“They feared you,” Weissman said. “What you could do if you were truly unleashed.”
“I’ve been off the leash for quite some time,” Sovereign said with some amusement. “They haven’t seen fit to do a damned thing with—or to—me.” He grew quiet, thoughtful. “I don’t know that they can anymore.”
“They’re the problem with the world,” Weissman said, looking across at him. “They run the show. They repress the people. They have all the power, but they just use it to pump up their own wallets.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sovereign said. “I’d take that populist rhetoric a lot better if you weren’t presently trying to involve me in a scheme that’s going to result in more deaths than I can easily count.”
“But to good purpose,” Weissman said.
“Says you,” Sovereign replied. He could feel the chill seeping in through the windows and probed toward the mind of the girl in the supermarket. Sienna. I should get used to calling her by her name. He smiled. It’s a nice name. She was getting angry, now; she’d seen the men in black suits from the Directorate, wanted to question them. Her brother was fighting her on it, asking her not to.
“A girl like that shouldn’t have had to live in fear for her life the last seventeen years,” Weissman said, extending his hand toward the supermarket. “She should have been able to live without being caged by her mother. Things like that happen all over. They’ll continue to happen unless we make this work.” Weissman leaned in closer to him. “Look, unless we have your support, this ... it ain’t gonna happen. I’ve got the framework in place, the basics, but the people I have need some ... motivation. Some inspiration, maybe.”
“You want to put the fear of the gods in them,” Sovereign said, crossing his arms over his chest. It was getting cold, the Minnesota winter seeping into the car.
“How better to put the fear of the gods into the old gods than by finding someone who’s more powerful than they are?” Weissman’s grin was dirty, just like the rest of him, and Sovereign only managed to nod politely.
There she is. She caught his eye, even from across the parking lot, striding across the wet, snow-covered surface with a purpose, her brother in tow. She’s ... beautiful. He stared out the window at her. She was shorter than he would have thought and pale as the snows that covered the land. Her dark hair whipped with the stirring of the wind, and when he caught a glimpse of her eyes he thought of the still waters he had seen when last he was in the Carribbean—deep and blue.
“There goes Wolfe,” Weissman said, and the beast leapt out from behind a car to grab Sienna’s brother by his neck. He held the man aloft until the girl herself turned around and saw. Words were exchanged, and she hauled off and punched him, solidly in the belly, to no reaction. “This could get messy,” he said, a look of unmistakable joy on his face, as if he were watching high quality entertainment.
“I’m going to help her,” Sovereign said. He was already on his way out of the car, feet crunching in the thin layer of slush in the parking lot.
“Wait, what?” Weissman was behind him in an instant, doubtless hiccuping time in order to keep up.
“Follow my lead,” Sovereign said, feeling the urge to crush Wolfe, to break his bones. The day in the Forest of Dean came back to him in an instant, and he pondered it, thought of making a show of it in front of her, to impress her. I could do it, too. Make up for the decision to let that miserable creature live, end his reign of slaughter once and for all.
He looked past the fury of Wolfe to the girl gripped within his hand, and caught a glimpse of her eyes, wide with fear. It would be foolish. She’s lived in a cage for years; gods and mighty forces sweeping down on her will do nothing but inspire her fear and suspicion. A sting of regret, a remembrance of past failures burned his cheeks as the moment on the Edmund Fitzgerald came back to him. Then the night at the Agency came back him, when he’d let his haste for revenge cloud his judgment and led him to kill the father of the very girl he was looking at now. No. I won’t make the same mistakes this time. He turned to Weissman and whispered a command. “Whatever you do, don’t expose yourself or your powers.”
“What?” There was disbelief in Weissman’s reply. “What are you playing at?”
“HEY!” Sovereign shouted, and felt the anger boil in him. “You can’t treat a girl that way! Drop her!” He held himself back, though, restraining himself to keep from attacking hard, from cutting Wolfe to pieces. He slapped Weissman gently on the arm, a Let’s Go kind of motion that prompted Weissman to run forward.