The Anathema (29 page)

“But what do they want?” Alex asked, puzzled, his hands resting comfortably on the flat of Eerie’s back, warm skin through a thin layer of cotton. “Why interfere with… you know. This. Us.”

“You keep talking that way, and I’m going to get ideas,” Eerie said, smiling.

That shut Alex right up.

“They all want you for their own reasons,” Eerie said mischievously, levering herself upright so she was sitting across his lap. “I’m not that different, I guess.”

“I don’t understand,” Alex said softly, looking at the blue-haired girl, surrounded by a corona of soft, honey-colored light, everything gone thick, sweet, and slow. He reached for her without thinking and she melted into him, into his arms as naturally as if she had always been there. “I don’t understand anything.”

“Stop trying,” Eerie suggested, kissing him, nibbling on his lip.

They stayed like that for a while, pressed together on the couch, their hands and lips exploring each other tentatively. Eerie smiled at him, and she looked soft and lovely in the flickering orange light…

Orange light?

Alex sat up slightly, so that he could look out the bedroom window that had also caught Eerie’s attention. It took him a little while to processing what he was seeing.

“Ah, Eerie? This may sound dumb, but is Anastasia’s house on fire?”

* * *

“Brennan?”

“Yes, milady?”

“Is Renton still occupied?”

“Yes, milady. He is currently engaged in combat near the dormitory buildings. There are currently three separate engagements happening across campus that we are aware of, and I am afraid he is at the epicenter of the largest. Shall I send reinforcements?”

“I doubt he needs the help. Warn me if he comes back this way. And get Katya on the channel for me.”

It took a moment for Brennan to manage the switchover, with another delay while he relayed the instructions. Brennan was not half the telepath that Renton was, but she was going to have get used to doing without his prodigious talents in the near future. Such a shame, she thought, clucking her tongue. What a waste.

Anastasia smoothed the billowing skirts of her dress carefully before she sat down, perched on a moderately level rock, careful not to stain or tear the fabric. She had worn the white dress because she knew Timor liked it, but now she rather wished that she had not. She had a good view from here, at the edge of the trees, so that she could watch Timor work under the moonlight. It wasn’t often, after all, that one had the opportunity to see a combat precognitive in action. Given the rare nature of their abilities, precognitives worked almost exclusively in support pools, but Timor was an exception. A Class C Operator, Timor had enough precognitive ability to see a bare second or two into the future. That was surely the reason that his parents had tithed him to the Black Sun, and that Anastasia’s father had in turn pawned Timor off on her. Fortunately, Anastasia saw value in what other people discarded. In combat, after all, a single second was an eternity, and Timor had learned to use his foreknowledge ruthlessly. She had helped him become deadly long before anyone had realized their mistake in casting him aside.

She was not overly worried about the attack itself. She had already warned Brennan, Svetlana had spirited away the staff, and both the Black Sun’s critical documents and her own wardrobe were safely locked away in fireproof safes. Still, Anastasia had to admit that she hadn’t expected anything quite as uncouth or mundane as the Molotov cocktail they threw at the roof.

“Oh, no,” she said, burying her head in her hands. “All my things…”

“Milady?”

“Yes, Brennan?”

“Katya just reported in. She’s confirmed the secondary group in your area. They are attempting to establish a sniper’s nest. Do you want her to take care of it?”

“Yes. And warn Timor.”

“Of course, milady.”

The first three assassins fanned out, clearly waiting for the fire to flush their target out of the burning building. One of them was probably a pyrokine, judging from how fast the fire spread throughout the structure. They had to spread out rather far in order to cover all three sides of the building, while the other group set up on the ridge above the house; a spotter with a scope and a sniper armed with what appeared to be a small cannon. With limited personnel, it wasn’t the worst setup Anastasia could imagine, but she still felt a bit insulted. If they wanted to attack the future head of the Black Sun, they should have thrown everything they had into it. Splitting up their forces and attacking multiple targets across the Academy was either extraordinarily foolish, or a sign that the attack was little more than a feint.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Timor,” she said, eyeing the flames on the roof nervously. “Will you please hurry about it?”

Timor was faster getting into position than his sister was, probably because he had the dogs flanking him, so he could afford to be more confident. Katya was cautious by nature and the situation was likely to make her more so. That limited Timor’s options, as he had to avoid the sniper’s field of fire. In addition, Katya had to walk up the hill, a burden for which Anastasia felt a certain amount of sympathy.

Timor hopped the fence between the staff guesthouse adjoining her own in one fluid motion, utterly casual, without a hint of tension in his movements. When he moved on, half-crouched, he had a mammoth black CZ .45 with a diminutive silencer held in both hands, held away from his body, pointed at the ground. Timor moved with utter self-assurance, and he never looked at the ground in front of him. She knew from experience that he didn’t have to. There was nothing there that could surprise him.

Timor and Katya, she mused, her cousins that no one had wanted, turned into such lovely and terrible flowers under her watch. Anastasia’s father had never really thought of them as anything other than an obligation, and he treated them accordingly. She had approached them early. They’d had a little trouble putting confidence in the plans and ambitions of a nine-year-old, but they’d come around quickly once they realized what she was capable of, and they had been among her most faithful followers since. They were both Class C Operators, and therefore chronically underestimated, frequently to their advantage. Katya was a transporter who could move only ounces, far less than her own weight, and Timor a precognitive who could barely see into the future. The Black Sun as a whole had not seen much value in either. Anastasia had seen tremendous potential in both of them, and in the years since her investment in the siblings had paid her back many times over.

Katya was erratic, vampy, obsessed with ridiculous gore films, and lethal within ten meters. Timor was polite, handsome, tragically her cousin and even more tragically gay, but equally as deadly in his own, slightly indirect way. Katya killed only on command, without passion or remorse. Timor killed effortlessly whenever he felt it necessary, preferring combat that didn’t upset his appearance. Both of them were devoted directly to Anastasia, rather than the Black Sun.

Timor let the dogs flush the attacker out from the hillock that concealed him, not too far from the gravel pathway. He simply pointed; he did not need to tell the Weir what to do. Donner and Blitzen were as smart as a reasonably stupid human, after all, or staggeringly brilliant wolves. They came at the target from both sides, almost simultaneously. If they had been trying to kill him, they would have gone for the throat, but instead they worried the assassin, clamping on to a leg and a forearm and tearing out healthy chunks. The man tumbled backwards, screaming as he fell into open space. Timor shot him coolly in the head with a suppressed pistol, far enough back to avoid any errant splatter.

The next attacker knew Timor was coming, and took better cover, behind a section of wooden fencing bordered by a raised berm that the pistol could not hope to penetrate. Timor fumbled in his coat pocket for a moment, dismissing the Weir with a wave of his other hand. Donner and Blitzen looked disappointed for a moment, and then they lowered their heads and disappeared together into the trees. Timor pulled a grenade from his pocket, set the timer and removed the safety, and then closed his eyes. He didn’t bother to open them before he tossed the grenade. His timing was so perfect that it never hit the ground; instead, there was an airburst directly above the concealed gunman, invisible from where Timor currently stood. The explosion tore the man to pieces.

Timor stepped out in full view of the sniper’s field of vision to stalk the third, clearly no longer concerned about that possibility of being shot from afar. The sniper team must have been so busy angling for a shot at either Timor or the target presumed to be fleeing the burning building that they had ignored Katya slinking up the hill behind them. She needed little more than line of sight before she could port the needles she carried somewhere instantly and dramatically fatal. Anastasia was pleased. Eliminating the sniper meant Timor’s task of taking the last attacker alive would be much easier.

“Well, that that leaves only you, hiding in the woods behind me. Are you ready to come out, yet? Because all of your friends are dead,” Anastasia said, with satisfaction. “If you had a move in mind, this would be the time to make it.”

The isolation field descended from the heavens like inverted thunder, abrupt and total, parting Anastasia from the scene in front of her like a pane of glass, perfectly polished and inset as to be virtually invisible. She could yell for help, she knew, and no one except the person who had been sneaking up behind her for the last few minutes would ever hear her. Not, of course, that she would ever give anyone the satisfaction.

“Anastasia Martynova,” the man said, from behind her. “You are a fool. It may have cost my entire team, but it will be worth it to eliminate you.”

“Eliminate me?” Anastasia said coyly, glancing over her shoulder at the man behind her. “Please. If you were a professional, you would not have bothered talking. Who are you, anyway?”

Anastasia did not recognize him, but she knew the facial paint he wore. He was from the Taos Cartel, a cadet branch of the Black Sun, and obviously one of their top operators if he had drawn the opportunity to take a shot at her. Anastasia found herself in a rare struggle with her temper. She had heard rumors of dissention in the ranks of the Black Sun, but at the same time, there were always rumors.

“It’s William Steed, Miss Martynova, but you can call me Bill, in light of the fact that I’ll be killing you,” he said, his grin revealing bad teeth. He wore the same blue and dark grey camouflage that the rest of his team had worn, his features partially obscured with cartel smudge paint, his head shaved down to stubble. “Unless you planned on trying to bargain with me?”

“Why, whatever for?” Anastasia asked, amused and letting it show. “Do your worst, Bill.”

He licked his lips and glanced around furtively. When he turned back to her, she decided she did not like the expression on his face much at all.

“Your bodyguards won’t hear you scream. They won’t even notice anything is wrong until long after I’m done with you,” William said with obvious relish. “I suggest you rethink cooperating with me.”

“Didn’t you say that you were here to kill me? Why in the world would I cooperate with that? Or are you suggesting that you could be persuaded not to kill me?”

William Steed looked nervous and excited at the same time, pulling an almost comically large and serrated knife from a belt sheath and pointing at her with it.

“Such a stuck up little bitch,” he sneered. “I remember you, Anastasia Martynova. You were sitting next to your daddy three years ago, when our cartel was disciplined and humiliated by the Black Sun. Do you even remember it? Or is that sort of thing routine for you? I remember your arrogant face, exactly like your bastard father. I’ve wanted to take you down a few pegs ever since,” he said, excitedly spraying spit as he talked. “I might like you better as a hostage, come to think of it.”

Anastasia laughed because that was what was expected of her, but honestly, she felt tired. Treachery, she thought bitterly, was simply exhausting to deal with.

“I don’t think so,” she said distastefully, leaning her head on her knee. “I doubt very much that anything like that will happen.”