Vicious

A breath later, Dominic reappeared, half carrying half dragging a very large, very dead dog. He sank to the dirt lot beside its body, breathing heavily. Sydney hurried over, thanked him, and then asked him to get out of her way. Dominic sagged back, and watched as she ran a soothing hand over the dog’s side, brushing the wound lightly. Her palm came away dark red, and she frowned.

“I told you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhh,” she said, and pressed her hands, fingers splayed, against the dog’s chest. She drew in a shaky breath as the cold flooded up her arms.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on, Dol.”

But nothing happened. Her heart sank. Sydney Clarke gave second chances. But the dog had already had his. She’d fixed him once, but she didn’t know if she could do it again. She pressed down harder, and felt the cold leeching something from her.

The dog still lay dead and stiff as the planks in the construction lot.

She shivered and knew it shouldn’t be this hard as she reached not with her hands but something else, as if she could find a spark of heat within and take hold. She reached past the fur and skin and stiffness as her hands hurt and her lungs tightened and still she kept reaching.

And then she felt it, and took hold, and between one moment and the next, the dog’s body softened, slackened. Its limbs twitched and its chest rose once, paused, fell, and a moment later rose again, before the beast stretched, and sat up.

Dominic scrambled to his feet. “Dios mío,” he whispered, crossing himself.

Sydney sat, gasping for breath, and rested her head against Dol’s muzzle. “Good dog.”

“I watch you, and it’s like watching two people.”

He spun at the sound of the voice and found Victor leaning back against a concrete pillar.

“Vic—”

Victor didn’t hesitate. He fired three times into Eli’s chest, mimicking the pattern of the scars on his own body, the way he had imagined he would for the last ten years.

And it felt good. He had been worried that after so much waiting and so much wanting the actuality of shooting Eli wouldn’t live up to the dream, but it did. The air buzzed around them and Eli groaned and braced himself against the chair as the pain multiplied.

“It’s why I let you stay,” said Victor. “Why I liked you. All that charm outside, all that evil inside. There was a monster under there, long before you died.”

“I’m not a monster,” growled Eli as he dug one of the bullets out of his shoulder, and dropped the bloodied metal to the floor. “I am God’s—” But Victor was already there, burying a switchblade in Eli’s chest. He punctured a lung, he could tell by the gasp. Victor’s mouth twitched, face patient but knuckles white around the blade’s grip.

“Enough,” said Victor. Behind his eyes, the dial turned up. Eli screamed. “You aren’t some avenging angel, Eli,” he said. “You’re not blessed, or divine, or burdened. You’re a science experiment.”

Victor pulled the knife out. Eli went down on one knee.

“You don’t understand,” gasped Eli. “No one understands.”

“When no one understands, that’s usually a good sign that you’re wrong.”

Eli struggled up to his knees, reaching for the makeshift table as his skin knit together.

Victor’s gaze shifted to it, taking in the row of knives. Just like that day. “How nostalgic of you.” He put a foot on the table and knocked it over, sending the weapons scattering across the concrete. The dog’s body, he noticed, was gone.

“You can’t kill me, Victor,” said Eli. “You know that.”

Victor’s smile widened as he buried his knife between Eli’s ribs.

“I know,” he said loudly. He had to speak up over the screams. “But you’ll have to indulge me. I’ve waited so long to try.”

“You have to go back,” snapped Sydney, kneeling in the dirt.

“Can’t. Victor’s orders.”

“But you have to get Dol.”

“Sydney … it’s Sydney, right?” The man knelt in front of her. “I saw the dog, okay? I’m sorry. It was too late.”

She held his eyes, the way Serena had held hers. Calm and cold and unblinking. She knew she didn’t have her sister’s gift, her control, but even before, Serena got her way, and she was Serena’s sister, and she needed him to see.

“Go back,” she said sternly. “Go. Get. Dol.”

And it must have worked because Dominic swallowed, nodded, and vanished into nothing.

CLICK.

One small sound after Mitch pulled the trigger, the sound made by the internal spring driving the firing pin to bypass the bullet and hit the mechanical stop. Because there were no bullets.

The gun was empty.

Mitch should know; he had checked it three times to make sure.

Now he watched the surprise spread across Serena’s face, watched it turn to confusion, and begin to shift into something harder, but it never made it there, because that’s when the darkness parted. The shadows behind Serena Clarke stirred and drew apart, and two men stepped into being out of nothing. Dominic stood, holding a red gas canister while Victor took a single stride up behind Serena, brought a knife to her throat, and drew it cleanly across.

There was a blossom of red, and her lips parted, but he’d cut deep, and no sound made it out.

“And Ulysses stopped up his ears against the siren’s song,” recited Victor, pulling the plugs from his own ears as Serena collapsed to the dirt lot, “for it was death.”

“Jesus,” said Dominic, looking away. “She was just a girl.”

Victor looked down at her body. Blood was pooling beneath Serena’s face, glistening and dark. “Don’t be insulting,” he said. “She was the most powerful woman in the city. Aside from Sydney, of course.”

Turner,” she said, stepping forward, her black boots weaving effortlessly through the debris of the construction yard. “You have an impressive resilience to death. Is this Sydney’s work?”

“Call me a cat,” said Mitch, pushing up off the planks. “I’m still working through my own nine lives. And just so you know,” he added, raising his gun, “I like to think there’s a special place in hell for girls who feed their little sisters to wolves.”

Serena’s face fell. “You should be careful, playing with guns,” she said. “Sooner or later you’re going to get shot.”

Mitch cocked the gun. “The novelty wore off when your boyfriend played target practice with my chest.”

“Do you have a phone?” she asked.

Sydney nodded, her hand drifting of its own accord to her pocket and retrieving the one Victor had given her. The one that matched his, and Mitch’s. The one that made them a team. Serena held out her hand and Sydney’s hand held out itself, depositing the device into her sister’s palm. Serena then walked to the balcony, where the doors were still open to vent the smoke, and lobbed the phone over the railing and into the night.

Sydney’s heart sank with the rectangle of falling metal. She’d really liked that phone.

A phone rang in Sydney’s pocket.

Victor had bought it for her. Or rather, Victor had bought it, and then given it to Sydney after he saw what she could do. The phone was, in Sydney’s eyes, an invitation to stay. She and Mitch and Victor all had the same models, and somehow that made Sydney happy. It was like belonging to a club. She’d wanted to belong to a club in school, but she’d never been great at sports, didn’t care about student government (it was a joke in middle school, anyway), and after resurrecting the science class’s hamster, she was a bit shy about participating in the after-school nature club. High school clubs would be more fun anyway, she’d reasoned.

If she could stay alive that long.

Two officers got out, and met at the front doors.

One cop vanished inside, but the other stayed on the curb and confirmed their arrival on a radio. Something about a body. They were here for Mitch’s body. Which was problematic, since there was no body, a fact that would soon become readily apparent.

Go inside, he begged the second cop.

The cop didn’t move. Victor freed his gun and trained it on the officer, tracking up until it was level with the man’s head. He had a clear shot. He drew in a breath, and held it. Victor didn’t feel guilt, or fear, or even a sense of consequence, not like normal people. All those things had been dead—or at least dulled to the point of uselessness—for years. But he’d trained his mind to reconstruct those feelings from memory as best he could, and assemble them into a kind of code. Nothing so elaborate as Eli’s set of rules, just a simple wish to avoid killing bystanders, if possible. It didn’t feel wrong, resting his finger on the trigger, but his mind provided the word wrong. He lowered the gun a fraction, knowing that sacrificing a kill shot would also sacrifice the certitude of their escape.

He let out his breath just as the radio crackled, and even if Victor couldn’t make out the message, he could hear the officer’s response—“What kind of problem?”—and, a moment later, “What do you mean? According to Ever and Stell … forget it. Hold on.”

And just like that, the second cop turned toward the door. Victor lowered his weapon and his eyes drifted skyward, where thick gray clouds weakened the black of the night. He’d never been one for God, never had Eli’s zeal, never needed signs, but if there were such things, if there was Fate, or some higher power, maybe it had an issue with Eli’s methods, too. The second officer followed the first inside, and Victor, Mitch, and Dominic were on their feet, and in the car before the front doors of the bar had even swung shut.

Mitch grumbled about the hole in his jacket as they made their way to the mouth of the alley. Victor knew that it was the first thing Mitch bought when they got out, a well-made coat, lined with dark-dyed goose down that now leaked in small puffs as he stepped off the curb.

“Look at the bright side,” said Victor. “You’re alive.”

“Night’s still young,” said Mitch under his breath as they crossed the street.

Victor knelt carefully beside Mitch, and reconsidered his decision to leave Sydney at the hotel.

“Is he…,” started Dominic as Victor reached out and brought his fingertips to the gunshot hole in Mitch’s jacket. His hand came away dry. He let out a breath and patted Mitch’s jaw. The man groaned.

“Mother … fucker…”

“I see you met Eli,” said Victor. “He’s always been a bit trigger happy.”

Mitch grunted as he sat up and touched his head, a bruise already blossoming beneath the drying blood. His gaze went to Dominic. “I see you’re still alive then. Good choice.”

He tried to stand, and got to one knee before pausing for breath.

“A little help?” he said, wincing. Victor’s lips twitched, and the air hummed faintly for a moment before vanishing, taking Mitch’s pain with it. The man got to his feet, swayed, and caught himself against the wall with a bloody hand before making his way to the strip of sinks to clean up.

“So he’s like, bulletproof?” asked Dominic. Mitch laughed, and then pulled his jacket aside to reveal the vest beneath.

“Close enough,” he said. “I’m not an EO, though, if that’s what you’re asking.”