Legacy: The Girl in the Box #8 (18 page)

“You have defeated me,” Winter said quietly, as he felt blood run out of his nose and settle on his lip. It didn’t freeze, which was cause for alarm in and of itself.
How can I be so weak? Admitting defeat like a coward.
He paused and realized the truth.
I would admit worse and beg for my life if it would cause him to spare it.

“Oh, I know that,” the man said, continuing to hover, floating in the air. “You really shouldn’t try and shake down visitors to your little town, especially when you don’t know who they are.”

Winter felt the lack of cold, and his teeth chattered from it. “I am the patron of these towns. Their people—”

“Are your people, yes, I heard you say it when we met on the road,” the man said, staring at his hand with bored disinterest. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before, where you old gods stake a claim to an area where descendants of your original worshippers settled and run a protection racket on any metahuman who tries to cross it.” He smiled. “Didn’t work out so well for the last folks that tried it on me, either.” He shrugged. “Of course, that was in Mongolia, so I doubt anyone will hear about it for a good long time, but this ...” He looked around, into the fields off in the distance, and Winter saw his eyes alight on the smoke in the distance. “Brushfires?” he asked, as though his train of thought had been halted.

Winter nodded. “It has been a dry summer, bereft of rain.”

“And here comes autumn, settling in,” the man said, still hovering, eyes fixed on the smoke. He looked down at Winter. “I’m going to have to teach you a further lesson. Not necessarily because you need it—though all you old gods need it—but because I have a reputation to maintain. Or restore, I suppose, in this case. I’ve been gone for a long time from western civilization, from the world of our kind, and I think everyone’s just about forgotten me.” He chuckled. “You wouldn’t think so, as long-lived as we are, but it happens. Events fade into the near distance, and we’re left living our lives as day-to-day as any of these short-lived humans.”

The man set down, his feet gently crushing the dry grass as they settled. He took a step toward Winter and the seeds of panic took full root in the older man. Winter tried to scurry back, his long arms and legs brushing against the dried vegetation, sparking more pain from his burns and finding futile purchase in the dirt and plants as he tried to retreat—

The man grabbed him in one motion, seizing him by the burnt remains of his shirt, a lapel in each hand, and pulled him close. Winter felt the heat now. A blazing fire lit in the man’s eyes, a literal one, flames crackling as if he were a fire djinn of old. Smoke poured from his eyes like eyebrows of black that wafted toward the heavens. “I’m going to make an example of you. I need them to remember that I am a man apart from the rest of you. I don’t care what you do, what Omega does, what happens in the world around me. I need nothing from any of you, and I want no part in your foolish chess games or territorial pissing matches. I am nothing like you ...” His eyes flared, the fire blazing as if kerosene had been poured on the flames within. “ ... I’m better.”

There was something stirring now, a howling roar in Erich Winter’s ears that was louder than a train, those monstrosities that seemed to be taking over everywhere, showing up all over the map, knitting the world closer together. Winter felt his feet start to leave the ground, but the roar did not abate, it grew louder, and he looked away from the man. They flew high into the air, the cold wind whipping Winter’s cheeks as they ascended. A fire blazed below them, consuming the land. It was a wall of sheerest flame, a hundred feet high, and Winter could see it roaring, burning, snaking like a living thing as it thundered across the ground toward Peshtigo in the distance like a high wave crashing on the shore.

“The people ...” Winter whispered.

“Are going to die,” the man said, watching coldly. “It’s a shame; I didn’t mean for it to get quite that out of control. I let my anger get away from me. I had intended to scorch the ground around us, leave you in the middle of a smoking crater, but when people interfere with me, when they try to shake me down, take what’s mine, it makes me ... so angry.” Winter watched the scorched ground as the black smoke started to rise. The man shook him, diverting Winter’s attention back to him. “Listen to me.”

The man started to smoke, the clouds rising from below them. There was a blinding glow where the man had been only a moment before, and it took Winter only a second to realize the man was turning to flames now, his skin covered in the fire, and his hands burned through Winter’s shirt and caught him under the arms, like a baby. Winter could feel the inferno surrounding the man beginning to burn his flesh. He screamed, a long, agonized burst that drowned out the wind that was growing hot around him.

“You will tell them,” the man said, “you will tell them who did this to you. You will tell them that the mighty Erich Winter was brought low, was broken, was defeated, and you will tell them who did it if they ask. You will be my herald, to spread the word that any who interfere with my passage, who challenge me will end up as broken as you. Warn them not to defy me. I want no part of your world, but I will not hesitate to destroy any of you who interfere with mine.”

Winter screamed. “I will! I will tell them!” He felt the fire scorching his skin. “I will tell them whatever you want!”

“I know you will,” the man in flames said quietly, his voice just audible over the roar of the firestorm below. “There’s only one thing you need to remember when you land,” he said, and Winter felt his personal gravity shift, as if he was being lifted sideways. The pain was agonizing, taking away his breath as if his flesh was burning off an inch at a time. Even still, he could feel the world move, as though he was about to be thrown like a ball. “Remember my name. Remember ...”

The last word came out as a whisper and the man threw him, casting him through the air with ferocious speed. Winter did not remember the landing, just a vague sense of his flesh burning, of his own screaming, of incredible distances passing underneath him in a blur.

Three days later he crawled out of the scorched wreckage of a field of ashes in Chicago, his skin still scarred around his arms and chest from the burns that the man had given him. They remained with him as he trudged across the blackened earth, naked, still burned, and so did the name he’d heard whispered in the moment before he’d been released to fly some two hundred and fifty miles through the air.

Sovereign.

Sienna Nealon

Now

Winter. The name chilled and burned all in one. I stood in the medical unit, just staring at my mother, then Ariadne, one after another, not saying anything.

“What do you want to do about him?” My mother spoke first, breaking a brief silence that had felt like years.

“Nothing,” I said after a pause. “We let him be; we have other things to worry about.”

I saw a flash of red on Ariadne’s cheeks. “Really?”

I felt a searing embarrassment inside at the thought of what Ariadne had to be thinking:
If only you’d come to that conclusion before you killed my girlfriend.
I didn’t flinch from her unspoken rebuke, but only because I tried to make my face into stone, unmoving. “We have bigger problems. Saving our race from extinction is more important to me than settling any grudge I might have with him.”

“He might know something important about Sovereign,” my mother said.

“He’s on the wanted list,” Ariadne said. “Foreman’s pissed at him for failing to live up to his agreement to run the Directorate as it was supposed to be run to keep metas in line.”

“He probably does know something,” I agreed, “and he’s certainly done his share of wrong, but tracking him down and catching him is going to take a lot of resources, none of which we have available to spend at present.” It sounded logical in my head when I said it. In truth, I could picture myself pressing my fingers against his throat while the frigid life drained out of his blue eyes. I would have savored every moment of his agony, even now, months after he had wronged me so. “I can’t justify it. If he was as imminent a threat as Sovereign and Century, I’d be all over it.” I clenched my arms tighter to my chest. “For now, we let him be. His day will come.” I paused, and took a breath. “We need a plan, though. We’ve gone on the offensive, we’ve stung Century, but we need to draw some of them in, start to break them a piece at a time. We need to build some momentum.”

“I thought you were happy about the splattered telepaths,” Ariadne said, her arms folded across her.

“It’s a stall, not a win,” I said. “There are a hundred of them at fighting weight and eight of us. I’d like to start drawing down their numbers and doing so quickly—and preferably, quietly. That way they don’t know what’s happening until we’re down to the very last of them.”

“They’re still wrapping up in Latin America and Canada, right?” My mother asked, fingers kneading her chin. “If they’re still mopping up elsewhere, most of their operators probably aren’t even in the country yet.”

“They’re finishing up, probably only getting stragglers now,” Ariadne said. “According to Agent Li, anyway.” She looked sideways at me. “You should probably brief him, by the way, on how this all turned out. He doesn’t enjoy being left out in the cold on things like this.”

“I’ll think about it,” I mumbled. Li was not one of my very favorite people and I avoided him as much as possible. I could tell he felt just about the same, but his duties didn’t allow us to avoid each other as much as both of us would have liked.

“We’ve always got other things we could be dealing with,” my mother said.

“More important than the twilight of our species?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Why can’t you be like a normal girl and be worried about boys and dances or something?”

I smiled at her sadly. “Because that’s not what you made me.” I looked to Ariadne. “She has a point, though. We’ve got no real line on what to do next with Century, which means we’re reduced to waiting for something to happen. We need something else to focus on until we can go on offense again.”

“Maybe focus on defense?” Ariadne said acidly. She caught my pitying glare in reply. “Just a suggestion.”

I started thinking about it, but nothing was occurring to me. “We need to know more about Sovereign.”

My mother shrugged. “Good luck with that. I met him
once
, and it was pretty short, as far as meetings go. Other than a sense of overpowering terror, I can’t give you much of a feeling of the man.”

“I’d say you got that across,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck as I fidgeted idly. “You got anything else?”

“He hovers like an avenging angel,” my mother said, “speaks in a voice of infinite authority, and if you defy him, the response is swift and unpleasant.” She kept her reply level, but I could hear the slightest quiver beneath it. “When it comes to terror, what else is there?”

I sighed. “I’m exhausted. Any further thinking is going to have to wait until tomorrow.” I cast a look over to the bed in the corner, where Janus lay, not as shriveled as I would have expected from a man who had been in a coma for six months but still just a shell of what he had been only months earlier. “If only he could do my sleeping for me, I’d be all set.” I winced a little inside, looking at Janus’s face, which had grown pale from the months he’d been confined to the medical unit. What had been a swarthy, pleasant look on him, a healthy man—a little weathered at times, but still vital—had been reduced to deadness, quiet, the silence of a vegetable and nothing more. “I need to sleep,” I repeated.

“Go on, then,” my mother said, “we’ll see you in the morning.”

“Or possibly afternoon,” I said and started toward the door. I barely noticed that Ariadne and my mother remained behind. I wondered if I should worry about what they were discussing and decided it ultimately didn’t matter.

I dragged myself across the campus toward the dormitory. Off in the distance, a new building was being constructed, nominally at my behest. It was a research and development lab, to be populated with the best and the brightest minds that we could muster. Right now it was just steel girders sticking out of a hole in the ground. I hadn’t paid it much attention other than to sign off on the basic layout. As far as I was concerned, by the time it bore fruit—assuming we lived that long—my tenure at the new Agency would probably be just about over and Century would be toast. Every heavy step I took was lightened by the though of that prospect. It was all that was keeping me going right now.

That was a long day,
Zack said as I let him out of the box in my mind.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

I’m glad Scott was there to save you.

“Me, too,” I said, letting the heaviness of my feet trudging across the soft, grassy lawn keep my brain from tumbling into unconsciousness.

You didn’t just let me out to ask about your day.

“No,” I agreed. “I wanted some company while I walked. Needed to think.”

You’re not in much shape for thinking.

“This is true.”

But you’re still mulling over Sovereign? Dreading him?

“Always.”

Maybe you should take a break for a little bit. Come back fresh.

I almost smiled, but it was bittersweet. “Head for an island, sandy beaches?”

It would be nice.

“It would be ...” I thought about it, “... irresponsible.”

You’re nineteen. You’re allowed some irresponsibility.

My smile faded. “Not now. Not with the stakes like this.”

What was that line from that movie? “If we can’t save the earth, you can be damned well sure we’ll avenge it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t think Sovereign’s going to respond to that threat any better than Loki did.” I sighed as I reached the heavy doors of the dormitory, which had emergency shutters secured in a large, rectangular casing over every window in the place. It increased the weight of the door as I opened it, and in my exhausted state, I actually felt it. “If I could even find him to threaten him.” I placed my hands over my face as I walked into the lobby area at the front of the dorms. Two security guards stared at me impassively, and I slid my key card through the little reader at the stall that buzzed and opened a gate for me to enter. It wouldn’t keep out a meta, but much like the shutters, it wasn’t designed to. It was only meant to stall for time.