Heart of the Storm, page 6
“Great. Noted. Anyone else?” I asked. I felt my patience slipping away, if such an animal had ever existed in the first place.
A knock sounded from outside the door, and a voice came crackling through a moment later. “I have a few suggestions,” came a strong, male voice.
I recognized it immediately, of course.
It was my husband's.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ifelt the heat in my cheeks, and said, “Excuse me for a moment.” Opening the door, I stepped into the hall to find my husband, Jeremy James Wade, politely waiting for me, having stepped back far enough to allow me to exit without being all up in my business. Looking once up and down the hall, I found it empty. Thankfully. But electronic eyes were probably watching, and I was still dodging my bodyguards, so I jerked my head toward another nearby room, this one storage, and we stepped inside. “Okay,” I said, once the door was closed, “spill it.”
Wade was a tall, blue-eyed, well-built Captain America type. He towered over me; I was tempted to float just to equalize our height difference. In better times, I liked that he towered over me. Right now I just found it annoying.
“If you're planning a four-person insurgency into China,” Wade said, “I think I can help. I have spent time in-country, after all.”
“Hong Kong and a prison do not count as 'in country.'”
He chuckled. “I've also spent time in places like Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Chengdu. Plus Beijing. I was under non-official cover the entire time, so I got to visit places, drive through the cities and countryside, and generally make my way around. I know you've got already Jian, but maybe a backup could help?”
“How did you even know?” I asked, folding my arms in front of me. “I have talked to all of five people about this, and four of them are in that room.”
“Come on, Sienna,” Wade said, face lit with amusement even in the dimness. “The war's coming to an end and Fen Liu's still out there. Everyone knows what you're planning. It's just that not everyone wants the war to continue.”
That hit me where it hurt. “You're saying my brother knows? And he's not clawing to find me because he doesn't want to do what I'm about to do?”
Wade looked pinched. “Let's just say that if you asked, he'd go in a heartbeat. But if you don't ask, he's not going to be clamoring to go, because...he doesn't know what you plan to do once you get there. And that worries him.”
“Now you're Reed's confidant, huh?” Boy did I feel a rush of righteous indignation. “He's told you this?”
“I like the guy, but we're not exactly close,” Wade said. “That's just me speculating. Some people would crawl over broken glass to go with you, some would go if asked, some have one foot out the door. Just the state of play. It's been a long war for those who signed on with you at the beginning. Life's a mess in the USA, but backpacking through the wilds of China or lying low in some flophouse in Hubei doesn't excite most of them. The last few months have been good here, and most of them aren't soldiers, Sienna. You can't expect soldierly enthusiasm from them.” He chuckled. “Actually, you can't expect soldierly enthusiasm from most soldiers, either; we go where we're ordered, for the most part. Very few volunteer.”
“But you're volunteering?” I asked, and he nodded. “What makes you think I need another face to hide on this thing?”
“There are pluses that I bring,” Wade said, with a smirk that made him annoyingly cute. “I speak Mandarin, for one. I know the country a bit, and the people, so it'd give you a bit more background and familiarity as you make your search. I've also studied Fen Liu, both her publicly available info and the classified stuff, since I was a CIA officer assigned to China, and I have informants still in China that I'm in contact with that could aid our search.”
“You have people in China?” I asked, and every hair on the back of my neck was standing at attention. “And you haven't mentioned this before?”
“If anything useful was coming out of them, I'd tell you,” Wade said. “But frankly, Sienna, you haven't asked. Not for my help, not for anything. I have to work to contribute to the war effort. I assumed it was personal, and I didn't want to salt the wound while we're at war, but dammit, I can be of use here. I wish you'd see that, and get over your issues with me.”
My voice dropped low and cold. “What issues do you think I have with you?”
Wade sighed. “It can't have been easy to find out you've got a husband you've never heard of, especially the way you did.”
“Sitting across the desk from the President of the United States, completely blindsided? Nah, that was easy. Not humiliating at all.”
“Just keep in mind,” Wade said, “when you lost your memory, I lost my wife, too. I don't know which of us got the rawer end of that deal, because I wasn't in Scotland, but I assume it was you. And if you're pissed at me because I wasn't with you – well, you've got every right, and I don't blame you for being furious still.”
I felt my eyebrow quirk up at that. He thought I was mad at him because he didn't come with me to Scotland? That was...something. I actually didn't know how to feel about that.
“I could have done more, I know,” he said, and the earnestness on his face stunned me into silence. “I've thought about it for years since, how maybe if I'd been there–”
“You would have been just another thing that Rose would have delighted to take from me,” I said, a little hoarse, unable to let him flail under this much of a misapprehension. “She was a psycho with god-like power, Wade. It took practically everyone I know, all working together, to stop her. You wandering into Scotland to look for me, oblivious to what you were doing, would have just resulted in your painful death at her hands. Or worse.” I gave him the barest glance up and down. “I could see her having a really good time trying to bend you to her will.”
“She couldn't,” he said with a faint smile. “Succubus powers don't work on me.”
“Yeah, but Siren ones do,” I said. “Telepath, empath – she would have gotten you one way or another.”
“She would have tried,” he said, and shook his head. “Whatever. It doesn't matter. My point is–”
“I'm not mad that you didn't come to Scotland with me,” I said.
He stopped and blinked. “Wait. What are you mad about, then? Is it that I left to do that CIA assignment? Because, I mean, I agree that was wrong, too, like the first link in a whole chain of wrong–”
“No, stop,” I said, closing my eyes and holding up my hand. “You think I'm mad at you, but I'm not. Not really.” I opened my eyes again and found him looking at me, confused. “I just don't know if I can trust you, Wade. That's the issue. You're tied in with my family in ways I don't understand, that no one has bothered to explain to me–”
“I'll tell you right this second if you want to know,” Wade said. “But I think you might be better off waiting until after we get done with China.”
“Funny how you, Persephone, and Lethe all parroted the same line about that,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, voice dripping with irony, “it's almost like we talked about it and made a decision together about the best way to handle this particular radioactive isotope.”
“That's annoying, by the way.”
“Referencing a nuclear isotope?”
“Being cutesy when you know one of the things that's making me loathe to trust you is the secret I know you're keeping about how you know my family.”
He lifted his head, and made a grunting sigh. “This is not nearly as complicated as you make it out to be, Sienna, and not nearly as much of a secret as you think. Lethe and Persephone sought you out, remember? Lethe brought you to New Asgard before you even knew who she was, back when you were with the agency. Have you ever asked yourself why?”
I sifted back through my newly-rediscovered memories. “She said she needed my help with something.”
“And you proceeded to get into a fistfight with your grandmother before flying off in a huff,” Wade said. “Hostile words were exchanged. Then punches. Teeth were lost.”
I felt a very tiny burning in my cheeks. “Yes. And?”
“And so they haven't brought up since what they wanted to talk to you about then,” Wade said. “Once burned – I mean, literally, I think you threw some Gavrikov flames in that fight – twice shy, y'know? Anyway, you told me the story, and I was curious, so after I found you on that beach and you disclaimed me, I eventually crawled out of the bottle and went looking for this New Asgard. I found it. Found Lethe, found Persephone, found the rest. And as it turned out, they didn't need you, specifically. They needed–”
“An incubus or a succubus,” I said, frowning. “But for what?”
“That's the complicated part,” he said. “And it's gonna set you down a road. You want to know, you tell me, we'll dig into it. But it's going to take a while, and when we're done, you may not feel like going after Fen Liu just now.”
I balled my hands into fists. There was something infuriating in what he'd said. I could feel cold, clutching rage in the pit of my stomach as I turned over his words. Which was worse? Knowing, and maybe losing my focus? Or wondering, and continuing to seek Fen Liu, to try and bring this current crisis to an end?
Probably the thing most infuriating – and boy, did there seem to be a list growing – was that my putative husband, standing there waiting with annoying earnestness, seemed to know me well enough to have realized something about me that really pissed me off.
Managing more than one blood feud at a time was not good for me. If I wanted to hound Fen Liu to the ends of the earth and then rip her throat out with my teeth and drink her blood, I really needed to focus on that one thing, at least for now.
“Fine,” I said. Turning away from knowledge was a thing that felt maddening, that was like an itch all the way down in my soul. And yet I knew it was a thing I had to do, for now, that the promised answers, if Wade was to be trusted, if Lethe was to be trusted – and I trusted them both, dammit – would send me keening in some unrelated direction and steal my attention at a time when I needed all of it, and needed all of it pointed at Fen Liu and China. “But when this is over, we will have it all out – you, me, and Lethe. It will be a time for total truth between us.”
“I can't speak for Lethe,” Wade said, “but I'll tell you every bit of it. I swear.”
I stood there, arms still crossed over my chest like a defensive wall. I looked down at my shoes, which were mesh boots that fit me perfectly. “Fine,” I said. Of course it was not fine, but I would make it so, at least for now. “Let's go. But you better pull your weight.”
“I think I can handle that,” Wade said. “Maybe I can even carry some of the load for you from time to time.”
“Pretty sure that was in my vows somewhere, but anyway,” I said, and turned on him. I stormed back across the hall before he could reply, and said, “Okay, Wade's coming with us.”
“Ah, good,” Hades said pleasantly, his hands crossed in front of him. “Always nice to have another gun hand.”
“I certainly fit that description,” Wade said. He pulled a phone out of his pocket and thumbed it, turning his attire into the clothing of a Chinese peasant. When he caught me looking, he just winked.
“So I guess you talked to Cassidy,” I said, feeling a burr of irritation.
“She figured you might need a touch more help than you were willing to ask for,” Wade said, and from beneath the mesh clothing I hadn't even realized he was wearing, he pulled a bullpup Tavor rifle on a strap. It had blended so perfectly beneath his camouflage I had no idea he was carrying. Bullpups were weird-looking guns; the rifle barrels were set back so the whole thing was more compact than, say, an AR style rifle. Several countries had adopted them for army use, and it was a perfect thing to carry for a mission like this. “So she asked on your behalf.”
“I'm going to have a talk with Cassidy after this is all over, too,” I said.
“I'm sure that'll be fun,” Wade said.
“Great, glad we're all getting along with zero tension,” Lethe said. “What was his big suggestion for where to go?”
I looked to Wade; in all the hubbub, I'd completely forgotten to ask him. “Guizhou province,” he said, not missing a beat. “Specifically, the Anshun. It's a city of about two million nestled in the mountains. Fen Liu has ties there, both in modernity and ancient times, we think.”
Lethe nodded. “She's known as a Xiangsuishen – a water goddess. I've also heard her called a dragon.”
“Exactly,” Wade said. “Well, the Anshun region is known for the Longgong dragon caves, which is a touristy destination, but it has mythological roots as some sort of dragon lair, which sounds sort of akin to a certain set of caves along the coast of Greece.”
“You mean the caves where I was raised and kept prisoner for most of my youth?” Lethe asked, her face like flint. She did not look at her father.
“It's a dangerous world,” Hades said. “Then and now. Besides, we did eventually let you out, and you went on a marvelous journey across the land, did you not?”
“This family is such a bunch of control freaks,” I said. “I swear, secrets, lies, and captivity are our secondary stock-in-trade.”
Wade checked the chamber of his Tavor, then let it snug back against his chest. He also had a pistol at his side, an HK that he quickly did a chamber check on. “I was always a bigger fan of your primary stock-in-trade, personally.”
“Oh, yes, that one is so much fun,” Jian said. Poor guy felt like the odd man out on this mission. Two succubi, an incubi, and a Hades walked into China, with a shifter besides. Sounded like the setup to a bad joke.
“Let's go ply it now,” I said, looking to Taxi. “I need one quick stop, and then we're heading for Anshun, China, I guess.”
“There is a facility near Anshun that will be ideal for inserting my program into the Chinese internet,” Sierra said, piping up at last. I guess she was artificially intelligent enough to know when to shut her mouth and let the humans argue, and, frankly, that was better than most people.
“That's our spot,” I said, and nodded to Taxi.
He nodded, and opened a portal, the white glow lighting up the interior of the drab, subbasement room with its faintly glowing overhead light. I stepped through first, at a float, ready to pick up the last member of my team.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Taxi dropped us in an isolated corner of Anshun, about half a mile from the location Sierra had identified as our target. Ricardo, my falcon, launched out first, taking to the skies above Anshun and the parking lot we'd decided to use as our insertion point.
I'd picked up Ricardo from his home, which was my old home that I'd lived in for all of five minutes before a Chinese-controlled CIA hit team had destroyed it while trying to kill me. Whatever; I wasn't that attached to the places I lived, for exactly that reason, though I had hoped to put down roots when I'd bought it.
The important thing was that Ricardo was all right, and living his best life on my property, where I would hopefully someday live again. At least until somebody came along and destroyed my house once more.
“See anything?” Lethe asked once we were safely out in the parking lot. Ricardo had already scanned the area for me and determined that it was safe for us to exit. The weather was, I thought, shockingly cool for subtropical China in August. A light breeze stirred my holographic camouflage poncho and felt...good.
I was firmly tethered to Ricardo's mind using my telepathic powers and my animal-speaking abilities. It was rough, trying to balance those two without suffering a deluge from the millions of people in Anshun (not to mention the noisy minds around me), but thanks to some training from Dr. Zollers, I was managing.
Ricardo was sailing overhead, keeping his eye on everything moving around us that could present a danger. There was no wail of police sirens, no tactical teams moving toward us on jackbooted feet, just the sounds of a city nestled in the mountains going about its day. The scent of Asian food hung in the air, carried on the wind.
“The coast is clear,” I said, in English. Doing this without native Mandarin speaking capability was going to really suck, I realized. Through Ricardo's eyes, I could see a decent amount of pedestrian traffic. All it was going to take was one person speaking to me out of turn on the street and I'd be placed in an uncomfortable situation of trying to reply using Cassidy's technology. “Let's get this cultural excursion going.”
“Moving,” Wade said, and he did, trying to act casual when I suspected what he really wanted to do was dart about with his rifle pointed. You know, like he did on his CIA and SEAL missions. But he played it cool, wearing the features of a Chinese man around age thirty as if he were really that man.
Walking across the parking lot, the mountain breeze rippled through my camo. The air was a touch thinner than I'd grown used to in the primordial swamp of DC. It was crisp, though, and pleasant.
Jian, for his part, looked only slightly different than he usually did. His features had changed moderately, but his hair was the same exact color and nearly the same close-cropped. His clothing had altered, too, and he wore a white T-shirt covered over by a black, leather jacket. He looked...cool, within a Chinese context.
He kept his eyes forward, for the most part, walking with a purpose. I tried to emulate him, but my head was on a bit of a swivel, though I tried to make it casual, I probably failed. How could you not be on constant watch when traveling through an enemy city? We didn't even have a car to make a fast getaway, I was anchored to being on foot with my team. If I'd been by myself, I could have flown out of there.
I felt exposed. I felt like I'd brought my grandmother, my great-grandfather, my husband, and Jian here just to dangle like bait in front of Fen Liu until she snapped them up, shark-like. It set to work on my nerves, causing a dissonant hum to being somewhere deep in my belly.
Looking behind, I found that Hades was an old Chinese man, and was even holding his hands behind him, standing in a very older Asian man sort of way. I couldn't figure out if it was just the illusion or if he was really standing that way, so I didn't bother to try.
