Project Northwoods (83 page)

He took the opportunity to fling her off of him. Ariana hit the ground and rolled to a stop, slumping in a gasping mound. Scrambling upright onto his knees, he momentarily contemplated whacking her over the head with the flashlight, but the fight seemed to have evaporated out of her. She looked over at him, eyes red even in the partial glow of the flashlight. The anger in them had died, replaced with something dim and lonely. A tear glimmered briefly in the air before falling to the ground.

Arthur moved toward her and put his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t pull away from the pressure. “We killed him,” she croaked, her voice apparently hoarse from shouting. “We both did it.” Ariana looked up at him, and an overwhelming sense of déjà vu made his skin prickle uncomfortably in the oppressive heat.

A series of hisses startled both Ariana and Arthur upright as a circle of lit flares flashed into existence around them. “And… scene!” Catalina’s voice mocked through the darkness, the echoes confusing their attempts to locate her position. A final hiss drew their attention upwards to the mobster standing on a statue of a villain with Mat sitting at her side. She held the flare in the hand she was using to prop herself up against the sculpture, denying Ariana and Arthur a clear view of her face. “I honestly thought you two were going to fuck.”

“You called for us, sir?” Gunslinger’s voice called out, struggling above the humming electronics of Overseer’s core, but Arbiter heeded neither her nor her companions’ approach.

Instead, he stared at the screen, now showing a computerized recreation of the Earth, swimming in a green wire frame. His hands moved over the part of the console designed to read his gestures. The world ticked slightly with every gesticulation, zooming in and then out. Arbiter spun the world gently, imagining the representation to be the real thing and, thus, imbuing it with the life he was going to snuff out in a matter of minutes.

A window popped up in the lower right corner, above the clock display of 8:53:34. The iris of Overseer appeared in the previously empty box, staring at nothing in particular. “Shall you commit to manual targeting, High Consul?” he asked, his voice impersonal and polite as always.

“Yes, Overseer.” He became aware of the presence of others moving toward him moments before the familiar probing of Archetype’s mental energies.

At the top of the screen, a green MANUAL TARGETING popped up in a silver-outline box. The timer shifted positions to nest under the new window and continued to tick off the seconds.

“What’s going on?” Claymore asked.

Arbiter looked over his shoulder, casting a steely gaze in the young man’s direction, but offered no answer. The man in black, the slender psychomancer, and his former sidekick took in the sights on the monitor, interest or outright awe slackening their features. Only Gunslinger, looking small in her Stetson hat, her silver vest and deep blue shirt lighting up her face, stared at him directly.

Arbiter felt something vestigial threaten his judgment, and he looked away.

“Catalina, we’re here with an appeal for help,” Arthur shouted, trying to circumvent the embarrassment of the past few moments. The second he spoke and tasted blood, he remembered his split lip. His hand immediately went to cover his mouth.

Catalina gave a huff of laughter. “You?” Laughs bubbled from the darkness. From the eight dots of red light, Arthur saw the silhouettes of mobsters materialize, their guns at the ready. Ariana must have seen them, too, for she backed into him, eyes on the goons. “After what happened, you’re going to be lucky if I let you walk out of here.” Catalina leapt from the statue to the stairwell, then proceeded toward them in confident strides. In the darkness, the impeccable suit appeared untarnished. “But, the masochist in me is curious,” she said, absently scratching behind her earpiece with the muzzle of her gun.

“It’s about my father,” Ariana said.

Catalina stopped in her tracks. She cocked her head. “You found Aeschylus?”

Arthur could feel his companion tremble slightly, reassuring him that he was not alone in his own palpable fear. “We were hoping you knew.” Ariana’s voice barely shook, but remained hoarse from earlier.

Catalina resumed descending the stairs. “He fell off our radar the night we got back into town.” Her voice was so nonchalant that Arthur found himself scanning it for notes of sympathy, antipathy, anything to mark her as human. “It’d be nice to make sure he was still causing havoc.”

“Sorry to have wasted your time, then,” Arthur said, grabbing Ariana’s wrist. There was something different about her… or maybe nothing was different and Catalina had always been this way. In either case, Arthur wanted to run. “We’ll just leave you…”

He turned, but now the goons had closed the circle, just enough to make sure their presence was known. Catalina was striding on the ground floor now, past the flares and her men, and smoothly pulling out her sidearm. “Didn’t you used to have a moppet with you?” she asked as, much to Arthur’s relief, she walked past him. “Kind of a Dickensian, street-urchin type?” She spun on her heel and cocked her head, making his stomach clench in fear. “And what about your talking cold?”

I have my reasons
. Agent Mast’s words repeated in Arthur’s head. “The Enforcers got her.” He squeezed Ariana’s hand as if to transmit the lie.

“We haven’t seen anyone else in days,” Ariana said.

The briefest of pauses only seemed to make things worse. “Mollie caught a bullet the night of the escape. I wasn’t able to save her.”

Catalina squinted at them. She sighed deeply, then brought the gun up under her chin as though contemplating something. “It’s the lying that hurts the most.” In a flash, she clubbed the gun across Ariana’s face. The younger woman crumpled to the ground and Arthur darted forward only to be grabbed by an unseen mobster. Catalina knelt to Ariana, put the gun to the woman’s head, and looked up at Arthur. “What are you hiding?”

“What’s going on here?” Allison’s voice cut through the darkness, drawing attention to the top of the stairs. She vaulted down the stairs impatiently. “Arthur!” she called out halfway down. She practically sprinted into the circle of light, watching Catalina rise. “Lighten up, sis. Remember what the union rep said about slapping around the goons?”

“This doesn’t concern you, Allison,” Catalina chided.

Allison scoffed. “It doesn’t concern the head of the Italian Mob?” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand as she crossed to Ariana and helped her rise to her feet. “Some lost members have returned. It couldn’t have been easy to find us, always shifting around.” She brushed off Ariana’s clothes before turning toward Arthur. “Let me tell you, it’s good to see you back. What’s the plan now?”

Arthur didn’t quite know how to take this development. “Well…”

“We
have
a plan,” Catalina growled.

Allison gave a wave of her hand. “Waiting around for this to blow over isn’t a plan.” She chuckled at the thought. “I thought you had more smartitude than that.” Looking over at Catalina, she made a very visible eye roll. “That’s why you aren’t in charge.”

Arthur tensed the moment she said that as Catalina’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Without a word, she snapped the fingers on her free hand and made a sweeping gesture. The goons raised their weapons and trained them on the three encircled. Arthur and Ariana moved closer together while Allison remained unfazed. “This isn’t going well,” Ariana muttered.

“Kind of an understatement,” Arthur replied. Something that looked like a figure darted through the light pouring in the door, but he dismissed it as his imagination.

“Men, please,” Allison began with a gesture to lower their weapons. The smile on her face had the same appearance that she would have given to overly-excited children. “Let’s hear what Arthur has to say before we get ready.”

Catalina paced near the outer edge of the circle. “We aren’t doing anything he says.”

Allison cocked her head. “You haven’t come up with any ideas since he left. We’ve been shuttling around from shelter to shelter while you and Mat sulk around like it’s the end of the world.” Her tone was playful.

Her sister’s was not. “It
is
the end of the world, you useless twat.” She strode forward and stared into her sister’s face. Catalina gave a wide, sharky smile. “And whatever’s left, I’m taking.”

Allison cocked an eyebrow, apparently unaware of what was going on. “If that’s how you want to roll, fine.” She turned around and hooked arms with Arthur, who gave a grunt of protest before quieting down. “But the goons and I are anxious to fight.” She smiled triumphantly. “Isn’t that right?” she called out. No one responded, opting to continue staring down the sights of their guns. Allison’s smile faded. “What’s going on?”

“She gets it
now
?” Ariana grunted under her breath.

“You can’t do this!” Allison shouted at Catalina, taking a step forward.

Catalina gave a haughty laugh, momentarily joined by the goons giving a sympathetic chuckle. “It’s been done, Allie. Years ago.” She pulled the hammer on her gun. “But I guess you can consider this my two weeks’ notice.”

Agent Mast was growing progressively more impatient, checking her watch every few moments. This unnerved Stair more than the vacant streets or the quiet that had become the constant companion of New York City’s Villain Zone. “He should have contacted me by now,” she muttered to herself.

“Relax, already,” Stair hissed. She didn’t mean to be as sharp as she came off, but she was angry at the maternal protection Mast had already shown toward her. It felt unnecessary and condescending, especially considering how much she had lived through in the past few weeks.

Instead of snapping back, which is what Stair anticipated… wanted, truth be told… the woman just looked over her shoulder and gave a strange little smirk before returning to her icy seriousness. “Should have brought the shotgun mic.”

Stair arched her eyebrows and gave a half-laugh of frustration as she considered going after Arthur. The scrape of shoes on pavement followed by the hiss of hushed voices froze Stair in place.
Shit, someone’s here!
she screamed mentally, her voice caught in her throat. The teenager was suddenly very grateful for the woman with the gun already shielding her.

Agent Mast must have seen someone down the alleyway, for she tensed up immediately. “Stop!” was all she was able to shout when a black-clad figure bounded down the alley, leaping from wall to wall before landing in a crouch in front of the two of them.

The Queen of the Dead stood upright and offered a self-assured, half-cocked smile. “A pleasure to see you again, Diane.”