Kaecilius's body trembled. A flicker of hope rose in his eyes.
Then suspicion swallowed it whole. He stared at Hermione, searching that innocent face for any trace of a lie.
"Immortality?" He shook his head. "Something no mage in all of history has managed , how could you possibly..."
"The only one I know is the Ancient One. How old are you, exactly?"
Hermione shrugged.
"Uncle Hannibal, you're dying anyway, and Dormammu's going to collect your soul the moment you do. What's the harm in trying my way?"
She paused, something quietly coaxing in her tone. "It can't get any worse than this, can it?"
Kaecilius went silent.
He looked down at his body slowly coming apart, and felt the tearing deep inside his soul.
She wasn't wrong. There was no other choice left.
Better to gamble than to be devoured whole.
"Fine." His voice came out quiet but certain. "You make a fair point."
He raised his head and looked at her. "And for the record , my name is Kaecilius. Not Uncle Hannibal."
"Sure thing, Uncle Hannibal. Got it, Uncle Hannibal."
Kaecilius: ??
"Forget it. Doesn't matter." Hermione waved a hand before he could process that. "Is there anything you care about? Something that really matters to you?"
Kaecilius blinked, clearly not expecting the question.
He was quiet for a moment. Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a photograph.
His wife. His child. Both gone. The thing he held onto most fiercely, the wound that had never closed , the reason he had always feared death, and spent everything chasing a way past it.
Hermione looked at the photo and nodded once.
She didn't say anything. She simply raised her wand and gave it a short, precise poke.
WHOOSH. Kaecilius's soul was punched clean out of his body.
A ribbon of silver light cut through it, slicing away a small piece. The whole thing happened the way you'd cut a sliver off a cake , easy, casual, barely any effort at all.
One minute later.
The Dark Dimension's erosion stopped.
Kaecilius stood very still and stared at his own corpse on the ground. He felt something strange and new: a connection threading between the photograph and whatever he was now. And from the photo itself, something dark pulsed outward , a quiet, malevolent warmth.
He finally understood what Hermione had meant by immortality.
This was worse than anything Dormammu had ever offered.
But...
He looked at his own translucent hands, hovering half-solid in the air. And he found, to his own surprise, that he had no desire to fight it.
There was even a thread of relief.
At least Dormammu wouldn't consume him entirely. This strange, crooked kind of immortality , it was still, somehow, the best ending available to him now.
"So?" Hermione's voice floated over, bright with satisfaction. "Not bad work, right, Uncle Hannibal? Better than that old creature Dormammu, wouldn't you say?"
She crossed to his side and patted his shoulder , her hand passing through him slightly, then settling.
Kaecilius came back to himself. His translucent form drifted in the air as he turned to look at her.
He knew she hadn't done this out of kindness. "What do you need me to do?"
Hermione nodded. "There is one thing. You're the right person for it."
"Find the rest of Dormammu's followers. Rally them. Destroy the three Sanctums, and summon Dormammu through."
"What?!"
Kaecilius's eyes went wide.
---
Hermione left Kamar-Taj and returned to one of Tony's villas in New York.
She'd barely stepped inside when she felt it , something wrong in the air. Her magical perception stretched outward and found a group of people moving toward the villa, quiet and deliberate.
A cold smile touched the corner of her mouth.
Someone else had come to her. How convenient.
BANG.
The front door flew off its hinges. A squad of heavily armed special forces soldiers poured through.
"Where is she?"
"Intel said the target came back here — did someone feed us bad information?"
The leader scanned the empty room, jaw tight with irritation.
"Ahem. Gentlemen. The intel was fine." A clear voice came from directly behind them. "I'm right here."
The soldiers spun around.
A girl was slowly materializing out of thin air.
"That's the target — take her!"
The leader recognized Hermione. He was surprised she could turn invisible, sure, but his confidence in the Extremis Virus didn't waver. She was a teenage girl. How dangerous could she be?
Two soldiers broke into a run.
Hermione was faster.
"Incendio!"
Fire erupted from her wand tip and became a phoenix in an instant, massive, blazing, alive. It threw its head back and screamed, wings snapping open, and a wall of scorching flame rolled outward.
The special forces soldiers didn't have time to scream. The fire swallowed them whole and left charred shapes in its wake.
One person remained standing.
The squad leader. The orange-red patterns across his skin pulsed and flickered.
"Oh." Hermione sounded genuinely curious. "An Extremis soldier."
Extremis soldiers were ordinary people rebuilt by the Extremis Virus , transformed into something faster, stronger, capable of regenerating from almost anything, and capable of burning hot enough to melt steel. In raw physical terms, they matched super-soldiers like Captain America. They even had a healing factor Cap lacked. The one downside was a tendency to explode under pressure.
The leader was not thinking about any of that.
He had watched his entire squad die in seconds. The cold started at the soles of his feet and climbed straight to the top of his skull. His legs buckled. He barely stayed upright.
"You , you —"
He stared at her. His mouth moved and nothing useful came out.
"You recognize me?"
Hermione tilted her head and smiled.
That smile, to an Extremis soldier, was worse than any demon he had ever imagined.
He looked at her , the height, the age, the face , and only one person fit.
The harmless-looking girl standing in front of him was the witch who had wiped out the entire Chitauri army by herself during the Battle of New York.
"I , I surrender!"
Both hands shot into the air. His voice shook.
An alien legion. She had annihilated an alien legion without breaking a sweat. He was one Extremis soldier. He wouldn't even register as a snack.
Hermione snapped her fingers. The flames died.
She walked over and looked him up and down with mild interest. The Extremis Virus really was impressive , he'd actually held up against a standard fire spell. Ultimate heat resistance. Points for that.
"You've got nerve," she said, "coming after me specifically."
"Do you know who the last person was that tried to grab me? Do you know what happened to them?"
Her voice was soft. Pleasant, even. And utterly chilling.
"HYDRA doesn't come near me anymore. And now a minor outfit like Advanced Idea Mechanics decides to try their luck?"
She clicked her tongue. "That's not a special forces unit. That's a special species unit."
The Extremis soldier looked like he was about to cry.
He'd had no idea. No idea at all that his target today was this.
"I , I was just following orders ," he stammered, convinced that one wrong word would reduce him to ash.
"Following orders." Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Killian sent you?"
He froze. Then nodded, almost reflexively.
Hermione kept her expression neutral, but inwardly she felt a flicker of satisfaction.
She'd been wondering how to track down Killian and Tony. Well. Problem solved. This one had handed her a map.
"Perfect."
She patted him on the shoulder.
"I'm not going to kill you. Take me to Killian."
The soldier sagged with visible relief and nodded rapidly.
"But first, "
She raised her wand and flicked it once.
"Imperio!"
The curse hit him without a sound. His eyes emptied out.
---
Out on the water, a massive cargo ship cut through the dark.
Killian stood on the deck, looking down at what lay below.
"Sir," someone reported. "The target has been brought in."
➤ Next: Tony, Your Daughter Is in My Hands
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