Limitless (33 page)

It was a four-story plunge to the street below, and he was completely out of room to maneuver.

Nowhere left to run.

Chapter 82

“Chess, not checkers,” I said to Philip, his face stricken with horror at the realization that he was trapped. All his fancy dodges and maneuvers had required space to execute, room to work.

And he was fresh out.

“Checkmate, asshole,” I said.

“Wait,” he said, holding up his hands in front of him. “I have—”

I kicked his ass off the edge of the building so hard I was able to watch his mouth open in terror as he flew out into the middle of the street—

And got hit by a red double-decker bus going about thirty. A taste of London.

He bounced, coming to rest behind a Volkswagen down the road.

I just stared down at the middle of the street, where he’d left a pretty decent puddle of blood at the site of the impact. “I guess your Spider-sense failed to tingle on that one.”

Chapter 83

Philip felt the broken bones, every last one of them. There were too many to count, too many to feel, but he had so little time. He crawled along on his good arm, on his good leg, using the cars behind him for cover. He’d stayed conscious for the bus, fortunately, seeing it just soon enough to best plan his trajectory. He couldn’t read his own future, not exactly, but he could read the future of the bus and could see that if he turned his body just so that he’d be able to survive by taking the hit and landing under cover.

And he had survived. It was what he was, a survivor. He scrambled, crawling as fast as he could, toward the narrow mouth of an alley. He had to move, had to rely on that bitch’s arrogance. No one could have survived the bus, after all.

No one but a man who could see the course of the future. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man was as near to a god as could be imagined, because he could see.

And he
could
see.

The alley ahead was clear, and he was only a few feet away. He reached into his breast pocket with bloody fingers and withdrew the slip of paper with the bank account number for Liechtenstein. He had to hurry. Had to flee. She couldn’t catch him once he was underground, and he could disappear to—

He felt strong hands seize him by the neck and turn him around. There was a face—her face—slightly rounded, the pale cheeks still red with outrage. “You’re not Sherlocking your way out of this one,” she said. “You think I’ve never dealt with a villain before?” He felt a twist, heard a crack, and suddenly he could not feel his lower body, nor anything else.

He saw the paper slip out of his fingers before he fell to the ground. He tried to breathe, but couldn’t. He tried to speak, to warn her. He’d seen her future in the moment she grabbed hold of him, had seen it all like a flood of emotion, all the probabilities feeding down to one moment in her future the way water tends toward a low point. He tried to tell her—not out of any virtue, but out of pure shock for what it entailed—try to verbalize the words, say that it was coming, the Awakening—

But it died on his lips as the paralysis of his broken neck set in. And as she stood, satisfied, looking into his eyes, the world faded to black and Philip Delsim’s future—all of the numerous, wondrous probabilities of it—faded with it.

Chapter 84

I’d returned to Mary Marshwin’s office voluntarily, not wanting to leave her in the lurch with a few bodies and a mess on her hands. I did it after returning Janus to Karthik. Janus had said only a perfunctory “Thank you” to me after I’d helped him up. I don’t think he really knew who I was.

“Well, you’ve made a right mess of things, haven’t you?” Marshwin said after Wexford had walked in. “Left us with a body on a street, no less—”

“A tragic suicide, if you were of a mind to explain it,” I said. I had carefully descended in a nearby alley before I’d killed Philip, so it wasn’t like anyone had seen me flying to or from the area.

Marshwin’s arms were folded, and her face was unmistakably grave. “I suppose you think we can just clean it up that way?”

“You can clean it up however you want,” I said, folding my own arms. “It’s your country and your mess. I was just suggesting that if you wanted to do it with a nice, neat little bow—”

“‘A nice, neat little bow’?” Marshwin asked, working her jaw open and closed after she finished speaking. She rummaged on her desk and brought out a newspaper, throwing it down in front of me. “Do you really think that’s possible now?”

There was a picture of me flying into the sky on the front page. “An American Metahuman in London,” was the headline. Kinda cliché, I thought. They had a blurry inset of a close-up of my face; it did look like me, enough that I wouldn’t have been able to lie and say it wasn’t.

“You asked for help from American authorities and it was granted,” I said with a shrug, “since you have no metahuman policing apparatus of your own—yet.”

Marshwin looked apoplectic, but her voice came out low. “Stop… offering me suggestions… on public relations. Being as you are hardly an expert on knowing your own bloody limits when it comes to giving an interview to the press.”

Man, that Gail Roth thing was going to haunt me forever.

“I think Ms. Nealon is offering very reasonable suggestions,” Minister Wexford said with a faint smile, “and I for one feel very relieved to know that a serial killer has been ‘taken out of play,’ I think is how you Yanks put it.”

“It’s a black eye for the department,” Marshwin said.

“It’s a minor public relations gaffe,” Wexford said soothingly. “With public sentiments against metas running a bit… high, the merest mention that Ms. Nealon, acting in concert with New Scotland Yard, dealt with the threat at hand should play well enough to give us the breathing room to work with this.” He straightened his lapels. “Mr. Delsim’s suicide upon the realization that he could not flee from the long reach of the Metropolitan Police force is a very acceptable outcome, I should think. I doubt after the incident at the gallery that you’ll find many in the press who’ll mourn his loss, and those who do will all be on the fringe, of course.”

Marshwin looked like she was about to vomit. “Acceptable enough, I suppose. But the matter of Delsim’s efforts at the bank is an open sore. He managed to move quite a sum of money outside our reach. Seizing five hundred million pounds of illegal assets would have been quite a balm.”

“What can you do in these instances?” Wexford asked, giving me a sympathetic smile. “Make your inquiries in Liechtenstein, of course, but I think we all know how that will turn out.”

“How will it turn out?” I asked. I didn’t really know anything about Liechtenstein, having only seen it on the map.

“They’re what Switzerland was to banking a few years ago,” Wexford said, “a black hole for most of the rest of the world. Money goes in, and if it comes out again, it’s virtually untraceable.”

“So it was all about the money all along,” I said, shaking my head. “Philip’s revenge was just a cover for his robbery of Omega’s assets.”

“It sounds as though he was at least a little angry with them,” Wexford said. “And he certainly did you a little bit of damage in the process, didn’t he?”

“He was keeping me around as the last person to torture in front of Janus if all else failed,” I said. “Probably knew containing me would be a nightmare, so he just kept one step ahead. Arrogant bastard, but then again, if I could see the future of everyone around me, I might be a little cocky myself.” I pulled my shredded coat tight, huddling in Marshwin’s frigid office.

“Well, he’s good and sorted now, as you say,” Marshwin said, sitting back down in her chair. “Now we’re just left with the matter of you.”

I sighed. “I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll head home.” I stood, reaching into my pocket for my phone. When I pulled on it, it came out in three pieces. “Sonofa… I guess they’ll know I’m coming when they see me.”

“I’ll walk you out, Ms. Nealon,” Wexford said, already heading toward the door, his silver hair as perfectly in place as ever. The man was simply unruffled by anything, apparently. “Good day, Ms. Marshwin.”

“What the hell is good about it, exactly?” she grumped as he closed the door behind her.

“Thanks for your help,” I murmured to Wexford as he walked me through the bullpen, a hand resting lightly on my shoulder.

“Officially, I have no idea what you’re talking about, of course.” He said this low, under his breath, letting it dissolve in the natural chatter of the room. “Unofficially, of course, the PM is quite pleased about the outcome. Keeping Mr. Delsim in prison would be a headache of no small proportions.”

“Glad she sees it my way,” I said, still hugging my coat tight around me.

“I suspect if you were to meet her, you’d find you both have a great deal in common,” Wexford said as he tapped the button to summon the elevator.

I blinked, putting a couple things together. “You called Philip a Cassandra-type before I'd told you what he was.”

Wexford made a harrumphing noise. “You assume that the file I gave you was the only one we had on him.”

It was a lie, and it was obvious to me. When I looked him in the eye, I knew he knew it as well. “You lived in the country and just came back to London a year ago?”

He knew I knew, and in spite of being caught, his eye twinkled. “When the PM formed her government, yes. She… left for the duration as well, you see. A little time in the country.”

“Holy shit, you’re metas,” I said, scarcely believing it. “You bailed out of London to avoid the extinction.”

He steered me into the elevator and pressed the door close button once, with confidence. “Ms. Nealon… I can tell by looking into your mind that delicate matters of this sort are something we can trust you to keep… discreet.” I just watched him. “Especially given that there is a great deal of work to do in changing attitudes in this country.” He straightened and tapped me once, gently, tugging on the torn lapel of my coat. “Besides, I think you have a few things of your own you’d prefer to keep under wraps?”

I swallowed hard and tugged my coat closed even tighter around me. Indeed I did. I didn’t even need to say it, because I knew he was reading my thoughts.

“Perhaps you should visit Detective Inspector Webster before you leave,” Wexford said, giving me a patient smile. “I’m sure he would rather enjoy making certain that any unfinished business between the two of you was settled before you left.” The elevator dinged and opened, and once more Wexford slipped out before I could pull myself together and follow him. He paused just before rounding the corner, turned back to me and said, “Aim low.” Then once again he disappeared down a hall, leaving me more than a little mystified at what he’d meant by that.

Ambassador Ryan Halstead’s face popped around the corner, and he slid into the elevator and pushed the button for the fourth floor. It took him a second to look back and see me, standing there in my shredded clothes, and his distaste was evident a second before the loathing, and the anger followed a second behind that. “You,” he said. “You are in so much shit, you have no idea. Washington is so friggin’ pissed at you, you’ll be lucky if you can get a recommendation to find a job as a dog-catcher after this crap, you—”

I slapped him on the chest and felt something stiff beneath his suit. Kevlar, I realized after a second. He was wearing a bulletproof vest. “Aim low,” I muttered, realizing what Wexford meant, and I raised my knee to land in Halstead’s crotch.

The man dropped; I’d been about as gentle as I could be while slamming my knee into his balls. I suspected he wouldn’t appreciate it, but dammit, he should have. I could just as easily have hit him so hard he’d have had to squeeze his throat to jerk off.

I left him in a pile on the elevator floor and stepped out, listening to him whine quietly as the doors closed behind me.

Chapter 85

I knocked on the door of the Webster house a little tentatively. I didn’t know how I’d be received, but I needed to do this before I left, that much I knew.

The birds were chirping, the garden was looking surprisingly fresh—maybe not so surprisingly given how much rain they’d had since I’d gotten here. The sky was blue and the sun was shining down. A better April day I could not have asked for.

I just hoped it wasn’t all clouds and thunderstorms waiting behind the door.

Marjorie clicked the lock and opened the door, staring out at me with as good a poker face as any I’d seen. I stared back at her and felt myself withdraw a little, hesitant, ready to run. I’d been in a knife fight to the death earlier today, but now I was ready to run at the sight of a motherly English woman.

“Sienna, dear,” she said, relief flooding across her face, “oh, I’ve been so worried! And you haven’t answered your mobile! I’ve called and left messages!”

I thought back to the shattered pieces of my phone that I’d given up and tossed into a garbage can outside New Scotland Yard. “Yeah… I kinda need a new one.”

“Come in, come in!” She stepped back from the door to allow me to pass. I slipped off my shoes, gaping holes all over them, and let my bare feet fall on the hardwood. “Matthew just got out of the hospital this very morning, I know he’ll be happy to see you.”

“Where is he?” I asked.

“In the shower, dear,” she said. “But come along, you must be hungry! Come on, to the kitchen.” She disappeared through the sitting room in a flash, and I knew she wouldn’t be dissuaded. Besides, I was hungry.

She laid out a spread of cold meats and cheeses, and I attacked it like someone who hadn’t eaten since… well, yesterday. I counted myself lucky that Webster himself wasn’t around to witness it and tried to keep my ears open over the sound of my own chewing in order to keep from having him surprise me. I had my pride, after all.

“I can’t thank you enough, dear,” Marjorie said after a few minutes of idle chitchat. It probably surprised the hell out of me, because I stopped eating altogether. I looked at her in curiosity, completely unsure of what she could be grateful to me for. I’d only landed her son in the hospital and caused his apartment to be bombed. I waited, almost expecting her to take a right turn into condemnation. “I always worry about him, you know,” she went on, “but having you watching out for him… you know that madman would have killed all of them if you hadn’t been there to stop the flames?”