Enemies(102)

I grinned. “What are you going to do, Weissman? Kill me? Like I said, you’re my enemy now. Maybe you can scamper away before I pull the trigger again, maybe not. But next time I see you, I will kill you.”

“That remains to be seen,” Weissman said, and he tried to drag himself upright and failed. He looked back at me. “I’m done with you. He’ll be coming for you next, you know.”

“Who?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. “Sovereign?” He nodded slowly. “If you see him before I do, tell him I’ll be waiting,” I said, and I gave Reed a sidelong glance. “In Minneapolis.”

Weissman looked back at me, eyes filled with fury as his face split into a smile. “I don’t need to tell him. He already knows. And he’ll find you—when he’s ready.”

“Oh,” I said, and raised the pistol at his face. “In that case—”

I fired three times in rapid succession then stopped. I waited until the muzzle flash cleared from my eyes to confirm what I already knew when the third shot went off.

Weissman was gone.





Chapter 36




“Maybe you could have killed him sooner?” Breandan suggested.

“Maybe,” I said. “Probably.”

“I actually thought you were going to let him get away unchallenged,” Reed said. “I thought a little bit of the old Sienna was peeking out there for a minute.” His voice held just a hint of melancholy.

“Sorry,” I said softly, “but no. Every instinct I had told me it was a bad idea, because that bastard is too damned hard to kill.” I felt a bleak disappointment in myself. “I should have tried to take the shot sooner.”

Reed gave a disappointed nod. “You really aren’t the same.”

I shook my head. “I’m really not. But I meant what I said. I’ve got a job to do, a purpose to fulfill, whatever you want to call it. I don’t know if you can trust Weissman, exactly, but I think there’s some truth to what he said. I don’t think they’re going to pull all their resources out of the Americas until they’re done over there. Which means London is probably the safest city in the world for metas right now, at least in the near term.”

“What would you suggest?” Karthik asked me, in near disbelief. “Bunker down and hope the storm passes?”

“Kind of,” I said, and started toward the doors of the Primus’s office. I could sense them all following, and I heard the soft steps of their shoes on the carpet. I threw open the doors with both hands in a very dramatic fashion and flipped the lights as I came in. I walked to the bookshelf and looked for Dickens’s Hard Times. When I found it, I pulled on it, and it slid out only with effort.

“This is hardly the time to read the classics,” Reed said.

“Is there ever a good time for that, really?” Breandan added.

The wall slid open, revealing a hidden passage. I felt a rush of air as it opened, and lights began to flicker on along the sides of the hallway. “There’s always time for a classic tale,” I said as I entered the passage.

“Who are you?” Breandan asked, almost mocking. “A James Bond villain?”

“No, but I think the Primus of Omega kind of was.” I let my feet carry me down the concrete hallway to a staircase at the end. I glanced back to see Kat, Breandan, Karthik and Reed following behind me.

“Well,” Karthik said with a little smile, “you kind of are the Primus of Omega, now.”

We descended the concrete stairs into the moldy air. It was thick, and once we’d passed the first landing, there wasn’t much circulating, as though the whole area was cut off from the main air conditioning system. It retained the look of an unfinished space, the walls probably dating back to the original construction of the building.

I went down, down, down. I counted six stories, even though the building was only four plus a parking garage. I figured we were down in the depths now, below the garage, and I wondered what we’d find as the stairs came to an end under a lamp that buzzed and hummed, flickering on and off.

“Wait,” Reed said, cautioning me. “This could be something dangerous.”

“Could be,” I agreed, then grabbed the door handle and flung it open.

“And she doesn’t even give a thought or care to that notion,” Breandan said, peering into the darkened door ahead of me. “Very posh.”

I walked through without waiting for caution to overwhelm me, and lights began to come on throughout the cavernous room in front of me. It was furnished with height-of-the-1700s furniture, like a private apartment from the American Revolution. A gold-plated throne lay in the far corner, shimmering in the light, along with other treasures that I saw cause Breandan to just about drool on the floor.