No, her mind was in one place now—kick this guy’s ass and go finish the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, dammit. Not like she didn’t know how it was going to end, but still. She didn’t like to be left hanging any more than anyone else. In any way.
The man stood at the edge of her roof for a moment, then floated down, his hands strangely shadowed. “You are Veronika Acheron,” he said, reaching the street a few seconds later, a delicate leaf making his way to the ground, unhurried by gravity.
He didn’t ask it like a question. “Yeah, and you are?” she fired back. “Other than an annoying, stalking cheesedick?”
“I seek you,” he said, that Euro accent echoing down the canyon of a street. “I seek your … strength.”
“Well, you’re about to get it,” she said, keeping her hands at her side. “Though I don’t think you’re going to like it when you do get a taste.”
Closer, under the streetlight, she could see him a little more clearly now. His hair was dark, skin pale, and his hands seemed to be … writhing, catching the light, a thousand sparkles glaring out, like—
Like the Bay. The reflection of the city on the—
Shit, Veronika thought, he’s a Poseidon. A flying Poseidon. He’s got water powers, his hands are wrapped in water, that’s why—
She flared her plasma to life and came at him, crossing the distance between them—only a couple feet, and meeting him as he raised a fist to her. Her hands were bright blue with the glow, and she struck at him as he struck at her, her leading plasma edge finding the globe of water wrapped around his fist—
There was a hiss and a crack, and a rush of heat that Veronika was utterly unprepared for forced her to step back or be scalded. She jerked away, the air temperature rising several hundred degrees around where they’d collided, and threw herself into a backward roll.
When she came up off the sidewalk, she found the Euro guy still standing where she’d left him, burns and blisters disfiguring his face. His mouth was a tight grimace, pain infusing his entire expression. His eyebrows had been burned off, his face red and raw as though she’d tossed boiling water at him—
But he stood there, clothes steaming, and he straightened up—
And came at her again.
Veronika blinked; seeing this guy come at her after taking a wounding like that was intimidating, though she tried not to let it get to her. He was human—well, metahuman. He could be hurt. Hell, she’d just hurt him.
Now she just needed to hurt him again.
She flared plasma, making a ball of glowing blue wide on her hand. It grew, expanded as she rose up, ready to strike at him, to burn him down to embers—
He smiled as she came, hands spread wide, no sign of that flickering light, the water on his fingers. He was just going to take it.
That made Veronika smile.
Right up until the stream of water came splashing down on her from above.
The heat roared, sizzling off the ball of plasma she’d just created. With no way for her to channel it, the raw heat ran across her skin, burning and crackling it as though she’d been dropped into a blast furnace. Control of plasma was her power, and she could diffuse a great deal of heat by swallowing it up in plasma, but this—this subtle, simple workaround—
There was nothing Veronika could do as the flash-boiled water seared her flesh, burning her skin. Her ball of plasma dispelled instantly as she dropped, nervous system overwhelmed, thudding on the sidewalk. She couldn’t really feel anymore, just an overwhelming sense of every nerve firing in pain. The sky lay dark above her, a light in the distance, a street lamp, shedding the only illumination.
The dark-haired man loomed over her, staring down, curious, almost. She looked back up at him with eyes that were half-blinded, her vision blurred with tears.
Words crackled from her throat, raw and burned, wafting up to him. “Who … are … you …?”
It was, after all, the only question that mattered.
He just stared down at her, dark and forbidding. She thought she saw him smile, a little.
“If you live,” he said, as he started to lift off the ground, floating up, up into the darkness, “maybe someday … I will tell you. When I find out myself.”
And then he was gone, and the darkness came sweeping down on Veronika, sirens in the distance edging closer as her sense of the world faded away as surely as any thoughts of finishing her book in peace.
17.
Sienna
It had been a few months since I’d gotten my ass kicked, and man, the experience had not gotten any better in the interim.
I was lying on my back behind the counter in a Waffle House just over the Tennessee state line from Alabama, my weight resting not so comfortably on my shoulder blades, my legs straight up in the air. I’d landed that way after taking a hit that would have wrecked a car, smashing into the griddle where, dammit, my waffle should have been cooking even now.
But, no, instead some yahoo with a grudge had come stalking into the place and started shit with me. Poor, innocent little old me. Depowered, just-a-vanilla-succubus me.
Now he was closing in for the kill with his super-fast-punchy powers. About to level me with a last punch, in fact, aimed right at my face. He was leaning down to do it, because he was super tall, and I was on the ground (well, head and shoulders, anyway).
Most people probably would have been unconscious by now. I would have liked to have been. Sleeping in my bed somewhere, preferably, where my entire cerebrum and spinal column would be much more in harmony and not carrying my lower body’s entire weight. It was, after, generally supposed to be the opposite, but here I was, almost standing on my frigging head, about to get punched out properly by some looming linebacker of a man who seemed an awful lot like the African-American version of the Terminator.
I just hoped he didn’t have a metal skeleton.
He started to lean down to deliver the knockout blow, and I made use of those legs dangling over my head by lashing out and giving him a solid kick to the balls. I couldn’t do much—not nearly much as I used to do—but I still had some strength, and dudes still had the ultimate weak point, and—
All the wind went out of the Terminator as he realized, too late, Whoops! She’s not out of the fight! He didn’t say that, instead going with, “WHOOOOOOOF!” a muted version of the pained noise most guys tended to make when you hit them in the boys with super strength.
I followed up with a nice, clumsy kick to the face, taking advantage of the natural slowdown that happens right after your body takes critical damage to a crucial area. His jaw made a profound cracking noise, and his speed advantage seemed to be nullified by the fact he was in pure agony. He was doing a really good job of controlling it, though, credit to him.