“I damned sure wouldn’t die like that for my sister.”
Chapter 23
“Do you want to die here tonight?”
There was a subtle quiet on the London street, a pale twilight that hung in the air as the sun fell behind the buildings. The words echoed across the apartment blocks, and I knew it was South London, that it was the eighties again, and I could see that Adelaide had changed since last I’d seen her. The mohawk was gone, replaced by neck-length hair. Her jeans weren’t ripped and torn anymore; she was in a skirt now, something so out of character for her I wondered if she felt the same about it as I did. She wore black leggings and knee high black boots and stood at the mouth of an alley while someone stared back at her from the opposite end. “I don’t want to die here tonight, no,” she replied to the man at the other end, “but I don’t think there’s a great danger of that at present.”
“Oh, no?” came the voice from across the way. “I don’t fancy your odds, luv.”
“I don’t mean to insult you,” she said, her boots clicking as she came down the alley, shedding the tweed jacket she wore over a white blouse, “but I don’t think you know a bloody thing about me.”
“I know you’re an Omega assassin,” the man replied, holding his ground, “and that’s about all I need, really. Come at me, and you’ll die. That’s all you need.”
“I don’t know about that,” Adelaide replied, continuing her slow stroll toward him. I wondered how she could walk in those heels, much less fight in them, but I suspected based on what I’d seen of her so far that I’d be finding out shortly. “In fact, I think it’s going to go quite the opposite way.”
“Told you to kill me, didn’t they?” The man asked. “They would. I know things,” he said, his flabby paunch hanging over a truly sloppy pair of trousers. “Things they don’t want getting out. Things about their golden boy, Wolfe.” The man wore a self-satisfied expression that was hiding something else entirely. “He’s a murderer, you know. Kills anything he wants to. Men, women, children. The Primus and the ministers just look the other way. He’s a stone killer, has been for thousands of years.”
“I’ve heard rumors about that,” Adelaide said with a glacial reserve. “Don’t expect it matters much to anyone in Omega.”
“So you’re another that doesn’t care what Omega does so long as you get your piece of the action, is that it?” The man waited, his hair long around the sides of his face. “It doesn’t bother you that people who used to be gods have sunk to petty criminality to finance their lifestyles?”
“I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I let moral concerns get in the way of my work,” Adelaide said. I couldn’t see even a glimmer of emotion from her.
“They tell you to even try bringing me back alive?” The man asked.
“They weren’t specific, this time,” Adelaide replied. “If you gave yourself up, I could be persuaded to bring you back—”
“Don’t wanna go back,” the man said, and I saw some age on him at that moment. “I’d rather kill you than go back.”
“All right, then,” Adelaide said tightly. “Give it a go, then.”
The man wore a look of almost-remorse. “You’ll be sorry you asked for this, luv.”
“I don’t think I will,” Adelaide replied.
The man leapt at her across the last ten feet, and he soared through the air with all the strength I’d come to expect from a meta. As he did so, his chest bulged under his ill-fitting clothes, turning him from a paunchy sort to a wide-bodied beast. His face filled out on the jump, his neck widening and pushing his collar open to reveal raw muscle that hadn’t been there a moment before. He landed and Adelaide dodged backward, just missing a heinous punch from him that would have smashed a tree in two.
“Ever fought a Hercules before?” the man asked with a confident grin. “All I’ve got is the strength to beat you to death twenty times over. You run, I catch you. You fight, I beat you. You try and hit me, I break you to pieces.”
“Well,” Adelaide said in a defensive posture, standing back from him a few paces, “you’ve certainly got me there. Whatever will I do?”
“I told you—die,” he said. “You could have run away before, but now I can’t let you tell them where I am.”
“If that’s the way you feel about it,” Adelaide said, “maybe we can come to an understanding.” She eased a step closer to him, watching his hands.
“Oh?” the man asked. “Now you see what I’ve got, you think it’s time to deal?”
“Not really,” Adelaide said, her accent clipping, her tone ambiguous. “I just wanted a moment to get closer to you.” She threw herself at him and he swung at her. She ducked his blow and came up with one of her own, an open-handed slap to his face that lingered there, giving me pause.
He laughed at her and caught her hand. “A slap? Really? I would think you could do better than that.”
“Quite right,” Adelaide said, and brought her other hand around in a slap that didn’t so much as sting but stayed attached to his face, held on by her grip.
He laughed out loud. “This is supposed to hurt me, luv? Why don’t you try about three feet lower?” He wagged his pelvis at her.
She smiled. “You want me to?”
He laughed again, bubbling with mirth as she held on to his face. “If you’re offering …”
She hung on to him just another moment before I saw the first flinch from him at the pain. “Wait a minute,” he said, his voice a low grunt.
“Sure thing,” she breathed, holding on tight, “I’ll wait.”
“No!” He swatted at her and she took the hit, not letting go of his face. Her head came back up, nose bloodied, and she pushed tighter to his skin as he hit her again, this time rocking her head back. She jammed her thumbs into his eye sockets, wrenching a scream from him that tore through the alley like the howl of a beast echoing through a canyon. “Let me … effing … go … !”
“’Fraid I can’t do that,” she said, lowering him gently to the ground as his strength gave out, his body shrinking, returning to its normal chubby proportions. “You know by now,” she said to the blinded, swollen man that she held gripped by the head like a volleyball, “Omega doesn’t let go until we’re through with you.”
“P-please!” he said, begging. “I have a wife and daughters! They’re … they’re like you!”
“Like me?” she asked, and I could feel the amusement flee as she tried to ignore the truth of what he was telling her and focus on the words purely on the surface level. “Funny? Strong?” She hesitated, and I heard the death rattle leave him as she let go of the body, and he crumpled to the dirty floor of the alley. Adelaide let out a little breath. “Succubi, eh? Maybe we’re all related somewhere back up the line.”
She took a couple steps back from him and leaned against the wall, the spotted, aged bricks standing out against her pale skin in the dark. “Sorry it came to this, but here we are. Now Omega’s done with you … Mr. Nealon.”
Chapter 24
I woke in the dark, gasping for air again, my head spinning with what I’d just seen, with everything that had happened of late, and that damned nausea back again. There was a smell in the air, something sweet, like honeysuckle, and it soothed my nose a little. My breathing was ragged, and I could feel cool sheets underneath me, my mouth dry with thirst. I smacked my lips together until I heard a click, and a light came on to my left.
I turned to find a table lamp on a nightstand. Next to it was a ragged old cloth-covered chair upholstered in some terrible shade of orange that surely hadn’t been in vogue since the 1970s. Sitting in it was a very familiar face, one that brought tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat.
“Reed,” I said with a light gasp.
His dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. His tanned skin was almost orange by the glow of the lamp, and his eyes were flinty; I couldn’t see any happiness in them; it was as though he were looking at a stranger and not me. “Sienna,” he said wit
h reserve.
“What are you doing here, Reed?” I looked around the shadowed room. It was wood-paneled in an old style that reminded me a little of my mother’s room in our house. “I should probably ask where we are, too.”
“Still London,” he said coolly and leaned back in his chair. He wore a simple leather coat, his constant companion, and a pair of jeans that allowed the black cowboy boots he wore to hang out of the bottoms without interference. “You’ve been out for a little under a day. We brought you back to our safehouse here after your tango with Weissman.”
“Weissman,” I said, sitting up and feeling an ache run down my back. “He was Century’s advance man in London. He was conducting the extermination here.”
“Extermination, huh?” Reed asked with bitter amusement. “That’s a good way to describe it.”
I felt my joy at seeing him deteriorate. “What’s happened?”
He shrugged lightly. “Their ‘extermination,’ as you so eloquently put it, is proceeding pretty quickly, much faster than we knew when last I saw you. They’re just about done in Africa. Asia is pretty well knit up. They hit Australia months ago; we didn’t even really notice. They’ve done some island hopping in the Pacific to clean things up there, and now all their attention is focused on closing out Europe before they move to the Americas.” He smiled ruefully. “I heard it’s started in South America. A favela in Rio de Janeiro got burned completely out last week, left nothing but a mountain of scorched corpses.” His fingers tapped out a rhythm on his leg. “Dead bodies everywhere, all over the world.”
I let myself fall back onto the bed. “Damn.”
“‘Damn’?” Reed looked back at me and I tilted my head so I could see the accusation in his eyes. “That’s all you have to say?”
“What else would you like me to say?” I put a little heat on my question. As if there was anything I could do about all this?
“How about an explanation?” Reed said, firing back with a little heat of his own. “You disappeared off the face of the earth! I left for Rome for a few days and when I get off the plane, they show me satellite imagery that the Directorate is in rubble.” He thumped his chest with an open palm. “I thought you were dead!”
I stared back at him, stunned. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” Reed asked, leaning forward. “I don’t know anything! I left to get help, and when they told me the Directorate was destroyed, I assumed you’d call me.” He lowered his voice. “When I didn’t hear from you, I figured you were dead.” The last word came out as a hushed whisper.
“I’m not dead,” I said numbly. “Almost no one died in the attack on the Directorate. Sessions, Perugini, I think. Scott was already gone; he took off after Kat couldn’t remember him. Kat,” I said, almost rambling as the emotions of that night came back full force, “she betrayed us to Omega. Resumed her … earlier personality.” I watched Reed’s jaw drop slightly in shock. “But Omega held back. Janus didn’t aim to kill anyone, the ones that died did so by accident. He was just there to knock us over. It was …” I swallowed heavily. “After they were done, Winter …” I felt a twitch in my eye, even after the week or more that had passed since it happened. “It doesn’t matter. Zack’s dead,” I said numbly. “So’s M-Squad.”
“What?” Reed’s head shook as he blinked away surprise. “I thought you said almost no one died in the attack.” He paused, and got quiet, and I felt his hand brush against mine in a reassuring stroke. “I’m sorry about Zack. How did it … how did he …?”
I thought about lying. Part of me wanted to. “Winter,” I said, and Reed’s neck bent to the side as he cocked his head at me, brow furrowed with concern. “Winter killed him. With M-Squad’s help.”
“Holy shit,” Reed breathed. “And they—”
“Like I said,” I cut him off, “they’re dead.”
Slow understanding dawned on him and his head slowly dipped back as he leaned against the back of his chair. “Did you …?”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. “I did it, yeah.”
“God, Sienna …”
I let a silence hang between us like a curtain. “I almost got Winter, too,” I said, “but he got away.” I looked up at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry I didn’t … dreamwalk to you or something.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked, leaning forward again, his hand resting on the sleeve of my clothing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I bit my bottom lip to keep it from quivering and waited to steady myself before I spoke. “I didn’t want … to admit what they did. And after I did what I did … I didn’t want to admit that to anyone, either.” I looked at him and felt my eyes water. “I’ve killed people, Reed. A lot of them, lately. Not all of them deserved it.” I felt my arm shake under his grasp. “It’s like I can’t stop, like I can’t control myself. I don’t know if it’s me, or Wolfe—I don’t even know if there’s a line between us anymore!” I heard a quaver in my voice. “When he says to kill someone, it’s like I just start moving without thinking.” I brought my other hand up to my face to cover it, as though I could hide from him. “I … killed the Primus of Omega.”
There was a shocked silence. “You … did what?”
I pulled my hand away and looked at him. “I killed the Primus of Omega. I beat him to death in his own office.”
He frowned. “Is that why they appointed the new one? Rick?”
I shook my head. “No. That’s the one I killed.”
Reed took a sharp breath. “Oh, wow. We didn’t even know that he was dead.”
“It just happened yesterday.” I brushed some of the dampness from my cheek with my sleeve. “He was trying to intimidate me by talking about how powerful he was, how insignificant I was, and I just snapped and … beat him to death.”
There was a quiet for a moment after that, and when I looked at Reed’s face, I could see he was trying to come up with something reassuring to say. “You know, Omega’s not exactly an organization built on sweetness and light. If this Rick was running the show, he was not a good guy. I wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep over it if I were you.”
I bumped my head against the headboard of the bed. “I don’t seem to be losing sleep over much of anything lately.” I blinked and looked sideways at him. “What do you know about my family?”
He looked stupefied. “Uh … you mean, other than that I’m your brother?”
I sighed. “The Nealon side.”
He shrugged. “Nothing, really. Why?”
“Because,” I said, trying to put together the pieces of what I’d seen in my dream, “I’m pretty sure I just saw an Omega operative kill my grandfather.”
Reed looked left then right, as though surveying the room for something he’d missed. “Um … maybe we should get you off that pain medication.”
I studied my arms for an IV. There wasn’t one. “I don’t think I’m on any pain medication.”
“Then we should probably get you some.”
“I’m not delusional,” I said, annoyed. “I saw it in a dream. Like a flashback. I think it came from Zollers, like he put it in my head so I could see it. I keep seeing this Omega operative named Adelaide, doing work for them here in London back in the 1980s.” I felt a stir inside at that, and I knew who it was that was taking an interest. “She was a succubus, and she was trained by Wolfe.”
Reed sat up, his eyes focusing on me in rapt attention. “Why do you think she killed your grandfather?”
“I’m not a hundred percent on it,” I said, “but she called him Mr. Nealon, and he was a meta who said his wife and daughters were succubi.” I shrugged. “Just a hunch. Maybe we’re unrelated. Just seemed like an odd thing for me to witness if it’s pure coincidence.”
“Coincidence in this instance does seem a bit farfetched.” Reed shook his head and squeezed my forearm again through the cotton sleeve of my shirt. “I really am glad to see you. When I thought you were dead, I …” He swallowed heavily. “You’re the onl
y family I have left, you know.”
“Same goes, bro,” I said with a weak smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t call or … anything. I just … I’m sorry. I couldn’t handle it at first. I just retreated from the world. Afterward …” I let my voice trail off, and when I spoke again it was quiet. “I think I was probably too ashamed of what I was going to do … and since then what I’ve done. I just didn’t want to drag you into that.”
Reed rubbed his eyes. “I would have been there for you, you know that, right?”
“In a heartbeat,” I said with a weak smile. “But you shouldn’t have had to be there. Not for that.” My smile disappeared. “Not for what I did.”
I could see the unease as he nodded. “I have to go … talk to my boss. Fill her in on what happened to Rick. This is important. I have a feeling she’ll want to talk to you herself.”
“Wait,” I asked. “What happened to the guy I was with?”
“Breandan Duffy?” Reed asked with a smile. “He’s fine. Playing cards with some of our hired hands here. He’s under our protection now. We’re trying to get as many metas as we can under our roof here in London so we can all band together.”
“How’s that going?” I asked, hopeful to hear something good in return.
“Bad,” Reed replied with none of the optimism I’d hoped for. “We’ve only been here for a couple days, though.” He hesitated. “We had to get out of Rome pretty quickly.”
I didn’t frown, exactly, but that didn’t sound like good news. I put it aside, though, remembering something more urgent. “Weissman was sending someone up to Ireland to wipe out a couple cloisters up there,” I said. “He was planning to hit one up in Scotland himself, with his team of mercs. Since Breandan and I killed them, I don’t know what he’s going to do now, but someone should warn them—all of them—what’s coming.” I felt a tremor inside, a fear for those people I didn’t even know. “I saw the handiwork of whatever he sent to Ireland. There were bodies … everywhere.” I let the last bit out as a whisper, and in my mind I saw them again. In a flash, it reminded me of all the corpses I’d left on the ground lately.
Enemies: The Girl in the Box, Book Seven Page 17
