We take the elevator up to the ground floor. The campus has been cleared. I’m shocked the COE was willing to go to such great lengths to assist me in this assassination—I mean, apprehension—especially since our recent breakup, but I’m guessing, based on what they know about the Marduk and his army, it was deemed a worthwhile endeavor.
Mr. Singkham meets me in the central lobby of the primary building, black-clad officers fanning out behind him like a flock of geese and he, the mother hen. “We have a sighting, but the Marduk seems to be retreating.”
I snarl, “And the others?”
“Advancing.”
“Fuck.” I come to a complete stop, the lights of the large marble lobby flickering as a thought comes to me. “Do you have descriptions of the ones advancing?”
As Mr. Singkham speaks, he gestures to the woman on his left. She holds up her wrist. There’s a small tablet affixed there in black armor. “We’re having trouble seeing who is advancing with the naked eye. We had a similar issue during the COE breach six months ago when the Wyvern and I were abducted from the premises by the one called Three. We learned then that the distortion was being caused by this female. She is number Thirty-Eight.” The woman pulls up an image of a curvy, freckled female at Mr. Singkham’s signal.
I memorize it. It’s not much to go on, grainy as it is and taken through a smoky haze, but whatever. White. Dirty blonde, maybe brunette. If I have to kill several white blondish females before getting to the right one, so be it.
“However, we learned that the illusion doesn’t affect camera footage. They must also know that, because they’ve been doing a good job of remaining in motion. So far we’ve been able to take pictures of three of them, excluding the female. We have this male,” he says, drawing up a picture of a male with pale skin and bright-yellow hair. “We don’t have an ID for him. And these two females.” He shows me pictures thatmake me smile—well, not so much smile as bite my front teeth together to show all my fangs.
“Fantastic.”
“Fantastic?”
“Bia and the Meinad.”
“We had suspicions but weren’t yet able to identify them. The pictures are so out of focus ...”
“It’s them.” I relax my shoulders. “I saw them recently. They almost killed me and I almost let them kill Monika. But I’ve learned a few tricks since then.” I stand up straight and roll out my neck. “Open the front doors.”
“We aren’t ready to attack yet,” the female says. She must be the commander here.
I turn to face her and give her a grimace. She frowns at me when I say, “You may not be, but I don’t work for you and I don’t care. Open the doors, please.” I boop her nose with the tip of my finger. She slaps my hand away. I don’t mind. Because I’ve already pivoted to boop Mr. Singkham. He stares at me like I’ve grown extra heads.
“We shouldn’t be overconfident,” Mr. Singkham says, taking a step away from me and adjusting his suit. “Bia and the Meinad are among the most powerful, and I’ve seen firsthand the chaos that number Thirty-Eight can cause.”
“Shush. Open the doors. I don’t want or need your people to come with me. I will do this on my own.”
Everyone exchanges skeptical looks.
I roll my eyes, push past Mr. Singkham, and push through the wall of black. “I know we haven’t been properly introduced, but I am not the male you once knew as Taranis,” I shout over my shoulder as I head to the reinforced-steel doors that have been drawn shut on the other side of the sliding glass. “I am no longer that grinning idiot. I am number Six, one of the most powerful members of the Tratharine army, and I am pissed the fuck off.”
I push my powers through my limbs, and realizing that the mechanism that controls both the glass and the steel doors is electronic, I open the doors myself. Natural light floods the space, bouncing off the cavern of white marble surrounding me. I glance at my phone briefly before tucking it into my pocket. The Wyvern should be arriving imminently with my female and his own. They’ll be going straight to the lowest level of the security building. Three will likely be able to enter but will have a hard time making it past thirty guards and the Wyvern, and will only be able to teleport help in from the outside one villain at a time. And there will be four fewer helpers left after I’m through with these walking corpses.
I step outside. The breeze is calming. The sight of three Tratharine flying toward me is not. It’s exhilarating.
They touch down on the sidewalk just beyond the high fence marking the perimeter of the COE campus. The gate is open, but they don’t enter.
“Please, don’t be frightened, it’s just us.” I slam the silver steel doors shut at my back, blocking anyone from attempting to intervene. It’s not that I worry for their safety.Iwant to be the one to kill these creatures. No one else. After denying myself the pleasure of killing the Marduk’s woman this morning, my murderous instincts need some appeasing.
I gesture them forward. “Come in, come in. You’re more than welcome. And, Thirty-Eight, you’re welcome to come out of hiding.”
She must be curious—either that or confident—because when Thirty-Eight shows herself, I find her only ten feet from me, standing on the nice paved pathway that leads up to the COE building. Green grass spreads out on either side, marked by curving, cobblestone pathways dotted with benches for miserable human employees to sit on when contemplating which flavor sandwich they’ll eat that afternoon. Humans and their sandwiches. Such odd lives these peons lead. Yet somehow distinctly more interesting than these idiots, who run around after weapons they can’t even use at the bidding of masters they only half remember and who may never even make it here—who, given theway the reversions have been affecting the only two of us who have reverted so far, won’t.
Thirty-Eight glances back at the others and gestures them forward. “Nineteen, Twenty-Three, Fifty-Seven.”
I smile at the others, gaze flitting over Fifty-Seven and Twenty-Three—the Meinad and Bia, respectively—before landing on the unfamiliar male. “Apologies, I don’t think we’ve met.”
“I’m Terrasinth.” The ground begins rumbling beneath my feet. “I control the earth. I could cave the COE building behind you quite easily and kill your precious humans.”
“Oh my, how special of you. I think I might remember you. You were number Nineteen, weren’t you?” The male doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know. I shake my head and laugh. “Were you there helping the Marduk at the ports two weeks ago kill all those pesky little COE humans?”
“I was,” he says, his chest puffing up.
