Chapter 4
TWO OTHER MEN—older, dressed in jeans and black windbreakers—appear next to me on the scene.
“Get help fast,” I yell at them, motioning toward the bleeding body on the sidewalk. One guy presses a button on his handheld. The other turns to me, extending a hand.
“I’m Daniel Goyette, NYPD Narc and Drug Investigation. This is my partner, Ron. We were hoping to catch these young dealers in the act, but it looks like their little exchange went wrong somehow.”
“Great work you guys are doing!” I say angrily. “Mind if I step in and actually do something?”
I use my powers to subdue the escaping perps. I grab one and am about to get a stranglehold on the other, the one with the knife, when I hear a woman’s voice. Loud. Clear. It’s Maddy.
“I got him,” she yells as she forces the killer to the ground. I watch her twist the killer’s arms behind his back. The guy is struggling. He’s strong. Maddy is working hard.
“I can take over,” I say, jogging to join Maddy while maintaining a mental hold on the dealer I’ve already subdued, planning to put a heavy mental foot on her catch.
But suddenly the guy breaks free.
“I’ll get him,” I yell, but Maddy doesn’t hear me or she doesn’t want to hear me. She’s determined to use her developing mind-control powers to smash the killer against a double-parked car on Fifth Avenue and 12th Street.
But she makes a terrible miscalculation.
Instead of smashing the runner against the car, she smashes the vehicle against two nearby parked cars.
The impact is so great that all three cars collapse into one another like an accordion.
Even worse, an innocent young woman who’d been crossing the street is now caught between the cars.
I release the perps I’m holding, then kneel down to help the innocent bystander. But it’s a feat even the Shadow can’t execute. The woman is dead, a mass of blood and skin and bones.
Maddy is horrified, hands covering her face. I’m angry and sad; angry that Maddy took such a huge leap before she was ready, and sad for this young woman whose life was just beginning.
“I was hoping that I could help, Lamont,” Maddy says. She’s in tears. “I wanted you to see that I was learning.”
“Damnit, Maddy. You’re ready to work with me when Dache and I say you’re ready. That’s clearly not now.” I know that Maddy is heartbroken, but an innocent person is dead, and a terrible killer escaped. Crime and death and horror and sorrow. They’re everything the Shadow fights against.