Power(98)

“I’m telling you, it’s brilliant,” Weissman said. “And its success is its simplicity. We just have to eliminate the threats, right? The metas, the armies? Once we break their will, we’re in charge, and with your powers, we just … hold back the tide. Make it obvious that certain things are not acceptable, that this plague of people being complete and total shits to each other is going to end.”

Marius stared at him. “What you’re outlining is impossible in conventional terms.”

Weissman shook his head. “Not with a meta army.”

Marius put his head back against the headrest. “Yes, even with a meta army it’s still impossible.”

Weissman broke into a grin that did not look pleasant at all. “I found a Hades.”

Marius felt a mild surprise run through him. “Did you? That’s interesting. That line was supposed to be wiped out.” Or at least that’s what Janus told me, the liar. “Still,” he said, carefully turning his expression back to neutral, “that’s not going to be enough. A Hades can kill a lot of people, but we’re talking about a need for a two-stage plan here.”

“Oh?” Weissman sounded more than a little snotty as he said it. “How would you do it, then?” A challenge.

Marius thought about it for only a second before answering. “First, you kill the metas. Quietly, behind the scenes. You kill them first because no one is going to notice or care that they’re gone, and once they are, you can’t exactly resurrect them to fight for you. Second, you kill the armies of the world, the police—anyone who would raise a weapon to do harm to us.”

Weissman’s eyes were large, hiding behind those greasy bangs. “That was a fast answer. But I’m detecting a mighty big flaw in your plan.”

“Oh?” Marius waited for it. “What’s that?”

“Uh, namely that we don’t have a way to wipe out every single army and violent person in the world.” There was a snippy self-satisfaction in the way Weissman said it.

It was Marius’s turn to smile. “Actually, I do.”

Weissman’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Oh, you just do? Just like that? A simple method by which to snap your fingers and BAM! There goes all the opposition in the world.” He leaned slightly. “If you have this, why haven’t you used it until now?”

“I’ve thought about it,” Marius said, and he drummed his fingers along the armrest built into the door, pleather thumping with each touch of his fingertips. “In truth, I’ve thought about it every day for the last two thousand years.” He sighed. “But I never had a coherent reason to until now. No plan. And, as you know, I’ve just been content to stay the hell away from humanity as a whole and run my own life apart from them.” He pictured her again, the girl he’d just seen. Sienna Nealon. “Now you’ve given me a reason.”

“All right,” Weissman said grudgingly. “So what’s this way of destroying all opposition you’ve got? Does it have a name?”

“It does indeed,” Marius said. And he felt something shift inside him, a voice in the throng in his brain. I am ready to assist you, it said, only faintly resembling the fearsome man he had met on the hilltop outside Rome all those years ago. “I think you would know him as … Ares.”





Chapter 55


Sienna

Now





I stared at Sovereign and he stared back at me. He had warm eyes, somewhere under the crazy stalker ones. Or at least he was trying to present that aura. I could still taste the drywall dust floating in the air, and though the sun had started to sink lower in the sky, light shone through the cracks between the mechanical armored shutters. He waited for my answer and I could see the hope on his face.

And then I crushed it.

“Just exactly how stupid do you think I am?” I asked.

“Wh–what do you mean?” His whole demeanor changed, caught completely off guard.

I put aside the weariness I was feeling, dragging Wolfe to the forefront. A predator urge shot through me, along with adrenaline. “You killed and absorbed Ares back in Gaul.”

“Wha …” He shook his head, shut his eyes for a second and they shot back open wider than ever. “What does … I don’t know what you mean—”

“You are a terrible liar,” I said, shaking my head. “Thanks for confirming it.” He looked at me dead on. “I suspected it,” I said, “after Janus mentioned how he died all mysteriously, knowing that the threat we were waiting to get hit with was a long-hidden Ares type. But I didn’t know until you answered it for me just now.”