“I think she’d like to drink me.”

“She’d like to cut off your head and shit down your neck.”

“I see why you like her.”

She pushes the button and makes her robot sunglasses sing.

“I’m a sucker for the dangerous ones,” she says.

“Did you just feel that?”

“What?”

“Like a little earthquake.”

“Maybe a tiny one-point-oh or something. So what?”

“Nothing. I’ve been feeling them all night.”

“Maybe you were Downtown so long you’re growing hooves.”

“Where did she come from?”

Candy looks around.

“Who?”

I point to a tiny figure walking across the room. A little girl in a blue party dress.

“I know her. I saw her at the cemetery. Hey, kid. Hey, little girl.”

I don’t see the knife until she’s already swinging it. It’s a big brutal thing. Something you’d see in a slaughterhouse gutting cattle. She giggles and runs at a balding middle-aged Sub Rosa businessman in a gray suit that’s seen better days. He’s drinking a light beer and texting someone. She runs at him from behind. He doesn’t stand a chance.

The little girl doesn’t go for him all thumbs and awkward slashing like a civilian. She hits the guy like a tiny hurricane, driving the knife into his kidneys, then his spine, and finally his heart. Ten, fifteen times in a few seconds like she’s done it all before. It’s not even like she’s mad. She laughs the whole time. And she knows how to use the blade. Not straight into him like an amateur shithead so the tip gets stuck on bone. She thrusts up so the blade slips between the ribs. Every shot is a kill shot.

I run at her but Mr. Businessman is already down, leaking like a waterbed in a razor factory. The girl turns on me, still smiling. Still laughing. I reach out to grab her and she swings the blade so fast I barely get my hand out of the way. That’s all I need. Another prosthetic.

When I go in again, she grabs my human hand. Her grip is unbelievable. I haven’t felt anything like it since the arena. She swings the knife and I grab her with my Kissi claw. She screams and pulls away. Not in fear. More like disgust. She isn’t laughing anymore and the fierceness has gone out of her eyes. She’s still holding up the knife but it’s not threatening. It’s like she can’t let it go. Like the knife is an extension of her arm. She touches my Kissi hand again and shakes her head.

“You’re not one of his,” she says, and giggles like I just gave her a pony for her birthday.

I feel another little earthquake.

The door bangs open. Bodies go down hard. Four assholes cluster by the jukebox in masks and body armor. They’re supposed to be scary but they look like high-tech ninja scuba divers. They sweep the room with their rifles, looking for someone. I have a bad feeling who.

“You’re just in time for the bake sale, boys. Who brought the cupcakes?”

All four of them have weapons, sleek rifles that conform to the shape of their arms and bodies. The business ends crackle with blue electric arcs. I’ve only ever seen those weapons one other place. In the Golden Vigil raid on Club Avila last New Year’s Eve. Human weapons enhanced with angelic tech.

Laughing, the little girl runs behind them and out the door.

They raise their rifles and move in on me but don’t get two steps before the first one goes down. Candy has gone full Jade. Red slit eyes. A mouth full of bone-white shark teeth and nails curled back into claws. A second later Rinko does the same and charges at the hit man Candy has pinned to the floor. Another hit man screams as a glass vial breaks against the side of his head, and then another. The first potion Vidocq threw didn’t do anything. It’s the second potion mixing with the first that has the hit man screaming as his mask and skin melt down the side of his face, burning into his neck.

One of the hit men gets a bead on me but the Incredible Melting Man falls on him, screaming for help. I grab the na’at from inside my coat and snap it out like a whip, hitting him in the eye. With a twist, spines open at the na’at’s tip, digging into his skull. Twist the other way and his neck snaps. Unfortunately in all the fun I missed hit man four. He’s off to my side. I know because his rifle crackles and the air feels like a thousand needles as the lightning comes at me.

There’s another small earthquake. Something snaps and the next thing I know I’m flat on my back looking up at the ceiling from a hole in the floor. I get up covered in dirt and broken tiles and climb out.

Three of the four hit men are gone. The only one left is the dead loser Candy and Rinko worked over. The bar patrons are piling out the doors. I run over to Candy. She’s wiping the blood off her face with her T-shirt and rubbing her nails on her pants leg to get out pieces of the hit man’s bones. Rinko is licking blood from her fingers like a kid with an ice-cream cone.

It’s not fun to look at but I’m grateful for the backup.

“Thanks for the help.”

Rinko won’t look at me.

“I didn’t do it for you,” she says.

Vidocq, Allegra, and Traven are behind the bar. Carlos is down. His shoulder and one arm are badly burned. He has a .44 Magnum in his other hand. He must have been trying to pop off a shot when he got hit. I pick up the gun.

“Who the fuck told you to turn Wyatt Earp?”

He smiles then winces as Allegra pulls scorched bits of his shirt from around the wound.

“It got boring watching you fight all the time. I thought I’d get in on it. I hope you don’t mind if I never do it again. This shit hurts.”

“You’re lucky to be alive, you fucking idiot. Those fuckers were pros.”

“At least now I know you’re you and not your cabrón brother.”

“I told you, he’s not my brother.”

Allegra says, “This is too severe to treat here. We need to get him to the clinic.”

“Can you and Vidocq take him? I need to check out the dead man.”

“Which one?” says Vidocq.

“Not the one the little girl got.”

“Do you know who she was?” asks Traven.

“I don’t care right now. I want to know who sent the boys in black.”

“What should we do about the other dead man?”

“Leave him. Someone’s probably already called 911. It’s better to give the cops a body than have them asking why there isn’t one.”

“They’ll be able to find his next of kin too,” says Traven.

“Right. That too. You can’t help being a good guy, can you?”

“I suppose not.”

“Good. Someone needs to be.”

While the three of them get Carlos into Traven’s car, I go to the dead hit man. Rinko’s carnivore tendencies have worked in our favor. She’s gobbled up enough of the guy’s blood that there’s hardly any left on the floor. That means the cops won’t be looking for two bodies and Carlos won’t have to explain why he had a bunch of James Bond villains in his bar.

I carry the dead man into the bathroom and drop him on the dirty tile. He doesn’t have any pockets, so I get out the black blade and slice off his shirt. No dog tags, gang burns, or tattoos. I pull off his gloves and find something even more interesting. He has no fingerprints. His fingertips are smooth as the Venus de Milo’s ass. Only hoodoo could take them off that cleanly. I check behind his ears and the inside of his arms and there it is. Barely visible. I probably would have missed it without the Lucifer eyes. It’s a faint laser brand, and like his fingerprints, it’s been removed using magic.

Candy comes in.

“What are you looking at?” she asks.

“A mark that’s rare and even rarer on dead men.”

“What is it?”

“Those shit sacks were Sub Rosa. A Sub Rosa SWAT team. I’m in town a day and my own people try to kill me.”

“Lucky for you you went through the floor.”

“That was lucky, wasn’t it? I’m not usually that lucky.”

I go to the hole and look inside. It’s a pit maybe ten feet deep. The dirt around the edge is soft and fresh. It hasn’t been here long. Almost like someone dug it right under my feet.