Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(117)

Declan snatched the bottle away from Matthew. “It’s like giving a gun to a toddler. Do you know what these things do? Did you see before you sent them?”

Ronan shook his head.

Declan put the water bottle firmly back in his hand. “I’d put this on a high shelf. Look on the other side of the bed.”

A brief recce to the other side of the room revealed that there was an arm between the bed and the window, and a lot of blood that Ronan assumed used to be in the arm. He turned back in order to verify that it didn’t belong to either Matthew or Declan. It didn’t seem to. He searched inside himself for regret and couldn’t find it. He looked for fear, too, but all he could find was incandescent rage.

“We need to talk,” Declan said. He pulled his gaze from Jordan and Hennessy. “Because they’ll be back.”





75

The Visionaries never wanted to do it after seeing an attack. Lock had gotten used to it. They were gung ho ready to fight for the cause when they first met the Moderators, and then they saw how it really went down, and they all got cold feet. For a while Lock thought the answer was to keep them away from the attacks if at all possible, but then he realized that was futile, too. Eventually they saw the attacks in their visions, so one way or another the moment of reckoning was always coming.

Liliana was no different. He had checked into the same hotel as Farooq-Lane and Ramsay, and when he saw her with Carmen in the hotel lobby, he could tell that she wasn’t going to be the sort with an iron stomach. She was more the gauzy, weeping, green peace type. People who looked like her wanted to do this to make the world a better place and people who looked like her rarely saw how shooting teenagers in the head and guts was making the world a better place.

So he already knew before they went out that it was going to require some negotiation after he returned.

And when it was all done with, he knew he was going to do whatever it took, because her intel was gold.

Sure, it had been a shit show. Bellos now had one arm. Ramsay had gotten shot in the same arm he’d gotten stabbed with a crucifix in, that was just his bum arm, but at least he still had it. Nikolenko had a motherfucking bite—a bite!—on her neck. Some odd number of dreams had gotten away. It was impossible to tell if any of those girls had been the original Jordan Hennessy. Ronan Lynch was nowhere to be found.

But that wasn’t Liliana’s fault. Her intel had been spectacular. Specific, brilliant, special information about two entirely separate Zeds in two entirely different locations. She was the Visionary they’d been absolutely waiting for. He’d never seen anything like it.

It looked like this thing might actually get fixed, where this thing was the apocalypse.

Good. He hadn’t seen his dog in ages.

Many people wouldn’t consider Lock’s job a plum job; heading up a largely clandestine task force didn’t allow for many public accolades and didn’t pay as well as the private sector. But Lock didn’t work for those things, he worked for the sense of purpose, for the acquisition of trust, for the eventual building of a pyramid of humans who assumed he would get the job done right the first time. He assumed that at the end of all this, assuming the world got saved, he could trade in this cache for fun and prizes of indeterminate nature.

Lock strode up to Farooq-Lane in the hotel bar. “How is she?”

“She wants to quit,” Farooq-Lane hissed. He’d never seen her so angry. It was as unseemly as her grief had been when her brother had been shot. One wanted to give her something to put over her face until she could get her dignity back. “And why do you think that might be? Maybe put Ramsay on a leash or just put him down entirely.”

“If we swapped Ramsay out, do you think that would be enough to change her mind?”

“It might not be enough to change my mind,” Farooq-Lane said.

Lock gave her a look. He didn’t say anything to her, but the look said it to her instead. The look said, remember that we talked about this. The look said, remember that we’re not entirely sure you didn’t know about all the shit your brother did before we caught him. The look said, remember that we could always begin a long and messy public investigation to find out if you were complicit. The look said, you’re not changing your mind. The look said, also by the way we’re saving the world and who opts out of that?

Farooq-Lane averted her eyes in the face of this look. She said, “I think it’ll take more than that.”

Lock said, “What’s her room number?”

Farooq-Lane said, “Two fifteen. For now.”

“Get some sleep, Carmen,” Lock said. “We need your wonderful brain sharp. You’ve done very well this week.”

He rode up the elevator to the second floor and walked down the hall. Liliana was in an end suite that Lock knew would still take out the occupants of at least ten other hotel rooms if she hadn’t yet learned to turn the visions inward. God, he couldn’t even imagine how good her intel would be if she learned to focus them in. This thing would be over before it began. The Zeds wouldn’t have a chance.

Lock knocked on Liliana’s door. Three authoritative knocks. The first said: answer. Second: the. Third: door.

She did.

“May I come in?” he asked.

Her nose and eyes were red from tears. She let him in.

He sat on the edge of her sofa and patted it to indicate she should balance out the other end. She did.