This can still be done, very publicly—and very painfully.
75.
Reed
I shout ahead to Diana as I see Anselmo and Lorenzo coming our way. “You might want to get out your bow or whatever you’ve got hidden up your sleeve for this!”
“I use a bow when I want to be quiet,” Diana says. Her hands fall into the pockets of her hoodie and come out bearing dual Micro-Uzis. “No need to be quiet now.” She swoops ahead the last hundred feet and starts firing at Lorenzo, who barely gets his hands up in time. I see at least two bullets skim through his wind barrier and draw blood, but he manages to divert them into grazing wounds.
I see Anselmo charging ahead like a runaway bull, ignoring Diana and hauling ass with his full attention focused on the motorcade, and I suspect he’s not going to so much as pause to swat me if I stand in his way. He’s plowing over the few people from the crowd who are running in front of him, and it’s not pretty. A few of them die immediately, others get injured pretty critically, and I know that somehow I need to stop this metaphorical running of the bull.
I halt in the middle of the avenue, dig in, and prepare myself. The sound of Diana’s guns ripping off shot after shot, is hard to ignore, but I focus. I see Anselmo charging me down, not even really cognizant of the fact that I’m in his path, and I know for a fact if he keeps going that I’m going to end up exactly like everyone else he’s callously run over in pursuit of his overarching goals. This dude does not give a shit about anyone but himself, and the rest of us are simply objects to be moved, used or ignored as he goes about his life.
I, for one, am not going to be moved for this ignorant lump. I sure as hell am not going to be used by his pathetic, inhuman ass.
And I’m a meta with the power of wind on my side, so the likelihood he’s going to be able to ignore me is low, especially given what I’m planning.
I tap my power, channel it up from deep within, and start a vortex about ten feet ahead of him. It starts small, like these things do, just the drift of winds spinning. It gathers power as I add to it, though, thin threads of wind spun together. It gyrates as it grows, until it spins in a full circle, more force applied as it knocks aside the crowd and becomes a funnel cloud with no top.
When he’s five feet away, I give it a little more kick, pouring all my power into it. I feel that ripping sensation down my arms even earlier this time, like I’ve run through all my reserves in record time. This isn’t like making my own body hover, after all.
This is starting a tornado out of thin air.
The pain spreads into my chest and I scream in outrage and exertion as I give it a little something extra and Anselmo runs into it without stopping. I see him in the funnel, and his feet lift off the ground. His face dissolves into shock, and I watch him drift up to the top of the cone, legs ripped from beneath him oh-so-rudely.
“Got you, you son of a bitch,” I whisper as I watch him drift twenty feet into the air, arms pinwheeling comically as he rolls helplessly in the midst of my—if I may say so—rather impressive feat of wind engineering. I doubt even Lorenzo has ever done something quite as cool as this.
And, I reflect as I let out a ragged breath, there’s probably a reason for that. It hurts. A lot.
The vortex continues, though, standing tall in place, a perfect prison tower for Anselmo as he spins round and round. He looks kinda dizzy after the twentieth—or was it thirtieth? So hard to keep count—time around.
I am just thinking that a few more dozen go-arounds and the idiot will pass out, problem solved, when shit goes awry.
An off-center gust from outside the funnel disrupts the spin just enough—thanks, Lorenzo— that Anselmo tips a few degrees too far. Three spins later, he falls over the top and out. I’m on one knee, and cursing the luck as he lands on his head on the street and stands right back up, teetering wildly as he spins like he’s still caught in the funnel.
He chucks in the street, and I fight the temptation to laugh. I’m glad I did a second later because he has a look of pure rage on his face—well, rage and a little nausea—as he continues to wobble, what looks like wine discoloring his chin. It’s clear that I’ve done a number on his inner ear, but when his eyes alight on me, I still fear for my life for a moment, because he steadies enough that I know he’s still a perfect killing machine even in his current condition.
Then his eyes slip past me and land on something else, and I chance a look back for long enough to know that the motorcade is still there, still in sight, in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo, and when I turn back he’s already blasting past, ignoring me, the perennial dog that’s focused on chasing his car to the exclusion of everything else.
And I sit there, exhausted, leaning on one leg for support, wondering how the hell I’m going to catch him before he kills the Prime Minister of Italy.
76.
Anselmo
He ignores the Treston boy, as satisfying as it would be to splatter his face along the Via della Conciliazione. It would be a short-term gain, a mindless revenge, the pursuit of a silly vendetta when the larger point is there to be won.
A whole damned war about to be won.
He sees the motorcade, mired in the crowds, snared in the running and panicking people. Here, the sheep have seen their shepherd coming toward them with his stick in hand, and they feel the fear, knowing that the crook will descend upon their backs. They bleat and run, but they cannot outrun their fear. Anselmo feels the thrill as he runs down the street, the car in front of him a target waiting to be smashed to pieces, that arrogant Premier and his empty promises of reform and putting the halt to people like Anselmo just seconds away from being exposed as nothing but hot air.
Anselmo reaches the end of the Via della Conciliazione, sees the Castel Sant’Angelo springing up to his left like the imposing fortress that it is. Here it stands, a foundation thousands of years old, improved upon by those who came later. It is like Italy, he thinks, and he is going to be the one that makes sure that his country stands timeless as the Castel. He will stand atop his nation, like the statue of the Archangel that is on the roof of the Castel.
An improvised Carabinieri barricade screeches into place in front of him, two of their pathetic little cars, as though they could block his passage. Anselmo hears laughter and realizes it is his own. He reaches their pitiful blockage and seizes hold of one of them, lifting it into the air, and he swings it around once before letting it loose like a hammer of old. It arcs through the air toward the motorcade, now trying to turn in the shadow of the Castel Sant’Angelo, at the end of their road. He watches as his throw falls closer and closer to home …
77.
Reed
I see the car fly as I’m about twenty paces behind Anselmo. He lets it go and it feels like it’s moving in slow motion toward its target, a perfect toss that’s going to catch the Prime Minister’s motorcade before it can execute a three-point turn at the end of the Via della Conciliazione. It’s trapped against the pedestrian-only walkway in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo, and Anselmo’s toss is heading straight toward the Premier’s limo, squarely in the middle of the two chase cars that comprise the motorcade.
And I feel almost powerless to stop it.
But I’m not. Not powerless.
I surge past Anselmo as he stands there, probably feeling an overwhelming sense of satisfaction for what he’s just done. I sweep his legs as I pass. Invincible skin be damned, his ass goes down like a sack of potatoes. Gravity is a master even most metas have to obey, and Anselmo is no exception to this rule.
I keep running, though, and reach my hands out, far, far ahead. Farther than I’ve ever reached with my power before. It hurts like jagged glass, like cuts rolled in lemon juice, like fires in the veins, but I draw deep. Icepick to the heart, flames breathed into the lungs, acid sucked into my guts.
I start a vortex over the Prime Minister’s car. It’s weak compared to the one I just imprisoned Anselmo with. But it’s what I’ve got.
The Carabinieri car enters my tiny funnel at the top and wavers. Its downward path slows, it wobbles, spins—
And holds.
The funnel is churning, spinning madly in place. The car rolls in a hard circle, like a gyroscope, defying the downward pull of gravity. It stays there for a second, then two, then three, then five. The Prime Minister’s limousine roars into gear, streaks off out of sight behind a building, chase cars in pursuit—
And the Carabinieri car comes down to earth as my vortex fades. It’s not a gentle landing, but it’s a survivable one for the occupants of the car, which is more than I can say for what Anselmo had planned.
I feel the last of my power drain out of me and I hit my knees, utterly exhausted. I feel a faint sense of triumph, because the Premier has escaped. The Pope has escaped. I’ve just taken a big damned loogie and hocked it right into the eye of—
Oops.
I feel the bull charge slam into my side and I go flying end over end down the Via della Conciliazione. My head tries to keep from entering conciliation with my ass as I roll. I feel my shoulder dislocate, and I finally come to an abrupt stop against the Carabinieri car I just saved. It takes me a minute to realize this, though, because I am beat all to hell.
“You little prick!” Anselmo says, his face alight with rage as he comes into view. I barely feel it as his hand wraps around my neck and lifts me into the air. His dark skin is nearly purple with anger now, and I feel the world go hazy as he squeezes tighter, the world around me darkening as he finally makes killing me his number one priority.
78.
I throw fingers at Anselmo’s face and he doesn’t even blink. I force power through them and blast him in the eyes with air, and he blanches just a little. It’s kinda like that glaucoma test, the puff of air to the eyes, and it’s uncomfortable at best.
Anselmo is not impressed, and it’s obvious by the way he throws me again.
This time I’m slightly more in control of my flight path, and in spite of agonizing pains of all kinds, I manage to turn his rage-filled, unthinkingly hasty move into an advantage. I control the currents carefully, not exerting too much power, and gradually spin myself around as I come down for a relatively soft landing about a hundred yards away from him. It’s a finesse move, something I wouldn’t have been able to pull off at the top of my game a week ago. Now I’m doing it when I feel like I’ve exhausted everything in me.
If nothing else, Anselmo and Lorenzo have shown me exactly how much power I haven’t tapped.
I keep my injured shoulder at the most comfortable angle I can find as I stare down the empty stone sidewalk that separates me from where Anselmo stands, still on the street. The space in front of the Castel is closed to traffic, and everyone around has fled, so I’m left staring at him with nothing but empty air separating us. “That all you got, old man?”
“I am a man,” he shouts back, and he starts toward me with a purpose, walking with a fury that is evident in the way he maintains his stride. “You are a little boy, and you insult me, constantly—you are like a woman with—”
“Blah blah blah,” I say, holding my ground. I start to tune him out, because it’s always the same with him. It’s pretty clear what he values and what he doesn’t, and listening to him on a ramble is like taking a dose of misogynist toxin and pouring it in my ear. Pointless. Besides, I need him to get close. I’ve got one last card to play, and it’s a doozy, but it won’t work if all I do is circle around him.
At the same time, I doubt he’s so feeble-minded he’ll just assume he can catch me easily without being a little suspicious. Although I can hope.
“Do you know what I have done?” he shouts to me. He’s about fifty yards away and closing. I’m holding myself at an awkward angle due to this injury, and I start to wonder how injured I can make myself look. I need to draw him in, but I need to keep a hand free. Since I only have one that’s fully mobile and it’s obvious to anyone with eyes to see me, this is going to be complicated.
“Other than totally failed in your objectives and embarrassed yourself in front of the whole world?” My sister is a master taunter, but I like to think I can throw some ego-bruising jibes when the occasion calls for it. “Demonstrated your basic lack of competence to everyone on the planet with access to cable news or the internet?”
He reddens noticeably, and since he’s a pretty dark-complexioned fellow, this probably says worrying things about his blood pressure. He swears, something really bad, in Italian. “Brutto figlio di puttana bastardo!” I’m passingly familiar with the phrase, but it doesn’t translate super well. He spins off in a rant as he comes at me, the only word of which I recognize is “mama.”
He takes a wide honking swing at me. It’s got a lot of power and it comes fast, but he telegraphs it a little too much, and I shoot into the air with a gust-aided jump before he connects. I hover above him as he stares up, apoplectic. “Hi,” I say.
“I was to rule them all!” he screams at me in impotent fury. “‘One ring to rule them all,’ I have heard them say in your language!”
I frown down at him and wonder what the hell he’s talking about. For all I know his brain has slipped off into la la land, quoting the Lord of the Rings at random and in a completely inapplicable situation. “Dude,” I say, “what the hell are you talking about?”
“’Ndrangheta,” he says, staring up at me like a cat waiting for a bird to land. “Cosa Nostra. Sacra Corona Unita. Camorra. Mala de Brenta. I will bind them all in the darkness, and they will be mine—”
Something he says rings (ha ha) a bell for me. His delusional nature is just sad at this point. “You think the whole country’s organized crime is going to follow you after they just watched you fail this big on television?” I stare down, and he seems pathetic from here. “Man, your intellectual wine glass is empty. You have lost your mind, however you would say it in Italian.” I’m still hovering over him, and I feel zero compunction to come down. My arms ache, but manageably.
“You are a fool and a boy!” he shouts, and starts looking around, presumably for something to throw at me. There’s a vendor stand not far from where I’m hovering that looks promising, and I know that getting hit by that will pretty much be the sort of thing I won’t be able to recover from, so I let one of my gusts sputter out.
I fall three feet and barely catch myself, letting my other gust sputter quickly. Anselmo watches me with a hungry look on his face. My injured shoulder lets me know that it hates me.
I’m now one good leap from Anselmo getting me, and he knows it. I feign trying to get away, letting the very real strain of my powers play across my face, and he does exactly what you’d expect a predator to do in this situation.
He jumps into the air and grabs me by the leg, dragging me back to the earth.
I cushion the landing as he tries to smash me into the ground with all his strength. He’s trying with all his might to tug me down as soon as he gets his feet back on the ground, like a mule trying to drag a wagon. It’s almost comical to watch from above, but I don’t fight it too hard. He reaches up and snakes a hand around my neck and pulls me to him. I feel the force, the pain, the boa constrictor squeeze that tells me he’s done playing and just wants me finished.
He drags me down to look in my eyes, and he knows with everything in him that he has me. The satisfaction drips off him like sweat in the cool morning air, and his smile grows wider as he prepares to end my life.
79.
“Do you expect me to talk, Poop-flinger?” I ask, finally coining my own little name for his cro-mag-style ape behavior.
He blinks at me, maybe astonished that I’m bothering to talk crap to him when he’s so sure I’m about to get smothered.
I just stare back and let him drag me clo
ser, my hand firmly behind my back until the last possible second, my James Bond gadget ready in hand. I rip it out and squint my eyes as shut as they can get before I trip the trigger. The world goes blazing white even through my lids, and his screams are so loud they probably just woke every corpse in the Vatican Necropolis. Or maybe Emperor Hadrian, if he’d still been in his old tomb behind me.
The light fades, and I blink the stars out of my vision as I open my eyes. Anselmo has let loose of me because he’s figured out a more pressing need for his hands, and that’s to scratch at his own eyelids as if doing it long enough will somehow restore his sight. Good luck, pal.
A string of Italian swear words rips through the air around me, and I maintain a healthy distance between myself and the Italian Stallion’s ass (another nickname for him, these things are coming to me like crazy now) as he staggers about blindly. “What the—!” he screams in pain again. “What have you done to me?” he asks once he finds his power of cogent speech again.
“Overwhelmed your optic nerves, probably,” I say coolly then creep around behind him. I cut his legs out from underneath him and he hits the ground and begins rolling about wildly. I take a few steps back and let him, not really sure what to do now. “You know how they say you shouldn’t look directly into the sun? I sort of delivered a bottled version of that experience directly to your retinas. Time to bind you in darkness, I think.”
In the Wind (Out of the Box Book 2) Page 20