“A maths class, then,” Eilish said, very straight-faced. “What? Even the odds, get it?”
“I got it,” I said, “it was just terrible, that’s all. All right, people,” and I headed back for the bedroom, “I’m going to go take the most productive nap I’ve ever taken. Hold down the fort while I’m gone, will you?”
“You’ll be safe until you come back out,” Harry said, giving me a fake salute. “Kick his ass, Sienna. Kick it hard enough he’ll carry a grudge from here to eternity. And—never mind,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve got this.”
“Damned right I do,” I said, disappearing into the bedroom, dark and inviting, waiting for me—a battlefield fit for a succubus.
Because if there was anything I was good at, it was pissing people off.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“So it is you,” the Predator said as he entered the darkness of the dreamwalk with me, looking around at the hints of broken street, of the shadow of buildings beyond the lines of dark that hung in the distance like night closed in.
I’d chosen the scene of our fight because it seemed likely to put him at ease, to remind him that yeah, he’d beaten me hard. I needed him lulled for a few minutes, anyway, before I got back to the business of throwing down the gauntlet. Right on his junk. “Yeah, it’s me,” I said, “the girl who dealt the hardest ass kicking you’ve yet experienced in your brief supervillain career.”
He was dark of hair and fair of skin, absent the flame that had consumed him when I’d met him in the almost-flesh. His face in the dream lacked the creative alterations I’d made to it through my punching. That was interesting; I doubted he’d healed yet, but maybe. At the very least, he hadn’t taken the beating I’d given him onboard psychologically.
So, in his mind … flawless victory. It was time to turn that feeling around.
He shook his head at my jibe, made a noise of disdain, and then a shoving motion as if to ward me off. “I beat you, and you ran.”
Overconfidence. I like that in someone I’m about to pummel.
“Well, you kinda overpowered me like, ten to one,” I said, flippant. I had dreamwalked myself into a new wardrobe, something that felt more classically Sienna—leather coat, jeans, stylish t-shirt, and some steel-toed boots. Yes, steel-toed even in my dreams. Because they’re my dreams, duh. “I suppose I could have hung around and taken the killing punch, but it seemed stupid to do so since my intention is to whip your ever-loving, superpowered ass, and to date you haven’t killed but maybe one of your challengers.” I cocked my head. “So … was it because you felt threatened? Or was it because you realized that you’re really a chickenshit at heart, and that me being a threat to you scared you enough to want to kill me?”
A dark cloud ran over his face, a shadow not unlike the ones hiding the scenery around us. “You don’t frighten me.”
“Au contraire, mon frère,” I said, going to that chipper tone of voice I only used when I was really trying to piss someone off. So … often, I guess? “You tried to blast my face into oblivion.” I touched my cheeks gently, probing. “My pretty, pretty face. Why would you want to destroy something so beautiful if not from fear? I mean, I guess I could understand spite as a motive, since you are not so pretty, but …”
“You are trying to goad me,” he said with a patronizing smile. “It will not work.”
“What are you afraid of?” I asked. “Losing your temper? You already lost that, Bubsy. Or was spiking my head into a sidewalk like a normal Thursday for you?”
He frowned. “It is Monday.”
“So sue me, I can’t keep track of the days anymore.” I shrugged. “Your superpowers … they’re lab grown, aren’t they? You didn’t manifest them naturally. Not at your age.” I had him pegged as in his thirties by looks, and he didn’t have that air about him that screamed old meta.
He hesitated, then surveyed his surroundings as if trying to assuage his worries. Which was good, because the fact that he was talking and answering the question meant I’d riled him enough to talk, but not enough to break off all contact—yet. It was coming, though. “I have been a metahuman for two years, yes. Very good guess.” He smiled tightly. “Long enough to learn that I am stronger than you, or any of your friends, the supposed light of mankind.”
“If you’re calling me the light of mankind, you must be from somewhere super dark,” I said. “Another guess … Revelen?”
He stiffened visibly, almost flinching. “I am not from Revelen.” He seemed to draw back, wary eyes on me. “But it is where I was … made. Or made powerful, perhaps.”
Huh. An interesting little item of note, I thought. “So … did you meet Vlad?”
He frowned. “… Vlad?”
“The man in charge,” I said. “The one everyone is terrified of when they meet him.”
He nodded once, slowly. “I have met him.”
I stared back at him. “And you’re terrified of him?”
He stared back at me, and there was a hint of uncertainty, then he nodded, just once. “Only a fool would not be.”
“Are you running from him?” I asked, bypassing the other pressing question I had.
He nodded again. “Only a fool would not be.” And this time he smiled again, but his eyes were hollow and his look utterly without joy.
“What’s your name?” I asked more softly, guiding us away from being confrontational. I had a couple more weapons in my arsenal that I could use, but I didn’t want to use them unless he proved … difficult.
“Stepane,” he said. “Stepane Abraam.”
“You had two powers when you manifested?” I asked, and he nodded. Suddenly it made sense.
Every so often, a meta would be born with two abilities, one each from their mother and father. Aleksandr Gavrikov had gotten flight and fire, for instance.
Stepane here had probably had latent powers; a metahuman way up the family tree somewhere, so far back that the abilities would never have shown up on their own.
But with the serums developed in Revelen, they’d unlocked his basic powers. “Fire,” I said, “and … the Odin ability? The Warmind?”
Stepane nodded again. He seemed withdrawn now that I’d confronted him directly. “They were what I started with.”
“And they gave you other serums,” I said. “The one that boosts those base powers. Which is why your fire and your Warmind are so damned epic in strength.” I thought about how he’d blasted the fear through my head in a way I’d never felt before, and how his control over the flames was second to … well, maybe Gavrikov, and that was it. “And the one that unlocks tangential abilities—which is why you can use wind, water, earth …”
“I have illusion powers,” he said, “flight … some others of small note.”
“They gave you serious juice,” I said. “You took me on, took on my team … and you won. Congrats on that, by the way, it’s not an easy thing to do.”
“When I left Revelen … when I escaped …” He stared into the darkness, as though it were going to leap out at him, “I did not wish to be afraid again.” Now he looked at me, and there was darkness in his eyes. “Do you know what it is like … to fear someone? Someone … unstoppable? To know they are out there, that they can rip you apart at any time? That they are just waiting to do so until it is convenient? Until they want to?”
I had a flash of a girl with flaming red hair and mad eyes, anger flowing through her like her countless powers. I thought about her, dead on the Scottish soil in her own village, and suppressed the shudder. “Yes,” I said. “I know what that’s like.”
“I came here … to become the best,” Stepane said, voice echoing hollow. “To find my strength. Because … he … is out there. And he will come for me … sooner or later. I must try and be ready. Be the best. To find the strength to beat the best.”
“What did he call himself with you?” I asked.
Stepane looked at me, puzzled. “What need did he have for a name? He was simply him. Anyone
who met him knew to whom you would refer.”
Hm. That didn’t answer anything for me.
“He was the most evolved among us, you see,” Stepane went on, and I let him monologue. “The most powerful.”
“You make it sound like that’s all that matters,” I said.
Stepane let out a cackle. “It is all that matters. This is what we humans do—prey upon each other. The weak die or capitulate and serve, the strong ascend and rule over them. One of your presidents said, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’” He shook his head. “Those are the thoughts of a privileged man coddled by civilization, softened by the rule of law.”
“Well, he suffered a debilitating illness that left him in a wheelchair, so I don’t know that he lived an adversity-free life …” I said.
Stepane shook his head. “Adversity is not the issue. By the law of the jungle, he would be eaten.”
“I’m glad we don’t do that anymore. Pretty sure I’d be forever trying to get the flavor of certain people out of my teeth.”
“You joke, but you don’t see it,” Stepane said. “The laws of civilized society are a ruse. A mask that hides what truly happens. The strong still rule, just more gently now.”
“Why wasn’t I ruling when I was strong, then?” I asked.
“You were a threat to those with a different type of power,” Stepane said, eyes glimmering in triumph. “That is why you were cast out and chased. The balance had to move, all society had to be put against you, because you were too powerful then for just one person or two people to simply take you out.”
“Well, this has been a fascinating discussion on strength and Darwinism with a nice little detour into cannibal land,” I said, “but here’s the thing …” I heard a faint whisper, somewhere outside the dreamwalk.
Deltan Data Systems. South Minneapolis. It was Cassidy’s voice. An address followed.
“Yes?” Stepane asked, looking around. I couldn’t tell if he’d heard it, or if he was just responding to my eyes darting around, like Cassidy’s face was going to appear out of the darkness.
“You got strong, I congratulate you on this,” I said, staring him down. “Why, you may even be the most powerful meta in the Western Hemisphere, since it seems like you think old Vlad in Revelen is still a little too much man for you to take on.”
He looked at me evenly, seeking out signs of deception. “Thank you.”
“But …” I said, dropping the other shoe, “you’re really only powerful in the waking world.” I smiled. “In here … I’m way stronger than you.”
“How—”
He didn’t even get the question out before I was all over him, applying my succubus pain-generating powers with complete abandon. I’d never assaulted anyone in a dreamwalk the way I assaulted him now, dredging up every sort of nightmare I could, pouring on the agony while I bound him tight and immobile, unable to so much as twitch here in his dream.
Stepane was paralyzed, his mouth open wide, screams trying to come out, but I’d blocked them. I could hear them echoing in my head, resonating throughout the darkness of the dreamwalk as though they were transmitted by sound wave across my skin. He screamed and screamed and screamed—
And after about fifteen seconds that made him feel like it was an eternity, I let him loose and turned down the agony.
“That’s a fraction of what I can do,” I said as he huffed, breathing hard, into the black emptiness that was the ground in here. “And I’m going to come visit you every night, until you get to a point where you don’t dare sleep for fear of knowing that this moment is coming—
“That I’m coming for you.” I leaned in and breathed the last words in his ear, and where with lovers past I’d infused my whispers with sweetness, here I went the opposite direction, and he shuddered in revulsion and fear. “How’s that compare to ol’ Vlad? Who do you fear now?”
“What … do you want?” He looked up at me, gritting his teeth. Now I’d pushed him over the edge into fury.
“I want a rematch, bucko,” I said. “Away from police snipers, away from prying eyes—at least until the cops show up—and far, far away from interference by anyone who might want to stop our little battle to see who the strongest really is.”
“You are weak,” he said, oozing a little drool down his chin. “You stand no chance against me.”
“I almost kicked your ass before, sparky,” I said, brushing his cheek and making him scream in agony once more as I sauntered off, casting one look back before leaving him with a taunt I knew would have its desired effect. “And this time? I’m not going to go nearly so easy on you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Iwoke from the dreamwalk with a gasp, sitting up to find Harry next to me, and Cassidy tapping away in the corner of the room, still lit by her screen. She glanced at me for just a second, then went back to typing.
“You heard?” Cassidy asked.
“Deltan Data Systems in South Minneapolis,” I said, shivering a little, either from the torture I’d just performed or the realization I was about to go into another fight that would probably end up in an incredibly brutal fashion. “You sure about that one?”
“It’ll work,” she said, not looking up.
“Harry—” I started to say.
“I’ll go get us a vehicle,” he said, already on his feet. He brushed my hand as he stood, and I realized he’d been kneeling at the side of the bed when I’d awoken. He tossed me a smile, then vanished through the bedroom door. A few seconds later, I heard the front door open and close.
“I think he might have a crush on me,” I muttered under my breath.
“Duh,” Cassidy said. “Even I can see that.” Then she paused, looking at her computer screen, eyes unfocused.
“You’re thinking about Simmons … about Eric, aren’t you?” I asked, putting my legs over the side of the bed.
She looked down, almost trying to hide behind the screen of her laptop, but it was so small it afforded no protection from my prying gaze. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Is he dead?” I asked.
She didn’t answer for a moment, staring straight ahead. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t?” I asked. “No body found, I assume?”
She shook her head. “No body. No confirmation.”
I let her baste in silence for a beat. “What was he doing in Virginia? Why was he attacking that aircraft carrier?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I … when I got out of the Cube, it was before everyone else. Harmon let me loose … to come work with him on destroying you and completing the serum. When Eric got out …” She turned so I could see her profile. “I don’t know what happened, but when I finally got free of Harmon a few months later … he had already disappeared.”
“I suppose a guy like Simmons wouldn’t want to be found by the cops again.”
“No,” she said, turning to look right at me, eyes burning. “He didn’t disappear from the cops. I could have found him if he’d gone underground. He disappeared, Sienna. Vanished. Not just off the grid, off the continent. No record of travel under any alias. No one matching his description. He was gone, like he’d never even existed.” She turned away again. “Not many people have that kind of power to … make things disappear and reappear—like he did in Virginia. No customs record. No passport. The FBI investigation?” She touched her laptop screen. “It’s like he dropped out of thin air. Eric wouldn’t have gone after a target like an aircraft carrier just for the fun of it. He’d need a reason. Someone made him do this.” Her face hardened. “They pushed him in the path of this maniac.” She looked away. “They got him killed.”
I felt a little chill, like a familiar boogeyman had come strolling behind me and stroked my spine. “There’s only one group I know of that seems to have the ability to make things appear and disappear out of the United States these days without any trace.”
Her gaze hardened. “Revelen.”
I nodded. “It’s hard
ly conclusive, but … yeah.”
“I don’t know much more about what’s going on over there than you do,” she said, focusing back on her screen. “They’ve got someone who’s pure dynamite working Infosec for them.”
“ArcheGrey1819,” I said, taking a breath as I slid off the bed and stood.
“Probably,” Cassidy said. “But her architecture is so good it’s tough to tell without seeing inside the walls for hints of her … signature code.”
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked, thinking again of her use of pep pills during our road trip. She had the dark circles under her eyes now, and I wondered how long it had been since she’d slept.
“Your false concern is unnecessary,” Cassidy said, focusing her attention back on her screen and typing again. “You don’t really care if I’m processing these amphetamines properly.”
“I care a little bit,” I said, trying to be gentle. “From a purely utilitarian standpoint … Cassidy, you’re watching my back on this. I need you in the best possible working condition.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, not looking up from whatever she was typing. “I can work for seven and a half days without sleep, and I’m on day four, hour six. As you know from your recent experiments with alcohol consumption, narcotic effects are lessened among metahumans due to superior liver and kidney function—”
“I was expressing concern for you as a person,” I said. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
She paused her typing. “Oh,” she said, not looking up from the screen. Her pale skin glowed in the screen light and she glanced up at me. “I know you’re not doing this for me anymore. Because of our debt.”
I sighed. “And here I was hoping this would square things between us. Kinda annoying that you finally learned enough about detecting human motives to figure out mine had changed in the course of this thing.”
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