Power(13)

“If he wasn’t dead,” I said, letting my voice lower into a rough whisper, “you wouldn’t know yet.”

He sighed and nodded, looking pained. “I promise you that as soon as I can find the plane you’re on, I will make sure that you’re freed—”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said, letting a smile of satisfaction that was as hollow as any I’ve ever felt creep up. “I downed the plane and killed your guard dogs.”

A ripple of shock across his face culminated in an eyebrow nearly creeping up his forehead. “You …” He let out a breath. “Ahhh … you figured it out. How to control your powers. I’d hoped you would.” The look on his face became something I found deeply disquieting, something approaching satisfaction. “You truly are a worthy—”

“Shut up,” I said, disgusted. “Your dogs got off the leash and killed my mother, and you’re happy because one of the side effects is that I’m a better consort now? Truly, there are no words to describe how much I loathe you.”

“Fair enough,” he said, but I caught the disappointment as he looked down from my eyes. “I’d feel the same if someone had done to me what’s happened to you tonight. I know it counts for less than nothing, but I want to give you my sincere condolences—”

“Less than nothing,” I agreed. “So stop wasting your words and my time.” I tried not to let the slow burn of emotion I was feeling splash him again because an idea suddenly came to me. If Weissman was dead, and what he’d told me before was true— “So … what now?”

A veil of indifference fell over his features in the dark and shadow. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I paused and composed my thoughts. “Your top lieutenant, the big cog rolling this machine forward, is now dead. You told me that he was running the extermination because you didn’t have the—” I stopped myself before throwing down on him by saying ‘balls,’ “stomach to do it yourself.” I could tell by the mild flinch that he got my meaning even so. “So … now what?”

The man I knew as Sovereign stared at me, not a hint of Joshua Harding’s boyishness on display. He just looked tired. “Because you’ve killed almost all of our telepaths, we’re having to start what you’ve so charmingly called ‘phase two.’” He folded his arms in front of him to match my pose. “Why? What did you think was going to happen?”

I froze and tried to choose my words carefully. “I think a lot of us were hoping that with Weissman dead, you’d be hanging it up.”

Sovereign looked at me, and I saw hints of intensity in his eyes even through the shadows that hung between us. “Weissman is hardly the only power at work in Century. There are a lot of committed people in our group, people who want to change the world for the better.”

“By taking it over,” I snarked.

“I believe in what we’re doing, the world we’re creating,” he said, but he looked so tired he barely put any gusto into saying it. “Can you say the same about the one you’re defending? I mean, the woman who killed Weissman tonight is the same one that used to lock you in a box.”

“She was afraid,” I said. “You—Century—made her afraid. And it feels like whatever this phase two is—you’re basically doing the same thing to the whole world.”

He looked at me levelly. “What makes you say that? You don’t even know what we’re doing yet.”

“You’re starting by destroying metas,” I said. “If that’s your phase one, then phase two, whatever it specifically is, involves eliminating the other threats to you. Disarming people to put them under your control.” I caught a hint of emotion from his face. “Typically, good things don’t come following behind mass exterminations and forcible disarmings. Whatever grand and fantastic scheme you’ve got in mind to solve the world’s problems reeks of a desire to control the world, Evil Overlord-style.”

He almost smiled. “What about a Benevolent Overlord?”

I shook my head. “You’ve got two motivators available to you—a carrot and a stick. So far you haven’t had much use for the carrot, which rules you out of the benevolent camp entirely.”

“I’ve offered you a few carrots,” he said.

“I’m not a donkey,” I replied crossly. “I don’t want your carrots, and I intend to break your stick.”

He paused as if thinking over what I’d just said. “Is that a thinly veiled castration metaphor?”