Two more boys come out of the house.

One has a spear. The other one is in his underwear and his yarmulke and doesn’t have shit.

I worry about the one with the spear.

He rushes me and plants his feet and thrusts just like someone has trained him to do and I drop the long knife and grab the spear shaft behind the point and it slips through my fingers and about three inches of steel slips into my stomach and I bring the axe down and the shaft splinters and the guy who had a spear now has a stick and I have the axe and the business end of a spear and I pull it out of my belly and flip it in the air and catch it and hold it out and the guy in his underwear has already leapt into the air and is coming down at me and can’t do shit about it and the shock of the impact tears the spear from my hand and he hits the ground and starts trying to pull it out of his chest but it’s in deep and lodged tight in his breastbone and he rolls around and dies and the guy with the stick turns to go back in the house and trips over the arm of the boy who had the sling and I limp over and swing the axe once and swing it a second time and the second time does the trick and I go inside the house with the axe in one hand and a head in the other.

The door leads into the kitchen. The boy in the kitchen is the head scratcher.

And he has a bow.

His hands shake as he tries to knock an arrow into the bowstring.

I hold up the head.

– Hey.

He flinches and the arrow slips loose and the string twangs into his forearm.

– Uh.

I point the axe at the head.

– Where’s the girl?

He points at the floor.

– Uh.

– Basement?

He nods.

I lower the head.

– You can run if you want.

He drops the bow and turns and runs through the doorway into the livingroom and I throw the head at his legs and he goes down and I walk over with the axe and put my foot in his back and raise the axe to get my second head.

– A message is meant to be heeded, yes?

The Rebbe stands halfway down the stairway in his trousers and slippers and untucked shirt, a prayer shawl draped over his shoulders, a Colt Defender in his hand. I notice a black cloth draped half over a mirror on the wall next to him. A basin of water at the end of the hall near the front door.

The Rebbe tugs the cloth over the mirror, but it falls away again.

– For my son.

He looks at the head scratcher.

– Coward.

He shoots the head scratcher and I throw myself up the stairs and swing the axe in a high arc and I crash into the stairs and the blade rakes his leg and hooks in the meat of his thigh and I heave and the leg folds under him and he’s falling backward, two rounds punching through the ceiling, and I pull the axe from his leg and put it in his stomach and pull him down the stairs toward me and the gun comes at my face and the barrel smashes my cheekbone and it goes off and the muzzle flash sears my eye and the bullet splinters the banister and I pull the axe free and put it in his chest and pull him closer and I’m on top of him now and his face is in front of me and I know what I love and what I’ll sacrifice for it and I don’t care when he fires again and the bullet tears my neck open and I pull the axe free and I bring it down and I bring it down and I bring it down.

– Moishe.

His wife stands at the top of the stairs.

Covered in her husband’s blood, I pick up his gun and shoot her dead.

I pull off the Rebbe’s shawl and wrap it around my neck. The wound is growing hot as the Vyrus clots the blood. My left eye is blind and blistered. I sit on the stair and smoke, my head listing to the side where the bullet ripped a hole in the thick muscle that connects it to my body.

When the cigarette is finished I go to work, dividing the Rebbe together with his bones into twelve pieces.

I don’t bother to send the pieces into any place. I’m pretty sure his people will get the fucking message.

– Where is that fucker?

Lydia takes the long knife from me and cuts the bindings from her feet and sits up on the cot in her basement cell.

– Where’s the fucker that thought he was gonna turn me into a rape slave?

I pick some dead skin from my blind eye.

– I got him.

She stands, totters, puts out a hand to brace herself and grabs my shoulder.

– I want to see.

I flick the skin from my fingers.

– No, you don’t.

She looks me over, standing crooked on my one good leg, dressed in one of Axler’s too-tight black suits and my sticky leather jacket, the rest of my clothes up in the house, soaked in half the blood of Brooklyn.

She grits her teeth.

– He deserved it.

I cough up some blood. I don’t know whose.

– No doubt.

She looks at the hand on my shoulder, pulls it away.

– You OK?

– No.

She nods.

– OK. Let’s get going.

I push off the wall and we both limp out the door and she stops and looks at the other cell across the basement.

She steps that way.

I don’t.

– Lydia, I need to get out of here.

She looks me over.

– You’ll hold up a little longer.

She walks, holding her belly.

– Fucking arrows. Who uses arrows, Joe? Savages, that’s who. I mean, no disrespect to any native peoples intended, but arrows are for savages. These people are savages. They have the same superstitions as savages. And they treat women like savages. And I’m not leaving these women here to be baby incubators for savages.

– Open that door and untie them and they’re just gonna try and kill you.

I come up behind her.

– You killed their father, Lydia.

She looks at the lock.

– All the more reason that I won’t leave them here, Joe. If that means we carry them out of here hog-tied, then that’s what we’ll do.

She looks at me.

– Do you have anything to get the lock off?

I hand her the axe.

– Try this.

She brings it down on the lock and it tears loose and she pushes the door open and light hits Vendetta and Harm, hanging from the water pipe that runs across the ceiling, nooses tied from their head-scarves knotted around their swollen necks.

Lydia stares at them.

I make for the stairs, glad that something was easy for a change.

– I don’t know how they did it.

I steer Axler’s mom’s Caddy up onto the bridge.

She rubs her forehead.

– They must have hung there forever.

I push the dash lighter in and put a cigarette in my mouth.

– They were tough little tarts. And they knew what they wanted. Want it bad enough and you’ll do anything.

She watches me take the lighter from the dash and use it.

– Fuck you, Joe.

I push the lighter back in its socket and drive.

– Yeah, fuck me.

Over on the horizon, something a little like dawn shows upriver.

I pull to the curb, back on Society turf.

– Where’s this?

– I got things to do. You can keep the car.

Lydia looks out the window.

– No. Absolutely not.

I open my door.

She grabs my arm.

– I thought we talked about this. I thought I was clear about where I stand with this kind of thing.

I pull loose and step out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition.

She comes around from her side and stands in front of me.

– This is not OK. You are not thinking straight. And it’s not even remotely the time to have a debate on the subject. We have to go to Terry and tell him what happened. Regardless of who was to blame, what happened out there was a fiasco and there will be consequences, and we have to begin to prepare for them right now.

I jam the Rebbe’s Defender into her stomach.

– Lydia, get out of my fucking way.

She looks down at the gun.

– Don’t be ridiculous, Joe.