Vengeful

“I’ve heard a little about your talent, but I’d love to know more.” She reached out and brought her fingers to rest against his arm. It was such a simple gesture, almost kind, right up until her palm flared red. The shine flashed along his skin, and she pulled back, considering her hand. “Hm,” she said, as if she hadn’t just tried to ruin him. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t do anything,” said Jonathan bitterly. “It just happens. Someone tries to hurt me—hell, I try to hurt myself—and it’s there. Shielding me.”

“Well, bully for you,” said June, leaning back on the counter.

Marcella made a small, displeased hum. “I don’t see how that helps me.”

Jonathan stared into his glass. “I can share it.”

Marcella’s blue eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

Jonathan shook his head. This was how the shine mocked him. How he knew it wasn’t a gift at all, but a curse, a shallow cut, not deep enough to kill, but more than enough to hurt. He’d just wanted to protect Claire, and he’d failed. Now, when he finally could, it was too late. She was already gone.

“Jonathan,” pressed Marcella.

“I can shield someone else,” he admitted, “so long as I can see them.”

“Mr. Royce.” Her voice was warm and sleek and laced with smoke.

The brunette hopped up on a stool. “Johnny boy,” she said, and there was something about her accent, familiar, as if they’d met before, but he was sure he’d never seen her face.

“If Caprese sent you . . .” he muttered.

“Caprese,” said the dark-haired woman, turning the name over in her mouth. “He’s the one that killed your wife, right?”

Jonathan said nothing.

“And yet,” she continued, “Jack Caprese is still alive. Flourishing, I’ve heard. While you’re here in this shithole of a club, wasting away.”

“Oy,” chirped the other woman. “I like this place.”

“Who are you?” asked Jonathan.

“June,” said the brunette.

“Marcella,” said the black-haired beauty. “But when it comes to people like us, the real question isn’t who, is it? It’s what.”

The woman pressed a single gold nail against the bar and, as Jonathan watched, her finger glowed red, and the wood beneath began to warp and rot, wearing a hole straight through. The brunette—June—slid a coaster over the damage, only she wasn’t the brunette anymore. She was Chris, the Palisades bartender, even though Chris was still on the other side of the counter, back turned while he polished a highball glass. By the time he turned back, so had she.

Jonathan’s mouth went dry.

They had powers, like his shine. But the shine was a gift. The shine was a curse. The shine was his. There weren’t supposed to be others with him, here in this hell.

“What do you want?” he asked, voice barely a whisper.

“That,” said the beautiful woman, “is what I was just about to ask you.”

Jonathan stared down into his club soda. He wanted his life back. But he had no life, not anymore. He wanted death, but he’d been deprived of that, too.

That night, after Caprese’s men were all dead, and Jonathan wasn’t, when the room was silent and dark and the world was empty, he had put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, and that should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t, because the shine was there again, like it or not, and that made him think of Claire, and how pissed she’d be, him throwing away a second shot. And thinking of Claire made him want to get high again, to float out to sea.

But the shine wouldn’t let him.

Jonathan had told himself that he wouldn’t try again.

He wouldn’t let her down.

But it was like a whole new kind of drug, using that shine. A fearsome reminder that he was still alive.

I said, give me your fucking money.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll fucking shoot you.”

Jonathan tipped his head back, looked at the sky. “So shoot.”

Half the time, they didn’t have the balls to fire. This one did. Not that it made any difference. The gun went off and the air glinted around Jonathan, like flint striking stone, that shine, like Claire’s arms around him, telling him it wasn’t his time, wasn’t his turn. The bullet ricocheted, flung into the dark.

“The fuck?” said the kid.

“Quit while you’re ahead,” warned Jonathan, right before the kid emptied the magazine at Jonathan’s head. Seven shots, and six of them rebounded uselessly into the dark, sparkling off bricks, asphalt, shattering a window. But the last bullet snapped back and hit the kid in the knee, and he went down screaming.

Jonathan sighed, and stepped over the writhing form, checking his watch.

He was late for work.

Funny thing, but until that night when Caprese’s men showed up, Jonathan had never killed anyone before.

He thought it would be harder.

It should have been harder, should have been impossible, considering the number of men, the number of shots fired, but so much about that day was impossible. The blue-white shine, like a shield, knocking their bullets away. The cacophony of sound and violence, and when it was over, Jonathan, standing alone among the corpses.

Unscathed.

Untouched.

In his rare metaphysical moments, Jonathan thought it was Claire, looking out for him. But in his masochistic moments, of which there were far more, he knew it was punishment, the universe mocking him for what he’d failed to do.

“How many of us do you think there are?”

“EOs?” June hesitated. “Who knows? More than you’d think. We don’t exactly go around advertising.”

“But you can find them.”

The glass was halfway to June’s mouth. Now it stopped. “What?”

“Your power,” said Marcella. “You said when you touch someone, you can take their appearance, but only if they’re human. Doesn’t that mean you can tell when they’re not?”

June’s smile flickered, and returned twice as bright. “You’re awfully sharp.”

“So I’ve been told.”

June stretched on her stool. “Sure, I can tell. Why? You looking to find more of us?”

“Maybe.”

“Why?” June shot her a sideways glance. “Trying to eliminate the competition?”

“Hardly.” She finished her drink and set the empty glass down, running a gold nail around the rim. “Men look at anyone with power and see only a threat, an obstacle in their path. They never have the sense to see power for what it really is.”

“And what’s that?” asked June.

“Potential.” Marcella tightened her fingers on the stem of her glass. “This ability of mine,” she said as her hand glowed red, “is a weapon.” As she spoke, the glass dissolved to sand, slipping through her fingers. “But why settle for one weapon when you can have an arsenal?”

“Because an arsenal stands out,” said June.

Marcella’s lips twitched. “Maybe it should. People with powers like ours, why should we hide? The life I had is gone. There’s no getting it back. I’d rather make a new one. A better one. One where I don’t have to pretend to be weak to survive.”

The two suits were hovering by the glass doors, hands resting on their holsters, but Tony waved them away. “Stand down, boys.” A wink. “I think I can handle things here.”

Amazing, thought Marcella. Hutch had obviously seen her handiwork at the poker game, and still he treated her like a prop, a pretty but powerless bauble.

How many men would she have to turn to dust before one took her seriously?

ELI turned through Marcella’s file. Across the cell, Victor leaned, hands in his pockets, against the wall.

For so long, he’d thought Victor was haunting him—now that Eli knew that the man was alive, he knew the phantom was nothing but a figment of his own imagination. A touch of madness. He did his best to ignore it.

Marcella Riggins hadn’t tried to hide her work. On the contrary, she’d put it on display. The three agents’ bodies—what was left of them—lay on the floor, their limbs arranged in a disturbing tableau.

A macabre version of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

The first soldier, missing a part of his skull, had his hands against his ears. The second, with a broken neck, had his own armored gloves over his eyes. And the third, little more than brittle bones inside a tactical suit, had no head at all.

Sitting like a centerpiece on the glass coffee table was a single ruined helmet.

How long do you think it will take her to penetrate whatever armor your men are wearing?

Stell examined the helmet and found a folded piece of paper tucked beneath.

Inside, in elegant, curving letters, there was a single line.

Stay out of my way.

“And you?” she asked, dusting her palms. “Are you looking for my husband?”

“Oh, he’s well dead. You made sure of that.” June whistled. “That’s quite a talent you have there.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“I know you walked into a room with five men sitting round a table playing cards, and when you left, two were ash, one had a bullet in his head, and the other two are saying all kinds of strange things.” June smiled conspiratorially. “Next time, you should probably just kill them all. No good having survivors running their mouths. See, Marcella,” she added, stepping closer, “the problem is, one of those men, the ones you killed that night—he was mine.”

“My condolences,” said Marcella dryly.

June waved her hand. “Mine to kill. And in my line of work, it’s poor form to take a bounty off another.”

Marcella raised a brow. “You’re a hit man?”

“Hey now, no need to be sexist. We come in all shapes. But yeah, sure. And the way I see it, you owe me a death.”

Marcella crossed her arms. “Is that so.”

“It is.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“Matter of fact, I think you know him. Antony Hutch.”

“Who are you?” Marcella called over her shoulder to the living room, where the shapeshifter was patting down the soldiers’ bodies.

“I told you,” June called back in a lilting voice.

“No,” said Marcella, “you really didn’t.”