Chapter Text
October 16, 2010 continued
I watched the flat storm-clouds darken to deep blue-gray as the sun set somewhere behind them, sliding across the sky in an insistent wind and billowing out at the edges into feathery fringe. I resisted the urge to check my phone’s clock, and the instinct to lean back on my hands and touch the gritty gravel roof.
Something splashed below me, and the trickling sound of the river, which I’d been tuning out, returned. I couldn’t see much since I was sitting near the center of the roof--to make sure nobody could spot me from the street--just the big glowing ‘M’ sign rising above the roof to my left, and, past the sprawl of the McDonald’s parking lot, the concrete retaining walls that hid the river. Just across the bridge stood the bottling plant: an entire block walled off in red brick.
Another short spray of rain pattered over the plaza, and I pulled Sophia’s backpack under my arm to keep it dry. It was the same one she’d worn last night, with the same noisy cargo. I’m not sure if it was the boredom, the nerves, or the curiosity, but twenty or so minutes ago I’d cracked and peeked inside.
It was full of balls: base balls, billiard balls, bocce balls, and even foam stress-relief toys. After I zipped the bag shut, it took me a few minutes to figure out what Sophia meant to use them for.
Ammunition. If she could phase everyday objects like trash can lids into Hookwolf’s limbs to gum them up, then she must also be able to throw things straight through him.
It would take precise timing. If she was holding an object while in her Breaker state, it would become solid the same moment she did, but when she fired a bolt it reverted to normal after a set amount of time. I’d seen her at the PRT firing range with a custom dummy, practicing the technique of landing a tranquilizer bolt past a target’s armor without putting it deep enough to cause serious injury.
It might work. Rachel--or one of her dogs--had pierced some kind of weak point under Hookwolf’s metal in their first fight, probably his real human body. Sophia might be able to do the same without needing to peel off his armor first.
But it meant she was planning to use lethal force if a fight erupted. Unlike a crossbow, I doubted her throwing arm could launch a projectile at a consistent speed. She wouldn’t limit herself to skin-layer damage only. She couldn’t.
So now I had two allies who were ready to kill our quarry. I gripped the outline of the pistol in my hoodie pouch. As pathetic a joke as it was, I wasn’t pulling any punches either.
I took deep breaths and went over my outfit to calm myself. For maybe the hundredth time. My hair was bound in a bun and hidden in my hood, pulled through a hole I’d cut in my balaclava. My sweats were tucked into my socks, and my boots were laced up tight. My last touch was a towel bound to each of my forearms with duct tape, an idea Rachel had given me when she talked about how to deal with a dog attack. It probably wouldn’t help, but I’d felt vulnerable and raw with only a gun to defend myself.
Finally, Sophia ghosted over the roof’s edge, still visible in the fading, cloud-filtered sunlight now that I knew what to look for--a deeper shadow within a shadow.
She solidified and said, “Empire guys finished sweeping the factory. Now they’re settling in: cracking open beers, starting camp-fires in trash cans, placing bets.”
“Safe to move closer?” I stood up and hefted her backpack off the gravel.
“Yeah.” She took it, lowered it back down, and unzipped a front pouch. “They’re all clustered in the inner courtyard or the first floor.” She pulled out a coil of black nylon rope and started tying knots into its length. “We can sneak up to the base of the outer wall pretty easy, but you’re gonna have to climb into a second floor window.”
“No problem.” I unspooled the rope’s other end and tried to copy the knots Sophia was using.
Once that was done, she handed me the rope and hopped off the roof while I climbed back down the fire escape into the empty parking lot. It was almost fully dark now.
We circled past the main bridge to a smaller foot-bridge. As we crossed, I noted that sight-lines from the factory were mostly blocked by a clutch of sumac clinging to the corner of its lot, which had to be why Sophia chose this route.
We jogged along the back walls of the boxy concrete buildings--at least one was a pawn shop if I remembered right--and squeezed through the sumac into a narrow weed-choked alley.
Sophia hopped up and turned to smoke, disappearing through a dark glassless window hole and tossing the rope down a minute later.
I tugged on it a couple times. It seemed solid, so I pulled myself up and dug my toes into the gaps between bricks. The nylon was slippery; without the knots I probably couldn’t have made the climb, but I pulled myself up hand over hand, just like gym class.
Once I got my elbows over the window sill, Sophia grabbed the back of my hoodie in wadded fistfuls and hauled me inside to land on a dusty metal floor. All my training must’ve been paying off, because I wasn’t even winded.
I climbed to my feet and followed Sophia across the floor, looking around. I saw a high ceiling with exposed rafter beams, a chained-off staircase leading down at the far end of the space, nearly five hundred feet away. There was a row of four cylindrical frames that looked a bit like empty vending machines, with racks that looked like they could rotate if they weren’t caked in rust. Piles of discarded piping leaned against the wall by the stairs, next to a white-painted door. Another door, identical, sat in the center of the wall nearest to us.
Sophia stopped next to a window and peeled off a strip of the newspaper pasted over it, standing with her shoulder to the wall so she couldn’t be seen in silhouette. Even though there was no light source behind her. I moved to the next window in line and mimicked her.
The courtyard below was rectangular, with a round archway to our right--North--which led straight out into the road. There was probably more breathing room when the plant was operational.
On the other side, an enclosed bridge formed a rectangular archway. The Northern wing of the building looked newer, so maybe that was left over from before it was built, when the plant was just two buildings. Had the courtyard been another road back then?
In any case, a party was raging down in the courtyard, radiating a muddled drone of voices and an even haze of cigarette smoke. Maybe ‘raging’ was a strong word. There were maybe forty skin-heads down there, drinking and laughing, clustered in groups that seemed to be separated by clothing style. Pretty strictly, too.
I bobbed my head around, moving my sliver of a view across the yard.
In one corner you had the bald guys in leather vests with swastika tattoos big enough to make out from the second floor. Another crowd wore tee shirts--or no shirts--and faded jeans, with hair that ranged from buzzed to long like Hookwolf’s. Then there were the guys in button-down shirts and slacks, looking like they’d just left their office jobs.
Every few seconds I snuck a glance at each door and the stairs. Sophia must’ve noticed, because she said, “Don’t worry, nobody’ll come up here. Plenty of other places to smoke.”
“We’ve got a decent view.”
“Yeah, but we’re gonna have trouble hearing what’s going on. If anyone shows up, just act casual and we should be left alone. Don’t make a break for it unless someone approaches and wants to know who we are.” She glanced at the climbing rope, still moored to a radiator and dangling out the window.
“Got it.”
Sophia went back to peering through the window. A beat later she muttered, “So fucking many of them…”
“Yeah.” I paused to gather my thoughts. “When I was younger I asked my dad why there were so many villains in Brockton Bay, and he said it started when all the shipping and manufacturing jobs vanished.”
“Supply and demand,” she said, “Cheap-ass henchman labor?”
“Yeah. I think it would cost Kaiser double to hire half as many guys if he were based in Boston.”
“I grew up thinking the white people around here were just extra racist.”
I opened my mouth to say something like ‘not all of us’, something defensive, but Sophia probably wouldn’t like that. Instead I gestured at the window and said, “Well they are now.”
She gave a bitter laugh.
Then the capes started to arrive.
First was a man in medieval knight’s armor with a cross-motif bucket helmet and a long spear. Crusader. He set himself next to some of the more clean-cut goons, who gathered around him in a hush.
Next was Victor and Alabaster, with a small crew of men in kevlar vests and baseball caps. “Ex-military,” Sophia whispered. They took the empty North-East corner. I watched Victor for a second before it clicked in my head: that was the bastard who shot me. Twice.
A young girl in a green robe floated down over the roof, standing on a man-hole cover. Nobody seemed to pay her much attention.
“That’s Rune, right? You’ve fought her.”
Sophia nodded. “She’s telekinetic, and not a subtle one. Mostly throws around chunks of rubble in a fight.”
A man in a costume based on an SS uniform entered from the North and marched into the open center of the yard, parting the crowd before him. Krieg. It was almost silent now.
Finally, a figure in a dizzyingly complex suit of banded iron armor stepped through the Southern archway and stood there, stiff-backed. The helmet bore an elaborate crown of four inch long spikes.
Kaiser was flanked by a pair of eight foot tall women in decorative valkyrie-themed armor that bared their shoulders and their legs below the knee-length skirts of segmented leather. One held a spear, the other held a shield and had a sword sheathed at her hip. Fenja and Menja.
The unpowered crowd receded to hug the walls or line up behind their parahuman leaders.
Kaiser scanned the assembly, rotating his helmet slowly. “I suppose Hookwolf is fashionably late.” He spoke in a voice made for giving speeches, projecting easily across the yard to a ripple of nervous laughter.
Everyone in the courtyard was waiting, watching the North entrance.
It was five minutes before Hookwolf showed up, also from the South, which was kind of awkward. He circled warily past Kaiser and took his place opposite his boss, about three hundred feet apart, standing with arms crossed, still shirtless and barefoot. His mask glinted in the ambient light from lamps blocked by the factory walls.
“Good evening, Hookwolf, I understand you have something to say to me.”
Weird. I was expecting something more… imperious. A string of ‘how dare yous’ and ‘who do you think you ares’. Instead he was playing the call-out off like it was nothing, even implying that he might not be fully aware of Hookwolf’s insults. Like they were beneath his notice.
Hookwolf held his arms at his sides and stared Kaiser down. I didn’t envy his position. Kaiser was forcing him to repeat his insults to his face. In front of everyone.
Several seconds later he cleared his throat and said, “You ordered me to stop seeking revenge against Hellhound. You let an insult to Empire 88 stand. That makes you a coward.” It took me a couple beats to place ‘coward’ and ‘Hellhound’ in the sentence based on context. Sophia was right, it was hard to hear from this far away. Also, Hookwolf wasn’t as good as Kaiser at projecting his voice.
Kaiser cocked his head. “‘Coward’?” He repeated. “What makes you feel that way?” His voice rose to a worried timbre.
“What the hell?” I glanced at Sophia. “Is he actually… Concerned?”
“Don’t be naive,” she said, “Remember, the whole crowd’s part of the conversation, even if they’re not talking, and Nazis aren’t big fans of ‘feelings’ as far as I know.”
“So it’s a trap? If Hookwolf explains himself, he’s accepting the idea that his criticisms were emotional?” My voice flattened as I wrapped my head around the ploy. “It’s a way for Kaiser to dismiss the insults. Why? Doesn’t he want to punish insubordination? I thought that was the whole point of this.”
“I guess that would be the punishment. Hookwolf has a chance to back out, but it would be humiliating. Maybe Kaiser’s threatening something more humiliating if he stays the course. Or maybe he’s worried he won’t come out on top.”
I pushed my eye back up against the window.
Hookwolf didn’t take the bait. “What makes you think you can compromise with a bottom-feeder like Hellhound and still call yourself ‘king’?”
Kaiser sighed. “She is beneath you, my friend. Would you say there is any ‘dishonor’ in ignoring a mosquito buzzing in your ear?” He managed to thread the needle between making Hookwolf’s honor-based world-view sound silly and arguing on its terms.
Sophia made a ‘pft’ noise. “He can’t dispute that without admitting Hellhound’s actually a threat to him.”
“Mosquitoes get spotted,” wait no, he said, “Swatted.” Even without the mishearing, I bet that comeback sounded lame. What could he say? Kaiser already had him in a rhetorical corner.
Hookwolf continued, shouting now, “You talk a big game, but when do we actually start culling the unworthy? When do you fulfill your promises?”
Kaiser just stared at him, and as the silence stretched on his question seemed more and more ridiculous. Why hadn’t a street gang--albeit the largest one in its city--managed to take over the world and establish the Fourth Reich?
Hookwolf swung his head around the yard, hair flailing, looking for support. Wherever he looked, unpowered gangsters flinched back and averted their eyes. He growled and turned back to Kaiser. “You have a responsibility to-”
“Enough!” Kaiser boomed. “I think everyone in attendance will agree that your insults were baseless, and that you owe an apology, not to me, but to those countless citizens whose safety relies on the integrity of our organization. Your recent behavior better befits a member of the Teeth than the Empire.”
Hookwolf gave a grinding laugh and yelled, “You say that like it’s a fucking insult, but you’re making me fucking consider switching teams! All I’d have to do is let Vex hold me down while Reaver flays off my Empire tats. Might be less of a pain than this shit.” The crowd was turning against him. I saw crossed arms and shaking heads. I thought Kaiser’s school principal act seemed petty, but Hookwolf was playing right into it.
“Hey, Victor!” Hookwolf spun around and pointed. “Remember when you asked me, right before a meeting with Kaiser, to help you rescue your true love?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I said ‘hell yeah, whenever’ or something. But then, after the meeting ended, I basically told you to fuck off?” He paused. “What changed?”
This time he waited.
Victor stepped forward. “You seemed to…” He spoke carefully. “Get the impression that one of your subordinates went behind your back to work with me.”
“Where’d I ‘get’ that from? What made me think that?”
“Alright,” Kaiser said, “I know you mean me. For security reasons I must be vague when discussing where I source my intelligence. I apologize if my wording led you to erroneous conclusions.”
“No! Fuck that! Purity was right: you do this shit on purpose. You couldn’t stand the idea that an op might happen without your go-ahead, so you drove a wedge. Played your men against each other like pawns. I heard you on my way out, reassuring Victor that Othala would be free soon. As soon as you thought it felt right.” He laughed. “We should’ve jumped ship with Purity, eh Crusader?”
“Why’s he singling out Crusader?” I asked.
“He’s a leftover from Purity’s faction, I think,” Sophia said.
“Got it.”
A man in a suit and tie clomped up the stairs, having a hushed conversation on his phone. He stopped at the chain. Maybe it wasn’t worth vaulting over. I went still and tried to ignore him and the steady hammering of my heart.
Hookwolf’s point seemed solid to me, assuming it was true, but the crowd didn’t seem much less hostile. Purity left months ago, so maybe Kaiser had time to discredit her and anyone who agreed with her by proxy.
Hookwolf glanced at Krieg, then Fenja, Menja, and even Rune. “You’re all kidding yourselves if you think he won’t do the same thing to you!” He turned back to Kaiser and took a few steps forward. “So, fuck you! You’re the one who should apologize!” My stomach turned. God, this really was just a fucking tantrum. One of the most feared men in the city was pitching a fit because his boss refused to pat him on the back and say ‘good job fighting off the dog girl, you’re so brave’.
The man on the stairs pocketed his phone and jogged back down the way he came. My shoulders sagged in relief, but then I noticed him outside, whispering something in Crusader’s ear.
“Are you finished?” Kaiser said calmly. “Good. There are a few ways we can resolve this-”
“Actually sir,” called Crusader, “I have a question.”
Kaiser paused. “Yes?”
“You compared Hellhound to a mosquito earlier, implying that she isn’t dangerous, and her feud with Hookwolf has only injured two civilians and one Ward. It’s made us look weak…”
“Yes, that is an accurate summary of my reasoning for asking Hookwolf to desist. I also believe that the Protectorate is close to apprehending Hellhound, rendering his quest for revenge a useless effort.”
“Sorry sir, but that seems a little thin. I don’t like to see good--if misguided people--get hurt-” Did he mean me? “But if it was the only cost for maintaining our reputation--which, as you rightly pointed out, ensures the city’s safety--I’d gladly pay it.” He held his arms out. “I think I speak for everyone here when I say that Hookwolf’s behavior was out of line. He should apologize. But I also think we’re owed a full explanation of whatever danger really made you call him off. If I’m correct to assume there was a deeper reason, sir.”
Kaiser paused.
“That unpowered guy told Crusader something,” I said. “I think that’s what set him off on that rant.”
“Really?” said Sophia.
“Yeah.”
She looked down at the floor, tense. “My first guess would be ‘undercover PRT agent’. I’m sure there's one or two here, but would they risk trying to steer things like that? It’s pretty blatant.”
Hookwolf barked a laugh and jabbed a finger at Crusader. “Don’t worry, man, if the cat’s halfway out of the bag already, I’ve got you covered with that explanation.”
Kaiser’s head snapped up. “Hookwolf,” he warned.
“Truth is, Kaiser’s afraid of Hellhound! I won’t bore you all with the details--it’s an Unwritten Rules thing--but he thinks the other gangs might take advantage of the chaos and band-”
“Hookwolf!” Kaiser yelled, “I shared that information with you in deepest confidence. By sharing it, you betray us all!”
“I’m just telling your people the truth, you should try it some time.” Hookwolf laughed again. He’d finally found a line of attack, a weak spot, and was prodding it gleefully, no matter how self-destructive the act was. “Are we in danger? From the Undersiders? Lung? Coil? The fucking Merchants? Or are you jumping at shadows?”
Kaiser walked closer to the courtyard’s center, scraping steel heels across the cobbles. “I give you one final chance. Apologize and then hold your tongue.”
“Or what?”
“I will silence you myself.”
“Ha!” Sophia slapped a palm on the wall and leaned her brow on the window. “Holy shit, they really are gonna fight!”
My blood ran cold. Kaiser was finally acting like the ruthless gang leader I’d expected, reminding me that I was hiding a stone’s throw away from no fewer than nine super-powered neo-nazis with only Sophia, and maybe Rachel, to save me if anything went wrong.
Kaiser wasn’t like Armsmaster. Obvious differences aside, he was more than a parahuman team leader: up till now he’d been acting more like Director Piggot, an administrator, or maybe even like Mayor Christner, a politician.
“Hey, Sophia.”
“What?”
“Remember at our press debut, when you said Armsmaster was ‘talking to the gangs’ and ‘asking them to play nice’?”
“Yeah?”
“This is the same thing, isn’t it? From the other side? It’s a public display, and if there are really PRT moles here, then Kaiser’s performing for them too. This is how they stake out boundaries of--um--of acceptable behavior.”
“Mhm.” Sophia sighed. “The Protectorate’s just another gang, and not even the biggest one. When the Empire talks, they listen.”
My stomach churned. I hated thinking of the heroes like that, but it made a twisted sort of sense, considering how the Empire and ABB leaned on each other. The PRT and Protectorate’s policy was, out of necessity, to maintain a balance of power between the city’s organized criminals to avoid all-out gang wars or the power vacuums that followed mass arrests.
I’d read about the Boston Games, but for God’s sake, the Empire wasn’t just another gang! They were nazis! Surely, wiping them out was worth letting some new, less predictable villains set up shop in town and fight over the open turf.
I resisted the instinct to flee down the rope, all the way back to Kurt and Lacey’s house, and forced myself to look through the window again.
Hookwolf and Kaiser were still squaring off, waiting for their minions to stream into the building. A few of them came up the stairs, hopped the chain, and crowded the windows farthest from us. I thought some of them spared us glances, but nobody came close. Just like them, we must look like shadowy blobs in the darkness.
Only parahumans remained in the courtyard below, the seven non-combatants forming a loose half circle along its Western edge like judges.
Still, Kaiser and Hookwolf stared each other down. This was starting to feel like a duel from a cowboy movie, except it was closer to midnight than noon. “Why are they stalling?” I whispered.
“Their powers,” said Sophia.
Oh. Kaiser could create metal. Not from his body like Hookwolf, but from nearby metal surfaces. It was how he made his armor: a new set each time he appeared in costume.
With an eye-widening start, I realized that this fight’s outcome had already been decided the moment Kaiser and Hookwolf each received their powers. If Kaiser could affect the metal of Hookwolf’s Changer form, he’d end the fight in seconds. But if he couldn’t…
I scanned the yard for metal: sheets of corrugated iron in one corner, paint buckets, Kaiser’s armor itself. There were probably nails in the walls too, but I doubted it was enough surface area for Kaiser to build the structures he’d need to contain Hookwolf, who could also end the fight almost instantly with his incredible speed and strength. Even if Kaiser’s armor held up, he’d be crushed.
It wasn’t even a matter of who drew first. I saw two different duels play out in my head, each a heart-beat long. Peeking at Sophia, the other Empire capes, and even the normal nazis, I felt sure they saw it too.
Then, with a hair-raising metal screech, the held-breath silence was shattered.
I watched Hookwolf spin apart into a metal spiral. It was abstract and utilitarian, nothing at all like the wolf shape he preferred. Instead of a grinding mass of teeth and rotors, he was a tornado of tiny pistons, each clicking into place behind the next, adding smoothly to the motion of the whole, and glittering in geometric fish-scale patterns.
He roared like a jet engine, and the wind he kicked up rattled the windows in their frames and made my knees go weak.
In the same time it would have taken for a bullet to reach Kaiser, he was looming overhead in a parabolic arc, poised to crush the man.
That’s when I noticed Hookwolf getting… Furry. His smooth surface gave way to a field of tiny bristles, and just as quickly as he’d accelerated, he slowed to a stop and began to topple. Every tiny piece of that massive, intricate machine must be fusing together and forming a solid, useless mass.
A single long spike sprouted from the wide, circular mouth of the steel typhoon. Kaiser refused to move an inch as the spike buried itself in the ground, now fifteen feet long, and bent, lowering Hookwolf’s cornucopia-shaped prison to the cobbles, and angling it to Kaiser’s left, away from us.
A miniature earthquake shook the ground. I braced both hands against the wall for support and squeezed my eyes shut. He was trapped. He couldn’t move. I was safe. I reassured myself frantically, over and over, trying not to dwell on the fact that this was the scariest fucking thing I’d ever seen.
“So, that was Hookwolf’s one hundred percent?” Sophia only sounded a little subdued. “Damn.”
“Is he dead?” My voice was a gasp.
Sophia shrugged.
Kaiser walked up to Hookwolf’s body and laid a hand on its side. “Once you dig yourself out of there, I’ll be waiting for my apology.” He turned and walked away, Fenja and Menja falling in on either side. God, it was a relief to see him gone.
“Well?” Krieg shouted, rotating his head as if addressing all present. “Hookwolf will have enough embarrassment squirming his way free, even without an audience.
Rune floated down next to him and spoke in a small voice. “I could help him out…”
“No,” said Krieg, “Remember Kaiser’s words. He clearly implied that this was to serve as punishment.” He looked over his shoulder at the crowd streaming from the buildings, which dawdled and gawked. “I said disperse!” They all broke into jogs. “Remember, I know your faces. I had better not see any photos of this online!”
The factory floor was empty again. Sophia and I watched the unpowered goons disappear under the Northern archway, followed by Alabaster, Rune, and Krieg, who were practically herding them.
Victor and Crusader stood alone, gazing at Hookwolf, who’d begun to shift and wobble. I knew he could reabsorb detached metal, but apparently the solid piece he was encased in was too much to swallow.
“You think we need to worry about Hellhound showing up?” Victor said.
“No,” said Crusader, “I mean, I give it even odds that she does--she’s eerily well-informed--but it won’t be a problem. If her dogs try to tear him apart, they’ll only free him. And this time I’m sure he’ll have the good sense to disengage immediately.” His voice rose in volume at the end, directed at Hookwolf. “I did hear that Shadow Stalker was after the location of this meeting.”
Sophia started a string of malicious chuckles under her breath.
Victor shrugged. “Probably gathering intel for her new bosses. I doubt she’s actually nearby.”
“Call me a fool for trusting government propaganda, but I was under the impression that the Protectorate doesn’t deploy its Wards like that.”
“Even if she is here, she can’t do shit against Hookwolf. And if she runs into Hellhound they’ll probably fight each other.”
Crusader sighed. “Alright. I’ve got damage control to run.” He looked at Hookwolf. “Will you be alright if we leave you alone?”
The half-croissant city park sculpture shifted, and I thought I heard an extremely garbled, “Fuck off,” from deep inside.
“Fine.” A pair of translucent purple duplicates of Crusader appeared and formed a seat for him from their linked arms. They rose into the air, carrying him away.
Victor watched Crusader crest the factory roof and fade to a speck. Then he crouched down and planted his hands on his knees. “Hookwolf,” he said, “I’m sorry it had to go this way.”
“Fuck off.”
“Please don’t abandon the Empire over this. I’m not just saying that because I want your help rescuing Othala, believe me.” He took a deep breath. “I want you to realize the glory of serving a cause over your own ego, and I hope this can be your wake-up call. When Hellhound comes calling, just walk away. Think of it as a test. I believe you can rise above this, above her.”
The mass rattled again, already starting to deform slightly.
“Good night, Hookwolf.” Victor walked off toward the South arch.
I stepped back from the window. “That was insane. Should we call the PRT?”
Sophia grunted. “No. They’ve probably had calls about the noise already. They’ll put two and two together.”
“Not in time to arrest him,” I said, “We’re way outside the Protectorate’s patrol range.”
“Sure would be lucky if there was a pair of heroes already on the scene who could make sure he stayed down long enough for a capture.”
Panic clawed at my guts. “You want to attack him?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s just the two of us!” I waved my hands. “What can we possibly do?”
“For starters, I can phase a bunch of shit through his armor and see what sticks where.”
A whining groan rose from outside. His prison was bending.
“But what do I do? I don’t stand a chance against him in full monster mode. I can’t even hold my own well enough to support you. No. I can’t get close to him.”
“Wow,” she said, “If only you had a pack of wild dogs on speed dial to use as meat shields.”
My mouth fell open and my head swam. “That was you at the playground earlier today. Damn it!”
“Of course it was. Stop wasting time and call her in; we can end this!”
Could we? I wanted it to end. Desperately. Did I want it badly enough to throw myself at Hookwolf again? My arms burned with memorized lines of pain.
“Taylor, what the hell is your power telling you to do? We just executed the ‘spy on the meeting’ plan, so you should have a new directive. What is it?”
Crap. For a second, I forgot the biggest ball I was juggling. What would my power tell me to do? “It’s just- Just telling me to go get Hookwolf, like usual.”
“That’s it? Nothing new?” Sophia put her hands on my shoulders and shook me gently. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
Damn it. I had to keep the ruse of my power alive. No other choice. Maybe if I had more time I could think of a plausible way for my power to order us to go home, but Hookwolf’s squealing filled my ears and shredded my concentration. I felt my last shred of control over this mess slip through my fingers. “No,” I said, “You’re right. It’s more insistent than usual. The goal’s close. Really close.”
“What’s that mean?”
I drew a shuddering breath. “Just that the new directive looks alot like the main goal: Defeat Hookwolf.” Defeat Hookwolf. No fancy tricks left. No traps. No info to gather. Just us and him.”
She laughed. “Hell yes!”
“Hell yes,” I parroted her words mechanically and pulled my phone from my pocket.