“So this is the seat of Omega,” Reed said, taking in the whole room with a sweep of his eyes. “It’s kind of how I always imagined it.”
“Actually, that was the seat of Omega’s power,” I said, pointing to the wreckage of the chair that still rested behind the desk. I looked over the edge to see smears of blood still there, and I hesitated before I stepped around to look closer. The smell of it was heavy, and I could almost taste it because of how much of it was dried on the floor. “Janitorial must have been furloughed, too,” I muttered to myself.
“What?” Reed asked.
“Nothing,” I said, not taking my eyes off the space where I’d last seen Rick, a bloodied mess of flesh and bone splattered all over the floor. I looked back to Reed. “So …”
He looked back at me then to Breandan, who watched us both uneasily. “So … what?”
“Well,” I said, “Janus wanted us to go to the cloister in Scotland, try and save them from this Hades-type.”
He stared at me with a blank look. “Sorry … is that a thought, a suggestion, an order?”
I frowned at him. “I’m not your boss, Reed. I can’t give you orders. I’m not in charge.”
Breandan looked from Reed to me. “Really? Then … who is, might I ask?” He looked down at the space behind the desk. “And is that blood?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Their last leader met a somewhat grisly end.”
“Ouch,” Breandan said. “Looks messy. When did that happen?”
“Oh, I don’t know. An hour before I ran into you in King’s Cross Station?”
He looked at me for a moment before it registered. “Oh! You! You killed him. I get it now.” He let his thumb and forefinger rest on his face. “You really are racking up quite the prodigious body count, aren’t you?”
I put my fingers over my eyes and rubbed my face, as though I could scrub away all signs of my identity, be someone else for a while. “It’s been a confusing few weeks.”
“This isn’t like you, Sienna,” Reed said quietly.
I looked at him through weary eyes. “I’m pretty sure it’s not all me.”
His eyes widened in slight alarm. “You mean …”
“Wolfe,” I said calmly. “He used to be able to take control of my body. Now it’s more subtle. He says, ‘Kill them!’ and I’m moving before he’s even done speaking.” I leaned to rest my backside on the desk. “The sad part is, I don’t even disagree with what I’ve done in some of these cases.” I turned my head to look at the bloodstains behind the desk. “Some of them seem to strain the moral compass, though.”
“Dear God,” Reed whispered. “You say it like it’s nothing. Like you just cracked an egg. ‘Oops, killed a whole bunch of people. Better luck next time.’”
“Honestly,” I said, and felt a tired that had seeped into my very bones, like the London rains, “given what’s going on right now, is anyone even going to notice the drop of blood I’ve put into the bucket?”
“Well,” Breandan said with excessive cheer, “it’s nice to know that my guardian angel is actually an avenging angel, ready to kill over the slightest offense.” He stiffened and held out his hands peacefully. “Which I am not trying to give. Please don’t be offended, oh murderous angel.”
I sighed. “It’s not like that.” I looked out the window. “At least I hope it’s not.”
Reed came to sit beside me. “What happened to the girl who struggled with the fact that she’d killed Wolfe and Gavrikov?”
I didn’t blink as I looked at the skyscrapers on the horizon, lit in anticipation of the coming night. “I think I left her in the box.”
“Bad news,” Karthik said, breaking the silence as he re-entered the room, shutting the old wood door behind him with a gentle click.
“Is there any other kind lately?” Reed asked.
“There’s the Daily News,” Breandan said. “No, wait, that’s bad too.”
“We have confirmation from our agents that the cloister in Connacht was wiped out,” Karthik said, reading from a piece of paper in his hand.
“But finally an Englishman who can pronounce it,” Breandan muttered.
“In point of fact, I’m from Mumbai originally,” Karthik gently corrected him.
“I was trying to be culturally sensitive. Inclusive and all that, you know.”
“Ah,” Karthik said. “So now the last bastion of metakind in the English isles is to be found in Scotland.” He read a thin readout. “Population is only thirty or so.” He pulled a piece of paper from underneath that one. “It looks as though the job is just about done over here.” His dark eyes were tinged with sorrow, and his voice was weighed down with it. “This is the last cloister in Europe. North and South America are all that remain after this. That and whatever stragglers aren’t cloistered that haven’t been swept up yet.”