Heart of Obsidian

something very, very bad was about to happen or had already done so. “Kaleb.”
    * * *
    THE psychic surge impacted Kaleb’s mind with the force of a slamming blow.
    The velocity of the wave made it deadly clear the damage that had produced it was catastrophic. Locking down the house with a single telekinetic command, he shot out into the PsyNet to see hundreds of thousands of minds flickering in a way that denoted stunned shock at the sudden insult.
    It was the one vulnerability of the Psy, their need for the biofeedback provided by the psychic network that connected their race. That connection meant Psy could go anywhere in the world on the psychic plane, could share data with an ease the other races couldn’t imagine. It also meant they couldn’t escape the devastating aftershocks of a fatal event that had happened on another continent—in a city called Perth, Australia.
    A city he’d now reached.
    The black fabric of the PsyNet, the minds within it flashing red in panic as their conditioning shattered with the onset of agonizing pain, was crumpling inward here, in a pattern he’d witnessed only once before. Hundreds had died then—men, women, children—but Cape Dorset’s population was minuscule in comparison to Perth’s.
    Throwing out a protective telepathic shield the instant he was close enough, he halted the collapse. And knew that thousands were already dead, their minds severed from the Net at implosion in a brutal punch of pain that would’ve ended the lives of children at once. The adults would’ve lived a few seconds longer, the toughest lasting perhaps a minute.
    The anchor network in Perth has been compromised,
he communicated to the leader of the Arrows, covert operatives who were the most highly trained and dangerous in the world.
Initiate secondary backup.
That backup system, put quietly in place after Pure Psy began to target the anchors, the linchpins who kept the Net from collapsing, was still a work in progress.
    Initiated,
Aden replied within a split second.
I’ll assist with the shield.
    Unnecessary.
Kaleb could seal up the breach on his own.
Find out how this was done.
The telekinetic behind the earlier murders was dead, gutted by a changeling during another attempted killing. Every other anchor in the world had been notified, and the majority were now in hiding, their locations known to only a select few in each region.
    There are reports of fires in several parts of Perth,
Aden said after a short pause.
Vasic and I are teleporting to the affected area.
    Suturing the bleeding gash in the psychic fabric of the Net with measured efficiency, Kaleb spoke to the minds whose lives hung by a thread he held in his grasp.
This is Councilor Kaleb Krychek,
he said, using his now-defunct title because it would foster calm.
I am in the process of stabilizing this region. You are safe.
    Simple. Matter-of-fact. Effective.
    None of these people would ever forget who it was that had come to their aid when their world turned to hell.
    * * *
    ADEN looked across the road at the pile of burned timbers belching black smoke in the noon sunshine, the beams glowing dark red from the fire that continued to lick at the remains of what must’ve been a small cottage. One of his people in the region had just confirmed the cottage had been home to an anchor, regardless of the fact that it was in a suburban area when the majority of anchors were known to prefer solitude.
    It had been thought the locality would provide better camouflage.
    Eyes on the destruction that bore silent testament to the failure of the strategy, he said, “What did you use to facilitate the teleport?” to the man who’d brought him to the location.
    Vasic nodded at the gathering of neighbors in the distance, many with sleek camera-enabled phones in their hands. “One of them is live-broadcasting and panned the area. I saw this building.”
    “It was a good choice.” The whitewashed wooden church where they stood sat across the road from the burning house. It provided both privacy and an excellent vantage point. “This appears to have been a brute attack.” No finesse, nothing but the intent to take a life on which hinged the lives of thousands of others.
    “Accelerant and a Molotov cocktail to set it off, if I’m reading the signs right.”
    “Cheap and effective.” Aden considered the mechanics of the attack. “It’s the accelerant that’s the issue—how did they get enough of it on the house to trap the target