Most people don't understand how my power works. They see the speed, the blur, the way I can cross a parking lot in the time it takes them to blink, and they assume it's all reaction time and fast-twitch muscle fibers. Speedster stuff. Classic comic book physics.

  But that's not really it. My body compensates automatically for any movement I want to make - air resistance, momentum, friction, all the stuff that should turn a human being into a smear on the pavement when they hit sixty miles per hour on foot. It just... handles it. Subconsciously. I don't have to think about tucking my chin or angling my shoulders or any of that. I think move and my body figures out the rest.

  Which is why I'm currently freezing my ass off in Dead Drop's van instead of running through the storm myself. Because "automatic compensation" doesn't mean "comfortable," and there's a difference between can run through a winter storm and want to run through a winter storm.

  "This is wrong," Dead Drop says from the driver's seat, squinting through the windshield at the wall of white bearing down on Northeast Philly. The wipers are losing their battle against the sleet. "The forecast said four to six inches."

  "Forecasts are wrong all the time." I'm in the passenger seat with my feet up on the dash, scrolling through my phone. Forums are already lighting up, people posting videos of the snow coming down sideways, the usual chaos. "Remember last March? They said light flurries and we got eight inches. Or what about a month ago?"

  "This isn't a forecast error." Her chains clink softly as she shifts, that unconscious movement she does when she's thinking hard. "Look at the radar. And a month ago was Maya's first blizzard, remember?"

  She holds up her phone. I glance at it, look away, and then look again, actually paying attention this time.

  The storm system is wrong. I'm not a meteorologist, but even I can see it - the way the dense band of precipitation is concentrated almost exclusively over Northeast Philadelphia, trailing off to nothing over Camden and South Jersey. Weather doesn't work like that. Weather spreads out, follows pressure gradients, does weather things. It doesn't sit on one specific part of a city like a cat on a keyboard.

  "Huh," I say.

  "Yeah. Huh." Dead Drop puts her phone away and grips the steering wheel tighter. "Someone's making this happen."

  "Richardson."

  "Has to be."

  I pull up my mental map of where Maya Richardson is supposed to be this afternoon. "I think she's helping out some of the poor bastards that her own guys busted up on one of those Mayfair alleyways. Definitely not the direction I'm pinging her," I say. "And the pressure's been weird the past two weeks. You heard the weather guys. There's a polar vortex or whatever the fuck it's called, it's locking all the cold, wet air in over Philly."

  "Uh huh," Dead Drop replies, unconvinced. "So, where is Maya Jade Richardson?"

  "Great question," I ask, cracking my knuckles. I close my eyes and feel the pull, like a compass magnet in my brain. It's weird, still, not something I'm fully used to yet. Not a direction. More tugging my body into a certain orientation in space. Yankety yankety.

  Maya Richardson. City Councilwoman. Mrs. Zenith of the Kingdom of Keys.

  The needle swings northeast. Maybe three miles out, give or take. Moving slightly - no, stationary. She's stationary, somewhere in the direction of... Kensington? Frankford? Somewhere along Roosevelt Boulevard, probably.

  "Got her," I say, opening my eyes. "Northeast. Maybe three miles. She's not moving."

  Dead Drop's already putting the van in gear. "Then neither should we. Let's go."

  The drive takes longer than it should because the roads are already going to shit. We're not the only idiots out in this - there's a salt truck ahead of us moving at approximately the speed of smell, plus the usual assortment of Philly drivers who believe that weather is a suggestion and four-wheel drive means four-wheel stop.

  I keep my eyes closed most of the way, tracking Maya's position, calling out adjustments. "Left here. No, wait, next left. She's more north than I thought."

  "You sure about this?" Dead Drop asks, taking the turn onto a street that's already accumulating a solid inch of slush. "We're supposed to be observing, not engaging."

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  "We are observing. We're just observing from closer."

  "That's not what Monkey Business meant."

  "Monkey Business also said to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves." I open my eyes, grinning at her. "And this is an opportunity. Richardson's out here alone, in the middle of a storm, doing something she clearly doesn't want anyone to know about. When's the next time we're going to catch her this exposed? All we'd need to do is take a picture."

  Dead Drop doesn't answer, which means she agrees but doesn't want to admit it. Her chains rattle softly in the back of the van - she keeps a full set back there, coiled and ready, plus the spare links she's broken off for throwing. I've seen her thread a chain through a car window from fifty feet away. Scary.

  We're a good team, actually. Speed and reach. I get in close, she controls the perimeter. We've run this play a dozen times on Kingdom couriers and drug shipments.

  This is just a slightly bigger fish.

  "There," I say, pointing at a building ahead. Six stories, old industrial brick, the kind of place that used to be a factory and is now probably "luxury lofts" or whatever they're calling overpriced apartments these days. "She's up. Top floor or roof. If we can capture her, then think about it. The third in command, totally de-powered. We could even sell her power back to their Godfather or whatever. We'd have them by the balls."

  Dead Drop pulls the van into an alley and kills the engine. The storm is really howling now - I can feel the van rocking slightly in the wind, hear the sleet rattling against the windows like someone's throwing gravel at us.

  "I don't like this," she says quietly.

  "You never like anything. You categorically hate all things."

  "I mean it, Dean." She turns to look at me, and there's something in her expression I don't see often. Not fear, exactly. Unease. "She's not a weather controller. This is wrong."

  "Wrong how?"

  She frowns, trying to find the words. "You know how weather controllers feel? That diffuse thing, like static electricity spread over a wide area? Cloudmakers, rain-callers, even that guy in Boston who does lightning - they all have that quality. Spread out. Atmospheric. I get near them, and my brain tells me in muscle memory, this person controls weather."

  "Sure."

  "This doesn't feel like that." Dead Drop's chains clink as she unconsciously reaches back to touch them, like a security blanket. "Maya doesn't have weather control. There's something different here. It feels like a brick wall in my brain."

  I consider this for about two seconds before dismissing it. "So she's got a different flavor of weather powers. Doesn't change the play. She's up there alone, focused on whatever she's doing, and we've got the element of surprise. In and out before she knows what hit her."

  "And if she does know what hit her?"

  "Then we improvise." I crack my neck, feel my power humming under my skin, ready to go. "Look, worst case scenario, we get some recon and pull back. Best case, we grab a Kingdom lieutenant and Monkey Business has leverage for days. Either way, we learn something."

  Dead Drop stares at me for a long moment. Then she sighs, reaches back, and starts pulling chains forward into her lap.

  "Fine. But if this goes sideways, I'm telling Monkey Business it was your idea."

  "It is my idea. I'm happy to take credit."

  We go up through the building rather than the fire escape - less exposed, more options if things go wrong. The power's out in the whole block, probably from the storm, which means we're climbing six flights of stairs in the dark with only the occasional emergency light to guide us.

  Dead Drop's chains float around her like living things, two coiled at her hips, two more drifting at shoulder height, ready to strike. I'm moving slower than I'd like, keeping pace with her, resisting the urge to blur ahead and scout.

  "Roof access should be at the end of the hall," She murmurs as we reach the sixth floor. "Standard setup - metal door, probably alarmed, definitely locked. I can handle the lock."

  "I know you can."

  The hallway is dark and quiet. I can hear the storm raging outside, muffled by the walls, but there's something else underneath it - a low thrumming sound, almost subsonic, like standing too close to a power station. The hairs on my arms are standing up.

  Dead Drop feels it too. Her chains are moving more agitatedly now, responding to her mood. "Dean..."

  "I know. I hear it."

  The roof access door is at the end of the hall, exactly where I expected. Heavy metal, industrial grade, the kind of thing designed to keep people out of places they shouldn't be. Dead Drop reaches out with her hands. I hear heavy noises coming from inside the locking mechanism, clunkity clunkity clank, and it just... is open now.

  "Ready?" she asks.

  I take a breath. Let my power spin up, feel the world slow down just a fraction as my body prepares for whatever's coming.

  "Ready."

  She pushes the door open.

  The storm hits us like a wall - wind and sleet and noise, so loud it's almost physical. I squint against it, raising one arm to shield my face, and there she is.

  Maya Richardson.

  She's standing near the edge of the roof, maybe thirty feet away, silhouetted against the churning sky. Her arms are raised, fingers spread wide, and she's moving - not walking, but swaying slightly, like a conductor leading an orchestra only she can hear. The storm seems to respond to her gestures, the wind shifting direction when she shifts her weight, the snow intensifying when her fingers flex.

  She's wearing a heavy winter coat, hood up, practical boots. Not dressed for a gala, or for helping business owners on the street. Dressed for exactly this - standing on a rooftop in a blizzard she's creating. She's close enough to us that I'm sure she can see us in her periphery. If she's surprised, she's not pointing it out. Or maybe her eyes are closed.

  She knows. Some part of my brain registers this even as the rest of me is already moving. She knows someone might come for her up here, and she's got her exit planned. Right out the door we just came in.

  But she hasn't seen us yet. The storm is too loud, her focus too intent on whatever she's doing to the weather. We've got maybe five seconds of surprise.

  I look at Dead Drop. She looks at me.

  Now, I mouth.