Confluence (Godbreaker Book 3) Page 20

  Hauten raised his hands, as though to conclude they were at an impasse. “Then I think we’re done here.”

  Perry thumped his index finger irritably on the tabletop, staring at Hauten, and realizing that he’d reached a dead end. No further options to pursue.

  If you only got one road to travel, best to stop bitching and get to stepping.

  Perry leaned forward, grabbed his tumbler and the bottle of whiskey. He poured himself a hefty draft, his eyes locked onto Hauten as he did it. Perhaps it was a petty move, but Perry didn’t care. He was gonna get something out of this, even if it was just a nice buzz.

  He drank the whiskey down in two burning gulps, then slammed the tumbler down. Then, feeling that his point had not quite been made, he stood and grabbed the bottle. “I’m taking this. And I’d like to see you stop me.”

  Hauten did not stop him. He looked amused by it. Frankly, he was probably just glad that Perry was on his way out.

  Perry turned away, burning defeat settling over him like an itchy wool blanket that’s spent too many hours in front of a fire. He stopped before he reached the door and looked back at Hauten. “And where will you go? Should I need to find you in the future?”

  Hauten pursed his lips, apparently considering whether he wanted Perry to have that information. But then he shrugged. Waved a hand. “North of here. The old mining operation. You remember it?”

  Perry had never been there personally—a fact which Hauten may have forgotten—but he recalled Hauten speaking of it, and he knew where it was. He just hoped that Hauten wasn’t feeding him a line of bullshit.

  He nodded to Hauten, and left him behind.

  ***

  Outside, though not exactly cool, was still a relief from the hot press of bodies and candles and torches. The smell wasn’t an improvement—Perry would take body odor over shit any day—but Perry took a big breath of the air anyways, as though to purge himself.

  The woman that had led him over to The Thirsty Ox was gone. By some unspoken agreement, it seemed that most others in the Red Quarter had begun to congeal into their places of sleep. A few still meandered about, but there was still a sense of stillness.

  Or perhaps it was his sense of loss.

  What the hell was he going to do now?

  His irritation with Hauten had carried him through the worst of the disappointment and suppressed anxieties, but as he worked his way through the Red Quarter, back to the building where he’d hidden his longstaff, the irritation vanished—well, mostly vanished—and it all began to creep in on him again.

  Maybe humanity deserved to die. Bunch of quarrelsome sonsabitches. Self-centered. Violent. Domineering. Uncaring. Ruthless. Shortsighted. A brood of toddlers slinging mud at each other, consumed with their little patch of filth—No! This is my mud puddle!

  Could they not see the bigger issue here? Was no one capable of zooming out of the cloistered little huddle of their lives and seeing how dependent they were on each other, how their only strength lay in their ability to work together? Gods, but they could do things if they put their mind to it. It was just getting them there that was the problem.

  And Perry was clearly not a good messenger. So far, only Mordicus had been willing to listen, and him only just barely. He just wanted what Perry could provide. Or, more accurately, what Hauten could provide. Perry doubted his cooperation would continue after he found out that Perry had failed.

  So was Perry really back at square one?

  “Was Hauten not willing to listen?” came a voice from an alley, just as Perry passed it.

  In his mind, he immediately ascribed the voice to the face of the woman that had taken him to The Thirsty Ox. He stopped, prepared a retort full of his customary snark—he was in no mood to restrain his lesser nature.

  He turned to the alley, realizing at the last second that his ears were humming.

  And found himself looking at the woman with the red hair.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE WOMAN WITH THE RED HAIR

  “You!” Perry took a step towards her.

  And then she rocketed into the air.

  A tiniest glimpse of her face as his eyes followed her up—calm, a sly smile on her lips.

  She’s a demigod, Perry suddenly decided for sure, his heart erupting back into full throttle as he watched her alight on the edge of the roof, just above him. Because how else could she have flown?

  Except…

  She was looking down at him. Still with that calm smile on her face. Almost challenging him. Can you catch me?

  Before Perry could really decide whether that was a wise thing to do with a stranger that possessed Confluence, Perry jumped, his shield bursting around him, and he pulsed, flying upward.

  In the single second of flight it took him to reach the top of the building, the woman had turned and leapt again—an inhuman leap that carried her clean across two buildings. Perry landed right where she’d been standing, albeit with less grace. He tottered on the edge, got his balance back with a few panicked waves of his arms, then jumped again.

  “Hey!” he shouted, in midair, as he caught sight of her, just the flash of red hair amongst the dark clothing she wore that blended into the dark city around them. “Stop!”

  Predictably, she didn’t stop. She worked a course, flying outward toward the edges of Junction City, effortlessly bounding between buildings like a child might jump from rock to rock to cross a stream.

  Perry was aware that he was being led away from his longstaff, and all the bad things that it foretold. He was on the verge of giving up the pursuit for the sole purpose of not wanting to be led away from his only real weapon, when the woman reversed course, shooting past him.

  The sudden change in direction was not something he was prepared to handle. Agility in his “flying” was not something he’d learned just yet. Flailing about in an attempt to follow her, he ended up slamming his shield into the side of a building. Concrete exploded in a molten burst around him.

  He swore. Righted himself. He was buried a yard into the side of the building. Someone was screaming about it, but the room was too dark to see them. Perry mumbled an apology at them and extinguished his shield, tried to scramble back out of the hole he’d created, but found the crisply-burned edges too hot to touch.

  So he leaped, as though trying to swan dive to his death. Then twisted his body in midair and pulsed himself back up to safety.

  As he arced up again, he shot his gaze about and found the woman again.

  There. Just a few buildings, dead ahead of him.

  Another pulse, and a few haphazard maneuvers, and he was flying towards her.

  He tried to ready himself for another sudden course change, but the woman simply stood there on the top of a building, watching him descend to her.

  A small pulse, and then his feet hit the ground.

  Both of them, standing a few yards from each other, still as statues. Perry with a serious look of concern etched across his face; the woman with that same bemused smirk.

  It was only after a few slams of his heart that he realized which roof they were standing on. His eyes swept to the side, saw the power inverter, and the glimmer of his longstaff laying amongst its components.

  He started towards it.

  The longstaff shot out of its hiding spot as though yanked by an invisible wire, and the next thing he knew it was in the hands of the woman.

  Perry halted, hands up, shield up.

  And that was when it hit him.

  When he’d first seen her jump and had rapidly concluded she must be a demigod, something had stuck out to him, but in the hectic attempt to chase her, it hadn’t come forward to his conscious mind. Now it hit him like a bullet to the brain.

  I never saw a shield.

  Even now as she stood there, she had no shield around her, as Perry did. He searched the air that encapsulated her, wondering if it was just a shield that was hard to see, but there was nothing. Just regular old air.

  “Alrigh
t,” Perry seethed. “That’s enough of that bullshit.”

  “I agree,” the woman said, lighthearted. “Here. Catch.”

  The longstaff flew at his face. She hadn’t thrown it. It seemed to move of its own volition.

  Perry extinguished his shield—a microsecond of thought: Lowering your shield is a trap!—and caught it in both hands. It stung his palms and rocked him back a single step. Gods, but she’d thrown it hard!

  He immediately leveled the longstaff at the strange woman and reactivated his shield. He should have felt better. Should have felt more in control, now that he was armed and shielded. But the very fact that she’d given him the longstaff—and flown without a shield, apparently—made him feel like he was not as in control of the situation as it might seem.

  And the woman seemed to agree with that unspoken sentiment. She stood there in a relaxed posture, not appearing to care one whit that Perry had a longstaff leveled at her.

  Perry did a quick sweep to either side, checking his blind spots for additional attackers. That would have made sense—she was relaxed because she had a squad of goons ready to take him down. But no one else was on the rooftop with them.

  Back to her.

  “What is this?” he demanded. “Why do you keep showing up? What is it that you want?”

  The woman rolled her eyes good-humoredly. “Not even a thanks?”

  “Thanks for what?”

  “For saving your life in Karapalida.”

  He frowned, his mouth opening for a retort—that was the old man that had warned them, not…

  The thought died in its infancy. Something bigger took its place. Something harder to believe, and yet…truer.

  “That’s…” he struggled to find the right words.

  “Impossible?” the woman asked him. “Which part?”

  “The old man.”

  “Yes?” the voice changed.

  Perry blinked, fearing he’d truly lost his mind. Because it was no longer the woman standing across from him, but—as Stuber had dubbed him—“the magical hobo.”

  In the time it took for Perry to register what he was looking at, the old man was gone again, and the woman stood there, smiling at him with a glimmer in her eyes like a person that held all the good cards and has just lured you into betting all your money.

  Perry had the urge to rub his eyes, but couldn’t bear the thought of having them closed for any longer than necessary. Had he actually seen that? Was this some sort of weird mental witchcraft that she’d worked on him?

  “The hell was that?” Perry said, a little breathlessly.

  “It was me,” she said, moving for the first time, just a slight shift in her balance, which brought about an overreaction of tension on Perry’s part. This only made her smile wider at him. “I was the one that told you the crowds were gathering to attack you in Karapalida.”

  Silence.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “So…?”

  “So?”

  She cast her gaze skyward, as though ever-patient.

  Perry swallowed against a dry throat. “Uh…thanks?”

  She appeared satisfied. “You’re welcome.”

  “What?” He wanted to take a step toward her, but felt like his feet were rooted. “Is that all this is about? You just wanted me to thank you?”

  “No, not at all.” She folded her hands in front of her. “Do you want to know what it is that I want?”

  “Yes. That is pretty much what I just asked.”

  “Fair enough.” A step towards him. A lift of the chin. “I want you to take responsibility.”

  “Take…” Perry goggled at her, completely lost. “Take what? Responsibility? For what? Stop being so godsdamned mysterious and just speak normally to me!”

  “Aw.” She pouted her lip. “Is the little peon runt incapable of zooming out and seeing the big picture?”

  Perry’s jaw dropped. Then snapped shut. “Nope. This is bullshit. There was something in the whiskey. Godsdamn Hauten, I should’ve known he’d try to drug me.”

  She laughed at him. A pleasant sound, like the tinkling of wind chimes. She strode casually towards him, stopping just a pace away, the shield humming mutely between them, and she extended her hand.

  Perry stared at it. Then at her. “The hell am I supposed to do with that?”

  “Go ahead. Touch me. See that I’m real.”

  “Nope.” He shook his head violently. “You’re gonna pull some weird shit. Scramble my brains or something.”

  “Ah, so you do think I’m real? If you really thought I was a figment of your imagination, then what harm would there be in touching me?”

  “You’re right then. I don’t think you’re a figment of my imagination. You’re real. But I’m still not going to touch you.”

  “Suit yourself,” she sighed, lowering her hand. “At least we’re on the same page, then. We’ve agreed that I am indeed real. Any other existential crises we need to get out of the way?”

  “Who and what are you?”

  She pursed her lips and squinted skyward, as though trying to recall something. “Let’s see…Jaira. Yvette. Persimmon—don’t ask. Ara. Niva. And once, I was called Madame S, by a band of thieves. The S stood for Scary, I believe.” She looked at him, quirking her eyebrow. “Do any of those strike your fancy? But not Ara. I forbid you to use that one…for sentimental reasons.”

  Perry picked his mental way through the list of names, none of which answered the real question of who this person was—only what they were called. “So, you’ve been a lot of places. People that have lots of names usually have gotten around a bit.”

  She looked briefly wistful. “Oh, have I. And yes. That tends to happen, doesn’t it? You yourself have several names. Percival. Percy. Perry.” A glimmer of amusement. “Shortstack?”

  Perry chose to ignore the dangled bait of how she knew all that about him. “So you’re a woman.”

  He was pleased to see a slight crinkling of confusion on her otherwise flawless brow—barely a wrinkle on her skin, he noted. How old was she? She didn’t look old enough to have the kind of mileage she was claiming.

  “They all sounded like female names,” Perry continued. “So, I mean, really you’re a woman. Not an old man. Right?”

  She smiled. “I am many different things, Perry. But for simplicity’s sake…yes. You can think of me as a female.”

  Another dodgy answer.

  “How old are you?” Perry asked, eyes searching her face again. “Twenty? Twenty-five on the outside? And you claim to have been so many places? Must’ve been quite an upbringing.”

  She laughed heartily, as though he’d said something truly hilarious. Like an inside joke with herself. After the laughter died down, she wiped a tear from her eye. “Yes. I’ve been many places.”

  “Alright. You’re fucking with me and I don’t like it.”

  “Nor do I, actually.” Her face grew serious. “But this isn’t exactly the place for, shall we say, a full reveal. And without that, I have the feeling you won’t believe anything I have to say.”

  “Try me.”

  “Oh, Perry. I’ve been watching you all your life. I know more about how your mind works than you might think.”

  Perry couldn’t help the sarcastic twist in his face. “You’ve been watching me all my life? You’re maybe the same age as me. You must’ve been a very bright infant.”

  “So you don’t believe me?”

  “I think you’re crazy.”

  “Exactly.”

  Perry frowned, realizing that he’d proven her point for her. And she knew it too. He shook his head vigorously. “Just…stop. You still haven’t told me what you are.”

  “If you had eyes to see and ears to hear, you’d realize that I have.” She paused, as though hearing something inside her own head. Which didn’t exactly help his impression that she was a few bullets short of a full mag. “There’s a mountain to the east of here. It rises up out of the wastelands like it’s got no business being ther
e. Do you know it?”

  Snaggle-Tooth Mountain. He was familiar. It was less of a mountain and more of just a giant piece of rock that had, through some unknown monumental forces eons ago, jutted up out of the desert.

  “Yeah. I know it.”

  “That is where I’m going. To the top of that mountain. And that is the place where I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  Perry was about to object on the basis that no one had ever been to the top of that mountain, as it was sheer, vertical cliff-faces all around. But then he remembered that she could fly. And so could he.

  But he still didn’t trust her. Wasn’t about to follow her out into the middle of nowhere, to a lonely mountain top, where she’d…do bad things to him. He had no idea what they might be, but he knew he didn’t want to find out, and he couldn’t get rid of the nagging feeling that she was dangerous.

  Hell, she’d flown without a shield.

  Could she shoot energy without a longstaff?

  He was in over his head, for sure. And there was no way he was going to let her dictate a place to him. Apparently she had reservations about “fully revealing” herself in Junction City, which Perry hoped to mean that she wouldn’t blow him to smithereens, as long as there were other people around.

  “That’s not gonna happen.”

  She seemed to have expected that answer. She tilted her head to one side. “You’re not the least bit curious?”

  “Oh, I’m very curious. But I’m also not stupid.”

  “No, I suppose you’re not. I can’t really blame you. But you’re on the cusp of extinction, Perry. The entire human race is.” She folded her hands—small, prim, clean—at her waist. “You’re trying to help, but you don’t know how. You’re doing what you think is your best, but it’s not. You could do so much more.”

  Despite himself, those words got into his head. He found himself lowering his guard—but not his shield—and the longstaff drooped in his hands.

  “Tell me,” he said earnestly. “Just tell me what I have to do.”