Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,135

them, Vasic closed the door so it would remain a viable exit should Vasic be separated from the others and unable to ’port them to safety.

If no one knew they’d come this way, no one could lock it on them.

“It’s an office,” Malachai said in a near-subvocal whisper, his bulk behind the black wedge of a desk.

Flicking on a narrow-beam flashlight of his own, he ran it over the papers on the desk. “Shit, it’s all decades old. Must’ve been left here when the property went into foreclosure.”

That explained the leaves Vasic could feel underfoot, the damp in the air. “They didn’t bother to clean up this section.”

“Let’s go,” Miane said, already at the other door.

Vasic did a telepathic scan of the corridor beyond, indicated for them to go. He wouldn’t have sensed someone as highly shielded as himself, but he doubted there was anyone with that level of mental discipline here. He was proved right. The corridor was lined with a moth-eaten carpet and empty of all life. They went quicker now, checking any rooms they passed but aiming for the section of the house that had been lit up when they arrived.

Vasic caught the first hint of voices almost five minutes later; the sounds were followed by whispers of light. He and the changelings crept right to the edge of the light, listened. Vasic knew that if BlackSea changelings had the same level of hearing as terrestrial changelings, then Miane and Malachai had to be picking up far more than him, but he picked up enough.

“. . . on the road. Barring any unexpected delays, she’ll arrive at the drop-off point in twenty-four hours.”

“You’re sure she’s broken?” A male voice. “The damn fish held out forever.”

“Broken and ours,” confirmed the second speaker, a female. “All she needs is time to regain full physical health, and she’ll be primed and ready to hit whichever target we point her at.”

Vasic knew the three of them could’ve backed off, allowed this place to continue existing so they could use it to track down the other vanished, but that wasn’t the changeling way. They wouldn’t sacrifice one for the many. The squad functioned the same way.

“Male speaker is Psy, female is human,” he said in a tone so low he could barely hear himself. “First is protecting the mind of the second, and he’s strong enough that I’d have to kill him to neutralize him psychically. The backlash might take out the female.

“A telekinetic hit could put them out of commission, but there’s a slight risk the male will have a chance to blast a telepathic warning to his guards or to his superiors.” Telepathic communication was near impossible to block. “Do you want me to strike?”

Miane’s back was a furious line in front of him as she shook her head. “Mal.”

“Be easier if one or both moved this way.”

“Keep the human alive,” Miane ordered. “Psy is too high a risk.”

“I’ll get them out into the corridor,” Vasic warned before he teleported some distance back down the way they’d come and deliberately knocked over an old vase.

It didn’t take long for the Psy male to start down toward the noise. He was being stealthy, but he was focused on the origin point of the noise, far down the hallway. Vasic ’ported back in time to watch Malachai rise up behind him and snap his neck. Miane was already moving toward the room from which the dead male had come.

By the time Vasic walked in, she had the human female facedown on the ground, her knee on the other woman’s spine and the woman’s arms wrenched behind her back. Miane’s gun was pressed to the back of the woman’s head, explaining the woman’s silence.

A small communications unit lay on the ground. “She didn’t get out an alert,” Miane said in a voice as cold as the frigid darkness at the bottom of the ocean.

Vasic was already in the human female’s mind, taking everything she knew about Leila Savea, the vanished, and the Consortium. It appeared the Psy male had bolstered her weak natural protections as well as extending his own shields over her, but with the latter gone, the former wasn’t difficult to disassemble without causing brain damage. “I have it,” he said quietly.

“Did she torture Leila?” Miane’s eyes were chips of black ice when she glanced at Vasic.

Vasic thought of what he’d seen in this woman’s mind, of how she’d taken pleasure in carving up Leila’s face while the changeling screamed, and