Chapter 50
Sienna
Now
“So what are we going to do about Sovereign?” Reed asked, breaking the silence that hung over the conference room.
We were all sitting around. It should have been a victory party, but it wasn’t. Too much else on the mind, I guess. Or maybe the fact that our glorious plan had ended with something that looked like a nuclear bomb going off in the northwoods of Minnesota was putting a damper on things. I didn’t pay much attention to the news, but I’d seen a few people watching live feeds of footage from Gables, and I knew it was not a pretty bit of optics, as the political class might say.
“I think you’re well on record as being in favor of killing him,” Scott said.
“It’s expedient, if nothing else,” Reed said.
“Yes,” Scott agreed. “It’s certainly not merciful, decent or humane.”
“I have a hard time weeping over him given what he’s done,” Reed said with a shrug. “But it’s not my decision.”
“He came to help Sienna,” Kat said. “Shouldn’t that count for something? I mean, he broke out of his non-prison imprisonment and came to save her.” She smiled sheepishly. “It was kind of sweet. And now he’s back in chains that don’t actually do anything to hold him.”
“Yeah, it’s really cool how he’s willing to just sit there like that,” Reed said acidly. “Except we don’t know that he actually is. He could be dodging out to Taco Bell for a Loco Taco and hanging out at the local bar, dropping back in whenever he feels like it. Imprisonment for murder shouldn’t involve a furlough.”
“Agreed,” Foreman said. “If he’s to be imprisoned, it needs to start happening for real, and now.”
“No courts to rule on the matter,” Scott said, shaking his head. “No evidence to prove what he did, even though we all know what he did.”
“Do we?” Kat asked. “Do we really?”
“I watched him burn Old Man Winter to death,” I said, breaking my silence. “Plus those other two Omega stooges.”
Kat’s eyes seemed to race, like she was trying to craft an excuse. “But, really, is that so bad?”
I didn’t blink at her, but only through long practice. “Yes. I know it sounds funny coming from me, but yes, murder is bad.”
“Now she comes to this conclusion,” Li muttered.
“What should we do, Senator?” Reed asked, turning to look at Foreman. “Or are you still not here?”
“I am most definitely not here for this,” Foreman said, shaking his head. “Not for Gables, not for the aftermath, and certainly not if Sovereign loses his head.” He frowned, deep furrows appearing in his brow. “What was his name? Before Sovereign?” He directed this to Janus.
“Marius,” Janus said, barely looking up. “Though that was so long ago I can barely recall.”
“He left Rome because he was mad at you after you guys conspired to kill Zeus, right?” Reed asked.
Janus shifted his gaze to look at my brother. “There was a little more to it than that, but yes.”
“What more was there?” Scott asked.
Janus sighed. “When we took over for Zeus—who was by then known as Jupiter—we were faced with an Empire that had already reached a point of disbelief in the gods. The rise of Christianity coupled with events within our hierarchy caused a fall from grace that led to exile from the Empire for us and the fall of said Empire a few centuries later.”
“That sounds like the Cliff’s Notes version,” Reed said, narrowing his eyes. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Janus blew air through his lips noiselessly. “Quite a bit, actually, because we are talking about centuries of events, after all. Zeus had pushed the Emperors too far, kept them in too much fear. When Poseidon took up his role, with Hera at his side and the rest of us advising him, he ended up with a string of noncompliant Emperors who culminated in Constantine the Great—so called—defying us entirely and embracing Christianity. That, coupled with the fact that we no longer had the power to defend Rome from usurpers and internal threats caused him to tell us to ‘get out’ in no uncertain terms. This led us to go underground at Poseidon’s behest.” He spread his hands. “Does that satisfy you?”
“No,” Reed said.
“Why couldn’t you defend Rome?” This came from Li. “Strong group of metas like you, it seems like you’d be able to raise enough hell to scare the Visigoths, Vandals and Gauls away.”
“How to put this nicely?” Janus said, rhetorically. “We were not fighters by that point. Certainly none of us were willing to go out on the battlefield—”