Sicarius Soul

death.

1

Few assassins hunt with impunity in a world dominated by alpha mutants, but I do. My thoughts are protected from telepaths, my intentions invisible to precognitives, my body invulnerable to telekinetics, my emotions inaccessible to empaths. I pass through the world, a living, breathing human person who can be physically touched by other people, but I leave no psychic trace of my passing.

In a world increasingly dependent on psychic abilities, I am invisible—a psychic ghost.

I am the perfect assassin, which makes me the only person for this task: to kill an alpha empath…and not just any alpha empath. Danyael Sabre is watched over by the Three Fates—mercenaries recruited from among the elite warriors of special forces teams. Their leader, Zara Itani, is in her own right, an assassin truly deserving of her ruthless reputation.

They will not get in my way. They will not be allowed to protect a man who has shed far more blood than they.

Danyael unleashes death on an unprecedented scale. More than five hundred people died on Theodore Roosevelt Island on July 4th.

He killed them. His darkest emotions, fueled by his empathic powers, drove them to suicide.

He ripped their souls apart.

No man should be allowed that much power over others. No man should command another’s soul.

That is the only truth to which I hold.

The night is late, minutes to midnight, and the bright lights of nearby Washington, D.C., purge the stars of their radiance. Here, in Anacostia, the streets are dimly lit. Store windows and doors are protected by bars, but not the free clinic.

On a street wrecked by vandalism and reeking of trash and urine, the free clinic is untouched by the gangs that rule Anacostia. The lights are still on; everything within is clearly visible through the glass door. A pregnant woman walks through the open door. Her arms cradle her stomach. The worried frown on her face has given way to a hopeful smile. The man accompanying her does not support her ungainly weight. His hands are in his jacket, his fingers wrapped around the hilt of his handguns. His alert gaze sweeps the street for threats.

He loves her.

The only possible threat is a lean, solitary man standing across the street from the clinic, but that man does not move from his watchful pose. He’s not interested in the clinic’s patients, nor in the nurse who scurries toward the metro station.

He’s here for Danyael Sabre.

The doctor is the last to leave. He turns off the lights in the clinic and briefly vanishes into darkness before emerging from the building to stand beneath the dim glow of a streetlamp. He locks the door then turns for home—a fifth-floor walk-up apartment two streets away.

His shoulders are slumped, and he leans heavily on his one crutch, the limp in his left leg more obvious than usual. He does not look around. He does not need to. He fears nothing in this neighborhood.

He does not even fear death.

But he should…

I lean in to my sniper rifle and rest my cheek against its frame. Danyael is perfectly visible through the scope. I inhale deeply, hold my breath, and pull the trigger.

2

The night was no colder than was usual for April in Washington, D.C., but Danyael braced against the stinging bite of the wind. He had lost his tolerance of the cold, and the last winter had been especially difficult. Despite the onset of spring, he could not get warm enough, his fingertips numb beneath his frayed woolen gloves.

He shoved his right hand into the pocket of his leather jacket. His left hand curled more tightly around the crutch. Home, and rest, is just two blocks away. He mentally skirted around the issue of the five flights of stairs leading up to his small apartment. Breaking down big problems into small, manageable tasks and tackling them one at a time was the only way he got through each day.

Danyael locked the free clinic door and slid the key into the pocket of his denim jeans. Something shifted in his peripheral vision, but he did not turn.

It was just Jackson, probably grateful that he could stop loitering in front of the clinic. The alpha telepath and precognitive trailed Danyael, careful to keep his distance.

No doubt Zara had warned Jackson, as she had all the others, to give Danyael the illusion of privacy.

Danyael chuckled under his breath. Sometimes, it seemed that illusions were all he had left.

The tightness locked in his shoulders made each step harder than it had to be. The muscles of his body stretched and contracted in unnatural ways to compensate for a left leg that weakened with each passing day. At some point, he would have to make a decision to amputate it.

Some nights, after long, weary days like the one he had just endured, he almost relished the promise of starting over, without the constant pain.

Maybe tomorrow.

He had said as much yesterday, and the day before. He had been saying maybe tomorrow for months. Always pushing out the decision. Always trying to find another solution. Always holding out for hope.

The illusion of hope.

He checked himself, shaking his head sharply as he consciously rejected cynicism. Didn’t think I’d become a bitter old man at the age of thirty.

The thought nudged him into a smile. Overachiever.

Something flickered at the edge of his consciousness. Danyael stopped walking. His head snapped up.

Unfamiliar sensations—not quite emotions—flittered, wisp-like, toward him. He glanced over his shoulder. His dark eyes met Jackson’s, and the other man straightened, his stance alert, even alarmed.

That almost-intangible presence flashed again—hazy, tinged with crimson-streaked darkness.

Anger-infused hate.

Instinct twisted Danyael toward the darkness of a nearby alley. Pain tore through his right shoulder. He staggered, reeled—

Jackson sprinted toward Danyael, shielding him with his body and hustling him into the narrow safety of the alley. Concealed shooter. Danyael’s down! Jackson shouted into the microphone he wore on the collar of his trench coat. All units converge on me. He winced against the excited babble of conversation in his earpiece. At least one bullet. Right shoulder.

I’ll be all right. Danyael breathed though the shock and the pain.

He’s conscious. Talking. How far is the APC? Jackson gripped Danyael’s other shoulder. Two minutes. Hang in there. We’ll get you to the hospital. He grimaced. Shit. Zara’s going to kill me.

The Mutant Affairs Council headquarters in Alexandria was, at all hours of the day and night, packed with alpha mutants. Yet, most of them were conspicuously absent when Zara Itani strode into the building at 1 a.m.

Alex Saunders, the director of the council, took the precaution of meeting her in the lobby. And just as well, he noted. The Lebanese-Venezuelan assassin’s violet eyes were narrow slits, and her voice was a husky purr—frequently the precursor to extreme violence. Where is Danyael?

Just coming out of surgery. You can see him in a few minutes once they get him settled in recovery. He took a bullet in the right shoulder.

Her upper lip lifted in a snarl. He shouldn’t have taken a bullet anywhere. Where the hell is Jackson?

Here. Jackson skulked out of an adjoining corridor. Once again, Alex was struck by the incongruity of Jackson, the six-foot-two ex-Delta, double alpha, cautiously watching his words and his step around a human woman.

A woman who could kick his ass, have a great time doing so, and then kill him without suffering a single moment of guilt.

There was nothing out there, I swear. Jackson held up his hands in a placating gesture. I scanned every mind in the vicinity. There was no lurking killer. No psychically shielded mutants. Everyone was an open book.

And yet Danyael was shot.

He sensed something—I don’t know what—but he stopped and looked around. I knew something was wrong then, but I still couldn’t find it. Frustration seeped into Jackson’s voice. Whatever Danyael sensed, it was beyond me. He twisted away, as if he knew something was coming. If he hadn’t, that bullet would have gone into his heart. Jackson swallowed, his Adam’s apple visibly bulging. Danyael saved his own life.

Luckily for you, Zara purred.

I’m sure the shot came from the building across the street—third floor window—but there was nothing in the room. Not even a shell. No psychic remnants of a presence.

She stared at Jackson. Oh?

Only Zara could make that simple question sound like a threat. Alex intervened before the crisis could escalate. Come this way, Zara. Let’s talk. He led the way down the carpeted corridor toward the elevators.

Zara strode alongside Alex with the unhurried, predatory grace of a stalking tiger. I want to see Danyael.

He’s in no danger.

He wasn’t supposed to be in any danger back at the clinic.

Alex grimaced as he entered the waiting elevator and turned to face Zara. I wasn’t completely forthcoming when I asked if you could have some of your agents keep an eye on Danyael.

You said you were worried that Seth Copper’s friends might still be out there with an axe to grind.

We’ve arrested all of Seth’s allies. It’s not Seth. Alex expelled his breath. Danyael’s not the first empath to have been attacked. He’s the first, however, to have survived the attack.

Zara’s eyes registered shock, swiftly concealed beneath ruthless practicality. Who’s responsible?

No one has stepped forward to claim credit for the kills.

You must have suspicions.

Some, but we’ve no evidence. No one’s been caught, and like in this instance, there’s no psychic trace, no trail to follow.

How many have died?

Alex ground his teeth, his cheek muscles twitching from the strain of containing the truth and tempering the anger that he knew would follow. He stepped out of the elevator as it opened onto the third floor and led the way to his office overlooking the Potomac. He closed the door behind Zara; only then did he speak. Over the past two months, eleven empaths—all of them powerful, bordering on alpha-level capabilities.

What? Zara’s jaw dropped. "And you’re only now telling me? The other two alphas—"

They’re both dead. Cortez was killed in Barcelona seven weeks ago, and Faraji last week in Harare.

The assassin gets around, Zara murmured. Was Danyael warned?

Yes, the moment we suspected a killing spree, shortly after Cortez died. Alex did not sit at his desk, neither did he offer Zara a seat. I gather Danyael told you nothing.

We don’t talk.

Alex detected more than a hint of anger and bitterness in Zara’s voice, but knew better than to ask. Some things were never up for discussion; Danyael and Zara’s dysfunctional non-relationship were chief among them. Instead, he said, Danyael didn’t want us to tell you. He said he would bring it up with you when the time was right.

Which would be when exactly? Zara demanded. After he was killed? Does he have a death wish?

Her question cracked the air like a whiplash, and lingered, unanswered, because no one knew the answer. Danyael’s will to live had to be tenuous at best. Abandoned by his family as an infant, Danyael had endured a childhood of brutal abuse before he was diagnosed as an alpha empath. Lucien Winter’s friendship, however, had saved Danyael. Lucien’s wealth and protection allowed Danyael to build a life for himself, including graduation from medical school. Working as a doctor provided Danyael with the perfect cover for his empathic healing capabilities, and he was content to live quietly, working at the free clinic in Brooklyn, New York.

Until Zara freed Galahad, the genetically engineered perfect human, from his laboratory prison—and the world learned that Galahad wore Danyael’s face.

The revelation that Danyael’s genes had been used in the creation of Galahad ripped apart all semblance of normality in Danyael’s life. The Mutant Assault Group, a special forces unit within the U.S. military, seized the opportunity to turn Danyael’s empathic capabilities into the deadly weapon it could be. Friends became enemies, forcing Danyael to choose between using his mutant powers to heal or to kill. His fateful choice—he had killed to save Zara’s life—landed Danyael in ADX Florence, a supermax prison, for fourteen months.

The Mutant Assault Group, in secret collaboration with Sakti, a mutant terrorist group, had then freed Danyael from prison and compelled him to lead their top-secret project—a unit of human-animal hybrids. When Sakti turned on the public, terrorizing Washington, D.C. and killing families in their homes, Danyael lured Sakti into a trap and finally used his empathic powers to kill—not one, but hundreds—in an instant.

Danyael’s defeat of Sakti secured him his freedom—almost—but Zara knew it was a joke. A class-five threat, Danyael was imprisoned, virtually, within a ten-mile radius of the Mutant Affairs Council headquarters in Washington, D.C. and forced to live under extreme scrutiny. He knew, as did everyone else, if he so much as breathed the wrong way, the government shackles would clamp down and drag him away.

No charges, no trial.

No second chances.

So, Danyael did what he always did. He picked up what pieces he could, kept his head down, and lived quietly. He had gained a little—the tumultuous events had brought his brother, Jason Rakehell, back into his life.

Danyael had, however, lost far more.

Miriya, the alpha telepath whose friendship had kept Danyael sane through his fourteen months of torture in prison, was dead. She had stepped in front of a bullet to save Danyael’s life.

Lucien, the man who had once been Danyael’s best friend and saving grace, had been kidnapped by the Mutant Assault Group. His mind twisted by alpha telepaths, Lucien now hated Danyael as much as he had once loved him.

And Zara had betrayed Danyael. Not once, but twice.

Danyael had suffered too much to be enthusiastic about living.

Yet, he had turned away from an assassin’s bullet and saved his own life.

Alex did not know what to do with the guilt and near-panic that lodged in his chest the moment he heard Danyael had been shot. The best we could do was to protect him, hence my request to you, for bodyguards.

Zara’s eyes glittered, her voice a dangerous purr. You downplayed the risk. If you had told me there was an assassin on him, I would have personally handled his security.

Would you?

Of course.

I don’t doubt your ability to protect him, but we would have had to put two or more alpha telepaths on him too. Just in case.

Why… Zara frowned. The eighty-seven deaths in Barcelona seven weeks ago—it wasn’t a gas leak.

The Spanish government hushed it up, but you’re right. It wasn’t a gas leak. It was the final release of Cortez’s empathic power. Alex shook his head. It’s no surprise to you, I’m sure, to learn that Cortez and Faraji were both emotional train wrecks.

Alpha empaths usually are, Zara agreed, no irony in her voice.

They are rare, and their unchecked powers tend to get them killed as infants or young children. Few make it to adulthood, and those who do are inevitably scarred mentally and emotionally. In Danyael’s case, physically too. Their painful past fuels their empathic powers, and when they die, it… Alex clasped his fingers together and then yanked them apart sharply. It explodes out of them—escalating, amplifying, driving people to suicidal madness.

Alex sighed. Cortez’s death and the subsequent emotional meltdown weren’t contained quickly enough. It was a little better with Faraji. By then, we knew someone was targeting empaths, and two alpha telepaths always accompanied him, just in case.

And it came to pass.

They were able, for the most part, to telepathically contain Faraji’s empathic meltdown until his powers faded away. Only thirteen lives were lost that day. But if Danyael… Alex’s grimace set up a resonating ache in his chest.

If Danyael dies?

It all depends on where. Like Cortez and Faraji, Danyael’s a defense-class alpha. His powers can’t penetrate walls or physical structures. If he died in a fully enclosed room with no one present, it would be all right, but if he died out in the open in a crowded city like Washington, D.C., his empathic release would drive anyone with an unshielded mind or anyone not safe within an enclosed structure to suicide.

How far would his powers spread? A city block?

Ten miles, at least.

Ten miles? But that’s practically the whole of Washington, D.C.

And that’s the minimum expected range for Danyael. It could be a great deal farther. It would be a disaster beyond anything we’ve seen. Danyael is fully capable of it. You know what he did on July 4th.

They were terrorists. He single-handedly killed the Sakti terrorists who were attacking the city.

Yes, the key words being killed and single-handedly. Danyael is more powerful than both Cortez and Faraji, and in many ways, far more damaged. When he dies, the empathic backlash will be horrific. Our only chance at mitigating the damage is to contain his powers until they fade away. That’s why aid came so quickly when he was shot. In addition to the people you had protecting him, we assigned nine alpha telepaths to Danyael. They stalk him in overlapping eight-hour shifts. He is never truly alone.

And they never sensed the assassin either?

Alex shook his head. Nothing.

But Danyael did.

It…appears so.

She turned away. Her gaze appeared fixed on the far wall, yet Alex, himself an alpha telepath, sensed her mental turmoil. Her voice, however, betrayed nothing. Is Danyael in recovery yet?

Yes, he should be settled by now. I’ll take you up to his room.

The well-equipped surgery and recovery rooms, located in a quiet and secured section of the Mutant Affairs Council building, had played host to Danyael Sabre far too many times. Zara was surprised Danyael’s name wasn’t permanently displayed on the door of the recovery room assigned to him.

No windows. A door that automatically slid shut within moments of opening. A room perfectly designed to contain an alpha empath’s power—should he die.

The lights in the room had been darkened but for a dim glow over the bed. The machines monitoring Danyael’s heart rate and blood pressure registered steady readings. Zara trailed her fingers along the steel bed frame—the seemingly languid motion belied the anxious swirl in the pit of her stomach—before reaching for the electronic tablet containing Danyael’s medical report.

She frowned as she studied the photograph of the extracted bullet. .338 Lapua Magnum. If that bullet had struck Danyael’s chest, it would have killed him. As it was, it shattered his right shoulder into bone splinters.

Many sniper rifles could fire that particular caliber, but she would bet on a H-S Precision Pro Series 2000 HTR, or possibly an IDF Barak. But why would the U.S. military or the Israeli military want to kill Danyael, or all empaths, for that matter? Killing mutants openly wasn’t on any government’s