Project Northwoods (76 page)

She opened the cabinet where her father kept an awful chamomile blend. The cabinet closed with a gentle thump, and she turned back toward the tea kettle before the creak of floorboards stopped her in her tracks. She pretended to be enthralled in the pseudo-intellectual tract written on the side of the tea tin. “Look, Arthur, I told you I don’t…” She looked up and went silent.

The woman standing in the doorway watched her intently though unemotionally. She was clad in a white, SWAT-like uniform with an emblem on the right shoulder sleeve: a shield with a caduceus within it, though the snakes were wrapped around a sword instead of a stake. She wasn’t wearing any weapons that Ariana could see, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t hidden somewhere in the multitude of pockets on her belt or vest. The woman herself was striking in her hard beauty, a pale attractiveness marred by her expressionlessness. Black eyes remained unmoving from Ariana, and long, silver hair hung from her head, the forced organic nature of it all giving the woman an unearthly feel.

Ariana felt like her willpower was suddenly returned to her. “Who the fuck are you?”

The woman didn’t do anything for a moment, then smiled insincerely, as though it was a vestigial remnant of a former personality. “Athena,” came the curt introduction. “And I’d advise you to change your tone, Miss Brown.”

“How do you…”

The woman cut her off as she stalked toward Ariana. “I know everything about you.” Ariana backed away, turning her body to an actual exit as opposed to the stove. “And you can make this easier for us both if you tell me where your father is.”

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “Whoever you are, you need to get out of here.” It wasn’t like she had any authority in the situation, but she hoped there was some kind of code this woman would honor.

The woman in white cocked her head, and the green kettle lifted off the stove before smashing into Ariana’s skull. She went down without a word, hitting the ground before the appliance followed suit. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Ariana tried to push herself upright, the blow having dazed her significantly. “You’re telekinetic.” She was on her knees, taking loud, heaving breaths.

“How sweet. You aren’t brain dead,” Athena growled. Something hit Ariana in the gut, a psychic blow which sent her flying backward, through the doorway and into the next room. “Answer the question.” Ariana was scrambling upright, trying to get away when the other woman flicked her wrist and Ariana was sent sailing again, this time into the living room. Hitting the ground, she rolled to a stop and got to her feet. “You can’t get away from me!” Athena shouted, stalking through the kitchen.

“You’re not an Enforcer,” she said, the words stopping Athena short. “What are you?” If she could get the interloper far enough away from the basement door, Ariana could make a dash there.

Surprisingly, the woman answered, “SERAPHIM.”

Ariana’s heart stuttered. There was no way SERAPHIM should be involved in something like this. “Seems pretty drastic to send someone like you after me.” Athena wasn’t moving, which made a run for it too dangerous to risk at the moment.

The woman didn’t respond to the flattery. “You’re just one of a handful who happened to evade the increasingly worthless Enforcers.” She let out a laugh. “If someone like you was so hard to find, no wonder they’re getting picked off.”

Ariana swallowed as she tried to think of a way to get her moving, but nothing was coming to mind. “If you’re after my father, I don’t know where he is, I swear.”

The woman in white cocked her head. “I don’t believe you.” She took a step toward Ariana, the latter holding her ground as the distance closed. “You’ve taken numerous jobs where his insurance was conditional to your employment. You visited him regularly for years. You don’t have a mother.” She was shaking, apparently excited by her knowledge of her prey. “It’s in your nature to keep contact.”

Ariana felt she had the chance to make it to the basement. She bolted to her right, having to duck under a picture frame that the woman had sent flying her way. Another zipped at her and struck her in the back, the glass shattering from the impact and making Ariana stumble. Undeterred, Ariana reached the basement door and vanished into the artificial night below.

Athena couldn’t help but smile, even if she had to strain her face to do so. The little bitch darting away from her as though she could actually escape was funny, to say the least. The slapping her around was just a fraction of what she could do, and that was usually more than enough to convince an underpowered Bestowed to give up. This one, however, was determined to die.

She marched through the quaint living room, turned in the hallway, and stood at the top of the steps to the basement. It was dark down there, which would have been a benefit if someone was stupid enough to not bring a means of luminescence. “Bad move,” she shouted, bringing her flashlight out and turning it on. “Now you’re trapped.” She ventured downward, sweeping the light in front of her as she plodded down the steps, carefully testing each one. “We want your father alive, you know.” Another step. “I can’t promise we won’t hurt him, but he’ll be alright when all is said and done.” A creak as her foot fell on another one. She paused for a moment, scanning the corners of the room. “I wouldn’t suggest pissing me off, ma’am. I get a lot more… persuasive when I’m upset.” She took another step downward, and found that it buckled more than the others. Athena swept the light down, noticing that the step had been sawed through almost completely. She skipped it, straddling the broken step as she gave out a condescending laugh. “Bear traps and broken steps? This is what the daughter of one of the greatest villain minds comes up with?” She brought her higher foot forward…

… When something snaked around her foot and yanked downward. Athena’s hands shot out and grabbed the handrails as her flashlight went skittering off. Before she had a chance to push herself away, a second hand tightened around her calf and yanked. The weakened step exploded under her as she was dragged down. Her face collided with the wood and rebounded off violently. She cracked the back of her head on another portion of the steps before she was finally through. Pain ripped through her, electric and molten and freezing all at once, overriding all of her senses as her nerves conspired to drown her in sensation. Her skin processed every centimeter of the wood it touched, the grain exploding in excruciating detail in her brain.

With a thud, she was thrown to the ground and crumpled in a corner, giving the back of her head another sound thwack. Athena couldn’t even defend herself as her attacker thrust something cold, metal, and jagged into her upper leg. Instinctively, she screamed and grabbed the wound, feeling the pronged shape of a fireplace poker sticking out of her thigh. It was absolute agony, ripping through her in jagged spikes of tactile sensation.

In the darkness, she heard something swing open, probably the door to the room under the stairs. It had been so long since she had anyone able to lay a finger on her that it was deeply distracting her from her target. It took the sound of footsteps on the wood steps above her to yank the poker out of her leg and force herself through the pain.

Her scream was loud and terrible. In a move which simultaneously made her sick and ecstatic all in one, she let her rational mind go and gave in to her instincts.

Ariana was at the top of the stairs when the scream started and the house shook at the foundation. There was no time to get anything she wanted out of there; photos, heirlooms, letters and other keepsakes were going to have to wait. The pile of furniture in front of the door shook and exploded, sending Ariana ducking for cover as a table cartwheeled past her and found its way to a window, wedging itself firmly in place and blocking the avenue of escape. A crash announced that something else had blockaded the closest entrance to the kitchen.

She immediately knew what was happening and scrambled to her feet as debris lifted from the floor and whipped by her at high speed. Athena told her that she got more persuasive when she was angry, and she very much regretted making the hero mad now. Ariana shielded her face with her hands as she ran, hissing as picture frames shattered on her arms. She sprinted through the living room, streams of light from the sofa-barred window giving the room a particularly unpleasant glow. As she ran into the dining room, something large and metallic caught her eye. In the split second it took for her to dive to the ground to avoid it, she recognized it as one of the un-triggered bear traps that had been leveled at her face.

Adrenaline fed her panic as she ran into the kitchen, toward the door to her father’s greenhouse. She got close enough to reach for the latch when something rattled behind her. She turned as the refrigerator pulled from the wall and hurled itself at her. Ariana ducked as the fridge sailed overhead before smashing into the wall, embedding itself in it. The woman in white took the opportunity to will the plants in the greenhouse to hurl themselves at the door. When Ariana got to her knees and tried the handle, she found it unmovable.

With a rip, the screen door was penetrated by a pair of plant shears floating of their own accord. Ariana fell to the ground and pulled herself backward as they snapped in the air before darting down at her. Kicking out, she managed to deflect them, but only long enough for her to grab the shaking tea kettle and get to her feet. The clippers darted at her once more, and she swung the kettle at them, breaking the clippers in two and sending one piece to the floor and the other into the wall.

Ariana dropped the kettle as she ran to the wall, pulled the clipper free, and fled back through the dining room. The foundation buckled, great cracks webbing their way up the walls with a terrible groan. The house heaved, but Ariana didn’t have time to lose balance. The ceiling in the living room crumbled, sagged, then finally collapsed just as Ariana cleared it and almost fell into the entryway. She turned to head up the stairs when she saw Athena at the entrance to the basement, her face twitching with anger. Their eyes met and the woman in white lunged for Ariana, snagging the villain’s foot in the process.

Ariana fell onto the stairs, and she immediately kicked at her captor, shaking her off. She scrambled upwards, nearly making it to the top before she noticed the grandfather clock on the landing wobble just before it chucked itself at her. Instinct took over and she grabbed the railing and jumped on it in a crouch, the clock sailing by before she got back on the steps. The clock smashed with a horrible twang of music as the telekinetic woman must have diverted it out of her path and into a wall.

Ariana wrenched the door to her old room open, diving in and to the side as the bed bucked in place and flung itself at the doorway. The contents of the room were all beginning to shake with mental energy, but the biggest danger was the sudden shifting of the floor. The entire house groaned as, one-handed, she grabbed a large high school-era trophy which had taken to vibrating in place on her dresser and ran to the window. She released it, sending the thing through the window and giving her enough space to jump out and onto the garage roof.

The roof was angled just enough for her to land wrong and send her rolling down the shingles to the earth below. Still firmly clutching one-half of a pair of shears in one hand, she got up painfully and ran through the paltry excuse for the backyard. She could vault over the chain-link fence and be down the street before…

The shockwave from the house bursting knocked her forward, smashing her into the fence as it, too, collapsed from the explosion. Her ears were ringing from the concussive force, and her head swam from the impact. She didn’t know how long she lay there, one arm pinned painfully beneath her and the other pelted by debris, the remnants of the greenhouse raining down on her. Then she heard the crunch of footsteps, and before she could roll over to confront the intruder, a sharp, hot stab of pain ran through her leg.

“I hate touching things, do you know that?” The woman must have stabbed her with the poker. “Overload my ability, have to fucking touch everything!” She ended the sentence in a scream and punctuated it with a kick to Ariana’s side. Ariana wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of screaming, even if it felt like a rib popped inappropriately. Athena knelt by her side and waited for Ariana to turn her head to face her. Hair had fallen into the villainess’s face, preventing a clear view of her attacker, but she saw the heroine cock her head in curiosity. “That.” Athena pointed to Ariana’s face. “Right there. Fear.” She puffed. “I wish I could feel that sometimes.” She wound Ariana’s hair into her hand. “Instead of having to feel everything else,” she muttered angrily. “But dragging your sorry ass to the Heroes’ Guild has a certain charm to it.”