Power (21 page)

That provoked another moment of silence, as everyone realized I’d just been handed a live grenade with the pin pulled. “Lucky me,” I breathed. “I get to absorb the blame if it all goes horribly wrong.”

Foreman shrugged. “That wasn’t why I brought you here, but it’s a not-unanticipated side-effect of your taking the post. Shit rolls downhill in Washington, and there’s a major septic malfunction heading this way. Rapidly, by my reckoning.”

“What the hell?” Scott asked, and everything about the way he said it told me he was utterly disgusted. “We’ve done what you asked. Century has taken some hard knocks, one of their leaders is dead and the other just surrendered. Now you want to prepare Sienna a place under the bus if anything goes wrong?” He made a
pfffffft
-ing noise.

“I knew what I was getting into when I took the deal,” I said. I was near toneless, because ever since he’d told me that word was going to get out, I knew that bad things were unavoidably washing toward me on the tide. “I’ve still got a job to do.”

“Do you realize what’s going to happen if you fail now?” Reed asked, spinning toward me. He was sitting next to Ariadne, and she had her head down, looking at the table. I made note of that for later. “You’re gonna get run through by the press.”

“Full well aware of it,” I said. “But we’ve still got to survive whatever else Century is coming up with. Because they’ve still got a meeting in two days, and it sounds like it’s going to be a doozy.”

“What are the odds it’s a referendum on packing up and calling it quits?” Scott asked.

“I wouldn’t lay Vegas odds on it,” Zollers said, finally weighing in. “I’ve met with very few Century operatives, but they seem to fall into two camps—deathly scared and carrying out their instructions from on high, or true believers who have bought Weissman’s vision, hook, line, and … whatever.” He waved a hand. “I would suggest that the ratio of true believers to non is 3 to 1.”

“The house always wins,” Reed said.

“We need to find this meeting,” I said.

“And what?” Reed asked. “Crash it? All ten of us against the … I’ve lost count. Eighty of them left now? What are we down to?”

“Does it matter?” Kat tossed in. “Seven-to-one and one to nine are just as bad as each other when you’re up against this many metas.” She looked at me then hesitated. “Is there a chance Sovereign is sincere, that he’d be willing to help us take them down?”

“No way,” Reed said.

“Maybe,” Scott said. “If he thinks it’ll give him a chance to impress Sienna.” I didn’t look at him, but I felt every head at the table swivel to Scott. He shrugged. “He’s not exactly being coy about his intentions. He figures that we won’t execute him and that it’ll fall to Sienna to guard him because she’s the only one who could. He’s playing us for that. Give him a chance to impress her and maybe he’ll jump at it.”

Now everyone looked at me, except for Zollers, who quietly cleared his throat and kept his gaze averted.

“
Could
you play him?” Ariadne said quietly.

“He’s a telepath,” I said. “Even assuming I could, he’d figure out what was going on because he’d be able to read it on one of you.”

“Besides,” Reed said, shaking his head, “he’s too smart to fall for it. She goes in there and starts talking in a throaty, come-hither sort of way, he’s going to know she’s playing him for a sucker, big time. She’s not exactly subtle when she turns on the charm.”

I gave him the daggers. “How would you know?”

“It’s true, you’re kind of obvious,” Kat said, drawing my look of ire. “Because you’re nice to a guy when you like him.”

“Hey!” I blushed. “I’m … nice.” I paused, considering that. “Okay, you got me. But Reed’s right, a dramatic change in personality now and he’ll know for a fact I’m jerking him along. There’s no chance of it working.”

Reed settled an inscrutable gaze on me then nodded once. “Which is why I say we call his bluff and kill him.”

“Maybe you should ask him about this Century meeting first,” Kat suggested.

“He didn’t know anything about it,” I said. “Or so he claims. He says Claire is now blocking his efforts to try and track Century’s movements.”

“Do you believe him?” Foreman asked in that deep, compelling voice of his.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s a dead end either way.”

He nodded once. “I may have a way to track down this meeting for you. Let me rattle some cages.”

“He probably means literal cages,” Reed said snottily, “where they keep the meta captives.”

“What can I say?” Foreman asked coolly, “the U.S. Government hasn’t quite embraced the ‘kill them all!’ philosophy you’ve suddenly attached your wagon to. At least not yet.” He stood, drawing his powerfully built frame all the way up. “Let me make some calls.” He departed without another word.

“What about Sovereign?” Zollers said. “Are we just going to let him stew in his own juices in the dormitory?”

“You left him in the dormitory?” Ariadne said with a frown. “All alone?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s probably going through my unmentionables right now, but otherwise it’d be hard for him to do any damage over there. We’ll keep him there until we figure out what to do with him, or …” I let my voice trail off for a moment as I pondered that lone possibility, “… until we get crazy enough or desperate enough to ask him for help taking out whatever else Century is getting ready to lob at us.”

Chapter 36

I clicked the door to my quarters shut behind me to find Sovereign still sitting in the chair in the corner, shrouded in shadow. “This still looks like a damned dreamwalk,” I muttered.

“Should you be here talking to me?” I could see enough of his face to tell he had a wan smile. Light from the impending sunset was coming through the cracks in the shutters in thin shafts, and the whole place had a dusky red quality.

I thought about flipping a light switch but decided against it. “If I don’t do it, who will? I’m supposed to be your jailer, after all.”

“Good point.” He leaned back in the chair, a freestanding recliner with a footstool that I had thought was tasteful when I ordered it online in the five minutes per day I had back when we were getting the dorms up and running. It was white leather, and I’d fallen asleep in it more than a few times while reading briefings. “So what should we talk about?”

“You’re supposed to be playing solitaire, I think.”

He held up the cuffs. “Makes it tough to deal.”

I walked toward the kitchenette. “Like those could hold you.”

“I admit I’m surprised,” he said. “There are restraints that actually
could
hold me, but you don’t seem like you’re even trying.”

“They could hold you for a little while,” I admitted as I made my way to the fridge. I opened it and found it completely empty save for a bottle of ketchup in the door and I couldn’t even vouch for that. How long had it been since I’d been grocery shopping? I couldn’t even remember. We’d ordered a lot of takeout and delivery since the cafeteria staff had been furloughed. “But then you’d just jack some poor bastard’s mind and have him get you out if you wanted to escape, so why put people in harm’s way?”

“Is that why you left me over here by myself?” he asked. “You don’t want anyone to get hurt in case I decide to make a break for it?”

“You’re the mind reader,” I said, shutting the refrigerator door. “You tell me.”

“I don’t read your mind,” he said quietly. “It’s a respect thing. For the same reason I haven’t gone through your unmentionables.” I looked back and caught a slight smile.

“But you don’t respect other peoples’ minds,” I said.

“I have no particular compunction about rummaging through one that’s steered by someone who’s suggested that you kill an unarmed prisoner without a trial,” he said, sounding only a hint defensive in his explanation.

“I’m sure Reed will love hearing that you were going through his thoughts,” I said.

“He already wants me dead,” Sovereign said with a shrug. “I’m not exactly going to trip over myself trying to change his mind when it’s already so dead set against me.”

“But you’re out to change my mind,” I said. “About you.”

“I’m not exactly hiding that fact, either,” he said. “Unless you’re a real slow thinker, like your brother.” He paused. “No offense.”

“Yeah, you insult my brother, but no offense to me,” I said, under my breath. I leaned back on the counter behind me. “I’d have to be a real slow thinker not to believe you might be playing a game on multiple levels here.”

“You would,” he agreed smoothly. “I hope you’re considering all the possibilities. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t have a suspicious mind that’s always on the lookout for the backstab. You’ve been betrayed a few too many times to trust lightly, and I understand that. Which is why I came here in good faith. Which is why I’m not resisting. Which is why I’m not doing anything untoward, and why I’m willing to help you however I can.” He held up his chained hands again. “You and I are going to live a long time, and I don’t think I’ve made any secret of the fact that you are the reason I was undertaking what I was.” He settled his head a little lower. “I realize now that I was wrong. I was affiliated with the wrong people, my aims were just wrong … and I need to make amends for that.” He looked up and still I said nothing. “I recognize that it’s unlikely you’re going to be willing to think of me as anything other than a criminal and murderer for a lifetime.”

I felt my jaw settle at that. “But we live longer than a normal lifetime, and you’re willing to put in the time proving you’re contrite? Is that it?”

“That is it,” he said, sounding like he meant it. “I’ve messed up, and I’ll spend however much time I need to convincing you that I’m genuinely sorry for what I’ve done.” He paused and looked down. “If you’ll give me the chance.”

I studied him, unflinching. He didn’t look pathetic, exactly, but he was laying on the contrition with a heavy spoon. I didn’t know how good of an actor he was, but he was right about the way my mind worked. I wouldn’t have put it past him to be working another angle.

I just didn’t know what that angle was.

“All right,” I said, neutrally. “Let’s say I believe you—which I think we both know I don’t—yet. But let’s say I did. You have no knowledge of where Century is now, what pieces they’re moving, what this meeting is about—or so you claim.” I added that last part to needle him, and he took it well. “So how are you going to help me?”

“Well,” he said, leaning back against the recliner again, “it’s true, I’m on the outs with them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know anything. I have lots of information, and I’m willing to share all of it with you.”

“Oh, really?” I asked and took a couple steps down into the pit that was my living room. “Okay. Let’s start with an easy one. You’ve talked about phase two, about how you’d put the whole world under Century’s boot,” I watched as he nodded once, but with some reluctance. I wasn’t sure he wanted to part with this one. “How are they going to do it? Take over the world? Beat all the armies and all that?”

“Easier than you think,” Sovereign said, and another expression came forward now, causing his lips to twist in something that looked like … fear? “They have an Ares.”

Chapter 37

“What the hell is an Ares?” Scott asked.

“God of War,” Reed said as we walked, back down the tunnel to the headquarters building. They’d both fallen in behind me as I walked, churning through the thoughts in my head. “They can take command of anyone whose mind is thinking violent thoughts, force them to fight for them or even kill themselves.” I heard his voice change as he directed his next comment to me. “Hera told me they were all dead.”

“Apparently not,” I said. “Kind of like my uncle the Hades, Century seems to have dug one up somehow.”

“As many influential metas as they’ve recruited—Loki and Amaterasu, for example—they’ve got thousands of years worth of meta secrets at their disposal,” Reed said. “A hell of a lot more knowledge than we’ve got.”

I tapped the side of my head with a single finger. “Speak for yourself. I’ve got the wisdom of lifetimes.”

“Yeah, lifetimes spent murdering and pillaging,” Reed said with a snort.

“And that’s just Eve,” I agreed, taking a little shot at Kappler. She was still circling in the back of my mind, swirling in her own angry juices. I was betting that wouldn’t help, but I was beyond caring.

“Seems like there were a lot of meta types that have gone extinct,” Scott said.

“It’s a downward trend,” Reed agreed, “though it’s gotten a lot sharper lately.”

We fell into a silence. It was a heady feeling, realizing you’re part of an endangered species. When I first came to the Directorate and learned about what I was, I’d been told we had somewhere around three thousand metas on the planet. Now we were down to five hundred or so. Three thousand was a low number in a world populated by seven billion people. Five hundred was a rounding error.

“At least they’re not hunting the other metas right now,” Reed said, snapping us out of that deathly quiet. “So … they’ve got an Ares. What are they going to do with it?”

“Turn it loose on anyone that has war and violence in mind,” I said, repeating what Sovereign had told me. “They think the Ares is strong enough to affect the whole world, and that they’ll be able to pretty much kill every soldier and violent criminal and policeman—anyone who’s of a mind to do some harm to other people, even in a protective way—to fall on their own sword, metaphorically speaking.”

“What if they don’t have a sword handy?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know,” I said with a shake of the head. “Maybe they claw their own throat out, maybe they ram their head against the wall until it breaks open, maybe they decide it’s not worth the trouble and sit down to have a cup of tea. I have no idea. I’m not exactly an expert on how these things work.”

“I’ve never even heard of a meta like this,” Scott said. “They’re not a telepath?”

“This power is kind of like … it’s a weird strain of powers, I guess,” I said. “Do you remember that girl Athena?”

“The one who died when the Century mercs hit the dorms, right?” Scott frowned. “When Breandan—”