Reaper waited, unfettered by emotion. The cold dark had driven away distractions like worry and anger beneath an implacable wave of endless quiet. Relaxed and alone, he closed his eyes. The cold stilled his body, suffused his bones, and sharpened his mind with a clarity of thought only attainable in times like this, when the killer washed away everything else, weaving an emptiness around him so vast he might have been suspended in space like the ship that carried him.

A faint awareness glimmered within his mind like a distant star, the knowledge that he wasn’t safe to be around any living person. So he waited for his dogs to report their findings from the scene of the explosion. He sent only two: Titus and Jaxon. The object reader and the Hunter. The two had worked together often in the past. Titus’s gift for reading residual mental impressions from objects worked well in tandem with Jaxon’s ability to track.

Boss, Jaxon told him only moments after arriving on the scene. Your brother is here.

Reaper didn’t need to ask which brother. As the chief of security, Dem would have been the first to arrive.

He won’t interfere, Reaper told Jaxon.

If you say so. Doubt came through loud and clear in the Hunter’s tone, but Reaper remained unconcerned. Dem was the only one of his kind, both Hunter and Killer. He also knew Reaper better than anyone else alive.

This is a mess. Titus sent Reaper a visualization of the scene. The blast radius had warped the corridor, twisting metal bulkheads and rupturing the walls and floor. The lift shaft was a smoking black hole. The gravity generators woven into the floor had clearly been compromised. The damage radius could be seen in the floating debris that crowded what was left of the lift and corridor. Larger pieces of shrapnel, blackened and twisted, floated weightlessly among scattered metal shavings that slowly spun, glittering like stars where emergency lighting cut through the black. Where the damage stopped, so too did the weightless zone, as though an invisible wall separated the unmarred corridor from the damaged section.

It wasn’t a wall, exactly. It was where the working gravity generators and the field they created bumped up against the weightless carnage of the blast zone. A few scattered pieces of shrapnel flung further down the hallway littered the floor, but if Titus wanted to get his hands on something the bomb maker had touched, he was going to have to find it inside the floating mess.

We’re damn lucky the hull didn’t breach, Titus said. This could be a slow process.

However long it takes. It didn’t matter. The ship was locked down. No one was leaving.

I see Treon did not exaggerate. Dem’s voice in Reaper’s mind was not unexpected. Deep and familiar, it was even welcome, in its way. Dem had trained Reaper when they were young. His voice had been the one to teach Reaper how to manage the cold, how to control it instead of allowing it to dictate his actions.

Since Dem had spoken the words as a statement, Reaper saw no reason to respond. He didn’t care what Treon said about him.

He told me you’d developed an attachment to the new queen, Dem continued. I thought surely he must be mistaken. After Lilith, no queen would ever command you again.

That elicited a response.

Mercy does not command me.

She does. Finding her attackers and punishing them is my job. Yet, here you send your dogs.

Everyone knows I stood beside her. It was exactly why Reaper had taken her to the arena. Not just to show Mercy who the pirates were, and what she was capable of, but to show everyone he had allied himself with her. Word would have spread quickly.

Dem didn’t answer immediately. When he did, the words were measured. You once swore, very publicly, that you would kill another queen like Lilith.

Mercy is no Lilith.

That remains to be seen. There are those who believe she will be, just by what she is. Can you blame them?

For the first time in their adult lives, the Killer within Reaper focused intently on his brother. For a long breath, neither of them spoke, the telepathic connection between them weighted with wordless things.

The next time you say Mercy does not command you, Dem said softly, remember this moment, brother.

Reaper said nothing. He weighed the threat Dem represented to Mercy. If anyone could kill a queen, it would be a Killer. And only two of those existed aboard Nemesis.

I will not stand in your way, Dem said at last. Whoever is responsible for this could have killed many others. Could have killed us all.

Even now, Mercy and Wolfgang were in the infirmary, where Doc and Nayla fought to keep them among the living. It was a genetic imperative hardwired into the Talented not to attack or harm a queen. This inelegant violence had been someone’s attempt to get around that imperative. It might have killed anyone so unlucky as to use that lift at that time. Doc. Nayla. Anyone.

His brother’s words reassured him that for now, at least, Dem was no direct threat. Reaper went back to waiting.

Be wary how much closer you get to this queen, brother, Dem said. If she survives.

She is strong. She will survive. Reaper did not allow himself to consider the alternative. Our people need her. Mercy could be the key to our survival.

Or our destruction. You are no longer objective in this matter, Nikolos. Emotion has clouded your perception.

Suspended within the void, Reaper could give the thought no credence. That is not possible, he said.

You forget, brother, we are but half Killer. Both of us feel emotion. We are just more adept at choosing not to than others.

No. Reaper paused, considering. Dem had never before voiced such things. Your wife is an empath. She does not understand us. Sanah had to be the reason behind Dem’s sudden belief in the impossible.

She understands me more clearly than anyone ever has, said Dem. Make no mistake, Nikolos. You are compromised.

Dem was the one compromised. Reaper chose to end the discussion by changing its focus. Keep my path clear. They both knew what would happen if Dem didn’t.

I will. It looks as though your man has found something.

Titus?

Yeah, boss. The dog’s mental voice sounded distant, distracted. I think this whole area was painted with plas-charge, and activated by a thermal sensor. I’m double-checking with Knox, now.

A small eternity passed while Titus consulted with the dog who specialized in demolitions. Finally, his voice came back.

I’m right. We aren’t going to find the detonator. Plas-charge probably disintegrated it into nano-particles.

Reaper considered. Someone had to paint it.

Yeah. They were careful. Used telekinesis. I can’t quite get an image, and Jax can’t get a psychic trail. Not enough plas-charge left for me to see who mixed the stuff.

So careful. Whoever had done this expected to be hunted.

There are few people with the fine control necessary to telekinetically paint plas-charge, Dem said suddenly. Less than twenty on this ship.

The Killer wanted to end them all, just to be certain. Reaper choked back the urge. Once, perhaps he could have indulged in such excess, but not now.

Fewer still, said Dem, with the expertise to mix it. Give me an hour, and I’ll have a list of suspects. Give me two, and I can narrow it down significantly.

I will wait.

Boss, said Titus. I can pick up vague impressions. Perpetrators are male…and Mercy was definitely the target.

Of that, Reaper had never doubted.

I am patient, he told his brother. There is nowhere for them to run.

* * *

Mercy floated in a black void, an abyss so deep she could sense nothing outside of it. No minds pressed against hers. For the first time since the space station, she was truly, utterly alone.

It was peaceful. She had no sense of time, so it was impossible to say how long she spent floating, letting her mind drift. She could feel nothing of her body. In this place, she was weightless. Giving herself to the dark was calming, serene in ways she lacked the words to describe. No worries penetrated her thoughts here. Nothing disturbed her. It was like the endless quiet of space. Or the calm tranquility of a still pond. It felt safe, and comforting. She couldn’t remember a time in her life to match it.

“Why are you so difficult to kill?”

The familiar voice sent serrated shards of adrenaline through her, destroying the tranquility like waves crashing against jagged rocks. Fear and anger followed in equal measure.

“What the hell are you doing here?” She didn’t speak the words either physically or mentally. In this place they just existed as though already spoken and waiting to be acknowledged.

It felt like an abomination to have him here.

“I keep trying to kill you.” Willem Frain’s voice was bitter. “Why won’t you just die?”

Mercy laughed. “Maybe I am dead. This feels a lot like I imagine death.”

Except for him, of course. Sharing the afterlife with Willem would be a nightmare.

He ignored her.

“I won’t let you destroy everything I have built. No matter what it takes, I will kill you, Mercy.”

“Keep trying. I’m right here.”

“I killed your bitch of a grandmother, and I will succeed with you.”

Wait, what?

Mercy struggled to focus on him, but Willem was just as lacking in a corporeal presence as she was. “What about my mother, you bastard? Did you kill her, too?”

“I’m a scientist. When one experiment fails, I begin another. I will find a way.”

“Answer me!” Mercy struggled to move closer, to find him, but now the weightlessness worked against her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even begin to direct herself in this void. She just was. The more she tried, the more her thoughts seemed to circle. She struggled harder, and chaos twisted the abyss around her, faster and faster.

Dizziness swamped her, chasing away whatever vestiges of peace and calm remained, dragging her down in a suffocating whirlwind. It closed around her like the jaws of some terrible creature until she felt her awareness fading. Even Willem’s voice dulled to white noise. Her struggles slowly ceased.

She’d lost him. And with him, any chance at finding her mother.

It was the last, bitter thought she had before the jaws of oblivion closed around her.

* * *

Reaper moved swiftly and silently. As promised, the hallways he walked were empty, the path between decks deserted of crew. Not that he couldn’t control himself, but the wrong word, the wrong posture, or tone…it would take very little to draw his focus.

So Dem ordered the path from Reaper’s quarters to the engineering deck cleared, and people were either smart or frightened enough to listen. Even a ship as large as Nemesis felt small when nothing obstructed movement from one deck to the next. Not even the whispered presence of a mind brushed his as Reaper made his way down the corridor and opened the panel to access the narrow crawlspace housing the emergency ladders that spanned between decks. He wanted no lift to signal his arrival.

When he came out in engineering, Reaper startled a sleeping man who either hadn’t heard the message, or didn’t take it seriously. Slouched against the bulkhead across from the emergency hatch, he wore the brightly colored, battered and stained uniform of a deck mechanic. He had a rough, scarred visage that spoke of many hard-fought battles. Catching the movement of the hatch opening, his hand closed over the grip of a needlegun. The weapon’s flechette ammunition was deadly to soft targets, but unable to penetrate the hardened nanograph walls of a ship. He had the weapon half drawn when his hard eyes finally focused on Reaper’s face.

He froze. Reaper knew what he saw, knew the Killer had leeched the color from his eyes until they burned a cold, wintry blue so pale they might have been chips of ice. He held a telekinetic grip around the man’s mind, his shields pathetically easy to bypass. He was a low level telekinetic, and an even lower-level telepath. He relied largely on his physical stature, which was beefy and strong. His thoughts beat frantically against Reaper’s grip like the panicked fluttering of a trapped bird’s wings, slowly settling as he realized there was no escape.

Carefully, one finger at a time, the man opened his grip on the needlegun until it clattered to the floor.

Reaper tilted his head, eyeing the man dispassionately. He was not on the list, but he was here, between Reaper and his prey. He’d raised a weapon.

I didn’t see it was you…those others you’re looking for, they’re down that way. The man jerked his head toward the end of the corridor.

The words meant nothing, less than nothing. But Reaper found himself intrigued. The man’s mind had quieted. The terror had receded, and he met Reaper’s eyes without fear.

I’ve stared at death before. The man’s thoughts were strangely calm. If it’s my time, so be it.

Nikolos. Dem’s voice was a whisper in his mind. You promised to kill no one who wasn’t involved in the bomb. Our numbers are few.

True.

With a final, long look, Reaper released his grip on the mechanic’s mind. Tension drained from the man’s body and he scrambled back. Reaper walked on without a backward glance. As an afterthought, he lifted the needlegun and floated it down the hallway after him, until it came to rest in the palm of his hand.

The corridor was short, with only a handful of doors. Reaper passed by them all, for none held his quarry. It ended at an enormous door designed to cut off this section of the ship and contain a drive breach during a catastrophic engine failure. The door was several inches thick, spanned the length and height of the hall, and was secured by support beams that came out several feet on either side. It was closed.

Reaper could feel a dozen minds behind the door. Five had shields raised high, their minds tightly closed. Seven were less frightened, or perhaps had less reason to be. They were huddled closely together, sharing a conversation. The careless holes in one shield allowed Reaper to slip past all seven, connected as they were. He could have killed them then, but their words gave him pause.

…how is holding us hostage going to help? No Killer will give two fucks about our lives.

They ain’t thinking clearly.

Doors won’t stop him. Hostages won’t either.

Quiet! You want them to kill us before Reaper ever gets here?

We’re dead either way. Ain’t no way out of this room alive. I heard they attacked the Queen. If the Killer don’t kill ‘em, Cannon will. We’re caught in the middle.

Wrong place, wrong damn time.

Because he’d promised his brother not to waste lives, Reaper eased back from their minds without killing them as he could have. Just as he was leaving the conversation, a wisp of stray thought caught his attention.

…maybe the door will take him out. Lotta plas-charge on that thing.

Idiot! It’s a fucking blast door.

Idiots indeed. These doors were designed to contain an explosion many times more powerful than plas-charge, even if it was coated in a layer of the stuff an inch thick. If it was designed to go off when the door began to open, most of the blast would be reflected back into engineering…right onto the people inside, not to mention the propulsion engine and jump drive.

In their zeal to kill him, they might have doomed the entire ship. How had such minds conceived of the plan to kill a queen? Simple answer: they hadn’t. Someone much more capable had used them. They were pawns.

He could kill them from this side of the door. It would take time to work his way past their shields. Two of the five, in particular, were more powerful than the rest combined. They had to be the ones who handled the plas-charge.

Reaper considered his options. These men were foolish enough, or perhaps terrified enough, they could panic and blow the door in an ill-conceived attempt to kill him in the time it took to overcome their mental shields. The door had to be neutralized.

Sebastian? Reaper reached out to the man who acted as Cannon’s first mate. In reality, Sebastian was the Captain of the Nemesis in every real way. Cannon just appropriated the title because he felt more comfortable being called Captain than King.

It took Sebastian a moment to answer after Reaper brushed up against his mind. An intelligent man, he was probably debating the wisdom of allowing a Killer in full-on hunting mode past his shields.

Reaper. The word was spoken cautiously.

I need to get past the blast door in engineering. It is covered in plas-charge. I am going to use telekinesis to remove it. At which time you will open the door.

Sebastian’s Talent gave him absolute control of the ship’s systems. It was a rare gift, the ability to mentally interface with the complicated, energy-driven pathways of machines like the brain of a ship. Sebastian had spent so much time learning every pathway, every nano-bot of the Nemesis, he often seemed connected to the ship like a living organism. Opening the blast doors was a simple matter.

They covered the blast door in plas-charge? Sebastian’s shock was palpable.

Apparently hoping I would walk through it and set it off.

And what, kill you, them, and Nemesis herself? Creating a drive breach and killing us all?

Reaper shrugged. They are desperate men, and not thinking clearly. I could open the door myself, but it would be a risk while handling the plas-charge.

No, I’ve got it. You make sure my ship doesn’t blow up today.

Sebastian went silent, and Reaper began the painstaking task of slowly scraping the plas-charge from the surface of the door with his telekinesis, effectively creating a thin layer of space between the explosive and the ship. He also surrounded the volatile mixture with a telekinetic shield as he worked, to hopefully contain it if something went awry and the charge detonated.

They used a thermal mix for the detonator, I see, Sebastian observed. Smart, since it mixes in with the explosive and effectively disintegrates when it goes off. Untraceable.

Almost, corrected Reaper. He had, after all, found them despite all their precautions.

Perhaps three inches of the door had been scraped clean. That was the problem with finely controlled work like this. It took time. But he was nothing if not patient. They had made a mistake holing up in a place where there was nowhere to run. Not that they could escape anywhere on the ship. Cannon and Dem had the flight deck locked down, as well as the escape pods, and guards at every airlock as an added precaution.

Reaper stood pressed against the blast door as though listening for sounds on the other side. The needlegun floated in the air beside him. The metallic surface was smooth and cold beneath his hands. He was using the physical contact as an anchor from which to work. His telekinesis was not as powerful as either of his brothers’. Dem, in particular, could have had the plas-charge removed in easily half the time, but Reaper had to feel for it through six inches of door. Working from sense rather than sight added a layer of difficulty.

A thought occurred to him suddenly.

Sensing it, Sebastian tensed.

What is it? What’s happening?

Nothing, yet. But be ready.

Reaper focused on the blast door, on the miniscule imperfections in its form, crevices so small as to be considered insignificant. He sought them out with his Talent until he had suffused every infinitesimal scar or crack. In other circumstances, he might have used his telekinesis to widen them, to literally rip the blast door apart. It would take a herculean effort, but he thought he could do it. Not with the plas-charge, though. It probably wouldn’t go off just from such movement, requiring the thermal heat of a human form passing closely by it, but just to be safe…

Instead, he tapped the door with his gift, like a hammer taken to steel. It reverberated, subtle vibrations spreading out from each imperfection. Reaper rode them with his mind, right through the door to the plas-charge. It, too, moved, though so subtly as to be imperceptible…except he was counting on that movement. Reaper used it as his leverage, riding the vibration with his Talent and pealing the plas-charge from the door in one swift measure.

The startled oath from Sebastian was almost admiring.

Clever, the other man said as Reaper moved the plas-charge away from the door, choosing to push it off to one side, carefully contained within a telekinetic shield. Once he built the box, it took very little concentration to maintain it. Hopefully none of the five he was hunting happened to look closely in this direction.

Not that it mattered much if they did.

Sebastian, if you please.

Right.

The locks that held the door securely in place disengaged with a hiss of released air, and it began to slide open. There was no disguising that, but if they still believed it to be rigged with explosives…

A flurry of panicked thoughts rose from the hostages. Nothing came from their captors, still safe behind their shields. No shots came toward the door, either. They still believed it to be a risk. Reaper sought out their minds and mapped their positions in the room.

He retrieved the needlegun by raising it into the air with his gift. With his focus no longer on the plas-charge, his Talent was free for other uses. When the opening was big enough, he stepped through, sending the needlegun arching up sharply and to the left. Before he fully entered the room, he pulled the trigger twice. Two minds went silent, their thoughts simply ceasing to exist between one breath and the next.

He took another step, adjusting the needlegun’s angle further forward as he did so. He pulled the trigger, emptying the cartridge. Another mind went silent. Reaper tossed the useless weapon aside. The two strongest were left. They’d begun to realize their clever plan for the door wasn’t working. Panic beat at their shields, creating weak spots where their concentration and focus slipped.

A disruptor went off. The fools didn’t stop to ponder why the plas-charge had failed, actually using energy weapons when a heat discharge could easily blow them all to pieces. It bounced harmlessly off the telekinetic buffer Reaper had encased himself in seconds before. Their panic spiked. Cracks formed in their shields. Reaper arrowed through one, lethal and fast.

He dove past surface thoughts, rifling through thoughts and memories until he reached the time and place he was looking for. Nothing. Empty blackness.

For the first time, he frowned. Emotion touched him, even in the cold dark. Frustration. They had no memory of whoever had helped them attack Mercy. Just missing time, and the outline of what they were to do.

Someone, a telepath with the skill to do so, had altered their memories. He closed a mental fist around the man’s mind, and gave a sharp, vicious twist. He fell like a rag doll, his mind empty.

One left.

The man came scrabbling out of his hiding place on hands and knees. Crying. Shaking. Pleading with his thoughts and his words.

“Please, please don’t kill me. We didn’t know you was protecting her.” He stopped, curled into a pathetic huddle in the middle of the floor. He was unwashed and unshaven, his clothing old, threadbare, and dirty. For someone of his telekinetic ability to be so low was unusual. Reaper could see it in his mind, his dependence on drugs that skewed his Talent and made it worthless. He sobered up long enough to earn the coin for his next fix, never longer.

The man stretched a hand up toward him, pleading.

“I’m sorry, I swear. I can tell you things. Please!”

Reaper stared down at him with cold eyes.

“You know nothing I haven’t already taken,” he said. It was barely a thought to kill him, to crush his mind into paste.

It’s done, he told his brother a moment later. He left the hostages to Sebastian’s mercy, knowing it to be kinder than his.

You could have left one for questioning, Dem admonished.

Ever the critic. They knew nothing. Someone altered their memories.

Dem took a moment, processing that. So, we know whoever arranged this is a powerful telepath.

Yes.

He felt Dem give him an evaluating sweep.

I’m fine, brother.

You don’t feel it.

I am in control. Reaper suppressed a flash of irritation; the cold dark was beginning to fade.

Good, his brother said. You’re going to need to be.

Reaper sent him a questing thought, asking an unspoken question.

Mercy just woke up. She wants to see you.