Enemies(19)

“Not really,” I said, quiet. “Are you going to tell me?”

“I can’t tell you everything,” he said, and his words were shot through with a deep-seated tiredness that I felt in my bones as well. He gave a smile that reflected it. “So much of what you are as a succubus—and one of only three whom we know of that currently live—is … clouded.” He seemed to give a moment of consideration. “Succubi and incubi have lived on the margins of the meta-human world for ages. As a type of meta, yours is the most feared, most hated. Cloisters do not accept incubi and succubi among their number, fearing—perhaps rightly—that your powers lend themselves toward a casual application. If you’ve ever met one of your own kind who has embraced their power fully, you know why.”

“Fries,” I said with a whisper. “Charlie.”

“Yes,” Janus said with a solemn nod. “To fully use all the ability at your fingertips—literally—in many cases results in a sort of addiction to using said powers. Much like your aunt, the incubus or succubus becomes obsessed with drawing souls, feeding this ever-increasing emptiness within. It is very much like drug addiction, save that people become a disposable commodity, something to be drunk like wine.” He cocked an eyebrow. “And much like wine, it can become required rather than occasional, a constant need, a desperate desire to be fueled in every possible instance.” He cast a look across the street, where a tour group of students lingered next to a bus stop, backpacks on their backs. They didn’t look much younger than I was. “A succubus on the prowl looks at a city street and sees nothing but targets, souls to be absorbed, a rush to be felt.”

I looked at them, so young, and I didn’t feel that—maybe a hint of it, a desire to walk through the middle of them and brush against them with ungloved hands. But not the desire to wade in, to drag the screams from them as I had with Wolfe or Kappler. “My mother wasn’t like that.”

“Indeed not,” Janus said. “Your mother is probably the most disciplined of all of your kind. She can take a single memory from a person’s mind with the skill of someone opening a filing cabinet, sliding out a single piece of paper and leaving the rest untouched. That takes a great deal of practice and considerably more than just raw ability, I assure you. She is the most powerful of your kind presently walking the planet.” He held up a hand to forestall my response. “Not in terms of raw power. I understand that you have her outmatched in that way, but she has decades of practice that have refined her abilities into something unmatched in the world.”

“She is strong,” I conceded. “I’ve seen her take a person’s memories. I think I leave a little more of a mess when I do it, though I have done it.”

“Ah, yes, I read about that last night,” he said with a subtle nod. “Ariadne, was it?”

I gave him a wary look. “I let her live.”

“I heard,” Janus said. “Turned her loose in the parking lot of a mall with no shoes.”

“I gave her a coat.”

He let out a small sound of amusement. “Well, then, that must absolve you of any responsibility for her well-being. I’m certain it was of great consolation to her when she lost those toes to frostbite.”

My jaw fell open. “She lost toes?”

Janus let out a small laugh. “I kid. But it is nice to know that you still care, at least a little.”

My face straightened. “Your group employed Wolfe. I doubt that it matters to you how much I care.”

Janus gave a slight shrug. “To them, perhaps not. To me, it is all the difference in the world. This is why you are here now, and were not on any of the occasions they previously tried to capture you. I told them, when I took over, that they were going about it all wrong. They are used to dealing with monsters like Wolfe, like … others,” he said carefully. “I told them you are dealing with a girl—woman—who has a heart, who has a soul, but you try to entrap her as if she were an animal or perhaps a beast that needs to be caged.” He made a tsking sound. “They would use you to help save the world of metas from destruction and the world of humans from slavery. A noble cause, I think, which is why I have remained with Omega through … some ups and downs, let us say. As a decent person, I think this would be an aim that you would agree with. Yet they went about it by trying to capture you by force, to make you come with them.” He shook his head. “Foolish, I said. Directed at the wrong audience.” He shoved his hands deeper in his pockets. “I think after dealing with monsters for so long—including some who are very much within our own organization,” his face tightened, “you become accustomed to approaching all situations by immediately leaping to the same conclusions, and theirs usually involve applying force.”