“The world needs to see my photos,” he said, taking his phone out. He’d just check and see if maybe, maybe, his visit to Socialite had woken them up after the shots had been fired.
Hey, he could at least scan his timeline now. That was new. Maybe he could upload—
What the...?
Squarely in the middle of the news feed was a TRENDING video with an eye-catching headline: Sienna Nealon shamed in the Presidio!
He pushed play, listened to the chanting. Sienna was just walking away. Like a chicken. Bawk, bawk.
Mmm, chicken. Friday was hungry.
Wait, was this live?
He saw the counter in the corner of the feed and he suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore.
A million live views?!
“She’s stealing my fame,” Friday said, swelling a little more. “She’s stealing my fame!” He swole further, massively, hugely, enormous-huge-ness—
And with that, he was off again, huffing, puffing, chuffing (he didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded right), heading north toward that damned orange bridge—and his fame.
95.
Sienna
The roar was the tipoff that Grendel had seen us. Not a subtle sound, either, like a purring kitten. It was more like a jet engine combined with a blender with just a little angry lion thrown in for auditory variety.
I saw him coming, and he was not slow in his approach. He roared toward me at a full run, not bothering to stop for the traditional banter, no apparent desire to play things slow. He was out to kill me, and do it fast, presumably so he could get on about his evil scheme.
Behind him, something caught my eye: the white van.
I shoved Mendelsohn out of Grendel’s charge path. “I get big yellow, you get the van and—I dunno, get it the hell out of here or something?”
Mendelsohn stumbled, caught himself, and took a few more steps to get clear of what was soon to become the splash zone. “I’m fine with that division of labor. But are you going to be? Fine, I mean?”
“Dunno, and I don’t suggest you wait around to find out,” I said. Grendel’s roar was getting louder and he was about thirty feet from me at a full bull charge. My feet were lightly planted, and I had a very basic plan to deal with this fast-approaching problem. “Go go go!”
Mendelsohn sprinted on a dog leg running route, and for the first time I noticed he turned his feet out when he ran. Just like a geek. A splay-footed geek.
Grendel cut the distance between us like a rocketship, and when I judged the moment to be right, I made my move.
I jumped. Straight up.
I shot over Grendel’s head as he shot past me at warp nine. He flew out into the intersection behind me and crashed into a passing Smart car, launching it into the next county. I hoped those people had some good safety features built in, because that collision looked like it hurt.
Plus side: replacement cost would hopefully be small, since it wasn’t going to be covered by insurance.
I landed catlike on the sidewalk, catching myself and setting my feet right so that next time Grendel came at me I’d be ready to go in a different direction.
I’d need to. He wasn’t stupid, and he’d expect me to leap up again.
Grendel wheeled around on me, eyes spitting anger like fire. Behind him, the frat boys who’d been harassing me were still filming, but thankfully they’d stopped their chanting. Which was a shame, because it’d have made an interesting background soundtrack for the shit presently going down.
“A swing and a miss,” I said, adopting an announcer’s voice, “and that makes strike one. He’s stepping back up to the plate, though, looks like he’s ready to take a another shot at it.”
Grendel made a seething noise. “I killed you once.”
“And I ripped your arm off and buried it in your guts,” I said with a shrug. “If you’re saying that we’re in a toxic relationship, I agree with you. Why don’t we call it quits, go our separate ways. We can work out a visitation schedule for the kiddos—”
“You think you’re so funny,” Grendel said.
“Sometimes,” I said. “Like you, I don’t always bat a thousand.”
Grendel charged me, taking it at a slightly slower clip this time. He’d thrown his arms wide, and running me down seemed to be his plan.
Not one to go in the expected direction, I turned and bolted in the opposite one.
“Hahahah,” Grendel broke into laughter. He poured on the speed, now confidently assured he could run me down. Which he could, given enough time. His legs were longer than mine, and he definitely had the edge in innate strength, which translated into running speed.
I shot through a patch of trees and over a small hillside. A dirt trail led past what looked like old ammo bunkers, with viewing rails and concrete tops that had been turned into observation decks overlooking the Pacific below.
“Where are you going?” Grendel shouted after me.
I leapt atop the concrete viewing deck. When I hit the top, I realized it was an old battery, made to hold cannons and allow for directed fire. Below was a long, cliffside slope down to beaches and the ocean below.
Perfect. If I could fling Grendel over the cliff face, or get him to charge over it...
Yeah, that was wishful thinking.
Grendel had stopped short of leaping at me. Apparently he discovered his innate caution, because I could hear him prowling on the concrete beneath me.
I squatted atop the viewing deck on the battery, listening. Below was like a little courtyard, and I heard him kick at the concrete structure, smashing pavement. “You think you can trick me?” Grendel called, voice coarse, angry, and blaring over the rampart. Waves crashed in the distance behind me.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out,” I said. My strategy here was weak, and boiled down to keeping him distracted while Mendelsohn did something smart, like get in the van and drive it away where Grendel could never find it. I was really rooting for my nerdy partner on this one. I was also rooting for Grendel not to get a chance to disembowel me, but I didn’t feel strongly about my chances in a straight-up fight against him.
Grendel crashed into the battery’s doors below the platform, patience apparently gone. I had a bad feeling about what was coming next, so I backed up to the edge of the viewing deck, waiting, waiting, because I had a feeling—
He smashed up through the decking like Jaws leaping out of the water, mouth open, bone claws out, pissed as hell—
I damned near went over the railing just dodging the debris that showered out from him. Lost my balance, racked my shoulder blade on the rail, felt the numbness start down a rib. At least I hadn’t broken it. Or I couldn’t feel it if I had.
“You think you’re so smart,” Grendel said, planting his feet just on the edge of the hole he’d made. “You look at me and you think I’m dumb.”
“It’s the drool,” I said, pushing myself upright. He was only ten feet from me. Almost arm’s length for him. Not even close for me. Why couldn’t the fine scientists of Revelen have created a height enhancement serum? “Tough to look smart when you’re dripping like a puppy chasing a tennis ball.”
His eyes locked on me, pure fury, then he cracked a very slight smile. I was ready for him to swipe, but instead he raised his arms high above his head—
And brought them slamming down on the ground between us.
The stone shattered, again sending up a shower of block and debris. The ground collapsed, cutting my feet from beneath me as the blast of detritus forced me to dodge backward—
I hit the metal safety railing at mid-back, and over I went, barely managing to clutch it as I tumbled backward. My arm hit full extension, the shock of all my weight yanking down hard on the joints and sending a stinging feeling from my palm up through the connective tissue.
A cloud of dust puffed out over me, and a moment later, I heard Grendel down below, beneath the battery, chuckling.
He knew what he’d done to me.
He knew I was
hanging there, defenseless, just on the other side of the wall.
It was just a matter of whether he’d get me through the wall...or rise up over it to finish me off.
96.
Veronika
“Got an incident in the Presidio,” Veronika said, responding to the beep of her phone. They were rattling along the streets of San Francisco in a limo filled to the brim with people. “Sienna Nealon’s there right now, getting yelled at by...someone or another.”
Berniece hesitated only a second. The limo ride was smooth, right through the streets of San Fran. “Have the driver take us there.”
Veronika frowned. “Why?”
Berniece just smiled. “Why would Sienna Nealon be at the Presidio? Something’s going on there.”
Veronika didn’t feel like arguing, so she hit the intercom. “Take us to the Presidio.” Bosses gonna boss, she figured. And getting paid was getting paid, regardless of whether she did it here or at HQ.
97.
Sienna
Hanging on a railing by one arm was no fun, so I swung my other hand up as soon as I could, then landed my feet on the ledge to share the load a little.
Whew. Still on the edge of a cliff, but at least I wasn’t reliant on one hand.
“I hear you,” Grendel said. His hand smashed out through the stone below, right where my feet had been a moment earlier.
“And I smell you,” I said, then did a gymnastic swing on the rail, flipping around and swinging over the top and down, coming in behind Grendel while he was still buried up to the elbow in the wall. “Your cologne is Eau de Toilette, right?”
I slammed into his spiny back with both feet, ramming him into the weakened wall. It cracked as he fell forward, unable to turn in time to deal with me. His head smacked into the stone, and the entire thing bowed out like Diagon Alley was about to open in front of his face.
Wanting to speed up the process, I gave him a standing side kick to the ribs, leaning heavier on shoving him than trying to kick him for damage. He hit it again, the wall gave a little more—
But not nearly enough, and he pivoted on me, lashing out with those damned claws, forcing me to retreat toward the shattered battery doors.
I kicked a stray block at him, which hurt my toes but sent a several-hundred-pound weight flying at him. It hit him squarely in the face as he lumbered toward me—
And did nothing, dissolving into a white cloud and a multiplicity of shards.
“I work for the damned government,” I muttered, taking full flight and running my ass out the wide open doors. “You’d think they could give me just one lousy tactical nuclear weapon to use on this bastard—AHHHHHH!”
Grendel swiped at me and I leapt to stay ahead of him, putting a couple dozen feet of distance between us but landing a little awkwardly on the edge of the path. I didn’t want to run back to the parking lot, but I crowned a small hill and was treated to a full view of it. I hoped Mendelsohn would take the damned van and get the hell out of Dodge, maybe head across the bridge to Marin County, but...
He was in the parking lot, still, van doors open, and staring at something big and electronic and ominous that was sitting in the back of the van.
“Drive!” I shouted at him, and he looked up, blinking in surprise. I’d caught him gawking at the internal machinery of the thing, and now he saw me waving frantically at him as I hauled ass in his direction. Grendel had let out a grunt of rage about twenty steps behind me. There was going to be no disguising what Mendelsohn was up to now. He needed to own it, and get that van the hell out of here before Grendel descended the hill and tore him into fish bait.
“No keys!” Mendelsohn shouted, cupping his hands together. His eyes got wide as Grendel came up over the hill behind me. “It was unlocked, though!”
“Probably to keep someone around here from breaking the window!” This I shouted from about fifty feet away, almost to the start of the parking lot, which was long and narrow. “Did you check the wheel wells?”
Mendelsohn took a couple steps back to the passenger side wheel well and stooped, fishing around with his hand. He came up a couple seconds later with a key. “Hey, who woulda—oop!” He seemed to remember what was happening, ran around the front and made for the driver’s side door, getting in with a speed I’d have expected from a greased-up Speedster but not the managing director of a VC company. The van’s engine roared to life and he backed out of the spot with a squeal of tires as I closed to ten feet or so. A leap carried me to the top of the van as he floored the accelerator.
When I landed, I looked back, and Grendel was right there.
He seized the back bumper of the van and Mendelsohn’s burnout stopped as the vehicle lurched and I, again, tumbled, this time over the front.
Aw, hell.
We were caught.
98.
Friday
He gasped his way to the top of a rise, and there it stood, majestic as morning wood—
The Golden Gate Bridge.
“YEEHAW!” Friday shouted and jumped, a giant leap that carried him down a wooded hillside, over houses and cars and trees and people pointing at his junk as he sailed overhead with the grace of a ballet dancer. But more manly. Because of the junk.
He landed, hard, crashing and burning and rolling and laughing through trees. He wiped out a patch of pines and came up giggling about it because hahahah, stupid trees shouldn’t have gotten in his way.
“This is the greatest day in the history of ever,” Friday shouted to the sky and orange bridge in the near distance. If he vaulted a couple more times, he could be there.
What would he do when he got there?
Climb it! Duh.
A roar sounded, not too far away, and he leapt because why bother looking first? He came down in a crash, just before a parking lot, and there—
That yellow thing with the bones!
Wow! What luck!
“Yoooooouuuuuuu!” he grunted, pointing at it as he wiped the blood off his skinned knees. It was hanging on the back of a white van, maybe trying to stop a pedophile in progress, who knew.
A head of dark hair popped up over the front of the van. Pale face, freckles. “Friday?”
Friday just stared. “Uh...I know your name. I’ll remember it in a minute.”
“Friday, watch out!” she shouted, not quite shrieking like a girl but getting pretty close there.
Grendel turned on him, wheeling with those claws. The bones caught the sunlight and looked like miniature dongs sticking out of the guy’s hands. But bonier.
“Hahahah, I bet you have lots of fun with those,” Friday said, taking a step forward as the thing swung at him. It buried them in his chest, points into the muscle.
And got stuck. Haha.
Also, ow, a little.
“Your blood will be like bone broth running over my face,” Friday said, grabbing that yellow thing by the wrist and wrenching it. “I need the protein. Gotta work out later. Maybe do some crunches with my feet in that bridge thing.”
He ripped at the arm and it came off, like a balloon ripped away from a toddler. He swung it around, laughing all the while. Like a sock in the wind, hahahaha.
Friday looked at the girl and dangled it. “Look at me! I’m waving!” And he made it wave, which was hilarious.
99.
Sienna
Friday was the biggest I had ever seen him.
Also, he’d forgotten my name, which was irksome, to say the least.
On the plus side, he’d ripped Grendel’s arm off and was now waving it like a kite, so I guess there was some advantage to his hugeness and its resulting stupidity.
“What’s wrong with him?” Mendelsohn asked. Near as I could tell, Grendel had somehow wrecked the van’s transaxle or transmission or something before tangling with Friday, because Mendelsohn’s repeated attempts at gunning the engine had no effect other than making the engine roar loudly. He’d given up by now.
“He gets dumber the bigger he grows,” I said, ho
pping down from where I’d been hanging on the front of the van after Grendel’s sudden stop of us.
Mendelsohn popped out the door, and both of us looked back at where Friday was still waving Grendel’s severed arm like a toy, making Wheeeee! noises like a child while Grendel staggered, bleeding all over the place. “I’ve heard that criticism about men in general,” he said. “Usually not in this context.”
“It’s his damned muscles,” I said. “When he grows his muscles, his brain shrinks or gets less oxygen or something. Look at them; he looks like he’s wearing a sandbag suit. And when they get that big, he gets stupid.”
Friday threw down the arm on the ground, looking around. “You know what I want? A t-shirt in my size that says, ‘LIVE. LAUGH. LOVE.’”
I exchanged a look with Mendelsohn. “See what I mean?”
“It looks like that thing tore a piece out of him and he didn’t even care,” Mendelsohn said. “Maybe use that to your advantage?”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that as soon as I—” I started to say. Squealing tires stopped me.
A limo had pulled up behind us, and the doors were already flung open. Red hair flashed in the cloudy daylight, blue plasma glowing in the dim day.
Veronika and company had arrived.
Oh, yay.
100.
Veronika
They spilled out of the limo, Veronika ready. “You’ve got your marching orders,” Berniece said, disappearing into the back. The limo pulled away, backing up quickly once they’d deployed: Chase, Phinneus, Tyler, Kristina—somewhere, anyhow, though she wasn’t in sight now—and of course Veronika herself.
Blood Ties Page 35
