Passion

And a girl, about nineteen, with a white-blond ponytail, brown trench coat, and thick, dark sunglasses, walked slowly up the aluminum steps toward the Elders.

Sophia stiffened. Why would she be here?

It was next to impossible to tell which direction the girl was looking in, and Sophia was trying hard not to stare. Not that it would matter; the girl wouldn’t be able to see her. She was blind. But then—

The Outcast nodded once at Sophia. Oh yes—these fools could see the burning of a person’s soul. It was dim, but Sophia’s life force must still have been visible.

The girl took a seat in the empty row in front of the Elders, facing the track and flipping though a five-dollar tip sheet her blind eyes wouldn’t be able to read.

“Hello.” The Outcast’s voice was a monotone. She didn’t turn around.

“I really don’t know why you’re here,” Miss Sophia said. It was a damp November day in Kentucky, but a sheen of sweat had broken out across her forehead. “Our collaboration ended when your cohorts failed to retrieve the girl. No amount of bitter blabber from the one who calls himself Phillip will change our minds.” Sophia leaned forward, closer to the girl, and wrinkled her nose. “Everyone knows the Outcasts aren’t to be trusted—”

“We are not here on business with you,” the Outcast said, staring straight ahead. “You were but a vessel to get us closer to Lucinda. We remain uninterested in ‘collaborating’ with you.”

“No one cares about your organization these days.” Footsteps on the bleachers.

The boy was tall and slender, with a shaven head and a trench coat to match the girl’s. His sunglasses were the cheap plastic variety found near the batteries at the drugstore.

Phillip slid onto the bleacher right next to Lyrica Crisp. Like the Outcast girl, he didn’t turn to face them when he spoke.

“I’m not surprised to find you here, Sophia.” He lowered his sunglasses on his nose, revealing two empty white eyes. “Just disappointed that you didn’t feel you could tell me that you’d been invited as well.”

Lyrica gasped at the horrible white expanses behind his glasses. Even Vivina lost her cool and reared back. Sophia boiled inside.

The Outcast girl raised a golden card—the same invitation Sophia had received—scissored between her fingers. “We received this.” Only, this one looked like it had been written in Braille. Sophia reached for it to make sure, but with a quick movement, the invitation disappeared back inside the girl’s trench coat.

“Look, you little punks. I branded your starshots with the emblem of the Elders. You work for me—”

“Correction,” Phillip said. “The Outcasts work for no one but themselves.”

Sophia watched him crane his neck slightly, pretending to follow a horse around the track. She’d always thought it was eerie, the way they gave off the impression that they could see. When everyone knew he’d struck the lot of them blind with the flick of a finger.

“Shame you did such a poor job capturing her.” Sophia felt her voice rise higher than she knew it should, drawing the eyes of an older couple crossing the grandstand. “We were supposed to work together,” she hissed, “to hunt her down, and—and you failed.”

“It would not have mattered one way or another.”

“Come again?”

“She would still be lost in time. It was always her destiny. And the Elders would still be hanging on by a thread. That is yours.”

She wanted to lunge at him, wanted to strangle him until those great white eyes bulged from their sockets. Her dagger felt like it was burning a hole through the calfskin handbag on her lap. If only it had been a starshot. Sophia was rising from the bleacher when the voice came from behind them.

“Please be seated,” it boomed. “This meeting is now called to order.”

The voice. She knew at once whose it was. Calm and authoritative. Utterly humbling. It made the bleachers quake.

The nearby mortals noticed nothing, but a flush of heat rose on the back of Sophia’s neck. It trickled through her body, numbing her. This was no ordinary fear. This was a crippling, stomach-souring terror. Did she dare to turn around?

The subtlest peek from the corner of her eye revealed a man in a tailored black suit. His dark hair was clipped short under his black hat. The face, kind and attractive, was not particularly memorable. Clean-shaven, straight- nosed, with brown eyes that felt familiar. Yet Miss Sophia had never seen him before. And still she knew who he was, knew it in the marrow of her bones.

“Where is Cam?” the voice behind them asked. “He was sent an invitation.”

“Probably playing God inside the Announcers. Like the rest of them,” Lyrica blurted out. Sophia swatted her.

“Playing God, did you say?”

Sophia searched for the words that would fix a gaffe like that. “Several of the others followed Lucinda backward into time,” she said eventually. “Including two Nephilim. We aren’t sure how many others.”

“Dare I ask,” the voice said, suddenly ice-cold, “why none of you elected to go after her?”

Sophia fought to swallow, to breathe. Her most intuitive movements were stunted by panic. “We can’t exactly, well … We don’t yet have the capabilities to—”

The Outcast girl cut her off. “The Outcasts are in the process of—”

“Silence,” the voice commanded. “Spare me your excuses. They no longer matter, as you no longer matter.”

For a long time, their group was quiet. It was terrifying not to know how to please him. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, but no less lethal. “Too much at stake. I can’t leave anything else to chance.”

A pause.

Then, softly, he said, “The time has come for me to take matters into my own hands.”

Sophia bit her gasp in two to hide her horror. But she could not stop her body’s tremors. His direct involvement? Truly, it was the most terrifying prospect. She could not imagine working with him to—

“The rest of you will stay out of this,” he said. “That is all.”

“But—” It was an accident, but the word escaped Sophia’s lips. She could not take it back. But all her decades of labor. All her plans. Her plans!

What came next was a long, earth-shattering roar.

It reverberated up through the bleachers, seeming to travel around the entire racetrack in a splinter of a second.

Sophia cringed. The noise seemed almost to crash into her, through her skin and down to her deepest core. She felt as if her heart was being drummed to pieces.

Lyrica and Vivina both pressed against her, eyes clamped shut. Even the Outcasts trembled.

Just when Sophia thought the sound of it would never cease, that it would be the death of her at last, his roar gave way to absolute pin-drop silence.

For a moment.

Enough time to look around and see that the other people at the racetrack had not heard anything at all.

In her ear he whispered, “Your time on this endeavor is up. Do not dare to get in my way.”

Down below, another shot rang out. The broad gate banged open once again. Only this time, the pounding of horses’ hooves against the dirt sounded like practically nothing, like the lightest rainfall falling on a canopy of trees.

Before the racehorses had crossed the starting line, the figure behind them had vanished, leaving only the mark of coal-black hoofprints singed into the planks of the grandstand.

ONE UNDER FIRE