I stood up so fast I almost cracked my skull on the steel ceiling. “You whatted my what?”
“Livestream. It’s what all the cool kids are doing these days. Except I took over the entire satellite uplink system for the planet and just broadcast your shit live to everyone with a TV.” There was a brief pause. “You’re welcome.”
I was pretty sure my face was a horrorstruck mess. How many people had I murdered today? And she’d shown the world this? “Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s damned good television,” she said, a little too chipper, clearly leaning a little hard on the uppers today. “Forty minutes to impact.”
That cleared the mind. “Shit,” I said, shaking my head. “Are people watching me right now?”
“No,” she said. “I cut the feed so you could prepare, but I’m going live again after you—y’know. Kick things off.”
I grabbed a couple heavy items off the rack, selecting them carefully to make sure I had the right ones, then piled a few into my arms. They weren’t light; they weighed in excess of twenty pounds each, and I loaded up and brought them to the front of the cabin, feeding them carefully into the autoloading mechanism.
Drawing on that Russian’s experience, I prepped one, then slid into the turret control of the Russian-made T-72 main battle tank. “Great,” I said. “I can’t wait for the world to see me do this.” Pure sarcasm. If public opinion of Sienna Nealon was a gauge, we were already well into the red-line section of HATE, and me firing a Russian tank cannon into Hades’s castle was unlikely to change things up much.
Dropping the reticle, I lined up my shot against the wall of the castle.
“Third window from the right,” Cassidy’s voice came through. “Aim two feet below it. Just above the ‘waterline’ of the castle rock.”
“Thanks,” I muttered and adjusted the reticle accordingly. Who was I to argue with the genius who was broadcasting my crazy misadventure to the entire planet, so they could see what a miscreant I actually was as I did horrible things, live? “At least she knows physics,” I muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” I said, and steadied my hand on the firing control. I readied myself and then shouted, “Fire in the hole!”
CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
Lethe
“I have let Death slip lazily along without my guiding hand for many thousands of years,” Hades said, watching the single missile track with furious eyes. “I thought perhaps the world could manage without me, but look—things are worse than ever. Sovereign nearly ruined us all. Harmon almost brainwashed the planet. The United States and the Soviet Union nearly destroyed us all with these very weapons—and where was I?” He turned to Lethe. “Content to sit on the sidelines, abdicating my responsibility.”
“I don’t know what sort of ego pump she’s attached to you,” Lethe said, trying her best not to roll her eyes and failing, looking at Krall, “but you need to lance that infection immediately. It’s going to be the death of you.”
Hades merely arched an eyebrow at her. “I am Death himself. I cannot be killed.”
“That scar on your chest says otherwise,” Lethe said. “And if my mother was here … she’d show you otherwise. Again.” Her eyes flicked to the screen. “But I believe her great-granddaughter is going to take up her part.”
“You still don’t understand the grander purpose,” Hades said, shaking his head as he took a step toward her. “Our purpose. All these conflicting forces, all these petty human disputes, but at the core of it all, still lies the fundamental, overriding truth—Death conquers all. Inevitable, it is the fate of all men. But now it is wild, untamed, like a forest grown out of control and filled with dead wood, ripe for a wildfire. Sovereign was a wildfire. Harmon was a wildfire. They were prevented only by careful, and judicious effort—”
“Her effort,” Lethe said. “Not yours.”
“Because I have stood aside for too long,” Hades said, squeezing his fist closed. “We require … control. Careful, judicious, exercise of power. The strong hand of Death steering things along toward a more productive course—”
“You’ve lost your damned mind,” Lethe said. “You’re not even powerful enough to feel it when those souls vaporize.”
“I don’t need to feel it,” Hades said, smiling. “I need but to help it along. We must begin again, and the scourging, nuclear fires will be the instrument. This tragedy will awaken the world to the great dangers awaiting. It has been too long since they have seen loosed the power which they casually hoard. This will move the planet toward decision—they will start to work together to eliminate—”
“You,” Lethe said.
“Nuclear weapons,” Hades said. “And we will sit, secure in our fortress, and watch, and wait, and plan … as the world adopts a better way forward. A safer one.”
“I don’t think that’s how it’s going to go,” Lethe said.
“It is the only way it can go,” Krall said. She stood at the planning table, still smiling, snakelike, hands behind her, “They cannot reach us here. They cannot touch us—”
“Did you hear … something?” Hades asked. He was frowning, concentrating, perked up and listening.
“No,” Krall said. “What do you m—”
The entire castle shook, and a six-foot hole blew in the wall behind them, stone block shattering and filling the air in a path before them with shards and stone. It echoed like a bomb had gone off somewhere nearby, which … it probably had.
Hades had hit his knees and now sprang back up, his suit coat covered in dust. “What was that?” He stared, wide-eyed, at the hole in his fortress. Daylight streamed in from outside. A half-dozen consoles were wrecked, their operators dead or moaning. Motes of dust floated in the beam of sunlight.
Lethe worked her jaw, popping her ears. The explosion had dramatically changed the atmospheric pressure in the room. “I believe that’s your great-granddaughter.” She wasn’t bothering to hide her smile. “You know. The one I’m rooting for in this.”
Hades’s face darkened as though the sun had just set in front of him, and the castle rocked again as another shell hit somewhere nearby, beyond the front of the Situation Room. He spun. “Aleksy!”
The timid lieutenant rose on shaky legs from where he was crouched behind a surviving console. “Yes?”
“I want you to go out there and kill my great-granddaughter,” Hades said.
Aleksy stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, sir.” With a wave of his hand, he pulled metallic components, glittering in the sunlight, out of the wreckage, and they floated under his feet. Once there, he waved his hands, and they lifted him into the air, carrying him out of the hole in the side of the fortress as he disappeared into the daylight.
“You just sent him to die, you know,” Lethe said, watching him go.
Hades stood there, back to her. He did not speak for a long moment, and when he did, he was so quiet she couldn’t be sure of what he said.
But it sounded like: “Perhaps so.”
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
Sienna
“Magneto boy incoming!” Cassidy’s voice crackled over the speakers, breaking through my umpteenth hearing loss of the day. I fired the HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) shell that had just loaded and didn’t even bother to watch it hit, because I was pretty sure it wouldn’t.
I leapt up the ladder and out of the cupola in one good jump, hopping from the turret to the ground in a roll. The sound of something cutting through the atmosphere came just a second later—
The T-72 tank exploded as my round was returned to sender, and I ducked under the gutter edge of the road that went around the laager to try and manage some minimal cover as it blew.
It sorta worked. I caught some shrapnel on my left elbow and let out a scream that was drowned out in the fury of the tank blowing up with all its ammo. It went big, the turret lifting off in the blast, crashing back down as it burned, waves of heat so intense that I was afraid
my clothing might catch fire even fifty feet away.
As expected, Aleksy had turned my last shell around and sent it back to me. I’d planned for this, even wanted it to happen, but as usual, I couldn’t anticipate every consequence, ever, and the nice gash on my arm proved that.
“Ow, ow, ow!” I said, watching the blood roll down my forearm, making the usually invisible fine hairs stand out in the little tide of crimson. It looked mostly superficial, the shard of metal that had caused it striking and moving on, not sticking in the flesh, fortunately. But it was bleeding nicely, and I had to hope there wasn’t enough iron content in my blood for Aleksy to do something terrible with. Because that was something I hadn’t planned for.
“Your grandfather has sent me to kill you,” Aleksy announced as he drifted down beside the pillar of flame that rose out of the burning tank. He had a bunch of metal shards under his feet and was using them to levitate. I’d expected that, too, or at least something similar. It would have been the fastest way for him to get down to me, after all, and stop me from continuing with my pain-in-the-ass schtick.
“He’s doing that with his servants a lot lately,” I said. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, being cooped up in the war room, but it’s not been working out so well for them.”
“It will work out differently for me,” Aleksy said, now only about ten feet off the ground.
“That’s what they all think,” I said, rising up, a little unsteadily. My head was swimming from the explosion and maybe the loss of blood. It dripped down my arm, sliding down my wrist and onto my palm. Sticky, warm … I didn’t love the feel of it draining out of me, added to the volume of sweat beading out of my skin. “I hate to spoil the end of the story for you, but it never does.”
“This time … it will,” Aleksy said, and he raised his hand—
And with the motion, the rifles and pistols of the three soldiers I’d run over with my car came up, barrels pointed right at me. He brought them in front of his face, lined up in a row, as if three invisible shooters were taking aim.
My own personal firing line.
“You sat in that control room and watched as Hades launched nuclear weapons at cities filled with innocent people,” I said, looking up at him, clutching at the dripping wound on my arm. “You as good as sentenced those people to die, Aleksy.”
His expression wavered, but he shook it off. “It is for the best. Lord Hades says so.”
“And if Lord Hades told you to jump out of a castle wall and go kill yourself by picking a fight with me—well, I guess we know you would,” I said, shaking my head. “I thought maybe you were smarter than that. I thought maybe you had a moral compass. But you’re as lost as he is.”
“But not as lost as you,” Aleksy said, and now there was anger. “You have killed my friends.”
“Your friends were scum,” I said. “Hired killers. Sadists in their free time. The dregs of humanity.”
“You didn’t know them!” he snapped.
“I knew them better than you.” I stared him down.
He stared back, over the barrel of six guns. “You don’t know me.” He straightened, his decision made. “So long, Sienna—” He waved his hand—
The guns, their barrels pointed right at me, fired all at once—
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
Dave Kory
“Ohmigod,” Holly whispered as the guns fired as one.
Dave looked at the clicks. They were way down. “Sienna Nealon dies live,” he whispered. It would have been good to have the stream going on the site so everyone could see it here.
“Oh. My. Goddess,” Holly said, and Dave turned to look. There was smoke on the screen, and movement—
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE
Sienna
“How stupid do you think I am?” I asked as I hurled myself into the cloud of smoke swirling around Aleksy. He was staggering, every single one of the pistols and rifles having blown up right in his face from the rocks I’d shoved down their barrels before I’d fired the first round out of the tank. Dumbass didn’t even check them before shooting. As though I’d just leave functional weapons lying around for him to turn on me with his powers.
I jacked him in the jaw with a hard punch, knocking him off his metal supports. He collapsed, hitting the ground and rolling, kicking up a cloud of dust in the landing. He was bleeding heavily from a nasty gash on his forehead that looked superficial, and a piece of plastic rifle stock was sticking out of his chest.
He tried to get up, but I bashed him behind the ear with a closed fist, cracking a knuckle in the process. “I warned you,” I said, hammering him again. “I tried to show you mercy, because I thought maybe you were a good guy in a bad place. But you’re not. You’re just another—”
Movement out of the corner of my eye. I leapt without looking, a high flip as a car flew from across the street, right through the place where I’d been standing a moment earlier. It kept going, crashing into the flaming tank, and I came down in a three-point superhero landing, my fist finding Aleksy’s face on impact.
“—overinflated douchebag death cultist,” I said, picking up right where I left off. Aleksy was crawling now, trying to get away from me. He moved his hand again, and I did another leap, twisting as little shards of metal—the remains of the guns which had exploded thanks to my blocking the barrels—shot at me in a minefield of pieces. One scraped past my shoulder, tearing my shirt and opening a scratch, another caught me at the hip in a graze. I was like a gymnast, tilting and twisting in midair, trying to keep him from tagging me too hard.
I came down again, this time getting him solidly in the back of the head. He went limp, stunned beyond the ability to concentrate, and the metal shards he’d been bringing back around at me for another pass fell, glittering.
Lucky thing I’d knocked him silly, because he’d put a little more distance between them on this pass. I’d have had a hell of a time not taking a direct hit from one or more of them, and it’d have been like getting shot by a tumbling, twisted piece of shrapnel. Worse than any bullet in terms of the damage it would do.
“Okay,” I said, placing a hand on the back of Aleksy’s neck. “Give me the lay of the land, and also …” I waited a few seconds, counting it out, as my power kicked in, “… Let’s see if you can—”
I jumped into his head, that bluish haze filtering his important memories to the surface. I could feel his whole mind; it was right at my fingertips. I took a quick peek around the most recent ones, saw what was going on at the castle—
Ewww. Hades and Krall? Gross.
And Lethe in chains. Huh. That was interesting.
I also saw the disposition of forces around the castle, at least to the best of Aleksy’s knowledge, and …
Shit.
It was worse than I thought it would be.
“One last thing,” I said, and reached into Aleksy’s mind, trying to tap into his powers. If I could reach that last nuke from here, with his abilities …
But I hit a wall a couple hundred miles out, unable to get past it. That was his limit, and the nuke heading for Minneapolis was beyond it.
I let go of the back of Aleksy’s neck, his skin still warm against my palm. “Damn,” I said. Killing the nuke from here would have simplified everything.
“What … what happened?” Aleksy asked, raising his head, sounding like he’d just woken up from a long nap.
I glanced to my right. Before he’d shown up, as part of my preparations, I’d scattered some bricks from a nearby construction site around the laager, figuring that sooner or later I’d be in a situation where Aleksy was vulnerable. Sure, with enough effort, I might be able to knock him silly, but applying my fist to him? Maybe that’d work in time, maybe it wouldn’t.
“You told me everything I needed to know,” I said, and I reached, slowly, for the brick.
“I … I did?” He couldn’t see me, since I was on his back, holding him down, but he was sounding less hazy by the second. I could have scooped all
his memories, maybe. Taken out all the reasons why he was loyal to Hades, left him a blank slate again, and just let him wander off from here.
But … not even a year ago, Rose had done that very thing to me, and I was still dealing with it. I hated it, hated the thought of it, hated every bit of it, and I didn’t think it was merciful, not at all.
So I let him keep his memories, his loyalties, and everything that made Aleksy … Aleksy. Bad decisions and all. “You did,” I said. He was getting stronger by the second. His hand was already extended, and he was reaching for the burning tank. He could control it, easily.
“You took it from me, then,” Aleksy said, and he squeezed his hand tight. “Took it from me and—” The tank started to move.
I snatched the brick and raised it high, bringing it down behind his ear with all my force—
And caved his damned head in.
I raised it up.
Brought it down again.
The tank squealed as though the flames were bending the metals within.
But they weren’t. I knew.
Aleksy had just relinquished his hold. His hand was limp, flat on the ground. A little tremor shook it, residual nerves causing a muscle spasm.
“Yeah,” I said, rising to my feet, a little unsteadily. “I did.”
I looked down at him. His head was good and smashed. The blood on me was not just my own now.
I let go of the brick and it thudded to the earth. Scarlet dripped off of it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and for some reason, I truly was.
Then I turned my back on Aleksy’s body and walked away.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWO
Passerini
“That was impressive,” Passerini said, watching her walk away from the fallen soldier. “Brutal … but impressive.”
“She’s a very impressive lady,” Graves said, a little hoarse.
Passerini leaned over. “General Kelly … send ’em in.”
“Aye, sir,” General Kelly said from over by the planning table. “They’re on the way. Everything is. It’s a small country. Transit time is short.”
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