Newu Pt 35

"I want you to live, Pete," Charlotte said in the softest of voices as we lay together in the darkness. "I don't mean not killing yourself or just waiting patiently to die, but I want you to really live. Live like there is no tomorrow because tomorrow you will wake up, and then you get to do it all over again until your tomorrows run out." Her caramel curls, lighted by the glow of a lamp on the other side of the room, cascaded over her shoulders as she leaned on her elbow beside me in bed. "I know you are hurting, and I may never be able to understand how much, but your life can't only be about vengeance and justice because eventually, this war will be won, and you will have to go back to living a life. Your life... I didn't know Faye, but I knew Becky, and I know she wouldn't have wanted this to be your life."

There wasn't any real way for me to answer that, so I didn't. I just nodded my head and looked up at her. I knew, deep down, that she was right. In my heart of hearts, I knew that I had given no thought at all to what life would be like once the people responsible for all these deaths were finally brought to justice - when the rogues were completely destroyed. The problem just seemed so big, so insurmountable; it had been less than two months, but my involvement in this war already felt like it had gone on forever, and we were still nowhere near victory. Hell, we still weren't entirely sure who we were fighting.

The thought of a life after this war was nothing more than a whisper of a conceptual shadow.

My case, ready for the trip to Ukraine, was packed and standing by the door, and one of my closest friends was naked in my bed, leaning over me with nothing but affection and warmth in her eyes. She had helped me tear Toussant to pieces; neither one of us felt even the smallest shred of remorse for that, but there was a big difference between a single act of justice, even revenge, and the drumbeat of an endless war. She was right; it would have to end one day. But that point was just so far away that simply conceiving of it seemed just too remote to even try. There was still so far to go before this journey could be called complete.

"I know," I finally whispered into the fading light.

"Don't let them claim your soul, Pete," she sighed back to me, finally resting her head on my shoulder and sighing again as I started to run my fingers through her glossy hair. "Don't lose yourself to this. You're worth more than that. And if they take that from you, no matter what you do or how many of them you hunt down, you will already have lost. Please, just... be careful."

I let my hand reach up to stroke my palm along her cheek, watching her as she turned her head to nuzzle against it and plant a kiss on my warm skin while Faye purred loudly in my head. "I'll come back," I said behind a soft smile.

She kissed my hand again. "You are the best friend I have."

The scene started to fade, the lamp in the corner growing steadily dimmer as I kept my eyes on Charlotte. The room around us, the case by the door, the lamp itself, and the bed we were lying in, all of it fading into nothingness as the night consumed the memory until Charlotte's affectionately smiling face was all that remained. Then that, too, melted into the darkness.

The screen on the side of my bunker wall turned itself off as the memory of my night with Charlotte ended. There was something about the way she said it, "

Don't lose yourself,"

that seemed to hold extra meaning for me now, as if she could see it coming. I had never been an open book, I had never been easy to read, and yet, perhaps, Charlotte had seen that tenuous grasp on my humanity faltering even before I did. Although I suppose, watching what I had done to Toussant in the aftermath of Becky's death would have been more than enough evidence of that. She had assisted, of course, but she had taken no righteous joy out of it.

I had.

Her whispered warning, in the darkness of that night, was now starting to look more like a pleading request for me to tighten my hold on the goodness in me. A warning I had completely failed to heed and, instead, had sunken further into the depths of my own violent depravities. Faye's theory may have made a lot of sense, but in no way brought my overwhelming anger under control. Judging by my simmering anger at Jakob for halting my assault on and destruction of the Russian convoy, I wasn't even close.

And yet, I knew he had been right. I had known it when he gave that order; it was the only thing that had stopped me from pulling that trigger despite his advice. It's not like he could have stopped me. I could have obliterated that convoy with only a few half-practiced thoughts, and yet I had let him talk me down.

Maybe I had allowed myself to believe that we really were going to

"hunt them down"

the next morning despite it obviously being a turn of phrase. It was the equivalent of 'we live to fight another day'... and I

knew

that. So why was I so angry when, the next morning, we had 'requisitioned' an SUV from a street close to the stadium and - instead of following the Convoy south - we had headed west toward Horlivka?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wasn't really angry at Jakob but at the Russians who had been allowed to escape. But again, why? I hadn't been angry with the Russians who had given us a ride to the internment camp before them. Hell, I had even advocated for them to be allowed to leave unharmed. If they were innocent soldiers, just following orders, albeit fighting on the wrong side of history, why had I felt such hostility toward the men in that convoy? Why had I felt enough pure loathing that I only managed to stop myself from utterly destroying them because of the risk of death to my allies?

And why did my mind flash back to that pile of dead every time I thought of them?

The answer was already there, right under the surface. Somewhere in that group of Russian soldiers was a man who had cast his mind to the act of butchering them, maybe a group of them, but my mind had picked up on it. The Russians in our truck had been innocent. The men in that convoy, even if only a handful of them, even if only one of them, were not.

Which meant that I had let them go.

I had robbed those victims of justice. I had lost - maybe forever - the one chance we had of finding out what happened to Bob's people, if they had been among the men and women so callously dumped into that pile and what had happened to them and the other innocent people if they were not. The one chance I had to find out where they had been taken had been allowed to drive off into the night. There is no way Jakob could have known that when he gave his order. I knew that without having to look into his mind... but

I

knew it.

Hell, I could have just sat there, looking out that office window, and mined the minds of the men in that parking lot for information, putting nobody at risk at all, gotten what I needed, and acted from there.

But I hadn't put the pieces together until much later on. The internal editing station had given me the ability to filter out all the innocuous thoughts that bounced around inside my head from every human mind for thousands of miles. It had been overwhelming, psychosis-inducingly so. So I filtered them out. But in filtering them out, I had, on several occasions now, missed information that I needed to know.

It would seem that being all-powerful did not make one infallible.

All I could do was simmer in my own loathing, at my own failings, and studiously refuse to look Bob in the eyes. It wasn't only myself who I had failed. I ground my teeth in frustration as my mind stepped back into reality, and the dim light of the bunker gave way to the early hour dawn of snow-swept Eastern Ukraine.

The dull, rumbling throb of the SUV's wheels running over surprisingly intact back roads gave the silence in the vehicle an ominous, if hypnotic, soundtrack. Gabriel was driving, Jakob was upfront with him, and the other three of our escorts - Hans, Karl, and Antoni - were packed in behind them. Bob and I were in the back.

Bob was on the phone.

My enhanced hearing was picking up both ends of the conversation whether I wanted it to or not, and I was... maybe "forced to listen" is not the right term, but I was certainly privy to the fearful, almost inconsolable sobs over the line as he relayed what we had found so far to Isabelle. As much as Bob was preemptively grieving the potential deaths of his brethren, the Princess was inconsolable. It was a deep, maternal, familial pain; I could hear it in her voice. It was more akin to a mother helplessly fearing for her children than a superior checking after her subordinates.

I had no idea how the Inquisition viewed its members; I knew nothing of the culture or the relationship between members, and - to my mind at least - the fact that individual Inquisitors held no loyalty to any individual royal but to whichever one governed the area in which they operated, flew in the face of the idea that any sort of relationship could be built between the higher and lower echelons of Inquisition society. And yet, Isabelle was crying. Weeping in a way that only a deep, meaningful bond could allow. The devastation in her voice at the thought of her people being in that pile and the dread at the idea that they weren't but were still missing was - in a word - haunting.

This was not the battle cry of rage; it was not that coiling anger being unleashed, nor was it any of the other emotions I had felt in the past few weeks. It was pure grief, the one feeling I had forbidden myself from feeling since the loss of Faye. It was listening to the fraying of a soul, and it was excruciating.

Bob's face still hadn't regained its color.

I couldn't blame him for a moment.

Finally, the call finished, and Bob, looking about as drained as he probably felt, cast a glance over at me and offered me the satellite phone. "It's secure," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

I nodded and took it. I looked at it for a few moments before starting to punch in a number. I had no one to call. I would

like

to have called Charlotte, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell her what we had found yet. I couldn't bear to hear that same heartbreak in her voice. So instead, I punched in my own number, the number to the phone that was currently switched off and in my pack, letting it go straight to voicemail before handing the phone back to Bob with a shake of my head.

To Bob - who sighed, took the phone, and put it away again before turning back to silently gaze out at the passing landscape - and to everyone else in the vehicle, that is all that happened.

Of course, none of them knew about Jeeves.

"Did you connect to the computer?" I asked my aged-looking butler

"I did, Sir. There is still no sign of any suspicious activity around any of the people we are watching. There is also no word from Uri, although it looks like you have received a rather urgent message from Marco."

"Rather urgent?"

"He sent you an email, Sir."

"He... sent me an email... in a warzone... when he knows my phone will be off...?"

"It would appear so, Sir."

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"Okay, let's hear it."

Jeeves' voice distorted, deepening slightly, and the words malformed into an exact replica of Marco's as he read out the email.

Pete,

I pray this message finds you well and in time.

I am worried about Uri. I have thought for some time now that there has been a traitor in the ranks of the Conclave. My investigation into that and the attacks perpetrated by Sterling are the real reasons that kept me from progressing your training. I am sorry for that. But I am starting to suspect that Uri is behind everything. If someone has been instigating a war between the Conclave and the Inquisition, he would be in the perfect position to both perpetuate and then pretend to investigate this crime. He also took over the position from the man who would have been alive the last time the Inquisition had a communication from us. That didn't seem relevant until now, but it all makes sense, and he is acting very suspiciously.

He is refusing to check in, not with you and not with the Conclave. He is insisting on complete radio silence. But we are not actually doing anything. He keeps sneaking off to use the phone, and I don't know who he is calling; he is permanently blocking me. He says it is to maintain security, but that doesn't make sense. We have been driving around from town to town, aimlessly, since we left you at the airport. We still haven't met his contact. At this point, I'm not even sure there IS a contact. I think I may be being led into a trap. I will find out everything I can and get word to you if possible, but if you don't hear from me again, you know why.

Pete, if Uri is the traitor, you are in great danger. Do NOT trust Jerry. I think he may have been put there to keep tabs on you. I know Bob's mission was to get to the Inquisitor's office, but I need you to assume that this is some sort of ambush. Uri knew where it was, and if he is in league with these rogues, I have to suspect that he has told them you will be there.

We are currently on our way to Horlivka. He says he has to meet someone there before we move on to see his contact, but he won't tell me who or even why. Pete, if something happens to me, I need you to take my suspicions to the Archon. He will know what to do. I know you haven't always seen eye to eye, but I trust him, and I need you to trust me. The Black Knights have been compromised, and every single Evo is in great danger.

Get out of Ukraine, Pete. Go home. It is not safe here, and you are the one person Uri would consider a threat. I think that is why he was so quick to separate himself from you when we got off the plane; you would have been able to see his lies where I cannot. You are the strongest of us, the best of us, and if we have any hope of surviving this war, we need you to stay alive.

Pass my love onto Faye. I hope I will be able to see her again in that magnificent city of yours one day, but if I don't make it, then tell her that it was an honor to know her. She grew to be one of my favorites.

Please be safe.

Your friend

Marco

The sound of Faye growling echoed through my mind as she listened to Bob reading the email at the same time as I did. Part of me felt vindicated, justified even, at my suspicion of Uri. If Marco felt the same and was seeing the red flags independently of me, then it couldn't have just been in my head. There

had

to be more to it. But at the same time, I had left Marco alone with him, knowing that he could be the traitor. If he was killed by Uri, it would be my fault.

I groaned internally. Things were starting to fall into place. The note that was pinned to the pole in Malaga. Sure, they could have known I was coming, but how the hell did they know my name and what had happened at the party? Uri had sent me there and could easily have informed the rogues that I was in the area. Jerry and Fiona seemed to have a perfectly good explanation for being on the sand dunes in The Hague. But their intervention and their rescue of me had been one of my main motivators for trusting them. What if that was all planned? They always seemed to be close at hand, too. From the removal of Sterling's comatose body from my apartment to the cleanup of the aftermath of the attack on Mary and her family. For a pair who apparently worked all over the country, they never seemed to be more than fifteen minutes away. I never did work out why the Inquisitors never came closer than the end of the drive to the cottage when I had laid that trap for them, either. Not even to check that I was actually there. Yet they were confident enough in my location to make Mary, a pensioner in her nightdress, walk to me in the middle of a storm. They must have known I was there for them to take that risk. The only people who knew I was there were Jerry and Fiona.

Uri had also changed his mind awfully quickly when I challenged him at the cottage. I had told him that we were going to war whether he was with us or not, and I had done it while standing over the shattered remains of Toussant. At the time, I had thought that my breaking of an inquisitor's mind had been all the proof he needed to see that action could be taken proactively rather than reactively. But now that I thought about it, I had been the one to suggest coming to Ukraine, but Uri - in a massive break with tradition - had supported the idea wholeheartedly. If Ukraine, or possibly Russia, was the power base of the rogue inquisitors, and if he was working with them, then this would be where he was at his strongest. Getting us here would put us right where he wanted us. He kept Jerry with me to keep an eye on me and report back while...

Fuck!

.... While he left Fiona with Charlotte and Evie. She had wanted to come with us, but he had ordered her to stay behind to "watch our friends." He was then free to keep the woefully and intentionally under-prepared Marco in the dark while he organized the ambush that should have killed us. Jesus, even while suspecting him, I had managed to walk us straight into his trap.

"Jeeves, when was that message sent?"

"Yesterday, sir. Around the time we were finding the executed civilians."

Okay, that was something. It was impossible to know if Uri had been informed about the failure of the ambush, but it was very unlikely he could have known about where we had gone after it, and almost beyond comprehension that he knew where we were headed now. Horlivka couldn't have been a coincidence, either. The fact that we were both heading to the same place, both of us looking for "contacts." I had to assume that Uri was looking for the same woman that I was, but whereas I needed information from her, he would need to silence her. And he already had a day's headstart on us.

Fuck Fuck Fuck!

Gabriel suddenly got the urge to drive much faster.

********

In terms of geographical footprint, Horlivka was about sixty square miles bigger than Donetsk if both cities were measured to their suburban boundaries, but where Horlivka had a population of about 245,000 before the war, its physically smaller neighbor was home to almost a million people. Donetsk was the political, industrial, and economic capital of this region of Ukraine and had been one of the primary objectives of the Russians in their invasion. Horlivka, on the other hand, was the next big strategic target for the aggressors. The city was the anchor around which Ukraine's entire defensive line was based. If Horlivka fell, the line would have to be pulled back some twenty or thirty miles to the next natural barriers, and more territory would be ceded to the Russians.

The taking of Donetsk was a simple matter of controlling the major administrative capital and population center of the region, but the attack on Horlivka was essential to winning the war, and therefore, its defense was given the same, almost desperate importance as the attack the Russians had mounted against it. Donetsk had been turned into a blasted shell of its former magnificence, but Horlivka had been utterly obliterated. A city that had survived and flourished for hundreds of years had been almost completely destroyed in only a few short months, and the miles-wide column of smoke that rose from the city's remains could clearly be seen against the clear winter sky for more than an hour before the rest of the city came into view.

From the rise in the terrain, a few miles outside of the city, we watched the artillery shells detonating in its streets and against its buildings. How anyone could survive in that was beyond my ability to fathom.