CHAPTER ONE
NOAM
The trees grew dense and close together in the quarantined zone, magic humming through their branches and stretching in their roots beneath soil and snow. At dusk everything was shadow, shifting shapes merging and diverging on the forest floor—near impossible to tell which were human and which were tricks of the light. Magic shivered through the ambient air. Noam felt it like a physical thing all around him, connected to his own power somehow, the virus infecting everything it touched. It crystallized on his breath and prickled his skin like static.
The target hid behind that copse of trees at Noam’s four o’clock; electromagnetism eddied and tugged around him the same way it did everything else, betraying his location. Noam sensed the iron in the target’s veins, his magic a silvery glimmer that nearly bled into the snow.
It would be tempting to think this was an easy kill, but Noam knew better. This target was strong. He’d drawn Noam’s blood twice already—still sticky on Noam’s face, although the cuts were healed.
But he couldn’t wait forever. Noam counted his heartbeats and closed his eyes, feeling along the wires of that electromagnetic tension and looping it like fabric around the target’s body. He heard the whump of weight hitting the ground, air displaced from lungs.
That didn’t last. A burst of energy, plasma-like, exploded through the trees, cutting through branches and trunks. Noam pulled up a defensive shield just in time, twisting gravity and magnetism as he deflected the magic away to crackle like fire through the deadwood overhead.
Which, fuck, exposed his position. Noam stepped out from behind his tree and sent lightning across the space between him and the target, who huddled in wet snow with sweat turning to frost on his hair.
The bolt made contact. Finally. Noam wasn’t tired, but he certainly was cold. Better to end this quickly.
He pushed harder, another burst of force behind the lightning, drawing as much as he could from static and electromagnetism. The target was deflecting some of Noam’s magic, but not all. He dropped to his knees with a grunt, body shaking with the effort of holding Noam off.
The man was almost out of energy. Noam could tell. A little longer and Noam would exhaust the last of his resources, have him seizing on the ground as chaotic electrical impulses swarmed his brain.
Then he’d die.
Just not yet. Noam moved closer, ice crunching beneath his boots and magic swarming round his ankles like white water.
The vessels had burst in the target’s eyes, whites shot through with red, mouth slack and drool smearing his chin. His muscles twitched uncontrollably as their nerves misfired, thousands of volts searing through his brain. When he lost balance, crumpling onto his side—when Noam felt his magic falter—that was when Noam let go.
In the absence of power, the forest was too silent. The animals had fled; all that was left were the sound of tree branches cracking in the ice and fire—and the heavy, arrhythmic gasps of the target struggling to breathe.
No—not breathe. Speak.
Noam moved closer, but he kept one hand on the butt of his gun and his power near. Just in case.
The target fumbled over his own tongue, gargling on spit. With veins bulging out of his neck, he looked like a caricature of himself. Noam crouched in the snow at his side.
“I know this isn’t the only lab left. Where are the rest?”
The target made a convulsive movement; it took Noam a second to realize he was shaking his head. “No. You . . . listen.” He could barely move, but he managed to grab the leg of Noam’s pants anyway.
Noam drew his gun quicker than humanly possible, his magic doing half the work, pointing the barrel at the man’s head as he clicked off the safety.
“Take your hand off me.” The man let go, but Noam kept the gun where it was. “Answer the question.”
“You can’t . . . trust him.” A garbled noise, and the man spat out a mouthful of blood. Then: “Lehrer. Don’t. Trust him.”
Noam tapped the gun against the man’s temple. “Thanks for the advice. Now tell me about the labs.”
The man pressed his lips together hard enough the skin blanched around his mouth. He glared at Noam with all the heat he could muster—which wasn’t much, at this juncture. Fuck it, Noam thought. He was going to have to start yanking out fingernails, which was fucking disgusting—
Suddenly the color drained from the target’s face. Noam didn’t need telepathy to feel the man’s terror—it bled out of him like a sickness—and he didn’t need to turn around to know why. But he did anyway, twisting to track the target’s red gaze as Lehrer stepped out from between the trees. He was tall, nearly blending in with their shadows. A specter dressed in black.
Their gazes met. Lehrer gestured with one gloved hand. “Let me finish this, Noam.”
Noam got to his feet and made room.
Lehrer knelt at the man’s side. There was something gentle about the way Lehrer rested his fingers along the curve of the man’s neck, thumb skirting the windpipe. He could’ve been human, almost, if it weren’t for the strange colorlessness of his eyes—and the fact there was nothing behind them.
“What is your name?” Lehrer said.
The man stared at him and didn’t speak, trembling visibly under Lehrer’s touch. Of course the target was afraid. How could he have predicted that Lehrer would come into the quarantined zone and do his own dirty work? Noam holstered his weapon and clasped his hands behind his back, watching and feeling nothing—not even when Lehrer smiled, the expression thin and sickly insincere on his face.
“Your name,” Lehrer said again.
“M-Michael.”
“Michael, why don’t you tell us where the other labs are?”
The sounds Michael made were pathetic. Wet, snuffling noises, like a wounded animal. Lehrer’s thumb rubbed against his skin, a soothing motion.
Noam wondered if Michael felt Lehrer’s presence in his mind the same way Noam had: like a shadow version of himself tangling its fingers up in the threads of his thoughts, twisting and braiding them into new patterns. Or maybe that was the wrong metaphor.
Stain, Noam thought. Lehrer’s persuasion left a stain.
At least Michael wouldn’t be unclean for much longer.
Noam saw it in Michael’s eyes the moment his will snapped, the humiliation and self-loathing Michael felt when he opened his mouth and the information spilled out like sea bursting past stone.
When it was finished, when Michael was finally left wordless and sobbing in the snow, Lehrer unfolded back to his full height and looked at Noam. He didn’t have to say anything. Still, Noam waited until Lehrer had stepped out of spatter range to draw his gun again and pull the trigger.
He hit the target right in the skull: a clean kill shot that sent blood and brain matter bursting out across the white ground like a brilliant red star.
For a moment Noam was reminded of Brennan, the scarlet mess on the wall behind his desk. That first kill was half a year ago now—long enough that Noam had started to forget the details. Had Brennan’s tie been gray or blue? Had Noam been able to smell the gunpowder? The memory was like water in cupped hands.
Lehrer waited ten feet away, already impatient by the time Noam holstered his gun. “Get the samples,” Lehrer reminded him.
The samples were in the satchel the target had looped over his head and shoulder, a black leather construction pinned beneath dead weight. Noam had to push the corpse out of the way, rolling him over to lie facedown in the snow while Noam tugged the bag’s strap over the ruined skull and slung it over his own shoulder instead. He checked its contents, just to be safe.