Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

KALEB was still in Venice with the Arrows when he received an urgent message from Silver. “Sir,” his senior aide said, “Selenka Durev is demanding an immediate meeting. She wouldn’t give me details, but her tone makes me believe this is serious.”

“Is BlackEdge showing any signs of aggression?”

“Negative at this point.”

“Monitor the situation. I’ll connect with Selenka.” Walking to the edge of a canal, he made the call. “Selenka,” he said in Russian when she answered. “I received your message.” Even without Silver’s determination, he would’ve known there was a problem: Selenka had the inbuilt arrogance of any predatory alpha, but she never demanded a meeting unless it was necessary. Like him, she was too busy to waste time on petty politicking.

“I need to talk to you,” she replied. “Face-to-face. Can you make the usual spot in a half hour?”

Having already come to the conclusion that there was little further he could do in Venice, Kaleb agreed to the meet, then located Vasic. The other man had been checking up on a sedated Alejandro, who Ivy Jane had apparently managed to put into a natural sleep before the sedatives were administered.

“I’m heading out to handle another situation,” he told the teleporter, “but I’ll keep trying to get to either Aden or Zaira every ten minutes.”

Vasic fell into step with him as they walked out into the courtyard in the center of the compound. “I’m still sensing nothing.”

That was not a good sign. Of the two of them, Kaleb was the more psychically powerful, but Vasic was a Tk-V, a born teleporter. He’d also worked with Aden for decades. If Vasic couldn’t find him, then Aden was either dead or had suffered a traumatic brain injury. The fact that the NetMind, the guardian and librarian of the PsyNet, was confused about both Aden and Zaira, and unable to inform Kaleb if they were alive or dead, further pointed to massive neural damage.

“Did Santos confirm he had a meet with Aden?” he asked instead of stating a fact of which Vasic had to be well aware. The squad had finally narrowed down the time period in which Aden had to have been taken, and it aligned closely to his meeting with the leader of the Forgotten—descendants of those Psy who’d dropped out of the PsyNet at the dawn of Silence.

“Yes.” Vasic’s eyes met those of another Arrow a short distance away and Kaleb knew telepathic orders were being given or data shared. The teleporter had always been the less vocal member of the partnership with Aden, but this incident made it clear that Vasic was fully capable of stepping into the leadership breach if necessary.

A Psy such as Ming would’ve taken the opportunity to stage a coup, permanently pushing out Aden. Vasic, on the other hand, was holding things together for his partner’s return and using all his resources to find him. Kaleb wouldn’t have understood Vasic’s choice once, but that was before he’d built friendships of his own and gained the loyalty of men and women who would never sell him out.

Kaleb would never betray any of them, either.

“There’s nothing to indicate Santos had a hand in the disappearance,” Vasic added. “Visual records confirm Aden left the building after the meeting.”

That didn’t completely clear Devraj Santos, but the other man had no reason to make an enemy of the Arrows. According to Kaleb’s intel, the squad was assisting the Forgotten in figuring out a way to handle the violent new psychic abilities that had started to appear in their population. “I’ll go to New York after my meeting,” he said. “I have contacts there, may be able to run down more information.”

“I’ve already dispatched an Arrow unit to trace Aden’s trail,” Vasic said, his next words unexpectedly blunt. “You have direct access to the NetMind. Can you work on that level?”

Kaleb did have direct access to the guardian and librarian of the PsyNet. He also had access to the NetMind’s dark twin. “I’ve already initiated a search.” He told Vasic about the neosentient entity’s confusion as to Aden’s and Zaira’s status, saw grim realization on the other man’s face. “There’s nothing else,” he added. “No data, no rumors. The only way this could’ve been done so cleanly was if everything was kept off the PsyNet.”

Vasic stopped in the shadow of a wall covered by a trailing vine, his eyes chips of winter in the early morning sunlight. “More evidence of intelligence and planning.”

“Yes.” None of this pointed to an impulse act, or one driven by mindless fanaticism. “I also have a team of hackers wading through the Internet and setting up alerts.” Unless the abductions had been organized by a crack ops team, someone somewhere would eventually make a mistake.

“You’ll share any other information you uncover?”

“As soon as I get it.” Kaleb had no friendship with Aden, but he considered the Arrow leader a critical asset.

Leaving Aden’s second in command on the heels of that agreement, Kaleb teleported to his Moscow office and spoke with Silver about a number of other outstanding matters before teleporting out to the windswept and isolated outcrop where he was to meet Selenka.

The wolf alpha was waiting for him, a tall woman with dark eyes and dark hair streaked with purple against coolly white skin. Clad in black jeans, boots, and a hip-length electric blue leather jacket over a white tee, she could’ve been mistaken for a stylish human female if not for the aura of untamed power she carried with her.

Selenka was very much an alpha wolf.