“He was a human,” Janus said quietly. “His father’s only remaining son, but born a human to a human woman. He was only in the position of Primus because we needed to maintain continuity during this time of transition. He was just a man.”
“A really arrogant, blustering man,” I said, and felt the heat on my cheeks. Had I really just beaten a defenseless man to death? “He just spent the last few minutes trying to convince me I was utterly under his power and that I should be ready to basically whore myself out to whatever purpose he had in mind for me.”
Janus gave a slight nod. “Young and foolish. You understand, I suppose?”
I looked at the mess at my feet. “I suppose.” I glanced back to them. “So long, Janus.”
“You don’t have to leave,” he said, and I caught the urgency from him.
I swallowed heavily. “I think I kinda do.”
Without another word, I turned and stepped over the edge. I heard swearing as I did it, the voices of Bast and Janus, already arguing. I fell about fifty feet and landed perfectly—right in the center aisle of an open-topped, double decker bus. It was a long drop, and I felt it in my ankles as I landed, but I managed to avoid any injury to myself or the bus. I dodged past the surprised people around me, marveling at my sudden drop out of nowhere, and I took a seat in one of the black plastic chairs and took a breath.
I looked back over my shoulder as the air from the bus’s passage whipped my hair around. Janus was up in the window, watching me, his eyes tinged with disappointment that I could see even from this distance. His eyes never left me, following me even as the bus turned around the corner and out of his sight.
Chapter 16
I hopped off the bus after it turned the corner and sprinted full out for the underground station sign I saw up ahead. I popped inside and bought a ticket to take me back to the Russell Square station and rode in silence through the first three stops. The air was heavy but cool, and it felt almost a little stuffy inside the train itself. It was busy, and I had to change trains at Holborn station. I walked through the crowd, oblivious to anything but my own problems. I jostled and brushed against pedestrians, never long enough to feel my powers work but enough to feel the presence of others just on the outer perimeter of my own sense of self.
Did you just kill the Primus of Omega? Zack asked me, his tentativeness coming through in the way he said it. Did that really just happen?
It was beautiful, Wolfe rasped. Glorious. The pampered scion of a dying family brought to a bloody end, his head splashed all over the floor just as marvelously as if Wolfe had done it himself. He’s not so arrogant now, is he? The sound of a chortle echoed in my mind.
“Oh, God,” I whispered as the crowds moved around me while I walked to the Piccadilly line platform over a series of escalators and moving walkways.
Killing the Primus of Omega is a big deal, Bastian said with something that sounded like grudging respect.
Yes, Eve tossed in, I’d be dancing if it weren’t for the fact that I’m dead.
Sienna … Zack said quietly, what were you thinking?
“I don’t know,” I said and it came out choked. I realized in that moment that I truly had no idea why I’d done what I’d done, other than the fact that Rick had seriously pissed me off in his attempt to assert verbal control over me.
I got on my train, watching the area around me with care. I didn’t know what Omega’s next move would be. Part of me couldn’t believe that I’d killed their leader. The other part felt disgusted at the realization that he’d been just a man, not even the one who’d sent all of their clowns after me. Somehow his speech had twisted me up inside, listening to him go on and on about power, about how he and Winter had it and how I didn’t. Something snapped with just the slightest provocation by Wolfe. It hadn’t taken much, I knew that. I wouldn’t have been asking Wolfe about what he was if I hadn’t already been thinking about attacking the man, after all.
The walls of the underground blurred together outside the windows, and the clack of the tracks beneath us grew to a maddening pitch as I heard the screech of the train, jarring me out of my thoughts. I didn’t know where to go, didn’t know what to do. Janus had seemed surprisingly pragmatic about Rick’s death when I left, but I didn’t know if that was mere show or if he really meant it. For all I knew, they were absolutely fine with me slaughtering everyone in the building. On the flip side, they might have been placating me just long enough to throw me into a storage tank like they had with Andromeda. It was hard to say without a mind reader at my disposal.
I thumped my head against the window behind me. How was I supposed to know who to trust? I was surrounded by people who—according to them—had nothing but the purest motives, but every time I looked at them, their acts didn’t quite seem to match their rhetoric. Omega had done incredibly underhanded and nasty things to me in the past; I had a real problem believing that they were any kind of a force for good.
Then again, had you asked me a month ago if the Directorate was a force for good, my answer would have been yes.
The train screeched to a stop in Russell Square and I disembarked, taking the stairs five at a time on the spiral up and scaring the hell out of several people as I passed them, bouncing off the wall in a few places and leaping over them like I was some sort of expert in parkour—which I was, though not through practice.
I hit the hotel lobby and found it packed, students from every corner of Europe filling the place to the gills. They all had laptops and wireless devices out, and a smell of slightly unwashed humanity filled the space. When I made it to the elevator, I pushed the button for my floor and waited with a dozen other people. I forced myself against the back of the elevator as others crowded on. An overweight man who spoke in a brogue pushed himself against me, unintentionally pinning me into a corner next to a thin woman who spoke with an Eastern European accent.
I felt trapped, and for a moment, it was hard to breathe. I resisted the temptation to reach out and grasp the two people closest to me by their bare necks and wait until my power started to work. A trickle of sweat ran down my temple and my mouth felt dry. My hand shook, and I kept it firmly against my side, though the urge to just do it was screaming in every synapse of my brain, as if I hadn’t had a drink of water in forever and there was a full glass in front of me, waiting for me to reach out and take it. After all, why not? I had just murdered one man in cold blood, why not a couple more, but this time in a way I could truly feel and enjoy it.
The elevator dinged, the door opened, and fortunately three people got off. The fat man stepped away with the newfound space that the sudden reduction in passengers had given us, and the skinny woman worked her way out the door at the next floor.
When we arrived at my floor, there were only a couple people left on the elevator, and I dodged past them and went up the hall quickly to my room. I thrust the key card into the lock and waited for the familiar beep that acknowledged it before I pushed down on the handle and threw it open. I scooped up everything I owned and tossed it into my bag before going out the door again less than sixty seconds later.
Sienna, Zack’s voice came to me, we need to talk about this.
“We will,” I said, almost breathless as I pressed the button to summon the elevator, over and over, “but first I have to get somewhere else. Somewhere safe.”
The elevator dinged and opened and I thrust myself inside to find the box empty, thankfully. I put my back against the wall and took a deep breath. As the doors started to close I heard a ding and the elevator across the hall opened. I caught a glimpse of Karthik, Bast and Janus just as the doors clinked shut. The last thing I saw was Bast’s eyes widening in surprise as she saw me.
“Dammit!” I cried out and hit the button for the second floor instead of the lobby. If the three of them were coming up to see me, the odds were good that they’d have others with them, perhaps stationed around the entrance. Chances were I could take them out, but with the lobby as packed as it was, I m
ight need to break some heads—possibly the heads of innocent people—if I wanted to make it out. As bloodthirsty as I had been of late, that thought still stopped me cold.
The doors opened on the second floor and as soon as they did I was out into the hall. The hotel was two buildings, and if I could manage to get across to the second building via the hallways, I could sneak out on the back street and run for the underground station. As for where I was going after that, I hadn’t the faintest. I’d have to figure it out on the train. One step at a time.
I tore down the hallway and took a right as it came to an end. Just as I was turning I heard the elevator ding a hundred yards behind me. I paused and looked back; stupid mistake, as I saw Bast and Karthik shoot out of the elevator doors. Karthik caught sight of me and was running as I turned the corner, my eyes on the elevator at the far end. It occurred to me a moment later that Janus must have stayed to let them know which floor my lift had stopped on via cell phone or walkie-talkie. It didn’t matter now, but it was a clever thing to do given that they could have lost me if they’d just left it to whoever was in the lobby to catch me.
I saw another bank of elevators at the end of this hallway, and I knew I’d reached the other hotel. The problem now was knowing just how prepared they were for me. I didn’t really want to go out a window for the second time today, at least not if I didn’t have to. I saw a sign for the stairs and I didn’t even think twice about it, just burst through and started jumping them a landing at a time.
I was three down when I heard the door above open, and I knew either Karthik or Bast was closing in. “Stop!” I heard Karthik from above, “We just want to talk to you!”
“I’m not in a chatty mood!” I shot back and leapt the last few steps down to the exit. I took one look at the only door and realized it was a fire door that opened to who knew where. It had a bold warning telling me that in order to properly operate it I had to push down the metal bar and wait fifteen seconds to open it.
I slammed my shoulder into the metal framing and ripped it off in one second, sending it spiraling into someone just outside. I felt bad about it until the person standing next to him shouted, “There she is!” and I realized it was an Omega agent in a suit. I recoiled as he reached for me then kicked him in the chest so hard he took flight and hit the concrete wall behind him with enough force to break a few things.
“Sienna, stop!” Karthik yelled from behind me as I took off to the left. I was in a courtyard that led into the lobby of the hotel, and I knew the exit from here. I ran toward it through a cobblestone tunnel that led out onto a main street. I was a block and a half from the Russell Square station and I was fairly certain I could beat them to the underground. I was less sure where I could go from there, but I had a reasonable idea where I could lose them from having glanced at the underground map earlier.
“We need to talk to you!” Karthik shouted again. “It’s important! This is bigger than you and your problems with Omega!”
I gave him points for persistence, but I wasn’t about to stop and engage him in a quiet debate on why he was wrong. If I stopped, I’d have to kick the hell out of him, and I really didn’t want to. I’d already impaled him once today.
I turned south and ran with all my meta speed, dodging pedestrian foot traffic, running up walls and bouncing off as necessary to increase my speed. People were shouting in surprise as I shot past them, jumping here and there. I set off the car alarm of a vehicle parked on the street as I used it for a springboard to cross. I nailed the landing and kept running, chancing a look back to see Karthik right behind me, surprisingly closing the gap.
I puffed as I slid into the entrance to Russell Square station and jumped right over the turnstiles without buying a ticket. I heard someone shout for me to stop, but the next sound I heard was Karthik knocking the hell out of them as he did the same, so I figured I didn’t need to worry about it.
The green tiles in the stairwell were a blur as I shot down. I avoided colliding with others on their way down by doing the same thing I’d done earlier, leaping from surface to surface on the walls judiciously as I descended, ending with a landing that would have made an Olympic gymnast proud. I would have considered it more impressive if not for the fact that I heard Karthik only steps behind me, knocking people over as needed to try and catch me.
I tore off down the tunnel that led to the northbound Piccadilly line and hoped like hell that the train would be here shortly. As I reached the platform the sign above said it would be arriving in one minute. I cursed and threw down my bag, sliding into position next to the opening of the tunnel. I waited there and heard Karthik coming a moment later. His breathing was what gave him away; I was holding my breath so as to avoid a similar fate.
He slowed as he exited the tunnel but not nearly enough. I hit him with a clothesline that I’m sure he felt came out of nowhere. It caused his legs to fly out from under him. I caught him and slammed his head and shoulders into the concrete and tile floor. He looked up at me with shock, and I knew I’d broken something significant, possibly his skull and spine. His mouth opened and shut, and he made almost no noise.
“I’m sorry,” I said, on my knees, next to his fallen body. Blood dripped out onto the floor and onto my hand where I held him in place. “I’m sorry. I hope this heals. But I’m not going with you.” I stood and withdrew, leaving him there. He gasped and reached out for me again, but I searched the platform with my eyes and found his gun lying next to the train. I picked it up and put it into my bag as I retrieved it. “Tell them to leave me alone.” There was a subtle movement of air, like someone had turned on a fan as the wind blew out of the tunnel where the approaching train was coming. I looked back at him, his sad eyes watching me. “Tell Janus … I’m sorry.” Not that he’d believe me.
The train roared into the station and I stepped on in a crowd of people. I watched Karthik through the open doors as he rolled to his side, then his chest, and started to crawl across the platform to the train. I sighed and hoped that time was not on his side.
It wasn’t. He was still five feet away and moving with desperate slowness, one arm over the next when the train doors closed. I watched him, but not his eyes, as the train started to move. The lights flashed out as we pulled out of the station, and I was left with darkness as I watched the fallen figure still on the platform—just the most recent in the long line of people I’d hurt.
Chapter 17
The train pulled into King’s Cross St. Pancras station a few minutes later and I was the first out the doors, shoving people out of my way as I got the hell out. I followed the signs that led me up toward the surface, not exactly sure where I was going but certain of a few things. One, I didn’t really want to try to leave the country yet. That would require an airline ticket, which I could afford, but I was concerned it would flag Omega’s attention. Two, I wasn’t sure I could safely stay in London. I had some cash but not enough to be able to afford more than a night or two of a hotel stay. I had credit cards, but if Omega was anything like the Directorate, they had a tech nerd like J.J. who could use that to track me down, and I’d be getting a knock on my door just a few minutes after check-in.
I didn’t like the way Omega was pursuing me, but I understood it. I definitely didn’t trust that all they wanted was to talk, though that certainly fit better with Janus’s style than anything else that had been tried. All this ran through my mind as I took escalator after escalator toward the surface.
One thing I did know was that King’s Cross station could probably get me anywhere in the country I wanted to go. The question now was, where did I want to go? Where could I go?
I thought about the cloisters they’d mentioned back at Omega headquarters, about the one in Scotland. I wondered where it was, and after a few minutes of thinking, I could not recall them mentioning. My odds of finding that became very low, since it’s hard to go somewhere when you don’t have a name for it.
I pushed off to the side and felt the swell of voice
s in my head as I leaned against a grey wall and smelled the scent of the musty underground. I lay my head against the hard brick and tried to think through my next move.
We should go back and make peace with Janus, Bjorn said. This is not the end of things with Omega. They can forgive murder—
“Why not?” I said to myself. “After all, they’ve done enough of it themselves. It’s probably as casual as flossing to them.”
We need to get out of the country, Bastian opined. Maximum damage is done, now it’s time to flee. Unless you want to really take it to Omega—
“I didn’t come here to wage a war. I came here to find Winter.”
Janus will still give you Winter, if you give him what he wants, Bjorn said.
“But what the hell does he want?” I asked, and realized my voice had gotten loud enough to draw stares from the commuters walking past. “No one will even tell me what these assholes want from me, which is maybe the most frustrating thing about this whole deal.”
“Excuse me, miss,” came a voice with a strong Irish accent from off to my side. I rolled my eyes and turned, ready to unload on him, but I realized after just a beat he was terribly familiar. Waxed mustache, sparkling eyes—annoyingly so, like they knew something you didn’t. It was the guy who had tried to steal from me on the train only yesterday. “Are you lost? Looking for Platform 9 and 3/4, perhaps?”
I blinked at him. “You’re awfully chipper for someone who got his ass so handily kicked just yesterday.”
He shrugged. “I bounce back from injury pretty quickly. Something I expect you know a thing or two about. Besides, I try not to hold a grudge. You did catch me trying to steal from you and all.”
“I did indeed. I’d kick the hell out of you again, but I’m a tad busy at the moment.” I waved him off. “Wait. Are you here thieving again?”
He gave a light, shameless smile. “I have to make a living, you know.”
Enemies: The Girl in the Box, Book Seven Page 11
