The Boston Public Library opened at nine, and by nine there were already seven or eight people waiting at the doors. All of them were old. On weekdays it was always the old ones — the retirees, the widowers, the regulars who came less to read than to be somewhere with a roof and a chair and the soft, papery hush that the city outside did not have.Cole Mercer logged them in one at a time. Left hand on the keyboard, right hand on the mouse. Card, scan, click. Card, scan, click."This one's almost a month overdue," he said, not looking up. "Still not finished?"The woman across the counter laughed and shook her head. "My son reads slow. Is a month a problem?""The first month's free. After that it's ten cents a day." He paused, then added, evenly, "If it's lost, you pay replacement cost. That one's eighty-two dollars."Her smile dropped. "Eighty-two— fine. Fine. I'll make the little brat finish it tonight." She turned and marched off."Lost it, more like," said a crisp voice beside him.

Cole kept his face cold and said nothing.The girl asked again. "Big brother, have you seen my book?"She looked fragile enough that he could have pinned her with one hand. But the place was wrong, and the blur where her face should be was very wrong, and nothing that walked on red shoes with a censored square for a head was a real child. He didn't dare move. So he played along, and dredged up what he hoped was a kindly smile. "What book did you lose, sweetheart?""Big brother, you smile really ugly."Cole stopped smiling."My book's gone and I need you to find it. Mommy's the worst. I hate reading, but she bought me a whole bunch of books, and they're so boring, and if one's missing she gets so mad. If the book's gone, Mommy will kill me." The pigtails swung. "So you'll find it. Right?""Who's Mommy?" Cole asked."Mommy's Mommy. Big brother, you're weird."From behind him Daniel Hale managed, shaking, "If you don't find the book — your mother will actually kill you?""Uh-huh. Mommy g

"My book!"The girl crossed the room at a speed no human could and snatched The Vanishing of the Maya to her chest. Match in one hand, book in the other, she confirmed it was hers, plopped down against a shelf, and began to read."Mommy's testing me on this tomorrow. I'd better study."In the vast, bright, empty library, the soft shff, shff of turning pages was the only sound.Daniel Hale had gone the color of a corpse. His lips were violet. He stared at Mosaic and the book in her hands, and in the space of a few minutes the sweat soaked his hair through. He looked at Cole and laughed, bitter. "So it was that book. When did you know?"Cole looked down at the back of Hale's right hand. There, the white angel wings were darkening, feather by feather, into the black wings of a Demon."From the moment I saw you," Cole said evenly.Hale's eyes blew wide. "Impossible."The girl read on, deaf to them. The game was over. They went to the reading area and pulled out chairs and sat.Cole glance

There was no time to grieve, and no time to be afraid.Zoe and Hale were gone — completely, no clothes, no wallets, nothing left to bury — so there was nothing to gather and nothing to do. Cole pulled the library doors shut and walked away.Under the Spire, seven or eight people still sat where the cull had dropped them, staring at nothing, unable to understand how the strangers who'd been chanting beside them an hour ago had simply ceased. Two men in expensive coats were tearing a hole in the white barrier, working their way toward the tower. Cole didn't go and look. A hundred scientists had studied the thing for six months and learned nothing; he doubted he'd do better.His first problem was a car.It was 8:15. At eight sharp, most of the city had vanished — drivers mid-commute, the cars left to drift and pile into one another, the roads half-blocked with wreckage. He walked half a mile before he found a shared bike toppled on the sidewalk. His phone wouldn't unlock it, of course. H

The roads to New York were a graveyard of cars. Twice before he even reached the interstate Cole had to get out and shove wreckage aside to clear a lane.By himself. He moved them all by himself.Since the cull he'd known it for certain: along with the ability, his body and his nerve had both been turned up past human. His strength, his eyesight, his healing — all sharper. His skin had gone hard as iron. He'd tested it deliberately on the trunk latch back at the station, the softest skin of his palm against a cruel edge, and come away without a cut; that was why he'd moved on Quill without hesitation, and why Quill's knife to his shin had only scratched him.And his nerve. Cole had never earned a single good-citizen ribbon as a boy, and never done a wrong thing either — no shoplifting, no cheating, he hadn't even bothered to copy a test.This was the first time he'd killed a man.Self-defense, an accident, a slip of the hand — but he had killed. And after one heartbeat of shock he'd g