Legacy(14)

I had my hands up in a defensive posture, ready for another attack, my head clearing as I looked at my assailant while Foreman stood just slightly to my left, helping me form a defensive line between our opponent and the door. I wanted to be shocked at the realization of who it was, but I was still clearing the cobwebs out of my head from nearly getting my skull caved in.

“Oh, God,” came her voice, annoyingly familiar, staring back at me over raised fists, defensively placed in almost a mirror image of my own. Which was unsurprising, considering that she’d taught me almost everything I knew about fighting. “They got you too?”

“Hi, Mom,” I said, still feeling the unpleasant sharpness of her punch to the side of my head.

I turned my head just slightly to look at Foreman, and he gave me a sympathetic shrug. “Surprise?” he offered weakly.

“Your surprises suck,” I said.





Chapter 8




“I’m not really interested in working for the government again,” my mother said a few minutes later, after Foreman had explained what he had in mind. I had stood quiet the entire time, next to the door, ready to bail. “I’ve trod that path before. I left and got into radiology so I could do something safer.”

“While training your daughter to be a street brawler on your nights and weekends,” Foreman added.

My mother’s already severe expression became more stern. “It’s dangerous out there, Senator. Surely a man as worldly as yourself must realize that by now.”

“Indeed it is,” Foreman replied. “Which is why I’m looking for some help to make it less dangerous.”

My mother laughed lightly. “Good luck with that.”

“I’ll take luck,” Foreman said, reminding me of how he’d gotten reserved every time before he’d sprung an unpleasant threat on me. “But I could use some more help.”

My mother rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what kind of help you think you’re going to need, but it isn’t enough. Whoever your enemy is, they’ve got a Hades-type at their disposal.”

“No, they don’t,” I said. “Your Uncle Raymond is dead.”

She looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “My uncle who?”

“Their Hades-type was your uncle,” I said. “Your mother’s brother, Raymond. He died in London a couple days ago.”

My mother actually looked a little dumbstruck for once, like I’d caught her off-balance. “Wait ... their Hades was my uncle? How do you know this?”

“I was there when he died,” I said. “He told me he’d met you once, a long time ago, when you were a kid.”

My mother frowned. “I think ... maybe I vaguely remember him. Kind of a big guy?” She frowned, as though trying to recall. “When I met him, he had this pompadour hairdo, though of course that’s long ago out of style—” She stopped at my pained expression. “Still had it, huh?” I nodded. “Sorry, Uncle Raymond,” she muttered under her breath.

“As lovely as this familial introspectionis,” Foreman said, sounding more patient than he probably was, “I have a specific purpose for this conversation and sharing can wait until later.” He looked back at my mother. “You have a variety of criminal charges leveled against you, and there’s a hell of a threat coming our way from a man named Sovereign.” Foreman looked at my mother, whose eyes became very wide, very suddenly. “I believe you might be passingly familiar with him.”

She hissed like a snake, mad as I’d ever seen her. “I’m familiar with him, yes. What the hell does he want? Other than hearing rumors about a Hades making its way through Europe, I’m a bit ... out in the cold.” She looked a little chagrined, and I caught her gaze and it revealed something I had rarely seen from her—a kind of desperation that made her willing to ask questions that revealed her weakness, her ignorance.

“He’s formed an organization called Century that’s dedicated to wiping out every meta on the planet,” Foreman said.

She frowned then looked at me. “No, really. What’s he up to?”

I waited just a second for it to sink in and spoke. “Really. That’s what he’s up to. He’s making a pretty good show of it, too, down to just North and South America.”

Her nostrils flared. “This is a little more ambitious than I would have given him credit for.”

I stared back at her. “He wiped out the Agency, didn’t he?” I waited for my mother to answer, but she said nothing, steel-eyed and sullen.

“Yes, well,” Foreman said, “past history aside, you have a decision to make. Are you in or are you out? If you’re in, I’ll cut you loose right now.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, pointing at her with one finger. “But if you betray me, I will send everything I have at you with an order to bring you in dead. Not alive, just dead.”