Apex (Out of the Box #18)

“She called me Sigourney Weaver,” the woman said, strolling placidly through the lushly appointed office in the old castle.

The man who’d perhaps been most famously known as Vlad watched her, his fingers on his chin as he contemplated this small bit of information. He frowned, studying her. “You do look a little like her, now that you mention it. With your hair like that. You resemble her in Ghostbusters.”

“And you look like hell itself shat you out,” she replied, only a little ire coloring her response.

Vlad smiled. “You have such a way with words.”

She slowly paced toward the window, looking over the city of Bredoccia below. Vlad still remembered when it had been a simple village and not the bustling metropolis it now was, a hub of growing trade for Eastern Europe.

And all that … was because of him.

“She didn’t remember you, then?” he asked, finding his way back to the point.

“It was as you suspected,” she said, staring out the window. “All those memories are gone.”

He coughed, a hoarse one. “Suspected? No. As I commanded when I struck my bargain with Rose.”

She turned slowly to look at him, intense concentration writ upon her face. “You couldn’t know she’d triumph over Rose.”

He coughed again, that lingering ailment troubling him, just as it had lo, these many years. “I didn’t. But you did.” He pointed at her, trying to give her credit for her foresight. “You knew she would win in the end, and that … was enough for me to believe it.”

“She knows about us now.”

“Surely.” He coughed again. “We’ve certainly placed enough difficulties in her path. If she didn’t see it by now, she’d be a fool.”

“She’ll turn her eye in this direction.” She turned back to the window. “And I assure you … she is no fool. Nor is she to be trifled with.”

“I have no trifles in mind for Sienna Nealon,” he said, turning his attention to the open file on his desk. Files. Bureaucracy. If there was a common thread linking the days of old to these new ones, it must surely be the growth of bureaucracy and paperwork. He picked up one of the pictures from the file with interest, staring into the face, intent, furious. It was a still frame capture from Sienna Nealon’s recent battle in Minneapolis, taken from the news coverage. She looked …

Determined.

Dangerous.

Like …

He shook off the thought. “I trust your judgment enough to know that she remains a threat so long as she is out there. But the wheels are in motion, and they cannot be stopped.” He smiled, a dark, malignant expression that had induced fear in so many souls. “She is fated to come to us now, and when she does …” He snapped his fingers. “She will be dealt with.” He coughed. “Sigourney.”

At the window, he could almost hear her rolling her eyes at him. “You ass.”