Birds of Prey

“Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it,” Porter said.

Mr. K’s lips twisted up in a small, private smile. “I don’t take checks either, Mr. Porter.”

“I have some cash. And guns. I’ve got plenty of guns, some of them are worth big money. I can make you a deal.”

Mr. K nodded, pretending to think it over. Then he lashed out, smacking Porter in the side of the head, the butt of his nine finding the sweet spot and sending the flabby man to the floor.

Javier

The light was fading, and the crowd dispersing, a cold, winter breeze pushing through his hair like the fingers of a corpse.

Javier walked out of the tent carrying the box that contained his new Glock, and still puzzling over Luther.

He didn’t quite know what to think of the man with long, black hair. He’d been ready to murder him in that bathroom, risks be damned. But once they’d started talking, he’d realized there was something wrong with the man. Something deeply disturbed in the best sense of the word.

He hadn’t looked into a pair of eyes like that in…well, since he’d shaved this morning.

It took him five minutes to reach the G35, which he’d left in the parking lot of a bank, and he was just a few steps from the car when he heard it.

Soft, but certainly audible, a knocking on the underside of the Infiniti’s trunk.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She’d woken up. What the hell? He’d given her a perfect dose of shit that had knocked her ass out, but even when she came back, she should’ve been so beautifully fucking loaded she couldn’t move. Hell, he wished someone would shoot him up with black tar of this quality. Lock him in a trunk. What a way to spend a day.

Ungrateful bitch.

He scanned his surroundings. A few gun show attendees on the sidewalk behind him, presumably making their way to their cars.

He’d gotten lucky no one had noticed.

There were only a half dozen vehicles parked in front of the bank, the closest to him being a Chevy Nova, which was unoccupied. It looked old as shit. What kind of a person would let themselves be seen behind the wheel of such a beater?

Javier clicked a button on the automatic lock and the trunk popped open just an inch.

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being watched, he lifted the trunk and reached into his leather jacket.

The woman stared up at him, her eyes slits in the evening light. She groaned something incoherent through her gag.

“I know you want some more,” Jav said. “Daddy’s here.”

He unsheathed the syringe he’d already filled that morning. This was getting pricey. A fine puta like this was worth some major coin, but all businesses were about keeping expenses low and profits high. Keeping her high was eating up profits.

The woman groaned something that sounded like, “No.”

Javier lifted her arm and turned it over, squinting for a vein. “Don’t be an ungrateful bitch. You know you like it, baby. Women where I come from would blow fifty guys in a day to get a high like this.”

“Mmmph.” Then she moaned something that sounded like, “Go home.”

“This is home for you now, angel. No more work. No being tied down to some dickhead esposo. You’re living the life now, bitch. All you gotta do is make some nice babies. But I’m warning you, if you make any more noise—even the slightest little bird-peep—I’m gonna cut your eyes out. You don’t need eyes to get knocked up.”

He slipped the needle into a vein, depressed the plunger. Her cry drifted off into a euphoric moan.

“Yeah, now you’re coming baby, aren’t you? Feels so good, no? You got no care in this world. Now fucking callate la boca.”

Then he slammed the trunk shut and started back toward the gun shop.

Alex Kork

It was after nine P.M., and they were walking back across the street toward Porter’s Guns and Ammo, coming from a Waffle House where she and Charles had run into Luther.

Kite had moved over to their table and insisted everyone order the triple-scattered-all-the-way hashbrowns. Spent half the meal raving about how it was the best thing he’d put in his mouth, maybe ever. Alex, tired of hearing about fried potatoes, had stretched her right leg under the table and dug the steel toe of her cowboy boot into his crotch, given it a little wiggle, and told him he hadn’t tasted her yet.

That shut shy-boy down for a while.

Seemed to get under her brother’s skin, too.

Well, fuck him and what he thinks. Ever since Charles got married, Alex had been seeing less and less of him. They hadn’t killed anyone together in months. She actually considered stretching over the table, giving that odd fucker Luther a sloppy, wet kiss, just to watch how Charles reacted.

But that would be weak, giving in to petty insecurity. There was a part of her that despised feeling so vulnerable. No one but Charles could elicit such weakness. Sometimes, she hated him for it.

Now they were moving through the dark parking lot of the gun shop.

They passed a trio who reeked of gunpowder, obviously fresh off the range—a good-looking forty-something woman walking between two men, one tall and ruggedly handsome, the other short and as wide as a Mack truck.

Up ahead, a man in a leather jacket stood by the entrance.

When he turned, she could see that he was Hispanic.

And drop-dead gorgeous.

“Hey, Javier,” Luther said. “These are my friends, Alex and Charles. Alex and Charles, here’s the guy I was telling you about.”

Alex was the first to extend a hand.

“Nice to meet you, Javier,” she said. “I’m Alex.”

“The pleasure is all mine, senorita.” The handshake lingered.

Charles sidled up beside Alex, threw his arm over her shoulder. “What’s in the box?” he asked.

“New pistol I picked up today at the show. Unfortunately, the shop here’s closed.”

Charles glanced at the door. “It’s not closed,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“I said it’s not closed. At least, not to certain people.”

Javier straightened, Alex studying his hands, to see if they clenched into fists, wondering what Charles was up to, but also kind of thinking it might be funny to see him take an ass-beating.

“What do you mean certain people?” Javier asked. “And you better answer that question very, very clearly. I’ve had all the redneck, bigot bullshit I can take today.”

By the light which illuminated Porter’s Guns and Ammo, Alex saw her brother smile one of his wicked smiles.

“I meant to people who can’t pick locks,” Charles said.

Mr. K

“You obviously like firearms, but can you also recognize the craftsmanship of a well-made knife?” Mr. K asked as he pulled Porter’s pants down below his knees.

The shop owner was inching back into consciousness to find his wrists zip-tied behind his back. His ankles were similarly bound.

Mr. K watched Porter’s eyes flutter open. The hitman had taken off his jacket and was sitting on Porter’s thighs, holding the Morrell ice pick. He knew the penis was fed by numerous blood vessels, so this required a delicate touch. A dead client couldn’t pay, and employers universally frowned upon that.

He tugged down Porter’s white jockey shorts, and then chuckled to himself.

“You’re uncut,” Mr. K said.

“What?” Porter was terrified and confused and trembling with fear.

“You haven’t been circumcised.”

“Please…whatever you’re thinking—”

“I’m going to ask you one more time, Mr. Porter, for the cash that you owe Mr. Dovolanni. If the answer you provide doesn’t satisfy me, I’m going to circumcise you right here on the floor of your gun shop. Do you understand what I’ve just said to you?”

Porter’s eyes were welling up with tears. “Please, please…”

And now the begging, Mr. K mused. Human beings were so predictable when facing situations of terror.

“…I’ll give you anything…”

There must be some basis for it in Darwinian evolution, but Mr. K had never been able to understand how crying, shitting your pants, and breaking down into hysterics had ever served man or any of his ancestors in life or death scenarios.

“…you want if you…”

If an ancient Cro-Magnon were at the mercy of a saber-toothed tiger or a soldier of an opposing tribe, certainly this type of behavior would have proven futile.

“…only let me…”

Predators couldn’t be swayed by emotion or pleas or despair.

“…explain…”

It wasn’t in their programming. It certainly wasn’t in Mr. K’s. In these situations, only brute force—physical resistance—stood a chance. And yet in all his contract killings and torture-killings, only twice had the mark ever fought back.

“…you’ve gotta understand…”

How had this trait of utter cowardice in the face of fear prevailed through the evolutionary cycle ending at Homo sapien sapien?

“Can you pay me right now?” Mr. K asked calmly. “That’s the only question I’m interested in hearing you answer.”

“Tomorrow,” Porter said. “I’ll rob a fucking bank if I—”

“Hmm. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s no good for me.”

Mr. K pulled the ball-gag out of his pocket and jammed it into Porter’s mouth, had it fastened around his skull in five seconds.

“Did you get a chance to stop by Morrell’s Edges?” Mr. K asked, holding up the ice pick to make sure Porter saw the blade. “He told me it was the sharpest thing he’d ever made. Let’s give it a whirl, shall we?”

Porter raised his head and shrieked through the ball-gag.

“Oh, relax,” Mr. K said. “What I hear, the ladies don’t like a guy with a turtleneck anyway.”

As he reached down, he heard the locking mechanism in the door shift.

Mr. K glanced at the door, back at Porter.

“You typed in the dummy code.”

Porter shook his head violently. Possibly telling the truth.

Mr. K rose quickly to his feet, set the ice pick on the counter, and grabbed his 9mm.

“If I find you’ve lied to me,” Mr. K said, “I’ll spend the next three days taking you slowly apart.”

He stepped toward the door as the lock turned, hearing voices outside, one of them saying, “There it is. Open sesame.”

The door swung inward, and Mr. K found himself facing four people, three men and a woman, all standing in the dark parking lot. He pointed his nine at the first man, the one holding the lock pick and tension wrench.

“We’re closed,” Mr. K said.

Everyone froze. Best case scenario, the quartet got the hell out of there. But they had broken in, so they were obviously a criminal element, and criminals weren’t predictable.

Mr. K quickly did the math in his head. He could get at least two headshots in before the others either scattered or attacked. There were ten bullets in his gun, and the Morrell ice pick was behind him on the counter. He liked his odds, but clean-up would be messy, and the gunfire could attract attention. This being a gun show, they were all probably armed, so he needed to decide now before one of them pulled a weapon and—

“K? That you, K?”

Mr. K squinted into the darkness at the one talking. He had a Mexican accent, something familiar about it.

“It’s me, man. Javier.”

Javier? Mr. K let go of the breath he’d been holding, but he kept the gun pointed.

“Javier. Small world. I wasn’t expecting any company.”

Javier stepped into the light, palms up. He peered behind Mr. K, and then smiled broadly.

“Shit, K. You working? We didn’t mean to interrupt you, man. We just wanted to do a little late night target practice. It’s cool.”

“Who are your friends?”

“Luther, Charles is the one with the lock pick skills, and the lady is Alex. Guys, this is Mr. K. He and I used to do some contract work for the same jefe, years ago. Wet stuff.”

If Javier was cavalier about admitting to murder, Mr. K guessed his associates weren’t likely to go running to the authorities. Still, this was a wrinkle in the night’s previously-scheduled activities, and he didn’t appreciate wrinkles.

“What are you going to do to that man?” the woman, Alex, asked. She was staring at Porter, and Mr. K thought he detected excitement in her voice.

“It’s okay,” Javier said. “They’re cool. If you want us to leave, we can come back later. Or…”

“Or?”

“Or we could help out. Might be fun to shoot at a moving target, if you know what I’m saying.”

Mr. K considered it. Javier was psychotic, and that meant he was unpredictable. Mr. K had seen his work, up close and personal, and while it could have used a touch more finesse it was certainly effective. The smarter move would be to turn everyone away, but then he’d spend the rest of the evening wondering what Javier was up to.

“This is a job for Mr. Dovolanni,” Mr. K said. “The package is supposed to get damaged in handling, but not lost.”

“You mean we can hurt him, not kill him,” the pale one, Luther, said. “I’d be okay with that.”

“A man can take a lot of hurt before he dies,” Charles said. “And I haven’t shot anyone in months. What do you think, Alex? Can you exercise some restraint?”

“I can control myself, not kill him,” Alex said, rubbing her legs together. “But I’m going to have to fuck something later. Just thinking about it gets me hot.”

Javier met Mr. K’s eyes and shrugged. “You game, K? The commission is all yours. We’re just in it for the sport. You know I wouldn’t mess with Dovolanni.”

Mr. K saw some people in the parking lot heading over. He made a quick decision and lowered the gun.

“Come in, lock the door behind you.”

Luther

They all crowded inside, Luther feeling a sense of camaraderie he hadn’t experienced since losing Orson. Much as he was a loner, it was good to occasionally be among those with similar values.

“So, what’s the plan?” Charles said. “Luther, buddy, you got that metal leech thing with you?”

Luther was staring at a target silhouette behind the counter, studying the various points on the arms and legs. “I have a better idea,” he said. Then he explained it to the group.

Javier cut Porter’s zip-ties as the shop owner cried around his ball gag.

“Hollow points for everyone,” Luther ordered.

Everyone began to shout out the ammo they wanted, making Porter fetch the boxes.

Forty-five ACP rounds for Jav’s new Glock and Luther’s Springfield XD Tactical.

Nine-millimeters for Mr. K’s Beretta Px4 Storm.

Three-fifty-sevens for Charles’s Coonan Cadet.

“I object to this,” Mr. K said.

Luther scowled. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem is, we take semi-jacket hollow points into that range and start firing, Porter’s going to be dead in about two minutes.”

“We can put him in a vest,” Charles said. “I bet this douche has some Kevlar lying around.”

“Even so, and even with what you suggest, it’ll be too easy for him to bleed out, getting shot with these calibers, these rounds.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Javier asked.

Mr. K turned to Porter. “I assume you stock .22 pistols?”

Porter whimpered, but managed a nod.

“What models?”

The shop owner shook his head, his shoulders sagging.

“What. Models.”

He raised his hand, meekly pointed to the display case.

“The Mark III?”

A nod.

“Get five Rugers and put them on the counter along with three boxes of 20 grain LRs.”

Porter obeyed.

“Plinker rounds, K?” Javier asked, eyeing the boxes. “That shit barely tears through a soda can.”

Mr. K nodded. “Exactly. It’ll wound, but not kill.”

“That doesn’t sound as fun,” Charles said.

“You’ll get to shoot him many more times,” Mr. K said, “and he won’t die.”

Alex broke open one of the cartridge boxes, spilling rounds onto the glass counter. She worked the slide on a Ruger and manually inserted one, aiming it at Charles.

“You want to see how much it hurts?” she asked.

Everyone but Porter and Charles laughed. Charles slapped the gun away, scowling, then picked up a .22 and began to load a clip. Everyone else followed suit.

“Five points for legs and arms, ten points for feet and hands,” Luther said. “Hit the torso, lose twenty. Hit the head, lose fifty.”

“What are the stakes?” Javier asked.

Mr. K shook his head.

“What, K? I know that look.”

“Well,” Mr. K said. “You did sort of crash my party, so I have a proposition for the game.”

“We’re listening,” Alex said.

“I like Luther’s scoring system. I would propose that the losers pay off Mr. Porter’s marker to Dovolanni. It’s fourteen thousand, three hundred. Plus my fee of two thousand.”

“Holy shit,” Charles said. “I can’t swing that much.”

“Don’t worry, bro.” Alex popped in a clip and jacked a round into the chamber. “I got this.”

Javier smiled. “So, you’re a good shot, pretty lady?”

Alex winked. Then she quickly aimed at the analog wall clock across the room, firing four shots in rapid succession.

Everyone looked. She’d shot out the numbers 3, 6, 9, and 12.

Javier whistled. “I think my manhood just became aroused.”

“I’m in,” Charles said.

“I can’t shoot like that,” said Luther, “but I’m game.”

“And that makes cinco,” said Javier. “What’s the winner get?”

Mr. K smiled. “To finish off Mr. Porter, of course.”

Luther knew his chances at winning were slim to none, but he didn’t care. This night was shaping up to be the most fun he’d had in years.

Javier

The firing range was divided into seven stations, but the contestants all gathered at lane 4, the one in the middle.

The shooting area extended back fifty yards.

Reinforced baffles had been situated along the roof and walls for noise mitigation, and in the quiet prelude to the shooting, Jav could hear the hum of the ventilation system.

“Can we take the ball-gag out?” Luther asked, motioning to Porter who was huddled against the wall in a puddle of fear and whimpering. “I want to hear him scream.”

“Me, too,” Alex said.

Mr. K knelt down in front of Porter. “Before I take this off, I want to warn you,” he said. “We’re done with the pleading and the begging and the crying. Do you understand?”

A defeated nod.

“Stand up.”

Porter struggled onto his feet.

“Now walk with me.”

Javier watched Mr. K and Porter duck under the table at lane four and walk downrange. He followed, as did the others, and it took them a minute and a half to reach the sloped concrete berm at the end of the range.

“Ground rules,” Luther said. “You start against that far wall. When you hear the air horn, you have to make it to that end, and back. If you can do that, we won’t kill you.”

“Hey!” Charles said. “We didn’t discuss that part!”

“We have to give him a reason to live,” Luther answered, “Of else he’ll just curl up in a ball and die. I’ve seen it before. It’s no fun.”

“You…you’ll really let…let m-m-m-me live?” Porter stammered.

“You make it there and back, brother, you live.”

“Will you pay my marker, too?”

Mr. K slapped him upside the head. “Don’t get greedy, Mr. Porter.”

Alex

The killers lined up in the middle five lanes, Alex in six, Charles in five, Mr. K in four, Luther in three, and Javier in two. This would be their firing order as well. The men had graciously allowed her to go first, since she was the only woman present.

Dumb asses. Alex knew she could shoot the pants off of any man.

Alex removed the clip and racked the slide a few times to check the action. Then she popped the clip back in, jacked a round, and sighted up the man who stood quivering downrange.

She was so turned on right now.

Since Javier was shooting last, he had the air horn at his station.

“Everyone ready?” Javier shouted, his voice echoing downrange.

“Ready!” Alex shouted.

“Ready!” Charles shouted.

“Ready!”

“Ready!”

Javier said, “Mr. Porter! You warmed-up, loosened-up, and ready to run for your life?”

Porter yelled back, “Please! You don’t have to do this!”

Alex glanced around the dividing wall between hers and Charles’s lanes, saw Javier holding up the air horn canister.

“Mr. Porter, on your mark!”

Alex raised her Ruger.

“Get set!”

Drew a bead on Porter.

“Run, motherfucker!”

The moment the air horn sounded, Alex shot Porter square in his left foot.

Jack

As expected, Clay bought Jack Daniels shots as the first round. Such was the curse of my name.

We were in the hotel bar, which was so packed that we had to fight for room to stand, and sitting wasn’t even close to being an option. I had to wait ten minutes to order a second round, Goose Island beer, and then asked the bartender if there was a liquor store nearby.

“West, half a mile up the street,” he said.

When I shared the information with the boys, they agreed that making a booze run was preferable to drinking elbow-to-elbow with five hundred people in a bar designed to hold half that. We took our bottles outside with us because, hey, Clay and I were cops, and after some vigorous discussion on which direction west was, began to head up the street.

As we passed the range, I head a faint pop-pop-pop, like distant firecrackers.

“Gunshots?” Tequila asked, looking at me.

“Sounds like a small caliber,” Clay said. “Muffled, too.”

I glanced at Porter’s Guns and Ammo. “Could they still be open?”

“Only one way to find out.”

And so our trio headed toward the shop.

Charles

As his sister shouted “Ten points!” Charles was drawing a bead. Porter had managed to stay upright, and was limping faster than most people could sprint, a scream squealing out of his throat like a train whistle.

Charles didn’t even bother to go for the blurring limbs.

He aimed center mass, and squeezed.

Mr. K

“Side hit, minus twenty.” Mr. K led the target, and winged his flailing arm. “Five for me, right arm.”

Though he didn’t smile often, he felt his lips twist upward.

This was actually a lot of fun.

Luther

Luther had been aiming at Porter from the moment the air horn sounded, tracking his trajectory across the back of the range. Already he was halfway to the opposite wall. To be honest, he wasn’t sure of where he was aiming, just started squeezing the trigger until the slide locked back.

Porter suddenly grabbed his side and hit the deck, flopping face-first onto the concrete and leaving a blood streak, screaming all the way.

“My bad!” Luther yelled, “minus a hundred!”

Clay

“That was a scream,” Clay said. “I’d swear on my sweet Mama’s head that was a scream.”

Rather than wait for the others, Clay rushed the door to the gun shop, smacking into it with his shoulder. It was a bad move; the door was reinforced with steel.

Not a problem. Alice can get in.

He stepped back, drawing Alice out of her holster, taking aim at the deadbolt.

Javier

That pendejo cheater, Javier thought, but it made him grin anyway.

And Luther had done him a favor. The moving target was now moving at a much slower pace, crawling across the floor.

Javier took his time, sighting Porter down the barrel of the brand-spanking new Ruger, and then he put a round into his left elbow.

Porter

He’d been shot by a Crosman air rifle when he was fifteen years old, the BB punching into the back of his left leg. It had felt like a bad bee sting, and his mother had dug out the tiny copper ball with a pair of tweezers while he cried.

This was about a million times worse, and—

FUUUUUCCCCK!

Another round struck his left elbow in a searing blast of pain. The bullet, failing to crack bone, had taken a ride under the skin up his humerus and exited the back of his arm. He forced himself up onto his feet, his left foot throbbing, the bullet lodged between his phalanges, and he screamed through the pain and kept crawling as fast as he could manage, until his hands touched the far wall.

Halfway there. I can make it. If I can just get back up on my feet, I can—

Then another bullet blew off the back of his left heel.

Tequila

What Alice started, Tequila finished, exploding off the balls of his feet and driving his massive left shoulder into the door of the gun shop.

It burst open and he rolled a tight somersault, coming up with both .45s in his fists.

Jack and Clay rushed in after him.

The pop-pop-pop of gunfire was coming from the range.

Alex

She couldn’t believe it, but Porter had tagged the far wall. Since he was all the way on the other side of the range, the shot was difficult, if not impossible. Especially with the short-barreled Ruger and its low-velocity rounds.

She was especially pleased with herself when she clipped the man’s heel.

“Twenty points!” Alex shouted.

Charles

Charles had already decided to pull a Luther on his next turn. Just fucking unload. This time, he aimed at Porter’s face, figuring if he killed him, Alex would win.

He squeezed off ten shots in a blaze of fury, caught up in the excitement, and when his slide locked back, he stared through the haze of gun smoke…

And saw Porter still crawling along.

He’d missed.

Goddamnit! How the fuck had all ten rounds missed? He cocked back his arm and hurled the Luger downrange at Porter, screaming, “You fucking asshole!”

One lane over, his sister said, “Well, that was stupid.”

Mr. K

He was getting ready to put a round through Mr. Porter’s face when he heard a gunshot behind him.

Much larger caliber.

Was somebody cheating?

He turned to look, and saw an attractive woman in her forties standing behind them holding a Colt .38.

Luther

He was frantically reloading his clip when the deep, deafening crack of a high-caliber firearm exploded behind him.

Who the fuck was cheating?

Javier

When he heard the report of a .38 behind him, he knew instantly that something was wrong…

Jack

I saw the man on the firing range—the owner, Porter, covered in blood, cowering on his knees.

Then I saw the people, five of them, shooting at him.

I fired one shot straight into the ceiling.

“This is the police! Everyone drop your weapons!”

Alex/Luther/Charles/Javier/Mr. K

The police!

Run!

The killers stampeded toward the fire exit, firing behind them as they ran, bursting through the door into the parking lot, and scattering into the cold, dark night.

Clay

Clay felt the tug of hot steel on his thigh.

I’m hit.

He looked down, ready to put pressure on it, then saw the tiny hole in his jeans, forming a quarter-sized dot of blood.

What the fuck is that little thing? A .22?

He let out a laugh. Then he yelled, “You assholes sure brought the wrong guns to a gun fight!”

He and Jack took off after them.

Porter

Looking up at the fleeing bastards who had turned him into human Swiss cheese, Porter let out a bellowing laugh.

“I’m alive! Son of a bitch, I’m alive!”

He was still laughing when the short, blond man approached him. The man tucked away his guns into the back of his chinos.

“Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you. You saved my life, buddy. Anything you want. Name it. It’s yours.”

“Actually,” the man said, “I want the thirteen large you owe Mr. Dovolanni.”

Porter felt his face sag. “You…you work for…”

“Mr. Dovolanni. Yes. Do you have the money, Mr. Porter?”

Porter shook his head, dumbly.

“If you don’t have the money, I’m supposed to break both of your legs.”

“I’ll have it in a few days,” Porter managed to squeak.

The short man appraised him. “You’re pretty shot up. You need to go to the hospital.”

“I’m hurt bad,” Porter whined. “They shot me a bunch of times. Shouldn’t that be enough for Mr. Dovolanni?”

The short man rubbed his chin, as if considering it. “Maybe. But I’d better break one leg, just to be sure.”

Porter screamed as the short man’s foot came down, and then he blessedly passed out.

Mr. K

By midnight, he had crossed the state line into the backwoods of Kentucky, cruising the dark highways behind the wheel of his Cadillac. He was disappointed in himself, disappointed that he’d taken what had amounted to a stupid risk and left town without collecting his marker.

But…

As much as it pained him to admit…

That was the most fun he’d had in years.

Luther

Sitting at the bar in the Ramada Inn across the street from the giant tent which had held the gun show, Luther ordered the first round for him and Javier.

They’d been lucky to get a seat at the bar. The place was packed with the dealers and attendees who’d come from out-of-state.

A great place to lay low. To blend in. And as much as he knew that’s what they should be doing, it wasn’t what he wanted. The shooting range had only whetted his appetite.

The barkeep, after ten minutes, finally brought their beer in two Pilsner glasses.

“I’m dying,” Luther said, “I won’t be able to sleep tonight. That business at the range just gave me blue balls.”

“Relax,” Javier said. “I got a little package in the trunk. I’m willing to share.”

Luther’s heart lifted, a burst of hope flooding into that darkness like pure sunshine.

“Really?”

Javier nodded, sipped his beer. “Can’t kill her, though. But we can have some fun. Cut on her a little, if that’s your thing.”

Luther smiled. “That’s my thing.”

“We just gotta wait for these pendojo cops to get out of here. Place is lousy with them. One dumb gringo gets shot a few times, it’s like the fucking Normandy invasion. Back where I grew up, in Sonora, a whole family could get wiped out, you’d get maybe one cop, and he’d come by a few days later.”

“Hmm,” Luther said, a smile slowly forming across his thin, colorless lips. “I should definitely check that place out.”

Clay

He’d secretly always wanted to get shot. The ultimate bragging right. Pull up your shirt, show the patch of white where some doc had dug out a twisted piece of metal.

But as Clay sat in the ambulance, he had this awful feeling that stopping a .22 round didn’t actually count. His deputy buddies back in Durango would probably make fun of him for it.

At least the pretty lady Lieutenant was sympathetic.

“You’d better give him two Band-Aids for that big boo-boo,” she told the EMT.

Ouch.

He’d laughed it off, but the worst of it was how bad it actually hurt. He’d been shot full of adrenaline back at the range, but now that everything had settled down, the pain was really starting to get to him. He’d waved off the painkiller he’d been offered in front of Jack Daniels.

He could wait a little longer.

Just a little .22 caliber gunshot.

Not a problem.

“Does it hurt?” Jack asked.

“Naw. Maybe a little. You want to kiss it and make it better?” Clay asked.

For a moment, it looked like she was going to go for it. Clay even went so far as to tilt his chin to the side.

But then something crossed over her eyes, and she pulled back, instead offering her hand.

“I’ve got to get on my way. Have to be back at work tomorrow, and didn’t have any plans to stay overnight.”

Clay went for it, hell bent for leather. “I’ve got a room, in the hotel.”

Jack smiled. “Thanks for the offer. But I’m with someone already. Thanks for an…interesting night. Tell your brother I said hello.”

And then she was gone.

Five seconds later, Clay called for the EMT and demanded a pain shot.

Jack

I was tired, my legs aching from the chase. The Gucci pumps I wore made my calves look killer, but were shit for running in.

Clay and I had given pursuit, but the five shooters had fled into the night, splitting up in all directions. We’d called in the Indianapolis PD, even the Staties. Given statements and physical descriptions of the perps as best we could, but there really wasn’t much to go on.

It didn’t make sense. Why would five people break into a shooting range and use the owner for target practice? From what little I’d seen of them, it didn’t appear to be a gang initiation. These were adults, some of them well-dressed.

When the owner, Mr. Porter, regained consciousness, he didn’t say a word. Not a damn word. Refused to even admit anything happened.

As for me, I was going home. Both Clay and Tequila wanted to continue hanging out, but all of the sudden it felt less like harmless flirting and more like cheating. My boyfriend and I were having problems, for sure, but I wasn’t the cheating type. I was the try to work things out type. If I got on the road right now, maybe I could make it back home early enough to do some damage control.

Hell, maybe I’d even get lucky.

I gave each of the boys a handshake goodbye, then headed out to the parking lot. My car, a Chevy Nova, was next to a sleek, new Infiniti G35. I gave it a quick, admiring glance, wondering if I’d ever be able to afford something like that, then climbed into my beater.

As soon as I started it up, I heard a knocking.

The engine? Was my classic telling me it was ready to croak?

I checked the gauges on the dash, but nothing unusual was lighting up. The knocking continued as I pulled out of my spot, but quickly faded as I drove away.

I breathed a sigh of relief, feeling like I’d just dodged a bullet.

One of many, actually.

Alex

Alex Kork snuggled up next to her brother as he drove, her lips brushing his neck.

“Dammit, Alex! I’m driving.” Charles took another glance in the rearview mirror, his tenth in the last ninety seconds.

“You’re so damn paranoid,” she said, pulling away. “You weren’t like this before you got married.”

“Don’t start, Alex.”

“Is that what I’m doing? I’m starting?”

Charles shot her a quick, angry glance. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. But don’t treat me like I’m your wife. I’m not your wife, Charles.”

He laughed, an ugly thing. “Is that your problem? You want to be married? You’re my fucking sister, Alex.”

“Let me out.” Alex tugged off her seatbelt.

“What?”

“Let me out here. On the side of the road. I’m sick of being next to you.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere. How are you supposed to get home?”

“I’ll hitchhike. Like that girl we passed up a mile ago, the one with the pink shoes.”

“Don’t be stupid. Hitchhiking is for psychos. Some maniac might pick you up.”

The words hung in the air, and then both of them began to laugh.

Tequila

While Porter had been unconscious, and Jack and Clay busy chasing the shooters, Tequila had taken the liberty of emptying out the shop’s cash register. Technically, it was Mr. Dovolanni’s money, but Tequila figured Porter owed him for leaving a leg intact.

When Jack and Clay came back, they called the police, and Tequila bid a quick adieu. He didn’t want to answer any questions, and Jack seemed to understand. He made a small effort to get together with her later that night, have a nightcap, but she begged off.

No biggie. She wasn’t really his type, anyway. Too much class. Tequila didn’t like to admit it, but he preferred his women to be on the trashy side. Other side of the tracks kind of gals. Biker chicks. Strippers. Druggies with tattoos. There was something about lost causes that appealed to him. Maybe he just loved being the white knight in shining armor, although truth be told, his armor had its fair share of chinks.

He checked out of his room, deciding against staying an extra night. Not a smart idea to make it easy for the authorities to find him, considering all the commotion.

He was carrying his duffel bag out to his car, when he heard something strange.

A thumping sound. Rhythmic. Like someone knocking.

It took him a minute to locate the sound. It was coming from the trunk of an Infiniti G35 in a bank parking lot twenty yards away. Unless the spare tire had magically come to life, which was unlikely, there was probably someone in there. And from the sound of the frantic knocking, that someone wanted out.

It took three swift kicks with his powerful legs before the trunk unlatched, yawing open.

A woman lay sprawled across the interior of the trunk. She was beautiful—curly, black hair, dark eyes, pale skin. A gag was jammed into her mouth. She wore only a nightgown, which hugged her ample breasts and was riding up over a pair of very nice legs.

The night was looking up.

“Miss, is this your car?” Tequila asked.

She shook her head, slowly. He guessed she was drugged.

“Are you tied up and gagged in this truck because it’s something you enjoy doing?”

Another headshake, languid and slow.

“Do you need me to rescue you?” Tequila asked.

A half-speed, yet still emphatic nod.

“If I do rescue you, you want to go grab a bite to eat somewhere?”

She stared at him, eyes wide.

“Sorry. Hold on a second.” He undid her gag. “So, you interested? I save you, we go out?”

“Uh, sure,” she said, a slow smile creeping across her face.

Tequila figured it was heroin. He pulled a folding knife out of his chinos and cut her bindings. As he did, he noticed a butterfly tattoo on her hip.

Tequila held up his hand, which had a butterfly tattooed on the back. “I’m Tequila,” he said.

She giggled, high as a kite. “I’m Candi. With an I.”

“Are you a stripper, Candi?”

“I’ve done some dancing.”

“Do you like bikes?”

She swallowed. “I love them.”

“I’ve got a Harley softail and a pocketful of hundred dollar bills. Interested?”

Candi with an I nodded.

Tequila reached in and swept her out of the trunk.

She hugged him, hard.

“Thanks for saving me, Tequila.” She breathed hot into his ear. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

Yes, indeed, the night was definitely looking up.

The One That Didn’t

Michigan, 2004

Moni has the shakes. The shakes, and gut-wrenching nausea, and a jackhammer headache, and a dry, metallic taste in her mouth that makes her tongue seem twice as big. She looks down the alley, dark, wet, smelling like something died there, and doesn’t even hesitate to walk down it. She needs the fix so bad she’s come to this empty hull of a town just to get it.

How the fuck did I let this happen?

She’d been so good for a time. After she’d escaped that freak and his sick-ass video dungeon of horrors, Moni had gone legit. No more hooking. No more drugs. Moved out of the city, got a job at a health food store.

Out of the life. Respectable. Clean.

But the goddamn nightmares…

She shakes her head, as if that’s enough to rid it of the memories.

It isn’t.

She tried a free clinic, talking out her problems with some overworked shrink who got stuck doing community service. Was told she had post traumatic stress disorder, like soldiers get.

But knowing what her problem is doesn’t make the problem go away. Neither does the prescription shit the shrink told her to take.

Moni knows only one thing can dull the horror. Only one thing can wipe that freak’s leering face out of her head.

Glass crunches under the soles of her tennis shoes. Laces long since gone, the tread worn away. Above the stench of this alley, she smells something else—herself.

Something strange about knowing you’re at the low point of your life, and for her, that’s truly saying something.

But at least I’m not tricking.

And she could have. The motivation was there. So much easier to score a twenty-spot sucking some guy off for five minutes than stealing a purse. The one slung over her shoulder belonged to an eighty-year-old only four hours ago. She ripped it off the woman’s arm and sprinted off down the sidewalk. An older man had come after her, but he’d been too slow. She can still feel the burn from that run in the backs of her legs.

And the shame.

This is the last time. She keeps telling herself over and over and over, and she’s told herself this before, but it feels different this time.

One more high. One more fix.

And then she’s done.

She sees the fire in the oil drum up ahead, and her pulse accelerates.

Always a nervous proposition meeting a new dealer for the first time. And she certainly wouldn’t have chosen to come way out here into this veritable urban ghost town, but people don’t sell drugs in front of Gucci stores. A whore she’d shared needles with had recommended this place, saying it was the best.

Moni has her doubts. This town, like many others in Michigan, died years ago with the demise of the auto factories. The homes are all abandoned. The businesses all closed. The cops don’t bother patrolling, because there is nothing to protect and no one to serve.

Passing between the empty buildings, she slows her approach, wondering if she should make herself known.

“Hey!” she calls out to a black man leaning against the brick wall behind the oil drum.

He looks up from the cell phone in his hand and squints at her through the firelight, and the rising smoke between them.

“Hi, baby, you need something?”

“Yeah, looking for H. Can you help me?”

“Yeah, I got you. Come on. It’s aiight.”

Thank God.

Moni continues toward him, moving finally into the welcome heat of the fire.

The man is young, maybe nineteen, twenty tops, and he’s swallowed by a black down jacket.

“I need works too,” Moni says. In exchange for this address, she gave that whore her last syringe.

“Got all kinds of works for you, baby.” The man smiles, showing a gold tooth, but the smile isn’t for Moni. It’s for someone behind Moni.

She turns, senses suddenly on high alert, and sees two other guys strutting toward her. Black faces, black jackets, mean black eyes.

She’s seen eyes like this many times before. Knows with a sick, sinking feeling what’s happening.

“Look, uh, Jasmine sent me.” Moni hopes the girl’s name was Jasmine, but it dawns on her that it doesn’t matter. Jasmine didn’t send Moni here to score. She sent Moni here to get japped.

What is the world coming to when you can’t trust a whore strung out on smack?

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Moni says. “Don’t hurt me.” She knows they’ll run a train on her, but maybe they won’t be rough. Maybe she’ll even end up with the H when it’s over.

“Check this bitch with the don’t hurt me.” The man behind the oil drum laughs. “Whacha gonna do for us, baby? Huh?” He steps out from behind the fire and moves toward her. “You gamed a bit, din’ you? You gonna show us how skinny white bitches suck black cock?”

“Whatever you guys want,” Moni says, knees trembling. “Just don’t—”

The slap rocks her head backward, and Moni falls onto her ass.

“Don’t hurt me,” one of the men behind her mimes, and the trio busts out laughing again.

Moni covers up as best she can when the kicking starts.

A two hundred dollar gym shoe catches her face, frees a tooth.

She spits blood, starts to cry.

“Dude, don’t fuck her mouth up…how she gon’ suck?”

Moni begins to crawl back toward the mouth of the alley, but it’s too far away. Sick as it is, she wonders if she’ll still be able to get a fix when they’re done with her.

A kick to the belly. She kisses the filthy asphalt. Unbidden, the memory of the freak comes back, smiling down at her, ready with his blow torch and his video camera.

That time, she fought back. Fought for her worthless, miserable life, because she didn’t want to die.

Now?

Now dying doesn’t seem so bad.

And then the kicking stops and she readies herself for what’s coming next, trying to land upon some memory—so few worth a damn—to latch onto and take herself out of this moment.

“Walk the fuck back out this alley, cracker!”

What? They can’t be talking to her.

Moni looks up, sees a tall figure standing at the opening to the alley, ten feet away.

“I was wondering if I could buy some drugs from you guys.”

“Please,” Moni moans. “Help me.”

But the man doesn’t acknowledge her.

“He ain’t for real,” says one of the men behind her.

“Boy, it look like we open for business? Get the fuck—”

“Your door was open. So how about you stop fucking around and sell me something?”

In the moment of heavy silence that follows, Moni glances back over her shoulder at her attackers, who are staring at one another in complete bewilderment. The closest gangbanger puffs out his chest, taking two strides up to the white guy.

“Muthafucka, you just walked into the wrong fuckin—”

The blades seem to materialize in the white man’s hands, glinting in the fire from the oil drum.

Slash-slash and the black kid is on his knees, trying to put his face back on.

“Oh hell no.”

The two remaining men step over Moni, the one in front reaching into his pocket.

She keeps expecting the tall man to retreat, or at least step back, make some effort to protect himself, but he just stands there, letting them come.

The next swipe happens so fast, she only sees the blade for a fleeting second.

Then a wet, gurgling sound, the dealer staggering back and grasping his neck as blood gushes out of a gaping tear.

As he falls back into the brick wall and sinks down onto the concrete to die, Moni looks back at the tall man and sees that he’s already brought the third man to his knees, in the process of carving a canyon through his chest, feathers from the down jacket billowing around them in a cloud that quickly turns from white to red.

When he hits the ground, Moni pounces upon the dealer, snaking a hand into his baggy jeans. Her fingers grasp what feel like warm grapes, and she makes a fist and pulls them out, her heart jumping, her eyes widening, an incredulous smile exploding across her face.

Balloons. Six of them. Each filled with H.

Moni glances up as the tall man walks toward her. She thinks about offering him half the drugs. He saved her life, after all. It’s the motherload of scores, and more than enough to share.

He squats down in front of her, and she notices for the first time in the firelight that he has one of the palest faces she’s ever seen.

And long black hair.

“Oh, God, thank you,” she says. “Thank you so, so much.”

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Moni.”

The man smiles a mouthful of awful, rotting teeth and spits a white piece of candy onto the ground—smells like…lemons.

Then Moni notices his eyes.

Black as tar.

Unfeeling.

Freak eyes.

“Hi, Moni, I’m Luther,” he says. “Do you know what an artificial leech is?”

A Schizophrenia of Hawks

The Plains of Central Illinois, 2008

The road to the Heathrow Facility for the Criminally Insane is a two-lane blacktop that cuts a straight line through the prairie west of Peoria. On a clear day, you can see the stone quadrangle and its various spurs from four miles away, like some prehistoric monument abandoned to erode upon the plain.

Only it isn’t abandoned. Heathrow is home to four hundred thirteen of the most violent and mentally damaged human beings in the tri-state area.

And this wasn’t a clear day.

Lightning slashed across the night sky as Doctor Carmichael drove down the narrow road to the asylum.

Rain drumming hard against the windshield.

Wipers barely keeping up.

Another explosion of lightning revealed the facade of Heathrow in the distance—four stories of crumbling granite masonry, the glass behind the barred windows reflecting the electricity.

Carmichael pulled his black Mercedes S-Class under the covered entryway and killed the engine. Lingered for a moment longer, enjoying the heated leather as it warmed his back through his woolen jacket.

Eventually, he grabbed his briefcase and stepped out of the car into the raw, damp night. The sound of rain hammering the drive and the roof over his head nearly drowned out the deeper booms of thunder, which he could feel in his backbone.

Everything smelled of Heathrow’s cold, wet stone.

Inside, it was still as a tomb, and the air reeked of disinfectant, which barely masked the odor of urine, desperation, and crazy.

Crazy had a distinct smell. It was medicinal, metallic, like an open bottle of pills. Almost human, but not quite.

The good doctor walked to the reception desk where a nurse in burgundy scrubs was filling out an intake form.

“Good evening,” he said. “I have an appointment with one of your patients.”

The nurse looked up from her paperwork, gave a tired smile. She was young, might have been pretty, but her face was scrubbed free of any trace of makeup, and her hair was tied up in a tight knot against the back of her head.

“Your name?”

He said it slowly, patiently. “Doctor Vincent Carmichael.”

“Who’s the patient you’re here to see?”

“Alexandra Kork.”

He registered some reaction in the nurse’s face at the utterance of that name. Disgust or horror or some mix of the two.

The nurse rolled her chair over to a computer, whose monitor Carmichael could just barely see. She was studying a calendar.

“Yes, I see you’re on here for 9:15.”

“It’s a late appointment, but I wanted to see her after a full day. When she’s tired. More compliant.”

“Yeah. Sure. Let me know how that works out for you.” The nurse lifted a phone and punched in a three-digit extension. “Hey, Jonas, Dr. Carmichael is here to see Little Miss Sunshine. You want to come up and take him back?”

“Have you examined Ms. Kork before?” asked Jonas, head orderly of D-Wing. He was a large, bearded man who might have played guard or tackle at a small college. He reminded Carmichael of a combat orderly—white uniform, white tennis shoes, and a belt outfitted with a radio, pepper spray, zip-ties, and an assortment of other restraint tools.

“This is my first time,” Carmichael said.

They were walking down a long, dark corridor that linked the quadrangle to its most outlying, most secure wing.

Lightning spiderwebbed across the sky, flashing through the tall windows on either side of them, casting the checkered floor in a burst of electric blue.

“She is, without a doubt, our most violent, most dangerous patient.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“In your email, you mentioned you wanted to meet with her in a private room.”

“That’s correct.”

Thunder shook the windowglass all around them.

“I would strongly advise against that,” Jonas said. “Our preference would be to have you meet in separate rooms connected by a Plexiglas window. You would be able to see her and speak to her through a telephone.”

“Unacceptable.”

“If she decides to kill you, you’ll be dead before we get to you. Ms. Kork has tremendous physical strength.”

“But her ankles and wrists will be chained, correct?”

“They haven’t stopped her before.”

Carmichael quit walking and faced the orderly.

“Jonas, everything I do, any progress I make with Ms. Kork, will be based upon a foundation of trust.”

“I under—”

“And that foundation is not built by speaking to someone through reinforced Plexiglas on a telephone. It’s by sharing the same space, breathing the same air.”

“You know that Ms. Kork killed two of her previous psychiatrists.”

“I am aware.”

“The first was a two-hundred fifteen pound man who insisted on the same conditions you’re requesting. Seventy-four minutes into their third session, Alex went into convulsions. When Dr. Andrews attempted to help her, she shoved a sharpened, plastic toothbrush through his right eye socket. It went all the way in, right up to the bristles.”

“I’ll watch out for the convulsion trick.”

“The second shrink, she snapped her neck when the poor woman reached out to shake her hand. They hadn’t even said two words. Alex blamed it on her period.”

“Periods can be rough.”

Jonas eyed Dr. Carmichael oddly.

“So I won’t shake hands with her,” Carmichael said.

Jonas nodded, apparently satisfied. He lifted his radio to his mouth and said, “Move Kork to Interview One.”

They continued walking toward a pair of double doors in the distance.

“What is it you hope to achieve here?” Jonas asked.

“I want to learn from her,” Carmichael said.

“Why?” Jonas pulled a keycard out of his pocket.

“Maybe so we can stop people like her from happening again.”

“Amen to that.”

Carmichael shot Jonas another cold stare.

“Despite all the terrible things she’s done, all the pain she’s caused, Alex Kork is still a human being. A broken one, sure. But one just the same. You could stand to have a bit more empathy. Perhaps I need to speak with your superiors about that.”

“Uh, I don’t think that’s necessary. But this one…she’s a real pisser, Doc. No bullshit.”

“Which is why I’m here to study her.”

Jonas rubbed his hairy chin. “I have to say, and this may be my ignorance showing, that I’ve never heard of you before. Your credentials check out, but let’s be realistic. In this day and age, with the Internet and photoshop, anyone can impersonate a doctor.”

Carmichael stopped walking, forcing Jonas to do the same. “You’re correct,” Carmichael said.

“Really? How so?”

“Your ignorance is showing.”

Jonas blinked twice. Carmichael didn’t blink at all.

“Um, Dr. Panko instructed me to assist you in any way I could,” Jonas said, “so that’s what I’m going to do.”

Jonas swiped the keycard, and through the space between the heavy steel doors, Carmichael saw two bolts retract.

One of the doors swung back and they walked over the threshold into D-Wing.

Harsh, fluorescent lights glared down.

They passed a utility closet and arrived at a reception desk that stood protected behind steel bars. It looked less like a hospital, more like a military bunker. Behind the desk, one doorway opened into a room that resembled a small armory—stun guns, cattle prods, face-masks, canisters of pepper spray and tear gas, batons, straight-jackets, blackjacks, riot gear. Along the back wall, several pistols and shotguns had been mounted.

The other doorway opened into a pharmacy.

Jonas and Carmichael stopped at the reception desk, and Jonas smiled at a behemoth of a woman in a gray suit with the unmistakable countenance of a prison guard. She was playing Solitaire on an old-school computer that must have been fifteen years old. Clearly, the funding had been poured into better weapons.

Jonas said, “Hi, Bernice. All quiet?”

Her eyes didn’t avert from the screen as she said, “Mostly. This the one here to study our precious little angel?”

“I’m Dr. Carmichael,” Carmichael said.

“Little Miss Sunshine is waiting in Interview One.”

“She’s secure?” Jonas asked.

“I strip-searched her myself. Her wrist-and ankle-irons are bolted into the new D-ring in the floor. Still ain’t safe, you ask me.” She caught Carmichael’s eyes for this comment.

“I’ve been duly warned.”

“She’s in a real foul mood tonight,” Bernice said, “even for her.”

Carmichael smiled. “Then any progress will be readily apparent. Would you take me back, please, Jonas?”

“Sure. We have some protocol, though. Gotta look through your briefcase, check your pockets. You saw Silence of the Lambs. Even a paperclip in the hands of one of these patients could be lethal.”

Dr. Carmichael submitted to a brief but thorough pat-down.

“Be careful in there,” Bernice said, once Carmichael got the all clear.

The man calling himself Dr. Carmichael brushed a strand of long, black hair off of his pale forehead.

“I’m always careful,” he said.

Jonas led Carmichael through another series of doors, and when those locks had shot home, took him down a dark, quiet hallway.

“She’s right in here,” Jonas said, gesturing to a red door at the end with I-1 engraved beneath a small window.

Jonas pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door.

“If anything happens, anything at all,” he said, “don’t hesitate. Scream at the top of your lungs.”

“I don’t scream much anymore.”

“It’s for your own good, Doc. Trust me. She’s as bad as they come.”

Carmichael moved past Jonas and pushed open the door.

It was a few degrees colder in the interview room.

Through the barred window in the back wall, he could see rain beading on the glass.

Lightning flashed.

Thunder dropped.

He closed the door behind him and looked at the woman seated at the small, metal table.

Alex Kork was classically beautiful. At least, half of her was. Her long blond hair hung over the side of her face, partially obscuring the pink, rubbery-looking scar tissue that spread from her forehead down to her chin.

The prisoner watched as Carmichael entered, following his movements while she remained perfectly still. She wore a white, unisex cotton top, sleeveless, with matching pants. The muscle definition in her bare arms was offset by her ample breasts. On her feet were slippers with flimsy rubber soles. Her wrists and ankles were manacled, the chains hooked onto the iron ring bolted to the floor.

Carmichael removed his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair across from Alex.

“Mind if I sit?” he asked.

Alex said nothing. Her posture was neither tense nor relaxed, but she gave Carmichael her undivided focus.

Carmichael pulled out the chair and eased down into the seat.

There was the sound of the rain hitting the glass and nothing else.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Finally, Carmichael cleared his throat. “They tell me I’m putting my life at risk meeting with you in here.”

Alex’s mouth twitched, the non-scarred half curling into a smile. “Life is risk. More than a hundred fifty thousand people across the world will die today. You think they woke up knowing that would happen?”

“Do you think about death a lot…may I call you Alex?”

Alex leaned back, her chest stretching out the thin cotton smock. She wore no bra, her nipples pronounced.

“I almost didn’t agree to see you. Doctors bore me. But then Jonas gave me your description.” Her tongue darted out, licking her scarred lip. “Pale skin and long, black hair is hard to forget.” More silence. “Sure,” Alex finally said. “You can call me Alex. And I think about death almost as much as I think about sex, which is constantly.” Alex raised an eyebrow—the only one she still had attached. The left side of her face looked like strips of bacon had been stapled to it. “So what do I call you? They told me your name is Dr. Carmichael, but that seems disingenuous.”

Now it was Carmichael’s turn to smile. “Call me Luther.”

“Luther?” Alex raised her cuffed hands and touched an index finger to her hairline. “You’ve got some black dye on your forehead, Luther. “

Luther’s dark eyes twinkled. “It’s not easy being me.”

He pulled a crumpled candy box out of his coat pocket, shaking some Lemonheads onto his palm. He offered one to Alex. When she extended her hands, she held his for a moment, her fingernails raking lightly across his knuckles.

“You like Lemonheads, Luther?” she asked, placing one on her tongue like a communion wafer.

“Fucking hate them,” Luther said, popping two into his mouth.

Alex shifted, sitting back. Her knees parted, then slowly opened, Alex watching his eyes, watching Luther glance down.

“You’ve been here quite a while,” Luther said. Now he leaned forward in his chair, his elbows resting on the cold, metal table. “You ever think about getting out?”

“Right now I’m thinking about getting off. A year is a long time for a girl to go without sex, Luther.”

“A year is a long time. You must really hate that cop who put you here. Jack Daniels.”

The coy dropped off Alex’s face, darkness replacing it. “Now why would you want to go and spoil my mood bringing up that bitch?”

“Daniels…interests me. I’d like to know more about her.”

“You thinking of paying the good Lieutenant a visit?”

“I saw her on the television. I’m wondering if she’s strong enough.”

“Strong enough for what?”

“Strong enough to stop me.”

Alex closed her legs, leaning forward. “Jack Daniels is mine. If something happens to her before I get out of this shithole, I’ll turn my attentions to the one that took her from me.”

“You honestly think they’re ever going to let you out of here?”

Alex stood up suddenly, her chains rattling. She leaned forward, bending over the stainless steel table, and put her lips next to Luther’s ear. “Why worry about the future? So much more fun to live in the moment.”

Luther braced himself, opening up his hands, ready to push her away. Then he felt her lips on his neck.

“Did you really come all the way out here to talk about Jack?” Alex breathed hot and wet on his cheek.

Luther swallowed and slowly filled his lungs with air. “I read all about you and your brother, Charles.”

“And?”

“I…wanted to meet you. I…wanted to see you.”

Her tongue ran across his chin. “And why is that, Luther?”

His move was sudden and violent, grabbing Alex’s shoulders, pushing her back into her chair, then leaning across the table, bringing his lips close to hers. “There aren’t many out there like us.” He edged closer, felt her breath on his teeth.

“Do you like killing people, Luther?” Alex said, so softly it was barely audible. “Does it turn you on to make people suffer?”

Luther inched forward and their lips touched. He tasted her bottom lip, running his tongue across the smooth and the scars.

He bit down and he kept biting down until the skin broke and he tasted a single bead of blood like a burst of hot rust on the tip of his tongue.

Alex moaned deeply, “Fucking take me. Now.”

Luther glanced over his shoulder at the window.

He slid off the table—

Alex said, “Where the fuck do you think you’re…”

—dropping to his hands and knees—

“Oh…”

—and crawling under the table. He ran his hands up her legs, through the chains, until he found the drawstring on her pants. Luther dug his hands into her waistband and tugged them down to her feet.

Long, perfect legs with the chains connecting her ankles and wrists running up the middle.

Alex scooted her bare ass to the edge of the metal chair and got his head inside her cuffed wrists. When he pressed his face between her thighs, Alex bellowed out in a big, throaty laugh.

Her laughter turned to moaning when his tongue found her.

She peeked her eyes open, locking stares with Jonas, who looked on, slack-jawed, through the tiny window in the door.

The orderly watched her come, bucking against Luther’s face, tangling her fingers in his long, black hair.

“I could…fucking…kill you right now…” Alex grunted, pulling her chains around Luther’s neck as the orgasm wracked her body.

Luther scooted up, into her manacled embrace, his mouth finding hers, one hand frantically tugging down his zipper.

He stood and lifted Alex out her chair, the chains drawing tight against the D-ring in the floor. He pushed her across the table onto her stomach as Jonas watched, eyes bulging out, his hand busy behind the door.

Alex spread her legs as wide as the chains would allow, and Luther drove himself into her, the steady slap-slap-slap of skin against skin building in strength and frequency until his legs went weak and he collapsed onto her, sweaty and grunting and their chests heaving against each other.

“I need more doctors like you,” Alex said, wiggling her ass against him.

Luther abruptly pulled out, collapsing into Alex’s chair.

“We need to get you out of this place,” he said, zipping up.

Alex sat up on the table facing him, her legs still open, completely comfortable with her nudity.

“How?” she asked.

“I could help you escape. We could go after Jack together.”

“I would love to kill with you, Luther,” Alex said, “and I want us to make that happen. But Jack is mine. You see what she did to me.”

“I think you’re beautiful.”

“She’s mine, Luther. You let me have her, and I’ll do things to you that will make your fucking head explode.”

Luther stood up, walking around the table to his original chair. He lifted his briefcase and opened it covertly, hiding it from Jonas who still stared through the window.

Luther removed the false bottom and took out three small items.

“Can you pick locks?” he asked Alex, lowering his voice.

She nodded, her eyes getting bigger. He reached over, clasping her hands, slipping her the lock pick, the tension wrench, and the plastic disposable lighter.

“There’s a utility closet down the hall,” he said. “Probably locked. Probably filled with flammable cleaning supplies.”

“There’s no way they will ever let me walk out of this dump.”

“So let someone else take your place.”

Alex nodded. “But even if I burn them, they’ll check dental records.”

“I couldn’t risk bringing in a pair of pliers, didn’t know if I’d have to go through a metal detector. But I’m sure you can make do.”

Then Luther closed his briefcase and walked briskly to the door.

Rapped on it twice.

“See you on the outside, Luther Kite,” Alex said as Jonas let him out.

In Which Blake and Joe Interview Each Other About the Experience of Writing SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT…

JOE: So once again, here we are, discussing the never-ending saga that has ultimately become SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT.

It seems like we’re writing an epic novel in installments.

BLAKE: We were talking about this recently, how if SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT (hereinafter, “SKU”) had been released by a legacy publisher, it would have taken us over two years to get to this point, and…

(a) no one would have gotten to read SERIAL, BAD GIRL, TRUCK STOP, SERIAL UNCUT, KILLERS, KILLERS UNCUT, or BIRDS OF PREY yet; and

(b) Even worse, we would just now be turning this novel in, which means it still wouldn’t be coming out for another 12-18 months, which is what, three and a half years after we initially released SERIAL?

JOE: In a way, we’re following the same model as independent musicians. Release the songs as they’re completed, then release the EPs (a few songs at a time), then the final album with everything together.

Do you feel like we’re ripping off our readers by doing this? Or being generous by releasing things as we write them, rather than making them wait months or years?

BLAKE: I can only put myself in their shoes. If I had the choice to read the work of my favorite novelist right now, as opposed to three years from now, I have to go with now every time. Besides, it’s not like we’re releasing $26.95 books every time out. Many of the individual stories that comprise SKU were priced at $.99 or $2.99. And SERIAL was and still is free. There may be some overlap between projects, certain stories being present in several omnibus collections, but I think that’s a small price to pay for having immediate access to our work. It simply wouldn’t work any other way.

Did you think when we started SERIAL it was going to morph into a 120,000-word double-novel?

JOE: No way. This project was a strange one for myriad reasons. Wonderful, and rewarding, but strange. We’re both fans of F. Paul Wilson (in fact, we wrote a novel, DRACULAS, with him), and Paul has done an admirable job linking his entire oeuvre together. The majority of his stories intermingle, and characters can pop up in seemingly unrelated books and stories.

As a fan, I LOVE this. It is rewarding to see a character I remember from a previous story come back in another one. So that’s the approach I wanted to take with this series.

The point of SERIAL was to see how two killers interacted when they met up on the road.

When we originally expanded SERIAL into SERIAL UNCUT, we wanted to take it up a notch. You took characters from your books and had them meet, I took characters from mine and had them meet.

Then we went even further with BIRDS OF PREY. Now we completely intertwined our universes. My bad guys meet your bad guys, from over a dozen of our novels.

BLAKE: You and I write a lot of bad guys. It was so much fun doing the killer-killer interaction in SERIAL UNCUT, that with BIRDS OF PREY, we simply said, let’s bring every major villain we’ve ever written into the same book. And not only that, let’s have Joe’s villains and Blake’s villains share scenes together. And not just any old scenes. Scenes that perhaps set up or anticipate big events in our major works like your Jack Daniels series and my Andrew Thomas series. I think of SKU as a glove that fits into all the spaces left between our collective novels. So Charles Kork from WHISKEY SOUR has a scene with Luther Kite and Orson Thomas from DESERT PLACES. Donaldson and Orson share a scene. Alex Kork and Luther Kite share a scene. And of course, there’s the centerpiece of the entire thing, “An Unkindness of Ravens.”

JOE: That 16,000 word section features Javier (Snowbound), Luther Kite (Locked Doors), Mr. K (Shaken), Alex Kork (Rusty Nail), and Charles Kork (Whiskey Sour) on the side of evil, along with cameos by Kiernan (Run), Donaldson (Serial), Lucy (Serial), Dwight Eisenhower (Endurance), Isaiah (Abandon), Swanson, Munchel, and Pessalano (Fuzzy Navel).

They went up against the forces of good, Jack Daniels, Clayton Theel (Draculas), and Tequila (Shot of Tequila.)

It was like a greatest hits battle royale, and so much fun to write.

Which is part of the reason the end product is over 120,000 words long and took two years to complete. This double novel takes place between all of our other novels, filling in gaps, expanding back-stories, and revealing clues to our upcoming collaboration, STIRRED.

BLAKE: There are some huge clues in here, no doubt. To me, the benefit of writing something like this, is that we’re using characters who have already been battle-tested in other books. We know they work, we love to write them, and so instead of spending all our time inventing and developing brand new characters, we’ve taken this group and put them to work building an entire monster of a book.

JOE: I’m pretty sure this hasn’t been done before. Not on this scale. Not with two authors completely meshing their worlds together.

At least, not in horror fiction. Comics and TV shows have been doing this for years. Superheroes and Supervillains always appear across many titles, and who didn’t love the 70s when Magnum PI would appear on Simon & Simon, or Mork did a cameo on Laverne & Shirley?

BLAKE: Let’s talk about how our collaborative process has developed over the last two years. With SERIAL, we started out emailing each other back and forth until a scene was finished, and there was a big element of gamesmanship, of not knowing what the other guy was up to and using that energy to propel the scene into interesting places. Then with KILLERS, we started using Google docs, which we’ve talked about previously, allowing us to write in the same document at the same time. But what interests me most is how our writing style (when we write together) has changed. I think we’ve truly developed a Konrath/Crouch style that is quite different from our individual styles. It seems like we edit each other much less now, and I think that’s because I know what kind of a sentence will pass your bullshit test, and vice versa.

JOE: It’s become pretty seamless, and we’re often finishing each other’s sentences, or anticipating what the other will do next. As a result, we can write 3,000 words faster than it would take either of us to write 1,500 individually, because we’re rewriting and polishing on the fly.

I also like it when we divvy up workloads. “Blake, go and add description to the Porter intro, and I’ll work ahead on the first Alex scene.” It’s a lot of fun. Almost like a hive mind is writing the story. Since writing is such a solitary profession, to be able to create stories and worlds with a partner is like getting a new toy.

BLAKE: You write very fast on your own, but for instance, today we wrote about 5,000 words, which is an astronomical word count for me.

JOE: That’s because you’re slow, like a snail surfing on molasses. At the same time I was working with you, I was working with Ann Voss Peterson on FLEE, our spy novel. We did about 4,000 there, too.

BLAKE: Show off.

So we’re going to finish the last piece of this puzzle, STIRRED, this summer. That’s going to be the conclusion to your Jack Daniels series and my Andrew Thomas series. In a way, writing SKU has laid the perfect groundwork for how we’re going to approach writing that novel together. It’s going to be a blast.

JOE: Hopefully the fun we’re having will translate to the page, and give our fans—both new to us and long-time readers—something to enjoy.

Do you believe tools like Dropbox and Google docs are going to change the way writers write?

BLAKE: Not on a massive scale, no. I still think most writers are solitary beings, introverts by nature, and that most books will continue to be single-author. It’s a wonderful thing to collaborate, but you have to find the right partner, not only someone who thinks like you and tells stories like you, but who you respect enough to let them change your words. That’s a tall order, and without getting all sentimental and shit, we’re very lucky to have crossed paths.

JOE: I dunno, man. I’ve done this Google docs thing with you, Ann, and Barry Eisler, and we’ve all enjoyed it. I think it’s just a matter of time before we see big shots giving it a try. Especially since ebooks have made it so easy to release work.

It’s worth mentioning here that there is no way we would have been able to do this in the traditional publishing environment. This is a 120,000 word double-novel, published in segments over the course of twenty-four months, where the protagonists are mostly serial killers. Our agents would have laughed at us, and no publisher would ever have taken on this project.

BLAKE: Except Brilliance Audio. Yay, Brilliance!

JOE: They’re very forward-thinking. But they also pay attention to the market. The previous installments we’ve written have sold very well, and readers seem to get what we’re trying to do.

Would you call this metafiction? Experimental? Or am I being big-headed (well, more than usual) in thinking this is a natural evolution of narrative structure?

BLAKE: No, I think it’s all of that. But mainly, it’s just two guys writing the kind of book they would be totally geeked to read if their favorite writers ever attempted such a project.

JOE: We have truly been liberated by technology here. I can’t emphasize that enough. There have always been writers who collaborate. Ellery Queen was two guys. Preston and Child are bestsellers. But with SKU, we were literally on the same page, at the same time, adding to each other’s sentences before they were finished. We couldn’t have written the gunshow scene on two separate typewriters. We couldn’t have even written it via email, as we did with SERIAL.

I believe DRACULAS, and SKU, represent a new way of creating stories.

But then, I’ve also been drinking.

BLAKE: Well I haven’t…yet…and I agree with you. I just want to see more writers doing this sort of thing. Imagine if Stephen King and Dean Koontz did something like this.

JOE: Better yet, imagine if King, Koontz, and Kilborn did something like this? Or Crouch, Patterson, and Harris?

BLAKE: I’d buy it.

JOE: So would I. As long as it was less than $5.99. Now let’s talk about the sex scene…

BLAKE: Um yeah…you and I have written quite a bit together, but nothing like this. And I was actually staying at your house when we wrote this, so it was a bit strange being in the same room, writing the Alex/Luther conjugal visit at the same time.

JOE: I wouldn’t call it uncomfortable, exactly. But it was a pretty hot scene, and there were certain points where I didn’t want to make eye contact with you. That said, I think we did an admirable job of not succumbing to childish giggling. Mostly.

BLAKE: Think we’ll ever release a single work containing all novels, stories, and novellas in this combined universe, which we’ve written to date? It would be something like 1,500,000 words.

JOE: That would require us getting the rights back—rights currently held by our legacy publishers. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Last question. Are we really, truly done with this story?

BLAKE: I think we’re done for the time being, but I don’t want to say that a continuance is completely out of the question. Our characters seem to have this strange habit of never really dying…

Tampa, 1978

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you about the dangers of hitchhiking?” the driver said. “You never know who’s going to pick you up.”

Donaldson wiped sweat from his brow and eyed the driver through the half-open passenger side window of the Lincoln Continental. The driver was average-looking, roughly Donaldson’s age, dressed in a dark suit that matched the car’s paint job.

“I’m roasting out here, man,” Donaldson said. And it wasn’t far from the truth. He’d been walking down this desolate highway for damn near three hours in the abusive, summer sun. “My car died. If you want to rob or kill me, that’s fine, as long as you have air conditioning.”

Donaldson forced a bright smile, hoping he looked both pathetic and non-threatening. It must have worked, because the man hit a switch on his armrest, and the door unlocked.

Must be nice being rich, Donaldson mused at the fancy automatic locks. Then he opened the door and heaved his bulk onto the leather seat.

“Thanks,” he said.

The car was cooler than outside, but not by much. Donaldson wondered if the man’s air worked. He placed his hand against the vent, felt a trickle of cold leaking out.

“Happy to help a fellow traveler. I’m Mr. K.”

“Donaldson.”

Neither made a move to shake hands. Mr. K checked his mirror, then gunned the 8-cylinder engine, spraying gravel as the luxury car fishtailed back onto the asphalt.

Donaldson adjusted his bulk, shifting the .38 he’d crammed into the front pocket of his jeans. The pants were loose enough, and Donaldson portly enough, that he doubted Mr. K noticed.

“You’re sunburned,” Mr. K said.

“Sun’ll do that to you.”

Donaldson touched his bare forearm, lobster red, and winced. Then he flipped down the visor mirror, saw how bad his face was. It looked like his old man had slapped the shit out of him, and hurt almost as much.

“Your car a Pinto?” Mr. K asked.

“My car?”

“A Pinto. Saw one about five miles back.”

Donaldson contemplated the harm in admitting it. He supposed it didn’t matter. Before he’d abandoned the car, he’d wiped it clean of fingerprints.

“Yeah. Blew a rod, I think.”

“Why didn’t you wait for the police?”

Again, Donaldson deliberated before answering. “I don’t like pigs,” he finally said.

Mr. K nodded. Donaldson doubted the man shared his sentiment. His hair was short, he was well-dressed, and he owned a fancy car. Cops wouldn’t hassle him. They were too busy hassling people with long hair and beards and ripped jeans.

People like me.

The highway stretched onward, wiggly heat waves rising off the tarmac. There wasn’t much traffic. Only about twenty cars had passed Donaldson during his long walk, and not one had so much as slowed down. Bastards. Whatever happened to human compassion?

“Did you kill the car’s owner before you stole it?” Mr. K asked.

Alarm bells sounded in Donaldson’s head. He frantically pawed at his .38, but Mr. K slammed on the brakes.

Donaldson bounced off the dashboard, smacking his sunburned nose hard. During the momentary disorientation, he was aware of Mr. K throwing the car into park, unbuckling his seatbelt, and pressing a thin-bladed knife under Donaldson’s double chin with one hand, while digging the .38 from Donaldson’s front pocket with the other.

“You should buckle up,” Mr. K said. “Seatbelts save lives.”

Mr. K stuck the knife into his breast pocket, belted himself back in, then hit the gas. The tires screamed and the Continental shot forward.

“I’m bleeding,” Donaldson said, his hands cupped around his nose. He knew it was a stupid, obvious thing to say, but he was still dazed and trying to buy some time.

“Tissues in the glove compartment.”

Donaldson dug them out, feeling more ashamed than hurt. This guy had gotten the better of him much too easily. As he mopped the blood from his face, Mr. K pressed a button to open the passenger side window.

“Throw the used ones outside, please.”

Donaldson went through ten tissues, tossing each one onto the road whizzing by. Then he ripped one more into pieces, balled them up, and shoved them into each nostril, staunching the trickle. He kept an eye on Mr. K the entire time, alternating between watching the man’s eyes, and watching the .38 pointed at him.

This is a real bad situation.

“I don’t enjoy repeating myself, but you hit that dashboard pretty hard, so I’ll ask one more time. Did you kill the driver before you stole the Pinto?”

Donaldson knew he was screwed, but he didn’t want to get himself even more screwed.

“You a cop?” he asked, not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

The barest flash of mirth crossed Mr. K’s face. “No. But your biggest worry right now shouldn’t be getting arrested. Your biggest worry should be the hole I’m going to put in your head if you don’t answer me.”

The gears began to turn in Donaldson’s head. How the hell do I get through this? Talk my way out?

“You won’t shoot me,” Donaldson said, surprised by how calm he sounded.

“No?”

“You’d ruin your car.”

Again, a faint hint of a smile. “It’s not my car. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

Mr. K thumbed back the hammer on the pistol.

Donaldson contemplated his own death—the first time in his life he ever had—and decided dying would be a very bad thing.

“I killed him,” Donaldson said quickly.

Mr. K seemed to think about this. He nodded slowly. “Was it someone you knew?”

“No. Jumped him in a parking lot in Sarasota. Wouldn’t have wasted the bullet if I knew what a piece of crap his car was.”

Donaldson watched Mr. K’s eyes. They betrayed nothing. The two of them might as well have been talking about the weather.

“How’d it feel?” Mr. K asked.

“How did what feel?”

“Killing that man.”

What kind of freaky talk is this? Donaldson thought, but all he said was, “I dunno.”

“Sure you do. Did it feel good? Bad? Numb? Did it get you excited? Did you feel guilty afterward?”

Donaldson thought back to the day before. To holding the gun to the man’s ribs. Seeing the shock in his eyes when he squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times. Watching him flop to the ground in a way that had struck him as funny. The holes in his chest had made sucking sounds, blowing tiny blood bubbles.

“Excited,” Donaldson said.

“Did he die right away?”

“No.”

“Did you stay and watch him die?”

“Yeah.”

“How long did it take?”

It’s so strange that we’re both so calm about this.

Donaldson shrugged. “Few minutes, I guess.”

“Did you do anything else to him?”

“Like what?”

“Did you hurt him first?” Mr. K raised an eyebrow. “Rape him?”

Donaldson scowled. “Do I look like a queer to you?”

“What does being a homosexual have to do with it? You had a human being at your mercy. That excited you. I’m asking if you capitalized on that opportunity. If you made the most of it.”

Donaldson thought about it. The guy had been at his mercy. He’d begged for a while when Donaldson pulled the gun, and that was kind of a turn-on.

“I didn’t rape him,” Donaldson said.

“Could you have raped him?”

Donaldson licked some dried blood off of his top lip, let the salty, copper taste linger on his tongue. “Yeah. I could’ve.”

This answer seemed to satisfy Mr. K. He was quiet for over a minute.

The road stretched out ahead of them like a giant black snake.

Empty swampland and blue skies as far as Donaldson could see.

I can’t believe I’m telling him this stuff. Is it because he’s threatening to kill me?

Or because he understands?

“How’d you know?” Donaldson asked.

“Know what?”

“That I stole that car?”

Mr. K offered a half-smile. “I saw the gun in your pocket when you stopped, along with your clumsy attempt to hide it. You should get an ankle holster, or stuff it in your belt at the small of your back. You obviously aren’t a Florida native, or you’d have a tan already. That means you flew in or drove in. If you flew, you probably would’ve had a rental car, and those are usually new. That Pinto was an old model. When you first got in, I noticed the powder burns on your shirt, and under your rather oppressive body odor, you smell like gunpowder.”

Donaldson was impressed, but he refused to show it. He knew a lot about being victimized. One way to stop being a victim was to stop acting like a victim.

“I asked how you knew about the car, not my gun,” Donaldson said, sticking out his lower jaw.

If Mr. K noticed Donaldson’s display of bravado, he didn’t react. “Your loose jeans didn’t jingle when you sat down in the car. When people abandon their vehicles, they take their keys with them. So I assumed it wasn’t yours.”

Donaldson appraised Mr. K again. This was a smart guy.

“How about you?” Donaldson ventured. “Did you kill the owner of this car?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“He’s tied up in the trunk. I’m taking him someplace private.”

Donald worded his next question carefully. “Do you want to kill me?”

Mr. K drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

Donaldson counted his own heartbeats, trying to keep cool until Mr. K finally replied.

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Is there anything I can do to, uh, persuade you that I’m worth keeping alive?”

“Maybe. The Pinto owner you killed. He wasn’t the first.”

Donaldson thought back to his father, to beating the old man to death with a baseball bat. “No, he wasn’t.”

“But he was the first stranger.”

This guy is uncanny. “Yeah.”

“Who was it before that? Girlfriend? Family member?”

“My dad.”

“But you didn’t use a gun on him, did you? You made it more personal.”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you use?”

“A Louisville Slugger.”

“How did it feel?”

Donaldson closed his eyes. He could still feel the sting of the bat in his palms when he cracked it against his father’s head, still see the blood that spurted out of split skin like a lawn sprinkler.

“I felt like Reggie Jackson hitting one out of Yankee Stadium. Afterward, I even went out and bought a Reggie Bar.”

Mr. K gave him a sideways glance. “Why buy candy? Why didn’t you eat part of your father? Just imagine the expression on his face.”

Donaldson was about to protest, but he stopped himself. When he broke Dad’s jaw with the bat, the old man had looked more surprised than hurt. How would he have reacted if Donaldson had cut off one of his fingers and eaten it in front of him?

That would have shown the son of bitch. Bite the hand that feeds you.

“I should have done that,” Donaldson said.

“He hurt you when you were a child.” Mr. K said it as a statement, not a question.

“Yeah. He used to beat the shit out of me.”

“Did he sexually abuse you?”

“Naw. Nothing like that. But every time I got into trouble, he’d take his belt to me. And he hit hard enough to draw blood. What kind of asshole does that to a five-year-old kid?”

“Think hard, Donaldson. Do you believe your father beat you, and that turned you into what you are? Or did he beat you because of what you are?”

Donaldson frowned. “What do you mean what you are? What am I?”

Mr. K turned and stared deep into his soul, his eyes like gun barrels. “You’re a killer, Donaldson.”

Donaldson considered the label. It didn’t take him long to embrace it.

“So what was the question again?”

“Are you a killer because your father beat you, or did your father beat you because you’re a killer?”

Donaldson could remember that first beating when he was five. He’d taken his pet gerbil and put it in the blender. Used the pulse button, grinding it up a little at a time, so it didn’t die right away.

“I think my dad knew. Tried to beat the devil out of me. Used to tell me that, when he was whipping my ass.”

“You don’t have the devil in you, Donaldson. You’re simply unique. Exceptional. Unrestrained by morality or guilt.”

Exceptional? Donaldson had never felt like he was exceptional at anything. He did badly in school. Dropped out of college. Never had any friends, or a woman he didn’t pay for. Bummed around the country, job to job, occasionally ripping someone off. How is that exceptional?

But somehow, he felt that the description fit him.

Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve been trying to be normal all of these years, but I’m not. I’m better than normal.

I’m exceptional.

“How do you know this stuff?” Donaldson asked.

“The more you understand death,” Mr. K said, “the more you appreciate life.”

“Sounds like fortune cookie bullshit.”

“It was something I learned in the war.”

“Vietnam?” Donaldson had been exempt from the draft because he didn’t pass the physical.

“A villager in Ca Lu said it to me, before I removed his intestines with a bayonet.”

“Was he talking about himself?” Donaldson asked. “Or you?”

“You tell me. Did you feel alive when you killed your father, Donaldson?”

Donaldson nodded.

“And when you killed the owner of the Pinto?” Mr. K continued.

“Goddamn piece of crap car. I wish I could kill that guy again.”

“How about someone else in his place?”

Donaldson squinted at Mr. K. “What do you mean?”

Another half smile. “The man in my trunk. If I gave you the chance to kill him, would you?”

“What’d he do?”

“What did the Pinto owner do?” Mr. K countered.

“Nothing. But I wanted his car.”

“So you killed him for his car?”

“Yeah.”

“Couldn’t you have just pointed the gun and told him to give you his keys?”

“He would’ve called the cops.”

“You could’ve knocked him out. Or tied him up.”

“I guess.”

“But you didn’t.”

Donaldson folded his chubby arms across his chest. “No. I didn’t.”

“This man in the trunk. I promised him it would take a long time for him to die. Do you think you could do something like that? Draw out a man’s agony for a long time?”

Donaldson wasn’t sure what Mr. K’s angle was. “Sure.”

“Is that something you’d like to do?”

Donaldson shrugged. “I dunno. Never tried it before.”

“You know what the alternative is, don’t you?”

“You kill me.”

Mr. K nodded.

Donaldson made his decision in a nanosecond. “How do you want me to do it?”

“You can use your imagination. I have plenty of tools you can choose from.”

Donaldson stared off into the miles and miles of endless marshland. Thought about this strange request. Found himself becoming aroused.

“I’ll kill him,” he said. “And I’ll make it hurt.”

Mr. K checked his rearview mirror, eased his foot off the gas, and then drove onto the shoulder. He put on his emergency lights, then ordered Donaldson out of the car.

Donaldson didn’t even attempt to run away. He walked around to the rear of the car without being told and waited, butterflies amassing in his stomach.

The man in the trunk was awake, completely naked, his wrists and ankles tied with rope. He was older, late forties maybe, and he squinted in the powerful sun. In his mouth was a gag made out of a rubber ball.

He looks positively out of his mind with terror.

Donaldson licked his lips again.

“I prefer clothesline,” Mr. K said. “You can buy it everywhere, so it’s untraceable. And it won’t hold a fingerprint. Get him out of the car. Hurry, before another car comes by.”

Donaldson muscled the man out. It wasn’t easy. The guy squirmed and fought, and he was pretty heavy and tough to lift. Donaldson quickly gave up trying. Instead, he dragged him nude across the asphalt as the man moaned around his gag.

That’s gotta hurt, Donaldson thought. But that’s nothing compared to what I’m gonna do.

Mr. K took a tool case and a gas can out of the trunk, then closed it. He instructed Donaldson to pull the man into the marsh. It was wet, moss clinging to Donaldson’s shoes, muck seeping through. High reeds seemed to reach out and tug at the bound man, making it even harder to pull him.

After fifty yards, Donaldson was exhausted.

After a hundred yards, Donaldson was seriously pissed off. He hated being in the sun again, hated the throbbing in his nose and muscles, and hated this heavy son of a bitch for squirming so much and for being so goddamn heavy.

“That’s far enough,” Mr. K said. He set down the tool chest and opened it up.

Donaldson stared inside at the contents like a kid ogling presents under a Christmas tree.

“Can you give me my ball gag back?” Mr. K held out a rag. “It’s my last one.”

Donaldson unbuckled the gag from the man’s mouth, disgusted by the spit dripping from it. He handed it to Mr. K and then kicked the naked man in the stomach for making such a mess.

The man screamed. The first of many to come.

“I’ll pay!” he cried. “I’ll pay!”

“What should I use first?” Donaldson asked Mr. K.

“Try the ball-peen hammer. Breaking before cutting or burning always seems to work better.”

The next two hours blurred by for Donaldson, his entire world reduced to hurting this unknown, screaming, naked man in this deserted marsh. Even Mr. K seemed to vanish to Donaldson, though he took pictures during the proceedings, and occasionally interrupted to offer advice or encouragement:

Don’t cut there too deep. He’ll bleed to death.

Try the pliers.

Tell him what you’re going to do next. It makes it worse.

That part’s particularly sensitive. Use the blowtorch.

He’s not looking at you. Make him look at you, or cut off his eyelids.

He’s passed out again. Use the ammonia rag to wake him up.

There’s still a patch of skin there.

Now would be a good time for the salt and vinegar. Rub it in good.

It doesn’t make you gay. Enjoy yourself. He’s at your mercy.

How does it taste? Different than that other part you tried?

Try feeding his eyelids to him.

Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. He had a heart attack. It happens sometimes. You did well.

Donaldson sat nude next to the dead thing. The portly killer was covered with blood and bits of tissue, and he couldn’t think of any time in his twenty-something years of life that he’d ever been happier.

Mr. K finished wiping off the cheese grater with a rag and some bleach, and placed it back into his tool kit. Then he told Donaldson to douse the corpse with gasoline.

“Fire will take care of any evidence you’ve left behind. But wait until I’m gone. I don’t want you attracting any attention.”

Donaldson emptied the can and stared up at Mr. K, who stood silhouetted against the setting sun. He looked enormous.

Donaldson offered him the empty can, said, “Take me with you.”

“You’re naked and covered in blood, Donaldson. You’d ruin the interior of my car.”

“I thought you stole the car.”

“Stealing cars is for stupid children. The police have radios. It’s too easy to get caught. If you manage to get out of here, remember that. You’d be wise to remember everything I’ve said to you.”

“You’re not going to kill me?”

“Why should I? Even if you remembered my license plate number, which I don’t think you have, I just shot two rolls of you torturing a man to death. I have nothing to fear from you.”

Mr. K picked up his toolbox and turned to walk away.

“Can I get my gun back?” Donaldson asked.

Mr. K dropped the box, took out the .38, and wiped it off with the rag. He emptied the bullets onto the ground and tossed Donaldson the weapon, then reached into his breast pocket and tossed something else at him.

Wet wipes, from a fast food chicken place.

“I’d recommend getting some of that blood off before you try hitchhiking again.”

Donaldson nodded, picking a morsel of something out of his front teeth. “Next time I won’t get so much on me.”

“There’ll be a next time?”

“Yeah. Oh yeah.”

Mr. K stared at him for a moment, then lifted his toolkit. “Goodbye, Donaldson. I wish you luck on your future exploits.”

“You, too.”

Mr. K smiled. Not a hint of a smile. Or a half-smile. But a full one, like he was genuinely happy.

“And you be careful hitching,” Mr. K said. “Never know who’s going to pick you up.”

BLAKE CROUCH is the author of DESERT PLACES, LOCKED DOORS, SNOWBOUND, and ABANDON, which was an IndieBound Notable Selection, all published by St. Martin’s Press. His latest thriller, RUN, was released in February 2011. His short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Thriller 2, Shivers VI, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and other anthologies. In 2009, he co-wrote “Serial” with JA Konrath, which has been downloaded over 500,000 times and topped the Kindle bestseller list for 4 weeks. That story and ABANDON have also been optioned for film. Blake lives in Colorado. His website is www.blakecrouch.com.

JA KONRATH is the author of seven novels in the Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels thriller series. The latest is Shaken, published by AmazonEncore.

JACK KILBORN is the pen name for JA Konrath. Under the Kilborn moniker, he wrote ENDURANCE, TRAPPED, and AFRAID, all structured in the same way as DRACULAS, but decidedly darker. Konrath currently has twenty-seven ebooks available on Kindle, most of them inexpensively priced. In 2011, Ace Books is releasing TIMECASTER, a sci-fi ecopunk novel written under the nom de plume Joe Kimball. You can visit all of his personalities at www.jakonrath.com.

JA KONRATH’S/JACK KILBORN’S WORKS AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Jack Daniels thrillers

Whiskey Sour

Bloody Mary

Rusty Nail

Dirty Martini

Fuzzy Navel

Cherry Bomb

Shaken

Shot of Tequila

Banana Hammock

Jack Daniels Stories (collected stories)

Serial Uncut with Blake Crouch

Killers with Blake Crouch

Suckers with Jeff Strand

Planter’s Punch with Tom Schreck

Floaters with Henry Perez

Truck Stop

Symbios (writing as Joe Kimball)

Jailbait (with Ann Voss Peterson)

Wild Night is Calling (with Ann Voss Peterson)

Shapeshifters Anonymous

The Screaming

Other works

Afraid

Endurance

Trapped

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

Visit the author at www.jakonrath.com

BLAKE CROUCH’S WORKS AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Andrew Z. Thomas thrillers

Break You

Desert Places

Locked Doors

Other works

Run

Draculas with JA Konrath, Jeff Strand and F. Paul Wilson

Abandon

Snowbound

Famous

Perfect Little Town (horror novella)

Bad Girl (short story)

Serial with Jack Kilborn

Serial Uncut with JA Konrath and Jack Kilborn

Killers with Jack Kilborn

Birds of Prey with Jack Kilborn and JA Konrath

Killers Uncut with Jack Kilborn and JA Konrath

Serial Killers Uncut with Jack Kilborn and JA Konrath

Shining Rock (short story)

*69 (short story)

On the Good, Red Road (short story)

Remaking (short story)

The Meteorologist (short story)

The Pain of Others (novella)

Unconditional (short story)

Four Live Rounds (collected stories)

Six in the Cylinder (collected stories)

Fully Loaded (complete collected stories)

Visit Blake at www.BlakeCrouch.com

Stirred by Blake Crouch and JA Konrath

Flee by JA Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson

Pines by Blake Crouch

Mummies

Wolfmen

Draculas 2

Compilation copyright © 2011 by Blake Crouch & Joe Konrath

BIRDS OF PREY copyright © 2011 by Blake Crouch & Joe Konrath

Cover copyright © 2011 by Jeroen ten Berge

BIRDS OF PREY is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations 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 may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Joe Konrath & Blake Crouch.

For more information about Blake Crouch, please visit www.blakecrouch.com.

For more information about JA Konrath, please visit www.jakonrath.com.

For more information about Jack Kilborn, please visit www.jackkilborn.com.

For more information about the cover artist, please visit www.jeroentenberge.com.