Page 117 of Golden Eagle

“No.” Nikita heard the faint beep of a card being scanned. He took a deep breath, and called up the poison in his veins. “I’ll handle it.” His tongue felt heavy with the power, loaded like a gun.

The handle turned, and the door swung inward.

There were humans, two of them, dressed all in black tactical gear like the troops in Virginia. It was one of them who’d opened the door, who dropped his card on its lanyard and raised his gun. They weren’t a problem.

But the boy standing between them was.

Tall and lanky. A teenager. With big, green eyes, a pointed chin, and a shock of red hair.

“Shit,” Will said, with awe and feeling.

The stench of charred wood rolled into the room, hastened by the sweeping in of the door, and Nikita’s sinuses burned. He snarled on instinct, and just resisted the urge to cover his nose and mouth. Back in Russia, Sasha had always said Philippe smelled like a campfire, smoky and a little singed. This boy, though; this was the acrid devastation of a forest fire.

Mage.

“Put the guns down,” Lanny ordered, compulsion ringing in his voice, and the guards went slack and lowered their weapons.

Nikita focused on the mage. On the terrible smoothness of his expression, and the bright hatred sparking in his eyes.

Nik dove at his mind. Not a gentle shove, but a leap; he drilled right at it with his own, put all of his will into it, and his voice echoed strangely inside his head when he said, “Let us through.”

The boy’s eyes went to half-mast, and his head tipped back a fraction. His lips whitened as he pressed them together. But Nikita could tell he wasn’t compelled; that he was fighting it.

He said, “You killed one of us.”

Shit, shit, shit, shit,shit.

He tried again. “Step back. Let us through. Forget us.”

The boy tucked his chin, lifted his hands, and little flames danced at the ends of his fingers. “No.”

Nikita’s mind filled with ravens. Hundreds of them, ink spots against white snow and a whiter sky, cawing and croaking and diving and raking. His mind filled with pain, and cold, with screaming, and the crack of a rifle.Captain, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that.

Alexei stepped in front of him.

Nikita’s last, tenuous hold with his compulsion snapped like a rubber band stretched too far. He was struck by a wave of dizziness, a surge of nausea. The room tilted.

But he heard Alexei murmur, “Shh.”

And he blinked, and focused, and saw Alexei step right in close to the mage, and touch his neck, and stare into his eyes, and say, “Hello, little red one.”

The mage stiffened. When he drew himself fully upright, he was a scant half-inch taller than Alexei.

Alexei didn’t react. There was a smile in his voice, one charming and friendly. And compulsion. “Who are you?” he all but purred. “Hm? What’s your name? Your hair is so pretty.”

The flames at the boy’s fingertips went out. His hands went limp. Alexei had compelled where Nikita could not. In a flat, robotic voice, the boy said, “I’m Test Subject Number Seven. LC-7.”

“Really? How unusual. My name is Alexei.”

Lanny appeared on Nikita’s right side, Will on his left.

Lanny touched his arm and said, “What happened?”

To the mage, Alexei said, “Won’t you say hello to my friend?” He extended a hand toward Dante, who stepped up beside him.

Dante put his hand on the other side of the boy’s neck, and said, “Hello, Seven. It’s so lovely to meet you. What do you think about letting us leave, hm?”

Both of them. Alexei was struggling, and it was taking both of them to compel him. Nikita had never heard of such a thing.

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