Okay, well, maybe it was Wolfe driving on the flaying bit. I was okay with just killing them with a modicum of pain and violence and terror.
I felt my joints popping and cracking as they realigned after the impact from my landing. I could see the outline of trees around me, could hear the lapping of water and the sounds of wildlife at night. Light glistened on a pond to my left, and I felt hard sand under my feet. The smell told me I was in a swamp, probably just south of Minneapolis and St. Paul, outside the city loop. Somewhere below Bloomington, I guessed, but I had no time to find evidence to support that hypothesis—
I heard two thumps close by and knew that the brothers Wolfe had joined me on the ground. I hoped they had landed on their stupid, ugly faces—
Grrrrrrrrrr, Little Doll—
—but I doubted it, since they’d been around for a while longer than me, and I’d already gone out of a plane without a parachute once this year myself. Odds were good they’d done this before at some point in their millennia of experience.
“Little girl, all alone,” came Frederick’s voice out of the darkness.
My teeth grated as he said those words again, and my response was quick and to the point. “I haven’t been alone since the day I killed your brother, asshat.” Since the day I found out what I was.
“Sounds like the Wolfe is riding along in your head,” Grihm’s voice came from a different direction. My ears perked up, and I could feel newfound instincts that I hadn’t developed listening hard, taking sniffs of the wind—
Searching for my prey with all my senses.
“It won’t help you,” Frederick took over, and I could tell he was somewhere behind me. “He was the least of us.”
“He disagrees,” I said, turning slowly. I had a suspicion—approved by Wolfe’s instincts—that told me that they were going to come at me from two directions at once. This was the coyote approach, feinting and darting, getting a little piece of your prey at a time until they were too wounded and hobbled to fight back.
Coincidentally, it was the exact strategy I’d been trying to employ against Century, so I was well-versed in its application.
“We aren’t going to kill you, you know,” Grihm said from off to my left.
“Killing you would be too good for you,” Frederick said from my right. I kept from wheeling about, staying steady and quiet in the center of their little circle. The attack was coming soon. Presumably after they were done boring me—Grrrrrrr—sorry, intimidating me. Whatever.
“We have to break you, after all,” Grihm said.
“Many have tried,” I said. “None have survived.”
“Ooh, she has spirit,” Frederick said with glee.
“She’ll make a good bride for Sovereign,” Grihm agreed.
“I wouldn’t go sending out any ‘Save the Date’ cards just yet,” I quipped. I knew where both of them were now, and they knew where I was. Since they knew I was channeling Wolfe, it told me that now that they were aware of me, aware of my ability, they were overconfident again.
It’s not many people who can get their ass squarely kicked, beaten all around a plane, and then think they’ve reestablished their dominance just because of a perceived numerical advantage. I’d been fighting longer odds than these clowns—shut up, Wolfe, I’m not including you in this insult—for a long damned while. This was as close to a fair fight as I got anymore.
And my power had just leveled up.
Anyone else care to join me and Wolfe in the fight of our lives? I asked inwardly.
Whatever I can do to help, I’m there, Zack said.
I don’t know how much help I could be, Roberto Bastian said, but … yeah … okay. I’m with you for this, since you’ve got your head out of your ass now.
Bjorn? Gavrikov? Eve? I asked.
Pass, Bjorn said.
No, Gavrikov said.
Go f—, Eve began.
Got it, I said. Well, Roberto, you weren’t too shabby on strategy and tactics. Any ideas?
There’s a moment of distraction coming, Roberto said. Use it.
My eyes flashed as I realized what he was talking about. I could sense Grihm and Frederick coiling to spring. It was instinctive, the hint that their muscles were flexing just so, ready to leap upon me.
And they did so just as the plane exploded on the horizon.
I threw myself into a backward roll as flames lit the night sky in a mushroom cloud of orange fire. I saw the brothers Wolfe illuminated by it, springing to the place where I’d been only a second earlier, and I smiled. They narrowly missed hitting one another and each landed roughly, their anticipated target of soft flesh—me—having evaporated from beneath their feet.