Power

by Robert J. Crane

  That dumb son of a bitch flipped ass-over-teakettle and hit the wall behind the metal box I’d been trapped in so hard that the plane rocked again. My fingers snapped into the grid on the deck and held fast, keeping me from sliding. Frederick was not so lucky, and I watched him face plant into a cargo pallet. I doubt it hurt him, but it was fun to watch.

  A screeching of metal against metal greeted my ears as the plane leveled out. The door to the box that I’d broken open had skidded across the deck, and it came to rest only inches to my right. It was heavy, it was metal, and it was like getting an express delivery of awesome, right to my fingertips.

  I watched the Wolfe brothers get to their feet as I stood waiting for them, watching to see which of them would get up first, which of them would be less wounded. Neither of them were significantly injured yet, and even if they had been, they healed fast. I mean, with Wolfe’s power at my fingertips I was pretty sure I’d healed a ruptured liver and kidney in less than a minute. My meta healing was fast, but not that fast. These boys were absurd; not only could they take punishment like nothing else on earth, but even when they did get hurt, they healed from it faster than most people could have even imagined inflicting damage on them.

  Fortunately, I was not “most people” when it came to imagining damage. And now I wasn’t even “most people” when it came to actually inflicting it.

  Just for kicks, I shouted, “Heads up!” at Frederick as he stumbled to his feet. He was wobbling a little, still holding onto his back like it hurt. I swung the door of the box like I was a WWE wrestler and it was a metal folding chair. I aimed for his face and I heard it hit solidly. I saw at least three teeth fly into the air above the door and Frederick smashed through the cargo pallet as if the wooden boxes stacked on it were Styrofoam packing peanuts. Pieces went everywhere.

  And Frederick went through the hull of the plane with a crash that drove us sideways once more.

  The lighting in the cargo hold went dim, flickering from the impact. The remains of the cargo pallet hammered into the hole in the side of the plane and wedged there, partially closing it off. There was a roar of air from outside as the pallet tried to work its way out the hole, but it remained lodged in place as the plane centered itself once more.

  I could feel the plane descending, and I wondered when that had happened. If the pilot was smart, he’d have started the descent when we first began rocking around. If he was dumb, he’d have started it just now, I supposed.

  I was back on my feet and I cast a look around for my other quarry. Grihm was behind the box, still working to get his balance. I think I might have disoriented him with all that flinging him around. Guy like that, his inner ear probably wasn’t used to all the ups and downs. It’s not like he got tossed around every day.

  I hit him from behind with an epic sucker punch. It drove his face into the metal side of the plane and—I swear—left an imprint like an iron mask. I ripped him out of it and saw his lips were bleeding. A little cry of joy escaped me, and I punched him squarely in the face, watching the cut widen on his lip.

  His long, red hair was blowing in the wind that was rushing around the cargo hold, and his eyes were glazed. He blinked at me, and I hit him again without mercy or remorse. I hit him so hard that his shirt ripped, pulling him free of my grasp and sending him flopping toward the back of the plane. He rolled head over ass twice, his limbs unresisting. He landed at the rear of the hold, where the decking rose in a forty-five degree angle to indicate the ramp where they loaded the cargo.

  He came to rest splayed out, supine, a human body formed into an X. It didn’t take much more than a gentle reminder in the form of memories of what he and his brothers had done to me to coax me forward again. Mercy was for the weak and stupid, so I ran up and stomped his groin as hard as I could. It produced the sort of reaction you might expect, complete with a scream that made him sound like he was about to burst into tears.

  “Not so much fun when someone does it to you, is it?” I snarled. He was curled up into the fetal position, and I planted another kick to his lower back, aiming for kidneys again. It’s a good place to hit, lots of pain involved. “How do you like it?”

  I didn’t even recognize my own voice as I asked him.

  I was so focused on monologuing like some old-time movie villain, that I didn’t even see the punch that downed me. I felt my face hit the deck, leaving an impression of my own there, and I hoped it wasn’t quite as ugly as Grihm’s had been. I heard metal grind and gravity shift once more. The deck lurched beneath my feet and face, then lurched again. The faint howl of the hole in the side of the plane became a much closer—and much more frightening roar.

  My hands grabbed instinctively for the metal grid. I opened my eyes and lifted my face to see that the impact of the blow that had sent me against the deck had broken open the rear cargo door of the plane. It dangled, bobbing gently, the wind ripping at me as I held tightly to the only purchase my fingers could find. I looked left and saw Grihm there, hanging on with one hand and up in a crouch. His lip was still covered in blood but there was no sign of a wound.

  I glanced up the ramp and saw Frederick standing, just outside the reach of the wind that was whipping around his brother and I. He glared down at me with a fury that made my stomach go flip flop. Neither of them were injured anymore. Both of them were mad as hell—at me—

  And to top it all off, I could feel the descent of the plane steepening and had a vague intuition—named Roberto Bastian—telling me that we were, without doubt, on an angle of descent so steep that we were certain to crash.

  I kept one eye on each of the two beasts before me and steadily rose to my feet, watching my balance in the rapidly descending—sorry, crashing—plane. Not that it mattered for much longer.

  “Little girl, all alone,” Frederick said, and I could hear him over the roar of the wind. “No one to save you now.”

  I saw them both coming, charging at me. The impact would surely be bad, would guarantee injury, pain. It was not something I wanted to get hit with, not only because of the impact, but because I’d be close at hand with the two of them. Close enough to work their claws. Close enough to let them rip and tear.

  Oh, and the plane was going to crash. Couldn’t forget that.

  I took two steps down the ramp and leaped backward, Grihm and Frederick behind me. I wrapped my arms around myself and turned my body like I was completing a graceful dive. I could see shadowed ground somewhere below, shapes of trees, and branches, and then a glint of light on water.

  I twisted and brought my legs down as the wind rushed past me, the night air swallowed me up, and the darkness and gravity dragged me down, down to the earth.

  I slammed into the hard ground with the fury of gravity—

  Chapter 3

  —and came right back to my feet like I’d stepped off a curb and not a falling airplane.

  I can’t say I didn’t feel it, and I can’t say it didn’t hurt, but I can say I didn’t care. I was still fuming over the beating that Grihm and Frederick and their boss had laid on me earlier in the evening, aided by a telepathic bitch named Claire. I don’t think it was just the fury of Wolfe that made me want to push through any pain until I had flayed them all alive.

  Okay, well, maybe it was Wolfe driving on the flaying bit. I was okay with just killing them with a modicum of pain and violence and terror.

  I felt my joints popping and cracking as they realigned after the impact from my landing. I could see the outline of trees around me, could hear the lapping of water and the sounds of wildlife at night. Light glistened on a pond to my left, and I felt hard sand under my feet. The smell told me I was in a swamp, probably just south of Minneapolis and St. Paul, outside the city loop. Somewhere below Bloomington, I guessed, but I had no time to find evidence to support that hypothesis—

  I heard two thumps close by and knew that the brothers Wolfe had joined me on the ground. I hoped they had landed on their stupid, ugly faces—

 
Grrrrrrrrrr, Little Doll—

  —but I doubted it, since they’d been around for a while longer than me, and I’d already gone out of a plane without a parachute once this year myself. Odds were good they’d done this before at some point in their millennia of experience.

  “Little girl, all alone,” came Frederick’s voice out of the darkness.

  My teeth grated as he said those words again, and my response was quick and to the point. “I haven’t been alone since the day I killed your brother, asshat.” Since the day I found out what I was.

  “Sounds like the Wolfe is riding along in your head,” Grihm’s voice came from a different direction. My ears perked up, and I could feel newfound instincts that I hadn’t developed listening hard, taking sniffs of the wind—

  Searching for my prey with all my senses.

  “It won’t help you,” Frederick took over, and I could tell he was somewhere behind me. “He was the least of us.”

  “He disagrees,” I said, turning slowly. I had a suspicion—approved by Wolfe’s instincts—that told me that they were going to come at me from two directions at once. This was the coyote approach, feinting and darting, getting a little piece of your prey at a time until they were too wounded and hobbled to fight back.

  Coincidentally, it was the exact strategy I’d been trying to employ against Century, so I was well-versed in its application.

  “We aren’t going to kill you, you know,” Grihm said from off to my left.

  “Killing you would be too good for you,” Frederick said from my right. I kept from wheeling about, staying steady and quiet in the center of their little circle. The attack was coming soon. Presumably after they were done boring me—Grrrrrrr—sorry, intimidating me. Whatever.

  “We have to break you, after all,” Grihm said.

  “Many have tried,” I said. “None have survived.”

  “Ooh, she has spirit,” Frederick said with glee.

  “She’ll make a good bride for Sovereign,” Grihm agreed.

  “I wouldn’t go sending out any ‘Save the Date’ cards just yet,” I quipped. I knew where both of them were now, and they knew where I was. Since they knew I was channeling Wolfe, it told me that now that they were aware of me, aware of my ability, they were overconfident again.

  It’s not many people who can get their ass squarely kicked, beaten all around a plane, and then think they’ve reestablished their dominance just because of a perceived numerical advantage. I’d been fighting longer odds than these clowns—shut up, Wolfe, I’m not including you in this insult—for a long damned while. This was as close to a fair fight as I got anymore.

  And my power had just leveled up.

  Anyone else care to join me and Wolfe in the fight of our lives? I asked inwardly.

  Whatever I can do to help, I’m there, Zack said.

  I don’t know how much help I could be, Roberto Bastian said, but … yeah … okay. I’m with you for this, since you’ve got your head out of your ass now.

  Bjorn? Gavrikov? Eve? I asked.

  Pass, Bjorn said.

  No, Gavrikov said.

  Go f—, Eve began.

  Got it, I said. Well, Roberto, you weren’t too shabby on strategy and tactics. Any ideas?

  There’s a moment of distraction coming, Roberto said. Use it.

  My eyes flashed as I realized what he was talking about. I could sense Grihm and Frederick coiling to spring. It was instinctive, the hint that their muscles were flexing just so, ready to leap upon me.

  And they did so just as the plane exploded on the horizon.

  I threw myself into a backward roll as flames lit the night sky in a mushroom cloud of orange fire. I saw the brothers Wolfe illuminated by it, springing to the place where I’d been only a second earlier, and I smiled. They narrowly missed hitting one another and each landed roughly, their anticipated target of soft flesh—me—having evaporated from beneath their feet.

  I didn’t wait for them to recover to move. Grihm had come down with his back to me and I had only a second or two to take advantage of it. I lunged, grabbing him with both hands in his long, red hair. I twisted it around my fingers, coiling it tight.

  This motherfucker was about to know he was in a fight with a girl.

  I yanked him off balance by ripping at his hair. I didn’t pull it as hard as I could have, because to do so that abruptly would have torn it right out of his skull, and I wasn’t ready for that quite yet. I kicked him in the gut and pulled him hard in a circle, using my strength to break his legs free of the ground—and any resistance they might offer to what I was going to do next.

  Before he had a chance to stop me, I swung him around by his hair like he was an Olympic hammer. I did one orbit to build up some speed and chucked him before he had enough time to settle his inner ear enough to punch me in the face. Which would have been easy for him after all, being as he had at least three feet of height on me. I watched him arc about ten feet up before he vanished over a low line of trees. “Hasta luego, dipshit,” I called after him. I’d see him later. I was planning on it.

  I could hear Frederick coming at me from the side, but I was ready for him. He charged at me like these morons always do, and rather than reacting like Wolfe—like he doubtless thought I would—and meet him head on, I reacted like Sienna Nealon with enhanced reflexes and used my years of martial arts training.

  Which is a fancy way of saying that now that I was as fast as he was. I grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind him as I let him charge past. I knocked a leg out from under him as he went, and a feeling of déjà vu—hadn’t I just done this to one of these assholes? It’s a classic for a reason, I suppose—came over me as I landed squarely on his back.

  His whole body tensed, waiting for the blow to fall on his kidney. He thought he knew what was coming.

  He had no idea.

  “Hurt me all you want,” he said as he grunted against my wristlock, “but you’ll never stop us—”

  I donkey punched him so hard in the back of the head that I could hear the vertebra snapping. I did it again for good measure, and then again. I could feel the flesh tearing against bone shards by then, his spinal column fragmented and ripping through the skin as I hammered him a fourth time.

  Then I grabbed his head and twisted it back and forth at sickening angles to the left and right, up and down. I heard the popping of things that were never meant to pop, and I folded his head backward at a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree angle to the rest of his body before I twisted it three-hundred-and-sixty degrees around.

  I did that three more times, ripping hard at it, a knee buried in his back, until his head popped off in my hands.

  I heard movement in the brush behind me and turned. There was still a faint light of fire somewhere in the distance where the plane had come down, but I didn’t need it to see Grihm stagger out of the bushes. He was soaking wet, and I assumed he’d landed in a pond somewhere nearby.

  I tossed the head to him and he caught it instinctively. He looked down at it with unblinking eyes, like it wasn’t registering what he was actually seeing.

  “Question,” I said, “can you boys survive decapitation?”

  He looked up at me, face twisting in fury and disbelief. “I’ll kill you,” he said in a near-whisper. I would have expected something louder, more approaching a roar, but I suspected the fear was starting to settle in on him.

  “You think so? I’ve now killed two out of the three of you bastards,” I said, unconcerned. “I don’t favor your odds.”

  His face changed into something feral, positively wolf-like (and Wolfe-like), and he let out a low growl like a dog that was warning someone off.

  “Wow,” I said, unruffled, just waiting for him to come at me, “such doge.”

  The faintest hint of confusion crept over his features. “Doje?” He sounded it out. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s an internet meme,” I said, matter-of-factly. “I’d tell you to Google it, but you’ve only got abou
t five minutes to live and you’re going to spend every one of those fighting for your life.”

  “You’re going back in that box,” Grihm snarled.

  “I think we’re heading for a Grihm finish,” I said, smiling at my own pun. If I didn’t, who would?

  Not me, Zack said. That was awful.

  Pawful? I sent back. Because they’re like dogs—

  There was a chorus of groans in my head.

  “You better buckle up,” I said to Grihm. “You bastards have done everything you can to make me fear you from day one.” Sorry, Wolfe, but it’s true. “It’s about damned time you realized who has the power here.”

  I leapt at him before he had a chance to open his stupid mouth and respond. He saw me coming high, with a punch, but missed the low kick I whipped at him at the last second. It caught him in the knee while he struck me in the face with a clawed hand. I felt my cheek split wide, a gash three inches long running all the way up to my ear. It burned and made me want to cry out with pain …

  … but I didn’t.

  I landed on my feet as Grihm stumbled back from my kick. I kept Wolfe front of mind the way Adelaide had taught me, and I could feel the cheek wound start to knit back together. I snarled and kept on toward Grihm, pushing forward, striking with another jumping kick and causing him to stumble back a few more steps. He was ready for my attacks, and they weren’t having as much effect now that he wasn’t off balance. He was parrying, countering, as best he could, and with thousands of years of vicious fighting experience, he was reasonably good at it.

  My mother had once said to me that experience was a funny thing. I’d been slacking off in my training at the time, and she knew it. Rather than hammer at me about it, land on me with both feet and kick my ass into the box for defiance, she came about it a different way. “You can either have ten years of experience at something,” she’d said, “or you can have the same year of experience ten times. One will make you a great fighter. The other will get you killed. You choose whether you want to take this seriously or not.”