I stiffened. “In Minneapolis?”
“He approaches this place even now,” Akiyama said seriously. “His telepath is tracking you and would have led him directly to your campus on this night were you not here instead.”
“What?” I felt the stirrings of alarm. “You could have told me earlier—”
“We do not have much time,” he said seriously, and the part of me that wanted to throttle him stood by listening, instead, as he spelled out the horror that was rushing my way even now. “He has with him two others besides the telepath. They are two of his strongest, and they will be familiar to you.”
“I have to go,” I said, and started to turn away from him.
Akiyama grabbed my hand and held it firm as I tried to pull away. “Sienna Nealon,” he said, catching my attention. I looked back at him, wanting to pull my hand away and run, run so I could warn my mother and the others. “Your destiny will be decided this night.” The seconds ticked by, and he looked in my eyes with great significance, significance I did not understand. “However you might feel, you are walking your own path through the darkness. Do not despair when all the light leaves you, and remember your past—it will see you through the trials ahead.”
“Thanks for nothing,” I said and ripped my hand out of his grasp. I had felt the stirrings of my power start to work on him as he spoke, but he showed little sign that it had affected him at all. With one last look, I saw him watching me as I broke into a sprint back down the path toward my mother. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream.
But instead, I locked my jaw in place and ran, ran as hard as I could down the dark path through the garden.
Chapter 39
“Come on!” I shouted at mom as I passed, and I heard her break into a run behind me. The quiet of the night was shattered by the pounding of our feet. I barely noticed the greenery of the garden around me. Where it had felt peaceful only moments earlier, now I felt nothing of the sort as the branches and boughs streaked by. A screaming urgency was tearing at me from deep within, willing me forward to the frightening reality waiting for me just outside.
I jumped over the gate and was running again as I heard my mother land behind me. I sprinted for the van, and saw Zollers open the door and step out as I approached. “Get in!” I shouted. “They’re coming!”
“I can’t sense them,” Zollers said, his face muted alarm. “I can’t …” His eyes widened. “Oh God. They’re close. She’s—” His neck cranked around and I saw a flash as a car appeared—literally appeared, out of thin air—behind the van. The doors opened and two huge figures unfolded themselves from the front seat.
“Weissman used his power to get them here without you being able to detect him,” I said. “Sneak attack.”
“Cornered, I’d call it,” my mother said from behind me. “Can we run?”
“They can appear anywhere we go,” Zollers said. “They can follow us in an instant.”
“Well, well, well,” Weissman said, appearing from behind the headlights of the car. He was still flanked by the two big guys, but I could see Claire’s shorter figure next to him. “Guess who’s got the power here, Sienna?”
“Probably Xcel Energy,” I smarted off. Scott and Reed were out of the van now as well, and they all followed behind me as I shuffled to stand in the light of Weissman’s car’s headlights.
“Always with the witty retort,” Weissman said, grinning. “But I think it’s pretty obvious who’s got the power now. You run, we run you down. You fight, things go badly for you. You’re the mouse, I’m the cat—and by the end of tonight, even you, you dense, snotty little bitch—you’ll get the picture.” He turned his head to look at Scott. “Well, well. If it isn’t the little Byerly brat. Isn’t this a plus?”
“Excuse me?” Scott asked. “Do I know you?” He asked way more politely than I would have, like he was at a formal soirée and being introduced to a society gentleman or something.
“No,” Weissman said with a grin. “But I knew your aunt and uncle. For, like … years. In fact, it was me that killed them. Don’t know if you knew that.”
“Bullshit,” Scott said. “Wolfe killed my aunt and uncle.”
“Au contraire, you stupid dipshit,” Weissman said, still smiling. “It was me. But I can see why you’d think it was Wolfe. It did happen around the time he was ripping through the city here. Gave me a nice cover to settle an old score and kick off the extermination while ending a personal grudge on a sweet, bloody note.”
I remembered back to what Wolfe had said to me in the basement, just before he and I fought for the last time, something about how someone else was joining in on his good times.
“You son of a bitch,” Scott breathed. He sounded like he was having trouble getting his words out. “You son of a …”
“Ooh,” Claire said, taunting, “I think you just gave the water boy some motivation to fight. Seems he’d lost his fire until just now.”
“I will kill you,” Scott said, and I flung out an arm to press him back as Reed caught him on the other side. “You son of a bitch, I will kill you!”
“You hang on to that happy thought as I’m pulling your guts out in long strings,” Weissman said. He sounded deliriously pleased. "And then tying them to your girlfriend's thigh as a garter for her upcoming nuptials."
“He’s after you,” Zollers said suddenly from beside me. “You’re priority one.”
“Of course I’m after her,” Weissman said, scoffing. “Do you realize how completely ineffectual the rest of you would be without her? She’s the linchpin of your entire ridiculous operation. Without her, half of you would be hiding under your beds,” he sent a glare at Scott, “and the other half would have charged blindly into whatever net we threw out to snare you. Of course, it’s not looking like her leadership is going to do too much to keep you out of it …” He just grinned, like the cat that ate the canary.
I glanced at Zollers and he nodded. He knew what I was thinking, what I’d asked him:
If I run, will Weissman chase me?
His nod was all the affirmation I needed. I took a breath and turned to Reed. He was still standing there, holding Scott back with me. Our eyes met, and I could feel his hesitation. I wondered if we could communicate just by a look, if it would be enough. He shook his head, firmly. I could see his quiet refusal.
“Reed,” I said, and tried to send every ounce of emotion, of pleading, of begging. All of their lives were in his hands, now, and their fates were tied to what he did next. “Please.”
“You really should be begging me,” Weissman said. You could tell he thought he’d already won, and it grated. “If you think—”
A howling of the wind blew hard all around me. I looked back and saw four of them; four enormous, swirling tornadoes launch my companions into the air. I watched them fly, two hundred feet straight up, and on a long, lazy arc away from where I stood staring down Weissman and his cronies.
“Son of a …” Weissman said, and his voice was tinged with annoyance. I could see the scowl on his face in the shadow cast by his headlights as I turned on my heel and sprinted away, back toward the conservatory entrance. “You have got to be kidding me. Go ahead and run, kid! Just savor the fear a little while longer, because your friends can’t escape from me … and it’ll be a fun night hunting you down first.”
Chapter 40
I had a head start, but not much of one. I could hear the two big guys following behind me. Something about them was entirely too familiar—not in a good way—and I wondered what it was.
I glanced back as I passed the conservatory entrance and kept going. The entry to the Como zoo was just a little farther, and my—admittedly limited—plan called for me to try and lose them inside.
The cool night air whipped across my face, and the faint smell of animals hung in my nose. My breaths were coming quick and sharp, more from the anticipation and fear than because I was winded.
I hung a hard right on the wide sidewalk that led into the zoo
and pulled my gun, firing three times into the pane of glass to the side of the doors. The pane collapsed in big shards as I jumped through the empty space they’d left behind. I fired thrice more on the other side and shot through that pane as well seconds later.
I almost couldn’t feel my feet, I was running so hard. I charged toward an exhibit building up ahead and looked back. The two guys were just behind me. I wondered briefly why Weissman didn’t just freeze time and let them take hold of me before realizing the answer.
He wanted to hunt me. To spend the time stalking me, making me fear him. My friends were already as good as dead the minute he had his hands on me.
He was just savoring this.
I shot twice at the big guy following me closest. He had red hair that flooded off the top of his head, wavy and curly and flowing down his back, I could see that much in the torchlight. If the bullets hurt him, he gave no sign, just kept coming.
I swore and ran into the building ahead. It was shadowed, but I heard the faint sound of a monkey as I dodged inside.
I ducked into a dark area and realized I had, in fact, reached the monkey house. A chattering sound reached my ears from a nearby glass enclosure.
“Amazing isn’t it?” Weissman’s voice reached me from a few feet away. I turned and saw him in the shadows for a second, and then he was gone. “We evolved from them to become the dominant form of life on the planet.” Now his voice was coming from somewhere else, bouncing off the walls, echoing through the monkey house. There was more chattering now as the denizens of the house responded to his voice. “Now we look down on them—and rightfully so—even though we once might have been the same.”
“I don’t see much difference between them and you,” I said under my breath. “Though it’s kind of dark in here; they’re probably prettier than you.”
“Hahah!” Weissman’s laughter echoed. I suspected he’d found the most acoustically perfect place to taunt me from. He really was just playing games. “I find it a lot easier to bear your stupid insults when I know you’re cornered. When you’re caged. Like one of them.” Somewhere he rapped on the glass, and it echoed. “Humans are like this to our kind, they just don’t realize it. We’re superior in every way, but for some reason we feel a need to hide among them. Like the fact that we’re special, that we’re better, should ever be hidden?”
“I don’t see how you’re that much better than them, especially in the area of hair care,” I said, putting my back against a stone wall. The shadows were moving in here, but I couldn’t hear much of anything over the chattering. It smelled, the strong scent of animal waste blocking out all else.
“Again with the goading,” he said, and I thought I caught a twinge of impatience again. I wasn’t sure whether taunting him was going to be the key to making him draw this out or if it’d be the thing that would cause him to snap and put an end to it sooner, but I was having trouble stopping myself in either case. “But then again, you’ve always been blind to the truths right in front of your face. So busy coming up with the next smart thing to say that you miss all the obvious things you should notice.”
“Tell me more,” I said, looking around. I had a feeling the big guys were in here with me, but I couldn’t see them.
“You looking for my tall friends?” Weissman said. “They’re here. Closing in on you a little at a time.”
“Cool,” I said and pushed myself harder against the wall, trying to look left and right, keep my approaches covered. “Let me know when they’re ready for a fight. My hands were bared, palms sweating, but if I could get my hands on them for about twenty uninterrupted seconds, I could put them away.
“Oh, they’re ready to fight,” he said. “They’ve got a little bit of a score to settle with you.”
“Really?” I asked. “I don’t remember beating the shit out of Sasquatch anytime in recent memory. Pray tell, what did I do to offend them? Did I insult their mother?”
“No,” Weissman said with a chuckle. “You killed their brother.”
I felt the chill creep down my spine as he said it, and the memory slammed home. The shadow moved to my left, and then to my right, and they swept in on me from both sides before I could do anything to react. As their faces crossed into the light for just the briefest of seconds, I knew why they had seemed so familiar before.
Those teeth. Those eyes. They were just like him.
Just like their brother.
Just like Wolfe.
Chapter 41
I dove hard, rolling into a shaft of light as I heard the Wolfe brothers behind me, stopping just before they plowed into each other. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead and flashed on, presumably thanks to Weissman monkeying with them somewhere.
I stared at the brothers Wolfe. The one on the left was the redhead, with a full, red beard and long, curly red hair coming down in strings around his face. He looked more human than Wolfe, but that wasn’t a high bar to clear.
“Elmo!” I said to him. “You’ve really let yourself go to hell.”
The other one was darker haired, but completely clean-shaven. He had short hair, but it was barely styled, just a mess that looked a little like he’d run his fingers through it to make it wild. I could see the hints of stubble across his cheeks. “And you, uh …”
“Save it,” the dark-haired one said.
“We’re not interested in your jibes, Nealon,” the red-haired one said.
“Hey, you guys can actually speak without using the third person,” I said, keeping on the balls of my toes. “Color me impressed.”
They glanced at each other, bereft of any amusement.
“I should probably introduce you,” Weissman said. “This is Grihm.” The red-haired one smiled, his pointed teeth revealed. “And Frederick.” The clean-shaven one nodded his head slightly.
I stared. “Frederick? Seriously?”
“I like it,” Frederick said, and I was surprised at how there was no growl in his voice. He sounded … almost normal. Almost. “It sounds cultured.”
“Also, it’s multi-syllabic, which is definitely bucking the family trend,” I said. I was surveying them and running my mouth off in hopes that we could delay the fighting just a little longer. If these two were anything like Wolfe, this was not going to be pretty. Wolfe was well nigh invulnerable to bullets, and I was pretty sure Grihm had proven earlier that it ran in the family.
That left me draining them to death, like I had their brother. But I had my doubts Weissman would let that happen without intervening.
I glanced around. Where was Weissman? I had heard him a moment earlier, and I knew he had to be just waiting to swoop in if things somehow went wrong with Grihm and Frederick. Plus there was Claire, still somewhere out there.
“So,” I said, trying to kill a little more time, “I take it you boys heard what I did to your brother?”
There was an utter lack of reaction from either of them at first, and then Frederick nodded slightly, a grim smile spreading over his face. “Drank him dry, didn’t you?”
“Something like that.” If they knew how I’d killed him, they were almost certain not to make it easy on me. I wondered how exactly I was supposed to kill them if they already knew to guard against the only sure method I had.
“Here’s something you don’t know,” Grihm said, sweeping his red hair out of his eyes with his hand. His fingernails were long and clawed, like Wolfe’s, but they were impeccably kept, like he went for regular manicures at the groomers. “We killed your aunt. And James Fries.”
“Uhm …” I thought about what to say to that. “Thank you, I think?”
They exchanged a look. Frederick spoke. “We assumed you’d be unhappy about that.”
I had a lot of emotions running through me; if I was unhappy about them killing Charlie and James, it was in way distant last place, somewhere past fear for my friends, for myself and for my entire surviving race. I was far more worried about how the next five or ten minutes were going to play out, frankly. “W
ell, you know what they say about assuming.”
Frederick frowned at me. Actually frowned. No growl at all. “You’re a very sarcastic person. I suspect it’s stunting your emotional growth.”
“What. The. Hell?” Did I just get psychoanalyzed by a Wolfe brother? I could feel some displeasure somewhere deep inside, from Wolfe himself. A choice comment about Frederick being a smug asshole floated my way from within.
Grihm crossed in front of Frederick, and both of them realigned to put me at the center of a ninety-degree angle. I knew they were going to leap, I just didn’t know when. They both tensed, but I was staring at them, one eye on each, trying to decide how this was going to play out. I suspected not good. The odds were not so much in my favor, after all.
They leapt and I pre-empted them, charging at Frederick. I went low, aiming to chop block his leg with my shoulder. It felt like an iron rod slammed into my collarbone as he landed a knee on me. I tried to muscle through but it didn’t work so well. He countered by bringing down a fist like a hammer on the top of my head, and I was forced to dodge right to avoid taking any more damage from him.
“Maybe you thought just because we seem smarter and more well-spoken than our brother, we’re worse fighters than him?” This from Frederick, whose blow to my head still had me seeing stars.
“I lived in hope, yes,” I said, keeping my distance. They were back to standing off, in balanced stances that told me they were ready to leap.
“Now you can learn to live in fear,” Weissman said from somewhere far behind me. I thought about looking back, but it was pointless to focus on him. He was going to let this play out. Let me get humiliated. “It’ll be good practice for you for what’s to come.”
“Ah, yes, my arranged marriage,” I said, glaring back at Grihm and Frederick. “I can’t tell you how excited I am about that.”
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