“One punch was too much,” he said as the elevator dinged and we stepped inside. “Two was excessive.”
“Ooh,” I said, not entirely feigning a frightened reaction but burying it under my bravado. “Is three going to be the end of me?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Doubtful. Even if I were personally upset by your behavior, it is hardly my decision to cut you loose.” He stared at me for a moment. “Not literally but from this operation.”
“Why not? Seems like you’ve done more to bring me here than anyone else has been able to.”
“True enough,” he said tensely as the elevator made its way up—to my surprise. “But now that you are here, I doubt they would blink if you were to slit Klementina’s throat in the middle of the office during lunch hour, in full view of everyone.” He turned to glare at me. “I don’t think this needs to be said, but I would take a very dim view of such an activity, and outside my capacity as your contact with Omega, I can assure you that you would regret it for the rest of your life.”
“Did you just threaten me?” I looked at him with more than a little amusement. “If I’m as important as you people seem to think I am, couldn’t I just negotiate with your boss and have him throw in Kat’s death as a sweetener to the deal I’ve already worked out with you?”
“Undoubtedly,” Janus said, and his voice was hard as iron. “And if that is the type of person you truly are, a murderer, then please, make that request and do it swiftly.” He averted his eyes from me, turning them toward the elevator bank. “Let me know who I’m dealing with. I would prefer to see you for what you are from the outset.”
“I’ve killed a lot of people, Janus,” I said, staring him down even as he didn’t look at me. “I was merciless about it, wiping M-Squad off the map. When we talked on the night you destroyed the Directorate, you seemed so sure I wouldn’t kill any of you. You even explained away how I killed Wolfe and Gavrikov. You justified them for me.”
“They were eminently reasonable killings.” He stood facing the elevator panel, as though it was something fascinating he could read, like a literary classic.
“Then please,” I said, and I realized I was actually pleading, “explain away how I killed Glen Parks.” Janus shot me a sidelong glance filled with a little alarm in his blue eyes. “I shot him in the face, you know. Or Clary? I drowned him after pinning him under a ton of machinery in a swimming pool, did you know that?” I saw the subtle nod. “Eve and Bastian, well, I would have shot them both to death, but it got a little dicey and I ended up draining them both dry.” I held a bare hand up in front of my face as I spoke just above a whisper. “I think with the last two, I finally got a taste for it. My power, I mean. You know, like you talked about with the others. I felt it, and it felt good.” He turned to face me, but he was calm, unconcerned save for just a hint of unease in his eyes. “I would have done the same to Erich Winter, and I came to you so you could help me find him so I could kill him. So let me ask you: what’s the justification for what I’ve done? Hm? How do you explain these away, Janus? How do you presume to tell me I’m not a monster now? I have left a trail of bodies behind me.” I waved around, as though indicating the direction I’d come from. “How do you spin that as reasonable? How do you think of those as anything but the acts of a monster?”
“I think I would explain them as what they are,” he said quietly. “Vengeance. The righteous fury of an angry woman.” He moved his hand back to the elevator console and thumbed the emergency stop button, filling the air with a klaxon that honked at us like an angry goose, digitized. “Do you know much about Athena-types? Like the girl we met this morning?” He smiled. “Odd that she was actually named Athena, but do you know anything about them?”
“Just what you said.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “Goddess of Wisdom, Law, Courage—”
“The original Athena was goddess of many things,” he agreed. “She was like a mother to me after my own was killed, but let me tell you that her powers are mostly rooted in the better nature of men. And women,” he hastened to add after I shot him a cockeyed look. “She can stir creativity, a desire for justice, a yearning for truth, and if she is truly strong, can almost catapult these emotional states into a level of genius in those she works upon like nothing you have ever seen. If you look upon any great work in mankind’s history, at least half of them were probably inspired by the efforts of an Athena-type.”