Vengeful

by V. E. Schwab

Sydney took a deep breath, glanced at the red metal tin beside the bed, and then closed her eyes. She felt her way forward, let her hands come to rest on the sad remains, and reached.

  It felt like a long fall.

  It felt like emptiness and cold.

  It felt like forever—and then Syd registered the faint blush of light, the twist and curl of a thread. No, not a thread. A dozen wisp-thin filaments, fragments scattered across the black stretch behind her eyes. They swam across her vision like fish, darting away from her touch, and Sydney’s lungs began to ache, but she didn’t give up. Slowly, painstakingly, she gathered the filaments, imagined fitting the fraying threads back together. Knotting them.

  It took hours. Days. Years.

  And only an instant.

  As she tied the final knot, the thread glimmered, pulsed, became a flutter of feathers against her palm.

  Sydney’s eyes flew open as the bird moved beneath her fingers.

  A sound escaped her throat, half laugh, half sob, a mixture of victory and shock, and then the sound was overtaken by the furious wing-beats and the squawk of a very surprised pigeon trying to escape the confines of her grip.

  It pecked at her knuckles, and Sydney let go—a rookie mistake, as the bird took flight in the narrow room, searching for freedom, bouncing off the light fixture and the window, Dol bobbing his head as if trying to catch airborne apples.

  Sydney lunged for the window and threw it open, and the bird escaped into the night in a flurry of gray feathers.

  She stared after it, amazed.

  She’d done it.

  It was a bird, not a human, but Sydney had still taken only a few mangled bones and made the creature whole. Brought it back to life.

  In seconds, she was across the room, prying the lid off the red metal tin. The last—the only—pieces of Serena Clarke lay nested inside, wrapped in a scrap of fabric. Sydney reached for them, heart racing—and stopped.

  Her hand hovered over the remains.

  What if it wasn’t enough?

  A bird wasn’t a girl. If she tried, and failed, she’d never get another chance.

  If she tried, and failed—but what else could she do? The rest of Serena was ash, scattered across a city hundreds of miles away.

  Would it make a difference?

  Sydney had never wondered if the where mattered as much as the what, but now, as she nestled the lid back on the tin, she thought, Ghosts are tied to the place where they died. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but she had to believe in something—that thread of light, the closest thing she could find to a soul. If there was any of Serena left, beyond the bones in this box, it would be there.

  Sydney would just have to wait.

  XV

  TWO WEEKS AGO

  CAPSTONE

  STELL’S plane had landed at dawn. He didn’t know why a video conference wouldn’t suffice, but the board had insisted on his presence, and short of outright defiance, Stell had had no choice but to go.

  In his absence, he’d left Rios with strict instructions. No procedures were to be put into effect in his absence. No commands given or followed unless they came expressly from him.

  The last thing Stell needed was a mutiny.

  Now he stared across the nondescript conference table at five nondescript faces atop nondescript suits. Stell suspected that by the time he left the room, he wouldn’t be able to pick any of them out of a lineup, let alone a crowd.

  “First a failed EO capture,” said the woman in black, “now a failed extermination.”

  “You’ve made quite a mess,” added the man in gray.

  “We’ve faced difficult EOs before,” said Stell. “It’s only a matter of time—”

  “Only a matter of time,” cut in the man in black, “before EON and its interests are both dragged into the spotlight.”

  “My team is doing everything we can,” said Stell.

  “That isn’t strictly true,” said the man in black. “We called you here because we believe your personal bias has prevented you from utilizing every asset at your disposal.”

  “Bias?” challenged Stell.

  “We don’t deny,” added the woman in navy, “that you’ve been integral to the development of this organization—”

  “Development? I created EON. I brought you the first intel, I explained the threat level—hell, I had to convince several of you of the very legitimacy of EOs.”

  The man in charcoal cleared his throat. “We are not questioning your contribution.”

  The man in gray leaned forward. “We know you have a strong personal attachment to the early ideals of this organization.”

  “Which is why,” said in the woman in black, “you’re not objectively qualified to judge its current needs.”

  “My subjectivity is an asset,” said Stell. “You seem to think we’re dealing with manufactured weaponry here. Only I seem to realize we’re dealing with people.”

  “A case could be made,” said the man in charcoal, “that they are both.”

  Stell shook his head. It always came back to this—to money, and power, and the board’s desire for both. If the board had their way, they’d turn each and every captured EO into a weapon. Preferably single-use.

  “Marcella Riggins makes a mockery of EON, and of you,” said the woman in navy. “You claim you are doing everything you can, using every tool at your disposal, and yet you keep settling for low-range munitions when you have one perfectly suited to the task.”

  He understood then, with painful clarity.

  Eli.

  “At least low-range munitions have safety catches. Eli Cardale does not. I won’t authorize him for use in the field.”

  The man in charcoal sat forward. “You yourself have advocated for this kind of utility.”

  “This is different,” said Stell. “Eli isn’t an ex-soldier. He’s a mass murderer.”

  “One who has been cooperative for more than four years.”

  Stell shook his head. “You don’t know him like I do.”

  “And so we return to the issue of objectivity,” said the woman in navy.

  “Insight isn’t the same as bias,” snapped Stell. “You think we have a mess on our hands right now. It’s nothing compared to what would happen if we set him free.”

  “Who said anything about free?” asked the man in black. “There are countermeasures. According to our records, tracking devices were installed—”

  “It’s not just a matter of losing Eli,” said Stell. “It’s what he’ll do before we find him again. He can’t be controlled.”

  At this, the man in gray produced a briefcase. “With that in mind,” he said, sliding it down the table, “a sturdier solution.”

  The clasps came open to reveal a smooth steel ring, nested on a bed of black. When Stell reached in, he discovered it was actually two rings, one pressed into the other. A seam ran along each circle, so that the fused collar could hinge open and closed.

  “Haverty’s methods were admittedly problematic,” said the woman in black, “but in this case, they were also useful. His initial tests explored Cardale’s general ability to heal. His second series explored the extent of that healing—and its limitations.”

  A small remote, flat as a credit card and half as wide, lay impressed in the fabric beneath the collar, a single button on the smooth dark surface.

  “Haverty discovered a threshold. Anything smaller than, say, a pill, and Cardale’s body could absorb it. Anything larger, and his body would physically reject the intrusion. However, if he was unable to reject the object, his body could not heal.”

  Stell thought of Eli, awake on the operating table, his chest pinned open as Haverty worked.

  “We’ve had R and D on this project for months. Go ahead, try it.”

  Stell pressed the concave button, and the collar’s inner ring collapsed, folding at the seam so that the band of metal transformed into a vicious spike.

  “It’s designed,” explained the man in black, “to sever
a human spinal column between the fourth and fifth vertebrae. In an ordinary person, such an injury would result in permanent paralysis. Due to Cardale’s condition, the effects would obviously be temporary, but they should be just as effective.”

  “This is, of course, only an suggestion.” The woman in navy shot him a thin smile.

  “You are still EON’s director, after all.”

  Stell returned the collar to the case, the board’s logic warring with the lead weight in his stomach.

  “But we would strongly advise you to handle this EO, and handle her swiftly. Using any and every means necessary.”

  BACK IN MERIT

  STELL’S house key always stuck in the lock.

  He knew he should get it fixed, but he didn’t spend much time at home. Slept in his own bed one night in three. Ate most of his meals in EON’s canteen. He wasn’t sure what made him drive from the airport into the city instead of back toward EON, didn’t even realize what he was doing until he was halfway there. But his head was still cluttered from the meeting with the board, and the two whiskeys on the plane had done nothing to clear it, and Stell realized he didn’t want to step through those doors until he knew exactly what he planned to do.

  About Marcella.

  About Eli.

  Stell shrugged out of his coat. Lit a cigarette, even before he set the steel briefcase on the kitchen table. Slid the clasps.

  The smooth metal collar sat nested in its velvet groove.

  You are not using your assets.

  Was the board right?

  Send me.

  Stell lowered himself into a chair.

  You will never see the outside of this cell.

  Was he letting his past color his judgment?

  Or was he just listening to his gut?

  He rubbed his eyes. Took a long drag of the cigarette, filling his lungs with smoke. The collar glinted in its case, EON’s solution—but not Stell’s. Not yet.

  His cell rang. Stell answered without looking at the screen.

  “Hello?”

  He’d expected Rios, or a member of the board, but the voice on the line was smooth, sultry.

  “Joseph,” it said with all the warmth of an old friend.

  He frowned, stubbing out the cigarette. “Who is this?”

  “You really have to ask?”

  “Do I know you?”

  “I should hope so. After all, your men have spent a great deal of time shooting at me.”

  Stell’s fingers tightened imperceptibly on the phone.

  Marcella Riggins.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you had something against me.”

  “How did you get this number?”

  He could hear the smile in her voice. “I’m getting tired of killing your agents. Are you getting tired of burying them?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Perhaps,” she continued, “we could find a more sophisticated solution . . .”

  “Most EOs only get one chance,” said Stell. “I’m giving you two. Surrender now, and—”

  A soft laugh. “Now, Joseph,” she chided. “Why would I do a thing like that?”

  “So you just called to gloat.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Then why?”

  “I thought,” she said airily, “perhaps we could get a drink.”

  That, at last, caught Stell off guard. “To what end?” he demanded. “So you can try to kill me?”

  “That would be pointless. If I wanted you dead, you would be. You think this number is the only thing I know? I have to say, your choice of decor is tragically bland.”

  Stell’s head snapped up.

  “Of course,” she went on, “you’re really not home much, are you?”

  Stell said nothing, but shifted so his back was to the wall, his eyes on the windows.

  “Only a few photos,” she went on, “—two sisters, I presume, by the way they look at you—”

  “You’ve made your point,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Well, in that case, I’ll be at Canica Bar around seven. Don’t make me drink alone.”

  Before he could answer, she hung up.

  Stell slumped back against the wall, head spinning. He couldn’t go. He shouldn’t go. Marcella was a target, an enemy, someone to be dispatched, not negotiated with.

  But he had to do something.

  He looked from the steel briefcase to the cell phone in his hand.

  Stell swore under his breath, and grabbed his coat.

  XVI

  TWO WEEKS AGO

  DOWNTOWN MERIT

  SOME women spent years planning their wedding.

  Marcella had spent the last decade planning a hostile takeover.

  Of course, she’d always assumed Marcus would be the face of it, but this was far more satisfying.

  With the four heads of the Merit mob so cleanly dispatched, and the factions thrown into chaos—a chaos bolstered by rumor and eyewitness testimony—the bulk were already scrambling for solid ground. So many, so willing to serve.

  There would be scuffles, of course, and Marcella was prepared for those, ready to subdue the ones who would invariably vie for control, ready to pay off the officials who might get in her way.

  There was still the matter of EON, but Marcella had a play for that, too.

  She put her back to the window, surveying the room, Jonathan polishing his saxophone in a chair, June perched on the spine of the sofa, playing on her phone. With Hutch’s suite at the National ruined, they’d taken up residence in an uptown penthouse at First and White. One with windows made of reflective glass.

  Fool me once, thought Marcella, as someone knocked.

  Jonathan answered the door, stepping aside to reveal a trim man in a silk suit.

  “Oliver!” Marcella smiled at the sight of him—smiled wider at the rack of clothes filling the foyer. Between the house fire and the incident at the Heights, Marcella was in dire need of a new wardrobe.

  “Shit, Marce,” said Oliver, “you’ve got some heavy security downstairs. Felt me up, down, and in between.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a busy week.”

  “Excuse me for being a bit wary at the moment,” said June. “But who the fuck is this?”

  “This is Oliver,” said Marcella cheerfully. “My personal shopper.”

  June burst into raucous laughter. “People are trying to kill you—kill us—and you’ve got time for a fucking wardrobe change?”

  Oliver smirked. “Spoken like someone who doesn’t understand the power of appearance.”

  “That so?” June hopped down from the back of the sofa. She moved toward Oliver, taking on and shedding a different appearance with every step. “Maybe you should explain it to me?”

  Oliver went very still.

  “And that,” said Marcella dryly, “would be June.”

  His gaze shifted unsteadily back to her. “I, uh, heard . . . about Marcus. Hell, I heard about you. Lots of strange talk.”

  “Whatever you’ve heard,” said June, “it’s probably true.”

  Marcella gestured at Jonathan, standing in his worn-out suit. “Ollie, did you bring what I asked for?”

  In reply, Oliver pulled a garment bag from the rack and unzipped it far enough to reveal a sharp black suit. Marcella plucked it from Oliver’s hand.

  “A gift,” she said, offering the bag to Jonathan.

  “Nothing for me?” inquired June.

  “You already have a full closet,” said Marcella. She turned toward the bedroom. “Come on. Let’s see what you’ve brought.”

  By the time he started unzipping dress bags, Oliver had regained his usual color. “Gotta say, I was a little surprised to get your call,” he said, adding hurriedly, “and glad, of course. You always were my favorite mannequin.”

  She plucked a few blouses from the rack as Oliver began to lay out dresses on the bed. For a moment the image overlaid with another in her mind, the garments left waiting atop tousled sheets.


  Marcella let go of the blouse in her hand before she ruined it.

  “You have outdone yourself,” she said, eyes traveling over the array. A lace halter, trimmed in black leather. A crimson blazer with sharp shoulders and tapered wrists. A black gown with a dipping collar and a silk obi tie. A line of perfect, steel-heeled shoes.

  She lifted one. The polish was so high, Marcella could almost see herself in the shine. Red lips and black hair painted themselves on the metal finish, her reflection warping, as if she were on fire.

  Oliver turned his back while Marcella stripped and donned a short red dress that drew a clean line across her shoulder blades. She considered herself in the bedroom’s full-length mirror, let her eyes travel appraisingly over the burns that traced along her left collarbone, the inside of her right forearm, the top of one pale thigh.

  They were healing, the skin slipping from pink to silver.

  “That one’s stunning on you,” said Oliver at Marcella’s back. Her eyes slid past her own reflection just in time to see him draw a slim switchblade from his bag. Marcella didn’t flinch.

  “Zip me up?” she said lightly.

  “Of course.” Oliver started toward her, and Marcella waited until he was almost an arm’s length away before turning suddenly. He slashed, and she caught the knife in her hand, her palm already glowing red. Before the weapon could so much as scratch her skin, it had crumbled.

  “What a pity,” she said, wrapping her other hand around Oliver’s throat. “You had such good taste.”

  He managed the beginnings of a scream before the skin and muscle gave way to bone, and then ash, and then nothing.

  “Christ,” said June, appearing in the doorway. She took in the scene. “Well, that’s what you get for having a personal shopper.” She nodded at Oliver’s remains. “Is there anyone who doesn’t want to kill you?”

  “Occupational hazard, it seems,” said Marcella.

  “So it seems,” said June. “And how long do you think before our friends at EON try their luck again?”

  Marcella turned back to the mirror, flicking a stray bit of ash from the hem of her dress. She met her reflection, and smiled.

  “Let me worry about them.”