Alterant (Belador #2)(78)

“But not you.” Tzader’s shoulders bunched with his folded arms. Stress lines cut deep grooves at the bridge of his nose. “Any chance you can tap your subconscious and figure out what happened?”

“Maybe, but not until I’ve had some distance from this probing and get rid of this headache from hell. It’s not a matter of enduring the pain, which I would gladly do to get some answers. But I pushed it once in the past and lost my ability to mind lock for weeks. That taught me to wait until at least the pain went away, which should be soon.”

Holding his hand up, Tzader’s gaze focused past Quinn, as if he was listening to someone reaching him telepathically.

Quinn took that opportunity to walk past Tzader into the living area and the bar. He waved his hand at a lamp in the corner to turn it on kinetically and the light flickered. What the devil? He pointed a stern finger at the light and it came on. When he reached his bar, he pulled out a cold longneck Budweiser, popped the cap off and downed half of it at one time.

Tzader walked over to him. “Never seen you drink beer, much less horse-piss beer.”

“Lot of things we don’t know about each other,” Quinn pointed out. He, Tzader and Evalle had become close after escaping a Medb trap a couple years ago, but they still surprised each other at times. “When nothing else works I have a beer, and at one time this was top shelf for me.”

“Does it cure the headache?”

“No, just tastes good.”

Tzader chuckled. “Wait till Evalle finds out about the cheap side of your champagne tastes.”

Where had that blasted thought about Evalle come from? Who had wanted to know about her? Quinn pushed around in his mucked-up mind for anything on her.

How does Evalle . . . do something? Something what?

He had a sick feeling the word he couldn’t pull up in that question might be seriously important, like giving him the identity of who had asked.

Quinn said, “Speaking of Evalle . . . any word?”

Tzader let out a weary sigh loaded with exhaustion and frustration. “Trey just checked in. He’s had Lucien, Casper and Devon searching for Storm and Evalle. Nothing yet.”

“What about the fog?”

“All we’ve determined is that the fog seems to be primarily in the coastal states, which is one reason it took so long to finger the fog as the catalyst for Alterants shifting.”

Quinn groused, “We don’t have enough people to fight something that spreads this fast.”

“Tell me about it. We could use Storm to track the beasts and Evalle to combat the Alterants shifting,” Tzader said. “But Sen won’t listen to any argument. Said it’s out of his hands and if the fog makes her shift, she’s dead meat just like the others. Hopefully, she won’t run into the fog.”

Quinn started to speak and a vision flashed in his mind, a fractured image, as if the transmission had been interrupted.

“What’s up, Quinn?”

“Nothing.” He waved off the moment, hiding the wheel of nervousness that started turning in his gut. He asked, “Has Trey found anything?”

“Not exactly. Trey’s been in contact with our Beladors who work for MARTA monitoring security feeds on highways and subways. He’s been sending out teams to hot spots. One of the security Beladors saw two people fitting Storm and Evalle’s description in a MARTA station. Trey’s on his way over to confirm if it was them in a downtown subway station, and he sent a small team to scour the other stations in the general area.”

“You talk to Sen about the MARTA surveillance?”

“What do you think?”

Quinn smiled around sore jaw muscles that ached from clenching his teeth against the pain that had racked him for so many hours. His head had eased some, but he couldn’t put his finger on what kept nagging him about Evalle. “I can only assume Evalle would not be in Atlanta if she was trying to evade the Tribunal, so she must be doing their bidding. Any idea what it might be?”

“Not yet.”

“What about Brina? Where does she stand on this?”

“I’m waiting until I have solid information to go to Brina. All I can tell her right now is that Conlan’s in lock-down but we don’t have proof of his being a traitor. We can’t accuse him of something he hasn’t done yet.”

“I agree. Any luck in trying to reach Evalle telepathically?”

“Nope. Not a sound from her. Trey can’t reach her either.”

“Since the Tribunal won’t allow Evalle to contact us, she’s probably blocking any telepathic communication we initiate,” Quinn said.

Tzader nodded, reaching in for a beer from Quinn’s refrigerator. “That’s what I figured.”

“Even our people might not be able to find her if she doesn’t want to be found, especially if she’s with Storm.”

“True. Storm’s another issue I’ll deal with when we find her.”

“He’s probably helping her.”

Tzader didn’t look convinced. “Maybe, but Sen brought him in, which makes Storm not entirely trustworthy in my book. He’s got a short-term lease on his apartment. Doesn’t look as though he’s planning to stay very long, so what’s on his agenda?”

Quinn had to concede Tzader that point. “Any sighting of Tristan?”