DUANPHEN
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
“THE LOOK ON HIS FACE. I’M NOT SURE IT WILL ever get old.”
Duanphen let go of the guard she was holding as Einar spoke. She’d been grasping him by the throat, letting her electric current fry his synapses. He fell at her feet, barely breathing, curls of smoke rising up from his dark suit. He looked virtually identical to all the bodyguards she’d worked with in the past—burly and arrogant, easy for her to take out, even with a bad leg.
“The Foundation,” Einar continued his musing. “They think their money will keep them safe. Like they can just buy and sell us without repercussions.”
Duanphen gave the guard at her feet a swift kick for emphasis. “The guards aren’t rich. They’re only lackeys.”
Einar stepped around another guard who had shot at them, his gun now bent into a pretzel shape around his broken hands, thanks to Einar’s telekinesis.
“I don’t mean these fools,” Einar explained in that know-it-all way of his that Duanphen found mildly infuriating. “You’re right, though. There’s no real pleasure to be taken from dispatching some thugs for hire.”
“I didn’t say that.” Duanphen sneered at the men crumpled at their feet. “A trainer of mine used to say: ‘Choose a violent life, expect a violent end.’ Certain people—men, usually—think that rule doesn’t apply to them. They are always surprised when . . .” She dragged a thumb across her throat for emphasis. “Is this the look you’re talking about?”
“I suppose so,” Einar replied, and he smiled at her. “That moment of reckoning. It’s a beautiful thing. You’re on the other side of it now, not like in Thailand. Did you see it? When he realized that actions have consequences?”
“Mostly,” Duanphen said, “I saw his back as he ran away.”
“He won’t be able to run for long.”
The two of them stood in the gated driveway of an enormous mansion. Since being recruited by the Foundation, Duanphen had seen plenty of opulent places like this, but never from this angle. In the past, she was always the one staring out, like the guards at her feet, watching for trouble. Now, she was the danger, the predator. Growing up where she did, a place like this seemed possible only in fairy tales. She gazed at the burbling stone fountain and the gleaming sports cars parked around it. She thought of the executive back in Thailand . . . all the executives, the well-heeled men who had waved money at her during her pit fights.
She liked this view. She enjoyed showing up on their doorstep.
According to Einar, the mansion belonged to a member of the Foundation. They had caught him as he was leaving—driven in a limousine, of course, probably on his way to a swanky New Year’s Eve party. The limo’s headlights were still on, even though the hood was caved in from where the Beast had smashed it apart with his bare hands. Duanphen limped over to the vehicle, reached past the unconscious driver, and turned it off.
Duanphen heard screaming and more gunshots from inside the mansion. The man they were after had fled that way along with some of his guards. The Beast had given chase while she and Einar finished up out here.
The Beast. That’s how she thought of Einar’s other associate, the quiet boy who always kept his hood up, who seemed almost impossibly powerful. The Beast had broken her shin when they first met a few weeks ago, when Duanphen had been stupid enough to try fighting him. She was still stuck in a splint, thanks to him, limping around, slower than she’d ever been in her life. Einar promised they would find her a healer soon—a Garde healer, not the shady Thai doctor he had initially hired to patch her up. For now, she had to grit her teeth through the pain and hobble.
She kept her distance from the Beast as much as possible.
“Shall we?” Einar asked, and extended his arm to Duanphen.
“Yes,” she replied. She slipped her hand through the crook of Einar’s elbow and let him support some of her weight. They strolled inside, crunching across shattered glass and a broken door, following the path of destruction.
The Beast was a lunatic, and for all his smart talk, Duanphen figured that Einar was as well. Still, she had to admit, she enjoyed what they were doing. Duanphen had been under someone’s heel her entire life. It felt good to be the one doing the stomping.
“Tell me about this man,” she said to Einar as they walked through a hallway lined with fine art. It was a collection that belonged in a museum, stuck in here to only be appreciated by one very rich asshole.
“His name is Montgomery Eubanks,” Einar said. “He used to run a hedge fund, but now he mostly works as a movie producer. He does the same job as your friend back in Thailand.”
“He wasn’t my friend,” Duanphen said sharply, her hand tightening on Einar’s arm.
“Easy. Figure of speech,” Einar replied. “He manages a small network of buyers, auctions off the merchandise that the Foundation has on offer. Supposed to be anonymous. Compartmentalized. The Foundation is structured so that no one knows everyone’s identity. Small interlocking circles. They think it keeps them safe. But I know some names and every one of them I find . . . well, they aren’t so hard to make talk, are they?”
“You’ve told me all this before,” Duanphen replied. She brushed her fingers across a marble statue of a centaur shooting a bow and arrow. “Will this Montgomery know where we can find a healer?”
“I hope so,” Einar replied. “We’ll gain access to his tablet and see where the Foundation’s healers are assigned. Then, we’ll go liberate one, just like I liberated you.”
“And if he doesn’t have this information?”
“Well, to start with, we’ll kill him and steal his money.”
“We planned to do that anyway.”
Einar smiled. “True.”
From deeper in the mansion came a rending sound like steel being ripped in half, followed by a terrified shriek. The Beast must have found where Montgomery went to hide. Einar picked up his pace a bit and Duanphen had to grit her teeth to keep up.
They rounded a corner just as a pair of guards came charging down an adjacent stairwell. So, the Beast hadn’t killed everyone in here. The two guards were well trained and fast. They raised their handguns and fired.
Duanphen was faster. With one telekinetic burst, she knocked their arms in the air so their bullets thudded harmlessly into the ceiling. Then, Einar took over.
“You hate each other,” he said coldly. “You’ve hated each other for years. Why don’t you finally do something about it?”
Duanphen could see the rage bubble up in the guards’ faces—neck veins popped, eyes widened, teeth bared. Like mirror images, they turned and shot each other in the chest.
Einar barely glanced at the guards as they fell to the floor. He pulled on Duanphen’s arm and they continued past the staircase.
“Come on,” he said. “We don’t want to leave Montgomery alone with our friend.”
They followed the sounds of frightened whimpering and emerged into a cozy room that served as a library. Most of the books were on the floor now, one of the large shelves having been thrust aside so someone—Montgomery, obviously—could gain access to a panic room. Two feet of solid steel sealed by a heavy-duty magnetic lock. That had been the panic-room door, at least until the Beast got hold of it. He’d cleaved it in half like a tuna can. Duanphen swallowed, a wave of relief passing through her. She’d been lucky back in Thailand that all that monster did was break her leg.
The Beast sat hunched in a high-backed chair, breathing heavily. Their quarry, Montgomery Eubanks, was laid out at his feet, one of the Beast’s boots on his neck so the man could just barely suck in air. Montgomery was handsome and polished in that way Duanphen had noticed a lot of rich men were, a result owed to subtle plastic surgeries and moisturizer. His tuxedo was all shredded and his head was bleeding, but he was alive. Alive and totally still, not moving a muscle, probably afraid that the Beast would crush his throat if he so much as flinched.
“Happy New Year, Monty!” Einar shouted. He gestured to the Beast. “It’s okay. You can let him up.”
The Beast slid his foot away and Montgomery sat up, coughing and rubbing his throat.
“You demented little brat,” Montgomery said, glaring at Einar. “You know you’ll never get away with this, don’t you?”
Einar smirked at Duanphen. “They always say that.”
“They’re looking for you,” Montgomery said. “Powerful people. You can’t hide from them forever.”
Einar stretched out his arms. “Who’s hiding? Not me. Where are these powerful people?” He put his hand over his eyes as if to shield them from the sun, then pointed at the dead body of one of Montgomery’s guards. “Is that one over there?”
“You’re—”
With a snap of Einar’s fingers, Montgomery fell silent. His eyes took on a glazed quality and his mouth, seconds ago twisted in anger, fell half-open so that Duanphen thought he might start drooling. Despite the cut on his forehead and his dire situation, the businessman suddenly had a look of stoned calm. That was Einar’s doing.
“Enough small talk, I think,” Einar said. “Montgomery, would you be so kind as to fetch your tablet for me? We’re in need of a healer.”
Montgomery got to his feet and stumbled into the panic room, picking his way delicately through the curled shreds of metal that used to be the door. He returned with his tablet, an exact replica of the one Duanphen’s executive had carried, and handed it over to Einar.
“There are . . . there are no healers,” Montgomery said, his voice slurring. “None available.”
Einar raised an eyebrow as he flicked through the information on Montgomery’s tablet. It was all there—Garde potentially up for auctions, contact information, bank accounts. Another small window into the Foundation that they could force their way through.
“Where are the healers?” Einar asked.
“Don’t know . . . ,” Montgomery answered, swaying on his feet like a hypnotism victim at a magic show. “Special assignment. Outside my . . . outside my knowledge. Heard rumors about Siberia.”
“Siberia?” Einar cocked his head. “What’s in Siberia?”
Montgomery shrugged his shoulders in a way Duanphen found utterly childish. She sighed and shifted on her feet, the bones in her leg grinding like uneven gears. She would have to live with this pain a little longer yet.
“There is one . . . ,” Montgomery mumbled, leaning in to open a file on his tablet. “There is one potential. Sources say . . . recruitment . . . should be soon.”
Einar looked down at the opened file and let loose a laugh. Duanphen had never heard a noise like that come out of him. Einar never sounded surprised about anything.
“Her?” Einar asked, his eyes shining. “The Foundation thinks they can recruit her? Again? Because it went so well the first time.”
Montgomery nodded dumbly. “Reports are . . . reports are she’s disgruntled. Suss . . . susceptible.”
Duanphen craned her neck to look at the screen. There was a blond girl pictured there, pretty if chubby-cheeked in that way Duanphen immediately associated with all Americans.
“You know her,” she said to Einar.
“We’ve met,” Einar replied. He rubbed the back of his head, fingering a knot of scar tissue. “She hit me with a shovel.”
“She doesn’t like you.”
“In her defense, I was trying to kill her friends . . .”
Duanphen’s eyes narrowed. “You said we don’t kill our own kind.”
“Not when we can avoid it, obviously. It was a complicated time. I was a bit out of my mind.”
Duanphen tilted her head. Did this strange boy think he was in his right mind now? She wondered, not for the first time, what she had gotten herself into. Over Montgomery’s shoulder, she could see the Beast sitting stone-still in his high-backed chair, somehow managing to loom over them without even standing up.
Perhaps detecting her unease, Einar put a hand on her shoulder. Duanphen knew that he could use his Legacy to make her trust him. She wouldn’t even know it was happening. Einar could easily make her a loyal soldier, as empty-headed as Montgomery. But he hadn’t. The skepticism she continued to nurture was evidence enough that he’d kept his word from their first meeting and not used his Legacy on her.
Instead, he talked. Always talked.
“I’ve changed,” Einar said gently. “I used to believe the Foundation cared about me. It took Taylor here . . .” He looked down at the girl on the tablet. “It took her causing some trouble to open my eyes. When I made a mistake, I saw how expendable I was to the Foundation. At first, I was furious with her and her friends. I thought they ruined my life. I wanted to hurt them. But now I realize that anger was misplaced. I should’ve thanked Taylor and the others. She cut the gilded leash the Foundation had around my neck. Made me realize that we Garde can only rely on each other. And that we can’t let anyone control us. Isn’t that right, Monty?”
The rich man murmured agreement. Duanphen said nothing. Einar liked to talk about this new world he was creating, but so far it was only the three of them. Not exactly a revolution. Not yet. Even so, for the first time in her life, Duanphen felt truly free.
She liked it.
“If the Foundation spies are right and Taylor really is sick of the Academy . . .” Einar’s thin lips compressed into a smile. He minimized the girl’s picture. Then, he opened up a banking app and typed in an account number, passing the tablet back to Montgomery. “Be a good boy and transfer your liquid assets, eh, Montgomery? Be quick about it. Seems we’ve got to go do some recruiting of our own.”