Apex

by Robert J. Crane

  The skinny, dark-haired waif standing before me looked at me with heat-vision eyes, even though I’d grasped onto her person for about a second, tops, but she let go the succubus-to-skin contact and, instead, gave me a piece of her mind. “You owe me,” she said, cutting right to it, “and I’ve come to collect.”

  I took a moment to sigh, then turned my back on her, and with a glance at the clock—it read 4:59—I broke my resolve and shuffled over to the bar, pouring myself a drink without ceremony. I filled it to nearing the top of the little glass, brought it up to my nose, let that peaty scent fill my nasal passages, and with an eye on the TV screen clock—it still read 4:59—I gave up on giving a shit and went ahead and sloshed it back, taking the whole glass down in one gulp.

  “Holy hell,” Eilish said. “It’s not five o’clock yet.”

  “Go for a jump with a pogo stick up your ass, Irish, I’m an alcoholic,” I said, feeling the scotch burn its way down my throat. That done, I poured another one as my invading “guest” stood in silence, just watching, her skin mottled as she clearly built on whatever internal ragey emotions had brought her to my door. I took another breath, and this time, I would savor my drink while I waited for the first to work. I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t, preferring the cold stare-me-down, as though waiting for my leave to speak, when I knew in reality it was no such damned thing.

  Because I knew why she was here without her even having to say anything.

  She said something anyway. “You owe me.”

  That one caused some heat in my cheeks. I kept the glass clutched between my fingers as I stared at the little figure darkening my door—well, my entry rug, now. I took a breath, and it seared like the scotch. “I don’t owe you a damned thing,” I said, staring right back at her, “Cassidy Ellis.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cassidy Ellis stood on my rug, this little slip of a girl trying to engage me—me, of all people!—in a staredown.

  Like that was going to work.

  “I helped you out of Scotland,” she said, pale face splotched with red. She looked like a Coke can.

  “And you got paid ten million for it,” I said. I took a whiff of the scotch in my glass, sloshing it slowly around the circle of my crystalline glass.

  “A serious discount to my going rates. I also lost my house, thanks to your brother.”

  I looked her up and down and made a show of doing so. She was in pretty good repair, you know, compared to me. “You seem fine. Living at the Four Seasons now, with all your piles of money?”

  She flushed. “No. They don’t have nearly the data line access I need—you know what, it doesn’t matter. You owe me, Sienna.”

  “You keep saying that,” I regarded my drink with a lot more interest than I did her. “But I paid you, which was, as far as I’m aware, the extent of my brother’s bargain on my behalf.”

  A small, very evil smile broke across her face. “You’re right. I guess I should be asking him for the favor he owes me.”

  I started to say, “Yeah, why don’t you go do that,” but then I remembered what Cassidy was here for. With my glass halfway to my lips, and watching her out of the corner of my eye, I froze.

  And saw the look of triumph in her eyes even without staring at her directly. Honestly, it was like looking at the sun, it was almost blinding.

  “What do you want, Cassidy?” I asked, kinda wanting her to just say it, even though I knew.

  She straightened. “I want you—or Reed, if you refuse—to track down that son of a whore that attacked my baby—”

  “Simmons is definitely a baby,” I said, “a big one.”

  “—I want this mutt dead,” Cassidy said, flushing brighter. “I want him—”

  “I get the point, Al Capone. The guy dead, his family dead, his puppy, probably dead—look, I don’t do that whole murder for fun thing, okay?” I took a sip of the scotch and wished it was a whole glass. The first I’d downed was starting to work on me, though.

  “You’ve killed plenty of people,” Cassidy said, “and for less reason than you’ve got with this guy. He killed a lot of people on that bridge, Sienna.” Convenient for her to leave out that her baby had killed a lot more people on the U.S.S. Enterprise before this mysterious vigilante had brought his interstate flight to an abrupt halt. “My estimates put it in the range of over a hundred, probably close to one-fifty.”

  I paused with the glass to my lips. The news had only confirmed five or so thus far.

  “Jaysus,” Eilish breathed.

  Yeah. It had been a bad day for human/meta relations. The best thing I could say about it was that at least I hadn’t been involved in any of it. For once.

  “Okay, that’s a point,” I said. “But this event is being treated as terrorism. They’ve locked down the airports, no one’s flying right now, and when they do open up flights again tomorrow, there’s no chance in hell I’m going to be able to get on even a private plane at this point. Security is tighter than your ass right now, Cassidy.” I shrugged a little expansively, but not so expansively I spilled even a drop of precious, precious scotch. “So … what do you expect me to do to pursue this guy?”

  She didn’t even blink. “Call your friend the incredible shrinking man and ask for a ride.”

  “Can’t,” I said. “He works for Reed, not me, and he’s already been called up.”

  That did deflate her slightly, enough to give me a little hope that she might come to her senses. But then I saw the look on her face, and realized it was her running some sort of scenario-style thing in her head, calculating probabilities or figuring out alternate routes like a GPS after you just took a way wrong turn. “Okay,” she said after a second, “we go by car.”

  I would have done a spit take, but the scotch, y’know. Why waste it for comic effect? Instead I picked up a water bottle, unscrewed the cap with one hand, took a sip, everyone watching me, and then sprayed it—about five seconds late, but still frigging hilarious. “This is not The Muppet Movie, and you must be for real tripping if you think I am road-tripping across America with either of you.”

  “Oof, that hurts,” Eilish said. “I rather enjoyed our Scottish excursion, you know, other than the constant fear of a Scottish ginger burning my very soul out of me.”

  “Either you help me or I call Reed and remind him of his obligation to me,” she said, unflinching. “I’m guessing he’s on the case already, and sooner or later he’ll catch up with this guy. Now maybe, in the course of events, he’ll have to fight him anyway, and if he kills him in the process, I’ll get my desired outcome.” God, she really was like a computer calculating odds. “If that’s the case, I’ll consider our bargain fulfilled.” She leaned in a little, flushing as she did so, her skin so pale that the slightest change in mood or emotional state seemed to light her up. “But what if he doesn’t kill this meta? What if he manages to beat him and bring him in with the help of your team? And then he’s forced to kill him to satisfy our bargain?” She arched her eyebrows at me. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “I kinda doubt that,” I said, staring at her. I was thinking about dashing her brains out with one punch just to be rid of her blackmailing ass, because as dumb as she thought I was, I could see the box she was trying to put me in here. I could see it coming a mile off.

  And it bothered me because … I had a feeling I was going to step right into it. Willingly.

  “You’re thinking, ‘Oh, he wouldn’t kill a prisoner just because he owes Cassidy,’” she said, and the hint of a satisfied smile started to creep over her thin lips. “But he’s not the same Reed anymore, is he? I saw him kill that metal bender in Scotland, without a thought, without remorse. He just killed that guy, easy as pie, because he threatened you. Now, Reed owes me—but it’s because of you. So when the obligation comes due—”

  “I hope you die painfully, Cassidy,” I said, holding my scotch glass as tight as I could without shattering it. If I threw it at her right now, I could probably—
if I aimed it perfectly—kill her with one shot.

  Cassidy did not seem moved by my comment. “So you’ll do it, then?” She almost smiled.

  She had the right of it. If she presented Reed with this same scenario, could I be sure he’d offer to satisfy her Faustian bargain—the one he’d struck to save my life?

  No. No, he probably wouldn’t kill a prisoner. And this guy—this meta, whoever he was—didn’t even seem like the type to go willingly or gracefully, assuming they could find him.

  But … at the same time … what if all the stars did align, and Reed’s team beat him without killing him? And Reed was confronted with his debt to Cassidy while in full custody of this vigilante killer who'd helped wreck a bridge that probably killed some people in the process?

  Reed … the old Reed … wouldn’t have done anything about it. The killer would go to the Cube, and that’d be that.

  But the new Reed? The more … Sienna-esque Reed, for lack of a better word?

  Shit.

  Who knew what he’d do? Mom eyes be damned.

  I felt my breath catch in my throat, and so I washed it down with a long drink of scotch that burned all through my gullet and down to my belly. “I don’t even know if we can find this guy,” I said, waiting for the burning to subside. “I mean, going by car while Reed and his crew are traveling by air? We’re going to be a day late and a dollar short to any encounters. They’ll be two, three hours behind him, maybe five if this guy goes to the West Coast … but we’ll be days from him.”

  Cassidy just stared back at me, flat, uncaring, borderline evil. “I don’t care. I want him dead for what he did to Eric.”

  I took another breath, and it stuck in my chest again. “What if I can’t deliver?”

  She stared at me. “If you give it your absolute best … I’ll consider us square. But if you slack off, back off—generally don’t give it your all?” She sidled up into my personal space. “I’ll know. And I’ll still come to Reed for a favor. One that will exact a toll on him. I’ll choose it carefully—it’ll look innocuous enough, but it’ll take from him in ways you won’t care to see the end result of.”

  Eilish let out a small gasp, then gulped. “That sounds … very worrisome.”

  I threw back the rest of my scotch, then set the empty glass down. That hitch in my breathing subsided as the alcohol hit home, and I felt my own face flush as though I were Cassidy, a burn starting within. “You have yourself a deal,” I said, grabbing her by the hand before she could dodge away. “But Cassidy … so help me—”

  “You don’t need to say it,” she yanked her hand away. “I don’t sting you, you don’t sting me.”

  “Sting you?” I turned away from her. “Little scorpion,” I smacked my lips together. I wanted nothing but more scotch, even though the second glass had barely made its way down to my stomach, but it was time to quit, “stinging is your thing. I’m Sienna Nealon, okay?” I turned back to her. “I don’t sting the things that piss me off …” I breathed in heavily, “… I scourge them from the damned earth. Now …” And I started to step, figuring on packing my bag, but I tripped instead, my legs feeling a little woozy.

  I hit the ground, sharp stinging pains ringing their way up my elbows. I bounced back to my feet a second later, head swimming from the quick double more-than-shot. “Okay. I’m okay.” I looked around. “Uhm … all right.” I nodded a couple times. “So …” I clapped my hands together. “… Who wants to drive?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Packing was a breeze, thankfully. I didn’t have much, and what I did have was easily shoved into my suitcase. There were no clothes waiting in the laundry, because Reed had put all of mine away for me before leaving. I perhaps should have found it awkward that my brother was laundering my unmentionables and then putting them in the drawers in my room, but honestly, I had zero interest in washing my own clothes, so it was something I’d learned to overlook in the last few months.

  “We’ll head north,” I said as I opened the door and stepped out on the landing, bag slung over my shoulder. Cassidy was just behind me, and Eilish was bringing up the rear, locking the door as we left the condo. She’d been pretty quiet since I’d made the decision to leave. For someone who’d been so keen on getting out just a little while earlier, she’d changed her tune pretty fast.

  Or stopped singing, I guess. Because of the quiet.

  “Oh, good,” Cassidy said acidly. “Because if we headed south, we’d be in the Gulf of Mexico within minutes, and if we headed west we’d be aiming for Texas where this meta is not—as yet.”

  “I notice you didn’t throw in a chance to make fun of her for not saying east,” Eilish said, pocketing the car keys with hardly any effort. She was slick, a practiced thief, and those movements carried into her everyday life, I’d noticed.

  Cassidy flushed only mildly. “If you were to head east, you could catch Interstate 75 or Interstate 95, both major north-south feeder arteries on the east coast.”

  “In other words, that would make sense, so she didn’t want to make fun of me for … not suggesting that?” I had lost the thread. I blame scotch. “Anyway … northward. We go north. Maybe via 90-75—whatever she said.” I waved a hand at her. “I leave the navigation to you, Cassidy.”

  “Fine,” she said, falling into a hurried step behind me. If I looked skeletal, she looked like bone fragments strung together with dental floss. “Where are we going?”

  I cast a look back at her. “I dunno. Where are we going?”

  Now she flushed a shade darker, and her asthma acted up, very audible in her next breath, which sounded like an unintended hiss. “Well, given that we know little to nothing about this—this villain,” I thought that was a bit rich coming from a lady who’d once conspired to humiliate, destroy and kill me, all from afar and with the aid of my worst enemies, “I think our first step is to visit the scene, as best we can.” She whitened a little as she seemed to decide the course, “to, um, canvas for clues.”

  “In a place where the cops and federal agents are thicker than the mosquitos on warm nights around here?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “I think we’re a lot better off getting to within a day’s drive of the scene and then waiting there until this guy shows his face again.”

  Cassidy was frowning so deeply behind me I could hear it in her voice. “Your plan is just to wait for him until he shows up again?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. “Were you watching that thing unfold? Where he sent the bridge to the bottom of the bay?”

  She caught up with me, coming alongside me and shooting a fiery look that was probably burning holes in the windows of the other condos we walked past on the way to the stairs. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Then you should know,” I said, really wishing I’d brought a scotch for the road, “what happened on that bridge—”

  “Was an attempted execution,” she said fiercely. “That man—that monster—he attacked my—”

  “Mass murderer boyfriend,” I said, smacking Cassidy with my words rather than my fist—for now. “Let us not forget that Eric killed more people than this guy. And if he were still alive—”

  Cassidy grabbed me by the hand and spun me, almost causing me to drop my bag in shock that she’d tried to manhandle me. Mousy Cassidy. She was staring at me with a blazing fire in her eyes. “He,” she said, now straining, “is not—dead.” The last word came out as kind of a hushed whisper.

  Drink almost got the better of me, and I was on the verge of saying, “Suuuuuure he’s not.” But I was about to spend hours and possibly days in a confined car with Cassidy, and some little genius part of me stopped that reply at the last second. Instead, I went with the blandly neutral, “Okay.” And then followed it up with, “But it wasn’t an execution, there on the bridge.” I looked at her, trying to stay somewhat compassionate by dialing back my desire to hit her so hard she’d fly off the balcony and into the parking lot. It wasn’t as easy as you might think, with the scotch burning through my veins.<
br />
  She only held off for a moment before curiosity got the better of her. “What was it, then?”

  “Looked like a bloody annunciation, didn’t it?” Eilish tossed in. I gave her a nod. Mad respect. She went on. “I mean, he drops of out of the sky like a fiery avenging angel, doesn’t he? That’s not just a vigilante coming to—what does Sienna call it? ‘Lay the smack down’?”

  “Pretty sure that was Dwayne Johnson, not me,” I said, maybe reddening a little. From drink, surely. “I might have quoted and possibly appropriated it as my own.”

  “He doesn’t really say much, just throws down the vengeance on your boy and then leaves,” Eilish said. “Executions have announcements—I mean, I assume. We don’t really have those in the UK, see. But I’m guessing when you do them here, there’s some sort of reading off of the crimes the guilty party’s committed, et cetera. None of that, though. Ergo, it wasn’t vengeance for your ship the bloke was after, in spite of this fire man’s sandbagging attempt to fight your lad.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Either he’s a government agent that got carried away in striking down a threat, or …” I shrugged. “This was the start of something else.” We took the stairs down a few at a time to the ground floor. “And if it was the start of something else …”

  “We’ll be hearing about it soon,” Cassidy said, almost numbly. That was, of course, her problem—she couldn’t figure out people. Eilish, though—she knew people. She had to. They were her marks.

  “Now, this guy can fly,” I said, “so really, he could show up anywhere.”

  “Then why head north?” Cassidy asked, blinking as she tried to reason along with me.

  “The eastern seaboard is the mostly densely populated section of the United States in easy traversal distance,” I said. “I mean, except during rush hour. You can go from Boston to DC in—what, a few hours?”

  “In perfectly optimal conditions, six hours, forty-five minutes,” Cassidy said, “via the Acela Express.”