“I serve you, my liege,” Krall said, not taking her eyes off me, “but this one needs a lesson in humility.”
“Good luck with that,” I said. “I’ve gotten my ass kicked by waaaaaay more impressive specimens than you, General Crawls-like-a-snake.”
“Snakes slither,” Yvonne said, after her eyes flicked skyward for a moment in thought.
“There you go, wrecking my insults, Owens,” I said, looking to my right, where sat a desk and a chair, and that was it. Well, it wasn’t nothing. I set my feet in a shoulder-width stance, my right foot about six inches from the chair’s nearest leg. I had a plan for it, and if Krall took one more step—
She did.
I hooked my foot around the chair leg and heaved it forward as Krall committed herself to coming at me.
Quite a few things happened at once.
Hades shouted, “No!”
Arche summoned up some Thor power, electricity arcing out of a nearby socket and into her hands. The fact that she didn’t think she had enough on her without drawing more set off a couple alarm bells in my brain. The brightness of the light made me internally upgrade my threat assessment for her to a lot higher level.
Lethe moved, too, grabbing Yvonne by the shoulder. Yvonne let her and didn’t do anything but stand there, looking at me, warily, as everything went right to hell.
I slammed the chair into Krall’s path and she bulldozed into it, shattering it into firewood and sending the pieces in all directions. It didn’t stop her, but it surely sent her off balance a step, and I clipped her in the side of the head with a short punch and then kicked her away as a follow-up.
Krall didn’t take much damage, but my aim was good and she tried to seize my foot since I did a little more of a shove than an effective, damaging kick. I managed to yank my foot away just as she tried to clamp down on it, and she tumbled back into—
Arche.
It was like lightning in a bottle, or maybe the Emperor zapping Luke Skywalker. I was pretty sure I saw Krall’s skeleton between the flashes, and that was just fine by me. Arche didn’t exactly catch her effectively, and they both tumbled over.
They both came up a second later, too, and neither looked particularly happy with me, least of all Krall, who was literally steaming, smoke wafting off and seeping out of her collar.
“General, I demand you cease this at once!” Hades said, and his face was red like he’d been the one to take the stray voltage.
“She is betraying you,” Krall said, a couple of black smudges on her cheek where the electricity had burned through. Other than that, she didn’t look much affected, and I damned sure didn’t want to close on her. “She is spying on us.”
“That’s just Cassidy trying to talk to me,” I said, leaping onto the bed as Krall made a lunge for me. She was a hair slower than she’d been before, allowing me to dodge over it and down the other side. Hades reached out for me, but I knocked his hand away and he flashed an annoyed look at being shoved off, but did not try again. “She’s a little miffed because you guys used her boyfriend to destroy the USS Enterprise.” A little bolt out of the blue struck me as well, but of the thought variety, not electricity. “You did that to hamstring the US defenses in a war scenario.”
“Their carriers are their most effective way to project power,” Hades said. I’d left him behind, opening the gap between us to about ten feet, and now my back was to the window and everyone was still looking at me, and blocking the door.
Not exactly an improvement in my circumstances.
“You’ve been planning this showdown for a while,” I said. “How long? Years?”
Hades shrugged. “Power is a funny thing. It accumulates, usually more slowly than you would care for. Sudden moves make people nervous. Best not to be too obvious until you are ready.” He smiled thinly. “But give them enough other things to worry about, and they can’t spare the time or interest to pay attention to the little blade until it is at their neck.”
“You got nukes, Grandpappy,” I said. “That’s not a little knife.”
“I have a country filled with metahumans as well,” Hades said. “It was just a metaphor. We have distracted them enough, though—now the balance of power in this world will tip in our direction.” He traded a look with Krall, who had spider-monkeyed her way over the bed and was back to leering at me, too close for comfort. “You can be part of that, child.” He lifted his hand, the vials still clutched in it. “You should be. You have earned your place here.”
I eyed the serums. “Those … are not as easy a choice as you might think.” I remembered Wolfe, how many times he’d flashed disgusting, horrific things unasked into my mind. He was guilty, evil, and a burden I had to carry, and did, in order to try and do some good in the world.
But whoever I hoovered up next in my quest for power? They might not be as evil, but I’d be just as stuck with them.
“It is the easiest choice,” Hades said. “A choice I have made.” His glare hardened. “One you have made in the past as well, but now, I see, like the decision to kill that Erich Winter forced you into … you have decided to soften yourself. Perhaps you need … a reminder.”
My skin tingled, cold chills running down my whole body.
“Oh, shit,” Lethe muttered. She still had one hand on Yvonne’s arm, seemingly holding her back, though Yvonne didn’t appear eager to step up to confront me the way Krall had. Even ArcheGrey was hanging back, leaving the bed between us.
My fist shook, my hand trembling. “What did you say?” I asked. My voice broke just slightly.
Hades smiled, and there was a hint of triumph. “Yes. You see it now, don’t you? Power has ever been at your fingertips. But you must be persuaded to reach out and take it. Winter saw that. He knew what was necessary, and he—”
“Oh, my God,” Lethe said. “Tell me you didn’t just say—”
“You don’t understand anything, daughter,” Hades said, holding up a hand like that’d shut her up. “She is blind, she is a child, she—”
“You can’t think this is the way—” Lethe said.
“I will subdue her for you, my liege,” Krall said, slithering forward another step. “I will deliver her to—”
“Only strength matters, in the end,” Hades said, his face a pale, ghostly facade over a grinning skull. “You will see that, Sienna, before we are done. And you will thank me for—”
I lashed out behind me, and everyone froze as I struck the plate-glass window that stretched the length of Hades’s quarters. It shattered, shards the size of a hubcap falling as I yanked my hand free so as to avoid being sliced all to hell.
Hades’s eyes widened. “What are you doing? Come away from the window.”
“Can you pick out the thing you just said to me … that you never fucking should have let slip out?” I asked. My voice was scratchy, hoarse, deeper and huskier than I’d ever heard it.
“What?” Hades took a step forward. “Don’t do anything foolish. This is—”
“The end,” I whispered, swaying, taking a step of my own so that I teetered on the edge of the broken window, my right foot half off. The wind howled around the cliff. “Erich Winter used me. Killed people I cared about so he could use me …” I glared at my great-grandfather. “And you empowered my enemies to destroy me. Set them at me. Gave them aid and comfort. And now … now you want me to become … what?” I let out a thin, raking laugh. “Be your defender? Help stand between you and the whirlwind you’re so damned intent on reaping?” My voice became abruptly serious. “Well, go shaft yourself with a redwood, Grandpa. Because the whirlwind you just set loose? It’s not a nuclear war with the US of A.
“It’s me,” I said, staring him down, fire burning through my veins. “I’m going to level your kingdom. I’m going to annihilate you from the face of the earth. And I’m going to salt your corpse to make sure it shrivels up and never, ever gets brought back to life.”
Hades just stood there, unblinking. I doubted it was the first ti
me in his life he’d ever been threatened in that way. “You are, perhaps, not ready for the gift that we have for you. But that is … fine. All good things come in time. And in that time, you will learn … humility.” He looked at Krall. “General.” He glanced back at me. “Subdue her.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I whispered, as Krall took another step toward me.
Then I took a final step back.
And fell out the window.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The trick to surviving an enormous fall is to not take an enormous fall. Even with Wolfe powers of near-invulnerability, there were limits to how much damage I could take from a leap. I’d once jumped out of a plane as it was crashing, landing flat and absorbing the shock in a superhero landing. It probably would have looked cool, if anyone had seen it. But unfortunately, it was pretty dark out when it had happened, and there wasn’t really anyone around at the time.
Those carefree, damage-sponging days were gone, though, and with them my ability to free fall hundreds of feet without shattering my knees and ankles and dislocating every joint and probably sending my spine launching out my ass on impact like a javelin. The moment after I stepped out the window I sorely missed Gavrikov and his flight powers, because I tumbled, twice, end over end before I reached out with a hand and started trying to turn my giant fall down the cliff face of the Revelen castle into something less … fatal.
Naturally, as all my best plans did these days, it hurt. A lot.
I caught a ledge in the cliff before I made it more than about forty feet, but that was more than enough to tear some skin. No bones broke, so yay for that. I snagged, I stopped flipping, knees hammering into the stone cliff face, and all the breath went out of me.
Ouch. That was one.
The hit caused me to lose my grip, though, and the next fall was a vertical slide some twenty feet until I hit another cliff’s edge, this time with one foot. It was an uneven surface, a little ledge of inches, and it cracked my ankle a little. Nothing broke, again, fortunately, but I damned sure felt it, and scrambled for a grip.
There was, unfortunately, nothing to grip. That was two stops.
This time I went sideways, doing my best not to shriek because the feeling of falling is one so universally awful that it tends to inspire fear no matter how close to invulnerable you are. Even when I’d had Wolfe’s and Gavrikov’s powers, falls had always scared me for a few seconds, before I’d remembered I could fly and shrug off anything that happened if I did land hard. It was instinct.
I tumbled into what felt like an endless void, clawing at the wall for any purchase. I caught something and lost it just as quickly, but the momentary grip had reversed my momentum so that I swung my feet back down to lead the way.
Three. Three stops.
The next section of the cliff was sheer, everything moving so fast that I barely had a chance to react. I gripped at a ledge about a foot wide, a natural break where water sloughed off. I caught it, my shoulders screaming at the sudden impact of all my weight catching, yanking down on them.
But I held.
Four stops.
A quick look down confirmed two things—one, I shouldn’t have looked, because yikes. Two, it I let go now, there was still plenty of falling room for me to die in the landing.
Then the stone clutched in my fingertips cracked and broke loose, the long weathering process of rain sped up by my sudden and dramatic application of weight.
I fell backward, and my legs impacted on a ledge below, heels hitting hard through my shoes. This, by itself, would have been annoying, but luck was apparently on my side because it sent me, once more, end over end, and I tumbled until I was upright again, where I managed to catch yet another natural ledge.
Five.
Breathing heavily, I looked down. There was about fifty feet of fall remaining below me, I estimated, and it was completely ledge-free. There was, in fact, nothing below me save for tarmac and a giant, open door built into the cliff face.
The damned garage.
The shouts of men below, completely unaware that I was dangling above them, sounded almost comical to my ears as I hung there, heart hammering like someone’s fists trapped inside me, struggling to get out. If I dropped now, best case, I’d break both ankles. Worst case, I’d die.
“Shit,” I breathed.
And then the alarm siren started wailing.
It was loud and fierce and it assaulted my senses in none of the ways I would have preferred. Why couldn’t people just stick to trying to punch me? Now we were getting into the territory of nukes and lightning and spider-monkeys. Why was nothing simple anymore?
A truck rumbled beneath me, one of the army types with a canvas roof stretched over it. It moved directly below my feet at about five miles an hour, taking it easy on its way out of the hangar.
It was a split decision, but a simple one—I wasn’t going to get a softer landing than this unless I hung here and just waited for Hades and Krall and whoever else to park a trampoline beneath me or something. And even that was kinda iffy, assuming Krall was in charge. She’d probably just wait for me to get tired and drop, then squeeze me to death once I crashed down. Assuming she didn’t have ArcheGrey zap me first.
It felt like a long drop, and I exhaled just before I hit the canvas truck top. Tearing through took about a half second of uncertainty, and I counted myself fortunate I didn’t hit any of the metal spines that stretched across the top to hold the canvas in place.
I landed on something soft, and a scream told me it was a person. It hurt, sending a surge of pain up my back, but not an unmanageable amount. I managed it quickly, in fact, leaping off the canvas as quickly as I could, with only a minor struggle.
Six.
I’d landed on the last section of the truck canvas and came crashing down to the tarmac, shoes clinking into a field of broken glass I’d sent tumbling down moments earlier.
Seven falls. Ouch.
“That would have made Butch and Sundance proud,” I muttered as the truck squealed to a stop. I didn’t have time to wait and see if soldiers poured out. I wobbled, getting my balance, and hurried back into the hangar as shouts started all around me, confusion setting in with the wail of the alarm.
“What is going on?” a young soldier called as I hobbled my way across the hangar, trying to look casual but move quickly.
I did a double take. It was Aleksy, and he was looking at me with complete confusion, an AK-74 slung over his shoulder. “Oh, the Americans are prepping another attack,” I said, keeping it cool. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the Situation Room? On missile duty or whatever?”
Aleksy’s eyes followed me as I kept going, heading for the row of Hades’s parked vehicles. Get a car and get gone, that was as far as my planning extended. It seemed like a good idea. “I can track things from the console down here if need be,” he said, moving closer to me, his weapon still slung behind him. “What happened to you?”
“What, this?” I stopped and held up my right hand, which was slicked with blood. “Window got me.”
He stepped closer, peering at it in the dark. He was about two steps away now, moving fast, oblivious to the danger. “We need to get you to medical, that looks serious—”
I knocked him into oblivion, just cold-cocked him with my wounded hand. It wasn’t a pretty punch, or a fun one, my knuckles meeting solid forehead. It was the sort of thing that breaks bones, and not his. I heard the crack, felt the crack, felt the pain, but didn’t care. I was strong enough to both press through it and also know that it was the best way to get done what I needed to without killing him.
Aleksy’s eyes fluttered and I caught him, looking around. No one had seen, no one was looking at us. They were all running to duty stations, jumping in trucks and buzzing off, or standing around the one I’d landed on, wondering what the hell had happened.
I dragged Aleksy’s insensate form with me about twenty steps behind the cover of Hades’s car collection. “Sorry,” I said, but
he didn’t so much as stir from my sucker punch, “but I don’t need you reaching out with your powers and dragging me back.” I left him crumpled behind a Bugatti and looked around, trying to decide what my best bet was here.
“Damn,” I said. A sports car was bound to draw attention of the wrong kind. But that wasn’t all Hades had on offer …
I slipped up to a Humvee with military coloring. I’d seen a few of them moving around in the hangar and slipped behind the wheel. This one was a touch sleeker, a civilian model; must have been Great-Grandpa’s personal Humvee. The keys were just hanging in the ignition.
I started it up and slid it into gear. It purred, smoothly, as I put my foot on the gas pedal and gave it a push. “Okay,” I said, “off we go,” and guided it out of the lineup toward the hangar door.
Nobody noticed or cared, and I kept the speed low as I drove out of the hangar and into the daylight beyond, tracing the path I’d come to this place on, uncertain of where I was going other than the bold, high skyline of Bredoccia, which waited for me in the distance with a promise that there, at least, I might stand a chance of hiding from the hell that was sure to follow behind me.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Dave Kory
“Whoa,” Dave said, little slickness of sweat forming across his palm, his hand slipping on his cell phone as he read the words on the screen, head down in his cubicle, acutely aware that anyone could peer over the wall at him at any time.
CHALKE: FBI Meta team was ambushed in Revelen, no survivors.
BILSON: Wow. This isn’t going to play well.
CHALKE: It’ll play fine. We just need to push the public in the right direction, get them whipped up and ready for what’s coming—war.
Dave blinked at that. What?
CHAPMAN: Are we sure that’s the direction we want to be heading? Revelen is best buddies with Russia, after all. And a nuclear power now, right?
CHALKE: That hasn’t broken yet. Better to keep both those under wraps—for now.
JOHANNSEN: Better to present it as a small war, something akin to Desert Storm. The public can handle a small-scale intervention, after all. Then, if need be, we scale it up, once they’re emotionally committed.
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