Melinda May was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s finest agents. She was disciplined, intelligent, and exceptionally capable.
None of that mattered.
To Evenson, her mind was no sturdier than anyone else’s.
Physical weaknesses could be armored over with training, but cracks in the psyche were another matter entirely. Invisible. Intangible. To ordinary people they didn’t even exist until it was too late.
To a warlock, they blazed like torches in the dark.
Finding them wasn’t difficult. Exploiting them was even easier.
A few carefully chosen words. A subtle nudge. A whispered temptation.
That was often enough.
Compared to the horrors Evenson had studied, his methods were almost gentle. Twilight’s Hammer priests, the Faceless Ones, or, worst of all, the Old Gods needed far less. A glance. A gesture. Sometimes only a stray thought was enough to shatter a person’s sanity.
Once someone’s mental defenses collapsed, guiding them became almost effortless.
Even Hydra had managed to build entire programs around psychological conditioning.
A warlock specialized in corruption.
The difference in expertise wasn’t even worth comparing.
Melinda understood that power always came at a price.
Unfortunately, she imagined that price as sweat, discipline, and endless training.
She had no idea what a warlock demanded in return.
"The seed’s been planted," Evenson murmured to himself. "Now I just have to wait for it to grow."
Finally, he headed toward the stairs.
It had been an exhausting day.
First came his business with Howard West, then convincing... no, tempting... no, persuading Melinda.
Whatever the proper word was, manipulating people required far more concentration than throwing spells.
Even with a mind strengthened by years of arcane practice, he felt mentally drained.
"Boss."
Sarah called from the front entrance while preparing to lock up.
"You should come see this. It’s interesting."
Curious, Evenson stepped outside.
Sarah was staring into the night sky.
He followed her gaze.
Far overhead, a tiny object streaked across the darkness, dragging a brilliant tail of fire behind it.
It was moving incredibly fast and flying so high that the city’s lights almost swallowed it completely.
An ordinary person never would have noticed.
Sarah wasn’t ordinary.
Neither was he.
Although...
"My eyesight still loses to a demon’s."
Evenson closed his eyes.
His consciousness expanded outward, spreading through the city like invisible ripples.
The object was simply too distant to track visually.
After a moment, his lips curled into a knowing smile.
"So that’s what it is."
At almost the same instant, the blazing object suddenly went dark.
Its engines failed.
It began plummeting toward Earth.
Evenson withdrew his mental perception and casually turned back toward the shop.
"Don’t forget the icing problem, Mr. Stark."
The flying object was none other than Tony Stark testing the first Iron Man armor.
Unfortunately, Stark’s flair for dramatic entrances had carried him all the way into the stratosphere.
Where the suit promptly froze solid.
Hopefully he’d restart the systems before hitting the ground.
Otherwise, he’d be relying on the armor’s impact resistance far sooner than intended.
"...Hm?"
Just as Evenson started inside, a strange sensation brushed against his mind.
His expression sharpened instantly.
Sarah sensed it too.
"Master?"
"It’s nothing."
He remained perfectly still, carefully examining the disturbance.
"A large-scale psychic scan."
After several seconds, he relaxed.
"It was an automatic response."
"I got careless when I expanded my consciousness."
Even before being reborn into this world, Ryan Mercer had known that Earth housed practitioners of real magic.
The details were different from the comics or movies he’d remembered, but one thing remained true.
Power attracted attention.
Across the planet, ancient magical nexuses served as observation points, constantly watching for unusual surges of mystical energy.
Because of that, Evenson always concealed large spells beneath layers of magical masking.
Warlocks already had enough enemies.
There was no reason to advertise his existence.
This time, though, he’d stretched his mind across half the city without taking any precautions.
That had triggered one of the detection wards.
"It’s fine," he assured Sarah. "I pulled my consciousness back before the observers could trace the source. They won’t find anything."
"Are you sure?"
Sarah still looked uneasy.
Demons and warlocks shared one thing in common.
Anyone who understood the supernatural usually hated both.
"Positive."
Evenson shrugged.
"Unless this world’s observation point happens to be something like Karazhan... and Medivh himself is sitting there waiting."
That wasn’t arrogance.
There simply weren’t many beings who could compare with the Last Guardian.
Sarah finally relaxed.
"Good. I really didn’t want to be sent back to the Twisting Nether. It’s incredibly boring."
Evenson chuckled.
"Then let’s make sure that doesn’t happen."
The two returned upstairs.
To separate bedrooms.
Elsewhere in New York...
An abandoned warehouse on the docks had become a slaughterhouse.
Bodies lay scattered across the concrete floor.
Every dead man carried an assault rifle.
Judging by the scene, there hadn’t been much of a firefight.
The defenders had been eliminated before they realized they were under attack.
A team of operatives dressed in black tactical gear stood among the corpses, rifles trained on two surviving prisoners forced to their knees.
One wore an expensive black business suit.
The other was dressed in flowing white Middle Eastern robes.
Once the area had been secured, the team’s commander spoke into his radio.
"Commander, this is Rumlow. The site is secure. You can come in."
A few moments later, a bald man wearing rimless glasses entered the warehouse carrying a metal briefcase.
As he walked, he opened shipping containers one by one.
Machine guns.
Assault rifles.
Rocket launchers.
Enough ammunition to arm a small army.
The shipment was enormous.
The robed prisoner suddenly shouted,
"S.H.I.E.L.D. dogs! Soldiers of God will never betray the cause!"
He wasn’t wrong about one thing.
The attackers were S.H.I.E.L.D.
Officially, this operation targeted an illegal weapons shipment intended for terrorist organizations.
On paper, it was another routine mission.
In reality...
Every S.H.I.E.L.D. operative participating tonight belonged to Hydra.
The bald commander barely reacted.
"It doesn’t matter."
He sounded almost bored.
"I wasn’t planning to ask questions."
Bang.
A single gunshot echoed through the warehouse.
The robed prisoner collapsed instantly.
Blood and fragments of bone splattered across the suited man’s face.
He froze.
Then panic consumed him.
"Wait! Please! I’ll tell you everything! Don’t kill me!"
Unlike the fanatic beside him, he was nothing more than an arms dealer.
He had no interest in dying for anyone.
The commander smiled politely.
"I’m delighted to hear you’re willing to cooperate, Mr. Yuri."
Then his smile disappeared.
"Unfortunately..."
"I don’t need your testimony either."
Rumlow grabbed Yuri by the jaw before the man could react.
A capsule was shoved into his mouth.
His jaw snapped shut.
Seconds later, foam spilled from Yuri’s lips.
His body convulsed violently before going limp.
Dead.
The commander placed the metal briefcase into the corpse’s hands.
He snapped several photographs.
Then calmly retrieved the briefcase again.
"Clean up the scene," he ordered.
The operatives immediately got to work.
The commander lifted the case.
"I need to deliver this to Nick Fury."
Without another word, he walked away.
Stamped prominently across the side of the briefcase was a familiar red-and-white umbrella emblem.
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