“Joshua,” I whispered. “Joshua Harding?”
“He died in a blaze of glory,” Rajeev said. “Broke the necks of two of them himself that I saw and managed to work a grenade off one of their belts and blow it up in the chopper, before the last of them put him down as we were driving out of view.” He put his head down. “We threw all our cell phones out the window after that, got rid of everything they could trace and just ran for it.”
I felt a stir of emotion at the thought of a kid I’d met only once, who probably—no, almost certainly—had a little schoolboy crush on me. I tried to picture him, but all I could see clearly was the glasses. “Damn,” I whispered.
“He saved our lives. They all did,” Rajeev said. “But what we were up against wasn’t even metas and they nearly killed us.” He cast a beseeching look at Scott. “Please forgive me for not being excited about stepping up to go toe-to-toe with this group’s A-team when their B-team already nearly wiped us out.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said quietly. “You should stay here, with the cloister. They’ll be able to better protect you than we will.”
“They will?” Scott asked, giving me the sidelong.
“They will,” I said. “Because we’re not going to be about defense, we’re about offense. Our job is to take the fight to Sovereign and Century, not circle the wagons and stay carefully cocooned until the threat is over. Tell them to run,” I said to Rajeev, and he nodded. “Tell them to keep running. Run as far as you think is safe and then run farther, because nowhere is safe. Nowhere is safe from this man.” I felt a burning deep in my gut. “And nowhere is going to be safe for him to run from me.”
Chapter 16
Tomah, Wisconsin
September 1947
The cranberry bogs were full to the brimming, flooded with water to bring the berries to the top. There were patches of red filling swampy little square ponds on either side of the road. It all looked quite magnificent from above, which was how Aleksandr Gavrikov saw almost everything. It was an early fall day with just a hint of a blustery wind, though he couldn’t truly feel it within the fire that covered his skin; he was aware of it, though, dimly, as though it was blowing in the face of someone else. He flew a little lower than he normally would have, taking in the majesty of the view. “I barely notice it anymore,” he said aloud, the mild wind whipping him in the face. “And it is such a shame.”
He took a breath and smelled something a little different. More of the slightly sulfuric smell that he had long since grown accustomed to. It was heavier somehow, though, more fragrant. He paused in his flight, idly curious. Nowhere to go, no great hurry. Several days until I’m to rendezvous with Janus in Chicago ...
He took another whiff and caught it again, stronger this time. He stopped his flight, ceased the forward momentum and extended his hands out. The winds were always warm around him, the heat from the flames that wrapped his body doing their level best to warm the air. Something was different, though, something ... more.
“Hello, Aleksandr,” came a voice from just behind him. He spun in the air, twisting, his jaw slack as he looked up. HOW? The sight sent waves of shock through his body. Another figure was hovering just behind him, wreathed in flames that glowed blue, a slightly off-color mirror image of himself, staring back at him, an odd, fiery grin set upon non-existent lips. With a black hole as the only sign of a mouth, it was really more of a leer.
“Who are you?” Aleksandr asked and felt himself bob in the air from a sudden lack of control over his flight. He steadied himself, trying to push aside the shock of seeing a doppelganger hanging just outside his reach, staring back.
“Sovereign,” the other figure said casually. “But that’s just a name.”
“What do you want?” Aleksandr spat with a hiss and a crackle of flame. He could feel his non-existent skin burning.
“Nothing,” the other figure said with something approaching a shrug. “I just sensed you flying over and thought I’d introduce myself, let you know that you’re not the only one in the neighborhood right now.”
“The only what?” Aleksandr said, looking the flaming body up and down. “The only fire-covered freak?”
The figure gave another slight incline of the head and the flames dissipated as they’d been snuffed. A man remained behind, a figure a little taller than himself, clad in khaki pants, dress shoes, and a dress shirt. “Now I’m not fire-covered, at least.” He smiled. “Though one could argue that every meta-human, by dint of being so comparatively rare, is a freak.”