“Ariadne told me you had some difficulty in apprehending the subject,” Old Man Winter said, his voice a low rumble. I looked down and realized that it was as though I wasn’t there, disembodied, a fly on the wall for a conversation between these two men. Winter’s low timbre set my non-existent teeth to grinding, slow emotion rising as I tried to blink eyelids that weren’t there and I tried to reconcile this memory of something I couldn’t recall ever happening.
“Yeah,” Zack said, and his whole body was uneasy, his posture tense. “Shouldn’t Kurt be here for this? We went to her house to retrieve her together—”
“There is no need for me to speak to Kurt about this,” Old Man Winter said with a simple wave of his hand. “His report and yours were exceptionally clear in the timing and execution of your entry into the house and subsequent pursuit to the grocery store.”
“That was all Kurt,” Zack said uneasily. “He managed to affix one of our pen trackers to the bumper of the car the girl—uh … Sienna, I think her name was—made her escape in.”
“Her name is indeed Sienna,” Old Man Winter said and, ponderously slow, he stood up then made his way to the window. There was snow on the ground beyond, covering the Directorate campus as I tried to fit this memory into my own. A slow realization had crept over me during the conversation; it had to have taken place right after Kurt and Zack had come to my house, after they had saved me from Wolfe the first time.
“We still have no idea who she was with when she was attacked or what the … “ his distaste was evident, “ … thing that attacked her was—”
“His name is Wolfe,” Old Man Winter said, “and he is very dangerous; Ariadne will ensure you see his file. I know you have not been working here long enough to have encountered someone with his scope of power.”
“I’ve seen some pretty crazy things since I started working here,” Zack said, filling the pause in the conversation.
“I have read your reports, reviewed your assignments,” Old Man Winter said, looking back over his shoulder at Zack. “You have never seen anything like him.”
“He ran,” Zack said, with a shrug. “Ran from us, a couple humans armed with nothing more than tranquilizer guns, per your mission orders.”
“There was surely more to it than that,” Old Man Winter said. “Something you have not seen. Wolfe … would not surrender something he was after so easily, and I very much doubt that a simple tranquilizer would give him any pause.”
Zack shrugged again. “If you say so.” He sat in quiet for a moment, his discomfort evident. “Is there … anything else?”
“Yes,” Old Man Winter said, turning back and returning to his seat, easing himself into the heavy chair as it squeaked at his weight. “The girl.”
“The girl?” Zack frowned. “What about her?”
“She has been isolated for years,” Old Man Winter said, “held captive by her mother. She will know little of the world, and now Wolfe—a meta of considerable power, a remnant of the old days of metahuman involvement in human affairs—has attempted to capture her. Another player of unknown origin has helped her to escape us. We know nothing of what she is standing in the middle of, but I know Wolfe, and if he is involved then she is important in some way.”
Zack looked carefully at Old Man Winter. “Um, okay. I mean, she’s here now, so we can protect her—”
“Protection is not all she will require,” Old Man Winter said coldly, “assuming she accepts it. Her mother was strong-willed, difficult. I would expect the same from her and be pleasantly surprised if she was more … malleable. She will try to escape and eventually succeed, provided she is half as strong as Sierra. We must give her reasons to stay. Persuade her to cooperate until we can determine her purpose and powers.”
The uneasiness that hung over Zack like a pall grew deeper. “I guess I can understand wanting to protect her until we can find out a little more of the mystery around her, but maybe if we were honest—”
“Honesty is not the best policy in a case such as this,” Old Man Winter said, icy eyes staring at Zack. “Would you care to explain to a seventeen-year-old that she has unknown powers and is pursued by a man who is not a man at all but a mythical being who was once known as one-third of Cerberus, the hellhound? Some of this she will accept, but we have not enough answers to give. Honesty will not convince her to remain here, protected. We will need to give her … other reasons.” There was never much emotion in anything Winter said, but there was something approaching wry amusement in the way he said it.