"Loved INVASIVES! Each book in the series is better than the last!"
—Faith Hunter, NYT and USA Today bestselling author of the Jane Yellowrock series
"[RADIANTS is] controversial, nail-biting,
edge-of-my-seat excitement.”
—Faith
Hunter, NYT and USA
Today bestselling author of the Jane
Yellowrock series
"As gripping as its ideas about
selfhood, identity, and privacy are urgent, RADIANTS is a psychological thrill-ride through dangers physical and
conceptual. Serious fun.”
—AJ
Hartley, NY Times bestselling author of IMPERVIOUS and STEEPLEJACK
"A thoroughly engrossing and involving
entry that no series fan will want to miss.”
—Kirkus Reviews onDEAD MAN’S REACH
A PLUNDER OF SOULS and DEAD
MAN’S REACH named one of the best books of their
year by SciFiChick.com.
"Gathers momentum like a
runaway moving van . . . absorbing . . . impressive.”
—Publisher’s
Weekly on RULES OF ASCENSION
Chapter 1
Rob Teller stepped around a sidewalk
grate and the warm, sour air rising from it, and glanced back through dancing
vapor. The finance district streets were deserted except for a river of cabs,
passengers silhouetted by the headlights of the car behind. He considered
trying to hail one, but he would have had to stop walking. Not a good idea. He
slowed near a subway entrance, but alarm bells pealed in his mind at the
thought of going underground.
Instead, he continued north. There’d be
more people on Broadway. A memory flashed through his thoughts: a documentary
he’d seen on herd life in Africa, animals flocking for safety. That was him.
Alone on a concrete savannah, exposed, watched, hunted.
One lousy sale, and now crap rained
down on him. He hadn’t thrown a lot of money at it; he hadn’t been reckless.
Just enough to make a little extra, to take Carol and the kids to Orlando in
February. The big boys had him trading commodities—wheat, corn, even Nigerian
millet, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t know shit about commodities, at least not
compared to some of the other guys. But they were doing well, making a couple
of million every few months. Where was the harm in dropping a sale for
himself—in Carol’s name, of course—and piggy-backing on their volume? Strictly
small-time. Enough for that trip and no more. Sales guys did stuff like that
all the time.
He fished his phone from his jacket
pocket, glanced up again in time to avoid walking into the edge of a scaffold
set up over the sidewalk. Painted plywood covered the walls of the building
beside him; icy water dripped from corrugated metal overhead.
"Call Carol,” he said, keeping his
voice low.
He glanced over his shoulder. Again.
Did he hear footsteps? A minute before he’d felt exposed; now he was in a cage
of wood and steel, bars of scaffolding between him and the street.
Two rings. "Hello?”
"It’s me.”
"Rob? You sound strange. Where are
you?”
"I’m still downtown. I’m on my way—”
"You had a call tonight. Doug somebody?
Did he reach you?”
Rob’s mouth went dry and a shiver made
him lurch mid-stride, as if he’d been doused with a bucket of snow. Crap. They’d
called his home. Were they watching the house? "What did he say?”
"Nothing, really. He asked for you and
when I told him you were still at work—”
"Don’t answer the phone again,” he
said, the words coming in a rush. "Let the machine pick up. Turn off the lights
and make it seem like no one’s home.”
"What?” She sounded confused, a nervous
laugh in her voice.
Those were definitely steps behind him,
and something else. Three parts. Whu-pa-thpt! Like someone was bouncing a goddamned tennis ball. Whu-pa-thpt!Not bouncing, throwing. Skipping it off the sidewalk, into the wall, and then
back to the hand. Again and again. Whu-pa-thpt!
Whu-pa-thpt!
Rob resisted the urge to peer back,
sped up a little more. He turned onto Liberty Street.
"Rob?”
"I’ve gotta go.”
"You’re scaring me. What’s going—”
He ended the call. Maybe the subway
would be smart after all. A different herd, but safety in numbers nevertheless.
The Fulton Street station was a few blocks north and east. First, though, he
had to escape this construction zone. Just to the other side of the street.
Anything to get out of this fucking plywood-and-metal box. But traffic flowed
in every lane, hemming him in.
The bouncing ball closed on him, and up
ahead, at the corner of Broadway and Liberty, someone leaned against the
crosswalk signal pole.
Rob stopped, muttered a curse. The Bluetooth
caught it. "Name not recognized. Please try again.”
He started back the way he’d come.
After a few steps, he ducked under the scaffolding. A cab whipped by, the
driver leaning on his horn. Rob ran. Tires screeched, more horns blared.
Somehow he made it to the north side of the street.
Without breaking stride, he turned up a
narrow lane. If he remembered right, there was another entrance to the Fulton
Street stop. He didn’t hear the bouncing ball anymore. For that matter, he
didn’t hear horns or screeching tires, either. Maybe they hadn’t followed.
Within two seconds that hope evaporated.
He skidded to a stop, shoes scraping on pavement. A figure stepped into the
alley, blocking his exit. Light spilled into the lane from the streetlamp
behind him, but otherwise all was in shadow.
He backed away, turned, halted again,
his heart hammering. The kid standing in front of him, tossing a rubber ball
and snatching it out of the air, couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.
Tall, lean, hair so blond it looked white in the phosphorescent glow of the
streetlight. He wore jeans, a t-shirt and leather jacket, tennis sneakers, as
if the cold couldn’t touch him. Seeing him, Rob relaxed enough to think of ways
he might put this would-be mugger on the ground. A punch or a kick, or one of
the other moves he’d picked up over the years. He knew how to take care of
himself.
"Who are you?” he asked, pleased by how
calm he sounded.
The kid threw his ball to the side so
that it bounced off the pavement and then the alley wall, before flying back to
his hand. Whu-pa-thpt! He didn’t have to reach for it, and his eyes never left
Rob’s face.
Rob stepped back, fear creeping over
him again.
"Who are you?” No calm this time.
Panic, petulance; he sounded like a frightened boy. "What do you want?”
Whu-pa-thpt! The kid’s gaze didn’t waver. How the hell did he do that?
"You pissed some people off, Rob,” the
kid said. "You should have been more careful.”
"I... I’m sorry.
You’re right. But it’s not too late! I can give them whatever—”
The kid shook his head. "That’s not an
option. There are no options.” He flashed a smile. "No pun intended.”
Options. It took him a second. Who was
this? How much did he know?
The kid slipped the ball into his
jacket pocket. As he did, his cheeks flushed and a trickle of sweat ran down
his temple, shining with the glow of the streetlight.
Something hammered Rob’s throat, the
pain blinding. He clutched his neck with both hands, dropped to his knees,
unable to breathe.
The kid hadn’t moved; he still stood
twenty feet away. He reached for his back pocket, pulled something free with a
whisper of steel and leather, and a gleam of silver. A hunting knife.
Rob struggled to his feet. The kid
strode toward him. Rob backed away, only to be grabbed from behind.
He was too weak to break free, too
terrified to know what else to try, too hurt to scream. The kid grinned as he
drew back his blade hand.
