MirrorWorld

Has he detected me? The air-conditioning flowing past me shouldn’t carry a scent. I’m too careful for that.

No, I decide, it’s them. They’re here. Making my final job a little more difficult. I never had a problem with what I do, or keeping the details a secret from Maya. But in the year since the birth of my son, I’ve had an increasingly difficult time believing that being an assassin, government sanctioned or not, is an acceptable job choice for a father.

So I’m taking care of this last job, retiring from my life as a killer, and joining Neuro Inc., Lyons’s CIA-funded black organization, to help study the creatures I suspect are currently in the room below.

I’m not going in with blinders on. I’ve been part of enough black ops before. Lyons—whose military background and employment at DARPA have been covered up well enough that even my friends in the CIA couldn’t find anything substantial—has given me a way out of this line of work, and I appreciate it. More than that, I’m convinced, like Lyons, that the Dread are a greater and growing threat that needs to be addressed. For the first time since Maya and I married, her father and I have a common interest beyond fishing.

The trick is that the Dread also seem to be interested in me. Lyons thinks it’s because they have no effect on me. Whether or not he’s right, I do see their influence while working. Sometimes they go after my target. Sometimes they disrupt the scene. Sometimes they reveal themselves to me, trying their damnedest to get my knees quivering. This should probably unnerve me, but Lyons believes it gives us a better shot of studying them. My new job description might as well be “bait.”

A shadow flits through the room. My target spins with a yelp as the Dread work him up. Assholes, I think. They’re going to draw attention and delay the op or, worse, send him out the window.

The man drops his glass and bends to pick it up.

A monster flickers in and out of reality, hovering on wings, its four red eyes locked onto the man. When he turns around, my op will be ruined.

What are you? I think, and then drop.

The square ceiling vent clangs open. The man snaps to attention, not thinking to look up. As I descend behind him, I position a noose above his head with one hand and flip off the monster with my other, which is also holding the pulley system’s remote. The Dread flickers and disappears. I slip the noose around the man’s neck and push a button on the remote.

The noose snaps tight as the line is yanked up by the pulley bolted to the inside of the air duct. While the man gurgles and kicks, just two feet from the floor, I unclip from the carabiners holding me upside down and take out a hundred-foot-long roll of plastic wrap. Like a spider, I spin the dying man around, wrapping him in layer upon layer of clear plastic.

In the time it takes him to die, I’ve got him fully wrapped in plastic, head to toe. When he’s done wriggling, I push a button on the remote. The man is lifted into the vent. Once he and the line that had been holding me are inside the ceiling, a thin line attached to the vent cover retracts, pulling it back into place.

Dead and disappeared. That’s how it’s done.

Between the cold air from the air-conditioning and the plastic wrap, the room shouldn’t smell like death for a few days, and, even then, most people won’t think to check the ceiling vent. I pick up an old room-service tray, pile on some plates, and head for the door. Before leaving, I turn the thermostat down and take a look back. There isn’t a hint of the Dread, but I don’t think it’s actually gone. Just hidden. I flip it the bird one more time and leave next week’s crime scene, and my career as an assassin, behind.

*

“Daddy!” The kid runs like a wide receiver and hits like a linebacker, despite being eight years old and sixty-five pounds. The tackle turns into a hug as Simon, whose undying affection for me is dwarfed only by his never-ending reserve of energy, wraps his arms around my waist and squeezes. I return the embrace and lift him off the ground, spinning him in a circle before depositing him back to the oriental rug in our home’s foyer.

“How was school?” I ask.

“Boring,” he says. “Duh.”

“Duh?” I reach to tickle him but stop when the door upstairs slams shut. I look at Simon. “Where’s your mother?”

“In the basement,” he says.

We both look up. “That been happening more often?”