A
Jack Kilborn
Trilogy

Contents

ORIGIN

THE LIST

HAUNTED HOUSE

About J.A. Konrath

Also by J.A. Konrath

Copyright

And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison.

Revelation 20:7

“Where is it?” Theodore Roosevelt asked John Stevens as the two men shook hands. Amador, Shonts, and the rest of the welcoming party had already been greeted and dismissed by the President, left to wonder what had become of Roosevelt’s trademark grandiosity.

Fatigue from his journey, they later surmised.

They were wrong.

The twenty-sixth President of the United States was far from tired. Since Stevens’s wire a month previous, Roosevelt had been electrified with worry.

The Canal Project had been a tricky one from the onset—the whole Nicaraguan episode, the Panamanian revolution, the constant bickering in Congress—but nothing in his political or personal past had prepared him for this development. After five days of travel aboard the Battleship Louisiana, his wife Edith sick and miserable, Roosevelt’s nerves had become so tightly stretched they could be plucked and played like a mandolin.

“You want to see it now?” Stevens asked, wiping the rain from a walrus mustache that rivaled the President’s. “Surely you want to rest from your journey.”

“Rest is for the weak, John. I have much to accomplish on this visit. But first things first, I must see the discovery.”

Roosevelt bid quick apologies to the puzzled group, sending his wife and three secret service agents ahead to the greeting reception at Trivoli Crossing. Before anyone, including Edith, could protest, the President had taken Stevens by the shoulder and was leading him down the pier.

“You are storing it nearby,” Roosevelt stated, confirming that his instructions had been explicitly followed.

“In a shack in Cristobal, about a mile from shore. I can arrange for horses.”

“We shall walk. Tell me again how it was found.”

Stevens chewed his lower lip and lengthened his stride to keep in step with the Commander-in-Chief. The engineer had been in Panama for over a year, at Roosevelt’s request, heading the Canal Project.

He wasn’t happy.

The heat and constant rain were intolerable. Roosevelt’s lackey Shonts was pompous and annoying. Though yellow fever and dysentery were being eradicated through the efforts of Dr. Gorgas and the new sanitation methods, malaria still claimed dozens of lives every month, and labor disputes had become commonplace and increasingly complicated with every new influx of foreign workers.

Now, to top it all off, an excavation team had discovered something so horrible that it made the enormity of the Canal Project look trivial by comparison.

“It was found at the East Culebra Slide in the Cut,” Stevens said, referring to the nine mile stretch of land that ran through the mountain range of the Continental Divide. “Spaniard excavation team hit it at about eighty feet down.”

“Hard workers, Spaniards,” Roosevelt said. He knew the nine thousand workers they had brought over from the Basque Provinces were widely regarded as superior to the Chinese and West Indians because of their tireless efforts. “You were on the site at the time?”

“I was called to it. I arrived the next day. The—capsule, I suppose you could call it, was taken to Pedro Miguel by train.”

“Unopened?”

“Yes. After I broke the seal on it and saw the contents…”

“Again, all alone?”

“By myself, yes. After viewing the… well, immediately afterward I wired Secretary Taft…” Stevens trailed off, his breath laboring in effort to keep up with the frantic pace of Roosevelt.

“Dreadful humidity,” the President said. He attempted to wipe the hot rain from his forehead with a damp handkerchief. “I had wished to view the working conditions in Panama at their most unfavorable, and I believe I certainly have.”

They were quiet the remainder of the walk, Roosevelt taking in the jungle and the many houses and buildings that Stevens had erected during the last year.

Remarkable man, Roosevelt mused, but he’d expected nothing less. Once this matter was decided, he was looking forward to the tour of the canal effort. There was so much that interested him. He was anxious to see one of the famed hundred ton Bucyrus steam shovels that so outperformed the ancient French excavators. He longed to ride in one. Being the first President to ever leave the States, he certainly owed the voters some exciting details of his trip.

“Over there. To the right.”

Stevens gestured to a small shack nestled in an outcropping of tropical brush. There was a sturdy padlock hooked to a hasp on the door, and a sign warning in several languages that explosives were contained therein.

“No one else has seen this,” Roosevelt confirmed.

“The Spaniard team was deported right after the discovery.”

Roosevelt used the sleeve of his elegant white shirt to clean his spectacles while Stevens removed the padlock. They entered the shed and Stevens shut the door behind them.

It was stifling in the small building. The President immediately felt claustrophobic in the dark, hot room, and had to force himself to stand still while Stevens sought the lantern.

Light soon bathed the capsule setting before them.

It was better than twelve feet long, pale gray, with carvings on the outside that resembled Egyptian hieroglyphics to Roosevelt. It rested on the ground, almost chest high, and appeared to be made of stone. But it felt like nothing the President had ever touched.

Running his hand across the top, Roosevelt was surprised by how smooth, almost slippery, the surface was. Like an oily silk, but it left no residue on the fingers.

“How does it open?” he asked.

Stevens handed his lamp to Roosevelt and picked up a pry bar hanging near the door. With a simple twist in a near invisible seam the entire top half of the capsule flipped open on hidden hinges like a coffin.

“My dear God in heaven,” the President gasped.

The thing in the capsule was horrible beyond description.

“My sentiments exactly,” Stevens whispered.

“And it is… alive?”

“From what I can judge, yes. Dormant, but alive.”

Roosevelt’s hand ventured to touch it, but the man who charged up San Juan Hill wasn’t able to summon the nerve.

“Even being prepared for it, I still cannot believe what I am seeing.”

The President fought his repulsion, the cloying heat adding to the surreality of the moment. Roosevelt detected a rank, animal smell, almost like a musk, coming out of the capsule.

The smell of the… thing.

He looked it over, head to foot, unable to turn away. The image seared itself into his mind, to become the source of frequent nightmares for the remainder of his life.

“What is the course of action, Mr. President? Destroy it?”

“How can we? Is it our right? Think what this means.”

“But what if it awakens? Could we contain it?”

“Why not? This is the twentieth century. We are making technological advancements on a daily basis.”

“Do you believe the public is ready for this?”

“No,” Roosevelt said without hesitation. “I do not believe the United States, or the world, even in this enlightened age, would be able to handle a discovery of this magnitude.”

Stevens frowned. He didn’t believe any good could come of this, but as usual he had trouble going toe to toe with Roosevelt.

“Speak your mind, John. You have been living with this for a month.”

“I believe we should burn it, Mr. President. Then sink its ashes in the sea.”

“You are afraid.”

“Even a man of your standing, sir, must admit to some fear gazing at this thing.”

“Yes, I can admit to being afraid. But that is because we fear what we do not understand. Perhaps with understanding…”

Roosevelt made his decision. This would be taken back to the States. He’d lock it away someplace secret and recruit the top minds in the world to study it. He instructed Stevens to have a crate built and for it to be packed and boarded onto the Louisiana— no, better make it the Tennessee. If Mother found out what was aboard her ship she might die of fright.

“But if the world sees this…”

“The world will not. Pay the workers off, and have them work at night without witnesses. I expect the crate to be locked as this shed was, and the key given to me. Worry no more about this John, it is no longer your concern.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Roosevelt clenched his teeth and forced himself to stick out his hand to touch the thing; a brief touch that he would always recall as the most frightening experience of his life. He covered the fear with a bully Roosevelt harrumph and a false pout of bravado.

“Now let us lock this up and you can show me that canal you are building.”

Stevens closed the lid, but the smell remained.

The twenty-sixth President of the United States walked out of the shed and into the rain. His hands were shaking. He made two fists and shoved them into his pockets. The rain speckled his glasses, but he made no effort to clean them off. His whole effort was focused on a silent prayer to God that he’d made the right decision.

“You have reached Worldwide Translation Services. For English, press one. Por Español…”

BEEP.

“Welcome to WTS, the company for your every translation and interpretation need. Our skilled staff of linguists can converse in over two dozen languages, and we specialize in escort, telephone, consecutive, simultaneous, conference, sight, and written translations. For a list of languages we’re able to interpret, press one. For Andrew Dennison, press two. For a…”

BEEP.

The business phone rang. Andy glanced at the clock next to the bed. Coming up on 3am Chicago time. But elsewhere in the world they were eating lunch.

If he didn’t pick up, it would be forwarded to voice mail.

Unfortunately, voice mail didn’t pay his bills.

“WTS, this is Andrew Dennison.”

“Mr. Dennison, this is the President of the United States. Your country needs you.”

Andy hung up. He remembered being a kid, sleeping over at a friend’s house, making prank calls. It seemed so funny back then.

He closed his eyes and tried to return to the dream he’d been having. Something to do with Susan, his ex-girlfriend, begging for him to come back. She’d told him that would only happen in his dreams, and she’d proven herself right.

The phone rang again.

“Look, kid. I’ve got your number on the caller ID, so I know you’re calling from…”

He squinted at the words WHITE HOUSE on the phone display.

“Mr. Dennison, In exactly five seconds two members of the Secret Service will knock on your door.”

There was a knock at the door.

Andy jack-knifed to a sitting position.

“Those are agents Smith and Jones. They’re to escort you to a limousine waiting downstairs.”

Andy took the cordless over to his front door, squinted through the peephole. Standing in the hallway were two men in black suits.

“Look, Mister—uh—President, if this is some kind of tax thing…”

“Your particular skills are required in a matter of national security, Mr. Dennison. I’ll brief you in New Mexico.”

“This is a translation job?”

“I can’t speak any more about it at this time, but you must leave immediately. You’ll be paid three times your normal rate, plus expenses. My agents can explain in further detail. We’ll talk when you arrive.”

The connection ended. Andy peered through his peephole again. The men looked like secret service. They had the blank stare dead-to-rights.

“Do you guys have ID?” he asked through the door.

They held up their ID.

Andy swallowed, and swallowed again. He considered his options, and realized he really didn’t have any.

He opened the door.

“As soon as you’re dressed, Mr. Dennison, we can take you to the airport.”

“How many days should I pack for?”

“No need to pack, sir. Your things will be forwarded to you.”

“Do you know what language I’m going to be using? I’ve got books, computer programs…”

“Your things will be forwarded.”

Andy had more questions, but he didn’t think asking them would result in answers. He dressed in silence.

The limo, while plush, wasn’t accessorized with luxuries. No wet bar. No television. No phone. And the buttons for the windows didn’t work.

Andy wore his best suit, Brooks Brothers gray wool, his Harvard tie, and a pair of leather shoes from some Italian designer that cost three hundred dollars and pinched his toes.

“So where in New Mexico am I going?” Andy asked the agents, both of whom rode in the front seat.

They didn’t reply.

“Are we going to O’Hare or Midway?”

No answer.

“Can you guys turn on the radio?”

The radio came on. Oldies. Andy slouched back in his seat as Mick Jagger crooned.

Chicago whipped by him on both sides, the streets full of people even at this late hour. Summer in the city was around the clock. The car stopped at a light and three college age girls, drunk and giggling, knocked on his one way window and tried to peer inside. They were at least a decade too young for him.

Their destination turned out to be Midway, the smaller of Chicago’s two airports. Rather than enter the terminal, they were cleared through the perimeter fence and pulled directly out onto the runway. They parked in front of a solitary hanger, far from the jumbo jets. Andy was freed from the limo and led silently to a Lear jet. He boarded without enthusiasm. He’d been on many jets, to many places more exotic than New Mexico.

Andy was bursting with curiosity for his current situation, but sleep was invading his head. It would probably turn out to be some silly little international embarrassment, like a Pakistani Ambassador who hit someone while drunk driving. What was the Hindko word for intoxication? He couldn’t remember, and since they didn’t let him take his books, he had no way to look it up.

At a little past four AM the pilot boarded and introduced himself with a strong handshake, but didn’t offer his name. He had no answers for Andy either.

Andy slept poorly, on an off, for the next few hours.

He awoke during the landing, the jolt nudging him alert when the wheels hit the tarmac. After the plane came to a stop, the pilot announced they’d arrived at their destination, Las Cruces International Airport. Andy rubbed some grit from his eyes and stretched in his seat, waiting for the pilot to open the hatch.

The climate was hot and dry, appropriate for the desert. The pilot informed Andy to remain on the runway and then walked off to the terminal.

Andy waited in the powerful sun, the only human being in sight, his rumpled suit soon clinging to him like a close family. A minute passed. Two. A golden eagle rode a thermal in the distance, circling slowly. Andy wondered when his ride would arrive. He wondered why this town was called The Crosses. He wondered what the hell was so important that the leader of the free world woke him up at 3 AM and flew him out here.

From the opposite end of the runway an Army Humvee approached. Andy noticed the tags, Fort Bliss. The driver offered him a thermos of coffee and then refused further conversation.

They drove west on Interstate 10 and turned onto highway 549, heading into the desert. Traffic went from infrequent to non-existent, and after they passed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant; a large complex fenced off with barbed wire, they turned off road and followed some dirt trail that Andy could barely make out.

The Florida Mountains loomed in the distance. Sagebrush and tumbleweeds dotted the landscape. Andy even saw the skull of a steer resting on some rocks. This was the authentic West, the West of Geronimo and Billy the Kid. He’d been to several deserts in his travels; the Gobi in China, the Rub al-Khalia in Saudi Arabia, the Kalahari in South Africa… but this was his first visit to the Chihuahuan Desert. It left him as the others had—detached. Travel meant work, and Andy never had a chance to enjoy any of the places he’d visited around the world.

The Humvee stopped abruptly and Andy lurched in his seat.

“We’re here,” the driver said.

Andy craned his neck and looked around. Three hundred and sixty degrees of desert, not a building nor a soul in sight.

“You’re kidding.”

“Please get out of the Humvee, sir. I’m supposed to leave you here.”

“Leave me here? In the desert?”

“Those are my orders.”

Andy squinted. There was nothing but sand and rock for miles and miles.

“This is ridiculous. I’ll die out here.”

“Sir, please get out of the Humvee.”

“You can’t leave me in the middle of the desert. It’s insane.”

The driver drew his pistol.

“Jesus!”

“These are my orders, sir. If you don’t get out of the Humvee, I’ve been instructed to shoot you in the leg and drag you out. One…”

“I don’t believe this.”

“Two…”

“This is murder. You’re murdering me here.”

“Three.”

The driver cocked the gun and aimed it at Andy’s leg. Andy threw up his hands. “Fine! I’m out!”

Andy stepped out of the Humvee. He could feel the heat of the sand through the soles of his shoes.

The driver holstered his weapon, hit the gas, and swung the Humvee around. It sped off in the direction it had come. Andy watched until it shrank down to nothing.

He turned in a complete circle, feeling the knot growing in his belly. The only thing around him was scrub brush and cacti.

“This is not happening.”

Andy searched the sky for any helicopters that might be flying in to pick him up. The sky was empty, except for a fat desert sun that hurt his eyes. Andy couldn’t be sure, but the air seemed to be getting hotter. By noon it would be scorching.

He looked at his watch and wondered how long he could go without water. The very idea of it made his tongue feel thick. A day, maybe two at most. It would take at least two days to walk back to the airport. He decided to follow the truck tracks.

“Andrew Dennison?”

Andy spun around, startled. Standing twenty yards away was a man. He wore loose fitting jeans and a blue polo shirt, and he approached Andy in an unhurried gait. As the figure came into sharper focus, Andy noticed several things at once. The man was old, maybe seventy, with age spots dotting his bald dome and deep wrinkles set in a square face. But he carried himself like a much younger man, and though his broad shoulders were stooped with age, he projected an apparent strength. Military, Andy guessed, and upper echelon as well.

Andy walked to meet the figure, trying not to appear surprised that he’d just materialized out of nowhere. The thoughts of vultures and thirst were replaced by several dozen questions.

“I’m General Regis Murdoch. Call me Race. Welcome to Project Samhain.”

Race offered a thick and hairy hand, which Andy nervously shook. It felt like shaking a two-by-four.

“General Race, I appreciate the welcome, but I think I’ve been left out of the loop. I don’t know…”

“All in good time. The President wants to fill you in, and you’re to meet the group.”

“Where?” Andy asked, looking around.

The General beamed. “Almost a hundred years old, and still the best hidden secret in the United States. Right this way.”

Andy followed Race up to a pile of rocks next to a bush. Close inspection revealed that they’d been glued, or maybe soldered, to a large metal plate which spun on a hinge. The plate swivelled open, revealing a murky stairwell leading into the earth.

“Cutting edge stuff in 1906, now kind of dated.” Race smiled. “But sometimes the old tricks are still the best.”

Race prompted Andy down the sandy iron staircase and followed after closing the lid above them. The walls were concrete, old and crumbling. Light came from bare bulbs hanging overhead every fifteen steps.

Only a few hours ago I was asleep in my bed, Andy thought.

“Don’t worry,” Race said. “It gets better.”

After almost two hundred steps down they came to a large metal door with a wheel in the center, like a submarine hatch. Race stopped in front of the door and cleared his throat. He leaned closer to Andy, locking eyes with him.

“Three hundred million Americans have lived during the last century, and you are only the forty-third to ever enter this compound. During your time here and for the rest of your life afterwards, you’re going to be sworn to absolute secrecy. Failure to keep this secret will lead to your trial and inevitable execution for treason.”

“Execution,” Andy repeated.

“The Rosenbergs were numbers twenty-two and twenty-three. You didn’t buy that crap about selling nuclear secrets, did you?”

Andy blinked. “I’m in an episode of the X-files.”

“That old TV show? They wish they had what we do.”

Race opened the door and bade Andy to enter. They’d stepped into a modern hospital. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. Everything was white, from the tiled floors and painted walls to the fluorescent lights recessed into the ceiling. A disinfectant smell wafted through the air, cooled by air conditioning. They walked down a hallway, the clicking of Andy’s expensive shoes amplified to an almost comic echo. It could have been a hundred other buildings Andy had been in before, except this one was several hundred feet underground and harbored some kind of government secret.

Andy asked, “This was built in 1906?”

“Well, it’s been improved upon as the years have gone by. Didn’t get fluorescent lights till 1938. In ‘49 we added the Orange Arm and the Purple Arm. We’re always replacing, updating. Just got a Jacuzzi in ‘99, but it’s on the fritz.”

“How big is this place?”

“About 75,000 square feet. Took two years to dig it all out. God gets most of the credit, though. Most of this space is a series of natural caves. Not nearly the size of the Carlsbad Caverns two hundred miles to the east, but enough for our purpose.”

“Speaking of purpose…”

“We’re getting to that.”

The hallway curved gradually to the right and Andy noted that the doors were all numbered in yellow paint with the word YELLOW stenciled above them. Andy guessed correctly that they were in the Yellow Arm of the complex, and was happy that at least one thing made sense.

“What’s that smell?” Andy asked, noting that the pleasant scent of lemon and pine had been overtaken by a distinct farm-like odor.

“The sheep, over in Orange 12. They just came in last week, and they stink like, well, sheep. We think we can solve the problem with Hepa filters, but it will take some time.”

“Sheep,” Andy said. He wondered, idly, if he’d been brought here to interpret their bleating.

The hallway they were taking ended at a doorway, and Race ushered Andy through it and into a large round room that had six doors along its walls. Each door was a different color.

“Center of the complex. The head of the Octopus, so to speak. I believe you’ve got a call waiting for you.”

In the middle of the room was a large round table, circled with leather executive-type office chairs. Computer monitors, electronic gizmos, and a mess of cords and papers haphazardly covered the table top as if they’d been dropped there from a great height.

Race sat Andy down in front of a screen and tapped a few commands on a keyboard. The President’s head and shoulders appeared on the flat-screen monitor, and he nodded at Andy as if they were in the same room.

“Video phone, got it in ‘04.” Race winked.

“Mr. Dennison, thank you for coming. You’ve done your country a great service.”

The President looked and sounded like he always did, fit, commanding, and sincere. Obviously he’d had a chance to sleep.

“Where do I talk?” Andy asked Race.

“Right at the screen. There’s a mike and a camera housed in the monitor.”

Andy leaned forward.

“Mr. President, I’d really like to know what’s going on and what I’m supposed to be doing here.”

“You were chosen, Andy, because you met all of the criteria on a very long list. We need a translator, one with experience in ancient languages. You’ve always had a gift for language. My sources say you were fluent in Spanish by age three, and by six years old you could also speak French, German, and some Russian. In grade school you were studying the eastern tongues, and you could speak Chinese by junior high.”

Only Mandarin, Andy thought. He couldn’t speak Cantonese until a few years later.

“You graduated high school in three years and were accepted to Harvard on scholarship. You spent four years at Harvard, and wrote and published your thesis on giving enunciation to cuneiform, at age nineteen.

“When you left school in 1986 you lived on money left to you by your parents, who died in a fire three years before. After the money ran out you got a job at the United Nations in New York. You were there less than a year before being fired. During a Middle East peace talk you insulted the Iraqi ambassador.”

“He was a pervert who liked little girls.”

“Iraq was our ally at the time.”

“What does that have to do with—”

The President held up a hand, as he was so accustomed to doing with reporters.

“I’m not sitting in a seat of judgment, Andy. But you’re entitled to know why you were chosen. After the UN fired you, you started your own freelance translation service, WTS. You’ve been making an average living, one that allows you to be your own boss. But business has been slow lately, I assume because of the Internet.”

Andy frowned. In the beginning, the World Wide Web had opened up a wealth of information for a translator, giving him instant access to the greatest libraries in the world. But, of course, it gave everyone else access to those libraries too. Along with computer programs that could translate both the written and the spoken word.

“So you know I’m good at my job, and you know I could use the money.”

“More than that, Andy. You’re single, and you aren’t currently seeing anyone. You don’t have any relatives. Business is going poorly and you’re behind on your Visa and your Discover Card payments, and you’ve just gotten your second warning from the electric company. Your unique mind, so active and curious years ago, hasn’t had a challenge since college.

“You didn’t talk to the media after the incident at the UN, even though reporters offered you money for the story. That’s important, because it shows you can keep your mouth shut. In short, by bringing you in on this project, you don’t have anything to lose, but everything to gain.”

“Why aren’t I comforted that the government knows so much about me?”

“Not the government, Andy. Me. No one else in Washington is aware of you, or of Project Samhain. Only the incumbent President knows what goes on there in New Mexico. It was passed on to me by my predecessor, and I’ll pass it on to my successor when I leave office. This is the way it’s been since President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned construction of this facility in 1906.”

Andy didn’t like this at all. His curiosity was being overtaken by a creepy feeling.

“This is all very interesting, but I don’t think I’m your man.”

“I also know about Myra Thackett and Chris Simmons.”

Andy’s mouth became a thin line. Thackett and Simmons were two fictitious employees that Andy pretended to have under salary at WTS. Having phantom people on the payroll reduced income tax, and was the only way he’d been able to keep his business afloat.

“So this is a tax thing after all.”

“Again, only I know about it Andy. Not the IRS. Not the FBI. Just me. And I can promise you that Ms. Thackett and Mr. Simmons will never come back to haunt you if you help us here.”

“What exactly,” Andy chose his words carefully, “do you want from me?”

“First you must swear, as a citizen of the United States, to never divulge anything you see, hear, or learn at Project Samhain, under penalty of execution. Not to a friend. Not even to a wife. My own wife doesn’t even know about this.”

Not seeing an alternative, Andy held up his right hand, as if he were testifying in court.

“Fine. I swear.”

“General Murdoch will provide the details, he knows them better than I. Suffice to say, this may be the single most important project this country, maybe even the world, has ever been involved with. I wish you luck, and God bless.”

The screen went blank.

“It’s aliens, isn’t it?” Andy turned to Race. “You’ve got aliens here.”

“Well, no. But back in ‘47 we had a hermit who lived in the mountains, he found our secret entrance and got himself a good look inside. Before we could shut him up he was blabbing to everyone within earshot. So we faked a UFO landing two hundred miles away in Roswell to divert attention.”

Andy rubbed his temples.

“You want some aspirin?” Race asked. “Or breakfast, maybe?”

“What I want, after swearing under the penalty of execution, is to know what the hell I’m doing here.”

“They say an image is worth a thousand words. Follow me.”

Race headed to the Red Door and Andy loped behind. The Red Arm hallway looked exactly like the Yellow Arm; white and sterile with numbered doors, this time with the word RED stenciled on them. But after a few dozen yards Andy noted a big difference. Race had to stop at a barrier that blocked the hallway. It resembled a prison door, with thick vertical steel bars set in a heavy frame.

“Titanium,” Race said as he pressed some numbers on a keypad embedded in the wall. “They could stop a charging rhino.”

There was a beep and a metallic sound as the door unlocked. The door swung inward, and Race held it open for Andy, then closed it behind him with loud clang. It made Andy feel trapped. They came up on another set of bars fifty yards further up.

“Why two sets?” Andy asked. “You have a rhino problem here?”

“Well, it’s got horns, that’s for sure.”

Race opened the second gate and the Red Arm came to an abrupt end at doors Red 13 and Red 14.

“He was found in Panama in 1906, by a team digging the canal,” Race said. “For the past hundred years he’s been in some kind of deep sleep, like a coma. Up until last week. Last week he woke up.”

“He?”

“We call him Bub. He’s trying to communicate, but we don’t know what he’s saying.”

Andy’s apprehension increased with every breath. He had an irrational urge to turn around and run. Or maybe it wasn’t so irrational.

“Is Bub human?” Andy asked.

“Nope,” Race grinned. The General was clearly enjoying himself. Didn’t have visitors too often, Andy guessed.

“So what is he?”

“See for yourself.”

Race opened door Red 14, and Andy almost gagged on the animal stench. This wasn’t a farm smell. This was a musky, sickly, sweet and sour, big carnivore smell.

Forcing himself to move, Andy took two steps into the room. It was large, the size of a gymnasium, the front half filled with medical equipment. The back half had been partitioned off with a massive translucent barrier, glass or plastic. Behind the glass was…

“Jesus Christ,” Andy said.

Andy’s mind couldn’t process what he was seeing. The teeth. The eyes. The claws.

This thing wasn’t supposed to exist in real life.

“Biix a beel,” Bub said.

Andy flew past Race, heading for the hallway.

“I promise not to tell anyone.”

“Mr. Dennison…”

Andy met up with the titanium bars and used some of his favorite curses from several different languages. His palms were soaked with sweat, and he’d begun to hyperventilate.

Race caught up, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I apologize for not preparing you, but I’m an old man with so little pleasure in my life, and it’s such a hoot watching people see Bub for the first time.”

Andy braced the older man.

“Bub. Beelzebub. You’ve got Satan in there.”

“Possibly. Father Thrist thinks it’s a lower level demon like Moloch or Rahab, but Rabbi Shotzen concedes it may be Mastema.”

“I’d like to leave,” Andy said, attempting to sound calm. “Right now.”

“Don’t worry. He’s not violent. I’ve even been in the dwelling with him. He’s just scary looking, is all. And that Plexiglas barrier is rated to eight tons. It’s as safe as visiting the monkey house at the zoo.”

Andy tried to find the words.

“You’re a lunatic,” he decided.

“Look, Andy, I’ve been watching after Bub for over forty years. We’ve had the best of the best in the world here—doctors, scientists, holy men, you name it. We’ve found out so much, but the rest is just theory. Bub’s awake now, and trying to communicate. You’re the key to that. Don’t you see how important this is?”

“I’m…” Andy began, searching his mind for a way to put it.

Race finished the thought for him. “Afraid. Of course you’re afraid. Any damn fool would be, seeing Bub. We’ve been taught to fear him since we were born. But if I can paraphrase Samuel Butler, we don’t know the Devil’s side of the story, because God wrote all the books. Just think about what we can learn here.”

“You’re military,” Andy accused. “I’m sure the weapons implications of controlling the Prince of Darkness aren’t lost on you.”

Race lost his friendly demeanor, his eyes narrowing.

“We have an opportunity here, Mr. Dennison. An opportunity that we haven’t had since Christ walked the earth. In that room is a legendary creature, and the things that he could teach us about the world, the universe, and creation itself staggers the imagination. You’ve been chosen to help us, to work with our team in getting some answers. Many would kill for the chance.”

Andy folded his arms. “You expect me to believe not only that the devil is harmless and just wants to have a chat, but that the biggest government conspiracy in the history of the world has only good intentions?”

Race’s face remained impassive for a few seconds longer, and then he broke out laughing.

“Damn, that does sound hard to swallow, don’t it?”

Andy couldn’t help but warm a bit at the man’s attitude. “General Murdoch…”

“Race. Call me Race. And I understand. I’ve been part of the Project so long the whole thing is the norm to me. You need to eat, rest, think about things. We’ll grab some food and I’ll show you your room.”

“And if I want to leave?”

“This isn’t a prison, son. I’m sure you weren’t the only guy on the President’s list. You’re free to go whenever you please, so long as you never mention this to anyone.”

Andy took a deep, calming breath and the effects of the adrenaline in his system began to wear off. Race opened the gate and they began their trek back down the hallway.

“The world really is going to hell, isn’t it?” Andy said.

Race grinned. “Sure is. And we’ve got a front row seat.”

Breakfast was light but nourishing, consisting of banana muffins, sausage, and coffee. The coffee was the only thing fresh. The food, like all food in the compound, was frozen and then microwaved. Race told Andy that refrigeration had been possible since the compound was created, but the small group of people who lived here didn’t warrant the constant trips to refresh supplies. Instead, two huge freezers were stocked several times a year with everything from cheese and bread to Twinkies and Snickers. Milk, an item that didn’t freeze well, was available vacuum-packed.

“How many people are here right now?” Andy asked, stirring more sugar into his coffee.

They sat on orange chairs at a Formica table with a sunflower pattern. Green 2—or the Mess Hall as Race called it—doubled as both a dining area and a kitchen. The decor, save for the microwaves, was pure 1950s cafeteria.

“Eight, including you. The holies, the priest and the rabbi, leave for brief periods every so often. Everyone else is here for the long haul. Believe it or not, except for the isolation and the fact that you don’t see the great outdoors, this is almost like a resort. We’ve got a sauna, a four lane swimming pool, a full library, even a racquetball court.”

“Who foots the bill for all of this if only the President knows about it?”

“Social Security. Now you know why the benefits are so low.”

Andy used his fist to stifle a yawn. The food was settling well and he suddenly realized how tired he was.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Race said. “If you haven’t had a chance yet, take the time to make a list of things you need from your apartment; clothes, books, whatever. I know you’ve got some things already en route, toiletries and such, but anything else you might need, just holler. That goes for things you might need for research too. We have a blank check here, no questions asked. Back in the sixties, as a joke, two guys asked for a Zamboni. Came the next day. Sure pissed off President Johnson. That man could curse like no one I’ve ever met.”

“I’m still not convinced I’m staying.”

“That’s fine, but it’s a funny thing about Bub. We’ve had people scream, faint dead away, become downright hysterical the first time they see him. But we’ve never had one leave without finishing their job. Curiosity is a powerful motivator.”

It also killed the cat, Andy thought.

They left the Mess Hall and headed down the Blue Arm via the Octopus. As they walked, the door to Blue 5 opened and a woman came out into the hallway. She was petite, and the lab coat she wore was too big for her even though the sleeves had been rolled up. Her hair was blue-black and cut into a bob, perfectly framing a triangular Asian face.

Andy was immediately entranced. It had been a long time since he’d been in the presence of a beautiful woman. The last was his ex-girlfriend, Susan. Pre-Susan, he’d dated a lot. His looks were okay, but the ability to speak in dozens of languages was something women really liked. Post-Susan, he’d been a desert island. She’d taken more than just his heart. She’d taken his confidence as well.

“Dr. Jones, this is Andy Dennison, the translator. Andy, this is Dr. Sunshine Jones, our resident veterinarian.”

“Hi,” Andy said, smiling big. “You know, when I was a kid I had a retriever named Sunshine. I loved that dog.”

Dr. Jones stared at him, her face made of marble.

“Not that I’m comparing you to a dog,” Andy said quickly. “But it’s a small world, both you and my dog having the same, uh, name.”

She didn’t respond. Andy’s smile deflated.

Race, who watched the exchange with barely concealed amusement, cut in to give Andy a hand.

“Mr. Dennison was called in at three this morning. He just met Bub an hour ago. You could say he had the typical reaction.”

“Hey, I’m from Chicago,” Andy said, trying to recover. “I’m not bothered by too much.”

“Is that so?” Dr. Jones said. Her voice lacked the faintest trace of good nature. “Bub’s next feeding is at noon. Maybe you’d like to lend a hand?”

“Sure.”

Dr. Jones nodded, then walked down the Blue Arm to the Octopus.

Andy waited until she’d gone through the door before commenting.

“Very intense lady.”

“She’s been here a week, since Bub woke up, and I haven’t seen her smile once. Does a helluva job though. She’s the one who figured out Bub’s, uh, nutritional requirements.”

“Which are?”

“Remember those sheep you smelled?”

Andy frowned, the banana muffins doing a flip in his stomach.

“Well,” Race said. “Here’s your room.”

Race opened the door to Blue 6. Andy gave it a quick glance over. It was set up like a hotel suite; bed, desk, TV, dresser, washroom. The only thing missing was a view.

“Our water heater is on the fritz, so all we got is lukewarm for the time being. That phone on the nightstand is in-house only. All the rooms in Samhain got ‘em. Hit the pound sign and then the number of the Arm followed by the room number. Blue Arm is number one, Yellow Arm number two—there’s a list next to the phone. I’m in Blue 1, so just hit #11 to get me. Or hit *100 and go live over the house speakers.”

Andy yawned, knowing he wouldn’t remember any of that.

“The only outside line is in the control room,” Race continued, “and for obvious reasons that’s restricted. If you need to get a message to the rest of the world, you have to go through me.”

Andy looked at the bed and felt his will drain away.

“Do I get a wake up call?”

“I believe you’ve already got one in the form of Dr. Jones. I know a thing or two about being macho, but I’m not sure you should witness a feeding just yet, even to impress the cute doctor.”

“It’s that bad?”

“I’ve seen action in two wars, son, and it’s that bad.”

Andy took Race’s outstretched hand and mumbled a thank you, though he wasn’t really sure what he was thankful for. He was three items into his list of necessities when he fell asleep.

• • •

A buzzing woke him up. Andy wasn’t sure where he was, and when he remembered, he couldn’t figure out what the noise meant. It turned out to be his phone, humming like an angry bee.

He lifted the receiver.

“Mr. Dennison? This is Dr. Jones.”

Andy blinked and said good morning. The clock on the dresser said 12:07, so it was technically afternoon, but that didn’t enter into his sleep-addled head.

“Can you meet me at Orange 12, say in fifteen minutes?”

“Sure. Orange 12.”

The doctor hung up. Andy rubbed his eyes and extended the motion into scratching his chin. Stubble. He sat up in bed. Thought about the demon. Felt his heart begin to race.

Pretend it’s just another translation job, he told himself.

A suitcase that he recognized as his own was sitting next to the bathroom door. When he calmed down, he opened the case to find clothing and sundries, packed neater than he’d ever been able to. His electric razor was in a zippered pocket, and he took that and his toothbrush kit into the bathroom with him.

After a shave and a brush he hopped into and out of a tepid shower, using soap in his hair because he hadn’t bothered to look for shampoo. Five minutes later he was dressed in some khakis and a light blue denim shirt. After a brief indecision he left two buttons open at the neck rather than one, and was then out the door and headed for the Orange Arm.

When he reached the center of the compound—the Octopus as Race had called it—he found two men sitting at the center table. Both were at least thirty years his senior. The one on the left wore round Santa Claus glasses on an equally round face. He had a balding head and a gray goatee, and his large green sweater was tight on his rotund body. The other man was his comic opposite; long and gaunt, cheeks sunken rather than cherubic, scowl lines instead of smile lines. He looked uncomfortable in his jeans, whereas his companion looked at home in his.

Andy recalled Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.

They were in an intense conversation when Andy entered, and his arrival didn’t warrant an interruption.

“As usual,” the chubby one said in a voice deep and full, “you’re narrowing your concept of Christian hell to church teachings, with Dante, Milton, and Blake thrown in for good measure. But the concept of an Underworld goes back to Mesopotamia almost four thousand years ago, which predates both Christianity and Judaism.”

The thin man sighed as if the world rested on his shoulders. “I’m aware of Mesopotamia, as I am of Egyptian, Zarathrustrian, Grecian and Roman beliefs in Hell.” He had a thin, reedy voice that matched his appearance. “I’m also aware of the complexities of explaining the presence of evil in a divinely created universe. But it seems to make more sense to have an embodiment of evil in the form of Satan than a dualistic God who is both forgiving and wrathful.”

“Fa!” the fat one said, raising up his hands and rolling his eyes. “Enough with Yeoweh’s dark shadow. From the second century BC, my people have believed in a distinct malevolent deity, in this case Mastema, who was created by ha-shem to do His dirty work, namely, punishing sin. It can be read that Mastema, not Adonai, was the one behind the trials of Job. The same Mastema who tempted the prophets Moses and Jesus.”

The thin one winced. “I hate it when you call Jesus a prophet.”

“You must be the holies,” Andy said. It was the first opportunity he’d had to get a word in.

“What makes more sense,” the fat man turned to Andy. Andy guessed correctly that he was Rabbi Shotzen. “The devil as a fallen angel, or the devil as a purposeful creation of God to be an alternative to His light?”

“I’m an atheist,” Andy said.

There was a moment of silence.

“How can you refuse your own eyes?” asked Father Thrist. “You saw Bub, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, he’s unmitigated proof that God must exist. For there to be devils, there must be hell, and if there’s hell, there’s a heaven and a God.”

Andy decided he didn’t want to get drawn into this conversation.

“I saw a thing, that looked like what we call a devil. I can’t draw any more conclusions than that.”

“Another Thomas,” Thrist said to Shotzen. “Here we have, in captivity, one of Satan’s minions, and everyone who sees him doubts. Why not set him free? The world wouldn’t tremble with fear, as predicted. Bub would probably go on the talk show circuit and then become a sponsor for soft drinks.”

The agitated priest turned to Andy again and pointed a finger, a gesture he seemed comfortable making. “Satan’s greatest feat is to convince us he doesn’t exist. He doesn’t want us to believe in him, and that makes it easier for him to spread his evil. Lucifer is the Master of Lies.”

“I disagree, Father,” Shotzen cut in. “God wants us to know the devil exists. It’s his infernal existence that steers us towards the path of truth and light.”

Andy headed for the Orange door, content to leave the philosophical demands of the situation in other hands. The discussion continued without him; in fact, Andy guessed they hadn’t even noticed he’d left.

The Orange Arm looked newer than the rest of the facility, with brighter paint and shinier tile, but the smell was barnyard fresh. Andy wrinkled his nose.

Dr. Jones was waiting for him in front of Orange 12, holding a clipboard that commanded her attention. She didn’t look up at Andy as he approached.

“I’m ready for lunch,” Andy said. He tried on a small grin.

She walked into Orange 12 without replying. Andy followed. The room was large, almost the size of Bub’s habitat. Several empty pens were off to the right, and to the left side was a fenced area where almost two dozen sheep milled about. For all his travels, Andy had never seen a sheep before, and was surprised at how big they were. They were waist high and fat, like a bunch of gray marshmallows on toothpick legs.

“Is that actual grass they’re on?” Andy asked.

“Astroturf. My idea of turning this part of the complex into a biosphere was rejected as too complicated. The turf wears well and is easy to clean.”

“It looks like they’re eating parts of it.”

“Yeah, I told them that would happen. Come on.”

Dr. Jones went to a set of lockers near the pens and removed a leather harness that resembled the reins for a horse. The reins were handed to Andy, and the doctor reached back into the locker and took out a half dozen boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal. She walked up to the fence and rang a large cowbell hanging from a pole. All of the animals turned to look.

“They eat hay, but they love breakfast cereal. To get them to approach I have to bribe them. The problem is they’re skittish. Every time they come to get the treat, one of them is taken away.”

Dr. Jones began opening boxes and pouring them into the trough inside the fence. The sheep watched for a minute before the first of them approached. He stuck his face in the crunchy treat and began snacking. Dr. Jones patted him on the head.

“You want the harness?” Andy asked.

“No, this is Wooly. He’s the Judas sheep. He always comes first, and then the others follow. If we snagged him, they’d all be too afraid to come the next time.”

Wooly grunted his agreement, sucking up the cereal like a vacuum. Soon he was joined by two others, muscling their way in. Dr. Jones grabbed one of them by the scruff of the neck, gathering up wool in her fist. It appeared rough, but the animal didn’t seem to notice and continued its binge.

When the cereal was gone, Dr. Jones deftly slipped the harness over the sheep’s head, tightening the straps with her free hand. She held the reins in her armpit and opened the last box of cereal, luring her captured animal over to the gate. Several of the other sheep followed, and Wooly snorted his disapproval at being left out.

“Shoo the others away while I open the gate,” Dr. Jones told Andy.

Andy, feeling quite the dork, flapped his hands around and made hissing noises. The sheep just stared at him, and out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw the stoic Dr. Jones smirk.

“Go on sheep! Go! Move it! Go on!”

The herd slowly backed off, and Dr. Jones opened the gate and led her captive to one of the pens. Once it was safely locked in she went to fetch her clipboard.

Andy gave the sheep a pat on the head and stared into its alien eyes with their elongated pupils. Bub’s eyes. He shuddered, realizing he didn’t want to see the demon again so soon.

With a tape measure Dr. Jones checked the sheep’s length and its height at the shoulder. She noted the measurements and then pressed some buttons on a digital display next to the pen. It registered the sheep’s weight. She jotted this down as well.

“So, do people call you Sunny?”

“Not if they want me to reply.”

Ouch, Andy thought. How can someone so cute be so cold?

“I thought all vets were supposed to be cheerful. Something to do with their love of animals.”

She gave him a blank stare, and then began to examine the sheep’s teeth.

“What do you go by, then?”

“Sun. People call me Sun.”

“Sun. It’s unique.”

“My mother was Vietnamese. She fell in love with an American soldier, who brought her to this country before Saigon fell. Sunshine was one of the first English words she learned. She didn’t know any better.”

“Oh, I think she did. It matches your cheerful disposition.”

Sun was now looking into the sheep’s eyes, holding their lids open. The sheep protested the inspection by twisting away.

“Wait a second,” Andy said, snapping his fingers. “You’re Vietnamese.”

“Don’t say it,” Sun warned.

But Andy, a grin stretched across his face, couldn’t resist. “You’re a Vietnam vet.”

Sun’s face became even harder, something Andy hadn’t thought possible.

“Never heard that one before. Open the pen there.”

Andy lifted the latch on the gate and Sun led the sheep out of the pen and over to the entrance door.

“I’ve visited Viet Nam twice,” Andy said. “Beautiful place. All of those war movies make it look like hell, but it’s actually very tranquil, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been there. I’m an American.”

Andy decided to shut up.

They led the sheep through the hallway and into the Octopus, where the rabbi and the priest were still arguing.

“Here comes another one, wretched thing,” Rabbi Shotzen pointed to the sheep with his chin.

Father Thrist frowned. “I don’t understand why you can’t kill the sheep humanely first.” He crossed his arms, obviously uncomfortable.

“Bub only takes ‘em live, guys,” Sun answered. “You know that.”

The Rabbi said, “What about some kind of painkiller? Morphine, perhaps?”

“We don’t know how that would affect Bub’s unique anatomy.”

“How about a cigarette at least? A last meal?”

“He had Cap’n Crunch,” Andy offered.

“You gentlemen are more than welcome to perform the last rites, if you wish,” Sun said.

Again, Andy caught the faintest hint of a smirk.

“Sacrilege,” the Rabbi said. But he approached the sheep and held its head, speaking a few words of Hebrew.

“Perhaps Bub can be trained in the ways of shohet,” Andy said. “Then he can eat according to shehita.”

If Shotzen was impressed by Andy’s knowledge of his people’s tongue, he didn’t show it. Instead the chubby holy man shook his head in disagreement. “Bub won’t eat kosher meat. He’s trefah, a blood drinker.”

The rabbi went back to his seat. Sun walked the sheep to the Red door. Father Thrist refused to look.

“Rabbi Shotzen says that prayer every time we feed Bub a sheep,” Sun told Andy when they entered the Red Arm.

“It wasn’t a prayer. The rabbi simply apologized to the sheep, because it wasn’t going to be killed by a proper butcher, according to the Jewish laws of slaughtering animals humanely.”

Sun punched in the code for the first gate, and Andy made sure he noted the five digit number. The titanium bars swung open, but the sheep didn’t want to budge.

“She smells him,” Sun said. She took a black swatch of cloth from her coat pocket and slipped it over the animal’s eyes. “They’re calmer when they can’t see.”

With some firm tugging and a sniff of cereal, the sheep moved forward.

“You’re a vet, you’re supposed to take care of animals. Doesn’t this bother you, marching one off to death?”

Sun sighed. “Have you ever eaten a hamburger?”

“Sure, but…”

“Bub’s a carnivore, like a lion, like a shark, like you and me. As much as everyone around here is shocked by Bub’s eating habits, if they ever visited a slaughterhouse they’d be a thousand times more repulsed.”

“But you’re a vet.”

“I’m a vet who eats hamburgers. I also spent six months in Africa studying lions.”

Andy said hello in four African tribal languages.

She wasn’t impressed.

They came to the second door, and Andy punched in the numbers on the panel. Nothing happened.

“Two different codes,” Sun said. “You can’t have a secret government compound without security overkill.”

The sheep tried to bolt at the sound of the heavy door clanging open, but Sun had a tight grip on the reins.

Andy stopped at Red 14 and grasped the door handle but he didn’t turn it right away. The moment stretched.

“You don’t have to go in,” Sun said. “I just needed you to help in Orange 12.”

She was giving him a graceful way out, but he knew her opinion of him would drop even further if he took it.

Andy turned the knob and entered.

The smell hit him again, heady and musky, almost making Andy gag. This time the room wasn’t empty. Standing among the medical equipment was a man in a lab coat. He was tall and intense looking, with a thin line for a mouth and wide expressive eyes. His hair was light gray, short and curly. Andy put him at about forty, but he could have gone eight years either way.

“Oh good, feeding time,” the man said.

“Dr. Frank Belgium, this is Andy Dennison,” Sun said. “He’s the translator.”

“Good good good, we’re in need of one. Attack the mystery from all angles, the more the better. Yes yes yes.”

“Frank’s a molecular biologist.” Sun said it as if that was explanation for Dr. Belgium’s weird speech patterns and birdlike movements. “How’s the sequencing going, Frank?”

“Slow slow slow. Our boy—yes, he is a boy, even though there isn’t any evidence of external genitalia—his bladder empties through the anus, like a bird. He has 88 pairs of chromosomes. We’re looking at over 100,000 different genes, about quadruple what humans have. Billions of codons. Even the Cray is having a hard time isolating sequences. Nothing yet, but a link will show up, I’m sure it will.”

“All life on earth, from flatworms to elephants, share some DNA sequences,” Sun explained. “Dr. Belgium believes Bub also shares several of these chains.”

Dr. Belgium nodded several times. “Bub’s got the same four bases as all life, the same 20 amino acids. Even taking into account his… different anatomical layout, I believe he’s terrestrial, that is, he has earthly relatives somewhere. We’re trying matches with goats, rams, bats, gorillas, humans, crocodiles, pigs, everything that he looks like he may be a part of, to fit him into the animal kingdom… but now it’s feeding time, so let’s see if we can witness another miracle, shall we?”

Sun led the sheep past Andy and over to Bub’s habitat. Andy, who’d been avoiding looking in that direction, forced himself to watch.

At first, Bub wasn’t visible. The dwelling was filled with a running stream and trees and bushes and grass, as deep as a basketball court and about thirty feet high. The foliage was so dense in parts that even a creature Bub’s size could apparently hide in it.

“All fake,” Dr. Belgium said. “Fake brush, fake rocks, fake stream. It’s supposed to resemble the area where he was found, in Panama. I don’t think he’s fooled.”

“Where is he?” Andy asked, cautiously approaching the Plexiglas shield. He squinted at the trees, trying to make out anything red.

Bub dropped from directly above, the ground shaking as he landed just three feet in front of Andy.

Andy yelled and jumped backwards, falling onto his ass.

Sun laughed. “Did you forget he could fly?”

Andy didn’t notice Sun’s amusement. Bub was crouching before him, his black wings billowing out behind him like a rubber parachute.

Andy’s mouth went dry. The demon was the most amazing and horrifying thing he’d ever seen.

Hoofs big as washtubs.

Massively muscled black legs, with knees that bent backwards like the hindquarters of a goat.

Claws the size of manhole covers, ending in talons that looked capable of disemboweling an elephant.

Bub approached the Plexiglas and cocked his head to the side, as if contemplating the new arrival. It was a bear’s head, with black ram horns, and rows of jagged triangular teeth.

Shark’s teeth.

His snout was flat and piggish, and he snorted, fogging up the glass. His elliptical eyes—black bifurcated pupils set into corneas the color of bloody urine—locked on Andy with an intensity that only intelligent beings could manage.

He was so close, Andy could count the coarse red hairs on the demon’s broad chest. The animal smell swirled up the linguist’s nostrils, mixed with odors of offal and fecal matter.

Bub raised a claw and placed it on the Plexiglas.

“Hach wi’ hew,” Bub said.

Andy yelled again, crab-walking backwards and bumping into the sheep. The sheep bleated in alarm.

Bub, as if commanded, backed away from the window. His giant, rubbery wings folded over once, twice, and then tucked neatly away behind his massive back. He walked over to a large tree and squatted there, waiting.

Sun led the sheep past the Plexiglas and to a doorway on the other side of the room. They entered, and a minute later a small hatch opened inside the habitat, off to Bub’s left.

Andy mentally screamed at Sun, “Don’t open that door!” even though the opening was far too narrow for Bub to fit through.

Bub watched as the sheep walked into his domain. The door closed behind it.

The sheep shook off its blindfold and looked around its new environment. Upon seeing Bub it let forth a very human-sounding scream.

In an instant, less than an instant, Bub had sprung from his spot by the tree and sailed through the air almost twenty feet, his wings fully outstretched. He snatched up the sheep in his claws, an obscene imitation of a bat grabbing a moth.

Andy turned away, expecting to hear chomping and bleating. When none came, he ventured another look.

Bub was back by the tree, sitting on his haunches. The sheep was cradled in his enormous hands, as a child might hold a gerbil. But it was unharmed. In fact, Bub was stroking it along its back, and making soft sounds.

Sheep sounds.

“He’s talking to the sheep,” Dr. Belgium said. “He’s going to do it. Here comes the miracle.”

Andy watched as the sheep ceased in its struggle. Bub continued to pet the animal, his hideous face taking on a solemn cast. There was silence in the room. Andy realized he’d been holding his breath.

The movement was sudden. One moment Bub was rubbing the sheep’s head, the next moment he twisted it backwards like a jar top.

There was a sickening crunch, the sound of wet kindling snapping. The sheep’s head lolled off to the side at a crazy angle, rubbery and twitching. Andy felt an adrenaline surge and had to fight not to run away.

“Now here it comes,” Dr. Belgium said, his voice a whisper.

Bub held the sheep close to his chest and closed his elliptical eyes. A minute of absolute stillness passed.

Then one of the sheep’s legs jerked.

“What is that?” Andy asked. “A reflex?”

“No,” Sun answered. “It’s not a reflex.”

The leg jerked again. And again. Bub set down the sheep, which shook itself and then got to its feet.

“Jesus,” Andy gasped.

The sheep took two steps and blinked. What made the whole resurrection even more unsettling was the fact that the sheep’s head hung limply between its front legs, turned completely around so it looked at them upside down.

Andy’s fear changed to awe. “But it’s dead. Isn’t it dead?”

“We’re not sure,” Sun said. “The lungs weren’t moving a minute ago, but now they are.”

“But he broke its neck. Even if it was alive, could it move with a broken neck?”

The sheep attempted to nibble at some grass with his head backwards.

“I guess it can,” Sun said.

“Amazing,” Dr. Belgium said. “Amazing amazing amazing.”

“Shouldn’t you get the sheep?” Andy asked. “Run some tests?”

“Go right ahead,” Sun said. “The door’s over there.”

“Probably not a good idea to go in there before Bub’s eaten.” Dr. Belgium said.

Andy said. “Can’t you tranquilize him or something? Race said he went into the habitat before.”

“Twice, against my insistence, but only to get some stool samples and to fix a clog in the artificial stream. Both times Bub ignored him. Even Race isn’t insane enough to go in there and take his food away. And I’m not going to tranquilize Bub until we know more about his physiology. We don’t know what tranquilizers would do to him.”

Bub barked a sound, similar to a cough. The sheep trotted around in a circle, head swinging from side to side, trying to bleat with a broken neck.

Bub coughed again.

Or was it a laugh?

The sheep swung its head around at Bub and screamed. Bub reached out and grabbed the sheep. The grab was rough, all pretense of tenderness gone. Holding a hind leg in each claw, he ripped the sheep in half and began to feast on the innards.

Andy’s stomach climbed up his throat and threatened to jump out. He put a hand over his mouth and turned away, the munching and gobbling sounds filling the large room.

“From amazing to horrible,” Dr. Belgium said, returning to his computer station.

“He eats everything,” Sun said, putting the reins in her coat pocket. “The skull, bones, hide, even intestines. Doesn’t waste a crumb. The perfect carnivore.”

Andy threw up, seeing the banana muffins for the second time that day. He apologized and fled the room, his brain scrambling to remember the code number for the gate. He managed, but got stuck when he reached the second one.

This was insane. This whole project was insane. Andy felt no curiosity at all—only terror, revulsion, and anger at being suckered into this mess. He gave the bars a shake and a swift kick, swearing in several different languages.

Sun came up behind him and punched in the correct code.

“Thanks,” Andy mumbled.

He took off down the hall, barely noticing the deep frown of concern on Sun’s face.

Dr. Sun Jones wasn’t pleased with herself. She had to stop alienating every man who showed the slightest bit of interest in her. It wasn’t healthy.

But then she hadn’t felt healthy in quite some time.

Physically, Sun knew she had more strength and stamina than anyone else in the compound. Even in Africa she’d adhered to her daily exercise regimen of sit-ups and push-ups, receiving more than a few quizzical stares from the indigenous wildlife. Physically, she was a well-tuned machine.

Emotionally, it was a different story.

Sun walked down the arm to Red 3 and let herself in. The lights were already on, bright and harsh and making the large space seem more like an operating theater than a records repository.

Filling the room were dozens of file cabinets, ranging in style from antique oak to modern stainless steel, arranged rank and file like library isles. Off in the corner was a small desk, piled high with the papers she’d been recently reviewing.

Sun sat in a chair twice her age and tried to focus on the massive amount of work ahead of her. She’d discovered the records room on her second day here, and had been spending all of her free time trying to organize the astounding amount of data it contained.

Everything about the project was filed here, from the 1907 payroll ledger of the Spanish team who dug the compound (and was then deported back to Spain), up to the arrival of last month’s food shipment. Invoices, reports, inventories, letters, dossiers, Presidential mandates, and even recipes for chicken cacciatore were all haphazardly mixed together with little thought to common sense.

At one time there may have been some order to the room. Helen Murdoch, Race’s ill wife, had put an end to that. Sun didn’t know the details, but Dr. Belgium had mentioned that years ago Helen had ‘torn Red 3 apart’, and cleanup had consisted of simply shoving things back into cabinets.

Sun had wanted to ask Helen about that, and even went so far as to visit her in her room, but the woman was too far gone to remember anything.

Sad.

The obvious answer—hire a team to organize everything into a database—had been thought of but deemed unrealistic. Manpower was the only thing the Project lacked. The more people involved, the more likely there would be a security leak, so employment at Samhain was kept bare bones.

Sun had taken it upon herself to make the task hers. She’d been hired to study Bub in his habitat, based on her experience with large predators. It turned out to be amazingly dull, even though Bub was an extraordinary specimen. Watching a pride of roaming lions was a learning experience. Watching a lion at the zoo was sleep-inducing. Bub simply sat around, as if waiting for something. The only time he became lively was at his feedings, and even that had little variation. The records room gave her an opportunity to be useful.

Sun had no office experience to speak of, but she had good organization skills, and after only one week her effort was paying off. She’d been chronologically sorting the mountains of paperwork into two main sections, SAMHAIN and BUB. Each of these main topics had a dozen subsections, which would undoubtedly be broken down even further.

The work was slow going, made even more so by Sun’s inquisitive nature; all too often she would find something particularly fascinating and drift off task. Like the Rosenberg file.

It traced the hiring of an independent engineering firm called G & R to improve upon the compound’s emergency generator in 1951. The hirees, one Julius Rosenberg and one David Greenglas, snooped where they shouldn’t have and actually tried to blackmail President Truman.

Truman didn’t go for it, and the two, along with Rosenberg’s wife Ethyl, were executed for treason on less than authentic charges.

No one had blabbed since.

Sun thought Race was simply trying to scare her with that story when she’d first arrived. Now she had no illusions that her oath of secrecy was as serious as they come. Strangely, it didn’t matter to her one bit.

Sun had no one to tell.

While the political history was interesting, Sun was even more intrigued by the thousands of tests done on Bub since his arrival 100 years ago.

Forty-some people have worked at Samhain, encompassing over a dozen professions, from botanist to phrenologist. More often than not, those who were chosen stayed for the rest of their lives. Samhain had been both their home and their life’s work, and as far as she knew Sun was the only person who had ever seen it. It was both inspiring and depressing.

The files Sun had been recently reviewing were from the 1970s, most of them concerning a series of experiments done by two men named Meyer and Storky. The duo performed a staggering number of tests on Bub, up until Meyer’s death from Kaposi’s Sarcoma in 1979. So dedicated were they to research that Meyer had a linear accelerator sent to Samhain when he was diagnosed, and took his radiation treatments onsite so they could continue their experiments without interruption.

Some of their finds were extraordinary.

Bub was impervious, it seemed, to extreme cold. They’d placed several refrigeration units in Red 13, the room Bub was kept in while he was comatose, and gradually lowered the temperature to four below zero degrees Celsius. Bub’s internal body temperature didn’t drop a single degree, and his heart rate and breathing remained consistent.

The two then moved in some heaters and cranked it up to over two hundred degrees. An egg fried on the table next to Bub, but he didn’t fry. The demon’s skin got hot, but his internal temperature didn’t fluctuate more than a degree.

Meyer and Storky also discovered that Bub could breathe just about anything. It had been known since the ‘40s that Bub’s complex respiratory system, which included four lungs, two diaphragms, and two organs that resembled air bladders, processed nitrogen and oxygen and excreted a combination of methane and nitrous oxide. Through experimentation they showed that Bub could process pure nitrogen, or pure oxygen, or carbon dioxide, helium, hydrogen, propane, and even chlorine gas, and was able to break it down to nourish his cells.

They stopped short at nerve gas, even though President Nixon gave them the okay.

Sun read all of this with great interest, but the interest was slowly giving way to something else.

Paranoia.

Bub was resistant to all disease, fungal, viral and bacterial. His body attacked any invader, whether it be bubonic plague, herpes zoster, ringworm, or even Dutch elm disease, surrounded it with what were assumed to be antibodies, and expelled the intruder from his anus in a crystalline pellet. Meyer even went so far as to inject him with enough anthrax to wipe out a large city. Bub excreted it within twenty minutes.

He wasn’t invulnerable to physical harm, but damn near close. Ever since the first doctor drew some of Bub’s blood and watched in amazement as the needle mark repaired itself moments later, it had been known that the demon possessed rapidly accelerated healing ability. Meyer and Storky must have been amazed by this, because they spent no less than three years conducting experiments on the anomaly. They poked, gouged, sliced, burned, scraped, and subjected every part of Bub to chemical attack.

Bub could repair all harm, even plugs taken from flesh and bone, within seconds. It happened so fast that they brought in a 35mm film camera to shoot the miracle in slow motion.

Meyer theorized that Bub’s endocrine system was extremely advanced. The endocrine system in humans was capable of instantaneous reaction, such as a burst of adrenaline in a dangerous situation. Bub’s had developed to the point where it had taken over the healing functions, knitting wounds instantly. Nixon had given the go-ahead to fully amputate one of Bub’s limbs, but Meyer and Storky only went as far as a finger tip.

It grew back, longer and sharper than before.

Sun thought of Hercules and the hydra. Every time he cut off a head, it grew two more.

Meyer and Storky also tried to accurately gauge Bub’s age. They took a sample of Bub’s horn and tried to carbon date it. All living things take in carbon-14, which is created in the earth’s atmosphere when the sun’s rays strike nitrogen gas. It combines with oxygen to form CO_2. As long as the organism is alive, it has a constant new supply of C-14. But in dead tissue, the C-14 begins to decay into nitrogen-14, with a half life of about 5,730 years. Since Bub’s horn—made of keratin like hair and feathers—was dead tissue, it seemed ideal for the task.

Something wasn’t right, apparently, because the amount of N-14 found in the sample would have put Bub’s age at over 200,000 years. Obviously impossible. Meyer hypothesized that since Bub breathed and was able to process nitrogen, that somehow accounted for the high N-14 count. Sun, who never excelled at chemistry, found that explanation suspicious, but easier to believe than the idea that Bub was older than mankind itself.

Along with a record of Bub’s medical history, Sun was also sorting through the hundreds and thousands of pictures taken since the project’s beginning. Everything and everyone involved in Samhain over the last century had been photographed, filmed, recorded, and videotaped, and more than half of the file cabinets in Red 3 were filled to the brim with visual media.

Somewhere, buried in all of this mess, was the answer she was looking for.

Sun didn’t share Dr. Belgium’s belief that Bub was some strange, prehistoric missing link. She also didn’t share the view of the holies, who believed Bub was a true demon, a spawn of hell.

Sun had a different theory, one she wasn’t willing to share yet. Not without proof. Given that the average tenure here was twenty-two years, Sun figured she’d find it eventually. In twenty-two years a person could find anything.

Maybe even peace.

She finished sorting the files in front of her, and then moved on to the next cabinet. It was crammed full of serum and tissue analyses. Sun picked up a thick folder containing an in-depth report on the physical properties of Bub’s early stool samples. It didn’t surprise her to find out that they contained ample amounts of radioactivity.

The demon was so damn tough, even his droppings were nuclear.

She gave it a cursory flip through and dropped it in the BUB pile.

“Attention, this is Race.”

Sun reflexively looked up at the intercom speaker near the door.

“We have a new arrival, Andrew Dennison, and I think it would be a good time to have a group powwow to get him up to speed on the project. The Mess Hall, in five. Refreshments will be served.”

Race chuckled and cut out.

Sun placed her hands on her lower back and stretched, the vertebrae crackling like a bag of chips. She left the lights on in Red 3 and headed for the Octopus. Her thoughts drifted to Andy Dennison, not for the first time.

Sun thought he was cute, in a non-threatening teddy bear kind of way. He was trying hard to be amusing. The complete opposite of Steven, who was so self-assured and serious. She compared all men to Steven, and they all came up lacking. That was one of the reasons she’d been celibate since his death. Everyone else seemed like a step down.

So what was it about this new guy that intrigued her? Must be hormonal, she decided. She had been completely alone in Africa. Andy was the first man her age she’d had a conversation with in close to a year.

Maybe she should let down her guard a notch, stop acting so hard-nosed. Would it kill her to be personable? He obviously found her attractive. She should be flattered rather than irritated.

But then, she should be a lot of things.

Sun walked through the Octopus and went down the Green Arm. Before entering the Mess Hall she absently reached for her purse to check her hair in her make-up compact. The gesture annoyed her; she hadn’t carried a purse or a compact in a long time.

She settled for finger-combing her bangs back, and went into the cafeteria. The holies were already there, locked in their usual intense debate. Dr. Belgium was measuring coffee to put into the automatic maker, his actions as meticulous and precise as they were in the lab. Andy was leaning against the water cooler, hands in his pockets. Sun caught his eye and tried to look sympathetic. He gave her a shy smile back and walked over to her.

“Sorry about…”

“No need,” Sun interrupted. “We’ve all been there.”

“I haven’t thrown up since doing keg stands in college.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“Oh. Harvard.”

He said it as if it embarrassed him. Sun had met plenty of Harvard men, and they usually wore it like a badge of honor. Interesting.

“How about you?” Andy asked.

“Johns… uh Iowa State.”

“Were you going to say Johns Hopkins? I didn’t know they offered veterinary medicine.”

Sun thought fast. “I lived in Maryland, took some undergrad classes there. Transferred to Iowa.”

If he’d caught her lie she couldn’t tell.

“Is that what you always wanted to be? A vet?”

“Yeah.” Another lie. “Did you always want to be a linguist?”

“I never really thought about it. It’s something I’ve always been good at.”

“Do you like it?”

“I don’t know. I guess I do, or why would I do it, right? Do you like being a vet?”

“Yes,” Sun said, happy to say something honest. “I don’t beat myself up if my patients die.”

Andy smiled. He had a pleasant smile, she thought. She smiled back, surprised at how good it felt.

“I’m still not sure if I want to stay,” Andy said. “This isn’t a normal translating job for me. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“It’s okay to be afraid.”

“I’d bet you’ve never been afraid of anything in your entire life.”

“Not true. When I was seven, a bat got in my bedroom. Harmless, couldn’t have been bigger than a tennis ball. But the way it flew; in a figure eight, unbelievably fast, inches from my face on every pass—it terrified me. Then it landed on my head, got tangled up in my hair. I was so scared I couldn’t move. Took about five minutes to get up the guts to scream. Seemed like an eternity.”

“What happened?”

“Dad came in, caught it with a blanket, let it outside. He said it must have come in through the window. I didn’t open my window again until I was eighteen.”

They shared a small laugh, which felt even better than the smile.

“Well, now you’re taking care of the biggest bat in the history of the world,” Andy said.

“Gotta face your fears sometime. Besides, I think Bub’s a wee bit too big to get tangled in my hair.”

“You don’t find him terrifying?”

“At first I did. Now I’m more intrigued than scared. Aren’t you just a little bit curious about him?”

Andy rubbed his upper lip. “It’s hard to be curious when breakfast is coming out of your nose.”

“Just think about it for a second. Every person on earth, no matter what country or culture, has some kind of idea of the devil. But no one has ever seen him before. Don’t you want to know more about him?”

“You think he’s really Satan?”

“Actually, I find that pretty hard to believe.”

“So what is he? An alien or something?” Andy asked.

“That’s hard to believe too. But of the two, I’d buy the alien theory more than the biblical one. His physiology is just too strange.”

“An alien, huh? So is he the kind that flies around with Elliot, or the kind that eats Sigorney Weaver?”

“I don’t know yet. He seems friendly.”

“Maybe that’s because he’s locked up. I wonder how friendly he’d be on the other side of the Plexiglas.”

Race entered the Mess Hall with Dr. Harker. They were in mid-conversation and Sun caught the end of it.

“…for what you’ve done with her. I still can’t accept why you’re here, but—”

“No thanks needed, General.” A frowning Harker cut him off. “It’s my job.”

Just visited Helen, Sun guessed. Both looked grim. Harker retained the look; she probably scowled in her sleep as well.

Race, with the poise of any good leader, quickly hid his feelings with a good ole boy smile. “Good, we’re all here. Before we get started with the intros I’d like to announce that the Jacuzzi should be operational again by tomorrow. The same rules apply as with the pool, swimming suits are mandatory. You got that, Frank? We have ladies present.”

Dr. Belgium gave Race a nod without turning his attention from the brewing coffee.

“Good. Now I think all of you have met Andy Dennison by now, except for Julie. So let’s start with you.”

Harker had a long, hound-doggish face and a droning voice which left no doubt that she didn’t kindly suffer fools. Sun learned after only a few meetings with her that Harker considered everyone a fool.

“I’m Dr. Julie Harker. I came on in 1980 to oversee the medical well-being of the Samhain team, including the dispensing of medication and monthly physicals. I’ve also been monitoring Bub’s vitals since my arrival, and have been attending to the treatment of General Race’s wife Helen.”

It didn’t surprise Sun that it was the exact same speech she’d given to her a week prior, right down to the nasally inflection.

“Thank you, Julie,” Race said, and Dr. Harker took a seat and removed a nail clipper from the chest pocket of her lab coat. She began to snip away at a hangnail. “How about you, Frank?”

“Hmm? Oh, sure.”

Dr. Frank Belgium touched the fresh cup of coffee to his lips and took a large slurp.

“Frank Belgium, molecular biologist. I’m the gene guy. I’ve been mapping Bub’s genes. Hard, very hard. As you may know, or, well, maybe you don’t, it took ten years for the human genome to get sequenced, and we’ve only got 23 pairs of chromosomes, and less than 25,000 genes. We’ve isolated 44 pairs of chromosomes in Bub. Hard work. Hard hard hard.”

Belgium took another loud slurp of coffee.

“But he’s from earth. I’m sure. Bub has the same twenty amino acids as all life on this planet. Why is this important? Well there are about 80 different types of amino acids, and all can create proteins, but nothing on earth uses those extra sixty. All life—plant, animal, bacteria—uses different combinations of those same twenty, and the reason is because we all evolved from one common ancestor. That’s why all living organisms share genes. Everyone in this room, on this planet, shares 99.9 percent of the same DNA. We share 98.4 with chimpanzees, 98.3 with gorillas, all the way on down to blue-green algae.”

Sun glanced at Andy. He was being drawn in by Frank’s words, the same way Sun had been upon first hearing them.

“Now,” Belgium continued, “if life started several times, rather than just once, we’d probably find different amino acids in different things on earth. But we don’t, we all have the same genetic code, and Bub shares it as well.

“What I’m doing, is mapping sequences in Bub’s genome to find out what on earth he shares the most genes with. Very hit or miss when we’re not sure where to look. It’s kind of like searching for a single sentence in a single book in the Library of Congress.”

Frank shrugged and drank more coffee.

“What do you believe Bub is, Doctor?” Race asked, glancing at Andy while he spoke.

“I think, well, I guess I think he’s a little bit of everything. A mutation. Maybe he’s a member of a prehistoric race that became extinct… since he’s intelligent it would reason that we’ve never found fossils of his kind, perhaps they cremated their dead, or buried them at sea. Or maybe he’s a genetic experiment. Maybe our own government created him.”

“In 1906?” snorted Harker.

“Dr. Harker, what proof do we have that he’s actually been here since 1906? Were you here when he arrived? How do we know that we’re not caught up in some crazy conspiracy to help test the latest in biological weapon technology?”

“At least that would stir things up a bit around here.” Race gave a wide Southern grin.

“How about an extraterrestrial?” Andy asked. “Isn’t there any possibility Bub is from another planet?”

Frank shook his head.

“Even if we discounted the problems associated with space travel from another galaxy, it would be a zillion to one, a gazillion to one, that life formed on another planet with the exact same genetic make-up as life on earth. It would be easier for the same lottery number to come up every single night for a hundred years…”

“Unless it was intentional.” Father Thrist cleared his throat and crossed his arms. “Unless God created Bub the same way He created man and all life on earth. That would explain Bub’s genetic code without the need for evolution, molecular engineering, or space travel.”

Frank raised an eyebrow. “I thought demons and angels had no physical presence. They’re ethereal, only existing in heaven and hell.”

Thrist laughed. It was the first time Sun had seen mirth from the terminally serious priest.

“All of my life, people have questioned my beliefs because there has been no physical evidence to substantiate them. Now here we have something that is clearly a demon, or even Satan himself. Something we can see and touch. And everyone is looking for a new answer, rather than the answer that Christianity has had for two thousand years.”

“Judaism has had it for over three thousand,” Rabbi Shotzen said, wagging a finger.

Thrist gave him a sideways glance. “All around is proof of God’s creation. Me, you, trees, birds, the earth, the universe—but since the beginning of this century mankind has worshiped the god of science, rather than our Lord Jesus Christ. Now here is something science cannot explain, yet you refuse to believe. Andrew,” Thrist gave the linguist his full attention. “What was your reaction when you first saw Bub?”

“Fear,” Andy answered.

“But what did Bub represent to you? When you saw him?”

“A devil.”

Thrist nodded. “Everyone who sees Bub recognizes a devil. They are concerning themselves with the how and the why, but the ‘what’ has been answered. Bub is a devil. Where do devils come from, Andrew?”

“This one came from Panama.”

Sun and the others laughed. Rabbi Shotzen had to be nudged by Thrist because his laughter went on longer than the others’.

“But before he was found in Panama, where did Bub come from?”

“Devils usually come from hell,” Andy said.

“Or heaven,” Shotzen added. “Depending on your interpretation of his creation. Lucifer, the Morning Star, had tried to shine brighter than Adonai, was cast out of heaven for his pride.”

“Or, according to Enoch,” Thrist said, “Devils are angels who chose to fornicate with humans. Wasn’t that the explanation Rabbi Elkiezer gave in the 8th century? Something about fornicating with the daughters of Cain?”

Shotzen dismissed him. “Remember, Enoch wrote pseudepigrapha and apocrypha—nothing the scribe did went into the Torah.”

“But,” Thrist countered, “if we were to base our conceptions solely on the Bible, which encompasses the Torah, we’d have very little to go on.”

“Devils and angels were created by ha-shem as separate entities,” Shotzen insisted. “Had adonai created angels that became devils, it would contradict His perfection. Instead, ha-shem created devils to punish sin. It can be interpreted that all evil, in fact, is Satanic rather than Divine. The Book of Jubilees agrees.”

“Either way,” Thrist said, “we have a being here that is obviously supernatural, and obviously created by God. Shouldn’t we be focusing our efforts on attempting to figure out why He allowed us to find Bub, and what He expects us to do with this knowledge? Is this the beginning of the apocalypse? The first sign of Armageddon? Or should we take this as a message that God indeed exists, and use it to spread His word? And why, after almost a hundred years at this facility, and who knows how many more years buried in the ground, did Bub finally wake up?”

“That’s why Andy is here,” Race said. “To ask him. Right Andy?”

Sun glanced at Andy, who squirmed under the spotlight. She raised an eyebrow.

“Uh… are we sure he can’t escape?” Andy asked.

Race grinned. “His enclosure is four foot concrete with steel plates sandwiched in between each foot. The Plexiglas is bullet proof, shatter proof, fire proof, and has been tested up to sixteen thousand pounds per square inch. Even if he did escape the habitat, he’s two hundred feet underground, and he’d have to go through those two titanium doors. Plus, there are safeguards.”

“Such as?”

“In the eighties, the President decided that if Bub were to ever wake up, we’d need to have some control over him. Bub has two explosive charges surgically imbedded inside of him, one in the neck and one in the heart. Either one would render Bub out of commission, even with his rapid healing abilities. He’s got enough boom in him to blow up a tank.”

Andy’s face scrunched up in thought. Sun watched him. She wanted him to stay, she realized, and that surprised as much as scared her.

“I’ll need some things; books, programs, access to the Internet. And that capsule that Bub was found in, are there pictures of the writing?”

“Son, we’ve got the whole damn capsule, you want to see it.”

“I want to see it. It’s as good a starting place as any. I also need the video recordings of Bub since he’s been awake, anything that has him speaking. He’s only said a few things to me so far.”

“Could you understand him?” Race asked. The excitement was apparent in his voice.

“I’m not sure. But it sounded like an Indio language. I think he said how are things with you and I am very hungry.”

“Doesn’t sound hostile to me. Dr. Jones, would you mind taking Andy to Red 6 to see the capsule?”

Sun gave Race a look, knowing she was being used, and why. But it didn’t bother her as much as she thought it should.

“I have some things to finish up in the records room, but I can free up some time.”

“Great,” Race said. He was one big smile, ready to shake hands with the world. “Now who wants a microwave chili dog?”

Sun turned to Andy, who was staring at her with a lopsided grin on his face. Part of her wanted to smile back, but she held that part in check.

“Need some help?” Andy asked. “In the records room?”

“You sure you want to help me again?”

Andy smiled. “After watching Bub eat, I think I could handle just about anything.”

“How about chili dogs?”

The pain showed in his face. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for chili dogs.”

“Then let’s go.”

As they left the Mess Hall, Sun noticed that Race winked at her. She restrained herself and didn’t wink back.

Andy surprised Sun by being helpful in Red 3. For the first twenty minutes he was chatty and full of questions, but once he settled in with the actual organizing he proved himself a hard worker. They toiled for over two hours in companionable silence, Andy once going for Diet Cokes, and Sun once leaving for the bathroom (and to touch up her make-up, even though she didn’t actually touch it up, just check it.)

While rifling through a large stack of invoices, Sun became absorbed in an inventory sheet listing some of the medical supplies and pharmaceuticals on site.

It staggered her. Samhain was better stocked than a hospital pharmacy. Why the staff here would need seven gallons of morphine, or ten thousand tablets of aspirin, was beyond her scope of understanding. Total cost to the taxpayer: seven million dollars in drugs that would never be used. Not for the first time since her arrival, Sun felt underpaid.

“Look at this,” Andy said. He handed her a piece of paper written in a language other than English.

“Spanish?” she asked.

“Italian. It’s from Pope Pius the tenth.”

Sun briefly returned to the long, boring mornings of her youth, trapped in Sunday school memorizing prayers.

“St. Pius,” she corrected. “He was canonized in 1954.”

“You’re Catholic?”

“I was.”

“When did you leave the church? Or is that too personal a question?”

“I don’t think I really left the church. More like the church left me.”

“How so?”

Sun hadn’t ever talked about this with anyone. No one had ever asked.

“Five years ago… it was a bad time for me. I had a lot of problems. I met a man, Steven, he was a psychiatrist. I didn’t meet him professionally—I met him in a bar, actually.”

Sun turned away from Andy and busied herself moving papers around on the desk.

“He was a very sensitive man. Compassionate. We fell in love, got married. We wanted to start a family. I’m sure you know where this is going; woman gets a new shot at happiness, drunk driver kills her husband, woman loses faith in God. Cliché. Soon after that I lost my veterinary clinic.”

Sun thought back to the creditors, one even calling her at Steven’s wake. Steven had been kept alive for almost six months. Six months of wretched, useless hoping. Six months, at a cost of three thousand dollars a day. Insurance didn’t even cover a third of the expense, and of course the asshole who ran head first into Steven was uninsured as well.

“So you blame God for taking him.”

“What? No. At first, sure. It made no sense. When Steven died, I lost everything. But then it did make sense. I didn’t blame God, because there was no God to blame. Shit just happens.”

Sun finished fussing with the papers and turned back to Andy with a question of her own.

“You said to the holies that you were an atheist. Why?”

“It’s kind of complicated. I never had any sort of organized religion in my life. God was something that other kids believed in.”

“So you never learned about religion?”

“I had a friend, in grade school, his parents tried to take me to church once. I loved it.”

“Why’d they only take you once?”

“Oh, I didn’t love the Mass. I loved the language. The priest spoke in Latin, asking a question, I think it was something like ‘Are you truly thankful?’ or something like that. Well, I thought he was asking us, so I answered.”

“In Latin.”

“Yeah. And it freaked him out. Everyone else too. So he asked me, in Latin, how I knew Latin. So I told him I knew about ten different languages. And he said that it’s a miracle, that God has blessed me with the gift of tongues. I told him, in English, God didn’t bless me, I studied my ass off!”

Sun laughed.

“Needless to say, the family never took me with them again. When I got into college, I read a lot of religious texts—for the language, not the content. But some of the content leaked through, obviously. And in every case, whether I was translating Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hindi, whatever, I found the same theme within the writing.”

“Which was?”

“Scared men, looking for answers. I think that as a species, being self-aware means we have questions. Some of those questions are: What created the universe, where do we go when we die, and why do bad things happen? These questions don’t have answers, but need to be answered. That’s why men, all men, every people and tribe from Cro-Magnon on up, had to create gods. To answer these questions.”

“So here we are, two atheists, trying to find the origin of a demon.”

Andy grinned. “Almost seems as if God put us here, to show us the truth, doesn’t it?”

Sun could tell Andy was joking, but she got a chill. That was what it seemed like. A second chance at faith.

“So what does St. Pius say in the letter?”

“That the Vatican was sending over a bishop, and if President Roosevelt was wise he would not let Bub’s existence be known because the panic could destroy the western world. And that he was praying for everyone involved.”

Andy took the paper back and ran his finger over the Vatican seal.

“Funny, yesterday I was wondering how I was going to pay my electric bill, and now here I am holding a letter that is probably worth more than I make in a year. Sotheby’s would kill for it.”

“Sotheby’s? You’re thinking historical worth. Try the media. You could make a fortune, up until you were executed for treason.”

Andy filed the paper away and Sun suggested they quit and go take a look at the capsule. She felt pretty good for someone who’d just recounted the biggest tragedy of her life. And for once, there was no guilt to accompany feeling good. Was there a statute of limitations on grieving?

Andy held the door for her and they took a short walk from Red 3 to Red 6. The room was small and brightly lit. It reminded Sun of an autopsy room. A small dehumidifier ran nonstop in the corner, humming quietly. In the center, sprawled out like a baby elephant corpse, was the capsule.

It was pale gray, so pale that it seemed to absorb the fluorescent light. Sun was again intrigued by the shape: it was a tube with rounded ends, almost like giant sausage, but the curves were perfect in their simplicity. It had been measured back in the ‘70s, and the scientist in charge found it was symmetrical to within ten thousandths of an inch.

“It looks like a sarcophagus,” Andy ran his hand over the carvings on top. “And it’s so smooth! How can it feel so silky when it has all of these glyphs engraved into it? You can barely feel them. What’s it made of?”

“A lot,” Sun laughed. “Analysis came back with traces of everything: carbon, ferrite, silicon, lead, silver, iridium, petroleum, ivory…”

“Like elephant tusks?”

“Yeah. And here’s the kicker. It’s something like ten percent nylon.”

“Nylon.”

“Nylon was invented in 1939. So how did it get in something found in 1906, and buried for who knows how long before that?”

“Weird. So how does it open? I don’t see any seams.”

“Watch this.” Sun ran her hand along the side of the capsule facing them. She found a small notch the size of a pin head and pressed inward. The top came up on hinges, opening like the lid of a casket.

“Secret button. Found by accident around forty years ago, if you hear Race tell it. Before that they were using a crowbar to get it open. See the marks on the edge here?”

Andy didn’t look when she pointed out the pry marks. He was totally absorbed in studying the inside of the capsule.

“This is odd.” Andy said.

“No kidding.”

“No, I mean, see these markings? Demotic Egyptian hieroglyphs. They were using these in 3000 BC. But on the cover, those are Maya glyphs. Used until about 1500 AD. Four and a half thousand years difference.”

“So it’s old.”

“Not just that. How the hell did it cross the Atlantic and get from Egypt to Central America?”

“Maybe the Spanish brought it. Conquistadors.”

Andy nodded and ran his hands inside the capsule. “Different texture. Not smooth, but…”

“Soft,” Sun said. “I found some old pictures. Bub fit in here perfectly. I mean perfectly. Like it was made from a cast of his body. But it’s kind of spongy and springy. Like foam.”

“Do you know what it says?”

“I have no idea. Not too much call for translating hieroglyphs in today’s market. Hasn’t anyone tried before?”

“Race said yes. The inside, not the outside. The work is buried in Red 3 somewhere.”

“Might be easier to start from scratch. I could translate the dead sea scrolls quicker than it would take to find anything in that mess.”

“What do you think Bub was speaking? Was that Maya?”

“Kind of. There are more than twenty different dialects that descended from the Maya language, I think Bub was speaking one of them. We’re allowed to have Internet access, right?”

“Sure. It’s monitored somehow, I’m guessing. For security. There are three computers you can use in the Octopus, the Cray in Red 14, and there’s a room in the Green Arm, Green 4, with a link if you want privacy.”

Andy stared at the capsule, apparently lost in thought.

“Hungry?” Sun asked.

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, I am actually.”

“We all pretty much fend for ourselves around here, except when Race cooks up a batch of chili or stew. Want to grab an early dinner?”

Andy grinned. “Sure. But only if it’s not mutton.”

Sun led Andy to the Mess Hall and began to school him on the intricacies of microwave defrosting. From the massive walk-in freezer they selected some boneless chicken breast, cauliflower, pea pods, and green peppers. After thawing, Sun showed off her substantial wok skills.

Whenever Sun cooked, she thought of her mother, and how embarrassed of her she was while growing up. Her friends’ mothers baked cookies and went to the PTA and had college educations. Sun’s mom spoke heavily accented, grammatically incorrect English, and wove baskets. The childhood taunts and teases were unrelenting.

Sun now realized what a graceful, introspective woman her mother had been. Hopefully she’d find that same inner peace some day. But even if she never did, her mother had passed a trickle of her wisdom on to her daughter: Sun could wok like a fiend.

Dinner conversation with Andy was upbeat and impersonal. He knew an alarmingly large number of dumb blonde jokes, and rattled off two or three good ones that almost made Sun choke on her stir fry. Dessert was a large can of fruit cocktail, dumped rather inelegantly into a mixing bowl.

They shared the bowl.

“So, I take it you’ve decided to stay.”

“I don’t think I’ll be present at any more feedings, but yeah, I’m staying. I’m not captivated by Bub like some of the others are, but I can’t pass up the challenge he represents.”

Sun offered her hand. “Well then, welcome aboard, Andrew Dennison.”

“Glad to be here, Sunshine Jones.”

They shook, but Andy didn’t drop her hand. The moment stretched. Sun watched Andy’s pupils widen, wondered if hers were doing the same thing. They’d gone from zero to intimacy in less than five seconds.

Fast. Too fast.

Sun took her hand back.

“Andy…”

“Sorry…”

“It’s just that…”

“I know.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued.

“Are my ears red?” he asked.

They were the same shade as a fire hydrant.

“No. They’re fine.”

“I think I’m gonna call it a night. Low on sleep. Excuse me.”

He stood up and walked to the door. Halfway there he touched his ear and stopped.

“They are red, aren’t they?” he asked without turning around.

“You could stop traffic,” Sun said.

Andy left without another word. There was some fruit cocktail left, but Sun was no longer hungry. She dumped it down the disposal and went back to her room.

Alone.

Sun woke up at half past nine in the morning. She’d always been an early riser, a fact that she recently discovered was dependent on sunlight. With no morning sun to wake her up, she’d been sleeping later than normal. One more thing to dislike about being two hundred feet underground.

After her exercises and a quick shower, she stopped by the Mess Hall, half-hoping Andy was there. He wasn’t. She made herself a bowl of shredded wheat with vacuum-packed milk and frozen strawberries, but only picked at it.

Sun wasn’t exactly sure what she was feeling. Andy was attractive, and found her attractive, but this wasn’t exactly the time or place to start a relationship. She felt flattered, and annoyed, and disappointed all at once.

Romance sucked, she decided. It was much simpler being a hermit.

She forced herself to finish breakfast and then put in some hard work at Red 3 with more enthusiasm than the mundane task warranted. Her current fixation—organizing the thousands of photographs—so absorbed her attention that when she checked the clock it was already a quarter after twelve. Bub’s lunchtime.

Sun put some bounce in her step on the way to Orange 12, again hoping to bump into Andy. No such luck.

She was quick and thorough in selecting and examining the sheep, but it didn’t hold the charm of the previous time with the linguist.

“I’m acting like a school girl,” Sun chided herself. Why didn’t she just write him a love note and draw a heart on it and slip it in his locker?

Sun led the hooded animal down the Red Arm. Dr. Belgium, who practically lived in Red 14, wasn’t around. She approached the habitat quietly, the only sound being the whirring fans of the Cray computer and the tap-tap of the sheep’s footfalls on the tile floor.

Bub was squatting, his eyes closed and his arms on his haunches; a warped parody of the tai chi lotus. This was the position Bub slept in. She’d been recording his sleep patterns, and he took between ten and fifteen naps a day, never longer than twenty minutes each. All totaled, he slept about four hours daily. Far less than any animal she’d ever encountered.

Even squatting, Bub was taller than Sun. She watched his massive chest undulate in waves, his many lungs taking in air at slightly different rates. As usual, seeing Bub filled her with a mixture of awe and fear. Sun clearly recalled their first meeting. She’d walked up to the habitat, so cocksure, and when Bub came out from behind the trees her legs gave out on her and she squealed in fright, much to Race’s amusement.

The fact that Bub looked demonic was only part of the shock. What most impressed Sun was the creature’s size and obvious strength. It was like seeing a dinosaur up close. More than once Sun had wondered if that Plexiglas wall was truly strong enough to hold him.

Sun leaned closer to the partition, her forehead almost touching it.

“Sun is laaaaaate,” Bub said, his voice remarkably clear coming from a mouth packed with so many teeth.

The sheep screamed and bucked, and Sun was so startled she let go of the harness. The sheep ran off towards Dr. Belgium’s computers and barreled into a desk, upsetting papers and a coffee mug.

Sun took back control of her faculties and chased after the sheep, one arm locking around its large woolly neck and the other pulling tight on the harness. After a few seconds of struggling and talking, she managed to calm the sheep down enough to tether it to a door handle.

Bub watched the whole episode from his lotus position, his reptilian eyes keenly intelligent.

Sun chose her words carefully.

“I’m sorry. I was busy. Have you always known English?”

“Yooooou are Sun,” Bub said. “That is luuunch.” His voice was a throaty baritone, but soft and wet like a wheeze.

“Right. My name is Sun Jones.”

“Joooooones.”

“Yes.”

“Yessssss,” Bub hissed.

Sun approached the habitat slowly, unconsciously using the stalking approach that she’d used to get close to lions without spooking or threatening them.

Her mind whirred. Even with all the conversations she and her cohorts had had in front of Bub, could he have picked up enough information to understand English?

“Can you understand me, or just repeat what I say?”

His hand raised up and a long claw uncurled from his fist, pointing at her. “Suuuun Jooooones.” He turned the talon on himself. “Buuuuub.”

Sun pointed at the sheep.

“Luuuuunch,” Bub said.

She gestured over her shoulder, to the rear of the room.

“Compuuuuuuter,” Bub said. “Craaaaaay. Four teraaaaabytes.”

Sun blew out some air. Bub startled her by repeating the gesture.

“Is Bub hungry?” Sun asked.

“Hungry Buuuuub. Eeeeeat.” The demon looked beyond Sun. “Fraaaaank.”

“Good lord,” Dr. Frank Belgium whispered.

Sun hadn’t even known he’d entered the room, so intense was her focus.

Bub sprang up on his legs and threw his hands in the air, just as Belgium had. The demon bellowed as loud as a thunder clap, “Goooooood looooord!”

Both Sun and Frank Belgium jumped backwards, and Frank kept backpedaling until he’d bumped into the sheep, which bleated a scream at the intrusion.

“Find Andy,” Sun ordered. “And Race.”

“Sure thing. Sure thing.”

Dr. Belgium hit the door, repeating “sure thing” like a mantra.

“Buuuuub is huuuuungry,” the demon said. He lowered his head to her height, pressing his moist pig snout to the Plexiglas. It made a sticky wet spot.

“Lunch, nooooooow.”

Sun, who had that jelly feeling back in her legs, fought the fear and stepped up to the glass.

“Where are you from?” Sun asked. “How do you know English? Did you just learn it?”

Bub’s lips creased back, revealing a huge valley of yellow, jagged teeth.

He could bite through a redwood with those teeth, Sun thought.

“Lunch noooooow. English laaaaaaater.”

Sun, who hadn’t taken an order from anyone since she was in grammar school, simply nodded. She went to the sheep, her gaze never leaving Bub. The sheep was rooted, shaking like a jackhammer. It refused to budge.

Sun located the box of Cap’n Crunch, dropped when she’d let go of the harness. There was still cereal left at the bottom, and she lifted the cowl and pushed the box over the sheep’s snout like a feed bag. After a moment of struggle the animal began to munch, its muscles relaxing. Sun led it to the oversized door next to the habitat.

Bub watched intently, the terrible smile on his face never slipping. Sun took the sheep through the walkway alongside Bub’s pen and stopped at the waist-level entrance hatch. The hatch was set inside a large hinged wall, kind of like a pet door. The wall was concrete, inlaid with the same titanium bars used in the Red Arm. It moved up and down like a garage door—industrial pneumatics—and it was the entrance Bub took when his vital signs indicated he was waking up from his coma.

Sun hadn’t been present for that event. She’d arrived shortly afterward. But Race spared no detail, telling her how he’d wheeled Bub into the habitat on a gigantic Gurney, then used a crank to lift up one end until Bub slid off and onto the ground, twitching and blinking the whole time. Race had barely pushed the Gurney back out the entrance and closed the door before Bub was on his feet.

The entrance remained locked, using yet another magnetic bolt operated by a keypad. The hatch in the middle was locked by a simple latch, reinforced with titanium. This was the entrance used for the sheep and the one Race took when he’d been in the habitat on those previous occasions. It was too small for Bub to fit through, but Sun still paused before opening it.

Now that Bub was talking, it made him more menacing to her, rather than less so.

She went a hard round with her fear, then pushed it away and opened the small hatch.

“Fooooooooood,” Bub said.

He was squatting directly in front of the opening, and his breath, warm and fetid, blew against Sun like a sewer breeze. She felt an adrenalin jolt, like something had run in front of the car and she had to slam on the breaks. It was accompanied by instant sweating and a small cry that died in her throat.

The sheep tried to buck, but one of Bub’s massive talons lashed out and gripped it by the head, dragging it through the hatchway.

Sun watched, transfixed, as Bub twisted the sheep in half only a few feet away from her, a tangle of intestines stretching out between the pieces like hot mozzarella on a pizza. Some blood spattered onto her pants. The sheep’s legs were still kicking as Bub jammed them down his throat, not even bothering to chew. Then he uncurled the glistening entrails that hung around his shoulders like Mardi Gras beads and shoved them into his maw, smacking enthusiastically.

“Gooooooooood,” Bub said to her.

He licked his talons and belched.

Sun kicked the hatch closed.

For a moment she stood there, her heart playing bongos inside of her ribs, trembling so violently her knees were knocking. She became aware that she was holding her breath, and tried to let it out slowly to regain some control.

He’s just an animal, she said in her mind, over and over again.

Her mind wasn’t buying it.

Sun forced composure to return, and then left the hallway and reentered the main room, willing herself to look at Bub through the Plexiglas.

The demon was almost done eating, his hairy chest matted dark with sheep’s blood. He picked up the severed head and wedged it into the corner of his mouth. It cracked like a walnut. He chewed with a sound similar to a cement mixer, his eyes following Sun as she walked to the center of the room.

The door opened behind her, and Sun turned to see Race, Andy, and Frank rush in.

“He’s talking?” Race asked Sun, his attention on the demon.

“Yes. He told me I was late for his lunch.”

Andy came up beside Sun but didn’t meet her gaze.

“Hello, Bub!” Race said, a wide grin on his face and a hand raised in greeting.

Bub glared at the general, and Sun noted it didn’t seem friendly.

“Raaaaaace,” Bub said.

Race scratched the back of his head. “I’ll be damned. What else did he say?”

“He pointed to things and named them, like me, himself, his lunch.”

“Son of a bitch.”

Andy leaned closer to the Plexiglas. “Do you speak English?”

Bub closed one eye and the other locked onto Andy, as if scrutinizing him.

“Hal tafham al arabiya?” Andy asked.

“Lam asma had min zaman,” Bub answered.

“What?” Race asked. “What did you just say to him?”

“I asked him if he understood Arabic. He said he hasn’t heard it in a long time. Qui de Latinam es?” Andy asked.

“Latinam nosco. Multos sermones nosco. Mihi haec lingua patria quam dicis est nova.”

“He says he also knows Latin. But you probably figured that out. He also knows many other languages, but English is new to him.”

Sun checked the corner of the room where the video camera was, reflexively making sure it was still there. It was, red light blinking. This was all being digitally recorded.

“Okay,” Race said, “there are questions. We’ve got a book in the Octopus for when this would happen, a hundred years of questions to ask. I’ve got to call the President. And the holies, they’ll want to be here.”

Race turned to leave, moving double time.

“Ubi sum?” Bub asked. “Quis annus hic est?”

“He wants to know where he is and what the year is,” Andy translated.

“It looks like Race isn’t the only one with questions,” Sun frowned.

Bub glanced at Sun and squinted, his elliptical eyes narrowing in a way that she could only describe as demonic.

One Star General Regis Murdoch tried to keep his excitement in check as he walked briskly down the Red Arm. This had been an exciting week indeed. He could almost see the light at the end of the tunnel, the conclusion to over three decades of waiting.

Forty goddamn years, and he was almost out of this hole.

He reached the Octopus and sat down at the main terminal. The computer took forever to boot up. Once he was online, he accessed CONTACT, the President’s portable internet receiver. The President carried it on him at all times, and almost everyone thought it was a high tech pager. Actually it was a mini computer, capable of receiving and storing more than 40 gigabytes of information: pictures, spoken words, text, computer files and programs, even perfect digital copies of music and video.

Eight orbiting satellites controlled its transmissions, so the President could instantly receive information while anywhere in the world. It was waterproof, shockproof, and bullet proof. The President could even use it to launch a nuclear strike.

Deciding that the current situation didn’t warrant an interruption, Race contacted him with one beep. That would tell the President that he was receiving a message, but it wasn’t of immediate urgency. The unit would either beep or vibrate once, depending whether or not it was on silent mode. Two beeps and the President would check the message immediately. Three beeps and he’d plug a tiny ear piece into the CONTACT unit and speak into it like a portable phone.

When the connection was made, Race clicked on the microphone to speak. His typing skills were considerably lacking.

“Mr. President, this is Race. Our subject is currently able to communicate. I’m going to begin the interrogation. I’ll keep you updated, and remember what was promised to me.”

Race hit the Send icon. The spoken word message would be translated into text, encrypted, and sent to the President’s CONTACT unit within seconds. Even though the encryption code was the most complicated in the world and deemed unbreakable, Race still was leery of codes and always kept his messages somewhat vague. The Germans never thought ENIGMA would be cracked either.

The Roosevelt Book, as Race’s predecessor called it, was in the table drawer next to the main terminal. It was one of Race’s responsibilities at Samhain to maintain and update the information it held. Since Theodore Roosevelt began the Project in 1906, a list of questions had been compiled to ask Bub should he ever awake and be judged sentient. There were many, some scientific, some historic, some theological.

Each successive President added his own questions to the book, and questions were dropped when they became outdated—for example, they no longer needed to ask Bub the 1918 question “Is it possible to split the atom?”

The book still had its original leather binding, though it had faded and cracked over the years. The first several dozen questions were typeset, but Roosevelt was wise enough to know that more questions would come up, so bound after the printed pages were two hundred blank ones.

Race had read through the book many times, and had even added several questions of his own. Now, after a century of sowing, it was time to reap.

With the book tucked firmly in his armpit, Race picked up the phone and hit the intercom line.

“Attention, this is Race. Our permanent guest is now talking, so it’s show time in Red 14. Will everyone please meet me there.”

He hung up and took a micro cassette recorder from a cabinet. Race checked the batteries, and unwrapped a new tape and inserted it into the machine. Then he got up and headed down the Red Arm. His mind was a rubber ball bouncing around inside his skull. It was a familiar feeling; the long stretches of boredom, the careful preparation, and then BOOM!—everything happening at once.

Just like combat, Race thought.

He missed that so badly. Just like he missed everything about the Army.

It was his family.

Race was born to command. First in his class at West Point, back in ‘50. He entered Korea in ‘51 as a Butter Bar—second lieutenant— and rose to the rank of Captain in four years, most of his ascension due to battlefield victories. Korea was where he came to be known as Race, as in Race to the rescue.

When the war ended, Race was a man to watch. He was stationed at Ft. Sam Houston in 1959, headquarters for the Fifth U.S. Army. He paid his dues, did a tour in Vietnam, and generally worked his ass off, and on December 29, 1966, he had made Brigadier General.

Then came the fall.

There was a 2nd Lieutenant under Race’s command named Harold Bright. They’d graduated together, gone to Korea together, and were the best of friends. Harold was Race’s best man when he married Helen. He was as close as a brother.

Which made the confession even worse.

On a drunken March night, two years after Race’s promotion to One Star General, Harold disclosed the affair he’d had with Race’s wife.

Race was slack-jawed at the betrayal. Harold went into detail about how lonely Helen was, how Race was never around, how it only happened a few times but now it was over.

The alcohol added to the rage. Race hit him. Harold defended himself. Race broke a bar stool over his best friend’s head.

Harold suffered a concussion from the assault, and later died from his injuries.

Helen blamed herself. She begged forgiveness. He forgave, and asked for hers in return. She was strong enough to stand by him during his trial, his discharge from his beloved Army, and his inevitable imprisonment. Race offered no defense for his actions to save her from the scandal.

But somehow President Johnson found out the truth.

He admired Race’s stoicism and manliness—LBJ’s exact words. He didn’t want to see Race go to jail, or get booted from the Army. Not only had Race proven himself an excellent soldier, he’d also proven himself a man who had forsaken his own good to keep a secret. That, Johnson had said, was what patriotism was all about. So he gave Race an opportunity to redeem himself.

Samhain.

Race agreed, and quickly disappeared, along with all charges against him. Johnson also buried the civil case with Harold’s family by giving them a modest cash settlement. All Race had to do, to keep up his end of the deal, was run the Samhain project until the time Bub awoke and the questions in the Roosevelt Book were answered. LBJ had given Race the impression that it would happen any day.

And now here it was, forty years later.

Race could have quit at any time. Many times he almost did, twice even going as far as telling the incumbent President he wanted out. But each time he was convinced to stay. Not through any slick blackmailing technique, or bland patriotic speeches about God and country. The carrot on the stick had always been his beloved Army, and the opportunity to some day command again.

So Race stuck it out, through years of boredom, through Helen’s illness, through eleven different Presidents. The current Commander-in-Chief even told Race that he had a space waiting for him on the Joint Chiefs of Staff when this was finally over.

It was all only a few hundred questions away.

Race arrived in Red 14 to find Andy sitting in a chair next to the Plexiglas. Bub squatted on his haunches, his head at Andy’s level. The image that came to Race’s mind was two old women, sharing gossip.

“What have we learned so far?” he asked Andy, slapping a paternal hand on his shoulder.

“Well, not a lot. Bub apparently doesn’t remember much about what happened to him before his coma. He doesn’t even know how he came to be buried in Panama in the first place.”

Race’s eyes narrowed. This wouldn’t do. Not at all. There were provisions for the possibility that Bub would be uncooperative. The main one involved a very large cattle prod.

But that was to be a last resort.

“Well, let’s see what he does know then, shall we?”

Race took a chair from the computer work station and set it next to Andy, taking a seat. Bub glanced at Race and stretched out his mouth. He appeared to be attempting a smile, but Race found himself repulsed. It took him a moment to regain composure.

“This is called the Roosevelt Book; it’s a list of questions to ask Bub going back to his discovery. I’ll read the question, you interpret it and give me the answer.”

Race took the cassette recorder from his pocket and hit the record button. He rested it on his knee.

“What is your name?” Race asked the beast.

“Buuuuuub…” the demon answered, staring into Race’s eyes before Andy had a chance to translate. He raised a claw and a talon snaked out, pointing at the General’s chest.

“Raaaaace.”

Race shivered. Had it gotten colder in the room? Must be the central air unit, blowing down at them overhead. He folded his arms.

“Ask him for his previous name, before we started calling him that.”

Andy complied, and Bub whispered a reply.

“He says he’s had many names.”

“My God in heaven,” Father Thrist exclaimed. He’d just entered the room, the thick Rabbi Shotzen in tow. “It speaks.”

“Faaaaather,” Bub said, his voice a cross between a whisper and a hiss. “Raaaaaabbi.”

“Oh my…” Rabbi Shotzen gasped.

“What has he said so far?” Father Thrist demanded. “Anything about God? Anything about Heaven?”

“Heavaaaaaan,” Bub said, raising a claw over his head and extending a finger upward. The way he said the word made it sound somehow unclean.

“What do you know about heaven?” Thrist approached the Plexiglas, his nose inches from Bub’s. “Are you a fallen angel?”

Bub’s mouth stretched open and he belched, a sound like a motorcycle starting. His breath fogged up the glass, and Race caught the stench of blood and wool.

“Father,” Race stepped in, holding the aging priest by the shoulders. “All of those questions and more will be answered. They’re all in my book. Let’s all just sit down, relax, we’re gonna be here for a while.”

The holies went off in search of chairs, and Rabbi Shotzen dragged over an extra one for Dr. Belgium, who had just arrived.

“Can he talk?” Belgium asked.

“Heeeeee… taaaaaalks…” Bub answered.

Belgium made a sound like a hiccup, and Race watched him turn right around and leave the room.

“He’s a quick study,” Sun said. “He’s already putting together nouns and verbs. I bet he could learn English quickly.”

Race furrowed his brow. It would be much easier to interrogate Bub if he knew how to speak American. Save a helluva lot of time.

The disadvantage would be that Bub would understand everything they said, but indications showed that he was understanding a lot already. Besides, better to know what your enemy knows than to not know if he knows anything or not.

“Andy, you’ve taught several languages. Have you ever taught English?”

“To people.”

“Can you do it?”

“I don’t think… I mean… he’s a…”

“Yes or no, Mr. Dennison?”

“I don’t know. I’d need materials.”

“Like what?”

“Well, some language programs. A chalk board. Children’s books.”

“How about one of those phonics programs for kids?” Sun suggested. “We could wheel in a big screen TV and a DVD.”

“That might work,” Andy nodded.

“So when do you think he could know enough to answer questions in English?” Race asked.

“Well, I couldn’t possibly predict when… I mean, there’s no precedent for this.”

“How long did it take you to learn Japanese?”

“I got a good grasp of the language in about a week, but it took a while before I was fluent.”

“You have until tomorrow. Write down all of the supplies you’ll need, I’ll have them air dropped here within the hour.”

“Tomorrow? That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t even know how to begin.”

“With the ABCs,” Race said, heading for the door. “I’ll be in the Octopus. Let me know what you need.”

This was an interesting turn of events, Race thought. Interesting indeed.

Why was she tied to this bed? Where was her husband? She called to him.

“Regis! Regis, help me!”

Then her legs began to tremble violently. She tried but couldn’t control the shaking, which became more and more spastic. Her arms followed suit, flapping up and down on the short tethers as if she were being electrocuted.

Without the tethers she might have whacked herself in the face. Perhaps that’s what they were for.

The tremors subsided, and a memory flickered in her mind, so quickly that it might have been simply a fleeting thought and not a memory at all. A memory of her mother, tethered to a bed like she was, cursing uncontrollably.

“Mother was sick,” she said aloud, alone in her hospital bed.

This was a hospital, wasn’t it? The walls were white. The bed had rails. There was medical equipment on a cart next to her. But when she listened, there were no other noises. Weren’t hospitals noisy places, full of comings and goings and doctors and nurses and intercoms? If this wasn’t a hospital, where was she?

“Regis!” she called out. “Regis, where am I! Help me, Regis!”

The door opened, and an old man walked in. He looked so familiar, but she couldn’t place him. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. Not a doctor. A visitor?

“I’m here, Helen. It’s me.”

“Do I know you?”

“It’s Regis, Helen. Your husband.”

“Bullshit,” she spat. “My husband is a young man. You’re an old fart!”

Rather than seem shocked, or even bothered by her outburst, the man simply picked up a hand mirror from one of the medical carts. He held it in front of her.

My God! She was old! How did she get so old?

“We’re both old, Helen. You don’t remember because you have Huntington’s Disease. You’ve had it for many years now.”

“Oh my Lord.”

The spike of realization pierced her heart. She remembered now—this awful disease that she inherited from her mother. It debilitated the nervous system, causing memory and motor function loss. The tethers were there to hold her arms down when the chorea hit—frenzied palsies that she couldn’t control.

“Oh I remember, Regis, oh dear Lord I remember.”

He held her close, running his hands over the back of her head.

“It will be okay soon, Helen. I promise. Things are happening. We’ll leave here soon, get you better medical treatment. There’s hope. They’re making new advancements in gene therapy every day.”

His words didn’t cheer her. While they were admittedly hopeful, her husband’s delivery was wrong. He was saying it like it was something he’d memorized and repeated a hundred times before.

And then it occurred to her… what if he had said it a hundred times before?

The chorea hit again, and he held her quivering body until it passed.

“I… love you… Regis.”

“I love you too, Helen. Do you want to sleep for a while?”

She nodded. “And I’m thirsty.”

He poured some water from a pitcher on a nearby table and held the glass while she drank. He also checked her diaper, which he found to be clean. She began to cry at the indignity of it.

“Oh, Regis…”

“Shh. I’ve got something that will help.” Regis went to the medicine cabinet hanging on the far wall and removed a syringe and a bottle. He extracted some liquid like a pro.

“Regis, dear, where did you learn to do that?”

He put on a weak smile. “Just a little something to help you sleep and help with the seizures.”

“Are you sure you can do this?”

He nodded, and placed a hand on her face to stroke her cheek.

The shot didn’t hurt at all. As she began to get drowsy, she concentrated on her husband’s words.

“He has powers, Helen. Amazing powers. It’ll all be okay soon. I promise.”

“Who has powers, Regis?” she asked.

“Bub does, Helen. Everything will be okay soon.”

She tried to focus on him and smiled. “I know it will, dear. I love you.”

“I love you too, Helen. Sweet dreams.”

She drifted off to sleep, thinking about her husband, wondering how he got so old.

Faith would be a thing of the past.

Electrified by the idea, Father Michael Thrist stared at Bub. The beast crouched in front of the Plexiglas while Andy, Sun, and Dr. Belgium pointed out the ABCs on a chalkboard. Could this demon be the thing Thrist had been searching for all these years?

Michael entered the priesthood thirty years ago. A double threat—severe acne and a facial tic than caused him to blink and twitch his upper lip at inopportune moments—made college hell, even at a prestigious school like Notre Dame.

Sophomore year he switched his major from biology to theology, partly because he believed he’d never get a date in his life, but mostly because he found science woefully inadequate to explain the many mysteries of the universe.

After completing his pre-theologate, he served as a deacon for two years at a small church in Gary, Indiana. The area was poor, with one of the highest murder rates in the US. When he received the sixth sacrament and entered the priesthood, he requested a transfer from the archdiocese.

Then came his ascension, as he liked to call it. Which lead him to his current position at Samhain, and to watching a linguist and a vet try teach a demon ABC’s.

Shotzen leaned over and whispered to Thrist, “Soon they’ll be roasting marshmallows and singing campfire songs.”

Thrist ignored the comment. Couldn’t Shotzen see what was before them? How could he remain skeptical? If anyone should be skeptical, it was Thrist. He’d had the training.

After Indiana, Michael had been assigned to a low income Hispanic neighborhood on Chicago’s west side. Though fluent in Spanish—a natural extension of the Latin he learned in school—his new flock never accepted an Anglo as one of their own, especially one whose was always winking and twitching the left side of his face.

He’d been there for a year when the altar boy came to his room, jabbering about a miracle. A local woman had a painting of the Virgin Mary that was crying tears of blood. Thrist had gone to see for himself.

“You’re not buying this, are you?” Shotzen whispered, interrupting his reverie.

“What do you mean?” Thrist replied. “And what’s with the whispering?”

“Shh! Come here, in private.”

The Rabbi ushered the priest out of his chair and over to the corner of the room, between the data banks of the Cray computer.

“Don’t you see what I see?” Shotzen urged, his cherubic eyes looking very serious.

“What do you see, Rabbi?”

“Bub, the demon. I think he already knows English. This is all deception.”

“Ridiculous.”

“If it were an angel in there, instead of a devil, wouldn’t you think it already knew English? If this thing is from the pits of hell, surely they know English in hell? If hell exists, the English have been going there for a thousand years.”

“But if he did know English already, why pretend otherwise?”

“Baalzebub is the master of lies, Father. It is his nature to deceive. You said so yourself. Perhaps he’s buying some time.”

“Buying time until what?”

The chubby holy man shrugged.

Thrist stopped short of rolling his eyes. “Look, Rabbi, the creature has only been awake for a week. He was discovered in Panama, which, the last time I checked, is not an English-speaking country. He’d been buried since the time of the Mayans. It’s hardly likely he knows English.”

Shotzen folded his arms. “I’m convinced he’s deceiving us.”

“Do you at least agree he’s a demon?”

“I’m undecided. You’re the debunking expert, yet you seem to be eating this up.”

“If Bub’s a fake, I can’t spot it.” Thrist said. “And I’m good at spotting deception.”

The bleeding painting had been unremarkable in its execution, a typical pieta scene. But streaking down the Virgin’s face were trails of blood, and a puddle the size of a throw rug was pooling on the floor.

Thrist’s first reaction to it was disbelief, but upon examination he couldn’t find any holes or tubes behind the canvas, and the blood smelled, felt, and even tasted real. Could this truly be a miracle?

The gathering crowd seemed to think so. The old mestizo woman who owned the painting was charging people five dollars a head to come in and genuflect after dipping their fingers in the puddle of blood.

This incensed the priest. His parishioners were worshiping a false idol, rather than God. But he couldn’t figure out the trick.

His epiphany would come the following day at lunch, when he was making himself a grilled cheese sandwich in the toaster oven. He’d left it in too long and the toast burned, all of the cheese melting and leaking out from between the bread.

That, of course, was the answer.

He had returned to the apartment, his Roman collar allowing him to bypass a line that stretched around the block, and again asked to examine the painting. The several burly men standing over the growing pile of money almost refused, but the old woman relented. In one quick move Thrist seized the painting and dashed it to the floor.

There were several cries of horror. The cries turned to outrage when he held up the broken frame and showed the crowd the hollow middle where the blood had been stored. Then he tore the false canvas off the back of the painting, exposing the thin plastic tube that fed the blood from the reservoir in the frame to the Virgin’s eyes. They had sandwiched the tube between two canvases, attempting to make them appear as one. Thrist guessed that there was a hole somewhere in the frame that they could use to refill it with chicken blood, or whatever blood they’d been using.

“Still searching for the fakery?” Shotzen mused. “It’s there. You just aren’t looking close enough.”

“I’ve been looking for it for over thirty years,” Thrist replied.

Shotzen sighed. “Michael, you’ve said it yourself. Adonai works in subtle ways. You’ve spoken to me about your acne and your facial tic, and how they went away during your early years as a priest. That’s how ha-shem works. He isn’t a show off like this.”

Shortly after he’d proven the painting a fake, Thrist’s childhood afflictions had gone away. But whether that had been a sign from God or simply a physical manifestation of his own growing self-confidence, Thrist had never decided.

“Rabbi, what other explanation is there? We’ve been discussing this since your arrival more than twenty years ago. We’ve done the research. We’ve posed the theories. Fallen angel, genetic experiment, biological weapon, man in a rubber suit—neither of us can find any evidence of fraud.”

“So just because we can’t see it, it isn’t there? During your tour as Vatican Examiner, did you ever authenticate a miracle?”

Thrist frowned. “No.”

It had been a wonderful time for Thrist, serving the Lord with a renewed vigor. His Eminence the Cardinal removed him from the Chicago parish and Thrist traveled throughout the Americas, investigating miraculous phenomena. Sometimes the occurrence was amusing, such as the case in Texas where Christ’s face had appeared simultaneously on several dozen cow patties—they turned out to be hoof marks. Sometimes it was appalling, such as the baby who was supposedly exhibiting signs of the stigmata, when actually it was his disturbed mother inflicting the wounds with a razor blade.

But for all his travels, he never authenticated a miracle.

“Look at the mounting evidence,” Thrist insisted. “Bub has mentioned both heaven and Jesus Christ. He can resurrect sheep. He speaks in ancient tongues…”

“What language is he speaking now?”

“I’m not sure. Sounds like Egyptian.”

“I tell you, the beast is a liar. He can speak all languages, I’m convinced. Watch this.”

Shotzen marched over the Plexiglas and gave it a tap, drawing Bub’s attention.

“Anachnu holchim leshamen otcha ve’lehchol otcha,” he said to Bub.

Bub cocked his head to the side, doing a damn good imitation of confusion.

“What did he say?” Sun asked.

“He told Bub we’re going to fatten him up and eat him,” Andy turned to Shotzen. “Isn’t the food here good enough for you, Rabbi?”

“Fah!” Shotzen said, pointing at the demon. “You understand me. I know you do. Admit it!”

Bub looked hard at Shotzen, and the holy man took a step back, dropping his arm.

“He understands me.” Shotzen whispered. “Every word.”

“Perhaps Yiddish?” Thrist offered a tight smile. Mirth was an emotion he rarely showed, but the whole idea of a demon speaking Hebrew amused him. Everyone knew demons spoke Latin.

Epiphany.

“Latin,” Thrist said aloud.

He rushed the glass, pressing his palms against it.

“Potesne dicere Latinam?” he asked Bub.

Can you speak Latin?

The demon turned his attention to the priest. “Ita, Latinam dico.”

Yes, I speak Latin.

“Ubi Latinam didicisti?” Thrist asked.

Where did you learn Latin?

“Me abimperatore in loco appellato Roma ea docta est.”

It was taught to me by an emperor in a place called Rome.

“Quis rex erat? Quando regnabat?”

Who was this king? When did he rule?

“Aliquem hac aetate eum noscere dubito. Misere cecidit. Membra senatus sui eum insidiis interfecerunt.”

I doubt anyone remembers him in this era. He died poorly. Members of his senate assassinated him.

“Caesar!” Thrist cried, his voice cracking in an octave that was normally too high for him. “Julius Caesar!”

“Illud erat nomen,” Bub said. His voice was oddly sensual, almost a verbal caress. “Quis nunc imperator tuus est?”

That was his name. Who is your emperor in this age?”

“What just happened?” Sun asked.

“Apparently Julius Caesar taught Bub Latin,” Andy replied.

Thrist’s heart was threatening to burst from his rib cage. He was talking with a being who lived in the era of Christ. In the same part of the world. This was even more incredible than he’d imagined.

A demon by itself was ample evidence for the existence of God. But could this creature also prove without doubt that Jesus was God’s son on earth?

This was the dawn of a new era. Religious differences, agnosticism, atheism, war, inhumanity; they’d all be things of the past. The world would embrace Bub’s message and a collective effort would be made to worship the one true God. The Christian God.

Thrist’s God.

“Habesne cognitionem viri religiosi ex Galileo, qui in Bethlehem natus est? Iudaes qui multos disipulos habebat?”

Did you know of a religious man from Galleli, born in Bethlehem? A Jew with a large following?

“Jeeeesus Christ,” Bub said the name in English. “I haaaaave seeeeen Jeeeeesus.”

The breath caught in Thrist’s throat and his lower jaw began to tremble. All the Bible study, all the research, all the prayers, none of it had brought Thrist as close to God as he was feeling right now.

“Narro de eo, sis.”

Please, tell me of him.

“Father,” Rabbi Shotzen cut in. “We have time for this later.”

“Narro de eo,” Thrist implored.

“Father,” Shotzen sighed, “please let them get on with their work. This can wait.”

“Bullshit!” the priest spat at Shotzen. The rabbi recoiled in surprise. “You don’t want to hear of it because you don’t want to hear the truth! For two thousand years you’ve been waiting for a Messiah that already came! You missed Him! Now’s your chance to atone for your mistake!”

Thrist turned to Bub and begged, “Tell me of Jesus! Tell me what you know!”

The demon stretched his mouth wide in a grin.

“Serius, Pater. Tempus sine arbitrus mox habebimus.”

Later, Father. We’ll have time alone soon.

Bub was using the same soothing voice that he’d used with the sheep.

“Sciendus sum! Eratne Deus? Estne natus ex virgine? Cognitionem eius habebas… erasne qui in desertis eum temptabas? Heu, sciendus sum!”

I must know! Was he God? Was he born of a virgin? You knew him… were you the one that tempted him in the desert? I must know dammit!

“Soooooon,” soothed the demon. He gave his attention back to Andy and Sun.

Thrist banged on the glass, but Bub paid him no mind.

Thrist stepped back and looked at the others. Andy looked embarassed. Sun was frowning. He turned to Rabbi Shotzen, and was stunned to see the sadness on his friend’s chubby face.

“I… I’m…”

Shotzen gave him his back.

“For a man of faith you’re showing surprisingly little,” the Rabbi said.

Thrist opened his mouth, closed it again. His face became very hot. He didn’t trust his voice. He reached for the crucifix hanging from his neck.

Christ felt cold in his hand.

Thrist hurried out the door, hurried down the Red Arm, fumbling the code for the first gate several times, fumbling several more times at the second, racing to his room and falling on his knees next to his bed, his hands clasped in prayer but his mind unable to dismiss Shotzen’s words and the possibility that they might be true.

Frank Belgium watched from the sanctuary of his computer terminal. He’d returned to Red 14 after spending half an hour in the bathroom, feeling the urge to vomit but unable to.

Belgium knew it was a physical response to fear. When the demon awoke last week, that was frightening enough. But his voice—soft, low, almost seductive—was the voice of a thousand nightmares.

Though he sat far enough away from the speech lesson to be unable to hear Bub, watching proved disconcerting all by itself. There was something upsetting and grotesque about a demon watching a children’s television show. Bub’s blank stare made Belgium wonder if he was indeed learning how to conjugate verbs, or if he was wondering how the child actors tasted.

The doctor shivered, nibbling on his lower lip.

Get a grip, he told himself. The demon seemed to be cooperating so far. Maybe it wasn’t his fault he was so frightening.

Andy stood, stretched, and said something to Sun. She stood as well, answered him and nodded, and they walked out of the room.

Bub watched them leave. His stare lingered on the door for almost ten seconds, then his eyes locked on Belgium.

Belgium tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

“Fraaaaaank,” Bub said, loud enough to be heard from across the room. “Fraaaaaank Beeeeeelgium…”

Belgium turned away, wondering if the demon would leave him alone if he pretended to be working.

“Fraaaaaank…”

“I’m busy,” he said, trying to make his voice sound unafraid.

“Fraaaaaank…… what does Craaaaay computer dooooo?”

That seemed like an innocent enough question.

“Umm, The Cray? It stores and processes information.”

“In Englisssssssh?”

“In computer language.”

“Dooooooes it… taaaaaaalk?”

“Talk? No no no. Computers don’t talk. But we can use them to talk to others who have computers with an Internet connection.”

“Internet coooooonnection?”

“The World Wide Web lets people with computers access all the information available in the world.”

“Would the Woooorld Wide Web help me learn Engliiiiiiish?”

Belgium hunched down lower and ruffled some papers on his desk.

“Sure. The Internet has everything on it.”

“I waaaaant Internet coooooonnection,” Bub said.

Dr. Belgium turned around and ratcheted up his spine. He didn’t quite stare at Bub so much as stare in his general direction.

“You’re too too too big. Sorry. You couldn’t use the keyboard.”

Bub didn’t answer, and Belgium hoped the conversation had ended. Being alone in the room with the creature was freaking him out. He got up to leave.

“Come heeeeere,” Bub said.

Belgium stopped, mid-stride, his mouth going dry.

“Coooooome heeeeeere, Fraaaaaank.”

Relax, Belgium though. He’s behind the Plexiglas. He can’t hurt me.

He changed direction and approached Bub.

“Yes? What is it?”

Bub extended a claw and touched it to the Plexiglas. Then there was a shrill screeching sound and his finger became a blur, moving faster than any human being possibly could.

It was over in an instant, and Dr. Belgium was amazed to see that Bub had etched the entire English alphabet, both upper case and lower case letters, onto the glass in a space less than the size of a credit card. So impressed was the doctor, that it didn’t occur to him that Bub had written it as a mirror image, which allowed Frank to see it the normal way.

“Well, I guess typing wouldn’t be too difficult for you then. Remarkable small muscle control. Yes yes yes.”

“I waaaaant Internet cooooonnection,” Bub said.

“I I I don’t see how. We’d have to rig something up. Maybe we could use, um, a wireless router.”

Bub moved closer to the Plexiglas, the corners of his mouth turning up into a smile. He moved quite well for such a large creature, thought Belgium. Like a dancer, smooth and quick.

Or like a cobra.

“Let meeee ooooout,” Bub said, “I caaaan use your compuuuuuuter.”

Dr. Belgium blinked. “Uh, no Bub. It’s safer for you in there.”

“Yoooou aaaare afraaaaaid.”

“No no no. Not at all. I’m a scientist, Bub. I study things.”

“You study meeeeee.”

“Yes.”

“With the Craaaaay compuuuuuuter.”

“Yes. That’s part of it.”

“Hoooooow?”

“Well, Bub, I’m trying to sequence your DNA. Your karyotype shows you have 88 chromosomes. This is over 300,000 genes, about six billion base pairs. I want to figure out what your genes are, so I can see what you’re related to. All life on earth is related to something, some things more than others.”

Bub stared, saying nothing. Belgium continued, fear making him ramble.

“What I’m doing is using the Sanger procedure, along with whole genome shotgun sequencing. First, I take some of your DNA—a blood sample—and make a template by subcloning into a YAC. I’m using restriction enzymes in gel electrophoresis to get a 1000 sequence base read that the computer can interpret as a chromatogram. It’s all very simple, really. Simple simple simple.”

“Hoooow much of my DNA haaaaave you seeeequenced?”

“Only about forty percent. The problem comes from not knowing enough about DNA. Only ten percent of an organism’s chromosomes contain exon genes—those are the ones that protein code, which account for an organism’s physiology. Intron genes are responsible for growing, aging, things we don’t know yet… so sequencing is only half the battle. The Cray is also trying to sort out what is exon and what is intron, and trying to find matches with other life forms.”

Bub blinked. Belgium had never noticed him blink before. His eyelids closed sideways, like elevator doors. It was disconcerting.

“You analyze my bloooooood,” Bub said. His voice had dropped an octave. “What else do you anaaaaaaalyze?”

“We have tissue samples going back 100 years.”

Bub appeared to think about this.

“Why do yooooou study meeee, Fraaaaaaank?”

“Hmm? Oh. To figure out what you are, my friend. Physiologically, you’re more advanced than anything on earth. Mentally too. You’ve been learning English for less than six hours and already you’re conversant. You’re an amazing specimen.”

“Amaaaaaazing.”

“Very. For example, you clearly have the X and Y chromosomes, making you a male, but you have no genitalia… at least not that we’ve been able to find. Nor do you have a belly button. How were you born? How does your kind reproduce? Or is there only one of you? Questions questions questions.”

“Why are you heeeeere, Fraaaank?”

“To study you, Bub. The opportunity you represent is limitless, I’ve been doing research for…”

Bub cut him off. “You have to beeee heeeeeere.”

Frank’s words died in his mouth, leaving a foul taste. “What?” he managed.

“Did you do something wrong, Fraaaaank?”

Dr. Belgium swallowed. His mind involuntarily returned to his prior life, graduating top of his class at Berkeley, already thrice published, a Nobel Prize almost a foregone conclusion…

He’d first taken speed in graduate school. The courses were highly demanding, and he had to postpone sleep in order to learn everything that needed to be learned. Simple caffeine pills at first. Then ephedrine, available over the counter in health stores as ma huang extract. These worked for a time, limiting his sleep to five hours a night, but when five hours became too long, he switched to harder stuff.

A friend was able to hook him up with a Benzedrine supply. Bennies got him through school, got him his job at BioloGen, the largest genetics lab in the world, got him his Porsche, his house, his trophy wife.

But the work was even more demanding than school had been. He switched from Benzedrine pills to injecting Methedrine. To come down after a Methedrine buzz he started taking Librium and later Nembutal. He was stoned on Nembutal when he blew up Labs 4, 5, and 6 at BioloGen.

The police report called it criminal negligence. He’d left the gas line live on a Bunsen burner after the flame had gone out. Not even a kid in high school would have made such a careless mistake. The irony was that the burner wasn’t even being used in an experiment. Frank had been using it to heat his coffee.

The explosion caused almost two million dollars worth of damage and lost research. Three people were killed. Frank had been in the bathroom, and walked away without a mark.

He hid nothing. After admitting to the drugs, he demanded to be arrested.

A lawsuit was filed. So were manslaughter charges. Frank lost it all; career, money, wife, and he went to jail. That’s where President Reagan found him.

Prison gave him a chance to kick the drugs, and it also gave him penance for his wrongs. Frank didn’t want to leave. Reagan arranged for a trip to Samhain, to give Frank an idea of what his country needed him for.

Frank never left. He traded prison of one type for prison of another. This new one was quieter, more demanding, and gave him a chance to help the world while being punished at the same time. Frank hadn’t seen a sunset in twenty years. He missed it every day, and that’s why he stayed.

Even when the incumbent President pronounced his sentence over, Frank stayed. He would finish the job he started; sequencing Bub’s DNA. Only then would his penance be complete.

“That was a long time ago,” Frank whispered.

“I can help yoooou.”

“How?”

“I knoooow of genetics. I can give you my whole seeeequence. But I need a compuuuuuter.”

Frank thought it over. Twenty years without seeing the light of day. Was that long enough? Had he paid for his mistakes?

“I can get you a computer,” Dr. Frank Belgium said.

The demon made a sound that Belgium swore was laughter.

“I like snow, but not a lot of it,” Andy mumbled, taking a bite of his turkey sandwich.

“Yeah, not a lot,” Sun agreed. “Too much snow and I hate it.”

“Exactly. Too much snow isn’t good.”

Andy groaned inwardly. What the hell were they talking about? And why was Sun even bothering?

He stared at her across the cafeteria table and decided she must be patronizing him, hoping for an opportunity to escape. He couldn’t really blame her. The only thing worse than their lame conversation was the food.

Andy looked down at his half-eaten sandwich. It needed fresh lettuce and tomato, neither of which were available. Canned tomatoes were a poor substitute. Even worse, the turkey was processed, and tasted it. Andy wondered how much was actually turkey, and what other chemicals, fillers, and by-products it contained.

“Good sandwich,” Andy said.

Sun nodded and looked at her watch. Andy decided not to talk anymore. He’d die if his ears turned red like that again. Last night he had to soak his head in the sink to get them to stop burning.

“You’re an attractive guy,” Sun said, taking a bite of her sandwich.

Andy waited for the rest, the part where she told him that even though he was attractive, she wasn’t interested and hoped they could just be friends.

That part never came.

Was she playing with him? What was he supposed to say back?

Andy opened his mouth to return the compliment, but closed it again when he considered his ears.

Their eyes locked. He realized he was going to say it anyway, but the phone saved him. He got up and answered.

“Who is this, Andy or Sun?”

“This is Andy, Dr. Belgium.”

“Andy? This is Dr. Belgium.”

“I know.”

“I’m in Red 14 with Bub.”

“I know. Sun and I are almost done. We’ll be right by.”

“No no no. Not necessary. Bub said, he said… all of this studying, he needed to rest for a bit. He took—he’s taking—a nap. Rest rest rest, must have rest.”

“Bub’s sleeping,” Andy repeated, for Sun’s benefit.

“He doesn’t sleep long,” Sun said. “Maybe fifteen minutes at a time.”

“Sun said he doesn’t sleep long,” Andy said into the receiver.

“I know, but Bub was clear that he wanted to take a break. Rest rest rest.”

“Bub needs to rest rest rest,” Andy told Sun. “How about an hour?”

“An hour. An hour an hour… make it two hours. I’ll be here, when Bub is ready to resume I’ll let you know.”

“No problem.” Andy hung up. “Frank said Bub needs two hours of rest.”

“Interesting. Perhaps mental activities leave him more exhausted than physical ones.”

“I’ve always heard sleep is for the mind, not the body.”

“I’ve heard that too.” You’re so damn beautiful, Andy wanted to say.

Sun said, “So… have you had enough of this clever banter?”

“God yes.”

“Do you play racquetball?”

“I’m a racquetball king.” Andy tried on a small smile, happy to have the conversation change. “If it ever becomes an Olympic event, I’m sure I’ll be picked to represent my country.”

“We have some time. Up for a game?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Are you sure? Most men have ego issues when it comes to losing, especially to a woman.”

“Not a problem. I’m good at being a loser.”

Sun smiled, and the realization of what he just said hit him. Open mouth, insert foot…

“I’ll meet you in Purple 5. Say, twenty minutes?”

“Twenty minutes. Fine.”

Sun finished her sandwich and stood up.

“It’s a date.” She spun on her toes and trotted off.

What did she mean by that? Did she mean date as in a man and a woman having fun with a later possibility of sex? Or date as in a scheduled event on a calender?

Fifteen minutes later he was dressed in some blue shorts and a sweatshirt, walking down the Purple Arm. The Secret Service had forwarded his gym shoes, but no gym socks, so he was forced to wear none. None were preferable to argyle, especially around pretty women.

Sun was waiting for him, squatting on the floor with her right leg extended in a stretch. She wore bike pants and a sports bra top, both black.

Did she have any idea of how good she looked? She must have.

So this was a real date.

Right?

On the floor next to her were two racquets. They resembled their tennis counterparts, except their handles were less than half the length. A blue rubber racquetball was in her hand, the manufacturer’s label stamped on it in gold.

Mixed signals and potential embarrassment be damned, Andy willed himself to relax and have fun.

“I see you mean to distract me by playing on my weakness.”

“What’s that?”

“Spandex.”

“Nice socks,” Sun said. “You’ll get blisters.”

“I don’t plan on doing much running.”

“Maybe, since we both seem to be confident in our abilities, we should make a little bet on this game.”

“Fine.” Andy took a deep breath. “If I win, I get to kiss you.”

Sun’s cheeks colored.

“I don’t think so.”

What little ego Andy had left shriveled up. But confidence isn’t about how you feel. It’s about what you project.

“Why not? Afraid you’ll lose on purpose?”

Sun smiled, projecting quite a bit of confidence.

“I’m not going to lose.”

“So you have nothing to worry about then.”

“Fine. So what do I get when I win?

“You get to kiss me.”

“How about a thousand bucks?”

“A thousand bucks? Can we afford it?”

“We’re government employees,” Sun bounced to her feet and handed him a racquet. “Of course we can afford it.”

She gave him a heart-melting grin and trotted into Purple 5.

“You’re not really serious, are you?” Andy called after her. “A thousand bucks?”

He walked into the room. It was a standard racquetball court, forty feet long by twenty feet wide. The walls were matte white, marred by several dozen chips and marks. Six florescent lights were set into the twenty foot high ceiling, making it as bright as an operating theater. The floor was wood, with red painted markings for the service area and the fault line.

Andy closed the heavy door behind him. The door had no knob on the inside; there were no protrusions anywhere in the room. The handle was shaped like a half moon and attached to a hinge, and when it wasn’t in use it recessed into a depression. Andy likened the court to being inside of a large white box.

“Game is fifteen points, turn over the serve at fourteen, have to win by two. Do you want to stretch?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Andy grinned but Sun was all business.

“Zero serving zero, for one thousand dollars. Ready?”

Andy bent his knees and held his racquet up. The pose was familiar to him. He’d played racquetball a hundred times, and though the last time he’d played was several years ago, he’d been pretty good.

Sun was better.

Within two minutes she was four points up. Racquetball didn’t have bizarre scoring like tennis. It was actually more like Ping-Pong. The goal was to return the ball to your opponent by bouncing it off of the front wall, and you had to do this before it bounced on the floor twice.

By the time Sun was up six to zero, Andy realized she wasn’t intending to lose on purpose. So much for wanting to be kissed.

But even though he was behind, he’d gotten a good feel for her game. She was faster than he was, and her ball control was better. On easy volleys she was able to hit the front wall only inches above the floor, making it impossible for him to return.

Andy, however, had the strength advantage, and could hit the ball harder than she could. It wasn’t unusual for a racquetball to exceed speeds of ninety miles per hour, and when it was bouncing off four walls that didn’t make for an easy return. Andy was also several inches taller than Sun, so he hit the ball high whenever he had a chance, and often the bounce would sail over her head out of reach.

After twenty minutes Andy was able to cut Sun’s lead down to one point. His sweatshirt was soaked enough to wring-out, and it was becoming harder to catch his breath between volleys.

Sun didn’t appear to be sweating at all.

“You can take a break if you need one,” she told him. Her smirk was barely concealed.

He pursed his lips and didn’t answer. She served and scored.

“Twelve to ten, are you sure you don’t want to get some water?”

Water did sound good.

“After the game. Serve.”

It only took four more serves for Sun to win.

She shook his hand with vigor, her smile wide and genuine. Andy handled the loss easily. He just wanted something to drink.

A few minutes later they were in the Mess Hall, each with a large glass of water. Andy was on his third.

“You’re better than I thought,” Sun said. “You actually gave me a little trouble.”

“You could play professionally.”

“Well, I did, kind of. American Racquetball Association. Won a few tournaments. No big deal, really. Racquetball stars don’t get too many product endorsements.”

“You might have shared that info with me before we bet a thousand bucks.”

“We’ve still got an hour before Bub is ready for his next lesson. Want to play again? Double or nothing?”

Andy could feel his muscles starting to cramp up. He knew he wouldn’t get through another game. But she was so earnest, so cute. Her eyes were wide and bright and her cheeks had a lovely flush to them. Such a change from the dour, strict women he’d met yesterday.

“Race said something about a pool table. Do you play?”

“I haven’t for a while.”

“How about a game of nine ball, double or nothing?”

Sun grinned. “You’re on. I need to shower and change first. See you in Purple 5 in twenty minutes?”

“It’s a date,” Andy said.

And as she trotted off, he sincerely hoped it was.

Rabbi Menachem Shotzen ended his nightly kaddish by asking G-d to help his friend, Father Thrist, with his crisis of faith.

He took off his braided kippah—a skull cap he received at bar mitzvah, and put it in his tallis bag on top of his tzitzit and his tefillin, both of which were worn only for morning prayer.

The Rabbi glanced at his nightstand. He knew what it contained. And he knew that only minutes prior, he had pleaded with G-d to give him the strength to avoid it.

Shotzen turned away from the temptation and instead seated himself at a small desk to proofread the latest pages of his memoirs.

He hefted the manuscript, now over fifteen hundred hand written pages, and its weight pleased him. Not too bad, especially considering one day and two nights of the week, Shabbes, he was forbidden by Jewish law to write. The first line still made him proud, and he said it softly to himself.

“Blessings and curses, I have had many of both.”

He glanced at the nightstand again. One of the curses, for sure. Bub may indeed be demonic, though Shotzen doubted it, but in that drawer was something even worse. Yetzir ha- ra. A denial of G-d.

He approached it just the same.

The liquor was where he had left it, awaiting his return. Shotzen picked up the bottle—half-full of overproof peppermint schnapps—then put it back down. It was a familiar ritual, with a familiar ending. Once the nightstand was opened, the bottle won.

This time the internal struggle lasted barely a minute. Shotzen poured himself a generous glass, cursing his weakness. On his second glass, his curse became a resignation. On his third, it became a toast.

He wasn’t sure if he imagined the knock at the door or not. He stopped in mid-gulp and held his breath, listening. The second knock gave him a start.

“Yes?” he answered, almost choking on his schnapps. The bottle was on the desk, empty now, but Shotzen placed it back into the nightstand.

“Menachem? It’s Michael.”

Shotzen pursed his lips—this was his disapproving look—and he opened the door. Thrist was dressed for Mass, roman collar pristine and starched and green cassock meticulously ironed.

“May I come in?” he asked.

His tone didn’t match his dress; it was dull and lacking conviction.

“Of course.”

Shotzen stepped aside and allowed him entrance. He closed the door quietly and found Thrist staring at his glass of schnapps. It still held a finger or so.

“Not on account of my reprehensible behavior, I hope,” Thrist said.

“My disease needs no provocation,” Shotzen answered. He and Thrist had talked many times about alcoholism. In fact, Thrist was the only one that Shotzen discussed it with.

“I am sorry, Menachem.”

“Passion is a refreshing emotion to see in you,” Shotzen replied. “In our many dialogs throughout the years I don’t recall you ever yelling like that before.”

“It was inexcusable, both the tone and the content.”

“Nothing is inexcusable, as long as there is remorse. Apology accepted, Father.”

Shotzen offered his hand, which the priest clasped in both of his.

“You are a dear friend.”

“As are you.”

Thrist sat on the bed and nodded at the manuscript.

“Working on the memoirs?”

“Pathetic, no? There sits my life, never to be read by anyone under penalty of government execution.”

“Time passes, Rabbi, whether we want it to or not. At least you have something to show for it.”

“True. My legacy. How preferable it is to a wife and child.”

Thrist’s long face became longer. “Have you ever heard from Reba?”

“Not once since I granted her the get, the divorce. And why should I? Ha-shem told the Jews to be fruitful and multiply, and I… I have no lead in my pencil. Between the sterility and the alcohol, it is no wonder she grew to hate me.”

“You could have adopted.”

Shotzen smiled. “I could have stopped drinking as well. I’d still have it all; her, my synagogue, my congregation—perhaps even my father would still be alive. He died of shame, you know, when I showed up at Temple and read from the Torah drunk as drunk can be.”

“We all have our crosses to bear.”

“I so dislike that expression,” Shotzen frowned. “But what of you, Father? No desire for children? Women? Adonai made you a man, He cannot then deny you a man’s needs.”

“God can bless the beasts and the children, because I never cared much for either,” Thrist said with the barest of smiles. “And sex?” “I was created to serve God. Perhaps that is why he denied me any charisma whatsoever.”

Shotzen laughed, “I’m happy that you’re able to find your sense of humor, after this afternoon. If I were the devil, I would have done the same thing to test your faith.”

Thrist nodded. “So you agree it is a possibility that Bub is the devil?”

“No. No more than I agree that Jesus was the moshiach. But when something has the appearance of Satan it would make sense for it to also imitate the demeanor.”

Thrist absorbed this. “And if Bub indeed knew Christ?”

“The beauty of faith, Michael, is that there is no need for proof. Belief in a feeling is more powerful than belief in a fact. Ha-shem could surely appear to the world at any time and squelch all doubts. But Adonai prefers faith.”

“But what if Bub is a sign from God? Think of it, Rabbi. Nothing happens by accident. The Lord preordains all. Bub was sent here, by God, as proof of His existence. I agree with the power of faith, but Christ also taught us the power of proof.”

“Familiar argument. Christ was not the son of Adonai. Ha-shem can not be man. None of the prophesies were fulfilled.”

“They were all fulfilled.”

Shotzen reached for his glass and finished the schnapps. He was halfway to the nightstand when he remembered the bottle was empty.

“Let’s stick with the current argument,” Shotzen said. He sat on his bed, facing Father Thrist. “What do we know of ha-satan?”

“The Adversary. First mentioned in Job 1:6. Taken to mean the opponent of God.”

Shotzen nodded, his double chin jiggling. “But before that was Ma’lak, the shadow side of Ha-Shem, turned to humanity because Adonai was too bright to be seen by mortals. Later, In Jubilees, it had become a separate entity. Mastema, the Accusing angel.”

“Dualism,” Thrist added, “probably taken from Zoroaster. Ahriman the Lord of Darkness. Zarathrustra’s concept of good and evil as opposing forces.”

“Zoroaster’s era is highly debated; he could have lived anywhere from the 18th century B.C. up until the 7th… five hundred years after Moses. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may have taken his ideas of deities from the Egyptians, Set and Ra, and prior to them, the Mesopotamians with Ereshkigal. The Queen of the Underworld. The first recorded mention of hell.”

Thrist nodded. “Mmm-hmm. Predating Judaism. But none of these would be an accurate description of our Bub, so let’s move ahead.”

“Agreed. In Enoch, Lucifer, the Bearer of Light, was cast out of heaven because of lust. Or pride, in Enoch’s second chronicle, or free will according to Origen of Alexandria, or disobedience, or a war in heaven…”

“He has many names and many incarnations. Satan-el. Abbaddon. Astarot. Rahab. Rofacale. Moloch. Leviathan. Baal-beryth. Metatron…”

“Metatron is an archangel.”

“He is referred to in Exodus, interpreted as the lessor Yahweh, ordering atrocities upon his chosen people. He could indeed be the first devil, the shadow side of God.”

“You are misguided, as usual, but let’s go on. There’s Beliel, the prince of Sheol. Also Baal-zebub. Azazel. Mastema. Mammon. Belphegor. Kakabel. Lahash. Sammael…”

“Tartaruchus,” Thrist continued. “Zophiel. Xaphan. Baresches. Biqa. Salmael…”

“I said Salmael.”

“You said Sammael, not Salmael.”

“They aren’t the same?”

“Sammael is the Angel of Poison, Sumerian in origin. Salmael is a Duke of Hell, who each year calls for the annihilation of the chosen tribes of Israel.”

“Ah! How could I have forgotten that one? So which of these nasty beings do you believe Bub to be?”

Thrist touched his chin. “I’m not sure. He may not be any of them. He may be all of them. Our current conceptions of Satan and hell began after Rome fell. The hysterical visions of Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England in the year 731. The Vision of Tundal in 1149 offers a detailed look at the tortures of Hell.”

Shotzen was familiar with them all. “Much more influential was Dante,” the Rabbi added. “He gave us the description of the circles of hell and its demons in 1306. William Blake, Bosch, Breughel, Giotto, Memlinc—all famous religious painters who gave modern man images of a bat-winged, cloven-hooved, horned angel from hell.”

“Martin Luther, John Calvin, Milton’s Paradise Lost… they also helped hone the modern image. And Marlowe and Goethe’s versions of Faust.”

“Yes,” Shotzen nodded, his chins bouncing. “The devil as an intellectual. Gentleman Jack. Old Nick. Old Scratch. Mephistopheles. Old Horny. Black Bogey. And now, he’s an icon of pop culture.” Shotzen shrugged. “He’s in cartoons, movies, television shows, commercials…”

“Worshiped by thousands of school children in the form of rock music. Did I ever tell you about the time the arch diocese sent me to a Black Sabbath concert in the early 1970’s?”

Shotzen sighed. “Yes. You’ve shown me your souvenir T-shirt. I doubt there is anything about you I don’t know.”

“Which brings us back to topic. What do we have here?”

The Rabbi felt good. His mind was clear; clearer than it had been without the liquor. Shotzen once read that booze was proof that G-d loves us and wants us to be happy. The Talmud also stated that we would be held accountable in the world to come for every permitted food and drink we have had the opportunity to eat yet not eaten. Why should being drunk be considered a sin?

“Both of our religions believe in angels, correct?” Thrist asked.

“Yes.”

“And angels can fall from grace, just as man can.”

“Natch. But Jews don’t believe in a fiery hell where souls are tortured for eternity by red devils with pitchforks. Sheol, the pit, is nothing more than the absence of God. And most believe it doesn’t last any longer than eleven hours.”

Thrist held up his hands as if stopping an oncoming car. “Let’s hold off on hell for a second. Is it possible for a fallen angel to visit earth?”

“Perhaps. But demons aren’t prevalent in Jewish midrash. They’re usually allegorical. For example Kesef, the demon who attacked Moses at Horeb, is the Hebrew word for silver.”

Thrist sighed. “Menachem, open your mind for a moment. When President Carter recruited you for Samhain, you were publishing that underground newsletter—”

“The Wandering Jew,” Shotzen said with pride.

“You were America’s foremost expert in Judaic mysticism.”

Shotzen thought back to those years, living like a hermit in a one bedroom apartment, studying and interpreting ancient texts. The Kabbalah and Zohar, a little known Jewish tome which revealed how to obtain peace on earth. The 4th century Haggadah, a collection of Jewish legends and exegetical treaties. The apocrypha, the hidden scriptures of the Torah compiled during the period of exile in Babylonia.

“Michael, you’ve read the same texts. Seven heavens and seven earths, with twenty one layers of reality hooked together by wires. Gehenna, a continent on Arqa which encompasses the seven layers of hell—this is all allegory.”

“Take a good look at Bub, Rabbi, and tell me he is allegory. You agree fallen angels could visit the earth?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then perhaps this fallen angel, this devil, would take on a familiar appearance, even if it is the appearance that mankind gave him.”

“Go on.”

“If Bub was truly alive at the time of Christ…”

“Again with Christ?”

“Christ as Messiah isn’t the point. Can you believe that there was once a living breathing person named Jesus Christ?”

“There is mention of him in Josephus, so yes. But every knee has not bowed, there is no universal peace, the lion has not lain down with the lamb, nor does every tongue swear loyalty to the one true God.”

Thrist frowned. “You’re missing the point. You have conceded that devils exist, and that Jesus existed. Now the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all make the claim that Beelzebub tempted Jesus while he fasted in the desert. Luke 4:5 Then the Devil took him up...”

“Please,” Shotzen grimaced. “We don’t want to play the scripture quoting game again.”

“Fine. The point is, if Julius Caesar indeed taught Bub how to speak Latin, and Caesar died in 44 BC, isn’t it conceivable that it was Bub who tempted Christ in the desert?”

“That was eighty years later.”

“Demons don’t age. He’s been here for 100 years and looks exactly the same. Can’t you at least admit it could be possible?”

“Possible, yes. Probable, no. Whether Bub is a demon or something pretending to be a demon, it makes sense for him to act like a demon. Lies, deceptions, flattery, bribery, bargaining, tempting, wheeling and dealing; these are Satan’s tricks. I contend he heard the name Christ and played on your reaction to it.”

Thrist’s wrinkles deepened and he pursed his lips. “So he also heard the name Julius Caesar?” he countered.

“He was found in 1906. Say he was buried in the 1800’s, or even the 1700’s or 1600’s. He could have known the names of both Christ and Caesar. He spoke Maya when he woke up, and the Mayans were conquered by the Spanish, who were Christians, if I remember my history. That was one of the ways they justified the genocide of the indigenous South American people. They claimed it was Adonai’s will to slaughter the heathens.”

“Bah!” Thrist threw his hands in the air and stood up. “The problem with you, Rabbi, is your insistence on the past to explain the present. Until you find some kind of precedent for Bub in one of your ancient mystic texts, you’ll continue to deny what you see with your own eyes.”

“What is more important Father—what I see with my eyes or what I feel with my heart?”

“You were born and raised a Jew, and that’s why you are a Jew. It was what you were taught. I’m Catholic because that’s what I was taught. But faith is not a substitute for proof, no matter how much you insist. Anyone with a high school education can argue that the world is more than 6000 years old. Yet that is what our religions teach. Atheists have attacked the Bible from all angles, finding one discrepancy after another. How does the Church refute these claims of no God? Faith! But that doesn’t matter anymore!”

Thrist was shouting now, his finger pointing at Shotzen.

“I could show the entire world the Bible, and only some will believe. But if I showed the entire world our friend Bub, ALL WOULD BELIEVE!”

Thrist sprung to his feet, his face bright red, breathing as if he’d just run a marathon.

Shotzen chose his words carefully. “Bub is not a sign from ha-shem, Father.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Perhaps you need some time off, to rest. Can’t you confer with the arch diocese?”

Thrist stormed over to the door and opened it. He turned before leaving. “I need time off,” Thrist said, “like you need another drink.”

Thrist left, closing the door behind him.

Shotzen mulled it over.

“I cannot argue with logic like that,” he said.

Then he left his room to get another bottle of schnapps.

Dr. Julie Harker walked by Rabbi Shotzen in the Purple Arm, avoiding eye contact.

“Good evening, Dr. Harker,” Shotzen said as he passed.

Harker didn’t bother replying.

She was on her way to Purple 8 to find a movie to watch. Something to kill the evening. Shotzen, the doctor surmised, was coming back from Purple 6. That’s where the liquor was kept. The Rabbi had been holding something at his side, trying to conceal it. Trying to hide his secret.

Harker knew about having secrets.

She entered Purple 8 and hit the light. The room was arranged like a library, which made sense because it was essentially just that. But unlike Red 3, which held documents about Project Samhain, this was put here for the entertainment needs of the staff. Harker walked past the shelving units filled with fiction, past the several large magazine racks (the compound had subscriptions to 58 different magazines, and issues were dropped off every few months with supplies), and past the archaic film collection (actual 16mm films in cans on reels.)

The video collection was one aisle over from film. It included the obsolete reel-to-reel format, which replaced kinescope for recording television from the 60s, and the racks of ¾” tapes which became standard in the 70s. None of these interested Harker. She continued down the isle until she reached the first commercially produced tapes for home use. Betamax.

Samhain’s Beta selection was among the largest in the world. It may have also been the only remaining one in the world as well, since the Sony format had become obsolete years prior to VHS. There were over 20,000 titles, arranged alphabetically and according to genre.

Harker didn’t give the Action/Adventure section a glance. She also passed up Drama, Westerns, and the Adult aisle. Samhain had an ample pornography section, both magazine and video, much of it vintage and also worth a lot of money. The armed forces have known for many years that a man’s sex drive can put him off task, so the easiest thing to do was cater to it. Harker had no interest in that.

She came to a stop at Comedy and found the films she was looking for immediately. Poor Little Rich Girl. Curly Top. Baby Take a Bow. Her eyes began to mist. These were three of her all time favorites.

Harker loved Shirley Temple. Loved her so much that she named her daughter Shirley. It had been the realization of a life long dream.

Dr. Julie Harker was born to be a mother. In her earliest memories, she’d always had a doll. Something to feed, and change, and talk to. Something that loved her as much as she loved it. In Julie’s childhood her dolls were real babies, and she was the perfect Mama.

She knew the psychology behind it. She knew the reasons she had such a strong maternal urge. Both of Julie’s parents had been unfit. Alcoholics. Abusers. They never should have had children. Kids were supposed to be a joy. But in Harker’s house, she had been a burden.

“You’re so fat and ugly,” she could remember her father saying over and over. “We’ll never be able to marry you off. We’ll be stuck with you forever.”

Not if Julie could help it. She knew she wasn’t attractive, even if her parents hadn’t reminded her of the fact constantly. Besides her weight problem and somewhat masculine features, Julie was painfully shy. She went through four years of high school without a friend or a date. But there was more to life than looks.

Julie Harker graduated at the top of her class, and had her pick of colleges. Medical school was tough, and her poor people skills were an obstacle, but Julie’s saving grace was her way with children. She joined a pediatric practice after her internship, but that was only half of the equation. She still needed to have a child of her own.

With the tapes nestled safely under her arm, Harker left Purple 8 and returned to her room. She put Curly Top in the VCR and hit REWIND. Then she turned off the lights and undressed.

Samhain wasn’t so bad, she decided. Compared to that month of sheer hell she spent in prison, this place was almost pleasant. True, it would never be like it was, raising Shirley and Shirley.

Harker frowned as the memory returned. The first Shirley had been hers. Julie had planned it carefully. She’d considered artificial insemination, but was leery about the honesty of the donors. Several times she went to bars, hoping to get picked up, but the men who hit on her didn’t have the kind of genes she wanted passed on to her child.

She finally settled on her neighbor’s son. He was seventeen, gawky and inexperienced, but from good stock. Her first attempts at seduction were laughable, but she lucked out one night when his parents weren’t home, and after sharing a bottle of wine they did the deed.

Nine months later, Shirley was born. There were complications; profuse bleeding that resulted in a full hysterectomy, but Shirley was perfect. Her daughter was beautiful, actually physically beautiful, and Julie Harker was happy beyond all expectations.

For seven wonderful months, Harker raised Shirley. It was the greatest time in her life. Shirley healed every scar Harker had retained from her upbringing. She was a dream come true.

The autopsy report called it SIDS. Sudden infant death syndrome. Sometime during the night, Shirley had stopped breathing. When Harker found her in the morning, she was blue.

Dr. Julie Harker thought she handled the situation very well. Being a pediatrician, she easily gained admission to the hospital’s nursery. She’d just lost a child, and could never give birth to another, so why shouldn’t she have a replacement? Julie was born to be a mother. It wasn’t fair that she was denied her birthright.

The second Shirley was actually named Jennifer. She was four days old when Harker smuggled her out of the hospital. That same day she fled the country, finding work as a nurse in Canada. She’d had this Shirley for almost a year, raising her and loving her as much as she had the first Shirley, before the authorities found her.

They came for her while she was nursing. She saw the police car outside. She knew they’d try to take Shirley away from her.

Harker couldn’t allow that.

She ran out the back door, Shirley wrapped in a blanket, ran into the woods with the police right behind her. She was hysterical, frantic, and never saw the branch she tripped over.

When Harker fell, she landed on top of Shirley.

After being extradited to the United States, she was tried and convicted of kidnaping and second-degree murder.

Prison almost destroyed Julie. She’d lost two kids in a ten month period, and the grief consumed her. Prison was worse than school, with the teasing and harassment. Julie was attacked many times, and her mental state flip-flopped between constant grief and terror.

President Reagan’s call was a blessing.

Harker had been in the prison infirmary, recovering from a botched suicide attempt. Reagan had made it very clear that he didn’t like Harker, or the things she’d done, and didn’t care one way or the other what happened to her. But he offered Harker a choice. She could either carry out her life sentence in prison, or at a fully equipped secret facility in New Mexico, looking after the daily health of a research team.

Harker made the obvious decision. The VCR stopped and Harker pressed PLAY, then she curled up in bed to watch the video.

Yes, Samhain was a prison of sorts, and yes, she would probably die here, but life could be worse. And maybe, now that Bub was talking, the project would end. Maybe, after over twenty years of service, Harker would get a reprieve. There was always hope.

“Hello, Shirley,” Harker said as the movie began, the tears starting to flow. “Sing a song for Mama.”

After her shower, Sun put on a pair of blue jeans and a snug black top with a V-neck. She spent ten minutes on her hair and make-up, and another two minutes searching for perfume before she remembered she didn’t own any.

“It’s just a game of pool,” she said to her reflection.

Then she brushed her teeth.

Purple 5 had more to offer than just pool. It was a fully equipped game room, complete with darts, foosball, ping pong, and an old Asteroids arcade game. Andy was at the table, rolling a cue across the slate to make sure it wasn’t warped. He wore tan Dockers and a striped shirt, untucked with the sleeves rolled up. His hair was still wet from the shower.

Looking at him, Sun felt her stomach do little flip-flops. She silently cursed her hormones. This wasn’t the time, or the place, to start a relationship.

It doesn’t have to be a relationship, the little voice in her head told her. It can just be sex.

She told the little voice to shut up.

“What’s your game,” Andy asked. “Eight ball or nine ball?”

“I prefer nine. Lag for the break?”

“Sure. Double or nothing, right?

“Right. Two thousand dollars.”

“Or two kisses.”

Andy winked at her.

After selecting a stick from the rack and chalking the tip, Sun stood next to Andy and they both placed a cue ball on the table. Lagging was an art form. The trick was to bounce the cue ball off the far rail and have it return back. The one who got it closest to the near rail without touching won the break. Sun’s parents had a pool table, and she grew up with the game. She hadn’t played in a few years, but once she slid the stick onto the bridge of her fingers it all came back to her.

“Ready?”

Andy nodded.

Sun won the lag.

“You’re a few inches short,” she teased.

“I’m not sure how I should reply to that.”

Sun used the triangle to rack the balls, leaving a perfect nine ball diamond pattern on the table. She put her whole body into the break, getting good separation and sinking the 4.

“Nice,” Andy said. “Where did you learn to break like that?”

“I played the pro circuit for a while.”

Sun lined up the one ball and flashed Andy a grin.

Andy said, “You’re kidding, right?”

She banked the one into a corner pocket, leaving herself position on the two.

“Most people think pool is a man’s game. It’s not. Football—running, throwing, hitting each other. That’s a man’s game.”

Sun put away the two ball, setting up an easy shot on the 3. She leaned over a bit farther than necessary, enjoying his eyes on her body.

“Pool,” Sun continued, “pool is all about angles and finesse and thinking ahead. Carefully plotting actions and executing them with precision.”

The three went in with a whisper, and the five was all lined up.

“Visualizing what you want, and getting it.”

She pocketed the five and also put down the seven, crippled along the side pocket.

“It’s like seduction,” Sun said. “Something that a woman can do much better than a man.”

“Is this a date?” Andy asked. “This is a date, right? I mean, not a going out kind of date, because we’re not out, but we’ve got this man-woman thing going on here, right?”

Sun smiled at him. “Why put labels on it? We’re just two consenting adults, enjoying a two thousand dollar game of pool.”

“We should really play foosball. Now that’s my game. I did that as a living, for a while. Hustling foosball.”

“Good money?” Sun asked, eyeing the 6.

“Yeah. I used to bring in four, five bucks a night.”

“Sounds like a fun way to spend your childhood.”

“Childhood? I did it until I turned thirty.”

Sun laughed, missing her shot.

“Okay, stand back,” Andy said. “Now you’ll see why they call me Fast Andy.”

Andy took careful aim at the 6 ball, and with an easy, steady stroke, missed it completely and scratched the cue into the corner pocket.

“Because you lose so fast?” Sun asked.

Andy’s eyes twinkled with challenge. “I’d be winning if you weren’t wearing that tight blouse.”

“So if I took the blouse off, you’d be more focused?”

I’m actually flirting, Sun thought. It felt nice. Really nice.

She eyed the table. Andy was leaning against the rail, in the way of her shot.

“You wanna move, so I can win my two thousand dollars?”

“Not really, no.”

Sun walked over to him and put her arms around his waist, still holding her cue.

“I knew this was a date,” Andy said. “Right? Am I right?”

Sun placed the cue ball on the table and drew her stick back, shooting behind him. In one fluid movement she banked off the six and sunk the nine, winning the game.

“Nice shot,” Andy looked down at her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

“Thanks.” She let go of the cue, but her arms remained around his waist. Their eyes locked. “I take cash and personal checks.”

“I want to be honest with you. I only have four dollars to my name.”

Andy’s lips parted slightly. She could feel his heart through his ribs, and it seemed to beat a little louder. Though he had the barest hint of stubble on his face, Sun could smell aftershave. She moved her hand up his sides, feeling the muscles in his back, thinking that she hadn’t touched a man like that in so long.

Sun stared at him, wondering if her pupils were as wide as his. She waited for him to move in for the kiss, unsure what she would do if he tried.

Neither of them moved.

The moment lingered, then passed. Sun dropped her hands and turned away.

“So foosball is your game?” she said, trying to sound upbeat.

“I’m supernatural at foosball. I’m ranked third in the world.”

“Double or nothing?”

“You’re on.”

Sun beat him in four minutes.

“There’s got to be something you can win at,” she said after the final goal.

“Football,” Andy said. “That was my game. All the running and the hitting. It’s not a real sport unless you wear mouth protection. Would you like to see where I got kicked in the head with cleats?”

“How about Asteroids,” Sun said. “I stink at Asteroids.”

Andy stunk worse. Sun played her last ship with her eyes closed, and still annihilated his score.

“What are we up to?” Andy asked. “Eight grand?”

“There’s got to be something you can win at.” Sun looked around the rec room, trying to find something she wasn’t good at.

“How about arm wrestling?”

Sun declined. Andy looked strong, but if she beat him at arm wrestling she didn’t think his ego would ever recover.

“How about Scrabble in Portuguese?” Andy suggested.

“Board games are in Purple 10.”

As they walked out of the rec room, Sun noticed Andy’s limp.

“Did you pull a muscle?”

“Blister.” Andy made a face. “From not wearing socks.”

“Let me see it.”

“It’s ugly.”

“I’m a big girl.”

Andy kicked off his shoe and peeled down his sock. It was ugly, covering much of his heel, red and inflamed.

“We need to dress that. Come on.”

Sun took Andy’s hand and led him into Yellow 6, the medical supply room. She sat him on the padded examination table and removed his shoe and sock.

“Don’t you need to muzzle me first?” Andy asked.

Sun grinned. “Have you had your shots?”

“I’m not sure. Let me check my tags.”

Sun opened the closet and found some gauze, tape, hydrogen peroxide, and burn ointment on the well-stocked shelves.

“Are you sure you’re qualified to do this?” Andy asked.

“I think I can manage.”

“Remember, this is a blister. Not a neutering.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

She dabbed peroxide on some gauze and cleaned the inflamed skin.

“So why did you become a vet?” Andy asked. “No desire to practice on people at all?”

Sun tried to think of something flippant, but nothing came to mind.

“Not that I’m knocking vets,” Andy said quickly. “But it seems like you’d make a great MD.”

She squirted on some ointment, but her good mood deflated like a leaky tire. The memories came back. Memories she’d been trying for years to suppress.

“Sun? You okay?”

Could she tell him? Would that scare him away?

“Sun?”

“I… I used to be a doctor,” she said. “A human doctor.”

Sun taped on the bandage and waited for a response. None came. The silence stretched.

“If you want to talk about it,” Andy said finally, “I want to know.”

He reached down and took her hand. She gripped it, tight, and sat on the table next to him. The words, unspoken for so long, began to tumble out of her.

“I did my internship at Johns Hopkins, began my residency there. I was on the tail end of a twenty hour shift; there was an apartment fire and we’d been working without break for eight hours. A women came in with abdominal pain to the right iliac fossa. Her tongue was coated, she had foetor oris, high temp, vomiting; text book appendicitis. Hers was ready to rupture. We prepped her for a laparotomy, emptied her stomach with a naso-gastric, and I scrubbed for surgery.”

Sun could remember how tired she was, and how determined that she wouldn’t let fatigue get in the way of her job. The woman was Caucasian and overweight, but in a way she reminded Sun of her own mother. Even though her pain was severe she’d been stoic.

“I’d done a dozen appendectomies. It was a simple operation. I made a gridiron incision through McBurney’s point, divided the mesoappendix, used a pursestring suture in the caecum. Then I closed her up and she was discharged a few days later.”

Sun swallowed, held Andy’s hand even tighter.

“She bounced back the next week. Temperature of 105. Peritonitis. Her peritoneal cavity was filled with pus and fecal matter.” Sun took a deep breath. “My pursestring suture had opened. I hadn’t tied it off. Her lower intestine emptied out into her abdominal cavity.”

Sun turned away from Andy, stared at a spot on the wall.

“She didn’t make it,” she said softly.

Sun had been the one who opened her up the second time. The woman had come in and asked for Sun by name. Had trusted her to help.

“You lost your job,” Andy said.

“The review committee was unanimous. Any first year intern could have done that suture. I screwed up. The Maryland Medical Board revoked my license. The Board had been taking some bad hits in the media, and they made an example out of me. I had over a hundred thousand dollars in student loans, and loss of my license meant I’d never pay them back. So I filed bankruptcy.

“I became a vet by studying at home. Not too big a leap, really. Animals and humans share a lot of the same medical problems. Then I met Steven, we got married, and he died, leaving me with another load of bills. I couldn’t file bankruptcy again; you had to wait seven years. So I applied for a grant under a false name to study lions in Africa. Mainly to hide from my creditors.”

Andy said, “Why did you leave Africa?”

“They found out I wasn’t who I said I was and pulled my funding. I applied for citizenship in South Africa but was denied. When I was deported back to the US I had about ten different groups trying to sue me. That’s when the President stepped in. I think he found me through the US Embassy in South Africa. I made the headlines a few times while I was there, fighting for citizenship. He offered me a deal; Samhain for ten years or until the project ended, whichever came first. All of my debts would disappear if I agreed. Of course, I took it.”

“And here you are.”

“And here I am.”

Andy put his hand on her cheek.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

She looked up at him, saw the warmth, and hugged him.

“Thanks for fixing up my foot.”

Sun snorted. “Good thing you didn’t need stitches.”

“We all make mistakes, Sun. The hard part is forgiving ourselves.”

Sun pursed her lips. “Her name was Madeline. She had a husband. A son. She was only 60. I went to the funeral.”

“That took guts.”

“Her son spat in my face. It made me feel a little better.”

Andy said, “I could spit on you now, if you want.”

“Maybe later. Let’s go feed the demon.”

They left Sun’s room and headed for the Octopus. Race was there, hunched over a computer. He looked up when he noticed Sun and Andy.

“How is the speech lesson coming?”

“Great,” Andy answered. “Like teaching kindergarten, except snack time is messier.”

“So he’ll be ready to talk tomorrow morning?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Race beamed. “Excellent,” he said.

The General turned back to his monitor. Race always wore his good ole boy attitude like cowboys wore hats, but Sun hadn’t seen him so genuinely pleased before. The man looked ten years younger.

Sun and Andy took the Orange Arm to Orange 12. Andy was more help in procuring a sheep this time. He held the cereal, assisted in putting on the harness, and Sun taught him that the most effective way to startle sheep wasn’t yelling “Boo!” It was clapping your hands.

“I can’t get enough of this earthy smell,” Andy said. “We should bottle it and sell it to urbanites.”

“Where there’s a wool, there’s a way.”

Andy made a show of rolling his eyes.

“You never told me,” Sun said, “about that problem you were having with the hieroglyphics on the capsule.”

“I’m still stuck on it. You ready for a mini lecture?”

Sun nodded. She was happy to be talking about something other than her broken past.

“Okay. You see, it’s known that glyphs are based on spoken language, but for a long time Hieroglyphic Maya was thought to be logographic. Each picture was a word. But the current view is that it was a phonetic system; glyphs stand for sounds, like our own alphabet. So scholars have had to reevaluate everything. To make it even harder, current Maya language is filled with bits of Spanish, so to understand the ancient language, the language of the glyphs, you can’t really use modern Maya.”

“So how do you decipher it?” Sun asked.

“Lots of ways. I have a few computer programs, I check the work of other scholars, I find similar references in previously translated passages. A lot of it is basic logic. Once you understand the sentence structure of a language, it’s like a cryptogram in a crossword puzzle book. You just look for the context clues.”

Sun led the sheep over to the scale pen. “So what has the great translator perplexed?”

“There are several references to a tuunich k’iinal. The hot rock. I don’t know what that means.”

“Volcano?”

Andy shook his head. “That’s a different word.”

“Coals? For cooking?”

“No. A cooking pit is a piib. Different glyphs. There’s also reference to Kukulcán. He’s a flying warrior god who came from ‘over the water’. Sort of the Mayan version of the Aztec Quetzalcoatl.”

“Could that be Bub?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Quetzalcoatl means feathered serpent. Bub doesn’t have feathers, but he does fly, and he could qualify as a serpent. The thought that ancient people were offering our Bub human sacrifices is a little unnerving. More than 100,000 were killed to satisfy Kukulcán’s lust for blood.”

“I should have paid more attention in history class,” Sun said.

Sun finished jotting down the sheep’s specs on the chart and they led it out of Orange 12 and down the hallway. Race was no longer in the Octopus.

“What’s your impression of our General Race?” Andy asked, holding open the Red Arm door.

“He’s good at manipulating people. I wonder why he’s here, though. The Army only has so many Generals, why stick one underground for forty years?”

“Something to do with his wife?” Andy suggested. “Dr. Belgium told me about her disease.”

“I don’t think so. She didn’t become symptomatic until a few years ago.”

“Maybe we should ask him. He seems honest. Well, as honest as the military can get. What’s Dr. Harker’s problem?”

“You noticed it too?”

“Yeah. The lady seems to have a large assortment of bugs up her ass.”

Sun punched in the code for the first gate. “She has problems relating to people, I think.”

“And Dr. Belgium… don’t get me wrong. I like the guy. But he seems to be one slice short of a sandwich himself.”

“Yeah,” Sun agreed. “And the holies. Odd ducks, both of them. Father Thrist’s little outburst didn’t wear well with the Roman collar.”

Andy said, “Maybe we’re not all here because we’re perfect for the job.”

“Okay. Then why?”

“Well, you didn’t have a choice. I really didn’t either. The President saw fit to mention a little problem that I would have with the IRS if I didn’t cooperate. Maybe everyone here is stuck as well. Think about it. Not just everyone would give up their life, families, friends, possessions, to live down here, even though Bub is an interesting subject. Only those people with nothing to lose.”

Sun punched in the code for the second gate and thought it over.

“It’s so American,” she said.

“How so?”

“Here is the most top secret, and possibly the most important, project the world has ever known. And who’s running it? Screw-ups and criminals.”

Andy smiled, closing the gate behind them. “Well, it’s been a hundred years, and no problems yet.”

“Does that mean we should be encouraged?” Sun asked, “Or be worried that the problems are overdue?”

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

“Bub kills us all, escapes, and destroys the world.”

“That takes some of the pressure off,” Andy said.

He opened the door to Red 14. Dr. Belgium was fiddling with the DVD, trying to shove a disc in.

“It helps if you turn it on,” Sun suggested.

“Suuuuun,” Bub said. “Aaaaaandy.”

Sun almost backed up. It still freaked her out a little that something so big and ugly could talk.

Andy said, “Hello, Bub. How was your nap?”

“Huuuuungry. Need sheeeeep.”

“Are sheep what you’d normally eat?” Sun asked. “Before you were able to talk, I could only guess.”

“Sheeeeeep are goooood.”

Sun had opened the small door and pushed the sheep through. Bub snatched it up in his claw and quickly snapped its neck.

“Bub, sometimes when you eat the sheep, you kill it and bring it back to life,” Sun said. “How do you do this?”

Bub continued to twist the sheep’s head until it came off like a bottle cap. He sucked on the neck stump, tilting the body up as if it were a giant beer.

“Seeeeeeeecret,” Bub said, gurgling from the liquid in his mouth. Some of the blood ran out of the corner and matted his chest hair.

“Can you do it now?” Sun asked.

“Yesssss.”

Bub held the sheep’s headless carcass tightly to his chest. A minute passed, and then the animal’s legs began to twitch and buck. Bub dropped it to the ground, and the sheep took off in a sprint and rammed full speed into the Plexiglas barrier. It hit with a large crash, smearing the glass with blood.

The sheep righted itself, shook, then ran again, this time barreling into one of the artificial trees.

Bub croaked with baritone laughter. The sheep’s head, still in his claw, opened and closed its mouth in silent protest, its eyes darting back and forth.

“Baa-aaa,” Bub said, imitating the sheep’s sound. He held the head in front of him like a hand puppet. “Baa-aaa.”

Sun had to steel herself and hoped she hadn’t lost composure. A glance at Dr. Belgium found him ashen, and Andy had a look on his face that predicted vomiting.

“Thank you, Bub,” Sun said in metered tones. “That’s enough.”

Bub tossed the sheep’s head into his mouth like a piece of popcorn. It continued to squirm while being munched on. His other claw shot out and grazed the runaway sheep body. It’s belly unzipped, intestines winding out like a firehouse. The demon grabbed a handful and shoveled them in.

“Goooood,” Bub said.

“I’ve got to stop coming here during mealtime,” Andy said, clutching his stomach.

The demon cocked his head to the side, appearing confused.

“Are you sick, Aaaaaandy?”

“No, Bub. It’s just that your eating habits are a little… distressing.”

“You wanted to seeeeee.”

Andy was looking greener and greener, so Sun answered. “We want to learn from you, Bub, but we have a culture gap. Some things that you do aren’t done in our culture, so we don’t know how to react to them.”

Bub jumped up to the Plexiglas, holding the sheep. Sun hadn’t seen him jump before. The leap was over fifteen feet, and Bub landed hard enough to make the ground rumble. He yanked off one of the sheep’s hind legs and held it to his chest. It began to twitch and then bend at the knee back and forth.

“Eeeeeach part is aliiiiive,” Bub said.

“The little parts are called cells.”

“Cells,” Bub repeated. “When the body dieeeeees, the cells still live for some tiiiiiime. I can maaaaake them think the body is still aliiiiiiive.”

“How?” Sun asked.

Bub held the twitching leg up for Sun to see. It was no longer bleeding—in fact, it looked as if it had healed.

“God,” Bub said. “I have pooooowers from God.”

Sun asked, “Can we have that leg so we can study it?”

Bub cocked his head to the side and appeared to think it over.

“Yessssssss.” Bub walked over to the sheep door and squatted, waiting. Sun took a breath and forced herself to move. She unlatched the door and Bub thrust the leg through it, stump first. Sun held it with both hands. It was heavy, and she felt the muscle fibers in the thigh contract and expand, exactly as if the sheep were alive.

“Ressurrrrrrrrrrection,” Bub said.

After he said it, the sheep’s leg contracted and the hoof missed her head by inches. On reflex she dropped it, and it flopped around on the floor like a landed fish.

Bub laughed.

Sun fought the surrealism of the scene and bent over, this time grabbing the leg by the hoof. She walked it over to Dr. Belgium, who was watching the whole episode slack-jawed.

“Can you take some blood samples? Tissue and marrow too?”

Belgium seemed reluctant to touch the leg, but consented and held it by the hoof as Sun had. The leg jerked wildly, and Belgium dropped it. He and Sun bent down for it, and Belgium got a firmer, two handed grip.

“I’ll be in Red 5,” Belgium said, indicating the lab. He walked off, holding the leg at arm’s length of his body.

“Do you want moooore? I could maaake the organs moooove.”

Andy’s hand clamped over his face and he went from green to white.

“Thank you, Bub,” Sun said. “There’s no need for any more right now.”

Bub nodded, then went back to eating. “You okay?” Sun asked, rubbing Andy’s back.

“I’m becoming a vegetarian,” he replied.

Bub’s munching sounds in the background made Andy gag again.

“Do we have any children’s videos on table manners?” Sun asked.

Andy gave her a weak grin.

Behind the Plexiglas barrier, Bub grinned as well.

“I need more Internet tiiiiiiiiiime,” Bub told Dr. Belgium when he returned from Red 5. Sun and Andy had left.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Belgium answered. His Adam’s apple wobbled up and down in his throat.

“I muuuuuust learn moooore.”

Belgium laughed, high pitched and near hysterical. “You’re joking! You went through the entire website of the Encyclopedia Britannica in an hour and a half. You can process information faster than it loads.”

“Open the dooooor,” Bub said. “Let meeeee oooooout.”

“I don’t think…”

“I’ll tell Raaaaace,” Bub interrupted.

“What? Are you blackmailing me?”

“Fraaaaaank,” Bub said softly, the trace of a purr in his voice. “I need more tiiiiiime to seeeeequence my geeeeenome.”

Belgium said nothing.

“Don’t you want to leeeeave heeeere, Fraaaaank?”

Belgium pictured himself, in a boat on a lake, a rod in his hand, the sun in his eyes. He hadn’t fished since he was in grade school, but right now it seemed like the most appealing thing in the world.

He hit the code to Bub’s door. It rose pneumatically and the demon folded his wings and left his habitat for the second time that day. He squatted next to Dr. Belgium and gave him a pat on the head, which Frank recoiled from.

“Gooooood, Fraaaaaank.”

Frank ducked down, away from the hand. The claws grazed his scalp. It was like a hairbrush made of needles.

“You maaaay goooooo,” Bub said, lumbering over to the Cray computer.

Belgium squatted and stayed put, watching as Bub hunched over his workstation. The keyboard was like a pocket calculator to Bub, the monitor must have been like looking at a digital watch. Belgium laughed. It reminded him of an old cartoon, where an elephant moved into a mouse’s house, dwarfing everything to comic proportions.

Using the tip of his pinky claw, Bub accessed the ISP and began to surf the World Wide Web. Samhain’s Internet connection was fiber-optic. The load times were instantaneous. Bub’s hand became a blur, as did the monitor. It seemed impossible that Bub could be absorbing all of that information that fast, but Belgium knew that he was.

He tried to think of all the reasons this was bad. Why shouldn’t Bub be allowed to learn about the world he was in? Think of the things he could teach us, the bridges he could gap, the mysteries he could solve. Bub could be the key to solving all of the world’s problems; disease, hunger, war, death. Bub could create a utopia.

Or he could destroy everything.

But what would be the point in that? Bub had shown himself to be cooperative, and interested in humans. There would be no point in his using the world’s knowledge for bad things.

Belgium laughed again, at the memory of the cartoon elephant drinking out of the mouse’s tiny tea cup.

“This is all insane,” he said to himself.

Then he closed his eyes and imagined sitting on that boat, the sun warm on his face.

The alarm went off at 7:00 AM, but Race was already up. He hadn’t slept much; it seemed that every time he got comfortable his mind woke him up, offering images of combat and war games.

Soon. Very soon.

He hopped out of bed and did a quick round of calisthenics, working his muscles, feeling the sweat and increased respiration, enjoying it more than usual. Healthy body, healthy mind. He finished and hit the shower.

He was tempted to wake everyone up, get this show on the road, but restraint was as important a leadership quality as action. Race dressed in some chinos and a green crew neck and left his room for the Mess Hall. He made a large bowl of pancake batter and added two cans of blueberries to it while a pat of butter melted on the skillet. Helen had taught him how to make pancakes, years ago. He’d always hoped one day she would teach him other dishes. That was becoming more of a possibility with every passing day.

He made six cakes for himself and ate them with honey. Then he made twenty more with the rest of the batter for whoever wanted them. The thought amused him; a Brigadier General making blueberry pancakes for his troops. Even more amusing; the Secretary of Defense making blueberry pancakes.

Race chuckled to himself. He put two more pancakes on his plate and put the rest in the refrigerator. He then poured a glass of milk, and took that and the plate out of the Mess Hall, through the Octopus, and into Yellow 1.

“Who are you?” his wife asked. “What am I doing here? Why am I tied to this bed? Are you a doctor?”

“I’m your husband, dear.”

He set the plate and glass on the nightstand and changed her diaper while fielding her usual questions. She had some diaper rash, and he applied ointment as she protested between sobs. Then he untethered her hands and helped her sit up.

“Oh Race, how did we get so old?” she cried.

He checked her for bed sores and found none; Harker was good at her job in that respect.

“Can you get up, sit at the table for breakfast?”

She sniffled and nodded. Race put his arm around her waist and walked with her to the small breakfast bar on the other side of the room. Her legs were wobbly things, incapable of supporting her fragile body without his help.

“Remember how we used to cut the rug?” Race said, grinning.

Her teary eyes shone for a moment.

“You were quite the dancer,” Helen said.

“You too. I was the envy of every CO on the base with a pretty thing like you at my side.”

He sat her in a chair and fetched the pancakes and milk.

“Blueberry pancakes,” Helen said. “Just like I make.”

He helped her cut them up and she tried to feed herself until the chorea hit, her arm knocking the plate across the table. Race held her until it passed, then gave her some milk.

“Dr. Harker mentioned that Bub was speaking,” Helen said.

This startled Race. Helen usually couldn’t remember anything that happened within the last forty years.

“He is. I’m going to run the Roosevelt Book by him today.”

“Then we can go home,” Helen said.

Race’s eyes welled up. He’d put up so many emotional defenses over the years it was rare when something slipped through.

“Yes, my love. Then we can go home.”

Helen gave him a small kiss on the lips.

“Walk me back to bed, dear. I think I’ll watch some television.”

Race carried her back to bed and retied her arms. The television remote control was bolted to the frame under her right hand. He pressed the power button for her. Helen flipped channels until she found a game show, and Race kissed her forehead and left with the plate and glass. He found Father Thrist in the Octopus, typing away on a computer.

“Good morning, Father.”

“Good morning, General. Today is the big day.”

“It is. Hopefully I’ll get all of it done. It depends how talkative he is.”

“Yes. I would also like some time with Bub. When you’ve finished, of course. The President has granted me that.”

“Of course, Father. You can sit in on my interrogation as well.”

Thrist nodded and turned back to his terminal. Race returned to his room, Blue 1, and picked up his phone. He hit the intercom code and spoke into the receiver.

“Good morning, there are blueberry pancakes in the fridge in limited supply, first come first serve. I would like everyone to meet in the Mess Hall by o-nine hundred hours. Today is the big day.”

He hung up the phone and forced himself to concentrate. His focus should have been on the game, but his mind was already on the victory party. First would be a briefing with the President, of course. Before he accepted any appointments, Race wanted to take a vacation. See how much his country had changed over the last four decades. If things went according to his plan, Helen could accompany him. She always wanted to go to Hollywood. How could he say no?

The President would undoubtedly also want his input on the future of Samhain. Depending on the answers Race got from Bub, there were three possible venues to take. Keep Bub a secret and let the project continue, end the project and go public, or end the project and terminate Bub. Samhain was home to Race, but it was a foster home, and he wouldn’t miss it in the least. Race would help train his replacement, or he would talk with reporters, or he would push the buttons in Yellow 4 that would detonate Bub’s implanted explosives. Whatever the President wanted, Race didn’t care. It wasn’t a soldier’s job to care. But a forty-year tour was long enough. Race wanted out.

He picked up the Roosevelt Book from the dresser and tucked it in his armpit. When he arrived at the Mess Hall Andy and Sun were already there, digging into his pancakes.

“Good morning,” Race beamed. “How’s the grub?”

“Good, thanks,” Andy said.

Sun nodded her approval; she was chewing. Race noted their close proximity to each other, one that implied intimacy, and thought of how times had changed. Race had dated Helen for six weeks before even getting a kiss. These two had known each other for two days and it was apparent they had something going on.

“How’s our permanent resident?” Race asked. “Is he ready to be questioned?”

“He had breakfast earlier,” Sun said. “He’s talking up a storm.”

Andy agreed. “His grasp of language is remarkable. It’s as if he’s been speaking it his whole life. By the time we were done with him last night, his English was better than mine.”

“Great. We’ll begin after everyone has breakfast. Good morning, Frank.”

Dr. Belgium entered Green 2 wearing the rumpled lab coat he’d had on the night before. His face was stubbly and the bags under his eyes were large enough to pack.

“Morning,” he mumbled.

“You look like hell, Doctor. Do you feel okay?”

“Headache. Didn’t sleep well.”

“Let Dr. Harker take a look at you later,” Race said. “Good morning, Rabbi.”

“Shalom,” Rabbi Shotzen said. He sat down at the table. “So the demon is speaking English, yes?”

“Like a native,” Andy said.

“And everyone thinks he learned an entire language overnight? No one is suspicious that he may have known English all along and has been feigning ignorance?”

“Have some pancakes, Rabbi,” Race gave the holy man a pat on the back.

“Thank you, General, I will. You used the kashered cast iron skillet, yes? Good. Remember; we must take everything the demon says with two grains of salt. Bub may not be a fallen angel, but he’s imitating one, and all of hell’s angels lie. Now if someone could pass me a plate maybe?”

Father Thrist came in next, and Race noted that he and Shotzen avoided one another. Thrist waved off on the pancakes and opted for black coffee instead. Dr. Harker was the last to arrive. Race wished her a good morning, and suggested she examine Dr. Belgium after breakfast. Harker grunted acknowledgment, and instead of pancakes she made herself some buttered toast.

Quite a dysfunctional little family, Race thought. It had always been like that, in its many incarnations dating back to 1968. Not like the Army. On the battlefield, men were close-knit with strong bonds. It came from functioning as a unit, rather than as individuals. The dozens of specialists that have lived at Samhain since its inception had never been like that. This motley bunch would last two minutes in combat. Good thing it would never have to be proven.

“If everyone is ready, I’d like to lay down some ground rules,” Race said.

All eyes were on him. He stood up to project better.

“I’m sure we all have things to ask Bub, and everyone will get private time with him, I promise. But the first order of business is to get all of the questions in this book answered. If we go off on tangents, it’ll take forever. We need to stay focused. I’m not going to ask you all to zip your lips, but I am asking for the extraneous questions to be kept to the barest minimum. I also ask that we remain united in our opinion. I’ve done interrogations before, and group numbers give us the psychological advantage. But if there’s dissension, Bub could possibly play on that.”

“What is our opinion, General?” Father Thrist asked.

“We haven’t formed one yet. But we can’t have any in-group bickering in front of Bub. Dr. Belgium, is the video operational?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes yes yes. I just put in a new DVD-R a little bit ago. It’s good for six hours.”

“Good. Remember people, we’re going into this treating Bub as a source of information. He’s like a gold vein that we are trying to dig up. Personal opinions, preconceptions, whether you think he’s the Antichrist or just a nice guy… file it all away. Our object is to get these questions answered.”

“What if we figure out the demon is lying?” Rabbi Shotzen said.

“If Bub appears to be lying, or intentionally evasive, we’ll have to regroup and approach the situation differently. But please let me be the judge of that. Any other questions?”

There were none. Race made eye contact with each member of the group, to make sure he was understood on all counts.

“Okay,” he said, grinning broadly. “Let’s go rattle the gates of hell.”

“The gang’s all heeeeeeere.” Bub grinned his horrible grin.

No one laughed. Andy couldn’t speak for the rest of the group, but he was very much awed by Bub. Not only by the demon’s physical presence—which was substantial—or his apparent powers over the dead, but how quickly he learned. Bub mastered English in just a day, to the point where he was comfortable making jokes. That kind of genius, and all it implied, almost made the linguist speechless.

“We have questions, Bub,” Race said. “Questions we’ve been waiting a very long time to have answered.”

“You may aaaaaask,” Bub said.

He squatted on his haunches in front of the Plexiglas, to the right of the large blood stain the headless sheep had made the previous day. It had turned brown and begun to flake. Andy tried not to look at it.

Race sat in a chair facing Bub. The rest of the group formed a semicircle behind him. Andy sat next to Sun, the holies were on opposite ends, Dr. Harker sat way in the back, and Dr. Belgium stood, pacing back and forth like he was the one in the cage.

“Let’s begin with your background,” Race said. He opened up the old book in his lap but didn’t look at it. “You were found buried eighty feet in the ground in the Culebra Cut in Panama, one hundred years ago. How did you get there?”

Bub titled his head slightly and appeared to think about it, his elliptical eyes flicking left, then right.

“I was in a comaaaaaaa. My people thought I was deaaaaaad.”

“Who were your people?”

“The Kanjobalán Mayaaaaaaa. We lived in a city called Coooooopán.”

“Copán is in Honduras,” Andy said, surprising himself by talking—he’d wanted to remain neutral and simply observe. “That’s eight hundred miles away from Panama. Why were you buried eight hundred miles from Mayan boundaries?”

“I do not knooooow.”

“How long were you with the Maya?” Race asked.

“Threeeeeee hundred years.

“And before that, you lived where?”

“Many plaaaaaces. Across the waaaaaater.”

“How did you travel from place to place?” Race said.

Bub’s wings unfurled behind him as if they were spring-loaded. They opened with the sound of a belt being snapped.

“I caaaaaan fly.”

“Over the oceans?” Sun asked. “Carrying your capsule?”

“I’m strooooong.” Bub’s pectoral muscles twitched and bounced. It reminded Andy of a body builder showing off.

“If you were in all of these places,” Race asked, “why isn’t there any record of you?”

Bub grinned his crooked grin and folded his wings behind his back.

“There isssss,” Bub said. “Look at hisssstory. Many deeeeemons.”

“There are more of you?” Race asked.

“Yesssssss.”

“What happened to them?”

“I don’t knoooooow.”

“Where did you come from,” Race said, “originally?”

Bub’s eyes took on a far away cast.

“From liiiiiiiight,” Bub said. “From light, to darknessssssss.”

“What light?”

“Heavaaaaaaaaan. I was caaaaast out.”

“Cast into hell?” Father Thrist asked, his voice quavering. “Incredible.”

“Yeah, incredible,” Sun repeated. But she didn’t sound convinced. Andy wasn’t sure if he was convinced either, but he forced himself to keep an open mind.

“Explain how the world began,” Race said.

“God created everything. He created angels to be messengers between Hiiiiim and maaaaankiiiind.”

“Why were you cast out?” Thrist asked.

“There was a… disagreeeeeeement.”

Rabbi Shotzen made a snorting sound. Andy guessed him to be skeptical as well.

“What about evolution?” Race asked.

“Evolution is like planting seeeeeeeeds. When there was enough growth, God added maaaaaan.”

“Like the garden of Eden,” Thrist said, looking up from his notes.

“What is your name?” Race asked, leaning closer to the Plexiglas. “Your true name?”

Bub seemed to grow. He stood up to his full height, stretched out his talons, swelled up his chest. When he spoke, it was deep and loud.

“I am the Prince of the Poooooower of Air. The Draaaagon of Dawn. Son of the Mooooorning and Bearer of Liiiiight. The naaame most know me by is Luuuuuuuucifer.”

He settled back down on his haunches. Andy realized he was clenching his fist so tightly his hand had fallen asleep. He shook it, wincing at the tingles of pain as the blood came back in.

“Were you the one who tempted Christ in the desert?” Thrist asked.

“I met him in the desert, Faaaaaather. But not to tempt. Only to warn him of his faaaaaate.”

Thrist’s voice became a whisper. “Was Christ the son of God?”

“Yesssssss. God had sent him down on earth to dieeeeeee.”

“Fa!” Rabbi Shotzen threw up his hands in disgust. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense.”

Bub titled his head at Shotzen. “Bad hangover, Raaaaaaabbi?”

The Rabbi stood up and pointed at the demon. “I don’t know what you are, but Satan you are not.”

“Don’t you beleeeeeeeive me?”

“Do not allow yourself to be misled,” the Rabbi told the group. “He shows only what he wants you to see. You are being manipulated.”

“Foooooool,” Bub said. “Jews are not the chosen peeeeeeeople.”

Shotzen’s face lost all color. He turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

“You warned Christ?” Thrist asked, apparently unaffected by Shotzen’s outburst.

“Wanted to saaaaave him.” Bub leaned back, assuming his lotus position. “God wanted him deaaaaaaad.”

Thrist shook his head. “Christ died for our sins. He wasn’t being punished by God. He died so God would forgive us.”

“God was jealoussssss,” Bub said. “So he killed Hisssss son.”

Thrist shook his head. “It was for our sins. God forgave us.”

“God doesn’t caaaaare about yooooou.”

“What of the resurrection?” Thrist asked. “Christ rising from the dead?”

“Lieeeess.”

“It had to happen,” Thrist declared.

“His followers stole hissssss body from the tooooooomb.”

The priest shook his head. “No.”

“I saaaaaw them.”

“That simply isn’t true.”

“It’s truuuuuuuuuue.”

Thrist deflated in his chair. There was a silence that stretched on for over a minute. Andy wasn’t sure if any of this were true, but he noticed that Father Thrist looked like he’d been beaten up.

“What of prayer?” Race asked finally. “Does God hear prayers?”

“God doesn’t caaaare.”

“I… I don’t feel well,” Thrist said quietly.

“When we die, do we go to heaven?” Race asked.

Bub brought a talon up to his beard and scratched it.

“I don’t knoooooow.”

Race furrowed his brow. “You don’t know? Or you’re not telling?”

The demon’s face got so ugly Andy had to turn away.

“I. Doooooooooon’t. Knooooooooooooooow.”

“How about hell?” Sun asked.

Bub focused on Sun. The anger on his face vanished, replaced with a sly smile.

“Yooooooooou’ll seeeeeeeee.”

Andy looked at the others, wondering if they were as creeped out as he was. They were, except for Race, who appeared more impatient than scared.

“Did God give you the ability to bring back the dead?” Race asked.

“Yessssssss.”

“How about heal? Can you heal the sick?”

“Yesssssss. I can cuuuuuuuuure your wiiiiiiife.”

Race stood up suddenly, pressing his palms to the glass. “Helen?”

“Yessssssss.” Bub touched the Plexiglas, placing his palm against Race’s.

“Bring her to meeeeeeee”

Race paused for a nanosecond, then headed for the door.

“General,” Sun warned. “That isn’t a wise idea.”

“We’ll be right back.”

Race practically yanked Dr. Harker out of her chair and they exited as fast as he could pull her. Andy saw Father Thrist take Race’s place at the glass, both hands pressed against Bub’s.

“Is there no way to win heaven?” Thrist asked. There were tears in his eyes.

“Such sadnessssss,” Bub said. “God doesn’t want you to be saaaaaaad. Maybe there is a waaaaaaaay.”

Thrist nodded several times. “Yes. Of course there’s a way. You just aren’t aware of it. You’ve never read the bible, have you?”

“Noooooooo.”

“I’ll bring you mine. You shall have mine. I’ll be right back.”

Thrist also hurried out of the room.

Andy looked around. “The ranks are thinning.”

“I have a few questions,” Sun moved to Race’s seat. “You said you were in a coma. How did that happen?”

“I don’t knoooooow.”

“Did you get sick? Injured somehow?”

“I don’t knoooooow.”

“I have studied your physiology. You are immune to all disease. We’ve tried practically every bug known to man, nothing makes you sick.”

Bub stared impassively at Sun. His black tongue snaked out of his mouth and licked the mucus from his right nostril.

Andy flinched. Sun asked, “Ever hear the name Kukulcán?”

The demon’s mouth twitched.

“Noooooo.”

“You’re lying,” Sun said. “How about that hot rock thing. What’s it called?”

“Tuunich k’iinal,” Andy said.

“I don’t knoooooow.”

“But it’s engraved in your capsule,” Sun said.

“I don’t knoooooow.”

Sun folded her arms. “And taken 800 miles away from your city, buried seventy feet deep with hand tools. It sounds like they feared you. Feared you even when you were dead.”

“Do you fear meeeeee? There’s nothing to feaaaaaar, but feaaaaaar itself.”

That and talking demons, Andy thought.

But Sun stood her ground.

Why did you wake up now?” She asked. Her voice was getting louder. “What’s special about now? Why not ninety years ago? What took so goddamn long?”

“I was waaaaaaaaiting.”

“For what?”

“The riiiiiiight time.”

“Where did you really come from, Bub? Tell me the truth. None of this bible thumping bullshit.”

The demon looked beyond them.

“Raaaaaace. Heeeeeeeeeelen.”

Race pushed Helen forward in her wheelchair, stopping to give Sun a stern look.

“Don’t let Helen go in there,” Sun said. “You can’t trust him.”

“What happened to remaining united in our opinion?” Race asked brusquely.

“Bub has been lying. I bet everything he’s said so far has been a lie.”

Race looked at Andy, a question in his eyes.

“She’s over-reacting,” Andy said, shrugging.

Sun clenched her fist and Andy thought for a moment that she was going to deck him. Instead she spun on her heels and stormed out.

“Sun doesn’t like meeeeeeeeee.”

“I like you,” Race said. “And I’ll like you even more if you cure my wife.”

Andy tapped Race on the shoulder and whispered.

“Do you think making a deal with the devil is wise, General?”

Race offered a clipped grin. “I asked the other guy, and he wasn’t listening. This is the only hope left.”

“But don’t you think…”

“There isn’t a single thing you could say or do to stop me, son. “

Andy watched Race and Harker wheel Helen over to the feeding door. As far as instincts went, Andy’s weren’t very good. Time and again he’d made the wrong decision, the bad call. But he couldn’t help feeling that everything was about to go horribly, irrevocably wrong.

He got up and went after Sun.

Sun was punching in the code for the first gate when Andy caught up to her.

“Don’t even,” she warned. The affection she felt for the linguist was gone, replaced by a sense of betrayal.

“Shh,” Andy put a finger in front of his lips. “Maybe he can still hear us.”

Sun swung the gate open, aiming for Andy’s shoulder. She missed.

“Hey, hold on.”

Sun lengthened her stride.

“I agree with you,” he said, catching her arm.

“You what?”

He moved in front of Sun and faced her. “I agree with you!” Andy whispered. “Bub’s lying.”

“Well, why did…”

“Shh! Keep it down. Do you remember when Bub said the only thing to fear is fear itself?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So that’s FDR. How has he heard that quote? I don’t think it was on any of the phonics videos.”

Some of Sun’s anger evaporated. She pushed a strand of hair out of her face.

“Okay, we both know he’s lying. So why didn’t you back me up? Race is going to put his wife in there with him.”

“Race is going to do that no matter what we say. I think he made this decision a while ago. Calling Bub a liar isn’t going to help the situation. We need to figure out why Bub is lying, and how can he know that quote.”

Sun nodded. Her affection for Andy returned. He’d played it smart, and she’d reacted without thinking things through.

“Has he been awake since he was brought here and faking it?” Sun said, thinking out loud. “Maybe he’s been biding his time, listening to everything going on around him, taking it all in. Even if he didn’t know English, if he has an eidetic memory, he could remember everything that had been said since his arrival and then translate it after he learned English. Maybe that’s how he knows so much. Or maybe, like Shotzen said, he’s always known English.”

“Possible, but I think that’s reaching.”

“What’s another explanation?”

“Someone’s been coaching him,” Andy said.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But his habitat is always being video recorded, right?”

“Yeah. So we just need to watch the recordings and see who’s been paying him visits.”

“Right. And in the meantime, let’s just play along with him. We know he’s lying, but we don’t know why. Better to let him believe we’re on his side.”

It made sense to Sun.

“Okay. But I still think letting Bub near Helen is a bad idea.”

“I’m beginning to think,” Andy said, “that a lot about Samhain is a bad idea.”

Andy punched in the code for the gate and they returned to Red 14. Race had wheeled Helen over to the pneumatic door on the side of Bub’s habitat. The sheep’s hatch was open, and he was talking to the demon through it. Sun and Andy got close enough to hear the exchange.

“I do have the authority, and the ability, to terminate you if I consider you a threat,” Race said. “There are several safeguards, installed before we knew if you were hostile or not. I’m sure you understand.”

“I want to heeeeeeelp yooooooou.”

Race hesitated. Sun noticed that he had a large white object in his hand, the size of a baseball bat.

“It will be fine, Regis,” Helen said.

Race touched his wife’s neck. “Lower your head, dear.”

Helen hunched down, and Race pushed her chair into the dwelling.

Bub waited, squatting down. Race moved slowly, the white object resting on the wheelchair’s handles.

“Don’t beeeee afraaaaaaid.”

“This is called a cattle prod,” Race said, holding out the white stick. “It’s been modified, and has enough electricity to stop your heart.”

Bub took a step towards them and reached for Helen, his movements slow and steady.

Helen sat stock-still, even when Bub touched her face.

“Relaaaaaaaaaax.”

Bub picked Helen up, slowly and carefully, while Race stood by holding the prod like a broadsword.

Helen began to shake.

This was bad, Sun knew. Very bad. She took a step toward the habitat door, but Andy held her back.

“It’s out of our control,” Andy whispered.

Sun watched, helpless, as Helen’s tremors became worse.

“It’s the chorea,” Race said.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaait,” Bub told him. The demon cradled Helen in his giant arms; close to his chest, like a child would hold a teddy bear. Her trembling gradually subsided.

Sun became aware she was biting her lower lip.

“I brought the bible,” Thrist said, bursting into the room. He stopped in mid-step when he looked in the habitat. “Sweet Jesus,” Thrist whispered.

Helen’s head disappeared in Bub’s massive claw as he appeared to anoint her. She yelped like a scared puppy. Race moved in with the cattle prod, but Bub set Helen down and quickly backed away.

“It’s dooooooone.”

Race looked at Bub, then at his wife, who was lying curled up on the ground.

“Helen?”

She held up her head. “Race?

And then she stood up.

“Helen… you’re standing!”

Race dropped the cattle prod and ran to embrace her.

“My dear, how do you feel? Are you okay?”

“I feel wonderful, Regis. Just wonderful.”

Race began to sob, and then Helen sobbed as well.

“We’ve witnessed a miracle,” Father Thrist said.

He genuflected, kneeling down and making the sign of the cross. Sun sidled up to Dr. Belgium. She remained unimpressed.

“Did you run serum tests on that sheep leg yet?” Sun asked from the corner of her mouth.

“A few. It was still wiggling this morning when I checked. Some apoptosis—cell death, but it’s still moving. Since there’s no respiration or circulation, I think the leg is reabsorbing its own dead tissue for energy.”

“Anything conclusive?”

“I’m running an amino acid detection to ID proteins and enzymes.”

“Where are the recent video recordings of Bub’s habitat?” Sun asked. “For the last week?”

“Uh… Red 4. I’ve been putting them there.”

“Look Regis! I can walk!”

Helen was strolling around the habitat, tentatively at first, and then prancing like a gazelle.

“Wonderful, Helen! It’s wonderful!”

“We’ll also need blood work on Helen,” Sun said. “I don’t trust Harker. Can you do it?”

Belgium nodded, several more times than necessary.

“What should we do now?” Andy asked Sun.

“First the recordings. I’d like a chance to examine Helen myself. I’d also like to spend some time in Red 3 and see what else I can find out about Bub’s physiology. Frank, are you sequencing Bub’s mitochondrial DNA?”

“Hmm? No. Nuclear.”

“Mitochondrial?” Andy asked.

“The genome of an organism is found in the nucleus of a cell,” Sun explained. “Mitochondria are organelles that produce energy for a cell. They also contain DNA, but fewer genes than nuclear DNA.”

“I’lI test for short tandem repeats,” Belgium nodded. “I’m convinced Bub has a lot of the same genes that we do, and that other animals do, but so far I can’t classify them. Maybe an STR of his mitochondria will turn up something.”

“I’d like to get back to the capsule,” Andy said. “See if I can make sense of that hot rock.”

Race and Helen were slow dancing, wet cheek to wet cheek.

Father Thrist was on his knees, hands clasped in prayer.

Dr. Harker had her nail clippers out.

Bub was staring at Sun through the Plexiglas, the expression on his face unpleasant.

Sun shivered. “I liked him better before he could talk,” she said. “Let’s get started.”

She left Red 14, feeling the demon’s eyes on her the entire time.

Pathetic, Dr. Julie Harker thought.

Race had kissed so much demon ass his face was turning brown. The All Important Roosevelt Book had been left on his chair, forgotten. Race and Helen had danced out of Red 14 an hour ago, giggling like teenagers. Probably going to have sex, Harker guessed. The thought sickened her.

Just as sickening was Father Thrist, sucking up to Bub with sycophantic relish. He’d given Bub his precious bible, preaching endlessly about the wonders of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Harker had been a Christian, once. Her parish priest offered no explanation for her daughter’s death, other than the lame “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

A child’s death wasn’t mysterious. It was reprehensible. Harker wanted no part of any religion that allowed such a thing to happen.

Harker sat patiently outside of the habitat, waiting. She had a question to ask Bub, but she wanted to be alone when she did. It was admittedly a long shot, but it kept Harker rooted to her chair, watching Father Thrist grovel and gesture. Harker passed the time by picking at her cuticles, a habit from her youth. A day didn’t go by where she didn’t draw some blood from one or two fingers, cutting down too deep.

After an interminable wait, the priest left. Running off to call the Pope, Harker guessed. The only two remaining in Red 14 were herself and that flake Dr. Belgium. Belgium was busy at the computer, engrossed in some gene program. Harker decided to chance being overheard, and she approached the habitat slowly.

“Dr. Haaaaarker. Are you maaaaaaaad?”

“Mad? Why?”

“I heeeeeeealed Helen. You could noooooot.”

“I haven’t examined her yet, so I can’t be sure the Huntington’s is actually gone.”

“You have dooooooubt.”

“No. I just prefer facts to faith.”

The demon nodded. Harker eyed him, hoof to horn. He was certainly formidable. But supernatural? Harker decided she didn’t care, one way or the other.

“So you can raise the dead?” she asked.

“Yesssssssss.”

“How long can they be dead before you can raise them? Minutes, hours… years?”

“Houuuuuurs.”

Harker frowned. She’d been harboring a minor fantasy of digging up her beloved Shirley and bringing her to Bub. It was ridiculous, she knew. But better to ask than always wonder.

“Who diiiiiied?”

“Excuse me?”

“You want me to bring someone baaaaaaaack.”

Harker’s eyes began to glaze and her lower lip quivered. She couldn’t help it. The pain never went away.

“I lost a child,” Harker said.

Bub grinned. His grin was like opening a drawer full of steak knives.

“I can maaaaaaake a child.”

Harker blinked. “What?”

“A chiiiiild. I can maaaaaaaake one.”

“A newborn?”

“Any aaaaaaaaage.”

That would be perfect! All these years, without hope of ever holding a baby again…

“How?” Harker asked.

“A sheeeeeeeeeep.”

Harker frowned.

“You can make a baby out of a sheep?”

“I can change the geeeeeeeeenes. Make it huuuuuman.”

“I’d like to see,” Harker said.

“I neeeeed your help.”

“How?”

The demon leaned closer to the Plexiglas and lowered his voice.

“We shouldn’t beeeeeeee here,” Bub said.

Harker furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“In Samhaaaaaaain. You and I are trapped heeeeeere.”

No kidding, Harker thought.

“So what do you want?”

“To get oooooooout.”

Harker shook her head. “Impossible. I couldn’t help you. The President would have me killed, plain and simple. He’d send me back to prison for even thinking about it. No way.”

“Booooooy or giiiiiiirl?”

“There’s too much security.”

“Booooooy or giiiiiiirl?”

Harker could picture Shirley’s face.

“A girl. A little girl.”

“I can maaaaake a beautiful giiiiiirl.”

“I can’t. There’s the door here, plus the two coded gates in the Red Arm. There’s also a camera right over my shoulder.”

“Give meeee the cooooooodes.”

Harker thought it over. That couldn’t be traced back to her. And if Bub got out, so what? The demon had a right to be free. He didn’t deserve to be locked up here any more than Harker did. In fact, if Bub escaped, Harker might even be allowed to leave. No more Bub, no more Project Samhain.

But even more important than that was the thought of having a child. If just for a few stolen hours. It had been so long. The feedings, the diapers, those little fingers and toes…

“I give you the door code, you make me a child,” Harker confirmed.

Bub nodded.

“The child first,” Harker said.

“I neeeeeeeed proof.”

“How?”

“You’ll think of soooooomething.”

Harker would think of something. Suddenly nothing else mattered to her. During her trial she’d been evaluated by a court-appointed shrink who did a thoroughly incompetent job, but who had managed to say something interesting. Harker had shown no remorse. And why should she have? She loved Shirley more than her birth parents ever could have. But because Harker never felt bad for her actions, the judge decided she could never be rehabilitated.

And never was a very long time.

“Everything you told the priest,” Harker said, “that was all bullshit, wasn’t it?”

“Whyyyyyyyyyy?”

“I need to know if I can trust you. Maybe if I let you escape you’ll try to murder us all.”

Bub laughed, a giant frog croaking.

“Truuuuuust meeeeee.”

Harker decided that she didn’t care what Bub’s plans were. She was going to help him no matter what.

“Okay. I’ll need some time to think of something. We’ll also need some way to turn off the video camera. I don’t want to get caught.”

“I’ll take caaaaare of that. Tell Sun I want two sheeeeeeeeep.”

“Fine.”

Harker checked her watch. She had about an hour. How could she somehow prove to Bub that she was giving him the real code, other than taking him out of his habitat and showing him?

Showing him.

“I’ll see you at lunch time,” Harker said. She left Red 14, hoping she’d be able to make her plan work.

• • •

Dr. Frank Belgium was oblivious to the exchange. He was busy multi-tasking on the Cray. Switching focus from nuclear to mitochondrial DNA, Belgium used restriction enzymes to cut some specific sequences, then used a PCR—polymerase chain reaction—machine to amplify the sample for an STR test. The DNA molecules actually went through channels in a microchip and then passed through a laser beam, getting ‘fingerprinted’ in the process. This would give him a tagged sequence that could be checked against samples from other life forms in the database.

At the same time, he was using some proteomic tools to identify the amino acids in the serum sample he took from the re-animated sheep’s leg. Genes were sort of like factories that could build themselves. DNA coded for protein. Some of the protein was used to make things like cells and antibodies, but some of it was used to make enzymes and hormones. These were chemicals that caused biochemical reactions within the body.

For instance, insulin was a hormone that lowered blood sugar, and a lack of it resulted in diabetes. HGH was responsible for human growth, and lack of it caused dwarfism, or too much of it caused NBA players. Enzymes speeded biochemical reactions—saliva contained enzymes that helped break down starches, aiding in digestion, and the restriction enzymes used so often in molecular science were chemicals that functioned like tiny pairs of scissors, cutting DNA molecules at specific sequences. These were essential to genetic research, because a single strand of DNA could have billions of base pairs, making it unwieldy indeed.

Belgium was convinced that Bub’s power of resurrection was either hormonal or enzymic, and in order to prove it he had to identify the proteins. Since proteins were made of amino acids, that was what he searched for. Some of the tools he used were AACompIdent, PeptIdent, SWISS-PROT, and TrEMBLE; all extremely sophisticated amino acid identifiers.

“Let meeee oooooout,” Bub said, startling Belgium to the point that he almost fell out of his chair.

“What?”

“I want the inteeeernet.”

Belgium had already made the decision that he wouldn’t let Bub out again. He knew Bub had lied during the interrogation. Bub had claimed to have never read the bible, but Frank had checked the cookies in the Temp file, and several of the websites Bub had been extensively surfing were biblical. That made everything the demon had said suspect.

Belgium wasn’t sure why Bub would lie—he’d cured Race’s wife and been friendly to everyone—but he decided he wasn’t going to give Bub access to any more information.

The last 24 hours had been gut-wrenching for Belgium. He destroyed the video recordings of Bub leaving his habitat, but he was still worried the infraction would be discovered. He was even more worried once he realized Bub was lying. If Bub had done anything harmful, Belgium would consider himself to blame. After his screw-up at BioloGen, Frank didn’t want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt ever again. He would sequence Bub’s genome without the demon’s help, no matter how long it took.

“I’m sorry, Bub. The server is down. It happens all the time.”

Bub didn’t answer right away.

“Are you lyyyyyyyying?” he finally asked. The tone in his voice seemed to bore into Frank’s bones.

“Hmm? No no no, of course not, Bub. Our server is under construction. Maybe they’re doing an upgrade.”

“Use another server.”

“We don’t have a contract with another server. Besides, we couldn’t access another server without using our current server.”

“I wish to see.”

“There’s nothing to see, simple as that.”

Belgium buried his face in his notes, pretending to be in deep concentration.

“I’ll telllllllll them,” Bub said,

“Tell them what, Bub?”

“Telllllllllll them that you let me oooooooout.”

Belgium turned away from the monitor and faced Bub. He couldn’t believe how scared he felt.

Don’t show fear, he said to himself.

“I made a mistake letting you out. Twice. I won’t do it again. If you want Internet time, you’ll have to talk with Race. I’m sure he’ll give you the world, after what you did with Helen.”

Bub laughed. This confused Belgium, who wasn’t aware he’d said anything funny.

He decided to finish up in Green 4. There was a computer there, and he could access the Cray without having to deal with Bub.

“Enjoy the time you haaaaaaaaaave,” Bub said as Frank left.

Belgium didn’t know what that meant, but he didn’t like the sound of it. Not one bit.

“That was the last one,” Sun said. “For a scientist, his organizational skills suck.”

She and Andy had been in Red 4, fast forwarding through the surveillance DVDs of Bub since he’d been put into the habitat.

They’d just zipped through Bub’s first feeding, which was gory even at 32X speed. After the horrifying meal, Bub appeared to say something. Andy shuttled back and let it play at normal.

“Messy eater,” Race said on the monitor.

“Ba’ax u k’aat u ya’al le t’aano?” Bub replied.

Andy translated the Mayan dialect in his head. “Bub was asking Race What does that expression mean?”

“So he didn’t know English yet?”

“Apparently not.”

They fast-forwarded through the two times Race went into the dwelling, changed discs, and sped through more eating and sleeping.

The discs were not labeled and they weren’t in sequential order. This was annoying, because Sun and Andy had to go through each disc to find the current one, and it turned out that one was missing.

An hour wasted. Andy picked up the phone and dialed Red 14.

“No answer,” he said.

He tried Dr. Belgium’s room, Blue 10. The doctor wasn’t there, either.

“Maybe he’s the one that took the disc,” Sun said. “He’s in charge of them.”

“Could be. But it could have been anyone. At least now we can be fairly certain that the disc is intentionally missing. Someone is trying to cover something up.”

“So what does it prove?”

“More proof that Bub was lying, I guess. I don’t know, I’m an interpreter, not a detective.”

“Why would someone be helping Bub lie?”

Andy leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Isn’t it obvious? People make deals with the devil all the time.”

Sun could see his point. She’d only been here a week, but she’d seen enough to accurately describe the Samhain staff as dysfunctional. She stood up and stretched.

“I’m going to Red 3, put some time in. I recall reading something in there that didn’t make sense. I can’t remember what the hell it was.”

Andy said, “I’ll be in Red 6 with the capsule. I want to check the Maya glyphs against the Egyptian ones, see if they say the same thing.”

“I’ve got to feed Bub soon. Wanna meet me in Orange 12 in say, forty minutes?”

“Sure. I’m hungry myself. We can grab a bite.”

Andy held open the door for Sun, something that Steven used to do for her all the time. She smiled. The memory no longer hurt.

“Hi, Dr. Harker,” Andy said. The physician was standing in the hall, outside the door.

Eavesdropping? Sun wondered.

“Did you examine Helen yet?” Andy asked.

Dr. Harker looked briefly at Andy, surprise on her face. Then she looked at the floor.

“Not yet,” Harker said.

“What’s with the video camera?” Sun pointed at Harker’s hand.

Harker was holding a palm-sized camcorder, one of the ultra-small models with the flip out screen. She was trying unsuccessfully to put it into her lab coat pocket.

“I borrowed it from the AV room. I was going to take some footage of Bub and analyze it.”

“Analyze it,” Sun intoned. She made no attempt to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

Harker nodded.

“That blinking green light.” Andy pointed to the camera. “That means it’s taping.”

Harker brought the camera up to eye level and stared at it as if it were an alien. Andy pressed the red button on the grip and the green light stopped blinking.

“Thanks,” Harker mumbled. “When does Bub eat?”

“We’re going to feed him at noon,” Sun answered.

“Bub said… he told me… that he was very hungry and he wanted two sheep for lunch.”

Harker wasn’t speaking to Sun. She was speaking to a point over her right shoulder. How could anyone become a doctor with people skills that were this bad?

“Okay,” Sun said. “We’ll bring him two.”

Andy briefly touched Sun’s arm, and then walked across the hall and disappeared into Red 6. Harker avoided looking at Sun and made her way to the gate, fumbling with the code.

Sun watched her go. She disliked Harker, but now dislike had turned to outright suspicion. Harker did the barest minimum to get by at Samhain. She’d also taken a less than active interest in Bub, when everyone else had been buzzing like bees since the demon awoke. Why, all of the sudden, did she want to videotape him? Could this have something to do with the missing surveillance disc?

After almost a minute of fumbling, Harker made it through the gate. Perhaps I should tell Race about Dr. Harker’s new video fetish, Sun thought. Whether Race would care or not was anyone’s guess, but it was his show and he should be kept informed on what everyone was doing.

Unless Race was the one helping the demon out. After all, Bub just cured his wife. Or at least, he seemed to.

Sun tried to clear her mind and concentrate on the latest problem at hand; Red 3. Somewhere, in all of that paperwork, she’d seen something that was important. It tugged at her subconscious—perhaps one of the tests run on Bub. There was something that she’d missed and she was determined to find it.

Sun passed Dr. Harker again, heading into the Octopus, and subconsciously noted that once again the green light was flashing on Harker’s camcorder.

Bub had to die.

Rabbi Shotzen pondered and prayed and pondered and prayed, and that was the conclusion he came to. That was G-d’s will. It was also a matter of survival.

Whether Bub was a demon or not didn’t matter. If he were Lucifer, as he claimed, then Shotzen would be doing the world a favor by destroying him. If he were something else, at the very least Shotzen would be saving Judaism. Father Thrist was proof.

Thrist was the most skeptical man Shotzen had ever met. If Bub had won him over that easily, he would have little difficulty convincing the rest of the world. All Bub had to do is go on television and talk about Jesus being the messiah. The Jews, the chosen people of God, would again be persecuted in the name of Christ, this time to extinction.

The Rabbi knew what would happen. There were two billion Christians in the world, three hundred million in North America alone. Muslims numbered over one billion. Jews? Fourteen million worldwide. The opposition outnumbered them two hundred to one. If Bub were to go public, spouting off about Jesus Christ, the repercussions would be enormous. The US might cease support of Israel, which could very well mean its destruction. In America, the vandalism of synagogues and the harassment of Jews would escalate and violence would no doubt erupt.

Shotzen couldn’t let that happen. Christ was not moschiac. It was impossible. The messiah was to be of Davidic lineage. If Christ were the son of G-d, how could he be descended from David? G-d was one being, not a trinity as the Catholics said. That was sacrilege.

So he only had one course of action. Bub had to be destroyed. Just as David had slain Goliath, Shotzen had to destroy a giant of his own. It was treason, he knew. The United States might very well execute him. But if he got out word to Jews worldwide, he believed the support would be total. He would truly be the savior of his people. They might even embrace him as a hero. And his memoirs, so long thought to be a pipe dream, might some day be studied at yeshivot around the globe, alongside with the work Rabbi Moses ben Maimon and Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph.

Normally, he would consult a bais din, a house of justice consisting of three Rabbis, to discuss the legal points of killing Bub. The Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin discussed setting up a court to try crimes, but this only applied to humans, of which Bub was not. Jewish law did allow for killing the pursuer without a bais din. In fact, if there is an obvious threat, G-d commands Jews to respond with mortal judgment.

Bub was an obvious threat to 14 million Jews, so Shotzen considered himself justified in destroying him.

Bub might kill him, of course. But he was willing to take the risk to save his people.

Shotzen outlined the plan in his memoirs; should he not survive there would at least be a record of his bravery and sacrifice. His first idea was to detonate the bombs that had been surgically implanted in Bub’s head and chest. But the trigger for them was in Yellow 4, and it had a locked door with a keypad entrance. Only Race could get in there.

Shotzen decided the next best way to destroy Bub was with fire. The flames could possibly even set off the bombs. He could sneak into the habitat while Bub slept. But what to use?

The rabbi harkened back to his youth and remembered a hate crime; a synagogue that had burned to the ground. Vandals had thrown a bottle filled with kerosene at the front door. That kind of incendiary weapon had a name, Shotzen recalled. A Molotov cocktail.

Samhain had a back-up generator that ran on gasoline. Shotzen could fill an empty schnapps bottle with gas, stuff a sock down the bottle neck as a wick, and he’d have a fire bomb. One should be enough; after all, one destroyed an entire two story synagogue. Shotzen decided to make two, just in case.

He had half a bottle of schnapps plus the empty from the night before. Shotzen indulged in a quick slug to calm his nerves, and then dumped the rest of the liquor down the sink. He placed both bottles in his pillowcase and left his room.

He walked quickly and with purpose. The Octopus was empty. Shotzen took the Yellow Arm to room 8, the generator room. He turned on the lights.

The generator sat silently in the corner, a large green appliance the size of several refrigerators. Off to the right was a gasoline pump, an older version of the modern day gas station model. Shotzen set down the pillowcase and removed the bottles. The gasoline shot out of the nozzle like a garden hose, and the rabbi spilled as much as he bottled. Gas evaporated quickly, so Shotzen didn’t worry himself over it.

He capped the bottles, put them back in the pillowcase, and headed for the Red Arm. He would check on Bub. If the demon was asleep, he would proceed. If not, he’d stick around until he had the chance.

Shotzen had trouble with the gates; his hands were shaking. When he approached Red 14, he opened the door just an inch and peeked inside. Dr. Harker was standing in front of the habitat, talking with the demon.

Rabbi Shotzen closed the door silently and contemplated his next move. He went through the first gate and decided to hold fort in Red 7. It was a small storage room. There were various cleaning supplies scattered around. Shotzen set the bottles down next to a collection of mop heads, then sat down and removed his socks. He unscrewed the bottle tops and stuffed one sock into each bottle neck. Then he tilted the bottles upside down, saturating the makeshift wicks with gas.

He had a several disposable lighters in his pocket. In his room was a collection of over thirty. His wife Reba had smoked, and Shotzen’s method of discouraging her was to constantly take her lighters. She never did quit, but for some reason he’d never gotten rid of them. Strangely, they were all he had left to remind him of Reba. The get granted her possession of everything, down to the last photograph.

Shotzen said a quick blessing, wishing her the best wherever she was. He bore her no ill will. His sterility and his alcoholism were more than any woman should have had to bear.

He took out a lighter and flicked it once. Twice. No flame.

He tried a second one and it worked instantly. Shotzen adjusted the flame to its greatest height, almost two inches. Then he shook it to make sure there was plenty of fluid left.

There was.

He heard voices in the hallway. Sun and Andy. He could also make out the footfalls of sheep. They were bringing Bub his lunch. Good. Bub usually took a nap after eating. That would be the time to strike.

Shotzen checked his compass, something he’d gotten from Race and always carried around, and faced east. He took his siddur—his prayer book—from his pocket and read the afternoon service. Then, while still standing, he began to pray the Amidah. He prayed aloud and with kavanah—intent—but he kept his voice a whisper.

When the prayer ended he began to shuckle, rocking back and forth, davening to Adonai for judgement, purpose, and strength.

He was going to need it.

Dr. Julie Harker sat in the back of the room and watched impatiently as Sun led the two sheep into Bub’s habitat. Andy Dennison, the interpreter, was helping her.

She’s screwing him, Harker decided. Didn’t waste much time either; the guy had only been here a few days. It reminded Harker of her mother. She used to sleep around too. Harker couldn’t count all the times she was taken to different men’s houses and left in front of the television while her mom hurried to the bedroom. One more horrible memory from a horrible childhood.

Harker turned on the camera and videotaped the hideous spectacle, giving further credence to her earlier lie. Bub got down to business quickly. As soon as the sheep entered his domain Bub had grabbed each by the head. With a quick twist of his giant talons he broke their necks in unison, and then began to feast.

As Bub gorged himself, Sun engaged him in some brief conversation, asking why his hunger had increased. Bub explained that a creature of his high metabolism needed a lot of calories to maintain itself. Bub had only learned English yesterday, Harker noted, and was already lying like a pro.

The demon ate quickly, stuffing the final bit of the first sheep into his gaping maw only minutes after beginning. Through the zoom of the camcorder lens Harker could see that Bub was able to unhinge his lower jaw like a snake to get the big pieces down.

He began to chow down on the second sheep, causing Harker to stop taping and shoot him a look. The extra sheep was to become Harker’s little girl. Had she been tricked?

Sun and Andy neglected to stay for the second course, and when they left Bub stopped eating.

“That’s supposed to be my child,” Harker snapped as she approached the habitat. “You’re eating my baby.”

“Don’t woooooooorry,” Bub cooed.

“I don’t want a daughter with bite marks out of her.”

“She’ll be fiiiiiiiiiine.”

“I want her perfect.”

“She’ll be fiiiiiiiiiine. Give me the cooooooodes”

Harker held the camcorder up to the Plexiglas. She pressed the stop button and rewound the tape.

“I recorded myself punching in the code, so you know it works. See for yourself.”

She faced the viewing screen at Bub and let the tape play. Bub kept perfectly still while he watched, like a cobra before it strikes.

“The second gaaaaaaate.”

“The same code,” Harker stated matter-of-factly. “I would have kept taping, but I was almost caught.”

Bub eyed her closely. Julie wasn’t quite sure why she lied. Perhaps it was because having a nine foot demon running around loose wasn’t the smartest thing to allow. Perhaps it was because she didn’t entirely trust Bub to make her a little girl. If all worked out, Harker might give Bub the second code later on. Maybe in another deal. Harker would enjoy having a little boy for her daughter to play with.

“We have a deal, right?” Harker narrowed her eyes. There was no way Bub could tell she was lying. Harker was too good at deception. She’d cared for one for nearly a year.

“What color eeeeeeeeeyes?”

Harker blinked. She’d never considered it.

“Blue eyes. And blonde hair. Curly blonde hair.”

Just like Shirley, Harker thought.

“Watch the doooooooor,” Bub instructed.

He dragged the carcass of the sheep further back into his habitat, coming to rest behind some bushes. Harker stood in the doorway to Red 14, alternating her attention between the hall and the habitat.

“How about the surveillance camera?” she called to Bub.

He didn’t answer. Minutes passed. Harker could see the legs of the sheep poking out from behind the brush. At first they twitched, then the twitching became bucking. When the blood started to spray, Harker left the door to take a closer look.

Bub rested his palm on the prone sheep’s chest. The sheep was jerking wildly under his hold, almost as if an electric current was being passed through it. Slowly, it began to expand. The wool, matted black with blood, peeled away like strips of wet carpet. Then the skin detached itself from the skeleton and puffed out until the sheep was double its original size. It began to bleat, high-pitched and frantic.

It’s screaming, Harker realized.

There was a large wet POP as the skin burst. A fine mist of blood sprayed Bub, covering him with droplets. With his free claw, Bub tore away the remaining skin. The muscles underneath were dark red and stringy and…

Changing.

All four legs shortened, seeming to shrink into themselves. As if its bones were made of rubber, bending and twisting until it no longer resembled a sheep, just a squirming mass of connective tissue.

The bleating became the choke of someone drowning.

Then the head imploded and promptly expanded into a human skull shape.

“Watch the dooooooooooor,” Bub commanded.

But Harker was rooted. The body convulsed, sending blood and stringy sinew in all directions like thrown spaghetti. It curled up into a position that was obviously fetal. Bub continued to keep his claw on its chest, in contact with the heart.

The musculature became a lighter and lighter red until it was pink. Harker realized it wasn’t changing color; skin was forming. It kicked its legs, now ending in recognizable feet rather than hooves. Harker watched as its hands, shaped like two mittens, began to divide and splay until they each had five fingers.

Bub’s concentration was intense. He appeared almost in a trance.

The bleating was high-pitched now, almost the wail of a siren. It slowly died down, becoming rhythmic, more recognizable.

The cries of a child.

Harker tried to swallow, but the lump in her throat was too big.

The changes became more gradual. Harker came up to the habitat and pressed her forehead against the Plexiglas. She could make out fine hair, springing from the scalp wet with blood. As the girl cried, Harker could catch glimpses of the gums forming and the tongue taking shape.

“Incredible,” Harker whispered.

The child blinked, revealing startling blue eyes. The details on her small body became sharper: nipples formed, fingernails grew, a belly button. Genitals, small and delicate. The many bends of the ear. Eyebrows and lashes. It was as if Harker was looking at her from far away through binoculars, slowly fine-tuning the focus.

“All dooooooooone.”

The girl had stopped crying. She lay on her back, arms and legs twitching.

“She’s done?” Harker asked.

“Yessssssssss.”

“Can she eat?”

“Sucking reeeeeeeflex.”

“Bring her,” Harker said.

Bub gently picked up the child with one claw and took her to the side door. Harker hurried over to it.

“My daughter.” Harker’s voice broke.

She took the child in both arms, holding her close. It felt so natural. So good.

“Mama needs to clean you up, Shirley. You’re all covered in blood.”

The child gripped her blouse and Harker almost swooned from joy. She had to get her back to her room in the Blue Arm without being seen. How?

“Watch her for a moment,” Harker said, handing the child back to Bub.

The girl closed her eyes and sucked her thumb.

Harker flew out of the room, through the gates, through the Octopus, into the Green Arm. Green 8 housed the two large food freezers. Harker went into the first, finding a large box filled with frozen loaves of bread. She emptied the bread onto the floor. The box seemed big enough.

She hurried back to Red 14 unseen. Shirley was sleeping in the palm of Bub’s claw, curled up in a little ball. Perfect. Harker put the child into the box gently, so as not to wake her.

“Haaaaaaaave fun,” Bub said, grinning.

Harker was too nervous, too excited to answer. The box was cumbersome, but she welcomed the burden. She held it tight to her chest, careful not to jostle and redistribute the precious weight inside. More valuable than gold. More valuable than even freedom.

A box full of love, Harker thought.

The tears came freely now. Joy so sharp it was painful. Once again, after years of fruitless fantasies and desperate dreams, Julie Harker was finally complete once again.

She was a mom.

Father Thrist had never felt so close to Jesus Christ. He felt Him in his heart. He felt Him running though his veins. He felt Him with every breath, every step, every pore.

He hurried down the Red Arm, anxious to perform his first baptism in over twenty years. Bub, having read the bible Thrist had lent him, had decided to become Catholic.

Besides receiving the First Sacrament, Bub was anxious for others as well; the Second Sacrament, Penance, and the Third Sacrament, the Eucharist, receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion.

The world was soon going to change, Thrist knew for sure now. Bub would usher in a new era of religious awakening. His message of Christ’s Divinity would resonate to all corners of the earth. There would be no more doubters. Even the most stubborn contrary faiths would have to recant. Rabbi Shotzen’s conviction that Jesus never met the criteria of the Messiah would soon be overturned. Every knee would bow. Every tongue would swear loyalty to the one true God. And when that happened, the lion would lay down with the lamb and there would be universal peace, praise be to Christ.

Thrist had dressed for the occasion. Over his green cassock and Roman collar, Thrist wore a white alb and amice, a stole, and a white floor-length chasuble. Pride was a sin, of course, but Thrist loved wearing full Christian liturgical garb. It made him feel holy.

He entered Red 14 with an uncharacteristic smile.

“Good afternoon, Bub.”

“Faaaaaaaaaather.”

The demon sat in the center of the habitat, his legs in an odd lotus position—odd because his knees bent forward rather than backward.

He looked peaceful, Thrist thought.

“Have you decided on a Christian name?” Thrist asked.

“Luuuuucifer Michaeeeeeeeeeel,” Bub answered.

Father Thrist’s chest swelled.

“I am honored. Lucifer Michael it is. I was named after the arch angel Micha-el. Did you know him?”

“Nooooooooo.”

“Tell me about God again,” Thrist said.

He felt like a child who never tired of his favorite bedtime story.

“God is pure blissssssss. He’s watching us right noooooow. He loves yoooooooou.”

Thrist closed his eyes, trying to imagine being in the presence of God. Thrist had never known bliss. It sounded too wonderful to bear.

“Let us save your soul then,” the priest said, “so you may once again be with God in heaven.”

Father Thrist nodded and patted the satchel he carried. In it were two copies of the Missale Romanum—the Latin Mass. Bub would serve as the choir and read the responses. The bag also contained a vial of holy water, a goblet, an unleavened circle of bread with a cross imprinted upon it, and a small bottle of red wine.

“We shall celebrate Mass,” Thrist said. “You shall be baptized, get Penance, and finally receive the Body and Blood of Christ.”

“Through the glasssssssss?” Bub asked.

The priest shook his head. “I shall be in the habitat with you.”

The creature uncrossed his legs and stood. He approached the Plexiglas slowly.

Bub whispered, “Aren’t you afraaaaaaaaid?”

“Of course not, Bub. I have no reason to be.”

Father Thrist marched over to the side hatch without fear. He opened the small door with the assurance of his faith.

Big mistake.

Bub was waiting for him when he entered. He grabbed the priest in his claw and held him up against the inner wall of the dwelling, five feet off the ground.

“What are you doing?” the priest asked, more surprised than afraid.

Bub grinned, a mouth of daggers.

“Open the dooooooooor,” the demon said.

“This is not the way to be saved,” Thrist said. “That door isn’t the door you need to worry about. The door to heaven is…”

“Shhhhhhhhhhh,” Bub held a talon over Thrist’s mouth. “Enough talk of heaven and God and Jesussssss. I met Jesus, priest, but not in the desssssssert. I met him in a whore hooooouse. He was fat and uuuuuugly.”

“Lies,” Thrist’s voice was barely a whisper. He couldn’t get his mind around what was happening. “Blasphemy.”

“The whoooooooores didn’t want to touch him. He had to pay extraaaaaa. But at least he didn’t die a virrrrrgin… like yooooooou.”

The reality of the deceit now weighed fully on Thrist. His friend, Rabbi Shotzen, had been right all along. In his eagerness for proof, he had eschewed faith.

This time, the epiphany had come too late. He was a fool to think he could change the devil.

But he wasn’t fool enough to listen to his lies.

“I… renounce you, Satan.”

“Open the doooooor.”

Bub traced an upside down cross on Thrist’s left cheek, drawing blood. Thrist was terrified, but the holy man refused to flinch.

“Let meeeee give you Holy Communion, Faaaaaaather.” Bub barked a laugh. “Hoc est enim corpus meum!”

Take and eat this, for this is my body.

Bub pinched himself in the pectoral muscle and removed several ounces of his own flesh. The wound knitted itself instantly.

Thrist tried to turn his head away, but Bub forced the raw meat into his mouth. It was warm and smelled of decay, and it seemed to wiggle and squirm as if still alive.

The priest vomited, staining his vestments.

It would be the first of many stains.

“Open the doooooor.”

“Never,” Thrist spat. “I will not do the work of the devil.”

“Christ died in paaaaaaaain.” Bub said. “Your death can be woooooooorse.”

Bub moved his face closer to the priest’s. Thrist could smell his fetid breath and see ragged bits of sheep still clinging to his teeth.

“The Lord is my shepherd,” Thrist said, “I shall not want.”

“Heeeeere comes the paaaaaaaain.”

Thrist felt Bub’s claw sliding down his left leg. The demon grabbed it tight and slowly began to twist. There were cracking sounds, and then a loud pop when the knee gave out.

Thrist screamed, the first time he’d ever screamed in his life.

“Now waaaaatch.”

The priest felt a pressure in his chest, akin to suffocation. Then his body was enveloped in a fold of warmth, a warmth so complete that Thrist thought the Holy Spirit had rescued him.

He was mistaken.

“I just healed yoooooour leg”

Thrist was astonished to find the agony completely gone. He moved his leg and it felt normal.

“Here is cooooomes.”

Bub twisted the leg again, faster than before.

Again Thrist cried out, but this time Bub opened his toothy maw and a black tongue snaked out, slithering into Thrist’s mouth and silencing the cry.

Tears streaked down the priest’s face as Bub wiggled the broken leg this way and that way, his vile tongue raping Thrist’s throat.

Father Thrist prayed for death.

It didn’t come.

Just as he was close to passing out, Bub removed his tongue and allowed him to breathe again.

“Do you want me to heeeeeeeeeeal you?” Bub whispered.

Thrist’s face began to spasm, his left eye blinking uncontrollably. His facial tic had returned.

“Open the doooooor.”

The priest said nothing. The pain in his leg was overwhelming, but even worse was the left side of his face. Every twitch of his upper lip pierced his soul.

“What’s wrong with your faaaaaaaaaace?”

Thrist’s entire world was reduced to despair. The facial tic was proof. His God had forsaken him.

“I can make it wooooooorse,” Bub said.

He gave the leg a twist and Thrist blacked out.

• • •

When the holy man awoke, there was no pain.

“We can do this all daaaaaay,” Bub said.

He grabbed the same leg. Father Thrist gagged at the thought of the oncoming agony. He knew he couldn’t handle it again. The very idea made his gorge rise.

“…please…”

“Where is your God nooooooow?”

Thrist’s eyelid was blinking like crazy. “…no more…”

“Pray to me, Faaaaaather. Pray to me to not to hurt yoooooooou.”

“I… I…”

“Kneeeeeeeel, priest.”

Thrist knew he was a dead man. The moment he’d stepped into the habitat, his fate had been sealed. But that was the fate of his body. The fate of his eternal soul remained unresolved.

Until now.

Father Michael Thrist silently asked God for the forgiveness of his sins, and thanked the Almighty for the privilege of his life and the opportunity presented to him. Thrist had come there today expecting a baptism, but it turned out he was the one about to be baptized.

The Church called it the Baptism of Blood. Dying a violent death in the name of the Lord.

Thrist embraced martyrdom like a gift.

“No.”

“Nooooooooooo?”

Thrist faced the demon. His facial tic had disappeared, and he stood proudly, without fear. Jesus died for mankind’s sins, and Thrist was honored to die in His name.

“I shall not kneel.”

Bub lifted the priest up and twisted each of his feet backwards. Thrist began to cry, and Bub held him on the ground in a kneeling position.

“Worship meeeeeeeee.”

“No,” the priest said through clenched teeth.

The demon took one of Thrist’s arms and bent it back at the elbow. It snapped with the sound of a gun shot. Thrist screamed again.

“Proclaim your loyalty to meeeeeeee.”

There could be no worse death, Thrist thought. Or no greater death.

“I proclaim… my loyalty…”

“Yesssssssssssss.”

He looked up, past Bub, past the ceiling, past the two hundred feet of earth above them.

Thrist said it clear and strong, “To my Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Bub went to work on the other arm, but Thrist had gone to another place in his mind. He knew Bub was twisting and breaking his body, but he no longer felt any pain. He could picture heaven, as Bub had described it. Eternal bliss. His faith had been restored, and Thrist had no fear of death.

Not even when Bub pulled off his leg.

“Fooooooool,” Bub hissed at him. “Open the fucking dooooooooor.”

The priest looked up at Bub and smiled beatifically through his veil of tears and blood.

“I forgive you,” Thrist whispered.

He didn’t feel it when Bub bit off his head.

Rabbi Shotzen thought he heard a scream. He stopped his prayer and listened.

Silence.

He began again in earnest, intoning under his breath, “Kadosh kadosh kadosh…”

Another scream. This time he was sure he heard it. Moving cautiously, he approached the door and opened it a crack.

The Red Arm was empty.

He craned an ear to listen.

Nothing. Not a sound.

Perhaps it wasn’t a scream. But he should check. He’d heard the gate open a few minutes ago. It had been Father Thrist, visiting Bub in full church regalia. But that couldn’t have been Thrist who screamed. Even he wasn’t foolish enough to go into the habitat.

Then again…

Rabbi Shotzen was overcome by a sudden burst of urgency. He grabbed his bag of Molotov cocktails and held onto the lighter, and then he rushed out into the hall and saw…

Bub was crawling out of Red 14.

“Jesus Christ,” Shotzen said.

The demon pulled himself through the tight fit of the door and cocked his head at Rabbi Shotzen.

“Shalom, Raaaaaaaabbi,” Bub said.

Shotzen set down the bag and with shaking hands and took out the first bottle.

Bub couldn’t stand erect because the ceiling was too low. He crawled up to the first gate, and to Shotzen’s amazement, punched in the code.

The bars swung open.

Shotzen flicked the lighter. Once. Twice. Three times. No flame. He looked at it and saw he had the wrong one.

“Your friend Faaaather Thrist,” Bub said, crawling forward, “has something to saaaaaay.”

The demon opened his mouth and coughed. A red ball flew out of his throat and bounced before him, sticky with goo.

Shotzen took a closer look and saw it wasn’t a ball.

Bub picked it up and held it out to Shotzen.

Father Thrist’s head, slicked in gore.

It blinked.

Then it blinked again, and opened its mouth as if to say something.

“What’s thaaaaaat?” Bub asked, holding his other claw to his ear. “You’ll have to speeeeeeak up.”

Shotzen gagged.

“He wants to talk to yoooooou.”

The creature chucked Thrist’s head at the Rabbi. On reflex, Shotzen dropped the bottle and the lighter and caught it with both hands like a basketball. The firebomb fell to the ground and shattered.

Shotzen stared at the head in his hands.

“Kill me,” the priest’s lips clearly said.

Shotzen yelled out in shock.

Bub laughed so hard he vomited out Father Thrist’s leg. It flopped onto the floor and wiggled like a fish.

Shotzen threw the head into the wall as hard as he could, hoping to end the priest’s misery. He reached for the second Molotov cocktail and took another lighter from his pocket.

“Back to the pit with you,” Shotzen declared, shaking with rage. He flicked the lighter and the two inch flame jumped up to ignite the gasoline soaked rag. The Rabbi threw the bottle at the ground before the beast. It shattered, showering Bub with a wall of flames.

The demon screamed. The stench of burned hair and cooked meat invaded Shotzen’s nostrils. Bub batted at the flames with its claws and rolled in the cramped hallway, trying to staunch the flames.

“What the hell?” Andy said. He’d come out into the hallway fifty yards further down, on the other side of the second gate. Sun appeared a moment later.

“Stay back,” Shotzen warned them.

Bub burned for almost a minute before the sprinklers came on.

The flames died down, and then smoldered out. Smoke began to clear. Shotzen stared in amazement as Bub’s burned flesh seemed to wash away under the water stream. He shook like a wet dog and shed the scorched flesh. Underneath his skin was new and unharmed.

“Now it’s my turn,” Bub said.

“Rabbi!” Andy yelled. “Come on!”

“Run!” Shotzen yelled back. “He knows the codes!”

Bub was on Shotzen in a single lunge, scooping up the holy man in a claw.

“Codes?” he asked. “There is mooooooore than one?”

He dragged Shotzen to the second gate and punched in a code.

Nothing happened.

The demon roared. It was the most horrible sound Shotzen had ever heard. Like the thunderclap of a terrible storm.

“What is the code for this dooooooooor?” Bub demanded.

The talons were digging deeply into Shotzen’s body. If he’d been skinnier, it might have killed him. As it stood, they were only imbedded in fat, causing excruciating pain.

“Race!” Shotzen called to Andy. “The bombs!”

Andy nodded, grabbing Sun by the hand and disappearing into Red 3.

“The coooooooode,” Bub said. He tightened his grip.

It was like being prodded with hot pokers, the Rabbi thought. The pain was worse than anything he’d ever known.

“Shema Yisraeil, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad,” Shotzen gasped.

“Ah, the Shemaaaaaa,” Bub said. “Deuteronomy six four. Rabbi Akika, riiiight?”

Shotzen thought of Rabbi Akiba ben Joseph, the man who compiled the Mishna in the first century. He suffered a horrible death, tortured by the Romans, but still proclaimed his love for God as he died. His last words were the Shema.

“How did Rabbi Akiba die?” Bub asked. “Remembeeeeer?”

Shotzen remembered. The thought of it had given him nightmares as a youth.

Bub said, “I want the doooooooor code.”

Shotzen shut his eyes and prayed. “Barukh Shem k’vod malkhuto l’olam va-ed.”

Blessed be the name of his glorious kingdom for ever and ever.

“Rabbi Akiba was skinned aliiiiiiiive.”

Shotzen quaked with fear. Bub pinned the rabbi to the ground and ripped away his clothing.

“Paaaaaaainful,” the demon said. He sunk two claws into Shotzen’s shoulder and began to pull.

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might!” Shotzen screamed.

He’d said the words a thousand times. Ten thousand. They were the words in his mezuzah on his doorway, the words in the tefillin he strapped to his arm and forehead for morning aleinu.

“The cooooooode,” Bub ordered.

Shotzen thought of his life. Of his parents. Of Reba. Of the congregation that didn’t want him and the children he never had.

“Give me the code and I’ll make yoooooooou better.”

Bub had healed Race’s wife. He had seen them together, in the Octopus, laughing like children. Shotzen had no doubt that Bub could heal him now. Perhaps even fix his sterility. Shotzen could live through this, maybe even start a family. He knew that if he gave Bub the code, he didn’t have to die.

Bub began on his leg, pulling and ripping. Shotzen fought against the agony and continued to pray.

“And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart!”

Perhaps fifty thousand times he’d said the Shema in his life. He’d meant it every time. But he’d never truly understood what love was until that moment. Loving G-d with more than heart and soul and might. Loving Adonai with your life.

Shotzen’s eyes were somehow forced open.

“Seeeeeee this?” Bub held up what looked like a bloody rag. “This is your faaaaaaaaaace.”

Shotzen could no longer form words without lips, and an animal cry came from his throat. But his thoughts were focused.

And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.

“Foooooools,” Bub spat. “Stupid religious foooooools.”

The light was dimming, things became blurry. Shotzen was in incredible pain. Yet he was happy. He knew even though he hadn’t killed Bub, his life was not in vain. Bub wouldn’t get out. Race would set off the explosives implanted in Bub’s body. Shotzen hoped to live long enough to hear the boom.

“You won’t die until I get the coooooode. I’ll keep resurrecting you, ooooover and ooooooover.”

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes.

Shotzen could no longer see. His own blood had pooled into his eye sockets.

Angry at the lack of response, Bub began to rip the rabbi in half.

You shall write them on your doorposts of your house and on your gates…

Shotzen finished the prayer. His very last thought was his love for his Lord.

Bub cast aside the body of the holy man. Then he shook the titanium gate and howled.

“Where the hell is he?” Andy swore. He had the phone in his hand and had tried Race’s room, the Octopus, the Mess Hall, the rec room, Helen’s room, the library, and even the pool, all the while trying to remain in control while Shotzen screamed in the hallway.

“Use the intercom,” Sun told him.

“How? What goddamn button? Was it star something?”

“I forgot too, dammit!”

The floor shook and there was a tremendous clang. Sun and Andy exchanged glances and peeked out of Red 3 into the hall.

CLANG!

Bub had charged the gate and rammed it with his shoulder. His chest was soaked in blood, making the fine red hairs appear black. Behind him, Shotzen was lying on the floor in two large pieces, neither of which had any skin.

When Bub noticed Andy he smiled at him, stringy things sticking to his steak knife teeth.

“Aaaaaaaandy!”

“We are so out of here.” Andy grabbed Sun’s arm and they ran down the Red Arm, away from the demon.

“Let me ooooout!” Bub shouted after them.

They rushed into the Octopus. No Race.

“Okay, what were Race and Helen doing?” Andy said, thinking out loud.

“Dancing. They were dancing.”

“Does this place have a disco?”

“No. But… the lounge! There’s a stereo in the lounge.”

“What room?”

“Purple something.” Sun rubbed her forehead. “Um, the pool is 2, the bar is 6, library is 8. Dammit, I don’t know the lounge.”

“We’ll try them all.”

Andy picked up the nearest phone and dialed Purple 1. No answer. Then he tried Purple 4.

“Howdy, you’re interrupting a rumba lesson.”

Thank God.

“Jesus! General, Bub is out. He’s killed Rabbi Shotzen and gotten through the first gate.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“He’s coming,” Andy told Sun, hanging up the phone.

“What did he do to the Rabbi?” Sun asked. “The screams…”

Andy put his arms around her. He tried to shake the image of Rabbi Shotzen being peeled by Bub, but it refused to go away.

The Purple Door flew open, and Andy and Sun each jumped back.

“How did he get out?” Race demanded.

The General was in full dress uniform. Helen was in a sequined evening gown. She looked worried.

“Shotzen said Bub knew the code.”

“Sunshine, if you could wait with my wife. Andy…”

Race motioned for Andy to follow. Andy didn’t want to. But Sun’s eyes on him forced him to move. He trailed Race back into the Red Arm.

CLANG!

The gate was still holding. Bub rubbed his shoulder and squinted at the new arrival.

“Raaaaace. Let me oooooooout.”

Race approached slowly. Andy was even slower. He watched the General peer past Bub and down the hallway, which was charred black and drenched in gore.

It looked like a corridor of hell.

“Why did you kill Rabbi Shotzen?” Race asked.

“It was fuuuuuuun.”

“Blow this bastard up,” Andy told Race.

Bub leveled his eyes at Andy. “Open the doooooor, Andy. You want to fuck Suuuuuun? I’ll make her your whore if you let meeeeee ooooout.”

Andy had to clench hard to avoid wetting his pants.

“Here’s the deal, Bub,” Race said. “You go back into your habitat, lock yourself in, and I won’t destroy you.”

“Do you want power, Raaaaaace?” Bub hissed. “You can be a general in my army. I’ll make immoooooooortal.”

Race took another step forward, still beyond grabbing range. He took his eyes off of Bub to examine the gate.

“Hooooooow is Helen?” the demon cooed.

“She’s fine.” Race looked hard at the demon. “Why?”

Bub grinned slyly.

Race’s voice was almost as scary as Bub’s. “What did you do to her?”

“Let me ooooooooout. There’s still time to fiiiiiiiix it.”

“So help me, if anything happens to that woman…”

“She haaaaaaates you. She haaaaaaates you for bringing her heeeeeere. But I can fiiiiiiix that. Maaaaaaake her loooooove you again.”

“You’re bluffing. You’re trapped, and you’re bluffing.”

Bub barked, his laughter echoing down the hall.

“We’ll seeeeeeeee.”

Race turned around and walked briskly back down the Red Arm, Andy in tow.

“Let me oooooooout!” Bub screeched.

CLANG! The ground shook as the demon rammed the gate again.

“What’s going on, Race?” Andy asked. “Just detonate the bombs.”

“I need to talk to the President.”

“Then get his ass on the phone!”

They entered the Octopus, Race going to his wife. He held her face in his hands.

“Do you feel okay, dear? Anything wrong?”

“I feel fine, Regis.”

“Sun, can you check her out?”

Sun nodded, and sat Helen down at one of the far tables.

Andy got up close to Race and thrust out his chest. “Why don’t we kill him?” he demanded.

“He can’t get through that gate. It’s holding.”

“What if—”

“I can only destroy Bub if he’s a risk to any of the occupants of Samhain.”

“Bullshit,” Andy said. “We’re expendable. The people involved in a top secret project are always expendable.”

Race jammed his finger into Andy’s shoulder. “We are not expendable, understand? But I can’t kill Bub unless he’s a threat. Right now he’s trapped. He cannot get out. And even if he does, we have back-ups.”

Andy said, “The bombs implanted in his body.”

“Yes. Plus we have something called Lockdown. See, above all the doors?”

Race pointed to every door in the Octopus. Above each of the frames was a large overhang with a slit in the bottom.

“More titanium gates, they completely seal off each arm and the Octopus. I just need to type in the code on the security screen, right here.”

“What’s the code?” Andy asked.

“Lockdown. One word, all caps.”

“So what are you waiting for?”

“It can’t be reset. Once we’re in Lockdown, gates drop on all the arm entrances and in front of the exit at the end of the Yellow Arm. Plus three more titanium gates drop on the staircase leading to the outside. We’d be stuck here until someone cut us out, bar by bar, with a blowtorch. So that isn’t necessary right now. You don’t have to worry. We’re safe.”

Andy shook his head. “I’ve had it,” he said. “I’m not a soldier. It’s not my job to fight the devil. I know exactly what will happen. I saw Jurassic Park. Everything will go wrong. The systems will fail, Bub will get out, we’ll all be dead by morning.”

“Calm down, son.”

“Bullshit! I want out. Me, Sun, the rest. Get us the hell out of here, Race.”

Andy met Race’s gaze, trying to be just as impassive.

Race said, “Okay.”

Andy stared at him, amazed. “Okay? That’s it? We can go?”

“Of course you can go. I’ll call the President right now, arrange for transport. We can have a chopper here within an hour.”

Andy wasn’t sure if he could believe him or not, but Race sat down at a terminal and accessed a program called CONTACT. He clicked the options bar on EMERGENCY.

“Direct link to the Prez,” Race explained. “Unless he’s having a press conference, he should be on line in a minute or so.”

Within seconds another window appeared on screen. The message bar read AUDIO CONNECT.

“General?” came the President’s voice from the monitor speaker.

“Mr. President, the occupant has breached the first two phases of security. He is extremely hostile, and we have civilian casualties. Request immediate evac.”

“Is the occupant currently contained?”

“Yes. I’m going to stay with him. But I want the rest of the team picked up ASAP.”

“Of course. I’ll contact Fort Bliss.”

“I’m going to need help to neutralize the subject. Maybe one of those big game hunters who captures elephants for zoos. With a tranquilizer gun and plenty of ammo.”

“I’ll find someone as soon as possible. A helicopter will be sent immediately to evacuate the team. I’ll debrief them at Fort Bliss. How did this happen, General?”

“I’m not sure, Sir. He got the codes for the gates somehow.”

“I’ll contact you soon. God be with you and your team, General.”

The computer blinked MESSAGE ENDED.

“Well,” Andy said, relief making him feel twenty pounds lighter, “he’s an okay guy after all.”

Race picked up the phone and hit *100. His voice boomed over the in house speakers. Dammit, Andy thought. That was the intercom code.

“Attention, this is Race. Everyone meet in the Octopus for immediate evacuation. Repeat, everyone meet in the Octopus, we’re all getting out of here. Move your asses, people.”

“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!” Bub bellowed, his voice heard from all the way down the Red Arm.

“I guess he doesn’t like the news,” Andy said.

“Screw the son of a bitch. What the hell happened in there, Andy?”

“I don’t know. I was in Red 6 translating the glyphs and I heard screams. It was Rabbi Shotzen, getting ripped apart.”

“Shotzen let him out?”

“I don’t think so. Bub… he skinned Shotzen to get the code for the second gate. The Rabbi didn’t give it up.”

“Brave man. So how did Bub get the codes?”

“What’s happening?” Dr. Belgium entered the Octopus through the Green Door.

“Bub’s out,” Andy explained. “We’re leaving.”

“I’ll get my things,” Belgium turned for the Blue Door.

“Pack light,” Race said. “Have you seen Father Thrist or Dr. Harker?”

“Not lately. Do you think…”

“Race!” Sun said. “Your wife!”

The three of them hurried over to Helen, who was lying on the floor with Sun crouched over her.

“She was fine just a second ago,” Sun said.

“Is it the Huntington’s chorea?” Race asked. “Is it back?”

“No,” Sun said, panic in her eyes. “This is something else.”

Helen struggled in the throes of some kind of seizure. Her limbs flapped uncontrollably, and her back arched and twisted, but it didn’t look like any convulsions Race had ever seen.

Helen’s legs and arms were bending backwards.

“Helen! Oh, Lord!”

“Regis,” she cried.

Race’s eyes clouded over. He knelt next to his wife, holding her in an attempt to stop her body from snapping apart.

“Her feet.” Dr. Belgium pointed.

Race stared as one of Helen’s high heels split open. The shoe fell away, revealing toes that swelled and melded into a giant black mass that resembled…

“A hoof,” Andy said.

Race could feel his wife expand in his arms, bulging and stretching. Changing.

Helen howled, revealing several rows of long, sharp teeth.

“Oh my my my…” Dr. Belgium said.

“Race,” Andy put a hand on the General’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Helen. I’m so sorry.”

“Race, we’ve got to take her out of here.”

“Take her where?” Race accused. “This is my wife, dammit!”

“Race, your wife is growing hoofs and fangs. We’ve got to separate her from the group.”

“I’m not leaving her!”

A deep growl came from Helen.

Andy put his arm around Race’s neck and yanked him backwards.

“Move her!” he yelled at Frank and Sun. They wasted no time, each grabbing a foot and dragging Helen out the nearest door, into the Yellow Arm.

“Helen!” Race choked. He held Andy’s arm and twisted, flipping the younger man off of him. Then he made a run for the Yellow door.

“Don’t!” Sun stood in his way. “It’s not Helen anymore! Stop and listen!”

Behind the Yellow door came a cacophony of screeches and yowls, sounds no human being could produce.

Race shoved Sun away and grabbed the door knob. He paused, grief racking his face.

“Barricade it,” he said through his teeth.

The next thirty seconds were a frenzy of chair throwing and table stacking, everyone waiting for the inevitable moment when the Helen-thing came crashing through the door.

The moment stretched, but never came.

“Maybe she left,” Belgium said.

“The exit to the outside is down that hallway,” Andy said. “Do you think she’s trying to get out?”

“Do you want to open it and look?” Sun asked.

“Well if she’s in there, how are we supposed to get out ourselves? The helicopter should be here within the hour. Race—”

One Star General Race Murdoch marched into the Red Arm, his heart a stone. He had never felt pain like this before. Helen’s illness had been torture for Race, killing him a bit at a time in the same way it was killing her. But seeing Helen whole again, dancing with her after all of these years, and then watching helpless as she turned into that…

Bub was sitting behind the gate, a lopsided grin on his face.

“Hoooooooow’s Helen?”

Race turned to the keypad on the wall and punched in the first two numbers of the code to open the gate.

“Goooooooood boooooooooy.”

“You see that?” Race said, facing the demon. “You’re four numbers away from being free—”

Bub’s grin stretched.

“—and that’s as close as you’re ever going to get. It’s over, Bub. It’s not a question of you getting out. It’s a question of you still being alive five minutes from now. You’re about to go off like a fourth of July firework.”

Bub darkened.

“Are you threatening meeeeeeee?”

“No, Bub. I’m killing you.”

Race turned and headed back to the Octopus, getting intercepted halfway there by Sun, Andy, and Frank.

“I’m doing what I should have done forty years ago,” Race told them.

He led the trio and into the Octopus and began to take down the make-shift barricade in front of the Yellow Arm.

“General,” Dr. Belgium said, “maybe you should think this over. Helen—she might not be pleased to see you.”

Race smiled sadly.

“Hell, Frank, if a soldier can’t handle the little woman, what good is he?”

The last table was pushed away and Race took a deep breath.

“After I go in, put this back up, and don’t open the door again until I give the all-clear.”

“I’m going with you,” Andy said.

“They teach you hand-to-hand combat at Harvard, son?”

“Two have a better chance than one.”

Race clasped his shoulder. “I respect your bravery, but this is my job, not yours. You stay here and keep an eye on your lady, let me tend to mine.”

Andy stared hard into Race’s eyes and offered his hand. “Good luck, General.”

Race shook it and grinned. “I’ll take training over luck any day.”

He winked and went through the Yellow door.

The hallway was empty. Race moved slowly at first, then broke into a jog. The years of daily exercise had paid off. He tried to push the emotional baggage aside and visualize his goal. Yellow 4.

That’s where the bomb switch was.

He got within ten yards, and then Helen burst out of Yellow 3.

But it was no longer Helen.

She’d changed into a five foot version of Bub. Her chest was greenish, rather than red, and her wings didn’t look large enough for flight. The legs had bent backwards, like a goat, ending in large cloven hoofs. Her arms ended in razor claws that resembled eagle talons. Hundreds of long, pointy teeth, thin as icicles, jutted from her mouth, so large that her lips were shredded and bleeding.

Race stared hard into her elliptical eyes, eyes the color of a furnace. He found no trace of his wife in their depths. A lump the size of a plum formed in his throat.

“Hello, dear,” Race said.

It took two steps towards him, its piggish nostrils sniffing the air.

“Can you understand me, Helen?”

The creature growled, raising its talons. They ground together with the sound of knives being sharpened.

Race clenched his teeth and said, “I’m sorry.”

Then he took a running start and dove at the thing that was once his wife.

It was like fighting a tiger, all claws and teeth and muscle. Race had the weight advantage, but the sheer ferocity of the demon’s attack put him on the defensive. He was being torn apart in ten places at once.

She forced him to the ground and continued her assault, ripping at his clothes, snapping at his neck. The pain was electric. He felt as if he’d fallen into a meat grinder, and part of him wanted to just give up and die.

But Race was a soldier. A soldier with a debt to settle. For his country, that he loved so dearly. For his friend Harold, whose senseless death weighed upon Race every hour of every day. But most of all, for Helen.

Bub had to die. And so did this abomination that was once his wife.

Race went for the eyes, making his fingers stiff and jamming them in hard. The demon squealed, releasing its grip long enough for Race to crawl past and reach Yellow 4.

It was a keypad entrance. Race lifted his arm to punch in the code, but his arm wasn’t working right. He took note of the puddle of blood forming around his feet.

He was hurt bad.

Race used his other hand, unable to stop it from shaking.

His first attempt at the code failed.

The thing that used to be Helen advanced on all fours, like a wolf.

The General ignored the threat, and once more punched in the code. A talon wrapped around his leg and tugged, just as the door unlocked.

Race grabbed the doorframe and pulled himself into Yellow 4, breaking the beast’s grip. He slammed the door shut with his feet, hoping it would hold.

• • •

“How do we know for sure the bombs will kill Bub?” Sun asked. “He heals so fast.”

Andy was sitting with his arm around her, and he couldn’t be sure if she was trembling, or he was.

“This could be interesting.” Dr. Belgium got up and headed for the Red Door. “I think I’ll watch.”

Andy said, “Be careful. Race said those charges were large enough to…”

Oh no.

“Large enough to what?” Belgium asked.

“We have to stop him.” Andy got to his feet. “Call Race, we have to stop him from setting off those bombs.”

“Why why why would we do that?” Belgium asked.

“Do it!”

Andy knocked away a chair from the Yellow door barricade but Sun held him back.

“You can’t go in there. That thing will tear you apart.”

“Call Race!” Andy said. “He can’t set off those bombs!”

Andy broke away from Sun, but rather than the Yellow Door he went for the Red Door. He half stumbled, half ran down the Red Arm.

Bub wasn’t near the gate. And Andy saw why.

• • •

Race took a deep breath and choked on the blood. There wasn’t an inch of him that didn’t hurt. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the detonation switch. Race was going to send Bub back to hell, where he belonged.

The phone rang. Race ignored it. He crawled to the side panel along the wall. There were several buttons and switches. Race turned on the power for the remote, then activated the radio transmitter and disengaged the safety.

“This is for you, Helen.”

He hit the detonation switch.

• • •

Andy could see the gate, twenty yards ahead. Resting on the bars, near the lock, were two stainless steel pellets each about the size of a baseball. Even from that distance, Andy could see they were slick with blood.

Andy knew why the demon had taunted Race earlier.

Bub had dug the bombs out of his body and set them on the gate.

The linguist turned tail and ran back to the Octopus.

“Get down!” he said, slamming the Red Door and pulling Sun to the floor.

The explosion rocked the complex, blowing the Red Door off of its hinges. Andy felt the floor vibrate like a mini earthquake, shaking so hard he bit his tongue. The BOOM was painful to his ears, and immediately followed by a wave of heat and smoke, which drifted through the Red Arm and into the Octopus.

Andy looked down the hallway, straining to see through the haze.

The titanium gate swung open.

“Reaaaaaaady or not,” Bub said. “Heeeeeeeeere I coooooooooome.”

The demon crawled forward.

“What happened?” Sun said.

Andy ignored her and rushed to the computer terminal, grateful that it wasn’t damaged. He booted up the main screen and searched for the SECURITY window. There were a dozen headings; COMMUNICATION, INVENTORY, HELP, PERSONAL, SECURITY…

“Aaaaaaaaaaaandy!” Bub bellowed.

Sun said, “Jesus! He sounds close. Did he get through the gate?”

Andy glanced down the Red Arm and saw Bub making his way down the hall. He was about forty yards away, moving in a crouch.

“This is not good,” Belgium whispered.

“Andy, what are you doing?” Sun shook him. “Can you stop him?”

Andy clicked on SECURITY and the password window came up. He typed in lockdown.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

Andy retyped it, making sure he spelled it right.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

“Godammit, Race!” Andy smacked the desk with his fist. Race said lockdown, one word no breaks. Andy tried lock down.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

“Andy, whatever you’re doing, do it fast.”

Andy chanced a look over his shoulder. Bub was twenty yards away and closing.

“I’m not worried.” Dr. Belgium put his hand to his chest. “I’ll have a heart attack before he finally gets here.”

Andy typed lock-down with a hyphen.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

Andy hit the HELP button. It read PASSWORDS ARE CASE SENSITIVE.

“Caps. It’s all caps.”

“We’ve got to run,” Sun said. “He’s almost at the door.”

Andy typed in LOCKDOWB.

“Stand clear!” he yelled.

He hit ENTER.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.

“Oops. Typo.”

“He’s here!” Belgium screamed, high-pitched and frantic.

Andy pressed BACKSPACE, erasing the B. Then he hit N and ENTER.

LOCKDOWN ACTIVATED.

Six titanium gates dropped from the overhangs above all the doors in the Octopus, simultaneously sealing it off with a ground shaking CLANG!

Bub barely pulled his arm back in time, or he would have lost it. The demon stared at the new set of bars and scowled. He grabbed one and gave it a violent tug. It held.

The demon screamed, an unearthly wail that sounding like hundreds of souls being tortured.

Andy let out a deep breath. The adrenaline was wearing off and his whole body was shaking badly.

The phone rang, prompting Dr. Belgium to scream again.

Andy grabbed it.

“Did I get him?” Race asked on the other end. His voice was wet and sickly.

“No, General. He used the bombs to blow up the gate. I had to go into Lockdown.”

“Dammit.” Race’s voice held none of the authority Andy had become used to. “I did just what the enemy wanted. Some soldier I am.”

“He fooled us all, Race. Can we make it to the exit through, uh, Helen?”

“No,” Race coughed and spat. “She turned into a demon like Bub, smaller but deadly. I’m bleeding to death. There’s no way to get through. It doesn’t matter anyway. When you activated Lockdown, a gate dropped over the only way to the surface, plus four more on the exit stairs.”

Despair hit Andy like a punch.

“When we aren’t there to be picked up, won’t the Army come in?”

“This is a top secret base, son. They don’t even know it exists.”

“Can’t the President—”

“The President’s two top priorities are to keep Samhain secret, and to keep Bub contained. The safety of the staff is a long third.”

Andy wanted to throw the phone across the room. He settled for swearing.

“Do we have any weapons? Guns? Explosives?”

“Nothing,” Race’s voice was solemn. “I don’t even have my sidearm down here. No one ever thought we’d need anything.”

“So what next?”

Race sighed, a bubbling sound. “I don’t know. We wait for the President to call. Have you heard from Father Thrist or Dr. Harker?”

“We haven’t seen Thrist or Harker.”

Bub laughed, deep and cruel. His rage had vanished, and he sat in front of the gate, lotus style.

“Here’s some of Faaaaaather Thrist.” Bub spit a glob of something out between his teeth.

“So all we can do is wait,” Andy said.

“I’m sorry, son. I am. I won’t be able to make it back there, so let me know when the President calls. We’ll think of something.”

“Try to hold on,” Andy told him.

“You too.” Andy hung up.

Sun went to Andy and cradled his head in her arms. Andy put his hand on her cheek and closed his eyes.

“What now?” Sun asked.

“We have to wait for the President. There’s no other way out of here.”

“What about food?” Sun asked. “Or water? We can’t get to the Mess Hall.”

Belgium squinted. “Hey, where did Bub go?”

The demon was no longer by the titanium gate.

Sun stood up and walked over to the Red Arm. Andy didn’t want to go with her—anywhere Bub went was better than him here, taunting them. But he went anyway. He wasn’t sure the exact moment it happened, but he’d become extremely protective of the veterinarian.

“See him?” Sun asked.

Andy gripped her hand and tried to peer down the hallway. There was still some residual smoke, and some of the overhead lights had blown out when the bomb went off.

“Looking for meeeeeee?” Bub said in the distance. His vision was apparently better than Andy’s.

Bub came into view, dragging something behind him.

“Oh, Jesus,” Sun said, backing away.

“You all remember Raaaaaaaabbi Shotzen.” Bub pulled the two halves up to the gate.

Andy didn’t want to look at the ruined mess, but he couldn’t help it. The body no longer looked human. It was just blood, guts, and bones.

“I’m ressurecting hiiiim. Would you like to seeeeeeee?”

Sun turned away. Andy glanced at Dr. Belgium, and saw him taking his own pulse. He faced Bub.

“We’re not afraid of you,” Andy said.

Dr. Belgium cleared his throat. “Actually, um, I am.”

“Shall I bring the rabbi back to life, Fraaaaaank?”

“No no no, I wouldn’t like that at all, Bub.”

Bub stroked his chin with his talons, as if in thought.

“How about this insteaaaaaaaad.”

The demon touched his claw to one of the larger parts, and a moment later, it began to shake.

The corpse’s arms and legs rolled and squirmed as if they were boneless, like the tentacles of a squid. Organs inflated and split. The rabbi’s skull expanded like a water balloon, undulating and jiggling.

Sun had witnessed death, up close. She remembered being a med student, visiting the morgue for the first time, and how creepy it felt even though she’d been prepared for it. Sun had encountered burn victims, and fatal car accidents, and once even operated on a man who’d gotten his hand caught in a meat grinder.

This was most horrible thing she’d ever seen.

And then it got worse.

The flesh began to blister and bubble, and when the bubbles reached the size of baseballs they separated from the body and shot into the air with a loud PHLOP sound. A few at first, and then all at once, like microwave popcorn.

Several of the chunks flew through the bars, landing at Sun’s feet with wet thuds. She watched, holding her breath.

With frightening speed, the flesh took shape. Curled up at first, like an embryo, maturing in fast motion. The head formed, arms, legs, a tail. It stood up, about the size of a large vampire bat, with matching bat wings. Black and red, sporting tiny horns, and claws that looked like fish hooks. The thing opened its mouth, revealing rows of needle sharp teeth.

“A little Bub,” Belgium gasped.

Sun watched it waddle over to her and leap onto her shoe. Fear had paralyzed her, memories of her childhood and that horrible bat in her bedroom assaulting her mind.

The thing chirped like a bird and stretched open its jaws, ready to bite her leg.

Andy kicked it across the room.

More fist-sized chunks sailed through the bars. Dozens. A few took to the air and began to fly around the room in quick figure eights.

Sun still couldn’t move. A demon landed on her shoulder, screeching like nails on a chalkboard. It was going to bite her, and she couldn’t get her muscles to work.

“Ow!” Dr. Belgium yelped. He had a nasty gash across his cheek. “They’re like flying razor blades!”

“Move it!” Andy smacked the demon off Sun’s shoulder and yanked her away from the gate. The Octopus was full of them now, flapping and squealing, diving at the group with claws out and mouths wide. Fifty or more.

Andy pushed Sun under a desk and pulled another desk over, trying to seal her between them. The things, the batlings, circled around and around, diving in and taking bites out of Andy’s hands and head. Sun could glimpse the blood through the swirling tornado of monsters.

Belgium picked up a chair and swatted at them, knocking several out of the air. When they fell he picked up his knees and stomped marching band-style, crushing them with his heels.

One managed to escape the stomping, and hopped over to Sun’s hiding place.

Damn it, Sun, move! her mind screamed.

But her body didn’t listen.

The batling jumped up onto her shoulder. It’s maw stretched open, bloody drool leaking down its chin.

MOVE!

But she didn’t.

The demon bit into Sun’s shoulder, hitting a nerve, doubling her over.

The pain galvanized her. Sun clenched the batling in her fist, feeling the pointy little bones snap under the pressure. She threw it aside and scrambled out from under the desk.

Fear be damned, she was ready to fight.

The demons saw a new victim and swarmed.

Sun grabbed a computer keyboard, yanked it free, and began to whack batlings left and right. But for each one she hit, ten hit her. The pain came from everywhere at once, pain like gigantic bee stings, sharp and burning. Nipping at her arms and back. Going for her eyes.

They’re eating me alive, Sun thought

Something bit into her ear and she smashed it against the side of her face. Another became tangled in her hair, clawing and gnawing at her head. She pulled it off, taking some hair with it.

Bub’s giggling filled the room—a disturbing sound like a small child being tickled.

Sun could no longer see. Her torn scalp bled down into her eyes, burning like salt water. She wiped a sleeve across her face and saw a figure fall to his knees, covered with batlings.

Andy.

In four steps she was at his side, rearing back the keyboard, smashing it against his chest. Eight batlings dropped off. She repeated the move with his back, putting all of her strength into the blow.

It probably hurt, but not as much as being eaten alive.

The demons she killed were quickly replaced by others, covering Andy like a fur coat.

This is futile, Sun realized. We’re all going to die.

Which really pissed Sun off. She tried to block out some of the panic and think. They couldn’t hide, or get away. Killing them one at a time was too slow. What did she know about bats? They were nocturnal, they used radar to navigate, they were eaten by hawks, they hibernate when it gets cold…

“Cold,” Sun said aloud.

At the far end of the Octopus was a fire extinguisher. Sun beelined for it, tossing the keyboard aside. The extinguisher was a big one, at least sixty pounds, and the fire engine red color meant it was filled with carbon dioxide. She yanked it from the wall housing and pulled the pin.

In one hand, she grabbed the funnel cone and aimed at the cloud of batlings. With the other, she pulled the trigger.

A spray of sub-zero CO_2 burst from the nozzle with an explosive SHHUSSH sound, freezing batlings as they flew. They dropped from the air, covered in frost. When they hit the ground they twitched and flopped around in a stupor.

“Cover your eyes!” she yelled at Andy before giving him a healthy spritz of healing cold. She then zapped Dr. Belgium, who had curled up into a fetal position near the Purple door.

“Help me! Kill the ones on the floor!”

Frank and Andy began to step on the fallen batlings, while Sun tracked down the remaining few still circling the Octopus. She ran out of CO_2 with only one demon remaining, and she managed to swat that out of the sky with a clipboard.

When the last batling had been crushed underfoot, the childhood giggling began again.

Bub.

The demon clapped his hands in glee, his lips peeling back and his tongue obscenely bathing his own face.

Sun ignored the demon and went to Andy, who looked like he’d dipped his head in a bucket of red paint.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“So are you.” He touched her cheek.

“Let me help you first.”

She sat Andy down and saw most of the blood was coming from two major wounds; one on his nose, and one on his scalp. She found a box of tissue in a desk drawer and gave him a handful to press against his face.

The head wound was worse—a four inch gash that went down deep.

“You need stitches.”

“Got a sewing kit handy?”

“No. But do you trust me?”

Andy offered a lame smile through the wad of bloody Kleenex. “Of course.”

Sun took a stapler off the desk.

“You’re kidding,” Andy said.

“Watch carefully. You’ll have to do me next.”

She opened up the stapler and pinched the edges of Andy’s wound closed. Then she lined it up and pushed down, hard.

CHHHH-CHHHHK.

“Ow!”

“Only three or four more.”

Dr. Belgium wandered over. He’d wrapped his lab coat around his head, like a giant red and white turban.

“Me next,” he said.

Sun had to put six more staples into Andy’s head, and then three into Frank’s.

“Thank you for stapling my head,” Frank said.

“You’re welcome.”

When she finished, she handed the bloody stapler to Andy.

“Press down firm, to anchor them into bone.”

“You and your sweet talk.”

Sun sat and closed her eyes while Andy patched up the wound on her head. She reached up a hand and gingerly felt his work.

“Not bad,” she told him.

Andy looked like he’d been in a hockey fight, but he smiled shyly. Sun had a sudden urge to hug him, but didn’t want to hurt him any more than he already was.

“The doors are all closed,” Belgium said, looking around the room.

“What did you say, Frank?”

“All the doors in the Octopus. That means those bat things were contained. We wouldn’t want any getting out and hurting anyone else.”

“That wouldn’t be good,” Sun agreed.

“And speaking of anyone else—where where where is Dr. Harker?”

Dr. Julie Harker had been bathing her new daughter in the sink when she heard the voice over the intercom.

“Attention, this is Race. Everyone meet in the Octopus for immediate evacuation. Repeat, everyone meet in the Octopus, we’re all getting out of here. Move your asses, people.”

Harker frowned at the news. Evacuation. Bub must have gotten out.

“No need to rush.” Harker squeezed the sponge over Shirley’s head, rinsing the shampoo from her hair. The water was pink with the blood from Shirley’s creation.

Birth, Harker corrected herself. Shirley had been born today.

“Happy birthday to you,” Harker sang.

She wrapped Shirley in a bath towel and carried her to the bed.

“Mama needs to find a diaper for her Shirley, yes she does. Maybe an old sheet? What do you think, Shirley?”

Harker located a pillow case, and wrapped it expertly around Shirley’s bottom, securing it with three paper clips.

“There you are. Your first diaper.”

Harker smiled. There would be many more firsts. The first pee-pee and poo-poo. The first nap. The first steps. The first words. A whole lifetime of firsts to share together.

“How’s my little girl?”

Shirley gurgled, and Harker’s heart melted. She was so beautiful. So perfect. Harker wanted to savor this moment, to make it last, but she knew she had to hurry. Shirley was just small enough that she could fit in Harker’s suitcase. There was a good chance Harker could get her out of here without anyone knowing.

Julie set the baby down and searched the closet for her old luggage, coming out with a carry-on bag. Punch in a few airholes, and it should work fine.

“Perfect,” she smiled. “Now let’s dry you off.”

Harker put the towel over Shirley’s head and rubbed.

Shirley snarled, low and hoarse, making Harker jump back.

Her daughter stared at her, deep blue eyes burning with hate.

Harker yelped.

Shirley no longer had a face. Harker looked at the towel in her hand and saw her daughter’s scalp.

She’d torn it off.

“No. No no no. Oh my, oh my…”

Shirley hissed at her, a glistening red skull. She stretched her mouth wide to cry and Harker noticed she was growing teeth. They breached her gums with alarming speed, long and narrow and impossibly sharp.

“Oh my Shirley…”

Shirley hissed at her. Her tiny body began to swell, tripling in size. Greasy fur sprouted all over her skin. Her shoulder blades jutted out in points, and her head inflated like a balloon, crackling as the skull bones separated, her eyes bulging out and changing from blue to milky white.

Harker felt faint. She turned to run for the door, but something wrapped around her ankle. Something sharp, that dug deep into the bone.

“MaaaaaaMaaaaaa,” Shirley said.

The pain was unreal. Harker screamed. She continued to scream as Shirley pulled herself toward her mother, her giant mouth snapping like a bear trap, getting closer and closer until—

SNAP!

The teeth closed on Harker’s foot.

A symphony of agony thundered through Harker’s nervous system.

Harker kicked with all of her might. She punched like a crazy woman. But Shirley hung on, continuing to chew.

Before Harker passed out, an ironic thought passed through her mind.

This is Shirley’s first meal.

• • •

She woke up sometime later. There was no more pain in her foot. Harker quickly realized that was because most of her leg was gone.

Her daughter was perched on the bed, eyes closed. She no longer resembled anything human. Shirley had six legs. She was pale white, with clawed feet and a body like a fat lizard. Her oversized head was crammed full of teeth, and they jutted from her closed mouth like fondue forks.

On the end of one, Harker spotted her skewered big toe.

Harker bit her lower lip to keep from screaming again. Shirley appeared to be asleep. Maybe she still had a chance to make it out of there alive.

She looked around the room. The phone was on the nearby dresser, but talking might wake the creature. Instead, she twisted toward the door, only a few feet away.

Harker pulled herself along the soggy carpet, using her arms and her remaining leg. She felt no fear. She was remote, detached from the situation. And cold. So cold.

I’m going into shock, she thought, shivering. The edges of her world began to blur and slip away. She bit the inside of her cheek to stay awake.

Almost there. Just a little more.

She made it!

Julie reached up at the door knob, turning… turning…

“MaaaaaMaaaaaa.”

Harker screamed as Shirley sprung from the bed, scurrying over to her on many legs.

The demon climbed atop Harker and hissed.

“All I wanted was to love you,” Harker moaned.

Shirley began to eat again. Harker closed her eyes, unable to put up a fight. She gave in to shock, grateful that the cold was overtaking her.

At least she wouldn’t feel any pain anymore.

As it turned out, Harker was able to feel more pain. For quite some time, in fact.

Andy leaned back in a chair, doing his best to fight exhaustion and one whopper of a headache. A search of the desk drawers had uncovered a bottle of Tylenol. They all took several. They hadn’t found any water, and Andy felt like the tablets were still caught in his throat.

“How long can Bub go without food?” he asked Sun.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m immoooooortal,” Bub answered through the bars of the titanium gate. The demon giggled again, making all the hair on Andy’s body stand on end.

“In his claws!” Dr. Belgium shouted, springing to his feet. He’d been scrutinizing one of the squashed little demons. “Yes yes yes. The sheep’s leg had a puncture wound. I didn’t know where it came from. But now I know.”

“Know what, Frank?”

Andy and Sun came over and looked. Belgium spread the claw open, and a tiny needle came out the center of the palm. When he released the pressure, the needle retracted.

“How Bub reproduces. No sex organs. When he fixed Helen and brought the sheep back to life, he touched them with his talons.”

Sun said, “Go on.”

“Bub uses the syringe in his palm to inject organic matter with some kind of serum, something probably containing hormones and enzymes. This serum can restructure DNA; restriction enzymes cut the DNA up, then it’s put back into any order Bub wants it to be in. Maybe he uses a virus, or a retro virus, to take over the cells operating machinery—that’s how we splice genes—and then during mitosis the cells change into whatever Bub preprograms.”

“That’s how Helen changed into that monster.” Sun said, nodding. “And how Rabbi Shotzen became those batlings.”

“Right right right. Remember, humans are 90 percent intron genes—genes that don’t code for protein. But they could be cut up with enzymes and patched back together so they can code for protein. There’s a wealth of raw material in DNA, if it could only be activated by enzymes or hormones.”

“That could also explain Bub’s rapid healing abilities, and why he doesn’t age,” Sun agreed.

“He can program his own DNA to heal itself.”

“So why are the batlings so easy to kill?” Andy asked. “Why can’t they heal themselves?”

Belgium shrugged. “Not mature enough yet. Their systems haven’t fully developed. They’re a generation removed from the host. I’m not sure. But there’s a scientific explanation.”

Andy stared at Bub and scowled. “Not a miracle at all.”

Bub growled, his eyes becoming malevolent yellow slits.

“Did you get a work-up of the proteins involved?” Sun asked Belgium.

“Not yet. Didn’t have time.”

“How about the mitochondrial DNA?”

“Hmm? Oh, that. Yes yes yes. The Short Tandem Repeat got a hit on that.”

“And…?” Sun asked.

“His mitochondria encompassed 70 percent of the genome for Methanococcus jannaschii. An archaean.”

Andy blinked. “I speak thirty languages, and I don’t know what the hell you just said.”

“It’s a microscopic life form,” Sun answered. “It isn’t quite a bacteria, isn’t quite a plant or animal, and probably predates both, making it one of the oldest and maybe the first life forms on earth.”

“Archaea is an extremophile,” Dr. Belgium added. “It’s found in some of the harshest areas on the planet. It thrives in boiling water, in geysers, near black smokers at the bottom of the ocean, in extremely salty brines. We’ve also discovered archaea that live in rock, more than a mile deep in the earth’s crust. Think of it, bacteria living in solid stone.”

The scientist began to pace around the room.

“Archaea can also withstand below freezing temperatures. It doesn’t need oxygen. Many archeaens are autotrophic; they get their energy from inorganic sources; iron, sulfur, hydrogen. It’s suspected that there may be archaea on Mars, or on Callisto, a moon of Jupiter. Because it can survive in extreme environments, scientists expect archeae to be the first alien life form found in the universe.”

Belgium stopped pacing, and his eyes got very big.

“What is it, Frank?” Sun asked.

“Panspermia!” the biologist exclaimed. “Francis Crick!”

Belgium began to pace, eyes wide with excitement. “Crick won the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA. He had an idea called directed panspermia. What if an alien race shielded a microbe in some kind of spaceship and sent it to all corners of the galaxy, where it was likely to grow? Crick postulated it could be how life on earth began. It was planted here.”

Sun said, “If archaea was the first life form on earth, and it didn’t need oxygen—”

“Which is exactly what earth’s early environment was like, no oxygen,” Belgium interrupted.

“—it could have hitched a ride here in a meteorite made of iron, which would not only be a food source but also protect if from radiation. It could survive the deep cold of space—”

“Archaea has been found in five million year old Siberian permafrost,” Belgium exclaimed.

“—and it could also survive the tremendous heat when it entered the earth’s atmosphere. So if Bub has archaea in his genes…”

They all looked at the demon. Bub grinned wide and giggled.

“I created yoooooooou,” the demon cooed. “I’m yoooooour god.”

Andy was slack-jawed. He noticed similar expressions on his companions.

“This isn’t happening.” Andy shook his head. “Life on earth isn’t some garden planted by this bastard.”

“It’s truuuuuuuuue.”

Sun said, “So where’s your spaceship?”

“Einstein proved interstellar travel was impossible,” Dr. Belgium concurred. “The nearest star is more than twenty four trillion miles away. That’s over four years travel if you were moving at light speed, 186,000 miles a second, and light speed is impossible to attain. The faster an object moves, the heavier it becomes.”

Bub didn’t answer.

“His capsule,” Sun said, snapping her fingers. “It had iridium in it.”

Belgium gasped. “Oh my goodness.”

Andy asked, “Iridium? What’s that?”

“It’s not commonly found on earth. But it’s abundant in meteorites, or other objects that come from space.”

“That gray thing is a spaceship?” Andy said, incredulous.

Sun put a hand on his arm. “Did you figure out the Egyptian glyphs?”

Andy’s shoulders slumped. He rubbed his eyes.

“Yeah. They told the story of a god who fell from the sky and helped them build the pyramids.” The linguist shook his head. “I don’t believe this.”

“So all that talk of God,” Sun said to Bub, “of heaven and Jesus and fallen angels. That was all bullshit?”

“Fraaaaaank gave me Inteeeeernet access.”

Andy shot Belgium a look. The scientist seemed to shrink.

“Not my smartest move, in hindsight,” Belgium said.

The computer beeped several times and the message bar read INCOMING MESSAGE. Andy clicked on the video icon and the President’s face came of the monitor.

“Mr. Dennison? I was just informed that none of you made it to the evacuation helicopter.”

“We had to go into Lockdown, Mr. President. We’re trapped in here.”

“Is General Murdoch with you?” the President asked.

“He’s stuck in another part of the compound. Hurt bad. His wife turned into a demon. Bub changed her somehow.”

The Commander-in-Chief raised an eyebrow. “He can change people into demons?”

“You need to find a way to get us out of here, Mr. President. Can you get us any sort of weapons? Gas? Explosives? Something to cut through the bars?”

“Is it possible that I could speak to General Murdoch?”

“Just a second, I’ll see if he’s still alive.”

Andy picked up the phone and dialed Yellow 4.

“Race, how are you doing?”

Race coughed. “Not dead yet.” Though he didn’t sound far from it.

“I’ve got the President on the monitor.”

“Ask him,” Race said, “if we can go ahead with Protocol 9.”

“What’s that?”

“Just ask him, Andy.”

“Mr. President, Race wants to go ahead with Protocol 9. Is that an escape plan?”

“I grant acceptance for Protocol 9. Authorization code…” the President looked at some papers on his desk. “7-6-5-8-9-9-0.”

“He says to do it, Race, code number 7-6-5-8-9-9-0. What’s Protocol 9?”

“God be with you folks,” the President said.

The monitor went blank.

Andy’s stomach did a slow roll. “What the hell just happened?” he demanded.

Sun reached out and gripped his arm. “I don’t like this. Ask Race what’s going on.”

“It’s the last safety measure,” Race said, “in case all others fail. In 1967 I authorized a one kiloton nuclear device to be buried under Samhain.”

“What? A nuke?”

Sun closed her eyes. “A nuke.”

“Race,” Andy gripped the receiver, knuckles white, fighting to remain calm. “You can’t blow us up.”

“I’m sorry, son. If Bub gets out, he could destroy the world. I don’t have a choice here.”

“What about our choice?” Andy pleaded.

“It’s in God’s hands now.”

“God?” Andy laughed. “Didn’t you hear? Bub is God. He came from outer space and created all life on earth.”

Sun wrestled the phone from Andy.

“General, you have to give us a chance. Is the Yellow Arm the only way out?”

There was a pause. Andy put his ear next to the receiver and heard Race say, “Yes.”

“You paused. Why did you pause? Is there another way out?”

“I’m sorry, Sunshine. It has to be this way.”

“Don’t do this, Race. Please.”

“I’m setting the timer for an hour,” Race said. “Give you time to make your peace, have one last fling, whatever you want to do.”

“Race…”

“We’re saving the world, Sun. Take some solace in that.”

The General hung up.

Andy stared at Sun, then at Dr. Belgium. They both looked devastated.

“We have to turn off that nuke,” he said.

Sun met his eyes. “We don’t even know if it can be turned off.”

“We have to try.”

Sun shook her head. “How do we get through the bars? And even if we manage that, how do we get past Helen?”

“We’ll find a way. Race said we have an hour.”

“An hour? We couldn’t even do it with power tools.”

“There’s the central air vent.” Dr. Belgium pointed above to the left of the Blue Door near the ceiling. “It’s big enough to crawl in. Race had to go in there once, around ten years ago, to fix a weld.”

Andy’s heart leapt. “Where does it go?”

“The ducts go through the ceilings all over the compound.”

“We still can’t go into the Yellow Arm,” Sun said. “Not without some kind of weapon.”

“Race had that cattle prod. I’m betting it’s in his room.”

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

They all turned to look at Bub, who’d gripped the titanium bars and shook them with ferocious power.

“Free meeeeeeee!” Bub hissed. “I’ll help you turn off the bomb if you free meeeeeee. Fraaaaank…”

The demon focused his attention on the biologist.

“I know things about science that yooooooou couldn’t even comprehend. I could teeeeeach you. You’d surpass Crick. Surpass Einsteeeein.”

Frank looked away.

“Suuuuuuun,” Bub implored. “I can take away your paaain, heal the wounds of the paaaaaaaast.”

Sun gave Bub her back and folded her arms.

“Andy…”

Andy gave Bub the finger.

“Fooooools. Then diiiiiiiiie!”

Bub roared, an unholy screech that made Andy’s ears ring, then disappeared down the Red Arm.

“We have to defend ourselves somehow. Bub might making more of those things out of Father Thrist.”

“How many can he make?” Andy asked.

Sun did a quick count. “There are about eighty dead ones here. So we should expect another eighty.”

“Can we barricade the gate?” Belgium asked.

“He can fit his hands through the bars. He’ll just push the barricade down.”

“How about a net?”

“Made of what?”

Belgium scanned a desktop, then held up a pack of yellow Post-It notes.

“I don’t think that will hold, Frank. But it can’t hurt to start piling stuff up against the gate.”

Andy set the timer on his watch for fifty-five minutes.

“Let’s move like our lives depend on it.” he said.

Belgium began to stack chairs against the Red Arm. Andy and Sun pushed a desk over to the air vent. Andy climbed on top. The grating was at waist level, held into place with four screws. Flat heads.

“See if you can find some kind of flat tool. A nail file. A rulers. Something to use as a screwdriver.”

Sun rifled through the drawers, then handed him a staple remover. The metal edge fit into the groove on the screw head. Andy twisted.

The screw didn’t budge.

“Not enough leverage. Try to find something else.”

Sun left to search for a better tool, while Andy struggled with the staple remover. He tried another screw, pushing down on it hard, his fingers turning white from the pressure.

It moved.

Andy leaned into it, his head pounding, the sweat starting to come.

An agonizing two minutes later, and the screw was out. A long son of a bitch too.

One down, three to go.

“Try this,” Sun said. She handed him a piece of metal—one of the drawer tracks from a desk. Andy tried it in the screw.

“Too soft. It just bends.”

“I’ll keep looking.”

Andy went back to work with the staple remover. His fingers were cramped and screaming, and the sweaty tool kept slipping off the screw, making him scrape his knuckles. But he managed to get another one out.

Checking his watch, he saw they’d lost eight minutes.

“They’re coming,” Dr. Belgium said.

Andy looked over his shoulder. Belgium had piled a ceiling-high stack of chairs and desks against the Red Arm gate.

Sun ran up to him.

“Andy! You gotta hurry!”

Andy pried up an edge of the vent, stuck his fingers under it, and yanked. He was able to pull the vent to the side, revealing a very narrow opening.

“It’s dark,” he said, peering in. “And dusty. Does anyone have matches or a lighter?”

“Just get your ass in there.” Sun said. “We should be able to see light through the vents when we’re over them.”

“Bats bats bats!” Belgium said, running up. “I hear them coming down the hall!”

Andy took off his shirt and wound it around his face to keep out the thick dust. Sun and Belgium did the same. Then Andy went in.

There wasn’t much space, and Andy couldn’t get on all fours to crawl. He moved forward by pulling himself with his fingers in a chin-up motion, using his tip toes to assist. It was slow going, exhausting, claustrophobic, and it didn’t help that Andy had wounds all over his body.

Before long his breathing was choked and labored, and his fingers and calves were cramping.

“Keep going,” he heard Sun say behind him.

She touched his foot. It gave him a smidgeon of hope.

Then he heard the squeal of the batlings echo through the vent.

Sun didn’t like enclosed spaces. With Andy in front of her, and Dr. Belgium at her heels, she felt like a sardine. The dust coated the inside of her mouth and nose, and made her eyes water.

Belgium tapped her ankle. “They’re right behind me.”

“Faster, Andy!”

“There’s a light ahead. Just a few feet.”

Sun scurried forward, trying to push Andy’s feet to move him quicker.

“There’s a vent. I’m over a hallway.”

A clanging sound; Andy banging on the vent, trying to force it open.

Behind Sun, Dr. Belgium screamed.

“Biting me! They’re biting!”

Two more clangs, and then Andy disappeared.

Sun saw the light ahead. Andy had knocked out the grating, and gone face-first through the opening on the bottom of the vent.

“Keep moving, Frank!” she yelled. “Just a few more feet!”

Sun got her head over the opening and blanched at the ten foot drop. Andy knelt on the floor, moaning softly. His staples had come loose, and his head gushed blood.

“Andy!”

He glanced up at Sun, his face bathed in confusion. He must have hit the floor hard.

Sun couldn’t wait for him to get his bearings.

“Andy! Catch me!”

She wiggled through the opening and fell into his arms. He caught her and hugged her tight to his chest, and they tumbled over onto their sides.

Andy blinked, then grinned at her.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said. “People will talk.”

“Coming down!”

Dr. Belgium dropped through the grate like a stone, landing on top of the couple. He hit Sun with such force that she saw stars and had the air knocked out of her chest.

Belgium was followed by a dark wave of batlings, which quickly filled the hall with swirling fury.

Sun sucked in a breath and looked around. They were in the Blue Arm, only a few yards away from her room. She had a can of mace in there. Along with something that might be even more helpful.

Sun managed to get to her feet and scrambled for her door, batlings swooping on her at all angles. She tugged the knob, dove onto the bed, and wrapped her fists around the two racquetball racquets she’d left there since her earlier game with Andy.

Sun rushed back into the fray in time to see Dr. Belgium run screaming down the hall.

“Andy!” she yelled, tossing him a racquet.

The batlings went straight for blood, biting at Suns wounds. She pulled off the ones that had begun to chew, and adopted her game stance.

The demons flew fast, but not as fast as a racquetball bounced. On Sun’s first swing she smacked one down the hall, splattering it against a door.

It felt good.

Another dove straight at her face, screeching , and she backhanded it to the left.

WHACK!

She forearmed another into the ceiling.

WHACK!

Two flew at her head-on, and with an overhand smash she catapulted both into the floor. Sun hit another so hard its claws got stuck in her racquet string. She yanked it out and tossed it aside.

The former American Racquetball Association Women’s Champion swung again and again, her racquet slicing through the air in all directions, knocking away batlings as fast as they could fly at her.

She chanced a look at Andy, who was displacing so many demons he seemed to be waving around a large net.

The batlings smartened up. They stayed out of Sun’s swinging range, and tried to attack her from the side and from behind. Sun dodged left, jumped, and hammered two more.

Less than twenty remained, and Sun kicked it into overdrive, bringing the fight to her attackers. She set her jaw and sprang into the thick of them, staying on the balls of her feet, moving the racquet as fast as she could. Blood hung in the air like a mist, coating her face, making the racquet handle slippery. The constant flapping and screeching became intermittent, and then almost non-existent.

Just a handful remained, and the veterinarian hunted them down, one at a time.

A final demon, screaming like a smoke alarm, bee-lined for Sun’s face in a suicidal attempt to get at her throat.

Sun whacked it so hard it bounced off two walls.

The veterinarian turned completely around, searching for another flying attacker.

There were none. The floor was littered with the dead and dying; almost a hundred of them. Several were still twitching or trying to flap their broken wings. The once pristine hallway now resembled a slaughterhouse.

Something touched her shoulder, and Sun whirled around, ready to swing.

Andy.

“I’m checking Race’s room for the cattle prod.”

She touched his head. He flinched.

“I’ve got some super glue in my room.”

“For what?” Andy’s eyes looked up, as if he could see his own scalp. “You’re kidding, right?”

“It’s better than staples. Surgeons use it. What time do you have?”

Andy checked his watch. “Thirty-six minutes until we’re fried.”

“I’ll meet you back out here in two minutes.”

Sun turned to go, but Andy caught her arm.

“Wait a sec.”

She turned. “What is it?”

Sun searched his face, saw tenderness.

“Watching you, since all of this began, you’re so brave.”

“We’re both brave.”

“No. I’m just trying to stay alive. You told me about your fear of bats, how they freaked you out. You faced that fear, and won. I want to be like that.”

Injured as he was, she never had a man look at her with so much longing.

“It’s easy to be brave,” she breathed. “Don’t think about it. Just do it.”

Andy put his arm around the small of her back, pulled her close, and kissed her.

Sun hurt in a hundred places. Andy tasted like blood and sweat and dust, and he smelled even worse, and his hand was pressed right up against an open batling bite on her side, and this was the worst possible timing in the history of male/female relations.

It was also the best kiss of Sun’s life.

She kissed him back, enjoying the spark of electricity that ran helter-skelter over her nerve endings. She may have even moaned a little.

When they finally broke the kiss, Andy said, “Wow.”

No one had ever given Sun a “Wow” before.

“Meet me back here in two minutes,” she said. “And be careful. We don’t know what else is running around here.”

Sun hurried to her room, and only after closing the door did she wonder what happened to Dr. Belgium.

When the hallway filled with batlings, Dr. Belgium looked to Sun and Andy to tell him what to do. He watched Sun tear down the hall and run into her room.

Good idea, Belgium thought.

He took off after Sun, a swarm of demons striking him from all directions. He almost panicked. The batlings instilled the same primordial fear as a swarm of bees or a nest of vipers. Even worse, they were intelligent, aiming for Belgium’s eyes, biting at his legs and back and other places he couldn’t swat with his hands.

The high-pitched squealing sound they made, the electric pain appearing all over his body like bullet hits, the blood blinding his eyes—part of him wanted to just give up and die.

He quickly realized he wasn’t going to reach his room alive. The creatures were in his face, and he couldn’t see. Every time he knocked one off, another took its place.

So Belgium did what he was taught in grammar school.

Stop, drop, and roll.

The batlings that clung to him were crushed under his weight. The others couldn’t land on him. Dizziness be damned, this was the perfect protection.

Until he hit the wall.

Disoriented, he reached up, his fingers finding purchase on a doorknob. He got to his knees and entered the room, slamming it closed behind him.

He checked his clothes, to see if any batlings still clung to him. One was gnawing on his left calf, and he tore it off and tossed it at the bed.

It was then that he noticed what was left of Dr. Harker.

“…oh dear oh dear oh dear.”

Something had gotten to her. Something big and hungry. Her dead eyes were wide open, and her mouth frozen in a scream of raw agony. Glancing at her lower body, Belgium could guess she’d been alive for much of the meal.

The batling on the bed squeaked, shook itself off, and took flight. It came straight at Belgium, and he moved up his forearm to shield his face from the attack.

But before the demon reached him, a long pink whip snatched it out of the air with a THWACK! The batling, and the tongue that held it, vanished behind the bed.

Then came munching sounds.

Belgium held his breath, reaching his hand behind him, seeking the doorknob.

In the hallway he could hear the squealing of the brood. Going back out there wasn’t a viable option.

Maybe if he kept very still, the thing behind the bed wouldn’t come out.

As soon as the thought left his head, the thing behind the bed came out.

It looked like an albino alligator, with a grossly inflated and misshapen human head. Bulging, cloudy white eyes without pupils darted left, then right, eventually resting on Belgium. The creature blinked and stretched open its mouth.

It had more teeth than Bub did.

“Oh shit shit shit.”

Its six legs bent, and it hopped onto the bed. Belgium watched its nostrils flare as it sniffed the air.

The hallway was looking better and better.

“Um, hello there,” Belgium said, his mouth so dry he felt as if he’d gargled with sand.

The creature cocked its head to the side. The milky eyes regarded him.

“Hello,” it said. Its voice was that of a child’s.

Frank came very close to wetting his pants.

“I’m, um, Dr. Belgium. What’s your name?”

It moved closer.

“Do you have a name?” Belgium asked again.

“Shirley,” said the monster.

Belgium glanced to the left. The bathroom. If he could get in there and lock the door…

Shirley’s tongue fired from its mouth as if spring loaded, wrapping around Belgium’s ankle.

He screamed, then threw his whole body toward the bathroom, barely getting out of the way as Shirley leapt at him.

Frank moved faster than he’d ever moved in his life, diving for the tile floor, kicking the bathroom door shut—

It wouldn’t close.

Shirley’s tongue was still around his leg.

Belgium placed both feet on the door and pushed until the veins stood out on his forehead.

Shirley let out a heart-wrenching cry, and then the tongue severed, becoming slack.

Belgium pressed the lock button on the door knob, kicked away the slimy tongue, and almost wept with relief.

The relief was interrupted by an odd sound—a mixture of scratching and gurgling—coming from the door.

Belgium crab-walked away from the sound, and watched in horrific fascination as a small hole appeared.

Shirley, like an organic chainsaw, was chewing her way through the wood at an alarming rate.

Frank looked around for a weapon. He picked up a toothbrush from the sink, then put it back down. In the medicine cabinet were various pill bottles, some tweezers, and a comb.

He checked the door again, and Shirley had widened the hole to a ten inch circumference. She’d be crawling through any second.

Belgium reached up for the shower curtain rod, but it was bolted to the walls. The curtain itself was thin, useless. He spun and faced the toilet. Maybe the toilet seat? No time to unscrew it. But atop the tank was a heavy, porcelain cover. Belgium hefted it, whirling around just as Shirley stuck her head through the hole in door.

He gave the swing everything he had, cracking her skull so hard that the lid split in two. The creature was knocked backward, out of the hole.

Belgium craned an ear, listening. He could only hear his own beating heart.

Did he kill it? Was the thing dead?

He slowly reached for the door knob, but then thought better of it. Instead he took a step away from the door, then cautiously bent over to look through the hole.

Almost there… can almost see…

The tongue slapped against his face like a garden hose and wrapped around his neck, pulling Belgium to his knees. He gasped in horror as Shirley stuck her head through the opening, mouth open wide.

She began to reel her tongue in.

At first, Belgium’s mind couldn’t grasp the situation. Inch by inch, he was being drawn into her gaping jaws.

Then reality hit, and once again he screamed.

Unwilling to submit to the impending facectomy, Belgium planted both feet against the door and pulled hard.

Shirley answered by pulling even harder, tightening the tongue noose around his neck.

Belgium’s oxygen got cut off, and he began to lose the tug of war. Though he loathed to touch the beast, he made a V with his fingers and poked them right into Shirley’s bulging white eyes.

She cried out, the tongue loosening its hold. Belgium yanked on it with both hands, stretched it upward, and tied it in a quick granny knot around the door knob.

Then he shoved the door open and crawled past the thrashing, screaming Shirley.

Batlings be damned, he had to get the hell out of there.

Belgium threw open the door and rushed out into the Blue Arm, slamming it behind him.

There were no batlings left.

He just about wept with relief.

Then he heard the familiar scratching/gurgling sound.

Shirley was free, and biting through the door. Soon she’d be in the hallway.

Andy stuck his head out of Blue 1 and Belgium ran in and slammed the door behind him.

“Frank? Are you okay?”

“We need need need to get out of here.”

“What’s going on?”

Belgium’s eyes scanned the room, frantic.

“Weapon. We need a weapon.”

Something hit the door with a tremendous thump.

“What the hell is that?” Andy said.

“That’s Shirley.” Belgium said, gasping. “She ate Harker, and she’s still hungry.”

Andy picked up the phone and dialed a number.

“Sun, there’s something in the hallway. Don’t leave your room.”

The biting sound came from behind the door. Belgium watched the sawdust begin to fly, and the blur of gnashing teeth.

“Did you find the cattle prod?” Belgium asked.

“Not yet. Maybe it’s not even here.”

“He’s military, he’d keep his only weapon nearby.”

Belgium looked under the bed and came up with a white stick. “It doesn’t look big enough,” Belgium said.

“Figure out how it works.”

Andy went into the General’s closet and began taking clothes off hangers.

“What are you going to do, dress it?” Belgium said.

Andy knocked away hangers and pulled out the closet rod. It was four feet long and two and a half inches wide, solid wood.

“Can you use that prod?” Andy asked.

“I think so.”

Andy raised the rod above the hole.

But, as quickly as it had begun, the chewing stopped.

Andy bent down to look through the hole. Belgium stopped him.

“Don’t. It knows that trick.”

They waited for almost a full minute.

“It’s going after Sun,” Andy said. “We have to go get her.”

Frank couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less, but the thought of that nice veterinarian alone with that horrible thing forced him to move.

Andy motioned with his chin for Belgium to open the door.

Dr. Belgium fought every ounce of common sense he had and reached for the knob, slowly turning it.

Andy gave him a nod.

Here goes nothing.

Belgium flung the door open and Andy gripped the rod and brought it back like a baseball bat.

The demon wasn’t there.

Belgium crept into the hallway, looking right, looking left.

“Where the hell did it go?” Andy asked.

“Maybe it went back to Harker’s room. Or maybe…”

Belgium looked at the floor, making out the faint bloody footprints the thing had left while chasing him. The prints stopped at Race’s room, then went over to the opposite wall, and…

“Up the wall,” Belgium said.

Andy and Frank raised their heads, slowly, to the ceiling. The demon was hanging upside down like a giant gecko, staring at them with its milky eyes.

It pounced. Andy swung, but it landed inside the arc of the rod and hit him squarely in the chest, knocking him back into Race’s room.

Belgium watched as the creature dug in its claws and snapped at Andy’s neck. Andy shoved the closet rod into the hinge of its jaws, forcing its head back.

Frank rushed to help the linguist.

“Take that that that!” Dr. Belgium yelled.

Frank hit the thing in the side with the cattle prod.

Nothing happened.

Belgium looked at the prod, and flipped the switch in the other direction and tried again.

Nothing.

“Dammit, Frank!” Andy yelped, struggling with the beast. “You’re a goddamn molecular biologist! Figure the damn thing out!”

Belgium flipped the switch twice more, then noticed the handle could turn. He twisted it, heard a click, and touched the prod to the hellspawn.

There was a loud crack and a spark at the contact point. The thing squealed and rolled off of Andy. Belgium thrust the prod at the creature again and nothing happened.

“Reset it!” Andy yelled, getting to his feet.

The demon lunged at Belgium, toppling him over and sending the cattle prod skittering across the floor.

Snap snap snap went the beast’s jaws. Belgium gripped its neck and tried to force it away, a battle he was quickly losing as the teeth inched closer. It’s breath was hot and sour, and the injured tongue shot out and once more got Frank in a stranglehold.

As his vision blurred, Frank saw Andy step behind the demon and swing the rod like a home run champion. The contact was solid, and Belgium could feel the shock of the blow vibrating through the monster’s tongue.

The thing rolled from Dr. Belgium’s chest, and Andy followed up with another viscous swing to its head. The wet WHAP was accompanied by a cracking sound, and Shirley slumped over.

Belgium reached for the dropped cattle prod. He turned the handle and shoved it at the demon’s body, causing a burn where it made contact.

Belgium did it again, and then once more.

Shirley didn’t move.

“I think we got it,” Andy said.

Belgium zapped it twice more.

Sun appeared, clutching a towel and a tiny cylinder of pepper spray.

“What was it?” she asked.

“One more reason to avoid working for the government,” Andy said. “We need to find the vent that’ll lead to the Yellow Arm. Frank!”

Belgium was still zapping the dead creature.

“Frank! It’s dead! Save the battery!”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“The Yellow Arm is to the right of the Blue Arm,” Sun said. “Down the hall here there’s another ceiling vent. I bet it goes both ways, left to the Purple arm and right to the Yellow.”

“We’ll drag a dresser out here to stand on. Frank! Enough with the cattle prod!”

Belgium zapped the demon once more, for good measure, and then joined them.

With little difficulty, they pushed a dresser out into the hall under the ceiling grill, up onto its end. Andy took out the drawers, which allowed him to climb the piece of furniture like a ladder. He pulled off the vent and peered inside.

“The duct ends in a T, going off in both left and right directions.”

“How much time left?” Sun asked.

Andy checked his watch.

“Twenty-six minutes.”

“Hold still.”

Sun used the towel to wipe away the blood on Andy’s scalp, and then went to work on his wound with a tube of super glue.

“Is this going to… ow! Jesus!”

“Hold still. I’ll be done in a second.”

Belgium took a deep, calming breath, which was no help at all. Everything hurt. He felt miserable. Not just for himself, but for this cute young couple, who’d done nothing to bring this shit storm down on themselves.

“Sun, Andy,” he said. “I’m really sorry. This is all my fault.”

“Were you the one who gave him the code for the gate?” Sun asked.

“What? No no no. Of course not. I let him use the Internet because I thought it would help teach him to read. Now I see—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Sun pocketed the super glue and patted his shoulder.

“But—”

“No buts. Bub has been planning this all along. He got to all of us, in one way or another. Don’t beat yourself up over it. This isn’t your fault.”

Belgium felt a lump grow in his throat. Sun had no way on knowing it, but she’d given him the nicest gift he’d ever received.

“Thank you, Sun.”

“Now let’s go stop a nuclear explosion.”

Since Bub first walked the earth there have been over five hundred attempts on his life. Sometimes it was just a single assassin armed with an ineffectual club or a useless dagger. Other times it was a conspiracy of many, or a carefully prepared trap.

He’d eluded death in all situations. Besides the fact that he was extremely hard to kill, Bub had developed a knack for thinking like humans. They rarely surprised him. The closest he’d ever been to actual death was at the hands of the Maya, and only then because they’d been extremely lucky.

But this time, Bub was worried. A one kiloton weapon, the equivalent of two million pounds of TNT, was more than enough to blow him into oblivion. And even if the nuke didn’t explode, it still posed a threat.

Something had to be done. Something quick.

The demon went to the end of the hallway and stared at the air conditioning vent. He put his ear to it, listening to the faint sounds of the humans inching their way through. Bub was much too big to fit inside the small duct, but that could be fixed.

With one talon he yanked off the grating.

The demon closed his eyes and focused on his own DNA structure. He hadn’t lied to Belgium about that. Bub knew his genome like a man knows his name. He’d memorized every base pair, every gene, every chromosome, and knew what every one of them did.

He did some quick equations in his head, decided what needed to be done, and placed his right claw on his chest, injecting himself with his own essence.

Genetic manipulation had limits. Bub couldn’t make the drastic changes to himself as he did with other life forms. If he altered his own genome too much, he’d become something entirely different and wouldn’t be able to change back.

He also had a set mass to work with, and it was impossible to make himself larger or smaller. Bub could not have turned into a rat in order to fit through the bars of the gate. But he could change his genome enough to fit into the air condition duct. He’d done it earlier today, when he escaped his habitat through the sheep’s door, after that zealot Father Thrist refused to help.

All it took was a little time and effort.

Without pain, his shoulders dislocated and moved up alongside his neck. His skull elongated and his mouth shrank, his ram’s horns flattening against his face and curving inward. With a crackling sound, Bub’s ribs stretched out and compacted, making his torso longer and thinner. Both hips popped audibly from their sockets and slid closer together. His organs shifted around in his body cavity, adjusting to their new spaces.

Bub was now twice as long and half as thick. He resembled a funhouse mirror reflection of himself.

He stuck his head into the vent and glared in the direction of the humans. They could wait. For the moment, they were allies, no more wanting to explode in a nuclear fireball than he did.

Bub looked to the left, sniffing the air. That was were the sheep were.

The demon wormed his way into the vent and slithered snake-like to the Orange Arm. He knocked out the ceiling grate with a flick of his wrist and poured himself out of the duct and into the Orange Arm hallway.

His nose took him to Orange 12, and he went in. Inside were over a dozen sheep. But Bub wasn’t hungry.

In order to escape Samhain, Bub had to be able to bypass these titanium gates. They’d been built to withstand a creature of his size and strength. But how would they hold up to a much larger creature?

Bub looked at the thousands of pounds of raw material around him and got started.

Andy looked down into the Yellow Arm from the ceiling vent.

No Helen.

He carefully bent the grating down and eased himself over the opening, going through legs-first rather than face-first like he had in the Blue Arm.

His landing was louder than he would have liked. His eyes nervously scanned both directions to see if the creature was coming.

So far, so good.

Sun handed him the clothes rod, and he helped her exit the duct. They both assisted Dr. Belgium.

“Where do you think she is?” Frank whispered.

They moved down the hall slowly, Andy paying special attention to the ceiling—he wasn’t going to let anything drop on him again.

“Do you hear that?” Sun said.

Andy held his breath and listened.

“It sounds like laughter.”

“A laugh track,” Sun said. “It’s a television.”

“She’s watching TV?”

“Not beyond the scope of possibility,” Belgium said. “Helen watched a lot of TV. Maybe when Bub changed her genome, some of her memory remained intact.”

There was faint applause, then a recognizable soda jingle. Dr. Belgium hummed along with it.

Down the hall, at Helen’s old room, the door opened.

“Uh-oh,” Frank said.

The Helen demon stepped out into the hallway, hoofs clicking on the tile floor. Andy noted that it was three times as big as that alligator monster they’d just killed. The curtain rod suddenly felt ineffectual.

“We should go back up the vent,” Andy said softly.

“Come on,” Sun tugged him. “In here.”

They slipped silently into Yellow 9, an empty closet.

“It’s too big” Andy whispered. “We won’t be able to kill it.”

“Maybe we can sneak past it.”

The three of them cautiously peeked out the doorway. The demon had moved down the hall and stopped in front of Yellow 4. It sniffed at the keypad, then squatted down next to the door.

“That’s where Race is,” Dr. Belgium said. “The bomb room.”

They waited. Minutes passed. The demon stayed put.

Andy checked his watch. They had thirteen minutes left.

“We’re running out of time,” Dr. Belgium said. “We have to distract it, yes yes yes.”

“Sure. I’ll throw a stick, see if it’ll fetch.”

“We should attack,” Sun said.

Andy stared at her, incredulous. “It practically killed Race, and he’s a lot tougher than we are.”

“Hold on.” Belgium rubbed his chin. “If it watches TV, maybe part of Helen is still in there somewhere. Let me try to talk to her.”

The demon yawned, showing more teeth than a dog kennel.

“Maybe that’s not too smart of an idea,” Sun said.

“I have to try. Helen?” Belgium stepped out of the closet, his hands raised in supplication. “It’s me, Frank. Remember?”

The demon leapt to its feet and turned to face Belgium, red eyes narrowing.

Belgium took a slow step towards it.

“Hello, Helen. Remember how I used to come to your room and we’d play checkers?”

A guttural sound came from the Helen-thing’s mouth.

“See see see?” Frank said. “She remembers.”

He took another step forward.

“This is going to end badly,” Andy whispered to Sun. “We should do something.”

“Frank…” Sun warned.

“It’s okay.” Belgium shooed them back. “Helen, we could play checkers again someday. Would you like that?”

The demon’s wings suddenly opened, and it stretched out its arms the width of the hallway, scraping at the plaster with its talons.

“Frank,” Andy said slowly, “I don’t think the hellspawn wants to play checkers with you.”

“I know part of you is still human,” Belgium went on. “Maybe we could somehow change you back. If not, well… I understand there are some very nice zoos.”

The creature howled and launched itself down the hall.

“Run, Frank!”

Belgium backpedaled, then turned around and passed up Andy and Sun.

The demon sprang, knocking Sun aside and latching its claws onto Andy’s shoulder. Its grip was agonizing. Andy swung at its face and the beast snapped down on his hand, razor teeth slicing into his wrist. Andy screamed and tried frantically to yank it free.

Sun maced the creature in the face. The creature didn’t seem to be bothered much, but when the pepper spray hit Andy’s chewed hand, he reached a whole new level of pain.

From the corner of his eye, he watched the demon swat Sun away.

“Andy!” Dr. Belgium yelled.

He rushed up to Helen and rammed the cattle prod into the demon’s mouth, past the sharp teeth, and bent upward.

Andy pulled out his hand, giving Belgium more room to jam the prod in further, down the thing’s throat.

The effect was immediate. The demon dropped Andy and grabbed the biologist, drawing him close in a bear hug. It shook its head back and forth, trying to dislodge the obstruction.

Frank kept his grip on the prod and shoved once more, grunting with effort. It went down the demon’s throat almost to the hilt. Then he turned the handle and gave the beast some juice.

Helen’s whole body went rigid, smoke curling out the corners of her mouth. She released Frank and collapsed onto the floor, her red eyes rolling up in her head.

Sun jumped on her with the curtain rod, swinging it over and over, until the demon’s head cracked open like a dropped watermelon.

Helen twitched twice, then ceased all movement.

“Well,” Belgium said. “That was horrible.” He nudged the creature with his foot. “Dead dead dead.”

Andy clutched his wrist. Blood spurted through his fingers with his heartbeat, a good amount of it pooling on the floor.

He dropped to his knees.

• • •

An artery, Sun thought, looking at Andy.

She knelt next to him. He was pale, his face clammy and cold, his breathing shallow. A quick inspection of the wound found it to be ugly; the creature had bit him almost to the bone. She took Andy’s pulse. Weak. She unbuckled his belt and pulled it off his waist, cinching it tight about the wound.

“Hold here,” she told Belgium, taking his hand and putting it on Andy’s wrist below the tourniquet. “Don’t let him close his eyes.”

Sun ran down the hall into the Med Supply room, Yellow 6. She grabbed everything in a whirlwind; a hundred cc bag of saline solution with an IV drip, a surgical needle, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a pack of cotton swabs, a scalpel, a gallon jug of sterile water. She searched quickly for clamps, but couldn’t find any.

The hell with it; there was no time. If she didn’t stop the bleeding now, Sun knew Andy was going to die.

“Pour this on your hands,” she said to Belgium, tossing him the alcohol. When he finished, she repeated the procedure with her own hands and then poured the remaining alcohol onto Andy’s wound.

He moaned weakly.

“Open the scalpel package,” Sun told Belgium. “Pour some water on him, clear away the blood.”

Keeping pressure on his wrist, Sun spread open the gash with her fingers to peer inside. The blood flow had stopped, so she loosened the belt to see its source.

When the blood came, it came fast.

“Now.”

Belgium poured, washing blood away. The ulnar artery was completely severed, as was the medial antebrachial vein. The radial artery had a gash in it. Sun cinched the belt tight.

“Scalpel,” Sun ordered, “and open the needle pack.”

Belgium complied. Sun cut into Andy’s flesh, lengthening the width of the wound so she could fit her fingers in. Andy yelped and tried to pull away.

“Hold his arm steady. You can’t let him squirm.”

“Okay okay okay.”

“You see, here? I need you to put your fingers on that artery and squeeze.”

Belgium kept one hand on Andy’s forearm and stuck the other into the gash, doing what he was told.

Sun poured more water on the wound, then took hold of the pre-threaded half-moon needle.

“Don’t worry,” she told Andy. “I’m gonna do this right. Just hold real still.”

Sun tied off the artery, greatly reducing the blood flow. She didn’t have a clamp to hold the needle, so she did it freehand, her fingers slick with blood. Belgium had to let go of Andy’s twitching forearm to dump more water on the wound.

Quickly, expertly, Sun sutured the ulnar artery back together. Her next job was the gash in the radial. It was on the underside and tough to see. “Hold him,” Sun said. She tied the artery off and then tugged on it lightly to get a better look.

“Jesus!” Andy cried.

“You’re not getting religious on me, are you?” Sun said.

Sun sewed up the radial artery, then got to work on the severed antebrachial vein. Her concentration was pinpoint. She was tired, hurt all over, and emotionally frazzled, but she wouldn’t allow it to get in the way of her job.

Not this time.

She finished, and then cut the thread she’d used to tie off the arteries. They filled with pumping blood. Sun poured on more water and looked for leaks.

None.

She smiled to herself.

“Get something to put under his feet,” Sun told Belgium.

Andy’s blood pressure was still weak. She ripped open the IV pack and dug the needle into a vein on his good hand. Belgium came back with a chair and raised Andy’s feet up onto the seat.

“I have to close him up, what’s our time?”

Belgium glanced at Andy’s watch.

“Four minutes.”

“Find Race, shut off the bomb.”

Belgium nodded, hurrying off.

Sun hung the saline bag on the end of the chair and began to stitch Andy’s wrist closed.

“You’ll make it,” she told him. “But I don’t know if we will.”

Race was dying.

It suited him just fine. Losing Helen was devastating. He’d spent years trying to become emotionally detached, and then for one brief, magic moment, she was his again, body and soul.

He realized, after more than four decades of marriage, that he’d made the wrong choice. Helen was more important than Samhain, more important than even his beloved Army. Race should have cherished his years with her, rather than wasted them here.

And now she was gone.

Bub’s words had hit home. Helen surely must have hated him for keeping her here all that time. When she developed Huntington’s, Race considered her his burden. But all along, he was her burden.

Race welcomed death. The thought of it warmed him. Never a religious man, the one in a million chance that there was an afterlife, and that Helen might be there waiting for him, far outweighed his desire for this world.

“Race?” A knock. “It’s Frank Belgium. The door is locked. Are you in there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

The words took great effort. Race figured he’d lost more than two pints of blood.

“Can you let me in?”

“Code is 1-7-1-9-5-9.”

His wedding anniversary.

The lock disengaged and Dr. Belgium came into the room. He was just as bloody as Race, his lab coat more red than white.

“How did you get through Lockdown?”

“Air ducts.”

“Helen?” Race asked.

“She’s at peace now. I’m sorry. Dr. Harker is dead too. Andy’s badly hurt.”

“Bub?”

“Still locked in the Red Arm.”

Race sighed painfully. “For a hundred years of planning and safeguards, it all went to hell pretty fast.”

“The best laid plans often go astray,” the biologist said. “It’s not your fault.”

“Of course it’s my fault. Armies don’t lose wars. Leaders lose wars.”

“Race…” Belgium put a hand on his shoulder. “We want you to shut off the nuke.”

The General said nothing.

“We’ve known each other what, twenty years? You know why I came to Samhain, right?”

Race nodded.

“General, I let Bub out of the habitat. He went on the Internet. All of those questions he answered… it was all garbage garbage garbage. Stuff he picked up off the web.”

“Stupid thing to do.”

“I know. You think I would have learned after twenty years.”

Belgium eased himself into a sitting position, next to Race.

“Did you know I was married?”

Race gave his head a slight shake.

“I thought I loved her, but in reality I suppose didn’t. All I ever loved was my work. Such a beautiful thing, genetics. So beautiful and perfect. Perfect perfect perfect.”

Belgium stared deeply into Race’s eyes. “That’s what life is all about, General. Loving something. Maybe a person, or a thing, but something. Like you loved Helen.”

The General’s eyes became glassy.

“You’ve seen Andy and Sun together… Race, we’re older, you and I. We’ve lived our lives. And we’ve had to live with our mistakes. Please. I can’t let them die. Not because of me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Race said. “I switch off the nuke, the President will still destroy Samhain. It’s a hardened target, two hundred feet underground, but he could get it done within two hours.”

“At least that gives us two more hours. You, above all people, should know how precious a few hours can be.”

Race knew.

“How about that?” Helen had said, zipping up her evening gown only hours before. “Still fits.”

“You know you’re even more beautiful than the day I met you,” Race told her.

She smiled. It lit up the room. Race would have given her the world, right then, if she’d only asked.

“Oh, Regis. This is so perfect, being with you right now. I love you, my dear.”

“I love you too, Helen. Now let’s cut up that rug, shall we?”

He could still smell her perfume on him, beneath all the blood.

“The panel,” Race told Belgium. “Turn the switch to the left, then punch in these numbers. Six, three, six, zero, niner.”

Belgium stood up and punched in the code. There was a beep, and the timer stopped with two minutes to spare.

“Is there another way out of Samhain?” Belgium asked.

Race coughed. A thin line of blood dripped down his chin.

“Maybe. Most of Samhain is made of natural caverns—this area is full of them. When they were building this compound, they came in through the underground from a few miles away. Then they sealed off the connecting tunnel when they were done.”

“Where is it?”

“Somewhere in the Green Arm. You need to bust through a wall, I don’t know which one. You’ll have to find the old blueprints. They should be in Red 3.”

“How about tools? Shovels, picks, axes?”

“In one of the Green rooms there’s a bunch of old excavating equipment. And I mean old. Left here from when they built the compound. Maybe you can dig your way into the original access tunnel, if you can find it, and escape through the caverns before the President nukes the whole area.”

“Can you come with us?”

Race shook his head.

Dr. Belgium took Race’s hand and grasped it firmly.

“Thank you, General. It was an honor serving under you.”

“Promise me something.” Race stared hard at Frank.

“Yes?”

“Whatever happens, see to it Bub doesn’t live for another day.”

Dr. Belgium smiled warmly. “Consider it done done done.”

The General watched the biologist leave. He’d always liked Dr. Belgium. He liked Sun and Andy too, even though he barely knew them.

It was too bad. Even if they did break through to the caverns, it wasn’t likely they could get far enough away in time. When the Samhain nuke didn’t go off, the President wouldn’t take any chances. He’d drop something substantially bigger than a single kiloton to guarantee zero chance of survival. There were strategic bomber bases in both Roswell and Amarillo. Race guessed he’d send an F-111E equipped with a B 83 bomb, capped by a nuclear warhead of at least twenty kilotons.

Slightly larger than the payload of Little Boy in the Hiroshima blast.

A surface impact would disintegrate Samhain, and pretty much everything else for a mile in all directions. Even if they managed to navigate the caves and get two miles away, they’d still have to deal with second to third degree burns, hundred mile per hour winds from the overpressure, and the radiation exposure, depending on the fissile material used.

A shame, the General thought.

But better to go down swinging than lie there like a lump, as he was doing.

One Star General Regis Murdoch sighed. Then he closed his eyes and waited quietly for death.

Andy opened his eyes to the concerned face of Dr. Sunshine Jones. She had blood and dust smeared over both cheeks, and her hair was matted and tangled.

“You’re beautiful,” Andy said.

“You’re delirious. How do you feel?”

He lifted his hand and wiggled the fingers. The wrist was expertly taped up.

“It’s numb.”

“Lidocaine. You won’t be able to use it for a while.” Sun ran her fingers over Andy’s forehead.

Andy said, “Thanks. You know, for saving my life.”

“That’s what we doctors do.”

“How about the bomb?”

“Race switched it off. But there’s still a problem. He said the President would nuke Samhain anyway.”

“Our tax dollars at work.”

“Can you move?”

Andy sat up. His vision began to swirl and he instantly felt sick.

“Dizzy,” he said. “How long do we have?”

“An hour, maybe two. Dr. Belgium went to the Octopus to contact the President. But if that doesn’t work, we may still have a chance.”

Sun outlined the plan as Belgium had relayed it to her.

“The blueprints are in Red 3?” Andy asked.

“Yes. I remember filing them.”

“Bub’s in the Red Arm.”

“I know.”

“Are we supposed to tip toe in while he’s sleeping?”

“Maybe we won’t have to,” Sun said. “In the Med Supply room there are over a thousand different pharmaceuticals. How about I make Bub a little cocktail?”

Andy smiled. “Make it a big one.”

• • •

Sun left Andy in the hall and went into Yellow 6. She found a reusable enema on a shelf; a large rubber squeeze bulb with a thin plastic nozzle. To the end of the nozzle she attached a short length of plastic tubing and an IV needle. She now had a very big syringe.

Recalling Bub’s medical test history, Sun couldn’t remember which drugs had been tested on him. He’d been given many diseases, all of which caused no effect. So what would be good to try?

She began by looking at some sedatives.

• • •

Frank Belgium crawled through the air conditioning duct and into the Octopus, heaving with effort. His muscles were screaming at him. Even during the years at school and at BioloGen, he’d never been so exhausted. He sat down in the nearest chair and rubbed his neck and shoulders. After a few seconds he became aware of something wrong.

Bub was gone.

Belgium walked to the Red Arm and pulled down the stacked chairs, searching for the demon.

There was nothing, as far back as he could see.

Perhaps Bub had given up and locked himself back in the habitat. A pleasant thought, but Belgium didn’t think that was the case.

Moving quickly, Belgium reached through the bars in the gates and opened up the doors for all the arms, searching for the demon.

He didn’t find a trace of him.

“Andy! Sun!” Belgium called down the Yellow Arm.

“Yeah?” Andy yelled back. He was sitting next to the doorway to Yellow 6.

“Bub’s gone!” Belgium said. “He’s not in the Red Arm. I checked the others and he’s not there either.”

“Keep your eyes open,” Andy replied. “I don’t see how he could have gotten through that gate, but he’s a sneaky bastard.”

He sure is, the biologist thought, paranoia creeping up. He could feel the demon’s eyes on the back of his neck.

Belgium walked around the Octopus again, to make sure Bub wasn’t in the room with him. Satisfied he was alone, he sat down at the computer terminal and accessed CONTACT, clicking on EMERGENCY.

Then he waited nervously for the President to answer.

• • •

Andy wiggled his fingers and tried to make a fist. He could only close his hand halfway. That wouldn’t be good enough; if they were to dig their way out of there he had to be able to hold a pick.

He tried again, straining with effort, and managed a little better. So intent was Andy on his injury that he didn’t noticed the movement to his right until it was within ten yards.

When he turned to look, his breath caught in his throat.

Bub was snaking silently out of the ceiling vent twenty yards to his right. The demon had somehow stretched its body to over eighteen feet in length. He moved like an inchworm, his middle section rising up in a hump as his rear section met his front claws.

“Aaaaaaaandy.”

Bub’s elastic face split into a toothy grin. Andy opened his mouth to scream, but Bub was on him before he had the chance.

• • •

Dr. Belgium tapped his fingers on the desk, waiting for the President to get on the damn video phone. He heard movement far behind him and felt the hair on the back of his neck spring to attention.

Belgium swivelled around and stared down the Yellow Arm.

Bub had Andy.

• • •

Andy had never felt so helpless. Bub had him clutched tightly in one claw. The other was pressed over his mouth, the talons tickling the back of his head.

The demon looked surprisingly different; like a sea serpent or a long, thin Chinese dragon. His face was elongated, reminding Andy of the times as a child he’d pressed silly putty onto a comic book and then stretched and distorted the figures. But the bloodshot eyes and the evil grin were pure Bub.

“Has the bomb been deeeeeeeactivated?” Bub whispered, bathing Andy’s face with decay.

He removed his claw so Andy could answer.

“No,” Andy stammered.

“Liaaaaaaaaaaar.”

Andy felt the talons dig into his sides. He was being crushed and couldn’t draw a breath. Tears were squeezed from his eyes.

“It was shut off,” Andy whimpered.

Bub released his grip slightly and Andy gulped in some air.

“How do I get out of heeeeeere?”

Andy thought about the Green Arm, digging into the original tunnel. If Bub found out about it, it could very well mean the end of the human race.

“The Yellow Arm,” Andy said with as much emotion as he could muster. “There are four gates blocking the exit.”

“That’s the only waaaaaaaay?”

“Yes.”

“Liaaaaaaaaaaar.”

Bub moved his claw down Andy’s body.

“Here comes the paaaaaaaaain.”

• • •

The phone rang in Yellow 6, giving Sun a major startle. She picked it up with more than a little trepidation.

“Bub’s in the Yellow Arm,” Belgium’s voice said in a whisper. “He’s got Andy.”

Sun thought fast. Already in the enema was enough liquid sodium secobarbital to kill an elephant. She filled the remaining space with the potassium cyanide she’d been looking at and snapped on the nozzle.

Before opening the door she put her ear to it.

Andy was right outside, whimpering.

Sun took a lungful of air and swung open the door.

• • •

Bub had heard the phone ring and was ready for Sun. When the door flung open he had a long spindly claw outstretched to wrap around her.

What he hadn’t anticipated was her weapon.

As the giant talons encircled Sun’s body, she jabbed him in the wrist with some kind of small spear.

This amused Bub, but his demeanor quickly changed to shock when he felt the foreign liquid pulsing into his body, burning as it went.

What had she done?

He shoved Sun away, pushing her back into the Med Supply room, and then tossed Andy aside to yank the weapon out of his palm.

Bub stared at his hand, watching as the hole healed, but his expression was pure bewilderment. The nictating membranes over his eyes fluttered once, twice. His head swayed back and forth, and then his chin hit the ground with a SLAP.

• • •

“Run!” Dr. Belgium yelled at them from the Octopus, looking at them through the gate. But they didn’t need to.

Bub was sprawled out on his face.

Sun limped out of Yellow 6, staring at the demon.

“Is he dead?” yelled Dr. Belgium.

“I’m not sure.”

She moved closer, reaching out her hand to take Bub’s pulse.

“Bad idea,” Andy grabbed her shoulder.

“We have to make sure he’s dead. If not, I can get more drugs and…”

Bub’s eyelids flicked open and his claw shot out at Sun.

Andy yanked her out of the way and they stumbled down the hall to the air conditioning vent. Sun went first, up the book case Belgium had pushed into the hallway for his ascension. Andy followed quickly.

Bub flopped over onto his belly and moaned, but he didn’t chase them.

Maybe the bastard was going to die after all, Belgium hoped.

The computer monitor beeped. Dr. Belgium dragged his attention away from the Yellow Arm and went to the desk. The message bar read VIDEO INTERFACE ACTIVE and the President came on the screen. He looked as he always did; rosy cheeked and rested.

“I see Protocol 9 has failed,” he said.

Belgium frowned.

“We turned off the nuclear device. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we’re all still alive.”

“I didn’t like the decision, Dr. Belgium, but I don’t regret it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You can understand that.”

“Yes I can, Mr. President. I can also understand what it’s like to live with innocent blood on my hands. It isn’t pleasant. Though perhaps your political bearing makes you more tolerant of it than I.”

“You do realize the area still has to be neutralized.”

“Neutralized. That’s a nice way to put it. Like spraying a smoky room with disinfectant. Five people have already been neutralized by this ill-conceived little project. I don’t want the rest of us to follow suit.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Belgium. My hands are tied.”

“Look, we’ve managed to knock out Bub. He may even be dead. And we got rid of the thing Helen turned into.”

“This is the way it has to be, Frank. We cannot allow for the slightest possibility that the occupant may escape. You knew this when you signed on at Samhain. You voluntarily accepted the risks.”

“Yes yes yes. But if there’s a chance of saving us and still destroying Bub, shouldn’t it be considered?”

“I am sorry, Frank. I truly am.”

He didn’t look sorry. Not a bit. He might have been talking about the economy or the budget.

“How long do we have?”

“Operation Slim Bob has already begun. It will reach completion in eighty-seven minutes.”

“Can we have more time?”

“That’s impossible.”

“No chance of a rescue?”

“Your country recognizes the sacrifice you’re making, Frank. May God be with you.”

Belgium rubbed his eyes and let out a deep breath.

“There is another favor, a personal one, that I would like to ask.”

“If it is within my power, consider it done.”

“It is within your power, Mr. President. And you could even do it right now.”

“Yes, Frank?”

“Go fuck fuck fuck yourself.”

Belgium hit the disconnect button.

“Eighty-seven minutes,” he said softly. “That isn’t enough—”

CLANG!

Belgium jumped six inches out of his chair and spun in the direction of the noise.

Crouching in the Orange Arm was another creature. Bigger than a hippopotamus, covered head to toe with coal-black scales. The thing cocked its head and stared at Frank with a bloodshot eye the size of a dinner plate.

It was on all fours, and its back nearly touched the hallway ceiling.

The animal moved backward, much quicker than Belgium would have anticipated for something so large, and then reared on its hind legs and charged the gate again.

CLANG!

The ground shook and Belgium watched in amazement as the titanium gate bent slightly inward.

“What the hell is that sound?” Andy asked.

The biologist turned and saw Andy and Sun were now in the Red Arm. The Orange Arm was to their right, so they hadn’t noticed the latest complication.

CLANG!

“It’s, um, proof that things can always get worse. We’d better hurry.”

“Get out of there, Frank,” Sun said. “Meet us in the Green Arm. What’s Bub doing?”

Belgium tore his eyes away from the ramming demon and looked down the Yellow Arm.

“He’s still there. But he’s… changing.”

“How?”

“I think he’s turning back to his regular size.”

“Good, then he can’t get through the vents.”

CLANG!

“I talked to the President. We only have about eighty-five minutes,” Belgium said.

“Find the digging equipment. We need to get the blueprints.”

Belgium nodded. He stole a glance at the Orange Arm gate.

CLANG!

The lower half was bending away from the doorway.

Belgium hurried into the duct, not daring to look back again.

“Check that cabinet,” Sun told Andy. “They’re in a brown folder, legal sized, about an inch thick.”

Sun was pretty sure she’d filed them away rather than left them in one of her growing piles, but she wanted to double-check. She quickly sorted through the large Samhain pile on the desk, then for caution’s sake went through the Bub pile.

Something caught her eye.

Not the blueprints, but an old report on Bub’s stool samples. She picked it up, trying to figure out what her subconscious was trying to tell her.

Since Bub had been brought here, he’d had several bowel movements while in the coma. Back in 1921 the stool had been analyzed with a newly acquired mass spectrometer, which found it contained an ample amount of uranium.

It hit Sun like a slap. Now it finally made sense. What she’d been searching for in Red 3. How Bub had been buried in Panama. Why it took him so long to wake up. His spaceship, the hieroglyphs…

“The hot rock,” Sun said.

Andy looked up at her from the file cabinet.

“It’s uranium. Bub’s got such a highly advanced genetic structure, he’s very sensitive to radiation. Radiation destroys DNA, it kills cells. The ancient Mayans probably covered him in uranium ore when he was sleeping. That’s the hot rock they were referring to.”

“It put him in a coma, and they buried him,” Andy said. “It fits with the glyphs.”

“But there’s more. The capsule, his spaceship, had lead in it. To protect him from the iridium in deep space. That’s why he’s been in a coma so long—it took him that long to get all of the uranium out of his system. The radioactivity slowed his metabolism down to a crawl. And being here made it even worse.”

“How?”

“Look around,” Sun said, picking up a handful of files. “X-rays. Thousands of X-rays. The X-ray machine was invented before the turn of the last century. They bombarded Bub with radiation on a continuous basis up until the 1970s. I’m surprised he didn’t glow in the dark.”

“Why’d they stop in the 70s?”

“Two guys took over, Meyer and Storky. They did other tests on Bub. But not anything involving radiation. I wonder why…”

But Sun realized she already knew.

Dr. Meyer had died of cancer. Kaposi’s sarcoma. A malignancy of the skin. He continued to work at Samhain through his illness, getting radiation therapy at the compound. Radiation in cancer treatment had to be carefully monitored. Meyer couldn’t have worked on Bub if there was radiation involved. The human body could only handle so big a dose without getting sick, or dropping dead.

“Is the X-ray machine still here?” Andy said. “Maybe we could use it as a weapon.”

Sun shook her head. “We’ve got something even better than that. Let’s find those blueprints.”

“It was a green folder?”

“Brown.”

“Like this?”

Andy held up the folder full of blueprints. Sun hurried over and spread the folded document out over the floor.

“There,” Andy said, pointing at some faint gray lines. “In Green 11. See the wall there? The lines continue beyond that. I’ll bet that’s the tunnel.”

“How thick is that wall?”

“Got me. Probably eight inch cinder block. Could be even thicker.”

“Let’s go,” Sun said, folding up the blueprints.

They left Red 3 and hurried down the hallway. Sun tried not to look at the blood stained walls and tried not to breathe the smell of violent death. Poor Rabbi Shotzen. There were bits of him everywhere.

Andy bent down and picked something up. A disposable lighter. He flicked it once, and the flame shot up two inches.

“Want to break for a smoke?” Sun asked.

Andy put it in his pocket. “Might come in handy.”

In Red 14 they cleared off a desk and pushed it out under the ceiling air vent in the hall.

Sun went first, hiking her shirt up over her face to make breathing in the dusty duct bearable. It was slow going, and to get to the Green Arm they had to pass over the Orange Arm, the ominous CLANG from below becoming louder and more frightening.

When Sun crawled over the grating she looked down, nervous to see what was making so much noise. It made her catch her breath.

The creature was simply massive. Those titanium gates wouldn’t be able to hold up to a monster like this. This demon looked like it could eat a tank. How many of these things would Bub be capable of making if he escaped Samhain?

“What is it?” Andy whispered behind her, touching her leg.

“Shh!”

The awesome beast stopped in mid-charge and lifted an ear to the ceiling. Sun held both her breath and her bladder as it stared up at the vent she was perched over. One of its enormous eyes inched closer, squinting into the darkness of the duct. It got so close Sun could count the dark blood vessels that squiggled around its black cornea, each the width of a pencil. The demon blinked, then turned away and resumed its attack on the gate.

“Are you okay?” Andy nudged her.

Sun exhaled. “Yeah. Don’t look through the grill.”

Sun continued forward, making the decision that if she did have to die, she wasn’t letting Bub or this giant loose upon the world.

“Holy shit.”

Andy had apparently looked through the grill.

“Keep moving.”

“We’re in hell, aren’t we? We’re actually trapped in hell.”

“Let’s just hope Frank found those shovels.”

• • •

Dr. Frank Belgium opened the door to Green 5. He knew Green 6 and 7 contained medical equipment, Green 8 was the freezers, and Green 9 was the dry goods storage. This was the only room left to check.

Luckily, he hit the jackpot.

It was a large closet, and the overhead light didn’t work. But stacked in the corner, gathering dust, was the excavation equipment. Picks, shovels, axes, hoes, and even a sledgehammer.

“Frank?”

Belgium spun around, looking for the voice.

“Up here.”

Sun was poking her head down through the ceiling vent. He helped her climb through, and then they both assisted Andy.

“I found the equipment,” Belgium told them. “Where’s the cavern?”

“Green 11,” Andy said. “Let’s move.”

“I want to check on Bub,” Sun said.

Andy checked his watch. “We’ve only got sixty-two minutes to dig out of here and get a safe distance away.”

“We need to see what he’s doing.”

Belgium watched Sun and Andy exchange a meaningful glance. He wished he had someone who looked at him like that.

Maybe, if he lived through this, he’d join a dating service.

If he lived through this.

• • •

Sun walked down the Green Arm toward the Octopus. She stopped at the titanium bars and pressed her cheek to them, looking left.

CLANG!

The ramming beast was almost through the Orange Arm gate.

She switched cheeks and stared at the Yellow Arm. Bub had his hands on the bars. His yellow eyes locked on hers.

“No meeeeercy for yoooooou.”

CLANG!

The giant demon burst through the Orange gate and went barreling into the Octopus, knocking over tables, chairs, and millions of dollars in computer equipment. Then it sat in the center of the Octopus and stared at its master, awaiting direction.

“You’re neeeeeeeeext.”

Sun tried to focus. They needed time to break through the wall and escape, and couldn’t do that if Bub was on their tail.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

“There are four other titanium gates blocking the exit to the outside. You don’t have time to come for us.”

“I have tiiiiiiime,” Bub hissed.

“No, you don’t. Since the nuke didn’t go off, they’re going to drop one on us. A big one.”

Bub sneered, his horrifying features becoming even more revolting.

“Liaaaaaaaaar,” he spat. “You will beg for deaaaaaath.”

The ramming beast pawed at the floor, then launched itself at the Green Arm gate. The shockwave jolted Sun backward.

That didn’t work out as I’d hoped, she thought.

Sun flew into Green 11. Andy was attacking the concrete wall with a sledgehammer, awkwardly holding it with his left hand, and Belgium was having a time trying to figure out the proper swing of a mining pick. They were both sweating, and for their labors they’d only made a few cracks in the cinder block.

“I need help. Fast.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Defense,” Sun said, thinking about the demon breaking into the Green Arm. “We’re about to have company.”

Bub believed Sun. Her government would have a back-up plan. He stared at the four sets of bars preventing his escape and felt anger welling inside him. Anger, and an emotion he hadn’t known in millennia of existence.

Fear.

Strong as the beast was, it wouldn’t be able to get through all of these gates in time. Which meant is was within the realm of possibility that Bub might actually die.

The thought was horrifying. At the epicenter of a nuclear explosion the temperature was hotter than the sun. There was no way he could protect himself from that.

Humans. How had these miserable hunks of carbon gotten so smart so fast? Sun had hurt him with her poison. Hurt him almost as much as those filthy Mayans did with their uranium ore. Bub could no longer alter himself to fit into the air duct—his body was busy trying to heal. Now, to add to his injury, he might actually have to comprehend his own death.

He concentrated. Was the Yellow Arm really the only way out?

Andy had been close to spilling his guts, but then Sun attacked him with the poison needle. That opportunity was lost, but perhaps there was another…

The demon walked down the hallway to Yellow 4. The door was locked, and there was a keypad on the wall next to it.

Bub didn’t bother with the keypad. Regular doors he could handle. He turned around and gave it a quick kick with his massive hoof. The door burst inward.

General Race Murdoch was a hunk of dead meat, cooling in a pool of his own bodily fluids.

Bub had just enough of his essence left to suit the purpose.

• • •

Race had been dead. He was sure he’d been dead. He could even remember the moment his heart stopped pumping. His point of vision had become smaller and smaller, darkness enveloping him, until there was nothing.

So how could he be thinking? Race opened his eyes, amazed that his wounds were healed and his pain was gone. He soon realized why.

“Raaaaace. How was deaaaaath?”

“Quiet,” Race answered the demon. The words felt sour in his mouth, like he’d just eaten some bad ham. “What the hell do you want?”

“Why is everyone in the greeeeen arm?”

“They’re having a tea party. You weren’t invited.”

Bub gave Race’s arm a swift tug, dislocating the shoulder.

“Tell meeeeeee.”

The General winced. “I can see where this is going. You torture me until I talk. If I die, you bring me back.”

“Yessssssss.”

Race hurt, but his level of annoyance was even greater. He’d been looking forward to death, had actually achieved it, and this smug son of a bitch had taken that from him. First Helen, now this.

Race wasn’t going to tell him a damn thing.

“Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret,” the General said. “Any minute now we’re going to be radioactive. I’d be tickled pink if you stayed here with me, so I could watch you bake like a cow pie on Georgia asphalt.”

Bub tugged Race’s dislocated arm and broke it at the elbow. Race cried out.

“Is there another way ooooooooout?” Bub asked.

“Please…” the General winced.

“Another waaaaaaaaay?”

“Please…”

“Pleeeeease what?”

Race grinned, “Please kiss my lily white Southern ass.”

• • •

Then the man actually began to laugh. His pain must have been excruciating, but he was laughing right in Bub’s face.

And Bub was afraid.

He picked the General up and threw him against the wall as hard as he could. Race left a bloody spot there, then slumped to the floor, broken and unmoving.

Bub hurried out of the room and went to the Octopus. With a shrill shriek, he commanded the beast to begin breaking down the gate to the Yellow Arm. There had to be another exit in the Green Arm. There had to be.

Bub would be damned if he lost his life because of some poorly trained pets on a fourth rate planet.

CLANG!

He would see for himself what they were doing. And then he’d slaughter them all.

“What the hell is it?” Andy asked.

“It’s a linac. A medical linear accelerator. A very unique one. Get behind it, let’s push it into the hall.”

Andy stared at the piece of medical equipment. It was white, about five feet high and four feet wide, and sort of resembled a large kitchen faucet. Attached to a rectangular base was a curved arm that could rotate. On the end of the arm was a lens kind of thing. The lens pointed down at a fancy table.

Sun explained, “A cancer patient lies down on the table, and then their tumors can be bombarded with either electrons or photons from the collimator here.”

She tapped the spout of the faucet.

Andy nodded, getting it.

“Radioactivity.”

“Right. It kills cancer cells. Actually, it kills all cells, but it’s made to target cancer cells.”

Andy got his shoulder behind the base and shoved. It barely moved.

“It’s heavy as hell,” he grunted.

“It’s actually about half the size of a normal model. They must have custom made it to fit inside the compound’s entrance.”

Andy and Sun both put their weight into it, getting the machine to slide a foot.

“This is what Dr. Meyer used to fight his sarcoma,” Sun groaned, pushing as hard as she could. “Skin cancer can cover a large surface area of the body, so this particular model is modified for TSEI—total skin electron irradiation. Instead of a thin beam, it showers the entire body with electrons.”

“More powerful than an X-ray?” Andy asked.

Sun stopped pushing and sat down, breathing heavily. “An X-ray machine gives off 200,000 electron volts. This little baby can do about 25 million.”

“But if it’s used to cure cancer, how can it hurt Bub?”

“Are you ready for a mini lecture?”

Andy nodded. Sun brushed the hair out of her face.

“Radiation is measured on the gray scale. Let’s say Meyer’s cancer required a dosage of 36 gray to complete treatment. Even though it’s an electron shower—electrons don’t penetrate deeply like photons, 36 Gray would make him sick or even kill him. So it’s broken up into ten weeks of treatments, a single 36 centigray dose a week.”

“But if we give Bub a big dose at once…”

“It will destroy massive amounts of tissue. But it gets better. This machine can produce electrons and photons. Photons penetrate much deeper than electrons. So if we do a wide photon penumbra—a large beam width for a full body target—at 25 million electron volts, it could really cause some grievous damage.”

Andy said, “Nice. Let’s do it.”

They got up and finished pushing the linac out of Green 6 and into the hallway, cables trailing behind it. Sun directed Andy to help turn the machine so it faced the Octopus.

“Anything else?”

“It’ll take a moment to set up. Go help Frank with the wall.”

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and ran down the hall.

Sun detached the treatment table and pushed it aside, and then used the control box to rotate the collimator on the gantry—the big counter weighted arm. She stopped it when the lower defining head was pointing straight down the hallway, aiming at the door to the Octopus.

That was the easy part. The hard part would be figuring out the settings. Sun took a solitary class in radiotherapy over ten years ago. She didn’t remember much.

There was a computer control console in Green 6 near the far wall. She went to it and turned it on, hoping it would all come back to her.

• • •

One of the reasons Dr. Belgium had chosen science as a career was his distaste for manual labor.

“So much for that,” he muttered, swinging the pick at the concrete. For all the oomph he put into it, the potato chip sized piece that flaked off the wall was hardly satisfying.

“How’s it going?” Andy asked, walking into Green 11.

“How much time do we have left?”

“About fifty minutes.”

“In that case, not good. At this rate we won’t break through until next Tuesday.”

CLANG!

The noise reverberated down the Green Arm.

“Uh-oh,” Belgium said. “It looks like that ramming beast has found a new target.”

Andy picked up the twenty pound sledge and hefted it to his shoulder. The bandage around his wrist had become dark red.

He gripped the hammer and let the wall have it.

• • •

The computer program that ran the linac had presets, calibrated to Dr. Meyer’s dosage. Sun found a way to manually change them, but couldn’t remember any dosage calculations. She had to deal with beam energy, field size, distance, filtration, quality, and a dozen other parameters. She decided the smartest thing to do was just shoot for the maximum on everything.

Dr. Meyer’s beam energy was set at 6 MeV—six million electron volts. She changed it to 25, and went from there.

• • •

Andy and Frank developed a chain gang rhythm with their swings, one alternating with another. Slowly, gradually, they cracked through a single 8” x 16” cinder block, and were able to knock it into the wall.

Andy bent down and used his lighter to peer through the opening. He couldn’t see a damn thing, but the flame on the lighter bent and blew inward.

“We found it,” Andy said.

• • •

CURRENT SETTINGS WILL EXPOSE PATIENT TO LETHAL DOSES OF RADIATION the screen blinked at Sun.

“Good,” she said.

Sun saved the settings in memory and started the program to charge the beam. She hurried out of the room to see how the guys were doing.

Not too well, it turned out. Both Frank and Andy were drenched with sweat, and they’d only knocked a single cinder block through. Blood was dripping down Andy’s right hand. He’d popped several stitches.

“Give me a try,” Sun said.

Andy handed over the sledgehammer, which was too heavy for her to properly wield. She tried Belgium’s miner’s pick. It weighed about ten pounds, and Sun found it much easier to handle. After a five minutes of swinging, she managed to put the eight inch pointed head through a second cinder block. Andy and Frank helped her pry the rock away.

“One more, and we may be able to squeeze through,” Belgium said.

There was a sudden CRASH! and the ground shook.

The trio ran into the hallway, and watched as the giant ramming creature burst into the Green Arm.

It slowly backed out, and in crawled Bub, triumphant, his eyes burning with malevolent glee.

“Stay here,” Sun told the others, and headed for the linac by Green 6. She immediately knew she wasn’t going to make it in time. Bub was going to reach the machine before she had a chance to turn on the photon beam.

So she changed tactics and forced herself to stay calm.

“Well,” she said. “It looks like you’ve won.”

Bub grinned.

“I alwaaaaaaaays win.”

Sun considered her slim options. If she couldn’t find a way to switch on the beam she was dead, Andy was dead, and possibly the entire human race was dead.

“I have one question to ask before you kill me,” she said, getting closer. The linac was ten steps away.

“Yessssssssss.”

Six steps. Five. Four.

“Do you know what a hertz donut is?” Sun asked.

The demon cocked its head to the side. “A heeeertz doooooonut?”

Sun walked calmly up to the linac and put her hand on the control box.

“Watch,” Sun said.

She hit the activate button.

The linac hummed like a stock car and Bub immediately thrust his hands out in front of his eyes. He fell backward, his exposed skin mottling and turning brown.

“Hurts, don’t it?” Sun said.

The demon opened his wings and attempted to shield himself, but only something with the density of lead could shield 25 million volts of X-rays. Every inch of his body seemed to bruise and mush like overripe fruit, weeping clear fluid.

He rolled backwards, but his retreat did little good. There was no beam stopper, and photons traveled in a straight line at the speed of light. They tore millions of sub atomic holes in his body, ripping through membranes, ionizing atoms and bursting cell walls, breaking down his DNA into base pairs.

As Bub rolled away, large sections of dead tissue were sloughing off his body in strips. Sun watched as he spewed blood along the walls and ceiling. He was screaming, a sound not dissimilar to the cries of the many sheep he’d gutted and eaten.

“Beg for death, my ass,” Sun said.

Momentum took Bub through the Green door and into the Octopus, but from what Sun could tell he was no longer moving. The hallway was empty. The giant demon cowered off to the side, out of the beam’s invisible perimeter.

Belgium came up and said, “Good good good. Leave it on and we’ll get back to work.”

“Won’t that beam run out of power?” Andy asked.

“It doesn’t use any radioactive isotopes,” Belgium explained. “A linac uses high frequency electromagnetic waves to accelerate charged particles, such as photons, to high energies through a linear tube.”

Sun said, “I thought you were a biologist.”

“Minor in nuclear physics. Fun fun fun stuff.”

“How much time do we have?” Sun asked.

Andy looked at his watch. “Forty-four minutes.”

“Okay, Mr. Physics, assuming we can break down that wall, how far away do we have to be from here when the nuke is dropped?”

Belgium rubbed his chin. “I’d assume they’d use a simple fission mechanism in the lower kiloton range, maybe 10-30 kTs. A Uranium-235 or a Plutonium-239 bomb would vaporize metals for a kilometer in all directions. We’d need to be 2 to 4 miles away to escape the thermal effects. The blast effects would send hundred mile an hour winds up to the two mile mark.”

“How about radiation?” Andy asked.

“If we’re two miles away, we’d only absorb a minimal dose, maybe 12 centigray, but if they used a fusion weapon rather than a fission one, say a lithium deuteride core with an Uranium jacket, then it would be a thermonuclear neutron bomb with the same explosive power, but 30 times the radiation. I’d guess that—”

The lights went out, plunging the entire complex into total darkness.

“This isn’t a good development,” Dr. Belgium said.

“The bastard cut the breaker.”

“The linac is off!” Sun yelled. “Bub can get in!”

Andy’s lighter cut through the darkness, and the trio shuffled back to Green 11. Sun knocked over a metal shelving unit, and she and Belgium pushed it in front of the door.

“SUUUUUUUUUUUUN!”

Bub’s voice was hoarse and sickly, but it still carried with tremendous force down the hallway and caused Sun’s knees to knock with fear.

“Look what you did to meeeeee!” he roared. “To MEEEEEEEEEE!”

“Give me your shirt,” Andy said to Sun. “Mine’s too wet.”

She complied, stripping to her sports bra. Andy wound the shirt around an ax handle and lit it like a torch.

“Frank, where’s the pick?”

“I think I dropped it in the hall. Want me to get it?”

“Here I coooooooome!”

“Perhaps not,” Belgium said.

The doorknob turned. Sun held tight to the metal frame of the shelves and braced herself.

“Help me!” she said. Frank and Andy put their weight on it. The door exploded inward, sending the shelf skittering across the room.

Bub filled the doorway. His skin was blistered and peeling, brown and black rather than the normal red. A horn had fallen out, exposing a raw sore. His teeth had shredded his lips, and when he breathed bits of flesh fluttered out like streamers. He was missing his left eye; in its place was a gooey, dripping blob. His animal smell was now a roadkill smell, a stench of decay and death.

Before, Bub had been taunting and clever. His evil was sadistic and calculating.

Now he was simply a mad dog.

This scared Sun even more.

“Hey, Bub.”

The voice came from behind the demon, in the hallway.

Bub spun around. “Yooooooooooooou,” he hissed.

Andy held up the torch and they watched as the vent grating fell from the ceiling and a figure crawled through.

“Race,” Sun whispered.

• • •

General Race Murdoch landed hard, but without pain. Before crawling up into the air conditioning vent he’d stopped at the Med Supply room. Besides shooting himself up with various painkillers and stimulants, Race had also made a weapon. He taped the largest scalpel he could find to a broomstick, and then wrapped the tape in a quick-setting fiberglass cast.

He stood up and gripped the makeshift spear in his good hand, pointing it at Bub’s head. Race felt like he’d lost a fist fight with a lawn mower. But Bub looked even worse.

“Block off the door,” Race told the trio. “Escape.”

“What about you?” Sun asked.

“A little while ago I died with my tail between my legs. Bub injected me with that same stuff he used on Helen. God only knows what I’ll turn into. I’m not going quietly this time. This time I’m going down swinging.”

“Good luck, Race,” Andy said.

Race winked. “I’ll take training over luck any day. Now get going.”

Sun nodded her good-bye and slammed the door to Green 11.

The hallway was enveloped in absolute darkness, save for a single thing.

Bub’s glowing red eye.

“I can seeeeee you in the daaaaaark,” Bub whispered.

“Not for long,” Race said.

He put everything into the lunge; his rage over Helen, his frustration at wasting forty years being Bub’s caretaker, his pure hatred for being forced back to life. The spear went into Bub’s eye, through his brain, and stuck in the back of his unholy skull.

The demon fell, screeching.

Race sensed movement behind him. He turned, and saw the huge glowing eyes of the giant gate-breaking demon draw nearer.

“Well, ain’t you a big sonuvabitch,” Race said.

He felt along the floor and found his spear, yanking it out of Bub.

“You hungry, big boy? I got something for you to chew on.”

Race smiled, and when the monster opened its mouth and bit down on him, Race jammed in the spear as far as it could go, his very last thought of dancing cheek to cheek with his beloved Helen.

• • •

Andy and Sun threw everything they could find in front of the door while Belgium banged away at the wall.

Strangely, nothing tried to get in.

“Maybe he’s finally dead,” Andy said. He yelled, “Race!”

No answer.

Sun rushed to Dr. Belgium and began to strip off his lab coat.

“The torch is dying.”

He shrugged out of it and Sun ripped the garment in half, winding one part around the dimming flame.

Andy took the sledgehammer from Belgium and pounded away at the blocks until he could no longer lift his arms. Then Frank took over, breathing like an asthmatic. Sun had the next crack at it, struggling with the heavy weight but able to swing it underhanded.

The cinder block broke in half, leaving an L-shaped opening in the wall..

“It’s not big enough,” Belgium said.

“Yes, it is.” Sun tossed the torch through the hole and then squeezed herself into it. The cinder block scraped her bare shoulders and back, but she made it through intact.

“Go on, Frank,” Andy prompted.

The biologist had to tilt his shoulders, but he managed to fit his upper body in the opening. Sun helped pull him the rest of the way through.

“C’mon Andy, let’s go!” Andy looked at the opening and knew it was too small. Belgium was a thin man, one hundred and fifty pounds max. Andy was one eighty, with a broader chest and shoulders.

“I won’t make it.”

“Try,” Sun pleaded.

He stuck his head and one arm through the opening, but he couldn’t get the other arm in.

“Go on,” he said. “Go ahead without me.”

“No. Just get your other hand through. Then you can make it.”

Andy was wedged so tightly in the space that there was no way he could get his other hand through. The corner of the L was digging into his breast bone.

“I can’t. I’m going to try to widen the hole.”

“There’s no time!” Sun screamed at him.

Dr. Belgium said, “Exhale.”

“What?”

“You’re lungs are full of air. Breathe all of your air out and your chest will contract.”

Andy blew out air, blew until his lungs were empty, blew until he was seeing spots. It freed up just enough space to force his other wrist through. Sun and Belgium grabbed it and pulled like crazy. The skin on Andy’s arm scraped against the cinder block, and his chest felt as if he was pinned under a dump truck, but it was coming… coming…

He was through.

They yanked him the rest of the way and Sun held him, even tighter than it had been squeezing through the hole.

“I can’t breathe,” Andy croaked.

She released her grip.

“The cave leads off this way,” Belgium picked up the torch. “What’s our time?”

Andy looked at his watch.

“Twenty-eight minutes.”

They ran.

This was the scariest part of all for Andy. Everything that happened prior had been beyond his control, but this last attempt at survival was completely up to him. If he ran fast enough, he’d live. If he didn’t, he’d die.

The natural limestone caverns they ran through were completely dark. Sun led the way, carrying the torch, keeping it low to illuminate their footing. The ground was sometimes hard jagged rock, and other times loose gravel that sucked at their shoes like hungry fish. They ran past natural stone columns and underground pools, razor sharp walls and stalagmites, alongside steep drop offs that fell into oblivion.

Sometimes the cavern widened to the size of an auditorium, other times it was as thin as a hallway. They were following the original trail the excavation crew had made one hundred years prior, when Samhain was born. It surprised Andy to occasionally see a bootprint in the ground, the mark of someone who helped build the compound, someone long dead.

They ran as fast as safety allowed. When there was an open area ahead, Sun picked up the pace, and they sprinted until their lungs were bursting and their stomachs clenched.

There was a bad moment, at the fifteen minute mark, when the trail couldn’t be found and they hit a dead end. All of them began to panic, Sun almost to the point of tears, when Dr. Belgium found a fork in the cave a hundred yards prior. They backtracked and took the fork, but precious minutes had been lost.

Andy fought the fatigue. He fought the many pains he’d incurred. But he couldn’t fight his own mind, which kept telling him that this was the end, it was all over, his existence was about to be snuffed out forever.

“Please,” he begged the universe, “don’t let this happen. Don’t let my life stop here. There’s so much I haven’t done, haven’t seen.”

The universe didn’t answer. But surprisingly, his mind focused on something he’d long ago memorized, when he was just a boy.

Pater noster, qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.

Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name.

The Lord’s Prayer.

He ran on, repeating it over and over in his head.

• • •

Sun was in better physical shape than her male companions, and she knew it. But she couldn’t slow her pace, even when they began to fall behind. She had to be the goal for them, the one in the lead who forced them to catch up.

Belgium surprised Sun. He was thin and long limbed, and on the sprints he lacked breath control, but for the most part he kept up.

Andy was the problem. He was in fair shape, but he’d suffered so many injuries. The batling attack, his wrist, all the blood he lost—it was surprising he could even stand up. Still, Sun couldn’t slow down for him. If she did, they all might as well give up.

Sun only stopped once, when the torch was dying and she had to wrap the other half of Belgium’s lab coat around it. The rest of the time she ran as fast as her little legs could move.

The cavern was cool, and the air was good, two things that surprised her. Her conception of caves had always been of the mining type, cramped and choked with coal dust. These caves were pleasant, even tranquil. She could see how she might enjoy exploring them one day, possibly with Andy.

It was the first time she’d considered her future since Steven died, and it opened up a floodgate of emotion. Suddenly there was so much she wanted out of life. She wanted to be married, have kids, get her medical license back, buy a little house someplace—things she’d given up on ever doing. She thought about how many times she’d worried about money, and of how little importance it actually was.

If they lived through this, she promised to herself she’d be different. More open. Less worried. More fun. Less angry. More loving.

If they lived.

• • •

Dr. Belgium was playing tricks with himself so as to not give in to exhaustion. He recited the Periodic Table of the Elements, then he gave himself quadratic equations to solve.

But the cave kept interfering with his ploy.

It was the most eerily quiet place Belgium had even been in. Their heavy breathing seemed to echo and amplify in the silence, sometimes chasing them through the dark.

Several times Belgium lost his train of thought, trying to gauge if the cavern was actually heading upward like it felt. Or calculating twists and turns and puzzling over whether they had gone 180 degrees and were actually running back to Samhain.

Once, he lost aural contact with Andy running behind him, and stopped to find the man on his hands and knees, vomiting. Belgium didn’t bother with inspirational speeches or voiced concerns. He yanked Andy up by his shirt and pulled him back into formation.

Frank didn’t think they seriously had a shot at surviving. The odds against them having made it this far were astronomical. But he still ran, and this was curious to him. Only a short time ago, he would have been content to sit at his desk and wait for the bomb to drop. Perhaps he had finally learned to accept himself. To forgive himself.

Maybe someday he might even like himself.

If he lived to see someday.

• • •

With five minutes to go on Andy’s watch they ran out of cave.

They’d come to an open area, large enough to drive around in. Sun checked all of the walls and couldn’t find any other tunnels. There was no place left to go.

“How far away are we?” Sun heaved.

“A mile and a half,” Belgium said, hands on his knees. “Maybe two. We have to get out of the cave.”

Andy leaned against a limestone wall. “Wouldn’t it be safer down here?”

“Samhain is an underground target. The nuke they use will go down deep. A lot of the blast effects will happen underground and could travel through these caves. The surface would be better.”

“I can’t find the damn exit,” Sun’s voice was beginning to crack.

Then the bats swooped down.

Sun lost it. She swung the torch like a club, screaming at the bats, determined to burn them all to cinders.

Belgium held her back.

“They’re bats,” he said. “Plain old bats. If there are bats, there’s an exit nearby.”

He took the torch and held it up, illuminating the high ceiling, following the path of the flying rodents until they disappeared into a crack in the wall.

“There’s the exit,” Belgium pointed to a tiny sliver of light, twenty feet or so above them. The wall was so simple to climb it was almost anticlimactic. Even Andy, with his injured wrist, had no trouble with the large hand and footholds. At fifteen feet up, the tiny splinter of light had opened up into a large crevice amid an outcropping of rocks.

Sun climbed onto the floor of the desert and hugged it like a lover.

Andy dropped to his knees and said, “Thank God.”

Dr. Belgium looked around and tears streamed down his cheeks.

“This is the first sky I’ve seen in twenty years. I’ve forgotten how beautiful the world is.”

“Look!” Andy said, pointing up.

Sun noticed the telltale trail of jet exhaust and followed it back to the area they’d just fled from.

“Get down, behind these rocks,” Belgium said. “Put your fingers in your ears and close your eyes as tight as you can.”

“Are we far enough away?” Andy asked.

“We’ll know in just a moment.”

They huddled down together and waited.

BEEP BEEP.

Andy’s watch had counted down to zero.

Sun held her breath. She could feel the cool desert air on her face, and wondered if it would be the last thing she ever felt.

The moment stretched.

Andy said, “Maybe they—”

The light hit them first. Intense, super-bright light, blinding their eyes even though their lids were closed.

Then the sound overtook them, the slap of an angry God, louder than the loudest thunder, and at the same time they were bowled over by a hot wind, spitting dust and debris into their faces, knocking them off their feet.

The wind died suddenly, bringing absolute stillness.

Andy opened his eyes. A breeze hit them from the opposite direction, lasting a few seconds, but not nearly the strength of the blast wave.

“Negative phase,” Belgium yelled. “The blast happened so fast it created a partial vacuum, this wind is the result of suction.”

Andy wasn’t listening. He was staring at the fireball. It was bright, almost too bright to look at, mostly red and violet with portions of pure white.

The giant fire column plumed at the top, becoming the recognizable mushroom cloud, gray and purple smoke billowing out in an expanding ball.

“Spectacular,” Belgium said.

Sun was also taken in by its destructive beauty. The apex of mankind’s scientific endeavors. The secret of the atom, on display in all of its kiloton glory.

“We weren’t burned,” Sun said. “How do we know about our radiation exposure?”

“It doesn’t look like too big of a nuke, so it probably isn’t a fusion bomb,” Belgium said. “We won’t know until later, but I think we’re far enough away. Our radiation exposure should be minimal.”

The mushroom cloud continued to expand, spreading open like a flower.

“Nothing could live through that, right?” Andy said. “Bub couldn’t…”

“Nothing can survive a nuclear blast at ground zero.”

Andy frowned. “But what if all of that outer space crap was just that—crap? Isn’t the devil supposed to be a liar? What was it that Father Thrist said? Satan’s greatest feat is to convince us he doesn’t exist. Lucifer is the Master of Lies.”

“Trust me, Andy,” Belgium patted his shoulder. “Even if Bub really was Lucifer, he doesn’t exist any longer.”

Andy thought about it. “So we did it,” he said. “We actually beat the devil.”

The voice came from behind them, low and hoarse.

“I’m not beaten yet.”

They spun around and watched in horror as Bub crawled out of the crevice. He looked even worse than before. One wing was missing, and the other dragged behind him, broken and bloody. Several holes in his flesh were so big that the bones showed through. Both eye sockets were empty, but he’d grown a tiny third eye in the middle of his forehead.

The demon glanced away from the trio and looked at the fireball, the plume still rising. He dropped to his haunches and vomited blood onto the desert sand.

“I am immortal… I was heeeeere before your species began… and I’ll be heeeeeeere to lead you to extinctioooooooon!”

Bub stretched out his claws and raised them to the heavens.

“YOU CAN’T KILL ME!” he screamed, his voice spreading out over the expanse of the desert.

He pointed a misshapen claw at them, accusing.

“All you diiiiiiiiiid,” Bub snarled, “is make meeeee angry.”

Sun looked around for any kind of weapon—a rock, a branch, anything at all. She saw Belgium pick up a handful of sand, and Andy ball up his fists.

Then Bub did something that none of them could have possibly expected.

He exploded.

The demon burst into dozens of pieces with a splatting sound, like a giant water balloon had popped. Andy, Sun, and Frank dove to the ground and hid their faces from the blast.

But nothing touched them.

The trio looked, and saw that each of Bub’s parts had sprouted wings and remained airborne. He had become a swarm of demons, each no larger than a tennis ball.

Perfect replicas of Bub.

They circled, briefly flapping around the trio in quick figure eights. Then they all flew off in different directions, scattering into the distance, as if each had a specific destination in mind.

Eventually they faded out of sight.

Andy reached for Sun’s hand and held it. She squeezed it tight. They looked at each other, and then at Dr. Belgium.

The biologist made a long face and verbalized what each of them was thinking.

“Uh-oh.”

The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

—Thomas Jefferson

“I found the head.”

Tom Mankowski, Chicago Homicide Detective Second Class, pushed the chair aside and squinted into the darkness under the desk. The two uniforms who were first on the scene flanked him.

“Light.”

The patrolman to his left flicked on his Maglite, letting the beam play across the head’s slack and pale features. Tom righted his lanky frame and turned his attention back to the lounger on the other side of the apartment. The body was bound to the chair with duct tape, torso leaning slightly forward, blood still trickling from the neck stump. All of the fingers on its left hand were severed.

Ugly way to die.

Tom’s hazel eyes tracked the carpet in a line from the lounger to the desk. There was a blood trail, and an odd one at that. He had been expecting a pattern of drops indicating the head had been carried. Instead there was a repeating arc pattern.

“I want a door-to-door on this entire floor and the one below it,” Tom told the uniforms. “Then sweep the alley and check all the dumpsters. Wear gloves.”

“Uh, we’re off duty in twenty minutes.”

“Not anymore. Check all Dumpsters in a two block radius. There’s no way the perp left this apartment without getting blood on him. Maybe he ditched clothes or a weapon. Call the district and get four more guys to help, on my authority. You can put in an overtime request tomorrow morning when you give me the reports.”

They headed for the door, grumbling.

“Hold on. Other than the front door, did you touch anything when you arrived?”

“Naw. The superintendent opened the door, we saw the vic and called it in. Then we stood around until you showed up to send us on Dumpster duty.”

“You didn’t turn off the TV? Or a stereo?”

The first guy adjusted his cap. “Oh yeah. I did. The CD player was cranked up all the way. Some classical crap.”

“Make sure it’s in the report.”

Tom dismissed them and turned his attention back to the body. Forcing detachment, he examined the wound to the neck. There were no tears or ragged edges in the skin, just a continuous smooth cut. Tom had never seen anything like it before.

“Morning, Tommy. Coffee?”

Detective Roy Lewis entered the apartment and handed his partner a Styrofoam cup with a gas station logo on it. At six foot two, Roy was the same height as Tom, but that was their only shared trait. Roy was black, bald, with broad shoulders and a round face sporting a thick mustache. Tom was white to the point of pale, thin and angular, with sandy hair that was a touch too short for a ponytail.

Roy’s jacket was dotted with droplets, some of them still snowflakes. It was the first week of April, but winter didn’t seem to know that.

“Why is it when I buy coffee, it’s Starbucks, and when you do it’s Phillips Petroleum?”

“Because I’m a cheap bastard. What do we got here?”

“Vic is a male Caucasian, name of Thomas Jessup. Woman in the apartment below called 911 because blood was dripping from her ceiling.”

Roy grimaced at the body, then took a sip from his cup. “Where’s the head?”

“It rolled under the desk. I think the perp used some kind of sword. One cut. Clean.”

“Not that clean.”

Tom’s stomach did a slow roll. Though he’d been in Homicide for six years, he still wasn’t comfortable around bodies, especially the messy ones. Bad coffee made the nausea even worse. Tom stuck out his tongue and fingered off a line of coffee grounds. Not wanting to contaminate the scene, he wiped the dregs in his shirt pocket.

“This is like drinking sand.”

“Yeah. It looked awful. That’s why I got me a Coke. So what’s up with the fingers?”

“Tortured. Perp took them off one at a time, then used twist ties to stop the bleeding. Music was up loud so no one heard the screams.”

“Who was this poor guy, make someone want to cut off his fingers and lop off his head?”

“Let’s find out.”

Tom choked down the rest of his coffee and put the cup in his jacket pocket. Then he snapped on a pair of latex gloves. His partner did the same.

While they tossed the place, several techies showed up and began to take pictures and collect samples. The ME arrived shortly thereafter, formality making him take the corpse’s pulse.

“Should we start CPR?” Roy asked.

The Medical Examiner ignored him.

Tom took the bedroom, and after a few minutes of poking through drawers found out that Thomas Jessup worked at the main branch of the Chicago Public Library. Check stubs put his standard of living at slightly more than average. A bank statement revealed only a few hundred in savings, but bills were paid in full and on time. The heat kicked on automatically, blowing around the strong smell of violent death. Tom checked out the bathroom, and after a thorough search he bent over the sink and splashed some water onto his face. The coffee felt like acid in his gut.

Afterward he joined Roy in the kitchen. “Anything?”

“This guy was a boy scout. No booze, no smokes, no drugs, no fatty foods in the fridge. A ton of books, not one of them with dirty pictures. What’d he do?”

“Librarian.”

“Figures. You find any girl stuff?”

“Nope. If he had a girlfriend, they weren’t intimate. At least not here. No women’s clothing, no extra toothbrush.”

“Found his wallet. On the computer. Sixty bucks inside. Poor guy just turned thirty. Hey, ain’t your big three-oh coming up this week?”

Tom frowned. “Thanks for the reminder.”

He looked in the cabinet under the sink and found half a box of garbage bags. They were the more expensive brand with the built-in handle—no twist tie needed. The perp must have brought his own to the scene. An earlier check of the front door didn’t show any signs of a break-in. Someone Jessup knew and let inside?

Tom went back into the living room. The asses-and-elbows atmosphere of a murder investigation was in full swing, with almost a dozen professionals stepping over each other to do their jobs. A guy with a portable vacuum picked up hairs and fibers. A woman dusted for prints. A team armed with a spray bottle and an alternative light source illuminated blood droplets on the ceiling. All while a crime scene photographer snapped away and another techie videotaped everything.

In the center of the action, the Medical Examiner—a pale, thin, cadaverous looking man named Phil Blasky—was orchestrating the removal of the body. The duct tape was carefully unwound, cut into one foot strips, and bagged. It would be examined back at the lab. A stretcher, complete with body bag, was wheeled in. Once the body was freed from the chair, two cops donning plastic ponchos lifted it onto the cart.

“Now this is interesting.”

The ME was bent over the legs, examining a bare foot. Tom got a closer look.

“I thought it was something he stepped on, but apparently it’s a tattoo. It looks old.”

“A tattoo? Where?” Tom’s voice came out higher-pitched than he would have preferred.

“It’s on the pad of the left heel. A blue number, about an inch long. The number 7.”

Tom looked at the foot and paled. A lump in his throat made him unable to speak.

“I wonder what that means.”

Me too, Tom thought.

He’d seen a similar tattoo. Also blue, about an inch long. The number 5.

He’d been seeing it on a daily basis for almost thirty years.

It was on the bottom of his own left foot.

Phillip Stang stared at the ceiling. His frail body desperately needed sleep, but he refused to give in. He was waiting for news.

The widescreen plasma TV played an old black and white war movie. Stang had muted it some time ago. The only sound in the room was the faint beeping and whirring of the machines that kept him alive. He lifted a pale hand to scratch his nose, then shifted on the bed from his one bad side to his other bad side. The pain moved in unison.

“Senator?”

The voice startled him, even though the volume on the intercom was set to low.

“Yes, Jerome?”

“Your son is on the phone.”

Stang picked up the receiver. It was cold and heavy. When he spoke, his voice didn’t betray the weakness or exhaustion he felt.

“It’s two in the morning. You couldn’t call sooner?”

“Sorry, Dad. There have been some, ah, complications. Jessup is dead.”

“Did he know about the others?”

“He knew a few, but was only in contact with one of them. We put Jack on it.”

“How about the girl?”

“Haven’t heard anything yet. But with Jessup—there may be a little snag. The detective in charge of the case is Tom Mankowski.”

If Stang had a sense of humor, he might have laughed at the irony.

“It doesn’t matter. He’ll be dead before he learns anything. It won’t interfere with Project Sunrise. Call when you hear about Joan.”

Stang hung up, not bothering to listen to his son’s response. He shifted his attention back to the ceiling.

Waiting.

He was good at waiting. For more than three decades, he’d been biding his time. But a lifetime of patience would be rewarded within the next few days.

It was somewhat unfortunate that millions of people had to die to make it so.

Joan DeVilliers looked at her beeper and noted the number. Marty. She called him on the cell phone.

“Joan! You’re impossible to get a hold of.”

“Left my cell in the car.”

She turned down Santa Monica Boulevard and pulled alongside of a limo. The windows were tinted and impossible to see into, but Joan waved and blew a kiss. Never knew who it might be.

“Did you check your email?”

“Not yet. I’ve been on location all day. Ridley and Tom were having an argument.”

“Anything serious?”

“Everything is serious on a hundred mil picture. The gaffer has a hemorrhoid and it’s serious. What was the email?”

“It was from me, telling you to check your voice mail.”

Joan sighed. “Have you read the latest, Marty? About how cellular phones are linked to brain cancer? I can actually feel the tumor growing in my head right now.”

“I’ll buy you a lead hat, hon. Check your voice mail and call me back.”

Marty hung up. Joan punched the gas on the Jag to blow through a yellow light, then hit the speed dial for her voice mail. She rested the phone in the caddy to play it on the speaker.

“You have six calls.”

BEEP.

“Joan, Bill at Paramount. I talked to Peter. Expect a call.”

BEEP.

“This is Marty. Has Peter from Paramount called yet?”

BEEP.

“Joan, this is Peter at Paramount Studios. I’m green lighting the project. The contracts are being sent over. I look forward to working with you.”

BEEP.

“Joan? Max. The reservation is at nine. Call if you need directions to Carmichael’s. Looking forward.”

BEEP.

“It’s Marty again. Where are you? Have you been kidnapped? If you have been, let’s negotiate for the option. Did Peter call?”

BEEP.

“Joan DeVilliers?”

Joan squinted at the phone. She didn’t recognize the voice.

“I’ve scheduled your tattoo removal for tonight at your place.”

Tattoo removal? Who was this?

“Expect it to be very painful. See you later.”

“You have no more messages.”

A horn blared and Joan swerved out of incoming traffic. She pulled over to the curb, her heart racing. Joan only had one tattoo, and she was certain no one in LA knew about it. Even on the rare occasion that she’d brought a man home, none had found any reason to examine the bottom of her left heel.

The phone rang and Joan jumped in her seat, banging her head on the roof of the Jag. She hesitated, then hit the speaker.

“Joan? Marty. Isn’t it fabulous? Paramount bought it!”

“Fabulous, Marty.”

“You’re going to be producing two blockbusters at the same time! Aren’t you excited? Joan, why aren’t you excited?”

“Marty, did you know I had a tattoo?”

“No, I didn’t. How modern primitive.”

“When was the last time I changed my cell number? Last month, right?”

“I don’t remember. Sounds right.”

“How many people do you think have it?”

“I don’t know. This is Hollywood, dearest. You want people to pass around your number. What’s wrong? Peter did make the offer, right?”

Joan rubbed her eyes. Perhaps she was over-reacting. It was probably a prank call, or a wrong number. Or, this being Hollywood, some kind of clandestine, high-concept movie pitch.

“I’m just being paranoid, Marty. Yes, I’m excited. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Night, hon.”

Joan pulled down the sun visor and checked her eye shadow. It hadn’t smudged. She finger-combed her short blond hair and debated changing into eveningwear for her date, but the idea of going home alone made her nervous.

I’m being ridiculous, she thought. Some nut in the City of Mixed Nuts calls with a vague threat, and she was acting like a scream queen. Her security system at the house was top notch, her dog Schnapps would die to protect her, she carried pepper spray, and most important of all Joan was a second dan black belt in karate.

Any freak who tried to mess with her would have his hands full.

She wove back into traffic and was at her home twenty minutes later.

Joan’s house was of moderate size—tiny by Beverly Hills standards, but more than enough space for her. It was nestled away in a small enclave of trees, the last lot on a tiny wooded hill. Private, quiet, a complete about-face from her high powered job. The occasional visitor was surprised to find the interior warm and rustic. Rather than harsh lighting, leather couches, Picasso lithos, and a bowl of cocaine on the bar, Joan had decorated like Banana Republic. The only thing chic about the place was her Jacuzzi, and even that was trimmed in cedar.

She hit the access code on her remote and the garage door opened. In her mind she went through her gowns. Max had already seen the Versace. Maybe the Christian Dior? The same dress had been worn by Jodie Foster to some awards ceremony. She and Jodie were the same size, though Joan would have bought the dress no matter how big or small it was. It was black, classic, and simply stunning.

Joan parked and closed the garage door behind her. She entered the house using the keypad entrance, and then quickly reset the alarm. Preoccupied with what she was going to wear, it took Joan a moment to realize something was wrong.

Schnapps.

A month ago, she’d bought the German Shepherd from the best handler in California. A trained guard dog, but a lovable one as well. He normally greeted her at the door. Joan’s mind raced. Is he sleeping? Eating? Sick? Hurt?

Dead?

The phone call. Tattoo removal.

Joan reached into her purse and palmed the pepper spray in her right hand. In her left she gripped her car keys, making sure their jagged edges poked out through her fingers.

Then, without hesitation, she opened the door without punching in the code. This would set off the alarm and alert the police.

But nothing happened. No piercing siren. No lights going on. No immediate call back from the security company to see if this was a false alarm.

Joan bounded out the door and into the garage, almost bumping into the man leaning against her Jaguar.

He was average height, medium build, dressed in a black turtleneck and pants. On his hands were leather driving gloves, skin tight. He had deep green eyes, and a meticulous black goatee came to a point on his chin.

Joan forced back the shock and assumed a defensive position. The man didn’t appear to be armed. He smiled at her.

“Hello, Joan.”

She attacked. In two steps she was on him, lashing out at the invader’s face with her keys. He ducked away and sidestepped her, using her momentum to throw her against the car.

Joan absorbed the impact with her shoulder and spun, spraying mace in an arc as she turned.

He got inside of her arc and grabbed her around the waist.

“Aren’t we feisty?”

His breath was garlic and peppers. She jerked back her head and smashed it against his face, and then threw a roundhouse left that buried her ignition key in his biceps.

He stumbled backwards, bleeding from two places, and Joan twisted out of his grip and ran into the house, locking the door behind her.

The phone was dead. Her cell was in the car.

“Eight thousand dollars worth of goddamn security!”

Quick choice—fight or run? He was stronger. Outweighed her. Smart enough to disable her dog and her security system.

Run.

Joan kicked off her heels and headed for the kitchen. She grabbed a paring knife from the butcher block on her counter. Resting on a mat by the patio door were her jogging shoes. Ears cocked, she slipped them on without bothering to tie the laces. Then she eased open the patio door and moved cautiously into her backyard.

The moon was out and it was a clear night. Joan side-stepped her garden and headed to the back of the house. She decided to cut through the woods and head for the neighbor’s.

She found her dog when she rounded the corner.

In the shadows, she first thought Schnapps had been hung. Moving closer, Joan realized he’d been speared on a big stick which had been driven into the ground. Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t draw a breath to scream.

To her left was an even bigger stick, with a ladder set up next to it.

“That one is for you.” A voice, from behind her. “Let’s see if it fits.”

Joan ducked a shoulder and rolled towards the intruder, coming up in a kick to his chest. He caught her foot and twisted. To avoid a broken ankle, Joan flipped with the twist and wound up on her back, her head swimming.

“Don’t you want to know who I am? The last one had so many questions. I answered all of them, in the sixteen hours it took for him to die.”

He removed a cloth and a small bottle from his pocket. In the moonlight, the blood trickling from his nose looked like motor oil.

“I’ll give you a choice. Where do you want the stake, the ass or the crotch?”

Joan rolled onto her stomach and got up in a crouch. When she felt his touch she shot out both of her feet, mule-kicking him in the chest. Then she ran.

She had several advantages. She was in shape. She knew the area. And most of all, she was running for her life. It took her a few seconds to find the trail in the dark, but once she did she ran like hell. Branches whipped at her face, and twice she almost tripped on some unseen obstacle, but she continued full tilt until she’d reached the backyard of her closest neighbor.

Not bothering with the doorbell, Joan picked up a terra-cotta flower pot and smashed it through a window.

The siren wailed. The security lights came on.

Joan stood with her back to the house—the paring knife clutched in her hands and her eyes scanning the woods—and waited for the police to arrive.

Tom returned to his office at the 26th District, in the heart of downtown. He dragged along a large suitcase—Jessup’s—that he and Roy had filled with papers and personal effects from the deceased’s apartment. Roy had gone to the Harold Washington Library, where Jessup worked, to search his office and talk to his co-workers, leaving Tom to sort through the suitcase solo. Tom was fine with that—he was almost feverish with questions, and the suitcase might contain answers.

There was half a pot of old coffee set up on a table near the lockers, which Tom took back to his desk.

They’d worked the crime scene all morning, the discovery of Jessup’s number tattoo fueling Tom’s urgency. Tom hadn’t found any obvious clues pertaining to it, or the man’s murder. But the resemblance to his own tattoo was undeniable.

He’d asked his parents about the mark at an early age. They had no answers—when they’d adopted him at a few weeks old, he’d already had the tattoo. Some years ago, after becoming a cop, Tom had searched for his birth parents, but could find no evidence that he was even adopted. According to the county, he was naturally born to Joe and Laura Mankowski.

That was impossible, of course. His parents were both of Polish descent; short, dark, stocky. Tom was at least a foot taller, and several shades lighter.

He dug into the suitcase, pulling out some documents. Tom discovered he and Jessup were born at the same hospital. A labeled picture of Jessup with his parents showed that he also had little resemblance to them. Adopted as well? A long-lost brother?

“Not unless it was a really long labor,” Tom mused. He and Jessup were born six days apart. He located a death certificate for Jessup’s father, along with several US patents in his father’s name. One of his patents was for a waterproof hairdryer, which in Tom’s mind sort of defeated the purpose.

A recent birthday card from Jessup’s mother wished him thirty more years of happiness, with love and kisses. Postmark from Des Moines. A piece of notebook paper with several book titles on it was found in Jessup’s desk. Handwriting appeared to be his. Among the titles were several biographies of Thomas Edison, a bio of Lincoln, a book about the Declaration of Independence, a book about the Theory of Relativity, and an old Ira Levin thriller. Tom checked the inventory sheet. None of these books were found in the apartment.

Tom plugged a pen drive into his USB port—he’d copied Jessup’s My Documents folder—and waded through spreadsheets, games, tax figures, and letters concerning library business. It took almost an hour and the remainder of the coffee before he found something interesting. A word processing file, BERT.DOC. It had no address heading, and was dated nine days ago.

Bert—

Looking forward to meeting you, to see if you live up to your many pictures. I realize it must be a shock, and even with the proof in the articles and in our birth certificates, you must still harbor some doubt. Besides the question of how, there are also many whys. Perhaps we can figure these out together, as well as find the others.

I’m enclosing a copy of a photo of you I recently found. Call me when you’ve made travel arrangements.

All best,
T. Jessup

Tom read it again, trying to find the hidden meaning. Was Bert a pen pal? Someone famous? Or had Jessup managed to find another person with a tattoo on their heel?

He printed the letter and logged onto the Internet. First stop, the Yellow Pages. It only took a few minutes to locate a Mrs. Emilia Jessup in Des Moines. He jotted down her number and called. Busy. Tom then accessed the CPD database and found out Jessup had no criminal record or outstanding warrants. Nor was there mention of him in the Chicago Tribune archives. He searched USENET, but Jessup’s name and signature weren’t on any of the big message boards. Google yielded nada. He tried to access Jessup’s email account, but didn’t have the password to get in from this terminal.

Switching tactics, Tom went to ViCAP—the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program run by the Feebies. Because the crime scene report wasn’t finished yet, he couldn’t fill out the long questionnaire to add Jessup’s murder to the database. But he did go surfing.

Under a search for DECAPITATION, he found no less than seven hundred entries spanning the last fifty years. That was a lot of people losing their heads. TATTOOS OF NUMBERS gave him more than eight thousand hits. He combined the two for his next search, and added CAUCASIAN MALE UNDER 35.

Fifteen hits. They detailed some pretty horrible crimes, but none of them seemed related to Jessup. He refined his tattoo search to SINGLE DIGIT NUMBER TATTOO LEFT FOOT, and got a hit.

The crime took place last year in Tennessee. A twenty-nine-year-old Caucasian male by the name of Robert Mitchell had been found in the woods outside of Nashville. He’d been stripped naked and impaled upon a ten foot wooden pole. It had pierced his rectum and eventually exited through his mouth. The coroner theorized it took Mitchell a while to die.

He’d slid down the length of the stake an inch at a time. By the time it ruptured something vital, Mitchell may have been hanging there for over ten hours.

The pictures made Tom wince.

There were no witnesses, no suspects, and very little evidence. The investigation had been extensive and taken hundreds of man hours, but not a single lead panned out. Tom read on, and felt the coffee roil in his gut. Besides being well liked in the community, Mitchell had been a cop. He also had a one inch blue number on his left heel. There was a jpg attachment of the ink, and Tom clicked on it to enlarge.

A number 2. Done in the same style as his and Jessup’s. Tom checked Mitchell’s birth date and discovered Robert was only eight days younger than he was. Tom’s mouth became very dry. He reached to pour more coffee, but the pot was empty.

Tom tried Emilia Jessup in Des Moines again. Still busy. He went back into the suitcase. Jessup’s credit card statements showed no unusual purchases. The last few months of cancelled checks were all for food or utilities. There was an address book, but no one inside named Bert.

Jessup’s phone company was local, one Tom had dealt with many times, but they still required a warrant to release phone records. Tom filled out the paperwork to set the wheels in motion, but it would take a few hours to get a list of all of Jessup’s calls.

Unfortunately, Jessup didn’t have a caller ID at his apartment. Strangely, he didn’t have an answering machine either. Tom didn’t know one single person who didn’t own an answering machine, unless…

“Unless they have voice mail.”

He searched the suitcase for previous phone bills and found one from last month. There was a charge for voice mail, but it didn’t give Jessup’s PIN. That was probably listed on Jessup’s very first phone bill, when he was assigned the line. Tom had only brought along the bills from the last few months—he hadn’t thought there would be a need to bring every single statement.

So it was back to Jessup’s apartment. He wanted to check the vic’s email anyway, and if he hurried he could make it back before noon and grab a bite. He called Roy.

“Anything?” he asked his partner.

“Office in order. No known enemies. You?”

“I gotta run back to the scene, check his voice mail. We can compare notes over lunch.”

“Meet you back at the district. I’m almost done here.”

The day hadn’t gotten any warmer, and the freezing drizzle had formed slush on his windshield. Tom climbed into his Mustang and stepped on a CD case that had fallen next to the gas pedal. Sting’s latest album, unopened. His ex-girlfriend had given it to him, months ago, at around the same time his car stereo stopped working. He tossed it in the back seat.

Tom took Addison to Lake Shore Drive, south towards downtown. To his left, Tom could make out large ice patches on Lake Michigan. Ahead in the distance, the twin antennas of the giant John Hancock Building blinked in unison. Rush hour was in full force. Tom hit the siren, forging a winding path through traffic. One of the perks of being a cop. He exited on North Avenue and parked in front of a fire hydrant—another perk. The neighborhood consisted of upper middle class apartments, most of them recent college grads, all within crawling distance to the city’s major hub of bars and clubs on Rush and Division. Tom walked to Jessup’s residence and let himself into the lobby door with the key supplied by the superintendent.

The building was newly remodeled, brightly lit, secure. Jessup’s door was taped off with yellow crime scene ribbon. Tom ducked under it and entered, turning on the lights.

The lounger that the body was taped to had been removed, taken to the lab to search for trace evidence. No one had been in yet to clean up, and the large brown blood stains on the carpet had grown funky. Tom went to the stereo, which was speckled white with fingerprint dust, and turned it on. A CD loaded automatically. Even someone as classically inept as Tom recognized Beethoven’s Fifth. He lowered the volume and let it play.

Jessup’s collection of old phone bills was in a file cabinet, and Tom searched until he found one with the voice mail personal identification number on it. Then he picked up the phone and pressed the keys to access the messages. There was only one.

“Hi, Thomas, it’s Bert. The convention is running all week, and I have to man the table every day until eight. But I’m free all day Saturday, then I have to go back to Milwaukee. Can we get together then? You’ve got my number at the hotel. Call me later.”

A robotic voice indicated the call had taken place yesterday afternoon at two-fifteen. Tom played it again, listening closely. It was a man, Midwest accent, a somewhat nasally voice. He didn’t sound threatening or imposing. His manner was friendly, albeit harried. There was noise in the background. Tom repeated the message once more, trying to make out the sounds behind Bert’s voice. It was the murmur of a large group of people. No street sounds, so they had to be inside. Bert had probably called from the convention he mentioned.

Tom closed his eyes, trying to pick up any key word in the background that would indicate what kind of convention it was. No luck. He pressed the star button on the phone to save the message, then sat back down on the kitchen chair. At any given time, there were more than two dozen conventions in the Chicagoland area. And hundreds of hotels. Bert mentioned that Jessup had his number. Would he have written it down somewhere?

There was no scratch pad by the phone. Tom hit the redial button on the receiver and got a local pizza shop. He went back to the second phone in the bedroom, but it didn’t have a redial button. Punching *69 didn’t work either. He would have to wait for the phone records to find out where Bert was staying.

Moving on, Tom booted up the computer and was able to access Jessup’s email. Most of it was spam, with a few letters concerning the library. Tom was reading about the budget for a remodeling job when he heard movement behind him.

As a rookie, though he’d never admit it to anyone, Tom used to practice quick draws in front of a mirror. He got to be pretty fast. After being promoted to Detective, his hip holster disappeared and was replaced by the shoulder rig he now wore. Again, in the privacy of his apartment, he practiced drawing his gun from the new holster until he was just as fast.

So without even thinking, Tom’s hand reached into his jacket and tugged at his 9mm Model 17 Glock pistol, eighteen rounds with the first already chambered. He was quick.

The intruder was quicker. A muscular arm snaked across Tom’s chest and yanked him backward. Tom was violently flipped over the intruder’s hip, chair and all, and he landed hard on his shoulders. His grip still solid, Tom cleared leather on his holster and aimed the weapon upward. A boot dug into his armpit and two strong hands locked on the gun, twisting it out of his fist. It was tossed aside.

Tom’s vision stopped spinning and he focused on the man standing over him. Short, extremely so, but built like a tank on steroids. He had a crew cut and a blond Fu Manchu mustache. A chest-sized tattoo of a samurai was visible through his tight white T-shirt.

“Hi, Tom.” The man’s foot shifted from Tom’s armpit to his neck. He stepped down hard enough to cut off oxygen. Tom twisted and yanked at the leg, but couldn’t get free. It was like wrestling with a tree trunk. His lungs began to burn, and he could feel his face become bright red.

“So you wound up being a pig. A shitty one. Jessup put up a better fight than you.”

The man smiled, his mouth a dungeon of gray teeth. Three were missing, and one protruding incisor was capped in gold. It caught the light and twinkled at him.

Tom was big but limber. Grunting with effort, he brought up his long leg, aiming for the gold. The man turned in time, but still received a nasty kick to the side of the face. He stumbled back, and Tom scrambled to his hands and knees, sucking in air. He did a quick scan of the floor for his gun, and not seeing it, launched himself at the smaller man.

Tom’s charge was met with a solid right to the jaw. It was the hardest punch Tom had ever taken, and his knees melted as if made of butter. As Tom fell, his attacker completed a tight reverse-kick that connected with his chest. Tom landed on his side, unable to draw a breath. It felt like someone had parked a car on his ribcage.

His attacker wiped some blood from his mouth and snarled. He reached inside his long coat at hip level. With a simple, swift motion he withdrew an honest-to-God samurai sword. Tom tried to get up but he still couldn’t breathe. He’d landed hard, and along with the pain in his chest and jaw, his nervous system sent him notice that he’d somehow hurt his ass. He felt for it, found he was sitting on something hard. His Glock.

The surprise must have shown on his face, because the man was out the door before he could bring the gun around.

Tom sat there for ten full minutes, his breath slowly returning, the Glock held in a shaky hand. When he finally felt strong enough to stand up, the world was still wobbly and his stomach churned as if he’d eaten a nest of weasels. He managed to get to the bathroom before he was sick.

Then he drank some water out of the faucet and called it in.

Roy came into the hospital room just as the doctor was putting the final stitch inside Tom’s cheek.

“Ouch. Probably don’t want this coffee, huh?”

Tom gave Roy a slight shake of his head. It was a gourmet brand too. His partner set it down on a tray, next to a pile of bloody cotton balls.

“While some guy was doing a Jackie Chan on your face, I gave Jessup’s mom a call. You ready for this to get weirder?”

Tom made an affirmative sound around the doctor’s fingers.

“The vic was adopted. Mrs. Jessup had some female problem, couldn’t have kids. She and her husband were on waiting lists at adoption agencies. But here’s the deal—some strange man just showed up out of the blue and dropped a baby off at their house, complete with birth certificates and fifty grand in cash.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. Roy continued.

“She doesn’t know who he was, or why he did it. Never heard from the guy again. But she doesn’t think it ended there. She thinks her son was being watched, all while he was growing up.”

The doctor finished the knot and cut the thread. Tom thanked him and touched the side of his face, still numb.

“What do you mean, watched?”

“She said once, when Jessup was about four, he was playing in the backyard and she ran inside to get the phone. When she came out, he was lying on the ground, some guy leaning over him. She yelled at the guy, he took off. Her kid was soaking wet, coughing up water. Jessup had wandered into the woods and fell in a pond. The guy had given him CPR, saved his life. But here’s the thing—there wasn’t another house around for almost a mile. So that guy shouldn’t have been there.”

“Maybe he was hiking. Or a hunter.”

“Dressed in a suit, in the middle of the woods? She said there were other times too. She’d see some person watching Jessup play in the park, then a few weeks later see the same person.”

Tom mulled it over, wondering how much Jessup’s story mirrored his own. Had this same mystery stranger also given his parents fifty K?

“Roy, there’s something you should know.”

He told his partner about his tattoo, and his adoption, and also about the cop in Tennessee who’d been impaled.

“And I just remembered something else. My parents used to joke that I had a guardian angel watching over me. I got into a bike accident when I was a kid—broke my leg in an empty warehouse. Bad break, I passed out. No one knew I was there, but somehow I woke up in the hospital. The doctors said some man took me there, gave my phone number, and left.”

“This is some seriously weird shit.”

“Did you get anything else from Jessup’s mother?”

“I got a name. When the mystery guy dropped off Jessup, he also left birth certificates, already filled out. Not only the state one, but the one the hospital issued. Doctor in charge was a guy named Harold Harper, out of Rush-Presbyterian. Paper trail ends in New Mexico. I’ve got some guys working on it. What’s up with your foot?”

Tom’s shoe was off. It was setting on the cot in a plastic baggie.

“The guy who attacked me admitted to killing Jessup. I kicked him in the face. We get a DNA match off the blood on the shoe, case is closed.”

“So you gonna walk around with one shoe?”

Tom tossed Roy his car keys.

“My gym bag is in the trunk. I’m parked in Emergency. Be a dear, would you?”

His sneakers retrieved, Tom signed his release and tailgated Roy back to the district. He wished he’d asked his parents more questions about his adoption when they were still alive, but it hadn’t mattered at the time. Why question a perfect family? Tom’s mother had been a saint, always loving and supportive. His dad, a Chicago Alderman, had been one of the best men Tom had ever known. Tom couldn’t have picked better parents.

After dropping off the shoe at the lab, Tom and Roy hit the computer. It took Tom fifteen minutes to feed in details about his attacker, and the computer took .04 seconds to spit out an answer.

Arthur Kilpatrick. He had a rap sheet that read like Felony’s Greatest Hits; assault, arson, burglary, rape, attempted murder. Two stretches in prison, and a current warrant out for his arrest. He’d seriously injured eleven people in a bar fight. Tom read the number again. Eleven. This was one major bad ass.

“Click under distinguishing marks.”

Tom did, and discovered that among Kilpatrick’s many tattoos was a blue number 9… on the bottom of his left heel. He was eleven days older than Tom.

“Shit keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

Tom agreed. If Rod Serling had chosen that moment to walk out of the closet, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

“So why did this guy return to the crime scene, Tommy? You think he left something there?”

“We searched every inch of that place. What could he have been looking for?”

“Maybe he wasn’t looking for anything. Maybe he was there because you were there.”

Tom blinked. “He came there to kill me?”

“We got two bodies, Jessup and that southern cop, both with number tatts. Kilpatrick has a tatt, and you have a tatt.”

“But how did he know I was there?”

“Could have followed you.”

“It was rush hour. I used my siren to weave through traffic. No one could have followed me.”

“Staked the place out?”

“Two entrances, front and back. Can’t watch both at once.”

Tom rubbed his chin, some of the feeling returning. Was there any way he could have alerted Kilpatrick to his arrival at the apartment? A sensor, a phone tap, a silent alarm…

“When I first got there, I turned on the stereo.”

Roy raised his eyebrows. “And he heard it? You think the place was bugged?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Tom searched through his desk until he found the Foxhound, a souvenir from his days in Vice. It was a small silver box the size of a pager. The device scanned radio waves between fifty megahertz and three gigahertz, almost every available frequency.

“Check the batteries. It’s been a while.”

While Roy fussed with the battery compartment, Tom returned to the drawer for a gravity knife. He placed it in his pants pocket. Tom wasn’t going to be caught without a back-up weapon again.

“I thought those knives were illegal.”

“So? Call a cop.”

Tom drove, sparing the siren now that traffic had died down. He parked in the alley next to Jessup’s building.

“We going stealth mode or noisy, give him another shot at you?”

“Stealth. If we find anything, we can set a trap for him later.”

Regardless, Tom pulled out his Glock and made sure a round was chambered.

“You look whiter than usual. You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You can wait in the car, if you want. I’ll find you a lollipop.”

Tom gave him a glare. They walked in through the back entrance and up to Jessup’s apartment. Tom opened the door as quietly as possible, one hand on the butt of his pistol. He flipped on the lights, and after a quick tour revealed the place was empty he relaxed a bit.

Roy took out the Foxhound and played with the dials. He started at the bookcases, waving the antenna in a serpentine pattern from top to bottom. Nothing happened, so he moved on to the near wall. When the antenna pointed at the electrical outlet, the red light began to blink and the Foxhound vibrated. He nodded at Tom and pointed.

Tom knelt next to the outlet and stared. It seemed completely normal. A lamp was plugged into the left socket. He switched it on and the lamp worked fine.

Tom went into the kitchen, where he recalled seeing some screwdrivers in a junk drawer. He found one and brought it back to the outlet. Then he unplugged the lamp and carefully unscrewed the cover.

It was definitely a bug. He removed two more screws and took out the entire assembly, careful not to jostle or disconnect it. The device was high-tech and professional. A flat platform mike was taped to the inside of the wall, with a long antenna running alongside. It drew power off of the apartment’s electricity, and the current was live and allowed the sockets to function. Tom looked for any labels or markings, and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t find any.

He put the device back and joined up with Roy in the bedroom. His partner was kneeling next to another socket, the Foxhound blinking. Tom took the detector into the kitchen. Within two minutes, he’d found a third bug in an outlet next to the phone.

Neither one of them said a word until they were back in the car. Roy spoke first.

“Damn. That guy had more bugs than a housing project.”

“Not homemade spy gear, either. That was some major league equipment.”

“Even in Vice, we didn’t have stuff that slick.”

“So who does have stuff like that?”

“The government.”

They exchanged a look. Tom started the car and pulled out of the alley, eyes on the rearview. “What next? Try a sting, draw Kilpatrick into a trap?”

“What else can we do?”

“Call the district, have Wally check the fax. I’m waiting on Jessup’s phone records.”

Roy got on the cell and Tom considered this new development. Whoever bugged Jessup’s apartment was big league. Kilpatrick was the killer, but someone had to be behind him. Perhaps the mysterious Bert.

“Fax came.” Roy dialed another number. “Jessup called the O’Hare Hyatt three times in the last few days.”

“See if they have a convention going.”

“Way ahead of you, partner.”

Tom hung a ralph and headed for the expressway.

“Got it.” Roy pocketed his cell phone. “The Hyatt is hosting a huge convention all this week, hotel is booked solid.”

“What kind of convention?”

“It’s an NFLCA expo.”

“Enlighten me.”

“The National Fishing Lures Collector’s Association.”

“That was this week? Damn it, I forgot to mark my calendar.”

“Hurry. They said the Creek Chub auction starts in twenty minutes.”

Tom patted his pocket, reassured that the knife was still there, and then merged onto I-90.

“We can still make our reservation. You can throw something on.”

Joan stared at Max, stunned. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not at all. Reservations at Carmichael’s are very hard to get. Everyone eats there. The waiting list is months long.”

“I can’t believe you. Some maniac broke in my house, killed my dog, and tried to shish-kabob me—”

“Joan, you’re being dramatic. Everyone gets robbed. This is LA.”

“Stop the car.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Stop the damn car.”

Max pulled the Lexus to the curb in front of a McDonalds.

“Joan, let’s not overreact.”

“Overreact? You’re a callous, arrogant, insensitive jerk.”

“Insensitive? Who just picked you up at the police station?”

“Well, a million thanks for driving me home. Why don’t you whip it out, and I’ll pull up my skirt and hop on.”

Max rubbed his eyes. His tortured look. She’d only seen him a half dozen times, and the look was becoming increasingly frequent—every time she offered an opinion, or her cell phone rang, or she talked about her day. Why was she with this guy anyway?

Joan found the door handle and used it. He rolled the window down.

“Joan, let me at least take you home.”

She ignored him and walked into the restaurant. Maybe she was being a bit dramatic, but hell, the past few hours were dramatic. Joan tried to imagine how Max would react if he had some psycho chasing him. Big corporate hotshot would probably be sucking his thumb, begging for his mama.

But that wasn’t really fair. No one really knew what they’d do in a crisis situation, until it happened. Maybe Max wasn’t being insensitive—maybe this was his way of trying to be strong for her. Was his suggestion so outrageous? Perhaps the best thing for her would be to go out and have a good time. It sure beat going home and pulling Schnapps off of that stake.

Joan turned around, hoping Max was still there, or perhaps even coming through the parking lot after her.

Max was pulling out into traffic.

Asshole. Fine. She didn’t care for him much anyway. He was too good-looking, and he knew it. Joan’s Second Rule of Dating; never date a man prettier than you are. She’d broken that rule because she thought Max had some class. He was young, successful, and not in the life. That was Joan’s First Rule. Never date a guy in the movie business. She had other criteria—no guys with back hair, no guys who wore Speedos or thongs, no guys who lived with their mom, but the first two were the most important.

Unfortunately, all that her rules got her was an empty social calendar and the feeling that she was somehow unworthy, even with her many accomplishments.

She went straight to the pay phone and punched in her pin number, calling the person she should have called when this first happened. Marty. Her assistant. Her friend. In her eyes, he was the perfect man. He’d make some guy really happy someday.

And apparently, that’s what he was up to at that moment. When the call went through, another man answered. Tipsy, buoyant, enthusiastic.

Joan hung up. Lately, Marty had been about as lucky as she had with men. Good for him for scoring. She didn’t want to intrude on that.

So, what now? Joan sat down in a plastic swivel chair, noting how stupid her sockless running shoes looked with her skirt. After the police arrived, she’d demanded to fill out the report immediately, hoping that the sooner they had a description, the sooner they could get the creep off the streets. The police complied, whisking her away to the station before she had a chance to change or even grab her purse.

And now, three hours later, after sitting with an artist and reviewing mug shots and telling her story a dozen times, she was stuck at a McDonalds without a ride, wearing these dumb shoes, afraid to go home.

Get tough, Joanie, she thought. If you don’t face it now, you’ll never want to go back.

Screwing up her courage, Joan removed herself from the chair and marched out to the street. It took her three shouts before a cab stopped.

Her sense of dread increased with every tick of the meter. When the cabbie finally pulled in front of her house and asked if this was the place, Joan didn’t know if she could move.

“Lady? You okay?”

“Hold on. I have to go in, get some money. No purse.”

“Meter’s running.”

“Be right back.”

She controlled her breathing, pushing it deep into her stomach, and got out of the taxi.

No burglar alarm. Dark house. Dead guard dog. She didn’t even have her keys. But the rear patio window was probably still open. That was in back, past Schnapps…

Joan followed the bushes around her home, moving quick and confident, refusing to look at her poor dog or the stake that was meant for her. The police, after checking out her house, had closed the patio door. An officer on her case had volunteered to hang around her house until she came home, and Joan kicked herself for refusing the offer. She figured she had Max, and the cop had been too good looking. Now, apprehension mounting, she wondered how she was going to get inside. Break her own window?

No need. The patio door was unlocked. Joan went into the kitchen, turning on lights as she went, and found her purse on the floor where she’d dropped it. After digging out her wallet, she walked out the front door and paid the taxi driver. The cab turned around in her circular driveway, and Joan watched the tail lights disappear down the hill. She felt very alone.

Back to the house. The front door knob was covered with white powder. The police had determined this was the entry point, and had gone ahead and checked for prints even though she made it clear that the man wore gloves. Joan didn’t know if she should admire them for the effort, or be irritated that they didn’t believe her.

Once inside, Joan turned on her large screen television and changed the channel to CNN, grateful for the nonstop voices. She flipped on more lights, checked to make sure the doors and windows were all locked, and threw away her toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, soap, and shampoo. Anything he might have touched. Then she emptied her underwear drawer into the washing machine, her silverware drawer into the dishwasher, and started each of them on the highest heat setting.

She had an urge to vacuum, to scrub the bathtub and drain the Jacuzzi, but exhaustion was getting the upper hand. Her last effort to cleanse the house was changing her sheets, and then she kicked off her gym shoes and collapsed onto the bed.

Joan was able to relax for almost a full minute before paranoia reared its head. She picked up the phone and found it still disconnected. Her cell was in her car. Sleep would be impossible unless there was a phone next to her. Joan got out of bed.

She was padding through the living room when she saw the front door open. The scream was out of her mouth before he got into the room.

“Hello, Joan. Miss me?”

Same goatee. Same black outfit. Same gloves. He had some kind of metal device in his right hand. Lock picks. Joan willed herself to move, to run, to attack—anything but remain planted there like a deer in headlights. She took off toward the kitchen and went straight for the knife rack. With a steak knife in each hand, she turned around to face her tormentor.

He was standing in the kitchen, regarding her calmly.

“I knew you’d be a fighter. Perhaps I should burn you at the stake rather than impale you on one.”

“Get away from me.”

“Sorry. Can’t do that, Joan.”

“What the hell did I ever do to you?” Joan’s voice came out steeped in desperation. She was close to cracking.

“To me? Nothing. The English may feel differently.”

The guy was off his nut. That was good. She dealt with crazy people all the time in the business. She could handle crazy.

Joan moved her left foot, widening her stance. She assumed a defensive position, each hand holding its knife in a death grip. If he took another step forward, she’d try an attack. Keep him talking, don’t telegraph it.

“You’re crazy.”

“I know about the tattoo. I know about the adoption. I know who your parents really are. Don’t you wonder how I know all of that?”

With an easy, deliberate move, he took a bottle and a rag out of his left pocket. Something to knock her out while he dropped her on that sharp piece of wood.

Not in this lifetime.

Joan lunged. The man was nimble, trained. He dropped to one knee and trapped her wrist in his armpit, then lifted up his forearm to block the other knife.

But Joan didn’t attack with the other knife. She went straight for the crotch, bringing her leg up and connecting hard. Her knee hit an athletic supporter. He closed his legs on her foot, trapping it. Joan dropped the knife in her pinned hand and grabbed his shirt. Then she let herself fall onto her back and flipped him over her head, her free leg planted on his chest.

The intruder released her wrist. Joan rolled onto all fours, still in attack mode. Before he could get up, she struck with the knife, aiming for the neck.

He saw the blow coming and moved to block it. The swing was deflected, but she still managed to bury the blade two inches into his shoulder. She released the knife and scampered for the front door.

“Joan? I really think you’re overreacting.”

Max, coming into the house.

“Max!” She ran right into him, yanking at his arm. “Come on!”

Max grabbed her, tried to hold her back. “You need to calm down.”

This was the wrong time for talk. They needed to get out of here.

“There’s a—”

That’s all she got out. The intruder had pulled the steak knife from his shoulder and flung himself at Max, plunging it into his back. Max dropped to his knees. Joan shoved the intruder, but he backhanded her across the forehead, sending her sprawling onto the driveway just a few feet away from Max’s Lexus. The car was running, the headlights on.

Phone, she thought. Call for help. She tugged the door open and slammed it closed, hitting the lock button. She looked around for Max’s cell. It wasn’t there.

“Dammit!” Joan looked out the window. The intruder was hunched over Max, working on him with the steak knife. She couldn’t tell if Max was dead or alive, but then she saw it; a feeble twitching in his hands.

Joan leaned on the horn. The intruder stopped his attack and stared. Joan opened the window. “Leave him alone!”

“Is this your boyfriend, Joan?” The intruder grinned. “Handsome devil. But I can fix that.”

He began to cut away at Max’s face.

Joan thought about hitting the gas, running into him, but it would kill Max too. She clenched her teeth. Fight or flight, Joanie? Fight or flight?

Joan DeVilliers got out of the car.

The intruder stared up and her, his eyes widening. He let go of Max’s hair and stepped over him.

“My, you are a brave one, aren’t you?”

Joan pushed aside the fear and slowed her breathing. She didn’t get to be a black belt taking a correspondence course. Joan could fight, and she could win. This guy was above her weight class, but she’d beaten men before. Joan planted her bare feet on the driveway and centered herself.

The man moved well, liquid and flowing. Like a snake, Joan thought. He was smiling and confident, but that could work to Joan’s advantage. So far, she’d been reacting out of fear. He was underestimating her. If she stayed focused, she’d have a chance.

Time slowed down, as it often did when she was fighting. Sound seemed to disappear, and her opponent became sharper, clearer. Instead of treating him as a threat, she mentally divided him into different strike points. Joan could break boards with her hands and feet. Bones weren’t much thicker.

He came in on her left, feinting with a hook and then round-housing with his right. Joan slipped the punch, spun, and landed a solid reverse kick in his face, dead center. She straightened her leg on impact, hitting him with all of her hundred and fifteen pounds.

It sent the intruder sprawling onto his back, his head bouncing on the asphalt, his nose a mashed tomato. Like many tournament fights, it was over in a heartbeat. Joan had knocked him out, cold.

For a moment, she didn’t know what to do. Her brain told her to finish it, go for the death blow that she’d practiced so often but always pulled short in matches. But could she? Could she actually kill an unconscious man?

Joan approached cautiously. His eyes were closed, and he looked more pathetic than threatening. She knelt on his chest, raising her fist, aiming for the neck…

And couldn’t do it.

A moan, from the doorway. Max. She got off her assailant and hurried to him. He was curled up in a fetal position, bleeding from several holes in his chest. His face looked like a lasagna. She turned his head to the side so the blood wouldn’t run down his throat, and then felt in his jacket pocket for his phone. Joan dialed 911 and considered what she should do with the intruder. Tie him up somehow?

It didn’t matter. When she looked down the driveway, the man was no longer there.

“Beverly Hills 911 Emergency, this is Mrs. Schmidtt.”

“My name is Joan DeVilliers. I need an ambulance and the police here as soon as possible. I’m at 1445 Hillcrest.”

“Can you explain what happened?”

“I was attacked.” Joan’s voice broke. “Again.”

The O’Hare Hyatt Regency was one of the larger hotels in the area, with over a thousand rooms. The eight-story building had been constructed in a U-shape, with parking all around it. Tom circled slowly, trying to find a space. Even the handicapped spots were full. He put the Mustang in the Courtesy Bus slot.

The lobby was buzzing. The majority of people milling about were white males over fifty, many sporting novelty T-Shirts with slogans like GET HOOKED ON LURES and KISS MY BASS. The duo made their way to Check-In and waited for the smiling concierge to notice them.

“Are you gentleman here for the convention?”

“No, ma’am. I’m Detective Mankowski, this is Detective Lewis.”

They held out their badges. The girl’s smile held. She was young, blonde, attractive. Upon noticing this, Roy sidled closer, becoming Alpha cop.

“What can we do for you, Detectives?”

“We need your help in a homicide investigation. We’re looking for a suspect believed to be registered here. He’s manning a table at the convention.”

“I can check to see if he’s registered. His name?”

“All we have is the first name. Bert.”

“That may be tough. We have over fifteen hundred guests currently registered, and they’re organized by last name.”

“Can you look them up by address? We believe he’s from Milwaukee.”

“I can try.” She pushed a few buttons on her computer. “Okay, here. We currently have a hundred and sixteen guests with a listed Milwaukee address.”

“Anyone named Bert?” Tom tried to crane his neck over the top of the computer to see the screen. “It might also be variations—Robert, Herbert, Albert, Norbert, Cuthbert, Dilbert…”

“Q*Bert.” Roy grinned. She batted her eyelashes at him. Tom had never seen a woman actually bat her eyelashes outside of television.

“It’ll take a moment, I’ll have to go through them name by name. Okay, here’s a Robert. Signed in as Bob, not Bert. Not a seller. Whoever bought table space in the convention center gets a special room rate. Let’s see. Michael. Jeffrey. George. Chris. John. Here’s one. Albert Blumberg. He has a booth and he did sign in as Bert.”

“Can we have his room number and table number?”

“He’s in room 714, booth number 18-A. I’ll give you a convention map.”

“Any others?”

She spent a minute going through the rest of the names. A fat guy in a shirt that read MASTER BAITER walked through the lobby, proclaiming the auction was about to begin. It thinned the crowd considerably.

“No others. He was the only one.”

They received a convention map and left the front desk, heading down a hallway to the Normandy Room, a huge warehouse-sized open space packed with people and display booths. Every direction they looked had tackle or men discussing tackle. A voice boomed over the loudspeaker.

“Next up, mint in box with papers, a Creek Chub Sucker #3900 in frog scale. Bidding starts at two hundred dollars.”

“Two Benjamins?” Roy sneered. “That’s why it’s called a Sucker.”

Tom consulted the map and led them through the ranks and files of booths, zigzagging to 18-A. The table was actually a glass display rack, showcasing several dozen brightly colored lures in neat rows. The man behind the display was thin, tall, in his fifties.

“Albert Blumberg?”

“No. He had to step away for a moment. I’m minding the store. You interested in one of his baits?”

Tom took a quick look in the case, noting all the prices were triple digits or higher. He doubted there was a layaway plan.

“Is he back in his room? We really should talk to him personally.”

“I think so. He was bringing down more lures to display.”

“He’s tall, right? Long hair? About my age?”

“Wrong guy. Bert is short, short hair, big nose. Could be around your age.”

Tom nudged Roy over. “You stay here, I’ll check the room. Call if he shows.”

“You do the same.”

Tom took out his cell phone, making sure it was on and set to vibrate. A ringing phone was not a wise thing for a cop to have on him in precarious situations. The loudspeaker thundered. “Sold, for seven hundred and fifty dollars!”

There was scattered applause. Roy shook his head.

“Seven-fifty. What kind of damn fish can you catch worth seven-fifty? I cast that out, better reel me in a Mercedes.”

Tom wove his way though the crowd and located an elevator, entering alongside two elderly men who were discussing worm burns. Tom exited on his floor and followed the hall to 714. He opened his jacket and stood to the left of the door before knocking.

“Hold on a second.”

The voice seemed to match the one on the phone. Tom tensed a notch. The door opened.

The man was average height, with wavy brown hair and a closely clipped mustache. He was a couple pounds overweight, which showed in his hound dog jowls. Familiar looking, but Tom couldn’t place him.

“Are you here about the Luny Frog? I can’t go any lower than fifteen hundred. Not a single penny.” He blinked. “Okay, fourteen hundred.”

“Bert Blumberg?”

“Yes, that’s me. The bait is in excellent-plus condition, and it’s the first production model, complete with egg sinker. That fourteen hundred is firm. Solid. In stone. I won’t go lower.” Bert smiled, unsure. “Fine, I’ll take thirteen.”

“I’m not here about the Luny Frog.”

“Are you sure? You look so familiar. Wait a sec… Thomas?”

Tom was surprised that the man knew his name. “Detective Tom Mankowski. How did…?”

“The resemblance is uncanny. You’re number five, right?”

The cop’s eyes narrowed, accusing. “How can you know all of this?”

Bert squinted at him. “You don’t know? Don’t you have a tattoo on your foot?”

“What does it mean?”

“Tom Jessup figured it all out. I’m number six. Have you met Jessup yet?”

“He’s dead.”

Bert swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbling. “Dead? I just saw him a few days ago. How?”

“Murdered. I need you to answer some questions.”

“Sure. Of course.”

The room was small, tidy. A suitcase was open on the table, filled with lures individually encased in bubble wrap. Bert closed the door and paced to the table, then to the bed, then to the table again, staring at the floor.

“This is… this is bad. Very bad. He knew there was something wrong. I talked to him on Thursday. He said he was being followed. Am I next?” Bert looked at Tom, his eyes wide. “Could I be in danger? I buy and sell fishing lures, for the love of Mike. I never hurt anyone—I mean, sure, sometimes people get a hook in the finger—”

“Sit down, Mr. Blumberg.”

“How was he murdered?”

“Please sit down.”

Bert sat at the table and began to drum his fingers. Tom pulled up a chair, almost touching. He leaned close.

“Tell me about the tattoo, and how you know my name.”

“You won’t believe it.”

“Try me.”

“I didn’t believe it either. Thought Jessup was a crackpot. But when I saw all the research, and the DNA…”

“From the beginning. Tell me.”

“Tell you? No. No that’s no good. You won’t believe me. How about I show you?”

Bert went to the nightstand and opened the drawer. He took out some courtesy Hyatt stationary and a ball-point pen and set them before Tom.

“Write a few sentences in cursive.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Do it. This is what Jessup did with me. Write some song lyrics, or what you did today, or whatever. Just do it in script.”

Crackpot, Tom thought. But he’d play along if it got the guy to open up. He wrote the first few verses of the Doors’ hit LA Woman.

“Fine. Now what?”

“Just a second. I have to find it.”

Bert located a briefcase at the foot of the bed and reached inside. Tom had his gun out and pointed before Bert could remove his hand.

“Hold it!”

“Jeez! Don’t shoot me!”

“Take your hand out slowly, no quick moves.”

“It’s papers. Just papers. Jeez, I think I browned my shorts.”

Bert, hand shaking, pulled a black leather binder out of his briefcase.

“It’s Jessup’s research binder. He wanted me to hold onto it for him.”

“Bring it here.”

“Stop yelling at me. I’m gonna have a heart attack, and you’ll have to use CPR, and you won’t do it because I had egg salad with onions for lunch.”

Bert opened the binder and took out a piece of paper. He placed it in front of Tom. It was a print out of a handwritten rough draft, filled with crossed out words, brackets, and arrows. Very old looking. Tom began to read it, some lawyerspeak about quartering large bodies of armed troops, when something struck him.

The handwriting was his.

He looked at his song lyrics, and then back to the photocopy. All the letters matched. The Ts were crossed the same way, the Ys had the exact same curly bottom. Tom copied the phrase, he has erected a multitude of new offices, on his own paper, and found it impossible to tell the difference between the two.

“What the hell?”

“Does it match?”

“Exactly.”

“Eerie, isn’t it?”

“Who wrote this?”

“You don’t recognize the words? Here’s the first page.”

Bert handed Tom another photocopy, this one with a large scrawl on the top. He read, “A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled. What is this?”

Bert smiled a goofy little smile. “It’s a copy of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence.”

Tom stared at him, incredulous. “So this means—what? I’m a reincarnation of Thomas Jefferson?”

“Close.” Bert sat on the bed next to Tom. “You’re his clone.”

The words hung there like a crooked picture. Tom opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

“Jessup knew about you,” Bert said. “He was planning on contacting you soon. He just needed a final piece of verification. You were adopted, right?”

Tom nodded.

“Jessup didn’t know how or why, but he did have some idea of who. He found me, and you, and two of the others.”

“So… I’m Thomas Jefferson.”

“Not convinced? Here.”

Bert went back into the briefcase and took out a library book—Jessup’s book on the Declaration of Independence. Tom stared at the face on the cover of the book. A painting of the Third President of the United States. Older, white hair, wrinkles. But it bore a striking resemblance to Tom’s face. The broad chin. The deep-set hazel eyes. The tight mouth.

“This is insane.”

“Insane?” Bert laughed. “Are you saying you don’t hold this truth to be self-evident?”

“Funny. And who are you supposed to be, then? Groucho Marx?”

“I’m Albert Einstein.”

“I bet.”

“I’m serious. Look at this.”

Bert took an Einstein biography out of the briefcase and handed it to Tom, the page opened to a black and white picture of the scientist as a young man. It was Bert, down to the big nose and droopy jowls. Tom pushed the book away.

“Impossible. Humans can’t be cloned. Not thirty years ago. They didn’t have the technology.”

Bert spread his hands. “And yet here we are. Einstein and Jefferson, having a conversation.”

“Who was Jessup?”

“Thomas Edison.”

“And the others?”

“There’s a guy in Nebraska who we think is Abe Lincoln, and a guy in Tennessee who is probably Robert E. Lee.”

Tom’s cell phone vibrated. He put it to his ear.

“Nothing happening down here, Tommy. ‘Cept some guy just bought a lure worth more than my damn car. How’re things up there?”

“Surreal. I’m with Bert in his room. Come up.”

Tom hung up and stared at the Jefferson book, his mind a tangle. This had to be some kind of put-on. He flipped it open and found a description of the man. Six feet two inches tall. Thin and wiry. Sandy hair.

“There has to be more proof than this. I can see that I look like Jefferson, and write like Jefferson, but I could be a relative, a great-great-grandson or cousin or something.”

Bert nodded, his jowls jiggling. “I figured the same thing. I mean, I flunked biology in high school. I get headaches when I do long division. But it all fits. I can explain it to you.”

Someone knocked at the door.

“Ah. The guy who wants the Luny Frog. Fifteen hundred. Don’t let me go less than fifteen hundred.” Bert went to the door, pulling it open and pointing dramatically. “The Heddon Luny Frog, right? I’ve got it right here. Excellent plus condition. I couldn’t go less than fourteen hundred for it. Maybe thirteen. You can touch it, you don’t need to wear those gloves.”

Tom shifted to see the person in the doorway. Male, white, medium build, with dark blue eyes and thick, almost feminine lips. His face appeared to be stretched too tight. He was wearing latex gloves and a poncho, even though it wasn’t raining.

“You can touch it, you don’t need to wear those gloves. I’m Jack. You’re Albert. We’ve both made history before, Albert. Let’s do it again.”

Jack reached inside his poncho pocket but Tom was already on his feet with the pistol in his hand.

“Freeze! Police!”

Jack grabbed Albert by the sweater and tugged him forward, his arm around the smaller man’s neck, using him as a shield. A knife came out, wickedly sharp with a long curved blade, the kind of crazy design that freaks bought from classified ads in Soldier of Fortune magazine. Fast as a snake he brought the point under Bert’s chin.

“I could cut out his eyes before you pull the trigger.”

Bert lost all color. “I like my eyes. They’re my second favorite body part.”

“Drop the weapon!”

“Drop the weapon. I know you. You’re Jefferson. I’m number ten. Saucy Jack. A hundred year old mystery revealed.”

Tom’s finger flexed lightly on the trigger, aiming for the perp’s shoulder.

“Drop the weapon, now!”

“Drop the weapon, now. I don’t think so. Maybe you drop the gun, hmm?”

The knife slid half an inch into Bert’s chin, bringing forth a torrent of blood. Bert began to cry.

Tom let out a breath, ready to fire. Jack must have sensed his intention, because he pulled Bert backwards into the hall. Tom moved to follow, but then he heard Bert yell, “There’s two!”

A trap. Coming in low, under his line of fire, was Arthur Kilpatrick. He’d been waiting outside the door. Tom couldn’t bring the gun down in time and was caught in a flying tackle. Kilpatrick landed on top of him, his breath smelling of rotten meat.

“Hello, Mr. President.”

Tom’s gun was pinned next to his body, useless. But his left hand was only inches away from his pocket. The gravity knife. He yanked it out and flipped the switch. The blade sprung from the handle and locked into position. Tom jammed it into Kilpatrick’s hip.

The small man howled, rolling off of Tom and hobbling for the door, the knife jutting out of his leg. Tom rolled to all fours and stumbled into the hall after him.

Kilpatrick had gone left, heading for the stairwell. Tom brought up his gun, hesitant to take a shot. The hotel was fully booked. If he missed, the bullet could easily go through someone’s door.

Tom spun in the other direction, searching for Albert and Jack. Jack had vanished. Bert was on the floor, his chest soaked with blood. Roy was kneeling next to him, gun in hand.

“Where’s the perp?” Tom yelled.

“Ran down the stairs. Go!”

Roy pulled out his cell phone to call an ambulance, or back-up, or both. Tom took off down the hallway. He reached the door to the stairs and turned the knob. It didn’t budge. Tom looked down and saw the wicked knife blade jammed underneath it like a doorstop. Exercising bad judgment, Tom kicked at the blade, neatly severing a large flap of rubber from the bottom of his shoe.

He jogged back down the hall. Roy had taken off his tie and was holding it tight under Bert’s chin.

“Door’s jammed. They got away.”

“Kilpatrick again?”

“Yeah. Plus a friend.”

Bert gasped. “Tourniquet. Tie a tourniquet.”

“He okay?”

“Nasty cut to the chin, nothing fatal.”

“I’m bleeding to death. Tie a tourniquet.”

“Buddy, if I tie a tourniquet around your neck, it’ll strangle you.” He turned to Tom. “What in the hell is going on here, Tommy?”

“It’s a long story. But I think I know the guy who cut Bert.”

“Did you see that knife? I come out of the elevator and he was waving it around through the air like Jack the freaking Ripper.”

“Got it in one, Roy.”

“Got what?”

Tom pursed his lips, eyes intent. “I think that was Jack the Ripper.”

“I have to get my lures.”

Bert sat in the back seat of the Mustang, petulant. Five stitches in the chin did little to calm his resolve.

“I spoke to the hotel. They’re keeping your things for you.”

“You don’t understand. There’s, well, a lot of money invested in those. I want them by my side.”

Roy turned around and faced him. “They set a trap for you. They knew you were there. If I didn’t come out of that elevator when I did, you’d be on the slab waiting for an autopsy.”

Bert folded his arms. “I need my lures. I won’t say another word to you until I have my lures.”

“Bert…”

“I want my lawyer.”

“You don’t need a lawyer. You’re not under arrest.”

“Then let me out right here.”

“Dammit, Bert.”

Bert leaned forward, his hands on their headrests. “Get me my lures, and I’ll tell you how Jessup figured it all out.”

“Figured what out? Tom, you know what he’s talking about?”

Bert tapped Tom’s shoulder. “You haven’t told him you’re Thomas Jefferson?”

Roy made a face. “Thomas—what?”

“This may take a while.” Tom turned up the heat and gave Roy the quick version, telling him about the handwriting and the Jefferson book and the cloning. Roy was less than impressed.

“Maybe, just maybe, I could see you as Jefferson. But this guy is definitely not Einstein.”

“I’ll tell you the rest of it, but we have to get my lures.”

Tom blew out a long breath and made a U-turn at the intersection, heading back towards the Hyatt.

“Okay.” Bert let out a long breath and visibly relaxed. “Jessup first contacted me by email. Said he knew about the tattoo on my foot and what it meant.”

“You knew you were adopted?” Tom asked.

Bert nodded. “I found out when I was a teenager.”

“Let me guess. Mysterious man dropped you off, along with fifty grand?”

“How did you know?”

Tom ignored the question. “How did you meet Jessup?”

“Emailed me. Said that he knew about the tattoo, he had some amazing stuff to tell me, and he wanted to meet. I thought he was nuts, of course. But he sent me a picture of a thirty-year-old Einstein. Black and white. Looked just like me, except it was old and the clothes were out of date. So I agreed to meet with him in Chicago. The convention was coming up, so I figured I’d be here anyway.”

Tom honked at some bozo ahead of him doing the speed limit. The guy merged into the right lane and Tom passed.

“So then he did the handwriting thing?”

“Yeah. And more pictures. Plus he showed me the article. A year before I was born, Einstein’s brain was stolen from Dr. Thomas Harvey at Princeton. He had it in two jars. Jessup let me see a newspaper clipping on it. The brain was mysteriously returned the next month—it was thought to be some kind of college prank.”

“Back up. How did he find you?”

“Oh. Our Birth Certificates. Every person has a birth number. He got in touch with the Cook County Clerk and looked up the person whose birth number came right before his. That was me.”

“He already knew he was Edison?”

“Edison?” Roy snorted. “Am I the only one here thinks this is all crazy?”

Bert ignored him. “Last year he picked up a book on Edison and was surprised at the likeness. He wondered if he might be a relative. So he began to study him, gather information. He discovered his handwriting was identical to Edison’s. Then he found a newspaper article about Edison’s grave being vandalized, a year before he was born.”

Tom reasoned it out. “Someone robbed the grave for a DNA sample.”

“That’s what he figured. So he paid to have a lab test his DNA, and then went to Edison’s grave and…”

Roy turned around again. “He dug up Thomas Edison?”

“It was the only way to be sure. Jessup figured since he had a 7 on his foot, there must be six others. He knew if he was a clone, then he really wasn’t born at Rush-Presbyterian Hospital, so those birth records were fake.”

Tom filled in the rest. “So he assumed they were all sent to the local registrar as a batch, and the birth numbers would be consecutive.”

“Right. The registrar assigns birth numbers in the order they’re received. So Jessup began to search through newspapers from a year before he was born, looking for famous people whose graves had been disturbed. That’s how he found the Einstein article, and took a guess that since my name was Albert, I might be Einstein.”

Tom nodded. It fit perfectly. “The man who dropped the babies off—he insisted they keep their first names.”

“My parents told me that too. Lucky, I guess. They wanted to name me Shlomo.”

“So Jessup found out Jefferson’s grave was disturbed.”

“Yes. Along with Abraham Lincoln’s and Robert E. Lee’s. And coincidentally, number 1 and number 2 are named Abe and Robert.”

“And he was planning on telling me?”

“After the tests came back. A few years ago, there was a sample of DNA taken from Jefferson, to prove if he ever fathered illegitimate children. Jessup tracked down the sample and was having the results sent to him. Then he was going to approach you.”

“What were the other names? On the birth certificates?”

“I can’t remember them all. I think there was a Jane, and maybe a Will.”

Tom stopped at a red light and rubbed his eyes. Were they even his eyes? Or were they the eyes of a man who died two centuries ago?

“If—if—I buy into this cloning thing, and I’m Jefferson and you’re Einstein, we still have a big problem. Jessup is dead, that cop who is supposedly Robert E. Lee was killed last year, and both of us are next on the list. So who the hell is doing this?”

Bert frowned. “Tom, that guy who tried to kill me. You said he was Jack the Ripper?”

Tom nodded. “He called himself Saucy Jack. The Ripper called himself that in a letter to the police. He also mentioned he was a hundred year old mystery revealed. But the clincher was the echolalia.”

Bert raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“It’s a speech impediment, when you repeat back what was just said to you. A famous Ripper suspect by the name of Joseph Barnett had this disorder. He was a fish porter who dated the last woman the Ripper killed. Most enthusiasts think Dr. Francis Tumblety was the Whitechapel killer, but I think there are too many holes in that theory.”

Roy shook his head. “It was Tumblety. The guy kept jars of female uteri in his closet.”

“Tumblety was fifty-five years old. How many serial killers over fifty have you heard of?”

“I don’t mean to interrupt here, but you two know so much about the Ripper because…?”

“Police Academy. Mandatory course on suspect elimination. We had to study the Ripper case files and write reports about who we think did it.”

“And you think that guy was Jack the Ripper?”

“If all this cloning stuff is for real, it’s a possibility.”

“Could be.” Roy shrugged. “But if it was, it was Tumblety, not that fish porter cat.”

“So who was that other guy with all the tattoos?”

“His name is Arthur Kilpatrick. He has a number 9 on his heel.”

Bert leaned back and folded his arms. “Arthur… Arthur… what famous historical figured were named Arthur?”

They all thought about it for a moment.

“King Arthur,” Roy said. “He had a sword too.”

“Arthur Conan Doyle. The creator of Sherlock Holmes.”

“Arthur Treacher. The fish and chip mogul.”

Roy pulled a face. “Good one, Einstein. They clone Jefferson, Lincoln, and Arthur Treacher.”

“It’s better than King Arthur. He wasn’t even real.”

“Sure he was. Didn’t you see Camelot?”

Bert rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s some good proof right there. That explains why he broke into song and dance.”

“Maybe I’ll dance a number on your face. Do an E equals MC ass whupping.”

“You know, you’ve got some major issues, Roy.”

“I’ve got issues?”

“You’ve got a whole subscription.”

Tom made the decision right there to never have children.

“Here’s the Hyatt, thank God. We’ll pull up to the lobby. Bert and I will wait in the car. Roy, you run in and get his stuff.”

“I should have two suitcases full of lures. Make sure they cleared out my booth. I want receipts. Don’t touch or break anything.”

Roy gave him a look that would wilt flowers. Tom parked in front of the main entrance and turned off the engine.

“Call if there’s trouble.”

“The hotel should have an inventory list.” Bert said. “Don’t forget it.”

Roy frowned. “Hundred fifty years of freedom, and the black man is running to get the white man’s bags.”

He got out of the car and took a good look around before heading into the lobby. Tom put his arm over the back of the seat and faced Bert.

“Can you please stop antagonizing my partner?”

“It’s not me. It’s him. I think he hates me because I’m Jewish.”

“That’s completely untrue. Race is not an issue with Roy. He hates everybody equally.”

Tom turned back around just as his side window splintered. A sharp cracking sound filled his ears, the wind ruffling the hair on the back of his head.

“Get down!”

Tom lunged onto the passenger side, digging out his Glock. He chanced a look at the driver’s side window and saw a spider web pattern with a one inch hole in the center.

Sniper rifle. High caliber—it punched through the glass, clean. Something slower would have shattered it. He looked in front of him and saw a divot in the upper portion of the passenger door. Based on the angle, whoever was shooting at him was higher up. The hotel was shaped like a big U, so he was probably in one of the rooms on the opposite side.

Tom considered starting the car and driving out of there, but he’d have to turn around, which would give the shooter a full front windshield to shoot through. And Tom was a big target.

“Stay down, we’re going out the right door.”

“Was that a bullet?”

Another hole materialized in the glass. The driver’s headrest jerked back violently.

“Move!”

Tom tugged at the handle and pulled himself through the passenger side. He helped yank out Bert with his left hand and then closed the door, staying low. There was a loud bang. Tom hadn’t heard any previous shots, assuming a silencer was being used. When the front end of the Mustang began to sink forward he realized a tire had been shot out. Tom called Roy’s cell phone.

“Yo.”

“We’re pinned down. Sniper fire. He’s in one of the rooms on the second or third floor, east side of the building.”

“I’m on it.”

Another bang. The rear tire. Tom opened the door and climbed back into the car, keeping under the line of fire. He took a deep breath, focused his concentration, and then he snatched the rearview mirror, yanking it off its base. He slunk back out of the car, mirror in hand.

“Stay behind the rim,” he told Bert.

Tom crawled over to the front of the car, staying below engine level. He angled the mirror over the hood, looking for the sniper. He checked the windows on the second floor, one by one, hoping to spot movement or the glint of a telescopic sight. Nothing. He went room by room across the third floor and didn’t find anything either. Strange.

“I haven’t made peace with my family,” Bert said, his head covered in his arms. “I can’t die without making peace! There are things that need to be said!”

Tom ignored Bert’s apparent breakdown, and tried to concentrate on the windows. Why couldn’t he find the shooter? Tom started again on the second floor, trying to think like a sniper. A professional wouldn’t be leaning out the window. A pro would be several feet away from the window, in a dark room. Tom located him near the end of the building. A window open just a few inches. No one else would have a window open in this weather. He dialed Roy.

“Second floor, third room from the last.”

“Almost there. I’ll leave you on. Stay quiet.”

Tom put his finger in front of his lips, warning Bert to keep silent. He turned up the volume on the cell phone, keeping both eyes on the window.

“Police! Open the door!”

In the room Tom saw a muzzle flash.

“You want some of this?” Roy’s voice, angry.

The gunshots could be heard without the cell phone, six in quick succession. Tom watched as the window flew open and a black clad figure crawled out with a rifle.

“He’s out the window!” Tom yelled into the phone. And then he was up and sprinting across the parking lot. The sniper dropped, landing in some bushes. He noticed Tom advancing and raised the rifle. Tom veered to the left and dove into the bed of a pickup truck. A bullet pierced the sidewall and missed his leg by inches.

More gunshots. Roy from the window, firing down. Tom chanced a look and saw the figure running alongside the building and cutting around the corner.

“Tommy! You okay?”

“Yeah.” Tom hopped out of the truck and held the phone to his ear. “He went around. I think it was our friend Jack.”

“Be right there.”

Roy went out the window feet first and dropped to the ground, landing on his ass.

Tom ran over to his partner, helping him up.

“You okay?”

“No. Sweet merciful Jesus! Something’s stuck!”

Roy turned around, a large branch sticking into his right butt cheek. “Oh shit. Pull it out.”

Tom winced. “We should wait for the doctor.”

“Goddamit, Tom! Pull this goddamn stick out of my ass!”

Tom gripped the stick and tugged hard. It had been buried two inches in Roy’s backside. The blood came freely, soon soaking Roy’s pants.

“Should have left it in. I’m calling an ambulance.”

“I’ll do it. Go after him.”

Tom nodded and ran to the corner of the building. He peered around cautiously. No sign of him, but there were plenty of cars for cover. Tom suddenly felt naked and out gunned.

“Do it,” he told himself.

He ran around the corner, going in low. Low saved his life. The bullet grazed his scalp, taking off several layers of skin. Tom hit the ground and rolled behind a Nissan, bringing a hand up to the wound. It came away bloody, but there was no pain or disorientation. He crawled past the car and jogged in a crouch around the perimeter, trying to get behind the shooter. Tom ran by five cars before he saw him, crouched next to a red Buick. It was Jack, all right. And the son of a bitch was actually smiling.

Tom fired a quick group of four shots. It was a fair distance, and there was a light wind, but at least one of the bullets found its mark. Jack howled and rolled backwards out of sight, leaving his gun behind. Tom sprinted to the spot and scanned all directions. Too many cars, too many places to hide. Tom wiped some blood out of his right eye with his sleeve and picked up Jack’s rifle by the barrel. Then he began walking through the parking lot, searching behind and under cars.

His cell phone vibrated. Tom answered.

“You okay?”

“I hit him, but he’s gone. Got his gun.”

“Bert’s missing.”

“Hell. Be right there.”

Tom jogged back around to the front of the building. Roy was by the Mustang, holding his ass.

“Tommy, you’re hit.”

“A graze. Did you see Bert?”

“Got here, he was gone. Paramedics on the way.”

Two black and whites, sirens wailing, pulled into the parking lot. Tom let Roy deal with them. He holstered his gun and ran into the lobby. A crowd of gawkers had gathered, parting as the frantic, bleeding man rushed in. He weaved through them, looking for any sign of Bert. Had Kilpatrick been there as well? Had he grabbed Bert while Tom and Roy were being distracted by Jack? Tom felt sick. Bert was annoying, true, but he’d been his responsibility. If anything happened to him…

Tom found Bert next to the front desk, kneeling by a suitcase and going through the contents.

“I got my lures,” Bert said.

Tom wiped more blood out his eye and imagined the satisfaction he’d get if he pulled out his Glock and emptied a clip into Bert’s lures. He restrained himself.

“Come on.”

Bert grabbed his cases and they made their way through the crowd, back into the parking lot. The number of squad cars had tripled, and Roy had organized a quick search party for Jack, uniforms fanning out through the rows of cars.

Tom felt the top of his head, which was now starting to throb. An inch lower and they would have been scooping up his last thoughts with evidence spoons.

He approached his Mustang, frown deepening. It would need two new tires, a new window, and a new headrest. Perhaps they could stick the rearview back on.

“What happened to your head?”

“I got shot, Einstein.”

“I don’t like it when you and your partner call me Einstein. It comes out sarcastic. Where’s the guy with the gun?”

“He got away. Who knew you were staying here, at this hotel?”

“No one. Just Jessup.”

“How did they know you’d come back for your lures?”

“I dunno. Lucky guess?”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“How could I tell anyone? I’ve been with you the entire time. We went from the hotel to the hospital, and from the hospital back here.”

Tom thought it over. It wouldn’t take long to set up a sniper in a vacant room, but how could Jack have known they were coming back for the lures? Was he just waiting around, hoping for the off chance? Unless Bert told someone, or…

Tom patted his pocket. The Foxhound bug detector hadn’t been lost in the chase. He flipped it on and pointed the antenna at his car. It blinked and buzzed like a slot machine. Tom popped the hood and waved the antenna around, trying to get a fix. He found the bug taped to the side of the battery. The microphone snaked through the heat duct and led to the dashboard, and a line ran through his own car antenna. No wonder his radio didn’t work.

He slammed the hood closed. They’d violated his car. His personal space. And by using his own car battery and antenna, the thing probably had a range of miles.

Tom went over to Roy, who was being led into an ambulance by some paramedics. One of them, a large white guy with a beard, began to undo Roy’s belt.

“What the hell are you doin’?”

“I have to take off your pants.”

“Damn. Aren’t there any cute girl paramedics on duty?”

“No.”

“Don’t need to be so anxious. You’re too anxious.”

The medic looked at Tom. “Sir, you’d better come as well. We should take a look at that head.”

Tom sat down next to his partner as a second medic attended to his head wound. He kept his voice low, no longer sure if everything he said or did was being monitored, and said to Roy, “The Mustang was bugged.”

“When did they have time to do that? Case started only two days ago.”

“That’s the thing. It was hooked up to my car antenna. That’s why my radio doesn’t work.”

“So?”

“So, my radio hasn’t worked for about three months.”

Roy blinked. “Dammit, Tommy. What the hell have you gotten into?”

“Help a brother blow up his donut?”

Roy held out the inflatable seat cushion, shaped like a small inner tube. The hospital said he’d need to sit on that to avoid ripping his stitches.

“No problem. Thanks for letting us stay here. I didn’t want to go back to my place.”

Tom figured his apartment was bugged, and probably being watched as well. Roy’s place was clean; they’d swept it with the Foxhound earlier.

“Mi casa is your casa. Just don’t let him touch anything.” Roy stared at Bert and pointed. “Don’t touch a damn thing. One thing out of place, and I break your face.”

Bert folded his arms. “Why are you mad at me? I wasn’t the one who told you to jump out the window, ass first.”

“Both you and your damn fishing plugs are going out my window in about ten seconds.”

“Maybe I should stay in a hotel.”

“Bert, please. It would be safer if we stuck together.”

“I know when I’m not wanted.”

“You’re wanted. Roy, tell him.”

“Don’t want him using my john, neither.”

Tom walked his partner into the bedroom. Roy flopped onto the bed, face first. Tom debated helping him take off his pants, but decided to let them be. Leave the guy some dignity.

“Roy, I’m putting your pills here next to the bed.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

“You need anything, I’ll be in the other room.”

“Towels.”

“You need towels?”

“I don’t want him using my towels, neither.”

Tom turned off the light and quietly closed the door. Bert was in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge.

“At least he has good taste in beer. Russian Imperial Stout. Need one?”

“Yeah.”

Bert grabbed two and sat next to Tom at the breakfast bar. There was a carved wooden bottle opener in the shape of a naked African goddess on the table. Bert opened both beers and handed one to Tom. The cop sipped it—sweet and malty, with a higher alcohol content than its English counterpart.

Bert took a swig from the bottle and looked around the apartment. There was a definite tribal theme here: voodoo masks on the walls, a tiger print rug, a black leather couch with a leopard throw on the back. The large rack of LPs, though practically antiques themselves, seemed too contemporary.

“Look, cut Roy a little slack. He’s a good guy. He doesn’t make friends too easily.”

“That’s surprising. He’s such a warm and cuddly fellow. What’s his story?”

“Roy grew up in Cabrini Green. One of the worst housing projects in Chicago, back then. Single mother, two younger brothers. Roy was the man of the family almost as soon as he could walk. But it was tough. He lost one brother to gangs, the other one to drugs. Took it real hard.”

“I get it. He keeps people at a distance.” Bert drank from his bottle. “I had an older brother, passed away when I was five. He wasn’t adopted. I think my father wishes it was me instead of him that died. How about you? Brothers or sisters?”

“Just me.”

“Lonely growing up?”

“Not really.”

“That’s because you never knew what you were missing. Never having something is different than having something and losing it.”

Tom took another sip of stout and considered Bert’s words. They made sense. He’d dated Donna for three years, and had even considered asking her to marry him. When she left, Tom felt like she took a part of him with her, a part that still was vacant and hollow. He wondered if he’d ever be able to fill that emptiness again.

Bert belched, interrupting his reverie. Tom lightly touched his scalp where the bullet had grazed him. Six stitches. The doctor had wanted to shave off the hair around the wound so it could be bandaged, but Tom wouldn’t allow it. It was bad enough looking like Quasimodo—shaving half his head was out of the question.

He glanced at the clock on the microwave. Almost ten o’clock. After their trip to the hospital, it took three hours to debrief the Rosemont Police Department. RPD kept things cordial, considering they’d had their jurisdiction trampled on and hadn’t been informed.

Tom’s own boss, Lieutenant Daniels, hadn’t been as charitable. She chewed them out, promising a full investigation of the incident, and demanding that next time they follow correct protocol for operating out of their territory.

Tom took another sip of beer, and found the bottle empty. He grabbed two more from the fridge. Bert took his, nodding a thanks.

“You know, when we were back there getting shot at, I had one of those moments where my whole life flashed before my eyes.”

“So I gathered.”

“I’ve had a boring life. Not a bad one—just very mediocre. But since Jessup told me that I’m Einstein, it’s given me a new reason to live. I mean, I’m actually somebody now. You know what I mean?”

“Not really.”

“Don’t you feel any different, knowing you’re Thomas Jefferson?”

Tom picked at the label on his beer with a thumbnail.

“I don’t know how to feel. Suppose I am Jefferson. What does that mean, exactly? I may have the same genes, but I’m not the same man. I didn’t do all of those great things that he did. I’m still Tom Mankowski, no matter what my face looks like. Aren’t I?”

“I’ve been struggling with this one, too. Here I’ve got Einstein’s brain.” Bert tapped his temple. “The brain of the most brilliant man to ever walk the earth. And what am I doing? I buy and sell fishing lures.”

Tom opened their beers and took a long pull. “You’re just a salesman, I’m just a cop. Not quite living up to our genetic potential, are we?”

“Is there such a thing? Does anyone truly live up to their potential? Here’s a good question for you—is greatness in a person born or made?”

Tom didn’t have an answer.

“I think it’s a combination.” Bert scratched at the bandage on his chin. “Some people are born with a fire inside them. The will to succeed. It isn’t a learned behavior. It’s just some unknown biological factor that makes them try harder.”

Tom stared into Bert’s eyes. Einstein’s eyes.

“Do you think you have that fire in you?”

Bert took a moment before answering. “Sometimes… sometimes I really think I do.”

They finished their second beers. Bert went for the thirds, throwing out the empty six-pack container.

“Your friend’s going to be upset we drank all his beer.”

“He’ll be fine. He was drugged up and in pain, that’s all.”

“He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.”

“He won’t let me use the toilet.”

“You can use the toilet, Bert. It’ll be fine.”

Bert opened the beers and set one before Tom.

“So what’s the story with the lures?” Tom gestured at the suitcases. “Let me guess—your dad is a fisherman.”

“Wrong. Physics professor. The lures are an investment. Look at it this way—things like stock, or gold, or real estate—they fluctuate with the market, but they more or less go up steadily. But with collectibles like dolls or toys or fishing lures, the potential for profit…”

“Hold on a sec,” Tom interrupted.

This couldn’t be a coincidence. Bert’s dad was a physics teacher. Tom’s dad was a politician. Jessup’s dad was an inventor.

“That Tennessee cop, the clone of Robert E. Lee. You think his father was in the military?

“So?” Bert didn’t see the connection. “My dad was in the army. Jessup mentioned his was too. Was yours?”

Tom’s father had done a tour in Vietnam. He wondered if Bert had stumbled onto something. Was that how all of the clones’ parents were chosen? Dad had the same profession as the clone, and had a link to the military?

Tom stood up, thoughts racing. He needed to get online. Roy was the last of the technophobes—he didn’t even own a calculator, let alone a computer. Tom went to the kitchen and checked drawers until he found a phone book.

“Are you okay? What are you doing?”

Ignoring Bert, Tom looked up the name of a popular all-night copying center and located the one nearest to Roy. As he’d hoped, there was one only a few blocks away.

“I have to go out.”

“Where?”

“I have to track down a lead. Stay here, get some rest.”

“What if Roy gets up? If you’re gone, he’s gonna throw me out the window.”

“It’s only the third floor. Try to go limp right before you hit the ground.”

Tom grabbed his jacket, gun, and Roy’s keys, and was out the door.

The night had gotten cooler, freezing weather right around the corner. Tom stuck his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, an act that caused pain flares in each of his injuries. He walked down an alley that let him out on Addison and hung a left, heading east.

Roy’s neighborhood was a nice one. It was easy to spot Chicago’s good sections—no graffiti and the sidewalks weren’t broken. Even at this hour and temperature there were people out. Some high school kids, clowning around with a tennis ball against a brick wall. Four young women in short skirts on their way to one of the many clubs along the strip. Two guys, walking the opposite way, openly admiring the girls. An older couple, huddling close because of love or warmth or both.

Tom moved at a good clip, going left on Clark, easily spotting the copy shop between a submarine sandwich place and a liquor store.

It was busy, as expected; someone somewhere was always having a school or business emergency. Tom looked along the far wall and saw the computers available to rent by the hour. All were in use. He approached the counter and took out his badge.

“I need to use a computer.”

The kid didn’t even bother looking up at him. He was a twenty-something slacker type with a pink streak in his black hair and a Sex Pistols pin on his blue uniform shirt.

“Sorry. All booked up for the night.”

Tom squinted at his name tag. Carl.

“This is a police emergency, Carl.”

Carl glanced up, giving Tom the once over.

“You’re a cop?”

Tom offered his badge as proof.

“Man, someone sure kicked your ass.”

“You should see the other guy. They have to feed him through a tube.”

“I bet. Hold on, lemme see what’s going on.”

He walked out from behind the counter and approached the computers. After a brief chat with a girl sitting in the third booth, he motioned Tom over. The girl who was booted gave Tom a dirty look as she left. He took her seat.

“My sister. She was here for free anyway. Knock yourself out.”

Tom got on the net and went to the CPD database, accessing Arthur Kilpatrick’s rap sheet. His parents were dead. Fire Marshall’s report suspected arson. A few clicks revealed that Kilpatrick’s father had also been in the army. The same went for that cop in Tennessee.

It was doubtful the Army would let him into its private database, but he wasn’t going that route. All groups, no matter the size, were made up of people. And people had the tendency to stay in touch.

Within a few keystrokes Tom found a dozen websites whose sole purpose was to help a person find their old Army buddies. He hunkered down over the keyboard and cracked his knuckles, preparing himself for the task ahead. This might all be a waste of time, but it seemed like the way to go. So far, all roads lead back to the Army. It stood to reason that Harold Harper, the doctor from Rush-Presbyterian Hospital who was responsible for faking Tom’s birth certificate, might have also been in the Army. He began to search.

The surname Harper was common. Tom found several Harolds on different sites, eliminating anyone who was too young to have been a doctor thirty years ago. Of those who did match, he clicked on their bios to get a background, looking for either medical training or a previous address in Chicago or New Mexico. After an hour of monotonous effort he hit pay dirt. An Army surgeon, the right age, with a current address in Albuquerque.

Tom checked his watch. New Mexico was an hour behind, right? It was late, but a doctor would be used to being awoken in the middle of the night. He took out his cell phone and dialed the number.

After five rings there was an answer.

“Yes?” The voice was male, deep and groggy.

“Dr. Harold Harper?”

“Yes?”

“The same Harold Harper who worked at Rush-Presbyterian in Chicago?”

“Who is this?”

“My name is Detective Tom Mankowski, Chicago Police Department. I’m calling—”

“Wait a moment. Did you say Mankowski?”

Tom paused. This was the doctor who had forged the birth certificates. Who’s to say he wasn’t in on this entire murder plot?

“Detective Mankowski? Are you still there? I believe I know why you called. When did you find out?”

The doctor sounded eager, genuine. Good guy or bad guy? Ultimately it didn’t matter. There had been two attempts on Tom’s life in two days. It wasn’t as if talking to someone could make it any worse.

“I found out today.”

“How did you trace me… the birth certificates?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful. This is wonderful. I haven’t seen you since your graduation from the Academy.”

That came out of left field. “You were there?”

“Of course. Since the funding dried up, I’ve tried to keep tabs on the Lucky Seven—not always successfully, I’m afraid. You were always my favorite. You’re a detective now? Wonderful. So, when are you going to fulfill everyone’s expectations and go into politics?”

“Dr. Harper…”

“Harold. Call me Harold.”

“You’re getting ahead of me here.”

“Yes. You must have many questions. Do you know about the others?”

“I’ve met Bert. He’s the one who told me.”

“Albert? Splendid. Is he still a stock market wizard?”

“He buys and sells fishing lures.”

“Hmm. There’s one for the social scientists to ponder.”

“Harold, you just mentioned the Lucky Seven. I thought there were ten.”

There was a long pause.

“You know about—them?”

“By them do you mean Jack the Ripper and Arthur Kilpatrick?”

“Oh dear. They’re still in jail, I hope?

“I wish. Both of them tried to kill me last night.”

Dr. Harold clicked his tongue several times. “They know as well? Oh dear. This isn’t good. I warned him about this.”

“Is that really Jack the Ripper?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“And that other guy? Kilpatrick?”

“Attila the Hun.”

Tom let out a breath. He felt a little better. It was a real ego blow to get beaten up by a short guy. But since the short guy was once the barbarian who conquered the world, it was a little easier to take.

“Harold, there’s a lot to discuss here. Let’s start at the beginning.”

“Over the phone? Why don’t you come out to the ranch? We could talk all you like. It would be lovely to finally talk to one of you, after all of these years.”

Tom thought it over. Could be a trap, of course. And so much had happened in the last few days that leaving town now wasn’t the wisest idea. But interrogating someone in person was infinitely preferable to over the phone. With cell phone rates what they were, it might actually be cheaper to fly down there.

“We might be able to get there tomorrow, if we can find a flight.”

“Excellent. I can meet you at the airport in Albuquerque. Just tell me the time.”

“I’ll call you.”

“I’ve thought about this many times. One of you finally figuring it out. Once or twice I almost called you up and told you, but you would have thought I was crazy. Listen to me, an old man rambling on. I’ll wait for your call tomorrow.”

Tom couldn’t resist. “It’s true, isn’t it? I’m really a clone of Thomas Jefferson?”

“Yes, my boy, you are. I should know. I’m the one who did it.”

“See you soon, Doctor.”

Tom ended the call. Several people around him were staring. Their expression left no doubt they’d heard the conversation. Carl was among the bemused.

“How much do I owe you?”

“No charge—President Jefferson.”

His expression was so smarmy that Tom wanted to yank the pink streak out of his head. Instead of resorting to violence, he glanced at the pay rate for computer time and fished out his wallet. He plunked down a five.

“Is there anything else you need to purchase? Stationary? Pens?” He smirked. “Louisiana?”

Tom left the shop, not sticking around to hear Carl’s laughter.

Questions were about to be answered. And no one had a bigger stake in it than Tom did.

“You poor dear. This is horrible. Simply horrible.”

Marty hugged Joan for what seemed like the hundredth time. He was more devastated than she was, bless his heart. Short, bald, immaculately dressed Marty, smelling of expensive aftershave even though he had a chic three-day beard. He was a genuine friend.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your date.”

“Hush. You should have called after it happened the first time. Justin wouldn’t have minded at all. Right, Justin?”

Justin came over for a group hug. “Of course not. I’m happy to be here for the two of you. Twice in one night. How horrible.”

Joan felt smothered from all the embracing going on. She gently freed herself from the care-fest.

“I can get a room someplace, if I’m intruding.”

“Nonsense.” Marty and Justin said it at the same time.

“I have to be going, anyway.” Justin gave Joan a peck on the cheek and another hug. “I wish we could have met under better circumstances. Marty talks about you so much, I’m jealous.”

Joan offered a gracious smile and a thank you. Justin gave Marty a more personal good-bye, and promised to call tomorrow to see how everything was going. He left with a big wave.

“How long have you been keeping him a secret?” Joan gave Marty a playful punch in the shoulder.

“Two weeks. I’ve been dying to tell you, but I wanted the test results first.” Marty wouldn’t get serious with anyone who didn’t have a current bill of good health, signed and dated. “Isn’t he gorgeous? He’s into interior design, and he’s my size. I just doubled my wardrobe.”

“Congrats.”

“But this isn’t about me. Can I get you some coffee? Something stronger?”

“I’m tired. I’d like to get some sleep. Busy day tomorrow. Got those contracts to sign.”

“Dear, I know you’re joking. You can’t go back to work after a shock like this.”

“Well I can’t stay at your place forever, peeking through the blinds.”

“So brave.” Marty brushed the bangs off of her forehead. “Would you like me to call the hospital again, see how Max is doing?”

“I’m sure his condition hasn’t changed since twenty minutes ago. You can’t get more stable than stable.”

“It’s so heroic that he came back to your place.”

Joan kept her thoughts to herself on that one. She felt bad for Max, but any affection she may have had for him disappeared when he deemed Carmichael’s more important than she was.

“I’ll get your room ready. Extra towels are in the bathroom closet if you want a shower.”

“I think I’d like that drink, actually.”

“Vodka okay? It’s imported. Super-premium, supposedly filtered five times.”

“Sounds great, Marty. Thanks.”

“Be back in two shakes.”

Joan found her way to the couch and plopped down, displacing an unhappy Siamese cat. It arched its back and hissed before stalking off.

“Right back atcha.”

She noted the time on the entertainment stand—Marty was so meticulous he actually set his DVD clock. Coming up on one in the morning. It felt so much later. Joan kicked off her running shoes, the same pair she’d worn to the police station on the first trip. Curling her legs up under her, she found herself staring at the bottom of her left heel.

Number 3. Her parents had never given her a straight answer about the tattoo. When she was younger, they told her things like You’re the third angel that came out of heaven or I love you has three words, and we wanted you to always remember that.

Joan knew she was adopted from the moment she could talk. Her parents began their family late in life; her father had been career Army and was always flitting from one part of the world to another. When he finally settled down, he and his wife were already in their late forties.

Losing them had been unbearable. Mom from heart disease, and Dad from a broken heart, missing Mom so much. Joan so much wanted to call them right now, have them tell her it would all be okay.

But would it be okay? The psycho who attacked her knew about the tattoo. It seemed somehow tied in with the reason he wanted to kill her. Someone wants me dead, Joan thought. She shivered. There was something going on here that was beyond her understanding, and she didn’t know who to turn to for help. The police didn’t even file a report for the second attack—Joan watched as the detective in charge tagged it onto the end of the first one. Rather than offer to escort her home, they suggested she spend the night elsewhere. So much for protecting and serving.

“What would you prefer, hon, cranberry or OJ?”

Marty approached with a cocktail tray, complete with a small silver ice bucket and tongs. He was so cute, Marty.

“Just ice. Thanks.”

Marty plunked some cubes into a rocks glass and poured her a healthy shot of vodka. Joan gulped it down like water. The burn made her stomach clench, but she held it down.

“Hit you again, Miss?”

“Please.”

After he filled her glass, she patted the cushion next to her and Marty sat down.

“Is that the tattoo you were talking about? What is it, the golden arches?”

“It’s a 3.”

“How mysterious. What does it mean?”

Joan took a small sip of vodka. “I have no idea. I’ve had it since I was a baby.”

“You know, I worked with a man who had a tattoo just like that. Not a three, though. I think he was number four.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. Same size, same blue color. We had a company party at the beach and I noticed and asked him about it. He didn’t know where it came from either.”

“Who was he?”

“He wrote ad copy at that agency in Santa Monica that you lured me away from. Gosh, this was years ago. What was his name? Began with a B. Bob, Brian, Buster, Bill… Bill. Bill Masterton. God, I’m so happy I’m out of the advertising biz. It’s so cutthroat.”

She rolled her eyes. “And the movie business isn’t cutthroat?”

“Of course it is, but at least we pretend to be nice to one another.”

Joan took another sip of vodka. “Do you think he still works there?”

“Why? Do he think he might be your long lost brother or something? How’s that for a movie of the week—four children, separated at birth, each with a number to identify them, and an intrepid mother’s search to track them down. I bet Lifetime would lap it up.”

“What was the agency?”

“Hmm? Oh, Chalmers/Sloan. Kind of an eclectic client list. They do a lot of print stuff, not too much TV work.”

Joan finished the drink and mulled it over. Another person with a number tattoo. It could mean nothing, or it could mean a lot. She’d have to check the guy out.

A yawn escaped her mouth, and the alcohol was taking the edge off of her paranoia.

“Dear, you’re exhausted. Let’s get you to bed.”

Silently, Joan followed him down the hall and to the guest bedroom. Marty had turned down the blankets and left a large white T-shirt on the pillow.

“There’s a new toothbrush on the sink. I’m one room over if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Marty.” She gave him one more hug. “Good night.”

“Sweet dreams, hon.”

She closed the door and undressed. The T-shirt had a Harley Davidson logo on it and smelled like fabric softener. She put it on and slipped into the cool, inviting bed, too tired to take her make-up off.

Sleep came fast and hard.

Joan jolted herself awake sometime the next morning.

She’d had a nightmare, a reoccurring one that went back to her childhood. In it, she was being chased by someone or something. She could never see its face. The closer it got, the harder it became to run—her legs got heavy, and her feet stuck to the ground, and it seemed like she was moving in slow motion. Joan would try harder and harder to get away, but no matter how much she strained the thing would always get her. That was when she’d wake up, often gasping for air.

This time it was worse than usual. When the thing caught her, it began to drag her to a large, pointed stake buried in the ground.

“Ass or crotch?”

She bolted upright in bed, her heart banging away, and tried to remember where she was. The sun was peeking through the blinds, and a clock radio she’d never seen before told her it was a little past eight.

Marty’s place. Joan relaxed, leaning back and wiping the crust out of her eyes. She got out of bed and padded over to the bathroom. The mirror confirmed her fears. She looked like hell. Her eyes were red and baggy, her face was drawn, her hair resembled a dead plant.

Joan showered, brushed her teeth twice, found and used some Visine, and went back to the bedroom to change. Marty had already made the bed and laid her clothes out for her. There was also a big, foamy cup of cappuccino on the nightstand.

She didn’t want to put on the same outfit again—it reminded her of yesterday. But she didn’t have a choice. When finished, she checked her reflection in a framed Nagel print. Still haggard, but once she put her make-up on she might be able to fake being attractive. Joan took her coffee and met Marty in the kitchen.

“Good morning, sunshine. You look great.”

“You’re an excellent liar, Marty. Thank you.”

“Were you up for breakfast? Croissant? Biscotti? Energy Drink?”

“The cappuccino is enough.”

“If you want to change, I can drop by your place and pick something up.”

“If you could take me there, that would be great.”

“Are you sure you want to go back so soon?”

“Got to go sometime. If we hurry, we can just make rush hour traffic.”

“You’re the boss.”

Marty owned a Corvette, which was a total waste because he drove like an old lady; always under the speed limit, slowing down for stale green lights in case they turned yellow, taking forever to merge. It normally made Joan nuts, but almost being murdered gave a person more patience for the little things.

“Here we are.” Marty pulled into her driveway and parked. “You ready?”

Joan answered by getting out of the car and heading towards the front door. There were dark brown stains in the doorway. Blood. Max’s blood. She pushed past it. Marty followed her in, eyes darting this way and that, obviously uncomfortable.

“I’ll need the cleaning service to come by, take care of this blood. I’d also like the bathroom cleaned and the Jacuzzi drained. The phone needs to be fixed—I think the line was cut. And get some quotes on alarm systems. While you’re at it, call up Stevensen Burglary and tell them their product stinks and I demand a refund. Also tell them to kiss my ass.”

Marty grinned. “There’s the tiger I know and love.” He took out a pocket tape recorder and repeated her instructions.

Joan went into the bedroom and shed her outfit. She tossed it in the garbage. A shame, but she would never wear it again, with the memories attached. She stared momentarily at her wardrobe and went with her favorite power suit—a Claiborne red blazer with wide shoulders and a matching skirt. A white silk blouse and some red pumps rounded out the ensemble. After checking herself in the bedroom mirror, she switched from heels to flats. The pumps looked better, but you can’t move fast in heels.

Marty had drawn the blinds over the patio doors, his tan complexion somewhat pale. He must have seen her dog. Poor Schnapps. She’d been so consumed with her own safety, she hadn’t had time to mourn the death of her furry pal. She felt the tears well up, but refused to let them fall.

“Call… call someone to have those stakes removed.”

“Should I arrange for… services?”

“Have him cremated. Pick out a nice urn. I didn’t have him long, but he was a good dog.”

The tears fell anyway. Joan went to the bathroom and forced composure. It took a few minutes, but she managed to get her breathing under control. Then she did the two minute makeover; a little foundation, a touch of eyeliner and mascara, and some quick, subtle lipstick. Feeling much more like herself, she grabbed her extra set of keys and led Marty out of the house.

“I also want a new front door lock. Something pick proof, if such a thing exists. Tell the locksmith I’m putting the keys in the mailbox.” She did just that. “Do you mind if I drive, Marty?”

“Go ahead. I’d like to make some calls, get started on this anyway.”

She put the Vette through the paces, cornering fast, pushing 90 mph on straight-aways, weaving through traffic with a liberating sense of abandon.

When they arrived at work, Joan felt good. She loved her office. Joan DeVilliers Productions began its life sharing space with an insurance agent in East Compton. Now, eight years and many movies later, she had a plush sixth floor spread on the Strip with a view and all the chrome and mirrors money could buy.

Marsha, her secretary, greeted her with a stack of messages and the Fed Ex from Paramount. Joan spent the next hour pouring over the contract, making little additions and deletions to various clauses, the horrors of the previous day lost in a stream of legalese.

That done, she had Marsha free up her schedule for the afternoon and got to work on reviewing some script changes for the Cruise film. Rather than her usual lunch at Brisbeee’s, Joan ordered pizza and surprised herself by eating four slices. She was on her fifth when the intercom buzzed.

“Joan? The LAPD in on line two. Says it’s urgent.”

“Thanks, Marsha.”

Urgent. Had they caught the creep?

“This is Joan DeVilliers.”

“You broke my nose, bitch. You think it’s over? I’m going to shove a stake so far up your—”

Joan slammed down the receiver. When her hands stopped shaking, she called the police.

“These aren’t eggs.” Bert poked at the airline food with his undersized plastic fork. “I think they’re some kind of polymer. I shouldn’t have paid extra for the meal.”

Tom didn’t care. He devoured them anyway, along with the stale bun, the dry sausage, and two cups of bland coffee. He also polished off Roy’s meal while his partner snored, zonked out from the painkillers.

“So we’re meeting with the doctor who created us?”

Tom frowned at the terminology. He didn’t like the idea of being created. But then, he wasn’t exactly born either. Or was he? The answers were less than an hour away.

“He’s picking us up at the airport.”

“I don’t see why he had to come.” Bert pointed his chin at Roy. He hadn’t shaved, and it was tough to spot his stitches.

“He’s my partner. We watch each other’s backs. You didn’t have to come either. You could have stayed in Chicago.”

“I have a right. I have questions, too.”

“You didn’t have to bring your lures.”

“They go where I go.” Bert reached up and switched off the blowing nozzle. “Recirculated air. I call these things germ cannons. You might as well be French kissing everyone on the plane.”

Tom wiped the pat of butter off the little white square of cardboard and onto his third bun. Bert stored his tray in the upright position and fished a magazine out of the pouch on the seat ahead of him.

“Oh boy. An issue of Macramé Monthly that I haven’t read yet.”

The flight attendant collected their plates, but not before Tom forked the last sausage into his mouth. The cut inside his cheek had healed some, but the salty meat still stung. If indeed it was meat—it tasted more like a member of the rubber family. He didn’t feel the wound on his head at all, and since his hair covered the stitches it wasn’t even noticeable. The thing that hurt like hell was his ribcage; sleeping on Roy’s soft leather couch had been a mistake. Every breath was like a fork in the chest.

Tom glanced to his left, over the lightly snoring Roy, out the window. Clouds obscured his view. To his right, Bert was absorbed in the magazine. It was strange to look at him, a face so recognizable that it was practically an archetype.

“So, Bert—since you found out about the Einstein thing, has there been any indication that you really are him?”

Bert set the magazine down.

“You mean have I ever had any brilliant thoughts or ideas?”

“Yeah.”

“Nope. Not one.”

“Have you ever taken an IQ test?”

“Like those Mensa puzzles? Figure out which number comes next in the series?”

“Yeah. Those.”

“No. Never could get through them. I got slightly above average on my SAT, though. After my third try.”

Tom noticed several strands of gray in Bert’s wavy hair. In ten or twenty years it would become the great white mop known the world over.

“How about you, Tom? Do you feel any different? Since finding out?”

Tom was about to answer no, but he realized that wasn’t the case. Though he still felt like himself, he was experiencing something akin to performance anxiety. He’d been struggling with it since last night, after Harold had asked when he was going to go into politics.

There was a whole big world out there. Shouldn’t he be doing something more than just police work? Tom had always thought he was a good cop, good at his job, but now it didn’t seem like it was enough.

“I don’t feel like a different person, but I think I do feel a little inadequate.”

“That will pass. Soon you’ll feel completely worthless.”

Bert went back to his magazine. Tom opened the little nozzle over his head, bathing his face with the germ cannon’s cool, stale air. He smoothed out the wrinkles in the tan pants Roy had lent him. They were a little big in the waist, but otherwise fit fine. The loaned shirt was another story. Tom was swimming in it, and since putting it on he felt the urge to hit the gym and work on his pecs.

Bert hummed as he read. Something vaguely familiar. When Tom realized it was Britney Spears he shook his head. As far as nature vs. nurture went, Bert was a damn fine argument for nurture.

“What’s 55 x 26?” Tom asked.

“Hell if I know.”

“I thought you were a stock market wizard.”

Bert looked up at him.

“How did… that doctor told you, didn’t he? You said he kept tabs on us.” Bert shrugged. “I did some trading. Made some fortunes. Lost some fortunes. That’s behind me now.”

“But you were good at it? Without dealing with numbers?”

“I didn’t deal in numbers. I dealt in shares and dollars.”

“Same thing.”

“Not for me.”

“Okay—if I had 85,552 dollars and wanted to buy some shares of stock that sold at 2 ¼, how many shares could I buy?”

Bert didn’t hesitate. “You could buy 38,023 shares and have 11 cents left over.” When the realization of what he just said hit him, he broke into a wide grin. “Hey! Do another one.”

Surprised, Tom continued. “A guy wants to buy 351 shares of a stock that’s at 6 7/8s.”

“He needs 2413 dollars and 12 and a half cents.” Bert beamed. “Wow! I’m pretty amazing!”

“What’s 18 x 45?”

Bert’s smile faltered. “I don’t know.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Bert.”

“I know it doesn’t make sense. But I just don’t know.”

“Okay, what if I wanted to buy 45 shares of stock at 18 dollars a share?”

“Eight hundred and ten dollars. This is weird, Tom. How come I can do it if it’s a stock question but not when it’s just simple multiplication?”

Tom recalled an old story he’d heard about Albert Einstein.

“Do you care about multiplication?”

“Hell no.”

“Did you care about the stock market?”

“I lived and breathed to trade.”

“There’s your answer. Maybe you’re a genius at what you care about. Einstein failed math in school. He just had no interest in it.”

“You think that’s it?”

“Could be.”

Bert scrunched up his face. Tom could see he was puzzling it out.

“So now all I need to do is force myself to care about quantum mechanics.”

“That’s possible.”

“But I don’t care about quantum mechanics. It bores the crap out of me. Do you care about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”

“As much as the next guy. I don’t dwell on it.”

“How are your writing skills? Essays and reports and things?”

“Well, I won that Pulitzer a few years back.”

“So, in other words, I probably have Einstein’s intellect locked up in my head somewhere. But you got buttkiss from Jefferson.”

Bert delved into the magazine again, leaving Tom to dwell on that. The feeling was akin to being ten feet tall, but still unable to dunk a basketball.

As the plane emptied, Tom was reluctant to leave his seat. His self-esteem was at an all time low, and being told he was conceived in a lab under a microscope couldn’t possibly help.

“Are you guys coming?” Bert already had his carryon in hand and his sunglasses perched on the end of his long nose.

“We here?” Roy yawned and stretched. “Did I miss breakfast?”

“I wouldn’t phrase it like that.”

Roy attempted to stand up, forcing his partner to move out of his way. Tom gripped the armrests and pried himself out of his chair.

“Don’t forget your donut.” Bert pointed to the inflatable ring on Roy’s chair. The cop turned and picked it up, his face sour.

They were the last ones out of the plane; Tom and Roy had been required to fly with their guns locked up in the cockpit per FTA rules. The moment Tom stepped onto the runway he had to squint against the glare. He’d never been to New Mexico before, but it was exactly like he’d anticipated. Hot, dry, sunny, with mountains in the distance. The authentic West. The trio walked to the terminal, which was minuscule by Chicago standards. A sign welcomed them to the ABQ Sunport, and the air conditioning embraced them like a close family when they entered.

Tom asked for directions to the front entrance, receiving them in a pronounced drawl from a steward. He didn’t have a cowboy hat to tip, but thanked the man just the same. The airport was quiet, serene, no large crowds or rushing people. It was unnatural. Perhaps there was some kind of sedative in the water.

“Hello!”

Dr. Harold Harper was stooped with age, tanned the color of mahogany, sporting faded jeans and a plaid shirt. He had a fringe of white hair encircling a bald dome speckled with liver spots. Tom knew his age to be seventy-two, but the doctor rushed to greet them like someone half that.

“Wonderful to see you! Let me look.” He grasped Tom’s shoulders and gave him the once-over. “My, it’s simply amazing. You could have just stepped off a two dollar bill. And Albert—” Bert got similar treatment. “The mustache and everything. Did you have the mustache before, or grow it once you found out? And who’s this?”

“This is Detective Roy Lewis. My partner.”

“Hello, Roy, nice to meet you.” He shook Roy’s hand. “Actually, I suppose this is our first official meeting as well.” He shook Bert’s hand, then Tom’s. “Harold Harper. Welcome to New Mexico. Do you have suitcases?”

“I do.” Bert raised his hand.

“The luggage return is this way.”

The elderly man took off at a quick clip, pointing out which airlines occupied which terminals, and where the restrooms and restaurants were, as if he were giving a tour of the Louvre. Bert’s bags were the first off the carousel, but he insisted on opening them and inspecting the contents before they could move ahead.

“How could anything get damaged in those things?” Roy was referring to Bert’s Samsonite suitcases. “Bet they’re heavy as hell.”

“These are classics. I don’t even know if they make them anymore with a hard shell like this. They’re waterproof, shockproof, and smashproof. Remember the commercial with the gorilla jumping on them?”

Outdoors again, the heat was like a hair dryer. Harold had parked close to the building, in a handicapped spot. He had a wheelchair sticker hanging from his rearview, but Tom couldn’t guess what his ailment might be. The man had more energy that a two-year-old on crack.

The good doctor drove an old Jeep Wrangler with no roof or doors, just a roll bar to protect them from the elements. It was what could charitably be called a four-seater, though the rear two seemed built for embryos. Tom attempted to climb in back but Harold stopped him.

“Please. Do me the honor of sitting up front with me, if you would.”

Roy shot him a look that would fry burgers, but Tom sat up front anyway. Bert played around with a bungee cord for several minutes, strapping in his luggage to the rear rack, while Roy placed his carryon between his feet and carefully positioned his donut. Harold took off before either had a chance to fully settle in. The doctor drove with the same sense of urgency he displayed while on foot. Traffic signals didn’t appear to be applicable to him, and twice he had to swerve to avoid collisions. Tom liked him immediately.

“The ranch is about ten miles out of Albuquerque. Used to be twenty miles out, but the town is growing pretty fast. It’ll reach three quarters of a million within the next few years, at the current rate.”

Tom noted that as America aged, it tended to homogenize. Albuquerque could have been a suburb of Chicago—complete with strip malls, super markets, chain stores, and apartment buildings. The only difference was that every other vehicle was a 4 x 4. Tom checked the rearview, paranoid about being tailed. Rather than black sedans, he saw Bert sock Roy in the shoulder.

Bert grinned. “Slug bug green, no hit backs.”

“Why did you just hit me, fool?”

“Volkswagon bug, right there. Don’t you play the slug bug game? Every time you see a VW Beetle, you hit the guy next to you and say the color.”

“You do that again, we play the physics game. I toss you out of the speeding Jeep and see how many times you bounce.”

Bert folded his arms, glaring. “What is your problem? Why can’t you have fun?”

“I have lots of fun.”

“You act like you have a saggy diaper that leaks.”

“Maybe you need to take your Shut-The-Hell-Up pill.”

“I dare you to stop being a grump ass.” Bert challenged.

“Fine—punch Bronco black.”

Roy slugged Bert in the shoulder. Bert’s eyes got wide. “What the hell was that?”

“I saw a black Ford Bronco, so I punched you.”

“That’s not the game. It’s Volkswagon bugs.”

“Now who’s the one that isn’t fun?”

Bert hit him back. “There. You didn’t call no hit-backs.”

“Fine.” Roy scanned for a car, then he smacked Bert in the back of the head.

“Head whack Cadillac yellow, no hit backs.

Bert elbowed Roy in the ribs. “Rib jab Buick Allegra red, no hit backs.”

“Soon as I see a Toyota, I’m gonna break your jaw.”

Harold leaned over and spoke to Tom out of the side of his mouth. “Are they always like this?”

“Neither of them plays well with others.”

Luckily for all involved, Harold pulled onto a dirt road and they didn’t see another vehicle until they reached the ranch. And a ranch it was. Tom, being Midwestern, assumed the term was used to describe any single floor house. But Dr. Harper owned actual acres of fenced-in property, complete with grazing livestock.

“What in the hell is that thing?” Roy pointed.

“That’s Emma. She’s an Israeli Black Ostrich.”

Bert whacked him. “Israeli black ostrich, no hit-backs.”

Roy hit him back anyway.

“You raise ostriches?” Tom regretted the stupid question as it left his mouth. They passed a dozen more birds before coming to a stop at the house.

“Largest of the ratites. Their meat is red, 80% leaner than beef. One egg is the same volume as two dozen chicken eggs. Shells and feathers fetch top dollar, and the leather is softer than lamb. Plus, they’re a hoot to have around.”

One of the birds walked up to the truck and stared at Roy, its head only a foot away from his face. Roy recoiled.

“No need to be afraid,” Harold said. “She just wants her head scratched.”

The bird’s head bobbed up and down, seemingly in agreement.

“I don’t like it. Make it go away.”

Bert reached over and patted the ostrich.

“See? Very docile animal. You can even ride some of the larger ones. Perhaps you’d like to try it later.”

The bird cocked its head and chirped. Then pecked Roy in the nose.

“Docile my ass.”

Roy took out his gun. The ostrich screamed, then turned its tail and ran off.

“Oh, they hate guns.” Harold got out of the Jeep. “We had some poachers here, years ago, killed four of the birds. Whenever they see a gun or hear a bang, they head for the barn.”

There were two structures on the property, the house and the stable. Both had a rough hewn, rustic quality to their design, with unfinished log trim and cedar shingles. Bert unstrapped his luggage and Harold led them into the larger of the buildings.

Tom frowned when he wasn’t met with air conditioning. Two fans spun lazily in the high, vaulted ceiling, pushing around the heat. In keeping with the log cabin concept, various pine support beams made crisscross patterns throughout the great room. There was a large chandelier, made from several dozen antlers, hanging between the two fans, and a bearskin rug, complete with head, on the floor.

“Welcome to the Harper Ranch. Anyone for coffee? Nothing beats the heat like a hot beverage.”

There were no takers.

“I’ll just be a moment. Old man, need the caffeine.” Harold left for the kitchen and Tom gave his partner a nod. Roy removed the Foxhound from his pocket and turned it on.

“What is…?”

Tom slapped a hand over Bert’s mouth and put a finger to his lips. Roy worked the room, waving the Foxhound’s antenna this way and that. He was quick but thorough.

“Clean.” He put the bug detector away just as Harold came back.

The doctor was holding an oversized mug of steaming coffee. He took a sip and set it on the table. Tom caught the aroma and had to admit it smelled pretty damn good.

“Fine, then let’s sit down, shall we? Plenty to discuss, that’s for sure.”

Harold ushered them onto two sofas. Tom sat and stared at the ceiling-high stone fireplace. Why the house needed it was beyond his reasoning. Harold took the floor before them.

“The easiest way to do this, I think, is to start from the beginning. Forty years ago. I was one of only a handful of scientists trying to attempt in vitro fertilization—fertilizing an egg outside of the womb. My team worked with gametes from mice, then cows, and then finally with human sperm and ova.”

Harold paused to sip some coffee.

“The work was funded in secret, done privately. We did it in Mexico. Not that we were breaking any US laws, per se, but pure science is always easier without regulation, and we had a doozy of a problem to solve. My first success took place right before we landed on the moon—this was almost ten years before Louise Brown, the first official test tube baby, was born.”

“Who was funding you?”

“We’ll get to that in a moment. But imagine, if you will, how excited we were that we’d created a person in a lab. And yet we couldn’t publish, we couldn’t go public. It was all very hush-hush. I found out why later. Our benefactor, it seems, was looking for more than reproductive technology. After proving that sexual reproduction was possible in vitro, he next wanted us to prove that asexual reproduction was possible in humans.”

“Cloning?”

“Sort of. Asexual reproduction is having offspring with only one parent. This usually results in an exact genetic copy. Many things reproduce in this way—protozoan, fungi, seaweed, coral, insects, fish, lizards, even some birds under artificial conditions. The word clone comes from the Greek word for twig. Cut off a twig, plant it, grow a new tree. In theory, anyway.”

The doctor was pacing before them, gesturing with his hands. He was talking at a terrific clip, the words coming out so fast they ran together. Tom thought of a champagne bottle, finally uncorked after decades in a cellar.

“It was hard work. How can you create life without a sperm and egg? We knew about chromosomes. Humans have forty-six, getting half from the mother and half from the father. But what if there was no father? Could we fool an egg into thinking it was a zygote, that it had been fertilized, using only the chromosomes of one parent?”

Harold shook his head sadly.

“Set backs. Years of setbacks. We were trying to implant a karyoplast into the cytoplasm of a zygote. Nuclear transfer. Forcing a morula or blastocyst without two haploids.”

“I don’t know what the hell you just said.” Roy got off the sofa. He gave Tom a look of intent, patting the Foxhound in the pocket. Off to check the rest of the place out. “Anyone want some water?”

“Kitchen is through there. How about you two? Am I going too fast?”

Tom ventured a guess. “You were scraping out fertilized eggs and adding your own genes?”

“Exactly. But it didn’t work. We couldn’t get the enucleated egg and the donor cell to fuse. We tried the Sendai virus, electrofusion—nothing worked. Then, as a control, I tried it with a non fertilized ova. It fused into a zygote like magic.”

“So all you did was put a human cell in an empty egg and it grew?” Bert seemed surprised.

“Well, my boy, you make twenty years of research sound simple. Actually, it was much more difficult than that. You had to actually put the donor cells in the gap-zero phase by starving them. You see, cells go through phases—”

“Doctor.” Tom held up his hand. “You might as well be speaking Martian. We believe you when you say it was hard work.”

“Darn tootin’. And we finally did it—grew an embryo in agar and transplanted it into the uterus of a woman, who successfully gave birth to a healthy baby. We did it many times, in fact. You can imagine how excited we were. But again, it had to be kept quiet, and again, it wasn’t enough. Our next miracle was to bring dead cells back to life. Which, of course, is impossible.”

“It can’t be impossible.” Bert leaned back and crossed his legs. “Because here we are.”

“Oh, but it is impossible. Once tissue is dead, it’s dead. Frankenstein’s monster will forever remain in the realm of fiction. My team did enough work on that to settle the debate forever.”

“So how…?”

“Are you sure no one would like some coffee? You can’t imagine how wonderful it is to tell this, after so long. I don’t even have access to my notes. There won’t be any memoirs, any posthumous Nobel Prize. He took everything.”

“Who did?”

“We’ll get to that in a moment. Anyhoo, once we proved that regenerating dead tissue was impossible, we did the next best thing. We copied it.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “You cloned it?”

“No, you can’t clone dead tissue. The cell has to be alive, in the dormant G-zero phase, before we can take out the DNA. In a dead cell, the DNA won’t replicate. It’s a shell, a corpse. But since all DNA is simply building blocks made up of protein, all we had to do is reconstruct a dead person’s genetic code. Rebuild it out of raw material, so to speak, in the exact same way as the original.”

Roy came back with a glass of water. He shook his head at Tom and sat down carefully on his donut.

Tom puzzled over Harold’s latest words but couldn’t get them to ring true. Even with today’s technology, it was impossible to build a strand of DNA from the ground up. There was just no way.

“Doctor, I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”

Bert shrugged. “I got lost right after he mentioned the twigs.”

Tom continued. “Maybe I can believe you doing all of these reproductive experiments years ahead of the scientific community, and I can even believe that you cloned a person from a live cell. But human DNA wasn’t even completely mapped until a few years ago, and that took a decade, using the biggest super computers. I read the article in Time. Even then, it was only mapped—that’s just the general picture. To get an exact replica, it needs to be sequenced, and that’s still a long way off.”

“You’re right. We didn’t have the technology back then to sequence the entire human genome. Let alone the genomes of the ten people that we cloned. There are over 50,000 genes in a human being, made up of billions of base pairs. We never could have sorted them all out and put them in the right order.”

Tom leaned forward, arms on his knees. “So how did you do it?”

Harold’s face lit up. “We took a picture. A very special picture. And from the picture we made a living cell.”

“Please explain.”

“In 1953, Watson and Crick used X-ray crystallography to discover the structure of a DNA molecule. They bounced radiation off of DNA and formed an image on photographic film, coming up with the double helix configuration. How much do you know about DNA?”

Tom thought back to high school biology, over twelve years ago.

“It’s made up of four bases. They match up with each other in special orders. When the DNA replicates, it unzips, and then free floating proteins match up with the each side of the zipper and make a carbon copy.”

“Excellent. The four nucleotide bases are adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. When they stack up in specific combinations they make genes—sections of DNA that code for protein. Genes make up chromosomes, and chromosomes make up that double spiral staircase we call DNA.”

“I remember this.” Roy nodded. “The bases are A, T, C, and G. G always teams with C, and A always teams with T.”

“Exactly! That was what made it work. We fooled the DNA into copying itself.”

“You lost me again.”

“Never even had me.” Bert frowned. “I’ve been counting the antlers in that lamp.”

“It was actually very simple.” Harold sat on the coffee table and faced them. “We built a special camera. Its lens was an electron microscope—still not powerful enough for us to actually see every base nucleotide, but we didn’t need to. Only the film did. Then we harvested some dead cells from each donor and took pictures of the nucleus—that’s the center part of the cell where all the DNA is bundled up.”

“So far, so good.”

“Now, you all know how film works? It makes a negative, an opposite of the picture that is going to be developed. We used a film stock that was seeded with base nucleotides.”

Tom smiled. “I think I get it.”

“Hello!” Bert raised his hand. “Can you explain, for the benefit of the stupid people?”

“We took a picture of the DNA using film that had A, C, G, and T in it. Now, there are four forces in the universe; gravity, electromagnetic, strong, and weak. Many scientists believe they are all simply different applications of one, universal force. Is the force that keeps the earth revolving around the sun the same force that holds atoms together? Or makes adenine always want to pair with guanine?”

“I’m going to go back to counting antlers.”

“Stick with me, Bert. After taking a picture of the nuclear DNA with seeded film, we ran an electromagnetic current through the negative. It worked. When a free floating adenine saw the negative picture of a thymine, it tried to attach itself. It couldn’t, of course, because that wasn’t a real thymine molecule—it was only a picture. But it did line up correctly, along with all of the other molecules. We made half of the zipper. Then we scraped the negative, added more bases, and the other half of the zipper formed. The DNA rebuilt itself in the correct order.”

Bert nodded. “I get it. It’s like you took a picture of a skunk, and another skunk thought it was real and tried to mate.”

This comparison temporarily stymied the doctor.

“Well, I guess, sort of. The base pairs lined up to the negative as if it were real. When we finished, we had a batch of fresh DNA. We inserted this into an enucleated liver cell, cultured them, put them in gap-zero, then removed the nucleus again and transferred it to an egg. From the egg it went to the mother, and nine months later, tada! Clones!”

“And the twig?”

“Get off the twig, Bert.” Tom turned to Harold. “So I’m not an actual clone of Jefferson. I’m more like a copy?”

“Genetically, you’re identical. You have an exact DNA match. But your body was never part of his, no. In fact, there are quite a few subtle differences. For example, the enucleated liver cells that we cultured your DNA in—they were mine. They were just empty shells, but still my genetic material. The same with the donor eggs from the mother—again they were scraped out, but the cell membrane was still from another human being.”

“So I’m part Einstein, part you, and part Mexican woman?”

Harold shook his head. “No, Bert. You’re all Einstein.”

This brought a snort from Roy.

“But I wasn’t grown from Einstein?”

“Exactly.”

“Who else was cloned?”

“I did ten of you, all born within a few days of each other. The first was Abraham Lincoln. Then Robert E. Lee, Joan of Arc, William Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Edison. Those are the Lucky Seven.”

“Why these seven?”

“Phillip thought they represented the greatest figures in history. He believed they would have the greatest potential to benefit mankind. Or, more specifically, the US Government.”

“Phillip?”

“We’ll get to him shortly.”

“Wasn’t Joan of Arc burned at the stake?”

“The one place in the body that DNA never seems to dissipate, even after thousands of years, is in the teeth. From what I understand, Phillip had located her scorched jawbone, secreted away from the pyre by a zealot and locked up in some French monastery for years.”

“You said there were ten.”

“Ah yes. The others. Keep in mind, this was more than just a scientific breakthrough. It was a behavioral experiment as well. Just because we made a copy of Lincoln didn’t mean he’d actually grow up to be Lincoln, with all of the traits we imbue Lincoln with. What makes a person who they are is much more complicated than their genetics. There are many factors—parents, environment, chance, socioeconomic conditions, illness, accidents—influences that we could only imagine. But we didn’t know that, back then. And every good experiment needs some control subjects…”

“So you chose Jack the Ripper and Attila the Hun?”

“Jack was my fault. I’d always been a Ripperphile, and was convinced the killer was that fish porter, Joseph Barnett. So we got a DNA sample and cloned him. I believe I was proven right. At age eleven he stabbed his adoptive parents to death.”

Roy returned Tom’s told you so look with a blank stare.

Harold went on. “Phillip chose the other two. Ancient leaders, known for their cruelty. Attila and Vlad.”

“Vlad?”

“Vlad Tepes Dracula. Vlad the Impaler. Ruled Wallachia in the fifteenth century, tortured over a hundred thousand people to death. He’d spear them on long stakes—horrible man. His clone seemed to inherit the same sadistic streak. Set the family dog on fire when he was only six.”

“Explain to us again why you’d clone the biggest psychos in world history and think it was a good idea?”

“The logic was sound at the time. If personality was inherited, then the Lucky Seven would grow up and be brilliant, and the Unholy Three would grow up as monsters. Of course, we only got it half right.”

“The monster half.” Tom frowned.

“Not to say that you didn’t turn out fine,” Harold quickly added. “We’ve watched you for years. That none of you rose to the greatness of your parental genotypes doesn’t mean our experiment failed. But ultimately, our major success was with them. Perhaps the will to destroy is more easily transferable than the will to create. Monsters, all three of them.”

“So this was just one big social experiment?” Bert sounded disappointed. “We weren’t created to control the world or anything?”

“Phillip had planned to reveal you to the world, at some point. But after watching you progress, there didn’t seem to be any reason. Robert didn’t become a great General. Neither Abe nor Tom have attempted to hold office. Bert, neither you nor the clone of Edison have made any grand discoveries or inventions. It was decided to never tell you. But yet, you figured it out.”

“How could you have been at Rush-Presbyterian in Chicago if we were all born in Mexico?”

“I was a member of the staff, but have never actually been to the place. Phillip set it up, through his connections. It allowed us to fake all the birth certificates, make you US citizens. Phillip found suitable parents through his Army connections—the idea was to match the newborns up with fathers who were comparable to the clone.”

“You keep bringing up this Phillip as the guy who set this whole thing up.” Tom stared hard at the doctor. “Are you ready to tell us who he is?”

“He was, still is, one of the most powerful men in the world. Phillip Stang.”

“Phillip Stang? The Phillip Stang?”

“Who’s Phillip Stang?” Bert asked.

“A Democratic congressman from Illinois. His picture was all over the media last year, when he became Speaker of the House.”

“I remember now!” Bert’s face twisted in fear. “When I met with Jessup a few days ago, he thought he was being followed. He told me it started the month before, right after talking to some politician.”

“It was Phillip Stang?”

“I didn’t get the name. But what if it was Stang? He’s one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. What if he’s the one that wants us dead?”

Tom winced. This wasn’t a pleasant development.

“I think this is a case of overreacting.” Harold had finished his coffee but brought the empty cup to his lips just the same. “I’ve known Phillip Stang for years. Besides, you’ve got the wrong one. The Phillip that started the project with me is retired. His son, same name, is Speaker. Fine lad, too. Now there’s someone with political aspirations.”

It wasn’t an intentional barb, but it stung just the same. Tom rose above it.

“We’ll need some addresses. Anything you have on any of the clones. They have to be warned.”

“Of course. But you have to be careful. You both seem to have adjusted well to the truth about your births, but it could be potentially traumatic to the psyche to suddenly find out you’re someone else.

No kidding, Tom thought.

“We’d also like to talk with the elder Phillip Stang. Can you set that up?”

“Yes. Haven’t spoken to him in a while. Last I heard, his health was failing again. Chronic kidney problems. He’s got a home in Illinois, by Springfield.”

“How about the others?”

“Not a problem. I know Abe is in Nebraska. He sells used cars, I believe. Joan went to Hollywood and is a hot shot producer. I saw one of her movies a few years ago, something loud with aliens in it. William is a writer. This thrilled us at first. He got great grades in college. Unfortunately, he wound up in advertising. I have their last names written down someplace, a few addresses.”

“How about the other three?”

“Oh dear. No idea. They managed to disappear. Jack was involved in the CIA for a while. His specialty was wet work, I believe they called it. He killed people for Uncle Sam. Vlad—we named him Victor—he escaped from police custody after murdering some young women in a particularly horrible way. Fled to South America. I’ve heard rumors that he worked as a freelance interrogator for various governments. And Arthur, Attila—in and out of prisons his whole life. Probably killed his parents. No idea where he might be.”

“Do you know how they found out about everything?”

“The only thing I can think of is they must have been told. All three are above average intelligence, but I wouldn’t say they had the savvy to dig up their pasts. Of course, that doesn’t leave many people left. Even though I had a research team, none of my assistants knew exactly what we were doing. You were watched by various government employees while growing up, but they were never given details why. The only two people who knew everything about the experiments are myself and Phil, and even I didn’t know everything.”

“Did you tell them?”

“Tell them? My boy, if I saw any of them I’d run away as fast as my little old legs could carry me. I’m going for more coffee. Anyone care to join me?”

They declined. Harold plodded off into the kitchen.

“It’s got to be Stang.” Bert nodded smartly. “There’s no one else left.”

“All the high-tech listening devices point to a government operation.” Tom agreed. “But what would the motive be? Why would he devote his entire life to this project, and then want to wipe it out?”

“Could Jack and Attila be working on their own?”

“I hope so. Because if Phillip Stang is involved, I won’t be needing my donut anymore.”

“Why?”

Roy frowned. “Because if we’re being hunted by that cat, we can all kiss our asses good-bye.”

“It tastes like beef.”

Roy wiped some ketchup off of his mustache and took another bite of the ostrich burger.

“Softer.” Bert smacked his lips. “Richer, too.”

Tom reached for another sandwich, his third. He piled on the condiments.

“Harold, I have to say, this is the tastiest burger I’ve ever had. And I’ve tried them all—turkey, buffalo, lamb, alligator…”

“I tried raising alligators, years ago. It was a big mistake. I was also breeding beagles at the same time. Inquisitive dogs, beagles. Well, hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it?”

Roy pushed away his plate and poured himself another glass of lemonade, emptying the glass pitcher. Several ostriches had gathered around the picnic table, jockeying for scraps. A spectacular New Mexican sunset was dominating the western horizon, and the birds were darkening into silhouettes.

Bert tossed a piece of bun on the ground and the nearest ostrich pecked it up.

“There’s something I still don’t quite get.” He threw more bun, and another bird muscled its way over and snatched it, long neck striking like a snake. “Why clone us at all? It must have cost a fortune. What did Phillip Stang actually get out of this?”

“Could be that Phillip was a bit of a philanthropist. Why did we go to the moon? Did it serve any real purpose? We did it to see if it could be done.”

“Then why not go public with the results?” This had been bugging Tom as well. “Why not reap the fame and rewards of the greatest scientific development since, well, ever?”

“I have no clue. I was just paid to do it. It’s the dream of every scientist; unlimited funds and no boundaries. I made some money, yes, but it isn’t about the money, or the fame. It’s about gaining knowledge, doing something no one else has done.”

“And Stang felt the same way?”

“He never told me. When his son got into politics about a decade ago, Phil retired. You’ll have to ask him yourself, after I set up a meeting.”

The calm night was pierced by a scream—shrill, abrupt.

“Was that an ostrich?”

Two more followed, louder and closer.

“Coyote?” Tom asked.

“The ranch is fenced off. The only time they scream like that is when…”

Tom finished the sentence for him. “…when they see a gun.” He stood up, taking out his Glock. “Let’s get inside. Now.”

They hurried into the house. Harold locked the doors while Tom and Roy killed all the lights. Ostriches were now stampeding in from the pasture, seeking the safety of the stable, climbing over each other to gain entrance. Their yelps had an eerie, surreal quality.

“Bert, Harold, in the kitchen. Call the police, then stay down below window level. Don’t move unless I tell you to. Got the back, Roy?”

“Got my end covered. How are you on ammo?”

“I brought two clips. You?”

“Same.”

Tom opened the porch window and squatted on his haunches. He stared out onto the plains, letting his eyes adjust to the dimming light. The temperature had dropped, and a night breeze wafted in, cooling the sweat on Tom’s forehead. He moved his eyes back and forth over the grounds, watching for light or movement, listening for people-sounds.

“Police will be here in ten minutes.” Harold had crawled over.

“Shh. Go back into the kitchen. Do you own a gun?”

“No. I think guns are just a symbolic substitute for male genitalia, and I’m okay in that respect.”

“Fine. If they get in the house, you can whack them with your genitals. Kitchen, now.”

Harold scampered away. The cries of the ratites increased in volume. Something was spooking them badly. Tom looked hard at the barn, trying to spot anything man-shaped in the darkness.

A gunshot. Roy. Tom spun and ran for the rear entrance, keeping his head down.

“You see something?”

“How much you think these big birds cost?”

“Why?”

“I owe Harold for one.”

“You shot an ostrich?”

“I wasn’t sure what it was. Figured better safe than sorry.”

“And now the bad guys know we’re expecting them.”

“Maybe I scared them off.”

The gunfire seemed to erupt everywhere at once. Windows shattered and splinters flew and a sound like an exploding string of firecrackers echoed through the house. Automatic weapon fire.

Tom and Roy fell to their sides and curled up, protecting their heads. The destruction went on and on, lamps exploding and sparks flying and bullets chipping away at the stone fireplace and the couches hissing at them as the fabric shredded. Tom’s gut was a clenched fist and his ribs screamed at the uncomfortable position but he refused to move.

After a lifetime, the shooting finally stopped. Tom didn’t know if the ringing in his ears was a gun echo or his hammering heart.

“I’m going for the front.” He couldn’t hear his own voice and didn’t think Roy could either. But his partner nodded and stuck his gun out the window, firing in the direction the bullets had come from. Tom sprinted in a crouch to the front door, both hands glued to his pistol, and he braced his back against the wall and peered through the broken glass. He caught sight of someone running behind the barn.

“Fire!”

Bert and Harold rushed out of the kitchen. Tom could see the flickering orange they were fleeing from, with its accompanying smoke.

Roy met them by the sofas. “On my side too. They’re torching the place.”

“We have to get out of here!” Bert had his luggage in his hands and was heading for the front door. Tom grabbed his wrist.

“They want us to run outside so they can pick us off.”

“So we’re supposed to stay in here and roast?”

“Does this place have a basement? A cellar?”

Harold shook his head .”No.”

“Okay, they’re probably waiting for us on this side. So we have to go out the back way, through the fire.”

Tom led them back into the kitchen, amazed at how quickly it had gotten unbearable. The rear entrance was a growing wall of flame, licking its way across the ceiling. Black smoke hovered at eye level, slowly inching its way to the floor. It had to be a hundred and thirty in there. Tom tried to make out the knob through the fire, but couldn’t even see the door. He got to within three feet and the heat became so intense it was impossible to get any closer. The only window in the kitchen was the small one over the sink, and it too was surrounded by flames.

Tom went to the dining room, but that was a scene from hell, every single bit of furniture was a large, crackling bonfire.

“I think I’d rather get shot.” Roy yelled into his ear. As the fire grew it became louder, a roar that was drowning out Tom’s thoughts.

They went back into the kitchen, Bert and Harold hunched down under the falling veil of smoke. Tom looked around the room, hoping to see a magic escape route. His eyes rested on the refrigerator. It was a compact model, older, about five feet tall. He grabbed the sides and tried pulling it back. It was on rollers.

“Roy! Come on!”

They pulled the fridge out of its nook and yanked the power cord. The floor was tile and it moved easily. Tom positioned it ten feet in front of the burning back door.

“Ready?”

Roy nodded. They got behind the refrigerator and pushed it, gaining speed and momentum, hitting the back door at a full sprint.

Their aim was true. The appliance burst through the blazing entrance, flipping onto its side in the doorway. The flames rushed out of the kitchen in a big whoosh, starving for the new oxygen. They now had an opening.

Roy took out his gun and climbed over the fridge. Tom went back for Bert and the doctor. He was helping them through the door when the gunfire began.

Roy yanked Bert off the refrigerator and to the ground outside, the suitcases flying. Harold fell backward onto Tom, pinning him to the floor of the burning kitchen. Tom struggled out from under the doctor. Harold’s plaid shirt was soaked in blood. His breath was faint.

“We can get you out of here. Try to hold onto my neck.”

Harold shook his head. “You go.”

Tom put his arm around the man’s shoulders and began to lift him up. The doctor coughed violently, blood bubbling from his lips.

“Live…”

“Hold on, Doc. Just hold on.”

Harold looked up at him, eyes dreamy and far away. A pleasant smile crossed his lips.

“Live… up to… expectations…”

His body went slack in Tom’s arms. Flame began to close off the hole they’d made. Struggling with his balance, Tom gripped Harold tight and stepped up to the doorway.

The machine gun thundered again, and Tom leapt off the refrigerator. He landed hard, the ground erupting in little dust pockets as slugs ripped into the dirt around him. He got to his knees and continued to drag Harold away from the house.

Shots to his left. Roy, returning fire. He and Bert were on their bellies, behind Bert’s suitcases. Tom took out his Glock and lay next to Roy.

“Where?”

“On the ridge, three o’clock, about a hundred yards.”

“How many?”

“I spot one.”

“I saw a guy in front earlier. So there’s at least two.”

Running in a crouch, Tom began a wide arc through the plains. The burning house was throwing off a lot of flickering light and shadows, but that worked to his advantage; a moving target would be hard to pinpoint.

More gunshots. Roy, firing far off to his right. Tom hunkered down and waited for the return barrage, trying to spot the enemy’s position. When the machine gun let loose, it caught Tom by surprise. He was less than thirty feet away. The muzzle flash illuminated a short man with a crew cut, holding an Army issue M-16. Arthur Kilpatrick. Or Attila, as Tom had begun to think of him.

Tom’s response was automatic—he dropped to one knee, aimed for the head, and fired as fast as his finger could pull the trigger.

Attila pitched forward, rolling down the mound of raised dirt he’d been perched on. He didn’t let go of the rifle.

Tom ran forward, firing wildly. If Attila got that M-16 around…

Movement on the ground, the rifle barrel raising. Tom jumped off the mound and belly flopped onto the smaller man, pinning the machine gun to his chest. He brought his Glock up to Attila’s head and jammed it under his jaw. Anger and fear had released a potent adrenaline cocktail in his body, and Tom fought to keep his hands from shaking. Attila’s body went completely limp.

“I’m not resisting arrest.”

Tom’s finger tightened on the trigger. He had one bad moment when he didn’t think he could stop himself, but common sense prevailed. With his free hand he found the rifle and tossed it to the side.

“Roll onto your stomach, hands behind your head.”

Attila complied, and Tom pressed his knee into the back of the man’s neck.

“Aren’t you gonna read me my rights, Tommy?”

“Who else is out there?”

“I’m all alone.”

Tom put more pressure on his knee, pushing the smaller man’s face into the dirt.

“You broke your neck in the fall. I don’t think society will shed any tears.”

Attila’s voice was strained. “Jack’s here too.”

Tom fished out some disposable handcuffs—an unbreakable plastic line that tightened around a suspect’s wrists and could only be taken off with tin snips. He looped one around Attila’s hands and snugged it tight.

“How’d you find us?”

“GPS and a laptop. We put a tracker in Albert’s luggage. We can trace it on the Internet.”

Tom uncoiled another length of plastic line and wrapped it around Attila’s ankles.

“How are you in touch with Jack?”

“Cell phone.”

“Call him.”

“Kiss my ass.”

“Don’t be stupid, Attila.”

“So, you finally found out who I am.” He rolled onto his side, facing Tom. “You think you know it all now? You don’t know the half of it. I’ll get another shot at you, soon enough. There isn’t a place on earth you can hide from us.”

Tom considered standing on his neck again, or giving him a swift kick to the stab wound, but decided against it. The police would be here any minute, and when they showed up Jack would run. They would have to get him another day. Tom took out his phone and dialed Roy.

“Got Attila. Jack’s still out there. Stay alert.”

“I called an ambulance. Won’t help, though.”

“Harold?”

“Took at least three hits. Long gone.”

Tom hit the END button. He shoved Attila with his foot.

“So who’s behind this? Stang?”

“I want my lawyer.”

“Harold’s dead. We got you for murder, clean and tight. And we’ll hang Jessup’s murder on you too. I don’t know about New Mexico, but Illinois has the death penalty. Talk to me.”

Attila grinned at him, his gold tooth sparkling in the glare of the burning house.

“How’s your ribs?”

“How’s your leg? I want my knife back, by the way.”

“You have no idea how big this is. How deep it goes. You’re in way over your head, Jefferson.”

Tom didn’t like being called Jefferson. And he really didn’t like Attila’s conceit. They had this guy, dead to rights, and he was acting like it was a parking ticket.

“You know what I don’t get? You’ve got the same genes as the greatest warrior of all time. A guy who conquered the world. And you’re just a petty thug who burned down his mommy’s house.”

Attila lost his smile.

“I’ll be coming for you, soon. You and the rest of our siblings. The last cop that messed with us took sixteen hours to die. With you, it’ll be twice as long.”

Attila began to rant on about all of the horrible things he was going to do, but Tom tuned him out. He sat on the mound of dirt, exhausted, and waited quietly for the police to arrive.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Tom was gripping the phone so tightly his knuckles had lost their color.

“It’s over my head, Mankowski. This is from the Police Superintendent herself. As of now, you and Lewis are on a mandatory leave of absence.”

“I don’t believe this, Lieutenant. Why would we get suspended—”

“It isn’t a suspension. You’re keeping your pay. But this goes high up, Tom. I don’t have a say in it. Until this matter is all sorted out, consider yourself on vacation. One more thing—you have to turn in your guns and badges to the Albuquerque PD.”

Tom was grinding his jaw so hard he could crush marbles.

“Lieutenant Daniels—”

“Just do it and get your asses back to Chicago. I’ll do everything I can to find out what the hell is going on. You guys must have pissed off someone pretty important. The Super wanted your jobs. Put Lewis on.”

He handed the phone to Roy and took a deep breath. Gerry Watterson, the Albuquerque Chief of Police, gave Tom a sympathetic frown from behind his office desk. The Chief was heavyset, tan, balding. A few hours ago he was their good buddy, organizing the fruitless search for Jack and extending over-the-top professional courtesy. Several phone calls later, the man put on his Pontius Pilate face.

“I’m sorry, Detective Mankowski. It looks like a clean bust to me. But my boss told me the same thing. I’ll need to take your shield and weapon.”

“What?” Roy yelled into the phone. “We catch the bad guy and you suspend us? Oh—paid vacation my ass!”

Tom put his hands on the desk, looking hard at Watterson. The Chief seemed like a good enough person, but then Lieutenant Daniels was a good person too. How could it have gone this way?

“Chief, you’re making a big mistake.”

“I don’t have a choice in the matter. My hands are tied.”

“My gun and badge?” Roy was screaming now. “You got to have a thousand mile dick, be fucking me all the way from Illinois!” Roy slammed down the phone and stared at Tom. “I cannot believe this. Can you believe this?”

“At least let us question the suspect.” Tom tried to push his anger aside and appear rational. “The lives of several people are at stake here.”

Watterson held out his hands, palms up. “I’d like to help, but that’s impossible. The suspect was taken into Federal custody an hour ago.”

Motes swam in Tom’s vision.

“Where the hell did they take him?”

“I have no idea.”

“You don’t understand—”

“No.” Watterson was raising his voice now. “You don’t understand. I know you guys are getting the shit end of the stick, but I can’t do a damn thing about it, and neither can you. So give me your shields and your guns, and then go straighten it out on your end. I’m sorry, but there’s no other choice here.”

“Little back-ass redneck town.” Roy spat. “You got a pointy white hood in that desk, Chief?”

A vein bulged out on the side of Watterson’s head. “Arnolds! Johnson!”

Two Albuquerque uniforms came into the office. They had been on the crime scene earlier, helping Roy and Tom search for the second gunman. Now they also seemed to have undergone an attitude adjustment.

“These gentlemen have been ordered to relinquish their weapons, and are resisting the order.”

Both cops drew their sidearms.

“Please put your hands behind your heads and lace your fingers together.”

Tom and Roy exchanged a look. Tom sighed, then obeyed the command. Roy followed suit, mumbling obscenities under his breath. One cop covered them, while the other removed their pistols.

“Badges too.”

“Sorry, guys.” The cop did a quick frisk and took their badge cases and ID. He put them all on Watterson’s desk.

“Thank you, Officers. Dismissed.”

The two uniforms holstered their weapons and left the room. Tom decided to cross New Mexico off his list of future vacation spots.

“I’ll take care of these for you.” Watterson’s eyes told them it was the truth. “Now get out of here.”

“The guys that did this.” Tom spoke with all of the urgency he could muster. “They’re going to be waiting for us.”

Tom could see that Watterson was considering this. After almost a minute, the man picked up Tom’s Glock and chuckled.

“I don’t see how you big city guys are comfortable with automatics. They jam, they misfire, you never know how many shots you have left.”

Watterson took a key out of his pocket and opened up his lower desk drawer.

“In my book, nothing beats a Smith and Wesson 38 Special. Look at these beauties. Matching set, got them off a drug dealer.”

He placed the revolvers before him on the desk.

“Probably stolen. Serial numbers have been filed off. We tried to do a search, couldn’t find the owner.”

Watterson swiveled around in his chair, facing the wall. Tom and Roy exchanged a glance, and then each took a gun. Tom spun the cylinder, noting it was loaded.

“Thank you, Chief.”

“You mean for holding onto your guns and badges? No problem. Just do yourselves a favor and don’t get caught in my county in possession of any type of firearm, or I’ll have to bust your asses.”

“Chief.” Roy put the revolver into his holster. “About that pointy hood thing…”

“Apology accepted. Now get the hell out of here before I lynch you both.” Watterson turned back around and gave them hard stares. “Good luck figuring this thing out.”

They left the office and found Bert sitting in the hallway, going through his suitcase. He stared up at them, his face anguished.

“Did you hear? This is horrible.”

“How did you find out?” Tom asked. “We were just told.”

“Perhaps I can replace the rear treble, but the paint job is ruined. That’s at least five hundred dollars off the price.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“My Flying Helgramite. A three thousand dollar lure. Those maniacs shot it.”

Roy was on him before Tom could intervene. The cop grabbed Bert by the shirt and pulled him close.

“It’s your damn lures almost got us killed. There’s a tracer in the suitcase.”

Bert’s reaction was totally unexpected. Rather than cower or cringe, he drove his heel into Roy’s instep and rammed his head into the bigger man’s chin. Roy staggered back, more shocked than hurt.

“I’m sick of you, and I’m sick of all of this!”

He squatted and began to close his suitcase.

“Bert.” Tom put a hand on his shoulder. Bert shrugged it off.

“Don’t touch me! I’m leaving.”

“They’ll kill you.”

“Whoop-dee-doo. Like you care. Like anyone freaking cares.”

Bert hefted both cases and began to walk down the hall. Tom followed.

“Look, Bert, this is stressful for all of us. But we have to stick together.”

“I’ll do fine by myself.”

Tom grabbed his arm. Bert dropped the suitcases and spun around, holding out his fists.

“You want some of this? I won’t put up with being bullied anymore.”

“I’m not bullying—”

“Bull! If it isn’t you, it’s him, or Jack the Ripper, or my father—”

“Bert, please. We need you.”

Bert blinked, some of the fire leaving his eyes. “You need me?”

“Roy and I were just suspended. Attila was taken by the FBI. For all we know he’s back on the street already. If someone doesn’t warn the other clones, they’re going to be killed.”

Bert’s face went from angry, to thoughtful, to angry again. “I want him to apologize.”

Tom beckoned his partner over. “Roy, come here and say you’re sorry.”

Roy folded his arms and pressed his lips together.

“Roy!”

Tom was bestowed with an evil glare, then Roy walked over to them, making it obvious he was in no hurry.

“I’m sorry, Bert.”

“Say I can use your toilet.”

“You can use my toilet.”

“And your towels.”

“And my damn towels.”

“Now tell me one thing that you like about me.”

“You’ve got to be yanking my—”

“Just kidding.” Bert smiled. “Apology accepted. I’m sorry too. About the foot and the jaw thing. Self-defense course. It was just automatic. You okay?”

Roy’s features softened a notch.

“I’m fine. But I swear, it gets out that Einstein busted my lip…”

Bert held out his hand. Roy gave it a halfhearted shake.

“Okay, team—what do we do first?”

Tom winced at Bert’s enthusiasm, but the man was too excited to notice. “First, we locate that tracer in your suitcases and disable it. After that, I’m not sure. We have to find the others, and we have to talk with Phillip Stang.”

“You think Stang was the one pulling the strings that got us suspended?” Roy asked.

Bert made a face. “Well, duh.”

“Then I’d like to go pay the man a visit.”

“He lives on a big estate in Springfield. Possibly guarded. He may not agree to see us, and we don’t have our badges.”

Bert frowned. “Stang can wait. If they’re planning on killing the others, we have to stop it. Or at least warn them.”

“How, Bert? Just call them up and say, By the way, you’re a clone of William Shakespeare and you’re being stalked by Jack the Ripper?”

“So the others are just burgers at a fat farm?”

Tom had to think about that one.

“No, they’re not. We don’t even know who they are or where they live, yet. That’ll take some time. We can do it on the way to Stang’s place.”

“Harold’s records all burned up. How we gonna find them? Just call Directory Assistance, say we’re looking for Joan of Arc?”

Roy had a point. They didn’t even have their last names.

“Their Birth Certificates!” Bert snapped his fingers. “That’s how Jessup found me and you. We just get the birth numbers that came before us, and we’ll have their names.”

Tom nodded. “I’ll need an Internet connection. Do you think this town has an all night department store?”

They hailed a cab. Tom made Bert sit in front to avoid any more slugging. Their first move was to have the taxi driver circle the block three times. When it was obvious they weren’t being followed, they hit the nearest bank with a drive-thru ATM. The logic was sound—whoever had the power to get them suspended could just as easily have their bank accounts and credit cards frozen. Tom and Roy each took out a few grand. When it was Bert’s turn, he waffled.

“Come on, man. You’re part of this. You have to contribute.”

“I’m okay.”

“You gonna pay for your plane ticket with a Luny Frog?”

“I have some cash. It’ll be fine.”

They didn’t push it.

The cab stopped at a 24 hour department store, and Tom went in and bought a portable laptop, extra batteries, and a Wifi card. He also got a fireproof lock box, and a replacement inflatable donut for Roy. As they drove to the airport, Tom used a credit card to activate a new wireless Internet account. A few moments later, he was surfing the Cook County database.

“Dammit. I don’t have my birth certificate on me. I need the birth number.”

“Got mine.” Bert reached into his pocket and took out a blue piece of paper. Tom clicked on SEARCH and typed in 112-72-0040705. Bert’s info came onscreen. Since Bert was number 6, and Jessup was 5, Tom typed in the same number minus two— 112-72-0040703.

“William Masterton. I’m guessing this is Shakespeare.”

“Who’s next?”

Tom checked out number 3. “Joan DeVilliers. Joan of Arc.”

The person right before her was Robert Mitchell—Robert E. Lee, the cop who was impaled last year in Nashville. A damn shame. They sure could have used him right now.

“Who’s number 1?”

“Abraham Wilkens. Lincoln. Okay, those are the good guys. Let’s see about the enemy.”

Tom used the same trick, counting up instead of down, and found out Vlad the Impaler was number 8 and really named Victor Pignosky. Arthur Kilpatrick came next, and then Jack Smythe, the Ripper.

All of the players now had names. It was just a question of finding them.

Roy frowned. “I think my donut has a hole in it.”

“Duh. Every donut has a hole in it.”

“Ha ha, Einstein. I mean I’m leaking air.”

“You probably don’t have the nozzle in right. Let me see it.”

Roy passed it to Bert, and Tom went back to the lap top. He started with Joan. Harold had mentioned she was a Hollywood producer. Tom tried the online Yellow Pages for LA and found over thirty listings for DeVilliers.

Switching tactics, he got on an engine that searched magazines, limiting his field to ENTERTAINMENT. He discovered an article in Variety that mentioned Joan DeVilliers and her company, JDP. Back to the Yellow Pages, and he had a phone number. Tom saved the page.

Next up was Abe. Harold had said he was a used car salesman in Nebraska. Tom tried a meta-search engine this time, using the words USED+CARS+ABE+NEBRASKA.

The first hit was Honest Abe’s Used Autos. It was located in Lincoln, of all places. There was a large, captioned picture of Abe Wilkens, complete with beard and stovepipe hat, standing in the middle of a car lot. Did the guy know, or was he just playing up the obvious resemblance? Tom saved the info.

Shakespeare was problematic. Tom knew that he wrote ad copy, and that he got good grades in college, but that was it. Without a state or town, it would require some thinking to track him down.

“You have to push the nozzle all the way in, so it’s flush.”

Bert handed the donut back and Roy took a minute to adjust it to the proper position.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

How about that? Tom grinned. Actual civility.

“Next time push the nozzle in.”

“I pushed the damn nozzle in.”

“All the way.”

“Maybe I should push your fat head into your neck, all the way.”

“Don’t get mad at me because you’re too dumb to blow up a stupid tube. The instructions must have been killer: step one—blow it up, step two—push the nozzle in.”

The cabbie was all too happy to spit them out at the ABQ Sunport. Tom tipped the driver exceptionally well. The group spent a good twenty minutes checking various terminals before finding a flight back to O’Hare. Before boarding, they commandeered a nice quiet table at a deserted cafe and tore into Bert’s luggage.

“Easy! Please!”

Bert played the frantic mother hen, gingerly putting the bubble wrap around each lure as fast as Roy and Tom could open them up.

“Hey, Bert.” Roy tossed him a feathered lure with the colorings of a mallard. “Duck!”

“Can we be mature about this, please? This all represents a rather large investment on my part.”

“Okay, let’s talk street value. How much is all this crap worth?”

“Current price guides put the collection at slightly over five hundred.”

“Not how many—how much?”

“That is how much.”

“Five hundred dollars?”

“Five hundred thousand dollars.”

Roy and Tom looked at each other, then back at Bert.

“You got a half a million in these two suitcases?” Roy’s voice was loud and squeaky.

Bert continued to wrap. “Yes. So please be gentle with them.”

“Hold on. Time out.” Roy made a T with his hands. “You got to tell us how you wound up with half a mil in old hooks.”

Bert sighed, looking annoyed. “When I got out of college, my dad gave me a check for fifty grand. I made some investments. In a few years, I was worth somewhere in the area of eight million dollars.”

Roy whistled. “That’s a nice area.”

“I had a big place, some cars. But all of my money was tied up in the market. It’s not like I had eight million in a bank account someplace. Turns out, that’s what I should have done. On October 27th, 1997, the market dropped 554.26 points. A 7.2% drop.”

“That’s not too bad. Seven percent.”

“That’s not quite how it works, Roy. It was the biggest crash in history. I lost everything.”

“Everything? How?”

“Most traders diversify—they put money in a little bit of everything to hedge their bets. If gold drops, corn will protect them. But I didn’t do that. I wasn’t an investor. I was a niche trader. At that time, I had everything in technologies. They took the first hit, and dropped like crazy. I refused to sell, believing I could weather it. But there’s a stampede effect. One person gets scared, the rest jump on the bandwagon. In a few hours, every one of my stocks became practically worthless. By the time they shut the market down, I had about fifty grand to my name. The next day I lost that, along with the house and the cars.”

“Ouch.”

“I had to borrow money from my father. I think it delighted him. Ever since I was a kid, he was trying to force me to be a scientist like him. When I decided to become a trader rather than a physics professor, it royally cheesed him off. It cheesed him off even more that I was so successful. I borrowed the money from him on the condition that I enroll in the graduate physics program at NYU. Instead, I took it and ran.”

“And the lures?”

“I wound up in Wisconsin. After finding an apartment and getting a cheap car, I only had about twenty grand left. I didn’t want to go back to the Market, so I did a little antique buying and selling to make ends meet. The biggest profits I made were on lures. You could find a Creek Chub Injured Minnow, new in the box, at an old bait shop for five bucks, then sell it for forty on the internet. As I made money, I bought more expensive lures. And now here I am, in a New Mexican airport, winding bubble wrap around my net worth while you two make fun of me.”

“And your dad?” Tom asked.

“I repaid the loan, but haven’t talked to him in two years.”

They finished sorting though the first bag and began on the second. Tom had no idea what a tracer looked like or how big it was. While Roy continued to unwrap lures, Tom went through Bert’s toiletry bag. He found a toothbrush, a soap case, toothpaste, deodorant, another deodorant…

“Sweating problem?”

“Hmm? That one’s not mine.”

Tom popped the cap. A green stick stared up at him, smelling of pine. He tried to turn the dial on the bottom, but it didn’t budge. Using his fingernails, Tom pulled out the sliver of green and peered underneath, finding an electronic gizmo.

“Unless antiperspirants have become very high-tech, I think we found our tracer.”

He shook the contents onto his palm. It was a small bundle of wires attached to a circuit board.

“So that little thing can be tracked by satellite?”

“It’s like a mini cell phone. Probably transmits its location every couple of minutes.”

“Why didn’t the Foxhound pick it up?”

“The Foxhound scans from fifty megahertz up. Cell phones transmit below fifty megahertz. I thought everyone knew that.”

“Smart ass. So now what? Want to slip it in the pocket of some tourist going to Germany?”

Tom pulled the lead terminal from the lithium battery, effectively shutting the device off.

“I think I’ll save it. You never know.”

Tom and Roy helped Bert close up his suitcases. They took one more quick tour around the airport to make sure they hadn’t been followed, and then went into the men’s room. In the last stall, Tom wrapped his and Roy’s revolvers in toilet paper and locked them in the fire box he’d bought at the department store. He wasn’t sure if it was X-ray proof or not, anymore than he was sure if luggage was X-rayed at all. He figured he had a 50/50 chance of it getting on the plane. The only other choice was ditching the guns, and after the last few days Tom didn’t want to be unarmed for any longer than necessary.

They went to the front desk and checked Bert’s luggage and the box without incident. The steward announced their flight was boarding, and when Tom finally got in his seat he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

“Hey, Tom.”

He peeked at Bert with his left eye. “What?”

“What do you think will happen to all of those ostriches, now that Harold’s gone?”

“I have no idea. The state will do something with them. A zoo. Sell them. Have a cookout. I don’t know.”

“Poor things.”

Tom closed his eyes again. Funny that Bert should be worried about the birds. Especially when there were so many other things he ought to be worried about.

Tom cracked open a window, even though the weather was too cold for it. They’d cleaned up as best they could when they arrived at O’Hare, but they had no change of clothing and the last time any of them showered was Roy’s place two days ago. Even with a liberal application of Bert’s deodorant, Tom was feeling a bit rank.

They were on I-55, headed for Springfield and former Senator Phillip Stang. The trip was long and boring—there was nothing in the way of scenery but flat, featureless cornfields, and the radio was off limits because of an earlier Roy and Bert power struggle for control.

The only good thing that happened within the past 48 hours was avoiding arrest for smuggling the guns onto the plane. That little trick went off without a hitch, and Tom felt a lot safer with the Smith and Wesson in his shoulder holster.

“How much further?” Bert asked. He’d asked that no less than fifty times.

“How many times you gonna ask that?” That had been Roy’s answer for each of the fifty.

“About as many times as you complain about your ass hurting.”

“Springfield is coming up, next exit.”

Three hours in the car and Tom’s ribs were screaming at him, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as the mental anguish he’d suffered, driving with Bert and Roy.

Stang didn’t live in Springfield itself. His place was along Rt. 29, on the outskirts. They had to go through the town to reach it, and Tom was surprised to see how little it had changed in fifteen years.

Springfield was the resting place of Abe Lincoln, a status that led to its prosperity in the middle of nowhere and its being declared the state capitol. Like a mini Washington DC, the town was packed with monuments and historic sites, and a field trip staple for just about every Jr. High School in Illinois.

Tom remembered his trip fondly—not for the boring visits to Lincoln’s tomb or the State Capitol, but because he’d gotten to second base with Shirley Valezquez when they strayed away from the tour group.

He ran into Shirley a few years ago. Married, kids, successful. Like so many of his peers. Tom could add a poor social life to his list of inadequacies. Perhaps after he went into politics he would find the right woman. He snickered, wondering which was the more realistic of the two.

Tom pulled the rental car into a fast food place. After filling their stomachs with grease, they climbed in the car again—Bert in front, having called shotgun—and headed for the Stang Estate, unannounced.

It looked like another Springfield monument, columns and carefully trimmed bushes and marble sculptures and fountains, visible from a mile away due to the flat terrain and lack of trees. As expected, there was a gate blocking the driveway. The small brick guardhouse wasn’t occupied. Tom blew the horn.

A groundskeeper, complete with pruning shears, walked down the driveway and peered at them through the wrought iron.

“Yeah?”

“We’re here to see Mr. Stang.”

“He isn’t seeing anyone.”

“Tell him it’s Mankowski and Blumberg.”

“Mankoberg and…?”

“Just say Jefferson and Einstein.”

The man nodded and walked off. Minutes passed. Tom became increasingly uncomfortable. The mansion had two floors and a dozen windows facing the driveway. If Jack were waiting in one of those rooms with a rifle…

The gate made a clanging sound and began to roll backwards. Tom recovered from the brief shock and drove up to the house, parking in front of a six car garage.

“Is anyone else a little intimidated?” Bert asked.

They didn’t answer. The front doors were cathedral style, double height, surrounded by ornate bay windows. They opened before Tom could knock.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” A man, young and big-shouldered, wearing a trendy black suit. He had a broad, dark face, and a flat nose. American Indian, Tom guessed. “I’m Mr. Stang’s assistant, Jerome. He’s waiting for you in the drawing room. This way, please.”

Jerome trotted through the gigantic foyer, past a wall-sized aquarium, and up the grand spiral staircase that seemed to be a standard in every mansion. They followed, feet sinking inch-deep into expensive carpet, large, dramatic paintings of battle scenes facing them on the stairway wall. Tom could take or leave art, but he found these repellant. They depicted ancient war atrocities—French revolution beheadings, Indian massacres, feudal disemboweling. One particularly offensive wood cutting reveled in a landscape of impaled bodies, some long dead and some still struggling on the stake.

“All originals.” Jerome smiled mildly at Tom’s distaste. “That particular piece dates back to the fifteenth century.”

“It’s adorable.”

They strolled down a long hallway, coming to a halt at an intricately carved door. Jerome held it open for them.

Phillip Stang was in a king-sized bed, sitting up against a massive wooden headboard shaped like a setting sun. To his left were several large pieces of medical equipment, tubes extending to each of his arms. The machines chugged away with a faint, locomotive sound.

“Is there anything else, sir?”

“Thank you, Jerome.”

The door closed behind them.

“Welcome to the drawing room, gentlemen. I hope none of you are put off by the pun. I’d prefer to see you under normal circumstances, but my poor, overworked kidney needs a weekly dialysis boost. Come closer.”

Tom moved to the side of the bed, regarding the old man. He was like a white raisin—small, bald, wrinkled. Late seventies, Tom guessed. A gnarled hand picked up a remote control and turned off the big screen television playing across the room.

“Amazing.” Stang had small, blue eyes, and they darted over Tom’s whole body, taking everything in. “This is the first time I’ve seen you as an adult. You announced yourself as Jefferson, so you must know. What do you think? Pretty impressive work, I may say.”

“We just visited Harold. He told us a lot.”

“Harold? How is the old workhorse?”

Tom watched his face closely. “He’s dead.”

Stang smiled. “He lived a long life. These things happen.”

“You’re the one that killed him.” Bert pushed Tom aside and got in Stang’s face. So much for playing it subtle.

“Ah, Albert. I’ve followed your life with semi-interest. Shame about the stock market. What is it you’re doing now, selling old worms and such? A disappointment. But let’s try to be civil, shall we?”

“When did murder become civil?”

“You must be Detective Lewis. Oh, pardon me, you’re not currently a detective, are you? I believe you’ve been suspended. Tell me, is your mother still working at that grocery store on Clark? She walks home, right? Even after the late shift? Dangerous, at night.”

Tom had to hold Roy back. Stang’s thin mouth twisted into a small smile.

“Let’s come to an understanding here, gentlemen. You’ve apparently put two and two together, but I have no idea what you thought you’d accomplish visiting me. You two aren’t even cops anymore.”

Tom made sure Roy was calm before he approached Stang again. “We wanted to know why.”

“Why, what? Why I did what I did, and am doing what I’m doing? Let’s say that at one point in time you were necessary to me, and now you’ve become a liability.”

Roy made a fist. “Right now I’m liable to knock you upside your bald head.”

“I’d sue you for threatening me, but for some reason I don’t think you will be around for the trial.”

Bert’s face became angry. “Are you threatening us?”

Stang smiled again, his dull eyes twinkling. “Mr. Einstein gets a gold star. I was worried I hadn’t been obvious enough. Now is there anything else, gentlemen? I’m growing tired of you.”

Tom tried to collect himself. He hadn’t expected it to go like this. Stang had openly admitted he was going to kill them, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.

“Whatever your little plan is, we’re going to stop it.”

It sounded lame as it came out of Tom’s mouth.

“No, you won’t.”

“Sure we will.” Bert said. “You’re practically a corpse now. I got half a tube of toothpaste that’s gonna last longer than you.”

“Au contraire. I’ll be getting my eleventh kidney transplant tomorrow.”

Tom knew people who have been waiting their whole lives for one, and this ugly bastard has had almost a dozen?

“I suppose being rich gets you to the top of all those donor lists.”

“Something like that.” Another twisted smile.

“Why’d you stop at Senator, Stang? An ego your size shouldn’t have settled for less than President.”

“Unfortunately, I was born in Germany. The Constitution—which you had a hand in writing, Tom—states that a President must be born in America. I tried three times, during my years as Senator, to add an amendment changing that. Each time I was unsuccessful.”

“What a shame. I suppose there’s always hope for Phil Jr. I wonder if he’s involved in all of this? Maybe we should pay him a visit.”

Stang’s mood darkened. “Please do. I’ll instruct the Secret Service to shoot you on sight. It will save me the trouble.”

“Roy, do you get the feeling that daddy’s little angel is involved in this too?”

“I think so. Maybe if we go to the media, make a big enough stink, something will shake loose.”

Stang laughed, a short clipped sound like a dog bark.

“I’d like to see that. Go to the networks, tell them you’re Jefferson and Einstein, and see what they do. There’s no proof. No records.”

“There’s DNA testing.”

“That takes weeks.” Another wicked grin. “You don’t have weeks. The remainder of your lives can be measured in hours. Jerome, would you mind escorting them out?”

Tom turned and saw Jerome in the doorway. He was holding a pistol casually at his side.

“Big deal.” Roy opened up his jacket. “I got one too.”

Tom patted Roy on the shoulder. This wasn’t the time or the place for a shoot out. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Jerome permitted them out the door, and followed them through the hall. Tom was angry. But even worse than that, he felt powerless.

“What the hell happened in there?” Roy shook his head.

Bert agreed. “I feel like a fly he just shooed away.”

They went down the stairs, Jerome trailing closely behind.

“It’s just round one, guys. We’ll regroup, do it differently next time. At least we know what we’re dealing with now.”

“A rich, powerful, psychotic egomaniac?” Bert pulled a face. “I was happier not knowing.”

Roy snorted. “Maybe we’ll be lucky, he’ll die during his operation.”

“He’s only part of the problem. We also have to deal with Vlad, Attila, and Jack. Plus this guy.”

Tom pointed to a large portrait hanging at the bottom of the staircase. It was of an elderly Phillip Stang, sitting on a chair. Standing behind him, resting a hand on Phil’s shoulder, was a young man who bore a striking resemblance.

“Phil junior. Mr. Speaker of the House. You think he’s in this too?”

“Does the apple fall far from the tree?”

Jerome stood patiently in the foyer while they let themselves out.

“So what next? Do we go after Mr. Speaker?”

Tom shook his head. “How? Even if we could get to him, what do we do? Tape some wires to our chests and trick him into revealing his plot for world domination?”

“I say we go to the media.”

“They’ll laugh at us unless we have evidence. We need DNA tests. But even then, we’d need original samples.”

“Well, we’re in Springfield. Want to buy some shovels, dig up Lincoln?”

Tom actually considered it for a moment—proof that he needed some sleep.

“How about the FBI?” Bert asked. “Or the CIA?”

“We don’t know how far Stang has influence. Between him and his son, I bet he could send the entire Army after us.”

“Then can’t we just kill them both? Pop some caps?”

“We’re not assassins, Bert.”

Bert climbed in back and passed Roy the donut. Tom sat in the driver’s seat and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, lost in thought.

“How about the Unholy Trio? Jack, Vlad, and Attila?”

“What about them?”

“Well, they’re involved in this, and they’re going to come after us, so we could set some kind of trap.”

“I hate sitting around, waiting for things to happen. Plus, we caught one already, and they just let him go.”

“And what about the other clones?” Bert asked. “They’re on the list, too.”

“Okay. Let me think.”

Tom rubbed his temples. The situation seemed pretty hopeless. With the bad guy so high up in government, they couldn’t expect any help through the official channels. They could try to go over his head, but Tom didn’t have high hopes the President would take their calls.

“Stang said we’re a liability.”

“Yeah. What did he mean by that?”

“Obviously, us being alive is bad for him somehow. He wants us dead for a reason. And it can’t be because we know too much, because he wants the other clones dead as well, and they don’t know anything.”

“I get it. There must be more at stake here than just killing us off. Maybe you were right about the world domination thing.”

“Look, we’re not cops now, right? So let’s say we grabbed Attila or Jack. We wouldn’t have to take him in. Maybe he’d tell us what’s going on.”

“He wouldn’t want to talk.”

Roy’s face got very serious. “I can be persuasive.”

Tom looked at Roy, then at Bert. “Do we all agree, then? We try to grab one of the bad guys?”

“What about saving the other clones?”

“We can do both.”

“I’m in.”

“Me too.”

“Okay, then.” Tom started the car and cranked up the heat. “We know Joan of Arc is in Hollywood, and Abe Lincoln is in Nebraska.”

“Always wanted to see Hollywood,” Bert mused.

“Me too.”

“Sounds good.” Tom cruised down the driveway and through the gate, leaving the Stang estate. “California here we come.”

“Joan?” Marsha peeked in the door. “There are some men here to see you.”

Joan checked her desk calendar and didn’t see any scheduled meetings for that day.

“Are they anybody?” Anybody big in the business who wouldn’t need an appointment.

“They said they’re police officers.”

“Thanks, Marsha. Send them in.”

“Is everything… okay?”

“It’s fine. I was assaulted last night. I’ll tell you about it later.”

Marsha’s head disappeared, and a moment later three men came into her office. The first was black, big, cop written all over him. The second guy was smaller, a mustache, familiar in some way she couldn’t place. Bringing up the rear was a tall, wiry man, with sandy hair. He’s the one who spoke.

“Miss DeVilliers? I’m Detective Tom Mankowski. This is my partner, Roy Lewis, and this is Bert Blumberg.”

“Thanks for coming down, Officers. You’re here with good news, I hope. You caught the creep?”

“The creep?”

“The guy who attacked me.”

For a moment they didn’t seem to understand her. Then the tall one, Tom, approached her desk.

“Was it one of these guys?”

He opened up a binder and handed her three color computer print outs. The first picture was of a muscular man covered with tattoos. She flipped to the second page. Goatee. Green eyes. There was no doubt at all.

“This is him! Have you picked him up yet?”

“This man attacked you?”

“Twice. Tried to put me on a big stake. You’ve read the reports. Right?”

None of them answered. Joan narrowed her eyes.

“Are you guys LAPD?”

“Miss DeVilliers—”

“I’d like to see some identification, please.”

“Joan, listen, you’re in danger.”

“Do you have any ID or not?”

“Please, give us just a second. This is important.”

Joan felt her face flush. Paparazzi. It was only a matter of time before they caught wind of it. She hit the intercom button in her desk. “Marsha…”

“We’re not from LA. Roy and I are Chicago Homicide Detectives. We’re following up on a murder investigation where the victim had a number 7 tattooed on his heel. Just like your number 3.”

Marsha’s voice came through the speaker. “Yes, Ms. DeVilliers?”

The tattoo again. Joan stared at Tom. His suit was off the rack, wrinkled, and his face left no doubt he was exhausted. His partners shared the look. Joan tried to tune into any perceived threat, any bad vibe, any hint of them being media jackals. They were calm as calm could be.

“Hold my calls.” Joan leaned back and crossed her legs. “You have my attention.”

“The man who attacked you is named Victor Pignosky. He goes by the name of Vlad. He also has a tattoo on his heel, the number 10. I’ve got a number 5. Bert here has a number 6. There are ten of us, total. All the same age. All adopted by different parents. Vlad and two of the others are trying to kill the rest of us—me, you, Bert. They’ve already succeeded twice.”

“Do you have any proof of this?”

Tom and Bert looked at each other, and then took off their shoes. Their tattoos matched the style of Joan’s.

“Okay, so why does this Vlad guy want to kill me—us?”

“We’re not sure.”

“And what’s the deal with the numbers? Are you guys my brothers?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, what exactly is going on?”

“We should tell her.” The familiar guy, Bert, nudged Tom.

He shook his head. “How can we prove it? With her, we can’t do the writing thing. There’s no pictures, no photos. Maybe we could look for old French paintings.”

“You’re going to have to tell her sooner or later.” The black man, Roy, shrugged. “She either buys it or she don’t.”

“Try me. I’m a Hollywood producer. I’ve heard it all.”

“Fine.” Tom took a deep breath. “This will sound crazy. It sounded crazy to me, when I heard it. But all ten of us, we weren’t born, normally. We were—created. In a lab, in Mexico.”

“Created, how? Are we talking mad scientists and test tubes here? Some holy miracle thing?”

“We were cloned from famous historical figures.”

Joan frowned. “You just lost me.”

The little guy sighed. “He’s telling the truth. I’m a clone of Albert Einstein. He’s Thomas Jefferson. The guy who attacked you is Vlad the Impaler.”

“And I’m…?”

“Joan of Arc.”

She hit the button. “Marsha, call Security.”

Tom said, “Look. This thing is big. The police won’t be able to protect you. Victor—Vlad—isn’t going to stop. We’re all on a hit list.”

“Nice try.”

“This is the truth.”

Joan let out a slow breath, surprised she’d suspended her disbelief for so long.

“Well, it sounds like a movie pitch. The cloning angle isn’t bad, but it needs work. Maybe approach it from a comedy perspective. You could call it Send In the Clones.”

“Security is on the way up, Ms. DeVilliers.”

“We’re staying over at the Chinatown Holiday Inn. Here’s my cell phone number.” Tom tossed a card onto her desk. “Call if you need us.”

“Sure thing, President Jefferson. Now, I have some actual work to do. If you’ll pardon me.” Joan smiled. “Get it? Pardon me?”

Tom looked at her, hard. “Please, be careful.”

Joan met his stare, and for a second almost believed him. She came very close to calling them back in, but the moment passed and rationality took over. She was no more Joan of Arc than those guys were Einstein and Jefferson. The little guy did look like Einstein, but it was all too far removed from reality. She wasn’t buying.

But being stalked by some psycho—that was real. And they did have a picture of him, which implied some kind of connection. Joan didn’t perceive them as a threat—there was something very benign about the trio—but the smartest move would be to call the police department and tell them what happened. Let the professionals take care of it. Joan would show up for the trial.

She located the number of the cop who took her report the night before. But before doing that, she called Marty into her office and had him set up some interviews for personal bodyguards.

Until this Vlad lunatic was behind bars, Joan wasn’t going to take any chances. Even if she had to hire an entourage.

“Well, what now? She didn’t believe us.”

Roy put on his sunglasses. “We knew she wouldn’t. Be honest, I don’t either. I figure this is all just some big white-person conspiracy.”

They walked out of the building and stopped on the sidewalk. The California sun felt good. Tom inhaled deeply, trying to smell the ocean. He believed he caught a whiff of salt water behind the car fumes and the rotting garbage from the alley.

“At least we know Vlad is here. Roy, do we have any friends in the LAPD?”

“Not that I know of. We can always make some.”

“It’s a shot. I’d like to see those reports on Joan’s attack. Maybe we can catch Vlad before he makes his next move.”

“So, we’re just supposed to sit here and wait?”

“That’s the plan, Bert.” Tom held up his hand to hail a cab.

“How about Lincoln? While we’re here, Attila and Jack could be trying to kill him.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I’ll go after Abe.”

Tom turned away from traffic and frowned at Bert. Maybe all the jet lag had caught up with the little guy.

“Bad idea. These are dangerous guys.”

“If I want to go, you can’t stop me.”

“I could break your legs,” Roy suggested. “Then you don’t go nowhere.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Don’t matter. I can break your legs whether you’re afraid or not.”

Bert gave Roy his back and touched Tom’s shoulder. “I’d be dead right now if you didn’t show up when you did. Abe will be easier to convince. There’s a handwriting sample in the leather binder, and the guy already knows he looks like Lincoln. We have to warn him, or he’ll die.”

“And if we leave LA, we miss our shot at Vlad and Joan will die.”

“Why can’t we save them both?”

“Let’s vote.”

“No voting. You guys will team up against me again. The choice is simple—you let me go to Nebraska, or I’ll take off as soon as you both turn your backs.”

A cab stopped by the curb.

“We’ll discuss it back at the hotel.”

“We’ll discuss it now. There’s a beat cop right across the street. All I have to do is start screaming that you two have guns.”

Tom and Roy looked at each other. The cabbie leaned out the window. “You guys getting in or what?”

“I could keep an eye on him, make sure he’s okay.”

Tom couldn’t believe that came out of Roy’s mouth.

“You’re kidding.”

Bert was just as amazed. “You want to come with me?”

“No, damn you both. I don’t want to go with you. But if we don’t have a choice, I’ll go. We zip over there, warn the guy, make sure he’s safe, zip back here. Could be back by tonight. I’m anxious to get back on a plane anyway. Been so long.”

Tom considered it. Someone had to keep an eye on Joan, but it wasn’t very likely Vlad would attack her again so soon. And, honestly, it would be nice to be alone for a little while. Tom had some personal issues to sort out, a difficult task when surrounded by constant bickering.

“Fine. Let’s hit the hotel, we’ll come up with a game plan.”

The cabbie was fat, sweaty, and strongly smelled like a gym sock. The three of them climbed into the back seat. Roy was hesitant to sit down—Tom knew his donut was back at the hotel.

“You should have taken it with.”

“And do what with it? Carry it around on my neck?”

“This is LA. I don’t think anyone would notice. Slug bug red, no hit backs.” Bert popped him in the shoulder. “And there’s another one! Slug bug green, no hit backs.” Bert hit him again, same spot.

The cabbie scowled at Roy. “Buddy, you need to sit down.”

“I’m trying to sit down. This jackass keeps whacking me.”

Tom questioned his decision to sit between them. The front seat seemed like the lesser evil.

“Chinatown Holiday Inn.”

“Sweet Mary mother of Jesus wife of Joseph the carpenter!” Roy finally managed to sit down.

“So, you guys play the slug bug game?” The taxi driver grinned at them in his rearview. “I see that all the time. Lot of Beetles in Hollywood. Trendy.”

“There’s one.” Roy reached over and pounded Bert in the leg. “Slug bug black, no hit backs.”

“Where?”

“Right there.”

“That’s a BMW.” Bert smacked Roy twice. “Wrong car, double hit backs.”

“Can you guys quit this, please?” Tom looked ahead in the distance. “Oh God, no.”

“Here it is.” The cabbie pointed to his right. “Largest Volkswagen dealership in Los Angeles.”

It was ugly. Real ugly.

When they got to the hotel, Bert and Roy were still laughing.

“I hurt my hand, smacking you so much.”

“I got so many bruises, I’m going to be darker than you. How’s your arm?”

“I need a Vicodin. You hit me sixty-five times in the exact same spot. But the one who really nailed me was Tommy. Man, you hit hard.”

“No kidding.” Bert patted Tom on the back. “You were jabbing so fast your hands were a blur. I didn’t think you liked this game.”

“Yeah, Tom. Next time, though, you have to call out the color of the car. You forgot to say anything.”

“Did I?”

They entered the hotel lobby and got in the elevator. Their room was on the tenth floor. Tom opened the door with the keycard and made a beeline for the laptop. After logging onto Wifi, he went to the site he’d discovered last night after they got in. Surveillance Technologies.

“You’re not taking your lures again, are you?”

“Everywhere I go.”

“Can’t you put them in the hotel safe?”

“I don’t trust safes.”

“But you trust the airlines? What if they lost your luggage?”

“Then they pay me the market value. I insure them every time I board.”

Tom took the tracer he’d liberated from Bert’s deodorant from his pocket and attached the lead terminal to the battery. Just below the battery, on the circuit board, there was a serial number followed the tiny word BigTrack. Rather than sleep last night, Tom had used these to trace the tracer back to its manufacturer.

Surveillance Technologies was an upscale spy store that sold bugging, tracking, and detecting equipment online. Their home page proudly advertised that the US government was one of their top customers. A disclaimer in somewhat smaller font stated that many of these products were illegal for civilian use.

The BigTrack series were tracers. By accessing the private area of the Surveillance Technology website, you could access the global positioning satellite to plot the tracer on an overlay as large as the western hemisphere, all the way down to a street map.

BigTracks were off limits for the public sector, and the tracking page required an ID and a password to access. Tom had spent almost two hours trying to get in. He used combinations of ATTILA, JACK, RIPPER, HUN, CLONE, GENES, STANG, BARNETT, and so on, hoping to luck into the right combination. He hit the jackpot with ID MARY and password KELLY. The Ripper’s final victim.

He tried it now, and then punched in the serial number on the tracer. The screen loaded a map of the United States, with a small blip on the West Coast. He zoomed in to California, then to LA, then to Chinatown, and finally down to the street the hotel was on. Tom wondered if zooming in further would show a floor plan of their suite, but it was already maxed out.

“We call each other every four hours, starting when you arrive. I can trace you guys with this.” Tom tossed the BigTrack to Bert. “Keep it on you.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Bert placed the transmitter into his thick wallet. Roy picked up Tom’s carryon—Roy’s had been lost in the fire in New Mexico. After the excruciating car trip back from Springfield, they’d stopped at their apartments to shower and change. Curiosity had prompted Tom to sweep his place with the Foxhound, and he found three bugs identical to Jessup’s. Trying to sound natural, they openly telegraphed their trip to California, hoping one of the bad guys was listening. To make the trail even easier to follow, they purchased their plane tickets with credit cards.

Tom logged onto a travel site and searched for the next direct flight to Lincoln, Nebraska out of LAX.

“Got one. Southwest, leaves in two hours.” He faced Roy. “Shall I also reserve a rental car for you, sir?”

“If you’d be so kind.”

“I’ll need a valid driver’s license and a major credit card, please.”

Roy tossed him his wallet. Tom followed the links and wound up at Hertz. He found an appropriate automobile and several keystrokes later, they had wheels.

“How did we survive before we had the Internet?” Tom wondered aloud.

“They were called telephones.” Roy took his wallet back and placed his gun in the fire box. “Now don’t be getting into any kind of trouble without me.”

“You guys be careful. The bad guys will be watching. Good luck.”

Bert offered Tom his hand, and they shook. “We’ll be fine. We’re gonna grab Lincoln, then maybe go see a play.”

It was funny, but Tom didn’t laugh. He felt uneasy all of a sudden.

“I don’t know if splitting up is the smart thing.”

“Why not?” Bert winked. “It always worked on Scooby-Doo.”

“You just worry about your end, partner. Not that it’ll be too hard guarding that body. She’s a looker, that Joan.”

“You think so?”

“Open your eyes, Tommy. If you’re so preoccupied you can’t see a beautiful woman right in front of you, it’s time to reevaluate your life.”

No kidding, Tom thought.

“Call when you get there, Roy.”

They left the suite, leaving Tom alone.

Tom shut off the computer and closed his eyes, picturing Joan. Short blond hair. Blue eyes, small nose, full lips. Tom couldn’t get a sense of her height, as she’d been sitting down, but she looked in shape and had filled out that blouse nicely.

Roy was right. She was attractive. Tom frowned. Now, in addition to keeping her alive, he also had to make sure he looked his best.

He checked his reflection in the bathroom mirror and winced. Stubble, baggy eyes, rumpled suit. A butter stain on his shirt from the breakfast bag on the flight in. The facial bruise from where Attila hit him was fading to an ugly yellow. Tom tried a smile on, and found some food stuck in his front teeth. How long had that been there?

“You’re not living up to your potential,” he told the mirror.

The mirror agreed. Tom decided to postpone his breakdown until later, and got back to work. He had formulated a quasi-plan to deal with Joan; follow her around and keep his eyes open. Since she would probably still be jumpy from the attack, the smart thing would be to inform her of his intention.

Tom fished out the business card he’d taken while visiting her office and dialed it.

“JDP, how may I help you?”

Tom tried to sound important. “Gimme Joan.”

“May I ask who’s calling.”

“Mike Douglas.”

“Just a moment, Mr. Douglas.”

So far, so good.

“Mike? I haven’t seen you since Cannes. How are you?”

“Actually, this is Tom Mankowski again. I figured you wouldn’t take my call.”

“You figured right.”

“Please, just two seconds. I know you don’t believe me. But you’re still in danger.”

“Thank you for your concern, Detective. But I’ve taken care of that.”

“Call up the 29th Precinct in Chicago, talk to Lieutenant Daniels, or anyone else there. Ask them about me. I’m a good cop.”

“I called Chicago. I was told you’re on vacation. But yes, they did vouch for your character. I’m still not going for the Joan of Arc thing, though.”

“That’s fine. I don’t blame you. I’m struggling with it myself. I just don’t want you to freak out, because I’m going to be following you for a couple of days. Don’t worry, I’ll be discreet, stay out of your way. But Vlad is going to try again. Soon.”

“That’s hardly necessary. I just hired a personal bodyguard. He’s one of the best in the business. Did security for the artist formerly known as Prince, who is known as Prince again.”

“That’s great. The more, the merrier. If you can just tell him I’ll be hanging around, and ask him nicely not to shoot me. One more thing—your place is probably bugged. Maybe your office too. I don’t know. Your security guy probably has a detector, have him check it out.” Tom waited for a response. “Hello, are you there?”

“Bugged?”

He noted that she’d lost a bit of composure.

“That’s what they did to my place, and to one of the guys they killed. It’s been going on for a few months.”

“A few months.”

“Probably longer. We’ve been under surveillance for our entire lives. The guy who started this project is rich and powerful and has government backing. He’s also a real nut job. Hey, for what it’s worth, I didn’t mean to come in and disrupt your life. Hopefully, it will all be over soon.”

Joan hung up. Tom wondered if he could have told her about the bugs in a subtler way. It was a freaky thing to deal with. On a completely inappropriate note, Tom found that he enjoyed talking with Joan. Even if she thought he was crazy. Maybe if the circumstances were different…

If the circumstances were different, she wouldn’t give him a second glance. She probably had a string of movie star boyfriends with perfect looks and tons of money.

Tom reverted back to acting like a professional. Hiring a bodyguard was an honest reaction on Joan’s part, but he didn’t believe it would do anything to deter the Unholy Trio. If someone really wants you dead, there are too many ways to get the job done. There wasn’t much a rent-a-cop could do if Vlad flew a helicopter over Joan’s house and dropped napalm on it, or sniped her from three hundred yards away, or put plastic explosives in her TV remote. The only way to be truly safe was to get the bad guys before they got you.

So that’s how Tom decided to play it. First things first; he had to follow Joan around, get an idea of her schedule. He mentally began to check off all the things he’d need for a stake out—food, water, a plastic jug, binoculars, sunscreen, a flashlight…

Tom went to the desk for a pad of paper and caught sight of himself in the dresser mirror. Maybe the very first thing he should do is shave. And do something about his wrinkled suit. He wrote down his list of items and added a new shirt. And some cologne.

Couldn’t hurt.

This was worse than being attacked.

Joan watched as Rod removed another listening device, the third, from the electrical outlet in her bedroom.

“I think that’s the last one.” The bodyguard got up from one knee and eyed the bug in his palm.

“How long do you think they’ve been here?”

“Hard to tell. Could have been a while. To be honest, I’ve never seen a device this high-tech before. I’ve done a lot of corporate work, rival companies stealing secrets and such, but this is a different league.”

Joan was sick. The thought that someone had been listening to her every word, her every private moment, was a violation unlike any she’d ever known.

“I know, it’s a shock. These are some real bad people.”

“I don’t even want to live in this house anymore.”

“A perfectly natural reaction. It will pass. Sometimes the truth is hard to take, but knowledge is power. We’re on to them.”

Joan didn’t feel empowered. She felt helpless.

“Maybe I should call Tom. He’s the one who told me to look.”

“Bad idea. He showed up at the same time all the trouble started. He also knows the man who attacked you. It’s likely he’s involved.”

“Then why would he tell me about the bugs?”

“To gain your trust. Believe me, I’ve seen it all in this line of work. Stay away from that one, he’s bad news.”

Joan glanced out the window, into her back yard. Earlier, she spotted Tom poking around through the woods behind her house. There was no sign of him now.

“So I can’t trust anyone anymore? How am I supposed to run a business?”

“Someone is trying to kill you, Ms. DeVilliers. You can still go about your day to day life, with some slight modifications. As for trust, the only person you need to trust is me. That’s the service you’re paying for. I’m a professional.”

No kidding. Joan had been with Rod for almost two hours now, and hadn’t seen him smile once. She had no doubts he was formidable—the man was tall, muscular, proficient in six different martial arts, a weapons expert, a former Green Beret, extremely expensive, and serious as cancer. But his presence felt more like an invasion than a relief.

“Your intruder bypassed the alarm panel by manually disarming the system. He probably hid somewhere in the backyard and got the code by watching you through the window. That was a bad place to put the keypad. The new system will be much harder to beat.”

Joan heard a beep. Her pager, in her purse on the kitchen counter. It was Marty—his home number, followed by 911. She picked up her phone and found it still wasn’t working.

“Can I borrow your phone? Mine’s in the car.”

“Sorry, I have to keep it free for emergencies.”

A glance at his face showed Joan he wasn’t kidding. Irritated, she went into the garage and got her cell phone.

“Marty, it’s Joan.”

“Joan? Is that you?”

Marty was breathy, seemed out of it.

“You sound terrible.”

“You remember, I had a checkup last week?”

“You did? What’s wrong?”

“I got the results. Joan, it’s bad.” Marty started to cry.

“What is it, Marty? Cancer? HIV?”

“Can you come over?”

“I’ll be right there.”

Joan ended the call and wanted to scream at the universe. Marty was more than her longtime assistant—he was her best friend. She couldn’t bear to have anything happen to him.

“Marty just called.” Joan grabbed her purse. “I’m going over to his place.”

“I’ll come with.”

“I’d rather go alone.”

“Joan, I can’t protect you if you fight me. If this is going to work, you have to be able to follow orders. When I say duck, you duck without question. Whenever you go out in public, either I or one of my people have to be with you. That’s just the way it is.”

“Fine.” Joan turned on her heels and went back into the garage. If Rod insisted on driving, she would fire him on the spot. But he slipped into the passenger seat without a word.

Joan drove too fast. Part of it was urgency, but it was also an effort to make Rod uncomfortable. It didn’t work. Even when she blew a red light, he didn’t so much as blink.

She wasn’t sure exactly when it happened, but sometime in the past couple of minutes the bodyguard had become the enemy. Joan resented his lectures, his lack of emotion, and most of all his very presence. Now, with Marty in trouble, she felt as if he were mocking her with his stoicism. The big, strong man was here to save the poor, emotional little girl.

Joan parked in Marty’s lot, slipping the Jaguar in between a Mercedes and a Beemer. Nice neighborhood, great apartment, famous friends, lots of money—both Joan and Marty were just as wrapped up in Hollywood culture as everyone else living here. But none of it ultimately mattered, did it? So many things were more important. She killed the engine.

“I’d like to be alone with my friend.”

“I’ll wait outside after I check the place out.”

Joan kept her composure. “Can’t you just stay here?”

“It’s natural to resent me. I’m an intrusion in your life, and the very fact that I’m here reminds you that you’re in trouble. If it’s any consolation, you’ve taken it much better than most people. After what happened to you, I’m surprised you even had the courage to leave the house.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“Because you’re a human being who was almost killed, twice. I’ve had years of training, and it’s never easy having your life threatened. Remember, you didn’t hire me because you’re weak. You hired me because you’re a fighter.”

Joan’s resentment toward the man eased a tad.

“Fine. If you could just give us some privacy, after you do your thing.”

“Of course.”

Marty’s apartment building was new, but the architect had gone for that retro 50s look—lots of red brick and right angles. They walked to the security door and Joan pressed the button next to Marty’s name on the intercom. He buzzed them in without a word.

The lobby was large, carpeted, home to several floor plants and framed prints of flowers. To the right was the rental office, closed at this hour. To the left were the door to the stairs and the hallway to the first floor apartments. Directly before them was the elevator.

Rod’s eyes were scanning in so many directions that Joan was surprised he could walk a straight line. They took the elevator to the fifth floor, and Rod stepped out into the hall and checked both ways before letting her out.

“I’ll go in first.”

Joan wondered if he was also going to taste her food before she did, to check for poison. They walked to Marty’s door and she knocked. No answer. Another knock, more urgent.

“Marty? Are you okay?”

Rod checked the knob. It turned. He pushed Joan aside and reached into his jacket. A gun came out, black and ugly.

“You’re going to give him a heart attack.”

“Stay here.”

“This is insane. He’s probably in the bathroom.”

Rod opened the door and went in quick, his pistol held alongside his leg. Joan watched from the doorway, her annoyance level rising, as he commandoed his way into the kitchen.

“I’m sure that…”

“It’s a trap. He’s dead.” Rod looked from the floor to Joan. “Run.”

The movement was so fast Joan couldn’t be sure what she saw. At first, Rod was standing there checking behind the counter. Then there was a blur and he was toppling over, his head coming off his shoulders and rolling in the opposite direction.

Joan backpedaled, her mind unable to grasp what she just saw. A man stood over Rod’s body and then glanced up at her. Short, muscular, and holding a long, thin sword. He grinned, exposing a single gold tooth.

Movement to her right. Another man, coming down the hallway. Dressed all in black, down to those leather gloves.

“Hello again, Joan.” Vlad’s voice was nasally. A large white bandage covered the bridge of his nose, and both of his eyes were bruised black. He had a gun leveled at her midsection. “No more fancy footwork this time.”

Joan couldn’t have imagined a worse scenario, even if she’d been paid to dream one up.

Both Vlad and the other man, the one from the picture that Tom had shown her, advanced. If they hadn’t killed her yet, it could only mean they planned on taking her alive.

There was no way Joan would allow that.

She turned and ran down the hallway, to the elevator, and smacked the call button.

“I should shoot you,” Vlad called after her, “but Attila and I have something else planned. A little menage-a-trois.”

Attila joined Vlad in the hall, slipping his sword into a sheath beneath his trench coat. They were a few yards away, and the elevator was still on the first floor.

It wasn’t going to arrive in time.

Joan considered screaming for help, but any poor sap who opened their door would undoubtedly die for their bravery. Besides, it was her fight.

Joan dropped her purse. Then she unbuttoned her blazer and let it fall to the floor, ignoring the hooting and catcalls that followed. She was grateful for her decision to wear flats.

In an open space, she might have been able to put up a decent fight, even against two. But the hallway was narrow and left little room for maneuvering. Her only chance, and it was slight, was to make it to the staircase. That was behind them, on the other end of the hall.

She drew herself inward, sucking in a deep, calming breath, and focused on her strike points. Vlad was going to get another pop in the nose, and the man called Attila was favoring his right leg, making the left her target.

Joan widened her stance and stood still while they approached. Her posture didn’t seem to be what either of them was expecting, and Vlad lost his grin. They stopped within a few feet of her.

“If you make even the smallest move…”

Joan brought up her right foot, aiming for the bandage. Vlad flinched, but his howl told her she’d found her mark. The other, Attila, had whirled to the right and grabbed her hair. He yanked her so hard she almost lost her footing.

Joan fought to regain her balance and lashed out with the back of her left hand, going for his thigh. It was like striking a board, but his reaction was instantaneous. He grunted and released her head, both hands reaching for his leg.

Joan dodged past Vlad and sprinted down the hall with the duo two steps behind her. She wouldn’t make it to the stairs. But Marty’s door was still open. She flew into his apartment and got her weight behind the door. Someone’s hand, Attila’s, reached in as she was slamming it. Joan pinned his wrist, but she didn’t have the strength or the leverage. They pushed their way in.

She turned and ran for the kitchen. Rod’s body had fallen behind the breakfast bar, the gun still gripped in his hand. Joan dove for it and pried his fingers off.

A flash to her left. Attila, drawing his samurai sword. Joan brought the gun around.

The first shot went high, burying itself into the ceiling. The gun almost bucked out of her hands. Joan lowered her aim, tightened her grip.

Attila and Vlad were out the door.

She held her breath, trying to keep the gun steady. Had they gone, or were they still out in the hallway?

Wetness, seeping into her skirt. Rod’s blood. She didn’t dare to look. With her eyes and gun trained on the doorway, Joan got up from the floor and slowly walked into the kitchen, heading for the phone to call for help. Her foot touched something, and she briefly glanced down. Marty, his tortured eyes wide open and still teary, a large wooden stick shoved into his…

Joan looked away, a sob escaping her. The phone was no longer an option. She was going to end this, now. Both hands on the gun, walking carefully to avoid slipping in the blood, she moved towards the door.

Gunshots in the hallway. Joan ducked automatically, sliding on her knees behind the sofa. She heard yelling, and another shot. Joan peeked her head over the armrest, aiming at the doorway, seeing a man look into the apartment.

“Ms. DeVilliers?”

She fired, the bullet smacking into the doorjamb, throwing up a spray of splinters. The man shielded his face with his arm.

“It’s me! Tom!”

The cop. Joan stood up from behind the sofa.

“Are you okay?” She walked over to him on shaky legs.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yes.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Not my blood.” Joan’s lip quivered. She fought to keep it together.

“Stay here. Call the police. I’m going after them.”

Tom turned but Joan grabbed his arm. “I’m coming.”

He stared at her, the same intense look he’d given in her office.

“Okay. Come on—they took the stairs.”

Tom went off in a trot, his gun held at a downward angle away from his body. Joan held her gun likewise and followed.

“Have you fired a gun before?” He was talking over his shoulder, keeping the pace.

“No.”

“Don’t jerk the trigger. Squeeze it, like you’re curling a barbell with your finger. Line up the back sight with the front sight and aim for the chest. Keep both eyes open, and lean into it slightly. It’ll kick back.”

“I noticed.”

“Was it just the two?”

“That’s all I saw.”

Tom reached the door for the stairs and put his back against the wall alongside it.

“You open, I go in. On three. One… two… three.”

Joan yanked open the door and Tom went in, low. He aimed left, right, and up in quick succession. Then he eased his arm over the railing and pointed his gun down the stairwell.

“They’re about two floors below us,” Tom whispered. “Stay quiet, move along the wall.”

Tom kicked off his shoes and began to descend, moving fast. Joan did the same. The stairs were cool under her feet. Echoing up from the lower floors were footsteps. Attila and Vlad. They didn’t seem to be hurrying.

“They’re not expecting us to follow.” Tom’s voice was low, breathy. “Do they both have guns?”

“Just Vlad, I think.”

The footsteps stopped, and Joan could hear a door open one flight down. Tom and Joan sprinted down the remaining stairs, stopping on the ground floor.

“Same as before, but quiet. One… two… three.” Joan eased the door open and Tom went through fast.

Attila and Vlad had their backs to them, heading for the front door. But they weren’t the only ones in the lobby. There were also a young woman with a baby stroller, and two kids waiting for the elevator. Tom spun back around, jamming his gun in his jacket.

“Shoot them,” Joan said. “They’re getting away.”

“Too many civilians.”

Joan tried to push past, bringing up her gun. Tom held her back.

“You start shooting, innocent people will die.”

Joan clenched her jaw, but the tears came anyway. “They killed Marty.”

“We’ll have another chance.”

“Can’t we follow them outside?”

“You’re covered in blood and we don’t have shoes. How far do you think we’d get?”

She stared up at Tom, hate filling her entire being. “So we just let them go?”

“Sorry. Sometimes you have to.”

Her body shook, and then the sobbing started. Joan felt deflated, as if someone had poked her with a pin and all of her strength had seeped out. She cried, and cried, and couldn’t get herself to stop. She barely noticed when Tom took the gun out of her hand.

But she did notice when he put a hand on her shoulder, and then both arms around her. They swayed slowly back and forth, Tom patting her back, and she let all of the pain from the last two days come out in muffled sobs against his chest.

It didn’t take long for Joan to regain control. She pushed out of Tom’s arms, angry, embarrassed, refusing to look at him.

“The police are probably on their way. I have to go.”

“I thought you were a cop.”

“This gun is unlicensed. I get caught with it, I get fired or worse. If you wouldn’t mind leaving me out of your deposition…”

She met his eyes, challenging. “The police—they can’t help me, can they?”

“I caught Attila two days ago in New Mexico. They just let him go. The guy behind all of this has friends in high places.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Just wait around until they come after me again?”

“I don’t know. Leave the country, maybe? Take a long vacation, don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Pay cash, don’t use credit cards. Keep a low profile…”

“I don’t run away from confrontation.”

“Look, Ms. DeVilliers, I don’t have all the answers. I’m kind of floundering here myself.”

“But you’re going to get these guys.”

“That’s my intention. Yes.”

Joan made her decision. It was more than a question of getting her life back. It was for Marty.

“I want to help.”

Tom didn’t hesitate. “The only way to flush them out is to set ourselves up as bait.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m in.”

“Okay. Then we need to get out of here without being seen.” Tom put a gun in each of his pants pockets, then took off his jacket and draped it over Joan’s shoulders. “That covers most of the blood. Let’s just walk out, acting natural.”

“Your holster.”

Tom glanced at his shoulder rig, no longer hidden. He unstrapped it and tucked it under his arm.

“We’ll take my car. I parked around back. I’m walking behind you to shield the blood on your skirt. Ready?”

Joan wiped away some stray tears and nodded. Tom opened the door and they walked out into the lobby, no one giving them a second look. They exited the building just as two squad cars pulled up, lights flashing.

“Don’t act guilty,” Tom said under his breath. “Act curious.”

Joan was way ahead of him. “What’s going on, Officer?”

“Please keep moving, ma’am.”

They stood and watched for a moment as the police rushed into the apartment building, then Tom steered her around the corner and over to a green sedan parked in front of a fire hydrant.

“What happened to your two friends?”

“They went to Nebraska to warn one of the other clones. Lincoln.”

Again with the clone thing. Joan got into the passenger seat and thought about it.

“So you really believe you’re Thomas Jefferson?”

“Unfortunately, that’s what it looks like.”

“And those guys that just attacked me?”

“Vlad the Impaler and Attila the Hun.”

Vlad had called the short man Attila.

“And that guy who looked like Einstein was really Einstein?”

Tom started the car. “As unbelievable as it all seems.”

He let two more squad cars rocket past, and then pulled into traffic.

“So, have you found all the clones yet?”

“We’re still looking for the last one.”

“Is he number 4? Named William Masterton?”

Tom looked at her. “How did you know?”

“Marty knew him. He works in Santa Monica.”

“Have you actually talked to him? Lately?”

“I called his company today, to see if he still works there. He does.”

“How far away is Santa Monica?”

“Maybe twenty miles.”

“Okay. You need to get changed first. And shoes would probably be a good idea.”

“Do you remember how to get to my place?”

Tom made a U-turn, forcing a car on the other side of the street to slam on its brakes.

“So,” Joan still wasn’t buying this cloning angle, but she found herself willing to play along. “Who is this Masterton guy supposed to be, anyway?”

“William Shakespeare.”

“This should be interesting.”

“More like frustrating. We have to convince a total stranger that he’s a clone of a famous historical figure, and you don’t even believe it yourself.”

“I’m trying to get used to the idea.”

“Join the club.”

She closed her eyes, picturing Jefferson’s profile on a nickel. After getting a good mental image, she looked at Tom. There was a pretty good resemblance.

She also noted that he’d shaved since their earlier meeting in her office, and though he wore the same suit it wasn’t nearly as wrinkled. Had the effort been for her? Joan wondered how she must look. She resisted the urge to check the vanity mirror. Nothing could be done about it anyway—she’d left her purse in the hallway. Marty’s hallway.

Marty.

Before the grief could build, Joan pushed past it. While much of her wanted to wallow deep into the self-pity pool, it wouldn’t help the task at hand. She could deal with all of that emotion at a later, more private time.

“Maybe if you filled me in on the whole story, I’d be more likely to believe it.”

“It’ll take a while.”

“I’m a captive audience.”

“I also have to warn you. If you do start to believe that it’s true, that you’re really Joan of Arc, it can really play hell with your psyche.”

“My psyche could use a little shaking up.”

“I’m serious, Ms. DeVilliers.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m probably the most stable personality in LA. And call me Joan.”

“Okay, Joan.” Tom glanced at her and flashed a brief smile. “Here’s how this whole mess started…”

“Your conference call is ready on your private line, Mr. Speaker.”

“Thank you, Trixie. Hold my other calls.”

Phillip Stang Jr. pushed aside the speech he’d been reading and reached across his expansive desk to tap the speaker button. His father had warned him that even with a secure line, using the speaker phone was a bad idea. But Dad was always overly cautious. A symptom of living through the Cold War.

“Dad? How are you feeling?”

“Tired, Junior. This doesn’t get any easier as time goes on. At your age, I could transplant both kidneys at once and then go and play eighteen holes. These days, one is my endurance limit.”

Phil could detect the drugs behind his father’s voice, but the old man wasn’t allowing them to muddle his thoughts. Good to know, for future reference.

“Is everyone else on the line?”

Attila said, “Yes.”

Vlad said, “Yes.”

Jack said, “Is everyone else on the line? Yes.”

Stang sighed at Jack’s response. Of all the infamous killers to ever walk the planet, they had to clone one with an annoying speech impediment.

“Updates, gentlemen. What have you got for me in the way of clearing obstacles?”

“Both Joan and Tom are in LA.”

“Together?”

“Yes.”

“There’s one for the history books. Am I to assume that your third attempt failed as well?”

“We hadn’t expected them to be together. He was armed.”

“A cop with a gun. Go figure. Why is it, Vlad, that your genetic predecessor was able to kill upwards of one hundred thousand people, and you can’t stick a knife in some bitch without fucking it up?”

Vlad paused before answering. Phil could imagine his teeth clenched in rage at the insult. Of the three, Vlad scared Phil the most. Jack was a psycho, Attila was a thug, but Vlad was evil distilled. That’s why he only messed with him over the phone—you can’t get burned if you play with fire long distance.

“It won’t happen again.”

“That’s what I want to hear. Attila, hold his hand if you need to. We have a schedule here to keep, gentlemen. These loose ends should have been tied up days ago. How are things on your end, Jack?”

“How are things on your end, Jack? Fine. I should finish up later tonight. Albert is coming to Nebraska to visit Abe. I can get both at once.”

“I like to hear this. Enough with the fooling around. I know you guys love that torture shit, but save it for when we have more time. The keyword here is fast. I’ll consider the topic closed, unless you want to add anything, Dad?”

“If it isn’t done by tonight, it waits until after Sunrise. That’s our main objective.”

Phil nodded along with his father’s words.

“Exactly. Are we all clear on that? Project Sunrise is the brass ring, here. I don’t care if you’ve got one of the clones in your sights and are squeezing the trigger. You drop what you’re doing and get on your planes by ten tonight. Have you all had a chance to practice with the equipment? You can handle the assembly? Yes?”

He’d tagged on the last word so Jack didn’t have to repeat the entire previous sentence, the dumb bastard. All responded positively.

“Good. It’s already been shipped to your destinations, along with your passes and make-up kits. I want your arrival confirmations tomorrow by eight AM. We’re going to show the whole world that the best of the best are made, not born. This is history, gentlemen. I’m proud that you’re all a part of it. Dad?”

“I do have something to add. We’re doing more than altering history. We’re creating a brave, new world. Immortality is within our grasp. We will not be denied!”

Phil grinned. While he shared so many of his father’s traits, he lacked his way with words. The old man was eloquent, that’s for sure.

“Get to it, gentlemen.”

Phil hit the disconnect button and leaned back in his leather chair. He swiveled and checked out the view. It was raining, cloudy. The Washington Monument stood out, cutting through the weather like a giant exclamation point.

One day I’ll have my own monument, Phil thought. And unlike all those other past suckers, this one would be built while I’m still alive. Maybe an image on a coin as well. Why revere the dead, when they can’t reap the benefits?

“Mr. Speaker, your father on line one.”

Oh, shit. He’d hung up on the old man.

“Dad? Sorry. Got disconnected. If I wasn’t banging that useless secretary, her ass would be out.”

“I suppose vulgarity is inexorably intertwined with your generation, but you need to show me some respect.”

“Of course.”

“I just watched your speech to the Oversight Subcommittee on National Affairs, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice. Taped it off of C-SPAN.”

“And?”

“You looked fat. What have I told you about keeping that body fit?”

“My schedule has been killer, Dad. I haven’t had time to hit the gym.”

“Bullshit.” The irritation in his father’s voice was pronounced. “Spare me the busy crap. Cut out the four course lunches and get into shape. We’re going to make the cover of Time Magazine. You’d have us look like a bullfrog.”

Phil took a deep breath before answering. “Government has changed since you’ve been in office, Dad. It’s all about lunches.”

“So eat a goddamn salad. This isn’t a game, Junior. This is my dream. Our dream. Almost forty years in the making.”

“Why don’t you give me a little credit, here? I’ve worked my ass off as much as you have. I’m the youngest Speaker ever elected to the House—”

“Don’t forget how that happened, dear Phillip. Millions of dollars. My dollars. Sixty percent of Congress financed their campaigns on my money.”

“It was more than that, Dad. As Chairman of the Steering Committee on Bipartisan Relations, I’ve been able to unite Republicans and Democrats on key issues like tax reforms, education—”

His father snorted. “Spare me. That simpering, middle of the road attitude is about to change. This country doesn’t need a social lubricant in office. It needs a strong, determined leader. One who stands by his ideals, without bowing to special interests. Or to voters, for that matter. The President spends so much time trying to be popular, he forgot how to run the country. Other nations laugh at us, Junior.”

“I know, Dad.” He’d heard the speech, many times. Hopefully, he wouldn’t get started on the Chinese.

“That’s the whole point. To make being an American a source of pride once again. We’re the protector of the free world. During the Cold War, we were feared. Now, every little camel jockey with an oil rig thinks they can flip us the bird without repercussion. Not to mention the biggest threat to humanity ever to exist, the Communist Chinese—”

“Dad, you’re preaching to the converted, here.”

“We can never lose sight of it, Junior. Even with an unlimited supply of kidneys, neither of us will live forever. But our legacy can.”

“I said that. We cannot live forever, but our legacy as Americans—”

“Kudos to your speech writer, Junior. Speaking of which, have you got the speech for Thursday?”

“I have it right in front of me.” Phil picked up the packet and flipped back to the first page. “It is in the times of greatest tragedy that we ourselves must also be great…”

“I’d prefer to hear it live.”

“It’s a good speech. Nice mix of outrage and strength.”

“For what we’ve paid, it should be.”

“There’s even a spot in it where I get a little choked up.”

“What? Cut that.”

“Why? It’s a great line. I stand here humbled at our loss. But no matter the blows this country takes, we will not be reduced to a nation in mourning…”

“You’re not going to be humbled. Cut the line.”

“But the people love—”

“This isn’t about the people. The popularity contest is over. We’re not out for approval ratings, Junior. Cut out any line that even hints at weakness. I also want you to lose the double chin in the next two days.”

“That’s impossible. Even if I starved myself…”

“Good idea.”

Phil bit back his reply. He didn’t kowtow to the old man, but he knew to pick his battles.

“Consider the double chin gone.”

“Excellent. I’m tired now, but we’ll talk soon.”

“Get some rest, Dad.”

Phil hung up and hit the intercom button.

“Trixie, who am I having dinner with tonight?”

“Those execs from Phillip Morris.”

“Send them a rain check. Then see if the commissary is still open and find me a chef’s salad. Chicken, no dressing.”

“Yes, Mr. Speaker.”

Phil picked up a pencil and began to go through the speech, trimming any signs of weakness.

America had been asleep too long, he thought. It was about to get a serious wake-up call.

“And then I followed you to your assistant’s place, and you know the rest.”

Joan couldn’t get her mind completely around it. Tom had told the story in a truthful, straightforward manner. He obviously believed it, and it did sort of explain their current situation.

But Thomas Jefferson and Joan of Arc?

“This is a lot to swallow.”

The evening had gotten cooler, so Joan rolled up her window. She cursed herself for not grabbing a jacket when they’d stopped at her house—she’d assumed jeans and a sweater were enough. Santa Monica was built on the coast, and the cool ocean breeze could get downright bitter.

“I’m not doubting your sincerity, but the story is so out there. I was cloned from the jawbone of a woman born six hundred years ago?”

“Well, technically, you’re an exact genetic copy rather than a clone.”

“Oh. That makes it a lot easier to buy.”

Tom sighed and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Joan could sense his frustration, but there wasn’t much she could do. Even after hearing the long explanation, she couldn’t fully believe she was Joan of Arc. Tom was sincere as pie, but all delusional people were sincere.

“The writing thing did it for me—having my writing be identical to Jefferson’s. I read somewhere that even if you try to disguise your handwriting, such as write with your opposite hand, the experts can still tell it’s you. It’s a mental thing. I wish there was some way to prove it to you.”

“Well, sometimes I do hear the voice of St. Michael.”

Tom gave her a sideways glance, and then smiled.

“That’s a start. Do you like the French?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“How do you like your steak? Burned?”

“Ouch. A burned at the stake pun. You just lost points.”

Tom raised his eyebrows. “Really? I had points?”

It was creeping up on dusk, the road becoming harder to see. Tom flipped on the headlights, then passed the car ahead of him even though it was a no passing zone. He was even more aggressive behind the wheel than she was. Joan didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

“You know what’s funny? That Joan of Arc movie came out a few years ago, and I turned down the script. I didn’t like the character.”

Tom laughed. “If it makes a difference, I like the character.”

“The plucky Hollywood producer, drawn into a web of conspiracy that tops her own movies?”

“I think I’d call you spunky rather than plucky.”

“Great. I’ll pitch it to Reese Witherspoon. Go east on Wilshire. We’re looking for 12th Street.”

Tom hung a left, and they were confronted by a stop light. The streets were filled with people—walking, biking, blading, jogging, touristing. The affluence of the surrounding shops and buildings was reflected by the populace in their clothing, their attitude. Tom and Joan stared at a mime on the street corner, dressed in a hip tuxedo.

“Is that mime wearing Armani?”

Joan snorted. “Last year’s.”

The light changed and Tom hit the gas.

“I’m beginning to think California is one big resort.”

“People come to LA for two reasons—to be a part of it or to get away from it.”

“Why did you come?”

“To get away.”

“From?”

“Hiko, Nevada. I had a real apple pie upbringing. Nice neighborhood, caring parents, perfect childhood.”

“It sounds terrible.”

Joan laughed. “It was nice. But without challenge. A little conflict can be a good thing. So I moved out of Mayberry and came to Hollywood.”

“So you didn’t arrive with dreams of making it big?”

“Hell no. I arrived with dreams of poverty, struggle, and heartache. I wanted to test myself, see if I could survive. I was twenty-one. Got a job waiting tables, had a roommate who sold pot, spent a year throwing up in trendy clubs.”

“Living your dream.”

“Exactly.”

“When did you go from outsider to insider?”

“No one in this town does what they want. The businessmen want to write, the strippers want to act, writers and actors want to direct, the shop owners want to produce and the waiters want to be Kevin Smith. I worked with a few of those waiters. They needed money to make an independent film, I was pretty good with people, so I was able to get the money together. That’s all a producer does, basically.”

“The movie was a hit?”

“Hell no. Garbage. Didn’t even get festival play. But it sold well on video, we made some money, brought in better talent. Next thing I knew, I was a hotshot producer, making big bank, hobnobbing with Tom Cruise.”

“How is Tom Cruise in real life?”

“Short. He comes up to here.” Joan put her hand next to her neck.

Tom laughed. He had a good laugh, deep and genuine. Without doing it intentionally, Joan went through her dating rules. Tom wasn’t in the business, and though he was attractive in a rough sort of way, he certainly wasn’t a pretty boy. Fair skinned meant no back hair, and she could tell he wasn’t the Speedo type. Joan would bet her business he wore boxers, and the only tight fitting thing in his wardrobe were his socks.

“Here’s 12th street. Which way?”

“North, I think.”

“These are some nice houses. The copy writing business must be paying well.”

No kidding. Joan had priced the area before buying in Beverly Hills. Some parts of the neighborhood were out of her range.

As they drove, the homes became less impressive, and soon enough they were in the half a million dollar area.

“It should be the next one on this side.”

Tom pulled into a short driveway and parked next to a small, freestanding garage. A gas lamp illuminated the front lawn, and a porch light was on.

“Should I bring the gun?” Joan went to open the glove compartment.

“I’ve got mine. That should be enough.”

They got out of the car and rang the bell.

The first thing that struck Joan about the man who answered the door was his hair. It had receded back to the crown of his head, a classic example of male pattern baldness. But sprouting out of his scalp, lined up like rows of black corn, were the worst hair plugs she’d ever seen. It looked like someone had punched yak hair into his forehead with a fork.

The second thing she noticed was that he bore an uncanny resemblance to Shakespeare—too much to have been coincidence. All he needed was one of those silly puffy collars.

“What?” The man had a squeaky voice, and his expression was a picture of extreme irritation.

“Bill Masterton?”

“It’s my house. Who did you expect?”

“I’m Detective Tom Mankowski, this is Joan DeVilliers. We need to talk to you.”

Bill’s eyes got big. “The police?”

“May we come in?”

“I’m calling my lawyer.”

Bill tried to slam the door but was unsuccessful. Tom’s foot had gotten in the way. Joan looked down and saw that there was still a tag on the shoes. After stopping at her house they’d hit a K-Mart, as Tom didn’t have a second pair with him.

“What the hell are you doing?” Bill shoved at the door.

Tom glanced both ways in a casual manner, then pushed his way in.

“We don’t have time to screw around here, Bill. You’re in some serious danger.”

“I want you to go. Now.”

“We will, after you’ve heard our story. Please. This is life or death.”

Bill scrunched his eyebrows and chewed his lip. In the foyer light, Joan could tell that the plugs were slightly darker than the rest of his hair. Whoever did that to him should be sued, and sued hard.

“Okay, but make it fast. I have some stuff to do.”

“Can we sit down somewhere?”

Bill led them to the living room, which was like stepping into a billboard. Everything had a corporate logo on it. Nike lamps and Coke clocks and Bud Light chairs and a Camel card table and a big white couch that had McDonalds on the seat cushions. Plastered over every wall were ads, posters, banners, mockups, and packaging from hundreds of different products. Joan felt as if she were at a flea market.

Bill shrugged. “I get a lot of free stuff.”

Joan and Tom took the sofa. It seemed to be made of some kind of plastic.

“You’re in advertising, right?”

“I’m a writer. Mostly catch-lines. You know, like You deserve a break today, at McDonalds.”

“You wrote that?”

“No. But I’m working on something for the Trojan people right now. Booming industry, condoms. Lots of new markets opening up. I’ve got a great new tag.” Bill held up his hands, as if the words were appearing in the air in front of him. “The way to a man’s heart… is through his fly. Trojans. Good, huh?”

“Makes me want to run out and buy a pack.”

“So, what’s this life and death thing?” Bill asked.

Tom laid out the bare bones of the story in the same way he’d done in the car. Rather than be incredulous, or even interested, Bill spent most of the explanation fidgeting and looking at the clock.

“Here.” Tom opened up his black binder and handed Bill a pad of paper and a pen. “Write a few sentences.”

“Because it’s supposed to match Shakespeare’s writing?”

“It will. It sounds crazy, but you’ll see.”

“I think I’ll get some coffee first. Either of you for coffee?”

“Uh, sure. I’ll take a cup.”

Bill got off the chair and left the living room. Tom turned to Joan.

“Was he following anything I said?”

“It didn’t seem like it. To be honest, I don’t like him much.”

“That’s because he’s a creep. But he sure looks like Shakespeare.”

“Exactly. Except for those hair plugs.”

“Is that what they are? I thought he stapled a porcupine to his forehead.”

Joan put her hand over her mouth while she laughed. “Isn’t it bad? The color doesn’t even match.”

“Maybe he did it himself. Do they sell kits?”

Joan got an image of the unpleasant little man sitting in front of a mirror, stapling hair into his own head. She laughed so hard she snorted.

“I assume you have a gun, Tom. Take it out and put it on the floor.”

Joan’s laughter died in her throat. Bill had come back into the room. Instead of coffee, he was holding a nickel plated revolver. It was pointed in her face. She cast a frantic look at Tom, who seemed just as surprised as she did.

“I said take it out.” Bill walked behind Joan and pressed the gun to her head. The experience was humbling. Her entire world became a small spot just above the nape of her neck, cold and hard. She could almost feel the direction the bullet would take, traveling up through her skull, exiting above her right ear.

Tom reached into his jacket and took out his gun, holding it by the butt. He placed it on the floor.

“You’re in on it.” Tom’s voice was even.

“No shit. You sure you’re not the Einstein clone? Now stand up, slowly. We’re all going into the kitchen.”

“What’s the reason?” Tom asked. “Money?”

“You idiot. Of course it’s not the money. The money is awesome, sure, but it’s more than that. Now move.”

Bill held Joan back while Tom walked a few steps ahead. His free hand was around her neck, cupped under her chin. The fact that every thought in her head might be her last made her knees knock. It was worse than being attacked, worse than finding the bugs in her house, it was even worse than getting shot at.

“Those people are horrible.” Joan tried to keep the quaver out of her voice. “Why would you want to be on their side?”

“You have no idea what’s happening here. What they’re going to do. I’m going to be a very important, very powerful man.”

Tom stopped walking forward and turned around slowly.

“How did you find out you were a clone?”

“Stang came to me. I was having some legal trouble. They said I took some money from my company. He helped me out, told me who I really was. He recognized my talent.”

“Your talent?”

“My writing talent. I’m Shakespeare! And I’m stuck doing crap ad copy! That’s like using a hurricane to blow out a match!”

The gun shook against Joan’s head. She closed her eyes and willed it to stop.

“So he kept you out of jail, and now you’re his little suck boy.”

Bill took the gun off Joan and pointed it at Tom. The relief on Tom’s face told her that had been his intention.

Brave bastard, that Tom. But was anyone in history braver than Joan of Arc? She found her voice, and when it came out it was strong and true.

“Don’t blame him, Tom. Look at that hair. He couldn’t have had a lot of love in his life. Not without paying for it, anyway.”

Bill jammed the gun back in Joan’s temple, hitting her so hard she saw stars.

“You want to say that again?”

“I’ll say it. You pay for sex, Bill, because your head looks like a Chia Pet.”

The revolver went back to Tom, and then Bill began to laugh.

“Good try, guys. Get me all upset. But I’m not the big loser in this room. You’re Thomas Jefferson. She’s Joan of Arc. You should be ruling this country. But instead you’re a dumb cop and this one here makes stupid movies. I for one plan on fulfilling my destiny.”

“By killing us.”

“You make an omelet, gotta break some eggs. Now move it, open that door.”

Tom didn’t move. Joan could see he was getting ready to try something. She shifted slightly, so she could grab Bill’s arm and toss him over her hip.

When the gun went off, she yelped in surprise.

Tom had crouched down, hands protecting his head. The shot had gone into the ceiling.

“Next one doesn’t miss. Open the damn cellar door.”

Tom righted himself and complied.

“Empty your pockets.”

Tom removed his wallet, cell phone, and keys.

“Toss them on the table, then go down the stairs.”

The staircase was wooden, dark. Tom took three steps down and turned. “Have you ever killed a man, Bill? Had another person’s death on your hands?”

“I get the reference, and I won’t have a problem washing the blood off.”

He shoved Joan roughly through the doorway. She yelped, pitching head first down the stairs, but Tom caught her and held her steady.

“Besides,” Bill said, “I’m not the hands-on type. I’ll give Attila and Vlad a call. They have a lot more fun with this type of thing.”

Joan stared up at him. “You should send them after the guy who gave you those hair plugs.”

Bill sneered. “Sticks and stones.” Then he slammed the door, engulfing them in darkness.

Tom’s hand found her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She was shaking, but she managed to answer. “I’m okay. Check the door.”

Joan heard creaking, a grunt. “Locked. Solid, too. The door is heavy. Stand back.” There was a loud thump. Then another. “I think I broke my heel.”

“We have to get out of here. Do you have any matches? A lighter?”

“No.”

Joan led the way down the stairs, proceeding cautiously in the pitch black. It was cool and damp, and she got the impression of a small space rather than a big one. Her hands brushed something stringy and dry. A spider web. She wiped it off on her blouse.

Reaching the floor, Joan inched forward, hands out in front of her, grouping blindly for a wall. She hit one almost immediately. Her fingers felt wood, old and dusty, half moon cuts.

“It’s a wine cellar.”

“Try to find windows.”

She continued to feel her way around the small room. In was not only devoid of windows, but wine as well. Joan felt behind the wooden racks and touched cold concrete.

“This is just the perfect way to end a perfect day.”

“I’m sorry I brought you here.”

“You’re kidding. This was my fault. I’m the one who found Shakespeare.”

“You believe he’s really Shakespeare?”

“At this point, why not? And you want to know something? I always hated Shakespeare.”

“Me too.”

His words echoes in the small enclosure, and then faded. Joan shivered. Fear mounted with every passing second, as if the darkness were suffocating her.

Keep a clear head, she told herself. Stay focused. Find your center. If you’re going to go down, go down swinging.

Joan broke the silence. “We should have rushed him.”

“I saw the guy’s eyes. He would have shot us.”

“Isn’t that a lot better than what’s going to happen when Attila and Vlad show up?”

“You’re right. I could have done something.”

“I could have done something too. I could have flipped him. It was a simple move any yellow belt could have executed.”

“You had a gun to your head.”

“And it scared me. Next time I won’t be scared.”

“If this was one of your movies, how would we get out?”

“I would have written the scene so one of us has a weapon, or a hairpin to pick the lock, or we find a closet and there’s a back hoe in it.”

“Maybe we can pull down some of these old racks, make a weapon.”

“It’s a start. What’s the chance of your friends somehow finding us?”

“Nil. I spoke to Roy when his plane got in, but haven’t checked with him since. He doesn’t even know about Shakespeare. Maybe they can figure it out later and avenge our deaths.”

“That would work cinematically. Doesn’t help us much, though.”

Tom got up. Joan listened to him shake the wine rack.

“Well built. But let’s give it a shot.”

Joan stood next to him and they both grabbed a corner support. On three they tugged, Joan putting her back into it, straining and groaning. The support creaked and abruptly gave way, the two of them falling onto their bottoms.

Joan weighed the little piece of wood in her hand. It was useless as a weapon. She sat with her back against the wall and hugged her knees, despair swallowing her up. We’re going to die, she thought. The feeling multiplied within her, getting bigger and bigger, until she found herself gasping.

Tom bumped into her, touched her head, and then sat beside her. He put an arm around her shoulders, and then hugged her tighter when she began to tremble. The first really nice guy she met in California, and he wasn’t even from California. Joan thought about home. Not her house in Beverly Hills, but the small town she grew up in. Joan had left to get away from the wholesomeness, but now she missed it so much she ached.

For some reason, Tom reminded her of home. She pressed against him, resting her head against his neck. After a minute or two, she was able to get her breathing under control.

“I just had a pessimistic thought,” Tom said.

“Share it. Brighten my spirits even more.”

“Well, neither of us expected Shakespeare to be one of the bad guys, right?”

“I was as shocked as the next girl.”

“So, Roy and Bert are in Nebraska visiting Lincoln…”

“I follow. But I really can’t picture Lincoln as a bad guy. He’s America’s poster boy for decency and honesty.”

“He’s a used car salesman.”

Joan shivered. “God help us all.”

“Your vehicle is in the third space on the right. Thank you for using Hertz.”

Bert picked up his bags and followed Roy out the door. When he saw their car he halted mid-step. Yellow. Round. Volkswagon.

They’d rented a Beetle.

“Slug bug yellow no hit backs!” Bert dropped his luggage in the parking lot and launched himself at Roy, his fist seeking out the sore spot on the larger man’s shoulder.

Roy set his jaw and rubbed his arm. “Remind me to smack Tom upside the head for reserving this damn car.”

“That’s why this place is called Hertz.”

Bert went back for his bags. He shoved them in the rear seat and got into the car. Roy unlocked the fire box and put the revolver in his shoulder holster. Then he fussed with his donut.

“Damn donut is leaking again.”

“Is the nozzle pushed in?”

“Don’t start with me. It’s a hole.”

“I may have something in one of my bags.”

Bert scooted around and unzipped the panel on his larger bag. He found the metal box and set it in his lap.

“Camping emergency pack. Waterproof matches, candle, compass, flashlight, cable saw, tablets to purify water, fishing line, and a repair kit for patching tents. Gimme the donut.”

Roy handed it over. Bert found the hole—a split in the seam—and dabbed on some rubber cement.

“It’s gonna take some time to dry. Can you live without it for a while?”

“I guess I have to.”

Roy got in the driver’s seat, wincing as he sat down.

“Maybe you should turn the other cheek.”

“Funny. Where the hell are we going?”

“Honest Abe’s Used Car Emporium. He’s on Route 2.”

Roy turned the ignition and Bert consulted the complimentary map of Lincoln the rental company had provided. “When you get out of the lot you’re going to get on 80. We can take 80 to 180, and that turns into 2.”

“How’s my donut?”

“Drying.”

Bert set the camping kit by his feet, rather than bother putting it back in the suitcase. He reclined his seat a few more degrees and opened the window. The breeze felt nice. Not as warm as LA, but the air was fresh and clean. The sun was looming over the western horizon. It would set in about an hour or so.

Bert closed his eyes, thinking about the past week and the events leading up to it. He felt… alive. This went beyond finding out he was a clone of Einstein. This was an actual adventure. He was a part of something, something big and scary and exciting. Bert had no idea how this was all going to end up, but he wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

They drove in companionable silence. Roy managed to find Route 2, and a few minutes later they were pulled up to a weather beaten billboard stamped with “Abe’s Pre-Driven Vehicles”.

The Emporium wasn’t anything more than a gravel parking lot with a small brick building in the center. Multi-colored plastic flags, cracked and faded, were strung between two poles, and a sign proclaimed “Huge Sale This Week Only!” in peeling paint.

Bert scratched his chin. “I think I expected more. How many cars do you count?”

“Ten, if you include that rusty Buick up on blocks.”

Before they could get out of the car, a tall man rushed out of the little building to greet them.

“Welcome to Honest Abe’s!” His voice was booming, grandiose, and he spread his arms out dramatically. One look at his face and there was no doubt at all. This was Abraham Lincoln. The craggy features, the square beard, the big ears. He even had the black, stovepipe hat.

Bert opened the car door and Abe shook his hand enthusiastically. There was a cigarette burning in the corner of his mouth, which seemed strangely anachronistic. The car dealer also wore jeans and a dirty T-shirt, neither of which matched that famous face.

“I see you’re looking to trade up on this foreign hunk of crap. I have just the car for you. A 1989 Chrysler LeBaron. Made in the USA, built to last. Leather interior. Air. I might be persuaded to trade it for this Eurotrash vehicle, because I like how you carry yourself.”

“This is a rental.”

“Of course it is. Perhaps I should be speaking to the driver.” Abe looked at Roy, then back at Bert. “Does this Negro belong to you? Just kidding, of course. Welcome to Honest Abe’s Car Emporium, where all men are free… to drive home in a great deal!”

He pumped Roy’s hand. The look on Roy’s face found him just as entranced by Abe’s appearance as Bert was. He must have been; anyone else talked like that to Roy would have been nursing a broken nose. But when Abe said it, it was humorous and good-natured.

Bert likened it to meeting a celebrity. When he’d first met Tom, he knew his face from old portraits, but there was no spark of instant recognition. Lincoln was arguably one of the most recognizable individuals to ever walk the planet. This was real American history come to life. Being next to him made Bert’s heart race. Even though it was irrational, he wanted to get the man’s autograph and take some pictures.

“I have just the thing for you.” Lincoln lead Roy into the lot. “A 1977 Cadillac Seville. Auto everything. Think of how the brothers in the hood will bug when they see you chillin’ in this ride, homey.”

Bert shook himself out of the momentary daze and went after them.

“Mr. Linc—er—Wilkens, we’re not here about a car. We need to talk to you.”

Abe stopped in his tracks, removing his arm from Roy.

“Mr. Wilkens? Oh, you must mean my boss. He’s out of town for the moment. I’d be happy to take a message.”

“You aren’t Abe Wilkens, owner of this lot?”

“Sorry, no. Good day, gentlemen.”

Abe walked briskly back to the little building. Bert and Roy exchanged a look of amazement.

“Are you as weirded out as I am?”

“It’s freaky. He is Wilkens, right?”

“Has to be. The resemblance was amazing.”

“He tried to sell me a Caddy. Abraham Lincoln tried to sell me a Caddy.” Roy was beaming. It pleased Bert that he wasn’t the only one acting like a star struck idiot.

“Why’d he take off?”

“Let’s find out.”

They walked up to the building and Roy knocked on the door. “Mr. Wilkens?”

“What? Oh, he’s not here, I told you. Just leave your name and whatever company you’re from, and he’ll get back to you.”

“Company? I’m a cop.”

There was a pause, and then the door opened and Abe’s head poked out, sans top hat.

“You’re not from any bank?”

“No.”

“Credit card company? Loan officer?”

“Nope.”

“Local organized crime?”

“Chicago Police Department.”

“Well then, let’s talk.” Abe waltzed out of the office and put an arm around Roy again. “I’m a big fan of law enforcement, and would be honored to give you my special police officer discount.”

Roy had a little smile on his face and Bert could sense his head wasn’t in the game. He reached over and tugged Abe’s arm.

“We’re not here to buy anything. We’re here about the tattoo.”

Abe turned his attention to Bert. “You know about that?”

“A blue number 1 on your heel. You were adopted, right?”

Abe nodded, his pale eyes widening. “I was. Are you here to tell me it’s true? I’ve been waiting years for this. You found my real parents, and I’m actually a relative of Abraham Lincoln. Right?” He grinned and clapped his hands. “I’ve had a feeling, since I was a kid. Always hoped it wasn’t just a dumb coincidence. Is there an inheritance? Tell me there’s an inheritance.”

“It’s actually, ah, more complicated than that. You aren’t a relative of Lincoln.”

“Are you kidding? Look at me! I’m the spitting image! I look just like the dead bastard!”

“Abe…”

“Why do you think I moved to Nebraska? I grew the beard, I got the dumb hat—”

“Abe, you aren’t one of Lincoln’s relatives. But you do have Lincoln’s genes in you.”

“What the hell are you trying to say?”

“You’re actually Abraham Lincoln.”

Watching Lincoln do a double take ranked among the greatest moments in Bert’s life.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a clone of Abraham Lincoln.”

“Are you trying to bullshit a bullshitter?”

“No.”

“You can actually prove this?”

“Yes.”

Abe began to laugh. He grabbed Bert and hugged him. “This is great! I’ll be rich! Come on, you have to buy me lunch and tell me all about it. We’ll take my car.”

Roy and Bert followed Abe to his vehicle. It was, naturally, a Lincoln Continental. Older model, when they still made them big. Bert smiled. Lincoln, driving a Lincoln, in Lincoln. Rarely does reality offer up treats like that. He called shotgun and sat in front.

“Don’t you need to lock up?”

“Hell no. The place is insured.”

Roy had to move a large plastic garbage bag before he could get in the back.

“Don’t you have garbage pick-up out here?”

“Those are aluminum cans. Top dollar at the recycling center.”

“They’re leaking.”

“It’s only water. I fill them all up a little bit before I take them in. Bumps their weight up.”

Abe turned onto the street and hung another cigarette in his mouth. As he lit it, he gave Bert a once over.

“You know, you look sort of familiar. Harry’s Pool Hall? Did we ever play poker together?”

“I’m a clone of Einstein.”

Abe hooted and blew his horn. “I knew it! I knew it would finally happen for me. We’ll go on tour. You play an instrument, right? I play bass. The Lincoln/Einstein World Tour! I’ll sing The Politics of Dancing. You can sing He Blinded Me With Science. What do you play?”

“I played viola in high school.”

“We’d have to work on that. Are there any more famous clones running around? Mozart? John Lennon?” Abe turned to Roy. “Tell me you’re Jimi Hendrix.”

“I’m Jimi Hendrix.” Roy deadpanned. “Let me stand next to your fire.”

Abe narrowed his eyes. “The voice is wrong. Plus you’re too goddamn big. But, maybe… lose some weight, grow a beach ball afro. Do you play guitar? Here we are, Dinah’s. Only place in five miles worth eating at.”

Abe pulled into the lot. It had all the trappings of a roadside diner; the big sign that said Family Restaurant, the glass carousel of rotating pies and puddings, the permanent round stools at the counter. Bert wondered if the waitress was named Flo.

Abe parked himself on a stool and beckoned Roy and Bert to join him on either side. Bert could sense Roy’s wariness about the seating choice, especially without his donut.

“Can’t we sit in a booth?”

“I hate booths.” Abe winked. “Especially John Wilkes.”

There was laughter and much rib elbowing from the car dealer.

“Actually, my legs are too long. I get gum on my knees. Sit, stay a while.”

Bert sat next to Abe and picked up a menu. There was a small stack next to a pyramid of mini cereal boxes.

“Everything is good, except the turkey. It’s a loaf. Good evening, Meg.”

The waitress was older, tired, and her pink lipstick matched her uniform. “Hi, Abe. Usual?”

“With extra bacon. And some coffee too, hon. This guy here is Einstein, and this large black man is Roy. Do you think he looks like Jimi Hendrix?”

“They’re like twins.” Meg hadn’t lifted her eyes to look. “You guys know what you want?”

Roy didn’t bother with a menu. “Burger and fries.”

“How about you?”

Bert wasn’t sure what he was in the mood for. They’d had chicken on the plane, or at least something purporting to be chicken. He decided to be adventurous. “Give me what Abe is having.”

“Coffee too?”

Roy and Bert agreed to coffee. She brought over three stained cups and filled them. Lincoln added five packets of sugar, drained his cup without stirring, and then motioned for a refill.

“Now tell me. Everything. How can you prove I’m Lincoln?”

Bert gave him the abbreviated explanation, beginning with how he was contacted by Jessup. He glossed over the meeting with Harold, not really understanding the science behind it himself, and then talked about their disastrous confrontation with Stang. The grand finale was the writing test, comparing a sample of Abe’s script with a Xerox of one of Lincoln’s original letters.

“This is fantastic.” Abe looked back and forth between the two papers. “I’m actually Abraham Lincoln.”

“Didn’t you hear the rest of it? Someone is trying to kill you.”

“Every silver lining has a cloud.”

“Has anyone threatened you lately? Attacked you?”

“No more than usual. Great, here’s the grub.”

Meg brought over three plates. Bert eyed his dinner dubiously. It looked quasi-pornographic.

“Francheesie,” Abe explained. “They split open a quarter pound hot-dog, stuff it with cheese, then wrap it up in bacon and deep fry it.”

Abe picked his up and took a large bite, grease dripping down his chin. Bert frowned. “I think I can hear your arteries harden.”

“The secret is the lard. Some places use vegetable oil, and it just isn’t the same.”

Bert went to work on his fries.

“So what’s the next step? Do we hit the newspapers, or go straight to Letterman and Leno?”

“We have to stop the people who want to end our lives.”

“Yeah yeah, after that. Do you have any of this scientific evidence stuff?”

“Nope.”

Roy’s mouth was occupied by a burger that looked a lot better than Bert’s choice. Maybe he’d trade.

“Hey Roy, half your burger for my francheezie?”

“Hell no. Looks like a fried donkey dick.”

“What about that dead science guy? Didn’t he take notes?”

“Stang has it all, and he’s not going to hand it over.”

Abe polished off his dog and licked his fingers. “Way I see it, we could do it three ways. Go through official channels and try to get the media behind us, then let them prove the truth. Or break into the Senator’s place and get the proof ourselves. You gonna eat your donkey dick?”

“Help yourself. What’s the third way?”

“We rob some graves. We can start with Lincoln and Jefferson. Where’s your brain at?”

Roy grinned. “I ask him that all the time.”

“Some guy has it at Princeton. Abe, you don’t seem to understand how serious this is.”

“You’re right. We should probably get agents. Someone to negotiate all the offers when they start pouring in. I know a guy at William Morris. Bernie something. He’s a big shot, represents Mr. T.”

They had pie, and more coffee. Bert soon gave up trying to convince Abe that his life was in danger. The guy was on their side, and if they stuck together it would hopefully be enough.

“Where are you guys staying?”

“We haven’t decided yet.”

“There are a few hotels near the airport. Some pretty good bars, too. We’re going out to celebrate, right?”

Bert didn’t know if that was the smartest move.

“I’m up for a beer. You, Bert?”

“Well, Tom is—”

Roy nudged Bert with an elbow. “Tom is in LA with a hottie. We don’t need to check in with him for another two hours. A drink or two can’t hurt.”

“Come on, Bert! Live a little!”

Peer pressure won, and they agreed to go to a bar named the Porter House, on Pine Lake Rd.

“Only a few miles away, walking distance to the Ramada Inn. I’ll point out the road when we pass it.”

The sun had gone down, and the cold wind made Bert consider a jacket. They all piled back into the Lincoln, Abe verbally debating between rock stardom and a career in politics.

“I could be President, right? Wouldn’t you vote for Lincoln?”

“Damn straight.”

“Bert, you want to be VP? And how about you, Roy? Secretary of Defense? Then Jefferson can be Secretary of State.”

“How about Joan of Arc?”

“She could cook for us. Keep the White House tidy. How could we lose with a ticket like that?” Abe pulled into his car lot and killed the engine. “I have to do some quick work here, roll up windows, move some cars. I’ll meet you at the Porter House. Think you can find the place okay?”

“No problem.”

“See you there, kids.”

Abe waved and walked back into the little building.

“He’s a pretty good guy.” Roy shook his head, smiling. “It’s like we hanging out with the Pope, or Michael Jackson.”

“The guy has presence. But I wouldn’t buy a car from him to save my life.”

“Check to see if my donut is done. That stool gave me an awful ache.”

They hopped into the Beetle and got on their way. Bert checked the patch. Dry. He blew up the donut and listened for leaks.

“Seems okay.”

Roy adjusted the donut under him and sighed. “Thanks.”

A sharp horn split the night just as they were passed by another vehicle. A tow truck, flatbed, going at least twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. Bert watched the truck speed into the distance until its tail lights disappeared.

“You think we should call Tom, let him know how the meeting with Abe went?”

Roy reached into his jacket pocket and took out his cell.

“You do it. He’s on speed dial. Scroll down to his first name, it’s alphabetical.”

Bert found Tom’s name and hit the send button. It rang. And rang.

“There’s no answer.”

“You got the number right?”

“I think so.”

“Lemme try.” Roy took the phone and hit some buttons. “He’s not answering.”

“Maybe the phone’s not on him.”

“Then he’d set it from vibrate to ring, and still pick it up.”

Bert saw it before Roy did. The tow truck that had passed them moments earlier. It was in their lane, no headlights, coming right at them.

Roy barely had a chance to hit the breaks before the collision.

Bert didn’t hear the crash. He felt it.

Impact. Spinning. Darkness.

When Bert opened his eyes, all he saw was white. He couldn’t remember where he was. He could sense movement, a breeze. He looked to his right.

A shattered window. Lights, in the distance, moving by slowly.

He looked left. More white. He lifted a hand, pushed.

Behind the airbag. Roy. Blood all over.

A small stutter, then a stop. Someone opened his door.

A dwarf. Only a foot tall. Bert stared at the top of his head.

“Still alive? Good. We can have some fun.”

The dwarf had a knife. He poked the airbag, deflating it, and reached over to unlock Bert’s seat belt. Bert was yanked from his seat and he fell, fell, hit the street. His head was pounding. There was something, some kind of humming, in his ears. He looked up.

Not a dwarf at all. It was Jack. Up on the flatbed of the tow truck was a wrecked car. Roy, slumped over behind the wheel.

Slug bug yellow.

“Say good-bye to your friend.”

Jack pulled a lever on the side control panel. The bed began to lift. The car began to tilt.

“Those old Volkswagons, they used to be able to float. Let’s see how the new models do.”

When the angle was steep enough, Jack pulled another lever. The Beetle rolled down the flatbed, over the railing of the bridge. Bert tried to move his head, to see. There was a splash.

“Need some help?”

Jack grabbed Bert’s hair and dragged him over to the edge. Below, in the river. The bug. Bobbing. Then it began to sink.

“Roy…” Bert’s throat was hoarse, painful.

“Roy. Well, now we know. The new bugs don’t float after all.”

Bert watched as the car went down below the surface of the water, leaving only bubbles in its wake.

“Roy…”

“Roy.” Jack dropped Bert’s head. “Be happy for him. His pain is over. Yours is just beginning. In a few hours, you’ll be begging to join your friend at the bottom of that river.”

Bert felt a hand on his collar, and then everything went black.

The cold shocked Roy awake. His feet felt like they were stuck in ice. It quickly moved up to his legs, and then to his waist. The reality of his predicament came to him in a rush.

He was in the car. Roy could remember the truck coming right at them. Trying to collide. Hitting the brakes too late.

He reached to his right, feeling in the dark for Bert.

Not there.

Roy pushed aside the airbag, hands groping the dash. He found the switch for the interior dome light.

Flipping it on revealed that the situation was worse than he thought. The water was above the windshields, streaming in through a hundred different cracks. It was now up to his chest, freezing.

Roy attempted to open the door. Jammed. The button for the window didn’t work. He tried to scoot over to the passenger side, but his seat belt held him in place.

Without warning the car lurched forward, like the first drop on a roller coaster. Roy’s head fell into the airbag, and he was immediately surrounded by cold, rushing water. He tore at the bag, trying to get it out of his face. It pulled free, but the water was now over his head. Frantic, his hand sought the seat belt button.

The car jolted, hitting the bottom of the river nose first. For a moment it stayed like that, as if unable to make up its mind where to fall. Then, slowly, it lolled to the right, coming to a rest on its side.

Roy released the seat belt and strained his neck up to find oxygen. There was a small air pocket near the rear window. One of Bert’s Samsonite suitcases floated by his head. He batted it away and managed to get one last breath before the water completely filled the interior. Then he turned towards the passenger door.

But that’s what the car was resting on.

Don’t panic, he thought, and then almost laughed. He was trapped in a flooded car at the bottom of a river. Why the hell shouldn’t he panic?

The doors were blocked, but he could still get out through a window. Roy pushed at the front windshield with both hands, giving it all he had.

It refused to budge.

His gun. He could shoot through the glass. His hand went into his shoulder holster.

Empty.

The water that had filled the car was cloudy, dark. He tried to peer through the murk, searching for his revolver.

The dome light chose that moment to go out. Everything went pitch black.

Now it was panic time.

Roy groped the floor blindly, lungs burning, becoming frantic. His hands touched something metal. Not his gun. It was square.

Bert’s emergency camping pack.

He unsnapped the case and felt around inside. Something long and round. A flashlight. He flicked it on.

The beam was thin but powerful, cutting through the haze. Spots appeared in Roy’s vision, and he wasn’t sure if they were floating debris or if he was about to black out. His brain screamed for oxygen. The light played across the floor, the back seat. No gun.

Roy aimed it up, looking for another air pocket. There were none. But floating over his head was the inflatable donut.

He grabbed it, seeking the nozzle, pulling it out. Roy exhaled, clamped his mouth around the opening, and squeezed it while he took a deep breath.

The air was stale, weak, not enough oxygen content. But it was enough to keep him in the game a little longer.

Giving up on the gun, Roy half crawled, half swam to the rear window. He gripped the handle of Bert’s larger suitcase. Hard plastic shell. The one that the gorilla used to jump on in the old TV commercials. He brought it back and shoved with all his might at the windshield.

Once. Twice. Three times.

His vision became fuzzy again. He took another hit off the donut.

Four. Five. At six, the suitcase knocked the window out of its setting. Roy let go of the handle, watching it disappear through the new opening. He followed it out, straining and kicking, his wet clothes and shoes holding him back. No good. It was like trying to swim while tied up.

Don’t blow it this close to the finish line, Roy.

He brought the donut to his face for the last time, lightheaded from all the carbon dioxide. He sucked out the remainder of the air and then struggled with his jacket, managing to free himself. Then he pulled off his shoes and kicked for what he hoped was the surface.

His mind began to drift, almost as if he were on the edge of sleep. His lungs were two burning paper bags. Roy’s thrashing became gentler, feeble.

Almost… almost…

He broke the surface, and that first breath of fresh air was like being born again.

Roy flopped onto his back, trying to float, greedily filling his lungs. Something nudged him in the head. A suitcase. He clung to it, dizzy, shaking, happy as hell to be alive.

“Roy!”

He looked to his right, along the river bank. It was Abe, waving at him. The tall man took off his shoes and his shirt. Then he waded into the water and swam up to Roy with even, powerful strokes. The two of them managed to beach the suitcase. Abe helped pull Roy onto the shore.

“I was just driving up when I saw that guy drop your car over the bridge.”

“Was Bert with him?”

“I think so. He put someone in his truck.”

“Which way did they go?”

“West. Into town.”

Roy tried to stand up. His legs wouldn’t support him. “We have to go after him.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“They won’t help.”

“You should probably see a doctor. You’re bleeding.”

Abe pointed to his head. Roy touched his hand to a sore spot, saw the blood glisten in the moonlight.

“Help me with this suitcase.” Roy hefted it over to Abe. Twenty yards downstream, Bert’s other indestructible piece of luggage was snagged on some sticks along the shoreline. “We have to get that one too.”

“What’s in them that’s so important?”

“Half a million dollars.”

“I’ll get it.”

Abe jumped into the river with more enthusiasm than he had when going after Roy.

The cop sat down on the riverbank and tried to gauge the extent of his injuries. His head was starting to pound, and his neck hurt like crazy. He felt his ass and wondered if he’d ripped the stitches. Roy coughed, and then spat. He was cold. He was in pain. But most of all, he was angry.

The bad guys had left him for dead. Big mistake. He was going to make sure they found out just how big.

“Got it!” Abe held the suitcase over his head like it was the Stanley Cup.

Roy began to shiver. He took off his shirt and wrung it out, but it was still too cold to put back on.

“We’ll go back to my place.” Abe heaved the suitcase next to its matching partner. “I have some clothes that will fit you.”

“Do you have a cell phone?”

“I’ve got one in the car. How are we supposed to find Bert?”

“He’s got a transmitter on him. If I can get in touch with Tom, I can track him.”

Abe bent over and began to put on his shoes. “And what do we do when we find him?”

“Do you have a gun?”

“No.”

“We’ll figure something out. Let’s get to that phone. Where’s your car?”

Abe grabbed both pieces of luggage and made his way up the sloping bank. It wasn’t steep, but in his wet socks Roy kept slipping. When he finally made it to street level he had half a dozen more cuts and bruises.

Abe’s Lincoln was still running. Roy got in and turned up the heat. The cell phone was in the glove compartment. He dialed Tom’s number. It rang and rang. Had they gotten to him too?

Roy hit the disconnect and dialed the number again, on the off chance he’d pressed a wrong digit.

No answer.

Roy punched the dashboard. “Dammit, Tommy! Where the hell are you?”

“That was a complete waste of time.”

Tom and Joan had managed to tear down most of the wine racks. Their efforts didn’t yield any usable weapons, or anything else that would get them out of the cellar.

“Not a complete waste,” Tom disagreed. “At least we messed up his wine cellar.”

“Good point. We sure showed him.”

Tom sat down again, racking his brain for an answer. How many ways were there to open a door? Breaking it down was futile. The door and the jamb were solid oak, and the lock was heavy. They couldn’t take off the hinges, because the hinges were on the other side. Picking the lock was out—even if they had a wire or a pin, Tom didn’t have the slightest idea how to do that.

The final way, the one Tom saw a lot in his career as a cop, was called loiding. That meant sticking a thin piece of celluloid; a shim or a credit card, in between the door and the bolt, then easing it back. Unfortunately, Tom’s wallet had been taken with the rest of his things.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a credit card on you by chance?”

“Why? You want to go shopping?”

“I wanted to try to loid the door lock.”

“Sorry. Left my purse at Marty’s.”

“Any jewelry? Rings, necklace, bracelet, watch?”

“No. Don’t you have a watch?”

Tom did. But it was a leather band, useless. He needed something long and stiff. Maybe one of the pieces of wood they broke off, or…

“The nails in the boards. See if you can find any.”

Tom searched along the floor, finding a corner section. He worked the pieces apart until he exposed a nail. It was thin, bent, about two inches long. Tom pounded it and the board against the concrete floor until it came out the other end.

He found his way up the staircase and examined the doorknob with his fingers. There was a metal plate along the jamb, which the bolt rested in. Tom stuck the nail in between them and tried to wiggle it back and forth. They were too close together, and the nail was too thick.

“Did it work?”

“No. Nail’s too wide.” Tom rubbed his eyes.

“I found a smaller one. Try this.”

Joan climbed the stairs and handed Tom another nail. It was shorter, thinner. He wedged it in between the door and the jamb. With the tip, he could feel the bolt. But the nail was too short, and he didn’t have any leverage to try to push the bolt back.

“It’s not long enough.”

“Do all the girls tell you that?”

Tom laughed despite himself. “You’re not helping the situation. Try to stay focused.”

“We could try kicking it again.”

“It’s a heavy door, with a heavy lock.”

“Why don’t you try kicking the other side, by the hinges?”

Why not? Couldn’t hurt. Tom aimed at the bottom of the door. He kicked, hard.

Again. And again.

“I think it gave a little.”

Two more kicks, and Tom was positive the door was moving.

“Let me try.”

Tom let Joan have a go at it. After she put in six strong ones, Tom checked the integrity of the door. The lower portion was loose. He could push it forward almost an inch. Three more kicks and there was a small clinking sound. Screws falling out, hitting tile.

“Halfway there.”

Tom couldn’t kick as high as the top hinge, but now he could use the whole door for leverage. He rammed it with his shoulder and pushed hard.

“Lean on it.”

Joan added her weight, both of them straining and groaning. Then, suddenly, the door was falling over and they tumbled out into the kitchen.

The lights were off, and the room was dark. There was a noise, a TV or a radio, blaring from another room. Tom crawled over to the counter, where his gun was setting. He grabbed it and held his breath, listening for movement in the house.

“Maybe he’s gone.” Joan was crouching down next to him.

“Could be asleep.”

“Let’s not hang around to find out.”

Tom nodded in agreement. He reached for his wallet, keys, and phone. His phone was vibrating. Tom pressed the talk button and held it to his ear, silent.

“Tom? Jesus, where were you?”

Roy. Tom kept his voice low. “We have a little situation here.”

“They’ve got Bert. But he’s got the tracer. I need you to find him, now.”

“Shit.” The laptop was back at the hotel. “That may take some time.”

“He doesn’t have time!”

“Call you right back.” He disconnected and turned to Joan. “We have to get on the Internet.”

“Can it wait?”

“No.” Tom held out his keys. “Take the car. Get out of here.”

“You want to use Shakespeare’s computer?”

“I don’t have a choice. Go back to your place. You’ve got the gun in the car. I’ll be by later.”

“They could show up here any minute. Bill might even be in the house right now.”

“Gotta risk it.”

“You men and your macho bullshit.” Joan grabbed the keys and hurried out of the kitchen. Tom felt a quick stab of sadness at seeing her go, then concentrated on what he needed to do.

“Okay, computer, where might you be?”

Tom didn’t remember seeing it in the living room, and it wasn’t in the kitchen. But Bill was a writer, which meant he had to have a computer somewhere. Tom walked into the hallway. The TV sound got louder. He moved slowly past a closed door, probably the bedroom. That’s where the noise was coming from, the volume cranked up high enough for Tom to hear every line of dialog.

He paused by the door, considering his options. He needed to interrogate Bill, but he didn’t know if he was still armed. A shoot-out would be bad. Even if Tom did manage to capture him, how was he supposed to hold him while also messing around on the internet? And what if Attila and Vlad showed up all of a sudden?

Bill could wait for two seconds. Tom made Bert the first priority.

There were more rooms down the hall. The first was a bathroom. The second was a home office. And on a desk was an IBM, complete with modem. Tom entered the dark room and switched the computer on. After it booted up, he adjusted the contrast so the screen was dim. The keyboard had one-touch Internet access, and it only took a minute before he was at the Surveillance Technologies website. Tom fished the BigTrack serial number out of his wallet.

His phone buzzed.

“Dammit, Tommy. Hurry up.”

“Just a sec.” Tom punched in the user name and password, and a few keystrokes later he was looking at a map of Lincoln, Nebraska. “It looks like he’s on Talon Street. It’s off of North Park Road, near the airport.”

“Exact address?”

Tom squinted at the screen. “Doesn’t say. But he’s on the northwest corner of the intersection. Roy, be careful with Abe. Shakespeare was a real bad egg.”

“Put down the weapon and hang up the phone.”

Speak of the devil. Something pressed into the back of Tom’s head. He didn’t have to see it to know what it was.

“The phone and the gun, now.”

Tom ended the call and placed the revolver on the desk top.

“Where’s the girl?”

“She left to get the police. They’ll be here any minute.”

Bill gave him a hard tap on the head with the butt of the gun.

“Where is she?”

“She left.”

“Where did she go?”

“I don’t know.”

The blow brought the stars out. Tom toppled off the chair and fell to his hands and knees.

“Let’s get something straight, Jefferson. I’m the one with the gun. I ask the questions, you answer them.”

He kicked Tom in the ribs. Tom groaned, a spike of agony running laps through his nervous system.

“What’s the matter? Tender spot?”

Another kick, just as hard. Tom squinted up at him through the pain. There was something round and pink stuck to Bill’s forehead.

“Do you have a roller in your hair plugs?”

Bill reflexively touched his head, then gave Tom the mother of all kicks.

“How does it feel, to get your ass kicked by William Shakespeare?”

Tom groaned. “It’s better than reading your plays.”

Bill reared back for another kick, but something to his left caught his attention and he stopped.

“Drop the gun.”

Tom looked in the doorway. Joan. She had the semi-automatic in her hand, aiming at Bill’s chest.

“Hello, Joan. Welcome to the party. I was giving one of our founding fathers a little lesson in humility.”

“The gun. Drop it.”

“This gun?” Bill smirked and pulled back the hammer. He pointed it at Tom’s head. “What if I said no?”

“Then I’d shoot you.”

“Playing hardball. I see. But do you know what the secret to playing hardball is? You have to know what you’re capable of. How far will you go to win, Joan? Me, I’m willing to go all the way. Now I’m going to count to three.”

“No, you’re not.”

Joan shot him in the chest. Bill took a step back, slack-jawed in surprise. He looked at the blood soaking his shirt, and then fell to his knees and slumped to the floor. Tom pried the gun out of his hand. The Bard’s eyes were glassy, far off. A small gasp escaped his mouth, and then he didn’t move any more.

“Is he dead?”

Joan appeared dazed. Tom got up off the floor, one arm protecting his ribs. “Yeah. He’s dead.”

“Should we call the police?”

“If you want to.”

Joan walked over to Bill, slowly. She seemed someplace else. Tom recognized it as an early stage of shock. He went to her, taking the gun from her hand.

“If you didn’t shoot him, we both would have died. You made the right choice.”

Joan didn’t answer. She just stared at the body. He stuck the gun in his waistband and gently touched her chin, turning her gaze away from Bill and on to him.

“Can you live with this?”

“I… I think so. What about the police?”

Tom thought it through. Even though it was a clear case of self-defense, he wasn’t sure how far Stang’s influence spread.

“I don’t know if we can trust the police.”

“So what should we do?” Her voice sounded strained. “Start wiping down all of our fingerprints?”

“We didn’t commit any crime here, Joan. There’s nothing to conceal. If we’re ever questioned about this, we don’t want to admit that we tried to cover it up. You saved my life. Both of our lives. Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay. What do I need to do?”

“We have to get ready for Attila and Vlad. They can show up at any time.”

“What about…” Joan gave the body a sideways glance.

“Leave him. Go and wait in the living room. Keep an eye on the window, tell me if a car pulls up. Can you do that?”

Joan turned and walked out, somewhat robotically. Tom picked up his cell phone and dialed Roy. There was a recorded message, saying the customer had switched off his phone.

“Great. One more thing to worry about.”

He left the den, deep in thought. Defense first. Tom locked the front and back doors, so the Terrible Two couldn’t just waltz in. They’d probably call before they came. Tom didn’t think he could convincingly speak like Bill, so he took the phone off the hook and put the hand set in a drawer so he wouldn’t have to hear that annoying noise. Joan was sitting in the Budweiser chair, facing a crack in the blinds.

“How are you doing?”

“I think I’m okay. What’s the plan?”

“We need to talk to one of them, to find out what’s going on. If only one shows up, it’s easy. I go around behind him while he’s at the front door.”

“And if they both show up?”

“Same thing. But if it goes bad, you’ll be in here, aiming out this window. Vlad had the gun, so we go for him first. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to look over Bill’s computer files, see if I can turn something up. Do you want anything? Some water? A sandwich?”

“I don’t think I could eat.”

“Right. Sorry. I’ll relieve you in about an hour, okay?”

Joan nodded. Tom turned to leave.

“Tom?”

He stopped. “Yeah?”

“Have you ever…?”

Tom knew where this was headed. He took a breath and let it out slowly.

“Killed someone? My second year. It was a 10-16. Domestic violence. We’d had calls about that address before. The husband drank, and he was a mean drunk. When my partner and I arrived, the guy took a swing at me. Big fellow. Strong. We jumped on top of him, trying to get the cuffs on. He fought pretty damn hard.”

Tom hadn’t talked about this in years, not since his mandatory visit to the police shrink.

“You shot him?”

“Um, no. We managed to get him subdued. But his wife… she came out of the bedroom with a gun. Shot my partner in the head. Defending her husband, I guess. Even though the bastard broke her nose.”

“You killed her.”

“I killed her.”

“Self-defense.”

“Yes.”

“Just like me.”

Tom nodded, slowly. “Yes.”

Her shoulders shook, and then the tears. Tom went to her, arms open. She cried, and he patted her back and smoothed her hair, all while trying not to think about that October night, all those years ago, having to kill the woman he’d shown up to protect.

“You’ll be fine, Joan. You’re strong.”

“I know.”

“He was a bad man.”

“I know.”

Joan broke the hug, taking a step back. Tom could tell she’d found her strength again.

“Was that your friends on the phone, earlier?”

“Yeah. The bad guys grabbed Bert.”

“Oh no. I’m sorry.”

“Roy is going after him, but his cell phone is off. All we can do is wait.”

“I hope they’re okay.”

“Me too.”

“What was it you wanted to check out on Bill’s computer?”

“I’m not sure. Just searching for clues, I guess. Something to make some sense of all this.”

“Don’t let me stop you. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve got window duty. You go be a cop.”

“I won’t be long.” Tom gave her a little pat on the shoulder and then went back to the den, a bounce in his step.

He flipped on the light and tried not to look at the corpse. Sitting at the workstation, he logged off the Internet and opened up Bill’s word processing file. Tom found fifteen documents. He clicked on the first one and began to read.

I address you today as the newly elected Speaker of this House of Representatives…

Ah-ha. Bill was writing speeches for Phil Jr., the third most powerful man in America. Tom decided to check the most recent speech, to see if it yielded anything interesting. He clicked on the last document and saw it was dated two days from now.

It is in the times of greatest tragedy that we ourselves must also be great…

As Tom read on, he was enveloped by a very real sense of dread. Halfway into the first paragraph, his fears were confirmed.

“Oh no.”

He continued, and the speech got immeasurably worse. If this were true, if this were really going to happen in two days…

“We’re in way over our heads.”

Tom shook his head, his heart aching, because he knew there was no chance in hell any of them would be alive by the end of the week.

The pain in his wrists woke him up. It didn’t take long for Bert to figure out why.

He was hanging from them.

“Welcome back, Mr. Einstein.”

Jack’s thick lips were curved in a smile. He perched like a cat on the top step of a folding ladder, staring into Bert’s eyes. The expression on his face was pure glee.

Bert took in the surroundings. It was an empty warehouse of some kind. Dark, dusty, abandoned. Looking up, he saw the rope that bound his hands extended up the ceiling and looped over a rafter. He followed it down to ground level, where it was tied to a massive metal shelving unit.

“Oh, God.”

Looking down also revealed what he was hanging over.

“Oh, God,” Jack repeated. “There are a few tricks to a proper impaling. The stick has to be sharp, but not so sharp that it kills right away. It should be greased, in this case with some petroleum jelly, to help the body slide down. Too much and the game is over too quickly. Too little and it can take weeks. It’s a little bit art, and a little bit science.”

The stake was at least eight feet long, the pointy tip only a few inches away from Bert’s crotch. The pain in his wrists suddenly became trivial.

“I know what you’re thinking. Yes, it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt a lot. You’ll scream for the first few hours, but no one will hear you. I’d prepared this for Lincoln, but lucky you, you get the trial run.”

“Why don’t you just shoot me?” Bert’s voice was quivering badly.

“Why don’t you just shoot me? What’s the fun in that? Besides, I have some questions to ask, about where the others are, and this makes you much more receptive.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want. I swear.”

“I swear.” Jack patted Bert on the head. “Of course you will. Now perk up. We’re going to spend some quality time, here. There are few relationships more intimate than this one. You’ll share everything with me, Albert. You’ll open yourself up like you never have to anyone else. By the end, I hope we’ll be good friends.”

Bert fought back the tears. “You’re insane.”

“You’re insane.” Jack laughed. “Of course I’m insane. I’m Jack the Ripper. The original serial killer. The most famous psychopath in history. But I’m not entirely bad. I’ll prove it to you. I’ll give you a phone call. You can call anyone you want.”

“Why?”

“Why? To say good-bye, of course.” Jack unclipped the cell phone from his belt and held it out. “Give me a number. I’ll dial for you.”

Bert trembled with fear, anger, helplessness. He was going to die. The realization staggered him. It was too soon—there was so much he wanted to do, so much he hadn’t yet done. This was supposed to happen when he was old. Not now, not this way, at the hands of a monster who fed on his pain. He wanted to spit in the man’s face, but he held it back for the moment. There was a call he wanted to make.

Bert told Jack a number. Jack repeated it back, naturally.

“It’s ringing.” He put it to Bert’s ear.

“Hello?”

When Bert heard the voice he wasn’t sure if he could keep it together. “Mom? It’s me.”

“Albert! How are you? Where have you been hiding? I called the apartment three times, you haven’t answered.”

“Been busy lately.”

“Too busy to call your mother?”

“Look, Mom, this is important.”

“What is it, Albert?”

Bert’s eyes teared up. “I want to say… I want to say thank you. Thank you for my life. For raising me.” He swallowed, trying to keep his voice conversational. “You’ve been the best mother anyone could ask for. I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, son. Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine. Is, uh, Dad there?”

“Albert… I don’t know if he wants to talk to you.”

“Please. Make him get on the phone. There’s something I have to tell him.”

Jack took the phone away and put his hand over the mouthpiece. “I just have to tell you, Albert. This is really touching. Really.”

“Can you give me the phone back?”

Jack placed it next to Bert’s ear.

“Yes?” His father’s voice. Curt. Impatient.

“Hi, Dad. Look—I know we haven’t seen eye to eye lately, but I wanted to say something.”

“I’m not sending you any more money.”

“Dammit, Dad, just listen to me. This isn’t about money. It isn’t about graduate school, or physics, or the stock market. This is about you and me. A long time ago, there was a man who told me I could do anything in life. The sky was the limit. He taught me to believe in myself.”

Jack took the phone away again. “This is great stuff, Albert. Should I get some tissue?”

“Can I finish?”

“Can I finish? Sure.” He held the phone out again.

Bert tried to gather his thoughts. “You were there for me, Dad. All throughout my life. You helped make me a man. I know I never lived up to your expectations as a son, but you lived up to all of mine as a father, and then some. I just wanted to thank you, for everything you’ve done. I love you.”

There was a long pause.

“Did he say it back?” Jack asked.

Bert averted his eyes.

“You know, son, you haven’t been by the house in a while. Your mother would love it if you came over, stayed for a few days. I’ve got these Nets tickets—they’re having a great season so far. Heading for the playoffs for sure. Do you remember the first time I took you to see the Nets?”

“Like it was yesterday. They played the Bulls. Jordan scored 43 points.”

“So you’ll come out? They’re playing on Thursday. I don’t know what your schedule is like…”

Bert bit his lower lip. “I don’t think I can make that game, Dad. But thanks.”

“Well, another time then. Bert?”

“Dad?”

“I know…” He cleared his throat. “I know I haven’t been the most affectionate father. That was always your mother’s department. Hugs and kisses and birthday cards. But, I’m glad you called.”

“I’m glad too.”

“I love you, son.”

“Thanks, Dad. Love you too. Bye-bye.”

Jack took back the phone and pretended to wipe away tears. “I’m all choked up, here. Really. That was touching. The old man actually said he loved you?”

Bert refused to look at him.

“My dad loved me, too. It was a different kind of love, though. He had some—issues. Well, let’s be honest. He got off on hurting me. But behind every attack, there was love. I’ve missed him every day since I killed him.”

“You sick bastard.”

“You sick bastard. That’s all you can say? Well, maybe the insults will get more creative as the night drags on. I’ll warn you, though. Try to get them all in early. Because later, instead of calling me names you’ll be telling me you love me just to make the pain stop.”

Bert took a deep breath, searched deep within himself, and found a little reserve of courage. He met Jack’s stare head on.

“I’m a big, stupid, mama’s boy.”

Jack didn’t even pause. “I’m a big, stupid, mama’s boy.”

“And I play with dolls.”

“And I play with dolls.” Jack’s eyes narrowed. “I see what you’re doing here.”

“I have to repeat everything because I’m a moron.”

“I have to repeat everything because I’m a moron. Stop it. Now.”

Bert racked his brain for more insults. He could remember a show he saw on cable about serial killers. Many of them killed animals, started fires, wet the bed…

“I wet the bed until I was twenty.”

Jack’s jaw clenched, and his head began to shake. “I… wet the bed until I was twenty.”

Bert raised his eyebrows. “Hey, I think we hit a nerve. I’m a bed-wetting little psycho and nobody loves me.”

Jack slapped Bert across the face. The blow sent him swinging.

“I’m… a… bed-wetting…”

“Little psycho and nobody loves me.”

“Little psycho and nobody loves me. You’re going to wish you hadn’t done this.”

Jack hurried down the ladder. Bert watched him scamper to the shelving unit, where the rope was anchored. The thought of being dropped on that stake made Bert want to gag. His mind raced. Was there any possible way to get out of this alive? He didn’t see any. Roy—poor Roy— was dead. Bert had only known him a few days, but he considered him a friend. Tom was in LA, and probably wouldn’t find out about their deaths for a few days. No rescue, no escape. All the future held was a long, awful death.

Bert looked down, between his legs. He was still reeling from Jack’s slap, and the stake swayed back and forth beneath him.

Maybe he couldn’t stop death, but he could delay it for a little while. Bert kicked his legs out and began to swing.

“Stop that!”

Bert stretched out his leg, trying to reach the ladder. Maybe, just maybe, he could get onto it…

The rope went slack and Bert fell.

He stopped abruptly. At first, he thought he’d landed on the ladder and everything was okay. Then the pain hit. His left buttock. White hot, searing pain. Right to the bone.

“No!” Jack screamed. He grabbed the rope and held it tight. “Look what you did! It’s supposed to go between your legs!”

Bert felt himself jerked upwards, being pulled off the stake. He looked down, saw the blood on the tip, felt his left leg go numb.

“If it hit an artery, you’ll bleed to death!”

Good, Bert thought.

Jack tied the rope back to the shelves and climbed up the ladder. He spun Bert around and clucked to himself, inspecting the wound in a frantic, worried manner.

“I think it’s okay. I think it’s okay.”

Bert blinked back the pain.

“I wear diapers.”

“I wear diapers!” Jack grabbed Bert’s shirt and pulled him close. “Do you want to play? We’ll do it this way, then!”

Jack went to the top of the ladder and leaned on Bert’s shoulder so he couldn’t swing. Bert watched him take a long knife out of a sheath on his belt.

“This time, the stake won’t miss.”

Jack reached up to saw away at the rope. Bert closed his eyes and tried to brace himself. He couldn’t swing. He couldn’t get away. The stake was going to find its mark, and his terrible death would soon begin. Though not a practicing Jew, Bert’s lips silently formed the only Hebrew words he knew. Baruch atah Adonai. Praise the Lord.

Then, suddenly, Jack cried out and there was no more pressure on his shoulder. Bert looked and saw the ladder tumbling over, Jack falling to the ground. And standing there, bare-chested…

“Roy!”

“Damn straight.”

Jack hit the floor rolling. He came up in a crouch, still gripping the knife. His face registered surprise, and when he saw Roy it burned red with rage. He pointed the knife at him, shaking.

“You! I killed you!”

Roy had something big in his hands. It was a black garbage bag—one of the bags from Abe’s car that had been filled with cans. Roy held it at his side.

“What’s this I hear about diapers?”

“What’s this… I hear… about diapers!”

Jack lunged, thrusting at Roy’s stomach with the knife. Roy danced away from the blade and swung the garbage bag like a baseball bat, smacking Jack in the face and chest with a hard, solid blow.

It wasn’t filled with cans. When the bag burst open on impact, it covered Jack with a tangled mass of fishing lures. Hundreds of them.

Jack wailed and pitched to the floor. He rolled around, thrashing and kicking. Hooks were stuck in his clothes, his head, his neck. One hand was hooked to his chest, and the other was tugging at a bright orange object stuck in his eye.

The smart thing would have been to just stop moving and wait for help. But Jack became more and more hysterical. He somehow got to his feet, screaming like a little girl, and sprinted away from Roy, tearing off in the opposite direction.

Straight at Abe.

“Holy shit!” Abe took three steps back and raised something in his right hand. A tire iron.

“Get the hell away from me!”

Jack continued to race forward, gaining speed, blood spraying off him as he ran. Abe was backed up against the shelves and had no place to go.

Bert was transfixed, unable to turn away. Jack had so many lures stuck on him he looked like a decorated Christmas tree. He was four steps away from Abe… three… two…

Abe yelped and brought the weapon down, cracking it hard against the side of Jack’s head. Jack flopped to the ground like a fish. He twitched twice, and then was still. Abe dropped the tire iron and staggered away.

“I think I’m having a heart attack.”

Lincoln took three more steps and then fell to his knees. His hand clutched his chest, and his face was scrunched up in pain.

“Abe!” Roy hurried to him, grabbed his arm.

“Chest pains. Bad. That guy… Jesus.”

“Stay calm. I’ll call an ambulance.”

“Wait… wait… wait…”

Abe opened his mouth and let out an incredibly long belch.

“I’m okay. It was the francheesie.”

Roy left him to his heartburn. He went to the fallen ladder and set it up under Bert.

“I got you, buddy.”

“Hi, Roy. I thought you were dead.”

“Naw. Just went for a brisk swim.” Roy helped Bert get his feet onto the rungs. “Hey, Abe. Cut that rope.”

Abe was smacking his lips. “That sure didn’t taste too good the second time. Just a sec.”

“My ass. It’s killing me.”

“Mine, too. We’ll buy a couple of donuts. Try to stand up.”

Bert stared into Roy’s eyes. He saw deep concern. “You saved me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re welcome? You hit him with my entire life savings. You couldn’t find a brick, or a board or something?”

“Maybe I should leave you hanging there.”

The rope was severed and Bert’s arms came down. His legs were shaking, and Roy assisted him to the ground.

Abe came over with the knife and cut the rope tying Bert’s hands. There were bloody ligature marks around his wrists, but that paled next to the pain of his circulation returning. It was as if Bert had stuck both hands in a barbecue grill. He moaned.

“Are you okay?”

“Half a million dollars.” Bert looked around the warehouse, lures scattered all over.

Abe held up the knife. “We could, uh, get them back if you want.”

Bert winced at the thought. His eyes fanned over to Jack’s body. Moments ago, he didn’t think there was any worse way to die than being impaled. Jack just proved him wrong. A horrible death, for a horrible man.

“Leave them. I just lost my stomach for the lure business.”

“Well, your ass doesn’t look too bad.”

“Thanks, Roy. You’ve got a cute ass yourself.”

“I meant, I don’t think you’re gonna bleed to death.”

Bert laughed. “And just two minutes ago, I was hoping I’d bleed to death.”

Roy eyed the stake. “I bet. Nasty.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Tom. The transmitter. Shit, I should call him back. He doesn’t have our number. Abe, gimme your phone.”

Abe was squatting on the ground, picking up lures. “These things are really worth that much money?”

“The phone, Abe.”

Abe pulled the cell out of his pocket and tossed it to Roy. Roy pressed a few buttons. “It doesn’t work.”

“Hit it.”

Roy smacked it a few times. “Was that supposed to help?”

“Naw. Battery is dead. But don’t you feel better?”

Bert made himself look at Jack again. He felt many things—fear, revulsion, anger, even sympathy. He focused his eyes on the phone clipped to his belt.

“Jack’s got a phone.”

No one made any move to retrieve it.

“We should search him, anyway.” Roy scratched his chin.

“Abe, you’re closest. Grab his phone.”

“No way. I saw this movie before. I go near him, he comes back to life and grabs me.”

Bert made the decision. “I’ll do it.”

Roy shook his head. “No need, Bert. I got this one.”

“It’s okay. I don’t want to spend the next thirty years in therapy, whining about my fear. I’d rather face it now.”

Bert limped over to Jack, one hand pressed against the wound on his backside. With each step, he was less sure of himself. Deep in his psyche, Bert knew that confronting the horrific corpse of the man who almost killed him was somehow therapeutic. Shrinks talked a lot about closure. This was closure in spades. But it still scared the hell out of him.

He can’t hurt me anymore. Bert said it over and over in his head. A mantra. He stopped next to the corpse, leaning down, focusing on the goal, reaching out a hand…

“Don’t let him grab you!” Abe yelled.

Bert took the phone. Triumphant, he began to turn away, but something caught his eye. A piece of paper, sticking out of Jack’s back pocket. Abe tugged it out. A plane ticket.

“While you’re over there being brave, check his wallet.” Roy said.

“No fair,” Abe said. “I killed him, I get his wallet.”

“We’re looking for evidence, Abe, not robbing him.”

Bert patted down Jack’s pockets, careful to avoid getting hooked. He dug out a billfold, some keys, and a small plastic tube.

“You doing okay?” Roy had come up to him, put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m fine.” The case was black, about half the size of a pencil. It had a screw top. Bert shook the contents onto his palm.

“What is that? Drugs?”

“I don’t think so.”

The object was small, about two centimeters long. It looked like a miniature missile. Pointy on one end, tiny wings on the other.

“It’s a dart of some kind.” Roy carefully picked it up between his thumb and index finger and held it close. “Has some kind of mark. Squiggles, like Chinese writing.”

“YOU!!!!”

The three of them whirled to see Jack. Somehow, impossibly, he’d gotten to his feet and launched himself at the trio, one arm stretched out for a pointy and lethal embrace.

Roy shoved Bert to the side and put out his hand to hold Jack back. As soon as Roy touched him, Jack’s eyes rolled up in their sockets and he gasped, falling to the ground. His body jerked twice, and then he was still.

Abe nodded smartly.

“I told you that was gonna happen.”

“Is he dead?” Bert asked. “What the hell did you hit him with?”

Roy shrugged. “I just poked him with the little dart thingy.”

Bloody froth foamed out of Jack’s mouth.

“It killed him that fast?”

“Apparently so. Let’s try to avoid those things in the future. Gimme the phone.”

Roy took the cell from Bert and pressed some buttons.

“Tom? Yeah, he’s safe. Jack’s dead. Okay, tell me.”

Bert watched Roy’s face. As Tom talked, it became grimmer and grimmer.

“Great. I was hoping this situation would become a lot more desperate. Jack had a ticket on him. Lemme see it.” Bert handed it over. “Tomorrow night, to DC. Yeah, it makes sense. I’ll break it to the guys, call you right back.”

“What is it?” Bert braced himself for bad news.

Roy pocketed the phone. “Well, Shakespeare was a bad guy. He’s dead. It looks like Stang’s plot goes beyond just killing all the clones. Way beyond. The stakes have gone up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently, the day after tomorrow, Stang is planning on assassinating both the President and the Vice President at the same time.” Roy let the words sink in. “And we all know who’s next in line for the Presidency.”

“The Secretary of State?” Abe looked up from the pile of lures he’d been gathering. “The Attorney General? The Prime Minister? Don’t tell me, I know this. Oprah?”

“The Speaker of the House. Phil Jr.”

Bert’s stomach dropped. “If he becomes President, we’re all dead.”

“It’s a lot worse than that. He’s planning on blaming China for the assassinations.”

Bert followed the line of thought. “Oh no.”

“That’s right.” Roy’s face creased with worry. “Get ready for World War III.”

Tom clicked on the NEWS icon at www.whitehouse.gov, to check the upcoming events for the President.

“He’s in Canada for the next two days.”

Joan asked, “Where?”

Tom checked where the Prez was supposed to be tomorrow at 4:15—that was the time mentioned in Bill’s speech. At precisely a quarter after four, Eastern time, our nation lost two of its finest leaders…

“He’ll be in Montreal. He’s addressing the North American Energy Commission, whatever that is.”

“How about the Vice President?”

Tom couldn’t find any mention of him. “I guess he’ll be presiding over the Senate. Roy mentioned that Jack had a plane ticket to DC. They must be planning on murdering him while Congress is in session.”

“So we’ve got—what—twenty hours to try and stop a double assassination?”

“We can place an anonymous call to the Secret Service, tell them the plot, and they’ll take care of it.”

“They’ll want proof. Which we don’t have.”

“We’ll be real convincing.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Tom turned and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Do you honestly think that the President is going to cancel his speech because of an anonymous phone call? He probably gets threatened every day by nuts from all over the world. Suppose you got a call saying the mayor of Chicago was going to be killed at a speech. What would you do?”

Tom saw her point. “We’d beef up security.”

“But we have to assume Stang can already beat security. Hell, the Secret Service may actually be in on it, with all of Stang’s connections. Would the mayor cancel his speech?”

Tom shook his head slowly. “Probably not. He’d have faith in his security staff. Plus he’d want to prove that he’s not easily scared. Terrorists can’t push this administration around, that kind of thing.”

“So an anonymous call is out. If we tried talking to the Secret Service in person, and told them the truth about everything that happened, how far would we get?”

Tom knew how that would go. “We’d get detained, and possibly arrested. We might be questioned for days, even weeks. Without due process, if Homeland Security got involved. And Stang would deny it all, of course.”

Joan’s face scrunched up in thought. “What if we went to the speech, and tried to warn him in person?”

“We wouldn’t get within a hundred yards of him before the Secret Service swarmed all over us.” Their options were dwindling. “How about the media? Could we tell them?”

“Same problem. We’d have to convince someone really high up before the President would listen, and we don’t have any proof. Do you think Dan Rather is any easier to get a hold of than the President?”

“We have some proof. The speech.”

“Shakespeare is dead. How can we prove he wrote it?”

Tom tapped his fingers on the desk, thinking. “What’s left? Go after Stang?”

“Which one? Senior or Junior?”

“We probably couldn’t get to Phil Jr.—he’s protected by the Secret Service same as the President. But maybe we can pay Phil Sr. another visit, try to force him to call off his dogs.”

“And then do what? Say he calls it off. Say we even take the next step, and murder him. Within a week, his son would have us hunted down and killed. Then he’d go ahead with the assassinations anyway.”

This was ridiculous. The two most important people in America were going to die tomorrow, and there didn’t seem to be any way to stop it. The same system that protected the President prevented Tom from helping him.

“So what can we do? Warning the President won’t work. Showing up at the speech, if we can even get in, will just get us arrested.”

“Jack had a ticket to Washington, so he was part of this. Attila and Vlad are probably part of it as well.”

Joan let the implication of her sentence weigh on Tom.

“So, we wait for them to show up, and kill them?”

Joan folded her arms. “They’re coming here to kill us.”

“And you can handle this?”

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s more than just the President. To be honest, I don’t even like the guy. But if Stang becomes the leader of our country, he’s going to start a war with China. You read the speech.”

Tom nodded. To say the speech was inflammatory was putting it lightly. It blamed China for the deaths, and then made demands that the Chinese would never meet—the Communist government stepping down, a formal apology, restitution, the disbanding of the Chinese Army… This was more than just their lives and the lives of some politicians. There were millions, possibly billions, of lives at stake.

“What if this goes deeper than Attila and Vlad? We don’t know how Stang plans to do it. He could fire a missile from miles away, for all we know. Besides, if they are the trigger men, they’re already on their way to their destinations. A plane ride to Montreal is at least eight hours long.”

“Then we somehow have to get the President and the Vice President away from those areas by 4:15.”

They brainstormed for a few minutes, batting ideas back and forth. Some were bad, some were impossible, and a few were ridiculous. Joan chewed her lower lip.

“How about we fake an attempt? Like fire a few bullets into the air? Then they’d get the President out of there.”

“We’d probably be killed before we could even fire the first shot. Scratch that, we wouldn’t even be able to get a gun anywhere near him. Where is this thing happening, anyway?”

Tom did a search for North American Energy Commission and found their website. He clicked on upcoming events.

“It’s indoors. Invitation only, some kind of formal dinner. We couldn’t get in if we wanted to.”

Tom took out his cell and dialed Roy’s new number. Maybe they had some ideas.

“How about we get one of those planes that do sky writing?” Roy suggested.

“The speech is inside. Last I checked, the Senate holds session inside as well.”

“Maybe it’ll be a nice day, they’ll hold it on the White House lawn. Hold on, Abe has an idea.”

Tom listened to some mumbling in the background. When Roy came back on, he laid it out. Tom was impressed.

“That’s so simple it just might work,” Tom said. “Do they have tours?”

“Bert says yes. He’s been to Washington before.”

“Will you be able to get what you need? It’s a long time until the Fourth of July.”

“Abe has got that covered. Think this can work for you, too?”

“I doubt it. We probably won’t even be able to get in the building. Plus we don’t have Abe. I’m not as recognizable in the public eye.”

“Good luck. Call when you figure it out. We’re going to stop by Abe’s, then go to the airport. Good thing I took out the extra insurance on that rental car.”

Roy hung up. Tom related their plan to Joan.

“Abe will probably get arrested. They’ll put two and two together.”

“He knows. But they won’t be able to hold him for long.”

“It wouldn’t work for us.”

“I know. But maybe we can use the same principle.”

Tom sketched out an idea. Joan listened, and added to it. After bantering back and forth a few times, they had something that might actually fly.

“We’ll need a sensor, or something that can pass for one. And uniforms.”

“No problem. I’ll call Stevie. He’s been the prop master on my last two movies. He can get anything. Just find a logo.”

Tom searched the internet for Canadian companies. When he found a suitable picture he saved it to the hard drive. Then he enlarged it in Photoshop and printed out a high resolution copy.

“Perfect. Let me use your phone.” Joan took it and left the room.

Tom searched through Bill’s programs and found a business card creator. With it, he made some cards using the Canadian logo. He left the phone number blank, then printed up six on some card stock, three with the name Tom Johnson and three with the name Joan Smith. They came out looking professional, though it bothered him the printing wasn’t embossed. Hopefully no one would notice. When he was finished, Joan approached the desk with a phone book.

“There’s one magic shop nearby, but they close in twenty minutes. Are we convinced Attila and Vlad are a no show?”

“We don’t have a choice. I don’t know if we can get what we need in Canada. What about the other stuff?”

Joan handed him a piece of paper. “This is Stevie’s email address. He wants you to send him a jpeg of the logo. If he gets it now, he can be ready in about two hours.”

Tom looked at his watch. He still had to stop back at the hotel for his laptop and luggage, and then go to Joan’s place. If they caught a late flight, they would get there late tomorrow morning, just enough time to get set up and work the kinks out of the plan. Tom emailed Stevie the logo.

“Do you have any other business you need to take care of before you go?”

Joan’s eyes clouded. “I called Marsha after I talked to Stevie. She’s going to close the business for a few days, make arrangements for Marty. The police found my purse, and they’re looking for me.”

“They want to question you, that’s all.”

Joan’s eyes drifted to Bill’s body, for the umpteenth time. Tom sensed her indecision.

“You don’t have to go.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You can stay here, talk to the police, explain everything. I can manage in Canada without you.”

He couldn’t. Not by a long shot. But she was just a movie producer. She’d been through half a dozen traumas in just a few days. He had to give her an out.

“I’ve never run away from anything.”

“I wouldn’t call this a typical situation.”

Joan met his eyes. “We have to hurry. The store is only a few blocks away.”

Tom nodded, relieved. He gathered up what he needed and they headed for the car.

If they lived through this, he wanted to ask Joan if bravery came easily to her, or if she had to force it like everyone else. Tom had been forcing his since he arrived in LA. He wasn’t sure how much more he had left.

“Still no word from Jack?”

Phil Jr. took another sip of scotch. The tension was getting to him. He shouldn’t have been drinking—not only because he needed a clear head, but because alcohol had a lot of calories. One more thing to worry about.

“No, Dad. He didn’t check in when he was supposed to.”

“Then why the hell don’t you call him?”

Phil wanted to smash the speaker phone with his fist. The old man would never allow himself to be talked to like this, so why should he? They were cut from the same cloth. He bit his tongue and went over to the treadmill, putting his single malt in the beverage holder. Phil set the machine for a medium pace and began walking.

“We never call them outside of scheduled times, Dad. This is your rule, remember? So there’s no connections.”

“Use your brain, Junior. If Jack isn’t in the game anymore, one of the others has to replace him. It’s a long flight from LA to DC. What’s that noise?”

“I’m on the treadmill. You told me to lose some weight.”

“Call Jack.”

“Fine.” Phil drained his glass and switched the treadmill off. He walked back to his desk and picked up his second line. As he punched in Jack’s number, he held up a chrome letter opener and looked at a reflection of his chin. That wasn’t fat. It was bad genetics.

“Yeah?”

Whoever answered didn’t have Jack’s voice. Dread crawled up Phil’s back.

“Who is this?”

“Detective Roy Lewis, Chicago Police Department. Who is this?”

Phil covered the mouthpiece. “It’s that cop, Tom’s partner.”

“God damn it!” Phil could picture his father’s face turning red, that one squiggly vein in his head bulging out.

“What should I tell him?”

“Just hang up!”

Phil put the receiver on the hook and relaxed a tad. It amused him to hear his father frazzled. He poured himself another two fingers and turned the treadmill back on.

“Dad, you need to calm down.”

“Call the others. Have Attila go to Washington. There’s make-up in the kit, he’ll have to cover up his tattoos. He trained on the equipment?”

“They all did. Have you seen it? Pretty cool set up. Those darts are wicked.”

“They’re called flechettes.”

“Yeah, the flechettes. They don’t even make a sound when they’re fired.”

“They use compressed air, a CO_2 cartridge. That’s why I chose them. Silent, accurate, deadly. The perfect weapon of assassination.”

The Secret Service wouldn’t even know where the shot came from. The weapons were housed in fully functional digital cameras. Even if they were opened up, they looked perfectly normal. The flechettes were amazingly accurate, within a two inch radius from a hundred yards. Of course, they’d be fired at a much closer range. And even if the first shot missed for some reason, they each could fire four without reloading.

“They can actually take pictures, Dad. How would you like a snapshot of the President right when he gets a poison dart in the neck?”

Phil brought his hands up to his face, imagining he had the camera that killed the world’s most powerful man. Snap, you’re dead.

“Stay focused, Junior. Attila will need a press pass. You’ll have to get a picture of him.”

“Got one.”

“Without the tattoos.”

“The computer can take them off. Don’t worry, Dad. It’s under control. His press pass will be waiting for him at the hotel. He’ll be right up front, have a nice, clear shot.”

“And make sure their watches are synchronized to the second. Once one of them goes down, the Secret Service will rush to protect the other one. They have to die at the same time, or we won’t get them both.”

Like a broken record, his father.

“I’ll make sure, Dad. Anything else?”

“Call me when they’re in position.”

His father hung up. Phil turned the speed up all the way and ran for a few minutes. When he lost his wind he hopped off and finished his scotch. After his breath returned, he called Vlad.

“This isn’t one of the scheduled times.”

Another Type A. Phil decided to surround himself with yes men when he took office.

“I’m aware of that, Vlad. Jack is out of commission. Arthur will have to go to Washington. I want you guys to leave, pronto.”

“We’re on our way to Bill’s to take care of Tom and Joan.”

“They can wait.”

“Bill’s line has been busy for a while. We should check.”

“You should clean out your ears. I said they can wait. My father has a wild hair, and wants it done now. Besides, Bill always takes the phone off the hook when he’s writing. Doesn’t want to disturb the muse, or some such crap. Tell Arthur his ticket will be waiting for him at LAX. He’ll be flying American Airlines. I want you both to call when you arrive.”

“What happened to Jack?”

“No idea. I called him, that black cop answered. Could be in jail, dead, or on his way to DC himself. But we’re not taking chances. Does Arthur know where to go when he gets in?”

“Yes.” There was a wet sigh. “I’m really itching to get my hands on Joan.”

“She’ll be waiting for you when you get back. You can have all the time you want with her, do whatever sick shit comes in your head. But right now, keep your eyes on the prize.”

Phil hit the disconnect button, then dialed Bill’s place. Busy. Odd that he’d take the phone off the hook when there was so much going on, but writers were a strange breed.

With Tom and Joan safely locked away in Bill’s cellar, the only thing left to worry about was that black cop and the clones of Lincoln and Einstein. Phil mulled it over, but couldn’t see how they could possibly be a threat. Even if they knew everything, there was no way they could stop it. Still, it was always smart to hedge your bets.

Phil flipped through his Rolodex and found Jerry’s home number.

“Hello?” He sounded as if he’d been asleep.

“Jerry? Phil Stang. Look, I hate to bother you at this hour, but this is kind of an emergency.”

“The Bureau is at your service, Mr. Speaker.”

“I just had a phone call, two cops from Chicago. I think they’re connected to the mob somehow. They wanted me to do something for them, I refused, so they threatened me.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. But you can imagine. Calling my home number, saying they’d kill me. I’ve got my Secret Service guys on it, but I’d like it if you folks threw in as well.”

“We’ll make it a top priority. Do you know who they were?”

“Their names are Tom Mankowski and Roy Lewis. Go all out on this.”

“When I’m done, even the Sheriff in Wasilla, Alaska will know their names. You mentioned organized crime. Do you know which family they’re connected to?”

“No idea. But I’m sure you can find out. That’s why you’re Director of the FBI. They may have some accomplices as well. Let me give you some names. Albert Blumberg, Abraham Wilkens, and Joan DeVilliers.”

“We’ll take care of this for you, Mr. Speaker.”

“Thanks, Jerry. I knew I could count on you.”

Phil hung up. He would make more calls, to Justin at the Secret Service and Horace at the NSA. Then he had to get a ticket for Arthur and set up the press pass. But first; jogging or scotch?

He chose the scotch. During his last check-up, the doctor had cautioned him that he was in the early stages of cirrhosis. That didn’t bother Phil in the least. Donor organs were easy to come by. He poured himself another drink and looked around his den. Even though the condo was among the best in DC, he wouldn’t miss it at all.

His new accommodations were infinitely preferable.

When they finally settled in at the hotel, Bert had time to sort through his lures. He and Abe had gathered as many as they could, abandoning those stuck in Jack. The numbers were grim.

“What’s the verdict?”

Bert shifted on his inflatable donut and made a face. “I’m out about two hundred grand.”

Abe frowned. “You should have let me try to get the rest of them. We still can. The body probably won’t be discovered for days. In fact, they’ll be easier to remove when he’s all bloaty and rotten.”

Bert didn’t care to dwell on that image. “In all honesty, I really don’t care right now. The first time I lost my fortune, I was suicidal. Now, I just feel melancholy.”

Abe sat on Bert’s bed and began flipping through the cable guide.

“Near death experience. It’ll do that to you. Your partner has been acting pretty laid back himself. He was stuck underwater for about five minutes. I thought he was dead for sure.”

“Have you ever almost died?”

“Once, in high school. Some guys bet me that I couldn’t stick my whole fist in my mouth. I did it, but couldn’t get it out. Cut off my air. Some jock on the football team saved me. He had to step on my forehead and yank my arm.”

“Did it change the way you looked at life?”

“Hell yeah. I haven’t gone to a football game since. I still have the cleat scars.”

“I meant in a more meaningful way.”

Abe looked up from the magazine. “Like, did I analyze my life and decide to concentrate on things that were important like family and friends and stop wasting all my time sitting at home watching TV?”

“Did you?”

“For about a week. Now I think I watch even more TV than before. In fact, why am I here talking to you when I’ve got that big TV in my room?”

Roy came in through the side door. The three suites they’d rented were adjoining.

“The first four star hotel I ever stay in, and it’s the Watergate. Remind me how I got talked into this.”

Abe got up and clapped Roy on the shoulder. “We don’t have time to play around. A hotel like this, everything is done for you. I need my suit cleaned, my hat blocked, the flyer copied, and a haircut. Plus, it’s three in the morning, and they have 24 hour room service.”

“These rooms cost more than our airfare. And we paid for yours.”

“All in the name of patriotism. I’m ordering some prime rib. Anyone else want one?”

There were no takers. Abe nodded a goodbye and went back to his room, via Roy’s.

Roy watched him leave. “That guy is a piece of work. You think he’ll be able to pull it off tomorrow?”

“He doesn’t have a choice. How about you?”

“We got the easy part. How’s your ass?”

“The bleeding finally stopped. I could use another Vicodin.”

“Way ahead of you.” Roy handed him a pill bottle and turned to leave. Bert didn’t want him to go just yet. He was overcome by a feeling that nothing should be left unsaid.

“Roy… Tom told me, the other day, about you losing your brothers.”

Roy stopped and waited, silent.

“I had a brother too, died when I was a kid. I know what it feels like.”

“You’re getting weird on me.”

“I’m not getting weird. Well, maybe I am. What I want to say, is, when I was hanging from that rope, you were there for me. Kind of like a big brother. I wanted to say thanks.”

Roy pointed at him. “I will not hug you. Understand?”

“How about helping with this bandage?”

“Not even if you had gold bars coming out your ass. Now get some sleep. We can do this bonding shit over some beers, after we save the world. Night, Bert.”

“Night, Roy.”

Bert took two pills, then changed the dressing on his wound, being liberal with the topical antibiotic. It was deep and ugly, and probably could use a few stitches, but that would have to wait.

He killed the lights, brushed his teeth, and then crawled into bed. The Vicodin kicked in, and he slept without dreams.

“Wake up. Time to save the world.”

Bert opened an eye and focused on Abraham Lincoln. Abe looked like he’d climbed out of a history book. His unruly hair had been professionally clipped, his beard was neatly trimmed, and he wore an antique black suit with creases in all the right places.

“How do I look?”

“Say something presidential.”

Abe cleared his throat and put his hands on his lapels. “Four years ago, I scored seven times.”

“I hope you have better material than that.”

“Actually, I’m going to recite the Gettysburg Address. I memorized it back in school, for an assignment.”

“Tell me you got an A.”

“I got a D+. A few of the words slipped my mind. But I think I’ve got it down pat now. Why did Lincoln have four fathers?”

Bert couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. Rather than dwell on it, he rolled over and looked at the clock. It was going on one o’clock. He sat up in bed, a move that made him wince.

“Why’d you let me sleep so late?”

“We almost didn’t go. The only way to get into the gallery while Senate is in session is with a pass. Roy spent all morning trying to get some. He finally had to call his boss in Chicago for help.”

“But he got them?”

“I hope so. This haircut was thirty bucks.”

Bert forced himself to his feet. The bandage was stuck to him, and he had to take it off in the shower. Hurt like crazy, but no sign of infection. He slapped another one on and got dressed, jeans and a golf shirt. Room service sent up some aspirin—the Vicodin could wait until later.

When he was ready to go he knocked on Roy’s door.

“Do you have the gallery passes?”

Roy was also in jeans, and the sleeves were rolled up on his gray button down shirt.

“Damn things were harder to get than Janet Jackson tickets. Luckily, my Loot knows some important cops in this town, or we’d be spending the whole day getting the run-around at the Senate Offices.”

“I thought she suspended you.”

“I’m on vacation, remember? I can visit the nation’s Capitol like anyone else.”

They pulled Abe away from the TV and the three of them took a cab to the Capitol Building. It was a cold, gray day. Bert hadn’t been in DC for almost ten years, but he couldn’t conjure up much enthusiasm for the several monuments they passed. He was nervous. There was a potential for disaster that they hadn’t discussed. What if, despite their diversion, the VP got assassinated anyway? The Secret Service could mistakenly connect them with the crime. While Bert was all for saving millions of lives, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his on death row.

The driver let them out at the east side of the building. It had begun drizzling, and in the haze the dome of the Capitol looked dirty and oppressive. They walked up the entrance ramp slowly, hemmed in by a big crowd also waiting in line. Apparently the average American’s taste for tourism wasn’t limited to theme parks. Though Bert could probably make an argument that Washington DC was the biggest amusement Mecca of them all.

“Did we remember the matches?”

“Got them. Relax.” Roy patted his pants pocket.

“Everyone make sure their watches are synchronized. I checked mine this morning against CNN. Coming up on 2:38 right… now.”

Abe set his watch. “When do I start?”

“At 4:12. We don’t know how long you’ll have before they try to remove you. Are you okay with this? You know you’ll get arrested.”

“No problem. When it gets out that I’m a national hero, think about the chick factor.”

Bert didn’t bother telling him that it might never get out.

“Okay, are we all clear on everything? I don’t want any talking once we go in. Nothing to draw attention to ourselves.”

“Draw attention?” Bert snorted. “We’re two limping guys walking with Abraham Lincoln.”

“Don’t worry about it. Everyone will be looking at Abe. We’ll be invisible, especially once the show starts. Right, Abe?”

“Hmm? I wasn’t listening.”

Roy gave him a tap in the back of the head. “The future of the world depends on what we do in the next ninety minutes.”

“Gotcha. I’m all about helping the world. I freed your people, remember?”

The line moved at a steady pace, and after a tense moment walking through the metal detectors they were inside the Capitol Building. It was bigger than Bert remembered, all columns and arches and big works of art. There were three more long lines. Two had turnstiles and dividers, separating those who wanted to take a guided tour and those who preferred the self-guided option. All had to wait for tickets, which were free. The third line was for the gift shop.

Abe said, “What tour is complete without an official I Love America T-Shirt and the Strom Thurman in a snow globe?”

Roy ushered them over to the side, next to the Law Library doors.

“We’re supposed to meet some Senator’s aide at three. He’s going to take us.”

Bert noted, with some satisfaction, that Abe was drawing even more attention inside than he had outside. Maybe they could pull this off after all.

“Mr. Lewis and party?”

The kid was barely out of high school, pimple faced, red hair. He wore a tan blazer and brown slacks, and the knot in his tie was uneven.

“That’s us. You’re Senator Biltmore’s aide?”

“Kevin Dermont. Nice to meet you all. Does everyone have their pass? Go ahead and clip them to your shirts. Have you seen the rest of your party?”

“The rest of our party?”

“I believe nine businessmen, visiting from Japan?”

“I think they’re over there.”

Roy pointed to a group of well-tailored Japanese men, standing near the entrance of the rotunda and chatting among themselves.

“Of course, please follow me.”

They tailed Kevin to the group, where he failed to impress everyone with his halting Japanese greeting.

“We’re grateful for this opportunity,” one of the businessmen answered in flawless English. “Extend our thank you to the Senator.”

“Does everyone have a pass?”

“We received them at the Senate Appointment Desk, thank you.”

The kid led them through the lines and to the first of many guarded doors. Bert noted that the Capitol Police were abundant. All had uniforms, and all were armed. Maybe they wouldn’t even make it to jail. Maybe they’d be shot and killed before given the chance.

They walked through a hall, decorated with large paintings of fat guys with white wigs. The air was cool, dry, and it smelled like a museum. The Japanese seemed more interested in Abe than in their surroundings. They were too polite to point, but their stares were obvious.

“Our first stop is the Old Supreme Court Chamber.” Kevin bypassed another guard and ushered them into the room, where several dozen others milled about. “The impressive umbrella vault ceiling was designed by Benjamin Latrobe…”

He prattled on about some marble busts and the original desks and chairs, and before they could get a good look around they were on to their next stop. Bert picked up a tour pamphlet from a kiosk and looked through it.

This was not good. Apparently, there were only two more rooms to view before the Gallery. At this pace, they’d finish the tour before four o’clock, too early to save the VP.

The group went up the grand staircase and made their next stop the National Statutory Hall.

“This is actually the old House of Representatives Chamber. It was converted in 1964, and then later restored to its original appearance in the 1970s. Feel free to take a complimentary brochure.”

The room was semi-circular, filled with marble columns and dozens of white, black, and gray statues of various dead guys. Kevin led them on a brisk walk-thru, pointing out the Car of History Clock, the Fireplace with the Declaration of Independence above the mantle, and the Liberty and the Eagle relief above the South entrance. Then he headed for the way out.

“Uh, Kevin? Can we take pictures?”

Kevin turned to Bert and frowned. “You don’t have a camera.”

“But several others in the tour do have them.” Bert turned to the group. “Would you gentlemen like to take some pictures?”

There were several enthusiastic nods. Kevin put on a fake smile and said, “Of course. Take your time, enjoy the many works of art.”

It bought them ten minutes, but that still wasn’t enough. Bert’s watch read 3:45. They had to somehow kill half an hour in the next room.

“This is the Old Senate Chamber. The Senate met here from 1810 until 1859. Then it became the Supreme Court Chamber until 1935. There, you can see the historic Franklin Stoves. Now, onto the gallery, where the Senate is currently in session.”

Bert and Roy exchanged a glance of extreme panic. It was much too early. They had to stall the tour.

“What, uh, were some of the historic things that happened in this room?” Bert’s voice came out more urgent than he would have liked.

“Quite a few. Did you have any particular event in mind?” Kevin’s smile was in place, but it was obvious he had no desire to answer questions. He was probably still bristling from having to spend ten extra minutes in the Statutory Hall.

Bert racked his brain. High school history class was fourteen years ago, and he could barely recall any of it. But he was Einstein, dammit. He had one of the greatest minds to ever grace mankind. It should still be in there someplace.

He closed his eyes, willing himself back to that class. In his head, his old history textbook appeared. It was diffuse, out of focus, but he forced it to become clearer. The details came slowly. The brown paper shopping bag he’d cut up to use as a book cover. His name written inside, right under a person named Sam Gold. He saw the table of contents, surprised that he was able to read it. As if it were right in front of him, Bert opened the book to the 1800s…

“Didn’t the Webster-Hayne Debate take place in this room?” Bert asked, meeting Kevin’s stare.

“I don’t recall. Perhaps you can enlighten us?”

“I believe it started as a plan to curtail western land sales in 1830. Senator Robert Hayne from South Carolina believed that an agricultural system built on slavery could only survive with an unlimited supply of cheap western lands, and argued that the states should have the right to set aside certain federal laws if they wished.”

Bert glanced at Roy, who nodded, urging him on.

“Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts extrapolated the debate to one of State’s rights versus national power. He argued for two days that the nation wasn’t just an association of separate states, but a government by the people. As such, it was responsible to the people and could be modified only if the people, not the special interests of the government, chose it to be.”

Several of the Japanese businessmen had gathered around Bert to listen.

“Thank you for that information. Now moving along—”

“This was also the room where the famous Missouri Compromise was reached, correct?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Now if—”

Bert addressed the tour group. “Missouri had petitioned to enter the Union as a slave state, which would have tipped the balance of power because free and slave states were equally represented.”

“Uh… did they allow it?” Roy asked.

“The compromise was that Missouri was admitted as a slave state only if Maine was admitted as a free state. And then slavery was barred from the rest of the land comprising the Louisiana Purchase. This kept the nation together for forty more years, until the slave states tried to secede over the issue, bringing about the Civil War. Almost as well known is the Compromise of 1850…”

Bert went on to talk about the debate among Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun. It culminated in a Mississippi Senator actually pulling a gun on a Missouri Senator. This led to another Clay story, about the censuring of President Andrew Jackson in 1834, and Bert followed that up with the famous tale of the attack on Senator Charles Sumner by South Carolina Representative Preston S. Brooks. Brooks had taken exception to an address Sumner had given, and beaten the Senator with his walking cane in this very room.

The more Bert talked, the better his delivery became. He began to move around the floor, using his hands to gesture and point. While he couldn’t quite understand where the information was coming from, he didn’t stop to question the phenomenon. He just went with it.

When Bert checked his watch again, it was just after four o’clock.

“I could go on, but I’m sure you’re all anxious to see the new Senate Chamber, where many other acts of deceit and violence have occurred.”

Kevin gave Bert a weak smile and led them out of the room.

“How the hell did you remember all of that?” Roy took him aside, whispering.

“I have no idea. It was like I was reading it in my head.”

“You’ll have to teach me that trick. I have trouble remembering my phone number.”

They took the stairs to the third floor. There was another guard by the entrance, this one standing behind a desk. “Good afternoon, Gentlemen. We ask that you please leave all pagers, portable phones, and cameras here. The Senate is currently in session, so there is to be no talking. You’re welcome to walk anywhere around the upper level.”

He opened the door. Bert looked at Abe. His forehead was glossy from sweat, even though the building was cool. Then he turned to Roy, and the cop appeared positively sickly.

“Here we go,” Abe said to himself. He took a deep breath and held it.

They went in.

Tom tried his best to sleep on the flight, but exhausted as he was, his mind wouldn’t allow it. There was too much to think about.

Even if they did pull it off—if they could save both the President and the Vice President, it wouldn’t be over. Stang would simply try again. The man had too much money and power. Out of morbid curiosity, Tom had accessed the FBI Most Wanted List on his laptop, and wasn’t surprised to find himself on it. The others were as well. Unless they all desired to spend the rest of their lives hiding, surfacing only to stop assassination attempts, they had to end this.

Tom knew of two ways; killing Stang and son or gathering evidence. Since he was a cop and not a hit man, the choice was made for him. They would pay the former Senator another visit and try to find all of Harold’s notes on the cloning experiment. Maybe then they’d have enough to convince the authorities.

Of course, that also meant going public, and Tom wasn’t sure he could handle that. He was still having some trouble dealing with the fact that he was Thomas Jefferson. Once the world found out, the media attention would be never-ending. He would no longer be an average guy with an average job—he would be outed to celebrity status and become public domain. Tom Mankowski would no longer exist. While that might work for Joan, who already had a career in the spotlight, it wasn’t what Tom wanted out of life.

Of course, all of that was assuming they’d actually live through this.

He turned to Joan. She was sleeping, her head against the window. Remarkable woman, he thought. Strong, pretty, successful, smart, funny. Under different circumstances, she never would have given him the time of day. But fate, if you could call it that, threw them together and Tom sensed that she felt the same pull of attraction that he did.

Tom didn’t put too much stock in that; crisis situations tended to heighten emotion. Joan was a woman who really did have everything. What could Tom possibly offer her? Kids and a little house in the suburbs? That’s what she went to LA to get away from.

As if the situation was complicated enough, add some hormones to the mix.

Tom closed his eyes, thinking over their plan. It lacked the elegant simplicity of Abe’s idea. There were too many things that could go wrong, cause them to fail. Hopefully, they’d prepared for them, but real life tended to pay scant attention to plans, no matter how well thought-out.

Disaster scenarios coursed through his head—failing to save the President, getting arrested, getting killed. He tried to block them out, but couldn’t. If they failed, there could easily be a nuclear war in the immediate future.

Something touched Tom’s shoulder. He opened his eyes. Joan had switched positions, her head now resting on his arm. She snored softly. He lifted up the armrest between them and put his arm around her. She nuzzled against him, and all the bad thoughts were wiped from his head. He was asleep a few minutes later.

They arrived at Mirabel-Montreal Airport at a little after eleven in the morning, Eastern Time. Tom had seen so many terminals in the last few days that they were all beginning to blur together. This one had the distinction of being bilingual. All of the signs and all of the announcements were in French as well as English.

Joan looked good, certainly not like someone who had just spent eight hours on a plane. Somehow she’d managed to climb over his seat and freshen up without waking him. Her hair and make-up were pristine, and her blouse was wrinkle free. In contrast, all Tom had done to start the day was splash some cold water on his face and brush his teeth with his finger.

Joan handed the Custom’s Agent her passport, and Tom pulled out his Driver’s License.

“And how long do you plan to stay in Canada?”

“A week,” Joan answered.

“Business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure.”

“Do you have anything to declare?”

Joan nudged Tom with her elbow. “The gentleman does.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “What do I want to declare?”

Her smile was full wattage. “Independence.”

Tom resisted the urge to groan. “How long have you been waiting to say that?”

“All flight. That was the high point of my entire week.”

“Better than that movie deal you just landed?”

“Sometimes it’s the little things.”

He thought about her snuggling next to him on the plane. “Can’t argue with that.”

They located the rental car place and got wheels, and then took a room at the Montreal Ramada, using the name Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. If Tom had any allusions about sharing a room with her, they were thwarted when Joan suggested they get a double.

“We can each have a bed.”

Even though she looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Joan insisted on a shower. Tom went through the phone book and located six local fire departments. He jotted down their numbers. Then he found a nearby copy shop and noted the address.

There were still three hours before the shindig was to begin, but already the police were out in force. On a drive-by, Tom counted at least a dozen uniforms and plainclothes cops swarming around the entrance. Also standing vigil were several Secret Service agents, complete with Ray Bans and earpieces. A block away, three Mounties on horseback waited on the corner.

As Tom had expected, they’d never be able to get very far into the building, let alone the room where the President was speaking.

After Tom took a quick shower, they stopped at a nearby restaurant and located the pay phone by the restrooms. Tom made sure it worked, and then copied down the number.

Their next stop was a department store, where they got a digital camera. From there it was on to the copy place Tom had found in the phone book. Like its American counterpart, it offered a variety of services. Tom rented some computer time and got to work.

An hour later, they had business cards with the restaurant pay phone number printed on them. Using the camera, they also made and laminated some picture IDs, complete with the Canadian logo. Enbridge. Tom punched holes in them and attached some alligator clips. He also bought a clipboard, and spent a few minutes hunting through the various waste baskets in the store, stuffing it with official-looking papers.

Back at the hotel, Joan showed him how to work the meter. It was a technical-looking piece of equipment the size of a portable radio, complete with dials, switches, lights, and a red needle.

“It’s from the movie Galaxy Invaders. The heroes used it to detect the heat given off by the alien.”

“It detects heat?”

“It doesn’t detect anything. It’s phony. See this button? Press it and the needle jumps and the red light blinks. This button here makes it beep. The rest are decoration.”

Tom hefted the prop by the handle, waving it to and fro, pressing the buttons on the sly to make the needle jump. While he practiced, Joan unpacked her suitcase.

“I hope this fits. I guessed you were a 42 long.”

Joan tossed over a bright orange jumpsuit. Tom inspected it. Not only was his name embroidered on the vest below the Enbridge logo, the logo was also on the back.

“This is perfect.”

“Got you this too.”

She tossed Tom a white hard hat, also with the logo. They shrugged their jumpers on over clothing, as they were meant to be worn. Tom noticed that they even had some grease marks on them, appearing as if they’d been in use for a while. A nice touch.

“You ready?” Tom noted that even with the hard hat on, Joan looked cute.

“Ready. Are you sure you want to be the point man? I took some acting classes in school.”

“I’m a cop. I’m used to dealing with uncooperative people.”

Joan furrowed her eyebrows. “I just wish we had a back-up plan, in case this ones tanks.”

Tom felt the same way. But they didn’t have a choice. “We can do this.”

She nodded. Tom checked his watch. It was 3:48. Less than half an hour to save the President’s life.

They got on their way.

Bert went to the railing and looked down upon the Senate Chamber one floor below him. From this vantage point, he could see everything.

The room was big and round, brightly lit. Rows of mahogany desks were arranged in a semi circular pattern, and Bert was surprised to see half of them empty. Occupying the remainder were Senators, running the gamut of race, age, and sex. Their dress was as varied as they were, three piece suits to business casual. They drank coffee and bottled water and had little side conversations with each other and their aides while a voice thundered over the loud speakers in a monotone that sounded quite bored.

Elsewhere, activity. Interns and messengers coming and going, a group in a box off to the side that included some reporters and photographers, most of whom looked supremely disinterested. Several video cameras were in operation, recording everything for C-SPAN.

Not what Bert had been expecting. Perhaps he’d harbored images of important men in robes making grand speeches that held the audience in rapt attention. This was more like a college seminar, except less formal.

Bert turned his attention to the central dais. Sitting above the Senate was the Vice President, holding what looked like a white rock in his hand. Bert figured it was a gavel. There were several people on the tier below him, and Bert could see someone standing diligently in the rear that was undoubtedly Secret Service.

Bert looked around the gallery where he stood. It was a large hallway that wrapped around the Chamber, kind of like a long, circular balcony. Several dozen onlookers milled about, many staring down at the proceedings, but just as many whispering to each other or walking around. Bert counted four Capitol Policemen among them, and assumed there were more he didn’t see. Everything was relaxed, casual. Roy caught his eye and gestured for him to come over. He was standing next to a large bust of a familiar face. Thomas Jefferson.

“Almost time.”

Bert checked his watch. Eleven minutes after four. They had less than three minutes. Bert searched for Abe in the crowd, but couldn’t find him.

• • •

Fifteen minutes earlier, in Montreal, Tom had dropped Joan off at the restaurant and was attempting to drive through the large group of people that had gathered around the hotel storefront. Waiting for the President to make his exit, Tom guessed. They were being kept off the sidewalk and away from the entrance by velvet ropes. Tom honked, cutting a swathe through the crowd, eventually edging the car up to the hotel. He was instantly surrounded by cops and the Secret Service.

“What the heck is going on?” Tom made a show of looking around.

“Sir, you’ll have to move your vehicle.”

Tom pointed to the ID clipped to his chest.

“I’m from Enbridge Natural Gas. Just got a call there’s a leak in the building.”

An agent, eyes impenetrable behind his sunglasses, consulted a clipboard. Then he spoke quietly into his lapel mike.

“What’s going on here?” Tom made a show of looking around him. “Some kind of party?”

“The US President is speaking.”

“Hey, buddy, I don’t care who’s speaking. I need to get some readings.”

“You’ll have to wait in the car until you’re cleared to enter the building.”

“I don’t need to enter the building. I need to check the foundation first.”

The secret service guy was impassive.

“Look, if you don’t let me check for a gas leak, you’re endangering this entire block. Once the saturation reaches five percent, it’s flammable. Anyone in there lights a cigarette, plugs in a toaster, rubs their socks on the carpet—BOOM!”

The agent made his decision and allowed Tom out of the car. Tom grabbed his prop meter and followed him to the front of the building. When he got there, two men frisked him.

“What the hell?”

They searched his pockets and came out with the phony business cards. Tom watched as one of the agents called the phone number on his cell while another examined his gas detector.

“Careful! That’s sensitive equipment.”

The agent on the phone asked several questions. Tom had to assume Joan was following the script, answering as Enbridge Natural Gas and confirming both the leak and Tom. When he hung up he gave Tom a small nod.

“Go ahead, take your readings.”

Tom frowned at them, looking annoyed, and then took off his hard hat and ran his fingers through his hair. While doing so, he palmed the three small vials that were taped inside the hat band.

Then he took the meter back and began to point it around the sidewalk. He eventually moved up to the front doors of the hotel and hit the button on the handle, making the needle jump.

“Uh-oh. It’s a leak alright. Can you open the door?”

“We still don’t have internal confirmation,” one agent said to another.

Tom snapped a vial in his fingers, softly breaking it and releasing the liquid. A rotten egg smell drifted up from his hands.

“Can’t you smell that?”

The smell was mercaptan. It was the primary ingredient in stink bombs, a novelty shop classic. It was also the chemical used by gas companies to add scent to otherwise odorless natural gas. Harmless, but nauseating. Tom glanced at the agents and could tell they noticed the smell. One even fanned the air with his hand.

“You better let me take a reading inside.”

They had a brief talk among themselves, and then allowed him in, accompanied by two escorts. The lobby was full; more cops and Secret Service, and several hotel employees. Tom broke another vial and hit the switch on the sensor to make it beep.

“The levels are high. You’d better get these people out of here.”

“Which people?”

“The whole damn building. The whole damn block. Do you see these levels?” Tom pointed to his meter needle, which he held in the red. “You’ve got to clear this place out, shut off the main. I don’t even want to be standing here.”

The guy turned away, speaking into his microphone. Tom looked at his watch. It was already 4:11. They were badly behind schedule. Where was Joan?

• • •

At that same moment, hundreds of miles away in Washington DC, Bert frantically searched the crowd for Abe. He finally spotted his stovepipe hat on the other side of the gallery. Bert wiped his palms on his jeans and swallowed hard. The moment of truth had come.

“Friends, Senators, citizens!” Abe’s voice bellowed, matching the volume of the droning Senator who was on the house sound system. “I came here today because it is the historic anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.”

The gallery focused on Abe. Bert stared down into the chambers and noted that many of them, too, were staring up. Some were chuckling. The Senator who had the floor had stopped speaking. Bert had no idea if it really was the anniversary or not—he guessed not. But like everybody else he was momentarily spellbound by Abe, his words, his presence.

Abe didn’t hesitate. He launched right into it.

“Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. No matter how they were, uh, created…”

Bert stared as two of the Capitol Police had begun to move on Abe. He turned his attention to the Senate floor and saw that the Vice President appeared amused.

“There, in the box.” Roy nudged him. “That guy with the camera. I think it’s Attila.”

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, conceived and enduring, consecrating great brave men who greatly and bravely braved great things with, um, bravery.”

Bert watched the man, whose camera was aimed at the VP while every other eye in the place was on Abe. Warning bells went off in Bert’s head. That little poison dart they’d found on Jack…

“We need to do this. Now.”

Roy reached into his jacket pocket and removed an unwrapped pack of Black Cat firecrackers. A string of fifty.

The police grabbed Abe, and he threw his hands up in the air dramatically, tossing out dozens of sale fliers for Honest Abe’s Used Car Emporium. They cascaded down into the Senate chambers.

“We are met on the great battlefield of that war!” Abe continued, even as a third policeman jumped on him. “This is America! I have a right to free speech! You can’t silence me! I won the war, dammit! I freed the slaves! I probably did a whole bunch of other important stuff!”

Bert screened Roy from view as he lit the match. He kept his eye on Attila and held his breath.

The firecrackers began to go off while still in the air. They fell onto Chambers with the rapport of machine gun fire, causing instant panic on the floor. Senators ducked under desks, covered their heads, screamed out loud. The Secret Service man dove on the VP, pulling him to the floor. Bert turned to look at Attila. He was making his way through the crowd, heading for the exit. But had he gotten his shot off?

Roy tried to pull Bert to the ground, to imitate what everyone else was doing. But Bert had to see, had to know if they’d completed their mission. Finally, after almost a minute of waiting, a swarm of agents and police had surrounded the Vice President and were taking him out of Chambers. The VP appeared shaken up but alive.

Bert let out a breath, unaware he’d been holding it.

“We did it. We saved him.”

He turned to look for Abe. The cops were pulling him roughly out of the gallery, the cuffs already on. As he passed Bert he grinned and gave him a wink.

“I assure you gentlemen I had nothing to do with that outburst. I just wanted to sell some cars…”

They hauled him off. The room became a hubbub of commotion, everyone talking at once, everyone unsure as to what had just happened. Bert checked his watch. Seventeen minutes after four. They had done their job.

But how about Joan and Tom?

• • •

At 4:12 in Montreal, Tom had almost succumbed to panic. The authorities weren’t evacuating the building, and there was no sign of Joan.

Then, like an angel sent from heaven, Joan stepped into the hotel lobby, more Secret Service agents around her. She had an official-looking clip board at her side and Tom’s cell phone in her hand.

“Oh my God. Can you smell that? What are the levels, Tom?”

“Three percent.” Tom broke the last vial, almost gagging at the stench.

“We’ve got to clear these people out of here now!” Joan dialed a number on the phone and pretended to talk to their home base. Sirens could be heard in the distance, getting closer. Before showing up, Joan had called all six of the local fire departments and told them about the gas leak. In a few minutes it would be pandemonium.

Tom checked his watch. It would be close. Were these lunkheads going to get the President out of there or what? Finally, six agents went running off down the hallway. Bravely rushing to save their leader, Tom hoped.

“There’s a gas leak!” Tom shouted to everyone in the lobby. “Nobody panic!”

They panicked. Tom flowed out of the lobby with the rest of the people, just as several fire engines arrived. He met up with Joan and they melded into the crowd and watched. The Secret Service allowed the firemen in, and shortly began to assist in evacuating the building. When Tom saw people coming out wearing tuxedos, he guessed the Presidential dinner had been evacuated as well.

“Looks like we did it.”

Tom nodded. “They probably ushered the President out a side door.” He checked his watch and noted it was 4:17. If the assassination had happened, the Secret Service would be corralling people for questioning rather than letting them leave. The relief he felt was like a drug, purging everything bad from his body.

Joan made a face. “For just saving the world, that was kind of anticlimactic.”

“You think so? I was fighting the whole time not to throw up. Let’s get out of here, find out how the others did in DC.”

Tom made his way through the crowd, having to push and shove because it was so densely packed. When he got to the car he took off his hat and turned around to talk to Joan.

She was gone.

The guy to Joan’s left uttered a small gasp, and then dropped dead on the asphalt.

Before she could even react to what was happening, someone had grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

“Poison dart. Move, or you’re next.”

The man had a beard and mustache, and he was wearing glasses. He had a large, odd-looking nose, too big for his face. But the eyes—those deep green eyes—were instantly recognizable.

Vlad.

He was pressing a camera up against her. Joan guessed it was just a housing for his weapon—that’s how he’d planned to kill the President.

“I said move, or you’ll die where you stand.”

She looked for Tom, but he’d vanished into the crowd. Then she turned to Vlad. His face was red, his lips pursed. He was seriously angry, and Joan had no illusions that he would kill her if she didn’t move. But would it be better to die here, quick and easy, or go with the psycho someplace private, where he could take his time?

Her feet began to move of their own volition and he led her away. Joan could guess the horrors in store for her, but she didn’t want to die. Even if she’d regret it later. They made their way to the other end of the street, Vlad with his arm locked around hers, the camera pressed to her side. He cut through an alley, taking her away from the commotion, the people, Tom. Every muscle in Joan’s body was coiled. She kept waiting for something, anything, that would give her an opportunity to get away. The further they walked, the less likely it seemed she would get one.

“How do you think Stang will react when he hears you failed?”

Vlad’s rage was instantaneous. In one motion he released Joan’s arm and backhanded her across the face. She hadn’t been prepared for such a sudden blow, and found herself falling backward, landing on the tarmac. Her hard hat had flown off, bouncing against a Dumpster. Bright motes swam in her vision. She brought a hand up to her face. It came away red. Nosebleed.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” He reached up and pulled at his own nose, removing the fake latex one, exposing the swollen, discolored one underneath. “Put this on to hide the bruise.”

The rubber nose bounced off of her chest. Joan blinked back tears of pain and tried to quell the ringing in her head. The camera was at his side, no longer pointed at her. Now was the time to escape.

She didn’t have the chance. Quick and savage, Vlad kicked her in the right side. Joan managed to shift so he mostly hit her arm, but the blow sent her rolling. She’d taken kicks before, by shoeless opponents of equal size. None hurt like this. Her entire arm began to go numb, and the motes she saw became blurry.

Vlad came again, grinning lasciviously. Joan tried to bat away his hand as he reached for her, but he managed a good grip on her hair. He yanked, forcing her head back.

“I’m not going to beat you to death in the alley. It won’t be that easy. I have a place nearby. Someplace private. All my tools are there. We’re going to have hours of fun.”

Joan flailed out her leg, kicking at the camera. He kept it out of reach.

“What’s going on?”

A man was standing at the mouth of the alley. Young, short hair, muscular build. He took a step towards them.

“Don’t…” Joan started to say.

Too late. Vlad pointed the camera and a second later the guy was doubling over, blood foaming from his mouth.

“Now there’s a Kodak moment.”

Joan ground her teeth together and made her decision. If she was going to die, she would die trying to get away, not cowering in a corner. She scrambled to her feet and ran for the mouth of the alley. At any moment, she expected to feel a dart penetrate her skin. It looked painful, but quick. Better than being dragged back to his place.

But the dart didn’t come. Instead, something hit her in the back of the head. Joan lost all motor function. Her world began to spin and she fell onto all fours. Vlad kicked again, his foot burying itself in her stomach and sending her rolling into a brick wall.

“Get up.”

Joan coughed, spit some blood. She sat up. “No.”

Vlad began to shake, and then went from zero to psychotic is less than a second, kicking and punching and swearing at her. Joan tried to keep her head, blocking some blows, letting others land where they didn’t do much harm, until he made the biggest mistake of his entire life.

He swung at her with the camera.

Joan met the swing with a flat palm, knocking the weapon from his hand, sending it spinning through the air and cracking against the ground. Now they were evenly matched.

Vlad, in a rage state, was oblivious to the loss of his weapon. He continued to punch and pummel, snarling like an animal, spittle spraying from his mouth. Joan saw the opening and lashed out her foot, hitting him solidly in the solar plexus. Vlad stumbled back, holding his gut.

Joan got to her feet. She hurt all over, but she pushed the pain aside. She’d beaten him once. She could beat him again.

She widened her stance. Vlad attacked. Joan spun into a reverse kick and connected solidly with Vlad’s jaw. He left his feet and smacked hard against the asphalt, landing on his back, arms and legs splayed out. His head bounced on his neck.

Joan wiped blood off her face, using her sleeve. Then she took a running start and punted Vlad right between the legs, trying to kick his testicles up into his skull. He howled, curling up into a ball. Joan knew she needed to kill him. For what he did to her. To Marty. She had to end this, here and now.

But in her mind’s eye she saw Bill, his dead eyes wide open after she’d shot him. It made her feel sick, empty. And that had been done to save Tom’s life. She hated this man cowering before her, but he was defenseless. As much as he deserved to die, Joan couldn’t find it in herself to do it. Not with her bare hands. Not like this.

As she hesitated, Vlad managed to get to his feet. He limped out of the alley, heading for the street. She thought of all the people Vlad must have murdered, and all the ones he would eventually murder if she let him get away. She thought about spending the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, wondering when he was going to try to get her again.

Joan made her decision. Maybe she couldn’t kill him, but she could take him out of the game. Permanently.

She took three steps and launched herself into the air, aiming her flying kick at Vlad’s back. He fell, face forward, onto the sidewalk. She ran to him, knowing what she had to do, wondering if she had the courage, the stomach, for it. Fate made it easier. Next to Vlad, in the gutter, was an empty beer bottle. She broke it against the pavement and grabbed Vlad’s head by the hair, turning it to face her.

Two pokes, and Vlad’s green eyes were gushing red. His screams were shrill, almost inhuman. Joan released him and he scrambled to his feet, bleeding and howling and permanently blind, his hands clamped to his eyes. He ran straight into traffic.

Joan watched it happen as if it were slow motion. Vlad staggering into the street. The sound of the horn. The screech of brakes.

The bus hit him head on. Vlad’s arms reached out and grabbed the bumper as his legs went under the front tire. He wasn’t dragged, exactly. It was more like he was erased. Pinned between the wheel and the street, Vlad’s lower half was scraped away, leaving a wide streak of gore for almost thirty yards, like a big red skid mark.

Joan limped out of the alley, holding her side. She followed the trail up to the bus. The driver had gotten out, staring at Vlad in utter disbelief.

“He just jumped out. He just jumped out.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Joan placed a hand on his shoulder. “He was trying to kill me.”

The driver looked at Joan, dazed. Vlad’s upper body was still pinned under the tire. His lower body was… gone. Joan watched as his face contorted, his mouth opening and closing like landed fish. The pain must have been unimaginable.

Then, after a moment, the twitching stopped.

Joan turned on her heels and walked away. She hadn’t gotten half a block when someone honked from the other side of the street. Tom. He parked and hurried to her, his face awash with concern.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded, unsure of her voice. At any moment, Joan felt as if her legs would give out.

“What happened?”

“Vlad.”

Tom looked around, focusing on the traffic back-up. “Where is he?”

“He… caught a bus.”

Tom reached out to her, took her hand. Joan hurt in a dozen places, and her emotions were fried. She made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, and then she hugged him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, patting her back, rubbing her hair, rocking her gently to and fro.

“I talked to Roy. They saved the VP. You okay?”

“Remember what I said earlier, about it being anticlimactic?”

Tom nodded.

“I take it back.”

Joan buried her face into his chest, letting go of the fear and pain. They stood like that, embracing each other, until the ambulance came and scraped up what was left of Vlad. The horrors of the last few days, and the emptiness Joan realized she had been feeling for years, all seemed to melt away in Tom’s arms. For the very first time since she moved away from home, she felt safe.

And it was the best feeling in the world.

“I want them dead.”

Phil had never heard his father so upset. He stared at the speaker phone, trying to imagine the look on his face, but none came to mind. There was no precedent for it.

“Dad, calm down, we’ll have another chance.”

“Have them killed, Junior. Hire mercenaries. Pay the Mafia. I want them hunted down and gutted like deer.”

It unnerved Phil more than he cared to say. Dad was always a pillar, a rock. But his voice was cracking and he seemed to be losing all control.

“We’ll get them, Dad. We’ve got the airports covered. We froze their credit and their bank accounts. I’ve got people in LA tying Joan and Tom in with the murder of her assistant. And we also have Abe in custody.”

“Is he giving anything up?”

“So far he’s not saying anything. We can only hold him for 48 hours without pressing charges.”

“Then charge him with something, dammit!”

“He really didn’t do anything, other than disturbing the peace.”

“Make something up! Use your brain!”

Dad went on a coughing jag, and Phil poured himself some Scotch. For the first time, the very first time, he was beginning to doubt his father. It scared Phil, because it was like doubting himself.

“Dad, I’m taking care of it. You need to rest. The operation—maybe it’s left you a little unnerved.”

There was a pause. Phil wondered if he had perhaps pushed too far. When his father finally answered, his voice was small, quiet.

“This is our dream, Junior.”

“I know, Dad.”

“Thirty-five years in the making. We’ve sacrificed so much. Even with a new kidney, I won’t be around forever.”

“You’ll always be around. I’m your legacy.”

“Cut the sentimental bullshit. I’m the one who started this. I want to be around to reap the rewards. If I can’t be there to see you take the oath, it was a waste of my whole life.”

“I spoke to the Secret Service. They don’t even know that there were any assassination attempts. We can try again soon, same plan. There will be another chance later this month.”

“First we have to get rid of those damn clones!”

Another coughing fit. Phil drained the scotch and reached for the bottle.

“Maybe I should come down to the house, visit for a few days.”

His father was silent.

“I’ll free up my schedule.” Phil thought out loud. “I haven’t seen you in a while, anyway. Maybe we can throw the ball around, like old times.”

“We never threw the ball around.”

“Yeah, well, it’s never too late to start.”

His father’s voice became very cold. “I don’t need you to worry about me. I need you to do your fucking job.”

“I’ll see you in a day or two. Bye, Dad.”

He hung up the phone and called his travel agent to book the flight. Dad was wrong. Phil wasn’t worried about his father in the least.

He was worried about himself.

1 cordless drill
1 portable step ladder
1 funnel
1 crowbar
9 cans foam insulation
1 20# bag powdered cement
2 rolls duct tape
1 caulking gun
1 gravity knife
2 M18 Taser guns
1 can Guard Alaska bear repellent
1 aluminum police baton
4 Kevlar vests with trauma plates

Tom looked at the equipment spread out on the motel bed. Bert and Roy arrived the day before Joan and Tom, and had done the shopping.

“It’s a good thing Springfield had an Army surplus store.”

Joan seemed unimpressed. “This is all we’ll need to break into Stang’s place?”

Roy nodded. “Bert and I checked the place out. Security is tight, but can be beaten. The only rough spot will be Stang’s assistant, Jerome Huntington. Did a background check. Would you believe that guy was a Navy SEAL?”

Tom could believe it. Not too many people in the health care industry carried pistols. Besides, there was something about Jerome, some sort of vibe he gave off, that frightened Tom.

“Shouldn’t we get some guns or something?” Joan gave Tom a nervous glance. They’d left theirs in LA rather than risk taking them on an international flight, and Roy had lost his in the river. Illinois had a mandatory waiting period to buy firearms, so they couldn’t get any by tonight.

“The taser is almost as good. It shoots two probes up to fifteen feet away, a hundred feet per second. Sends a pulse that completely overrides the skeletal muscles, causing uncontrollable contractions and massive disorientation for up to 15 minutes. Even works through a bullet proof vest.”

“And I’m fine with this.” Bert picked up a can the size of a small fire extinguisher and read from the label. “Shoots a thick fog of blinding pepper spray up to twenty feet away, guaranteed to stop a rampaging grizzly or your money back.”

Tom wondered who would be alive to receive the refund if the product didn’t work, but he kept that to himself.

“Bert and I got you a police baton, Joan.” Roy handed her an aluminum billy club with a black rubber grip, roughly two feet long. “We figured, with your martial arts background.”

Joan palmed the weapon and did something very fast with her fingers that made it twirl. Tom detected the tiniest trace of a smile on her lips.

“This will do,” she said.

When 2am finally rolled around, they loaded up the gear and drove to Stang’s place. Tom parked off road in a copse of trees about a mile away. The night was windy, and dark in the way it never got in the city.

They hoofed it the remainder of the way, ducking in the ditch alongside the road when the infrequent car drove past. It was slow going—the equipment was heavy and everyone was nursing injuries. Even though he was cold, Tom’s hands were sweating in his latex gloves. There was no doubt that Stang would recognize them, but none of them were keen on leaving fingerprints.

The iron fence around the perimeter of the mansion was for show rather than security. Roy was able to pry a bar loose and they all slipped through, onto the grounds. The house and lawn were reasonably well lit. After a brief discussion, it was decided the northwest corner of the building would be the best approach. Not only was it harder to see things on an angle, but most of the windows on those two sides appeared to have their shades drawn.

Between the fence and the house was about an acre of carefully maintained grass. They took it in a sprint, moving as fast as they could. Midway there Tom tripped over a recessed sprinkler head, the step ladder clattering to the ground before him. Roy and Joan helped him up, kept him going. When all of them finally had their backs against the cool brick wall of the mansion, they took a few minutes to catch their collective breath. Tom listened to the wind, expecting at any moment to hear a police siren approaching. None did.

They began the break-in. Roy pointed out the first annunciator. It was a large metal box, the size of a medicine cabinet, painted white and attached to the wall about ten feet high off the ground. Inside was the horn, and a big one by the look of it.

Tom set the ladder underneath and climbed up to get started. There were slats cut into the box, like vents in a school locker. Using a penlight, Tom peered through a slit to see the cover lock. It was wired. Opening the box would set off the alarm.

Bert handed up a can of aerosol foam. Tom attached a tube to the nozzle and stuck it through the slats, filling up the annunciators horn. The foam was used in basements and attics to seal cracks and leaks and prevent heat loss. It dried quickly and had excellent insulating properties.

When the throat was full, Tom used two more cans to completely cover the outside of the horn. Then he sealed the vents with caulk, drilled a hole in the top of the box, and used the funnel to pour in dry concrete. That would fill in any remaining pockets of air inside the box.

The principle was simple. Sound traveled through the air in waves. By replacing a gas with a solid, the sound waves had no way to escape, and were effectively muffled. It would be like trying to scream with your head under water, except powdered concrete and foam insulation were quite a bit denser than H_2O.

After getting the knack of it, Tom was able to finish the second and third annunciators quickly. When he was done, he found Roy and the others at a first floor window. They’d completely covered the glass in duct tape.

It was no longer a question of finesse. They were simply going to jimmy the window open. The alarms would go off, but hopefully they’d been dampened enough so that no one would hear them. The duct tape was to prevent the glass from shattering and making noise. Tom and Roy shoved their crowbars in the window jamb and jacked it up. There was some soft creaking when the pane splintered. Tom found the magnetic switch, recessed in the frame and fully open.

“Check the annunciator.”

Bert walked under the nearest one and cocked up an ear.

“I hear a faint whining sound, really quiet.”

They were in.

Tom eased himself through the window and onto the carpeted floor of a dark room. He briefly flicked on his penlight. Shelves. Books. A library. Tom made his way to the door and put his ear to it. No sound. He gripped the handle and turned slowly, easing it open. It let out into a hallway. To the right, around the corner, was a faint light. Tom motioned for the others to follow.

The hallway ended at the foyer. The wall sized aquarium glowed blue, peppering the grand staircase with streaks of muted light.

Tom went up quickly—the stairs were a bad place to get surprised. The taser felt comfortable in his hand. It was lighter than the revolver he’d been carrying, but his muscle-memory treated it like any normal gun; finger on the trigger, ready to point and shoot. In the darkness, the horrific pictures on the wall looked even worse. Shadows seemed to intensify the many expressions of pain. Tom ignored them, pressing onward.

Movement, at the top of the staircase. A pair of glowing eyes stared down at him. Functioning on instinct, Tom leaned to the side and fired. The two probes hissed through the air and made a faint crackling sound when they found their target. Tom climbed the last few stairs, taking a look.

On its back, four legs sticking straight up in the air, was a cat. It jerked every few seconds as the gun continued to pulse.

“You get him?” Joan whispered from behind.

Tom turned off the juice and pulled out the probes. He reloaded them into the gun barrel. The cat went limp, but it seemed to be breathing fine. He changed the gas cartridge and checked the battery. The feline rolled onto its feet and stared at them, one eye crossed. All of its fur seemed to be standing on end, so it kind of resembled a porcupine.

“Sorry, kitty.”

The cat walked on wobbly legs to the second floor railing and squeezed through the bars. Then it fell twenty feet straight down, hitting the foyer floor with a thump.

“I thought cats always landed on their feet,” Joan whispered.

Tom put his fingers to his lips and looked down the hallway. Dark and quiet. If Stang was still recovering from his operation, there was a good chance he might still be in the drawing room. That’s where Tom decided to check first. He moved warily, as if he were in a haunted house and anything might jump out at any moment. When he reached the door there was a dim light coming through the bottom crack. He held his breath and listened. Faint snoring.

Tom went in fast. Stang was on the bed, his head propped up against the giant headboard with pillows. A thin line of saliva was escaping his open mouth. The dialysis machine next to him was silent, and a small night light plugged into the wall bathed the room in a faint yellow glow. Tom was on him in two steps, gravity knife pressed to the old man’s flabby neck.

“Wake up.”

Stang peeked his eyes open. When he saw who was standing over him they widened to almost comic levels.

“Where’s Jerome?” Tom asked.

“Two rooms over, same side.”

“What kind of weapons are in this house?”

“He has a gun.”

“How many?”

“Just one.”

Tom took the knife and held it front of Stang’s face, near his right eye. Fear made the Senator’s thin lips tremble.

“How many?”

“A lot. A shotgun, an M-16, some bladed weapons.” Stang’s voice was soft, defeated. He was a far cry from the confident, cocky man who’d threatened their lives only a few days ago.

“Anyone else in the house?”

Stang looked away, saying nothing. Tom lowered the knife to the old man’s waist.

“I’d be happy to reopen these stitches for you.”

His frail body shook. “My son is here. Room across the hall.”

Tom motioned for Joan to come over.

“This is the guy who sent Vlad after you. Keep an eye on him.”

Joan twirled a baton and swung at the old man’s head, stopping the club an inch before his eyes. Stang yelped, and she gave him a light tap on the nose.

“He won’t give me any trouble.”

Tom corralled Bert and Roy into the hall. “Bert, that’s Mr. Speaker’s room. If he comes out, give him the Gentle Ben treatment.”

Bert nodded and crouched before the door like a defensive tackle. The bear spray was clutched in both hands, pointing forward.

“Jerome is heavily armed,” Tom whispered to Roy. “Shotgun and an M-16.”

They sidled up to his door, silent. No sound was coming from inside. Tom gripped the knob and counted quietly. On three he yanked the door open and Roy went in low and to the right. Tom flanked him, covering the left. The room was a moderate size. Tom scanned it quickly—desk, dresser, open closet, bed…

Empty. On the nightstand, next to a lamp, was a baby monitor.

“Enough talking.”

Joan’s voice came through the speaker. That meant the transmitter was in Stang’s room, and Jerome had heard everything. He might already be on the phone with police. Tom hurried to the nightstand, reaching for the receiver.

The bullet hit him in the lower back, the force of the shot knocking him forward. The pain was instant and terrible, like being whacked with a ten pound pick-ax.

Tom fell to the floor face first. He heard the boom of the second shot, felt the impact between the shoulders. It knocked the wind out of him, and hurt so bad Tom wondered if the bullets had somehow gone through the vest. Was Jerome using something high caliber, or an armor piercing slug that could penetrate a Kevlar weave?

Tom tried to roll over, to fire back, but his body wasn’t responding correctly. The best he could manage was turning on his side. He saw Jerome, crouching under the desk. The pistol was aiming away from Tom, towards Roy.

But Roy was faster. Tom watched as the probes hit Jerome in the neck and chest, a tiny arc of blue electricity causing his upper body to snap backwards like a jack-knife. The desk toppled over and the gun went flying. Jerome began to jerk and twitch. Then he doubled over into a fetal position, his whole body shuddering as the taser sent pulse after pulse into him.

Roy set down the gun and hurried to Tom.

“Am I bleeding?”

His partner’s fingers probed the vest.

“No. Vest stopped them both.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

There was a scream, from the hallway. Roy yanked Tom to his feet and they hurried out of the room. Phil Jr., in pajamas, was rolling around on the floor, clawing at his eyes.

“It hurts! It hurts!”

Bert was standing over him. He looked at Tom and shrugged. “I only gave him a little squirt.”

Tom took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. He hurt, even worse than his ribs did after Attila had kicked him. The people who sold bullet proof vests hadn’t bothered to mention this little fact. There might have been less pain if the bullets had gone all the way through.

Tom unclipped a roll of duct tape from his belt and walked over to Phil. He placed a knee on the small of his back and applied pressure.

“I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars to wash off my face!”

Tom pried Phil’s hands away from his eyes and taped the wrists together behind his back.

“Please wipe it off! Sweet mother of mercy!”

“Mr. Speaker, if you keep screaming, I’m going to let him spray you again.”

The third most powerful man in America rubbed his face on the carpet and whimpered.

Roy dragged Jerome out into the hall. He was also trussed up with duct tape, but Roy had taken the added precaution of wrapping his legs as well. It seemed kind of redundant—the guy was down for the count.

“Here’s why it hurt so bad.” Roy walked over and handed Tom a large semi-automatic. “He shot you with a .45.”

A forty-five caliber handgun was military issue, a real cannon. But it was preferable to a shotgun or M-16. Tom felt incredibly lucky. Joan poked her head out of the drawing room and stared at the group.

“Everything okay out here?”

“I got shot.” Tom held up two fingers. “Twice.”

“You’ve got a vest on.”

“But look how big the gun is.” Tom showed her the .45.

Joan disappeared back into the room.

Roy patted Tom’s shoulder. “Some ladies are hard to impress.”

Bert managed to get the blinded Phil to his feet and lead him down the hall. Tom and Roy dragged Jerome after him.

They gathered around Stang’s bed. The old man’s face was pure malice. With his bald head and wrinkles, he looked like a snapping turtle.

“You need to hire better help.” Roy pulled Jerome into a corner of the room. “I know nurses at County General who can shoot a lot better than this guy.”

Tom sat on the bed and held the gun in front of Stang’s face. “Where are all the research papers?”

“In the basement. There’s a secret door on the first floor. Junior will show you.”

“Dad! I can’t see!”

Roy gave Jerome a light slap on the cheek. Jerome began to snore. “This one’s in no shape to show us around neither.”

“That leaves you to guide the tour, Senator.”

“I’m recovering from a major operation.”

“Bert, I think Phil Jr. needs more bear juice.”

Bert aimed the canister at the younger man’s face. The Speaker of the House cringed. “Take them, Dad! Take them!”

Stang snarled. “There’s a wheelchair in the closet.”

Tom opened it up and found the latest electric model. Stang gave instructions on how to work it, and Bert drove it next to the bed. Roy and Bert lifted the old man and set him in the padded seat.

Joan looked at Tom. “How can a wheelchair go down the stairs?”

“Pretty damn quick.”

Stang glowered. “There’s an elevator.”

Tom instructed Roy and Bert to keep watch over the hostages, and held open the door. Joan went out first, followed by the whirring sound of Stang in the automatic wheelchair. So far everything had gone more or less according to plan. If their luck held, it would all be over very soon. If their luck held. Tom checked the clip in the .45. Six bullets left.

“The hard part is over, Tommy. From here on out, it’s cake.”

Bert nodded in agreement. “Let’s finish this up, get out of here.”

Tom gripped the gun tightly and walked out the door, hoping they were right.

“The lift is on the other side of the hallway.”

Stang’s voice was tired. He pushed the little joystick on the armrest all the way forward, but his chair didn’t roll any faster than walking speed.

“There’s something I wanted to ask.” Tom rested the gun on Stang’s shoulder. “Why the hell did you create us, anyway?”

“I’m asking myself that same question right now. It was all about power.”

“Explain.”

The old man cleared his throat. “I couldn’t ever be President, being born in Germany. So, from birth, I’ve been grooming my son for the job. But winning an election has little to do with ability. Sometimes it comes down to different hot issues, or party support, or running mates, or looks, or a hundred other ridiculous reasons. I decided to stack the deck.”

They reached the end of the hall. An old fashioned elevator, complete with metal folding gate, was waiting for them. Tom opened the door as Stang talked.

“So I cloned the greatest people in history, to align them with my son. It was a no lose situation. If greatness was genetic we’d have all the political savvy of Jefferson and Lincoln, all the brilliance of Einstein and Edison, Shakespeare to write the best speeches, the military strategy of Robert E. Lee.”

The Senator had become more energetic, gesturing with his free hand and raising his voice.

“And even if you turned out to be idiots, you still had the famous faces, the famous names. Tom, I’d planned for you to become Vice President. Name someone in America who wouldn’t vote for you? Democrat, Republican; it wouldn’t matter. If my son had you as a running mate, and announced Lincoln as a future Secretary of State, Einstein as Secretary of Education, and so on, he’d be a sure thing. Robert E. Lee would capture the southern vote, Joan of Arc would get the women, we’d be unstoppable.”

Tom shut the door to the elevator and Stang instructed him to pull the switch down. He did, and the lift began to descend.

“You think America would vote for clones?”

“Of course not. But I had papers made, all proving lineage to the people you’d been cloned from. Tom, you were Jefferson’s great great great grandson. All of you had the genealogy. America would have eaten it up.”

“Let me guess what happened. Edison figured out he was a clone.”

Stang sighed. He appeared to partially deflate. “It started before that. I’d managed to recruit some of the others—Vlad, Attila, Jack, and Bill. But when I tried to recruit Robert E. Lee, he refused. Threatened to go public. That wouldn’t do—the United States would vote for a descendant of Robert E. Lee, but mention the word clone and everyone starts crowing about religion and messing with the forces of nature.”

“So you killed him.”

“Of course. And then Jessup—Edison—figured it out by himself. I knew he did, because I’ve been keeping tabs on all of you since you were born. But when I offered him the chance to join he balked as well. By then Einstein knew, and you. Since none of you showed even a shred of political potential anyway…”

Tom followed the twisted train of thought. “You decided to cut your losses and get rid of us.”

The elevator stopped on the first floor, but Tom didn’t move to open the door.

“I created you. It’s my right to destroy you. If you play God, you’re allowed to play it to the hilt.”

Tom felt like throttling the guy. Everything, all the death, all the fighting. Just because of some megalomaniac’s ego.

“But I had no idea.” Joan looked down at Stang. “Why try to murder me? I would have lived out the rest of my life not knowing.”

Tom had one of those moments where everything suddenly became clear. He knew the reason, the real reason, why Stang had to kill them all.

“You were still a possible threat. Stang had to make sure no one ever knew that human cloning was possible. He said it himself, the United States would never elect a clone.” Tom stared at Stang. “Especially a clone of a man who was born in Germany.”

Joan looked at Tom, confused. Then her eyes got big. “The Speaker of the House?”

Tom nodded. “Phil Jr. A chip off the old block. Stang couldn’t become President, so he cloned himself. If his clone became President, it was almost the same thing.”

Stang looked like he’d bitten into a lemon. “I had a right to hold that office. One stupid, archaic law kept me out.”

“So you created all of us to help your clone win the election, and when it turned out we would do more harm than good…”

Stang looked ready to spit venom. “I found another way to win the Oval Office. Without an election. Without a platform. Without a group of worthless freaks like you. I’ve watched you both, your whole lives. Pathetic. A woman who once saved France, reduced to a pimp who makes bad movies. And a man who once created a new nation, now just another dumb pig.” His eyes were narrow, and flecks of spit dotted his lips and chin. “My son, he’s my blood, my genes. He’s me. You two are just some chemicals we cooked up in a lab. You aren’t even human.”

“I’m not sure you’re the right person to judge humanity, Stang.”

The old man slumped in his chair. Tom opened the folding gate and they went into the hallway.

“Where?”

“The next room. There’s a hidden door.”

It was a trophy room, deer heads and trout mounted on oak plaques and hanging on all four walls. A fireplace was in one corner, a matching sofa and chair arranged around it on the wooden floor. Tom checked the room out, top to bottom, and couldn’t find any evidence of a hidden door.

“That’s because it’s hidden,” Stang snapped. “Go to that bookcase and take out the volume of Moby Dick.”

Tom found the book and pulled on it, half-expecting a secret passage to open. None did. He flipped through the book and it appeared normal.

“What’s the deal?”

“Hold the book against the wall, just above the light switch. It’s a magnetic lock. Then flip the switch up.”

Tom did as instructed, and there was a clicking noise. Several wood panels in the center of the floor had risen up about an inch. Tom knelt down and realized it was a trap door, the seams hidden by the natural cut of the wood. He pulled open the hatch and flashed his penlight into the hole. A staircase.

“At the bottom there’s a keypad. The code is 61694. Punch it in and the door will open. There’s a short hallway, and at the end of the hall there’s another door with another lock, same code. That’s my safe. The papers are in there.”

Tom sniffed the air. It was stale, and something else. Musky.

“Want me to go?”

Tom shook his head at Joan. “Stay here. If anything happens to me, tell my partner to snap Stang’s neck.”

He took the stairs slowly. When he reached the bottom he figured he was about twenty feet underground. A large aluminum door blocked his path. Tom found the keypad to his left and punched in the numbers. There was a clang and a hiss, and the door clicked open.

Tom was hit by a wave of cool, damp air. The musky smell was stronger, more acrid. He pushed the door inward and aimed the penlight down the dark hall.

“There’s a light switch,” Stang called to him, “on the wall to the right.”

Tom located the switch. He flipped it up, bathing the narrow hallway with pale yellow light. Looking ahead about fifteen feet, he saw another metal door. This one appeared larger, stronger. It also had a big metal slat in the center, with a slide bar. Tom had seen a similar contraption on a door in the solitary confinement wing at Joliet State Penitentiary. It had been the food slot. Violent inmates could receive their meals without the risk of opening the door.

“Hey Stang, what’s this thing in the middle of the door?”

“I can put valuables into the safe without opening it up.”

Tom didn’t know if he bought that. His back hurt, his ribs hurt, and he now felt a sharp stab of paranoia. He approached cautiously, gun in hand. Being careful, he pulled back the slat on the door and tried to peer inside. It was dark, and his penlight didn’t penetrate very far. An awful stench came through the slot—the smell of death. Tom thought it over. What if this wasn’t a safe at all? What if it was some kind of private graveyard?

Actually, that would be a good thing. If Stang was burying dead bodies under his house, they wouldn’t need all the cloning evidence to put him away. Local law enforcement would take care of him, and the media would take care of his son.

Tom punched in the code and the door unlocked. This one opened outward rather than inward. He peered inside the room, awash in the awful smell, trying to see in the darkness.

He called to Stang. “Is there a light?”

“On the far wall. It’s only a few feet inside.”

“What’s that awful smell?”

“A, uh, an animal burrowed under the house and died. We haven’t been able to find it.”

That sounded like a big grandaddy lie. Tom took a step into the room, trying to steel himself against any possible shock.

He didn’t see it, but he immediately sensed something directly in front of him. The hairs on his neck stood up, and he aimed his gun forward. By then there was movement on both sides of him as well.

Tom managed to fire twice before he got knocked off his feet. He landed on his back, hard. Something was on top of him, moaning and snarling. Tom felt rancid breath, hair, teeth. Mad dog?

No. Worse. Much worse.

He managed to push the attacker at arm’s length and got a look. It was a man, with wild eyes, long hair, and a ragged beard. Black and jagged teeth. On his forehead, beneath the grime, Tom could make out a long scar. Deep, and old. And if the shock couldn’t get any greater, Tom was stunned to recognize the face.

It was Stang.

The man tore at Tom with filthy fingernails. Another man stood over them both. He was also Stang, with a similar scar on his forehead. But this one was cleaner looking. Tom saw that he was holding something at his side. A white bandage, stained with some blood. Right in the spot where a kidney would be.

No wonder Stang was able to get so many organ transplants. He had his own personal supply, locked away down here. And always a perfect tissue match. Stang must have kept all of Harold’s early cloning experiments, and then raised them to be spare parts. The thought horrified Tom. Have they been locked up here their whole lives?

The clone on top of him continued to growl and attack, and Tom noted that three more scrambled out of the darkness of their cell and ran down the hall.

“Jo—” Tom tried to call out but a grimy hand forced its way into his mouth, cutting off his voice. His gun arm was pinned. Tom grunted, and with all of his effort managed to roll his attacker over and get on top of him. He brought up his gun and aimed at the clone’s chest, firing two shots.

Almost immediately he was hit from behind by another clone. His gun was knocked from his fist, skittering across the floor. The man on his back began to pound on him with both hands, each blow bringing stars to Tom’s eyes. Then he was suddenly dead weight on Tom, mashing him onto the corpse below him. The weight doubled as another clone tried to climb over them, and another, and another.

Tom was being crushed by the pile of bodies, and very close to blacking out. He tried to fight it, tried to hold on, but he couldn’t draw a breath and the pain and claustrophobia were so intense he felt he might go insane. Tom tried one last time to scream out Joan’s name, to try to warn her.

All that came out was a weak moan.

“So you’re a clone of your father?”

Phil Jr. nodded under the towel. Bert had finally tired of the complaining and was wiping his face.

“I’m going to be President and—”

They were interrupted by a sharp report, muffled but obvious. A gunshot.

Roy went to the door, taser in hand. “Stay here.”

Bert shook his head. “If Tom’s in trouble, we both go.”

Roy nodded. He hadn’t even taken one step out of the door when Bert saw the blade flash.

Roy fell into the hall, his taser clattering to the floor where he stood. And then the man came into the room. Bert mouthed his name.

“Attila.”

His samurai sword was held in both hands. Bert noticed the blood dripping from the tip.

Roy’s blood.

“Attila!” Phil’s voice was cracking with emotion. “What took you so damn long?”

The small man grinned, exposing a single gold tooth in a field of rotten ones. “Needed eye gear.”

On Attila’s head were a set of swimming goggles, held on by an elastic band. He pointed his sword at Bert and slashed an X in the air.

Goggles or not, Bert let him have it with the pepper spray. He squirted Attila in the chest and face, a powerful eight second blast. When the fog lifted, the man was still standing there. His face was bright red, puffy, and the goggles appeared tighter on his eyes. His breath came in rasps, and his lips were swollen to double their size. But he could still apparently see, because he lunged straight at Bert with the sword.

Bert tripped backwards over Jerome and fell onto his ass, narrowly dodging the blow. But the pain from his gluteus maximus was like getting impaled all over again.

“Kill him!” Phil yelled.

Still gripping the can, Bert sent another stream of pepper at Attila, wondering what could possibly be keeping this man on his feet. It was bear repellent, for God’s sake.

Attila continued to advance, slashing at the spray with his sword. He’d begun to howl, his face so swollen he looked like a Cabbage Patch doll. The sword came, closer, closer, and Bert felt that he was going to drop dead from fright before Attila even touched him.

Another lunge. Bert rolled away. The pepper fog in the room was now so bad that Bert was having trouble keeping his eyes open. It hurt like crazy. He blinked away the tears and tried not to breathe too deeply.

Attila planted both his feet and slashed, swinging at Bert’s head like a baseball player. Bert ducked, and the sword neatly cut off a lock of his hair. He dove onto Stang’s bed and tried to crawl across the mattress. A quick look over his shoulder found that Attila was standing directly behind him, puffy face grinning, ready to bring down the blade.

Someone yelled, “Hey!”

Attila paused, turning at the doorway, his swollen eyes squinting through the goggles.

Roy shot Attila with the taser. The probes hit him squarely in the chest, and Bert watched in awe as the first arc of blue electricity ignited the alcohol-based pepper spray soaking Attila’s clothing.

It was like throwing a match on a gas grill.

Attila dropped the sword and screamed, trying to beat out the flames that had exploded all over his body. He just made it worse. Soon the bed canopy was also on fire, and the drapes, and some of the carpet.

Phil Jr. backed away from him, his face pure panic. “Help me!”

Bert watched in horrific fascination as Attila took two, three, four steps towards the Speaker of the House. Phil Jr. had run out of room and was cowering next to the railing, hands raised in supplication.

“Stay away!”

Attila collapsed on top of him, tangling his limbs in Phil’s, setting his benefactor on fire.

Their screams mingled into a high pitched cry that seemed to go on and on. Bert turned away from the horror, focusing on Roy. The cop shuffled into the room, holding his left shoulder. Blood dripped down from his fingertips. Across his chest was a twelve inch slash in the Kelvar vest.

“Time to go.”

Bert hurried to him, took a quick look at the wound on his arm. It was deep and ugly, possibly an artery.

“We have to get out of here.”

They made it into the hallway, just in time to see two people running at them. Tom and Joan?

When the figures came into view Bert almost yelped.

They looked like cave men, dirty and hairy and loping in a strange gait. Bert didn’t stop to think about who they were or what they wanted. He still held the bear repellent and he fired straight at them. They rolled onto the floor, wailing and pawing at their faces.

Roy mumbled. “Jesus. They look like Stang.”

Bert pulled Roy’s arm over his shoulder and tried to bear his friend’s weight. They half-walked, half-stumbled to the staircase. Another one of the crazy people was lumbering up the stairs, covered in blood. Bert brought up the spray and pressed the trigger. Empty.

He threw the can, bouncing it off the lunatic’s head. The man kept coming, flailing his arms, eyes crazy. Bert tried to brace himself for the impact, but it was all he could do to hold up the sagging Roy. The man jumped on them, pulling and kicking. Bert reached for the railing, trying to keep his balance, and then all three of them were tumbling feet over head down the long grand staircase.

Joan heard the gunshot at the same moment she saw the man running up the stairs. He was followed by two more. Joan took two steps back and widened her stance. She kept the baton in front of her in a defensive position.

The first man emerged, hairy, bewildered. Joan did a double-take. It looked like a bearded, dirty Phil Jr. Another clone? She tightened her grip, ready to attack.

But instead of running at her, the man launched himself at Stang. The old man whimpered, bringing up both frail arms to protect himself. He was quickly yanked out of his wheelchair and thrown to the floor. The other two men came up the stairs and joined in the fray, scratching and slobbering and pulling him to pieces.

Joan didn’t stick around to watch. She took the stairs two at a time, moving as fast as she could. Barely one step into the lower hallway a man reached for her, pulling at her hair. Joan brought the baton down onto his collarbone and he crumbled to the ground.

Ahead of her was a human pile of unwashed, hysterical Stang clones. Joan spotted a hand protruding from the giant mound of bodies. Tom’s. She sprinted to his aid.

Her first impulse was to grab the gun, start shooting, but that would leave him buried in dead weight. Instead she pulled, and pushed, and smacked arms and legs and noses to get the clones to move. Gradually she uncovered Tom’s head, bright red from pressure and oxygen deprivation. She grabbed him by the vest and yanked, her feet pushing against the body beneath him. Once his upper body came free he made a sound like a vacuum cleaner. Joan put an ear to his mouth, listening for breath. It was fast and steady.

The clones had given her a wide berth, nursing sore arms and heads. There were at least six of them in the hall, and God knew how many more in that dark room.

“Thanks.”

Tom had opened his eyes, and was staring at her.

“What the hell is going on, Tom?”

Tom coughed. “Stang’s personal organ bank. You can guess the Catch-22. If kidney disease is genetic, he keeps replacing his bad kidneys with other bad kidneys.”

“What’s wrong with them? Are they crazy?”

“Those scars on their heads are from lobotomies. To keep them from knowing what’s going on.”

Joan helped him to his feet. But instead of going back down the hall, Tom limped into the dark room where the clones had been kept.

“What are you doing?”

Tom coughed. “I think Stang was telling the truth. I think the papers are in here. Could you come up with a safer place to keep them?”

“Maybe there are no papers. Maybe they were destroyed.”

“Stang’s ego is too big. He’d never destroy evidence of his scientific triumph.”

Tom picked up his penlight, groaning at the exertion of bending down. He flashed it into the room. Joan assumed a defensive posture, unsure of what horrors may await, and followed him in. The smell was overwhelming—stale body odor and rotten food. Tom played the small beam of light over three rows of stained cots, maybe twenty in all. In the corner was a toilet and sink, cracked and filthy. Along the near wall was a pile of tin dishes, seemingly out of place because they were neatly stacked.

Tom flashed the light on the far wall. There was another metal door, complete with keypad.

“What was that number?”

Joan approached the panel and tapped in 61694. The door clicked open and they peered inside. Two file cabinets, dusty and old. Tom opened the top drawer. Manila folders.

“We found them.” He tried to tilt the file cabinet up onto its side. “Heavy. Maybe we can find some suitcases or—oh shit…”

Tom directed his flashlight beam behind them. Joan gasped. Twelve of the clones had returned, and they were coming closer.

“I only have five bullets left.”

“Maybe they won’t attack.”

The clones attacked.

Joan lashed out with the baton, cracking the nearest clone in the head. He fell backwards, howling. Tom’s gun boomed in her eardrums, and another clone went down.

“Get to the door!”

Tom tried to grab her wrist but she held him back. It was a bad move, defensively. Better to keep their backs to the wall, so they couldn’t be surrounded.

She spun and hit another clone with a reverse kick. Someone grabbed her leg and she bounced a baton off his face. Another shot, and a moan. Joan rabbit punched the clone in front of her, driving the aluminum club into his stomach. A second clone tugged at her arm and brought it up to his mouth to bite. She tried to pull away, but another slipped behind her, getting her in a choke hold. Joan watched, horrified, as the biter grinned. His mouth was a sewer of black and rot, and saliva dripped down his chin as he prepared to take a hunk out of Joan’s wrist.

Joan pivoted, flipping the choker over her hip, dislodging the biter before he had a chance to break the skin. She glanced to her right and watched Tom fire two more shots, then get tackled. Swinging her baton like a sword, she slashed her way past several clones and reached Tom, cracking the man on top of him across the temple. He crumpled, and Tom pushed him off. She helped him to his feet, and they faced the horde.

Tom fired his last shot. Another Stang dropped. There were still seven left.

Joan drew in a breath and tried to center herself. Fear would kill her if she didn’t keep cool. She held up her weapon and let them come to her.

The first came at her, howling madly, arms outstretched. She jammed the baton into his solar plexus, and when he doubled over she smacked him in the back of the neck. Before he hit the floor she had spun around, connecting with the forehead of another clone, her weapon breaking the skin and blinding him with blood. Someone grabbed her waist. She crunched her heel down on his instep, then jerked her head backward, cracking it against his jaw. The impact made her dizzy, but he released her.

Next to her, she watched Tom swing a clone into the wall, then use the gun like a hammer and smash him across the face. Two more leapt at him, but before she could come to his aid she was lifted up in a horrible bear hug.

Joan’s arms were pinned at her sides, and she couldn’t throw a punch or swing a baton. Her legs dangled uselessly almost a foot above the ground. The smell—body odor and piss—choked her. She tried to twist, tried to pull away, but the clone’s grip was too strong. Then she felt his mouth press against her neck.

Joan screamed, shaking her head from side to side, dropping her weapon and making her fingers into claws. She scratched at his side, her right hand finding a bandage, and stitches. This was Stang’s recent kidney donor. She tore at the sutures, opening the wound, sticking her fingers in deep.

The clone howled, releasing her and dropping to his knees. Joan used the heel of her hand to break his nose, then looked for Tom. He was buried under three clones, while another advanced on him, wielding her baton. He raised it up to strike Tom’s head, but Joan was on him in two steps, launching herself into the air and snapping his knee like a two-by-four.

Taking the baton away from him was child’s play, and she made easy work of the three clones atop Tom, each getting a vicious crack in the head. She spun to face the final attacker, flipping the weapon in her hand like a six-shooter.

The clone blinked, then turned and ran out the door.

“Are you okay?” Joan helped Tom up. His nose was bleeding and he had a large scratch across his chin, but otherwise seemed intact.

“Yeah. Thanks. Let’s grab the files and get the hell out of here.”

They went back to the file cabinets and took what they could carry. It would take a few more trips to get them all, but Roy and Bert could help. Joan led the way through the hall, up the stairs. She tried not to look at Stang’s body, but curiosity made her look anyway. He’d been torn to pieces—an arm missing, a leg missing—and in some places the flesh was ripped down to the bone. Joan also noted that several of his organs seemed to be missing. The clones had taken them back.

“Do you smell smoke?”

They hurried through the mansion, the hallway getting brighter with every step. When they reached the foyer, the blaze already descended half of the staircase. It was a huge wall of flame, roaring and out of control. Joan had never witnessed anything that provoked such a primal fear in her. She looked up and saw the fire was actually crawling across the ceiling, sparks and flaming bits of wood and plaster falling down like rain and igniting the carpeting.

“Roy!”

At the bottom of the staircase were two figures, lying on the ground. Tom and Joan ran to them, the heat increasing with every step. Through the thickening smoke, Joan could see Tom kneel down next to Roy. She looked at the other man. It was one of the clones, neck bent in a funny position.

The fire crept slowly down the stairs, engulfing paintings and wallpaper, kicking up the temperature with every step down. A cinder flew onto the files and they caught and began to burn. Joan dropped them all and kicked them away.

“Where’s Bert?”

Joan heard a horn. She spun around and noticed one of the front doors was open. In the driveway was a black Cadillac. The window rolled down and Bert waved frantically from the driver’s seat.

“Come on!”

Joan noticed that one of the manila folders she’d dropped had the word CLASSIFIED stamped on it. On impulse, she bent down and shoved it into her vest. Then she hurried to Tom and helped him drag Roy toward the front door, the fire close behind them.

A section of ceiling collapsed to their right, and when it hit the floor they were showered in sparks. Joan batted out flames in her hair, on her pants, and on Roy’s chest. When she looked up, she almost wet herself.

Standing in front of the doorway was Jerome. In one hand he held a shotgun, and in the other, an ax. His muscular upper body was bare, and his chest and face with covered with streaks of something. It took Joan a moment to realize what it was—war paint. Fire flanked him on both sides, shadow and light flickering across his stone-like features, smoke rising behind him. He looked like a demon risen from hell.

Jerome leveled the gun at the trio and fired just as Tom yanked her to the side. She felt a tug in her leg, as if someone had slapped her, and then the pain came.

Tom pulled her and Roy behind a leather couch. The shotgun boomed again, and more flaming plaster fell from the ceiling, causing the sofa to catch fire. Joan took a quick look at her leg, and the blood appeared black in the orange glow. She tried to stand up, but it couldn’t support her weight.

Tom grabbed an end table, which was partially engulfed in flame, and tossed it at Jerome. He dodged it, running to their left. Joan noticed he had a strap over his shoulder, and on his back was a machine gun.

Joan looked at Roy, semi-conscious on the floor, and then turned to Tom. He was tying his shirt around his bloody arm, and she realized that he’d also been shot. The doorway was less than twenty feet away, but it might as well have been twenty miles.

Joan knew, with startling clarity, that they were all going to die.

The sound rose above the cracking of the flames, and it made Tom’s blood freeze. He recognized it from old Westerns—an Apache war cry. He chanced a look over the couch and watched Jerome pump the shotgun and aim. Tom ducked, realizing it was futile; the pellets would rip through the sofa easily. He wrapped his arms around Joan, hoping his body would shield her from the blast, and braced himself.

There was a gunshot, but not in their direction. Tom looked down the hall and saw a Stang clone do a bloody pirouette and collapse in a pile. Two more clones hopped over their fallen brother and bee-lined for Jerome.

Buoyed by the thought of living a few more seconds, Tom scanned around him for a weapon. There, in Roy’s pocket. The taser. He grasped it, checking the battery and the CO_2 cartridge. It seemed functional.

Another shotgun blast. And then another. Tom peered over the couch and saw Jerome was now wrestling with a clone for the gun. He let go, shoving the clone away, and took the tomahawk from his holster, swinging it wildly and emitting another war cry.

Tom crawled around the sofa, his bleeding arm shaking badly because it was supporting most of his weight. His other hand gripped the taser, pointing it at Jerome. He got within twenty feet. Fifteen feet.

Jerome finished mauling the clone and stared impassively at Tom. He dropped the bloody ax and unslung the M-16 hanging on his back.

Tom wasn’t sure if he was within the range of the taser, but he didn’t have a choice. He aimed. Fired.

Missed.

Jerome brought the rifle around, his finger seeking the trigger. Tom knew there was nothing he could do, no place he could run. The M-16 would chew him into hamburger before he even had a chance to blink.

Then Bert came rushing through the front door, and swatted Jerome alongside the head with the step ladder. Jerome released the gun and fell to his knees. Bert raised the ladder to hit him again, but Jerome blocked the blow with his forearm. Tom dropped the taser and crawled like mad for the shotgun, lying next to the hacked-up clone. He pulled it away from the mangled body and racked a shell into the chamber.

“Bert! Duck!”

Bert ducked. Tom fired.

This time he didn’t miss.

The blast knocked Jerome backward, leaving a mist of blood where he previously stood.

“Behind you!” Bert shrieked.

Tom rolled onto his back and aimed at another Stang clone, running straight at him. He pumped, and fired, and the clone went down. Tom squinted through the smoke and saw Joan, slowly dragging Roy toward the front door. Bert ran to her, helping out. Tom went to join them, then was forced to dive to the side when the grand staircase collapsed, causing a giant wave of fire to wash over the room.

Tom smelled burning hair, realized it was his, and dropped the gun to pat it out. He searched for Joan but visibility was near zero. Tom couldn’t even see the front door.

“Joan!”

“Tom! Here!”

Tom crawled toward the voice, through the smoke, around pockets of burning floor. Soot stung his eyes, burned his throat. Was this even the right direction? The fire was roaring now, loud as a thunderstorm, and he wasn’t even sure if…

Someone touched his hand through the haze. Joan?

No. Jerome.

The man’s fingers locked around Tom’s wrist like a bear trap. Tom tried to pull back but this was his wounded arm and the motion brought agony. He pried at Jerome’s iron fingers, but they wouldn’t budge. Tom’s legs also became ridiculously hot, and he swiveled his head around and saw his pants had caught on fire. He twisted, trying to pat them out, but couldn’t reach with Jerome’s death grip on his wrist.

Tom panicked, frantically feeling the floor around him for some sort of weapon. His fingers brushed something wet. The ax. Tom cried out in pain and fury and brought the blade down on Jerome’s wrist, severing their bond. Then he sat up and tried to beat out the flames on his legs. When that didn’t work, he stretched out lengthwise and rolled for all he was worth. He kept rolling until he hit something hard—a wall or a piece of furniture—but he was still on fire, and it was getting bigger. The heat had begun to burn.

Tom felt behind him, hoping to find drapes, but instead his hand met cool glass. He noticed the faint blue light through the smoke and realized he’d bumped into the aquarium. The ax still in hand, Tom crashed it against the glass, showering himself in salt water and tropical fish. The tank was huge enough to forge a path through the fire, which Tom crawled through.

“Tom!”

Joan. And this time, Tom was sure the sound came from his left. He followed it, felt someone grab his leg, raised the ax…

It was Bert. He tugged Tom the rest of the way, through the front door, out into the cool night air. There were sirens in the distance, approaching fast.

“We have to go.” Bert helped Tom into the back seat of the Cadillac, next to Joan. Then he hopped into the driver’s seat, made sure Roy had his belt on, petted the cat in his lap, and punched the gas.

Tom turned around in the back seat, to look at the house one last time. He was surprised at how large the fire had gotten. The whole house had become an inferno. Flames had broken through the roofing, sharp fingers tearing at the night sky, blocking out the stars with black smoke.

He felt pressure on his bad arm. Joan’s hand, trying to stop the bleeding.

“How’s Roy?” Tom asked no one in particular.

“I think both legs are broken,” Bert answered. “But he’s breathing okay. How about you two?”

Joan gave Tom a squeeze. “We’ll live. But a hospital might be a good idea.”

Tom nodded. “But not in Springfield, Bert. Go east on 72 to Decatur. We don’t want to be connected to this.”

Bert glanced in the rearview, his eyes locked on Tom’s.

“What happened to Stang Senior?”

“If you wanted to be technical, I guess you could say he killed himself.”

Three big fire engines passed them on the road, racing towards the mansion. Tom closed his eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. It was over. They had won.

“Hey.” Joan shook him lightly. “One more thing.”

“What?”

Joan moved closer. Her face was covered in soot, and one eyebrow was singed off, and she had some blood on her cheek. But her blue eyes were clear and wide and focused. Tom could feel her breath, and her hand on the back of his head. She was, no doubt, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.

Tom didn’t know if she kissed him, or if he kissed her. But he did know that, when their lips met, every ache and pain in his body disappeared.

Tom switched off the news on TV and turned to look at his partner in the hospital bed.

“They think it was some kind of slavery operation.” Roy’s words were dulled by the pain medication. Both of his legs were in casts, and his right arm was in a sling. This was the first time in almost a full day that he was well enough to talk.

“It’s a good guess. Lots of burned bodies, but only four who had dental work. Plus a dungeon in the basement.”

Roy smiled, sleepily. “Be interesting to see what happens if they run DNA tests.”

“It sure will.”

“We cool here?”

Tom nodded. “Told the doctors it was a hunting accident. Pretty dramatic one. Campfire out of control, falling trees, shooting at a bear. If you were awake, you would have enjoyed the story.”

“Joan okay?”

“She came out of surgery after me. She’s fine.”

“Bert?”

Tom laughed. “Completely unscathed. He saved all of our lives, coming back for us.”

“I’m starting to like that guy. Reminds me of my little brother.”

Tom crossed his legs, wincing at the pain. The burns were only first degree, but stretched from his butt to the soles of his feet. His butt actually got the worst of it. The hospital had actually given Tom an inflatable donut. His arm wound wasn’t serious—he’d caught a few pellets and would be sore for a while, same as Joan. Roy had taken the brunt of the damage. Tom didn’t bother to tell him that his dislocated shoulder probably had nothing to do with the fall, but rather their attempt to drag him out of the burning house.

“How about the FBI?” Roy asked.

“I talked to the Special Agent in Charge in Chicago. He’s driving here tomorrow. I figure we tell him the truth. There should be enough evidence still intact at Stang’s house to back it up.”

“Five bucks says the government keeps it hush-hush.”

“I won’t take that bet.”

“Is this a private party, or can anyone attend?”

Roy and Tom smiled at Bert as he walked into the hospital room. Tom was especially pleased to see who Bert had brought with him. The face. The eyes. The beard. All perfect. He felt like he was in the presence of a celebrity. Tom extended his hand.

“Mr. Lincoln.”

“Mr. Jefferson.” Abe winked at Roy. “Mr. Hendrix.”

Roy shook his head and grinned. “Hi, Abe. How was jail?”

“Good. I made some friends, caught up on my reading, got all that free publicity. Best thing I ever did.”

Tom nodded. “I saw the morning paper. Something about Congress suppressing free speech in the Capitol Building. You’ve become a poster boy for the First Amendment.”

Abe winked. “I just landed a talent agent. We’re considering commercial work. Starting small. Coke. McDonalds. Chevrolet. I told Bernie to try and land me a porno, but he didn’t think it was good for the image.”

“What brings you out this way?” Roy asked.

“I had something to give to Bert.”

Bert beamed. “Monthly Lincoln Police Department auction. They raise money by auctioning off things they’ve confiscated. You know; stolen cars, bikes, antique lures found at a murder scene…”

“I actually thought forty bucks was kind of high,” Abe said, “but since I was there I felt obliged to buy something.”

Roy laughed. “Why, Abe, how honest of you.”

“Least I could do. If it wasn’t for you guys, I’d still be selling cars instead of making the big Hollywood bucks.”

“So you’re back in business?” Tom asked Bert.

“Actually, no. I sold the rest of my lures and bought some property in New Mexico.”

“You didn’t…”

“It’s going to take a few weeks to get my new ostrich farm up and running, but I expect all of you to visit when I do. Especially at Thanksgiving.”

Roy smiled wide. “Good for you, buddy. I’m proud of you.”

“Hey, I got you guys something. This is for you, Tom”

Bert handed him an envelope. Tom dumped the contents onto this palm. It was green, with hooks.

“A Luny Frog. Thanks, Bert.”

“You probably need to clean it. There are still some small bits of… uh… Anyway, you should clean it. This one’s for you, Roy.”

Bert took a DVD out of his pocket. The Love Bug.

“Slug bug yellow no hit backs!” Bert whacked Roy in his good arm.

“No fair,” Roy laughed. “Beating up on a cripple.”

Bert’s face became serious. “How are you doing, Roy?”

“Because I was on vacation when it happened, I only got partial disability. Gonna walk with a limp, probably for life. They say I could come back to work in a limited capacity. But pushing papers—I dunno. It ain’t for me.”

Bert stared at Roy, hard. “You know, I’m going to need a lot of help on the ranch.”

“You’re serious? Me and you, in the desert, chasing giant chickens around?”

Bert nodded. “Eating jumbo omelets.”

“Might be something to consider.”

Tom noticed that the small hospital room was becoming a bit cramped, but he felt his heart rate increase when one more person joined them.

“Oh my God, is that Abe Lincoln?”

Joan came into the room, and Abe gave her a big hug.

“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Arc.”

Joan closed the door and faced them, looking serious. “I’m glad you’re all here. We need to talk.”

Tom noted the manila folder Joan was carrying, with CLASSIFIED written on the side.

“Is that from Stang’s?”

“Yes. It’s the only file I managed to save. You all need to look at this.”

Bert opened the file and flipped through it. As he read, his face became progressively grimmer.

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Roy said. “Spill.”

Bert held up a paper. “This first page. It’s a list of the ten clones Dr. Harold created. Me, you, Abe—the others with numbers on their heels.”

He handed it to Tom. “Yeah. These are the ten. So?”

Bert handed him the next page. Tom stared at it. The first name that stood out was Jerome Huntington, the crazy Navy SEAL Stang had working for him. Printed next to his name was “clone of GERONIMO.”

Tom scanned down the page, seeing many other famous names, some of them real doozies. And just like the first page, there were numbers next to them. Eleven through twenty.

“Let me see.” Roy took the paper and read through it. “You mean to tell me there are ten more clones of famous people running around?”

“Nine more.” Tom frowned. “Minus Geronimo.”

“Nine more?” Abe reached for the page. “Tell me one of them is Marilyn Monroe.”

“So what do we do about this, Tom?” Bert asked.

Roy nodded. “Yeah, Tom?”

Tom shook his head. “The FBI can take care of it. I’m done. I did my part. This is no longer my business.”

“There are some very bad people on this list, Tom.” Joan put a hand on his shoulder. “Who knows what they could be doing in the world?”

Tom couldn’t believe that came from Joan.

“Don’t you want to go back to living a normal life? A safe life?”

“Can anyone in the world be safe with number 17 running around?”

“Number 18 is even worse,” Bert said. “And 20 is pretty bad too.”

Tom’s shoulders slumped. “It’s not our fight.”

“You know,” Abe grabbed his lapels and rocked back on his heels. “There were a lot of people who didn’t want to stand up to King George in 1776. A lot of them said it wasn’t their fight. But a few of them did. One of them was a guy named Thomas Jefferson.”

Tom sighed. Corny as it sounded, Abe was right. Ultimately, it didn’t matter why Tom was the way he was. It might have been genetics. It might have been the way he was raised. It might have been something totally unique to him. Tom had no choice but to follow his nature, wherever his nature came from.

“Okay,” he said, standing up and taking Joan’s hand. “Who should we try to find first?”

HAUNTED
HOUSE

Are You Brave Enough?

BEYOND AFRAID…

It was an experiment in fear.

Eight people, each chosen because they lived through a terrifying experience. Survivors. They don’t scare easily. They know how to fight back.

BEYOND TRAPPED…

Each is paid a million dollars to spend one night in a house. The old Butler House, where those grisly murders occurred so many years ago. A house that is supposedly haunted.

BEYOND ENDURANCE…

They can take whatever they want with them. Religious items. Survival gear. Weapons. All they need to do is last the night.

But there is something evil in this house. Something very evil, and very real. And when the dying starts, it comes with horrifying violence and brutal finality.

There are scarier things than ghosts.

Things that torment you slowly and delight in your screams.

Things that won’t let you get out alive.

HAUNTED HOUSE

People are just dying to leave.

Jack Kilborn, author of AFRAID, TRAPPED, and ENDURANCE, brings back some favorite characters from those earlier novels and puts them through his own unique brand of hell. One that hurts real bad. One that will scare you to death.

Are you brave enough?

This novel is for Maria

HAUNTED
HOUSE

Prologue

Roy Lewis cleared the doorway, then spun as something in the darkness lunged at him.

He fired, a double-tap at the approaching center mass, but it kept coming. Before he could flinch away the thing hit him in his outstretched Glock.

It took Roy milliseconds to process what it was, and then revulsion coursed through him.

A body bag.

Black plastic with a silver zipper. Hanging from a chain.

But something was wrong with it. The weight was… off.

Roy aimed his flashlight up at the ceiling, the tactical beam cutting through the ever-present dark of the house, and saw the rail system that had swung the bag into him. Pulleys and springs and a steel track, all automatic. Probably triggered by a motion sensor.

He reached out and gave the bag a tentative squeeze.

Foam rubber.

Not a real body. Just a goddamn Halloween prop.

Roy chewed his inner cheek, heart hammering, realizing he’d wasted two valuable bullets on a dime store scare.

Only one bullet left. Then he was out of ammo.

Roy checked his watch. Not even 4am yet. Hours to go before dawn. Might as well be days.

Breathe. Remember to breathe.

He took in air through his nostrils, tried to let it out slowly. His hands were shaking, and sweat was stinging his eyes despite the cool temperature. Roy holstered his sidearm, and drew his KA-BAR knife from his belt sheath, clutching it to his chest.

Okay, stay calm. Find a place to hole up. Someplace you can defend. Where they can’t sneak up behind you.

A snort escaped his nose before Roy could stop it. All damn night he’d been searching for a safe place in this hell-on-earth. But there were no safe places. Every room, every corridor, in this damned house was lethal. Maybe, if the others were still alive, they could have protected each other. But that hadn’t worked out, and Roy was pretty sure he was the only one left.

He thought back to his military days, before he became a cop. The Q course for Special Forces, the hardest training in the world. Desert Storm in Iraq. Then over a decade on the street, working his way up from beat cop to homicide detective. He was good, and his past had prepared him for a lot.

But not for this.

Nothing could have prepared him for this.

Roy sucked in another breath through clenched teeth. The air was musty, foul, like old running shoes mixed with…

Body odor.

Strong, noxious body odor that wasn’t coming from Roy.

He flinched.

Roy knew that smell. Knew where it came from.

That’s when he heard it.

Giggling.

High-pitched. Almost childlike.

But that’s not a child.

“Oh, no,” Roy whispered. “Not this again.”

Roy waited, hoping, praying, it had been his imagination.

The darkness remained silent.

You’re freaking out, man. Imagining shit. You need to keep it together if you want to—

“Hee hee hee hee.”

Not imagination. This was real.

Real, and coming somewhere in the unlit room.

Somewhere close.

Roy stumbled backward, his bladder constricting, and then fell as his foot stepped into a hole in the floor.

He landed on his ass, strained to get his foot free, and the pain came hard and fast.

Sharp points. Stabbing through his pants, into the flesh of his calf.

A punji trap.

The hole contained spikes, pointed at a downward angle, trapping his foot there. The harder he tried to pull away, the deeper the spikes dug into his leg.

“Hee hee hee.”

Roy swung his flashlight beam, locking onto the sound.

The giggling man who had been stalking Roy through the house for the last two hours was standing only a few meters away. Roy could see him clearly now, for the first time. He was tall, over six feet, wearing a black rubber gas mask that obscured his face. His chest was bare, covered in dried blood. All he wore was stained white underwear, and combat boots, their laces untied.

In the man’s hand was a meat cleaver.

Roy reacted viscerally, immediately trying to scramble away, the spikes digging further into his calf. He cried out in pain, then stared at his stalker.

“Hee hee hee.”

The Giggler didn’t move closer. He simply stood there, swaying slowly from side to side. The BO coming off him coated Roy’s tongue.

Roy pawed for his sidearm, drawing it and pointing the weapon at the man.

“Get the fuck away from me! I swear I’ll kill you!”

The man stared.

“I said get away!”

He continued swaying. Staring.

“Hee hee hee.”

Roy hadn’t signed on for this. It was supposed to be simple. A way to get ahead, provide for his daughter. But the nightmare of the last few hours, the horrors he’d been through, was almost beyond comprehension.

“Someone help me!” he shouted to the house.

The house didn’t answer. But the Giggler did.

“Hee hee.”

Roy reached up, grabbed the sticky electrode on his temple, and tore it off out of defiance. Did the same with the one on his chest.

The giggling man watched, his expression hidden behind his gas mask.

“What the hell do you want?” Roy pleaded.

The man raised the cleaver—

—and placed it against his own chest.

What the hell is this guy going to…?

He drew the cleaver downward, splitting his skin open. The blood flowed, fast and red, soon drenching the man’s soiled underwear.

“Hee hee hee.”

Roy watched, slack-jawed, as the man continued to cut himself, making Xs on his abdomen. Over his nipples. Across his belly button. It wasn’t long before his upper body looked like a dropped plate of spaghetti.

Pain be damned, Roy pulled his attention away from the freak and began to tug on his trapped leg, trying to free himself. His heart was beating so quickly it felt like it was going to break his ribs, and the man’s giggling got louder the more he mutilated himself. But try as he might, Roy couldn’t get his leg out of the hole.

Then the giggling stopped. Replaced by wheezing.

Fast, wet wheezing.

Not wanting to look, but unable to stop himself, Roy once again directed his flashlight at the man.

He’d stopped cutting. And instead, the giggling man had a hand inside his underwear, using the blood as a lubricant while he stroked himself.

Roy shook his head, like a dog after a walk in the rain.

No. Oh no no no no. This is not happening. This is NOT happening.

But it was happening. This wasn’t some elaborate prank. Some gag where a TV crew was going to jump out and shake his hand for being a trooper. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a hallucination.

He’d watched people die tonight. Die horribly. And he was going to be next.

Roy adjusted his flashlight, staring into the hole that refused to release him. He saw five metal rods, digging into his leg from various angles. With a trembling hand, he lowered the KA-BAR knife and tried to cut the first rod free.

The steel was too thick.

Roy took a breath and held it.

Then he gouged the knife into his leg, trying to pry out the bar.

Soon Roy’s screams drowned out the moans coming from his stalker, but even after slicing his calf almost to the bone, the rod continued to hold him.

“Hee hee hee.”

Roy looked up at the Giggler, who had moved several steps closer. He’d apparently finished playing with himself, and was now rubbing his hand across his chest, digging his finger into the cuts and following their lengths, over and over. Like a child finger painting.

Roy aimed the Glock at him, trying to steady his shaking hand.

One bullet. Make it count…

He squeezed the trigger, deadeye on the man’s center mass—

Felt the gun kick—

Got him! I got him! I—

But the giggling man didn’t even flinch. It was as if the bullet passed right through him.

Like he’s a ghost.

He giggled again, “hee hee hee”, and Roy giggled as well. He thought of all the other rounds he’d fired that night, sure he’d hit targets, and now finally understood what had happened.

Bullets can’t kill ghosts.

He raised the KA-BAR like it was a crucifix warding off vampires.

“You want me! Come get me!”

But the giggling man—or whatever it was—just stood there. Watching.

“You gonna just stand there?”

“Hee hee hee hee hee.”

“DO SOMETHING!”

It stopped swaying, and through the damper of its gas mask said, in a deep, wet voice,

“Iiiiiiiiii wiiiilllll.”

The throb in Roy’s leg began to abide, replaced by a tingling numbness. His head began to cloud.

Blood loss? Exhaustion?

Roy closed his eyes. He knew if he passed out, things would only get worse. Being at the mercy of that thing was unthinkable, and there were others in the house even worse.

Roy closed his eyes.

He thought about his ex-wife. Their daughter. She only saw her daddy twice a month, due to his wife’s overzealous lawyer.

Now she’d never see him again.

The image in Roy’s head was fuzzy, growing fuzzier.

“I’m sorry,” he told his child, his eyes brimming with tears.

Then the Giggler pounced.

FOUR DAYS LATER

Cleveland, Ohio

Mal

Mallory Dieter knew by his wife’s breathing that she was also awake.

He thought about reaching for her, holding her close, but she didn’t like being touched while trying to sleep. It startled her, even made her yell sometimes. At three in the morning, even a whisper from Mal could make Deb jump.

Mal understood this. Intimately.

Because he felt exactly the same way.

The bed was the best money could buy. The kind where each side could be adjusted for maximum comfort. No bedframe, so nothing could hide under it. Expensive pillows, some with goose down, some with memory foam. Sheets with a 400 thread count. A ceiling fan that provided a gentle breeze, and calming white noise.

But all that wasn’t nearly enough.

Mal shifted, slowly so he didn’t scare her, letting Deb know they were both in the same boat.

“Need another Xanax?” Deb whispered. “I’ll be up. I can watch you.”

Often the only way either got to sleep was when one offered to watch over the other.

“Gotta work early. But you can take one, and I’ll watch you.”

Deb turned, rolling against him, the weight of her body both reassuring and confining. She trusted him enough to hook her thigh over him—a thigh missing the calf below the knee. Years ago, a fall while mountain climbing had taken Deb’s legs.

But that wasn’t the fear that kept her awake.

Mal knew it was something far worse.

A fear he also shared.

The Rushmore Inn.

He resisted her touch, wanting to push her away, hating himself for the feeling. During the daytime, he couldn’t get enough of touching her, holding her, caressing her.

But nights were different. At night he didn’t want to be touched, held, or otherwise confined. He couldn’t even use heavy blankets. It made him feel trapped, helpless. As if he were still tied to that table and…

Mal shuddered.

Nights were a bitch.

“You up for something else?” Deb asked, trailing her fingernails down his belly, to his boxer shorts. Mal closed his eyes, tried to live in the moment, tried to push away the past. But the only part of him the alprazolam seemed to relax was the part Deb was rubbing.

“Sorry, hon. The pill.”

Deb pulled her hand back.

“I could do you,” he said, reaching for her. “Maybe my body will get the hint.”

Mal moved his left hand down, stroked her. Deb didn’t respond.

“Damn Xanax,” Deb breathed. “Turns us into a couple of eunuchs.”

Mal stopped his efforts. Stared at the ceiling fan.

He sighed. “Our lives would be perfect if we didn’t have to sleep.”

“I hear someone is working on a pill for that.”

“I’m sick of pills, but sign me up for that one.”

He thought about having the nightlight discussion again. Mal found it damn near impossible to fall asleep with the four nightlights Deb had in the bedroom. There were practically bright enough to read a book by.

The problem was Deb had panic attacks in the dark.

Or maybe that was just a way to blame Deb for his insomnia, because Mal hated the dark, too.

“We can get up,” Deb said. “Play some rummy.”

They’d done that the previous two nights. But Mal knew Deb was as exhausted as he was. And with exhaustion came crankiness, frustration, misery. Yesterday, they’d both gone to separate parts of the house because of some stupid fight over how to best shuffle cards.

“We need sleep, hon. You take another pill. At least one of us should get some rest.”

“It’s not rest with the pills. It’s more like a coma. I hate them.”

“So do I. But…”

Mal didn’t need to finish the sentence. They both knew how it ended.

But I hate the nightmares more.

They’d been to doctors. Specialists. Shrinks. Mal knew his wife shared his condition.

PTSD. Posttraumatic stress disorder.

The newest research revealed brain chemistry actually changed in response to traumatic experience. And at the Rushmore Inn, Deb and Mal survived the most traumatic experience imaginable.

“We got a little sleep on Saturday,” Deb said.

Mal grunted mmm-hmm. He didn’t mention that during one of her night terrors, Deb’s moans and cries kept waking him up, even though he’d taken several pills because of the weekend off.

“Maybe we’re doing this wrong,” Mal said. “Maybe we need to take speed instead.”

His wife laughed, breaking some of the tension. “Speed?”

“Or some coke. Instead of sleeping, we party all night.”

“I tried speed once when I was training, to boost endurance. I finished a marathon, then cleaned the house top to bottom. It was awful.”

Mal smiled. “Awful? We should both take some, clean out that basement.”

“Do you even know where to get amphetamines?”

“I work for a newspaper. We newsies know all the lowlifes.”

“So we should embrace our insomnia. That’s your solution.”

“It isn’t a solution, hon. Just a silly idea.”

Deb didn’t respond right away. And when she did, her voice was so sad it made Mal ache.

“There are no solutions.”

They laid there, in silence, Mal unable to come up with a solution. Deb was correct. They were broken, both their bodies and their minds, and there didn’t seem any way to fix them.

That’s when someone pounded on the door.

The sound paralyzed Mal, adrenaline ripping through his body making his heart seem ready to pop. But his arms and legs locked as surely as if they’d been bound there.

He couldn’t move.

Couldn’t breathe.

After the initial startle, his mind went haywire with possibilities. Who would be at the door at 3am? Had those terrible people from the Rushmore Inn finally found him? Had they come to finish the job?

Unable to suck in any air, unable to turn his head, Mal’s eyes flicked over to Deb and saw she was similarly frightened stiff.

A second ticked by.

Another.

I’ve got to get up. I’ve got to—

The pounding sound came again, even louder, a white hot spike of adrenaline snapping Mal out of his catatonia. He immediately jerked upright in bed, reaching for his nightstand, for the 9mm inside the drawer. But in his fear and haste he reached with the wrong hand, the one missing above the wrist. He quickly switched, pulling out the gun, as Deb clambered for her artificial legs, propped next to the wall.

She squeaked out, “Do you think it’s—”

“Shh.”

Holding his breath, Mal strained to hear more sounds. He wondered, fleetingly, if this was one of his frequent nightmares. But they always revolved around him being strapped to the table, watching those horrid videos. He was always at the Rushmore in his bad dreams. He’d never had a nightmare that took place in his house.

This wasn’t a dream.

This was really happening.

He quickly switched his thoughts to other, safer possibilities. A drunk neighbor, mistaking their house for his. Local teenagers, pranking people by knocking on the door then running away. A relative, maybe his brother from Florida, dropping by unannounced. Police, coming over to tell Mal he’d left the headlights on in the car parked in the driveway.

Anything other than them…

Deb was trembling so badly she couldn’t get her legs on.

“Mal… help me…”

But for Mal to help, he had to drop the 9mm—he only had one hand. And he didn’t think he’d be able to let go of it, even if he tried.

“Mal…”

“Deb, I…”

Then the phone rang.

Deb screamed at the sound, and Mal felt his bladder clench. He looked at the gun, clutched in his trembling fist.

If it is them, I know what to do.

Deb first. One in the temple while she’s looking away.

Then me.

Because there is no way in hell they’re taking us back there.

Grand Haven, Michigan

Sara

Something awoke Sara Randhurst from deep, intoxicated sleep.

She peeked an eye open, confused, her bleary eyes focusing on the clock radio next to the bed.

3:15am.

Without thinking, she grabbed the glass next to it, raising her head and gulping down the melted ice, savoring the faint flavor of Southern Comfort.

Okay. Focus, Sara. Why am I awake?

She had no idea. In fact, she had no memory of how she’d gotten into bed. The very last thing she remembered was…

Was what?

FedEx. The damned letter from the bank. Then opening up the bottle and crawling inside.

She snorted.

Sure. Blame the bank. As if I need another excuse to drink.

A banging sound startled Sara, making her yelp.

The door.

Who could be at the door?

She thought, fleetingly, about the letter. Could they be kicking her out now? In the middle of the night? Weren’t there laws against that?

Sara immediately dismissed the idea. Tipsy as she still was, she knew banks didn’t foreclose at three in the morning.

That left… who?

Sara had no family that would be visiting. The only people who still cared about her, Tyrone and Cindy, had moved to LA years ago. The last contact she’d had with them had been a Christmas card this past year. Or maybe the year before. The holidays all blended together.

Another knock. Loud and urgent.

Sara flipped on the bedroom light. Her eyes were automatically drawn to Jack’s empty crib in the corner of the bedroom, a blanket draped over the top because she couldn’t bear to look at it. At the same time couldn’t bear to throw it away. The blanket looked like a shroud.

Then she searched around for the bottle of SoCo, hoping she’d brought it into the bedroom with her. Sara found it, on the floor.

Empty.

Shit. That was the last one.

One more bang on the door. The big bad wolf, trying to blow the house down. Or in this case, the trailer.

Fuck him. There were scarier things than wolves.

Much scarier things.

Sara pawed at the nightstand drawer, pulling it open, digging through magazines for the snub nosed .38 she kept there. A gift from Tyrone. Not registered, but it wasn’t like she could get into any more trouble than she already was in.

But the gun wasn’t there. Sara had a fleeting recollection of being at the kitchen table, crying and drunk, the gun in her mouth.

Shit. I left it in the kitchenette.

Funny, how she routinely contemplated suicide, yet now that her life might actually be threatened she wanted the gun for protection.

Maybe she had some fight in her after all.

Sara gripped the bottle by the neck, holding it like a club, and eased her feet out of bed. She stood up, wobbly, but a pro at walking under the influence. Two steps and she was to the bedroom door. Two more and she was next to the bathroom.

Movement, to her right, and Sara screamed and swung, the bottle connecting with the mirror hanging on the bathroom door.

It spiderwebbed with a tinkling crunch, and Sara saw herself in a dozen different triangles, hair wild, eyes red, wearing a dirty sweatshirt crusted with old shrimp chow mien that she’s apparently eaten while drunk. Once upon a time, she’d been clean and pretty. Looking at herself now, Sara guessed homeless shelters would turn her away for being too gross.

Another knock, so close it felt like a full-body blow. The SoCo bottle had survived the impact with the mirror, and she clutched the neck even tighter as she made her decision.

There is no way in hell I’m answering that door.

Instead she backed away, turning in the other direction, heading for the phone on the wall. Right before she snatched up the receiver, it rang.

Sara stared, the lump in her throat making it impossible to draw a breath. She remembered the fear she’d felt on the island, and the same sick, familiar feeling spread over her.

Terror.

Pure, paralyzing terror.

Hand shaking so badly it looked like a palsy, Sara’s finger hovered over the speakerphone button.

The phone rang again, making her whimper.

Do I press it?

Do I?

She jabbed at it, hitting the wrong key. Then she tried again.

The speakerphone hissed at her, and a deep male voice barked, “Open the door, Sara.”

Sara wet her sweatpants.

Mililani, Hawaii

Josh

Josh VanCamp gasped, drawing air through his mouth because a tiny hand was pinching his nose closed.

He opened his eyes, staring at the capuchin monkey sitting on his chest. Josh brushed the primate’s paw away from his face.

“Mathison, what are—”

The monkey put a finger over Josh’s mouth, telling him to be quiet. A moment later, Woof began to bark.

His warning bark. Strangers were near.

“Someone’s here,” Josh said.

The monkey nodded. Josh glanced at his wife, lying next to him. “Fran?”

“I’m up.”

She was already swinging her legs out of the bed, pressing the intercom button on the wall.

“Duncan,” she said, “panic room. Grab Woof.”

Her son responded instantly. “Meet you there.”

Josh placed Mathison on his shoulder, and the monkey pulled Josh’s hoodie around him. He was frightened.

Josh wasn’t. He had too much to do.

He slipped on the boat shoes he kept next to the bed—thick leather and tough rubber soles—and reached for the closet door.

“Hon?” he asked.

“Ready.”

Josh reached inside, grabbing one of the Browning Maxus autoloader shotguns, tossing it over his shoulder like they’d practiced so many times, not bothering to see if his wife caught it as he reached for its companion.

They walked the hallway in standard two-by-two cover formation, Josh favoring the left, Fran the right. The air conditioning kicked on, normal for nighttime in Hawaii. Other than that the house was quiet. Still.

Josh passed one of the burglar alarm panels, not bothering to punch in and access surveillance, confident the animals’ senses were good reason enough to get into the panic room. Since they’d moved here five years previous, the monkey and dog had had far fewer false alarms than the ten thousand dollar system they’d installed. If this turned out to be another, no harm in it. They were due for a late night drill later in the week anyway.

Depending on your past, one man’s paranoia was another man’s common sense. And after what the trio had lived through in Safe Haven, Wisconsin, Josh couldn’t think of a single thing they’d done to keep themselves safe that qualified as paranoia.

They reached the door, and Josh stared at the fake light switch. In the up position, meaning Duncan was already inside. He swiveled the switch to the right and punched in the numeric code on the revealed keypad. The door latch snicked opened, and Fran went down the stairs first, Josh locking and sealing the door behind him, tight as a bank vault.

Basements were rare on the Big Island. Blasting through the solid rock was difficult, and deemed foolhardy in light of the constant threat of storms. But Josh’s basement had its own industrial sump pump that protected against flooding, run by its own generator that worked separate from the main grid.

Josh followed Fran into the equipment room. Duncan was standing at the ready, a Glock 13 in his hand and pointed downward. He had the same angular features as Fran, same eyes, but he was growing into his masculinity and had been letting the peach fuzz on his upper lip accumulate even though they’d given him a Norelco for Christmas. Like his mother, his expression was hard, but without fear. Even though Josh was only a father by marriage, he beamed with pride at Duncan’s resolve. The kid had gone through hell, and had come out the other side stronger.

Woof, their fat beagle, looked up at them, tongue out, tail wagging. Mathison hopped off of Josh’s shoulder and sprang onto the dog’s back, like a miniature jockey.

Duncan already had the monitors live, and the perimeter sensors had switched on Camera 2. The front porch. They watched as two men in suits knocked on the door. Caucasian, mid-thirties, ties and sport coats too formal for the humidity.

“They’re holding,” Fran said, touching the screen, tapping the weapon bulges in their jackets.

Josh studied their footwear. Combat boots, incongruous to the tailored suits.

“Military?” Duncan asked.

The haircuts certainly were, which wasn’t a good omen.

“Smart guess. Or maybe they’re private. Or…”

Josh almost added, “something else” but he knew there was no need. His family was already thinking it.

He hit the camera’s microphone switch. The equipment room filled with the loud mating call of the coqui tree frog, which sounded a lot like digital beeping. Beneath that cacophony, katydids and crickets, and the far off screech and hoot of a barn owl.

“What next?” Duncan asked.

A fair question. In all their drills, they’d never prepared for someone knocking at the door at 3am.

“Now I press a button,” Josh said, “open up the trap door that sends them into the alligator pit.”

Duncan stared at Josh, his teenaged face confused. He rolled his eyes when he realized his stepfather was kidding. Again, Josh felt a stab of pride. Duncan could have been freaking out, but he understood how safe they were in the panic room. If needed, they could stay down there for a week. They had food and water, bunk beds, a toilet, a TV, and a computer. When they’d first built the room they’d slept down there as a family for several nights, making a party out of it so Duncan got used to the space. Popcorn and staying up late, watching movies and playing videogames. A safe area, not a scary one.

But his son’s question was on the money. If they’d been under attack—a highly conceivable possibility considering their past—the next step would be to call the police, followed by the Feds. If that didn’t produce the desired results, the media was next.

So far, the VanCamps had lived up to their part of the deal and kept silent. If threatened, Josh had memorized all the numbers for all the major news outlets on the Big Island. He could burn several key people if forced to.

Josh didn’t want it to come to that. He and Fran had talked long and hard about bringing down those responsible for the genocide at Safe Haven, but in the end they opted to stay quiet for Duncan’s sake. If they told the press what they knew, there would be reprisals.

He stared at the two men on the monitor. Is that what this was? A team sent to silence them? If so, why were they knocking on the front door? Why not an entire commando team? Or an airstrike to take out the whole house?

None of the other monitors were live, meaning the proximity cameras hadn’t been tripped. Josh fired them up anyway to take a look.

No armed killers on the property.

No one at all.

Just the two guys on the front porch.

“I guess we ask them what they want,” Fran said.

Josh looked at his wife, saw that strength in her eyes he admired so much. Someone else might have been hysterical at this point. Crying or catatonic or ranting in fear. And he wouldn’t have blamed her if she reacted that way. But Fran was a rock, in many ways stronger than he was, and the love he felt for her right then gave him strength as well.

Josh hit the intercom button.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Frank

Dr. Frank Belgium yawned, needing sleep. He was grading an assignment, trying to figure out how this student had gotten into advanced biology. The paper had something to do with the ozone layer and photosynthesis. But the experiment made no sense, and the conclusions were unfounded and in several cases outright fabrication.

Belgium took one of the student’s paragraphs and typed it verbatim into Google. After checking the results, he tried several more times with other sections.

“Dumb dumb dumb.”

The student had plagiarized published experiments. And to disguise his cheating, he’d mixed and matched several different papers, without any apparent logic or reason.

Belgium printed the Google file, stapled the pages to the paper, and wrote F on the top, along with, Scientists cite their sources. They also try to make sense.

He was about to move onto the next paper, but stopped himself and added, How did you get into advanced biology?

It was a fair question. But as he stared at his handwritten words, Belgium wondered, And how did I wind up teaching advanced biology?

A combination of bad decisions and bad luck. But it was better than many alternatives—

something Frank knew all about. And being a biology professor at a state college still allowed him to do some genetic research. Not nearly on the same level as he used to, but enough to keep his mind active and hands nimble.

He frowned at the title of the next paper, Plants’ Reactions to Household Chemicals, and was ready to delve in when someone knocked at the door.

Oh, Jesus. He’s found me.

Belgium thought about the gun he’d always meant to buy, the one he’d use to shoot himself if the past ever came calling. But he’d been afraid to buy the gun. Just as well, because as frightened as he was right now, he’d be just as afraid to use it on himself.

It had been a while since he’d had to confront this particular fear. There had been nightmares, of course. Plenty of them since leaving Samhain. He hadn’t spoken with his friends, Sun and Andy, since their wedding last March, and those were the only people he could talk to about their shared, terrifying experience. Because if he did mention it to anyone else, he’d be shot for treason.

Maybe that was the solution. If evil was at the door, Belgium could call the newspapers, spill everything, and then the US government would kill him. But the government was inefficient, bordering on inept, and would probably take days or weeks to get the job done. In the meantime, he’d be going through all sorts of unimaginable hell. Which made Belgium wonder, for the umpteenth time, why he hadn’t ever manned up and just bought a damned gun.

“Dr. Belgium! Dr. Frank Belgium! It’s the Secret Service.”

Belgium’s fear of demons vanished. But another fear climbed into its place. If this was the Secret Service, there could be only one reason they would call on him.

“The doctor isn’t here,” he called, trying to disguise his voice and make it sound lower. Which, in hindsight, was silly, because they didn’t know what he sounded like in the first place. “I am his his his… lover.” Belgium’s eyes cast around his desk, looking for a suitable name. He found it on his computer monitor, the logo. “His lover, Vizio. Why are you bothering me at such an hour?”

“If you don’t open the door, Doctor, we will break in.”

Belgium shuddered. He didn’t want to go anywhere with the Secret Service, because it wouldn’t be anywhere pleasant. And how could he be sure it was the Secret Service at all? The evil that Belgium had confronted in the past was wily.

“I am Vizio,” he said, lamely. “The Doctor is out of the country at a biology symposium. I I I am staying here to water his plants.”

The door busted inward.

Belgium gasped.

He was right.

It wasn’t the Secret Service.

Chicago, Illinois

Tom

Tom Mankowski squinted at his Kindle Fire, determined to read the screen without making the font size larger. The author, some guy with a bunch of letters after his name who supposedly was on Dr. Phil a few times, was writing about the importance of intimacy in a romantic relationship.

No shit. I didn’t need to spend $14.99 to figure that out.

The ebook was called Twenty Tips For Keeping Long Distance Relationships Fresh, and was the first self-help book Tom had ever bought. The price surprised him—he thought ebooks should be much cheaper than that—but the topic was important enough to warrant the purchase.

Unfortunately, the content so far had been less than revelatory.

Call and text often? Check.

Send gifts? Check.

Phone sex? They’d actually taken it once step further, and used video chat on Skype.

Visit when possible?

Tom looked to the right, to the empty side of the bed. Joan hadn’t been over in two weeks. And it had been two months since he’s visited her in LA. In the past hundred days he’d seen her only eight.

Tom smiled every time he got a text from her. It warmed his heart when Joan FedExed a screener DVD of some film she’d produced. And the site of her in a skimpy negligee, doing her best to talk dirty to him on his computer screen but constantly breaking character and giggling—well, it beat the hell out of Internet porn.

But it didn’t beat being with her. Nothing beat being with her.

Tom was lonely. And the loneliness was made worse because he had someone who could fill that void. But she wouldn’t quit her job to move to Chicago, and he wouldn’t quit his to move to L.A.

He flipped the electronic page and read, Plan a surprise visit.

Tom had some vacation days he needed to burn or else he’d lose them. But Joan was in the middle of a shoot, and that meant 80 hour work weeks for her. Still, he could fly to California and be there for her at the end of her day, if only to sleep next to her for a few nights. It was better than lying in bed alone, reading an overpriced book by some PhD with a startling grasp of the obvious.

He blinked, yawned, and damned his pride, pressing the Aa setting on the screen to enlarge the font to a size 8. It beat getting eyeglasses. Then he adjusted his pillow and settled in to read about playing online games together.

Yeah. That’s what Joan would be into. Us fragging each other in an Xbox Halo death match. How the hell did this guy get on Dr. Phil?

But curiosity got the best of Tom, and he exited the book and began to surf the net, seeing if there were any online games about fifteenth century France, which Joan did have an interest in. He was flipping through Google pages when there was a knock at his door.

Tom’s first thought was the gun on his nightstand. As a Homicide cop, Tom had made enemies. And some of them were real doozies.

His second thought was, Maybe Joan is reading this same stupid book and is surprising me with a visit.

She’d called earlier that day, but it had been hours ago. Had she phoned from the airport, just before hopping on the red-eye?

Tom swung his legs out of bed, grabbed the terrycloth bathrobe on the floor (a gift from Joan) and stuck the Sig Saur in his pocket, first making sure there was one in the chamber. He walked out of the bedroom softly, on the balls of his feet, and traversed the short hallway to his apartment door. After an altercation with a very bad and very powerful man several years ago, Tom had improved his home security. The door was bulletproof, with a reinforced security bar. It was the same setup he’d installed at Joan’s house, and nothing short of a charging rhino could get through it.

Tom took a peek through the peephole, and saw two men in dark suits standing in the hallway. Caucasian, thirties, blank expressions. He noted how their jackets bulged, indicating they were carrying.

He palmed his Sig and said, “Yeah?”

The man on the right said, “FBI.”

They both held up badges and ID cards. Tom had seen a few in his day, and they looked legitimate enough. But you could buy anything online these days.

“What do you want?”

“It’s about your partner. Roy Lewis.”

Tom hadn’t expected that.

“What about him?”

“We believe he’s in trouble, Detective Mankowski. Can we come in?”

Tom didn’t like it. It was 2am, a highly abnormal time for the Feebies to drop in. But they both shared the classic, bored expression of government drones, and Roy was like a brother to Tom. Keeping his gun at his side, he went through the complicated process of unlatching the door and letting them in.

“The gun is hardly necessary, Detective,” said the same one, eying Tom’s piece.

“I’m a nervous type.”

They didn’t reply. Tom stepped aside and allowed them into his apartment. He noticed two things immediately.

First was their footwear. Rather than the expected Florsheims or equivalent, these men had heavy boots on, with thick rubber soles, suitable for combat. The second was their scent. It was odd, sort of a musk combined with something medicinal. Nothing that came from a bottle, and unlike any body odor Tom had ever smelled. Neither offensive or appealing, but certainly unusual.

He followed the men into the living room, where they turned to face him. No one made any move to sit on the sofa or easy chair, and Tom didn’t offer them any of the cold coffee still in the pot on the kitchen counter. He waited for them to speak first, an old cop trick. After a few seconds of silence, they did.

“We understand you and Detective Lewis were invited to an unusual gathering last weekend.”

Tom remembered the invitation, which had arrived via FedEx at work.

“Some sort of gameshow thing,” Tom said. “Win a million dollars or something like that.”

“Did you discuss it with your partner?”

Tom hadn’t. At least, not in depth. He and Roy had each gotten identical invitations, but they’d been working a gang hit, interrogating seven members of the Latin Kings over a period of four days, and he’d forgotten about the FedEx ten seconds after it arrived. After making the arrest, Roy had taken leave, mentioning he might check the invite out.

As far as Tom could recall, it was for some stupid reality show contest. Tom didn’t need the money, and he certainly didn’t want the fame. He preferred to keep to himself. One of the things he hated most about Joan’s work was the parties he was forced to attend when he visited her. All those Hollywood phonies, each trying to shine brighter than the next. Joan never acted that way, but it seemed almost every single one of her friends did.

“We spoke about it for less than a minute. Roy wondered if it was a scam. I had no interest. Didn’t even read the whole thing.”

“Do you have the invitation here?”

Tom had it on the desk in his bedroom, but something made him withhold that info.

“Not sure where it is.”

“Can you find it?”

“Why?”

The Feebies exchanged a glance, then focused back on Tom. “Because it’s evidence in a possible homicide investigation.”

Tom gripped the butt of his Sig tighter. “What are you saying?”

“We have reason to believe that Roy Lewis, your partner, has been murdered.”

It had been a long time since anyone had punched Tom in the face.

This was a whole lot worse.

Cleveland, Ohio

Deb

Deb Dieter stared at the ringing phone.

Her mouth was dry, and she could feel her heart fluttering in her chest like a hummingbird was trapped in her ribcage. She began reaching for her husband to grip his arm, and then hesitated. Her walking legs—made of carbon and fitted with a microprocessor—were harder to get on than her other prosthetics, and she was torn between the need to be comforted by Mal and the need to get dressed and flee.

Flee from what? The phone? The door?

Is this what my life has come to? Letting fear dictate my every move?

Deb forced herself to look at the phone. She flinched when it rang again.

Just answer it.

Do it.

Now.

But Deb couldn’t do it. She couldn’t even reach for it. She’d run marathons, fought mountain lions, and survived the Rushmore Inn. She’d even been taking a karate course, and had just advanced to 3rd Mon Kyu; Purple Belt with Red Stripe. But she couldn’t get herself to answer a telephone.

Mal seemed equally paralyzed. In many ways, his ordeal had been even worse than hers. On the rare nights she was able to fall asleep, Mal often woke her up, in the throes of a night terror, whimpering in a way that never failed to raise the hair on her arms.

The phone rang again.

And again.

Then the answering machine picked up.

“You’ve reached the Dieters, please leave a message.”

“It’s the FBI. Open the door.”

Deb managed to look over at Mal, whose expression was somewhere between terrified and confused.

“This is about West Virginia.”

The Rushmore. Most of those responsible for the atrocities committed there had died.

But there was one man, who was currently in prison.

Could he have escaped?

Deb couldn’t imagine anything worse. Her mind went into overdrive, conjuring scenarios so fast they became one big blur in her head. He got out… he’s coming for her and Mal… he’s been seen in the vicinity… he’s…

He’s the one on the phone right now, impersonating the FBI.

More pounding on the door. Deb didn’t know what to do. She felt glued to the bed. Mal was shaking so badly he wouldn’t be able to hit anything with the gun he held.

“This is extremely important,” said the voice on the answering machine. “open the door. We know you’re in there. We can see you.”

Deb jerked her head from left to right, searching the bedroom, not understanding how someone could be watching her. There was no one there, nothing at all but—

The window.

The window, over the headboard of the bed.

Mal and Deb looked up, at the small, rectangular window directly above them. The venetian blinds were closed, but there were gaps and cracks. And they were on the first floor.

Someone could be standing right there.

“Open the blinds,” the voice said. “I’m holding up my badge.”

But what if he wasn’t holding a badge? What if it was the escaped psycho, and he was holding a brick, or a crowbar, or a—

Someone rapped lightly on the window.

Deb screamed.

A flashlight appeared behind the blinds.

“Put down the gun, Mr. Dieter. We’re not going to harm you or your wife.”

Sweat had broken out over Mal’s forehead, dripping down the sides of his face. He stared at his wife, and she sensed him fighting to be brave. Gun still in his hand, Mal slowly reached for the cord to the blinds—

—and yanked them open.

Standing there was a man. Not the psycho they remembered. But a tall man in a suit, holding a cell phone in one hand, the flashlight in the other, pointing at his own face.

“I’m going to take out my badge,” he said, and his words on the machine weren’t quite synced to his lips, due to the satellite delay. “We’re here to help you.”

Deb watched, transfixed, as he slowly reached into his pocket and took out an official-looking FBI badge and ID.

Trembling, she reached for the phone and picked it up.

“Help us wi…wi… with what?” she managed, teeth chattering.

The man smiled, but it was hollow and emotionless.

“Open the door and let us in. And we’ll tell you.”

Grand Haven, Michigan

Sara

“What do you want?” she said into the phone, her voice so soft she could barely hear it.

“It’s the FBI. We’re here to help you get your son back.”

Sara blinked, then shook the cobwebs from her head. The fear she’d been feeling was replaced with something else. Something she hadn’t experienced in so long she’d forgotten what it felt like.

Hope.

“Jack?” she croaked.

“Yes, Jack. Open the door, and we can talk about it.”

“I… uh… gimme a minute.”

The fear came back, and her mind twisted in two. To have her child again would be a miracle. It would, quite literally, save her life.

But there was also a chance this was a trick. Sara knew there were bad people in the world. She’d had to endure some of the worst that humanity had to offer. This call could be connected to all the bad things from her past. Or it could be some new predator, looking for an opportunity.

As she considered her options, Sara quickly changed out of her soiled sweatpants, tossing them into the shower and shimmying into some jeans. Then she went into her kitchenette, seeking the gun. She found it on the floor, next to an old pizza box, and peeked through the curtains at the entrance to her trailer.

Two men in suits. They stared right at Sara, as if they’d anticipated her looking at them. Both held gold badges. Sara wondered if the shields were real or not, then realized it didn’t matter. They could kick in her flimsy trailer door with less energy than it took to sneeze. If these men wanted to get in, they easily could. But so far, they’d opted for the polite approach.

So maybe they were FBI and telling the truth. Or maybe they’d try to kill her. In either case, there wasn’t anything she could do to stop them. The gun she held only had one bullet in it. Sara hadn’t ever expected to use it for self-defense.

She placed her hand on the front door knob, feeling as if she were inviting trouble inside. But the reality was, no matter what they could do to her, it couldn’t be worse than what had already been done.

Sara unlocked it and opened the door.

“Can we come in?”

Sara nodded, stepping aside. She gestured to her cheap dinette set, one of the chairs wobbly. The cool, fresh air from outside made her realize how sour the smell was in her trailer, and she caught an acrid stench similar to spoiled milk. The men came in and stood there, seemingly oblivious to the mess around them. And a mess it was. Dishes piled high in the sink. Fast food wrappers strewn about. A garbage can filled to overflowing. A single strip of fly paper hanging from the overhead light, speckled with dozens of the dead.

But Sara didn’t care what they thought of the mess, or if they judged her. She just wanted to know if they were speaking the truth about Jack.

Neither man made a move to sit down. They were taller than they seemed to be when standing outside. Beefier, too. More like pro wrestlers than FBI guys.

“So, you’re in,” she forced herself to talk slowly, deliberately. “What do you want?”

“We know what happened on Rock Island.”

Sara may have flinched at that, but she still had enough liquor in her system to mask her reaction. Rock Island—which she thought of as Plincer’s Island—was the cause for her current situation.

“You went through a lot,” he continued. His eyes, and expression were blank. “But you survived. It must have been quite an ordeal.”

Sara wasn’t going to get into a conversation about the past, especially about what happened on that island. “What about Jack?”

“The government has a proposition for you. We want to help.”

The sneer formed on her lips before she could stop it. “The government? They’re the ones who took my baby.”

The agent continued. So far his partner hadn’t spoken. “Child Protective Services took Jack. You were caught doing sixty miles an hour in a thirty mile zone, and he wasn’t in a car seat.”

“I… I’d left the car seat in the house.”

“You blew a one point eight.”

Sara considered responding, but the fight had long been beaten out of her.

Yes, she was a drunk. After Plincer’s Island, alcohol was the only thing that drowned out the nightmares. She came away from it scared and broke, and the DUI had been the final nail in her coffin of failure. Sara had to sell the house to pay for her legal fees, and still spent six months in jail for wreckless endangerment. When she got out, and was unable to get Jack back from the foster home the state had stuck him in. She was a single parent with a criminal record, no means of employment, and many—including the judge—were dubious of her role in the Rock Island Massacre. Without money for a good lawyer, Sara went back to drinking, winding up in this shit hole trailer park, trying to find the guts to eat that single bullet.

“How can you help?” she whispered.

“There’s an experimental program, going on this weekend. If you volunteer for it, you’ll be given one million dollars, and we’ll work with CPS to get your son back.”

Sara snorted. “A million bucks, and Jack? This is a joke, right?”

“It’s for real, Sara.” He reached into his jacket, took out some folded papers. “The details are in here.”

“What’s the program? Some sort of rehab?” As she said it Sara found herself looking around the kitchenette for any alcohol that might be left over.

The silent one finally spoke. “It’s about fear.”

Sara stared at him, and his smile was chilling.

“Fear?”

The other one continued. “You understand fear better than most people. The government wants to study how you react to fear.”

“Why?”

“Understanding fear can lead to controlling it. Certainly you can see the advantages to that.”

Sara’s brow crinkled. “So this is a fear study? Do they hook me up to some machine, then make me watch scary movies?”

The quiet one let out a chuckle. “Oh, it’s a bit more complicated than that…”

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Frank

“You’re not the Secret Service,” Dr. Frank Belgium said, scrutinizing the proffered badges that quite distinctly spelled out FBI.

“Our friends in the Secret Service told us where to find you,” said the agent on the right. His breath smelled medicinal. “We’re all Feds, so does it really matter?”

“Yes yes yes, in fact it does.”

Belgium inadvertently flashed back to the last time the Secret Service came calling, which is how he wound up at Samhain. Two men in black suits, with the proposition of a lifetime.

“We have a proposition for you,” the same agent said.

“No, thank you. I’m quite done done done with government work. Have a good night.”

Belgium moved to close the door, but the Fed stuck his foot in it.

“We’re well aware of your role in Project Samhain, Doctor. And how it turned out.”

Belgium again thought back to how that particular part of his life came to a close. About the evil loose in the world, which was partly his fault. He braced himself for the bad news.

Instead, he was surprised by bad news of a completely different kind.

“Instead of being a researcher, your government would like you to volunteer to be a test subject,” the agent said. “On a topic you know intimately well.”

“Molecular biology?”

“Fear,” said the other one.

Belgium wasn’t sure, but when the man spoke he flashed teeth that looked…

Well, they looked pointy.

“You’re invited to spend the weekend taking part in a unique experiment. You’ll be closely monitored to see how you react to fear. As you might guess, you have more experience in this area than most.”

That’s the understatement of the century, Belgium thought.

“For one day of your time, you’ll be given one million dollars. Plus your old job back at Biologen.”

Belgium raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

He’d been justifiably fired from Biologen years ago, due to negligence. Since then, they’d merged with the pharmaceutical company DruTech and had become the premiere biotech firm in the world.

“A million, and a job as head of the molecular biology department.”

Head of the department? That meant pure research, the thing in life Frank loved more than anything else.

He allowed himself a few seconds of fantasy. His own lab. Access to the best equipment. The most competent staff in the world. And no more grading ridiculous papers about plants’ reactions to household chemicals.

Then reality kicked in again, reinforced with some well-earned skepticism.

“So this has nothing to do do do with Samhain?”

“No.”

“Have you,” he chose his words carefully, “spoken with anyone else?”

“Several people. But no one you know.”

Which meant his friends from Samhain, Sun and Andy, hadn’t been approached.

But working for the government again? Could he possibly trust that?

The answer came swiftly and with finality.

Absolutely fucking not.

“It’s a tempting offer, gentlemen, but but but I’m going to decline.”

The lead agent stared deep into Belgium, his eyes emotionless. “If you don’t accept this offer, you’ll be executed for treason.”

“Treason?” Belgium squeaked. “I’ve never breathed a word of what happened, to anyone.”

“You know exactly what you did,” the agent said. “You know what you’re responsible for.”

The Fed spoke the truth. And Belgium had waited years for the evil he’d unleashed upon the world to appear again. He spent hours every week monitoring the world news, looking for evidence.

But so far, the evil had remained dormant. Belgium had even begun to hope it had disappeared completely.

“Your choice is to submit to the experiment and get a large cash settlement, along with your dream job. Or be taken to a secret prison and executed without a trial. And that threat extends to your associates.”

“Andrew and Sunshine Dennison,” the other said, giving Belgium another quick glimpse of his sharp teeth.

“I understand they’re expecting a child. Do you want to be responsible for destroying their family?”

Belgium did not want them to die. Nor did he want to die. Death was one of many, many things Frank feared.

“Then apparently I don’t don’t don’t have a choice. Where is this experiment supposed to take place?”

“Have you heard of Butler House?”

Belgium had. And as the blood drained from his face, he seriously wondered if being executed for treason was the better option.

Chicago, Illinois

Tom

“You think my partner was murdered, and it is somehow connected with this game show thing?”

The Feebies looked at each other.

“We’ve been investigating a man named Dr. Emil Forenzi. He may be involved in the disappearance of over a dozen ex-military personnel. From what we’ve been able to find out, he’s doing some sort of scientific research on the physical characteristics of fear.”

“He’s the one who sent the invitations?”

“We believe so.”

“And you think he may have killed Roy?”

“We’re not sure.”

“You guys don’t know much, do you?”

“Detective Mankowski, we believe Dr. Forenzi may in fact be funded by the US military. So certain avenues have been closed to us.”

Tom could understand that. The army, much like the government, tended to keep hush-hush about things above your pay grade. “Do you have any actual evidence?”

“Just circumstantial. We’ve been trying to get a man on the inside of Forenzi’s operation, but security is tight. However, we do know he has been inviting people to participate in his experiments. People who have undergone a particularly frightening experiences. We’ve done a background check on you and your partner, and you both certainly qualify.”

No shit, Tom thought.

“We’d really like to know what’s going on, Detective.”

“And you want me to find out.”

“We’ve gotten permission from your boss, Captain Bains, to work with you on this.”

That seemed odd to Tom, as Bains didn’t like working with the Feebies. And justifiably so. They were territorial, smug, and often looked down on city cops. But Bains also had an almost paternal sense of responsibility toward his men. If Roy was missing, the captain would want him found.

“And you can’t do this yourselves because…?” Tom asked.

“We weren’t invited. You were. You could poke around, talk to Forenzi, try to get some evidence. We’ve tried to interview him, but he lawyered up. And we’ve found obtaining a warrant to be challenging. He apparently has friends in high places.”

“Where is Forenzi?”

They exchanged another glance. “He’s set up his laboratory in the Butler House.”

“The Butler House?”

“You’ve heard of it?”

Next to the house made famous in the Amityville Horror, Butler House was probably the most famous paranormal site in America. Tom even remembered streaming a low budget Netflix movie about it. Located in South Carolina, an insane doctor—the brother of a plantation owner—built a laboratory-slash-dungeon underneath the estate, where he performed horrible experiments on the slaves they owned. Tom watched ten minutes before turning it off. Even though it was poorly acted, and the special effects were shoddy, the ghosts in the movie were hideously deformed and reminded Tom of a real night he spent in the real basement of a real mansion, and he didn’t need to be reminded of that.

“Supposed to be haunted,” Tom said.

“Forenzi is apparently convinced it actually is haunted. And he believes the fear of the supernatural induces the purest terror response in his volunteers.”

“Have you talked to any of these volunteers?”

“No. We’ve tried to track down those we know of, but they’ve… disappeared.”

Tom almost laughed at that. Almost. It was ridiculous enough to be the punchline for a campfire ghost story. But neither Feebie looked amused.

“How many people are we talking about here?” he asked.

“Two or three dozen.”

“Including the missing military men?”

“In addition to them.”

“So you’re saying there have been… how many?… maybe fifty people who have disappeared in Butler House since Forenzi moved in?”

“That number might be low.”

“And no one has done anything?”

“We’re trying to do something, Detective. Which is why we’re at your apartment at three in the morning.”

Tom rubbed his eyes. “I need to think about this. Do you have a number I can reach you at?”

One of the agents produced a card and held it out.

“We really would like to see that invitation,” he said, pinching the card so Tom couldn’t take it.

“When I find it, I’ll show it to you.”

The Fed released the card. Special Agent John Smith. Go figure.

“We’ve heard that Forenzi is conducting another experiment this weekend. Our informant says guests are being picked right now.”

“Who is this informant?”

Neither agent answered. Obviously the Bureau had their need-to-know info just like the military did.

“Goodnight, gentlemen,” Tom said. “You can find your way out.”

They left without so much as a nod. As soon as the door closed, Tom went to his cell phone and called Roy.

It went straight to voice mail.

“Roy, it’s Tom. Call me back as soon as you get this.”

It was too early in the morning to call Gladys, Roy’s ex-wife, so instead Tom went into the bedroom and found the FedExed invitation. He snapped on a pair of vinyl gloves he kept in his drawer, and pulled the invite out of the blue and orange cardboard mailer. It was a standard 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, off white and a heavy stock. The writing on it appeared to be calligraphy.

Survive the night in a haunted house and receive $1,000,000.
Call 843-555-2918 to confirm.
Invitation 3345

Tom turned the paper over, finding nothing, then looked for a nonexistent water mark. Next, he sniffed it, and it smelled like paper. Finally he took out a magnifying glass and studied the script. It was inkjet, not handwritten.

It said nothing about this being a gameshow or a reality show, but those were the possibilities he and Roy had brought up during the fifteen seconds they’d discussed it. But this seemed more likely to be a joke, hoax, or scam.

And yet the Feebies were extremely interested in this invitation, and they didn’t think this was a put on.

Tom switched on his computer monitor, saw he was still on the Skype program he used to talk to Joan. She was offline. He frowned, then Googled Dr. Emil Forenzi, spelling it like it sounded.

He found him on the Linkedin social network. Born in Brazil fifty-six years ago, his father Italian and mother a native. Moved to the US when he was a child. Full scholarship to Brown. Doctorate at MIT. Then he went to work for the DoD, and apparently still did. Specialties included a bunch of technical and science skills that Tom had to scroll down to read completely.

So why does a genius scientist believe in something as ridiculous as the supernatural?

Tom squelched the thought. If he described some of the very real things that had happened to him, the majority of the world would think they were ridiculous as well. Trying to keep his mind open, he searched for Butler House on Google and found a website dedicated to it.

Tom settled back in his desk chair and began to read.

Building History

Butler House was built in 1837 by wealthy landowner Jebediah James Butler on a cotton plantation in Solidarity, South Carolina, fifty miles outside of Charleston. Boasting more than one hundred and fifty rooms in the neoclassical antebellum style, it was home to Jebediah, his wife Annabelle, and his younger brother, Colton, until their deaths in 1851.

Construction began in 1835 and faced many setbacks, including a severe storm, a fire, and the deaths of three workers. One died when a pallet of bricks crushed him. Another was scalded to death by hot tar. A third fell into the concrete foundation when it was being poured, and drown there. A generally accepted rumor is his body wasn’t discovered until the concrete had cured, and it was unable to be removed, so Butler indicated more concrete be poured on top of him.

Many point to this lack of a proper burial as the beginning of the rumors that the property was haunted. Others contend that the source of the problems was the land itself. In the late 1700s it was a thriving village of Cusabo Native Americans numbering over two hundred. The village was burned, its people massacred, by white settlers desiring the fertile land.

During the lengthy and troublesome construction, Annabelle had been heard to say, “Maybe the Lord doesn’t want us building this house.”

The slow completion time is also attributed to the architectural demands Butler made. He hired three different architects, each to design a different part of the building, so no one but Butler knew the exact layout. This was especially important because the manor was outfitted with many secret rooms and passageways, false walls, staircases that lead nowhere, a labyrinthine basement with several kilometers worth of tunnels, and a torture chamber.

Slavery

At its peak in 1841, the plantation boasted dozens of slaves, the majority working several hundred acres of cotton and tobacco. Butler was known to openly boast that he was breeding his own workforce, and many of the slaves born on the property were fathered by Butler or his brother. On several recorded occasions, if a child born on the property was too light skinned, Butler would feed it alive to the passel of hogs he kept on the property.

Butler soon became one of the largest slave buyers in the South, which caused one of his contemporaries to remark, “[Butler] has purchased so damned many he could farm the entire state.” But at any given time, Butler never seemed to have more than fifty slaves working for him, even though records have shown he had bought more than four hundred.

Known to be unusually cruel masters, the Butler brothers seemed to have delighted in inflicting punishment on their slaves, for slights real or imagined. They made full use of the house’s torture chamber, where slaves were skinned, boiled, crucified, scourged, whipped, mutilated, and burned.

Colton Butler, a self-professed physician who demanded to be addressed as “Doctor” even though he held no known medical degree, conducted many surgical experiments on slaves, without anesthesia, with the apparent goal of joining them together.

“I believe I have the ability and necessary determination,” Butler wrote, “to fuse the parts of two Negroes together into a single being. Consider a slave with four strong arms, which would double his work output, or with six breasts to suckle young…”

Rebellion

The Butlers hired ten armed men to guard them and their property, and they were known to be as cruel as their employers. Daily beatings, corporal punishments, and public executions (even though the killing of slaves was against the slave code) were commonplace. A one-eyed man named Jonathan “Blackjack” Reedy, worked as taskmaster in the fields, and once said, “Spilled blood is good for the soil, makes the cotton stronger.”

On October 31, 1847, near the end of the annual cotton harvest, Blackjack was whipping a young boy whose only infraction was said to have been stopping for a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. This appeared to have been the final straw for the mistreated slaves, and they revolted, beating Blackjack so severely the only way the authorities could identify his corpse was by his black leather eyepatch.

The rebellion spread throughout the fields, the guards either being surprised or running out of ammunition, and after the last was killed the angry slaves converged on Butler House.

Jebediah Butler, and his wife Annabelle, were hung naked by their ankles from the rafters in Butler House’s great room and beaten to death with whips and scourges. Colton was chased into the bowels of the basement, and dragged to the torture chamber where he was placed upon the rack and stretched until his arms and legs were broken in several places each. Then he was set ablaze.

The majority of the slaves escaped to nearby states, some making their way to the North and freedom.

Aftermath

The deaths of the Butlers was headline news for weeks after the incident, and bounties were put on the runaway slaves’ heads. But there weren’t many takers. There were rumors of a “slave curse” which claimed any who tried to capture the Butler slaves would meet the same fate as the Butler family.

The house, and plantation, went unoccupied for five years, until a man claiming to be a distant cousin of the Butlers, Sturgis Butler, petitioned the court for ownership and moved in during the summer of 1852.

Sturgis tried, unsuccessfully, to hire workers to fix up the house, which had fallen into disrepair and still bore the damage incurred during the rebellion. But laborers always quit in terror after a few days, claiming to have witnessed strange ghostly figures, or disembodied screams.

Sturgis resorted to repairing the house on his own, but he didn’t try to recapture the farm, and the land soon became a dense marsh.

Though Sturgis never married, he entertained a wide variety of women at Butler House, many of them prostitutes. At least a dozen were never heard of again.

Civil War Years

When the War Between the States broke out in 1861, Butler House was commandeered by the Confederate Army as a garrison. Between 1861 and 1865, at least six soldiers committed suicide on the grounds, and sixteen more were remanded to a local insane asylum, ranting about supernatural phenomenon. While under psychiatric care, four killed themselves, eight died of unexplained causes, and one man plucked out his own eyes with a fork.

Sturgis, exempt from the draft because he worked as a druggist, remained at the house during its occupation by troops, though he kept to himself in a closed off wing of the basement. Rumors abounded of him being “in league with the devil” and a proponent of “black magick.” Milledge Luke Bonham, governor of South Carolina and Brigadier General in the army, said of Sturgis, “There is something dark and twisted about that man. He is certainly no Christian.”

Reconstruction Years

During the four decades after the war ended, little was heard from Sturgis Butler. Prostitutes from the county continued to disappear, and the locals paid little mind to it. But in in 1902, Mia Lockwood, the only child of Southern poultry magnate Earl Lockwood, vanished the night before her debutante ball in Charleston.

Gossip and rumor led to the formation of a posse/lynch mob who raided the Butler House on May 1, the pagan holiday known as Walpurgis Night. Upon breaking into the house, the group discovered Sturgis presiding over a Black Mass replete with occult paraphernalia including black candles, severed animal heads, sacrilegious objects, and a seventeenth century binding of the Compendium Maleficarum, a notorious text on witches. Sturgis had hung a naked and violated Mia upside-down on a cross, and was lapping at the blood streaming from her slashed throat when the mob arrived.

Sturgis was immediately dragged outside, lashed to a black oak tree, and set ablaze. He allegedly laughed as he burned.

Inspection of the property over the succeeding weeks discovered three mass graves, some going back over seventy years (determined to be the bones of slaves) and some more recent (the corpses of missing prostitutes) making Sturgis one of America’s first, and most prolific, serial killers.

1910-1945

Butler House remained unoccupied for a few years after Sturgis Butler’s death, until the county acquired it, making the mansion a home for the blind, and for invalid veterans of the First World War . At the height of its use, it housed over a hundred. During its thirty-five years of operation, there were many fatal illnesses that infected patients.

1911 – Tuberculosis killed 35.

1918 – The Spanish Flu killed 63.

1920 – Diphtheria killed 9.

1924 – Botulism killed 40.

1931 – Cholera killed 5.

1940 – Measles killed 5.

In 1945, a fire broke out in the great room, and all of the 86 residents died of smoke inhalation or third degree burns. It is unknown why they were unable to escape, as the doors were all in working order.

After WWII

Butler House remained abandoned until 1956, when it was acquired by a land development company intent on tearing it down and building a housing development. The day before demolition occurred, the owner of the company, J.J. Hossenport, was struck by lightning and killed while getting into his car.

During his funeral, lightning struck and killed his widow, Myrtle Hossenport.

Their heirs, believing the property to be cursed, put it up for sale. It remained on the market and vacant for twenty-nine years, though six different realtors showed the house dozens of times.

It was finally acquired by eccentric millionaire Augustus Torble, the lone heir of a restaurant mogul, who spent over a million dollars restoring the house to its former shape. In 1985, he moved into Butler House with his young bride, Maria.

In 1992, Maria was discovered by hunters, wandering naked in the woods six miles from Butler House. She was malnourished and incoherent, scars covering eighty percent of her body.

In the hospital, she told the police a tale of captivity and severe abuse by her husband, who kept her locked in Butler House’s torture chamber and committed unspeakable acts upon her for several years. She also told of being forced to participate in the torture and murder of eleven women, whose remains were found in one of the underground tunnels.

Torble was arrested, tried, and sentenced to life in prison. Shortly after the trial, Maria committed suicide. To this day, the women Torble killed remain unidentified. Torble refused to cooperate with authorities, and it is unknown where he found them or how he lured them to the house. He remains incarcerated at the Fetzer Correctional Institution in Charleston, SC.

Current Owner

The house remained vacant until 2002, when it was purchased by Unified Systems Association, which built an electrified perimeter fence around Butler House. Since then it has been off limits to ghost hunters, thrill seekers, and the curious. Those caught trespassing on private property are promptly arrested.

Hauntings

During its 176 year history, dozens of strange happenings and unexplainable phenomenon have been linked to Butler House. Some highlights include:

1848 – A string of arsons in Charleston, including six churches that burned to the ground, were attributed to a shadowy figure with an eye patch. Several witnesses swore it was the ghost of slave driver Blackjack Reedy.

1863 – Eight Confederate soldiers staying at Butler House reported a floating ball of light that roamed the lower tunnels at night. It had the ability to go through walls and locked doors, and if it touched a person, that person died of fright.

1908 – There were seven verified attacks and sexual assaults on women in the Charleston area, by an assailant whom they claimed to be Sturgis Butler… six years after his death.

1915 – Returning WWI veterans, many of whom were victims of chlorine, phosgene, and mustard chemical weapons, claim to have been tormented by a giggling spirit in a gas mask.

1918 – During the Spanish Flu epidemic, over a dozen patients reported being assaulted, molested, and in some cases raped, by an unknown entity. The spirit supposedly smelled like burned flesh, and paralyzed its victims so they couldn’t move or cry out while the attacks were taking place.

1958 – Since the deaths of J.J. and Myrtle Hossenport, descendants have suffered a streak of bad luck many attribute to supernatural phenomenon. Six car accidents, two fires, a drowning, a stroke, and a dog attack, have killed sixteen Hossenport family members. The last remaining Hossenport in the lineage, Mary Kate, was murdered by serial killer Charles Kork in 1993.

1965 – Reknowned psychic medium Mdme. Francesca Sillero gathered with a group of wealthy benefactors at Butler House to hold a séance on Halloween night. During the proceedings, she claimed to have channeled the spirit of Colton Butler. While Butler’s spirit was inside her, he allegedly forced her to pluck out both of her eyes and chew off her tongue.

1982 – A group of Charleston teenagers broke into Butler House to have a late-night party. Shortly after arriving, one of teen’s gums began to bleed for no explainable reason. By the time her friends got her to the hospital, every one of her teeth had fallen out. No medical explanation has ever been given.

1998 – A TV crew from the paranormal investigation show Ghost Smashers spent Halloween night in Butler House. Unconfirmed reports indicate a tragedy occurred. No one knows what happened, but the host, Richard Reiser, immediately retired from television without the program ever airing.

Tom clicked on the PHOTOS section of the website. The first picture looked a lot like the White House, but no columns and a darker color. The second was of three people, the Butler brothers and Annabelle.

Jebediah Butler was a bespectacled man with white hair and a Van Dyke beard. He looked a lot like a fatter Col. Sanders, minus the mirth. His wife was also plump, and either there was a spot on the photo or her left eye was severely crossed. Colton was the tallest, and rail thin. He leaned on his cane, hunched over as if his back was hurting him, and had one of those walrus mustaches with the ends curled up and waxed.

The next photo looked like a hole in the dirt filled with rocks, and Tom had to read the inscription to understand what he was seeing.

Over four thousand human bones found buried on the property.

Creeped out, he made the mistake of clicking on the next photo, which was a shirtless African American man who had so many scars on his body he no longer looked human. As Tom hurried to hit the ESC button, something in the image stopped him.

Something hanging on the man’s mangled shoulder.

A third arm.

It was small, withered, hanging over his chest like a wrinkled leather belt. But there were clearly five fingers on the end of it, and they were—

Holy shit. The fingers are holding a tin drinking cup .

Tom zoomed in, trying to spot if the photo had been altered, but it looked real enough.

What the hell was wrong with some people? Assuming even some of the facts on the website were true, what could make someone treat his fellow man like that?

Tom went to the next picture, partly out of morbid curiosity, partly because he wanted to see the Butlers get what was coming to them. He was rewarded by a photo that looked like two bloody, skinned deer carcasses.

Wrong again. The caption read The bodies of Jebediah and Annabelle Butler. They’d had every inch of skin on their body whipped off.

Thankfully, there were no pictures of the tortured Colton. But there was a portrait of Sturgis Butler, and Tom was shocked at how much he looked like Vlad the Impaler. Same dark, bulging eyes. Same pointy black beard. Tom found himself staring into those eyes, revulsion wiggling in his stomach.

Next came a picture of the house after the fire in ‘45. The structure remained intact, but there was telltale soot and fire damage surrounding the windows and front doors. Tom was going to move onto the next page, but something in the photo caught his eye.

He made the jpg the size of his monitor. In one of the blackened windows was a speck of white.

Tom zoomed in further.

The white speck looked like the ghostly face of a man screaming.

There was a sound and movement to Tom’s right, and he immediately glanced over his shoulder, adrenaline kicking in, and watched as his bedroom door—

—closed by itself.

As his fight-or-flight response kicked in, Tom remembered his window was open a crack. The draft sometimes blew the door open and closed; something that happened often enough that Tom actually looked it up and discovered it had to do with air pressure in the room.

Still, it was disconcerting after reading the history of Butler House. Tom’s mouth was dry. His heart was doing a fox trot. And he both felt, and saw, all the tiny hairs on the backs of his hands stick straight up.

He was afraid.

And the Feebies were right. Tom knew, more than most, what it was like to be afraid.

He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Tom stared at the phone, wanting to call Joan. Hearing her voice would reassure him, calm him down.

Instead he visited YouTube and played an upbeat rock performance by Bob Walkenhorst.

He also turned on the bedroom light.

In the bright room, with the music playing, Tom felt less frightened.

But he couldn’t relax enough to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that poor, scarred, three-armed slave. And thought of his partner, Roy.

Mililani, Hawaii

Fran

Fran stood in the safe room with her family, watching the porch monitor. The two men who stood at their front door looked around when Josh hit the intercom button and spoke.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

“Mr. VanCamp?” They still couldn’t find the camera. “We’re from the FBI. We want to talk to you and your wife.”

Josh glanced at her, and Fran gave her head a small shake.

“We’re not interested,” Josh answered. “Go away.”

“It’s an opportunity for you to each earn a million dollars.”

“Two million bucks?” Duncan said. “Mom, that’s a crapload of money.”

“And probably a crapload of trouble,” Josh added. “Hon?”

“No way,” Fran said.

“If you’d let us in,” the man on the porch continued, “we could explain in detail. It will only require a day of your time. It’s a government-sponsored experiment.”

Josh snorted. Fran saw the incredulity in his eyes. She felt exactly the same way. She’d jump off a cliff onto a bed of nails before trusting the government.

“You have ten seconds to get off of our property,” she said into the intercom. “Or we’re going to shoot you.”

One of the men on the monitor reached into his pocket, and produced some folded papers. “We have all the information right here.”

“Five seconds,” Josh said.

“We’ll, um, leave it here for you.”

Fran watched the man stick the papers in the door jamb, and then they left. She followed them, monitor to monitor, until they walked off the grounds.

Duncan stared over at her, his eyes wide. “Would you really have shot them, Mom?”

Fran didn’t answer. But her thoughts went back to Safe Haven. To all the friends she’d lost. To all the horror she and her family had endured.

Would she have shot them? Hell yeah.

No one will ever have a chance to harm her, or her family, again.

Not as long as Fran still had the strength to rack a shotgun and pull a trigger.

Cleveland, Ohio

Mal

“It’s just for twenty-four hours,” said the FBI agent in the doorway. “You’ll arrive, have a meal, get examined by a doctor, then be locked in the Butler House overnight, and closely monitored to study how you react to fear.”

“So they’ll be purposely trying to frighten us?” Deb asked.

Mal had tucked the gun into his bathrobe pocket, and his wife was holding his hand so hard she was cutting off his circulation.

“It’s a fear study,” the agent said. “You both have had unique experiences that make you ideal candidates.”

“And we live with those experiences, every day,” Mal said. His apprehension had been fading since they answered the door, and was slowly being replaced by anger. “You have no right to come here and make this offer.”

After all he and Deb had survived, why would they willingly expose themselves to even more horrors, real or convoluted? To even ask that of his wife made Mal’s blood pressure skyrocket, and there was no way in hell he’d ever allow—

“Can we think it over?” Deb said.

Mal stared at her, unable to hide his surprise.

“Deb?”

“I didn’t say we’ll do it, hon. But I think we should talk about it.”

Mal didn’t understand. Sure, two million dollars was a lot, but they were doing fine financially. Why would Deb even consider this?

The agent who’d done all the talking reached into his jacket and handed Deb some folded papers. Mal detected the tiniest smirk in the corner of the man’s mouth.

“The experiment begins this weekend. Good evening to you both.”

The Feds left, and his wife closed the door, locking the various latches and deadbolts.

“Debbie, you’re not serious.” He searched her pretty face. “Are you?”

“I think we should at least discuss it, before you make a decision for the both of us.”

“I don’t understand.” Which was as true a statement he’d ever made. “I thought—”

“That’s the problem, Mal,” she snapped. “You thought, but didn’t ask me.”

“Is it the money?”

“I wasn’t even thinking about the money.”

“So what’s there to discuss? We can’t sleep as it is. You want to go someplace where they’re purposely trying to terrify you?”

“It’s a fear study, Mal. Something you and I suffer from, every single day.”

“Exactly, so—”

“So maybe a doctor who studies fear could somehow teach us how to deal with ours.”

Mal was about to object, but caught himself. They’d both had psychiatric treatment since the Rushmore Inn. Hypnotherapy. Exposure Therapy. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Interpersonal. Group. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. And a pharmacy’s worth of drugs, from sleep agents to SSRIs to beta-blockers to anti-psychotics.

Nothing seemed to work. In fact, some of the treatments worsened their condition.

“You remember exposure therapy,” Mal said.

“Of course.”

They’d been subjected to shocking images of mutilations and congenital malformations in order to desensitize them. Deb had freaked out during a session, crying so uncontrollably they’d had to quit, and later that night Mal had gone to the ER, unable to stop hyperventilating, convinced he was having a heart attack.

“This seems even worse, Deb. They’re not just going to show us pictures. They’re going to try to scare us.”

“We’ll get through it,” Deb said, reaching for him again. “Just like we got through the Rushmore. But maybe we’ll learn something this time.”

Mal chewed his lower lip. The worst part about fear wasn’t the dread, it was the helplessness. The FBI agents said they’d be able to bring any items they wanted to with them for the weekend, including weapons. But the gun in Mal’s robe didn’t make him feel any safer. Quite the opposite. The very fact he owned a gun was a constant reminder of what he was so afraid of.

“I don’t know, Deb…”

“Can we discuss it, at least?” She moved a step closer to him, the hydraulic cylinders in her prosthetics whirring softly.

Mal didn’t want to discuss it. He wanted to run away, someplace where it never got dark. Where nightmares didn’t exist, both the ones in his head and the real ones.

But the longing in his wife’s eyes made his heart hurt.

“Of course, Deb. If this is something you want.”

“It is.”

Deb moved in for the hug, and he reluctantly embraced her, a thought bouncing through his mind and forcing out all others.

Be careful what you wish for, because it may come true.

Solidarity, South Carolina

Forenzi

Dr. Emil Forenzi could barely hear the phone ring above all the screaming.

“It’s okay,” Forenzi told his patient, giving him an affectionate pat on the cheek. “It’s all going to be okay.”

The screaming didn’t abate. Forenzi gave him a dose of traumesterone and the noise went down to a hoarse wheeze.

Forenzi answered the phone, located on the wall next to the EKG machine.

“I’m with a patient,” he said into the receiver. Which was unnecessary, because he was always with a patient. Even at ungodly hours like this. Who could sleep when there was so much to do?

“We have a head count for this weekend.”

“Go on.”

“Three confirmed.”

“And the others?”

“Still deciding.”

Forenzi frowned. He’d been hoping for better results.

“Which three?”

“Sara Randhurst. Moni Draper. Frank Belgium.”

Forenzi rubbed the stubble on his chin, and his eyes drifted across his laboratory. Besides his patient, and the various pieces of equipment, there was a large, glass apparatus on a stainless steel table, which looked like something out of a mad scientist movie. It was currently distilling a batch of Serum 3.

That serum, Forenzi knew, was going to win him a Nobel Prize.

Some believed that most of humanity’s conflicts, be it person-to-person or country-to-country, were based upon one possessing something the other one wanted. Land. Oil. Water. Food. Religious and political differences were used as excuses to dehumanize the enemy and grab their resources.

But Forenzi knew that this greed was bolstered by another, even more base and powerful emotion.

Fear.

Mankind reeked of fear.

This fear led to distrust, and ultimately to hate.

Being able to conquer fear meant a fresh start for the world.

“Let me know if the situation changes,” he said, then hung up.

Of the three who signed on, Dr. Belgium interested him most. A molecular biologist, he would recognize what Forenzi was doing here. It would be refreshing to talk to someone who could grasp the magnitude of this invention. Who would understand it.

He turned back to his patient, whose eyelids had drooped in sleep. Forenzi yawned sympathetically.

“You’re exhausted, my friend. So am I. We can continue the therapy tomorrow. Sleep well.”

Forenzi left the lab, walking into a hallway that looked more like a tunnel in a coal mine than the basement of a mansion. The floors were crumbling concrete, the walls lined with stacked railroad ties. There were wood ceiling braces every five meters, and Forenzi wouldn’t have doubted the bare 60w bulbs hanging from them were older than he was. As he passed beneath one, it buzzed and flickered.

One of the many ghosts of Butler House, demanding attention.

Forenzi paid it no mind. Instead, he took the hall to a fork, went right, and headed for the veterinary clinic. As he approached, he heard some lone trilling, and recognized it as Gunter’s.

Forenzi’s spirits dipped, and his pace quickened. He entered the clinic through the metal push door and beelined for Gunter’s habitat, which was situated to the right. It was several cubic meters in size, with a window of clear, unbreakable Plexiglas, the interior foliage meant to mimic a Columbian forest, with twisted, dead tree branches and fake plants.

The Panamanian Night Monkey watched his approach while upside down, hanging from a limb. Gunter was large for an A. zolalis, nearly three pounds in weight. His bushy brown fur was mottled with blood, and his enormous red eyes stared at Forenzi dispassionately.

“Gunter… Gunter… what have you done?”

Of course, Forenzi already had the answer to that. Gunter’s two cagemates, capuchins named Laurel and Hardy, were dead on the fake grass in the habitat. They’d been dismembered and eviscerated, their insides strewn across the bathing pond and staining the water pink.

“You just can’t play well with others, can you?” Forenzi shook his head and tsked.

Gunter stared, unmoving.

Aphobic.

Forenzi picked up the clipboard next to the habitat, recorded the event, and then flipped through the previous five months to get an accurate count.

“This makes twenty-eight,” he said. “You’re a regular little monkey serial killer.”

Gunter grunted, as if agreeing.

Forenzi left a note for the morning help to clean the cage, and order more monkeys. Serum 3, for all of its potential, still had some kinks to work out. There was undoubtedly a broad line between fearless and homicidal, but Forenzi hadn’t found it yet.

“I think we’ll lower your dosage,” Gunter said. “Maybe then you’ll be able to make friends.”

Gunter continued to stare, and Forenzi wondered how much the night monkey actually understood. Besides the expected changes to Gunter’s amygdala, the primate’s frontal lobe had also enlarged, increasing his intelligence. Forenzi wondered, half-joking, if one day Gunter would become so smart he’d solve the dosage problem himself.

Gunter dropped from his upside-down perch, startling Forenzi with the sudden movement. Without taking his big eyes off the doctor, he reached for a dismembered capuchin leg and began to gnaw on it.

“Apparently I don’t need to feed you, either,” Forenzi said.

Gunter grunted.

There was a great crash from above, and a small plume of dust drifted downward. Both Gunter and Forenzi stared at the ceiling.

Directly above them was Butler House. At this time of night, it should have been quiet.

But it rarely was.

“I wonder if monkeys have ghosts,” Forenzi mused. “Perhaps your friends Laurel and Hardy will visit you tonight, Gunter. And they probably won’t be pleased with the whole murder-dismemberment-cannibalism debacle. But then, that wouldn’t scare you, would it, Gunter? Nothing scares you at all.”

Forenzi wondered if he should mention Gunter during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, since the animal had been essential to his research.

If so, perhaps the multiple killings should be downplayed. Or left unsaid.

“Goodnight, my friend. And don’t eat so quickly. You’ll choke.”

Forenzi left the lab, turning off the overhead florescent lights so his experiment could dine in the dark.

Chicago, Illinois

Tom

After four hours of troubled sleep, Tom reached for his cell phone next to the bed and hit redial.

It went straight to Roy’s voicemail.

Peering at the nightstand clock, he judged 8am to be late enough to call Roy’s ex-wife. Tom located the number in his address book, and she picked up on the second ring.

“Hi, Gladys. It’s Tom Mankowski.”

“Is Roy with y’all? Fool missed his visitation time with his daughter.”

Hell. Tom went into cop mode. “Does he do that often?”

“Not without calling he don’t. And he didn’t call. She was really upset, Tom. I was, too. I had plans. Tell him we’re both extremely disappointed in him. He hook up with some hoochie mama and lose track of time? Now he’s playing you to smooth things over?”

Hoochie mama? “I don’t know where he is, Gladys.”

“Really? This isn’t a game?” Glady’s voice had shed its ghetto attitude, and Tom sensed the concern.

“Apparently he’s been missing since last week.”

“A week? Oh, Jesus, Tom. I… what do we do?”

“I’m going to look for him, Gladys.”

“Thank you. Please keep me posted, okay?”

“Sure thing. And if you hear from him, please call.”

“I will. What should I tell Rhonda?”

Double hell. Rhonda just turned five. Old enough to wonder where her daddy was.

“I don’t know, Gladys.”

“You think it’s one of his old cases? Or a new one?”

“I don’t know. Did he mention going anywhere to you?”

“No. Nothing. He usually calls the day before he picks up Rhonda, which was supposed to be Wednesday. But he didn’t. His phone goes straight to voicemail.”

“Did he say anything about a haunted house? Or a reality show? Or getting some money?”

“I haven’t heard from him since he took Rhonda to a Cubs game, over two weeks ago. Do you think… do you think he might be…”

Then he heard it. A sniffle.

Gladys was crying.

“You know, Tom, that son of a bitch makes me angrier than anyone I’ve ever met. But if anything has happened to him…”

“I’ll find him, Gladys.”

“Rhonda needs her father.”

“I’ll find him. My love to Rhonda.”

Tom hung up. Listening to women cry was almost as bad as informing next of kin that someone close to them had died. And Tom had to wonder if that’s what he just did with Gladys.

He found the FedEx invitation and dialed the number, using his land line. A machine picked up, the voice synthetic. One of those text-to-speech generators that just missed sounding human. Futurists called it the uncanny valley. A sense of revulsion that people felt when they experienced something that was almost human, but not quite. It was thought of as a survival mechanism, to help people avoid those who looked or sounded strange. Tom could understand how that worked, on a genetics level, because procreating with those who had some sort of defect meant potentially defective children, and avoiding someone who was odd decreased the chance of getting whatever disease they had. At least that’s how the futurists explained it.

But listening to the voice, Tom realized it could help humans survive in another kind of way. By helping them avoid things that almost looked human, but weren’t.

Things like ghosts.

“Please say or punch in your reservation number, followed by the pound sign.”

Tom used his phone keypad.

“Hello, Tom Mankowski,” the creepy robotic voice said. “You are invited to spend the night at the haunted Butler House in Solidarity, South Carolina, where you will participate in a fear experiment. The house is located on 683 Auburn Road. You are expected to arrive on Saturday, before noon. You can bring whatever items you’d like, including weapons, religious paraphernalia, and ghost detecting equipment. If you take any prescription medication, please bring it along. The experiment will end Sunday at 4pm. Informing others about this experiment will disqualify you from your million dollar participation fee. Polygraphs will be administered to ensure compliance. Have a nice day. We’ll see you soon.”

Tom held the phone, trying to understand the weird feeling that had come over him. The instructions were straightforward and polite, but the call hadn’t left him with warm, fuzzy feelings.

Quite the opposite, he was experiencing something that only happened rarely. like when a perp ducked down an alley, and Tom had to follow. Or the second just before he had to kick in a suspect’s door.

Fear of the unexpected. Also known as dread.

He shook his head, trying to brush off the feeling. But the dread clung there like cobwebs.

Tom startled when the off-hook tone began to beep from the handset.

“If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. If you need help—”

He hung up.

Tom considered calling Joan, but the two hour time zone difference would have meant waking her up. Instead, he padded over to the shower and turned it on, hot as he could stand it. Then he stared into his bathroom mirror and began to scrape the stubble off his face. His beard, like the hair on his head, was turning prematurely gray. He also needed a haircut.

The mirror began to steam up, and Tom raised his hand to wipe it off, but stopped before his fingers touched the glass.

The fogging had revealed words, handwritten on the mirror.

I’M WATCHING YOU

THE NEXT DAY

Mililani, Hawaii

Josh

Fran was in a bikini, sitting on their porch, stripping and cleaning one of their AR-15 semi-automatic rifles. She had a look of intense concentration on her face as she ran a cleaning rod through the bore. If there was anything sexier than a woman in a bathing suit with a firearm, Josh didn’t know what it was.

He set the lemonade he’d brought for her down on the table, and took a sip of the one he’d kept for himself. It was a perfect Hawaiian day, sunny and hot and smelling like paradise, and the lemonade was cold and sweetened just enough to take the edge off the pucker.

Mathison was perched on the seatback of Fran’s chair watching damselflies. Though Josh had never seen him do it, he had a suspicion that the monkey liked to catch the bugs and eat them.

Mathison chittered when he saw Josh. He hopped down, ran into the house through the dog door, and returned a moment later with his plastic infant cup. He held it out to Josh, who poured in some lemonade. Mathison chirped a thank you, took a drink, then made a face and stuck out his tongue.

“I like it tart,” Josh said.

Mathison set down his cup, ran inside again, and came out with a packet of sugar and a spoon. As the monkey mixed his drink to taste, Fran spoke.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Didn’t we discuss it? I thought we agreed.”

“Can it hurt to discuss it some more?”

“No,” he admitted.

“So are you sure?”

Josh took another sip of lemonade. Mathison did as well, then made a sound like he was throwing up. He put his tiny hands on his own throat to emphasize his displeasure.

“So get more sugar,” Josh told him.

The monkey ran off. He came back a moment later with five more packets.

“You’re going to get diabetes,” Josh said.

Mathison gave him the finger.

“Did Duncan teach him that?” Josh asked his wife.

“What?” She was absorbed in her cleaning.

“Mathison flipped me the bird.”

“No. I think it was South Park.”

“The TV show?”

“Yeah. He has a few DVD box sets.” Fran squirted more solvent on the patch holder.

“You bought South Park DVDs?”

“No. He grabbed them in the store while I was shopping, put them in the cart, and paid me. He also bought The Untouchables. He’s watched it seven times. I think he wants to be Sean Connery.”

Mathison nodded at Josh, then added more sugar.

“And how did the monkey get money?”

“He was doing tricks in front of Walmart with his cup.”

“Huh.” Maybe the monkey had an organ grinder heritage. “How much did you make?”

The capuchin held up three fingers on his right hand, five on his left.

“Thirty-five dollars? Seriously? How long did it take?”

One finger, and five fingers.

“Only fifteen minutes? Fran, that’s a hundred and forty bucks an hour.”

“Josh, can you get back on topic? I asked you if you’re sure.”

Josh sipped more lemonade, then thought about the invitation to Butler House. The whole concept of it, from the way they were approached in the wee morning hours, to the dial-in number with the weird voice, failed to pass the sniff test.

“It’s bullshit,” Josh said. “The military is trying to hoodwink us. Those weren’t feds.”

“I agree.”

Josh settled back in his chair, putting a foot up on the table. Mathison added a fifth sugar packet, took a sip, and gave Josh a thumbs up.

“Brush your teeth when you finish,” Josh said.

The monkey replied in sign language. “Woof ate my toothbrush.”

“The dog ate it? When?”

“A week ago.”

“I watched you brush your teeth last night.”

“That was Fran’s toothbrush.”

Josh frowned. He’d just kissed Fran less than an hour ago.

“What did he say?” Fran asked, looking up from her bore cleaning.

“We need to buy everyone in the house a new toothbrush. Maybe I’ll let Duncan drive. He’s getting his permit next week.”

“And Butler House?”

Josh swirled some tart lemonade around his tongue, then swallowed.

“Fuck Butler House.”

Chicago, IL

Tom

There weren’t any homicides in Tom’s jurisdiction in the last few days—unusual for Chicago—so it gave him time to work on Roy’s disappearance. After arriving at the office and getting his cup of burned coffee, Tom went to his partner’s desk and fired up his computer. While it booted he snooped around, finding nothing of interest.

As expected, Roy didn’t have a computer password. Detectives preferred that, so if anything happened to them in the line of duty, their last actions could be easily traced.

Tom checked Roy’s email, finding a confirmation for a rental car at the Charleston airport dated last week. He dialed the number and pretended to be Roy, reading off the confirmation number.

“What can we help you with, Mr. Lewis?”

An odd thing to say if the car hadn’t been returned.

“Can you email me all the details from my rental, for tax purposes?”

“Certainly.” The woman repeated Roy’s email addy.

“Also, can you remind me when I returned the car?”

“You returned it last Sunday, at 11:35am. Anything else I can help you with?”

Tom declined and disconnected. Next he called the airline Roy used and said he lost his return flight ticket. Did someone else possibly use it?

“No, Mr. Lewis. That ticket hasn’t been used. Would you like us to book a return flight?”

Again Tom declined, and hung up.

Either Roy had returned the car at the airport, and something happened to him to prevent him from boarding his flight. Or something happened to him earlier, and someone returned his rental car for him to tie up a loose end.

Tom got on the Internet and began calling hospitals in the Charleston area, asking if Roy or any African American John Does fitting his description had been admitted. He also checked the morgues, and Charleston PD.

No luck.

Next he checked Roy’s browsing history, and saw he’d been on the same Butler House site Tom had been on. Roy also had been on the Ghost Smashers website. Tom recalled reading that they’d shot an episode of their TV show at Butler House, but it never aired and the host quit TV immediately afterward. Tom went back to Roy’s email, checking the Sent folder.

Roy had several exchanges with Richard Reiser, the host of the show. The last one ended with Roy asking if they could Skype. Skype was a VoiP—a voice over internet protocol. It allowed two people to talk to one another using computer webcams and headsets. Tom accessed Roy’s Skype account, and sure enough Richard Reiser was listed as a contact. Tom found Roy’s headphones in his top drawer and plugged them into a USB port. Then he video called Reiser.

As it rang, Tom accessed the National Crime Information Center and searched for Dr. Emil Forenzi. He didn’t find any info. Apparently Forenzi didn’t have a criminal record.

“You’re not Roy.”

Tom looked at the Skype window. He saw the profile of a man’s head, obscured by shadows. Richard Reiser was Skyping without any lights on.

“I’m Roy’s partner, Detective Tom Mankowski.” Tom raised up his badge, holding it to the webcam embedded in the monitor. “When was the last time you spoke with Roy?”

“Is Roy missing?

“Do you know something about that, Mr. Reiser?”

“Rich. Call me Rich. I told him not to go to the Butler House. But he went, didn’t he?”

Rich’s voice was slurred, and Tom wondered if the man was drunk.

“No one has heard from him in seven days,” Tom said.

“I warned him. I practically begged him not to go.”

“When did you last speak with Roy?”

“Eight days ago. It was Thursday. He said he got some sort of invitation to Butler House.”

“Why did he get in touch with you?”

“He wanted to know what happened on my show, Ghost Smashers. Why I quit show business.”

“Did you tell him?”

Rich paused for a moment before continuing. “The network did a good job of covering it up. They paid me off not to talk about it. I signed some non-disclosure agreements.”

“So you didn’t tell Roy?”

“No. I did. I did so he wouldn’t go. But I guess he went anyway.”

“Can you tell me as well?”

“He didn’t listen to me.”

Tom lowered his voice. “Mr. Reiser, please tell me what you told my partner.”

Another pause, and Tom began to wonder if Rich was going to balk. But then he began.

“It was nearing midnight. I was doing my intro in Butler House’s great room—this huge space in the front of the house when you walk in. Two story roof, curved staircase, weird tapestries on the walls. It looked like the set of a Roger Corman Poe flick from the sixties. We’d gotten there in the daytime, did some establishing shots, set up our equipment. EMF, IR, EVP, full spectrum motion cameras.”

Tom didn’t know what any of those abbreviations were, but he didn’t want to interrupt the story to ask.

“During set-up, one of the camera guys caught an RSPK on tape. That’s recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis. Poltergeist activity. A painting fell off the wall, right in front of us. Portrait of that serial killer, Augustus Torble. We checked the nail it was hanging on—a big, thick, six inch nail. Bent right in half. We’d never gotten footage like that before. In hindsight, we should have left right then.”

Rich grabbed something and lifted it to his face. A bottle. Beer? Whiskey? He tilted it and swallowed, and then began to gag and cough. More evidence of being drunk.

“At midnight, I’m set to do my first piece of the night. Explore the basement of Butler House. We were using the dual head cam. Have you seen the show?”

“No.”

“It’s a two way camera, mounted on my head. One lens is pointed ahead of me, where I’m looking. One is pointing at my face, so the viewers can see my reactions. It’s mounted on a helmet, and with the batteries… it’s pretty heavy. So… we had a… a… thick strap around… my chin… to keep the rig steady. Right after I started my segment… the batteries…”

Rich’s voice trailed off.

“What happened to the batteries, Rich?”

He didn’t answer.

“Rich?”

“They… exploded.”

He reached off to the side, and then the lights in his room came on.

Rich’s face looked like it had strips of half-cooked bacon glued to it. Eyebrows burned off. No nostrils, just a gaping hole for his nose. Part of his upper lip missing, showing his teeth, which explained his slurring. He wasn’t drunk. He was Frankenstein’s goddamn monster.

“Lead batteries contain sulfuric acid. So my helmet was both on fire, and leaking acid down my face. And because of the chin strap, I couldn’t… I couldn’t get it off. I couldn’t get it off…”

“I’m sorry,” Tom said. It took everything he had in him to not turn away from the screen.

Rich lifted the bottle—a water bottle—to his face and took a sip, gagging again, some of the water running down his ruined chin.

“The network sued the company that made the camera. But when they took the rig in for testing, no one could find anything wrong with it. No faulty wiring. No bad parts. It’s like it exploded for no reason at all.”

Tom felt terrible for the guy, and he didn’t like making him talk about it. But for Roy’s sake, he had to ask. “But you think there was a reason.”

“Something in Butler House did this to me. I’m sure of it. Something evil. That’s why I begged Roy to stay away. And you should stay away, too.”

Tom pursed his lips.

“Look, your partner, your friend, Roy. He’s dead, man. Butler House got him. And if you go looking for him, you’re going to die.”

“Thanks for your time and insights, Rich. I’ve got to get going.”

Tom disconnected, guilty about his lie. He didn’t have to leave. He just couldn’t stand looking at Rich’s disfigured face anymore, and the conversation had greatly disturbed him.

Tom’s hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood at attention, and he had a very strong feeling he was being watched. By who? Eavesdropping co-workers?

Or was someone else watching? Someone, or…

Some thing.

Tom swiveled around, seeking the staring eyes he knew were on him.

But no one was there.

At least, no one he could see.

Realizing he was letting his imagination mess with him, Tom called Joan’s cell phone. Thankfully, his girlfriend picked up on the third ring.

“Tom? I’m in the middle of something. Director wants a rewrite on set, writer is throwing a hissy fit. Is this important?”

“I just wanted to hear your voice, babe.”

“That’s sweet. Can I call you back?”

“Yeah, sure. And hey, wait… Joan… you still there?

“Yes?”

“Did you write anything on my mirror?”

“What?”

“My bathroom mirror. Someone wrote I’m watching you on it.”

“Wasn’t me. Gotta go, lover. Call you soon.”

His long distance romance hung up, and Tom’s creepy feeling got a whole lot creepier.

THE NEXT DAY

Charleston International Airport

Frank

Dr. Frank Belgium walked out of the baggage claim area and onto the sidewalk, the warm blast of summer air welcome against his overly air-conditioned body. The plane had been chilled to meat-locker temperature, so cold he’d had to ask an attendant for a blanket. The airport had been similarly refrigerated.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting the temperate heat warm him. But he couldn’t feel the sun’s rays.

Belgium squinted up at the overcast sky. The clouds were an ugly swirl of gray and black, but the air didn’t feel humid or sticky. It didn’t look like rain. It just looked ominous.

A man of science, Belgium publicly scoffed at the paranormal. Omens. Superstition. The afterlife. These didn’t hold up to the scientific method, and had no empirical evidence to support them.

But privately, he feared the supernatural. Because he had, in a way, experienced it. To Belgium, the sky looked like a warning meant specifically for him. Like a big sign that said GO BACK WHILE YOU STILL CAN.

Something reddish brown darted toward Belgium, swooping into his peripheral vision, and he dropped his carryon bag and ducked down, emitting a less-than-masculine yelp as he did. Covering his head with his hands, he prepared himself for another attack.

“It’s a finch,” a female voice said from behind him.

Belgium turned, squinting through his fingers. “What?”

“A house finch. They won’t hurt you.”

Belgium stared at the woman. She was maybe in her late thirties, short hair, baggy sweater, no make-up. He could guess, on a good day, she’d be cute. But it didn’t look to Belgium if she’d had any good days in a while.

He tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry.

“Oh. Thanks. I I I thought it was a…” he let his voice drift off, and then picked up his bag and stood up, warily searching the area for more dive-bombing finches.

“You thought it was what?” the woman asked.

“Hmm? Oh. A bat.”

“A red bat?”

Belgium frowned. “You’d be surprised.”

The woman shrugged. Belgium glanced around, trying to get his heart rate under control, wondering why there weren’t any cabs. Shouldn’t an airport have cabs?

He watched a traveler cross the street, where he was met by a blue Honda. A woman got out, they had a quick but poignant hug, and then he loaded his suitcase and got into the car and they drove off.

“Where are the taxis?” the finch lady asked.

“I don’t know. I’m waiting for one one one myself.”

Another minute passed. Belgium considered renting a car. But he didn’t want to go back into that freezer of an airport. In fact, he didn’t want to be in South Carolina at all. The thought of being arrested for treason began to hold some appeal. At least, in that case, he knew what to expect. Knew who his enemy was.

There was security in knowing. But the unknown, however…

“Do you have a cell phone?” the finch lady asked him.

“Hmm?”

“To call a taxi.”

“No. Don’t carry one. You?”

“Me neither. We’re probably the last two people in the world who don’t.”

Finally, a lone yellow cab pulled onto the throughway. Belgium held up his hand and at the same time noticed his companion did as well. He’d gotten there first. And at the rate cabs arrived at this airport, this could be the last one of the day. But even though Belgium was rattled, and hadn’t been with a woman for a very long time, he still had a streak of chivalry in him.

“You can take it,” he summoned the courage to say.

“Are you sure? You were here first.”

The cab pulled up. Belgium took a quick look at the sky again, which was getting even uglier.

“It’s okay. I’m sure sure sure another one will come along.”

The lady smiled, and it took ten years off her face. “I didn’t know there were any gentlemen left. We could share it.”

“I’m heading west. Solidarity.”

Her brow crinkled. “Really? So am I.”

Belgium did a quick mental calculation on how coincidental that was, and considering Solidarity had a population of less than a thousand, he found the odds to be extremely high. Unless…

“The Butler House?” he asked.

The woman nodded, eyes wide.

He remembered his manners and offered his hand. “Frank Belgium.”

“Sara Randhurst,” she said. Her touch was soft and warm, her grip strong.

Belgium opened the door for her, then helped the cabbie put their bags in the trunk. When everyone was seated, he gave the driver the address.

“I don’t go there,” was the gruff reply.

“Pardon me?”

“The Butler House. No hacks go there. Bad news, that place.”

Belgium considered asking how close he’d take them, but then realized they’d have the same problem once they got there. Renting a car was still an option, but that would be a hassle.

Plus, he had the paranoid delusion that if he left the cab, the sky would open up and lightning would fry him.

“I’ll double your fare,” Belgium said.

“No way.”

“Triple it.”

The cabbie turned around in the driver’s seat to face him. “You serious?”

Belgium nodded.

The cabbie let out a noise that was part sigh, part shrug, and said, “It’s your funeral buddy.”

They pulled out of the airport parking lot and headed west, into the woods. Belgium kept his eyes out the window, trying to look casual instead of nervous. He was aware that the side of Sara’s foot touched his, and he was hoping she’d keep it there. That small measure of human contact was keeping him grounded.

“So,” she said, “you’re doing this to win a million dollars?”

“Hmm? Me? No. I’m… well, being coerced into this.”

“By whom?”

“I’m not not not at liberty to say. Sorry.”

Sara nudged him with her thigh, and when he looked she was smiling again.

It dazzled him. She looked so pretty, so real, so near. Like a safe port in a terrible storm.

“Real secret stuff, huh?” she asked.

He smelled something on her breath. Whiskey. Belgium rarely drank these days, but he really wished he had something to take the edge off.

“I was involved in a government project that I’m not allowed to talk about.”

“What do you do, Frank?”

“I’m a a a molecular biologist.”

She seemed to appraise him, and Belgium lapsed into self-consciousness. Had he combed his hair? Were there crumbs on his face from breakfast? Did he have any stains on his shirt?

“This is a fear study,” she said. “I take it something bad happened with that government project.”

“Yes. That’s… well, it’s actually understating it a bit.”

The horrors of Samhain all came rushing back at him like they were still happening. The deaths. The blood. The certainty he was going to die. Frank could feel his larynx tightening, and he put a hand on his throat to massage it. The sides of the cab seemed to be closing in, making it hard to breath. He stared outside, saw something fly past, and flinched like he had at the airport.

“You look freaked out, Frank. I didn’t mean to—”

“Would you mind if we stopped somewhere for a drink? I mean, I I I don’t want to be forward, or for you to think I’m trying anything with you. But I could really really really use one.” He winced. “The past… it… hurts.”

Sara opened her purse and took out a tiny, plastic airline bottle of Southern Comfort. She passed it to Frank, who was shaking so badly he couldn’t get the small top off. Sara put her hands over his, helped him to remove the cap, and he downed it in one gulp. Almost immediately, he felt better. But he didn’t know whether to attribute that to the booze, or Sara’s touch.

“That’s… that was… thank you.”

She patted his shoulder. “No problem. I get panic attacks too.”

Sara turned away, looking out the window. Almost immediately he missed her looking at him. Belgium felt the liquor burn into his belly and wondered how he could draw her attention again. He figured maybe the truth would do it.

“I was locked underground with a…” Belgium chose his next word carefully. “Maniac. I barely got out alive. A lot of people died. Badly.”

Without facing him, Sara said, “I was trapped on an island with dozens of cannibals, and several serial killers.”

“You were… seriously?”

Sara nodded into the window. “A lot of people died. Badly. I guess that’s why we’re both here.”

Belgium had a sudden, overpowering, completely inappropriate surge of affection toward this woman. He wanted to hug her. For her sake, and for his. If she was a kindred spirit, as he suspected, it would do both of them a world of good.

Instead he sat rigidly in his chair, trying to will his heart to slow down.

“I read up on Butler House,” Sara said, still not looking at him. “Lots of tragedy there.”

Belgium had begun doing some research on the house—the devil you know and all that—but it had scared him too badly to continue.

Sara seemed to be expecting some response, so he grunted noncommittally.

“If any house in the world could be haunted,” she continued, “this would be the one.” Sara turned, and touched his arm. “Do you believe in ghosts, Frank?”

Belgium didn’t believe in ghosts. But there used to be lots of things he didn’t believe in.

“I can’t rule out that they might exist,” Belgium said.

“I think the supernatural is bullshit. I don’t believe in any sort of afterlife. But…”

Sara opened her purse. Besides a wallet and a few more SoCo bottles, there was a bible, a rosary, and a vial of clear liquid.

“Holy water,” Sara said, snapping her purse closed. “Does that make me a hypocrite?”

Belgium shook his head. “No. It makes you prepared.”

“No atheists in foxholes, I guess. Did you bring anything?”

Belgium hadn’t. For the same reason he’d never bought a gun.

“Um… no. I guess—this might sound silly—but I sort of feel like I’m living on borrowed time. Ever since… well, let’s just say I’m lucky to be alive, and these last few years I’ve been waiting for my past to to to catch up with me. Whatever happens, happens.”

“Kind of fatalistic, don’t you think?”

He was surprised by the frankness of her words, and wondered how much she’d had to drink. But perhaps it wasn’t the liquor. Maybe Sara was always this straightforward.

He liked that. A lot. And it had been a long time since he could admit to liking anything.

“I don’t don’t don’t think it’s fatalistic. More like realistic. When you see dark things—”

“You can’t unsee them,” Sara said, finishing his thought.

They looked at each other, and Belgium saw understanding in her eyes. This woman was just as wounded as he was. He’d heard about the concept of kindred spirits, but hadn’t experienced it before.

“I have a very bad feeling about this trip, Sara,” he said in hushed tones.

Then the front windshield burst inward and the car spun out of control.

Pittsburgh International Airport

Mal

Growing more and more uncomfortable as they inched their way through the security line, Mal let his wife go through the metal detector first.

She beeped, as expected, and then got into a conversation with the bored-looking TSA guard. He waved his wand over Deb. That led to her pulling off her jogging pants—which had snaps on the sides instead of seams.

Mal’s prosthetic hand always got a few raised eyebrows, but Deb’s artificial legs drew attention like a marching band down Main Street. Though Deb was always offered the option of a private search, away from gawkers, she never accepted, preferring to strip down to her shorts and show everyone on the planet her high tech artificial limbs.

Mal knew Deb did it because she didn’t want to be treated any differently than anyone else. But they did treat her differently, and Mal watched the crowd finger pointing and murmuring, some assholes actually snapping pictures.

It was made even worse by the fact that Deb was an athlete, and very fit, so standing there in her running shorts like a sexy female Robocop getting ready to pose for Playboy 2054 made him feel jealous as well as overprotective. As expected, after her scan and pat-down, Deb was immediately approached by a smiling Lothario who was better looking, a better dresser, and no doubt younger and richer than Mal was.

So I get to endure her humiliation of stripping down to her stumps, and then nurse my own humiliation because I don’t feel I’m man enough for her.

Mal was expertly in tune with his own feelings, thanks to the unrelenting therapy. Besides lacking a hand to touch his wife with, he also felt powerless to protect her. That led to feelings of inadequacy which normally didn’t reveal themselves during daylight hours. But as he watched CEO Joe chat up his wife while TSA played stupid with his mechanical hand, Mal felt himself getting angrier and angrier. When they finally let him through, he stormed over to Deb as she was re-snapping her running pants.

“Picked up an admirer, I see,” Mal said, sizing up the man. He looked fit, and could probably kick Mal’s ass all day long and not break a sweat.

“Just paying the lady a compliment,” the guy replied. He looked confident, which Mal hated. Especially because Mal remembered being that confident once.

“I’m the lady’s husband,” Mal said. “Now go run off to your board meeting.”

The guy puffed his chest out. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll beat the shit out of you, then make you lick it up.”

Doubt flashed across the man’s face. He muttered, “Asshole,” then turned and walked off.

Deb looked irritated. “Where did all that testosterone come from?”

“The guy was hitting on you, Deb.”

“He said it was really brave of me to take my jogging pants off like I did.”

Mal rolled his eyes. “He said that because you have a nice ass. Think he would have said that to some fat guy with artificial legs?”

“Can’t I be brave and have a nice ass? You know, Mal, I feel like a freak often enough. Some guy innocently flirting makes me feel normal. He wasn’t a threat to you.”

Mal wanted to turn away. But if he did, it would prove she won and he was wrong. So he forced himself to maintain eye contact. “He saw you as an easy target, Deb.”

“I’m not easy. And I’m not a target.”

Mal switched tactics. “Deb, there are… guys… who have fetishes about…”

Deb’s eyes darkened. “So now he didn’t approach me because I had a nice ass. He came over because he’s an amputee pervert.”

“I’m just saying—”

“You’re acting like an asshole.”

Mal studied his shoes. He wanted to kneel down, help her put her snap-away pants back on, but he couldn’t align the snaps with one hand.

“Look,” he said, letting out a long breath. “I didn’t like that guy swaggering up to you.”

“Him? You swagger more than any guy I ever met.”

Maybe, once upon a time. But not lately.

He changed subjects. “Do you have the Xanax?”

“My purse.”

He sat next to her on the bench and pawed through her handbag. The medicine bottle had a child-proof cab on it, and after trying to pry it off with his teeth, he simply cradled it in his lap until Deb finished dressing. She reached over, held his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I used to be fine flying. But now…”

“It’s okay to be afraid.”

He wanted to scream, to smash the pill bottle against the floor and stomp it to bits. Instead he clenched his teeth and whispered, “But I’m afraid of everything.”

“I know.”

“Including losing you.”

“I know.” Deb patted his hand. “And that’s not going to happen.”

“I’m sorry, Deb. You deserve better.”

“You’re all I need, Mal.”

She kissed his cheek. A kiss of pity, not love.

Mal felt his ears get hot. He endured the kiss without flinching away.

“Take a few, Mal. Zonk out on the plane.”

Mal nodded. But he wouldn’t. Deb couldn’t drive the rental car, which meant he had to, and alprazolam abuse and driving didn’t mix. So when Deb opened the bottle for him, Mal swallowed one, just to take the edge off, and then they shuffled into the terminal.

With an hour before boarding time, they stopped at the Burgh Sportz Bar in the Airmall. Deb had a chicken salad. Mal had a burger. When the food arrived it looked decent enough, but Mal’s stomach was sour and he picked at his French fries while watching Deb inhale her food. She’d talked him into coming to this stupid experiment, and even seemed optimistic about it. Bless her little heart, Deb considered this trip a hybrid of vacation and adventure.

Mal felt differently. He didn’t like confronting his fears in therapy, and he knew he’d abhor being purposely frightened. But the thing that bothered him most was being allowed to bring weapons.

What kind of government experiment allows the participants to be armed? What safeguards were in place to prevent someone from getting seriously hurt?

Mal had packed the gun in their check-in luggage, and both he and Deb had taken shooting lessons. But in fright’s grasp, Mal wouldn’t trust himself to hit a bus from a meter away. What if he fired wildly and hurt someone? What if he shot Deb? What kind of insane tests were going to be conducted on them that required firearms?

“Aren’t you hungry?”

He shook his head. Deb took that as an invitation to tear his burger in half and start munching. Mal stared at her, marveling at her resiliency. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her. How proud he was of her. She was two levels away from becoming a black belt. A double amputee, slowly becoming a karate master. Who could have ever guessed all she could accomplish? But instead of gushing his admiration, he thought of that CEO jerk hitting on her, and how she seemed to eat it up.

She’s going to figure out I’m a coward, and leave me.

Mal didn’t think he’d be able to handle that. But he was sure it was coming.

Someone bumped the back of Mal’s chair, and he turned to see a teenager standing next to the table. Chubby, almond-eyed, protruding tongue. Down Syndrome.

“What’s wrong with your hand?” the teen said, pointing at Mal’s prosthesis.

“I lost it. This one is made of rubber.”

“How did you lose it?”

A madman strapped me to a table and cut it off with a scalpel while I begged for him to stop.

“An accident,” Mal said. He looked at Deb, who was staring at the boy with wide eyes. While the teen was probably harmless, he was bringing up old memories. Bad memories.

“Where are your parents?” Mal asked, searching around for the child’s caretaker.

“You’re a freak,” the boy said.

Mal blinked. “What?”

“You’re a freak and you’re going to die.” He looked at Deb. “And so are you, lady.”

Mal began to stand up. “Look, kid—”

But the teenager stepped back and pointed, then began to yell, “FREAKS GONNA DIE! FREAKS GONNA DIE!”

Mal turned to his wife. Her face had lost all color, and she looked ready to throw up.

“FREAKS GONNA DIE!”

Again Mal looked for the boy’s father or mother, but instead he only saw people staring. Not only those in the restaurant, but passersby had also stopped to watch.

“FREAKS GONNA DIE!”

Finally an older woman came rushing over, tugging at the boy’s arm, saying “Calm down, Petey, calm down.” She offered Mal and Deb a quick, soulless I’m sorry, and then managed to pull her son away from their table as he continued to shout.

“FREAKS GONNA DIE!”

The woman tugged the child further into the terminal, until his voice melded in with the rest of the airport noise. In the restaurant, the clinking of silverware on plates resumed, and conversations picked up to levels prior to the interruption.

Mal, his whole body flushed and twitching, turned to his wife.

“You okay, babe?”

Deb’s face pinched, and then she vomited all over the table.

Solidarity, South Carolina

Forenzi

Dr. Emil Forenzi sat on the mattress—the one piece of furniture in his bedroom that wasn’t an antique—and squinted at the Bruno Magli loafers he’d just put on. There was a stain on the toe. He pulled it off and licked his thumb, rubbing off a reddish-brown streak.

Blood.

Forenzi couldn’t remember wearing the shoes in the lab area, and his mind wandered as to elsewhere he might have trod in bodily fluids. His revere was interrupted by a knock on the bedroom door.

“Enter,” he said, dropping the shoe next to the bed.

Sykes came in, holding a sheaf of papers. He silently presented them to Forenzi. It was reports on their guests.

Tom Mankowski, the cop, had just arrived at the airport. Excellent. He would make a sturdy test subject.

The amputees, Mallory and Deborah Dieter, had boarded their plane in Pittsburg. Forenzi had high hopes for them.

Dr. Frank Belgium and Sara Randhurst were due at Butler House any minute. Forenzi’s intel provided an interesting tidbit.

“They’re sharing a cab?” he said to Sykes. “Do they know each other?”

“I have no idea, sir.”

Forenzi glanced at him, caught a glimpse of the man’s sharp dentata.

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Sykes?”

“Nothing is personal to me, sir.”

“Do you ever bite your tongue while eating?”

“As much as anyone else.”

Sykes didn’t elaborate. Forenzi flipped through more pages, seeing who else was attending, and frowned at the lack of a dossier on the VanCamps.

“Josh and Fran VanCamp didn’t confirm?”

“No, sir.”

Forenzi clucked his tongue. That was a shame. They would have been ideal.

No matter. This weekend would proceed without them, and it would be a success nonetheless.

“Have you spoken to your team?” he asked Sykes.

“Yes, sir. We’re ready.”

“My team?”

“I checked on them half an hour ago. Proceeding as scheduled.”

“Dinner?”

“Planned for seven, as requested.”

“Will we have those little Swedish meatballs? Those are wonderful.”

“Those are listed on the menu, sir.”

Forenzi nodded. In the hallway, floorboards creaked.

Both Forenzi and Sykes turned to look. No one was there.

“The ghosts are getting anxious,” Forenzi mused.

The paranormal history of Butler House was well-documented, and Forenzi had lost count of the strange phenomenon he’d encountered since coming here. Doors closing by themselves. Sharp drops in temperature. Strange odors. Creepy sounds. Last week, he was awoken from deep sleep, absolutely positive someone had been at the foot of his bed, watching him

“Do you believe in ghosts, Sykes?”

The man shrugged.

“So you aren’t afraid of the supernatural?”

“I’m not afraid of anything, sir.”

“Of course you’re not. Dismissed.”

The man left, closing the door behind him. Not much of a conversationalist, Sykes. But he had other areas of expertise.

Forenzi stood up and looked into the ornate, full-body mirror hanging above the bureau. He laced a tie through his collar and fussed with a half Windsor knot, trying to get it even. As he fought the fabric, he noticed something moving in the lower corner of the mirror.

The dust ruffle of the bed.

Forenzi looked down, behind him, and the rustling stopped.

Mice? Rats?

Something else?

And what happened to my shoe?

Forenzi searched the floor, turning in a full circle, looking for the loafer with the blood stain. He could have sworn he’d dropped it on the floor before Sykes came in.

Under the bed?

The doctor got on his hands and knees, ready to lift up the dust ruffle. But something gave him pause.

Behind the dust ruffle, something was making a sound. A distinct, recognizable sound.

Chewing.

I hear chewing.

A streak of panic flashed through Forenzi, and he crabbed backward, away from the bed. Then he quickly scanned the room for some sort of weapon. His eyes settled on an old, cast iron stove. Atop the bundle of kindling next to it was a fireplace poker.

Forenzi got to his feet and snatched the poker, turning back to the bed. Then he held his breath, listening.

The chewing was now accompanied by a slurping noise.

What the hell is that?

He knelt next to the bed, firmly gripping the poker with his right hand, reaching toward the dust ruffle with his left—

—and hesitated.

Do I really want to know what’s under there?

The chewing and slurping sounds stopped.

Forenzi continued to hold his breath, focusing on the silence.

After ten seconds, he let out a sigh, already starting to convince himself he’d imagined the whole thing.

Then he heard something else.

Scratching.

From under the bed. As if something was raking its nails on the floorboards.

Acting fast, before he lost his nerve, Forenzi lifted up the dust ruffle and jammed the poker underneath, flailing it around.

He didn’t hit anything. And the scratching sound stopped.

Forenzi leaned down, squinting under the bed. But it was too dark to see anything.

Moving the poker slowly, he swept it across the floor, kicking up vast colonies of dust clods. When his poker touched something solid, he retracted quickly—

—pulling out his missing loafer.

He stared at it, trying to make sense of what he saw. The shoe was damp with a viscous goo, and the toe had a large hole in it, surrounded by what appeared to be…

Bite marks.

Charleston, South Carolina

Tom

Fetzer Correctional Institution was known as a Level 3 prison. It housed the worst of the worst. Violent offenders and lifers did their time here, as did the death row inmates, up until their appeals ran out. In order to arrange a last-minute visit with one of its prisoners, Tom had to call in a big favor with his old boss, a retired Chicago Homicide Lieutenant named Daniels. She’d pulled a few strings and gotten him an audience with possibly the most depraved and sadistic murderer in this nation’s history, Augustus Torble. The millionaire heir who bought Butler House then tortured several women to death.

Tom drove the rental SUV to the perimeter fence, and an armed guard looked at Tom’s badge and checked his name on the visitor roster. Tom was allowed through the double fence, electrified and topped with razor wire, and he drove past one of the prison’s five gun towers. The main building was a red brick monstrosity that was among the drabbest, ugliest buildings Tom had ever seen. It had a flat façade devoid of any embellishments, save for barred windows and an arched entryway with ugly steel doors.

He parked in the visitor lot, and walked down a cracked, sun-baked sidewalk to the entrance. It was overcast and hot, the gray sky looking like it was ready to rain, but the humidity seemed strangely absent. Tom was buzzed in after being directed via intercom to look up into the security camera, providing them with video footage of his face.

Inside, he was met by two more armed guards, who led him without fanfare down a harshly lit hallway to a waiting room, where he was told to have a seat. Tom parked his butt on a steel bench bolted to the floor, and watched the clock on the wall—a clock housed in wire mesh. It was much more humid in the prison than outside. In fact, Tom almost immediately began to perspire, and wished he’d had a handkerchief to blot his forehead.

When two minutes passed, a dour woman in a frumpy pantsuit entered and frowned at him. She was accompanied by a guard.

“I’m the assistant warden, Miss Potter. You couldn’t have come at a worse time.” Her southern lilt making the last word sound like tahm. “The prisoner is being readied for transport.”

“Where is he going?” Tom asked.

“Out of my hair. Prisoner transfers are common, and I’m not always told the particulars.”

“Do you know the reason?”

“I wasn’t informed.” The way her mouth pursed told Tom that this annoyed her. “What is it you want with the prisoner?”

“I have some questions to ask him. About Butler House.”

Potter snorted. She removed a handkerchief from her jacket pocket and blotted the sweat on her neck. “That house is a blight on the beautiful state of South Carolina. Needs to be razed flat, if you ask me.”

“What have you heard about the house, Ma’am?”

“You mean, is it haunted? I deal in the real world, Detective. I see enough hatred and evil in men’s souls without having to blame the supernatural for it. But I’ll tell you something. I’ve had several interactions with Mr. Augustus Torble. And if there was ever a man possessed by demons, it’s him. Just last week he had an altercation with another prisoner over the last bag of potato chips. Mr. Torble bit the other prisoner’s finger off. When questioned about the incident he had to be restrained, because…”

Her voice drifted off, and Tom could detect a bit of flush in her cheeks.

“Ma’am?” he asked.

She blew out a stiff breath. “Because Mr. Torble was noticeably aroused by the incident, and kept playing with himself while being questioned.”

Tom kept his face neutral, professional.

“Has Torble had a lot of incidents like that?”

“More than his share. The other prisoners are afraid of him. Are you armed?”

Tom had left his gun in his luggage. “No, Ma’am.”

“Regulations insist on a pat down, to prevent weapons or other contraband from being passed to the prisoner. Would you mind standing up and raising your arms, Detective?”

Tom did as instructed, and the guard did a thorough frisking, going so far as to check each of Tom’s pockets.

“I’m to understand you’ve dealt with murderers before,” Potter said. “Your boss, Lieutenant Daniels, spoke highly of you. She apparently knows some very important people. Normally a spur of the moment visitation request from an out of town police officer would be denied. Especially during the time-sensitive and delicate procedure of transfer.”

“I’ll be sure to let Lt. Daniels know how hospitable and accommodating you and you staff have been.”

He didn’t bother to tell her Jack was retired, and the assistant warden’s efforts to get a pat on the head were likely for nothing.

“You have ten minutes,” Potter said.

“Has anyone told him I’m coming?”

“No. Only that someone wants to speak to him. But Torble is used to that. People are always coming by to pick his brain about something. Cops, psychiatrists, reporters. He gets so many visitors he could use a secretary. Or a press agent.” She turned to leave. “Don’t touch the prisoner, don’t pass anything to the prisoner. Your entire visit will be monitored and recorded. And Detective…”

“Ma’am?”

“Watch yourself. This one is as bad as they come.”

Potter nodded a goodbye, and the guard led Tom down another corridor and into a room with a reinforced door. Inside, an older man was sitting at a steel table attached to the floor like the one Tom had recently used. He wore an orange prison jumpsuit, and leg shackles, locked to a steel U bolt in the floor. His hands were also shackled to a thin chain encircling his waist, preventing him from raising his arms.

His gray hair was wild, uncombed, his face sporting three days of stubble. He was thin to the point of gaunt, and though his records stated he was sixty-two years old, he didn’t look much older than fifty. The killer’s eyes were deep set, dark, and had a glint to them. Intelligence, insanity, mirth, or maybe a combination of all three.

“Mr. Torble, my name is Detective Mankowski. Thank you for your time.”

“Call me Gus,” he said. His voice was unusually deep, and decidedly less southern than Miss Potter’s. “What’s your name?”

“I prefer to go by Detective. Or Mr. Mankowksi.”

“Have a seat, Detective. We have lots to talk about.”

Tom sat across the steel table from him. The killer crouched down a little, like a coil ready to spring. It was just as humid as the waiting room, and Tom continued to sweat. Torble, on the other hand, appeared cool and comfortable.

“I’d like to talk about Butler House.”

Torble smiled. “Good times. It has a torture chamber, you know. I called it the Happy Room. I had a hooker down there once, tied to a rack. Used boiling lard on her. Poured it all over her body, inch by inch. Did it every day for weeks. Put an IV in her to keep her hydrated. You know the smell of breakfast sausage, frying up in the pan? That’s what she smelled like. I swear, as often as not I’d be drooling after a session with her.”

Tom had prepared himself for this. Sadists like Torble got off on their ability to manipulate, to shock. So Tom forced his facial muscles to remain lax, and made sure his breathing was slow and steady. Reacting to psychopaths only egged them on.

“Did you ever do anything like that before buying Butler House?” he asked.

“You mean, did I skin kitty cats when I was a toddler? Or rough up whores?”

“Anything of that nature,” Tom said blandly.

Torble’s lips pressed crookedly together, and he looked off to the right, a poker tell that someone is searching for a truthful memory. “Nope. Can’t say that I had.”

“Did you ever notice anything odd about the house while you lived there?”

Torble studied him. “This is about the house? Not about trying to pin some old, unsolved crime on me?”

“I’m curious about the house.”

“You mean you’re curious if it’s haunted.”

Tom stayed silent.

Torble leaned back as far as his shackles allowed him. Tom couldn’t understand how the man wasn’t sweating. Tom himself felt like he’d dressed quickly after a particularly hot shower.

“My lawyer pressed for the insanity defense. Said we might persuade the jury that Butler House drove me crazy, based on its notorious reputation. That the devil was perched on my shoulder, whispering things in my ear. Tell me, is it insane to give your wife boiling water enemas? That was one way I punished her if she didn’t help with the whores. Also, I have to tell you, as far as gaining spousal compliance goes, nothing beats a sturdy pair of pliers.”

Breathe in, breathe out. Remain calm.

“Did Butler House drive you crazy, Gus?”

“Do you know how certain places have an energy to them, Detective? A vibe? Take this shithole, for instance. I bet, when you were driving up to the prison, you could feel the despair. The hopelessness. The desperation. I bet, if you closed your eyes and tried to tune into your senses, you could tell you were in a prison, even if you didn’t know. Care to try it?”

Tom wasn’t going to close his eyes in front of this loon. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“You want my opinions, but you don’t offer yours. That’s not very sociable.”

Tom breathed out. “Yeah, this feels like a prison.”

“Well, Butler House also has an energy. And I’m betting you haven’t been there, because you’d immediately know what energy I’m talking about.”

“What kind of energy, Gus?”

“That house feels evil. It exudes it, like a bog steams on cool nights. Terrible things have happened there, going back almost two hundred years. And terrible things will continue to happen there, as long as it stands.”

“Did you ever see anything supernatural while you were living there?”

“Do you mean ghosts, Detective?”

“I mean anything at all.”

“Have you ever seen anything supernatural?”

Tom has seen plenty of strange things, some practically impossible to comprehend. But the closest he’d gotten to anything supernatural was the writing on his bathroom mirror.

“Maybe,” Tom said.

“I had this one hooker, name was Amy. Sixteen years old, sweetest little smile on her. I started on her legs, using a branding iron, working my way up. I came back down to the chamber the next day, her chest is all branded. Someone wrote the word BITCH on it. But here’s the stinger. It wasn’t me. I didn’t brand that word on her. It wasn’t my wife, either, because she was in the punishment box. And I don’t think sweet little Amy did that to herself. That’s just one of many unexplainable things that happened at Butler House.”

“Is Butler House haunted, Gus?”

Augustus Torble smiled, and it was an ugly, twisted thing. “If ghosts and demons really do exist, Butler House is where you’ll find them.”

Despite the heat, Tom shivered.

“Do you know anything about experiments being done at Butler House?” he asked. “Tests?”

“What sort of tests?”

Tom didn’t answer, instead waiting for Gus to fill in the silence. The seconds ticked past.

“In prison, you hear things,” Gus finally said. “Things about the government, trying to cure soldiers of their fear. Let me tell you something, Detective. I know fear. I’ve seen it, up close. When you come at someone with a scalpel, and look them right in the eyes as you slip it into their thigh, you can witness fear in its purest, freshest form. And if they could come up with a cure for that, it would be quite a trick indeed.” Gus winked. “But it would also ruin a lot of fun.”

“So you’ve heard about a program like that?”

Torble shrugged. “I’ve heard lots of things.”

“Have you heard about any connection between government experiments and the Butler House.”

“I’ll answer that, but first I want you to answer something for me, Detective. What do you know about fear?”

Without being able to prevent it, Tom thought back to when he had first met Joan. What they’d gone through together in Springfield. The maniacs that tried to kill him. The horrors in the basement.

“Yes,” Torble said, studying him. “You know fear. But unfortunately for you, I cannot confirm nor deny any connection between government experiments and Butler House. But I can show you something that might surprise you. Interested?”

Tom offered a slight nod.

Torble grunted, then began to shake all over. His face turned deep red, the veins in his neck bulging out. Tom was wondering if the guy was having a stroke, or a heart attack. He was about to call for the guard when, quite suddenly, Torble’s hand slapped onto the metal table between them with a BAM! His bleeding wrist still had the cuff on it, but the chain that had wound around his waist was broken.

“I SEE YOUR FEAR!” Torble thundered as the guards rushed in and pounced on him. “YOUR FEAR WILL BE THE DEATH OF YOU, TOM!”

Torble was tackled, pinned to the table while screaming incoherently, and Tom stood up and moved back, too surprised to speak. Another guard escorted him out into the hall, leading him to the exit.

Tom wasn’t sure what he’d actually come here to learn, and wasn’t sure he’d learned anything. Maybe Torble knew something. Maybe he was just a nut who got his jollies trying to scare cops.

If that was the case, it worked. Tom was thoroughly mortified. Not because of his crazy admissions to atrocious deeds. Tom had met plenty of terrible specimens of humanity. Not because he broke his shackles. That was surprising, but not unprecedented. It was well known that people on drugs, or just insane in general, could snap handcuffs.

No, what bothered him most was what Torble had said. Potter had stated Torble hadn’t known Tom was coming.

Yet, somehow, without being told, Torble had called Tom by his first name.

Outside of Charleston, South Carolina

Sara

“Do something, Frank,” Sara said. “It’s suffering.”

They were staring at the side of the road. On the asphalt, in the middle of a small spattering of blood, a cardinal was twitching its broken wing.

“It’s dead, Sara. That’s just a reflex. It hit our windshield going over seventy miles an hour.”

“Are you sure.”

“Yes yes yes. But if this makes you feel better…”

Sara looked away as Frank stomped hard on the cardinal with a sickening crack.

She immediately dug her hand into her purse, locking her fingers around one of the miniature bottles of Southern Comfort. Her buzz was wearing off, and the situation wasn’t improving. They’d tried calling for another cab, but none would take them to the Butler House. Frank was in favor of going back to the airport and renting a car, but their bags were in the cab’s trunk, which wouldn’t open. After hitting the bird, the car swerved off the road and the tail end smacked into a tree. They had to wait for the tow truck driver to arrive with tools to open the back.

Just one sip. To make the fear go away.

She released the bottle. Sara knew she used alcohol to cope. But she refused to believe she was dependent on it. Also, she was starting to like the odd, soft-spoken Dr. Belgium, and wanted to stay relatively clear-headed because she enjoyed his company.

It had been a long time since she enjoyed anyone’s company. After what happened on Plincer’s Island, Sara was certain she’d never trust a man again. But there was something about Frank that was, well… frank. He seemed kind, sincere, and even kind of cute. She didn’t even mind the odd way he spoke, repeating words.

But most important of all, he made Sara feel safe. If she’d been alone in the cab when they hit the cardinal, she would have been hysterical and drinking SoCo like water. But Frank’s presence soothed her. Maybe because he lived through a hellish experience, like she had. Or maybe it was just chemistry.

Sara took her hand out of her purse, and tried to seem nonchalant about it when she placed it in Frank’s. He glanced at her, his eyes widening. But his fingers clasped softly around hers, and all thoughts of drinking slipped from Sara’s mind.

“Thanks for doing that,” she said.

“I could, um, step on it a few more times, if you want.”

“That’s okay. This is really forward of me, Frank, but are you seeing anyone?”

“No. I haven’t… I… it’s been a very long time, Sara.”

“For me, too.”

As Sara stared at him, it occurred to her she’d forgotten how to flirt. She wondered how she looked, no make-up, hair probably a fright. She also wondered how Frank would react to the fact she had a child. Sara hadn’t tried to date anyone recently, but she guessed most men wouldn’t be interested in a pre-made family.

“I have a son,” she blurted out. “Jack. Would you like to see a picture?”

She watched his eyes, searching for any hint of rejection.

“Of course,” he said.

Sara reached into her purse with her free hand, took out her wallet. The only picture in it was of Jack, in his high chair, smiling and eating strained peaches.

“He’s adorable. And his father?”

Sara shook her head.

“I don’t mean to pry, but that painting on the wall behind him,” Frank said. “Is that Van Gogh’s Portrait of a Woman in Blue?”

“It’s a fake. Long story. I thought it was real. But the real one is in a museum in Amsterdam.”

“I’d like to hear that story someday.”

“I’d like to tell it someday. Maybe when we’re done with the weekend. Where do you live, Frank?”

“Pittsburgh. You?”

“Michigan. Near the coast.”

“Which coast?” Frank asked, holding up his left hand with his fingers together and his thumb slightly out.

Sara smiled. Because Michigan looked like a mitten, that was how residents showed where they lived. She touched the base of his index finger.

“So who is taking care of Jack while Mom is off visiting haunted houses?”

“After… what happened to me, I was having some trouble coping. Jack was taken by social services. I haven’t seen him in six months.”

“I’m sorry.” Frank gave her hand a squeeze. “I can’t even imagine what that must be like.”

“That’s why I’m here. If I get the money, I can hire a lawyer, get my son back.”

“Are you well enough to care for him?”

The question pinned Sara there as surely as if she’d been staked to the ground. Was she well enough? Her recent behavior didn’t indicate she was. If anything, she’d gotten worse since they took Jack away.

So how do I respond? Bravado? Lie so I don’t look like a bad person?

Or the truth?

Frank seemed patient. Understanding. Sara didn’t know if anything would become of this chance meeting, but she didn’t want to start their relationship with lies. Even if it made her look weak.

“I don’t think I am well enough, Frank. But right now, my hope is gone, because it isn’t possible to get him back. If I had some hope again, I think I could pull myself together.”

Frank nodded, slowly. “I don’t know you at all. But—and this is odd—I I I feel I do. You remind me of a woman I know named Sunshine Jones.”

Sara raised an eyebrow. “Former girlfriend?”

“No. I worked with her, every day, and never had a chance to tell her how much I thought of her. Bright. Tough. Pretty. She had this indefatigable spirit. I think you do, too.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it.”

“What happened to Ms. Jones?”

“She married someone else. It was best. He’s a good man. But I always wonder what might have happened if I just just just… tried.”

“Sometimes trying is the hardest thing in the world.”

“I know a little something about hope, Sara. But I don’t think you’ve given up yet. I think you’ve just been kicked really hard.”

Sara really wished that was true. “Why do you think that, Frank?”

“Because I’ve been kicked pretty hard, too.”

She moved a little closer to him, trying to read his eyes. Frank Belgium had the kindest eyes Sara had ever seen.

Then a car pulled up next to them, and a guy yelled through the window.

“Everyone okay?”

“Yeah,” the cabbie said. He was leaning up against the crumpled trunk of the car, smoking a cheap stogie.

“Does anyone need any help?”

“No no no,” Frank said, smiling at Sara. “We’re doing fine.”

The man began to pull away when Sara yelled, “Wait!”

The car stopped, then backed up.

“Do you have a crowbar?” Sara asked.

“It’s a rental. There’s probably one.”

“Our luggage is stuck in the trunk. Can you give us a hand?”

He continued backing up until he was behind them, then pulled over to the side of the road. When he exited the vehicle, Sara saw he was tall, over six feet, moderate build with longish light brown hair streaked with gray. He opened his trunk, poked around for a bit, and found a crowbar.

The taxi driver spat on the street. “Hey buddy, you touch my cab with that, I’ll call the police.”

“I am the police,” the man said, producing a badge.

The cabbie shrugged.

“Thanks so much,” Frank said. “Several cars have passed, but you’re the first one to stop.”

“What happened?”

“Bird flew into the windshield.”

The cop eyed the dented trunk. “Must have been one helluva bird.”

“I’m Frank,” he offered his hand, which the cop shook. “This is Sara.”

“Tom. Nice to meet you both.”

Tom pressed the flat end of the crowbar between the trunk lid and the fender, and gave it a fierce twist. It instantly popped open.

“Thanks, Tom.” Sara reached into the grab her bag, grateful it was dry. She had two more bottles of Southern Comfort in it, and a leak would have been both embarrassing, and worrying. If she was going to be involved with a fear experiment, she wanted to have liquor nearby.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Frank said. “But would you mind taking us back to the airport to rent a car? I’ll pay you for your time.”

“I’m kind of running late,” Tom said. “Can’t you call a cab?”

“We’re going to a place cabs are afraid to go,” Sara chimed in. “It’s called Butler House.”

“In Solidarity?”

“You know it?” Frank asked.

“No. But that’s where I’m headed. Some kind of fear study.”

“So are we,” Frank said. “Would you mind if we tagged along?”

“Not at all.”

“Sara?” Frank turned to her.

She really liked that he asked her opinion. “Can I see your badge again?”

Tom offered his star.

“Chicago,” she said.

“The Windy City. I’m a detective.”

Frank appraised him. “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Thomas Jefferson?”

“I may have heard that once or twice. You guys coming along?”

Sara handed his badge back. “Thanks, Tom. I think we will.”

Tom held out his hand to take Sara’s bag, and he placed it and Frank’s in his trunk along with the crowbar.

“Would you like the front front front seat, Sara?” Frank asked.

He was doing the nice thing by offering, but still looked slightly disappointed. Sara thought it was adorable.

“Thank you, Frank. But would it be okay if I sat in the back with you?”

Frank nodded several times in rapid succession. “Of course.”

Sara looked at Tom’s rental car. It was a compact. Which meant it would be cramped in the back.

She was looking forward to it.

Deb

“You gotta be fucking me with a wet noodle.”

The woman in the rental car line ahead of Deb and Mal had pink and green hair, a mouth that would make a trucker blush, and an apparent problem with her credit card.

“I ran the card twice, Ms. Draper. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to get out of line.”

“I’ve got a five hundred dollar limit on that goddamn card, pencil dick. And a zero fucking balance. The car is only fifty bucks a day, and I’m returning it tomorrow.”

“The deposit is five hundred dollars, Ms. Draper. Unfortunately, that maxes out your credit card and leaves you nothing to pay for the rental.”

Deb felt bad for the woman. She’d been in a situation like that before.

“I’ve only got thirty bucks on me. I’m running cash poor today. Can’t you help a fucking lady out?”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Draper.”

“I’ll blow you.”

The clerk did a double-take. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll take you in the guy’s shitter and suck your Slim Jim if you get me this car.”

“Uh… as romantic as that sounds, I’m married.”

“Which probably means you need head more than most.”

Mal, who had been sullen and inconsolable on the airplane, actually snickered at that and gave Deb a nudge.

She whispered to Mal, smiling. “What? I give you head all the time.”

“Once a week is not all the time, Deb,” he whispered back.

“If it were up to you, it would be every two hours.”

The rental car clerk raised his voice. “If you don’t leave the line right now, Ms. Draper, I’m calling airport security.”

Ms. Draper was seemingly unperturbed. “If you’re shy because you have a micropenis, don’t be. I’ve seen all types. It actually makes it easier for me to deep throat. And if you got a problem getting it up, I can stick my finger up your ass, work that prostate.”

The rental car guy reached for the phone on the counter.

“You know what, assbag?” Ms. Draper said. “Tomorrow I’m going to be a million dollars richer. And I’m going to buy your goddamn little car rental business here, and make you clean toilets with your tongue for six bucks an hour.”

She threw up her hands in a dismissive matter and spun around, facing Mal and Deb.

Several things flashed through Deb’s mind at once. The first was Draper’s million dollar comment. Obviously she had been invited to Butler House as well. The second was that this green and pink haired woman had pocked scars covering her face, as if she’d had a severe case of acne as a teen. But these also covered her neck, and as Deb’s eyes travelled down her low-cut blouse, her cleavage as well.

Those weren’t acne scars. They were man-made.

“Enjoy the show?” she asked Deb, a sneer on her face.

“Very much so,” Deb replied. “You want to ride with us? We’re heading to Butler House.”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “No shit. Really?”

“Sure,” Mal said. “And you don’t have to suck my Slim Jim.”

“But if you want to stick your finger up his ass,” Deb said, “be my guest.”

“Please don’t stick your finger up my ass,” her husband said. “I’m cool.”

Ms. Draper eyed each of them up and down, apparently taking notice of Deb’s prosthetic legs and Mal’s rubber hand. Then she smiled.

“I’m Moni Draper. Pleased ta meetcha both.”

There was a round of hand shaking, and Mal approached the clerk at the desk.

“Would you really have blown the rental car guy?” Deb asked.

“Girlfriend, I’ve done a lot more for a lot less, back when I was strung out.” She dug into her shoulder bag and took out a pack of cigarettes, even though there were No Smoking signs posted everywhere throughout the airport. She lit up with one of those jet lighters, where the flame was blue-green and hissed. Deb noticed her hands were also covered with pock marks.

“So what do you do?” Moni asked.

“I’m an athlete.”

“With no legs? No shit. Good for you, babe. What sport?”

“Marathons. Triathlons.”

“You can make money like that?”

“I’ve got sponsors,” Deb answered.

“Wait a sec. Were you that bitch in that energy drink commercial?”

Moni used the word bitch like she used the word babe, with obvious affection.

“That was a while ago.”

“I used to drink that stuff all the time. I remember you, on that bicycle and shit. In those cute little biking pants.”

Deb still had those biking pants, and they were, indeed, cute.

“What do you do?” Deb asked.

“Model.”

Deb wasn’t sure what to say to that, then Moni winked.

“Kidding, of course. I’m actually an escort. Topping. Domme stuff.”

“Like a prostitute?”

“Back in the day I was. Streetwalker. But I had a close encounter with a maniac who cut me up pretty good, as you can plainly see. So now I only do in house calls to select clients. The scars are actually a plus, because they make me look scarier.”

“So a domme is a dominatrix?”

“You betcha. Money is better, and I don’t have to fuck them.”

Deb was curious. “So what do you actually do to guys if you aren’t sleeping with them?

“All kinds of crazy shit. Tie ‘em up. Slap them around. Spank them. Make them lick my boots. Pee on them. Figging.”

“Figging?”

“You don’t want to know. Point is, I’m in control, the bottoms love it, and the money is good. At least, it used to be good. I’ve been semi-retired for a while.” Moni took a big draw on her cigarette, then blew the smoke out of her nostrils. “Went back to school. But I’m almost out of money, and I figured I’d have to start scheduling clients again. Then I got the invite to this fear thing, and I was like, holy shit, I finally got a lucky break. Hopefully I’ll never have to fig a guy again.”

“You have to tell me what figging is.”

Moni grinned and winked. “Trust me. You’re better off not knowing.”

Mal motioned for them to follow him, and they were led to the parking garage and a mid-size sedan. The clerk made a concentrated effort to ignore Moni. Deb, however, was really starting to like the woman. The incident at the restaurant back in Pittsburgh had really rattled her. But Moni was getting Deb’s mind off of that, and also helping break the tension between her and Mal. Deb knew her husband was going on this trip for her, and didn’t think any good could come from it. What Mal didn’t understand was that Deb needed to do something, anything, because it beat doing nothing. Even if it didn’t work, it was worth a try.

“So you can run with those fake legs on?” Moni asked.

“Not well. These are my walking legs. I’ve got a different pair for running.”

“Cool. And your husband, does he have different hands too?”

“Mal just has the cosmetic hand. It isn’t functional. It’s just for show.”

“But they have functional ones. I’ve got a client, a real live private eye, he’s missing a hand. He can break a beer bottle with his fake one. Also, it vibrates.”

Deb shot Moni a that’s bullshit look. “Seriously?”

“Variable speeds and everything. The guy is a bit of a nut, but that fake hand is something every man should have. Make your hubby buy one.”

Mal never bought a mechanical prosthesis. He felt it would be a constant reminder of what he no longer had. Instead, he tried to pretend that his entire left arm no longer existed.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Deiter,” the clerk said after having Mal walk around the car and signing the agreement stating it had no damage. “Enjoy your stay in Charleston.”

“Oh, we’re not staying in Charleston. We’re going to Solidarity.”

“Not… Butler House?” The clerk’s voice had gone up an octave.

Mal didn’t answer, and Deb knew why. When they’d called to confirm their attendance, the recording said informing others about the experiment would disqualify them.

“What’s Butler House?” Mal asked, obviously playing dumb.

“It’s… it’s the most evil place on earth. Whatever you do, stay away from that house, Mr. Deiter. And may God go with you.”

The clerk did a quick about-face and rushed past Deb and Moni, in a sudden and unwarranted hurry. Deb watched the man as he passed, and the expression on his face was pure fear.

He looked like he’d just seen a ghost.

Tom

The private driveway leading up to Butler House wasn’t paved, and Tom almost missed the turn because the entrance was overgrown with brush. Only a sign reading 683 AUBURN ROAD, hanging on a wooden post mostly obscured by vines, gave any indication there was a road there.

“We’re about to get bumpy,” he told Frank and Sara as he pulled the car off the paved street and onto a dirt trail.

Bumpy was an understatement. Ten yards into the woods, Tom realized he should have rented something with all-wheel drive. First they hit a ditch that made their undercarriage scrape against the ground, then the car almost got stuck on a mound of dirt, Tom having to gun the engine before the tires gained traction.

The pair in the back seemed to be enjoying themselves, the rough terrain giving them an excuse to bump into each other. During the car ride, Tom had ascertained they’d just met, but they seemed to be hitting it off very well. The Dutch courage he smelled on their breath might have been one of the reasons for that, but Tom also felt strangely comfortable with the duo. Tom remembered meeting Joan, and at the same time he’d also met two guys named Abe and Bert. Tom still spoke with Bert regularly, and he and Bert visited Abe in the hospital six months ago. Abe, a used car salesmen, had sold a clunker to a man who was unhappy with his purchase, and even unhappier with Abe’s refund policy. The guy had expressed his displeasure by chasing Abe around the car lot with a baseball bat and ultimately breaking his leg.

When he’d met Bert, Abe, and to some extent, Joan, there had been a familiarity there that was unusual. Akin to going to a high school reunion and seeing people you hadn’t seen in twenty years. But he hadn’t met Abe, Bert, or Joan before, just like he hadn’t met Frank and Sara. Yet Tom felt immediately comfortable around them. Like they were destined to be friends.

It might have had to do with shared experiences. Like Tom, both Frank and Sara had apparently lived through something awful. So even though they each came from different walks of life—a homicide cop, a counselor for wayward teens, and a molecular biologist—they were still birds of a feather.

Tom drove through the thicket, which then opened up into marshland, acres of cattails in all directions. The mild wind blowing made them sway, like waves rolling across a brown and green sea. The effect was weirdly hypnotic, made even more so because some of the cattail spikes—thick tubes on the top of each stalk that resembled cigars—had begun to seed, turning them into white tufts. Like dandelions, the white seeds floated on the breeze, giving the appearance of a snow flurry. It made Tom feel eerie, and somehow alone. Even the duo in back, who’d spent a majority of the car ride gabbing, went silent at the spectacle.

“This is… creepy,” Sara finally said.

“I don’t believe in a netherworld,” Belgium said. “But if one exists, this is how I picture it.”

They drove more than a kilometer through the undulating plants, and then things got creepier when Butler House came into view.

It seemed to rise up out of the cattails, looking both incongruous to its surroundings, and also as if it had been there since time began. Gray, sprawling, and decrepit, it might have once been regal, but now appeared way past its prime. Even from the distance, Tom could sense its decay. The roof seemed to slump in the center. The walls looked slightly crooked. The entire house appeared to lean to the left, ready to collapse during the next big storm. Which, judging by the ominous gray clouds overhead, could be any minute.

When they got within a hundred meters of the house, Tom saw a small guard station, no bigger than a porta-potty, and a steel gate barring the path. As Tom approached, a man in a suit and tie came out of the tiny building and held up his hand to stop them. He wore sunglasses, even though it was overcast, and Tom saw a glimpse of a shoulder holster beneath his jacket.

Tom stopped next to him and rolled down the window. He immediately wrinkled his nose. The air stank of sour, like carnations going bad.

“IDs,” the guard said.

Everyone fished out their driver’s licenses, and when Tom collected all three he passed them over. The guard gave each a cursory glance, and handed them back. Then he returned to his little booth and the gate swung open.

“Talkative fellow,” Belgium said.

“Even money he’s former military,” Tom told him.

“How do you know?” Sara asked.

“He had a bearing about him. A stillness, but alert at the same time. A lot of cops have that, too.”

“How do you know he wasn’t a cop?”

“Cops ask questions. Soldiers follow orders.”

Tom continued on to the house, which seemed to grow in size faster than they approached. By the time they parked on the grass near the front door, Butler House blocked more than half the sky. It wasn’t particularly bright out to begin with, but in the house’s shadow it felt dark as night.

“Well well well,” Belgium said. “It’s even uglier up close.”

Tom agreed. They could now see the broken shutters, the peeling paint, the cracked masonry. Thorny weeds jutted out of the ground next to the crumbling foundation. One of the chimneys had several bricks missing.

“Looks like someone picked up the house and dropped it,” Sara said after they exited the vehicle.

Tom couldn’t help but remember the Butler House website, and all of the atrocities committed here. Augustus Torble’s words popped into his mind.

That house feels evil. It exudes it, like a bog steams on cool nights.

Tom had dismissed the words as lunacy. But standing in front of the house, it didn’t feel a part of his world. Almost as if, at any moment, it would sprout hundreds of black, oily tentacles and devour them all.

He did not want to go inside.

“You look like I feel, Tom,” Belgium said. “I don’t see how any good can come from us going in in in there.”

The front double doors, arched and barred with wrought iron fleur de lis, opened outward. The trio immediately took a step backward, and Tom’s hand went to his chest, seeking the shoulder holster and gun that weren’t there, still packed in his bag.

Standing in the doorway, flanked by two military men in gray suits, was Dr. Emil Forenzi. Tom recognized him from online pictures. He was a wisp of a man, tufts of white hair over his ears that looked a lot like cattail seeds, back beginning to bend with age. His suit was blue poplin, tailored, his necktie tan. His smile was broad and looked genuine.

“Welcome to Butler House. I’m so pleased to see you all. Three of our guests have already arrived, and we’re expecting three more. Detective Mankowski, if you’d be so kind as to give my men your keys, they’ll park the car and take your bags to your rooms.

Tom handed over the rental car automatic starter, then took Forenzi’s outstretched hand. It was delicate and boney, like a fledgling bird.

“I am Dr. Forenzi. It’s a pleasure, Detective. I’ve followed your exploits closely. You’re a remarkable man, on so many levels.”

Then the doctor turned to Sara. “Greetings, Ms. Randhurst.” He clasped her hand in both of his. “I’ve read about your extraordinary bravery. It is an honor to meet you in person. And Dr. Belgium…” Another handshake with Frank. “I’m so eager to talk to you. Apologies for the… crude… way you were beckoned here. Come in, come in, meet the others.”

Forenzi led them through the doors, and when Tom crossed the threshold he heard a strange humming sound. It disappeared immediately, and before he could think about it Tom was facing Butler House’s great room.

The website pictures didn’t do it justice. The space was massive, a two story cavernous area that was big enough to comfortably seat King Kong. The light came from three gigantic deer antler chandeliers, hanging from the rafters on thick chains. Each contained at least a hundred antlers, and they were asymmetrical and seemed thrown together. Like big heaps of bones.

The centerpiece of the great room, a ceiling high stone fireplace, easily utilized several tons of granite. Impressive as it was, it wasn’t lit, and Tom felt a chill when he stared at it.

Various chairs and tables were scattered around the room, some obviously new, others outdated and in need of repair. Though the chandeliers were big, they weren’t enough to adequately light the space. Plus they threw strange shadows across the walls and floor.

Seated near each other were two men and a woman. Forenzi led them across a frayed, drab Persian rug and stood in the middle of everyone.

“Might I introduce our new arrivals. Chicago cop Tom Mankowski, who has worked several serial killer cases, but his claim to fame has to be the part he played in the tragedy at the late Senator Philip Stang’s mansion.”

Tom remained calm, even though those words hit like a blow. He had no idea how Forenzi found out about that. But he intended to ask him as soon as they were alone. That, and questions about Roy. But for the time being, he needed to just watch and listen.

“Sara Randhurst survived a terrifying ordeal on Rock Island in Michigan, including several encounters with feral cannibals, and a well-known serial killer named Lester Paks. A sadist who filed his teeth down to points and chewed his victims to death.”

Tom glanced at Sara, and even in the dim light he could see her face had gone white.

“And Dr. Frank Belgium, a molecular biologist who actually encountered Satan himself.”

Sara’s head jerked in his direction. “Frank? Really?”

“I really can’t talk about that that that, Dr. Forenzi. It’s highly classified. And how did you happen to hear about…”

“Dr. Belgium, meet Aabir Gartzke, psychic medium, sensitive, and clairvoyant extraordinaire.”

Aabir stood and gave a theatrical bow. She was a tall woman with dark, Slavic features, her long black hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. Her dozens of silver and gold bracelets jangled as she moved, and the loose blouse she wore wouldn’t have been out of place on an eighteenth century gypsy.

“I have met you all already, in my dreams and visions. Detective Mankowski, how is Joan’s latest movie coming along?”

Tom played coy. “If you’re clairvoyant, shouldn’t you already know that?”

Aabir smiled. “Indeed. The writer acquiesced, changed the scene as instructed. Right now, your girlfriend is in the star’s trailer, discussing wardrobe. And Sara, no need to worry, my dear. Jack will be returned to you soon.”

“It doesn’t take a psychic to know that,” Sara said.

“Of course not. I could have easily gotten that through the court records. But you will be pleased to know that Jack is walking now. He’s doing well with his foster family, but he still has memories of you and misses how you used to sing to him.”

“I… I need to use the bathroom,” Sara’s voice cracked, and she began to walk off.

“Down that hallway,” Forenzi pointed, “third door on the right.”

“Sara?” Belgium began to go after her. But she stopped him by saying, “I’m fine, Frank, I just need a minute.”

“Dr. Belgium,” Aabir continued, “have your friends Sun and Andy told you yet they’re pregnant?”

He looked at his shoes. “No, they haven’t.”

“If it’s a boy, his middle name will be Frank. And it will be a boy.”

“Impressive, Ms. Gartzke,” Forenzi said. “Aabir’s skills have helped police find four missing children, and two murderers. But, like each of you, she is here at Butler House to face one of her greatest fears.”

“There are many kinds of spirits,” Aabir said. “Ghosts are the residual energy of human beings after they have died. Poltergeists are attached to particular locations. They reenact the same scene, again and again. Usually scenes of violence or death. But the last type of spirit is the dangerous one. The kind that has no earthly counterpart.”

“Demons,” Dr. Forenzi said, nodding.

“Demons are malevolent entities that feed on the energy of the living. I have encountered demons in the past. They are extremely dangerous. In some cases, they can even kill. Demons frighten me deeply.”

“You don’t seem frightened right now,” Tom stated.

Aabir put her hands on her hips and stuck out her chin. “I performed a cleansing ritual on this room, so they can’t enter. But there are many demons in this house. I can feel them, like eyes on the back of my neck.”

Tom recalled how he was sure someone had been watching him while he was sitting at Roy’s desk, but no one had been there.

“Have you ever encountered a demon, Mr. Pang?”

“No, I haven’t,” said the Asian man sitting next to Aabir. He had broad shoulders and a compact frame, and a pencil mustache on his upper lip. “That’s because demons, like ghosts and poltergeists, don’t exist.”

“Woo-jin Pang runs a company that specializes in debunking paranormal activity.”

“Science has been unable to prove the existence of a spirit world.”

“Science also hasn’t been able to prove it doesn’t exist,” Aabir countered.

“It isn’t up to science to disprove a wild claim, bro. It is up to the person making the wild claim to show scientific evidence of it. If I say I have a leprechaun in my backpack, the burden of proof is on me.”

“And you’ve never encountered anything you can’t explain?”

“Of course I have. But not being able to explain a phenomenon doesn’t mean it should be automatically attributed to the spirit world. I was using my EMF meter at a client’s home two weeks ago—”

“Excuse me,” Tom said. “That’s the second time I’ve heard those initials. What’s an EMF meter?”

The ghost hunter rolled his eyes. “It tests for electromagnetic fields. Supposedly EMFs are disrupted by supernatural activity. It’s one of many tools used to measure conditions we can’t see, bro. So I was using the meter, and it kept spiking. We ruled out appliances, cell phones, fuse boxes, the air conditioning. We even killed the main power at the breaker. It still kept spiking.”

“And you’re saying that wasn’t a spirit?” Aabir asked.

“It wasn’t a spirit. There was a storm ten miles away. My equipment is so sensitive it was picking up lightning strikes.”

“Mr. Pang claims he’s never been frightened while doing paranormal research,” Forenzi said, smiling politely. “We’ll see if Butler House changes his mind.”

Pang crossed his arms over his chest. “If ghosts do exist and they’re here, I’ll find them.”

“And last,” Forenzi said, “but certainly not least, is perhaps the only person in the world more skeptical than Mr. Pang, bestselling author Cornelius Wellington.”

Cornelius Wellington was in his fifties, wearing a sweater vest, glasses, and a graying Van Dyke beard.

“Pleased to meet you all,” Wellington boomed. He pronounced all as awl, and sounded a lot like John Lennon. “I’m very much looking forward to the proceedings, Dr. Forenzi. I’m sure you have quite the little show concocted for us.”

Forenzi chuckled. “Mr. Wellington is known for his books that debunk the supernatural. Due to his certainty that spirits do not exist, he’s convinced I have turned Butler House into something akin to the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Animatronic specters and people in masks jumping out to yell ‘Boo!’”

“I certainly hope so, Doctor. That will be exceedingly more exciting than sitting around waiting for ghosts to make contact.”

There was a booming knock on the front doors, and everyone turned to watch as one of the guards opened them up, revealing three people, two women and a man.

“Ah, the rest of our party has arrived.” Dr. Forenzi smiled so broadly Tom could see his molars. “And so it begins.”

Mal

Mal winced at the steak on the plate in front of him. It looked, and smelled, divine.

But try cutting filet mignon with only one hand.

The enormous banquet table everyone sat at was one of the original furnishings, according to Dr. Forenzi, who held court at the head of it. He’d been telling stories about the various ghosts said to haunt Butler House. They included:

Blackjack Reedy, a one-eyed slave master who roamed the hallways with a whip.

Sturgis Butler, who was charred to the bone and smelled like burnt pork.

Jebediah Butler, who floated from room to room on a puddle of his own blood, which constantly leaked from his flayed skin.

Ol’ Jasper, a slave with four arms who dragged a machete around. You knew he was close when you could hear the sound of him dragging his long blade across the floor.

The Giggler, a masked demon who would mutilate himself in order to instill fear.

Colton Butler, carrying his bag of ghastly surgical instruments, still trying to conduct his insane experiments upon the living.

Mal was only half-paying attention. His mood had brightened a little since the awful airport experience, mostly due to Moni Draper’s irrepressible personality. She talked nonstop about unrelated topics—what Mal referred to as diarrhea of the mouth—but was so upbeat and foul-mouthed that it was like watching a stand-up comic.

But Moni’s energy evaporated once they entered Butler House. As pleasant a host as Dr. Forenzi attempted to be, there was a very real and very bad feeling that hung in the air, like a blanket pressing down upon them all. Mal was nervous, boarding on paranoid. He was also hungry, and staring at the slab of meat before him made him depressed as well.

A moment later, his plate was switched with a steak already cut into pieces. He glanced at Deb, sitting next to him, and she was now busily cutting her new steak, not even acknowledging what she’d done.

“A wonderful set-up, Doctor,” Wellington said after patting his lips with a linen napkin. “So now, when we see one of your actors limping through the hallways with a satchel of scalpels, we’re supposed to be terrified. The power of suggestion leaves us more receptive to strange phenomenon, and more susceptible to accepting them.”

“Indeed, that would be the proper way to conduct a fear study,” Forenzi admitted. “But all I can offer you is my word that I haven’t hired any actors to try to scare you people.”

“What exactly are we supposed to do to get our million bucks?” Moni asked, her mouth full of baked potato.

“It is simple. After dinner, my associate Dr. Madison will take a small sample of your blood and conduct a brief physical to ascertain your general health. Then, tomorrow, another sample of your blood shall be taken.” Forenzi winked. “Should you survive, of course. Which is why I’ve had all of you sign waivers.”

“You’ve conducted this experiment before?” Tom, the cop, asked.

“Not quite in this way. But we have had guests before.”

“And what happened to them?” Tom continued.

The doctor laughed. “Naturally, they all died of fright.”

There were a few nervous titters around the table, but the cop didn’t join them.

“Allow me a self-indulgent moment to explain my research, and why each of you are so important.” Forenzi pushed back his chair and stood up, spreading his hands.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re all here today as self-aware, sentient beings. Perhaps some of you believe in the afterlife, spirits, souls, God and the devil. Perhaps some of you find all of it, to use one of Mr. Wellington’s words, poppycock.”

Mal hadn’t heard the writer use that word yet, but he could imagine it easily enough.

“But what makes us believe what we believe? Our differences really are tiny compared to our similarities. We’re all made of the same stuff. We’re all 99.9% identical, genetically. Am I correct, Dr. Belgium?”

“Yes yes yes, you are so far.”

“Doctor, if you wouldn’t mind, can you provide the group with your learned definition of life?”

“Life? Well, all living things, in order to to to be considered alive, have to meet certain criteria. These criteria vary, depending on the scientist. But I’d define life as a structure that can reproduce, respire, create energy for itself, and respond to environmental changes. Also, life can cease.”

“By that definition, fire is alive,” Forenzi said.

“Fire is a chemical process known as combustion.”

“But isn’t life also a chemical process?”

“Well, yes.” Belgium nodded several times. “It certainly certainly certainly is.”

“We are all made of chemicals.” Forenzi swept his hands across the table, grandiosely indicating all seated there. “Chemical reactions allow us to metabolize food and oxygen, and excrete waste. They are responsible for cell division. Aging. The very thoughts we have in our heads. Emotions. Dr. Belgium, can you elucidate the chemistry of emotion?”

“Well, in response to a stimulus, or in some cases due to a problem with the limbic system, our body releases neurotransmitters and hormones, which dictate how we feel feel feel about certain things. Watch a sad movie, we cry. When we meet someone we like, we bond. These are chemicals we manufacture ourselves, which we’ve evolved to help us adapt to various situations.”

“A mother’s instant affection for her child when it is born isn’t due to love,” Forenzi said, focusing on Sara. “At least, not love alone. It is because, during childbirth, the mother’s body floods with oxytocin. Not only does that jump start lactation, but it also forces the incredibly strong emotion of maternal love. Which brings us to fear.”

Forenzi spread out his palms, like a preacher orating to his congregation.

“My friends, I have isolated the neurotransmitter that activates the fear response. Which means, very soon, I’ll discover a way to control fear.”

Mal, who’d been greedily devouring the steak his wife had cut for him, suddenly gave Dr. Forenzi 100% of his attention.

“You can cure fear?” he said.

“I’m very close, Mr. Deiter. Fear begins in the amygdala, which is located in the medial temporal lobes of the brain. When you are frightened, it releases hormones and neurotransmitters that stimulate the fear response. You are aware of the symptoms. Paranoia. Increased heartbeat. Dry mouth. Sweating. Shortness of breath. Lightheadedness. The feeling of hopelessness. Because many of you survived some horrific events, your brain chemistry has physically become altered. Which is why you continue to be afraid all of the time. Your mind still believes it is in danger, and it keeps pumping chemicals into your body. “

“So you’re going to test our blood for these these these chemicals,” Dr. Belgium said, “then scare us, and test our blood again. And then am I to assume you’ll then try to block the fear somehow?”

“All in good time, Doctor. All in good time.”

“So why are Mr. Wellington and I here?” Pang asked.

“Every good experiment needs controls,” Forenzi said. “Your skepticism will provide a baseline metusamine level.”

“Metusamine?” Belgium said. “Metus is latin for fear. So metusamine—”

“Metusamine is the neurotransmitter I isolated that is responsible for the fear response. Correct, Dr. Belgium. And I’m synthesizing the transporter protein—”

“Which will terminate effects of of of metusamine!” Belgium yelled, obviously excited. “How close are you to synthesis?”

“I’ve been able to induce fearlessness in a primate, a Panamanian night monkey.”

“I’d be honored and excited to go over your data.”

“In time, Doctor.”

“And will we be able to try this for ourselves?” Mal asked. A fear-free life was a gift almost too valuable to fathom. To be able to sleep well again, to live without the constant paranoia. A drug like that would be a miracle.

“Very soon. And your presence here, Mr. Dieter, will help speed the process.”

Deb reached over, touched Mal on the arm. He looked at his wife and saw she was teary eyed. He realized he was as well.

“So let us finish our meals,” Dr. Forenzi said, raising his wine glass, “and then begin the process of scaring the hell out of you fine people.”

Everyone toasted. Everyone seemed excited, except for the cop, whose face remained neutral. Mal said to his wife, “Maybe you were right, honey. Maybe this trip was the answer to our prayers.”

“I love you, Mal.”

“I love you, too.”

They shared a quick kiss, and Mal went back to his steak. The cop, Tom, looked over at him, and his calm expression was replaced by something else.

Concern.

Did Tom know something the rest of them didn’t?

Mal’s relief evaporated, and the uneasiness returned.

After dinner, he’d confront the Detective, pick his brain.

Maybe this really was as it seemed, a million bucks and a cure.

But maybe, just maybe, Forenzi was playing them all.

Like fattening up the turkeys before Thanksgiving dinner.

Frank

Dr. Frank Belgium walked up to the second floor with Sara and marveled at the curve balls life threw.

A few days ago he’d been hating his job, and his life. He’d been lonely, depressed, and living in constant fear.

Now he was next to a wonderful woman and actually daring to think about the future for the first time.

Belgium wasn’t prone to daydreaming. Others would consider him a fatalist, but to Belgium that meant a realist who truly knew how bad things were. But there, in Butler House, Belgium indulged in a mini-fantasy where he and Sara and Jack had a house somewhere. They were playing a game of Monopoly, which he used to love as a kid. He saw himself land on Boardwalk with a hotel and start laughing, and his new family laughed along with him, and there was the scent of baked apples coming from the pie cooling on the windowsill. He and Sara took Forenzi’s metusamine pills, and neither were afraid anymore. Life wasn’t something you endured. It was something you appreciated.

A ridiculous notion, of course. But the idea of it pleased him, and he clutched it to his being like a life line.

“Here’s your room.”

Belgium snapped out of his reverie and saw one of the men in suits had opened a door for him.

“You’re the next door over,” the man told Sara. She smiled shyly at Frank, and followed him a few meters down the hall.

“See you in a bit, Frank,” Sara said.

Frank nodded, and watched her disappear through the door. Frank went inside his, closed the door behind him, and took a look around.

A bed, some old furniture, and some drapes replete with cobwebs, none of which would have been out of place in Dracula’s castle. No bathroom.

Belgium found his suitcase next to the dresser. He considered changing into a fresh shirt, but figured it would be wrinkled, and he hadn’t packed a travel iron.

Maybe he could ask Sara if she had one. Maybe that would be a good excuse to go to her room, because even though they’d only been apart for less than a minute, he missed her already.

Frank went back to the door and opened it—

—Sara was already standing there.

“I wanted to do this in case we don’t have a chance later,” she said.

And then Sara’s arms were around Frank’s neck and her lips were against his.

Belgium was so surprised he couldn’t move. He just stood there, not knowing where to put his hands, or how to move his mouth. He hadn’t kissed a woman in so long he’d forgotten how.

Would she figure out how bad he was at this?

Did his breath stink?

What if he used too much saliva? Or if they bumped their teeth together?

What was he supposed to say when the kiss ended?

But Frank’s doubts quickly began to vanish as he lost himself in the sensation. Sara was tender, persistent, and she pressed her body closer to his, and when he touched her waist she sighed, and when his tongue touched hers it felt like an electric shock, making Frank moan in his throat.

She finally broke the kiss and looked at him, her pupils so big, a slight blush in her cheeks, and Belgium had to reach out and run a finger along her neck, just to prove she was real.

“I like you, Frank.”

“I like you, too.”

She gave him another kiss—just a peck on the cheek—and walked off, back to her room, leaving Frank to wonder that maybe his ridiculous little daydream wasn’t that ridiculous after all.

Sara

Sara chewed her lower lip as she pulled a sweater on over her head.

She could still taste Frank.

In the past, Sara never would have been so brazen. Kissing was an intimate act, and all she had been intimate with lately was a bottle of booze. But she’d never felt such an immediate chemistry before. Part of it was the obvious fact that he was such a nice guy. But it went deeper. Something about being with Frank gave her hope.

And she needed some hope in her life.

Living without Jack was a constant reminder what a failure she was. As a mother. As a human being. The alcohol amplified this feeling, but without the liquor the horrors of Rock Island kept haunting her.

While it would be amazing to take a pill and not have nightmares, or panic attacks, Sara was a lot more skeptical about it than the others seemed to be. She didn’t like Dr. Forenzi. His constant mentions of babies and children seemed less like reassurances, and more like attacks. Sara didn’t like this house, either. Even though the location was vastly different, it gave off the same vibe as Rock Island. There was something bad happening here, and she couldn’t wait to leave.

That was another reason she went to Frank’s room. Yes, she found him attractive, and yes, he gave her hope. But the most important thing of all was how she felt when she was with him. When Sara was around Frank, she no longer felt afraid.

So she threw herself at him, the desire for him to kiss her back stronger than her fear of rejection.

And he had kissed her back.

And he was pretty good at it.

She shivered, thinking about his hands on the small of her back, and then turned to the dresser mirror to fuss with her hair again.

That’s when she noticed something in the mirror. Something behind her.

The rocking chair in the corner of the room.

A brittle-looking thing, made of old wood, so dark it was almost black.

Had it just moved?

Sara stared at its reflection.

The chair remained still.

I’m seeing things.

Sara went back to finger-combing her bangs, wishing she’d packed some gel. Hindsight being 20/20, she should have also packed some make-up. A little lip gloss, and a little eyeliner would—

The rocking chair moved.

Sara watched, her breath caught in her throat, as it rocked all the way forward, held it there for a moment, and then rocked back.

Just as if someone was sitting in it.

Sara knew she needed to turn around, to look directly at it. But every muscle in her body had locked.

What was the monster that didn’t cast a reflection? A vampire? Were there others that didn’t show up in mirrors?

If I turn around and check, will I see some hideous creature in the chair, grinning at me?

A ghost?

A poltergeist?

A demon?

The chair rocked again, creaking as it did.

Turn around and look.

Just do it.

Sara closed her eyes, and through brute force of will turned on her heels to face the chair.

Now open your eyes.

But she was too afraid.

Do it!

Open your eyes!

Sara peeked.

The chair was empty.

Tom

One of the suited guards showed Tom to his room after dinner, and it was both as opulent and as creepy as Tom expected.

The bed was a large four-poster, with a crushed velvet bedcover. The dresser was heavy, Renaissance Revival, with a matching bureau. There was an iron, woodburning stove, an Oriental carpet on the wood floors, a rolltop desk, and portraits on the walls Tom recognized as Colton and Jebediah Butler. The light was dim, due to an antique lamp with a low wattage bulb and a very large tasseled shade. There were candles throughout the room, all unlit.

The room’s sole window faced west, and Tom looked out into the waving fields of cattails. The sky had gotten darker, and had taken on a reddish tinge. He checked the window clasp, but it, like the sash, had been thickly painted over.

Tom put his suitcase onto the bed and opened it up. First he checked his gun, a Sig Saur 9mm, and put in a fresh magazine. He holstered it, put on his holster, and then checked his fanny pack. Inside were three more mags, fifteen rounds each, twenty glow sticks, a tactical flashlight, a Zippo lighter, a Swiss Army Champion Plus knife, some handcuffs, and a Benchmade Mangus butterfly knife with sheath.

He strapped the Mangus sheath to his ankle, and was inventorying the first aid kit he’d packed when someone knocked at the door.

“Come in,” Tom said, facing the doorway.

It was Moni Draper. “Got a minute?”

“Sure.”

She strutted in, and Tom admired her moxie. Especially after what she’d gone through. Tom knew Moni from her association with a serial killer named Luther Kite. He’d tied her up and tortured her using an antique medical device called an artificial leech. It was used by doctors in the 1800s for bloodletting, back when it was thought that bad blood caused ailments and bleeding cured people.

Tom had encountered Kite in the past, and had done a lot of research on him. Moni has over two hundred scars on her body, where Kite had used the device on her. She’d been found nearly dead, but somehow had rebounded. And, judging by her general attitude, she’d moved on with her life.

Tom had his share of nightmares, mostly due to what had happened at Senator Stang’s mansion in Springfield. But he’d never been at the total mercy of a maniac who was excited by causing pain. He didn’t know if he’d be able to adjust like Moni seemed to. And he hoped he’d never have to find out.

“You smell bullshit,” Moni said.

“If something seems too good to be true, it usually is.”

“Stay with me.”

“Excuse me?”

“They’re going to try to scare us. Maybe the threat won’t be real. Maybe it will. Either way, I want to be with the strongest guy in the room, and that’s you.”

Tom nodded.

“We can…” Moni smiled slyly, “seal the deal if you like. I’ve done lots of cops.”

Back when Kite had done that to her, Moni was a prostitute. Apparently the attack hadn’t scared her out of the profession.

“Kind of you to offer, but I’m okay.”

“Is it because of the scars?”

“It’s because I’m in a committed relationship.”

Moni pulled her shirt down, revealing her pock-marked cleavage. “So this doesn’t disgust you?”

She jiggled a bit. Tom didn’t reply. Moni continued to pose for another five seconds before saying, “So are you disgusted or not?”

“I’m still deciding,” Tom said. “Give me a minute.”

Moni giggled, walked over, and gave Tom a friendly punch on the shoulder. “You’re okay for a pig, you know that?”

Tom wasn’t offended by her use of the word pig. If anything, it amused him. “Thanks. And I promise I’ll do my best to protect you if things get crazy.”

“I believe you. Who’s the special lady?”

“Her name is Joan. She’s a Hollywood producer.”

“She have any interest in the story of a plucky whore who survived multiple attacks by maniacs and then went on to become a millionaire?”

“I’ll ask her.”

“What’s that?” Moni pointed at a wrapped plastic disk in Tom’s kit.

“A Bolin chest seal. For sucking chest wounds.”

“Like getting stabbed in the lungs?”

“Or shot.”

She continued to point. “I know that’s a tourniquet, and that’s one of those airway breathers. What’s in that package? Celox?”

“Clotting powder. Stops bleeding quickly.”

“You came prepared. But I bet you don’t have one of these.”

Moni reached for her purse, then stopped. “Where are you from?”

“Chicago.”

“A Chicago pig has no jurisdiction in South Carolina.”

“True.”

Moni pulled out a large syringe and held it up, triumphantly.

“What is that?” Tom asked, feeling like he already knew.

“Heroin. Enough to make a charging bull OD. I didn’t think I could get a gun through TSA because I’d get into trouble, so I brought this to protect myself.”

“Instead of a gun you brought a lethal dose of heroin,” Tom said. “You don’t think if you got caught with that, you’d be in more trouble?”

Moni’s eyebrows crinkled and her lips pursed. “When you say it like that, it sounds like a bad idea.”

“Am I interrupting?”

They looked at the open door and saw Mal, the sports reporter missing a hand.

“The more the merrier,” Moni said, waving him in.

“Forenzi wants us to line up for our physicals, but I just wanted a moment of your time, Detective. Are you both… busy?”

“I’m just showing the pig my heroin,” Moni said.

Mal frowned. “I could come back…”

“How can I help you, Mr. Deiter?” Tom asked.

“At dinner. You didn’t seem excited about Forenzi’s experiment. You seemed like you knew something no one else did.”

Both Mal and Moni stared at Tom. He wondered what to do, but strangely he felt comfortable around them, in the same way he felt comfortable around Frank and Sara.

In that moment, he decided the benefits of telling them outweighed keeping it a secret.

“My partner, Roy Lewis, came to this house last week, supposedly doing the same thing we’re doing tonight. He never came back.”

Tom watched Mal’s frown deepen. “Shit.”

“You look so sad,” Moni told him. She offered the syringe. “Need a little pick me up?”

“Moni,” Tom kept his voice even, “can you please put away the heroin? And Mal, I don’t know what happened to Roy, so I can’t cry foul play yet. Maybe Forenzi is legit, and this will all be smooth sailing.”

“But you don’t believe that.”

“No. I don’t.” Tom felt like he was telling a child there was no Santa Claus.

Moni put her hand on Mal’s neck. “Buck up, little soldier. Would a little three-way action with me and your wife make you feel better?”

Mal choked out a laugh. “You know, it probably would.”

“Is she into chicks?”

He lost his mirth again. “No.”

“Too bad. Well, maybe some figging will take your mind off things.”

“What’s figging?” Mal asked.

“It’s when you take a—”

“Mal?” His wife, Deb, stuck her head into the room. “Everything okay?”

“He’s moody,” Moni explained, “so I offered him smack and a three way.”

Tom decided it was time to take some control of the situation. “I don’t know how this is all going to play out tonight, but I think we all need to stick together, and watch out for each other. Did anyone bring weapons?” He looked pointedly at Moni, who was waving her hand. “Weapons other than narcotics?”

“I packed a .38 in our suitcase,” Mal said.

“Extra rounds?”

Mal shook his head. “Just the five in the cylinder.”

“Are you a good shot?”

“I’m so-so. Deb is better.”

Tom took out his Sig, removed the magazine, and pulled back the slide to make sure the barrel was clear. Then he did a quick explanation of how to load, how to use the decocker, and what double action meant. As he was passing his gun around, one of the suited guards knocked on the door frame.

“We’re ready for you.”

Tom took his Sig back, tucked it into the holster, and followed the others into the hallway. They’d been given rooms on the second floor, all in a row, and there was an ornate wooden railing that overlooked the great room. As they headed for the stairs, they passed a marble statue of a cupid on a pedestal. Tom did a double-take, then went back for a closer look.

In the baby’s mouth were sharp fangs.

Moni, who was behind him, said, “Wouldn’t want to breastfeed that little bastard. And look at the wings.”

At first glance, they seemed like typical, feathered cherub wings. But the individual feathers weren’t feathers—they were tiny daggers.

“Dr. Madison is waiting.”

Tom turned, startled, and was surprised to see yet another guard in a gray suit standing next to him. That made five he’d seen so far. Why did Forenzi need so many guards? To protect him from ghosts? And how had he managed to sneak up on Tom? Like the others, this guard was tall, muscular, and wearing military boots. But he hadn’t made a sound during his approach.

“What branch of the military were you in?” Tom asked.

The man’s face remained blank, and he didn’t answer.

“Do you work for the government, or for Forenzi directly?”

“Please move along,” the guard said.

Tom shrugged, and he followed Moni and the others down the stairs, across the great room, and to a hallway lined with drab paintings depicting plantation life. They looked old, paint peeling and a decade’s worth of grime on them. Slaves in the field, picking tobacco. Blackjack Reedy astride a horse, whip in hand. An endless field of cattails, stretching off into the horizon. Everyone had stopped next to a closed door, and Tom assumed it was the queue for the examination room. But he quickly figured out the group had huddled around another painting, this one of Butler House.

It was massive, perhaps a meter tall and twice as wide, in an ornate frame and protected behind some non-reflective glass. The picture depicted the house in the 1800s, when it was still new, and the fields were filled with cotton. Tom didn’t understand the interest until Frank pointed to a figure in one of the windows.

It was a woman, her hair tied back, a pensive look on her face. Tom squinted at it, then turned to Sara, who had gone ashen.

The woman in the painting was a dead-ringer for her.

Tom moved in closer, checking the figures in the other windows.

He saw Frank’s face peering out between half-closed shutters on the second floor.

Deb, opening the front door to the house. Mal in the shadows behind her.

Moni’s face, complete with her pock marks.

Wellington, in the cotton field with a scythe.

Two people in a horse-drawn buggy, approaching the house. Pang and Aabir.

Tom looked for himself, dreading the search, holding his breath.

“You’re here,” Belgium said, pointing to the side of the house.

Tom didn’t understand what he was seeing. It was definitely his face, lying sideways on the ground, but his body was obscured by scrub brush.

“And over here,” Belgium continued, moving his finger.

Then Tom understood.

His body wasn’t in the bushes. His body was sitting against the house, holding a knife, his shirt drenched with blood.

Tom had apparently cut off his own head, and it had rolled away.

Deb

Mal was in much better spirits since Dr. Forenzi’s talk at supper, which was just in time for Deb’s mood to take a nose dive.

They passed co-dependency back and forth like two hobos sharing a cigar. So it was Deb’s turn to feel awful, and Mal’s to buoy her up.

But he’d gone out to ask the cop some questions, leaving Deb alone in her room.

Which was when a painting in the bedroom fell off the wall.

It scared the shit out of her, and when she went to look for him she found a convention of sorts in Tom’s room.

Now, first in line to be examined, she still hadn’t had the chance to tell Mal what had happened. The painting—a ghastly picture of a brooding southern gentlemen standing calmly in the middle of a storm—had dropped off the wall just as she was wiping the sweat off her stumps.

It could have been a coincidence. Or it could have been supernatural.

What was behind it didn’t matter. What mattered was Mal hadn’t been there for her, when she’d been there for him since the airport in Pittsburgh.

It wasn’t fair. So now she was coping with resentment as well as fear, and having to go in first made Deb even more on edge. Add in seeing herself on the hallway painting, and Deb wanted to either cry, rip all her hair out, or both.

“Tom’s partner disappeared here last week,” Mal said, whispering over Deb’s shoulder.

Deb sensed the worry in her husband’s voice. But she was worried, too. She needed him to be strong for a while. The fact that he wasn’t made her angry as well as scared.

“Deb, did you hear me?”

She turned around so fast that she lost her balance, which for Deb was about the most humiliating thing she could do. That Mal had to quickly reach out and steady her made it even worse.

“Leave me alone,” she said, teeth clenched and trying to pull away.

He recoiled like he’d just seen a snake. “Deb? What’s wrong?”

“It isn’t all about you, Mal. I’m hurting, too. I need support just like you do.”

“Deb, I—”

“I don’t need this right now.”

The door to the examination room opened, and a male voice from inside said, “Come in.”

Deb began to enter, but Mal held her back.

“Let go, Mal.”

“Let’s talk about this. We can let someone else cut ahead.”

“Let. Go.”

“At least let me go first so I can tell you what to expect. I know you hate doctors. Let me—”

Deb pulled away, wobbled into the room, and slammed the door behind her.

She immediately regretted her decision.

The exam room looked like it jumped off a postcard from the 1800s. The examination table was made of wood, with a cracked leather cushion, and metal arm rests with buckled straps. A dusty apothecary shelf, filled with old glass bottles, took up most of the left wall. Along the right wall were a desk, a water basin, and a shelf of moldering, leather-bound books. On the desk was some sort kind of organ—a human lung maybe—floating in a specimen jar of gray liquid.

“Take a seat.”

The doctor still hadn’t turned around. Her husband had been right; she was afraid of going to the doctor. She’d seen too many in her lifetime, and they always hurt her in some way.

Deb considered walking back out, letting Mal go first. But stubbornness won out over nerves and she went to the antique examination table and sat down.

“Name?” the doctor asked. He was filling out something on a clip board.

“Deborah Dieter.”

Deb looked at the old medical cart next to the table. On it were filthy old medical tools. A bone saw with crusted brown flecks. Pointy forceps. A large, curved scalpel. A jagged pair of oversized snippers. A hand drill that seemed more suited to a woodworker than a doctor. Rusty trocars. A rough-edged metal speculum that was open wider that a human being could accommodate.

Deb could feel her mouth go dry and her heart rate kick up. Getting an exam was bad enough. Getting an exam from some quack stuck in the nineteenth century was much worse.

Of course it’s much worse.

That’s the point.

Deb closed her eyes and slowed down her breathing, controlling her fear. This had to be part of Forenzi’s experiment. To try and scare her. What could be scarier than a collection of barbaric surgical implements from the past?

After ten seconds or so, Deb was able to reign in her panic. Then she opened her eyes and found herself face-to-face with—

Oh my god.

She recognized this so-called doctor. He was the hotel clerk who sent her to the Rushmore Inn. The same pale, pasty face. The same crooked toupee.

But he’s still in prison!

Isn’t he?

“I’m going to take some of your blood, Mrs. Dieter.” His breath smelled like sour milk.

“I need to…” Deb said weakly. “Are… are you…?”

“I’m Dr. Madison. I assist Dr. Forenzi.”

He was tugging on some rubber gloves, and gave Deb a crooked smile.

Is this the guy? Or does he just look like the guy, and my imagination is doing the rest?

Deb sometimes thought she saw people she knew in crowds, only to look closer and realize they just resembled the people she knew. Her mind filled in the blanks, jumped to conclusions. It happened to everyone.

Is it happening to me now?

“Why, Mrs. Dieter. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He opened up a plastic package, taking out a long needle attached to a clear tube.

Maybe this isn’t the guy. Maybe Forenzi hired him because he looked like the man Deb knew.

To scare her.

After all, this is a fear study.

“You… remind me of someone.”

“I get that a lot. George Clooney, right?”

More like Boris Karloff.

“Please put your arm on the armrest, Mrs. Dieter. I’m going to strap it down so you keep still.”

He buckled a strap around her wrist.

“So, are you from around here, Doctor?”

“Oh, no. I’m from West Virginia.”

Where the Rushmore was.

“Been here a while?”

“Only recently. For the past few years I’ve been… busy.”

“Busy doing what?”

He smiled again. “Just hold still, Mrs. Dieter. This will only pinch for a moment.”

The needle was jammed into her forearm. The agony was immediate.

Then he began to move it from side to side.

“Where is that vein? I can never find it.”

Deb ground her teeth, locking her jaw. The doctor wiggled it, going deeper, so deep Deb was sure he’d hit bone.

The pain was bad. But the anxiety was nuclear.

Deb shut her eyes again, begging the universe for it to stop.

“You have such tiny veins. I may have to get a smaller needle.”

Yes! Please please please do that!

Her whole world had been reduced to that needle in her flesh, probing, twisting, poking left and right like she was being tenderized instead of giving blood.

“Maybe I should try the other arm.”

No!

“Yes, I think that’ll I have to… ahh, there it is.”

Deb chanced a look and saw him attach a vacuum vial to the end of the tube, and it began to fill with blood.

“Was that so awful, Mrs. Dieter?”

Deb’s hair was stuck to her head from sweating. She blew out a deep breath, and pumped her fist to make the blood go faster.

“Looking good, Mrs. Dieter. Looking… oh, wait. We’re slowing down.”

He flicked the vial with a fingernail, which tugged on the needle and caused Deb a spike of pain.

“I believe your vein has collapsed.” He roughly grabbed the needle, then pulled it out.

“Do we have enough blood?” Deb whispered.

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“So…?”

“So I guess we’ll have to try that other arm after all.”

Before Deb could object, the doctor was pinning down her other wrist and buckling it to the armrest.

She was trapped.

“What are you doing?”

“You recognized me. From the hotel. I can see it in your eyes. Don’t you lie to me, girl.”

Deb immediately began to thrash and yell, but the moment she opened her mouth, the man waved his hand over her face and Deb could no longer make a sound. It felt like something foul had crawled inside her throat and was choking her from the inside out, even though she was still able to breathe. Deb screamed, loud as she could, but it only came out as a hiss of air. She tried to kick him, but he caught her left prosthetic and pressed the vacuum release, letting it drop to the floor. He did the same with the left one.

“Ya know my name is Franklin.” His voice was getting deeper, the southern accent more pronounced. “Ya know I’m very angry about what y’all did at the Rushmore.”

Deb pulled on her arms as hard as she could, until her elbows felt like they were going to pop. But old as the examination table was, it was built solid.

She was trapped.

Franklin strolled over to the equipment cart. He ran his hand over the antique medical tools, his fingers caressing the rusty speculum.

“Ya know I’m angry about going to prison. I’m really, really angry about that, girl. Do ya know why?”

He picked up the hand drill.

“I’ll tell ya why.”

Deb was growing light headed from her attempts at screaming. She tried to push Franklin away with her stumps, but he simply moved to the side of the table.

Then he placed the drill bit on Deb’s thigh, pressing down hard.

“Because,” he whispered to her, “one year ago today, I died in prison.”

He reached his hand down the front of his pants—

—and pulled out a handful of something, throwing it in Deb’s face.

At first, she thought it was rice.

Then the rice began to wiggle.

Maggots.

Franklin put both hands on the drill.

“I don’t like being dead, girl. The spirit world is all fucked up. So I’m going to hurt ya. I’m going to hurt ya so bad. And then I’m going to hurt that husband of yours even worse.”

Just as he began to turn, the back door to the examination room began to slowly open.

Then the lights flickered and went out.

Deb screamed in the blackness, making no more noise than a leaky tire.

A moment later, the lights came back on, just as the drill clattered to the floor.

Deb saw a man in a lab coat standing in front of her.

“I’m Dr. Madison,” he said. “What in God’s name has happened to you?”

Deb tried to talk, but she had no voice. she tried to point with her chin where Franklin was standing.

But Franklin wasn’t there.

Franklin had disappeared.

Mal

When the door opened, and he saw Deb crying and hysterical, something in Mal snapped. He stormed into the exam room, demanding answers from the doctor, listening to his wife try to talk but unable to.

Someone—Tom—finally figured out that she couldn’t speak, and Dr. Madison gave Deb a pen and some paper to relate her story.

Deb’s handwriting was erratic, and didn’t make much sense, but the part that stuck out the most was the word she wrote and circled several times.

GHOST

“So he bound your arms, tried to take blood, then threatened you with the drill?” Tom asked.

Deb nodded. Mal felt sick.

“And you say it was a man named Franklin? Someone you’d met before?”

Another nod.

“He’s in prison,” Mal said. “But he could have gotten out.”

Deb beckoned for the paper and wrote “Franklin said he died in prison.”

“That’s easy enough to check,” Tom said. Then he pointed to the floor. “So is this drill. My guess is that ghosts don’t leave fingerprints.”

Deb shook her head and wrote “gloves”.

“Careful ghost.” Tom looked at Madison. “And you’re sure no one went past you, Doctor?”

“Positive. I was standing in the doorway the whole time. And…”

The doctor’s face pinched.

“And?”

“When I came in here, before the lights went out, I saw Mrs. Dieter. But… I didn’t see anyone else.” He turned to Deb, looking pained. “I’m sorry, but you were alone in here, dear.”

Mal wanted to hit somebody. “This qualifies as assault, right Detective?”

“Absolutely.”

Mal pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “I’m calling the police.”

By now, everyone was in the exam room, huddling around Deb. Moni was helping her put her legs back on, and Dr. Madison was peering down his wife’s throat with a lighted opthalmoscope.

“Your vocal chords are swollen, but I don’t see any damage. How did you lose your voice?”

Deb shook her head and mouthed “I don’t know.”

Mal was walking around the office, waving his cell phone around like it was a talisman to ward off evil spirits. “Goddammit, no signal. Anyone else have a cell phone?”

Tom checked his. “No bars.”

“Doctor, where’s the phone in this place?”

Dr. Madison shrugged. “There aren’t any phones at Butler House. No electricity either, except what’s powered by the gas generators. No Internet. We’re completely cut off from the grid here.”

“This is insane,” Mal said. He turned to his wife, who was still shaking from her ordeal. “We’re leaving, Deb. Right now.”

But rather than get the expected nod, Mal watched in amazement as Deb shook her head.

“Honey, you were attacked!”

“If it was a ghost,” Deb said, her hoarse voice barely a whisper, “he went away. If it was a trick to scare me, that’s the point of this experiment.”

She reached out, held Mal’s hand. He gripped it tight.

“Let’s stay,” she said.

Moni grinned. “I’m with you, girlfriend. And if the ghost comes back, we kick his Casper ass.”

Mr. Wellington was feeling the walls. “I can’t find any secret passages or trap doors or mirrors. But any magician worth his salt can do a disappearing act. This didn’t have to be a ghost. There could be a rational explanation for all of this.”

Pang was setting up his spirit hunting equipment. Frank and Sara were holding hands in the corner of the room. Aabir had her eyes closed and was swaying where she stood.

“So much sorrow in the room,” the medium said. “So much misery. And something else. A strong presence. An evil presence. Hatred. Toward you, Deb. Toward your husband. Something to do with West Virginia. Many people died there.” She opened her eyes. “Deborah, can I touch your hand?”

Deb let go of Mal and reached for the psychic. When Aabir touched her, she gasped.

“So much pain in your past, Deborah. So many scars. Much tragedy. But much bravery, too.” Aabir’s eyelids fluttered. “A bed and breakfast. The Rushmore Inn. I see misshapen, deformed people. They’re after you. They want something from you. You’re in a room. In bed. Someone is under the bed.”

Deb’s eyes got wide, and she tried to pull her hand back. But Aabir didn’t let go.

“I see a mountain lion.”

“Enough.” Mal pulled the medium away, but then Aabir clasped his arm.

“The ghost who did this to your wife. He has a brother named Jimmy. Jimmy is the one who cut off your hand.”

Mal tried to shake her off, but the woman’s grip was like iron.

“Jimmy is here, in this house. He’s followed you here.”

Mal’s sphincter clenched. She was relating the worst thing that ever happened to him. The cause of his nightmares.

Aabir’s voice got low, so she sounded like a man.

“Maaaaaal…. I waaaaant your other hand…”

Mal was rooted there, terrified.

“Holy shit, bro!” Pang had some electronic gizmo pointed at Aabir. “The EMF is off the scale! I’ve never seen anything like this!”

“I WAAAANT YOOOOUUUUR HAAAAAAND!”

Mal shoved her away, and Aabir collapsed to the floor. Dr. Madison and Moni knelt next to her, and Pang was wide-eyed, snapping pictures with a digital camera.

“Will you fucking look at this!” Pan declared. He held out the viewfinder for Mal to see.

In the picture, Aabir was glowing like she was on fire.

Tom

Tom was on edge.

He still hadn’t talked to Forenzi about Roy, and the whole examination room incident with Deb left a bad taste. Tom had interviewed enough victims to know Deb was one.

But what was she a victim of?

Everyone had moved into the great room. Aabir slumped in her lounge chair, looking like an inflatable float with half the air leaked out. Pang was hunched over a coffee table and typing something in his laptop, his face beaming. Mal and Deb were sitting on a sofa. Deb looked like a zombie, zoned out and slack. Mal was tapping his foot rapidly. Moni was near the front doors, whispering something to Wellington. Frank and Sara were on a loveseat, Frank’s arm around her.

Despite Mal objecting, Dr. Madison had begun taking blood samples from everyone, going person to person, putting the vials into a metal case. He was also fitting everyone with a battery powered monitor, which recorded, among other things, electrical activity in the brain, heart activity, pulse, blood pressure, and calories burned. The device clipped to the belt, and worked wirelessly with ten electrode pads stuck to the skin in various locations, including the chest, wrists, neck, and temples.

“I’m scared, Frank,” Sara said to him.

“I’m scared, too.” Frank patted Sara’s leg. “But keep remembering that we’re supposed to be scared. That’s the point of the experiment. All of this could be intentional, set up by Dr. Forenzi.”

“Where is Dr. Forenzi?” Tom asked Dr. Madison as he was labeling a vial with marker.

“Hmm? In his lab, I suppose.” The doctor seemed preoccupied with his task and didn’t bother to face the cop.

“I need to talk to him.”

“I’ll tell him as soon as I finish up here.”

“Now.”

“I understand your urgency, Detective. Especially after what we all saw. But you have to understand, things like that happen in Butler House all the time. Dr. Forenzi has strict instructions not to be disturbed while he’s in his laboratory. And even if I wanted to disturb him, the doors are steel and locked all the time. I’ve never even been in there. If he doesn’t want to come out, no one can make him.”

Tom wondered if he should push, but he still had all night to force the issue. Moni was right—he had no jurisdiction here. But he did have a gun, and a lot of questions, and by tomorrow he would be damn sure he got the answers he sought.

“These readings are mind-blowing.” Pang was still staring at his laptop screen. “The electromagnetic field around Aabir surged like I was scanning a high tension power line. I wish I’d had my remote thermometer on. Did anyone notice a temperature change?”

No one answered.

“Okay okay okay.” Belgium cleared his throat. “Besides the painting in the hallway with all of us in it, and what happened in the examination room, has anyone else witnessed anything unusual since arriving at Butler House?”

Sara spoke up. “In my room. A rocking chair. It was rocking by itself.”

“Was there any explanation for it?” Belgium asked, obviously concerned.

“No. No window open. I wasn’t anywhere near it. And when I say it was rocking, I don’t mean a little bit. It seemed like someone was in it.”

Belgium shivered. “Anyone else?”

“There was a cold spot in my room,” Pang said. “Ten degrees cooler. Celsius, bro. But it went away before I could record it, so I don’t have any proof.”

“Tom?”

Tom shook his head.

“Mal?”

“What? No.”

Deb mouthed something.

“What, hon?” Mal asked, putting his arm around her.

“Painting in our room.” Deb’s voice was scratchy, but audible. “Fell off the wall.”

“Aabir,” Belgium pressed, “have you noticed anything?”

Aabir remained quiet.

“Cornelius? Moni? Have you had had had any… um… encounters, since you’re arrival?”

“Naw,” Moni said.

“Neither have I,” said the Brit.

“You told me you saw an orb,” Pang countered.

Wellington shrugged. “I saw a flash of light in the hallway, while I was walking to the loo. You called it an orb, Mr. Pang, not I.”

“What’s an orb?” Belgium asked.

“Ghost lights,” Pang said. “Also known as orbs, ignis fatuus, will-o’-the-wisp. One pervading theory is that hauntings are residual energy that lingers after a traumatic event. Another is that the energy leaks into our dimension from another one. Like in quantum theory, where a particle can be in more than one place at the same time. In this case, our world, and the afterlife.”

“I thought you were a skeptic, Mr. Pang.”

“I am, Mr. Wellington. But skepticism requires me to be aware of the hypothesis I try to debunk.”

“There are reasonable, scientific explanations for everything that has happened so far,” Wellington said.

“A ghost assaulted my wife, Mr. Wellington,” Mal said, his chin out and his voice clipped.

“It could have been a man who said he was a ghost,” Wellington said. “Or, perhaps, Mrs. Dieter might be mistaken in her account.”

Mal stood up, his fist clenched. “Are you saying she’s lying?”

“I’m not saying anything, Mr. Dieter. Only that I don’t know. I haven’t met anyone here before today, so I can’t voice for anyone’s honesty. But even if I trusted your wife was speaking what she believes to be the truth, couldn’t her account of the events be colored by her past traumas?”

“So now she’s not a liar. Now she’s insane.”

“I’m simply calling attention to the obvious. We have ample proof of liars in our society, as well as ample proof of mental dysfunction. But we don’t have any proof of spirits. So if I’m being asked to dwell on what is more likely—either supernatural activity, or lies, hoaxes, and hallucinations—I think Occam’s Razor bears me out. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”

“Let’s all of us take it down a notch,” Tom said. Dr. Madison was attaching a sticky pad to his neck, and the conducting gel was cold. “But I think that anyone who wants to leave Butler House, should do so.”

Moni snorted. “And give up a million bucks? You’re on crack.”

“Dr. Belgium?” Tom met his eyes. “Do you and Sara want to leave?”

They exchanged a look. “I believe we’re staying.”

“Mal and Deb?”

Mal faced his wife. “We should go, hon. We don’t need this.”

Deb shook her head.

“Deb…”

“I’m done running away,” she rasped. “Go if you want. I’m staying.”

Deb crossed her arms. Mal pursed his lips, and then he walked away, to the other side of the great room.

“Cornelius?” Tom asked.

He folded his arms across his vest. “Naturally, I’m staying. I don’t believe we have anything to fear here, except our own overactive imaginations.”

“That leaves you, Aabir. Do you want to stay, or go?”

The psychic’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Can you speak up?”

“Paper,” she whispered.

“Paper? Dr. Madison, can you give Aabir your clip board?”

“Certainly.” The doctor placed it in front of the psychic, and put a black marker on top.

Her face still devoid of expression, Aabir began to write. Frank moved in for a closer look.

I IS JASPER

The words were in block letters, almost childish in their scrawl. They also took up most of the page, so Dr. Madison flipped to the next one.

I WORKS THE FIELDS AT BUTLER HOUSE

“What’s she doing?” Moni asked.

“Psychography,” Pang said. “Also known as automatic writing. She’s channeling a spirit and writing what it’s telling her. Sounds like it’s the ghost of Ol’ Jasper, the slave that Colton Butler sewed two extra arms on. Shit, my EMF meter is going berserk!”

Tom remembered the Butler House website. The picture of the scarred, old slave with the extra arm.

THEY HURTS JASPER BAD

Dr. Madison flipped to a fresh page.

NOW JASPER GON’ HURT DEM BACK

Frank realized he was holding the armchair of the loveseat so tightly his knuckles were white.

I... IS...

Aabir’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head.

HERE

Aabir screamed, and collapsed onto the floor.

Then the lights went out.

The great room was very dark with the chandeliers out, but enough dusk was peeking in through the cracks in the shudders that Tom could still make out some shadows. A moment later, Pang’s camcorder light went on. Tom followed suit, digging his tactical flashlight out of his pack.

“Cornelius, you’re near the front doors.” Tom pointed the beam in his direction. “Try the light switch there.”

Wellington found the wall panel and flipped the switch, to no effect.

“Nothing. Might be the circuit breaker. Or the generator.”

Tom waved the light across the group, taking a head count. He saw Deb and Mal, Moni, Frank and Sara, Pang, Aabir—”

“What’s that sound?” Frank asked.

Everyone went quiet. Tom was acutely aware of how silent true silence actually was. Living in Chicago, silence was an anomaly. There were always sounds. Traffic, heat or air conditioning, birds, constant human noise from talking, yelling, playing music.

But this house was completely devoid of noise. The only thing Tom could liken it to was when he put on his ear muffs on the shooting range. Silence had its own sound; the steady, inaudible hum of consciousness, which made you realize how alone you really were in the universe.

And then, like a slap to the face, he heard it.

Something dragging across the wooden floor.

Like a claw. Or a—

“Machete,” Tom whispered.

A machete like Ol’ Jasper was supposed to carry.

Tom twisted his flashlight to widen the beam, and then did a slow pan across the great room, trying to locate the sound.

He saw empty chairs, the fireplace, an old piano, a wall, a hallway, a table, another hallway, another wall…

“I think it’s near me,” Wellington said in a metered tone.

Tom turned the beam on the author.

A few meters away from him was—

“Sweet Jesus Christ,” Moni whispered.

It was a black man, muscular, shirtless, shuffling across the floor in a slow, steady gate, dragging a rusty-looking machete behind him.

At first, Tom thought it was Roy.

But Roy doesn’t have four arms.

The two extra appendages sprouted from his back like angel wings, and hung, limply, over his shoulders.

“Well,” Cornelius Wellington said, “I certainly do commend the make-up artist. That’s quite a special effect. And the pure black eyes are a nice touch.”

Ol’ Jasper kept walking toward him.

Tom drew his Sig. “I’m a police officer. Drop your weapon and put your hands up.”

“All four of his hands?” Wellington asked. Tom detected the bravado, but it seemed forced.

Ol’ Jasper didn’t stop.

“Halt right now, or I will shoot.” Tom aimed his 9mm at the man’s center mass, supporting his gun hand with the flashlight.

Wellington tried to smile, but it looked more like a wince. “Oh, let him come, Detective. I’ll pull off one of those phony arms, and we’ll expose this for the farce it is.”

Ol’ Jasper got within two meters.

“Last warning.” Tom placed his finger in the trigger guard, and cocked the Sig with his thumb. “I will shoot you.”

Ol’ Jasper stopped an arm’s length away from Wellington.

Then he slowly raised the machete.

“Oh my.” Wellington giggled, but it sounded forced. “I’m so scared.”

“Get away from him, Wellington.”

“This is only a joke, Detective. I refuse to play along.”

“Drop the weapon, now!” Tom ordered.

Ol’ Jasper didn’t drop it.

Time seemed to slow down. Tom had enough time to think it through, make a gut decision, reverse the decision, then go with what his gut told him to do.

He squeezed the trigger twice, a double tap to the black man’s chest.

He felt the gun buck in his hands.

He heard the shots.

He smelled the gunpowder.

He knew he’d hit the target, dead on.

But Ol’ Jasper didn’t even flinch.

Instead, he swung the machette with vicious force, connecting with the side of Wellington’s neck.

Wellington went down like one of those buildings being demoed, collapsing in a heap right where he stood, his head flopping to the side as if on a hinge, a bright spray of arterial blood painting the front doors.

Chaos ensued.

Tom tuned out all the screaming from the others, tuned out the spectacle of Wellington’s dying body flopping and twitching on the floor like a landed fish, and emptied his magazine into Ol’ Jasper.

At least ten shots hit home.

Ol’ Jasper stood there, unaffected.

Then he looked at Tom—

—smiled wide—

—and roaches came out of his mouth.

It was the scariest thing Tom had ever seen in his life.

He ejected the empty magazine, fished out a new one, and loaded it as he backed away. Tom’s hands had begun to shake, and the beam flitted over Ol’ Jasper, catching him sporadically, until Tom somehow lost him in the darkness.

“Everyone!” Tom yelled. “Follow me! Let’s go!”

Tom hurried to the nearest hallway, alternating between lighting the way for people and trying to find Ol’ Jasper. Pang with his camcorder brought up the rear.

“Keep moving!” Tom said, covering the rear and walking sideways. He followed the group down a left turn, and into a large room.

“Dr. Belgium?” he called, keeping his gun on the doorway. Not that shooting had helped, but Tom didn’t have a better plan.

“Yes yes yes!”

“My fanny pack. I have some glow sticks. Pass them around.”

He pointed the flashlight at his pack, and Belgium fished out a handful. Tom listened for the sound of a machete scraping the floor, but all he heard was cellophane wrappers being opened. Soon the room was bathed in soft, multicolored neon light. Greens and blues and pinks.

Tom took a quick look around, discovered they were in a massive library.

“Pang, Frank, get that desk, move it over here to block the door. Mal, you got your gun?”

“Left it in my room.”

Shit. “Okay, do a head count.”

Tom peeked his head down the hall. Still no Jasper.

“Everyone say your name,” Mal said.

A bunch of people began talking at once.

“Okay, everyone shut up. Let’s try this again. I’m here, Deb is here, Tom, Frank, and Pang are here. Moni?”

“Yeah. Here. I’m here.”

“Sara?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Madison?”

No one answered.

“Dr. Madison, are you here?”

No answer.

“Did anyone see where he went?”

Sara, bathed in pink light, said, “I think he ran down the other hallway.”

“How about Aabir?” Mal asked. “Aabir, are you here?”

“She was passed out on the table,” Pang said.

Tom ground his teeth.

Shit. One dead, and two missing.

How quickly things all went to hell.

“Tom, move over.”

Tom stepped aside, then helped Frank and Pang slide the heavy desk in front of the door.

“Are there any other doors in this room?”

General murmuring, and lights crisscrossing the space.

“I think that’s the only one,” Mal said.

Having only one entry point was a good thing. Easier to guard.

Having only one escape route was bad.

“Are there windows in this room?” Tom asked. “We need to find one, get out of here, and find the cars.”

More scrambling around.

“Got a window!” Deb croaked. Her voice was getting stronger.

People rushed over.

“Bars,” Moni said. “Thick ass metal bars.”

Mal grunted. “They’re set in concrete.”

“Okay.” Tom wasn’t sure on what to do next. He knew the right thing to do was go and look for Dr. Madison and Aabir. But he didn’t want to leave everyone alone.

Bullshit. Be honest. It isn’t about them. It’s about you. You’re afraid to go back out there.

“Everyone look around. Find something you can use as a weapon.”

“A weapon?” Pang giggled. “Why? Your gun didn’t do much good with Ol’ Jasper.”

“Did you miss, Tom?” Sara asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“You shot a whole shitload of times,” Moni said. “You sure you didn’t panic and miss?”

“I’m sure,” Tom said, but as soon as the words passed his lips he questioned them. He’d been less than five meters away, and had emptied an entire fourteen round magazine. He should have been able to hit that target with his eyes closed.

But could he have been so afraid he missed?

“Did you see those extra arms?” Pang’s voice had an edge to it.

Tom ignored him. “Does everyone have something to defend themselves with?”

Grunts and grumbling.

“If not, find something fast. I’m…” Tom swallowed. “I’m going to go look for Madison and Aabir.”

“Bad idea, Tommy boy,” Moni said. “I saw that movie. As soon as the people split up, they start dying.”

“They’ve already started dying,” Pang said. “Did you see what happened to Wellington? His head was practically cut off!”

Tom swallowed again. “I have to go check. When I come back, I’ll knock three times. Frank? Pang? Move the desk and put it back when I leave.”

“I’m going with you,” Moni said, stepping up next to him.

Tom shook his head. “You’re staying here.”

“I’m staying with the guy holding the gun. And you promised you wouldn’t leave me.”

Shit.

“Okay. You stay close, move when I tell you to. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Pang, Frank, move the desk.”

They shoved it back, Tom took a deep breath, held it, and opened the door, expecting Ol’ Jasper to be standing right there.

But the doorway, and the hall, were clear.

Tom stepped out, Moni close enough to be his shadow. Behind them the door slammed shut, and Tom heard the scraping of the desk along the floor.

They began to make their way back toward the great room. Slowly. Cautiously. Tom waving the gun and flashlight in front of him in a steady, sweeping motion. Left to right to left to right.

“My nana believed in spirits,” Moni whispered. “She told me some people were so wicked, the devil kicked them out of hell because he was afraid of them.”

“Shh.”

“I thought ghosts went through walls and shit. How could one hold a machete?”

“Be quiet.”

The floorboards creaked under Tom’s foot, and he winced at the sound.

“Why should I be quiet? Can ghosts hear us? Do they even have senses like we do? Maybe they can zone in on our life force or something like that.”

Tom stopped. “And maybe,” he whispered, “there are no such things as ghosts, and you’re going to give away our position.”

“Doesn’t your flashlight and my pink glow stick give away our position, too?”

She had a point. Tom resumed creeping down the hall. He was coming to the left turn, a right angle corner he couldn’t see around. He paused again, unsure of how to proceed.

“I wish I had a cross or a rosary or something,” Moni said.

“That’s for vampires.”

“Did you hear about that vampire outbreak in Colorado? At some hospital? I read it in a tabloid. They said crosses didn’t work.”

“Can you please stop talking?”

“Do you believe in bigfoot?”

“Christ, Moni, can you please—”

That’s when Tom smelled something.

BBQ?

He sniffed the air, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from.

Moni grabbed Tom’s shoulder, startling him.

“Didn’t that doctor guy talk about a ghost that smelled like burnt meat?”

Tom remembered. Sturgis Butler. A serial killer from the 1800s who killed prostitutes in satanic rituals. According to that website, he was caught and burned alive, laughing as he died.

Was the odor coming from around the corner?

Tom’s heart rate, already above normal, got even faster. Against his better judgment he began to imagine Sturgis, his flesh burned black, his charred bones poking out through his crispy skin.

“Moni, let go of me,” he said softly.

She did.

“I hear something, Tom.”

Tom listened. He heard it, too. A shuffling sound. Not a scraping, like a machete being dragged. More like someone scuffing their shoes across the floor.

Tom flashed the light into the hallway behind him.

Empty.

The shuffling drew closer.

Tom gritted his teeth and did a quick peek around the corner.

Clear.

“Okay, we’re going to run down the hallway. Keep up with me. And no matter what happens, keep silent. On three. One… two… three!”

Tom sprinted around the corner, barreling down the hallway as fast as he could, gun pointed ahead, flashlight bobbing and throwing crazy shadows. Right before he got to the great room he stopped, putting his back against the wall, sweeping his light ahead of him.

Moni stopped right behind him, again clutching his shoulder.

Tom didn’t see anyone in the great room. But the charred pork smell had become overpowering. Like he’d stuck his nose over a meat smoker.

“Aabir,” he said in a stage whisper. “Dr. Madison. Are you here?”

He focused the beam on the table where Aabir had been sitting. She was gone.

“I’m going to check the front door,” Tom said. He was close to gagging from the stench. “If it’s open, we’ll go back and get the others, find the cars. Do you want to stay here?”

Moni squeezed him.

“Is that a yes?”

Moni squeezed again, so hard it hurt.

Tom laughed softly. “I’m glad you’re finally taking this silence thing to heart.”

He turned to look at her, and his smile froze when he saw it wasn’t Moni grabbing him.

It was a man with a charred black face who smelled like burnt meat.

Frank

As a scientist, everything that had happened in the last half an hour ate away at Frank’s rational side.

As a man who once lived through unimaginable horrors, it all seemed uncomfortably familiar.

Belgium locked eyes with Sara. He saw fear there. But determination, too. Frank couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a child taken away, especially after going through whatever hell she’d endured on Rock Island. This house had offered some hope to get Jack back, but after watching Wellington die, Frank reasoned it had been a false hope. Sara must have realized it as well.

They weren’t brought here to be part of some fear experiment.

They were brought here to be slaughtered.

But why?

Frank knew national secrets, and could be considered a security leak. Perhaps the same could be said of the others. But the FBI could have shot Frank when he answered the door back at his apartment. Why all of this preparation if the goal was just to kill them all?

Unless…

“Maybe this is all a hoax,” he said, trying the idea on for size.

“What do you mean?” Sara asked.

“Well, if this really is an experiment to study fear, we’re behaving exactly as they they they want us to.”

Mal came over, shaking his head in the pale green light of the glow stick he held. “That Cornelius Wellington was practically decapitated. And Tom shot Ol’ Jasper at least ten times.”

Belgium tapped his chin. “Are we sure?”

“That’s what we saw,” Pang chimed in.

“And we see magic all the time. Chris Angel levitating on the street. David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear.”

“How about all the blood?” Mal asked.

Belgium shrugged. “Special effects. Movie props. Maybe Wellington is even in on it. It happened after the lights were out. How can we be sure what we saw?”

“That man, in the exam room.” Deb’s voice was still raspy and faint. “Franklin. He was real.”

“Could he have been someone made up to look like Franklin? With make up? A good make-up artist can make Dustin Hoffman look a hundred years old, and Eddie Murphy look like a five hundred pound woman.”

Deb seemed unconvinced. “He was going to drill my leg.”

“But he stopped before he could. He scared you. And hurt hurt hurt you while drawing some blood. But what if all of that was scripted out? What if he wasn’t a real threat?”

“So Tom is in on it too?” Sara asked.

Frank turned up his palms. “He certainly could could could be. I suppose any of us could be. We all just met today.”

Mal rubbed his chin. “So this could still all be part of the experiment. They’re just trying to scare us, but it’s all a hoax.”

“Shouldn’t we consider that it’s at least a possibility?”

“So Ol’ Jasper was fake as well?” Sara asked. She looked so hopeful, Frank’s heart fluttered.

“Dr. Forenzi said that Colton Butler was trying to sew extra limbs on slaves. Even with today’s advancements in medical technology, that’s impossible. Isn’t it a more reasonable explanation to believe it’s fake?”

Pang shook his head. “What about Aabir? She spiked on my EMF meter. And with my full spectrum camera, she looked like she was on fire.”

Frank brushed away a drop of sweat from his forehead. “When you arrived, did you have your equipment with you the whole time?”

“Yes.”

“How about when we were eating? Did you have it with you then?”

Another drip of sweat, and Frank wiped it off and looked at his hand.

It wasn’t sweat. The smear was blackish in the glow lights.

Blood?

Was something above him dripping blood?

Frank looked up, but couldn’t see the high ceiling. He raised his glow stick up over his head—

—and saw a man staring down at him, his back pressed to the ceiling.

A smiling man, his clothing soaked with blood.

Frank yelped, and jumped to the side just as the man dropped down, landing on the floor in a crouch, then rising to his full height. He shook like a dog, spraying blood everywhere.

“An… interesting… theory… Dr… Belgium…” the man said. There was something messed up about his voice. It sounded like two or three people talking in unison. The sclera—the whites of his eyes—were black.

“It’s Jebediah Butler,” Pang squeaked, pointing his camcorder at him. “Floating on a pool of his own blood.”

Frank didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t a fighter. And even if he was, would fighting work against a supernatural being?

“Tell… me… something…” Jebediah said with his freaky voice. His hand shot out, grabbing Frank by the wrist. Frank tried to pull away, but the grip was unbelievable. “Am… I… a… hoax… or… a… real… threat?”

Then he twisted.

Frank heard his own elbow snap, and stared in disbelief as his arm was suddenly bending the wrong way.

The pain hit a moment later, and it was unreal. Frank dropped to his knees, not sure if he should vomit or faint or both. He stared up into the grinning, bloody face of Jebediah, and realized he’d been horribly wrong.

This wasn’t a trick.

They were all going to die here.

A chair splintered over Jebediah’s shoulders, courtesy of Pang. The ghost backhanded the Asian man across the room. Then he turned his attention back to Frank.

“I… shall… keep… twisting… that… arm… until… it… comes… off… like… a… turkey… leg…”

And then a hand was in Jebediah’s face.

A female hand, clutching a rosary.

Sara!

“Get away from him, you son of a bitch,” she snarled.

Jebediah’s eyes went wide. “A… crucifix…”

The ghost stuck out a black tongue—

—and began to lick it.

Long, wet, obscene strokes of the tongue, followed by quick ones. He moaned while doing so, as if in ecstasy, and then slurped the whole cross in his mouth and began to chew.

Then someone was pulling on Frank’s good arm—Mal, dragging him to the door—a mad scramble to move the desk—and Frank was in the hallway being half-carried and half-yanked—and then through another door and stairs going down—down—down—and there was actual electric light there, dim but on just the same, then Frank was laid down on the ground and unable to think about anything other than the unrelenting, throbbing, unbearable pain before unconsciousness finally took him.

Forenzi

His patient was struggling to breath. Vitals were weak. The will to live gone.

“Fight, damn you,” Forenzi said, shaking him. “You still have more to give.”

The man stared blankly at him, then his puffy eyes closed.

Forenzi made a notation on the chart, then checked the monitors for the vital signs of his volunteers. They were elevated, as expected. Heart rate, blood pressure, brain activity. Every one of them was scared.

Which, of course, was the point. And the longer they remained scared, the better the results would be.

He once again lost himself in a familiar daydream. A world without fear. Which would ultimately lead to universal peace.

The ringing phone interrupted his thoughts.

“I’m working,” he answered.

“There’s been a death.” It was Sykes.

Forenzi put his hand to his face and said, “What? A death? Who?”

“The skeptic. Wellington.”

“How did this happen?” This was the worst possible thing that could have happened.

“There have been some complications,” Sykes said.

Dear Lord, Forenzi thought. What have I done?

Tom

The thing’s face was blackened, skin peeling off in strips, glistening with grease like a broiled pork chop.

Tom’s mind flashed to the Butler House web site. Sturgis Butler, a serial killer from the 1800s who slayed prostitutes in satanic rituals. When he was caught by a mob they tied him to a tree and torched him, Sturgis supposedly laughing as he burned.

Deep set eyes bored into Tom, intelligent, malevolent, and he immediately spun away from the ghoul’s grasp and fell backward, shooting as fast as he could pull the trigger.

Five shots fired.

Five shots hit.

But his attacker didn’t even flinch.

Tom fell onto his ass, a shock of agony rippling up from his coccyx to the base of his skull. Ignoring the pain, Tom crab-walked backward, fast as he could, trying to get as much distance from the thing as possible.

Then he turned onto all fours, pressing the flashlight’s off button as his fingers clenched it, and then scrambled onto his feet and sprinted for all he was worth toward the great room.

Eight strides later he ran into something—a chair—Tom hitting hard as a football tackle. He flipped, ass over elbows, and sprawled forward, his shoulder smacking into the wood floor.

Tom somehow managed to hold onto his Sig, but the flashlight bounced out of his grasp and went skittering off into the darkness.

He paused for a moment, trying to catch his breath, trying to hear any sounds of pursuit.

There was only silence.

Tom sniffed the air, but the scorched meat smell was gone.

“Aabir?” he called in a stage whisper. “Dr. Madison?”

No one responded.

Tom holstered his gun and began to crawl, sweeping his hands out in front of him, seeking the dropped flashlight. Remembering the light sticks in his pack, he fished one out, opened the package, and gave it a quick snap and shake. He was immediately bathed in a faint blue chemiluminescence. Tom spotted the flashlight, under the grand piano, and scurried over on his hands and knees, getting beneath the instrument’s legs and snatching it up.

From the darkness, a scraping sound.

Ol’ Jasper.

Tom shoved the light stick into his pants so it couldn’t be seen, and then held his breath.

The scraping got closer.

Had he seen me? Does he know I’m hiding under the—

PLINK!

Something hit a key on the piano above him.

Tom’s bladder clenched, and he fought not to wet himself.

As a Homicide cop, Tom was familiar with fear. Every time he served a warrant, kicked in a door, made an arrest, or pursued a suspect, he relied on his training and a shitload of good fortune to make sure he didn’t get hurt.

But there wasn’t any precedent for this. Ghosts? Demons? Undead zombies?

Whatever these things were, one of them killed Wellington, and bullets didn’t do a damn thing to stop them.

All of Tom’s experience, all of his training, was worthless when a hostile hundred and fifty year old slave with four arms wanted to hack your head off.

Tom waited.

He listened.

He sweated.

Every second that passed felt like a minute.

PLINK PLINK PLINK!

Tom shuddered, holding his knees so he didn’t make noise.

Does it know I’m under here?

Is it playing with me?

Was Wellington unlucky to die so quickly?

Or was he the luckiest one here?

Tom realized, with chilling certainty, that if Roy had come to Butler House, he was dead.

And I’ll be joining him soon.

Tom slowly removed the Mangus knife from his ankle sheath. He opened it with both hands, silently, grateful he kept the hinges oiled.

Whatever these things were, they had weight and mass. They were solid.

Bullets might not work.

But that didn’t rule out stabbing it in the eyes.

Tom remained crouched. His muscles had begun to ache, to cramp. But he didn’t adjust his position. If his legs fell asleep, he’d be compromised. But that was preferable to making a sound and giving away his position.

Time ticked by.

Tom heard a scraping sound, wondered if he was imagining it, but was able to confirm that it was real, and it was getting fainter as it moved away.

Tom stayed put.

He counted to a hundred.

Then two hundred.

Rubbing the on button of his flashlight, he knew he needed to take a look around.

After another count of two hundred.

A slow count.

Several minutes passed without any strange sounds, or weird smells. Tom flicked on his beam.

He didn’t see some horrible disfigured face staring at him.

He didn’t see any threat at all.

Tom made a slow sweep with the light, and the room appeared empty.

Wellington’s body was gone.

Aabir was gone.

Dr. Madison was gone.

Fishing out his cell phone, he again searched for a signal that wasn’t there. Then he unfolded his six-foot frame from underneath the piano, and practically cried in relief as his cramped muscles stretched and circulation returned.

Now I need to find the front door. If it’s unlocked, I can grab the others and—

Then the edge of his light beam caught something. Movement, behind a love seat ten meters away. Tom turned the focus on the flashlight, amplifying it, and seeing—

Wellington?

The man was behind the loveseat, his head peeking out over the backrest, the rest of his body hidden. He looked pale and in shock. Eyes wide and vacant. Mouth hanging open. Jaw opening and closing, as if trying to speak.

“Cornelius!” Tom spoke as loudly as the conditions warranted. “I’m over here!”

Wellington’s head turned toward Tom. The guy looked positively devastated. Tom had no idea how he was even alive, let alone still able to move. But the guy needed medical attention. Fast.

“I’m coming to you,” Tom said.

Wellington nodded robotically, and then stuck out his tongue.

No—

That’s not a tongue.

It’s…

Two fingers.

Wellington has two fingers in his mouth.

As Tom was trying to comprehend why the man was eating human fingers, another possibility sprang, fully formed, into Tom’s head.

Oh my god.

Wellington isn’t chewing on fingers.

He’s…

That’s when the burned ghost of Sturgis Butler stood up from behind the love seat—

—wearing Wellington’s severed head on his hand like a puppet.

Tom’s muscles locked. His mind couldn’t comprehend the horror of what he was seeing.

Sturgis continued to manipulate Wellington’s skull as if it was a ventriloquist’s dummy, making the jaw move.

And then he made it talk.

“Hello… Tom…”

The ghost’s voice sounded like he was gargling motor oil.

“I’ve… got… my… eyes… on… you…”

Incredibly, Wellington’s eyes began to bulge. Tom didn’t understand how that could be possible—then they popped out and two black fingers wiggled through the empty sockets.

That was enough to get Tom to move. He sprinted across the great room, heading down a hallway, and then he slowed when he smelled something.

Smoke.

A cigarette? Moni?

He swept the hallway with his flashlight, finding a half-open door with a wisp of fumes coming out of it. Knife in hand, Tom cautiously approached the room.

“Moni? Is that you?”

Tom stopped before entering. He listened, and was answered with silence. Sniffing again, he realized it wasn’t a cigarette. It was more like burning hair.

Tom gave the door a small push, and it squealed on its hinges, causing hackles to rise on his forearms. The room was brighter than the hallway, an orange glow from several candles.

Black candles. On a black stone slab, which was atop an old mortician’s gurney. Next to the candles was a tarnished silver chalice with a lid on it.

It was a portable satanic altar.

Behind them, on the wall, an ornate wooden cross, over a meter tall. It had been turned upside-down. A naked figure of Jesus hung on the cross, painted in exquisite detail. His face was contorted in pain, and rivulets of blood ran from his crown of thorns and the spikes in his hands and feet. A bloody pentagram had been carved into his chest. Despite the obvious agony, the Christ figure had an obscene, blasphemous erection.

Tom wasn’t religious, but he guessed he’d walked in on the unholy ritual of the black mass. Which wasn’t something he wanted to take part in.

He was about to get the hell out of there when he noticed movement next to the altar.

Something under a black sheet.

Something human-shaped. Just sitting there.

Tom continued to stare. Maybe it hadn’t moved. Maybe the shadows from the flickering candles just made it look like—

It moved again. A shudder.

Followed by a low moan.

Tom knew how important it was to act on instinct, and every fiber of his being told him to run away. His neck was gooseflesh. His hands were shaking. His tongue was so dry that it stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Tom did not want to see what was under that sheet.

But he had to.

It could be Moni. Or someone else who needed help.

So Tom took a slow step toward it, on the balls of his feet. Quietly, as if not to wake a sleeping baby. When he got within an arm’s length, the thing under the sheet twitched.

What are you doing, Tom? Are you insane? Get out of here.

But he didn’t get out of there. Instead, he pinched the sheet with the hand that held the knife.

Okay. Here we go…

He pulled, hard.

The sheet came off.

Aabir was kneeling there, staring up at him.

Her eyes were completely black.

It scared him so badly, he fell backward, onto his ass.

She smiled. Her teeth were black as well.

“Aabir, are you… are you okay?”

It was a ludicrous thing to say. The whites of her eyes were gone, and her teeth the color of coal. She was obviously in very deep shit.

So what should he do? Try to get her out of there?

“Aabir, can you hear me? Do you understand?”

Then Tom smelled it.

Burnt meat. Getting stronger. And footsteps, from the hall outside.

Tom quickly put Aabir’s sheet back over her head, and then crawled beneath the stone altar, hiding behind the coverlet and killing his flashlight just as Sturgis walked in. Tom could see him through a break in the fabric.

The ghost approached the altar, and stopped there. Then he yanked off Aabir’s sheet.

“Ready… for… the… sacraments…”

Aabir stared up at Sturgis and nodded. Then she turned her head and stared at Tom. Her eyes were so black they resembled holes in her head.

Don’t look at me, Tom willed. You’ll give away where I am. Stop it. Please stop it.

Then Sturgis placed his hand on her head, and she stared up at him again. He had a steak knife in his hand.

“Sanguis… satanas…”

Aabir opened her mouth and stuck out her black tongue. Sturgis jammed the knife into his palm and twisted it. Blood dribbled out, into Aabir’s mouth.

Sturgis took his hands away, and Aabir once again stared at Tom. She licked her red lips.

“Corpus… satanas…”

Sturgis now had the silver chalice. Tom knew what it was. A ciborium. Used in Catholic Mass to hold Communion wafers. The priest carried it to share the Body of Christ to his Parrish.

But when Sturgis opened the ciborium, it wasn’t filled with unleavened bread.

It was filled with cockroaches.

Sturgis snatched one, and held it in two fingers as it wiggled.

Aabir stuck out her tongue.

Tom squeezed his eyes shut. He could still hear the crunching. He felt his stomach flip-flop. Between the smell of burned meat, and the sound of eating bugs, he was very close to throwing up.

Then he felt a slight tickle on his nose.

His eyes sprang open and he saw Aabir holding the cup of roaches right in front of his face.

Tom knocked it away, then rolled backward, out from under the altar. His head hit the head of the upside-down Christ, and for a moment the world went wobbly. Then he slapped at a roach crawling on his cheek—

—and dropped his flashlight.

“I… took… good… care… of… your… partner… Roy…” Sturgis croaked in that otherworldly voice as he leaned over the altar. “I… will… take… care… of… you… as… well…”

Tom slashed out with his knife, cutting Sturgis across the chest. Then he got to his feet and ran.

Out of the room.

Down the hall.

Digging the light stick out of his pants just in time to see Ol’ Jasper blocking his path.

Mal

Mal was having a hard time believing he was trapped in another psychotic nightmare fearing for his life.

Even more incredible was the sad fact that he’d volunteered for it.

After fleeing from the library, they’d somehow wound up underneath the house, in a labyrinthine maze of dirt floors and wooden support beams and low lighting supplied by old, bare, dim bulbs. Mal hadn’t ever been in an underground mine, but he assumed this was what one looked like.

Frank Belgium was on the ground, unconscious, his arm bent in such a funky angle that it hurt Mal to look at it. Sara was kneeling next to him, an expression of shock on her face. The same look graced Deb, and Mal bet his face was damn near the same.

The only one who seemed to be handling this well was Pang, who was sitting on the stairs, digging through his bag of equipment, humming something softly to himself.

“We need to fix his arm,” Sara said. She first looked at Deb, who didn’t respond, and then to Mal.

“Sara…” He tried to keep his voice from cracking. “It will take a whole team of orthopedic surgeons hours on an operating table to fix that arm.”

“It’s bent the wrong way. We need to bend it back and put it in a sling before he wakes up.”

“If we touch it, we could make it worse.”

Sara barked out a semi-hysterical laugh. “Worse? Look at it, Mal!” She pointed at Belgium’s arm, which looked like a swollen letter N. “How can that get any worse?”

Mal chewed the inside of his cheek. He wanted to run. Grab Deb, run up the stairs, make a dash for the front door, and get the fuck out of there. They’d just met Sara and Frank a few hours ago. They didn’t owe them anything.

But that was the coward in Mal talking. The part he hated. The part that had taken over his life to the point where life wasn’t good anymore. Maybe they could escape, but to what? More insomnia? More sleepless nights? More fighting with Deb because they were both so goddamn terrified all the time?

Why couldn’t he just be brave?

That was the irony, wasn’t it? The only time it was possible to be brave was when you were scared out of your mind.

“Please help him!” Sara cried.

Mal took a big breath. Blew it out. He took a last lingering look up the stairs, to potential freedom, and made his decision.

I’m done being this guy.

Time to be the man I want to be.

“Deb.”

His wife didn’t reply.

“Deb, can you help Sara hold Frank down?”

She used the wall to get down on all fours, then crawled to Frank.

“Both of you, put your bodies on top of his. Pang, can you come here?”

“Hmm?” he looked up from his tech stuff.

“They’re going to hold Frank down. We’re going to yank on his arm, try to get the bones aligned.”

“Bro, if we pull on that arm, we might pull it right off.”

“We have to try.”

Pang shrugged, set down his bag, and came over.

Mal got on his butt and placed his feet against Belgium’s ribcage. Pang sat behind Mal, straddling him like they were on a log flume ride. Mal grabbed Frank’s misshapen wrist, and Pang grabbed Mal’s arm with both hands.

“Now!”

Mal and Pang pulled, hard as they could, straightening out Frank’s wrist.

There were popping and snapping sounds, followed by Frank waking up and screaming so loud it hurt Mal’s ears.

When Mal released him, the screaming continued.

“It’s okay, Frank. It’s okay,” Sara stroked his cheeks, trying to sooth him, but Frank was lost in a world of pain.

Worse, if he kept howling like that, he was going to attract some unwanted attention.

“Try to keep him quiet, Sara.”

“Shhh, Frank. We have to keep it down.”

“Anyone have a wallet? Give him something to bite on.”

Deb patted down Frank’s pants, found a leather billfold, and crammed it in his mouth. Frank clenched down on it, still screaming in his throat. Mal didn’t know what to do. Knock him out? If only they could give him something.

Moni. She had that syringe filled with heroin.

“Did Moni have her purse when Deb was in the exam room?”

He tried to picture her when they were all in the hallway.

“No,” Sara said. “She didn’t have one.”

“She’s got some heroin in her room. And I’ve got a gun in my room.”

Deb met his eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I guess I’m saying I’m going to go get some drugs and a gun.”

“I’m going with you,” his wife said.

“No.”

“Mal—”

“It’s stairs Deb.”

Deb could do triathlons, but stairs were her nemesis.

“I got down here fine.”

“Down isn’t the same as up. You don’t do well going up.”

“I’m still coming.”

There was no way in hell he was going to let Deb go back into the godforsaken house.

“You’ll slow me down, Deb.”

Mal saw a flash of anger.

“I’m coming, Mal.”

“No, you’re not. And if I have to wrestle your legs away from you and take them with me, I’ll do it.”

“You’re being an asshole.”

“I’m being the man you deserve, Deb. Because I don’t deserve to have such a wonderful, strong, loving woman in my life.” He smiled. “But that changes right now. I’m going to do this, and when I come back we’re all going to get out of here. I love you, Deb. And I’ll die before I let you go back up there with those… those things.”

Deb’s eyes got glassy. “Mal… we’re a team.”

“Always and forever, babe. But you have to let me swagger a little.”

She nodded, tears on her cheeks, and Mal kissed her. Softly. Tenderly. With his heart as well as his lips.

Then he turned to the ghost hunter. “Pang!”

“I’m not going back into that house, bro.”

“Stay here, make sure no one comes downstairs.”

“I’m your man, bro.”

“You got an extra flashlight?”

Pang reached into his front pocket and took out his keys. There was a tiny LED flashlight on the ring, which he took off and gave to Mal.

Mal took it, then looked at his wife. A terrible, powerful thought popped into his head.

Could this be the last time I ever see her?

He rushed to her once more, taking her in his arms, and kissed her again. But this time it wasn’t soft or gentle. It was with all the passion, all the strength, of a man who loved a woman so much it practically consumed him.

When Mal broke this kiss he stared deep into her eyes and said with all the feeling he could muster. “I. Love. You.”

“Then you’d better come back to me.”

He winked. “You couldn’t keep me away.”

Then Mal headed up the stairs before he lost his resolve.

When he reached the top Mal put his ear to the door, listening for sounds from the hall. After twenty seconds of not hearing anything, he jammed the glow stick Tom had given him into the waist of his jeans, then snuck through the door. A quick press of the keychain light proved it was about as illuminating as a firefly, but the hallway seemed empty.

Mal moved quickly but carefully, heading for the great room. His original plan was to sprint up to the second floor and grab the drugs and gun. But when he saw the front doors, he realized he should check them to make sure they were open. His experience at the Rushmore Inn informed him that once the bad things started happening, it became increasingly difficult to leave. Though Mal readily admitted he suffered from paranoia—a paranoia he felt he’d earned—Butler House was beginning to feel more and more like the Rushmore. So it was with a sick, sinking feeling that he approached the exit, willing to bet everything he had that it would be locked.

Wellington’s body had been moved, but the doors and floor were still splashed with his blood. Mal did a quick look around, making sure he was alone. Then—

—he stuck the key light in his teeth—

—put his hand on the door knob—

—turned and pulled—

—and it opened easily—

—revealing a shirtless man wearing a gas mask, holding a meat cleaver.

“Hee hee hee,” the man giggled.

Mal backed away so quickly he slipped and fell. He tried to get up, but his feet couldn’t get any traction on the bloody floor. At the same time, he couldn’t look away from the Giggler, as Forenzi had called him during dinner.

A masked demon who would mutilate himself…

Which was when the Giggler raised his cleaver, and sliced a line down his scarred chest.

Mal stared, the fear so absolute he ceased to be a human being. Exactly like when he was strapped to the table at the Rushmore Inn. Mal lost his personality, his identity, and was reduced to an animal state. The evolutionary fear response, a chemical cocktail millions of years in the making, took over his body until every cell screamed fight or flight.

Acting on pure instinct, Mal chose flight, flopping onto his belly, getting his one hand underneath him, and then bicycling his feet until his toes found purchase on the hardwood floor.

And then he was off and running, beelining for the group of chairs and sofas in the middle of the great room.

Which was where he found Wellington’s body.

The dead author had been stripped naked and was sitting in a chair, his severed head placed between his legs so he was giving himself oral sex. Stuck in his neck stump were a cluster of cattails, jutting out as if in a vase.

Mal kept running, trying to remember where the stairs were. He headed for the hall to the dining room and saw it had been blocked with a sofa. So he detoured and took another corridor.

He heard a high-pitched whining sound and realized he was the one making it. So ensnared in the throes of terror, he didn’t even know where he was until the hallway he’d sprinted down abruptly ended at a closed door.

Confused, out of breath, panicked and sickened, Mal turned in a circle, trying to get his bearings. He began to backtrack, to get out of this dead-end, when he heard a CRACK! from the darkness ahead. Like someone slapping their hands together. Or…

Or a whip.

The ghost of the one-eyed slave master, Blackjack Reedy.

Mal spun back around, reaching for the doorknob, opening it and easing himself inside, then closing it behind him.

The room smelled of stale mildew. Mal used his tiny flashlight to look around, and even though the beam didn’t penetrate very far, he realized he was in the laundry room.

He saw a large sink. Some rusty, metal wash basins. Clotheslines hanging on the walls. An old fashioned washing machine with rollers. A large pile of dirty clothes. Several washboards. A shelf full of antique detergent boxes.

But something about the room was… off. Though it didn’t look like anyone had been in there in decades, Mal had the uneasy feeling he was being watched.

He got his breathing under control and listened.

The room was silent.

Mal took a few steps into the room, noticing a door on the other side. Maybe it was a closet. Or maybe it was an exit. Old houses often had a laundry room next to an outside door, to make it easier to haul wet clothing outside to dry in the sun.

Halfway into the room, Mal heard something.

A moan.

He stopped, mid-step.

Had it been a voice? The wind? Some other, harmless sound? His imagination?

Once again he played the flashlight beam around the room.

The sink, old and filthy.

Rusty basins.

The washing machine, its pulleys misaligned.

A pile of clothing with an old coat on top, its buttons glinting in the light.

The stack of washboards.

Shelves.

“Hello?” he whispered.

Immediately after speaking, Mal regretted it. Who was he talking to? And did he really want someone to answer?

Thankfully, no one replied.

Mal wasted no more time getting to the door at the end of the room. He grasped the ancient, metal door knob and turned.

Locked. He gave the door a sharp tug. It peppered him with dust, but held firm.

Squinting at the bronze doorplate, Mal saw an old-time keyhole.

Could there be a key around here?

He looked behind him, back at the shelves. If there was a key, that seemed like the place for it. Mal crept over, scanning row by row with the flashlight. On the third shelf, next to a disintegrating box of Borax soap chips, was a tarnished skeleton key.

Mal reached for it—

—and heard another moan.

He spun, again taking in the room.

But no one was there.

Basins, washboards, sink, washing machine, clothes. There wasn’t anything else.

Then the pile of clothing blinked.

Mal was so shocked he jumped backward, into the shelves, old detergent snowing on him as the pile of clothing stood up—not a pile at all, but a figure in a dirty lab coat, what Mal assumed were glinting buttons had actually been its staring eyes.

Colton Butler.

Colton moaned again. He was clutching a leather medical bag in one hand, a curved surgical saw in the other, and he advanced toward Mal.

The fear was so absolute, it paralyzed Mal, pinning him to the spot. Colton raised the saw up.

“Time… to… operate…”

His voice was all messed up, like Jebediah’s in the library, and so shocking it snapped Mal out of his catatonia and he lurched toward the locked door. Key and flashlight in the same hand, he was trembling too madly to fit it into the keyhole.

“Maaaaaaal…”

The voice was so close Mal didn’t want to turn around, fearing that Colton was right behind him. He focused on opening the door, trying to block out everything else, putting 100% of his concentration into fitting the damn key into—

Colton hit Mal in the side of the neck with something, so hard Mal saw motes of light. Then there was a ripping sound, and a spike of pain like lemon juice on a paper cut, right across Mal’s right shoulder blade.

The saw.

Mal pushed himself backward, knocking Colton away, reaching up and feeling the jagged cut in his neck.

He tried to saw my head off.

His hand now slick with blood, Mal jammed the keychain light in his teeth and went back to playing bullseye with the key.

“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal…”

By some miracle, Mal got it in the keyhole. He twisted it, first one way, then the other, and when the bolt snicked free Mal yanked open the door and saw…

Stairs. Leading up.

He took them two at a time, breathing through his teeth as they clamped down on the flashlight, going up sixteen steps and then reaching…

A dead end.

There was no door. No room. No hallway. Just a wooden barricade.

“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaal…”

Below him, Mal heard feet begin to clomp up the steps.

Why have a stairway leading nowhere? What was the point? It made no sense.

He put his shoulder into it, pressing hard. Felt a slight bit of give.

Could this be some secret passage?

Mal held the keylight, looking for seams along the wall. On the right side, he found some old, rusty hinges.

Mal pushed again. No go.

“Maaaaaaaaaal…..”

Colton was closer, already halfway up the stairs.

Mal ran his hands along the seam, looking for a switch, a release, a button. Anything that would open this sucker up.

“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal…”

Colton was practically on top of him. Mal’s heart was hammering so hard he could hear the lub-dub in his eardrum. A wooden splinter jammed under his fingernail, and he dropped the flashlight. Mal opened his mouth to scream in pain and frustration when his fingers brushed against a latch.

“MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!”

Colton’s saw touched Mal’s leg just as the passageway swung outward. Mal fell forward, pulling away, then kicking the secret door closed. He looked around, pulling the glow stick from his pants, and realized he’d gotten to the guest room hallway. But it looked different in the dark, and he wasn’t sure which room was his.

The secret passage began to shake, and Mal got to his feet and ducked into the nearest bedroom. He quietly closed the door behind him, then took a minute to catch his breath. His neck throbbed, and he found a mirror on the wall and took a look.

In the green glow light, his blood appeared black. Mal probed the wound, wincing. It hurt, but wasn’t deep. Stitches probably weren’t required, but if he lived through this it would no doubt leave a jagged scar.

Squinting at his finger, he used his teeth to yank out a three inch splinter under his nail. He spat it out, and began to search the room.

The suitcase next to the bed wasn’t his, and he didn’t see any purses lying around. He checked the bureau drawers, and then the desk.

Nothing.

Mal crept to the door and put his ear to it. Then he opened it a crack, peering out. The coast seemed clear, and he quickly exited the room and entered the adjacent one.

Not his suitcase, but there was a purse on the desk. And inside…

Moni’s syringe. He pulled the purse strap over his head and shoulder.

Okay, that’s half the mission. Now to get my gun.

He remembered his room was next to Moni’s, so all he had to do was sneak into it and—

The doorknob began to turn before Mal could touch it. He quickly stuck the light stick back in his jeans and looked around for a place to hide.

The bed.

Quickly dropping to all fours, Mal scooted under it just as the door opened.

“Maaaaaaaaal… I… want… your… other… hand…”

Sara

Sara took off her sweater and tied a knot in the sleeves, trying to make a sling for Frank’s arm. He’d been groaning since Mal left, biting his wallet, his eyes welling with tears. Fishing around in her purse, Sara found a pack of tissue. She gently wiped his eyes, and then mopped some of the sweat off of his forehead.

Frank let the wallet fall from his lips, and stared hard at her.

“I’ve… been hope hope hoping…” he said, the pain straining his voice.

“Hoping for what, Frank?”

“To see see see…”

“To see?”

“You… with your… shirt off.”

He grinned, and Sara laughed. She didn’t even remember what bra she had on until she looked. It was frilly, pink, Fredrick’s of Hollywood. Somehow she’d had the foresight to wear her only good bra. If he’d seen some of her others, he probably wouldn’t have been as impressed.

“When we get out of here,” she whispered. “Maybe I’ll even let you see me without the bra.”

“I’d like that. Sara?”

“Yes, Frank?”

“I think think think my arm is broken.”

“It’s just a bad sprain,” Sara said. “Mal is going to get you something for the pain. He’ll be back soon.”

“I’m scared, Sara.”

“So am I, Frank.”

She kissed his damp forehead, then opened her purse and stared at her last two tiny bottles of Southern Comfort.

Sara needed a drink. Badly. In fact, Sara may have never needed a drink more than she did right then. Her hopes for getting her son back had been torn from her. Seeing the first decent man she’d met in—well—forever—suffer like this was heartbreaking. And the very real possibility that she was going to die soon, and die horribly, made her adrenaline spike so hard her head hurt.

She pulled out the first bottle, twisting off the cap with practiced precision, and tilted it—

—into Frank’s mouth.

He drank, then coughed. “Thanks.”

“Got one more coming.”

She opened the second, and he gulped it down.

“Got any any any orange juice?”

“Other purse.”

She moved her thigh under his head as a pillow, and blotted away more sweat.

She didn’t regret giving Frank the last of her booze.

In fact, in a strange sort of way, she felt liberated by it.

Sara looked over at Deb, who was sitting against the wall with her head in her hands, her fake legs spread out in front of her, looking strangely like skis. She seemed off in her own world. Sara then looked at Pang, and saw he had some new gizmo in his hand.

Pang glanced up at her. “I’d like to try an EVP recording.”

“What is that?” Sara asked.

“Electronic Voice Phenomenon. I ask a question, and record the response. The human ear isn’t as sensitive as a microphone. So answers could get picked up by the recorder that we wouldn’t otherwise hear. Then we can hear them in playback, with the sound boosted up.”

“Why do you want to do this?”

“Because maybe we can find out what these spirits want. I’ve investigated a lot of supposedly haunted houses. They’ve always had rational explanations or have been inconclusive. What’s happening here, now—it’s unprecedented. If we can prove that there is another plane of existence, and if we can get some answers from those who inhabit that plane, it will be the greatest scientific discovery of the century.”

Sara thought it was a bad idea. “Deb?”

Deb didn’t reply, apparently remaining a prisoner of her thoughts.

“Frank, what do you think?”

His eyelids fluttered. “I think it’s a break, not a sprain. Sprains don’t bend the wrong way.”

“Look,” Pang said, “you don’t have to do anything. Just stay quiet. This isn’t just for bad spirits. There may be some good ones around that can help us. But we won’t get that help, unless we ask for it.”

Sara sighed. She was used to life spiraling out of control despite anything she did. If Pang wanted to do this, Sara didn’t see how she’d be able to stop him.

Pang stood, holding up a silver gadget with a red blinking light on it. Keeping it at arm’s length from his face he said, “Are there any spirits here?”

Sara didn’t hear a response, but she supposed that was the point. After ten seconds, Pang sat down and pressed a button. A moment later his recorded voice was heard, louder than he’d originally spoken.

“Are there any spirits here?”

They all listened to the white noise that followed. No ghosts responded to Pang’s question.

Pang pressed another button and asked again, “Are there any spirits here?”

Sara found herself concentrating on the silence. The underground tunnel they were in had a slight echo to it, and the single bare bulb hanging from the wooden brace overhead didn’t illuminate more than a few meters into the darkness.

Pang stopped the recording and hit play again.

“Are there any spirits here?”

He turned up the volume, until the recording became almost a hiss. Then he pressed stop.

“Did you guys hear that?” Pang said, the excitement in his voice apparent.

Sara shook her head.

“At the end. It sounded like whispering.”

Pang played it again, the volume even higher. There was a faint murmuring sound, but Sara wouldn’t have called it a voice.

“Someone said yes on the recording. Did anyone else hear it?”

“Apophenia,” Frank said.

“What’s that, bro?”

“Your mind is seeking a pattern in randomness. Like seeing Jesus’s face in in in burned toast. You want to hear a voice, so you think you hear a voice.”

“You still saying spirits don’t exist? So what broke your arm, bro? Was that your mind seeking a pattern when that bleeding ghost dropped from the ceiling?”

“That,” Frank said, “is harder to dispute. But your EVP recording is nonsense.”

“Whatever, bro.” Pang pressed the record button once more. “Are there any spirits here?”

The silence ticked past.

Pang played it back.

“Are there any spirits here?”

Sara listened hard, to see if the faint murmur returned. Then the recorder let out an ear-splitting screech and wailed:

“I’M COMING DOWN THE STAIRS!”

Everyone turned to look as Jebediah Butler, dripping blood, stepped off the dark staircase and into the dim light.

Fran

Fran set down the magazine in mid-sentence and glanced over at her sleeping men.

Duncan, fifteen years old, but still young enough that there were traces in his face of the little boy he once was. And Josh, caring, strong, as close to a soul mate as could ever exist.

She closed her eyes and thought about Butler House. Having survived Safe Haven, Fran could imagine all too well what was going on right now in South Carolina. There would be blood. And death. And unimaginable horror. They would need help.

Looking at her family, Fran knew there were things worth fighting, and dying, for.

For the hundredth time she questioned whether they were doing the right thing.

And for the hundredth time, she didn’t know the answer.

Tom

Seeing Ol’ Jasper in the hall ahead, Tom did a reversal and ran back the way he came, passing Sturgis as he stuck his head out of the satanic chapel. Without his flashlight, Tom was at the mercy of his glow stick, which didn’t illuminate more than a few steps ahead of him. He bumped into a wall when the hall turned a corner, kept sprinting, and wound up in front of some double doors.

Tom tugged one open and saw he was in a large, open room. Tile floors. Ornate, crystal chandeliers. A row of chairs against one wall. A stage.

It was a ball room.

He drew his gun, keeping his knife in his left hand, and began to make his way across the dance floor. It was dark, quiet, eerie, and Tom was shaking so badly he felt he might fall over. He’d never been so frightened, and his mind kept flitting between the horror of what was happening and the horror of what he’d already gone through. He kept replaying the same terrifying scenes, over and over, and wanted to find someplace safe to hide and never come out again.

But people were counting on him. Good people. And fear be damned, Tom wasn’t in the business of letting people down. Even if he was going to die of fright in the process.

Tom reached a doorway, cleared it, spinning as something lunged at him in the darkness.

He fired, his Sig kicking, and then jumped to the side as a black object hurtled past him. Keeping a bead, he stared as it jerked to a stop and swung from the ceiling.

A body bag.

But he quickly realized something was strange. Bodies had weight as well as mass, but this swung like it couldn’t have weighed more than a few kilograms.

Tom reached for it carefully, and squeezed.

Fake. A prop, like they had in haunted houses around Halloween, where you paid ten bucks to have some teen in a mask jump out and say boo!

What was the point of that?

He followed the track on the ceiling—a metal rail that the body bag had been hanging from—and came to a breakfront.

Tom braced himself for something to pop out, and his expectations were met when a rubber zombie pushed through the cabinet doors, making a pneumatic hissing sound. Another phony prop, probably triggered by a motion sensor, like the body bag had been.

Though in a state of hyper-alertness, some rational thoughts still managed to gain traction in Tom’s fear-addled brain. He felt like he was missing some key element. They’d all been summoned here, offered money to be part of an experiment. Forenzi, though certainly odd, seemed sincere enough. He’d told them the goal was to scare them, and he’d made good on his promise.

But had Forenzi’s promise involved these silly Halloween gags? Was that his plan? And had something gone terribly wrong?

Tom was fighting for his life against an unknown enemy that apparently couldn’t be harmed. He had shot two of his attackers, and also slashed Sturgis across the chest. But that didn’t even slow them down.

Was there something supernatural going on? And if so, how did these dime-store attempts at scares mesh with what was happening elsewhere in Butler House?

Had the fake haunted house somehow become real?

He kept moving, and came upon a large, black crate in the center of the floor.

No, not a crate. A coffin. And not a real one. This was another Halloween prop, made of plywood. Tom approached, knowing exactly what was going to happen. The lid would open, and some fake monster—maybe a vampire or a mummy—was going to pop out.

Tom got within a meter of it, gun pointed forward, anticipating the obvious.

As predicted, the lid opened.

As predicted, a monster sat up in the coffin.

It wasn’t a vampire or mummy. It was some bizarre, bloody mannequin with a gas mask on. There were many gashes on its bare chest, glistening with stage blood.

“Hee hee,” went the prop.

Tom kept his Sig on it, then slowly walked past. It was creepier than the zombie in the breakfront, and the body bag on a conveyor track, but Tom was going to save his adrenaline for real threats, not fake ones.

“Hee hee hee.”

Movement, in front of Tom. He held fire as another body bag swung past on a pulley track. He watched it swing past the empty coffin, and disappear into the darkness.

Tom pressed forward, and then his fear spiked. He spun again, staring at the coffin.

The gas masked prop was gone.

Tom looked side to side, sweeping with his Sig. That prop apparently wasn’t a prop. Tom remembered Forenzi’s dinner speech and realized it was—

“Hee hee hee hee.”

The Giggler.

Now where the hell did it go?

Tom turned in a slow circle, ready to shoot anything that moved. He was so focused on what was around him that he wasn’t paying attention to where he was walking, and suddenly he lost his footing and stepped into a hole, falling onto his ass.

He tried to pull his leg free, and his calf screamed at him. Tom holstered his gun and reached into the hole in the floor.

Spikes. Digging into his skin.

“Hee hee hee hee.”

The Giggler walked out of the dark, into view. He was rubbing a large, bloody meat cleaver against his chest.

Tom drew his Sig and emptied his clip into the demon.

Nothing happened. The Giggler stood there, staring, swaying back and forth.

“Tom…”

Tom checked his other side, and saw a pink glow in the distance.

Moni. She had a pink light stick.

“Moni! Run!”

The pink light got closer.

“No, Moni! Get away! You need to get out of here!”

Moni slowly came into view. But it wasn’t Moni.

It was Aabir, holding Moni’s glow sick. Her eyes were completely black. She opened her mouth and roaches dropped out of it.

“Hee hee hee.”

The Giggler had halved the distance between them. Tom realized he wasn’t simply rubbing the meat cleaver against his bare skin. He was actually cutting himself, blood streaming out of the wounds he was making.

Tom blinked. His vision was getting blurry. His thoughts, fuzzy.

Drugged. Something in the spikes.

He stared back at Aabir. She was kneeling next to him. Tom held up his knife, pointed it at her, but he’d begun to see double.

He slashed at her, trying to keep her away, but everything started to fade.

Her hand shot out and she grabbed his wrist, easily prying the knife away.

Tom’s eyes closed, but he forced them open.

Can’t pass out. Not now…

Blackout.

And then he was in the throes of a full blown nightmare, unable to breath, drowning in some sort of slimy sea.

Tom’s eyes popped open, panic making him shake. Aabir was on top of him. She had her mouth around his nose, her wet tongue sticking up his nostril.

He pushed her away, eyelids fluttering.

Must. Stay. Awake. Must…

Blackout.

Then Tom was choking, thrashing around, coughing and spitting—

—because his mouth was filled with cockroaches.

Tom looked up, and the Giggler was pinning down his shoulders, staring down at him. Aabir had her hands down Tom’s pants, and she was jamming her fingers into his ass, feeling like she was tearing him apart.

“Hee hee hee.”

Tom screamed.

He screamed louder and harder than he ever had in his life.

Then the Giggler pulled off his gas mask, and maggots rained down on Tom, squirming in his eyes, his nose, his mouth, as he continued to scream and scream until unconsciousness finally took him.

Mal

The dust under the bed got in Mal’s eyes and the ragged gash on his neck, amplifying the pain.

He was so frightened he couldn’t breathe.

Under the dust ruffle, Mal saw Colton’s feet enter the bedroom. When he took a step, his old leather satchel clanged.

His bag of ghastly surgical instruments, still trying to conduct his insane experiments upon the living.

Mal let his breath out slow, then sucked dust into his nostrils—

Oh jesus I’m going to sneeze.

Mal clamped his hand over his mouth and nose, pinching his nostrils shut.

Please don’t please don’t please…

The urge to sneeze passed.

Colton continued to move toward the bed. His feet stopped less than half a meter from Mal’s face.

He doesn’t know I’m in here. If I keep absolutely still, he’ll go away.

Mal kept absolutely still.

Then something tugged on Mal’s foot.

Then he felt his pants cuff being raised up, baring his calf. He shook with effort as he fought not to scream.

What the hell is that?

It was small. Small and—

Hairy.

A rat? A rabid raccoon?

“Maaaaaaaaaaal,” Colton droned.

The ghost dropped the medical equipment bag, which clanged inches from Mal’s nose.

Then whatever was tugging on Mal’s leg bit him.

The pain was immediate and excruciating, and Mal yelled and kicked out, hearing something screech, and then he was trying to paw through the dust and get out from under the bed. When he did, he stared up at Colton, standing over him.

“I… want… your… hand…”

Fast as a striking rattlesnake, Colton reached down and grabbed Mal’s hand—

—pulling it off.

Mal clawed himself up to his feet and scampered past Colton, letting the ghost have his rubber prosthetic, rushing out of the room and down the hallway. He tugged out his light stick, flew down the staircase, found the route to the basement, and took more stairs down to the lower level where he’d left his wife and the others.

But they were no longer there.

Out of breath, scared shitless, and now in a state of full-on despair, Mal filled his lungs and cried out, “DEB!”

She didn’t answer.

Mal began to jog, deeper into the underground bowels of Butler House, until he came to a V with tunnels leading off to the right and left.

“Deb!”

No reply.

Left or right, Mal? Which way to go?

Is she even down here?

He went right. The bare bulbs hanging from the overhead braces were dim and far apart, and Mal’s light stick was getting weaker.

“Deb! Where are you?”

Mal heard his voice echo down the tunnel. But Deb’s voice didn’t echo back.

His neck hurt like crazy, but the bite on his leg was really starting to throb—bad enough that he’d begun to limp. He lifted his pants leg and took a quick look at it.

The bite was an oval, and some of the flesh was missing. Like he’d had a hunk gnawed out of him by a baby vampire.

He pulled his sock up over the wound, which was really all he could do with only one hand, and then the darkness was split by a sharp CRACK! and Mal felt his back scream at him.

Mal fell forward and turned over, because it hurt like he’d been set on fire. That’s when he saw the figure with the eyepatch and the whip standing just a meter away.

Blackjack Reedy.

Frank

When Frank Belgium was in grade school, he got picked on a lot for being nerdy. Frank wasn’t good at sports, was very good at science and math, and had a speech dysfluency where he’d often repeat a word three times. In sixth grade, he was challenged by a bully, and became a school legend for the fastest any kid had ever lost a fight. Eyewitness testimony was split on whether it took two or three seconds for Frank to go down, the result of a bloody nose.

It had been the most painful thing Frank had ever experienced, up until now.

His arm hurt a lot worse.

About ten to the eighth power worse.

They ran for their lives through the underground tunnels, away from Jebediah Butler, each step agonizing. Frank wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not, but he thought he could feel his broken bones grind together every time his foot hit the ground.

As in sixth grade, he felt no shame in crying. He was, however, able to refrain from the embarrassment of calling for his mother. But that was only because his mother was dead.

The alcohol Sara had given him lasted no more than fifty meters, before he stooped and puked it all over his shoes. Vomiting offered only a brief respite from the pain of jogging, because Sara was tugging him along before he was even able to finish.

They came to a fork in the tunnel, went left, and then went right at the next T junction, and left again, and then Frank lost track of where he was and just concentrated on praying for death.

Finally Sara pulled him into an actual room, unlike the mineshafts they’d been navigating. This had a concrete floor, and concrete walls, which were covered with crosses.

“We’ve found the Butler House crypt,” Pang said.

That explained the concrete floor, walls, and crosses. Frank counted at least ten burial vaults, and then he had to stop to throw up again. When he finished, he sat on the floor and resumed crying.

Sara stayed with him, patting his back. He must have been the most pathetic, unsexy man on the planet right then, but she didn’t leave his side.

“Did you see see see the movie Titanic?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Remember, after the ship sinks…”

“Bro, I haven’t seen it yet,” Pang interrupted. “You gotta spoiler alert that shit.”

“After it sinks,” Frank continued, “and Jack tells Rose that getting on the ship was the best thing that ever happened to him, because he got to meet her?”

Sara nodded.

“Well, Sara, meeting you may have been the best best best thing that has ever happened to me. But coming to Butler House was a really bad move.”

“What’s with the bells?” Deb asked.

Her voice was still raspy, but it had gotten a lot stronger. Frank had no idea what she meant until he saw her pointing at one of the vaults. Each had a tiny brass bell mounted in the corner.

“Safety coffins,” Pang said. “In the 1800s, people had a huge fear of being buried alive. So they began interring people with a string that attached to a bell on the outside of the casket. If they were still alive, they could ring the bell and be rescued.”

Frank filed that information tidbit under didn’t need to know and then tried to will himself unconscious.

“At dinner,” Sara said, “Dr. Forenzi said you actually met Satan. Did you really?”

“It’s complicated. And I’m delirious with pain. But short answer, yes.”

“And?”

Frank closed his eyes. “He wasn’t very nice.”

“When I…” Sara’s voice trailed off.

“When you what?” Frank asked.

“When I was on… the island. It was bad. There was this guy. Lester Paks. He’d… filed down his teeth to points. I still have nightmares. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“In order to survive, I had to kill. I don’t regret it. I did what I had to, to save me and Jack. But sometimes I think about the afterlife. What happens to us after we die. We’re being chased by spirits—”

“Alleged spirits, Sara. Nothing has been proven.”

Pang laughed at that. “Nothing proven? Are you crazy, bro?”

“Frank, after meeting the devil, don’t you believe in the afterlife?”

Frank thought about the question. He’d seen things that defied scientific explanation. But not having the answers didn’t mean the answers had to be supernatural.

“I believe in the indomitable strength of the human will,” he said. “I believe good can conquer evil. And, even though it has been a long time for me, I believe in love.”

Sara didn’t answer. But he knew what he said resonated with her, sure as he heard the soft, gentle tinkling of the wind chimes.

No, not wind chimes.

Bells.

Bells?

Frank’s eyes opened in alarm, and he saw Sara with her jaw hanging open, eyes wide as saucers.

She was looking at the wall full of vaults. Frank followed her line of vision.

All of the bells were ringing by themselves.

“They were slaves, buried alive,” Pang said, sitting up with his face buried in his hands. “Sealed in by Jebediah Butler for minor infractions. Through the holes for the bell strings, he fed them food and water. Some lasted for weeks before they died. He let their family members visit them. An object lesson, to keep them meek and afraid.”

Deb had backed away from the ringing bells, her expression as horrified as Sara’s.

“But when they died,” Pang went on, “their spirits were released. They led the revolt that killed the Butlers. And now they roam Butler House, looking for people to possess.”

Pang lifted up his head and smiled.

His eyes had turned completely black.

Deb screamed.

Sara screamed.

But both of their voices were drowned out by Frank, who screamed louder and shriller than both of them combined. Sara somehow found the courage to help Frank to his feet, and Deb added her hands to the effort as well. Then the trio was running out of the crypt, back into the tunnels.

“Which way?” Sara screeched.

Without Pang leading the way with the light in his camcorder, they couldn’t tell which was the way they’d come.

Deb took the lead, Sara and Frank following her. But when they turned the corner, Deb was gone.

And then someone leapt out of the darkness, tackling Frank and Sara, pinning them to the ground.

Moni

A wooden crossbeam, old and weathered.

A dim lightbulb, hanging from brown wires.

Rusty iron shackles, bolted to the wall.

What Moni saw when she opened her eyes.

She blinked, yawned, tried to roll over.

Couldn’t.

The memory came back, jolting.

She’d been following Tom through the hallway, trying to stick close, but he was moving so fast and it was so dark.

And then something grabbed her. Something big and strong.

Moni remembered the needle going in. Tried to fight for a bit. Tried to scream with a hand over her mouth.

And now…

Her hands and feet were tied to some sort of bed.

No, not a bed. Beds don’t have thick metal cranks on them. Cranks meant to pull the ropes tighter until the human body stretched and broke in half.

Moni was on a rack. in a torture chamber, filled with all sorts of other horrible devices meant to inflict suffering.

Then she noticed the figure standing in the corner of the room. Staring quietly at her. Pale. Thin. Long, black hair.

It can’t be. But it looks like…

“Luther Kite,” Moni said, her voice cracking into a whimper.

“Hello, Moni.” He was whispering to her. Soft. Gentle. “It’s so good to see you.”

Luther came to her, ran a finger across her cheek. He looked different then the last time she had seen him. Thinner. Frailer. Sharper cheekbones.

And his eyes were now completely black.

“Remember this?”

He held up a metal cylinder. On the bottom were six metal spikes, each half a centimeter long. On the top was a knob.

An artificial leech. When pressed into the skin and twisted, it shredded flesh.

“It’s bleeding time, Moni.”

Luther smiled, revealing black teeth.

Moni began to scream for help.

No help came.

Tom

Tom opened his eyes to the smell of burnt pork.

He was hanging from the rafters by his wrists, the rope tight and cutting off circulation to his hands. He was tall enough that he could touch the floor on his tiptoes, taking some of the weight off.

Tom spat, hacked, and spat again until he was sure he got all of the roach parts out of his mouth. Then he took in his surroundings.

The tiny room appeared to be carved out of dirt, with railroad ties bracing up the walls and ceiling. A root cellar, maybe. There was some low light, partly from a low wattage bulb on the overhead rafter, partly from a cast iron woodburning stove in the corner of the room, its chimney rising up into the ceiling.

Whatever drug he’d been given had left him foggy, but still very much afraid. His leg hurt from where he’d stepped in the spike hole, and his arms were cramped. Tom visually followed the length of the rope that bound him, and saw it was attached to a pulley and tied to one of the beams, near the doorway.

And standing in the doorway…

“Tom…”

Sturgis Butler, face and clothing burned, eyes black as oil, voice sounding like an echo chamber, walked slowly into the room. He stopped at the stove, opening the hinged door. Next to the stove, on a wall rack, were assorted pokers, pincers, and branding irons. Sturgis selected an iron, showed it to Tom, and stuck the end inside the fire.

The worst burn Tom ever had was when he was a child, stepping barefoot on a lit sparkler on the fourth of July. It had instantly seared into his skin and stuck there, requiring him to pull it out and also burn his fingers.

It had been bad.

A branding iron seemed a lot worse.

Sturgis left the iron in the fire and turned to Tom. He smiled, his teeth black as his eyes.

“I… see… your… fear…”

And then the realization of what was happening hit Tom like a slap. Not a full understanding, but enough for Tom to show some much-needed courage.

“Enough with all this bullshit,” Tom said, punctuating his voice with forced bravado. “Let me talk to your boss.”

Sara

On her back, stars dancing in her vision, Sara reached up to scratch out the eyes of whoever tackled her and Frank.

“Where’s Deb?

Illuminated by a faint blue glow stick, Mal’s face was frantic, eyes wild. His neck was bleeding, and he had bloody rips in his shirt.

Next to her on the ground, similarly sprawled out, Frank had begun crying again.

“Is Deb with you?” Mal demanded, raising his voice.

“Pang—Pang is possessed,” Sara told him. “We all ran away. I don’t know where your wife is. We were following her, then she was gone.”

Mal helped Sara up, and then they both pried a sobbing Frank off the floor.

“Blackjack Reedy is behind me somewhere,” Mal said. “He’s got a whip.”

Sara got a closer look at Mal’s shirt, counting at least eight bloody gashes in it.

“Jebediah found us,” she said. “We had to run. We can help you look for Deb. It’s a maze down here.”

“We’ll find find find her,” Frank moaned. Then he dropped over in a dead faint.

Mal looked at Frank, and then off into the distance. “How long ago did she go missing?”

“A few minutes.”

Mal pulled the handbag off his shoulder. “The heroin. Take care of him. I have to find her.”

Sara didn’t want him to go, but she completely understood. “Thank you. Good luck.”

“You, too.”

He ran off. Sara opened the purse, found a plastic case with a big syringe in it. Somewhere, in the dark distance, she heard a whip crack.

Sara knelt down and gently slapped Frank’s face. “Frank, you have to get up.”

Frank moaned, but his eyes remained closed. Sara had no idea how much of the heroin to give him, or even how to properly administer a shot. She gave his shoulders a shake.

“Frank, it’s Sara. I have some drugs for you. You have to get up.”

“Just… leave me… here.”

“I can help with the pain. How much am I supposed to give you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a doctor.”

“Of molecular biology.”

Sara wasn’t sure how heroin worked. She’d seen enough movies to know it involved tying off an arm with something in order to find a vein. But did she inject him directly into his broken arm? Or could she shoot him up anywhere? She took the needle out of the case and did that thing where she held it point-up and flicked it with her finger to remove all the bubbles.

“That’s too much,” Frank said. “That would kill an elephant.”

“So how much do I give you?”

“See those little lines on the barrel? Each one is ten milligrams. Start with that.”

“Where do I inject you?”

“Straight into my eyeball,” Frank said.

Sara stared at him.

“Kidding kidding kidding. Just jab it in my wrist. Intramuscular probably won’t be be be as effective as a vein, but I’ll take anything as long as it’s quick.”

He gave Sara his good arm. She held his hand.

A whip cracked again, much nearer.

Sara squinted at Frank’s wrist, saw a blue vein, and slid the needle in on an angle. She pressed the plunger, giving him ten milligrams. Then she pulled the needle out, expectant.

“Well?” Sara asked.

The pain creases in Frank’s face slowly relaxed, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a tiny smirk.

“You are so pretty,” he said.

“Is it working?”

“Your breasts look like two big, beautiful scoops of ice cream in a bra.”

Sara grinned. “Yeah. I think it’s working.”

She helped Frank up, and he put his good arm around her shoulders.

“Your lips are like a little red bowtie,” Frank said.

“We need to move, Frank.”

“Yeah. Move in with me. You and Jack. I have some money put away. We can get a good lawyer, get him back.”

Another whip crack, so close it made Sara jump.

“Let’s go!”

Sara began by helping Frank along, but then he let go of her and ran ahead. He turned down a corridor, and then began to jog backward while smiling at her.

“I feel great! Why don’t they make heroin legal?”

“Frank! Watch—”

He ran backward into a wall, falling onto his face. When he got up, his makeshift tourniquet had come off.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Doesn’t hurt at all.”

Frank shook his broken arm and it wiggled like a gummy worm, bending in all sorts of places it wasn’t supposed to.

Then a pair of bloody arms wrapped around Frank from behind, grabbing him in a bear hug. Jebediah Butler. Sara ran to him, but was jerked off her feet as Blackjack Reedy’s whip snaked around her neck, choking her until she passed out.

Deb

As soon as Deb realized Sara and Frank weren’t behind her anymore, she stopped running.

“Deb!”

Sara’s voice, echoing through the tunnels. But Deb couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. She’d made two or three turns, and the faint echo seemed to be both in front of her and behind her at the same time.

“Sara!”

But even putting her lungs into it, Deb’s voice didn’t get any louder than speaking normally. Deb didn’t know if it was something Franklin had done to her voice, or if it was psychosomatic because she’d been terrified out of her mind in that exam room. Whatever the case, she couldn’t call for help.

She looked around. These underground tunnels seemed to go on forever. Deb could imagine herself, wandering around for hours, going in circles. A lesson from Girl Scouts came back to her. When lost, stay put. Let the rescuers come to you.

A wise idea. But while Sara and Frank might be looking for her, so were a legion of creepy mother fuckers.

Besides, she needed to find the stairs for when Mal came back.

Mal.

As crazy frightened as Deb was—and she was one scare away from curling up into a ball and sucking her thumb—the thought of her husband gave her strength. When he kissed her before he left, she saw the man she remembered. The one she hadn’t seen in such a long time. Brave. Strong. Determined.

Deb swore she would be just as brave. She would fight and fight and fight until she saw him again. And when she did, there would be no more sleepless nights. No more bad dreams. No more constant paranoia.

Because together, they could conquer anything.

Deb ached to remind him of that. And it ate at her that she hadn’t understood it before now.

She bent over, butt against a wooden support, and rubbed her thighs. As could be expected, her stumps ached. The prosthetics she wore weren’t suited to running on dirt, and the constant balance adjustments she had to make were taking a toll on her muscles. It had been a long time since Deb had lost her legs, but she remembered with crystal clarity what it had been like. Obviously walking and running were sorely missed. But there were other, little things as well. Dipping her feet in a cool lake. Wiggling her toes. Feeling sand on the beach beneath her—

Deb sensed someone. Nearby.

She tried to peer into the darkness around her, but her eyes couldn’t pierce it. The low watt bulbs strung up on the ceiling were few and far between, and the glow light Tom had given her was fading fast.

“Hello?” she croaked.

“Hello, Deb.”

It wasn’t Mal. Or Tom. Or Sara or Frank.

Deb knew that voice. From the examination room.

“It’s so good to see ya again,” Franklin said, walking out of the darkness. He still wore the plastic gloves he’d put on when he tried to take her blood earlier. But this time, he was holding a long, white stick that ended in forked prongs.

A cattle prod.

“This is quite a house, ain’t it?” Franklin said. He pressed a button on the stick and the electrodes crackled, throwing a bright spark. “Reminds me of home. A home that you took away from me, Deb.”

Deb backed away, but backing up in fake legs was even harder than navigating stairs. What she needed to do was turn around and sprint away. But she couldn’t stop staring at him. Especially since, like Pang, Franklin’s eyes had turned completely black.

“I owe you for that, lil’ girl. Owe you lots.”

He lashed out with the prod, and Deb dodged it but fell backward, arms pinwheeling, landing on her butt. She tried to crab away on all fours, but her prosthetics couldn’t gain any purchase on the dirt ground.

“You look so a’scared right now.” Franklin grinned. His teeth were also black. “Gettin’ me all kinds of excited.”

He zapped one of her artificial legs with the prod. Deb yelped at the sound.

“This here’s a special kinda prod, called a picana. Make ‘em down in South America. Those dictators love to interrogate rebels. Twenty thousand volts, low amps, so it won’t kill. Supposed to be gawd-awful painful. Especially when applied to sensitive regions.”

Deb backed against the wall, feeling like she was about to have a heart attack.

The feeling got worse when Franklin touched the prod to her thigh.

It was like being hit with a pick axe. A glowing hot pick axe. Her entire world was reduced to one infinite pinpoint of absolute agony.

“Yes indeedy,” Franklin purred. “You ‘n Mr. Picana are gonna get to know each other real intimately, lil’ girl.”

Forenzi

Dr. Emil Forenzi was extremely agitated, and more than a little frightened.

This was bad. Really bad. Once an experiment of this magnitude began to spiral out of control, it was time to pull the plug.

But he didn’t know if he could stop this, even if he wanted to. So many unexpected variables had been introduced that stopping now could be catastrophic.

He sped through the steel doors of the clinic and peered into Gunter’s habitat. But the monkey wasn’t in his usual spot, hanging upside down from the tree. Forenzi moved closer to see if Gunter was hiding in the fake bushes.

He wasn’t. The primate had either turned invisible, or someone let him out of his cage.

Or…

Forenzi checked the habitat’s door latch, saw something thin and blood-stained sticking in the spring mechanism.

A bone. Probably from one of Gunter’s unfortunate cellmates.

The Panamanian Night Monkey had learned to open his own lock.

Forenzi took a quick look around the lab, suddenly paranoid. While small, Gunter was a strong little animal, and he had a well-documented history of violence. He could also apparently utilize tools. If he got hold of a scalpel, it could become a very dangerous situation.

Trying to act nonchalant in case he was being watched, and he went to the closet where he kept the elbow-length Kevlar gloves, which would protect him from animal bites. He didn’t like to handle Gunter without them, especially when the animal wasn’t sedated. He was just about to put them on when the phone rang, making Forenzi jump.

“What is it?” he demanded, checking the ceiling to make sure Gunter wasn’t hanging there, ready to drop on him.

“We have a problem. He figured it out.”

Forenzi digested the words. It was, indeed, a problem. And the problems were piling up. How many set-backs could this project absorb before it imploded?

“Seal the perimeter,” he said, setting the animal gloves down on a countertop. “I’ll be right there.”

Forenzi was halfway to the door when he stopped, turned, and went back for them.

Just in case Gunter was prowling the tunnels and in a bad mood.

Sara

The sharp stench of ammonia woke Sara up.

She was sitting down, immobile, legs, arms, neck, and chest all strapped down tight. The device was known as a restraint chair, and during her years working with troubled teens she’d seen them while visiting prisons and mental institutions. Supposedly a humane way to immobilize dangerous or violent inmates who posed a threat to themselves or others, Sara knew how often it was used for cruel and unusual punishment.

Sara looked around, saw she was in some sort of laboratory. White walls, bright lights, shiny tile floors, counters topped with medical equipment; beakers, Bunsen burners, glass bottles, scales, microscopes, storage racks. A far cry from the poorly lit, filthy underground tunnels she’d been chased through.

She also noticed that she had IVs in each arm, the tubes red with her blood and connected to a machine.

Could this be a hospital? Had she somehow been rescued, and they’d restrained her to make sure she was okay?

Another whiff of ammonia, and Sara gagged. Her forehead was strapped to a headboard, but she lowered her eyes and saw a male hand holding some smelling salts.

Someone was behind her.

“Who’s there?”

The figure didn’t reply. But the hand brushed up against her neck, and a finger drew itself across Sara’s lips. Then it moved down her neck and squeezed her right breast.

This wasn’t a hospital.

She hadn’t been rescued.

Sara set her jaw, fighting not to cry out. She endured the groping, and then felt hot breath on her ear.

The horror she’d experienced on Rock Island had never gone away. Part of her had died that day, and she’d been coping with that loss ever since.

Meeting Frank, and daring to dream of a future that wasn’t haunted by the past, had given her a small measure of hope that things might change.

But now, being molested in a restraint chair, Sara knew that life had no happy endings. It was failure and misery and torture and nightmares and cruelty. And the only escape from it was death.

Her tormenter walked around the chair to face her. Blackjack Reedy, his eye patch as black as his uncovered eye. Ghost? Demon? Psycho? It didn’t matter, and Sara didn’t care. She was frightened, but more than that, she was sick of living. Jack had been taken away, Frank was no doubt in a similar situation to hers, and now she was once again evil’s plaything, suffering and dying for no reason at all.

She hocked up a good one and spat at the figure. “Do your worst, asshole.”

He walked over to the counter, where, among all of the medical devices, was a common kitchen toaster. Next to it was a loaf of bread, the kind that came in a colorful plastic bag. He removed two slices, placed them in the toaster, and depressed the plunger.

“Where’s Frank?” Sara said.

He didn’t answer. Sara tested the restraints on her arms, legs, chest, flexing and stretching to see if there was any way to escape.

The toaster dinged.

Blackjack Reedy took the slices of toast, and knelt next to Sara’s chair. He held them out to her. Sara began to wonder if he was mentally deficient. Like Lenny from Of Mice and Men.

“I don’t want your toast. Let me go.”

Blackjack held a piece out to her bound hand. Sara changed tactics. Forcing a smile, she said, “Thank you, I’d love some toast. Can you unstrap my hand so I can hold it?”

Blackjack pushed the toast under her palm. Quick as a mousetrap, he slapped the other piece on top of her fingers.

Then he smiled, and Sara saw that his teeth had been filed to points.

She screamed loud enough to wake the dead as Blackjack opened his terrible mouth and bent down to eat his sandwich.

Frank

Frank Belgium stared up at the ghost of Jebediah Butler, whose entire body was covered with blood, and said, “Need a Band-Aid?”

Belgium was strapped to a stainless steel gurney. It had gutters around the edges, which made Frank think it was a mortician’s table.

The implications didn’t bother Frank. At that moment, nothing at all bothered Frank. He decided, if he made it through the night, to pursue the glamorous and rewarding life of a heroin addict.

But living through the night was beginning to seem like a long shot.

Jebediah pushed a metal cart up to Frank, filled with all sorts of horrible-looking medical tools. Hammers and saws and blades and drills. Frank stared at a particularly rusty chisel and giggled.

“Can you sanitize those tools before you dissect me? I don’t don’t don’t want to get an infection.”

Jebediah loomed over Frank, squinting at him with his soulless black eyes.

“Aren’t… you… afraid?”

“Friend, as far as scary things I’ve seen, you aren’t even in the top five. Where’s that Ol’ Japser fellow? He’s certainly handy.” The pun delighted Frank, and he giggled again. “I also could have gone with he’s well-armed.”

Jebediah picked up some sort of crusty mallet and brought it down on Frank’s broken elbow. It stung, but the drug dulled most of the pain.

The ghost looked confused.

“You seem like a reasonable sort, Jebediah. So I’m going to offer you some advice. And I I I really think you should take it for what it’s worth. Are you ready?”

Jebediah Butler gaped.

“I’m not going to say it unless you want to hear it.”

“Tell… me…”

Dr. Frank Belgium looked the monster dead in the eyes and said, “Go fuck fuck fuck yourself.”

Tom

Tom wiggled his fingers to keep the circulation going, but his hands and arms were becoming very numb due to being hung by them. He felt he’d bought himself a little bit of time, but had no idea how to get out of this situation. His hopelessness spiked every time he looked at the corner of the room, to the branding iron heating up in the wood burning stove, which the blackened figure of Sturgis kept fussing with.

When Dr. Forenzi finally entered the room, Tom was grateful for something else to focus on.

“Where’s Roy Lewis?”

Forenzi clucked his tongue. “Out of all the things you can ask me, that’s your first question? Where your partner is? He gave all he had to give. Like you soon will. How did you figure it out?”

Tom stretched on his tip toes to take some weight off his cramped arms. “Let me down and I’ll tell you.”

“I can assure you, Detective, you’ll tell me anyway.”

Forenzi went to the corner of the room and took a black covering off of a piece of medical equipment. It looked like a dialysis machine.

“It was Torble,” Tom said, glancing at Sturgis Butler. “He said I see your fear. He said that same thing earlier today, at the prison.”

Forenzi made a face and wagged a finger at Sturgis, née convicted serial killer Augustus Torble. “I didn’t go through all the trouble of bringing you here to screw things up like that.”

“And I don’t get my kicks dressing up in a goddamn Halloween costume, spraying myself with liquid smoke to smell like a barbecue. Plus these goddamn contacts are killing me.”

To drive home the point, Torble stuck his finger in his eye and pinched out the black lens.

“So everything was fake?” Tom asked. His curiosity was real, but he was more interested in keeping the doctor talking, hoping for a situation to save himself.

Forenzi nodded. The machine he’d uncovered was on a cart, and he was pushing it over to Tom. “Of course. The house is fully rigged. Trapped doors so people appear and disappear. Electromagnets to make chairs move or pictures fall.” He reached for Torble’s neck and tore off a flap of latex make-up, holding it to his own throat. “Voice… synthesizer. Hear… how… scary… I… sound…”

“How about the painting of the house with all of our pictures on it?”

“Just painted yesterday. One of my men has some artistic talent. I doubt it has even dried yet.”

“And the guns?” Tom asked. “Bullet proof vests?”

Forenzi took Tom’s Sig from his holster and aimed at his chest. Just as Tom tried to twist away and began to yell, Forenzi fired twice.

It stung a bit, but Tom remained free of holes.

Forenzi tucked Tom’s gun into his waistband. “When your luggage was brought in, your ammo was replaced. Soft wax bullets. There’s an indistinguishable recoil, but they disintegrate before hitting the target.”

Shit. Why hadn’t Tom thought to check his ammo?

“What if I had the gun on me?” he asked. “How would you have switched?”

“The front doors to Butler House have an X-ray machine in them. You were scanned for weapons when you entered. If you were carrying a gun, you would have been the first one targeted, and your gun taken. My men are very good at what they do.”

Forenzi had damn near thought of everything. A perfect ruse that fooled everyone, Tom included. “And Aabir?”

“One of us. Like Pang. They’ve played those parts before. Unlike the live roaches put into your mouth, theirs were rubber.

“What about Deb? In the exam room?”

“Franklin is real. I was able to secure his release from prison, as I did with our friend Torble here. In Deb’s and Mal’s case, we thought that touch of authenticity would help raise their metusamine levels. Franklin sprayed a chemical in Deb’s throat—I call it traumesterone. It inflames the vocal chords so a person can’t speak. Or scream for help, as the case may be.”

It all made sense to Tom, except for the most important part.

“Why?” he asked.

Dr. Forenzi sucked in a breath, then let out a big, dramatic sigh. “I explained this at dinner. I need to frighten you to harvest the metusamine in your blood. The more you’re frightened, the more you produce. And because you and the others have experienced high levels of fear in the past, it has altered your brain chemistry so your blood contains higher levels of metusamine than the general population. Much higher, in fact. And I require that neurotransmitter. In order to make anti-venom, you need real venom. The same applies to Serum 3, my anti-fear drug.”

“So why kill Wellington? Or was that fake, too?”

“That was… unfortunate. I would have preferred terrifying him, then milking him for metusamine like you and the others. But that’s the other half of the experiment. You’re obviously aware of who is funding this research.”

Tom thought back to the Butler House website, and who owned the property now. Unified Systems Association.

U.S.A.

“The government,” Tom said. “The feds?”

Forenzi shook his head. “No. My men impersonated the FBI when they approach you and the others. This is a military operation. There have been two previous attempts to create the perfect soldier. I’ve studied the research of my contemporaries, Dr. Stubin in Wisconsin and Dr. Plincer in Michigan, and I’ve learned from their errors. Serum 3, my metusamine blocker, when given to soldiers, renders them fearless. It also has an unusual side-effect that the army has a keen interest in.”

“It makes them homicidal,” Tom guessed.

“How is it said in software parlance? It isn’t a glitch. It’s a feature. Besides making killing easier, it also gives them a much higher tolerance for pain, sharper instincts, and even boosts their stamina and strength, as Mr. Torble demonstrated for you in the prison visitation room. Wellington was an example of my drug working a bit too well, I’m afraid. But it is good practice for the soldiers. Many of them have adjusted quite well to the program. I daresay they’ve begun to enjoy it. Hunting humans in an old, dark house is good real-world practice.”

Tom had previously dealt with megalomaniacs using science for evil, and Forenzi fit the bill. It never ended well.

“So why don’t you just scare people, get what you need from their blood, and let them go?”

Another sigh. “We tried. That area of Butler House where you were caught, with the fake body bags and rubber props, it was set up to frighten people without harming them. But that didn’t produce the levels of metusamine needed for my experiments. To get the higher concentrations, I had to induce real terror in my subjects. And after much trial and error, the type of fear that produced the best results was fear of the unknown. The stuff of childhood nightmares. Ghosts and demons and things that go bump in the night.”

“But now I know this house isn’t really haunted,” Tom said. “So you can let me go.”

Forenzi shook his head. “I still need to milk you. And I’ve discovered another way to induce fear. Sadly, it isn’t as effective as ghosts, but it is more sustainable over a long period of time. The fear of pain. I’ll be able to extract quite a bit of metusamine from you as Mr. Torble tortures you to death.”

Torble was at the wood burning stove again, checking how the branding iron was heating up. And, as Forenzi predicted, Tom experienced a spike of pure, adrenaline-fueled fear.

“People know I’m here,” Tom said.

“No, they don’t. We’ve done this many times, Detective. My men are very good at tidying up loose ends. You were a loose end, searching for your missing partner. It is doubtful anyone will come looking for you with the same fervor. But if they do—your old boss Lieutenant Daniels, perhaps, or your girlfriend, Joan DeVilliers, in Hollywood—they’ll be handled in the same way you’ve been.”

“You do know you’re insane, right?”

Forenzi laughed. “My dear Detective, I’m going to cure humanity of fear. Making any omelet requires breaking a few eggs. Take some comfort in the fact that your suffering will one day benefit all of mankind. But don’t take too much comfort in it. I need you to be good and terrified for the little time you have left.”

Forenzi pulled a length of tubing out of the machine, exposing the IV needle on the end.

“This machine is going to extract the metusamine from your blood, and then return it to you. I need to put these into your veins. If you fight me, I’m going to ask Mr. Torble to break both of your kneecaps.”

“Isn’t he going to do that anyway?”

“He might. But would you prefer that to happen immediately, or sometime later on?”

Tom could probably lash out and kick Forenzi, but that wouldn’t help the situation. And if he were going to try that trick, it would be with Torble when the psycho came at him with the branding iron. So Tom nodded, letting Forenzi insert needles into each of his triceps. The machine clicked on with a mechanical whir, and Tom watched his blood travel out of his left arm, through the tube, through the metusamine extractor, and back into his right arm.

Forenzi regarded him. “I must say, Detective, I expected a bit more out of you. Your partner, Roy, fought with all he had. You seem to have given up rather quickly.”

Tom stared the man down. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

The doctor’s brow wrinkled. “Who said that?”

“I did.” Tom’s lips twisted into a grin. “And I’ll be coming for you, Forenzi.”

“And my little dog, Toto, too?”

“No,” Tom said. “Just you.”

“Save your strength for Mr. Torble, Detective. He’s been in prison for a long time, and has a lot of bottled up aggression he needs to let out.”

“Lots of aggression,” Torble said, smiling. He took the branding iron out of the fire, its end glowing orange, and Tom’s metusamine production kicked into overdrive.

Mal

He’d managed to outrun Blackjack Reedy, but then Mal got lost in the labyrinth. One tunnel looked like the next, and Mal couldn’t tell if he’d been going in circles, or was kilometers away from where he began.

Mal stopped jogging, sweaty, aching, terrified for his wife, and then he heard a sharp crack that he thought was Blackjack’s whip. But it was quieter, and different somehow. Instead of running from it, he tried to follow the sound. Maybe it would lead him in some direction other than—

He turned the corner and froze, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

It was Franklin. Just as Deb had insisted. Older, thinner, but undeniably the man who’d caused them both so much pain.

He was poking a long stick at someone Mal couldn’t see, cackling as he did so, the stick making bright sparks to coincide with the cracking sound.

And then Mal heard a yelp. Soft. Hoarse.

But recognizable.

Deb.

He rounded the corner, and realized that Franklin was poking his wife with some sort of electric prod. Deb was crying, hysterical, feebly trying to slap the prod away with her back against the tunnel wall.

Mal froze.

It all came back to him. The helplessness. The fear. The feeling that all hope was gone, and there was nothing he could do to regain it.

That was the Rushmore Inn’s legacy. It had rendered Mal useless. Forever weak. Forever afraid.

What a pale shadow of his former self he had become.

“Hey! Asshole!”

Mal wasn’t sure who had spoken. He was about to turn around and look when a startling realization seized him.

That was me. I said that.

Franklin stopped tormenting Deb long enough to leer at Mal. “Well, lookee who came by. It’s the coward who—”

Mal was on him in three steps, hitting him in the jaw so hard that Franklin spun around, the cattle prod flying. Then he had his fingers wrapped in the man’s hair and Mal introduced the bastard to his knee, Franklin’s nose exploding with all the juice of a squashed tomato.

Franklin howled, and Mal got behind him, still holding his hair, and bent his head back to expose his neck.

“Deb! Now!”

His wife didn’t hesitate. Like a deadly ballet, she pivoted her hips, swinging her right prosthesis around in a reverse hook kick, connecting solidly with Franklin’s adam’s apple.

Mal released him and he slumped to his knees. He was no longer a threat. They’d all heard the man’s windpipe crack.

Then Deb was in his arms, pressing her lips to his, her tear-soaked cheeks rubbing against his face.

“Don’t you ever leave me again,” she said.

“I won’t.”

“We’re a team.”

“The best team ever.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“We’re going to get out of this, Mal.”

“Goddamn right we are.”

Another kiss, and then Deb squatted down and picked up the prod.

Franklin was turning an unnatural shade of blue, clawing at his neck in a futile effort to suck in air.

“You’re suffocating,” Deb told the dying man. “Point us to the exit, and I’ll help you.”

Mal was impressed by his wife’s compassion. Apparently, so was Franklin, because he quickly pointed down the tunnel.

“Thanks,” Deb said. Then she took off in that direction at a quick jog.

Mal ran after her. “What about helping him?”

“I did,” Deb said between breaths. “I helped him get to hell faster. Besides, do you want him and six of his brothers to show up at our doorstep a year from now?”

She had a point.

Incredibly, after following the tunnel a hundred meters, they were back to the concrete stairs. Mal had taken so many twists and turns down there that it hadn’t occurred to him to try a straight course.

Deb stormed the stairs like a champ, and then they were jogging down the hall and heading for the front door.

“Keep your eyes straight ahead,” Mal warned her, wary of Wellington’s headless corpse/cattail vase. “Focus on the door.”

Mal positioned himself between Deb and the circle of chairs, and when they reached the front doors he paused. The last time he opened them, Mal had run into that giggling freak in the gas mask.

“Floor is slippery with blood,” Deb said, placing a hand on Mal’s shoulder.

“I’m opening the door. Get ready to run. Either outside, or back into the house if something bad is out there.”

“Got it. What about the others?”

“Once we find the car, we’ll drive until we get a cell phone signal, then call the police. We’ll make them send the entire National Guard.”

“Mal?”

Mal had his hand on the door knob, but he paused. “Yeah, babe?”

“Coming here… you were right. This wasn’t my best idea.”

He smiled. “Are you serious? I’m thinking we do this every weekend. We rent a car, you send some psycho to hell… it sure beats the hell out of therapy.”

And the crazy thing was, it really did. There were no guarantees they’d live through the night, but Mal felt better than he had in months.

So it was quite a nasty shock when he opened the doors and found himself face-to-face with two people holding machineguns.

Moni

This guy was definitely not Luther Kite.

Kite had enjoyed making Moni suffer. It had been a turn-on for him. More than that, he’d considered it an intimate act, drawing it out while asking her mundane questions about her life. When he had finally broken her, he hadn’t bothered to finish the job and kill her, leaving Moni in a state of shock so deep it took her weeks before she could speak again. It was almost as if allowing Moni to live had been a testament to his art.

This guy, with the black eyes, was going through the motions. And what he was doing hurt Moni, no doubt about it. Getting pierced with an antique medical device was fucking awful. But after a dozen lacerations his heart just didn’t seem to be into it.

And surprisingly, Moni wasn’t terrified. She was actually more angry than she was frightened. Like this was a bad BDSM session that wasn’t working out.

In fact, the more she thought about it, the less she feared for her life and the more she got pissed off. This jackass didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

And she was just the person to tell him that.

“You’re pathetic,” she said, using her dominatrix voice.

The wannabe Luther Kite stopped poking with the artificial leech and stared at her.

“You’re a pathetic, worthless, sissy boy. Take off your pants right now.”

He remained still, his expression confused.

“I told you to take off your pants!” she ordered.

As dommes went, Moni was good at her job. She had a deep, commanding voice that scared the crap out of guys, and she knew what the little perverts wanted. In a sick sort of way, Luther Kite had saved her life. After her ordeal with him she’d kicked heroin and stopped being a victim. No more street tricks. No more pimps. She took control of her life, and her clients paid her well to be a dominant man-hater.

“Take off your pants, and show Mistress Moni what you’ve got. Now!”

Incredibly, the freak began to unbutton his pants.

Just as Moni had suspected. He wasn’t a top. He was a bottom.

“Show it to me.”

He did. And with his dick out, he was a lot less frightening. Even though she was tied up, Moni felt the balance of power shifting from him to her.

“Get over here and put it in my mouth,” she ordered.

Naturally, he complied. What guy wouldn’t? And this was most certainly a guy, not a ghost. Not a demon. Not even a serial killer. Just a worthless little worm who wanted to hurt her, like so many men had before him.

But Moni had other plans.

As she worked her lips and tongue, she gave him just enough to make him want more.

“I can make it better,” she said, deep and breathy. “But I need my hands free.”

Without hesitating he undid the buckle on her right hand. Then Moni did something she’d been fantasizing about ever since she turned her first trick at sixteen years old.

She bit down, hard as she could.

It didn’t come off as easy as she’d thought. Sort of like chewing through a tough steak. A tough, bloody steak, with lots of gristle. But she used her incisors, grinding and tearing, protecting her head with her hand as he screamed and beat at her with both fists.

And then her teeth met, and he fell away from her.

Moni spat his cock on the floor as he sprayed blood like fire hose. While he knelt down with his hands between his legs, wailing and trying to stop the hemorrhaging, Moni undid the other buckles holding her to the rack, pulled out the hefty metal bar used as a crank, and hit the son of a bitch hard enough on the back of the head to see brains come out the split.

They sort of looked like grits.

Wiping off her mouth and spitting several times, Moni got her shit together. She was free. For the moment she was safe. Now she needed to get the hell out of there.

Moni left the torture chamber, metal bar still in hand, and found herself in some sort of mine shaft. The floor was dirt. The walls braced with logs. Lights were bare bulbs, hanging from old rafters.

She spat again, hurrying down the tunnel, stopping when she heard talking.

“You, Jebediah Butler, are are are a jerktapus. That’s a jerk multiplied by eight.”

It sounded like Dr. Belgium. Moni snuck up to an open door, saw the doc was bound to a table. Some guy was standing next to him with a mallet. The mallet guy was covered, head to toe, with blood, but he didn’t seem injured at all.

Another fake ass ghost.

The bloody guy hit Frank with the mallet, right on his arm, which was all twisted and swollen up to twice its normal size.

That son of a…

Moni rushed up to him, angry and pumped, and brained the bastard with the metal bar. He went down, and she kept hitting him, over and over.

“Looks like you invited the wrong goddamn dominatrix to your little party, bitch!”

His head was harder to crack open than the Luther Kite wannabe, but she kept at it until she got the desired results.

“Moni!” Frank said, smiling at her. “Your mouth is bleeding.”

“I bit a guy’s dick off.”

“Great! That’s great!”

She undid Frank’s straps, wincing when she saw his arm. “Jesus, Doc. Doesn’t that hurt?”

“I’m medicated,” he slurred. “Tell me something… how hard is it to buy heroin?”

“It’s all about who you know.”

“Great great great!”

“Is that what you’re on? Heroin?”

“Yes. I believe it’s your stash. It’s awesome.”

He’d be singing a different tune when withdrawal kicked in, but Moni saw no reason to bring that up.

“I have to go and save Sara,” Belgium said. “Want to come with?”

“Sure.”

Frank picked up the mallet in his good hand, and then they were back to prowling the tunnels.

“Doc?” she asked.

“Yes yes yes?”

“We’re not going to get our million bucks each, are we?”

“It’s not looking too promising, Moni.”

Moni frowned. The dozen or so lacerations on her body hurt like crazy, but the fact that she’d been played for a fool felt even worse.

“Doc?”

“Yes?”

“When we find everybody, let’s burn this fucking place to the ground.”

Josh

Fran had been on edge since they landed in Charlotte. While he and Duncan had slept most of the trip, his wife had trouble relaxing on planes. A twenty-two hour flight in coach was stressful enough to make even Gandhi want to shoot someone.

But unlike Gandhi, Fran already had done so. A perimeter guard, when they’d driven up to the Butler House gate, had drawn his sidearm and fired at them as they drove up. No warning. No provocation. While Josh was driving the rental van, Fran had used her night scope to put a tight grouping of three into the guard’s chest from thirty meters.

Josh had expected an unwelcome reception, but nothing so blatant and aggressive. It only confirmed what he and Fran had suspected when they’d received the invitation; Butler House was a front for something very bad.

They pulled up to the house and parked in front, the element of surprise gone. Fran and Josh wore full body armor with chest trauma plates, and tactical ballistic helmets, as did Duncan. Woof had on a custom-made bulletproof dog sweater, which boasted a small saddle for Mathison. The capuchin didn’t like to wear body armor because it restricted his movement, but he did don a plastic army helmet that belonged to an old GI Joe action figure, simply because he didn’t like his family all dressing up without him.

“You got the wheel, son,” Josh told Duncan, climbing out of the driver seat and holding the door open for him. “If we come out in a hurry with wounded, can you handle it?”

“Yeah, Dad.”

Josh still beamed with pride every time his adopted son called him Dad.

“Keep the windows open. Listen to your surroundings.” He placed a loaded 9mm on the seat next to him, and turned on Duncan’s walkie-talkie. “Radio silence unless an emergency, but send two clicks every five minutes as the all clear signal.”

Fran leaned into the driver side window and kissed her son on the helmet. “Aim for the center mass, Duncan. Shoot to kill. This isn’t an exercise. It’s the real deal.”

“I know, Mom.”

“Love you. We’ll be back soon.”

“Love you, too.”

Josh did another check of his gear, then slung the AR-15 over his shoulder. He covered his wife as she rushed the front doors to Butler House and positioned herself on the right side of them. Then she covered him as he came up and took the left. Woof, with Mathison riding on his back like a jockey, heeled next to Josh.

Fran made the hand signal for “Ready?”

In a way, Josh had been ready for this moment since they’d survived the massacre at Safe Haven and had been forced to move out of the lower forty-eight. They’d been waiting, and training, for the day the bad guys finally came calling. After the phony FBI agents had shown up with their obvious bullshit invitation, the VanCamps had called a family meeting and voted. They could do nothing at all and wait for further developments. Or they could alert the media and spill everything, waiting for the inevitable repercussions. Or they could take the offensive.

In a unanimous vote, they decided to come to Butler House. If, as they suspected, another rogue military experiment was in progress, there would be innocent people in danger. Safe Haven had been a training exercise for psychotic killers, and Butler House smelled similar. The guard shooting at them when they arrived confirmed Josh’s suspicion.

Bad shit was going down.

And the only way for bad shit to triumph was for good people to do nothing.

The VanCamps weren’t the do nothing type. And Josh knew Duncan and Fran were just as sick of hiding from the past as he was. For years, they’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. To end what a top secret, imminently evil branch of the military had begun.

So there they were, taking the fight to the enemy, ready to finish this once and for all.

Josh nodded to his wife, and they moved into position to open the front doors to Butler House.

But the front doors opened for them.

Weapons at the ready, fingers on their triggers, Josh and Fran covered the two people who had been trying to leave. One, a man missing his right hand, who had bloody tears in his filthy clothing and a gash on his neck. The other, a woman with artificial legs. They shared the same terrified expression.

“Don’t move!” Fran barked.

They both froze, but the guy looked like he was about to try something.

“We’re the good guys,” Josh said, quickly trying to diffuse the situation. He had a feeling these people were victims, not the enemy.

“How do we know?” the man asked.

“We have a monkey and a dog,” Josh said. “Woof, speak.”

Woof barked and wagged his tail. Mathison waved.

“I was attacked by a monkey,” the man said. “Under a bed.”

“Not this monkey,” Josh replied. “We just showed up. Right, Mathison?”

Mathison nodded, then crossed his heart.

There were a few seconds of uncertainty. Josh decided, if he had to act, he’d try to use non-lethal force.

Then the woman with the prosthetics said, “I’m Deb. This is my husband Mal.” Her voice was raspy.

“You both got those invitations?” Fran asked.

Deb nodded.

“I’m Fran, and my husband Josh. Our son Duncan is in the car. We were invited, too.”

The tension seemed to dissipate. Josh sensed that like was recognizing like. Deb and Mal had that look Josh knew all too well. That I survived something awful look.

“Things went bad,” Mal said. “You have no idea what kind of hell is going on here.”

“Actually,” Fran said. “We do. And we’re ready for it. How many people inside?”

“Two are dead,” Mal told them. “One of us and one of them. Inside is a cop named Tom, a dancer named Moni, a psychic named Aabir, a biologist named Frank, a woman named Sara, and a ghost hunter named Pang.”

Deb shook her head. “Pang is possessed.”

“Possessed?” Josh asked.

“His eyes turned black and he freaked out.”

“Chemical agent?”

“Spirits,” Mal said. “There are at least five. A slave with four arms. A bleeding guy. A guy in a lab coat. A guy in a gas mask. And a guy with an eye patch and a whip. They’re ghosts or demons or something. Guns don’t work on them.”

Josh let that go for the moment. He’d seen some crazy shit himself and would never automatically reject the unusual. “Anyone else inside?”

Mal nodded. “Two doctors, Forenzi and Madison. Don’t know what side they’re on. And some guards in gray suits. At least four.”

“Some people may be down in the tunnels under the house,” Deb said. “It’s a maze down there.”

“Woof can find them once he gets their scent,” Fran said. “We couldn’t find any blueprints of the house online, so we don’t know the layout. We could use a tour, but if you two want to wait in the van with our son, we understand.”

Deb and Mal exchanged a look.

“Cops would take at least an hour to get here,” Deb said to her husband. “If we could even convince them to come.”

“I’m in if you are. I’m done with running.”

“Me too.”

“We’ll do it,” Mal said. “But we want lights and weapons.”

“Can you handle a firearm?” Josh asked.

“Guns don’t work on these things. What else you got?”

He gave Mal his tactical flashlight and his asp; a steep baton that extended when you snapped your wrist out. Fran did the same with Deb, and also gave her a can of pepper spray.

“Lead the way,” Josh said.

He sensed their reluctance to go back inside, but they did, which Josh admired.

“First guy died here.” Mal pointed to the large amount of blood on the floor.

Fran crouched down, picked up something. “Rubber bug. Looks like a roach.”

“Rubber?” Mal asked.

Fran leaned forward and found something else. Something shiny. She held it up. “Bullet casing. You said guns don’t work?”

“The cop emptied his gun into the one with the four arms. Thing didn’t even flinch.”

Josh unclipped his spare Maglite and played the beam along the floor, following it up the wall. He walked over, running his fingernail along it, then holding his hand to his nose.

“Wax. Could the cop be in on this? Using wax bullets instead of real ones?”

“You mean he’s been bullshitting us?” Mal asked. “He seemed legit, but I don’t know for sure. We just met him.”

“What’s that?” Fran asked, sweeping her light over to the chairs in the center of the great room.

Mal made a face. “That’s Wellington. Hon, don’t look.”

Mal put his arm around Deb, turning her away, while Josh and Fran went to investigate.

It was pretty awful.

“Looks like our hunch was right,” Fran said.

Josh nodded. They’d both seen similar things in Safe Haven.

“We were too late for this one,” he said. “Hopefully we won’t be too late for the others.”

Josh looked around the rest of the room. They’d spent several hours reading about Butler House, and Josh had prepared as much as possible. But now that he was inside, he couldn’t get over how creepy it felt. If ghosts really did exist, this is where they’d hang out.

His radio clicked twice—Duncan’s all clear signal. Woof got on the scent of something and then stood stock-still, growling low in his throat.

Everyone shined their lights—

—on a black man with four arms, dragging a machete.

“That’s who killed Wellington!” Mal said, stepping in front of Deb and raising his asp.

“Freeze!” Fran ordered, raising her weapon.

The four-armed man kept advancing, heading for Deb and Mal.

Josh fired a warning shot, putting three rounds into the floor in front of the man’s feet.

The supposed ghost stopped, dropped his machete, and then fell to one knee, pulling out a pistol from the back of his ratty pants.

Fran and Josh let loose. Their AR-15 rifles were loaded with 5.56 NATO cartridges and fired as quickly as they could pull the trigger.

The target took ten shots in the chest and didn’t drop. Josh adjusted for the head shot, but Fran beat him to it, taking off the back of the ghost’s head, dropping it where it stood.

“I guess bullets work,” Mal said.

Josh approached first, sensing his wife flanking him. He kicked away the enemy’s dropped weapon—a Colt 1911—and knelt next to him.

No pulse, obviously, but definitely made of flesh and blood and not ectoplasm. He touched one of the extra arms and it pulled off without too much effort.

Fake. Rubber and latex, glued on with spirit gum.

But he wasn’t wearing body armor. The fact that he took ten hits and didn’t go down scared the shit out of Josh. It was familiar, in a very bad way.

“He might have been enhanced somehow,” Josh told Fran.

“Red-Ops?” He heard fear in his wife’s voice.

“I don’t know.” Josh frowned, and his stomach clenched like a fist. “But if there are others, they’re going to be damn hard to kill.”

Sara

Sara stopped screaming.

The pain was beyond anything she could have ever imagined. Sara hadn’t looked, but she guessed her little finger had been chewed down to the bone. It was so intense, so unremitting, that it almost drowned out every other thought in her head.

Almost.

Because part of her brain was still able to think clearly, to focus. This was the worst thing Sara had ever endured, but in the middle of it all a bit of clarity broke through the misery and Sara latched onto it.

I’m a survivor.

Sara had lost so much on Rock Island. So much of who she was. She’d been so devastated, so diminished, by the experience, it had resulted in her losing even more. Her son. The one thing she had left. Taken from her.

And she finally understood why.

All along, Sara had been drowning in self-pity. Wondering how all of these terrible things could have happened to her. Blaming the universe, and trying to numb the pain rather than deal with it.

Child services had been right to take Jack. She had been unfit. But even when that happened…

I’m a survivor.

She’d taken the hits, and she was still here.

She’d lost everything, and she was still here.

She’d tried to kill herself with booze, and she was still here.

And if this psychotic Lester Paks/Blackjack Reedy ghost demon bastard chewed her entire arm off, Sara knew she would still be here.

I’m a survivor.

I’ll survive to straighten my life out.

I’ll survive to get my son back.

I will survive.

In a sea of agony, Sara latched on to that little Zen lifeboat. All she had to do was get through this one more ordeal.

As he started on the second finger, Sara closed her eyes imagined the life she once had, and could have again. Her son. A house. A job. Maybe even Frank, because as gentle and funny as he was, Sara knew he was survivor too, and suffering be damned they’d both get through this and—

“Hey! Ugly pirate guy! I’ll give you something something something to chew on!”

Frank!

Sara watched as Dr. Frank Belgium, his broken arm flopping uselessly at his side, ran into the room brandishing a gigantic wooden mallet and smashing a surprised Blackjack Reedy right in his face.

Blood and sharp teeth went flying. Blackjack went down. And then Moni was on top of him, hitting him over and over again with an iron bar until the monster stopped moving.

“Oh dear dear dear.” Frank fumbled with the straps on her restraint chair, setting her free and then trying to examine the damage to her fingers.

Sara didn’t care about her fingers. She threw her arms around Frank’s neck, so overwhelmed with absolute joy that she started bawling.

“If you need need need some painkiller,” he said, “heroin gets my highest endorsement.”

“I don’t need anything.” Sara had never spoken truer words. “Except you.”

“Well… that’s… that’s pretty terrific.”

“You saved the girl, Doc.” Moni said. “Kiss her already.”

Sara offered her tilted chin, and Frank kissed her. There was a lot more heat this time, and for a brief, glorious moment, all the pain Sara felt just melted away until the only thing in the whole world was Frank’s lips on hers.

“Okay,” Moni said, interrupting the moment. “You guys gonna fuck, or are we getting the hell out of here?”

Frank pulled back enough to look at her, and he had a twinkle in his eye that told Sara he was weighing his options.

“We’re going,” Sara said, and she noted it was said with some reluctance.

“Okay. And you might want to put a bandage or something on your hand. It’s gross.”

Sara finally looked at the damage that had been done, and wondered why she was holding some raw hamburger.

That’s not raw hamburger. That’s my hand.

And she promptly passed out.

Duncan

Duncan VanCamp sat behind the wheel of the Dodge Caravan and wondered why he wasn’t more scared.

Though he was just a kid when all the bad stuff happened in Safe Haven, he still thought about it a lot. And sometimes, when he was alone in his room at night, he was frightened enough to turn on his closet light.

But everything since then had been great. He loved Josh like he was his real dad. He loved living in Hawaii. He had cool friends. He’d even been seeing a few girls. When he went to the beach with Woof and Mathison, girls would flock around him like he was a celebrity. And these weren’t like the girls in his freshman high school classes. These girls were older. One was even eighteen, and she kissed Duncan and they texted each other a lot, even though he told his buddies it wasn’t serious because he was too young to get tied down.

But now here he was, thousands of miles away from home, helping his parents clean up the mess that began at Safe Haven.

He should have been freaked out. This wasn’t kid stuff. This was real serious shit. People dying, government cover-ups, experimental military super commandos. But as Mom and Josh had told him too many times to count, praemonitus praemunitus; forewarned is forearmed.

In other words, if you’re always prepared for anything, you can never be surprised.

So Duncan took judo classes, and learned to shoot and field strip various firearms, and was able to wake up from a dead sleep and get into the panic room in less than thirty seconds. He didn’t find any of that strange. It was just part of his daily life.

He checked his watch, then reached for the walkie-talkie on the passenger seat next to the 9mm and tapped the talk button twice, giving his parents the all clear signal once again. The night, and the fields, and the house, was all pretty spooky. But Duncan kept cool. He’d just seen Mom shoot some dude, and it didn’t bug him at all. Dude shouldn’t have shot first. Duh. You can’t expect to act violent and not expect violence in retaliation.

Praemonitus praemunitus.

Duncan placed his hands on the steering wheel. The van was parked, the engine not running, but Duncan had already driven three times, even though he still hadn’t gotten his permit, and he was pretty sure he knew what he was doing. He went through the start-up procedure, like Josh had taught him.

Put on his seatbelt. Done.

Check to make sure all of his mirrors were adjusted. Done.

Keys in the ignition, foot on the brake. Done.

Then Duncan pretended to start the van. In his mind he put it into drive and pulled onto the H2 Freeway in Mililani. He had Jenni, the eighteen-year-old he’d kissed, in the passenger seat. She was wearing a halter top, and her boobs were huge. If Duncan had a chance to kiss her again, he’d have to try to touch one and—

Something dark appeared in the passenger window.

Duncan turned and looked, but there wasn’t anything there.

Weird. He would have sworn that—

The walkie-talkie that had been on the seat.

It was gone.

Duncan looked up, finding the interior light on the ceiling, switching it on. The radio wasn’t on the floor. Could it have fallen between the seat and the door? If so, how?

He leaned over, trying to see, but the seatbelt only stretched so far. So he unbuckled it, opened the door, and walked to the front of the van. The moon was out, but not very bright. And there were no lights on in Butler House. Only the interior light of the van.

Then that winked off.

In Hawaii, even the darkest night was bright with stars, alive with sounds. This place was dark and dead. No frogs, no insects, no birds. The night was like a smothering blanket, covering Duncan’s eyes and ears.

And he was afraid.

He hurried around to the passenger side, no longer caring about the radio, much more interested in getting that 9mm pistol Josh had left him in his hand. Duncan swung open the door, reaching for the seat.

The gun wasn’t there.

He felt all the old fears come back and climb onto his shoulders, weighing him down, pinning him so he couldn’t react.

Then he pushed all the fear away. This was being forewarned. Now what did he need to do to protect himself?

When he didn’t check in, his parents would come back for him. That meant holding his position until they arrived.

Duncan immediately climbed into the van and crawled into the driver seat. He locked both doors, and rolled up the windows as he hit the overhead light again.

As soon as it went on, something lunged out of the backseat and attacked Duncan with a scalpel, driving it into the boy’s shoulder.

Tom

Torble held the glowing branding iron in front of Tom’s nose.

“This liquid smoke crap Forenzi insisted I spray all over my body, so I smell like Sturgis Butler burned at the stake, it’s not right. I mean, it seems to scare people just fine. But the odor is off. As I told you in prison today, the real smell of searing flesh is much tastier.”

Torble tore the buttons off Tom’s shirt, exposing his bare chest. Just as he stepped back, Tom lashed out with his foot, trying to kick away the poker.

He missed. By a lot.

“Seriously?” Torble said, looking amused. “That was your big move? How long have you been planning that one?”

“A while,” Tom admitted.

“That was pathetic, man. I mean, I’m actually embarrassed for you.”

“It went better in my head.”

“How so?”

“I kicked the poker, it went flying up into the air, and burned my rope off, freeing me.”

Torble nodded. “That would have been pretty cinematic. But instead we’ll have to settle for this.”

When the branding iron touched Tom’s chest, the sensation defied description. He’d been hurt before. Badly. Plus there were all the common, human pains everyone had to deal with. Toothaches. Back strains. Ear infections. Kidney stones. Kicked in the balls.

This was worse than all of that, happening all at once, confined to one small section of Tom’s body, multiplied by ten.

It hurt like hell.

The next thing Tom knew, he was being slapped in the face. When he woke up, the pain was still there.

“You passed out,” Torble said. “And you’re crying. It’s really disappointing, Tom. Aren’t you supposed to be the hero? The one who rushes in to save the day?”

The branding iron was back in the stove. Tom was shivering all over, and the tears wouldn’t stop.

“You smell that?” Torble took a big, exaggerated sniff. “That’s you. Isn’t it the most succulent scent? I confess, sometimes when I had a whore down here, the smell was so overpowering that I took a little nibble. I’ll try to refrain from doing that with you, Detective. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. But if I do have a moment of weakness, I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Tom kept looking at the stove.

“Don’t worry, Tom. It’ll be ready shortly. Iron holds its heat pretty well. If you’re anxious, I can have two irons going at once, so one is always heating up. I’ve also got some pincers we can try. They snip out a bit of flesh while they’re burning you.”

Torble came over, gave Tom a gentle poke in his new burn.

“I believe that’s going to leave a scar, Detective. That is, it would, if you lived long enough for it to heal. I have to say, you look really frightened right now.”

Torble moved closer.

“Don’t you have anything at all to say, Tom? No begging me to stop? No threats? Don’t worry, you’ll open up. You’ll tell me all about your life. Try to get my sympathy. Try to distract me. By the end of the day, I’ll know everything about you. Your hopes and dreams. Your fears. All the little secrets you’re too embarrassed to even tell your lover. It’s a bonding experience, Tom.”

Then Torble stuck out his tongue and gave Tom’s burn a slow lick.

“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. But it is delicious. You’ll also be able to taste it for yourself, when I use the branding iron on your lips.”

Torble went back to the stove, and Tom felt a scream welling up inside. A scream, if let out, would continue until his voice was gone.

“Mr. Torble, you’re needed immediately.”

Dr. Forenzi had come back into the room. He appeared agitated.

Torble’s eyebrows furrowed. “What for?”

“We have some intruders, and they’re causing some problems.”

“How about all your super military killing machines? Why don’t you get them to help?”

“Everyone is helping, Mr. Torble. Now please come with me.”

Torble blew Tom a kiss, then followed Forenzi out of the room.

Tom let out a sob, and then considered his options. As far as he could tell, he only had one. Try and use his feet to pull one of his IV tubs out of the dialysis machine, and then hopefully bleed to death before Torble returned.

A pretty shitty option. And though it was preferable to being tortured to death with a branding iron, Tom wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. Where there was time, there was hope. If there were even a slim chance he might get out of there alive, and see Joan again, he had to take that chance. Even if it meant days of unbearable agony.

What the fuck am I thinking?

Tom kicked out, grabbing the tube between his toes, yanking it free. Then he began to hyperventilate so his heart beat quicker, pumping blood out of his body at a faster rate. If he got lucky, he’d be in hypovolemic shock before Torble returned.

“Tom!”

He looked at the doorway, and saw Moni, Frank, and Sara.

“Oh my god,” Moni cried. “You’re bleeding all over!”

“Good thing you got here in time,” Tom said. “Hurry up and cut me down.”

No one had a knife, but Tom told them his original idea of burning the rope with the branding iron. Moni was able to untie his hands and remove his IVs, and Dr. Belgium offered him heroin.

Tom demurred. “I’m good, Frank. Where are the others?”

“We lost Deb. Mal went off to find her.”

“Okay, we look for them, then get the hell out of here.”

Much as he loathed it, Tom took the branding iron as a weapon, and they crept out into the hallway so search for survivors.

Fran

Woof took the lead, sniffing down the hallway with Mathison jockeying him, and Fran followed two steps behind. She’d mounted a flashlight on the rail of her AR-15, lighting the way as they pushed into the bowels of Butler House.

The house was creepy, that was for sure. Mal and Deb continued to contribute snippets as to what had gone down that night, and Fran was happy she’d missed that particular party. She also wondered what possessed these people, who seemed smart and capable, to come here in the first place.

Then again, Fran and her family had shown up as well. Better prepared, perhaps, and playing by a different set of rules. But Fran came here to exorcize her past demons same as the Dieters did. She just brought bigger guns.

Woof stopped, growling. The dog could track, but hadn’t ever learned to point. That was okay, because Mathison did point, directly at a hallway door opening up.

Fran dropped to one knee, giving Josh a clear shot over her head.

A man stepped into the hall and faced them. Tall, thin, wearing a dirty white jacket and holding a leather bag and some sort of saw. Like the four-armed man in the great room, he also had eyes that were completely black.

“Colton Butler,” Mal said.

Fran shivered, memories of Safe Haven pushing into her head, of the fear and helplessness, and then she returned to the here and now and sighted the target’s head.

“Drop the weapon,” she ordered. “We have real bullets.”

Colton Butler rushed at them.

Fran wasn’t sure who made the head shot, her or Josh, but the wannabe ghost went down in a pink mist of blood. When he hit the floor, the top of his skull gone, what was left of his brains spilled out like a tipped bowl of oatmeal.

Fran had experience trying to kill enhanced psychopaths. They didn’t die easily. But that was so simple it was almost unfair.

“They can hear, right?” Fran asked.

“I think they’re on a drug that eliminates fear,” Deb said. “That’s what they’re making here.”

Fran got up from her crouch. A drug that eliminated fear. On one hand, something like that could be a huge benefit to mankind. On the other, Fran didn’t relish the idea of an entire army made up of kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers.

She changed her magazine, snapped her fingers, and Woof continued to sniff his way down the hall.

“Entrance to the tunnels is up ahead,” Mal said.

Woof was already on it, scratching at the door and whining. Fran opened it, illuminating the stairwell.

“It’s a maze down there,” Mal told her. “We’ll need a string to find our way back.”

Fran hadn’t packed a string, but she and Josh each had a sack of reusable road flares. She took one out, flipped the switch, and dropped the red light on the top stair.

“I got point, Woof.”

The dog looked at her, wagging his tail, and Fran descended the stairs first. Rather than the expected basement, Fran found herself in a tunnel. She dropped another flare and whistled for Woof. Once again the beagle took the lead.

“Time?” Fran asked.

“Duncan is thirty seconds late,” her husband answered. Fran listened to her walkie-talkie click three times—their signal for Duncan to respond.

There wasn’t an answer.

“Duncan, come in,” Fran said into the radio.

Her son didn’t reply.

“I’m going,” Josh said, turning around and breaking into a run.

“Mathison!” Fran said. “Find Duncan!”

The capuchin monkey hopped off Woof and scrambled up the stairs, faster than Josh could move.

“Duncan, are you there?” Fran said again.

Still no answer.

Fran’s mind tortured her with nightmare scenarios. She and Josh had fought over whether to bring Duncan along or leave him in Hawaii. They’d ultimately decided to take him in case those fake feds came back. Fran figured she could better protect her son while she was with him, instead of him being home alone.

But now she regretted that decision more than she’d ever regretted anything. Could someone have taken her son? Could someone have hurt him?

Killed him?

“Duncan, it’s Mom. Please answer me.”

Then the radio exploded in Fran’s hand, and three more bullets peppered her back and she fell to the ground.

Duncan

The scalpel poked at Duncan’s bulletproof vest, four times in rapid succession, and then Duncan lashed out to swipe at his attacker and got stabbed in his palm.

He recoiled, batting at the blade blindly, and then something was in his lap, something Duncan recognized instinctively, and when he reached for it his hands locked around the waist of a monkey.

Mathison?

No. This primate was bigger by a half, its fur different, rougher. Duncan grabbed tight and pinned it to the steering wheel, hitting the van’s horn. In the glow of the van’s interior light, Duncan saw this was a much different animal than Mathison was. Besides being larger, it had huge, red eyes, almost like a lemur.

The monkey screeched, poking with the scalpel, digging it into Duncan’s forearms.

Duncan managed to throw the little monster into the back seat, and then he fumbled for the door handle and tumbled out of the vehicle, landing on his back.

The monkey pounced on him, landing on Duncan’s chest, bringing the scalpel up to the boy’s bare throat.

There was a screech, loud and shrill and—

—coming from the front of the van.

Mathison!

The little capuchin stood there, wearing his silly little plastic GI Joe helmet, his teeth bared.

The monkey on Josh screeched a reply.

Mathison gave him the finger.

Josh’s attacker hopped off and howled, stretching out its long arms, the scalpel glinting in the van’s interior light.

Mathison calmly removed his helmet, and took out the C1ST miniature revolver holstered inside of it. The smallest handgun in the world.

The psychotic primate charged at Mathison.

Mathison stood his ground and fired five rounds of 2.34mm ammo, each shot hitting home.

His opponent spun, facing Duncan, who saw that Mathison had put rounds through both of its oversized eyes. The monkey flopped over, dead.

“Mathison!” Duncan yelled, overjoyed. In sign language, the boy told his friend, “Thanks. I love you.”

Mathison put the revolver back under his helmet and signed back, “Stupid simian. Brings a knife to a gun fight.”

Then he hurried over and gave Duncan a hug. Duncan hugged him back.

“Duncan!”

Josh ran up, gun at the ready. He stared at Josh and Mathison, and at the dead monkey.

“We’re okay, Dad.”

Josh spoke into his radio. “He’s fine, Fran.”

Mom didn’t respond.

“Stay in the van, lock the doors,” Josh told him. “Mathison, stay with him.”

The monkey saluted, and Duncan’s dad ran off, back toward Butler House. But before he reached the doors, two men in gray suits walked out and began shooting.

Tom

He had no idea where he was going, but Tom somehow had taken the lead, wandering through the endless underground tunnels without the slightest idea where he was going.

“That’s new.”

Sara pointed, with her good hand, to some steel doors.

Tom went through first, clenching the branding iron. It was a lab, lots of equipment on various counters, a table in the corner of the room, and standing next to the table—

Dr. Forenzi.

Tom set his jaw and raised the branding iron, beelining for the son of a bitch, when something he saw stopped him in mid-stride.

Strapped to the table. Shirtless. Bleeding. Hooked up to one of those dialysis machines.

Roy!

His friend had so many wounds he looked like he’d been pecked to death by dozens of birds. But he wasn’t dead. He was breathing.

Forenzi quickly took a revolver from his coat pocket and pointed it at Roy’s head.

“That’s close enough, Detective. Drop the weapon.”

Tom released his grip, letting it clatter on the tile floor.

“You and your friends have proven extremely resourceful,” Forenzi said. “I’m impressed. But your little coup d’état has failed, I’m afraid. If you take one step closer I’m going to shoot your partner and—”

Moni ran straight at Forenzi, smacking him upside the head with her metal bar. Forenzi fell to the floor, and she continued to hit him until Tom pulled her off.

“Let him stand trial,” Tom said. When he was sure she’d calmed down, he pocketed Forenzi’s gun and went to Frank and Sara, who were doing their best to release Roy each using only one hand.

“Hey, buddy, can you hear me?”

Roy mumbled something, but he was completely out of it. He needed immediate medical attention. Tom helped them undo the straps binding his partner, and then they helped him off the table.

He couldn’t even stand.

Tom looked around for a wheelchair or a gurney, and saw Moni in the corner of the lab, spilling chemicals onto the floor.

“What are you doing?”

Moni smiled, lighting a match. “I’m burning this fucking place to the ground.”

“Moni! Don’t—”

She dropped it, and there was a WHOOSH! of flame, spreading out across the floor.

“Everyone! Move!” Tom ordered. With Sara and Frank’s help, they dragged Roy out of the lab and into the tunnels—

—where Torble was waiting with a gun.

Before Tom could draw, Torble fired, shooting Frank Belgium in the chest.

Tom fired back as Torble ran off into the darkness.

Frank was down on his back. Tom set down Roy and knelt next to Frank, ripping open his shirt.

The bullet hole was near his heart, gushing bubbles of blood.

Sara was crouching next to Frank, her good hand holding his. “Frank, oh Frank, oh god.”

Frank stared at her. “It’s okay. I don’t don’t don’t feel anything.”

Sara looked at Tom, her eyes imploring. “Don’t let him die. Please.”

“Hold your hand here,” Tom said, placing it on Frank’s wound. “Keep pressure on it. Moni?”

“Yeah?”

“My room. The first aid kit in my suitcase.”

“I’m on it.” Moni ran off.

There was another gunshot, from the opposite direction. The bullet pinged into the metal door, inches from Tom’s head.

Torble.

“I’ve got to go after him,” Tom said.

Sara shook her head. “Don’t leave!”

“If I don’t, he’ll stay in the shadows and kill us all. I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on my partner.”

Then Tom ran after Torble, plunging headlong into the darkness.

Forenzi

Dr. Forenzi smelled smoke and opened his eyes.

Smoke had indeed filled the lab, and he was surrounded on all sides by fire.

His head hurt. So did his chest. But those pains paled next to the abject terror he felt by being trapped in a burning room. Everywhere he looked the flames stretched to the ceiling. There would be no escape.

Please. Don’t let me burn. Not like this. Anything but this.

Forenzi had never been badly burned, but he saw the pain and fear it caused in his patients. Torture with fire was one of the most effective ways to harvest metusamine.

Now that he was surrounded by fire, about to be roasted alive, the irony wasn’t lost on him.

But maybe I don’t need to be afraid of it.

Next to him on the floor, like an answer to a prayer, was a syringe of Serum 3. Forenzi had never used it on himself, but now seemed like the perfect time.

He bared his forearm and expertly gave himself an injection of his life’s work.

The effect was immediate and stunning.

His fear vanished instantly, to the point where Forenzi couldn’t even remember what fear felt like. It was replaced by an overwhelming sense of well-being.

He stood up, chin raised, chest out. The flames closed in around him, but Forenzi didn’t care one bit. Even as his coat caught fire, it didn’t matter to him. Forenzi felt invincible.

But in short order, it did begin to hurt.

Quite a lot.

As he burned, Forenzi wasn’t frightened at all, even when the pain became intolerable. And it occurred to him that being scared might actually be a good thing. Soldiers without fear would rush blindly into a firefight without taking the proper precautions. Nations without fear would hit that nuclear launch without considering the consequences.

“Maybe this wasn’t my best idea.” Forenzi thought as the flames ignited his hair.

Then his brain boiled and he didn’t think about anything anymore.

Fran

She hit the dirt, falling onto her chest, bringing up her rifle and not bothering to check if the shots had penetrated her vest or not. Fran quickly sighted the targets, all armed with handguns. An Asian man with black eyes, a woman dressed as a gypsy, also with black eyes, and a guy in a gray suit.

None of them were even attempting to take cover. They walked up the hallway, guns extended, acting as if they were bulletproof.

They weren’t. Fran took them out with three quick head shots.

“Clear!” she yelled to Mal and Deb, who had all fallen back.

Then she checked herself for damage. The Kevlar had stopped the rounds, but it still hurt like hell. Like someone had worked her over with a sledgehammer.

“Help! Help!”

Fran raised her weapon, saw a woman coming at her. She had at least a dozen bleeding wounds on her, and appeared unarmed.

“It’s Moni,” Deb said. “She’s with us!”

Fran covered her anyway.

“Frank got shot,” Moni said. “Sara is with him. There’s also another man who needs help. I’m getting a first aid kit. Also, someone may have started a fire.”

Moni ran past. Fran got off the ground and followed Woof as he led them down two turns and straight to the wounded. There was smoke, and it was quickly filling the tunnel.

Fran glanced at the man who was shot, and the other man, who looked like he’d been dropped in a blender on puree.

She didn’t see how either of them were going to survive.

But she shouldered her rifle and helped just the same.

Moni

She wasn’t quite sure where she was going, but she was in a damn big hurry to get there. It didn’t help that the only light she had was the matches she’d found in the lab, and she had to stop constantly to light one to see where she was.

By some extreme stroke of luck, she found the stairs to the upper level, and less than a minute later she was opening the door to Tom’s room.

Her match went out as soon as she entered. As Moni began to strike another one, she heard something that scared the shit out of her.

“Hee hee hee hee.”

Lighting the match, Moni saw she was standing next to a bloody guy with a gas mask on, holding a huge meat cleaver.

“Hee hee,” he said.

Moni cracked him upside the head with her iron bar, and when he fell she kept beating him until he stopped moving.

“What’s so goddamn funny now, asshole?”

She lit one of the candles in the room and held it while she searched, finding Tom’s suitcase open on the bed. The first aid kit was on top, and Moni grabbed it and ran out of the room—

—right into that psycho who shot Frank. The one who smelled like barbecue.

She swung the metal bar, but he ducked and came up behind her, getting Moni in a choke hold. He pressed the gun to her temple.

“Time to die, whore.”

Tom

Torble ran as soon as he saw Tom coming, and after rounding a corner he ducked into a room. Tom followed, going in low, and saw he was in a root cellar.

An empty root cellar.

Torble had disappeared.

Tom looked around, but the room was completely empty. No place to hide. No exits. It didn’t make any sense.

Then he recalled the Butler House website, which talked extensively about secret passages and hidden staircases. Walking to the far wall, he ran his hand across the brick until he found a seam. Tom pushed against it, and it swung on hinges, exposing an old, wooden ladder.

Tom looked up, unable to see where it led. He went up anyway, climbing in the dark, expecting Torble to shoot him at any moment. The smarter thing to do was to go back, meet with the others, and get the hell out. But Tom didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, waiting for Torble to come calling. He wanted to finish this, today.

The ladder ended in a small, dark room the size of a closet. Tom found a latch, pushed it open, and then he saw he was on the second floor of Butler House, the only light coming from a candle—

—that Moni held. And behind Moni…

“Hello, Detective. What are you going to do now?”

Tom aimed at Torble’s head.

“Don’t you remember?” Tom said. “I’m the hero, rushing in to save the day.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’re going to drop the gun, or I’ll blow this whore’s head off.”

“I’m not a whore anymore,” Moni said. “And I’m getting goddamn sick of all these goddamn psychos trying to hurt me.”

Moni thrust the candle behind her, into Torble’s face.

He cried out, letting her go.

She dropped to the floor.

Tom fired three times, two in his chest and one in his head.

Then he rushed over, pulling the gun out of Torble’s dead hand.

“Not bad for a pig,” Moni appraised. “I got your kit. Let’s go save Frank.”

They ran for the stairs as smoke began to fill Butler House.

Duncan

The men in gray walked out of the house and began shooting at Josh. He watched as his Dad was hit in both legs, watched as he fell to the ground, pinning his rifle underneath his body, unable to return fire.

The men kept shooting.

Duncan jumped into the van and didn’t remember anything Josh taught him.

He didn’t put on his seatbelt.

He didn’t check his mirrors.

He didn’t put his foot on the brake when he started the engine.

He just cranked it and mashed the gas pedal to the floor, the van spinning tires, and headed straight for those assholes shooting his father. They didn’t even try to get out of the way as he ran them both over, splattering the hood and windshield with blood.

Then he hit the brakes, threw the van into park, and ran to Josh.

“Dad!”

“I’m okay,” he said. “Just winged in the legs. Come here.”

Duncan knelt down and hugged his father, hugged him so tight.

“Nice driving, son.”

Duncan began to cry. “I forgot to wear my seatbelt.”

Josh patted his back. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay. You did really, really good.”

And they held each other until Mom and Woof appeared with a group of people, including two wounded. A moment later, two more people came out of Butler House, a man and a woman. The woman helped Mom use a first aid kit on Dad, bandaging his legs. The man put some sort of plastic disk on another guy’s chest, the guy who had been either stabbed or shot.

“I hope hope hope heaven has heroin,” the shot guy said.

Then everyone got into the van and Mom drove away. Duncan watched through the back window, petting Woof, Mathison perched on his shoulder, as Butler House burned, lighting up the night sky.

Epilogue

At Bon Secours-St. Francis Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, Dr. Frank Belgium died on the operating table at 12:52am from a gunshot wound to the chest.

He was resuscitated at 12:53am.

When he regained consciousness eight hours later, he asked the duty nurse for heroin. He repeated himself three times. He was administered morphine instead.

The woman who was admitted with him, Sara Randhurst, had eighty three stitches in her fingers, which she demanded be done in Frank’s room because she refused to leave his side.

Both were expected to make a full recovery. As was Chicago Homicide Detective Roy Lewis, who was treated for shock, dehydration, and multiple burns, cuts, and contusions.

Josh VanCamp, also treated for GSWs, left the hospital after treatment against doctor’s orders. He and his wife Fran called an immediate press conference, where they were joined by Mal and Deb Deiter. They all spoke at length about what had occurred at Butler House, and about what happened years ago in Safe Haven, Wisconsin.

Public outcry was universal. Full investigations were demanded.

Butler House burned for two full days, until almost nothing remained. What was left was bulldozed over by the state.

During the demolition, four construction workers reported seeing ghosts, and one was fatally injured when a piece of equipment malfunctioned, crushing him. When tested later, the equipment appeared to be in perfect working order.

FOUR WEEKS LATER

Hollywood, California

Tom

The sun beat down on Tom as he sprawled out on the chaise lounge, baking him almost as brown as Roy, who occupied the chaise to his right.

The Hotel Roosevelt was one of Joan’s hang outs, and she’d pulled some strings and gotten them suites for practically free. Tom’s Sam Adams was almost empty, and he was going to do rock, paper, scissors with Roy for who got the next round when a very pretty little blonde in a teeny little bikini came up to them.

“Ooh, how did you get all those scars?” she asked Roy.

“I’m a cop. I was tortured for a week by some maniacs dressed as ghosts. Shot me, too. You heard of Butler House?”

The swimsuit model’s eyes got wide. “Oh my gosh! You were at Butler House?”

Roy nodded. “Lemme buy you a cocktail, I’ll tell you all about it.”

Roy took her hand and led her to the poolside tiki bar.

“He’s adjusting well,” Joan said. She was in the chaise on Tom’s other side. Also in a bikini, also very pretty.

“Roy doesn’t remember most of it. I think he’s going to be okay.”

“Are you?”

He reached out and held her hand. “I’m getting better every day.”

Joan took a sip of lemonade. She had to visit a shoot later, so she wasn’t drinking. “That hooker. Moni. She’s a real trip. Killed three of those psychos by herself. Amazing woman.”

“No kidding. And she’s not a hooker. She’s a dominatrix. No sex. Just figging.”

“What’s figging?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Joan whipped out her iPhone and Googled it. A moment later she made a face.

“Figging is sticking a ginger root up someone’s butt. It is supposed to cause an intense burning sensation. Why would anyone willingly do that?”

“I said you didn’t want to know. And thanks for finding a press agent for her.”

“Are you kidding? I’m going to produce the movie. There’s a bidding war now for her story. Up to seven figures.”

Tom shook his head, amused as hell. So she finally got her million bucks. Go, Moni.

“Am I going to be a character in the flick?” Tom asked.

“Maybe.”

“Who is going to play me?”

“We’re talking to Nick Cage’s people.”

“Nicholas Cage? Really?

“No. But Jason Alexander is interested.”

“George from Seinfeld?”

“He’s got some serious drama chops.”

Tom shrugged and drained his beer. The sun felt glorious, except for on the scar on his chest, which still hurt like hell a month later. Burns sucked.

“Mind if I ask you something?” Joan said. “Something personal?”

“Shoot.”

“When you were being branded, did you ever want to give up?”

Tom turned to her. “Who? Me? Of course not.”

“What kept you going?”

“Thoughts of you, of course. I realized I couldn’t let him break me, because then I’d never see your face again.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Joan leaned over and gave him a peck on the lips. “I call bullshit.”

“As soon as Torble left, I kicked out the IV to try and bleed to death.”

“That I believe.”

“But I did think of you.”

“I’m sure.”

“I did. I swear.”

Tom gave her a quick, but tender, peck on the cheek.

“So you really want to quit the force?” she asked.

“Yeah. Roy and I are thinking about opening up a fishing charter business.”

“In California?”

“I heard they have an ocean somewhere close.”

Joan ran a finger across his belly and grinned. “I think I could get used to having you around all the time.”

“I could, too.”

“And I remembered something. Something you asked me about. Last time I was at your place, I was watching you take a shower.”

“Pervert.”

“That was the night we drank all that wine. So I think it was me who wrote I’m watching you on your mirror.”

Tom laughed. That was the last thing that had nagged him about the whole Butler House experience, and now it had been resolved. Case closed. Time to get on with life.

“You know what?” he said.

“What?”

“I think I’d like to watch you take a shower.”

“Peeping Tom, huh?” She smiled and sat up. “Race you to our room. Loser washes the winner’s back.”

Joan won.

But Tom was the one who really did.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Frank

Dr. Frank Belgium was sitting in his easy chair, Jack on his lap. The boy was an absolute marvel. Cute. Smart. More fun than Frank ever could have imagined.

Even if he hadn’t married his mother, he would have still wanted Jack around.

“Ma ma ma,” Jack said.

“I think he wants you,” Frank said to Sara. “He said mama.”

Sara got up off the sofa and took Jack in her arms. “He didn’t say mama. He said ma ma ma. He repeated his word three times.”

“Hmm. Now where do you think he picked that up?”

“Where do you think?”

“Do I do do do that?”

“Yes you do do do.”

They exchanged a smile. The moment was interrupted by the doorbell.

Frank moved to get up, but Sara told him to stay put.

“I’m not an invalid, dear. The doctor said I need the exercise.”

He pulled himself out of the chair, wincing at the slight pain from his still-healing wound, and used his cane to make it to the front door.

Frank didn’t like what he saw in the peephole. Two men in black suits. One holding a Secret Service badge.

“Who is it?” Sara asked.

“It’s for me. I’ve got got got it.” Frank opened the door a crack. “Can I help you?”

“Dr. Frank Belgium? The President sent us. Your country needs you.”

“Tell the President I’m not interested.”

“Please, sir. Can we have just one moment of your time?”

Frank was thrown by how polite they were. Asking, not demanding. Reserved, not threatening.

“I’m done with all this,” he said. “I have a family now.”

“Believe me, Dr. Belgium, your country recognizes the sacrifices you’ve made, and they are appreciated. But we truly need your help. Even if it is only on an advisory basis.”

Frank sighed, then let them in. “Okay, but but but let’s keep it in the hallway. I don’t want you upsetting my wife or son.”

He let them in, and one of them handed Frank a manila folder. Frank didn’t want to take it. As if sensing his reluctance, the agent opened it and held a picture for Belgium to see.

It was of a cow. A very dead cow, almost stripped to the bone.

“I’m a very good scientist, gentlemen, but even I don’t think I can help help help you save that cow.”

“Here is a close-up of the lower right hand section of the picture, Dr. Belgium.”

He held up a second photo, grainier, zooming in to the cow’s ribcage.

Perched there, staring into the camera, was a tiny, red creature with bat wings and large horns.

“Do you recognize that, Dr. Belgium? We believe it is one of the demons that escaped from the facility you worked at. Project Samhain.”

The biologist made a face, and the first thought that popped into his mind escaped his lips before he could stop it.

“Uh oh.”

About J.A. Konrath

Joe Konrath is the author of more than twenty novels and dozens of shorter works in the mystery, thriller, horror, and science fiction genres. He's sold over a two million books worldwide, and besides Tracy Sharp he's collaborated with bestsellers Blake Crouch, Barry Eisler, Ann Voss Peterson, Henry Perez, Tom Schreck, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson. He likes beer, pinball machines, and playing pinball when drinking beer. Visit him at at www.JAKonrath.com.

ALSO BY J.A. KONRATH

Jack Daniels Thrillers

Whiskey Sour

Bloody Mary

Rusty Nail

Dirty Martini

Fuzzy Navel

Cherry Bomb

Shaken

Stirred (with Blake Crouch)

Last Call (with Blake Crouch)

Shot of Tequila

Banana Hammock

Jack Daniels Stories (collected stories)

Serial Killers Uncut (with Blake Crouch)

Suckers (with Jeff Strand)

Planter’s Punch (with Tom Schreck)

Floaters (with Henry Perez)

Truck Stop (short)

Flee (with Ann Voss Peterson)

Spree (with Ann Voss Peterson)

Three (with Ann Voss Peterson)

Hit (with Ann Voss Peterson)

Exposed (with Ann Voss Peterson)

Naughty (with Ann Voss Peterson)

Babe on Board (short with Ann Voss Peterson)

With a Twist (short)

Street Music (short)

Jacked Up! (with Tracy Sharp)

Racked (with Jude Hardin)

Straight up (with Iain Rob Wright)

Cheese Wrestling (with Bernard Schaffer)

Snake Wine (with Bernard Schaffer)

Other Works

Symbios

Timecaster

Timecaster Supersymmetry

Wild Night is Calling (short with Ann Voss Peterson)

Shapeshifters Anonymous (short)

The Screaming (short)

Afraid (writing as Jack Kilborn)

Endurance (writing as Jack Kilborn)

Trapped (writing as Jack Kilborn)

Haunted House (writing as Jack Kilborn)

Draculas (with Blake Crouch, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson)

Origin

The List

Disturb

65 Proof (short story omnibus)

Crime Stories (collected stories)

Horror Stories (collected stories)

Dumb Jokes & Vulgar Poems

A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing

Be the Monkey (with Barry Eisler)

Grandma? (with Talon Konrath)

A JACK KILBORN TRILOGY: ORIGIN – THE LIST – HAUNTED HOUSE
Copyright © 2013 by Joe Konrath

HAUNTED HOUSE is copyright © 2013 by Joe Konrath
ORIGIN and THE LIST are copyright © 2009 by Joe Konrath

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

First Ebook Edition: December 2013

The interior design of this ebook was done by Rob Siders at http://www.52Novels.com.

The cover art was done by Carl Graves at http://extendedimagery.com.