Chapter 84

Children.

Of course it was the children again.

It was the easiest way to get to him. Ming had found that one weak point in Alja and he kept on using it on Kaleb. He should have known. He had known. It was an obvious distraction: A highly trained unit of assassins attacking primarily the children in one of the refugee camps at his borders. In broad daylight. Designed for him to notice at once and react.

He had teleported there without thinking twice, but he had believed Alja safer at his Moscow HQ. What else could he have done? Even if he had taken her with him, it would still have distracted him for those few precious minutes.

The moment he had contained the situation, wasting the life of twenty five of Ming's elite soldiers, he teleported out. Not back to Moscow but locking directly on her. He was blocked by a Tk shield.

They must've known he was able to teleport to people.

He tried again, splitting his energy to do the move and break the shield in the process. Had they actually thought they could stop him? Probably not, but his first failed teleport had given them enough warning to move again and keep moving. How many teleporters did it take to move her around that fast?

In the end they weren't fast enough. By the third move Kaleb knocked one of them out of mid teleport, leaving a strange translucent veil of human cells, blood and scraps of clothing hanging in midair for a split second before it dropped down in a puddle on the floor in an empty apartment. Kaleb saw two more of those apartments mere seconds apart, before they were to slow to escape again.

The sixth location was a very public place: Tourists scattered screaming when five men, a woman and a split second later a Psy Councilor appeared in the Champ de Mars park – right in the middle of Paris. They had teleported to an open patch of grass, framed by rows of trees and gravel paths that were buzzing with people that time of day. The Eiffel Tower loomed over the whole scene in some distance.

Kaleb didn't understand immediately why they had done it. Why did they keep together? Why hadn't Ming abandoned his mission the moment he realized Kaleb followed them? Why was the other Councilor still right there, as if he was just waiting to be executed by him?

He didn't think about those questions long. He didn't care. He pushed the four soldiers away with Tk, sending them flying in every direction. They crumbled to the floor several feet away, none of them rising again.

By the time he got to Ming LeBon himself, the public park was as good as empty. Only some of the more daring witnesses stood on the edges, gaping or filming. Kaleb didn't even look at them. First he sliced off the telepathic fingers the man had dared to poke inside Alja's head, then he suspended him in midair, to check on Alja. She seemed physically fine and mentally still as unresponsive as ever since the rehabilitation. She just stood there as if nothing had happened at all, still wearing the silk and angora gown he had dressed her in. White and soft – the thing most opposite to the uniform she'd had to wear all her life. Her head was bent slightly to one side, in that gesture he knew only too well by now – as if she was trying to figure something out, but never really got to the point. Her eyes were huge, black and empty. So empty.

And the shields he'd built for her were gone. The remnants of her mind were wide open to the Net and anyone physically close. She should be screaming in pain, her mind crumbling under the weight of telepathic background noise. But she didn't, no longer having a mind to be disturbed by the onslaught of other people's thoughts wavering through space.

And deep inside Kaleb's psyche another thread of Alja's intricate web dissolved soundlessly.

But still he hung there, suspended between life and insanity, only focused on making her safe again. Before he could even begin to rebuild any protection for her, Ming started attacking him telepathically. The other Councilor might not be a match to him in the physical realm but telepathically he was brutally effective, slicing away at Kaleb's shields while he was distracted.

He tried to deflect the attacks, while he built up new shields for Alja in the Net. But they dissolved again, the moment he constructed them. With his attention split between Ming's attacks and her mind it took him too long to find the viruses that were anchored in her mind and caused any shield to crumble at once. This kind of virus would have been useless on a healthy mind. It was special design. This must be Tatiana's work. Of course the other Councilor had her fingers in this but stayed behind safe lines herself. It had always been her strategy. But no longer Ming's. He had come out, stayed even after being discovered. And his attacks grew more and more distracting. Kaleb realized he had to get rid of him before he could take care of Alja's safety. He increased the telekinetic pressure on his throat. He still couldn't kill him for the sake of the Net, but he didn't have to be conscious to keep the Net stable.

"This is a public location Kaleb. And it's in my territory. Everyone will know what you did here. This will be your political death," his former colleague croaked.

Kaleb paused startled for a second. So that was why Ming had chosen the location, even dared to stay on site after Kaleb caught up. How absolutely absurd that he should care for his political reputation!

Barely anyone had ever seen Ming's face. And those few who had had never seen the utter confusion it displayed at that moment. "What is it with you?" He pressed the words through constricted airways. "I was inside her. There's nothing left of her. Why are you still acting as if she has an influence over you?" Even as speaking got harder, he didn't stop his attacks on Kaleb's mind. This couldn't be true. He knew Kaleb. Something must still influence him… Even more than by the invisible fingers closing around his throat, Ming was bothered by the fact that he seemed to have miscalculated and he didn't even see where he had made the mistake.

I was inside her. There's nothing left of her. Ming's words echoed in Kaleb's mind. Ming had been the only one Alja had ever been afraid of, the only one she ever thought could break through her impenetrable shields. In the end he had. And he hadn't found her. The one man, she'd ever feared she might not be able to hide from, hadn't found her, when she was at her weakest, unprotected and alone. It was undeniable proof that she really was gone.

And she'd never come back to him.

At last Alja's web fell apart. Just like that.

There was no reprieve. No slow disintegration of its strings like it had started within the days before. In the end it hadn't been so complex a web at all. All the promises, all those little threads, they all unraveled when the only one that had ever mattered tore: The hope of getting her back.

And everything stopped to matter, as if the force that held the world together had simply ceased to exist. He could have died then and there, if not for the hate and anger that built inside him and were directed at the single being who had taken everything from him.

Ming.

And he couldn't escape.

He let his Tk gather around the man, drew it together slowly increasing the pressure, not on his throat this time – but on all of him.

"Kaleb stop! You're risking the Net! Your Net! You can have it now. Don't you see?" Still there was no real emotion on Ming's face neither in his tone.

"I only wanted her." Kaleb's voice was flat, monotone.

"That's impossible! She's gone. She can't influence you now." Finally able to see Kaleb wouldn't stop, Ming sent out a distress call for someone to get him out. But even if there'd been a teleporter left for him to reach, no one would have been able to penetrate the telekinetic walls Kaleb had built around him. And those walls were closing in fast.

Kaleb let more and more telekinetic energy flow around his adversary. He didn't even bother to avert the other Councilor's telepathic attacks – pitiful attempts to save his skin. Ming would not live long enough to defeat him now. There was just one thing he had to understand before he died. One emotion he had to feel.

"It was never her. I chose to feel, Ming. I chose her. You should not have taken her from me."

And finally it spread over Ming's usually icy features: Fear. Mortal fear that contorted the red birthmark on his temple in a way it had done only once before, when a four year old girl had flung her powers at him in a desperate attempt to be understood. He hadn't understood her back then. But now he started to understand Kaleb. And this time that was the very reason for his fear.

Kaleb wouldn't have been able to stop himself had he wanted. All that pent up emotion he had suppressed, not only during those few weeks since Alja was gone, but long before, it all wanted out. The helplessness as a child, the fear, then the hate, the thirst for revenge against his mentor that had never been quenched, the years of brutal strangulation of his impatience to finally obtain complete control, to be finally free, the devastation, when after a few short moments of believing he had a chance, that chance had been snuffed out with the stars in Alja's eyes. But he was no empath. He could do nothing with all that emotion. He could only let the pressure flow into his Tk and let the emotion direct that power against the only aim left. And after another moment that was an eternity of terror in Ming's eyes, he let the Tk implode on Ming's body.

Everything turned red.

The haze cleared. Kaleb was alone in the park but for Alja's body, that still stood there as unmoving as ever. Ming had been teleported out again, was Kaleb's first thought. But no, he couldn't have. Slowly Kaleb let his gaze drift across the floor. And it dawned on him that the sheen of red that still blurred his vision had nothing to do with his perception. It really covered everything around him.

There was nothing left of Ming LeBon but a spray of blood on the grass before him – on Kaleb's clothes – on his hands – his face. Only Alja seemed to have been miraculously spared but for a few pinpricks of red on the hem of her pristine white dress.

He simply stared at the red mist that had been Ming LeBon and Alja who stood out amidst it like a beautiful lily among crushed roses. But he didn't react. Couldn't. Everything suddenly seemed so unreal. Where there had been blazing hate and anger moments before, there was now just a dull empty feeling. And somewhere deep, deep below, there was the pain. A pounding pain that was eating its way through his soul at an impossible speed. Funny how he knew it was pain, since all he felt was an almost crushing numbness.

For a moment there was absolute silence around him. Not a single sound stirred the gruesome scene and even the constant whispering of the Net had gone mute.

And then the Net started to quake. Softly at first, like small ripples in the mirror smooth surface of a quiet lake. And the ripples spread from where Ming's star had blazed with cardinal brightness moments before.

Whispers started to rise, first a few, then millions of frightened voices started swirling around his mind. He tried to tune them out. And found he couldn't. His telepathic shields were basically torn to shreds by Ming's attacks. And the tattered remains barely kept the hum of the other minds out. There was no barrier left against the storm that gathered on the psychic plane.

What had he done?!

Slowly the numbness that had coated his thoughts like sticky cotton wool lifted and his mind started working again. Ming was gone. The Net would collapse around the vacuum he left. Kaleb shifted his focus to the psychic plane. And he saw a horror only a Psy could understand. There was a gaping hole in the Net where Ming's star had vanished. Streams of data were disintegrating into a vortex of darkness, of nothingness. And there were so many broken strings, so many strong connections torn off, their ragged ends flapping in the void of the mental space like worms curling on hot asphalt. There shouldn't be so many. There hadn't been so many when Henry had died. Kaleb shook his head, tried to get his thoughts clear. But the voices were just too loud, the whispers getting louder, more panicked, as the ripples vibrating across the Net strengthened.

The people, they had to live. Alja would have wanted them to. He had to save them. She would have wanted him to. He had to stop it.

He could stabilize it!

He reached out with his fused ability and grabbed the loose ends of those strings trying to connect them like he had done with the diseased parts of the Net. But there were too many and they kept slipping away, their motion volatile. He held on tighter, gathered as many as he could, but the waves got ever stronger as if an invisible force was moving the fabric of the Net from within, making it twist out of control. There was no chance of mending it. All he could do was try to hold on and stop the structure of the Net from unraveling further. But the strings were pulling taut, threatening to break from the grip of his Tp/Tk-ability. And the screaming of millions of Psy minds that filtered through his battered shields was slowly getting louder – until it would be heard inside the vault at the core of his mind, until it woke up the monster.

Screaming always woke the monster.

Fully focused on the mental plane, Kaleb didn't notice that the woman who had stood close to him in the park was no longer silent at last, nor was she still as immobile. Within seconds after the tumult in the Net had started, her body began to seize. She dropped down in the grass, her limbs shaken, contorted by convulsions.

Even her soulless body could feel the pain as the writhing Net tore at her link, the turmoil in it no longer blocked by Kaleb's shields or any shields at all. It spread along her nerves and inside her brain, desperate, burning. And her voice, that hadn't even whispered for weeks, tore screaming from her throat.

Kaleb tried to anchor himself on something, smooth the surges, but there was nothing to hold on to, every part of the Net was writhing furiously. The shockwaves were throwing minds around like leaves in an ocean. Mental screams echoed through the havoc, piercing his mind.

His thoughts scattered. His mind worked too slow. He noticed it, but he couldn't help it. He drew deep from the vastness of his strength, holding the severed threads and ropes of the Net in an iron grip.

And finally as he chanced a look into the vastness of the PsyNet the waves seemed to calm, at least a little. Maybe he could connect the torn fabric to his own star somehow. If only they didn't pull at his mind so hard, tearing his mental functions apart until he could hardly think. But he had to hold on. Alja was gone. This was all he could do for her.

Please don't kill my dream.

And he wouldn't. He would honor her legacy. This was what she'd sacrificed herself for. Even if he had been able to think clear, he probably wouldn't have understood how the thought of her still gave him such strength, how the very reminder of his loss slowed the gnawing pain from swallowing him completely how it urged him to fight on and not give in to the madness of the voices screaming in his mind now.

But there was one voice that drowned them all.

Nooo shhhhiiiiields! It screeched, sounding like a thousand nails raking across a chalkboard. Kaleb had never heard that voice before. Never thought he would, because its owner never had a voice before. But it had now. And he knew at once what it was that slithered towards him, visible only because it was even darker than the black sky of the PsyNet: The DarkMind. It had finally come for him, drawn to all the pain and hate that swirled inside him, called to him by the gruesome chant of the monster that had awoken deep inside his mind.

Stop the blood, stop the heart,

Or just tear them apart…

A vast blackness crested over Kaleb's mind unchecked by his shredded shields. Fine tendrils of oily black found their way even through the smallest fissures, pushing inside, widening the cracks and finally crashing in on him. Hate, fear, anger, sadness, guilt and above all desperation so profound it made him want to give up, to let go of the Net he was still trying to stabilize.

He tightened his grip on the loose ends of its strings and started running inside his mind.

There was still one place in the center of his mind that was protected better than anything in the Net. One place with impenetrable walls that had been untouched for years. Fumbling at the mental locks and blocks, he pushed himself through openings barely big enough for his mental presence, slamming doors shut behind him, that he'd never thought he'd see the other side of again.

But once he was inside, he knew he had never really left.

He had never left that room his mentor had taken him to. He had never left the room in which the monster was born.

I tried. Believe me I tried. He spoke into the hollowness of his own mind, lonely as he had always been. But I failed you. Forgive me.

Then the monster took over, what was left of him.

Psy started breaking down all around the world. Some just fell were they stood, some froze in place, their bodies tensing up by an invisible force, others clutching their heads in pain, trying to withstand the force that tore at them on the psychic plane. But it wasn't limited to the Net. The whole world seemed to have started to tremble. Humans didn't feel it yet. But most changelings could. It was no longer a psychic phenomenon. But it was not like an earthquake either. Not just the earth, everything – even the air – had started to vibrate in the eerie rhythm of a mind tumbling into insanity.

Sienna sensed it too. She'd been out for a walk with Hawke, a short carefree pleasure in all the chaos, when suddenly all the little noises of the animals stopped and a strange humming pressure started in her head. Her mate went very still beside her.

"Fuck." It seemed to be his single favorite word, ever since the war in the Psy world had gotten real and started to involve his mate and his pack. He crushed her close and bent his head to nuzzle at her throat.

She understood at once. "I'll come back safe and sound," she promised.

"But it'll break you." He didn't want this for her. Didn't want any of this.

"Then you'll help me through it." She held on to that thought: Her tough, strong mate, who could handle her inner demons as well as any danger from outside. She hugged him back and pressed him as close as she could. There wouldn't be much time now. She didn't need it. She knew what she was about to do. And as for Hawke, no time in the world would have been enough to say goodbye, when she headed into danger like this.

He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. "You're so brave. You humble me," he stated simply. And she shuddered at the intensity in his words.

But before she could say anymore Judd appeared beside them. Time was up.

"He's in Paris," he began without any unnecessary explanation, pulling out a small video device that started playing a shaky clip as he tapped on the screen.

It showed a formerly, neatly arranged park that seemed to be hit by a hurricane. Trees were uprooted, branches torn off and even their thick trunks hurled several feet in the air. In between countless everyday objects were crushed, ground to rubble: Benches, trash cans, sunshades, entire snack booths and even parts of nearby buildings. Even through the small device a screeching, creaking sound filled the whole scene. It was the sound of metal beams bending, grinding against each other. The Eiffel Tower was about to collapse.

The vid zoomed out a little, revealing the fact that the person who'd taken it stood on a building that was far away from the events in the park. From the new angle the whole extent of destruction became visible. The monumental tower was the only thing in the entire area that had – so far – withstood the outburst of telekinetic energy. Everything else was thrown around like leaves in an unnatural storm that swirled in the shape of a sphere around one spot several yards in front of the creaking tower. The forces seemed to be stronger toward the center of that sphere. And flickering in between the flying debris stood a man, rigid, totally still, in the eye of the storm. That center was irregularly illuminated by flashes of lightning that seemed to be generated within that orb of flying chaos.

Then the footage ended abruptly.

"That was when technology was hit, about four minutes ago. Half of Europe is without power. Apparently no electric device is working for hundreds of miles," Judd explained.

Sienna just nodded, going into soldier mode. She couldn't afford to think of anything but how to complete this task now. "The psychic plane?" she asked. Even with the visible chaos, that area was far more important for the Psy.

"As far as I could find out, it's catastrophic. First a shockwave crashed through the Net, already killing an unknown number. Then something countered that shockwave. It calmed the situation at first but now minds are starting to get crushed – and thrown out of the Net."

"This is Faith's vision. He's tearing the Net apart." It was just an assessment. There was no emotion in her voice.

Hawke had to suppress a growl. His wolf didn't like that its mate turned cold, didn't want to let her go. He brushed against his insides, pushing to be let out, take over control. But the wolf didn't understand that this was necessary. So Hawke reined him in, forced himself to stand absolutely still. Later, he told his wolf. Later they could help his mate again. But no matter how it tore at him, there was nothing he could do now but let her do, what only she could.

"There's no way to know what we'll be teleporting into," Judd continued. "I can't bring us too close to his body. The forces seem to be most violent directly around him. We'll approach in small teleports from the outskirts of the city until we can see how close we can get. You won't have time to hesitate or take proper aim."

"Understood. Let's go."

"There also won't be time to avoid collateral damage."

"I know." She pressed her lips together, gave Hawke one last look and they were gone.

They teleported into the city, stopping twice for a few seconds to witness scenes of increasing destruction. Rain clouds had started to be pulled into the telekinetic storm, so in addition to the flying debris, water whipped all around them, making it near impossible to see.

"Once more," Judd informed her. "Then I'll need the rest of my energy to protect us from the rubble." He would bring them right inside the sphere to avoid as much collateral damage of her X-fire as possible. It was a risk. But killing innocents would be worse for Sienna. Judd hated that he had to put his niece through this. His family had escaped the Council years ago and still the Net wouldn't let them go. Maybe after today…

"I'm ready," Sienna answered.

The world shifted again, as Judd did the last teleport. When she felt her body reform, Sienna didn't hesitate. She didn't even have to look. By now she sensed the direction from which the psychic disturbance came with acute clarity.

Her mouth drawn into bitter strain she released the X-fire.

The debris that had been spinning around Kaleb lit up in a glowing sphere for a split second, then it simply vanished. And everything stopped: The uncanny storm, the psychic pressure in the air, only the screeching metal of the tower needed a few seconds more to settle.

Sienna closed her eyes and buried her face against Judd's chest. She couldn't watch the outcome of her powers. Not his time. He pressed her close for a second, then she heard him gasp.

She snapped her head back up. She couldn't break down, if the danger wasn't over. When she opened her eyes she didn't see the expected empty field that was usually everything her powers left behind. There shouldn't even be ashes left where Kaleb had been wrapped in chaos seconds ago. But although the wreckage had vanished in the X-fire, Kaleb still stood in place, unscathed, unmoving. He had been right at the center of where she'd aimed her ability. Still it was as if he was rooted to the earth. The rain that had been whipped around furiously seconds before now streamed in straight lines over his rigid figure. Every muscle in his body was locked, his hands fisted by his sides, his eyes almost as empty as Alja's had been all this time, the stars in them alternatingly hidden by total darkness and flashes of lightning that bore witness that inside him the storm still raged on. It was impossible, Sienna thought. Nothing could block her X-fire, nothing except –

Finally something did move. At Kaleb's feet another figure slowly rose, first to a kneeling position, then she shakily pushed herself to her feet. In this scene of destruction she looked strangely out of place with her flowing, white gown, that was unscathed but for a few smudges of grass and dirt, and a fine sprinkling of something red right down at the bottom that already began to fade in the downpour.