I stare down at the small light that fills the center of my palm. I’m not sure how James Bond it is, but it’s a pretty cool little device overall. Pretty well guaranteed to blind a human being, but a meta? Well, we’ll heal from it eventually.
I make a move to restrain him with the cuffs I have on the other side of my belt, but he’s flailing madly. He’s strong, too, strong enough that it’d cause me plenty of pain to tangle with him. I keep my distance and circle like he’s a dog on the end of a chain, looking for an opening.
He blinks at me, and I realize that he’s seeing me. He blinks again, those bleary eyes still focused on me, and the thought Oh, shit fills my mind yet again. How can he heal this damned fast?
Right. Top of the power scale. Seriously, though? Why couldn’t I have been facing off with something on the low end of the power scale, like a meta with the power to slightly alter the curvature of light? Something useless.
He strikes out at me, and the sound of gunshots fills the air. I see a few hit him in the face, doing little more than distracting him. He turns his head to look, and so do I. Diana is sitting in the branches of a nearby tree, one of her Uzis pointed down at him.
I stare up at her. “Lorenzo?” I ask.
“He’s experiencing some crippling pains in his arms and legs at the moment,” she says and fires off another burst that hits Anselmo unerringly in the face.
He actually growls at her like the dog he is. “You think the two of you can stop me, with your little flashlight,” he spits at me, “and your little cap gun? I am invincible. I am a god!”
Because of the way he’s got his back to the river Tiber, Diana and I see it and he doesn’t. He’s ranting again, stomping, and behind him, a steady funnel of water is rising out of the river, guided by hands I can’t even see. It’s a column of water, thousands of gallons, and it stretches skyward like a temple of old rising over the city. It makes it to a height of almost a hundred feet before it tips and comes for him, perfectly steered to land on his head and swirl around him like it’s constrained by some sort of aquarium.
I see him thrashing inside the makeshift prison as the water surrounds him. Anselmo claws at his throat, proving that even invincible, egomaniacal would-be gods have weaknesses.
I see Father Emmanuel striding forward, his hands raised high, fury and satisfaction etched on his features. “I baptize you with water,” he says, “but the one who follows me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Anselmo fights his way through the water, and it’s a sight to behold. He breaks through the wall and staggers to the ground, vomiting forth water and bile as he does so. I silently congratulate myself on making him vomit before the priest even got here. Diana shoots him again for good measure, but I’m not sure he notices.
I make a move to cuff him, but he dodges me and staggers back toward the Castel. “You think you going to take me?” he asks. He thumps his chest, but he’s walking backward, retreating the whole time. “You think you are man enough to stop me?”
“I think I already did,” I say, and I keep coming. He’s backing up furiously, his eyes floating from me to Diana to Father Emmanuel as we all advance on him. I feel like I could go about one round with a declawed elderly cat at the moment, but I won’t let him know that. “Put your hands on your head and get on the ground like a good boy.”
He screams fury at me and runs, but not in the direction I expect. He turns tail and sprints along the empty stones in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo.
“Shit,” I say, and run after him, but I’m lagging right out of the gate. He hauls ass past the enormous jutting turret of the Castel and along the wall. Diana and Emmanuel are right with me, which makes me turn my head to look at Diana. She should be way out in front. She’s hesitating, and I can’t say I blame her. She’s playing like she’s part of a team, for once. “He’s gonna get away,” I say, Captain Obvious to the end.
He turns south in front of the Castel, then stops, doing a comical dance as he considers which way to go. I realize he’s probably agonizing over the decision to cross the bridge if he goes south over the Tiber, because it will pretty much put him at Father Emmanuel’s mercy. He goes east instead, sprinting along the siege wall that protects the Castel.
We lose time steering around the other turret, and by the time we clear it, he’s almost a dot in the distance. He stops a car and throws somebody out, and he’s gone in a squeal of tires. I curse and pull out my phone. J.J. is already there.
“Dude, you kicked his ass!” J.J. says. “Good job, way to go!”
“Not good enough,” I say, and my breathing is ragged. “He’s on the run. He’s gonna get away.”
“Relax, bro,” J.J. says. “Like you said, you got him on the run.”
“I have to finish this,” I say, staring as I realize I am completely out of ways to beat this bastard. My entire body hurts, and I’ve just watched my culprit disappear. This is why Sienna kills her bad guys, I swear. I sag, falling to my knees, unable to stand any longer.
“It’s gonna be okay,” J.J. says, and there's sound on the earphone behind him that I can't make out, low voices. “It’s all gonna be okay now.” I can hear sirens blaring in the distance now, coming closer, but somehow, I just don’t know how what he’s saying can logically be right.
“Reed!” Dr. Perugini comes sprinting across the stones to my side. She drops to a knee and runs her fingers over my face, and I realize for the first time I’m bleeding. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I say, “but the bad guy got away.”
“Only one of them,” Father Emmanuel says, looking down at me. “Fintan is restrained.”
“So is Lorenzo,” Diana says, though she doesn’t look that happy about it. I know she wishes he were dead.
“And that leaves Anselmo,” I say, staring at the corner he disappeared around. I feel Isabella’s hands searching me for wounds, looking for injuries, but the only thing that matters is that the bad guy—my bad guy—got away.
80.
My back is sweating as the train rattles along, rolling through the Italian countryside. It’s a few hours after the battle of Rome (it’s my dramatic name for what happened; leave it be) and Isabella is at my side in the first-class car. The Italians appear to like it just a little hot, and the leather is sticking to me. The cabin attendant is moving around, bustling to the next compartment, and when he leaves, I lean over to her to say something.
“What?” she asks before I can.
“I was just thinking about what you said earlier,” I say. “About how you’d tell me you loved me if—”
“You were going into battle,” she says.
“Well, yes,” I say. “But I had said that I know you think you’re using me—”
She frowns. “Yes, yes. All this was said.” I get the sense she’s not comfortable with emotional discussions all of a sudden. Which is kinda funny.
“So I finally figured out how to describe what we’ve got going on here,” I say, with a little hint of pride. I found the adjective. That’s gotta be worth something, right? She looks at me with that one eyebrow cocked up in the air, like she can’t decide if she’s going to have to call me an idiot or not. “It’s not love. It’s convenience.” I deliver it like it’s a solemn proclamation of brilliance.
She stares at me for a moment, inscrutable, then shrugs. “That sounds about right.”
I blink a little. “Uh. Good.” That wasn’t quite the answer I was hoping for. I was kind of hoping she’d refute it, say that, no, it’s something new with rich possibilities for—
“You are making that face,” she says, not looking at me, eyes on the magazine I just realize is in her lap as she waves a hand vaguely at me. In my defense, she is across the aisle, and I’ve been trying to compose this clever verbal trap to get her to admit to—well, something. Anything.
“You were a hell of a lot more than convenient to me,” I say, exasperation leaking out. “You were …” And I realize that
I’ve played this wrong, and I go coy. Coy and smiling. “… Awesome. You were awesome. And hot.” She looks up at me, and I see the irritation. Now she’s hot in more ways than one. “Very hot?” I ask, playing like I’m trying to appease her. “Very hot and awesome?” I pretend to think for a second more. “Which also describes how it felt—”
“Oh, enough,” she says, making an exasperated noise of her own as she tosses down her magazine. “Sometimes you are too expressive.”
“Like how Muppet Yoda was actually more expressive than CGI Yoda,” I say, nodding.
“This is not the most attractive side of you,” she says, shaking her head. “No, not like a yodeler.” I don’t correct her, because this is not the moment to instruct the gorgeous Italian on SF/F geek blasphemy. “You are a little like a girl in this.”
“Hey,” I say, frowning. “If I’m a little more expressive, is that such a bad thing? I mean, I could be all buttoned up and one-hundred-percent testosterone-fueled battering ram like Anselmo, if you’d prefer—”
“Uck,” she says. “Fine, convenience. Have it your way.” She gestures in a way that stirs her lustrous black hair, and she picks up her magazine again. Another hilltop Italian village drifts by the window, and I have to wonder how many of those this country has. The answer? At least one more.
We make it through three more tunnels before she turns to me again. “Can you not just be happy with … whatever this is for now?” Like we didn’t just leave the conversation in the middle.
“I want more,” I say, and I see her flinch a little, her lips pursing, dark eyes studying the magazine even though I know she’s not reading it any more. “Because I kinda know you now. I know enough to know … I want more of you, Isabella.”
She gives me a slightly harried look and puts the magazine aside. “I will … think about it,” she says. And for now, that’s enough for me.
81.
Anselmo
Anselmo stares out over the countryside, stroking his face and taking slugs of brandy. It runs hot, like his blood, and his mind swirls with anger and thoughts of his revenge.
The bottle is empty, and he tosses it over the ledge with a fury. He ignores the body of Niccolo, splattered upon the concrete where he left it. Others are scattered around the house where he found them. One of them betrayed him, surely. Niccolo brought him the messages from the others, filled with insults. Even Don George had sent one. So polite, yet the most insulting of all of them. Anselmo takes up another bottle and swigs directly from it. This one is wine, and he will finish it soon. He will drink the day away, lick his wounds as a man does, and then, tomorrow—
Treston will pay. Oh, yes. Anselmo will see him bleed, the little shit. Him, his little bitch, his little friends—Diana and the priest. Anselmo will see them all dead, them and the other capos, starting with Don George.
In the silence of the house, Anselmo hears a footstep. But this is impossible; the house is empty. He swivels, and drops the bottle.
He needs no time to lick his wounds.
The revenge can begin now.
“Hi, there, Anselmo,” Treston says, smirking, standing at the edge of his pool. “You and I … we’ve got unfinished business.”
82.
Reed
I stare at him, his back to that marvelous vista of Florence at night. The sun is going down, and the sky is lit all orange, fiery hues turning it magnificent colors. Anselmo looks pissed, and I’m hardly surprised. He’s an easy guy to read, after all, pretty much a one-track/one-emotion mind.
“Unfinished … business?” Anselmo manages to slur out. There are enough shattered bottles around him to tell me he’s more than three sheets to the wind. “You have ruined … everything … in my business.” He gestures to one of the nearest corpses. “There is only one response to this insult.”
“Insecure dick wagging?” I ask helpfully. He stares in disbelief. “Just a guess, based on your responses up to this point. I mean, guy,” I wave a hand up and down to encompass the whole of him, “you really put the Italia in genitalia, if you know what I mean—”
He bellows and charges at me, and a shock of water from the pool hits him a moment later, knocking him back and drenching him. A half dozen staccato shots pop him in the face as well and he staggers toward the edge of the patio, toward the edge. He blinks away the surprise and looks back. “You think this will kill me, this fall?”
“I doubt it,” I say, not budging.
He waves a finger at Father Emmanuel. “You think this … Poseidon? You think he can stop me?”
“He could probably drown you if he had to, yeah,” I say. “But he won’t.” I glance back at Father Emmanuel, who gives me a nod of deference. “He’s not that kind of guy.”
“No,” Anselmo agrees, still staggered. “Because you cannot stop me. Because you are weak. You are not even a man.” He waves at my genitalia this time, then grabs his own. “You have nothing. I said it before, and I will say it again: I am invincible. I am a god—urk!”
It’s at this moment that what I’ve been stalling for arrives, a streak out of the sky that smashes into him, seizing him by the back of the neck and slamming him into the concrete. I’m just a non-god, non-invincible guy, but it looks like it hurts to me.
“Hi, invincible,” says the lady who’s on his back like a bullrider, clenching an iron grip on his neck. “I’m Sienna, and I’m about to change your name to vincible.” She squeezes him tighter, and I see him blanch with the pain. “Also, if you piss me off, I’ll change your voice for you, capische?” She looks at me a little self-consciously. “They say that in Italy, right?”
I almost faint from exhaustion and the relief of seeing her arrive and take matters in hand. One hand, actually. “Took you long enough to get here.”
“Hey,” she says, a little crossly, “I fly plane-free all the way across the Atlantic for this level of gratitude? I’m cold, you know.” She slams Anselmo’s head into the concrete decking, and it makes an impression. I can see his eyes rolling as her power works on him. “Also, Yellowknife, Canada, to Minneapolis? Not a warm flight, either. Next time you have an emergency, do it in Aruba or something, will you?” She slams him down again, and I can tell by her demeanor she knows he’s unconscious.
She stands up and stretches, dropping the annoyed act. “How you holding up, brother?”
I stare at Anselmo’s unconscious body, then back to Diana, who looks jaded, and Emmanuel, who just looks relieved. “Fine now,” I say, and I mean it. “Just fine.”
83.
The plane meets us in Florence for the prisoner transfer a few hours later. All our orders come through Ariadne via the U.S. State Department. The Italian authorities are being extremely cagey, apparently not wanting anything to do with me or, by extension, us. Which is fine by me, since answering questions from police officers is not exactly something I’m excited about, in Italian or any other language.
Sienna and I take alternating turns guarding the prisoners at Anselmo’s house, with the help of Diana and Emmanuel. By the time our plane arrives, we’re all pretty exhausted and ready to bind the bastards up with every meta-restraining countermeasure available. We ride in enervated silence in the back of a van, with Carabinieri cars following en masse at a respectful distance. Dr. Perugini drives.
The whole time we’re waiting, Isabella plays it ultra-cool with me. It takes me a bit to realize that she’s still not happy with my sister. Right. Sometimes I forget that one. I don’t know why; she’s so damned endearing. They’re probably just a little too similar for each other’s tastes.
We’re straight through the perimeter fence onto a runway where our plane awaits. Apparently they don’t even want us passing through security. The plane’s a big beast with military coloring that apparently came from one of our airbases over here. I drag Lorenzo out first, his hands completely shattered by someone (Diana) and a good dozen gunshot wounds that have yet to heal still oozing blood. He’s chained nice and tight with meta-resistant
cuffs, but I’m looking forward to seeing what the prisoner transfer unit has in mind for restraining him. J.J. has assured me that the U.S. Government is well-prepared to deal with meta prisoner transfers of this sort. I have my doubts.
They’re proven unfounded. Which, if you think about it, is kind of worrisome.
I secure Lorenzo in an airtight container with atmospheric sensors that are designed to flood the chamber with anesthetizing gas at the slightest change in pressure. As I chain him into the chair, I wonder exactly why the government would have this stuff readily available—and modular—enough to stick on a military aircraft in Italy with minimal notice.
How many units like this must they have around the world?
It looks pretty new, I reflect as I watch a specially trained tech activate the machine. Little computers beep and boop as it powers up, and I stare in at Lorenzo. “Guess it doesn’t really matter who she favored now,” I say, and he looks up at me with a pissy attitude, “since it had pretty much zero bearing on who won our little struggle for dominance.”
“Taunting the prisoners?” Sienna says from behind me. I turn to see her dragging Fintan along with one hand and carrying a still-insensate Anselmo with the other.
“Like you haven’t done worse,” I say.
“Lies,” she says. “I have no prisoners.” She wavers a little, but it’s all a dramatic act. “Okay, well, lately I do. But in my heyday? No prisoners.” She eyes Anselmo. “And if it were up to me, this little gem wouldn’t be walking away.”
“It’s not up to you,” I say calmly, and she shuffles toward the little chambers in the back dedicated to Fintan and Anselmo. She raises an eyebrow at me. “We take ’em alive. Government orders, remember?”
“I’ll let you make the call because it’s your collar, technically,” she says, and I feel that itch that comes from my little sister oh-so-subtly rubbing it in that I needed her help to bag Anselmo. Apparently, she can be a little passive-aggressive after all.
In the Wind (Out of the Box Book 2) Page 21