Allie's War Episodes 1-4(163)

Somewhat, yes, she says. Does he know of it?
Galaith’s light form smiles cryptically. I believe he is beginning to suspect...
And what will you do with him? Xarethe persists. Does it not worry you, that he might start this war, even without your Bridge?
Galaith smiles once more, clasping his light hands at his back. After a pause, he turns, meeting the gaze of the other.
I promised my friend Xarethe that I would not exterminate all of her creations.
His smile grows harder, even as the black eyes turn sharp.
...But Terry, he says gently. Your time is up. It is fortunate for me that you are as obvious as you are insane...
The being calling itself Xarethe turns, its glowing eyes suddenly predatory.
Galaith adds, I hope, at least, you got the explanations you were hoping for, old friend...
A bolt of light strikes from overhead.
Terian sidesteps it, severing his connection to the Pyramid even as he leaves the false imprint of Xarethe behind.
The darkness disappears...


 
...and Terian jerked open yellow-gold eyes.
He lay in a cream-colored seat on a private plane, a middle-aged woman with a tennis player’s body. She was on her way to the Hamptons for a week, with husband number two and kids. When she blinked her eyes to clear them, a man appeared over her, holding a gun.
It was not her husband.
“Did you really think he wouldn’t hear what you’d been doing, Terry?” the seer asked.
The woman held up a hand. A diamond wedding ring sparkled from her third finger. “We can talk about this, my brother—”
The infiltrator fired. The skull of the slim woman in the five thousand dollar Chanel suit blew back from an entry point just at the inside of her right eye, decorating the seat’s upholstery with a sickening thump.
She slumped forward in the soft leather seat.
...just as a different man on another continent approached a girl patiently brushing a pony’s dark mane. She looked maybe sixteen, but the expression in her eyes flashed older as the infiltrator approaching her fit a silencer to the end of his pistol. Her long hair caught in a gust of wind as she struggled to mount the small horse. Before she could get her leg over, he fired...#p#分页标题#e#
...and now they are aware. All Terians, everywhere. He is on the run, in all his various forms, but Galaith had planned for that, too.
...A man in his twenties bolted down an aisle of slot machines, his eyes wide as he scanned for exits. He’d just about reached the cordoned entrance to the cocktail lounge when a security guard stepped directly behind him, stabbing him in the kidney multiple times with a straight-edged knife. Before he could cry out, the same guard jammed a syringe against his neck and hit a button to depress the stopper.
A crowd gathered as he convulsed on the carpet, but only the guard saw his eyes flash yellow before he expired...
...A businessman in Italy stepped out of his church, looking around frantically for his family’s chauffeured car. He crossed the street with his coat collar raised, lifting a hand for a taxi when unknown persons gunned him down in front of ten witnesses, including the secretary he’d met an hour earlier at a nearby apartment building, and who he’d been banging behind his wife’s back for over three months...
...even as with a jerk and a gasp, the Vice President of the United States, Ethan Wellington, sat up in bed.
For a long moment, he didn’t know what had wakened him, didn’t know what was wrong.
Then, receiving a number of flashes from the Barrier construct he’d erected over the room, he felt in the bed beside him for the body of his wife, feeling a faint rush of panic when he couldn’t find her. Seconds later, he remembered she was out, touring the Southern states on free school lunches, or one of the other social programs he’d asked her to support. As parts of him whispered in the dark, he found himself thankful for her absence.
He threw back the covers, shoved his feet into plush slippers and reached for the drawer where he still kept a small gun, like in that apartment he and Helen shared when they lived together in graduate school.
The door to his bedroom opened.
Ethan tensed, blinking up into the giant eye of a Maglite flashlight.
“Good,” he said, exhaling as he recognized Wes, the lead of his security detail. “Have them bring my car around. There’s been a family emergency, and—”
“Sir,” the agent said. “That won’t be necessary.”
It occurred to Ethan that he’d made a mistake, even as his eyes adjusted enough to see the gun his security chief held beside the long flashlight. Ethan’s mind toyed with regret—that this wasn’t a seer’s body, that he might have acted faster, that he hadn’t remembered to call Helen that night.