Kaia might've surfed the bow wave of a ship, could've been caught on camera.
"It might have nothing to do with the Consortium," he told himself. "KJ is gone." But the security chief part of his brain asked, if KJ was the dangerous central mole, what had he left in BlackSea's computer and comm systems? Back doors where others could listen in or download data? Kaia would've tagged her family from the waypoints, too, likely given them her intended route. What if the enemy had a way to monitor comms? Or could be they had spotters near the cities and they'd figured out Kaia's likely path.
When a dorsal fin appeared in the distance, he felt his heart skip a beat, but it proved to be a shark. That shark turned out to be huge and it swam alongside him for long enough that he realized it was changeling--and it was searching to his right. So he went left. And when other creatures of the sea appeared out of nowhere, he was very careful with where he piloted his craft.
Together, they all searched, Bowen's heart leading him deeper and deeper into the blue. The mating bond told him Kaia was alive, and that was all that kept him sane.
Malachai called back four hours later, his hair damp and his upper body clad in a black T-shirt that had patches of wet on it. "No sign of her and we've got hundreds of people in the water looking. You?"
"Nothing." Not even a hint of a familiar playful dolphin. "Is it possible she took a detour?"
"With the vanishings, we've got strict rules in place for all our people. She was mad when she left Bebe's island, but when she ran across Armand just off the island, she told him exactly where she was going. And she filed her return path at the first settlement she hit after leaving Italy." Malachai shoved a hand through his hair. "She knows exactly how terrified we'd all be if she went off-route."
Bowen's mind chilled to Arctic coldness. He couldn't afford to feel fear right now. "Are those filed routes on a networked system?"
"No." Malachai folded his arms. "I isolated that data to a local unit at each city or town; those units are accessible only by me, Miane, and the commanders of the cities. Griffin's at Miraza--he's as loyal to BlackSea as I am, and he considers Kaia a close friend."
Bo took Mal at his word; the other man knew his people. But . . . "No one new in Griffin's life?" Bo would've never thought Heenali would do what she'd done.
Mal's face tightened. "No. Trust me, Bo. None of the commanders along Kaia's route could be turned--we've lost too many people to be anything but fucking suspicious."
Bo shifted tack. "Humans have pleasure and race boats all over the place," he said. "They know not to go into BlackSea territory"--a command he'd reiterated after his return, with any accidental incursions to be immediately reported to him--"but Kaia's route home would've taken her through areas where humans might've spotted her in the distance."
"Sea is a vast place, Bo," Malachai said bluntly. "It's ours, but I'm not arrogant enough to turn down assistance. Canvass your people."
That was when Bo asked a question he didn't want to ask. "Mal, what does it mean if a mating bond is patching in and out like a bad signal? Still there but strong one second, flat the next."
"I'm not mated but I know who to ask." Returning a minute later, he said, "She's either unconscious or drugged is the best guess." Ruthless lines on his face. "Can you get to her?"
"I can feel the general direction." Like a homing beacon in his chest. "But it's far, and the signal keeps switching off." The first time it had happened, he'd almost thrown up, but a moment of panicked concentration and he'd realized she was still inside him but "quieter." "I'm going to get in a plane, try to trace it."
"The call of the mating bond isn't always that specific," Malachai warned. "But if you can narrow it down to a general wide area, we can at least focus the search."
"Have you asked Vasic?" Some teleporters could lock onto faces as well as physical locations.
"Yes. He's being blocked the same way he was with the other vanished. They were deliberately scarred so their faces no longer matched available images." A vein pulsed in his temple. "The survivors we've recovered say the bastards moved quickly to cut and brand them. Within minutes."
Bowen realized at that moment that he was capable of cold-blooded and violent vengeance. "Go. Keep looking." Ending the conversation on that order, he activated the same network he'd used when they'd been hunting George. But this time, he limited it to those who'd checked in as being on the water. That done, he went to power his way to land and to a plane . . . when he realized he had one other option.
It might not work, but it was worth a shot. If he used it, however, he could put the Alliance in debt to a man who'd use that advantage without compunction. So he'd have to think, be smart in what he gave up.
Picking up his phone, he input a code not many people had. "Krychek," he said when the cardinal telekinetic answered. "I need a favor. Can you 'port to me? I'm not in my office."
"I'm on my way."
Kaleb Krychek appeared in front of Bo almost before he'd hung up the call. As always, the cardinal teleporter was wearing a black suit. But there was no tie today, his white shirt open at the collar. And his hair wasn't as perfectly in place, the black strands tumbled.
"An unusual location." Krychek looked out at the water lapping against the small but fast vessel, his balance so perfect you'd think he'd grown up on boats. That was the thing with teleporters--they had a preternatural physical grace.
"I'll give you a human mind for the PsyNet," Bowen said, his hands clenching on the control panel that was currently humming in wait for his next order; he'd stopped the boat in anticipation of the conversation with Krychek. "Mine."
"It's not that easy," Krychek answered, the eerie white stars on black that was a cardinal's gaze impossible to read. "The connection must be a true emotional bond to be of benefit to the PsyNet. Or the unscrupulous would've already forced humans into the network."
"You have empaths." He might not trust powerful Psy, but Bo wasn't a monster; he worried about the millions of Psy who weren't powerful and who'd die horrific deaths should the PsyNet fail. As a result, he'd been thinking about the implications of Krychek's request since the day the other man made it--and today, driven by desperation, he'd seen something the Psy seemed to have missed. "I like empaths. Friendship with one won't be difficult."
"Friendship." Kaleb's midnight voice was musing. "Love works to create the right type of psychic bond, but friendship? No one has considered it."
"Probably because Psy-human friendships are all but extinct."
"Possible. It's also possible I'll be the loser in this bargain."
Bowen held the other man's inscrutable gaze. "I won't sell out the Alliance." If Kaia discovered he'd bargained humanity into bondage for her freedom, it'd destroy her. "But my mind is my own and I'm handing it to you. Any experiment you want to run, I won't fight it."
Krychek raised an eyebrow. "You have a shield."
Bo had never thought he'd want to rip out the shield inside his head. "Break it," he said flatly. "I know Psy can smash changeling shields with massive use of telepathic force." It usually led to death or to severe brain injuries, but Krychek was clever enough to recover enough of Bowen's mind to make it worth his while.
Kaia would hate him for the choice, but Bo wasn't about to leave his mate in enemy hands. "And if none of that works, then I'll owe you as many favors as you want. Me, not the Alliance, but I'll owe them for a lifetime." It'd be a millstone around his neck because he had no illusions about Krychek's ruthless nature, but the price was one Bowen was more than willing to pay.
"A fair deal," Krychek accepted. "As for the attempt at joining the PsyNet via a friendship bond, why would you agree to an action you find abhorrent? You've made it clear you don't trust Psy to respect the sanctity of the human mind--should friendship be enough to form a bond, you'd be surrounded by millions of telepaths on the PsyNet."
Bowen kept his roiling gut under vicious control. "You can teleport using a face as a lock, correct?"
&nb
sp; "Yes."
"I need you to find my mate." Krychek was undoubtedly the most powerful teleport-capable telekinetic in the world; Bowen had to try this, had to know if Krychek could pick up "signals" that were invisible to Vasic.
"I need a clear image of your mate's face."
Taking out his phone, Bo showed Kaleb the picture of Kaia he'd snapped in the kitchen one day while she'd been laughing. "I have more." He swiped through.
"No lock," Krychek said almost at once. "You're sure she's alive?"
"Yes." Bo thumped a fist against his heart. "She's right here."
Krychek might be a pitiless bastard, but he was also mated to another Psy. That was how every changeling Bowen knew described the cardinal's relationship with Sahara Kyriakus. It felt like a mating bond to those who'd been close enough to the couple to get a sense of their emotional connection. So it didn't surprise Bo when Krychek just nodded. "Is she wearing anything distinctive?"
"No." Kaia had gone into the water naked, would've shifted out of it naked. "What else can you use?"
"Something that can lead only to her--or to a strictly limited number of people. Eye color won't work. Neither will hair color or even a tattoo unless that tattoo is unique. Most scars won't work unless it's a collection. There can be no blurred ID lines for a lock."
Krychek rode the rocking of a wave with ease. "When I try to find her this way," he said, "I'm effectively treating her as a place--and to find a place, I need a detailed image of the location. The smaller the 'location,' the more specific the image has to be because there's nothing around it to give it context or to differentiate it from another similar location."
Kaia had no tattoos or other distinctive markings on her body, except--"What about a small toe that's twisted inward and slightly overlaps the fourth toe?"
"Too general. Too many likely hits."
"The toe also has a scar and is missing the nail. Kaia had small multicolored dots tattooed on it with ink that lasts through a shift and back." Such a small thing that her abductors might've missed it; the colors on her "diva nail" blended in with the polish she liked to wear on her other nails.
"Yes," Krychek said. "That's probably unique enough, but I need an image."
Bo went frantically through his photos. So many of her laughing face, her body in motion, none of her feet. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Chapter 70
Say "I'm going to bake my favorite man a blackberry pie."
--Bowen Knight taking a photograph of a laughing Kaia Luna
BO WENT THROUGH the photos again--and halted on a video of Kaia he'd taken one morning while lying in bed. She was sitting up making faces at the camera and had suddenly pounced on him.
He'd dropped the phone . . . and there.
Freezing the image, he turned it to Krychek. "Is this clear enough?"
The cardinal took almost a minute to examine it, zooming in and out. "I have a lock," he said without warning. "Faint but usable."
"Do it." Bowen put his hand on Kaleb's shoulder. He had a feeling the telekinetic was too powerful to need the contact, but he had no intention of being left behind.
A shift in time and space, and then he was standing on a floor that rocked under him. A boat. Even as the thought passed through his head, he saw Kaia sitting on a bunk inside the small room. Head hanging low, she was shivering, wrapped only in a thin blanket. She also had a massive bruise down one side of her face as well as thin cuts that crisscrossed her face on both sides.
Dropping to his knees in front of her, he gently stroked back her hair as she stared at him as if he was a ghost. "What did the bastards do to you?"
"Bo! You're real!" She hugged him tight, the blanket still gripped in her hands. When she drew back, she tried to smile. "Ouch." Wincing while he fought his rage, she said, "Punched me when I bit one of them." She sounded very satisfied by that, but her voice came out slurred, something inside her face broken or badly bruised.
"They cut you."
"No, it's from the net. My dolphin skin marks easily." A glint in her eyes. "I bit the asshole so badly he dropped his knife into the ocean. Others said the bruise plus the marks from the net would hide me until they got his hand bandaged up. He must be the designated cutter." Her voice slurred even further, her eyelids flickering. "Shit, I--"
Scooping her unconscious form into his arms before she could slump forward, Bowen looked at Krychek. "Can you get back here?"
The cardinal nodded. "I have enough specific location markers." A glance at Kaia. "Where?"
Bo's instinct was to take her to an Alliance hospital facility, but he wouldn't hurt Kaia by bringing her to land. Neither would he betray BlackSea by taking her--and thus Krychek--to Ryujin. "Do you know Malachai Rhys's face?" The other man should be on Lantia coordinating the search.
"Yes. I leave the water changelings alone but I know who they are."
The answer put Bowen's final concerns at ease; if Krychek knew Mal's face, he could've teleported to Mal at any time. Bo wouldn't be breaching BlackSea's wall of security by showing the other man a photograph. "Go."
Wind and saltwater spray hit his face a heartbeat later. In front of him, Malachai's muscles bunched before he focused on what Bowen carried. "With me!"
Bo was conscious of Krychek staying in position on the edge of the deck while he pounded inside the city with Kaia. Healers swarmed over her the instant he put her on a bed in what appeared to be a large infirmary. A wet Miane Leveque appeared seconds later dressed only in a large black T-shirt that hung off one bare shoulder; she put her hand straight on Kaia's skin.
Unable to break his own skin-to-skin contact with his mate, Bowen looked at BlackSea's First. "Will she be all right?" It was impossible to ignore the brutality of the blow to her face; the bright light in the infirmary highlighted every break in the skin, every inch of black bruising. How had she even spoken to him? Her cheekbone looked to be shattered and one eye socket was dangerously sunken in.
Miane snapped her head toward him, her eyes nothing human . . . nothing animal, either. Not as Bo understood it. She was a wholly alien creature at that instant, with thought processes he couldn't predict. "Does Krychek have location markers?"
Bo nodded.
"Go." The order was directed at both him and Malachai. "Find the bastards--keep at least one alive for questioning." A sudden, unexpected touch of her fingers to his shoulder, the punch of alpha power behind it a thing that rippled along the mating bond. "I have her."
Conscious they could lose the cowards who'd taken Kaia unless they acted at once, Bowen forced himself to break contact with her and headed out with Malachai. They arrived on Lantia's eastern deck to find ten cold-eyed BlackSea men and women pointing guns at Krychek. The cardinal had an amused smile on his face. As well he might--he was so fucking powerful he could probably telekinetically push all ten to the far corners of the city before they ever pulled the trigger.
"Stand down," Malachai ordered before taking guns off two of his men. "We may be bringing in unfriendlies. Re-arm and stay alert."
Nodding, the two men raced off.
"Krychek," Bowen said at the same instant. "We're ready."
They were inside the room where Kaia had been held less than a heartbeat later. Krychek broke the lock using a small pulse of telekinetic power. Taking the gun Malachai held out, Bo went and opened the door with care. A glance outside showed a narrow and dark wood-paneled hallway that led to a flight of steps. Whatever this boat was, it was small. Which meant it probably didn't have much of a crew.
But Kaia had said "others" so there had to be at least three.
Going quietly up the steps, conscious of Malachai and Krychek behind him, he took extreme care emerging into the light. No bullet whizzed past his head. No shout went up. He looked around, realized they were on a small fishing boat. A net lay crumpled against the hull to his left alongside other tools of the trade. He could see the silhouette of one man at the helm out front, complete with a captain's hat.
Another
man stood at the opposite end of the ship--behind Bo--and seemed to be scanning the retreating horizon with binoculars. Bo could just barely glimpse a third man along the right side of the boat, closer to the captain than the one with binoculars. He, too, had his attention outward.
It was the male with the binoculars whose hand was bandaged. Fucker.
Moving his own hand back behind him, he counted off the number of sailors for Malachai and Krychek's benefit. A touch on his wrist told him the message had been received. He changed the hand motions to point in the three directions where the men were located. Then, once that message was understood, he pointed to the stern, telling the others which target he was taking.
After that, there was nothing but speed.
Bo erupted out of the belly of the ship, heading straight for the man with the binoculars. Shouts went up as he was spotted, but it was far too late. He took down the man who'd brutalized Kaia before the bastard could do anything but drop his binoculars to the deck. And yeah, Bo took great pleasure in smashing the butt of his gun into the fucker's face, crushing his cheekbone and smashing his eye socket. "That's for Kaia."
He was ready to murder this asshole and dump him in the ocean, his rage a cold wave, but his mind flashed to Kaia's sadness as she spoke of BlackSea's vanished, Miane's words about bringing in at least one live abductor ringing in his head. "You're alive only on sufferance," he said as the man coughed and tried to rise from where he'd fallen to the deck. "Stay the fuck down or I'll blow off your pathetic head."
Sadly the asshole wasn't stupid enough to disobey.
Gun on him nonetheless, Bowen looked over to see both the captain and other crewman similarly captured.
Krychek's capture was floating five feet in the air, helplessly flailing his arms and legs. The whites of his eyes showed bright against the deep tan of a man often out on the water.
Krychek slipped his hands into the pockets of his pants. "Would you like to return to the city?"
A single hard nod from Bo and the entire boat appeared next to Lantia. Meanwhile, Krychek looked like he was out for an evening stroll, not as if he'd just transferred a large vessel and multiple people across half an ocean.