Shield of Winter

Chapter 9

The protection of Silence is the mandate of every Arrow. Execution of those who would challenge the Protocol will, at times, be necessary. Do not hesitate to take terminal action, for in so doing you protect our people from annihilation.

First Code of Arrows

VASIC ’PORTED INTO the cell where he’d thrown one of Ivy’s attackers, the other in the cell opposite. Located in the bowels of Arrow Central Command, the cell was a solid square block with no door, teleportation the only way to enter or exit. Regardless of the fact that neither assailant was teleport-capable, Vasic had used a squad mental trick to temporarily leash their psychic abilities; it ensured they couldn’t ’path for assistance or use the PsyNet to send a message.

He hadn’t lied to Ivy. Neither was dead.

“Help me!” screamed the one whose arms Vasic had broken, his face heavily bruised from being smashed into the wall.

“You won’t die of those injuries,” Vasic said, just as Abbot teleported in with Aden.

A nod from Aden and Abbot left them alone.

You need to leave, too. Aden’s voice in Vasic’s head as the other man took over the psychic leash. Go.

Ivy is at risk.

I’ll get you the information. Your task is to keep her safe.

Again, Aden was attempting to put Vasic on soft duty.

Having never shifted his gaze from the assailant who’d smashed open Ivy’s door, Vasic went down on his haunches in front of the injured male. “Stop,” he said quietly, and the man went silent, terror a slick sheen in his eyes.

A predictable response. This coward might wish to reinstate Silence, but his was a desire driven by a craven fear of the unknown.

“I’m capable of torturing you until you don’t have a single unbroken bone left from here”—he indicated the male’s breastbone—“to here.” He pointed to the man’s toes. “You’d resemble a piece of meat pounded with a mallet by the time I was done.”

The threat was the absolute truth. He’d taken responsibility for Ivy’s safety, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do in pursuit of that goal. “I’m a Tk, can make you feel each individual break without lifting a hand.”

He snapped the tiniest bone of the man’s smallest finger as an illustration. Waiting for the screams to die down to snuffling sobs, Vasic said, “I can use the same tiny breaks to dismantle your torso, breaking your ribs into splinters, then cracking open your breastplate.

“Fracturing your collarbone into inch-long segments would take considerable time and skill, but I have both.” He lowered his voice so the prisoner had to strain to hear. “I’m also patient. By the time I reach your toes, your fingers will have healed, and I can start the whole process all over again. You don’t want me to stay in this room.”

The man’s entire body began to shake.

“Answer my questions,” Vasic continued in the same even tone he’d used throughout, “and I’ll leave.”

Ten minutes later, the prisoner had given them everything he knew. It wasn’t much. His partner knew even less, but the pieces led to a single answer: the attack had been orchestrated by one of the few remaining Pure Psy lieutenants. Stupid. If Vasic had been in the lieutenant’s position, he’d have gone under and stayed there until he had the opportunity to strike at the heart of the new regime.

“I’ll update Krychek,” Aden told Vasic after they left the cells for the squad’s common area, “and undertake the hunt for the lieutenant.”

Vasic had no argument with that, the cleanup of Pure Psy far less important than protecting the Es. “What will you do with the two males?”

Aden was quiet for a long time, his eyes on the greenery beyond the glass, the ferns thick and curling on the lower part of the window. “Part of the problem with the Council was that everything was done in the shadows, ‘justice’ meted out on an arbitrary basis. We need to return to an open system, where men like this can be tried and punished according to our laws.”

“The Net’s not ready for that yet.”

“No.” Aden clasped his hands behind his back. “But it will be one day. Until then, I’ll dump them in a maximum security prison, complete with a paper trail that’ll guarantee they stay there for a long time.”

“Their abilities?”

“It’s not advertised, but any Psy who goes into the prison system has his or her abilities restrained by a self-sustaining leash. PsyNet access is restricted to a controlled area. I’ll organize it.”

Vasic thought of Aden’s words about justice as he returned to the snow-covered orchard and to Ivy. The other Arrow was right in one sense, but the violence of the abilities possessed by their race meant there would always be some monsters so horrific they needed to be hunted down and executed, terrors no justice system could handle. When that time came, it was an Arrow who’d do the hunting, darkness pitted against darkness.

Scanning the area around Ivy’s cabin in the muted morning light, he crossed over to the rucked-up snow beside it. Her small pet spotted him first, barking out a sharp warning from where he stood on guard in the back doorway. Ivy appeared a second later, a broom in hand and her curls held back by a purple and white scarf. “I knew it was you,” she said with a slight smile. “You’ve now been downgraded from ‘deadly threat’ to ‘irritation that won’t go away’ in Rabbit’s bark vocabulary.”

He thought perhaps there was a correct way to reply to that statement, to the wary softness of her, but he didn’t have that knowledge. “Why are you on your own?” He’d left only because he’d seen her parents and others on the way, armed and ready to protect.

“I’m not.” A quick glance over her shoulder before she lowered her voice to a whisper. “My mother, however, hasn’t yet realized you’re here. Do you want to meet her?”

“If you believe it’ll assist her in accepting the parameters of your proposed contract.”

“Probably not.” A slight wince, her expression so open he knew she wouldn’t have been able to fake Silence in the outside world. “She’ll probably take one look at you and pull out a gun.”

“If I’d meant to kill you,” he pointed out, “you’d be long dead, your body disposed of in a crematorium incinerator.”

Blinking, Ivy stared at him with those unusual eyes that made him feel stripped to the bone. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t meet my mother.”

“I disagree.” A taller woman, her body rangy, appeared in view a second after that pronouncement. “At least,” she added, “he’s honest.”

Handing her own broom to an Ivy who was looking increasingly doubtful about the situation, the woman Vasic identified as Gwen Jane from Ivy’s biographical data, said, “Your father’s about a minute away with the materials to repair the window and doors.” She stepped out to Vasic. “Let’s take a walk.”

The next ten minutes were . . . interesting. In the twenty-seven years since he’d been drafted into the squad, Vasic had experienced many things, but never had he found himself being interrogated by a mother concerned for her child. Gwen Jane might appear Silent on the surface, he thought, but in her ferocious protectiveness, he glimpsed the truth—and while he had no experience of maternal love, he understood it to be a formidable force.

“I’ll make certain she comes to no harm,” he told her. “Krychek’s priority might be the Net as a whole, but mine is the safety of the empaths, with Ivy my particular assignment.”

An intent look. “How can you promise that when you work for Krychek?”

“A common misapprehension.” One the squad permitted because it gave the Arrows freedom to stay below the radar. “We choose to side with him because his current stance benefits the PsyNet and the populace. Should that change, he knows not to expect our support.”

“Not tame dogs but wild wolves who’ve decided he’s an ally for the moment?”

“Except we aren’t wild.” To be an Arrow was to live a tightly regimented life. It wasn’t a choice but a necessity. Because there was always a reason an Arrow was an Arrow, and each and every one of those reasons was deadly.

“There are different kinds of wildness,” Gwen said as they came within sight of the cabin once again.

He could see supplies for the window repair laid out against the outside wall—wood for the new frame, the old one having been cracked by the barrage of bullets, as well as a sheet of glass designed to click in. From the sounds echoing over the sunlit snow, Ivy and her father were working on the front door. It only took him a short time to take care of the window, his telekinesis at 7.9 on the Gradient. He didn’t have to pound in nails, simply push with his mind; they went through the wood as if it was butter.

The skill required was of subtlety. Push too hard and the nail would exit out the other side. Working with a thick plank and hundreds of nails had been one of his easier and more fun exercises as a child—back when he’d lived with his “father.” The same man had later dropped him off at an Arrow training facility and never looked back.

Not even once.

Vasic knew because the scared four-year-old he’d been had stood in the entryway of the training facility and watched his father’s vehicle getting smaller and smaller and smaller. According to his memories, he’d cried, but he could no longer access the emotion that had led to the response.

“Well,” Gwen murmured, this woman who’d proven willing to go toe-to-toe with an Arrow to protect her child, “that’s useful.”

“Yes.” People had found Vasic useful his entire life, but it didn’t usually have to do with anything as harmless or as oddly satisfying as fixing a window. “I assume from your earlier questions that Ivy has decided to accept the contract.”

“I’ll let her answer that.” Leaving him with that statement, Gwen went around to the front door.

Ivy came over soon afterward. The sleeves of her faded denim shirt were now rolled up to the elbows to reveal the white of a long-sleeved tee, her scarf having slipped a fraction to set several curling tendrils free. Rabbit, of course, was at her heels. He bared his teeth at first sight of Vasic.

“I’ll agree to the contract,” Ivy said without prelude, “but Rabbit comes with me.” Tipping up her chin, she folded her arms. “Where I go, he goes.”

“He’ll have to be taught to stay within the boundaries,” Vasic said, wondering if Ivy was as loyal to everyone who belonged to her. “I’m certain the changelings would do nothing to harm him, but there are natural wolves and lynxes in the area, too.”

Ivy’s arms dropped to her side, eyes huge. “We’re going to be near changeling territory?” It was a hoarse whisper that brushed over his skin like a tactile sensation.

“Inside it.” Neither Vasic nor Aden had expected the changelings to agree to Krychek’s request, but it was official as of the previous night. “DarkRiver-SnowDancer territory.”

Ivy turned her attention to her growling pet. “Hear that, Rabbit? Don’t go around snarling at our hosts or they might decide to eat you for lunch.” There was a flush of quiet pink on her cheeks when she looked back up. “Sorry, I’m used to talking to him.”

“Do you find it therapeutic?” Vasic had never had a pet, didn’t understand the concept.

Ivy didn’t know how to answer Vasic’s question without saying too much . . . but what was the use of hiding things? He already knew her most perilous secrets. On that realization came a wave of freedom. “He was a stray,” she began, “crawled into the orchard bedraggled, skinny, and broken up from a fight . . . while I was still . . . wrong.” Not real, nothing but a shade of the girl she’d once been, her mind brutalized and her soul battered, chilling screams at night the only sound she made all day.

“I fed him because I didn’t know what else to do, then carried him to the vet. No one would say anything, but I could tell the adults thought he was going to die.” It had been a moment of acute insight, slicing through the fog in which she existed. “I wanted to tell them they were all wrong, that I could see his will to live in his eyes, but I didn’t have the words then.

“Instead, I took him home with me after the vet cast his broken leg, fed him by hand, and made sure his wounds stayed clean.” Her parents had found her curled up with Rabbit in the barn the first night, and carried them both into the family cabin. “It was maybe five days later that he staggered up and started trying to walk.

“A week after that, he fell into a muddy patch of field, and I found myself washing him.” Laughter chased out the lingering echoes of horror. “I had to chase him around with a hose.” Her pet had been so fast, even with the cast on one leg. “By the end, I was drenched head to toe myself.”

Ivy met Vasic’s gaze, tried to make him understand. “Caring for Rabbit was the first time in seven months I’d done anything except follow simple instructions.” She’d been a living, breathing automaton, the only sign of conscious life her desire to help her parents do chores—even when it was clear her brain wasn’t sending the right signals to her limbs.

Vasic considered her snarling dog. “He was a wounded living creature, and you are an empath. He spoke to the most immutable aspect of your nature.”

Ivy didn’t care about the technicalities of how or why. She just knew Rabbit had saved her as she’d saved him. Skinny but stubborn, he’d wriggle his way under her hand when she sat staring out into nothingness, nudge at her until she gave in and petted his then-ratty coat. When her fingers kept spasming open to drop the apples she was attempting to collect, he’d used his teeth to pick them up and put them in her basket. His determination had given her the impetus to bite back her tearful frustration and try again and again and again.

And again.

Somewhere along the way, her brain began to rewire itself, finding pathways around sections so badly bruised, Ivy’s head had pulsed with the excruciating pain of it for three years after her reconditioning.

“I relearned to run because Rabbit wanted to play,” she said through the knot in her throat. “He was so small and skinny, but he never gave up, so I couldn’t, either.” It had taken time for her pet to put on weight, for his coat to become shiny and healthy, the transformation echoed in her own healing mind.

When he’d collapsed in exhaustion, she’d picked him up in her arms. And when she’d fallen because her body refused to do what it should, he’d nudged and barked encouragement at her until she dragged herself back up. “Three months after he arrived, I spoke for the first time. A month after that, I asked for brain therapy.”

The intense sessions with a settlement medic had slowly helped her reclaim the final pieces of her mind. “It was hard.” Comparable to the agonizing physical therapy sometimes necessary after severe injuries to the body. “But each time I thought I’d reached my limit, I’d remember watching Rabbit crawl into the orchard even when he was so broken, and I’d find another store of willpower.”

The wind riffled through Vasic’s hair in the silence that followed her story. “I’ll take care when ’porting him,” he said at last. “Though perhaps I should be the one concerned for my safety.”

Startled into a smile by that cool statement, she blinked away the burning in her eyes and reached down to pick up her teeth-baring pet. “He’ll behave, won’t you?” She turned Rabbit’s face toward Vasic. “Hold out your hand so he can sniff it.”

Vasic did so, but Rabbit refused to look at it, fascinated by everything in view but the Arrow’s hand. Ivy attempted to get him to turn, only to be forced to concede defeat. “I’m sorry.” She placed Rabbit back on the ground—and he immediately took position in front of her, canines flashing. “Maybe after he gets to know you a little more.”

Vasic didn’t appear put out by the rejection. Then again, he’d been as icily calm after handling the two intruders earlier. Ivy had the disconcerting sense that nothing could penetrate the cold black armor of an Arrow . . . and for some reason, she wanted to do exactly that, fascinated by the tiny glimpse of a personality beyond the ice.

“The experiment,” Vasic now said, “is to begin as soon as the security perimeter around the site is complete. You should be packed and ready to depart at short notice.”

“Will you comm me?” She fought the growing temptation to touch the frost of him, convince herself he was real and not a winter illusion sent to tell her fantastical things.

“Yes.”

Ten seconds later, she stood alone, the only evidence of Vasic’s presence boot prints in the snow . . . and a single perfectly repaired window.