Vengeful

And then, of course, there was the issue of Eli.

Eli was in custody, but he was still alive. There was nothing Victor could do about that, given the man’s ability to regenerate. But if he ever got out—

“Victor?” prompted Mitch, as if he could see the turn of his thoughts, the direction they were veering.

“We’re leaving.”

Mitch nodded, trying and failing to hide his clear relief. He’d always been an open book, even in prison. Sydney uncurled from the sofa. She rolled over, her ice blue eyes finding Victor’s in the dark. She hadn’t been sleeping, he could tell.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” answered Victor. “But we can’t stay here.”

Dominic had slipped back inside, bringing a draft of cold air and smoke. “You’re leaving?” he asked, panic flickering across his face. “What about our deal?”

“Distance isn’t a problem,” said Victor. It wasn’t strictly true—once Dominic was out of range, Victor wouldn’t be able to alter the threshold he’d set. But his influence should hold. “Our deal stays in effect,” he said, “as long as you still work for me.”

Dom nodded quickly. “Whatever you need.”

Victor turned to Mitch. “Find us a new car,” he said. “I want to be out of Merit by dawn.”

And they were.

Two hours later, as the first light cracked the sky, Mitch pulled up in a black sedan. Dom stood in his doorway, arms crossed, watching as Sydney climbed into the back, followed by Dol. Victor slid into the passenger’s seat.

“You sure you’re good?” asked Mitch.

Victor looked down at his hands, flexed his fingers, felt the prickle of energy under his skin. If anything, he felt stronger. His power crisp, clear, focused.

“Better than ever.”

III

FOUR WEEKS AGO

HALLOWAY

VICTOR shuddered back to life on the cold concrete floor.

For a few agonizing seconds, his mind was blank, his thoughts scattered. It was like coming off a strong drug. He was left grasping for logic, for order, sorting through his fractured senses—the taste of copper, the smell of gasoline, the dim glow of streetlights beyond cracked windows—until the scene finally resolved around him.

The mechanic’s garage.

Jack Linden’s body, a dark mass framed by fallen tools.

Victor pulled the mouth guard from between his teeth and sat up, limbs sluggish as he dragged the cell phone from his coat pocket. Mitch had rigged it with a makeshift surge protector. The small component was blown, but the device itself was safe. He powered it back on.

A single text had come in from Dominic.

3 minutes, 49 seconds.

The length of time he’d been dead.

Victor swore softly.

Too long. Far too long.

Death was dangerous. Every second without oxygen, without blood flow, was exponentially damaging. Organs could remain stable for several hours, but the brain was fragile. Depending on the individual, the nature of the trauma, most doctors put the threshold for brain degradation at four minutes, others five, a scant few six. Victor wasn’t keen on testing the upper limits.

But there was no use ignoring the grim curve.

Victor was dying more often. The deaths were lasting longer. And the damage . . . He looked down, saw electrical scorch marks on the concrete, broken glass from the shattered lights overhead.

Victor rose to his feet, bracing himself against the nearest car until the room steadied. At least, for now, the buzzing was gone, replaced by a merciful quiet—broken almost immediately by the short, clipped sound of a ringtone.

Mitch.

Victor swallowed, tasting blood. “I’m on my way.”

“Did you find Linden?”

“I did.” Victor glanced back at the body. “But it didn’t work. Start looking for the next lead.”

IV

FIVE YEARS AGO

PERSHING

TWO weeks after his resurrection, the buzzing started.

At first, it was negligible—a faint humming in his ears, a tinnitus so subtle Victor first took it for a straining light bulb, a car engine, the murmur of a television rooms away. But it didn’t go away.

Almost a month later, Victor found himself looking around the hotel lobby, straining to find a possible source for the sound.

“What is it?” asked Sydney.

“You hear it too?”

Sydney’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Hear what?”

Victor realized she hadn’t been asking about the noise, only his distraction. He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, turning back to the desk.

“Mr. Stockbridge,” said the woman, addressing Victor, “I see you’re with us for the next three nights. Welcome to the Plaza Hotel.”

They never did stay long, bounced instead from city to city, sometimes choosing hotels, and other times rentals. They never traveled in a straight line, didn’t stay at places with any regularity, or in any particular order.

“How would you like to pay?”

Victor drew a billfold from his pocket. “Cash.”

Money wasn’t a problem—according to Mitch it was nothing but a sequence of ones and zeroes, digital coinage in a fictional bank. His favorite new hobby was skimming minute quantities of cash, pennies on the dollar, consolidating the gain into hundreds of accounts. Instead of leaving no footprint, he created too many to follow. The result was large rooms, plush beds, and space, the kind Victor had longed for and lacked in prison.

The sound inched higher.

“Are you okay?” asked Syd, studying him. She’d been studying him since the graveyard, scrutinizing his every gesture, every step, as if he might suddenly crumble, turn to ash.

“I’m fine,” lied Victor.

But the noise followed him to the elevators. It followed him up to the room, an elegant suite with two bedrooms and a sofa. It followed him to bed and up again, shifting subtly, escalating from sound alone to sound and sensation. A slight prickle in his limbs. Not pain, exactly, but something more unpleasant. Persistent. It dogged him, growing louder, stronger, until, in a fit of annoyance, Victor switched his circuits off, turned the dial down to nothing, numbness. The prickling vanished, but the buzzing only softened to a faint and far-off static. Something he could almost ignore.

Almost.

He sat on the edge of his bed, feeling feverish, ill. When was the last time he’d been sick? He couldn’t even remember. But with every passing minute, the feeling worsened, until Victor finally rose, crossing the suite and taking up his coat.

“Where are you going?” asked Sydney, curled on the sofa with a book.

“To get some air,” he said, already slipping through the door.

He was halfway to the elevator when it hit him.

Pain.

It came out of nowhere, sharp as a knife through his chest. He gasped and caught himself on the wall, fought to stay upright as another wave tore through him, sudden and violent and impossible. The dials were still down, his nerves still muted, but it didn’t seem to matter. Something was overriding his circuits, his power, his will.

The lights glared down, haloing as his vision blurred. The hallway swayed. Victor forced himself past the elevator to the stairwell. He barely made it through the door before his body lit again with pain, and his knee buckled, cracking hard against the concrete. He tried to rise, but his muscles spasmed, and his heart lurched, and he went down on the landing.

His jaw locked as pain arced through him, unlike anything he’d felt in years. Ten years. The lab, the strap between his teeth, the cold of the metal table, the excruciating pain of the current as it fried his nerves, tore his muscles, stopped his heart.

Victor had to move.

But he couldn’t get up. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. An invisible hand turned the dial up, and up, and up, until finally, mercifully, everything went black.

* * *

VICTOR came to on the stairwell floor.

The first thing he felt was relief—relief that the world was finally quiet, the infernal buzzing gone. The second thing he felt was Mitch’s hand shaking his shoulder. Victor rolled onto his side and vomited bile and blood and bad memories onto the landing.

It was dark, the light overhead shorted out, and he could just make out the relief on Mitch’s face.

“Jesus,” he said, slumping backward. “You weren’t breathing. You didn’t have a pulse. I thought you were dead.”

“I think I was,” said Victor, wiping his mouth.

“What do you mean?” demanded Mitch. “What happened?”

Victor shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.” It wasn’t a comfortable thing for Victor, not knowing, certainly wasn’t something he cared to admit to. He rose to his feet, bracing himself against the stairwell wall. He’d been a fool to kill his sensitivity. He should have been studying the progression of symptoms. Should have measured the escalation. Should have known what Sydney seemed to sense: that he was cracked, if not broken.

“Victor,” started Mitch.

“How did you find me?”

Mitch held up his cell. “Dominic. He called me, freaking out, said you took it back, that it was like before, when you were dead. I tried to call you but you didn’t answer. I was heading for the elevator when I saw the light burned out in the stairs.” He shook his head. “Had a bad feeling—”