There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

- Edith Wharton, ‘Vesalius in Zante’, 1902

The Black Death rose.

Ten miles. Twenty. Climbing higher and higher, straight up, alone against a sky turning blue to black, leading a trail of captured weaponry.

One by one, his followers wavered – each of the flying cameramen turning back as the air grew too cold, too thin. But the Black Death needed no air, no warmth.

Thirty miles above the city of Chicago he halted, hanging in emptiness. The shells and missiles he was trailing rose up to join him, orbiting in a perfect circle, a ring of steel satellites. The Black Death held open his palms, face up, and the metal of the munitions melted into a solid, silver mass – lengthening, hardening, reforming into a single, man-sized spike. His palms pressed against his cold creation – but then suddenly, the Black Death stopped. He glanced down – his eyes narrowed. And then his smile widened.

For from the Earth something was coming. Something sleek, something metal, something with letters down the side and chemical propellant spewing from one end. A spec on the horizon, growing larger and larger by the second, heading straight for him.

A nuclear missile.

Oh. Well now.

He had been planning to use the spike. Infused with explosive energy, shot like a pin, a manmade meteor to fall upon the city and unleash a wave of devastating force. Maybe climb even higher, crush and remould a satellite, simply let gravity do the work...

But this was so, so much better.

The Black Death spread his hands wide, his white teeth gleaming.

*****

“Ten seconds until detonation,” called the analyst. Nobody in the bunker spoke, nobody breathed.

“Nine.”

“Eight.”

“Seven.”

“Si-”

And then the control panels flashed red, blaring lines of errors running down the screens.

“Sir, we’ve lost control!”

“Navigation’s not responding-”

“We’ve lost power-”

“Some kind of EMP-”

“Firewall’s down, we can’t-”

“Get it back!” demanded the President, “Someone, tell me what’s happened, give me a report! Do we have detonation, did it-?!”

“Sir,” whispered Clarke, “The feed…”

And one by one, every head turned to watch the news screens, the live footage streaming from the skyborne cameras. Up in the stratosphere, with the cameramen unable to follow any higher, the Black Death was little more than a distant dot.

But what drifted beside him was unmistakeable.

The world watched on in horror as the dark figure of Klaus Heydrich floated through empty space, his hands outstretched, slowly rotating a disabled, seventy-foot missile.

Pointing its payload straight down.

The President’s face whitened.

“Oh God,” he whispered.

*****

“…as it comes around now, and we can see… it is indeed nuclear and it appears… it appears the Black Death has assumed technopathic control…”

“Oh no,” Matt whispered, his hands white around the bench. His eyes were glued to screen, the grainy sight of the revolving missile, the commentator’s panicked words, coming live through the TV…

“…urged to evacuate… the two million people, living in Chicago…”

*****

The missile creaked as it swung.

Hundreds of pounds of metal, machinery, fuel and payload. He focused, his arms out, magnetically, telekinetically, technopathically pulling the warhead into place. A giant, heavy thing – so much to kill one man.

Far better to kill many.

His teeth bared and he pulled harder – feeling the weight of the rocket, breathing a little faster… starting to feel, ever so slightly, the strain…

And suddenly, his eyes widened. His breath caught, his face warped, frozen in fear and disbelief. His hands slackened and the missile ceased turning – as slowly, slowly, the Black Death raised a shaking hand, slowly reaching to his forehead…

To the trickling drop of sweat.

His head snapped round, his eyes bulging. The tiny, glistening bead of liquid floated, held, telekinetically suspended between his thumb and forefinger, a single traitorous drop. The Black Death stared at it, stock still, unmoving, unspeaking, his face warped into a mask of horror…

And deep inside, he felt it.

The darkness.

Thirty miles above the ground, the Black Death floated, staring at a drop of sweat, frozen, ashen‑faced, alone – and without a word he turned and flew away, shooting down towards Earth, leaving the warhead, the city, all of it behind, seemingly forgotten.