The alley abutted onto a construction site. Matt raced inside, through the gap to the left of the green sliding entrance gate, which had been left abandoned and ajar.

He knew what was coming. He knew what they would do, what to expect. His shoes pounded onto an unfinished concrete staircase, up one floor and then another, backpack jostling in front of him, hands churning desperately through.

Find a place, find a place, find a-

His fingers closed around what he needed and Matt yanked the backpack closed, swinging it back over his shoulders. He flew up the stairs two at a time, then sprinted out the stairwell into a long concrete room, empty save for construction lights and pallets of building material. His chest heaved, his forehead slick with sweat, his breathing ragged.

Cardio, he could almost hear Jane nagging; cardio, cardio, cardio.

Without stopping Matt raced down the hallway, slamming the three-inch-long cylindrical device from his backpack straight into the lefthand wall. He head a crack, a hissing pop, and a thud in the concrete opposite. Matt didn’t stop to look back, only kept running, racing through the doorway on the far side of the room.

“Found you.” A voice, a female voice, curling sing‑song and purring behind him. Matt skidded to a halt, stopping just beyond the doorway, and turned around. A smirking woman, dressed in US miliary gear over thin, friction‑proof khaki leggings, had appeared as if from nothing, grinning at him down the other end of the hall. Late twenties, athletic, her arms bare, she had brown hair shaved down at the sides undercut to a short mohawk on top. The woman smiled, meandering lazily forward as if she hadn’t a care in the world, her hands resting casually on either strap of her bulletproof vest. Matt stood stock still, silent, staring her down, banking on not getting shot. Speedsters didn’t carry guns, Giselle had told him once. Why bother, when you can run faster than bullets?

“Did you think you could get away?” the woman laughed, “Really?”

“S-s-stay back,” Matt stammered. He took a clumsy step backwards. The speedster laughed.

“I don’t know why so many people struggled with this,” she chuckled, and in an instant her body blurred and shot towards him.

Sl-ick.

Matt had only enough time to sidestep out of the way of the doorway before the speedster shot through, continuing right past him before hitting the far wall with a fleshly thud. The lifeless body sunk onto the concrete, sliding onto the ground with barely a noise, blood rapidly pooling from above its lower jaw where the woman was now missing the top of her head. Matt glanced back into the corridor in time to see a bloody mohawked scalp plop down from where it had impacted above the doorway, and watched as a few drops of gore dripped onto the floor from the thin, taunt, almost invisible line of anti‑speedster wire he’d laid out.

“Maybe next time,” he said coldly, all trace of fear and stuttering vanished. Matt turned, leaving behind the half‑headed corpse, and sprinted deeper into the abandoned building, feet pounding on the concrete.

One down. Seven left.

*****

A vortex of undeath whipped around Jane, and she grit her teeth and pushed.

Step by step she forced herself forward, inch by inch, a torrent of blazing energy burning from both hands. The air whirled and blasted around her, the sound of crashing power deafening, the light bright enough to blind. In front of her the grey energy swirled and twisted, ceaseless in its resistance, relentlessly surging outwards from whoever stood at its the centre but still unable to stand before her might. A half step. Another one. The power of Dawn slammed into the monochrome grey with such intensity that it billowed back behind her, engulfing her in golden flames, annihilating everything within a hundred yards. The policemen had retreated. The Legion fought the hordes. She stood alone in death and corruption. A lone, unstoppable force.

Inside the bubble of Divine power, distorted figures stumbled and moaned. A few lurched towards her as she drew nearer, only to be vaporised instantly by the burning light. Jane bared her teeth, pushing harder. She could do this. She was stronger. She just had to keep going… she just had to keep…

Hold on Matt, she begged, hold on. With a wordless roar she threw out everything she had, and the storm around her raged gold.

*****

You’ll pay for that, the psychic whispered.

Matt raced round an unfinished corner of concrete and steel cabling, his eyes darting wild, searching for anything he could use.

Sorry, he thought back sarcastically, Were you friends?

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You can’t escape us.

Watch me try.

He had time now, precious moments to work with. The speedster would have raced on ahead and now the other assassins would be hurrying to catch up, slower on foot but no more so than him. He had maybe a two-to-three-minute head start, a tiny window for preparation. Think fast, think smart. Speedster, telepath, strongman, cryomancer, teleporter, diamondmorph, electromancer, invisible. One dead, the teleporter and telepath probably not fighting. That left five.

Matt skidded to a halt, staring hard at a small room stacked with tarp‑covered pallets, picturing himself cowering behind them. It was a good place to hide. He kept the image, the location fixed firmly in his brain as he sprinted around the half‑constructed hallways, up open concrete stairs, over barrels and around. Twelve stories, he knew, from having glanced upwards at the stairwell. Twelve stories of space and corners, of retreating further and further up. Make them work for it. Make them pay.

He grabbed two buckets, raced back past his hiding place, slid a round device from the bugout bag beneath one of the tarpaulins, then sprinted for the far staircase.

*****

He’s hiding. East‑side room, construction storage, third floor.

Beneath his helmet and balaclava, the man who called himself Jackson nodded. Clever boy. Run then stop, run then stop, throw some smoke and mirrors so they overshoot then go back while they chase a phantom up and up. Smart kid, smart strategy. Many of his men had been dismissive, even contemptuous of the challenge Matt Callaghan might pose them. After all he had no powers; how could he possibly be a threat? They were fools. Matt Callaghan had survived a lifetime without powers, outsmarted some the world’s most powerful people with naught but cunning and tricks. Besides. Jackson’s father had been special forces in the aborted war in Vietnam. He knew exactly how much death an unpowered enemy could inflict.

Unfortunately for Matt Callaghan, they had one advantage the Vietcong never suffered. They could see into his mind.

Up the stairs, he relayed. His thoughts transmitted to Blaine and the psychic redirected out. They stormed wordless up the onto the third-floor walkway, weapons raised, the concrete shell still open to the elements on one side. A flicker of movement caught his eye and Jackson spied a shadow move atop the fourth-floor staircase. The diversion. He waved Lone Star and Calder forward, motioning for them to investigate.

Don’t charge after it, he ordered. The cryomancer stalked forward behind the invisible soldier, his rifle and gear mere shimmers beneath a veil. Calder’s footsteps kicked up small swirls of dust, but otherwise the man was a ghost.

Images floated into his head from the invisible man’s eyes. Something silver next floor up. Something moving. Looks to be a space blanket. Hanging over the stairs.

Back here, Jackson told them, Eli, Pierce, the storeroom.

His electromancer and the diamond-form soldier Pierce, a towering six-and-a-half-foot brute, moved with muffled footsteps towards the open concrete doorway. Both men kept their rifles slung over their shoulders, Eli’s hands sparking, Pierce’s body turned glittering and indestructible. Jackson followed a few feet behind, his weapon raised, wary.

Got him, he heard relayed through Eli’s thoughts. Jackson’s mind flashed with an image of a small square room with walls of half-finished sheeting, the same one Blaine had sent now filtered through Perspex goggles. Cubes of bricks covered in tarpaulins along with metal beams and other junk. The pallet the furthest away had its tarp pulled slightly out. Low enough to cover a curled-up human.

Eli nodded to Pierce, who grinned and raised his rifle, aiming at the tarp. The electromancer slunk forward, weapon shouldered, hands outstretched, sparks jumping silently between his fingertips. He crouched low, and then with a victorious cry ripped away the tarpaulin.

To reveal the end tucked under a bucket, and a red flashing orb.

“NO!” Jackson screamed but in an instant his words were swallowed by an explosion. The building shook, dust and debris flying everywhere, stray shards of metal and brick, and suddenly the storage room no longer had an outer wall. Jackson staggered, mentally reeling in shock as soul‑wrenching pain ripped through him, a sudden gulping darkness as Eli’s death ricocheted across their mental link as it had a few minutes ago with Chrissy. Around him, he saw his team stagger, screaming and clutching their skulls – and in that moment Jackson saw the shadow of the silver space blanket part, and the torso of a boy lean upside down from the fourth-floor landing, a black detonator in his left hand. And in his right-

That looks like a-, Jackson’s swirling brain tried to muster, but in that instant Matt Callaghan took aim and shot the laser pointer across the room, square into one of Pierce’s diamond eyes.

“Argh!” the huge man screamed, and he staggered, flailing blindingly as the red piercing beam of energy shot into his iris, unable to escape, pinging endlessly around inside. Agony echoed back through their psychic connection as the big man wailed, stumbling backwards, his flesh reverting to normal in an attempt to halt the damage, his hands clutching at the smoking ruins of his eyes.

Through their psychic connection Jackson felt Blaine curse and begin hastily redirecting the rest of the team’s perceptions, thrusting them into Pierce, trying to help him see – but immediately Jackson felt something wrong. As the sensation of his teammates swelled, another force exploded outwards, and suddenly Jackson was overwhelmed with visions of a shadow hurtling towards him, something dark, terrifying, huge. In front of him he saw the same thoughts hit Pierce, and before he could even think the big man yelped, stumbling back towards the building’s edge, instinctively away. Jackson shouted a warning, but before he could do anything Pierce’s feet caught on a chunk of debris and he tripped, sending his lumbering body flailing backwards into open air. The soldier hurtled down into the exposed construction site and Jackson’s stomach lurched as the sudden sensation of falling piled on top of their mental pain. Then a second later the sound of Pierce’s rapidly fading screams abruptly ended, cut off by a horrific wet snap and the crash of glass and meat.

A fresh surge of agony blared red through their psychic connection. Wails echoed up from below. In the fourth-floor stairwell Matt Callaghan’s thoughts flew free from the team’s connection and he swung his torso clear half a second before a staggering Jackson raised his gun and loosed a stream of bullets, the shots deafening, flying wild.

“Get him!” he screamed, “Get him!”