“I’m not giving you my gun.” Liza gaped.
“Then…” Daisy looked around, locked onto a steak knife at a nearby table, retrieved it, and then pushed her way outside.
Fuck!
“Liza?” Joe stood, not five feet away and coming closer.
“Stop!” She held her palm out, saw the yellow mist oozing from her pores, and snatched her hand back. “Stay here. Keep everyone inside.”
His nostrils flared with defiance, but somehow, he knew this was important. He listened. He unclipped his firearm and retrieved his identification. With her mind awhirl, she turned her back on him and trusted that he would keep the crowd inside, calm, and safe.
Liza held her firearm steady as she shouldered through the exit. She only had one magazine. A limited number of bullets, and a set of cuffs in her back pocket. She had to make them count. When she emerged, her breath caught in her throat.
White robes swarmed everywhere. There had to be at least a few dozen Faithful. Down the street from Heaven were many cafes and restaurants, stores, and apartments. Pedestrian bodies lay on the sidewalk in a brutal display of violence. Cars had halted in the street. Traffic horns blared as Faithful jumped on top of vehicles, wreaking havoc. There was no escape.
Anyone caught in the area was trapped.
A woman screamed at Liza’s right.
A Faithful crouched on the roof of a Prius. Somehow he’d clawed into the metal roof with one hand, while his other fed through the driver’s side window. A middle-aged brunette slapped the hand away, but he’d caught her hair and tried to drag her out, heedless of the broken glass cutting into his arm. Liza aimed. Fired.
Pop!
The Faithful jerked but recovered.
She fired again. And again. Until she got the satisfaction she needed when the figure fell to the ground, his white robe fluttering like the wings of a fallen angel.
Each enemy held different weapons. Some had none, but they weren’t powerless. Through their blank, white Halloween face masks, Liza glimpsed bloodshot eyes.
The Syndicate had a serum that induced psychosis and gave the user a temporary boost in strength. Perhaps they were infected with it. Or it could be some new cocktail of chemicals. The Syndicate had created mutated plant monsters and demonic animals that sensed sin. Anything was possible.
Where was Sloan?
Liza’s heart hammered in her chest as she searched but found another sister instead. Daisy’s long silver hair flared like a fan as she twirled and stabbed Faithful with sewing machine repetition. Blood bloomed on white robes, but Daisy didn’t wait to see how her opponents faired. She moved silently and swiftly onto the next, swiftly and efficiently stabbing her knife into vital points. Jugular veins, carotids, femoral artery. Someone had taught Daisy the meaning of death. And she excelled.
In Liza’s experience, there were only two ways to become that good. Innate talent, or fear.
A movement to Liza’s left caught her attention.
Sloan.
She’d jumped onto a car for a better view. From there, she proceeded to stare down Faithful, sending her silent but deadly power into the minds of their enemies. Some screamed in fear, others simply fell into a dead sleep.
But Sloan wasn’t in costume. She could blow her identity.
“Sloan!” Liza shouted. “You need to get inside.”
The wind lifted Sloan’s dark hair to curl around her fierce face. She shook her head.
Damn it.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but they were too far.
A heavyweight knocked into Liza. She careened to the side. Another knock. A Faithful’s fist in her face. Her firearm disappeared from her hand. A swarm of sweaty, grunting white fabric covered men swarmed her. Her body moved on instinct, blocking, and retaliating, but it was the poison leaking from her hands and mouth that did the most damage. The instant she touched broken skin, or yellow fumes were inhaled by her opponents, they wilted in dead weight, foaming and convulsing.
Holy shit, this was dangerous. And frightening. Any bystander nearby could be hurt—from her—and she had no way of controlling it. Afraid to shout, to scream, or to do anything but hold her breath, a mad panic bubbled in her system.
What if she did this around a child? What if she was kissing Joe?
Pushing the weight of a Faithful from her body, Liza scanned the ground for her gun.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
An explosion of shots fired like a shooting range.
Liza ducked, scanned wildly, and found Joe at the door to Heaven, gun pointed and shooting any threat he could safely aim at. He wasn’t the only one. Max and Bailey were on the street, guns aimed and discharging.
“Liza! Behind you,” Joe shouted, eyes locked on her. He moved his aim to Liza’s right and fired. The Faithful behind her went down, a bloom of red spreading on his robe.
She got to her feet and nodded her thanks.
Dead bodies piled up, both innocents and criminals. This was a shit-show. There would be an inquest. The captain would have her badge if he didn’t believe they handled it properly. She had to trust that the evidence would back her up. She had to trust that no one saw or captured their abilities on camera.
Joe started for her, but she backed away. She couldn’t be near him with her emotions heightened, with the poison still coming from her mouth and hands.
“Sloan!” Max bellowed.
Liza looked to where she’d last seen Sloan and found her no longer on the roof of the car. From the way Max manically fought his way there, he must have seen her go down. But he knew she was stronger than she looked. He knew. So why was he panicked?
Unless she’d been taken out.
Shit.
Pushing her thighs into action, Liza ran. No time to worry about appearances. She vaulted over bodies and sprinted to where Sloan had gone down. An undulating sea of blood-stained white blocked her way, snarling and ready to fight. Too many. She wouldn’t make it through. Not in time.
Daisy appeared at Liza’s side, plucking Faithful away, stabbing, jabbing, shrieking like a harpy in the biggest display of emotion Liza had seen come from her. Elation and hope momentarily lifted in Liza’s soul. Daisy blinked at Liza, surprised. And then Max went down.
Liza screamed in frustration.
“Save Max,” she ordered Daisy, and pointed to him. “Max!”
Covered in war-paint of streaked red and dirty sweat, Daisy nodded. She changed tactics.
This was it. Liza couldn’t both save Sloan, and hide her powers. She had to make a choice and move. Liza did what had to be done. The valve on her power burst. Mist oozed from her mouth at an alarming rate as she fired the last of her bullets, aiming for heads.
Out of ammo.
She dropped the gun and shifted to manual combat. Strike. Jab. Snap. Her body flowed like water. Her fists like iron. Each time she moved, the poison not only seeped from her hand but shot out in an almost imperceptible tiny dart-like projectile that burned her palms on release. Each time she exhaled, her breath came out in a sharp, steady, and focused tiny toxic gust. She plowed through body after body, discharging toxin until the air misted into yellow, making it hard to see and her eyes sting. But it also provided her cover to act unhindered.
Eventually, Liza was on the floor, crawling through falling legs and tumbling trunks of white robes, and then she found Sloan, passed out. Liza launched, covered Sloan’s body with her own, and…
Electricity crackled, metal creaked, blue fire flashed. Katanas and leather-clad warriors descended from the sky like battle-born dark angels. The cavalry had arrived. In what seemed the blink of an eye, an eery silence descended, and then sirens blared.
SWAT was here.
Too afraid to move and check, Liza covered her fallen sister. And then Sloan groaned. Liza almost wept with relief, but her poison hadn’t received the memo to switch off.
Please stop. Please stop.
“Don’t breathe in, Sloan. It’s poison,” Liza warned. She sat back
on her haunches, staring agape at her stained hands. “Stop. Stop!”
Too much yellow mist. She had to get out of there.
“Crawl out of the mist, Sloan,” she ordered. “Hold your breath. I don’t know if you’ll be—”
Liza cut herself off with a realization. She wasn’t affected by the poison. Would Gloria give her this toxin and not make her siblings resistant to it? No, she wouldn’t. They could heal fast. They were immune to sickness. Perhaps they’d all resist this too.
Liza waved her hand and tried to clear the toxic mist.
“Max,” Sloan croaked. “I heard him.”
“Daisy’s protecting him.”
They cleared the yellow mist and Sloan bolted to a sitting position, her eyes wide. Liza helped her to stand and then tucked her hands under her arms. The poison seemed to have stopped, or had run out, thank God.
The wind blew, and more mist dispersed, revealing a concrete war zone. Max bled from shallow face wounds and was down on his knee, cradling Daisy’s head in his lap with his hand over her rapidly bleeding chest.
“She’s hit,” he said.
Daisy’s expression tried to stifle emotion, but the pain was clear in the pinch of her eyes.
“What happened?” Sloan asked.
“She stepped in front of a bullet aimed at my heart,” Max answered, face pale.
Liza checked around. Any evidence that her siblings had been present in battle gear was long gone. They knew that once the immediate threat was over, they had to flee and leave the mopping up to the authorities. That used to be her job. But now Daisy was hurt. There were more important things.
“Take her downstairs,” Sloan said.
Liza put her hand on Sloan’s leg. “Are you sure?”
“She saved Max’s life.”
“Go. I’ll—” Liza finally summoned the courage to look for Joe. How much had he seen? How much had he deciphered? From the flex of his hard jaw, and the coldness in his eyes… a lot. “I’ll sort things out here.”
Liza took a step toward Joe, but he flinched and then turned away to check the fallen for survivors. Blood drained from Liza’s face. When she looked at her reflection in the window to Heaven, she understood why he’d balked. Yellow ochre ran down her chin and neck in great, undeniable streaks.
Monster.
“Liza,” Sloan urged, startling her. “Leave things here for the authorities. Help me.”
With a look full of longing at her mate, Liza reluctantly nodded. Her family needed her.
11
A white-robed offender was still alive when Joe yanked the Halloween mask from his face. He was alive, but having a seizure. Foam collected at the corners of his mouth as he gulped for air. Bloodshot eyes darted around.
“Why?” Joe asked.
The man’s eyes rolled to Joe, and he garbled, “F-for a b-better life.”
With the last of his breath, yellow bile emptied from his mouth.
Was it some kind of neurotoxin? A nerve agent? Cyanide? He sniffed, then coughed as a slight burn hit his olfactory. Alarmed, he turned his face to the side and gulped fresh air, waiting with dread to see if numbness exhibited in his body, but none came. Regardless, he lifted his shirt to cover his nose and mouth.
It hadn’t smelled nutty like cyanide, but its effects were strong. He filed the information away for another time and made sure not to inhale more. For now, he needed to see to the victims, secure the scene, and talk to Liza.
She had some explaining to do.
Straightening, he surveyed the devastation in the street with grim defeat. Cars dented, crashed, and broken. Red blood mixing with a strange yellow liquid on the road. It had only taken a few minutes to turn from Pleasantville to a Nightmare on Elm Street. Victims’ innards fell from their guts. Heads snapped clean off. The dead were a mix of innocents interspersed with the sea of white-robed extremists. The costumes said they were the same ones Joe had come across during his investigation of the Deadly Seven. The same terrorists the Feds kept sweeping under the rug.
And here they were again, causing more devastation.
Why was he investigating the Deadly Seven, and not them? If it wasn’t for Liza and her family, the bloodshed could have spilled into the restaurant. Into the buildings. Down the streets… all over the city.
Exasperated, Joe wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his hand and searched for Liza. She was gone. As was the rest of her family. Vanished, as though they’d never been there.
The first lot of sirens turned up. Police, followed by an ambulance. Joe jogged over and showed his ID to the first responders, then had to wait as one of them puked onto the pavement behind his car.
The driver got out of the vehicle and met Joe. “What the hell?”
He was the senior cop, had graying hair at his temples, and a little too much weight around the middle. But he wasn’t losing the contents of his stomach like the rookie who’d come with him.
“Prepare yourself,” Joe said. “It’s ugly. You’re the first to arrive. We’ll have to secure the area and alert the paramedics to any victims in need. The ones in white robes were the offenders. Anyone else takes priority. And be careful of the yellow substance. I think it’s a chemical of some sort.”
The cop nodded and went to work.
Joe’s cell rang.
“Liza?” he said into the handset.
“Director Dixon.”
“Sir. Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“It’s all over the news. What the hell is going on?”
News? Joe frowned and looked for a TV crew but found none. Then he saw the camera phones recording within the restaurant. Idiots.
Joe clicked his fingers at the cop who’d been puking. “You,” he said. “Go into the restaurant and stop the filming. Remind them that this is an active crime scene, and we’ll need their footage for the investigation.”
The cop nodded and then jogged off.
“Sorry, sir, you were saying?” Joe said.
“Was it the Deadly Seven?”
Joe balked. The director had seen the devastation on the news, and yet the first thing he asked was that? “No, sir. It wasn’t them who caused it. They’re the ones responsible for stopping the situation escalating.”
“Where are they now?”
“I have no idea. I’m knee-deep in bloody white-robed bodies.”
A muffled sound came through the handset. It sounded like the director was frustrated and had put the phone down to rub his face. When he came back, he said with slow vehemence, “You’re in town to investigate the Deadly Seven, not these offenders. Let the locals pick that up. I want you chasing down leads. I want those vigilante assholes captured. The only reason you were picked for this assignment is because of your ties to the Lazarus family. Do you understand, Luciano?”
Cold dread filled Joe. Yeah, he fucking understood. He understood that he was being used to get to the Lazarus family. He understood that if he refused, he’d probably lose his job. He understood that the Agency had its priorities wrong and Joe had to be clever about how he handled things.
The director sighed. “I get it. It’s a shit-show. But it’s not your shit-show. Homeland will be there soon to mop up.”
“Homeland?” Since when were they involved?
“The assholes who did this, they’re terrorists. That’s all you need to know. Let them do their job, and you can do yours.”
“Sir, but if it wasn’t for the—”
“Luciano!” the director snapped. “They’re vigilantes. If every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks they can get away with taking the law into their own hands, we’ll have chaos. You know that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want leads, Luciano. Evidence that ties the Lazarus family to the disaster we’ve just witnessed. If we can prosecute them for murder, they’re all going away for a very long time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I expect a full report tomorrow. If I don’t get it by the evening, I might n
eed to find a new lead investigator for this case.”
“You won’t need that, sir. I’ll have something for you tomorrow.”
The call ended, and Joe put his cell away. When he slipped his hand into his jacket pocket, he felt the baseball.
“Shit,” he muttered.
12
“Don’t touch anyone!” Parker shouted at Liza as he wheeled Daisy on a gurney into the medical room of the basement headquarters in Lazarus House. “You need to shower the chemical off. Go!”
Liza flattened herself against a wall as they rushed past.
Daisy’s violet eyes were stark. She blinked at the ceiling. Max was on the gurney, kneeling over Daisy, pressing his palms to the wound. Blood welled from beneath his fingertips. They made it to the medical room where Griffin and Evan waited, both in battle gear, hoods down. Parker was a genius. He knew a lot, but he wasn’t a surgeon. Would he be enough? Could they keep Daisy from bleeding out?
“She’s going to make it, right?” Sloan asked, coming up to Liza. “I mean, she’s got the same fast healing ability as us, right?”
Uncertainty stretched before them like a gaping abyss. There was so much they didn’t know about their eldest sister. As Mary and Flint rushed into the hallway, faces gray with worry, Liza knew a turning point had been reached in their relationship with Daisy. Behind her parents, other members of the Deadly Seven and their partners crowded into the hallway, each with expressions of concern.
Daisy was one of them.
It didn’t matter whether she had worked for the enemy, had committed atrocities, or loved them back. She was their blood, and they would take care of her.
Family first, Mary had always said. Because without this love between one other, there was nothing. There was doom, and the empty violent apocalypse Mary had foretold when she was younger.
Liza glanced at Sloan, also covered in an array of dust, blood, and yellow residue. Warm pride unfurled in her chest. Her sister had walked headfirst into danger and excelled. She’d almost died, too, but Liza had kept her baby sister safe. Sloan wasn’t so helpless anymore. She was a strong, powerful, woman. And she was winning at life, far better than Liza ever was.
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