Vladislav knew he needed to talk quickly or talk with the force of undead charisma—not to Spitz, but to Morgan. Opening up to the energy of unlife, he tried to meet Morgan’s eyes, controlling the flow with nearly one thousand years of experience. Uncontrolled, it would leave him a mindless predator in time.

Even as he felt the cold power enter his body, he knew it was too late. She’d pulled out a slim, palm-sized pistol—too slim to fire bullets. Vladislav had seen them before. Based on Abominator tech, the Nine’s elite agents used them. They could pass through metal detectors and burn through almost anything with time.

She’d declared the gun when she joined the team.

Bright white tinged with bluish-purple, it hit Spitz in the chest, burning through where his heart would be and coming out the other side. Vladislav saw it all in slow motion as Lindsay gasped and backed away from the table, going for something below the table. Meanwhile, the Atoner’s eyes widened.

Ape Nasty grunted and sat up straighter in his chair.

Vladislav only had a moment to wonder how they’d sell Morgan’s attack as a necessity to the Feds before what he later saw as the inevitable happened. Instead of falling forward into the lectern and slumping onto the floor, Spitz’ eyes widened and his body grew as his clothes ripped and white energy rippled across his body, burning the clothes that remained along with the wooden lectern.

“Don’t get close, but hit him with anything you have,” he said, shouting over Spitz’ crackling power.

Lindsay, with her black shirt and blue jeans looking increasingly out of place, moved behind Morgan, muttering, “That had better be his final form.”

Vladislav thought he saw a flash of something in her hand, but he didn’t know what.

All of that came too quickly for him to think about it. He was already turning toward Spitz and aiming the dark power he called on at whatever the man had become. Saying, “Stop,” he met Spitz’ eyes, willing Spitz to listen.

Spitz did not. The cross that still somehow hung around his neck glowed and Vladislav felt the dark power within him snap back. He stumbled backward even as the white, rippling glow of energy around Spitz surged outward, burning everything it touched.

The table crackled as it caught on fire. Vladislav stopped trying to stay up and let himself fall.

Next to him, Ape Nasty had jumped upward, missing the worst of the blast, and flipping as he pushed off the ceiling. He landed on his feet, and grabbed his own chair, massive and custom built to hold an impossibly huge gorilla.

Ape Nasty threw it as if the chair weren’t more than 300 pounds by itself.

Made of metal, the chair flew at Spitz with force that would have killed any normal human and more than a few supers. It struck Spitz in the middle of his chest, throwing Spitz backward into the wall, smashing through the TV mounted on that wall.

The bloody scrapes on Spitz’ body told Vladislav that it was possible to harm the man, but he didn’t have time to consider how. As he activated the weaponry in his costume, two objects shot forward, hitting Spitz.

The first ball exploded into a gooey mess of white strands that spread across both Spitz and the cracked concrete wall he’d hit.

The second ball popped like a balloon as it hit Spitz, releasing a blue powder that coated Spitz, the gooey mess of web, and the wall behind it. From that Vladislav knew the Atoner and Lindsay were both still up. They’d been working on the one-two punch of Colin’s restraint glue and Lindsay’s disorientation powder—a version that was heavy enough to stay where it hit.

In the meantime, Vladislav had aimed the gun in his right sleeve, firing a burst of poison-filled needles—his last attempt at a nonlethal solution. He’d extracted the poison from a vampire in Cleveland, Ohio that had poison fangs and synthesized his own version.

Not all of the needles hit, but Vladislav saw bloody spots where three had been implanted into Spitz’ belly.

He didn’t know which was more important, his needles or Lindsay’s disorientation powder, but Spitz wobbled. That was promising. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t have to even try to understand Spitz’ powers.

The problem with mind-controlled homicidal maniacs whose superpowers only had to work once was that you had no background on your opponent. Overcharged latent superpowers were always a surprise.

The fact that they existed wasn’t. Martin Magnus’ bodyguards had the same one-time surprise power centuries ago. Magnus had a talent with Abominator tech. If Vladislav hadn’t already known the man was connected with the Nine, this attack would have been enough to make him suspect it.

In the meantime, it was time to take Spitz down. Vladislav turned into a mist and floated toward Spitz, planning to materialize off to the “man’s” side and stab him to death. So long as Colin’s glue held, he’d have a chance.

As his body turned to mist, Morgan, as calmly and professionally as ever, popped out from under the table where she’d taken cover from Spitz’ blast of energy, and fired off her pistol, hitting him with another blast of light, raking across the being’s body with the gun’s beam.

Spitz screamed as she hit, surrounding his body in a cocoon of light that exploded into the room. Even as a mist, Vladislav could see nothing but light and he felt the heat.