“You’re big and strong and scary, and I love you for it, Natasha dear, but always remember . . . I’m as dangerous as you are.”

“You think you can threaten me, you little worm?” said Natasha, glaring at him from a safe distance.

“Heh-heh,” said Eric. “Save the sweet talk for another time. We have work to do here, remember?”

Natasha gave him her best dismissive sniff, and he ignored it with magnificent disdain. He eased over to the closed ticket barriers, produced a length of wire from somewhere about his person, and stuck it into the gate mechanism. He jiggled the wire for a moment, and the barriers sprang smartly open. Erik made his piece of wire disappear with a somewhat overdone conjurer’s gesture, then stood back and indicated for Natasha to go through ahead of him. On anyone else it would have been a charming gesture, but on Erik it looked sleazy and opportunistic. Natasha stuck her aristocratic nose in the air and stalked right past him. Erik considered goosing her as she passed but decided that on the whole he rather preferred having his testicles where they were. He glided through the barriers after her, and they both stopped at the top of the frozen escalator, looking down the motionless steps. Erik moved in close beside Natasha, and she made a point of moving away. The light was very bright, the silence very deep, and down below, nothing moved at all.

“JC, Melody, and Happy are down there,” Natasha announced coolly. “I can feel them. Already hard at work, the industrious little souls. I do hope they turn up something interesting. If only so we can have the fun of taking it away from them.”

“We’re not only here for the haunting,” Erik reminded her diffidently. “We’re here for them. Oh, I have been looking forward to this. They think they’re so smart, so good . . . I’ll show them what smart really is. Can I kill the girl? I’d really like to kill the girl. I have a brand-new really unpleasant technique I’ve been dying to try out on someone.”

“JC is our main target,” said Natasha. “He goes first. He’s the dangerous one. Ever since he took charge of this team, they’ve enjoyed success after success. And we can’t have that, can we? Their progress threatens the Project’s intentions. So JC has to die. Once he’s been taken care of, we can amuse ourselves with the junkie telepath and the girl geek.”

“Vivienne MacAbre seemed very impressed with the whole team,” ventured Erik. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen her so . . . vehement before.”

“I felt the threats and menaces were quite unnecessary,” Natasha said primly. “I am an experienced field agent. I mean, Come back with their heads or don’t bother coming back? When have we ever needed threats to motivate us? When have we ever failed the Project?”