“Have I told you you’re an idiot?” Aaron asked, staring through the windshield at the tall iron gate and the even taller house behind it. If such a monstrosity could even be called a house. It was more like a modern fortress.
“About twenty times since my plane landed.” I flipped down the driver’s-side sunshade and checked my tie in the mirror.
“Has it sunk in yet?”
I glanced at him in the thick shadows of the car’s interior, lit only by the green numbers scrolling across the radio’s display in the dashboard. “Your puny verbal barbs are no match for my thick skull.”
“You do have a freakishly thick skull,” Aaron said, flipping through the stations on my rental car’s radio. “But that won’t stop a bullet. They may look civilized in tuxedos and sequins, but they’re really monsters in men’s clothing, every single one of them. They’re going to eat you alive in there, Ian.”
“Then may they choke on my corpse.”
Aaron punched the button to turn off the radio, uncharacteristically serious in concession to the job at hand. “Eight years since you left, and nothing’s changed. You’re still ready to charge in half-cocked and make the world bend to your will, consequences be damned.”
“That’s not true.” The kid I’d been back then was idealistic but soft. Smart but naive. That kid had been burned by the real world—roasted alive—and I’d risen from his ashes, ready to breathe fire of my own. “Now I’m fully cocked, and well aware of the consequences. As are you.”
He nodded at the somber reminder. “You sure you don’t want me to go in with you? I could grab a monkey suit and be back in a second.” Aaron was a Traveler, which meant he could step into the shadow of a tree outside my car and into his own bedroom in the space of a single breath, and be back just as fast. “You’re gonna need someone you trust at your back.”
Unfortunately for Aaron—or fortunately, depending on your perspective—traveling was one of the most common Skills in the world. Aaron’s range was a little above average, but his accuracy was questionable at best, and unless his motivation was personal, no one would ever call him punctual. Which meant he had no value whatsoever to the Skilled syndicates.
That fact had kept him safe from their interest for years. So safe, in fact, I’d often wondered if he was faking his own incompetence for that very reason. He wouldn’t be the first to try it. Hell, I’d tried it. But that wasn’t why I couldn’t use his help.
“Thanks, but no. If you show your face in Tower’s house, within an hour they’ll know you’re an Independent.”
They’d also know that Aaron was as good with a computer as he was bad with women, that he was late on the rent and quick with a punch line, and that he was addicted to those little melt-away mints people serve at weddings. His life was an open book, available to anyone who cared to read it. As were most people’s lives. Which was why I was the only one who could do this job.
Because I had no life. No past. Officially, I didn’t even exist, and if they ever figured that out, being seen with me could get Aaron killed.
“I need you to stay off their radar so you can be my emergency bailout, if this ends badly.”
“Fair enough.” Aaron sounded half relieved, half disappointed. He wanted to play badass assassin, but he didn’t really want the risk that came with it. “Give me a call if you need a quick escape.”
“I will,” I said, as he pushed open the passenger-side door. But we both knew I wouldn’t. There was nothing he could do to help me, if I couldn’t get out of Tower’s house on my own. The infrared lighting grid guaranteed that trespassers couldn’t gain entrance through the shadows. His heavily guarded exits made sure no one got in the traditional way, either. Once inside, I would be on my own.
“If you survive this kamikaze mission, we should get dinner. And beer.”
“Absolutely.” But that was another lie. I had every intention of surviving, but wouldn’t get the chance to hang out afterward, and I’d probably never be able to come back into the country at all, much less this particular city. If I accomplished what I’d set out to do, the price on my head would be high enough that preachers and Boy Scouts would fight one another for the chance to profit from my death.
“Good luck, man.” Aaron stuck his hand out and I shook it, then he stepped out of my rental car and closed the door. I watched as he walked into the patch of woods at the side of the road. One step. Two. Three. Then he was gone, not just hidden by the shadows, but transported by them. Through them.
I took a deep breath and checked my tie in the mirror again—I hadn’t worn a tux in years, and my distaste for formal wear had not faded. Then I shifted the car into Drive and pulled onto the street at the end of a procession of cars all headed the same place I was.
The queue of vehicles moved quickly, greased by proper planning and a well-trained workforce. When I rolled to a stop in front of the house, feet from the curved, formal steps, a man was waiting to take my keys while another spoke into his handheld radio, his steady but unobtrusive gaze taking in every detail of my clothes and bearing. They knew my face.
Before I’d even rounded the front of the car, a brunette in a long, formfitting peach-colored dress came down the steps toward me. She smiled like a pageant contestant and moved like a waitress, quick and eager to please.
“Mr. Holt.” She threaded her arm through mine and guided me smoothly up the steps, without ever faltering in either smile or stride. “We would have sent a car for you,” she said, leading me through a door held open by a man in service dress. She was smooth, and polished, and poised—an experienced people handler and a beautiful woman.
But she was not what I’d requested.
“Unnecessary. I wanted to see the city a bit on my own.” I stopped in the foyer, and she had no choice but to stop with me, because I still held her arm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“I’m Nina. Mr. Tower’s personal assistant.”
“And you’re my escort for the evening?”
Her smile faltered a bit over my implication, and the dissatisfaction echoing intentionally within the question. But then she rallied from the insult and her smile beamed brighter than ever, if a little brittle now. “No, I’m afraid Mr. Tower has chosen someone else to keep you company during your stay. I’m just here to make the introductions this evening.”
Nina led me through the wide foyer, generically ostentatious with its soaring ceiling and gold-veined marble tile. Even in his absence, Jake Tower exhibited his own affluence and power like a peacock displaying plumage. Wealth was evident in the expensive furnishings and decor, while his power was even more obvious in the stream of well-dressed guests, several of whom I recognized from political pieces on the nightly news.
At the base of each curved staircase, dressed in black and carrying handheld radios, stood a member of Tower’s security team, monitoring the party in general and me in particular. I was unbound—I’d taken no oath of loyalty or service to Jake Tower—thus untrusted. They would watch me, prepared to intercept or incapacitate, until the day I bore Tower’s chain link on my arm, marking me as his to command.
And that wasn’t going
