“Your friends will be fine,” he said. “I did not hurt them badly enough that they will not recover. None of them angered me … as you did.” He seemed relaxed, almost as if this were a victory rather than a defeat that had led to his death.
“I could use some powers of my own,” I said, looking at him, keenly aware that out in the real world, my hands were firmly on his cheeks, and though time had more or less paused, within his mind … my powers were still working out there, establishing the connection between our souls that would harmonize, allowing me to draw him out completely.
He got it in that instant, and a change came over his face as he seemed to light up, though no flame appeared on him. “No.” His vehemence made me take a step back. “You cannot do this to me.”
I took a step forward. “I’m stronger. You’re weaker. Isn’t that how this goes? Didn’t you tell me that?”
“Please … do not do this to me,” he said, and his mouth fell open, desperation shaping his lips into a hideous, fearful look. “I … I was to be free. Free of him—and you—you would have me be your puppet into death as you throw yourself into his open jaws?”
I stared at him. “No. No, I wouldn’t do that to you.” He relaxed, just slightly. “Because I’ll tell you something, Stepane … strength is a nice thing if you want to live by the law of the jungle—and heaven knows more than a few people I deal with in the world want to. It’s a job and a calling for me, to greet them with force and make them realize the error of their ways, but …” I shook my head. “That’s not how we do things in this civilized society you seem to eschew. We’re supposed to persuade to get what we want. To win someone over to our way of thinking.”
“You will never win me over,” he said, shaking his head. “Not to face him. Not again.”
“I know,” I said, and the darkness started to swell around us as I began to withdraw my hand from his face, breaking the connection before my powers could drain his soul dry. “And I won’t make you.”
I stood, pulling my hand from his face, and taking up the server again as he lay there, looking up at me with glazed eyes. He knew what was going to come next, but there was no fear in them now.
Bringing the server high, I raised it above his head—
Then brought it down with lethal force, snuffing out his fire—his life—once and for all.
41.
I walked out of the server room through the hallway door, letting it groan and shut behind me with the mechanical whine of a hinge. Now I was back to nearly where I’d started from, the lobby ahead. I saw the door to the power room just a few yards down the hall, and was on my way toward it when it groaned open, the Terminator staggering out, murder in his eyes.
Then he looked at me.
“Hey, military guy,” I said, pausing as he dragged himself into my path, “I don’t want to fight you. And I damned sure don’t want to have to kill you.”
The shadow effect smoked off his shoulders, and I had a bad feeling he was about to go blurry with speed. “You don’t have to worry about killing me. But fighting …” And he put up his dukes.
“You’re awfully arrogant for a guy who got his ass launched back on Interstate 94,” I said, settling into a defensive stance of my own. “If you hadn’t put lives at risk, or if I was the kind of cold psycho the press seems to think I am, you’d be a dead man already.”
He twitched, just slightly. “Enough talk. Now—”
“I don’t think there’s been enough talk yet.” A female voice came echoing down the hall, and Eilish stepped out of the lobby, Harry a couple steps behind her. “Let’s keep talking, darling. Let’s just talk and talk and talk until we can’t chatter any more.”
The Terminator stood there, stiff, for just a moment, and then he seemed to relax an iota. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, like she was an officer he had to obey.
“You all right?” Harry asked, hustling over to me. He tugged on my sleeve, which was a little tattered from fighting and getting hit and beatings and whatnot. Also, bloody from lots of punching, and maybe a little from being punched.
“I’m fine-ish,” I said, feeling the sting of a thousand aches. Going through a wall didn’t come without some costs to your bone structure, but nothing major was broken, and hopefully if we could get out of here I’d have a chance to heal. “Cops on the way?”
Harry shook his head. “Cassidy’s got them chasing about ten different leads right now. We’ve got ten minutes or so to get clear.” He looked at me a second longer than he needed to, then switched his attention to the Terminator. “Still … might want to ask your questions so we can get going.”
“Not a bad point,” I said, and walked over to the Terminator, who strained a little, looking like he wanted to hit me.
“Uh uh,” Eilish said when his fist twitched. “No hitting, now, my dear.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Terminator said, his voiced clipped in that stiff, military way.
“Who are you?” I asked, looking the Terminator right in the eyes.
He stiffened to attention. “Lt. Colonel Warren Quincy, formerly United States Marine Corps.”
“And now?” I asked.
“Would you kindly answer all her questions?” Eilish asked.
He looked at me, then dropped to at ease, hands behind his back. “I work for a special operations group within the Department of Defense, reporting directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” He twitched slightly. “Until recently.”
I exchanged a look with Harry, and he nodded. This sounded important. “What do you mean ‘until recently’?”
“I am currently on detached duty to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Warren Quincy said, “to aid in their apprehension … of you.” And he looked right at me.
“No surprises so far,” I said. “Who ordered you to come after me?”
“The Director of the FBI,” Quincy said.
I raised an eyebrow at that. But then, I’d watched the last FBI Director get murdered in front of me, so I supposed it was no huge surprise that this one might be antsy, thinking it was a vendetta against the office. It wasn’t; I hadn’t even killed the last guy (much as I might have wanted to when I was working for him). “That’s … interesting,” I said. “Maybe this one thinks he’s pursuing justice.”
“She,” Quincy corrected.
“What do ye think of her?” Eilish asked, probably detecting the same reserve in Quincy’s reply as I did.
“I think she’s a stuffed shirt pencil-pushing lawyer who’s probably never been in the field a day in her life,” Quincy said, staring straight ahead, stiff as a board. “If she heard the sound of gunfire she’d think it was fireworks in the distance.”
“So you’re just after me?” I asked, trying to wrap this up. “And you work alone?”
“I work alone,” he said, staring right at me, like a caged tiger, “and you are my sole mission.”