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  My dad and my grandpa had been killed first, near-simultaneously, shooting at the Angels from our front yard, trying to stop them from entering the house. Then, once at least a half-dozen or so had gotten in, I'd zapped at them furiously, shrieking in horror as they killed my three younger sisters, Abbey, Jenny, and Cassie, then our little cousin Danny, age seven. He’d come to live with us after his parents had been killed in Georgia during the Takeover.

  It was after they were all dead that the Angels went after my mom, and I'd been powerless to stop them, my new power barely strong enough to slow even a single one of them for longer than a few seconds.

  However, long later, I'd regained consciousness, screaming, having instantly recalled what had happened -- my entire family, every last one of them, had been murdered. The horror that I felt seemed to be ripping through my body like some desperate, living thing, manifesting in some primal noise, part-scream and part-wail, though I didn't make noise for long. A tall, well-built man that I later learned was Dylan entered the room where I was being held and zapped me several times until I finally shut up.

  It was then that he started to say that if I really loved my family, there was a way for me to get them back, but I didn't even let him finish with this thought. Cutting him off mid-word, I spit in his face. I knew he was just torturing me for some reason, because I'd seen with my own eyes that all my family members were dead. I knew there was no way for me to get them back.

  After slowly wiping my spit from his face, his expression completely neutral, Dylan zapped me again, this time for so long, and with such a thick, bright current of electricity that my heart was stuttering, beating with a wildly erratic rhythm, when he'd finally stopped.

  Then, with his expression just as neutral as before, he'd asked if I was ready to listen. Clutching my chest and gasping for air, I hadn't responded, and he'd continued speaking, taking a seat in a chair beside the bed I'd been placed in.

  “I'm the leader of the Angels that are taking over northern Michigan, and I know you're a Gifted. My men who killed your family today told me you were zapping. So, wisely, they spared your life, knowing I might have some use for you."

  Not caring what he was getting at, I began collecting saliva to spit at him again, but he immediately lifted a palm in warning.

  "I wouldn't. Not unless you want more pain. Next time I'll zap you even longer, but with a weaker stream so as not to stop your heart and kill you. I'll just keep you in pain for a solid half-minute or so, longer if I can manage it. How does that sound? Oh, and you'll get the same treatment if you dare try to zap me, too. If I see your palm lifting even a millimeter, I'll zap, and I'll be faster.

  “I know you're not a very experienced Gifted; my men told me so. They told me you collapsed after only a minute or two of zapping. You're clearly a novice for your supernatural energy to become depleted so fast."

  I was such a novice that up until he'd reminded me that I was a Gifted, I'd actually forgotten that I was. Not to mention that my mind was elsewhere also, focused on the horror and rage I felt about my family. Spitting at Dylan had just been my knee-jerk reaction.

  I wasn't so horrified and enraged, however, that I was willing to risk my life by spitting at him again, or attempting to zap him. With the recollection of the pain that had raced through my body while he'd been zapping me still very fresh, and with my heartbeat only now fluttering itself back to a normal rate, I was definitely now thinking twice about doing anything that would make him zap me again. So, when he again asked me if I was ready to listen, I dipped my head in the tiniest fraction of a nod.

  After dropping his palm, he sat back in his chair and fixed me with a steely gaze, green eyes glinting gold in light from a bedside table lamp. "Good choice. Now, as I was saying, I have some use for you, and if you cooperate, you can get your family back. Grandfather, parents, sisters, little brother...all of them."

  Even though Danny was technically my cousin, he really had become like a little brother to me over the past few years, and I loved him just as much as I did my sisters, parents, and grandpa. At the mere thought of Danny, and how his small, seven-year-old body had looked sprawled on the foyer floor, bloodied and broken, my heart did another little stutter, and my mind reeled.

  It just couldn't be possible, I thought, that he and all my other family members were really dead. But in my heart, I knew that it was. And now the man who'd ordered his men to do the killings was talking to me about how I could "get my family back," just as calmly as could be, as if we were discussing the weather. The situation was beginning to feel almost impossibly surreal.

  Crossing one long, muscular leg over the other, Dylan sat back in his chair a little further still, studying my face while he did so, before continuing. "I'm offering you a deal. You help me by using your gifted power to fight for me for me for a term of three years, and I'll give you what you want. I'll give you your family back."

  I was incredibly dubious, to say the least, but there was also a small, desperate part of me that made me wonder if he could somehow actually bring my family back. He was a sorcerer, after all, with supernatural powers apparently strong enough to help him take position of leader.

  With my breathing having finally returned to somewhere near semi-normal, I asked him exactly how he could bring my family back.

  He curled a lip into the slightest of smiles. "How? Quite easily. I'm a resurrectionist...a sorcerer who can bring the dead back to life. The only other with such power was Alistair Jordan, the sorcerer who assembled all of us other sorcerers and initiated the Takeover...but, as you probably know, he was killed not long after the whole thing started.

  “So, now, it's just me...the last resurrectionist on earth. I alone have the power to bring your family back. That is, if...you agree to fight for me for a term of three years. You help me; I help you. You'll be my personal Gifted bodyguard of sorts during battles...because if I die, you'll never get your family back, of course, so I expect you'll be highly motivated to do your task well.

  “I'll also expect you to go on the offensive, though, too, and help my Angels and my lions take out some of the different lion groups we're going to encounter as we take over the northern part of the state." Dylan paused momentarily, frowning. "What? You didn't know I have shifters of my own? You look mildly surprised."

  I hadn't known that the angels had any shifters on their side. I'd thought all shifters were "good guys."

  When I didn't respond to his question, which I took to be rhetorical, Dylan continued in his smooth, even voice. "Well, of course, I had to get a few shifters to join my cause years ago. In my taking up of Alistair's torch, I knew I was going to encounter many shifter groups in my quest to take over a little slice of the country for my own, and since shifters can only be killed by other shifters, I knew I had to get some shifters fighting for me, and fast.

  “In the end, I picked up a few dozen lions and a couple of wolves, all of them with the sort of ambition I like. In exchange for me promising them positions of power in my new empire, they agreed to kill anyone and everyone I say. You only didn't see them in your hometown this morning because they weren't needed to overtake a city filled with mere mortals...I only needed my Angels for that.

  “Shifters, however, can kill Angels, so like I said, that's where you'll come in as my bodyguard of sorts. In my experience, Gifteds are usually stronger zappers than Angels, so your skills, once fully developed, should come in very handy. I've also found that Gifteds seem to have somewhat of a sixth sense in battle situations...maybe from being female...I don't know.

  “But whatever it is, it's something that I think will be very beneficial to me during battles. So, what do you say? Will you accept my deal? Do you want your family to be resurrected?"

  "How do I know you really are a resurrectionist?"

  Dylan snorted. "That's easy enough to prove. One of my whores has a cat I'll use it to give you a little demo. Just a moment, please."

  He quickly left the small, somewhat
dingy, sparsely-furnished room, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my spinning head. An overhead light, though just a single bulb with frosted glass shade, seemed far too bright, and I shielded my eyes from it, just trying to collect my thoughts without the annoyance.

  If Dylan could really do what he said he could, I knew I'd take his deal. I'd fight for him for three years. I'd do almost anything to get my family back. He was going to have to prove his resurrection skill to me beyond a shadow of a doubt, though.

  If he thought he was going to bring a sleeping cat into the room and then pinch it awake or something, he was trying to trick the wrong woman. I wasn't stupid. I was going to observe both him and the cat with eyes wide open, studying every minute movement. In fact, the more I thought about it, I was glad for the bright light in the tiny room I was being kept in. It would help me see any sign of trickery or deception.

  Dylan soon returned bearing a fluffy white cat with inquisitive blue eyes, and with a sudden pang in my heart, I surprised myself by immediately asking him not to do anything to the cat.

  "Please don't hurt it. Please. There's got to be some other way you can prove-"

  "There's not. You asked me to prove to you that I'm truly a resurrectionist, so I'm going to."

  "But I don't want it to feel any pain."

  I obviously didn't want a human to feel any pain, either, so I now wasn't quite sure how I expected Dylan to prove to me that he was a resurrectionist. All I knew was that my heart had hurt more than enough for one day, and I just couldn't stand to have an innocent creature be hurt as well.

  As it was, I had no clue as to the whereabouts and well-being of my own cat, Teddy, who'd raced out the front door of the house when the Angels had entered. I figured Teddy might very well be dead along with my whole family by now. At any rate, I had a strong feeling that I'd probably never see him again.

  In response to what I'd said about not wanting the cat to feel any pain, Dylan smirked. "It won't feel any pain. At least not for long."

  Before I could speak, make any move off the bed, or even draw a breath to yell, he palmed the cat's head and snapped its neck back with a sickening crunch. The cat howled, but only for the briefest of moments. Then it was dead, hanging limp in one of Dylan's arms. A trickle of blood was beginning to flow from its nose.

  Just as calm and serene as could be, Dylan took a step closer to the bed and held the cat out to me. "Here. Feel. No pulse. No breath. It's dead."

  Nauseated, I looked from the poor dead cat to Dylan. With thick, honey-brown hair, a strong jaw, and a well-proportioned face, he might have actually been handsome, if he weren't an absolute monster.

  "Go ahead. Feel."

  With my nausea intensifying, I reached out one trembling hand and placed it on the poor cat's side. As Dylan had said, it wasn't breathing. It was dead. It was still very warm, though, and its fur was very silky, these details more than anything nearly cracking my heart in two. I withdrew my hand after just a few seconds, and Dylan took his seat by my bedside again, still holding the cat in one arm.

  "See? Dead. Now, watch." He placed the limp white cat across his knees and began rubbing his hands together. "This is the magical part."

  A little glint in his green eyes told me that he was actually enjoying himself, actually enjoying playing God over a dead cat that he himself had killed.

  Within a few seconds, silvery light began glowing between his palms, and after continuing to rub them together just a short while longer, he parted them and blew a little puff of air on each of them in turn. Next, he slowly placed them on the cat, both at once. And, to my astonishment, the cat instantly seized, going stiff for a second, then thrashing. I blinked, and in that short length of time, the cat had jumped off Dylan's lap. It meowed as it raced out the open bedroom door.

  Dylan looked at me, wearing a self-satisfied little smirk. "See? I'm a resurrectionist. I can resurrect your whole family...if you agree to fight for me for three years. That should be just about long enough for me to plow through all the shifter camps in the north, heading southwest, to the 'thumb' of the state, where I'm going to establish my capitol city before moving on to also claim the southern half of Michigan as my own. By that point, with many of the shifters in the state having been killed, I won't even need you anymore."

  Mind still reeling, I thought for a moment. "And if I do what you want me to...if I agree to fight for you for three years...how do I know you'll hold up your end of the deal? How do I know you'll actually resurrect my family?"

  Wiping at a tiny drop of cat blood on his khaki pants, just spreading it around further, Dylan shrugged. "You don't. I could just say, 'Thanks for your service, but tough shit. I lied.'" Lifting his focus from the blood smear to my face, he sat back in his chair. "I won't do that, though. First, because although I may kill and steal to get what I want, I'm not a liar. Once you spend some time with my group of Angels, you'll see that.

  “The second reason I won't renege on our deal is that it will probably be crucial to my own safety that I don't. And that's because at the end of your three years of service, I imagine you'll be one hell of a powerful Gifted. I probably won't want to mess with you, frankly."

  Without breaking eye contact with me, Dylan leaned forward, elbows to knees. "Does that all make sense to you and help assure you that I'll keep my end of the bargain?"

  It kind of did, on both counts. Although, still a bit dubious, I didn't want to admit it.

  When I didn't respond after a moment or two, Dylan continued. "We're in a house about ten miles outside of Traverse right now, but I want you to know that back in the city, I had my men bury your family in one of the cemeteries. There, I used my sorcery to tether their souls to earth indefinitely. Souls don't pass to the afterlife for a day or two, you know, so I caught them in plenty of time. So now, your family will just be resting in peaceful slumber for the next three years, unaware, just sleeping in a way, just waiting for you to do what you need to in order for me to resurrect them. Then, they'll be whole and new, without even the slightest memory of death, and it doesn't even matter what state their physical bodies are in at the time of resurrection.

  “They can be completely rotten by that time, and it won't affect anything, nor will it affect me doing what I need to do to bring them back to life. I can perform a resurrection with even a single tooth or bone fragment. It won't matter if their bodies have been completely eaten by worms by the time we return to them."

  Since the time that the cat had been brought back to life, the nausea I'd felt when Dylan had killed it had lessened, but now it was back in a major way. His mentioning the prospect of my family members' bodies being "rotten" and "eaten by worms" had done it.

  Possibly sensing my extreme unease, Dylan quickly changed the subject, straightening up, then leaning back in his chair. "Anyway. If you accept my deal, you'll be treated the same as any of my dozen or so whores...which is to say, you'll be given adequate food, shelter, clothing, all that, in exchange for doing what you're supposed to be doing.

  “You won't, however, be expected to fulfill the specific function that my whores do...unless you want to, of course. Believe it or not, they're all here of their own free will, and they all seem to get quite a thrill from sleeping with an Angel leader. You might, too."

  My feelings of sickness had abruptly turned to feelings of rage.

  I glared at Dylan, balling my fists atop the blanket that was covering my legs almost without even realizing I was doing it. "You're disgusting. You're-"

  "Oh, save yourself the trouble. I freely admit that I'm disgusting. I'm also vile and probably a little bit evil, but that's neither here nor there. The only issue we have to discuss right now is whether or not you're going to take me up on my offer. Do you want your family resurrected or not? Will you agree to my deal or not?"

  Anger cooling, I struggled to make up my mind. On one hand, I obviously didn't trust Dylan. Though at the same time, I saw the logic in his reasoning that he'd uphold his part of the de
al because he wouldn't want to incur the wrath of an experienced Gifted, which I'd surely be after three years. There was also a tiny part of me that had almost believed him when he'd claimed that he wasn't a liar. He had also said that I'd see that for myself in time.

  Really, what it came down to was that if there was even the slightest chance that he'd follow through and uphold his part of the bargain, I felt like I should probably take it. After all, if I didn't, not only would I have zero chance of ever seeing my loved ones alive again, but my own life would likely also be over. I had no doubt that if I refused Dylan's deal, he'd probably just kill me, and with as feeble a Gifted as I was at this point, I was sure he could do it easily.

  Finally, after several long moments, I spoke. "I won't kill anyone in battle. I just won't do it. I won't take other lives in order to bring my family back."

  Dylan sighed. "Well...fine. For one thing, you can't kill shifters anyway, not being a shifter yourself, and for another thing, I guess I really don't care if you don't kill the Gifteds you'll face. Just keep them from killing me and my men. Just zap them and the shifters away from us while we fight. That's all I ask."