The taillights of the black Escalades faded down Zarzamora Street, carrying Julian Hayes and his board members back to the safety of the Dominion.

  Inside the church, the air felt thin, charged with the residual electricity of four million dollars in secured retainers.

  Chloe leaned against the heavy mahogany table, exhaling a breath that was half-laugh, half-sigh of relief. She picked up the silver coin Sean had used for his demonstration and flipped it in her hand. It landed on tails. The magic was gone from the metal, but the ink on the contracts was permanent.

  "Four million, Sean," Chloe said, her eyes shining with adrenaline and greed. "Four million in one night. We don't just have seed money anymore. We have a war chest."

  Sean didn't answer immediately. He was standing near the cracked marble altar, his back to her, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. He was vibrating.

  The faith of the four executives was a roaring furnace in his chest. The "Static" in his head wasn't a nuisance anymore; it was a symphony. He felt the probabilities of the city swirling around him. He felt like he could reach up and pull the moon out of orbit. He felt untouchable.

  Lyra walked over to him, carrying her silver tray. She didn't look celebratory. She looked at his hands, which were clenched into fists, the knuckles white. She recognized the look of a man who had just taken too big of a hit and was riding a dangerous high.

  She tapped his arm twice. Pace yourself.

  Sean turned to her, his bruised crimson eye catching the amber uplighting. He smiled—a sharp, feral expression. "I don't need to pace myself, Lyra. The tank is full."

  The heavy oak doors at the front of the sanctuary exploded inward.

  The sound was deafening, a brutal crack of splintering wood that echoed off the limestone walls. Chloe screamed, dropping the silver coin. Lyra didn't flinch, but her hand instinctively went to the small of her back.

  Five men walked into the church.

  They weren't wearing suits, and they didn't look like building inspectors. They wore dark jeans, tactical vests over black t-shirts, and heavy boots. Two of them carried short-barreled AR-15s. The other three had Glock 19s drawn and leveled.

  Leading them was Mateo, a lieutenant for the Gulf Cartel. He was a broad-shouldered man with a neck tattoo of a scorpion and eyes that looked completely dead.

  Mateo kicked a piece of splintered oak out of his way and walked slowly down the center aisle.

  "Casias," Mateo called out, his voice echoing in the vast room. "You have a nice place here. Very holy. Must cost a fortune to renovate."

  Chloe froze, her PR instincts useless against assault rifles. She looked at Sean in sheer panic. The Cartel, she mouthed.

  Sean didn't move. The arrogant, feral smile remained on his face. "The church is closed, Mateo. You track mud on the terrazzo, I'm going to make you lick it clean."

  Mateo stopped ten feet from the altar. His men fanned out, creating a semi-circle of overlapping fields of fire. "Hector sends his regards," Mateo said, leveling his Glock at Sean’s chest. "He also sends his accountants. We noticed a lot of money moving through shell companies into this zip code. Millions. Hector thinks you're washing money for the Sinaloans. He thinks you used his fifty grand to set up a laundry right in his backyard."

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  "Hector is a paranoid old man," Sean said.

  Mateo racked the slide of his pistol. "Hector says the tax for operating in his territory is one hundred percent. All the accounts, Casias. Now. Or we kill the PR bitch, the mute, and then we take our time with you."

  Chloe backed away slowly, her hands raised. Lyra stepped in front of Chloe, placing her body between the PR director and the gun barrels. The dampening field of silence intensified, making the room feel vacuum-sealed, but it couldn't stop bullets.

  "You're making a statistical error, Mateo," Sean said, taking a step down from the altar.

  "I'm not doing math," Mateo sneered. "I'm doing a hit. Last chance, Casias."

  Sean didn't raise his hands. He didn't reach for a weapon. He just looked at the five men.

  He didn't need to perform a micro-shift. He had the absolute, terrified devotion of four billionaires coursing through his veins. He had the fuel for a wildfire.

  If A happens, then B happens, Sean thought. He looked at the firing pins of the five weapons. He looked at the chemical composition of the gunpowder in the chambers. He looked at the structural integrity of the metal barrels.

  "Fire," Mateo barked.

  Sean reached into the Static and grabbed the timeline with both hands. He didn't just twist it; he shattered it.

  SHIFT.

  The roar of the gunfire should have torn the church apart. Instead, there was a series of simultaneous, catastrophic CRACKS.

  Mateo pulled the trigger of his Glock. The bullet didn't travel down the barrel. The probability of a squib load—a bullet getting stuck in the chamber—suddenly spiked to one hundred percent. The expanding gases had nowhere to go.

  The Glock exploded in Mateo’s hand.

  The slide shattered, sending jagged shrapnel of polymer and steel ripping through his palm and forearm. Mateo screamed, a wet, ragged sound, dropping to his knees as blood sprayed across the pristine floor.

  The two men with the AR-15s suffered worse. Sean shifted the metallurgical probability of their rifle chambers. The metal became instantly brittle. When they fired, the receivers detonated like frag grenades. One man was thrown backward, his face shredded by hot aluminum. The other dropped his rifle, clutching his mangled hands and howling in agony.

  The last two men with handguns froze, staring in sheer horror as their weapons suddenly glowed red-hot, the friction of the internal springs multiplying exponentially until the grips melted into their palms. They dropped the guns, screaming, their hands blistered and smoking.

  The combat was over in exactly two seconds.

  Not a single bullet had crossed the room.

  Sean stood perfectly still. The cost of the massive, violent Shift hit him like a freight train. His heart stuttered, skipping three beats in a row. A wave of profound, icy nausea washed over him, and a thick stream of blood poured from his right nostril, dripping onto his crisp white shirt.

  But he didn't fall. The energy from the executives’ belief acted like a brace, holding his spine upright, forcing his heart to resume beating.

  The church was filled with the groans of dying and mutilated men, the smell of cordite, and the stench of burnt flesh.

  Sean walked slowly toward Mateo, who was kneeling on the floor, clutching the bloody ruin of his right hand to his chest, his eyes wide with absolute terror.

  Sean crouched down so he was eye-level with the cartel lieutenant.

  "I don't wash money, Mateo," Sean whispered, his voice dark and terrible. "And I don't pay taxes."

  Mateo was hyperventilating, backing away on his knees, slipping in his own blood. "What... what are you? Brujo..."

  "Tell Hector he doesn't own San Antonio anymore," Sean said, wiping the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. "Tell him the Morning Star owns it. And if he ever sends armed men into my church again, I won't just break their guns. I'll stop their hearts."

  Sean stood up. He looked at the remaining sicarios, who were sobbing and clutching their wounds. "Get out. Take your trash with you."

  Mateo didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled to his feet, slipping on the terrazzo, and bolted for the shattered oak doors, followed closely by his surviving men. They dragged their wounded comrade out into the humid night, leaving a trail of blood on the stone.

  The heavy silence of the church rushed back in.

  Sean swayed on his feet. The adrenaline was crashing. The billionaire fuel was burning out rapidly, consumed by the sheer violence of the magic he had just performed.

  Chloe was pressed against the limestone wall, her breathing shallow and fast. She wasn't looking at the door. She was looking at Sean. The PR shark was gone. In her place was a woman who realized she had just chained herself to a monster.

  Lyra walked forward. She didn't look scared. She looked tired. She pulled the lace handkerchief from her pocket and gently wiped the blood from Sean’s face.

  "They're gone," Sean rasped, looking at Chloe. "It's handled."

  Chloe slowly stepped away from the wall. She looked at the blood pooling on the floor. "You didn't handle it, Sean," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You just started a war."