Enemies: The Girl in the Box, Book Seven

by Crane, Robert J.

  Me, I was young.

  I streaked in under his guard, kicked his legs out from under him in a slide, kneed him in the guts and was atop him before he had a chance to do anything but throw up his arms ineffectually. I straightened my index finger and drove it hard into his remaining eye, spearing him right in the pupil. He let out a scream and I kicked him hard in the groin before rolling off of him in the direction of one of his suited flunkies.

  I grabbed the man by the lapels and yanked him hard toward me. His arms pinwheeled as he fought to recover his balance. I flung him on, speeding him up as he passed and sending him like a projectile into two of his fellow men in black. They wouldn’t stay down for long, but I didn’t need forever.

  I moved with fluid grace, a thousand hours of practice in a basement, in a training room, in the field, all coming together with the thousands of years of experience of a heinous beast who lived in my head and had nothing but a thirst for blood. I feinted my way toward Aphrodite, who looked at me wide-eyed, as though the thought of an actual fight had never occurred to her. The way she made a defensive move told me otherwise, but I didn’t care. She was a princess, living a life of a woman of privilege, treated like a queen and pandered to for thousands of years.

  I’d been locked in a house my whole life, and when I was really bad, in a steel box that I’d beaten my way out of with my bare hands. Her jaw broke under the strongest punch I could throw, and while she was busy crying about that, I hit her again and shattered the bone above her eye. Then I tossed her into Bastet, sending both of them into a gift shop display that caused stuffed animals to go flying everywhere.

  You can either be a princess or a badass, not both. It takes way too much time and effort to fit in either one of those boxes, and the choice of which my time would be spent on was made for me, long ago. I had no regrets about it, either, given the many kinds of hell that had been unleashed upon me since the day I broke out of the box. It hadn’t even been a year.

  I came at Eris as she fumbled to put away her smartphone, as though saving it was worth the beating she was about to take. I knew that by now some of the flunkies I’d attacked would have to be coming back to themselves. Also, if Janus and his crew were going to come at me, I’d be dealing with them shortly. I’d gone left, wiping out their flank, and I’d still have to come back to the center and the right, deal with Heimdall and whatever else was left. For now, I listened, and heard only scuffling in the distance, nothing directly behind me, so I kept going for Eris. She was the last of them I’d have to deal with in this direction. If I was very fortunate, Janus would just stay out of it.

  I heard lightning crackle behind me, and I knew that was a foolish notion. Part of me wanted to look back and see who he’d thrown in with, but it wasn’t going to do me a bit of good until I’d taken out Eris. Then I could make my way back through them without fear of getting attacked from behind.

  “So, you’re Eris, huh?” I said as I kicked her in the knee. She was moving far too slow, a thousand years of being indulged having taken its toll on her too, I supposed. “You’re the Goddess of Chaos, aren’t you?” I punched her in the face and followed it with a knee to the guts that doubled her over. “You should appreciate this, then.” I spun her around and clasped my fingers to her throat, allowing me to choke her out and get a view of the battle that had been unfolding behind me. I didn’t really have the luxury of time to suffocate her or let my powers drain her dry, though, so I just squeezed her with all the strength in my fingers and crushed her larynx. “I do know how to create a bit of chaos, after all.”

  And I had. Bast was in a fight with Reed, and I saw her pitched through the air and against the center tower. She managed to turn about and catch herself on the side of it with her feet then bounced nimbly down to land on the stairs. She sprang back into the fray at Reed and he blasted her with another gust.

  Breandan was in a knock-down, drag-out fistfight with one of the suited thugs. He was bleeding from a cut beneath his eye, and he hammered the man with a blow to the midsection and caught a hard hit to the side of the head in return. Hera and Madigan had Heimdall double-teamed, but it looked to be going poorly for them, as he was moving faster than either and showed none of the hesitation that the other ministers had made obvious to me. He was a fighter and clearly in practice. Madigan’s lightning couldn’t even catch him, his reflexes good enough that he was dodging every strike she made at him.

  Janus and Kat each had a black suit of their own occupied, going fist to fist with them. It appeared they were holding their own, but Karthik was dominating the last one, had him clearly on the ropes.

  I let Eris slip out of my grasp to fall limply to the floor, and I knew where I was needed most by the whisper in my mind and my own tactical experience. I hit the black suit who was fighting with Breandan with a running clothesline to the back of the head as I passed and felt his neck break from the force of the blow. It hurt me. It hurt him a hell of a lot more.

  “Thanks!” Breandan called out as I kept on, jumping into the air as I made for the fight between Madigan and Hera on one side and Heimdall on the other. He was taking them both at once, a flurry of fists being exchanged, up close and personal—and he was beating them both. Madigan looked like she’d been in a fight or two, but Hera was absolutely out of practice. Her punches were slow, and she was dodging at a vastly underwhelming pace. I watched her take a hit to the belly and then the jaw that sent her to her knees as Heimdall turned all his attention to Madigan. She lasted another five seconds and I saw her get staggered. She started to go to her knees when Heimdall blasted her with a kick that sent her body cracking and rolling twenty feet across the floor, limp. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive, but I suspected the former much more than the latter.

  “And now a real challenge arrives,” Heimdall said quietly. The frenzy of his motions only a moment earlier had subsided. He was peaceful, calm now, an island of tranquility in the midst of chaos. “You are a warrior.”

  “You too,” I said. “Your friends? Not so much. I guess a couple thousand years of being the kings and queens of the world made them soft.” I looked him up and down; he rippled with muscle, and not in the normal way a meta did, just by sheer genetics. He was toned in a way few were. He worked on it. His reactions showed he’d never lost his edge. This was a man that time hadn’t made soft and flabby. He was a sharpened blade, just looking for a place to strike. “They don’t know how much work goes into being ready to fight,” I said, and he nodded subtly. “But you and I do.”

  “In my time,” Heimdall said, and his voice was deep, resonant, “I have been beaten only twice.”

  “Really?” I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice. “I’ve been beaten a lot. So I guess if we’re going by fighting records, you’ve got the advantage.”

  He smiled. “I always do.”

  I smiled back. “Of course you do.” I paused. “How do I beat this man to death?”

  Heimdall’s smile faded. “What?”

  Touch him every chance you get, brief little touches, only a second each time, Wolfe said. He’ll hit you but try and dodge it. If you can’t, take the hit and trade contact time for it. Keep him busy until your power finally starts to drain him. Then eat him up like—

  “That’ll do,” I said and extended a hand to Heimdall. “Well? You ready to see who’s better?”

  He never lost his calm. “There is no doubt in my mind.”

  “Awww,” I said, feigning embarrassment, “it’s so sweet that you know I’m going to beat your ass. But you’re willing to fight anyway! That’s courage.” I gave him an exaggerated thumbs-up. “You are a special star!”

  His nostrils flared. “I have been the strongest warrior on earth for thousands of years.”

  “Really?” I gave him a pitying look. “Then why haven’t you gone looking for a fight with Sovereign?”

  His eyes widened and he was moving without warning, coming at me in a bare-fisted attack. I turned aside his first bl
ow, slapping his wrist to the left. When his next one came, I grabbed it, pulling him forward and using his momentum against him. He snapped it away before I got a chance to hit him, but neither did he manage to counterstrike, so I considered it a fair trade.

  One …

  He came at me again, follow up punches turned aside, and I clasped his arm this time and pulled him into a punch of my own. I didn’t hold back; it was a strong hit, and it stunned him enough that I got another in before he slipped my grasp and hit me with a backhand that caused my head to rattle a little.

  Two, three, four …

  I kicked him in the leg. I had been aiming for the chest but had to adjust due to the speed at which he came at me. It hobbled him and he stumbled. I pressed the attack by punching him in the head again then the gut. I grabbed his wrist and tried to spin him around in a pirouette like a dancer. It was a clumsy move on my part, but it brought me unfettered access to the side of his head and I pounded him in the skull three times before he landed a hard elbow to my stomach that made me take a few steps back.

  Five …

  We circled each other warily, his head bleeding from minor cuts where I’d struck him. I felt a pain in my belly from the last hit, and one of my cheeks stung. So far I was winning, but I knew that the moment I underestimated him or tried too hard to press my touch, it’d turn. He was a canny bastard, that much was obvious, and if I didn’t play it cool, he was going to realize what I was up to sooner rather than later.

  I came at him again with full fury, blocking one of his punches in a way that hurt both of us, probably equally. Neither of us let it show, though, and we traded a punch each. Mine hit him in the gut, his hit me in the side of the head, a glancing blow that still caused a brief flash in my vision. His stomach was like iron, and while we were tangled up close, he tried to grab me. I let him, and he pulled me closer for a headbutt, which I allowed. I angled my head in such a way that it landed skull to skull. You don’t run into too many people that know how to really execute a headbutt, or how much it effing hurts when you do it wrong. I knew, and I knew it was going to cost me some serious pain, but I tangled my hand up with him and waited for the hit, knowing that if I could hold onto him after the impact it would easily buy me ten seconds—and probably reveal my plan.

  Our foreheads met, bone on bone, and the pain was so bad I thought my life flashed before my eyes. It was like the end of the world had come, like the universe had sent the big bang out at us for another round. The only thing I focused on other than the exquisite, screaming, shearing anguish in my forehead was the sensation of my fingers, still locked around his wrist. I felt him staggering but held on, even as I hit my knees. A meta-strength headbutt was the sort of thing that would turn a normal human’s skull into pulped mush. I suspected I’d lost enough brain cells in this attempt that permanent impairment might follow, but I’d have to survive the impending cerebral hemorrhage first. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer and turned it loose on the top of my head, then poured lighter fluid over the remains of my skull and had Gavrikov blow up behind my eyes. The only saving grace was that I could feel my fingers tingling as my power started to work. Or else the paralysis from brain injury was setting in. Either or.

  “You …” I heard Heimdall whisper in fury.

  “Yes, me.” I blinked and threw out my other hand blindly in a snapped punch that caught him in the jaw. “You were expecting Bugs Bunny?”

  His eyes were slitted, watching me, and I knew this because I’d only just gotten my own back open. The world was still spinning around me, and I realized it was a wonder the two of us hadn’t fallen over. My balance was shit, and plainly so was his. He was woozy, I could tell, and I was just starting to feel better.

  “You … cannot …” he said, grunting, staggering unbalanced on his feet. He looked even paler than he had when we’d begun, which took doing.

  “Can.” I hit him in the throat with my free hand and he expelled all his remaining air and looked at me with a shocked expression. “Will.” I hit him in the face with a hard cross and he fell to his knees, his eyes blinking, stars filling them. I felt the thrum and pull of my powers ripping at his soul, clawing it out of his body. I didn’t want it, but my body did. “Have.” I kicked him like I’d seen him lay into Eleanor Madigan and he flipped backward, end over end like a combination between a bowling ball and a ragdoll until he hit the wall of the white tower and lay there, unconscious. “Did.” I wiped blood off my forehead from the headbutt that had ended the world. “I guess that makes me number three, huh?”

  “Holy shite,” came Breandan’s voice from behind me, and I turned, giving the museum battlefield a look of cold fury that I had lately reserved for Kat. He was ragged but still standing next to Kat and Janus, who were attending to the fallen Madigan. Reed was glaring at Bast, who was glaring right back, trapped between him and Karthik. The suits were all down, as were the four ministers of Omega and Hera. “I appear to have lucked out in my choice of guardian angels,” he breathed then flipped his hand toward Bast, who was sitting very, very still, as though trying to decide whether or not to pounce. “Give it a go, if you want. See if your luck holds out.”

  Janus looked up at me from where he sat next to Kat and Madigan, his face drawn but serious. “You have become something very different than the girl I met in the basement of the Directorate.”

  I felt a wash of emotion through me and pushed it aside. “Is that good or bad?”

  Something tugged at the corner of his mouth as he forced a weary smile. “For the rest of the world, I think it is a good thing.” The smile evaporated as suddenly as it had appeared. “For your own sake, I think the opposite.”

  I looked over the carnage and my eyes came to rest on Bast, who watched me through narrowed, predatory eyes. “I need answers,” I said to Janus. “I need to know why Century wants me alive. I need to know why you’ve been after me this entire time.” I cut my gaze over to him. “I need the truth.”

  Janus gave me a slow nod then looked to Hera, who lay on the ground, dazed and bleeding, and she nodded. “You deserve the truth,” he said softly, and turned back to look me in the eyes. “If ever there was someone who deserved to know why everyone has been vying for your attention since day one, it is you.” His gaze softened. “I am sorry for not telling you earlier, but the truth of your situation is possibly the most closely guarded secret in the entire old world of meta civilization, and one that threatens to destroy us even now. No one knows this but the oldest of our kind, and it is information sealed away by a pact so ancient that most of us were little older than you when we made it.”

  He reached out to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “The truth is this: you have the power to save the entire world, or destroy it. And it is not something that should be used lightly, as—”

  His eyes froze in place then bulged, and his jaw fell in shock. His mouth moved open and closed several times, and I saw him gasp for air. A slow drip of something red fell on his shoulders, and it took me a moment to realize that it was blood. It flowed freely, turning into a drift that ran down his suit on either breast, dripping from the back of his head where something had appeared behind him, hazy, and only for a moment before it was gone again.

  “NO!” Kat screamed and lunged at him from behind. She caught him in her arms as he folded at the knees and dropped. There was a gaping wound in the back of his skull, I saw, as he fell forward and I caught him. I took care not to touch his skin as he lay, supported by Kat and I, his face slack.

  “You killed Eris,” came a voice from my left and I turned, in shock, to see Weissman sitting there with a knife in his hand the size of my forearm. He shrugged lightly. “Saved me some time.” I tore my gaze off of him to look to Aphrodite. Her throat was slit, her eyes glassy and lifeless. Hephaestus was dead too, similarly cut, his head nearly off from the savagery of the attack. I tossed a look back to Bastet, but she, too, was lying in a pool of her own blood, dead, as was Heimdall where I had left him
in a broken heap. I looked to Hera for any guidance, but she, too, was finished, the last of her kind. Her empty eyes rested on me, her blood ran red across the tile floor, and I could see by the angle of her neck that there was no hope for her, either.

  “I heard Heimdall say that he’d only been beaten by two people in his whole life,” Weissman said, looking down at the edge of his knife. “You were number three, huh?” He smiled, and looked at me over the edge of the blade, which dripped dark red on the white tile. “I guess this made me number four.”

  Chapter 30

  I made a move toward him and he pointed the knife at me. “Ah, ah, ah,” he said as he wagged the blade. “I’m running short on time, but don’t think I won’t gut you and leave you in a pile to heal while I kill every last one of your friends.” His eyes flashed, and I could see he wasn’t lying. “Don’t test me right now, because if I have to push the bounds and use my powers more, I will make you—and them—suffer.” He waved the blade over the gory mess that was the courtyard floor, the marble floors slick with blood. “My part here is done, as far as I’m concerned. I spoiled your sweet revelation scene,” he waved the blade toward the body of Janus, “killed anyone else who might tell you the truth—” He grinned. “It’s a shame. If they’d just been honest with you earlier, you know? We’d all be screwed. Trust the powerful to protect that power at all costs, even if it means their own lives.” His smile was so heartfelt I could tell he was enjoying the hell out of himself. “Good thing I was here to stop them from screwing everything up.”

  “How did you get here just in time?” Breandan asked the question that was on my mind.

  “It’s easy when you’ve got a spy reporting everything back to you,” Weissman said with a casual shrug, as though it were no big thing. “Isn’t that right, Eleanor?”

  I turned my head to see Madigan pulling herself up from the ground. Reed’s eyes met mine. He was a little bloody, but otherwise all right, standing not far from Eleanor, where he’d been standing off with Bast. I saw a hint of frustration from him, and I shook my head subtly. Not yet.