Chapter 3

The Marshal's boots crunched through the charred remains of the building. He flipped out his badge to the acne-scarred police officer standing in the middle of the ruins, who nodded to him. Prodding the body jutting out of the ruins with his toe, he turned to the officer. "You're sure it's him?"

Same height, same build, he thought, it's got to be Romeo. A grin spread across his face. Now that the father's fallen, the daughter will be easier to catch.

"He does not look like a great thief," the officer said, his accent thick, his voice cracking. "But yes, we are pretty sure, Mister... ?"

The Marshal looked over the officer; he looked like a boy playing dress-up, a child pretending to be an adult. Probably a Nimrod. "Donovan. Or simply call me Kyle."

"My name is Szczeony. I understand if you cannot say it," the officer said. "They call me Lucky," He offered his hand to the Marshal. "You are rare in the Marshals, yes?"

The Marshal's face twisted in insult and disgust. He ignored the offered hand. "You mean that I'm a nigger, Mr. Lucky?"

"That," the Pole said, "and that you are Nimrod." He grinned a gapped, toothy grin. "You have quite a reputation, Mr. Donovan."

The Marshal squinted in the early morning sun "Uh-huh," he said, shading his eyes with a gloved hand. "You were, what, 15 when you Awakened?" He pulled a pack of Fatima cigarettes out of his pocket and stuck one in his mouth. "You got a light?"

"Fourteen. And you were fifty?" The officer - Lucky? - pulled a pack of matches out of an inside pocket.

"Sixty-four." And feeling it every day. The Marshal sighed. What good is immortality when you still feel old?

"You look younger," Lucky said, grinning, as he struck a match. The two men flinched for a moment at the fire. Then he held it to the Marshal's cigarette. "They say this Romeo had Gifts, yes?"

The Marshal nodded. "He could disappear from sight and reappear anywhere else." He frowned. "And each disappearance made him harder to Track." It was clear to the policeman that the Marshal was talking about his Gift.

"Yet this place had a, how you call it? A Nullifier." The word sounded like marbles in his mouth. He pointed at the easily-identifiable ruined machine in the wreckage.

"He had a lot of skills," the Marshal said. "Not just Gifts."

"Yes," the policeman said. "A circus performer, or something?"

"Almost," the Marshal said. "Stage magician. Escapologist. A real Harry Houdini, even before he Awakened." He took a long drag from his cigarette, thinking. "And we learned the hard way that the Nully didn't stop him from showing up in the middle of it; it just forced him to find other means of escape." The policeman looked a little perplexed, but the Marshal didn't feel like explaining. "Any other bodies?"

"Nie. This was the only body. You looking for the woman?" The policeman coughed at all the smoke in the air. "The daughter?"

"Damn," he said. "She's almost as bad as he is." The Marshal glanced at the smoldering corpse. "Was." He kicked it. "I hope this is Romeo. I wouldn't put it past him to fake his own death."