She looked up, slightly stricken. “You—”
“I want you to remember before you say anything,” I said, looking at her with just the slightest amusement, “that you’re the same person who used to lock me in a metal box when I broke one of your rules. Whatever reasons you had for it, telling me now that I’m not guilty when you spent all that time punishing me for infractions much less than murder is going to sound ... really screwed up.”
I saw her bite back her instinct to snap at me, and she looked to her left. “This is the world I wanted to protect you from. I didn’t want you to ...” Her voice trailed off.
“Leave the house?” I asked with bitter amusement but not any rancor. “Get caught up in crazy events? Get in fights? Sleep with boys?”
“Add in drugs and following your guitarist boyfriend around on tour for a summer and I think you’ll have hit all the ‘parenting fears’ high points.” She paused, and I watched the emotions roll across her face. “I didn’t want you to be like me,” she said, and it echoed in the office. “I didn’t want you to have to kill. I prepared you for it in hopes you’d never have to do it.” Her hands left the back of the leather chair and she cradled them, one upon another. “I never wanted you to have to do what I did. I don’t like to kill. Never have. I’m not like Charlie. I’m not like others of our kind. I hated the feeling when I took my first soul.” She ran her thin fingers through her hair. “I never wanted you to know what it was like to kill, let alone what it was like to use your power, to lose yourself in the moment of the drain. And I’m glad you’re not an addict.”
“I’m definitely not that,” I said, staring at her. “How many do you have?”
She blinked. “How many souls? Five. But I’ve got more shadows than I can count.”
“That’s the partials, right?” I asked. “The ones you only take a little of?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s not the most pleasant thing you can do to a person, but leaving them missing a memory is better than taking their life.” She sighed. “I’ve killed a lot more than that, though. Most were in the line of duty.” She looked away. “But some weren’t, early on. Some were ...” She brought her eyes back, slow, and I could see depths in them when she turned back to me. “Some were personal. Things I did before I got a tight handle on myself.”
“I lived a pretty disciplined life while I was growing up,” I said, staring back at her, but not really looking at her.
“I know,” she said tonelessly. “Ever since we moved into the house.”
“I think I went off the rails this last year,” I said.
“It could have gone worse,” she said. “Teenage rebellion is always hard.”
I looked at her almost pityingly. “What? Like this is my rumspringa, and soon I’ll go back to following the ordnung? I killed people.”
“So did I,” she said quietly. “So did I. But there’s nothing you can do about it now except—”
“Penance,” I said. “That was what I figured in England. That what I’d done ... seeking revenge was testing the ends of my powers—”
“Pushing societal limits and finding that there aren’t that many for a meta, right?” She cocked her head at me. “Not with the old structures of power falling away under Century’s scythe.”
“I decided I was going to make up for it as best I could,” I said. “Try and atone, protect as best I could.”
She nodded. “Redemption’s a word that gets thrown around a lot nowadays. When I was hiding in Gillette, I watched a lot of TV and inevitably ended up seeing some of that awful reality television. Hollow, vain people clawing for fame and whatever droppings it brings with it. They toss around the word redemption after a failure like it’s something you do after you make a simple slip up, like bumping into someone in the street.” She looked at me, and I could feel the power in her eyes, the truth, that she knew what she was saying. “You and I both know it’s deeper than that. Redemption isn’t as simple or cheap as they’d suggest; not as easy as winning some vapid and pointless competition. Redemption for us means saving our souls from the abyss that most of our kind dwell in.” Her blue-green eyes glimmered in the half-light of the office. “I saw my sister go down that road, and there’s nothing in this world that can redeem her now.”
“I know how that feels,” I said, and I did, all the way to the bone, my body feeling like it might suddenly sink through the chair, it was so heavy.
“You’re not her,” my mother said. “The ones I killed ... they still weigh on me, every day, even the ones I killed in the line of duty. You don’t have to sink like Charlie. There is redemption out there, if you want it badly enough. This might just be your chance.”
“I don’t know that I can ever make up for what I’ve done,” I said, shaking my head.
“Not make up for it. Not even offset it. Just ... do your best to try and tilt the balance back in the other direction.” She sighed. “Live a life where you’re doing your best to fight back from what you were, what you did. Become a person who’s the opposite of what you were when you dove deep into the waters of revenge. Someone who stands up for what’s right.”
“I may have to kill again before this is all over,” I said. “I may have to kill Weissman and Sovereign. There aren’t any easy solutions for these men, there are no prisons that can hold them, no places to send them where they won’t harm others.”
“Then we’ll have to kill them,” she said. “And that’s part of your redemption, too. You’ll have to make the hard decisions others can’t because your soul has taken damage that others shouldn’t have to experience.” She caught my gaze, and hers was haunted. “It’s a terrible burden. A terrible price. But because of what you’ve done—if you really want to redeem yourself in your own eyes—you have to carry it without complaint.”
I nodded. “I had a feeling it would come down to me.”
“You got yourself into it,” she said sadly, “and you’re the only one who can carry you through. Trust me on that. I’ve been carrying it myself for more years than I can count.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Take Reed and Karthik and go to Portland.” I thought about it for a piece. “Bring Kurt with you.”
She frowned. “That pudgy agent?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s good in a scrape.” Kurt Hannegan had been one of the first people I’d had Ariadne hire back when I got put in charge, though I’d kept him at a distance because we didn’t necessarily work all that well together.
She nodded. “We’ll get out there, see what we can find, and get back in a day or two, at most.”
“Take your time,” I said. “Do it right. And while you’re out there, have Karthik, Reed and J.J. try and locate local Omega safehouses—”
“I’m not a rookie,” she said with a hint of impatience. “I was planning on working all the angles to find Hildegarde. I’ve tracked a person or two, after all.”
“Sorry,” I said, more tired than contrite. “Just covering all my bases. When you get back, I need to debrief you again about your encounter with Sovereign.”
She stiffened. “All right. I’ll start thinking, see if I can remember anything else about it.”
I nodded. “Do that. We need every bit of information we can get about him. Talk to Ariadne on your way out, have her charter a plane for you.”
“Will do,” she said coolly and headed for my office door. She stopped, her plain, unpainted fingernails resting on the frame. “Foreman made the right call putting you in charge.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re all grown up,” she said, a little wistful. “You’re making the right moves. It makes me wonder what happened to my little girl.”
I didn’t even think to go with a bitter response, because all my bitterness toward her was nearly gone at this point. It had dissipated sometime over the last six months. Still, I didn’t know what to say, and after a few seconds she drummed on the edge of the doorframe with her hand and left. She disappeared into the b
ullpen, leaving me sitting in my office chair, marveling at the fact that we had made it through an entire conversation without any hostility at all.
Chapter 27
I stayed in my office until well after midnight, as was my habit of late. I was combing intelligence reports that had nothing to do with any of our suspects, hoping that somehow one of them would hold a little nugget, a key to what Century’s next move was. Murder rates were within fairly normal parameters in the border cities, and the list of metas known to the U.S. government wasn’t getting shorter because of unexpected deaths—yet. I knew it was coming, but based on what I was looking at, it seemed that Century wasn’t in position yet.
These thoughts were swirling in my head as I slept, and the smell of my office laser printer was still hanging in my nose as I curled up on my couch, which sat against the wall next to the office door. The soft leather had its own distinct smell, and it filled my nose as I lay there, cheek pressed against it, mind still sprinting even in my exhaustion.
Little Doll worries too much.
“Thanks, Wolfe,” I said. “Your concern is touching.”
Little Doll should worry about herself, not others. Sovereign is coming, the telepath told you. Said he was coming for you.
“Not much I can do about that,” I said. “Except be ready.” I had a Glock 22 in my shoulder holster and a Walther PPK in my ankle holster. I knew I was tough enough to take a meta in a fair fight, but I was under no illusions after being captured in the airport that I was in any way faster than a speeding bullet. The best I could do was dodge maybe one guy with a gun if I was lucky. A firing line would be the end of me just the same as it would anyone else.
There is no preparing for ... him. This from Bjorn, who always sounded a little scared when he talked about Sovereign, like the guy was going to jump out of the nearest closet and rip Bjorn’s soul clean out of me.
“I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be,” I said.
Little Doll should run. Run far, far away. Even she can’t stop Sovereign. Best not to try.
“Because I hear you telling me what to do, I immediately know to do just the opposite,” I said, settling in on the couch.
He is too strong, too wily, too powerful. He has crushed metas who would make Little Doll look like ... a little doll by comparison.
“You know, if you really tried, Wolfe, I think you could be even more sneeringly condescending.” I paused for comic effect. “No, wait, no you couldn’t. I’m making my stand here. If anyone doesn’t like it, you know where to find the door to your little cages.”
Don’t be foolish, Little Doll. We can help you, help you hide from him.
“I don’t want to hide from him!” I said, my fury boiling over. “I want to go straight at him, to feel my fingers around his neck as I sap the life from him! If I knew where he was right now, I would go to him, find him, and do my level best to kill him just so we could get this over with, one way or another.” My anger spent, I felt the seething on my lips die down. “I’m tired. I want to be done with this.”
Little Doll should not be so cavalier with her life—
“What life?” I said with a laugh. “What life do I have? I’m in the service of my government now, in the service of my people, and that’s all I’ve got going. Forgive me for trying to figure out the shortest way possible to end this crisis. I just want it to be over so that maybe I can take a breath, maybe feel like I’ve paid some of my debt to society. I’d even be glad to be hunting troublesome metas again if it meant I didn’t have the extinction of my entire species hanging over my head. So again, Wolfe, what life? The one where I wake up in the morning, think about this all day long, and go to bed wondering if this will be the night that it starts here in the U.S.? Where I wonder when the axe will begin to fall, and if I’ll even be able to stop it when it does? So I can wake up to another day and wonder if this is my last one alive, if they’ll be coming for me now or at the end of it all, after I’ve seen the body counts rack up? Another day to wonder if I’ll get to watch every one of my friends die because Sovereign wants me alive and all of them dead?” I sighed. “And I don’t even know why he wants me alive.”
The Little Doll is special. Wolfe knew this from Omega, from the others, but they didn’t tell Wolfe how special you were, that you were one of the offspring of the master. Of Death.
“They kept you in the dark? Big surprise.” I laughed ruefully. “That’s all anybody does, isn’t it? Layers of secrets on top of secrets, burying one after another.” I felt a little stab. “It’s what Omega did to Adelaide, too. What Old Man Winter did to me. Sovereign and Weissman are doing it to at least some of their people, maybe all of them, who knows.” I sighed in the dark and felt the pressure of my body resting against the couch. “Too many secrets. I’ve lost count of all the ones I’m supposed to be finding answers to.”
Beware the secrets of scary people, Gavrikov said. They will consume you, wrap you up within them, and carry you away.
“I think I’ve already been carried away, Aleksandr.” I felt a little mournful as I said it. I longed for the simplicity of my house. No, that wasn’t true. What I really longed for was the nine months or so that I’d been part of the Directorate, when things were simple and I had a boyfriend who loved me, friends who watched my back. I thought about Scott and Kat, and how I hadn’t really spoken to them outside of a meeting, or about anything other than work in the six months since we’d started this endeavor. Hell, even Breandan and Karthik were nothing more than work colleagues at this point, at a distance. The conversation I’d had earlier with my mother was one of the deepest ones we’d ever had, and one of the first outside of a meeting or a discussion of straight business of the agency. “I’ve been carried along by this river of secrets since day one, with only a little bitty break somewhere in the middle.” I blinked. “I wonder if I’ll look back on this in five years and still think of my time at the Directorate as the best days of my life.” I didn’t say it, but I wondered if I’d even be around to look back on it in five years. The odds were not great.
There was a beep from the phone on my desk announcing the intercom. I rolled off the couch and walked over to hit the accept button, and I heard loud, crackling noises through the phone. “What?” I said, feeling a sense of unease.
A loud klaxon sounded throughout the building, a howling sound, and I saw a red emergency light begin to flash outside my office, casting the cubicles of the bullpen in a deep red light. “Ms. Nealon, this is dormitory security, we are under fire—” The voice was cut off by the staccato sound of gunshots in the background. “—overwhelming numbers—” The phone hissed and squealed from the feedback noise and the howl of what was coming through it. The sound of gunshots was steady now, and I could tell that a pitched firefight was going on. “They are in the building—”
“Activate the shutters!” I shouted, but the sound cut out. I waited there for an awful moment, then turned and looked out my office window. Light from muzzle flare flashed across the way at the dormitory. Black shapes were entering the building now, swarming in, too many to count, flooding out of vans parked right up on the curb. It was an army of men, and their purpose was clear.
We were being invaded.
Chapter 28
I took the elevator even though I shouldn’t have, stopping at the first floor and shouting at the security detail to lock down the building. I saw the shutters begin to clink into place even as the doors closed again and I descended to the basement. We had built directly on top of the old Headquarters and the previous dormitory because for all their faults, the space was already excavated. A little too excavated, after the explosions, but that was easier to fix than digging a new hole in the ground in winter, so we just let the construction guys clear the mess and start building. There was an additional advantage to this, though, one that I didn’t readily advertise.
I hit the armory first, throwing on a Kevlar assault vest, the kind used by our security teams when they needed to cle
ar a difficult target. I hadn’t had to deploy the security teams yet, which was just as well. They might have to come into play in a few minutes, but I didn’t care for that idea much. I grabbed a walkie talkie off the rack and set it to the emergency channel. “Get the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team on the line, get them out here.”
“Understood,” I heard a clipped, familiar voice on the other end of the radio. “I’ve already contacted them.”
“Li?” I asked. “I sent my mother along with Karthik and Reed to Portland to get on that manhunt for Hildegarde. I need you to see if you can locate any of our other metas. I need Scott and Breandan.” I cursed. “But they’re probably in the dorms.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” Li said.
“Sienna,” Ariadne’s voice broke in. “What are you going to do?”
“Ever seen the movie Die Hard?” I asked, snugging a submachine gun strap tight across my shoulders.
“Oh, dear God,” Ariadne said.
“It’s all right,” I said. “As soon as the FBI HRT gets here, let them know the situation and have them start setting up. I didn’t see the shutters deployed a minute ago, but if the Century force has gained access to security, it’s more than probable that they’ll be locking the building down to repel our efforts to retake it.” I burst out the door of the armory and kept talking as I ran down the hallway of HQ toward the far side of the building.
“At which point you’ll be locked inside with them,” Ariadne said.
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