"Stop," I said.

"Soooo cautious," she said. "Boring, boring, boring. You need a little metal in your life, kid, a little action."

I felt the result of all the action I'd experienced today in my bones, in the pains, the aches and blood that still ran freely from different places on my anatomy. "Actually, I could do with a little less action at this point."

"Boooring," she said again. "Why must all you people lead such mundane little lives? I thought maybe you were different than the rest. I thought you were like me."

"Umm." I tried to focus on the panel, tuning out her prattle, ignoring the fact that she sounded almost offended. "I don't know what to tell you. I have a job to do, and it's pretty serious*"

She grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me around, causing my head to wobble, as she slammed my back against the railing. "Hey, kid! Wake the h.e.l.l up!" She slapped me for good measure, not hard, but enough that I felt it and it p.i.s.sed me off. I stared back at her, at the intensity in her eyes as she glared at me. "We're at the top of the food chain, darling. Ain't n.o.body can stop us: not Omega, not the Directorate, n.o.body. Women want to look like us and men want to grind up against us. You can have anything you want, take what you want, and n.o.body can stop you, and you're killing time with these white hat Directorate w.a.n.kers." She let out a sigh of disgust. "Stop wasting your time doing all this c.r.a.p when you could be having fun."

She slackened her grip on me and started to back off, but I grasped the watch on her wrist and held it tight in front of her. "Ow! What are you doing?"

"What happened to the man who had this on last night?" I twisted her arm to put it right in front of her face. "Where is he now?"

"Who cares?" She said, ripping it out of my grasp. "They're all interchangeable, men. They only last a very short time," she got a wicked grin that I found d.a.m.ned unsettling, "so you have to use them wisely * and I do mean use. I keep looking for a man who can last longer, but even he couldn't*" She waved at James. "Though obviously for different reasons, in his case."

I felt a pit of disgust in my stomach. "You're like...you're a serial killer."

"You're so immature." She made a noise of disgust, waving her hand as though she were dismissing me. "We're succubi, Sienna; draining men's souls is what we do. They're there for us; it's why we have the thrall, the dreamwalking, all of it. The world of men is our cup: we're supposed to drink it, and you're afraid to even take a sip." Her face twisted into a humorless smile. "Just like your mom." Her dark hair fell around her shoulders, framing her face in a different light than I'd seen before; she looked almost cronelike, emaciated. "Well, I'll drink enough for all three of us, I don't care. I'm not scared. I'm ready for all of it."

I leaned on the railing for support, trying to edge away from her. "Why?"

"You know. Haven't you ever felt the rush?" She looked at me in disbelief. "I know you've taken souls; haven't you felt it? When you take them, how they scream and rattle in your head at first, how it spins you around? It's the greatest high you'll ever feel, trust me, way better than anything else. I mean, I know it's tough the first few times, like losing your virginity, but it gets so good, so powerful, it feels so right." She let out a little sigh and had her eyes closed. "You have no idea." Her eyes opened and she focused on me.

"I don't want to have any idea what you're talking about," I said. "I'm not a murderer."

"Don't play games with me," Charlie said, a smile on her lips. "I know you've killed."

"Twice," I said. "Once to save my own life with Wolfe and once to save the city of Minneapolis from Gavrikov."

"Oh, right." She pirouetted and sent me a mischievous glance. "Why would you bother doing a thing like that?"

"Because I owed them," I said, trying to catch my breath and push the pain away. "Because it was the right thing to do. I don't kill in cold blood. I might not even have killed Wolfe, but I was so afraid of him I couldn't let him go."

"And what about the other guy? The one you sent for a long fall off the IDS tower?"

"That wasn't me." I grabbed a segment of rail in my hand, wondering if I had the strength to rip it loose and use it as a weapon like James had. I looked around for my knife, but it was far behind Charlie; she'd kill me long before I reached it. "That was Wolfe."

"You're weak," she said, spitting the words at me in disgust. "You're supposed to control them. They're your souls, your puppets, but you can't even keep what you've got in line. No wonder you can't bring yourself to do what's fun, what you should be doing. You're pathetic." She kicked out faster than I could have antic.i.p.ated and knocked my legs out from under me, sending me to my back. I looked up and saw her face, nothing like the easygoing Charlie I'd seen; her eyes were wide, her mouth twisted in cold disdain. I felt a deep, powerful dose of fear as she said, "You're nothing like me."

"Thank G.o.d for that." The voice came from behind her, strong, fearless, and I saw Charlie's eyes widen in fright, her expression chilled as she turned to face the new threat, a woman standing at the edge of the platform, staring her down. Her dark hair was long, but pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore a simple t-shirt and jeans that had some dirt on them, as though she had been crawling around on the ground. "Get away from her, Charlie, or so help me I will crush the very life from your body the way I should have years and years ago."

I felt a swell of emotion deep inside at the sight of her, something I didn't even know I still had in me. Little tears sprang up in the corners of my eyes and I blinked them away, blinked again to be sure what I was seeing was true. It was. She was there. I opened my mouth, and amazingly, a single word fell out.

"Mom?"

Chapter 21.

She attacked Charlie without warning, reminding me of a thousand sparring sessions in the bas.e.m.e.nt. My aunt staggered back under the fury of my mother's a.s.sault, kicks and punches blurring through the s.p.a.ce between them so fast I couldn't count. I saw Mom jump-kick and catch Charlie underneath the chin, sending her reeling, and followed it up with a flurry of punches that brought my aunt to her knees.

"Wait..." Charlie gasped. "Sierra, wait..." My mother stood above her, hands still raised, ready to rain down a killing strike while looking down at her sister with cold indifference. "I was trying...trying to help her..." Blood ran freely from Charlie's nose, and one of her eyes was already swelling shut. I didn't think she'd even managed to land a blow on my mom.

Mom reached down with a gloved hand and picked Charlie up by the neck, holding her out at a distance, as though she didn't want to get to close. "Help her what? Die?" She threw Charlie to the ground, her face sc.r.a.ping against the grated metal platform as she landed.

Charlie lifted her head and rolled over, holding a hand out as though she could ward off my mother's cold fury with it. "Please...please, Sierra...please!"

My mother halted. "One chance, Charlie. Why should I let you go?"

"Please." Charlie propped herself up, both hands behind her back. "I won't come anywhere near her again, I swear. I swear on my life."

My mother's face twisted in disgust. "You picked the right one to swear on. Heaven knows you've never cared about anyone else's."

"That's not true!" Charlie shook her head, her normally calm or sly expression completely consumed by fear, stricken by the uncertainty of whether she'd live or die in the next moments. "I came to help her, Sierra, I came to teach her because I knew you weren't around! I knew she needed help!"

My mother halted her advance, hovering menacingly over her sister, her face a mask. She stood there, staring down, her expression impenetrable, for a very long moment. "Get out of here," she said, growling. "If you ever come near my daughter again, Charlie, I will kill you. You know I will; and it won't be pretty, or quick."

I saw Charlie slide back, pulling herself to her feet, then turning to see her sister, and she nodded, quickly, all trace of the carefree, c.o.c.ky woman my aunt had been gone as though she had never existed. "I swear. She'll never see my face again." Charlie turned and began to walk out, down one of the catwalks toward a door on the far side of the room.

"She better not see any of you again, Charlie." My mother's voice was hard, sharp as gla.s.s, and unforgiving. "If she sees so much as an eyelash of yours, you won't have time to blink before I drain you into nothingness." Charlie stiffened but did not turn back at my mother's threat.

I watched her leave, the doors swinging shut behind her, and then turned to my mother to find her looking at me, her face the same mask of fearful indifference that she wore when talking to my aunt. "Mom," I croaked. She took a few steps toward me, then stopped at my side. I looked up and saw she was using the console next to me. "Mom?"

"It looks like you haven't been following the rules," she said, voice hollow. "You're not in the house, you're not wearing gloves, a coat." Her gaze hardened on me, leaning against the railing. "Actually, it looks like you're wearing hardly anything." My mouth opened and I tried to say something, but nothing came out. "You're a Directorate Agent now, you're living on your own and you've had a boyfriend." Her eyes narrowed and focused in on mine. "Yeah, I heard about that. You're a big girl, in other words. Big enough to deal with the consequences of your own mistakes."

She knelt next to me, her face hovering a foot away from mine. "You're going to make more mistakes, I know it. But that's your problem." She stood. "Not mine. Not anymore. Time to grow up." She punched a b.u.t.ton on the console and a deep rumbling filled the entire room. She turned her back on me and started to walk away.

"Mom, wait!" I tried to use the railing to stand again, pulling myself up. "Wait!" I slumped, putting all my weight on the console as the rumbling noise that filled the room centered on the middle of the platform. A cylinder rose up, sliding through the hole, black, sleek metal that extended six feet above the platform before it stopped moving. "Mom? Help me," I said, my words coming out in a tumble, desperation lacing every one of them. "Help me, please, Mom."

She didn't stop, didn't turn around, didn't even slow her walk as she moved toward the doors I had entered through. "I just did."

The doors swung shut behind her.

Chapter 22.

"G.o.d, am I glad she's gone." The voice was solid, strong, and so d.a.m.ned alarming. I turned my head to see James pushing himself up onto all fours. "Both of them, actually." He shook his head as he got to his feet. "Now..." His face was b.l.o.o.d.y, his nose a shattered mess with a hole in it, crimson running down his cheeks and lips. "Where were we?"

Something clicked in the cylinder in front of me, and a hissing sound came as it seemed to depressurize, fissures appearing in the surface of it. I watched James, whose eyes widened when he saw it, and his face snapped back to me. "Dammit, I guess I'll have to make this quick*"

The cylinder opened, a door sliding back, light shining out of it in a pale yellow across the platform. A face appeared first, followed by the rest of a body. James didn't watch, he didn't delay: he came right at me and I reached out to grab hold of him, struggling as he pushed me to the ground, his hands trying to grip my neck. "Stop fighting me!" he raged, forcing my arms down. "This will all be over in a few seconds."

"That's what you tell all the girls." I rocked my hips to dislodge him, but to no avail. I was too weary, too beaten. Everything hurt, every part of me now, and what didn't hurt just felt weary. All I wanted was to sleep, to not be a big girl, to just be back home with Mom and not have to worry about any of this*

A screech came from behind James and he paused, a look of panic crossing his wrecked face. "Uh oh," was all he had time to say before a woman came out of the cylinder, her eyes tightly shut, a scream on her lips. She was staggering, naked, trying to catch her breath, her dirty brown hair tangled in wet ringlets around her shoulders. Her eyes opened and caught sight of him and me, on the ground, and she screamed again, this time not from fear but rage, and she attacked him, her hand coming down in a hard swipe that caught him by surprise and sent him flying over the edge of the railing, down into the darkness below.

I turned my gaze from where he had fallen to her, glowing brown eyes giving me a sense of deep unease. I had no defense against what she'd done to him; I only hoped that if she sent me over the edge I'd be able to land 1) softly and 2) on him, because I didn't know if I could take any more pummeling.

"Are you okay?" she asked in a throaty voice, a little hoa.r.s.e, like she hadn't used it in a long time.

I flinched at the sound of her voice, mostly because I was expecting an attack instead. "Do...do I look okay?"

The naked girl studied me, her eyes a.s.sessing. "Not really."

I worked my way to sitting again. "Who are you?"

She looked lost in thought, far away, drifting, and I almost thought maybe she'd pa.s.sed out on her feet, as though the trauma of being released from a big black cylinder was too much for her. She paused, looked across the room, then turned back to me, still almost uncertain. "Andromeda," she said finally. "My name is Andromeda."

I heard voices, raised, from behind me, and crooked my head to look. Andromeda tensed, as though she were ready for battle. The doors on the far end of the room burst open and Reed and Scott came through them, followed by two guys in tactical vests carrying submachine guns. Neither wore masks, and I knew them instantly. One was Kurt, the other was Zack.

"Sienna!" It was Scott who shouted, his hands pointed at Andromeda, who pointed her hands back at him. "We thought you were dead."

Reed matched Scott's position, though his expression was a bit more wary. Both Kurt and Zack had their weapons pointed, and I held up my hand to stop them, and felt myself sag against the railing as they came onto the platform. "Me? Not so much. Everybody calm down," I said. "This is Andromeda." She looked at me, then at them, and began to relax. "Andromeda, this is...everybody."

Scott inched his way around the platform, still keeping his hands up, eyes fixed on her, though they looked down more than once to take in her nakedness. "So Andromeda is not a project...it's a person?"

She c.o.c.ked her head at him, her pale skin giving off a briny smell, now that she was closer to me. "Perhaps it's both."

"We don't exactly have the perimeter secure here," Kurt said, scanning the room. "We need to find what we're here for and leave."

"She's it, I think." I said this as Zack made his way forward, easing past Andromeda, and grasped me under the arms to help me stand. "She's the reason we're here; though I'm not sure how much she can tell us about Omega."

Her eyes followed mine, and I caught a hint of deep intelligence in them. "Everything," she said. "I can tell you everything about Omega. Who they are, where they started, why they're here and what they're after."

"Then we need to get her out of here," Scott said. "Back the way we came?"

"No," Andromeda said. "This way." She looked at me. "Let me help." She put her hand on me and I started to protest, but something in her eyes silenced me. Her hand was on mine, and a second pa.s.sed, then five, and nothing happened.

"What...are you?" I asked, staring back at her.

Her eyes glowed and I felt strength course through me as she pulled me along, almost effortless. "Something new. I am a sacrifice made by Omega to bring about change."

"Oh, good, cryptic," Scott murmured from behind me. "You'll get along well with Old Man Winter."

"Are you all right?" Zack whispered next to me, trying to keep up as Andromeda pulled me along. I noticed that all my pain had receded; the wounds were still there, but they seemed not to hurt.

"I think I'll be fine, once I get a day to heal," I said. "Did you drive here from Detroit?"

"All the way through the Upper Peninsula at about a hundred miles an hour." He gave me a tight smile. "Ariadne said you were headed into trouble."

"I was." I tried to smile at him. "I found my way out again, with a little help. What about you?"

His smile disappeared. "We'll talk about it later."

"No, wait," I said. "They sent you after a meta, didn't they?"

"They did."

"So what happened?" I asked.

"Omega jumped ahead of us, bagged *em." Kurt was the one who answered, and I got a glimpse of him behind me. He had a bandage across the back of his head, and it was b.l.o.o.d.y. "Happened all across the country last night. The Directorate got a big fat sucker punch to the side of the head."

"Sucker punch?" I shook my head, trying to clear it. "I mean, we heard about Kansas, but you're saying they tried to what? Catch your target before you could?"

"They tried to kill us, Sienna." Zack's eyes were serious. "They d.a.m.ned near did. They've killed a lot of our agents in the last twenty-four hours. Kansas was a war zone; the west half of the state is on fire from the battle."

We made our way down a hallway and through a set of doors to find ourselves in a loading dock. "Your vehicle is just outside," Andromeda said. "It may be a tight fit to get all of us in it."

Kurt looked at her in suspicion. "How did she know that?"

Andromeda's voice dropped to a hushed whisper, and her eyes seemed to focus on something in the distance. "Because I see." They dropped back to looking at Kurt. "It is one of my talents."

Scott rushed forward and hit the loading door, causing it to slowly clank open. Sure enough, when it was up a small SUV was sitting in front of us, the road to the gate visible behind it, complete with the wreckage of the car we drove, gate still mounted on top of it. A few black-clad figures were visible around the yard and I watched Zack and Kurt unload on them at distance, dropping a couple while Reed stirred the winds and sent another tornado toward the largest concentration of Omega agents.

"I think we've worn out our welcome," I said as Andromeda guided me to the car and pushed me into the back seat, squeezing in next to me. Zack and Kurt got in next, firing rounds all the way up until they shut the door. Kurt rolled down his window and pulled a pistol, discharging a half-dozen shots.

Reed slipped in next to Andromeda and Scott piled in after him, slamming the door as Kurt hit the gas. "Might want to call Kat and the others," Zack said as we sped toward the gatehouse. "Warn them off. We can meet them in town and convoy back to the Directorate together."

"Okay," Scott said, already dialing his phone.

"I hope n.o.body minds if I sit in the hatchback," Reed said. "It's nothing personal; I just feel weird squeezing in this close to a naked girl I don't know." He blushed as he looked at Andromeda, and I realized that I hadn't even noticed that she was still wearing nothing. Of course I also felt very close to pa.s.sing out now that she had taken her hands off me.

Reed went over the seat into the hatchback, giving Scott and Andromeda a little more room. Scott pulled his phone away from his ear and looked down, messing with the touchscreen. "I can't seem to reach her."

"Think she's out of cell phone service?" Zack said, looking back at him.

"It is a little spotty through here." Scott stared down at his phone. "I'll try again, but take the quickest route back to town. They should be nearly here by now."

Zack turned to talk to me. "What happened in that room?"

I searched my memory and tried to come up with a coherent explanation. "Um, well...one of Omega's lackeys got the better of me after I got blasted through a wall by an RPG. Then I got saved by my aunt*"

"Your aunt?" Zack squinted at me in the backseat.

"Yeah." I nodded. "Then she turned on me when I figured out that she had been killing people just for the rush of absorbing them." I took a breath. "Then my mom saved me from her and unleashed Andromeda."

Zack's jaw dropped. "Your mom?" He looked at me with great uncertainty. "Are you sure you're all right? I mean, no offense, but it kinda sounds like you're hallucinating. Maybe we should call Perugini or Zollers."