Power (5 page)

I realized with a shock that I was standing, and that there was an earthy aroma in my nose. I glanced down to see if I was having one of those naked dreams, but let out a sigh of relief when I realized I had on pajamas. I glanced up and saw darkness before me, only a few lights illuminating the place where I stood.

There were half-built walls all around, and I looked up to see a ceiling of latticed rebar above me. I was on a construction site, and it looked awfully familiar. It took me another second to place it, and only another second after that to realize exactly what was going on. “Come out,” I told him, speaking into the darkness.

“Okay,” he said, and he was suddenly there, as though the darkness had spit him out when I wasn’t looking. “You catch on pretty quick; I was ready to wait a few minutes for you to acclimate, but boom! You figured it out seconds after coming in. What was the tip off?”

“It’s the construction site where we last met,” I said to Sovereign as he regarded me across the empty space between us. I folded my arms in front of me against my pajama shirt. The soft cotton felt good against my skin. “I don’t remember wearing this, though. Did you get to dress me for this little meet-up?”

He gave me a slight nod. “It’s the power of the dreamwalk, yeah. After a while, you figure out how to shape it to your advantage—location, the clothes your subject is wearing, how they perceive you. You, being a succubus, have more control in this situation than, say, a normal person would, but it’s still in my hands at the outset.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, and glanced down at the pajamas. They were … fluffy. “What the hell, then?”

He shrugged. “I was aiming for comfortable.”

I gave him a glare and looked him up and down. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, looking very Joshua Harding and not very Supervillain at the moment. “Then dress me normally—” I stopped and felt a flare of anger. “Actually, you know what? You shouldn’t be dressing me at all, this is appalling—”

“I’m sorry,” he said and held up his hands in surrender as he took a step closer to me. “I apologize for even coming into your dreams this way, but I needed to see you. Needed to talk to you.” He looked genuinely contrite. “I need to … to say I’m sorry for what’s happening to you right now. I didn’t know what Weissman was doing.”

That rage that had been percolating in my skull? It came out. “You didn’t know your sick friend was kidnapping me for a fun bout of torture with the two heads of Cerberus before delivering me to you in a mashed-up, quivering mess?”

“I had no idea,” he said, and a flicker of rage crossed his face. “And if he wasn’t dead, he’d be experiencing my full displeasure right now—”

“If he wasn’t dead,” I said, letting my voice lower into a rough whisper, “you wouldn’t know yet.”

He sighed and nodded, looking pained. “I promise you that as soon as I can find the plane you’re on, I will make sure that you’re freed—”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said, letting a smile of satisfaction that was as hollow as any I’ve ever felt creep up. “I downed the plane and killed your guard dogs.”

A ripple of shock across his face culminated in an eyebrow nearly creeping up his forehead. “You …” He let out a breath. “Ahhh … you figured it out. How to control your powers. I’d hoped you would.” The look on his face became something I found deeply disquieting, something approaching satisfaction. “You truly are a worthy—”

“Shut up,” I said, disgusted. “Your dogs got off the leash and killed my mother, and you’re happy because one of the side effects is that I’m a better consort now? Truly, there are no words to describe how much I loathe you.”

“Fair enough,” he said, but I caught the disappointment as he looked down from my eyes. “I’d feel the same if someone had done to me what’s happened to you tonight. I know it counts for less than nothing, but I want to give you my sincere condolences—”

“Less than nothing,” I agreed. “So stop wasting your words and my time.” I tried not to let the slow burn of emotion I was feeling splash him again because an idea suddenly came to me. If Weissman was dead, and what he’d told me before was true— “So … what now?”

A veil of indifference fell over his features in the dark and shadow. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I paused and composed my thoughts. “Your top lieutenant, the big cog rolling this machine forward, is now dead. You told me that he was running the extermination because you didn’t have the—” I stopped myself before throwing down on him by saying ‘balls,’ “stomach to do it yourself.” I could tell by the mild flinch that he got my meaning even so. “So … now what?”

The man I knew as Sovereign stared at me, not a hint of Joshua Harding’s boyishness on display. He just looked tired. “Because you’ve killed almost all of our telepaths, we’re having to start what you’ve so charmingly called ‘phase two.’” He folded his arms in front of him to match my pose. “Why? What did you think was going to happen?”

I froze and tried to choose my words carefully. “I think a lot of us were hoping that with Weissman dead, you’d be hanging it up.”

Sovereign looked at me, and I saw hints of intensity in his eyes even through the shadows that hung between us. “Weissman is hardly the only power at work in Century. There are a lot of committed people in our group, people who want to change the world for the better.”

“By taking it over,” I snarked.

“I believe in what we’re doing, the world we’re creating,” he said, but he looked so tired he barely put any gusto into saying it. “Can you say the same about the one you’re defending? I mean, the woman who killed Weissman tonight is the same one that used to lock you in a box.”

“She was afraid,” I said. “You—Century—made her afraid. And it feels like whatever this phase two is—you’re basically doing the same thing to the whole world.”

He looked at me levelly. “What makes you say that? You don’t even know what we’re doing yet.”

“You’re starting by destroying metas,” I said. “If that’s your phase one, then phase two, whatever it specifically is, involves eliminating the other threats to you. Disarming people to put them under your control.” I caught a hint of emotion from his face. “Typically, good things don’t come following behind mass exterminations and forcible disarmings. Whatever grand and fantastic scheme you’ve got in mind to solve the world’s problems reeks of a desire to control the world, Evil Overlord-style.”

He almost smiled. “What about a Benevolent Overlord?”

I shook my head. “You’ve got two motivators available to you—a carrot and a stick. So far you haven’t had much use for the carrot, which rules you out of the benevolent camp entirely.”

“I’ve offered you a few carrots,” he said.

“I’m not a donkey,” I replied crossly. “I don’t want your carrots, and I intend to break your stick.”

He paused as if thinking over what I’d just said. “Is that a thinly veiled castration metaphor?”

“God, you men and your—” I cut myself off before snarling at him. “It’s about power. You want it, and that means you’re willing to take it from everyone else in order to secure it for yourself. And I’m going to—”

“Stop me, I know,” he said, almost resigned. He looked weary. “Same old argument, huh?”

“Same old story,” I said. “Some douchebag wants to take over the world.”

“It’s a very different story,” he said. “You don’t know anything about me. Either that or you aren’t listening.”

“I’m listening very carefully,” I said, “but your actions are screaming so loud I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

He gave me a hard look. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. And to tell you … I’m sorry for what Weissman did.”

“No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re mistaken if you think you are. You’re planning to do so much worse than what he’s done so far. At least an Evil Overlord could admit it to himself.”

“Good night, Sienna,” Sovereign said, turning away from me. “See you soon.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it, asshole,” I muttered as the dream world faded around me.

Chapter 7

“Sovereign is going to phase two,” I said, my knuckles cracking as I forced them against the cold surface of the conference room table.

“He’s going to make weapons using the Tesseract?” Reed asked, a little light in his eyes and a quirk at the corner of his mouth.

“Hah hah,” I said. “‘Do I look to be in a gaming mood?’”

“Nice,” Reed said, arching his eyebrows. “Though you going with a Thor quote seems a little out of place.”

“Felt right to me since I’ve killed two of his brothers now,” I said. “Back on subject, we seem to have deprived Sovereign of the ability to efficiently hunt metahumans to extinction the way he and Weissman were doing it, so he’s decided to skip ahead to subjugating humanity.”

That declaration sucked all the air out of the room. I was surrounded by Ariadne, Reed, Janus, Li, Scott, Kat and Zollers. It was a grim lot already, and my words took any happiness that might have been lingering completely out of the equation.

“Where’s Senator Foreman? Shouldn’t he be here for something as important as this?” Reed asked, breaking the silence while shifting in his chair, arms folded over his leather jacket.

Li shook his head. “He’s busy.”

“Doing what?” Reed asked, his eyebrow turned upward. “What could possibly be more important than stopping Sovereign from taking over the damned world?”

“Making sure the ‘damned world’ doesn’t find out about Sovereign trying to take it over,” Li said humorlessly.

“Great,” Ariadne said, looking just as weary as she had for the last few weeks. “What do we do now?”

“How do you know about this? About this ‘phase two’ starting?” Kat asked, just a little guarded. I couldn’t tell if she was holding back because she thought I was going to hit her or something.

“He told me himself last night in a dreamwalk,” I said. I caught mixed reactions around the table, but they all denoted at least some surprise. “He stopped in to reassure me that he had nothing to do with Weissman’s little play to kidnap and torture me.”

“Yeah, right,” Scott said, expression darkening, “he probably gave the order himself.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said, “but it doesn’t matter because kidnapping me ranks pretty far below genocide in my estimation, and since he’s already up to that, I don’t really have a lot more disdain I can add to his personal pile.”

“So, he’s reached the point where you can’t get any madder at him?” Reed asked, his lips again hinting at a smile. “I honestly didn’t know such a thing was possible.”

“That’s because you’re not there yet,” I said, “though you seem to be rapidly heading that way. We need answers. We need insight. We need—” There was a knock at the door, “—a do not disturb sign, maybe?” I finished lamely. “Come in.”

The door opened and a geeky, dark-haired guy with hipster glasses breezed in. “Oh, hi,” J.J. said as he entered, as though there was no meeting going on.

“J.J.,” I said, my voice at a pitch I reserved for warning people before I started to beat them senseless, “we’re a little busy right now.”

“Of course you are, chief … err … chiefette … err …” He paused in his circuit around the table, faltering before resuming his course and ending up next to Li’s chair. “I’m just bringing in some data, as requested.” He handed the FBI agent a closed manila folder.

I turned my gaze to Li. “I’m going to assume it’s important.”

Li gave me a look that was flecked with annoyance and contempt. Per usual for him. He opened it, gave it a glance and said, “You assume correctly. Remember that storage locker in Tulsa that Century had?”

“Yes,” I said. “It was the weird thing on that list of safe houses we found for them.”

“Yes.” Li stared at the file in front of him. “The FBI raided it yesterday on my orders.” I heard Scott draw a sharp breath and Li looked over at him without expression. “No casualties. No one there. Just some … peculiar equipment.”

I waited for him to enlighten us, but he just kept looking at the folder. What an ass. “Such as?”

“Not sure,” Li said, and pulled a photo from the file, a little 3 x 5 that he clutched between his fingers before putting it on the table and sliding it toward me. I caught it and lifted it, giving him a look as he kept reading. Janus, sitting directly at my right, caught a glimpse of it as I raised it to look for myself.

I felt a slight snap of surprise. I’d seen this before. It was a black cylinder that looked big enough to hold a person inside. “This looks like …”

“It is,” Janus said, looking down at the smooth surface of the table. “It most assuredly is. Stripped down to the very core components, but … it is.”

“Okay, for those of us not in the special club at the end of the table,” Reed said, “what is it?”

I looked down at the photo again, taking in the smooth lines. “You tell them,” I said to Janus. “I may know what it is, but I don’t have a name for it.”

“It is a piece of technology that Omega developed internally to preserve the body functions of metahumans in a sort of rough stasis,” Janus said, with no enthusiasm.

“And how do you know what it is?” Reed said, giving me a frown. “From your five-second stint as the head of Omega?”

“No,” I said, tearing my eyes away from the stasis chamber. There were chills running over my scalp and down my neck, like I was looking at something vitally important but just couldn’t quite make the leap to how it mattered … yet. “It’s what Andromeda was in when I found her.”

Chapter 8

“Oh, yes,” Reed said, waving his hand in the air. “The mystery of the dead girl that Omega was keeping. I swear, we deal with so many mysteries that I’ve forgotten all the ones I haven’t had answered yet—”

“She was a succubus,” I said, looking up from the picture. “Named Adelaide.” I glanced at Janus and he looked startled. “Mentored by Wolfe. Ordered captured by the old Primus. And then … juiced with power by being forced to drain other metas at Omega’s command.” I kept my eyes on Janus. “Does that sound about right?”

He gave me a slow nod. “Missing a few details, but overall you have it, I’d say.”

“Wow,” Reed said. I saw a similar quality of shock in faces all around the table. “When were you going to mention that?”