In the Wind: Out of the Box, Book 2 (23 page)

But not just yet.

“Capo …” Lorenzo begins, and Anselmo can tell merely by the hesitation that what will follow is certain to be something weak. “Do you ever …” The boy halts himself, and starts again, elsewhere. “The hour draws near.”

“Si,”
Anselmo allows. It is only a little over a day from the fulfillment of the plan, now. Years of effort and planning, drawing to their conclusion.

“Do you ever …” Lorenzo begins again, “… doubt?” Anselmo gives him a look, and he hastens to explain. “The plan, I mean? Whether we should take these steps, whether they might be too drastic or—”

“Doubts are for girls,” Anselmo says, dismissing him with utter finality. “Reach down between your legs and let me know if a bullet took your balls from you.”

Lorenzo blanches. “But,
Capo
, this plan … it is … bold—”

“We are men,” Anselmo says, contemptuous. “Men see what they want and take it. The cup of life is ours to drink from, and you want—what? Water instead of wine? You labor under the delusion that things are meant to be asked for, oh so sweetly, ‘May I please …?’
Fah!
” Anselmo swipes broadly and spills some of his wine. “Men are not men anymore. They are so polite and cultured, with their perfect hair and nails, like a woman. Well,” he leans close to Lorenzo, “I am a man. I have been a man my whole life. And tomorrow, I will take what I want, and become a god in the process. You know what a god does?” Anselmo cracks a smile, and lets it fade as the seriousness of the thought falls over him. “Whatever the hell he wants.” He tosses the wine glass over the edge, hears it fall and shatter somewhere below, some kind of poignant marker that puts the punctuation on his point for him, and he turns away, leaving Lorenzo standing there alone. “Reach down deep, boy. Find your balls. Join me in godhood, and we’ll take whatever we want from this life—from this country—together.”

The last day goes pretty damned quickly. I don’t like to think of it as the last day, but it kind of is. It passes in alternating patches of frenzied speed and boredom, usually linked to whatever activity I’m in the middle of at the time. Isabella and I end up having sex several times throughout the day, which—holy hell, is more fun than I remembered, but the moments between are long stretches of awkward silence, especially during meals, which are the only times we leave the hotel. We chew in silence, and it’s terribly uncomfortable. She’s back to being an enigma, a face I can’t read, especially by the end of the day.

When we come back from dinner, the pensive silence turns even more uncomfortable. I’m thinking about this whole thing, about what I’m going to have to do tomorrow. How I’m going to have to face off against a maniacal killer whose agenda is pretty crazy. He wants to take over a country, for crying out loud.

We go about the business of getting ready for bed, and I find myself in the strangest circumstances since I helped take on Sovereign six months ago. Maybe stranger, because I’m in charge this time. I fixate on the strangest little details. I set the alarm on my phone, and make sure it’s charged. I floss and brush my teeth, like it’s super important to my performance tomorrow to have good dental hygiene.

Then I lie in bed and watch TV with Isabella, the evening news playing like there’s not a thing wrong in the world.

I’m watching the newscaster, who wears these really big, rounded glasses that seem to be in fashion here in Italy, and as I’m watching her speak a language I still can’t decipher to save my life, I realize that if Anselmo gets his way, she’ll be quaking in fear tomorrow. Her and however many Italian citizens there are. Because that’s the kind of big honking douchebag Anselmo is.

It gives me a moment’s pause to think that standing up to assholes like Anselmo is almost a family tradition for me. My sister did it. My dad did it, and it cost him his life.

Dad.

Isabella finally breaks the silence, and it’s almost painful. “You don’t want me to come with you.”

I’ve seen
The Return of the King
, and I know what happens when you tell a strong-minded woman not to head out to battle. “I would never tell you not to,” I say, “but this is going to be a really nasty meta fight.”

“Anselmo could rip my arm off with the thought I give for tearing a wing off a fly,” she says, and there’s a sense of resignation when it comes out. I realize she’s been fighting herself over this all day. “If I had the strength of Diana, I would be there. But as it is, if he saw me, he would come for me, and you would be distracted, I think.”

I nod. “I think so, yes.”

“I will stay here,” she says, “until after it has happened, and then I will help with triage.”

“A sound plan,” I agree because it’s totally logical and reasonable.

She lowers her voice a little. “Do you want me to tell you that I love you?”

This catches me a little off guard. “Do you?”

She shakes her head. “No. But if you need reassurance … I could.”

“Heh,” I chuckle, but it’s mirthless. “I don’t need you to say it if it’s not true. This thing we’ve been doing, it’s … fun. I know you think you’ve been using me, but … I don’t feel that way. It’s not love, but it’s been …” I flail about for a word, and she interrupts.

“Lust?”

“Well, there is that,” I agree. “But I don’t really know you yet, so there’s not a possibility for anything more. We’ve worked together for a while, but I mean … I don’t even know your middle name. Me loving you at this point would be like me filling in the blanks of your personality and history with whatever answers I want. Lots of people do that, they assume the best, but, uh … I’m not like that. I know what we’re doing here.” I take her hand. “I don’t need you to tell me you love me. Just being here … it’s … enough.” And it is.

She seems to understand and leans her head against my shoulder. She falls asleep like that a short time later, and I stare at the walls until after midnight, when I give up and get dressed quietly. I know there’s no chance of me finding rest now, not in the last few hours I have before this powder keg gets lit up. I get my stuff and get ready to leave, watching her sleep the whole time.

The truth is, if I had died on the day before I met Sienna Nealon, there would not be a single person left alive who would remember my name to even mourn me. Everyone I know, from Sienna to Isabella, came to me because I met my sister. The embers of my past life are gone—family, friends, everything that was mine before it all scattered to the damned wind.

Love? Well.

There’s a first time for everything, I guess.

I realize I’m ready to go. The clock reads a little after four. There’s not even a hint of dawn from outside the curtains, but I can’t stand sitting here, antsy, any longer. I consider stirring the wind, just slightly, to ruffle Isabella’s hair as I leave, but it reminds me of my dad’s farewell, all those years ago, and I stop myself just in time.

I close the door silently and go off to meet my destiny.

I find Diana loitering at the end of the Via della Conciliazione, looking about as nondescript as an angry woman hanging out on a Roman street can, I guess. She’s missing her signature golf bag, bound up instead in a hoodie, which gives her kind of an
Assassin’s Creed
vibe. It fits.

She acknowledges me with little more than a look as I slide into place by her. The hour is early, damned early, like five in the morning or so. There’s no sunlight yet in the sky, and the chill in the air is not like the Rome of summer I’m familiar with.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks without looking at me.

“No,” I say. “Can’t imagine why.”

“I can never sleep before a battle,” she says, shaking her head. “Never, even after all these years.” She glances over at me. “The night after a battle though; then I sleep like the dead.”

“Hm,” I say, “I guess I haven’t really been in enough classic battles to know what that’s like.”

“But you’ve fought,” she says.

“With Sovereign and Omega,” I say. “Sneak attacks almost all the time. Strike and feint, hit and run. Guerilla tactics, no one wanting to stick their neck out and go big and public with it. Except for Sovereign, of course. He went big. But it always felt like we were moving too fast to have a night of preparation before one of those fights. We were just always moving.”

“I think it is called operational tempo,” she says, though the words sound strange coming from her. “He did move quickly. Wiped out so many of our kind, so very fast.”

“But you escaped,” I say.

“I have been a survivor for longer than most,” she says, narrow eyes flicking about underneath the hood. “I survived Zeus’s reign of terror when so many—including my parents—did not. I survived the time of transition when we interred the gods into a place of myth and legend. I have survived much, and I was not going to be finished by some scheming half-wit incubus refugee’s attempt to kill us all in revenge for perceived wrongs.”

I frown, glancing at her. “Wait … did you know Sovereign?” She looks at me with contempt. “You knew him.”

“My brother knew him better,” she says. “But I knew him, yes.”

“Huh,” I say, a little surprised. “You don’t seem much like the socializing type.”

She regards me impassively for a moment. “This fight is not like what you did with Sovereign. If Anselmo takes Italy—assuming he can even pull it off—that doesn’t change your life at all. Why are you fighting this battle?”

I can’t help but give her a frown. “How can you even ask me that? People are going to die if I—if we—don’t stop Anselmo.”

“People die,” she says, “it is their signature and trademark. It is what they are born to do, the common fate that none of us can escape.”

“But not today,” I say. “They don’t have to die today.”

She nods almost reluctantly then nods at the end of the street near St. Peter’s Square. “I am going to start patrolling between here and the basilica. You should stay at this end of the street and keep watch.”

I give that a half second’s thought. “Okay. Seems reasonable. If anything happens, I’ll dial you up.”

“Good,” she says and hesitates. Then she looks me in the eyes, and I get a full dose of garden green. “You are a good man, Reed Treston. Your father, Jonathan Traeger—he was a good man as well. You are like him in that regard.” And then she just stalks off down the street, head down.

She gets about a hundred feet away before I manage to get my wits about me. “Wait,” I call after her, “what?”

For the next few hours, Diana pulls an elliptical orbit up one side of the Via della Conciliazione and down the other, neatly avoiding me by about a hundred yards each time. I consider intercepting her, but even I know that hashing out something as distracting as how she might or might not have known my father would probably be best saved for later.

But not too much later.

At about seven, my phone buzzes, the vibration function shaking me out of a stupor. I fish it out of my pocket to see that it’s J.J. I answer.

“All aboard the Reed-ing Railroad,” he says as I answer, “next stop, Boardwalk and Park Place, cha-ching.” I kinda get what he’s going for with that one, but he’s struggling with the most tenuous connections at this point. I guess it’s hard to constantly come up with something new to make a pun out of my name.

“Isn’t it like half past the middle of the damned night there, J.J.?” I ask, staring down the street as Diana makes another lap. She’s changing her pattern and path as she goes. Crowds are starting to gather, and the Carabinieri shows up to block the street about an hour before go time. They ignore me, and her for good measure. I doubt it’s as much a commentary on their policing skills as it is the seriousness of their threat consideration. Or maybe it’s both. Either way, they’re pretty disinterested in what’s going on here, which benefits us.

“Burning the midnight oil, yes, indeed,” J.J. says. “I know you’re going to need help, and I’m here for you, buddy. Tireless, sleepless, whatever. I am your fearless Q, ready to crack some codes and hack some … well, whatever needs hacking, man. I am with you in spirit. And by spirit, I mean digitally, because I’m looking at you on a surveillance cam on the Vaya … della … concilia—whatever.” He gives up.

“Conciliazione,” I finish for him. “Like conciliation. But with a -zione at the end.”

“Mad linguistics, my friend,” he says. “You’re practically like a native-born Italian. But seriously, though, I’m looking right at you. You’re dressed to rumble in a polo and jeans? I like your confidence. Because nothing says you’re down to fight like showing up in casual.”

I lean against the wall awkwardly, suddenly self-conscious about being watched. “I, uh … do you have eyes on Diana?”

“Is she the power walker in the hoodie doing laps down the street?” he asks. “Because if so, I have a lot more than eyes for her.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” I say, “or you’re likely to lose the eyes and all else.”

“The sensitive kind,” he says. “Err … about her looks … you know, that doesn’t sound right either. She’s touchy. Err, not like touching … aw, forget it.”

“I know what you mean,” I say. “She’s quick to anger.”

“Yes!” he says. “You speak my language, brother from another mother.”

“Mmm,” I say. “You see any signs of the bad guys of our piece?”

“Nothing on facial recognition, and I’m scanning the whole area,” he says. “Or would that be
recognizione
?”

“This bad guy,” I say, sorting a thread out of my thoughts. “Anselmo. He’s a …” I labor for an appropriate descriptor. “He’s a real sonofabitch.”

“Oh yeah?” J.J. asks. “What’d he do to piss in your Kool-aid?”

“Just has one of those personalities,” I say. “Let me put it this way—clearly, he was the inspiration behind Tom Jones’ song for
Thunderball
.”

“Ooh,” J.J. says. “That’s bad.”

I grunt. “Tell me about it.”

There’s a moment’s pause. “How you feeling there, champ?”

I feel the skeptical frown crease my brow in the early morning cool. “Gee, coach, I dunno. I guess I’m about ready to go in to the big game.” I let every word drip with irony.