Seeker

John was seeing the moment of his own death. The Dreads had boarded Traveler with Quin, and though they didn’t seem to be helping her, their presence had destroyed any hope of avoiding a fight.

The athame and lightning rod were on the floor some yards behind John, and the Dreads were out for blood to retrieve them. In a cloud of motion, the Middle Dread was raising his sword to kill John.

Then something long and thin sprouted from the man’s chest, covered in red. As John watched, it snaked its way back into the Middle’s torso and disappeared. Then the man fell backward into the arms of the Young Dread.

For the briefest moment, John’s eyes and the Young Dread’s eyes were locked upon each other. She had saved him, she had helped him. Then the Young was gone, dragging the Middle away.

John turned toward the athame and found Briac Kincaid heading right for him. Briac was limping, and his face was bloody, but this didn’t seem to be slowing him down. The bright light of revenge was burning in his eyes.

A gun went off, and John’s shoulder jerked back. He could see the gun clutched in Briac’s left hand. The man was going to kill him. Except that John had something worse than death in his own hands. Ever since that day, so long ago, when he’d glimpsed the flash of rainbow-colored light from his hiding place beneath the floor, he had been waiting for this. Ever since that day in the old barn, when Briac had stood before the withered figure in the hospital bed, lecturing the apprentices about the dangers of disruptors, he had been waiting for this.

John’s remaining guard lunged forward to stop Briac, just as John’s own hand slid down the edge of the disruptor. There was a high, piercing whine as the disruptor launched a thousand sparks.

The room was filled with multicolored light again, and the hiss and snap of electricity. The web of sparks collided with both of the men, John’s guard and Briac, who were now locked in a fight.

His own man jumped backward, beating at his head, which was swimming with electrical flashes. Briac fell to the ground, falling out of the cloud of sparks as he did. But he was not completely free of them. A small handful—maybe three or four—were still dancing around Briac’s head. The disruptor field had split between the two of them, something John had not known was possible. Briac rolled along the floor, swatting the flashing lights like they were flies.

John turned away, searching frantically for the athame and lightning rod.

Quin threw me the athame! he thought, filled with a relief so profound and a happiness so intense that they were almost overwhelming. She chose to give it to me!Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

His hands closed around both stone objects. But they were wrong. They didn’t feel as they should. Instead of cool stone, his skin felt something softer, warmer. He hit the athame against an overturned table, and it crumbled to pieces in his hands.

It was a trick. She hadn’t thrown him the real dagger. She hadn’t chosen to help him. He stood quite still for a moment, despair flooding in. And then came anger.

He could see Quin and Fiona farther up the steep floor, kneeling by another figure. As he approached, he recognized this figure: Shinobu MacBain. Quin’s rescue on the Bridge suddenly became clear. Shinobu had been there. He had been helping her. Perhaps, in Hong Kong, Shinobu had taken John’s place. Perhaps he and Quin had been together for the last year and a half. He could imagine her touching him, kissing him, helping him, as she had refused to do for John. The idea made him furious.

“Can you move?” he heard Quin ask him.

Shinobu was clutching his side, and one of his legs was bent in the wrong direction.

“Sure,” he whispered. “I can move.”

“We’re going to pull you,” she said. “Hold my arms.”

Before Shinobu could grab on to her, John grasped his whipsword with both hands and drove the butt of it into the side of Quin’s head as hard as he could.

She dropped to the floor, stunned.

Then there was a tremendous groan from the back of the ship, followed by the sound of a great amount of metal tearing away from itself.

Traveler began to plummet.