“That’s not correct,” Janus said. “But let us leave that aside for a moment. You splattered the man’s brains all over the compartment of a passenger train, in full view of countless people. We are not talking about some minor, trifling problem. You have exposed yourself to considerable trouble. They will make posters with your face on them—”
“They will have posters with my mohawk on them, you mean,” she said, her legs crossed and her black leather jeans squeaking when she moved. “Lucky for us I can change up my look with ease.”
“That is not the point,” Janus said. “The point is that you made a mess, and you failed to clean it up. There were other ways to go about it, other ways to limit the damage, and you failed to employ even one of them.” Janus turned and stood with his back to her, facing the window that afforded him a view of London. “What we have to ask is whether at this point you will be a good operative for Omega or not. And it is an open concern at the moment.”
“I did the best I could,” she said, and I caught the hint of exasperation. “Time came to put him down, I did it. Just like I was taught.”
Janus turned to face her and there was a ripple of emotion across his face. “I would not consider your teacher to be the most reliable guide for how to conduct yourself in civilized society. We do not go about slaughtering anyone the minute they get in our way. That is savagery. That is bestial. That is—”
“The way of the Wolfe,” came a voice as the office door opened. It was thick and raspy, and the room was filled with a sudden musk of something primal. It was Wolfe, all right, standing taller than most men when he wasn’t crouched over like a dog ready to attack. Which, in this case, he wasn’t. He looked at Janus like the predator that he was, and Janus looked right back at him. “The way of pain, of fear—”
“Of shameless bloodletting, copious destruction and pointless death,” Janus said, keeping watch on Wolfe’s slithering entrance to the room. “You have certainly trained her well.”
“Wolfe taught her what she needs to know. How to avoid that pesky hesitation that costs you so many field agents right off the bat.” Wolfe wore a feral grin, and his black eyes burned into Janus.
I watched Janus concentrate on Wolfe, on the black eyes, and I sensed a shift in the room. “You taught her to kill first, ask questions later. Unfortunately, I was rather hoping to question this target. He did, after all, get a look at—”
“Sovereign,” Wolfe hissed. “Wolfe told you what he looks like.”
“Five hundred years ago,” Janus said. “He’s likely changed since then.”
“Still the same smell,” Wolfe rasped, his eyebrows arched down in a fearsome expression. “Janus didn’t say what he was sending the Little Doll out to do or Wolfe would have warned her to be gentle.”
“You are not her supervisor,” Janus said tightly. “You were to train her, and her training is over.”
Wolfe let a lazy smile come across his face. “The Wolfe leaves his mark, a mark that goes deeper than any command you can give the Little Doll, a mark that will outlast any order. Best Janus gives the Wolfe marching orders. That way they won’t get …” he looked sidelong at Adelaide and I sensed a deeply unsettling connection between the two of them, “… misinterpreted.”
Janus stared down Wolfe. “They had best not get misinterpreted anymore, else we will have to consider other possibilities for your … employment here.”
Wolfe let out a full-blooded hiss, as though he were thinking about coming across the desk at Janus. “Wolfe is not to be trifled with. Wolfe is not to be threatened—”
“By me?” Janus asked with amusement creasing the lines of his face. “Would you prefer the Primus or the ministers threaten you?” He leaned over the desk toward Wolfe and Adelaide. “I am not a man who tends to pass off his duties to others or hands tasks back up the chain undone. When the Primus tells me to do something, I do it, regardless of what is asked. If that involves handing a girl,” Janus gestured to Adelaide, who sat silent, watching Janus with narrowed, angry eyes, “innocent, sweet, pure, over to a monster to have him turn her into a killing machine, then I swallow my objections and do so. My personal morality may scream in outrage. It may tell me that to hand over such a girl to a beast who has shown no respect for life is wrong, that it is appalling, that it is not something I want to associate with. It may even tell me,” and Janus’s face twisted into something worse, something beyond fury, “that it would be better to take this beast, and use all my power … to neuter him. To turn him into a helpless puppy that will do no more than chase his own tail for the rest of his near-infinite days.”