Heart of Obsidian

“I’m linking in with Kaleb’s aide, Silver,” she said, and he nodded at her from where he was talking on the phone with the leader of the Forgotten, the four slashing lines on the right side of his face a silent reminder of the predator that lived beneath his skin.

Kaleb’s ice-blonde aide, her hair in a flawless twist, was expecting her call. “Do the groups to which you have access,” Silver said without further ado, “have any translators willing to assist the medics? We can comm them in—with a number of the on-site translators dead or critically injured, there aren’t enough to help the medics and keep the survivors calm. Multiple languages needed, some of them esoteric.”

“I’m a translator,” Sahara said. “All languages.” It seemed a safe enough claim, given the tests she’d been running on herself while out and about in the city. Anytime she heard an unfamiliar language, she’d listen . . . and then she’d understand, without ever activating her ability.

Whatever it was she could do, it worked on the subconscious level. “A minor psychic gift,” she explained to Silver. “No official designation.”

The aide’s eyes sharpened. “That’s useful enough that I can justify diverting a Tk to pick you up.”

“I’ll take over as liaison,” Lucas said, entering into the comm frame so Silver could see him. “Give us a couple of minutes to organize an image your teleporter can use as a lock.”

Soon afterward, Sahara was in the trees a short distance from her aerie, and Lucas was tying a brightly colored rope around the trunk of an otherwise nondescript pine—just because the pack wanted to help didn’t mean they intended for a strange Tk to have a permanent image lock inside their territory.

Taking a snapshot with her cell phone, she sent it to Silver, as Lucas said, “Good luck,” his eyes grim.

Vasic was the Tk who teleported in—not surprising, given the distance—and as a result, she was in Geneva seconds later.

“Thank God,” the man in charge of the field hospital said when she told him what she could do. Slapping the symbol of the Rosetta Stone on her shoulder, he pointed her in the direction of a boy on a stretcher about ten feet away. “Obscure mother tongue. He must have something of one of the major world languages, but he’s lost it in the shock.”

It took Sahara half a minute to comprehend what the boy was saying. “It’s okay,” she reassured him when he began to cry at the realization that she understood him. “You’re not alone anymore. Now, you need to tell the doctor some things so she can help you.”

That was the first of many similar conversations she had over the hours that followed, as Geneva went from light to dark, the stars bright overhead. Someone brought her a meal when she began to fade, and that kept her going until the early morning hours. Deciding to crash for an hour to head off a collapse, she curled up on one of the cots set up for rescue personnel. Have you eaten? she asked the cardinal Tk who, she knew, would not sleep.

I’ve had nutrition bars delivered to me throughout the day.

No one, she thought, wanted to lose any of the already depleted telekinetics—but Kaleb was in a league of his own. Take care with the structural damage. Some of the areas are really unstable.

Though he had to know that far better than her, he didn’t reject her concern. I’ll be careful.

Will you wake me in an hour?

Yes. Rest now.



*



“COUNCILOR.”

Turning at the voice, Kaleb found an older woman holding a bottle of the energy drink he’d been downing twice an hour to fuel his body. “Thank you.”

“I can take the bottle once you’re done.” A polite enough offer, but her eyes didn’t move off the bottle in his hand.

Kaleb’s instincts went on immediate and high alert. Pinning the woman’s body in place using telekinesis and compressing her jaw to keep her silent, he unscrewed the bottle to take a sniff. Nothing smelled off. Vasic, a second.

The Arrow walked around the corner soon afterward. I’m near flameout. I’ll need to rest for three hours at least before I can continue.

Kaleb nodded. “Can you quickly test this?”

Holding up his left arm, Vasic slid back a small screen on the computronic gauntlet fused to his body. “One drop.”

Kaleb placed the sample on the test surface.





Chapter 40





“IT’S A COMPLEX poison,” Vasic said in less than a minute, “would’ve incapacitated you almost immediately.” His eyes shifted to the would-be assassin. “At which point, she would’ve killed you with the garrote in her bracelet.” Removing the bracelet, he snapped out the thin metal wire designed to cut off a target’s air supply with silent efficiency.

“Who sent you?” Kaleb asked, releasing the woman’s jaw so she could reply.

“Do what you will, Councilor Krychek,” was the icy response. “My mind is set to implode at any attempt at an intrusion.”