25

WIRE

 

HE FEELS HER, feels her skin, the ends of her fingers as she caresses him, touches his face, his arms, his chest, his cock. He thinks of all the times he wanted her to touch him, that he fantasized about her touching him...all the regrets about what he should have done in Seattle, on that ship, even in the dirt that night in Vancouver. She’s already driving him crazy and they are kissing again...his tongue thickens, pain rising in his belly.

She reaches for him, and he opens at once.

But something twists his light, forcing him back.

His wanting turns to aggression, frustration, a bleak hopelessness when she returns, lets him feel her...but it’s never enough.

Gods...she’s fucking with him. She’s teasing him, trying to make him insane. She knows he’s in pain, that he can’t go to her.

But something darker lingers there.

Someone else is with her.

She isn’t alone.

 

 

HE GROANED, UNWILLINGLY awake. Lying on a wet tile floor, he couldn’t move. The pain sharpened as he lay there, worsening as the ache in his arms and neck returned. He was shivering, naked, freezing cold, so fucking thirsty he couldn’t think about much else once he noticed...but the pain on his neck and back felt like fire.

It occurred to him then. Water still ran over his bare skin.

He hadn’t been asleep. He’d passed out.

The other seer dropped the water spigot. Crouching down, he stared into Revik’s face.

“Feeling better, Revi’?”

Revik threw out his light in reflex and the collar around his neck tripped, bringing another blinding jolt. His head snapped back, then fell back to the tile. He groaned, unable to stop it.

“Apparently so,” Terian gazed down Revik’s body. “Missing her again, are we?”

He fought to go unconscious again, willing it.

“Let’s go over it again...”

Revik tried to remember the line of questioning they’d been on, couldn’t.

“Who has the succession order, Revi’?”

The sickness worsened. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Really?” Terian walked around where he lay. “Shall we pull your friend out of her cage again? Maybe if I played with her a bit, that might jog your memory?”

Revik clutched the chain where it attached to the floor.

He avoided the female with his light, but he couldn’t help looking for her with his eyes. Her naked body lay slumped in an iron box against the far wall, her eyes half-lidded, catatonic. The slack look on her face was more than he could bear, worse than the long cut that bisected her delicate features. He remembered the last time Terian brought her out here, felt his stomach lurch even as his eyes drifted to her feet bleeding through the dirty gauze he’d used to staunch the blood. He’d taken two of her toes that time, one from each foot.

“No,” he said, hoarse.

“No?” Terian said. “Say please, Revi’.”

“Please.” His eyes returned to the floor. “Please, I—”

“All right.” Terian smiled, waving him off. “...Since you’re being a good boy.” His eyes narrowed. “The succession order, Revi’...the truth this time. I have it from very reliable sources that you were the only one who had it after Galaith.”

When Revik hesitated, trying to think, Terian kicked him, hard, aiming at the muscled part of his thigh. Revik gasped.

“I don’t know,” he blurted. “...I swear it’s the truth. You can read me. You know I’m not lying. If I ever had it, they wiped it when I left—”

Terian kicked him again. Revik shifted half to his side, fighting to breathe.

Rocking on his heels, Terian touched his lips with a finger, gazing up at the ceiling.

“Yes,” he said. “That memory loss is most irritating. But you know I don’t fully believe you, don’t you, Revi’? Your light is different, you see...ever since that day on the ship. I know you can’t feel it with that restraining device around your neck, but take my word for it...it is. Quite different. You feel much more like my old friend than you did in San Francisco. So much so I have a hard time believing you, when you say you don’t remember.”

Revik just lay there, breathing into the tile.

They’d been over this.

He’d lost track of answers he’d given, contradicted, lied about. He knew Terian likely no longer listened for details anyway. By now he knew exactly what Revik did and didn’t know. What he hadn’t said aloud had been ripped from his mind...about Allie, every intimate detail, every lie and truth and half-truth. Work he’d done under Vash. His job in the Guard. It wouldn’t be enough. This had become an endurance game, and he would lose.

Even as he thought it, the rod jabbed at muscles in his back, just enough that he reflexively tried to block it.

“What were you dreaming about, Revi’? Just now?”

Images swam forward. He saw Allie again, her hands on his chest, holding his arms. He remembered her pulling on him and hardened painfully.

Now that he was powerless to block it, the separation was like a drug...it brought wanting, but also regret, memory in sharp relief, emotions he could barely comprehend, much less control. The sickness worsened. For a moment, he could only lie there, half-gasping.

The collar sparked.

Terian bent down, gripping his hair, pulling his head back.

“Every time. You know, Revi’...your eyes glow every time I mention her. You really are a mess, my friend.” He relaxed his hold, adding casually, “It’s not like I have a lot of telekinetic seers to study, to see the effects they have on their mates. But the glow eye thing of yours intrigues me. So do those lights you managed to shatter on the ship...”

His eyes turned clinical, studying Revik’s with a faint edge.

“Incidentally, I was with your wife while you were fucking that human.” A half-smile tugged at his lips as Revik looked away. “If your goal was to hear her beg, I think it was working, my brother. Truly. So much so, I considered mounting her myself...” He gripped Revik’s hair tighter, forcing him to look at him. He bent closer to his ear, his voice a murmur. “The images coming off her...gods. I could have called in the whole Guard. We could have taken turns. I don’t think she would have minded a bit, Revi’...not a bit.”

Revik fought the image out of his light and the collar tripped, sending white fire down his spine. When Terian released him, he lay his face against the tile, breathed into the cold floor.

His eyes caught those of the other human in the room, who squatted in a cage next to the one where Cass lay broken against the wall. The man there looked even skinnier and paler than he was, if that were even possible. Seeing the sympathy there, Revik closed his eyes.

He felt Jon’s light reach for his, a pale comfort.

Bright...so bright for a human.

Too bright.

The yellow eyes swiveled in Jon’s direction.

“Interesting.” Terian rose, starting towards the row of cages where Jon was already moving, scurrying to put his back to the wall, as far away from the cage’s door as possible.

Revik lifted his head, writhed to his stomach.

“Fucking dirt blood,” he gasped.

Terian halted, halfway to where Jon hunched in the corner.

Revik fought for breath, pushing out words. “...You’d give your cock to be me. That’s the real reason you’re doing this. Not to find Allie. Not to learn more about any fictitious ‘succession order’...but to pretend you’re stronger than me, that you beat me. It’s pathetic, Terry...”

Terian turned. Behind him, Jon waved Revik off, his hazel eyes rounded in horror. But Revik’s gaze fixed on the human’s bandaged hand. His jaw hardened.

“It speaks.” Terian folded his arms, cocking his head with narrow eyes. “Wow, Revi’. Did you just...insult me?” His smile widened. “I confess, I didn’t think you had it in you. Not after our last go around.”

Revik’s throat was so dry he was hoarse. “You still can’t stand the fact that Galaith made me second over you. He’d still take me back, Terry...in a fucking heart beat.”

Terian smiled, gesturing him forward. “Go on.”

Revik saw the hardness beneath the smile. He’d reached him.

But not enough.

He blurted, “Feigran, right? Wasn’t that your name?”

Terian’s smile grew leaden.

“I remember.” Revik’s fingers tightened around the chains. “A shit-blood from the Ukraine. Dugress, right? A town I destroyed...on accident, I admit. I don’t remember.” He barked a laugh. “I was drunk a lot back then, but there’s no way I’d destroy a crap town of beet farmers on purpose...”

Terian’s full mouth thinned.

Behind him, Jon had gone rigid, as still as death.

“I had to study files on all of my...” Revik barked another hoarse laugh. “...subordinates. You’re one of those inbred seers with an inferiority complex, is that it? Saw too many of your relatives go to the gas chambers? I guess that would hit at your self-esteem...supposedly superior race, and you’re exterminated like rats.” He coughed, tasting blood. “Tell me, did your father really get so poor he sold his wife? Did he sell you, too, Feigran? Is that how the Rooks acquired you? For a few dead animals and—”

The rod came down hard, in the middle of his chest.

Revik stopped breathing, losing all sense of where he was. The pain whited out his vision. He blocked it and the collar flared around his neck. Before he could go unconscious, Terian stepped forward and kicked him in the face. The shock yanked Revik out of his mind just as the mixer hit him lower with the rod, low enough to bring a scream.

For a long moment, Revik thought he was dead.

Terian lifted the pulse.

Groaning, nauseous, Revik tried to crawl away.

Terian stepped forward, kicking him in the stomach.

“You’re damned lucky I want this body for myself, Revi’.” The yellow eyes shone cold, lifeless, when Revik looked up. “I might find more creative things to do with it, if that were not the case. You should be thankful I have not yet run out of questions for your mind, too, because once I have, it will cease to exist...”

Revik tried to clench his muscles when the Rook kicked him again, but couldn’t. He cowered, gasping, when Terian approached him next, but that time, the other seer walked right up to his head. Crouching, he grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanking Revik’s head back.

“...And do you know what I’m going to do with this body of yours once it is mine, Revi’? Do you know the very first thing I will strive for? I’m going to find your darling Alyson, and I’m going to thank her properly for not coming for you. She won’t walk right for weeks, I promise you...” Seeing the barely concealed look in the other’s eyes, Terian grinned. That time, it reached the rest of him.

“Yes...you don’t like that. I bet you’d like to take an axe to me now...eh, Rolf? But hear me on this, old friend. One of these days, I’ll get my chance with her...in one way or form. I promise you that. That is my vow to you, brother.”

He let go of his hair, but didn’t move away. He continued squatting there instead, watching him with narrow eyes.

“I don’t know why you care so much all of a sudden, anyway,” he said, studying his face. “You were hardly the model husband, Revi’. Selling your cock to humans. Getting blow jobs from Seattle hookers while she slept alone. If she’d been raised seer, she would have stabbed you in your sleep by now, my friend.”

Watching Revik avert his eyes, he folded his hands between his bent knees, letting his voice grow thoughtful.

“I can’t help but wonder just how long it took her to act on that separation pain, once she didn’t have you around to screw with her head...” Watching Revik’s face, he clicked at him softly. “You could have popped that cherry, my friend. Can you imagine? Being the very first inside the Bridge, and as a mate, no less. Instead you waste it, acting like a sulking adolescent instead of being a man and accepting responsibility. And you call me pathetic...”

Revik stared at his hands. Blood dripped on them from his mouth. He remembered the presence he’d felt around her, and the sickness in his gut worsened. Terian’s words replayed themselves in his mind, and he couldn’t even disagree with them.

Terian laughed aloud, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Ah, that reassures me, Revi’...you know I’m right!” The seer leaned closer. “Hey! Revi’!” A smile lit up the handsome features. “Do you think that’s why she hasn’t come looking for you?” Reaching down, he massaged Revik’s genitals. He smiled when the other man groaned. “...Maybe she doesn’t even want this in her anymore, eh Revi’? Or do you think she’s the type to get off on mass-murderers? Tell me honestly. Are my chances with her better or worse wearing this body?”

Revik writhed as far away as he could with his wrists bolted to the floor. He fought to contract his light, but the collar only flared again. Terian gave his testicles a brief, hard squeeze, laughing, then let go. Revik nearly blacked out.

Turning, Terian smiled at Jon, winking. “Want to help him out this time, sport-o?”

In the cage next to Jon, Cass rattled the bars. “Stop it!” she screamed. “Leave him alone!”

Revik raised his head. Not now.

Cass couldn’t get his attention now, not when Terian was—

“I think you have fans, Revi’.” Terian glanced down at him. “Shall we reminisce about the old days? Or simply act them out? I'm sure they would love to hear about how we used to get our kicks, you and I...how much alike we once were.”

“I hope he kills you!” Cass screamed louder.

“Oh-ho!” Terian laughed, squatting by Revik again. He tapped him on the head. “Remember that French girl in Bangladesh? The one Colonel Harding was so fond of? How long did you manage to keep her alive? Was it two weeks? Three?” He glanced at Cass. “You were a lot more fun back then. You had better taste in friends, too, as I recall...” His yellow-gold eyes went flat, studying Cass.

Revik shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

Rocking his weight back to rest on his heels, Terian cocked his head. “You know, I can’t even tell if I believe you. You so clearly want to believe yourself.”

He rested his arms on his thighs, his voice serious.

“You know, don’t you, Revi’...I have only the purest of motives in bringing you here. You are sick, you see...you have lost your way. I want my friend back. Back on the side of non-hypocrisy, of fun, of ideals with practical application...” He smiled wider, glancing at Cass before he looked back at Revik. “...Barring that, I might have to peel your skin off in little strips like one of those ingenious devices we used in Prague...do you remember, Revi'? Just to deal with my disappointment, you see.”

Revik swallowed, not looking up.

Terian grabbed his wet hair. “Are you telling me to flay the girl instead? Or maybe the pretty young boy?”

Revik’s eyes found Cass and Jon without his willing it. The seer was pushing him to focus there, but he thought about them anyway.

Maybe he could make it quick. If Terian tried to fulfill one of those fantasies, it would be the easiest thing in the world to break Cass’s neck. The thought made the sickness worse, enough that he lowered his face.

He wondered how much of it was his, and how much Allie’s.

Laughing, Terian released him. “Oh, Rolf. You are the clever one. I suppose I may have to wait on my fun, then...at least until you learn it’s bad manners to break the nice toys I give you.”

Still squatting beside him, he studied Revik’s eyes.

“Tell me honestly,” he said softly. “Tell me the truth, Revi’, and I’ll leave the girl alone. For today, at least...I won’t touch her. Are my chances with your wife better or worse wearing this beat up body of yours?”

Revik closed his eyes, wiping his jaw with his hand. He glanced up, feeling the sickness lodge somewhere in his chest.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Terian just looked at him for a moment. Then his smile hardened.

“You really don’t. And you may not believe this, Revi’, but I find that sad.” He straightened, regarding the man lying at his feet. “The Dehgoies I knew wouldn’t have played those games with someone he was courting, much less his wife. Your first wife seemed to think you were a good husband...when you weren’t off gassing your own kind, that is.”

Prodding him with a foot, he sighed then, hands on his hips.

“Enough. Just looking at you is making me tired.” He glanced around the green tile room, the splashes of bloody water on the walls and floor. “For your touching display of loyalty to Alyson’s childhood friends, you have sustained a break.”

Stepping back, he wiped his hands on his pants, grinning at him.

“I’d like to reward you, though. Your humans, too...once I’ve washed the shit smell off me from you. So expect another visit today, all right, brother?”

Without another word, he walked to the mirrored wall.

Touching a panel, he disappeared through the opening that formed in the organic metal.

Once the hole melted shut, Revik slumped to the floor. He pressed his mouth to the wet tile, trying to inhale blood-tasting water, but the floor sloped in the wrong direction, leaving it slick but almost dry. The attempt only frustrated him, made his thirst desperate.

Jon’s voice came at him jaggedly from the nearer cage.

“Revik.” His English was hoarse. “Revik! Listen to me, goddamn it.”

Revik turned, fighting his eyes clear, his voice. “What, Jon?”

“Keep pushing him like that and he’s going to kill you. Stop it, alright? Just stop! I mean it, man...stop.”

“Yeah.” Cass’s voice slurred. “Stop it.”

Revik said, “It’s okay. We’re fine, Jon...Cass.”

“Don’t give me that shit!” Jon said. “You can’t go suicidal on us, man! You can’t! We need you...”

“We’re okay,” Revik repeated. “We’re okay, Jon...”

He lay there, willing his mind blank, wishing more than anything he could go back to where Allie slept. She didn’t always find him. There were gaps that went for days. Eventually she’d stop looking. At the thought, pain blinded him briefly. He rolled over onto his stomach.

His eyes closed when Jon’s voice jerked them open again.

“God.” Jon stared at him, eyes hollow. He licked his lips, staring still, as if examining the damage. “Thanks...okay?” He clutched a bar with his mutilated hand, twisting on the metal. “Thanks. I mean it. Just take it easy. Don’t provoke him any more. Don’t let him kill you. We need you, man. We need you...”

“We’re okay...”

“Are you listening to me?”

Revik acknowledged the human’s words with a nod, then let his head slump to the tile. He promptly fell unconscious.

REVIK! WAKE UP! Come back...come back to me!

He reached for her with his light. Fire shot into his neck, gritting his teeth.

“Dehgoies.”

A different voice.

“Dehgoies Revik?”

He tried to lift his head. His tongue had dried into his mouth. He couldn’t swallow. His temples pounded. He tried to clear his eyes, watching as a man placed a chair more than a body length from where he lay on the tile. Middle-aged with dark skin. Likely a seer from his physical appearance and the expression in his eyes.

His human-based ethnicity was closer to Indian than Eastern European or Chinese. He wore his wood-brown hair wound into a clip, and clothing reminiscent of Terian in the 1940s.

Revik focused on his own hands, feeling his pulse rise.

“What shall I call you?” the new body said.

Revik glanced at the far wall, saw that the cages that normally housed Cass and Jon were empty. Feeling his breath shorten, Revik tried not to let his panic show on his face. The new body regained its feet, walking closer to where Revik lay. Revik recoiled, but the seer only set something on the floor, within reach of his hands.

It was a glass of water.

The body returned to its chair, sat.

Revik stared at the water...but only for an instant.

Throwing his upper body forward, he reached for the glass, pulling the container closer with his fingers. He sniffed it...and ducked his head before he could come to anything conclusive, tilting the glass to his mouth as he sucked the liquid down greedily. When it was empty, he licked condensation off the sides.

He was still pressing the cold glass to his face when the body regained its feet and strolled closer to Revik once more, plucking the empty glass out of his hands. Revik watched in disbelief as the body carried the glass to the spigot on the wall, using the thin, high-pressure hose to fill it again. When the seer walked back, he placed the new glass on the same section of floor.

He stood there, watching Revik drink.

“You never answered me about the name,” the seer said. “Is it Revik now? Rolf? What does your new wife call you?”

“Dehgoies.” Revik tilted the glass for the last swallow, then pushed it carefully toward the other’s feet. “Where are Jon and Cass?” His voice was thick, but he could speak again.

The seer smiled. “Would you like another?”

“Yes,” Revik said. “Where’s Jon? Cass?”

The body bent for the glass. Walking back to the spigot, he replied,

“Cassandra required medical treatment.” He refilled the glass and walked back, setting it on the floor. “And I wanted to talk to you alone, Dehgoies.”

“You’re Terian?” Revik brought the glass closer, lowering his mouth to the cool liquid. He’d never tasted anything so good.

He drank with eyes closed, slower this time.

The body smiled. “Terian. Well, that’s an interesting question, Dehgoies. Yes, I am Terian.” He paused, watching Revik drink. He said, quieter, “Jon is right. You are pushing the drone too far, old friend. I can only control him so much...”

Revik laughed. He didn’t lose a drop of water.

Watching him, Terian clicked mildly.

“Must I put you on suicide watch again?” He watched Revik gulp down more water. “Relax, my friend. Slow...I will not take it.”

Revik tilted his head, finishing off the last of the water. He used his lips to take the condensation, cooling his face.

“You don’t look very well yourself,” Terian observed. “And yet, you still haven’t met the worst of my personas, Dehgoies. Trust me when I tell you, the Terian I’ve been using to interrogate you is a petulant child compared to the ones I have for less...delicate exercises. I call him Terian-6. I am Terian-2.” He spread his hands. “It simplifies things.”

Revik made his face expressionless.

“Are you willing to talk to me?” Terian said.

“Sure.” Revik set down the glass. “Can I have more?”

The body made a line in the air with one finger, a seer’s “no.” He added, “You obviously don’t trust me to not kick it over or make you piss in it...so I will pace your consumption for you. You don’t seem to believe me that you’ll get sick if I don’t.”

He folded his hands, tilting his head as he continued to examine Revik. His handsome face appeared greenish in the overhead light.

“You present us with an interesting puzzle, Dehgoies,” he said finally. “You see, I do not wish for anyone to know you continue to exist on this plane. So I am unable to utilize the Barrier the way I would normally. Inducement wires would be tricky, at best...”

The seer ticked off the list with his fingers.

“...Drugs must be avoided for the same reason. I do not want to kill you...and I would prefer you with limbs and organs intact. If I scan you outright, you will fight me, whether you mean to or not. If I scan deeply enough, there is a very good chance the telepathic restraint will kill you. Or destroy your mind, and I do not wish for that either. I obviously cannot deactivate the restraint.” Terian-2 spread his hands wider apart, smiling. “Truly? I wish I had my friend Dehgoies to ask. He was always so very good at puzzles of this kind.”

Revik kept the irritation off his face.

Terian-2 added, “You always had a bit of a dark twist in your methods, Revi’. I wonder now, was that from the wars, also? Did your creativity blossom questioning French prisoners? Or was it the Nazis themselves who sparked this in you?”

Revik stared at his thin hands clasped on the floor.

He could feel something trying to get at him, a pale, silvery thread, hovering over his light. Paranoia bit at the edges of his mind, a vague memory of being lost, of being broken. Worse than that, he felt the buttons the seer was trying to push, a flicker of pleasure that tried to insinuate itself, to flex into parts of him that lay dormant but unlocked. Memories tried to coalesce, to remind him of other things he’d been good at, once.

It occurred to him that his sight reflex ought to have kicked in. The collar should have ignited when he flexed his light.

But his mind felt relaxed.

Too relaxed.

He stared at the empty glass.

“Yes. Well. I did say drugs should be avoided, Revi’,” Terian-2 said apologetically. “...Not eliminated altogether. They must be handled with care, of course. You always did have that odd tolerance.” Terian-2 studied him as though he were an insect climbing wet tile. “It may help you to remember, you know. That would be good for you, yes? Less confusing?”

Revik’s fingers tightened on the glass.

“You see, I have a theory,” Terian-2 said. “I think that you have been remembering for some time, Revi’. I am curious to see how much of you is awake ahead of your conscious mind.” He watched Revik’s eyes. “I also truly do believe you have the succession order, my friend. Or perhaps you did something with it, yes? Something you forgot?”

When Revik continued to stare at the glass, Terian sighed, clicking.

“I confess, I still find it very difficult to read you. Even now, when you are ostensibly under my power, I feel I know you less, not more.” His dark lips thinned as he studied Revik’s face. “Some of this is act, yes. But not all. You hide behind a veneer of obedience. Obedience to Galaith, to me, to the Seven...your Ancestors. It does make me wonder what lies beneath.”

Internally, Revik rolled his eyes.

Smiling, Terian lit an expensive-smelling hiri stick, exhaling a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke. Revik’s hunger worsened.

“I suppose I understand,” Terian said. “...In part, at least. The way you were raised, you would have had plenty of practice in both lying and submission.” He bit gently on the end of the hiri, sucking resin. “And yet, in all of these months, I find it astonishing that I have yet to see a response from you that did not feel amazingly well-scripted. I believe all of this actually bores you on some level, am I right?”

Revik stared at his hands.

When the silence stretched, he gave a sort of barking laugh.

Terian smiled, settling his weight back in his chair. “If you do not wish to speak of the succession order, perhaps we can speak of other things. Tell me about Elise, Rolf.” He ashed the hiri. “How did you come to marry a human? How did you come to be in Germany at all?”

Revik’s mind remained lax. Images seeped through cracks. Her dead eyes grew into her living ones, smiling at him, laughing as she waded through blue-green grass, trailing dark hair. He caught her fingers, then the rest of her, and it was familiar, so familiar...but deadened somehow, far away. She was taking off his clothes before he’d caught his breath, asking him, and he lay on her, could barely hold it once he was inside.

Time rushed forward. He was older, bigger. She looked small to him now.

She blindfolded him, taking him into her studio. A wall of their house, painted with the sword and sun...

Everything went dark.

When he opened his eyes, he lay on the cold tile, naked, shaking with pain.

Tears poured down his face. He didn’t know where he was. He felt Terian with him briefly, his friend, laying an arm on his shoulder, laughing as he told another story about that hooker he’d loved in Paris...

Terian-2 clapped his hands. “Wake up, Revi’! Wake!”

He opened his eyes. He heard her voice, but too far away this time; he couldn’t make out her words. Walls dripped like liquid mercury around him. He was afraid he’d get some in his mouth, but he was so thirsty still, he almost didn’t care.

Terian set down a new glass of water. He stood, watching Revik drink. Revik calculated the length of his arms, the range of motion provided by the chain.

He mapped out every centimeter, every millimeter...

“...like Alyson?”

Revik opened his eyes. He blinked. “What?”

“Elise, Revi’. Do you remember?”

“She slept with him,” Revik managed. “Had his child.”

The light evaporated. He dug frantically in the dark, his fingers broken and bleeding. He was starving to death slowly, so thirsty he can’t swallow. Laughter came from outside the iron door, a shock of light after the lock screeched from the wall. Merenje opened the door, drunk, stumbling at the top of the stairs. He had a woman with him, her eyes were green—

“Want to play with an ice-blood, girl? A real one?”

Revik yanked on the chain, yanked, and his wrists bled...

Terian slapped him, hard. “Who did you report to, Revi’? In those years?”

Revik saw a black swastika on a white circle, blood red behind. Bodies piled in pits, like bleached white dolls. Out of bullets. He was out of bullets. They wanted him to beat them to death now, hit them with gun stocks in the back of the head, rocks, run them over with panzers. Memories slithered forward. She ran through the field, trailing dark hair. Brown eyes laughing, teasing him to follow, to chase her.

Leaning down, Revik sank his teeth into his own wrist, holding the vein right where his canines would pop it.

He rolled his eyes up, fixed his stare on Terian.

The Sark chuckled. “You would not.”

Revik bit down, hard.

Blood squirted into his mouth. He was hungry, so fucking hungry. He drank his own blood, feeling sick, strangely relieved. It would be over now. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the seer rise, saw his mouth move just before everything started to gray.

HIS EYES OPENED. Time passed, or not.

He couldn’t move his head. He tried to lift it, then his arms. Terian squatted beside him, his yellow eyes calm.

“You will remember more now, Revi’,” he said. “I can’t say I envy you, when you do...but perhaps you will feel free again, yes?”

Revik saw a tube running down, dripping liquid, mingling with his blood.

Something squirmed on his neck and throat. Something alive.

He remembered Allie feeding him light, curled up in his arms when he first woke up in that bed in Seattle. Pain hit him, worsening as he wondered why he hadn’t kept her there, why he let himself fall back asleep, why he hadn’t followed her when she left the room. He remembered her fingers as she sketched, her jade green eyes concentrated...telling him she wanted to go after Galaith, the light in her eyes dying when he said he wouldn’t help her.

Terian was right. Gods, Terry was right.

Why hadn’t he asked her? Why hadn’t he asked her, in all of that time?

A rusted metal building loomed over him, standing alone in the middle of a field. He looked up, and saw windows smashing outwards, glass shattering, pulverized to the consistency of sand. He heard his own voice, laughing into the sky, laughing, imagining that fucker Stami’s face if he saw him now. If he saw...

Cass sat near him, chained to the wall. Giant insects crawled by her feet, touching her skin with softly probing antennae.

“Cass,” Revik managed. “Don’t move. Be careful...”

She grinned. Hey, big guy. You want one?

Raising her foot, she smashed the hard brown shell of a fist-sized beetle with her bare heel. She picked it up, stuffed the whole thing in her mouth, crunching noisily.

He watched her, feeling sick, faintly envious. Hunger tugged at the edges of his light, making his head sink lower, making it feel as heavy as metal.

“They gave me too much,” Revik told her.

It’s the wire, brother, she told him. The wire on your neck...

Cass laughed, her mouth full of jointed legs. She flattened another insect, popped that one in her mouth, too. Jon stood over her, making chopping motions in the air with his hands. He wore a robe like the monks wore back home. Revik got dizzy, watching his flailing arms.

Stop screwing around, Jon told him. Clock’s ticking, man...

“...Do not misunderstand me,” Terian-2 was saying. “Over the years, I have found it patently not useful to judge the contradictory natures that arise within myself. Where they occur, I simply create a new vessel in which to house them.” He leaned closer, clasping lizard-like hands. His tongue darted out, wetting his lips, and Revik recoiled. “...You can see the symmetry behind this, can you not, my friend?” Terian’s teeth lengthened. “All parts culminating in their most authentic expression? There is no need for repression, Nenzi. No need to hold back any desires housed in the darker corners of your attic...”

Revik swallowed, staring up at him. “I’m really fucking hungry,” he said. “Can I have some food?”

Terian laughed. “Now that...that sounded like my friend! Is it possible I am reaching him at last? No, no...do not sleep. You have slept enough, Revi’...”

Revik glanced at Jon. “Do you believe this guy?”

Jon laughed. Him? What about you, man? He’s right, you know. You can’t just spend the rest of your life asleep...

“What choice do I have, Jon?”

You need to get laid, man. I mean bad. I hope Allie’s been exercising.

“Gods.” Pain clenched in his chest “Don’t talk about her like that. She’s my wife, Jon.” Blood darkened the water by his hands.

Someone slapped his face, disorienting him.

“Why were you in Germany, Rolf?”

Revik fought to see, couldn’t. His eyes were light, just light...he couldn’t see past it. Terian flicked his fingers impatiently. “Yes?” He tilted his head, as if listening. “You killed some humans? Really? Well, I ask you...so what? How many millions of seers have died at human hands, Revi’?” He leaned closer. “Tell me. Do you really care, even now? Or is this an act, too?”

Revik looked at Cass. “I care, Cass. I do care...”

I know you do, big guy. That’s why you’re talking to me. She grinned, making the crazy symbol by her head. Better than remembering that shit...right? Maybe you were right to wait with Allie. She’s going to rip it open, you know. She can’t help herself...

Revik pressed his face to the floor. The cold tile felt good.

He was ravenous, so hungry he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t make himself want to. When he glanced up, Jon was throwing pieces of meat in the air, catching them in his teeth. He worried each one before he swallowed them, flecking the green walls with blood and Revik felt himself getting hard, watching him. He stared at his fingers, broken and bleeding, digging in mud.

He was almost there. He could see daylight...

Terian’s eyes were dead, burnt glass. “You see,” he said. “I am becoming increasingly certain it wasn’t by accident that Galaith and I stumbled upon you in Germany like we did, Rolf. Nor a coincidence that you exactly fit our most desired recruitment profile. Estranged from family, few friends, no strong political beliefs, willing to kill humans...willing to follow questionable means for morally justifying ends. You could have guessed we’d concentrate our initial efforts in the Reich...”

Terian smiled, waggling a finger at him.

“You always were the clever one, Rolf. Were you Vash’s man, all along? Were you, Nenz?”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” he managed.

“Do I need to bring her here for real? To get you to talk? I seem to recall you were at your most malleable when you thought I had your wife in custody, too...”

Revik saw her then, and his heart clenched until he couldn’t breathe. Allie watched him from where she lay twisted on the floor, her neck broken. Her green eyes stared at his, dead-looking, a smoky gray.

He let out a groan, reaching for her. “No. Gods...please.”

“So when did their plans go wrong, Rolf? Was it when we killed Elise?” Terian leaned closer, his amber eyes hard. “Did you blame the Seven for that, too? But that was your fault, wasn’t it, Rolf? Dragging a vulnerable human into the middle of your very dangerous game? A bit arrogant, yes?”

Revik tried to concentrate on his words, couldn’t. “Give me food. Please.”

“Will you talk to me, if I do?”

His sickness worsened. “Yes.” He fought tears. “Just don’t hurt her. Please.”

Terian regained his feet. Revik clutched the empty water glass to his chest. When he was younger he could size someone’s range and limbs in a single look. Back then, he’d always known what space his body possessed, what he could do in that space, limitations, strengths, possible weapons...in case anything bad happened, which it frequently did.

Terian reached down, leaning over him.

Revik waited until the seer started to tug the empty glass from his fingers.

...and caught his wrist.

He whipped his legs around, smashing them into the back of Terian’s calves. Throwing his torso backwards as far as the chain allowed, he yanked him forcibly to the floor.

His other hand shattered the glass.

The seer fell on him. Revik rolled, half-pinning the Indian seer under his chest. Working his fingers quickly into strands of his hair, he jerked the head back. The Sark’s eyes showed white.

“Rolf, no! This won’t help you...!”

Revik ground the shard of glass into the seer’s throat.

A thin spray of blood hit him in the face. Sliding the glass in as far as he could, he gasped, crying out, seeing himself covered in blood and fresh wounds and scars, naked, bearded, in a hundred mirrors. He tore through muscle, veins and skin, then ripped the shard out. Blood sprayed upwards in a hot arc. The white throat pulsed, pouring thick fluid.

Revik stared down, watching, feeling his mind clear as...

The seer’s eyes gradually lost light.

Gradually, the blood pumped more slowly from the jagged hole in his throat. Revik continued to stare down, but the seer felt dead. He smelled dead.

Realizing he wore more than a collar, that it wasn’t only drugs affecting his mind, he ripped the inducement wire from around his own throat. He stared down at the twisting, organic coil once he had, then flung it to the ground, looking in the room’s corners.

Gasping, he fought to clear his head, to think.

Jon wasn’t there. Neither was Cass. All he saw was his own reflection, replicated over and over. This might be more inducement dream, too.

If not, he had minutes, maybe seconds.

Flipping to his side, he brought the back of his neck down to his hands, fumbled his fingers over the length of the organic-metal collar he still wore. It took him a few tries to activate the thumbnail switch. By the time he got it open he felt light-headed.

He thought he heard a noise in the outside corridor and grabbed the dead seer’s hair. He flipped back to his side, turning on the slick tile, angling the body’s face towards the back of his neck, trying to align it with the retinal scanner.

Nothing happened.

Revik craned over his shoulder, saw the corpse’s eyelids half-open, smeared with blood. He picked up a smaller shard of glass, slicing his fingers as he fumbled with it. He used the edge to shave off the body’s eyelids, careful to not puncture the eye, wiping blood off each iris. The lids kept slipping from his fingers but he got most of it, prayed it was enough.

Shifting to his side again, he struggled to grip the blood-soaked hair, to hold the eyes in position. Dread, adrenaline and fear nearly made him black out.

He wrenched the head back, then fought to concentrate, crying out when it tripped the collar’s anti-sight mechanism enough to cause a jolt of pain. He nearly let the body drop.

He felt the click as much as heard it.

The prongs retracted, receding from his neck in one smooth pull. Gasping, he raised his head. The old reflex kicked in and that time it felt so good he groaned aloud.

Without waiting, he focused on the chains. He already knew they were tied into the organics of the room. He looked for the right organic being...he remembered doing this before, as well, although he hadn’t done it in years. Within a few seconds, the being had stopped listening to the artificial intelligence that normally directed it, and was listening to Revik instead.

He heard footsteps. They sounded real this time.

Regaining his thread with the organics, Revik tried to talk to the damned thing, to coax the living metal to open. He was breathing in so much oxygen he nearly passed out.

His vision cleared as an opening morphed in the wall, revealing a man with long, auburn hair. Terian-6 paused, seemed to take in the entirety of the scene—Revik contorted and cuffed to the floor, the dead body lying in a pool of blood behind him.

“Oh, Revi’...”

Terian-6 held the edges of the opening, his liquid eyes shining. “You have no idea how much fun I’m going to have with you.” He finished entering the room and Revik jerked back, startled when his arms moved with the rest of him.

He looked down. The chains lay open on the floor.

Terian-6 halted. He stared at Revik’s hands, his muscular body suddenly tense.

“Revi’...” he said warningly.

Revik threw himself at the seer, using the water on the tile floor to slide across the meters between them. He saw Terian fumble for a pocket, moving frantically so that he jerked his elbow into the wall. Their bodies collided just before they slammed into the green organic surface together.

There was a loud crack as they hit, but Revik didn’t stop grappling for the seer’s neck. Grasping hold of his throat, he slammed Terian-6’s head against the glass, then again...and again, until the light eyes glazed.

He didn’t realize the glass shard remained clutched in his hand until blood seeped through his fingers from the seer’s throat.

Revik reached for the pocket the seer had been groping for, ripped a serrated knife from the cloth jacket. Without a pause, he flipped it open, plunged it into the seer’s chest to the hilt and cut downwards, sawing like he was dressing meat. Hitting bone, he pulled it out and stabbed him again, going deeper into the chest cavity. He did it again.

And again...until he felt the shift in the other seer’s light.

Revik held the dead weight against the glass wall, staring at its face.

Hesitating, staring between the Sark’s eyes, he flipped the knife in his hand, letting the body slide down the wall to the floor before he knelt over it again, taking steps to ensure it wouldn’t come back.

It wasn’t until he’d severed the head from the neck that he felt the urgency and adrenaline in his limbs begin to abate.

He looked at the mutilated body, feeling light-headed. Ripping the deactivated collar from his neck, he leaned on the glass wall.

He couldn’t pass out...couldn’t.

He felt light again, his and others...a flood of presence so near and warm it shocked him, brought tears to his eyes. For a long moment, he let it hold him, trying to pull himself out of the dark, to feel something different.

Slowly, he felt himself grow almost calm.

There would be more bodies. Terian built redundancy after redundancy into every system he created. There would be more. Maybe a lot more.

He remembered Jon and Cass then, and dragged himself up the wall to his feet.