Tangle of Need (Psy-Changeling #11)

“The Tk wasn’t working alone,” she said to them both. “His partner shot at the house, then at me when I realized it had to be a distraction and headed inside.” Bypassing the front door, she’d smashed her way through a lower-floor window. “I’m pretty sure he was standing in the shadow of the stand of eucalyptus trees out front.”

“One minute.” Vasic left for the corridor and—Adria guessed—the window from which he could see the trees. He returned not long afterward, holding several blackened pieces of grass. “Yes, he was there. As was what appears to be a jet-powered motorcycle. The scorch marks on the grass make it clear he left in a rush.”

Knowing there was nothing they could do to help track the shooter if he’d departed on the high-speed vehicle, Adria nonetheless made a note to see if she could pick up a scent by the trees. It might come in useful later, if they had to identify a suspect. Beside her, Riaz said, “I’ll talk to DarkRiver, see if the shooter blew past one of their security patrols. Long shot, but worth a try.”

“An analysis of the weapon’s signature might provide some clues,” Adria said, but knew the chances were their quarry was too clever to have used a conspicuous tool.

Vasic’s next words proved her right. “Generic projectile gun, mass-produced,” he said, glancing at the black screen of the computronic gauntlet that covered his left forearm.

Riaz shoved a hand through his hair, messing up the already tumbled black strands. “We can continue to watch the perimeter while you work.”

Aden shook his head. “There’s not much to be done here beyond the cleanup. We’ll take care of that and secure the house.” He sounded as if the task was a simple case of spilled milk, not bone and brain matter drenched in blood. “We appreciate the assistance.”

Adria wondered how often one of these men said that to anyone.

ADEN stood at the window in the corridor and watched the two SnowDancers get into their vehicle after spending several minutes by the eucalyptus trees where the shooter had stood. He was interested in whether the male would insist on driving, regardless of the fact he’d been unconscious not long ago. Predatory changeling males had a reputation for irrational behavior. However, this one bent his head toward the tall, beautiful soldier female—her eyes a shade Aden had never before seen—before laughing and allowing her to take the driver’s seat.

It made him wonder what the woman had said that she’d provoked the emotional response from a man who had watched Aden and Vasic with a predator’s stealthy focus since he regained consciousness. “This isn’t the first time the changelings have helped Psy,” he said, watching their taillights disappear into the night. “And yet we have never assisted them.”

“The point is moot,” Vasic said from inside the room where the body lay. “The changelings do not ask for help.”

True—the packs were very insular. “It seems all three races have faults.” The Psy were arrogant to the point of not seeing the reality in front of them, and the humans, they had allowed themselves to be subjugated and treated as weak for far too long.

Leaving the window, he returned to the body. “One of Henry’s. Confirms the Pure Psy connection.” Visual identification made impossible by the fact the SnowDancer’s kill shot had obliterated the Tk’s face, Vasic had accessed the Council’s main Tk database, confirmed ID via DNA. An Arrow who had infiltrated Pure Psy had then provided verification of the dead male’s continued political allegiance to the group.

“Have you had any success in tracing Henry?” Vasic asked.

“No. However, I have something in progress that may give him to us before the night is out.” It was a bold prediction, but Aden knew his own abilities, as he knew Henry’s. “He can’t be shielding himself—he doesn’t have the skill.” Henry was high-Gradient, but it wasn’t always about power, as how the power the individual had was used.

“Vasquez must have arranged it through a more gifted telepath.” The squad had zeroed in on Henry’s general even before Kaleb Krychek made him a priority, been attempting to flush him out. “He continues to be a problem—I’ve been unable to track down any images of him since his official death.” The man had scrubbed the Net clean of his presence.

Vasic walked the perimeter of the room, and Aden knew he was calculating the work to be done. “Did you discover why he was removed from the training program for the squad?” the teleporter asked as he turned a corner.

“He failed the psychological evaluation.” It was a difficult test to fail—sociopaths made the perfect assassins after all. “A high level of instability.”

“The psych eval may have been wrong in this case.” Vasic returned to the center of the room. “He has run things with military precision for Henry.”

Aden watched Vasic lower his head, flex his hands. “He is also a zealot.”

“Some would say so are Arrows.” Blood droplets began to peel off walls and out of the carpet, coalescing into a single red stain above the dead man’s body. “We very much were at the start, when Adelaja created the squad.”

An elite unit formed to protect Silence, that had been their mission statement. For over a century, the Arrows had ensured no one dared raise his or her voice against the Protocol, believing it was Silence that had saved their race. Now they knew Silence had consequences that could lead to the extinction of their people, and that war was inevitable. After it was over, they would have to find a new reason for being.

The giant “drop” of blood mixed with smears of brain and bone grew bigger and bigger as Vasic collected minute traces from the carpet, the walls, the air itself. If the anchor decided to return to her home once the danger was past, she’d find no evidence of violence.

“Where shall I take it?” Vasic asked, his tone indicating no emotional disturbance at the grim task.

However, Aden had known the other man nearly his entire lifetime, understood how close Vasic was to the final edge. “Biohazard container at the Arrow morgue,” he said, and watched as, instead of teleporting the biological material out, Vasic teleported one of the containers in. The blood and brain matter poured easily into the floating receptacle, not a drop spilled, and then the container was capped and teleported away.

Vasic next lifted the body off the ground and cleaned up the blood trapped beneath, while Aden rechecked the room for any covert surveillance devices the Tk might’ve planted in advance of his attack. He knew Nikita and Anthony’s people had already done a pass, as had the changelings, but an Arrow took nothing on faith.

He found no sign of a bug.

Satisfied, he turned off the mobile disrupter he’d switched on when Vasic ’ported them in.

“The room’s clean,” Vasic said into the silence, the corpse floating a few feet in front of him. “The morgue?”

“Yes.”

Chapter 67

“IF I’M UNDERSTANDING how the anchor network works,” Adria said, a sudden chill invading her veins as they drove through the light drizzle that had begun to fall, “then the fail-safes connected to this anchor have to be dead.”

Brutal comprehension darkened Riaz’s expression. “I hope to hell you’re wrong.”

Thankfully, it turned out she was.

“It looks like Pure Psy decided to reverse the order,” Judd told them when they met the former Arrow in the White Zone on their return to the den, his jaw tight with contained fury, his hair damp from the misty rain. “Murder the anchor, then use the ensuing chaos to eliminate the backups. But there’s a second, worse option—that they intended to go directly from anchor to anchor in the state.”

“Kill enough of the linchpins,” Adria said, the surface proximity of her wolf apparent in the amber tinge to her eyes, “and the support structure would’ve started to crumple.”

Judd took in the blood that stained the bottom of Adria’s torn T-shirt, her sweatshirt bunched up in her hand. The soldier had tilted her face toward the rain, and he knew she wanted only to wash off the stink of blood and death. “The fail-safes are backups, not anchors,” he said, confirming her guess. “They can’t maintain the PsyNet on their own over an extended period, and even if other anchors stretch their zones of influence to cover the gap, the fabric would eventually stretch too thin, begin to tear.”

Riaz’s gaze connected with Judd’s. “I thought I got it earlier,” he said, “how big this is, but I didn’t, not until now. Anyone who knows the locations of every anchor across the world, or in a large enough region, can annihilate the PsyNet.”

“Yes.” The reason no other race had ever been able to use that weakness to wipe out the Psy was a lack of knowledge—only a Psy in the Net, one with access to classified information, could gather data on the identities and physical locations of the anchors and their fail-safes.

Adria blew out a breath. “My God … the trust they’ve put in us.”

“Whether or not other Psy do,” Judd said, “Nikita and Anthony both understand there are certain lines DarkRiver and SnowDancer will not cross.” That core of honor was one of the reasons Walker and Judd had risked defecting into such dangerous changeling territory—the idea of “acceptable collateral damage” was anathema to the packs. Children and innocents were not to be harmed, and a Net collapse ended lives with pitiless impartiality. “Regardless, it’s only a temporary trust—soon as the anchors are moved, we’ll no longer have that information.”

“Why are the safe houses taking so long to organize?” Riaz asked, blinking away the water beading on his lashes. “These anchors are sitting ducks right now.”

Judd’s own frustration echoed the other lieutenant’s. “They can’t be moved too far.” It was a critical limitation. “Not if they’ll be staying in that location for a while, and we have to assume they’ll be there for the duration.” The anchor population needed to remain evenly distributed—too many in one area, or anchors moved too far outside the region, would warp the fabric of the PsyNet. “It makes it harder to find safe bolt holes.”