Shield of Winter

  Ivy shook her head, her expression haunted. "It was too late the first day we met. You're inside me, and I'm inside you. It's done."

  Rubbing her cheek against his hand, she broke contact. And though the knowledge was a starkness in her eyes, her next words had nothing to do with the gauntlet. "This experiment won't work." She waved her hand to encompass the compound in her statement. "It was good for training us in the basics, but we won't learn anything about how to fight the infection here--Es are immune and the Arrows are too well shielded. We need to be in an under-threat area surrounded by the normal population."

  "This is a pure site," he argued, his mind full of the carnage he'd seen in Anchorage, and at Sunshine during the very first outbreak. Ivy didn't belong in the midst of the nightmare. "A clean canvas on which to test your theories."

  "The infection is reacting oddly to us--you know that." Folding her arms, she shook her head. "I think it's because there are too many Es concentrated here, with only the Arrows to provide balance. That's still a one-to-one ratio."

  Vasic wanted to disagree, but he'd seen the way the fetid blackness of the infection just sat on the edges of the compound, not coming closer, but not leaving either. The instant an E tried to get near it, it slid away, only to return once the E backed off. Vasic wasn't certain the Arrows were safe from the insidious contagion, even given their highly developed shields, but the theory couldn't be tested--not with the Es' immunity spilling over onto them.

  "The risk will increase exponentially." Immunity wasn't everything; one of the infected could as easily crush an empath's skull with a blunt object. "You'll be exposed to the pro-Silence lobby for one." Sparks of color, that was what Ivy's mind looked like inside the firewall created by the Arrow unit, a diamond splintered with light.

  Skin drawn over her cheekbones, Ivy said, "It'll be worth it if we manage to stop even a single outbreak."

  He understood her well enough to guess the direction of her thoughts. "You couldn't have stopped today, Ivy," he said. "The amount of infection found in the cerebral cortex of the victims already autopsied shows long-term exposure--they were dead before I ever came to you in the orchard."

  He only realized what he'd said when Ivy's eyes went huge with distress. This time, he didn't reject his instincts. Reaching out, he wrapped her in his arms, his cheek pressed to her temple. "I'll fight, Ivy," he vowed again as her own arms locked around him. "I'll fight."

  Chapter 30

  How much more can we take? Pure Psy murdered hundreds of thousands, and now we're cannibalizing ourselves in madness. Our race appears headed for extinction.

  Letter to the Editor signed "Lost and Without Hope," PsyNet Beacon

  KALEB MET WITH Vasic and Ivy Jane near eleven p.m. their time, having caught five hours of sleep in the interim. The empath was adamant about relocating to an infected zone, and Kaleb agreed with her logic. Leaving her and Vasic to canvas the other Es to see if they wanted to follow the same route, he teleported to Nikita Duncan's office in central San Francisco.

  "I received your message," he said to both her and the male who stood looking out of the plate glass windows to the left of Nikita's desk.

  Anthony Kyriakus turned, his dark hair silvered at the temples and his bearing that of a man at the head of one of the most influential families in the Net. "Anchorage?"

  "Handled for now. I'll have Silver send you a report." While Kaleb didn't consider either of the ex-Councilors an ally in the sense that he trusted them, the three of them currently had the same end goals in mind. "Is there a problem?"

  Nikita brought up a financial overview on a wall screen without rising from her desk, the glossy black of her liquid-straight hair brushing her shoulders. "Share prices for stock in Psy companies have dropped precipitously after the events in Alaska." Slanted eyes of deep brown focused on the screen as she used a remote to highlight several significant drops. "This could undermine the entire government structure."

  Ruling Coalition aside, that government was truly more of a dictatorship at present, but Kaleb saw her point. He could only lead the PsyNet to where he wanted it to go if he had the support of the major corporations. "Options?" Nikita was a ruthless businesswoman--it'd be foolish not to take advantage of her skill set.

  Leaning back in her chair, she steepled her hands in front of her. "If NightStar is willing," she said with a glance at Anthony, "I suggest we leak visions of a future when all is calm."

  In other words, lie. Not a bad short-term solution.

  "Anthony?" Kaleb turned to the man whose family line had produced more foreseers than any other; the most accurate and gifted F-Psy in the world was a Kyriakus. That same family line had produced the woman he'd left curled up warm and sleepy and sated in their bed, which technically made Anthony and Kaleb family.

  The two of them had a silent understanding to ignore that awkward fact.

  Now, Anthony said a curt, "No." When the older male's eyes met Nikita's, Kaleb had the feeling he'd walked into the middle of an argument.

  Interesting.

  "NightStar can't risk staining its reputation."

  "In that case"--Nikita broke the intensity of the eye contact to face Kaleb--"I suggest we begin to buy up devalued stock and allow that to leak. It'll be assumed we know something the populace doesn't, that we might even be purposefully orchestrating the deaths for our own gain."

  Which, Kaleb thought, would drive those prices right back up. "It'll work as a stopgap solution."

  "We need to come up with a strong long-term financial strategy." The lights of San Francisco glittered behind Anthony as he continued to speak. "I assume you were responsible for the turnaround earlier today by a conglomerate that sought to gouge profits?"

  "An Arrow," Kaleb told them and it was a deliberate reminder of the fourth part of this Ruling Coalition. "As for a long-term economic solution, I think Nikita's the most capable of drafting something workable. Nikita?"

  A cool nod. "It'll involve one-to-one discussions with the mostinfluential businessmen and women in the Net. Where they go, others will follow."

  Sheep, Kaleb thought again, but admitted silently that that dangerous lack of independence was changing. Irritants or not, Silent Voices was also a sign of a society that was reclaiming itself. "I'll put the share buys in operation now."

  It was as well that all three of them acted at once on their stopgap plan. When a lower Manhattan street erupted into an insane bloodbath five hours later, the share market wobbled, but didn't dive.

  The casualties were minor in the scheme of things--forty-five dead with twenty in comas. It appeared another insidiously fine tendril of infection had just brushed one small section of the street, taking everyone in its path with it. The good news was that Kaleb and Aden's hypothesis about the infection being slower to eat away at the fabric of the Net--in comparison to the speed with which it moved in the brain--was proven correct. As with Anchorage, there'd been no Net rupture.

  "We have to start thinking of containment," Kaleb said to Sahara an hour later, as the two of them went over every detail of both outbreaks in his study. "It's time to prepare for the worst-case scenario." The empaths had been awakened too late, were too raw and untrained, and Kaleb couldn't wait for them to find their feet.

  Sahara sucked in a breath where she sat on the other side of his desk, dark blue eyes shadowed. "Cutting away the infected tissue to stop the gangrene from killing the entire Net." She hugged her knees to her chest. "The gossamer filaments of infection--we can't know how deep they've burrowed. Outwardly healthy sections could be petri jars of infection."

  "That's the biggest problem." Before he started to make the surgical cuts that would rend the Net into an unknown number of segments, he needed to know how to identify the enemy.

  "The DarkMind," Sahara began.

  Kaleb shook his head. "It's having trouble distinguishing those fine tendrils from its own self-image." Born from the same self-hate that had driven an entire race to abandon its emotions, t
he infection and the DarkMind were kin. "But I'll keep trying to get it to focus."

  Kaleb met the gaze of the woman Judd called Kaleb's mate. The humans called her his lover. Kaleb simply called her his. And he needed to know that she understood, that she was with him. "If the empaths find a solution before I figure out how to pinpoint the tendrils of infection, I'll back them every inch of the way." Because this wasn't about power or politics but the people Sahara had asked him to save.

  Rising from her chair, she came to wrap her arms around his neck from behind, her cheek pressed to his. "How long can we give the empaths?"

  "At this rate, maybe a month." After which, the PsyNet would cease to exist except as fragments scattered across the world. A few would survive, and possibly merge back into a larger unit at some stage, but the infected sections would eventually all erode and collapse, snuffing out the lives of millions.

  The problem was, Kaleb was beginning to see signs that the majority of the Net was infected.

  Chapter 31

  The E designation has no official subdesignations. That doesn't mean those subdesignations don't exist.

  Excerpted from The Mysterious E Designation: Empathic Gifts & Shadows by Alice Eldridge

  MUCH AS IVY wished she could keep Eben with her, she was in no position to offer him a home. For now, the boy was better off with the paternal uncle who was his new legal guardian. "Once we've beaten this," she told him as they walked out of the cabin the next morning, "I want you to come back, undertake specialized training."

  The lanky teenager's return gaze held a new maturity. "What shall I do for now?"

  "Shield yourself as deeply as you can." According to Kaleb Krychek, the NetMind was protecting empathic minds from discovery--except for those such as Ivy who'd gone fully active--but no one knew if and when the neosentience's ability to do so might be compromised by the infection. "If you feel any kind of a threat, psychic or physical, contact me or Vasic, and we'll come get you."

  "I will." Hugging her, he bent to pet Rabbit. "I hope you figure this out, Ivy."

  "Me, too," she whispered.

  Abbot waited until the teen had waved good-bye before teleporting him to his new home. Hoping he'd be safe, Ivy crossed the snow to the gathered knot of Es in the clearing in front of the cabins. She'd already told them her decision and the reason why, as well as the fact she could very well be wrong.

  Now, Brigitte turned to her, a thick yellow scarf wrapped around her neck. "Our Arrows will go with us if we decide to follow your path?"

  "Yes." As Vasic had pointed out, the threats they'd face wouldn't only come from the crawling rot of the infection.

  "I think you're wrong in one sense," Chang said, eyebrows drawn together above narrowed eyes. "You should have an empathic partner, at least so you can test different methods."

  Ivy hadn't wanted to pressure anyone by making that request, but now Jaya slipped her arm through Ivy's. "I planned to ask you if you'd mind some company." On the telepathic level, she added, Abbot and I both believe in your theory.

  Ivy squeezed her friend's hand.

  "I'm afraid," Concetta whispered, her amber eyes miserable in her heart-shaped face. "I wake up with nightmares of the oily, ugly evil, my breath choking in my throat."

  "I don't think we can eliminate our awareness of the darkness." Ivy, too, had woken up slick with sweat more than once, her heart pounding so hard it was all she could hear.

  "Yes, we can." Concetta wrapped her arms around herself, her wool coat a pale beige. "If we go back to sleep, go back to being normal!"

  Beside her, Isaiah shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "You can do that." His voice was toneless, his jaw rigid. "But it's not only the nightmares you'd be losing."

  Face crumpling, Concetta raced off toward her cabin.

  Jaya glanced after the other woman, a helpless expression on her face. "Shall I . . . ?"

  "Leave it." Tone harsh, Isaiah resolutely didn't turn to look at where Concetta had gone. "We have to each make this decision on our own. If the Council and our families hadn't screwed us up as children, we wouldn't need to, but the bastards did fuck us up. I, for one, don't intend to be a coward hiding out in a cabin in the woods."

  Ivy thought of the Eldridge book that Sascha had shared with the group. In the past, while some empaths had helped those with terrible mental illnesses, others had worked as school counselors or even in corporate offices. Es covered as wide a spectrum as any other designation.

  It appeared Penn's mind had tracked the same path, because the big man stared at Isaiah, his accent heavy as he said, "Not everyone's meant to be a soldier. Doesn't mean what they have to offer isn't of value."

  Shoulders tense, Isaiah didn't respond, but left a minute later. He returned with his hand holding Concetta's five minutes after that. In the end, the decision to leave the compound to head into infected zones was unanimous. It didn't take much longer to confirm partnerships. Penn ended up with Isaiah and Concetta, since Concetta was obviously not built to handle the infection directly. She'd instead focus on the victims, see if she could help ease their trauma.

  "This'll be our last night together then," Chang said, after everything was settled. "I suggest we have dinner together. All of us, empaths and Arrows."

  That was what they did, bringing extra chairs into the Arrow cabin. The Arrows were quiet, but no longer silent as they'd been at the start, all of them adding their thoughts to the intense discussion about possible tactics.

  The Arrows' security responsibilities meant they rotated in and out, and whenever Vasic was outside, Ivy missed him until she couldn't breathe. Jaya, Abbot, you, and I are to be stationed in New York, she told him telepathically. One of the others has family in Alaska and requested Anchorage. That had originally been Ivy's intended destination.

  I'll arrange apartments near the street that suffered the outbreak today.

  Thank you.

  It's my job, Ivy. There's no need to thank me.

  Her nails pricked her palms. Is that all I am to you? A job?

  Why would you ask me a question to which you already know the answer?

  She thought of his arms around her, of the tender way he had of cradling the back of her head . . . and she allowed herself to think of the ugly thing she'd never forgotten. That the man who held her with such care had a ticking time bomb on his arm.

  Ivy?

  I'm mad at you, she said, panic and nausea twisting inside her. Be quiet.

  When he rotated inside a half hour later, he attempted to catch her eye. Scared for and angry with him for having made a decision that could end them before they began, she kept her gaze stubbornly on the others. When the talk finally faded, she got up and headed to her cabin, Rabbit bounding up ahead and Vasic a silent shadow by her side.

  "Don't be silly," she snapped when he went to take a watch position on the porch. "It's snowing." The sharp words dripped crimson with her own heartsblood, the sheer unfairness of the blade hanging over Vasic's neck making her want to rage and scream and throw things in useless fury.

  He came into the kitchen, held up the wall while she stomped around packing up her belongings. It didn't take long, and then she could no longer avoid looking at the horrible thing on his arm, the thing that was killing him.

  "If I can't undo this, will you be angry with me till the end?"

  The quiet question broke her. "No," she whispered, throat raw. "I just need to be angry first." Before she sank into him, so deep that he'd leave a tattoo of himself on her cells, the memory one that would never fade.

  "Would you like to go somewhere?"

  She jerked up her head from where she was writing his name over and over on the counter with a fingertip. "What?"

  "I'm off shift for the next six hours."

  "Yes." Trying to think past the storm of anger and agony inside her, she looked down at her jeans and favorite white cowl-neck sweater, having taken off his jacket when she'd entered the cabin. "Am I dressed okay?"

/>   "Yes." He stepped closer. "Would you like to bring Rabbit?"

  God, how could this incredible man ever have thought himself so beyond redemption that he'd volunteered for an experiment that was a death sentence? Stifling the words because she didn't want to fight with him anymore, she said, "He'd enjoy the adventure." Bending down, she gathered her pet in her arms. "Ready."

  "Close your eyes." A pause, his fingers rising to just barely graze her hair. "Please."

  Charmed and heartbroken, she did so, felt the slight psychic shimmer of a teleport. When Vasic murmured, "Open," she lifted her lashes to find herself atop a sand dune, amidst a stunning sea of rolling sands spotlit by a huge silver moon.

  A gasp escaped her, pure wonder in her blood. She'd never been anywhere near a desert except for those fleeting instants the previous night when Vasic had lost control. "It's cold!" she said as Rabbit jumped out of her arms.

  "Temperatures drop steeply at night here."

  Utterly mesmerized, she sat down on the fine, fine sand, while Rabbit sniffed suspiciously at the unfamiliar environment before racing down the dune. "I've never seen such an enormous moon." She could almost reach out and touch it, it sat so heavily in the sky.

  Sitting down beside her, Vasic said, "I come here to think."

  "I understand." It was peaceful without being barren. The silica glittered under the moonlight, a gentle breeze played with the rare clumps of grasses she could see in the distance, and the dunes threw smudged moon shadows that turned the landscape into an oil painting. "Thank you for showing me," she said, watching Rabbit chase imaginary prey below them.

  They sat in silence for several minutes. It wasn't a comfortable silence, the haunting beauty of the night not enough to make Ivy forget what Vasic had done. It was stupid to feel betrayed, but she did. He should've known, should've waited for her to find him, cried a stubborn, irrational part of her.

  "Are you still angry?"

  Her anger crumbled. Leaning her head against his arm, she said, "I'm sorry for taking out my temper on you."