I froze, the quiet of the shop seeming to develop into a blaring silence, one that echoed in my ears. “I’m sorry, what? Locked how?”
“If you’ll wait just a second, I can transfer you to the party responsible.”
“No, I don’t want a transfer, just tell me what—”
Bzzz. Bzzz. The bastard had already put me on hold.
I almost considered hanging up on him, but I didn’t, my curiosity sparked by the feeling that I’d been gut-punched. I’d had my money with this bank for years, and they’d always been on call for me, the way you would expect when someone puts almost a half billion dollars with your bank. This “Account Locked” thing was bullshit, pure and simple, because they’d put me in touch with so many shady people over the years when I needed something illegal or damned near done that the idea that they were suddenly becoming moral crusaders against the evil of Sienna Nealon was laughable, frankly.
“Hello?” a bright female voice answered on the other end of the line, a faint, lilting accent.
“Yes, I’m sorry—” I started to say, and then froze, my blood turning cold.
I knew that voice.
“Hello, Sienna,” Rose said on the other end of the line. I could almost see her smile, even in the dark of the auto shop, miles between us counting for nil, as I heard the joy in her voice at having cut off another of my avenues of retreat. “I hear you’re having some problems with your account…the biggest of them being…it’s not yours anymore.” She cackled lightly. “Because, like those souls you had, and everything else that’s yours…it’s just become mine.”
19.
I slammed the phone down almost hard enough to break it. I didn’t need to hear any more.
No taunts.
No laughter.
No further conversation.
I drew a ragged breath in the darkness of the automotive shop, and rested a hand on the farm truck sitting at its center as I wobbled away from the phone. That money was mine, my ace card, the thing I kept in reserve as a surprise and a hedge against all the troubles I’d faced the last few years.
It felt like someone had yanked the rug from beneath my feet, and without Gavrikov’s power of flight to save me, I had come crashing down to the hard concrete floor of life.
“Oh no,” I gasped, feeling like maybe I was having a heart attack. Or a panic attack. Or just death coming straight for me like a Hades reaching out with his powers and ripping at my soul.
Sure, I was technically immune to that power, but still…it felt like someone was tearing at me.
My brain was wheeling, whirring, again speeding at a thousand miles per second. I grabbed the Irn Bru I’d left open and chugged it, taking it down swiftly, then tossing the can in the garbage. I looked at the window high above the workbench at the back of the shop. It faced away from the farmhouse, which was good, because I’d heard the mechanic lock the door, and I didn’t need to deal with him looking out later and seeing it open.
I jumped up, grabbed the window ledge with my fingers and hoisted myself up, tugging with my baseline succubus meta strength. It was easy enough, and once there, I unlatched the window and popped it open, sliding out and landing in the tall grass behind the building.
Rose had been on the other end of the phone from me, and could easily have gotten caller ID on the landline I’d just used. It would have been simple, presuming somehow she’d co-opted Nils. And I had to assume that, because how else would she have locked my account?
This was her manifestation of control again, this power she had over others. I was thankful I’d hung up on her, thinking again of her possible Siren abilities. She could have talked me into surrendering myself, maybe, if I’d kept chatting.
And even if she couldn’t do that, she could damned sure have dispatched most of Police Scotland to the origin of the phone number I’d called her from, which meant I needed to put some serious distance between myself and this auto shop, and quickly.
The sky was still an unrelenting grey as I sprinted toward the nearest fence, on a hilltop about three hundred yards away. I kept the auto shop between me and the farmhouse, just in case the couple within had come up for air from Stranger Things, I’d best not accelerate the process of getting the cops on my ass.
Once I reached the fence I hopped it, trying to control my breathing, and scouted the land on the other side. No buildings in sight. I started forward again, heading west along the fence line. I’d just run using this cover until I found another obstacle.
I did that all the way to the intersection of the fence, some two miles down the way. There, I found myself steeped in a wood, weary and breathing heavily again. I crept through, crunching a few stray, fallen leaves, shivering, less from cold than from constant exertion and fear creeping in. My heart was hammering and I was exhausted. My eyelids were trying to creep down on me. I hadn’t gotten a lot of restful sleep last night, I’d run and swam for miles and miles today, and had been kicked in the ass by adrenaline more times than I could count.
Mopping my sotted brow, I tried to figure out what to do next. There was another farm below, this one with just a barn, a farmhouse, and one outbuilding. The farmhouse looked abandoned, but that was hardly a guarantee. The grounds were overgrown, which was another mark in their favor, but again, no certainty that this was empty.
There was no sound of helicopters overhead or in the distance. I felt certain that Rose would have tracked back my call by now. I definitely hadn’t known how to block the caller ID, not here in the UK. Hell, I could barely figure out how to dial their phones. It would have been a smart skill to learn before coming over here, or during the months I’d spent in London, but you couldn’t anticipate every possibility. Brushing up on the telecom systems of the places you visited? Ranked somewhere below daily cardio and martial arts practice.
I couldn’t stop at this farm, but I did decide to make a break right through the middle of it. It was a risk, but a calculated one. If I stuck to fence lines, I’d have to really take the long way around, and I needed to put a ton of distance between me and that automotive shop before I did hear the helos overhead.
That in mind, I sprinted out of the trees and bolted over the field, heading for the stone fence that waited on the other side of the farm.
I covered the ground in a matter of sixty seconds or less, which seemed considerably longer since I was in the middle of open fields, not an ounce of concealment anywhere nearby save for a couple of scraggly bushes not far from the farmhouse. I kept my distance from the buildings, a plan I was willing to change if I heard a helicopter’s buzzing.
It didn’t come though, and I made it to the other side of the property without incident.
The longer I stayed out in the open and the more time elapsed between when I’d hung up with Rose and now, the more likely it got to be caught out in the open. My breathing was coming furiously, my already exhausted body having reached the point of quitting. There was exertion—say, running a marathon, or a triathlon, both of which I’d kinda done already today—at a human pace, and then there was doing all the above at a metahuman pace.
I was an impressive athlete among humans. I could win just about any event at the Olympics without putting much effort into it, solely on my natural gifts. (Which had become a problem the IOC was dealing with.)
But today I’d done far more than just a normal human run, or even a superhuman run conducted at a human pace.
I’d run a marathon at a meta pace, sprints, stopping and starting constantly.
I had gone for a swim that lasted less than an hour but covered something like ten or fifteen miles.