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If only she knew where he hid during the day, like vermin. Then she could simply arrive, announce a Candygram, and take him apart.

ED SHOVELED A SMALL FORKFUL OF
chicken potpie into his mouth. He glanced across the school cafeteria table at Gaia. Day two after Mary's death and Gaia was still showing
no signs of weakness.


What's a chicken pot?

"What is chicken potpie, anyway?" Ed asked. "What's a chicken pot? Like a pot just to make chicken in? Where do they get these names?"

Gaia looked up at him and almost smiled. That is, her lips pressed together in a flat line for a moment. Which was the most he'd gotten out of her in two days.

She shrugged. "It's hot. You didn't have to make it. What's the problem?" She took a bite of her own lunch.

Ed stared back down at the table, defeated. Then he glanced back at Gaia. "You know, I'm glad you're not a vegetarian," he said, desperate to make conversation. "I don't get the whole vegetarian thing. I mean, if we're not supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"

Not an original line, but Ed had forgotten what comedian had said it first. Still, even though it was the
Ed Fargo Entertainment hour
, he was not getting any reaction.

He tried again. "Why don't we go see a movie? Get your mind off of stuff."

Gaia met his eyes. Clear blue eyes, as untroubled as a spring morning in Maine. "No thanks," she said. "I've got some stuff to do at home."

Ed's eyes narrowed. Their mutual good friend had been shot and killed three days ago, and Gaia hadn't cried on his shoulder, hadn't expressed regret, hadn't mentioned Mary's name. Gaia had actually been holding Mary when she died. Now it was like Mary had never existed. And like Ed didn't exist, either.

In the four months he had known Gaia, Ed had seen her furious, violent, shy, antisocial, rude, sensitive, generous, forgiving, and reckless. He didn't think he had ever seen her truly happy, and he knew he had never seen her weak--either physically or emotionally. Why was he expecting something different now, just because her other best friend had been gunned down in front of her only two days ago?

Abruptly Ed pushed his lunch tray away. Suddenly, he didn't feel like eating anymore. What was this "stuff to do at home" shit? Gaia didn't consider the Nivens' house her
home.
He leaned across the table, his eyes narrowing. "Who are you, and what have you done with the real Gaia?"

It was an old joke,
an ancient joke
, but still chuckle-worthy, in Ed's opinion.
Could we at least see a glimmer of a smile, please?

Instead, Gaia looked suddenly inexpressibly sad. It was only for a moment, but a shadow passed over Gaia's features. Then it was gone. Her face twitched back into its beautiful, expressionless mask. "There is no real Gaia," she said softly.

SLITHER. CROSS. SLITHER. ELLA
loved the sound her thigh-high stockings made when she crossed and uncrossed her legs. Sort of
slippery and smooth
at the same time.

So Powerful

"Go on." Loki turned to face her, his back against the anonymous white wall of this apartment. At first Ella had been surprised that Loki had chosen a doorman building for this month's pied-à-terre. Then she realized that the heavy-jowled gorilla in the cheesy maroon uniform was no doubt on Loki's payroll.

Ella shrugged, crossed her legs again, and felt a wave of pleasure and irritation tingling at the base of her spine. "What can I tell you? You offed her friend, right in front of her. But she hasn't been crying, hasn't been doing anything. As a matter of fact," Ella said thoughtfully, examining a one-inch-long spiky

fingernail, "she's been slightly less unbearable lately. At least she's coming home for meals and not sneaking out at night. So George isn't quite as worried about her as he usually is."

The force of Loki's intense gaze made Ella's cheeks burn. Damn him. Even after years he could do this to her. She thought about what Loki was like in bed. Blurred images flitted through her mind,
Loki sliding next to her
, the cord in his neck tightening as he moved. She visualized his almost surgical precision, an almost superhuman control. Loki was so dangerous, so frightening, so powerful. Falling for him had been as intense and as addicting as jumping off a cliff. But for now, Ella had to focus on business.

"Has she been with her other friends?" he asked. "The wheelchair guy? Ed? Anyone from school? Anyone . . . else?"

Like Sam Moon, you mean?
Ella thought sarcastically. She had to gulp hard to keep a grin off her face. Sam Moon had been
delicious.
Absolutely delicious. Ladies, you don't need Prozac: you need a young, unstoppable, pretty boy to put the smiles back on your faces. Not only had Sam been fabulous in bed--strong, uncomplicated, and enthusiastic--but there had been an added layer of pleasure in knowing that Ella was sleeping with the object of Gaia's affection. She almost laughed out
loud just thinking about it. Gaia, that perverse, hateful, genetic freak, was eating her guts out over Sam Moon. And Ella had bagged him before Gaia did. It was
almost too perfect.


"Ella?" Loki demanded.

Ella snapped back to the present and shook her head. "No. Like I said, she's been staying home," Ella said. "Not making phone calls, not sneaking out. Yesterday she stopped for a slice of pizza on her way home from school, but that's hardly unusual. She has the undiscriminating taste of a hyena."

Loki regarded Ella coldly. "She's a survivor. Like a hyena, you could put her down almost anywhere, and she would survive. She would adapt. She is very strong, our Gaia."

A tiny muscle twitched in Ella's smoothly made-up cheek. God, she hated that bitch. To hear Loki
salivating
over her was nauseating.

"Uh-huh," Ella said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. She didn't quite succeed. Jesus, how long was this going to go on? She shivered without meaning to, just thinking of the weather outside. She wanted to be somewhere far away. Somewhere warm. But no, Ella was stuck here, playing baby-sitter to her foster daughter. Daughter. Ella swallowed hard.

LOKI TURNED HIS BACK TO ELLA AND
strode over to the windows. It was already dark, at four-thirty. From these windows he could see the big X formed by Broadway and Seventh Avenue as they crossed and reversed positions. He sighed. Ella was rapidly reaching the limits of her usefulness. The open hatred on her face when she spoke of Gaia was more than annoying. Still, he knew Ella was under control. She wouldn't dare touch a hair on that beautiful head.

Worthy

Loki sighed again,
this time with pleasure.
In the window's reflection, he could see Ella, behind him, no longer even bothering to pretend to pay attention to him. She looked at her nails, crossed and uncrossed her legs, yawned, gazed at the ceiling. The fact that she failed to be inspired by Gaia was proof of her own inadequacy.

Gaia alone was perfect. Gaia alone was worthy--worthy of her background, her training, her surveillance.
Worthy of his attention.
Worthy of something more than attention. The fact that Gaia had witnessed the death of one of the pathetic props in her difficult life--had witnessed it and not crumpled, had watched her friend die and yet shown no signs of weakness or trivial human emotion in the days following--well, that just proved how very special his beloved niece was.

GAIA STEPPED OFF THE NUMBER
6 local on 96th Street and started walking west. The February cold whistled down the wind tunnels made by tall buildings on either side of her. It whipped her hair around beneath the sweatshirt hood that stuck up from beneath her puffy blue ski jacket.

It's almost funny

It hadn't been easy ditching Ed. First he'd asked her to a movie. Then after school he had suggested eating together or even--
sacrifice of all sacrifices
--going shopping.

She'd rejected him flat out. He'd sat, watching her, as she booked east to catch the green line. She hadn't looked back.

Now, reaching Fifth Avenue, Gaia turned left, then crossed the wide street, heading for the huge columns of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her plan was simple: first, an hour of culture, then a bowl of potato-leek soup from the soup Nazi, then a couple of hours in and around Thompkins Square Park, enjoying the lovely January weather and looking for her good old pal Skizz. Gaia shivered once, as if someone had just drawn long fingernails down a chalkboard. Skizz had
looked
pretty harmless after the last beating Gaia had given him.

But she had no doubt in her mind that he was the one who ordered the hit on Mary.
One of his asshole dealer friends
had probably owed him a favor. But Gaia wasn't fooled. She knew who was to blame. She'd been fooled once by Skizz, but
never again.


If only she knew where he slept, where he ate, where he hid during the day like vermin. Then she could simply arrive, announce a Candygram, and take him apart. A couple times.

But Gaia was going to wait until the time was right. She would wait until well after night fell. Hence her quest for culture in the meantime.

When she walked through the huge, heavy bronze doors of the museum, a strong, heated blast of air whooshed down on her. It instantly dried the snowflakes clinging to her hair. Inside it was stuffy, overheated, and dry. Gaia shrugged out of the puffy ski jacket and tied its floppy arms around her waist. She snagged a map from the info desk and made her way to a bank of elevators.

An elevator, a couple of long halls, and a wide stairway later, Gaia found herself in a series of rooms devoted to German Expressionists. As Gaia wandered over in front of a Nolde painting, she had a flashback of her mother. Katia. Katia had taught Gaia how to look at art, how to love it,
how to let it get inside her.
Remembering those

lessons, Gaia sank down on a bare wooden bench and stared at the painting in front of her.

The painting was called "Three Russians," and it showed two men and a woman all bundled up, as if, perhaps, they had just strolled down a New York street in the middle of January. The brushstrokes were coarse and broad; the paint clung thickly to the canvas in crusty swaths.
Three Russians.
All dressed in fur. They had long, thin noses, high cheekbones ...

Katia Moore had been Russian. Gaia had hated her accent, had been embarrassed by her rolling r's, her formal hairstyle, the clothes she brought from Europe. She had been so unlike other kids' mothers. Gaia's whole family had been so unlike everyone else's. Which is why she was here, now, seventeen years old, a genetic freak made freakier by her father's intensive, relentless training. Training that had ended as abruptly as her mother's life, and on the same night.

Gaia's breath lightly left her lungs as she felt herself sink into the hard bench. It was so hot in here, so dry.

Why?
she screamed silently. Why had she been made into such a freak? As a child, when she realized, when she
knew
that she simply never felt fear, it hadn't been a big deal. In fact, she hadn't really stuck out as a kid, except for her height. But lots of
kids had seemed reckless and fearless--like that day she and four of her friends climbed up to the roof of the Rosenblitts' shed, jumped from there to the roof of the Stapletons' garage, then crossed over to the other side and leaped seven feet down onto a pile of compost.
Paratroopers!
Okay, it had been disgusting, landing in all the fruit rinds and eggshells, but it hadn't been scary. Not for any of them. It had been fun.

But now, at seventeen, never feeling fear had become a weight around her neck, relentlessly dragging her down. But then, her fearlessness was also a good thing, because it meant that nothing would stop Gaia from wiping Skizz out. Her intellect surely wasn't going to get in the way. Her emotions were on vacation. And she didn't feel fear. End result? No Skizz. No Skizz ever again. Just like no--

Gaia suddenly felt hungry. Maybe it was time to hit the soup wagon. She took one last quick look around at the German Expressionists. Gotta hand it to them--they were masters at expressing all the agonies of the human condition.
Thwarted love, psychic torture, the sheer pain of existence
all laid out for the viewer in bright jewellike colors. All these paintings of anguish. It was almost funny. Gaia hiked up her messenger bag, turned, and left the Three Russians behind.

GAIA

Skizz
is lying low. I almost froze my ass off last night in Thompkins Square Park, but after five hours, he hadn't shown his ugly face. But I'll get him. After I got back to George's last night I couldn't sleep. I thought about all the ways I could kill Skizz. Facing him, sideways, from the back. In my mind I heard his shoulder snap as I bent it. I heard the choked scream of pain rip from his throat as I broke his fingers, one by one
.

The thing is, it won't be a lesson. Sometimes bullies need to be taught lessons, and if I'm around, I'm happy to do it. Call it my contribution to society. But the statute of limitations for Skizz to learn his lessons ran out a couple days ago. He's failed the exam. He gets no second chance
.