“The nearest cloister is up on the North Shore of Lake Superior,” Scott said, frowning.
“Should be easy enough to take a look at,” Foreman said, looking up from his pad. “Anything else?”
I shook my head, my mind completely blank. I honestly didn’t know what else I could think of that we’d need to deal with right now. Nothing pressing, anyway.
“Money,” Ariadne said quietly, pulling everyone’s attention back to her. “We’ll need a payroll if you want me to pull the old Directorate back together.”
“Ah, yes,” Foreman said, and I could see the chagrin on his face. “For that, I’ll need you to put together the old trading unit again so you can make it self-sustaining because we don’t have any budgetary help from Washington. At all.”
That just sort of lay there like a bomb had gone off in the middle of the table until my mother finally broke the silence. “Let me clarify this, just so I can be certain I have it all straight.” She put her hand up and started ticking off points on her gloved fingers one by one. “We’re forming a new agency to replace the Directorate. We’re reporting directly to the government, but they’re not paying us. Our job is to stop the extinction of our entire subspecies of the human race from a threat we know almost nothing about save for that it’s headed by probably the most dangerous man in the world—”
“His second-in-command is probably one of the most sadistic I’ve ever met,” I added helpfully. “And can freeze time, making him near invincible.”
“Yes, thank you,” my mother said. “We have no real plan, no idea what’s coming, no resources to draw on save for the intelligence that you can filter to us. So we can see parts of the threat as it’s coming to wipe us out, but really the only thing standing between us and the one hundred most powerful metas in the world is me, my shut-in daughter, her teeny-bopper friends, and whatever castoffs from Omega have survived the extermination of our kind.” She sat back and let the silence consume the table. “Yes. This is going to be marvelous. I’ve saved myself from prison just so I can be killed by Sovereign.”
No one said anything for a long time after that, not even Foreman. His face was so grey it was almost ashen. I felt more than a little annoyed and tried to figure out the most creative way to bring our morale back from the brink that my mother had just pushed it toward. “Look on the bright side,” I said, looking directly at her, “at least you didn’t get locked in a box by one of your loved ones who then disappeared on you for months and months.”
Nope. That wasn’t it.
Chapter 9
Norway
1635
His breath frosted in the air, the chill of the Norse morning sensual on his bare skin. It was almost like a lover’s touch to him, something with its own appeal, something that gave him a thrill of pleasure. Bjorn walked down the path that had become familiar to him over the last year, a trail between the new halls of his family and a village just down the way. The place where he stayed with his father and brother and other family members was good enough, pleasant enough, but it lacked mortal company. Female mortal company. And so Bjorn walked this path at least twice per week, sometimes more, to partake of the girls of the local village. They were accommodating enough, having seen an example of the folly of resistance, and made him welcome in their own way. He took a breath of the frigid air as the partially snow-covered ground crunched under his feet. Even if they weren’t as willing as they are, I’ve dealt with that before. He smiled at the thought. And it carries its own pleasure and rewards.
The trees were bare, brown, with branches standing out from the trunks like fingers stretched out to each other. It reminded him of the skin of the men he had met in the years he had gone south, across the wide sea below Rome, and onto the shores of a much hotter land. He walked stark nude, his clothing clutched in his hand out of sheer enjoyment of the cold weather. When he had done so in that hot, dry land, he had not been nearly as comfortable.
The winter is in my blood, he thought, and luxuriated in the chill prickling at his flesh. He touched one of the rough trees as he passed, letting his palm cross the gnarled bark and caress a knot where a limb had been lost a century earlier. He leaned his shoulder into it and felt its rough touch. Everything was blissful this morning. He’d been well fed the night before, well satiated by a village girl. Now he looked forward to a day of lounging around the fires of home. Perhaps later, if he felt the need, he’d walk this path again. Two nights in a row. I might end up spoiling these village girls, getting them too used to what it feels like to have their wombs blessed by a god.
His nose caught the scent of something in the wind as it shifted direction from ahead of him. It was sharp, heavy. It was smoke, a fire, but stronger than the simple fires that kept their stronghold warm and the houses heated. This was more pungent. He cast off from the tree and regained his balance, standing there in the chill morning, hesitating as he took another deep breath. The smoke was heavy with the smell of roasting flesh.
Bjorn felt his feet move underneath him without giving it thought. They carried him onward, running under the canopy of bare and empty branches that only allowed the orange of the rising sun to peek down on him every now and again. It was a short enough run, a mile or two, and the smoke smell grew heavier and heavier until he caught sight of a black cloud where the village should be.
He burst out onto a clearing at the edge of the field before his village and his eyes beheld a sight of purest horror. Everything was in flames, a thick, orange conflagration rising from the angular frames of the wooden homes, burning bright and roaring with great fury. The semi-circle of buildings was completely enflamed, the heights of the fire reaching above the trees.
Bodies were stacked on the outside edges of the fire, just starting to be consumed. They were still a few hundred feet off but his eyes could see them from here. There were only a dozen who lived there, all grown men and women, and few enough women at that. Most prominent among the bodies was his brother, his golden hair visible at even this distance. His father was there, too, his grey beard stretching halfway down his chest, easy to pick out from the small mass of corpses.
“You must be Bjorn,” came a voice from behind him. He turned and saw a man standing there, dark of hair and eyes, watching him coldly, arms folded.
Bjorn did not answer, but an answer of sorts flashed across his mind. It was him. He did this. Bjorn felt a roar of fury bellow from his throat and the war-mind blew from him automatically, sending the image of darkness, of ravens, through his thoughts and blasting his enemy’s mind with it. The man did not stagger, though, like others he’d fought, did not even react. Bjorn came at him in fury, expecting him to hold his head and duck away like all his other foes always had—
But the man did none of those things. He stayed still, and just as Bjorn was about to strike him down with a mighty fist, the man reached calmly across and gripped Bjorn by the neck, interrupting his charge and slamming him to his back on the cold soil. Bjorn’s head hit the ground, the wind rushed out of him and he grunted. He lay there for a moment before realizing that the man had done this to him, this interloper, this killer, this—
“That’s enough,” the man said, still watching him coldly. “If you get up again, I will break your knees.”
Bjorn roared and started to stand, but before he had fully reached his feet the man was moving, and there was a searing pain in his knees. He sunk to the ground once more in exquisite agony, cheek hitting the packed tundra as a glob of saliva ran down his chin.
“Be a good lad and stay down,” the man said, and Bjorn looked up to see he’d shifted positions and was now standing between him and the burning village. “I have something to tell you, as you are the only survivor of this monstrosity.”
“What do ... you want?” Bjorn choked out, trying to ignore the pain in his legs, anguish as he moved one and felt the grind of bones where there had only been sweet, unnoticeable movement before.
“I don’t want anything,” the ma
n said. “I’ve done all I intended to do here. I had hoped for a witness, though, but I failed to keep one alive over there, in spite of my best efforts,” the man swept an arm behind him to indicate the fires blazing behind him. “They made me a little too angry for that.”
“Wh ... Why?” Bjorn asked, feeling the agony from his legs as he rolled to his side, shifting, looking for a more comfortable position. He didn’t find it.
“Because you and your people were a mass of ticks, burrowing your way under the skin of this land,” the man said, staring down at him. “You took from their harvests what you would, took from their daughters everything you wanted, and left nothing behind but your blighted seed.” He leaned down, slightly but not enough to seem like he was by any stretch of the imagination on Bjorn’s level. “Your day is over in this land, do you hear me? Your time as a leech, sucking the blood of people whom you do no good for is at an end. Be on about your business elsewhere. Tell your friends, the ones like you, still playing at the illusion that you are gods, that if I catch them running this deception, I will reveal them for the weak, pathetic deceivers that they are, and if they do not move on ...” He looked back at the fires. “I think you get the idea.” The man stood.
“Who are you?” Bjorn croaked, looking back at the blaze, and saw it starting to consume the pile. He could see the smoke beginning to rise from the clothing of his father, his brother. “Who are you to do such a thing?”
“I am Sovereign,” the man said and stood stiffly, looking down at him without emotion. “That ... and this,” he gestured at the destruction behind him as his feet lifted off the ground, floating into the air as if a bird’s wings had lifted him up, “is all you need know. Harken to my words, Odin-son.” With that, the man called Sovereign flew into the air, straight up and out of sight.
Bjorn lay there on the dirt for a long time after that, the smell of smoke thick in the air around him, the pleasant chill turned bitter on his skin. He lay there until the next morning when his agony subsided and his bones had knit back together. When he got up and left, though, he took care to go a different path than the one he had trod the morning before.
Chapter 10
Sienna Nealon
Now
“Is this going to be a problem?” Foreman asked me after the conference room emptied. “You and your mother?”
I held a hand on my chin, trying to think it over. “I don’t know. My instinct says yes.”
Foreman studied me through smoky, inscrutable eyes. I’d heard the stereotype that politicians were supposed to be charmers; that they would tell you sweet things to your face and then say different things behind your back. I saw none of this as he leaned closer to me and started to speak. “Listen to me very carefully. The life of every single metahuman in the entire country is now in your hands. That includes my life,” he said, eyes narrowed, “that of my wife and my children. Our survival hinges on what you’re able to do. Your mother is a resource. She has more experience running down metahumans than anyone else you have available to help you.”
I felt something unsaid, and it took me a moment to realize that the subtext was that I’d killed the four people who might have been able to bring as much to the party as my mother did.
“You’re in charge. Find a way to get this done.” With that, he stood without ceremony and headed for the door.
I felt my mouth dry. “Wait. That’s it?”
He looked back from where he stood at the doorframe. “That’s it. No fancy speeches, no last minute warnings. Your life is on the line. If you fail, we all die, and you get to live with that.” He smiled, but it was grim.
I looked at him with more certainty than I felt. “I’ve killed quite a few people now; how do you know that would even bother me?”
He looked at me through those smoky eyes. “Because I know.”
I almost fell out of my chair with shock. “You’re a telepath?”
He gave a light shrug. “An empath. Like your friend Janus. I can detect the emotions, even stir them when necessary. It comes in handy when you’re trying to get a read on people.”
I rapped my knuckles against the wooden table, felt the sting of the hard wood against my skin and bones. “What does your power tell you about me?”
He didn’t answer for a moment, looking down at the carpeting, then he sighed. “That you’re the only one that’s a hundred percent committed to stopping this calamity.” He waved out into the hallway. “I’ve visited cloisters, seen the people there who have gotten faint warnings from Europe about what’s coming; they don’t have a clue. Most of them aren’t taking it seriously yet; they think it’s an ‘old world’ thing.” He waved toward the wall behind me. “But they’re coming. This ... Sovereign ... his minions ... they’ll come for us.” He let a faint smile creep out, a worried one. “See, we know what happened now in the European Union. How it happened. The authorities have found enough of the bodies, sniffed around the edges enough that it’s obvious that there’s been a genocide that almost no one has noticed. There were just too few of us, y’know? There are five hundred metahumans in North America by our guess, three hundred in South America, and once we’re gone, it’ll be down to ... dozens, maybe. Outside of what Century’s got, I mean. The very few who have managed to hide at the corners of the world. Three thousand people now down to nine hundred or less,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that. And no one else has the power to stop it.”
“What about the government agencies here?” I asked, feeling the creep of terror coming back, that same feeling that had been haunting me since England.
He shook his head. “Our people—metahumans, I mean—have done too good a job hiding themselves, finding ways to subvert the system and keep underground. We had all these secretive organizations to cover for us, to keep us out of the spotlight, but it turns out that when no one knows you exist, they don’t care when you’re being killed off.”
“But you know,” I said. “A sitting U.S. Senator, you’ve gotta have some high-powered friends—”
“I do,” he cut me off, “and I’m trying. My colleagues are not unsympathetic. But this secret is burying us. It may end up being the death of us. Think about it—even if we had the full support of the U.S. government, even if all this were out in the open, what do you think it would really lead to? It’s not like we can deploy the U.S. Army against Century.” He laughed mirthlessly. “It’s not as though I know where to send the Marines to give Sovereign a good ass-kicking. Assuming anyone could kick his ass.”
“Metas can be killed by armies, you know that,” I said, feeling the thoughts tumble through my head. “Based on what I’ve heard, Weissman has plans for the armies of the world. He’s just got it in his mind to deal with the metas first.”
Foreman nodded. “Like I said, it’s down to you. This whole thing is a lot to put on your shoulders, but there’s no one else clamoring for the responsibility. Your mom would run given half a chance. Your friend Scott is quite content to retire to the nearest bar and continue putting away rum and cokes until Century comes through the door to spill his drink. And your friend Ariadne—”
“I don’t think we could really be called friends at this point,” I said. “Since I killed her girlfriend.”
Foreman gave me a nod of concession. “Ariadne’s powerless on her own. But she could be of tremendous aid to you. Once you get past your ... personal problems,” he said it with an air of distaste, “she’ll probably turn out invaluable.”
“Great,” I said, rubbing my hands over my face. “So all I have to do is make up with a woman who’s got a deep personal grudge against me, fight off a superior army, and—oh, yeah—try and make some sort of peace with my mother.” I rubbed my face harder, focusing on the bridge of my nose. “By the time this is finished, I may wish I’d taken the jail option.”
Foreman did not speak for a long minute, and when he did, it was filled with a sort of quiet authority that I would forever associate with Old Man Winter, when he was
a mentor to me and not a murderer. “You’ve left a trail of bodies behind you. A series of bad decisions, heated emotions, and broken laws. You’ve made mistakes,” he said, his eyes meeting mine, and I could feel his words resonate in me. To his credit, I never once believed he was using his powers to stir me. “You are awash on a sea of blood you’ve let, paddling against the tides of fate to keep from being swept up in an even greater wash. By all rights and under normal circumstances, you would be in jail. You would be in jail for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, depending on how long you lived. You deprived people of life in the name of your own self-satisfying vengeance, and that’s not the sort of thing that the soul just callouses over and forgets about.
“But these are not normal times,” he said, and I listened to every word as the guilt crept through me in time with his almost lyrical delivery. “You have an opportunity to save yourself, and it comes in the guise of saving others. You can’t just pay for a life with a life. You’re going to have to save a hell of a lot more than one life to balance the scales for what you’ve done. Every day you wake, until this crisis is resolved, I want you to remember that you are doing the impossible. The penance for your crimes is to do what no one else has done before, to beat a man who is hell-bent on destroying our people to the very last. It is ... impossible.” His voice was filled with quiet strength, and not a whiff of desperation was present in the way he said it. “But these are not ordinary times, and you are not an ordinary person. There is something about you that is Sovereign’s weakness, something about you that no one else in all the meta world has.” He straightened, and his spellbinding words drew me in just a little further as I hung on, waiting to see what he would say next. “Find it. Find out what makes you special, find out what it is that makes you unique. Find the strength to do the impossible.” He turned and opened the door, and took his first step out. “You do that, and you’ll actually earn your redemption.” With one more step, he was carried out of view, but I still heard the last words he said, echoing down the hall.
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