PINK LADY

When Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels still worked for Homicide in the Chicago Police Department, she had an adversary who became the most evil, and most formidable, villain she’d ever met.

Alex Kork. A serial killer of extraordinary brilliance and cruelty.

Jack was 100% sure that Alex was gone forever.

But you can never be 100% sure about anything. Life is full of surprises.

Death is also full of surprises.

And death is coming.

PINK LADY by J.A. Konrath

The bitch is back…

PINK LADY

A Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels Thriller

J.A. KONRATH

PINK LADY

1-½ ounces dry gin

½ ounce applejack

Juice of ½ a lemon

4 dashes grenadine

1 egg white

Cherry

In cocktail shaker without ice, combine all ingredients except garnish. Dry shake vigorously for at least 20 seconds, or until egg is fully beaten and incorporated into drink. Add ice, and shake again for 10–15 seconds to chill. Strain into chilled martini glass. Garnish with cherry.

If you’re worried about drinking raw egg, the alcohol in this drink kills bacteria. Probably. How should I know? I’m a fiction writer, not a doctor. Don’t confuse a drink recipe in a thriller book with actual medical advice. Rocky Balboa was fine when he drank raw eggs. That’s what I’m going by. But if you get sick, that’s on you. If you’re that worried, cook the egg first.

AUTHOR NOTE

The Jack Daniels thriller series doesn’t have to be read in order. Each book functions as a stand-alone, and no knowledge of any previous adventure is necessary to enjoy PINK LADY.

That said, all of my books interconnect into a larger shared universe.

If you’d like to see how, please visit my website, www.JAKonrath.com.

This novel features Alex Kork from the Jack books RUSTY NAIL, FUZZY NAVEL, CHERRY BOMB, and WITCH BREW; The Cowboy from the Jack books WHITE RUSSIAN and CHASER; and Dr. Plincer and Lester Paks from the Konrath Dark Thriller Collective novel TRAPPED.

There’s a whole bunch of baddies in this one, and I include a few brief flashbacks so you can understand the above characters without needing to read the novels they appeared in.

As always, thanks for reading!

Joe Konrath

DR. MORDECAI PLINCER

Undisclosed location…

Medical literature abounds with incredible stories of human survival, even under the worst conditions. Even after suffering the worst traumas.

Plincer had inflicted trauma. He’d also endured trauma.

Unimaginable pain.

Disfigurement.

Hypovolemic shock.

Myocardial infarction.

Death.

But death was not the end of him.

Science doesn’t truly understand what it means to die. After all, what is death?

Does death happen when the heart stops?

When respiration stops?

When brain activity ceases?

When cells begin to die?

Some cells die within minutes of being starved of oxygen.

Some take hours.

Some take days. Or longer.

Gene transcription actually increases after heart and brain death.

Digestion continues.

The microbiome continues to grow, increasing neural communications.

Death is a process of small steps. And small steps are easy to stop.

They can even be reversed.

Dr. Mordecai Plincer came back from death. Perhaps due to residual effects from his previous scientific experiments.

Perhaps because fate dictated it wasn’t his time.

He mused about the many horror films he’d seen in his youth. Classic monsters such as Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy. They died at the end of every movie. But they always came back.

Immolation. Electrocution. Even beheading. No death was permanent.

Evil seemed to always find a way to come back to torment the world.

Plincer lived.

So he would help others to live.

He would help evil live.

Which was why he brought three particularly wicked forms of evil back from the brink of complete death.

Alexandra Kork. Serial killer with an impressive body count. Shot in the head by Lieutenant Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels.

At the time, Jack thought Alex was dead. She thought she’d waited long enough to ensure that fact, before calling the authorities.

Jack Daniels was wrong.

Ann Steinhoffer. Known professionally as The Cowboy. Freelance torturer hired to do interrogations. Buried under debris at the mansion of Harry McGlade.

Yet another time Jack Daniels screwed up.

Lester Paks. One of Plincer’s own experiments. A cannibal whose teeth were filed down to sharp points, to better emulate a flesh-eating ghoul.

The witch.

The paladin.

The golem.

And the mastermind behind their resurrections… the wizard.

The monsters always had help from a mad scientist.

Dr. Mordecai Plincer was as mad as a person could get.

JACK

Destiny, Colorado

I’m not surprised,” said Harry McGlade.

We were FaceTiming, me at my home in Colorado, Harry at his modest mansion in Los Angeles. And he didn’t appear surprised.

“I just told you that the worst person we ever encountered—one we thought was dead—isn’t dead. Don’t you care?”

“Of course I care. But, c’mon Jackie. Worst? We’ve encountered worse people. I’ve met a few Presidents.”

“Alex Kork cut off your hand,” I reminded him.

“You don’t have to remind me. And, technically, she cut off my fingers, one at a time, and stopped the bleeding with a blowtorch. But you know what’s even worse?”

“I can’t imagine anything worse.”

“Well, there’s worse. We had this hot dog vendor on La Brea Avenue. He was making frankfurters out of alley rats. I ate there once, got fur stuck in my throat.”

“That’s horrible, but—”

“And there was this other California guy, a candy maker, he was caught shitting in his own candy. Maybe you saw him on the news. They called him Reece’s Feces. I ate there, too. Wondered why there was a kernel of corn in my truffle.”

“Gross, but—”

“It actually wasn’t too bad. Had this earthy, tangy flavor. I’m kind of craving one right now.”

Sometimes McGlade played a private game to entertain himself, which involved intentionally acting like an asshole to see how far he could push people before they shut him out of their lives.

I think I’m the only one left who’s still playing.

Maybe it was time for me to do some self-evaluation.

“I need you to stop acting like yourself and put your game face on,” I told him, using Mom tones.

Harry rolled his eyes. “You always do this. You get your granny panties in a stinky butt wad because some psycho from our past comes back and tries to kill us. Aren’t you used to it by now? We’re living in a simulation, Jackie. Some artificial intelligence made the world—and our lives—into some crazy hyper-realistic videogame, and no one ever really dies. They just respawn. Like Sonic or Mario. Except homicidal. Hell, you and I have come back from the brink of death how many times now? It’s all a big cliché.”

“Alex was watching me,” I said. “In Wisconsin.”

He snorted. “Of course she was. She hates you. And me. We’re both in serious danger. So are our families. So is the world. Alex kills people indiscriminately. There’s probably already a pile of dead bodies. I bet she’s killing somebody right now.”

“And you’re nonchalant about this because…?”

“Because this always happens.” McGlade sat down on a marble bench, in front of the marble fountain he had in his large foyer with the marble floors and the marble columns.

Dude loved himself some marble.

“You realize how stupid this is, right?” Harry asked. “This is some wonky science far-fetched shit that strains credulity to the max. Why do I have a feeling I’m going to wake up and suddenly this was all a dream? Or that I’m in a comic book that jumped the shark so badly it will all be retconned?”

I was with Harry on the ridiculous retroactive continuity aspect of this situation. What’s the point of living through something if the events could just be changed and ignored later on?

It was so ridiculous it almost seemed like it was planned. Maybe there was something to his simulation theory.

“We both know how this will end up,” he continued. “One of us, or both of us, will get captured by her. Probably tortured. Close to death. Or maybe she kidnaps one or both of our kids. Or all of the above. And then someone will try to save us. Phin or Tequila or Herb or Chandler or Tom or one of the new characters we’ve met, like Fabler or Dr. Frank Frank Frank Belgium. Or we’ll save ourselves, because we thought of something Alex didn’t think of. Some brilliant twist that you could only see coming if you were paying really close attention. It’s usually me saving the day, so emotionally prepare yourself for that.” He cleared his throat, then spat into his fountain water. “Then we’ll kill the bitch again, and she’ll come back in a few years.”

I hated the fact that McGlade was probably correct about some, if not all, of that. It was ridiculous, and at the same time that was how it usually happened.

Maybe he was onto something that this was a simulation. Or scripted. Sometimes I felt like I was in a forgettable thriller novel.

“We need to prepare,” I said.

He shook his head. “Nope. We need to break this cycle of repetition.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need to do the opposite of what we normally do. Go against our feelings. If our instinct is to get off the grid and hide and then call up all of our allies and try to track down Alex before she can find us, we need to go against that instinct. Do something different. Something unexpected.”

I hesitated to ask, because I had a strong feeling it was going to be stupid. But ask I did.

“Such as?”

“I’m going to start a twenty-four hour video livestream that always shows exactly where I am at all times,” he announced. “Using my whole house set-up, plus some extra cameras. It’ll be epic.”

“It’s stupid.”

“So stupid it’s epic.”

“So stupid it’s stupid.”

“You’re stupid,” Harry said. “And fat.”

“You’re stupider and fatter,” I told him. “Times three.”

“Let’s stop the juvenile name-calling, tubbo.”

“You got it, chunks.”

“Why did you call me that? Am I sick?”

“Sick? Why?”

“Do you want to blow chunks?”

“If I wanted to blow you, I would be sick.”

“If you were sick I wouldn’t let you blow me. More than once or twice.”

I derailed the insult train. “You really think a livestream is the way to go?”

“My fans are great, Jackie. They’ll watch over me. They’ll offer advice. Have you ever heard the saying the wisdom of the crowd? When the majority agrees, it’s usually correct. That’s why you could ask the audience for help on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.”

“Are you doing this for help? Or just making youself bait?”

“Both. It’s called multitasking. Also, I need to raise some money because it cost me a fortune to rebuild this ridiculous foyer. Have you seen the price of marble lately?”

“I have,” I dead-panned. “We had to settle for limestone the last time we went statue shopping.”

McGlade, stuck in his own head, didn’t acknowledge my witty repartee.

“Plus the IRS is all up in my ass again,” he rambled on. “It’s government-sanctioned theft, Jackie. Taxation without representation. Why should I give my country a small fortune just so it can make terrible financial decisions that I have no say over? They take $1000 from me, and then spend $1500, and the country gets $200 worth of shit we didn’t ask for or want.”

I rubbed my eyes. “I’m going to hang up.”

“Don’t turn your back on this opportunity, Jack. Remember when you logged in remotely, did a stream with me? The viewers loved it.”

I hadn’t loved it. Some of his viewers were downright mean. I’d never seen such vitriolic comments before.

“No way.”

“If you join me online, I’ll give you ten percent of the income. It’s like printing money, Jack. Don’t tell the IRS I said that.”

“When you’ve decided to stop helping Alex try to murder you, get in touch. Or don’t. I don’t care.”

“There!” McGlade said, pointing at me with his prosthetic hand. “That’s what I mean! Going against your feelings! You love me like a confusing hybrid of a brother and a life partner, but when you intentionally act like you don’t care—”

I hung up on him. Which wasn’t going against my instincts at all.

Then I plopped down on my couch and took a moment to reevaluate my life.

I was an ex-cop, creeping up on my autumn years, the looks and athleticism of my youth fading but a fair tradeoff for being wiser and happier. In decent shape, with some residual back problems and a bit of a paunch that five weeks of diet and exercise would correct, probably. Married to an ex-criminal ten years my junior, raising a precocious nine-year-old daughter, living in a Colorado suburb on retirement funds and occasional odd jobs. I had an interesting assortment of friends, two elderly divorced parents, a trained dog, and an untrained cat who was going to outlive us all because he fueled himself with hate.

I thought I’d left my past behind me, but whenever I was certain all of my old enemies were gone, they’d somehow come back. Or I’d make new enemies. Or a series of convoluted events would throw me into some ridiculous situation that maybe happens to a person once in their life, but happens to me so often it’s practically the norm.

How many times had crazy shit happened to me?

“You look strangely calm.” Phin came in from the kitchen and plopped onto the couch, his hips touching mine. Duffy the hound followed him and hopped up, sprawling himself across our laps. I put my hand on Duffy’s head and stroked his floppy ears.

“How many times has crazy shit happened to us?” I voiced my thoughts.

“You mean life-or-death stuff?” Phin rubbed his stubble. “Twenty, maybe? Twenty-two?”

“So, Alex coming back will make it twenty-three.”

“Sounds about right.”

I winced. “Twenty-three times. Shit.”

“It seems like a lot. How many James Bond movies have there been? Twenty-five? He’s still going strong. You know, except for him dying in the last one.”

“And we don’t get replaced by new actors every ten years.”

“That’s because the dad-bod is currently in style.” Phin patted his belly. “Who needs a six-pack? Actually, do you want to split a six-pack? I just bought some Sam Adams Cherry Wheat.”

“You know we can’t do this forever,” I said.

“Sam Adams? We named our daughter after Sam Adams.”

“You know what I mean.” I spread my hands out. “Someday this has to stop.”

“You want to stop after twenty-three life-or-death adventures?”

“Maybe. Do you?”

Phin stretched his arms out and hooked his hands on the back of the couch cushion. “I dunno. I can see us doing stuff like this for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Maybe forty, fifty more years.”

I laughed. “We’ll be dead.”

“Who knows? Maybe we’ll be doing life-or-death stuff in some high-tech dystopian future with our daughter and grandkid.”

I frowned. “And Harry.”

“We’ll always be stuck with Harry. What stupid thing did he have to say about dealing with Alex?”

“He’s doing a nonstop video stream so she always knows exactly where he is.”

Phin laughed. “That sounds like McGlade.”

I stared discerningly at my husband. Not too long ago he was the ultimate badass. Self-destructive. Addicted. Desperate. Not cruel, but not domesticated either.

Sometime between us becoming friends and buying a house in the suburbs, Phin had mellowed. He’d substituted being edgy and dangerous with being comfortable and protective. Maybe it was marriage. Or raising our daughter. Or just aging past all the indiscretions of youth.

I loved the current Phin. Deeply.

But sometimes I missed the guy who seemed barely able to control his inner rage.

And sometimes I missed the girl I used to be. I traded my fashion-conscious boss bitch persona to be a mom in yoga pants.

Was it because we were older? Wiser? Able to fix each other and round off each other’s rough edges?

Or had we become echoes of our former selves? Softer, lesser versions?

“Years ago, we both spent a lot of our time looking for trouble,” I said.

“Is that something you still want?”

“No. But looking for trouble… that’s… it’s proactive.”

“And now we’re being reactive. Hiding from trouble.”

I nodded.

“You think we’re weaker because of that?” Phin asked.

“I’m not sure. But Harry…”

“Harry is Harry. He’s incomparable.”

“True. But Harry isn’t hiding. He’s still looking for trouble.”

“You want to do the same thing?”

“Stream ourselves?”

Phin grinned slyly. “We could have an OnlyFans page where I show off all of my sex moves.”

I smirked. “McGlade’s doing it twenty-four hours, not four minutes.”

Phin’s eyes got wide. “Four minutes? Who do you think I am… Superman?”

That made me laugh. Which felt pretty good, considering.

Considering death was coming for me and for my family.

ALEX

Destiny, Colorado

The serial killer with the codename witch rubbed her eyes, but rather than ease her headache it made the pain spike, like two corkscrews being shoved into her tear ducts and jiggled around.

Alex didn’t remember her death.

She didn’t remember much about her life, either.

But one particular bit stood out.

Jack Daniels. Standing over me while I was on my knees. Holding a gun to my head—

—and pulling the trigger.

Death was like an off switch. Consciousness, to nothingness.

Alex had no recollection of the shot that killed her.

But she did recall snippets of what came next—dreamlike flashes of reality—where a black void swallowed her up, and every cell, every molecule, was swapped out with something that felt like peace. As if her corporeal body was replaced by an ethereal network of understanding and pure acceptance.

Seems sketchy, but I went into the light. I experienced that bullshit New Age hippy-dippy floating through a brilliant tunnel of pure white, ascending into infinity, detached yet peaceful.

Then the floating slowly reversed, and the sinking began.

The light went from white to pink, to dark purple, to red.

And then…

Alex couldn’t remember. But it was bad.

Very bad.

Like her soul was being torched.

Alex closed her eyes. Heard muffled whimpering.

I know how it feels to suffer. I’ve suffered so much.

The side panel door of the van opened, and the paladin walked in. She wore black leather pants, matching gloves, a blue denim shirt, a Stetson, and a black bandana over her face like a train robber from the 1870s.

A lifetime ago, Alex knew the paladin as Ann. And Alex had delighted in hurting Ann in some very bad ways. Ways that would have killed someone weaker.

But Ann had been strong. Strong enough to recover. Strong enough to reinvent herself.

Ann became known as The Cowboy. She worked as a freelance assassin and interrogator. Her sadism, and skills, rivalled Alex’s.

She wants to kill me.

I don’t blame her. But for now, our alliance has to stand.

The enemy of my enemy, and all that BS…

“Are you crying?” the paladin asked, standing over Alex.

Alex reflexively wiped her cheek, saw the moisture on her fingers.

“Headache. Bad one.”

“I got some pills.”

“I do, too. They muddy my thoughts.”

“Need your next injection?”

“Not due yet.”

The paladin nodded, then glanced in the back of the van, at the box.

“How’s the package?” she asked.

“Check for yourself.”

“Maybe later. Anything going on?”

“This little pink house suburban neighborhood is slow and boring. No moms with strollers. No bike riders. No joggers. Only time there is traffic is at nine am and five pm. Only time I see kids is when the school bus picks them up and drops them off. I’d call it a ghost town but I can see so many people inside.”

Alex didn’t understand the point of moving out to the country if you never went outside. From their tiny vantage point, two thousand meters uphill, they might as well have been looking at a still photograph.

The paladin shrugged. “Shitty weather. No one likes cold drizzle. And everyone’s addicted to their electronic devices. What do they call them these days? Screens. On their screens. What about the target?”

“Shutters are still drawn,” Alex said. “Thermal shows Jack and Phin in the living room, Sam and the dog in her bedroom. Cat is in the backyard, stalking birds. Already killed two.”

That cat is a hunter. Old, but still deadly.

Aren’t we all?

“Obviously they haven’t spotted our location,” the paladin stated. “If they did, they would have moved on us.”

Alex considered it.

We have the vantage point. They know about me, and they have to guess that I’m watching. But we’re in a good spot. A dozen streets and hundreds of houses. Lots of trees for cover. They’d need a direct line of sight, and they’ve got the house buttoned up tight. No way to see us through their windows.

“We would have seen them coming,” Alex said.

The paladin checked the log. “They haven’t come out in three days.”

“Getting their food delivered. Takeout, and groceries.”

“I still think that’s our best way in. Trojan horse.”

Alex shook her head, lamenting a part of her past that she remembered. “I’ve broken into Jack’s house before. Didn’t work out. Better to lure them out. They may not know about you or the others yet. Stick with the plan.”

Alex glanced at her laptop. McGlade’s live feed was on mute, but real-time closed captioning was on, allowing her to read all of the bullshit he said.

“How’s the stream?” the paladin asked.

“Perfect.”

“Bathroom camera?”

“Yeah. But he framed out the toilet.”

“Idiot.”

Alex nodded in agreement. “He has new cameras on the property… all facing outward.”

“Guards?”

“Haven’t seen any.”

The paladin sat on the padded bench seat next to Alex, pulling the bandana down past the remnants of her nose, revealing knots of pink scar tissue that made her face look like an angry, burned fist.

At least I can hide my scars with a wig. Pass for normal.

This bitch is a freakshow.

“Do you remember dying?” Alex asked, surprising herself with the question.

Alex never talked about feelings, and she was normally incurious about her fellow human beings.

But this woman has gone through what I’ve gone through. Maybe she has some insight.

The paladin raised a scarred eyebrow.

“I remember winning. Facing Jack and beating her. Then… being crushed. Snuffed, like a match being pinched out. Next waking moment was on a table with a needle in my eye, the wizard standing over me.”

Alex winced. She’d experienced the same thing. Dr. Mordecai Plincer, dragging her back to life with his serum. Alex didn’t remember being born, but being reborn was agonizing.

“Nothing in between?” Alex asked, trying to sound casual about it.

The paladin snorted, an ugly, animalistic sound. “You mean going to hell? My soul burning?”

Alex kept quiet, waiting for more.

The paladin squinted at Alex. “So you went there too. Did your life flash before your eyes?”

“No.”

The paladin looked away. “Mine did. I saw… things.”

“What… things?”

“Moments in my life. All of the suffering I’d caused others. Instead of the joy it originally gave me, I felt it. I felt what I did to them. I felt the beatings. The brandings. The whippings. The torture. The death. And I felt hatred. The most intense hatred I’d ever experienced. Even more than I hated you when you were hurting me at Usher House.”

Alex lowered her voice and asked, “Who were you hating?”

“Myself.”

Alex stared at her boots.

I don’t remember that happening to me when I died. But I’m pretty sure it did happen.

When Plincer injected the serum that brought me back to life, I had a distinct feeling I’d been rescued from hell.

“There’s no redemption for us, witch,” the paladin said. “We’re not going to become heroes and save our souls. We’re bad, broken people, and we’re going to be punished for our sins. But we’ve gotten a rare opportunity. For payback. For revenge. We get to kill our killers. If you believe in all that cosmic shit, god and satan, heaven and hell, free will and fixed destiny, spirits and karma, then there is a reason we’re alive right now. A reason we’re here right now.”

“To kill Jack Daniels,” Alex said.

“To kill her, and the others. We’re here to do that, because the arrow of time wants it to be done.”

“And then?” Alex asked. “What comes next?”

“We join their little club. Their special ops. That’s why we did all that training. We’re stuck, if we want the serum.”

Alex didn’t say anything.

“Or do you mean what comes next with me and you?” the paladin asked, her gnarled lips curling up in an ugly grin. “I kill you.”

I’ll definitely kill you first.

“Want to know how I’m going to do it?” the paladin asked.

Alex shrugged. “Sure.”

“Skin you. A razor blade and some pliers. Then I’m going to rub salt and vinegar into your bleeding, oozing muscles.”

Alex laughed. “Nice. That’s gonna hurt.”

“You got any plans for me?”

“I’ll boil you,” Alex said. “I’ve never boiled anyone. Supposed to be bad. It was used in England in the 1500s. The king stopped doing it because it disgusted the crowd so much. People stopped showing up to public executions.”

The paladin’s scarred face became fanciful. “The golem used a grid iron. He talked about it. Could be worth trying.”

The grid iron involved being roasted over hot coals. The victim would slowly cook before they died, and feel every temperature from seared to rare to medium-well.

Might be interesting to use on Sam, if we can find a nice, private, open space in the woods.

I’m jonesing to hurt Jack’s child.

I’ve hurt Jack and Harry before. I’ve hurt her husband.

But her kid? That would be delicious.

When we get her, she’s mine.

The paladin intruded on Alex’s fantasy. “I’ve been thinking about filing my teeth down to points like the golem. The teeth I have left. I already scare everyone who sees me.”

No kidding. The paladin’s face looks like raw bacon stretched over a skull.

Alex diplomatically chose not to mention that. “Be too hard to chew,” she said instead. “I know I’d bite my tongue.”

“The golem eats people. I can imagine how sharp teeth can help. You ever eat someone?”

“I’ve tried it. Not my kink. You?”

“Thought about it. Tying someone up and branding them… it smells a lot like hamburgers.”

The women sat in silence, Alex musing about cannibalism.

“Did Plincer give you the talk?” Alex eventually asked. “About evil?”

“Evil is a fire that burns the world so things can regrow,” the paladin quoted, then snorted again. “Spoken like a world-class pathological psychopath.”

“He believes evil is humanity’s penultimate goal. Mankind is the only animal that takes pleasure from causing harm.”

“Some animals kill for fun,” the paladin said. “It’s called surplus killing. A lot of mammals do it. Canines, felines, ursines. They kill more than they eat. Dolphins will murder smaller porpoises for sport. Apes kill members of their own species, sometimes their own tribe. Cannibalize them too. Not out of hunger, but to spread fear. Evil is part of life. Part of nature. You can’t fight nature.”

“But you can improve on nature,” Alex said. “Nature can be honed. Enhanced. With practice and conditioning.”

“And science,” the paladin added. “The wizard is a mad scientist straight out of a bad horror movie. He’s Dr. Frankenstein, and we’re his monsters.”

“I don’t feel like a monster.” Alex stretched out a leg and kicked the box at the rear of the van. “Hey! Do you think we’re monsters?”

A strangled moan came from inside the box.

“You kept him alive,” the paladin said. “You must have restrained yourself.”

“We spent some quality time with an arc lighter,” Alex said. “He pissed himself again.”

“Do we need more bleach? For the stink?”

“Probably not. I don’t think he’s got long left.”

The paladin stretched, cracking her neck. Then she got up and went to the box, lifting the hinged lid.

The man they’d abducted was stuffed into a plastic contractor bag to contain the smell and fluids. Inside the bag he was wrapped in several layers of duct tape, his mouth tightly bound. When the paladin opened the plastic, his eyes went wide and he let out a muffled scream.

“He still knows what’s going on,” the paladin said, waving her gloved hand across her partial nose. “But he stinks.”

They picked him up while visiting the First Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in the town of Abandon, Colorado. An older man in a Roman collar. They’d cruised up to him in the parking lot. Alex rolled down the window, asking for directions, and while he was distracted by being helpful the paladin opened the side door and hit him with a taser gun.

Abduction 101; you can grab anyone, anywhere, with a partner, a panel van, and a taser.

“Have you figured it out yet?” the paladin asked him. “Why we’re doing this?”

The priest shook his head, spastically. His lips were dry and cracked from dehydration and dried blood.

“Give us a name,” Alex told him.

Moaning and crying and shaking ensued.

The paladin glanced at the witch. “He still doesn’t know.”

“Then help him remember. You want the car battery?” Alex asked her.

The paladin nodded.

Alex wheeled it over, then squirted some conducting fluid onto the spikey metal probe wired to the positive terminal, while the paladin snapped on some rubber dishwashing gloves.

Since being resurrected, the witch and the paladin had dutifully followed every order given by the wizard. Plincer was brilliant, and his plan was inclusive. Every member of the team had a shot at revenge.

Also, Plincer was the only one who could make the serum, so their continued existence required them to play nice.

But Alex and the paladin still had certain appetites that needed to be indulged. And money was hard to come by for a quartet of monsters that had all been legally dead.

The paladin, immersed in darknet, had solved both problems by visiting a dot-onion bulletin board on Tor. In layman’s terms, she used a hidden, deep web version of craigslist to find hitman jobs.

Their first target, Father Rochester Kral, had been protected by the diocese after some alleged kiddie diddling, and sent to a new, unsuspecting parish. The parents of one of his victims offered five ETH in cryptocurrency to anyone who found him and killed him.

At current rates, one Ethereum was worth about twenty-five hundred US dollars. And, happily, the town where Kral resided was only half an hour away from Jack’s home in Destiny. So it gave the ladies a chance to blow off some steam while making a few bucks.

Alex handed over the probe and picked up the digital camera.

“I’ve seen where you’re going when you die, Father,” the paladin said. “You’re going to hate it more than you hate where I stick this probe.”

The paladin went to work.

The priest screamed into his duct tape gag and jerked in agony as the paladin tested different body parts with the electric rod.

“Let me know when you’re ready to confess, and I’ll take the duct tape off your mouth,” the paladin said. “Don’t you priests say that confession is good for the soul?”

She zapped him again, making him convulse. Alex took pics, fantasizing that it was Jacqueline Daniels they were torturing.

Soon. Very soon.

The plan has steps. The steps have a specific order.

But the time was quickly drawing near.

Vengeance is coming, Jack.

And vengeance is a real bitch.

HARRY

Los Angeles, California

Hello you—” I squinted at my viewer number on my monitor, “three hundred and ninety-three HarryHolics watching me right now. I’m your humble online streaming servant, Harrison Harold McGlade, and this begins my PsychoWatch livestream slash podcast slash countdown to immortality.”

I adjusted my main webcam and sat back in my leather desk chair, king of my digital domain.

“As you can read in the description below, I am being targeted by a serial killer. Yet again. This has to be like the dozenth time. Or more. Is anyone keeping track? Anyway, rather than run, or hide, I’m going to do the opposite. That’s right; the world’s greatest detective, aka me, is going to livestream every single moment of my life so there is no way some psychopath can sneak up on me and kill me.”

A comment appeared in the left sidebar. I squinted at it.

—Can we watch you take a dump?

I clicked on the question so it appeared as a closed caption message on the bottom of my main screen. That way everyone watching knew which comment I was answering.

Every circus had a ringleader to direct the crowd’s attention. I was my own master of ceremonies. A single dude operation. One and done, son. I had no producer or assistant or secretary or show runner, rooting out all of the stupid questions.

It was all me. Which is why I picked that dumb question to answer; because it was hella awesome.

“Thank you for asking, but no, I will not livestream myself doing a stinky boom boom. I have a remote camera in the bathroom, but it is focused on the sink. The toilet and the bathtub will be off limits so I’m not banned by prudes, or by any of the population who doesn’t seem to understand that we’re all born naked. Folks, pee-pee and poo-poo are normal parts of life, although not the prettiest thing to watch. Or smell.”

I made the bathroom sink the main camera, then cut back to my desk cam.

“As you can see, I’m using my standard fifteen camera livestream set-up around my enviable mansion, and I added five more positioned outside around my modest estate, checking the grounds. The camera configuration motion-tracks everything human-sized, so the main image will follow me around, or focus on anyone else roaming my property. For example, you can watch, in my indoor pool, my capybara and penguin splashing around, and viewers are able to switch to whatever view they want to.”

I switched to my animals, and the penguin chose that moment to take a long and very graphic aquabird dump.

I probably didn’t pay my pool cleaner enough.

Several more comments popped up, and I clicked on the obvious one.

“No, I will not livestream any sexual acts, either with others or solo. But thank you for asking. I refer you to my OnlyHarry page if you’d like to see clips of me having relations with various household items, including fruits and vegetables. That’s both giving and receiving; a bottle gourd goes both ways. Upgrade to a Gold Tier membership and you can watch me get busy with an old gym shoe, a Simpsons Monopoly game, and pile of blankets soaked in canola oil and shaped like a sleeping black bear. Eighteen and above. The only minors allowed are adult crypto miners. Heh heh. That’s a pun.”

I quickly updated my FAQ to mention toilets and sex, and posted my OnlyHarry URL. Then I clicked on the next question.

—Who is targeting u?

“That’s a great question, HarryFan420Blaze. It’s this psycho.”

I clicked on a jpg and posted the picture of Alex Kork and me, at our wedding.

“It turns out that your favorite online personality doesn’t always pick the best partners, and many years ago I married a serial killer. It was portrayed in the classic made-for-TV movie about me, I Married a Serial Killer. She’s the one who cut off all my fingers.”

I raised my prosthetic hand and did a robotic pinky wave.

—The Internet says she was killed.

“I probably don’t have to tell you that you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the Internet, UFOlover6969. The net also says that the Universe is infinite. It’s not. It says we have free will. We don’t. It says that the devil is superstition. I’ve seen the devil, and he’s all kinds of ugly and stanky. And don’t get me started on who really killed JFK.”

Lots of questions came up, about Alex, about JFK, and about all the fruit I’ve loved before. I highlighted the good messages and answered rapid fire.

“No, I didn’t know Alex was a killer when I married her.

“Yeah, free will is a myth. It’s disproven philosophically, biologically, and by physics. I can recommend some YouTube channels.

“Yeah, Satan is real. He calls himself Bub. I shot him a bunch of times, but you can’t kill evil.

“It was a mid-sized bottle gourd. I preferred pitching to catching.

“The blowtorch hurt worse than the finger snipping. But not by much.

“Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy. Your government lies to you all the time, about everything. They’re public servants and act like elite royals. Don’t get me started on how the two party system is a cover for a global elite oligarchy. Or lobbying. Or superPACs. Or insider trading. Do your research, gang.

“No, I didn’t eat the bottle gourd afterward. My capybara did.

“The Universe is actually a four dimensional hypercube expanding into itself. Dark energy is just gravity from our own Universe. Google the Great Attractor. It’s us. You heard it here first.

“No, you can’t watch me take a dump… for free. Go to my OnlyHarry page.”

A salient question related to my well-being popped up.

—Shouldn’t you call the cops?

“The local authorities have been notified. They are well aware of who I am, thanks to my immense fame, and because I’ve been SWAT’ed on livestream thirteen times. They have assured me there will be extra squad cars patrolling the neighborhood, and I also have hired a team of security guards to watch over me.”

That last thing was a lie. I privately referred to my financial situation as “in between fortunes” and currently didn’t have a lot of liquidity.

But why did I need security guards when I had nine hundred and sixty-seven people watching my every move?

“And of course, chief in the line of my home defense, is my newest exotic pet…. Harry McDog! McDog, come!”

I cut to the DogCam as Harry McDog trotted over to me, following my voice. Purchased from MedfordDynamics for a paltry low six-figure price tag, the robot dog could climb stairs, jump three feet straight up, had a top speed of 10mph, could pull two hundred and fifty pounds, was WiFi and Bluetooth compatible, boasted a 360 degree camera, and ran for two hours on a full charge. Besides audible commands, he could also be controlled with my computer or cell phone.

The robot moved extremely well on its four legs, which had hinged knees and ball joints, and though it lacked a head or tail it had a rail on its back where I could mount a flamethrower.

I did not have the flamethrower attachment. But it was next on my list of Stupid Expensive Things To Buy That I Can’t Afford Because Of The Goddamn IRS.

Until then, Harry McDog was more of a high-tech toy than a home defense robot. But the streamers loved him, which meant I could write him off on my tax returns.

“Dance, McDog!” I commanded.

Harry McDog began to boogie, sort of a cross between a horse prancing and bucking, and an uncoordinated white guy doing the “Harlem Shake.”

As my expensive robot busted a move, the tips in my livestream began to cha-ching. In less than thirty seconds, I made about forty bucks.

McDog was quickly becoming my favorite pet. And unlike my capybara and penguin, he didn’t constantly shit everywhere.

After another ten dollars in tips I ordered McDog to go back to his charging port, and resumed answering viewer questions. The difference between watching a prerecorded video and livestreaming came down to accessibility and interactivity. Being a popular, well-known, important, famous celebrity who was world renowned and preeminently celebrated, it was key to let the masses reach out to me while I acknowledged their support.

This wasn’t just entertainment, it was the future of communication. The Internet had globally shrunk from six degrees of separation to one degree of Harry McGlade.

Lucky time to be alive, right? You’re welcome.

—is it harry mcdog or harry mechdog?

“Obviously it’s both. You know how much I enjoy puns. I was going to name him Can of Pecans. But that’s just nuts.”

The comments filled with groans and boos.

“I was going to name him Short Apple Tree, but I didn’t. Because that’s just low-hanging fruit.”

Some of the comments became threatening, but I knew I could sneak out one more.

“I was going to name him Oats Are Yucky. But that goes against the grain.”

I watched my viewer numbers begin to fall, and quickly apologized.

“Sorry! No more Dad jokes, I promise. You’re probably expecting me to make another joke right now, but here’s proof that I won’t.”

I dug into my desk drawer and pulled out a pair of hardened steel Smith & Wesson handcuffs.

“See?” I said, waving them in front of the camera. “I’m showing restraint.”

Another forty people left the chat so I finally had to stop.

“Let’s move along,” I quickly said. “Who has questions that aren’t pun-related?”

—How long are you going to stream?

“I’ll stream 24/7 until Alex Kork is caught. But this is not a call for vigilantes to take matters into their own hands. Alex is armed, dangerous, and terrible in bed. If you see her, do not engage. Or get engaged, like I did. Keep your distance and report her to the authorities. Harry McGlade PsychoWatch Productions LLC is not responsible or liable if any of you engage in any harmful activity related to this stream that could get you murdered to death. Don’t take any stupid risks. That includes you, StupidRiskTaker37.”

—Where’s your son?

“Harry Junior has undergone an emergency facelift to change his appearance, and he recently left the country using a fake passport.”

That was also a steaming pile of horse apples. Harry Jr. was in Florida with his ex-stripper mother, sitting on a beach and slathered with so much SPF 100 he looked like one of the walking dead.

—Are you scared?

“Sure I’m scared. But I thrive on fear. It’s like gasoline to me. Except I’m not afraid of gasoline. What I mean is; fear fuels me. But I don’t burn fear in a combustion engine. Look, just forget the shitty gas analogy. I’m afraid, but it’s all good. Except for the afraid part. If you want to help me in this time of great personal need, there are two things you can do. First, keep an eye on the cameras and watch out for my psycho ex. And second, support my longevity by joining my OnlyHarry page, where less than ten cents a day will get you quality content like this…”

I put up another link with a provocative picture of me, holding a cucumber in one hand and a casaba melon in the other.

I never denied being fruity.

“Remember that content is for adults only, and illegal in seventeen repressed countries where people get jailed for freedom of speech. And sodomy.”

—is dis fake?

“No, TheMoonLandingWasAClosedHollywoodSetDirectedByKubrick, this is not fake. This shit is real. And the only way I’m going to live through this is if you guys all help me. Also, tipping is encouraged.”

The viewers crept up over eleven hundred. Being stalked was good for likes and clout.

—Tell them about our adult movies.

“Good to hear from you, RealHonestAbe. It is true that I did make some adult entertainment videos featuring yours truly and a clone of President Abraham Lincoln, and that’s also available on my OnlyHarry page.”

—Hey! Do I get any royalties for that?!?!??

I blocked RealHonestAbe, and put up a picture of mockup cover art for my upcoming poetry book, I’m A Poet, You Can Blow It, coming to a bookstore near you once some publisher pays me the huge sum I deserve.

The cover features me sitting in an armchair, smoking a pipe, looking smug. Also, it looks like there is a full horseshoe sausage in my pants.

That’s because when I took the picture, I had a full horseshoe sausage in my pants. I’m sure whatever publisher picks the book up will love the cover as much as the content.

“And it is your lucky day. Now I shall read two poems from my soon-to-be-classic collection of semi-obscene poetry. Somewhere between the year 1894 and today, poetry stopped being cool. But I’m bringing the cool back. You’re welcome.”

I cleared my throat and read the first composition with a low and powerful voice, starting with the title.

My Dog Shag by Harrison Harold McGlade

I have a dog with no legs,

His name is Shag,

I can’t take him for a walk,

I take him for a drag.

I paused, eyeing the comments, waiting for the praise to pour in.

Strangely, some viewers didn’t seem to understand the narrative complexity of my verse, and they used hyperbolic incendiary comments like “suckfest” and “craptastic.”

Sometimes you have to force culture down peoples’ throats, and then sew their lips closed so they don’t puke that culture back up. So I continued.

Shampoo by Harrison Harold McGlade

Shampoo!

Shampoo!

Shampoo!

Then Sham wipe!

Again I checked the comments. Some reactions from the unwashed masses included, “please stop” and “if you read any more I’m eating this box of roach poison.”

Philistines. I needed to double-down on forcing culture on the plebes and declared I would do one more.

“Fine. I’ll do one more.”

Sauna Reluctance by Harrison Harold McGlade

I won’t get in the sauna,

Because I don’t wauna.

I noticed I lost about three hundred viewers, and they were dropping by the second, so I took down the book cover and went back to my desktop camera.

“That’s enough of the arts and humanities for now. I appreciate the feedback, and I’ll answer a few questions.”

I began to read them at random, highlighting the comments as I answered.

“No, it hasn’t been published yet. But if any bigshot editors are watching, I almost have over two dozen poems, and I’m willing to sell North American rights for a mid-six-figure amount. That doesn’t include audio. Or audiovisual. Or braille.

“Yes, I am my own muse. I get inspiration while taking a bath and manscaping my taint. It is currently shaped like a half-moon.

“No, you can’t get a refund for Gold Tier membership.

“No, I won’t change the title to Word Crimes Against Humanity.

“No, I’m not going to read anymore at the moment.

“Yes, I promise I won’t read anymore at the moment.

“I’m not reading anymore, okay? Jesus.

“You guys are bumming me out. I’m being stalked by a psycho, remember?”

I needed to derail this crazy train, so switched the main screen to my Steam account.

“Now for the next two hours, for your entertainment but mostly for my own, I’m going to play Zombie Sugar Jackers 15. If anyone wants to gift me Coco NumNum Nukes so I can kill the Honey Harvest CyberBeast Queen, my account number is at the bottom of the screen. Also, for your prurient amusement, I will be eating from this can of refried beans and farting.”

I clicked on the FartCam under my desk and cocked up my butt cheeks, letting a wet one out.

“Juicy,” I said. “And more to come. Stay tuned for every toot.”

I began to play Zombie Sugar Jackers 15, marveling at how far technology had come in less than one third of my lifetime. What did people used to do for entertainment? Read books?

I’m kidding, of course! Everyone knows that book readers are the smartest, sexiest, best people ever. Reading is awesome. I love you.

—This is boring. I want something to happen.

“Don’t worry, something will definitely happen,” I told my twelve hundred and forty-five viewers as I ate a spoonful of beans. “Things always happen. And they’re always horrifying.”

—How did all of this start?

“Good question. And there is a lot to unpack here. If this were a badly written movie the easiest explanation would involve a series of flashbacks…”

FLASHBACK

Long ago…

Shaped like an Egyptian sarcophagus, the medieval torture device known as the iron maiden opened like a casket, the interior lined with sharp nails to penetrate the victim in hundreds of places when the lid was closed.

No historical evidence exists that the iron maiden had ever been used as a method of punishment or execution.

But in modern times one had been built. Built—and used—on Rock Island, one of the hundreds of small islands sprinkled across Lake Huron off of Michigan’s east coast. Once functioning as a prison to hold Confederate soldiers, the base had been reclaimed by the US military to contain the experiments of a scientist named Dr. Mordecai Plincer.

Experiments meant to enhance evil in human beings and turn civilians into heartless killers.

The people Plincer non-consensually experimented on turned the tables on him, and because karma was a bitch they subjected Plincer to the same cruelties he’d inflicted upon them. Plincer was locked in the iron maiden, the flesh-penetrating spikes inside hooked up to a car battery.

Plincer spent hours in unimaginable agony, eventually having a heart attack and dying.

That should have been the end. But the end of one story often becomes the beginning of another.

Dr. Plincer, having been unalived for several hours, found himself alive again.

The pain that had nearly driven him insane (or more insane, depending on where you set the bar) had gone from physical to spiritual, a fever dream of agony that went on and on and on, a loop of unending torment… until it abruptly ended.

Plincer reemerged from oblivion in spurts, deadened by the hazy hug of a fentanyl IV, blinking in and out of semi-consciousness for an indeterminate time before finally awakening in a bed in a nondescript, windowless hospital room.

The nurse who came when he pressed the call button wore an Army uniform and her stern face lacked any shred of empathy.

“Where am I?”

Plincer’s voice was croaky and his dry tongue was swollen. Though the pain was gone, he could still recall the steel skewers, drilling electricity into his nerves.

“Underneath Fort Michilimackinac,” she said.

Plincer knew of the secret base. He knew many military secrets.

“Can I get some water?”

She went to the stainless steel sink and filled a plastic cup. Plincer drank greedily, spilling a third of it onto his hospital gown. He noticed he was pock-marked with healed scars.

Scars from the iron maiden. Plincer looked like a smallpox survivor.

“How long have I been here?” he asked.

“The Colonel wants to speak with you. He’ll brief you.”

“Which Colonel?”

“Colonel Jared Cormley,” said the man standing in the doorway. He was in full uniform, and he dismissed the nurse who closed the door behind her. “I worked under General Alton Tope.”

Plincer winced. “So did I. How did you bring me back?”

“Back from Rock Island? Or back from the dead?”

“Both.”

Cormley had a rigid posture and a face worn with frown lines. “The insertion team medevacked you in the belly of an HH-60M Black Hawk. You’d been dead for roughly three hours.”

“So… how…?”

“You aren’t the only one with special serums, Dr. Plincer. We use a liquid we call reformant.”

“Were did you get it?”

“That’s classified.”

“Did you use it on General Tope?”

“There wasn’t enough of General Tope left to use it on.”

Plincer chose his next words carefully. “Was there anyone else left? On Rock Island?”

“We encountered some of your experiments. They were hostile. None survived. But we did manage to resuscitate one odd fellow identified as Lester Paks. Tall, muscular, with monster teeth. A friend of yours?”

“Of sorts.”

“Since emerging from his medically induced coma, he hasn’t exactly been compliant.”

“How long has he…” Plincer corrected himself, “have we… been in comas?”

“Four months, three days. We revived Mr. Paks yesterday. He has been trying to bite everyone who comes into contact with him.”

Plincer grimaced. “He does that.”

“Would you be willing to talk to him, explain what we’re doing?”

“What exactly are we doing, Colonel Cormley?”

“When General Tope shed his mortal coil, I became your handler, Dr. Plincer. We’d like to help you continue your experiments… in a more focused, useful way.”

Plincer finished his water and asked, “How so?”

“We’d like you to build a team. A special sort of team. Something this country can use behind enemy lines, to further our nation’s position as the world’s preeminent superpower. Did General Tope ever mention the term… red-ops?”

JACK

Destiny, Colorado

My cell rang, and I checked the number and answered via FaceTime.

“Hey, amigo,” I said.

“I’ll be on the next flight to Colorado,” Herb Benedict told me.

Herb was my former partner in the Chicago Police Department, but more importantly one of my dearest friends. Years ago he’d been held prisoner by a psychopath known as The Cowboy, and I’d helped to rescue him and another friend of ours named Tequila. The reason he’d been captured was because he’d helped me rescue Phin from yet another nutjob.

Yeah, my life is convoluted.

Now it appeared to be Herb’s turn to save my ass again. Like some sort of crazy game of tag, you’re it.

“How’d you find out?” As the words left my mouth I knew the answer to my own question. “McGlade. I take it you saw the livestream.”

“Guy is an idiot,” Herb said. “And his OnlyHarry page isn’t worth what I pay.”

“You actually subscribe to his OnlyHarry page? Why?”

“Gotta support your friends. Also, it’s pretty wild to see him get busy with that bottle gourd. Wanna see it?”

“I do not. And I don’t know why you would want to see it.”

“Because I’m a guy. That’s what guys do.”

I guess that made as much sense as anything.

Herb appeared lean and fit, his goatee more gray than brown. His eyes were cop eyes, intense and strong. “Kidding aside… Alex Kork, Jack? How? You blew her head off.”

I frowned. “Apparently not well enough.”

“She’s really back?”

“If we can believe Chandler.”

Chandler was a spy. An actual covert agent who did undercover operations around the world.

I ran with a strange crowd.

“Is Chandler there?” Herb asked.

“She’s in the DPRK.”

“North Korea? Why is she in North Korea?”

I shrugged. “Probably saving the world. Again.”

“I’ll call Tequila. We’ll be there soon.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate it, Herb, but how many times have you come to my rescue?”

“We’re not playing tit for tat. We’ll be there shortly. I’ll text our flight details.”

Herb hung up. My daughter, Samantha, came into the kitchen and placed her tablet PC on the counter. “Is Uncle Herb coming?” she asked.

“Yeah. With Uncle Tequila.”

“Good. Uncle Tequila is a badass.”

I feigned being insulted. “Young lady, are you insinuating that I’m not a badass? Or that your father isn’t a badass?”

“You’re a level three badass. Dad is a level two. Uncle Tequila is a level one.”

I didn’t know there were levels to badass.

“And why do you think Dad is more of a badass than I am? I have black belts.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “He’s a man, Mom. He’s bigger, taller, stronger, has denser bones, and much higher testosterone levels.”

“I’m a better shot,” I said.

“Mom, you’re pouting.”

“I’m not pouting,” I pouted.

Sam patted my shoulder. “You’re great with firearms, Mom.”

“Thanks, kiddo.”

“And you should use them, because I don’t know how much a black belt will help at your age.”

“At my age?”

Sam nodded. “You’re old, Mom.”

“Your grandma is old. I’m middle aged.”

“It is statistically improbable you’ll live past a hundred. So you’re not in the middle of your life. That reeks of denial.”

“And you’re nine. You shouldn’t talk like you’re forty.”

“I’m not basic, Mom. I hit different. No cap. BFFR. Okay, boomer?”

“I’m not a boomer, I’m Gen X. I’m down.”

“You’re down? So what does BFFR mean?”

“It means shut up,” I said, making a fist and pretending to scowl.

Sam grinned. “It means be effin’ for real. But with the f-word.”

“Thank you for not saying the f-word.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Sam said.

When I shot her a look, she giggled. “Dad said I could say it if I’m joking.”

“Did he?”

“Or angry,” Sam said. “Or with my friends. It’s just a word, Mom.”

“Some people find it offensive, Sam.”

“Some people can get over themselves. If you’re offended by something, that’s on you.”

“How’d you get so opinionated?”

“I’ve been indoctrinated by social media.”

“Nice.”

“And I don’t give AF. AF means—”

“I know what it means.”

Sam changed the subject. “Uncle Harry is streaming.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Sam giggled. “His FartCam is hysterical.”

“Maybe to a young girl. But for grown-ups, it’s pretty stupid.”

Phin came in from the backyard with Duffy, our hound dog. My husband was staring at his cell phone, laughing.

“Harry’s eating beans,” Phin said, grinning wide. “He just had to get up and change his pants.”

Phin picked up Sam, sat her on the countertop, and glanced at her tablet. “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter. When I was your age, I was reading picture books.”

Sam picked up her screen. “This does have pictures. Here’s a picture of the isomorphism between arbitrary groove patterns and air vibrations.”

“She gets her genius from me,” Phin said.

I disagreed. “It’s from me.”

“Genius skips a generation,” Sam said. “And neither of you know enough to disprove that.”

“She gets her smartass from me,” Phin said.

I disagreed. “It’s from me.”

Sam, though precocious, didn’t seem to understand our witty banter. Or maybe she just didn’t find us as amusing as we did.

“GEB has never been released as an ebook,” Sam said, forging ahead with the conversation. “So I downloaded it from the Internet Archive. They have over seven and a half million free books.”

“Do they have any books that teach you not to act like a know-it-all brat?” Phin asked, tickling Sam’s ribs.

She squirmed and laughed, and for the umpteenth time I realized how lucky I was.

Great family. Great home. Health, security, and happiness.

That was quickly followed by the realization of how much I had to lose.

“What’s the gun safe code?” I asked Sam.

“My birth year.”

“What’s the gun rule?”

“Only go in the safe if something happens to you and Dad.”

“Which gun do you use?”

“You tell me to use the .380 ACP because I’m small and it has less of a recoil. But the 9mm has more stopping power. Right, Dad?”

“Aim for the head, stopping power doesn’t matter as much,” he said.

That was mostly true. But I shot Alex Kork in the head. And she was back.

Also, same as my husband, when I was nine years old I was reading picture books. I wasn’t talking about which gun to defend myself with in case a psycho broke into the house and killed my parents.

Can we ever be forgiven for the things we subject our children to? Weren’t kids supposed to be innocent and carefree?

Sam seemed to read my mind. “Guns are a tool, Mom. If you’re trained to use the tool, and treat the tool with respect, age doesn’t matter.”

“Being smart and being mature are two different things,” I told her.

“Uncle Harry is neither,” Sam said.

“Want to watch Uncle Harry’s livestream?” Phin asked.

Sam nodded, reaching for Phin like she did when she was three and wanted upsies. He gently set her back on the floor.

“What about Gödel, Escher, Bach?” I asked.

“Hofstadter thinks consciousness is emergent in the brain,” Sam said. “I disagree. Emergence is a handicap of language. I believe all lifeforms are conscious, even those without brains, and consciousness creates subjective reality. A tree creates the world around it to exist in.”

“So what creates the tree?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Subjective reality. They’re eternally quantumly entangled. No beginning or end.”

Phin made a face. “So the tree thinks about reality, and it happens?”

Sam sighed. “No, Dad. Consciousness doesn’t mean cognition. A tree is alive, and life creates reality. It’s immediate, not emergent. At the same time, reality creates life. It’s a two-way observer effect. Nothing exists without measurement, and no measurement can happen without subjectivity.”

“Are we talking a chicken and egg thing here?” I asked. “What came first?”

“There is no first, Mom. The chicken requires the egg, the egg requires the chicken. They’re entangled.”

I wondered if Marie Curie’s parents were bewildered by her when she was a kid.

“So adorable,” Phin said, mussing up Sam’s hair. “Now let’s go count Uncle Harry’s farts.”

And off they went. Duffy the hound gave me a baleful stare, then tagged along with his pack.

Leaving me alone in the kitchen.

Alone, and stuck in my own head. Which wasn’t always a kind place to be.

I became full-blown introspective, considering past moments in my life.

Once upon a time, I was occupied with designer clothing. I thought I knew everything. I chased murderers.

These days, I was occupied with finding clothing that fit comfortably while hiding my tummy. I had to take notes so I could understand what my daughter was talking about. And murderers chased me.

Once upon a time, life was all about schedules and rules and structure. All work and no play. It was focused.

These days weren’t very structured, and life supplied odd, playful tangents. Less focus, more fun.

But the constant was conflict. Then and now. There had always been conflict.

There had always been danger. And pain. And death.

I used to live in a police procedural.

Now I lived in a quirky comedy punctuated with elements of terror.

Did that make things better? Worse? Simply different?

I texted Phin that Herb and Tequila were flying in.

He texted back.

—Of course they are.

Because that was to be expected.

Just like Alex coming back was to be expected.

So maybe I should behave as expected, and act like the cop I used to be. Which meant figuring out how Alex survived, and where she currently was.

I scrolled through my cell phone contacts and found an old friend. He picked up on the third ring.

“Jacqueline Daniels. It’s been a while.”

“Hey, Mort. How’s business?”

“Dying,” he said.

We both chuckled at the old joke.

Back in the day, Mortimer Hughes was a Cook County Medical Examiner. Over the course of my career I’d visited the morgue more times than many morticians, and we’d always had a rapport. Hughes had retired, but if he couldn’t help me directly he probably knew someone who could.

“How’s the family?” I asked.

“All good. Yours?”

“Good. All good.”

“Good. Small talk is over. I never liked small talk. What’s up, Jack?”

I winced. “Mort… do you remember Alex Kork?”

“Of course.”

“Did you do the autopsy?”

“No. The body was moved. It was some sort of jurisdictional thing, if I recall.”

News to me. “Moved where?”

“I can make a call, find out. Someone will get in touch by the end of the day.”

Mort hung up before I could thank him. He really did dislike small talk.

In the living room I heard my family laughing. I guessed Harry added another fart to his ongoing total. McGlade was briefly married to Alex Kork, as part of her long-term revenge scheme against me and him.

I couldn’t think of anyone I was so obsessed with that it would compel me to marry Harry McGlade. But it made me remember how obsessive Alex could be.

So where was she right now? What could she be doing?

The answer was as obvious as it was disturbing; Alex was likely watching me. Watching my house. Watching my family.

She would have a clear line of sight, probably parked in a car or truck with tinted windows. If Phin and I left the house to search, she’d see us coming and leave before we got to her.

Or she’d circle around and go after Sam.

But Alex didn’t know about Herb and Tequila.

I called Herb, using voice rather than FaceTime because it’s a PITA to hold your phone out in front of your face.

PITA = pain in the ass. My Gen Z slang is savage. Facts. No cap.

“I’m packing,” Herb said. “What’s up?”

“Don’t come to my house. Use your rental car to surveil my neighborhood.”

“You think she’s watching?”

“It’s what I’d be doing.”

“You think she’s listening?”

It was possible. We had a detector we used to sweep the house for radio waves, including WiFi and Bluetooth. As of this morning, there were no hidden cameras, microphones, GPS trackers, or transmitters on the property. Scanning was part of our home defense hygiene. We had reinforced doors, bulletproof windows, burglar alarms, various gun stashes, and a trained dog. We regularly checked our electronic devices for malware, and our online footprint.

But psychopathy presented a twofold issue when it came to thwarting a stalker. First, the sort of defenses that would deter most threats don’t work on obsessive crazies. Second, dark thinkers tended to come up with plans that sane folks couldn’t possibly imagine.

We could make ourselves hard targets. We could drill different possible scenarios. We could remain vigilant and watch each other’s backs. But against someone like Alex, we could never be 100% safe.

“I don’t know,” I answered Herb. “But once she learns about McGlade’s livestream, she’ll assume I’ll be looking for her. And she’s well-aware I have friends.”

“Maybe we can get the drop on her before she figures it out.”

“Keep me posted, and be careful. And Herb…”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“I only ask one thing in return, Jack. Remember those sugar cookies you made last time I visited?”

“I do. You want more? I remember you liked them.”

“Hell no. I hated them. I still get nightmares.”

I frowned. “They were that bad?”

“They were like eating drywall. But drier. And saltier.” Herb made a gagging sound. “Jesus… the salt…”

“Sam ate a bunch of them.”

“Sam gave them to Woof. Your dog wouldn’t take them. We wound up making a big pile under the table that Phin hid behind his shoes and then threw away when you went to the bathroom.”

“Really?”

“Jack, they were a war crime.”

“You don’t think that’s… extreme?”

“I think you’re lucky the United Nations didn’t hold a tribunal.”

“Gotcha. Hurtful message received.”

“It’s not hurtful. It’s humanitarian. I’m trying to save others from the misery we endured.”

“I hear you. No sugar cookies.”

“Thank you.”

“I could try to bake a—”

“No!” Herb interrupted. “No baking. For the love of all that is holy, Jack.”

“Fine. You’re really overselling this joke here.”

“I’m not overselling. If it were a choice between eating your sugar cookies or castrating myself, I’d be singing falsetto for the rest of my life. Really, I wouldn’t even need a knife. If it was one or the other, I’d bend over and gnaw my own scrotum off.”

Since I was a strong-willed independent woman I didn’t need any approval from anyone else when it came to my accomplishments, so I didn’t comment on the scrotum-gnawing.

“Got a flight number yet?” I asked, happy to change the subject.

He gave me the deets, and I bid him safe travels.

Apparently I wasn’t a badass, or a baker.

The day was rife with self-realization.

I went into the living room. Sam and Phin and Duffy were glued to Sam’s tablet, watching McGlade’s livestream.

I told myself I wasn’t being needy, I was just getting more intel to make better informed decisions. So I tried to sound casual when I asked, “Who wants homemade cookies?”

“I’m trying to lose a few pounds,” Phin said without looking up at me.

“I’m not hungry,” Sam said.

“You’re eating right now,” I told her.

Sam tried to wedge a package of something between the sofa cushions. I came in closer to investigate.

“They’re cookies,” I said. “You’re eating cookies.”

“And now I’m full,” Sam said.

“I can make some for later,” I suggested.

Phin, still not making eye contact, patted his belly. “Please don’t, babe. I’ll just eat them all and I really need to lose a few pounds.”

“Please don’t make Daddy fat, Mom.”

They both laughed. I couldn’t tell if it was at McGlade’s FartCam, or at me.

There’s a life lesson in there somewhere. You can be targeted by a psycho, and that’s a terrifying thing, but it also hurts to have your loved ones hate your baking.

It had to be some sort of in-joke. My cookies couldn’t be that bad.

I had to find out. I went back to the kitchen, and pre-heated the oven to 350°.

DR. PLINCER

Undisclosed location…

The wizard walked into the bathroom, where the golem faced a mirror and used an emery board to file his teeth to points. There were gaps, which made the sharpened tips appear even more monstrous and less human.

“Lester is hungry,” Lester Paks said, the reflection of his dark eyes drilling into the doctor’s.

“We have food in the refrigerator, Lester. That should be enough to tide you over.”

“Lester wants different food.” Lester ran his liver-colored tongue over his top row of fangs, slicing into his own tastebuds and drawing a line of blood. “The doctor knows what Lester needs to eat.”

“I know. Soon, Lester. Have patience.”

The golem growled, the deep and low rumble in his chest sounding like an old car engine. “Lester needs to eat… people.”

“I’m aware of your dietary preferences, Lester. But this is a delicate time. We can’t afford to draw attention to ourselves.”

“When can Lester eat someone?” A line of blood-tinged drool crept down Lester’s chin.

“Soon.”

Lester turned his head around on a long pale neck and stared down at Plincer. The golem towered over the wizard, his lean, wiry frame perfectly suited for professional basketball.

Except the NBA doesn’t allow biting the other players…

Dr. Plincer knew how much it hurt to be bitten. He knew it in an intimate, terrible way.

I don’t want to be Lester’s midnight snack.

I have things to do.

Revenge things.

Experimental things.

Genocidal things.

Things that will change the world.

During the past few years, since their rebirth, Plincer had done a lot of research on the boundaries between life and death, in an effort to understand the reformant resurrection serum and improve the outcome of future experiments. These boundaries, scientifically known as the third state, allowed for cellular activity to continue indefinitely.

This was different than the immortality of cancerous HeLa cells, or postmortem cryopreserved bone marrow, or bacteria in permafrost resuscitated after tens of thousands of frozen years. Life, it seemed, used biochemical methods and paths to survive, and death was not as final as medical history had taught.

Regenerating lost limbs and nerve cells, halting old age, and reanimating the deceased were not only possible for humanity, but inevitable. Nature had already done all the work. Mankind just needed to decode it.

“How soon can Lester eat people?” Lester asked. “Lester is starving.”

Lester appeared gaunt, as usual, but his protruding belly showed he was far from starvation.

“Did you finish the raccoon?”

They’d passed the decaying roadkill on the highway, and Lester demanded to stop and pick up the dead animal.

“Lester finished. Too much fur.”

“You should have skinned it first,” Plincer chided.

“Lester was too hungry to wait. Racoon fur got stuck in Lester’s throat. Lester needs to eat people.”

“This week. I promise.”

By the end of the week they will have captured Jack Daniels, and her family and friends.

Next step, Sara Randhurst.

Then… the future.

The terrible, wonderful future.

“Lester wants to eat… a child.”

Dr. Plincer kept his face neutral.

On one hand, Lester’s evil nature delighted the wizard. Plincer had worked long and hard to perfect his original procedure, which altered brain chemistry to reduce inhibitions and morality, while enhancing aggressive and sadistic behavior.

On the other hand, grabbing a kid was dangerous. Communities tended to get annoyed when children were preyed upon. An Amber Alert could really mess up Plincer’s plans.

“We’ll get you a child,” the wizard told the golem. “I even have a child in mind.”

It will mean going against the witch’s wishes.

But I should be able to persuade her.

After all… she owes me her life.

FLASHBACK

Long ago and not so long ago…

You’re not going to kill me.”

Alex felt optimistic about surviving this encounter, even though she was on her knees and staring up into the barrel of a forty caliber Beretta.

Jack Daniels was, at her core, a moral person. She wouldn’t shoot someone unarmed.

But in that moment, Jack seemed determined to shed her morality.

“Yes,” Jack said. “I am. And I don’t want your last thought to be a hopeful one, so stop trying to convince yourself of that. In five seconds, I’m pulling this trigger.”

“You can’t do it.”

“You’ll find out in four more seconds.”

Alex’s face pinched in confusion. “You’re a cop.”

“Not anymore.”

Confusion gave way to fear, with panic riding its heels. “Jack. Don’t do this.”

“This is for Latham, and Alan, and Coursey, and the dozens of others you’ve slaughtered. But mostly, it’s for me.”

She’s going to do it.

This bitch is actually going to kill me in cold blood.

Alex held up her hands and tried to make herself look small. “Jack, please—”

This can’t be the end. There has to be more to come.

I can’t die like this.

“When you get to hell,” Jack said, “say hi to Charles.”

Alex managed to get out a strangled plea, “Jack—no!”

Then her entire being exploded.

Followed by…

Nothing.

Nothing for a long, long time.

At least, nothing Alex could remember. Just a sense of pain. Sort of like the hallucinations that come with a high fever; brief moments of lucidity warped by smeary impressions of suffering. An agonizing, nightmarish darkness she couldn’t awake from.

Until she awoke.

Blinding light, coming from two bifurcated directions, as if her skull was split in half.

Which it sort of was.

“Any pain?”

Alex saw two men looming over her, blurry twins, one of them standing on the ceiling, and realized she was seeing double and couldn’t focus on either the horizontal or vertical frame. The guy was older, bald with saggy skin stretched over his skull and face like an ill-fitting, liver-spotted, pock-marked mask. He wore thick, grimy glasses and a white lab coat so blood-stained it could have been a butcher’s apron.

Alex tried to speak, but her face didn’t seem to work.

“Of course there is pain,” the man answered his own question. “I’m going to give you an IV push of oxycodone, and then adjust your left eye in its socket. It seems I put it back in upside-down.”

Upside-down?

“I suspect this will be… unpleasant.”

The man did something with a syringe, and Alex felt a surge of warm relaxation. That was immediately countermanded by him placing some sort of suction cup onto her eyeball and yanking it out with a wet, slurpy sound, attached only by a sinewy optic nerve she could see with her other eye, like twisted strands of red spaghetti.

Alex screeched.

The man pinched her eyeball and rolled it in his fingers. Like all human beings, Alex had endured the discomfort of having a fleck of dust get in her eye. Having her entire eyeball squeezed felt like it was being rolled in sand, and she screamed while clotty blood and bits of tissue clung to her throat. She tried to lift her hands to push the man away, and found them strapped to a stainless steel table.

An autopsy table?

Or something worse?

“My name is Dr. Mordecai Plincer.” The man appeared calm and spoke in a casual manner as he squeezed and pressed on her eyeball to force it back into its socket. “I removed you from the morgue after you were killed by a former police Homicide Lieutenant named Jacqueline Daniels. I’ve resurrected you from the dead, Alex. Welcome back.”

Using both thumbs he popped the eye back in with an audible THURP!, causing the pain to crescendo and Alex to black out.

When she came to, Plincer was smeary and unfocused but no longer bifurcated or upside down.

“You were shot in the head, and the heart. By my estimation, you’d been dead for three hours when I took custody of your remains. That was four years ago.”

Four years? That can’t be right.

“You’ve been in a medically induced coma while your body and brain restructured. Now the real work will begin. Rehabilitation. Relearning. Training. You’re good with weapons. And unarmed combat. But there is so much more you can learn. We’re going to hone your natural killing abilities to commando level. Reconnaissance. Demolitions. Survival skills. Perimeter breaching. Rappelling. Enhanced interrogation techniques beyond commonplace torture. Psychology. Anatomy. Skydiving. You’re going to learn how to steal, and drive, any vehicle, land, sea, and air. You’re going to be better than you ever were, Alex.”

Alex struggled to form a word. “Hhhhh… hhhhhhhwwwww…”

“How did I bring you back? You can thank the US Government for that. They have a magic serum called reformant. I know nothing about it, other than it seems to come from a secret military base known as Project Samhain, and it is stored at Fort Michilimackinac. It was able to bring you back and make you whole.”

“Wwawwaw… wwaaawww….”

“Why? I’ve been looking for people like you. People with a particular kind of appetite. The prisons are full of them, of course. Murderers. Sadists. Psychopaths. I needed a serial killer who was recently killed, and that isn’t an easy thing to find. I’ll explain why later. But for now, I need to ask you a question.”

Plincer leaned in close, his breath smelling like rotten meat.

“Do you want revenge on Jack Daniels?” Plincer asked.

Through the pain and confusion Alex managed to grunt an affirmative.

“Good,” Plincer said, patting her head like she was a dog. “It’s going to take a lot of time, and a lot of work, but we should be able to get you up and running again…”

JACK

Destiny, Colorado

Be honest,” I told Phin. “I want complete honesty.”

The sugar cookies were a bit flatter than I’d hoped. I was almost one hundred percent sure I’d remembered to add the baking powder.

But if I’d added it, they should have risen a little bit.

Right?

And the edges were a tiny bit dark. I was at least eighty percent sure the recipe called for a four hundred degree oven.

But could it have been three-fifty?

Phin eyed the baking sheet like it was a slug wiggling around in his Caesar salad. “What are they? Crackers?”

“They’re sugar cookies.”

“Cookies?”

“Cookies, Phin. Can’t you tell?”

“They’re… well done.”

“They’re crispy. Crispy cookies are good.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Did you try one?”

I had not. “I’m not a big fan of cookies.”

Phin reached for a cookie, prying it off the aluminum foil with his fingernail. After peeling the wedge of foil stuck to the bottom he broke off the dark edges.

“Too crispy for you?”

“I’m trying to cut down on my charred carbon,” he said, wiping his black fingers on his shirt and leaving a streak. Then he sniffed the cookie. “Is that mint?”

“It’s vanilla.”

I was sixty-five percent sure I’d grabbed the vanilla extract and not the mint extract. It was a dumb move for the manufacturer to make the bottles look exactly the same except for the super small font on the label.

Phin took a tiny nibble, and his eyelid twitched.

“How is it?”

He coughed. “It’s fine.”

“Fine? You only say things are fine when you don’t like them.”

“Not true. When I say something is fine, it’s fine.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re lying.”

“I’d never lie to you.”

“Do I look fat in these yoga pants?”

“Of course not. You look fine.”

“There’s that word again. Fine.”

“Fine is a fine word.”

“Tell me the truth.”

Phin looked sheepish.

I interpreted his expression. “So it’s awful.”

“Awful is a strong word.”

“Admit it. I’m fat and my cookies suck.”

“Jack…”

“Lemme try it.”

I took the cookie from my husband and put the whole thing in my mouth.

After chewing it four times I spat the unholy abomination onto the cookie sheet and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Oh my God, that’s mint. Charbroiled mint.”

My husband stared at me with unmistakeable pity. “Nobody hits a home run every time they bat.”

“I must have had the oven on broil instead of bake.” I scraped my tongue against my upper teeth and winced. “It’s like eating gum that caught on fire.”

“It’s not that big a deal, Jack.”

“Were my last cookies this bad?”

Phin didn’t answer, which was all the answer I needed.

“How about the batch before those? The snickerdoodles?”

“Those were… something.”

“As bad as these?”

“They had kind of a burnt hair flavor.”

“Burnt hair?”

“And it lingered.”

“How long did it linger?”

“My tongue went numb for a few days.”

I was aghast. “Seriously?”

“Not my whole tongue. Just the parts that tasted sweet and salt.”

I set the cookie tray on the floor and called for Duffy. The hound dog trotted over, sniffed the cookies, then ran away with his tail tucked under his legs.

“Duffy!” I called. “Get back here!”

“Maybe the dog needs to go out,” Phin said.

I peeked into the living room. “He’s trying to hide under the couch.”

“I think he lost a bone under there. Maybe your cookies made him so hungry he’s looking for his bone.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” I sat at the kitchen table, deflated. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because little white lies are needed for the civilized world to work.”

“So I suck at baking.”

“You don’t suck at baking.”

“I do.”

Phin shrugged. “Yeah. You do.”

“Really?”

“Jack… I’ve watched you bake. You seem to think that recipes are loose suggestions rather than printed guidelines.”

“Everyone tweaks recipes to their own preferences.”

“So charred mint is your preference?”

“I grabbed the wrong extract.” And forgot some ingredients. And baked too long. But I didn’t want my incompetence to be the reason I lost this argument.

“Maybe if you were a little more disciplined.”

“I’m disciplined,” I demurred.

Phin spread out his hands. “I don’t want to argue. We’re both distracted because of Alex Kork. Your sucky baking is no big deal.”

“What other little white lies do you tell me?”

He shook his head and backed up. “No way. This is a trap.”

“It’s not a trap. I want to know so I can improve myself.”

“I’m not falling for this. If I start criticizing you, you’re not going to take it as a constructive criticism. You’re going to get pissed.”

“I won’t get pissed.”

“You seem pissed right now.”

It pissed me off he said that. “I’m not pissed.”

“Said the pissed-off woman.”

“I don’t lie to you.”

“I’m walking away before this turns into a stupid fight.”

I crossed my arms. “Sure. Walk away. That’s why you’re a number two badass and not a number one badass.”

Now it was Phin’s turn to narrow his eyes. “I’m definitely a number one badass.”

“Not according to Sam. She says I’m a number three badass, and you’re a number two.”

“Who’s number one?”

“She said Tequila is number one.”

Phin rubbed his chin. “I could take Tequila.”

“You tried once. He kicked your ass.”

“I wasn’t in top form.”

“He told me he had to hold back to keep from accidentally killing you.”

“Said the number three badass who sucks at baking.”

I put my elbows on the table and put my face in my hands. “You’re right.”

“About what? Everything?”

“I’m not a good baker. And I’m distracted by Alex.”

Phin came over and rubbed my shoulders. “No one is perfect, Jack. Not even a number one badass like me.”

I didn’t answer.

“This is the part where you compliment my number one badassery,” Phin said.

I stood up, grabbed the cookie tray off the floor, and began to scrape them into the garbage. Phin, who normally balked at wasting food, offered no objections.

“Jack? You really think I’ve gotten soft?”

Something in me broke. “We’ve both gotten soft, Phin. We got married. We had a kid. We moved to the suburbs. A villain from our past is threatening our lives, and I’m baking cookies. Sucky cookies.”

“Getting older and settling down doesn’t mean we’ve gone soft.”

“We’re shadows of our former badass selves. Remember when I caught killers and you beat up gang members?”

“You’d trade then for now? Back then I had cancer and was hooked on cocaine, and you were obsessed with your job and couldn’t sleep at night. Those weren’t our glory days, Jack. Those were tough times. And what does this have to do with your cookies?”

I felt my eyes get glassy, which added shame to my feelings of inadequacy. Since I learned about Alex, my insomnia had returned, and I was too scared to take my sleep aid, zolpidem, for fear I’d be groggy if/when she showed up.

“Back then I felt confident, Phin. In control. Now I’m hiding in my house from my own past mistakes, I’ve got a genius daughter that I don’t feel connected to, and I can’t even order my dog to eat my bad baking.”

“Alex Kork isn’t your fault, Jack. Your baking sucks because you don’t really care about baking. And from my perspective your relationship with your daughter is great.”

“I don’t know how to raise a genius.”

“Maybe you should ask Sam how she feels.”

“She’ll say it’s all fine. Like you with my cookies. But it isn’t fine. Having her stuck in the house because someone is after our family isn’t fine. Reading books your mother doesn’t understand isn’t fine. I can’t even understand some of the things she says. Do you know what BFFR means?”

“Be fucking for real.”

I threw up my hands. “See? I’m useless. I’m old and stupid and useless.”

“And sucky at baking.”

“And sucky at baking,” I agreed.

“And fat,” Phin added. “Don’t forget fat.”

“You don’t need to be mean.”

“And you don’t need to throw yourself a pity party with extra balloons. Go talk to your daughter.”

“I don’t even know what to say to her.”

“Pouting isn’t attractive.”

“I’m not pouting,” I pouted.

I was doing a lot of pouting lately. One more thing to be ashamed of, which—ironically—made me pout harder.

“Talk to Sam. I’m going to try to pull Duffy out from under the couch.”

Phin apparently decided our conversation was over, and he walked away.

I spent five minutes cleaning up the mess I made in the kitchen because it needed to be cleaned, not to avoid parenting. Then I sucked it up and went to Sam’s room to go be a parent. Her door was closed with the sign hanging up, so I knocked.

“Sam? Got a second?”

“I’m not hungry, Mom. I don’t want any cookies.”

She must have smelled the failure. Or the mint.

“I just want to talk, Sam.”

A moment later the door opened two inches and my daughter peeked through. After proving to herself that I didn’t have any baked goods she let me in.

“What are you up to?” I asked, noticing her laptop computer was open to a map.

“Geoguessing.”

Yet another thing my daughter was doing that I didn’t understand.

“It’s like a mystery game,” Sam said. “You get a picture like this one—”

She clicked her mouse and brought up a digital photo of a streetview, complete with a few houses, cars, and trees.

“—and then you guess where the picture was taken.”

“You mean guess the country?”

“Mom, I mean guess the actual address.”

“On the entire planet?”

My daughter nodded.

“That’s impossible,” I said. “It can be a billion different places.”

“It can only be one place. In this case, it’s 11 Scarlett Street in Moorabbin, Victoria. Look at the sun. It’s here, in the north. That means southern hemisphere. Here’s a eucalyptus tree, this species specific to Australia. And look at the car in the driveway. See the license plate?”

I squinted at it. “Too small and blurry to read.”

“The number is intentionally blurred. But see the blue triangle in the middle? That’s the Australian state of Victoria. But the smoking gun here is in the sky. What do you notice about the plane?”

“It’s descending.”

“And?”

“The landing gear is down.”

“Planes have to land at an airport. So I checked airports in Victoria and looked through neighborhoods with similar houses. Then I just followed Google Maps Streetview until I got a match.”

“How long did this take?”

“This one was kind of tricky. I needed a minute and thirty-eight seconds.”

“That’s… amazing.”

Sam shrugged. “Not really. The best geoguessers can find a country in less than ten seconds, and a town in a minute. Usually the online games give you two minutes.”

“And this is fun?”

“It’s a lot of fun.”

“Why?”

“It’s what you used to do, Mom.”

“I never tried to geoguess.”

“You would peopleguess. You solved crimes. Figured out mysteries. Caught bad guys. You made the world a safer place.”

That made me feel a little bit better about myself, and about my relationship with Sam.

“Want to try one with me?” she asked.

“Sure.” I sat on her bed and she clicked on a picture.

I stared at a street scene with cars, bicycles, buildings, and signs in a foreign language. The people were brown, and I noted a few hijabs. The writing didn’t look like Arabic script to me, but my knowledge of world culture, ethnicity, and geography was limited. I took a shot.

“Is that Indian?” I postulated. “Brahmic?”

Sam nodded. “Bengali. So this is somewhere in Bangladesh.”

“Can you zoom in on parts of the picture?”

“Which part?”

“There’s some English writing on a sign in the lower right.”

Sam moved to that part of the image and made it larger.

“Fatema Tower,” I read. “Is it cheating to use a search engine?”

“Nope.

I took out my phone, and after a quick consult with DuckDuckGo I said, “It’s Dhaka.”

“That’s my guess, too. Did you get the address of the tower?”

I frowned. “I see six of them on the map.”

“So narrow it down, Loot.”

I smiled. Loot was short for Lieutenant, my former position at the Chicago Police Department. I hadn’t been called that in a while.

I searched Dhaka maps for street views, and on my second Fatema Tower I found an image that seemed to match the geoguess image, albeit from a different angle.

“I think it’s this one.” I showed Sam my phone.

“How can you tell it’s the same?”

“See the wall here?” I pointed. “Same big chip in it.”

“Nice job, Mom. You did that in one minute forty-two seconds.” Sam’s expression turned serious. “So what did you want to talk about?”

I searched for the words. I wanted to sound curious, not needy, while maintaining my parental authority.

“I was wondering if my mothering style is beneficial to a child prodigy.”

“You’re worried you aren’t a good mom because I’m smarter than you?”

“You think you’re smarter than me?”

“Want to have an IQ test race?”

“I do not.”

Sam’s face crinkled up. “I read a book called Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon. It’s about the challenges of raising children with special needs.”

“I don’t think you have special needs, Sam.”

“I’m not talking about handicaps, Mom,” she chided. “I’m talking about neurological diversity.”

I reminded myself my daughter was only nine.

“So what did Andrew Solomon say?”

“It’s difficult to raise someone like me, because you can’t really relate, and you don’t feel like you’re doing enough. You know; providing an environment where I can reach my potential, stimulating my creativity, allowing me opportunities to expand my boundaries.”

That last one was my biggest concern. “You want your boundaries expanded?”

“There’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom, and between intelligence and experience. I’d like to have more responsibilities than I’m allowed, but at the same time I recognize that I’m socially average, and maybe even a little shy around people my age. I’ve always been more comfortable with adults.”

“So what boundaries and responsibilities are we talking here?”

Sam made her hands into a pyramid shape. “I want a later bedtime.”

“Your dad and I already know you stay up late in bed on your iPad.”

“But I still have to be in bed at ten.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Ten-thirty. No bedtime at all when there’s no school the next day.”

I considered it. “I’ll discuss it with your father.”

“And I want a bigger allowance.”

“How much bigger?”

“I’d like forty dollars a week.”

That was a ten buck raise. “What will you do to earn that?”

“I’ll cook one meal for the family, per week, and I’ll vacuum.”

“I like to vacuum. It’s my Zen time.”

“You do a back and forth zig-zag movement that’s really inefficient. It would be better if you followed one single path, like a Zamboni on an ice rink.”

“Deal,” I said. “But I reserve the right to vacuum when I’m stressed out.”

She stuck out her hand. I shook it. Sam held on longer than necessary.

“No take-backs,” she said.

“Take-backs?”

“No reneging.”

“Why would I renege?”

“So you won’t renege?”

“No. You vacuum and cook a meal a week, on top of your other chores, and you’ll get your forty a week.”

Sam beamed, and it lit my heart up.

My heart sank a little when, after our handshake, she immediately went on Amazon.com and ordered a Roomba.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“No take-backs.”

“You want to spend three hundred dollars of your own money on a robot vacuum?”

“I did the math, Mom. It pays for itself in two-hundred and ten days, and everything after that is profit. If I still live with you when I’m sixteen, I’ll have netted over two thousand eight hundred dollars.”

“Did you include making dinner in your math?”

She shrugged. “No. I wanted to start cooking anyway. I would have done it for free.”

I wasn’t sure if I should feel proud or taken advantage of.

“The Roomba is mine when I move out,” she said.

“You can add it to your ever growing pile of gadgets.”

Sam gave me a hug.

“It’s okay, Mom. I’m really good at negotiating. And you’re a really good mom.”

I hugged her back. I’d gotten hustled, but it was worth it for the praise. Lord help whatever guy Sam wound up dating. She was going to be a handful.

“So,” I said, “we’re good on boundaries and responsibilities?”

“Am I old enough for you to tell me about the Alex Kork case?”

“Maybe you’re old enough, but it’s not something I want to talk about.”

“I read about her online. Her and her brother, Charles. They called him the Gingerbread Man. There are books, too. Did Uncle Harry really save the day?”

“Uncle Harry tends to exaggerate things.”

“Did he really save your life twenty-seven times?”

“He saved me a few times. Not twenty-seven. And I saved him a few times.”

“Did you watch the snuff videos?”

I winced. “I did.”

“Did they give you nightmares?”

“They did.”

“Would you show me your old case files? Maybe I could help figure out where she is.”

“Sweetie… there are bad people in the world. Bad people who do bad things. Some of the bad people really enjoy doing bad things, which is the worst thing of all. When you see stuff like that…”

My voice trailed off, and I had to look away and distract my mind with some Rolling Stones tunes so none of the old imagery resurfaced.

“You know I’ve seen some bad things, Mom.”

“I know. Do you get nightmares?”

Sam’s face scrunched up. “Not really. I can lucid dream. When I’m dreaming, I know I’m dreaming. That gives me superpowers. So if there are bad guys, I can beat them up. Or fly away.”

“That sounds fun.”

“It is.”

“So why do you want to stay up later? If I could have superpowers in my dreams, I’d want to dream all the time.”

“Because life is about creating reality, Mom. Not hiding from it.”

Hiding as in hiding in the house from Alex Kork?

I thought about asking, and chickened out.

“I’ll make you a promise,” I said instead. “When you’re old enough, I’ll tell you all about my old cases.”

“How old?”

“Eighteen.”

“Fourteen.”

“Seventeen.”

“We’ll split the difference. Fifteen.”

“Splitting the difference is fifteen and a half.”

“Deal,” Sam said.

We shook hands again.

“You don’t need to worry about me so much, Mom. But it’s nice that you do.”

“Thanks.”

“And if you need help with Alex Kork, remember that I’m part of this family, too.”

“I will, munchkin.”

“Do you want to do another geoguess?”

“Sure.”

Sam queued up the next picture, but my mind wasn’t in it.

Instead my mind was preoccupied with all of the horrible criminals I’d encountered during my life. And some of them were even worse than Alex Kork…

THE PALADIN

Destiny, Colorado

They’re supposed to land in an hour. I’ll meet them at the airport.”

The paladin, once known as The Cowboy, once known as Ann Steinhoffer, closed her laptop and removed the shooting earplugs from the scrapple remains of her ears.

Father Screamo had given up the ghost an hour ago—Alex had apparently punctured and/or fried something essential—and the quiet had been a relief.

When I died, my crushed head was clamped back together. I still feel the fourteen screws and twenty-nine staples in my skull, continuously pricking my thoughts.

No matter what drugs I’m given. No matter what top secret shit the wizard injects into my tear ducts.

I live. But the pain is always there.

My knees bend too far backward. My shoulders permanently dislocated. My ribs concave.

I was scarred before.

Now I’m a deformed monster. A scuttling, ugly thing that hides in the shadows so onlookers don’t remind me of my appearance, which is reminder enough.

The paladin didn’t consider her feelings to be actual complaints. Living with a sliding scale of headache pain was preferable to being dead.

Death hurts a lot more than this.

The paladin didn’t understand what happened when she died. She didn’t have the education or mental acuity to unwrap whatever religious, spiritual, or karmic occurrence took place when she was buried by an exploding marble column in Harry McGlade’s house.

She’d been in a gunfight with Jack Daniels. A fair gunfight, one-on-one, may the best woman win.

But it didn’t end fairly.

The ex-cop had cheated.

Cheated, and won.

For the paladin, for the briefest of moments, being dead instilled a sense of peace so overwhelming it had been the happiest experience of her existence. Her life had been all about escalating degrees of suffering, on the receiving end and on the giving end. Leaving a physical existence took her to nirvana.

Dying was the best thing that ever happened to me.

And then…

And then came agony. A burning, searing, unending agony. It went beyond physical. The paladin ceased to be human, ceased to be corporeal, transforming into pure sensation, nerves and thoughts stretched out to infinite, eternal suffering.

And stacked upon the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical torture, her core being knew it was punishment.

Misery for the misery she’d caused.

Did I go to hell?

Maybe. Probably.

I went somewhere. Somewhere terrible.

I have no idea if it was a mental journey, some sort of slipstream of consciousness.

Or something deeper.

Something to do with my soul.

I have no idea if it was real, or imaginary.

I have no idea how long it lasted.

I only know that I went from unbearable pain to a more tolerable pain.

From the realm beyond death, to live again.

Ann had no idea if her rebirth was a second chance, or just a brief reprieve.

But she was grateful for it. Grateful, even though it was difficult. The paladin had gone through years of physical rehabilitation with the witch, and the golem, and the wizard.

A quartet of dead killers, born again to kill again.

Their immediate goal; revenge.

Their long-term goal; undefined. But the paladin knew it had something to do with the military.

We’re some sort of team. A classified group of special forces that some army jackass—a career tool named Colonel Cormley—called red-ops.

The paladin had scoured the World Wide Web for the term, and found a darknet message board that claimed to contain leaked Department of Defense documents.

Apparently, the nations of the world spent fortunes trying to unlock the killer instinct in men. To turn civilians into a specific type of elite soldier. One who could kill without any remorse.

The red-ops program took a different approach. Why try to strip an average person of their morality when it is simpler to teach an amoral person how to become a commando?

Use science to turn serial killers into special forces.

In theory, that could be a strike force with unlimited potential. A well-trained team of psychopaths, dropped behind enemy lines, eager to terrorize, torture, and kill. Outside of the Geneva Convention, outside of international law, outside of the rules of war, outside of all morality and humanity.

According to the hacked docs, the US had created a red-ops team and deployed it in a Wisconsin town called Safe Haven, which had almost been wiped off the map.

Then came cover-ups, pay-offs, and a huge media disinformation campaign. The hundreds killed were memory-holed, forgotten by history.

Colonel Cormley had the clearance, and the funding, to revive the red-ops program. And he decided the optimal way to keep it top secret was to recruit serial killers who had been declared dead.

The paladin didn’t think much of the scheme. In her mind, a simpler solution would be to take psychopathic lifers out of prison. They wouldn’t be missed, and depending on how long they’d been imprisoned, their footprint on modern society would be minimal.

Or to take children. Orphans who had no ties to the world.

You can give a killer military training. Or you can do what terrorists do so well, and indoctrinate kids at an impressionable age.

No need for any miraculous sci-fi science. Why resurrect a dead dog when raising a puppy is so much easier?

But it wasn’t the paladin’s project. She’d been selected without her input, and now she was forced to serve on Cormley’s team.

Forced because she needed Plincer’s serum to continue to stay alive.

And the paladin wanted to stay alive. Not just to take revenge. But because she feared what waited for her after death.

I’ll do whatever is necessary to live a long, long life.

So I don’t have to go back to hell.

“You could wait,” Alex said.

The paladin blinked, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if Alex had been reading her mind.

“Wait?”

“On Benedict and Tequila. They used credit cards for the flight and for the rental car. They’ll use them for a hotel. And you know I already filed a flight plan and need you.”

“I’m on board for that. But this is too good an opportunity to pass up. Herb Benedict is easy to track. Tequila Abernathy might as well be a ghost. No known address. No bank accounts. No online presence.”

“And he’s that important? Jack Daniels is the one who killed you.”

“I have history with Tequila. He means as much to me as Jack does to you.”

Maybe more.

The witch shrugged, which Ann didn’t like.

“Dump the priest,” the paladin said. “He’s going to begin to stink.”

Alex narrowed her eyes. “Are you asking me? Or telling me?”

The paladin smiled, scarred lips turning white as they drew back over misshapen teeth. “I’d never tell someone as dangerous as you what to do, Alex.”

The witch didn’t seem convinced.

The paladin didn’t turn her back, keeping her eyes on Alex as she got off of her chair, straightening her crooked legs as pops of pain coursed through her ragged bones.

Pain I’ll always have. Thanks to Jack.

Jack, Tequila, Harry, Herb…

Thanks to Alex.

So many people to kill.

And patience was never one of my strong suits.

But Alex was a problem to be dealt with later. The paladin switched gears. “Did the priest admit what he did?”

Alex nodded. “He was spitting out names between screams. Over a dozen kids. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it. Once he started he couldn’t shut up.”

“Did he mention the child?”

“Yeah. I got his whiney little confession on video. And get this… he thanked me.”

That was a new one.

“He thanked you for torturing and killing him?” the paladin asked.

“He thanked me for getting him to confess. He said it was a weight off of his soul, or some shit like that.” Alex shrugged.

Interesting. Now I’m disappointed I tuned out the torture.

“Got it on video?”

Alex nodded. “I’ll send it to you. Client should be happy. Can people on the blockchain tip with crypto?”

“Sure. Sending crypto is like PayPal, or Cash App.”

“Maybe we’ll get a few extra bucks.”

Maybe.

But the paladin didn’t have much faith in human nature.

Certain people, people like the paladin and the witch and the golem and wizard, were cruel as a base level.

But even people who were mostly good had some bad in them.

They lied. Stole. Hurt one another.

Cheated.

Cheated like Jack Daniels cheated.

The paladin remembered what happened after death. But she also remembered dying.

She remembered it so clearly it could have happened yesterday…

FLASHBACK

Long ago…

What’s with the legs?” The paladin, then known as The Cowboy, asked Jacqueline Daniels, who wore some sort of bodysuit.

They faced each other in the foyer of Harry McGlade’s mansion; a marble-lined waste of money with an opulent and gaudy centerpiece fountain; a man-child’s warped idea of an ancient Roman temple.

“Spine injury,” Jack said.

“Did I have something to do with that?”

“Yes.”

That pleased The Cowboy. “Don’t worry. You won’t be crippled much longer. Come forward, meet me in the middle of this hall.”

She watched as Jack took cautious steps, like a crippled toddler expecting to fall. The Cowboy sauntered up to her, so close they could embrace.

But embracing was the last thing The Cowboy was interested in.

“Your daughter is in the house,” The Cowboy stated.

Jack tried to draw her weapon, but The Cowboy was crazy fast with a sidearm, and had her gun up under Jack’s chin in less than an eyeblink.

She’s terrified. It’s delicious.

“Easy, Jack. If you play fair, I won’t hurt her. I promise. Besides, it would be fun, knowing that someday she’d grow up and come looking for me, trying to take revenge. Like an old cowboy movie. I’d like that. So if you want her to live long enough to try and avenge her mommy’s death, no cheating. Or else I’ll kill her while you watch. Do we understand each other?”

Jack nodded, looking small and defeated.

This is going to be a lot of fun.

“Take your hand off the butt of your weapon, and turn around. Ten steps, then turn, draw, and fire. I’ll be watching you in this piece of mirror. You ready?”

Jack managed to nod.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

The Cowboy turned and watched her adversary in a broken bit of mirror, making sure she didn’t cheat.

“We do this on ten. I’ll count out the steps. One…”

Step.

“Two.”

Step.

First I’ll shoot her elbow so she can’t draw.

“Three.”

Step.

Then her left knee.

“Four.”

Step.

Then her right knee.

“Five.”

Step.

Then I’ll shoot the fingers off both of her hands.

“Six.”

Step.

I’ll take my time. Reload at my leisure.

“Seven.”

Step.

And when she’s writhing in agony, her hope gone, I’ll let her know…

“Eight.”

Step.

I’ll let her know that I’m not killing her daughter. I’m taking her daughter.

“Nine.”

Step.

I’ll tell her that I’m taking her daughter and raising her to be just… like… me.

The Cowboy grinned and shouted, “Ten!”

She spun and aimed and fired, smooth and fast as a rattlesnake.

But Jack didn’t pull her gun. She leapt, somehow quick and agile even as The Cowboy’s bullets connected with her back, even as she lunged onto the ugly fountain, and The Cowboy kept firing as she reached for—

A grenade launcher.

The cheating bitch brought a grenade launcher to a gunfight.

Panic made The Cowboy flinch, and she missed her intended head shot, merely clipping Jack’s ear just as the grenade flew at her.

The Cowboy dove for cover, but the explosion was gigantic.

She felt sound. She felt heat. She felt pain.

But more than all of that, she felt anger.

Robbed of victory.

She’d offered a fair fight, and had been deceived.

And then a chunk of marble crushed her, and The Cowboy went to hell.

That’s when pain overwhelmed anger.

Hell felt like eternity. But it wasn’t eternity.

It was just a memory. A mere flashback, before Dr. Mordecai Plincer snatched her out of hell to have her revenge…

HARRY

Los Angeles, California

And speaking of flashbacks…

My new bride stared down at me. Through circumstances I couldn’t have possibly ever figured out even with my genius-level detective abilities, I accidentally married a psychopath named Alex Kork, who was the sister of another psychopath named Charles Kork, whom I’d killed.

That seemed to be a sore spot for her, and she’d drugged me at our wedding, along with my bestest buddy, Phin Troutt, and bound us to chairs with baling wire in some sort of basement or garage or warehouse.

Mistakes happen. Even the world’s greatest private eye could be deceived into felonious matrimony. My bad. I’ll take the L for that.

So I was groggy from being drugged, confused about what was happening, and Alex was coming at me with something in her hand.

“What the hell is that?” I asked her as she eyed me with pure hate. “A hairbrush? Can’t you do that later?”

“It’s not a hairbrush, Harry. Not anymore. Instead of bristles, it has rusty nails sticking through the end. Father used it on me, when I was bad.”

“This is a joke, right? You’re getting me back for that time I accidentally used the rear entrance. I told you, baby. It was dark. I was working by feel.”

“Why do you think I always turned out the lights when we had sex, Harry?”

I thought it was because she was shy. Obviously, I was wrong. I’d been wrong about a whole lot.

“Scars, Harry,” she continued. “Along my back. I had a lot of plastic surgery, but it still doesn’t look right. Want to see?”

“Not really. Scars freak me out.”

Alex planted her feet, reared back, and slammed the hairbrush onto my thigh. The nails penetrated an inch, anchoring themselves into my bone.

I screamed like a soprano getting kicked in the nards. As I howled, Alex turned her attention to Phin.

“What’s the matter, Phin? Don’t you like me anymore?”

“I was wondering why you married McGlade. Now it makes perfect sense.”

“I married him for revenge.”

“You married him because you’re out of your fucking mind.”

She hit him, hard, and my buddy grunted in pain.

“You had a hand in it too. You helped Jack and Harry find my brother. I’m going to make you pay for that, Phin.”

I needed to get her attention back on me. This was all my fault, not Phin’s.

“I want a divorce!” I screamed.

“You have to remind me, my dear husband,” Alex cooed, like an evil cooing cooer. “What are you again? Left-handed, or right-handed?”

I spat on her. A real good one, the loogie catching her in the hair.

“I’m glad I made you sign that pre-nup, you crazy psycho bitch!”

“I think you’re a righty.”

Alex, holding a pair of tin snips, moved behind me, to my bound wrists. I felt the jaws of the snippers clamp around my index finger.

“Don’t worry, Harry,” cooed the cooer. “You won’t bleed to death. That’s why I brought the blowtorch.”

SNIP!

I startled myself awake.

I was at my desk, in my mansion. I quickly checked my computer monitor to make sure I was still live, rubbed my eyes with my good hand, and checked my viewer count.

Twenty-eight thousand six hundred and eleven.

Pretty good views for a sleeping streamer.

“Hi, guys. Nightmare. Obviously. I was dreaming about that she-beast I married, when she was cutting off my fingers.”

I held up my prosthetic hand and gave the camera a robotic wave.

“How long was I out for?”

I was bombarded with online text messages, and the wisdom of crowds seemed to agree that my nap lasted three hours and some change.

“Thanks for watching over me and keeping me safe, fam. If you’ve just tuned in to the PsychoWatch livestream, my name is Harrison Harold McGlade, and I’m being targeted by a real piece of shit named Alex Kork, who besides being a serial killer and my ex-wife, was also the worst piece of ass I’ve ever had. Really. I’d rather have sex with a dumpster meatball sandwich. A rotten one covered in red ants and smelling like skunk poobangers. If you’re watching me, Alex…”

I gave her the robot middle finger.

“As you know,” I pontificated, “there are a lot of bad people in the world. People who want to steal your passwords and log into Amazon and order fifteen Titanic Lego sets at seven hundred bucks each. People who want to record your nasty porn browsing history which is loaded with gangbang MILF anal dwarf bondage, you filthy animal. People who want to create AI that looks and talks like you so it can apply for high interest loans and ruin your credit rating and eventually steal your side piece to create an overlord species of robosexuals with their cyberfingers on the nuclear football.”

I cleared my throat and went from my scary warning voice to my optimistic sales pitch voice.

“That’s why this portion of the livestream is brought to you by DruTechVPN. A VPN is a virtual private network that hides your browser activity, location, and identity. So you can act like an asshole online, and no one will know it’s you.”

I squinted at my cheat sheet card.

“DruTech is a billion dollar subsidiary of industry titan Biologen, and they stay awake nights worrying about your cybersecurity. They stay awake all night, just for you. Trust DruTechVPN to keep your data secure. And with my special offer you can sign up for six months of Internet protection, for free, using my exclusive code, BIGDICK.”

I flashed the URL on my live screen, and also put up a picture of my Big Dick.

Big Dick is the name of my capybara. Because I am a laugh riot. Ask anyone.

Scratch that. Only ask the people who think I’m funny.

“I know my viewers love pictures of Big Dick.” I yawned. “Nothing can fulfill you like Big Dick does. So be sure to sign up for DruTechVPN, and use BIGDICK to get it free. Now I’ll take questions from my Gold Tier subscribers. And if you didn’t know, you can become a Gold Tier member for only $9.99 A.M.nth. This includes full access to my OnlyHarry page, exclusive live video chats with me, and a chance to win a free used pair of my boxer briefs. They have stains. They stink. You know you want them, you dirty bastard.”

I had twenty-eight GTs currently watching, and I muted my other messages so I only saw them.

It’s awesome to have people love you.

It’s even more awesome to have people love you and pay you.

“Let’s read the first question.”

I squinted at it and frowned in total disapproval.

“Harry if you die on camera that would be epic,” I read. “As terrible as that is, you are correct. It would be epic, ElonIsGod84. But you know what would be more epic? Me not dying, so I can continue to bring you quality livestreams such as this one. Moving right along.”

—Can u show us your butt hole?

“This is a PG-rated feed, Yesman90125. But you can see plenty of orifice pics at my OnlyHarry site. I even have the exclusive ProbeCam that goes way up in there and gives you a point-of-view of what my butt sees. Play What Did Harry Eat? with your friends and family. And you all know the standing rule; if you can spot a polyp, you get a month of Gold Tier membership for free. So check it out, and like me on Yelp.”

—You haven’t changed much McGlade.

“I haven’t changed much since… when? Do we know each other—” I squinted at the name. “AlexKork372215.”

I have the best fans in the world. But sometimes they engage in jackassery.

I went along with it for views, likes, and thumbs up. And tips. I’m a whore for tips.

“Is that really you, Alex? Did you see the bird I gave you a few minutes ago?”

—I saw it. And you were the one who was shit in bed, not me.

“I never shit the bed,” I replied. “Not when we were married.”

—I said you were shit in bed, you idiot.

“If you want to pay me ten bucks a month to call me an idiot, I think that shows who the idiot is.”

—This stupid livestream gimmick won’t save you. Or Jack.

I sat up. “Jack can handle herself. So can I. But my chat terms of service specifically ban people who threaten others. You’re blocked, fake Alex.”

I lifted my finger over my keyboard to block the troll and—

—I cut your index finger off first.

The comment made me freeze.

—Stopped the bleeding with a propane torch. You sobbed like a baby. When I snipped off your thumb, you passed out. Ask Phin. He can confirm.

That was true. There had been a lot of things published about my exploits, including some stuff released and endorsed by me. But I couldn’t remember if that tidbit was private knowledge, or something that was already out there in the world.

Taking that into consideration, this wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d been dealing with stalkers for a long time. Some were real threats. Some were lonely trolls. And sometimes lonely trolls pretended to be real threats. For the lulz. Or the clout. Or because people believe the Internet is the same thing as wearing a mask and throwing bricks during a protest march.

People do ugly things when they think they are anonymous and won’t ever have to deal with the consequences of their actions. It’s sort of like powerful people abusing authority. If you feel you’re above scrutiny and justice, you become corrupt and act badly.

Human beings may be mostly good. But no one is fully honest. We all try to get away with things when we think no one is watching. We all make mistakes. We all tell lies to puff up our social standing among our peers. We’re all able to justify bad behavior.

Some edgelord pretending to be Alex Kork on my livestream needed to be blocked or banned, not only for my own personal happiness, but to send a message to other trolls that shitposting isn’t tolerated in Harry’s house.

Unless it really is Alex Kork.

In which case I shouldn’t block or ban her. Remember the expression? Keep your enemies close, and your enemas closer. For when your enemies get you constipated.

So I wouldn’t cut her off. I’d use my platform to unmask her and find her.

Fortunately, I was one of the world’s greatest sleuths, a private detective extraordinaire, with skills unmatched by—

“FartCam!” I said.

I changed cameras and let a fat one rip.

“As you all heard, that one was wet. All of my fans know what that means. We need to check for UPS.”

I stuck my hand down my pants, felt around, and inspected my fingernails.

“False alarm,” I announced. “Brown did not make a delivery.”

Since my viewers liked the FartCam—doesn’t everybody?—I opened the comments back up and AlexKork372215 was drowned out in the flood of texts supporting or admonishing me.

I jotted down the username, making a note to follow up on it later. When people signed up for Gold Tier they had to use some sort of real world information.

Real world information was trackable.

The first thing I needed to do to track that user was—

“FartCam!”

This time brown delivered, and I had to excuse myself to do a clean-up in the bathroom.

Little did I know that I was being watched.

Zing! Scary foreshadowing!

Oh, wait. I did know I was being watched. By over thirty thousand people.

I was probably the safest guy in the world.

Which is why I could never have expected what happened next.

Zing!

Kidding. I knew exactly what happened next. It involved half a pack of Dude Wipes and a change of underwear.

But even with all of this scary fake foreshadowing, I was totally surprised by the dangerous turn of events. Which was when I encountered the most terrifying thing that could happen…

…another UPS drop-off.

Zing! And I promise I’ll stop with the fake foreshadowing.

Probably.

It’s a good thing I buy underwear in bulk.

Let’s be real for a second. Back in the day, when I was a younger and more serious man, I spent a whole lot of time doing stuff that I thought was important.

Spoiler alert; none of it turned out to be important.

Sometimes life had meaning and nuance and depth.

But most of the time life was a dumb fart joke.

We start out in diapers, we end up in diapers, and everything in the middle is just navel-gazing, screwing around, jerking off, and lying to ourselves about our own importance.

We all yearn to be understood. But ending up as a punchline is the best we can hope for.

I knew what the future held for me, because we’re all destined to repeat the past. Alex would come at me bro, I’d get hurt, but I’d wind up on top. How it happened didn’t really matter.

I could take it seriously and worry. Or I could relax and roll with it.

I finished cleaning up, used my toothbrush on my fingernails, threw away the toothbrush, then went into my kitchen for a snack. Since I was human-sized, my in-home cameras followed me and switched accordingly. So I entertained the viewing masses by microwaving some hot dogs and reading more gems from my soon-to-probably-sell-millions poetry book, I’m A Poet, You Can Blow It.

“The following four poems are dedicated to America. Our country has become too divisive, all about us vs. them. Though I am apolitical, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am on your side. And so is this deeply moving, motivational verse…”

Doctor by Harrison Harold McGlade

I went in for a booster shot,

He said I’ll feel a little prick,

But it took me by surprise,

When he handed me his dick.

I squinted at the responses to my genius. My reception could optimistically be called lukewarm.

“C’mon, squad! Where’s your patriotism? Poetry was invented in America, probably. I’m beginning to think that you thirty-eight thousand viewers aren’t here to learn, you’re just hoping to watch me get violently slaughtered.”

I read another.

Dinah by Harrison Harold McGlade

Dinah was a lizard,

Dinah was a whore,

She fucked a pterodactyl,

And boy was Dinah sore.

I finally got some positive responses, with thumbs ups and and heart emojis, restoring a tiny bit of my faith in my fanbase and my country.

But the positive was quickly overwhelmed by the negative.

—dinosaurs weren’t lizards

—hey dummass dinos arent lizzerds!!!!

I frowned. “Hey dumbass, you spelled dumbass wrong. And you spelled lizards wrong. And forgot an apostrophe. You know what three errors in the same sentence gets.”

I hit my Ctrl H key, and the words TYPO POUNCE!!! appeared on my screen.

I liked to do my part to make the Internet a little more literate. Literally.

I read more comments.

—lizzerd people are real they run the world

—a pterodactyl is a pterosaur not a dinosaur

—yo that flying thing wasn’t a dino. It was my mom

—Jurassic Park was a true story

—I can fit my whole hand up my ass

—stop it with the poems they sux

I pressed on because; culture.

Walking in the Park by Harrison Harold McGlade

While walking in the park,

I saw a dog lick his groin,

I tried to do the same,

And he bit me in the face.

This poem wasn’t as polarizing as the previous ones. It was universally hated. And my view count was dropping faster than the stock market on Black Monday. It was enough to cause some major Depression.

You history buffs and old folks from 1929 will understand those last two jokes. The rest of you can use Google.

Since I promised four poems, I dug deep to get a good one in.

Auntie Shirley by Harrison Harold McGlade

I have an Auntie Shirley,

Her hair is very curly,

Especially around her vagina.

More hate and shitposting ensued. A lot of people seemed to take umbrage at the fact that my last two poems didn’t rhyme.

“Poetry doesn’t have to rhyme, you goons. It’s called blank verse.”

—you finally unified the country, Harry, cuz everyone hates you now

—only thing blank is your head, McGoon

—I’M PULLING OUT MY EYES TO MAKE IT STOP!!!! OAKSKDUJFHEWIOOOO

—I pray for death

—you got aunt shirl’s number?

Sensing the crowd wasn’t entirely with me, I reverted to a fan favorite; the FartCam. After ripping some sweet and juicy ass, the comments became less hostile. I began replying to some non-poetry questions.

“No, iggyjiwwit, I don’t sell the underwear I shart in. I auction it off. Check back on Auction Tuesday.

“Yes, ayatollahkenobi87, I have seen a gastrointestinal specialist. I don’t have IBS. I just eat too many beans. In fact, that last shart had two whole beans in it. And a piece of pork. Isn’t it awesome when you find a piece of pork in the can of beans? It’s like Christmas.

“I agree, spiderclam4life, the prequel Stars Wars trilogy isn’t as bad as everyone says it is. Darth Maul is awesome, and when I’m high I actually think Jar Jar is funny.”

I read another message and had to reread it because it didn’t make sense.

Some viewer named TheAuthor.

Pretty stupid screen name.

“TheAuthor is asking me if I think I’m invincible. My definitive answer is; well, sort of. I mean, don’t we all think we’ll live forever?”

—You’re not indispensable, Harry. No one is. Anyone can die at any time.

“Death is a part of life, TheAuthor. But in my story, I’m the hero. The hero doesn’t die.”

—Arthur Conan Doyle killed Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was a lot more popular than you’ll ever be. The author got sick of his creation, and killed him off. It can happen. And it will happen.

“Nah. I ain’t the one.”

—The author wanted to do more serious things. The only way out was to kill his creation. Sherlock Holmes had become a parody of himself. The creator always becomes the destroyer, Harry.

“If that’s true, it’s a damn good thing my life isn’t a book.”

—You just said you’re the hero in this story. All stories come to an end. And some of them have surprise endings that no one ever sees coming.

“I can tell you, TheAuthor, with one hundred percent certainty, that this story isn’t going to end.”

—And I can tell you, 100%… you’re wrong, McGlade. You’re very, very wrong. All stories end. There are powers at work that you can’t possibly understand. You are not in control of your destiny, Harrison Harold McGlade. You’ve never been in control. Everybody dies.

“Here’s my carefully considered response to that.”

I hit the FartCam and trumpeted a tremulous b flat.

Unhappily, brown had an extra delivery they’d missed the first time, so back to the bathroom I went, fishing my toothbrush out of the garbage.

When I first began my livestream, I had a subscriber who called themselves GOD. They claimed to be the real deal. It was some ragebaiter who gaslit me with doomscroll predictions of my future. Normal for the Internet, right?

Except the self-anointed GOD got a few predictions right, which freaked me out a little. Especially since I was tweaking on meth at the time.

I quit meth, blocked the viewer calling himself GOD, and promptly forgot about the whole situation.

But this TheAuthor person had the same know-it-all tone. Same syntax. Same warning.

Should I ignore them?

Block them?

Take them seriously?

They were speaking some truths. Of course everybody dies. I knew that.

But it wasn’t my time.

I wasn’t a parody of myself.

I didn’t need to be destroyed.

No one named TheAuthor had any control over me.

I was going to get through this threat, just like I got through all threats.

“Right?” I asked my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

My reflection didn’t appear convinced.

I didn’t see a confident harlequin staring back at me, smug in his own eternal existence.

I saw doubt.

I saw doubt, and fear.

What if I wasn’t the hero of this story?

I’d seen movies. And I’ve read books.

The hero doesn’t die in a narrative.

But the secondary characters die. They die all the time.

Hell, to raise the stakes of the plot, some characters need to die.

The love interest.

The partner.

The best friend.

The plucky comic relief.

Sometimes, if the writer is really evil, even kids can die.

What kind of egomaniacal, power-mad writer would kill a kid?

Luckily, in this particular tale, there were no children involved…

SAM

Destiny, Colorado

My name is Samantha Adams Troutt-Daniels, and I’m nine years old.

Call me Sam. It doesn’t matter what my pronouns are.

I don’t have anything against people who think pronouns are important, but it doesn’t make sense to me. Not because of any identity or gender reasons. But because it’s a flex that doesn’t provide any useful information to facilitate communication.

If I’m speaking with you, I’ll use your name, or the pronoun “you.” The only reason I’d use she, or they, or xe, or xir, is if I’m talking about you with someone else.

It’s not my place to tell you how to talk about me. You can make those choices on your own. And vice-versa. It’s like telling someone, “The next time you say something about me, make sure you describe me as awesome.”

Your opinion of me isn’t my business, and I can’t dictate it.

Make sense?

Anyway, if you believe that IQ tests are an accurate way to measure intelligence, I’m a genius.

My dad, Phin, says I’m the smartest nine-year-old alive, which I know isn’t true. I did a deep dive, researching genius nine-year-olds, and some of them are way smarter than me. Also, I’ll be ten soon, rendering his point irrelevant.

My mom, Jack, says I’m precocious. That makes sense to me, and she says it with love, not in any sort of pejorative way.

My Uncle Harry says I’m too big for my britches. That’s ironic, because his opinion of himself is so inflated he could float away at any given moment.

But, as I said earlier, what they think about me is actually about them, not about me.

It’s what I think about me that matters. And I know I’m smart. Sometimes I’m smarter than adults. Including Mom and Dad.

Which is why I know they are approaching this Alex Kork situation wrong.

I grew up in a tough family. Not tough in the sense that they are cruel or unfair. Tough in the sense that Mom and Dad are both badasses. Sometimes I play around and tell them they aren’t as tough as they think, but they really are pretty tough. Mom was a cop. Dad used to rob drug dealers and gangbangers. He doesn’t know I know that, but it wasn’t hard to piece it together. There is public access to criminal records online, some that list Mom as the arresting officer.

I’ll ask them about that when I’m older and they take me more seriously.

A lot of people have tried to hurt and kill my parents. While I know that isn’t normal, it’s sort of normal for this household. Some families live with chronic illness, or poverty, or dysfunctionality. We live under the ever-present threat of some bad person trying to murder us.

There was a serial killer in the room the day I was born. There have been many since then.

Call it bad luck. Or superdeterminism. Or a test by a higher power.

My parents’ normal way of dealing with threats is to play active defense. To plan for the worst, and have contingencies when the plan goes wrong.

Be prepared, just like the Boy Scouts say.

I’m on board with this.

I take martial arts lessons. I know how to handle firearms. I work hard on my situational awareness. I understand our home defense hygiene. I know how important it is to stay safe, secure, and protected.

But I also know that the best defense is a good offense. You don’t win at sports, or at chess, or at life, by reacting to your opponent.

You have to act first.

Let’s start with what we know.

A very bad killer from Mom and Dad and Uncle Harry’s past is back. Her name is Alex Kork, and she’s murdered over a dozen people, and those were just the victims I could research. She’s skilled in taekwondo, has won shooting competitions, is highly intelligent, and completely insane.

Though I’m not a psychiatrist and don’t have any desire to become one, I have read the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, and Alex has all the traits of the Dark Tetrad.

She’s a narcissist who thinks she’s superior to others.

She’s a psychopath who lacks empathy.

She’s a sadist who enjoys hurting others.

She’s Machiavellian and craves power.

Alex comes from a family of killers, so her mental issues have both genetic and environmental components. If she didn’t inherit it, abuse caused it. Nature plus nurture. According to online research, she likely embodied the Macdonald Triad as a kid; bedwetting, setting fires, and cruelty to animals.

Alex Kork was destined to be a serial killer. And she’s good at it. She’s one of the toughest criminals Mom has ever faced.

I agreed with Mom’s assessment that Alex is likely watching us right now.

I disagreed with Mom’s assessment that we should wait for Uncle Herb and Uncle Tequila to fly in and search for her.

If Alex is watching us, she’s also watching out for herself. Uncle Herb used to be Mom’s partner in the Chicago Police Department, and Uncle Tequila used to be a mob enforcer. They are both smart and tough, but they probably won’t be able to sneak up on Alex without her seeing them coming.

Besides, waiting for someone else to save the day is admitting you can’t help yourself.

I believed I had a better plan.

I was 97% sure that I could check out the neighborhood without being seen.

The key is to be small and fast and know how to move.

So I went into my bedroom and put the KNOCK FIRST sign on my doorknob. My parents have one for their bedroom as well. We’re big on respecting privacy in this household.

Then I placed a neodymium magnet on my windowpane, next to the trip sensor. All of our windows and doors were hooked up to a central burglar alarm system. Opening them without disabling at the keypad allows the switch to pop up and trigger the alarm, triggering the system and alerting us to intruders.

It works well… unless something keeps the switch closed. Something like a strong earth magnet.

Now I could open my window and find Alex.

Scary. A little risky.

But also fun.

And, like I overheard Mom and Dad discussing earlier, it was so much better to be proactive instead of reactive.

Mom and Dad were more than just badasses.

They were also heroes.

If I ever wanted them to take me seriously, I needed to show that I could be a hero, too.

So I grabbed the gear I needed—

—opened the window—

—checked to make sure the coast was clear—

—and I slipped outside.

THE GOLEM

Undisclosed location…

Lester Paks believed hunger was a disease, like cancer.

Lester’s hunger grew, and grew, becoming stronger and more uncontrollable, until it threatened to devour Lester.

The only cure was for Lester to eat the hunger before the hunger ate Lester.

Lester had to feed the monster at any cost.

Raw meat satisfied Lester the longest. Chewy flesh, lumpy fat, stringy veins, lubricated with blood so Lester could eat faster.

Faster was better for Lester.

Sooner was better for Lester.

Younger was better for Lester.

Younger was much better for Lester.

Young and tender and pure and juicy were Lester’s favorites.

Also, scared.

Lester loved scared.

Fear made the raw meat sweeter to Lester.

Fear is the best flavor.

Dr. Plincer told Lester it was because of the adrenochrome.

Adrenochrome oxidized adrenaline, which happened in a person’s body when they were afraid.

So Lester made people afraid.

Lester scared people with his appearance.

Lester scared people by terrorizing them.

Lester scared people by hurting them.

Lester knew many ways to hurt a person.

Lester could make a person hurt for a long, long time.

The longer a person hurt, the more adrenochrome a person would make for Lester.

Lester thought adrenochrome made the flesh taste like birthday cake.

Lester liked how eating adrenochrome made Lester feel powerful.

Adrenochrome helped control the hunger monster inside of Lester.

And the hunger monster in Lester was growing again.

Lester needed the raw flesh.

Lester needed the adrenochrome.

Lester needed to eat a child.

Lester needed to eat a frightened child.

Lester needed to eat a frightened child while the child was still alive and screaming.

Lester could not let the hunger monster win. The hunger monster wanted to kill Lester.

Lester did not like death. Lester could not eat when Lester was dead.

Lester remembered dying.

Lester remembered death…

FLASHBACK

Long ago, and not so long ago…

Lester raised his hatchet high up out of the cold water, poised to come down on Sara Randhurst’s skull.

He swung the weapon as well as his injured body could, bringing it up over the port side of the gunwale, aiming to split her in half.

Sara somehow caught the handle with both hands and let out a guttural scream.

Then something tore into Lester. Something sharp and ravenous and powerful.

A motorboat propeller.

Lester screamed like a high-pitched tornado siren, his entire body shaking as the spinning prop ripped into his back.

As Lester tried to stay afloat, his blood turning the water around him pink, the blades hit again, higher, cutting into his neck.

And then the hunger devoured him.

A hunger both black and hot, both silent and thundering. One that cut Lester into pieces while simultaneously smashing him into a pulp.

Death was hunger. Hunger was death.

The cycle repeated. Perhaps forever.

And then he woke up. Tied to a bed.

Ravenous.

The people holding him captive weren’t like those that sliced him up and mashed him to pieces. They restrained him, but showed mercy.

However, they didn’t feed Lester what Lester needed to eat.

Only when Dr. Plincer came to save Lester did Lester get to indulge in flesh.

Live mice, at first.

A squirrel.

A bunny.

After leaving Michigan, a series of pet store purchases and roadkill.

And then, finally, inevitably, after an eternal tournament of neglect and pain and hunger, Lester got to eat his first real meal since being killed.

A homeless man, found under the elevated train tracks on Chicago’s south side.

He had been high or drunk, sleepy and immobile, barely able to fight Lester off as Lester removed his stinking shoes and dirty socks and ate his foot.

Like gnawing an old, dry apple, down to its core.

The blood tasted… off. The man’s inebriation blocked the pain and fear and juiciness that adrenochrome provided.

They packed the bleeding man into their van, and Lester munched as they drove west, gaining strength as the indigent lost his.

Taking his food to-go. Heh heh.

Lester ate his genitals, first. They were his favorite.

Then Lester ate his hands.

Then Lester ate his face.

The face was the reason the man finally expired. Lester tried to put a tourniquet around the man’s neck to stop the bleeding, and, well…

It didn’t work out.

Dr. Plincer made him dump the corpse when it began to stink, much sooner than Lester should have abandoned such a delectable flesh feast (the more rotten the meat, the easier it is to chew).

Then Lester once again began a slow, spiraling descent into suffering. Suffering that went on for years.

The doctor recruited the witch, and the paladin. They smelled delicious, but Lester wasn’t allowed to eat them.

Lester wasn’t allowed to go outside. His appearance would draw attention.

So much horrible hunger, but no one to eat.

Once, when left alone, Lester ordered a pizza.

He ate the pizza driver.

But Lester had been too eager, going for the throat, tearing out his carotid with his sharpened and cracked teeth, killing the delivery man before his adrenochrome had reached its peak.

Worse, when the man didn’t return back to work, there was a direct trail back to their hideout.

Dr. Plincer had forced the team to move to a new location. Lester had been given a stern lecture but was allowed to keep the body, albeit frozen rather than moist and tender.

When he finally finished the human flesh, no more was allowed.

Just more animals. More pets. More roadkill.

Misery after misery.

Not as miserable as being dead, but close.

Lester survived in a state of constant deprivation. A fish yearning for water. A vampire yearning for blood.

Then the team finished their training and undertook their first real mission.

Destroying Jack Daniels and those close to her.

Next would come Sara Randhurst. Sara and her child, a young boy.

Lester wanted the young boy.

But Jack Daniels also had a child.

A young girl.

A tasty, tender young girl.

Lester drooled at the thought of chewing on her, each bite made sweeter by the constant spikes of adrenochrome.

Dr. Plincer knew how to keep a suffering human being alive.

With the right medical attention, Lester could snack on Jack’s daughter for days. Even weeks.

He had a picture of her. A digital picture, given to him by the paladin.

He was looking at it now.

“Sam…” Lester whispered to the cheap cell phone Dr. Plincer had bought him for team communication.

“Lester wants to meet you, Sam. But you…” Lester laughed, low and hoarse and clogged, sounding like a crocodile gargling. “You won’t enjoy meeting Lester…”

ALEX

Destiny, Colorado

The needle on the syringe was thin and sharp, designed for quick and easy penetration.

It still hurt like crazy.

Alex alternated between her left and right tear ducts, and if her hand and head remained steady and her aim remained true she could insert the cold steel with a quick, hard jab without flinching from the pain.

But depressing the plunger, injecting the serum into her brain, resulted in an instantaneous cross between a migraine and an ice-cream headache that made her world blurry and her balance wonky.

The feeling always subsided slowly, fading in intensity minute-by-minute until all that remained was a hangover-ish lingering ache, which continued for several hours after crying tiny rivulets of blood.

So it was with total lack of enthusiasm that she lifted her weekly dose to her right eyeball, keeping her eyelid pried open with one hand while aiming the syringe with the other.

I need this to live.

As much as it hurts, it is better than death.

Even knowing the stakes, Alex wavered.

“Your hand is shaking,” the paladin said.

“I’m fine.”

“Do you want me to do it?”

Alex’s eye darted away from her reflection in the mirror and bored into the paladin’s. “I said I’m fine. I thought you were going to the airport.”

The paladin shrugged. “Flight delay. Pushed back an hour.”

Alex refocused on the mirror.

Do it. Just do it.

The needle tip hovered above her tear duct, her hand tremor worsening.

“It helps if you pull the upper lid away.”

Alex considered yanking her sidearm from her shoulder holster to shut the woman up, but the paladin was a quickdraw expert. It remained to be seen who was more accurate, but the lady once known as The Cowboy was likely faster.

Focus on the injection. Then focus on the plan.

Dealing with The Cowboy can wait.

It will happen sooner or later, but for now it can wait.

Letting the burst of anger fuel her, Alex jabbed the needle into her tear duct, then had to adjust the angle slightly to find the hole Dr. Plincer had drilled in the lacrimal bone so she could shoot the dose into her hypothalamus.

Alex found the sweet spot, squeezed the finger flange, and pushed on the plunger with her thumb—

—and she administered the injection.

For a microsecond—or perhaps it was a thousand times a thousand years—her brain scrambled, turning reality inside out, pressure and pain merging with her thoughts until it hurt to think about hurting, and then she withdrew the needle and let the dull ache overtake her, a single rivulet of red trickling down her cheek.

Tears of blood.

It’s probably a metaphor for something.

Hiding the pain from the paladin, Alex thumbed away the crimson streak and struck a defiant pose, shoulders back and chin up.

“Aren’t you due for your injection?” Alex asked.

“I’ve got a few hours.”

“You know what happens if you’re late.”

The wizard had warned them how their bodies would react if they didn’t take the reformant every 168 hours. First, the worst headache any human being ever endured, the result of the brain breaking down and swelling up, pinching blood vessels while squeezing forcefully against the meninges. The pain becomes debilitating, and eventually paralytic.

Leaving the body frozen in place, awake and aware, as every organ, every muscle, every bone, every nerve, every cell, liquifies and decays.

Plincer said the last thing we’ll be aware of, other than the agony, is the stench of our own bodies rotting.

A poke in the eye once a week seemed like a warm hug by comparison.

Alex turned her attention to the Zeiss rangefinder binoculars on the tripod, aimed through the van’s one-way glass window and fixed on Jack’s house nineteen hundred meters away. She could only focus with the eye that wasn’t bleeding, but she saw it clear as day.

Jack’s daughter. Sam. Coming out of her bedroom window.

“The little bird is fleeing the nest,” Alex said.

She moved to the side so the paladin could look. After wiping blood off the eyepiece, the paladin confirmed the sight.

“Interesting.”

“Sneaking out of the house. Maybe she doesn’t fully appreciate the threat.”

“I think she does,” the paladin said. “She’s not going to a friend’s house, or heading to the corner store for candy.”

“What’s she doing?” Alex gave the paladin a nudge so she could have another look.

“She’s looking for us,” the paladin said.

“How do you know?” Alex checked the binocs again. “I see. Smart kid.”

“If she were smart,” said the paladin, “she’d have her parents help her. And I don’t see any parents.”

The paladin stood, her bones crackling.

“Where are you going?” Alex asked.

“I’m going to introduce myself.” The paladin smiled, always an ugly thing to behold.

“If you grab her, use your vehicle and meet me at the strip at the designated time,” Alex said. “I’m going to nudge McStupid and then dump the priest.”

The paladin nodded. “If anything happens, I’ll text.”

She exited the van, and Alex opened up her laptop to check McGlade’s livestream.

His FartCam counter was at 53.

Ugh. I can’t believe I married that guy.

The things a girl does for revenge.

She logged in as AlexKork372215 and joined the chat.

—I found a hole in your security grid, jackass. I’ll be coming for you later.

Harry read it aloud at his desk, then said, “Bring it on, skank. I’ll pimp slap the taste right out of your mouth.”

Should I be bold?

Give the loser a hint?

Sure.

He’s too dense to figure it out.

—You don’t think I’m smart enough to fly under your radar?

“If you’re really Alex, you’re not smart enough to find your own asshole with a map, a flashlight, and a hand mirror. Here’s a hint; check between your legs while you shit and follow the log back to the source.”

—I’m going to enjoy seeing you again, McGlade. I’ll message you when I land, and let you know when I drop in.

That was way too coy.

But he was way too stupid to get it.

“I know you can’t get enough of McGlade’s McNuggets. But I’ve upped my standards. I only have sex with human beings.”

McGlade read a comment by one of his far-too-many braindead followers.

“Good point, ElvisLives988,” he said. “I also have sex with fruit. And the last melon I ploinked was twice as smart as Alex Kork. And better in bed.”

Alex risked asking one more leading question.

—Can McDog fetch?

“Can McDog fetch?” Harry said onstream. “What kind of stupid question is that, AlexKork372215? You’re so dense I’m beginning to think you really are my ex-wife. Yeah, he can fetch. He’s a state-of-the-art robot dog. He can fetch all sort of things. Maybe he can fetch you a functioning brain.”

—Can he fetch a 230lb sack of shit?

“Why are you asking? Did you let yourself go? Couldn’t get any Harry McNuggets so you binged on real McNuggets? McDog is a robobeast. Maybe you should stop by and he can drag your fat ass around my property a few dozen times.”

Perfect. This is going to be almost too easy.

Alex logged out. Then she checked her watch.

See you in less than five hours, Harry.

I’m looking forward to the reunion.

JACK

Destiny, Colorado

Emboldened by my mother/daughter talk with Sam, I decided to tackle another batch of cookies.

Chocolate chip. How hard was it to eff up chocolate chip? I didn’t even need to look up a recipe because it was printed on the package.

As I was chiseling away at the brown sugar with a fork because it had solidified into the consistency of granite, my cell phone buzzed.

I checked the number and immediately picked up.

“Scott Hajek,” I said. “It’s been a while.”

I’d worked closely with Hajek for years. He was on the CST—Crime Scene Team—when I was in the Chicago PD. Smart guy, sweet, helpful.

“Hi, Loot. Good to hear your voice.”

“How’s Lauren?”

“Wife’s good. Everything’s good. Mortimer Hughes called me.”

“I figured. Thanks for getting in touch.”

I heard him take a deep breath and let it out between his teeth. “So… Alex Kork…”

The taste in my mouth got sour. “Yeah.”

“Her body was taken from the morgue right after you… uh…”

“Killed her. Who took her, Scott?”

“We’re not sure. I checked the morgue logs. A mortician signed in, picked up the body.”

“Name?”

“Name is fake.”

“You sure it’s fake?” I asked.

“He signed the logbook R. Mortis.”

Rigor mortis. Cute.

“Who was on duty at the time?” I asked.

“Cheswick.”

“Does he remember anything?”

“It doesn’t matter. He passed a few years ago. Believe it or not, he fell off a cliff.”

“Seriously?”

“Mountain climbing. He was an adrenaline junkie. I used to warn him about that. But I couldn’t stop him. And… he finally hit rock bottom.”

I winced. “Is this true? Or are you testing out your lame jokes on me?”

“It’s true. He started climbing, and it was all downhill from there.”

“Ugh.”

“One more?” Scott asked.

“If I have to.”

“We can blame global warming. Cheswick couldn’t adjust to climb-it.”

“I appreciate the help, Scott. But not the puns. Thanks.”

Just as I was hitting the End button I heard Scott say, “But I do have something, Loot.”

“I can’t take another mountain climbing joke.”

“Really? I was just about to hit the peak.”

“What have you got, Scott?”

“I went through the security tapes when Alex’s body was taken. Pulled a face pic of the perp.”

“Did you try facial recognition?”

“No hits. But the video was grainy, and my database is limited. I’ll send it to your phone if you know people who can do all that James Bond crap.”

“Thanks, Scott. Send it. And take care.”

I did know some people who can do that James Bond crap. My spy buddy Chandler had a sister who was a tech genius, and I had a convoluted way to get in touch with her if I ever needed help.

But when Scott forwarded the picture, my hope diminished. It was a blurry frame from an old videotape, in profile, from a high angle. The image was so poor I couldn’t even tell if the guy was bald or not.

Even so, Fleming had worked miracles before, so I forwarded the pic to my email, booted up my laptop, used the Tor browser to get on the deep web and find the fifty digit dot-onion site, and posted the image on Fleming’s private message board.

Then I went back into the kitchen and revisited the cookie recipe. Phin caught up with me in the kitchen.

“Baking again, huh?” He stood behind me and placed his hands on my hips.

“If at first you don’t succeed.”

“You’re following the recipe or improvising?”

“Following the recipe to the T.”

“Got the right extract this time?” he asked.

I picked up the bottle and jiggled it. “Vanilla.”

“And I see you have baking powder.”

“Excellent observation, Mr. Troutt.”

“I am also observing that the recipe calls for baking soda, not baking powder.”

“They’re the same thing,” I said. “Aren’t they?”

“I’m not Betty Crocker, but I don’t think they’re the same, Jack.”

My confidence flagging a tad, I checked the Internet.

Shit. He was right.

“I already added it. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“And that big, clear container of white granules? That’s sugar, not salt?”

“Of course it’s sugar.”

“Maybe, I dunno, put a label on it? You got them confused before.”

“When?”

“A batch or two ago. I put the whole thing in my mouth and swallowed so much sodium I got arrythmia.”

I opened the suspicious container, dabbed a finger in, and touched it to my mouth. “It’s sugar. You’re gaslighting me.”

“Are you sure you’re not gaslighting yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is this really about baking?” Phin asked.

“Of course. What else could it be about?”

“We’re facing a real threat here, and you’re focusing on cookies. Either you’re avoiding responsibility, or you’re being incredibly irresponsible, or…”

“Or?”

“Jack, do you think this baking thing is just a metaphor for other things going on in your life?”

It took me five seconds to understand his point.

“I’m trying to exercise control in a situation I have no control over,” I stated.

“And?”

“I’m trying to prove I’m worthy.”

“And?”

“And I’m terrified and avoiding reality.”

“So maybe less baking, more focusing on the killer trying to destroy our family?”

All good points.

“I hear you,” I said. “But I really need to be able to make a good batch of cookies. Does that make sense?”

Phin shrugged. My phone buzzed with an unknown number. I put it on speaker.

“This is Jack. You’re on with Phin, too.”

“His name is Mordecai Plincer,” Fleming said. She wasn’t big on greetings.

“Hi, Fleming. How’s Bradley?”

“He’s hard at work without any annoying interruptions disturbing him. Unlike me, who has to drop everything to do favors for people.”

“How did you get a name when the picture I sent was so—”

“I’m brilliant,” Fleming interrupted. “The less you talk, the quicker I can get back to the things I need to do.”

I waited a beat, then asked, “Want me to reply, or—?”

“Mordecai Plincer has three doctorates in subjects that will take too long to explain to normies.”

“Harsh but fair,” Phin said under his breath.

Fleming continued. “Plincer published six peer-reviewed papers on brain function and chemically manipulating emotional behavior. He had a lot of controversial ideas. The kind of stuff that would interest the Department of Defense. His chemistry checks out.”

“I sent the pic a few minutes ago,” I said. “How did you have time to read—”

“Does your cell have a mute button?” Fleming asked.

“I think—”

“It does. That was sarcasm. You need to stop talking. Plincer disappeared several years ago. I did some digging. He was involved with an incident on Rock Island, in Michigan.”

I knew about this. “The cannibals.”

“Sarah Randhurst was one of the survivors. You met her in the Tumbleweed Motel in New Mexico a while back.”

“How did you—”

“Phin, hit her mute button.”

Phin met my eyes and put his index finger to his lips to tell me to shut up.

“Plincer died on that island. That’s where my verified intel ends. But there are rumors if you’re into conspiracy theories.”

Neither Phin nor I said anything. Fleming pushed on without prodding.

“The DOD has been working on an experimental substance that reanimates dead tissue. Source unknown. Could be non-terrestrial. The military might have resurrected Plincer with that, and since he snatched Alex Kork’s corpse… you can connect the dots. Before you butt in with questions, there’s more. I did some extra checking.”

How did Fleming do all this checking so quickly? I needed to figure out her time management protocol.

“Plincer might be putting a team together. You know about Safe Haven, Wisconsin. My sources have said there are attempts to recreate a domestic terrorist team known as red-ops. So be warned; Plincer and Kork might not be working alone.”

There was a pause.

“Can we ask questions now?” I asked.

“I’ll give you one question each then I have to go.”

“So this resurrection serum—” I began.

“I’ve heard it referred to as reformant. It’s bad news. Don’t go anywhere near that stuff. It could drive you insane, or make your brain explode, or worse.”

“What’s worse than your brain exploding?” I asked.

“Have you ever seen a zombie movie? This isn’t some sort of magic Lazurus potion. It’s serious shit, untested, dangerous. But if you happened to get your hands on some, send it to me so I can analyze it. But don’t touch it. Or taste it.”

Why the hell would we touch or taste something that could turn us into zombies?

“Do I get a question?” Phin asked.

“Yes, and that was your question. Be safe, guys.”

Fleming hung up.

“That woman gets right to the point,” Phin said.

I looked at my husband, my brow creasing with concern. “I’ve heard about red-ops. They’re a special forces team made up of psychopaths. A red-ops squad killed hundreds of people in Safe Haven, Wisconsin. Not far from where we were in Lake Niboowin.”

“Call Sara.”

I nodded, finding Frank and Sara Belgium in my Contacts. She needed to be warned that a team might be coming for her.

Which made me realize that Alex Kork might not be our only problem. If this Dr. Plincer and the DOD were involved, a red-ops team might also be coming after my family.

“Can you check on Sam while I call?”

Phin nodded and walked out of the kitchen while I tried to figure out how to tell a friend of mine that the horrors she left behind years ago might be returning.

HARRY

Los Angeles, California

I’ll be honest; I was a little rattled.

But I didn’t want to let the over thirty thousand people in my livestream know how much AlexKork372215 was getting to me.

Earlier, on a bathroom trip where the cameras couldn’t see me grunt out a stinky boom-boom, I’d looked into my subscriber list to find AlexKork372215’s sign-in data.

She paid monthly with a store bought Visa gift card. Untrackable.

Listed her address as Belgium, and I was pretty sure that no one actually lived in Belgium, so she was probably using a VPN and faking her location. Untrackable.

The password she used was one suggested to her by my software. So I couldn’t search password breaches on the deep web and try to connect her to a real person, because most people reused the same password on multiple sites. Untrackable.

Real Alex or Fake Alex, they’d covered their tracks.

So I forgot about it and decided to read more from my soon-to-be-bestselling book of verse, I’m A Poet, You Can Blow It.

This time I turned off comments, so viewers could enjoy the magic of my prose without having to endure the shitposting hatefest trolls who lacked cultural etiquette.

“Look, I know this isn’t everybody’s jam. Feel free to skip it if you want to. But I have to say that life isn’t all about conflict and drama and moving the story forward. Sometimes you just need to take a break and do something mindless and fun. So go ahead and tune out, but you should stop and smell the roses sometimes, even if it makes you late for work. Now here we go…”

Salmon Spawn by Harrison Harold McGlade

Salmon spawn,

On my lawn,

It turned brown,

And now it’s gone.

Nursing Home Delinquent by Harrison Harold McGlade

Give me your tapioca!

Or I’m gonna choke ya!

Brownie Mix by Harrison Harold McGlade

I ate a bowl of brownie mix,

While Mother took her nap,

She yelled, “That wasn’t brownie mix!

“You ate a bowl of crap!”

Choking by Harrison Harold McGlade

I am choking on a yak!

I am choking on a yak!

Won’t somebody please hit me

On the back!

Yak! Yak!

My viewership declined a bit, but not as much as it had during my earlier recitations. Which unequivocally proved beyond any doubt that most people adored it, and it was just the vocal negative few who were swinging public opinion. It happened all the time on social media. You see some knobjob posting about how something sucks, and you think that must represent the masses, but it’s just the tyranny of the minority.

There are books on that. Look it up. The world isn’t as negative as we think.

Emboldened by likely virtual lovebombing, I pressed on.

Anal Sex by Harrison Harold McGlade

I had anal sex,

With my girl Britt,

She got knocked up,

The kid looked like shit.

True Story by Harrison Harold McGlade

I swallowed an apple seed,

But it came out when I peed.

Jeff by Harrison Harold McGlade

No one likes,

My cousin Jeff,

He’s a nice guy,

But has bad breff.

Hair on My Balls by Harrison Harold McGlade

There’s hair on my balls!

There’s hair on my balls!

And now there’s hair on my tongue!

Return of the Salmon by Harrison Harold McGlade

There are salmon spawning,

On my awning,

They’ve been there since

Two in the mawning.

Diarrhea by Harrison Harold McGlade

Diarrhea!

Diarrhea!

My ass is leaking!

Woe is mea!

My viewership seemed to be holding steady.

Very steady.

Which seemed weird, because usually my numbers were in a state of constant fluctuation.

On a hunch I refreshed my browser and reopened comments—

—and saw I’d lost half of my audience.

Frickin’ half! Those poetry hating culture deniers!

Apparently the world wasn’t ready for I’m A Poet, You Can Blow It.

Maybe I was deluding myself.

Maybe that explained the seven hundred and eighty-three rejection letters I’d gotten.

Maybe I really did suck.

Well… shit.

I threw up my hands and backed away from my desk.

“Okay, world. You win. I won’t do any more poems.”

The comments erupted with thanks and jubilation.

Congrats, world. You broke my heart.

Rather than dwell on the negative, I switched to FartCam, got the lowest common denominator to cheer, and resolved never to try anything new ever again.

I used the remote to wake up McDog, and he did a few tricks as my views climbed back up.

But, honestly, I really wasn’t in it.

Not that I needed the approval of strangers. But I did need some kind of approval. Usually on livestream I felt important. Seen. Admired. But all the poetry hate made me feel more like a sideshow freak than a relevant entertainment personality.

Did we call ourselves influencers because we were deluded?

Maybe we didn’t influence anything.

Maybe we were just attention-hogs, good for a dumb distraction but not important in the grand scheme of things.

I hit the FartCam, shit my pants, and didn’t even care.

Then I did start to care, because it leaked into my socks.

I went to the bathroom to change without even telling my viewers where I was going.

I didn’t want to let them see me cry.

Woe is mea.

PHIN

Destiny, Colorado

As I walked to Sam’s room I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length hallway mirror.

I’m not a vain guy. My most expensive clothing item is a $20 pair of Levi’s I bought second-hand. The only hair product I use is soap. I only shave when Jack complains that my stubble is prickly on her thighs.

Once upon a time I did so much blow and booze I passed out in an alley and woke up soaked in my own piss with a rat chewing on my finger, probably thinking I was dead.

So I didn’t care much about my appearance, and I didn’t give two shits about what people thought of me. And for that matter I didn’t think much of myself.

But…

I didn’t like the looks of that forty-something guy staring back at me in that mirror. Those twenty buck jeans were a little too tight, and they weren’t tight when I bought them. I once had a six-pack, and now I had a bit of a beer gut.

The Phineas Troutt of five years ago could have kicked the shit out of me in a street fight.

Was it just aging?

Was it letting myself go?

Was it… becoming respectable?

Not caring about myself didn’t mean I wasn’t self-aware. I knew, years ago, I was a number one badass. That fight I had with Tequila Abernathy was after I’d been beaten and starved in captivity. He won the fight, sure. But at my peak, I could have given him a lot more trouble.

But this guy in the mirror?

Sam was right. I’d gone from being a number one badass to a number two badass.

Shit. Maybe even a number three badass.

Men were predisposed to size each other up. It was in our genes. When we encountered another male, we assessed their danger level. Ask any guy you know what they think of when they meet someone knew, and you find out that one of the first things that go through our minds is, “Can I take him if I need to?”

Looking at myself, I thought I could take him.

Which was problematic. It meant other guys would look at me and think the same.

It also meant that I probably couldn’t beat up the guys who I expected to be able to beat up.

WTF happened to me?

And it wasn’t just my soft body that pissed me off.

It was my eyes.

I didn’t look like a stone cold killer. I didn’t have the thousand yard stare that I used to, the one that warned others to back off.

I looked… kind.

I used to have scowl lines. They’d been replaced by laugh lines.

I wouldn’t trust this guy in the mirror to protect his family.

And as I considered that, I watched my kind eyes become fearful.

A guy who couldn’t protect those he loved wasn’t worth his weight in carbon.

In the other room, I heard Jack talking to Sara Randhurst. Sara was married to a guy named Frank Belgium. A scientist. Skinny to the point of scrawny, boasting a stammer, when he was a kid he was the type who got bullied in school.

But when Jack and I met Frank and Sara, we saw toughness. Mental toughness. They were kind, but they also had a Gadsen flag attitude. A don’t tread on me attitude.

The kind of attitude Jack and I used to have.

The kind of attitude Jack and I had somehow lost.

Sara and Frank were going to be safe.

I’d assumed my family would be safe, too.

But looking in that goddamn mirror, I wasn’t so sure.

I had lost my edge.

The first time Jack arrested me, I’d beaten the shit out of four gangbangers. Tough little punks. But I’d been tougher.

This guy in the mirror wouldn’t be able to hold his own against four high school kids.

“Toughen up,” I told my reflection.

My reflection didn’t appear to listen.

Shit.

I walked away and got to my daughter’s closed door. She had her KNOCK FIRST sign on the knob. We’d instituted the signs years ago, when Sam had walked in on Jack and me when we’d begun fooling around. So we had a long talk about privacy, and respecting boundaries, and giving people their space.

I gave the door a little rap, shave-and-a-haircut, and waited.

No answer.

“Sam? It’s Dad. Just checking on you because your mom is a worry-wart.”

Sam didn’t reply.

Duffy came up to me, ears back, tail down, his droopy hound face looking more somber than usual.

I knocked harder. “Sam? I’m coming in.”

Fair warned, I opened the door—

—and saw an empty room, her bedroom window open.

I yelled for Jack, yanked the Beretta PX4 Storm 9mm out of my ankle holster, and ran for the window.

DR. PLINCER

Undisclosed location…

The basement was all set up for the witch and the paladin, chairs in place, handcuffs and ropes and ankle restrains ready.

The workbench was loaded with items of torture. Things for burning. Things for slicing and cutting. Things for smashing. A few eighteen volt power tools that weren’t meant to be used on the human body.

Next to the pain causing items were the healing items. Smelling salts and EpiPens. Tourniquets and hemostatic granules and gauze in case an artery was cut. Two IV stands with saline drips for fluid loss.

And reformant, of course. Both the paladin and the witch didn’t want death to be the end for the unlucky souls whom they sought vengeance against. It was theoretically possible to keep regenerating a human being for weeks—or months with a feeding tube—to continue inflicting pain. While Plincer’s synthetic reformant serum didn’t have the rapid healing properties of the original provided by Cormley, it did a reasonable job at reanimating and sustaining tissue.

I’m infinitely curious to know the source of the reformant.

But Cormley wasn’t keen on sharing.

Which is fine. As far as I know, the DOD had zero success in replicating the chemistry of the red-ops formula I used. The solution was to mix their reformant with my own serum, and the only place that recipe existed was my brain.

We all have secrets, Cormley. And why should I share when you don’t?

Plincer fussed with the cardboard blocking the single basement window—they didn’t want passerby peeking inside—and then startled and let out a gasp when he noticed the hulking figure of Lester standing at the bottom of the stairs.

I hadn’t heard him. For a large man he can creep around very well.

Maybe some of that special forces training stuck.

Unlike the paladin and the witch, who sucked up instruction like sponges, the golem wasn’t as teachable. The specialists sent by Cormley didn’t even attempt to give Lester flying lessons, and it was a lost cause to get him to pick a lock.

But the giant had sure mastered stalking.

“What can I do for you, Lester?”

The tall, gaunt man didn’t reply. But his lips parted and a glistening line of drool leaked down his chin.

“I see. You’re hungry. Did you check the refrigerator? There’s a raw turkey in there. It’s got a packet of giblets inside. You enjoy organ meat.”

“Lester doesn’t want turkey.”

“I appreciate your appetite. But this isn’t a good time. We’ll have guests arriving soon.”

“Lester needs live flesh.”

“And it’s coming. Tonight, if all goes according to plan. You’ll only have to be patient for a few more hours.”

Lester’s mouth opened wider, baring his pointy teeth.

“Lester needs live flesh… now.”

The wizard didn’t like the intensity of the golem’s glare.

I have been able to enhance evil using science.

I can even resuscitate tissue.

But I’ve failed at being able to control the human mind.

Lester’s will was his own. I can influence his actions with various types of positive and negative reinforcement, but I can’t bend him to my will. I can’t make him obey.

Unlike the paladin and the witch, where I had some control because they needed me to keep them supplied with reformant, knowing that without me, they’d die.

Lester, however, wasn’t motivated by fear of death.

All that motivated him was his insatiable hunger.

Lester took a step toward Plincer, walking around the tripod with the powerful klieg light. He raised his hands, approaching like Frankenstein’s monster.

“Lester! I need you to control yourself.”

Lester maneuvered around another camera light, and continued to come closer.

He’s going to eat me.

I’ve been bitten by Lester in the past. It ranks as one of my unhappiest memories.

The scientist considered picking up the portable drill, or the reciprocating saw, to keep the monster at bay, but he knew that even with a power tool he couldn’t mount a good defense. Escape also seemed unlikely; the staircase was the only way in and out of the basement, and Lester blocked that route.

I can’t die yet. I still have so much to do.

But there is no way I can get around Lester.

Which means…

Plincer swallowed the lump in his throat.

Which means I’ll have to give him what he wants.

Plincer angled himself toward the torture workbench and picked up a tourniquet.

I wish I had some Demerol or some other sort of injectional pain reliever. But that would defeat the purpose of having a torture workbench, wouldn’t it?

As the salivating Lester closed the distance, Plincer removed his lab coat and pulled his undershirt sleeve up, baring his liver-spotted, pockmarked shoulder. He quickly tied the rubber tube up under his armpit and cinched it tight to restrict blood flow.

“Please don’t take too much muscle,” he pleaded with the golem. “Even with the reformant it takes longer to grow back.”

The wizard had no idea if Lester heard him, or cared, because the golem reached out and snatched his wrist, pulling Plincer so hard he jerked the scientist off his feet.

Then Lester’s horrible jaws clamped onto the doctor’s forearm.

The pain was excruciating. Made even worse because Lester’s shark teeth couldn’t easily get through Plincer’s tough skin and tissue.

Less like a slicing. More like ripping.

The golem shook his head side to side like a dog, gnashing his teeth to tear out a hunk of flesh, and Plincer screamed and involuntarily stuck out his hand to push Lester away, which did nothing.

Eventually a hunk tore free, and Lester chewed it like a bloody wad of bubblegum, and Plincer felt himself starting to pass out…

I can’t pass out! He’ll devour every bit of me!

As his vision swam and blurred and darkened, Plincer snatched an EpiPen from the workbench and jabbed it into his own thigh, injecting himself with adrenaline so he stayed awake.

His heart rate shot up and his senses sharpened.

Just in time, too.

Because Lester was reaching down for a second bite.

By the third bite, Plincer had gone hoarse from screaming.

By the fifth bite, Plincer’s forearm bone was visible through the torn flesh.

I can see the gnaw marks on the humerus.

Which isn’t humorous at all.

Ha ha! Pain is breaking my brain!

Plincer somehow managed to grab some reformant serum and stumble past Lester, scrambling to the staircase, barely making it back to the first floor, locking himself in the bathroom, collapsing into the bathtub, and punching the needle into his tear duct just as blackness overtook him.

SAM

Destiny, Colorado

Iknow I’m not grown up.

But I’m smart.

My parents always told me trust needs to be earned. The same goes for respect. And for loyalty.

The question I have is; how can I earn trust and respect and loyalty if my intelligence is constantly being disregarded because of my age?

Maybe I should be involved in plans, instead of being protected all the time.

Maybe I should be given responsibility, rather than always being someone else’s responsibility.

Of course I’ll make mistakes.

I’m just asking to please be included instead of excluded.

Please weigh my opinion based on the strength of my opinion before it is dismissed as the ideas of a kid.

Also, it’s useless to waste energy worrying about something. Or someone.

Worry, like guilt and regret, is based on a lack of control. It’s easy to feel helpless when you have no control. You can’t change the past, and there are certain future events that you can plan for, but never truly master.

A much better emotional response to uncertainty is to focus on what you can do, not what you can’t do.

Just sayin’.

THE PALADIN

Destiny, Colorado

Sam is a very bright kid.

But not as bright as she thinks.

The paladin watched through the binoculars from her elevated vantage point sixteen hundred meters away, one of many clear lines of sight in the neighborhood due to the elevated rocky terrain. Jack and Phin’s daughter stood alongside their house and did something very smart.

She’s launched a remote control drone.

It wasn’t a military-grade aircraft, but it wasn’t a child’s toy, either. The paladin had seen similar models used by video streamers to get overhead video shots. Sam’s drone had four propellers, and was large enough to hold some formidable batteries and a cell phone, which likely functioned as a camera, recorder, and GPS.

While simply being able to fly a drone was a task that most nine-year-olds could master, what Sam did with the drone was impressive. She started on their street and began to systematically canvass the entire neighborhood, zooming down the streets in a methodical, orderly fashion.

The same approach I’d use.

During the last few years of special forces training, one of the countless exercises that the paladin, the witch, and the golem engaged in was escaping a large hedge maze.

The witch used a roll of twine, an example set in the Greek myth of Theseus and the labyrinth.

The golem, not quite as clever but far from stupid, dropped stones to mark the paths he’d already travelled through.

The paladin had a different method. She simply stuck out her left hand, touched the hedge wall, and followed it to the left.

As long as she kept her hand on the bushes and kept moving forward, she knew she’d eventually escape. And she did, faster than either of her companions. If you trust the process, you don’t have to use your brain. Human error couldn’t enter the equation.

Sam used a similar approach. She piloted the drone and simply followed the right-of-way down each street. At every intersection she always turned right, and whenever she wound up at a spot she’d already flown over, she took the next turn, keeping within her neighborhood.

She’s looking for a vehicle that’s near enough to be watching her house.

And at the rate she’s going she’ll find our van in less than ten minutes.

The paladin unholstered a Smith & Wesson 686 Performance Center Competitor, the first of a pair of .357 Magnum revolvers she’d recently purchased.

The sidewalks are still empty because of the freezing drizzle, and there aren’t many cars.

Gunfire only gets reported when there are multiple shots.

People ignore a single BANG! because they always believe it’s something other than a firearm.

She dropped to one knee and assumed a shooting stance, aiming at the drone. When it swooped within fifty meters she fired at the nearest propeller.

One shot, one hit. The drone immediately dropped, bouncing hard onto an empty cul-de-sac.

Holstering her weapon, the paladin jogged to the spot where it landed, crouched next to its remains, and studied the cell phone attached to the chassis.

“Who are you?” The child’s voice came from the phone speaker.

She can see me through the camera.

The paladin smiled, remembered how frightening her face appeared, and then pulled the balaclava up over her mouth and what remained of her nostrils.

“I’m a neighbor. I saw this airplane fall out of the sky. I think it’s broken.”

“It’s not an airplane. It’s a drone. Can you see what’s wrong with it?”

“I can’t really tell. One of the helicopter thingies is busted.”

“Oh, no. My dad is gonna kill me.”

He’ll have to get in line, little girl.

Let’s see how smart she actually is.

“Are you Sam? I know your parents. Jack and Phin, right?”

“Yeah. Who are you?”

“I’m Ann.”

The paladin did some quick mental gymnastics.

This is an intelligence gathering mission. Reconnaissance.

The plan is to take care of Harry McGlade first, shoot some provocative video, and eventually lure Jack and Phin into a trap.

If possible, Tequila and Herb could also be taken.

The trap is a good one. It had high potential to snag the whole group at once, once it’s finished.

But grabbing Sam would save a lot of time. Make everything simpler.

Strike when the iron is hot, right?

“Want me to stand guard while you come and get it?” the paladin asked. “It looks very expensive. I wouldn’t want someone to come by and steal your father’s expensive drone.”

After a hesitation Sam said, “I… I’m not supposed to leave the house.”

Of course you’re not. There are monsters hunting you.

You’re talking to one right now and are entirely clueless.

“I understand. I know about Alex Kork. You can see I’m not Alex, can’t you?”

“Yeah. Alex has a nose. What happened to your nose?”

Your goddamn mother dropped a ton of marble on me.

“It was an accident.”

“Is that how you got all of those pink scars on your face?”

“Most of them. I can bring the drone over, if you want me to. I know you don’t want your parents to find out. It can be our secret.”

There was another short pause, and the paladin wondered if she’d pushed it too far.

Stranger danger vs. pissing off your parents. What’s it going to be, little Samantha?

“Thanks, Ann! That would be great!”

The paladin smiled under her mask.

It’s important to have a good plan.

But never underestimate the importance of dumb luck and improvisation.

“I’ll be right there, Sam. Just stay put.”

The paladin checked her cell phone. Herb and Tequila’s flight was still delayed.

I have plenty of time.

She picked up the drone with one gloved hand, and with the other she unhooked the taser gun from her belt.

Then she began walking toward Jack’s house.

The suburbs were quiet, pleasant, boring.

This housing development could be anywhere in the USA. Rows and rows of indistinguishable single-family dwellings, picket fences enclosing the backyards and mailboxes at the end of every short driveway. Every street identical, every resident interchangeable.

The paladin wondered, given different circumstances, if she could have lived her life like this. Gotten married. Had kids. Joined the PTA.

Ludicrous, right?

Me? Being satisfied with quiet normalcy?

It wasn’t ever in the cards.

Ann Steinhoffer had appetites. Something in her DNA made sadism attractive, and compelled her to violence.

People weren’t equals. They were fools. Weak. Toys to be played with. Prey to be stalked.

She’d been born with a hole in her, and the only thing that could fill it was the pain of others.

And yet…

When I died, I felt what I’d done to others, a hundredfold.

I felt fear and anguish.

I felt helpless and weak.

I felt…

A need for redemption?

A need for forgiveness?

A need to confess and purge my sins, like that sicko priest?

Ann wanted to dismiss this feeling, because it went against her core.

But walking through the neighborhood, the paladin felt conflicted.

I’m on my way to kidnap a girl.

We have a torture chamber all set up.

We’re going to stream it live on camera.

This is the kind of thing that gets me excited.

So… why don’t I feel excited?

She wondered if dying had changed her.

A mid-life crisis? A mid-death crisis?

Am I coming to the realization that there is more to life than pain?

The paladin dismissed the feeling.

It doesn’t matter. It’s too late for me.

I’m scarred, outside and inside.

I’m unfit for the regular world.

My chance to be normal died at Usher House, years ago.

As she approached, the paladin made sure the camera on the drone’s attached cell phone was covered, and she raised the binocs and noted that Sam no longer stood alongside the house.

“Sam? I’m getting close but I don’t see you.”

After a few seconds Sam replied. “I went into the backyard. Mom and Dad are in the living room. I don’t want them seeing me through the window.”

“Okay. I’ll walk around back.”

The paladin resumed her trek, then paused and considered her actions.

This is an unusually smart little girl.

Could she be luring me into a trap while I’m trying to trap her?

In a game of chess, setting traps was how intermediate players won. Staging rudimentary plots that they hoped their opponent wouldn’t see in advance.

Expert players didn’t trap. They won by anticipating every possible move.

If I am aware there could be a trap, I’ll see the trap. Forewarned is forearmed.

The paladin proceeded at a wider arc, coming at the house from the side, making it to Jack’s fence and peering through the slats onto the property.

The backyard appeared empty.

Two seconds later, the drone vibrated. The paladin checked the phone and saw a text.

—Dad almost saw me! Can you just leave the drone by the gate?

The gate was on the other side of the fence. The paladin followed the perimeter around, contemplating the best way to lure Sam outside. When she reached the gate she tucked the taser gun under her armpit and tugged off her glove with her teeth. Using her middle finger she replied to Sam’s text.

—OK. I’ll leave it here.

The paladin placed the drone on the grass, making sure the camera faced down, and just as she let go of it the propellers whirred to life, startling her, making her step away.

That was when something fell from above, slamming into her, smashing her into the ground.

A large, strong body—a man—pinned Ann down and relieved her of her revolver, and then the gate swung open and Jack Daniels stood at the threshold, pointing a revolver of her own at the paladin’s head.

“Don’t move,” Jack said, her voice low and steady, “or I will kill you. Again.”

JACK

Destiny, Colorado

While I held my gun to The Cowboy’s face, Phin gave her a thorough frisk, pulling an ankle derringer, a folding knife, a cell phone, some cash. Then he held her wrists while I cuffed her hands from behind, and we dragged her into our backyard, through the patio doors, and into the kitchen.

“You okay?” I asked my husband.

“You mean after throwing myself off our roof and body slamming this nutjob like The Macho Man Randy Savage?” He switched to a Macho Man voice. “I’m freakin’ awesome.”

“Your pinky is a little, uh…”

Phin looked at his hand and noticed his little finger had a knuckle bending the wrong way. It was shaped like an L.

“Oh. Shit. That’s not right.”

“I hope it hurts,” The Cowboy said.

I shoved the barrel of my Smith & Wesson up her balaclava, into her nostril hole. “You want to target my family, you bitch? The only reason I’m not caving your skull in right now is because there’s a child in the house.”

“You can go ahead and do it, Mom.” Sam was standing in the doorway. “I know all about her. Ann Steinhoffer. Known as The Cowboy. She’s a torturer and a murderer. She almost killed you, and she hurt Uncle Herb and Uncle Tequila. It’s highly unlikely she can be rehabilitated by the justice system. The humane thing to do with a rabid dog is to put it down.”

“She’s a real sweetheart,” Ann said.

“Get the first aid kit,” I told Sam.

We sat Ann down in a metal kitchen chair, and Phin used his good hand to hold a gun on her while I duct taped her ankles to the chair legs. I also taped her thighs to the seat, so she couldn’t stand up. The chair was well-made, solid, strong.

“And now… now I’m starting to feel it a little,” Phin said while staring at his crooked finger, beads of sweat on his forehead.

“Want me to snap it back into place?”

“I’ll do it myself when Sam comes back. I want her to see how tough I am.”

“You’ve got quite the dysfunctional little household here, Jack,” Ann said. “Maybe I should give child protective services a call.”

I tugged her balaclava down, revealing her twisted, scarred face.

“Where’s Alex?”

“Alex who?”

I felt my rage flare up, but I held it together.

Phin was right. I’m struggling to maintain control.

I can do this. I can remain detached.

I used to be a professional. Time to see if I still have it in me.

Sam came back with the first aid kit and opened it on the table.

“Do you want a shot of lidocaine, Dad?”

“A number one badass doesn’t need lidocaine,” he said, holding his finger and abruptly yanking it straight.

The cracking sound made my soul wince.

I watched the color drain from my husband’s face, and I helped ease him into a chair before he passed out. Then I prepared a syringe of anesthetic and gave his rapidly swelling pinky an injection.

Sam gingerly put an aluminum finger splint on him and wrapped it loosely with gauze.

“You’ll live,” Sam announced.

“So what’s the next move?” Ann asked. “Call the police? And tell them what, exactly? I don’t have any outstanding warrants. I’m dead. Right now you’re the ones breaking the law. Assault. Kidnapping. I was being a Good Samaritan, returning your property, and you attacked and detained me.”

“I’ll tell the police you touched me in the bathing suit area,” Sam told her.

“Sam, go check on Duffy in your room.”

“He’s fine, Mom.”

“Sam, it wasn’t a suggestion.”

Sam made a face and padded off.

“Where’s Alex?” I asked again.

“Are you going to beat the information out of me, Jack? With your daughter here?”

She was right, of course. This plan had been entirely spur of the moment and not thought through.

Ten minutes earlier, when Phin saw Sam had gone out the window, we both went into full panic mode. But our daughter explained she’d just stepped outside to set down the drone and was then going to show us how it worked. Which she did, searching the neighborhood for Alex.

Then when the drone was shot out of the sky we improvised the rest. But I almost shit a brick when I saw The Cowboy’s ugly face show up on the screen.

Still alive. One of the worst people I’d ever encountered. Every bit as awful as Alex Kork.

And then the evil creature tried to lure Sam away.

I was ready to kill her. Not just out of anger, but out of practicality. These psychos kept coming back to terrorize me and my family. Our smartest bet was to take her out onto the plains, dig a hole, and bury her deep.

But we were the good guys. Good guys didn’t do shit like that.

Phin was now soaking with sweat, and his breathing belied his pain. He rooted around in the first aid kit for a bottle of tramadol, and dry-swallowed a few.

I picked up The Cowboy’s cell phone, hoping for fingerprint or face recognition, but she’d been smart enough to use a numeric password.

“Five digits.” She snorted. “Only ten thousand combinations.”

“Besides Alex and Plincer, who else are you working with?”

Her smile faded.

“Do you think you’re good enough to be on a red-ops team?” I asked. “You just got played by a little girl.”

To her credit, The Cowboy stayed quiet. An old, reliable interrogation technique was to let the suspect know what you know, and let them believe you knew even more. That would get them to reveal things that they thought were already shared knowledge.

But, truth told, it had been a long time since I’d questioned a perp.

The oven beeped. Phin got up, turned it off, and took out my tray of chocolate chip cookies, which had spread out to cover the entire pan, the thickness of a credit card.

Okay. I still suck at baking.

But maybe I don’t suck at being a cop.

I can do this.

Phin set the tray on the counter, got a glass of water from the sink, and swallowed it all down in a few greedy gulps.

I decided to change topics.

“What was it like to die?” I asked.

“Awful.”

The speed and anger in her answer surprised me.

Can she actually remember her death?

Judging by her posture and her tone, she seemed eager to discuss it.

I leaned closer. “Can you describe it?”

“I can show you,” Ann said. “Just uncuff me.”

I set my gun down, and interlaced my fingers. “I don’t believe you can recall dying. You’re messing with me.”

“Imagine the worst pain you ever felt. Then multiply it by a thousand.”

Phin began to laugh. “So karma is real. That’s hysterical.”

“You’re trying to trick me for some reason. Why?”

“No tricks, Jack. Death is agonizing. Every nerve is on fire. Every thought is terrible. No hope. No sense of self. Just fear, and agony, and…” The Cowboy looked away. “Sadness. Unbearable sadness.”

“You went to hell,” Phin said. “That’s hysterical.”

“You think so?” The Cowboy sneered. “Do you have a clean conscience? Or have you done some bad things? Ever think that you might have to pay for those bad things?”

“Do you want a return trip?” Phin asked. He picked up The Cowboy’s gun. “Maybe you tell us about Alex, or I send you back to hell.”

My husband had a look in his eye I hadn’t seen in a while.

That scary, no bullshit look.

“Phin…” I warned.

“Alex is probably close, Jack. When this piece of shit doesn’t check in, that will trigger some sort of failsafe plan. And then Alex will be gone. She’ll disappear and we won’t find her until she has another go at us. We have to get her to talk.”

“Phin… let me handle this.”

“You won’t hurt her. How are we supposed to make her give up Alex?”

“Phin, put the gun down.”

“Maybe we could force feed her some of your cookies. That would make me talk.”

“Phin…”

“What’s wrong? Am I embarrassing you in front of the psychopath?”

“Phin!”

Phin blinked, then seemed to become suddenly aware that he was pressing the barrel of the gun so hard into The Cowboy’s face that her septum began to bleed.

“Check on Sam,” I told him.

He nodded, placed the gun back on the table, and walked out of the kitchen.

Opiates helped with pain. But the tramadol also lowered his inhibitions. His inner demons, the ones he’d buried for years, had returned, no doubt resurrected by the pain and stress and drugs.

If I hadn’t been there, Phin would have hurt this woman. Or worse.

Apparently I’d been wrong about Phin being domesticated.

“Your hubby has some anger issues,” The Cowboy said. “It’s sexy.”

I blew out a stiff breath. “Look, Ann. I’ll be able to keep things calm for a little while. But you might already know who’s coming over.”

She didn’t reply.

“Herb. And Tequila. Herb hates you, and I bet it would be therapeutic for him to spend a bit of time with you and a baseball bat. But deep inside, he’s decent. He has lines he won’t cross. But Tequila…”

The Cowboy hadn’t looked afraid when Phin was pressing the gun into her nose hole.

But at the mention of Tequila, fear sparked in her eyes.

“Everyone breaks,” I said. “You, more than most people, know this. But I’m thinking that pain isn’t going to be the prime motivator here. Tequila will hurt you. Bad. But he’ll also have no hesitation at all when it comes to killing you. Are you eager to die again?”

I hadn’t checked their flight status lately, but last time I looked Herb and Tequila had been delayed for two hours. Which, in this case, was good. It was going to be hard to get Ann to talk. But it would be even harder to stop Tequila from systematically breaking every bone in her body.

“What are my options here, Jack? Put yourself in my shoes. My immediate future is torture. My eternal future is damnation. You can’t promise you’ll let me go, because we both know that’s a lie. So what’s the one thing, in this situation, that will get people to talk?”

I understood where she was going. “Hope.”

“Hope. In some cases, the only hope is that the pain will stop. But I don’t see that happening for me. My only future is pain, and more pain, and more pain. So tell me, supercop, what incentive do I have to tell you anything?”

I didn’t have a response to that. So I stood up, took her gun and phone, and walked into the living room to think.

How do I convince this very bad person to help me stop some other very bad people when nothing was in it for her?

How do I give hope to the hopeless?

Everyone lost hope at some point in their life. Hopelessness was a universal human trait.

But humanity knew a way to counter that. There has been hope since the very beginning, when the first human had been born.

Or, to rephrase that, since the first human being had been created.

I needed to take this interrogation beyond the physical, into the metaphysical.

I went back into the kitchen and calmly sat down across from Ann, who eyed me dubiously.

After almost a minute of staring at each other, she broke the silence.

“Is this where you try to appeal to my good nature?” she asked. “I don’t have a good nature.”

“Do you think you actually went to hell?”

She looked away.

“Over eighty percent of the people alive right now believe in some sort of religion,” I said.

She met my eyes again. “Do you?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly, trying to sound like a friend. “I believe there is more to life than this short time we have on earth. I believe we have a consciousness, and that it might also be called a soul. Organized religion and believing in an afterlife aren’t mutually exclusive.”

I leaned forward, knowing I’d really have to sell the next thing I said.

“I believe you, Ann. About what happened when you died.”

“What’s your point? You think I’ll feel better if I confess my sins?”

The way she said it was less cynical than I would have expected.

“Do you want to confess your sins?”

She glanced away again. I tried to approach the tactic from another angle.

“Most religions offer a path to redemption,” I said. “Prayer. Meditation. Confession. I honestly don’t know if being sorry for the bad things you’ve done will lead to forgiveness from a higher power. If there is a higher power. But God isn’t the only one who can forgive.”

“You want me to confess to you, so you can forgive me, and I can bask in your kindness and mercy. That’s insane.”

“As insane as being hopeless?”

She didn’t answer.

“Maybe you don’t need me to forgive you. Or God to forgive you. Maybe you need to forgive yourself.”

“Spare me your proselytizing bullshit and just shoot me. I’d rather go back to hell.”

This time I didn’t answer. I let the silence work on her.

It took two minutes this time, but once again Ann was the first to talk. “You know you cheated. The last time we met.”

“I lived. You died. Seems like I came out on top.”

“You know what I mean.”

I nodded. “I won the only way I could.”

“By cheating.”

“Sure. By cheating. I did what I could to protect myself and my family. You threatened my child, Ann.”

I felt my anger rising up again, and I put my hands under the table so she couldn’t see me tremble. I quit the police after I had Sam because I couldn’t bear the thought of some criminal targeting her.

“I wouldn’t have killed her,” Ann said.

“Really? You expect me to believe you?”

“Believe me or don’t. I don’t care.”

“You’re saying you would have left Sam alone after killing me?”

The Cowboy stuck out her chin, defiant. “I would have taken her.”

I clasped my hands together, hard. “And sold her. A fat paycheck on the dark web. Charged admission on your website so sick pedophiles could watch her raped and tortured.”

I leaned closer, using a ridiculous amount of energy to appear calm.

“You think you’re the only one who could raise a child, Jack?”

I wasn’t sure I believed what I was hearing.

“You thought you could keep her?” I asked. “Raise her yourself?”

She didn’t reply.

“Are you actually serious, Ann?”

“You really think we’re so different, Jack? That you’re so superior to me? We’ve both made mistakes. We’ve both hurt others. We’ve both killed. You want to believe you’re the hero. Guess what? I also believe I’m the hero. All my life, I did what I had to do.”

“And you went to hell for it. Is that where heroes go, Ann? To hell?”

“You can revisit that when your time comes, Lieutenant. We’ll see where you go.”

“Maybe that’s true. But right now we’re not talking about my soul. We’re talking about yours. We’re talking about hope. We’re talking about redemption.”

“There’s no redemption for me.”

“If there’s even a small chance, shouldn’t we try?”

I was relieved the topic had drifted away from Sam, and I let my relief show.

“Tell me where Alex is,” I asked.

“Because I’ll be redeemed? Because maybe my soul won’t burn? Because you’ll forgive me? Is this an interrogation or are you just desperate to unload all of your religion and philosophy nonsense on me?”

“What if it isn’t nonsense?” I asked.

“Bring Phin back. He looked ready to break my legs. I’d prefer that to your sanctimonious bullshit.”

I got up, walked to the kitchen, looked at my tray of awful cookies, and scraped them into the garbage.

There was one more thing I could try.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Ann didn’t reply.

I went back to the kitchen table and sat across from her again.

“I’m sorry for cheating. You wanted a fair gunfight. I couldn’t beat you one-on-one. We both knew that. So I cheated to win.”

“And now I’m supposed to forgive you, and we both feel better?”

“That’s how it’s supposed to work.”

“Eat me, Jack Daniels. If the roles were reversed right now, I’d be holding a blowtorch to your tits and making Sam watch her mother burn and scream.”

My nostrils flared with anger. I wanted to hit her. And she knew I wanted to hit her.

I managed to control myself long enough to walk away.

Phin and Sam were sitting on her bed with Duffy, petting him.

“I got a little aggressive,” Phin said to me.

“It’s okay.”

“I’m guessing she didn’t tell you anything.”

“She didn’t,” I said to him. “I can call Harry. Or Fleming. They should be able to do a brute force attack on her phone to unlock it.”

“How long will that take?” Phin asked.

Longer than we had. When Alex and Plincer didn’t hear from Ann, there would be contingencies. They’d lie low. Regroup.

We might be looking over our shoulders for weeks. Months. Years.

For a brief moment, I thought I’d regained some control. But I was back to despair.

What were we supposed to do? Change our names, again? Move away, again?

Did we have to homeschool Sam until she was eighteen, refusing to ever let her out of our sights?

Phin must have sensed my frustration, because he reached out and squeezed my hand. I squeezed it back.

“Can I try talking to her?”

We both stared at Sam like she’d just grown antlers. I said, “Hell no” at the same time Phin said, “No fucking way.”

“Hear me out.” Sam held up her palms. “I’m a kid, so she won’t see me as a threat. I’ve read the DSM-V, and lots of psychological studies on aberrant behavior, so I know what kind of personality type she is.”

I shook my head. “She’s a killer. And an adult.”

“And my plan caught her.”

“You should have told us about your plan before climbing out the window,” Phin told our daughter. “You’re grounded forever for that.”

“I’m grounded forever anyway,” Sam said. “Unless we find Alex, you guys aren’t ever going to let me out again.”

I glanced at Phin. He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m on painkillers. My judgment sucks.”

“Mom, she can’t hurt me. She’s got cuffs on. Metal handcuffs have a tensile force of five hundred pounds. And you’ll be in the other room, listening. You can use my Bionic Ear gadget. If anything happens, you can come in.” Sam put her hand on my knee. “C’mon, Mom. You know I’m making sense.”

I rubbed my eyes, pissed off at myself for even considering this as an option.

“Mom, remember Terminator 2?” Sam asked.

Phin nodded. “I love that movie.”

Sam pressed on. “John Connor, a kid, is talking to his mother, Sarah Connor, and he tells her, ‘I’m supposed to be this great military leader, maybe you should listen to my leadership ideas once in a while.’“

My turn to put a hand on her knee. Two could play the emotional manipulation game. “You’re not destined to be a great military leader, Sam.”

“Also,” Phin said, “doesn’t John Connor get killed at the beginning of one of the sequels?”

“I don’t want to pull this card, Mom, but I didn’t ask to be in a situation where we’re being stalked by serial killers. I should at least have a chance to do something about it.”

I looked to Phin for help, and found my husband was also looking at me for help.

“Remember Larold and Rita Goodall?” Sam asked. “I did a good job then, didn’t I? And I was younger.”

“You did good, Sam,” her father said. “But there is absolutely no way we’d allow this. No way at all. Ever.”

“Please, Daddy?”

“Okay, fine,” Phin said.

“Phin!”

“C’mon, Jack. We know how this is going to go. She’s going to wear us down and talk us into it, or sneak off and do it. I’d rather she do it in front of us rather than behind our backs. We’ll be one room over, armed. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“I can’t believe you’re even thinking of allowing this.”

“Tell me you weren’t thinking the same.”

“That’s not the point, Phin. We’re her parents.”

“And she’s smart enough to manipulate us. Maybe she can also manipulate the whackjob serial killer.”

“She’s not a whackjob, Dad. According to the International Classification of Diseases, she’s an F60.89.”

Phin gestured with his good hand. “I don’t know what she just said. Maybe that’s a thing. Maybe it’s a lie. But she’s convincing me. Maybe she can get the whackjob—”

“The F60.89, Dad.”

“Maybe she can get the F60 point eight whatever—”

“F60.89,” Sam repeated.

“Just let her try. We’ll be right there.”

I gave up. I might as well just nominate myself for Worst Mother Of The Decade, because I sucked.

But what did I expect? I couldn’t even bake a batch of goddamn cookies.

“If we allow this, Sam, I want you to promise that you’ll walk away if you get scared.”

Jesus. I felt sick to my stomach saying those words.

“I promise, Mom. I’ll be fine. I got a ninety-eight percent on the practice PTC HNC test.”

“Which is what?”

“The Public Agency Council Hostage Negotiation Test.”

“And when did you take this?”

“It was online, Mom. It didn’t cost anything.”

“What was the name of that book again? About raising child prodigies?”

“Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon.”

I needed to read that, ASAP.

But first…

First I needed to stand in the other room while my grammar school daughter interrogated a psychopath.

HARRY

Los Angeles, California

So I was in a bit of a self-pity spiral, wondering how my life had gotten to this point.

Out of money, again.

Chased by killers, again.

Begging for attention, again.

Hating myself, again.

While there were many wonderful things about being Harrison Harold McGlade, there were also some major disadvantages. My mental health was all over the place. I was constantly taking risks. I lived beyond my means. I kept repeating mistakes because I had trouble remembering them.

And I craved approval like a baby craved boobies.

I also craved boobies, albeit for different reasons than sustenance.

Boobies are awesome.

The mock-up cover for I’m A Poet, You Can Blow It sat on my desktop, reminding me that I sucked. Ironic that a mock-up could mock me. But it did.

My viewership hadn’t quite recovered from my poetry slam. And the comment section was filling up with subscribers getting more and more annoyed that Alex hadn’t tried to kill me yet. Some were even calling me a liar, claiming I made this whole situation up.

Look, I chased clout as much as the next guy. But the bond between an online influencer and their fans was sacred, and I’d never stoop so low and pander to—

“FartCam!”

I ripped a good one, then checked my scores.

The wisdom of the crowds averaged it out to a 7.3.

Pretty good. But not the 9.4 I got that time last year when I had to throw away my desk chair.

I got up to get more beans.

When I came back from the kitchen, I killed some time checking my DMs.

Fan message. Fan message. Hate message. Dick pic. Hate message. Fan message. Dick pic. Question about the cancellation of the Fatal Autonomy rebootquel. Dick pic of a very sad looking micropenis. And—

That TheAuthor person.

Feeling masochistic, I read the text.

—When you start feeling essential, that’s when you need to reevaluate things. You’re like a pepperoni topping on a pizza, McGlade. Some people like pepperoni. Some don’t. But it isn’t essential for a pizza. It’s an ingredient that’s easily replaced. If you want meat on your pie, you can get sausage, ham, bacon, even anchovies. But meat isn’t even required. You can get green peppers, or onions, or if you’re feeling perverse, pineapple. So many choices other than pepperoni. Remember that a pizza NEEDS cheese. It NEEDS crust. It NEEDS sauce. Everything else is extraneous, and anything extraneous can be eliminated. The pizza does not need pepperoni. And the world does not need a loser like you.

What sort of lunatic slips that lunacy into someone’s DMs?

A dick pic, sure.

Even some hate mail.

But this turdnugget was going that extra mile to assure me I wasn’t a good pizza topping.

Kiss my stinky ass, TheAuthor. Every pizza needs pepperoni.

I decided to break one of my cardinal rules and reply to this nonsense.

—Hey authorjackass. Maybe you need to mind your own business.

I got an almost instantaneous reply.

—This is my business. We’ve interacted before. I’m God.

I have some religious beliefs, just like I have some political beliefs. But I don’t feel the need to share those beliefs. I believe that anyone has the right to believe anything they want to, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.

Do what makes you happy. Find your tribe of people. Attend whatever church or synagogue or mosque or temple or prayer meeting or meditation group or place or worship or hall of reflection that you see fit. Vote how you want to vote. Have consensual, lawful sex with whomever wants to reciprocate. Just be kind, be respectful, and be willing to help others even if they disagree.

Simple, right?

I’m tolerant of everyone, except for those who preach intolerance.

So I got my tighty-whities bunched up in a stinky little wad when some anonymous pinhead told me I was useless.

—I’ve got almost thirty thousand people watching me right now. What have you done with your life? Pester famous people? There is nothing more pathetic than Internet trolling. I’m blocking you.

And just as I was moving to block the enema-nozzle, they fired back a quick response so fast it had to be cut and pasted.

—You’re dead, McGlade. You’re dead, and unlike Alex, you’re not coming back.

SAM

Destiny, Colorado

Convincing my parents to let me interrogate Ms. Steinhoffer was tricky.

Actually interrogating Ms. Steinhoffer was going to be trickier.

I’ve never had any issues talking with adults. They had lower expectations for a child, and many lacked rudimentary self-awareness. So they’d be less guarded around someone they thought was inferior, and more open to allowing their inner self to slip out.

We all have two versions of ourselves. The one we carefully cultivate to show the world, and the one we keep hidden because we’re afraid to let others see it.

To communicate well, you need to understand your effect on others. You have to know how to communicate silently with body language and gestures. You need to learn what questions to ask, how to ask them, and when to shut up and listen.

Reading people involves active listening. Really paying attention to figure out what they mean, what they want, and what they’re hiding.

Everyone lies. Everyone has secrets. Everyone strives to look good.

Treat a conversation like a game that needs to be solved, and you can figure a lot out.

I know, I’m nine. Mozart wrote “Minuet in G Major, KV 1” at age five. John Stuart Mill learned Latin at eight. Sumire Nakamura was competing in national Go tournaments in Japan at age eight. Blaise Pascal wrote his first treatise at age nine. Michael Kearney has a Guinness World Record for being the youngest person to graduate college, at ten years four months old.

I read a lot, and have pretty good comprehension and retention. I speak well, and have a large vocabulary. It’s not preternatural. I’m not even a savant. I’m simply an uncommon statistic that still falls within the Bell curve.

When I sat down at the kitchen table with Ms. Steinhoffer, I was already at an advantage because she underestimated me.

I needed to press that advantage.

Ms. Steinhoffer leaned back in her chair. A dismissive posture. “I can’t believe your parents sent you out here. They must be really desperate.”

“They don’t believe I can get you to talk to me.”

“So why did they allow it?”

“I’m persistent,” I said. “And I’m cute.”

“I knew a cute little girl once. I burned off her pretty little face with a branding iron. Did you know, when you heat metal until it glows red, and then press it to flesh, it burns off the first few layers of skin. The muscle and fascia underneath cook, and the fatty tissue gets so hot it melts like bacon grease. Can you imagine how much it hurts?”

She was trying to scare me. I kept my face neutral, my body relaxed, my breathing even.

“Is that what happened to you?” I asked. “You were branded?”

“Among other things. I was cute once, like you. Now I’ve got scars all over my body. Ugly scars.”

“They aren’t ugly.”

Ms. Steinhoffer laughed. “Are you kidding?”

“They’re unique. And I like the color.”

“Is disfigured a color? Do they have a crayon labeled freak?”

“You’re pink. Pink is a color associated with femininity, charm, romance, and tenderness. Many psychologists believe the color pink has a calming effect on the mind.”

Ms. Steinhoffer lunged abruptly, bumping the table with her chest, trying to startle me.

I’d been anticipating that, and didn’t flinch.

“Do I have a calming effect on you, Sam?”

I smiled, sincerely. “I’m sure you’re really intimidating when you aren’t handcuffed. I bet you’ve frightened many people.”

“Too many to count.”

“But when I look at you I think of that drink. The pink lady. Ever hear of it? Gin, grenadine, and egg whites. Named after a popular musical in 1911.”

Ms. Steinhoffer leaned back again. She wasn’t interested in this topic.

“Bring your dad back here. He wants to kick my teeth out, and I think that would be more entertaining than being lectured on beverages by a bratty little kid.”

“You spend a lot of time thinking about violence.”

“So does your mom. And your dad. What do you think of violence, Sam?”

“I don’t find violence particularly fascinating.”

“Most people are afraid of violence. They go to great lengths to avoid it.”

“Violence is natural. It’s common throughout the animal kingdom. Carnivores. Parasites. Creatures surviving at the expense of other creatures.”

“Have you heard of surplus killing?” Ms. Steinhoffer asked. “Animals that kill for sport?”

I nodded. “Sometimes, when a fox gets into a hen house, it slaughters every bird, even though that’s much more than it can eat.”

Alex’s posture shifted. Less guarded, more open. She liked this topic.

“And how does that make you feel? A strong fox, slaughtering all of those defenseless hens?”

“It’s interesting. Worth studying to find out the mechanisms behind it, because from an evolutionary perspective its wasteful.”

“Do you have empathy for those innocent chickens, getting massacred for no reason?”

I shrugged. “I eat chicken. Sometimes I don’t finish what’s on my plate, and the food gets thrown away. That’s the moral equivalent.”

“No. It’s not. You didn’t kill the chicken. You let someone else do that dirty work. And the whole reason for it is for food. But the fox… it enjoys killing the chickens. The violence is the whole reason.”

“Is that what you are? A bloodthirsty fox?”

“No. You said it yourself. I’m the pink lady. I have a calming effect on people. Don’t you feel calm right now?”

“I feel… strange.”

Ms. Steinhoffer tilted her head. For the first time during our conversation, she was showing interest.

“Have you ever killed anything, Sam?”

“Sure. Mosquitos, when they try to bite me.”

“Anything else? You have a dog. Ever yank on its tail, to hear it yelp?”

“No.”

“Ever climb a tree and find a bird nest, then crush the eggs? Or even better, push the little squealing birdies out of the nest before they have feathers, just to watch them plop onto the ground?”

“I’ve never done that.” This time I was the one who looked away. “But…”

“But?”

“We were playing badminton in the backyard. With rackets. There was a blue dasher dragonfly near the net. I swatted it.”

“Why? Were you scared of it?”

“No. Dragonflies are harmless to people.”

“So why did you do it?”

“I wanted to see what would happen.”

“What happened?”

“I smashed it.”

“And how did that feel?”

Ms. Steinhoffer’s breathing had increased, and her face had gotten pinker. I knew what she wanted me to say. Which meant I now had a little bit of power over the conversation.

“I’ll tell you if you answer a question,” I said.

“You’re trying to manipulate me, Sam.”

“We’re both trying to manipulate one another, Ms. Steinhoffer. That’s what all conversations are. Except most are boring. People want to be heard, but they don’t want to listen. They want to boast, but not to learn. I want to learn about you, and that requires questions.”

She leaned back again. “Ask your question.”

“Have you heard of Pascal’s wager?”

“Your mother tried this on me. It’s about God. If God exists, then you should believe in Him because you get to go to heaven, and if you don’t believe you get damnation. If God doesn’t exist, what you have to gain or lose isn’t as important. So it makes more sense to believe.”

“If there is a heaven and hell, and there is a chance to save your soul, you should confess. Can’t hurt, right?”

“Confessing means betraying my team.”

“Weigh that against your soul.”

“My team is real. My soul may not be real.”

“Isn’t that worth the risk?” I asked. “Didn’t a member of your team give you a lot of your scars? Why are you loyal?”

Ms. Steinhoffer shifted in her chair. “I answered your question. How did you feel when you killed the dragonfly?”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

Ms. Steinhoffer’s eyes narrowed, like she was studying me.

And for the first time since I sat down, I felt a little scared.

She lowered her voice. “You want me to tell you where Alex is. I can do that. But I need you to do something. In your front pocket, there’s a bulge. Is that a Swiss Army Knife?”

I nodded. “Dad gave it to me. It’s my EDC; my everyday carry. I can’t take it to school, but take it everywhere else. It has nine tools with seventeen functions. I use it all the time.”

“Does it have a short-bladed knife?”

“Yes.”

Ms. Steinhoffer smiled, her pink lips going white. She whispered, “I want you to open the small blade and then stab me in the leg, under the table.”

“What?”

“If you have the strength to stab me, I’ll tell you where Alex is.”

PHIN

Destiny, Colorado

Back before I became civilized, I called myself a problem solver.

I’d help desperate people by doing things of questionable legality. I did it for cash, not for justice. Right and wrong are shades of grey, and I could adjust my morality according to the amount I was paid.

I did some bad stuff.

Most people, depending on the situation, will do bad stuff. Don’t believe me? Go without food for a week and see how easy it is to justify stealing a candy bar.

A small minority of people are bad because they like it. The rest of us, depending on our level of desperation, intoxication, or mental problems, have to start small and work our way up to the really bad things.

Becoming emotionally dead inside is a process of gradual steps. A sliding scale of numbness. When you get used to a certain level, you can escalate a little. It’s how mobsters can start their enforcer career by breaking someone’s finger, and eventually graduate to hanging people on meat hooks and taking a chainsaw to their legs.

Semi-related, my method of solving problems involved legwork, musclework, and some brainwork. It didn’t involve gadgets. Harry McGlade was big on spy toys, and Jack had her crime scene teams and testing labs to bring science into play while solving cases. Not my scene.

So I was completely out of my depth sitting in the living room, sharing the earbuds from a shotgun surveillance microphone with my wife, listening through the wall as our daughter questioned a maniac.

And I just about lost my shit when I heard Ann whisper, “Stab me in the leg, under the table.”

Less than half an hour earlier, I was plotting with Jack and Sam on how to use her drone to find Alex. I felt pumped up.

It was good.

Shortly after, I was standing on my roof, ready to pile drive on a bad guy, my stomach churning with that macho/stupid feeling I used to thrive on in my thirties.

It was good.

Then I broke my finger, and took some pills.

It was good. Pain and narcotics were like attending a school reunion for me. Welcome, old friends. I didn’t know how much I missed you.

But now the drugs were wearing off and making me nauseous, I was at the mercy of sketchy gadgetry, I felt impotent standing aside while Sam took a shot at interrogating a madwoman, and the madwoman was intent on trying to corrupt her.

I was also scared. Because I didn’t know if Sam would do it, or wouldn’t.

It’s a bad thing to intentionally hurt another human being. Bad for the victim, of course. But also bad for the perpetrator.

Not many people get the opportunity to find out if they’re good at causing harm.

Jack and I, to give Sam and Ann the illusion of privacy, were texting each other so they didn’t hear us. My last text was:

—WTF?!?!?

I didn’t need to read Jack’s reply on my cell because we were sitting thigh-to-thigh and I watched her type it out.

—Sam won’t do it.

I wasn’t so sure.

Sam was tenacious when it came to winning. Recently, board game night had switched from family fun to a fight for survival.

And though I didn’t discuss it with my wife, Sam’s intellectual capacity seemed to come at the cost of her emotional response. While I couldn’t say she lacked empathy, she often came off as cold and calculating.

I didn’t want my little baby to stab someone. Because it might hurt her.

Or worse, because it might not hurt her.

—I’m stopping this.

I stood up, but Jack grabbed my arm and held me back. When I sat back down she typed:

—We agreed to give her a chance.

I gave Jack the stink eye and mouthed, “You ever stab someone?”

She didn’t answer right away, and I watched her go through her memories, likely searching for any incidents with knives.

Her answer didn’t matter. I had stabbed people. And maybe my wife had stabbed people.

But I wasn’t going to let my daughter join Team Stabby.

I stood again, shook off Jack’s hand, and heard Sam loudly say, “No. I’m not doing that.”

I paused.

Ann replied, “Then I’m not telling you where Alex is.”

Okay. Crisis averted.

We’d give Sam another minute or so, then call this stupid exercise over with.

And that’s when we heard Ann groan and say, “She’s parked on Highsmith Road on the corner of Glenwald, in a beige conversion van. If she’s not there she went to dump a body at the First Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Abandon.”

Jack and I were in the kitchen before Ann finished the second sentence. I stopped mid-step in shock, seeing Sam standing next to Ann with her hand under the table near Ann’s thighs.

“You’re going to have to keep an eye on this one,” Ann said, laughing as I scooped up Sam and carried her out of the kitchen, back to her room, as overwhelmed with emotion as I’d ever been in my life.

“Samantha Samantha Samantha… what did you—”

“Dad, geez.”

As I held her at arm’s length she raised her hand, revealing her Swiss Army Knife—

—with the flathead screwdriver extended.

Sam whispered. “I poked her in the duct tape with a screwdriver. It was a bluff.”

Jack was right behind me, and we had a big group hug until Sam tried to wiggle away.

“Mom, Dad, it’s okay. She’s not that clever.”

And neither, apparently, were Jack and I.

“You guys need to go get Alex Kork,” Sam said.

I exchanged a look with Jack.

“If she’s parked, we’ll spook her,” Jack said. “We can follow her out of town, shoot out her tires.”

“Or we can surprise her at the church. Not risk a chase. Abandon is half an hour away.”

“Assuming Ann is telling the truth.”

“It seemed like the truth,” Sam said. “I want to come with you.”

We both looked at Sam.

I said, “No fucking way” at the same time Jack said, “Hell no.”

“We can drop her off at my mother’s,” Jack said.

“You might miss Alex. You need to take me along, Mom.”

“I can call my mother. Have her come over.”

This was all happening super-fast, and my head was still cloudy with tramadol. But Jack’s mom was a former cop, acutely aware of the current situation, and she could shoot the dick off a mosquito at twenty meters. She was currently staying at a hotel in town, under a fake name.

“Call her,” I said. “I’ll get weapons.”

I hurried to the gun safe in the living room, trying to ignore Ann’s cackling.

“She lied to you,” Ann said as I punched in the safe combination. “She’s got that killer instinct, for sure.”

Rage bubbling up, I stormed back into the kitchen, picked up the duct tape, and tore off a strip, slapping it over Ann’s mouth.

I wanted to tell her that Sam tricked her. I wanted to tell her that when I got back, I was putting a bullet in her head and burying her in the backyard. I wanted to smack her around until she stopped that goddamn giggling.

But I held it together. I didn’t say a thing.

I double-checked the tape on her legs and thighs, double-checked the handcuffs, assured myself there was no way she could get out of the chair, checked the tape and handcuffs again, and then went back to the safe, slinging a Sig Sauer M400 TACPAC 5.56 rifle over my shoulder, slinging a S&W M&P12 P.M.-action bullpup shotgun over my other shoulder, stuffing an ammo bag with two boxes of slugs, three loaded banana magazines for the AR-15, my backup Glock 19 Gen5, a box of 9mm cartridges, and for good measure I grabbed our His and Hers Level III bulletproof vests.

I also locked up Ann’s weapons, the revolver, derringer, and knife, just in case.

Back in Sam’s room Jack was telling her to stay there until Grandma Mary came, and I instructed Duffy the Wonderdog.

“Protect,” I ordered.

Duffy was a good-natured animal, normally pleasant around people, and he had sort of a chubby, stupid look to him typical of basset hounds.

But I’d trained him well, and he’d tear out the throat of anyone who messed with his family.

As Jack and I gave Sam last minute instructions to stay in her room and not come out, Duffy sat by the only door to the bedroom, nose pointed, tail rigid, focused on defending Sam.

Still, I was hesitant.

“Dad, I’ll be fine.” Samantha the mind reader. “Go get Alex Kork.”

The urgency to go after Alex was strong. If we got her, we could end the siege.

The urge to protect my daughter was also strong. Leaving her alone was like violating an oath of parenthood.

Sam put her tiny hand on the back of mine.

“I can’t earn trust if you never trust me, Dad. I’ll be okay. I promise.”

I kissed the top of her head, and then we ran for the garage.

THE PALADIN

Destiny, Colorado

The moment Jack and Phin pulled their vehicle out of the driveway, Ann looked around for her weapons and saw her cell phone on the kitchen table, but no guns or knife.

No problem. I can work with that.

While the paladin couldn’t recommend being crushed to death by marble, there was an advantage to having your shoulders snapped off.

It makes dislocating them simple.

Hands cuffed behind the chair, Ann lifted her wrists, raising them to neck-level, and then popped them both out and continued to bring them up to the back of her head.

She tugged off a glove, baring her fingernails, and began to tear at her scalp.

It hurt, and got bloody pretty fast as Ann tore into her skin until she uncovered one of the twenty-nine staples holding her skull together.

With a bit of effort, and more than a bit of pain, she worked the staple back and forth, tugging it out of bone, getting it free.

The handcuffs weren’t easy to pick. Especially behind the back with both shoulders out of their sockets.

But shimming the cuffs—slipping the long, flattened staple under the curved bow arm and getting it between the teeth and the lock housing—was relatively easy.

When her wrist came free, Ann lowered her arms, working the ball joints back into their sockets, and then used the staple to tear at the duct tape binding her legs.

That’s when she noticed it. Or, more precisely, didn’t notice it.

No stab wound in my thigh.

The little fox tricked me.

Ann laughed at the deception, the sound muffled by the duct tape on her mouth.

Nicely done, Samantha.

I’ll punish you for that.

Ann freed her legs, freed her lips, and then shimmed the other cuff off.

She stood slowly, letting the blood flow return to her lower body, catching a glimpse of herself in the reflective aluminum of the toaster on the counter.

I look bloody. Crazed. Monstrous.

Beware the pink lady. She’s coming for you, Sam.

Ann considered her next move. She hadn’t seen the family dog, but knew from infrared pictures that it was sizeable, and its large bowl on the kitchen floor confirmed that.

It’s probably trained.

I’ll need a weapon.

Jack and Phin didn’t seem like the type to leave firearms unlocked. Maybe they had some stashed, but to find those Ann would need to conduct a thorough search, and there wasn’t time.

But I’m pretty sure they missed one.

Moving stealthily, Ann slipped out the patio door and went to the gate where Phin jumped her.

Sitting alongside the fence was her taser gun. She snatched it up.

Useful. But tasers don’t work well on dogs. The electrodes shoot out of the gun on wires with barbs on the ends, and it is tough for those needles to pierce a fur coat.

She considered some kitchen knives, but fighting a dog could get messy, and prolonged, and if she went that route there was a chance Sam could get away.

The dog was likely inside Sam’s room, a coiled spring, ready to pounce.

What to do, what to do…

The paladin began to move through the house, quickly but stealthily, keeping her footfalls silent. She didn’t find any firearms—a shame—but in Jack’s nightstand she did find some prescription sleeping pills.

Score.

Coming up empty on guns, Ann considered another option.

I can’t kill the dog.

I don’t want to fight the dog.

But if that dog is trained to protect the family, like I’m sure it is, there might be another way…

She approached the only closed door in the house, filled her lungs with air, and then turned the knob and yanked it open—

—and instantly a growling blur leapt out at her, and the paladin dodged, spun, then slammed the door behind her while the momentum took the dog out into the hallway.

Not even the best trained attack dog can turn doorknobs.

Sam, sitting at her desk, spun around with wide eyes and actually threw her tablet computer at the paladin, hitting her in the shoulder with considerable force.

But Ann didn’t drop her taser, and the needles shot out and stuck in Sam’s shirt, and then the little girl went rigid like a board and flopped out of her chair, doing the million volt boogie on the floor.

The paladin knelt next to Sam as she convulsed, while the dog scratched at the door and barked. She removed the Swiss Army Knife from the girl’s jeans and tossed it aside.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she cooed. “Like a full-body charley horse. The electricity is making your muscle fibers flex. High voltage, low current. I bet a smarty pants like you knows all about it. But there’s a difference between book knowledge and experience. Tasers are often used as a torture device. I can tell by how your eyes are bulging, and the spittle on your lips, that this is torture for you. I know you want me to turn off the juice. But I’m still angry that I asked you to stab me, and you faked it.”

Ann gave Sam a tap on the nose and winked at her.

“But I can promise you something, little girl. This pain is nothing compared to what we’re going to do to you.”

Ann shook two of Jack’s sleeping pills from the bottle, sat on Sam’s chest pinning the child’s arms, then shut off the taser. As Sam gasped for breath, Ann slapped the tablets into her mouth, and kept her hand over it and her nose, cutting off her air until she passed out.

She woke up a few seconds later, but the paladin had already put the cuffs on her.

“You didn’t look afraid when I was the one handcuffed,” the paladin said. “But now you look terrified. And you should be.”

Terrified, yes. Crying, yes.

But not hysterical. Not sobbing uncontrollably.

She’s a tough one.

The paladin put duct tape over Sam’s mouth just as she heard a car pull up in the driveway.

Did Jack and Phin come back?

She took a quick peek out the window and saw—

—an elderly woman in an old Ford Bronco.

Perfect. I know how to hotwire that vehicle.

“Hey, Sam. Your grandma is here. Do you want me to kill her?”

Sam, tears streaming down her cheeks, shook her head violently.

“Is she a strong old lady?” Ann asked. “How many fingers can I cut off and force down her throat before she chokes to death? I bet I could get at least six.”

Sam moaned hard, and Ann put a finger to her own lips.

“Shh. Don’t make a sound, and I’ll let Grandma live. Unlike you, I keep my promises. Deal?”

Sam nodded like she meant it.

Ann waited until she heard the old woman unlock the front door, and then she eased open the window, amused to see that Sam had bypassed the alarm system with neodymium magnets.

I’m starting to like this kid.

It’ll be fascinating to see how she reacts when I hold a blowtorch to her feet.

Ann guessed the grandmother was armed. She also guessed that Sam, even though she’d been told to behave, would likely try to run.

So the paladin hit the juice on the taser again, and the little girl went rigid, and Ann hefted the sixty pounds of convulsing, dead weight off the floor, stuck her halfway through the window feet-first, and then let her down outside, lowering her by holding onto her hair. Ann quickly defenestrated, touched ground, squatted, heaved up Sam in a fireman carry, and set her down next to the driver side door of the Bronco.

The grandmother had locked it, so Ann shattered the window with a ferocious headbutt, opened the door, and shoved Sam into the passenger seat.

She’d had extensive training in starting vehicles without a key, but on a hunch she checked the glove compartment and found a spare set.

And the wins just keep on coming.

A minute later she was on the road, heading to her own parked vehicle.

Sam was still twitching, and appeared to be passed out. The paladin turned off the taser to save the battery, and two minutes later she’d arrived at her car, which she’d left in a closed factory parking lot.

The girl went into the trunk, and the paladin texted the witch.

—Got the package. Meet you at the strip.

It hadn’t been according to plan, but this would work out just fine. They had a much better chance of luring Jack and Phin into an ambush using Sam as bait, rather than that idiot Harry McGlade.

Things were about to get interesting…

JACK

Destiny, Colorado

We rolled up on Highsmith and Glenwald fast and hard, Phin driving while I rode shotgun with an actual shotgun. But I could see in the distance there was no parked van.

“Go to the church in Abandon?” Phin asked.

Before I could answer, my cell rang. My mother. I put her on speaker.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Sam’s gone and my truck’s gone,” she said, sounding frantic.

I tried to make sense of that. Did something scare our daughter and she drove away?

But then I drew another terrible conclusion.

“Is that woman still tied up in the kitchen?”

“No, Jack. There’s some cut duct tape on a chair. House is empty. Just the cat and the dog. Sam’s window was open. Her Swiss Army Knife was on the floor.”

She took that knife with her everywhere.

Phin slammed on the brakes and spun our SUV around, squealing tires.

“What should I do, Jack? Tell me what to do!” Mom begged.

“Stay there in case Sam comes home. We’re searching for your truck.”

“Jack… Jack… I’m so sorry…”

“It’s not your fault, Mom.”

No, it wasn’t her fault.

It was my fault.

Phin and I should never have left Sam alone.

We never should have let her question Ann.

We never should have put our precious daughter in this position.

We were terrible parents, terrible people, and the nightmare scenario I’d been worried about since Sam was born, that we’d been working hard to make sure never happened, was now happening.

I looked at Phin, saw the fear on his face, knew he was hating himself as much as I hated myself.

“We’ll find her,” I said, with much less conviction than I felt.

While our neighborhood was self-contained, there were several roads leading in and out.

If Ann had Sam, what route would she take and where would she go?

“Turn left on Fulbright, we’ll try the interstate.”

Phin turned hard, and we hit the outskirts and passed the old newspaper factory that closed a year ago because legacy media was dying fast, and I yelled at Phin to stop.

My husband crushed the brakes, then sped toward the Bronco. I got out, shotgun ready, before he fully stopped, took a few stumbling steps to regain my balance, and came up on the empty vehicle, seeing the broken glass from the window.

Sam was gone.

The Cowboy had taken our daughter.

She could be driving any sort of car, heading off to who knows where.

Phin ran up to me and kept repeating, “We fucked up we fucked up we fucked up we fucked up we fucked up,” and I raised my clenched fists in the air and started screaming and didn’t think I’d ever be able to stop.

DR. PLINCER

Undisclosed location…

The pain woke Plincer up.

He realized he’d locked himself in the bathroom, remembered why, and reflexively checked the bite wounds on his arm.

They’d mostly healed, the chunks of flesh Lester had eaten replaced with a jellylike network of regrowing veins, muscles, and bright fuchsia skin. It felt like a combination of a bad sunburn and growing pains.

I suppose it actually is growing pains.

When I was recovering from my Rock Island trauma at Fort Michilimackinac, I’d been in a coma while healing.

I wish I were in a coma right now.

Standing on shaky legs, the scientist opened up the vanity and took the only items in it; a fresh syringe and a vial of xylazine. He unwrapped the needle and dutifully filled it with a heroic dose of the fast-acting sedative.

Enough to put a gorilla to sleep.

I have a lot to do, and that requires me to remain whole. Lester can take a nap until we have someone else for him to munch on.

Plincer hadn’t taken any of the military operations classes, but he’d carefully observed his team and he knew the best way to walk quietly; balance on the outside edges of your foot, placing the heel down lightly, and rolling slowly to the toe. Plincer didn’t shift his weight until he was sure the floor didn’t squeak, and he kept his legs apart so they didn’t rub together and make noise. He quietly unbolted the privacy latch and carefully turned the knob.

Lester usually sleeps after a meal. If I can get to his bunk without him hearing me, I can—

The door was jerked out of Plincer’s hand and thrown open wide, Lester filling the frame, crouching so he didn’t hit his head on the jamb.

“Lester is still hungry.”

Plincer saw his own blood, dry on Lester’s chin, and stood motionless with terror.

“Lester wants to eat… your feet.”

The doctor, overwhelmed by the realization that he needed his feet, managed to strike out with the syringe at Lester’s left buttock, the needle piercing his canvas pants and burying deep in the muscle. He depressed the plunger just as the giant wrapped his enormous hands around Plincer’s neck.

Fingers constricting like an anaconda, Lester forced the doctor to the floor and straddled him. Plincer’s arteries pinched closed, his vision dimmed, and he blacked out—

—and then was awake again, the giant’s body covering him like a shroud, limp and snoring.

Next time I’ll give Lester more credence when we says he’s starving.

It took Plincer a minute to worm his way out from under the sleeping golem. Then he checked his cell phone and read messages from his team.

They caught the little girl. That’s good. It will make Lester very happy.

Plincer checked the time, then went to finish setting up the video equipment and lighting.

It will be fun to watch my team do a torture session.

Nothing takes your mind off your own pain like enjoying the pain of another.

HARRY

Los Angeles, California

The call from Jack was such a gut punch that I took it into the bathroom, where the webcam couldn’t see me.

Samantha. Sweet, super-smart Samantha. She was like a sister to my son, Harry Junior, and practically a daughter to me.

I didn’t love many people. But she was one of them.

I’d die for that girl.

I really would.

“We’ll find her, Jackie,” I assured her. “We have to.”

I lost Jack to sobbing, and Phin got on the phone.

“We don’t know what to do, McGlade.”

“Reason it through, buddy. Alex, and The Cowboy; they want us, not Sam. They took Sam to hurt you. To lure you someplace. Are the cops still there?”

“They’re in the other room with Mary.”

“They’re not going to help. I was a cop. So was Jack. Ask her. Cops will just get in the way.”

“What other options do we have?”

“Where are Tequila and Herb?”

“Still delayed.”

“Forget them.”

“Forget them? Why?”

“They aren’t going to swoop in and save the day. It’s too late for that. We need to do this ourselves.”

“I’m open to ideas, Harry. I’m… I’m at rock bottom, here. I’ve never seen Jack so devastated.”

I made an executive decision. “You guys need to come to L.A. and stay with me.”

“We need to stay here.”

“Bullshit. I know Alex. She’ll take Sam far away from there so there’s no chance local law enforcement can find her. Maybe she’ll even bring here here. I’m the next target.”

“We’re staying.”

“I’ve got guns.”

“We’ve got guns.”

“You’ve got legal guns. I’ve got fully automatic machineguns. Grenade launchers. Flame throwers. All kinds of crazy shit. And I’m a target. They’ll eventually try to come at me. When they do, we grab them, get them to lead us to Sam.”

“We can’t leave Destiny, Harry.”

“Sure you can. If anything happens there, Mary can handle it. And she’ll have Herb and Tequila’s help when they arrive. You and Jackie need to come here. When the three of us put our heads together, we’re unstoppable. Come to L.A.”

Phin didn’t immediately contradict me, so I could tell I was getting through to him.

“Phin, in all of the times we’ve fought bad guys together, have I ever been wrong?”

“Yes. You’re constantly wrong. You get more things wrong than right.”

“So… so maybe now it’s finally time for me to get one right.”

Another pause. Then Phin eventually said, “I’ll talk to Jack.”

He hung up.

I stood there, alone in my bathroom, fighting despair.

Maybe I should shut off the livestream.

Maybe Jack was right, and it was stupid, and I was stupid.

But, then again…

Jack and Phin followed their safety routine, and Sam still got taken.

I was doing the opposite of what they did. And I was still safe.

There’s no way Alex could have planned for the genius twist of me streaming 24/7.

The best way to carry on was to keep doing what I was doing.

Jack and Phin needed me.

Me.

Harrison Harold McGlade.

And I would be there for them.

Me, and twenty cameras. Plus the FartCam.

Me, and my vast arsenal of exotic weaponry.

Me, and my super exotic pets who always save the day.

Me, and my heaps of spy gadgets and survival gear.

I knew Jack and Phin would come. Almost like it had been scripted to happen.

I shook away the worry, put a smile back on my face, and went back into my house to greet my viewers.

We’d find Sam. We’d beat the bad guys.

That was the only acceptable outcome.

Right?

ALEX

Temperance, Colorado

After dumping the priest in the parking lot of the First Church of the Holy Sepulcher—next to the trash cans because that was appropriate—Alex drove south to Temperance, a town of 1400 people and not a single traffic light.

The Anchor County airport boasted two runways, sixteen private hangars, and was non-towered. The fence surrounding the property was to keep out wildlife, not people, and the automatic gate opened with a pressure switch calibrated to the weight of a car.

Alex drove up to Hangar 7, owned by a man named Laddy Hlavacek. The hangar housed an assortment of items, including a wall of shelving stocked with model aircrafts and parts, a twelve-foot workbench, two Craftsman tool chests filled to capacity, a MMXR-3221 cement mixer, ten full rain barrels, a Hyster pneumatic forklift, a pallet of dry cement, two Ski-Doo 600cc snowmobiles, a 2008 Can-Am Spyder three-wheeler, a 1982 Cessna R182RG Skylane, and a large crate filled with dried concrete.

Laddy was in the concrete.

Alex had staked out the airport many weeks earlier, and caught Laddy riding his trike to the hangar, then taking his Cessna for a flight. She was waiting for him when he returned that evening, met him in the hangar, and tied him up at gunpoint.

She’d always wanted to try concrete torture, and since he already had all the equipment for it she jumped at the opportunity. After forcing Laddy into the crate, she covered him with concrete, telling him she only wanted to restrain him and steal his plane, and would alert the authorities to his whereabouts.

It’s funny how naïve people are when they have a gun on them. They’ll believe anything.

The weight of the mixed cement, and the speed it cured, quickly trapped the old pilot.

Then the burning began.

Concrete had a pH of 12 on the 14-point scale. Skin had a pH of less than 6.

Within two hours, Laddy had third degree chemical burns over his entire body, except for his exposed head.

Alex took a few selfies with him screaming. Her and just his bald head. The paladin thought the pics were hysterical.

As entertaining as that was, Laddy wound up having the last laugh after he’d died, because he’d had his Cessna keys in his pocket when Alex entombed him.

Fortunately, prop airplanes were ridiculously easy to steal, no keys needed.

After parking, Alex let herself into the unlocked hangar, turned on the lights, and opened the sliding door.

Making sure all three wheels were chocked, Alex began the preflight. The Cessna, a single engine high wing aircraft (the wings were over the fuselage), had doors that opened like a car. Alex climbed into the cockpit and went through her checklist, testing the lights, listening for the fuel pump, manipulating the yoke, and making sure everything on the control panel worked as it was designed to.

The altimeter had already been set to airport elevation. The wing gas tanks were each at three-quarters, the fuel selector in the “both” position.

We’ll need to fill up to make a trip to Los Angeles without stopping.

Leaving on the nav lights, Alex did a walkaround inspection of the aircraft, testing the hinges on the rudder, flaps, and ailerons. She also checked the elevator, and the horizontal and vertical stabilizer, and made sure the airfoil had no chips or dings that would inhibit lift.

Opening the cowling, Alex did a quick motor inspection and made sure the P-lead was cut. That was the key to starting the aircraft without keys; if the magneto wasn’t attached, the prop could be spun manually like an old-time Sopwith Camel.

The last step was checking the fuel for water using a sump cup. As she was pouring the blue 100LL back into a tank, the paladin pulled up to the hangar. She exited her vehicle and approached Alex.

“You’re not suited up,” the paladin said, stating the obvious.

“Just finished preflight. You were bleeding.”

“Long story.”

“We need to top off the tanks.”

“Get dressed. I’ll load.”

Alex went to the van, stripped, and put on her jumpsuit, making sure her equipment was stashed and secure.

Taser gun, check.

Backup derringer, check.

Pepper spray, check.

Handcuffs, check.

Ratchet straps, check.

Altimeter watch, check.

Xylazine loaded X-2 CO2 pistol buckled in right hip holster, check.

Chiappa Rhino .357 Magnum revolver loaded with six wadcutter rounds buckled in left hip holster, check.

Cell phone…

Alex touched the screen and checked the jpg floorplan of McGlade’s McMansion, a picture of a blueprint courtesy of the Los Angeles County records office.

The bathroom in the northeast corner, on the lower level, was the one that only had a camera focused on the sink, not by the toilet.

She memorized the position and zipped up her phone in a side pocket.

After dressing, the witch picked up their suitcases and brought them to the Cessna, storing them in the back seat next to a sleeping Sam while the paladin fussed with the control panel.

“I said I did the preflight.”

“Just familiarizing myself with the gauges.”

“Maybe I should fly.”

“Maybe you should spin the propeller.”

I’m going to enjoy killing this asshole when the time comes.

After a brief stare down, Alex left the cockpit and walked to the front of the plane. Not entirely trusting the paladin to keep her feet on the toe brakes, Alex left the chocks under the wheels, placed her palms on the left side of the prop, and gave it a spin.

The plane started, and Alex backed away, approached from the side, tugged the chock line, and watched the paladin taxi out of the hangar. She put both vehicles inside where the plane used to be, closed the sliding door, and walked to the fuel pump with the chocks, where she put one of them under the front wheel.

“When are we going to start trusting each other?” the paladin asked her. She had a tiny grin on her face.

I’m pretty sure she wanted me to start the prop so she could release the brakes and watch me get chopped to bits.

“When we no longer want to murder each other,” Alex said.

“So… on the First of Never.”

That was likely the case.

After another manual prop spin, Alex pulled the chocks and climbed into the copilot’s seat. Glancing at Sam again, she said, “I want to carve her cute little face off.”

“Wait for the video feed to go live.”

Alex strapped in, tuned the radio to ATIS, and confirmed the wind direction with the runway windsock.

No control tower, no flight plan required. TCAS was disconnected, so the paladin needed to pay close attention to the skies, following the “see and avoid” protocol.

“I need a nap,” Alex said.

“Sweet dreams.”

Alex closed her eyes and was asleep shortly after the plane took off.

She had no dreams.

Two hours later, the paladin was shaking her awake.

“Los Angeles airspace in five minutes.”

Alex stared out the window into the vast, black night, too high up to see the electric lights below.

She booted up her laptop, connected to the satellite link, and then accessed McGlade’s livestream and tried to log in using her profile for TheAuthor.

The dick had blocked it.

A shame. It was fun to mess with him like that.

She’d been doing it for months, tormenting him with another profile called GOD. Over the course of countless hours, Alex slyly manipulated and negged Harry into doing several things, including more livestreaming.

And now he’s live right now. It couldn’t be more perfect.

She couldn’t use her AlexKork372215 account for the next part of the plan, but it was simple enough to create a new username, and become a Gold Tier member with a store bought Visa.

Alex logged in as Number1HarryFanboy and sent him a DM and a $1000 tip.

—You rule, McGlade! Can you crank the Motörhead tune Born to Raise Hell from their Bastards album and eat three whole cans of refried beans before the song ends? It’s five minutes long. If you can do it I’LL TIP ANOTHER $1000!

Here, fishy fishy fishy. Come take the bait.

“How long to the target?” she asked the paladin.

“One hundred seconds to center. I can loop if needed.”

“Altitude?”

“Steady at ten thousand feet.”

“You sure you can sideslip?”

“You want to take the controls. Fly and jump? I’d like to see that.”

I hate her.

Alex checked Harry’s feed again. He was smiling wide while reading her DM.

“You rock, Number1HarryFanboy! Hell yes I’ll crank the Lemmy and eat some beans! You’ve restored my faith in humanity!”

Alex had to chuckle at that.

We’ll see if he still feels that way when I show up.

She strapped on the parachute and snugged it tight while McGlade went to his kitchen for beans. Right after he opened the first can he started playing the song, blasting it through his home speaker system.

For the next five minutes he won’t be able to hear a thing. Especially his ex-wife, landing on his roof.

Alex started the timer on her wrist, counting down from 4:59.

All those surveillance cameras pointed around your house and property. But none of them are pointed upward.

Dumbass.

“Twenty seconds to target,” the paladin said, “approaching from the east. Beginning sideslip.”

Alex snugged on her goggles, and the paladin performed a right rudder yaw while turning the yoke left, making the plane slide slightly sideways through the sky. The maneuver reduced wind resistance on the copilot door, allowing Alex to push it open.

The wind roared at her.

Alex roared back.

Ready or not, here I come.

“Target target target!” the paladin yelled.

With zero hesitation, Alex jumped out of the plane.

According to calculations, and her fancy high-tech altimeter watch, she would freefall for fifty seconds, deploy the chute at fifteen hundred feet, and then take a three and a half minute parachute ride.

As long as I hit the roof with the heavy metal blasting, he won’t hear me land. I’ve got roughly a ten second window before the song ends.

The world rushed up at her as she plummeted into it, and Alex yawned.

Skydiving didn’t move the needle for Alex. Extreme sports meant nothing to her. Besides sex, the only thing that gave the witch a dopamine punch was torture and murder.

So she didn’t feel anything while hurtling through the air. No sense of excitement as the penetrating night gave way to the sprawl of humanity below, Los Angeles lit up like a Christmas tree. No awe. No thrill. No fear. No worry that her chute wouldn’t open, or that her electronics would fail, or that she’d miss her target, or that she’d die.

Just another day at the office.

The night-vision goggles, GPS targeting system, countdown clock, and altimeter all worked as they should.

Just before she hit 1500 feet Alex tugged the ripcord. Her chute deployed, and her body snapped to vertical with a violent tug. She gripped the steering toggles and tested moving left and right, and looked up to visually check the risers, lines, and canopy.

Shifting attention between her GPS and her visual of McGlade’s house, Alex floated down to the target, coming at it from the southwest, making minimal adjustments and checking her countdown time—sixteen seconds left of the song—before pulling both toggles downward to flare, slowing the chute and her down, hitting the gable roof with a bit more force than her previous practice landings, crumpling onto her side to reduce the impact.

The chute deflated, Alex got onto her knees and pulled it in, then she carefully walked to the aluminum furnace flue; an eight-inch diameter pipe jutting up from the shingles.

It was where the blueprints predicted, over the first floor bathroom. Alex looped her canopy over the flue, stretching the lines out as she walked backward to the gutter on the edge of the roof.

This is the only part I haven’t been able to practice. But in theory, it should work.

Alex got on her knees, and holding her chute she lowered herself, hand over hand, down the side of McGlade’s house, until she had her feet on the brick alongside his bathroom window.

Then she unholstered her .357 and waited, like a spider in her web, for the fly to come.

HARRY

Los Angeles, California
Eight minutes earlier…

For some people, speed eating lukewarm refried beans might seem like a pathetic way to prostitute yourself, and maybe those people are correct.

But I’ve done more for less. I’m a whore. Pay me.

And, honestly, I was curious to see if I could cram down forty-eight ounces of beans in under five minutes. Who doesn’t love a bean challenge? Plus, it was something to kill the time until Jack and Phin arrived. Because of course they got on a plane to come here, so I could help them.

It was destined to happen. Just like this bean challenge.

So I went into my kitchen pantry, grabbed three cans, found a big spoon, turned on every speaker in my house, and cranked up the Motörhead while my live comments cheered me on.

I liked refried beans. Who doesn’t?

And I was okay eating them without heating them up.

I was okay eating them by themselves.

I was okay eating a lot.

At least, I thought I was.

The first can, creamy and beany, was easy to get through in five big mouthfuls. I did it in only seventy seconds, which put me on a good pace to win the grand.

The second can… took longer.

I needed to take smaller spoonfuls, and the texture became problematic. There was an underlying grittiness to the beans. They coated my tongue in a pasty way, kind of like drywall spackle. But beanier.

A lot beanier.

It took me until three minutes and eight seconds to cram the second can down the bean hole. My throat felt like it had been coated with beans. My stomach felt like I’d eaten a wad of cement.

And I still had one more can to go. How did those professional gurgitators manage to survive those eating contests?

Digging into the third can, I wondered how many individual beans I’d eaten so far. Then I wondered what kind of beans refried beans actually were.

“What kind of beans are in refried beans?” I asked my thirty thousand viewers, my voice garbled because my mouth was full of beans.

—pinto beans

—PINTO BEANZ!!!

—pinto

—green beens

—black beans

—its pinto

—Sean Bean

—soybeans

—you’re so full of beans!

—pinto 4TW!!!!!!!

—its pinto Harry

—Beenjamin Franklin

—youre a has-bean!

—pinto, for sure pinto

“It must be pinto beans,” I declared, fighting my gag reflex. “The wisdom of the crowd has spoken!”

I was halfway through the last can with only forty seconds left when I began to suffer from what I could only describe as bean fatigue. My tastebuds didn’t want any more beans. My belly didn’t want any more beans.

“What’s the difference between a chickpea and a pinto bean?” I asked. “I never had a pinto bean on my face!”

Ten seconds to go. “Born to Raise Hell” was at the ending guitar outro. I had one more big spoon of beans remaining, and I didn’t want it.

I really didn’t want it.

But my super-creative mind, confronted with this hurdle, immediately lapsed into poetry mode, and I distracted myself writing a masterpiece while I choked down the remaining legume paste.

Beans by Harrison Harold McGlade

I ate too many beans!

I ate too many beans!

I ate too many beans!

Now I can’t fit in my jeans!

And I finished. Victory wasn’t sweet, because all I could taste was beans.

But I’d done it. Harrison Harold McGlade for the win, once again.

Then my intestines rumbled. Hard. A distress of seismic proportions.

I was going to have a beanquake in my pants.

“I need to get to the bathroom, guys,” I told my webcam. “It’s time to pass the Old El Paso.”

Clenching my butt cheeks together, I did a penguin-walk to the bathroom, stripping as I went because I was one of those guys who liked to be completely nude when I was spackling the porcelain, setting my shirt and shoulder holster on the sink, and barely dropping my pants in time to liquidate the assets.

It could have gone the other way. So I mentally composed a poem about what could have been.

Bean Farts by Harrison Harold McGlade

Flatulance!

Ruined my pants!

The key to that poem was to slightly mispronounce flatulence, to rhyme it with pants. I’m a genius, obviously. And the hits just kept coming, popping into my brain as if by a divine hand, if the divine were preoccupied with taking the Browns to the Superbowl.

Erupting Bowels! by Harrison Harold McGlade

Erupting bowels!

Erupting bowels!

I can’t control them!

Get towels!

I used my phone to quickly jot these masterpieces down, pooping while texting. Harry McGlade: Multitasker Extraordinaire.

Once the evacuation was complete, I pressed an assortment of buttons on my Japanese bidet toilet to gently and soothingly wash away my nether region indiscretions. Warm water squirted, pulsated, fanned, and teased by buttocks and taint areas, and followed up with a warm air dry accompanied by a vibrating toilet seat to massage the thighs.

Best. Toilet. Ever.

I stood, pulling up my pants, and had that weird “being watched” feeling.

Which was obvious, because I was being watched by livestream cameras 24/7.

No cameras in the shitter, though.

Was paranoia getting to me?

Did beans have some sort of consummation tipping point where eating too many spiked your adrenal glands?

I glanced at the window, the blinds drawn, and following a hunch I pulled them up—

—and the window shattered all over me, peppering my bare torso with glass in conjunction with two gunshots.

I stumbled back, falling onto my ass, wondering if I’d been hit, and then my psycho ex-wife Alex Kork swung in through the window frame on a goddamn parachute harness and shot me in the neck.

I slapped my hand to my throat to stop the bleeding, and only drove the tranquilizer dart in further. When I yanked it out, my vision already began to swim and roll and my thoughts became a garbled yet oddly relaxed mess. But I still had the sense to crawl over to the sink, reaching for my .44 Magnum in the shoulder holster while showing myself on the bathroom camera to alert my viewers.

In the race of Alex unbuckling her parachute vs. me fumbling for my weapon, Alex won, beating me to it.

She took my holster, then waved into the camera.

“Hi, everyone. The bitch is back.”

I lunged at her and she did a quick spin kick, connecting with the side of my head and knocking me over, which did not help me focus.

The clever little minx had parachuted in. I hadn’t considered that my surveillance cameras needed to take three dimensions into account.

I should have seen that coming. Oops.

“Call 911!” I croaked at my viewers. “And Number1HarryFanboy, you still owe me a grand!”

“I’m Number1HarryFanboy, you dumbass,” Alex said.

“Really? You’re my number 1 fan? Sweet. Where’s my thousand bucks?”

The tranq dart really took the edge off of the terror.

“You ate those beans like a filthy pig, and of course you had to take a shit. I played you, McGlade.”

I should have seen that coming. Oops.

“I’m also GOD. And TheAuthor. And AlexKork372215. Why couldn’t you figure that out? 372215? You taught me that.”

My brain was rapidly being dunked in whatever narcotic I’d been shot with, but something about 372215 triggered an old memory.

Calculator code. It was calculator code. I’d shown her that 5318008, punched into a calculator and turned upside-down, looked like BOOBIES.

The number 372215 upside-down looked like the word SIZZLE.

I should have seen that coming. Oops.

“Where’s Sam?” I asked, slurring my words.

“You’ll see her soon enough. I’ve got something special planned. Remember that fun time I had with you and Phin?”

Alex found my cell phone, played with the screen, and the next thing I knew, McDog was in the bathroom, coming to my rescue.

I knew it! My pets always come in a clutch!

“Save me, McDog! You’re the best two hundred and sixty-five thousand dollar investment I’ve ever made!”

McDog kicked me in the face.

“Bad McDog! Go back to your charging port!”

“I’m overriding voice commands,” Alex said. “Don’t you remember? GOD is the one who predicted you’d get a robodog. And like an idiot, you did what I said.”

I should have seen that coming. Oops.

Alex knelt next to me, pulling some ratchet straps out of a belly pack. I had little control over my motor skills so she easily bound my arms to my sides and my legs together. Then she attached a carabiner to McDog’s rear eyebolt.

Controlling my robot with my phone, Alex used McDog to drag me out of the bathroom and down the hall.

That’s why she wanted to know how much the robot could carry.

I should have seen that coming. Oops.

“You’re a traitor, McDog!” I wailed as we made our way to the garage.

On the plus side, I was happy I didn’t splurge on robodog’s flamethrower add-on.

Alex played to the cameras as she marched alongside us. “I was so sick of listening to Motörhead every time we drove anywhere in your stupid Mustang. I hated that band, and I hated that car. That’s why I cut your fingers off; so you couldn’t drive stick shift again.”

Using my beloved Motörhead against me.

I should have seen that coming. Oops.

“But I’m going all out this time,” Alex continued her insane victory rant. “I’m cutting everything off. When I’m done with you, you’re going to be a wriggling stump with no appendages left. A torso, kept alive just so I can continue making you suffer.”

“You’re not very nice,” I slurred.

I was very close to losing consciousness by the time we got to my parked Mercedes GLB SUV.

I summoned up one last bit of strength. “I’ll go down on anyone who saves me!” I yelled to the garage webcam. “Eighteen and over only! If you’re under eighteen, I’ll give you my super valuable POG collection! POGs are making a comeback!”

Traitor McDog kicked me in the face again, and as I blacked out I heard her address my loyal viewers.

“Next time you see McGlade, I’ll be torturing him to death. Here’s the URL.”

She held up a piece of paper to the camera with something printed on it.

“Be sure to like and subscribe,” she said.

Then she and McDog were hoisting me into my own vehicle, and that was the last thing I remembered.

Actually, it was the second to last thing I remembered.

The last thing was, “I bet my streaming views are through the roof right now.”

And, honestly, I never saw that coming.

Oops.

PHIN

Somewhere over California

Jack and I had been silent for half of the flight.

Hating ourselves.

Worrying about Sam.

Hoping against hope that maybe McGlade was correct, and they’d go after him next, and maybe we could stop it. Maybe we could force them to release Sam. Maybe this would all turn out okay.

And then McGlade got abducted.

It quickly became the biggest news story of the day. Passengers on our plane started a gossip chain, and everyone got on their phones to see the footage, and when Jack and I saw it I lost her to sobbing again.

Things went from bad to worse when we considered the ramifications.

The police quarantined his property, and we wouldn’t be able to get into his armory, so no access to his considerable arsenal. We’d been in such a hurry to catch the flight that we didn’t pack. And we couldn’t have packed weapons if we’d wanted to. California had strict firearm laws, and according to TSA checked baggage that contained firearms had to be stored in special hard-sided containers, and we didn’t have any of those, and couldn’t find any last-minute.

We hadn’t worried, because McGlade had a metric shit-ton of guns. But now that wasn’t an option.

Those TSA assholes even confiscated the nail clippers Jack had in her purse.

We continued to watch the news play out, Jack on her laptop, me on my cell, logged into the airplane’s WiFi, grateful that at least it was now possible to use phones while flying.

The police shut down Harry’s livestream. Idiots. There was information to be gleaned there.

We got a text message from Herb that they landed and had seen the McGlade abduction and waited on our instruction. We told them to stay with Mary in case Sam was still in Colorado.

We got a voice message from Mary, which was impossible to listen to because she was crying so hard. It was mostly her apologizing, over and over.

We got no messages from Ann. No messages from the Destiny PD or the F.B.I.

And we got over a dozen messages, each, from the media wanting to interview up.

That was the worst. Every time one of our phones buzzed with an unknown number, we answered with a mixture of hope and terror, and it was always some bloodsucking journalist.

The URL that Alex Kork had flashed to Harry’s garage camera had a placeholder page that promised a LIVE SHOW COMING SOON, with a countdown clock running back from 89 minutes. Untraceable, obviously, using VPNs.

I hated myself. Jack hated herself.

There was no point in going over everything we’d done wrong, but I did it anyway, over and over again, wondering why I treated Sam like a peer rather than a child.

We were landing in 61 minutes.

Depending how long it took to taxi to the gate, the live show might start before we even got into a cab.

And I had a terrible feeling about what would be on that live show.

SAM

Undisclosed location…

Iwoke up groggy, thinking I’d had a bad dream.

Then I realized I wasn’t in my bed at home, I was on some sort of blanket in an unknown, mostly-dark room, and I immediately sat up and tried to wave my arms around to fight off anyone who was trying to hurt me but my wrists were stuck together behind my back.

Handcuffs.

Memory hit like a brick to the head.

Ms. Steinhoffer. She got me.

I began to bawl like a two-year-old when I remembered how much that taser gun hurt. It hurt more than anything I ever felt.

And Ms. Steinhoffer was going to keep hurting me.

And Alex Kork was going to hurt me.

And then…

And then I was going to die.

I messed up.

I messed up so bad.

I thought I had a bright future. I bought a Roomba because it was a smart long-term economic plan.

But I had no future.

I’d let myself down.

I’d let down my parents.

They were probably so mad. They probably hated me.

I felt myself becoming hysterical, which I knew was counterproductive, and for some reason thinking about counterproductivity helped to calm me down.

At that moment, I was okay.

Alone and safe.

I had an opportunity to act, and I was wasting it on self-pity.

Because I wouldn’t be alone and safe for much longer. Ann would come for me. Alex Kork, too.

I couldn’t spend the last of my time blubbering like a baby. I needed to figure out where I was, and how to get away.

Less weeping, more thinking.

Like my parents said, it was so much better to be proactive instead of reactive.

I pushed away emotions and tuned in to my environment.

Though I couldn’t see in the room, I could sense it. The space felt empty.

I slowed my breathing down and sniffled up my runny nose and tried to listen to my surroundings.

I didn’t hear anything. No voices. No sounds.

There was a specific odor. Something familiar. But I wasn’t sure where I smelled it before.

My legs could move. I got on my knees and stood up, and while waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness I slowly and carefully navigated the space, lightly kicking my foot in front of me to make sure I didn’t bump into anything.

I found a wall and followed it to the left, toward the only sliver of light coming in.

A board. Rubbing my cheek against it felt rough, like plywood. The light came from the bottom of the wood, and I felt a tiny breeze when I moved my face there to peek.

It was a window. A boarded-up window, with only a few millimeters of space underneath it. No noise coming from outside. I tried to look through that crack, and saw—

—nothing, really.

Outside it was dark. I could see a little bit of street, or maybe a parking lot. A tiny bit of sky, lit by a few stars. Some sort of large sign, a pole in the ground with a round shape on top like a lollipop, a shadowy silhouette.

No street sounds. No traffic.

I explored the rest of the room, following the walls, and found a door opposite the boarded-up window. I turned around, grabbing the knob with my hands. It turned with some resistance, and I could hear and feel the latch working.

But the door didn’t open.

Locked from the outside. Or maybe barricaded.

I continued to search, and the only other thing I found was something hanging on the wall at nose level. A pad of paper, possibly.

This room was small. Even smaller than my bedroom at home.

But it didn’t feel like a bedroom. Or a home.

It felt more like… a school room? An office?

Tile floors, that weird, familiar smell, no furniture or decorations.

A tiny, empty, barricaded office with a boarded-up window. Commercial property, away from any human activity, possibly abandoned.

I didn’t know how long I’d been sleeping. Ann had made me swallow some pills, maybe Mom’s insomnia medication.

I normally started my day needing to go to the bathroom. And I didn’t need to go. And I hadn’t wet my pants.

So I couldn’t have been out for more than a few hours.

I went back to the papers on the wall. I nudged them with my chin, and they swayed from a single point.

A calendar. On a tack, or a nail.

I left it alone for the moment and went back to the blanket for closer examination.

It wasn’t a blanket. It was a sleeping bag. And it had a zipper.

Could I pick the handcuffs with a nail and a zipper?

No. No way.

How did Ann get out of her handcuffs?

I noticed her head had been bleeding.

Maybe she somehow got her wrists wet with her blood, and she slipped them off. She was missing fingers on her hands, so it was possible.

I sat on the floor, put my palms face down, and tried to scoot my butt over the handcuff chain. It worked, and I pulled my legs through and got my hands in front of me.

Standing up, I returned to the window, grabbed a corner of the plywood, and tugged, hard as I could. I even put my foot against the wall for more leverage.

It wouldn’t budge.

I tried the door again, turning the knob and pushing my shoulder against it.

It wouldn’t budge.

I went back to the calendar and reached up and felt around. It was attached to the wall with a flat thumbtack, not a nail.

A thumbtack wasn’t going to be of much help. I left it hanging there.

Sitting back down, I tried to come up with some way to get out of this room. It took about a minute of pondering before I came to the obvious answer.

The way to get out was to ask someone to let me out.

I put my feet through the handcuff chain so my hands were once again behind my back. Then I got up and walked to the door and gave it some firm kicks.

“Hello? I have to go to the bathroom! Hello? Anyone there?”

I kept up the kicking and the yelling until I heard someone walk up and stand on the opposite side.

“Ms. Steinhoffer? Is that you? I need a bathroom.”

Something scraped across the door. And then it opened.

Ms. Steinhoffer.

She was dressed differently, and no longer had any blood on her head. Her face, without the balaclava, was expressionless.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“I expected you to be crying when you woke up.”

“I was crying. Now I need to go to the bathroom.”

She grabbed me by my hair, something I hated, and marched me down the hall. It was dark, but brighter than the room they put me in. I couldn’t move my head much with Ms. Steinhoffer gripping so tightly, but I tried to look around while we walked.

The tiled floor was badly stained with something brown. The walls also had brown and black smudges on them. At the end of the hall was a lighted sign, with the red letters EXIT.

Definitely some sort of commercial building.

There was another closed door, which we passed, and then an open door, where I saw—

A giant. Curled up on the floor. Snoring.

His mouth was open, and he had sharp teeth.

So many sharp teeth.

I suddenly had to pee, very badly.

“Who’s that?” I whispered, not wanting to wake him up.

“That’s Lester. He’s a monster who eats little girls.”

Ms. Steinhoffer began to push me into the bathroom, but I pushed back against her.

“What’s wrong, Sam? Are you scared of Lester?”

“Is there another bathroom?”

“No.”

“Can you take the handcuffs off?”

“No.”

“I can’t take my pants off,” I told her. “Or wipe.”

Ms. Steinhoffer seemed to consider it. Then she said, “Turn around.”

A moment later my hands were free, and then Ms. Steinhoffer abruptly shoved me into the bathroom.

I tripped over Lester, and fell on the floor next to him.

Right next to his snoring, open mouth, full of fangs.

I immediately scrambled to my feet and backed away, bumping into the toilet.

Lester was the scariest thing I’d ever seen. And I’d seen some very scary things. He wasn’t a monster, because monsters weren’t real. But he was definitely a person who did monstrous things.

I bet he really did eat little girls.

But staring at Lester also gave me a twinge of hope.

Because Lester had the outline of a cell phone in his pocket.

“Go,” Ms. Steinhoffer ordered.

“I can’t go if you watch me.”

“Then piss yourself. I don’t care.”

“It’s number 2,” I said.

Ms. Steinhoffer might like hurting little girls. But I was hoping she didn’t like watching people poop. There was very little overlap in the DSM-V between antisocial personality disorder and encopresis; an obsession with defecation.

She pursed her thin lips together, then folded her arms and turned around, facing the other way.

I undid my pants and pulled them down, in case Ms. Steinhoffer turned around to look. Then I took a deep breath and reached for Lester’s pocket.

But I was too scared to touch him.

What if he woke up and grabbed me?

What if he wasn’t really sleeping? What if he was faking it?

I couldn’t help staring at his mouth. So big. So many teeth.

Teeth that had chewed on people.

“I don’t hear anything,” Ms. Steinhoffer said.

“How long does it take you?” I asked, still not able to get up the courage to grab the phone.

“I’m fast.”

“Do you have kids? It can take kids longer. Especially when someone is distracting them.”

Ms. Steinhoffer made a huffing sound, and I closed my eyes and reached for Lester.

I can do this. Mind over matter. Action over inaction.

When I touched him I almost yelped. I had to peek one eye open to find the top of his pocket, and as I wormed my hand in, Lester moved.

I pulled back, terrified, unsure I’d be able to do this.

But then I thought of my mom and dad.

They were badasses.

If I wanted to be a badass like them, I needed to be brave. Bravery, Mom said, wasn’t the absence of fear. It was the ability to do the right thing in spite of fear.

So I clenched my teeth together and went for Lester’s pocket again, this time not stopping, sticking my hand inside and grabbing the cell phone and slowly taking it out, watching his face to see if he was waking up, ready to jump away if he tried to grab me, and then I had the phone and I shoved it into the pocket of my jeans and got on the toilet and started to pee just as Ms. Steinhoffer turned around to glare at me.

“Privacy, please,” I said.

Ms. Steinhoffer gave me privacy.

I finished peeing, pulled up my pants, and flushed the toilet. Then I said, “Done.”

Ms. Steinhoffer looked at me. Looked at me really hard.

“I thought you had to go number 2.”

“False alarm. Just number 1.”

She continued to stare. Did she know? My shirt was pulled down over my pocket so she couldn’t see the phone, but she kept staring at me, like she was waiting for something.

“Really, Sam? I’m surprised.”

One of the tricks of psychological manipulation was to remain quiet. Even when you’re nervous. Especially when you’re nervous. People always want to fill the silence with talking, but if you could outlast them and stay silent for longer, you had the advantage.

Ms. Steinhoffer finally spoke. “Didn’t your parents teach you to wash your hands?”

I nodded fast, quickly turned to the sink, and rinsed my hands off. The sink was the dirtiest I’d ever seen. Like it had been filled with oil.

When I finished, Ms. Steinhoffer grabbed my hair again, hard, and marched me back to the room.

I wasn’t eager to get locked in there again. I still had no idea where I was. I needed more information.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not? Who cares if I know? You’re going to kill me, right?”

She didn’t reply. I think I knew why.

“You’re going to make a snuff movie with me,” I said. “If you tell me where I am, I would tell the camera.”

“And then your mom and dad would see it. We don’t want them coming to get you yet. We need to break them emotionally first.”

We stopped at the door. I noticed it had a big, sliding bar over it.

“You’re going to break my parents by hurting me,” I said.

Ms. Steinhoffer nodded.

I nodded too. “Makes sense. That’s what I’d do.”

Ms. Steinhoffer crouched down to my level. “Aren’t you scared?”

“I’m very scared. Were you scared when Alex was hurting you?”

“Yes.”

“Did she hurt you for a long time?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re still her partner? Why? You could kill her. You’re faster. You’re better.”

“Do you like manipulating people, Sam? Because you’re good at it.”

“I don’t know if I like it. It’s useful.”

“When Jack and Phin see how much we’re hurting you, they’ll do anything to stop it. They’ll go where we tell them to. They won’t call the police. They won’t bring any weapons. They’ll just give up. Your parents would do anything to save you.”

“Because they love me. Did you ever have anyone who loved you, Ms. Steinhoffer?”

Ms. Steinhoffer didn’t answer. But the look she had in her eyes told me that maybe someone did love her, once.

“I’m not going to help you get my parents,” I said. “I won’t scream.”

“You’ll scream, Sam. You’ll scream and beg until your throat is raw and bleeding. You’ll do anything you can to make the pain stop. Trust me. I know.”

“How’d you get out of the handcuffs?” I asked.

Ms. Steinhoffer tapped her head. “I have staples. I pulled one out of my skull to shim the lock.”

“Smart.”

“Don’t think you can try something like that to escape. You and Harry are going to be tied with baling wire.”

I tried not to show any excitement. “Uncle Harry is here?”

“You’ll see him soon. But he’s not going to save you, Sam. No one is going to save you. Put your hands behind your back.”

“Do you really need the cuffs?”

She spun me around and yanked my arms so hard I began to cry. After putting the handcuffs on my wrists she said, “I don’t know if you believe in God or not, but if you do, now is the time to pray.”

Then she shoved me in the room and slammed the door.

I cried for a little bit longer because my arms really hurt. Then I sat on the floor, and as I calmed myself down I scooted my butt over the cuffs and pulled my legs through and took out the cell phone.

It was a flip phone. Mom and Dad had a few old ones like it in a junk drawer. This seemed new, but cheap. I went to the sleeping bag and pulled it over my head to hide the light and sound. I made sure the volume on the side was pressed all the way down, then I turned it on.

The phone had a color screen, but it wasn’t a touch screen. I didn’t see any apps. Just the time and date.

I thought about dialing 911, but I dismissed it and made another call instead.

Mom picked up on the third ring.

“We’re not talking to the media.”

I’d never heard her sound so sad.

“Mom, it’s me. I don’t know where I am. Is there any way to find out where this phone is?”

“Sam!”

“Shh! I don’t want them hearing. Ann Steinhoffer is here, and someone named Lester. I’m in some kind of commercial building. It has a funny smell and is all stained. Brown and black smears on the walls and floor.”

“What kind of smell, Sam?” Dad was talking.

“It kind of smells like our garage.”

“What do you see?”

“I’m in a room. There’s nothing in here but a calendar on the wall. The window is boarded up. There’s a little crack underneath. I can’t hear anything from outside. I think this building is abandoned.”

“Does the phone have a camera?”

I didn’t even think of that. I got out from under the sleeping bag and went to the window, trying to figure out how to use the camera. There was a little round pad next to the numbers that had arrows on it, and I used that to access the menu and find the photos.

A picture came up.

A picture of me.

Lester had me on his phone.

I refused to let fear overwhelm me, and switched to the camera.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m taking a picture in the window crack and sending it to you.”

I put the camera lens to the space between the plywood and the window pane. The resolution was terrible, and all the camera could see was a line. But in that line was some of the night sky, the parking lot, and that lollipop sign.

I sent the picture to Mom’s phone, and then to Dad’s phone, just to make sure.

I also took a picture of the calendar. It showed a girl in a swimsuit holding a drill, laying on top of a light blue toolbox. Below her were two small calendar months, MAY and JUNE. I sent it to Mom, then heard someone at the door. I quickly stashed the phone in the sleeping bag while it was still on, and then stuck my legs through the handcuffs just as Alex Kork came into the room.

“Hi, Samantha,” Alex said, smiling at me. “It’s time to play.”

ALEX

Undisclosed location…

Sam appeared surprised, but not afraid.

If anything, the little shit seemed defiant.

We’ll fix that soon enough.

“Come here. Now.”

“You don’t scare me, Ms. Kork.”

“Then you aren’t as smart as I’ve heard. I’m the one who did that to Harry McGlade’s hand.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to do worse things to you. Much worse.”

Sam frowned. “I researched you.”

“Did you? And what did you learn about my terrible crimes?”

“I learned your family abused you when you were a little girl. And now you abuse little girls.”

What a precocious little shit.

Alex faked a pouty face. “Awww. Do you believe that’s what makes me so mean?”

“I believe it was a combination of nature and nurture.”

“Here’s something you need to believe. You need to believe that if I have to walk into the room and get you, I’m going to pull your ears off of your head. So come here. Now.”

Sam hesitated, then walked over to her.

Still looking defiant.

Alex slapped her hard enough to drop the little pest to her knees. Then she tugged her back to her feet, by one of her ears, and led her down the hall.

At the bathroom they were met by the golem, so tall his head almost reached the ceiling.

“Lester is hungry,” Lester said.

Sam tried to pull away from Alex.

She’s scared of Lester. That’s hilarious.

“Do you want to eat this little girl, Lester?”

A line of drool escaped Lester’s blood-stained chin.

“Lester wants to eat this little girl. Sam. Lester wants to eat Sam. Lester has a picture of Sam.”

Lester patted his pants, then stopped smiling.

“Lester lost the phone. Dr. Plincer gave Lester a phone.”

Sam tried to bolt, pulling hard, and Alex had a realization.

“Hold Sam for a moment, Lester.”

Alex handed her over, and Lester lifted up Sam by her shoulders, bringing her close to his mouth.

Sam began to scream.

Can’t blame her. That guy is terrifying.

Alex walked back to the office where they kept Sam, looked around, and then went to the sleeping bag and lifted it up.

Lester’s phone was open, and live. And Alex recognized the number.

She picked it up, smiling.

“Hi, Jack? Been a long time.”

“You can have me, Alex. An even trade. Me for Sam.”

“In due time. First we’re going to have a little fun with her. You can watch it on the live feed. I’m sure you got the URL. Remember my brother’s snuff videos? Those are going to look like episodes of Sesame Street compared to what I have planned.”

“Whatever you want, Alex. I’ll do it.”

“I’m getting what I want, Jack. I’m hurting you, and your family. I’ll be in touch in a few days. For you it will seem like a lot longer than that. For Sam, too.”

Her adversary’s voice broke. “Alex… please… I’m begging.”

“I know. There’s going to be a lots and lots of begging.” Alex turned to the hall. “Sam? Did you want to say goodbye to your mother?”

Sam was trying to push away from Lester’s open mouth, kicking her legs. “Find me, Mom! You can find me!”

Alex broke the cell phone in half, dropped it onto the tile floor, and stomped on it.

Then she marched down the hall and glared up at Lester, whose teeth were almost on Sam’s neck.

“Put her down,” Alex ordered. “Right now.”

“Lester is hungry.”

Alex unbuckled and drew her Chiappa .357. “Lester is going to get four bullets in Lester’s head unless Lester obeys.”

The golem blinked—

—and blinked again—

Is he going to challenge me?

—then Lester finally set Sam down.

Sam immediately clutched onto Alex’s leg, trying to distance herself from Lester.

Alex grabbed Sam’s ear and held her at arm’s length.

“Go fetch more baling wire from the truck in the garage, and meet us in the storage room,” the witch ordered the golem.

Lester nodded and lumbered off. Then Alex smiled at Sam.

“You think Lester’s scary? After five minutes with me, you’re going to wish you were back in Lester’s arms.”

JACK

Los Angeles, California

After deplaning we found a pair of empty terminal seats and I used my laptop to leave a message for Fleming.

The past few hours had been the worst of my life, which was saying something.

And the future promised to get a lot worse.

“She was screaming, Phin. On the phone. What were they doing to her?”

My husband put his arm around my shoulder. “She was fighting. We raised a fighter.”

I almost began to sob again, but I choked it back.

I screwed up. I was beyond upset.

But I needed to be strong. I needed to stay focused.

I needed to be in control.

Fleming called back, and I explained what happened.

“Can you triangulate the phone?” I asked.

“No. It isn’t transmitting.”

“Sounded like Alex broke it,” Phin said.

“Then there isn’t any way to locate it. The number is for a TracFone, one of those anonymous cell phones that you can pick up at drug stores and gas stations. That one was purchased in…”

I heard Fleming typing.

“…Boulder, Colorado.”

Could Sam be back in Colorado? Did we fly to Los Angeles for nothing?

“Anything on the pictures?” I asked.

“The calendar is from 1994,” Fleming said. “Snap-On Tools.”

“How about that view through the space under the window?”

“No matches in the database yet. Humanity has taken over 3.5 trillion pictures. Even with my computing power, it could take a while to find.”

“How long is a while?” Phin asked.

“Hours. Days. Years. Maybe longer, if I have AI interpret and create the scene from multiple angles. That’s if the location has ever been photographed before. I’ll call back when I get something.”

She hung up. I rubbed my face and pressed my fingers onto my closed eyelids, trying to think of something we could do.

The picture didn’t have anything significant about it. A blurry stretch of sky. A shadowy sign. A thin strip of asphalt. Nothing to identify what it was, or where it was.

“Thirteen and a half minutes until the live feed,” Phin said, staring at the countdown clock on his cell. “Is there anyone else we can ask for help?”

My head perked up and my eyes flipped open.

My husband’s words, “live feed” and “help” snapped my brain into hyper mode, and I made the instant connection. It hit me like a firm slap on a cold ass. Something Harry told me earlier.

“My fans are great, Jackie. They’ll watch over me. They’ll offer advice. Have you ever heard the saying the wisdom of the crowd? When the majority agrees, it’s usually correct. That’s why you could ask the audience for help on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.”

I used my old log-in name and password and accessed Harry’s livestream.

Not as a viewer. But as a content creator.

Back when he’d cajoled me into doing a stream with him, he’d given me moderator privileges.

Hopefully they still worked.

I hit the feed and my webcam light began to blink. There were still over five hundred viewers waiting around in the lobby, texting amongst themselves.

“Uh… hi, everyone. Some of you might know who I am. I’ve done this show with Harry before. My name is Jack Daniels.”

The comments lit up.

—JACK!!!

—It’s freakin Jacqueline Daniels!!

—Jackie D! Jackie D!

—Holy shit, it’s that fat chick from Fatal Autonomy!

—Is that sigourney weaver?

—Jack Daniels in da house yall!

“Harry and I used to be partners in the Chicago Police Department,” I explained to those who didn’t know me. “He’s one of my best friends. I need your help. Alex Kork didn’t just take Harry McGlade. She also kidnapped my daughter, Samantha. Sam took a picture through a crack in the window, of where she’s being held captive. If any of you are good at geoguessing, I need you to help me find out where this location is. Spread the word. Help us. Please.”

It took me a moment to get the pic from my cell phone to the stream, and by then word must have spread because soon there were over four thousand people watching, and the numbers were climbing fast.

Viewers were asking me to say everything I knew, no matter how trivial.

I closed my eyes and tried to recall exactly what Sam told us.

“She said she was in some kind of commercial building. There was a funny odor. Brown and black stains on the walls and floor.”

“Smelled like a garage,” Phin added.

“Right. Like a garage.”

Several people in the comments said I needed to type all of that in the feed description. I did so, and I also uploaded the calendar photo.

The comments were coming so fast I couldn’t keep up with them.

Phin urged me to my feet. “Let’s head for an exit, Jack. Keep talking. You’re doing great.”

Allowing him to lead me while I gripped the laptop and stared at my camera, I kept spouting everything I knew.

“We’re currently in Los Angeles. We’re from Destiny, Colorado. Along with Alex Kork, the people holding Sam and Harry are a killer named Lester Paks, who is very tall and has filed down his teeth to points. Dr. Mordecai Plincer, who has worked with the US military. Ann Steinhoffer, who is a trick gun expert and a professional interrogator. These people were all declared dead, but they aren’t dead.”

Several commentors asked me to allow pictures in the comments, and to start pinning them in the description. I did so, reposting several posted pics of Alex, Ann, Plincer, and an old Identikit reconstruction of Lester, which made him look like a zombie ghoul.

I also put up a picture of Sam.

“McGlade talks about you guys all the time,” I told the crowd of now over six thousand. “He says you’re the best, smartest, coolest group on the World Wide Web. Find him. Find my daughter. Find Sam.”

And with only five minutes until Alex began her snuff video, the geoguesses started flooding in.

HARRY

Undisclosed location…

Iwoke up bound to a chair with baling wire.

It wasn’t my first time. Which shows what an eventful and interesting life I was leading.

Next to the chair was a table full of the standard implements of torture, including a few I’d never seen before.

Was that a spork? Were they going to fucking spork me?

People were sick.

I was in some kind of storage room. Ceiling high, heavy duty shelving covered three walls, but didn’t store anything except decades’ worth of dust and piles of oily rags. The overhead lights were industrial, fluorescent, and half of them weren’t working. But there was more than enough illumination coming from the professional-level klieg lights, perched on tripods in a three-point lighting configuration, focused on me and the empty chair next to me.

The lights were really bright and really hot, and had screens over them so no one accidentally touched a bulb and burned the shit out of themselves.

The burns in this room were going to be intentional, not accidental.

I glanced at the mounted video camera.

Live snuff. And even worse, it would be filming me at a bad angle. My left profile was much more photogenic.

While waiting around for my inevitable torture and death, I felt oddly calm. That might have been due to the residual effects of the animal tranquilizer, but I think it was more than that.

I’d been in situations like this many times, so this part was familiar.

But it was also different.

Because I didn’t think I’d get away this time.

Alex and Ann had outplayed us. Every step of the way. They weren’t going to fumble the ball ten seconds before making the winning touchdown.

I was gonna lose this one.

Someone would probably avenge my death. That was cool.

But my pain would be unbearable. That was uncool.

The only thing I could do was begin thinking up funny things to say when they were torturing me.

Power drill in the leg? You know the drill.

Scalpel to the face? Stop filming, that’s a cut.

Belt sander to the knee? You’re showing a lot of grit.

Propane torch? Oh look, it’s my old flame.

Cheese grater? No thanks, I’m already shredded.

I could do that. I could die on camera like a legend.

I just needed to focus on my jokes.

Keep a cool head.

Accept the inevitable.

And then Alex brought Sam into the room, and something in me broke.

She forced Sam into the chair canted next to me, and Sam began to cry, “Uncle Harry! Uncle Harry!” and my whole body shook in terror.

“Hey there, hubby.” Alex grinned like a hyena. “Doesn’t this remind you of the good old days?”

I was too devastated to make a witty insult.

Me. The king of the comeback.

Terrified and broken, and no one had even laid a hand on me yet.

Some deformed basketball demon came into the room next, sporting Dracula teeth and the baling wire twisty gun thing. He bound Sam to the chair with the wire, facing mine at a forty-five degree angle, and she began to scream.

I wanted to start screaming, too.

But I needed to keep it together. For Sam’s sake.

“We’re live in five,” Alex said. “See you soon.”

Both monsters left the room.

Sam, normally as level-headed as a therapist, had a quaver in her voice. “I called Mom, Uncle Harry. I talked to her. I don’t think they’re going to find us.”

“It’s okay, Sam.”

“This is my fault. I did this.”

“This isn’t your fault. It’s, uh, Uncle Herb’s fault. Let’s both blame him.”

Sam didn’t seem to like my joke, and she began to wail.

“I lied! I lied, Uncle Harry!” Her tone rose until it was shrill. “I lied to Mom and Dad!”

“Sam—”

“I promised them both I’d be okay! I-I-I-I-I broke that promise! I broke it I broke it I broke it and it’s all my fault…”

I filled my lungs with air and clenched my jaw.

Maybe I wouldn’t die a legend.

Maybe I wouldn’t make awesome puns while they were torturing me.

But right now, right there, I could be strong.

I could be Uncle Harry.

For Sam. For Jack and Phin.

“Samantha Adams Troutt-Daniels, stop your bellyaching!” I said, using my Dad voice.

Sam’s crying ebbed.

“You don’t understand the amazing opportunity that has been presented to you at this very moment.”

She sniffled. “W-what opportunity?”

“Why, Sam… you are the luckiest person in the world right now. Because you, dear girl, get to hear Harrison Harold McGlade, your incredible Uncle Harry, for the very first time anywhere, recite his world famous poetry.”

I made a show of loudly clearing my throat.

“Allow me to begin.”

I launched into it.

Gerbils by Harrison Harold McGlade

I caught a bunch of gerbils,

And made them into soup,

It should have tasted better,

But those suckers sure can poop.

Sam didn’t respond at first. Not a peep.

Then she said, “So you ate rodent fecal matter?”

“I did. You know what it tasted like?”

“What?”

“It tasted like shit.”

Sam sniffled again, but I thought I heard her laugh a little.

“Eating poop is funny, right?” I prodded.

“It’s gross. But a little funny.”

I pressed on.

Bowling by Harrison Harold McGlade

I went bowling,

With my niece,

But a ball rolls better.

Sam snickered a bit. “That’s a malapropism.”

“You didn’t know I was a poetic genius, did you?”

“I still don’t know it.”

“Just wait. The best is yet to come.”

Jack in the Box by Harrison Harold McGlade

Hey!

Let me out!

“I don’t understand that one. Is it about Mom?”

“It’s about someone named Jack, stuck in a box.”

“So I was supposed to think it was about a toy, but it’s a person.”

“Exactly.”

“Not your best.”

“Okay, try this one.”

Forty Days and Forty Nights by Harrison Harold McGlade

Why is it raining?

I don’t Noah.

Sam giggled. “That one’s bad.”

“But you laughed.”

“I liked it because it was short.”

“I know what else you liked about that one.”

“What?” Sam asked.

“You liked the story arc.”

She giggled again. “Ark. I get it.”

And then she said the magic words. The words every creative artist craves.

“Got any more?”

Cactus by Harrison Harold McGlade

Don’t sit on a cactus,

Unless you’ve had practus.

Sam laughed at that one.

“Brilliant, right?” I asked.

“Clever. I wouldn’t call it brilliant.”

“No worries. I’ve got brilliant all queued up.”

Camping by Harrison Harold McGlade

I like to go camping,

When I am nude,

But leaves stick to me,

After I’ve pooed.

Sam snorted. “A lot of your poems are scatological, Uncle Harry. I worry you might be exhibiting signs of encopresis.”

“And I worry you’re reading too many dictionaries. Pooping and farting are always comedy gold. Funny when you’re three, and it’s still funny when you’re a hundred and three. That’s because, in both cases, you’re in diapers.”

“Got any more?”

Hungry Guy by Harrison Harold McGlade

I ate the parrot,

And didn’t share it.

“Mid,” Sam said. “Try another.”

Doing Time by Harrison Harold McGlade

Prison gave me acne,

So I broke out.

“That one is really good,” Sam said. “But not laugh out loud funny. It’s clever funny.”

“I got it. I need to be more lowbrow. I can do lowbrow.”

Snack Idea by Harrison Harold McGlade

Put some sugar

On a booger.

Sam laughed at that.

Breakfast Critic by Harrison Harold McGlade

This waffle

Is affle.

She laughed even harder.

Food Poisoning by Harrison Harold McGlade

I ate a bad steak,

And they pumped my stomake.

Sam had a giggle fit, and I laughed along. My best audience ever.

Maybe I needed to write children’s books. For nine-year-olds with Einstein IQs.

That was probably a limited market.

The laughter lasted for a bit. When it died down, Sam gave me the sweetest smile ever.

“I’m glad you’re with me right now, Uncle Harry. I love you.”

“I love you too, Sam.”

And then the door opened, and the snuff film began.

PHIN

Los Angeles, California

We sat in the baggage claim area, just a few meters from a line of taxi cabs ready to take us to Sam.

If Sam was actually within driving distance.

The airport was busy with the hustle and bustle of travelers trying to get to their destinations, oblivious to the torment Jack and I were going through.

So far, Harry’s legion of fans hadn’t figured out Sam’s location.

But they’d made some fantastic guesses.

The black and brown stains, the garage smell, and Sam’s feeling that the building had a commercial use, pointed to a shut down—possibly abandoned—mechanic shop of some kind. The majority of the crowd thought it was automotive.

Based on the disrepair of the building, the age of the calendar, the amount of weeds growing in the outside asphalt, and the lack of noise or traffic outside, the place was derelict, and had been for at least fifteen years.

According to an enhancement of the sky, which revealed more stars, several astronomy buffs insisted it was within two hundred miles of Los Angeles.

So the search was on for a seldom used road or abandoned highway, and for any sort of repair shop or automotive store that closed at least a decade ago.

There were a lot.

“The most votes are for up north, past Pasadena,” Jack said.

“Let’s head there.” I was going stir crazy in the airport, doing nothing.

“What if it’s wrong? What if we’re going the wrong way? We could lose time if we need to backtrack.”

“Or we could have a head start.”

Her face pinched. “Phin…”

“Jack, the website countdown is over. The show is going to start at any moment.”

I watched my words sink in.

“I could stay here,” Jack said. “You can take a cab north. That way, if she’s somewhere else…”

I put my hand on my wife’s cheek. “No. We’re sticking together on this one. No matter what.”

Jack glanced back into her laptop camera. “Everyone, what’s the vote for going north?”

The commentors told her to post a poll. Jack searched through moderator options, and quickly created a survey with two possibilities.

GO NORTH

STAY AT LAX

We waited, and Harry’s eight thousand fans began to vote. Hundreds came in within seconds.

“Over seventy percent say north,” I said.

“So we go north.”

We left the airport, climbed into a cab, and told the driver to head to Pasadena. His name was Vihan, and he was a swarthy guy in his thirties, wearing a Guns N’ Roses tee shirt. I’d brought a wad of cash along, and began feeding him hundred dollar bills through a slit in the clear Plexiglas driver partition.

“We’ll pay for any speeding tickets, and there’s an extra thousand dollars in it for you if you can get there in less than an hour.”

Vihan hit the gas.

“Is anyone having any luck with the sign?” Jack asked.

Lots of comments appeared, along with pictures of many, many signs. Lots and lots of round signs, for every sort of business imaginable.

“Can someone start narrowing down signs to the auto repair industry?” Jack asked. “And does anyone have access to old phone books? Car repairs, mechanics, body shops—”

“Oil changes,” I added. “Those oil and lube franchises. And auto parts stores.”

We came to a stop, and I realized we were at a red light.

“Fifty bucks for every traffic light you blow through,” I told Vihan.

“I need the money. But all the lights have cameras. Your offer won’t cover the traffic tickets.”

I looked at the webcam. “Fleming, if you’re watching this feed, call me.”

My cell rang eight seconds later.

“Traffic cameras,” I told her.

“I’ve been on that for twenty minutes,” Fleming said. “So far, no hits.”

“If they’re in town, they landed sometime after five pm,” I said. “The driver or passenger might be wearing a balaclava.”

“I’ll call back.”

“Two hundred bucks for every red light you blow,” I told the driver. “We’re looking for our daughter, Vihan. My name is Phin. This is my wife, Jack. Her name is Sam. She was kidnapped. They’re going to kill her.”

I held up my cell phone to the clear partition, which had a wallpaper of me, Jack, and Sam.

“So I’m driving to save a little girl?” Vihan asked.

“Our little girl.”

“I’ve driven celebrities. Sports stars. Movie stars. I once drove a pregnant lady to the hospital. But I’ve never saved anyone’s life before.” He stared at me, hard. “My entire life has been leading up to this very moment, Phin.”

“Then drive like hell, brother. Drive like hell.”

Vihan hit the gas.

An argument erupted in the comments, whether the sign belonged to the auto repair shop, or was for another shop next to the auto repair shop.

“Phin…”

Jack grabbed my arm, showing me her cell phone.

It was a live video of Sam and Harry, bound to chairs.

THE PALADIN

Undisclosed location…

Showtime.

Dr. Plincer turned on the digital camera and the site went live.

Alex walked to the table, picked up the tin snips, and stood before a seated and bound Harry McGlade.

“Should we start with your other hand?” she asked him, opening and closing the snips.

“Here’s a better idea,” McGlade said. “Stick that up your ass and go sit on a washing machine. Make it a long spin cycle.”

Alex struck McGlade across the face with the snips, opening a large, bleeding gash in his cheek.

And Ann felt…

Nothing.

This is supposed to be my revenge, too.

So why do I feel dead inside?

“How about we start with the little girl instead?” Alex asked.

McGlade spat blood. “Maybe you’re hard of hearing. I told you to stick those tin snips up your—”

Alex hit him in the other cheek. This one bled even more.

Ann didn’t care. Not even a little.

“Want another one?” Alex asked him. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I told you what to do. Are you dense? Bend that fat, ugly ass over and—”

This time the blow knocked out several of his teeth.

“Sorry, Harry,” Alex told him. “I know how much you like to talk. I hope I didn’t hurt your mouth too much.”

McGlade coughed and gagged.

Maybe choking on blood. Maybe on a tooth.

If he keeps mouthing off, Alex is going to kill him within the first hour.

Perhaps that was his goal.

“Leave Uncle Harry alone!” Sam shouted.

Alex turned her attention to the little girl.

“Are you sure you want me to focus on you, Sam? You know your parents are watching.”

Sam looked Alex right in the eyes, showing no fear.

“Maybe you want to be like your Uncle Harry,” Alex purred. “I wouldn’t even need these big old tin snips to cut off your tiny little fingers. I could file them down with that cheese grater.”

Sam turned away from Alex—

—and stared directly at Ann.

“Do you remember when she hurt you. Ms. Steinhoffer?” Sam asked.

The paladin blinked.

“How can you help her when she did all those horrible things to you?” Sam asked. “She’s not your friend.”

Alex gave Sam a vicious palm slap across her face, rocking her head back.

Sam cried. Hard. But it only lasted a few seconds. Then she sucked in a stuttering breath and met Ann’s gaze again.

“It’s okay, Ms. Steinhoffer,” Sam said, eyes as wet as two spring puddles. “I forgive you.”

And somehow, for some reason which didn’t make any sense, that triggered Ann Steinhoffer to remember what Alex Kork had done to her all those years ago…

ANN

A long time ago…

It had taken months of false starts, dead-ends, and useless bribes to finally get an invitation to Usher House.

To say Ann was excited was an understatement.

Up until that point, murder had been a carefully planned, methodical, worrisome thing. You had to constantly be aware of evidence, witnesses, alibis, police; it was enough to make a girl consider a less stressful hobby.

But Usher House, an urban legend that was actually real, was an all-inclusive club for those with Ann’s particular tastes. For a price, she could kill without even the slightest concern. No mess. No fuss. No repercussions.

It would be the best vacation ever.

The invitation came via an unmarked, hand-delivered envelope. Typed using some kind of special ink that began to disappear the moment it was exposed to light. But Ann memorized the time and place, along with the password, and the next day she was on a plane, anxious to fulfill some dark, bloody fantasies.

To say it exceeded her wildest expectations was an understatement. The event coordinator kindly gave her a tour of the facilities, and offered custom scenarios for clients with special requests.

Ann could torture a person of her choice, choosing by race, gender, and age, in a practically endless variety of wonderful ways.

She could hunt humans in a wide selection of exciting environments.

There were portions of the house devoted to rape and genital mutilation, and to the production of snuff films, and to gambling, betting on two people fighting to the death.

Ann spent far too much money, indulging in one atrocity after another, a glutton for it. After a lifetime of being careful not to get a speck of blood on her, she was finally able to bathe in it.

She also met a lot of interesting people. Well known politicians and media celebrities, buying sex slaves. Rich oil sheiks, shopping for transplant organs. And others like herself, who roamed the world, looking for prey.

Ann was on the Usher House firing range, counting how many .22 LR bullets she could put in a screaming man before he died, when she met the Korks.

A brother and sister serial killer team. Charles was dark. Handsome. Mysterious. His sister, Alex, was poised and statuesque, and a ridiculously good shot.

“What a lovely game,” Alex said. “Did you make it up?”

Ann nodded. “My record is two hundred and eight. You have to avoid all the vitals, but eventually the blood loss gets them.”

“Can we play with you?”

It was always more fun to play with others, so naturally, Ann said yes.

After a day of playing and drinking and eating together, the blossoming friendship turned into a competition. They had the concierge create a device that restrained a target’s hand, so Ann and Alex could take turns shooting off fingers. There were moving targets, victims tethered by a wire going through their chin.

Alex considered herself the better markswoman. Ann disagreed. They competed on the range, over and over, neither the clear victor, until the rivalry became less fun and more heated.

The last night of her stay, when Ann was ahead by more than ten points, she decided to call it quits and go to bed.

Alex was gracious in her defeat, paying off her debt, ending the evening with a long hug and a promise they’d get together soon.

It was sooner than Ann expected. That night, while she slept, the Korks broke into Ann’s room.

They subdued her and brought her to a private part of the dungeon. Chained her up. And began to do all of the horrible things Ann had been doing to others over the past week.

The torture went on for days.

Ann went insane. Several times.

And when she was begging for death, pleading for it to finally be over, the Korks, who had been teasing that they’d let her go after ‘just one more thing,’ actually let her go.

“We like you,” Alex told her. “You’re tough. But we can’t have you coming after us with your little six gun.”

So they took four of her fingers.

The owners of Usher House apologized profusely once they found out what happened. They also graciously got her medical attention.

It took Ann over a year to heal. During that time, she lapsed into drug addiction. To fight the pain. And the nightmares.

First came prescription opioids. Then harder things.

Cocaine. Bath salts. Meth.

Ann loved meth. It made her feel strong, even as it ate away the few teeth Alex and Charles had left her with. She smoked it and snorted it and even shot it into her veins, week after week, month after month. A pathetic, drug-fueled death seemed inevitable.

Her brother was the one who rescued her.

Her brother, the only person she’d ever really loved, forced her into rehab.

Forced a gun back into her useless hands.

With her brother’s help she slowly recovered.

It took her another year to learn how to draw and shoot with only two fingers and a thumb on each hand.

Ann had the purest motivation ever.

She thirsted to pay the Korks back. In kind.

After a lifetime of mostly motiveless murder, Ann finally had a reason. A cause.

In a way, the Korks had done her a perverse favor. Rather than aimlessly picking victims, sleepwalking through the murder life, they’d given Ann a purpose.

There had always been something missing from killing. Something that Ann had to supplement with rodeo, and Cowboy Action Shooting, and Gunslinger Showdown.

The Korks had taught Ann that serial killers need goals, too.

And The Cowboy was born.

But Ann’s thoughts of vengeance were shattered when that asshole, Harry McGlade, took Charles Kork away from her.

Then, years later, Jack Daniels took Alex.

All of the training. The fantasies. The ache for vengeance.

Gone.

And the hatred that burned inside Ann didn’t just go away. It was too strong. Too raw.

So she transferred her hatred to two new targets.

The two who robbed Ann of her biggest, most important goal.

Jack Daniels and Harry McGlade.

They were going to suffer. And they were going to die.

And The Cowboy was going to make sure the whole world bore witness to their long and messy deaths.

But… that didn’t happen.

Fate had different plans.

For all of that time, all of those years, Ann had been thirsting to kill Jack and Harry.

But they weren’t her true enemy.

Her true enemy was standing right in front of her, terrorizing a cute little girl.

And Ann Steinhoffer, aka The Cowboy, aka the paladin, unbuckled the holster on her spare Smith & Wesson 686 Performance Center Competitor .357 Magnum, looked Alex Kork deadeye, and told her, “Draw, bitch.”

ALEX

Undisclosed location…

Alex glanced at the paladin when she spoke, and saw her gunslinging stance.

Ah, shit.

“I thought we were going to do this later,” Alex said.

“Looks like later got pushed up to now.”

Alex raised her hands, showing her palms. “You’re honestly not letting this little smarty pants manipulate you. Come on, partner.”

“I’m not your partner.”

She’s going to shoot me. This asshole is actually going to shoot me.

“What’s this about?” Alex asked, trying to put levity into her voice. “Usher House? That was a lifetime ago. Literally. Now we’re on the same side. We’ve got days of fun ahead of us. We’ve got years ahead of us.”

The paladin didn’t respond.

“Are you stressed out?” Alex asked. “I know what that’s like. Take out your frustrations on McGlade. There’s a belt sander over there. Sand his face off.”

“That would be smooth!” McGlade yelled. “Ha! I’m funny in the face of brutality!”

Ann kept her stance, keeping perfectly still.

I don’t think I’m fast enough to take her.

Shit.

I should have cut off all her damn fingers when I had the chance.

“Is it the girl?” Alex asked. “Is it Sam? Maybe you don’t want me to touch her? Maybe you want her for yourself? No problem. She’s all yours. You can do whatever you want with her. But this isn’t the right time for us to settle our beef. We’ve got a live audience. We’ve got a show to put on.”

“I’m going to put on quite the show,” Ann said. “On the count of three.”

Shit shit shit shit shit shit.

Alex Kork took a careful step back. “Ann… you need to think about this. I know you’re fast, but I’m fast too. I’ve won a whole bunch of shooting trophies. First place trophies.”

“That’s because you never competed against me, Alex.”

Alex began to square up, planting her feet in a shooting stance.

“Ann. C’mon. This is a bad idea.”

“One…”

Alex slowly moved her hand down to her belt holster and unbuckled her gun. “We don’t have to do this.”

“No, we don’t,” the paladin said. “But I sure as hell want to.”

“Ann…”

“Two…”

“Close your eyes, Sam,” Harry told her.

This isn’t how I expected this scene to play out.

The paladin isn’t my enemy.

We’re supposed to be a team.

Alex’s hand hovered over her weapon, but she wanted to give the paladin one more chance.

“If it helps to defuse the situation,” Alex said. “I’m sorry about Usher House. That’s on me. My bad. Do you accept my apology?”

After a moment, Ann said. “Yes, Alex. I accept your apology.” And then she grinned, and it was like staring straight into the face of the devil. “But I’m still going to kill you.”

“Ann!” Alex yelled, tensing up.

“Three!”

Alex was incredibly fast. She’d never been beaten.

But there was a first time for everything.

By the time Alex cleared leather and fired, the paladin had shot her four times, the Magnum bullets punching into her chest and carving out fist-sized exit wounds.

Alex tried drawing in a breath, but her lungs were wet paper bags that had been stomped on. She crumpled like a dropped marionette.

Happily, she’d also hit Ann, straight through the neck, and was pleased by the fountain of blood that spurted out like a crimson sprinkler as the paladin fell.

Then everything got very dark, very fast.

The last thing Alex heard before dying was Harry McGlade yelling, “You always were a piece of shit, Alex. And you know what you are now? Holey shit!”

JACK

South of Pasadena going 100mph

They killed each other,” I said, awed at what I just witnessed.

McGlade’s comments section went nuts.

“Couldn’t happen to two nicer gals,” Phin said.

He answered a call from Fleming, and relayed her information.

“Okay, everyone, I’m getting word that our target landed at the Olvida County Airport, west of Pasadena, seven and a half hours ago. Airport camera got a shot of Ann, the one with the balaclava, driving. The last traffic cam to pick her up tagged her going north in a 2014 black Honda Accord, on Loma Alta Park and Hodag Drive. Restart your searches from there and tell us what you find.”

“Did you catch that, Vihan?” I asked him

“Course adjusted. I’ll set a new land speed record, Jack.”

It took less than thirty seconds before the guesses began appearing.

—nothing west or south but residential

—I know that area. There’s an abandoned strip along a fault from a ’96 quake

—earthquake in 1996, some roads never got rebuilt

—IT’S A BESTBURGER SIGN!!!!

—sign is an old bestburger

—bestburg

—there was a 8 Minute Oil Change next to bestburger on Landon Rd.

—LANDN RD!!

—Landon Landon Landon Landon!

—shuttered-up bestburger next to shuttered-up oil change place

“Vihan, have you heard of Landon Road?”

“I have not, Phin,” he answered. “But my GPS has! Only six minutes away!”

The taxi banked hard enough to knock Phin into me—

—and I slammed against the driver partition and broke my laptop in half at the hinge, instantly killing the picture and the live feed.

“Fleming alerted the police,” Phin told me.

I was sure hundreds of McGlade’s fans did as well. That was going to cause chaos at the precinct.

“How close are we?” I asked our driver.

“Road is permanently closed, Jack. Coming up on it now. Only way around the cement blockade is a ravine.”

“We’ll pay for any damage to your cab,” Phin told him.

“I want Tiger Schroff to play me in the movie!” Vihan declared.

And he drove like a beautiful maniac into the ravine and then up to Landon Road and punched that accelerator.

THE GOLEM

Undisclosed location…

I’m getting some reformant serum,” Dr. Plincer told him. “Do. Not. Eat. The ladies.”

The scientist scuttled off, leaving Lester to battle the hunger monster.

But Lester had a plan.

Lester had no interest in eating the witch or the paladin.

Lester had a different interest.

Lester had a little girl interest.

Lester had a young, tasty, juicy little girl interest.

Drooling, Lester slowly approached her.

HARRY

Undisclosed location…

Iwas in all kinds of pain, but in pretty good spirits. The last time Alex died, I missed out on seeing it. Having a front row seat to Death Part Deux was satisfying, in a morbid, terrible human being sort of way.

But I never said I was a good person.

Well, except on that billboard I rented for a few years.

“You can open your eyes now, Sam,” I told her. “Don’t look at the dead people.”

She opened her eyes—

—and she screamed like hell.

“Sam, I told you not to—”

“Monster! The monster, Uncle Harry!”

I looked where Sam was looking, and that creepy zombie basketball player was eyeing Sam with an expression that could only be described as starvation.

“Damn, brother!” I taunted. “When they were dishing out the ugly, you went back for extra helpings.”

He didn’t even look my way. He crept up to Samantha like a jungle cat, his toothy maw open in a predatory grimace.

“Lester wants to eat me, Uncle Harry!”

Out of the fire, and into the frying pan.

How do you get a crazy cannibal’s attention?

I could tell him my name is Stu.

Heh heh. I’m funny. But jokes aside, I needed to let Lester know he had some menu options.

“Hey, Lester!” I shouted. “What’s your favorite part to eat? Do you like eating ears? I got big old ears.”

Lester continued to approach Sam.

“Is it feet, Lester? Do you like stinky feet?”

“Lester likes juicy feet,” Lester said.

As if he wasn’t creepy enough already, Lester referred to himself in the third person.

Seriously, where did all of these maniacs come from? Was there some sort of Killers R Us catalog?

“I got the juiciest feet, Lester,” I offered. “Come try my feet.”

I did not have “begging a psychopath to munch my tootsies” on today’s bingo card.

“Lester likes little girl feet,” Lester said, only a meter away from Sam. “Lester likes crunching on the little bones.”

“Uncle Harry!” Sam shrieked.

“I’m working on it, Sam. Lester, how about a nice big nose? I’ve got a big nose. Have you tried snacking on man boobs? Come nibble on my bitch tits, Lester. I’ve got chest hair so you can floss while you’re eating.”

Lester leaned over Sam, a line of drool snaking out of his mouth and pooling onto her screaming cheek.

“Shit yourself, Sam!” I told her. “I do it whenever I get arrested! They never bring me in!”

This freak of nature and science was actually going to try and bite her face off.

“BALLS!” I yelled, as loud as I could.

Lester finally looked at me.

“You like balls? I got the biggest balls you ever seen, Lester! Two giant pink grapefruits in a sack! Why don’t you come over here and stick these coconuts in your mouth. Testicles are nature’s candy, Lester. And that little girl doesn’t have any. But my gonads are so enormous they would choke a Clydesdale. And they come in their own take-out bag. Buy one, get one free, Lester! Come and eat!”

Lester actually turned away from Sam—

—and began to slink over to me.

I laughed, happy I saved her.

Then his enormous, filthy, pointy-fingernailed hands pawed at my crotch, reaching for my fly, and I thought OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?!

PHIN

Landon Road

Vihan screeched to a halt in front of the old 8 Minute Oil Change shop, skidding on the broken, pock-marked asphalt, and Jack and I threw open our doors.

“Hold on!” Vihan opened up his window, holding out something in his hand. “Take this!”

I reached for them and saw he’d given me a multitool pliers and a roll of quarters.

I was wondering what the hell he was thinking. What was I supposed to do, bribe the bad guys with pocket change?

“It’s illegal to own brass knuckles in California,” Vihan explained. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

“Call the cops, and keep the meter running in case we need to make a quick getaway.”

“You got it, Phin!”

I caught up to Jack, who was kicking at the shop’s front door, boarded up with plywood, and not making a dent.

“Let’s do this together, on my mark.” I stepped up next to her. “Kick!”

We both unleashed at the same time, and my foot punched through the old wood. We reached into the hole, took hold of the edges, and yanked it free. I stuck my hand through the broken glass door, turned the inside lock, and tugged it open.

The room, a lobby, was dark. I always carried a flashlight, and I turned on the high beam.

Then we rushed inside to save our daughter and our friend.

DR. PLINCER

Plincer’s cell phone buzzed and he absentmindedly checked it.

Probably Colonel Cormley, wanting to bark orders at me.

But it wasn’t Cormley. It was something unanticipated.

The perimeter alarm had gone off.

Plincer flipped through the outdoor cameras and saw a taxicab parked in front, and two people breaching the side entrance.

Jack Daniels and Phineas Troutt.

They’ve come too early. We’re not prepared for them yet.

This isn’t a good development. Not good at all.

Plincer grabbed the leather bag of reformant vials and hurried back into the storeroom, where he saw Lester trying to perform an unnatural act on a screeching Harry McGlade.

“Lester! We have intruders! Deal with them!”

Lester, not hiding his disappointment, picked up the paladin’s gun and lumbered off.

Dr. Plincer gave the paladin a dose of reformant, directly into her neck, and then repeated the process with the witch.

“Your little circus freakshow is over, Dr. Frankenstank!” McGlade bellowed.

Plincer picked up the witch’s gun and pointed it at Harry.

“You’re a misunderstood genius and I think you’re very handsome!” McGlade bellowed.

Dr. Mordecai Plincer weighed his options.

If I get arrested, Colonel Cormley will take care of me and my team.

But for that to happen, I have to get arrested. Not killed by police during a standoff.

And the police might not be amenable to a man who shoots two people tied to chairs with baling wire.

My best chance is to surrender.

“I give up,” Plincer said.

“Excuse me?”

Plincer approached McGlade, set the gun in his lap, and then picked up the cable tie gun, which had a wire cutting attachment. He snipped the man free, then freed the little girl.

Harry stood up, raising his hands. “And Harrison Harold McGlade saves the day yet again!”

The girl ran to him, and they embraced, and Dr. Plincer quietly snuck out of the room.

JACK

Agiant stepped around the corner and raised a revolver, firing at us twice as we dove to opposite corners of the room.

Lester Paks. Even scarier than his Identikit sketch.

His next few trigger pulls dropped the hammer on an empty cylinder.

Phin stood up, looking like a child compared to the huge man.

“I got this,” he told me.

“You need help?” I offered. “He’s huge.”

“I got ten bucks says I don’t need help.”

Phin raised a ten dollar roll of quarters in his clenched fist.

“Find our daughter, Jack.”

“I will. Don’t get killed.”

“Won’t happen.”

I sprinted, dodged around Lester, and barreled down a dimly lit hallway.

At the end of the hall—

Dr. Mordecai Plincer.

“I surrendered already!” Plincer declared, then scuttled back the direction he came from.

I followed him, turning a corner, getting to a storeroom, and seeing—

Sam! Harry!

They were holding each other. Sam appeared unharmed.

Harry…

Harry needed a dentist.

But seeing them there, safe, dropped me to my knees with wonderful, blessed relief.

It officially became the greatest day of my life.

PHIN

Come on, big fella,” I beckoned. “Let’s dance.”

Lester Paks swatted me with a backhand like I was a bug that irritated him.

I fell to the floor, rolled with it, and came up on my feet.

This was it. This was my moment. My epic fight with an overpowered villain.

Lester advanced, and I met him halfway, snarling and swiveling my hips and spin kicking his knee, forcing him to drop down, and then I hit him with half a pound of quarters, busting his lips, knocking a bunch of his nasty teeth down his throat.

He staggered back and I was on him like a fat kid on a Happy Meal, cocking my foot, punting him between the legs. When he doubled over I grabbed his ears and introduced his nose to my knee, laying the big man out.

The whole fight took less than ten seconds.

Phineas Troutt. Number One Badass.

I ran to find my family.

SAM

Mom!”

I hurried over to her and never hugged anyone that tight before.

“I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

I began to cry again. But these were happy tears.

“Are you okay, baby?”

“I’m okay. Uncle Harry protected me.”

“It’s what heroes do.” Harry shrugged. “Men like me can’t change their nature. I got bravery running through these veins.”

And then Dad came in, and he hugged us both, and all three of us were crying, and I called for Uncle Harry and he came over and we all hugged the heck out of each other.

DR. PLINCER

The happy reunion made Dr. Plincer very uncomfortable, and as he backed away from all of the love and tender feelings a hand shot out from nowhere and grabbed his leg.

The paladin, still laid out on the floor.

The reformant is working.

Plincer fell, knocking over one of the super-hot klieg lights, and it hit the wall shelving unit and immediately ignited all of the old, oily rags.

The fire spread like, well, wildfire. Plincer tried to crawl away, but the paladin held him tight.

JACK

We were together again, and I didn’t want to ever let any of them go.

Except for Harry. I’d let Harry go.

And then, because things always spin out of control at the last minute; things spun out of control at the last minute.

One minute, joyful embrace.

Next minute, smoke-filled inferno.

I began to tug my people out of the room, and Sam held me back.

“Ms. Steinhoffer, Mom. She saved me.”

I looked at Phin for help. He shrugged.

“We’re the good guys,” he said.

The smoke was clogging up the room at a surprising pace, hugging the ceiling and rapidly filling in the space to the floor. I moved in a crouch over to Ann and grabbed her upper arm.

Her eyes flipped open.

“Let me burn,” she said.

“That’s not who we are,” I told her.

Phin grabbed her other arm. I searched for Harry in the rapidly descending black smoke, and saw him kneeling by Alex, his hands on her hips.

“McGlade! Are you actually saving her?”

“Hell no!” he replied. “I’m checking her pockets! She owes me a thousand bucks for the beans!”

We tugged on Ann, who still held on to Dr. Plincer, who clutched his black satchel like it was his child.

I had to twist Ann’s wrist to make her let go of the scientist, and once released he ran—

—to the wrong corner of the room, deeper into the fire.

The heat, the smoke, and the noise of the blaze disoriented me, and as Phin and I continued to pull, I had a bad moment where I actually lost sight of the exit.

Harry, coughing like a fiend, crawled through the smoke and yelled something, and we all followed him as the temperature kicked up high and the visibility dropped to near zero and somehow we made it back into the hallway, the smoke and fire chasing us like a medieval dragon.

I’ve heard it said that fire is alive. It had many of the traits of life; it consumed fuel, it breathed, it grew, it multiplied, and it died.

The fire stayed one step behind us, devouring the old oil change shop as we tried to save a serial killer.

And then we got to the lobby, and ran into another serial killer.

PHIN

Surrounded by smoke, Lester Paks sat up and stretched his long, boney arms out, reaching for my daughter.

Sam screamed in terror.

You are not touching my little girl, big fella.

I hit him, square in the nose, hard as I’d ever hit anyone.

Then I hit him again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

I was planning on punching him until I knocked him out of Sam’s nightmares, forever. But the giant managed to crabwalk away, into the smoke, and we quickly extricated ourselves from the burning building, everyone accounted for, everyone intact.

Everyone, except for Ann Steinhoffer.

In all the smoke and flames and excitement, she’d somehow managed to sneak away.

PLINCER

This isn’t ideal.

The fire was everywhere, torching everything.

It’s going to burn me alive.

It’s going to burn my magnificent serum.

This isn’t fair. It’s not fair at all.

I’m going to die. Twice.

Plincer curled up into a fetal position, hugging his satchel, hoping this wouldn’t hurt as much as the last time he was killed.

Then he heard a sound. Like an elephant roar.

Is someone here to save me?

Do I finally get a break?

He looked up, his eyes burning with smoke, and saw a figure stampeding toward him.

A figure that was completely engulfed in flames, making the most horrible sound Plincer had ever heard.

Lester Paks. On fire. Mouth open.

He fell on Plincer in a fiery embrace, pinning him to the ground.

And then the golem began to chew on the wizard as they both burned.

HARRY

Landon Road

As I’d predicted, I once again saved the day. And the only cost was a few teeth.

I had no regrets.

Well, maybe one regret.

I regretted I didn’t get the whole thing on my livestream. Those folks would have loved seeing me do my thing.

Jack and Phin and Sam hugged again once we made it outside, and while I probably would have been welcomed into the embrace, I thought it best to let them have their moment. Instead I looked around and saw—

“Hold it!”

Lights in my face. Cop cars everywhere.

But more than cop cars.

Lots and lots and lots of non-cop cars too.

“It’s Harry McGlade!” someone from the crowd yelled.

The crowd.

There was a whole crowd.

A hundred people at least, and more and more kept driving up.

And then the crowd began to chant.

“HAR-RY! HAR-RY!”

For the first time in my life, I was speechless.

Jack came up behind me and clapped me on the back. “Wisdom of the crowd, McGlade. It’s your fans. They saw it all. And they helped us find you.”

My… fans?

I’d always interacted with them on a screen. Names, but no faces.

But now I saw faces. A sea of happy, chanting faces.

“HAR-RY! HAR-RY! HAR-RY! HAR-RY!”

Sam came over and hugged my waist. I put my hand on her little shoulder as she stared up at me, adoringly.

“You know what you need to do, Uncle Harry.”

But I didn’t. I was too blown away to think coherently.

Or maybe it was a concussion. Alex hit me pretty good.

I heard firetrucks wail in the distance, but they couldn’t drown out the cheers. The hundred people were joined by another hundred, and they just kept coming.

I crouched next to Sam, my eyes glassy with awe, and I said, “I actually don’t know what to do. Tell me.”

When she whispered it in my ear, it made perfect sense.

I stood up, tall.

I raised my hands, palms out, and commanded the crowd to silence.

When they did, I went for it.

Roly Poly Bug! by Harrison Harold McGlade

Roly-poly bug!

Roly-poly bug!

Rolls up into a little ball!

Roly-poly bug!

Roly-poly bug!

Doesn’t taste very good at all!

No one said anything. The crowd was thick with quiet. So quiet that I swear I heard crickets.

I braced myself for booing.

But there wasn’t booing.

The cheers were so loud it hurt my grateful little ears.

JACK

Los Angeles, California
Two days later…

McGlade’s super expensive high-tech oven beeped.

Apprehensive but optimistic, I pulled open the door and squinted at my maraschino cherry cookies. Made from scratch, using a meticulously followed recipe.

They looked…

They looked pretty good.

I turned off the oven, set the tray on the counter, and sniffed the steam rising from them.

They smelled pretty good, too.

“Nice job, Mom,” Sam said.

“Don’t congratulate me yet. We need to try them first. Is Harry still reading his poetry?”

“He ran out of poems. He only has about thirty of them.”

I used a metal spatula to scoop the cookies off the cooking pan. The bottoms seemed fine. I arranged them on a plate, and Sam reached for one.

“Careful. Hot.”

I expected her to lecture me about the laws of thermodynamics, but instead of arguing, my daughter dutifully listened, and obeyed.

Since her ordeal, Sam hadn’t exhibited any signs of trauma or stress. She slept well. Her appetite was fine.

The only change in her behavior was more frequent hugs.

Even so, we weren’t letting her out of the house again until she was forty.

“They aren’t steaming anymore, Mom. Can I try one?”

“How about we both try one at the same time?”

“Okay.”

We both picked up a cookie.

We both put the cookies to our mouths.

We both took a bite.

“It’s good, Mom.”

She was right. It was good.

We brought the plate of cookies into Harry’s opulent living room and Sam passed them out with napkins.

The first went to her father.

The second went to Uncle Tequila.

“My dad kicked a monster’s butt,” she told him. “He’s very tough.”

“He’s the toughest person I know,” Tequila said to her.

Uncle Herb got a cookie.

Uncle Harry got two cookies. And a hug.

Uncle Vihan got a cookie.

Uncle Vihan also, apparently, got a movie deal.

Harry Junior got four cookies, and he and Sam ate them while laughing.

There was a lot of laughter that night. And my cookies were a universal hit.

When ten o’clock came around, Phin declared it was bedtime for Sam.

“Actually, it’s not a school day tomorrow,” I explained to him. “We made a deal that she can stay up later.”

“I’m a growing young lady, Mom,” Sam said, her tone super serious. “I need to get a good night’s sleep.”

Phin got up to tuck the kids in, and Harry broke out a vintage bottle of 1970 Jack Daniels Tennessee Sipping Whiskey.

“I’ve been holding onto this since 2002,” Harry said. “Saving it for a special occasion.”

“It stops aging once it’s put in the bottle,” Herb told him.

Harry glanced at me and grinned. “Nonsense. I think Jack Daniels gets better with age.”

We all had a shot. Some of us thought the newer stuff was better. Some of us preferred the older stuff.

“I got in touch with the fire chief,” Harry told us. “They only found two bodies in the ruins. Plincer and Lester.”

“No Alex Kork?” I asked.

“Nope.”

He sat back and crossed his legs.

“You don’t look concerned,” I said.

McGlade shrugged. “Why should I be? We kicked her ass three times. If she comes back, we’ll kick it again. Besides, without that reformant regenerating serum crap, she’ll be dead in a week.”

We toasted to that. Then Phin rejoined us, and we toasted again.

Everything worked out.

And none of the heroes died.

I love happy endings.

Don’t you?

FIRST EPILOGUE

ANN

Chicago, Illinois

The house was unassuming. A multi-flat Greyston with a concrete front porch, eight steps leading up to the white security door.

I’ve come this far.

It’s finally time to end my journey.

Ann climbed the steps slowly, methodically, her feet heavy, her mind racing. There was a doorbell, but she felt the need to knock.

After three hard raps, she knocked again.

Tequila Abernathy, a short man with a grey buzzcut and a body like a Greek god, opened the door with a nickel-plated .45 at his side, pointing at Ann.

Tequila was a former Olympic gymnast, a former mob enforcer, and the toughest person Ann had ever met, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Ann kept her gloved hands at her sides. She wasn’t sure how to start the conversation.

After a moment, Tequila asked, “How did you find me?”

“I staked out McGlade’s house. Followed you to the airport when you left. Took down your flight number, flew to Illinois myself, bought a plane ticket at O’Hare to get into the terminals, then followed you again when you exited the plane.”

“That was a lot of work just to kill me.”

“I don’t want to kill you.”

Tequila waited, silent.

“I don’t have any more of the serum that was used to bring me back from the dead. So I’m going to die again. And it isn’t going to be pleasant.”

“So end it. Eat a gun. Jump off a bridge. Overdose on aspirin.”

“Suicide is a sin.”

Tequila waited again. A cold breeze came in, making Ann shiver.

“When I died the first time,” she explained, “I think I went to hell.”

Tequila’s mouth turned up slightly.

Is he grinning?

“How was hell?”

Ann spent three full minutes, standing on that porch, explaining to a man whom she horribly wronged how scared she was of going back.

“But I will go back,” she concluded. “I’ve done too many bad things for the Universe to forgive me.”

“Why are you here?”

“Two reasons. First… to apologize.”

Tequila waited, and when she didn’t immediately continue he raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry,” Ann blurted out. “For everything I did to you. And to your friend, Herb. And to everybody.”

“You’re asking for forgiveness?”

Ann shook her head. “I don’t deserve forgiveness. I’m giving you the chance for justice.”

“There’s no such thing as justice, Ann. It’s just a fancy word for revenge.”

“Revenge then.”

“You want me to kill you. And then you don’t have to commit one more sin. Suicide.”

It was Ann’s turn to wait silently.

“Maybe it wasn’t hell,” Tequila said. “Maybe it was that reformant serum the whole time, messing with your brain. Maybe, while it resuscitated you, it made you think you were in hell. Did you have any sort of vision when Alex shot you?”

Ann touched her neck, where the bullet wound was still healing. “No. There was nothing. But that happened pretty fast.”

“Less damage, less serum. Maybe, as your brain cells were coming back to life, you had a physical experience caused by the drug, not a spiritual one.”

Maybe. It’s not a bad explanation.

But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to die.

“If you want to make me suffer first,” Ann said. “I understand. I won’t fight you.”

A bird tweeted. Somewhere up the street, a car honked.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Tequila said.

Ann blinked. “What? Why not?”

“I gave up on revenge, years ago.”

Ann had no idea how to respond to that. She’d been so focused on finding this man, so certain he’d want to end her life, that she felt completely lost.

“Want to come in?” Tequila asked. “Meet my dogs?”

What did he just ask me?

“Are you… are you kidding?”

“Maybe we could both use the company.”

“But… I’m awful.”

“I’m awful, too.”

Ann pulled down the balaclava, revealing her misshapen face. “Look at me. I’m scarred.”

“We all have scars,” Tequila replied. “Maybe, for a little while, we can help each other forget our scars.”

Ann felt something happen to her eyes. Things got blurry. When she reached up to check her face, she realized she was crying.

“Why?” she managed to say, her voice quavering.

“I saw what you did. When you saved Sam.”

Ann’s shoulders began to shake. “I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

“No one deserves anything,” Tequila said. “But if it means something to you… I forgive you.”

She shook her head, unable to believe this was happening. “How? How can you do that?”

“First you have to forgive yourself.”

“I… I don’t think I could.”

“I can tell you how I did it.”

Tequila lowered his gun—

—and he held out his other hand.

Ann took a step away. She didn’t know what to think. What to say. What to feel.

But his face appeared kind. His offer appeared sincere.

“I’ve killed so many people,” Ann said.

“So have I.”

“I’ve done terrible things.”

“So have I.”

“So… why? Why are you offering this to me?”

“Come in and find out.”

Ann Steinhoffer hesitated.

And then she did the scariest thing she’d ever done.

She stepped forward.

And she took Tequila’s hand.

And he led her inside.

So I can find out…

SECOND EPILOGUE

ALEX

Fort Michilimackinac, Michigan

The second and third degree burns from the fire still ached. Before escaping the building, Alex had managed to snag one last vial of reformant, and heal herself enough to steal a car and head east.

She’d parked two clicks away from the military base and hiked to it in a stolen ghillie suit, armed only with binoculars and her cell phone.

Looking for Colonel Jared Cormley.

Alex bivouacked on site, watching the change of guard, taking copious notes, drinking from a stream, foraging edible plants.

It will be extremely difficult to breach this base myself.

I need a partner.

The enemy of my enemy, and all that BS…

Let bygones be bygones. Right?

With zero hesitation, Alex took out her cell phone and texted the paladin.

—I’m in Michigan. We can get more reformant, but I need your help. You in?

Alex Kork stared at the screen and waited for an answer…

THE END

Jack and crew will be back in…

BOURBON HAMMER

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PINK LADY
Copyright © 2024 by Joe Konrath
Cover art copyright © 2024 by Lynne Hansen

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the authors.

December 2024