thought to tell the other man theirs was a debt he might one day collect, but didn’t for the same reason he’d helped save Sophia’s life from a madman over half a year ago. He hadn’t been able to help the one woman who was everything to him, his mind a place of angry darkness, but in saving Sophia, he had gained, if not redemption, then an instant of grace in the darkness.

Sahara, he’d thought, would’ve been proud of him for his actions that day.

Accepting the thanks with the slightest incline of his head, he turned his attention to Teijan, alpha of the Rats and head of the best spy organization in the region. Opposite the sharply dressed alpha was a man Kaleb couldn’t immediately identify, until he realized the copper-skinned male had cut off his formerly long hair: Adam Garrett of the WindHaven falcons.

“Your assistance,” he said to the falcon as he took a seat, “may be invaluable in pinpointing possible targets.” A falcon could fly lower than any aircraft, follow suspicious movements at the turn of a wing.

“My people are already doing sweeps,” Adam replied, “working in partnership with teams on the ground. Nothing as yet.”

The Enforcement vice commissioner for the city entered the room right then and took a seat. The middle-aged Psy woman, her skin an unusual papery white, was followed by an elderly human male of Asian descent identified as Jim Wong, representative of the shopkeepers in the warren of Chinatown, their reach extending citywide through a network of family, friends, and customers. At his heels came a tall black male the DarkRiver alpha introduced as the liaison from the Human Alliance.

The silence was taut, as people who would never normally term one another allies found themselves facing each other across the glossy wood of the table. It was, Kaleb mused, a sight that would inflame Pure Psy.

“Everyone’s here,” Lucas Hunter said after shutting the door, the savage markings on his face echoed by the look in his eyes. “Let’s get straight to it—we need to narrow down the list of possible targets.”

“The offices of the mayor,” the vice commissioner suggested.

Kaleb shook his head. “It doesn’t have as much shock value as a school, a nursery, or a hospital.” Pure Psy wanted to cause pain and loss and anger that would turn humans and changelings against the Psy. “Vasquez intends to cause a war that’ll leave only the ‘pure’ standing.”

It was Hawke who next spoke, his ice blue eyes and silver-gold hair those of the predator within—a predator who now had Ming in his sights. “I have to agree with Krychek,” the wolf alpha said. “But we’ve already put all obviously vulnerable institutions on high alert, beefed up security, and Vasquez had to have realized that would happen. I think he’ll go for a softer target.”

“Hawke’s right.” The Rat alpha leaned forward on the table, his dark eyes quick and watchful. “We’ve picked up nothing that even hints Pure Psy’s managed to infiltrate San Francisco like they did Hong Kong—I have enough faith in my people to state categorically that Vasquez is working without a foundation. Whatever he’s planning, it’s going to be quick and dirty.”

“The scorch charges used in Hong Kong,” Judd said, evidencing his connections. “Even a limited number could do serious damage to the city.”

“They’re too unstable to transport without proper containers: specifically, lead-lined boxes.” Kaleb knew that because he’d made it a point to access the hidden files on the charges. “All sightings of the operative we believe to be Vasquez state he’s moving with nothing but a small backpack. He could, however, have access to other weaponry if he was smart enough to hide a small cache in the city at some stage in the past—in a public locker hired under another name, for example.” Nothing that would set off alarm bells, even with the packs’ tight security.

“So”—Lucas Hunter’s voice was grim as he spoke—“soft target, high possibility of casualties, intense political fallout, those are the parameters.”

“Airports and skytrain stations fit,” Nikita said, “and have been alerted by my security team”—a nod of confirmation from Max—“but they’re more difficult to monitor, given the constant foot traffic.”

Kaleb. Sahara’s telepathic voice vibrated with anger and fear combined. Something is about to happen here. I just caught a thought about timing “the purification” for rush hour.

Have you identified the individual concerned?

No. It appears this level of perception does have a cost. I can understand the thoughts of everyone in the station, but with my senses extended to cover such a large area, I can’t shift focus fast enough to zero in on a mind while a particular thought is in progress. However, whoever it was was thinking specifically about the layout of the station and how to achieve “maximum strategic impact.”