I feel the warm blood oozing from my hand, dripping down my wrist. And then suddenly I can hear a faraway sound amidst the monumental silence, but I cannot make it out. For a moment, I listen more closely, trying to understand the sound, to understand what I have done, but I am denied the answers. I wrench the knife tighter, press down harder, and another gush of blood seeps through my fingers. Blinded by my own rage and insanity, I scream out into the ether, trying to drown it all out. “NOOO!” My own voice frightens me—or is it the desperation bleeding from it?

I hear the knife clink against the stones, thunderous in my ears, and I open my eyes; the gash across the palm of my hand is deep.

Izabel is sitting on the floor feet from me, her back pressed against the cage bars, her hands still bound behind her, a look of astonishment consuming her beautiful features.

I look down at my bleeding hand again. Back up at Izabel again.

“VICTOR!” Artemis shouts.

Izabel and I remain locked in this moment of eternity.

“Goddamn you! Kill her!”

“They’re coming, Artemis,” Apollo says. “We have to leave! NOW!”

“No! I’m not leaving until he slits that whore’s throat! KILL HER! KILL HER NOW!”

I do not move from my knees on the floor; I do not look at anyone but the woman I love and would rather die for, than kill.

“Why won’t you kill her?” Artemis screeches; desperation and pain in her eyes. “Victor…why can’t you kill her…like you killed me?” She is crying.

Finally, I look away from Izabel and see only Artemis. “Because I love her too much,” I say, and feel a heavy weight leave my body.

Artemis stiffens, her features stunned.

Then suddenly I glimpse movement behind Izabel—fast, but painfully slow at the same time—and the flash of another blade. I freeze; I cannot move anything, not even my eyes; I scream out, but I cannot hear my own voice.

“I love you, Victor,” Izabel mouths, and then blood pours from her throat.

“No—NOOO!”

From the bars, Artemis’s left hand is wound in the top of Izabel’s hair, the right, slowly, horrifically, moves away from Izabel’s throat, a knife, stained with Izabel’s blood, clutched beneath her fingers. Izabel’s eyes roll back, and the whites come into view; her body slumps sideways. I still cannot move. It seems as if some invisible force stronger than my own will forbids it.

Dead. I am dead inside. This is how it feels to be dead.

After seconds that stretch like hours, in a rush of emotions, I feel my knees trudging across the floor, carrying my trembling body toward her. It feels like an eternity, but in seconds I am struggling to get her into my arms, my hands covering the gash on her throat, trying to stop the blood flow. “Izabel!” I cry out, my voice straining through the tears. “I am so sorry, Izabel! I am so sorry! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP HER! FUCKING HELP HER NOW!”

My pleas go unheard.

Everything becomes a blur, every sound and movement is chaotic, whirling around me and inside my head like debris tossed by a tornado. People running, guns firing, boots pounding against the stones, screams, more gunfire. “Forgive me,” I whisper to Izabel, ignoring it all, as if I were in the eye of that storm where everything is calm, rocking her limp body in my arms. “Forgive me…”

My brother’s seat at the head of the table has been empty since he came back from Venezuela. He and I still aren’t on the best of terms, but I can’t leave our organization without some kind of structure in his absence—it falls, I fall too, that sort of thing. So here I am. Standing where my brother usually sits, looking out at a few familiar faces, and a couple new ones, too, all sitting around the meeting table. Nora, on my right, taps her nails against the tabletop, from pinky to index, again, and again, and again. Fredrik sits to my left, across the table from Nora; he’s as quiet as ever, staring off at the wall; probably got that serial killer he’s been hunting with the government, on his mind—hell, he hardly talks about anything else. James Woodard sits to Fredrik’s left, looking healthier these days; got himself on a Vegan diet, or some such shit; lost a few pounds, and is feeling like a new man.

Izzy’s seat is empty.

Tap-tap-tap-tap. Pinky to index. Tap-tap-tap-tap.

The contents of the table shake when I slam the side of my fisted hand down on it. “Do you mind?”

Nora snarls at me in response, but her fingers go still; she leans back against her chair, crosses her legs, and leaves her arm stretched out on the table.

I still sleep with her every now and then; it’s a mutual understanding we have: there’s nothing special between us other than work, and that we like to fuck—we’re not even friends. And if something ever happened to her, I couldn’t be bothered to give a shit, really. Might even give me some relief, to be honest. Nora isn’t exactly on my List of People I Trust, and she never will be.

“So where is this guy, anyway?” Nora asks, glancing at the double-doors that lead into the meeting room. “Twenty minutes late—not a good first impression.”

“I doubt he’s coming to impress us,” I point out.

“You know,” Fredrik speaks up, “I don’t recall being briefed on what exactly he is coming here for.”

“And without Victor,” Nora adds with a wary, sideward glance.

“Victor is who arranged it,” I say, and then look over at Fredrik. “And all I know is that you’re supposed to give him the same respect you’d give my brother.” That’s how I know that what we think of our visitor, no matter how unimpressed we might be, won’t make a damn bit of difference to Victor.

“You mean that we’re supposed to give him,” Nora corrects me. “You too—not just us. And I don’t like where this feels like it’s going.”

“Neither do I,” James Woodard seconds. Then he lowers his eyes. “I-I mean, not that it matters what I like or don’t like.”

“Grow a pair, will you?” Nora says, shaking her head.

The other two operatives—new to the Table, and probably temporary—just sit and listen. The woman, uptight and suit-clad, has this annoying habit of chewing on the inside of her mouth, with her mouth open—pop-click-pop-click-pop; the man, long-faced with small black eyes and a gourd-like nose, breathes too loudly for my tastes; he sounds like a fucking Chinese pug going up a flight of stairs—heave, hisss-sooo, heave, hiss-sooo.

“I hope this doesn’t take long,” Fredrik says. “I have to get back to my investigation.”

“I think this is a little bit more important than that psychopath you’ve got a hard-on for,” I say. “Don’t you even care what happened to Izzy?” Please don’t say something to piss me off, Fredrik; I’m not in the mood.

Fredrik looks right at me, straight-faced, unemotional.

“I do care,” he says, “but what’s done is done, and we have to move on.”

OK, I guess that just barely hugged the line between acceptance and a fist in his face. Besides, I can tell the guy is downplaying the way he really feels—he cares more about Izzy than he cares for anyone.

“Who is he, anyway?” Nora asks.

Everybody looks at me now, waiting. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Pinky to index. Pop-click-pop-click-pop. Heave, hisss-sooo, heave, hiss-sooo. I’m going to lose my shit in a minute.

“I don’t know,” I say, irritated by the noises and the truth. “Victor gave him the code to enter the building, informed all the guards that he was not to be frisked, and if he has a weapon he gets to keep it.”

“I don’t like this,” Nora says. “Why would Victor do this? Especially after what happened. What if he’s losing his mind? Like this whole thing has finally pushed Faust over the edge. This mystery guy could be anyone, friend or foe—or worse, he could be just like any one of us.”