guys who helped lure her to the park and the Destructor’s clutches last year. Whatever. Didn’t matter. He’d know how to get in touch with the Destructor.
Again, attitude got her through the bar to the back room. Gazes followed her, sizing her up, judging her, but no one stopped her. She walked with a purpose, and they could see that. They were supposed to assume she belonged there.
The back room held four booths. In one, a couple of bored-looking women—innocuously dressed in jeans and blouses, compared to some of the other outfits in the bar—sat quietly, tracing their fingers through the moisture on filled tumblers. Small groups of two or three people sat at the others, bodies hunched over tables. The volume of voices was lower here, the talk more urgent.
In the farthest table to the right, a blond man, middle-aged, with a weathered face and slicked-back hair, seemed to be lecturing a couple of younger men who sat across from him. He pointed his finger at them, raised his brow, and the men shrank back. Middle-management of the crime world dressing down hired muscle.
Keeping to the wall, Celia made her way to that side of the room. She stared at him until he looked up, and she caught his gaze. Polite at heart, she stood across from his booth, just out of earshot, and waited for him to finish his business.
He waved the two heavies away. They looked her up and down as they passed by, but she ignored them.
She moved to the booth, but didn’t sit down. She wanted to be taller than him; she would have been lost sitting in the big vinyl seat. Her hip touched the table as she turned to him.
“Are you Ares?”
He smiled a wide, fake, cattish smile. “What can I do for you, honey?”
“I want to see the Destructor,” she said.
His smile froze, like he hadn’t heard her or didn’t believe her. “What makes you think I can help you do that?”
“You hire his goons. I need to talk to him. You can pass on the message.”
Finally, the smile fell. He put his elbows on the table. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing. I don’t know what your story is, but you don’t want to mess with that. You look like a sweet kid, so why don’t you just go home?”
“Tell the Destructor his favorite hostage wants to see him.” Her face felt numb, impassive. No expression.
Ares straightened. Celia felt a little surge of pride, because he obviously didn’t know what to do with her. She’d said the right thing. She could handle herself. Let them underestimate her, and she’d walk all over them.
“I’ll pass on the message,” he said finally. “Have a seat. I’ll send over a soda for you.”
“I’ll have a scotch,” she said.
“I don’t think so.” Grinning, he stood up, smoothed his cream-colored jacket, and went through a door at the side of the room.
Sitting in the booth, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could do this. She had to do this.
An hour later, Celia was still there, a glass of soda in front of her, untouched, the ice melting. Ares came through the same side door. She spotted him as soon as it opened.
He put a hand on the table in front of her. “There’s a car waiting for you around back. It’ll take you to him.”
Without a word, she brushed past him and left. She felt his gaze staring after her and had to smile a little. Let him wonder who she was.
The car was a chauffeured Cadillac. The formally dressed driver held the door open for her, closed it behind her, then climbed behind the wheel and pulled out of the alley into the nighttime streets. She settled back against the leather seat. The back windows were tinted to the point of being opaque, preventing her from marking their route.
Too late to back out now. That was okay. This was going to go fine.
Eventually, the car tilted, slanting forward as it traveled down a ramp. They seemed to continue downward for a very long time. For all their efforts, the Olympiad hadn’t found the Destructor’s most recent headquarters. She could go back and tell them: underground. Far underground.
She could never go back.
After parking, the driver let her out into a dimly lit garage-type structure and escorted her through a door. Again, only a few dim lights showed the way. The Destructor either wanted to create as creepy an effect as possible, or save on electricity bills.
He probably pirated his power off the grid anyway.
The corridor ended in a wide doorway. The driver gestured her through, staying behind.
Ahead, an old man sat at a vast mahogany table. It was the only furniture or decoration in a slate-colored room. His hair was thinned to nothing, and he peered through a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. A half-dozen computer monitors sat on the desk at regular intervals. He spent a little time at each of them, in no particular order: he looked at one, tapped a few keys on the single keyboard in front of him, looked at another, typed again.
Studious, a scientist, he was planning his next act of mass chaos.
Her stomach lurched; she swallowed back a surge of nausea. This man had tried to rip her mind apart a year ago. This man cared nothing for her. This man was a monster.
The enemy of her enemy was her friend. If she had a place in the world, this was it. She shrugged her jacket partway off, exposing her shoulders.
“Hi,” she said.
Not looking up, the Destructor said, “It’s the famous Celia West. What do you want?”
She’d practiced this in her mind a hundred times. The way she’d walk, the look in her eyes, calm and cool. She was powerful, in her own way. Step by step, she moved toward him, her heels clicking slowly on the tile floor.
When she got to his table, she half-sat on it, her skirt riding up one thigh. One of the monitors was in the way. She swiveled it aside, so he could see. He looked up.
“I can tell you about the Olympiad. Their headquarters, their computer systems, procedures. Just about anything you want to know.”
“And what do you want?”
“A place here. I want to be a part of this.”
For a long minute, they regarded one another. If she kept her mind a blank, she wouldn’t look away.
He said, “You’re only here to aggravate your parents. While I commend the endeavor, I have no use for you.”
It occurred to her that if she had a knife right now, she could slit his throat. Wouldn’t her parents be shocked and impressed? Except they didn’t kill. Eschewed killing as a crime.
She just couldn’t win.
He added, “The Olympiad has its headquarters in the penthouse of West Plaza. I know the secret identities of every member of the Olympiad—as you know. I’m naturally immune to Mentis’s telepathy. Everything you think you know, I already know.”
The worst that could happen, he’d just kill her. Lock her up, torture her, finish her off. And the thing was, she didn’t care. At least she could say she tried. If this didn’t work, she just didn’t care. She had nothing left.
She couldn’t let him see that. She only showed him blank. Like Arthur would do.
His lips pressed into a tight, unfeeling smile. “On the other hand, keeping you around might prove amusing.”
Set the hook, reel him in. As if she were actually having an impact on him. She’d imagined herself doing this, thinking it would give her some power over him. Imagined how she might possibly win some power for herself in this world, where men flew and women played with fire.
She stalked around the table. It was a long walk, it seemed like. She’d always pictured him in a huge leather executive chair, the kind that dominated a room, massive and luxurious. Like the kind her father had. Instead, he had a simple office chair, flat and dark, with a low back. It didn’t even have wheels. He perched at the edge of it, watching her progress.
When she reached his chair, she put her left hand on his desk, her right on the chair back, just behind his
