Limitless (9 page)

She made me feel like a horse eating from a trough by comparison.

“Sorry,” I said, slowing down. “It’s just been a little while since I’ve eaten. And this is… very good.” I dabbed my mouth with my napkin and found a lot more layering my lips than lipstick. Which I never wore.

“I’m glad you like it, dear,” she said with a gentle smile. She took another impossibly small bite and took five minutes to chew it. If I ate like she did, I’d never have time to work. “So, what brings you over here from the U.S.?”

“She’s investigating a series of murders with me,” Webster said. He caught my frown at answering for me and blushed. “Sorry.”

“Well, that’s a bit frightening,” Marjorie said. “I don’t care for that work Matthew does, but I suppose someone has to keep us safe.” Lines creased her face, making her look older.

I could smell the Lancashire hotpot, the delicious scent of the onions still making my mouth water two servings later. “At least he’s good at his job.”

“That’s very true,” Marjorie said and put down her fork to stroke Webster’s arm. He grunted in acknowledgment. Personally, I wouldn’t have been able to spare the seconds of putting down the fork, but Marjorie was clearly very different than myself. “What exactly is this dreadful murdering that you’re looking into, dear?”

I waited to see if Webster would answer for me, but a shared glance told me he’d learned his lesson. “A metahuman was killed,” I said, waiting to see what her reaction would be. “And another one kidnapped.”

“Oh, heavens, that is dreadful,” Marjorie said, shaking her head. She stared a bit closer at me, and I waited for it. Waited. “Oh!” she said at last, and it sounded a little joyful. “It’s you, you’re her!”

“I’m her,” I said. She’d taken longer than most people to recognize me.

She reached over and slapped Webster’s arm, causing him to look up in surprise. “We have a veritable celebrity in the house, Matthew! And you didn’t even think to make mention that you were coming over! I don’t even know why you have one of those mobile phones if you won’t even use it to tell your mother you’re bringing over such a famous guest…”

Webster, for his part, looked suitably chastened. His eyebrows arched downward, and his fork paused in its ascent to his mouth. He’d eaten maybe—maybe—a quarter of the enormous portion his mother had dished out for him. I’ll admit, I was eyeing it like a hungry dog. Or like I imagine a hungry dog would look at it, if that dog had a taste for Lancashire hotpot. Because of the change in time zones, I didn’t even know what time it was when I’d last eaten, so it was totally justifiable, right?

Marjorie made an exasperated noise and got up from the table. She went straight to the freezer and began to rummage through it. “Famous company come all the way from America to my house, and I don’t even have a decent dessert to put on the table… Matthew, if your guest wasn’t here, I’d give you a right piece of my mind…”

He looked a little disquieted at that.

Me? I was thinking about dessert.

Chapter 18

To Philip’s eyes, the flat he was looking into was not all that different from his last. A bit more posh, perhaps. A bit more upmarket than Philip’s had been, before he left it in favor of the warehouse. But it was clearly a place of refinement, in a higher-class neighborhood. As he entered the building with Liliana at his side, he made note of the lobby, of how it looked. Plush red carpeting that the feet sunk into.

Yes, it was truly a lovely place. A place where he might have wanted to live after this was all over.

But what they were about to do was going to make that well nigh impossible, unfortunately.

Besides, he’d have enough dosh to afford something better once this was finished, anyway.

The man behind the security station just inside looked up from his desk as Philip and Liliana made their way toward him. There were only a very few probabilities floating around for how this would go, and they narrowed all the way up until he rose from his seat to greet them and presumably ask who they were here to see—

Then Liliana produced a knife with a flick of her wrist and ripped the poor bastard’s throat out with a hard slash.

Philip knew which direction the blood would spatter and sidestepped it at the last moment. Liliana was always considerate and very seldom messy when she didn’t want to be, but the guard’s movements didn’t exactly help her. The guard clutched at his throat and made a wheezing, gasping, sick sort of noise as he fell back behind the desk. Philip counted the seconds until he was sure the man had expired.

No more future for that one.

He started moving again, and Liliana followed him. Philip paused for a moment and shouldered his way into a nondescript door just beyond the elevator banks. It contained a half dozen surveillance monitors, cameras showing a dozen hallways. It also provided a wonderful view of the guard, still making his final twitching motions in the lobby.

Philip pressed a button with his knuckle and a CD ejected with a whirring noise.

“Is that it?” Liliana asked.

Philip concentrated for just a moment. “That’s it. No backup recording, nothing to catch these lovely images.” He made a vague wave toward the monitors and paused on the image of the desk guard, now still. “Without this, it’s quite dead.”

Liliana almost smiled at the subtle joke. “Fifth floor.”

They rode the lift in silence. No music played, thankfully; low-key Muzak was not exactly Philip’s cup of tea. At the fifth floor, they exited. He stopped her just before the fourth door, gently backing her toward the wall of the hallway. He feigned kissing her, pressing her head back, turning his face so that he could not be seen. He heard the faint sound of a door opening, then closing. Footsteps traced their way toward them, and he heard a cough. The footsteps receded toward the elevator, and when he heard the ding, he gently put an arm on her elbow and tugged her away so that they man who’d passed by them had no chance to look at their faces.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t apologize,” she said in that cold tone, “you know what needs to be done. I am at your disposal.”

He felt a slight thrill at her words. Not because they hinted at something suggestive—he knew they didn’t—but because the simple command of such a chilling instrument as Liliana Negrescu was a heady thought for him. This was power, real power, and to be able to wield her body, her skill, her very life the way that bitch Sienna Nealon might pull a gun, well… that was more than some American whose instinct was to shoot first would ever understand.

“What’s his name?” Philip asked as they reached the door. It was a wood-frame, solid panel, nicely carved. It suited the building, that was for certain.

“Dmitriy Alkaev,” she said, and he caught a hint of that joy in her voice. Deep within. “He’s Chief of Station—head of the spies for the Russians in London. Works in the embassy.”

“Well, then,” Philip said with a smile, “this should start a bit of a diplomatic incident.”

“It will start more than that,” Liliana said with that chilling joy as she kicked in the door.

Philip waited for her to enter, and by the time she had, he already had a sense of Dmitriy Alkaev. It only took seconds for Liliana to cross the main room and reach Alkaev, where he rested in a leather chaise, a bottle of vodka by his side. “A drunken Russian,” Philip said as he entered the room. “What a terrible stereotype to perpetuate.” He kept his hands clasped behind him.

“What… is this?” Alkaev said in a heavy accent. Liliana had him by the throat, gripped tight, fingers already pressing heavily into his neck. He tried to speak again, but his words were cut off by the pressure.

“This is a slaughter,” Philip said, pacing to the edge of the room. The room was plain, far from ornately decorated. In fact, in spite of it being a fine flat in a fine building, one might have assumed that this man was poverty-stricken by the state of his possessions. Philip glanced around. Not a single book. Not a hint of culture. No paintings. His eyes fell on two posters of nude women hung in the far room. They weren’t exactly Botticellis; they looked more like a pair of Page 3 girls. He sniffed his nose at the affront to good taste. “Liliana, you will have to let him breathe at some point.”

“He can breathe through his nose,” she said simply.

“Very well, then,” Philip said and picked up a dress shirt that was hung, wrinkled, upon the back of a chair in the dining room. Philip took another brief glance at the nude pictures on the wall and shook his head. He pinched the shirt between his fingers and handed it to Liliana, placing it in her gloved hand.

She crumpled the shirt, smashing it into a ball less that the size of her fist. She did this while Alkaev watched, horrified, unspeaking, a low squealing noise coming out of his mouth.

Philip made his way back to the door, lifting it off the ground and settling it into the frame. It leaned slightly off-kilter but rested in place. “That should keep the prying eyes out,” he said, leaning against it. He turned in time to see Liliana stuff the shirt—compressed by her strength into a ball—into Alkaev’s open mouth. Philip did not know this Alkaev, had not heard of him before today, but he knew one thing for bloody certain: Dmitriy Alkaev had angered Liliana Negrescu at some point in the past.

And Philip would not have cared to trade places with him for all the vodka in Russia.

The torture began, as it always did, at the point of a knife. Alkaev cried and whimpered and begged, each in turn, each sound suppressed by the makeshift gag. The television blared, deafening Philip as he stood there, back against the door, watching Liliana drag Alkaev around the apartment as she did her work. It was a thing of beauty, really.

“Just like the others, yes?” Liliana asked as she played with her new toy.

“Well… perhaps with one slight difference,” Philip said with a smile. “To keep things interesting.”

An impressively brutal hour later, she was done.

And so was Dmitriy Alkaev.

Chapter 19

I felt full to bursting, splayed out on the sitting room couch with Marjorie Webster across from me. She was staring at me intently, and I felt a little uncomfortable. Not just from all I had eaten, but also because… well… I was uncomfortable being stared at.

“What was it like, dear?” she asked, finally getting around to asking what I suspected she’d wanted to all along. Webster was upstairs, sorting out the spare bedroom with new sheets at her request. I got the feeling that those bedroom sheets were probably as clean as could be and hadn’t been slept in since the last time she’d changed them, but Ms. Webster commanded, and her son grudgingly went up to do as he was told.

“What was what like?” I asked. I suspected I knew what she was getting at, but it never hurt to narrow things down.

“Saving the world,” she said quietly.

I forced a smile. “Not everyone believes I did.”

“That’s rubbish, that is,” she said, a rock-hard certainty underlying her words. “I don’t care what any flat-earther thinks. The world changed on us. People still argue that no man has walked on the moon. I don’t pay much attention to them, either.” She leaned forward, hands resting on her knees. “So, what was it like?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “Scary. Exhilarating. Gut-clenchingly frightening.”

She gave me a slow nod. “I can imagine a few of those feelings went right together.”

“I was afraid at the time that I was going to be outed and thrown in jail,” I said. “Or turned into some kind of scapegoat or freak show.”

“But you weren’t,” she said. “They called you a hero. The President gave you a medal.”

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “But… it didn’t look like that was what was going to happen at the time. And Sovereign…” I shook my head. I was so over talking about that dipshit. “He was a real piece of work.”

She gave me a curt nod and averted her eyes. “And your young man?” She looked up, and I caught a hint of slyness. “That blond fellow who helped walk you out of your house afterwards?”

“How did you know he was my…” I saw a spark of laughter behind those eyes, and I knew I’d been had. “He’s not my boyfriend anymore,” I said simply.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, dear,” Ms. Webster said, and I caught genuine regret in the way she said it. “Sometimes it works out for the best, though. And you’re so young! It’s better to be unfettered when you’re that age. I’m sure he’ll treasure the memories of your time together, though.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, feeling a slithering sense of guilt crawl up from my stomach.

“Oh, it ended that badly, did it?” She seemed more regretful for asking about it than anything.

“Well, it didn’t end well,” I said. “But… I’m sure he doesn’t remember me at all anymore. Not that way.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “A fine-looking lass like you would be impossible to forget.”

“No.” I felt the color drain from my face. “Not impossible.”

Not for someone who could remove memories.

“What was the problem, dear?” she asked, jolting me out of my trance. “I had more than a few dust-ups with Matthew’s father, God rest his soul, but we always managed to work it out in the end—”

“It was work,” I said, cutting her off. Why was I telling her this? I hadn’t told anyone this. My brother was good enough to keep his mouth shut after Scott had left the Agency, at least about my love life. “I work a lot,” I said, answering her inquiring gaze.

“Work is important,” she said, and I got the feeling she was choosing her words carefully to avoid tripping over them.

“I agree,” I said.

“So what was the problem?”

“He… didn’t always want to be competing with my job,” I said. I smoothed the wrinkled leg of my pants.

Marjorie’s gaze pierced deep, and her eyes did not move off me. “But it’s more than a job to you, isn’t it, dear?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling it. “Yes, it is. It’s everything I have.”

“Surely you must have friends?” This with just a hint of concern.

“I did,” I said, smoothing that pant leg again. Was that a crease or a wrinkle? “But they all moved on to other things.” I felt a bitter taste in my mouth. “They all have lives.”