Power(80)

“I remember thinking something similar as you sent your power against the flesh of my parents over and over,” Janus said. “How many enemies do you think you have made over the years in just such a manner as that?”

“A … Alastor …” Jupiter said weakly. Marius could feel the man’s soul, and it was a great, struggling beast. His will was fearsome, larger than any other he had touched in his time.

“He will not come to you,” Janus said quietly. He stood only feet away now. “He is with us, you see, and is helping Ares to maintain control of the Empire as we make this … transition.”

“N … Nep …” Jupiter’s voice flagged. “Po … seidon …”

“He is gone,” Janus said. “On a tour of the Empire you so lovingly control from behind the scenes with his aid. It is a shame that you did not do what he has done; then you might have been indispensable.”

“He … ra …” Jupiter said, and Marius felt the last of him begin to slip free of the bonds. There was a stir of electricity that hummed at the god’s fingertips as he grunted.

“She has betrayed you,” Janus said, and in this Marius heard the cold satisfaction at last. “She knows you for the fool that you are, for the detriment to our continued authority that you are.”

“You cannot do this … I am …” Jupiter said, voice cracking, “… the alpha!”

“And we are your omega,” Janus said quietly.

With a cry, Marius felt Jupiter’s soul slip free of him, screaming into the depths. He felt the power of the man, the sheer weight of his will, and held fast, kept him at a distance. Marius’s breathing was intense, heavy, and his head felt light with both the joy of an absorption and the terror of the man he now kept inside.

“Are you all right?” Janus asked, keeping his distance.

“He is dead,” Marius said, shaking his head. “But I can feel him. Absorbing him may be a challenge.”

“I am certain you are up to it,” Janus said, but he said it quickly, and his eyes left Marius as soon as he’d said it. He turned away, sandals making a noise like a scuff upon the cracked marble floor. “My friends … we have work to do.”

“You have done it, Janus.” This came from Vulcan, his scarred face visible in the knot of people in the rear of the room.

“We have done it, you mean,” Janus said, his back to Marius. “We have deposed a madman. We must now secure our empire.”

Whose empire? The voice in his head came, in a twisting, nearly whining, chorus. Marius thought he could hear his own voice in there, somewhere.

“The Emperor,” came another voice—this one Diana’s. “Probus. He feared Jupiter,” she said, her long hair unknotted, hanging limply around her shoulders and frizzed as though a stray bolt had hit close to her. “How will we control him now?”

“In much the same way,” Janus said. And now he looked to Marius, and smiled. “For while I am certain that Jupiter was wrong about a great many things—rule over us foremost among them—he was right about one thing. Fear … is an excellent motivator.”

Marius felt a little shudder as he sat there, and Janus turned away from him again. Then he swept from the room with the others, discussing in rapid exchanges their next movements. It sounded very far away to Marius’s ears as he felt the strength of that soul unsubdued suddenly cease its push against him. Jupiter stopped fighting like a wild animal straining against the edges of its pen, and he felt him turn, ever so quietly, and join the wills entwined against him, holding him back.

Whose empire? The tenor of the voice in his head changed just a little, but Marius could still hear his own within it, and it put him at ease.





Chapter 46


Sienna

Now





We hit the lobby with the crash of gunfire all around us, rifles thundering from the FBI Hostage Rescue team snipers hiding in the woods behind us covering both sides and from the mercenaries Century had hired who were returning fire and trying to get in a few shots at us from where they were being systematically chopped down by the FBI’s superior sniper ability. It was a free-for-all before we even hit the lobby, and after we burst through the doors, well—

Well, it was like a ballet of frickin’ death, that’s all.

The lobby was glass on the front and done up in a sweeping lodge style with a ton of rustic décor combined with concrete. It was a natural extension of the architectural scheme we’d seen outside, something somebody in the seventies had thought was a really good idea. LSD was big in the seventies, right?