Power

by Robert J. Crane

  I blinked at him demurely. “The same thing any army uses when they want to take out a number of enemies fast and efficiently.” I leaned forward. “A bomb.”

  Chapter 40

  I sat in my office after the meeting, the blinds cracked open and the sunlight pouring in. It was blissfully silent, which was a hell of a contrast to how it had been in the meeting after I’d dropped my own particular bomb.

  The reaction was predictable, the arguments equally so, and there was a lot of anger and rage. Also predictable. I didn’t really care, though, because when you start arguing about killing people, what’s the difference whether it’s fast or slow? My preference was for fast, obviously, given how much damage these particular people could do if given time to react.

  Foreman had been necessarily skeptical, but I thought I’d finally gotten through to him at the end. Maybe. He was a tough guy to read, and I would struggle to guess whether that was because of his meta abilities or his career in politics. Either way, it left me nothing more than the hope that he’d pass my request up the line and get us a bomb we could work with. I’d even talked with him for a minute privately after the meeting to make sure he got the right message. I still couldn’t read him, though.

  So I sat in my office and waited for the next inevitable knock. Whether it would be Scott and Rocha, hopefully with some news to share, or Ariadne with a budget projection that she knew I’d just sign off on, or someone else wanting to have any number of conversations I didn’t necessarily see the value in, it would come as surely as Century’s looming meeting.

  Though I probably wouldn’t have to wait as long.

  When the knock came a few minutes later, I didn’t even bother to act surprised. “Come in,” I said, still leaning back in my chair with my boots up on the desk. Director of a federal agency, and I wear boots every day. Well, when you have to kick as much ass as I do, it’s a necessity.

  “Hey,” Reed said as he eased in.

  “Hey, yourself,” I replied with all my wit. Well, half my wit. Whatever, I don’t deal in percentages. I gave what I had. “What’s up?”

  “Came to talk to you, of course.”

  “About my mother?” I asked. “Because I’m still not ready to have that conversation just yet.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know that I have anything to add in relation to Sierra. Getting to know her these last few months has been a … different …” He looked like he’d taken a bite of something he didn’t care for, “… experience.” He eased over to my desk and sat down on the edge. “No, I’m here because there’s something you need to hear.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, really?”

  “Yes,” he said and paused, as if he were drawing a deep breath before bringing the pain. “You’re not a mad dog in danger of slipping the chain.”

  I frowned at him. “What the …? Is there a ‘bitch’ joke coming at my expense? Because I’d look dimly on that.”

  “No,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that you’re like … a sheepdog.”

  Now both my eyes were wide and fixed on him. “I have no idea where you’re going with this.”

  “You’re aloof and jaded and have a mile-high fence around you, Sienna,” he said. “But you can’t hide the fact that you care about people and society. You always talk about the things you’ve done—killing M-Squad or the Primus of Omega—like it’s the start of your psychopath career. But you were willing to die going out against Wolfe back when this whole thing started in order to protect people you’d never even met.” He gave me his serious look. “It’s why you’re doing what you’re doing now. This whole ‘bomb’ idea … I don’t want you to feel guilty about it, like it’s some reversion to the darker instincts in your soul. You’re not a ‘kill for a thrill’ psycho. You’re a woman with a lot of power who’s made mistakes. You’re a guardian. You’re a protector. You’re a—”

  “Dark knight?” I deadpanned.

  “I was going to say sheepdog.”

  I sighed. “And we’re back to bitches again.”

  “Fine,” Reed said. “You’re a shield. You stand between the people and harm. It’s what you’ve always done, when you weren’t caught up in personal anguish and other …” he harrumphed, “… issues. This bomb idea? It’s … it’s a good one.” He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be my first choice because that’s not how I’d prefer to fight, but when you’re this outnumbered …” He sighed. “You have to do what you have to do.”

  I looked him in the eyes. “Thank you. I think.”

  “You’re welcome,” he snarked. “I think.”

  I watched him as he left and thought about it. Was it bad that I hadn’t even considered wiping out Century with a bomb to be anything less than a moral option? I mean, if they were having a meeting on the fifth floor of one of the big towers downtown, I’d cancel the plan in a heartbeat, but if they did what I suspected they were going to do and held the meet somewhere secluded, like that warehouse?

  Boom. I’d have no qualms about reducing them all to cinders. It wasn’t like they’d seemed to have any about doing the same to me. They’d started out as a hundred of the most powerful people on the planet, and now they’d revealed themselves to be scheming to take the power away from everyone else and concentrate it in their own hands.

  Did it say something bad about me that I was totally fine with just knocking them off and being done with it?

  Or maybe it just said that I knew something that Reed didn’t.

  Remember.

  It’s all right, Little Doll, Wolfe said. Nothing wrong with crushing your enemies however you can.

  “Thanks, Wolfe,” I said, this time only mildly sarcastic. It didn’t worry me until later that I actually did find it reassuring.

  Chapter 41

  Rome

  281 A.D.

  Marius sat on his haunches on the stone floor, head aching and throbbing, both in concert. He felt as though something full grown was about to spring forth from his skull, a spirit ready to break out of his head and take flight.

  “You are fine,” Janus said, reassuring. His voice was soothing, a pleasant sound amidst the fire that deluged his mind. “You are just fine. Lay back. Relax. The pain will pass.”

  “It is … not passing,” Marius said with emphasis on every word. This had been going on for years, it felt like.

  “It has been two days,” Janus said, accurately predicting Marius’s thoughts. It was an uncanny ability that the man had, and reassuring in its way. When the pain had not been there, it had seemed more reassuring.

  “He is fighting me,” Marius said. He could feel the man in his head, ripping about like an angry bull set loose in a town square. It felt as though furious horns were making great rips in his thoughts, shredding their way through him. He could not stand, could not walk.

  “He is a strong one,” Janus said, “and full of fury. But I can feel him within you. He will tire, his will to fight will falter given time. He already wearies.”

  “I …” Marius dropped the back of his head to the floor once more. They had gone to a town a day’s travel to the south. There they had confronted a man who possessed the power of flight.

  Which he had been using to wing away young women from villages for his own ends.

  Janus had called the man—Ennias—a monstrosity. Marius had agreed, after they’d spoken with a girl of fifteen who had survived Ennias’s attentions and come stumbling home to her village after a week’s abduction. The story she’d told had inflamed Marius’s rage and even caused his mother’s occasional irritable pronouncements to go silent. What Ennias had done had offended him on every level of decency. The girl had reminded Marius of the only villagers who had actually been kind to him, two teenage girls who had offered him bread every now and again.

  It had been easy, pressing his hands against Ennias’s flesh, when Janus held him there for Marius to touch. A simple arrow from Diana’s quiver, shot perfectly by her, dropped him. He had seen Diana’s f
ace when she shot. There was a quiet satisfaction there that told him that the village girl’s story had made an impression on even her.

  So Marius drank his soul.

  And now he burned in torment.

  “You … will … fail …” Marius muttered.

  I will not, came the voice of the murderous beast in his mind. You watchman, you fiend, you try and capture me—

  “I have … captured you,” Marius said. “You are dead. You are kept from crossing the river by my leave only. Your soul belongs to me, not to Pluto.”

  Never, the voice came. Never.

  Oh, yes, you will, came another voice, stronger than the weary Ennias.

  “Mother?” Marius said, and for but a moment the pain subsided.

  “Yes,” Janus said, quiet, solemn, into the silence. “Yes, this is how …”

  Marius closed his eyes and found himself in the darkness. It was nearly complete, a world formless and shapeless, and he stood at the point of a triangle in the dark. A woman stood to his right, and Ennias was to his left, looking haggard, his long hair wild and his eyes drooping like a man about to fall into slumber. It was as real as anything he’d ever felt, this place in the darkness. He knew he could reach out and touch Ennias with a hand, could feel the man’s bloodied lip if he held a finger up to it. It was knowledge that came naturally to him, instinctively.

  This was his place.

  You will fall before the might of my son, his mother said. He had seen her face only in passing, in visions before his waking eyes, and in dreams that were gone when he came back to consciousness. Here, her eyes were fearsome, green as the grass but lit with a hard edge, like an emerald that Janus had once shown him in the firelight. You will fall before my will as well.

  I will not, Ennias said, but his voice rang with uncertainty. He bled, and not only from his lip. His soul was in pain, was wounded from the struggle. He stood with his hand bent strangely at his side, broken, the way it had been when Janus had held him down.

  His mother looked at him, and her emerald eyes flared with light as she did. You have pushed me down with your will. I have felt the pain you can inflict. You cannot break him on your own, but you could sit upon him as you have me these long years, sit upon him until the end of time yet it will do you no good.

  Marius swallowed. “I don’t know what to do,” he said in a voice that broke into the darkness, echoing with power that originated in a place far from where he was. “I need what he has. I need it to survive, to do what we …” he hesitated. “What we need to do.”

  His mother nodded, once. Then let us face him together. With your will joined to mine, we will make him suffer in such a way as he has never felt pain before. We will make him scream and beg and cry—

  Marius felt the wave of alarm from Ennias even as he turned his gaze back upon the man. The fear was sweet now, easily tasted with the power he felt swelling on his side of the triangle. It was as though there was a cord drawn between him and his mother, something that pulsated with an energy born of will. It was a refreshing sense, like a bite of food when one was starving. It made his head go light, made his pain disappear, replaced with some heady sensation of control.

  Of power.

  The fear radiated off of Ennias, and he seemed to shrink before Marius’s very eyes.

  No, Ennias said. No, I will not—

  “YOU WILL,” Marius said, but his voice was deeper and sounded like a chorus to his ears. “YOU WILL BREAK BEFORE US, YOU WILL SUFFER UNTIL YOU DO, AND YOU WILL SCREAM UNTIL YOU YIELD.”

  An aura of light blazed in the darkness, emitted from Marius’s own flesh. His mother was gone—no, not gone. She was there, she was with him, she was the fire under his skin, the light taking away the dark. He swelled in size, growing larger and taller as Ennias shrunk before him. He breathed out and felt fire lick his lips. He reached down and grabbed puny Ennias in his hand, pulled him up to looking him in the eye, and a screaming filled his ears.

  Nononononononononono—

  “SILENCE,” he commanded in that deep voice, and Ennias was forced to obey. He could feel the pain of the man, could feel his agony. This was a man who thrived on pain, delighted in the infliction of torment on others, on innocents—

  The righteous fury caused Marius to burn even hotter, sending the ripples of his anger directly to Ennias’s soul. He could feel his mother’s rage coupled with his own and it was like a tidal wave crashing upon the shores, destroying all before it. Ennias screamed for hours, for days, and Marius could feel his will simply shatter. For a man who enjoyed the infliction of pain, he had no enjoyment for the weathering of it, and Marius let himself hurt the man a little longer out of sheer spite before pulling his tendrils back, before releasing the husk that was Ennias.

  Whaaat … do you want … from me? Ennias asked. He was sobbing gently, face buried in his arm, which was still unnaturally bent.

  Marius considered it carefully. “DO YOU WISH TO MAKE THE PAIN STOP?”

  The answer was instantaneous. Yes, yes, please, Ennias begged. Yes, I would do anything, anything—

  “SILENCE,” Marius commanded, and Ennias obeyed. He felt a smile somewhere deep inside, knew that Ennias would do it, would do anything to keep his word, if it meant the pain would stop. “You will … obey me from now forward.”

  Yes, yes, came the reply, filled with eagerness.

  “You will serve me from this day forward,” Marius said, his voice returned to normal

  Of course, Ennias said. He bowed his head and placed it upon Marius’s sandaled feet. Of course, my master.

  “If you are not with us,” Marius said, “YOU ARE AGAINST US.” The chorus returned with all force, fearsome in its sound, and the world shook around him with the raw will.

  Ennias shuddered and kissed his feet. I am with you. I assure you, I am with you. In whatever you command.

  Marius looked down at the man. He was pathetic, but he had use. A sob nearly broke free of Ennias, but he cut it off halfway through. “Good,” Marius said. “Now … give me your power.”

  “Marius,” came the voice from somewhere outside. Marius felt his eyes close, then he opened them once more.

  Janus stood next to him, and they were in the same room where he’d ailed by the fire. Janus wore a broad grin, his teeth wide beneath the cover of his dark beard. “You have done well, my son.”

  He looked down and realized he stood inches off the floor, his toes hanging in midair as though he were held aloft by an invisible rope. He took a breath and moved left, then right, as easily as if he were walking. Yet not one of his limbs moved. “I have him,” Marius breathed. He gave a nod, once, then twice, as he felt that confidence and power return to him here, in this place, as it had when he’d been in that dark space with his mother. “I have it now.”

  “Oh certainly,” Janus said, and he was still grinning. “You do, indeed.”

  We have it, his mother whispered in his thoughts.

  Marius stared at Janus, and Janus nodded once more before clapping him on the shoulder. “I will let you rest. Tomorrow … we continue by taking the next step.” He paused at the door to give Marius one more reassuring smile. “You have truly done a wondrous thing here today. I feel certain you have a bright future before you, one that will change the very world.” He shut the heavy door behind him, leaving Marius alone.

  Yes, my boy, came his mother’s voice again. You have a very bright future ahead of you. Why, together, we could rule all of Rome.

  Chapter 42

  Sienna

  Now

  “We’ve got it,” Scott said without preamble, as he poked his head into my office. I sat up in my chair, waiting for him to elaborate, but instead he gestured for me to follow, and I was after him in a hot second.

  “Where is it?” I asked as I followed behind him at a jog. He was hustling—human style, not in meta terms. Meta-style hustling would have forced people to dive out the way in fear for their lives.

  We were passing cubicles,
whipping through the half-occupied bullpen “Gables, Minnesota,” he said. “There’s a resort up there called Terramara. I’ve already had J.J. verify, and it looks like this is usually its off-season, all low occupancy and whatnot. But it’s fully booked for the next few days. Private party.” His eyes gleamed.

  “How’d you find it?” I asked as we entered the conference room. Reed was already there, sitting over Rocha’s shoulder as the man worked on a laptop that was hooked to a projector.

  “Because I’m extremely good at what I do,” Rocha said simply, and I got the feeling that arrogance ran over him full-force. It gave his voice a quiver of pride.

  “We traced cell phone signals in proximity of the jail attack in Arizona,” Scott said with a hint of his own pride. “Managed to trace them back to the source, then Rocha used NSA resources to hack their communication—”

  “It wasn’t hacking,” Rocha said with a little irritation.

  “Yeah, when you do it, it’s considered government compliance, right?” Reed shot at him. Rocha didn’t even bother to look at my brother.

  “Useful,” I said, hoping to end any argument before it started. “What did you find? Text messages?”

  “Everything,” Rocha said, a little more muted now. “Once we knew what smartphones your targets had, it wasn’t too difficult to pull the data through our system. We have emails, web histories, calls made, and yes,” he glanced at Scott, “text messages.”

  Reed looked at Scott and mouthed, “Text messages,” at him. Scott looked a little flushed for a moment after that. I tried to pretend I didn’t see it.

  “It was the emails that gave it all away,” Scott said, his expression returning to normal as he got back on track. “Apparently Claire and the rest of Century have been very, very bad at internet security.”

  “Why be so good at kicking our asses and eluding us but fail so hard on something so damned trivial?” I asked.

  “You’re not thinking like them,” Zollers said, and I realized he’d snuck into the room behind us. “I told you before, they’re on an offensive footing. In addition, they are the powers of their day. Gods and monsters dating to before recorded history.” His eyes gleamed. “In other words, they’re not exactly tech-savvy. I doubt any of their number have been born in the last century.”