FOUR YEARS AGO
DRESDEN
VICTOR hadn’t spent a lot of time in strip clubs.
He’d never understood their appeal—never been aroused by the half-naked bodies, their writhing oiled forms—but he hadn’t come to the Glass Tower for the show.
He was looking for someone special.
As he scanned the hazy club, trying not to inhale the cloud of perfume and smoke and sweat, a manicured hand danced along his shoulder blade.
“Hello, honey,” said a syrupy voice. Victor glanced sideways and saw dark eyes, bright red lips. “I bet we could put a smile on that face.”
Victor doubted it. He had craved a lot of things—power, revenge, control—but sex was never one of them. Even with Angie . . . he’d wanted her, of course, wanted her attention, her devotion, even her love. He’d cared about her, would have found ways to please her—and perhaps found his own pleasure in that—but for him, it had never been about sex.
The dancer looked Victor up and down, misreading his disinterest for discretion, or perhaps assuming his proclivities went to less feminine places.
He brushed her fingers away. “I’m looking for Malcolm Jones.” Self-styled entrepreneur, specializing in all things illicit. Weapons. Sex. Drugs.
The dancer sighed and pointed toward a red door at the back of the club. “Downstairs.”
He made his way toward it, was nearly there when a small blonde crashed into him, releasing a flutter of apology in a high sweet lilt as he reached to steady her. Their eyes met, and something crossed her face, the briefest flutter of interest—he would have said recognition, but he was sure they’d never met. Victor pulled away, and so did she, slipping into the crowd as he reached the red door.
It swung shut behind him, swallowing the club from view. He flexed his hands as he followed a set of concrete steps down into the bowels of the building. The hall at the bottom was narrow, the walls painted black and the air thick with stale cigar smoke. Laughter spilled out of a room at the end, but Victor’s way forward was blocked by a heavyset guy in a snug black shirt.
“Going somewhere?”
“Yes,” said Victor.
The man surveyed him. “You look like a narc.”
“So I’ve been told,” said Victor, spreading his arms, inviting a search.
The man patted him down, then led him through.
Malcolm Jones was sitting behind a large desk in an expensive suit, a gleaming silver gun resting atop a stack of bills at his elbow. Three more men perched on various pieces of furniture; one watched the flat-screen mounted on the wall, another played on his phone, the third eyed the line of coke Jones was cutting on his desk.
None of them seemed overly concerned by Victor’s arrival.
Only Jones bothered to look up. He wasn’t young, but he had that hungry, almost wolfish look that came with people on the rise. “Who’re you?”
“New customer,” said Victor simply.
“How’d you hear of me?”
“Word spreads.”
Jones preened at that, clearly flattered by the idea of his budding notoriety. He gestured at the empty chair across the desk. “What are you looking for?”
Victor lowered himself into the chair. “Drugs.”
Jones gave him a once-over. “Huh, would have taken you for a weapons guy. Are we talking heroin? Coke?”
Victor shook his head. “Prescription.”
“Ah, in that case . . .” Jones waved a hand, and one of his men rose and opened a locker, displaying an array of plastic pill bottles.
“We’ve got oxy, fentanyl, benzos, addy . . .” recited Jones as the other guy lined the bottles on the desk.
Victor considered his options, wondering where to start.
The episodes were multiplying, and nothing he did seemed to make a difference. He’d tried avoiding his power, on the theory that it was a kind of battery, one that charged with use. When that didn’t work, Victor changed tactics, and tried using his power more, on the theory that perhaps it was a charge he had to diffuse. But that approach yielded the same results—again the buzz grew louder, again it became physical, again Victor died.
Victor surveyed the array of pills.
He could chart the electrical current’s progress, but he couldn’t seem to change it.
From a scientific perspective, it was damning.
From a psychological one, it was worse.
The pain itself he could hijack, to a point, but pain was only one facet of the nervous system. And only one aspect of most opiates. They were suppressants, designed not only to smother pain, but also sensation, heart rate, consciousness—if one kind didn’t suffice, then he’d need a cocktail.
“I’ll take them,” he said.
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
Jones smiled coolly. “Slow down, stranger. There’s a house limit of one bottle—I can’t go giving you my whole supply. Next thing I know, it shows up on a corner at triple the price—”
“I’m not selling,” said Victor.
“Then you don’t need much,” said Jones, his smile tightening. “Now, as for payment—”
“I said I’d take them.” Victor leaned forward. “I never said anything about payment.”
Jones laughed, a humorless, feral sound, taken up in a chorus by his men. “If you were planning to rob me, you could have at least brought a gun.”
“Oh, I did,” said Victor, holding out his hand. Slowly, as if performing a trick, he curled three of his fingers in, leaving his thumb up and his index extended.
“See?” he said, pointing the finger at Jones.
Jones no longer seemed amused. “You some kind of—?”
“Bang.”
There was no gunshot—no earsplitting echo or spent cartridge or smoke—but Jones let out a guttural scream and fell to the floor as if hit.
The other three men went for their own guns, but their actions were slowed by shock, and before they could fire Victor leveled them all. No dial. No nuance. Just blunt force. That place beyond pain where nerves snapped, fuses blew.
The men crumpled to the floor like puppets with their strings cut, but Jones was still conscious. Still clutching his chest, searching frantically for a bullet wound, the wetness of blood, some physical damage to match what his nerves were telling him.
“The fuck . . . the fuck . . .” he muttered, eyes darting wildly.
Pain, Victor had learned, turned people into animals.
He gathered the pills, dumping bags and bottles into a black leather briefcase he found leaning against the desk. Jones shuddered on the floor before rallying, his attention latching on to the glint of metal on his desk. He started to lunge for it, but Victor’s fingers twitched, and Jones sagged, unconscious, against the far wall.
Victor took up the gun Jones had been going for, weighed the weapon in his palm. He didn’t have any special fondness for guns—they’d been rendered largely unnecessary, given his power. But in his current condition, it might be useful to have something . . . extraneous. Plus, it never hurt to have a visible deterrent.
Victor slipped the gun into his coat pocket and snapped the briefcase shut.
“A pleasure doing business with you,” he said to the silent room as he turned and walked out.
AT THE SAME TIME . . .
JUNE adjusted her ponytail and slipped through the velvet curtain into the private dance room. Harold Shelton was already inside, waiting, rubbing his pink hands on his thighs in anticipation.
“I’ve missed you, Jeannie.”
Jeannie was home sick with food poisoning.
June was just borrowing her body.
“How much have you missed me?” she asked, trying to sound soft, breathy. The voice wasn’t perfect, it never was. After all, a voice was nature and nurture, biology and culture. June could nail the pitch—that came with the body—but her real accent, with its light musical lilt, always snuck through. Not that Harold seemed to notice. He was too busy ogling Jeannie’s tits through the blue-and-white cheerleading outfit.
It wasn’t really June’s preferred type, but it didn’t have to be.
It just had to be his.
She did a slow circle around him, let her pink nails trail along his shoulder. When her fingers grazed his skin, she saw flashes of his life—not all of it, just the pieces that left a mark. She let them slide through her mind without sticking. She knew she’d never borrow his body, so she’d never need to know more.
Harold caught her wrist, pulling her into his lap.
“You know the rules, Harold,” June said, easing herself free.
The rules of the club were simple: Look, but don’t touch. Hands in your lap. On your knees. Under your ass. It didn’t matter, so long as they weren’t on the girl.
“You’re such a fucking tease,” he growled, annoyed, aroused. He tipped his head back, eyes glassy, breath sour. “What am I even paying for?”
June passed behind him, draped her arms around his shoulders. “You can’t touch me,” she cooed, leaning in until her lips brushed his ear. “But I can touch you.”
He didn’t see the wire in her hands, didn’t notice until it wrapped around his throat.
Harold started fighting then, but the curtains were thick, and the music was loud, and the more people fought, the faster they ran out of air.
June had always liked the garrote. It was quick, efficient, tactile.
Harold wasted too much energy clawing at the wire instead of her face. Not that it would have made a difference.
“Nothing personal, Harold,” June said as he stomped his feet and tried to twist free.
It was the truth—he wasn’t on her list. This was just business.
He slumped forward, lifeless, a thin line of spittle hanging from his open lips.
June straightened, blew out a short breath, put away the wire. She studied her palms, which weren’t her palms. They were marked with thin, deep lines where the wire had bit in. June couldn’t feel it, but she knew that the real Jeannie would wake up with these welts, and the pain to go with them.
Sorry, Jeannie, she thought, stepping through the curtain, flicking it shut behind her. Harold was a big spender. He’d shelled out for a full hour of Jeannie’s teen queen, which gave June a good fifty minutes to get as far from the body as possible.
She rubbed the welts from her hands as she started down the hall. At least Jeannie’s roommates were home—she’d alibi out. No one had seen June go into Harold’s room, and no one had seen her leave, so all she had to do—
“Jeannie,” called a voice, too close, behind her. “Aren’t you on the clock?”
June swore under her breath, and turned around. And as she did, she changed—four years of collecting everyone she touched had given her an extensive wardrobe, and in a blink she shed Jeannie and picked out someone else, another blonde, one with the same shade, same build, but smaller tits and a round face, clad in a short blue dress.
It was a bloody work of art, that shift, and the bouncer blinked, confused, but June knew from experience—when people saw something they didn’t understand, they couldn’t hold on. I saw became I think I saw became I couldn’t have seen became I didn’t see. Eyes were fickle. Minds were weak.
“Only dancers and clients back here, ma’am.”
“Not gunning for a peek,” said June, letting her accent trip rich and full over her tongue. “Just looking for the ladies’ room.”
Max nodded at a door on the right. “Back out the way you came, and across the club.”
“Cheers,” she added with a wink.
June kept her pace even, casual, as she crossed the club. All she wanted now was a shower. Strip clubs were like that. The smell of lust and sweat, cheap drinks and dirty bills, so thick it coated your skin, followed you home. It was a trick of the mind—after all, June couldn’t feel, couldn’t smell, couldn’t taste. A borrowed body was just that—borrowed.
She was halfway there when she knocked into a man, thin, blond, and dressed in all black. Not unusual, in a place like this, where businessmen leered alongside bachelors, but June reeled at the contact—when she’d brushed his arm, she’d seen . . . nothing. No details, no memories.
The man had barely registered her, was already moving away. He disappeared through a red door at the back of the club, and June forced herself to keep walking too, despite feeling like her world had shuddered to a stop.
What were the odds?
Slim, she knew—but not none. There’d been another, a few years ago, a young guy she’d passed on the street one summer night; knocked into, really—she’d had her head tipped back, he’d had his down. When they touched, she’d felt that same flush of cold, the same stretch of black where the memories should be. After months of taking on looks and forms with every touch, the absence of information had been startling, disconcerting. June hadn’t known, then, what it meant—if the other person was broken, or if she was, if it was a feature or a glitch—not until she followed the guy and saw him run his hand along the hood of a car. Heard the sudden rumble of an engine starting under his touch, and realized he was different.
Not in the way she was different, but still, miles from ordinary.
She’d started looking for them, after that.
June, who’d never before been a fan of casual contact, unwanted touches, now found every excuse to brush fingers, kiss cheeks, searching for those elusive patches of darkness. She hadn’t found another.
Until now.
June slipped behind a column, shedding the blond girl in favor of a man with a forgettable face. Up at the bar, she ordered herself a drink and waited for the stranger to resurface.
Ten minutes later, he did, carrying a black briefcase. He slipped out into the dark.
And June followed behind.
* * *
THE streets weren’t empty, but they also weren’t crowded enough to hide a tail. Every time she dipped out of streetlight, she shifted form.
What would June do if the man in black noticed her?
What would she do if he didn’t?
June didn’t know why she was following the man, or what she planned to do when he stopped walking. Was it a gut feeling pulling her along, or just curiosity? She hadn’t always been able to tell them apart. Before . . .
But June didn’t like to think about before. Didn’t want to, didn’t need to. Dying might not have stuck, but her death itself had been real enough. No point in prying open that coffin.
June—that wasn’t her real name either, of course. She’d buried that with the rest.
The only thing she’d kept was the accent. Kept was a strong word—the stubborn thing didn’t want to go. A wisp of home in a foreign world. A memory, of green, and gray, of cliffs and ocean . . . She probably could have shed it, scrubbed it out along with everything else that made her her. But it was all she had left. The last thread.
Sentimental, she chided, quickening her step.
Eventually June stopped shifting, and simply followed in the stranger’s wake.
It was strange, the subtle way other people veered around him, leaned out of his path.
They saw him, she could tell by the way they shifted, sidestepped. But they didn’t really notice.
Like magnets, thought June. Everyone thought of magnets as having pull, attraction, but turn them around and they repelled. You could spend ages trying to force them together, and you’d get there, almost, but in the end they’d slide off.
She wondered if the man had that effect on the world around him, if it was part of his power.
Whatever it was, she didn’t feel it.
But then again, she didn’t feel anything.
Who are you? she wondered, annoyed by the man’s opacity. She had been spoiled rotten by her power, by the easy knowing that came with it. Not that she saw everything—that would be a short road to long madness—but she saw enough. Names. Ages. Memories, too, but only the ones that really left a mark.
A person, distilled into so many bites.
It was disconcerting, now, to be deprived.
Ahead, the man stopped outside an apartment building. He stepped through the revolving door into the lobby, and June stood in the shadow of the building’s eaves and watched him get into the elevator, watched the dial ascend to the ninth floor and then stop.
She chewed her lip, thinking.
It was late.
But it wasn’t that late.
June turned through the wardrobe in her mind. Too late for a delivery, perhaps, but not a courier. She selected a young woman—more disarming, especially at night—in navy cycling gear, scooped up an undelivered envelope from the lobby, and pushed the call button on the elevator.
There were four doors on the ninth floor.
Four chances.
She put her ear to the first door and heard the dead silence of an empty apartment.
The same with the second.
At the third, she heard footsteps, and knocked, but when the door swung open she was greeted not by the man in black, but by a girl, a large dog at her side.
The girl was on the small side, with white-blond hair and ice blue eyes. The sight of her caught June off guard. She was twelve, maybe thirteen. Madeline’s age. Madeline belonged to the Before—before, when June had had a family, parents, siblings, one older, three younger, the youngest, with those same strawberry curls—
“Can I help you?” asked the girl.
June realized she must have the wrong place. She shook her head and started to back away.
“Who is it?” asked a warm voice, a big guy with tattooed sleeves and a friendly smile.
“Delivery,” said the girl. She was reaching for the package, her fingers nearly brushing June’s, when he appeared.
“Sydney,” said the man in black. “I told you not to answer the door.”
The girl retreated into the room, the large dog trailing behind her, and the man stepped forward, his eyes, a colder, darker blue, flicking down to the package in June’s hands.
“Wrong address,” he said, closing the door in her face.
June stood in the hall, mind spinning.
She’d expected him to be alone.
People like them, they were supposed to be alone.
Were the others human, the big guy and the young girl? Or did they have powers too?
June came back the next day. Pressed her ear against the door and heard—nothing. She knelt before the lock, and a few seconds later the door swung open. The apartment was empty. No signs of the girl, or the dog, the big guy, or the stranger.
They were just—gone.