Enemies(5)

“Please do,” Fries said with a low moan.

I gave it a long thought; there was a strong disagreement in my head. I don’t just mean that I was internally at war; I mean that Wolfe, Gavrikov and Bjorn were enthusiastically supportive of the idea of me going to London—to meet with Omega, to pursue revenge—while the other voices, Kappler, Bastian and Zack, were somewhat more reluctant. It was like being in the middle of a shouting match, and I could barely make out all the different arguments being made in my head, just the general tone.

“Will you come with me?” Janus asked again, and the cacophony died down.

I stared at him for a long moment as I went through all the options. “Yes,” I said, and there was a chorus of disharmony in my head at the decision. “I don’t see any other way to get what I want, so yes.” I listened in particular to one voice, one that I almost had to strain to hear behind the other, louder ones, but it was there. Zack. My love.

Watch your back.





Chapter 3




The flight was crowded, full to the brimming, actually, but it was direct from Minneapolis to London, and so I couldn’t complain about that. The sterile air in the plane was dry, and I felt it cause my nose to dry out with it, as if I had inhaled a desert into my nostrils. The guy next to me was on the wrong side of thirty with earrings in both ears and sandals—sandals! In Minnesota. In winter. Try to figure that one out. He was dressed like the kind of guy who would go around calling everyone “bro” but probably let it slide into “brah.” He also rudely hogged the entire armrest on that side in spite of my efforts to find a place to rest my elbow, thus pushing me into the overlarge woman in a black suit who sat to my right. She wore a sleeping mask, had five different pillows stationed about her body for comfort, and had been lightly snoring since takeoff.

It was my first flight, and I didn’t know anything about flight etiquette, but as the person in the middle with no armrest and her hand (and stump) folded across her chest, I was about ready to unleash some of my fury by throwing my elbows outward. Unfortunately, that would kill my seatmates which, I sensed, would please no one but Wolfe. Perhaps it would please me. The pain that my hand was causing as it grew back was staggering, and a few times I bit back the urge to beat someone to death from both that as well as garden-variety annoyance with the whole situation.

The dull blue pleather seatback was stretched in front of me after I lowered the grey tray table to let my hand and half-hand rest on it for a change. I inhaled the dry air, taking a sip of the cup of water the flight attendant had brought me a few minutes earlier, trying to contain my annoyance at being mushed by the guy I called Brah and the Sleeper. Janus had wisely booked himself into first class using his corporate advantages. I hadn’t complained at the time, but I certainly was prepared to give him an earful upon landing. I let the low thrum of the engines carry me off to sleep.

I stepped off the plane some nine hours after takeoff at Heathrow airport. In truth, it didn’t look dramatically different from what I had left behind, save for the boring, by-the-numbers hallways that took me to customs with Janus trailing somewhere behind.

I had gone home before meeting Janus at the airport and packed clothes. I had a spare passport under the name Sienna Clarke that I flashed at the area of customs where there were signs referring to it as the UK Border. I wondered at that, since it seemed to me I was well within the country at this point, but it wasn’t really my place to argue the semantics of national borders.

The clerk stared blandly at me for a few moments. “Purpose of visit?” he asked.

“Tourism,” I answered, and he gave a sort of half-shrug and waved me on after handing back my passport.

I met Janus in the terminal near the baggage claim area. I had nothing to pick up, but he stood there in his tweed suit coat, waiting expectantly around a silver steel merry-go-round composed of segmented belts. He flashed me a sideways look. “This is where we part ways for a bit.”

I looked back at him in disbelief. “Huh, what? I just got here.”

“Indeed you did,” Janus said. “And you are most welcome to go to our headquarters, if you’d like—”

I changed to a glare of annoyance. “I’d very much NOT like.”

He gave a simple nod. “As I suspected. I am not presently going to our headquarters; I am going to take a taxi and visit Klementina before I return to working on Omega business tomorrow morning.” He ignored my look of distaste. “Therefore, we part ways here. We have booked a hotel for you in the city, and I have a bit of pocket money for you to spend.” He handed me a wad of twenty-pound notes. “I will meet you tomorrow morning for breakfast in your hotel lobby. Ah.” He reached down and swept a small suitcase off the luggage conveyor in front of him.