Destiny: The Girl in the Box #9

by Crane, Robert J.

  I glanced back to make sure the telepath was still down. Her right leg looked like she had no shin, like all the skin of her lower leg had been clumped up. Her foot was sticking out of that knob of flesh, just below her knee, and bones were jutting at forty-five degree angles out of her knee joint.

  “And stay down,” I told her, but I doubt she heard me over her own muffled crying. She was rolling around a lot. I didn’t feel bad for her, though, for some reason. Possibly because I still couldn’t feel my right arm.

  I tested the arm as I headed toward Scott. I couldn’t feel it, but it moved. If it was broken, it didn’t seem like it, and that’s all I needed. I let it hang and tilted it in a circle at the shoulder. No problems. I tried to bend it at the elbow and that didn’t go so well. It was like a case of dead arm. Slow, unwieldy. Not useless in a fight, but near to it.

  Part of me wanted to throw a slot machine at the two guys who were left. Now that I wasn’t trapped beneath one with a useless arm, I suspected I could have lifted one easily enough. Wouldn’t that have been ironic? Unfortunately, that was probably one of those things that would require both hands.

  Scott was keeping both of the guys at bay with a spray of water. I knew how hard he could hit with those things, and I suspected he could keep them occupied for a while longer. He blasted one of them full on and the guy staggered back, crashing into a roulette table and flipping onto the top of it. The croupier and customers had long since fled, and I could see a perimeter of gawkers standing at a safe distance, watching the biggest fight Las Vegas had seen since the last time Floyd Mayweather had been in town.

  I didn’t have time to wonder what they were thinking of a man spraying water from his hands, though. It was the town that made Siegfried and Roy famous, after all; hopefully they thought it was just an impromptu stage-less show.

  I picked the nearest Century target and came at him low. I hit him in a tackle with my shoulder. I could feel and hear his vertebra snap in his lower back. I clamped a hand on his neck and yanked it back for good measure. The bones broke there, too, once I applied enough pressure to them, and the man went limp in my grasp.

  Once upon a time, killing had been hard for me. Now, injured and in a fight where Scott’s life could be in jeopardy, it wasn’t even a question. I could not let this guy get back up, because the results of my failure to stop him now could mean someone else’s death.

  And I realized, as I listened to his spine pop when I forced his neck down, that I was long past the point where I was willing to accept the deaths of my friends because of my failure to act responsibly. Leaving my enemies alive—Weissman, Sovereign, Winter—had caused me and mine more pain than I cared to think about. Breandan had died because Weissman had ordered a raid on the Agency campus. Others had died with him. Because I had left Weissman alive when I shouldn’t have.

  I killed that nameless Century thug and realized—not for the first time and not without extreme discomfort—that maybe Old Man Winter had been right all along.

  I dropped the body to the ground with a thump. Scott’s eyes met mine and we both turned to the last guy. He was watching us from the roulette table, dark eyes buried under a scar that ran the length of his forehead and carried a jagged edge to it. He pulled himself off the table as we watched, then glanced back and readjusted a pile of chips on the table. “Forty-two red,” he said under his breath.

  “Putting all your money on one number doesn’t seem all that bright,” Scott said. I cocked my eye and looked at him. It didn’t feel like the moment for a discussion of the long odds involved in gambling.

  “Sometimes you need to bet big on the long shot,” the scarred guy said with a smile. He had a lot more self-assurance than I would have given a lowly flunky credit for. His goatee and hair were all deep black, flecked with just a little grey. He was a meta who looked like he was in his forties, so I guessed he was probably at least a thousand.

  And he was one of the hundred Century picked to wage its war.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, clutching my still-numb arm to my side. I flexed my right hand, and could feel a hint of feeling restored to it.

  “Do you care?” There was a glint of amusement in his eyes. They were lively, like he was in on a joke that none of the rest of us would get.

  “Only a little,” I said. “You know you’re not walking out of here alive, don’t you?”

  His smile was wider than mine would have been in his place. “I sense that’s what you believe.”

  “You believe differently?” I didn’t look away from him.

  His grin was infectious, yet somehow I didn’t match it. Anywhere else, I might have liked this guy. He was self-aware, and I sensed more charm than he wanted to let on. “It doesn’t matter what I believe.” His voice was low, and I detected the hint of an accent, far underneath it all. “I can’t hurt you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I held up my right arm a little limply. “Sadly, your friend the telepath did not feel the same.”

  “You’ll be fine,” he said, and I caught a hint of mournfulness. “You’re a stone killer now, after all.”

  “Do you know me?” I asked. I could see security guards coming to our left and right, following the white granite tile path right to us. Scott flipped out his FBI badge and held it up. I watched them all stop. Watching. Waiting.

  “I know you,” he said. His dark eyes were on me. “And I don’t envy you. Because I know what lies in front of you, and it scared me bad enough to join them rather than go against what they wanted.” He had looked so large when he’d been facing off with Scott. Now he looked small, and a lifetime of infinite regret was etched on his face. He was older than a thousand.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him again, gently this time. That surprised even me. The security guards watching us had guns drawn, but they were still holding their distance. I could hear Scott urging them to stay back, but almost all my attention was on my adversary.

  “You know my name,” he said, and that infectious grin was back. “Everyone knows my name now. Movies, pop culture. They all know the trickster, the mischief-maker.” He took a step toward me. “You killed my last surviving brother, you know.” His smile disappeared. “So you know me. And I know you, Sienna Nealon.”

  He reached in his coat, and somehow I knew what he was going to do before he did it. There was a gun in his hand when it came back out, and I felt the chill as a memory breathed over me, a voice from somewhere in the back of my head.

  It’s not real.

  The shot rang out from behind me, and the smiling man who wouldn’t tell me his name had a third eye blasted into the middle of his forehead. I glanced back and saw Scott with his pistol out. It was the finest shot I’d ever seen him make.

  The man fell to his knees, already dead, a line of blood running down his nose. He slumped sideways and landed on his arm. There was no gun. His hands were empty, his expression vacant, and I knew this was what he wanted. Of all the choices he could have made, this was the one that was most palatable to him.

  “Are you all right?” Scott was at my shoulder. His breath was stale and rank. “Did he—”

  “I’m fine,” I said, and glanced at the body of a man who’d lived for thousands of years. “He tricked you. Got you to do his dirty work for him.” Part of me wanted to smile. After all, this was one less enemy on the playing field.

  There was another part of me that felt considerably more torn. This was one less meta left on the planet. Because of Sovereign. Because of Weissman. Because of Century.

  “I don’t think he was ever as bad as everyone thought he was,” I muttered, more to myself than anything.

  “What?” Scott asked, and I could see his brow crumple. “That guy just tried to kill me.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But still. He was so scared of Sovereign and Weissman that he would have rather died than face them.”

  “Sucks to be him?” Scott’s eyes were wide in near-alarm. “Are you seriously taking his side on this one?
The dude made his choice. He was a villain through and through.” He frowned and looked at the body. “Where did the gun go?”

  I glanced back at the corpse. Casino security was poking at him, probably looking for the weapon, but it was pointless. “Don’t you get it? There was no gun. It was an illusion.”

  I took the slow walk away, around the next row of slot machines. Security kept an eye on me the whole time, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t leave the scene because I needed to talk to the cops. Give a statement. Spout some bullshit that would preserve our identities and cover up what happened here. I had an idea about that.

  I took one last look back at the body laid out in front of the roulette wheel. I heard a voice, deep in my mind, from Bjorn, and I let him speak through me. For me. Because he couldn’t.

  “Goodbye, Loki.”

  Chapter 17

  “What are you still doing in Vegas?” Senator Foreman’s voice was stern and tight, laced with disapproval through and through.

  “High jinks, mostly.” I was sitting in my suite in the Palazzo, in bed. Management had comped us the cost of the place for the night. I’d done some delicate manipulation of Century’s telepath by twirling her exposed bones around, and she’d helpfully kept the swarms of LVMPD that came to investigate from remembering to check the security feed. In return, I’d stopped twisting her tibia. It was not exactly my finest hour, but when you’re tasked with keeping a secret, sometimes you have to use whatever means you have at your disposal. “Actually, always high jinks.” I felt a frown coming on. “How’d you even know I was here?”

  “Las Vegas PD called the Minneapolis FBI field office to verify your credentials,” Foreman’s terse reply came from the other end of the line. “Because apparently you trashed a casino.”

  “That is an exaggeration.” I twirled my index finger along the edge of the sheet, felt the satin against my skin. It was nice and cool in here, thankfully. “It was one slot machine. And maybe some water damage to a roulette table.” I paused to think about it. “Bloodstains aren’t permanent, are they?”

  “You would know better than I would.” When Foreman spoke again, it was with even more tension. “What are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be protecting your people in Minneapolis?”

  “I fell into the middle of the extinction here,” I said. “Some of Century’s goons made a run at us, so we took care of it. If they’ve really only got a hundred people, we’ve successfully lowered that number to about ninety now.”

  “Forgive me for not being ecstatic that you’ve solved ten percent of our problem,” Foreman said, employing more than a little sarcasm himself. I wondered if he ever spoke like that on the Senate floor. C-Span would be much more exciting if he did.

  “You’re forgiven,” I said breezily. “Anyway, I’ve got one last loose end to tie up here, then I’ll be on a plane back to Minneapolis.”

  There was a long pause. “What’s really going on, Sienna?” All sarcasm had been laid aside.

  “I’m just …” I looked up. Scott was still in the bathroom, and I could hear the shower running. “You’ve put me in charge of an awful lot, Senator. I’m doing the best I can. We’ve had some … setbacks, that’s all.”

  “You mean how you met Sovereign and couldn’t lay a hand on him?”

  I tasted something sharp and acidic in my mouth, and it wasn’t the blood that I was still getting tastes of every now and again. “I’ll be the first to admit that didn’t help.”

  “I recruited you to this job because you were the only person I had run across that was all-in on beating Sovereign and Century.” I tried to peg his tone, but I wasn’t sure if it was quiet disappointment or a low rumble of accusation. “If your commitment is wavering—”

  “I’m trying to find a way to beat him, okay?” I licked my still-dry lips. “I don’t have the same powers as him. I’m not as old as him. The only thing I’ve got going for me at this point is that apparently he’s got a case of puppy love that’s keeping him from smearing me all over the Minneapolis skyline like ash in the wind. Give me some time.” I kept calm, surprisingly.

  “I don’t have anyone better to take over for you,” Foreman said, still terse, “so I don’t see you going anywhere anytime soon. But don’t make me regret this.”

  “If you do, it’ll be too late,” I said.

  “You don’t understand,” Foreman said. “If it gets to that point, you’ll be regretting it, too. Do you have any idea what sort of hell will be summoned forth if Sovereign unleashes some plan to enslave humanity? The United States Government isn’t just going to lie down and dissolve quietly. They’ll unleash every weapon at their disposal—chemical, biological, nuclear—to stop him.” There was a silence. “You do realize that, right? You know that—”

  “I know.” I’d been through it all in my head. I knew what scared people were capable of when they got backed into a corner. I also knew that none of us had a clue what Sovereign had planned after metakind was wiped out. That part was still a big, gaping mystery. Less than one hundred metas against the combined might of every country in the world? Those weren’t dynamite odds, even for someone as strong as Sovereign. After all, it wasn’t like he was invincible. A good case of anthrax could still kill him. Probably.

  “I just need to be sure your head is in the game,” Foreman said. “You can’t be chasing unrelated loose ends at a moment like this. Century is moving into the home stretch, and whatever their phase two is, it’s months from being unveiled. We’re close to the end, now.”

  I took a short, sharp breath, and it turned into a sigh. “I’m working on it. I just … I need one day here to wrap up this loose end, and I’ll be back to sitting in Minneapolis, trying to figure out what to do next. Please.”

  The answer was a long time in coming. “You know what’s at stake. You know what’s coming for you, what’ll happen to you if you lose. I don’t expect you want to be a child bride for Sovereign, so I trust you’ll do what you can to fight to the last.” I could hear him pause, then sigh. “Because if you don’t, what we unleash to stop him might just mean the end of humanity as well.”

  Chapter 18

  I had hung up with him for only a moment when I realized the shower had stopped running. The door clicked open and Scott stepped out in nothing but a towel, still slightly dripping. I wondered why he even needed to shower when he could just spray himself with water, but I lost that question for some reason. Steam floated out into the room behind him.

  “Sounded like a tense conversation,” he said. He was just standing there, chest glistening. I don’t know that my mouth was agape, exactly, but I’m pretty sure. “What little of it I caught at the end.”

  “What?” I blinked. Twice. “Oh, Foreman. Yes. Tense. He is … uhm … a little disturbed by our outing to Vegas.”

  Scott frowned. “How’d he hear about it?”

  “Local PD called the FBI in Minneapolis, and I assume Li gave him a call immediately after. Because he’s a super helpful guy like that.”

  “Nice,” Scott said and started toward his overnight bag. I watched him. I couldn’t help it, really. “Nice to know who the class tattletale is.”

  “It could have been Ariadne, I suppose.” The towel was tight around his waist. Had he used a hand towel or was that my imagination?

  “Maybe,” he conceded. He knelt, and somehow the towel stayed on. It was like magic or something. Why couldn’t I stop staring? This was … unsettling. Sort of. Maybe unsettling was the wrong word.

  “What’s next?” Scott glanced back at me. I snapped my eyes to meet his, but probably a few seconds too late. He smiled, and my face felt like it might burst into flames, Gavrikov-style.

  “Uhmm, well,” I said, full of wit and charm. And blushing. Lots of blushing. “I don’t, ah … know.”

  “Are you checking me out?” he asked, a little coy. Not pouty, but … I don’t know. Adjectives failed me. His chest was … really muscled. And shiny. Because of the water.

 
“I’m trying to keep my eyes above your collarbone,” I said. Honestly I was.

  “You’re failing.” Leave it to him to notice that. What a spectacular ass. Also, he was a jerk for pointing that out.

  I pulled my gaze back to his face. “It’s not my fault you’re standing there all well-toned and … uh … wearing nothing but a towel.” I took a breath. “Is this Caesar’s Palace? Because I don’t remember walking into a toga party.”

  He took a couple slow steps toward the bed. “I thought you were wrapped in barbed wire and coated in lemon juice?”

  I cleared my throat. “You know I am. Which is why you should keep your distance.”

  He took a step closer, coming to the end of the bed. “Oh?”

  Part of me wanted to remind him that he’d said we didn’t have to discuss this until after Sovereign was dealt with. A very faint, fleeting part of me that I was trying desperately to find a metal box for, somewhere in my head. Too bad it didn’t work that way for my own personality. “Yeah. My touch kills, remember? You wouldn’t want to lose your soul.”

  He came up to the side of the bed where I lay and sat down on the edge. I went completely still, not even daring to breathe. His fingers went to my shoulder and slid down my sleeve to my good arm. It felt … um … “I’m not going to lose my soul doing that, am I?”

  “Ah, no, but …”

  He leaned over and kissed me, just for a second. His breath was fresh and minty and I knew for damned sure that mine was not. He broke after just a second. “Am I going to lose my soul by doing that?”

  “Do enough of it and you might.”

  He leaned over me, his weight pressing me slowly to the bed. I could have thrown him off, easily, but I liked the feel of his bare chest against me. All the moisture was suddenly gone from his skin, and all I could feel was his warmth on top of me, bearing me down. He kissed me again, and I lost count of the seconds around three. He broke from me again and smiled.