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Original art by SinisterCyclist - deviantART Site • Used with permission.

Chapter 1

"Look," I told the guy on the other end of the phone, "I really don't care. I'm holding the check you gave me in my hands. We bank at the same place, okay? The teller laughed at me when he saw the amount on this check."

A burst of angry Spanish came over the line at me.

"Don't give me that, I know you speak fucking English."

Silence. It stretched out for about a minute.

"I'll call you back," the guy said and hung up.

I dropped the phone in its cradle and sat back in my chair, peering at the ceiling. It had been a trying year. People that could well afford to hire me could also afford to hire somebody more presentable, so they did. Everyone that did make it through my door usually didn't stay long.

I scratched at the three-month growth on my chin and stopped looking at the ceiling, looking around the office instead. The paint on the walls was peeling, the fridge was empty, I think, and probably didn't work anyway. My file cabinet was dented and rusty and my chairs squeaked. They had no moving parts, but they squeaked. My desk looked like it was about to just fall apart.

My office is a lot like my life, see.

Some time back, I was introduced to the world behind the world. Monsters. Entities from Outside, beyond space, time and human comprehension. I was part of The Good Fight, for lack of a better way to put it. I had a mentor, Simon, that kept me alive and showed me how to fight these things and win. I had a support network that stretched across the country, and in some ways, across time itself.

And now, I have this office.

Some weird shit was going down, and I got Simon's daughter involved. One of the Things we fight against took her. I got her back, but . . . well, he was sore about it. I could hardly blame him. It had been about sixteen (or eighteen) months since I heard from him last, and my life had pretty much slid back into the gutter where it was when he found me. All in all, I guess I didn't feel too much about it. That was probably where I belonged, anyway.

I blew out a tired breath and stood up, dragging my field jacket off the chair behind me. There wasn't any fucking reason for me to camp out in the office. Any mail that came would be a bill, and there wasn't any way I was paying any of those this week. I adjusted my shoulder rig and the .357 in it and put on my jacket. My watch caught on a hole in the sleeve and I started to curse.

Rain spattered my office window, slowly at first, and then like it meant it, or like it was making up for not raining all week. This is my life.

Hoods that come attached to field jackets aren't meant to keep your head dry in torrential downpours. The thin fabric was soaked through, and cold tendrils of wet started to trickle their way down my back. I discovered a hole in my boot splashing through deep puddles on my way home.

I'd been walking to and from work ever since I sold off my '84 VW Rabbit. What I got for it took care of rent for my apartment and office for two months, but the bills piled up quick enough that it didn't matter and I had to walk. It was great. I should have bought new boots while I had cash. Next time.

The rain slowed down a bit when I turned onto Rundberg, which was good. Less water hitting the asphalt meant that it was quiet enough for me to hear the footsteps coming up behind me. A reflection in the window showed me two figures in hoodies rapidly catching up to me. Sigh. It was the same two idiots from last week. I stopped and turned.

The Puerto Rican in the lead thrust out with the kitchen knife he'd been hiding by his side. I turned and it slid past my midsection. My hand clapped down on his wrist and I kept on turning, forcing his elbow the wrong way, and he stumbled trying to keep me from dislocating it. I hit him in the ear as he went past and his knees wobbled. Letting go of his hand, I pushed him away hard and turned to his partner.

"And you?"

The older black man decided that today was not the day to mug me, after all, and turned to run back the way he came. I watched him go, wishing that he'd stayed. Still . . . the knife-wielder would do. I turned back to vent some frustration on him, but he was already running the opposite direction, towards the I-35 access road, clutching his arm like a broken wing.

"Oye, blanco," said the guy that ran the taco stand at the corner. "You keep walking by here like you're looking for a fight or something."

I ambled over, shaking out my left hand. It hurt from hitting the first guy's skull, which is why I try not to do that. He'd caught me in a sour mood. "I'm in a rough patch," I said, sliding under the awning and out of the rain. "I walk by here because it's between where I live and where I work. You know, geometry. The shortest distance between two points, and all that." I took a deep breath in through my nose and exhaled a sigh. "And the smell, Enrique. These tacos smell like heaven in a shell. What are you doing working a taco stand?"

Enrique gave me a quick grin. He was short for his width and kept his black hair slicked mercilessly back. Six very distinct hairs adorned his chin and he absolutely refused to shave. Tattoos rode and writhed up his forearms and rings glinted at his ears.

"You know me, I refuse to bow to you gringos and your economic slave-collar." He looked at his watch, which was well better than mine, and his grin widened. "Plus, I get to set my own goddamn hours. Help me close up and you can eat what I haven't sold yet."

Enrique is a saint.

He prattled on while we closed up the taco stand, talking about how his family in South Texas was constantly hitting him up for more cash, and how neither his wife nor his girlfriend really understood that the taco stand was his freedom. My mouth was full of leftover seasoned beef, but I managed to grunt my assent to the finer points of his argument.

"How 'bout you, vato? You never talk about your familia."

I pretended that I was still chewing on meat. The only family I had still above-ground was my cousin, the Mage Io. Since I never thought about having to explain him to anyone who wasn't actively involved in some sort of supernatural bind, I needed a minute to formulate an appropriate response.

"It's complicated," I finally said. And Enrique, being another dude, got it.

"Alright, blanco. I'll see you mañana, eh?"

"Sure," I said. "But why you closing up so early?"

Enrique grinned at me. "Fucking rain. And lowlifes like you, driving away all the customers. Besides," he looked away and studied traffic, "I just came into some money."

I waved to him and kept on walking.

There was a message on my answering machine when I got home. There usually was. Bill collectors had gotten pretty good at getting my number, and two of them were very adept at calling when my phone service was actually on. Crafty bastards.

I hit the PLAY button.

The message, when it started, was full of static and white noise. "Hey. If you're there, pick up." I couldn't tell who the voice belonged to for all the interference. It was male, that much I was sure of. "Someone's been asking around about you, and it's only a matter of time before they get to me. Word's getting around, man, and everybody is scared. Watch your back."

I didn't have Caller ID, since you need money for that, so I couldn't check the number. I played the message again, listening harder, trying to figure out who it was. The white noise sounded like EVP—electronic voice phenomena, supposedly the spirit world caught on tape, or whatever—but as I no longer had access to a computer, I wouldn't be able to clean the recording up or listen to the EVP all on its own, see what the other side had to say.

"Groovy," I said to the empty apartment. It really was an empty place. The surreally quintessential Bachelor Pad. Except, I didn't have any neon beer signs, or stacks of pizza boxes or any shit like that. I didn't even have a television. In the entertainment center sat an empty aquarium. I also had a small bookshelf, half full of library books and half full of weirder, occult readings, and I had a La-Z-Boy recliner that one of my neighbors had seen fit to throw away. I slept in it or the hammock that was hanging up in the one bedroom.

I usually slept in the bedroom, because that's where the weapons are. Handguns. Knives. Rifles. Swords. Shotguns. The walls of my bedroom look like they belong to a disorganized armory. Yeah, before I got all caught up in the struggle for all mankind, I was a bit of a pistolphile, if that's even a word. But after I found out that there probably was a monster in my closet? Forget about it. When something with glowing red eyes and fangs finally sticks its snout in my face, it's going to get an abrupt welcome.

After hanging my jacket and shirt in the shower, I grabbed a machete and sat in the front room to clean the gun I wore around those days, a Colt .357 Magnum with a six-inch barrel in a blued finish. I didn't need the machete to clean the gun, but when I'm home it's kind of my security blanket.

I'd gotten settled in and the gun taken apart when the phone rang. Since that seldom happened at the office and never at home after normal working hours, I was at a loss for what to do. On the fifth ring I figured it out and dashed over there.

"Yo," I said. I heard someone on the other end, a girl, whisper my name as a question. "It's me," I answered.

"You have to get out," she said.

"Who is this?"

"What? It's Anita. Now, get out. They just left my place and they're headed to your apartment now."

"Anita? Wait, you have my phone number? And who the fuck is 'they'?"

"Just go, idiot," she said, hanging up.

I looked at the receiver for a minute. Anita was a girl I'd met the year before, a sometime astral traveler that pulled my metaphoric hide out of a particularly nasty spot. She'd offered to let me pay her back with dinner and a movie, but she was a very nice girl. She didn't deserve to become involved with a train wreck like me. But, somehow, it appeared that someone knew about her.

I put the .357 back together, loaded it and grabbed a couple of knives. My jacket was still good and wet, but I didn't have another one so it would have to do, but I grabbed a dry shirt off the clean pile. On reflection, I also grabbed a carbine rifle, put everything on and headed out the door.

I lay on the roof of the apartment building across the parking lot from my own, shielded from view by the leaves of a large oak tree, looking through the scope on my rifle for anything . . . peculiar. Fifteen minutes had gone by since Anita's warning call, and I wish that I'd taken the time to ask her how she knew my number and address.

A black SUV rolled to a stop in front of my building. Jesus. Do bad guys get rental discounts on black cars or something? I snorted. Snidely Whiplash, proprietor. The passenger-side door opened and a pale, blond woman in a pantsuit stepped out of the SUV, a briefcase in her hand. She went right to my apartment door and knocked. I grunted. The doors on my building aren't numbered, haven't been for over a year.

She knocked again and waited. For a minute. The blonde turned back to the car, digging a cell phone out of her jacket pocket. She put the briefcase down in front of the front tire and dialed a number.

My pocket began to ring.

I dug at my jacket and pulled out a red cell phone. I knew it wasn't mine, as my service had been shut off six months before and I saw no reason to carry it around. I sighted on her with the rifle and flipped the phone open, putting it up to my face.

"If it's not Girl Scout cookies in that briefcase, or something equally innocent, I will splatter your brains all over that windshield."

The blond laughed. "Excellent. You are exactly as I was told you would be. I'm here to hire you, sir. And what is in the briefcase will enable you to buy as many boxes of Thin Mints as your heart desires, maybe for the rest of your life."

"I don't know," I said. "I loves me some Thin Mints."

"Please, sir, come down off the roof so we can talk in your apartment."

What?

"I'm sure your Colt is digging into your ribs by now, and that soaking-wet field jacket can't be comfortable."

Oh. It's going to be one of those days.

Chapter 2

I walked past the blonde and her pinstripe-suited partner and unlocked my door. They followed me in and I plopped myself in my recliner, the only seat in the apartment. There's a common trick that people use during job interviews, they sit you down and remain standing themselves so that you have to look up at them. This was kind of backwards, and it shouldn't have worked . . . except I had a rifle.

"Go ahead," I said, stifling a yawn.

The blonde smiled and walked around me to place the briefcase on top of the empty fish tank. "I am Ms. Fisher. This associate of mine would rather that you didn't know his name." She said this last with a smile. "We have been authorized, on behalf of the Temhota Group, to hire you to complete three missions of extreme importance."

"To who?"

"Excuse me?" her partner asked.

"Missions of extreme importance to who?" I said.

"To whom," Ms. Fisher said. "And the simple answer is, to everybody. We know what it is you do, sir. Or, rather, what you used to do. Your work with Mr. d'Argent speaks for itself, and what we would have you do falls within that realm."

I shrugged. "Why don't you have Simon do it for you, then? He's better at that kind of thing than I am."

Ms. Fisher smiled a patient little smile at me. "We can't find him." I raised my eyebrows. "In truth," she said. "We've been trying to get in contact with Mr. d'Argent for six months now, and so far all of our efforts have ended in failure. It's as if he has simply ceased to exist."

I didn't know that, and it bothered me. First things first, though.

"Okay, then. Important to 'everyone,' and you can't find Simon. Who is it exactly I'll be working for?"

The man in the pinstriped suit started. "You don't even want to know what the job is?" he sputtered. Ms. Fisher smiled.

"Lookee here, if you know all about what I used to do, and you know all about Simon, then you're not just some nutjob that wandered into my office off the street, looking for someplace to get out of the rain. You're at my apartment. If this has to do with the Old Ones, then it's serious." I looked at the briefcase.

"This'd be the first time I get paid to run interference, though. So, I reiterate: who is it exactly I'll be working for?"

Ms. Fisher raised a placating hand. "The Temhota Group prefers to remain anonymous. We are a consortium of old families and businessmen with interests in every corner of the globe. All of our resources will be at your disposal should you accept the job."

I nodded once. "Why is he here?" I asked, pointing at Pinstripe.

He raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

I ignored him. "You're Temhota. He ain't. Why is he here?"

Ms. Fisher smiled again. "You are correct. My associate is here representing another person that we have hired in this matter to act as your assistant, a weapons expert with knowledge and experience in the field. You will find him most . . . intrepid."

Pinstripe put his left hand to his ear. "Have you heard enough?" he asked. Nodding, he gave Ms. Fisher an okay sign with his right. "Fringe accepts."

"I don't accept until I get to meet a . . . higher ranking member of the Temhota," I said. "I kind of like to meet who I'm working for."

Ms. Fisher waved me to the front door. "In that case, sir, your chariot awaits."

"This is a nice ride," I said from the backseat of the Infiniti. "What's it got under the hood, a V6?"

"V8," said Ms. Fisher from the driver's seat. "Over three hundred horses pull us along while we keep the outside world outside with the eleven-speaker Bose system."

She turned us onto North I-35 and drove for a while. A couple of miles down the highway, she took an exit and went left. We stopped at a Chicago-style eatery and Pinstripe got out. The engine idled serenely while we waited.

"Should I get in front?" I asked.

"That won't be necessary," Ms. Fisher replied. "Your, ah, sidekick-to-be wanted to meet with someone higher up the Temhota food chain than myself, and as you wish the same, my superior in the area decided to kill two birds with one stone."

I wished she hadn't phrased it like that. Meh.

"Well, can I get some food while we wait?"

A large white man with a blond crew-cut came out of the bookstore to my right and walked towards the car. His hair was split down the right side, front to back, with a wide red stripe. He wore no coat against the wind and rain, and his arms bulged with muscle that looked more jungle than gym. His face was hard, his hands scarred, and he moved like a panther.

He got in the front seat and Ms. Fisher favored him with a smile. No food, I thought to myself.

"Fringe, thank you for coming. This is—"

"I know who he is," he cut her off. Fringe looked back at me, his eyes chips of violet ice. Then he grinned, and on the whole, I think I'd have preferred it if he just hit me in the face instead. "Good luck," he finally said and turned back to buckle his seat belt. Safety first.

We rode further north for a while in silence. If I wasn't so fucking dauntless, the suspense might have been killing me. About half an hour north of Austin, Ms. Fisher broke the silence.

"I hate to do this part, but you both are getting very tired." She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel in a pattern I recognized, and before I knew it, I was very drowsy in the back seat.

"I hate magic," I heard Fringe slur before we dropped off.

When I came to, the Infiniti was parked in front of what looked like a castle made from blocks carved out of black ice. I peered out the window and made a clucking noise with my tongue.

"There's a moat," I said. Fringe might have smiled.

"There is," Ms. Fisher agreed. "The Shadow Keep is exceedingly secure, gentlemen. Please, won't you join me?"

She got out of the car and headed towards the front entrance. Fringe and I followed. I felt like I was walking next to a slim-hipped refrigerator. One with long legs. I managed to keep up without skipping.

As we crossed the bridge over the moat and got closer to the house, it looked less like a castle and more like a manor. The center bit over the front door looked like it had one of those things at the top from which to pour boiling oil on invaders, like a rook in chess. What I'd taken for narrow towers at first turned out to be odd chimneys. I glanced down at the water. It was slick as glass and slightly green.

"The Shadow Keep. Weird-ass place," I murmured.

Fringe raised his eyebrows. "Expensive weird-ass place."

It seemed to me he had his priorities straight.

Ms. Fisher rang the bell, which opened a panel next to the door with a touch screen on it. She placed her fingertips in the five circles there, and a tone sounded. There was a sound of several locks turning and the door swung noiselessly open. Ms. Fisher waved us in. As I entered the manor, I looked at the door. It was thick, and looked to be very heavy.

All thoughts of the place's security were overrun by the sheer size of the entry foyer past the antechamber. White and black checkered marble covered the floor, framing a mosaic of a dark and lidless eye in the middle of the floor. Two long, curving staircases on either side swept down from the second level. Between the staircases stood two columns that framed a doorway. A large crystal chandelier hung a good twenty feet overhead. Lighting came from sconces along the walls.

Ms. Fisher started up the left-hand staircase, not looking back to see if we were following. Fringe and I crossed the floor (I was careful not to step on the eye) and went up behind her to the landing above.

At the top of the staircases stood a room full of bookshelves. In size alone, it was probably bigger than the Austin Public Library less than a mile from where I lived. A corridor ran down the center, leading to a grand desk. Behind the man that sat at the desk were two flags. One had the checkerboard pattern with eye from downstairs, the other was furled and I couldn't see it. The desk was flanked by a large globe on one side and what looked like a stuffed werewolf on the other. Weird? You bet.

Behind the desk sat an old man. Liver spots covered the parts of his head that no longer held hair, and the hair that was hanging on was white, white, white. He wore a severely black sweater, a turtleneck, and was writing on what looked like a piece of parchment with what looked like a quill pen. I looked around for anything that looked like a footman in a powdered wig.

The old man stabbed the paper with the quill as if putting a final point on the end of a declaration. He looked up at me and Fringe, and I was surprised at the clarity of his eyes. I'd half-expected rheumy and watery. Instead, this old man looked sharp enough to do his own taxes without fear.

"You two. Excellent work, Ms. Fisher. You may go." The blonde lady nodded at us and turned on her heel to walk briskly away. "That girl," the old man said, eyeing her wistfully, "will one day have my job." He shook himself. "On to business. We at Temhota have come into a bit of information that has scared us shitless. You two," he waved at us, "represent our best hope to nip this right in the bud. The Council, in their infinite fucking wisdom, has seen fit to forbid me from sharing with you any scrap of information that would persuade you to either take this job or run screaming." He favored us with a bitter smile. "I would recommend the latter. The pay is up front and immediate. Six figures. We don't care which digits you choose. Gentlemen, what do you say?"

Fringe nodded. I said, "It's unanimous."

The old man spread his hands. "Fools. God love 'em. Follow me."

The old man didn't dodder. In fact, he was pretty fucking brisk. I think "sprightly" is the right word. He walked us from the front of that old place all the way to the back and up a set of stairs. He came to a room that he unlocked with a key that hung around his neck under the sweater and walked in. Right up to a shelf he went and pulled down two pins. Diamond-shaped, with the checker and eye motif. He handed them to us.

"There you go," he said. "You are now officially working for the Temhota Group. Ominous dominus, all that. Take a seat while I explain the way the world works to you."

He dropped into a chair behind a desk much like the one in the library downstairs. Fringe and I each sat in straight-backed wooden chairs. I felt like I was in school again, in the principle's office. Fringe looked bored.

The old man rapped a knuckle on his desk for a minute, eyeing us carefully. "First, know this. Everything you've seen, even you two, is just the beginning. The tip of a gruesome, millennia-spanning iceberg. On occasion, there are flare-ups of activity from Outside, yeah?" He pointed at me. "You and your mentor Simon, you chase around like cats on fire, taking care of business. And you, Fringe, you hire yourself out to do the same thing."

A laugh barked out from the withered lips. "Overflow. That's all it is. These mind-bending, reality warping events, so potentially cataclysmic each and every time, are just drops of soup, slopping over the rim of a terrible and terribly full bowl."

"Uh," I said, "is this the information that has you scared shitless?"

He snorted. "Of course, not. I'm just setting the stage. Allow an old man his melodrama, will you?" He steepled his fingers in front of his face. "Well, fuck it. You ruined the moment. So let me just spell it out." He ticked off points on his right hand.

"One, you are not the front line. Two, the front line is so hideous that it would blast your mind clean out the back of your head to see its shadow. Three . . ."

He held that finger up for a second. Grave. "Three, the front line is failing. I believe there has been a betrayal somewhere."

The old man looked at me. "You. Your little run-ins with the Faces of Nyarlat are too frequent to be anything but a symptom of a greater ill. We suspect that the Crawling Chaos is working something, but even the most devious of us hasn't got anything on Him." He nodded. "Except maybe Simon. But you'll have to do."

Fringe looked over at me. "Total silver medal."

"Pipe down, you. Listen, I know that you've heard all this doom and gloom before. The easiest way to show you is to just show you. Pay attention."

The old man stood up and reached over the back of his head. He pulled on the nape of his neck until there was a tearing sound, and the skin of his face fell loose. It came away like a rubber mask, except it was dripping blood. Underneath, the old man was a creature of blackest skin. Flames peeked out from behind his eyes and he grew in stature with every breath he took. His hair and eyebrows burst into crackling flames.

I backed my chair away as fast as my feet would move me, until I was up against the door. I couldn't look away.

The fire-creature reached under the desk and drew forth a shining sword, more brilliant than the sun, blinding me. The thing bellowed and raised the sword and all I could think of was what a waste my life had become.

Chapter 3

I noticed three things while I was cowering in terror. One, somehow my .357 had made it into my hand and I was pointing it at the beast. Two, not only had Fringe not moved, he still looked as though me might fall asleep at any moment. And three, and I considered this the most important, I wasn't dead. The beast stood there, easily twice the size of the old man we'd walked in with, holding a big damn pig-sticker of a sword, but he wasn't advancing on me.

I let my gun hand fall to my side and straightened up. "Flashy," I said as soon as I'd found my voice. Fringe snorted.

"Your reflexes, mortal, are wonderful, as are your instincts." The beast snorted once, louder than Fringe had, and tossed his head just like a restless horse would. "In days of old, I'd have cleaved you in twain, gun or no. But now," the sword point went down and the light from it faded considerably. "Now, I have a desk job. Someone else has taken my place on the front line, mortal. So Surtr, the Black One, is retired.”

The crackling fire of his hair and eyebrows subsided and he began to shrink again. When he was back to the size he started, he slipped the bloody face onto his head and worked it around with his hands.

Surtr folded his hands on the desk and smiled at us. "You can sit, I believe." I did so. "I know, you hear all kinds of things about the old gods, how we're stuck in our ways, we don't evolve, who we were back then is who we are now. Rubbish." The smile turned grim. "I'm supposed to be the one that burns the world. Instead, here I am. Retired. Probably play golf this afternoon."

I rolled that around in my head. The front line he was talking about, it was peopled with old and terrible gods? "Jesus Christ," I whispered.

The old man laughed. "He's not on the rolls. Him and His Father, they're all about Their timetables and watching." He shook his head. "No. If there's something to be done, we by-gods do it, and hang prophecy. Well, I don't want this to take all fucking day." He reached into a desk and pulled out two manila envelopes, handing one each to us. "Here are your missions. Separately, you'll have things to do. The last one is for both of you. Wear the pins when you open the envelopes, I don't want any disintegrations."

I took the offered packet and slipped it into the pocket of my jacket. I didn't see where Fringe's went. Crafty. The old man waved at us to leave. "Talk to Ms. Fisher on your way out. She'll provide you with funds and arms. Goodbye." He went to writing another letter or whatever on a piece of parchment just like the one he'd had when we walked in.

Fringe and I stood and left.

"This shit," I said as we walked down a spiral staircase to where Ms. Fisher waited, "is off the charts weird. I'm not even sure if we're still in Texas."

Fringe shrugged. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in all your late-night movies."

"Be that as it may," said Ms. Fisher, "we have a couple more things to do still. Please walk this way."

She led us back to the front, where there were two briefcases. "These go with you. Funds. Through here," she pointed back to the doorway between the staircases, "is the Armory. This way."

And finally, something got through Fringe's cool.

If violence had an outlet mall, this place would have a store there. Humdrum, normal everyday guns were at the front on either side. Rows and rows of them. Automatics, revolvers, and palm-sized Derringers gave way to M4 and M14 carbines, breech-load shotguns and H&K MP5s and 416s. These mundane things acted as an extensive honor guard for some truly scary shit. Four glass cases sat at the end of the room under bright spotlights.

A flaming sword sat in the first case on the wall, a giant sigil of angelic script behind it. Next to it in the second case, there was a belt, a pair of . . . well, gauntlets, I guess. Big, armored gloves. Those were stacked under a short-handled hammer, a giant rune on the wall behind. Then came a spear with Greek writing behind next to a katana and kanji. I stopped paying close attention. I didn't want any of it, didn't want any part of these weapons. I believe that I started to shake.

If they were authentic, I didn't want to know how they got them.

"Beautiful," Fringe whispered.

He walked over to the flaming sword, put his nose up to the glass. "Is this the one? I mean, the sword?"

Ms. Fisher nodded, and Fringe smiled.

"So, the gates are open, then? Unguarded?"

Ms. Fisher, ever enigmatic, shook her head. Fringe grunted and went back to looking at the sword.

"Well," I said, clapping my hands once, "that is quite the sword, but how would you carry it around, dude? Uh, asbestos scabbard?"

A peal of laughter came out of the blonde's mouth and I felt me knees go a little weak. God damn. I needed to get out of that fucking madhouse. Ms. Fisher walked close to Fringe and began explaining something.

Turning, I tore my eyes off the ancient relics and looked closer at the guns. They were, after all, my thing. I walked over to the wall of handguns, leaving Ms. Fisher and Fringe to their discussion.

I picked out a matching pair of Freedom Arms M83 .41 caliber handguns. Five shot revolvers with scopes mounted over seven-and-a-half inch barrels, hardwood handles and stainless brush finish, etched with stuff I didn't recognize off the bat, but I knew it was magic. Hah. Put these on my hips, get me an eye patch, and damned if I'm not Snake Plisskin. I hefted the guns in my hands. Twirled them one at a time, then together. Then across each other, like Johnny Ringo in Tombstone.

Hmm. I'm not that good. I began spinning the guns faster, trying tosses. Caught them every time, ready to fire. Then, I knew what the etchings were for. I decided that yes, I would take them, along with any bullets Temhota might provide.

I looked back, and Fringe was standing there, clenched right fist out in front of him. Ms. Fisher finished explaining something in hushed tones. They both looked up at me.

"I've got what I need," I said, a pistol in each hand. Fringe nodded.

"Me, too." He walked away empty-handed from the cases in the back and grabbed a couple of machine guns. Good. That would have been awkward, running around with a flaming fucking sword.

Ms. Fisher dropped me off at my apartment with a briefcase full of money, a pair of enchanted revolvers, and a manila envelope that held a mission that probably promised to be my death. I wanted to split. That much money, I could've taken off to the Philippines or wherever and never be seen again. Live the good life, drinking fruity drinks on the beach and letting the whole world go to hell without me.

Until one day when someone, probably Fringe, walks up and puts a magic bullet in my head. Ah, shit. I put the briefcase down and put my key in the door. The hairs on the back of my neck stood right the fuck up and my hands buzzed. What?

I backed away from the door. My first instinct was to go through the window, magic guns blazing. But, that had never happened before, with the tingling or whatever. The key sat there in the lock, taunting me. I knocked on the briefcase. It seemed pretty sturdy. Would they? They had the resources, seemingly.

Oh, why not?

I grabbed one of my new guns in my right hand and worked the key with my left. The door popped open an inch, and I stooped to pick up the briefcase. There was a blast, and a chunk of door went missing, right where my head should have been. Hoohaw!

I slammed into the door, pushing it in with the briefcase in front of my head, firing the gun twice over it into the room. The recoil was strong, the first shot pulling my hand all the way over to my left before I next pulled the trigger. I dove behind my pathetic little recliner and waited for the inevitable blast.

And I waited.

One thing I'm good at, especially when people are trying to kill me, is waiting. So I sat behind the recliner, my palms starting to sweat and my breath coming in ragged shots of air. Nothing. Two minutes went by.

I heard something go shhthump in my kitchen, and I stood up, gun out and squeezing the trigger. Click, click, the gun said merrily. Fortunately, I was pointing it at an empty kitchen. What the hell?

I stalked over there carefully, gun at the ready. After this, I'd have to call Ms. Fisher back and have her change out this fucking gun for something that worked worth a shit. Maybe it was the bullets. Maybe . . .

Maybe not.

A dead thug in black body armor lay dead in my kitchen, an automatic shotgun next to him. He had two holes in his head, one under his left eye and one in the middle of his forehead, and he was leaking blood and brains all over my linoleum. I looked at the gun. Two holes?

I turned back to the living room. It took me a minute to find it, but when I did . . . last year, I hid something in my wall, a box of stuff that I didn't want just laying around. Weird technology. It was in a silver case. There was a bare spot on my wall where I'd hidden that case, and a dent showed in it. I went over there, looked at it hard. Turned back. From there, it was a clean, straight shot into the kitchen.

Alright, then. I'd keep the guns.

I sat in my recliner, going over the papers from the manila envelope. There were two folders in it, each one full of information. The first had a name and a rundown of likely associates and locations. Oh, and it had a drawing instead of a picture. A drawing.

See, cameras don't work on vampires. Io, my magic-man cousin, tried to explain to me one time why, but mostly I ignored what he was saying because I wanted the last piece of pizza. I pulled the red cell phone from my pocket and realized that I couldn't remember his number. My old phone was somewhere in the apartment . . . or had I sold it? Shit.

The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi," the cheery voice of Ms. Fisher came over the phone. "I knew there was something I'd forgotten to tell you. You are, until you meet back up with Fringe, on your own. You don't get help from your cop friends, and you especially don't get help from your cousin."

That was . . . well, I don't know what it was. Creepy, that she knew I was going to call him? Or just scary coincidence? I decided against coincidence, looking at the dent in the case hidden in my wall. I was playing in the major leagues now.

"Gotcha," I said, hanging up. I stared at the phone for a second, then turned it all the way off and jammed it into my pocket.

The subject of the information in the first folder was one Ivan Nikitin. The drawing of him showed a bald man with a crooked nose and deepset eyes. Thin lips sat over a weak chin, all over a protruding Adam's apple. Hollywood would have rejected him for a vampire. The next drawing was one of a large tiger. Black stripes, orange on top and white on the bottom. Dimensions drawn in gave it as four and half feet tall by twelve feet long. What was that, a pet or something? Jesus.

I flipped through the sheaf of papers. Habits, hang-outs, brief bio . . . that one. Ivan was born in Siberia back in the early 1400's. Good, good. I was afraid that this would be easy. He was turned as a vampire at the age or forty-five, which explained why he looked so shitty. That was pretty late in life back then, I gathered. Kicked around Russia for a while, moved to China for a couple hundred years until the British arrived and took over. Emigrated to the New World, working his undead magic in South America until recently. Nothing about the big fucking tiger.

Further reading showed him moving up north the States a couple of years ago, and he was in contention with someone called Ra-Hoor-Khuit, also noted as The Eastking, for . . . well, this complicated things.

Ivan Nikitin was vying to be the next Vampire King of Texas.

Chapter 4

The dead guy in my kitchen was starting to annoy me.

Not in the same way that, say, my apartment being right next to a bus stop annoyed me. Or the way that the barking dog down the street annoyed me. No, this was more me wondering where he came from and how he got in and if he was supposed to check in with somebody, and if so, would more of them be swarming in soon?

That kind of annoyed me.

I wrapped up my paperwork and put it in the briefcase, then strapped on both of those kick-ass guns after reloading the one I'd shot the dead guy with. I dropped a couple of quick-loaders full of Remington Magnum rounds into each jacket pocket and then, carefully, moved a posted of Bruce Lee to cover the hole in the wall.

My shower curtain needed cleaning, and since I'd rather just throw it away, I decided to use it to wrap up the dead guy. No wallet, no ID, no pocket change, nothing but a pouch of extra rounds for his SPAS-12. I pulled his sleeves up and looked for tattoos there, checked around his neck and upper chest. Nothing. Bah.

I wrapped him up and got him in a fireman's carry. Sucker was kind of heavy. Good thing I didn't have far to go. When I got my apartment, I noticed that the Dumpster was behind the building, and past it was a straight shot to a side road between I-35 and Lamar. So, I kind of made a door. A short one. I laid the dead guy out in my room and pulled the door open after checking the window. Out went the corpse, me right behind. I got him back up and half-jogged over to the trash bin.

It took some doing, but I got him in and covered. Nobody around. Back into the apartment, I collected the briefcase and the shotgun, because it was automatic and I like that in a big-bore weapon. The extra shells went into my pockets, which were getting kind of full, and out to the bus stop I went. Because, briefcase full of money or no, I still had no goddamn car.

The shotgun proved to be an irritant to the bus driver, who refused to let me on. Seemed goofy to me to try and bar someone from the bus while they're toting a by-god shotgun, but she stood her ground and made me wouldn't let me on, which meant that I had to take it back to the apartment. I hid it in the ceiling.

Of course, she didn't wait. While I waited for the next bus, I thought about going back to get the SPAS-12, but I figured that the odds were against me that the next bus driver would be any cooler, even if it would be the last one of the night. That annoyed me more than the dead guy being in my kitchen, so I got up to walk. I got halfway down the side street to Lamar when the Dumpster behind my apartment exploded. I broke into something of a jog.

This evening, when I was walking home in the rain with no prospects and nothing to show for a full day at the office, what did I get? First an attempted mugging and then a bellyful of barbacoa. And that was fair. Now, when I've got an almost certain death mission and a pair of enchanted revolvers, I've got exploding garbage bins. Life makes no fucking sense.

Fuck. The body must have had explosives on it where I didn't see. If I was incredibly lucky, the cops would call it a suicide. A really bizarre suicide, maybe. I'm never that lucky.

I needed someplace to go where I could read the rest of this file and make some kind of plan. I'm not normally one for plans and such, but I don't normally go up against centuries-old vampires—with giant pet tigers, no less—that was no doubt already on his guard because he was in a war of sorts with another centuries-old vampire.

I rolled that around in my head while I walked south down Lamar. Vampire conflict. I could probably use that.

Not being able to talk to Io really put a crimp in my plans. If anyone I knew would be able to tell me where to find the hangout of The Vampire King of Texas, it would be him. Two years before, on a thing in Chicago, I saw him using a search engine to look up a thing we ran across. The name of it escaped me, but if I had an actual keyboard under my hands, that might spark a memory. What else did I have to go on?

I looked up to discover that I'd walked quite a ways. I stood at the intersection of Lamar and 12th, which was good. This part of town had taverns and whatnot where the college kids hung out. Maybe I could get one of them to let me use their laptop? If just asking politely wouldn't do the trick, I could always stick a gun in someone's face and ask politely. You get more with a honey and a gun than you do with just honey.

The first couple of places weren't very helpful. Nothing going on but sports-watching and drinking. That was no good . . . where did the nerds hang out? There was a bookstore a couple blocks from where I was, so I went that way and stood outside the place for fifteen minutes, watching who went in and out. Big purse . . . messenger bag . . . backpack, bingo.

The pale kid with the backpack had curly and dark hair, dressed in some sort of neo-goth style. One of the trench coat mafia. I tapped him on one padded shoulder in the horror section of the bookstore, barely getting his attention. He kind of grunted at me, so I did it again, harder. The cloth was stiff, like it was still brand-new.

"Yeah?" he said, turning to me, exasperated. I noticed his eyeliner was inexpertly applied. I pointed a thumb at his bag.

"I need to borrow your laptop, man."

He made a face, as if I'd asked to date his mother. Well, not "date."

"What? No, man. That's pretty weird. Don't you think that's weird, walk up to a total stranger and ask to use their personal shit?" He turned back to the books, the trench coat falling open to reveal a price tag and a gun. What?

I sighed. "Maybe," I said, glancing at the book in his hand. It was one of those trashy vampire novels. I knew this one, full of sex and gore. It was called Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines. Two thoughts occurred to me. "Do you mind if I just ask you some questions, then? I need to know what you know about vampires."

"Oh," he said, relaxing a bit. "Yeah, you don't need a computer for that. All there is to know is in my head. Just ah . . . buy this book for me, and we'll call it even."

I wanted to thump him and take the bag, ask him who he was working for, but I decided against. Maybe I'm mellowing with age. Maybe I was just paranoid. I snatched the book out of his hands and went to the front. Not everybody that I run into that happened to be carrying (and wearing their outfit like a costume) had some nefarious scheme in mind. The cashier took my money and handed me my change with a flourish, as if she lived to do that kind of thing. Austin bookstores.

I led my book hound back to one of the taverns and got us a booth. He sat and ordered a dark beer, after looking at me to confirm that I was buying. I sighed again, thinking of how easy my evening would be if I had just thumped him. I kept my left hand on a gun. Deep breaths.

"Alright," he said once he got settled. I noticed his right hand close to his jacket. "What do you need to know?"

I thought for a bit, trying to frame my question so that he'd want to answer it instead of running away screaming. Or, like, shooting me. This town is pretty tolerant of wackos, but I didn't know how he would take it if I started asking seriously about a vampire power-struggle. I thought it very probable that's why he was there, though. I hated this job.

My phone chirped, breaking my concentration. I thought I'd turned that fucking thing off? I held up one finger as I dug the phone out of my pocket. "Yeah?"

"Hello, you," the cheery voice of Ms. Fisher came over the phone. "I just wanted to call and remind you that we, as in the Temhota Group, like to operate in secret. Dressed in black, hiding in shadows."

"Okay. Um . . . thanks?"

She laughed. "Get rid of the kid. I thought you'd end up doing something goofy like this, so I put him where you could find him. Someone else will be there shortly to take his place. How have you made it for so long?"

"Whatever, lady. You came to me. I'd have found something, too. Maybe not right away, but sometime." I decided not to say anything about her fake and what I'd noticed. It never hurts to be underestimated.

Sigh. I shrugged and waved the kid off. He smiled, hefting his beer, and left the booth.

"Okay, he's gone. You know, you could have called me half an hour ago. Earlier, even. I wouldn't have minded. In fact, I might have been downright thankful." I grumped in my seat for a minute at the silent phone. "Now what?"

"Just you wait," she said, "and try not to over-react when your informant gets there."

Snapping the phone shut, I turned it over to remove the battery. That done, I slipped the battery in one breast pocket and the phone in the other. I disliked being spied on. Intensely.

I sat in the booth and drank a Sprite, keeping an eye on the crowd. No one stood out to me, but that didn't surprise me any. If my informant worked for or was part of Temhota, I wouldn't have been surprised if he turned out to be sitting on the bench next to me in total silence, waiting for me to notice him. Fucking antics.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I got that tingling feeling again, this time from my fingertips to my elbows. Last time that happened there was a guy with an automatic shotgun waiting to kill me dead. I slipped my right hand down to my waist and rested it on one of the revolvers. All on its own, my left hand shifted on the table until my fist pointed at a man in a black-and-white striped shirt that was walking towards me.

He slid into the booth across from me and smiled. His fangs glistened in the low light of the bar.

"Get you something to drink?" I asked the vampire. "Cocktail? Maybe a Bloody Mary?"

He put his head back and laughed, and the tingling in my forearms abated a bit. I loved those guns.

"No, thank you," he said. "I've already had something to drink tonight. Do you not see? I'm practically flush with good health."

Stolen, I thought. Relax. The Enemy of my enemy.

"I was told that you were after a certain member of my fraternity," he told me, his eyes never leaving mine. I couldn't place his accent, but it was certainly European. "I can provide you with any information you need. Nikitin is my sworn enemy, though he does not know it." The vampire's smile widened. "I am his right hand."

I toyed with the glass in front of me. "Good. I'll need all that information." I tilted my head back and finished off the Sprite. "But first, I need you to take me to the Eastking."

All the vampire's "good health" drained out of his face.

We walked along 6th Street, the vampire constantly looking slightly ill. He was muttering something under his breath in a different language, but I could guess that it was about me. Or my plan. Or both.

We stopped at a club where a metal band was playing at ear-splitting levels. The doorman smiled at me and waved me in. I shook my head.

"I just need a place to leave this," I said to him, showing him the briefcase. He looked at it, looked at me and shrugged.

"Fuck it, why not?" he said, taking the briefcase from me. I got him to write down his cell number on a club flyer and stuck it in my pocket. He raised his eyebrows.

"I'm having problems with my phone," I told him, walking away. He saluted me and went back to stamping hands and collecting money.

"Alright, Lestat. Where to?"

The vampire frowned. "Don't call me that. And do yourself a favor, don't call anyone we meet Dracula. It's quite an insult."

I digested that. "If you say so. Which way?"

He turned towards Congress and started walking, hands in pockets and shoulders hunched. We stopped in front of the Ritz, and he turned me around, pointing up.

"In there," he said, his index finger pointing at the top of a glass building. It was topped by weirdly-angled, jagged glass crown and a large, lit-up logo. Figures that a vampire lord would be holed up in style. I would have thought maybe one of the old Victorian houses right downtown, but I guess not.

Alright then, a couple blocks one way and a couple block another, and we'd be there. Yep. Ready to barge in on the Vampire King of Texas, with the right-hand man of his worst enemy in tow. Why not? I hated it when things got boring.

"Come on," I told the vampire. "Let's go see your boss's immortal enemy."

Chapter 5

My vampire companion (whose name was Viggo, it turns out) and I walked right up to the service entrance inside the parking portion of the glass monstrosity where the Vampire King lived. I pounded on the door three times, just about as hard as I could, but it wasn't very loud. I turned to Viggo.

"You've got retard strength, right?"

He shook his head and hit the door once, producing a boom that I could only dream of, all the while mumbling under his breath. He didn't like me, but I was okay with that. It had been a long, long while since I'd worried about what anyone thought of me. Plus, if this vampire disliked me, maybe he'd underestimate me, too. I could never have too much of that. The more these dangerous people took me lightly, the better.

The covering over the door's window slid back and a pair of hooded eyes looked out on us. They widened a bit when they saw Viggo, and a speaker next to the door crackled to life.

"You have giant balls, Viggo. Come to switch sides, finally?" The eyes slid over to me. "Why are you bringing a homeless man with you?"

"Oh, fuck you," I said. I know, witty repartee.

The face behind the glass smiled, fangs glistening. I still wasn't used to that, but I tried not to let it show. Predatory behavior and all that. The door clicked open and Viggo waved me inside. I stepped in and was confronted with a mountain of undead flesh. Now-familiar tingling buzzed my forearms. The door-guard vampire was at least seven feet tall and that big around. He was all in black leather, his bald head gleaming in the fluorescent light of the hallway.

"Wow," I said, looking at him. "How many cows died for that outfit?"

He clucked once. "Viggo, keep control of your human. You wish to see the boss, I take it?"

Viggo nodded, looking more confident than he was.

"Alright. And this bag of meat?"

"He comes to see the Eastking," Viggo said. "He has proposition. He represents party . . . interested in our little conflict."

The big vamp grunted, blowing carrion-smelling breath down at me. "Okay," he said finally. "But you keep him on a leash."

Viggo smiled. "He will be meek as lamb."

The elevator moved smoothly up thirty-plus floors to the top. With a hiss, the doors opened onto a glass cathedral fitting for a vampire lord. The place was like a cross between a crystal fortress and the bridge of a starship. With a fireplace. Dominating the center of the huge room was a figure on a raised throne-like seat that looked like it was carved from a single, giant tree. Roots and all. Trippy.

Immediately, the hairs on my arms all the way up to my shoulders stood up, and my skin tingled so hard it felt as if my arms were vibrating. I took that as a bad sign.

We showed up in the middle of something. Exactly what, I could not tell, but there were at least two dozen angry vampires congregated before the figure on the throne, arguing back and forth. On his throne, the Eastking (who else would it be?) sat with his chin on a fist, watching the row with glittering, silver eyes. His hair was dark and long, parted in the middle and falling straight down his back and shoulders. His dark face was interrupted by a prominent nose, Aquiline. Thin, arched eyebrows matched a thin-line mustache that connected to a pointed, short beard.

He wore a dark suit with a mandarin collar over a banded-collar shirt. The suit fit well and looked like it cost well over what I made in a year. The Eastking sat with legs crossed, dangling one soft leather monk-strap shoe while he listened. He looked very much amused.

The silver eyes turned up to Viggo and me, and his amusement deepened. He held up one hand, palm out, and the bickering stopped. All other eyes in the giant room turned to us, as well. I wasn't the least bit worried. Not me. I doubted that any of the vampires further away than ten feet could hear my heartbeat.

The Eastking dropped his hand, and the sea of vampires parted for us. Inviting. I started forward, not looking left or right at any of the unfriendly faces on either side of me. I was spooked enough already, thank you very much. I felt Viggo beside me and wasn't comforted by his presence at all. We stopped walking at the base of the short stairs leading up to the tree-chair.

"Viggo, you bat," the Eastking said, his smooth voice sending chills up my spine. "How very odd to have you here, in front of me, and not in chains." He sounded, to me, exactly like Max von Sydow in Flash Gordon. "You come not often to my hall. Is my hospitality not up to snuff?"

Viggo shivered and I wondered what happened last time he was here. I was also (probably) better off not knowing.

"Ra Hoor Khuit," Viggo said with a bow, "I come to you with this man, in league with him. He has proposal."

"I do," I said as the Eastking turned to me. "There is a Russian thorn in your side," I continued. "I will remove it so that the head that wears the crown may rest a little more easy."

The gathered vampires began to laugh. Corners of the Eastking's mouth twitched up in a microsecond smile. He held up his hand and the laughter abated.

"You will do this thing, you say?" He cocked his head to one side as those silver eyes bored into me. "Unlikely. But I am listening." He glanced over at Viggo and winked.

"Nitikin is being backed by . . . an interested third party," I said, "one that has the means to remove you from your seat of power and install him in your place. A puppet vampire lord." I pulled the top of my jacket to show the button Surtr had given me. "I am backed by another party."

The Eastking sat back in his wooden throne. "Ah. So why are you here? Surely, you mean to do this thing. Whether you can remains to be seen, but—" He waved his hand. "An audience with me?"

I nodded my head. "Yes. You don't know me. You don't know what I'm capable of. In any case, I live here, in this city, and when my job is over . . ."

The silver eyes got brighter. "Go on."

"When my job is over, I would like a favor. In return for leaving the, ah, infrastructure intact. I will remove Nikitin, but not his endeavors, or his chain of command. Which is why Viggo is here."

A slight murmur went over the crowd of vampires.

"This is an interesting offer. But first, before I give my word to anything, I must be sure that you are not, how do you say? Yanking my chain?"

The crowd of vampires moved well back, Viggo with them. I had a large bit of floor to myself. Discouraging. One wall of bloodsuckers parted for another of their own, a shirtless man in chains that looked as if he was carved from ivory. His eyes were feral, holding no kind of intelligence or thought. Those black pits lit on me and he hissed, his jaws opening much further than they should have. I couldn't make out any facial features, and they were all distorted with rage.

"And you are?" I asked. The thing's all-black eyes widened and it shrieked at me.

"This is Clement," the Eastking said. "If Viggo is Nikitin's right-hand man, Clement was his left. Poor thing, he's quite thirsty. It's been, oh, some time since he's had anything more than the single drop of blood per week I allow him."

That explains his color, I thought.

"Are you ready? Freigabe," the Eastking said, and the chains dropped off of Clement. He flexed once, hands becoming claws, and flew at me.

I dropped backwards to the deck, hands slapping at my waist for the guns as Clement sailed overhead. He collided with a young-looking blonde vampires, bowling her over to a cheer from the crowd. Fucking spectators.

The wooden grips felt just right in my hands as I came up on my knees, turning to track the white blur Clement had become. Someone behind me pushed me as I fired once with my left gun, and the vampire spun away, howling. The crowd around him looked a bit alarmed, worried that I might miss with the interference. Oh, if you only knew.

It dropped to all fours, fangs bared. I could see the wound in its shoulder, a puckered hole that leaked a clear fluid, and I doubted seriously if the vampire even noticed. Clement sprang at me again, hands out. I shot both guns, one right at him, one into the ceiling. The bullets hit the vampire a split-second apart, the first one in the chest stopping him cold, the second ricocheting off of something in the ceiling and striking the top of his head. An exit wound appeared on the underside of Clement's jaw, and the eyes lost some of their horrible focus as he swayed on his feet. The gathered throng moved hastily away from the almost-prone vampire.

At that, I knew that the creature had slowed down enough where I'd be able to take it out with more conventional means. I holstered my guns and reached to my back to where I keep my knife. It was a big knife, a good foot and a half of steel. The Native American guy used one like it in Predator. Eyes around me lit up as I moved in for the kill.

I reversed my grip on the handle and leapt at Clement, burying the knife to the hilt in his breastbone as we fell to the floor to another cheer. He came alive then, shrieking and flinging his limbs around like a bony tornado. One of them hit me and I flew off of him. It felt like my arm might have broken. Oops, I thought.

Perhaps I should have brushed up on Vampire Killing 101, came the following thought, because cleaving the heart didn't do as much as I thought it would.

I was pulled to my feet by the throng, and I cradled my right arm carefully as I was pushed back to the still-flailing Clement. I drew a gun with my left hand and punched a hole in his face with it from five feet away. He straightened out, going rigid. I jumped down on him, dropping my gun and wrestling the big knife out of his chest. Then, with a half grunt, half yell, I started hacking at his neck. He started moving again then, but it was too late.

Three or four swings later, and his head came away from his neck and he died.

I put the knife down and lifted the head, my fingers entwined in its dark, curly hair. I showed it to the throng and they began to clap. Trying not to limp (my knee felt a little funny) I walked over to the Eastking and offered it to him.

"It appears," he said after some thought, "that you are not yanking my chain." He nodded. "We will do business."

I limped with Viggo away from the glass tower. "That went well," I said.

Viggo was less enthusiastic. "Maybe," he said. "It would have been more impressive if you could still use your right arm."

I waved him off. Left-handed. "I can take care of this. You just go back to your boss and pretend everything is hunky-dory until you get my call. Then we'll arrange something violent for him. Alright?"

The vampire nodded and turned to walk down a different street. The phone in my pocket began to ring. That confused me, because I was sure I'd removed the battery. I checked. Yep, I'd removed the battery. Oh, whatever.

"Hello?" I said, answering the phone.

"Hi there," said the interminably cheery voice of Ms. Fisher. "I just wanted to let you know that we—all of us here at the Temhota local office, that is—are cheering you on. Bravo!"

I looked at the phone. I thought to myself, Does this mean I get to see you in a cheerleader outfit? but decided not to ask. What I said instead was, "You know, I understand the whole 'operating in shadow' thing, but really, this would go much easier if people recognized your symbol when they saw it. And more importantly, recognize that those that carry it know what the hell we're doing."

"Oh, the Eastking knows who we are. In fact, he's backed by one of the senior Council members. Unfortunately, not every one of our operatives are as . . . hardy as you are."

"So, sometimes you send out cannon fodder, is what you're saying?"

"You bet. Hold on, a car will be by to pick you up. We'll get that arm and leg all patched before you have to move on Nikitin."

I stopped walking. Er, limping. My eyes flitted from pillar to post, looking for traffic cameras, ATMs, parking lot security cams, anything. There was nothing in the area.

"How?"

Ms. Fisher's bubbly laugh came over the phone. "Oh, come now. If I were to tell you that, you'd lose some of the wonder of the job." A grey Dodge Charger stopped on the street in front of me and the passenger door swung open. "Get in the car, already. And put the battery back in the phone. Viggo is going to call you before sunrise, which shan't be long."

I snapped the phone shut and got in the car.

Chapter 6

I awoke much later that day, aching on the entire right side of my body. The hotel that Temhota had put me up in was very nice. I asked for that because the exploding guy in the alley behind my apartment still weighed heavily on my mind when I had time for it. It bothered me. Reminded me about the conversation I'd had that morning with Ms. Fisher, about them sending out cannon fodder. I made a mental note to roll back, oh, just a wee bit on the trust for my new employers.

I also thought about the phone call I'd gotten from Viggo. Ms. Fisher was right. The turncoat vampire had been all hot to trot to set up his boss as soon as possible. My vote was for during the daytime, but Viggo'd told me that would be next to impossible. The Russian took every precaution imaginable to protect himself when the sun was up, since he wouldn't be able to "pyeryenaws," or something else in foreign-speak. I didn't ask what it meant.

Basically, he would be in some kind of vampire Fort Knox, so I'd have to hit him at night, when he was up and about and fearless.

The laptop that I'd asked for was sitting on the desk next to the bed. It looked nice. I just hoped that I'd be able to use it well enough. I've never been one for the geek wagon, and getting connected to the Internet always felt to me to be some sort of secret rite of passage that I'd never been through.

I stretched and popped everything. While I was still sore everywhere, I didn't really hurt anywhere in particular. The guy they'd sent to work on me had taken the pain I felt in two spots and spread it all over that side. All in all, I wished that they would have just let me call Io. Whenever he worked on me, I felt like a million bucks afterwards. Even that one time, when he closed up my skull for me. I felt the top of my head, and there was a faint ridge there. Whatever, I'd take what I could get.

The sun was coming in through the drawn curtains, which meant that it was afternoon. I was starving, so I called room service and had them bring me up one of everything. When the guy got there, I had him connect the laptop to the 'net for me. Perks.

The day before, I was sure that, if I got a keyboard under my fingers, I'd remember the search engine that Io had used. But sitting there at the computer, I was drawing a blank. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. A big, fat cipher. So, I used Google. Less than helpful when looking up ways to kill real, no-shit vampires, let me say.

I did learn that my plan of action, when I decided to stab Clement in the chest and then cut his head off, was the way that Count Dracula was done in at the end of the book. Maybe I would carry another big goddamn knife with me. Two guns, two knives . . . people would start calling me Deuce. Nah.

Decapitation seemed to me a good way to kill just about anything, so I held that in mind. My magic guns didn't seem to be a lot of help with that, but they sure as shit helped me slow the vampire down. I wondered if damaging the brain is what did it, but that was zombies, wasn't it? Sitting in my chair, gazing at the ceiling and grazing on everything I'd ordered, I decided that I just did not care about the theory behind it.

What I really need, I thought, is another nap. And pizza.

I got both.

I woke up as the last rays of the setting sun were working their way through my curtains. Bleary-eyed, I looked around at the wreckage of the room service cart and pizza boxes and thought that maybe I could get used to this part.

Eyeballing my jacket, I thought that it might even be nice to get myself a new wardrobe. Military surplus is sturdy stuff, no doubt, but it all kind of runs together. Then again, I wouldn't have to worry about how I looked ever again if a centuries-old vampire killed me dead that night. Yeah, I'd wait on the new wardrobe until after.

My phone rang and I snatched it up. "¿Bueno, con quien gusta?"

"Er, this is Viggo. Did I—?"

"It's me. What's up?"

An exasperated breath came over the line, even though I'm pretty sure vampires don't need to breathe.

"We're set for tonight, if you can get there. The boss will be traveling south to a meeting at the Alamo. After business hours, of course."

"Of course," I said. "How's his security going to be?"

A laugh. "Me, two others. No more. This meeting is . . . how you say, clandestine?"

"I don't ever say that. Beautiful, though. If you can keep the two others out of my way, that'd be great. You don't even have to be overt, I think. Just distract them while I get in and out."

"You got it. The Alamo, at midnight," he said, hanging up.

Midnight. Good. That gave me time to retrieve my money and get some fucking wheels. I was not Greyhounding it to San Antonio. And, um . . . I'd make a plan, maybe.

The road hummed under my tires as I sped down I-35, headed towards my date with Nikitin. My fingers tapped the steering wheel in time with the drummer for Iced Earth as I thought about what the hell I was going to do. A printout of the Alamo's layout sat on the passenger seat, not being much help.

The car was an oldie but a goodie. 1974 Oldsmobile, Model 98. A fucking tank. I'd had a pretty good idea that whatever I drove that night would have to be ditched the next day. I mean, the Alamo is a monument. There was bound to be cameras somewhere, and I wanted the car where I could get it lickety-split, and I also wanted to be able to drive through anything that got in my way. You couldn't beat old Detroit iron for that.

My "plan," if I could call it that, was to break into the Alamo before Nikitin got there and ambush him when he first walked in. That wouldn't go so hot for me if whoever he was meeting got there first, so my back-up plan involved a bit of kaboom that was riding in the trunk. I was sure there'd be cars parked in the area, so if I needed a distraction, I'd blow one up. I had some C4 left over from a job I'd taken the year before, along with the detonator and remote.

I also had a back-up back-up plan, but I hoped it didn't come to that. My plan C always sucked.

I exited I-35 and turned east on Market, keeping an eye out for anything I could use, one way or another. Not a whole lot. I headed north on Alamo Street and caught a break. There was a shopping mall just east of the Alamo. I went that way and parked my car about a football field away from my site. Not ideal, definitely not fucking free, but it would have to do.

The place was already closed to the public, had been since I woke up that day, so I wasn't too worried about passers-by. I stood across the way, waiting until there was little foot-traffic, then set a charge on a parked car. Jogged over to the old mission. I went around until I got to a part of the surrounding wall that I could get over and did so. I checked my watch; it was getting late. I didn't see any staff or a night watchman . . . but that made sense. If I was an aspiring vampire lord, I'd have enough pull to get a state historical site emptied for a meeting, too. But I sat in the shadows, waiting anyway. One never knew.

With forty-five minutes to spare, I went to the mission and broke in. Concordant with the watchmen being absent, I figured that the alarm system would be off, too, if there even was one. Jesus, but I went into this one with my eyes closed, I thought. I didn't have a death wish, I thought. Low self-esteem, perhaps.

Getting in was relatively easy, compared to other places I'd had to break into, so I had time to look around. I spent most of that time looking at the big mural, the Wall of History. A sense of foreboding came over me . . . place of final stands and all that. I shook it off. Fuck that. I was getting out of this alive, even if I didn't like myself.

My hands started tingling, so I found a place to hide. The main doors opened, admitting a small party of vampires. Ivan Nikitin came in, preceded by two others and my man Viggo. The two others and the Russian stood by the door while Viggo swept the museum. I waved at him as he passed by and he blanched a little. He made his way back to the front.

"All clear," he said, and I couldn't help myself. I hit the detonator and the car outside blew up, shaking the walls and rattling windows. Viggo took this as his cue, and hustled Nikitin further into the building.

"We'll go and check it, boss," he said, pulling the other two vampires with him out the door and closing it behind him. Everything inside was silence in the wake of the explosion.

"I can smell you, you know," the Russian vampire said, and I froze. "Da. I will have words with Viggo, make him watch while I pull out your spine."

Nikitin turned and looked at my hiding place, and if I wasn't such a tough guy I might have peed a little. His deep-set eyes widened a bit, and I could see them losing their color, going bright and blank like the Eastking's. Crap, crap, crap.

I stood, magic revolvers up and firing. He just moved out of the way, like he was dodging clumsy toddlers instead of magnum loads. I ran to the side, still firing, strafing, and he moved around with me, then zip! He was right there, heaving with both hands in my midsection. I flew through the air, an ungainly scarecrow, landing in a heap under a window. Nikitin was roaring, laughing.

"Insignificant! Pest! Hah, Ivan will show you what a vampire can do! Come, shoot at me some more!"

I obliged. The rounds sped through the air, but not fast enough. Then, to my complete and utter horror, the hammers fell on empty cylinders. I fumbled for my reloaders and Nikitin grabbed me, gripping my shoulder and my stomach, hefting me over his head like I was a pillow and hurling me across the big room into a display cabinet. My guts were on fire, but a quick check showed that I wasn't bleeding. Er, from there.

With shaking hands, I reloaded my guns, wishing I knew what the fuck I was doing. Hands came over the counter I was behind and wrenched, pulling it off the floor and tossing it away. I fired twice with each gun, fighting to keep my arms steady.

What? Idiot, do what the guns want!

I went with the pistols, and they went off together, aimed in the same place at Nikitin's neck. There was a clap! as the bullets met a fraction of an inch from the skin and fragmented, the shrapnel carving a wide crescent in the Russian's neck. His hands flew up to the wound, eyes widening. He coughed blood and stepped back.

"Nyet!"

I felt smug for a second, and his eyes changed from almost-silver to yellow, pupils elongating vertically, like a cat's.

Just like a cat's. Ah, fuck.

The transformation continued, hair sprouting all over Nikitin's skin and his skull deforming, ridge between his eyes pushing out. The hands on his throat widened, becoming thicker while the fingers closed up.

Fascinating, but I didn't wait for any more. While he roared his fury, I was diving out the window and sprinting for my car. Viggo and the other two vampires were returning from their trip around the Alamo. They looked at me, confused, and Viggo turned and bolted in the opposite direction as the first real roar came out of the old mission.

I ran faster, wishing I hadn't parked so goddamn far away.

There was a loud bang and I chanced a look back. Twelve feet of angry Siberian tiger was bounding through the doors and I didn't need to see any more. There was another roar as I yanked the car door open and flung myself inside. The engine caught right away, and I gave a silent whisper of thanks to the gods of Detroit.

The tiger stood there in the middle of the street, tail twitching, staring at me as I looked up. "Here, kitty, kitty," I sang, shifting the car to drive and punching it. The tiger bared its fangs and started a fast lope towards me, and even as I was surrounded by two tons of steel, I felt a twist of fear in my stomach.

I put my left knee on the steering wheel and brought both revolvers up, firing through the windshield at the giant cat. Its paws disintegrated and the tiger stumbled. I screamed and the front of the car hit the Siberian head-on with a lurching thump.

Almost falling out of the car, I got out to see what was what. The giant tiger was pinned under the front end of the Oldsmobile, one free foreleg clawing frantically at a tire. I emptied both guns into its face, then reloaded and did it again.

It was still twitching when I cut off its head.

I drove back to Austin, the half-morphed head of the Russian on the bench seat next to me, impaled neck-first on my big knife. The wind blew hard through my shattered windshield, and I had to keep hunched over, one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding my stomach. I was almost surely bleeding internally, and there was plenty of external bleeding everywhere else, and sharp pains shooting all the way through to my back.

But I couldn't stop smiling. I just hoped that I didn't get pulled over.

Chapter 7

My convalescence was a painful ordeal. Ms. Fisher sent over the same guy she had the day before, and again he spread the pain around instead of fixing it. Unfortunately for me, I was already hurt and had a lot of brand-new pain to distribute. When I said something about it, the magician gave me a snooty answer, so I transferred some of my pain to him and felt tons better. He needed it, anyway. A broken nose gives character to a face.

The Eastking was very happy with the head and my report. Room service showed up with my morning snack and a small box, which kind of skeeved me out a bit, as I hadn't told the Vampire King where I was staying. Meh.

In the box was a chain, a silver pendant attached, worked into a stylized Eye of Horus. There was also a note. It read:

Bound by my word and set by my hand, I grant you one request. Use it wisely. -RHK

Groovy. I ate the bacon cheeseburger I'd ordered for breakfast and opened the manila envelope again. The Nikitin folder, I put on my nightstand, unsure whether to just throw it away. The other folder, I opened and began to read. And, perhaps, to panic a teeny bit.

Two words. Werewolf. Mercenaries. I should have just gone back to sleep.

According to the files, after the Mogadishu "Black Hawk Down" incident, the United States government offered complete amnesty and hunting licenses to any and all shape-shifters that would agree to undertake missions in Somalia. The only group to volunteer was a pack of werewolves from somewhere out West. They were enough, apparently. The program had a four-year run and was shut down during a Congressional investigation.

The Warwolves (I am not kidding about the name) moved back to the States and were promptly double-crossed by the government, who tried to capture and kill them. The shape-shifters, having been trained by the best the U.S. Army had to offer, got away and disappeared into the dark, going right off the grid.

Temhota, being the pragmatic bastards they are, kept tabs on the wolves somehow. Their last known location was Las Vegas, Nevada. Their last known employer was . . . my gut twisted.

Lauren.

There was a picture of Lauren, the beautiful woman that had come to me for protection. Then for comfort. Then, for my soul. She turned out to be a monster, some kind of nightmare that fed on the will and strength of spirit of her victims. She's what got me into this whole mess in the first place, and I killed her dead.

Except, according to the file, maybe I hadn't.

The picture was taken six months before, but that should have been impossible, as I saw her die over two years before that. The name attached to the image was "Mara," but I knew who I was looking at. I closed the file and got dressed. The werewolves would have to wait a bit.

Not far from the hotel was a storage place that Simon used. I'd been there once or twice before, putting things on ice for him. That was where he kept all the artifacts he collected in his continuous struggle with otherworldly evils. If we were still on speaking terms, the thing I had hidden in the wall of my apartment would probably be in there with all of his playthings. I just hoped he hadn't changed any of the combinations.

The rising sun greeted me as I hit the street and limped east. I shot it the finger and kept on moving. By the time I finally made it to the warehouse, I was moving so jerkily that I knew I'd have to call a cab to get back to the hotel. Shoulda drove, busted-out windshield or no.

I gripped the old combination lock in my hand and spun the dial several times, freeing it up, then tried the combination. No good. Fucking Simon. The thought of shooting out the lock filled me with momentary joy, but I didn't want the attention that gunshots would bring. Scanning the area, I looked for something I could use . . . there we are. I hobbled over and picked up a soda can, emptying it out. Leaning against the wall felt pretty good, so I sat, figuring that would feel even better. It did.

Sitting in the alley next to the warehouse, I flipped open a sharp butterfly knife and cut the soda can's top and bottom away. I slit the aluminum tube down the middle and flattened it out, then cut out an M-shape. Folding the thing a couple of times, I had my tool ready.

Getting up was something of an ordeal. I made it, after only three tries. Yay, me!

I slid the pointy end of the metal bit into the lock where the shackle was held by the hasp and began to move the lock up and down, working the thin metal further in. In a couple of seconds the lock popped open. I pulled it off the door and stuck it in my jacket pocket.

The next lock would be easier to open, but more dangerous if I got its "combination" wrong. I took the door handle in my hand and closed my eyes, concentrating on an image in my mind. The symbol's components, drilled into me by Simon, came together, clicking in place one by one. When I was done, I had in my head a perfect construct of the Seventh Pentacle of Saturn.

Gently, I pulled on the door. It opened with a squeal of hinges, and I let go of both the breath and the image I was holding. If I'd have gotten it wrong, there would have been a very small, very violent and very localized earthquake, right under my feet.

I went into Simon's warehouse and closed the door behind me. I went through to the very back, ignoring the shelves and shelves of file-boxes and other things. Of course I didn't know everything that was in there, but the one thing I was looking for wasn't on a fucking shelf.

It was way in the back.

All the way inside, set into the back wall of the warehouse, stood a Door. It didn't lead outside, even though it was on the back wall. Well, it did lead out . . . but not to the street. It led to "somewhere else." That's all I knew, and really, that's all I needed to know.

The Door was a large, gunmetal grey affair, adorned with loops and swirls and studs set into patterns that gave me a headache if I looked at them for too long. After I'd worked with Simon for a year or so, he'd set the Door to open at my touch as well as his, and I hoped that he hadn't changed that, either.

I reached out, gently tracing one particular swirl with the ring finger of my left hand. The Door vibrated for a second, and I wanted to bolt. Not that it would do any good . . . if the Door decided to kill me, I would die. Instead, it opened.

I walked through into the Secure Room. In there is where Simon kept the most volatile bits. And in there were two bell jars, one with the remains of the rusted key that Lauren used to remove the essences from her victims, the other with the ashes of the body she'd used on Earth.

Both jars were empty.

I sat down in the middle of the room, shoulders slumped.

I don't know how long I'd sat in the room, hanging my head, but my left leg was definitely asleep by the time the Door opened again behind me. I didn't bother turning. Knew who it would be.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Io said from the Doorway. I pointed at the empty bell jars. He crossed the threshold with an involuntary shudder and went to look.

"You do this?" he asked me.

I shook my head.

"You sure?"

I nodded.

"Well, what the fuck, then?"

Shrugging, I looked up at him. He was the same as he always was. My cousin was whipcord thin with shoulder-length white hair, three silver rings woven into it. Round, wire-rim glasses sat on his straight nose. He was wearing grey cargo pants and a white hoodie, like he always did, regardless of the weather.

"Dude," I said, "I have no idea. She's been out at least six months, I know that much for sure. How she got out?" I raised my hands to either side of my face. "Million dollar question."

He cocked his head while he looked down at me. "You look like shit." His grey eyes narrowed. "And there's something different. You have something on you that is very, very dangerous."

I smiled and drew back my jacket, showing him the guns. "I do. About time, don't you think?"

"No," he said, stepping closer. "If I'd thought it was time, I'd have given you something already. You," he put a finger in my face, "are reckless to the point of public endangerment." He paused, thinking. "Holy shit. Was that you last night?"

"Why, Io," I said, "what ever do you mean?"

He sighed. "Well, I'll be damned. You're in over your head, you know. If you keep going this way, you will have a very short shelf life."

"It's gotta come sooner or later," I said, "and who'd miss me? You?"

"Probably not. And . . . wait a minute." He looked at me, eyes half-lidded. He pointed at my left collarbone, where I had the Temhota pin inside my jacket. "What the fuck is that?"

I shook my head. "Not even supposed to be talking to you. I'm sure they know now and will have punitive measures waiting for me, which is bullshit, because I didn't even call you."

"Nah," he said. "The Door keeps everything and everyone out. But I know you and how you like to keep your word, so I won't pry." Io looked down at me, grey eyes suddenly a little sad. "If you need help, call me. I might be able to horn you into my schedule. After all," he laughed softly, "we're the only family each other has. Go on, I'll track this down. I know you're in the middle of something, or you wouldn't be anywhere but the office of your apartment."

My head came up at that, since it was true.

"Be seeing you," I said, and left.

I walked stiffly back to the hotel, hands jammed deep into my pockets, my mind jammed deep in a vise and squeezed tight. Three days before, I'd thought I was miserable. Everything is relative, though. I had to leave it alone. The Warwolves would fill my hands quite enough. Io would take care of it.

My phone rang a block from my hotel. I didn't want to answer it, toying briefly with the idea of throwing it as hard as I could into the gutter. Sigh.

"Holler."

"You're up and about early," Ms. Fisher said. "I'd expected you to take more of a breather after last night. Are you sure you're up to working so soon?"

Hah. I could almost feel the eagerness in her voice. Io was probably right; I'd dropped off their radar, and she wanted to know where I'd disappeared to. Damned if I'd tell her.

"Oh, I'm good," I said, casual. "I just needed to stretch my legs a wee bit before tackling a group of werewolf mercenaries. You know how it is. One thing, though."

"What's that?"

"Can you have something delivered? If I'm going up against these things, I'm going to need something to put them down with. I'm not the Lone Ranger, here. Silver bullets are kind of a pain to come by."

Ms. Fisher's laughter came over the line as clear as if she was standing next to me. "Will do, cowboy. Tomorrow morning you should have a package. Will that be soon enough?"

"That'll have to do," I said, closing the phone. That gave me a day to rest, if I wanted it. I wondered what it was that the Warwolves were up to that the Temhota Group was taking interest in.

I decided that when I got back to the room, I'd have to send an email to a guy I knew in Nevada, a friend. Well, a friend of Io's . . . he'd gone out that way to take care of a haunting at the Hoover Dam and stayed. Maybe he wouldn't mind being a pair of eyes on the ground for me?

Hoover Dam. Harrumph. A plan began to form in my head.

Chapter 8

Twenty-four hours after I got a box of silver ammunition, I was in Las Vegas, Nevada. After that drive (because I hate flying, and besides . . . magic revolvers) all I wanted to do was check in, lay down and sleep until Christmas. However, I had a job to do.

(Well, that, and almost every time I closed my eyes, I saw Lauren/Mara smiling at me as she tried to collect my soul.)

Wiping my face and yawning, I sat back in the comfy hotel chair and opened up my phone, calling my Vegas contact.

"Kinder," he answered.

"I'm here," I said. I told him what hotel/casino I was staying at and what room. "Just checked in. When do I meet you?"

"Not quite yet," Kinder said. "I have things I have to take care of before I can render assistance. Besides, they only come out at night. I will give you a call when it is time." He hung up on me.

I swear, these people that are part of the Century (like Io), it's like they take a course on how to be brusque with people. Spiky bastards. On the other hand, I'd get to rest a bit after the drive. All I had to do was pick up the phone, order some breakfast.

I'll get right on that, I thought, as soon as I rest my eyes for a minute.

My phone rang, making me jump a bit as my eyes flew open. Motherfucker. I snatched it up and answered it.

"What do you want?"

There was no answer.

"Oh, that," I said, and hung up. I looked at the clock, and two hours had passed since I sat down. Huh. No dreams. I must have been tired. Room service would do nicely. I called them and ordered more food than I needed and laid down to wait for it. Knocking at the door woke me up a second time, and I jumped up and yanked the door open, as I was starving.

A fist the size of the moon hit me in the face and I wasn't so worried about breakfast anymore.

I woke up in someone's backyard, tied to a lawn chair. Not knowing which way was which, I wasn't sure if I was looking at a sunrise or a sunset, but I knew for sure that some significant time had passed. My jaw popped when I opened it and I could breathe okay through my nose. Nothing seemed out of place. And that was more, of course, than I would be able to say for whoever cold-cocked me. Erm, sooner or later.

There was a little bell by my left foot. I kicked it, and it gave off a muted tinkling sound. About a minute later, a door behind me slid open and a hulking figure came into view. It was a man, a big one with a black Mohawk and goatee sandwiching dark shades. He wore a stained white tank top over crawling tattoos and bunched muscles.

"He's awake, Kinder," he said.

Kinder? Well, that didn't make any sense.

But there it was. Seconds later, Mohawk was joined by Kinder. He was a slender man, slightly shorter than I was, face and head wreathed with bristly red hair. He was much the same as when I'd last seen him, dressed in a button-up short sleeved shirt tucked into new blue jeans. His sharp green eyes were slightly obscured by the glare coming off of his horn-rimmed glasses. He wore flip-flops, so I was assuming that I was at his place, because that was as about relaxed as he got. Ever.

"So glad you could join us," Kinder said. "I would apologize for the method of procurement," he gave me a small grin, "but I know that will not help. Understand, before I enter into any venture with you, I have to make sure you are who you were, so to speak."

I spat at his toes and missed. Goddamn, I hate getting hit in the mouth.

"Well? What'd you do this while I've been out? You had enough time. I'm still tied up. If you'd have found that I wasn't who I am, er, or who I was . . . did I get that right?"

He nodded.

"Right. If you'd have gotten a rotten vibe off me, I wouldn't have woken up. So," I shook against the lawn chair, "why am I still tied up?"

Kinder inclined his head a bit. "No rotten vibe, but you have a bit of a rotten temper. Do not think I have forgotten that. If you promise to behave yourself, I will untie you."

I nodded. "I promise."

"Liar," Kinder said. But, he waved his hand and Mohawk untied me. I stood on wobbly legs, needles and pins running riot all over me.

"Give me a hand, will you?" I asked Mohawk, and he grabbed my shoulder and straightened me out. Cripes, he was strong. Maybe I wouldn't try to dislocate his jaw. I stamped my feet until the tinglies went away and turned to Kinder.

"Am I going to have to go back to the hotel and get my stuff?"

He smiled, putting his hands behind his back. "Of course not," he said. "Attention to detail is part of my calling. Moose brought all of your armaments."

I tilted my head towards Mohawk. "His name is Moose?"

"Gothmog," Mohawk said in a voice so deep it should have rattled the bell on the grass. "Moose is my younger cousin. He brought you."

"Moose as big as you?"

Gothmog sneered. "Bigger."

Alright, then. Perhaps I'd just keep my hands to myself. I followed everyone inside.

An hour later, I sat on a rooftop with Kinder, holding binoculars and a tranquilizer rifle. He was showing me where the Warwolves were "holed up." They had the top floor of an off-Strip hotel all to themselves and had converted the top of the building to a mini-resort area, complete with bar and pool. When I had to hole up somewhere, it usually involved MREs and cockroaches.

"See the man getting out of the pool? The brand on the left-hand side of his chest marks him as the Alpha," Kinder said, his glasses on his forehead. I looked, and the man shaking himself off did indeed have a cherry-red mark on his pectoral in the shape of a circle with a half-circle beneath, cupping it. Below that was a small cross. He had broad shoulders and slim hips, a gymnast's build. He also looked kind of young to be in charge.

"What is that mark?" I asked Kinder.

"I have identified it as the astrological symbol for Pluto. What it symbolizes to them, I have no idea. Would you like to hear something interesting about it?"

Usually, when Kinder asked that question, it was best to hear what he had to say, so I grunted an affirmative.

"Two months ago, that man was not the Alpha. There was another of their group, a man with—"

"Wait," I interrupted him. "Two months ago? I just called you this week."

He gave me a wry smile.

"This is my home. I keep a close eye on who shows up and what they do."

That explained how Kinder was so quickly able to point me in the right direction. "Gotcha."

Looking into his binoculars, Kinder continued. "The Alpha two months ago was a great bear of a man. He was of the type that I am used to seeing as an older professional wrestler. Burly, bearded and balding. There was a dispute of some sort, I believe it had to do with drug revenue and a local outlaw biker gang, and the former Alpha and that sleek young man got into an altercation.

"It was, much to the seeming surprise of the rest of the Warwolves, a very short affair. By the time the former Alpha had gotten two punches and an elbow out, the younger man had him quite disabled. He is an adept of Savate, I believe. In any case, the former Alpha ended up on his knees with the young man behind him, gripping his head. I assumed he was asking if the older man would submit, which he did not."

Kinder favored me with a humorless smile. "The young man ripped the former Alpha's head from his shoulders. It was quite the thing to see. He leaned back and howled into the night, and the mark you see there now just . . . appeared."

I looked at the Alpha through the scope of the rifle. He didn't look like he could tear my head from my shoulders. Still. Better safe than splattered.

"We should leave," Kinder said, placing his glasses back on his face. "Some of them have left the roof, and we have been here for far too long."

"Yes," a voice said from behind us. "You have."

Standing behind us on the rooftop were three of the Warwolves, shirtless and still wet from the pool. None of them had weapons showing, but I didn't know what they were capable of. Especially after hearing Kinder's story. They were all cut from the same cloth; rugged men, tattooed and heavily muscled that looked as if they might be at home at war or in prison.

"What would you like to do?" Kinder asked me.

"I'm thinking," I said. The center Warwolf laughed.

"Do? What you're gonna do is go with us and join the party. Bleeding or not bleeding, Hilt gave us our choice."

"Hilt?"

"The Alpha," Kinder answered me. I nodded.

"Ah, I would like to see what's behind door number three, Monty," I said, bringing the tranq gun up and shooting the middle man, center mass.

He leaned over with an undignified "Urk," and the other two snarled and started forward. By then, I'd dropped the rifle and slapped leather for my guns. They came up as the Warwolves came in, my revolvers firing repeatedly, stitching bullet-holes from navel to neck in both of them, then finishing the line with a smoking hole in each forehead from about a foot away. The two men dropped to the deck, meat puppets with their strings cut.

The one I'd shot with the tranq came forward, straining to move. I skipped sideways and planted a foot where his neck met his shoulder. I expected a snap of a breaking collarbone, but instead I got white-hot pain as he grabbed my ankle. Without any apparent effort, he turned and threw me into the door that led inside. I bounced off of it and landed in a heap.

He turned to Kinder and snarled, reaching forward. Kinder moved slightly out of reach and shot the man again with the rifle I'd dropped. The Warwolf fell to his knees, and Kinder hit him in the face with the butt of the rifle.

"We should hurry," Kinder said as I walked back, his voice calm. "They will not stay down for long."

"What about this one?" I asked, kicking the middle man as he lay unconscious on the rooftop. "How long will the tranquilizer work?"

Kinder brushed his fingers through his beard. "I brought the strong stuff. Sernyl hydrochloride; it is used to subdue elephants."

"Well," I said, "that sounds impressive." I picked up the rifle and shot the downed man two more times.

"Just to be sure," I said.

Gothmog loaded the unconscious Warwolf into the back of Kinder's van. "Is this how you transported me?" I asked, thumping the door. It felt very thick, obviously armored on both sides. Built to keep things in or out. Kinder is a well-prepared man.

"Yes," he said, wrapping the Warwolf—whose name was Geoff, according to his driver's license—in nylon webbing. "For you, my Chevy Caprice would have done, but we just got the van serviced and wanted to drive it around a bit."

"Shotgun," I said. Kinder gave me a level look.

"No."

Which was fine, as the containment in the back was relatively small and left room for a row of seats behind the driver. Gothmog drove and Kinder cleaned his glasses on the way back to his house. I had never, in the entire time I'd known him, seen Kinder get any kind of excited about anything. I like to play it cool, and I can put up a pretty good front, even when I'm being charged at by four hundred pounds of mercenary werewolf. But Kinder's apathy really worried me. It made me want to snoop around his house and see if there were any Kinder spare parts laying around.

A particularly worrisome thought occurred to me. "Will the wolves be able to like, track us or anything?" I asked.

Kinder shook his head. "No worries there. Gothmog and I are protected from things like that," he said, lifting up an amulet he wore around his neck.

"Yeah-huh. Gothmog and you. I don't have one of those."

He turned and smiled at me, putting his glasses back on. "And that," he said, "is how we are going to get them to wherever you have chosen for your ambush point."

"You what?"

Kinder put a hand up. "Do not worry. As long as you are with one of us, you will remain untraceable to the Warwolves. When we have everything ready, Moose will take one of your shirts and create a trail for them to follow."

My scathing reply (because I had one, honest) was cut off by a loud and rapidly repeating pounding coming from the back of the van. Gothmog checked his watch. "Fifteen minutes," he said, and I started.

Fifteen minutes for four shots of elephant tranquilizer? Holy hell.

A video screen in the center console of the van came to life and showed the Warwolf, still wrapped in the nylon mesh, twisting and bouncing in the air and slamming against the side of the van.

"Have you ever seen any of these things transform?" I asked Kinder. He shook his head.

"Not yet. My research indicates that their strength comes from inside, and they only become wolf-men for the two nights of the full moon. Luckily for us. Although, I believe that the Alpha will be able to change at any time. And, he may be able to force the change on his pack, if the need is dire."

I watched the writhing snarling figure on the monitor.

"Someone's need will be dire," I said. Kinder just smiled.

Chapter 9

Geoff the werewolf banged around in Kinder's basement for a full two hours after we put him in there. A really big headache had taken up all the available space behind my left eye and I really wanted to lie down.

"Why did we bring him along if all he's going to do is snap and snarl and make a bunch of racket?" I asked, changing my shirt again.

"Ostensibly, he is here to answer questions about the day-to-day operations of the Warwolves that I have not figured out for myself," Kinder replied as he made an omelet. "I need to know what they are up to, so that I may try to predict who will take over from them after they disappear. Unfortunately, he seems . . . disinclined to be of any assistance; however, Gothmog and Moose, when they return, will attempt to persuade him to see reason."

I knew what that meant. I'd been persuaded by the likes of Gothmog before.

"In the meantime," Kinder continued, "we should discuss any ideas you may have for the disposal of the Warwolves. Presuming that you, indeed, have any."

I bristled a bit. "Yes, I do. I know how you feel about collateral damage, so I figured that somewhere out-of-the-way would be best. I remembered why you came out here in the first place, and thought that the Hoover Dam would be just right."

Kinder stopped messing with his eggs and looked at me. His green eyes were keen, and I felt just a tad uncomfortable under his blank gaze. I decided that, after this, I would remove his number from my contact list. I like to be the creepiest person in the room, and he had me well edged out.

"I believe that you may have something workable," he said, returning to his frying pan. "Did you have any specific area in mind?"

"Not yet," I said. Kinder smacked his spatula in the pan.

"Good. I would hate to run roughshod over a carefully crafted plan of action. The Visitor Center closes at eighteen hundred, so plan on getting there late in the day and waiting until closing."

I nodded. "Okay. You're not worried about the crew finding me?"

Kinder looked at me sideways, turning over some bacon. "Au contraire," he said. "The crew at the hydroelectric plant has been ever-accommodating since I rid the Nevada wing of a rather serious specter." He put the omelet and bacon on a plate and walked past me to his dining room. It was a clean space, dominated by a large oak table. He sat to eat.

"That is the area—it is part of the tour, if you would like to scout it tomorrow—that I believe would serve nicely to confront and confound the Warwolves."

I sat at the table and drummed my fingers. The smell of his midnight snack was becoming slightly maddening. "And you're not worried about stray bullets?"

One corner of Kinder's mouth quirked up. "I have examined your firearms. No, I am not."

"What about the Warwolves?"

He shook his head, chewing carefully. "No. When they come after you, they will not do it with guns. They will greatly prefer to render you with their teeth and fangs."

"Oh," I said. "I can't wait."

I went back to the couch, changed my shirt and slept the rest of the night away as well as a good portion of the morning. I also ate two pizzas and was badly in need of some antacid. Never let anyone say that this job isn't without its perils.

I took off at noon for the Hoover Dam with Kinder, and three hours and twenty-two dollars later, I knew everything I needed to about where I'd be whenever he was done with Geoff. The crew was as happy to see Kinder as anyone I'd ever seen. Usually when one of his ilk was around, it was because something bad had happened or was about to; in this case, it was both. He talked to a couple of people in hardhats and got us an extended tour. The last guy was a foreman or something. His name was Richard.

He looked kind of worried as Kinder explained what was going to happen, and I didn't blame him. He was a big guy, built like a college football player gone middle-aged, and what he wanted most was to protect his crew. "Just give me a ring before anything happens," he said. "I want to have enough time to get my people out of here before the fireworks start."

"Leave a skeleton crew," Kinder said. "Have them ready to evacuate when my colleague gives the signal."

Richard turned to me. "What's the signal?"

"Um," I said, absolutely filling the foreman with confidence.

"We will have it figured out beforehand," Kinder said. "We will not endanger any of your people more than we need to."

The foreman shot me a look that promised pain if I screwed up and nodded to Kinder before leaving us to rejoin the tourists. "You are as smooth as I remember," Kinder said on the way out. "It is definitely a wonder that you have survived this long."

"It's because I'm pure of heart."

"No," Kinder said, "you're not."

Gothmog and Moose (who was, as promised, bigger than his older cousin) came out of the basement sweaty, tired and covered in blood. They dropped their silver-plated brass knuckles on the kitchen counter on their way to clean up. "He says he'll talk now," Gothmog rumbled on his way past.

Kinder went down to talk to the werewolf. I changed my shirt and followed. Almost immediately I wished I hadn't. The smell of anger and blood and fear was overpowering in the basement. It poured from Geoff in waves, his battered form hanging limply from the central post in the room. Even as bad as he looked, the wounds were slowly closing up as I watched. Crazily, the tattoos that crawled over his arms and chest were fixing themselves as the skin healed.

"First understand this," Kinder said to the werewolf. "I am only going to ask you each question once. If I am not satisfied with the answers you give, I will begin my own method of truth extraction, and you will beg to have my associates back working you over. Am I clear?"

Geoff nodded, grunting. There was a snarl on his lips, but no amount of bravado could cover up the fear that was in his brown eyes. For all his scar tissue and muscle mass, the bigger man trembled before the compact form of Kinder. It was almost as if the werewolf sensed what my red-headed companion was capable of.

He was right.

"Now. When we reveal where you have been taken to the rest of your pack, how many of them will show up? Are there business deals that will take precedence over your recovery?"

Geoff shook his head. "Negative. Hilt will throw everything we've got at you. Be prepared to burn."

Kinder just looked at the man, waiting. Geoff finally realized that he had not answered the question fully.

"What? Oh, right . . . there are an even dozen of us in the pack and Hilt. So, twelve."

"Make some notes," Kinder said to me. I ran upstairs to grab a legal pad and a pen from his office. When I got back, the werewolf was talking.

" . . . as well as the bikers. We stay out of meth, but they kick back to us for jobs we pull in their colors. Arson, hits, whatever."

"Fear and intimidation. Anything else? Has there been anything . . . unusual? Out of the ordinary?"

My eyebrows went up. This is the question I was hoping he'd ask without my prompting. I knew that Io was taking care of things, but still . . . I wanted to know about their connection with Lauren. Or Mara, whatever her name really was.

Geoff screwed his face up. "About a year ago, Hilt started some work on the side. Scratch got pretty pissed about it, but never made him stop."

"Scratch was your old Alpha?"

Geoff nodded. "Yeah. Hilt was always running off to work something for a lady I never seen. He'd always bring back piles of money, so Scratch never made a big thing out of it. He was earning, you know? But, I think Hilt started to change."

My ears perked up.

"He was always real confident, right? But after he started these missions . . . sometimes, I'd catch him just staring off at the night sky, talking to himself with this look on his face like the world was all fucking his."

Kinder glanced at me. "And after he took over?"

Geoff's eyes got a little bigger. "Nuts. We all went along with whatever he wanted. After he pulled Scratch's head off . . . none of us ever thought a lot of Hilt. Yeah, he was part of the pack, but he didn't really distinguish himself when we were working for the Fed. Then, all of a sudden, he's super-commando. We get nasty jobs, if he wasn't away, he always wanted to be in the middle of it. And when he changes into the wolf . . . I don't know how to describe it. It ain't like it was. And he's not the only one."

I got a sinking feeling in my chest.

"There are only a couple of us that he never took on these secret missions. Everyone's all jacked up now, supercharged. When they come for me, they are going to snuff you out like a candle. I don't care how scary you think you are. The Warwolves, we're real monsters now."

Geoff laughed a little, looking from Kinder to me.

"You're gonna die screaming."

"Did you have anything to ask the werewolf?"

Kinder and I stood in his kitchen, eating Chinese delivery. I'd just changed my shirt again. Two days in his company and I wanted this to be over, already. During his time out West he'd grown more detached. Io says that this happens sometimes to the Mages that make up the Century, the work has the Second Nietzsche Effect. It appeared that Kinder has gone around the bend. The abyss has finally stared back.

"No," I said. "I think I got all I need to know. They'll come after me, and they'll be very, very angry. I think I knew that going in."

Kinder nodded. "Very well. Finish your meal, I only have one more question for the wolf," he said, pushing his plate away and standing. He nodded one time at me and disappeared into the basement. I finished up my General Tso's chicken and cracked open my fortune cookie to a gunshot. Kinder came up a minute later, wiping blood off of his face.

"He did not have an answer for that," he said.

I was all suited up. Bates Delta-6 boots on my feet, black BDU pants on, thigh pockets filled with flash-bangs and shuriken. I wore a lightweight Persian-weave titanium-alloy chain mail shirt I got from Kinder under my black field jacket. He told me it would be guaranteed to stop most blades, and presumably fangs or claws, even when driven by a rage-fueled werewolf. I planned on not finding out.

The guns sat easily on my hips. My gun belt was laden with speed loaders. I had so much silver around my waist, I might have worried about getting mugged if it wasn't for the dozen pissed-off shape-shifters in my near future. Sharing room on the belt was one electronic beacon that Kinder had handed to me. He said to activate it in an emergency. He didn't say what would happen if and when I set it off, though, and ignored me when I asked. Typical Century.

Kinder asked me if I was ready, and I nodded. Moose took off with an article of my clothing and I drove south to Boulder City to set up at the Hoover Dam. On the seat next to me was a bag of my clothes I'd been changing in and out of all day, along with a pile of glass beads I'd requested from Kinder. Around my neck was a bargain-basement cheap version of the amulet he and his assistants wore, also glass.

I flipped through the FM channels almost non-stop until a song came on the radio that really got my attention. It seemed rather fitting, so I let it play.

The Engine puts your mind away
Survival; you'll always find a way
The coldness creeps into your heart
A killer lives in you, apart
There is no way out of black armor
You count your numbered days
The Engine will sustain you
In countless deadly ways
There is no way you can escape this
The armor seals your fate
It's who you are, so just accept it,
Your battle-bound state.

Fitting enough. I drove, the driving beat of the song propelling me on towards my meeting with the Warwolves.

Chapter 10

I scurried around the Nevada wing generator room, placing my bundles, each with a glass bead on them. Along with each bundle was a glove I'd gotten from crew members. Confusion would be my second most powerful weapon. The crew chief eyed my dubiously when I asked him to douse the lights when everybody left, but he did it. He also gave me what else I asked for, a wireless headset that tied me into the general announcing system, and one other, little thing. I sat in the dark after everyone left, eyes closed, and waited for the wolves to come.

Minutes stretched out, and all the myriad ways this plan could go wrong took turns dancing a tango through my brain. I put my head back against the metal wall and opened my mouth so I could hear better. Everything was very still, and if I didn't have a dozen werewolves coming to kill me, I might have taken a nap. Or not . . . the accumulated aches and pains of the two vampire fights had settled in and unpacked their bags, and I felt everything. Each injury had its own flavor of hurt, adding into to a potpourri of pain.

"Potpourri of pain," I said to myself and giggled.

I kind of hated the waiting this time. Before, with the vampire, I hadn't a whole lot of time to sit around and wait, and I had stuff to look at while I did. Here, in the generator room, I wanted to stay well-hidden and motionless, and the darker corners of my mind kind of spread out a little, stretching and wondering how they could help me fill my spare time.

I thought about Anita and how nice it would be to be the kind of person that could take her out to someplace nice without worrying about shapeshifters in the kitchen. Or about getting her sucked into something dangerous, like I almost did in the Dreamlands the year before. I owed her for saving my life, and perhaps not getting involved with her was the best way to pay her back.

The fact of Simon's disappearance also crept out of the back of my mind where I'd set it to say hello. That man never did anything for no reason, so I was sure that something was either about to happen or had already started and he was away, preparing something. What it was, I had no idea. Or even if he'd have anything to do with me ever again.

I was him, I wouldn't.

The now-familiar buzzing in my hands got my attention. And I didn't hear a door open so much as feel a change in air pressure in the big room. That would be the only one I'd catch, too, after the room equalized with the hallways. Good thing I wasn't asleep.

I closed my mouth and opened my eyes, finding that my eyes had adjusted to the dark of the generator room wonderfully. Either that, or there was more light in there with the fluorescents off than I thought. Either way, I could see a line of moving figures down on the floor. It was short to be a dozen men . . . ah, there we are. Creeping around on the other side of the room was the rest of them.

Hoping that I was doing it the right way—because if I wasn't, I was about to let everybody know exactly where I was—I keyed the mic for the announcing system and said, "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!"

Startled, but too disciplined to start, the Warwolves all looked around for me. They split up into pairs and ran up and down the big generator room, sticking their noses into nooks and crannies. I gave myself a mental high-five, as I'd figured that they'd retain their wolfish senses and would try to sniff me out. I let them run around like that for a minute or three while I prattled over the PA.

"Just look at you. Sad little Lon Cheney wanna-be's, can't find a sweaty, stinky walking bag of meat in a room full of metal and plastic." I clucked my tongue. "No wonder that third pig kicked your ass."

I killed the mic and moved slowly out of my hiding spot. The wolves, ten of them that I could see, were moving more carefully now, slipping from shadow to shadow, seeking me out. None of them looked to the second level. That was the other, little thing I'd asked for: his crew had removed the ladders before they left. The only way to get where I was (once they figured it out) would be to try and climb up here.

Still, high ground or not, that I didn't see their Alpha Hilt anywhere kind of bothered me.

And, magic guns or not, I didn't want to just start shooting. I knew I wouldn't miss, but I didn't want to give any of them a chance to get back out and return with artillery of their own. So, it was time to sow some confusion.

I turned the headset back on and smashed the amulet Kinder made for me. When I did that, the glass beads I'd placed around on my piles of clothing all should have broke, too, releasing the spell that was hiding me and my scent.

Suddenly, I was everywhere.

The Warwolves reacted immediately, turning and sniffing and moving to stand back-to-back in pairs. I keyed the mic.

"Spooky, isn't it? You know, I thought and thought for quite some time about how to hide from people that would be able to sniff me out, wherever I hid." I laughed, probably well more than I would have if I was holding a normal conversation, the echoing noise covering my footsteps. "So I decided to hide everywhere. Isn't that fucking brilliant?"

If any of them agreed, none of them said so.

Taking long, slow breaths at the end of the catwalk that crossed over the room, I readied one of the magic guns in my right hand and worked a set of ear plugs into my head with my left. Then I pulled a flash-bang free of my pocket, working the pin free with my teeth and feeling like Chuck Norris.

I chucked it and it wobbled easily over the heads of the Warwolves, landing almost where I wanted it to. It bounced once and went fwoosh, and even with my eyes closed and ears protected, it was almost too much for me.

Poor, delicate senses of the wolves.

I ran across the catwalk, hurling silver bullet after silver bullet at the stunned werewolves. Five shots from one end of the catwalk to the other at a dead run, five hits. I loved my new guns. I wanted to keep shooting, to pump round after round into the now-helpless and writhing figures below, but I reigned that in.

I had to see.

Ms. Fisher may have supplied me with all the silver bullets I could ask for, but she never actually said they'd work. And even if she had, I was already all out of trust for the Temhota Group. It occurred to me that I might have asked Kinder to look at the bullets, so that when I got to this point I could just shoot and shoot, but I hadn't. Whoopsie.

Only one of the Warwolves was down for good, I could tell. He was hit in the face and red blood poured out onto the floor. The other four . . . they were going to be trouble. Even in the low light, it was clear that what was leaking out of their bodies was not blood, unless they had A1 sauce running through their veins. Thick black ooze pushed a ways out of their wounds, then stopped.

The Warwolves stopped their churning on the ground. Not good. A flash-bang should have been worse for them than for regular people. Then all of them, as one, sat up and screamed. I couldn't make out any English words in the cacophony, and it didn't sound like anything else I'd heard, either.

The wolves I'd shot fell back to the floor and the ooze started back in.

I keyed the mic, but couldn't find anything to say. My tongue all of a sudden felt stuck to the roof of my mouth and my mind was blank, blank, blank. I hadn't thought this would be easy, but . . . come on. What kind of a world do we live in where silver bullets don't kill werewolves dead? Of all the unfair—

Then it struck me. It was awful that I didn't think of it before.

Everyone's all jacked up now, supercharged, Geoff had said. We're all real monsters now.

The wolves all stood and looked up at where I hid on the catwalk. Their eyes were red.

"That was almost worth the price of admission," a voice said below me. I didn't move to look, but I knew it had to be Hilt, coming in from the east entrance. I keyed the mic again.

"We aims to please," I said. "Bad werewolves, not dying when I shoot you. No doggie treats for you."

Hilt's laughter floated up to me, and it felt wrong. Like a cheese grater on the sensible parts of my brain. The Warwolves reacted to it, too, twitching and moaning, foaming at the mouth. I started grinding my teeth, and every ache I picked up over the previous week all sang out in different timbres of pain.

"Playtime is over now," Hilt said, "so why don't you come on down from your roost and take your medicine like a good boy?"

I was about to suggest something physically improbable when I found myself standing up.

What the fuck?

"That's it," Hilt said. "Come on down."

I fought the sudden urge to throw myself down to the pack, and the pain all over flared up like grease on a fire. It felt like all the lining around my brain was drying up. I stopped fighting and took a step, and everything abated.

Ah, I thought. That's how this works. My legs seemed to have caught on, because I took another rigid step towards the handrail.

My hands, however, were still mine.

I popped the other flash-bang out of my pocket, pulled the pin and dropped it down at the Alpha. Before I screwed my eyes shut, I saw him catch it. And laugh.

The flash-bang went off, and I threw myself backwards and down against the Alpha's will. Peering down through the grating, it looked to me as if all the explosion did to him was break his concentration. The rest of the Warwolves, writhed on the floor again, hands over their bleeding ears. But not Hilt.

Reaching for my guns, my hand brushed the emergency beacon Kinder had given me. This, I think, qualifies as an emergency. I hit it and waited.

The air around me got hazy and I heard Hilt yelling something about me getting away. Really? Man, I thought, I hope so.

The mist coming out of the corners of the room gathered around me and coalesced into a white ball around me. My ears went pop! and I had the sudden feeling of movement, then the mist vanished.

I was sitting on the walkway between intake towers on the Nevada side.

"Kinder," I said, "I salute you." I looked around, trying to get my bearings. "But the driver's seat of my car would have been better."

I got up, shakily, and started towards parking, trying to remember how long it took to get from the generator room to topside. Not long enough, the way my day had been going. I took off at a fast hobble and made it to my car without getting eviscerated. I sat in the car and blew out a shaky breath.

"Put this on," a voice said from the backseat and all my skin tried to jump four feet to the left. I spun, whipping a gun up and around with my right hand. Kinder sat back there, looking bored.

"What?"

"The amulet, put it on." He checked his watch. "They will be up here any moment, however many are coming. Did you dispose of many of them?"

I snatched the amulet out of his hand and slipped it over my head. "One," I said. "Just one."

A door slammed open into the parking area, and Kinder and I both laid down in the car.

"When we get out of here," I told him, "we are going to have to have a talk about the Warwolves."

Big shapes bounded past the car towards the exit, stopping here and there to wave their snouts in the air. Looking for me. There were only four of them.

"We should go now," Kinder said, sitting up.

I sat up too, shaking my head, and started the car. I had it backed up and pointed in the right direction when the first wolf hit us, landing on all fours on the roof of the car.

Kinder put his hand out and said something like, "Vizlaytate," and the wolf went howling, end over end to the street.

I punched it and hit the turn going fast, tires squealing their displeasure at the abuse I was putting them through.

Better them than me.

Chapter 11

I paced back and forth, cursing into my cell phone while throngs of people around me enjoyed (in various degrees) the Freemont Street Experience.

"I know you told me not to get any help, but come on. Mercenary werewolves. They're mercenaries. And they're werewolves. You didn't think that I might need a hand?" I snatched a fried Twinkie out of a fat hand and darted down a side street. "Besides," I continued, "it's not like I told him where your Fortress of Solitude is."

"That is hardly the point," Ms. Fisher said into my ear. "If you're going to continue as our operative—"

"No," I interrupted, "that is the point. You came to me, remember? So, if I think I need to recruit one of the Century, or maybe the entirety of Nevada's National Guard, I goddamn will. And it looks like I may have to. The WarWolves . . . hold on, I have a call on the other line."

"Wait—" she said, and I clicked over.

"Go ahead, Kinder."

"Yes. I believe I may have uncovered a way to defeat the WarWolves. Or, at least, to separate them from their newfound, otherworldy natures—"

"Awesome. That's awesome. You are awesome. I take back every bad thing I've ever said about you."

"I am sure. There is one catch to the method I have found."

"Well, shit, boss. Lay it on me."

There was a dry cough on the other end of the phone line, which may or may not have been Kinder's laughter.

"I am going to need you to bring me a sample of the werewolf blood."

Well, he said there'd be a catch.

"Really? Can't we use what's left of Geoff? Or the WarWolf that went down at the dam?"

"No, we cannot. Those wolves were killable by conventional methods precisely because they did not have the new, ah, special ingredient."

I blinked as I chewed my stolen Twinkie. I thought, too. Finally, after more mastication than a fried confection required, I sighed.

"Tell me you know where I can find one of them. Just one, mind you."

The coughing sound again. "As it so happens, I do."

"Do we have to keep meeting on rooftops, Kinder? I'm not Batman."

The red-headed mage pushed his glasses up his nose. "Quite," he said. "In this case, you will find, the vantage offered by the rooftop is completely warranted. I have heard through information sources that—"

"No. No, no. Answer me this, do you trust your snitch? Do you trust your snitch with your life? I'm not even going to ask about my life."

Kinder put his foot on the ledge running around the roof, keeping his eyes on the jewelry store across the street. "My intuition is to believe the information. Your appearance here and subsequent action has somewhat thrown the scheduled activities of the WarWolves off-kilter. They are in need of immediate revenue, and one of their number is out tonight to get it."

I rubbed the sides of my head, where a dull ache was gaining momentum. "I don't see why you couldn't have just told me all this over the phone."

He nodded. "I could have. But once you obtain the blood sample, I will need to make use of it almost that instant. And to do that, I need to be here when you collect it."

"Fine. Whatever. I still think you could have—"

"He's here." Kinder cut me off as a low throbbing preceded a chopped-out motorcycle around the corner and up the block.

There was, as promised, only one of the pack. He was one of the wolves I'd shot at the damn, only now he was dressed in street clothes instead of black fatigues. Under ordinary circumstances, he didn't look like the type of fella I'd want to have to tangle with on purpose. But he was also a super-werewolf. The headache got deeper.

"You have a plan?"

Kinder smiled. "As it happens, I do. Let him rob the store."

I waited. "And then?"

"And then, we descend upon him, extract forcibly a blood sample, and be off before the local authorities arrive."

I looked down off the roof. "From here? I believe that I've already identified myself as not Batman."

He rolled up his sleeves and stuck a piece of chewing gum in his mouth. "Leave that to me."

Okay. I'd done this before. Jumping off a roof and landing on someone else isn't like, an everyday thing for me, but I've done it before.

Just . . . never to someone with an advanced sense of smell, night vision, reflexes of a wild animal and supernatural speed and strength. I blew out a breath.

"You have the bracelet on tight?" Kinder asked me.

I nodded.

"Good. Just remember what I told you. Do not straighten your legs until you are ready to come back up."

"Gotcha," I said, continuing to nod. "Are you sure that this is the best way—"

"There he is," Kinder said, and pushed me off the roof.

I yelped and the WarWolf looked up as I hurtled down at a screaming thirty-two feet per second squared. The bracelet on my wrist got hot, then really hot, and I hit the WarWolf with the simulated mass of a city bus. We went down quick, and there was thick A-1 blood everywhere, scattered diamonds flying in it, tracing intricate patterns that disappeared as the blood closed up behind them.

"Keep your knees bent, keep your knees bent," I chanted to myself as I collected the hot goop in a vial for Kinder. Very quickly, there was enough in there to reach the marker he'd put on the glass, and I held it up so he could see it.

"Piece of cake," I said, and a fist made of fire and anger hit my lower back.

I went sideways and down, my legs twitching and spasms running up and down the muscles along my spine. The vial flew from my fingertips as I flopped on the concrete, and then I wasn't worried about it because there was two hundred pounds of angry lycanthrope on top of me.

Motherfucker was strong. The punches raining down at my head passed through my forearms like I didn't even have them up, bouncing my skull from knuckles to sidewalk. New stars flared to life in the Las Vegas night and things started to get blurry.

The biker stopped hitting me for long enough to look up at the rooftop, and I wrapped my arms around his waist, straightening my legs.

We rocketed away from the sidewalk and collided, werewolf-first, into the brick façade of the bank across the street. There was a thick crunch as his head deflated against the wall and he went limp. I got up on wobbly legs and staggered into the street. My fingers tried to work the snaps on my holsters, but my hands kept crawling their way down my thighs instead.

"Spatial relationships are funky, captain," I slurred as a van raced towards me.

Flash of light.

Am I dead? Does Hell kind of look like the backseat of Kinder's van?

The question presented itself to me as I blinked awake. My head was full of stainless steel roaches, scurrying around and feasting on what was left of my brain. Or my headache had gotten geometrically worse.

Kinder spritzed my face with a spray bottle. "You have to stay awake. You probably have a concussion. Enjoy."

"I will. Stop spraying me."

"No." He sprayed me again. "When you have the coordination, please return the bracelet. I do not want too much of your blood on it."

Blood?

"Ah, shit!" I yelled, then immediately wrapped my arms around my head to keep out the pain. It didn't work. "The fucking blood!"

Kinder sprayed me one more time and kept on driving. Humming to himself. Humming to himself? That was wrong. Kinder was, as far as I could tell, mostly humorless and probably sub-human. The only time he allowed himself good cheer was . . .

"You got the blood."

He nodded. "I got the blood."

"You bastard. How? No, never mind, I don't want to know."

And I didn't. Whenever Kinder (or Io or Simon) did anything magical, the explanation never made any sense. Oh, sure, they could say something simple, like, "I vanished it off the sidewalk and into my hand," but do they? No. It's always some kind of esoteric dissertation on portals and magic and intertwined trains of thought. Bastards.

My head hurt more and I laid down in the back seat until we pulled into Kinder's garage. I looked at my watch and clucked my tongue. The trip to the jewelry store had taken fifteen minutes, the drive back only two. I blinked. Kinder must have really been in a hurry to use that much blatant hocus-pocus.

He was. The motor was still running as he scurried into his basement lab, van door hanging open.

"Whatever," I said, and laid my head back down.

The spray bottle spritzed me.

My ears rang as I wobbled around the table in Kinder's dining room, occasionally thumping into a wall or chair as the room shifted on me. Mohawk Moose wandered in from the kitchen and looked at me. "Come here for a second," he said.

I did. Or, I tried to. The table and wall conspired against me. Finally, Moose walked over and gripped my head in his big hands, looking at my eyes.

"Your pupils are a different size. From each other, I mean. Are they normally like this?"

I blinked. "Are what normally like . . . what?"

He nodded and let me go. "Definitely a concussion. How many times did you get hit?"

I held up both hands, fingers splayed out. "This many. Maybe more. Can I touch your Mohawk?"

"No. Come with . . . sit here," he said and walked back into the kitchen.

"What's Kinder doing down there?" I asked.

"I don't know," Moose said over the banging of drawers in the kitchen. "I never ask."

"Afraid to?"

He came back in and put a bottle of aspirin down in front of me. "Don't care. I get compensated well. Me and my brother do what he tells us and we don't worry about why. Kinder's one of the good guys. And you? Why'd he say you had a rotten temper?"

I popped five aspirin in my mouth and started to chew. Moose grimaced, and I smiled. I decided to tell him.

"I worked with Kinder and my cousin Io once. I didn't have a lot to do with the actual job. There had to be two of them for whatever they were trying to corral, and I was just the driver, gopher, whatever. Well, Kinder and Io do what planned, and acolytes came pouring out of that old building like lemmings.

"I'd planned on staying in the car and just letting them go, but Io calls me over the radio, saying to corral at least one of them. So, as one comes rushing by, I slam open the car door and fold him up. Busts the window something awful. Then I'm out, trying to get this squirming evil fuck into a fireman's carry to deposit in the trunk of our car when another one hits me behind the knees. Instead of running, he decides to whale on me for a little bit with the bar he used on my legs.

"He got kind of carried away, and the ruckus Kinder and Io had kicked up had attracted local law enforcement. This robed skinhead was still hitting me when the police showed up and he got arrested. A bit later, he was released into Io's custody, some arrangement the Century has, I think, and Io brings him back to my place to question him.

"Well, he was giving Io a pretty hard time, and Io, thinking we were going to play Good Cop/Bad Cop, asks me to soften up the acolyte a bit, and he steps out."

I stopped the story and laughed a little at a wave of light-headedness. "Anyway, by the time Io walks back in with Kinder, I'd been dropping the fire axe from the hallway on the guy's right foot from about six inches away. Cut it almost in half. I'd also punctured him in several places with the other side. Io lost his shit over it, but I think Kinder approved." I chewed a couple more aspirin. "So Kinder knows that I have something of a dark side."

"That you do," Kinder said from the door to the lab. "Your new employers chose well. I think I would do some real soul-searching if those people reached out to me."

He inclined his head towards the basement. "Now, let us see what science and magic have wrought. I may have the solution to your super werewolves."

Moose left to follow, and I sat there for a moment, thinking. Temhota's never contacted Kinder? He'd be perfect for them.

Unless he has lines he won't cross that they find unacceptable.

Further introspection could wait. It always snuck up on me when I was standing by to do something intrepid, anyway. There was a flash and a hoot from the basement. I wanted to see what Kinder had cooked up.

Chapter 12

There were ten werewolves left to kill, and then there was Hilt, the super-duper Alpha. I'd gotten some . . . things from Kinder that were supposed to make things better for me. I'd seen some very convincing empirical evidence in his basement, but that was on a sample of the superwolf blood. He was very confident that it would work on a real, live werewolf.

Of course, he wasn't the one testing the theory.

"These bullets," he told me, "are a direct product of your Simon d'Argent. He discovered a region near the Tunguska River where the soil and metals are particularly virulent to those of an Otherworldly bent."

I cocked my head, thinking of something Simon had told me once. Will bullets hurt this one? I'd asked. And he'd said, Yours won't, but hold that thought for now.

"The rounds you are carrying now are—"

"Hold on," I said, interrupting. "Simon. He's something of a magic man, isn't he?"

Narrowing his eyes at the interruption, Kinder nodded. "That he is."

I screwed up my face. "Then why isn't he one of the Century?"

Sitting on his couch, Kinder let out a breath. "As far as I know, if one has been Century and retired from it, there is no reinstatement. And the tests that Simon agreed to . . . well, they indicated that he had been Century at some point. And," he said, raising a finger, "would be again. Just not now."

"Funny old world, innit?"

"Quite," Kinder said. "About the rounds, though. They operate on a time-release that you will trigger. And here is something else," he said, offering me a ring. "My specialty is movement. That is what these amulets do. They take your scent, whatever trail you are leaving, and move it to inside the amulet. You have seen the trick Io does, stepping blocks at a time?"

I nodded. I'd seen it twice.

"I taught him that. And while you were busily not taking care of the WarWolf problem—"

"Eat me," I said.

"I was working on this. The ring will move whatever you hit with it. The underlying—"

"Kinder. I don't care about the underlying anything. You're saying this gives me, like, superpunch?"

He blew a breath out through his nose. "Not exactly. But close enough for this discussion."

"Right. So, if I want to use this on a werewolf, I have to get this fucking close to one? I don't see that happening. Not on purpose, at least."

"Take it," Kinder said. "You never know."

I snatched the ring out of his hand and put it on my right middle finger. "Is there anything else I need to know about this stuff you gave me?"

He shook his head. "I do not believe so. Have fun dismantling a mercenary werewolf operation."

I smiled the biggest, fakest smile I knew how.

"Maybe I'll bring you something."

I started out on a dirt bike Moose had procured for me, roaring away from Kinder's place and trailing a plume of faint blue smoke. In order to pull this off, I'd have to be as maneuverable as possible. It would not do to let one of Hilt's monsters get a hold of me.

Were they really Hilt's monsters, though? Yeah, he was their Alpha . . . but there was still the matter of Lauren/Mara to look into. I wrestled with the question for a couple of minutes while I rolled on the blacktop. Coming to a decision, I pulled into a parking structure and looked for a pay phone.

Broken, broken, broken, defecated on, broken, broken . . . there we were. Io had given me a quarter to use when I needed to call him and I didn't have a phone. While it wasn't true that I didn't have a phone, it was the Temhota's phone, and I didn't want them listening in.

And um . . . I couldn't remember his number.

I dropped the quarter in, and whatever Io had done to it took over. There was dialing and then an operator telling me it would be four dollars (!!!) and series of beeps. It frustrates the shit out of me that he never really explains these things in a way that I can understand them, but it's beautiful when it works. His phone was ringing in a minute.

"How's Nevada?"

"It's hot. And it's shaped funny. And fried Twinkies are the best thing ever. You have anything for me?"

"I do. You're not going to like it, nor are you going to be able to handle this on your lonesome. Give me a day, and—"

I cut him off. "I'm not alone. Kinder's giving me a hand."

"Good. He's good at this kind of thing. Whatever it is your wolves are up to, it's danger and needs to be put to a stop."

That got my interest. When Io says "danger," he doesn't mean it like a construction worker or cop would mean it. He means it like someone from the Old Testament would mean it.

"What are we looking at, here?"

Io breathed out a sigh. "Lauren isn't who or what we thought she was. Matter of fact, if she's there, you should turn and run. Hide. Call me and wait for the cavalry to arrive."

"That's ridonkulous. I put her down last time—"

"No, you didn't. You interrupted her. Inconvenienced her. But you didn't put her down. I don't want to get into it, but she's old and powerful. Listen, if she's using werewolves, it's because they're hardy and can take whatever it is she needs done."

I told him about the additives they had in them now, and he cursed softly.

"That's even worse. Do you even have a plan?"

"Pfft. Of course, I have a plan. I'm working on it right now. Listen, if something goes wrong, you'll know it. Leave this alone 'til I call. Dig?"

"Fine," he said. "But if they rip a hole in the fabric of space and time, I don't want to hear how it isn't your fault."

He hung up, and I did the same, smiling. I got his unofficial seal of approval, and it made me inordinately happy. Hah.

I kicked the bike to life and roared out, looking for a werewolf to kick in the junk.

WarWolf number seven was making rounds and collecting monies from drug contacts, looking for all the world as if there wasn't anything out of the ordinary going on. I guessed that was a tactic to keep from looking weak on the street. Or something. Somebody had to hear about all the sudden shit the WarWolves were going through.

Ah, well.

I waited until his back was turned and zipped out of an alley, steering with one hand and brandishing one of my magic revolvers with the other. I let out a loud wolf-whistle as I went by, and when he turned, I shot him full in the face with one of the rounds Kinder had given me.

He flew off his feet and slammed into the wall behind him, crushing the dealer he was collecting from. By the time he was on his feet again, I was around a corner and speeding up.

If the drug dealer lived, he'd be suitably impressed by that, I thought. Not everyone can just get up after being shot in the face, you know. For the short run, I just did that wolf a favor.

I circled around the block and pulled up next to a Chevette that had WarWolf number five behind the wheel. Slamming on the brake, I swung the bike around so it was facing back the way I'd came.

The biker looked startled to see me, a snarl forming on his face as I hammered his window in. The door opened a little, and I kicked it back shut.

"Stay," I shouted. "Play dead!" My shot smashed his cheekbone in and rolled him completely over in the front seat.

What did Kinder do to these bullets? I thought as I sped away from the car to get lost in traffic.

Two down, ten to go.

That's how my night went. I found one on his own, kicking in the side of an ATM. I almost didn't stop for him, but Kinder had assured me that I had to get them all before I took on the Alpha, so I did it.

He was almost the last one. He was back on his feet and chasing after me faster than the first one was, and I felt something snag the back of my jacket as I accelerated through traffic, cars honking and pedestrians scurrying for cover.

"One bullet each," Kinder had said. "In the trunk if you can, preferably in the face or head."

It struck me as I rode around Las Vegas that it wasn't even close to normal behavior to circle town, looking for people to shoot in the face. That got me to thinking about how Kinder said they'd chosen well in me. And it got me to thinking about how Anita was better off without me. And what kind of place was I in when I did that thing to the acolyte so long ago? Was I in the same place now? Or worse?

I stopped the bike and pulled a gun on a solo WarWolf stepping out of a fast food place.

"What kind of person does this for a living?" I asked him before shooting him in the face and riding off, the sounds of breaking glass and screams behind me.

At the almost immediate sound of sirens, I turned onto Main and did my best to blend in. That involved putting my gun away, but I found myself behind two more of the wolves on their hogs.

Well. It's Wyatt Earp time.

I sped up so that I was between the wolves as they rode side-by-side.

"Hey!" I shouted. They both looked at me, confused. "I know! Crazy, right?" Then both hands were up and out, revolvers barking Kinder's rounds into their heads. Both bikers flew off their bikes like they'd been yanked off by a particularly angry fifty-foot toddler.

Six down.

After that, I guess word got around, and I didn't see the other six WarWolves on the street. I didn't know why. Obviously, I wasn't killing any of them. Maybe it was that street cred thing. You can't let people just go around, shooting your soldiers in the face, even if they get right back up, I guess.

Fine. They'd come looking for me, then? I'd have to make myself easy to find. But where?

Hmm. Had I wanted to visit Paris? Maybe. Maybe not. Was there an Eiffel Tower in Vegas? So happened, there was. I called Kinder.

"Hey. If I wanted to get their attention, what would be the best way to do it that wouldn't get me prematurely arrested?"

"Take off the first amulet. They will sniff you out soon enough. You should know this."

"You sure? There are an awful lot of people here—"

"Trust me. Take it off, give yourself approximately one half-hour to prepare for the onslaught. How many have you done?"

"Six down, six to go."

"Good. Keep me informed. I will have to come by and smooth things out with the authorities."

He hung up as I wondered, For what?

No matter. I looked up at the five-eighths replica of the tower and smiled as a plan formed in my head.

I sat near the top of the replica Eiffel, swinging my feet over the Strip. Security, I'd found, was surprisingly easy to deceive. I think he believed me up until the point where I hit him with my forearm and dragged him into a maintenance closet. Ah, the hazards of private security.

The roar of a dozen motorcycles got my attention, shaking me out of my reverie like a puppy does with a rag. I'd been brooding. Like Batman. Or something. I wouldn't want to be him, though. Don't look good in tights. He's got a cool car, though.

The WarWolves swarmed the Paris hotel, scampering playfully around the base of the replica tower with thoughts of my steaming guts dancing in their heads. Ah, those kids. They climbed the outside of the tower faster than I thought, making it look easier than it was. I pulled both guns from my holsters and looked at them.

"Okay," I said, feeling stupid. "Just so you two understand, it's the ones we haven't shot yet that we want to shoot first. Is that clear?"

I paused. I don't know if I was expecting them to wag in my hands or what, but nothing happened and I think I lost a bet with myself. No matter.

I swung the guns down, pointing them vaguely in the direction of the climbing werewolves.

As fast as I could pull the triggers back, the guns danced in my hands, spitting out six shells from Kinder's laboratory. Almost instantly, six black-clad figures dropped from the tower like goth sandbags.

As soon as they went splat! I was climbing down on the other side. Moving fast, as fast as I could, the roof of the hotel coming up to meet me, and I found my first real obstacle.

The roof. The fucking roof.

One of the legs of the tower went through the roof of the hotel into the casino below, and I was climbing down towards it. I didn't think it would be a big deal to get down, but the WarWolves would sure as shit catch up with me as I ran for the door. Yes, the door . . . I wasn't jumping off.

A clang above me drew my attention, my hands vibrating all the way up to my elbows. Up there, one of the more limber wolves had gotten higher than I was, skittered across one of the horizontal beams and was descending the ladder for me. In a way, I was glad he was coming down instead of up . . . this way, I couldn't see the look on his face.

I drew a revolver and aimed at him coming down, but when I pulled the trigger, it didn't go back. What the fuck?

Oh, I thought almost immediately. Gravity.

I started climbing down faster, missing rungs and slipping on the metal. The werewolf, amazingly, was gaining on me. And his cohorts were moving laterally to catch up with the both of us. The six I'd shot were on their feet and climbing as sirens approached on the Strip.

A boot came down on my right hand, and I cried out, snatching it back. I fell three or four rungs at once before I caught the ladder again. A glint of light caught my eye from my hand. The ring Kinder gave me. I smiled a nasty smile and stopped. As the WarWolf came down, I jumped back to the metal cage that surrounded the ladder. I lost two nails on each hand, but I started climbing up, blood running down the backs of my hands.

I came even with the merc, and turning, I punched down at his head. The ring let out a howl as my fist sang through the air, and when I hit the werewolf, he lost his grip on the ladder and shot down to the roof as if he'd been fired out of a cannon.

His yell was cut short as he plunged through the roof of the casino and fell to the tables below.

Looking at the other five gaining on me, and the remaining six climbing after them, I made a decision and let go of the ladder.

Chapter 13

My feet found the sides of the ladder and I slid down the incline like an out-of-control roller coaster. I shut my eyes and next thing I knew, my guns were in my hands, firing down, my fingers snapping the triggers back faster than I thought possible.

I plunged through the hole left by the WarWolf and passed through the perforated roof of a Lincoln MKT. I hit the front seat's exploded air bags and ricocheted inside the luxury wagon for a second.

"Falling werewolf. Glass roof," I said, trying to get my breath back. "Air bags. Magic guns. Add in equal amounts, serves a rescue for one. Yow!"

I pushed open the nearest door—I ended up in the back seat—and stumbled away from the ruined car. The WarWolf I'd sent ahead of me (I think it was his impact that set off the air bags) was beginning to stir, and the others wouldn't be that far behind, so I ducked into a bathroom and slipped one of Kinder's amulets back on. I thought about laying down to die a little bit . . . all my aches and pains for the last week or so had all gotten back together for a reunion party. I guess they'd just been waiting for an invitation, like a fall off an imitation Eiffel Tower.

How often does something like that come around, really?

Instead of dying, I ran for a rear exit, my head low. Bursting out into the parking lot, I sucked in great lungfuls of air. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get to my dirt bike (Kinder's dirt bike . . . whatever) so I rooted around in my pocket for my cell phone. Kept on rooting. I was sure it was in there, somewhere amongst the shards of broken plastic. Damn.

I staggered off to the opposite side of the Strip to catch a taxi.

Sitting in the back of the cab, I thought about the rest of the plan, disliking it intensely. It called for a lot of movement and probably some deft thinking, and I was not in the best shape for that. Maybe Kinder could move the pain to somewhere else? Or someone else?

The remains of the cell phone in my pocket emitted a warbling sound that might have been a ring.

I picked out the pieces and put the handful of parts up to my face. "County Morgue and Soup Kitchen. Long pork specialty items for sale."

"Have we discussed how the Temhota likes to operate?" Miss Fisher said over the broken bits of speaker. "In the shadows, I thought I told you. That does not mean on the evening edition of the Las Vegas local news."

I raised my eyebrows. "Already? I just got out of there."

"Wrap this up. You are to meet Fringe in Seattle in three days."

The call disconnected and I went to throw the bits of phone away. But when I pulled my hand away from my face, instead of a pile of phone parts, there sat a brand-new cellular.

"Reindeer games."

"What was that, buddy?"

The taxi driver was looking at me in his mirror, a worried set to his eyebrows.

"Nothing. Can you swing around and take me back to the Paris? Strip side, please."

He shrugged and cut off several tourists while I thought. In the shadows, indeed. We pulled over and I dropped a twenty in the cabbie's hand. And where was the news crew? I saw a white and blue van near the entrance, a heavily made-up woman talking to a camera, gesturing behind her.

I stomped up and tapped on the cameraman's shoulder. "Are you live?" He gave me a look and the woman kept on talking, so I took that as a yes. I reached out and snatched the microphone from the reporter and swung the camera around at my face.

"Hilt," I said. "Come find me in the desert, one hour. Bring your whole pack."

I threw the microphone down and ran off. My bike, much to my surprise, was right where I left it, so I jumped on and zipped away.

Oh, yeah. In the shadows. I laughed.

It wasn't hard to find the desert outside of Vegas. It was something of a pain to find a good spot for an ambush of sorts. I needed to find a place where Hilt would have time to intimidate me, perhaps indulge in some classic supervillain plan revelation before the pack tore me to shreds.

When I saw it, I knew I'd found it. And it wasn't but a minute or two to get everyone out. A madman waving a pair of pistols around a Nevada visitor's center was a pretty sure bet to a quick evacuation, and I didn't think I'd hurt the tourist trade one bit.

To pass the time, I wandered around the visitor's center, cutting video camera cables with a butterfly knife. Miss Fisher would be less than pleased about my brief career in newscasting, so I decided to throw them a bone. A rumbling of motorcycle engines through the propped-open doors gave me all the head's up I needed. I walked to the center of the big room (from which I'd moved all the displays and chairs) and waited, flipping my knife around.

Hilt was the first through the doors, sneering and cocky. He stopped perhaps ten feet from me, radiating bloodlust and menace. His WarWolves came in behind him, all of them looking worse for wear. A little tired. I grinned.

"What's wrong with your puppies, Hilt? All the spring has gone out of their steps."

"You," he said, pointing at me, "have been a giant pain in my ass."

"Deservedly so," I said. "What you're up to with Mara . . ." I let the sentence hang, hoping he'd guess that I knew more than I was saying. I did not.

"The rift is none of your concern, asshole," he shouted, incensed. "You don't even say her name."

Ah, Lauren. Or whatever your real name is. Still up to your old tricks. New twist, though.

"Well," I said, fingering the second amulet Kinder gave me. "Without you and your pound puppies around to give her a hand, we'll be closing her down shortly." I slipped the necklace off my neck and spun it around lazily.

"What's that? Another of your lame-ass magic toys?"

"As a matter of fact," I said, and spun the amulet faster, then throwing it down, shattering the glass on the tiled floor. Simultaneously, each of the WarWolves (besides Hilt) doubled over or took a knee, holding their heads.

"Extra go-juice is gone," I said, fast drawing my guns. I put five silver shots into five hearts and the another five into Hilt's face. Then I took off running to the rear of the center.

"Five shots," I muttered, reloading as I ran. "Why five shots?"

The seven remaining WarWolves were writhing around, Hilt standing over them with his hands curled into angry claws. They sprang up from their human skins in full wolf form, spurred after my by Hilt's anger and their own need for revenge.

I laughed as they came in, not even sighting as I pulled the triggers. Each shot took a wolf in a vital spot, the silver bullets I'd been sitting on finally being put to good use. Finally, the seven dead wolves lay dead on the tiles, Hilt standing at the front, anger and confusion warring on his face.

I spilled the spent casings out of one of the guns, keeping the other trained on him. "I was wondering, you know, if you would still be considered an Alpha if your whole pack was dead. What are your thoughts on the matter?"

While I loaded the Tunguska rounds, Hilt tore his jacket off and his shirt free from his body. The mark of Pluto on his chest was fading. He looked up at me with hate in his eyes and began the transformation. I hadn't thought he'd be able to. I hate it when I'm wrong.

A wolf the size of a Volkswagon bounded after me. I put all five of the Tunguska rounds into its chest. Each one slowed the giant wolf a hair, but it was still coming on like a freight train. Even with its extra, Otherside blood gone, it was still a furious werewolf.

One last bound, and it was airborne, five hundred pounds of pissed-off lycanthrope aimed at my throat.

Three shots rang out and three holes appeared in the werewolf's face, putting out his blazing eyes, giving him a third one. It fell at my feet and started to shrink.

I stepped over him and walked away.

"So it went well?"

I sat at a fast food place, talking on the phone with Kinder while I waited for my bacon cheeseburger.

"It went very well. Easier than I thought. Whatever was in them, giving them a turbo boost, those rounds took it out of them."

"Excellent. I will remember to bill you. Your effects are boxed up and in the backseat of your car. When will you be returning?"

My hands started to buzz. "I think I'm going to have to call you back."

I folded the phone closed as the front of the Jack in the Box was torn from the store. A roar forced its way in through the hole and I saw a giant pair of legs.

What is this fresh foolishness?

A giant wolf head dipped down and glared at me through the window, slaving jaws working as oversized fangs tore at the flesh at either side of the snout.

At the sight of me, the giant wolf roared again, standing up, tearing a fresh hole in the roof with its head. I got up and ran for the side exit, spilling out into the parking lot with the rest of Jack's customers. At the front of the store stood a giant wolf-man. From its size, I guessed that it weighed well over a ton, and it looked like it was created by fusing the fallen bodies of the WarWolves together.

Grotesque. Deadly. Effective.

"Furry Voltron," I said, and turned to run. I could feel it pounding after me, its giant feet creating depressions in the asphalt as it lumbered along. I dove beneath the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler and prayed that the load in the back was heavy.

"Come on, magic revolvers," I said, pulling them from their holsters. "Find a weak spot. Pretty please?"

Right then, the rear of the tractor-trailer was lifted away and I pulled the triggers, wondering idly what rounds I'd put in the guns when I reloaded.

Ten bloody holes appeared at various points of the wolfstrocity, none slowing it down. It dropped the trailer, though. I got to my feet and bolted, reloading with Kinder's Tunguska rounds as I ran, dropping as many as I got into the guns. A balled up Kia bounced over my head, and then I was brushed aside forcefully by a rolling station wagon. It crunched into my side, ripping the gun out of my left hand, breaking bones.

I fell, sliding, screaming, turning, firing five T-rounds at the giant wolf. There, I saw results. Each portion of the wolf they hit, a body disgorged from the wolf and fell to the parking lot. I limped away, reloading and went to do it again. A giant claw raked up my back, lifting me off my feet and sending me flying.

A delivery van swinging around the back of the Jack in the Box and going much too fast, slammed into the wolf's blind side. It went down, roaring and I scrambled to my feet, shooting and reloading until there were thirteen bodies littered around me. I stood and went to each corpse, kicking it over until it was a good distance away from every other body, then unloading into it until all of my T-rounds and silver bullets were gone.

Kinder called me back as I finished my last reloader. "Hey," I answered. "I think I'm going to need a wood chipper. With uh, silver blades."

A group of five Nevada State Troopers stood around me with guns drawn as a paramedic wrapped my hand and another tended to the large gash in my back.

"So," I said to the nearest one, "you come around here often?"

"Shut the fuck up," the ranking Trooper said. "Exercise your right to remain silent."

"We should cuff him," another one said.

The ranking Trooper shook his head. "No. Dispatch got a call from Kinder. He's coming to collect this . . . person. And the mutilated corpses. Sick fucks."

"If it helps, I'm probably not done mutilating the dead people."

"You just—"

"I have him, officers," Kinder said, stepping into the circle. "Thank you very much."

"Told you I'd bring you something." Then, as the police walked away, I asked loudly, "Did you bring the wood chipper?"

Chapter 14

Two days later I was eating in a nice Italian restaurant near Fisherman's Wharf. Seattle was the same as it always was, overcast and grey. The only time it wasn't like this that I could remember was during El Niño.

As I finished my plate of ravioli, Fringe came through the front door of the establishment and looked the place over. He looked the same as the last time I saw him, except now he wore a pair of black fingerless gloves. Still no concessions to the weather. He strode over, and his aura of menace cleared a path for him. People who hadn't even seen him coming scooted their chairs out of his way.

"How do you do that?" I asked as he sat.

"Part of my mojo," he said. "Most people's first question would have been, 'how did you find me?'"

I nodded stiffly. I was still in a whole pile of pain from the vampire business, and getting steamrolled by a gang of mercenary werewolves hadn't helped any. I lifted my drink with my non-broken right hand and saluted him.

"I am not most people. How come you're not all banged up like I am?"

"I am . . . elusive. You have any word on our team effort?"

A ringing from Fringe's pocket interrupted whatever I was going to say next. He pulled the phone from his pocket and laid it on the table, letting it ring more and more loudly.

"Mine doesn't do that," I said.

He picked up a fork and stabbed the phone with enough force to wedge the tines into the table. The phone kept on ringing.

"It does that, though."

His phone stopped ringing and mine started.

"¿Bueno, con quien gusta?" I said, answering it.

"Tell Fringe to answer his phone. What is it with tough guys and cell phones?"

"You know us, paragons of free will. Should we be expecting packets of info for the next job?"

"No. Meet me at Sky City restaurant."

I looked at my watch. "When? Sometime tonight, or—"

"Now."

There was a burst of static and my phone went dead. Fringe's, too. Shrugging, I tossed my phone onto my plate and pulled at the fork sticking through his. When it didn't budge, he grinned and pulled it out himself.

"Space Needle," I said to him. "She said now. But that means probably forty-five minutes from now, because my hobble doesn't exactly eat up the miles."

"It breaks my heart to make her wait."

Two miles and fifty minutes later, Fringe and I cut line to hostile stares and entered the elevator to Sky City, the eatery at the tippy-top of the Space Needle. The elevator operator stared at Fringe's tank top the entire forty-three second ride, but said nothing. Perhaps I should start lifting weights?

The elevator disgorged us and the maitre d' smiled painfully at us, gesturing that we should follow. He showed us to a table where our boss Valkyrie lady sat observing Seattle.

"Shall I bring menus?"

Without turning to look, Ms. Fisher waved the man away. Fringe and I sat. He got the window seat. Yes, I should start lifting weights.

"What are—" was as far as I got before an imperious finger from Ms. Fisher cut me off. Instead of speaking, she pulled from her voluminous purse an orb of clear glass. I think it was glass. Looked like it.

Gesturing and knitting her eyebrows, she placed her left hand on the globe. She waved with her right for us to do the same. I did not. Instead, I waved Fringe ahead. Looking bored, he did so and exhaled noisily at me.

Pursing my lips, I placed my left hand on the globe. Immediately, my arm went numb up to my elbow as the flesh of my palm sank into the cold, cold glass.

"Shitballs," I yelled, standing and trying to pull my hand back. It would not budge and Fringe sneered a grin at me.

"You've never seen one of these before, buddy-boy?"

I was about to spit an answer back when I realized that he'd asked the question without moving his lips. I looked from him to Ms. Fisher, who, while still obviously annoyed, had a hint of smile on her face.

"If it's not perfectly clear by now," I said, retaking my seat, "I love the sound of my voice. Why this?"

"The next step, no, the final step of this mission is the most hazardous. Your mark is perhaps one of the most powerful adepts on the planet, and it is not safe to say his name aloud. Or commit it to paper. Or generate an image of him."

"I hated carrying around that manila envelope, anyway," I said, "but we had pretty detailed background and whatnot. So how do we get the info now?"

"Like this," Ms. Fisher said, and the room went away.

A hot wind blew what felt like waves of scourin' sand over my back as I crouched behind a log and prayed to stay hid. The black-clad Gunman sat not eight foot from me, outside a circle of stones and a trough of water, almost a moat. Where, in this desert, did he find so much blamed water?

I shook my head. Where he got the water from really weren't that important. The "why" of it bugged me to Hades. In the middle of the Gunman's circle stood a bonfire, easy twelve foot tall if it was an inch, and off to the side of the circle sat the man himself, six-string guitar in his lap and a jug of whiskey by his side.

Near to parched by the furnace-hot desert wind and the waves of heat coming off the bonfire, I eyed the whiskey (and the water trough) with what my preacher might say was lust. The Gunman had hired me and my wagon to bring him out here, just him and an old, beaten up trunk, and it had been my pleasure. I, with my full skins of water and sack of beans and jerked beef, had gauged the provisions the man in black was bringing with him and found them wanting. I told him so and was rewarded with a cuff across my face.

The well-worn and polished pistol strapped to his leg gave me pause. Hell, I'm hot-tempered as any man that makes his own way out here, but I ain't a fool. I just nodded my head and loaded the man's trunk.

Now, three days later, I was out of water and this bastard had a moat full of it. It was enough to make me tear at my hair. Wouldn't have to, though. I was behind this fella, and there ain't a gunfighter in all the world that can outdraw double ought in his back.

Just as I put my thumb on one of the hammers of my over-under, the Gunman picked up the guitar and went to a-playin' the most God-awful nonsense I ever heard. It weren't like no real song I knew, and the notes he was stranglin' out of that guitar stood all my hair on end.

Just as I thought it couldn't get no worse, it got louder'n hell, and there was a fiddle or something answerin'. Well, that Gunman stood up and got to stompin' around the circle, swinging that guitar around and movin' his hands like he was chasin' fleas all over the fretboard. It reminded me of the time old Milton's piano fell down the stairs in front of the Living End Saloon.

Chaos is what it was.

The answering fiddle got louder and louder until, kerpow! Out the center of the bonfire shot an even higher tongue of flame, this one all white and green. Up from that unholy fire rose a sight to see, a figure of a woman all in black, sawin' away at the neck of a fiddle the likes of which I ain't never seen. I plum forgot I was thirsty, I was scared so bad, and if I wasn't wrung out dryer than cactus' uncle, I mighta peed myself.

That black lady and the Gunman pranced around, playin' their instruments in time with each other, and somehow the music they were makin' started to make sense to me. It made my eyes hurt, sure, but it started to make sense. The Gunman's rhapsody was filled in my the lady-devil's fiddlin' and t'other way around, and none of it seemed a random jumble of notes no more.

Then, all of a sudden, they just quit. The lady-devil bowed, and made her fiddle shrink between her hands, shrink away to nothin'. She said, "Thou playest the summoning threnody well, human. It has been some time since mine ears have been so pleased at the efforts of another. And why has thou summoned me?"

"I only seek to live, O Phantom Queen," said the Gunman. "I am beset on all sides by my enemies, and I fear that my time is coming to an end. I wish from you—"

"You shall have what it is you seek. But pray thee tell, what service shall you render for this boon?"

"Whatever you should wish for, O Phantom Queen."

The lady-devil smiled at this. "Even should it mean the end of your world?"

The Gunman threw hisself to the dust, face-down and shivering. "Even so."

Well, hell.

I weren't havin' none of that. I ain't generally a superstitious type, but a demon lady poppin' up out of a bonfire and talkin' about the end of the world might oughta be enough to change a man's mind. All full of myself, I cocked back both hammers on my shotgun and stood up, screamin' blasphemies myself.

The Gunman was fast. Fast like a snake made of lightning. He stood up and put two holes in me before I could even get my shotgun pointed in his direction proper-like, and as I fell over and died, all I could hear was that lady-devil, laughin' in my ears.

I jerked in my seat as the vision or whatever faded from my eyes. And ears. And torso . . . I could still feel, somehow, hot lead tumbling around inside me. I'd been shot before, and the sensation was unmistakable. A glimpse over at Fringe showed me a light film of sweat on his brow and a grim set to his mouth.

"I'm not sure that was enlightening," I said after catching my breath. "Or entirely necessary."

Ms. Fisher looked at me with something approaching pity. "Did you learn nothing from this?"

I sat and thought a bit. I could feel Fringe's eyes on me as he waited for my answer. Then, with a burst of inspiration, something came to me.

"The Phantom Queen," I said. "She is one hell of a fiddle player."

Ms. Fisher pulled a face. "I can't tell if you're joking."

"I get that a lot."

"The gunman is about to repay her, that much is for certain," Fringe said, rolling his eyes. "And you've had her working against you for a bit longer than you thought, judging from the setting."

With a nod, Ms. Fisher validated Fringe's thoughts. "Her hand has been in a number of things. You've each interrupted two of her plays for power. This last Magick she is working, of all the five, is the most dangerous by far. You know what the target looks like. His name, at least the one he's using now, is Lloyd David, and he's been in the Pacific Northwest for at least two decades."

"He's in Seattle to work this final Magick?" I asked.

Ms. Fisher leveled her blue-eyed gaze at me.

"He's sitting at the table across from us."

Chapter 15

"I'm not prepared for this," I said. Looking over at Fringe, I asked him, "Are you prepared for this?"

Shrug. "I could be, if it was needed. But that wouldn't be how the Temhota likes to do things, would it?"

Ms. Fisher favored me with a frosty smile. "It would not. I trust you gentlemen are in possession of some form of locomotion other than your own two feet?"

"Four feet, wouldn't it be?" I asked. They ignored me.

"He has a car, I have a motorcycle parked nearby."

I looked over at him with raised eyebrows.

"What? I do."

"Focus please, boys. How you handle this is up to you, obviously, but don't let him do whatever it is he has planned. Our defense has enough holes in it. Ciao."

Ms. Fisher pulled her hand from the glass globe and stood. As she walked away, Fringe and I pulled our hands as well, and the sound and bustle of the restaurant returned. I hadn't even noticed it was gone.

"So what do we do?" I asked, fiddling with a menu.

"Put the menu down. Old man's about done with his plate, it looks like. Didn't you just eat?"

"Never know when your next meal's gonna come by. I like to stay topped-off when I can."

"Well, you're not poor anymore. Best get to hobblin' off to your car. Wherever the gunman goes, I'll follow behind and keep you updated. Skedaddle."

This made sense, so I got up and left. Almost an hour later, I was pulling a ticket off my windshield wiper as my cell phone rang. I thought I'd left it on the table at the Italian place. Sigh.

"Villains, Incorporated."

"I'm on him. You're going to be mad. We're headed into the underground."

"You're right. I am mad. And how come it took an hour?"

Fringe laughed. "Salt water taffy. The old man is a fool for it. So, we're headed in. I'll try and leave you some kind of trail, or something. Keep your eyes open."

I hung up and turned around. There was only about seven blocks to go, but I was in horrible shape and who knew how long seven blocks might take me. Meh. I could park anywhere, really. It's not like I was driving some kind of prize car.

Yeah.

Fifteen minutes later I was avoiding tour guides and bar-goers, trying to sneak into the Seattle Underground. I wondered how Fringe did it . . . it wasn't as if he didn't stand out in a crowd.

I'd been there before and knew the layout, so I hobbled over to the way in and tried to look unobtrusive until nobody was looking. It wasn't working so hot for me, so I pulled the fire alarm and ducked into the bathroom. Two minutes later I was by myself and free to go where I may. Whistling, I made my entrance into the Underground, feeling like a banged-up Orpheus. I only hoped that I'd get to make a return trip, too.

It was quiet.

Too quiet? I asked myself.

Probably, I promptly answered. I really needed to get back home, where I had people to talk to that weren't me. In the meantime . . . I looked around for Fringe's trail and found it in less than a minute. About a dozen feet ahead was a day-glo orange arrow spray painted on a broken board.

Ah, you subtle bastard.

I followed the direction of the arrow down the well-traveled paths underground, not quite taking my time, but hobbling along as well as I could. I broke no land speed records. I came to a turn in the tunnel and found another day-glo arrow, pointing back the way I came. What?

I turned and turned again, looking for something that might have been a clue. Finally, an orange dot on the wall caught my attention, focusing it on a darkened patch of wall. No, not a patch. An opening.

Wriggling through the narrow gap was something of a pain, and I wondered how Fringe got his big ass through it. But not the old man before him . . . no, that elderly fellow looked the same in the restaurant as he did in the vision. There was something unnatural there, and it made me shiver just a bit.

Deathless and ageless vampires, I could deal with. Gods and monsters? Sure. But age-old magic men? A gunslinger preserved in time? I didn't—

My train of thought was interrupted by the sudden dark on the other side of the gap. I rummaged through my pockets and found myself without a flashlight. Surprise, surprise. Instead, all I had was the Temhota cell phone. I flipped it open and the tunnel lit up bright enough that I had to shut my eyes against it.

Closing the phone, I stood still for a moment, blinking away the purple and green blobs in my vision.

"Too much of a good thing," I muttered, wondering how I was going to adjust the brightness settings if I was blind. Oh, just do it, I thought, and squinched my eyes shut, opening the phone again. This time, the light was much more subdued. I blinked. Then I shrugged . . . wasn't the first time that the phone had had unexpected qualities.

I followed Fringe's markers down dank tunnels, dark hallways with less and less resemblance to anything once inhabited by humans. I was well off the map and hoping that I'd sooner or later make it back.

Thinking about that got me to thinking about the vision of the Gunman that Ms. Fisher had put us through. From what little I knew of the Wild West (learned mostly from reading Jonah Hex funny books) the scene was placed somewhere after the end of the Civil War but before the turn of the century into the 1900's. That gave the Gunman at least a hundred years on me, which normally wouldn't bother me so much. What's a hundred years, right? But this guy was already living by the gun then, and good at it, too.

His gun . . . something about the gun bothered me, and if I wasn't so addle-brained from all the pain I was walking through, I'd have noticed it earlier. I tried to replay the scene in my head—

The Gunman was fast. Fast like a snake made of lightning. He stood up and put two holes in me before I could even get my shotgun pointed in his direction proper-like . . .

—and almost had it. I could feel something coming to me, as if my brain had a tongue and something on the tip of it.

I frowned, thinking of how tired I must be for that metaphor to sound good. Blinking more, I noticed that the walls of the tunnel were further away than they had been and the utter dark wasn't as deep as it had been. I was coming to an endpoint, hopefully. Idly, I fingered the final amulet Kinder had given me, wondering if I would have to use it. No, if I would get a chance to use it.

Closing the phone, I used what little ambient light there was to pick my way along the pathway. The widening gap was littered with rocks and sticks, I thought. Then I came across a bundle of sticks that were still bundled together as a rib cage and I moved a little quicker. My hands started tingling, a gentle reminder from my revolvers that danger . . .

The Gunman was fast. Fast like a snake made of lightning. He stood up and put two holes in me before I could even get my shotgun pointed in his direction proper-like . . .

Is anybody really that fast? I didn't think so, not without some sort of help. Crouching in bone-laden dark, I closed my eyes and revisioned it.

He stood up and put two holes in me . . .

My eyes snapped open to peer at the guns in my hands.

Ah-hah, the Sherlock in my head exclaimed.

With that in mind, I stepped into the light.

The tunnel opened into a cavern suffused with a dull glow and full of the sound of rushing water. Considering the constant downward slope I'd been on for the previous hour or so, I wondered where the water was coming from. Almost smiling, I hoped that it wasn't Puget Sound about come down on us. That would put quite a cap on my career.

Inching around a stalagmite, I saw the Gunman standing on a mound in the center of the cavern, his back to me. The mound was surrounded by low fire, which was providing the light. He had his head bowed, hands raised in supplication. On the ground next to him was a guitar.

I peered around the cavern, trying to get a fix on Fringe, but I saw no trace of him.

He is elusive.

I backed up behind the stalagmite and whipped out the phone. Hoping he'd turned the sound off, I sent him a text. Ten seconds later, a return message arrived.

I'm right in front of him. Distraction?

Distraction. Right. I'm pretty good at that.

I strode around the jagged rock and raised one of my guns. True to the vision, the Gunman whirled around, gun in his hand. I hadn't made a sound. His other hand was still raised in supplication, and I had a hunch that he had to keep his prayer/spell up for whatever he was doing to work.

A half-smile formed on his face as he recognized my gun. "It has been a while since I've seen another one of these," he said, shaking his pistol. "What business have you here, stranger?"

I cocked my head. "Surprised you're not shootin' first, Tex." I waggled my own gun in his direction. "Is it this?"

"Some of it. Though, I doubt you know what it is you're getting yourself tangled in, son. This is a long time—"

Bang! My gun went off in the middle of his sentence, and his revolver repeated, almost immediately. The trajectory of the bullets intercepted, and there was a flash somewhere between me and him.

"That was rude, son, but I understand. But you have to know, we can do that all night, and I can still hold you off while I do what I have to."

While the Gunman was talking, Fringe was creeping up to the ring of fire. I saw him taking the glove off his right hand and a bright red glow there. Figuring he would like a distraction to continue, I took out my other gun.

"How about this, then? Ten shots to your six."

The Gunman laughed. "Son, you think I'm still shooting lead?" He turned his revolver sideways where I could see a blue glow at the back of the chamber. "If I kill you, boy, I'll do it with my will, not some construct of man. Now make your play or get a move on. Big things happening tonight."

Fringe shouted something in a foreign language, and in a flash there was a flaming sword in his right hand. Howling, he whirled the fiery blade overhead and leapt over the ring of flame surrounding the Gunman, who turned to face him.

Breathing a little prayer, I tracked as the old man fired at Fringe as he charged up the mound, deflecting shots with the flaming sword. When he got close enough, I began firing at the Gunman.

With a roar, he turned back to me, shooting my bullets out of the air. At the same time, a third arm shot out of the side of his body and gestured, lifting Fringe off his feet and dangling him over the circle of fire.

"Fools! I've waited over a hundred years for this moment, and I am well prepared for it. Nothing either of you can do will break my concentration, for the Phantom Queen has armed me mightily."

He began to squeeze, and Fringe's face went red, then dark red.

"Fuck," I whispered, and hobbled towards the circle of fire. With something between a grunt and a yell, I hurled myself over the gap, landing in a heap on the other side. I hoped it was close enough.

With a yank, I pulled the amulet from my neck and swung it in a circle. The Gunman saw what I had and laughed even more. "Trinkets," he said, sneering. I loosed the amulet at him, and he raised his gun, almost casually, and shot it out of the air.

I smiled. All of a sudden I felt like a million bucks and the Gunman wasn't doing so hot.

Thank you, Kinder.

With an "urk," he leaned over, releasing Fringe and dropping all three of his hands. Immediately, the flames of the circle fell lower.

"Now!" I shouted to Fringe. He ran forward and leapt into the air, and with a mighty swing, cut the Gunman in half. Roaring, the old man's top half rolled down the mound towards me, the still-attached hand curling into a claw. I felt my airway constrict hard, and I fell to my knees.

Fringe ran down the mound and lopped the offending hand away. When I could breathe again, I pointed at the remains of the old man. "Better get the rest."

"What," Fringe said, "dice him up?"

I shrugged, indicating the hand.

"Yeah, you're right," he said and went to work.

Walking back through the Underground, Fringe kept laughing and looking sideways at me. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.

"What," I said. "What is so fucking funny?"

He smiled at me. "You are. Here we go, equipped with handy supernatural weapons from the armory of a shadow organization, expecting for this battle to take days, and you take down the big baddy with a necklace. That's priceless. What was it?"

"Well, you know how mangled I was from my two jobs, right?" I looked around the corridor as we got closer and closer to the main, well-trodden pathways. "A guy I know, Kinder—"

"From Vegas?"

I gave him a look. "Yeah. Him. His specialty is moving things. As I was getting ready to leave Sin City, he asks me if I want to get worked on by a healer. I say, no, no healer. But if you had to could you move my pain?"

Fringe laughed. "That's it? Pain?"

"That's it. I was in so much pain, and Kinder took about half of it and stuck it in the amulet. He jinxed it so that whoever broke it would get all the pain from there and whatever else I was still walking around with. When the Gunman shot the amulet . . ."

"He got the pain, all of it, all at once."

"Right. Broke his concentration like a dry twig."

We reached the tavern the Underground path led to. Fringe put out his gloved right hand. I took it.

"You're all right," he said. "They were right about you. See you around."

I gave him a jaunty salute and went my way. As I got in my car, the cell phone rang. I sighed.

"Yes'm."

"You did well," said an old voice. Surtr, it was. "That old bastard was going to rip a hole in the universe the size of Elvis. Take some time off."

"That was the plan," I said. "If this phone rings before this month is over, I probably won't answer it."

He laughed. "Good on you. And be careful. You never know what's in the shadows."