She swore, doubling back.
She hadn’t been that far behind.
Where could he have gone?
He wasn’t on the main road, which meant he’d slipped down a side street. June checked one, and then another, and she was at the mouth of the third when she caught sight of him, his back to her, doubled over and clutching at the wall. She started toward him, shifting into a middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair, innocuous, forgettable, and was just about to call out, ask if he was all right, when Victor collapsed.
As he did, the air around him rippled, and a second later, something slammed into June with all the force of a truck. If a truck were made of current instead of steel.
June was thrown backward, her latest shape sloughing away by the time she hit the pavement. Had she been anyone else, the force would have killed her.
As it was, she felt it. Not the blast itself, but the back of her head where it hit the ground. Pain cut a shallow line across her scalp, and June sat up, rubbing her head. Her fingers came away dotted with red, and her breath caught, not at the sight of the blood, but the arm, familiar pale skin dotted with freckles.
She was herself. Vulnerable. Exposed.
“Fuck.” June staggered to her feet, swapping out the body—her body—for another, shuddering with relief as the pain was erased along with every other trace of her true form.
And then she remembered Victor.
He was slumped, motionless, against the alley wall. His head lolled against his chest.
He’s sick, Sydney had said. I made him sick.
But the body on the ground wasn’t just sick. It was dead. No pulse, no color, no signs of life.
Amazing—after all the time June had spent persuading herself not to kill him, he’d gone and died anyway.
At least, she thought he was dead. He certainly looked dead.
Cautiously, June moved toward the body.
She crouched, and touched his shoulder, and as she did, something leapt through her fingers, flickered through her mind. Memories. Not all of them, not even a handful, only one. A lab. A redhead. A current. A scream. It moved through her like static shock, a single glimpse, brief, and impossible, bright, and then gone.
June recoiled, shaking out her hand, and then she drew her gun and brought the barrel to rest against the man’s forehead. Whether or not he was really dead, she could make it stick. He’d made it so easy. Maybe fate was shining on June after all.
She thumbed off the safety, let her finger come to rest against the trigger.
And then stopped.
June could think of a dozen reasons to make sure Victor was dead, and only one to stay her hand.
Sydney.
This was the one thing Sydney would never forgive, if she found out. Besides, June didn’t want to steal the girl this way. Wanted to win her, fair and square. She’d told Sydney once that people should choose their family, and she’d meant it.
June wanted Sydney to choose her.
So she lowered the gun. Was just sliding the weapon back into her coat when suddenly, impossibly, Victor moved.
June nearly jumped out of her skin.
Few things caught her by surprise these days, but the sight of Victor Vale, shuddering back to life, was enough to give her a fright. His fingers twitched, a small current running visibly over his skin, and then his chest inflated as he drew a deep breath, and opened his eyes, and looked up.
“Oh, Christ,” said June, one hand to her racing heart. “I thought you were dead!”
For a moment, Victor stared at her with the blank gaze of the very drunk, or the hopelessly lost. And then, quick as a spark, the light went on behind his eyes.
If he was surprised to find himself sitting on the ground, it didn’t show.
He started to say something, and then stopped, and drew a small black object from between his teeth. A mouth guard. June realized that whatever had happened just now, it wasn’t the first time.
Victor was looking at June now, his gaze cold and clear.
“Do I know you?” he asked, and there was no thickness in his voice, no disorientation, only study.
“Don’t think so,” said June, talking as fast as she could think, relieved she’d shifted into another disarming body, the black-haired girl she’d used in Hutch’s office. “I was just walking past and saw you lying on the ground. Should I call an ambulance?”
“No,” said Victor quietly, rising to his feet.
“No offense, sir, but you didn’t look too well a moment ago.”
“I have a condition.”
Bullshit, thought June. Seizures were a condition. What she’d seen just now was death.
“I’m fine now,” he insisted.
That bit seemed true. Whatever had come over Victor, it was already gone. The man who stood before her now was the picture of control. He turned, heading back toward the street.
June had a clear shot at the back of his head, but she also had the strange certainty that if she went for her gun now, she’d never get the shot off.
The air was humming with power, and none of it was hers. So June’s hand stayed at her side as she watched Victor go, swearing inwardly.
She should have killed him when she had the chance.
XXI
ONE WEEK AGO
DOWNTOWN WHITTON
SYDNEY Clarke was getting stronger.
She’d resurrected three more birds since the first, each feat performed using fewer and fewer pieces.
She was just setting her latest victory free when she heard the front door close.
Victor was home.
She hadn’t told him yet, about the successes—she knew he’d be proud, wanted to see that pride turned toward her—but she didn’t want to jinx them, didn’t want him to look at her and glimpse the motive behind her progress, the reason for her intensity.
Victor was too good at seeing through things.
Sydney shut the window and started toward the bedroom door, but halfway there, she felt her steps slow, something catch in her throat.
The two voices beyond were muffled, but distinct.
Victor’s, low and steady. “He was incompatible.”
Mitch’s halting reply. “That was the last one.”
Something pitched inside Sydney’s chest.
The last one.
She pressed a hand against her sternum, as if trying to stop its fall. She realized what it was as it slipped between her fingers. Hope.
“I see.” That was all Victor said.
As if it were a mild setback and not a death knell.
Sydney’s head came to rest against the bedroom door, her most recent victory forgotten. She waited until the space beyond was quiet. And then she stepped out into the hall.
The door to Victor’s room was closed, and Mitch was a dark shape out on the patio, his head bowed, his elbows resting on the rail.
In the kitchen, a piece of paper sat crumpled on top of the trash. Sydney drew it out, smoothed it on the counter.
It was Victor’s last EO profile.
His last lead.
The page had been reduced to a wall of black lines, interrupted only by five letters, scattered across the page.
F I X M E.
Sydney held her breath. Behind her eyes, the surface of a lake cracked under Victor’s feet.
XXII
ONE WEEK AGO
DOWNTOWN MERIT
BY the end of the first week, Stell knew he’d made a terrible mistake.
He knew it when he saw the sinkhole on Broadway. Knew it when he was called to the collapsed building on Ninth. And he certainly knew it when he stepped into the ballroom at the Continental.
He moved through the vast space, a hazard mask cinched over his nose and mouth. The ballroom was high-ceilinged and ornate, a popular place for business execs and powerful families alike to throw parties. Stell assumed that was what had been happening the night before. After all, the tables were still laid out, the gossamer and ribbons still drew ghostly lines through the air.
Only the people were missing.
No, not missing. A fine patina of ash covered every surface. It was all that was left of the forty-one guests in the Continental’s evening register.
Needless to say, the scene had tripped the Merit PD’s strange shit alarm.
Stell had seen enough—he retreated into the hall, pulling the mask from his face as he dialed.
Two rings later, Marcella’s smooth voice answered. “Hello, Joseph.”
“Do you want to tell me,” hissed Stell, “what I’m looking at right now?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” he snapped. “I’m standing outside a ballroom at the Continental. It looks like a fucking snowstorm in there.”
“How peculiar.”
“What part of lying low did you not understand?”
“Well,” she said coyly, “I didn’t sign my name in the ashes.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are making it very hard to look the other way.”
“Crime has gone down, as promised.”
“No,” said Stell, “it’s simply been consolidated.” He lowered his voice as he paced the hall. “Tell me you have something to show me, besides this gross display. Preferably something related to the subject of our mutual interest.”
Marcella sighed. “You really do take the fun out of things. I thought we could have lunch to celebrate, but since you’re obviously busy, I’ll go ahead and tell you now. I found your EO killer.”
Stell stiffened. “Is he with you now?”
“No,” said Marcella. “But don’t worry. A deal’s a deal. And I still have a week.”