The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Chapter 42: A Momentary Pause

"You ... you did??" Raven whispered in reply, confusion and astonishment rolling through her in a wave. But before she could pursue things, Mordecai's face slide into her field of vision. A wave of relief swept through the Native American hardwire at the sight of the familiar face, which quickly flashed her a bright smile.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Raven," the big man said, his voice tinted by warmth and relief.

"I might say the same thing to you," Raven quickly returned, her voice strengthening as she used it. Her confidence too took an abrupt upward swing at seeing the man in black and she felt her confusion slipping away.

Her eyes switched over to the smiling Jeriko.

"To both of you. Congratulations, Jeriko on your mysterious defeat of Death. Apparently with some improvements, if my eyes haven't deceived me."

Her growing smile then vanished as she felt seriousness descend onto her like a grim cloak.

"By your presence here, you've managed to either avoid Katengaur's ambush at the airport or, somehow, you managed to defeat her and her allies."

"The second option would be closest to the truth," Mordecai replied, reaching out to lightly press his hand to Raven's forehead. Despite not seeing the familiar flare of psionic energy brightening the big man's aura, which she easily could see in confirmation to the restoration of her own psionic abilities, Raven felt the warming surge of a healing wave wash through her.

Immediately the female hardwire's body thrilled to the return of strength that filled her every fiber in an instant. Startled once again by the sudden and unexpected wave of healing, she gasped out loud and sat up in bed, eyes wide.

"How ... I ...? I don't understand; you've managed to somehow heal my burnout and now give me strength?" she husked in astonishment. "Without using psionic energies?"

"Oh, I used psionic energies alright." Mordecai grinned openly, drawing his hand back as Jeriko reached for a neat pile of clothing that was sitting on a small table at the foot of Raven's bed, the only two pieces of furniture in the plainly appointed and rather small bedroom she now found herself in.

"But not quite the type of psionic energy you're used to dealing with." He accepted the bundle of clothing from Jeriko with a nod before turning to hand it to a stunned Raven, who was only now realizing that she wore only her underwear beneath the thin blanket that barely covered her.

"I'm afraid, however, that any explanation is going to have to wait. I healed you because I need you up and on your feet. I need you to contact Avalon and the rest of the independent nations here, in Calgary. I want to bring them in and talk to them before my hunting parties start sweeping through the streets!"

A handful of moments passed before Raven paused in the sipping of the hot liquid filling the mug cupped in her hands. Looking over the rim of the mug with her dark brown eyes she surveyed Mordecai and Jeriko, both dressed as she now was in the standard lone gunmen black combat gear.

To her practiced eye, she could see the subtle differences that now marked the two lone gunmen hardwires, both long time friends and associates. The big man, clothed as always in black, wasn't physically different; he was as massively powerful as he always had been. But psionically and psychologically, there was something about him, a darkness that seemed to be coiled around him like a dragon of soot, charcoal and thick mist, waiting to strike. That darkness was a grim and deadly purpose that wouldn't be denied. Not by any power on Earth, anyway.

As for Jeriko, the blonde Swedish hardwire had always been fit and trim as far back as Raven could remember. Now, however, Jeriko could only be described as muscular; a lithe and almost aggressively poised counterpoint to the man in black's brooding power. The new body, with its obviously increased strength and speed combined with the fangs that Raven had espied back in the bedroom to make the Native American hardwire wonder just what the hell Jeriko had done to herself to create such 'improvements'! And how she managed to avoid being dead, despite Duchesne's best attempts at making her so.