The Far Shores (The Central Series) (31 page)

“What? What makes you
so…”

“I don’t have the time
or inclination to explain myself. Move.”

If he had hesitated a
moment longer, she might have lost her temper. But he headed off to find the
Korean woman and her troop of corpses. Emily turned her attention to Peter.

“Everyone who’s not
loading gets kitted out,” she ordered, glancing over at the truck to see what
progress had been made. “I want a tight perimeter around the trucks. Put the
Weir on the outer ring. They can change if they want to. No point in being
quiet now. Oh, and that old fire valve I had rigged up? Open it.”

Peters swallowed hard,
nodded, and then jogged off to deliver her instructions.

Even in crisis, that obedience
pleased her.

If Emily had been a more
powerful empath, she could have extended her awareness, hunted for feelings of
curiosity, fear, eagerness, or anger – any of the emotions she might expect
from a team of Operators – or worse, Auditors – that had come hunting, or
stumbled upon them by some terrible mischance. Prolonged contact with Alexander
Warner, a uniquely potent catalyst, had provided a lasting boost to her
abilities; however, Emily was incapable of sensing emotions out of her range of
vision.

Emily heard the clamor
of personnel scrambling to gather weapons and armor and take position, and
activated the telepathic link that Alistair had implanted in her mind for just
such an occasion. She sent a coded distress message, then sat down on a
threadbare office chair they had found abandoned in the warehouse and waited
for a response. It took almost five minutes, quite a bit longer than she
expected, so he must have been busy.

Emily. What’s the situation?

A man in a flak jacket
holding an aged and battered Yugoslavian vintage AK-47, the grips wrapped with
layers of electrical tape, jogged past her and ducked beneath the rolling door,
followed closely by an abnormally large wolf.

I’ve lost contact
with one of the guards working the perimeter. No solid contact yet, but it must
be them. One truck is ready, and the other is about half full. If we scrambled
now, we could be out of here in a couple of minutes, but we would have to
abandon a quarter of the gear. What do you want done?

She waited for the
gunshots while Alistair either thought it over or contacted the Outer Dark for
approval or analysis. Out of habit, she used a compact mirror to check her own
halo, and was pleased to note an almost complete absence of fear.

Roll the first truck,
with Song Li along to protect it. Better a partial loss than a complete one.
Rig the second truck to explode, then hold the line as long as possible. No one
leaves alive but you. They won’t buy it otherwise.

Emily didn’t bother to
agree, and Alistair didn’t wait for agreement, ending their contact with his
final word. He didn’t anticipate disagreement, and she didn’t plan any. Since
her defection, Emily had risen quickly through the ranks of the Anathema due to
intelligence and a tendency to carry out instructions to the letter, and this
assignment wouldn’t be resolved any differently. She rose from the decaying
chair to check on the water flow and get the first truck on the road, her only
regret that she had really been looking forward to killing Colin herself.

***

“I can’t believe you actually made me
tea,” Katya said mournfully. “I’m so goddamn embarrassed.”

Mr. Windsor smiled gently
from across the table. He had set it up in the small courtyard to the rear of
his office in the Faculty Building so he could smoke his pipe without bothering
anyone, which is exactly what he was attempting to do at the moment, a small
pile of blackened matches collected on the napkin beside a mug of black tea.

“Nonsense,” he said,
puffing away while he held a final match over the cherry-red coal forming in
the bowl of his Dunhill Bruyere, an heirloom inherited from his grandfather, of
which he was quietly proud. “Nothing to be ashamed of at all.”

“Ugh. You don’t really
get girls, do you?” Katya buried her face in her arms on the table. “You must
totally hate me now.”

“Not in the slightest,”
Mr. Windsor countered. “I’m flattered, really. The basic tenets of a
student-teacher relationship, however…”

“Oh, come off it, Mr.
Windsor. I’m twenty, and I’ll only be your student for another month or two at
most.”

“Nonetheless, it is my
professional responsibility to provide you with a certain degree of moral
guidance…”

“Seriously?” Katya
glanced up at Mr. Windsor briefly, an incredulous look on her face. “You do
know why I was expelled from assassin’s training, right? They must have told
you. The Black Sun had to pay restitution on my behalf and everything.”

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Windsor
said, clearing his throat and reddening slightly. “I was informed. But you
needn’t worry. I don’t judge my students by their past, only by their conduct
in my classroom. You deserve a fresh start, Katya.”

Katya’s head sunk back
down to the table.

“I don’t get you.”

“That is not
surprising,” Mr. Windsor offered charitably. “You have very little context by
which to judge me.”

“I slept with my Poisons
and Toxins instructor. Before the unpleasantness,” Katya admitted dully.
“Before they expelled me.”

“I, ahem, I did hear
something of that nature…”

“And my Concealed
Weapons instructor.”

“Yes, well…”

“And Dr. Kinnock, the
Covert Actions instructor. He was my favorite.” Katya glanced across the table,
her cheeks flushed and her eyes gleaming. “You know, you kind of remind me of
him, actually.”

Mr. Windsor had a brief
but severe coughing fit.

“Dr. Kinnock wanted to
go to bed with me,” Katya added glumly. “Why don’t you?”

“Well, as I explained
earlier, I believe quite strongly in the trust inherent to the relationship
between a student and…”

“Are you married?
Because I don’t care.”

“As it happens, I am
not, but that really has no bearing…”

“Are you gay?”

Mr. Windsor coughed
again, and then carefully set his pipe down on the table, deciding this was
perhaps the wrong time to smoke.

“That is neither here
nor there,” Mr. Windsor said firmly, his face gradually turning bright red
despite his professional tone. “My personal life is really none of your
concern.”

“You aren’t,” Katya
decided, with a small, sad smile. “I can tell. Why, then? Don’t you think I’m
pretty?”

Mr. Windsor shook his
head ruefully.

“Not that it is
relevant, but you are a lovely young woman, Miss Zharova. And I’m sure that,
should you desire it, you would find any number of more appropriate…”

“Are you worried about
getting in trouble?” Katya paused to sip her tea, then smiled coquettishly.
“Because you don’t need to be. I won’t tell anyone. I know how to keep a secret.”

“That has nothing to do
with…”

“I’m serious. I won’t
hold it over your head, or blackmail you, or stalk you. And you don’t have to
worry about Rebecca Levy. I’ve been trained to resist telepaths, empaths, even
torture. I won’t tell
anyone
.”

“Katya, you are
misunderstanding…”

“Do you think I’m trying
to use you for something? Because I’m not. This isn’t a Black Sun thing – I
really like you. I like your accent, and the way you talk to me. You keep me up
at night, Mr. Windsor.”

Mr. Windsor sighed,
rubbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

“You may as well call me
Gerald, Katya, as any hope of keeping our interaction professional appears to
be dashed.”

Katya blushed and looked
away, fingers playing nervously across the top of her mug.

“I like calling you Mr.
Windsor.”

“Ahem. If you will allow
me to explain…”

Katya’s gaze snapped
back to him, burning with intensity.

“Are you worried about
me? That you might hurt me, by getting involved? It’s not like that, Mr.
Windsor. Neither of us will get hurt. I’m not looking for a father figure. I
really, truly, just like you. There’s nothing creepy about it.”

“That’s not entirely…”

“Do you think I wouldn’t
be any good?”

Mr. Windsor’s jaw
dropped, and then it just hung open.

“Because you would be
wrong,” Katya said frankly. “I promise.”

“Now, see here, young
lady…”

“Is there someone else you
like?” Katya’s eyes narrowed. “Because, if there is…”

“Katya,
please
,”
Mr. Windsor shouted, slapping one hand down on the table. “You simply must let
me speak.”

Katya nodded obediently,
hands folded in her lap.

“Yes, Mr. Windsor.”

“None of the things that
you just suggested are true,” Mr. Windsor said, sitting back apologetically,
mildly embarrassed by his outburst. “As it happens, I believe very strongly
that a teacher can be a positive force and role model for students. This is
doubly important in an environment such as the Academy, where moral guidance is
lacking and the ethical intent of the institution is, shall we say,
questionable. I am happy to listen to any problems you might have, to offer
advice or a sympathetic ear whenever it might prove helpful. I will do my
utmost to assist you in realizing your potential and expanding your horizons
beyond the petty violence of the cartels – because I am certain that you are
capable of so much more, Katya. I will do my best to be an advisor, a
confidante, and, if you will allow it, a friend. But, as you are my student, I
absolutely
will not
engage in – or even discuss – the sort of
inappropriate behavior that you are suggesting. And this is not because of any
failing on your part, or any trepidation on mine, but because such actions
would be wrong, and in the long run, they would be hurtful to you. I do not
wish to have a negative impact on your life. Rather, I wish to provide you with
some of the opportunities and challenges that would have been available to you,
had the affairs of Central and the cartels not intervened in your life. This is
my responsibility, my duty, and my conviction, Katya. Do you understand?”

Katya nodded meekly,
looking glum.

“Good,” Mr. Windsor
said, reaching for his mug. “I am glad that we understand each other. And I
hope you know that nothing that has happened today will in any way affect my
role as your teacher – and hopefully, your friend.”

Katya sipped her tea
despondently, while they sat in silence. Mr. Windsor fired his pipe back up
while Katya pretended to study the middle-aged willow trees that surrounded
them, the green leaves that pleasantly shaded the courtyard. Katya’s face grew
thoughtful, and she set her mug down carefully on the table and stole a furtive
glance at Mr. Windsor’s amiable face. She cleared her throat, tapped her
fingernails on the Formica surface of the table, and blushed faintly.

“Mr. Windsor?”

“Yes, Katya?”

She paused to look away,
then continued while staring out at the willows.

“You…you said ‘as I was
your student’…”

Mr. Windsor puffed on
his pipe contemplatively.

“Did I, now? Then I must
have.”

Katya clenched her hands
together beneath the table, her cheeks burning.

“Then, in a year or
two,” she suggested softly, “after I have graduated, if I were to…”

“Who can say? The
future, as they say, is undecided. Drink your tea, Katya.”

***

Distant shots, like scattered rain on
a metal roof. Then the Weir got involved, and all sorts of auditory Hell broke
loose. Emily listened to the howling, wet noises, the ringing of metal, and
waited for Colin to finish rigging the second truck with motion sensors and
proximity mines. The noises swelled to a crescendo, then came to an abrupt
halt, leaving the wind to carry the smells of smoke and cordite.

The spiky-haired
meathead emerged from the truck, rubbing oily hands against his overprinted MMA
shirt and grinning as if he had done something clever.

“All set, doll,” Colin
said, coming up to stand too close to her. “What do we do next?”

“Whatever I say.”

“You’re a bossy little
girl, ain’t you?”

Emily held her tongue.
It would be over for him soon enough, one way or the other.

“You worried? No need,
sugar. You say the word,” Colin suggested, puffing out his broad chest, “and
I’ll head out there and take care of the bad guys for you, no problem.”

She was about to agree
with the idea, when the broken body of a Weir came flying out of a nearby
breezeway, slamming into the concrete wall of the adjoining warehouse with a
meaty impact, then slowly sliding to the ground, movement facilitated by the
blood leaking from too many holes to count.