Power

by Robert J. Crane

  He rolled his head toward me, just enough to give me a sidelong look. “Yes, without doubt, that is how you handle things. I am uncertain that it will yield positive results in this instance, though.”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” I said.

  “Oh, but it could,” Janus said, staring back at the grounds. “It could very much hurt.”

  We stood there in silence, side by side, and I tried not to further invade the privacy of his thoughts by looking at him. “I don’t believe that whatever you’re hiding about what Omega did to Adelaide to reduce her powers will change the course of our war.”

  “Then you are the only one,” he said tightly. “The benefit of being an empath is that you can feel the emotions of others. Their suspicion would be obvious even to the unskilled of my kind, let alone someone who has been dealing with this for several thousand years. They regard me as a liar. And perhaps they are right to.” He laughed without mirth. “After all, before I was attacked by Weissman and—sidelined, I think you would call it—I had promised you the truth about everything.”

  “You told me the biggest truth,” I said.

  “But perhaps not all of it,” he said, lowering his head. “Not every truth I know. Certainly, there are several thousand years of them to sort through, but I know things—little details, here and there—that might be of some use in our current circumstances.”

  “We’ve been busy—” I said, starting to make excuses for him.

  “There is no need,” he said, waving his hand in the air in an abrupt cutting motion. “The problem with being me—with being who I am, with sitting in the seats of power the way I have for most of my life is that you learn to control information. And being an empath has made me even more careful with what I learn.” He looked at me, and I saw a sadness in his eyes. “Controlling the flow of secrets, carefully spinning the truths I allowed out, making certain that they reached the correct ears—this has been part of my duty with Omega.”

  “When we met,” I started, slowly, “I confronted you with your reputation for being two-faced. You told me that there were multiple variations of the truth.”

  “A lie I tell myself to soften the truth, I think,” he said, and his shoulders slumped. “There are always multiple perspectives. What one person holds to be truth, another would dispute until the day they die. People are contrary, argumentative. In order to make someone ‘see the light’ and accept a truth, sometimes it must be presented in a different way. When someone believes something so strongly that it is almost conviction for them, depriving them of that falsehood and replacing it with the truth is not something done by simply shouting that truth at them. They will reject it out of hand. They will deny it at every juncture. They need to be smoothed. The way needs to be prepared. You must approach it … with a ready supply of half-truths to gradually move them to the position where their mind is open to the truth. The real truth.”

  I blinked. “Uhm … okay, you lost me.”

  He looked at me then sighed. “I am a liar who has spent most of his life in service of liars and thieves and murderers. I have lied to myself to justify my actions, and now I find myself in a most curious position, one I have not been in before, even when I was exiled from the good graces of the Primus and forced into retirement. I am no longer in the service of a liar and a murderer. Realizing that I am in a position where the truth is more than just a tool or a weapon is …” He sighed again. “… It is difficult to adjust to.”

  I went through what he’d said then replayed the words again. “In essence, you’re saying that after a lifetime of hiding the truth from the evil people you worked for, you’re stumbling at telling the whole truth now, when you’re working for …” I bobbed my head a little, trying to find a way to soften the words and finding none, “… the good guys?”

  “That’s … about it,” he said, and nodded slowly. “You are not a monster, Sienna. I have told you this before, and I believe that to my very bones.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I think? I’m not sure what it has to do with the matters at hand, but—”

  “It has nothing to do with the matters at hand,” he said, “and everything to do with the reason I stormed out of the meeting just now.” He looked at me, focused his eyes on mine, and I could see the weary lines of age around his eyes, crow’s feet that had settled in the skin, making him look old, painfully old. “There is a way for you to be able to control your powers, of course. To make it so that your touch is innocuous to others, as harmless as the touch of anyone else.”

  I felt my spine stiffen involuntarily. “Okay.” I felt myself quiver a little on the inside at the prospect of being able to live a normal life.

  “But the price,” Janus said, shaking his head. “It is …” He shook his head again.

  “Look,” I said, “this is, uhm … I mean, this is something that can maybe wait until after the war is over. I clearly don’t need to touch people right now, since I’ve lived this long without—”

  “It doesn’t matter when you find out,” Janus said, and another shake of his head followed the dry, scratchy pronouncement. “Let me explain the theory behind this.”

  I leaned in closer, afraid to miss a word of it now that he was explaining to me how I could potentially touch—hug—caress—kiss—and—and—everything—with another person.

  “You know, of course, that your power comes from the marriage of Hades and Persephone, from the hybridization of her ability to heal with touch and his to steal souls from a distance.” I saw him waiting for an acknowledgment and nodded. “Then you must understand that your power is truly the polar opposite of a Persephone. Their touch heals, yours kills.”

  “I have noticed that,” I said, listening warily. I remembered telling Scott after meeting Kat for the first time that I was her opposite—she was life, I was death.

  “Then you must realize that the only way to put the stopper in your deadly touch,” Janus said, drawing out every word, “is to absorb a power that would be its equal and opposite. Something that would keep it from being able to act through your touch, something that would block its use.”

  I froze and remembered the touch of Adelaide’s—Andromeda’s—hand on mine as she had steered me out of the Omega facility where I’d found her. It had felt as though she was taking away my pain, gradually healing the wounds from the beatings I’d suffered before meeting her. “No,” I said and shook my head.

  “Yes,” Janus said, nodding. There were bags under his eyes, I realized, the weight of his knowledge pulling on him. In that moment, his motives became clear to me and I knew why he’d rushed from the conference room earlier. I wasn’t a monster, he said. Yet the thought of what I could do, right this minute, in order to have that power, in order to be able to live a normal life and touch like a normal person flashed through my mind—

  I pictured myself kissing Scott, and realized … I wanted to. As aggravated as I’d been at him for all the ups and downs lately … I wanted to. I wanted to take his face in my hands and kiss him, long and deep, feel his fingers on my face and … elsewhere.

  With a shock like a cold bucket of water dousing me, I cut off that thought. I could see the look on Janus’s face and it did most of the work for me. He knew. He’d seen it in my eyes, in the way I’d reacted. “I am not a monster,” I said, repeating it aloud almost as much for his benefit as mine.

  “I should hope not,” Janus said, and he looked tired beyond belief, as though he were ready to lapse into another coma, right there in front of me. “Which is why I told you.”

  I swallowed, hard, and broke away from his gaze. It was natural to think about it, wasn’t it? It didn’t make me evil for considering it, did it? For thinking that only a few stories below, there was an easy answer to my desire to live a normal life?

  And all I’d have to do … was kill Kat by draining her dry.

  Chapter 11

  Playing a dangerous game, Little Doll, Wolfe whispered in my head. And playing it close, out of sigh
t of your friends.

  “Dangerous is all I know,” I muttered as I opened the door into the bullpen on the fourth floor. There was a buzz of activity, and I could tell by the smell of melted cheese that someone had ordered pizza. I realized I was hungry, famished actually, having not really eaten since yesterday. I steered toward the smell and found an empty cubicle filled with a half dozen boxes of pizza. There were a lot of missing pieces and I could tell that they’d been hit hard in a first wave. A couple of empty boxes had already been bent in half and stuffed into a big black garbage bag that was sitting next to the table. A few two-liter containers of pop were spread out at the end of the table with paper plates and cups, and—oddly enough—plastic cutlery.

  “Sienna,” J.J. said, nodding to me as I drifted into the cubicle. He was munching on a slice of pepperoni and sausage, chewing and moving his head in rhythm.

  “J.J.,” I said, making my way over to the pizzas. I hovered over the Hawaiian one, and the fragrant scent of pineapple caught me like a fishhook. I grabbed a plate. “What’s the word?” I asked him, more conversationally than anything.

  “FBI raided the Century safe houses across the country a few minutes ago,” he said, and I nearly dropped my plate.

  “What. The. Hell?” I asked, correcting only a second before my piece of pizza went sliding to the floor. “Who authorized that?”

  “Li, maybe?” He gave me a shrug of the shoulders. “I don’t really know. I just know they did it, and they’re finished now.”

  I stared at his unconcerned features as he took another nibble of his pizza. “I assume, based on your demeanor, the raids did not culminate in the mass deaths of all the FBI agents.”

  “Yeah, they’re fine,” J.J. said, struggling to cram half the piece in his mouth. I resisted slapping him so hard it would all fly out so he could get me a clear answer—but only barely. “Nobody was home at any of them. Looked like they’d been abandoned.” Flecks of chewed cheese the size of pencil erasers flew out of his mouth as he spoke. “Score one for the good guys, huh?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Now they’ve gone underground.” I put aside my annoyance with J.J. and chewed my own piece of pizza. A thought occurred to me and I spoke, managing to keep the food in my mouth from spraying out as I did so. “Did Weissman charter that plane or did Century own it?”

  “Uhrm …” J.J. said, and he looked like he’d been caught by surprise. “I don’t know. NTSB is investigating the crash, local police are on the hangar.”

  “I know what caused the plane to crash,” I said.

  “Might not want to tell the NTSB that,” he said with a shrug. “Not sure how well they’ll take it when you give working for a government agency that doesn’t exist as an explanation for why you dropped it in the swamps outside the third most populous city in the state.”

  I frowned at him. “Confession may be good for the soul, but time in jail does nothing for my complexion.” I waved one of my pale hands in front of my face. “I was just thinking that if we could trace the origin of the plane, either by following the money if it’s a rental or by following its trail if it’s owned by Century—”

  “Yes!” His eyes lit up, and he got it. Finally. “Yes, I can do that. I’ll just—” He made as if he was going to move, then hesitated when he remembered the pizza plate in his hands and took a staggering step, tried to keep from falling as he regained his balance. Then he stared at the plate like his mind had skipped a beat trying to figure out what to do with it while his body rushed to follow his new train of thought. “Uhm …” He looked up at me as if he were seeking my permission for something.

  “Eat while you work,” I said, dismissing him with a wave of my hand. “Get me some answers, will you?” I watched him scramble around the wall of the cube and remembered a question I’d wanted to ask him, but a little too late.

  I wanted to know what the local PD had done with my mother’s body.

  But I supposed that could wait.

  I scooped up a few more pieces of pizza and headed for my office, taking care to open the door with my wrist instead of rubbing greasy fingers all over it. I stopped in the door and stared at the bonsai still sitting in the middle of my desk, at that unopened envelope waiting in front of it. I cringed, knowing I’d have to read it sooner or later.

  I’d have preferred later, but that wasn’t the mature response. I set the pizza plate on the desk and circled around to find my chair. I sat down and reached for the envelope, my fingers staining the pure white paper yellow with grease. I slid a finger along the seal and found it already ripped open. Someone had read it and replaced it, apparently. Someone who was perhaps a little more on top of things than I was.

  I pulled a small note out and opened it where it was folded in half. Simple words were written inside:

  To Sienna Nealon,

  I have repaid my debt to you to the best of my ability, given the constraints of time. I look forward to our next encounter, when I will meet you for the first time.

  With my deepest condolences,

  Shin’ichi Akiyama

  I tossed the note lightly on the surface of my desk and listened to the paper slide across it. However he’d intended to help me, whatever I’d done to assist him—or would do—whatever—he’d done one thing, to my knowledge. He’d helped my mom die while killing Weissman. The pizza didn’t even taste good anymore. “The best of your ability could have been a whole lot better,” I said to the empty room.

  Chapter 12

  I am ready to help you now, Bjorn said, and I could hear the reluctant sincerity in my head.

  I sighed, the sound making a quiet noise in my office as it bounced off the walls. “Thank you, Bjorn.” I took it with as much grace as I could, the assistance of a murderer and rapist. It wasn’t like I had armies of wholesome people in my head offering me their assistance, so I had to take what I could get, right?

  Right.

  Don’t forget, Bastian’s soft voice said quietly, I’m at your disposal as well.

  “Thank you too, Roberto,” I said, nodding as I turned to look out my window across the neatly manicured lawn. The world might be going to hell around us, but our gardeners still worked every day, apparently. I couldn’t decide whether that was soothing or galling and eventually decided on the latter. “I can use all the help I can get.”

  I heard a quiet rustle in the back of my head where Gavrikov and Eve still waited, watching me. I could feel them back there, discontented, their anger with me still fresh on the surface. “What about you, Aleksandr?” I asked.

  I think not, his faintly accented words floated up to me. I do not wish to give you more power which you may hang over my sister’s head like a looming danger, an axe or sword ready to fall.

  “That’s not me,” I whispered, as I felt him retreat to the back of my head. I could nearly taste his bitterness, his suspicion. It fed into all my worst fears about myself, giving me a sense of unease.

  What if he was right about me?

  I felt another presence, and it caused me to relax just a bit. Bjorn’s psyche, as near as I could tell, still held the hard-planted seeds of reluctance and rawness from how I’d treated him. I didn’t want to ask, but I suspected he was just being a bigger man. Not literally, but figuratively.

  “Thank you,” I muttered again.

  It is not for your sake, Bjorn said, and I sensed his anger below the surface. Sovereign deserves to die, horribly, for what he has done to me, and … I could hear the hints of grudging admiration spiking through his words as he spoke in my head, … your plan, your ideas … I find them pleasing.

  I frowned then quickly wiped the look off my face, burying my first reaction—distaste—at his approval. I knew he sensed it, but he wisely decided not to comment on it. Our choices were terrible, to either ignore each other, fight each other, or work together. It didn’t take anyone with half a brain to realize that those choices were absolute shit to both of us.

  But what the hell else was there to d
o?

  “Sienna?” There was a knock at my half-closed door, one that pushed the door open more than the crack it had been at. J.J.’s face appeared in the gap, and I caught a hint of eager eyes behind those huge black-rimmed glasses. “I think I’ve got something.”

  “Come in,” I said, trying to clear my mind of the distractions imposed by having six people living in the mental space meant for one. I waved him toward the desk and he slipped in, pushing the door nearly shut behind him as he came forward. He dragged one of my chairs a couple inches closer to the front of my desk, scuffing the carpet as he did so and getting an irritated reaction from me, as though I’d heard a single nail briefly scrape a chalkboard.

  Ever meet someone and just find yourself repelled by them, as though you’d met your polar opposite? That was J.J. for me. I couldn’t exactly explain it (not that I’d put a lot of thought into it), but the guy just annoyed the holy hell out of me. I tried to bury it, since I was his boss and I needed his expertise, but it did not take much effort on his part to set my teeth on edge.

  That was probably more on my end than his, honestly. I’m flawed, and one of those flaws is lack of patience. I’d say I was working on it, but that’d be a lie. I was just working on keeping it from ballooning out into murder every time I lost it.

  Baby steps.

  “I traced the plane,” J.J. said, “and you were right.” Who doesn’t love those words? Music to my ears. And ego. “Looks like it was chartered, and I found a new money trail leading to a shell corporation headquartered in Massachusetts. The Wise Men’s Consortium.” He glanced up at me. “Heh. Like a play on Weissman—”

  “Yes, I got it.”

  “Right,” he said, turning serious and clearing his throat. “And sexist, obviously. Anyway, it’s something. Also, the NTSB has traced the plane back to its takeoff point, and they’re now on the scene at the hangar, along with the FBI—”