Enemies(101)

Eleanor Madigan’s eyes were lit with the glow of electricity running through her hands in the dark room. She stood before us, and I wondered if any of the other metas who were on the floor had any ability to hit her at range with anything. Almost as though she could sense my impending order, I saw her hand rise at me, and I knew that I wasn’t going to get a chance to shout for them to do something.

The blast of gunfire next to her head caught me by surprise. Not as much as it caught her by surprise, since it sent her brains out the side of her head, but it was still a little stunning. The muzzle flash lit the face of Breandan Duffy, a pistol in his hands at point blank range next to her head. Silence filled the air in the room as Madigan’s body slumped, lifeless, to the ground.

“Shouldn’t you have said something like, ‘Your luck’s just run out’?” I asked Breandan as I struggled back to my feet, muscles burning in pain.

He shrugged. “I’m a bit new to this whole fighting thing. I was too busy burning all the luck I had to keep her from noticing me. Didn’t have time or thought to make a quip.” He held up the pistol and then blanched at it and aimed the barrel back down. “But … I did learn to shoot someone in the head the other day, so I figured if I could do it once by accident, I could probably pull it off a second time on purpose.”

“Good call,” I said, striding over to him. I held my hand out and he gave me the pistol a little reluctantly. I forced a smile. “You did good. Really good. Saved our bacon. And I don’t mean your crappy English quasi-ham bacon, either. I mean the really tasty American kind.”

He flushed and feigned irritation. “You’re just lucky you took the gun away before leveling that insult.”

“Or you’d shoot me in the head?” I asked, amused.

“Actually, in the Irish tradition, I probably would have just done you the courtesy of a kneecapping.”

“A kneecapping, huh?” I hefted the gun and snapped it around so fast it made Breandan step back in fear. I fired off two rounds before anyone in the room had a chance to react.

A soft moan filled the air in the shocked silence after, and Reed was the first to speak over it. “Uh, Sienna … you missed.”

“I didn’t miss,” I said, looking down at Weissman. He had bloody spots on his belly now, and he was holding them in with his hands, clutching at his stomach. “I hit him just where I wanted to.” I looked down at him. “How does it feel being gutted, Weissman?”

“Screw … you …” he said, breathing agony.

“You wish,” I said coolly. “I don’t think you’re going to be screwing much of anything for the near future. Though I bet you’d be the world’s fastest man, wouldn’t you?”

He ignored my goad and took a long, seething breath. “You can’t kill me—”

“I can’t?”

“No,” he said, grunting. “You win for now, though. But what do you think you really bought here? Time?” Little flecks of bloody spittle washed down his chin. “This is temporary. This is a poke to the eye. It’s annoying. It slows us down, that’s all. We’re in the Americas now, and it’ll only be a matter of time before we’re done there—”

“A matter of a longer period of time, if I’m not mistaken,” I said. “Since your mass killer is no longer available to make it easy and painless for you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, gritting his teeth. “We have other ways. We’ll bring overwhelming force to every encounter. We’ll crush them, break them to pieces, leave them for the crows. And eventually, we’ll be back here for the rest of you.”

“Listen,” I said, and stood over him, almost exactly as I had James Fries only a week—and a lifetime—ago. “I don’t think you understand where we’re at now, so let me explain something to you.” I leveled the gun at him and he watched me over the barrel. “You are my enemy now. I know who I am because I know who you are, and what you stand for is everything I will oppose to my last breath.”

He licked the blood from his lips. “I’ll give you credit. You’re tougher than I thought. After everything you’ve been through, you shouldn’t even be standing right now.”

“The only reason I’m still standing,” I said, glaring down at him over the sights, “is so I can keep myself between you and the people you want to kill. My people.” I kept the gun barrel fixed on him.

“Between us and them is a dangerous place to be,” Weissman said, and I saw his hand twitch as he tried to hold his guts in.