“All right, you stupid boy, you want to play?” She hissed at him, and Bruno watched as her features began to distort. Claws erupted from her hands, fangs extended from a mouth that seemed to unhinge. Her skin, which had always seemed to gleam with eternal youth, grew dry and scaly. And her eyes! They seemed to sink back into her head, her pupils dilating until only luminous black beads stared back at him in anger. She drew in a long, raspy breath and exhaled. Slowly, the wounds on her legs began to mend, and with an awful crack her kneecap righted itself. When she finally spoke, it wasn’t her usual voice, high-pitched and sublime. It was something dark, sinister and bestial. It was hungry.
“Let’s play,” she growled, and leapt towards him.
Bruno launched himself straight up, snagged an exposed ceiling rung and pulled himself up. Caught up in the charge, Harmony flew beneath him and braced herself for impact with the wall. She recoiled, spinning in midleap and attempted to propel herself up to claw the dexterous man down from his perch, when her face met with Bruno’s feet as he swung down. She flew back, but not before lashing out in a wide arc with her claws, catching him low on the leg and tearing up a sizable portion of his calf muscle. Bruno grunted in pain and landed a bit clumsily on his feet.
Just need to keep her occupied, keep her from rabbiting, until help arrives. Come on, Bull, what’s keeping you?
They circled each other warily, both hobbling a little and favoring their good legs.
“Give it up, Bruno,” Harmony rasped. “Just walk away. What do you hope to accomplish here? I gave Verdigris to you! There’s nothing left here for you, except whatever pitiful price your tired sense of justice and honor demands of you.”
“Y’know, Harmony,” Bruno said, “you’re talking an awful lot for someone who thinks this fight is so one-sided. I think you’re stalling.”
Harmony grinned, and the sight of her lips curled around those horrific fangs chilled Bruno more than he cared to admit.
“Of course I am, you idiot,” she chuckled. “Did you really think your locker room chats with Blacksnake minions would make you privy to all my secrets? You think you know so much about me, but you’ve barely scratched the surface. And with each second, while you bleed and tire, I’m just getting stronger.”
“You’re bluffing,” he said. “You still need a boost; even you’re not that good an actor.”
“Not that good an actor?” she said, incredulously. “I had you all fooled for years, boy! You have no appreciation for what I endured, just to live amongst you, like some common . . .”
“So you’re method, I get that. You’re the Marlon Brando of the meta world, kudos. You think it matters now, Harm? All that work, all the lies, and for what? What did you accomplish here? What are you accomplishing now?”
“Well, right now I’m educating one sad little kid who thinks he’s developed a lot more than he has.”
“You know what I think?” Bruno said, coming to a stop. “I think you’re struggling with yourself. I think you actually made friends here, found people you care about. I think that’s why you didn’t just take Bull out when you had the chance. I think that’s why you hesitated with Scope. I think that’s why I’m still standing. You’re fighting yourself. You just can’t bring yourself to do it. It’s not too late, Harmony. You’ve already set Verdigris up, but good. They’ll listen to you if you carry it through. They’ll give you a fair shake if you come back and hammer that final nail in his coffin.”
He extended a hand and his eyes bore into hers.
“Come back to us, Harmony.”
She had stopped moving, and heard him out. Her face was so reptilian now he found it difficult to gauge what she was thinking. She looked down at his hand, and for a moment he thought she would reach for it.
“Bruno!” Bull’s shout rang out far behind them, and they heard thunderous footsteps in the distance.
Harmony hissed. “You little, two-faced shit, you were stalling too!”
Bruno grinned, and shrugged. “What can I say? Fast learner.”
With a roar, she turned to run, but stopped as he pulled in front of her.
“It’s over, Harmony,” he said, quietly. “This ends today.”
He danced lightly on the balls of his feet, moving from side to side, but his intentions were clear. If she was going to escape, she would have to get through him.
“I say when it ends,” she snarled, and lunged at him. She swung wildly, in desperation, hoping to break through his defenses with sweeping rakes and quick shots to the head and stomach. Bruno stayed on the defensive, dodging what blows he could, deflecting those he could not. He neutralized her sudden and reckless desire to flee with cold and detached blocking maneuvers, neatly diverting her fury and forcing her to retreat with rapid counterstrikes and feints.
The footsteps were close now. Too close, Harmony thought. She took a step back, and with a final, desperate lunge, she tackled Bruno to the ground. They fell, rolled together, and with a tremendous effort Harmony reared back and smashed his head with her own. Bruno gurgled and went limp. With a cry of victory, Harmony laid her hand upon his masked face to pry off his goggles. She hissed as they stuck fast. The little shit had sealed his gear together! From his goggles to his fitted gas filter, Bruno had left nothing exposed, and Bulwark was almost on her . . .
She took a breath and reared back with one clawed hand. With a final, desperate surge of strength, she plunged her hand into Bruno’s chest, tearing through his body armor. Her claws slipped between his ribs, and she felt the tips puncture his heart. She sighed in relief, and began to gorge herself on his life-force, siphoning his strength greedily. She felt her wounds heal, the pain subside, and as she came to her feet, ready to sprint away at full speed, her legs were ravaged with a storm of bullets.
Her eyes went wide in disbelief. Her legs, which had just finished healing, buckled again as fresh wounds erupted in gouts of blood. She sank to her knees, and stared as Scope hobbled closer, her guns still at the ready.
“Give me a reason, Harmony,” Scope muttered, and pressed both muzzles to Harmony’s temple.
Harmony didn’t answer, and simply closed her eyes.
Scope looked down. Through his thick goggles, Bruno stared back at her. He lay in a growing pool of blood which seeped from his chest. His breathing, shallow and sporadic, slowed and came to a halt. Scope let out a startled sob, and with a scream of loss she squeezed both triggers. Harmony’s head snapped back, her body went limp, and collapsed on top of Bruno.
“Scope!” Bull shouted as he ran up to them. “We needed her alive! Why did you do that?”
Scope glared at him. She knelt down, dropped her pistols, and gently pushed Harmony off of Bruno. She laid a hand on his neck, found the hidden clasp, and pulled off his entire mask. Softly, she pushed his hair back from his forehead, and closed his eyes.
“She gave me a reason,” Scope answered. She shook her head. “Besides, do you really think a couple of bullets to the head would kill her?”
Bull tore his eyes away from Bruno, and watched as Harmony continued to breathe. Her wounds had stopped bleeding too. From her legs and forehead, Scope’s bullets were slowly pushed out by healing bone and tissue, and fell with a clatter to the ground. He knelt down, fished the reinforced restraints from his belt, and locked them about her wrists and ankles.
Over the radio there came only a single strangled sob. Then Vickie’s voice, hoarse and choked. “Overwatch to Echo. Man down. Harmony captured. Dispatch security team to grid 4-8-1 with containment suit and full metahuman restraints.”
Scope leaned down, and held Bruno’s still body close to hers.
“Hey, Bruno,” she whispered. “We did it, geekboy. We got the bad guy.”
Her head sagged, and her body shook with silent sobs as her arms tightened around him. When the security and med teams arrived, she didn’t notice, not until Bull gently pried her away.
* * *
Tears spilled down Vickie’s face; her vision blurr
ed and she dashed the back of her hand across her burning eyes to clear them, and kept on typing. Her fault. Bruno was dead, and it was all her fault. Bull was right, she had sent him to die, and she had known he was right at the time, and she had done it anyway. Because the stakes were too high, and she had known that too. But that didn’t keep it from being her fault.
Bulwark thought like a soldier and a cop. He assumed that once you had the evidence, everything would be fine. But Vickie thought like the sort of FBI agent her parents were; she knew that evidence was never enough when it came to someone as slippery as Dominic Verdigris. There was no substitute for the credible witness in the stand, and no one would be more credible than Harmony—because given the right deal, she’d employ her acting ability to the utmost and no defense attorney would be able to shake her. That was why she had sent Bruno after the rogue assassin. And that was why she would never forgive herself for doing so.
She ignored the tears, because it was the mission that was important, not her, and her part of the mission wasn’t over yet. There was still something more she could do. Verd was smart, experienced, savvy, but if she could manage to rattle him . . . “Grey, grow some hands,” she said hoarsely. “You’re a better video editor than I am and I’m going to need both of us on the boards.”
The familiar sprang up beside her without a word; his paws elongated into raccoon-like hands, and he went to work on the video from the feeds and Harmony’s files. Meanwhile Vickie pulled up the hack-file to everything that called itself “the media” that she had kept in reserve for just this sort of occasion; when she was done with her data dump, there would not be a single legitimate place for Dominic Verdigris to hide. And maybe, just maybe, he’d rabbit. Then it would be all over for him; running would be a tacit admission of guilt. She was under no illusions that more than a tenth of his operation would be shut down, of course. He operated inside so many shell companies that he wouldn’t lose more than a fraction of his net worth.
But governments would drop their open associations with him like red-hot rocks, his legitimate businesses would be sanctioned or shut down, accounts would be frozen, assets seized, he’d have no one that would openly aid him, and from now on he’d have to operate from the shadows, within his criminal organizations only.
And Echo would be safe.
It wasn’t enough, it wasn’t nearly enough, but at least it was something.
You bought us that much, Bruno. Your friends will be safe again.
* * *
Dominic Verdigris had the jarring experience of hearing his own voice coming from the ranks of speakers around the Plaza—speaking words entirely different from those he was mouthing into the microphone.
Shocked, he whirled to stare at the Jumbotron, at video of himself, in his office; a bit fuzzy, taken from what must have been a button cam, but unmistakably him.
“So, Ms. . . . Krait?” The Dom up there raised an eyebrow. “Helena Krait. A serpent name for a Blacksnake agent . . . why do I get the impression this isn’t your real name?”
An off-camera voice replied with indifference. “I hardly think it matters what nom de guerre I use, as long as I get the job done.”
“You have most assuredly, Ms. Krait,” he heard himself saying, and watched himself leaning forward. “Very nice intel from the heart of Echo itself. But I am the new boss, and I want more than that. You were Blacksnake’s prime assassin for quite some time as Agent Talisman. I’m reactivating you.”
“And I presume you have a target?”
“Indeed I do,” said the Dom in the video, leaning back in his chair. “I want you to take out Alex Tesla.”
Dominic felt his mind freeze for a moment. Then he whirled and turned on Khanjar. “Get that off of there! Cancel that feed! Stop it!”
Khanjar had one hand to her ear. “Can’t. Whoever is doing this is better than anyone you have, Dom—”
The female voice from the feed was saying something else now. “This is Special Operative Talisman of Blacksnake, formerly known as Echo Op Trainee Harmony. On this, the first year anniversary of the global Invasion, Dominic Verdigris III attempted to assassinate a MARTA train full of Echo veterans and their Echo Op escorts by way of a bombing . . .”
She was spilling it. She was spilling it all. And she was supposed to be dead! Why wasn’t she dead?
Video of fighting on the MARTA train, in the station, was being played as her damning words thundered across the plaza. Khanjar’s hand was at the small of his back, and she was shoving him towards the emergency exit, gesturing to the rest of his special security to follow. “Dom, I don’t know who this is, but he’s a genius. All of this is going direct feed to every possible news organization, political blog, and interested party across the planet and there is nothing we can do about it!” she hissed urgently as they sprinted for the innocuous vehicles they had held in reserve in case they needed them.
His mind steadied. There had always been the possibility that one day he’d be outed. He hadn’t planned on it being of the sheer disastrous scope of this, but he’d set up for it. After all, he’d been a criminal before he went legit, and he wouldn’t lose more than a fraction of his assets now if he had to shed the legitimate side of his businesses. Hell with it. Being the billionaire playboy was a waste of time anyway. “Activate the poison-pill plan,” he snarled to Khanjar as she shoved him into the back seat of the getaway car. She nodded, and began issuing radio orders. “All Blacksnake. Pull back, pull out, retreat to safe houses. Operation Cyanide is now activated. Repeat . . .”
* * *
“Overwatch to all. Blacksnake is retreating. Verd is rabbiting. Repeat, Blacksnake is retreating. Verd is escaping.”
“Well, that is beink explain why offense changes to defense,” Red Saviour muttered to herself, as she watched the Blacksnake ops that had been pinning her down with a hail of fire suddenly begin withdrawing. “All CCCP! At them, my wolves! Capture is secondary!”
From somewhere down the wrecked shopping complex she heard Untermensch scream his signature battle cry. “Ura ura ura!”
And from elsewhere, she heard over the link, the plaintive cry of Soviet Bear. “Retreating? What am I to be doing with all this C4?”
◊ ◊ ◊
Bella glanced at Soviette, who nodded abruptly. “There will not be any prisoners, comrade, unless you take them,” the Russian said. “We can handle healings from here on.”
Bella did not hesitate. “Overwatch, is there any chance I can get Verd?”
“Not from where you are. I’ve already lost him. Bastard had a fleet of identical vehicles in an underground garage, killed all the cams in there and ditched his Echo gear, so I couldn’t tell which one he got into. I’m tracking them, but I bet they all get to something I can’t track in the next five to fifteen. By the time I get a magical lock on him—if I can—he’ll be someplace where I can’t get at him. Nearest team to you is Corbie, down one level and on the tracks.”
“Roger that. I’m going to try and nail some alive.”
“Either that, or you might catch up with the security team; I’d feel better if you locked down Harmony. I don’t think she has psi-defense.”
Bella hesitated. Of the two . . . Harmony was the more important. “Roger that. Give me the rendezvous point.”
If she had anything to say about it, Harmony was never again going to be able to move without throwing up her toenails. Messing up someone’s inner ear was trivial for Bella now. We may need you alive, bitch, but I don’t have to make it pleasant for you.
* * *
John Murdock leaned back against a wall, and stared, exhausted, at his comrades. Red Saviour was grinning like a sated tiger. Soviet Bear was whooping it up. Mamona was jumping up and down, and where she’d found the energy, JM had no idea. Overwatch had just passed the word. Those of Blacksnake that were left were neutralized, Harmony was a prisoner, Verdigris had disappeared, and already the FBI and Interpol had him on the “most wanted” list, with the Federal and States
’ Attorneys General cascading a series of warrants into the system as fast as they could be written up. Yankee Pride had declared himself “Operational CEO of Echo,” with not a single dissenting voice.
They had won. They had won.
* * *
Vickie felt the tide of guilt roll over her. Bruno was dead, and it was her fault. And yes, so were Rider, and Frank, and far too many others, but Rider and Frank had both known what they were doing, and what the cost was going to be. Bruno—Bruno she had sent to his death.
Sobs fought themselves up out of her throat, and she grabbed a wad of Kleenex. There was no expiation for this. Bulwark had been right, and he, and Scope, would probably hate her until the day they died. Nor could she blame them. She hated herself. She hadn’t thought it possible to loathe herself more than she had, but it seemed there were no limits to how much she could hate herself.
She heard a knock at her door.
Whoever it was . . . damn it, it couldn’t be Bella, she knew where Bella was. Which meant whoever it was, it was someone she didn’t want to see. She thumbed the intercom, and brought up the camera.
Bulwark.
“Go away,” she said hoarsely. “Busy.”
“Let me in, Victrix,” Bull said, quietly. “We should talk.”
“We both know what you’re gonna say. Save time and file the after-action report stating that the loss of Operative Acrobat was my fault.” The words came out, harsh, stark, and ringing with truth. “I already have, so that will just confirm it. Now go away. You’re no good at blowing smoke up anyone’s ass anyway.”
“You’re right,” he answered. “I tend to be straight with people, don’t I? So let me in; we should talk.”
She thought about it, and blew her nose. “If I don’t let you in, you’re just gonna stand there all night, aren’t you?”
Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle Page 55
