Dazed, nose bleeding, John saw the Vietnamese woman appear. She was obviously a Blur, capable of moving at tremendous speed for short periods of time, but requiring rest in between her bursts of superhuman velocity. With a Blur and a Shedder standing ready to fight, John knew that he was now in serious danger. Hand-to-hand combat was out of the question.

The Shedder lunged toward the fallen bat. John produced a crossbow from inside his overcoat. He did not mean to use it. The firing mechanism on the crossbow had a pair of safeguards, making it difficult to fire unless you knew the trick. As expected, the instant he produced the weapon, the Vietnamese woman streaked toward him and yanked it from his grasp. John lashed out with one leg along the path he expected her to take, and she collided with his shin. He spun to the ground, and she tumbled into the rock pile, dropping the crossbow.

The Shedder picked up the baseball bat while John pulled out a sleek pistol. John was frowning. He had hoped to avoid doing this the hard way. The darts in the gun were full of a sinister neurotoxin manufactured by his employer. For nearly an hour after the toxin was administered, any muscle contraction would cause a burst of excruciating pain, making movement intolerable.

As the Shedder charged with the bat raised, John tagged him in the chest with a dart. Rolling behind the rock pile as the bat swung, John put a dart into the young Vietnamese woman before she could recover. Muffled by the duct tape, the Shedder was trying to scream. John’s employers knew their business. The effect of the neurotoxin was nearly instantaneous. The woman cried out as well.

“Hold still,” John demanded, staying low, pain searing his jaw as he spoke. “Only movement will hurt. I want to hear you drop that bat.”

Instead he heard more stifled screaming and the sound of a body slapping down against the rocks. The Shedder had tried to keep moving despite the pain, and had passed out. John had never met anyone who could endure that much pain and remain conscious. Anyone besides himself.

The toxin was one of John’s most effective ways to subdue enemies. The pain kept his targets immobile or knocked them unconscious. And since the unconsciousness resulted from movements the targets chose to make, it did not affect John.

But when he moved, John felt pain just as sharply as they did. Muscles protesting in dizzying agony, he walked around the rock pile and retrieved the fallen bat. He had learned to cope with pain through countless injuries, most of them sustained vicariously. Over the years, he had gained the capacity to tolerate just about anything.

The Vietnamese woman glared at him, caged by the prospect of unendurable agony. Her eyes blinked, tears pooling in them.

“Even hurts to blink,” John said. “Sometimes life is unfair.”

John walked around the side of the school bus. All remained dark inside. Teeth grinding together against the anguish in his muscles, John hurled the wooden bat through one of the windows. “Why not come out, Samson?”

“That you, John?” a voice called from inside.

“You know it is,” John said. “And you know you’re cornered. A temporary lair is not going to cut it.”

“Come in and get me.”

John removed a canister of tear gas from his coat, opened it, and tossed it through the window. When his eyes began to sting, he knew that Samson had no emergency gas mask stashed away in there. Tears streamed down John’s cheeks, and he coughed uncontrollably, the spasms triggering waves of agony throughout his body.

Samson stumbled out of the front door of the bus followed by a cloud of caustic fumes. He held a bedspread to his face, which John tore from his grasp. Samson was a thin, veiny man with his head shaved and several tattoos on his bony arms. Blinking away tears, nauseous with pain, John roughly strapped Samson into a straitjacket.

“Why are you doing this, John?” Samson gasped. “Don’t you already have enough enemies?”

“You shouldn’t have come here,” John said. “You forced my hand. You should have known something like this would happen.” John wrapped Samson in the bedspread, lashing it to him with thin, strong cords.

“I should have known some callous lackey for a despicable group of schemers would drag me from my home in the middle of the night?” Although he failed to muster much spittle, Samson spat at John. “How do you live with yourself?”

“One day at a time.” John tightened the cords.

“You’re not the only guy who knows I’m in town,” Samson wheezed. “The other magicians have no great love for me, but they won’t be pleased to learn about this.”

“Maybe they’ll take the hint.”

Samson cackled and coughed. “They don’t run, John. Me, maybe. Them? No way. You ought to be the one running.” He struggled inside of the bedspread burrito.

“Thanks for the concern. Don’t give me any trouble. I’m already in a lot of pain. I’d gladly suffer a bit more.”

Samson grinned. He had two gold teeth. “I know the limits of what you can do to me.”

“Right. Which is why I’ll have a courier deliver you and your sideshow sidekicks to my employers.”

Samson paled. “I’ll give you ten times the money they’re paying you—”

John chuckled.

“Fifty times,” he pleaded.

“Friend, you made your bed, I’m just tucking you in.”

Chapter One

The Blue Falcons

Nate sat at the end of a sheetless mattress, bouncing a small rubber ball off the bare wall, keeping count of how many consecutive times he caught it. The ball got away from him and rolled toward the open, empty closet, coming to rest against the base of a cardboard box.

His new room was a little bigger than the old one, but felt unfamiliar and impersonal. Once the boxes were unpacked it would look a lot better.

His mom entered carrying another box with his name printed in blue marker. “You’re not getting much done,” she said.

“I don’t know where to start,” Nate replied.

“Just do this one,” she said, setting the box at the foot of his bed. “After you finish you can go play outside.”

“Play what? Robinson Crusoe?”

“I just saw some kids your age riding bikes.”

“They’re probably idiots.”

“Now, don’t have that attitude,” she sighed. “Since when did you become shy?”

“I don’t want to start all over again in a new place. I miss my old friends.”

“Nate, we’re here, and we’re not leaving. If you make some friends in the neighborhood before school starts, you’ll have a much better time.”