XVI

SIX HOURS UNTIL MIDNIGHT

MERIT CENTRAL PRECINCT

Eli stood against the pale gray wall of the police conference room, and readjusted the mask on his face. It was simple, partial, black, running from his temples to his cheekbones, and Serena had teased him for it, but as more than half of Merit’s police force accumulated in the room and took him in (the other half would listen in) he was thankful for the disguise. His face was the one thing he couldn’t change, and as bad an idea as this was, it would be infinitely worse if the entire force had a chance to memorize his features. Serena stood at the podium and smiled her slow smile and spoke to the gathering men and women.

“What happens at midnight?” she had asked as they drove to the station.

Eli had gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white. “I don’t know.” He hated saying those words, not just because they were true or because admitting them meant Victor was a step ahead, but because he couldn’t not say them, because the confession crawled its way up his throat before he thought to swallow. Victor had hung up on him with only the promise of midnight, and Eli had been left fighting the urge to throw the phone against the wall.

“The man behind me is a hero,” Serena was saying now. Eli watched the eyes of the people in the room glaze slightly at her words. “His name is Eli Ever. He has been protecting your city for months, hunting down the kinds of criminals you do not know about, the kind you cannot stop. He has been working to keep you and your citizens safe. But now he needs your help. I want you to listen to him, and do as he says.”

She smiled and stepped away from the podium and its microphone, urging Eli forward with a nod and a lazy smile. Eli let out a low breath, and stepped forward.

“A little over a week ago, a man named Victor Vale broke out of Wrighton Penitentiary along with his cellmate, Mitchell Turner. If you’re wondering why you didn’t hear about the break on the news, it’s because it was not on the news.” Eli himself didn’t know about it until he got Victor’s note, until he heard his voice, until he contacted Wrighton. They’d refused to tell him more, but had been happy to inform Serena, when he handed her the phone, that they’d been ordered to keep the escape quiet, due to suspicions about one of the convict’s nature, suspicions that had been put aside until the man in question, a Mr. Vale, incapacitated a good chunk of the Wrighton staff without laying a finger on them.

“The reason you did not hear about the prison break,” continued Eli, “is because Victor Vale is a confirmed EO.” Several heads cocked at the term, torn between Serena’s order to listen to him and their own varying degrees of belief. Eli knew that all precincts were given a mandatory day of training on EO protocol, but most of them didn’t take it seriously. They couldn’t. Decades after the term was coined, EOs were still largely a thing of myths and online forums, kept that way by incidents like the one at Wrighton. Fires smothered instead of spread. It was better for Eli, that cases involving EOs were so readily tamped out instead of made public—it gave him an unobstructed path—but he was constantly amazed by how eager the officials were to have incidents forgotten, and how eager the people involved were to forget. Sure, there would always be believers, but it helped that the vast majority of EOs didn’t want to be believed in, and those that did, well, they’d saved Eli the trouble of hunting them down.

But who knows, maybe in another world EOs would have come to light by now, and the huddle of uniforms before him would have listened without a shred of disbelief, but Eli had done his job too well. He’d had a decade to cull the crop, cut the numbers down, and keep the monsters largely the stuff of stories. And so out of the crowd, only Stell, who stood at the back of the room, gaze trained on Eli, took in the words without surprise.

“But now,” he continued, “Victor Vale and his accomplice, Mitchell Turner, are in Merit. In your city. And it is imperative that they are not allowed to escape. Imperative that they be found. These men have abducted a young girl named Sydney Clarke, and earlier today, they killed one of your own, Officer Frederick Dane.”

The audience stirred at that, shock and anger spilling suddenly across their faces. They hadn’t heard the news—Stell had been told, but he still looked gray with shock—and it got their attention. Serena could compel them, but this kind of report would do something different. Agitate them. Motivate them.

“I’ve been led to believe that these men are planning something tonight. By midnight. It is crucial that we find these criminals as soon as possible. But,” he added, “for the hostage’s safety, we must take them alive.”

Ten years ago, Eli had faltered, and let a monster live. But tonight, he would correct his error, and end Victor’s life himself.

“We have no photographic record for you,” he added, “but you’ll find physical descriptions arriving on your phones. I want you to blanket the city, block off the roads out, do whatever you have to do to find these men before anyone else dies.”

Eli took a single step back from the podium. Serena came forward, and put a hand on his shoulder as she addressed the room.

“Eli Ever is a hero,” she said again, and this time the collected Merit Police Department nodded and stood and repeated.

“Eli Ever is a hero. A hero. A hero.”

The words echoed and followed them out. Eli followed Serena through the precinct, as the words sank in. A hero. Wasn’t he? Heroes saved the world from villains, from evil. Heroes sacrificed themselves to do it. Was he not bloodying his hands and his soul to set the world right? Did he not sacrifice himself every time he stripped away an EO’s stolen life?

“Where to now?” asked Serena.

Eli dragged his thoughts back. They were cutting through the precinct garage to a side street where they’d parked the car; he pulled a thin folder from his satchel, and handed it to her. Inside were the profiles for the two remaining EOs in the Merit area, or at least suspected EOs. The first was a man named Zachary Flinch, a middle-aged miner who’d suffocated in a tunnel collapse the year before. He’d recovered... physically. The second was a young soldier named Dominic Rusher, who stood too close to a buried mine and landed himself in a coma two years prior. He’d come to, and vanished from the hospital. Literally. No one saw him leave. He sprang up in three different cities—no path, no trail, just there and gone and there—before appearing in Merit two months earlier. And as far as Eli could tell, he hadn’t vanished again, yet.

“Victor mentioned the database when he called,” said Eli as they reached the car, “which means he has access to these files, too. Whatever he’s planning, I don’t need him adopting any more strays.”

“I want to come this time,” said Serena.

Eli frowned behind his mask. He always did this part alone. His murders, his removals, weren’t like golf or porn or poker, some stereotypically male hobby that he didn’t want to share. They were rituals, sacrosanct. Part of his covenant. Not only that, but the deaths were a culmination of days, sometimes weeks, of research and reconnaissance and patience. They belonged to him. The planning and the execution and the quiet after were his. Serena knew that. She was pushing him. Anger crackled beneath his skin.

He tried to spin the demand in his mind, to regain control. He knew he didn’t have time to savor these particular kills. Chances were, he wouldn’t even have time to wait for a demonstration. Today the rituals would be broken anyway, defiled.

He could feel Serena watching him struggle, and she seemed delighted by it. But not subdued. She took the file from him, and held up Zachary Flinch’s profile.

“Just once,” she said, the words tipping the scale.

Eli checked his watch. It was well after six. And there was no question she would expedite the process.

“Just once,” he said, climbing in the car.

Serena beamed, and slid into the passenger’s seat.