"She's healing him," Benny muttered.

  "Not possible," chirped Maldonado in reply, her soothing voice sounding just a little clipped over his earpiece. He couldn't tell if that was the tech or some actual consternation seeping through the woman's hyper-professionalism.

  "I don't know what else to tell ya, lady, she's healing him. Her hands are on his chest and the burns on his face are shrinkin' away. Exactly like we've seen on other Demis."

  "But he's not a Demi. He's some nobody."

  "Sure, but, as I'm continuin' to insist, she is healing him."

  A moment of silence on the line, one second too long. Benny kept his eyes planted to his binoculars, kept the hunched form of the woman, surrounded on all sides by the blasted remains of what just minutes ago had been a city block, firmly in his sights. A thousand other things vied for his attention: the pealing of distant and not-so-distant sirens, the plumes of smoke rising in a neat line through the city, the buildings crumbling and falling apart along that line. Keeping his eyes off the actively unfolding armageddon took massive willpower, but Benny kept the woman in his sight regardless. Maldonado would know if he looked away, in that uncanny way she had, she'd deduce it somehow, and the more time Benny spent in her presence the less he wanted to piss her off.

  "Every element of my working understanding of the mechanics of the Demigods' regenerative capabilities rests on the axiom that those abilities are limited completely to the bodies of the Demi wielding them. For them to extend that capability beyond the limits of their own body breaks the foundations of my theory to an unacceptable degree."

  "Well, you're gonna want to get acceptin' it, because she's doing it. Look, he's standing now." The startlingly hairless man was sputtering, his form largely hidden from Benny behind the flowing of Yelena's dress in the ash-bitten wind. He could see that he was bracing himself with one pale arm, lurching to rise from the ground. Yelena offered him a hand, helped pull him to his feet. "Thirty seconds ago his legs were burned pretzels, and now he's on two feet. She healed him."

  "God. Damnit."

  Maldonado was clearly, icily, furious, but Benny could hear a smile in her voice. A shiver raced across the back of his neck; the less he tried to understand that woman's emotions, the better off he'd be.

  "Why's it so problematic to your theory?"

  "That information is confidential."

  "Oh come on, I'm curious. I thought that was a good thing."

  "If I explained the minutiae of the process to you, Benjamin, I'd have to kill you."

  "That joke's only funny when you don't actually mean it," Benny said. He pulled away from the lip of the rooftop that he'd been leaning on. "You want me to pull out? Things are getting pretty, uh, exploded, out here."

  He finally allowed himself a quick glance at his surroundings. Whatever that mammoth wave of green light had been that had lanced through the city, it had left essentially nothing but steaming crags of concrete and rebar where apartment complexes, hotels, and restaurants used to be. The carnage was limited to a line, only maybe fifty feet wide, where the blast had physically touched any material, but that line of ruined buildings and upturned earth seemed to continue endlessly, too far for him to see even with his binoculars. Benny wondered idly if the blast had petered out on its own, or if it had just continued until it had slid off the curve of the earth, arcing into space.

  "Yes. You've initiated the upload? If you're dead before I can get the physical SD cards off you, then this is all for nothing."

  "Your concern is mighty appreciated, ma'am," Benny grumbled. "Yeah, it's uploading. Slow. Big fat 4k file, and the satellite uplink's groggy as hell up here."

  "Don't blame me for Hatch's substandard tech," Maldonado said. "ETA?"

  Benny scrambled down the fire escape, happy to be off of yet another rooftop, grateful that his building hadn't been one of the unlucky few caught in that blast. "I'll hurry back. Shockwave from the blast hit me pretty bad, messed up a rib I think, so it'll take me more than-"

  "I mean for the upload."

  Benny frowned, looked down at the progress bar on the chunky brick of his new M-corp satellite phone. "Right. 'Course. Twelve minutes."

  "Satisfactory."

  Benny dangled from the fire escape's lowest level and dropped, hitting the ground clumsily, the jolt sending a wave of fire through his ribs. He cursed. "You couldn'ta sent your Superman to come get me again? What was his name, Lenny?"

  "Lennox. No, unfortunately. He's dead."

  “What?” Benny stumbled to a brief stop in the road. Somewhere unseen, off toward the rubble, a woman was screaming. “I just saw the guy maybe two days ago.”

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  “He was part of a raid that went poorly.”

  “A raid on who?!”

  The line was silent for a moment, and Benny felt twinge of recognition.

  “Maldonado, a raid on who?”

  “He didn’t know it was Victor until he arrived.”

  “Goddamn it. Goddamn it, how many times have I said that Victor’s not someone to fuck around and find out about? He’s real strong Maldonado. It’s not just talk, I’m not hyping him up because he’s my friend, he’s a fucking problem if you’re anything less than a Demi.”

  “We’ve been well aware of his capabilities for years.”

  “Then why’d you send one of your best guys off to die? Shit, I’m surprised Victor killed him. He’s usually not the type.”

  “Like I said, Lennox didn’t know he was chasing Victor. One of his- wards, I would say-”

  “Shit, he had the kids with him?”

  “One of his kids was leaking energy. Lennox and his cadre had been chasing the signal. The orders to accumulate as much energy in Rai’s top ranks were still very much in effect.”

  “Shit luck to follow that dinner bell and find Vic waiting on the other side. He really hates when anyone goes for the kids. Bet it wasn’t pretty.”

  “You can see for yourself, if you’d like.”

  Benny’s phone pinged. He looked down to see that a short video file had been transmitted to him from Maldonado’s number.

  “That was fast. My vid’s still only half-uploaded.”

  “It’s only twenty seconds long.”

  Benny felt his eyebrows twitch at that. He clambered into the truck that M corp had provided, started the engine, let the AC run for a moment. Even through the air filter, he could smell the soot from outside.

  He hit play and footage from what looked like a chest-mounted bodycam sprung to life. Whoever’s chest it was, they were set at the back of a creeping V formation composed of maybe a dozen of M corp’s Murderers, most or all of them Sensitives, from the look of them. At the head of the formation, Lennox hulked, unmistakable even in full-body combat gear. He gestured sharply in some sort of sign language, and the formation fanned out, surrounding what looked like a motel. It was late at night, and the camera was filming mostly in IR, casting the image in an eerie white.

  The poor sap filming made it maybe twenty steps toward the motel before he swung toward the sound of a scream.

  On the formation’s far flank, somebody exploded. The rest barely had time to brace themselves before a man-shaped hunk flew out from behind the flames, trailing smoke. Victor was a blur even on the high framerate video, zipping from merc to merc, dispatching each with one or two blows, a different form of energy each time. His Field wasn’t visible in the video, wouldn’t have been visible to Benny if he’d seen it in person anyway, but he could tell from the few clipped exchanges in frame that Victor was easily absorbing everything the surprised throng threw at him, barely getting clipped by any blowback.

  Lennox joined the fight after the sixth or seventh of his men was downed, and actually managed to land a hammer blow, a huge haymaker of a wave of kinetic energy. Victor stumbled, caught as he landed, blown briefly head over heels.

  Lennox darted over to follow up, two other mercs running in to provide backup, but Victor was gone. He’d hit the ground with his hands, twisted, braced, and then moved so fast that the camera hadn’t picked up the movement at all.

  The two flankers were sent tumbling, forgotten debris in a windstorm, and Victor was hovering in the air, right above Lennox, the force of his Field pinning the huge man to the asphalt.

  At this point, the man filming must have been the one remaining mercenary, and had scrabbled around to take cover behind a dumpster, his camera poking out just enough to capture the remainder.

  His thinning hair whipping in the maelstrom, his voice Field-bolstered to be heard over the gale, Victor spoke. “You know, I’m getting real tired of these nighttime visits. I haven’t slept a full eight since we rolled into town. I’m starting to get grouchy.”

  Lennox must’ve muttered something, probably some sort of defiant curse, and Victor shook his head.

  “I’m doing you all a real courtesy, just knocking you down and roughing you up. I know none of you are the type to give up your Fields to me willingly; your boss lady’s too scary for all that. And, I dunno, normally I’m the forgiving type, but you’re testing my sympathy here, guys. These are kids you’re after. Teens, pre-teens. If I wasn’t here…” Victor trailed off, scowling. Lennox tried to fire a bolt of electricity his way, and Victor shifted, casually deflecting the blow with a hand, shattering a nearby car’s windshield. “See, it’s that- It’s that bloodthirst. You’ve got a guy here willing to take it easy on you, and you just don’t let up. You’re acting like animals. And I’m- I’m starting to have a hard time convincing myself not to treat you like animals.”

  Lennox said something else imperceptible, and Victor tilted his head back to the sky, bobbed in the air. “No. No. I don’t want to kill anybody. But you keep coming back.”

  The IR, the distance, the whipping wind, it made it hard to tell, but Benny thought he could see his old friend’s face warp with emotion. Was he crying? “I’ll offer you the same deal I keep offering you M corp folks, the same deal you keep turning down. Give me your power willingly, and I’ll let you live.”

  Lennox spat something at him, head craned sideways, pinned by the might of the aura of the middle-aged man hovering above him.

  “Please, reconsider. Please? I don’t want to have to kill you. Whatever you think your boss will do to you if you say yes, I’d bet she’ll be too busy to care enough to track you down-”

  “She’s going to win,” Lennox said, finally loud enough for Benny to hear. “When she does, she’ll be able to come for me.”

  “She’s not winning. I won’t let her.”

  Lennox coughed a bloody laugh at this. “You have no idea what she can do. You’re stronger than me, but we’re both fucking ants to a real Demigod.”

  “We don’t have to be.” Victor leveled his gaze at the man at his feet. “Please, pal. One more time. Let me take your power.”

  “She’s going to win. No matter what you do.”

  Victor seemed to crumple inward at this. “Have it your way, then. I’ll go around and ask your buddies individually. I really-” his voice broke. “I really hope that even one of them answers different.”

  Then Victor jabbed a finger down toward Lennox, and the man’s head burst like a watermelon. Victor swiveled in the air, his eyes pointing right into the camera. He lurched toward the man filming, and the footage ended.