Limitless

by Robert J. Crane

  I felt that old chill creep into the house after me. “Had, yes.”

  “When you were together… did you… do things?” There was a sly glint in his eyes.

  That warmed me up a bit. “We did… do things. There are ways. Perhaps not the sexiest of… ways to do… things… but there are certainly ways to avoid… soul loss.”

  “I would really love to hear about them,” he said with a disarming smile.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, savoring the promise. “Tonight I’m just a little too tired.”

  I closed the door on his smile and stood there with my fingers against the wood as I waited to see what he would do. To my disappointment, I heard him lock it from outside. Then I heard him whistle his way back down the path toward his car, and I thought about tomorrow.

  Chapter 61

  As I lay down in bed, scraping the carbonized bits of scorched thread from the sleeve I hadn’t bothered to roll up before I set my arm on fire, I was still thinking about tomorrow. I thought about Webster, about this whole ordeal I’d let myself get dragged into. Because he was cute.

  Also, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel at least some loyalty to Janus. He and I had been through a few things, and it hadn’t been my choice for him to leave after the war to return to England. He’d seemed like a natural fit with what we were doing at the Agency, but he and Kat had left together about three months after the close of the war.

  Like most of the departures, it had been quiet, a few words of goodbye and little warning. They hadn’t been the first. They certainly weren’t the last to leave. But with each departure my world started to feel smaller and smaller, the job seeming bigger and bigger with fewer people to help me get it done. There had been a point about six months after the war’s end when Reed had left to settle some business in Italy, where I was the last of the old crew left. Me and Ariadne, I guess, if I’m being totally accurate, but since she had no powers of her own, it was basically down to me.

  Janus, though… I owed him. I owed all of them.

  I thought about Janus as I lay there, wondering whether he was alive or not. I wished I could have just kept trucking, kept running, kept pursuing every lead every hour of the day. I needed to chase down the man in the black mask. I needed to know what happened to Janus.

  And it was the man in the black mask that I was thinking of when I drifted into sleep.

  For a succubus, the power is mostly subtle things. My ex, Scott, could control water, pulling it out of the very air. My brother could control the currents of wind, stirring a roaring gale out of a balmy, still day. Janus could play with your emotions, pushing and pulling you in whatever direction he so chose.

  But incubi and succubi had a different playground—the soul.

  And for some reason I had never quite figured out, this included being able to visit people in their dreams.

  I recognized the alleyway near the gallery as the place where I’d been unceremoniously tossed into a dumpster with a bomb after having my throat slashed. I wasn’t sure which part of that was the most disrespectful and invasive, but it was safe to say that the whole thing had added a certain stew of rage to my normally pleasant and docile personality.

  Kidding about the pleasant and docile part, of course.

  I looked around the alley, and I could almost smell the spent explosive wafting out of the garbage bin. The crumbled brick all ran together as I spun, knowing I was in a dream. This was how it happened; you encountered people you had met by thinking about them as you drifted off to sleep. I’d considered showing Webster how it worked; it could be pretty intensely pleasurable – in a romantic sense – for a guy.

  I could also turn it into hell on earth if I so desired. I had a feeling—based on where we were—I was going to so desire, very soon.

  “So this is the fabled dreamwalk of a succubus?” came the cultured, unmistakably English voice of the man in the black mask. I was so sick of calling him that in my head. I wanted to give him a more appropriate name, and immediately. “And here is the fabled heroine herself.”

  “And here is the fabled turdblossom himself,” I said, letting my arms fold in front of me. “Or do you prefer something more floridly descriptive, like ‘psycho-loser mass murderer’?”

  “I think I rather enjoy the simplicity of ‘turdblossom,’ actually.” His smile never dimmed. “Wherever did you come up with such a concise and descriptive phrase?”

  I felt a slow boil, wishing I could say I came up with it myself. “In a movie.”

  “Truly, whoever wrote that one was a wordsmith,” Ski Mask said.

  “It had a talking raccoon with a machine gun in it, so don’t fall over yourself heaping praise.”

  He took in the surroundings once more and made a subtle, two-handed gesture toward the dumpster. “Since we’re here, I suppose we should talk about your impending death.”

  “Or your rapidly approaching comeuppance,” I tossed back.

  He smiled, which made me boil again. “I admire your spirit. Of course, that’s all you’ve got, since I’ve been bludgeoning you from the outset of our little game, but still. I admire it.”

  “I just took out your headquarters, Smugly McSmuggerson, so I wouldn’t get to feeling too untouchable if I were you.”

  He let out a low, short, breathy laugh. “If you were me, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  “If you weren’t dedicated to cutting the skin off people an inch at a time, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  The smile faded. “You’re a fine choice to lecture me on the art of revenge.” He paused, and the smile returned as he took in my reaction. “Oh, yes, I know about that. Four of them, wasn’t it? That’s how many people you killed in your mad quest for vengeance?”

  I felt a little cold. “Yeah. Four people directly responsible for the murder of…” I paused, composing myself.

  He leapt right in. “Your first lover, yes? I’m sure it seared your heart, losing someone you’d known all of… what? Six months?”

  I blinked my eyes, which were burning. “More like nine, but—”

  “But you’re the hero,” he said, a sort of slick sarcasm slipping out like the blade of a knife. “You’ve killed more people than I have, but you’re the hero.”

  “We were probably neck and neck until the wheelchair thing.”

  He grinned. “Well, I needed it more than that fellow did.”

  “You’re a sick bastard.”

  “So are you, yet you’re still the hero of this piece,” he said, the smirk not diminishing one bit. “Don’t you find that hilarious? You’ve murdered people. You’ve killed dozens—”

  “In war,” I said.

  “And in revenge,” he interrupted. “It’s really a matter of timing. Because if you’d been alive two or three thousand years ago, you truly would have been more than just a hero. You would have been a goddess. The historians of the time, the storytellers, the prophets, they would have treated you with your due respect. They would have sung your praises from every rooftop and in every marketplace, and small children would hear the tale of your murder of M-Squad as a cautionary one. Do not cross the Soul-Tearer, or she shall unmake you.”

  “‘Soul-Tearer’ is a little melodramatic, don’t you think?”

  “And the legend of Hercules is cheerfully understated,” he said with that same smile. It was getting infuriating. “Even a hundred years ago, the world was black and white enough that you could have been a true and virtuous heroine if the truth had all come out then. Casualties of war, they’d say. A righteous fight to the death. If they made a movie of your life, even including the dark moments where you wavered and acted in self-interest and in the name of vengeance, you would still be lauded. But now? Someone whispers a few words about certain dead bodies you’ve left in your wake and your carefully spun lies become the twine in which you strangle.”

  I listened, strangely riveted and utterly horrified. My past had been buried carefully by the U.S. government, but th
e fact that there were people out there who still knew the truth was an inescapable fact—and probably the thing I feared the most. “I’m no hero,” I said.

  “But you are,” he went on. “Built up by the talking heads on television—the storytellers of our time—even in spite of that dreadful interview. Lionized by those who were taking their first steps into this new world of metahumans. The fiction has held for two years. And do you know why? Because people are obsessed with heroes.”

  “I said I’m not a—”

  “They love the idea of strength,” he said. “Your strength. They’re repelled by weakness. No one ever fantasizes about being the victim—”

  “Except a lawyer,” I tossed in, just to be snarky.

  “People hate the weakness they see inside.” His smile was twisting into something malevolent. “They despise the pathetic and sad parts of themselves, and rather than try to fix them, they latch on to that weakness in others and disclaim it. Hate it. Shout it from the rooftops. Loathe it in a raging mob.” He was angry now, and it was flowing out of him in a low, bubbling rage. “Because even though we love them, we don’t believe in heroes anymore, not truly. You were raised up by the storytellers, and you will fall the same way. Once there was a deification of heroes, a belief that they were better people than us. Then we realized they were gods with feet of clay.”

  “Well, I’m sensing some unresolved anger here,” I said. “Daddy issues?”

  “I believe you might be projecting,” he said coldly. “Though it strikes me as ironic, given the plethora of problems you’ve had with your mother.”

  “You’re a telepath,” I said.

  “Wrong,” he said with a muted sort of glee. “I can’t read your mind. Only your future.” His eyes went slack. “And all I see is blood, from now until the end.”

  It almost felt like something clicked in my mind when he said it. He’d let it spill because he was angry, that was certain; he would have been a lot smarter to keep it to himself. “A Cassandra type,” I murmured.

  I saw a waver of uncertainty beneath the mask, but it resolved as he realized he was committed. “I can trace my lineage back to the oracle at Delphi. Thousands of years of heritage.”

  “Family is important to you,” I said, trying to work my way through it. There was something else going on here, something driving this whole machine. “You’re angry at the UK government.”

  He made a noise with his lips that conveyed utter disdain. “I am annoyed at the government. It’s Omega that I’m aiming to burn.”

  “Omega is dead,” I said. “Over with. Finished.”

  “Truly?” His eyes caught mine, and for the first time I realized that they were deep brown. It was hard to tell under all that rage. “Are you actually that naïve?”

  “Are you really that stupid?” I asked. “They fell in the war. Their Primus died, their ministers were killed, and the chaff got mostly swept away by Century. They’re gone.”

  “I thought they were dead, too,” he said. “But it was all a masquerade. You see, the rats are the best at leaving a sinking ship. And that is what Omega was, a nest of rats. They were better prepared than anyone to weather the storm that Century brought, because there was no other lower form of life than them.”

  “They were the cockroaches in the nuclear apocalypse?” I asked. “All well and good, but metaphors aside, whoever burned you at Omega is probably dead.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Omega is more than a person. It is an institution, made up of the people who run it. As you stand before me in perfect evidence, the last person to run Omega is still alive and well.” He glanced at the dumpster. “At least for now.”

  “You’re down to two people remaining in your little gang,” I said. “The entire Metropolitan Police force is looking for you. If you really can see the future, I find it hard to believe that you could think that this is all going to resolve well for you.”

  There was a hint of uncertainty that wafted off of him. “That’s not exactly how it works.”

  “No?” I asked. “How does it work?”

  “That would be telling,” he said with that smile. “As much as I wish I could forewarn you, forearm you and let things play out, I prefer to place all the odds on my side.”

  “Join the club,” I muttered.

  “And about the Metropolitan Police,” he said, putting his lips together. “I don’t think you’ll be getting much help from them going forward. Parliament is making decisions even now that will put you out in the cold with them.”

  “I don’t really enjoy being out in the cold.” I lifted a hand and my fingers blazed to light, flames crackling on them. “But it’s not as much of a problem as it used to be.”

  He smiled. “You should be grateful. I read all about what happened to you in the wake of your Directorate’s fall. Seems to me that you never did appreciate the gift of perspective you were given that night.” He straightened himself up. “Perhaps you need a repeat of the lesson in order for it to sink in.”

  I felt my jaw tighten. “I’m going to catch you. I’m going to stop you. Whatever you’re planning, I will take you apart one piece at a time until it’s just you and me, and I don’t care if you can see every second of the future—I will be the punch you cannot stop.”

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.” He straightened his tie. “Because you know what they say.” He lowered his voice. “Fortune favors the brave.”

  “In America we say the bold,” I said, “but either way, it doesn't favor the clinically insane who tear the skin off living people and bomb entire blocks in order to kill police officers.”

  “I will destroy everything I have to,” he said with that smile. “Blow up anyone. Tear the flesh from all in my path. I’ve proven that.” He made a motion like he was pushing a wheelchair. “You are the last touched by Omega, which is why you are last in my calculations.” Something in the way he said it rang hollow to me. “The fact that you are a hero—yet sullied, dirty—fascinates me to no end and will make your inevitable fall all the more glorious.”

  He looked at the dumpster and fixed his gaze on it. “No matter what you do, I can see every move you will make. I have plans for you. When it comes to gods, the old ones may have been fallible, but I have a will of iron.” He pointed at the dumpster. “So, prepare yourself—hero,” he said it with such scorn it dripped, “because that is your past, and your future is dimmer still.”

  “There’s just one thing you forgot,” I said, staring at him with a seething fury of my own. “You may be able to see the future, but you don’t control it.” He actually rolled his eyes at me on that one. “And you definitely don’t control the world of dreams we’re in right now.”

  I took two strides toward him before he could move, before he could react, and I tore his mask right off his face like it didn’t exist. Because it actually didn’t, not in this dream. It dissolved into smoke and he let out a cry of pain at my touch. When the black smoke cleared I was left staring down at a pale man, with long dark hair, a tall forehead and a small, pointed nose.

  The face of my enemy.

  “Now let me show you what else I can do in a dream,” I said and applied my hand to his face. I could feel the burning anger in my touch, and he screamed in absolute pain, his shrieks not manly in the least.

  “Philip!” I heard somewhere in the distance and knew that I had only seconds left.

  “So long, Philip,” I said, and brought my touch of agony back to him for a farewell stab of pain. He screamed again, and then he disappeared as someone woke him, shouting his name again. He looked at me with those hateful, hateful eyes as he disappeared.

  I awoke in the bed in Marjorie Webster’s house moments later, my breath coming in long, uncomfortable gulps. My skin was covered in a sheen of perspiration and the sheets were tangled around my body.

  “Philip,” I murmured aloud and stared at the ceiling as my mind prickled at me, filling me with the sensation that I’d forgo
tten something very, very important.

  Chapter 62

  Philip felt the shaking, and his first thought ran to the idea that it was pain, pain, that glorious bitch’s pain from her touch. As the next slap descended he realized it was not her, but Liliana who was slapping him awake, the sting knocking his jaw asunder, the stale air of their new hideout hitting him in the face as he awoke in the darkness.

  Liliana raised her hand to him again and he caught it this time, the descent halted in midair, her fingers inches away from making contact with his jaw again. “I’m awake,” he said with a searing anger.

  “Nightmare?” Liliana asked, staring at him from those black eyes. “Or succubus dream?”

  “That latter, I’m afraid,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “She has my name and she knows my power.”

  “How did she get them?” Liliana asked, her voice tinged with fear.

  “Because you shouted it so loud it bled into the dream,” Philip said, letting the sting of his cheek carry into his words. “I think it’s time we sever her connection to the Metropolitan Police Department. Do you have Antonio’s detonator?”

  “I took his spare before we fled the warehouse,” she said, producing a small black object from underneath her coat. “It’s limited by range.”

  “Go do it,” he said. “I’ll watch our guests.” He could taste a hint of blood in his mouth where she’d slapped him hard enough to break his lip open. He watched her walk toward the open door, the faint light of distant illumination casting her in silhouette in the doorway. “Do hurry.”

  Chapter 63

  My head hurt, but I put it through its paces anyway, trying to review everything Philip had said.

  He was a Cassandra. He could read the future. His name was Philip, no middle, no last name to work with. He had a mad-on toward Omega for personal reasons. He was irritated at the UK government for presumably also personal reasons. He hated me. He hated that I was a hero. And…

  And…

  Perhaps you need a repeat of the lesson in order for it to sink in.