Shield of Winter

Chapter 15

KEEPING HIS SILENCE while his partner worked with meticulous patience, Vasic didn’t move so as not to cause any inadvertent damage. Part of him knew he could’ve achieved the same aim using telekinesis, but he chose to ignore that voice in favor of feeling Ivy’s determination to live in the soft, warm air against his neck that was her breath.

“It’s done,” Aden said an hour later, pushing back his sweat-damp hair from his face. “You’ll need to shield her until she’s conscious and capable of doing it herself.”

“Prognosis?” Vasic would accept only one answer—no one this rare and vivid was meant to die.

Aden shook his head. “Hard to predict. If she wakes, she’ll have come through the worst of it. Whether she wakes will depend on her own internal strength.”

“Then she’ll live.” Ivy had come back once from far worse. She’d do it again.

This time Vasic did use Tk to lift her, not wanting to risk jarring her brain. Placing her gently on her bed, he found a washcloth and wiped away the blood on her face and her hands. Rabbit didn’t growl at him, simply watched until he was done, then jumped on the bed. Pulling a blanket over Ivy’s body, her skin cool to the touch when he checked her pulse, Vasic left her with her pet curled up beside her.

“Will there be any side effects?” he asked Aden once he was outside, the sight of Ivy’s deserted bowl of salad causing him inexplicable discomfort until he gave in and teleported it away.

Aden didn’t reiterate his earlier cautious prognosis. “Unless she reacts in an unforeseen fashion,” he said, “there should be none other than headaches caused by residual bruising. Those should pass within forty-eight hours.” A pause. “I should say no side effects beyond the obvious.”

Ivy’s E ability, Vasic thought, was now wide open. “We’ll need Sascha Duncan’s assistance earlier th—”

A scream tore through the compound.

“Go,” Aden said to him. “I’ll keep watch on Ivy.”

Vasic ’ported to the origin of the scream—the cabin belonging to the empath Lianne—but didn’t step inside. Stay at your posts, he ordered his team, and attempted to contact Cristabel, the Arrow assigned to Lianne.

No response.

Listening with all of his senses, he heard only the rasping, unsteady breath of someone who was badly injured. I’m entering the cabin, he told Aden automatically, all Arrows trained to alert backup if it was available.

Lianne lay slumped at the table where she’d been eating her dinner. Cristabel was on the floor, blood pooling below her shoulder and head, while an unknown male of medium height and slight build lay against the opposite wall. A small round hole indicative of a precision laser shot marred the center of his forehead, his eyes staring in death.

Lianne’s skin was clammy, but she didn’t seem in any imminent danger. Cristabel’s pulse, however, was thready at best. It was her breathing he’d heard, a faint rattling in her lungs that told him they could lose her. Aden, in here. He switched telepathic channels. Abbot, cover Ivy as well as your charge.

Sir.

He continued to monitor Ivy on the telepathic level even as he gave those orders. Aden ran into the cabin the second after Abbot’s response. Aden took one look at Cristabel and said, “Clinic.”

Ready, Vasic took them directly to the private medical facility Aden had set up after it became clear that the Council medics’ orders included getting rid of “broken” or “under performing” members of the squad. All three of the highly trained staff at this clinic were alive because an Arrow hadn’t carried out an assassination order while making it appear otherwise. Each was blood-loyal to the squad.

Leaving Aden to supervise the medical procedures—because regardless of their trust in the staff, no Arrow would leave an injured comrade at the mercy of anyone who wasn’t a member of the squad—Vasic returned to Lianne’s cabin to find her stirring. He transferred her to the Arrow cabin, setting up a cot and putting her on it before she opened her eyes.

Then he turned on the light.

Blinking, she squinted as if it hurt her eyes. “Ray?”

“Who is Ray?” Vasic asked, not concerned with the ethics of interrogating her while she was disoriented. He needed to know how anyone, even a teleporter, had managed to get inside the compound and into her cabin.

Lianne curled into a fetal position on the camouflage green of the cot. “My cousin,” she said, her voice a little slurred. “Why is he here?”

That was the question.

Initiating a medical program on his gauntlet, he scanned the dazed empath and detected a mild concussion, possibly from having her head slammed against the top of the table where he’d found her. Sending Aden the data so his partner could evaluate her condition, Vasic waited for a reply to come in before he left to return to the scene. He’d record it later using his gauntlet in case a re-creation was necessary, and take blood samples, but his military-trained mind told him exactly what had happened.

That theory was confirmed when he stepped outside and made use of his connection with Judd to ask if the SnowDancer-DarkRiver satellite surveillance had picked up an extra body in the vicinity in the past hour.

“No. The last new entry came in with you a little earlier—I’m judging that from the speed of the ’port noted in the file.”

That would’ve been Aden. Hanging up without thanking Judd for the information because such was understood among members of the squad, he considered what he’d found in Lianne’s cabin. Ray had teleported directly inside, which meant he was either part of the rare telekinetic subset that could lock onto people as well as places, or he’d had an image file to use as a lock. Vasic’s bet was on an image leak. Teleporters who could lock onto people were extremely rare and Vasic knew—or knew of—most of them.

Aden’s reply came in at that instant, the message showing up directly on the gauntlet’s small screen: She doesn’t need medical attention. Just keep an eye on her and alert me if she exhibits any of the following symptoms. Below was a concise list.

Assigning the task to another Arrow, Vasic returned to Lianne’s cabin. A scan indicated no computronic devices other than the wall-set comm and Lianne’s sleek personal phone. He judged that if the empath had broken the rules, she’d have done it via her private device; picking it up, he circumvented the security key using a simple algorithm sent through his gauntlet.

It took him under ten seconds to discover that Lianne had been uploading hourly updates to a private family server. Not only a breach of confidentiality, but also of safety—because she’d uploaded photos. Scanning the images, he realized the exterior of the compound was now of higher priority than the interior of Lianne’s cabin.

Stepping outside after smashing the kitchen area with a telekinetic blow to change its basic shape, he alerted his people to the coming disruption and the reason for it, then ripped up a tree by the roots and laid it in the middle of the rough circle of rocks the empaths had used as their meeting spot. To make the image lock useless now or later, he crushed three of the rocks, his base telekinetic ability more powerful than most people realized, given that it was his teleportation that normally grabbed attention.

The rapid-fire actions kicked his heart into high gear, his breath coming in shorter but no less controlled bursts. Not slowing down, he snapped several of the pine trees behind the cabins in half, so the background couldn’t be used. The mountains weren’t visible in any of Lianne’s photographs, which eliminated a major risk factor, but Vasic would have to neutralize a number of others.

When his phone buzzed a few seconds later, he saw it was Judd.

“You suddenly have something against trees?” the other male asked.

“Image leak.”

“Shit. Want some help?”

“Yes.” He could complete the task himself, but he’d be tired at the end of it when he needed to remain alert. “As fast as possible.”

Judd ’ported in a minute later, and together they surgically removed the porches from three of the cabins. Two more trees were sacrificed to alter the skyline directly behind the cabins, and then they dismantled the porches they’d removed, stacking the resulting planks beside several of the cabins.

“It’s enough.” To make certain, Vasic had Judd leave the area, then attempt to use the images to come back in.

“Couldn’t do it,” the other man told him when he returned, expression hard and hair as sweaty as Vasic’s own. “How the hell did this happen? You’ve only been here a day.”

Vasic led Judd into Lianne’s cabin and to the body crumpled on the floor. Going down beside it, Vasic pressed one of the dead man’s fingers onto the screen of the gauntlet and initiated a print search. “Rayland Faison,” he said, rising to his feet as the data came in. “Resident of San Francisco. Listed as belonging to the same extended family unit as the empath who had this cabin.” Another piece of information caught his attention. “Faison’s Gradient level doesn’t give him enough juice to make the ’port from the city.”

“Send me the plate number of his vehicle—he probably abandoned it somewhere between here and San Francisco.” Judd stared at the dead man. “Who took the shot? It’s so pristinely centered, I’d say Cristabel if I had to guess.”

“Yes.” In her late thirties, the other Arrow was an expert markswoman. “She’s in surgery. Prognosis unknown.”

“Damn—Cris taught me how to shoot.” Thrusting a hand through his hair, Judd met Vasic’s gaze. “She was the most patient, most meticulous trainer I had.”

The words described the fallen Arrow well. “I’ll keep you updated on her condition.” Vasic, too, had learned to shoot under Cristabel. She was the only trainer he’d had who had never punished him with pain—Cris’s version of a reprimand was to make her students practice for an extra hour.

“I’d appreciate it.” Judd returned his attention to Faison’s corpse. “Why would Lianne’s family want to assassinate her?”

“I’ll be asking them that question myself.” Ivy was still deeply asleep and unlikely to need Vasic, and this breach had to be handled—or the next time Ivy went walking in the woods with her pet, she might not come back. “We’ll be two down if I leave,” he told Judd. “Can you remain?”

An immediate nod. “Long as you need me.”

Vasic left with Faison’s body without further delay, his target the large home shared by those of Lianne’s family based in Kuala Lampur, the internal image one he had in his master file on the empath. A loud crash to his left alerted him to the fact he’d startled a uniformed member of the house staff into dropping a vase. Water ran along the polished wood of the floor, creamy pink and yellow plumeria blooms lying amidst the glazed blue shards.

“I require the head of the family,” he said to the woman, whose eyes had fixated on the body that floated next to Vasic.

Her head jerked up, her light brown skin so pale her pink lips appeared badly misplaced. “Y-yes.” Flowers abandoned, she didn’t look back as she ran past the windows that spilled the early afternoon light of this region into the hallway.

A woman of about fifty, with the stiff, regal bearing that marked her as Dara Faison, the matriarch of the family group, entered the hallway by a side entrance a minute later. She took in the body with no visible change in her expression but didn’t speak at once, the silence no doubt a power play calculated to gain mastery of the situation.

Vasic didn’t have time for games. “This is Rayland Faison. Records state him to be a member of your family unit. Is this correct?”

“Yes.” Folding her hands in front of her black knee-length dress, the cut as severe as the bun into which she’d scraped back her dark hair, Dara Faison said, “Why was my nephew killed?”

“He attempted to assassinate Lianne.” He caught the tiny flicker at the corners of her eyes, extrapolated that she wasn’t as surprised as she should’ve been. “Did you order this assassination?”

“No.”

“You’ll be required to submit to a telepathic scan to confirm that.”

Her shoulders went rigid. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. My nephew had . . . certain leanings. Fanatically pro-Silence. It’s why we locked him out of the part of the system that held the data about Lianne’s ability and contract.”

“A good precaution—except for the fact your nephew worked in computronic security.” Vasic had retrieved that data during the minute he waited for Dara. “Telepathic scans will be mandatory for all members of the family unit.” If there was even a chance Rayland Faison hadn’t been alone in his radical beliefs, Vasic had to unearth that information as fast as possible. “The scans will be carried out by a specialist telepath.”

To her credit, Dara held firm, the taut oval of her face carved in stone. “You have no authorization to order such a violation of our privacy.”

“You gave me that authorization when you instructed Lianne to breach her contract.” Dara’s complicity in Lianne’s actions had been obvious from the messages he’d read. It had been a stupid move, one driven by an arrogance he knew the matriarch would profess not to possess.

“Lianne will be transferred here tomorrow.” He eased his Tk until Rayland Faison’s body lay on the floor. “Should there be any further leaks traced to your family, you will be terminated.” Vasic would permit no one to harm those he’d promised to protect. “All data about the project is already in the process of being scrubbed from your systems.”

Dara Faison hadn’t moved since the instant he’d made it clear the telepathic scans would happen, as if finally comprehending that she’d attempted to play in a pool where she was so out of her depth, death was a real possibility. Now she glanced at the body of her nephew and said, “There will be no leaks.”

Returning to Lianne’s cabin without further words, Vasic took visual scans and collected blood samples that he sent back to Central Command, then began to clean up the blood molecule by molecule. It took time and concentration. Most telekinetics couldn’t work on this level, their power too violent.

Can you take blood out of carpet? he asked the only Tk he knew who worked on an even more minute level, that of the cells of the body itself.

No, not like you, Judd replied. Ironically, given what I was ordered to use it for under Ming, my ability seems to function best with living tissue.

While Vasic’s came in useful in death . . . and apparently in fixing broken windows. The odd reminder slid unexpectedly through his mind as he added more blood to the large floating globule where he was collecting the biomatter. He was slower than usual at the detail-oriented task, his resources depleted by the demands of the day to this point.

As a result, dawn was a soft glow on the horizon when he teleported the biomatter directly into a medical incinerator.

“If I hadn’t just seen you do that,” came a feminine whisper from the doorway, “I’d say it was impossible.”