“Steel,” grunted the bear-headed Scav to the big one with the bat ears.

Looking into the small black eye of the camera on the ceiling, Bat Ears tapped the nose of his rifle against the door. “Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?” he called in falsetto. His companions snickered.

A disembodied voice answered over a hidden speaker. “Nobody here but us chickens.”

Nola, sounding bored. Magnus smiled grimly: She definitely didn’t scare easily. He crept a few feet closer, the curdled stench of unwashed skin wrinkling his nose.

Bear Head whispered with reverence, “A woman!” The other four began to shift their weight and mutter, but Bat Ears fell perfectly still, his air of jaunty humor vanished. He gazed into the camera a long, silent moment, then removed his helmet.

Big mistake.

It was a peculiarity of Magnus’s Gift that he had to be looking directly into the eyes of his victim for it to work. That meant close quarters, which sometimes meant close calls, if those victims happened to be armed, as these six were. So instead of a direct assault, Magnus often had to resort to guerrilla tactics.

It was guerrilla fighters, after all, who’d perfected the art of the surprise ambush.

The invisible ambush.

Magnus gathered the shadows around him, and closed the last few feet between him and the armed group of thugs.

“What . . . where’d he go?” James stared in confusion at the black-and-white video display. Where only a second ago Magnus had stood, sneaking down the hallway like a burglar—actually it was closer to swaggering down the hallway like a pirate—now there was only blank space.

“Jack said he was special,” Nola whispered, her gaze glued to the screen. “I have a feeling we’re about to find out exactly what that means.”

Standing just behind them both, Lu watched in awe as chaos ensued.

The man who’d removed his helmet to stare into the camera had a gaunt face, matted black hair, and black eyes that hinted at depths of violence that made her skin crawl. One second he was glaring into the camera as if he were going to eat it, the next he whirled around with a shout. His five companions froze, and stood unmoving as their leader clapped his hands on either side of his head and began, loudly, to scream.

He fell to his knees, then to the floor, writhing and screaming in agony. The other Scavs began to shout over each other, panicked.

“What the hell?”

“Luter! What’s wrong?”

“It’s poison! The air is poisoned!”

“Nothing’s showing on the readout, idiot!”

“Then what the fuck is wrong with him?”

The leader continued to roll and shriek, only now his nose was copiously bleeding. As were his ears. His helmet lay discarded on the floor beside him, blank-eyed and grotesque. He began to sob and beg.

“Please! Make it stop! Make it stop! OhGodJesusMotherMarypleasefuckingmakeitstop!”

A tingle of horror swept up Lu’s spine. She knew with chilling, bone-deep certainty that whatever was happening to this man, Magnus was the cause. Remembering what he’d said to her in the bedroom, her chill grew deeper.

You have no idea what kind of man I am, or the things I’ve done, or the things I’m capable of.

The man on the ground coughed up an extravagant amount of blood. Lu jumped, hand to her mouth, watching wide-eyed as two of the other men’s helmets were wrenched from their heads by an invisible force and tossed aside. They, too, fell to the floor screaming.

The other three made a run for the elevator.

They didn’t get far. All three were thrown to the ground within seconds, their helmets removed and thrown away, their screams rising in horrible harmony with the others. Their noses began to spray blood. Their screams were punctuated by wet, bloody coughs, and Lu knew what was coming next.

Magnus! No!

Instantly, the men stopped screaming.

An awful silence ensued, broken only by low groans and the sound of pained wheezing. The men rocked on the floor, clutching their heads, curled into fetal positions. The leader, the one who’d been afflicted first, crawled slowly to his knees and sat back on his haunches. He touched his face, shook his head as if to clear his vision.

“Today’s your lucky day, Scav. Any other time and I would’ve ended your sorry life without a second thought,” said a low voice, a growl from the semidarkness that wasn’t attached to anything visible. Wherever Magnus was, he must’ve been close to the leader, because the man cowered at the sound of his voice.

“Please!” he entreated in a ragged whisper. “We were just looking for food!”

His hands flew to his head again. He began, shrilly, to scream.

It was over as quickly as it had started. The man fell forward onto his hands, gasping for breath.

“I don’t like liars. You should know that up front. I also don’t like repeating myself, so I’m only going to say this once: Leave, and never come near here again. Next time, I won’t be so forgiving.”

Then it seemed all the men were released from the grip of agony that held them. One by one, they staggered to their feet, grunting and groaning, wiping blood from their faces, their eyes wild and disoriented. The leader found his helmet and stumbled down the tunnel toward the others, and one by one the rest retrieved their headgear. They fell into the elevator, collapsing to the floor.

The door closed. The elevator creaked to life. Then there was only an empty tunnel festooned with bloodstains, and a tall, smooth-edged hole in one wall.

Something glinted oddly in the dim light. A sly glimmer began to coalesce into a solid form. Then Magnus appeared, looking up into the camera, his face as cold as stone. He looked a long, long time, and Lu knew he knew she was watching, and waiting for her to pronounce judgment against him.

When she remained silent, still stunned by what she’d seen, his voice, broken and raw, spoke into her head.

Not so beautiful now, am I?

He turned on his heel and strode away.

TWENTY-FIVE

For a person who’d grown up in a society where the elderly were murdered with a lethal dose of chemicals, then incinerated and disposed of along with the trash, Lu found Cherokee burial customs exotic, foreign, and hauntingly beautiful.

First, Nola washed Grandfather’s body with water and boiled willow root. Then she anointed him with lavender oil to cleanse his body of impurities. She sang a lament on her knees beside his bed, while James performed purification rituals for the house. They then gathered all Grandfather’s belongings, wrapped his body in a shroud, and sang more lamentations until the day had passed and darkness again overtook the sky.

Then they went outside, dug a hole, and buried him in the yard with his head facing west. His clothing, favorite books, jewelry, old photographs, and wedding ring were buried with him.

During all of it Lu fought back tears. Her own father had escaped the injection of SleepSoft-9 and the Cinerator^TM, but in the end he’d burned anyway. There was no grave for her to visit when they reached New Vienna. No evidence existed that he’d ever been alive at all. There was only a place in her heart that would forever remain empty, and her memory of him, the gentle, faithful man who’d raised a foundling child and paid the ultimate price for his kindness.