The House That Death Built
Author: Michaelbrent Collings
Date: 2016-02-21 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Thriller; Fiction
Description: Getting in was easy. Getting out... will be another matter. *** It was supposed to be just one more job: in, out, and millions the richer. But when four thieves break into THIS house, they discover the owners were ready. And waiting. Now, the thieves find themselves in a deadly maze of traps. Traps designed not only to steal their lives, but their sanity. The only way out is the front door. The only way to get there is to survive. And the only way to survive is to be willing to do anything, to suffer all... and to lose everything.

Copyright © 2016 by Michaelbrent Collings

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author. For information send request to info@michaelbrentcollings.com.

NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

cover and interior art elements © TaraPatta and s-ts
used under license from Shutterstock.com
cover design by Michaelbrent Collings

website: http://www.michaelbrentcollings.com
email: info@michaelbrentcollings.com

For more information on Michaelbrent's books, including specials and sales; and for info about
signings, appearances, and media,

check out his webpage,

Like his Facebook fanpage
or

Follow him on Twitter.

You can also
sign up for his email list for deals and new releases.

PRAISE FOR THE WORK OF

MICHAELBRENT COLLINGS

"… prepare to be creeped out." – San Francisco Book Review

"Collings is a great storyteller!" – Larry Correia, NY Times bestselling author of Monster Hunter International and Son of the Black Sword.

"Move over Stephen King... Clive Barker.... Michaelbrent Collings is taking over as the new king of the horror book genre." – Media Mikes

"[Crime Seen] will keep you guessing until the end…. 5/5. " – Horror Novel Reviews

"It's rare to find an ending to a novel that is clever, thought-provoking and surprising, yet here Collings nails all three…." – Ravenous Reads

"Crime Seen by Michaelbrent Collings is one of those rare books that deserves more than five stars." – Top of the Heap Reviews

"I barely had time to buckle my mental seatbelt before the pedal hit the metal...." – The Horror Fiction Review

"Collings is so proficient at what he does, he crooks his finger to get you inside his world and before you know it, you are along for the ride. You don't even see it coming; he is that good." – Only Five Star Book Reviews

"A proficient and pedagogical author, Collings' works should be studied to see what makes his writing resonate with such vividness of detail…." – Hellnotes

"[H]auntingly reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan or Alfred Hitchcock." – horrornews.net

"The Haunted is a terrific read with some great scares and a shock of an ending!" – Rick Hautala, international bestselling author; Bram Stoker Award® for Lifetime Achievement winner

"[G]ritty, compelling and will leave you on the edge of your seat.... " – horrornews.net

"[W]ill scare even the most jaded horror hounds. " – Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of Flesh Eaters and The Savage Dead

"Apparition is a hard core supernatural horror novel that is going to scare the hell out of you.... This book has everything that you would want in a horror novel.... it is a roller coaster ride right up to a shocking ending." – horroraddicts.net

"What a ride.... This is one you will not be able to put down and one you will remember for a long time to come. Very highly recommended." – Midwest Book Review

Dedication

To...

Elison, who kept me there,

and to Laura, FTAAE.

ONE: These are the rats... 2

1. 2

2. 5

3. 9

4. 17

5. 22

6. 31

7. 35

8. 38

TWO: ... that killed  the cats ... 39

9. 42

10. 55

11. 61

12. 79

13. 81

14. 83

15. 89

16. 98

17. 104

18. 114

19. 121

THREE: ... who lived in  the house ... 130

20. 132

21. 139

22. 149

23. 158

24. 161

25. 166

26. 174

27. 178

28. 182

29. 185

30. 192

31. 203

32. 216

33. 219

34. 226

35. 239

36. 249

37. 253

38. 256

39. 260

40. 268

41. 274

42. 283

43. 286

44. 291

FOUR: ... that death built. 294

ONE:
These are the rats...

This was the life of the man.

He had little. But it was enough, because he also had her. She owned him, completely and utterly, but he owned her as well so he never felt himself either possessor or possessed. The word "we" came more readily than the word "I." He never went out for a poker night, never yearned for a week away where he could do manly things like camping or hunting or just be around anyone other than her.

She was his best friend.

She was there for all his happiest moments.

In his favorite dreams, they were together forever.

The knowledge that this was a lie was the only darkness in a world she made bright.

1

This is what the house looks like.

This is the house where death has come to call.

It is nice – very nice – though its obvious value comes not so much from its size (though it is large) or its spacious grounds (though spacious they are), or even the topiaries and fountains that grace its surroundings (though there are, of course, many of those).

No, its value can be seen, even by the least discerning eye, in the details. In the whole.

The house is white, and instantly brings the word "estate" to mind. The kind of thing you might picture in a movie about Southern gentry – warm summer nights with white-clad people sipping dainty mint juleps on the porch that embraces the main structure. Ladies who wear frocks and hold ribboned parasols, men who sit in seersucker suits and fan themselves with Panama hats while speaking and occasionally dab beads of sweat away from foreheads.

Of course, this is no movie. These are not such gentle times, and this is no such gentle place.

But that's getting ahead.

The house is surrounded, as we said, by a porch. Tuscan columns stand tall and even along the outer edge of the porch, anchored directly to the white structure and leading to ornate headings: astragals leading to neckings leading to echini and abaci, with the whole cemented to beautiful entablatures.

Many windows stare out from the sides of the house. In daytime they shine, during night festivities they glow warmly.

Now, they are dark – eyes blinded nightly by the dark cataracts of a black sky.

Around the home, there are many things, as we said.

A beautiful lawn, so green it seems painted and large enough to play a dozen games of croquet at once and still have room left over for a church ice cream social.

Topiaries and hedgerows, spaced to allow for visual impact while still permitting easy passage between and among the greenery.

Fountains, enough that no matter where you stand you can hear the calming burble of water over stone.

And four shadows, moving in a way that shadows should not. A way that cries out – that screams, that shrieks – "Danger, danger, danger!"

The shadows came over the high privacy wall that encircles the grounds. Just seconds ago they were outside, and now… within.

They move to a box near the wall. One of them – slighter than the others, but moving with speed that speaks of certainty and a physical awareness that is itself frightening – kneels. Moves.

The lights that brighten the grounds flicker. Flicker.

Go out.

The shadows are shadows no longer. They have been swallowed by the sudden darkness. Now only visible as wraiths – not things of this world, but of another, and far crueler, plane.

They flit toward the house. Shrub to fountain, fountain to tree, then back to hedge again – a stuttering run that keeps them in the darkest pits of the night. You would think of cockroaches, watching them: things that fear the light and embrace the darkness as a refuge and a home.

Things of night. Things that feed on the refuse of others, and the rot of a dying world.

They arrive at the back of the house.

Again, the slight one kneels, this time beside a door.

A moment later: a click.

The door opens.

The wraiths slip inside, seeming to melt from shadow without to shadow within.

What seems like a long time passes. It isn't, of course, but watching this all makes time stretch out to obscene lengths. Seconds are minutes, minutes days.

So days pass by. Days in which there is no sun, in which the starless night holds sway, in which all observers hold their breath. And wait.

For what?

For the only thing that might happen, in a night like this, a place like this.

For the screams to begin.

And begin they do.

2

This was not how it was supposed to have gone.

But you can't make an omelet, blah blah blah.

Rob Johnson looked at the two people kneeling on the floor – a floor covered in wool carpeting that probably cost a hundred bucks per square foot – and sighed. Things went wrong, that was to be expected.

But did they have go wrong so noisily?

He nodded at Tommy Leigh. Like Rob, the other man was dressed in black from crown to toe. Black sweater, black cargo pants with extra pockets sewn on it – the better to take small sundries that would fetch good prices. His face was covered by the same black balaclava all of them wore.

But unlike Rob, Tommy was huge. Six-foot-five, two-hundred-fifty pounds of muscle that was knotted so tightly around his frame Rob often wondered how the guy didn't just implode.

Still, that wasn't what made the big man so frightening. It was something that no amount of dark clothing could disguise, something that no one could mistake.

It was madness.

Tommy's sanity held itself even more tightly than his muscles – a straitjacket that, though sufficiently strong to hold him back for the moment, grew ever more frayed, ever weaker.

Someday Tommy would burst free of that jacket, and woe to anyone nearby.

His eyes told all of that. His eyes that never stopped moving, even when he stared at something. The pupils danced a spastic dance, a back-and-forth jig that made it seem like he was always on the verge of jumping behind you and simply breaking your neck with one massive hand.

Tommy leaped forward at Rob's nod. Just waiting for the go-ahead.

The screaming had been coming from the woman. He knew her name was Beth, but Rob hardly cared about proper introductions. He just cared that she was screaming and screaming and now the scream was a long, keening wail and then the wail turned into a shriek and then –

Tommy's free hand – the one not holding his favorite gun – reached out and almost casually swatted the woman.

She flew sideways, slammed into a heavy armoire, and bounced off leaving a splotch of blood behind.

"Beth!" The man who had been kneeling on the floor – Rob did know his name, it was "James," which struck him as a perfect name for a guy who lived in a place like this – screamed and lurched toward his wife. Tommy's backhand turned into a cross between a haymaker and a slap, and James went down as well.

He tried to crawl to his wife, who was sobbing pitifully as blood ran down the side of her head.

He stopped when Tommy stepped on his leg. Rob counted two distinct snaps as bone shattered. James screamed.

"Great, now they're both making noise." Tommy looked at Rob with eyes that clearly said he didn't mind the noise. The freak probably liked it.

Rob pointed his gun at James, then swung it over to Beth. "You two have one second before I blow you both away." That was a bluff, but it worked. Beth's sobs petered into restrained whimpers, and James bit back his pain. He was clutching at his leg, a dark stain spreading through the gray sweats the guy had been wearing when they tore him out of bed.

Rob sensed movement and turned. Another black shape entered the room, pushing a teenage boy about seventeen and a little girl who looked like she was probably twelve. The boy had his arm over the girl's shoulders. Both were pale, terrified, but silent.

"Good." Rob nodded at Kayla as she jabbed her prizes into the room, the muzzle of her gun nudging first the boy, then the girl. "Anyone else?"

Kayla's eyes glimmered. The similarity to her brother's gaze was unmistakable, though the particulars of her madness were different. She was a sociopath – not that Rob had a problem with that: sociopaths always acted in their own interest, and that was something he understood.

Still, beneath that… there was something just as terrifying – perhaps more so – as the mayhem that lit her brother's gaze.

"No one," she said. "Just the two kids, like you said."

Rob nodded in satisfaction. Was about to tell Kayla to push the kids over next to their parents, but a voice came out of the closet, cutting him off.

"I think I need help in here," said the voice.

Rob sighed. He muttered a curse, and Beth's sobs rose slightly, seeming to respond to his anger.

Tommy moved closer to the woman. No doubt hoping he'd get to slap her again – or worse.

Rob nodded to Kayla. "Put them over there," he said, gesturing to a corner of the room far from the kids' parents. He turned to James and Beth. "You be good, now." He pointed his gun at the kids. The little girl cried out, and the teen pulled her closer. Still looking at the parents, Rob continued, "Or I'll start killing people."

Beth's whimpers completely disappeared. "Please," she whispered.

Rob grinned. He liked it when people begged.

Then, without another word, he turned and went into the closet.

3

Aaron Purcill kept stifling the urge to pull of his mask. Sweat had built up on his brow, been partially absorbed by the cotton, and the two of them had combined to form a scratchy wad of damp fabric that made it nearly impossible to concentrate.

Concentration was critical in his line of work. So he wanted to rip the mask off his head and just do the job the way it needed to be done.

He left the mask in place. Not because this was how Rob wanted things, not even because doing so would protect his identity.

It was for the family.

He heard them, first the parents shouting, then the ugly noises that meant Tommy was probably utilizing his favorite skill set. Then screaming.

And then silence.

The silence was the worst. The silence meant that the kids were there. That Rob had made it clear what they were there for.

Just like Rob had made it clear to Aaron what would happen to them if they saw anyone's face, or if the job went sideways.

And it was halfway to sideways already. Maybe more.

Aaron kept his mask on.

But no matter how much he worked, no matter how hard he tried, he could tell this one was going to be beyond him.

He tried for another moment, but he was just spinning his wheels. Stalling.

Sweat finally dripped from the sodden mask. A droplet found its way into his eye. It stung.

He wiped it away. And as though taking his hand from the safe had removed his last bit of resistance to the inevitable, he finally called out.

"I think I need help in here."

He heard the familiar sound of Rob's voice. Not the words, but the tone. Threats. And Aaron could just imagine what the man was saying. "Move and die. Make a sound and die. Dick around with me in any way and die."

Death everywhere. And Aaron couldn't do anything about it.

Rob appeared in the doorway a moment later, then moved into the closet. There was plenty of room for both of them in here: the closet was bigger than most people's living rooms.

The space was divided neatly into halves. The right held dresses, skirts, blouses. A line of shoes that ran nearly the length of the closet. A set of drawers built into the wall that no doubt held jewelry, underwear, socks.

The other side of the closet was clearly the husband's. A long line of suits – the cheapest easily worth at least ten grand – hung beside a dozen dress slacks organized by color. A tie rack with ties that had names like "Stefano Ricci" and "Turnbull & Asser." Shoes polished to a mirror sheen.

The end of the closet ended in a wall bereft of hanger rods or shelves. The bare space served to highlight the squat custom safe that hunkered between the parallel lines of clothing.

The safe was Aaron's job, and the fact that he'd called Rob in meant the job wasn't done.

And that meant Rob was unhappy.

Rob looked at the safe. Expecting, no doubt, to see the keypad pried away from the metal, the workings exposed, some sort of safecracking magic being performed.

But there was nothing.

Rob just looked at Aaron. Not a word. But Aaron could tell that the other man knew. Knew that this one was beyond Aaron's skills. And that was going to cost him later.

He just hoped he could keep the family alive. He was here –

(Not by choice, dammit. This isn't what I want – none of it.)

– but that didn't mean he was happy about any of this.

He couldn't stop the job from happening, but maybe he could at least forestall any bloodshed.

"You can't break it?" asked Rob.

Aaron shook his head. Wiped his eyes as another drop was dislodged. "Not without the combo."

Rob turned on his heel and marched out of the closet.

A scream resounded. Aaron had heard screams before – enough to know that there are many different screams, many different tales they tell. This one was a scream of fear that morphed into wretched agony.

A moment later, Rob reappeared in the closet, this time dragging the home's owner in by his hair. James was nearly choking with pain and fear. A red trail slicked behind him, a dark smear that turned to black in Aaron's red light. Blood on blood.

"Please," gasped the man. One hand held to Rob's wrist, desperately trying to alleviate the pressure on his scalp, while the other reached frantically for the source of the blood – a leg so clearly broken that Aaron's stomach roiled.

Don't do this, Rob. Not this. Please.

He didn't say the words. He couldn't. But not letting them out just meant they were trapped in his mind, bouncing back and forth in his skull, louder and louder.

Don't do this, Rob.

Don't.

Not this.

NOT THIS.

Rob dragged the wounded man the rest of the way into the closet. Tossed him beside Aaron.

"Combination," said Rob. His voice was low, deadly. A gravelly rasp that seemed to spring from the rough edges of his flashlight's illumination. A sound born from the edge of shadow, thrust darkly into light.

James blinked. No longer screaming now that he wasn't being yanked bodily along – but clearly so far into pain and terror that Rob's words weren't registering.

The fact that Aaron had needed help was bad.

If help didn't come, things would get a hell of a lot worse.

He reached for James' shoulder. Aware suddenly that, though James wasn't screaming, screams still tore the air.

His wife. His kids.

Stop this, Aaron.

I can't. I can't.

He shook James lightly. Barely more than a fast twitch, but the other man's eyes whipped over to him as though he had just administered a painful beating.

"Please," said James, a whisper so low and ragged Aaron barely heard it.

"I just need the combination, James," said Aaron. He tried to keep his voice calm, though he felt a tremble at the edge of his words.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Rob said there'd be no violence.

Rob says a lot of things, Aaron. And precious few are true.

Just get through this. Get through this, and get home to Dee.

James was staring blankly at him. Aaron wondered if the man was just… gone. Knew that if he was, the job would change from a robbery to a bloodbath.

"James!" he put a snap into his words, trying to walk a thin line between so soft the man wouldn't hear him and so hard the man would simply retreat further into himself.

It worked. James' eyes – which had been focused on a nowhere point a few inches in front of him – turned to Aaron. "What?" said the man. His voice cracked, dry and jagged.

"I just need the combination, James," said Aaron. "We just want whatever's in here, and then we go. You and your family will be fine."

James stared for a long moment, and Aaron was about to repeat the instructions when the man's hand reached for the safe. Shaking.

He entered several numbers on the keypad. Then his hand jerked as a scream sounded from the other room. This one younger. The scream of a little girl.

James' finger spasmed. He hit a button, and the safe clicked. A red light appeared on the LED screen above the keypad.

The screams kept on.

Rob didn't seem to hear them. He only had eyes for the safe. Only had ears for the sound of the box opening and giving up its treasures.

Or, in this case, locking more tightly.

Rob pressed his gun against James' temple. "Don't screw with us, James. Open the safe. Now."

The man tried again. This time his finger jerked on the second number, bouncing with the sounds of his daughter's screams.

Aaron watched in dread as another red light joined the first. Listened as the little girl's screams rose and rose and then were joined by the sudden shout of her mother.

Rob looked like the sounds of the missed guesses were driving him over the edge. Aaron thought he might just blow James away in that moment.

Not that. Dee would never forgive you. No matter what happened before, that would be too far, too much.

"Rob. Rob!" Rob was nearly as hard to reach as James had been – not because of fear this time, but because of rage. The gang's boss knew as well as Aaron did that this whole job had turned to ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.

Rob didn't take failure well.

"Rob," said Aaron again, this time managing to coax the other man's attention to him.

"What?" The word barely made it through clenched teeth.

"Maybe we could quiet down whatever's happening out there," he said, motioning to the space beyond the closet door.

Rob's glare intensified for a moment.

He's just going to kill them all. And me, too.

Oh, Dee, I'm so sorry.

"Rob, if we don't get the right combination on the next try, the safe goes into a lockdown mode and there's no way to open it – no way – for twelve hours." Aaron looked at James, who was once again staring into nothing. Then back at Rob. "Please. Just have the others cool it out there."

Rob stared at him. Stared so long that Aaron wanted to just run.

But where to? Rob's gun was twitching back and forth between him and James. If Aaron ran, he didn't doubt that Rob would blow him away without a second thought.

And even if he made it out of the closet? The screams that still shattered the silence were noisy testament to how bad things were out there.

"Please. Please, Rob. Just quiet them down."

The gun moved.

Now it was trained solely on him.

4

Tommy Leigh wasn't doing anything. Not really. Just a little fun.

He'd had his gun on the woman – some rich whore who'd never known what it was to struggle, whose biggest concerns were probably whether to use a fifty or a C-note to light her cigarettes. That was what his job was in this room: he watched Momma Bear, and Kayla watched the two little piggies she'd shot out into a life just as privileged as hers.

But it got boring fast. He liked watching the bitch cry, curled up on the floor and weeping dime-sized tears onto some kind of carpet that Tommy'd never get to use if he did a thousand jobs. But after a while the cries got lower, she just ran out of gas.

Boring. Boooooring.

He nudged her with his foot. That was worth another little wince, a short binge of bawling.

Too short.

He nudged her again, not really expecting anything interesting to happen. What he really wanted to do was put a bullet in her head. Then he could have some quality time with the kids.

How come Kay gets all the good jobs?

He glanced at his sister. She had her gun trained on the teen boy and his little sister. Both of them were silent, but Tommy noted with muted glee that they stared not at Kayla – not even at her gun – but at him.

They know. They know who has the power. They know who deserves everything they have.

Still looking at the kids, he nudged Momma Bear again. And because he was looking, he saw the girl take a half-step toward him when the woman at his feet gave a little cry.

His face tightened pleasantly as blood rushed to his face – and other parts of him. He grinned.

The girl stepped back into her brother's arms.

That was okay. That made it more exciting. Enticing.

He kicked Momma Bear. Not a nudge this time, a full-fledged slam into her side. She screamed.

He barely noticed. He was watching the little girl. She screamed, too.

Oh, yeah.

"You like that?" he said, staring right at the little girl. She was a looker. Long blond hair, huge blue eyes that had just the right mix of pain and fear and adoration in them. The braces added an innocence that he found entrancing.

The girl didn't look away. Even when her brother tried to turn her head into his chest, she pulled away and kept looking at her mother.

No. Not at her mother. At me. At the only one who matters. The only one in the room with her.

"Tommy," said Kayla. "Back off."

He ignored her. She would expect him to – she was a good sister that way.

He kicked Momma Bear again. This time he heard a rib crack. It was a beautiful sound.

Almost as beautiful as the little girl, suddenly crying out.

"Mom!" She took a step toward her mother – toward Tommy.

Come on over, baby girl. Let's play.

The girl's brother held her shoulders, but Tommy thought for a moment she might actually shake him off. Might cross the room to Tommy.

And what came next would be beautiful.

Then the bitch on the floor stuck her nose in. "No!" she shouted. She had her arms crossed over her stomach, trying to hold her damaged ribcage together. But still managed a loud shout. And again, "No, Ashley! Stay there!"

The little girl – beautiful Ashley – stepped back to her brother's embrace.

Tommy rounded on the woman. He kicked her. Again. Again. She was screaming, and even the siren screams of Ashley, the beautiful screams of a little girl learning about life, didn't make him less angry.

"Shut up," he grunted as he sent another kick into the woman's stomach. "No one asked you, so shut up."

He was about to kick her in the face. About to end her meddling – mothers always meddled too much, which was one of the reasons Tommy had hated his own so much.

His foot hung in space. One kick, right in the face. Boom. Lights out.

Then he could turn all his attention to Ashley. And after her, her brother. The kid was old enough to be less interesting, but still good for some quick fun.

"Tommy!"

The voice jerked him to a halt. His foot still hung there, one motion away from an ecstatic release.

"Tommy!" The voice came from the closet. Rob. And he was pissed.

Tommy wasn't afraid of Rob – he wasn't afraid of anyone – but the guy did supply the jobs. Which meant he supplied a lot of the best times of Tommy's life. So Tommy listened to him. Mostly.

"Yeah?" he said.

"Whatever's happening out there – stop it."

It should have made him mad. Should have enraged him to have to stop at the height of terror, the apex of joy.

But little Ashley was looking at him. Staring with such terror, such fear and adoration, that he couldn't find it in himself to be mad.

"Sure," he said. And in that moment, he also realized something that made it easier to stop.

Rob had said, "Tommy." Had called him by name.

And that meant he wasn't worried about anyone providing information to the cops – or anyone else.

Tommy inhaled. Everything smelled sweet, the darkness of the room cast thin threads of terror and pain and all things wonderful.

He put his foot down.

"Sure, Rob!" he called. Knowing Rob wouldn't care that he used his name.

Because everyone who lived in this house was going to die tonight.

5

The sounds outside the closet died.

James didn't understand what was happening. Didn't know why someone would do this.

The night had started so well. It was his and Beth's date night. They met after work at their favorite restaurant. A bottle of champagne to celebrate another successful week's ride on life's little merry-go-round. A return to the house they loved, to the place where they had made a home with their children.

Evan and Ashley had been waiting for them. They had each made a card that spelled out "WE LUV YOO" in macaroni that had been glued to the construction paper and spray-painted gold. A silly, ridiculous pair of "presents" that made James laugh so hard he thought he might lose consciousness.

The cards had been Evan's idea, he could tell. Evan, so tall, so strong. Smile and sense of humor just like his mother's. Only that boy could come up with something so ridiculous, so childish, so perfect.

James was blessed. A family he loved – and who loved him back. A home where happiness could be found. Money – which he couldn't deny was a nice thing to have, though it was a distant third to family and hearth.

Then… awakened from a deep sleep, body still pleasantly warm after some vigorous lovemaking with his wife after the kids went to bed. Guns in their faces. Masked features. A man stomping his heel down on James' leg so hard it felt like a hammer blow against denuded bone.

What's happening?

He knew what was happening, of course. It was a robbery. There were men who were willing to kill him and his family to get what they wanted – the money and jewelry that the safe held.

Even so, his mind kept fluttering on moth wings back to that thought: What's happening? What's happening?

What THE HELL is happening?

The screams from the room beyond the closet – the room that now held the sum of his existence – silenced after the guy with the gun shouted for "Tommy" to stop whatever he was doing.

But they didn't stop in James' mind. Shrieks of pain and shock and terror, and under it all:

What's happening?

The man with the gun pushed it down on top of James' head. He could feel the bore, the black circle on his head a brand that burned through hair and flesh and scorched his skull and the curled brain matter beneath it.

"Now get the safe open," said the man. His voice was tight. Under control for now, but ready to burst into mayhem at any moment.

James looked at the other man in the closet. The man kneeling beside him, close to the safe. The man with the eyes that said he didn't want to be here, didn't want to be doing this.

"Please," whispered James. Not knowing what he hoped the sad-eyed man would do. But something – someone had to be able to help them.

The sad eyes stared at him for a quick moment, then flicked away. Down. No help to be found.

The gun ground harder into his head. "Listen carefully, James. If you don't get this safe open I will kill you. But first I'll make you watch my colleagues kill your family. Slowly."

James barely managed to process the words. Everything was –

(What's happening?)

– a jumble. All was a blur.

"James. James?"

He managed to find the source of the words. The sad-eyed man. "Please," said the man, gesturing at the safe.

James nodded. The bobbly motion of a man so terrified he can't reliably control his own muscles.

That was why he'd hit the wrong numbers before. He wasn't trying to stall or keep the robbers away from the safe's contents. They could have everything he owned as long as they left his family alone. Alive.

But his fingers were twitching. His body wasn't acting the way it should.

What's happening?

He reached a finger for the safe.

Get this wrong and the safe won't open and we're all dead. Beth and the kids – gone.

(What's happening?

They'll all die. Open the safe or they all die.

What's happening? WHAT'S HAPPENING?)

"Come on, James. Think hard," said the gunman. "Don't screw this up or –" The gunman stopped speaking, and suddenly James was aware that the man had turned toward the closet door.

"Bring in one of the kids!" he shouted.

That penetrated. Ripped away the fog and left James gasping.

"Please! No!"

"Wait, what –" said the sad-eyed man.

"Shut up, Aaron," snarled the gunman.

Sounds erupted in the master bedroom. A struggle.

The circle of hot metal disappeared from James' head as the gunman pulled his gun away and moved to the doorway. Reached out into the dark room beyond, then yanked a struggling, screaming form into the closet with him.

"Evan!" The cry tore free from James' throat.

The gunman threw James' son to the floor, then stepped on the teen's back. The man's gun was no longer pointed at James, but rather ground into his son's temple.

"We don't need –" began the sad-eyed man. Aaron.

"Shut up," said the gunman before returning his gaze to James. "Listen, Pops. I know you're scared. But you've got two minutes to get this door open. And if you get it wrong…." He shifted his grip slightly, then brought the butt down against Evan's shoulder. Evan screamed, and beyond the doorway, out of sight, so did Beth, shrieking in anguish.

She can see this. Can see him.

Can Ashley see it?

(What's happening?)

"Please," he said. "No."

The gunman just stared at him. Even without the mask James suspected he wouldn't have seen anything he understood. These people – they weren't men, they weren't women. Just monsters.

"Time's a-wastin', Pops," said the gunman.

James heard a low groan roll through the closet space. Realized after a moment it had come from him.

He turned back to the safe. Trying not to think about his wife and daughter, held in the room by people willing to kill without a moment's thought. Trying not to think of his son, bruised and crying on the floor only inches away.

Trying to get his hand to stop shaking. His mind to focus.

The moan disappeared, replaced by a shivering cry. Tears dripped down his cheeks; obscured his vision and made everything seem like a nightmare and somehow at the same time more real than anything James had ever before experienced.

He reached for the safe. For the keypad.

A hand stopped him.

The sad-eyed man held his wrist. Not tightly, not angrily, but firmly enough that James couldn't reach the safe.

What's happening?

"Just give me the numbers," said the sad-eyed man. "I'll key them in."

Even the simple statement took too long to make its way through the veil of tears and terror that had dropped over James' gaze.

"I'll do it for you," said the man.

James finally nodded. "I'll try," he managed. "Hard to –"

The gunman –

(Rob? Didn't someone call him Rob?

What's happening?)

– slammed the gun down on Evan's shoulder again. This time James' son didn't cry out. Just curled in a bit on himself. Smaller, somehow less there.

James felt the blow as though he had been the one under attack. He screamed. The sound barely made it out through a windpipe pinched shut by terror and pain felt on another's behalf. He barely registered the blood that still pumped from his leg, the pain centered there.

He just saw Evan, drawing slowly into a fetal ball.

"Stop screwing around!" shouted the gunman – Rob. He had his gun trained at James again, and James felt a strange relief at that fact – at least it wasn't being used on Evan. "If I don't have whatever's inside that safe in my hands in…" he checked his watch, "sixty seconds…."

He gestured at Evan with his gun. And cocked back the hammer.

"Dad," whispered Evan. And in that word, in three small letters, James heard every plea his son had ever uttered. In that single syllable he felt the weight of a life that depended on him as none other.

Oddly, the moment reminded him of the first time he had held his son. Firstborn in his arms, hair still matted from the fluid he had slept in for nine months, new father still unsure if this was really so.

Then the baby's eyes opened. Just a crack. Just a dark slit against a so-red face.

He saw a glimmer. And knew. This was his to have, his to hold. A life to love, an existence to cherish.

A son to protect.

"It's okay, son," he said. "It'll be okay."

He tried to make himself sound sure. Strong.

He failed.

He took in a breath.

What's happening?

Steady. Steady. Strong. They need you.

"Come on, Pops. Time's a-wastin'."

James did his best to ignore the harsh words, the sound of a man who wanted to kill him.

He turned to the other man – Aaron. For a moment he considered pleading for help from the other man. Begging for him to switch sides and help instead of harm.

But a single look convinced him that would never happen. The sad-eyed man didn't look like he wanted to be here. But he was here. And he was afraid of Rob. Not just because of the gun – there was more to it than that.

There was no help here. Only James himself.

He nodded. "Okay," he said – more as an attempt to calm himself than to notify the man at the safe that he was ready.

But the sad-eyed man nodded. Sent a quick glance toward Evan as though to encourage the father to protect the son.

"One," said James. Aaron entered the number. "Seven." Again, the beep of a key being triggered. No red lights. All good. "Seven."

Beep. All good.

What's happening what's happening WHAT'S HAPPENING?

For a moment, panic welled. Reality and any semblance of control spun away from James' grasp. He fell into a fog. And heard himself say, "Eight," and realized he had slipped back into the past – saying the weight of that newborn baby.

("Eight pounds, Mr. Schaffer. Your son weighs eight pounds. And he's perfect.")

Everything lengthened out. The time between him saying the number and Aaron actually hitting it seemed like enough space for a hundred families to grow old and die together. Enough time for generations to laugh, love, and die.

But it wasn't enough for James to say what needed to be said.

"No! Wait! Nine!"

But even as he said it, he heard the beep. Then a deeper one. A click. A red light appeared on the LED.

Something thunked within the safe. The sound of an immovable object sliding home with irresistible force.

The three lights disappeared, replaced by a countdown timer: 12:00:00.

Hours, minutes, seconds.

Twelve hours before the safe could be opened.

James rocked back on his knees. He moaned.

Silence ruled for an instant. Then Rob spoke, rage barely contained behind a demon's grin. "I guess we always knew at least one of you was going to die," he said. "Turns out it's going to be even more."

The sad-eyed man gasped. "Don't –"

At the same time, Evan rolled over to his back. Looking up. Seeing what was coming.

Seeing, and screaming, and then silent as Rob pulled the trigger.

6

Beth Schaffer heard the sound. She had never shot a gun. Never been to a range, never heard someone else shoot.

It was so loud.

The sound wasn't just noise, it was the growl of a creature hungry, rabid. The scream of something beyond good or evil. It was elemental. Pure force, without will.

The sound hammered its way through the room. It would have bludgeoned her to her knees if she hadn't already been there. As it was, she curled over so far her nose nearly touched the floor.

She turned her head.

It was crazy. The final madness in a night where sanity fled screaming into the darkest of places. She should have looked away – that was what you did, right? When something so dangerous reared its head and roared its most terrible roar? You looked away, you looked anywhere but to its source.

But she did look.

And she saw.

The body had already fallen to the floor. A long, limber form. Slim, but without any of the awkward gangliness that marked so many of his peers. The body of a person making a near-seamless transition from boy to man.

But that transition was over. Stopped by the creature. The gun.

No. Not the gun. The man behind it.

Does it matter who did it?

Evan was laying on his back on the closet floor. Eyes looking right at her. The brightness that had always been there dimmed slightly.

Still alive. He can make it.

A ragged red circle was on his chest. Growing as blood pulsed out.

He coughed. More blood escaped his mouth. It leaped out like the tentacle of some awful creature that had been born even as her son – her baby boy – began to die. Then the tentacle fell, fell apart, splattered on the floor.

Evan somehow saw her. Somehow understood what she was feeling. He smiled. Mouthed something.

Beth shook her head. Didn't know why – what did it matter that she didn't understand what he was saying?

What does anything matter?

He mouthed it again. Again. And on the fourth repetition she understood.

It's okay, Mom.

Then the last lingering brightness dimmed. His eyes sagged. Not closed entirely, small crescents of white still visible.

Gone.

She saw it. Saw the moment her boy left a world too cruel to hold him.

As she did, her sanity also left. But there was no transition from this awful place to another, better one. Instead it threw off the tethers of rational thought, spun out of control. An elemental creature just as dangerous in its own way as the thing that had ended her son.

She screamed. Felt the carpet beneath her, and it wasn't like she was pushing herself away from it, but like it was falling away from her. Like the world itself fell away, withdrew from something too awful to touch.

She threw herself at the nearest of the people who had brought this madness to her. It was the big man, the one who seemed the most evil of them all.

No. Not the most evil. Just the most out of control.

The one who killed Evan is the most evil. The men in the closet are the ones who will be destroyed.

But this one first.

The thoughts fired rapidly through her mind, taking no more time than her short flight allowed.

Then the thoughts, the last vestiges of Beth Schaffer, fell away with the ground below. She simply was.

She hit the big man. Didn't knock him down, but that didn't matter. Her hands were already hooked, but now curved still further, expensively-manicured nails extended into the razor claws of something cold and reptilian.

She heard sobbing. Didn't know who it was –

(Ashley. My girl. My only girl. Only child.)

– and didn't care.

She yanked up the man's mask with one hand. Slashed down with the other.

He screamed and clapped a hand to his blooded face. Furrows led from his brow down to his cheek. Deep creases that instantly covered his face in blood.

He shoved her away.

Screaming, one hand to his face.

The other raising something. Another beast. Another elemental that –

BOOM.

The creature screamed again. A roar slightly different in tone, but no different in power.

Beth's head snapped back so hard she was certain her neck was broken. She had somehow found her way back to the floor. Face-up, staring at the textured ceiling. The nonsense patterns there drew together into a face. A boy.

Evan.

Something was wet behind her. Warm fluid that saturated her blond hair, crept down to her neck.

She had a fleeting moment to realize she'd been shot in the head.

Then darkness took her. The darkness of ultimate madness, followed quickly by a darkness far deeper.

The face in the ceiling was the last thing she saw.

7

Rob watched the killing go down. Watched the woman grab onto Tommy's face like some kind of goddam leach. Watched her gash his face –

(That's gonna leave a mark.)

– then watched him toss her down and shoot her point-blank in the head.

Rob was moving forward as it happened, nearly running into the bedroom and wondering how this had all gone to hell so fast. The deaths didn't bother him. Not like they had to clean up the place after they left. But…

But the money! The jewels or whatever was in that safe!

That stung. All this work, everything he'd done to get ready for the job. For nothing.

Tommy finally quieted. He pulled the mask over his face. Then swung his gun to the little girl who was staring in open-mouthed shock at her mother's body.

Tommy glanced at Rob. "Boss?" he said.

Rob turned in a rage. James –

(Bastard sonofabitch why couldn't you just get it right?)

– had moved from his place beside the safe to a spot beside his boy. Cradling the teen's head in his lap, sobbing like a baby.

Rob aimed his gun again.

"Please," said Aaron. And Rob almost shot him. He'd been the one whose job it was to open the safe. He hadn't even bothered to watch Daddykins, but had actually let the man run to his kid. "You don't have to do this."

"I didn't do it, Aaron. You did. Not because you screwed up with the safe, though. You killed all of them the moment you said my name."

He saw it sink in. Saw Aaron replaying the moment, the fact that he'd called Rob by name in the closet. The fact that after that Rob had started calling everyone by name – because it didn't matter.

Because from that instant, the family had to die.

He shot the man beside his son. James fell across him, arms outstretched as though trying to protect the boy a few minutes too late.

Rob turned back to the master bedroom fast enough to see the girl. Ashley. She bolted, running for the door that led into the hall and the darkness beyond. He couldn't tell if it was a calculated attempt to get away in the hubbub, or just the panic of someone whose conscious thought had been replaced by simple will to survive.

Academic.

Kayla turned away from her brother as the girl ran. Moving with languid calm, she brought her gun up. Pulled the trigger. A ragged hole appeared on the girl's back. Blood flew in a wide spatter against the doorframe she had been running for.

The girl dropped.

Rob sighed.

Fubar.

He looked back at Aaron. The idiot hadn't moved. Just staring at the two bodies in the closet and very obviously not looking at Rob. Probably worried about what Rob would do.

For a moment Rob thought of making Aaron's fears come true. Not killing him – that would be too easy.

There were other, worse things the other man was worried about.

Reign it in, Rob. You might need him again.

He turned to Tommy and Kayla.

"All right," he said. "Let's make sure we're not tied to this place."

8

This is what the house looks like.

This is the house where death has come to call.

It is nice – very nice. It is white, with a porch, with columns supporting ornate rooftops. Windows like blind eyes.

And then one of the eyes seems to wink.

There is a glimmer, as though the house has awakened. Then the glimmer can be seen from another eye. Another. Brighter and brighter, and then one of the eyes shatters outward and flames lick up the white wall, carving a charred black scar from window to roof.

More windows light. More eyes shatter. More white blackens.

Four shadows steal out of the back door. Illuminated by the brightness behind them, but fleeing quickly to the shadowed portion of the grounds.

One shadow stops at the edge of the flickering light. It turns to look at the house that has stood for so long and now must fall. The shadow leans toward the house, as though considering a return.

Then, at last, it turns and joins the other wraiths as they turn and flee over the wall and into the night.

TWO:
... that killed
the cats ...

She fell one day. Everyone falls, but this was strange because she didn't stumble, she didn't trip. They were in the park, they were standing still while they tossed breadcrumbs to the birds.

She just teetered for a moment, tipped, and spent an impossible moment hanging in the air before she simply crumpled. He tried to catch her, but unlike in movies and books, catching a body that has gone limp without any warning is simply impossible.

It seemed like it must be nothing. She was already getting back to her feet in the time it took to realize anything was happening. She even said that: "I'm sure it's nothing."

But a few days later, blood streamed from her nose and would not stop, and when they went to the hospital, doctors with wan faces and sad eyes said it was something, yes, definitely something.

The illness was usually fatal, they said. And he heard not "bad prognosis," but "she's going to die." And on the heels of that, "And you'll die, too," because what life is there when the light fades. When a sun breathes its last and snuffs out, the planets in its orbit do not continue to spin as they always have. They spiral into the darkness and are ended themselves.

"Bad prognosis" – "she's going to die."

Then they said, "some small chance," and that was worse. Because he knew that meant "only the rich need apply."

He had always thought himself rich. Always believed he had enough and too much of all the things that really mattered. But now he found that hospitals would not accept an embrace as proof of success, or tender feelings as tender of the legal sort.

She faded. Faded.

Nearly gone.

He waited beside her bed. A second-rate bed, in a third-rate room with two other people who were also dying, in a fourth-rate hospital that was all he could afford.

Another man came in the room.

"There may be a way," he said.

9

Rob needed a score like other people need oxygen.

It had been too many years, too many disappointments, too many reaffirmations of the universe's apparent need to screw him over.

His dad had been a writer. A talentless good-for-nothing who somehow managed to sell just enough books that the dumbass could continue to delude himself that someday he might just make it. Just enough books to keep the family balanced on the knife-edge of destitution. Just.

One day he took Rob aside and gave him one of his periodic "man to man" talks. Spewing life lessons that he'd obviously read about in some glossy magazine while waiting to cash in his food stamps at the super market.

"Remember, son: no matter what you do in life, you must run yourself like a business. The difference between me and most people trying to make it in such a difficult industry is that I know this fact. I know I'm not just an 'artist,' I'm a businessman. I create a product for value, and every transaction I enter into has to create net value for me, or else it's not worth pursuing."

Rob had nodded. Only eight years old at the time, but he was already old enough to know that if his father had actually followed that advice he probably wouldn't have had to settle for second-hand toys from the Salvation Army as Christmas presents.

"Yes, dad," he said. Shane Johnson kept on word-vomiting until Rob settled into a half-conscious series of nods interspersed with a periodic "uh-huh" designed mostly to keep himself from slipping completely into a coma.

Rob's father kept at it like that until the day he died. Dispensing wisdom he either didn't follow himself or – worse – that made so little sense it was a struggle to keep from strangling the old fart. Shane died the worst thing possible: a has-been who never quite was.

Still, he had given that one bit of good advice. Rob treated himself like a business, and that was one of the things that had always distinguished him from so many other thieves. Every time he scored, Kayla and Tommy went out and blew the money within a month. Aaron spent it on his old lady, which made him even stupider than Kayla and Tommy combined.

But Rob….

Rob saved. He invested in his future. He looked to step up, a bit at a time. Conservative growth was the safest, best bet for long-term financial gain. He read that once in a Maxim, and that shit resounded.

Still, no matter how careful you were, no matter how cautious in your growth and conscientious in your business choices – even if that business involved separating people from their possessions – nothing could stop the grim reality of bad luck.

Bad luck could turn every good idea into a catastrophe.

Bad luck could change promise to dearth.

Bad luck could keep you down.

Bad luck was, overall, a malicious asshole.

Bad luck had taken that one night –

(What was that family's name?)

– and changed it from a one-time screw-up to a pattern. Since then, Rob hadn't managed to put together a single job that didn't go sideways. They all broke even at best, lost him money at worst. Tommy and Kayla still went along with his ideas, but he suspected that was because Kayla was an adrenaline-junkie, and Tommy was willing to brave one bad job after another if it meant he might get to kill someone.

No good jobs. Just a never-ending storm of bad luck.

Until tonight.

Rob knew the instant the guy walked into the restaurant. Knew that this was the moment things would start to turn around.

He made sure the stranger was seated at his station, and made sure to be attentive, careful, caring. You didn't get to be a waiter at a place like Rudolfo's – arguably the finest restaurant in Los Angeles – without being all those things. But still, there was service and there was capital "s" Service. And that was what Rob provided.

He wasn't Rob here, of course. "Rob" was far to gauche a name for someone who provided vittles to the rich and famous. Here you had to be something with at least two syllables, so here he was "Robert" – even though that was what his old man had called him and every time someone said it he had to resist the urge to look around to see if the worthless coot had somehow come back from the dead.

So it wasn't Rob who attended the man. It was Robert. And Robert was such a perfect waiter that how could anyone help but start chatting with him?

Chatting was part of how it worked. The way it had to start for the job to work.

The man looked like he was in his mid to late forties. Dark hair that was graying at the edges, nose that had a bit of a hook to it, though not so much that it was unattractive; it simply made him seem a bit dark, a bit dangerous. Someone who wasn't merely wealthy, but powerful.

Those were the best marks. They were the ones Rob could enjoy the most – taking what they had and making them beg. Delicious.

The man wore a suit that had the distinctive look of a Brioni, which made Robert grin all the wider. Anyone who wore a fifty-thousand-dollar suit would have money to burn, and money to take. He also wore a top-of-the-line Omega that matched the gold cufflinks he wore, said cufflinks sporting rocks so large that an uncouth like Rob would think must be cubic zirconia.

But Robert knew better. These were diamonds.

Both Robert and Rob were in agreement.

He's perfect.

The man ordered no food, which surprised Robert. He did order a bottle of Penfolds Grange 2007, which more than made up for it since that cost nearly as much as a typical meal at Rudolfo's.

Robert thought, He has excellent taste.

Rob thought, This guy's loaded.

The wine sat unopened for a long time, the man at the table just ordering water. That meant he was waiting for someone.

Wife? Fiancé? Mistress?

Whoever he was waiting for, Robert would be there. And Rob would be listening.

After half an hour, the man sighed, then pulled out his phone and sent a quick text message. He put it on the table, then picked it up as soon as it vibrated. Sighed again and put it back in his coat pocket before signaling to Robert and asking him to open the bottle.

Robert did. He pulled out a corkscrew in a motion so smooth he knew it would seem near magic, then offered the cork to the man. He declined. Robert placed the cork on the table, then poured a glass before setting the wine on the table.

"Would you like a dinner menu after all, sir?" Robert asked. His voice was smooth. Not a voice that spoke of high education or even high class. It was better than that, because every tone spoke the one thing every single rich –

(entitled sonofabitch)

– patron wished to hear: I am at your complete disposal and service.

The man shook his head. Not curtly, which was good. Robert had worried he might be angry at whatever he had read on his phone, which made information gathering harder. But the man –

(the mark)

– seemed at ease. Not angry, though no longer wearing quite the smile he had had when he first walked in.

Robert left. Serving several other patrons, but always with his body angled so he could see the man as he slowly drained the bottle of wine.

Finally, Robert – with a bit of prodding from Rob – went over and said, "Sir, can I call you a cab?"

The man at the table looked at him, his eyes tracking around a bit before finally managing to settle on Robert's face. Then he waited a few seconds, as though the words hadn't quite filtered in.

The man grinned lopsidedly. "I look that bad?"

Robert was the soul of tact and discretion. "Not at all, sir. Just making sure you are comfortable and cared for."

The man's gaze drifted to the bottle. He had spilled a bit the last time he poured, and the linen tablecloth had darkened. Crimson on white.

(Blood on a carpet.)

"Probably best that you do call me a cab, I guess."

His words weren't slurred too badly, but there was a definite laziness about his pronunciation. Again, good. Both Robert and Rob knew that this space between a simple buzz and a full-tilt bender was a time when normally quiet people would open up. Would speak secrets.

"Celebrating, sir?" said Robert.

The man's grin grew wider. "Big news for the wife. Big news."

"Congratulations, sir. If you wish to stay longer to wait for her, I certainly don't wish you to feel as though –"

"No," said the other man, waving him off. "It's fine. She won't be joining me."

"My condolences, sir."

The other man shrugged. "She had a big day. Lot of work to do. And she didn't even know we were celebrating."

"Indeed?" Robert was aware that his manager had glanced his direction. A subtle look that meant he was probably going to get in trouble later for chatting up the clientele.

Suck it, dickhead, said Rob in his head.

Robert merely smiled and nodded in a way that indicated he was here because the patron wanted him here.

"Yeah, no, she doesn't know. Surprise." The man leaned in a bit. Conspiratorial. "Kept it a secret. A secret our whole marriage. But tomorrow…." He leaned back and Robert expected him to rub his hands together in excitement.

The man belched instead. Then he said, "Tomorrow is my big Tefra payment."

Robert felt a thrill.

Tefra?

For this guy?

For this guy?

Holy shit.

He wasn't sure who voiced the last. Normally Robert wouldn't even come close to such gross speech. But in this case….

Still, he kept his face blank. The way to keep someone talking wasn't to tell them what you knew. It was to show you needed them to explain.

"Tefra?" he said, putting just the right nonchalance into his expression: Interesting. I've never heard of it. But don't feel as though you must tell me more. Only if you wish to.

The man nodded. "You never heard of it?"

(yes yes oh yes you bet your life I have)

Robert shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Should I have?"

The man nearly giggled with glee. "Nope. She hasn't, either. But when I pop open the safe and tell her…." The man mimed his head exploding.

Rob caught onto the word: "safe."

Good news: people only held their greatest treasures in safes.

Bad news: that meant he'd have to get Aaron on board.

The man at the table fell to silence as his sodden brain ran out of things to say. Robert waited a polite moment, then said, "Well, congratulations, sir. Will there be anything else?"

The man nodded, then shook his head. Not a very clear set of gestures, taken together. But he fumbled at his pocket a moment later and took out a number of bills. He dropped four hundreds on the table.

"Keep the change," he said.

Robert nodded and smoothly removed the bills. Not so quickly that he would seem overeager, just acting to remove a tacky thing like the price of the man's wine. One of the things that made Rudolfo's seem so upper-crust was that there were no prices on the menu, no mention of cost. If you could come here, there were no questions or concerns about expense. The illusion that everything was so costly it came full circle and was free.

A lie, Rob knew. Everything costs something.

Robert waited a moment. The man looked at him, confused. Robert waited a bit longer, just enough to make the pause a bit awkward, a bit uncomfortable. He did it for no other reason than because he wanted the man to know he wasn't in charge.

Not Rudolfo's policy, of course. But you have to make every job at least a little fun, or else what is it really worth?

Finally, he let the man off the hook. "And where shall I tell the cab company they will be taking you?" he asked.

Another moment for that to crawl slowly to the dwindling thought-centers of the other man's brain. Robert had timed it perfectly: the man's blood was still receiving the alcohol that had made its way to the other man's stomach. Another few minutes and he wouldn't be buzzed, he'd be stinking drunk. And that would have made him all but useless for Robert's purposes.

Perfect timing.

Things are looking up.

The man finally mumbled, "It's, uh… uh…."

This time Robert resumed his place as knight-errant – the noble creature who existed only to seek out chivalrous adventures. Not in a medieval setting, a castle in old Britain. No, Robert was a man who moved from table to table, searching for moments of perfection and aiding them with a pleasant word, a quiet refilling of a woman's cup, a discretely blind eye when sixty-year-old men showed up with women a third their age who were so clearly uncomfortable in their eveningwear that they could only be hookers.

"Perhaps your driver's license might assist you?" he said.

The man blinked again. Then: "Yeah… good. Yeah."

Another fumble through his wallet, which Robert noted was from Barney's. The man finally managed to pull his ID out of its sleeve. Before he held it out, though, he showed Robert something inside. A picture of a smiling woman and a teenager, both with dark shoulder-length hair and deep brown eyes. Both striking – beautiful.

"My wife and daughter," said the man. And the way he said it was a rarity in this place: he loved them, pure and simple.

Rob thrilled. This was not a family, it was a perfect dream. One to get what was necessary, two more for leverage.

Robert nodded. Swept the ID out of the other man's hand. He glanced down at it. "Jason Crawford," it said, and the address was one that wasn't in the best part of town – it was a town unto itself.

Perfect.

"Excellent, sir," he said of the picture. "Quite beautiful, both of them."

"Yeah," said the man, that love –

(that weakness)

– oozing out of the word.

Robert felt vaguely sick. Rob would have been gagging.

None of this showed on his face. He gave a small bow, then went to the telephone. The manager raised an eyebrow as he passed, a very genteel, "What the hell were you doing over there?"

Robert shrugged and smiled his most ingratiating smile. He didn't want to lose his job. It paid the bills and, more importantly, found him the best scores.

He raised the man's – Jason's – ID and mouthed, "Cab." The manager frowned just so, then nodded.

Jason called the cab. Asked them to hurry and said Rudolfo's would pay a guaranteed gratuity – all part of the Rudolfo's experience – then returned the ID to Jason. A few minutes later he received notification that the cab was waiting.

He returned to the table with Jason's coat, then graciously offered him an arm and saw him down to the street and into the cab.

The instant before the man got into his ride, he turned and swept Robert into a drunken "you're the best, pal," embrace.

Robert endured. He even smiled. "Take care, sir," he said. "Congratulations on your day."

Then the cab was off. Robert waved, a smile in his eyes. Nothing but sincere happiness at a patron's good luck.

The cab turned a corner.

The second the city swallowed it, something disappeared. Robert was suddenly and completely gone, replaced by the Rob who had been champing at the bit, waiting for his moment.

Rob pulled a cell phone from his pocket. Dialed in the first number he would have to call before returning to Rudolfo's.

The phone picked up. Without waiting for so much as a hello, Rob said, "I need you to pull some records."

Tommy's voice answered instantly, as though he'd just been waiting for Rob to call, even though it had been months since their last –

(attempted)

– job. "New score?"

"Yeah," said Rob. "But we gotta hit it fast. Can you get the records this late?"

He could practically hear Tommy's grin. "You cover the extra charge, I'll get what you need."

Rob gave Tommy the address he'd seen on Jason's ID. Tommy repeated it, then hung up without wasting time on goodbyes.

Rob steeled himself.

Made the call he didn't want to. But there was no real alternative.

Unlike Tommy, this voice sounded insecure. Sleepy, like he'd been woken from an early bedtime.

"Hello?" said Aaron.

10

Nikki Peters was overworked, underpaid, and sadly aware of both facts.

Working at Building and Safety Records was a crappy job on its face, but after her first day she realized that there were several different levels of crap. There was normal crap, which everyone had to deal with sometime.

Then there was grotesque, awful, never-ending crap. Like you've sampled every bit of half-rotted food from every street vendor in every third-world country on the earth.

BSR was the second kind.

When she got the job, she was grateful – it beat continued unemployment, which was where she had landed after… borrowing a bit of petty cash from the office she used to work in. But that was only when she got the job. After actually doing the job, the gratitude turned to bitterness.

Life had crapped on her again. The number two of all number twos. And worst of all, there was nothing she could do about it. She owed too much money to too many people – some of them not exactly legitimate businessmen, but the kind of people who took out interest in broken bones or worse – to quit.

BSR existed in that no-man's land between the warring states of Boredom and Overstressed. Half her time was spent archiving old documents – soil reports, plot plans, approved building plans, board files, admin approvals, and a host of other papers which could each induce fugue states upon reading.

The other half of her time she dealt with irritable contractors, angry auditors, and pretentious lawyers – all of whom were her bosses since she was a public employee.

Still, she kept her head down. She worked hard. She resisted the urge to punt her supervisor in the nuts every time he leered at her or implied that a quick screw in his office would be just the thing to loosen her up. She even smiled at least twice a day because she had read somewhere that smiling was the best revenge.

But no matter how hard she worked, she never made any headway. She still lived in a studio apartment directly over a bar, which meant she was awakened at least ten times a night by either the muted sounds of a fight or the less-muted sounds of someone playing Piña Colada on the juke. She still bought booze at the liquor store whose main decoration was periodic banners of police tape whenever someone got rolled out front.

Part of the situation, she admitted on long sleepless nights listening to the drunks, was her own fault. She gambled too much, and as a result she owed money at interest rates so high there was no way she'd ever be able to pay down the principle – not unless her lottery investments came in. And even there she always bought the twenty dollar scratchers since she knew they came with better odds.

Mostly, though… mostly it wasn't her fault. Mostly it was someone else's – though she wasn't exactly sure whose. There was just that aching sense that if only she could get one small score, she could figure out a way out of the crap life she currently endured.

With all that, the first time Tommy Leigh approached her and not-so-subtly implied he might be willing to float her a bit of cash in exchange for a look at certain of the approved building plans – unlogged, so no one would know they'd ever been viewed outside the office – it was a no-brainer.

The cash had been less than she supposed it would be. She had visions of supplying info to some high-level mobster or master criminal who would easily thumb thousand-dollar bills off a thick wad of cash, then maybe – if he was good-looking enough – invite her back to his place for discussions of what other "business" they might do together.

Instead, she got a couple hundred – barely enough to buy her scratchers.

They were enough to pay off her loan shark's interest for another week, though, so she took the cash with a smile and let Tommy know she would be happy to help him out in the future.

She didn't offer anything more than that. It wasn't that Tommy was bad looking. Even after he showed up once with a trio of bright scars that slashed through his skin from over his right eye to a spot mid-cheek, he still looked sexy enough. He was a big guy, and she guessed he had biceps that could crush ball bearings into smaller ball bearings. A perfect bod for some all-night roller coaster riding.

But there was something in his eyes. He smiled at her, he was always pleasant. Yet she got the feeling that if she ever invited him back to her place, the games they played wouldn't be pleasant for her. There was something dangerous about him – something that made her think if he owed money to a shark, said shark would just smile and bow and say, "No interest – you just pay it back when you feel like it, friend."

She looked forward to his visits in spite of the danger, though. Money was money.

And that held true even when he called in the middle of a game of Texas hold 'em that was actually going her way. She cashed out and hurried over to the records office, got what she needed, and then headed back to the street.

As always, she walked down the stairs, turned left, and headed toward the parking garage entrance. Concrete planter boxes followed the steps in a series of mini terraces that effectively blocked the view into the garage, as though the building architects had believed the garage was too ugly a sight to inflict on the people in the city building.

Or, more likely, they thought the city building was an eyesore that might well send emerging drivers into a series of puke-fits.

Either way, Tommy was waiting where he always did: leaning on the planter wall that formed the inside boundary of the parking garage entrance. It was close to the building, but she had noted on their second meeting that it was also a dead spot. No cameras nearby that could pick them up, but still out in the open so no casual observers would think there was anything untoward occurring.

"You get it?" he asked. He was dressed all in dark tones – Nikki had never seen a stitch of bright clothing on him. She doubted it was just for their rendezvous; he didn't seem like a happy colors guy.

She nodded and handed over the tube she had tucked under her arm. He opened it and unrolled the architectural plans inside just enough to verify they were what he had ordered. Then he handed over a thin sheaf of bills, folded in half.

She counted them. "This is it?"

"It's what we agreed on."

"That was the old cost. I need a raise."

"Inflation? Cost of living increase?"

The words were joking, but there was no mistaking the darkening of his expression. Nikki almost backed down. Then she remembered that she'd gotten one of her middle-of-the-night visits yesterday, and a balloon payment was coming due.

"Sure. Call it that. And another bump for me coming in the middle of the night and practically having to show my boobs to the security guard to get him to turn a blind eye."

Tommy didn't move. Didn't speak. For a moment Nikki wondered if he was going to kill her right there.

At least then I wouldn't have to make that payment to Saul.

Tommy reached into a pocket. Pulled out a few more bills and handed them over.

She pocketed them without counting – without even looking. That, she sensed, would be one step too far.

For once, she quit gambling while she was ahead.

Tommy turned away from her. He walked down the sidewalk and disappeared into the parking structure. She didn't know if that was because he had a car in there or if he just didn't want her to see where he went next.

Truth told, she didn't care.

She turned away as well. Back to the street and from there to where she was parked: an outside lot three blocks away where the cheap-ass city made midlevel employees park.

The money burned hot in her pocket. She should use it to pay Saul his installment.

But maybe if she hurried she could deal back into the card game first.

11

Rob slammed into his apartment at midnight. The clock was ticking, and he felt the passage of every second like a pinprick. Tiny wounds that were nothing in and of themselves. But too many would prove fatal.

Too many would be the end of the job.

Donna was waiting for him. She always was – not much more for her to do. She hadn't had a job in all the time Rob knew her, and she didn't seem much inclined to change that fact. It pissed him off sometimes, that she wasn't interested in contributing, but then what did he expect? It wasn't like she'd entered his life as a pillar of ambition when he met her three years ago. At least she kept the place clean. Not that that helped much.

Six years ago he'd had a nice place. A loft overlooking Sunset, neighbors who were third-year attorneys at one of the huge law firms that covered the city like highly educated tumors. They were always surprised when they found out he was "nothing but a waiter," and he could practically hear them calculating how to use this fact as leverage for a raise: "My heavens, Mr. Managing Partner, even the waiters at Rudolfo's make more than I do!"

It never failed to amuse.

He'd also had a BMW. And a bank account with enough money that the interest meant an actual payout at year's end.

And then the one job. That damn job where the family – what was their name? – screwed the whole thing up.

He'd lost the loft a year later. Moved to a series of apartments, each a step down – sometimes a large step down – from the previous one.

This one was the lowest of the low. One bedroom, a kitchenette you had to pay attention when walking in or you'd trip over the cheap vinyl flooring, walls so thin you could hear the roaches screwing inside them.

Donna actually kind of fit the place, now that he thought about it: not a good situation, but all he could really expect given his circumstances. At least she was leggy, and he'd never seen her wearing anything other than a miniskirt so short it was only a skirt in the most technical sense.

She was in her mid-thirties, though, so even with a great set of legs she still looked a bit off in her barely-there outfits. Rob could tell she had once been young and fresh-faced and beautiful, but she dressed like she still was.

No, that was wrong. She dressed like she still wished she was young and fresh-faced, and that was sadder. Because she knew the best parts of her life were over and all she had was the fading memory of once-happiness. Hoping that a mini-skirt and a spaghetti-strap crop top would somehow anchor her to better days.

She was sitting on the ratty couch, turning pages on a two-month-old issue of People. She didn't move when he came in, which meant she'd probably been drinking before he came home.

He cleared his throat. She jerked and jumped to her feet.

"Sorry, Robby!" she said, and ran to plant an over-wet kiss on his cheek. "Didn't hear you coming in."

She almost ran to the fridge, opening it (sure enough, only one six-pack inside instead of the two that had been in there when he left for work) and removing two Pabsts.

Rob sat down at the small wood table that straddled the thin line between the "dining" area – a six by six space beside the kitchenette – and the rest of the front room. Donna put both beers in front of him, then unscrewed both tops.

Rob took a swig from one. Donna didn't sit down with him, which meant she'd finally gotten it through her skull that he liked some downtime after work. Of the "alone" variety.

She stood at attention, though, hovering nearby in case he needed something. Another thing she was finally getting right. He looked at the newest set of bruises on her arms, both of the groupings traveling from forearm to upper arm and then wrapping up to shoulders.

She rubbed at her arms self-consciously, as though worried he'd find the mars unattractive. On the contrary, though – besides her legs, those bruises were just about the sexiest things she had going.

"The group's coming over," he said after a second swig.

For a moment Donna looked like she might object. Rob almost hoped she would. It'd be a nice way to warm up for the night.

She didn't, though. Just went to the fridge and began putting out more beers.

There was a knock at the door. The cheap wood rattled in the equally cheap frame. Rob figured that one of these days the thing would just fall to atoms and that would be the end of the front door.

Donna looked at him, unsure whether to keep putting out beers or get the door.

Rob shook his head, disgusted.

Well, you're not keeping her around for her brains.

He moved to the door. As he did, Donna put out the last beer and then fled to the bedroom.

Rob opened the door to see Aaron.

Aaron was someone Rob tolerated. But only barely. The guy had certain skills that came in useful from time to time, but he was an utter buzzkill. There was something about him that drove Rob halfway to Crazytown. It wasn't just that he'd cost them that job –

(that job where everything started downhill, where it slid down this hole with no end)

– it was something else. Something at once both deeper and more obvious. Occasionally Rob thought about it, about why he hated the kid, and all he could come up with was an image of the guy's face.

In this moment, with Aaron standing there in front of him, he suddenly knew.

It was that Aaron could still change.

It wasn't that Rob hated the life he'd chosen – not that, never that – but….

But wouldn't it be nice to change? To at least have the option?

Rob was a man stuck in a prison, as surely as most of his friends. Not a prison of steel and concrete, but one of habit, of predilection, of need. He was who he was because there was no way for him to be anything else.

Aaron, though… the younger man still seemed like he had a choice in him. Like he could walk away from this life if he wanted.

And that was a large part of why he kept Aaron on the team. Part of it was his usefulness. But part of it was that he simply couldn't bear to see someone unchained to this life, when he was so thoroughly a prisoner of it.

He smiled at Aaron, and the smile stretched as wide as his hatred.

"Aaron," he said.

"Hey, Rob," said Aaron. The other man was boyish, shy. A face that told the world everything it had to tell.

Rob widened his grin, knowing that for every centimeter it grew, Aaron would be that much more uncomfortable. And knowing that was a good thing.

They waited there like that for a moment – long enough that Aaron started to fidget, then looked down at his shoes.

Rob finally let the kid off the hook. He kept the wolf grin on his face, but moved to the side to indicate the other man should come in.

"You get it?" he said as Aaron slid past him.

Aaron stopped mid-step. He nodded.

"And…?"

Another hesitation, then Aaron said, "He's got a safe. Master bedroom closet."

Just like the bad one. The one where it all fell apart.

Rob shoved that thought aside.

This isn't that job. This is a new one, the beginning of a life worth living. A life without paper walls or neighbors who deal meth out of their apartment or a woman who's barely worth the effort I put in.

Rob's grin somehow contrived to grow a bit more. He was actually rubbing his hands together.

"I knew it," he said. "Some guys, you can just tell." He gestured at the "kitchen" table. "Pull up a chair."

Aaron shoved his hands deep in his pockets. "That's okay. I… I doubt I'll be staying long."

Rob's grin disappeared, swallowed in a thundercloud that darkened his expression. "Take a goddam seat," he said.

Aaron nodded. Cowed. It was almost as nice to see as the sight of Donna just after one of their many "hands-on" lessons in home management.

Aaron sat down at the table. It squeaked, betraying the plastic that lay under its thin veneer. He didn't take a beer. Rob almost took him to task for that, too –

(What, my beer not good enough for Your Highness?)

– but another knock at the door derailed the moment.

Rob opened the door. This time it was Tommy and Kayla – faces he was actually glad to see. More or less.

As always, it was Tommy he noticed first. Tommy, with his huge frame and dark hair and eyes that made the slick whiteness of his triple scars –

(that job it's always that damn job)

– stand out all the more.

And, as always, it was Kayla that eventually drew his attention, commanded his eyes to stay on her.

She was a looker, no doubt. The resemblance to her brother was clear, but where his strong features spoke of strength and mayhem barely held in check, on her they softened to create any man's vision of beauty. Even the piercings in ears, nose, and lip didn't change that – nor did the many tattoos that wrapped her neck and completely sleeved her right arm. When they first met he thought for a moment what a good lay she'd be.

A moment.

Then he noticed what was behind her eyes. Something darker and somehow more frightening than the promise of violence her brother's gaze held. She wasn't a murderer at heart. Nothing so focused. She was a tornado. A force of nature that could destroy or save at a whim. To whom one corpse meant exactly the same as one life granted.

A tornado exists only to exist. It feeds itself to maintain its life, draws winds to become more than it has been. But nothing other than that life matters. Nothing more than a continuance of self.

That was Kayla. And that was why he always watched her, even with a threat like Tommy beside her. She would always act for herself, but the moment his needs didn't align with hers….

Tommy was holding a long cardboard documents tube. He gave it a twirl in his big hands, then handed it over to Rob.

"Merry Christmas," said the big man.

Kayla eyed the apartment with a discerning – and clearly disapproving – eye. "I like what you've done with the place."

Anyone else said that, Rob would see them dead and buried before the end of the night. From Kayla –

(I'm not scared of her. Not. Scared.)

– he just… overlooked it.

Yeah. Overlooked. Not ignored. Not scared.

Rob motioned the siblings to the table. Tommy sat gingerly on one of the cheap chairs, clearly concerned that it would break under his weight. Kayla took the one beside him, grabbing one of the beers then leaning back on the chair's rear legs and kicking her feet up onto the table.

Neither of them acknowledged Aaron. They held him as much responsible for recent bad luck as Rob did.

Tommy glanced at the youngest member of the team a moment later. Just a quick look, but enough to show Rob that the big man was considering taking the kid to task.

People probably didn't survive Tommy doing that.

And – like it or not – they'd need Aaron tonight.

"I found a good one," he said, trying to nip burgeoning violence in the bud. "Easy mark."

He opened the tube that Tommy had brought. Inside were architectural plans – a sheaf of papers that each showed a different aspect of a building. The top sheet was a key, showing symbols used throughout the plans. Below that, a series of pages that showed topographical and landscaping details. Rob flipped past both, his fingers quickly finding the architectural and structural drawings.

Looking at plans was something anyone could do. Understanding them took practice. But Rob had had plenty of that, and he zeroed in instantly – not just on general details, but on small specifics. And not just what the specifics said outright, but what they implied.

And, doing so, he had one overwhelming thought.

It's even better than I hoped it would be.

He actually giggled.

"Nice. Very nice." He turned to a page, then squinted. "Indoor gym with a shower room and sauna attached." He turned to a different page. "Custom-built library." Another. "Master bedroom's the size of this building's entire basement."

He looked up for a moment. Kayla was grinning, and even Tommy looked less generally threatening than usual. They knew what he was saying. This house has money in it.

Rob looked back down at the plans. Something drew his eye. He frowned for the first time, then looked back at Tommy. "This the most up-to-date version of the prints?" he asked. He'd never asked how Tommy got plans like this. Not only was it just generally bad form, it was part of what made Tommy a valuable part of the group. And people tended to look poorly on others' moves to render them unnecessary.

Tommy'd never gotten bad plans. They'd always been current, they'd always provided the details necessary to keep the group from going in blind.

But what Rob had just seen – it didn't make sense.

Tommy didn't even glance at the documents. He shrugged. "Should be. Why?"

"The dates on some of the drawings don't match the engineer's approval stamp."

Tommy shrugged again. "This is what my girl got me."

The term "my girl" was more than Rob had ever heard Tommy say about his method of acquiring the documents. Rob filed it away, just in case he might need it.

That's what you did if you wanted to be successful – you noticed things. For that reason, Rob kept looking at the dates for a moment. Most of them lined up fine, looked legit.

He finally sighed. People made mistakes. This looked like it was probably one of them. It just made him nervous because everything made him nervous. Especially now – when the job was probably the last one this team would follow him for.

Except Aaron. The kid'll follow me until I stop telling him to follow me.

Tommy actually pretended to examine the plans for a moment. Then leaned back and said, "Yeah, it's fine. Trust me."

Rob snorted. "I don't trust my own mother, Tommy." He shook his head.

No choice. Gotta move on this one.

He looked at the team, settling his gaze on Tommy, then Kayla. He couldn't meet eyes with Aaron – the kid was looking down, staring hard at the untouched beer in front of him.

Finally, he said, "I want to hit this place. Tonight."

That got a reaction. Kayla whistled. "Why the hurry?"

Rob's grin came back full force. The stamps were forgotten, the crappy apartment disappeared from his mind. Even the fear of bad luck fled before his next words. "Because he said tomorrow was his Tefra payout."

Aaron actually looked up. Not in surprise. Confusion. He frowned. "Tefra? What's –"

He was interrupted by Kayla. She jerked forward, her feet flying off the table and landing on the floor with a thud. "You sure that's what he said?" she asked.

Rob nodded.

Tommy looked from his sister to Rob, then back again. Just as in the dark as Aaron was. "What's Tefra?"

"Tefra," said Kayla. "Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982." She smiled at her brother and added, "Is it hard being the stupid one?"

He shrugged. "No harder than it is for you to be the ugly one."

"So's your face," said Kayla.

"Guys," said Aaron, "I still don't get it. What's Tefra, exactly?"

Kayla looked like she was going to reel off the words the acronym stood for again, but Rob spoke before she could. "You know what a bearer bond is?" he asked.

Aaron nodded. "Sure. It's a piece of paper that says whoever walks into the bank with it is entitled to its face value in cash. But no one uses them anymore."

"Sure," said Kayla. "Because the world is filled with dishonest people. Ain't it a shame?"

"Kay," Rob said warningly. But he wasn't really mad at her, or even irritated. This was too good to get mad about.

It all changes. Tonight.

To Aaron and Tommy, he said, "The use of bearer bonds was cut back by the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act in 1982. People – bad, bad people," he added, with a grin to Kayla, "were using bearer bonds to launder money. So the government basically got rid of them with the TEFRA act. But," he added, "TEFRA also stated that outstanding bonds – especially ones that got interest as they matured – could still be cashed."

Tommy's face showed confusion. "So –"

"So some bearer bonds are like certificates of deposit, bro," said Kayla. "People would buy them, but they couldn't be cashed out before a certain date. The downside was the bearer bonds were useless before that date. Upside was they got interest."

Rob nodded. "And even though the government wanted to get rid of the use of bearer bonds, it wasn't going to steal people's money if they had already invested their money in bonds that hadn't matured yet. That'd be illegal." He relished the irony of the last word.

Kayla was shaking her head. Not in denial; it was the appreciative back and forth motion of someone who's looking at something too good to be true. And going all in. "So the fact that this guy said tomorrow is a TEFRA day means he's got long-term bearer bonds that mature – with interest – tomorrow."

"Right," said Rob. Again he caught everyone's eye. Even Aaron was paying attention at this point. "So we steal it tonight, and tomorrow we leave the country. A quick flight to one of about a dozen countries with lax money laws, cash the score, and we're sitting pretty."

Kayla and Tommy were already sold. Aaron….

Dammit, why do you have to screw up everything.

"Did he even say for sure that they were in his house?" asked Aaron.

Rob nodded. "Yeah. Said they were in his safe."

"But that still doesn't tell us if the score's even worth it. For all we know, he could have twelve dollars' worth of bonds."

Rob laughed. Hard and loud. Donna actually poked her head out of the back room, like she was worried he might have a heart attack or something. Then she was gone as fast as she appeared.

It took him nearly a minute for his laughter to die down enough to allow him to speak. "Are you kidding me?" he said. "This guy was wearing a twenty-thousand-dollar watch, a fifty-thousand-dollar suit, and he lives in a house with more bathroom space than the Empire State Building." Rob looked back at the architectural plans. Huge rooms, luxury appointments. "No, it's millions. Eight figures at least. But we have to get it before he cashes it, which he said is happening tomorrow." He pointed to a spot on the plans. "We go in here. And we do it tonight."

He looked at Aaron. "The safe?"

Aaron looked supremely uncomfortable. "Like I said, the safe company I hacked showed installation in the master bedroom."

"Just sitting out in the middle of the room?" said Tommy. Aaron was being difficult, and the big man knew it.

Aaron's eyes dropped back to the beer before him. "The closet."

Tommy laughed.

Rob understood instantly what Tommy was laughing about. "These rich bastards always do the same thing," he agreed. "Might as well stuff their money in a cookie jar." To Aaron, he added, "Do the records say if the safe company wiped the presets?" Custom safes always came with a company-installed preset combination. And it was Rob's experience that a surprising number of people who installed the safes never had the preset wiped. Made it easy to crack the safe.

"Yeah," said Aaron. "The safe company wiped it, the owners put in their own combo." He brightened a bit. "And it's a tough one, so maybe we shouldn't even –"

Rob's face darkened in exact proportion to the excitement on the kid's face. He cut him off with a slashing motion. "No." Then he forced a smile to his face. "No, you can crack it. I have faith in you."

He tried to make "I have faith in you" sound more like "I will murder you if you botch this job." And the total despair he saw in Aaron's eyes made the job worth it, money or none.

Only that's a lie, Rob. You don't need to see him beg, you don't need to see him cry.

You need this job.

Tommy and Kayla seemed to sense this was the last word – not just for Aaron, but for everyone. They both rose as one and headed for the door.

"Back in twenty." Kayla tossed the words over her shoulder, almost as an afterthought. Then she and Tommy rattled their way through the cruddy front door.

Aaron opened his mouth to speak at the same moment Rob did – both of them hoping to get the first word in.

Both were interrupted by the sound of Donna opening the bedroom door again. She must have heard the front door shutting, assumed the "meeting" was over.

Rob's blood boiled in his veins. "Get back in your room!" he screamed. Turned back to Aaron.

But Aaron was ready. He got in the first word after all. "I think I'm gonna sit this one out, Rob."

Rob held himself in check. Kept himself from –

(killing him)

– railing or ranting, even though after repeated viewings of Donna's klutzy stupidity he was ready to scream.

But he didn't. He just stood there. Watching Aaron fiddle with his beer. And as he did, he calmed. Aaron was going to do it. Not just because Rob was going to make it happen. The kid was too weak to just get up and walk out, and that meant he'd never have the strength to not do what Rob wanted.

"You said it yourself," he finally said. "They wiped the presets. So we need a safecracker or there's no job."

"Still –"

And just that quickly, Rob got sick and tired of this game. "How's that wife of yours?" he asked.

Another silence. This one filled with a different kind of menace.

"We're… we're grateful, Rob," Aaron finally managed. "I'm grateful. But I don't want to do this anymore. I can't."

"One last job. For old time's sake." Rob leaned in close. So close he could smell Aaron's sour breath – the smell of a man held tight by fear. "Or maybe for the time I gave you the money to get her treated."

For the time I gave you a good life, right before you shafted me out of mine.

Aaron didn't answer. Rob moved in closer. Right beside the kid's ear. Whispered, "Okay, how about one last job or I'll go and finish what the cancer started."

Aaron froze. Went so rigid it felt like the air around him grew cold. He drew back. Looked at Rob and Rob could tell he found no mercy there.

He shook his head. But it wasn't a "no" to Rob, it was a sad plea to the universe.

The universe doesn't care, kid. And the faster you learn that the better off you'll be.

"Promise me," he finally managed. "Promise me this is the last."

Gotcha.

Rob didn't move away from his prey. But he smiled good-naturedly and raised his hand. "Scout's honor."

"Like you were ever a Scout." It was a last gasp. At dignity, at the man Aaron would never quite manage to be.

Rob shrugged.

"What if I can't get it open?" Aaron whispered. "Safe like this… it's a real possibility."

"Then we'll use alternate methods to get the combination."

Aaron knew what that meant. Another shake of the head, another gesture that lacked both strength and conviction. "No. Promise me no one gets hurt. Not again. I… I can't take that again."

"Scout's honor," said Rob.

And then he saw what he expected to be the second-best payout of the night.

Aaron wept.

Rob let him.

Then Aaron left.

Rob let him.

Because he knew the kid would be back. And that he'd do whatever Rob told him to do.

He watched the door slam behind the kid.

Then he turned to the back bedroom. Waited.

Of course now she doesn't stick her fool head out, when I could actually use her.

He moved toward the closed bedroom door. Cracked his knuckles.

Aaron wasn't the only one who needed a life lesson tonight.

"Oh, Donna!"

12

Aaron sat in the car with the others, and tried to cast his mind as far away as possible.

The task was beyond him. He tried to picture her – dark eyes that always seemed a bit sad, like she knew your most secret sorrows and felt them with you. A smile so bright it pushed away that sadness, tempered it into something stronger than it had any right to be.

He was hers, completely and utterly.

Liar. Not completely, because if she owned you like that you wouldn't be under Rob's thumb.

I'm doing it for us. For her.

The last thought – he wasn't sure if it was true or not.

What if I just killed myself? Then she'd be okay. Rob wouldn't come for her – why would he bother?

There would be no reason for Rob to do anything to Dee if Aaron was gone. But then, he had no trouble picturing Rob hurting his wife – or worse – just for the sheer spite of it.

No. For us.

He tried again to push himself away; to place his mind somewhere so far and so safe he wouldn't be able to see what was right beside him and all around him.

He failed. Every time he tried to capture Dee's face in his mind, it was replaced by Rob's angry expression. Every time he tried to fall into the memory of her eyes, he saw Tommy's quietly homicidal rage, the sociopathic stare Kayla turned on everyone and everything.

Every time he tried to escape… he just found himself right back where he started. In a dark car in a dark night surrounded by people whose thoughts and goals were blacker than either.

Tommy and Kayla sat in the back of the car, the rustle of their black clothes and the occasional clink of the tools they each had stuffed in the many pockets they wore the only sounds they made in the night. Rob made even less noise. Aaron knew if he looked over he'd see the man driving, face illuminated to ghost-tones by the dash lights.

The houses outside might have helped ease his spirits, if it were only daytime. They were driving through Spurwing Green, the richest area in a part of the world famous for riches. The houses weren't houses in the way that ordinary folks understood the terms, they were more like the New World's answer to the castles of feudal times. Each held in its quiet grasp a Lord or Lady, master of all they surveyed. Safe behind their privacy walls and their security systems.

Until the marauders come. The invaders.

Us.

13

This is what the house looks like.

It is nice – very nice – though its obvious value comes not so much from its size (though it is large) or its spacious grounds (though spacious they are), or even the topiaries and fountains that grace its surroundings (though there are, of course, many of those).

No, its value can be seen, even by the least discerning eye, in the details. In the whole.

This house, unlike many others in the surrounding miles of estates, is not white. It is a tan that darkens to gray-brown in the night. A place the darkness has begun to infect with a quiet, ugly disease.

A cancer not of body, not of heart or lungs or lymph. A cancer of the soul.

A place where death has come to call.

The house is surrounded by a lawn big enough to be called a meadow. Trees that lend shade during the day, and that deepen shadows at night. Bushes that bring beauty in the light, that transform to malignant growths in the dark.

There are fountains, but they are silent. No water passes through them, and the stone cherubim stand motionless as death, imprisoned forever in silent moments of torture.

Many windows stare out from the sides of the house. In daytime they shine, during the early hours of the night they glow warmly.

Now, they are dark – eyes blinded nightly by the dark cataracts of a black sky. All but one – a single blazing square of light through glass on the second floor. The light brings no courage, no cheer. It seems out of place. A beacon that will serve not to guide ships through rocky shoals, but to guide evil to its prey.

There are shadows all around.

One of the shadows moves.

Heads toward the single bright window.

Begins to climb.

14

It was an anniversary day, and Dad had come home happier than he ever was. Some anniversaries could do that to you: anniversaries that were so special they required one's full attention. Days so important they merited nothing but cheer, nothing but brightness.

Even at seventeen years old, Susan Crawford knew this. She knew that this was a special, important day.

That was why she was in here. She had stayed up long enough to greet her dad, to see his special smile, to hear him say loving words to Mom.

Then off to her bedroom. Mom and Dad would be in bed soon – she knew what that meant, too. And that meant she got to make a call. One she'd been looking forward to for a while. Ever since she met him.

TJ Field had been a surprise. Not like the kids Susan knew at school. He was rougher, harder in a certain light. The rough edges didn't detract from his good looks, though – they heightened them, the way shadows will heighten reliefs carved into a wall.

But he made everything better. He completed the world she and her parents had made here, in a house she could never help but think was too big for them.

When TJ came, he filled it – or at least, filled it enough. And sometimes enough was just right.

She looked at the clock that sat on her dresser. All of five minutes later than it had been the last time she looked.

She returned her gaze to the book that sat on the bed in front of her. AP Physics. Normally it wasn't hard to concentrate on the information it held – she had a special affinity for the way things were built, for the way they came together at the smallest levels – but tonight she stared at the lines of text and math and none of it made sense.

There was only the night. This night.

And a noise.

She glanced at her window.

Did I hear something?

She waited a moment, staring out at the night. The small hairs on the back of her neck rose with a feeling of… what?

Expectation.

Hope.

The night seemed to stretch on forever beyond her window.

And, at last, she turned away from the darkness. Not back to her book – any pretense of studying was gone for good. Instead she turned to the dressing table that sat in one corner of a –

(huge, enormous, nearly-empty)

– room. She was dressed for bed, wearing the boxers and tank top that were her favorite sleepwear. She'd brushed her teeth –

(like a good little girl!)

– scrubbed her face. She might as well complete the nighttime ritual while she waited….

For the night to truly begin.

She sat in front of the dressing table. A discrete light sat atop the mirror – not the tacky brightness you saw in movies about movies, where starlets sat in front of a globe-lit mirror and made impossibly pretty faces even more impossibly pretty, but a light perfectly designed to throw maximum light against your face without turning it into a series of crags and flaws.

She wondered, not for the first time, what it had set Mom and Dad back to buy it. Whatever it had been, it was too much. There were better things to spend their money on.

Not much she could do about that. What was past was past. Only the future could be changed, molded, perfected.

She took the brush that sat on the table top, began to pass it over and through her hair. Sweep, sweep, sweep. She could feel the strands separating, flowing back together, softening.

Sweep, sweep, swee –

Scratch.

She spun again. Looked at the window. The darkness.

"Is there someone out there?" she called. Then chided herself for being silly.

She turned back to her task. Sweep, sweep, swee –

And saw the shadow in the mirror an instant before she felt a hand on her shoulder. A scream tried to break free, but it was muffled, then silenced, by the other hand that clapped over her mouth and nose.

She was sitting on a stool, and the man behind her spun her around. She looked into green eyes.

The hand came away from her mouth.

She punched the intruder. Hard.

"You… you… bastard!"

She meant the words, but TJ just laughed them off. Still rough around the edges, but the laugh softened him. Just barely, just enough to make him look –

(innocent)

– younger. Unaware of the life he would lead, and happy because of that fact.

He laughed again.

"You shouldn't be here," she said, her voice something between a hiss and a whisper. She tried to put some level of irritation in her voice, but failed. She was glad he was here, tonight.

Anniversaries should be special. Certainly for her parents – and with TJ's arrival this anniversary became special for her, too.

TJ leaned in and kissed her ear. A gentle nip that sent shudders through her frame. "I shouldn't be here?" he whispered. "And yet you called me." He paused, but didn't move from his spot near her, so close she could feel every breath against her neck. "And you turned off the alarm for me."

"How do you know that?" It was all she could think to say – the first and only words that sprung to mind. She could barely think at all, he was so close.

TJ drew back. Cupped a hand to his ear. Frowned. "You hear that?"

She listened. Half-expecting to hear more noises coming from outside.

"I don't hear anything."

TJ's frown was swallowed by a wide grin. "Exactly."

Susan crossed her arms in another attempt to be angry. She failed, so settled for a mock-anger that she knew he would see through.

"How do you know I turned it off for you? The gardener is pretty hot."

TJ shook his head solemnly. "An affair with the gardener? You're not that cliché."

He leaned in for a kiss, this one full on her lips, but she held him back. "Seriously," she said, forcing herself to say the words that were expected of her, "you should go. My dad will be pissed if he finds you here."

TJ kissed her hard enough she felt it in the soles of her feet. "Let him be pissed."

He kept kissing her, long kisses interrupted by smaller ones like periods at the ends of unspoken sentences. "I'm… not… kidding," Susan said between the kisses. "You don't want to see him angry."

"What, does he turn into the Hulk or something?"

She giggled. "Nothing so dramatic. He's more the Batman type." She sighed. "But it's been a long day."

"Do tell." He kissed her again.

"TJ, please…."

He held her tight in arms that were strong from hours spent in the garage where he worked. Where she had found him. "I like it when you ask nicely," he said.

They kissed. He pulled her to the bed, and sank down on top of her. The kiss seemed to have weight, pressing her down down down into a place she'd never found before.

No. I found it when I found him.

"You should go," she said. The words held no meaning, and TJ knew it.

"I will… eventually."

"Today's not good for this."

"Sure it is. Today, and every day."

She didn't resist any longer. And this had been what she intended, hadn't it? Hadn't she wanted this to happen the moment she saw him? Hadn't every moment since then led to this single place, this singular time?

She surrendered to the moment.

15

The light in the window turned out.

Tommy started forward, but Rob held up a hand. Wait.

He could sense that Tommy and Kayla both wanted to move. They were hungry for a score, hungry for action. To them, the prospect of money coupled with the probability of violence was a siren call.

Aaron didn't move. Not because he was calm, he was just a prize-winning chicken with a yellow streak so broad there was nothing left over but the fear.

They waited. Five minutes. Ten.

Twenty.

The light didn't turn back on.

Rob gestured, and he and the others crept along the grounds. The area surrounding the house was lit – no surprise, places like this always had landscape lighting that cost at least the same as a small country – but less so than many other places that occupied the same socioeconomic sphere.

Cheap bastards. How can you be this rich and this stingy at the same time?

He wasn't really upset. Far from it. The Crawfords' choice in lighting was going to cost them far more than they saved.

It took a surprisingly long time to pick their way across the darkened grounds, which were bigger than any Rob had ever seen, at least in person.

Definitely more than just a couple million waiting for us.

They got to their entry point: a back door to the house. To get to it they had to cross over a porch that was itself nearly fifty feet wide and that wrapped around the entire house.

A sudden déjà vu gripped him.

Porch is just like the other one. The last one.

It's all gonna go to hell. Again.

"Something wrong?"

He almost didn't register the voice. And when he did, his face curled automatically. No one would see his expression, of course – not through the thick ski mask that covered his face. But he also knew that Aaron would know. Would know that Rob had heard him, and was disgusted at the man's cowardice.

For a moment it struck him that Aaron might not be a coward, after all. He constantly stood up to Rob, didn't he? He had managed –

(to have a family a wife a life)

– to keep up with a gang that despised him, he had kept a hold on what seemed to be the most important parts of himself.

And that's why I hate him.

"I'm fine," Rob said. And though the mask might cover his expression, he knew the kid would hear the loathing in his voice; would feel it.

Rob switched his gaze from Aaron to Kayla, who had waited until the exchange was over before kneeling in front of the back door.

"How long?" he said.

Kayla didn't answer for a few long seconds. Then she snorted, a low noise that slid through the darkness. "I don't think…." She pulled a small box out of one of her pockets. She had explained what it was once: something like a digital wall scanner, only instead of detecting wall studs it looked for specific types of wires with a specific range of electrical currents, a specific spectrum of radio or Bluetooth transmissions.

Essentially, it was an alarm detector.

The scanner blinked a few times, then turned green. She snorted again. "No alarm." She flicked a glance in Rob's direction. "You were right. These idiots didn't bother."

Rob almost hadn't believed it when he looked closely at the electrical plan sheets from the sheaf Tommy brought him. Most houses this size were specially wired for pre-installed, custom alarm systems. This place had shown no such features. Which didn't mean there would still be no alarm; systems now were easily installed. But still, he had thrilled when he saw a house like this. The essential feature left off the plans.

And he was even happier now.

My luck is changing already.

He could feel it: a lightness that stripped away years of failures in a moment. The feeling that tonight, everything would finally change.

Back on top, baby.

Tommy snorted, too. This one a sound of incredulity. "No alarm?" he whispered. "On a place like this? Fortune really does favor the brave."

"I told you, the guy was wasted when he left," said Rob. "Even if there is an alarm, he probably couldn't have turned it on if he tried. Numbers that small can be weally, weally hard to push."

He said the last in a nasally, babyish voice. Tommy and Kayla laughed so quietly it was barely a breeze in the windless night. No one would hear it inside the house.

But he heard. And smiled.

Yeah. The luck's changing.

Only Aaron, the ever-killer of all things buzz, was silent. He just waited. Then said, "I don't like it."

Tommy shook his head. "Of course you don't. You're an idiot."

Aaron managed to bridle, his cowardice sliding aside as umbrage replaced it. "I'm an idiot? Really?"

Rob had the sudden feeling that Aaron would stop this moment. Would steal their success – maybe go for one of their guns, maybe raise a scream that would alert the slumbering owners of the house.

"Shut up," said Rob. "Both of you." He stared hard at Aaron. "Especially you. Don't jinx this for us."

The moment he finished, there was a subtle click as Kayla cracked open the door. In spite of her assurances, everyone froze for a moment – even her – waiting for the telltale sound of an alarm going off.

Nothing.

Could be a silent alarm. Just alerting Crawford on his cell while a call goes directly to the cops.

But that wasn't it. He knew. His luck was changing.

Tonight was the night.

He went in.

The door opened to reveal a spacious kitchen. Everything was thoroughly modern, not at all worn. It had the look and feel of a room that gets updated every few years, whether it needs it or not. Stainless steel appliances perfectly matched one another, splashes of color artfully highlighted the perfect design of the space. Everything that wasn't metal was dark wood, and Rob knew this wasn't plywood covered by a PVC laminate, or even oak or cherry. This had to be teak or mahogany. But the dark cabinetry didn't detract from the feeling of bright openness the kitchen exhibited – even in the dead of night. The wood was itself polished to a sheen so perfect it was a glow in the darkness.

There was a center island the size of a conference table, which held a (second) complete stovetop and a (third) oven. The top of the island was a single, thick slab of marble, cut precisely, with rounded corners to prevent anything so banal as a bruise to the hired help.

On the wall behind the stove was a backsplash that alone probably cost ten thousand dollars, leading up to an industrial-size steel oven hood so clean it could have served as a mirror.

Not just the kitchen of the rich and famous, this was a kitchen meant to service those lucky few with utter efficiency, while maintaining the fiction that nothing ever occurred here. It was a place so looked-after that it was a delight to look upon.

Not that the scabs who live here would ever set foot in such a nasty place, a place where the help do their ugly work.

Rob looked at Tommy and Kayla. Their eyes gleamed, and he knew they were doing their own appraisals of the place, and of what it would mean to their score.

He didn't look at Aaron. He was in too good of a mood.

Tommy and Kayla finally looked at him. Their heads swiveled in sync, as though they were connected by strings no one could ever see. It made them a good team, a good addition to his team.

But sometimes, when they did that, it really creeped him out.

He swallowed the feeling, buried it under the conviction that tonight –

(it all changes)

– was going to be a very special night.

He nodded at them. Then pulled out the item that had been making the top pocket on his many-pocketed pants bulge. The gun was as dark as the rest of the kitchen was bright. It took the reflected light and swallowed it whole. It was an implement that, in Rob's hands, was meant for one thing only.

Aaron spoke behind him. "You said –"

Again, Rob had a moment. An instant where he wondered if Aaron really was braver than Rob thought. What would it cost a man, to stand up to three dangerous people in the dark? And one of them armed, to boot?

And, as before, Rob shoved the thought back. Tamped it down and covered it up with anger. "Shut up and worry about your part of the job."

He turned to one of the doors that led out of the kitchen: the door that, according to the architectural plans, led into a hall that would provide the easiest access to the rest of the house.

He took a step. Then stopped with his second foot raised mid-stride. Frozen in place by something he had no words for.

"What is it?" Kayla whispered.

Rob shook his head. "I don't…." He looked around again. Stoves, refrigerators, center island, sundry appliances. It was all perfectly appointed, perfectly laid out, perfect in every way.

So why were his muscles quivering? Why was everything inside him suddenly screaming, shrieking, No no no no watch watch watch out watch out!

RUN!

"I don't know," he finally managed. "Something about the way the kitchen is laid out."

He looked around. Nothing amiss, just the perfection that was so absent from his own life, but which he so deserved.

That's it. I don't belong.

No. That's not it. It's….

"Something," he murmured. "Something about the way the kitchen is laid out."

And that was it. He didn't know what it could be, but something was still tickling him. That threat, that sense of –

(Run run RUN!)

– an indefinable wrongness that had set him on edge.

He shook his head. Shook off the feeling. His gut had lied to him before. It led him to that job, didn't it? That one job?

It's nothing.

Get moving.

He looked from Tommy to Kayla. "Straight to the master bedroom. Keep your eyes peeled on the way, but unless it's the crown jewels, no side trips."

They already knew this. It was what they'd gone over at Rob's house in the hurried moments before everyone left for the job. But he needed to say it, as though saying the words would push back his sudden alarm.

And it worked. He had a plan, he had a team, they were in control, they –

"Please." Aaron again. Staring at Rob's gun, pleading for it to disappear.

Not gonna happen.

Rob stared at him with a message that should make it through the mask with ease: Shut up.

Message received. Aaron visibly swallowed, then looked away.

Rob looked away from him.

Back to the door that led to the rest of the house.

He stepped to it.

Opened the door.

It's all coming back to the way it should be.

He stepped through. The rest of the house waited.

16

It would be easy to stop this. Just scream. Just one single yell, and it all comes down.

Aaron almost did it. In the moment he was alone, the instant after Rob walked out of the room with Tommy and Kayla hot on his heels, eager to get to the finish line of this ugly race.

He almost yelled.

But didn't.

What if they get away? What if Rob avoids the cops? Gets back to the city?

Gets back to Dee?

His mouth, half-open for the burgeoning shout, slowly closed.

He would end it if he could. But he couldn't. Because that might be – would be – a death sentence for Dee. She'd already sidestepped one of those, already slipped out the back door the first time the Grim Reaper came knocking.

She wouldn't escape a second time. Especially if Rob's hands held the scythe.

But he couldn't help looking back. Stealing a glance at the back door. Kayla had pulled it closed behind them, but it wasn't locked. Easy to step through, to disappear in the dark.

But that wouldn't happen. He'd be seen, hunted down, made to do what he came here for, and Dee would suffer the punishment for his moment of rebellion.

Rob brought a gun.

Aaron knew what that meant. Knew that Rob wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice anyone in the house to reach his goal.

I have to stay. If I go, who's going to hold him back?

"Last one, babe," he said. The words came out so quietly he barely heard them. "Then we're done. Then we have to be done."

He turned away from the false escape the back door promised. Turned back to the door that led to his only reality: to Rob and Tommy and Kayla and the job.

I have to stay. I'm the only way this family makes it out alive.

He went through the door.

The difference between the kitchen and the rest of the house was obvious, and it was a change he had seen before. The kitchen, beautiful and unnaturally perfect as it was, was a room that saw use. It held tools for cooking meals, for party preparations, for life itself.

The rest of the house was clearly made not to be lived in, but appreciated. A lot of the most expensive houses were like that: one or two rooms that served a utilitarian purpose, that serviced human necessities. The rest were there to be experienced in passing, lives glancing over and through them like stones skipped across a mirrored pond.

Rob, leading the short column of thieves, passed through the main hall efficiently, slowing long enough as they passed each room that he and the others could look in and check for anything so valuable it simply couldn't be passed up. All the doors were open, which made it easy to look in. No secrets – the house a living embodiment of simple, foolish trust.

No one had a flashlight on, but it was easy to see into the rooms, the outside lighting dim but still bright enough to allow anyone to make out the contents of each room.

On the left side: a dining room, a living room. The dining room was gorgeously appointed. A silver chandelier hung over a table that seated eighteen, maybe twenty. Expensive buffet table at the far end, silver service resting on it, waiting for morning to come and breakfast to be served.

The living room was nicer than St. Peter's Basilica. Much nicer. A long leather couch against one wall, a coffee table that probably dated back to the discovery of coffee. Another chandelier hanging from the tray ceiling – a ceiling recessed not a few inches, but a few feet, with several steps leading up to the highest point like an inverted staircase. The recessed portion of the ceiling was white, with the rest covered by a light gray hardwood of some kind, filigrees around the edges that would have made the room suitable for French royalty circa Louis XV.

On the right of the hall: music room, trophy room, guest bath.

The music room held a piano, harp, and an antique cylinder music box the size of a juke box. The floor was teak, probably a floor that people actually waltzed on.

Mozart would have loved this room.

The trophy room was the first one that made Aaron feel vaguely uneasy. Or rather, it was the first one that made him uneasy in and of itself – every room made him uneasy in the sense that he worried they might find someone in it. The sense that he might have to stop Rob – or, more likely, Tommy or Kayla – from killing someone to keep any alarms from being raised.

Or just for the fun of it.

The trophy room was creepy in the darkness. There was a dark brown sofa, a few tables that looked like they could be either writing desks or gaming tables – elegant poker hands being dealt while expensive cigar smoke hung in the air and cognacs were sipped.

Elegant, except for the many eyes that stared into the room. Trophies hung every few feet along the dark wood walls. Deer, moose, a wolf with its lips drawn back in a perpetual growl. Even a few smaller animals, birds. Glass eyes that stared nowhere at all and in so doing captured everything in their empty gazes.

Aaron shivered and hurried past that room.

The "guest" bath was bigger than Aaron's bedroom. And the only reason he could find for it being a "guest" bathroom was that it was so close to the front of the house. It still had a bath – a porcelain tub that sat on the floor on clawed feet carved to look like a big cat's paws – and a shower designed in such a way that it simultaneously conveyed the contradicting impressions that it was usable, but should never actually be used.

There was a bidet, too. Both it and the toilet had keypads on their sides – probably temperature controls for the seats.

Classy, classy.

Then he was through the hall, and into the foyer.

The foyer was huge, perfectly appointed. He had to place his feet carefully to keep them from slapping against the stone tiles, which had been cut into intricate patterns. The walls were an off-white – the kind of thing people with the kind of time to debate shades of white would probably call "eggshell" – and yet another chandelier hung from a ceiling nearly thirty feet overhead. This chandelier was much bigger than the others had been, though. Probably ten feet in diameter, a set of silver wheels from which hung thousands of crystals, each wheel backlit by cunningly hidden lights that would no doubt cast perfectly diffused illumination that would brighten without stressing the eyes.

Tommy gave a low whistle. Rob motioned to him to shut up, but his body language showed he agreed with the sentiment.

Kayla was at the wall near the front door, examining what was clearly an alarm control pad. She returned to the group after just a moment, shaking her head.

"Morons," she muttered.

So there was an alarm after all.

Aaron couldn't help wishing that it had gone off. That way the job would end without it being his fault.

Without it hurting Dee.

Rob moved to the stairs. Tommy and Kayla followed. Aaron, as always, brought up the rear.

No, no, no, no, no….

He was mouthing the word as it sounded over and over in his mind. A never-ending prayer composed of so many things.

No, please keep them from hurting anyone.

No, please keep Dee safe.

No, please turn back time so none of this will be happening.

On and on, with every step upward. Praying to some God who he knew wouldn't listen.

Up to the second floor.

To the bedrooms.

To the people.

No, no, no, no….

But God was as silent as the rest of the house.

And Aaron kept walking. Forward. Upward.

To the end.

17

Kayla had a weird impulse to push Tommy over the side of the stairs.

The stairway curved upward in a graceful sweep, hugging on one side to the wall, on the other ending in a white banister.

I could do it. Just shove, and he'd fall and his head would splash all over the stone floor.

She didn't hate her brother. She loved him – at least as much as she was capable of love. She suspected sometimes that what other people called love might in actuality be beyond her grasp, that something inside her mind was broken in some basic way. But she couldn't ever quite manage to care about that fact.

It actually made life easier. She didn't have to worry about other people's feelings, about their fears or worries. Or about their pain.

The way she saw it, she was free in a way that no one else who was "broken" could ever be.

But there was the occasional downfall. That awful feeling when she didn't get her way, the knowledge that when she didn't get what she wanted the rest of the universe died a bit inside.

The periodic urge to toss Tommy over a rail, or to run him over or shoot him or any of a handful of other ideas that flitted into her mind from time to time.

But she didn't hate him. To paraphrase a movie she hadn't seen – she didn't like movies, they were too long and complicated – he completed her.

She knew deep inside that her periodic urges to kill him were born of the simple fact that he knew her. Not in the basic way Rob or Aaron or the men she occasionally picked up at bars knew her. He had seen her as a child, beaten by their mother before being turned over to a father who had much darker impulses than simple violence. He had seen her broken and bruised, bleeding on the floor of the closet where she always took refuge after such events.

He had seen her cry.

Had seen her weak.

And for that, she knew, he would someday die. Because she wasn't weak now, and the only thing that tethered her to that time of fragile vulnerability was him. His very existence reminded her of the simple fact she wasn't perfect, because she'd come from an imperfect birth, to an imperfect home.

Just toss him over.

But that would screw up the job. And the job mattered enough to her that she continued to allow his life. Besides, the knowledge that someday she'd kill her own brother made everything just a bit sharper, a bit clearer, a bit more delicious. The knowledge of his someday-death was like perpetually staring at a Christmas present that you knew was exactly what you wanted.

The waiting was painful, and maddening… and so, so sweet.

With every step up, she pushed the urge to murder a bit farther down. When she reached the top of the stairs, which became a balcony with a balustrade that would prevent anyone from tripping –

(but not from being pushed)

– over to a painful death on the stone floor below, the feeling was almost gone.

She loved her brother. And she wasn't going to kill him. Not tonight.

She looked down the hall. There were five doors on the left side of the hall, and four on the right. A lamp hung from the ceiling, a bit closer to the back of the hall than the front. It was one of the only things she'd seen in the house that wasn't either elegant or expensive-looking: just an inverted hemisphere hanging from an iron cord that looked clunky and thick and wholly out of place.

Beyond the lamp, though, beyond the doors to each side: a single door on the end.

That's where they'll be. The master bedroom, the safe.

She had the urge to run forward, to tear down the hall and throw the door open and get to the real business of the night.

But it was like the urge to kill Tommy. It wasn't useful, it wouldn't get her what she wanted, so she'd put it away.

She took point this time, moving past Rob on the way to that beautiful door at the end. Just as had been the case downstairs, most of the doors were all open.

They should just put out a sign: "Open for business…. Thieves welcome!"

Though, of course, the door at the end of the hall was closed. So was the last door on the right, and the second on the left.

The first doorway to the left led to a guest bedroom that was every bit as nice as she expected based on the rest of the house. Empty, though, and clearly not the kind of place where anything important would be stowed. She flitted past it, to the first closed door.

She opened it.

The door led to a landing, then stairs that proceeded up in complete darkness. Clearly leading to the attic she'd seen on the plans.

It was surprisingly spooky. The kind of dark staircase that wouldn't have been out of place in a haunted house. The kind of stairs an idiot would run up when followed by a chainsaw-wielding maniac in a lacrosse mask.

She re-closed the door, then turned to see Tommy standing rigid in the middle of the hall.

She drew close to him. "What is it?" she whispered. She could feel tension pulsing out of him.

Rob joined her, looking up and down the hall, nervous eyes glinting like those of a cornered animal.

Weak.

I'll kill him someday, too.

Fun.

"You see something?" whispered Rob.

Tommy remained still for a moment, then his head turned from left to right and back again. He hesitated, then asked, "Don't these kinda doors usually swing into the rooms?"

Kayla looked. He was right: all the doors were swung outward, flush against the wall so it was less noticeable, but even the ones that were closed had hinges on the outside.

Rob looked like he had down in the kitchen: unsure, trying to put his finger on what it was that mattered about this little tidbit.

He's gonna back out.

Kayla didn't want that. Not only was this job going to be incredibly lucrative – she believed Rob in his assessment of that – but it was getting kind of exciting.

Exciting was good.

A lot of people thought Kayla was a daredevil; a reckless woman who took risks when others refused to move. But she knew the truth: it wasn't that she was reckless, she was simply invincible. Nothing could hurt her, because the universe wouldn't let that happen. And in her deepest dreams, the dreams of her parents, her father and mother and the pain they visited on her, she knew why: the universe owed her.

She would never be hurt – for all she knew, she might never even die, she might be immortal. And knowing that, she could move forward, enjoy life to the fullest.

It wasn't acting reckless if you knew you were safe.

But Rob didn't know that. And looking at his eyes she could see that he was getting thoroughly creeped out. She didn't know why – it was just doors.

Had he lost his nerve? Had one too many bad jobs soured his ability to ever be successful?

No. Not tonight.

She moved. Headed forward toward that door at the end, the door.

She passed the rooms to her right and left. Other than the guest room and the now-closed door to the attic, there were also doorways that led to a bathroom and a game room. The game room had comfy couches, a dart board. A big TV with game and sound equipment stacked in the cabinet beneath it. An air hockey table hunkered in the center of the room. Beyond that….

The final room on the left made her pause, and for a moment the uneasiness that had gotten to her brother and Rob gripped her as well.

The room itself was unthreatening, from the point of view that there was nothing dangerous in it. But that was the point: there was nothing dangerous in it, because there was nothing at all in it. Four white walls, the cold mouth of an unlit fireplace. A mantel hung over the fireplace, as bereft of ornamentation as the rest of the room.

Kayla could feel Rob looking in the room behind her, and could feel an unease that matched her own.

I'm not scared though. Not at all. What's there to be scared of in a universe that owes me so much?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

(Just like what's in the room. Nothing at all.)

She turned away. Left Rob staring in for a moment before she joined her brother. He was casing the rooms on the right: a billiard room with a beautifully-appointed pool table in the center, a stained glass lamp hanging above it; a media room: theater-style seating facing what had to be the biggest HDTV on the market, ninety-eight inches if it was a foot, probably thirty grand to buy something like that, even a genuine theater popcorn maker that sat quietly in the back of the room.

And closed door number two.

Tommy moved quickly to it. He turned the knob slowly, so quietly it didn't make so much as a whisper in the hall. Pushed the door open a crack, then a foot, then all the way.

A bedroom. Pink enough to practically scream, "teenage girl!" but not so pink as to be tacky.

Tommy drew up his mask, revealing most of his face. Kayla wondered for a moment why he would do such a dumb thing, then she saw what he was looking at, and understood.

There was a girl on the bed. Probably sixteen or seventeen. She wore boxers and a tank top, though the top had drawn up high enough that it concealed little and revealed much. The sheets were rumpled around her, and the outline of a young man on the bed with her – turned away, so his back was all that could be seen of him – left little doubt exactly what had happened in here. Recently.

The girl was what Tommy was staring at. What he had pulled up his mask to see more clearly. Or if not to see, to enjoy.

The girl was young, but that was the way Tommy preferred them. Young and unblemished, unbroken. He liked to ruin beautiful things, and if that beautiful thing was a girl, so much the better.

He licked his lips. Actually took a step toward the bed.

Kayla would have grabbed him. Would have stopped him. This wasn't the plan, and doing it wouldn't be much benefit to her – the only thing that mattered. Before she could stop him, though, a hand snaked out of the darkness of the hallway, pulling on Tommy's bicep.

Aaron. The smaller man shook his head, a quick whip back and forth. No way.

Tommy looked for a moment like he might just lose it right there. Kayla didn't like Aaron – Rob had called him a buzzkill on more than one occasion, and she agreed – but Tommy despised him. Aaron actually daring to touch him might be the thing that finally put him over the edge.

She could see her brother contemplating it: one quick motion, a single jerk, and Aaron would fall lifeless to the ground, his neck snapped and all his whining and bellyaching about "right and wrong" would be silenced forever.

Kayla didn't want to do it. It would screw up the job.

But wouldn't it be fun?

The choice was taken from her. Rob leaned into the room. Looked around. Two forms on the bed, and Kayla noted that Rob's gun was pointed directly at the girl.

As though sensing something amiss, the girl moaned. Just slightly. She turned toward her boyfriend, throwing one arm over his side.

Aaron was watching the whole thing unfold. Hand still clamped on Tommy's arm, eyes pleading with Rob not to do anything.

Kayla's breath quickened. This was an exciting development, and even if the job didn't turn out the way she thought it would, this moment would make it all worth it.

Finally, Rob's gun lowered a hair. He looked at Tommy, jerking his head toward the hall and the door at the end.

Tommy cast a last longing look at the girl on the bed. Then he slowly drew down his mask and followed Rob. Kayla went next, leaving Aaron to close the door. He was a pro in that respect – it made less noise than it had when Tommy opened it. He was trying to keep the two in the room unaware and alive.

Good luck with that.

She knew everyone else in the group had marked this room. And that if there was any noise from this point forward, one of the first moves Rob would make would be to order her or Tommy – or both – back here to take the couple by whatever force might be necessary.

Fun.

She squeezed her brother's arm as the door closed. He looked at her, irritation clear in his eyes, then calmed and nodded. He got it. She wasn't going to stop his fun, but there was a time and a place.

He'd get his chance.

They all would.

Rob was standing in front of the final, closed door. He should have been moving to open it, but he was just standing. And the longer she watched, the longer he continued to do nothing at all.

After a while – too long – she sidled up to him. "What?" she whispered.

He looked around. The doors, the rooms, the hanging lamp, all of it. "Something," he said. "Something about this place…." Then he shook himself, casting off whatever thoughts had reached up from his subconscious. He nodded to Kayla.

She reached for the closed door. The final door.

The only one that mattered.

She opened it.

And they went in.

18

So far, every step had been an agony, culminating in the moment when Tommy looked like he was going to lose control and rape and murder the girl in her room. That was, Aaron thought, as bad as it could get.

But he was wrong. Even after he shut the girl's door and rejoined the others, his dread somehow grew. Each step down the dark hallway was worse than the last.

It didn't matter. No one else felt the way he did: this was just money and maybe some fun. The people in the house, the lives in danger –

(Dee!)

– made no difference to anyone at all.

Kayla turned the doorknob on the final door. Like the rest of the doors, this one opened outward, a tight arc that somehow went too fast and terribly slow.

The rooms at Aaron's back were large-to-huge. He figured that they took up half the entire upstairs floor space.

The master bedroom was the other half. It stretched the entire width of the second floor. To Aaron's left was a sitting area: divan and chaise, separated by a bookshelf. A door led into one of the twin bathrooms – a "his" and a "hers."

To his right, a vanity sat against one wall. It looked Victorian, with outward-swept legs that curled gracefully into several drawers, all of it topped by a mirror held in place by scrolled woodwork. A full-length mirror leaned against the wall near the vanity, as well as a wardrobe that looked so beautiful and expensive it was nearly shocking; the type of thing you expected to see in a movie, not in an actual home. Beyond the wardrobe was a half-open door to the second of the master bathrooms.

And in the middle of it all sat a king-size, four-poster bed. An actual canopy draped across the dark wood posts, heavy fabric that looked softer than most blankets. Tassels and golden cords hung down, twisted artfully around each bedpost.

Snoring in the bed was a man. Rob had said the mark's name was Crawford, and this man certainly matched his description: dark hair, graying at the edges; a hawk nose that made him seem a bit peremptory even in repose.

Beside Crawford, another shape lay outlined by the thick duvet. The cover was pulled up so high on her that Aaron could only see a spill of dark hair on her pillow.

Crawford took a deep breath.

Three guns came out, pointed instantly at the pair on the bed: Kayla, Tommy, and Rob were all packing. Aaron felt the world start spinning a bit faster under his feet.

He had known they would all bring weapons. No matter what they said, what they promised, none of them would ever consider a job without bringing firepower. But the sight of the guns still sent a shock through his spine. Everything was out of control.

It was never in control.

Aaron started trembling, his muscles tensing and releasing so fast he expected his teeth to chatter together.

Say something.

What? What can I say?

Crawford snuffled. Then took another deep breath and visibly slipped back into an even deeper slumber. The guns lowered. Not pointed at the floor, but at least not directly aimed at his head.

Rob pointed. In the back of the room, between the two bathrooms, was an open door that would lead to the closet. To the safe. The door hung open, revealing a few hanging clothes, darkness beyond.

Rob nudged Aaron. Almost a shove, and he nearly tripped over his feet before he regained his balance. He righted himself, got his feet planted firmly under him, and glanced at Rob. His eyes were flat, unblinking. If the man went to a rattlesnake family reunion, he'd fit right in.

Aaron moved reluctantly to the closet. He entered, and in only a few steps he fell into pitch blackness. He pulled out a flashlight – not the usual white light carried by people the world around, but a specially-designed red LED light. It had the dual advantage of not ruining his darkness-adapted sight, and being low enough that even sleepers in the same room wouldn't be jerked to wakefulness by its glow. A safe light for a safecracker.

The clothes pressed in on him, and the light made it seem like he was trespassing a killing floor. Claustrophobic in spite of the fact that the closet was larger than should be legal.

He saw the safe.

A bit of him shriveled inside. He knew the safe was supposed to be there, but actually seeing it drove out the last remnants of hope. They were in the house, in the owners' room, but if the safe hadn't been here –

What? You think Rob would have just walked out, whistling and smiling?

Maybe it's better this way.

He moved back to the closet door. Leaned out and gestured to Rob to join him.

Rob did, moving quickly and quietly. Tommy and Kayla kept their guns pointed in the general direction of the bed, but they couldn't resist moving toward the closet as well. Looking in to see the prize.

Aaron had already moved to the back of the closet, kneeling by the safe. It was four feet tall, maybe three feet deep. A good-size safe, certainly big enough to hide a lot of bearer bonds.

Rob nudged him, gestured for him to get started. Aaron flicked his eyes toward the closet door. Not at Kayla and Tommy, who were looking in with naked greed. Beyond them. To the sleeping couple on the bed.

What if they wake up?

Rob's mask moved as he grinned beneath it. He drew a finger across his throat.

Aaron knew that would be the answer. But it still stung. Every second of this night was a betrayal: a revelation of the lies Rob would speak, the violence he would commit.

Aren't you doing it, too?

No. Trying to stop it.

Rob nudged him again. Aaron drew tools from his pocket. The safe had an electronic lock: a keypad built into the face of the door, a lever next to it that would open the safe after the right combination was entered.

Aaron clicked off his red flashlight. Moving by touch he drew out another light from one of his pockets. He turned it on silently – it had originally clicked, but he adjusted it and now it slid on and off without a sound – and aimed the pale yellow light at the keypad.

Unlike the red light, the yellow one wasn't designed to save his vision. Rather, it emitted a spectrum that reacted with the skin oils people left behind on everything they touched. It wouldn't give him the combination, but it was an important first step to getting it.

All the metallic keys shone in the light, curved edges refracting the glare in different directions. None of them looked different from the others.

Aaron shifted a button on the side of the light. Now it was green – a different spectrum. And now several of the keys looked different, like a darker green ink had been applied: hundreds of layers of fingerprints. These were the keys that the owners used when they opened the safe.

He took out a grease pen and wrote the numbers on the front of the safe: "1, 2, 5, 7, 8," then turned off the light and returned the device to his pocket. He turned the red light back on, and removed a small screwdriver from his pack. The keypad was fastened by custom screws, but he had a series of adjustable heads that should work.

He picked the right one after only two tries, and a moment later had the fasteners off and laying in a neat row atop the safe. The keypad dangled from a thick cord of braided wires, like a flat eye hanging from the optic nerve. It always disquieted Aaron to see, and he wasn't sure whether it was the image itself, or the fact of what he was doing when he saw it.

Another tool came out of his pockets. This one was a device that looked like a multimeter of the type electricians use to measure current, complete with a red lead and a black one, each with a tiny alligator clip at the end.

He clipped the leads to a pair of the wires leading to the keypad, twisting the clips slightly as he did so that they stripped off the insulation and lay bare the wiring beneath. The scanner had a small keypad below an LED screen, and he used it to type in the numbers he'd written on the safe.

1-2-5-7-8.

He hit another button, and the LED began blinking, numbers scrolling across it so quickly they were blurry masses of green and black.

Rob edged close to him. He watched the scanner for a moment, then whispered, "How long?"

Aaron didn't want to answer. He waited a moment, irrationally hoping that Rob would forget he'd asked and just leave. When Rob prodded him, he answered, "I have the base numbers… probably. But finding the right combination will take some time."

Rob leaned in so close Aaron could tell what he'd eaten last. It was pizza. With anchovies. "How. Much. Time?" Each word was a whisper, but they somehow managed to convey Rob's willingness to escalate things if he didn't get the right answer.

"Six to twenty minutes, best guess," he finally said. He looked past Rob, past Kayla and Tommy, again returning his gaze to the sleeping couple. "Please, Rob, we don't have to –"

"Make it fast." Rob tapped Aaron's shoulder with his gun. "I'd hate to see what happens if anyone wakes up. Or if I have to wake them up."

19

Rob looked at his watch. Seven minutes and counting.

He knew this was the one – he knew it. He could hear what was in the safe calling him, screaming for him to come to it, to take it.

And yet every minute passed with nothing to show for it. Every second a new disappointment.

Maybe my luck's not changing, after –

The LED blinked. Not the way it had been, a strobe-flash of numbers flinging past too quickly to see. Now it blinked steadily, slowly. A set of numbers on the screen appeared, disappeared, then reappeared once more in an endless loop.

"25178."

The safe clicked.

Rob almost dropped his gun in his excitement. He looked back and saw Kayla and Tommy staring in: they'd heard the noise. He should probably make them pay attention to the couple on the bed, rather than what was going on here. But his excitement swallowed everything else. All there was – the sum of the universe – was the safe, was him, was his long-awaited right to return to the top.

Aaron unclipped the scanner, then pulled the safe's lever to the side. The door pulled open with satisfying slowness. The heft of something crafted to protect the most valuable of objects, the most precious of –

"The hell?"

The words were spoken at full volume, and Rob nearly scolded the speaker for forgetting to whisper, until he realized that the voice was his own.

He said it again. "The hell?"

There was nearly nothing in the safe. Certainly there were no bearer bonds, no jewels, no money, not even a manila envelope that might hold birth certificates or passports or social security information.

There was only a single paper. It was thick, nearly construction paper, folded in half so it stood like a tent on the single shelf that bisected the interior of the safe. And on it, scrawled in dark, angry slashes of ink, was, under the circumstances, the strangest sentence Rob had ever seen.

those who have nothing cannot be robbed

Rob stared at it for a moment, his mind completely stalled.

Not here. The bonds aren't here. My money isn't here!

Aaron reached out and took the paper. As he did, another piece of paper fell from inside it. He picked up the smaller piece and looked at it under his light. It looked like it might be part of a photo, but too small to make out what it was a picture of. He flipped it over, and on the back was a number: "1."

Rob stared at it all for another angry beat. Blood surged through his chest, rocketing skyward and filling his head and ears with a thundering pulse. Rage took control of his muscles and his hand tightened on his gun to the point of being painful.

"What the hell is this?" he growled. He still didn't whisper. Whispering was done, the time for stealth was past. "Where's the money? Where are the bearer bonds and –" He cut himself off, spinning to where Tommy and Kayla were still looking at the safe. "Get them up," he said.

"Rob, please don't –" Aaron began.

"Get them up!" Rob roared. "I want –"

The words ended. His voice silenced. His mouth hung open, like he'd had his jaw broken not by a surprise punch but by the mere sight of what lay beyond the closet door.

Kayla and Tommy saw him looking beyond them. They turned, again moving in that creepy unison that always made Rob uneasy.

Tommy cursed. Kayla made a small noise that might have been a gasp.

The bed, the beautiful four-poster bed in the center of the room.

It was empty.

Crawford and his wife were gone.

Rob ran out of the closet. He sensed Aaron scooping up his tools and shoving them into a pocket behind him. Then he was standing beside Kayla and Tommy in the bedroom as shocked silence gave way to shocked speech.

"Where'd they –" Tommy began, with Kayla saying, "We just looked away for a minute –" at the same time before Rob cut them both off with a terse, "Shut up. Find them."

All of them had been moving by ambient light until now – flashlights were always a double-edged sword during a burglary. Now Rob, Tommy, and Kayla all grabbed Maglites from their pockets and turned them on. The beams slashed through the room, creating phantom movement as new shadows sprung into being.

Rob moved toward the closest bathroom door as Kayla ran to the other and Tommy dropped to his knees to check under the bed. Aaron was standing in the doorway to the closet, staring down at the paper and the bit of photo that had been in the safe.

"Help, you idiot!" he snapped.

Aaron moved, but Rob didn't see where he went. He was already in the bathroom – easily discerned as the "his" bathroom by the shaving articles on the sink, the tight circle of expensive colognes beside them.

Other than that and the fixtures, there was nothing in the bathroom that shouldn't be here; certainly no one cowering in the bath or hiding in the linen closet at the back of the room.

Rob rushed out just as Kayla emerged from the other bathroom. She shook her head, and so did Tommy, who was still kneeling beside the bed. Aaron had managed to move all of three feet out of the closet before he was apparently paralyzed by indecision.

Dumb, stupid idiot.

I'm gonna kill him.

Later.

Rob motioned for Kayla and Tommy to follow him out – he didn't so much as look at Aaron. If he had, he might have killed him right then. And as nice as that would be, it would add too much of a mess for the current situation.

He rushed out of the master bedroom, back into the long hall that traversed the rest of the second floor.

A bit past the ceiling lamp that still hung awkwardly overhead, he skidded to a stop.

Tommy stopped right beside him: he had seen it, too. Rob shared a look with the big man.

The doors in the hall – all of them – were closed.

They were open. Just a minute ago, they were all open.

Now they were tightly shut. It couldn't be that Crawford and his wife took shelter in two different rooms and shut the doors behind them, either: that would account for two more rooms with closed doors, not six.

There's no way they could have done this. Even if they wanted to run room to room, closing doors all the way, there's no way. There was no time.

Tommy darted out a hand and pulled on the door that led to the media room. Any pretense of stealth was gone now, so when he gripped the knob it wasn't with the quiet motion of a thief, it was just a hard grab followed by a quick rattling as he first tried to turn it then actively shook it.

Locked.

And something inside him told Rob that all the doors would be the same.

What's going on?

Kayla had drawn even with them, pressed close behind her brother. Looking from left to right with wide eyes.

Rob suddenly didn't care what was going on. He didn't want to know.

Tommy began moving – fast – toward the stairs. Rob followed instantly. This wasn't time to solve mysteries, it was time to get the hell out.

He heard Kayla behind him, and a third set of footsteps that meant that coward Aaron was bugging out as well.

Only he's not a coward, is he? We're all running.

And we should. We need to get outta here fast.

"I don't like this. Something's –" Kayla began, again overlapping her brother's speech as he said, "Where did these ass –"

Then Tommy went down. Just fell hard like he'd been kneecapped by a thug with a baseball bat. And he screamed just like it, too, his free hand clapping against his shin. Rob swung his flashlight to look at it, and saw blood sheeting between and over the big man's fingers.

"Tommy!" screamed Kayla. She rushed to her brother, tried to hold her own small hand against his. Both hands were red in an instant.

Rob stared. Just stared, and couldn't understand.

What's happening?

He swung the light away from Tommy, nausea settling like a lead ball in his stomach. He wasn't afraid of blood – he'd caused more than a little of it to flow in his day – but for some reason the sight of the big man howling on the floor, bloodied by some unknown force… it –

(scared frightened terrified)

– deeply unnerved him.

His flashlight beam swung toward the end of the hall, toward the balcony and the stairs. It caught the bottom edges of the crystalline chandelier that hung above the foyer and sent it sparkling back. A light too bright and beautiful for this dark night that had begun so right and suddenly felt so wrong.

He swept the light back and forth, side to side. Looking for something, anything, that might explain what had just happened.

Tommy was still screaming. Aaron was beside him now as well, removing a dark blue handkerchief from a pocket and binding it against the man's shin.

The handkerchief soaked immediately. Dark blue deepened to arterial red.

Rob kept sweeping the flashlight back and forth. And saw something.

It was just a glisten, the barest flicker. And it wasn't so much the gleam of… whatever it was… it was the placement.

Something was hanging in midair. Just hanging there, impossibly suspended in what seemed to be the air itself. Rob cast his light back to where he had spotted the glint.

It was blood. A few drops just hanging. Red jewels that had spewed from Tommy's leg, not falling to the carpet but simply gathering in midair about a foot –

(about shin-height)

– above the carpet.

How? How can it be there?

He drew closer. Knelt before it almost like he was worshipping the sudden, dark miracle that had appeared before them.

But it wasn't a miracle. A thin wire of some kind – nearly invisible as spider silk – stretched across the hall. A trip wire, yes, but one built not simply to halt, but to maim.

Tommy's blood finally fell from where it had beaded on the wire. Surface tension released its pull, and the droplets drooped and plummeted to the carpet.

Rob swung his light to the right, to the left. The wire wasn't attached to the wall, wasn't looped around eyelets or anchored by screws.

It simply disappeared into the wall on either side. Anchored somewhere beyond the paint and wood and drywall.

How could they have –

The thought cut off. The answer was obvious before it completed: They couldn't have.

Just like the doors all closing.

No way to do any of this.

And, finally, a repeat of the thought that kept bouncing around his mind, an echo in an endless loop. An echo that didn't fade, but instead grew louder with each repetition.

What's happening?

What's happening?

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Then he looked behind him. Looked away from the wire because it and the sudden lack of control it represented were too terrifying to contemplate.

He looked behind him.

And screamed.

THREE:
... who lived in
the house ...

She got better.

He moved her to a different hospital. One that was not third- or second- or even first-rate. This was a place reserved for the truly wealthy, for those so famous that no one knew their names, only the things they had done, the fantastic inventions and innovations and practices and products that moved the world.

The woman improved, bit by bit.

He needed money for it, to be sure. And he hated how he got it. But each time he wanted to stop, he asked himself how long she would survive without what he was doing.

He kept working.

Kept giving money to her.

She got better, bit by bit, and the light gradually returned to his life.

But in his quiet moments, the seconds and minutes of his life when he was alone with himself and had no one to lie to, he admitted that the light was different. It was shaded at the edges.

The darkness was his.

And his alone.

20

Aaron hadn't wanted to be here.

Hadn't wanted to do the job.

Hadn't wanted to do any of the jobs.

At first it started slowly. Nothing he thought would hurt anyone. Rob had met him in a bar. Found out he worked for a safe company and plied him with both drink and questions for the rest of the night.

Rob was so pleasant. So personable. So kind.

They became friends – or so Aaron thought. Though looking back he could see that the friendship, the offers to buy round after round when they started meeting regularly at the bar, the questions into his family and personal life had all been for deeper, darker purposes than mere friendship.

Dee got sick. And Rob told him he had a way to get her some money. To pay for the hospital bills that had mounted so quickly there was no hope he could ever pay for them. The hospitals were calling, their debt collectors giving lie to their outward protestations that her health was their primary concern.

She was dying. That was why he did it. Dying, and the cruddy place they were going to ship her to wasn't really a hospital, it was a debtor's prison. No chains or walls keeping her in, just outdated equipment and barely-competent doctors who would restrict her to an old, sprung mattress and wait for her to finish dying.

He couldn't let that happen.

He did the job. Tommy and Kayla seemed different on that job, too – calmer and more in control. But that had just been another ruse. Another bit of play-acting, this one designed to fool him into believing that no one was getting hurt. Not really hurt. Money and jewels would either be replaced by insurance or would be lost by people who could damn well afford to lose them.

Not like him. Not like Dee, who had finally been moved to the county hospital where she lay on a cot in the hall more often than she enjoyed even the basic privilege of dying in privacy. She had tubes going in and out, voided into a bag and a bedpan, and all of it for the world to see.

He had to get her out.

The first job wasn't enough. Nor the second.

On the third, Rob turned over his cut to Aaron. "Take care of her," he said, and there were tears in his eyes. Tears. "Take care of Dee. She sounds like a good woman, and no good woman…." His voice strangled itself to nothing. He looked away. Waved Aaron off.

Aaron heard noises coming from Rob's apartment, sounds he took to be concerned sobs.

Another thing that, looking back, he saw as a lie. The man hadn't been crying, he'd been laughing.

Aaron quit. He moved to a different, better job at another safe company. Then another. And a fourth. In the space of a few years he'd worked at half the companies producing high-end safes in the U.S. At every one that had an office or satellite factory in a hundred-mile radius.

He kept meeting Rob. Floating him information and then accompanying him on the jobs themselves. And it was all worth it because Dee was getting good help and getting good medicine and getting better.

She went into remission.

He went to Rob – to his friend – and explained he was done.

Rob broke his arm. Threatened to do much worse to Dee. And as soon as Aaron's arm was good enough, he went on another job.

He had never shared details of what he knew with Rob. Had never shared how he kept his security clearance when he left each safe company, how he tunneled into back doors to find out if potential marks – their names supplied by Rob, though he had no idea how the man got them in the first place – had safes he could hack or crack. Rob had asked, but that information Aaron had kept close to the vest.

Because, in his heart of hearts, in his deepest places, he already knew. From the beginning he knew who Rob was, what he was, and that he didn't give a damn about Dee. He knew from the beginning, in a place so far inside his heart it had no name, that Rob just wanted to help Rob, and that what he gave, he expected back a thousand fold.

Aaron kept protesting. But he kept doing the jobs. Because Dee was still better, he owed it to Rob, he couldn't stop because who knew what would happen then?

And, mostly, that lie worked for him. Even on the job – that terrible job a few years ago where the whole family had been butchered – even then, he somehow managed to convince himself it was worth it.

For Dee.

But now there were screams again. Not screams punctuated by guns firing, but the deep-throated screams of a big man on the floor. Tommy was rocking back and forth, blood spurting between the fingers he had wrapped around his shin. Kayla was saying something, but Aaron couldn't really tell what it was – his hearing was strange all of a sudden. Everything sounded like his ears had been stuffed full of cotton.

A scream broke through. One he never thought he would hear.

Rob.

The man shrieked, a clipped sound that might have been humorous in other circumstances. Now it was a driving spike that bored into Aaron and pierced the defenses his mind had erected against whatever was happening.

Tommy bleeding.

My hands in his blood, holding down the handkerchief – how did it even get there, how did I even get here?

Rob screaming.

He looked at Rob, saw him stumble back, catching himself just before he would have plowed into the thin wire that stretched across the hall.

What –?

Then he followed Rob's gaze.

Screamed.

Inside the master bedroom they had just left, clearly visible from the hall, stood a figure.

Something about the person's posture told Aaron that it was a man. But the outline and stance were all he had to go on, because the man had no face.

He was dressed all in black. Head to toe, he looked almost like a fifth, previously unknown member of the team of thieves that had invaded this place. He even wore pants that bulged with extra pockets.

Black, all black, all shadow in the shadowed space of the room beyond the door at the end of the hall.

His face was covered by a mask. The mask was so white it seemed to glow – and after only an instant Aaron realized it was glowing. Not the green glow of most glow-in-the-dark paints, the mask had been treated with something that made it a bright white wound in the darkness. Made it stand out like the terrifying reality of a nightmare that simply won't let go.

The perfect whiteness of the mask was broken by three black holes: two downward crescents that lay beside each other, and one larger, upward-tilting crescent. It was a Greek theater mask. The mask that symbolized comedy, half of a duality – comedy and tragedy – that the Greeks used to represent the sum of all emotion.

His mind, suddenly spinning, wondered where the tragedy might be found.

His mind, suddenly spinning, feared he might find out soon.

The man in the mask raised a hand. His arm turned to an upright square and then he slowly waved. His arm seemed to sway back and forth, caught in an eddy that no one else could feel. With the mask standing out in such stark relief, the gesture was a mockery of goodwill.

He heard Kayla gasp out a quick, "What the –"

The end of her sentence swallowed in sound as Kayla screamed again. This time the scream wasn't surprise or terror, it was a sudden rage. The sound of a wild animal that went to sleep free and woke in a cage.

She was up and running before her sharp screech ended. She didn't seem to remember the gun in her hand, either, just ran at the happyface figure in the master bedroom. She got up speed in only a few steps, her legs pumping faster than Aaron would have thought possible in such a short time. She ran three steps, four, five… then Kayla bounced off nothing but air.

Aaron heard the distinctive crack of a nose breaking. Blood arced from her face, and hung in the empty air where she had come to so sudden a stop.

Rob moved as she fell. He stepped aside, allowing her to crumple in a graceless heap on the floor, then approached the spot where the blood hung in the air –

(What's going on, how is any of this happening?)

– and put his hands up. One held his gun, the other clutched his flashlight. As he reached out, in the instant his hands stopped in midair, something glinted. A reflection from a transparent wall that cut across the hall, creating a wall even more invisible than had been the wire that slashed Tommy's leg.

"How did this get –" began Rob. Then he stopped himself, raised the gun, and fired at Happyface.

The bullet-whine shrieked, but in the wrong direction. The buzz of an angry hornet sizzled past Aaron's ringing ears. Rob went down at the same moment, and several stunned seconds passed before Aaron realized what had happened.

Not just glass. Bulletproof. Maybe plexiglass or polycarbonate or –

WHAT THE HELL DOES IT MATTER WHAT IT IS?

Rob moaned. He sat up and touched the sticky streak on his temple where the bullet passed after bouncing off the invisible wall; he had come this close to canoeing his own skull.

Aaron looked at Happyface.

The figure waved again. And it was Aaron's imagination –

(has to be my imagination has to be what's going on am I going crazy what's happening?)

– but the dark smile seemed somehow to widen. The unmoving blackness of the man's mouth seemed to speak to him.

I'm going to kill you. Kill you all, and it will be just. So. FUN!

21

Perfect night.

Perfect night, so why was it wrong, why was there that sound why was there so much screaming?

TJ woke and his hand flung out automatically but there was nothing but sheets and blankets beside him. An empty bed that had been full only a few minutes ago.

Was it minutes? Did I fall asleep? Did she? How long have I been here?

That jerked him nearly to full wakefulness; made him sit upright in bed, shaking off the last of the sleep that had grabbed him.

Don't wanna get found.

He was half into his pants before he realized that something specific had pulled him out of his slumber. Something completely unrelated to the sleep-soaked fear that Sue's parents might find him in here.

Something that didn't belong.

He looked at the bed, and it only registered that he was alone in the same moment that the second scream came.

Where's Sue?

Panic drove the breath from his body.

Several more screams sounded.

Then something louder. So loud, even through the closed door, that it made him wince and step back.

A gunshot.

TJ knew what guns sounded like. He heard them a lot in his neighborhood – a place where on some streets the kids did their homework or watched TV on the floor. Sitting on a couch or at a table was an open invitation to get hit by stray bullets from drive-bys or drug disputes or just the random arguments that could so easily escalate when the added pressure of a life without hope was tossed in.

Nothing beautiful happened where he lived. That's why Sue had been such a surprise. Her car had broken down and the tow truck took her to the nearest garage – the place where TJ worked. Her presence alone wasn't a surprise – in one of those quirks of big city life, the ghetto world he inhabited was only a few miles away from one of the most expensive shopping malls around, so expensive cars driven by expensive people were not unusual at the garage.

The surprise was that she noticed him. Usually the kind of people who drove cars that got towed in from a few miles to the west were the kind of people who expected nothing to inconvenience them. They paid not to be inconvenienced – personal assistants who not only arranged their schedules, but picked up and dropped off their dry cleaning; nannies to watch whatever children they'd cranked out as a self-commentary on their own value to society; cars that were expensive enough that any performance less than perfection was not just unacceptable, but offensive.

Usually those people came in angry, got angrier when they saw the kind of place they'd been towed to, and raged once they heard what the problem was with their cars.

Not Sue. She'd just asked if she could be told as soon as possible what the problem was. She said she'd be happy to wait until then.

No one like her had ever stayed for the outcome. They all called cabs and hightailed it out as quickly as possible, like they were afraid poverty was a disease they might catch if they stayed in this place long enough. Sue didn't call a cab or a friend or a rich daddy (and TJ'd been working at the garage long enough to know they all had a rich daddy). She went into the "waiting room" that was more of a "broom closet with seats," sat down in one of the two vinyl seats against the dirty wall, and began leafing through a copy of Motor Trend that TJ was pretty sure featured the Model-T as the Best Car of the Year.

TJ figured out what was wrong with the car – enough metal shavings in the oil to cover a junkyard magnet and a spun rod as a consequence. It wasn't normal to find that, and he figured he must be looking at a super-rich bitch whose "employees" (what he'd learned was the modern name for slaves) had taken some petty revenge on her while the car was parked at L'Estate de Familia.

He went into the waiting room, noting what she was reading – another surprise since it wasn't the expected view of a woman with her nose deep in her iPhone 18 or whatever model they were up to now. When he told her what the problem was, she asked if it could be fixed quickly, and when he told her it was going to take a specialist and a couple days, she neither ranted at him nor cursed the horrible luck that was going to have her slumming some other car that would cost enough to feed a family of four for several years. She just asked if he would be so kind as to drive her home.

She said it like that, too. "Would you be so kind?" There was no tremor in her voice. She wasn't angry, wasn't even afraid – which a pretty, rich, white girl should have been in this part of the city. She just asked if he would take her home.

TJ almost laughed. Almost asked if she thought this was a cab service.

He didn't. He just told Ernesto he'd be back when he got back, then got his car – a junker 1980 Datsun Bluebird that smelled heavily of oil and only held together thanks to the serious intercession of duct tape and baling wire – and walked her to it.

Again, surprise: she didn't recoil at the car, didn't shrink from placing her Special Flower body against the worn seats. She just got in.

He closed the door for her. It wasn't like she waited for him to do it, like she expected it – he just reached out and started closing the door while saying, "You all the way inside?" She flashed him a quick smile and nodded, and he didn't feel like a servant before a Lady, he felt for the first time in his life like a man. Not an easy feeling for a guy who grew up with a mom who still disappeared to crack houses whenever she could manage it, and with a father whose identity he'd never known.

He liked it, though. Liked it a lot. It made him think all the way to her "house" – which was bigger than five of Ernesto's garages put together – what it would be like to have someone like her in his life. Someone he could worship, but that would be okay because it would be someone worth worshipping.

He wished he could ask her out. Knew that it would never happen. She was from a different world, a different universe entirely. People from different universes don't mix.

He didn't ask her out.

So she asked him, instead.

He was so stunned he didn't answer for – well, it seemed like forever. She didn't move. Just stood there outside his car, one hand on the sill of his open window, leaning in so close he could smell her hair.

That was the clearest memory he had of that day – her hair. It smelled like some flower. He didn't know what flower it was, but he knew he would remember it for the rest of his life. The day a princess came down the castle steps and asked for his company.

He finally nodded, drove off – and it was nearly an hour before he realized he hadn't gotten her number, she hadn't gotten his. No way it would happen now.

He wanted to turn around and drive back, but knew she would have come to her senses by now, and didn't want to face the humiliation of asking for something he would never get.

He went back to work. Ernesto only screamed at him for ten minutes, which meant he still had a job – also more than he deserved.

He'd never see her again. That was all right, he guessed. Not just because they didn't belong together, but because the memory alone might be enough to get him through the craptastic thing he called a life.

He finished work about nine that night. Ernesto didn't pay by the hour, he paid by the job – not strictly legal, but hardly the type of thing TJ could complain about – and there were a couple tough ones that he had to finish if he hoped to have enough dough for splurging on food or rent.

He tossed his tools in their boxes. Wiped his hands on some shop towels that had forgotten what color they originally were, then walked out the back door. Headed back to the Bluebird that was so emblematic of his life.

And she was there.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw her – leaning not against the shiny Mercedes nearby, but against his own car – and for the second time that day his mouth hung open and he couldn't speak.

She shrugged. "I didn't know when you'd get around to calling me, and I wanted to see you." Then, incredibly, she looked embarrassed, as though suddenly unsure; as though she were the one imposing on him. "I hope you don't mind."

He strode forward, grabbed her in his arms, and kissed her.

It wasn't a conquest. It wasn't a proof that he could do it – most of his friends approached women with one of those two things as their goal at all times.

This wasn't anything so easy. It was….

It was catching a dream. Wrapping around and holding tight to it in the one moment it impossibly solidified into a reality.

She kissed him back.

He saw her every chance he could after that. He was twenty, she was only seventeen, but coming from a place where girls regularly turned up pregnant at twelve, the difference in their ages didn't bother him overmuch.

And it wasn't like they'd ever had sex. He was interested, sure – his body literally ached with desire sometimes. But she wasn't ready, he could feel that. And he wouldn't make a move until she did.

Which was what made tonight so perfect. She'd been dropping veiled hints for a long time. Just little words or looks that said she was considering moving their relationship to a new, far more physical level.

When she told him to come by her room – not her house, but her room – tonight, he knew it was happening.

He'd met her parents on several occasions. She'd never snuck out to meet him, never seemed ashamed of him in any way. When she invited him to pick her up the first time, he expected to meet her at the gate or at a servants' quarters or something. But the gate swung open and he heard her voice on the intercom saying, "Come on up to the house, TJ!" and Mr. and Mrs. Crawford were cordially waiting inside the foyer.

They were nice. They didn't seem overly worried about where he came from or why their daughter would bother with him.

Still, he got a weird vibe from them. Like they were judging something about him that not even he was aware of. They were all smiles and kindness, offered him food or drink, but he still got a case of the heebies that brought along its pal, jeebies.

He knew his feelings were they weren't judging him, though – he was judging himself. Because he couldn't believe this was happening; couldn't believe that not only had the goddess descended from Heaven, but he'd actually been invited through the pearly gates to greet her family.

He always came to the front door. Mr. and Mrs. Crawford – he never could call them Jason and Aimee, no matter how much they invited him to – were always waiting. Always offered him refreshment. Always waved goodbye when he and Sue drove off in his Bluebird.

He always came to the front door.

Until tonight.

"Come to my room. I'll be waiting."

He did. She played at protestation, but her hands traveled all over him as she whispered the words. Desire made her tremble almost as much as he himself was trembling.

And, when it happened, it was beyond amazing. It was perfect. Just like she was perfect.

But now his goddess was gone. There were screams in the house, and gunshots, and Sue was gone from the bed where he had fallen asleep, and for a moment he wondered if Mr. Crawford had peeked in on them and seen his daughter wrapped up in the arms of scum and had taken it on himself to end his daughter's shame with a bullet.

No. He wouldn't. He couldn't. No one could hurt Sue. No one could ever hurt –

He heard more screaming, and the screaming drove him to the door. He pulled on the door, then remembered it opened out – an architectural quirk he'd never understood but figured had to have something to do with being richer than God – and switched to pulling.

Still no give.

"Sue? Susan? SUSAN!"

He rattled the doorknob as hard as he could, but it might as well have been embedded in a solid wall. There was no give whatever, no matter how hard he pulled.

He drew back.

Rammed into the door with his shoulder.

Nothing.

"Sue!" He screamed the name over and over, and punctuated every shout with the sound of his body hitting a door that refused to give.

"Sue!"

(slam)

"Sue!"

(slam)

"Susan –

(slam)

"– where –

(slam)

"– ARE YOU?"

(SLAM)

There was no answer. He heard voices outside the door, sounds muffled and dim. But nothing like Susan's voice.

She was gone.

He kept hitting the door, but knew this was it. The dream was over, the goddess would flee.

He would be alone.

And there was no way he could go back to the way it had been. If anything happened he would go back to Ernesto's, get the sawed-off shotgun he kept under the front counter, and blow his brains out.

But not until he had killed anyone and everyone who so much as touched a hair on Sue's head.

22

A moment after the masked freak appeared in the master bedroom –

(Is that Crawford? What's he doing? Why is this happening to me?)

– Rob heard a new sound. Screaming. Not Kayla's shrieks of pain and rage, or Tommy's lower screams that throbbed out in time with the blood gushing from his leg.

It was coming from the room to the right. The girl's room. Not the high-pitched holler of a teen in distress, though. It was low, anguished.

The guy. Whoever was in there with her.

Something touched his arm, and Rob screamed and almost started shooting wildly before he saw it was just Aaron. Blood from the wound on his head poured over his temple and dripped over his left eye. Everything had a haze to it, making the whole scene more surreal.

Aaron wrapped a hand around his bicep, took his forearm in his other hand. He pulled, helped Rob to his feet; even that seemed strange, like it was happening to someone else.

The freak was still waving. And as soon as Rob looked at him, the mask tilted to the side, as though it had spotted something particularly amusing.

Rob's gun came up. He knew the bullet had bounced back at him, but what about a lot of bullets? One of them had to punch through.

There's not even a smear where the last bullet hit. Don't be an idiot.

Aaron pulled Rob's gun hand down at the last moment. "Let's just get out of here," he said.

The screaming in the girl's room continued. Someone was shouting, "Sue! Susan!" over and over.

Rob threw one glance at the happy-faced lunatic in the master bedroom. Still waving.

And then another figure seemed to appear in the doorway of the master bedroom. Like Happyface, this one was dressed all in black. But it was a shorter figure. A woman. She wore a mask, too, but the downturned half-moon eyes were hung over a downturned mouth. Tragedy. Sadface.

The Crawfords? Are they doing this? What are they doing? Why are they –

Sadface was dragging something. A struggling, screaming bundle whose feet kicked helplessly on the carpet as Sadface dragged her by long strands of dark hair.

The girl from the bedroom. Rob recognized her instantly, as much by her outfit – still in tank top and boxers – as by her hair or face.

The girl's hands were clamped over Sadface's wrists, trying to alleviate some of the pressure on her scalp as she was hauled into view.

Not the Crawfords. This can't be them – they wouldn't do this to their own daughter.

So who is it?

Someone in the girl's bedroom was still screaming. But Kayla's shouts were gone, and even Tommy's agonized shouts had turned to low gasps. Aaron was absolutely silent.

They were all captivated. Captured by the horrible sight of something so strange it became truly alien.

The teen twisted slightly, saw Rob and the others standing beyond the glass. Her screams changed from wordless wails to pleading: "Help me! Help me, please help –"

Her words ended, punctuated by another scream as Sadface yanked the girl fully into the hall. Happyface followed, his eyes – the eyes of the mask – clearly looking not at the girl or at his companion in madness. They bored into Rob, into his skull and beyond to the darkness of his soul.

It was that unblinking stare that scared him worse than anything that had gone before.

Until Sadface reached the lamp.

The teenage girl was still screaming, shrieking, as Sadface jerked her to the side, yanking her hair so hard that the girl followed it and continued into the wall beyond. She hit hard, a resounding thunk that Rob could feel in the souls of his feet.

The girl fell, dazed. Her screams became a bloody moan.

At the same time, Happyface reached up. Up to the lamp – that strange lamp, that lamp that had looked so drab and utilitarian and out-of-place in this house. He stood on tiptoe, fingertips barely making it above the upper lip of the lamp. He pulled his hand back down, two items now clenched in his fist.

One side was a rope, which he tossed to Sadface.

The other side was a rope, too. But it ended in a noose.

Happyface dropped the noose around the teen girl's neck, and any lingering thought that the masked intruders might be her parents disappeared from Rob's mind as Sadface pulled on the rope.

Something popped out of the ceiling – some kind of pulley system that had been hidden above the lamp. It rolled silently, and as Sadface pulled, the rope yanked the teen girl upward. First to her hands and knees, then to her knees alone. Then to feet.

And then to nothing.

The lamp wasn't very high – couldn't have been more than eight feet – but that that was enough to suspend the teen in midair. Her feet kicked only a few inches above the ground, struggling to find the ground that was so close yet completely out of reach.

"Stop it!" Aaron ran past Rob. He pounded on the glass between them and the dying girl. Between them and the freaks. "Stop it, you're killing her!"

Happyface moved past the struggling girl. To the glass. He put his hand against it. A creepy gesture, his gloved hand silhouetted against the darkness of the hall. It was almost….

Familiar. Like he's still waving. Or raising his arm to embrace us.

Rob darted forward without thinking. Grabbed Aaron and dragged him back. A tiny part of him was surprised that he would bother with someone like Aaron, but that part was answered by the reptilian, pragmatic – and much larger – portion of his brain that somehow knew they had to stick together.

Safety in numbers.

Kayla had apparently come to the same conclusion, because when Rob turned toward her she had already gotten Tommy's arm around her shoulder. She hoisted her brother bodily to his feet, his one leg bearing most of his weight while the rest streamed blood. Tommy's lips were visible beneath his mask, and Rob noted how blue they were and wondered how much more blood the big man could stand to lose.

No time to worry about that now.

He shouldered past the two of them, leading the way to the balcony above the foyer, the stairs.

Time to get going.

It only took a few steps to reach the balcony. A few more to the right and he was on the first step. His back leg rose, ready to drop to the next step down – one step closer to getting away from whatever the hell this was.

He froze.

Something glinted on the steps below. A good twenty feet away, a patch of night that had gathered and pooled into a shadow that stood out sharply even in the dim of a world without lights.

But still, in that dark… the glimmer.

Rob wondered what that was. Something jostled him from behind and he realized he had utterly frozen, Kayla and Tommy pushing into him as they kept moving for a moment after he stopped.

Then they stopped, too. Froze just as he had.

A deep, menacing sound issued from the shadow. Not just a growl, but a thrum that shivered Rob's bones in his skin.

The glimmers – eyes – moved up the stairs as the deep noise shifted from a rumble to something akin to an earthquake.

"Oh, shi –" Kayla began, seeing what the glimmer was in the same moment Rob did.

A pit bull.

Rob knew about pit bulls. He'd grown up with a friend whose father was a "dogman" – someone who watched dogfights that were still fought in underground, very illegal competitions throughout the United States. Whenever Rob went over to the place – a crappy tenement apartment he only tolerated because his friend usually had beer on hand, and his father usually shared it – the guy talked about dogs, the fights, the money he'd won and lost.

Dogfights typically went on until one dog couldn't even scratch its opponent, jumped out of the ring, or was killed outright. And the weapon of choice in the ring was a pit bull. The dogs in the arenas were bred for aggression, typically around fifty pounds of solid muscle, with a bite reflex that would not only clamp down but shake back and forth so that muscle shredded and bone broke.

Rob saw one dogfight. And it was among the most brutal things he ever witnessed. The winner was bloody from head to toe, one ear chewed off and one eye scratched out. She'd been huge, a female weighing in at sixty-five pounds.

Huge.

And the pit bull that was coming up the stairs toward him was easily double her weight. More. It looked almost freakish, a hundred-and-fifty-pound monster bred to match the nightmare wishes of a madman.

It stepped forward, and as it did another growl joined the first. A second black pit stepped out of the night, just behind the first.

And a third, a fourth.

Rob backpedaled, falling more than walking. He toppled into Tommy and Kayla, and their weight was all that kept him from going down on his butt.

His finger jerked the trigger of his gun. A crappy, reflexive shot that went wide and hit the wall behind the lead pit. Still, it should have spooked the beasts. Should have sent them running or at the very least made them flinch.

It did neither.

He glanced back. Aaron was running from door to door in the hall. Trying all the ones that lay on this side of the glass. Locked, locked, locked.

The teen girl still twisted in mid-air. Her struggles weakening.

Happyface and Sadface were nowhere to be seen.

Rob turned back to the pit bulls. They were more than halfway up the stairs. Approaching slowly, confidently.

"Here!" Rob looked back and saw Aaron standing in front of an open door – the one that had led to the attic.

Tommy and Kayla were already turned around, hobbling toward him in a macabre imitation of a three-legged race.

Rob turned back to the pits. They were too close, too frightening. He shot again.

This time the bullet went where he wanted it to – more or less. It hit the lead pit bull in the shoulder.

And still it kept coming. Its growl spiked to a painfully high pitch for an instant, then settled back to the throaty sound that signaled an apex predator.

It ran. Straight for Rob.

And the others followed.

He spun, screamed, backpedaled in a manic ballet that had no form or rhythm, no music – just panic, driving him in a leaping dance toward the door that Aaron still held open. The other man gestured for him to move move faster move move –

MOVE!

Rob heard them on his heels. Felt the hard puffs of air as they exhaled. A rank smell, the stench of half-rotted beef chewed in too-wide mouths, chased him.

Rob reached. Grabbed Aaron's hand.

Aaron jerked him forward and sideways, jamming him into the small landing before the attic steps.

Rob saw the dogs….

Saw teeth, white and terrible….

Jaws snapped open so wide they could sever a man at the waist….

And Aaron slammed the attic door. It clicked shut, and in the same instant something hit the wood so hard Rob was sure the entire door would simply dissolve before the power of the beast beyond.

The four of them – Rob, Kayla, Tommy, and Aaron – huddled in terror as the dogs bounced off the door. Time after time, each one sounding like a shotgun blast in the close confines of the stairwell.

Kayla had her flashlight clenched in the hand that still circled Tommy's waist. She aimed it at each of them, and Rob saw their faces. Still masked, but there was no hiding the terror in their eyes, in the thin set of their mouths.

Aaron finally spoke the words they were all hearing, the words that had no answer but which needed to be said.

"What's happening?"

23

TJ kept hitting the door, refusing to slow down no matter how much his flesh bruised, no matter how much he screamed inside that it was useless and this was the necessary end of something too good to be true.

He left a red smear on the door after one of the hits and the farthest part of his mind told him that it was blood; that he had smashed his skin to pieces and was now bleeding all over the perfect paint job.

He didn't stop. Pain coursed through him, but he didn't stop didn't stop just kept going and didn't –

Click.

He had reared back, moving as far as he could with the bed in the way, then took a running start at the door when the sound made it through his fevered mind.

The door swung open before him.

He had a single instant to realize that there was no one in the doorway; that no hand had unlocked or opened the door. Then he was through, falling to his knees when the obstacle he had expected simply disappeared.

He would have fallen farther – would have dropped right to his belly – but something else stopped him. Strange-feeling. Not hard like the door had been. Loose. But still solid.

Whatever it was moved.

He wheeled back and finally saw what he had fallen into.

"Sue!"

She was dangling from a rope around her neck, a thick cord that continued up above a ceiling lamp above her head.

She had managed to get the fingers of one hand between the noose and her neck. The other hung listlessly at her side as she devoted what little strength she had left to a feeble kick that would never help.

TJ launched himself to his feet, wrapped both arms around her waist, and lifted with all his strength. She weighed nothing at all in his arms. He hoisted her as high as he could, and was relieved when he heard her take in a deep, ragged gasp of air.

He hoisted her up higher, until his arms were around her hips. Then he let go of her with one arm - still so easy to hold her, even one-handed, like the air she had lost had stolen everything else she had as well – and reached up with the other. He fumbled at her neck, and she cried out as he rubbed his fingers across her abraded skin. He didn't stop, though, not until he had gotten the noose loosened, then lifted it over her head.

She dropped into his arms. Fell against his embrace. Sobbed.

"Sue," he said. "Sue, you all right?"

She kept crying for a moment, and he looked up at the noose that still hung overhead, wondering how it had gotten there and what was going on.

"Sue?" he repeated. He tried to make his voice soft, but adrenaline turned the word into a shout. "Sue, you okay?"

Sue finally looked at him. Her eyes were aglow with tears, and the neck of her tank top was stained by blood that had flowed from her neck where the rope tore into it.

"They did it," she said. "They're doing it. Oh, God, they're doing it."

24

Tommy had felt pain before. A lot of it. When he was a kid he was small and he got knocked around by everyone he knew. When he got older, he got bigger, and learned to take pleasure in others' pain. But pain still came for him there, too: bruised knuckles, broken fingers, the occasional tooth knocked out of his jaw when someone fought back harder than expected.

He liked it. Liked the pain. Not because he enjoyed pain in and of itself – he wasn't some head case – but because of what it inevitably represented.

Someone who fought, but lost.

Someone who resisted, but surrendered.

Someone who was once whole, but whom Tommy had finally broken.

Pain was a companion, a thing that he led from place to place and visited on others, so it was natural that he would feel it himself as well.

But it never bothered him. Not like it did now.

But it's not the pain that hurts, it's the nothing.

That was it. The pain around the cut to his lower leg was actually minimal. But there was a distressing cold that had gathered there and was now reaching icy fingers up into his thigh, arcing toward his groin. The cold wasn't painful, either, it was just numb. The numb scared him, because what would happen when it got to his heart?

He was pretty sure he had severed an artery when he ran into that wire. He had twisted slightly as he fell, and the wire had cut not just into his shin, but wrapped partly around the back of his leg, hacking into the calf muscle.

Are there even arteries back there?

Think so. Yeah. Remember that guy you cut a few years ago? How fast he bled out?

"What's going on?" His sister's voice was ghostly, lost in the darkness of the landing. She sounded like she was already half-dead.

Tommy looked at Rob. Aaron's red flashlight was still on, and Rob's masked face was a black, bloody skull in the light.

Already dead. We're already dead. All of us.

Rob looked unsure. Tommy had never seen him like this. Completely lost, nearly unhinged.

"I… I don't," he began. Then his mouth slammed shut and some of the steel returned to his eyes. He turned toward the stairs.

"What are you doing?" said Aaron.

"Going up, dumbass," said Rob.

One of the dogs slammed into the hall door again. Another thing that Tommy had never seen – he knew about pit bulls, but how were these so big? How was all this even possible?

Rob looked pointedly at Aaron, then back at the door. "Unless you'd rather try your luck that way."

The cold reached a bit higher. "Oh, damn," Tommy whispered. His skin stretched tight and clammy over his bones. "I think I'm in real trouble here."

Kayla looked like she was going to say something – not to tell him it would all be all right or anything so simple. She wasn't the type. Whatever she said, he had a feeling it would be a slap to the face of whatever hope any of them still had.

Whatever it was, she didn't say it. In the next moment, a sound cut her off. It was a strange, ratcheting noise - a sound like an old movie projector might make, deepened to a low roar and amplified a hundred times.

Click… click… click-click-click –

The noise was coming from the floor right in front of the door to the hall. Everyone instinctively crowded backward, none of them quite willing to get on the attic stairs, but no one wanting to be too close to the noise, either. Whatever it was, it wasn't a good sound, Tommy knew that in his bones.

Click-click-click-cli –

Then the sound of shattering wood and the screech of metal rang through the space. A line of ten-inch nails slammed up through the floor of the landing right in front of the attic door. They stretched from one wall to the other, and were about six inches deep, each nail placed an inch or so from its closest neighbors.

Anyone standing there when it happened would have been skewered up to the shins.

Click-click-click-cli –

Another set of nails slammed through the floorboards. Another six-inch-deep section of the landing disappeared, replaced by a bed of sharp points.

Click-click-cli –

"Up! Get up the stairs!" Rob shouted.

No one had to be told twice.

They ran as fast as they could. Kayla moved with him onto the steps, and together they blocked the way past. Good thing, since this way Rob was pushing them, helping them move faster.

He was pretty sure, if Rob could have, he would have left them behind to die.

Can't blame him. I'd do the same.

The nails shattered the floorboards, chewing up the remainder of the landing. Then they began following Tommy and the others right up the stairs.

Click-click-cli – SLAM. And the first step dissolved.

Click-click-cli – SLAM. The next step. Faster.

The next one.

Tommy pushed Kayla and Tommy as hard as he could, but heard the nails coming faster and faster behind them. Aaron was following them all at the end, and Tommy was pretty sure he wasn't going to make it.

Kayla suddenly abandoned her spot below his arm.

Bitch.

She threw herself up the last step, rolling as far away from the stairs as she could. Rob shoved Tommy with panicked strength, and Tommy tripped the rest of the way up the stairs, rolling himself – though not as gracefully as his sister had done.

Rob was out of the stairwell a moment later, tossing himself away from the stairs and the spikes that were devastating them. He rolled over to look at the mouth of the stairwell.

At Aaron.

The last man on the stairs –

(Click-click-cli – SLAM. And the step right behind Aaron's feet was impaled to oblivion.)

– looked ahead. But Tommy could see it in his eyes. He wasn't going to make it, and he knew he wasn't.

Click-click-cli –

At the last moment, the last instant, Aaron jumped. Not forward – he was too far away from the end of the stairwell to make it – but up.

SLAM. The steel spikes went up in perfect sync with him, spearing into the air as he jumped, drawing his knees toward his chest for more height.

Then he began to fall again.

The spikes did not.

Tommy, hurt as he was, couldn't help but stare. He liked to watch things die.

And Aaron was definitely going to die.

25

A flurry of thoughts went through Aaron's mind during the few mad seconds of running.

The house he'd grown up in.

His mom and dad, both dead.

Dee, waking him up with a kiss nearly every day of their marriage.

The days she hadn't kissed him, because she was in the hospital or just too weak to move.

He remembered, suddenly and strangely, the look Rob gave him earlier in the night, the veiled hints that he would kill Dee.

For some reason, that look no longer struck him as terrifying. He wondered if he might have been able to do something if he'd just stood up to Rob. Told him to go to hell and walked out.

And then the thoughts dissolved the way the stairs were dissolving, flitted madly away like the remnants of balloons popped not by a pin but by ten-inch spears.

Click-click-cli – SLAM.

It sounded like gears shifting each time, some mechanism he couldn't see rolling into place below his feet. It gave him a second to know the next nails were coming, an instant to wonder if this was the one that would finally outrun him.

Click-click-cli – SLAM.

Kayla and Tommy disappeared from his sight as they launched themselves forward and upward, off the stairs.

Click-click-cli – SLAM.

Rob was gone.

Click-click-cli – SLAM.

Aaron jumped. There was no way to make it off the stairs, so he didn't try. He jumped straight up, and below him the air itself was shoved aside to make way for something coming through it bullet-fast.

He hung there in midair. An impossible minute. More thoughts –

(dee's smile the way she looks at me when she's mad the way she looks at me when we make love rob's face and why oh why didn't i just tell him to go to hell)

– tumbled and jumbled their way through his mind.

He fell.

The spikes were below. Below and –

(Click-click-cli – SLAM.)

– ahead and nowhere to land but death. Falling on the nails with his body weight, falling forward and impaling legs and chest and neck and face with the others and then dying stuck to them like a bug on a display board.

(dee's smile)

He jerked in midair. His legs splayed out, the soles of both feet finding their way to either side of the stairwell. They hit the walls and he shifted his ankles so the soles were pressed as flat against the walls as he could get them. His hands mirrored the motion, each hand going out as far as it could, each palm finding an opposite wall.

He pressed with hands and feet as hard as he could. The wall slid under his gloves, his feet kept slipping down. Too fast, too far.

Gonna die.

The death would be worse this way, too. No sudden pain, no quick shearing of flesh. He was going to hit the nails slowly, they were going to drive through him by the slow force of his body weight alone.

The wall still slid.

The nails pushed through the side of his right shoe. Blood began to trickle.

And he stopped falling.

He looked down. His left foot was planted hard against the stairwell wall on that side, and had slowed to a stop only an inch or so above the line of nails below. His right foot had stopped at the line – the feeling he had of the nails ripping through his skin was real. He had sunk down to the nails on that side, and they had pierced the downturned side of his shoe, pricking his flesh. Not badly, though. Just enough to hurt.

Just enough to make it hard to stay where he was.

His arms began to shake. He couldn't stay like this long.

He looked forward. Rob was looking at him, jaw open like he'd just witnessed a miracle: not Jesus walking on water, but a thief walking on air and steel.

Tommy was looking at him, too, pain and interest warring in the big man's eyes.

He wants me to die. He'll enjoy it.

The thought drove away the sudden fatigue in his arms and legs. He leaned his body weight forward, jerked his hands away from the walls, then repositioned them against the wall about a foot ahead and a foot above where they had been.

The hard part: he did the same thing with his feet. It wasn't just that his hands were bearing his bodyweight with nothing more than his upper body strength and friction on their side, it was the fire that lit in his right foot when he pulled it away from the nails on that side. He would have sworn he heard a sucking, tearing sound.

Then he was loose. Everything fell on his hands. He jerked his feet forward. Up. A horrible moment when they scrabbled against the walls, failed to gain purchase.

Dee. She's waiting for me.

His feet jerked into place. He repeated the motion, traversing the area above the last five steps – all of which had disappeared before the onslaught of the nails. The sounds had stopped: whatever had happened, it only happened to the stairs. The attic was safe.

For now.

The small voice in his head was clear on this. There was no way this was over. No way the nails were all there was.

What about the note?

The card from the safe was still in his pocket, along with the bit of – what was it, a photo? – that it had held inside.

those who have nothing cannot be robbed

He actually frowned as he crawl-climbed his way up the stairwell. Wondering what it meant. Wondering what was happening.

Wondering what would be next.

The last step of the way was hardest. Almost to the top of the stairs – at the top, really – but the wall on one side of the stairwell ended and there were still spikes below him and now no real way to get forward and over them. Rob or Kayla could have given him a hand and he could have made it that last little bit with ease. But neither of them showed any inclination to move closer to the steps.

"Help," he managed through gritted teeth. No one moved.

Tommy actually smiled. Aaron could see the blood still pooling under his leg, could see the man's lips growing paler and paler, but still Tommy found some sick pleasure in what was happening.

Forget it. Just go.

Get home to Dee.

He braced his hands, then pulled his feet up an extra few inches. After they were firmly against the walls, he let go with his hands and lunged forward as hard as he could.

It was almost too hard. Instead of an awkward jump, the force of his push tore his feet loose from where they were pressed and he did a clumsy layout, his body going more or less parallel to the stairs, his lower half still hanging over the spikes even though his upper half was beyond them.

I'll only be maimed and crippled. Not killed.

Hooray for me!

He fell.

And a hand grabbed him. Yanked him forward and away from the stairs.

He landed with his rear toe touching the final line of nails. His whole body ached worse than it ever had – not just the actual exertion of what he'd done, but the palpable reality of how close he was to death.

He shuddered. The hand that had pulled him forward disentangled itself from his own. He looked at Kayla as she wiped her gloved hand on her chest, as though his own hand had been covered in grease.

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't," she answered. "Just help get us out of here."

That made sense. She didn't care about him, any more than Tommy did. But she was perhaps the most pragmatic of the group. She'd help him stay alive as long as that seemed to improve her chances of getting through… whatever this was.

I can live with that.

You just did live with that.

"Thank you," he said again.

She rolled her eyes. Then turned her flashlight beam on Rob. "Where did you bring us, Rob?"

Aaron nodded. "How did you find this guy?"

Rob's eyes flashed. Angry the way only a guilty man can be. "Same way I found all of them. Waited for the idiot to tell me about himself, give me his address, show that he's a good mark."

Rob stared them down for a moment. Aaron looked away first, staring down at Tommy. The big man had slumped backward and was now flat on his back on the floor. Aaron knelt beside him. Fumbled for the wound on his leg, not sure what he could do or even if anything could be done at all, but Tommy knocked his hand away hard enough that it bruised him.

"Don't you goddam touch me!" he shouted hoarsely. The words themselves seemed to exhaust him, and he slumped again.

Aaron looked back at Rob and Kayla, who were still engaged in a staring contest, standing a foot away with nothing but air and threat between them.

Rob was the first to blink. He swung his light around, and Aaron caught sight of two naked lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling rafters: one at each end of the huge and (as far as he could see) empty attic.

Rob saw them, too, and turned his light to the side. Near the stairwell was a light switch. Rob flicked it.

The bulbs didn't turn on.

Instead, there was a sharp double-pop – not as loud as a gunshot, but certainly loud enough to make Aaron's ears ring in the closed space of the attic. He reacted instinctively, throwing himself to the floor beside Aaron.

He heard the swish of something small moving past his head. Heard sounds similar to – though smaller than – the noises the nails had made when they came up through the wood steps.

Kayla screamed. A moment later, so did Rob. Tommy shrieked as well.

Over faster than it began. One moment there was a bright light followed by something that happened so quickly Aaron couldn't understand it. He sat up and looked around. Rob's light had spun across the floor, and now sat at the top of the once-stairs, illuminating the area enough for Aaron to see what had just happened.

Enough for Aaron to see that the stairs were just the beginning.

26

TJ didn't see anything but Susan. Didn't hear anything but her raspy breathing as she tried to pull air in and out of her damaged throat.

Hurt. But alive.

He hugged her. Held her so tight he thought he might hurt her. She held him back, though, just as tight.

Then stiffened.

He looked at her, fearful that the hanging might have caused some other pain.

Can you get nerve damage like that?

He didn't know. He was good with cars, but people were a mystery.

He looked at Sue, terrified he would see her eyes open and unseeing; that the clenching of her muscles would turn out to be a final spasm before death.

Her eyes were open, but they were definitely seeing something. They looked over his shoulder. Wide, shocked, terrified.

He turned. Slowly. Afraid he was going to see whoever had strung her up from the lamp, come back to see the job done right this time – and come to make him watch.

No one was there. No person who could have done this.

No person.

Instead, he found himself staring eye-to-eye at the largest pit bull he had ever seen. The thing had to be three feet tall at the shoulders, and long enough that if he went up on hind legs, he'd be able to lick TJ's face with ease.

Or bite my face off.

He twisted, facing the dog while keeping Susan behind him. The dog was staring straight at him. Just staring. And for some reason that was more terrifying than any growl.

There were more pit bulls behind that one, too. They were all milling around a closed door, taking turns scratching at it. Occasionally one would take a flying leap at the door, smashing into it with a shoulder or just bulling into it headfirst.

Sue's gasps had changed. No longer the sound of pained breathing, this was terror flooding in and out of her. He knew, because that's what he was feeling himself.

The pit bull that was staring at them didn't move. It was a statue. But TJ knew that the instant he got bored, they'd be dead meat. He thought about turning and running with Sue back to her bedroom, but rejected the idea. The dog would bring them down before they got halfway there.

So all that was left was for her to run to the room. He'd stay behind. There was no hope of standing up to a monster like that – let alone four of them – but maybe he could buy her a bit of time. Enough.

"Get ready to –" he began, then stopped.

The air was dirty.

He squinted, not sure how he could be seeing what he was seeing – but there it was. Some kind of smudge just hung there in midair between him and the dog. It was even… was it dripping?

It was. And even though it was dark, the absence of light turning everything to varying shades of gray, even so he could tell what color the smudge would have been in the daylight: bright red. Blood.

The dog seemed to notice the impossibly-located spot at the same time. It went back on hind legs and placed its forepaws –

(He's taller than I am!)

– on two spots of nothing to either side of the smudge, then leaned forward and began to lap the blood up.

The sight of it – the impossibility of it – drove TJ forward. He took several steps. The dog kept licking the smudge, taking no notice of him.

No, it notices me. It just doesn't care, because it knows who's in charge here.

TJ reached out a shaking hand. Touched the spot beside the thing's left paw. It was cold. Hard.

Glass.

Why's this here? How'd it get here?

Then, suddenly, the dog stopped lapping at the blood spattered on the other side of the glass. It perked its head to the side, and TJ took an involuntary step back. The thing glanced at him, but its attention was somewhere else. The others had gone still, too. No more scratching at that one door, no more tossing themselves at it like NFL linemen. They just stood. Waited.

Then, as one, they ran to the end of the hall and disappeared down the stairs. The one that had been leaning on the glass didn't spare a backward glance, just dropped to the floor and disappeared with the others.

The blood was gone. There was just smeared glass in a hallway that clearly was anything but just a hallway.

"What…." He couldn't even complete the thought. He didn't have words to express the depth of his confusion. The night had been perfect. And now this – whatever it was.

Susan had stayed behind when he crept up to the glass that bisected the hall. Her whisper slid through the air and made the hairs on his neck rise.

"They're doing it," she said.

He turned. "What are –"

She was already gone. He caught a glimpse of her rear leg as she ran back into her room. TJ looked back at the glass – he couldn't help it, it drew his gaze as the near-invisible focal point of whatever insanity had enveloped him – and then followed her.

He ran into her room.

Stopped.

Susan was nowhere to be seen.

Gone.

27

Rob looked at the thin sliver of metal he had just pulled from his cheek. It glinted dully – a dark nail painted with bright blood.

He dropped the nail. It plinked on the bare wood floor of the attic, and he began pulling more nails from his cheek, his hand. The hand ones made him happy in a way – he'd gotten his hand over the left side of his face when the sound hit him, and the placement of some of the nails and ball bearings embedded in his palm convinced him he would have lost an eye if he'd moved any slower.

The lights had been rigged. Some kind of explosive charge rigged to the contact wires, and when he flipped the switch it didn't turn on the bulbs, it blew them up and sent the bits of shrapnel – ball bearings and nails and shards of metal – that had been packed inside the glass shells flinging outward.

Bombs. They made bombs.

He heard a groan: Kayla, kneeling on the floor and digging ball bearings and jagged bits of metal out of her side with a tiny screwdriver.

Tommy was silent. Laying on the floor, motionless. Rob could see that he'd been hit, too – his shirt and pants were shredded in numerous places, and his mask was a mess. But he wasn't making any noise. Maybe the blood loss from his leg was too much.

Gone. Too bad, man.

Rob saw Aaron. He must have dropped on the far side of Tommy when the explosion happened. As far as Rob could see, his least-favorite safecracker hadn't been hit at all. Just looking around from behind Tommy like some alternate-universe groundhog checking to see if it was safe to come out or if there'd be another six weeks of Apocalyptic metal rain.

Figures. Figures he'd be the one to avoid getting hit.

Rob pulled the last of the nails from his face. They'd stapled his mask to him, but as soon as they were gone he yanked the tattered fabric away. Kayla did the same, and Aaron followed suit a moment later.

Masks were for staying quiet, staying unknown. That ship had definitely sailed.

Tommy suddenly moaned –

(Not dead after all.)

– and sat upright with a jerk. "What's happening?" he said. He looked around the group, one eye moving in rapid circles as he tried to take in everything at once.

The other eye was gone. Just a mangled mass of mask and skin in a clotted knot where an eye should have been. Tommy didn't even seem to notice.

"What's happening?" he asked again, then followed it up with a shriek: "WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

He pulled his gun and pointed it at Rob. Rob's guts coiled in a cold mass. He wondered if it wasn't their surroundings that would kill him, but one of his own team.

Then the gun flitted over to point at Kayla. At Aaron, who pushed away from the spot near Tommy and slammed against the back wall of the attic.

"What's happening? I said what's happening? Answer me!"

Rob didn't know if Tommy would have heard anyone if they did answer. Looked like the guy had blown a serious gasket.

The gun retrained on him. Rob's hands went up as he saw how it trembled, how close Tommy was to killing someone just as a way of reasserting his grip on the universe. "Easy, man," he said. "Easy, Tommy. We're all in the dark here."

Tommy's lowered his gun. Still, he kept it in his trembling grasp as he looked around with an eye that tried to see everything at once and managed to see nothing at all.

Aaron brought up his light – that blood-red light that he used when working on safes –

(How'd he manage to keep holding onto that thing?)

– and swung it around. Unlike the Maglites the rest of the team held, his light didn't slash its way through the shadows. It was a paintbrush, shading pitch black into a lighter shade of crimson. It illuminated, but brought no real brightness, and no safety.

A moment later, a more normal light joined the glow of Aaron's flashlight: Kayla brought out her Maglite and turned it on. Rob leaned down – slowly, he didn't want to do anything that might set Tommy off – and picked up his own light from where it had fallen when he tossed himself away from the deathstairs.

They swung the lights around. Just walls and empty space. The attic was huge, but other than the bare rafters above and the wooden walls on all sides, there was –

Rob stopped moving. The icy feeling that had clenched his center when Tommy pointed his gun at him was replaced by a warm, oily sensation that made him feel like throwing up.

Nothing in the attic. Not until the farthest wall. And there….

A small, closed window.

Below the window… a card table.

On the card table… a single piece of paper, folded in half so it stood like a tent on the center of the table.

Kayla muttered a curse.

Tommy made a sound that could have been a sob of pain or rage or terror.

Aaron was silent.

Rob waited. When no one else moved, he began walking toward the table. Because, really, what else was there to do?

28

TJ couldn't believe what he saw. Not at first. Susan had to be in here – there was nowhere else she could have gotten to.

The window was shut tightly – no way she could have opened it, gone through, closed it again, then disappeared from view so fast he couldn't see any of it happen.

Closet?

No real possibility of her getting in the closet and shutting that door, either. But he checked anyway. Her closet was bigger than his bedroom at home, but there was nowhere she could have been hiding. It was just the usual clothes and shoes.

He moved to the bathroom next. The door was already hanging open, and the angle of the mirror allowed him to see most of what was inside – and what wasn't – before he even got there. Still, he had to check.

Before he got there, he heard something behind him. Just a whisper, but it was so loud in the preternatural stillness of the room it felt like someone had sucker-punched him. He spun as the door to the hall began to close. He ran back to it, reached the door just as it fell flush with the jamb and clicked shut.

He grabbed the doorknob. Jiggled it.

Locked.

"Susan?" he shouted, pounding on the door. No way she could have done this – no way she could have slipped past him and then closed him in without his seeing it – but who else was there to call? "Sue!"

"Under here."

Again, the sound was so surprising it acted as an assault. He jerked in place, then spun quickly toward the source of the sound. Again, nothing but an empty room.

"Under here."

This time he was ready enough for a voice that he managed not to jump. He just knelt and looked for the source of the words.

Under the bed. Sue was there, and when he saw her TJ almost screamed because it wasn't Sue after all it wasn't all of her it was just half of her there, half of her under the bed like she'd been cut in half and left for him to find.

"Come on," she said. With those words, understanding penetrated. She hadn't been cut in half; it just looked like that because she was leaning out of a trapdoor under her bed.

A trapdoor?

"Sue, what's going on?" he managed.

"No time. Come on." She wiggled back on her elbows, scooching further into the darkness until she disappeared.

TJ stood still for a moment. Everything about this was wrong. Not least of which that he didn't even understand what "this" was.

"Come on. Hurry." Her voice floated out of the black square beneath her bed like the voice of a ghost from the grave.

Tommy looked at the door to the hall. Locked. He could go out the window, but then what would happen to Sue?

He followed her into the darkness.

29

Kayla watched Rob as he took the first few steps toward the table at the far end of the attic, then swung her flashlight beam over to Tommy. Her brother had pulled what was left of his mask from what was left of his face. She almost couldn't stand to look at it: one eye gone, one side of his face pulped and still shining with dozens of ball bearings and metal shards.

Tommy's mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, and she knew he was seeing it, too. That he saw the table and knew what she knew – what they all knew – that this wasn't any kind of accident. Not just the trap on the stairs or the explosion Rob had caused by turning on the "lights." This room itself was waiting for them. Had been prepared for them all by someone whose purposes she couldn't even begin to guess.

"No," he finally managed. "No way."

He struggled to roll over, going to hands and knees before pushing himself into an upright kneel. He tried to rise to his feet but seemed to have forgotten the injured leg. He put that foot down first, then cried out as the leg buckled under him. He pitched forward, and Kayla barely managed to get under his arm and keep him from falling to the floor. Aaron moved to take the big man's other arm.

"Get away from him," she snarled. Not even sure why it mattered that Aaron not touch him, but convinced in that moment that the only way for her or Tommy was to get out together – and get out alone.

We'll gut them all if we have to. Me and Tommy are getting out of here.

"Why is this happening?" Tommy whispered as she helped him to stand. She had no answer.

He began hobbling toward the table. She almost shouted, "No, don't, we can't go that way!" before she realized it wasn't the table he was headed for – it was the window beyond it.

The window was small, but she thought Tommy could probably push his way through – and that meant they all could. More important, she could see the dim gleam of starlight beyond the glass.

"I gotta get out of here," said Tommy. He wasn't talking to her, she could tell. It was the sound of a man dancing on the thin line between life and death, just the smallest push required to make him tumble down one side or the other.

"I know," she said. Tommy's remaining eye was glassy, and he stumbled without seeming to notice what had happened. He actually shambled forward on his knee before she jerked him back to his feet.

"Get up," she barked. For the first time in her adult life, she wasn't enjoying this moment. The feeling that had accompanied her entire existence – that she was invincible, that no one could hurt her because she was just too important to the universe to be hurt – had begun to ebb since she ran into the glass wall in the hall. Her nose broke – it was still dripping blood, now she thought about it – and with it broke the shell of seeming invincibility that had surrounded her.

Then the lights exploded. Shards of metal in her arm, her side, her leg. Nothing had hit her face, and she supposed she could have taken that as a kind of validation; that nothing too bad could happen to her. But she only felt dread. The fear that a perfect life might end so miserably, so stupidly.

How am I gonna rule the world if I die in this little room?

Tommy struggled to his feet. "I gotta get outta here," he said again. "Gotta get to a hospital."

The words were coming in breathy gasps. Far from the deep sound of her brother's real voice. He seemed to have aged decades in the last minutes.

She wondered if he could make it. Even if they got out of the house, how would they get down from the roof? Over the wall? Would he bleed out before then?

She kind of wanted to see that.

They swung wide of the table with its card, as though both might carry some communicable disease that would supply the final push into doom.

They reached the window. She reached for the lower sash, pulled.

It didn't give.

Locked.

What if it's not locked, what if it can't open? What if whoever's doing this has sealed –

Tommy had a gun in his hand – she couldn't remember if he'd always held it or if he'd just gotten it out, and that lapse in her mind was frightening, too – and he used the butt to knock the glass out of the window. Then, without waiting, without even bothering to knock away the stray shards of glass that still clung like broken teeth to the gaping mouth of the window, he clambered through.

She had been right about it – the window was small. She wasn't even sure if Tommy would be able to get through at all, maybe he'd just be able to push his head and one shoulder through and then get stuck and they'd all have to –

SHING.

Blood spattered. Arcs of it splashed over the inside wall of the attic, still more jetted out of Tommy's body as it jerked back into the attic.

Not Tommy, that's not really Tommy, it can't be Tommy because where's his head where's his HEAD?

Blood fountained for a few moments from the stump that had once connected neck to head. Then the gouts turned to trickles, then to seepage. She could see bone and flesh and holes that were his trachea and esophagus in cross-section.

His head was gone.

She looked back at the window. The glass was still knocked out, but she couldn't see starlight anymore. There was only an unbroken sheet of metal, gore-streaked and dripping – the blade of what she intuited was a guillotine.

The window was gone. Better said, it had never really been there in the first place. Just a lie that was – like the nails under the stairs – a trap.

And Tommy was gone.

She knelt beside what was left of him and screamed. Pain, the terror born of a sudden realization that she could be hurt driving a shriek so loud and harsh that it tore at her throat –

(just like Tommy's throat cut in two and now he's dead and what if it can happen to me too it's not possible but what IF)

– and turned to a strangled whisper almost as fast as it had come.

She looked at Rob, who was now standing beside the table. Aaron was standing behind him, neither of them looking at her or Tommy, both of them just staring at the card on the table.

Rob picked it up after a moment. Flipped it open.

"The robbed that smiles/Steals something from the thief." He spoke the words almost as a question. The voice of a man who can't quite believe that what he's seeing is actually happening. "What the –" He couldn't even finish the question, just threw the card back on the table, then threw his hands in the air in utter helplessness.

The movement made his flashlight jitter, the light in the room weaving and dancing drunkenly. So she didn't notice at first. But when he dropped his hands she noticed consciously a detail that had tickled her subconscious when Rob first tossed the card to the table.

The light had changed.

Not Rob's flashlight, not even Aaron's red light. It was something else – a shift to the overall lighting that most people probably wouldn't even notice.

But she wasn't most people. She was someone whose existence was measured in the smallest spaces between light and dark. She noticed.

She looked away from Tommy, from Aaron and Rob and the table and the smear of blood and gristle that had once been a window.

She looked at the wall to her side.

There were numbers there. They hadn't been there when the thieves entered this place, she was sure of it.

As if to confirm the thought, to show that the numbers were the newest entry in this game, they appeared on the other three walls of the attic. Each number was red, about a foot tall and six inches wide. They gleamed and flickered in the way peculiar to images created by a laser. She looked for the source, but couldn't find it. Just the numbers, the same on every wall.

2:00

Then, as she watched, the letters blinked and changed simultaneously.

1:59….

1:58….

Rob had seen them, too. "What is this?" he asked in a weary-sounding voice.

The words penetrated Kayla's grief over her brother's fate – and the more-important realization of her own mortality. She lowered her brother's headless corpse to the ground. Stood.

1:50….

1:49….

"It's a countdown," said Aaron.

"Are you shitting me?" screamed Kayla. Her voice was higher than she'd ever heard it. Still hoarse from her recent scream over Tommy's body, but all the more jagged for that rough edge. "I'm gonna find who's doing this and I'm gonna shove my fist so far up –"

Rob reached out and slapped her. Hard. The pain sent shockwaves through her broken nose and she yowled.

"Now's not the time," said Rob.

A series of clicks sounded in the room. Not like before, when the nails had shredded their way up through the floor, this was a lighter sound. Not machinery moving, but something else….

"There!" said Aaron.

1:40….

He pointed, and Kayla saw that a series of holes, each about two inches in circumference, had opened on the walls. Varying height, anywhere from one foot to six feet high, placed irregularly along every wall. She couldn't tell what was behind them, or what they were for, but they did not look good.

Rob was spinning around. Looking for an exit in a place whose only way out was blocked by a blade.

"What do we do?" he said. "What are we supposed to do?"

No one answered.

No one could.

30

Aaron saw the numbers –

(1:28….

1:27….)

– but they didn't register the way they should. When he finally understood that it was a countdown, it jarred him. Another small shock to the system when the holes opened in all the walls. They reminded him of a nature show he'd seen once on deep sea life. There had been sharks, squid, deep sea jellyfish with stings that could paralyze.

But by far the most frightening to him had been a small creature that barely moved. The sea cucumber looked like nothing so much as a deep-sea turd. But when attacked, when threatened by creatures that ventured too close to its domain, it was willing to literally tear itself apart. It had no teeth, no claws, but it had a mouth. And through that mouth it literally turned itself inside-out, expelling all its guts in a sticky mass that frightened larger predators and entangled smaller ones.

Something willing to die time and again in order to live was something to be feared.

And these holes made him think of that fact. Reminded him of a creature that would die to murder.

1:26….

They had come to this place as intruders. Predators.

But what was behind the walls… it would die to kill them all.

He felt panic welling up inside him. Veiled it with action. When threatened, there are two options: to curl up and accept the onrushing violence to body, to mind, to self; or to move. Sometimes that motion is careful, composed, thoughtful. Other times it is motion for movement's sake: a simple, last-ditch gesture of defiance.

Aaron moved, and wasn't sure which kind of movement it was. It didn't matter, he guessed. It was better than simply waiting and accepting death.

He grabbed the card from where Rob had tossed it. Same as the first card had been: a simple piece of thick, folded paper. Words on it in enraged scribbles:

the robbed that smiles,
steals something from the thief

He turned the paper over, and saw something Rob had failed to notice in his rage. There was a bit of photo taped to the back. Like the first bit, it was a close-up: grays and whites and reds and blacks in angry swatches of color that made no sense at all.

Aaron pulled at the photo gently, dimly aware that Kayla and Rob were screaming at each other in the background. Knowing they were spinning their wheels, leading themselves to death.

The only thing that was important – the only thing that mattered at all – was right here in his hands. He felt it.

The photo came away with the minute sucking of tape that has settled deep into paper. When it came free, he lifted it closer to his eyes, using the ambient lighting to peer at it for a moment.

Still nothing. No sense to be found, no hope to be had.

He turned the bit of photo over in his hand. Like the first –

(1:16….)

– it had a number on the back. "2," written in the same way as the cryptic message on the front of the card.

He looked at it for a moment, then realized there was something else on the paper. It had been hidden by the photo, but now he could see it clearly.

He absently shoved the bit of photo into one of his pockets, focusing on what had been beneath.

An irregular shape had been drawn on the card. A rectangle with a shorter, thinner rectangle jutting from one side of it. The smaller rectangle was colored in red.

Another corner of the shape, opposite the red rectangle, had a green "X" on it.

Aaron felt something hot on his shoulder, and realized it was Rob, leaning over him and emitting a panicked heat that made Aaron's own pulse race a bit faster.

"And what does that mean?" said Rob. Apparently he and Kayla had finally stopped fighting. Kayla was staring at her brother's body – what was left of it. She nudged it with her foot, as though he were only napping and would sit up and screw his head back on –

(Maybe he'd get it on right this time, not crazy and broken like it has been.)

– and yawn before rejoining them.

Tommy kept being dead.

Kayla turned and joined them.

0:51….

0:50….

"What is that?" she said.

Aaron frowned. "I don't know." He pulled the photo from his pocket again, then drew the first photo – the one they had found in the safe – and put both pieces next to the drawing. Nothing new. The drawing appeared to have nothing to do with the photo pieces, and the pieces themselves didn't fit together to create anything more understandable.

"Gimme that." Rob grabbed the paper. Looked at it. His face creased into thought-lines, then relaxed back into a confused look.

Snick-CHICK.

The sound, again, came from the walls. From the holes in the walls. They made Aaron shiver, and visible shudders rolled through Rob and Kayla as well.

A few sounds have made their way into human consciousness. Sounds that mean specific, primal things, and which cause specific, primal reactions: the rumble of an earthquake, the rattle at the end of a viper's tail. The gasp of someone in the throes of sex, the sounds of an infant's first cry.

A sound much newer in human history, but no less powerful for its recent birth, was the cocking of a firearm. The cocking of a gun was a sound that immediately said: RUN, HIDE.

The sound that had come from the walls was no mere handgun, not even a shotgun. It was something much heavier.

Many somethings.

And suddenly Aaron understood what the holes were. What would come from them.

What would happen to the attic and everything still in it when the countdown reached zero.

Rob moved the instant after the sound. He threw himself against the bloody guillotine at the window, intent on bashing his way out. Blood and thick clots of meat spattered between him and the blade, splashing in ever-wider designs each time Rob battered uselessly at the metal.

Kayla was murmuring, "We're gonna die. We're all gonna die." She looked – what was it?

Shocked. She's amazed that this could even be happening to her.

Aaron had known Kayla was a sociopath. And what must it be like for someone who thought they were the only thing that mattered in the world to find out that the world actually didn't care at all. Or, worse, actively hated you?

Rob yanked a small pry bar from a loop on his pants. He attacked the wood frame around the guillotine. Bits of wood splintered, but Aaron could see instantly that it wasn't enough. The guillotine wasn't going anywhere, and the wood was strong, sturdy.

0:35….

Aaron looked back at the card. Began walking around the room as his body began to realize something his mind had yet to grasp.

0:33….

He stopped suddenly.

"It's a treasure map," he murmured.

"To what?" Kayla's voice was so close he almost dropped the card. She was almost hanging off him.

"To get out."

0:30….

0:29….

"But what does it mean? I don't –

"It's the attic." Aaron pointed at the small, red rectangle sticking out on the side. "This is the stairs. The red must mean the nail trap."

"And the green?" Rob this time. He had left his fruitless attack on the window, and like Kayla was hovering so close to Aaron it was oppressive.

0:20….

0:19….

Aaron glanced at the numbers. The blood rushed away from his extremities, rendering them frozen while at the same time panic stoked painful fires in his chest.

He looked back at the map. Spun it around in his hands until it was oriented at the same relative position as the room.

He pointed at the far corner. "There."

He started for it, but Rob grabbed his arm before he'd gone two steps. "That could be another trap!"

0:10….

Aaron yanked his arm away. "You got a better idea?"

0:09….

He turned and walked quickly but alertly. Ready for the air itself to come alive and try to kill him.

Rob and Kayla fell into step. Rob was looking back and forth so fast Aaron could hear the other man's vertebrae popping and clicking.

He's gonna feel that in the morning.

If there is a morning.

They got to the spot that corresponded to the green "X" on the map.

Nothing was there. Nothing but floor and the intersection of two walls.

"You sure –" Rob began.

"Nothing's happening –" said Kayla.

0:04….

"I don't –" said Aaron.

0:03….

"Oh, dear God," said Rob. The words carried a fervent reverence that would have made any ordained priest blush at his own paltry prayers.

0:02….

The floor broke apart beneath their feet with the sound of shearing wood, the crackle of boards ripped asunder.

They fell as one, dropping into the room below.

Aaron hit the floor first, his feet hitting absolutely flat and then feeling like they drove right up through his shins. A fraction of a second later, Kayla and Rob plowed into him, the three of them driving downward in a mass so hard that Aaron thought it likely they would continue past this floor as well, just breaking through into whatever was below, then whatever was below that, and on and on forever until they finally fell to Hell itself.

It'd be what I deserve.

I could have stopped this. I could have stood up.

I could have –

The rest of his thoughts disappeared in the firestorm that erupted above. A storm of firepower shattered the world, so many bullets flying so fast they quickly ceased to be individual explosions and merged instead into a single rolling thunderclap. Dust and wood rained down through the hole he and the others had fallen through, coating their hair and skin and clothes and turning the blood that covered them to a thick brown sludge.

The shots went on forever, and more. Eternity wasn't an afterlife, it was a prolonged moment cowering as the room above you disintegrated.

Someone will come. Someone's going to hear that.

But that was a lie. This house had no neighbors to speak of. The drive through Spurwing Green had been a gradual shift from mansions to mansions to estates, houses beside each other giving way to houses so far from one another they probably had their own zip codes.

Worse, he suspected that even someone standing right outside the house wouldn't hear. These people – whoever they were – had thought of everything. They'd engineered a way to drop a bulletproof shield between them and their attackers, they'd trained magnificently deadly dogs to herd them into this maze of traps and maps. Would they forget to soundproof the place?

No. Not likely. Impossible.

We're on our own.

The gunfire ended. The automatic weapons above ceased firing as one, the abrupt end of the noise sending yet another shock through Aaron's frame. His ears weren't ringing, they were shrieking. Rob was saying something, but he only knew that because he saw the other man's lips moving.

Gradually, the shriek tapered off. It was replaced by a cacophonous tangle of bells and rings, then those eventually faded as well. Everything sounded like he had packed insulation in his ears, and he ached from head to foot. But he could hear, and he was alive.

For now.

Kayla was the first to stand, and she cursed suddenly. No anger in the sound, only dread.

Aaron managed to get to his hands and knees, then looked around. They had fallen out of the range of the weapons above, but what had they fallen into?

It was one of the rooms Aaron had noted on their way to the master bedroom. The one that didn't belong with the rest. The only one that, in and of itself, made him afraid.

The one that was wrong.

The empty room.

Sawdust still sifted down from the wreckage above, and then something else fell. Kayla was standing directly below the hole, and a trio of thin streams trickled down and splashed trails against her forehead and cheeks. They were red.

Tommy's blood, what was left of it draining from his perforated body and finding its way to the hole.

How? He wasn't close to the hole. How could the blood get over here?

And he knew. Just like the traps, just like everything else that had happened: this was planned. The floor of the attic wasn't the typical flat plane, it had been crafted at a gentle angle, sending anything liquid to the new drain Happyface and Sadface had known would open.

They knew someone would die up there.

Knew the others would fall.

Knew they would see the blood of the dead rain down on them.

The blood cut red trails through the grime on Kayla's face. She didn't shrink away, but instead turned her face upward so it splashed across her forehead, eyes, mouth. She seemed transfixed. Beyond grief, well on her way to madness.

Aaron looked away. Anything would be better than watching her bathe in her brother's blood.

But he was wrong.

There was something worse.

The empty room was empty no longer.

31

It had been empty, and that had chilled him. Now the room was not empty, and it turned out this version of the room was far worse. Still sparse, Spartan. But something new sat before the fireplace.

A folding table.

And a note.

Aaron stared at the note, wondering what nonsense would be written on this one, and if there would be another treasure map beneath it.

Not treasure. Survival.

He thought of Dee. She was so frail in the hospital. She had always been a small woman – barely five-foot-five, and petite to boot. But when she was at her worst, her lowest, she had barely weighed seventy pounds. Her skull strained against the skin of her face, her few remaining wisps of hair hanging on with grim determination.

Her eyes had sunk so deep into her face they were nothing but shadow sometimes. It made her look like she had already died.

She whispered to him how sorry she was, how ashamed of the burden she had become. His words to her that she was never a burden, that she had nothing to be sorry about, fell on ears that had shriveled against her skull, and often he knew she wasn't even hearing him.

But she had survived. Like he had to survive. Life had dealt them such terrible hands, over and over. He wasn't going to fold now. He was going to see her again. He was going to hold her close, and if Rob ever threatened her again he would kill him.

Lies.

We're all going to die here.

Movement attracted his attention. Rob was striding toward a window on the far wall. Expensive draperies covered the window, and he held them aside and looked out the window.

"What are you doing?" said Aaron.

"Getting out of here."

The stars were visible outside. Aaron realized that the lights that had dimly illuminated the grounds when they arrived had been extinguished.

Nothing but starlight. A window leading to freedom.

Rob started feeling along the edges of the window. Aaron almost asked him why he wanted to go out that way instead of trying the door to the hall. Then he thought of the four big dogs. What if they were waiting right outside the door?

But the window held its own dangers.

"What about what happened to Tommy? What if –" he began.

Rob waved him to silence. He wasn't touching the window, just looking at it. He leaned to the side, looking through the glass at a steep angle that wouldn't let him see much more than the casing. Then he shifted and looked at it from the opposite angle.

"I don't see anything. I don't think there's anything out there."

Rob hit the window with the gun butt. It didn't break. Just a low thud.

Kayla moaned. Aaron hadn't even known she was paying attention, but now he saw that she had moved away from the still-streaming blood and was looking at Rob's futile attempts to get out.

"Damn," said Rob. Then, louder, "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

Something gleamed around them. Again, Aaron couldn't tell where they came from, but red numbers flickered into being on all the walls.

This time there was no pause between their appearance and the beginning of the laser countdown.

2:00….

1:59….

Aaron grabbed the note off the table. He didn't want to be playing this game, but he didn't see much choice, either.

Rob and Kayla hung back as he approached the card table and picked up the note. He glanced back at both and saw the same expressions on their faces: fear, confusion.

Why is this happening to me?

How is going to end?

He picked up the card. Opened it.

"What's it say?" asked Rob.

"The worst thieves steal only time."

For some reason, this one scared him more than the others. It was the word "thieves." He felt as though this card was calling him out specifically. Naming his greatest failing, his greatest sin, and so providing a hint of his final doom.

He flipped the card over. Another scrap of photo. "5" on the back. Aaron put it on the card table, then removed the other two pieces from his pocket.

They still didn't fit. They still didn't show anything he could make out.

He put them in his pocket.

"Thieves steal time?" said Kayla. "What does that even mean?"

1:45….

Kayla spoke again, and this time her voice was high and breathy. She sounded like a little girl who has looked up and discovered she is alone in an unfamiliar place. "What's happening to us?"

The laser lights shifted, as though in answer. For a moment the countdown disappeared. In its place, the outlines of four red skulls gleamed on four white walls.

Then the countdown resumed.

1:39….

1:38….

The skulls never quite disappeared, though. Every few seconds they would take the place of one of the numbers. A reminder of what would happen when the timer reached zero.

Kayla strode toward the door. Which made sense, since it was the only remaining way out.

But nothing made sense here.

Aaron looked at the spot where the picture had been affixed. Another map. Another rectangle, another red area, another spot marked in green.

He looked at it for a moment, frowning. This time the red and green weren't marked as a box and an "X." Instead they were just shaded portions of a simple rectangle. One black line became red for a short section, another became green on a different side of the shape.

He experienced an instant of confusion – what did these markings mean? – then it snapped into place.

Kayla was reaching for the knob.

"No, wait! That's the wrong –"

She grabbed the brass fixture.

Something sizzled.

Kayla screamed. She held up her hand, and Aaron saw with horror that the palm of the glove she had been wearing was gone, burnt away. The skin beneath sloughed off in ragged sheets. No blood – whatever had happened, it had so utterly destroyed the blood vessels that nothing flowed from them. They just burned, then charred, then disintegrated.

The sizzling sound continued, as did Kayla's screams.

Acid. Someone coated the doorknob with acid.

The sizzling slowly stopped as Aaron watched. So did Kayla's screams, which petered into sobs. She clutched her hand tightly to her chest. "Not fair," she said. "Not fair. This isn't fair."

1:18…

1:17….

Rob was swiveling back and forth between the countdown on the wall closest to him and the door to the hall. Aaron knew what he was thinking – he was thinking it himself.

Acid on the doorknob. But Kayla grabbed it. Did it all come off on her?

Does that mean we can get through there?

Or is there something else waiting for us?

"That's the only way out," said Rob. He didn't seem to notice Kayla, his attention fully taken by his possibilities of escape.

He'd leave us here if it meant he could walk away. Wouldn't even think about it.

Aaron felt sudden disgust. Not for Rob, but for himself.

Why did I get into this?

I had no choice. Dee –

Liar. You chose this.

Aaron looked back at the card – the map. His hands were shaking so badly he had to consciously will them to be still or he wouldn't even be able to see the small drawing.

He stepped to a spot near the wall across from the fireplace. "Here."

Rob started to join him, but turned and put an arm around Kayla's shoulders and helped her gently over. She had her good hand wrapped hard around the wrist of her bad one. The blood and dust that coated her face made her haunted eyes stand out in sharp relief. She looked like the victim of a virulent plague, no longer worried about death but waiting for it as a welcome relief.

Aaron was surprised that Rob helped her over – that wasn't like him. Then he understood: the last escape had occurred only when all of them had stood in the right spot together – maybe they all had to be together to escape this room, too.

Rob wasn't being kind, he was hedging his bets.

Maybe not just bringing her over to be in the right spot with him, maybe he's counting on using her as a shield.

Doesn't matter. Just get out of here. Get back to Dee.

They stood at the spot. Waited.

1:08….

"Nothing's happening," said Rob.

Aaron looked at the paper again, even though he knew what it would tell him.

"This is it. This is the spot," he said. He pointed out the features. "There's the door, marked in red. So this has to be…." His voice fell away.

"What?" said Rob. "What is it?"

Aaron showed him, pointing at the small map. "Last time the drawing showed a green 'X.'"

"So?"

"So this time it's just part of the outer perimeter – just a green line." He looked at the map, then looked at the wall they stood before. "We have to go through."

"How do we go through a wall?" said Kayla. Her voice was as dull and listless as her eyes. But she hadn't given up completely. Aaron was surprised how glad he was of that fact. She, like the rest of the group, had held him in contempt at best, been outright hostile at worst.

But she doesn't deserve this.

None of us do.

(except me)

Aaron took off his gloves. He rubbed his hands along the wall, feeling a bit foolish that he was really looking for something as clichéd as a hidden button or switch, but unable to come up with anything better.

A moment later, Rob and Kayla joined him. They swept their hands back and forth – Kayla using her good hand while she kept the injured one shoved hard against her chest.

Aaron let them keep feeling their way across the blank wall, abandoning the search for a moment so he could remove something from one of his pockets.

The 3M Littman Master Cardiology stethoscope was the gold standard among surgeons and trauma doctors. It had a tunable diaphragm, allowing listeners to hear both low- and high-frequency sounds; an amplifier that could turn the volume up so the faintest sounds could be made out; and – perhaps one of the most important factors for ER doctors – the ear tips were designed to block out ambient noise and allow you to listen to breathing and heartbeat without having to weed out external sounds.

All of that made it an excellent tool for safecrackers, too.

Aaron popped the ear pieces in, then held the diaphragm against the wall in front of him. The gentle swish of Rob's and Kayla's fingers against the wall turned to loud thrums in his ears, but he tuned them out as background immediately.

0:35….

He tapped on the wall. Listened to the vibration it returned.

He moved the stethoscope over a foot. Tapped again. Another spot. Another.

0:25….

0:24….

He tapped. And this time found what he had been looking for. The wall itself was solid construction, no spots that seemed thinner and that might be easily broken into.

But this spot was different. Only the slightest of changes in the tone of his tap, and anyone but a trained safecracker –

(anyone but a criminal)

– might have missed it.

He put the stethoscope away, drawing out the light he had used to illuminate the fingerprints on the safe earlier.

Seems like it happened so long ago. A lifetime.

Certainly, for Tommy, that was exactly how long ago it had been: the length of a life, punctuated by his death.

Aaron turned the light on. Ran it over the wall in the general area he had heard the difference.

A smudge of fingertips glowed on one spot.

Kayla and Rob had stopped searching and were now watching him closely.

"What –" began Kayla.

Aaron shook his head quickly, indicating she should be silent. He closed his eyes, blocking everything out but the task at hand.

He reached out and lay his fingertips on the wall. Traced them back and forth, feeling for….

There!

He pulled a pen knife from another pocket. Pushed the tip against the nearly microscopic seam his sensitive fingers had found. Nothing happened for a moment, then the point sunk a millimeter into the wall. He wiggled the knife, and the blade pushed in a bit further. He pulled it back and forth as it sank, and soon a seam was visible to the eye.

He kept wiggling. Pushing. Wiggling. Pushing.

As soon as it was big enough, Aaron shoved the knife back in his pocket and jammed his fingers into the crack, which went from the floor to the ceiling. He pulled.

Nothing budged.

"Help me!" he shouted. He glanced at the wall.

0:15….

Kayla and Rob each put their fingers into the crack. Pulled. The wall started to slide beneath their fingers. Even though he'd been expecting something like that to happen, the sensation of the wall itself moving was so strange Aaron nearly let go for a moment.

They pulled, inch by inch.

And as soon as the opening was wide enough – barely big enough to allow for a single person – Rob shoved both Aaron and Kayla out of the way. Kayla went down on her butt with a scream of pain. Rob didn't spare a single backward glance. Just shoved sideways through the crack, exhaling so he could get through the tight squeeze.

0:05….

0:04….

Aaron saw the countdown. Knew he had to get out.

Gotta live. Gotta get back to Dee.

He turned away from the opening. Grabbed Kayla. Jerked her to her feet.

0:03….

0:02….

He pulled himself through the opening.

0:01….

Yanked her after.

Kayla squeezed through at the last possible moment. Her trailing leg exited the empty room only a fraction of an instant before the countdown ended.

Aaron heard a sound he'd never heard before. It reminded him of a sword being unsheathed, or perhaps a knife being sharpened. But this was faster – both quieter and at the same time more lethal.

He could see beyond Kayla, into the room they had just left.

Nothing. Four walls. Skulls flashing on the walls. A table.

The table fell. It separated into five pieces as it did: two-foot lengths of each leg collapsed in one direction, while the table top and the upper foot of each leg affixed to it fell in another.

Aaron couldn't process it at first. It just looked like the table had spontaneously separated at an atomic level, electrons giving up their hold on one another so the legs fell apart at even heights.

Something had cut the table. Had slashed across it so quickly and cleanly that the table had a full two seconds to wonder what had happened before falling to pieces.

Aaron replayed the sound. That snick, with a metallic undertone that chilled. He thought of Tommy, tumbling into a wire so strong and fine it became a monofilament razor.

He looked at the table again. And knew this was what would happen if that same line were whipped through the room at knee level. He shuddered as the weight of what they had just avoided crashed down on him.

Then the wall slid back into place of its own accord. Shutting them out of the empty room… and into the next trap.

32

TJ picked his way forward in absolute darkness, wondering what was happening and how he had come to be caught up in it.

Someone tried to hang Sue. Who would do that?

That was the thought that kept pinging through his head as he inched his way forward: a thought with no satisfactory answer. He knew he was hiding from bigger questions – what was going on in general and how did they get out of it chief among them – but he couldn't seem to care. All that really mattered was that Sue was in danger. And he had no idea how to get her out of it.

He didn't even know where he was, exactly. He had followed Susan into the trapdoor –

(Who has a trapdoor beneath their bed?)

– and found himself in a crawlspace of sorts. Sickeningly tight at first, it had broadened out into a tunnel in a few feet. Still claustrophobic, but he could at least get all the way to hands and knees instead of having to worm his way forward on his belly.

Where are we going?

What are we going to do?

He had no answer to either question. He knew Sue was ahead, he could hear her scraping her way softly forward, but that was about the sum of his knowledge.

Then he realized that he could see. It had been pitch black when he started forward, but now something illuminated the space. Not much, just a bare glow that turned everything into dusky shades of black on black. But he could make out the general outlines of his hands below him, the dim shading of Sue as she moved ahead.

On his left, it was just a blank wall – the same kind of featureless expanse you'd probably see after being put in a coffin. To the right, though, it wasn't featureless at all. He could make out giant gears, wheels, and pulleys. Machinery of an unknown design, though it reminded him a bit of the inside of a huge clock.

Something clicked. The machinery began moving, the rumbling click of gears' teeth biting into levers, shifting cables.

What the hell –

"Susan?" he whispered. The sound drowned out his words, so he raised his voice and said again, "Sue? What's happening?"

She kept shuffling forward. The gears kept turning. Then there was a sharp click as the gears sprung something free. He heard a snick from somewhere overhead and then the machinery stopped. He didn't know what had just happened, but it sounded ominous.

The image of an animal in a snare flitted through his mind. A small creature caught in a loop, then yanked high into the air where it would twitch helplessly until the hunter came to butcher it.

He wasn't sure why the image came, but it made him shiver. He'd never seen or heard of anything like the machine to his side. But he knew in his gut that it was a dangerous thing, a bad thing.

How can it even be here? Who built it?

No answers. Only questions.

"Sue, where are we going?"

She finally spoke. Not to answer, though. It was just the same thing she'd already said. The words made his guts curl, made bile rise in his throat.

"They did it. They really did it. I can't believe they did it. They did it…."

She crawled on. He followed.

And feared.

33

Rob saw what happened in the room behind them. Heard the sound, saw a flash of something that glimmered in the air, then the table fell to pieces.

This is impossible. Impossible.

But it wasn't, of course. Unreasonable, unlikely, unfair, yes –

(why does everything happen to me?)

– but clearly not impossible, because it was happening to him right now.

They had come through what looked like a solid wall. The moment after the trap sprung in the room they had just left, that wall slid shut behind them of its own accord, becoming a wall again.

They had entered the next room in line.

The game room.

Calling it that, even in his mind, made Rob want to cringe.

What game are we going to play now?

And what happens if I lose?

That was the important question. He didn't really care what the game was, didn't really mind that the others were playing. The only thing that mattered was how he could get through it. Everything – and everyone – else was secondary.

The game room was as cavernous as every other space in this horrible place. A rectangular room that in more normal times would be the envy of anyone. On the outer wall, a sixty-inch television sat on a cabinet. The cabinet itself had glass doors, allowing him to see the gaming consoles – everything Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo had ever dreamed up or probably would dream up in the next five years – the Blu-ray player, the DVR, and a couple other rectangles of metal and plastic he couldn't even identify at first glance.

A dart board hung in a cabinet affixed to another wall, professional-quality with chalk scoreboards and different-colored darts in neat rows.

A couch sat against another wall.

An air hockey table hunkered in the middle of it all. A wood body clad in aluminum rails, the words "GOLD STANDARD HOCKEY" written in gold lettering on the sides. A red puck and two white mallets sitting inert on the blue table top. The kind of thing that brought to mind dates at an arcade, or pizza places, or any of a million other good memories.

Now, in this place, it looked like a dark monster.

Especially with the folded card sitting at the far end of the table.

Kayla coughed. She sagged against the wall they had just come through. The sawdust on her face had mixed with her sweat and her brother's blood to create a cracking mask that amplified her pained expression. She still had her wounded hand –

(how did that happen how did they know someone would try the door?)

– still jammed in the crook of her other elbow.

Aaron moved slowly around the side of the hockey table, heading for the card.

"Stop!" shouted Rob. To his credit, Aaron froze instantly.

At least he can get that right.

It's his fault we're here. If he'd just gotten the safe open the way he should've….

Rob knew he wasn't talking about tonight's job. He was talking about the one that had started his downward slide. The slide that had ended here.

His fault. All of it.

"What is it?" said Aaron. He had been about to take another step when Rob spoke, and even now he was balanced on his toes, leaning forward as though waiting for gravity to tumble him into his next step.

"How did they get all this going?"

Aaron shook his head. "I don't – what do you mean?"

"The freaks in the masks. Happyface and Sadface. The people doing this. How did they get it all going so fast? The doors and that bulletproof shield and… and everything?"

Aaron shrugged. "Automatic. Has to be. They couldn't be triggering things manually, not and have them so precise and fast."

"Yeah," said Rob. He looked around. "But triggered by what? And what will trigger this room?"

"Thermal sensor?" Kayla said. Her voice was weak and ragged, but at least she had her head in the game. Rob had thought she might have completely checked out mentally. Which didn't mean she'd be useless, he guessed – sometimes when you're being chased by wolves, you don't need to be faster than they are to get away… you just need to throw them someone slower than you are.

Rob shook his head. "A thermal or a motion sensor would have triggered the second we came in. This…. Something's starting things up after we get in each room." He looked around. "I don't see any cams."

"Me, either," said Aaron. "I don't think they're watching."

"You hope," said Kayla.

Rob's fists balled in frustration as he looked around. There was a closet door, hanging half-open nearby, but he didn't bother going in there. Whatever was triggering them would be out in the open, something they'd have to interact with somehow.

He took a step toward the air hockey table.

"Wait," Aaron said. Now it was Rob's turn to halt mid-step, bouncing lightly on his toes, ready to move – to run – at any moment.

Aaron was on the side of the air hockey table that faced the TV and game consoles. There were a few folding chairs stacked against the wall, and for a moment Rob thought the other man was looking at them.

Something hidden there?

Then Aaron crouched and Rob saw he was staring at the game consoles in the cabinet. Red power lights gleamed on the faces of each, cyclopean eyes glaring out from their cage of glass.

Aaron frowned. He drew something from his pocket. It was a cylinder, about six inches long and an inch in diameter. Aaron pressed a button on top, and a whiff of mist puffed out.

Red lines appeared in the mist. Laser tripwires stretched like silken strands from the red eyes of the game consoles that weren't really consoles at all, but security measures.

The red lines were staggered so they couldn't be simply stepped over – stepping over one would put you right in the path of another beam, tripping whatever mechanism was in place.

Aaron had been only an inch or two from the first laser beam when Rob told him to stop.

I saved your wife, now I've saved you. You owe me another one.

And someday… someday it's all gonna come due.

"Clever," said Rob. "Where's the refractor?"

Aaron stood. He turned away from the consoles, looking at the wall opposite. He aimed his flashlight there, a frown on his face. Then said, "There."

Rob looked. For a moment he saw only wall. Then Aaron waved his light and he saw a few spots – each corresponding to a laser tripwire – flash. Not wall, but tiny, nearly perfectly-hidden mirrors that would bounce the lasers back to one or more receptors. Anything breaking the beams would set off the countdown.

Aaron put his flashlight in his pocket, then started to climb onto the air hockey table.

"Wait!" Kayla shouted.

The sound almost surprised Aaron right off the table. He jerked and his leg slipped over the side. Headed right for the spot where Rob knew the first laser beam – now invisible since Aaron's mist had already dissipated – passed.

Aaron jerked himself to a halt, freezing half-on and half-off the table. No one moved. Waiting for the countdown.

It didn't come.

Aaron pulled himself fully onto the table, then swiveled his head to look at Kayla.

"Dammit, Kay, what the –"

"What are we doing?" she broke in.

Aaron shook his head. "Hopefully finding out what we have to do next without starting the timer. Giving us a bit more time. Now… will you please shut the hell up?"

Kay looked like she was going to argue the point, then she nodded. Not cowed, just choosing to be quiet for now.

It was actually the first time Rob had ever seen Aaron stand up to anyone.

So you have a pair after all. Good to know.

Aaron crawled over the surface of the air hockey table. Rob held his breath, not sure what he was expecting, only that he was expecting something – and that it would be something bad.

The hockey table popped under Aaron's hands at one point – the plastic tabletop not really designed to take a grown man's entire weight. Aaron went rigid, and Rob heard Kayla gasp.

Nothing happened. After a moment, Aaron kept moving forward. Past the points where the beams should be passing under the table. Home free.

Rob exhaled explosively. Aaron looked back at him and threw an exhausted thumbs-up. But the half-smile on his face disappeared as fast as it came.

Rob looked at what Aaron had seen.

The closet.

The half-open closet.

Now the all-the-way-open closet.

And a form, lurching out of it, straight at Kayla.

34

Aaron felt strangely vulnerable. Not just because he was stuck on a table directly over a laser net designed to catch them all in a deadly trap. Part of it was just seeing something tumble out of the closet, heading straight for Kayla. A smaller repeat of the helplessness he had suffered while watching Dee waste away.

He glimpsed another form, still standing in the closet. Something moving behind her.

A door. A hidden door sliding shut. How many places like that are there? They could come from anywhere, could attack us from anywhere.

He thought it was Happyface rushing out of the closet, Sadface still inside the dark space. But that was only the fear of an overwrought mind. It wasn't their tormentors, it was… a kid. A teen, maybe someone in his early twenties. He was dressed in pants, no shirt.

The kid stood for a moment in the doorway of the closet. Rob said, "Who are you?" Aaron looked at Rob when he said it, and saw his eyes widen an instant later. Something strange in his eyes. Something that looked like… recognition?

He knows him? Knows the kid?

The kid looked back at him with no recognition whatever in his eyes. "Who are you?" he answered. Whatever relationship that might exist between Rob and the kid looked like a strictly one-way affair.

What do Sadface and Happyface mean by this?

That this was something planned by the two he had no doubt. Nothing in this night had happened by chance. He just had to figure out what it all meant, and hope that would give him a better chance of getting back to Dee.

The form in the closet stepped out. It was the girl from the room – the daughter. She was still dressed in her tank top and boxers, her dark hair disheveled and black circles under haunted eyes. There was a bright red circle around her neck where the noose had cut into her skin.

"You," said Rob. He rushed at her, knife flashing in his hands. "What's going on, what's –"

"Hey!" The kid managed to get between Rob and the Crawford girl, but only for a moment. Rob tossed him away, slamming him against the back wall.

"Wait!" Aaron saw it unfolding with mounting horror; knew this was part of it, too. The kid and the girl had appeared for a reason, and no doubt Rob's response was playing into it.

No matter what we do, we're doing what they want us to.

The thought brought hopelessness. He tried to push it away. Partially succeeded.

He almost jumped off the air hockey table, which would have put him in the center of the lasers, probably breaking one of them and starting the countdown.

"Wait!" he shouted again.

Kayla grabbed the kid with her good hand as he tried to go to the teenage girl's aid. Even one-handed she was a fury, raging against the boy, slamming his face, his ears, his neck with her good hand.

"Don't you move! Don't you move!" she screamed, spittle flying visibly from her mouth, spattering the kid.

Rob had his knife pressed against the Crawford girl's throat. "Who are you? What's going on here?" She didn't answer, shock the only thing in her gaze. "WHO ARE YOU?"

The girl's eyes focused. Just a bit, enough to look at Rob, though she still seemed to be gazing partly through him. "I can't believe they really did it," she breathed.

"Did what? Did what?"

He pressed on her throat with the knife, and now more red joined the angry welt on her neck. Blood welled around the point of his knife. Not deadly, but another quarter-inch of pressure could sever major blood vessels, and that would be the end.

The pain didn't seem to bother the girl. She didn't even seem to notice it. "My parents. They did it." Her eyes flitted around the room like she was afraid the walls would close in.

Maybe they will.

"DID WHAT?" screamed Rob.

Kayla had been struggling with the kid the whole time. He would take a step toward the girl, Kayla would drive him back with a series of terror-infused punches and body blocks. But when Rob screamed that last, she looked away from the boy. Just for a moment, her eyes flitting toward Rob.

It was enough. The kid's muscles visibly hardened as he brought all his strength to bear and slammed a hard fist into the side of her head.

Kayla reeled back in pain, her eyes spinning wildly in their sockets as the hit dazed her. She took a few mad, stumbling steps backward…

… "NO!" Aaron screamed…

… and right into the space where the laser tripwires spun their deadly web.

Lights flashed on each of the walls.

2:00….

Rob saw it. He wheeled away from the girl for a moment, kicking the kid's legs out from under him, then unloading a vicious kick to the kid's stomach that curled him into a fetal position, coughing and retching. The actions spoke eloquently of Rob's fear.

He spun back to the girl. His knife went back to her throat so quickly it was as though it had never left.

"How do we get out of here?"

The girl shook her head, her gaze again lost somewhere far away. "Follow… follow the maps. Get to the door. The front door. Front door. Front door…."

She kept repeating "Front door," her mind lost in a mad litany, a prayer and a hope and a denial wrapped in one.

Rob, disgusted, looked at Aaron. "What's the map say?"

Aaron crawled the rest of the way –

(Why bother? It's not like I can trip the countdown again.)

– across the air hockey table and grabbed the card before hopping off.

1:50….

Just as with the others, there was a piece of photo inside. Just as with the others, it was a wash of reds and grays impossible to understand. The back had a "7" on it.

The card also had another message.

there is always madness in loveTWHA

Beneath the photo, another map. An outline of the room with a green spot on one side. It corresponded to a door beside the couch. A door that would lead to –

"The bathroom!" Aaron shouted.

The door was closed. He wondered how hard it would be to get through.

"Come on!" he shouted. Rob and Kayla moved quickly toward the door. The kid and the Crawford girl just stared at them, not sure what was going on. Then the kid grabbed the girl. Dragged her toward the hall door.

Aaron knew what would happen. Not the details, only that touching that door would involve pain. Death.

"No!" he shouted, and at the same moment the Crawford girl reared back and screamed, "Don't touch it!" but the kid was already reaching for the door.

He touched the knob.

There was a crackle. The potent whiff of ozone.

And the kid began to dance.

His teeth slammed together so hard that blood flowed around his lips, which locked in a terrifying grimace.

The girl moved to help him….

(and all the while the countdown keeps going, keeps getting lower, the numbers point to our death)

… reached out.

Any electrocution powerful enough to lock someone's entire body into a single clenched muscle would be enough to kill it in seconds.

And would be enough to catch anyone who touched the kid in its embrace.

"No!" Aaron screamed at the girl. Her hand stopped only an inch from the kid. "Don't touch him!"

The girl looked from her boyfriend to Aaron. "He's dying! Help him!"

Aaron flew at the kid, looking desperately for anything he might use to knock the kid away from the knob that had his fingers locked around it.

His eyes settled on the air hockey table. The paddles. He put the paddles against him, jamming them against his chest so they would be between him and the teen, then ran at the kid like he was a hockey player going for a full-body check.

Hope this works.

He hit the teen with everything he had. There was another crackle as the teen flew to the side, knocked loose. Aaron almost pitched headfirst into the same knob that had trapped the kid. He leaned wildly to the side. Bounced off the door. Landing in a heap beside the kid.

The kid was rocking back and forth, his good hand going first to the wrist of his bad hand, clenching it as though he might be able to cut off the flow of pain from his hand to his brain; then clutching at his side where Aaron had hit him as though unsure which pain was worse.

Aaron looked at the countdown.

1:00….

He got to his knees, reaching out to help the kid rise with him. The kid screamed in pain, doubled over –

"Leave him!" Rob shouted. "Get over here and help us!"

Aaron, for the first time in his life, completely ignored Rob. He helped the kid over to the bathroom door, the Crawford girl close behind.

Once he got to where Rob and Kayla were standing, he helped the kid slide to the floor again. The Crawford girl knelt beside him, cradling his head in her arms.

Rob and Kayla were shoving madly at the door. Straining at it, slamming into it. Nothing worked.

"How do we get out of here?" he asked the girl.

She looked dully at Rob and Kayla as they pushed, pushed, to no avail.

She shook her head. "I don't know."

Aaron searched her face. Believed her.

She's as much a victim of this as we are.

He went to Kayla and Rob. Helped them slam into the door, over and over.

In the middle of the third hit –

(0:32….

0:31….)

– a voice floated into the room. It was deep. Clearly male, but mechanized somehow.

Happyface.

"Try pulling," said the voice.

They all turned to the sound. And saw him.

Happyface looked in through a window that had appeared in the face of the doorway that led to the hall. It hadn't been there a second ago, Aaron was sure of it.

Hidden passages, hidden traps. Why not hidden windows?

Happyface waved at them. Then spoke again, that altered voice grating against the pain centers in Aaron's mind. "I could just let the time run out and watch you all die, but… there's still so much fun to be had." He waited a moment as they all watched him, stunned. "I'd move quickly," he finally said.

Still no one moved for a moment. "Why are you doing this?" Kayla said.

"You only have a few seconds left."

0:09….

Rob pulled at the door with a terrified scream. Clearly not sure whether to be more afraid of what was coming behind, or what waited for them ahead.

The door opened easily at his pull –

(aren't we just a bunch of geniuses?)

– then Rob rushed through the door. First one out. Again.

Everyone else piled through on his heels. Even the kid and the girl – the kid's eyes shining with pain, the girl mumbling disbelieving words to herself – followed.

They were barely through, into the bathroom beyond the wall, when Aaron heard a high-pitched whistle, followed by the whoosh of gas igniting. He pulled the door shut behind them.

The unmistakable sound of flame could be heard through the door. The crackle of an entire room being incinerated.

Everyone was still huddled against the door, as though afraid to take a single step further into the room. They all looked at one another.

Aaron's gaze moved to the door that led to the hall. Knowing it had to be a trap.

Then Kayla grabbed the teen girl in their midst. She yanked her toward the sink, slamming her so hard against the marble counter that the teen's head kept going and shattered the mirror on the wall.

Kayla let go of the girl, scooping up a long, thin triangle of glass that had fallen away from the mirror frame and into the sink. She hung the point in front of the younger girl's left eye.

"You got three seconds to talk before I start cutting," she said.

No one moved. Aaron and the younger man held their breaths, both of them afraid to move for fear of what Kayla would do next.

Rob seemed at ease – as at ease as possible given the circumstances – and folded his arms against his chest.

"It's… it's a game," the girl managed. "My parents joked about it." Her gaze went somewhere else. A memory or a nightmare. "They joked," she whispered.

"How do we get out of here?" said Kayla.

"I don't know. I just don't…." The girl dissolved into sobs. Kayla looked like she might just cut the girl to pieces, then threw down the glass in disgust. It broke against the floor.

The young man moved – stiffly and painfully – to the girl. He checked the back of her head, then cradled her against his chest.

"Who are you? All of you?" he said

Rob pursed his lips, and again a strange look crossed his expression. "People in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like you." He paused, then added, "You the boyfriend?" The kid nodded. "You know what's going on?"

The kid shook his head. "No clue."

"Sonofa…." Rob's voice drifted away.

"What is it?" Aaron said.

Rob aimed his flashlight at the toilet. In that instant, a noise had been with them the entire time they were in the room finally registered in Aaron's mind. Cloaked by the sound of flames in the game room, the mayhem-sounds Kayla had caused. But now he heard it. Looked toward it.

Water was coming from the toilet bowl, streaming over the lip.

"Think it's just a plumbing problem?" he said.

Rob snorted. At that instant, the burbling rose in volume. The toilet seat – which was down – began to flip up then slap down as the increasing water pressure below caused it to dance.

Aaron swung his own light around. Back and forth in the bathroom, seeing….

"Uhh…."

"What is it?" said Kayla.

"There's no clue in here. No way to start the timer."

"That sounds like a good thing," said the kid, still holding the girl. "Is that a good thing?"

They all looked at the girl. She shrunk under their combined stares.

"I don't know what happens next," she said. "My parents joked that this was their funhouse. That's what they called it. They joked about setting traps. About killing…. I didn't understand. It was a joke. I thought it was a joke."

Kayla bridled. "You thought it was a joke?"

She moved toward the girl again. The kid got between them, and Kayla scooped up the glass from where she had dropped it. Slashed it toward his throat –

And Aaron grabbed her arm, stopping the edge only a few inches from the young man's throat.

"Not now," he said. He looked at Susan. "Did your parents say what the point was? What the traps are?"

"Just that the front door was the only way out."

The toilet burbled. Water came out of it faster.

Aaron tried to ignore it as he thought. Trying to figure out what was going on, how to get through all this, why they were here, and how to beat the maze they had found themselves trapped within.

The water bubbled up from the toilet faster. Faster. The seat was dancing a mad tattoo off the rim below.

A moment later, the sinks and tub faucet all turned on. The shower turned on as well, all of them splashing water into sinks, into tubs. It was coming faster than it should have, the water spewing out in torrents. In only a few seconds water was spilling over the edges of the twin basins in the sink. The tub was over half full. Water was also spilling out from the bottom edges of the sink cabinets.

A quarter-inch of water sloshed against their feet.

"No timer," Aaron murmured.

He dropped to his hands and knees and began feeling around the edges of the door to the hall. Someone inhaled sharply behind him, no doubt sure he was going to be burnt, beaten, otherwise harmed by the contact.

Nothing happened.

He felt the bottom of the door, then stood and began feeling the frame, finally moving to the sinks. He plunged his hands into the basins, feeling something below the water.

"There's some kind of seal – doors, sinks, all plugged," he said.

"What does that mean?" the young man said. He looked at Rob. "What does he mean?"

Rob looked down at the water at their feet. Half-inch deep.

Water started cascading over the side of the tub.

"It means that water's coming in," said Rob, "but none's going out."

The water was an inch deep.

And rising.

35

Rob didn't want to look. Didn't want to stare.

But he couldn't help it.

TJ. TJ's here. What's he doing here?

Of course the answer was simple: TJ was here for him. Rob was the one driving all this. It was all about him.

My luck hasn't changed after all.

He forced himself to look away from TJ. Then the kid spoke, and the sound drew his gaze like a magnet. "So, what, we're gonna drown in toilet water?"

The teen girl laughed. The high-pitched, desperate laugh of someone gone mad.

Rob barely noticed. Another look at TJ.

How did he get here?

At that moment, the toilet started shaking. The shaking turned from a tremble to a full wobble as the fixture started dancing back and forth on its base.

Then it exploded. A jet of high-pressure water drove toward the ceiling, and everyone in the bathroom ducked as chunks of porcelain – some of them as big as Rob's head – flew through the air.

One of the biggest pieces almost hit him. He ducked away, and as he did he realized it was different than the rest. Not white, but dark. Rougher-seeming than the cleanly-sheared white pieces the rest of the toilet had broken into.

The piece fell to the floor.

The girl screamed.

Not a piece of the toilet. And there was a reason for its shape, for its size.

It was a severed head.

The head rolled across the floor, though the water that now came up to everyone's ankles. It came to rest in a corner beside the tub. Hair spread out from the head in a red halo. The eyes of the woman were wide, the face frozen in a shriek of terror and pain.

Everyone had pressed themselves away from the gory sight, pushing into walls as though they might simply shove themselves away from the nightmare that had trapped them.

Everyone but Kayla. She leaned forward, frowning as she looked at the head. "Nikki?" she said.

Rob looked at Kayla in surprise. "Who's Nikki?"

"Nikki's the one who gets the blueprints for the houses we're gonna hit. She works for the records department at city hall."

Everyone was silent as that sunk in.

This isn't just about me, after all.

It's about all of us.

He looked at Aaron. The other man had come to the same conclusion. So had Kayla.

TJ and the Crawford girl didn't understand. They just stared at the head in the corner with nauseated expressions.

The head began to float in the water that rapidly approached – then passed – their thighs.

"They knew we were coming," Rob finally managed. "Us." He looked at TJ when he said that last.

Again, Aaron noticed. Again, he didn't say anything. No time for questions. Which was good, because the only answers Rob could possibly give were ones he didn't want to admit.

TJ moved toward one of the walls. And it was as though everyone else had been waiting for permission. They all exploded into motion, slogging toward walls, looking for a way out through any surface possible.

Only the Crawford girl remained motionless, pressed so tightly against one of the walls she looked like a hanging sculpture. Eyes vacant, mind somewhere safer and happier.

Rob fought his way through the water –

(Past my waist!)

– to where the toilet had been. Water was still jetting out of the base of the toilet, but the level of the water in the room had risen so high that the jet no longer arced through the air, but only created a frothy storm at the surface.

Rob pounded on the wall. Any other place his fist would have crashed through the drywall. But the wall here was hard – some kind of plastic or maybe even metal below the paint. Other than bruised knuckles, he didn't get anything out of punching the wall, and stopped after a few moments.

"Anything?" he called over his shoulder.

"No!" screamed Aaron, followed quickly by Kayla, whose shouted obscenities were answer enough.

Aaron was staring at Susan. He looked so surprised and suddenly hopeful that Rob more than half expected a cartoon lightbulb to appear over his head.

Aaron spun to TJ. "How'd you guys get in that closet?"

TJ barely noticed the question. He was hammering in vain on the door to the hall. "What?" he screamed.

"The closet. You guys just… appeared. How?"

"There was some tunnel. Went under and came out –"

"You went under the floor?"

"I think so, yeah, I –"

Aaron spun to Rob. Hard to do because the water was up to his chest now. "It's what was wrong."

Rob's brow wrinkled. "Whaddya mean?"

"You said something about the kitchen was wrong. But it wasn't the kitchen, it's the whole house. The rooms are smaller than they should be."

He pulled out his pry bar. "So?" said Rob.

"So there are spaces for the traps, for the machinery they'd need." He started slamming his pry bar into the wall. "There are voids in the walls. We can break through and make drains!"

"It won't work!" shouted Rob. "The walls are –"

An electronic popping interrupted him. The buzz of a speaker, and Happyface's voice jarred its way into the room. "I know what it's like to drown, you know. Oh, not literally. But there are so many different ways to drown. Some worse than others."

Rob's feet left the floor as the water level rose to the point where buoyancy overpowered gravity.

It was only a foot from the ceiling. They were all treading water now, even the Crawford girl jerked partially out of her shell-shocked demeanor by the water's rise.

They swam in a series of small circles, everyone bumping into everyone as they darted back and forth, looking for an escape that would never come.

Then Aaron stopped moving.

The water was only inches from the ceiling. Rob had to tilt his head to keep breathing.

"The seals!" Aaron shouted.

"What?"

Aaron couldn't answer, because the voice came again. Happyface. "Drowning. It's the sensation of having nowhere to go. No one that you can possibly turn to for help."

Aaron splashed over to the door. He reached below the level of the water, and Rob could vaguely make out his hands, pry bar jabbing at the thin line between the frame and the door.

"The door opens out, remember?" Aaron shouted. "If we can break the seals, maybe the weight of the water will be enough to force the door open!"

Rob didn't have to wait for an invitation, and neither did Kayla. They both had their own pry bars out, they both started working on the seals.

Then, suddenly, there was no way to stay above the water.

They each took a last breath and dived. Pry bars still picking desperately around the outer edge of the door to the hall.

Happyface spoke again, waterproof speakers somewhere sending his voice into the water around them, the water swirling the sound around so it seemed to come from all directions at once. "Drowning is knowing you're going to die. Then not knowing you're going to die –"

Something cracked beneath Rob's pry bar. He moved with renewed vigor, trying to ignore the pounding in his head, the feeling like someone was pressing on his chest. Bubbles drifted out of Kayla's mouth and he knew she had only seconds before her body took control and made her inhale.

"– not knowing you're going to die, no. But terrified you won't." Happyface's voice was silent for a moment, then he spoke the final words. "No more games. You're all going to die."

Rob sensed motion nearby. He turned his head and now bubbles escaped from the Crawford girl's mouth and nose. She inhaled. Began convulsing in the gravity-less environment of a room full of water.

CRACK.

The noise of shredding wood, of architecture giving way, filled the water the same way Happyface's voice had done. But where his words had brought dread, the mechanical tone the sound of a demon spawned from a nightmare Hell, this sound made Rob's heart leap. He looked to where Aaron had managed to get his pry bar into the seal between the hall door and the frame.

Another crack as he pulled to one side. Then a third as he reversed the motion.

And then the door seemed to explode. Rob was jerked toward the opening with all the force that fifty thousand gallons could exert. He hit Kayla on the way out, her head spinning into the doorframe with a dull thock that could only barely be heard over the rush of the water.

Then he was out. Into the hall, water still coursing around him, then streaming, then trickling. He coughed, water exploding from his nose and dripping off his clothes, from his hair.

The joy of escape quickly turned to fear. "Where's my gun? Where's my gun?" he asked, scrambling around on hands and knees, swishing through water that still rained from the bathroom, waiting to hear the snuffle and growl of the giant dogs that had driven them into the beginning of this house of traps.

No. The beginning was the moment we stepped in the house.

Kayla spoke, addressing the fear that drove him to scramble around on hands and knees. "Where are the dogs?"

Rob stopped moving. Listened. There was only the low gurgle of the water. Then even that was gone. The water still trickled past, but it was silent and above the nothing-sounds he could hear no dogs, no growls, no sounds of death on four legs.

Kayla stood. She weaved on her feet, still shaking off the effects of a near-drowning. But hope shone in her eyes. The obvious belief that, having beaten certain death by drowning, she could make it out.

She started toward the steps that led to the foyer downstairs, murmuring something as she went. Rob thought it was "front door."

"Kayla, no!" shouted Aaron.

Kayla jerked to a halt. She was on the balcony, figure framed by the balustrade behind her.

"She said the front door was the only way out!" The words came out in a panicked, mad scream. Rob looked at Kayla and saw a complete lack of control, a burgeoning insanity either brought into being or simply brought to the surface by the events of the last minutes.

Minutes. Less than five minutes in each room but the night feels like a lifetime.

"Don't you think they'll expect –"

TJ seemed not to hear any of this. He suddenly grabbed his girlfriend and pulled her toward Kayla. Toward the stairs beyond. He was making a break for it. He hadn't been through the beginning, didn't realize.

TJ, no!

The sight of the young man barreling past him touched something inside Rob. "I ain't playin' this game no more!" he shrieked.

To go down was what they would expect. To move forward was to play into their hands. To go the obvious way… it was death.

So Rob didn't move forward. He went sideways.

He ran to the opposite side of the hallway. To one of the doors they had passed on the way to the master bedroom. He hit it hard. Harder than he thought he could.

The door splintered, and he fell through the sudden opening. He sprawled full-length on the floor, then launched back to his feet

Gotta act. Gotta stop this. Gotta stop it from happening to TJ.

He was in the media room. Rows of theater seats. Popcorn machine in the back.

And Sadface, standing in front of the enormous television.

The television was divided into a ten-by-ten grid, showing what looked like closed-circuit views of every inch of the house.

Sadface turned, and even through the mask he could sense her surprise. Rob heard the sound of someone – Aaron – coming into the room behind him.

Sadface took a step back.

Rob rushed at her. And the only thought in his mind was that he would visit on her a thousand pains for every drop of blood she had helped spill.

He would stop her. He would stop the traps. He would save TJ, save the others, save himself.

His fingers reached for her.

For the first time since all this began, he smiled.

36

TJ shoved the woman out of the way. He didn't know who she was and didn't care. All he knew was that he was getting Sue out of here. Now.

Sue resisted. She pulled back, trailing behind him. Then they were past the other woman –

(the one who tried to hurt Sue tried to stab her cut her with that glass)

– and TJ felt like this would all end. He would get Sue out of here, they would go to the cops and find a way to make everything right.

She thought her parents had done this. Had they? How could something as perfect as Sue come from something as… insane as whoever crafted this house?

No. Not true. Can't be.

As soon as they passed the woman who had tried to hurt Sue, she seemed to find the strength to move forward of her own volition. She was almost pushing him, straining to get out just as much as he was.

Hurry. Hurry. Get out. Get Sue out.

He glanced down. No real reason why, other than that they were almost to the stairs. Wouldn't it be a joke, to get this far, this close, and then fall down the stairs and break a leg?

He wasn't going to let that happen. He'd watch his step. So he looked down…

… in time to see the red dot on his leg. It was thigh-high, a pinprick of light that he instantly knew was a laser beam striking him.

What?

He heard something click. Spun to see a five-foot section of the ceiling detach. It must have been attached by hinges to whatever was above it, because it didn't drop straight down but instead swung in a short arc.

It was headed straight for the woman behind Sue.

It took less than a second for the piece of the ceiling to reach her. Before it hit, TJ saw something shift. The face of the length of wood shimmered. Even rows of metal sprang out from it, snapping into place perpendicular to the ceiling piece. Thousands of them, glinting in a way that left no doubt what they were.

The ceiling piece hit the woman. She turned her head away, and the three-inch razors that covered the entirety of it smashed right through the balustrade and plunged into her chest, her arms and legs.

The side of her face. Her skull.

She didn't even scream. Just inhaled, then stopped moving. She didn't fall, though, pinned there in midair. She looked oddly peaceful, the razors that had killed her buried on the dark side of her body. Only her open mouth and eyes and the blood already pooling at her feet told TJ she was gone.

It all happened in an instant. Too fast to be completely processed, certainly too fast to be stopped.

Just like what happened next

Another piece of ceiling fell. This one fell in the opposite direction, not arcing inward toward the balcony and balustrade, but outward.

It happened fast. Too fast to be completely processed.

Certainly too fast to be stopped.

No razors snapped out. No death on the face of the board that swung down. Just the flat plane itself.

It hit TJ. It almost felt soft, though his clavicle shattered and his shoulder dislocated. Then any pain he might have felt was swallowed by the sensation of flying through the air. The board was heavy, and it catapulted him forward and up as though he weighed nothing at all. He hit what was left of the balustrade, had an instant to see a stone floor a good twenty feet below, then began to flip over the rail.

I'm going to die.

He jerked to a halt.

His mind didn't process what was happening. Not at first. He was staring up at the ceiling – at the huge chandelier that hung above the foyer. It took him a full second – an eternity when suspended over nothing – to understand what had happened.

Sue.

She had caught him on the edge of the rail. The perfect moment where backward turned into down. She had been wrecked by the night, by whatever was going on, but she had managed to come out of himself in order to catch him. To save him.

He heard something below. Turned his head enough to see the same huge dogs he had seen earlier in the hall below. Looking up. Just looking.

Waiting for dinner to drop from the sky.

He looked back at Susan. Smiled at her. The thought that they were going to have to find a way past the beasts below was pushed out of his mind by simple gratitude.

"Thanks," he breathed.

Then she let go. And pushed him.

37

Rob moved so fast it was less a run and more a controlled fall. Aaron watched him stumble/run forward, toward Sadface. She had a knife out, clutched in her hand as though she had been waiting for something just like this –

(what if she has what if she was waiting and this is what she wants)

– and the knife slashed out as Rob ran for her. He sidestepped it. Knocked it away. It flew under one of the theater seats with a light, almost jaunty clatter.

Rob plowed into Sadface. They both hit the huge TV, but the glass screen was strong and just bounced them back into the room with not a crack marring its surface. Rob and Sadface went down in a heap, Rob managing to twist so he ended up on top.

"Son of a bitch!" he roared, somehow managing to emphasize the last word so it left no doubt who the "bitch" was.

Sadface wasn't done. Another knife appeared in her hand. She swiped with it, and Rob lunged back; barely missed having his throat cut.

He bounced back against the TV again, and by the time he managed to find his balance, Sadface was on her feet. Knife held out. Mask bright in the reflected light of the TV, a glowing menace.

Rob growled, and took a step toward Sadface.

Aaron jumped into the fray.

He hit Sadface from behind, plowing into her hips and sending her knees buckling forward. Rob kicked at the same time, his big foot landing square in Sadface's chest. She didn't make any sound of pain, no indicator other than a single, sharp exhalation as the air exploded from her lungs.

But no cry. No whimper.

Just silence.

Sadface's arms wheeled as she tried to keep her balance. Aaron was still moving forward, inertia driving him a few more inches into and through the line of her legs. Her knees buckled further. Rob kicked again, and this time she went down.

Rob launched himself at her, catching her knife hand as it continued to make huge circles in the air. He jumped on her as she pitched back, falling over Aaron's form, which was still clenched around her upper thighs.

They hit the floor in a heap, Rob on top and Aaron on the bottom with Sadface struggling between them –

(sadface sandwich!)

– and then Rob pitched himself sideways and the weight disappeared from Aaron's body as Rob dragged Sadface off him and onto the floor.

Sadface struggled for a moment under Rob's bulk. But he had her knife now, and jammed it under the line of her mask, slamming the edge against her throat hard enough to draw blood.

"Kayla!" he shouted. "Kayla, get in here."

A moment. Silence.

Aaron looked back toward the hall, hoping to see what was stopping her from coming. Hoping to see her running toward them.

He didn't see her. He didn't see the hall either.

"What –" Rob began.

The door swung closed. No view of the hall. No view of anything outside this room.

Didn't Rob break the door?

And it was true. He could see where Rob had hit the door, where he had splintered the frame.

But the door still swung shut. And when it hit the side of the frame there was a loud click and it stopped moving and Aaron knew that, even if Rob had knocked the entire latch mechanism out of the door, something else was now holding it closed.

Once again, they were trapped.

38

TJ's mind sped up. In the instant after he fell –

(no not fell Susan pushed me Sue pushed me)

– he experienced a single instant that somehow captured an eternity. He wondered if his mother would miss him. If she would cry.

In the next instant he wondered what death would feel like. When he hit the stone floor below, either to die instantly or to merely shatter his body and then be consumed by the huge dogs waiting there. He hoped he felt nothing. Prayed for oblivion.

And then the pain came.

It wasn't the speedy, silent nothing that he had hoped for. Instead it was lines of agony, crisscrossing his back, the backs of his thighs and his outstretched arms. Wetness spread across his neck –

Wetness?

He was staring at the chandelier. But there was something wrong. Something….

It's too close.

The stone floor had been a good thirty feet below the chandelier. But it looked like it was only twenty or so feet above him. Maybe even a little less.

Where are the dogs?

The wet feeling spread across the backside of his body, then the pain – already so bad it was an effort to keep from crying out – increased tenfold as he turned his head.

No dogs.

No nothing.

The pain came again. Worse than before. White-red lines of fire across his back, legs, arms.

He screamed, and as he screamed he saw that he was, indeed, too close to the chandelier. Saw that the dogs were, indeed, nowhere near.

He saw the glint.

For a moment – another forever-time that lasted no longer than a panicked heartbeat – he couldn't understand. Then sight turned to thought, and thought turned to comprehension.

The glint was a wire. It streaked across from the wall at the far end of the foyer, then to him.

He turned his head. The pain worsened, there was a sudden surge of wetness that he now understood was blood… but he had to know. The wire went under him, then continued to the wall that formed the bottom of the curving stairs. Disappeared into it through a hole that was almost too small to see.

He was on a wire, suspended in space midway between the top of the stairs and the foyer floor.

No, many wires. Not just a single, nearly invisible thread, but a spider web of filaments, spun by some enormous creature intent not on capturing insects, but much larger prey.

He had fallen into the web. It caught him, the wire cutting deep into his body under the driving force of his own weight.

His legs suddenly went numb from the thighs down. At first it was a relief, the sudden disappearance of all sensation bringing with it a corresponding absence of pain in that area. He had fallen into the wires so hard, they had bitten so deep, that at least one of them had severed his spine.

A new wetness spread, this time on top of him. Warmth cascaded across his groin as he lost control of his body. Perhaps it was fear, maybe it was just a side effect of the paralysis.

He cried out again – pain, terror, helplessness.

He looked up.

Sue was still there. Staring down at him. The terror that had blanketed her expression since he first saw her hanging from the ceiling lamp in the hall was gone. Now she looked out at the world – at him – with a strangely blank expression. Watching everything through eyes that had somehow lost the brightness he had seen in them every day since that day in the garage. Sloughed it off like a snakeskin grown too small.

"Help," he croaked.

He knew she wouldn't. She hadn't just let go, hadn't lost him to a fall. She had pushed him into it.

But his lips moved again. He couldn't help it. "Help."

She watched him for another microscopic eternity.

Then moved away, disappearing from view.

A new wetness joined his urine, his blood.

TJ wept.

And waited for death to claim him in a web spun by a black widow that wore his lover's face.

39

Rob vaguely understood that they were trapped. That Aaron was screaming as he rammed into the closed door to the hall. That each time he hit, he bounced back. Several times he fell.

But it was all far away. The only thing up close – the only thing real – was Sadface. His knife against her throat.

The downturned crescent frown on the mask mocked him. Her silence under his knife – no whimpering, no pleading, no nothing – enraged him.

She did this.

She caught us here. Her and Happyface.

They killed Tommy and Kayla.

They brought TJ.

That last thought bit the deepest. Full of complication, mired in a history half-lived.

Aaron's shouting suddenly changed. The sound managed to yank Rob's attention from Sadface to the other man.

Aaron was looking through a window that had suddenly appeared in the door. A face hung there. The Crawford girl, looking in on what was happening, like a visitor staring into an animal cage at the world's strangest zoo.

"Hey!" Aaron screamed. "Can you –" Then his tone changed again. No longer hope at seeing someone outside this room, but raw terror. "Look out! Look out!"

Happyface had appeared in the window. Right behind Susan.

At Aaron's words, Susan turned to the other masked freak. She didn't shrink away, didn't scream in terror.

She turned away from him.

Her face was calm, not a trace of fear – or anything else. It was a blank mask that betrayed nothing.

She moved below the level of the window. Brought something into view. Put it on.

It was another mask –

(Oh dear God, oh Jesus, oh mommy please save me)

– another Greek theater mask. This one, though, was different. Not just the expression, but the mask itself didn't seem… right. There were no crescent eyes, no frown or smile. Instead, the eyes were uneven, mismatched circles. The mouth was open in an asymmetrical oval.

Not happiness.

Not sadness.

Insanity.

Happyface, Sadface, and now Madface.

Why is this happening to me?

It's not fair.

He turned away from the sight of the two masks in the window, and told himself it was because staring at them wouldn't help anything, he had his ticket to freedom right below him, right under his blade.

But those were lies. He just couldn't look at the two masks out there. They were too much, and to look at them too long would be to join Madface in her insanity.

Rob leaned on Sadface. Pressed a knee into her breastbone so it would be nearly impossible to breathe, even as he increased pressure on the knife at her throat.

"Where's Kayla?" he screamed. "Where's TJ? Where's TJ?"

The TV beside him flickered. The crisscrossing views of multiple cameras in the rooms of the mansion disappeared. Now there was only one picture, enormous on the hundred-inch screen.

TJ.

The kid's form was splayed out, arms and legs and head the spokes of his body's wheel.

And he was floating.

Floating?

No. Not floating. He was hanging on something. Rob could barely make it out, but something flashed in the dim space over the foyer. As soon as it did, he remembered the wire that had cut so deeply into Tommy's body. And, knowing what to look for, he could make out a near-invisible net made of the same wires.

Blood dripped from TJ's form to the floor of the foyer. The huge dogs were there, lapping it up. Waiting for more.

Rob thought the kid must be dead, and a sharp coldness spread through him. Then TJ's head turned. He looked up and screamed. Rob heard it both on the television and filtering through the closed hall door. High-fidelity sound that doubled the pain it communicated.

Rob's jaw dropped. He looked back at the window.

The Crawford girl –

(no no never again she never was she's Madface and that's all)

– spoke. Like Happyface and Sadface, her voice was altered, mechanical. A mockery of humanity. "None of you even thought to ask: If I knew about the trapdoor and the passage, how could I possibly not know about what was happening here?" She held something up to the window. It looked like a complicated remote control of some kind, bigger than a television remote and covered in different-colored buttons whose functions were mysteries to Rob. "Everything I did was so you would let me in. Let me be with you." She nodded toward Happyface. "It was enough for them to see from far away. But I wanted to be close." She paused then added, "So I could see your faces," and in the same instant pressed one of the buttons on the remote.

Rob looked back at the television beside him. At the huge screen that made its single image so much larger than life, so much more painful.

The chandelier hanging above TJ let go of the ceiling. It fell.

"No!" screamed Rob.

TJ had time for a single, sharp gasp. Then the heavy corona of crystal and metal and wire fell directly on top of him. The chandelier stopped exactly like TJ had. Halted by the net of wires.

The chandelier stopped.

TJ didn't.

The heavy weight of the chandelier drove into his flesh, slammed it back into the wires. The wires separated TJ into pieces that fell to the foyer floor with splats and thumps.

The pit bulls went mad. Dinner.

Rob screamed. His mind separated into two parts: the part that was rage, the scream the only way it could express what it was feeling; and the part that realized his scream sounded somehow familiar. The sound of pure agony. The sound of loss.

A sound he had heard on others' lips as he stole not only what they had, but what they were. Money and riches lost, husbands and wives stolen away.

Children killed.

He turned away from the television, turned away from that part of him that wondered if this wasn't right, if it wasn't just.

He turned to Sadface. Began smashing her face with his free hand. He didn't bother taking off the mask, just slammed down right through it. Smash, smash, smash, and every time his fist fell he knew that the world hated him, that all this was wrong, that nothing would ever be right again. The world hated him. And it just wasn't fair.

"No!" he screamed. "No, no, no, how could you do that how could you do that to my son?"

In his peripheral vision he saw Aaron stumble, just go from standing to a near-fall as he heard Rob's words. Rob looked at him, blinking away a curtain of tears. "He never knew," he said. "Never… never…."

The words drained him. Halted the fist that had rained down on Sadface.

"You have a son?" said Aaron. A strange comment, given where they were, what was happening around them. A jarring pause in the terror of the night. But at the same time it seemed right. Words spoken in eulogy over his boy.

"A long time ago," whispered Rob. "Before Donna. He never knew. And I thought…." The hand that had pounded Sadface now lifted. He rubbed his palm against his forehead. "I thought that keeping it that way – keeping myself away from him – would be the best thing I could do for him." He chuckled. The sound held no mirth. "It was probably the only good thing I've ever done."

He turned back to Sadface. Smashed his fist into her face again. Again.

On the third hit, the mask split and fell away from her face.

Rob reeled.

(The man showed Robert something inside his wallet. A picture of a smiling woman and a teenager, both with dark shoulder-length hair and deep brown eyes. Both striking – beautiful.

"My wife and daughter," said the man.)

The woman looked nothing like the woman in the folder. Her hair wasn't blond, it was so dark as to be nearly black. The hair was missing in a long patch from her temple to the back of the head, and when he saw it he recognized her.

The woman. The woman from five years ago. The job where it all started to go wrong.

"You're dead," he whispered. "Tommy killed you."

But obviously he hadn't. The bullet must have ricocheted off her skull – rare, but it did happen – and left her bleeding, dead-looking, but still very much alive.

He heard Aaron gasp in shock, and knew the other man had recognized her as well. Rob nearly fell off her, surprise driving him back as hard as any punch to the gut. Then he pressed himself forward again, forced himself through the anguish and the pain and surprise. He pressed down with the knife. Looked to the window in the door – Happyface –

(it must be him, it must be the guy from that night)

– and Sadface –

(and the daughter – Christ did anyone actually die that night did that night even happen at all or was it just a dream?)

– stared back at him through the glass and through their unmoving masks.

"I'm done!" Rob shouted. "Done playing! You let us out or…."

He tapered off. The threat didn't need to be stated. And sometimes the unstated ones carried more power.

A moment stretched into a minute. Now Rob doubted: what could he do if they didn't back down? He couldn't just kill Sadface –

(What was her name what was the name of the family?

Oh, yeah, it was Schaffer.

But that's not who they are anymore.)

– because killing her would negate his only leverage.

What do I do? How do I –

Happyface and Madface disappeared from the window. Madface moved away last, throwing a long look over her shoulder before disappearing from view.

Rob exchanged a look with Aaron. What was going to happen now?

The door clicked. It swung open a few inches.

The sound should have been encouraging: Rob had won the facedown. He had leverage that they cared about.

So why did the open door scare him?

He looked at Aaron again. The other man was experiencing the same confused emotions.

Rob moved. He hauled Sadface to her feet.

"Come on, bitch."

Aaron looked sick. Looked like he wasn't sure whether he should follow or not. Like maybe the shmuck thought they somehow deserved all this.

Then he followed Rob out of the room. Followed him the way he always did. He might gripe and moan about being forced into things, but in the end he always had a choice.

And he chose to follow Rob.

Rob grinned a tight smile as he forced Sadface into the hall before him.

It's all gonna be okay.

My luck changes here. I'll make it change.

40

Rob moved out of the room. Aaron didn't want to follow him. But he did, because where else could he go?

Rob led them out of the media room and into the hall. His eyes darted everywhere, looking for anything that might leap out of the darkness. Anything that might maim or kill them.

Nothing.

Aaron followed him to the balcony overlooking the foyer. He gasped when he saw Kayla, fixed by razor blades to what looked like a piece of the ceiling. Her mouth open, her eyes open, looking as though she hung forever in a twilight place between life and death.

Another section of the ceiling hung down near her. There were no razors on this one, just flat board, and Aaron wondered what this one had been used for.

Then he remembered the kid, hanging in midair on a wire web. Surely he hadn't just voluntarily climbed out onto the thing, surely he hadn't jumped from the balcony.

He was pushed.

The pieces fell together quickly, with dreadful finality. He even noted the space between the boards. Remembered the young man dragging the Crawford girl – the Madface without a mask –

(Or maybe the face of a young, innocent girl was her mask. Maybe the Madface is what she really looks like inside.)

– down the hall to the balcony.

The space between the boards was just big enough. Just large enough for a teenage girl to stand between them as they fell to their grisly work.

That thought scared him as much – more – than any of the individual traps they had yet faced.

They've planned it all. They knew every step we'd take.

And the follow-up realization: They know us.

It was true. It was the only explanation. This wasn't a trap for whoever might come, this was a trap – a series of traps – designed for specific prey.

That was the first time he understood.

No. I knew before this.

He had understood subconsciously when he saw the woman beneath the Sadface mask. The woman he thought Tommy had killed five years ago. The time he moved from thief to accomplice to murder.

Even before that, he knew none of this could be an accident – how could it? But that thought, and all its implications, had been forced out of his mind by the simple need to survive.

That need, that will to live, makes anyone smarter, sharpens their wits and focuses them on the task at hand. It also makes them stupider, makes them ignore anything beyond their immediate attention.

Ahead of him, Rob made a sudden choking sound. He hadn't moved from behind Sadface, hadn't removed the knife he held at her throat. But he had glanced down, over the balustrade.

Aaron couldn't help himself. He looked, too.

Below them, he could see the chandelier, looking like it hung in midair. And on the foyer floor beneath it, smears of red on a white stone floor. The huge dogs were there, lapping up the blood and tearing at large chunks of what had once been human, reduced now to nothing but meat for the beasts.

"We're leaving!" Rob screamed. His voice sounded strangled. But still strong enough to believe him when he added, "Anyone stops us and I kill her!"

There was a long moment, then a whistle sounded, high and shrill. The instant it did, the dogs scattered, disappearing from view.

Nothing but a few red smears remained below. The rest had been lapped up, dragged away.

Eaten.

Rob pushed Sadface down the stairs. She began down ahead of him. Aaron hung back, terrified.

They know us. They know us so well they know what we will do, when we will do it.

He remembered the remote control in Madface's hand. The closed-circuit images on the huge television.

Maybe it wasn't planned like that. Maybe they set the traps, then simply watched to spring them. Not in some predetermined order, just when the opportunity arose.

That gave him the hope to take a single step. Because maybe they hadn't predicted this. Maybe Rob slamming into that room was the sign their plan had unraveled, that the people behind this had finally been caught unawares.

Then he froze again. The second step just wouldn't come.

And Rob was halfway down the stairs.

What happens if he leaves me behind?

Still he didn't move. Not until he thought of Dee, her smile, her arms that always opened wide to greet him when he came home.

He caught up with Rob three-quarters of the way down. He looked around as they walked down the stairs, seeing the white wall beside them, the other white walls in the foyer below.

Something new hit him – one more of those subtle clues that should have alerted him from the beginning. One more thing, like the fact that the rooms were all a bit too small to fit properly in the outer shell of the mansion.

"No pictures," he said.

"What?" Rob didn't look at him.

"There were no pictures in the house. I didn't notice before, but now…. No pictures of the family, no artwork at all. It's like –"

"Like it was all a fake. I know." One of Rob's hands held the knife at Sadface's throat. The other had been knotted up in her shirt at her back, pushing her ahead. Now he let go with that hand long enough to drive a savage punch into her kidney. The woman still didn't make a sound. A hit like that should have made her scream, even crippled her. But the only sound was Rob saying, "It was all a setup."

They stepped off the stairs. Aaron almost slipped when he did. The stone floor that had once shone white in the night was now streaked with dark red. There were small bits of meat here and there. All that remained of TJ.

He looked at Rob. Rob was looking at the floor, too. His face was a mask no less blank than the ones that had dogged them through this night.

Rob looked away. Toward the hall that led to the back of the house.

He began to shake.

Aaron looked, too. He had to know, because the only thing worse than knowing would be not knowing. The only way to avoid death would be to learn what their captors planned.

To know them the way they knew him and Rob.

He looked.

Rob's girlfriend, Donna, hung from the ceiling in the hall. She was very dead. Her feet hung two feet above the floor. One of her shoes had come off, which was a strange detail to notice. More obvious would have been her bulging eyes, her lolling tongue.

The blood that trickled from a thousand wounds on her body.

But it was the shoe that held Aaron's attention. He didn't know why, but looking away was just about the hardest thing he'd ever done.

And, finally, Sadface made a sound.

She began to laugh.

It was a strange, wheezing sound. The laugh of madness come to call.

Rob's expression darkened. He looked like he was going to kill her, and he tensed for the final, killing blow.

"Don't," Aaron said. The look Rob shot at him was so enraged, so dangerous, that he took a step back. He raised his hands. "Let's just get out," he pleaded. "Rob, please. Let's just get out."

41

Rob shoved Sadface –

(the woman who slept in the bed upstairs the woman asleep in her bed five years ago the woman who died but lived, who lived to kill)

– toward the front door.

TJ had been a shock. Donna another. But they were clarifying in their way. They made him remember who he was. He wasn't just a thief, wasn't just someone plagued by bad luck.

He was a survivor.

He'd survived everything that had happened. The bad jobs, the bad luck that harried and hounded him at every step.

He'd survive this, too.

"Open it," he said. The woman was laughing, laughing. The sound pierced him. Shudders writhed along his spine.

"Open it!" he screamed. "OPEN IT OR YOU'RE DEAD!"

"She can't open it."

Rob spun toward the sound, whipping Sadface around so that she was between him and the source.

Two figures approached down the hall. Happyface and Madface. Walking toward them. Sauntering toward them.

For a moment Rob utterly forgot that he was the one holding the knife. That he was the one in control.

They pulled off their masks as they walked. Happyface revealed the face of Jason Crawford. Dark hair that was graying at the edges, nose that had a bit of a hook to it. Madface was the girl they had assumed was a victim, but who was instead some strange part of their torment.

Then Crawford reached up and pulled his nose off. It separated from his face, torn flesh hanging in thin ribbons of skin.

Rob almost threw up until he realized the madman wasn't really engaging in self-mutilation. The flaps of skin weren't actually skin, any more than the nose had been a nose. It was just the hook of the nose, a small prosthetic attached to his real nose underneath. When it came away, it completely altered the man's face.

Rob saw the face of the man he had tried to kill. Remembered his name –

(Schaffer. James Schaffer. Why would I remember that now? All those years ago. What does it matter? What did it ever matter?)

– just like he remembered the girl who appeared beside him as the "Crawford girl" removed her dark wig and contacts to reveal a blond, blue-eyed girl beneath.

The Crawfords were dead. Only the Schaffers – who by all rights should be dead – remained. Them… and the people who killed them.

"Only you can open the door, Rob," said the man.

Aaron turned to grab the door handle, not seeming to hear him.

"If you touch that door, you'll die," said the girl. And the more Rob looked at her, the more he saw the pre-teen she had been on the night of that robbery, the robbery.

Aaron's hand jerked back like the handle was poisoned. Which, Rob supposed, it might very well be.

Aaron turned back to look, with Rob, at the two people down the hall.

"You did this," Rob breathed. "You did this." And of course he already knew that, of course it was already obvious at this point. But at the same time, it didn't seem real until he said the words.

All for us.

All for me.

Those words were the motto of his life, the creed by which he had lived. And now he wished, for the first time, that something his could instead belong to someone – anyone – else.

James Schaffer grinned. The smile was wide and didn't reach his eyes, which remained hollow and hanging over a mad abyss. "It took almost five years. To find you." The grin grew wider. "But one thing thieves – scum – never really stop to consider the ramifications of: the rich have money. Money to spend on the best detectives in the world. To find thieves who always use the same m.o. To watch. To ferret out everyone they know, everyone they love. To make…" and he gestured, taking in the place around them which had gradually contracted during the night to become the totality of Rob's world, "all this. For my daughter to ‘accidentally' meet your son and ensure that he would be here tonight.

The girl laughed. Not the wheezing, mad laugh of the mother. It was a sharp bark, a knife-laugh that cut others, but that would also cut herself. The laugh of someone who no longer lives for anything but pain.

"To figure out each step, each moment," continued James, "that would lead inevitably to this. To HAVE THEIR REVENGE!" He screamed the last, and now his expression reached his eyes. Pure rage.

James calmed himself. His smile returned. "How does it feel? To lose everything?"

The girl beside him held up her hand. Rob shrank back until he saw the remote control that she had used to call down his son's death. And, seeing it, he shrank back more.

He hid behind the mother –

(you knew her name once what was it I can't remember oh why can't I remember)

– and screamed, "Don't! Don't or I swear!"

He held the knife so tight to the woman's neck it was a wonder her throat hadn't already been slit.

And she laughed.

"You still don't understand," she said.

Then her laugh cut off with the sudden completeness of a bullet to the heart.

She looked at the two people in the hall – at her husband and daughter. They nodded, and Rob's innards froze.

"Those who have nothing cannot be robbed," she whispered.

And he remembered the safe. The first clue on this nightmare journey.

those who have nothing cannot be robbed

He gasped. Coughed. Realizing the words she said had been planted for them, and wondering what they truly meant.

James Schaffer nodded at his wife once more. Then turned his horrible grin back to Rob. "We thought of everything, Rob. Everything." He shook his head. "You always knew one of us was going to die. Isn't that what you said, Rob? What you said that night?"

The countdown appeared as the safe locked. Twelve hours before it would open. Rob spoke, rage barely contained behind a demon's grin. "I guess we always knew at least one of you was going to die," he said. "Turns out it's going to be even more."

James shook his head. "It wasn't just one of us. Two people died that night. One of them just wanted to hang on long enough to see you suffer."

In that instant, Rob remembered the name of the woman he held at knifepoint.

Beth. Beth Schaffer.

In the next. She clapped her hands over the hand that held a knife to her throat. Rob tensed, ready to fight her for control of the weapon.

But she didn't try to wrench it from his grasp. Didn't try to turn it on him.

She shoved it deep into her own throat, sawing from right to left in a slash that would sever the jugular and both carotids.

Blood spewed from her. It rained down Rob's knife hand, soaked his front.

And then he was holding nothing but a corpse.

She sank from his grasp.

James and his daughter stepped closer to the foyer, closer to Aaron and to him.

He held up the knife as they approached. "Don't come any closer. Don't –"

The girl held up her remote. Rob tensed, and Aaron grew rigid beside him.

The girl pressed a button.

The door at Rob's back – the front door, the door to freedom and a new life – opened.

Rob eyed it for a moment, suspicion curling his features. Then he looked back at James and his daughter.

"Go," said the man.

Rob didn't move. "I don't believe you. I don't believe this," he said gesturing at the door.

The girl spoke. Her voice was low, exhausted. Like the night had taken everything she had and left only a husk behind. "You know what it is to lose everything. There's no more game to play."

Rob stepped back. Again. His rear leg broke the invisible line separating this house from the rest of the world.

Nothing happened.

Another step, and he was outside. On the porch.

He finally let himself do what he had wanted to do since he heard the little bitch's last words.

"You think that," he said, pointing the knife at Donna's gently swaying form, then at the smears on the foyer floor, "matters to me?" He laughed again, and no matter how hard he tried he knew he wouldn't be able to stop the cackles shaking his entire frame.

"No," said James. His smile was at its widest, so large it strained at his face. It looked exactly like the mask he had worn.

And knew this was the moment the mask had smiled for.

James' daughter hit a button on her remote.

"The robbed that smiles," said James through his grin, "steals something from the thief."

A blade had just removed the head from Tommy Leigh's body.

And before the blade, a table.

And on that table, a card.

the robbed that smiles
steals something from the thief

Rob's lip curled. "I'm gonna kill you both. Gonna –"

The girl hit another button. A shot rang out.

He felt it hit his chest. Felt it blow through him, the strange sensation of organs turning inside out as the bullet seared past.

Another shot. He reeled, and blood poured down his cheek – the wound had skipped across the side of his head.

He fell to his knees, and thunder sounded again. This time the shot punctured his stomach.

He sank to his knees. Looked at James and his daughter.

These were exactly the shots that had taken down the family, in exactly the order they happened.

Shot in the chest, just like the boy.

Shot in the head, just like the woman.

Shot in the gut, just like the man.

But what about –

A final shot rang out. It traveled the opposite direction the first had gone. In through his back, out a hole in his chest that opened in a spray of blood and bone before it.

How she died. The girl. How Kayla shot her and shediedandthenweleftandalkchzckle –

Rob's thoughts turned to a jumble. He heard sound, words. Some man speaking, some man he should know, but whom he couldn't quite place.

"My son died. None of the rest of us. We survived, after a fashion. We should have died, but we were strong enough to come to this moment. What about you? Can you survive the moment where everything you have is taken, and where your blood is spilled? Can you survive watching everything disappear – even yourself?"

A dread moment of silence. Then the man said, "I don't think so."

Rob fell forward. His balance was gone, his sight was gone, his thoughts were gone.

And then, at the last, he was gone.

42

Aaron saw Rob fall bonelessly to the porch. He twitched once. Then one of the huge dogs flew out of the night and quickly drag the body away.

Then the front door slammed shut.

He turned back to the man and the teenage girl behind him. They stared, all expression gone from their faces. Neither spared a single glance at the body on the floor, the body of their mother/wife.

There was only him and them.

"I didn't…," he began. "I wasn't the one who hurt your son. I tried to stop it." They kept staring, impassive. "Please," he said. His voice had turned to a high-pitched wheedle. He wasn't ashamed. He would beg – would do anything – if it meant he could get out. Get back to Dee. "Please just let me –"

The girl pushed a button on the remote. Several doors in the hall flew open. Three of the four pit bulls that had forced the thieves into the attic came out of the doors. A moment later the fourth arrived, coming in through the open door to the kitchen.

Must be the one that dragged Rob off, Aaron thought, and wondered why he would bother trying to figure out where the dogs had come from. It was enough that they were here, low rumbles in their throats, blood on their muzzles and matting their fur.

The man and woman approached Aaron, the pit bulls beside them. Aaron shrank back, retreating until his back was against the front door.

For the first time, he was sorry he had never brought a gun on the jobs.

The man reached slowly into his pocket. Drew something out. Aaron cringed, not knowing what it was, but knowing it would be something that brought death.

The man threw what was in his hand. It landed at Aaron's feet with the clatter of plastic. It looked somewhat like a thick calculator: a series of keys with an LED display over it.

No. Not a calculator. It looks like – No. No no no no.

It was the mirror of the keypad on the safe upstairs.

"You're a safecracker," said the man. "You can get yourself out."

The LED blinked to life. A countdown.

2:00….

1:59….

The girl spoke. "We'll even give you the same amount of time you and your friends gave us."

"Listen, Pops. I know you're scared. But you've got two minutes to get this door open. And if you get it wrong…." Rob slammed his gun down against the boy's shoulder. The boy screamed, and so did his mother.

Aaron watched. Didn't move. Waiting, hoping, for the man to give up the combination. To save himself.

And in every room, in every trap, the timers appeared. 2:00. Two minutes to avoid a death ready to take them.

"I didn't," said Aaron. "I didn't want any of –"

"Time's a-wastin'," said the man.

"Please," said the father. "No."

Rob just stared at him. "Time's a-wastin', Pops," he said.

Aaron looked at the keypad. Numb. Unsure.

Was there any way to beat this? Was it all death?

No choice.

He picked up the keypad.

43

1:39….

The keypad felt strange in his hands, and he wasted a full second –

(1:38….)

– trying to figure out why. Then he realized it was the keypad itself that was strange – it was the fact he was looking at it while the owners looked on without crying or screaming or –

(dying)

– any emotion at all. They just watched. Stared.

He turned to his task. His fingers wrapped around the back of the device automatically, like it was nothing more than a phone and he was just going to compose a text to Dee. "Srry will B late tonite. Don't wait up 4 me – busy dying. Luv, Me."

The fingers that went around the back of the keypad touched something. He flipped it over.

Another piece of photo was taped there.

Aaron wanted to go back to the keypad. To watch it count down and be hypnotized into numbness so he wouldn't feel the end when it came. Instead, he tore away the bit of photo. Everything tonight had had a reason.

This was no exception. And while looking at the picture might be just one more step to his death – might it also be a step to his return to life? Not just out of this house, but out from under Rob's thumb. Free not only to be with Dee, but to just be.

He pulled the other bits of photo from his pocket. And now, with this final piece, he saw how they would fit together. He put the pieces on the floor, then, using the tape each one still had on it, he put them together.

It was a crime scene picture. A body with yellow evidence markers around it. Blood on a white carpet. Suits and dresses visible around it.

The boy. The son.

Aaron looked at the man and the girl in the hall. Tears pushed behind his eyes. "I didn't mean…. I never meant for any harm to come to you or your family. You have to believe me."

The man nodded. Thoughtful. "And I never meant to give you the wrong number." He shrugged. "Shit happens, right?" He pointed at the keypad. "Though I'm afraid this lock isn't as generous with mistakes as my safe was. You only get one chance to get it right."

The pit bulls, still standing behind him and his daughter, began to growl. The girl laughed that mad, merry laugh.

Aaron looked at the keypad. It jittered back and forth in his trembling hands. "How can I possibly guess –"

Then he stopped. He flipped over the photo. On the back, nearly forgotten in the moment, were the numbers. He flipped the photo over again, noting the placing of the pieces in the order they'd been found.

"1," then "5," then "6," then "7." There was no number on the back of the fifth piece, just a blank space

He looked at the keypad. The LED counted down. Twenty seconds.

Aaron entered the numbers.

Nothing happened.

He began to panic, then saw a green "Enter" button in the lower right corner of the keypad. His thumb went to the button.

Everything slowed.

Everything stopped.

He didn't hit the button.

"This is the combination," he whispered. He looked at the pair in the hall. "This is the combination to your safe upstairs."

He noted the keys that were smeared under the light, then took out a grease pen and wrote the numbers on the front of the safe: "1, 2, 5, 7….

"But that didn't have four numbers," he said. "It had five." He waited a moment. No one moved. No one spoke. "What's the last number?" he finally asked.

Nothing. Even the dogs were silent.

"WHAT'S THE LAST NUMBER?"

The room was a tomb, and the dead did not speak.

0:10….

0:09….

The man finally spoke. "Hard to remember the small details when you're under so much pressure, isn't it?"

Aaron realized in that moment: the numbers had been in a different order on the safe upstairs. An order he had no chance of remembering. And if the numbers on the keypad corresponded, he was dead no matter what.

So what did he do? Clear the numbers he'd already entered and put in new ones? Or did he simply enter them in in the order they'd been given to the thieves via the photos.

Aaron closed his eyes. He had nothing to rely on but instinct. Nothing to rely on but hope.

He stabbed down on a number. The "8." And there was no reason for his choice other than what he hoped was muscle memory.

He hit the "Enter" button.

He waited. Then opened his eyes. Looked down at the LED.

0:02. Blinking, blinking. But no longer counting down.

He heard clicking and clacking, and it took him a few seconds to realize what it was: every window, every door in the house opening.

The game had been won.

"I really am sorry," he said. "For all of it."

He heard the door open behind him.

Turned.

But didn't move. Just stared at what waited for him there.

"Dee?"

44

She's here. Why is she here?

Dee stood a few feet away, separated from Aaron by a wide streak of blood that began in front of the door and disappeared around the side of the house. She had been staring at the blood, clearly taken unawares by it and unsure what to do when the door opened and she saw him.

"Aaron?" she said. She saw the people beyond him. Confusion wrinkled her face, then terror, and he knew she was taking in his blood-spattered clothing, the dangling feet in the hallway beyond him.

"Who…?" Again, she couldn't complete her thought.

Aaron sensed something behind him. He turned. The man and his daughter had come closer.

"You had to be last," said the man. "Because you were the only one who could possibly understand what it was to love, to nearly lose, the love of your life." He paused, then said, "You know what's worse than pulling a trigger?" Aaron didn't reply. He couldn't. His mouth was dry, his throat constricted.

The man nodded, as though Aaron had just said something wise. "Worse than pulling the trigger," he said, "is having the power to stop the trigger from being pulled – or at least to give enough of a damn to try – and just letting it happen."

As he spoke, the girl began to cackle again. Low at first, then higher and higher, louder and louder. Then she stopped and said, "You should know that no matter what numbers you entered, this was going to happen." Then she snapped her fingers.

The dogs surged forward, growling and barking.

Aaron screamed. Threw up his hands as they barreled into him.

And then rushed right past.

He realized what was happening. Knew what was about to happen.

"NO!"

The girl spoke as the dogs passed. The words a scream punching their way through the holes in her dancing laugh. "There is always madness in love," she shrieked.

And, behind him, Dee had time for one short scream before she disappeared beneath the mass of dogs.

Then one more scream. This one much longer.

Aaron couldn't look.

Silence took the world.

He wept, and, weeping, looked at the man and the girl in the hall. Together they said, "And the worst thieves…

An empty room. A note on a table before a mantle that should have held pictures of family, memories of smiles, but instead held nothing at all.

the worst thieves....

"… steal only time," they finished.

The silence again. Even the dogs were held breathless.

Then the girl raised her hand. She snapped her fingers.

Aaron felt something change behind him. Huge presences crowding close.

He heard the growl.

Then he, too, screamed.

And then, after a long time…

… all was silent.

FOUR:
... that death built.

This is the life the man once had. Before he ever entered a house of mazes and traps, of death and darkness. He once had a life, and once made a choice. Never understanding the ripples that such decisions make in the still waters of our lives.

The woman woke up, and he knew that she was healed. The cancer had been beaten. And so what did it matter what he had done? What did it matter the cost?

She was back. That was worth any price.

She looked at him and smiled and he saw in her eyes that she was his and he was hers once more.

"Hi," she said. Her voice was dry, cracked from long silence and the medicines that had healed her while she slept. Dry, jagged as fragments of a broken glass.

And, to him, beautiful.

"Hi," he whispered back. His voice was dry, too, though for different reason – for the jobs he had done, the things he had stolen, the lives he failed to save. For what he once was, and never could be again.

He began to weep. "I thought I'd lost you," he said through his sobs.

"Me?" she asked. "Never." She reached a weak hand to his head. Touched him gently. "You chose me," she said. And she added words of love, words meant to warm. But they only brought a chill to his body, and made fear writhe in his heart.

"And you'll never be free of what you chose."

So in that moment, long before the night it all ended, before the house that death built swallowed him up, he felt darkness surround him.

A single choice.

A single moment.

A single "yes" to what turned out to be the first of many dark nights.

And everything shifted from what could be…

… to what must inevitably come to pass.

If you would like to be notified of new releases, sales, and other special deals on books by Michaelbrent Collings, please sign up for his mailing list at http://eepurl.com/VHuvX.

(ALSO, YOU CAN GET A FREE BOOK FOR SIGNING UP!)

And if you liked this book, please leave a review on your favorite book review site… and tell your friends!

*

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michaelbrent Collings is a full-time screenwriter and novelist. He has written numerous bestselling horror, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy novels, including The Colony Saga, Strangers, Darkbound, Apparition, The Haunted, Hooked: A True Faerie Tale, and the bestselling YA series The Billy Saga.

Follow him through Twitter @mbcollings or on Facebook at facebook.com/MichaelbrentCollings.

NOVELS BY MICHAELBRENT COLLINGS

THE COLONY SAGA:

THE COLONY: GENESIS (The Colony, Vol. 1)

THE COLONY: RENEGADES (The Colony, Vol. 2)

THE COLONY: DESCENT (THE COLONY, VOL. 3)

THE COLONY: VELOCITY (THE COLONY, VOL. 4)

THE COLONY: SHIFT (THE COLONY, VOL. 5)

THE COLONY: BURIED (tHE COLONY, VOL. 6)

THE COLONY OMNIBUS

THE DEEP

TWISTED

THIS DARKNESS LIGHT

CRIME SEEN

STRANGERS

DARKBOUND

BLOOD RELATIONS:
A GOOD MORMON GIRL MYSTERY

THE HAUNTED

APPARITION

THE LOON

MR. GRAY (aka THE MERIDIANS)

RUN

RISING FEARS

YOUNG ADULT AND
MIDDLE GRADE FICTION:

THE SWORD CHRONICLES: CHILD OF THE EMPIRE

THE RIDEALONG

HOOKED: A TRUE FAERIE TALE

KILLING TIME

THE BILLY SAGA:

BILLY: MESSENGER OF POWERS (BOOK 1)

BILLY: SEEKER OF POWERS (BOOK 2)

BILLY: DESTROYER OF POWERS (BOOK 3)

THE COMPLETE BILLY SAGA (BOOKS 1-3)

Table of Contents

- info@michaelbrentcollings.com
- ONE: These are the rats... 2
- 1. 2
- 2. 5
- 3. 9
- 4. 17
- 5. 22
- 6. 31
- 7. 35
- 8. 38
- TWO: ... that killed  the cats ... 39
- 9. 42
- 10. 55
- 11. 61
- 12. 79
- 13. 81
- 14. 83
- 15. 89
- 16. 98
- 17. 104
- 18. 114
- 19. 121
- THREE: ... who lived in  the house ... 130
- 20. 132
- 21. 139
- 22. 149
- 23. 158
- 24. 161
- 25. 166
- 26. 174
- 27. 178
- 28. 182
- 29. 185
- 30. 192
- 31. 203
- 32. 216
- 33. 219
- 34. 226
- 35. 239
- 36. 249
- 37. 253
- 38. 256
- 39. 260
- 40. 268
- 41. 274
- 42. 283
- 43. 286
- 44. 291
- FOUR: ... that death built. 294