I was pondering the layout, looking past the big reception desk, when I caught sight of the first movement in the shadows to my right. I spun in time to see a giant walking out of a side corridor, big and bulky and five times my height. It looked like it was crouching low to avoid scraping the ceiling, and low, heavy breathing scraped out of the place where its mouth would be. Glowing red eyes gleamed in the semi-dark, piercing and fixed on me as it moved into my path.
Another pulled itself out of the shadows to my left, like a boulder unfolding from sleeping on the battlefield and turning into a rock giant of the sort you might expect to find in a cheesy fantasy novel. I couldn’t see its features, but it was craggy and misshapen, like a cliff face pulling itself to life.
There they stood, twin pillars of death, leering down at me with those eyes, those scary-looking eyes. They breathed in the dark, then got louder, howls echoing through the open space, and I could sense the malice of these giants, these things that meant to destroy me, as they swooped down to attack.
8.
“Karthik,” I called past the horrors menacing me, threatening to descend and destroy me, frightening figures in the dark, “knock this bullshit off.”
With that, they vanished, the wide, open space before the cubicles suddenly lit brightly, a young man behind the reception desk who was all too familiar guarding access to the warren of offices behind him.
“Sienna,” Karthik said, his black hair slicked back, dark eyes watching me tentatively, “I’d say it’s good to see you, but…”
“You don’t have to lie on my account,” I said, keeping my hands at my sides. I didn’t want to tell him that he’d almost gotten me with that effect he’d created. Those giants had been freaky real, something I vaguely remembered about Karthik’s earlier creations, but seeing something this sweeping and intimidating? I didn’t remember him being able to do that sort of grand terror convincingly before. “Looks like you’ve upped your game. With your Rakshasa powers, I mean.”
Karthik smiled tightly, taking the compliment in the way it was intended. “Thank you. Coming from you, this means…quite a lot. You seem to be gaining some power yourself.”
“I dunno about that,” I said. “Gaining attention, maybe. But I’m still basically the same Sienna you knew before. Nothing new to report, power-wise.” This was a lie, but why would I share with him that I’d added telepathy to my list of abilities? Especially when he was already acting like I was the enemy.
My oh my, Harmon said, Omega is certainly up to a great deal of mischief.
Anything that should concern me? I asked. This was one of the reasons I’d avoided paying a call on them. Karthik and his boss had fought on my side during the war against Sovereign, and I had a vague sense—no, strike that—I knew they were up to no good, and while I was visiting this place as a fugitive from the law, I didn’t particularly want to have to bust up their little operation. Which I would feel obligated to do if I knew they were up to real, honest-to-goodness bad.
Mid-level criminality, I’d say. They’re mostly steering clear of killing, if that worries you. Mostly.
My jaw involuntarily tightened. Aren’t we all.
“What are you doing here?” Karthik asked, arms folded in front of him.
“Social call,” I said. “I was in the neighborhood…or leaving the neighborhood for a spell, thought I’d stop in and say hi.”
Karthik was trying to be inscrutable, but he was failing miserably at it. “Is that so?” I would have bet dollar to donuts that he’d known I was in London all along. Which would have been good, because good, American donuts were tough to get in London. Not that I could eat them on my current dietary regime.
“That I’m leaving? It’s so. That I’m being social? Well…I’m making the effort.” I gave him a tight smile of my own. “For old times’ sake, or something.”
Karthik just stared at me, smokily, for a moment. “What do you imagine is going to happen here? Should we…go get a beer and talk about old times? Sit at the pub until midnight and reminisce about all the friends we lost during the fight?”
“That’s what war buddies do, isn’t it?” I shrugged. It was hard for me to put much care into it, having now received the frosty reception I’d suspected would be mine if I came here. Mission accomplished, and now I could strike this thing I’d been dreading off my list. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I won’t stay, I’ll just say—stay out of trouble, Karthik. You and Omega. I’m on this side of the Atlantic now, and as long as you guys keep your mischief out of the serious realms, I’ll pretend I don’t see you, kinda like you pretended not to see me when I came in here.” He did not react to my veiled threat, just stood there like a stone. I could see others behind him, in the cubicle farms, their heads up above the walls, watching our conversation. I think they got the message, even if he didn’t. “All right, well, I’m done. So long, Karth—”
“Sienna.” The voice that called my name came from the other side of the room, echoing through the cavernous space. It was filled with meaning, poignance—meant to get my attention and stop my turn and stalk off.
It worked, too, though not because of the voice itself, but because of the speaker, whose history with me stretched back farther than almost anyone else yet alive. I turned and looked and found him standing in front of the office at the far end of the room, the one that had once been my own, when I was—briefly—the head of Omega. He wore an old tweed jacket, his beard was growing in, grey all the way through, and his eyes were so sunken as to seem skeletal.
Janus.
9.
The old office wasn’t too far off what I remembered—wood paneling all the way around, bookshelves filled with old tomes that wouldn’t have been out of place in any of England’s innumerable museums and libraries. They were old, dusty and leather-bound, and they made the office smell of old books, which was one of its more charming points.
Against it: the mighty desk in the middle was like an island designed to separate visitors from the person who sat behind the desk, which Janus did now, retreating behind it like it would protect him from my wrath. I doubted he had any illusions about that, though, since the previous occupant of his chair had been me, and the guy before that…
Well, he’d come to a bad end at my hand, sitting in that very spot, in fact. Janus probably wouldn’t have forgotten that, since he’d come into the room as I was beating Rick Gerasimos to death with pieces of one of the visitors’ chairs.
I sat down in the chair across from the desk, eyeing it. It wasn’t quite like the one I’d beaten Rick’s skull in with, but it wasn’t far off. Janus must have sensed what I was thinking, because he had a wary look on his face, one that made him look even older than when last we’d met. Though, given the circumstances of our last meeting—wherein I rescued him from being tortured to the breaking point by a psycho who wanted all of Omega’s vast, centuries-in-the-accumulation fortune—I couldn’t blame him for looking a bit past the sell-by date.
“The papers have shown you flying over many of the major European cities,” Janus said, preambling our conversation as usual with occlusionary bullshit, designed to keep from getting to the nub of the matter. That was Janus for you, always taking the long way around to the point, if he got to it at all. “What brings you to London?”
“Cut the crap, Janus,” I said. “You know I’ve been here for months. You probably even know why I’m here. In England, I mean, not here in your office right now.”
He didn’t nod, probably because he didn’t want to tip me to the fact that he undoubtedly had sources all throughout the British government, even at the levels that Wexford operated. Instead he shrugged, lightly, addressing a matter of no consequence to him, like the most lethal meta in the world wasn’t leering at him right now. “I hear rumors only.”
“You hear everything always.”
“You give me too much credit.” He settled back in his chair, leaning slightly. “I am not what I once was. Time has taken its toll
.”
“I imagine that angry Englishman with a knife took a few pence of skin as well,” I said, and though he didn’t flinch, I had a suspicion that he tensed slightly. No one could have gone through what Janus had without being left with a psychological scar or two. If he’d been human, it would have been real scars, had he survived what was done to him.
“Why have you come to see us, Sienna?” Janus asked, drawing closer to what I imagined was the concern of his day.
“Why didn’t you move your headquarters, Janus?” I volleyed right back.
“It would be a shame to close down such a storied facility, long in our care,” Janus said. “And also…real estate prices in London are insane, and our building is not in the best of upkeep. Since Omega’s fortunes have…declined…” He looked at me only for a second, but it was enough to convey to me that he knew I’d absconded with said fortunes once the thief that had tortured him had transferred them to a bank in Liechtenstein. “…moving offices is not a practicable idea…at least not at present.”
“That’s interesting,” I said in a manner that made clear it wasn’t. I doubted money was the holdup, because Janus’s empath powers meant he could push around a loan officer at a bank to make just about whatever he wanted to happen, happen.
“I sense you don’t believe that,” Janus said, watching carefully for my reaction.
My eyes narrowed before I could control them. “You don’t sense shit from me, Janus, don’t lie.”
For the first time, he smiled, faintly. “So it’s true. You have a telepath in your head now. Harmon?”
“Or someone,” I said, because copping to being involved in the death of a US President in front of a criminal didn’t sound all that wise to me. “The good news is, now you can’t push me around emotionally anymore.” That was what empaths did, sense and direct emotion.
“You assume I ever did,” Janus said lightly. Another lie. We both knew he’d done it, at least some. I wasn’t entirely sure how much, but I was positive that he’d influenced my feelings during the war. Best case scenario, he used a light touch. Worst case…hell, he could have run me for some of it and I wouldn’t have known.
“I assume you did, yes.” I leaned forward in my chair and he seemed to shift back, like he was anticipating me smashing my chair and then mashing him with it.
“If that is what you believe, who am I to contest the great Sienna Nealon?” He disarmed me a little with that one.
“Of course you wouldn’t argue the point. Or deny it flat out.”
“What purpose would that serve?” Janus put his hands across his belly and interlaced the fingers. “You are steadfast in your judgments, Sienna. I have always respected that about you. I was the God of Doorways, the God of Transitions, and I aided many people in walking through to a new place in their lives, a new state of being. You, though? You don’t wish for my help. And you definitely don’t wish to change who you are. And so here we sit, across the desk from one another, and without knowing your feelings, I can tell you this: the reason you have avoided this meeting and that I have not sought it as well, even after you have been here for months, is…you have made your judgments. You have chosen your path. You are who you are, and whatever coinciding of interests there might have been between us before? It is long over now.” He spoke gently, softly, reassuring—like I remembered him, which kinda put the lie to the idea that he could only manipulate my emotions through his power. He was smooth; he had other means to build trust.
“When you’re right, you’re right,” I said, and got to my feet, sliding the chair back slowly. No reason to age Janus a few more years by making him think I was standing to bust his skull, after all, when I had no intention of doing any such thing. “Do I even need to warn you about the line you’re walking?”
“I should think it would be unnecessary,” Janus said. “But if it would make you feel better to threaten me, I will not take it as anything other than a definite statement of your position in this matter.”
“I will rip up Omega by the root if I find you stepping over the line, Janus,” I said. I figured I might as well make it blindingly clear, though I probably could have been a lot more subtle and he still would have gotten it. “I will salt the earth around you, and I don’t care if you threaten me, if you call the government to bomb me, try to get them to murder me, hire every mercenary on the planet to kill me—”
“I am fairly certain that has been tried with little success.”
“—come after my friends, come after what’s left of my family—you could give it a go, and I would still fly to wherever you hide yourself, torch your entire organization, and leave nothing left but scorched ground and your tears.”
“Which could only aid your salting efforts.”
“Keep from being huge dicks, will you, Janus?” I made my way to the door, figuring I’d made my point about as clearly as I could without smashing furniture or busting heads open. “I don’t really want to cause the level of carnage a conflict between us would require.”
“Nor do I,” Janus said, and here he narrowed his eyes. “But allow me to deliver a similar message, though perhaps a bit more understated—Do not seek us again here, Sienna.” He put his hands on his desk and rose. “Now that we are clear where each of us stands, this Omega facility and any others are off limits to you. We are not friends, and we will never be friends, and thus you have no reason to be here or anywhere else that we call home.”
“You think your flimsy warning is going to stop me if I catch a whiff of evil from an Omega facility?” Hands on my hips, eyebrow up, kinda surprised he was being so brazen. But then, Janus was always a plan-within-a-plan kind of guy. He probably had one for killing me right now, though if he executed it I would probably execute him before they managed to take me down.
“You will not ‘catch a whiff of evil’ from us, as you say.” Janus stood up, fingertips leaving the desk. Now he was tall and commanding, though not exactly a giant or anything. “And if you think you do…I might suggest you are scenting yourself, for your activities of late have been…most concerning. You are not the girl I once knew, who had to be coaxed into killing to save the world. Your innocence is long gone, and the warrior that has replaced that girl…she walks in the grey, not nearly as pristine and righteous as her intentions might suggest.”
“That’s the problem with becoming the instrument of war that you and Winter and others wanted me to become,” I said, holding my ground in front of the door. “You make someone into a weapon powerful enough to destroy the enemy, you just never know where they might point that power once that enemy is destroyed.” He shifted uncomfortably behind the desk, and I deemed this a good place to leave our relationship, hopefully forever. “Goodbye, Janus.” And I walked out, wishing that I would never, ever, have to return.
10.
When I got back to my hotel, my encounter with Janus still running through my mind on an uncomfortable loop, I found a package already slipped under the door from Wexford’s little servants. It was a cover identity from Scotland Yard, including government ID. I had to give the man credit; he had his bases covered.
So, you’re really going to do this, huh? Zack asked quietly as I stuffed a few things into the overnight bag that was…basically all I owned at this point. I was getting to be a real ascetic. A very few valuable possessions were locked in a bank vault back in Minneapolis, and everything else was essentially clothing, wigs and toiletries. But that was what happened when you could spontaneously combust and burn up all your possessions. And frequently had to. Less was more, anyway.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, stuffing one of the wigs into the bag. “Wait, aren’t you one of those voices in my head that’s constantly pushing me to work because it’s a good thing for me?”
Yeah, shut up, Gerry Harmon said. You know how antsy she gets when there’s no case.
You know how antsy a heroin addict gets when he hasn’t had a needle in a while? Zack fired back.
“W
hat the hell?” I asked, straightening up next to the bed, dropping the wig. “Comparing me to an opioid user? Not cool, man.”
Sorry, Zack said, but he was not sorry, not subtle, and kinda sullen.
“I can quit any time I want,” I said with a faint smile, taking his addiction metaphor and running with it. “But not literally, because then the UK would probably let America come right on over and shoot me or something.”
Zack just shook his head within mine. You should have a life.
“Kinda tough when the cops are after you.”
People do it all the time. I’ve lost count of how many stories I’ve heard about fugitives being caught with a new family.
“Way to put that criminal justice degree to work showing me where I’m getting it wrong,” I muttered.
This wasn’t supposed to be your life. Remember? I could feel the earnestness flow. Last time we were here, in London, you walked away with a sense that you had to change things or else you’d burn bright like a comet and crash to the ground. In the years since, you’ve done nothing—or almost nothing—to change it. Now you’re worse off than ever, and chasing that next hit to feel alive. How long is that going to last?
“Until I find the next job, I’d imagine?” I was being too cute by half.
And the next and the next and the next. We aren’t just put on this planet to work and work and work, Sienna. There has to be… His voice cracked. There has to be more than just living to work.
“Lemme know if you figure out what it should be,” I said, brushing all of this crap off as the musings of a man who had no idea what he was talking about. “Because I haven’t gotten it, other than—y’know, a desire to pound the faces of people who upset the order of folks actually trying to do just that.”
Hunters (Out of the Box Book 15) Page 4