He whipped a hand around again in that moment and a blast of wind flung Adelaide through the air and sent her crashing into the window, splintering the glass where she hit. I heard the thud, could almost taste the blood from where she’d bitten her tongue, and I could feel the sharp pain in the back of her head. “Aeolus, huh?” she muttered from where she came to rest on the seats, lying across them as though she were splayed out on a couch.
Her foe rose to his feet, his considerable bulk showing in the flash of the overhead lights. “I prefer … Fūjin.”
Adelaide squinted at him, blankly. “What?”
A flash of insecurity showed on the bald man’s face. “It’s … Japanese. Wind god. You know, it’s more … it has cachet.”
She looked at him from where she lay. “Cachet?”
He stammered. “Y-you wouldn’t understand, it’s a … it’s … I’m not like the others, okay?”
“Really?” Her head bobbed in slight disbelief, and she whirled her legs around to stand. “You’re not like the other aioli?”
The man who had called himself Fūjin flushed. “I don’t think the plural of Aeolus is aioli. That’s a garlic sauce.”
Adelaide got to her feet and squinted at him. “You’re no garlic sauce, that’s for sure.”
The big man squinted back at her. “Are you gonna fight or what?”
She spread her arms wide. “You’re the one with the range advantage, mate. Throw a vortex at me and we’ll see what happens.”
Fūjin shook his head. “You don’t understand. I can wreck this car, this train, kill all these people and you with them.”
Adelaide put her hands up in a defensive posture, as though she were ready to box again. “Then why don’t you get to it and quit chatting shit?” She stayed out of his arm’s reach. “You know why you don’t? Same reason you’re down here fighting me to begin with. You got a serious case of indecision, mate.”
The big man looked down at her in pity. “You’re calling me undecided. How old are you? Twelve?”
“I’m eighteen, but don’t go changing the subject,” Adelaide said. “You ran for the tube the minute you heard me coming for you, and when you couldn’t get away in time, after taking a pounding, you finally decide to unleash your powers. You’re undecided. You’re not willing to let loose and do what you’d have to in order to stop me from taking you out.”
“I don’t see you coming at me right now,” Fūjin said. “The minute you do, you might see me change my mind.”
Adelaide smiled. “And won’t that be an unfortunate thing for these poor gits.” She waved at the back of the compartment, where people were stacked up three deep trying to melt their way through the wall. “You’re not a proper villain, and I respect that. But you’re not in control, either.”
“I’m not coming with you,” Fūjin told her, “not coming to … them.” He stared back at her defiantly, his fingers outstretched. “I’d die before I went to them—and I’m in control of that.”
Adelaide took a long, slow, deep breath in through her nose then shook her head slowly. “Not really.” Her body was relaxed, from top to bottom, the points of her hair moving with the nod, like fists raised in solidarity. Without any warning she dived as though she were jumping for a Slip ’N Slide, and came in low, underneath Fūjin’s raised hands. He fired off a burst of air, a tornado, but it went high over her head, dispersing in a blast of air when it hit the side of the compartment.
Adelaide slammed into his knees with her shoulders, managing to avoid ramming her head into his thighs. She hit with such force that I heard both legs break and Fūjin screamed in pain, which was made worse when she lifted her head and rammed her skull into his groin with bone-breaking force. “Mind the gap,” she muttered, “as you’ve got one down there, now.”
As he squirmed, his broken legs wrapped around her head, she stood, carrying him on her shoulders using her back, and brought him up, where his head slammed into the top of the train. She brought him over like a waterwheel and pivoted, slamming his head and neck down on the nearest bench. He hit with brutal force and the seat didn’t yield. His face, however, did, Adelaide’s meta strength smashing it to pieces against the hard object. She finished him with a booted kick to what was left of the back of his head, and his skull turned to a fine mush right there, splattering the grey plastic with a fine mist of red for several seats in every direction, coating the nearest ones with a thick spatter.
She stood there for a moment after, staring down at her handiwork, her face covered in red, and then she looked up and saw herself reflected in the window. “You never had a choice, mate,” she whispered, and her black leather sleeve came up and wiped her face, streaking the blood, smearing it in. “They didn’t want you alive.”
“Next stop, Piccadilly,” a human voice came over the loudspeaker. “Piccadilly Circus.”
Adelaide took one last look at herself in the reflected glass as the lights flickered on and off in the car briefly and shadows swallowed half her face, covering her, giving her the look of someone lost in the darkness. Her eyes were haunted when the lights were on then pools of blackness when they weren’t. I saw them, and they looked familiar. Somehow I knew this was her first kill.
The train ground to a slow stop with a screech, and Adelaide looked to the people on either side of the compartment before stepping to the door. She didn’t bother making a sign or any sort of gesture at them, just stepped up to the doors in the middle of the train and waited for them to open. “It’d be real smart if you lot were to wait for the next stop,” she said, and there was nothing but menace in the way she said it. “Anyone who gets off here is likely to suffer from some ill health, if you catch my meaning.” She pointed a long, thin finger at the mess she had left of Fūjin on the bench. “So, please, catch my meaning and stay on the bloody train.” There was a squeal of unease and the people bunched at either end of the compartment backed away from the doors.
Adelaide looked at herself in the window one last time as the doors opened. She self-consciously wiped her face once more, but there were a few spots of blood still on her forehead and there were flecks of other matter in the spikes of her hair. She slid out before the doors were completely open then looked back from the platform at the train. No one got on at that compartment, and the platform was nearly empty. She waited until the train started to pull out of the station before she made her way toward the exit, toward the stairs, and somehow, I knew, the sunlight she hoped was somewhere far above her head.
Chapter 7
My head felt like someone had taken a hammer to it with righteous fury, over and over again with a staccato rhythm. The world tasted like dirt and smelled worse. After a minute I realized it was because my mouth was pressed against a solid, slightly fuzzy object—the floor. Sunlight was blazing into my vision and I blinked my bleary eyes then closed my dry mouth, which apparently was dry because I had been drooling in a puddle on the carpet of my hotel room. I didn’t recognize the place at first, but after a moment I knew that’s where I had to be.
There was still an insistent hammering coming not from inside my head but from behind me. “Sienna?” a thickly accented voice said, muffled, and I pulled myself to all fours in an effort to locate the source of the noise. I turned as I smacked my lips together and the thumps began again. It was the door, and someone was knocking. “If you don’t answer the door by the count of three, I’m going to break it down.”
“Hold on,” I said, my voice scratchy and hoarse. I rolled to a seated position. I had lost consciousness in the narrow hallway of my room, just after getting inside and slamming the door behind me. My muscles ached, my tongue had a crust of filthiness on it that contained just about the worst flavor I’d ever tasted, something between foot odor and dumpster remains, and I felt nauseous. I looked to my side and saw the gaping opening to the bathroom. I rested a hand on the trim and used it to hoist up to my feet. I felt something drop off my shoulder and realized it was my duffle bag; I hadn’t e
ven laid it down before I passed out.
“Sienna?” the voice came again, and I reached for the handle and opened the door. Light streamed in from outside, too, where Janus stood expectantly, a pocket watch clutched in his hand, a particularly fine suit making him look like an aging banker. His grey hair was meticulously in place, and he peered at me through thin glasses as though he were concerned. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” I said, blinking at him. A wave of nausea overcame me and I was forced to turn away, to dive for the bathroom where I hit my knees and heaved with no grace whatsoever. The smell of the toilet and what came out of my mouth only made it worse, doubling my nausea, and I retched again. The foul taste of the bile erased the disgusting aftertaste I’d woken up with and replaced it with the burning, acid flavor of what I was returning now. It came from the bottom of my stomach then from what felt like the bottom of my feet, I heaved so hard.
“So,” Janus said in a mild voice from the doorway, “I take it you enjoyed your first night in England a bit too much?”
“What?” I said, taking a breath between heaving my lungs up. “How long have I been here?” I put my head back down in the toilet and threw up again.
“I left you at Heathrow yesterday,” he said, somewhere between impatience and amusement. “You must have made fine use of the downstairs bar and the legal drinking age of eighteen.”
“I …” I heaved my last and sat back on my haunches. “I …”
“I don’t really understand such things,” he admitted, “but then, I grew up in a time long before drinking ages, when everyone had wine for every meal, even as children.”
I smacked my lips together as a milder wave of nausea passed through me. “How lovely for you.”
“It was a simpler time,” he said. “Are you quite finished?”
“For now, I think.” I felt a pressure in the back of my throat. “Never mind.” I bent my head down again.
“Good Lord,” Janus said after another minute. “And now?”
“I hope so,” I whispered. “Dear God, I hope so.”
“We have business to attend to today,” he said, and I heard the click of his pocket watch snapping shut. “Do you need a few minutes to ready yourself?”
“Ready myself for what?” I asked, rolling over to put my back against the wall. I stared up at him and caught a pitying look as he glanced back down at me.
“Ah …” He stepped into the bathroom, leaned over the bathtub, and grasped a small towel folded on the edge. He wet it under the tap and handed it to me from a distance, as though afraid to get too close. “You might wish to consider wiping your mouth.”
“Thank you,” I said acidly and did so. I slung the wet towel across the tub’s edge when I was done. “What are we doing today?”
“I thought we could get breakfast,” he said. “A working breakfast.”
“Lovely,” I said, resting my head against the tiles of the wall. They felt cool even through my matted hair.
“I suppose I could understand if you’re not very hungry.”
“I’m surprisingly ravenous,” I said, “though I did just lose everything I’ve ever eaten and possibly things that my ancestors ate as well.”
He gave a light chuckle. “I can wait if you need to clean up.”
“Sure,” I said, gingerly getting to my feet. My stomach seemed to have settled, at least for the moment. “Let me get my bag, and you can wait for me out there.” I gestured vaguely toward the small room that lay beyond the hallway.
A few minutes later I emerged from the bathroom. Fortunately my ponytail had spared my hair from my gastrointestinal reversal, so I only had to rebind it. I showered quickly and dressed, avoiding the ordeal of washing my hair. I stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later, fully clad in jeans and a sweatshirt, to find Janus standing at the window, which was open about three inches. He glanced back at me. “You didn’t even make it to the bed, did you?”
“No,” I said, laying my bag on one of the undisturbed single beds, the brown, ages-old comforter not leaving me with much confidence that it was clean in any way.
“You didn’t drink last night, did you?” he asked, and I could hear an edge of suspicion.
“No,” I replied.
“Perhaps … some illness from the travel,” he said, staring at me carefully, his hands in the pockets of the vest beneath his suit coat. I realized it was the vest that made him look like a banker. Having the pocket watch anchored there was an interesting affectation; he looked every part the proper and distinguished gentleman.
“Let’s hope,” I said. It probably went without saying, but I did not want to talk to him about the voices in my head, not remotely, not in any way. They were a problem, a weakness, and the fact that they could drive me to blinding pain was hardly a new discovery to me. The fact that they could somehow render me unconscious was cause for concern, but it didn’t need to be any concern of his.
Also, I was pretty sure I’d seen Dr. Zollers, the real one, invading my head, and speculating about what he was doing in there was probably a quick path to a whole tangle of mysteries that I didn’t have answers to. Like, had he been the reason I’d had the vision of Adelaide?
“Ah, well, my girl,” Janus said, and he was hesitant but reassuring. “Let us go, then.” I knew he was an empath, and it didn’t take much for me to immediately jump to the idea that he was reading me, knew I was reluctant to talk about any of it, and decided he was better off not asking. Part of me wanted to curse him for that; the other part wanted to know what he knew. I gave him a sidelong look that he ignored in favor of walking toward the door, leaving his back exposed to me. I ignored the opportunity; he’d given me no reason to club him unconscious—yet—and despite what Omega had done, Janus hadn’t wronged me. Again: yet. I was still watching for it.
The day was cool but not bitter, and he buttoned the bottom two buttons of his jacket as we hit the street outside the hotel. I supposed that with the couple of layers he had on, he was probably quite warm. I had brought a thin fall jacket, just in case, but honestly, the weather wasn’t anything compared to Minnesota. This was merely brisk.
I followed him down the grey sidewalk as cars rushed by next to us on the road. I looked for a minute at the drivers, on the wrong side of the car to my Americanized mind.
Janus was shrewd enough not to say anything as we walked, and we crossed the street at the next corner. Every one of the buildings seemed to be about three stories high, except for the couple of hotels that jutted out of the middle and ends of the block; they were a few stories higher. The rest seemed to be of roughly uniform height, and I wondered how long they had been there. The fact that they all melded together in a similar style intrigued me. It was rather like housing developments with a complementary look that I had seen back in the U.S.
We came to a Greek restaurant and halted outside the glass facade. It had bold yellow letters across a faded blue canopy that extended over a half dozen tables scattered across the sidewalk. It was blustery enough today that no one was brave enough to eat out there, though, and Janus made a great show of staring at the menu in the window, while keeping his voice low. “Greek breakfast has never been to my taste.”
“Is that because you were a Roman god?”
He gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. “It is true, I did miss the Hellenistic days, having not been born yet when so many of my contemporaries were milking the lands of Greece for all they were worth. It is possible that I did not learn to acquire a taste for some of the foods that were so popular to them, having grown up on more traditional Roman fare.” He gave a short chuckle. “Which is nothing like that which you would consider Roman today. Food is one area where I am thankful for the advancements that technology has brought us. Others of our kind who lived in those days, and even those who didn’t, they act as though it was some glorious time, halcyon days where wine was poured directly into our mouths by beautiful women, where every need, whim and desire was grante
d without thought or concern for those involved.” He got a far-off look in his eyes. “I don’t see it, though, the romanticism of it all. I lived in those times, and yes, we exercised the vital powers in ways that we no longer do, held sway in the courts of the world in a way that has faded, receded, but the way we lived …” He let his voice trail off.
“I bet it was a real bitch living without flush toilets,” I said, my voice hoarse from my morning’s activities.
Janus gave me a slight smile. “You have no idea. The hygiene … Humans had it easier than us, of course, with our superior sense of smell and taste. When we lived in palaces, I took baths every day, sometimes multiple times per day when it was hot, and the ones who didn’t …” He shuddered. “Bacchus was the worst. He would drink himself into a stupor, soil himself, then never bother to clean up, going back to the alcohol and letting the smell offend the rest of our nostrils, as though he weren’t covered in his own feces.” He gave a small noise of disgust. “I was not sorry the day that Zeus dashed his brains out, though there was more to it than that, of course—”
“What was his power?” I asked, half-listening to Janus and half-studying the menu. The food was beginning to appeal to me a little, the nausea receding. I read the description of the British breakfast, eggs, bacon, tomatoes and baked beans, and wondered a little about the inclusion of the beans. There was a blissful quiet in my mind, a kind of peace that I couldn’t remember feeling in a long while. The peace of no one talking.
“Hm?” Janus looked up at me. “Oh, Bacchus? He was a Persephone-type, but he never wasted his talents for influencing life on mere humans, preferring instead to treat with vineyards, speeding the growth of their vines in exchange for wine. Quite the sot, as they say.”
Enemies: The Girl in the Box, Book Seven Page 4
