Apex Read online

  I was about to feel guilty about being able to sit there and rest, when Gwalchmai alerted and a wave of Nagas poured through the streets straight toward us. It got…very busy.

  By the time we were done with them, I was soaking wet with sweat, and the only thing keeping me standing was the wall at my back.

  “Kent to Joy.”

  “Joy, copy,” I replied. “We’re clear here for the moment.”

  “Good. If you can still stand, and the town is still clear, we need you out here.”

  “Roger that,” I said, finding another reserve of energy and pushing myself off the wall. Too bad the Hounds couldn’t feed me physical strength along with the magic they fed me.

  Then again, I should be counting my blessings that we’d discovered the Hounds could feed their Hunters magic. Without that boost, we’d have gone under months ago, at the second Barrier fight.

  We made our way to the side of town where the fight was still raging. Twisty, maze-like streets such as these were another defense; only Nagas could “charge” through the sharp bends every twenty feet or so. But the narrow streets had trapped the smoke, which was coming from somewhere behind us now. I wondered if something had set the grain elevators on fire. If the Othersiders had settled on a war of attrition with us, taking out some of our food supplies would be a logical thing to do.

  Between the streets and the smoke, I couldn’t tell that we’d come to the edge of town until we were just past it. Suddenly a gust of wind blew the smoke away and I found myself looking at the back of another Folk Mage.

  There weren’t three Folk Mages, there were four! And not just any Folk Mage—this one was floating about three feet in the air, encased in his Shield bubble, a Shield so damn good and tight that it was keeping the smoke out while still letting him breathe. This was one of their big guns, someone with as much power as any three ordinary Folk Mages put together.

  But this wasn’t “my” Folk Mage, the one that had taken an inexplicable interest in me, although his outfit was just as elaborate as the one in lavender wore. His blond hair was shorter than the lavender one’s hair—it barely came below his shoulder blades, and it was fastened into several tails by gold bands. From the back it looked to me as if he was wearing a combination of fanciful armor and ankle-length robes of various shades of gold. The armor was engraved with elaborate designs and inlaid with gemstones. The robes were heavily embroidered with gold bullion and gemstone beads.

  My nerves rang with fear, like guitar strings, and my Hounds suddenly clustered themselves around me, adding their Shields to mine. Then he turned.

  Like “my” Mage, he was so handsome he was somehow…too attractive. In the uncanny valley where inhuman perfection lives. But his gold eyes lit up with an expression I did not like at all, and his smile mirrored what was in his eyes.

  “Well, well, well,” he said in a voice like icy velvet, if such a thing were possible. “The famous shepherd. Save your sheep, shepherd—if you can.”

  And before I could react to that, he conjured a Portal, stepped through it, and was gone.

  Great, was all I could think, as I reeled from the shock of being recognized. I’m famous among the Folk. This can’t possibly end well.

  IT APPEARED I HAD disturbed the mind behind the battlefield strategy, because when I looked out over the battlefield from my vantage at the edge of town, it was obvious things fell apart at the moment he vanished. Portals popped up all over the place. The Othersiders who could retreat were doing so, leaving the rest behind to be slaughtered. By the time I joined up with the rest of the team, their Hounds were harrying the last reluctant Nagas through the final open Portal.

  The Hunters were all moving slowly, unlike their Hounds, who were romping about like puppies. I envied the Hounds. I suspect all of us did.

  I wasn’t moving very fast myself; once I got over the jolt of adrenaline caused by coming face-to-face with another top-rank Folk Mage, I felt as limp as an old, wrung-out dishrag. But I counted heads and came up with the same number we’d arrived with. Any landing you can walk away from, I guess. Or any battle.

  The team was slowly gathering around Kent, while two of the army Mages led several squads of soldiers into the town to make sure the Hounds and I hadn’t missed anything, give the Cits the all clear, and evacuate the injured. “…they’re going to demand walls,” Kent was saying to Archer, as I got within earshot.

  Archer rolled his eyes. “They pulled down their walls six years ago,” he pointed out. “It’s their own damn fault that they don’t have any now!”

  Kent just shrugged and looked around for something to sit on, as his four Hounds plopped themselves casually down around him, looking sleek and satisfied. “Any objections to waiting for transport while the army gets themselves out of here?” he asked in general.

  “They have wounded, we don’t,” Hammer pointed out, as one of his massive Hounds positioned itself so he could use it as a backrest. Dusana did the same for me, and I took the invitation to plant my butt on the dirt, while my eleven made a pile around me. I pulled off my gas mask and got another drink of water. It tasted like smoky ambrosia.

  “I nearly ran into a really fancy Folk Mage at the edge of town,” I said. “A fourth one. I think he was playing general. I startled him, and I guess he didn’t want to take the chance I wasn’t alone, because he Portaled out of there, and that was when the fight fell apart.” I wasn’t sure if I should mention what he’d said just yet.

  Kent demanded a description, and I obliged as well as I could, while they all listened. When I finished, there was silence, except for the distant whumpwhumpwhump of choppers approaching.

  “He looked kind of like the one that stopped the train when I was on the way here,” I said. “Only gold instead of lavender.”

  Archer and Kent exchanged a look. “You think?” Archer asked.

  “Beginning to look like it,” Kent replied.

  “You guys going to enlighten us, or pretend we’re all Psimons?” Steel demanded irritably, then coughed as the wind blew smoke over all of us.

  Both Archer and Kent grimaced. “Not here,” Kent said, with a quick look around. “Back at HQ. Joy’s people back home are right; thinking or talking about them can get their attention, and we don’t want him coming back.”

  I sagged my head against Dusana’s back, buried my hand in Bya’s coat, and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to think about anything; I just wanted to concentrate on getting every tiny little bit of rest I could get while we waited for the choppers, because odds were we’d get a callout while we were still in the air. We’d already had one callout this morning that half the Elite team, including me, had gone on—the other half had been on night shift and were still sleeping after last night’s callout.

  The regular Hunters were working harder than they were used to, too. No longer going out on solo patrols, they were pairing up to patrol places like the storm sewers and the edges of the Barrier, and even parts of Spillover that we used to handle. I was pretty sure that going out to do fan service or having fun at clubs at night wasn’t happening for them anymore. Or at least, nowhere near as much.

  The one good thing was that all this activity seemed to be concentrated around Apex. Kent had put out a call to other cities for Hunter volunteers to come to Apex, so we had some new—but experienced—blood, and we needed them. I hadn’t actually met any of them yet, but the roster was larger by just over a dozen.

  Truth to tell, I was tempted to ask for help from the Monastery, and feeling a bit guilty about hiding the Monastery from everyone here. But the Monastery Hunters were spread out over just as much territory as the Elite defended. I didn’t know if they’d be able to spare anyone. And even if they could, until I could figure out how we could explain the “sudden” appearance of one or more seasoned Hunters from an area that wasn’t supposed to have any at all, I didn’t want to do that just yet.

  “Hunters, your rides are incoming,” came the word from HQ over the general Hunter c
omm channel.

  “Roger, HQ, and thanks,” Kent said wearily. We all remained where we were, sprawled on the ground among our Hounds, unwilling to get up until we actually had to. When the choppers landed, we hauled ourselves and one another to our feet and opened the Way for our Hounds to go back, then shuffled off to our rides like a bunch of sleepwalkers. And once we were in and strapped down, we all fastened chin straps too, hoping to get just a few more minutes of rest.

  We made it through the rest of our shift undisturbed, and I woke up the next morning with the memory of Archer and Kent being enigmatic about those fancy Folk Mages in the front of my mind. I threw on the clothing I’d set out last night without even paying much attention, and when I was decent, I headed for the mess. I was the fourth out of the eight of us to arrive. Kent and Archer were already there, just starting on their bowls of eggs-and-stuff. The kitchen always gave us eggs and something, first thing, to remind us it was morning.

  “What were you two talking about yesterday?” I demanded. “When you said ‘You think?’ and you said ‘Beginning to look like it.’”

  Everyone turned to Kent and Archer. “You did say you’d explain back at HQ,” Steel pointed out.

  Archer and Kent exchanged another one of those looks. Archer shrugged. “You’re the senior Elite,” he pointed out, and went back to eating.

  “It’s a theory,” Kent said carefully. “There’s no proof for it, of course. Most people who know the Folk exist say that they are anarchists. That they have no leaders as such, just loose alliances, and they have little or no interest in acting like human warlords would by establishing themselves inside set territories. Certainly during the Diseray they acted that way—if two Folk came upon humans at the same time, it was even odds they’d fight each other rather than joining forces. But the longer it’s been since the Diseray, the less that’s been happening. We definitely saw differently at the Barrier Battle—that wasn’t a disorganized mob; that was an army. Until now, though, we’ve never actually seen one single Folk Mage directing everything. But what you saw, Joy, is proof. They have real leaders. Real generals.”

  This wasn’t exactly news to me, although I acted as if it was. The Masters had known there was something like this going on with the Folk for as long as I had been a Hunter, at least.

  “He sure seemed to me as if he was acting like some sort of general,” I agreed, glad to finally have done with keeping my knowledge a secret. “We know the Folk have psionics. He could have been giving them orders that way. In fact, if he was concentrating on doing just that, it accounts for how I managed to get so close to him before he noticed me.”

  “Well…” Hammer said heavily. “That’s just terrific.”

  “It doesn’t change much,” Archer pointed out. “Except that…” He rubbed his ear. “Those of us with extra Hounds, or flying Hounds, might want to think about deploying one to look for a Folk Mage acting like a general. We chase him back to where he came from, we can end these fights a lot quicker.”

  “Huh. That’s true.” Hammer brightened a little. “You’re not as dumb as they say you are.”

  At just that moment, the alarms blared and we got a four-man team callout. Kent assigned me, Hammer, Steel, and Archer, and we sprinted for the chopper pad. Word was this was Minotaurs and Ogres, which meant we’d be in for some heavy fighting.

  By the time we got back, Kent, Scarlet, Mei, and Flashfire were gone on another callout. We had about enough time to grab ammo and other supplies when we got back, and then we went out again, bolting down energy squares in the chopper. This time, it was “just” a really big Drakken….

  We dragged in at sunset. The Drakken had not gone down without a huge fight; the wretched thing was easily the size of the ones Ace had called his “new Hounds.” The rest were already back, and they looked just about as hauled-over-the-rocks as we did. “Anybody spot a general?” Kent asked as we joined them in the mess. We shook our heads, and he sighed.

  I happened to glance up at the vid-screen, which was showing a Hunter channel. It was Tober and Dazzle taking out a pair of Ogres. I immediately recognized where they were.

  “Huh,” I said aloud. “That’s PsiCorps HQ. So why isn’t there at least one Psimon pitching in to help?”

  “Oh, they aren’t helping Hunters anymore,” Mei replied, with a sardonic lift of her lip. “Abigail Drift did not like the public reaction to the noble sacrifice of her Psimons at the first Barrier Battle.”

  This was news to me. But anything that displeased Drift sounded interesting. “Public reaction?” I prompted.

  Flashfire snickered. “More like lack of public reaction. Oh, and I heard that someone anonymously left a big wreath on the front steps of the PsiCorps HQ, with a ribbon across it that read ‘It’s a good start.’”

  Well, my reaction to that was mixed. I really loathed Abigail Drift. She was the reason I broke up with Josh, who was Uncle’s Psi-aide. To say she manipulated and used her Psimons in every way possible was an understatement. She’d had no compunction whatsoever about putting them into a situation she knew was going to kill some of them, and I’ll bet she never let them have the faintest inkling of the risks they were about to take, either. I’d have happily used her as bait for a Drakken, and I wouldn’t have been too quick about coming once the Drakken got hold of her.

  But if she hadn’t sent the Psimons to the Barrier, we’d probably all be dead now and the city would have been overrun. Okay…she did do that. But those poor Psimons hadn’t deserved what had happened to them, dropping dead with exhaustion or whatever it was that had killed them. And she’d sent them there knowing that was going to happen to them. Yeah, PsiCorps isn’t the problem. It’s Drift. And I’d still use her for Drakken-bait.

  From the look on Kent’s face, he felt the same. Flashfire glanced at him and flushed. “I’d throw Drift under a train in a heartbeat,” Kent said slowly. “And PsiCorps used to be…better than this. I’d like to think that some of the Psimons are still people who won’t take a stroll through your skull just because Drift wants to know what you’re thinking. Maybe even most of them. And…I’d hate to find out that the ones that died at the Barrier were the ones she couldn’t turn into her personal errand boys.” Flashfire nodded a little, and that was that.

  And that was when we got a very small miracle. All our Perscoms and the alarm in the mess gave what I now knew was the “dangerous weather” signal, and our heads all snapped around to look at the vid-screens—which were showing a glorious, glorious storm coming in—a nice big red-and-purple one. It wasn’t moving so fast as to be driven by Thunderbirds, but it was blowing up nicely, and would probably give us at least twelve to twenty hours of respite. Maybe a bit more, if it picked up energy and moisture as it got closer to us. The collective sound that came out of all of us was more groan than sigh, but it was relief.

  “Stand down, Elite, we’re getting a break,” Kent said. “Who wants to join me for a drink?”

  “Not me,” Archer said, as Mei, Scarlet, and Flashfire shook their heads. “Sleep. I’m so short of it right now I’ll probably pass out on the way to my room.”

  Hammer, Steel, and Mark all raised their hands. I tried not to look hopeful, but Kent pointed a finger at me. “Unless you’re ready to pass out, you too, kid. You’re Elite; you’re an honorary adult.”

  “In that case,” Scarlet said, “I change my mind. Joy and I can walk each other back to our rooms.” Scarlet’s suite was across the hall from mine. That made it real convenient if one or the other of us had sprains or strains we needed wrapped, or bandages changed. Bonding over wrenched ankles might seem weird to a Cit, but that’s life as a Hunter.

  Now, I’m not one to self-medicate, but I couldn’t help remembering how relaxed that very tasty sweet stuff had made me the last time I’d had a drink in the Elite bar. Right now, the knots in my muscles had knots in them. My Masters would probably have suggested meditation instead of medication, but I knew if I tried to meditate I’d fall asleep and
wake up just as knotted as before. A drink now…a hot steam bath in the morning…I might be human again sometime in the next twenty-four hours. I cheerfully trotted along with the herd to the second-floor bar, reserved for members of the Elite.

  The lights came on as we entered. The bar looked almost exactly the way good bars looked in old pre-Diseray vids: lots of wood, padded two-person booths along the walls, some overstuffed leather chairs with little tables beside them, a real wooden bar with tall chairs lined up in front of it, and a vast array of bottles on shelves behind it. On the walls were framed photos of Elite who had been killed. I had the feeling that this room tended to see a lot of use when things were “normal,” since none of the Elite seemed inclined to go clubbing. Not so much lately, of course.

  We all took those tall chairs, and Kent went behind the bar to play bartender.

  Kent poured; whiskey for himself and Mark Knight, that creamy tan stuff for me, something clear for Scarlet, and something clear from another bottle for the brothers. This was a much bigger selection of hard liquor than we had on the Mountain. There, we had one type, good old-fashioned moonshine, which came in two forms—clear and raw, or aged in wood barrels. We also had beer and berry-wine, which kids were allowed to have in moderation, but I didn’t much like beer, and more than one glass of wine made my head ache.

  I sipped at the tasty stuff and felt my muscles beginning to unknot. Oh, the relief! Even more of a relief knowing I could actually allow myself to sleep properly rather than always being on the edge of sleep, waiting for a callout alarm to go off in the middle of the night. Even through the massive walls of HQ, I could hear the thunder getting nearer.

  I was still cautiously sipping my first drink, the others already on their second rounds, when the storm hit. The building shook and the lights flickered for just a moment, a momentary blip as a lightning strike somewhere close interrupted the power.

  Kent raised his glass. We all did the same.