‘A little place you’ve probably never heard of, and which I don’t like to talk about. Her ladyship knows the details,’ she continued, when Krane opened his mouth to reply. ‘I’m sure that she’ll tell you, if she wants you to know.’

Krane’s eyes narrowed, but after a second he nodded and dropped the subject. ‘Very well. So if we’re dealing with a witch who can walk through walls, why haven’t we found more Navigators dead in their beds?’

‘Security in here is tight,’ DeShelle pointed out. ‘You’re good at your job. It would be far easier to ambush a Navigator out in the city.’

‘Only if you know where they’re going,’ Krane grunted. ‘If you can get in here, you have victims to choose from.’

DeShelle looked at him while her mind raced on. ‘So perhaps they did know.’

Krane’s brow furrowed. ‘What?’

‘You’re right,’ DeShelle said, and as she uttered the words she knew that he was right. ‘There’s seventy million people in Ascension City. If you think Navigators are being targeted by anti-mutant groups then yes, you could say that perhaps each one of our three ran afoul of a different group by bad luck. But if we think that all five murders we know of were committed by the same individual…’

‘Then there has to be a data leak,’ Krane finished. ‘Someone who knew where and when the Navigators were going to be outside our walls.’

‘Heretics band together in groups,’ DeShelle said urgently. ‘They form cults, Luc! That’s how they survive, that’s how they corrupt others!’ She cast a quick glance over at Yunn’s team, then leaned in close to the big security chief and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘We’ve got cultists inside the palace!’

Krane’s face set into a furious mask.

‘Not for long.’

The Unmasking

The Unmasking

Vass had already snapped her fans open, and she swatted the projectile aside. Chetta saw it bury itself into the grass, and then the attackers were on them.

The one who’d thrown something at Vass tried again as he landed, with an equal lack of success, then rushed the rogue trader. Vass turned side-on and whipped her right-hand fan upwards, and the assassin stumbled down to his knees with a sheet of red already streaming from the long, diagonal cut that had opened across his torso. With the same movement, Vass spun into a crouching, backhanded swirl that dragged the open fan in her left hand along the rib line of another assassin rushing past her. That one fell as well, clutching at her side as half of her core muscles abruptly ceased obeying her brain’s commands.