New Albany, Midland Territory 2028

Two minutes six seconds. Raven Armistead shifted into double-time, pounding down the stairs. The last magnesium ribbon fuse had taken too long to light. She should have left it. Now she needed to make up the time, or she wouldn't clear the building before the explosions set off the fire alarms.

She risked another glance at her digital chronometer. One minute fifty-eight seconds. Less than two minutes until the fuses ignited the blocks of thermite sitting in puddles of water. Then superheated metal droplets would spatter throughout the Inter-Continental Police's data center. Even if half of the fuses went out, the other half would spray enough molten aluminum and iron to destroy all of the computer files the ICP needed to start its roundup. If she'd done everything correctly. She recalled her father's warning, his dry voice reciting her list of past failures, but she resisted the impulse to go back and check. There wasn't time.

Her mission would succeed. It had to.

The Auric Rights League had run out of options. The Auric Rights Bill coming up before the Territorial Congress in a few weeks for a vote would do them no good if the ICP tracked them down and arrested them all first. The ICP interrogators would force the Auric prisoners to admit their powers were gifts of the devil,
and there'd be no way to save them. Marshall's violent solution sickened her, but she'd do whatever had to be done to protect her people. She wouldn't let the ICP get them.

She passed the second floor. One minute forty-three seconds left. Her heart pounded, but the rhythm of her breathing never faltered. The strict regimen of exercises and martial arts training her father forced the team through had paid off. He'd been right to insist on them. As always.

Brilliant green light flashed up the stairwell, blinding her, and she grabbed for the banister. Her damp palm slid across the cold steel until she found a secure grip.

Someone had crossed the aura trace she'd left across the building's entrances, and the trail of microscopic crystals reacted to the life force. But who? The building was closed. Only a man in excellent physical condition could cause such an intense flare of color, so it wasn't the flabby security guard returning. The intruder must be an ICP agent working overtime.

Damn her luck. She glanced at her chronometer. One minute thirty-two seconds. She had to get down the stairs, across the lobby, outside, across the street, and out of sight before the alarms sounded. If the ICP caught her, they'd use her to uncover League members. They'd force her father to turn himself in. Or maybe he wouldn't ransom her, in which case they'd probably kill her to make an example out of her. She had to get clear.

She thundered down the stairs. First floor. Odds were the agent wouldn't go anywhere near the data center. The computers ran dark, unattended during nights and weekends unless they signaled a problem.

She stopped again, clutching the cold steel banister. Could one of the computer programs have failed, and an automatic call gone out to a service technician? He might be heading toward the data center now, unaware of the maelstrom of boiling metal that would start in one minute twenty-four seconds.

Her father's words burned in her ears. The success of the mission must always come first. Now her indecision supported his belief that she was inept. His first choice, Marshall, would never think of turning back. He'd follow her father's orders to the letter and damn the consequences.

They'd leave the stranger to die. What was one life, compared to the safety of their people? That's what they'd do. But they weren't here. It was up to her to deal with the stranger the way she thought best. ICP agent or unlucky innocent, it didn't matter. Raven had to go back.

She changed direction, pivoting with so much force that her braid flew out and smacked the concrete wall of the stairwell. Pushing her body to its limits, she pelted up the stairs as fast as she could.

Her breath came in gasps, searing her lungs. Every second mattered. Surging up the stairs, she pulled energy from her aura and hoped she'd have enough strength left for a protective shield. She'd never tried a double-shield before. If she miscalculated, she and the stranger would both die. Her father would be furious with her for ruining the mission.

She crashed through the door onto the fifth floor. The hallway was empty, but the steady green of the stranger's aura bled through the open doorway to the computer center. He was already inside. But he might not have reached the room with the explosives.

Slowing her pace only enough to keep from slamming into the walls, she barreled into the empty reception area. The man had already passed into the monitoring room. She slid her stolen badge through the reader and followed him.

Grabbing a quick breath, she cried out, "Stop right there or I'll call security!"

The man, his clipped brown hair and khaki uniform marking him as an ICP agent, halted in the act of opening the door to the data center. He turned, the easy camaraderie of his dimpled grin at odds with the sudden tension in his body.

"I'm part of the ATS project. I've got authority to be here," he said. "Who are you?"

She looked at her chronometer. Eight seconds. A stray spark could set off the explosion at any moment.

"Get away from that door!" Lowering her shoulder, she charged him, sending them both to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. He struggled to break free of her, but she hugged him tight and rolled to the side, into the shadow of a hulking desk. His head struck the back of the desk, and he lay still.

Twisting around to study the glittering specks filling the air around them, and shining with a light only Auric eyes could see, she lifted her arm and sculpted the tiny crystals into a wall of energy. Just in time. Sizzling pieces of thermite explosive flew out the door, melting holes through steel desks and leaded-glass monitor screens.

She pressed close against the agent, the pulse in his neck beating against her cheek. Fear overrode her normal revulsion at being inside the field of another person's aura and she molded herself to him, wrapping one arm around his neck and twining her legs with his.

A tremor ripped through her, from her scalp all the way down to her toes, as her aura tried to align with his. Even at rest, his aura vibrated with power, half-blinding her and setting her teeth on edge with the tension. She didn't have the energy to resist him.

The energy crystals surrounding her altered their frequency, stinging her with tiny shocks as her aura slid into alignment. His aura shifted, too, making the agent arch his back from the jolt. A low moan escaped his lips. Their auras had aligned.

Power pooled along the hard length of his body, hers for the taking. She resisted the temptation of an easy fix to strengthen her shield. It was bad enough that they were now "tuned to the same wavelength," but that would fade with time. Mingling their life energies would bind them, a step she couldn't take without his consent. She'd find another way to save them.

She pulled back her shield until it extended a bare inch around them and no further. Droplets of metal rained down, sapping her strength as they vaporized against the glowing barrier. Drawing on her last reserves, she fed everything she had into the shield. Under the onslaught of shrapnel, it thinned but held. Then the hail of superheated metal ended.

Limp from her efforts to protect them, she trembled against the agent's living warmth, rising and falling softly with his breath. She'd saved him.

Before she had a chance to regain any of her strength, a late charge of thermite ignited, spraying molten metal into the room. A fat drop of liquid aluminum struck her shield an inch from her cheek, sizzling as the energy supporting the barrier vaporized it. Her pulse quickened in fear as their protection started to collapse. Beneath her, the agent's heart pounded, his muscles tensing as he recovered his senses. She needed his strength, but not now. Not like this. If he moved, she'd die.

She had no other choice and no time to explain. Reaching out to him, she wove the power from his aura into her shield. The droplet evaporated.

Now that the danger had passed, her other senses screamed with information. Office furniture blazed with white gold flames, accompanied by a cacophony of snaps and pops, and roiling black smoke that smelled of burnt padding and years of dust. She hid her face against the agent's neck and even semiconscious, he
wrapped a protective arm around her.

A delayed wash of heat from the blast scorched her. She coughed as the room filled with the sharp smell of ozone and smoldering plastic. The agent's aura pulsed as he regained awareness.

"What the--"

A shrill klaxon drowned out the rest of his words, and a bright red light high on one wall flashed. The heavy outer door swung closed. The klaxon changed tone, and a thin white mist drifted from vents in the ceiling.

"Keep down!" the agent shouted, rolling her off him. He staggered to his feet, shaking his head and bracing himself against the desk. Covering his nose and mouth with a bent arm, he ran hunched over to the door. It refused to open.

Raven held her breath against the stench of burning plastic and stared in horror at the spreading mist. Her luck had cursed her again. No one was supposed to use Halon gas to put out fires anymore. A safer replacement had been discovered decades ago. But the ICP wasn't bound by the same laws as everyone else. They
obviously preferred to spend their budget on more and better weapons rather than on upgrading their safety systems.

The nearest fires flickered, fighting the Halon for the remaining oxygen in the air. Her lungs burning, Raven gasped for breath, hoping the remnants of her shield would filter out the worst of the fumes from melting plastic. The lemon fragrance that had been added to the Halon, so that even if the smoke was too thick to see through you'd know it had been released, made the room smell like a burning laundry.

When hitting the "Abort" button beside the door had no effect, the agent opened the red emergency panel on the wall, and withdrew two oxygen cylinders and masks. Racing back to her, he thrust one set into her hands.

She heard him fumbling with his oxygen cylinder as she adjusted the straps around her face. Pure compressed air hissed into her mask just as her shield buckled completely and collapsed. The agent wheezed, breathing air from his mask and then lifting it off so that he wouldn't clog the delicate filters while he succumbed to a hacking string of coughs. She watched him, helpless to do anything. A normal man, he hadn't been able to see the shield that saved them. But if she tried to heal him, he'd know she was an Auric.

Uncomfortable watching his suffering, but unwilling to look away in case he needed help, she let her gaze drift down, away from his face. She skimmed over the tan protective vest that she'd been pressed against, heat rising in her cheeks as she remembered the feel of her soft curves fitted against his strong planes. Then she saw his uniform pants, molded to the hard muscles of his calves and thighs, and her cheeks flared hotter than the remaining fires.

She'd never realized how tight the uniforms were compared to the shapeless parachute pants worn by everyone else. Or maybe it was just the way her agent filled them. He turned to the side for another hacking cough, and light glinted off the black handle of his service pistol in its cutaway holster. If he realized she was a member of the League, he'd draw and fire his pistol in an instant.

A rivulet of fear slithered down her back. He couldn't discover what she was. She couldn't endanger the safety of the others. She'd learned what to do if she was ever captured. She could pause a man's heart or force the air from his lungs. Either of those strategies could win her the minutes needed to escape.

Except they were trapped in a locked room, and she couldn't escape. Maybe not for hours. The shock of repeatedly knocking him unconscious would kill the man. She couldn't do that. Not after she'd gone through so much to save him.

Her father's lectures echoed in her mind. Take no risks. The safety of her mission came first. He'd want her to kill the agent if it meant she'd get away. But she couldn't. Just the thought made her queasy. There had to be another way.

There was. Marshall eagerly taught a control technique to any interested female Auric, although her father had refused to allow her to learn it. Still, she'd picked up enough from the other women when they thought she wasn't listening, that she could give the technique a try. She'd never dared to experiment with Marshall, but perhaps she could distract the agent and buy the time she needed. The last of the fires flickered out. She'd have to make her move soon.

The agent spoke, startling her so that she jumped back. The mask distorted his voice, echoing it as if he were talking through a tube, but she could still make out his words.

"Thank you for saving my life." He moved his hand to his holster, his fingertips just brushing the black metal of the pistol. "But how did you know I needed saving?"

"Oh." She shrugged, forcing her gaze away from the weapon and back to his face. She thought fast. "I just started working here this week. Part of my job is to monitor the systems from home in case a problem comes up. I was getting a weird reading, so I came in to check it out."

"That's not an answer."

She drew on the acting skills she'd developed during her lifetime of close calls and near disasters. She was supposed to be an innocent new hire, scared of losing her job.

"It wasn't my fault! I was monitoring for energy usage and system performance. Nobody told me to be on the lookout for sabotage!" Raven widened her eyes and let her lips quiver, an effect no doubt spoiled by her breathing mask. "You won't write me up, will you? You're not with Internal Interro-- I mean, Investigations, are you?"

"Just tell me what happened."

His gun hand relaxed the slightest bit, and she took a deep breath.

"Like I said, I came in because the power readings looked weird. When I got here, I heard something from the data center, like a technician was working on one of the machines. I started to open the door, when someone dressed like an ICP agent knocked me down and sprinted past me. I chased him, but he was taller and bigger than me, and I lost him. I came back, saw you here, and thought you were his partner. Then, I saw a really bright light on the other side of the door, like a flare, and realized the man had planted some kind of bomb before he ran away."

The agent waited, watching her face.

"Why did you decide I wasn't his partner?"

"Only an idiot would walk into a room he knew was about to explode."

"You're right." He nodded, and took his hand away from his pistol. "But don't worry. We'll catch the Auric who did this."

"What makes you think it was an Auric?" She couldn't keep the anger out of her voice, and his eyes narrowed above his mask.

"Don't be fooled by his uniform. It was probably stolen. No, he was an Auric. The ICP tracking system in there would have helped monitor and catch Auric criminals that used their powers to escape punishment. Who else would want it destroyed?"

He looked away, and Raven followed the direction of his gaze, through the door to the ravaged data center. The rows of optical readers and laser storage units, the waist-high boxes she'd set the thermite charges on, had transformed into lumpy piles of burnt plastic and slag metal. She'd heaped plastic casings holding optical disks in the center of the room, and saw no sign of them at all. The ICP's data files had been completely destroyed.

She'd done it! The months of preparation, the endless drills and timing exercises, the risk they'd run by bribing the security guard, had all been worth it. Because she'd succeeded!

She stifled her grin. Marshall thought she wouldn't be able to do it. He doubted her judgment about everything since she'd ended their relationship last year, and he'd almost persuaded her father not to send her. But she'd persisted. She'd offered reason after reason why she should be the one to handle this mission, until her father gave in, although as late as this morning he'd wanted to send Marshall with her.

But she'd proved she could handle it on her own. She hadn't let them down. Her people would remain free for a few months longer, because of her. And if the Auric Rights bill passed, that was all the time they'd need.

At least, they had a few months if Marshall's information had been right. He'd been vague about his source, so she didn't trust the information one hundred per cent.

She tried to make her voice chipper and encouraging while pumping the agent for confirmation. "You can restore the programs from backup files."

"The dailies were on the system, and the weeklies are part of that gray smear in the middle of the floor. We'll have to get the monthlies from storage, then reconstruct the last few weeks of work." He kicked a broken piece of computer casing, and it shattered against the wall. "The production code was ready to
distribute to the other Territories on Friday. If the Captain hadn't insisted we keep to the schedule and ship Monday, we could have used the system from another Territory to track the Auric who did this."

She shivered. They wouldn't get the months of freedom Marshall had promised. It sounded like they'd only have a few weeks. But they'd almost missed their chance at even that.

Hiding her expression from the agent, she stood up and tried the outer door again. It was still locked.

"How are we going to get out of here?" she demanded, pacing along the outer wall. Being so close to the agent, and his gun, made her feel as skittish as an Auric at a Fundamentalist revival meeting.

She had another reason to be nervous. The ICP, in its paranoia over security, required a confirmation call from an on-scene agent before any emergency vehicles could be dispatched. A million things could go wrong with that procedure, and at least two already had. The explosion had destroyed the phone inside the
room with them, and the bribed guard had fixed the duty schedules so that no one was here who could place the call.

The agent made placating gestures with his hands.

"Relax. The security guards will be here soon to confirm the call to the fire department. They'll let us out. The guards may want to wait for the Halon to clear, but the technicians can take care of that when they come to fix the computers."

"What if the guards don't come? What if the technicians never arrive?" With her luck, the technicians would forget to wear their beepers or get into an accident on their way. Or the computers might have been so damaged in the explosion that they'd never made the service call.

"If no one lets us out, the automatic cycle will open the doors in two hours. You won't accomplish anything by pacing, except using up your air."

"Using up my air?" She froze, instinctively holding her breath.

"There's more than enough oxygen in the emergency cylinders," he rushed to reassure her. "You don't have anything to worry about..."

His voice faded off into a question. She breathed deeply, then turned to look at him. He'd tilted his head to one side and was studying her.

"In all the excitement, we never introduced ourselves. I'm Tarrant. Val Tarrant."

She smiled. Val Tarrant. A strong, straightforward name, but one with hidden depths. She wondered what Val was short for. Valor? Valiant?

He stared at her expectantly. She'd have to give him a name. She'd forgotten the name on her stolen badge, and for some reason, she wanted to hear her real name coming from his lips. He couldn't identify her from her first name alone. The few news reports that referred to her called her only the daughter of the Auric Rights League's leader. A false surname would be protection enough.

She picked one of her father's heroes for inspiration. "I'm pleased to meet you, Val. My name's Raven. Raven Casement."

"Your nickname is Raven because of your hair?"

"No, that's my given name." Memories of countless childhood taunts forced her indignant response before she could think better of it. Raven was too distinctive. She should have agreed that it was a nickname, and told him her real name was Chastity, or Hope, or Prudence, or some other common girl's name. At least
she'd had the sense to use a false last name.

"Raven." He drew out her name, considering it, then nodded decisively. "It suits you." The throaty way he pronounced her name, almost with a little growl, sent shivers down her spine. The risk had been worth it.

Tarrant noticed her hesitation, the way she looked away and hunched her shoulders when she spoke. She'd been giving off the same signals since they'd met. Her body language said she was lying. But about what? And why?

He had plenty of time to draw her out.

"You're making me nervous pacing back and forth like that. Come sit down." He patted the floor beside him.

"Next to you?" Her voice squeaked at the end of her question, and she dropped her gaze. To the barrel of his Beretta, holstered against his leg. His weapon shouldn't bother her. The righteous had nothing to fear from the ICP. Or was that what frightened her?

He studied her, sizing her up as a potential suspect. Baggy black parachute pants, made even more shapeless by the pouch pockets sewn up and down the legs, tucked into short black plas-leather boots. An unevenly dyed, loose black tunic showed the first signs of wear at the cuffs and elbows. He couldn't see much of her face behind the breathing mask, but he got the impression of a generous mouth and slim, straight nose. Sheltered beneath pencil-thin black brows, her cafe au lait eyes looked everywhere but at him.

Her lustrous black hair hung in a braid three quarters of the way down her back. As she crossed the room in a series of mincing sidesteps, ready to bolt at his first wrong move, it switched from side to side like the tail of a nervous cat. He tried to reconcile her behavior with the take-charge woman who'd demanded he explain himself and then rushed across the room to tackle him. He failed. This timid wallflower had little in common with the woman who had pressed the strength of her body against him.

He turned his thoughts away from the memory of a supple body that could tempt the most committed of agents. The explanation of her transformation might be no more sinister than the danger being over, and a return to maidenly virtues. But he didn't trust easy answers. Too much depended on him doing his job correctly,
and he didn't dare make a mistake.

He watched her, searching for clues to her behavior, as she righted a chair whose back had melted in the explosion.

"So, Raven," he began. She sat down and favored him with a shy smile. Even hidden behind the mask, her face glowed with the force of that smile. But which reaction was real, her fear or her pleasure? He wished that her smile might be real, and frowned at the lapse in his impartiality. He could not afford to risk
innocent souls on his personal feelings.

Since her smile seemed to be her only comment, he continued. "Why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"

She tensed, a slight movement anyone else might have missed. But he'd been watching. She was going to lie. Now, if he could only figure out about what.

"I recently graduated from the Midland University at New Albany. This was my first job." She gave a brittle laugh. "When they find out what went on here, I'll be lucky to get a job cleaning toilets."

Lies. Not-lies. She sent mixed signals for everything. Maybe he needed to start with an easier question.

"I doubt they'll be so hard on you. After all, you're pretty young. What are you, nineteen? Twenty?"

"Twenty-two."

Devil take it! She couldn't even answer a simple question about her age without signaling the truth and a lie. It couldn't be both.

The chill of certainty gripped his stomach. The only sort of person who would camouflage all of her answers, no matter how trivial, was someone who'd been trained to resist interrogations the same way he'd been. She was an ICP agent.

But why hadn't she told him? Why had she persisted in her cover story about being a new hire? He raised and discarded a dozen possible explanations, finding only two that were plausible. She might be a deep cover ICP agent, assigned to Internal Investigations. Or maybe Aurics had infiltrated the ICP, and she was part of their plot to sabotage the data center.

He dismissed the possibility that she'd been involved with the explosives as unlikely. She'd said it herself. Only a fool would enter a room she knew was about to explode. If he'd been a fellow conspirator, he could believe she might return for him. But he knew how Aurics viewed the ICP. None of them would risk their
lives to save one of the enemy.

Which meant she must be part of Internal Investigations. That made sense. The Auric who planted these explosives needed inside help. Perhaps that information had leaked, and she'd been investigating it. It would be just like them to schedule a preliminary investigation at the same time that a criminal activity was taking place.

"You're good," he told her, smiling. "Very good. But I know who you are."

"You do?" She blinked. Then her charade fell away as she straightened with regal poise. He faced the strong, confident woman he'd first met. That he'd believed, even for an instant, that she was a scared, inexperienced girl proved the level of her skills.

She'd known about the explosives and had acted to save his life, all without breaking her cover. His admiration rose another notch. He worked alone, but he wouldn't mind making an exception for her. She wouldn't let him down, or think more about her career than the laws the ICP was sworn to uphold, like some of
the agents he'd known. But Internal Investigators never shared assignments with field agents.

A chill whispered down his spine. This was his case. He needed her information to catch the Aurics, but he wouldn't let her take over the case by trying to intimidate him or by claiming priority.

"I can figure it out on my own, but why don't you save us both some time? Tell me who the inside man was."

She lifted one haughty eyebrow, acting as self-important as any other Internal Investigator. "This isn't the reaction I expected from you."

"Look, Raven." He hesitated. "That is your name, isn't it?"

"Yes. I like the way you say it." She smiled, but sadness filled her eyes. She leaned forward, one hand reaching out to touch him, but pulled her hand back before her fingertips did more than brush his vest.

Tarrant swallowed, his throat suddenly gone dry. Through the thin screen of her mask, he could see her dusky rose lips parting. Her full lower lip trembled, a barely noticeable movement, just enough to send an answering quiver of fire through him. He hungered for the taste of her mouth, the feel of her lips soft and pliant beneath his. She promised honey and velvet, open and waiting for him to claim her, and he licked his lips in anticipation. Just one kiss. That was not forbidden.
He stopped, one hand already on the straps of his mask. The Halon had stolen all the oxygen in the room. Removing their masks could kill them both.

He jerked his hand away. What was wrong with him? Some men reacted to danger and life-threatening situations by becoming lustful, but he'd never suffered from that ailment. An ICP agent couldn't afford that weakness. He'd brushed by death a number of times as a field agent and never once lost his composure. Maybe
it was an undocumented side effect of breathing the Halon. Maybe he was rationalizing a moral weakness.

He shifted uncomfortably, the heat in his groin growing despite his efforts to will it away. This was just the sort of lapse Internal Investigators loved to expose. If his superiors found out about this, he'd face a disciplinary hearing. And if he made the mistake of acting on these wild impulses, he'd be discharged in an instant. He could even be executed.

Raven stared at him, her forehead furrowed. Did she sense the directions of his thoughts? Did she know how much he longed to take her in his arms? As if the first traitorous thought had broken open the dam, a flood of sinful fantasies wrapped him in their dark embrace.

Raven shifted her weight on the chair, and he imagined her shifting beneath him, moving to accommodate his weight as they-- He forced the thought away. She seemed nervous, her fingers flexing and twisting in her lap. The motion seemed tantalizingly familiar, an echo of some other gesture. She wiped her palms against her pants, rubbing them over the soft, yielding flesh of her thighs. Just as he wanted to-- Gritting his teeth, he squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on his Oath of Agency.

He silently recited his vows of honor, obedience, and most important right now, chastity. The familiar words failed to soothe him, failed to stop the traitorous feelings shuddering through his body. Ghostly hands teased and tormented him, each stroke trailing waves of fire, and he squirmed in agony.

He couldn't be doing this. It was wrong. And yet, he'd never felt so right.

"Tarrant," she whispered, the husky catch in her voice inflaming his desire. He clenched his fists, refusing to release the moan building inside him.

The heavy thud of work boots from the reception area pierced the veil of his imagination, scattering the sinful fantasies.

"Hang on in there," a man called, peering through the smoke-stained safety glass at them. "Have you out in a minute."

Raven jumped to her feet, refusing to so much as look at Tarrant before running across the room to the door. In his current condition, he couldn't go after her. Not until he cooled down.

The door swung open. A heavyset man, wearing a protective mask and the blue overalls of Facilities Services, stooped to pick up a badge from the floor beside the door.

"What did you do this time, Victor? The alarms have been screaming up and down--" He stopped, looking from the badge to Raven and back again. "You're not Victor."

"No. I'm not." She reached out into the space between her and the service technician, wrapped her hand around the air, and pulled. With a gurgling sound, the man collapsed.

The magnitude of his idiocy washed over Tarrant in a tidal wave of cold horror. She was an Auric! She'd called those feelings from him with her devil-born powers, making him doubt his commitment and his virtue, and he'd never even guessed she was doing it.

He reached for his pistol just as she spun to face him.

"Tarrant, I'm sorry."

He saw her reaching toward him as he drew his pistol, the heavy Beretta settling into his hand like the Angel of Death's scythe. An icy cold settled in his chest as he aimed. She pulled, drawing all the air from his lungs. His ears buzzed, and the world darkened as he tightened his finger on the trigger. The weapon spat and bucked in his hand, once, twice, a third time, and then blackness claimed him.

CHAPTER TWO

Raven shifted her weight, searching for a comfortable position on the hard wooden chair. She'd decided over an hour ago that the chair had been designed to cause maximum discomfort to a human body, and the tingling numbness in her right leg only strengthened her belief.

Marshall stood in front of her, feet spread and hands on his hips like the petty dictator that he was. Looking over her left shoulder, he received silent instructions from her father, then nodded briefly. He turned his attention back to Raven. "You haven't explained what went wrong. Start over from the beginning, and this time don't leave anything out."

She hadn't left anything out, except the real reason she went back to save Tarrant. It just wasn't fair! Prodded by unseen signals from her father, Marshall was grilling her as if the mission had been a failure. But she'd succeeded! She'd destroyed the ICP data, just like they'd planned. Well, not exactly the way they'd planned, but with the same result.

She'd expected to be praised for once, not raked over the coals. What more was her father looking for? She wanted to turn around and ask him, but her cheek still stung from Marshall's last reminder to face front and don't move. Her father had chided Marshall for his enthusiasm, but hadn't interfered.

Her father had loved her when she was a child, before Marshall replaced her in his affections. Now, she was just an annoyance. And why not? Marshall never disobeyed him. Marshall was the perfect League member. She was just his troublesome daughter who couldn't do anything right. Useful for circulating petitions and raising money, but worthless for anything requiring skill. Even if her powers outstripped Marshall's.

Was that what her father was waiting for? For her to admit she'd been wrong, and that Marshall should have gone on this mission? But she'd succeeded! That should count for something. She'd been so sure that she had finally found a way to make her father proud of her. But he remained unmoved, as always. Or did he? It was impossible to tell, with him standing behind her.

Taking a deep breath, she launched into her recitation again. "I set the charges just like we'd practiced. I started the chronometer's countdown, then lit the fuses. On my way down the stairs, a man triggered the aura trace. I was afraid that he might defuse the explosives, so I went back up to the data center."

"How much time was left?" Marshall interrupted her.

She stared at him, and the gloating smile twisting his lips. Had he asked her this question already? If he had, she didn't recall her answer. And she didn't dare contradict herself. Telling the truth was out of the question. One and a half minutes wasn't long enough for someone to defuse all the explosives. It had barely
been enough time for her to race back to the data center. If she told the truth about the time, she'd have to tell them her true reason for turning back.

If she had her powers, she could see her father's aura. Maybe he didn't believe Marshall's accusations of incompetence. Maybe he did still love her, and if she could only be alone with him without Marshall's interference, she could explain to him.

She took a shaky breath. Their good-cop/bad-cop routine was working. She'd nearly confessed everything.

They'd stripped her of her powers on purpose, interrogating her in the black-belt training room. Modeled after the expensive systems used by the ICP for Auric prisons, the airlock style doors and triple-filtered ventilation screened out most particles of alien crystal. Even if a few crystals slipped through, the red darkroom bulbs didn't provide the wavelengths necessary for the crystals to focus and reflect light off of auras. She couldn't use what she couldn't see.

Forced to rely on standard sight and hearing, her father's invisible silence preyed on her nerves. The few words he'd spoken had been to stop Marshall's overzealous interrogation technique. But that just meant he didn't want his daughter beaten. It didn't mean he believed her.

"How much time, Raven?" Marshall prompted again.

"I don't remember."

"You said three minutes, before."

"Then it was three minutes."

"I thought you didn't remember?"

She clenched her jaw, fighting to keep her composure.

Marshall leaned closer, pressing his advantage, like a bloodhound reaching the end of a convict's trail. A lock of his blond hair fell forward onto his forehead, joining the calculated disarray of the other strands. Last year at this time, she'd thought the effect roguishly charming, and considered his woolly sideburns stretching all the way to his jaw bones a statement of independence. Last year, she'd been an idiot.

She knew better, now. His appearance, like everything about him, was all show and no substance. Not like Tarrant.

Her memory supplied images of Tarrant's close-cropped brown hair, rippling with a natural wave, and the smile that dimpled his cheek and crinkled his ultramarine eyes. She could even admit, if only to herself, that she'd admired the way he wore the hated ICP uniform like a well-deserved badge of honor.

Tarrant didn't need staged effects or phony fashion statements. His every action made his beliefs clear. Even though she'd made him her enemy, his interrogation of her had been kinder than what she suffered now.

Her father spoke from behind her. "No purpose is served by driving her to tears, Marshall."

Marshall frowned. "But we have to find out the truth. We have to know what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how to keep it from happening again. And she's the only one who can tell us."

Marshall bent down so his face was level with hers, forcing her to see the ice-cold hatred in his eyes. A chill needle of fear injected freezing water into her spine. Since she'd come to her senses about his true nature and broken off her relationship with him, whenever he got her alone he'd been vicious and demanding,
alternately trying to force her to come back to him and punish her for leaving. She'd thought it was just wounded pride. But he'd gone beyond that point now.

"Tell us, Raven," he insisted.

"I've told you everything I can! What more do you want?" She clenched her fists and bit down on her lip, forcing herself to remain calm. She wasn't alone with him. Her father would protect her from an outright attack. Wouldn't he?

"I want every detail you can remember. From the pattern on the carpeting to how long it took for the guard to arrive. I have to know what you did wrong."

Her father added, "Or if you only suffered from your usual bad luck."

She recoiled as if he'd struck her, turning her face aside only to see Marshall grinning in triumph. No matter what she said, the near failure of her mission proved her incompetence in her father's eyes. It didn't matter that she'd achieved their goal. She'd taken too great a risk and he would not let it happen again.

But as long as he was listening to her, she had a chance to persuade him, the same way she'd persuaded him to send her on the mission. Taking a deep breath, she began her story again. She started from the moment she'd entered the lobby and confirmed that the guard on duty had abandoned his post. He wanted details,
so that's what she gave him, the thousand and one ways she had tried to ensure the safety of herself and her mission.

Avoiding Marshall's looming presence, she concentrated on imagining her father standing behind her, a loving smile blossoming amid the salt-and-pepper of his goatee. Maybe this is what he'd wanted all along. Now he'd be proud of her.

She continued the story up to the point where she'd lit the fuses, leaving nothing out.

"The lighter touched the ribbon, I heard it catch, but I was looking away, because it was too bright to watch. Then I turned to the other side, and touched the lighter to that ribbon." She faltered, unsure of how to continue. If she told the truth, she'd never make her father understand why she'd risked herself and her
mission to go back for the agent.

Marshall prodded her. "Don't stop now, Raven. You have to tell us everything."

As she paused, debating what to say, her father stepped from behind her to face her at last. No love shone in his hard eyes and tight lips. She'd deluded herself. He didn't respect her, didn't love her, and nothing she did would ever restore that lost love.

"You understand why we're asking you this, don't you?" Her father patted her knee in obviously insincere affection. "The safety of all the members of the League depends on everyone carrying out their assigned tasks. If you're asked to do something beyond your limits, I put not just you, but every member of the League at risk. I'm only trying to do what's best for you."

Suddenly, she knew what he wanted from her. He wanted the proof that she couldn't be trusted with jobs of any real importance. He wanted her to learn her place. Then she'd go back to being the dutiful daughter who didn't question him. She'd be subservient to Marshall, the man he treated as a favored son.

But she'd succeeded! Against all odds, she'd completed the mission. It wasn't enough. She wasn't his son.

She quivered with fury, but she didn't dare express her anger. No members of the League argued with their leader. Not if they wanted to stay in the League. He'd trapped her, by making her describe her movements in such detail. She'd never think up a story that would mesh with the truth on so many points.

But he'd left her a way out, a way to end the interrogation without describing what had happened when she and Tarrant were alone. All she had to do was admit she was wrong. Her father didn't care what she'd been wrong about. He'd never cared.

She wanted to run from the room in tears. But she wouldn't. She raised her chin, determined to stand up for herself. He'd trained her to be a fighter, and even if he didn't believe it, he'd done a good job.

She looked into his emotionless face, and the fight drained out of her. What did it matter? She could talk until her voice gave out, and it wouldn't change anything. He'd never respect her. He'd never see her as anything other than the prize he wanted to award his favored son. She could never defend her actions.

But she could still protect Tarrant. If she gave in now, she wouldn't have to reveal what else had happened in the computer room.

They wouldn't believe her if she flat-out told them she'd made a mistake, not after she'd spent so long denying it. But they thought she was weak. She could make them believe they'd forced the information out of her.

"The last ribbon wouldn't light. I couldn't make it light." Tears formed in the corners of her eyes and she let them fall, as the words of her lie fell from her lips. "I left without lighting all of the fuses. I was afraid that it would take too long, and I wouldn't get out in time. So I left it and ran." The tears coursed down her cheeks now, and she had trouble catching her breath. She wasn't sure if she was acting any more. She'd agonized over what to tell her father, and it hadn't mattered. It had never mattered. He didn't want to hear the truth.

Her father smiled, breaking her heart. "Don't worry. You did the right thing. We'd planned for some of the fuses not lighting or going out, and gave you extra explosives. Leaving one unlit was the right thing to do."

"Oh, Father." Her voice broke, and she leaned forward to hug him, longing for the simple comfort of laying her head against his shoulder. In her mind, she knew he'd only allow it because it reinforced his vision of her as weak and incompetent. But in her heart, she wanted to believe the message of love and caring in his smile.

He reached out and stopped her, pushing her upright in the chair. "Don't fret, Raven. It's not your fault. I never should have sent you in the first place."

* * * *

Tarrant sipped his tepid coffee as the junior clerk finished recording his report. Across the scarred conference table the Captain sipped his own mug of coffee, watching Tarrant with eyes that missed nothing. The Captain knew. Or suspected. He'd been the best field agent in the Midland Territory in his active years, even being asked to help in the Triangle, and God knew how those Francois hated asking for English help.

The clerk looked up, his fingers hovering over his keyboard, signaling Tarrant to resume. But he couldn't. How could he tell the Captain what had happened with that green recruit listening in on every word? His shame would be spread throughout the force like the Second Flood.

The Captain set down his mug, carefully squaring the handle with the angle of the table. "You've left something out."

"Sir?"

"You were in the room for twenty minutes. Yet by your own admission, you'd only gotten so far as asking the girl her name. What else happened?"

"We tried to get out of the room, and it took some time to recover from the fumes." Tarrant darted a glance at the clerk's nimble fingers. His evasiveness was being recorded for posterity. If the Captain asked him again, he'd have to answer, or admit to concealing information.

"That didn't take twenty minutes."

Tarrant sipped his coffee, even though it aggravated the churning in his stomach. At least it gave him time to think. But he'd been thinking of nothing else since he woke from Raven's attack, and another minute or two would bring him no closer to an answer.

"You're a good agent, Tarrant. One of the brightest on the force today. I know you must have been suspicious. So why weren't you questioning the girl?"

With a deep sigh, Tarrant set his coffee mug on the table. He had to tell the Captain the truth, even if it meant a suspension. They hadn't been there. They didn't know what it was like. Tarrant knew he hadn't done anything wrong, but would they see it that way? The Captain, especially, made no secret of his hatred
for Aurics. The only things he hated more were Auric sympathizers.

A shudder rippled through Tarrant, heaving the coffee in his stomach, as he realized he could be removed from the force. The Captain might judge him unfit to uphold the laws and moral codes.

But if he didn't answer, Tarrant would judge himself unfit. Even now, images of what might have been tormented him the moment he let his guard down. He'd been rescued by the arrival of the technician. The next agent to face an Auric might not be so lucky. Unless Tarrant could warn them of the dangerous new Auric
attack.

"She influenced me, sir." The words were barely louder than a whisper, but at least his voice didn't shake.

"How so?" The Captain leaned forward, hunger lighting his eyes. "Could she control your mind?"

"No, sir. Not my mind. My..." He swallowed, unable to speak the words in front of the clerk. "I saw her hands moving, but at the time, I didn't think she was an Auric. And then, I didn't think at all."

The raw heat of his shame burned in his cheeks. But ten times as fiercely, the flames of anger burned in his heart. He would find this Auric woman, and he would make her pay for what she'd done to him, and to the ICP. He fixed his gaze to a point over the Captain's left shoulder, tried to ignore the clerk, and gave his
report as if he was dictating it to an impersonal computer.

"The Auric woman demonstrated a new power. They've proved able to use an agent's own body against him in the past, by stealing the air from his lungs or pausing his heartbeat."

He paused, waiting for the clattering keys to catch up.

"The Auric woman distracted me from my duty by turning my body against me. She used her powers to overwhelm me with physical desire. I was too busy fighting the urges she created within me to question her."

The Captain shifted his jaw from side to side as if he still had a cigar to roll between his teeth. He'd given up cigars after leaving active Homicide duty, but all the field agents recognized the mannerism. It wasn't a good sign.

"How'd you know she created these thoughts with Auric powers? The technician said she was beautiful."

Beautiful? That didn't begin to describe the way her face lit up when she smiled, or the husky note in her voice when she thanked him. Tarrant wrenched his mind back to the present.

"My thoughts remained clear, sir. The entire time, I was aware of my duty, and of how unusual my reactions were. I even suspected it might be a side effect of inhaling the Halon."

"And exactly what was your reaction?"

Tarrant swallowed, his throat going dry as he remembered her hands, kneading and sculpting in her lap. They hadn't been nervous gestures, but a devious manipulation of his aura. He recalled the sinful pleasures he'd experienced beneath her touch, but distantly, as if through the veil of a dream. Thank God the
effects were fading. If the memories had been as vivid as the experience, he'd have long since lost the ability to resist. He struggled to keep the anger from his voice, not wanting to add disrespect of a superior to his other offenses.

"She aroused me, sir, to the point where I was in danger of breaking the code."

His gaze slid to the Captain's face, searching for understanding or damnation. Instead, the Captain stared at him through narrowed eyes.

"If the technician hadn't arrived, would you have broken the code?"

The section of the code in question sprang unbidden to his mind: An agent shall refrain from all activity of a sexual nature, unless the agent is married to another agent, in which case said activities shall be limited to expressions of love and marital commitment, and not performed for mere physical pleasure.

Tarrant squeezed his eyes shut and whispered, "I don't know."

The clerk's fingers slipped off his keyboard with a clatter.

"You realize I could have your badge for that admission," the Captain cautioned. "The ICP is the moral backbone of the new world order, protecting the people from their own corruption so that we aren't punished again. A corrupt agent is a danger to us all."

Tarrant's eyes snapped open. The Captain didn't need to issue a warning. If he thought Tarrant had been corrupted, he would throw him off the force. What subtle signal was he trying to convey? "I am aware of that, sir."

"I know you are. Which is why I believe you. A corrupt agent would never have risked suspension to admit how strongly affected he was. But you did. So unless you prove otherwise, it's my judgment that this Auric was indeed influencing you."

Tarrant let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. His badge was safe. "Thank you, sir."

The Captain held up his hand. "Don't thank me yet. We have to capture this girl. She's responsible for the destruction of ICP property and valuable data. I'm taking you off the Auric Tracking System project, to work full time on this case. Knowing that she has this power, I can't risk corrupting more agents. You'll have
to track her down on your own, Tarrant."

A thin smile lit the Captain's features, chilling Tarrant to his bones. He recognized that smile. The Captain believed this case would hurt the Auric cause, and hurt it badly.

Tarrant dismissed the thought. He'd find out what the Captain was up to later. In the meantime, he'd strike a blow for justice, and force the woman to undo whatever it was she'd done to him. "It will be a pleasure to make her pay for her crimes."

"The debriefing is over. You have your assignment."

Tarrant stood up, eager to begin his hunt, but the Captain's next words froze him in his tracks. "Agent Tarrant, I'll be watching you. If I see any evidence that this Auric is indeed influencing your mind, I won't hesitate to pull you from the case, and from the force. Too much depends on our upholding the code to do anything else."

"I understand, sir. I expected nothing less."

He understood the sentiment. But he didn't understand why the Captain continued to smile.