Vashti came awake to see Max's frightened face above her, a gray pallor to his normal darker skin tone.
“Vashti! Mother, you scared the life out of me.”
Relief flooded her. She reached up and touched his face. He was still alive. She sat up too fast and almost knocked her head into his.
“Whoa, take a minute,” Alaric said. His hand was on her back, supportive and comforting. “Not sure what happened there, but I think you hit the floor pretty hard.”
Yes, now that he mentioned it, she had a pretty good bruise on her head. Briefly, she flashed to another time when she'd fallen and taken a much more severe head injury.
No. No time for that.
She turned and looked up at Alaric where he knelt beside her.
“He's coming,” she said. She didn't have to say who.
“Now?” Alaric asked, and she nodded. “Damn. I thought he'd take more time looking for you at the Facility. Guess not.”
“He's angry, Alaric. He intends to burn this place to the ground with us inside.”
“I’m sure he does.”
He was already up and moving. He opened a locked cabinet and tossed her a plasma rifle. He went to grab one for Max and she lunged forward. “No!”
He and Max looked at her. Alaric's hand was still on the rifle.
“No.” She made sure her voice was calm this time. “Max can’t—” She caught herself. Max would never agree to stay out of the fight just because she was afraid for him, vision or no. She regrouped. “Max has to find the drug. The Fly Spy. Please?”
Max hesitated, saw her face, and nodded. “I might have something, I'm not sure. There's a room in the Facility Kadaar keeps locked, I don't think anyone else goes in. He's got it shielded, too. But I can probably break it if I have more time with the amplifier.”
“That would be more help than another gun,” Alaric said, and Vashti sent him a grateful look.
Max gave a slow nod. “All right then. I'll stay here and work on that. Vashti, be careful.”
“Wait.” Alaric considered her for a moment. “Wait here. I might have something more useful to you than that.” He nodded at the rifle she held, a little awkwardly since she’d never trained extensively with guns. Blades had been more her thing.
He disappeared down the hallway, returning in a moment. He held a box, plain and a little battered. She thought there were scorch marks on it.
“It’s old, like me. I don’t know if you’ll be able to use it, or if it will break just like the one you had. But—” He opened the lid and pulled out a bracelet. It was much simpler than her old cuff. Black, unadorned. It looked more like what it was: a weapon.
She didn’t even hesitate, but took it from him and slid it over her wrist. It felt comforting to have something so familiar. She watched as it shrank to fit her, and then thinned as it sank, melding into her arm. She felt the spark of her Talent connect with it, and then she was holding a blade, slightly curved. She felt the faint buzz of it in her mind.
“The most dangerous thing is going to be the radiation,” Alaric said. “We have to cut them down before it kills us.”
“I think I can shield us, at least a little, with telekinesis.”
He tilted his head, thinking. “That might work. Let’s hope it does.”
Her stomach squirmed uncomfortably. She hadn’t told him the worst part of her vision yet.
“Alaric. He’s bringing his own shield with him,” she said. “A human shield.”
Anger tightened his features. “The kids,” he said.
“He knows you care for them. He plans to use it against you.”
He closed his eyes. “This is what you saw, isn’t it? The way they die.”
“Maybe.” She hesitated. What words of comfort could she offer? “You aren’t responsible for what he does. You’ve done everything you could to protect them. We’ll do everything we can now to save them. This isn’t your fault.”
She could see from the look on his face that he didn’t believe it. She wondered if he blamed her and Max. If he hadn’t lied to Kadaar for them when he came here tonight, would any of this be happening?
“No,” Alaric said. She hadn’t realized she was so transparent. “None of that. Kadaar is a fucking psychopath. This was always going to happen.”
She followed him down the stairs, leaving Max with the amplifier and his datapad. She prayed he would stay up here with them.
The street was eerily silent. Night had fallen while they’d been upstairs, and now everything was shrouded in darkness, silver moonlight touching rooftops and casting shadows. Vashti and Alaric stood just inside the cafe serving room. The tables were down, the security gate open, the door wide and inviting.
Alaric wanted Kadaar and his people to come in, but she wasn’t sure Kadaar was that stupid. He knew about the defenses in the ceiling.
“We should be outside,” she said, something tugging at her.
“Outside we’re in the open, no defenses.”
The tug grew stronger. She shook her head. “I’m telling you, if we stay here, this is not going to go the way we hope. We need to be outside.”
Alaric wrestled with it for a moment. “Fine. You’re the one who sees the future. We’ll go out, but on our terms.” He walked to the door, looked across the street. “See that roofline? I want you there with a plasma rifle.”
“No.” She shook her head. Something inside her relaxed as she spoke. “You’re the one with the gun, and you’re a much better shot than I am. I need to be down here, where I’m close. You need to be up there with the gun.”
He wanted to argue. He was a soldier. She was not, at least, not in the same way. She smiled at him. “Aren’t you the one who keeps saying the Talented are weapons of mass destruction? Let me be where I’ll do the most good.”
“Vashti, you’re a precog.”
She lifted a brow. “And no precogs ever fought in the Ascension Wars? I also have both telepathy and telekinesis. They are nulls, Alaric. And I have a soul blade.”
“If it works. It hasn’t been tested in decades.”
“This is how we win. Trust me.”
With something close to a growl, he stepped outside the door. He hesitated in the street. “You should find some cover to wait. Not the alley, it’s the first place he’ll look. Maybe over there, that chunk of rubble is small, but it casts a big shadow with the moon at this angle.”
“All right.”
Still, he didn’t move.
“Was there something else?”
“Just remember. The kids aren’t the only ones I want to see live through this. Your life is important, too.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But I’m old. I’ve lived a lifetime already.”
“Technically, I’ve lived several. But now I have to know how this all ends. The war. Fareena. This whole mess. You should stick around and see it, too.”
He started across the street, and she watched him go, a bit surprised. Well, perhaps there was more to Alaric’s hard exterior than she’d thought.
She found a spot just where he’d said, where a nicely slanted bit of old building provided just enough cover for her.
Max, she sent, just to reassure herself. Any progress?
This shielding is solid for being so old, but Spy Fly has some tricks I programmed into it. I’m working on it.
Hurry. Because after tonight, Alaric’s street children would have no more supplies coming from Kadaar.
A noise heralded someone coming, and she focused on projecting her shroud, turning attention away from where she hid.
The first person to walk into her view was the boy with the sling, the one she’d seen first in her vision. He had blood on his face. He stumbled a bit as he walked, as though it hurt, and there was something around his neck. It rattled, and a slow, powerful rage moved through her.
Kadaar had put a chain around his neck.
A woman was holding the other end, and she was laughing, her head turned to say something to the man striding next to her. There were a dozen of them, including Kadaar, who came in just behind the boy and the woman. He was holding that plasma rifle, but that wasn’t what drew Vashti’s attention. His skin, already pale, almost seemed to glow in the moonlight. She felt that funny tug, and knew that was important.
It had to be his radiation. He’d built it up to a point where he could burn down the tea house.
No, she thought.
“Look, look!” called Kadaar. He practically ran to the door. “They’ve left it open for us. What a welcome.” But he didn’t rush inside. He took his time, looking around. As Alaric had said, he checked the alley to the side of the building.
“Where are you, Alaric? I know you wouldn’t leave this welcome for us for no reason. Look, I brought you a gift.” He reached out, grabbed the boy’s chain, and gave it hard pull, dragging him forward. He lifted him up, holding him high until his feet dangled in the air.
“Alaric,” he practically sang. “You shouldn’t have lied to me. I want my money. I want my bounty. Where are my Talented visitors?”
Why didn’t Alaric just shoot him? Then she saw the way the chain was melting in his hand. It broke, and the boy fell, landing badly. He cried out and rolled onto his good arm, holding his broken one to him.
How would the hot plasma react with the radiation? She didn’t know. Well, then. That made her choices simple.
Taking a deep breath, Vashti stood up. She reached out with her telekinesis and lifted the boy, raising him high into the air, high above their heads, until he was above the roofline. Then she moved him over the top of it and let him go, making sure he landed softly up on the roof.
At least he was out of Kadaar’s reach, for now. There were no other children here. Once again, she’d interpreted something wrong. The other children were either already dead, or they would be without Kadaar’s drug.
She couldn’t worry about that now.
Kadaar laughed. “There you are. My bounty.”
Vashti said nothing. She was focused on putting a telekinetic shield between her and Kadaar. She felt the blade in her hand, felt the world narrow until she was aware of all twelve of Kadaar’s people, aware of each movement they made. The weapons they pointed at her, the way Kadaar couldn’t seem to hold still, as though he wanted to jump out of his own skin. She let out a breath, and let go of her thoughts. She felt the tug of her Talent.
She moved just as a plasma bolt hit the rubble she’d been hiding behind. A flash of heat and light. She threw a wave of telekinesis out, knocking three of them off their feet, and ran for the other side of the street. Half a dozen of them gave chase, and that’s when rifle fire came from the roofline above them. One dropped, then another.
Four were on the ground before the rest took cover.
Eight left.
“Alaric, this isn’t how the game is played,” Kadaar said. “You’re not playing by the rules.”
Vashti really wished he would shut up.
“You took my toy away, so I’m going to have to take yours.” Kadaar stepped up to the tea house and leaned into it, throwing his arms out in front of him. A wave of heat and light burst from him. Pain lanced Vasthi’s eyes and she had to close them. Fear closed her throat.
Alaric had said Kadaar could burn a building to the ground in minutes. Max was in that building.
Get out! Max, get out.
Her Talent pulled at her, the tug so strong she nearly staggered. She could feel the future narrowing to this moment, the gap where she could change it closing. She ran, faster than she thought she could, the soul blade in her hand.
Kadaar’ s people moved to intercept her. She couldn’t see them with her eyes closed against the light, but she could feel them with her mind. Her telepathy was stronger than her telekinesis. Their shields were weak, spotty like most nulls.
One of them died, the mind disappearing. A second followed. That had to be Alaric.
Six left.
A hand caught her arm, rough, and yanked her to a stop. She thrust with the blade in her hand and with a cry, her captor fell back. Kadaar was laughing, the building burned.
Five. Four. She wasn’t going to get through the last three before the building collapsed on itself. She could feel her telekinetic shield faltering, the closer she got to him. The heat was incredible.
She would not let this future be. What had Alaric said? The soul blades were just the focus for the Talent. She needed it to be a weapon, so it was a weapon.
She needed a longer reach. She lifted her blade and focused all of her will. Her shield fell as she put everything she had into the blade. The buzz in her mind grew louder, stronger. The knife in her hand became a sword, and when she cut with it, a line of white smoke whipped out and drew across three throats. Their minds went silent.
Only Kadaar was left. She took the last steps separating them, ignored the way her skin burned, the pain that flashed though her, and buried her soul blade in his throat.
He died. His radiation died with him. The light turned back to darkness, but all Vashti saw were the painful spots in front of her eyes. She fell to her knees, whimpering as her skin blistered with the thermal heat Kadaar left in his wake.
She felt hands on her moments later, lifting her up, pulling her clear.
“Max,” she said.
“He’s fine. I’m fine. The kid’s fine. You’re the only one with second degree burns over half your body.”
Alaric sounded angry. That was fine, then. As long as everyone was safe, she could live with second degree burns.
Maybe she said that out loud, because the last thing she heard was Alaric calling her some very unflattering names, and then the pain faded to darkness.
She woke naked, submerged in a tank of medical gel. A breathing mask covered her face. The gel felt cool on her skin, soothing. Vashti had never been severely burned before, but she’d seen others treated and knew what this was. The gel was full of nanites helping her body rehab the burned and destroyed tissue. She must have been in it for some time already, because what she could see of herself looked almost normal.
“She’s awake!”
She turned her head, the movement slow and difficult, to see Max standing beside her. He looked worried.
Alaric came up beside him. She badly wanted to ask about the children, and the tea house. But her mind felt sort of odd, like using her Talent to speak would hurt. She’d thrown so much of herself into the soul blade, she’d probably approached burn out. She was so tired. She moved a hand through the gel, sluggish and slow, and placed it on the side of the tank, fingers splayed.
Max looked confused, but Alaric understood.
“The children are fine, for now. Max is still working on getting through the locks on Kadaar’s storage, but his Fly Spy was able to see inside and it definitely looks like the drugs are in there. We can get in, and we’ll give them to the kids while we figure out how to help them long term.”
Relieved, Vasthi let her hand fall. The world was getting fuzzy. She let sleep pull her under once more.