Badder

by Robert J. Crane

  He made a face. “Dude…you think I’m not coming with you?”

  “J.J…” I said, exasperation popping out. “This is serious, man. I have to do this alone.”

  “Are you nuts?” J.J. asked, waving a hand behind him to encompass the bullpen and all the people waiting within it, probably straining hard to hear our conversation through the door. “You gotta be joking right now. You’re gonna take the team and leave me behind?”

  I froze. “I’m not taking the team.”

  He squinched his face up further. “Whut?”

  “I’m going alone,” I said. “The team is staying here.”

  J.J. adjusted his glasses, giving me an “oh no you didn’t” sort of look. “You’re going to ditch everybody? You’re going to go—extract our friend—and you think you can just go solo, no one rolling with you?”

  “No one is coming with me,” I said, hesitating.

  “You heading into trouble?” J.J. asked, like I was dumb, and it was obvious.

  “Hopefully not.”

  He cocked his head. Again, I got the feeling I was dumb. “You’re going to her. She’s wanted. She’s—I assume—in some kind of trouble—”

  “She got disempowered,” I said, not sure why I said that. It just sort of popped out. “She ran into another succubus,” I went on, when his eyes blew up wide, “a stronger one. This other girl…she ripped the souls right out of her, left her…weak. Turned the cops against her. She’s…” I ran a hand through my long hair. “It’s bad.”

  J.J. just stared at me. “All the shit we’ve been through, and you think that the crew is going to stay behind on this one?”

  “This is off books, J.J.,” I said. “This is not the mission, it’s not their job. I don’t have the authority to ask this of them, even if I wanted to. They shouldn’t have me dragging them into this—”

  “It’s Sienna, man,” J.J. said. “We’re all in this.”

  “No, we’re not,” I said. “She’s my family. I’m in this. But the rest of you? This is your private lives, man, and what we’re talking about here is the opposite of what we do here for work. This is lawbreaking, doing wrong—this team doesn’t do that. They aren’t a group of bank robbers or mercenaries. And when it comes to this kind of illegality, these kinds of life-changing, ruinous consequences, they don’t answer to me—”

  “THEY WILL ANSWER TO THE KING OF GONDOR!” J.J. shouted, almost rattling the door. His eyes were on fire, wild as I’d ever seen them. “Dude. The beacons are lit AF, okay? Sienna calls for aid—”

  “You guys aren’t Rohan,” I said, trying to keep an even keel. J.J. was plainly worked up, speaking in geek metaphor that—yeah, I got it, but…I wasn’t exactly proud of the fact. “This isn’t your fight. This is the reason Sienna has kept us all at arm’s length for the last several months. Everyone who goes on this trip is asking for a prison sentence if things go wrong, if we end up getting into a fight. Let me handle this—”

  “Hell no!” a voice cracked through the door.

  “Nuh uh,” came another.

  “What the—” I went for the handle and J.J. moved aside. I opened it to find the crew out there, not even making a pretense of working. Augustus, Scott, Kat and Jamal were standing right out there, Veronika, Colin, Abigail and Friday about a half-step behind them. Not one of them looked shame-faced, though Chase was lingering back a ways, as was Miranda.

  “Man, Sienna put this team together,” Augustus said, and before I could say anything to that: “You ain’t got grounds to deny it. We all know she’s been behind the scenes on this from day one.” He looked at Miranda significantly. She didn’t admit anything, of course. She was a lawyer who’d been taking orders from a wanted fugitive; she’d be dumb to open her mouth, even here. Augustus looked back at me, all sincerity. “She’s saved my life more times than I can count. If she’s in trouble, if she’s powerless I don’t care whose damned law is standing in the way. I’m going. Because if I got my ass in it up to the neck, you know she’d be there to help, even if the law was still after her.”

  “Here, here,” Jamal said, doing a little abrupt clap. When no one else joined in, he stopped.

  “Guys—” I started to say, and then Abby shot me a hard look. “And gals,” I amended. “There could be serious consequences for this. Life in the cube, and for some of us…it might be a long life.”

  “Puh-lease,” Veronika said, feigning a yawn. “I’m insulted you didn’t ask me to come. I mean, I do illegal things all the time.”

  Augustus rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, we get it. You have a wild sex life.”

  Veronika froze for a second, then threw her head back and let out a laugh. “Oh, I like you, pretty boy. I was talking about how I used to be an assassin, sweetie, and you go full into the gutter without even a nudge from me.” She wore a wide grin. “I’m wearing you down, baby.”

  Augustus made a face. “Did you just Urkel me?”

  “Sienna and I have had our differences,” Scott said, “but you know…I’m there for her, no matter what. She’s saved the world…so many times. And the world turned its back on her? Well, I won’t. I’m coming.” He clenched a fist in front of him. “If I have to ride the waves behind you all the way, I am coming.”

  “Like you could leave me behind on this,” Kat said, arms folded in front of her, usual smile evaporated.

  “I will hack your plane and send you into the ocean if you try and leave me behind,” Abby said, completely inscrutable. She had a good poker face. Scary good. “So unless you want to go for a nice swim in the north Atlantic…”

  “You’d be okay,” Scott promised.

  “And then I’d bring down a rain of satellites on you, just to liven things up,” Abby said, still inscrutable.

  “Or we could just save ourselves the headache and bring the whole clown car along,” Jamal said under his breath.

  “I’m fighting for Sienna,” Guy Friday said, boldly, declaratively, a little sappily, like he was crying under his mask. “For truth, and freedom, and justice and decency and stuff! Because she’s my niece! And because I kinda want to drink some Belgian beer right at the source.”

  “I’m not going to Belgium,” I said crossly.

  “Oh, well,” Friday said, “then for all those other reasons—I AM COMING!” And he struck a pose, massive arms strapped across his inflated chest.

  I looked at Colin, then Chase, because neither of them had said anything. Colin looked around, adjusted his beanie slowly (for him) and said, “Yeah…no prison can really hold me, and the cops can’t really catch me, so…” He shrugged. “I’m in.”

  Looking past him, Chase had a hard look on her face. She had her arms crossed, and there was a mountain of discomfort, her brown hair coming over one of her eyes in a pouty wave. “So…Sienna’s how I got this job, huh?” She bowed her head. “I shoulda known. Saved my life in Montana, got me the best-paying gig I’ve had in years.” She let out a long breath. “Yeah, okay. I guess I kinda owe her. Plus, uh, y’know, if she’s been saving the world…” She shrugged again. “I suppose I’ve been living on borrowed time or something, so…”

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” I said. “This is voluntary.”

  “Yeah, and I’m kind of volunteering,” she said. “You guys have been really decent to me, and she’s one of your clan, so…” She nodded. “I’m in.”

  I nodded, once, feeling a little…not astounded, exactly, but maybe a little amazed. “I have to admit…I’ve worked with most of you for kind of a while now, and…you did surprise me today.”

  “That’s right, baby,” J.J. said. “Winger speech and bring it on home.”

  I ignored him and went on. “My sister is…a complicated person. We all know that. But most us know that the hell that’s come her way lately is stuff she doesn’t deserve, that she didn’t earn. And now this Scottish succubus, whoever she is…she thinks she’s got Sienna rocked back on her heels, on the run. That she’s isolated, hunted and alo
ne. Well…

  “Sienna has saved the world, and she’s saved us all, at one time or another,” I said, feeling my chest puff a little with pride. “It’s our turn now. Let’s go save her.”

  27.

  Sienna

  I was spotlit.

  Caught.

  Frozen like a deer in the headlights, blinded by the bright.

  Given everything that had happened, all the hits I’d taken these last few months, it was very tempting to just…give it up right here. Toss in the towel. Say, “So long, and thanks for all the fish!” Whatever that meant. (Reed said it a lot)

  I was hemmed in by a cop car on one side and a fence on the other. If I ran for it, they’d call it in, and I’d be hounded once more, a whole country of cops—and probably Rose—descending upon me.

  I’d lost my souls, lost my powers, and now…I was trapped in an alley in some coastal town in Scotland I didn’t even know the name of, and the police were staring me down.

  Really…there wasn’t much farther a girl could fall. If this wasn’t rock bottom, I could only hope it was awfully close.

  Faced with a choice of standing there, submitting, surrendering…I like to think that most people who’d been through the hell I’d been through would have just given up at that point. We like to think the worst of others, like to believe we’re special. And we are all special, in some ways. Some people are especially stupid, for instance. I might be one of them.

  Because whenever the pressure really tended to get on…in clinch time…that was when I bucked up and went bold, in spite of all the clawing, nagging, nasty doubts that had just threatened to drag me down.

  I shielded my eyes against the spotlight, cringing away. I couldn’t see much of anything, except some police lights flashing somewhere behind the blinding white in my face. “Ow,” I said, not bothering to hide my American accent. “Man, that’s bright. I’m glad you guys came along though, because—I gotta tell ya—” and I threw in a chuckle here “—I have never been so lost in my entire life. Silly American, I know, making all us tourists look stupid.” I started toward them, taking an easy pace, keeping my hands where they—if there were more than one of them—could see them.

  “Just stop right there,” a male voice with a Scottish accent commanded.

  “What?” I asked, still flinching away from the spotlight and hiding my face. “I’m lost, man. I need some help.”

  “I’m asking you to stop,” he said, and his voice was rising. Probably some worry.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, taking it nice and easy. “No comprendo, you know what I mean? You Scots, I don’t understand what you’re saying most of the time—”

  I heard the motion rather than saw it, the sound of the guy drawing something from a holster.

  Damn.

  I sprang into action, committing both of us to our paths, because I needed to reach him before he drew, and he needed to shoot me before I could beat his skull in (which I totally would not do). He’d erred in letting me get relatively close to him without drawing his weapon—whatever it was. I had a suspicion.

  There’s a concept in law enforcement that’s popularly referred to as the “twenty-one-foot rule.” It’s not actually called that, really, it’s called the Tueller Drill, but if you say that to most people, they’ll go, “Huh?” Hell, if you ask most people about the twenty-one-foot rule, their reaction would probably be just about the same. But it’s a simple idea, that a human being can cover the distance of twenty-one feet or less in about one and a half seconds—faster than a law enforcement agent can draw their gun, get a bead, and fire a shot.

  I was well inside twenty-one feet of this guy, and I could move faster than a human being. I did so, catching him before he could bring up the stun gun he was lifting to bring to bear on target—

  On me.

  I swatted it out of his hand and made a split-second decision.

  I was so tired of hiding, of being pushed back, chased, beaten.

  Thrusting my hand against the officer’s cheek, I brushed right past his defenses—

  And slapped my palm against his face, anchoring it there.

  “Shhh,” I said, and my will bowled his over, even though I didn’t fully have my soul power to bear. He did indeed hush, and it came as a slight surprise.

  The burning came a moment later.

  It ran through my palm like someone had brushed it with a tickle, then it became a fuller feeling, a sensation of fire running across my skin. I got hot and flushed, and in five seconds I was in, rushing like I’d dove into the officer’s mind.

  I took great care, not going anywhere that affected his core memories—who he was, his family, his loves and disappointments. It was a boon of my power that I could be a little picky and choosy about the memories I stole, if I didn’t take the whole entirety of a person.

  Here, I was after a very specific thing, a little thread that was perhaps entwined with the rest of his life but didn’t define it. An easy string to pluck, to remove, a tangential detail to his life that he wouldn’t miss unless a certain subject came up—

  That Sienna Nealon was a wanted criminal instead of a vaunted hero. Heroine. Whatever.

  I took from him the memory of where he’d been when he heard I’d gone rogue, and a few discussions he’d had with the people in his life about me being dangerous. He was of the opinion that, of course, I was, but fortunately the news I was in Scotland and causing havoc was still so new that he wasn’t going to lose much in the way of memories. A briefing from his commander, a few chats with his wife, comments made idly about “that damned Sienna Nealon” being at it again.

  Oh…and the moment when he’d first heard, just as the late news was coming on right before he and his wife were about to turn off the TV and get to their marital business for the evening, taking a brief respite from the sleeping kids. Of course, he ended up sitting back down and watching, a kid woke up, and the moment passed because his wife went to go deal with the crying tot and fell back asleep, leaving the poor guy to—

  Well, he wouldn’t miss that memory. Next time, I whispered in his mind as I took the memory, when she’s ready, to hell with the news. It’s all bad anyway.

  I pulled out of the officer’s mind and then yanked my hand away from his face. My total time in his head? Probably less than a third of a second. It felt longer, of course, as it always tended to, that dilation effect of reading through synapse and memory like I was living it in the moment. It’d been a near thing, too, getting distracted in this cop’s head, especially given how close I’d come to some pretty salacious material. I didn’t want to violate his privacy, and besides, thanks to that time I removed Scott’s memories, that age-old question of what men thought, of what it felt like for dudes during—y’know—had already long ago been answered for me. My skill game took a major level up after that, if you know what I mean.

  Oh, God.

  Anyyyyyway. I took a step back from the officer in question and he blinked a couple times, now shadowed by the headlights once again. “Constable,” I said, and he focused on me. “Can you help me?”

  “Holy hell,” he said in a thick Scottish accent (really, was there any other kind? There were Edinburgh accents, which were no accent at all, and Scottish accents, which were close to incomprehensible. That seemed to be it). “Sienna Nealon?”

  This was the moment of truth, and I’d soon discover whether I’d effectively removed the problem areas of his memory. I couldn’t really see his face since he was outlined by the blinding light, but I had high hopes that I was as good at playing around with memories as I thought I was. I’d certainly had a decent amount of practice.

  “That’s me,” I said, waiting for the results of my memory-stealing exam. I was just standing in front of him, and stooped down to pick up his taser, handing it to him butt-first. “So…I’m in a little bit of a bind here, Constable. Trouble around every corner. Think you can give me a hand?”

  He just stared, the dark shadow, and th
en turned, giving me a look at his profile. It was a little doughy, but he had the kind of face you wanted to trust—and not punch. Which made it so much easier on me a moment later when he said, “Absolutely, anything you need.”

  “I’ve got to get the hell out of Dodge here,” I said. “Kinda ran into some trouble and I can’t fly out.”

  “Ouch,” he said, nodding along. “Where are you headed?”

  I held my index finger over my lips and smiled. “Can’t tell you. Classified, you know.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said, nodding along furiously. “If you need a police escort—”

  “No, no,” I said, “I wouldn’t dream of pulling you off duty. But I was wondering…do you have a train station in town?” I shivered a little.

  “Absolutely. You need a ride?” He gestured back to the shoe car that he had been driving, the damned spotlight still on us. “Trains aren’t running this time of night, but—”

  “That’d be great, thanks,” I said, and started toward the car even before he did. I took care to make sure I got in what was, to me, the driver door, but to the UK was the passenger door, for reasons probably only known to Wikipedia. He got in after me, and now that the spotlight was no longer blinding me, I could see he was smiling. Almost drooling in excitement, actually.

  “To the train station, then?” he asked, and I wondered if I should be worried about him peeing on me in his excitement.

  “Well, that depends,” I said. “You said there are no trains running at this time of night. Did you mean passenger trains?” He nodded. “So…do cargo trains move through in the middle of the night?” He nodded again. “And do you know where I could catch one?”

  He didn’t even answer, just shifted the car into gear. “You must be in a hell of a hurry, not wanting to wait for a passenger car. I mean, that’s dedication, riding the rails on a cargo train. Dangerous too—”

  “I scoff at danger,” I said, looking out the window as he steered us out onto the street carefully. It was still looking dingy, but he dodged us down a side street and off the main drag I’d been heading down when I’d ducked down the alleyway at his approach.