Page 42

Thanks, baby.

De nada.

His hand never loosened on Dulgar’s neck.

Clicking deeper into the Barrier, I did another scan of the area, making sure there weren’t any other surprises lurking nearby.

“What do you think it means, ‘Dori?” I said belatedly, letting out a sigh.

“They’re gone?” Balidor said. “The List seers?”

I watched Dulgar stare at Revik’s face, eyes glassed.

The smaller seer gripped Revik’s arm with both of his hands, but he’d stopped struggling. I knew Revik was reading him, trying to find whatever remaining details he could before we had to go. I also knew he’d sedated Dulgar’s light. Those previously sharp, gold eyes looked blank, like he was high on some really groovy drug. Revik wasn’t gripping his throat tightly enough to have done that by cutting off his air alone.

I didn’t have a lot of hope Revik would find anything particularly helpful?beyond what we’d already found. Then again, I was feeling pretty damned discouraged at the moment, and outmaneuvered.

We were losing ground. I could feel it.

I focused back on the link.

“Yeah, they’re already in Dubai,” I said.

“They have reached Dubai already? You are sure? There is no chance they are in transit still, that we might?”

“No,” I cut in. “They’re there. Revik got the buyer’s name.” I exhaled, letting my frustration grow audible. “I don’t know if the name’s real, but Revik remembered it from one of the sales records, so it’s at least an alias that’s been used before.” I bit my tongue. “It’s worse than that, ‘Dor. This guy, he’s definitely collecting Listers. Seers, at least. We don’t know about the humans. But he definitely has his own copy of at least the seer portion of the List.”

The silence on the line deepened.

Balidor clicked softly. I felt a real pulse of frustration on him, too.

“Did they know we were coming here, do you think?” he asked.

I glanced at Revik.

I knew what Balidor was asking me. He wanted to know if I thought Shadow had found a way to hack Revik’s light. Meaning, some way inside the two hours.

He wanted to know if I thought we were being played.

I studied Revik’s back, scanning his light carefully, looking for taps. I knew his higher structures were connected to Shadow. That never changed. But I also knew those were the parts of him Shadow couldn’t easily pull intel from, or use to manipulate him.

Those higher structures operated in their own plane.

I’d wondered if it was some kind of trickle-down effect?from his higher to lower structures?that caused the delay between when Revik left the tank and when Shadow could pull usable intel off him. We also speculated that it might take that long for Shadow to get past Revik himself, at those higher levels of his light as well as down here, on the ground.

We’d been looking for the trigger points Shadow used to get into Revik’saleimifor months. Apart from the usual trauma crap my husband was put through as a kid, we hadn’t found anything new.

I knew we were missing something there, too.

“I don’t know.” My voice came out angry. “I really don’t think so, but we’re obviously missing something.”

I felt Balidor agree.

After another beat, I exhaled.

“Look,” I said. “Revik’s still reading Dulgar, so maybe he’ll get a better indication of how the transaction went down. But so far, it just seems like the usual trafficking bullshit the Legion of Fire engage in. Revik says it was a normal sale from Dulgar’s side. A higher-priced one than most, and one with unusually specific requests regarding individual seers, but none of that is unheard of. Revik thinks Dulgar didn’t want us to know because he wanted to keep up the pretense he would sell those seers to us.”

I let out another annoyed exhale.