by V. E. Schwab
She leaned her head back against her husband’s shoulder. “Darling,” she breathed. “A little space.”
He retreated, and Marcella focused on the target, aimed, and fired.
The shot rang out across the concrete range. Her heart raced from the thrill. Her hands thrummed from the kickback.
On the paper target, a neat hole had been torn in the right shoulder.
“Not bad,” said Marcus, “if you’re shooting an amateur.”
He took the gun from her hand. “The problem,” he said, casually ejecting the magazine, “is that most professionals wear vests.” He checked the rounds. “You shoot them in the chest, and you’re dead.” He slid the ammo back in with a swift, violent motion. His hands moved over the gun with the same short, efficient strokes he so often used on her. A confidence born out of practice.
Marcus swung the gun up, sighted for an instant, and then fired two quick shots. His hand barely moved, but the distance between the bullets could be measured in feet, not inches. The first struck the target in the leg. The second burrowed a neat hole between the cutout’s eyes.
“Why bother with the first shot,” she asked, “if you know you can make the second?”
Her husband smiled. “Because in my line of work, darling, the targets don’t stand still. And most of the time, they’re armed. Accuracy is much harder in the moment. The first shot throws the target off guard. The second is the kill.”
Marcella pursed her lips. “Sounds messy.”
“Death is messy.”
She took back the gun, squared herself toward the target, and fired again. It tore the paper several inches to the right of the head.
“You missed,” said Marcus, as if that wasn’t obvious.
Marcella rolled her neck, exhaled, and then emptied the rest of the clip into the paper target. Some of the shots went wide, but a few punctured the paper head and chest, stomach, and groin.
“There,” she said, setting the gun down. “I think he’s dead.”
A moment later, Marcus’s mouth was on hers, their shuffling feet scattering the spent cartridges as he took her up against the back wall. The sex was brief, and rough, her nails leaving lines beneath his shirt, but Marcella’s attention kept sliding past her husband to the ruined target, hanging like a shadow at his back.
Marcella didn’t shoot any more that night. But she went back to the range alone, week after week, until her aim was perfect.
VII
THREE WEEKS AGO
THE HEIGHTS
THE elevator doors opened, and Marcella stepped out, one hand resting on the gun inside her bag. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a man walking casually toward her. He looked innocuous enough, dressed in a pullover and slacks, but black combat boots showed beneath the hems.
“Marcella Riggins?” he asked, continuing his slow advance.
She turned toward him. “Do I know you?”
“No, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “But I was hoping we could talk.”
“About what?” she asked.
His smile stiffened, set. “About what happened the other night.”
“What happened . . .” she echoed, as if wracking her memory. “Do you mean when my husband tried to burn our house down around me? Or when I melted his face off with my bare hands?”
The man’s expression stayed steady, even. His steps slowed, but didn’t stop, each stride closing the gap between them.
“I think you should stay there . . .” Marcella drew the gun from her bag, not all the way, just enough to let him see the chrome polish along the back of the barrel.
“Come on, now,” he said, lifting his hands as if she were a wild animal, something to be corralled. “You don’t want to make a scene.”
Marcella tipped her head. “What makes you think that?”
She swung the gun up and fired.
Her first shot took the man in the knee.
He gasped, buckled, and before he could even reach for the weapon holstered at his ankle, she fired a second shot into his head.
He collapsed, blood staining the runner.
She heard the steps behind her too late, and turned in time to see a dark figure, a soldier, armored head to toe in black tactical gear. Turned in time to see the arc of electricity leap from the end of a baton with a static hiss. Marcella’s hand shot up and caught the weapon just as it skimmed her shoulder. Pain tore through her, sudden and bright, but Marcella tightened her grip, fingers flaring red. The strange light wrapped up over her wrist, a perfect mirror of the rot spreading through the instrument, then the hand holding it.
The attacker let go and staggered back with a yelp, clutching their arm, and Marcella slammed her heel into their chest, sending them to the floor. She knelt on top of them, fingers closing around the front of the soldier’s helmet.
“Come on, darling,” she said, “let me see your face.”
The helmet warped, weakened, until she could tear the faceplate away.
A woman stared up at her, pain contorting the lines of her face.
Marcella tsked. “Not a good look,” she said, wrapping her hand around the woman’s exposed throat to stifle her scream as her body withered.
Then, the harsh metal sound of someone racking a round. Marcella looked up and saw a third soldier, his gun already leveled at her head. Her own weapon sat discarded several feet away—she’d dropped it when she went to catch the baton.
“Stand up,” ordered the soldier.
Marcella considered him.
He was so focused on her, he didn’t register the shape moving behind him, not until it reached out and wrapped an arm around his throat.
The shape—a man built like a heavyweight boxer—wrenched the soldier back, and the gun went off, a steel dart grazing Marcella’s cheek before burying itself in the wall behind her head.
The soldier didn’t get a chance to fire again. The other man gripped the soldier’s mask and wrenched it sideways, breaking his neck with an audible crack. When he let go, the soldier’s body crumpled to the floor.
Marcella hadn’t wasted any time. She was up again, the gun back in her hand and trained on the man who, for his part, seemed unfazed.
“Careful, now,” he said, in a broad, musical voice. “Shoot me and you’ll just kill a twenty-three-year-old from the suburbs who loves his ma.”
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Well, now, that’s a little complicated.”
And then, in front of Marcella’s eyes, the man changed. Rippled, and was gone, replaced by a young woman with loose brown curls. “You can call me June.” Marcella’s eyes narrowed, and the woman smiled at her surprise. “Didn’t think you were that special, did you?” She looked down at the three corpses, arms crossed. “You shouldn’t leave these here for anyone to find.” She knelt, and just like that, she was the boxer again, getting his hands under a pair of shoulders.
Marcella stared down in genuine surprise.
June looked up, impatient. “A little help?”
* * *
MARCELLA pressed a hand towel to her cheek, her gun balanced on the edge of the sink. The thin line was still weeping blood. She checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror and hissed in annoyance.
The cut would heal, but they’d ruined a perfectly nice shirt.
“Who are you?” Marcella called over her shoulder to the living room, where the shapeshifter was patting down the soldiers’ bodies.
“I told you,” June called back in a lilting voice.
“No,” said Marcella, “you really didn’t.”
She tossed the cloth aside and took up her gun, returning to the living room. The bodies lay side by side on the floor, the last—the one missing half its skull—staining her polished wood.
Death is messy.
“Don’t be precious,” said June, reading her face. “I doubt you’ll want to hang about now anyway.”
“Fucking cops,” muttered Marcella.
“These aren’t cops,�
� said June. “They’re trouble.” She tore a small black patch from the shoulder of one uniform and held it up for Marcella to see. “Or more accurately, they’re EON.”
Marcella raised a brow. The patch itself was unmarked, save for a simple black X ghosted on the cloth. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
June rose to her feet. “It should,” she said, stretching. “It stands for ExtraOrdinary Observation and Neutralization. ExtraOrdinary—EO—that’s us. Which makes them the neutralizers.” She nudged a body with the tip of her shoe. “Sharks that come swimming when you make a splash. You’re lucky I found you, Ms. Riggins.”
Marcella took up the half-ruined helmet. She upended it, shaking out the ash. “How did you find me?”
“Ah. Bethany.”
Marcella scowled at the memory of her ex-friend. Her late husband’s late mistress. “Bethany.”
“Perky young thing, tits up to here.”
“I know who she is.”
“She liked to talk. A lot. About Marcus, and the place he’d put aside for her.”
Marcella didn’t realize she was gripping the helmet until it fell apart in her glowing hands. “And you?” she asked, dusting her palms. “Are you looking for my husband?”
“Oh, he’s well dead. You made sure of that.” June whistled. “That’s quite a talent you have there.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I know you walked into a room with five men sitting round a table playing cards, and when you left, two were ash, one had a bullet in his head, and the other two are saying all kinds of strange things.” June smiled conspiratorially. “Next time, you should probably just kill them all. No good having survivors running their mouths. See, Marcella,” she added, stepping closer, “the problem is, one of those men, the ones you killed that night—he was mine.”
“My condolences,” said Marcella dryly.
June waved her hand. “Mine to kill. And in my line of work, it’s poor form to take a bounty off another.”
Marcella raised a brow. “You’re a hit man?”
“Hey now, no need to be sexist. We come in all shapes. But yeah, sure. And the way I see it, you owe me a death.”
Marcella crossed her arms. “Is that so.”
“It is.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“Matter of fact, I think you know him. Antony Hutch.”
Marcella bristled at the name. A memory of the rooftop party, Hutch’s wet, wandering gaze, his patronizing smile.
June was still talking. “He and I, we’ve got some unfinished business, of a personal nature. He’s a hard man to catch on his ass. But see, I hear that he’s looking for you.”
Marcella wasn’t surprised. After all, she had cut down his numbers. “You want me to kill Antony Hutch?”
June’s expression darkened. “No. I just want you to get me close enough to say hello. And then, as far as I’m concerned, we’re square. What do you say?”
“I could do that,” said Marcella, tapping the gun against her leg. “Or I could just kill you.”
“You could,” countered June with a wry smile, “but it wouldn’t be me you were killing.”
Marcella’s brow furrowed. “How’s that?”
“Hard to explain,” said June. “Easier to show you. This little dress-up game of mine, it’s nothing. But you get me in a room with Tony Hutch, and you’ll see what I can really do.”
Marcella was intrigued. “Deal.”
“Lovely,” said June with a sudden, dazzling smile. She crossed to the window. “In the meantime, we should probably get out of here. Only a matter of time before they send more.”
“I suppose you’re right . . .” Marcella considered the bodies on her floor. “But it would be rude to go without leaving a note.”
* * *
“FUCKING hell,” muttered Stell.
He’d already passed a scene in the lobby, where the concierge—an older man named Richard Ainsley—lay slumped forward in his chair, his throat slit.
The scene on the fourteenth floor told its own story.
Ash streaked across the hall runner, and a fine mist of blood spattered the floor and wall. Stell freed a dart from a neighbor’s door. All the signs of a fight, but no bodies.
“Sir,” called Holtz. “You should see this.”
Stell stepped around the dark stains and through the open door into Marcella’s apartment.
Two techs were securing the scene, bagging and recording everything they could, but as they stepped out of the way, Stell saw why Holtz had called him in.
If you don’t kill her now, you’ll wish you had.
Marcella Riggins hadn’t tried to hide her work. On the contrary, she’d put it on display. The three agents’ bodies—what was left of them—lay on the floor, their limbs arranged in a disturbing tableau.
A macabre version of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
The first soldier, missing a part of his skull, had his hands against his ears. The second, with a broken neck, had his own armored gloves over his eyes. And the third, little more than brittle bones inside a tactical suit, had no head at all.
Sitting like a centerpiece on the glass coffee table was a single ruined helmet.
How long do you think it will take her to penetrate whatever armor your men are wearing?
Stell examined the helmet and found a folded piece of paper tucked beneath.
Inside, in elegant, curving letters, there was a single line.
Stay out of my way.
Stell pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where were the rest of the agents?”
He’d assigned six to the mission. Six operatives for a single EO. It should have been enough. More than enough.
“We found one by the transport vehicle,” said Holtz. “Two more in an alley.” He didn’t need to say that they were dead. The ensuing silence said enough.
“Cause of death?” asked Stell quietly.
“None of them were melted, if that’s what you’re asking. One broken neck. Two blades, to the throat and gut. Is it possible,” ventured the young agent, “that Marcella wasn’t acting alone?”
“Anything’s possible,” said Stell. But it did make sense. So far Marcella Riggins seemed to favor her bare hands or a gun, but four of the soldiers he’d sent had been killed in other, more varied ways.
Stell looked around. “Tell me this building has security.”
“Closed circuit, in the public spaces,” offered one of the techs. “Someone deleted the files, but they were clearly in a hurry. We should be able to pull footage from the lobby and hall.”
“Good,” said Stell. “Send it over as soon as you have it.”
“What now?” asked Holtz.
Stell ground his teeth, and walked out.
VIII
THREE WEEKS AGO
EON
ELI turned through Marcella’s file. Across the cell, Victor leaned, hands in his pockets, against the wall.
For so long, he’d thought Victor was haunting him—now that Eli knew that the man was alive, he knew the phantom was nothing but a figment of his own imagination. A touch of madness. He did his best to ignore it.
Footsteps sounded beyond the wall. Eli knew by the tread that it was Stell. And he knew, too, that the director of EON was angry.
The wall went clear, but Eli kept his head bowed over his work.
“I take it,” he said dryly, “that the extraction was a resounding success.”
“You know it wasn’t.”
“How many died?”
There was a long, weighted silence. “All of them.”
“What a waste,” muttered Eli, shutting the file in front of him. “All in the name of policy.”
“No doubt you’re feeling smug.”
Eli rose from his chair. “Believe it or not, Director, I take no pleasure in the loss of innocent life.” He plucked the latest photos from the cubby where Stell had set them. “I only hope you’re ready to do the rig
ht thing.”
Eli turned through the shots from the Heights. “She’s not exactly subtle, is she?”
Stell only grunted.
Eli studied the rest of the photos and notes, reconstructing the fight in his mind.
He noticed two things fairly quickly. One—Marcella had a flair for the dramatic.
Two—she wasn’t acting alone.
There was the obvious issue of timing, and the method of the killings, of course—but for Eli, the most damning evidence was subtler—a matter of gesture, aesthetic. The scene up on the fourteenth floor was grand, gruesome, theatrical; the killings near the transport van were simple, brutal, and efficient.
One was an exhibitionist.
The other was a trained killer.
Marcella was clearly the first, but then, who was the second? An ally? A colleague? Or simply someone with a vested interest?
“She’s not alone,” he mused aloud.
“You think so too,” said Stell.
It was only a hypothesis, of course, but one soon confirmed by the arrival of security footage from the Heights. Eli had pulled the files up on his computer, while Stell did the same on his tablet, and together they watched in silence as Marcella executed the first two agents. Eli saw, with grim satisfaction, the appearance of the second figure, a large man who snapped the third agent’s neck.
And then, as Eli watched, the man became a woman.
It happened between frames, the change so sudden it seemed like a glitch. But it wasn’t a glitch at all. It was an EO.
A shapeshifter, by the looks of it. An insidious ability, one of the hardest kinds of EO to find.
“Son of a bitch,” muttered Stell.
“I hope you’re not going to insist on sparing this new one for the sake of policy.”
“No,” Stell answered grimly. “I think we’ve established that neither of them intends to cooperate. We’ll have to plan accordingly.”
“One or two, it makes no difference,” said Eli. “They may not be human, but they’re still mortal. Find them. Kill them. And be done with it.”