He crouched and thrust the flaming torch close to Hammerhead’s bare chest. Hammerhead’s eyes bulged and his body jerked. A thin choked cry forced its way out from his slobbering lips.

Freeboot pulled the torch back.

“Except it’s not just a little taste like that,” he roared. “It’s a fire that’s a million times hotter, burning from inside your bones. And it lasts forever.”

He leaned forward, staring into Hammerhead’s eyes from twelve inches away. The young man’s rioting emotions lay bare before him-terror, pain, rage, confusion.

But more powerful than all the rest put together was the urge to please his master. It was always like this. Freeboot wanted to laugh, but he kept his face stony.

“You belong to me, body and soul,” he said, murmuring now, working his way further into Hammerhead’s mind. “I am in you. If you ever disobey me, if you ever turn rat, there ain’t no place you can ever hide. I will find you, and I will bring you to this.”

He held the torch to Hammerhead’s chest again, closer and longer. This burn would blister his skin, not enough to impair him, but painful as hell. He wanted Hammerhead to know that this had not been just a dream.

“Now I will give you release,” Freeboot said, and stood. Hammerhead had managed to roll his face to the side, panting in agony.

Freeboot took a third goblet of wine from its place. This time it was laced with chloral hydrate-an old-fashioned Mickey Finn-and Valium. It would knock Hammerhead out within seconds, and keep him down for a few hours.

When he woke up, he would be on his way to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Emlinger.

Freeboot gripped Hammerhead’s chin, tipped back his head, and sloshed the wine into his mouth, holding it open while he choked it down.

“Sleep,” Freeboot said. “When you wake up, you’re going to find out the reason you were born.”

A sharp pop brought Monks out of the half-sleep that he had drifted into, hunched in the chair in Mandrake’s bedroom. He sat up, startled and confused. He was sure that the sound had come from somewhere in the lodge. But he hadn’t heard anyone come inside.

Then he smelled the harsh reek of something burning. He quickly identified it as chemical, a fuel, and he realized what must have happened: the glass chimney of a kerosene lamp had burst, as they sometimes did from their own heat. If the kerosene leaked, the log building could go up in flames fast.

He heaved himself out of the chair and strode through the hanging blanket. The fire in the hearth had gotten low and the main room was almost dark. His gaze searched for the burning lamp, not finding it. It might be in the kitchen. He started that way.

A hissing, blinding spray exploded into his face, cutting across his eyeballs like broken glass, searing his nostrils and thoat. He stumbled, clawing at his eyes.

Something smashed into the back of his right knee. He collapsed, hands flailing for the floor to break his fall. The spray blasted his eyes again. He rolled, face buried in his arms, clogged lungs choking as he tried to suck in air.

A boot pressed down hard on the back of his neck. A hand gripped a fistful of his hair, twisting it painfully. Cold metal brushed his ear.

Monks realized dimly, in disbelief, that his hair was being sawn off.

His muscles tensed instinctively to thrash his arms and legs, and shake off this horror that crouched on top of him. But a voice spoke in his mind, with eerie clarity-If you get Maced, don’t fight back, ’cause knives can slip.

He forced himself to lie still.

The hands left his head, then the boot released his neck. His burning eyes were still squeezed shut, but his throat was starting to open with agonizing slowness, allowing in a tiny trickle of rancid chemical-infused air. He remained motionless, concentrating on breathing, terrified that another burst of the spray would shut it off for good.

Instead, the attacker kicked him in the gut. His precious bit of breath exploded out of him in a wrenching wheeze. He doubled up fetally, knees tight against his chest and head hidden in his arms, braced for the stomping that would kill him.

But the boot only touched him one more time, tapping him contemptuously on the ear-a mocking suggestion of what it could do if it wanted to.

Then the room was still.

Monks lay as he was for another minute, until his lungs were taking in enough to function without being forced. Then he tugged his shirt loose and pressed the cloth against his eyes, clenching his teeth in pain as he fluttered them open. Mace and pepper sprays were designed not to do permanent damage, but he wanted to rinse without delay. He got up to his knees, swaying, trying to orient himself.

His blurred gaze swept past Mandrake’s bedroom, then swung back.

The little boy was standing in the doorway, clutching the hanging blanket like a binky, holding it against his cheek, his thumb in his mouth.

Monks bit off a curse, got to his feet, and staggered to the kitchen.

The broken shards of a lamp chimney were in the sink. It had burst, all right-the attacker had broken it to lure him out.

He turned on the water tap and crouched, gripping the sink’s lip and positioning his head under the cold clear stream. He turned from side to side so the water would course into his eyes, flushing them clear. Ideally, you were supposed to do this for several minutes, but he didn’t have several minutes. He dried his face on his shirttail as he hurried to Mandrake’s room. His fingers touched the spot behind his left ear where a clump of his hair was gone.

Mandrake was back in bed, scrunched into the corner as he had been when Monks first saw him. He was clutching his stuffed snake in front of him like a shield. His eyes looked like Greek olives.

Monks sat down beside him, moving slowly, managing to smile.

“Wow,” he said. “You know what happened out there? I went to get a drink of water, and that mermaid was hiding! She tickled me so hard I thought I was going to explode.”

Mandrake’s face stayed blank. His eyes stared directly at Monks, but they were shielded, his mind withdrawn. Clearly, he knew that what he had seen was not a game, and he had gone back into that limbo of the only safety he could find.

Monks tucked him in and got ready to check his blood sugar. There was no telling how the shock might affect him.

Monks was trembling, his fear giving way to fury, not just for himself, but for Mandrake. But he was helpless, without even a guess at who the attacker was. The Mace had blasted his eyes before he had gotten a glimpse, and he had never laid a hand on him-or her-so as to be able to guess at size or weight. It could have been anybody.

Including Glenn.

The home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Emlinger was built like an old-fashioned mansion, with a curving staircase that led up out of the huge, high-ceilinged living room to a balustraded walkway around the second story.

Taxman followed Hammerhead silently up the steps, watching him for signs of weakness. This was where it started to get real. Hammerhead was wired with meth and adrenaline, jumpy and scared, but that was all right. Next mission, he would be expected to function professionally.

Tonight, he only had to do one thing: get blooded.

This place was an easy target, the kind that Taxman always picked to break in a first-time maquis. There was no bodyguard or dog, and the microwave alarm system was vulnerable to a DTMF phone that read the tones of its entry code. Atherton was one of California ’s richest communities, an enclave of ivy-walled houses on city-block-sized lots, set far back from the streets and sheltered by high thick hedges and black iron gates across the driveways. The residents were used to feeling secure. Taxman and Hammerhead had gotten inside as quietly as fog. There was no need for night goggles, and they carried Glock.40-caliber semiautomatic pistols instead of the bulkier HK submachine guns.