“I don’t like to have threats looming over my head unchecked,” the Primus said darkly.
“It is an exception we make for the greatest of nuisances,” Janus said, “to keep our affairs running smoothly. We have made this exception before, for Akiyama, and I suggest we extend such courtesy to this …” Janus looked sidelong at Adelaide for only a beat before turning his gaze back to the Primus, “… Sovereign. As you say, he professes to have no weaknesses, no interests, as it were.”
“Every man has weaknesses, has limits,” the Primus said, raising a finger in front of his face and waving it casually. “This one is no exception.” The Primus’s close-lipped smile grew broad. “He just doesn’t know them yet.”
Janus stared at him somewhat warily. “And you mean to expose them … how?”
The Primus turned to look at Adelaide for just a moment before turning to the bookshelf. “Nealon.”
“What about him?” Adelaide said quietly. “I killed him like I was ordered—”
The Primus eyed her as his hand fidgeted. “Let me show you something.” He reached over onto the bookshelf and grasped at one of the volumes. “First edition of Hard Times, by Charles Dickens. Broke my heart to do this to it.”
Adelaide leaned forward as the Primus pulled on the Dickens novel, and there was a click as something released, and the bookshelves slid loose, some small machinery pulling them back on a track, swiveling them open to reveal a secret room. Adelaide peered in, just around the corner into the darkness hidden behind them. It was inky, all-consuming, ominous shadows that the light of the office couldn’t penetrate.
And something reached out, catching her around the neck.
She squirmed, but the grip was like a metal collar, a bare hand that held her tightly around the throat, pushing on her windpipe and lifting her into the air. It was Wolfe, in all his glory, the horror of his black eyes and feral teeth bared in fury, his hot breath on her neck as he pulled her tightly closer. She stared in shock into his eyes then kicked at him hopelessly, every hit that landed on the beast’s chest as futile as a mosquito kamikaziing into a human being. Wolfe didn’t even react, save for his muted expression, no joy on his face at the kill he was executing. There was a pop in Adelaide’s head, and I knew he had crushed her larynx as his hands slipped free and he staggered, just a bit, while he let her slip from his grasp.
“What in the devil did you do that for?” Janus cried as he fell to his knees next to Adelaide.
“Wolfe does as he’s ordered,” Wolfe said gruffly, without a single ounce of the pleasure I would have expected from him.
“Because I told him to,” the Primus said. Adelaide writhed on the ground, clutching her throat, but no air was getting through and I could see the light beginning to fade from her bulging eyes. She writhed in a panic, grasping at Janus.
“Why would you do such a thing?” Janus said, running a hand along Adelaide’s cheek. He met her panicked eyes as they fell on his, and she began to grow still.
“Because,” the Primus said, “of Sovereign.”
“What in the blazes does he have to do with Adelaide?” Janus’s eyes locked on the Primus. “This is ridiculous. He is no threat to us!” He waited a moment, watching the Primus carefully. “What? What do you know that you are not telling me?”
The Primus said nothing and looked one last time at Adelaide as she glanced up at him, struggling for one last breath.
Janus watched him quietly, mind calculating, and then he spoke into the quiet calm. “Nealon.”
Adelaide didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, lying there in the middle of the Primus’s office.
Adelaide was dead.
Chapter 33
“Sorry.”
I awoke with a start, feeling a presence just above me. I restrained my hands, kept them at my side, fighting them for control of a feral desire to tear the throat out of the person who was standing there. The voice had been quiet; city lights illuminated the office.
“Sorry for what?” I asked the silhouette standing over me. I slid to the edge of the couch and sat upright, leaning my booted feet down to rest on the ground as I ran my hands over my face.
“For not waking you when I got back,” Breandan said. “Karthik suggested it might be best to let you sleep until Reed returned and we had a better idea of where we stood.”
“Is he back?” I asked, gingerly pulling myself up, using Breandan’s shoulder for leverage.
“He’s five minutes away,” Breandan said, holding carefully still so my hand didn’t touch anything but the cloth of his shirt. “Says he’s got some things that might help, guns and such. I got that, uh …” He blushed in the dark. I couldn’t see it, but it was obvious by his posture. “I got the thing you asked for.”