Morgan tried to ignore them, tried to concentrate on the scene unfolding through his lens. He needed to clear his head and figure out the best way to handle this. He wanted Marsh's approval and the added prestige of saving his life. Not to mention what killing that witch would do to his reputation.

"Aw, Morgan. She's a magical being, she needs to live free and roam the earth happy. Let her go and give me a hug." Mr. Hector approached with his arms wide.

"No!" Brandt stepped forward and kicked Mr. Hector hard enough for the little doll to go flying across the room. "That b.i.t.c.h isn't magic, she's evil. She's evil and if you don't stop her now, she'll destroy everything you've worked for. If she kills Marsh, you're out on the street. You think Thorpe will take you on in her organization? Not after you've been a toady for Marsh this long."

The others looked at where Mr. Hector landed, then back at Morgan. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Morgan's mother said.

"Now, now. Let's watch our language," Brandt chuckled.

Morgan's mother exhaled loudly through her nose and her face screwed up in rage. She stepped toward the still-smiling Brandt and punched him. Brandt stumbled back. As he regained his balance, the monkey began beating his shins with the symbols.

Brandt lashed out, knocking Morgan's mother against the wall. He kicked at the monkey, trying to get the thing away from his feet.

A wild cry echoed through the office. "Arrrr!" Brandt turned in time to see Mr. Hector flying through the air at his waist.

Morgan turned away from the scene and looked again through the sight. His mind was racing through the last ten years he'd spent in Marsh's organization. He knew all the people, all the big clients. He'd done jobs big and small, things he'd distained, but they were duties he'd performed to learn the business. The words Brandt said came to him again-If she kills Marsh, you're out on the street.

Morgan ignored the cursing and scuffling behind him and got into his firing stance again. His finger rested lightly on the trigger and the stock fell neatly into the groove in his shoulder. He looked at all three of the people in Marsh's office, then zoomed in on the individuals, he could see Deena clearly again.

"You are all thinking way too small," he said. In the next breath, the room fell silent as everyone stopped to question what he meant.

In the breath after that, the room shook with the percussion of a gunshot.

64.

Deena heard the pounding of the men trying to get into Marsh's office. She stood with the gun at her side, feeling its weight in her hand. The culmination of a dozen years of working against her will began to seep into Deena's consciousness and her jaw ached from holding it so tight. But it had to stop somewhere. When she was fourteen, the Shadow Energy within pushed her hard enough to kill a young man in the name of helping her sister. Now, she knew what it was, and she might even have a say in how it was used or not used.

"This is getting us nowhere. If you aren't going to shoot him, let's go. Let's walk out while we can," Harper said. "Maybe we can still fight our way out." When Deena didn't move, Harper got more forceful. "You ungrateful little b.i.t.c.h. It's always been about you, everything has been about you, and now you won't even bend to do one thing for me? Let's go."

"One thing? More killing? That's the little thing I should do? Give up my sanity and keep ending people's lives to make it out? I think that's more than a little thing." Deena noticed that Harper tightened her grip on the gun.

"You embraced this life like a religious calling. That's crazy. You dragged me along with you and guilted me into staying. That's crazy. I sacrificed and sacrificed for you." She raised the gun and pointed it at Deena. "Mr. Marsh? You know I've been loyal to you from the beginning, you give me the chance and you'll see what I can do. I can be every bit as good as she is." She c.o.c.ked the gun. "Say the word and I'll kill her for you."

"What?" Deena asked. Her sister sounded serious and her face showed grim determination. Deena shifted her gaze from her sister to Marsh, tracing the lines in his face, looking for some sign. She waited and wondered what was going through his mind. "Harper, this is insane."

"Put down your gun," Harper said.

Deena set her weapon on the ground, not wanting to provoke Harper any more than she had to.

"This is some situation, yes?" Marsh seemed to breathe a little easier. "Two girls I'd like to see dead are standing in my office. One is offering to kill the other. What to do, what to do?"

"You don't want to do this, Harper. I had no control over what I was doing. The agents say it's some kind of parasite that controlled me. Let's leave and we can talk about it. You and I can leave here and start our lives over." It was a lie. There was no starting over. Not once they met up with the agents and they went into custody. Even if the compromise they'd discussed actually happened, it wouldn't be freedom. It would be living in someone else's cage. "There are agents on their way to arrest everyone on the other side of the door. We can wait it out."

"I doubt that would happen," Marsh said. "Start over? After the bus incident? You'll have every cop, agent and sheriff after you for the rest of your life. They may call out the Texas Rangers and the Marines as well."

Deena looked at her sister and Marsh. "What bus incident? What are you talking about?"

Marsh feigned surprise. "You didn't tell her? My. My. I thought there were no secrets between sisters."

"Harper?" Deena asked. She knew about every job Harper had done, except for anything that might have happened while Deena had been chasing her last mark around the country. The job that had shorted out the hold the Shadow Energy had on her.

It got quiet in the office while Deena waited for someone to either fill her in on what she was missing, or shoot her in the head.

"Your sister was a little too zealous in trying to take care of a witness for us. She... She got a few unintended targets," Marsh said.

"It was an accident. He told me to send a message." Harper's nostrils flared.

"Not the message that we're incompetent." The smirk on Marsh's face lingered as his voice trailed off. "And I had such high hopes for you both. Your father spoke so highly of you."

"Our father?" Deena felt her jaw tighten. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"You don't think I just accepted a person with talents like yours without a little investigation, do you? I asked a few questions, and it seems your father is the foremost authority on whatever that destructive force is that courses through your pale little body," Marsh said. "Isn't that a coincidence?"

Deena was stunned into silence. She thought about the things she'd seen in the bas.e.m.e.nt: the mini-lab, the containers. None of it was familiar to her, but was it possible that her father was responsible for putting some vile creature inside of her? She shuddered.

The silence of the moment was broken when the window shattered and Marsh fell backward, his body hitting the wall with a thump.

Deena and Harper both fell to the floor, trying to make sure they weren't hit by any follow-up shots. Deena crawled toward the side of the window, hoping the metal frame would block any further shots into the office. She peered around the corner and out into the city, seeing nothing but birds, open sky and tall building after tall building.

She saw her sister across the room, still in the open but slowly crawling toward the desk. Marsh's body had disappeared behind it with nothing but a b.l.o.o.d.y streak on the wall to show he'd ever been standing. Harper was headed in that direction, weeping as she went.

With all the death and mayhem she'd seen and caused, Deena was surprised her sister had the ability to shed tears about death. And about Marsh, one of the most notoriously violent criminals to walk the streets of this city, the man who'd pushed them to become thieves and killers. There were questions that Deena never thought to ask, and she saw how her sister was right in a way, it was always about her. It was always about what Deena wanted and needed. She wondered how far Harper had gone to make a place for them here with Marsh's organization. She shuddered, wondering whether that unknown variable might be far worse than all of the things she actually knew about. She watched her sister place a hand on the side of the desk and push herself along. "Harper. Forget it. Let's go. Let's just go. He's got to be done for." She wanted to run over and grab Harper, take a running leap and fly out the window, off to the mountains, back to the house and hide there until winter covered their world and their tracks. "Don't you get it, we can go. There's nothing holding us here."

If Harper heard, she didn't acknowledge as she disappeared behind the desk.

65.

Morgan turned to the figures frozen behind him. "I think all of you are thinking way too small," he said.

Mr. Hector, the monkey, Brandt, Wallace, Nadine and Morgan's mom all stood with their noses pressed against the gla.s.s looking out across the city toward Marsh's office. Morgan wondered what they expected to see without the aid of a scope or binoculars. He supposed whether they could see anything or not wasn't the point.

The monkey let out a low whistle.

"My G.o.d, boy," Brandt said quietly. "What have you done? You killed Marsh. You'll be hunted by every member of that little f.u.c.ker's organization. They'll string you up. This isn't what I told you to do at all."

Morgan let himself smile. "The big picture, Brandt. The big picture."

The teddy bear was the first to look away from the window. "Uh oh. This is bad news. Morgie screwed up again."

"Morgan, it was bad enough when I thought you were going to kill another woman, but this can bring you nothing but more and more trouble," his mother said. "I don't know what to say."

Brandt spoke again. "Jumping Jesus on a Tuesday. What in h.e.l.l made you decide to shoot Marsh instead of the girl?"

Morgan was still looking through the scope at the office. Deena had disappeared from his view fairly quickly and Harper slowly made her way behind the desk where Marsh had fallen. His smile faded. "Instead?" He squeezed the trigger. "Let's see if we can't start with a clean slate."

66.

Chunks of the desk exploded into splinters that showered the room. One shot left a gaping hole in the front and Deena heard Harper scream.

"Harper!" Deena stood and left her cover as part of the wall exploded bits of plaster near her head. She ran to the desk and tried to hide herself in the useless cover there. She first saw Marsh's lifeless body in a pool of blood, his eyes wide and unseeing.

Harper was next to him, holding her left shoulder. Before Deena could ask, Harper said, "I'm fine, it'll be fine."

Deena wanted to ask if she could check it but the sound of more bullets impacting the room interrupted her. She looked around and saw that the gunfire was concentrated at the door on the other side of the room. He's toying with us, she thought. If he wanted us dead, we would be. Like Marsh.

There was some thudding from the hallway and the door crunched in two. Deena realized the door had been weakened enough that Marsh's men could knock it down. Still in a crouch and using the desk for cover as long as she could, Deena hurried toward the doorway. Two men came through and looked around the room, apparently bewildered at the destruction. Another man entered it with an automatic pistol and leveled in her direction. Deena figured he wouldn't have time to zero in on her and fire fast enough, not with his friends in the line of fire. She wished she'd kept a weapon, a pistol or something, so she wouldn't have to fight the men so close up. She could feel the Shadow Energy moving on her arm, expanding up her veins. It hurt more than ever. She'd hoped she would be able to fight without the help of whatever it was that dwelled within her. As with so many other times, she didn't have a choice. No chanting, no calming words, no yoga or screaming would make it stop now.

She covered the distance faster than she'd expected, faster than the men antic.i.p.ated as well. They barely had time to look at her before she was there. Her fist was coming down on the first man's face, she knew him, had seen him in the office many times, but his name didn't come to her. She brought her knuckles down squarely on his nose, and heard a thick crack with the impact. She pivoted her body so that her back was to the men, using the swiveling motion to build momentum to plant her elbow firmly in the next man's neck, she didn't bother trying to remember whether she knew this one, she just let him fall with his hands at his throat as she turned toward the man with the Uzi.

As quick as she'd been, the man was still a few feet away with his gun trained on her. She could hear more people coming in the hall and somewhere in her mind, she figured it was over. Even with that knowledge, the ent.i.ty within wanted her to keep going.

A single shot rang out, and Deena dove to the side to dodge it before she realized the man hadn't fired. Once she hit the floor, she turned to see Harper standing by the desk, holding the gun Marsh had threatened them with. The Uzi man went down.

Several more thugs ran through the doorway and Harper dropped them before Deena was even back on her feet.

Deena pulled a pistol out of one's hand and aimed it toward the door. There wasn't a sound in the outer office and she couldn't decide if that was good or bad. Were more waiting, hiding? Or was the way finally clear? She put her back to the wall and peered around the corner.

She only got a glimpse of Agents Pel and Garrett in the outer hall before she heard a thud and another scream from her sister. She'd fallen to the ground close to Marsh again, but this time things didn't look as superficial. Harper wasn't moving and as Deena approached, she could see blood trickling from her sister's body. There was a gaping hole in her side. Deena's hand curled in rage.

She looked out at the city; the myriad buildings, skysc.r.a.pers and rooftops came into focus then blurred. One by one, they disappeared from her view as though they didn't exist. One building, on the other side of the highway glowed a bright yellow to her and she saw a shadow fall across it, as though a cloud was blocking out the sun. As she focused on it, one floor near the top began to pulsate red until a window in the middle turned dark.

Without another thought, Deena raised her hand and pointed to a far-away window that she couldn't even see. Flames of blackness erupted into a ball around her hand; the room was silent, at least to her, as she let the power do what it wanted. She didn't try to control it, or guide it in any way. Her arm jerked and she remembered the sensation of firing a shotgun at the men in the house. It was a strong kick that made her stumble after the energy discharged. She recovered enough to see a circle of darkness the size of a softball disappear toward the building she'd focused in on. She didn't try to follow it to its destination, just turned to tend to Harper. She weakened as she felt the cloud of the Shadow Energy's control fade. She was suddenly tired, each step a ch.o.r.e with leaden feet.

Deena knelt next to her sister, trying to decide what to do. No ambulance or paramedics were going to make a run to this office right now; no doctor was going to make a house call. Harper's eyes were open only in slits, like she was falling asleep.

"Harper?" Her own voice was growing quiet, catching in her throat. So much so that she barely heard the words coming from her sister's mouth.

"Everything that happened here," Harper paused and swallowed. Her lips dry and sticking together. "It's your fault. All these people, this blood, all of it, because you couldn't control yourself. I only wanted to watch over you." Her eyes flickered and closed for a moment. She opened them again and tried to speak, the eyes couldn't quite focus.

Tears rolled down Deena's cheek and her arm began to ache. "It wasn't me. I couldn't control anything." The hand throbbed and Deena looked at it as if it hadn't been there all her life. Another part of the desk disintegrated in a hail of wooden debris but she didn't flinch. Dark thread-like tendrils began to acc.u.mulate and wiggle at her fingertips and she began to speak words that she knew wouldn't calm the force, but antagonize it, encourage it. A tendril began to extend beyond her index finger, like a drip of paint with a mind of its own. She moved her hand over toward her sister's body, which was now heaving with the effort to breathe. Deena tried to pause and think through what was happening, but thought better of a.n.a.lyzing the situation. No one was going to help Harper if she didn't try something, she knew that, but she had no clue what the material would do or how her sister would handle it.

Harper suddenly looked up and saw her sister's hand coming toward her and shook her head. She raised her good arm and pushed weakly against her sister. "No," she said softly. Her eyes widened a bit, but she didn't seem to have the strength to fight or move away.

The drop of blackness fell free; broke apart from Deena completely and fell into the gaping wound below it and disappeared.

Harper screamed with strength that Deena was sure her sister hadn't had moments ago. Harper's body convulsed and Deena did her best to prevent her sister from moving for fear that she would injure herself further. "Don't fight it," she told her sister. "Fighting it makes it worse. I've been trying to fight it all my life."

She heard sounds in the outer office and reacted without realizing it. She grabbed a gun and pointed it at the doorway without leaving her sister's side. A moment later, Garrett and Pel burst through into the room. She had the presence of mind not to shoot.

"What the h.e.l.l happened? You were supposed to wait for us." Garrett looked around the room at the destruction and death and then looked back at Deena. "Are you all right?"

Deena was glad he was here. She wished like crazy that he'd been here minutes ago to help, but she wondered if the shooter would've targeted the agents as well. "I'm OK. Harper's been shot, and I didn't know what else to do."

"What do you mean, what else? What did you do?"

Deena could hear the concern in his voice and she hesitated to explain. "I..." She held up her left hand, still black with the subsiding power.

Pel stepped over and looked at the wound. It was no longer dripping blood, but instead, seeping black matter. "This is like what happened when you were shot at the house."

"You used the power on your sister? After all the pain it's caused you, after everything that it's done to you?" Garrett's brow furrowed. "What the h.e.l.l is going to happen to her?"

"What other choice did I have? It just happened on its own. What would you have done?" She started to grab Harper's hand, to try to comfort the girl, or comfort herself, but she couldn't bring herself to touch her. She heard Garrett inhale deeply and she thought he might pursue the argument further, but he didn't. Instead, he pulled out his radio. "Rice? Where are you? We are inside and there has been a ma.s.sive amount of gunfire." He waited for a response before adding. "I repeat, shots have been fired. Request a.s.sistance."

"Is the shooter neutralized?" Pel asked. "Do you know where they are?" She moved to cover as best she could and pointed her weapon toward the window.

"I think I got him," Deena said.

67.

Blocks away, Morgan had only a split second to wonder what the blob was that darkened his telescopic sight. He'd been focused on Harper for a moment, and by the time he nudged the rifle scope over to where he'd left Deena, the missile of blackness was already near. The streak shot into his telescopic sight, shattering the lens. The sound of the destruction barely registered with Morgan before the dark blob burst through the second lens and embedded itself in his right eye. His head jerked backward and he fell to the floor, his hands instinctively going to his eye. He uttered what would later be described by his ex-girlfriend as a very unmanly and quite school-girlish scream as he writhed on his back. He fought to get up and figure out what was happening, to get himself away, but the pain was a shooting crackle of heat that penetrated his skull thoroughly. He pa.s.sed out with the dull outlines of several figures gathering around to peer down at him.

"That doesn't look good," Mr. Hector said.

Later, on the floor, he could hear bits of gla.s.s tumbling off his chest, and the wind streaming in through the window. Unfortunately, for the moment, he could only hear it. When he opened his eyes, there was still nothing but blackness in his field of vision. His right eye, where he'd been struck, hurt horribly whenever he opened it, so he stayed on the floor with both eyes shut for as long as he could. He wanted to get up and make his escape, though he was fairly sure no one from Marsh's office was going to travel across the city to get him anytime soon. He was far enough away that it was a good bet the police wouldn't make the connection for some time.

As light slowly seeped into his left eye, he found the right one wasn't improving. He couldn't keep his right eye open for more than a second or two without it shutting involuntarily. He tried to sit up, but felt ill immediately and rolled on his side to vomit. When it pa.s.sed, he looked around the room, blinking constantly. "h.e.l.lo?" He was alone.