Tapes.

Tiny, tiny tapes and an old-fashioned Dictaphone.

Claire met his eyes. “How much do you want to bet that these have something to do with The Society?”

Nix nodded. “How much do you want to bet that whatever drug Sykes was pumping was their doing, too?”

Now that he was solid, Nix couldn’t keep himself from thinking about what they’d seen.

That drug is wrong. There are two types of wrong.

It was impossible. Ten kinds of impossible. And yet, as Claire slipped the first tape into the recorder, turned the volume down low, and pressed play, the unthinkable wormed its way further and further into Nix’s thoughts.

This stuff is killer strong. The second it hits you, you don’t feel anything.

Abigail’s words echoed in his mind, until they were replaced by the voice of a dead man, coming from the Dictaphone.

“You have to give me something to work with here, Ms. Casting.”

“I have given you something to work with.” Ione’s voice. Nix would have recognized it anywhere. “The Society has provided very well for you, Mr. Sykes. Or do I need to remind you just how well?”

“Your previous efforts have been appreciated.”

“Without us, you’d be malingering in the state senate.”

“And without you, I wouldn’t have this pretty, pretty voice. I wouldn’t be so very convincing. And I wouldn’t be poised to make your little proposition happen.”

“You do not want to threaten me, Senator.”

“I’m not threatening you, ma’am. I’m simply … requisitioning new resources. Persuasion alone won’t be enough to get me appointed to the head of the oversight committee. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I need to prove that I take a hard line on domestic terrorism. I need to offer the three-letter men something.”

“Our deal was for you and you alone.”

“You misunderstand me, Ms. Casting. I’m not asking for … refreshments for the CIA. What I’m asking for, well, let’s just call it reconnaissance and threat-removal supplies.”

“I don’t take your meaning, and you should probably count that as a blessing.”

Nix could hear the tension in Ione’s voice. He’d never gotten this kind of reaction out of her himself. He never would.

Not even if he found her in a back alleyway.

Put his gun in her face.

Tried to make her beg for the mercy she never showed anyone else.

“What I need to become integral to the CIA is a weapon, ma’am. X-17 would suffice.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your, shall we say, operatives aren’t as closemouthed as you think they are, Ione. You’ve been holding out on me.”

“We’ve been providing you with power and influence. A word from me, and that ends. You saw what happened to Madsen when he resorted to blackmail. Very messy business, that.”

Jacob Madsen. Seven. Ione had told Nix to make it messy, and he had. Knife in his hand. Blood everywhere. The realization that it was a message—a warning—shouldn’t have surprised Nix, but it did.

“If you cut me off, Proposition 42 will fail.” Sykes sounded confident. Clearly, the warning had gone to waste.

“There will be other propositions,” Ione said, her voice light and cavalier. This was a tone that Nix had heard before; this was the Ione he recognized.

“You don’t want to play with me, Ione.”

“I made you. I can unmake you.”

“Bribery. Murder. Illegal experimentation. Human slavery. I know the location of your little institute. I know what you’re hiding in the lower levels there. You will continue to provide me with the serum, or I swear to God—”

“No need to swear, Mr. Sykes. We’ll take care of you.” She paused. “We always have.”

And then there was a dial tone. After a moment, Sykes’s voice came on. “If I die, even if it appears to be of natural causes, send an investigative team to 446 Nesturn Avenue, 62145. This is Evan Sykes—and that woman doesn’t know who she’s messing with.”

End tape.

For a moment, neither Nix nor Claire said a word, and then, finally, Claire broke the silence. “It’s like something out of a bad movie. ‘This is Evan Sykes, and she doesn’t know who she’s messing with.’ He sounds like some kind of egomaniac.”

“He sounds like a Null,” Nix corrected, but this time, the single word took on new meaning. Because Evan Sykes wasn’t a Null—not when he lost those elections early in his career. Not when he paid attention to his wife and daughter. Before he became—how had Abigail put it?—a pod person.

Before he became persuasive.

Before The Society had made him into the perfect plant.

“The drug.” He said the words out loud and waited for Claire to catch up, but she didn’t know enough about Nulls to see the pattern. Didn’t realize how incredibly impossible this was.

“The Society gave him a drug that made him a Null. Or like a Null. Didn’t you hear what his daughter said—once she shoots up with it, she can’t feel anything. And Nulls don’t—they don’t feel anything, and they’re persuasive, and they have no conscience.”

Claire crinkled her forehead, her nose. “They gave him the drug so that he could talk Congress into their corner. Sykes turning into an egotistical maniac who thought he could blackmail them—”

“Side effect.”

Nix couldn’t believe they were actually talking about this. Like it was actually possible. Like a drug could take a human and turn them into a monster. How long did it last? Abigail seemed human enough, and she’d used the drug before.

A quick survey of the safe revealed that there were no more vials. No more needles.

“He was almost out of the drug when he died.”

“And he just assumed someone would find the tapes. His own daughter didn’t even try to listen to them.…”

“She must have cared about him when he was alive. She was probably crazy about him. Not even angry that he didn’t care about her. But once he died, his hold on her disappeared—”

“And now she hates him.”

Nix nodded.

“Abigail Andrea, don’t you leave this house! You can’t talk to me like that! You can’t!”

“Oh, go make yourself a Long Island iced tea, Mother. I can do whatever I want.”

The sound of a slamming door, reverberating through the large house, broke Nix out of his stupor. “Grab the tapes.”

That would give them something on The Society.

But not enough.

“The daughter has the drug. We can’t let her take it. Normals aren’t meant to be Nulls. Look what it did to her father. And now she’s going to give it to some boy?” Nix tightened his fingers into fists.

“We’re going after her.” Claire beat him to the punch, and he nodded.

“Give me the tapes. We’ll have to hurry to catch up with her.…”

“We don’t need to hurry,” Claire corrected, touching his arm softly. “Just fade.”

Nix stuffed the tapes into his pocket, hung his future on them, made them an extension of himself.

Five, four, three, two …

Nothing.

19

The world can’t touch me. The world can’t hurt me. The world can’t hold me down.

Claire was the same Claire every time she crossed over. No boundaries. No worries. No inhibitions.

The solid girl she and Nix were following would never understand that. They were flaming comets; Abigail Sykes was a firefly with a broken bulb. And as the aforementioned firefly scurried across her little mortal plane, her eyes tearing up and her too-short skirt bouncing as she ran, Claire flew.

Power.

Abigail stopped running. Claire forced her body to still, forced her feet to return to the earth.

“We’re back at the cemetery.” Nix’s voice broke through the hum of nothingness in Claire’s mind. “Why would she come here?”

She as in Abigail. A sound clawed through the fog in Claire’s brain.