In the Wind: Out of the Box, Book 2 (13 page)

I can see the surprise as the first cobblestones hit. He’s buried in a second, before he has a chance to respond. Dust fills the air, a cloud like a sandstorm has moved in, and I can tell by the dispersion that Lorenzo hasn’t even had time to think about volleying back. The street lands on my attacker, burying him under a ton of debris and hoisting the bastard on his own petard. Drink up on that irony, pal.

I can feel a smile creep onto my face even as the weariness hits, and I turn to look at Diana. I’m exhausted but celebratory, because I’ve just pulled off a miracle of the sort that really shouldn’t be possible. I feel like a king, like a badass, like Sienna, and I kind of want someone to acknowledge my triumph.

She’s not much into acknowledging though, because her face is still plastered with horror. Her lip quivers, and her eyes are still fixed on the alley behind me. The triumph flees in half a heartbeat and I turn, watching the last of the dust clear as somehow—
somehow
—this guy emerges from it, his expensive suit in tatters but looking none the worse for wear otherwise. His bronzed skin looks like iron, even with his slightly saggy man-tits, and I get the feeling that this is not going to go well for me.

I want to collapse but I don’t, instead letting my stomach sink as those same two lame words come back to me again.

“Oh, shit.”

I hope for a monologue, for a chance to think. How does someone take a ton of bricks to the upper body and walk away? He doesn’t even look mad, though his face is a little pinched. He’s got the look of a man who moves with power, with confidence, and I kinda want to wilt away. The bastard just ripped the road right off the ground and hurled it at me, and didn’t even blanch when I sent it back at him.

This is so not good.

“So you are Reed Treston,” he says with a thick Italian accent, and I don’t even like the sound of my name coming from him. I’m standing there, a hand held protectively in front of Diana—as if it’d do a damned thing—and he’s just staring at us, slightly covered in the dust from a pile of rubble hitting him. Lorenzo is a few steps behind him, looking cautiously at us. Okay, he looks a little pissed, actually, but I’m ten steps past caring.

“And I here I don’t even know your name,” I say, at a loss for what else to say.

“My name is not something you should worry about.” He gives me that look, like he’s about to land on me like a ton of bricks, that whole “angry father” thing, and I’m just wondering how I’m going to get out of this. I give Diana what I assume is a panicked glance, and she returns it with one of her own. But there’s something else I catch, too, a slight motion of her right hand that’s obscured from that guy’s view by my body.

She rolls her finger, like she’s suggesting I stall him.

“What should I worry about?” I say as I turn back around. I can stall for time; this is not an issue. He’s not advancing very quickly, and he takes a moment to look back at the mouth of the alley, where the strike on the street beyond has cleared a little. Police sirens are audible as the Carabinieri make their approach known. I make a gesture to indicate his toplessness. “Because it looks like maybe you oughta worry about skin cancer, based on that tan. Did you know the risk factors—”

His eyes widen slightly at my stupidity, and I hear movement behind me. I glance back just in time to see Diana kick a chunk of fallen cobblestone straight up, directly into her hand. In a flash she throws it with unerring accuracy right into shirtless guy’s eyes, where it shatters into dust as he flinches, his eyes closed.

“Come on!” Diana shouts as she rabbits. She turns, taking off down the now-clear alley behind her without waiting to see if I’m smart enough to come along. I’m smart enough, though, dammit. I spare a glance to see our enemy brushing the crumbs of the broken stone out of his eyes, Lorenzo at his side like a concerned son, and then I’m behind a branch in the alley two seconds later, following Diana’s shapely form as we sprint away.

To say a metahuman is fleet of foot is like saying a sports car can go kinda fast. Diana is one of the old gods, and she tears along like she’s a Ferrari on an open freeway. I’m hauling ass to keep up, the tan walls of the alleyway whizzing by at high speed, sweat from my earlier exertion dripping off my forehead. Thankfully, running exerts a different kind of power than hurling wind at people, but I’m still not as fast as she is, even on my best day. She’s got a lead of half the alley on me, bursting out onto a major road as I look back to see Lorenzo and the iron man coming after us. The older guy looks pissed, and I’m not so eager to get caught, so I put all thoughts of fatigue behind me and run faster.

I dodge past a street vendor set up on a white sheet, a ton of knock-off—or maybe stolen—purses spread out in front of him. He sees me coming and scoops them up in the sheet, just one giant bundle. I hate to be a dick, but I snatch it out of his hand before he can even react and toss the whole thing right at my pursuers.

Pretty much like I’d planned, Lorenzo strikes out at the sheet and it explodes into a rain of leather handbags that get blown right out of his defensive funnel. Net result on their pursuit? Pretty much nothing. But it makes Lorenzo blanch a couple of times as purses smack him about the face and neck, slowing him down.

His boss doesn’t slow down at all.

I make the mouth of the alley and see Diana has left me behind. She’s down the street now, disappearing into another alley, and I’m reminded about that old joke with the two hikers that run into an ornery bear in the woods. One of them stops to lace up his tennis shoes, and the other asks him why he’d bother; he can’t possibly outrun the bear. “I don’t have to outrun the bear,” he says. “I just have to outrun you.”

Well, Diana has damned sure outrun me.
Way to go, hero
, my mind tells me. Now it’s two-on-one, and not in my favor.

I’m halfway across the street when it occurs to me that this doesn’t have to remain two-on-one. Whoever this guy is, he’s a tough sonofabitch, but he looks pretty earthbound.

And even though I’m tired, I’m definitely not.

I look for the building of lowest height that I can see, and my eyes alight on a two-story apartment building about a block down the way. Unless the man of iron is also a jumping-bean-type meta, he’s not gonna be able to scale it easily. He’s fast—I confirm as I look behind me—but I’m guessing he can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Lorenzo can, of course, but I’m going to have to deal with him whether I stay on the ground or not.

I make it to just below the short building and leap, hoping that I’ve got enough juice to do this. I send out a blast of air just as I’m about to pancake on the side of the roof, and manage to get a few more feet of height before my jet stream falters. I throw up a hand and land four fingers on the side of the building’s crest. I’m left hanging there with one hand for a good two seconds before I manage to pull myself up.

A shadow sails over my head onto the rooftop just as I’m rolling to my feet, and I know I’m screwed even before I see Lorenzo there, blocking my way forward.

He’s got his hands up, ready to blast me—probably off the building—and a wicked smile that has about zero room for mercy. I start to brace myself but don’t even get a half a chance before the gust comes, strong like a hurricane, and I feel myself go tumbling backward into oblivion, the world spinning around me as I fall back to the earth.

Joy pervades Anselmo as the Treston boy hits the ground and bounces once, hard. It’s that same kind of pleasure he felt the first time he beat a man to death. That relentless happiness that came from hammering his flesh with fist, listening to the bones break and the hard slap of his knuckles as his victim cried out in pain. There was begging, and it was sweet. Pleading, and it was sweeter still.

The Treston boy hits the ground with a sound like knuckles against tenderized skin, and it is a sweet remembrance for Anselmo. He approaches the fallen form with no trepidation, even as he sees the lad stirring. He reaches in and grabs him around the neck in a chokehold, feeling his forearm lock into place around a soft throat. There is a choking sound, and Anselmo applies pressure, ripping the boy’s feet from underneath him, folding him over with superior strength, pushing him into a ball and dragging him toward the nearest alley.

The streets are filled with activity, with people rushing to and fro. A murder here, in public, might go unsolved simply from so many conflicting witness accounts. On the other hand, although it seems no one is paying attention to too much of anything in the chaos, it is also entirely possible that someone could be wielding one of those cell phone cameras that are now everywhere. Anselmo makes a face, pained and disdainful. The world has changed, and not always for the better. There had been a time when public murder was the easiest thing to get away with.

But this is Rome, not home, and the tourists and politicians find this sort of thing eminently objectionable.

And for now, they still rule the streets.

For a few days more, in any case.

Anselmo drags the Treston boy into the alley. It is dark, the sun hidden behind one of the nearby buildings. Anselmo looks up to see Lorenzo staring down at him, his own sense of satisfaction well in place. “Did I not tell you?” Anselmo calls up to him. “Find a weak point, did I not say?” Anselmo grins. “We have him by the balls now, yes?”

He has Treston. Of that, there is no doubt. His arms are locked around the boy’s neck, and the snap is mere moments away. With that single move, it will be over. He can even see it in Lorenzo’s eyes, the respect. It was always there, of course, but he has proven once more why he is the
Capo
, the one to lead.

The one to lead them all.

He pushes just a little harder, savors the grunt from the boy. Anselmo feels the smile stretching his features as he prepares to snap the boy’s neck once and for all …

I’m screwed. And not in the good way that Dr. Perugini did last night, either, but the way that means my journey ends facedown in an Italian alley, neck at a horribly unwieldy angle. I can feel the man of iron’s lock around my throat, and I know I’m seconds away from feeling the crack that signifies that I’m dead. My hands flail wildly, unable to reach, unable to touch, unable to stop him.

A shadow descends in a flying arc from above as a warning shout fills the air. I feel the weight of something slam into the guy and he grunts. I can’t tell if he’s startled or what, but his grip loosens and I yank my hands down and pour my desperation into a burst of wind that kicks both my shoes off even as it blows me into the air.

I can see Diana propelled alongside me, eyes wide, as I rise upward. We make it to the rooftop and I glance back to see the bastard she just saved me from leaning against the wall, shaking his head with utter fury on his face.

It’s not a good look on him, and I’m possessed of a desire to run.

Diana is already ahead of me as usual, taking off along a gravel rooftop, once again without concern to see if I’m following. I follow, though, and realize after a minute or two that she’s not going as fast this time. She’s letting me keep up. I glance back and see Lorenzo on our trail. No hint of the real threat, though, and I wonder if maybe—just maybe—at a two to one advantage, we might be able to turn the tables on him this round.

Then a knife goes flying past me, propelled by Lorenzo’s gust, missing me by inches, and I decide to keep running.

Diana, though, she stops as she hears the
thunk
. I wonder what she’s up to, looping around a small shed-like structure on the roof we’re traversing. She disappears behind it, and I wonder if she’s about to make another attempt to leave me behind. Bear bait once more, that’s me.

I see her out of the corner of my eye as she swings around to grab the knife that’s buried in a wooden support. She takes hold of it and then meets my eyes, her green ones flaring. “Hit him!” she shouts.

“With what?” I ask, and then realize that’s a dumb question. I turn to see Lorenzo making the leap onto our rooftop. He doesn’t even need a gust to assist. Diana is still moving, heading straight for him.

I summon up a pretty piss-poor gust. Lorenzo sees it coming and tries to counter, but he’s in mid air and doesn’t really have the ability to alter his direction to go anywhere but up or back. He flares a blast of wind at mine, but they basically cancel each other out, and he arcs slightly slower toward the ground.

Diana doesn’t stop running, though. She makes it to the edge of our rooftop just as he’s about ten feet from landing. His arms are still outstretched and pointing at me, trying to fend off my sorry attack. He sees her, but maybe disregards her as a threat.

Big mistake.

She twirls the knife in her fingers like she’s a pro juggler, and then hurls it at him faster than anything I’ve seen thrown. It catches him in the side, just below the ribcage, and he grunts in pain. His gust stops immediately, and I throw the last little remainder of my power at him. It’s not much, but it blows him back about twelve inches.

Which is just enough to cause him to miss the rooftop.

I can hear him land in the alley below. It’s not exactly a pretty sound; something like flesh on cobblestone never is. He screams some, then whimpers, makes a few crying noises. Diana spares a look over the side, but only for a second. She runs back across the rooftop toward me, not even bothering to stop and see if I’m okay. I’m not, by the way. I’m down on one knee, breathing hard from the exertion. I feel like I’ve not only gone ten rounds with a boxer, but I’m more than a little lightheaded.

“Come on!” she says, and I feel like my only choice is to comply. I pick myself up and follow her off the rooftop as she leaps to the next one, still on the run.

Anselmo finds Lorenzo a few alleys over. The landing looks as though it would be painful for the average person, or even the average meta. Anselmo has little ability to empathize, and instead nudges Lorenzo with a toe. It is restraint, though, because his first instinct is to kick the boy, to let his rage flow out in a series of blows that will vent all the irritation he is experiencing at this setback.