Okay, so even at her most delicate, she wasn’t exactly cashmere soft. This is my mother we’re talking about, not Molly Weasley.
The brothers Wolfe were some of the most feared predators in the world. They were stronger, they were faster, and they were more vicious, wicked and nasty than almost anyone else walking the world.
And as I’d discovered just a few months back in a museum in the heart of London—to my great surprise—thinking you’re at the top of the food chain is a really good way for complacency to set in.
Grihm countered me, but he was slow. I kicked him again and he batted my kick away, but just barely, and he failed to exploit the opening I gave him. He felt slow. Strong, but slow. I could taste all the years of complacency settled around him. All the years of being invincible to the mooks he’d preyed upon. He’d been the alpha predator and hadn’t gone up against anyone that was nearly a match for him—or his brother—in centuries.
All in all, it was a really good way to stay alive.
Until you met someone who was more of a predator than you were.
I feinted for the first time and he tried to block it. I’d gone high, leaving his leg exposed to a kick that made his knee go in the wrong direction. Grihm let out a sharp cry and fell to his good knee. I knew without doubt that he’d have it back to fixed in seconds and be right back to being on me.
Unfortunately for him, I was a predator who was constantly fighting bigger and badder nasties. I was at the top of my game.
Seconds were for pansies. Seconds were more than I needed.
I braced and hit him with a reverse side kick in less than a second. It’s a spinning kick that gives you more chance to build momentum and force than a simple standing kick. It’s the next best thing to a running, jumping one, or one in which I could have taken a few strides toward him. We were close, though, and this was what I could do with the space I had and the time I had.
More strength would have been better, but really, all the strength in the world was useless if you didn’t aim it properly.
I hit that bastard right in the neck and listened to the sweet, popping sound of his throat crushed under explosive force.
His eyes went wide, fearful, and I heard him make a choking, gasping noise. His hands snapped up from his knee, which was still disjointed, and clawed at his throat.
While he did, I hit him with a reverse side kick again. Right in the face, as hard as I could.
His neck snapped like it was on a rubber band, back and then forward, whipping like he’d been jerked by the hand of a god. Goddess, I guess, technically.
Grihm’s eyes rolled up in his head, and his body wavered there for another second, ready to tip and fall.
I hit him one last time for good measure, and his body just rolled end over end, limp. A silver light suddenly shone down on him, and I looked up to see a full moon shining down on me from where it had just come out from behind a cloud.
In the distance, I could see the metal structure of a bridge, a few hundred yards away, its dark outline over a river that was lit by the thousand sparkles of the shining moon. I listened and could faintly hear traffic on it, a car here and there. I sighed. I’d need to catch a ride back to the Agency. Rally the team.
I had a war to fight, and I’d just been handed a shiny new weapon. And a warning, something that I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to share with the others. Not yet.
I looked back down at Grihm’s unmoving figure and sighed again. First things first, though—this bastard wasn’t going to rip off his own head, and it wasn’t like I could leave him without making sure he was dead …
Chapter 4
There had been a really wide, swampy river channel between me and the road, and although I’d jumped with my newly found Wolfe strength, I hadn’t quite cleared it. I’d say this was not my night, but frankly, this was the least bad thing that had happened to me this evening.
There were still worse things—much worse—that I didn’t want to deal with yet.
My shoes were still sloshing as I walked through the doors to the lobby of headquarters. I could sense that I was being watched, but when I looked up I was greeted by an assload (technical term) of assault rifles and submachine guns pointed at me from all directions on the ground floor and the second floor balcony.
Reed, Scott, Zollers, Janus and Kat were standing just in front of the security checkpoint’s metal detectors, and only Zollers and Janus looked relaxed. I figured they’d gotten the telepathic and empathic read on me while everyone else was still assuming the worst. I had blazed past the front gate guard without offering more than a cursory explanation, after all. Plus I had an unconscious body—the driver of the car who stopped to pick me up—in the passenger seat. I had suspected the guard would whistle for help as soon as I was through, which is what I would have told him to do if I’d been training him.
I should probably get him a raise, come to think of it.
“It’s me,” I said, raising my arms as if I were surrendering. “I promise. Pinky swear.”
“You can’t pinky swear with your hands up like that,” Reed said, and his bravado almost masked the slight crack I heard in his voice.
“It’s her,” Zollers confirmed, and I felt the unease in the room drop, along with all the gun barrels. Which was a relief, because even with Wolfe powers, I wasn’t sure my skin was conditioned to resist bullets like his had been. At least not yet.
Was it bad that I was already thinking ahead about that?
“How’d you get away?” Scott said, and his voice cracked too, big time. “I mean, you got dragged off by Weissman, didn’t you? How did you—?”
“He stuck me on a plane,” I said and caught a glimpse of red hair as Ariadne shouldered her way through the crowd, Agent Li a pace or two behind her. “With the brothers Grihm—and Frederick, hilariously enough.”
“The what?” Scott asked.
“The big guys at Como Zoo,” I said. “They were Wolfe’s brothers.”
“Holy shit,” Reed breathed. “And did you …?”
“They’re dead,” I said. “I’d say it was sudden and tragic, but it took me a while. They, uh …” I swallowed hard, “… Weissman is still out there. He …” My voice trailed off and I felt a lump in my throat.
“No, he’s not,” Ariadne said, entering the conversation as she crossed the floor toward me in slow steps. “His body was found at the airfield in Crystal, north of Minneapolis. Along with …” She hesitated.
“My mom’s,” I said and felt a cool trickle of sadness run over me, causing a shiver down the back of my neck. “I saw him stab her, knew she was …” I blinked and the world got blurry. “We should … we should go to the conference room.” I snapped my hands at the guard detail still filling the room, their black tactical gear a wall of ebony across the lobby. “Dismissed.”
Security didn’t waste time carrying out my orders, dispersing to their posts and filing away down the white hallways with military precision. Ariadne, Scott and Reed made their way toward me in the bustle of activity, and I watched them come with a reluctance born of the last ounces of denial I had in me.
My mother was dead.
And seeing the look in their eyes—Reed, my brother, Scott, the man who wanted to be my lover—that last ounce of doubt—of hope—was erased.
It wasn’t either of them that took hold of me, though. They held their distance, the strong men they were, uncertain of what to say, of how to deal with the warring emotions I’m sure were raging across my face. It wasn’t like I had them often. I could see the indecision.
There was none of that in Ariadne. She knew, just knew, and I felt her delicate arm find my shoulders as she steered me. I could smell the faint hint of her fragrance as I walked along numbly. I could sense Kat and Zollers and Janus around me as we stepped into the elevator, but I didn’t even notice when it dinged and we stepped out on the top floor.
I let Ariadne steer. Let her guide me.
We stepped into my offi
ce and I noticed the squishing of my shoes, still wet from my plunge in the river. It was chilly, but I didn’t care. I felt nauseous and strong bile threatened to burst out of me. My shirt was clinging, which I was pretty sure was the main reason that the guy who picked me up on the side of the road bothered to stop at all. It was also the reason I rendered him unconscious seconds after getting into the car. The shirt felt clammy against my skin.
“I got your suit dirty,” I said to Ariadne, realizing that her pinstripe suit was sodden where she’d wrapped an arm around me.
“It’s okay,” she said as I sat on my couch.
“My mom,” I said, and my face felt strangely paralyzed, like it wasn’t capable of motion, “did she … was she the one … who … Weissman?”
“It looks that way,” Ariadne said, and she sat down on the couch next to me. Reed was next to the door, and so was Scott. I saw Zollers there, too, barely in the frame.
“She took him out,” I whispered. “How would she have …?” The suspicion came to me, and I glanced at my desk to see the bonsai tree that I’d left there, with a fresh envelope in front of it. “A debt repaid.”
“Shhh,” Ariadne said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”
I leaned back against the soft cushions of my couch, and the weight of everything that had happened that evening hit me. My meeting with Akiyama, my fight with Weissman and the Wolfe brothers, my imprisonment, and my discussion with Adelaide … with Andromeda …
Remember.
My eyes felt weary. It had been a long day.
Mom.
I felt my eyes get heavy, again, and I fought back against their urge to water, fought back against the lump that threatened to rise in my throat. I pushed down on myself, flexed my inner muscles and thought of frigid cold until the heat of the emotion faded to a manageable level.
“Weissman’s dead,” I said. “Maybe … maybe without him running the program … maybe Sovereign will change his mind. Call the whole thing off. I’m not sure he has the stomach for doing what he’ll have to now that his right-hand man is out of the game.” I swallowed hard, the mere thought of what had been sacrificed to remove Weissman threatening to make me well up.
“Maybe,” Ariadne conceded. “We don’t have to think about that now. There’s nothing more to be done at this moment.”
“She’s right,” came Zollers’s gentle voice from the doorway. “You should rest.” His words carried the weight of wise suggestion, and I wondered if he’d suggested it with more than just his voice.
“I don’t know if I can sleep,” I said and put my head against the couch. The world tilted sideways.
“You should at least try,” Zollers said and gestured toward the door. “You’ll be right here in your office, and if anything happens, we’ll wake you.”
“I’ll be right outside,” Reed said with a sharp nod, his long, dark hair swaying in agreement with the Doctor’s pronouncement.
“Me too,” Scott said. I looked at him for just a moment, and in his flushed cheeks I saw none of the uncertainty that had plagued him so badly in the last few days. Washed away, I suppose, by the knowledge of what our enemies were doing—had done—to his family. “We’ll keep an eye out and let you know if anything …” His voice trailed off.
“Thank you,” I said, as he disappeared through the door. Zollers followed with a gentle smile, and I knew without him saying anything that we would talk later.
Later. When I could handle it.
“Just call if you need anything,” Ariadne said as she stood, smoothing out the lines of her rumpled skirt. “I’ll be in my office next door.” She pointed a thumb, as though I were too discombobulated to recall where her office was.
“Thank you,” I said, voice a whisper. “Ariadne …” She paused at the door. “Thank you for … everything. Everything since the day I met you. You’ve been … kind to me, even when I wasn’t to you.”
She flicked the light switch, and the scant illumination from the fluorescent bulbs shining through the door and in the cracks of the blinds of the window above the couch where I lay cast the entire office in faint light. She started to open her mouth to say something but stopped. Her face went from a hint of a smile to a moment’s discomfort and settled into unease. “Just rest,” she said, and closed the door as she left.
She’d acted like a mother to me since the day we’d met, protecting me more than once from the machinations of Erich Winter when she could. But she wasn’t my mother.
My mother was dead.
I lay on the couch, and the tears I’d held back for so long came out in small, muffled sobs, hot liquid burning as it ran down my cheeks. I kept on that way until I had no more tears or sobs left inside, and some time after that I fell into a deep, restless sleep.
Chapter 5
Apiolae, Roman Empire
280 A.D.
No one touched him and no one wanted to be near him, and for Marius, that was just the way it was. By age six, he’d worn out his welcome nearly everywhere in town, and skeptical eyes followed him any time he was around. You could only engender extreme pain with your touch and talk to yourself so often before they got wary, and they were wary of him and more.
He’d been fortunate enough to have found a mean old man of the village who suffered him to live with the animals in the barn, always with a wary eye on him. He kept a stick to poke at Marius to keep him at length, but that was fine. It was rarely employed and never needed, because Marius had learned to keep his hands to himself at a very young age.
He lay in the fresh hay that he’d just placed in the bottom of the barn in his own little paddock that he’d claimed when he’d come here. He lay there and ate quietly, a meal of cheese that he’d made from goat’s milk and honey he’d collected from the bees out near the cliff. The old man had taught him much, enough to survive if he had to.
The smell of the barn was strong, though not much stronger, in his opinion, than that of the old man’s house, on the few occasions he’d had to go in there. The old man’s musty stink was different than the animals and less palatable to Marius’s nose. Here, things were familiar.
There was a rustle in the goat pen and he looked up. They were always a little restless around him. They could almost instinctively tell that his touch was not good for them and kept their distance. It wasn’t as though he tried to touch them, and their fur protected their skin some even when he did.
Because you’re a murderer, and they know it. You’re a demon, a spawn of Pluto—
“No, I’m not,” he said, almost casual about it. He nibbled on the piece of cheese in his blackened, calloused hand, tasted the sharp tang of it on his tongue. “You keep saying that, but I’m not.”
Everybody thinks it. Everybody knows it. You’re a dark child, a destroyer of everything you touch.
This was how it always was. Every day. Marius tried to ignore her, but he knew eventually she’d get through to him, provoke him.
She always did, somehow.
“The animals seem fine,” he said, swallowing the piece of cheese. “I haven’t destroyed them.”
Yet.
He sighed and took another nibble. He was getting older, nearing his late teens. He was a man, by all rights, and should have been seeking his own fortunes, his own house. His own family—
You can’t have a family. You’ll destroy them, just like everything else. The voice was harsh, near-screeching, and so deep in his head that it felt as if his ears rattled with each low word spoken.
“I won’t—” He felt a sharp surge of anger and then paused to let it subside. It was like this, always. Every day. He soothed himself and took a drink of the goat’s milk in the skin next to him. It was refreshing on a hot day like this. It gave him a moment to compose himself before he ranted into the barn air. It wasn’t as though the old man cared as if he were crazy, but the old man wasn’t always the only one wandering around.
And it wouldn’t do to give any more of the locals fodder for stor
ies about him, more reasons to hate him. No, that wouldn’t do at all. It wasn’t like they needed the excuse.
You’re a disgrace, the voice came again. Harsh and grating, filled with rough anger that flowed through every word and drove out any happiness. A worthless beast, useless to anyone and so limited in your skills as to be nothing more than an animal yourself. You’re a goat herder, and you’ll never be more than that or a whelp of little aid to some poor old bastard so blind he can’t afford to be picky about the help he gets.
Marius felt the hard lump in his throat. “Well, at least I’m useful for something.” He felt his eyes burn. “Unlike you. Unlike you, who dig at me and lash at me and do nothing but burn in my head like a low-ranging fire.”
You destroy like fire, burn everything and everyone around you like fire. All you need do is show up at a place and—
“Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!” Marius was screaming, the rage taking over as he squinted his eyes closed. Every day it was like this, every day it happened, and it always built to this finale. He sat there shuddering, hands shaking in front of his eyes as he hoped against hope that this would be the day that she didn’t come back. That this would be the day that the voice was gone forever from his thoughts.
Marius smacked his dry lips together and then licked them before taking up the piece of cheese again. He’d dropped it in his frenzy. His breathing had almost returned to normal, and he could swear he smelled the faint hint of smoke from the old man’s fire.
Every day was like this.
See you tomorrow, the voice whispered in his ears, fading as though the speaker was going into the distance, walking over a hill toward the horizon. She’d be back, though. She always came back.
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