Rachel laughed again. “I know, you don’t know. But don’t you see how perfect this is?” She extended her arms, looking between me and Will. “It’s like our own little reunion! We just need Tobruk and we’d have everyone!”

The Nightstalkers shifted uneasily. I knew what they were thinking—that Rachel was crazy. Except the scary thing was that Rachel didn’t sound crazy anymore, not to me. “For me?” Rachel asked the air curiously, then turned to Will. “Is that true?”

Will stared at Rachel. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Rachel’s laughter cut off as if with a knife, her smile vanishing. “You’re after me, aren’t you? That’s why you came.”

“No,” Dhruv said quickly.

“Shut up, Dhruv,” Will said, not taking his eyes off Rachel. “You thought you wouldn’t have to pay for what you did?”

“You don’t even know what that means, you stupid child.” Rachel’s voice was ice; she stalked towards Will, her eyes glittering in the darkness. The Nightstalkers stepped into a defensive stance, and I saw Cinder ready himself to cover her. “Yes, I killed your sister. I drained her life and turned her body to dust and she was too weak to stop me.” Rachel spread her hands and light flickered around them, sea-green energy seeping out of the darkness. “So what are you going to do about it, boy?”

“Will, this is a really bad idea,” Dhruv began.

“I said shut up,” Will said.

“Dhruv’s right,” Captain America said with a warning note in his voice. He glanced towards the English girl. “Get us out of here.”

“No!” Will snapped. “We can end this!”

The English girl hesitated, looking nervously between Will and Rachel. “This is the one you were telling us about? Rachel?”

Rachel’s right hand flicked up and a greenish ray stabbed from her hand. Will dodged in a blur of motion but it hadn’t been aimed at him. The ray struck the English girl and for one instant she was backlit in an eerie, lethal light, spine arching, face twisting in agony, mouth opening to scream. Then there was a flash and her body and clothes disintegrated into dust, a cloud of fine powder puffing out to swirl downwards towards the stone. The other six Nightstalkers stood frozen, and I stared at the dust that a moment ago had been the girl’s body. I hadn’t known her name, and now I never would.

Only Rachel didn’t turn to look. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Will, and now she spoke slowly and clearly. “Don’t call me Rachel.”

For a long moment everything was still.

Then everything happened at once. Will charged Rachel, his shortsword flickering into his hand, and Ja-Ja darted in by his side. Fire flashed from Cinder, forming a barrier and driving them back. Rachel shifted targets to gold-hair girl, light strengthening at her hand as she aimed another disintegration ray, but before she could get her spell off Captain America had pulled an assault rifle from nowhere and opened fire. The bullets glanced off Rachel’s green-blue shield, but Dhruv threw something into the air that looked like a metal fan. It twisted, opened out to form a disc, and slammed into Rachel’s shield like a saw blade; the shield bent and held but the impact made the ray go wide.