“You calling me average?” I asked with faux outrage, turning back to face him, “I wasn’t going to be outdone by big brother. Call it sibling rivalry.” I flashed him a grin. “Anything you can do, I can do better.”
He smiled weakly. “Try peeing standing up.”
“What a touching scene of reunion,” came a harsh voice from behind me that sounded more than a little haggard. I turned to see Dr. Isabella Perugini standing at the door to her office, her dark hair frizzed and her eyes bearing dark circles underneath them. “I had thought that you might have actually—finally—perished, ending my long suffering from the damage you do.”
“You’re not that lucky, Doc,” I replied, smiling sweetly. “Like a cat, I just keep landing on my feet.”
“Burying your claws into some new poor soul that doesn’t know better than to get close to a cat that’s trying to find a soft place to land,” she said, coming to a stop at Scott’s bedside. She looked him over once, then took her stethoscope from around her neck and put it on, listening to his chest. “He’s hungover and tired,” she pronounced with a yawn as she finished. “Give him a good night’s sleep and he’ll be fine.” She gave me the evil eye again. “You, on the other hand—”
I sighed. “I don’t know why you’re upset with me. I never locked you in the trunk of a car; Kat did.” I gestured vaguely to where Janus was lying in the corner of the room, a feeding tube down his throat and a respirator quietly hissing, breathing for him. “I bet she’s in here all the time, you should take it out on her. Besides, that was months ago.”
“But who led the mission where she lost her mind?” Perugini said, still giving me a fiery look. “Hm? See? Everything is your fault. Always.” She turned on her heel and went back into her office, the automatic door hissing shut behind her.
“She’s really warming to you,” Ariadne said.
“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “Another couple months and it’ll almost be like having a conversation with you.” I regretted it after I said it. Ariadne had been mostly indifferent to me of late, but that lit a fire behind her eyes. I didn’t grimace but close.
“The telepaths?” she prompted.
“Right,” I said, trying to remember where I had left off in our earlier conversation. “It’s actually a good thing they’re dead, because they didn’t know anything and now we don’t have to worry about guarding them. That would have been a headache in and of itself since we don’t have an empath on staff to block them out.” I shrugged. “Plus now Century can’t storm our headquarters and recover them, thus applying them to their nefarious purposes once more. Because you know we would have been damned near powerless to stop them.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. “They still could have had valuable intel. Something. Anything to get us closer to Century, to their plans.”
“Their plans are getting more and more screwed by the day,” I said. “They just lost at least half of their telepaths, which is going to slow down their extinction agenda by a lot. A hell of a lot.” I let out a long exhalation and took a deep breath of the medical unit’s cool, sterile air. “As far as victories go, I’ll take it.” I looked around for a wall to lean against but finding nothing, I placed a bare palm on the cold surface of Scott’s bed rail. “I need some sleep.” I looked from my mom to Ariadne. “If there’s nothing else that can’t wait until morning, ladies?” I looked over at Reed, and he frowned. “I’m not calling you a lady.”
“Damned right,” he said. “Again, back to the peeing standing up thing.”
“There is one other thing,” Ariadne said, and I saw a little nervous tension between her and my mom.
“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Out with it.”
She hesitated. “Well. We got a flag from customs in Los Angeles.”
“Oh?” I shifted, and found myself suddenly a little more awake. I didn’t relish the thought of rumbling with a Century team in my present condition, but I could sleep on a plane on the way there, and a Red Bull or twelve would have me in fighting shape by the time we landed.
“Flagged at LAX,” Ariadne went on, and everything about the way she said it was dull. “Customs didn’t act on it because they had orders not to engage without sufficient backup, which they didn’t have—”
“Spit it out, Ariadne,” I said. “What are we dealing with here? Mercenaries? Metas? More telepaths? Because if we could mop those up, we’d really put a dent in Century’s efforts—”
“No,” my mother interrupted, and I saw the look she traded with Ariadne. “Potentially more problematic than that.”
I’m sure I looked mystified. What could be more problematic than any of those things? A slow, damning thought came to mind. “Weissman.”
“No,” Ariadne said, dispelling my rising discomfort. “No, I’m afraid it’s not Century related, exactly—”
“If someone doesn’t give me an answer,” I said, looking from Ariadne to my mother, “I’m going to start accusing you people of playing the role of Old Man Winter—”
I stopped speaking mid-sentence. My mother’s face exhibited a fairly obvious twitch at the mere mention of the name, and Ariadne looked away so quickly it was obvious. “Winter,” I said softly. “He’s back.”
Chapter 22
Peshtigo, Wisconsin
October 8, 1871
The wind was a low, chill whip around Erich Winter’s face. It hurt, numbly though, and paled in comparison to the other pains that filled his body. It was not supposed to be like this, he thought, looking at the scorched flesh on his right arm as he dragged a faltering leg behind him. He limped, the pain in his right thigh a searing, continuous agony as he stumbled forward, the flesh blackened down that side of his body. He had run as far as he could, keeping low across the grain field, toward the town of Peshtigo. It wasn’t logical and he knew it, but the instinct was there nonetheless, the need to run toward people when in danger. Not that any of them could save me. Not from that. Not from him.
He fell, gasping, to his knees, dodging the long, dried grass that had curled up, near dead from the summer’s drought. It couldn’t hurt him, not really, but every stroke against his burnt flesh added to the pain. This will take time to heal. Time I hope I have.
He had lived for thousands of years and had not done so by stupidly engaging in fights with his own kind. He crawled now, the sand sticking to his exposed, burnt flesh, and it felt like every grain was a knife, picking at him. I have never even seen a meta capable of doing what was just done to me. It is simply impossible. No one can have that kind of power ...
His fingers clenched at a weed that had survived the dry summer and he stopped his desperate crawl. Will I be like this weed? If he comes for me ... I cannot endure, cannot fight ...
Winter began to crawl again, the smell of his charred skin filling his nostrils, his strength fading as he pulled himself along, hand over hand. He tried to spark the power to encase himself in ice. Protection. I need protection. There was little humidity in the air to work with, but still he struggled on. Concentrate. Feel the freeze. Look for the faint strands of moisture, pull them to you, make them yours. Bring on the ice. They dangled before him like little strings but far off in the distance, and his reach was not long enough to gather them to him. The pain blotted them out, pushed them away, and his eyes fluttered shut as he tried to will the screaming agony out of his mind. He tried again and failed, collapsing in the dirt, his cracked lips feeling and tasting the dry soil. I have failed. Perhaps if I wait here, he will not find me—
“This is really quite sad,” came the voice, dispelling his hopes. “I’ve been sitting up here watching you.” The voice carried a hint of an English accent, and as Winter rolled over, he looked up at a man hanging ten feet in the sky above him, wearing trousers and a cloak that wouldn’t have been out of place in metropolitan Chicago.
“You have defeated me,” Winter said quietly, as he felt blood run out of his nose and settle on his lip. It didn’t freeze, which
was cause for alarm in and of itself. How can I be so weak? Admitting defeat like a coward. He paused and realized the truth. I would admit worse and beg for my life if it would cause him to spare it.
“Oh, I know that,” the man said, continuing to hover, floating in the air. “You really shouldn’t try and shake down visitors to your little town, especially when you don’t know who they are.”
Winter felt the lack of cold, and his teeth chattered from it. “I am the patron of these towns. Their people—”
“Are your people, yes, I heard you say it when we met on the road,” the man said, staring at his hand with bored disinterest. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before, where you old gods stake a claim to an area where descendants of your original worshippers settled and run a protection racket on any metahuman who tries to cross it.” He smiled. “Didn’t work out so well for the last folks that tried it on me, either.” He shrugged. “Of course, that was in Mongolia, so I doubt anyone will hear about it for a good long time, but this ...” He looked around, into the fields off in the distance, and Winter saw his eyes alight on the smoke in the distance. “Brushfires?” he asked, as though his train of thought had been halted.
Winter nodded. “It has been a dry summer, bereft of rain.”
“And here comes autumn, settling in,” the man said, still hovering, eyes fixed on the smoke. He looked down at Winter. “I’m going to have to teach you a further lesson. Not necessarily because you need it—though all you old gods need it—but because I have a reputation to maintain. Or restore, I suppose, in this case. I’ve been gone for a long time from western civilization, from the world of our kind, and I think everyone’s just about forgotten me.” He chuckled. “You wouldn’t think so, as long-lived as we are, but it happens. Events fade into the near distance, and we’re left living our lives as day-to-day as any of these short-lived humans.”
The man set down, his feet gently crushing the dry grass as they settled. He took a step toward Winter and the seeds of panic took full root in the older man. Winter tried to scurry back, his long arms and legs brushing against the dried vegetation, sparking more pain from his burns and finding futile purchase in the dirt and plants as he tried to retreat—
The man grabbed him in one motion, seizing him by the burnt remains of his shirt, a lapel in each hand, and pulled him close. Winter felt the heat now. A blazing fire lit in the man’s eyes, a literal one, flames crackling as if he were a fire djinn of old. Smoke poured from his eyes like eyebrows of black that wafted toward the heavens. “I’m going to make an example of you. I need them to remember that I am a man apart from the rest of you. I don’t care what you do, what Omega does, what happens in the world around me. I need nothing from any of you, and I want no part in your foolish chess games or territorial pissing matches. I am nothing like you ...” His eyes flared, the fire blazing as if kerosene had been poured on the flames within. “ ... I’m better.”
There was something stirring now, a howling roar in Erich Winter’s ears that was louder than a train, those monstrosities that seemed to be taking over everywhere, showing up all over the map, knitting the world closer together. Winter felt his feet start to leave the ground, but the roar did not abate, it grew louder, and he looked away from the man. They flew high into the air, the cold wind whipping Winter’s cheeks as they ascended. A fire blazed below them, consuming the land. It was a wall of sheerest flame, a hundred feet high, and Winter could see it roaring, burning, snaking like a living thing as it thundered across the ground toward Peshtigo in the distance like a high wave crashing on the shore.
“The people ...” Winter whispered.
“Are going to die,” the man said, watching coldly. “It’s a shame; I didn’t mean for it to get quite that out of control. I let my anger get away from me. I had intended to scorch the ground around us, leave you in the middle of a smoking crater, but when people interfere with me, when they try to shake me down, take what’s mine, it makes me ... so angry.” Winter watched the scorched ground as the black smoke started to rise. The man shook him, diverting Winter’s attention back to him. “Listen to me.”
The man started to smoke, the clouds rising from below them. There was a blinding glow where the man had been only a moment before, and it took Winter only a second to realize the man was turning to flames now, his skin covered in the fire, and his hands burned through Winter’s shirt and caught him under the arms, like a baby. Winter could feel the inferno surrounding the man beginning to burn his flesh. He screamed, a long, agonized burst that drowned out the wind that was growing hot around him.
“You will tell them,” the man said, “you will tell them who did this to you. You will tell them that the mighty Erich Winter was brought low, was broken, was defeated, and you will tell them who did it if they ask. You will be my herald, to spread the word that any who interfere with my passage, who challenge me will end up as broken as you. Warn them not to defy me. I want no part of your world, but I will not hesitate to destroy any of you who interfere with mine.”
Winter screamed. “I will! I will tell them!” He felt the fire scorching his skin. “I will tell them whatever you want!”
“I know you will,” the man in flames said quietly, his voice just audible over the roar of the firestorm below. “There’s only one thing you need to remember when you land,” he said, and Winter felt his personal gravity shift, as if he was being lifted sideways. The pain was agonizing, taking away his breath as if his flesh was burning off an inch at a time. Even still, he could feel the world move, as though he was about to be thrown like a ball. “Remember my name. Remember ...”
The last word came out as a whisper and the man threw him, casting him through the air with ferocious speed. Winter did not remember the landing, just a vague sense of his flesh burning, of his own screaming, of incredible distances passing underneath him in a blur.
Three days later he crawled out of the scorched wreckage of a field of ashes in Chicago, his skin still scarred around his arms and chest from the burns that the man had given him. They remained with him as he trudged across the blackened earth, naked, still burned, and so did the name he’d heard whispered in the moment before he’d been released to fly some two hundred and fifty miles through the air.
Sovereign.
Chapter 23
Sienna Nealon
Now
Winter. The name chilled and burned all in one. I stood in the medical unit, just staring at my mother, then Ariadne, one after another, not saying anything.
“What do you want to do about him?” My mother spoke first, breaking a brief silence that had felt like years.
“Nothing,” I said after a pause. “We let him be; we have other things to worry about.”
I saw a flash of red on Ariadne’s cheeks. “Really?”
I felt a searing embarrassment inside at the thought of what Ariadne had to be thinking: If only you’d come to that conclusion before you killed my girlfriend. I didn’t flinch from her unspoken rebuke, but only because I tried to make my face into stone, unmoving. “We have bigger problems. Saving our race from extinction is more important to me than settling any grudge I might have with him.”
“He might know something important about Sovereign,” my mother said.
“He’s on the wanted list,” Ariadne said. “Foreman’s pissed at him for failing to live up to his agreement to run the Directorate as it was supposed to be run to keep metas in line.”
“He probably does know something,” I agreed, “and he’s certainly done his share of wrong, but tracking him down and catching him is going to take a lot of resources, none of which we have available to spend at present.” It sounded logical in my head when I said it. In truth, I could picture myself pressing my fingers against his throat while the frigid life drained out of his blue eyes. I would have savored every moment of his agony, even now, months after he had wronged me so. “I can’t justify it. If he was as imminent a threat as Sovereign and Century, I’d be all over it.” I
clenched my arms tighter to my chest. “For now, we let him be. His day will come.” I paused, and took a breath. “We need a plan, though. We’ve gone on the offensive, we’ve stung Century, but we need to draw some of them in, start to break them a piece at a time. We need to build some momentum.”
“I thought you were happy about the splattered telepaths,” Ariadne said, her arms folded across her.
“It’s a stall, not a win,” I said. “There are a hundred of them at fighting weight and eight of us. I’d like to start drawing down their numbers and doing so quickly—and preferably, quietly. That way they don’t know what’s happening until we’re down to the very last of them.”
“They’re still wrapping up in Latin America and Canada, right?” My mother asked, fingers kneading her chin. “If they’re still mopping up elsewhere, most of their operators probably aren’t even in the country yet.”
“They’re finishing up, probably only getting stragglers now,” Ariadne said. “According to Agent Li, anyway.” She looked sideways at me. “You should probably brief him, by the way, on how this all turned out. He doesn’t enjoy being left out in the cold on things like this.”
“I’ll think about it,” I mumbled. Li was not one of my very favorite people and I avoided him as much as possible. I could tell he felt just about the same, but his duties didn’t allow us to avoid each other as much as both of us would have liked.
“We’ve always got other things we could be dealing with,” my mother said.
“More important than the twilight of our species?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Why can’t you be like a normal girl and be worried about boys and dances or something?”
I smiled at her sadly. “Because that’s not what you made me.” I looked to Ariadne. “She has a point, though. We’ve got no real line on what to do next with Century, which means we’re reduced to waiting for something to happen. We need something else to focus on until we can go on offense again.”
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