Mary: Curtain Call

WARNING: THIS IS THE FINAL ENTRY IN LEPORIDAE REX. NEW READERS, BEGIN HERE.






Dazed and in shock, much of what happened next was translated and related back to me in the following days.

After I rubbed my eyes and my vision returned, I looked around and saw every single Smiler in the room slumped over dead, eyes open. Emperor Komei stood in front of Hollis and the Red Lady, a pair of samurai holding their arms behind their backs, their supernatural powers now gone. His voice flat and low, he said, "With only one arm and one leg, I was wondering how Sato-san would spend his remaining years. With the two of you alive, I have my answer." The Emperor couldn't resist giving a small, malicious smile. "For you who have been so quick to deal out death to my people, I make this terrible promise: you shall live to die of old age." He nodded down to Sato, who writhed in pain from his shattered kneecap, but still managed to grin sadistically up at Hollis, who was led away, his face aghast.

Then the Emperor leaned down and placed a hand under Fukimitsu's head, the young samurai pale and coughing up blood from the stab wound inflicted by the Red Lady's dagger. At the time I was hardly unaffected by his plight, but now just thinking about his last words as they were translated to me still makes me cry as I type it:

"My Emperor... my lone regret in this life is that this samurai was cursed with such a poor master. A samurai gains honor through hardship and struggle. He proves his mettle by serving a lord who chooses unwisely- who treats him shabbily and orders him to perform dishonorable acts. Would that I have been blessed to be a vassal to another lord, but instead Fate has cheated me of the chance to reveal the full depths of my character... by forcing me to serve the finest man I have ever known."

Fukimitsu reached up then with a bloody hand to touch his master's face even as his eyes went dark and his body became slack in the Emperor's hands. With all the supreme efforts of will I had seen displayed in our struggle, never had I witnessed the resolve it took for the Emperor of Japan not to weep over the death of his descendant, Fukimitsu.

From the stage then, we could hear a groan as Yoshida woke up, apparently having been stunned into unconsciousness by the Magician's disappearance. I'm sure there are some of you reading this who hunger for vengeance against him for what he did, for his betrayal of his country and his friends, but at the time all I felt was pity. What the Magician offered was everything he could have ever wanted, and I had seen enough death and destruction already. I said, "Please, Emperor, spare his life. I know he has done wrong, but..." Unfortunately, as Yoshida and I realized at the same moment, there was no one left alive to translate for us, and the Emperor would hardly believe Yoshida.

Yoshida shook his head sadly as he looked down at me, the massive, muscle-bound Ota lumbering toward him inexorably. "I am sorry, Stroud. You know that, don't you?" He looked up as Ota towered over him, muttering despondently, "What a waste. What a waste." I turned away then, shielding my eyes. I heard a bone snap, Yoshida gave a sharp yelp and then his body hit the floor, dead.

Ota turned and picked up the chest of bingo charms on the stage, upending the box and pouring out the goo that they had been transformed into, all of them destroyed. We would find out later that the whales- every single one of them on Earth- were dead, their bloated corpses washing up on Japanese shores for months.

There were so many questions still unanswered. How had the Magician gotten the whales to serve him? Had he somehow created them all as a species? What part did the Red Lady's rabbit's foot play in the spell (despite months spent as the Emperor's "guest" in his dungeons, she never spoke a single word)? Who was the Magician really? Was he Geoffrey Gagworth, the first magician to perform the "rabbit out of a hat" trick, or was that just an identity he adopted? Was he even human at all?

We do not know and we will probably never know. This isn't some story where every little loose end is tied into a pretty knot. It's real life, and frankly we may be better off not knowing.

From the edge of the stage I heard a groan, and I dashed over to find Taras, still barely alive, his gray hair hanging down in his face and blood flowing freely from his nose, mouth and ears. Despite being in obvious pain, he smiled at me as I leaned down next to him. "I'm dying." He sounded like he just won the lottery. "And this time I shall stay dead, thank God." A puzzled look crossed his face. "How did you know?"

"That you would do it? The more I read your post, the more I suspected you'd betray the Magician if you thought it would actually work. Using the stage magic- the slight of hand Yoshida taught me- it was easy enough to get the hypo into your pocket, knowing that everyone would be busy watching my other hand carve into your face." I pulled his handkerchief from his coat and attempted to dry the blood, but it just kept coming.

He coughed, spattering my shirt-front with specks of red. "He has no blood... will the Calicivirus kill him? Will it infect whatever new world they were transported to? And the Howlands..."

I shrugged and shook my head, not wanting to think too much about it. "I didn't know what it would do, exactly. I think Doctor Yoshida, Kisho's father, had partially formulated it just for this purpose, so that it would affect him. Regardless, when Josh and I were about to destroy it down in Texas we had second thoughts. All that work he'd put in perfecting the formula... and in the end I guess it came down to the fact that the Doctor was fighting against the Magician and so were we, so we kept it around, buying one extra day from Pierce with a bogus story about not being able to get to FedEx in time. You have any idea how hard it is to find a book written in Japanese to shred in a Texas bookstore? Once the Emperor joined us we told him we still had the formula, and he agreed to manufacture it, though on the off-chance the Magician was still reading the archive we decided to keep it secret."

He chuckled, grimacing in pain and holding his stomach. After a moment, he mumbled, "I hear something."

Nodding and humoring him, I replied, "All right, Taras. It's all right now."

The old man shook his head peevishly. "I know what dying's like, woman. I've done it a hundred times. I said I hear something. From the stage."

Rising, I looked toward the dais, now hearing it as well. It sounded like someone sniffling. I wandered over slowly, peered around the floor and finally found the Magician's cape at the rear of the stage. Underneath it was a trembling lump, and I knelt down next to it and pulled the cape back, revealing a small, blond-haired boy, his face smudged, tear-stained and terrified. His blue eyes focused on me, and he spoke in what sounded like Russian.

From behind me Taras croaked, "It's the orphan. From the alley. The one the Magician made disappear."

Suddenly the boy started babbling, the words coming out in a rush. Taras translated, "He wants to know where he is. He says he has been in darkness for so very long. He asks, 'was it a dream? A nightmare? Am I dreaming now?' He asks where is his little sister. He asks again where he is."

The boy and I stared at each other for a long, long moment, and then I reached out and pulled him to me, hugging him and stroking his blond hair. He began to sob, crying into my chest with great heaving breaths. I began to cry as well, my tears falling onto the top of his head as I held him tight. "Tell him..." I tried to find the words, tried to think of a way to explain what had happened so that he could possibly understand. "Tell him..." I started again, not knowing that Taras was already dead, his face affixed with a beatific smile.

I squeezed the little boy even tighter as he clung to me with all the strength in his young body. "Tell him he's home.

"He's home."



FINAL ENTRY

Tenno Heika Komei: The Battle Of Hitoshirezu-jo, Part II

At noon, the enemy arrived. Sunshine still ruled the day, though darker clouds had edged ever closer, the afternoon comfortably cool. It stood to reason that the weather would be perfect for battle, as the bingo charms granted the Magician (as I understood it) some degree of prognostication.

The enemy forces crested the forested hill directly in front of the castle, a small valley standing between their grassy hill and my forces outside Hitoshirezu-jo. While a right-thinking tactician would at this juncture politely mention that my small army would have the greater advantage utilizing the castle's walls as a defensive position, the very point of our defense was to keep the Magician out of the structure entirely. I would use the castle as a fallback position only, for late last year I had received a letter that read thusly:

To the great and powerful Emperor Komei of Japan,

Forgive the brevity of this note, but I have not much time. I am preparing to write a letter to my descendant, and I have not much doubt that once I do so my old master will sense my betrayal and take vengeance upon me from afar.

This I know, and mark me well: should the Magician set a single foot inside Hitoshirezu-jo, you will be powerless to stop him from performing his trick, thus bringing the world as you know it to an end. You must keep him outside of the castle walls at all costs.

He does have one hurdle, however, and that is that he must somehow place a portion of his blood inside the castle for him to be able to enter. Be aware as well that his body no longer contains blood of its own, so he cannot merely open a vein on your doorstep. He might have an old vial, or use other means to smuggle it inside, such as (and this is my own devious mind at work) painting blood onto Hollis' centipedes and having them run up the walls and into the windows. Or perhaps he will tempt one of your men into hiding a vial on his person. Search all of your people. There will always be a traitor, as I well know to my ultimate shame.

Best of luck to you. End it, once and for all, I beg you.

Your fellow sovereign,

Leopold George Christian Frederick, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, King of the Belgians

With this missive in mind, I had the walls of the castle covered in grease so that none of the foul insects could scurry up its sides, and though I was disgusted by the ordering of the mistrustful act, I had had all of my troops' clothing and armor inspected for blood, discovering none.

My foe and his men gathered over the next hour, his grinning, elderly, yet superhumanly strong forces arranging themselves in a line on the ridge. We would do battle on the small plain in front of the castle, and as both he and I knew that there was no element of surprise to be had, we assembled and positioned our fighters at our leisure.

His lieutenants were the last to appear, and from King Leopold's earlier writings I recognized a good many of the personages. First to appear was the American, Hollis, a man I despised almost as much as the Magician himself, as he had bestowed the secret of nuclear fire to our enemies and brought Nippon to its knees. He was dressed in a white, three-piece suit and casually held a Confederate cavalry saber at his side.

Next could be seen a tall man, black as coal, dressed in only a loincloth and lion's mane headdress. He carried a pair of spears and a shield, and roaming about his feet were four mangy, giggling, snarling hyenas. The man gazed upon my assembled army with an arrogant sneer. From my readings, I concluded that this was Nhlakanipho Mabuza.

Following him was an old woman of middle-eastern descent. She was wrapped in gray cloth, her face thinly veiled, though even from my far position, through my telescope I could see that once she had been a specimen of incomparable beauty. She peered over her nose at the battlefield with what seemed an odd combination of boredom and disdain. I guessed that this might be who Leopold referred to as the Red Lady of Babil, but I could not be certain.

The last of the Magician's Lieutanants limped up the hill, peering up at the castle with gray, melancholy eyes as a rangy, tired-looking wolf slumped up next to him and gazed disinterestedly at the army assembled in front of it. In the man's hand was a Russian shashka (a hilt-less saber) held so loosely and carelessly that it actually dragged at the ground at his feet. His gray hair was long and ragged and the Soviet longcoat he wore identified him to me as Taras the Mutineer.

Finally the Magician himself appeared, strolling up the hill in a full tuxedo, his dark eyes staring up at the castle, the hint of a smile dancing at the edge of his lips. By his side was a woman dressed all in a funereal, black, burqa-like garment. I wondered if perhaps this was the Red Lady instead, but could afford no time to dwell upon the matter further.

From his far vantage point, the Magician picked my person out from the crowd, and gave a theatrical bow in my direction which I did not see fit to return. Then, with a gesture, he commanded his troops to advance.

At my side, sadistic Sato snarled uncontrollably, almost mad with the exertion of restraining himself on the brink of battle. Further toward the line I could see my archers, with Hara serenely stringing his bow and testing its pull as calmly as if it were another day on the practice range.

At the front and center of the line stood Ota, his block-like form stoically poised for battle. Fukimitsu sat atop his horse with the other cavalry on our right flank, his usual whimsical smile replaced with a more proper look of determination and focus.

In the rear stood the reserves and the gaijin, with him gripping the Magician's knife, his knuckles white around the handle, hovering over the opened chest of bingo charms and her holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in another. As I watched they turned and simply stared at one another for a long moment. Before I turned away, in their eyes I saw a reflection of the purest romantic love, and I was reminded that while the outlanders did not belong in our world, they were not all to blame for what had gone wrong in the universe. In that split second, I almost regretted not fulfilling their request and marrying them, even on our most-sacred site.

I pushed these thoughts from my mind, as regret has no place in a leader's mind on a battlefield. The "Smilers" as Howland and Stroud referred to them advanced down the hill to our position, with the African Nhlakanipho Mabuza loping down with them. Hollis sauntered down at a leisurely pace behind, while the Magician, Taras and the two ladies remained in the rear.

Calling out to Hara, I said, "Target the lieutenants. It will take many arrows to bring them down, so aim true for once, Hara-san!" He bowed back to me as my men chuckled politely at my small jest. From my position I could see Hara take a deep breath and close his eyes, then he pulled a long, barbed arrow from the ground and fitted it to the string. With perfect form, he raised his bow high and pulled back the arrow just as Nhlakanipho Mabuza reared back and heaved one of his spears with savage force, the shaft whooshing through the air with a sound I could hear even in the rear, and before Hara could loose even a single bolt, the spear punched straight through the center of his head, dropping him to the ground with an awkward thud, killing him instantly.

My army gasped, and the gaijin Howland summed up our collective thoughts with a stunned English curse that even I recognized: "Motherf*cker!"

I had been harshly reminded of that old tenet of war: no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

And then the battle was joined as the front row of Smilers waded into my troops with their Hawaiian shirts and straw hats, a few of them even randomly clicking away with their cameras as my infantry hacked into them, their katanas flashing in the sun.

My front line held, Ota's gigantic frame providing a constant reference point throughout the engagement. With my telescope I could see one of my soldiers beheading a young, blond-haired cruise director in one place, while refocusing on another area would reveal one of my samurai's arms being torn off by a grinning elderly woman and being beaten to death with it. All along the front was chaos, and in another moment I could see my men staggering back almost as one as they writhed about in what appeared to be an odd dance. Deducing what was happening, I shouted and pointed at Howland, who nodded, stabbing down with the knife into the chest of charms.

With a bright flash, The centipedes which now covered my infantry dropped off, killed instantly, as were Nhlakanipho Mabuza's blood-gorged hyenas and Taras' wolf, who laid down and died almost gratefully. In addition, all of the Magician's Lieutenants staggered back holding their heads, reeling and confused.

My men cheered, redoubling their efforts as I flagged Fukimitsu to commence his cavalry charge. He and his men put the spurs to their steeds with a yell, and the thunder of hoof beats bore down on the enemy, smashing into their flank ferociously and carving a deep hole into their ranks.

We took every advantage of the moment until eventually the Lieutenants recovered, Nhlakanipho Mabuza and Hollis once again attacking my front lines and conjuring more centipedes and hyenas.

And so that is how the day was spent, with the Magician's forces pushing us back to the castle gates until Howland destroyed another charm, when the first few ranks of Smilers and every animal in sight would fall over dead, and the more powerful henchmen of the Magician would be left stunned and staggering, and then we would rally until they recovered and back again. By late afternoon the dark clouds were almost upon us, and while we had slaughtered thousands of them, the Magician still had all of his most powerful servants while I possessed only a few hundred samurai.

Just after five o'clock in the evening, Nhlakanipho Mabuza- drenched in samurai blood and howling for more- was running rampant through my lines. It was then that I finally released my reserves, led by Sato, who at this stage was virtually foaming at the mouth.

Sato charged straight for the African, waving his katana and shouting various profanities. Both the Smilers and the other samurai parted as the two madmen clashed, Sato's katana deflected by Mabuza's shield, a quick side-step saving Sato from impalement on Mabuza's spear in return. Round and round the two circled, all the while furiously attacking and barely bothering to defend.

Eventually, Sato stepped in too close, and Nhlakanipho Mabuza's spear stabbed him through the left shoulder, the point jutting out of his armor on the other side. The Magician's servant smiled with bone-white teeth at the hit before realizing that Sato had offered up the sacrifice of his bad arm so that he could get a clear shot with his good one. Before Mabuza could react, Sato's katana arced sideways underneath his shield, disemboweling him.

Nhlakanipho Mabuza stared down at the intestines and gore spilling out of his belly and cursed, looking peevish. Without hesitation, he yanked the spear from Sato's shoulder with one hand while with the other he lifted up his intestines and threw them over his shoulder like a scarf, getting them out from underfoot. With his internal organs draped over his back like a cape, Mabuza renewed his attack to Sato's great surprise, beating him down to the ground with the butt of his spear. Another hit, and Sato's katana went flying, but as he raised his spear for the killing blow, Fukimitsu roared past on his horse, his sword flashed in the final rays of the day's sun, and Nhlakanipho Mabuza's head fell to the gore-soaked ground, a shocked expression permanently etched on the dead man's face.

A great cheer went up from my men, but only a moment later Hollis stepped from the pack, his pristine, white suit now almost totally soaked in red, and chopped low, hacking off Fukimitsu's horse's forelegs as it galloped. His steed tumbling and screaming, Fukimitsu went flying, hurtling high over the field and down in a clattering heap, dazed and momentarily helpless while Hollis grinned a yellow smile and sauntered over to his prone form twirling his saber in anticipation for the killing blow.

While it is up to a leader of men to treat every one of his men with a certain equanimity, some simply have more value than others. Fukimitsu was my interpreter and my chief Lieutenant, and his loss would have been a heavy burden on my command. Can I claim in all truth that I would have personally leapt to his rescue if he were not my descendant? Perhaps not, but therein lies another rule of leadership: rank hath its privileges.

Drawing my blade, I charged down through the fray, pushing aside friend and foe alike until I bore down on Hollis, calling his name to try and turn him away from Fukimitsu. Finally I was almost upon him, but Hollis stood directly over him, placed his foot on my great-great-great-great grandson's neck, held his sword pointed directly downward at his face and turned his head to smile at me cunningly out of the corner of his eye.

I knew that if I took one more step Hollis would kill him, so I halted in my tracks and considered what I could possibly say to make him stop. I could think of nothing that would not impugn either my or Fukimitsu's honor, so I said nothing and merely stared.

After a long moment, Hollis bowed to me in his Southern American style and said in heavily accented Japanese, "I had the pleasure of entertaining your man Tanaka for a year or so, your majesty. While I taught him English, I did the best I could to learn his language in turn for just such an occasion. Ironically, however, after all my struggles to learn your three alphabets and dizzying patterns of speech, with all due respect, here you turn out to be not much of a conversationalist." He laughed then with good humor, or as good as a soul so utterly twisted could manage.

Slowly circling him to try and draw his attention toward me and away from Fukimitsu, I said, "Tell me, there are so many countries and culture that were brought to this world, so why are there so few of the traitors who serve the Magician here today? Should there not be fifty or a hundred of you or more?"

I kept my eyes on his, but still his sword point hung only inches from Fukimitsu's head. Hollis nodded, more than happy to carry on a conversation amidst a full-on war. "Some regret their decision and do not come when called. My master does not punish those who do not participate, only those who turn on him. Also by this point, many have died- some by accident, some by murder and the rest by their own hand." He shrugged. "Immortality isn't for everyone."

He grinned then, his sword whipping up and away from Fukimitsu's face. "Care for a sword-fight, your majesty? That's all I wanted when I cut your boy's horse out from under him in the first place." He raised his saber in salute and I granted him a nod in response before we charged, our blades smashing into each other in a shower of sparks. Again and again we attacked, and I could not help but smile. For all of these years the tremendous physical gifts that Nippon had bestowed upon me had gone all but unused, but now finally I could reveal the speed, strength and agility that made me the Magician's equal, at least of the flesh.

I was concentrating so completely on Hollis that I was surprised when a stray Smiler lunged at me from the side, her wrinkled and liver-spotted hands reaching out for my neck, and I was even more taken aback when her advance was stopped by Hollis himself, who brought his saber down on her skull, splitting her head in two and dropping her to the ground. He muttered, "Pardon, ma'am. Private party," before saluting me once more and rejoining the combat.

I do not know how long we fought there on the field- for the most part unmolested by the surrounding troops- but finally I was able to convince him in the false sincerity of a downward feint and thus take his left arm off with a rapid upward slash. His face betrayed not a hint of pain, but he shook his head at the wound and gave a soft curse. "I tell you, sir, on our last campaign I duelled the King of the Belgians, and he did not land a single blow."

My head held high, I said, "The Emperor of Japan is superior in swordplay to the King of the Belgians. This surprises you?" He shook his head, chuckling, but before he could speak I continued, "And Leopold, he was one of the King's men?"

"A minister."

"And he betrayed his King? Joined the Magician, gained immortality and was himself made King after the Magician brought his world to invade Nippon?"

Hollis paused to kick his severed arm out from underfoot. "Yes, your majesty. A decision he came to regret, apparently."

"But you do not."

He shook his head. "Why am I the way I am? Is that your question, sir?" For the first time I felt I was nearing the heart of the man. "An abusive father? A neglectful mother? Broken home? Crippling poverty? A true love lost to another man? All of it? All and more?" Hollis sighed. "Does it matter now? If anyone can accept a monster for what he is, surely it is you and your people. The only reason that matters is that I do it because I can. Looking beyond that has rapidly diminishing returns, I assure you."

My blade sang out then, slashing across his midsection, but the tip of my katana only just caught his belly, dealing a mere flesh wound. In another moment Hollis was retreating, darting back up the hill toward the Magician, weaving his way through the army of Smilers who now were free to turn their attentions on me. I spit on the ground after the retreating American, then made my way back to my position behind the lines, beheading whatever Smilers I happened to run across on my path.

Once I had returned to my vantage point nearer the castle, I trained my telescope on the opposite hill to find that a small unit of samurai had fought their way up the left flank all the way to the Magician, Taras and the two veiled women. They reached Taras first, and he raised his sword and parried without enthusiasm, blocking blow after blow until finally stepping forward, reaching out a hand and pushing his attacker down the hill as a child would in a game of king of the mountain.

Another of my men stepped closer to the beautiful, veiled woman in gray standing on the right hand of the Magician, and though she had no weapon he raised his katana to cut her down. Just before he could bring the blade down upon her, she raised her hand, and suddenly his face was covered with snakes, their fangs sunk deep in his cheeks and eyes. As he writhed on the ground before her in anguish, though I could not see her expression behind her veil, her eyes danced with cruel glee.

Over the screams of the dead and dying I could hear the rumble of thunder now as the dark clouds massed closer. Dusk was approaching, and with every lost moment of daylight we lost our advantage. The Smilers showed no sign of fatigue, while my men (with the exception of Ota) were almost completely exhausted. We had killed at least seven of them to every one of us, but still they kept coming, pouring over the hill in a seemingly endless stream.

Noticing that there was a limited range on the damage that the bingo charms could do when they were destroyed, Howland had moved up closer to the front, smashing the knife down and dropping hundreds of the enemy with a single blow, but as night fell only a few charms remained. The woman, Stroud, fired her bow when necessary to kill a stray foe that happened to straggle toward them, and I was forced to concede that her past months' training had been effective, and her courage in the face of the enemy was impressive.

Finally, the last light of day was swallowed up by the dark clouds, and we were fighting virtually blind. Taking heavy losses, I reluctantly gave the order to retreat to the castle walls, and here is where our woes truly began.

The samurai is never as ferocious and unbeatable as when he is on the all-out attack, and conversely, is always at his weakest when forced to withdraw. Contrary to the belief of gaijin and their preposterous portrayals of Japanese warriors in their stories, the samurai has no maneuver that you could reasonably label a "parry". If two katanas strike one another, it simply means that they were both attacking the same place, not that one was employing a defense. Because of this fighting style, retreating can be next to impossible. Our only two saving graces were that the enemy's footsoldiers used no weapons, and every time they were on the brink of completely overwhelming us on our stumbling run back to the castle, Howland would destroy another charm, buying us much needed time.

Yet, by the time my men had made it back to the castle doors, less than thirty remained, with most heavily wounded. Sato's left arm had been rendered entirely ineffective by the spear-wound at the hands of Nhlakanipho Mabuza and would certainly have to be amputated. Fukimitsu had a savage gash over his left eye from the fall from his horse during Hollis' attack, the wound stubbornly leaking blood down his face through the crude stitches. Ota was seemingly one, giant, open wound, bleeding from a thousand cuts and scratches, but never once did he say a single word of complaint, or a word of any kind. He simply continued to fight, performing precisely as I expected he would on the day he was born for.

Even young Kisho Yoshida, blinking behind his thick glasses, had been wounded. He limped around on a smashed foot, hurt as he was delivering arrows to the archers and bandages and painkillers to the medics. Early in the fight his archery skills had been deemed just as deadly to us as the enemy, so he had been demoted to packhorse, hauling supplies where needed. Despite his clear lack of aptitude at fighting, he had carried out his new tasks admirably enough.

As for his uncles, the brothers Yoshida, I would only discover later that the two had been slain most brutally by Hollis when they charged him in the field, howling for vengeance for their murdered brother.

The last ones to the door were Howland and Stroud, with her firing one arrow after the next at the advancing horde, and him smashing the knife down into the box, felling wave after wave until finally he tossed the chest aside, all the charms destroyed. The two of them turned around and moved to step inside only to find Ota blocking their path into the castle.

Speaking softly, I said, "I swore long ago that no gaijin would ever set foot in this sacred place. Tell them... tell them I wish it were otherwise."

Fukimitsu stared at me pleadingly. "My lord, your majesty... grandfather... they have fought with us! They have bled with us... if not for them... I ask you, please reconsider. Do not leave them outside the castle to their doom." We could now see a few shambling forms lurching ever closer, coming up behind the gaijin, the two of them speaking to me imploringly from outside the threshold.

Young Kisho bowed to me as well. "Your majesty, no one has fought for you harder then they, though they were unaware of whom they were assisting. I beg you, do not let them die like this... abandoned and betrayed. Though they are gaijin, they are... they have shown me that-" I cut him off with a gesture, and he bowed again, falling to his knees.

Gritting my teeth, I turned to Fukimitsu. "This is not a pleasant decision. Understand... every instinct I possess screams at me not to let them inside this place. Every molecule of my royal person, blessed by the spirit of Nippon, tells me that their presence must not defile Hitoshirezu-jo." Now the leering grins of the Smilers could be seen hovering forward into the ring of torchlight, their arms reaching out for the back of the gaijin's necks. Howland and Stroud stopped talking- seeing as no one was listening- and simply stared at me, their eyes conveying a mixture of exhaustion and betrayal.

Torn, knowing from reading this archive just how completely they had suffered in their quest to destroy my sworn enemy, I finally let out a curse and broke my lifetime oath. "Search them, quickly! Make absolutely certain they have no vials of blood on them. Hurry!" My men let out a quick cheer, relieved by my decision, and two of my samurai leapt forward and pawed at the gaijin even as the grinning, one-armed figure of Hollis stepped through the ranks of the Smilers, sword in hand. While my men frantically worked their way down the Americans' bodies, Hollis stepped within a few yards and lifted his saber, preparing to cut sideways through both of them with a single blow. As he reared back to deliver the killing strike, my men had worked their way down to their socks, hurriedly turning around to me to proclaim them clean.

"Ota-san!" I yelled. "Now!" Ota reached forward with a speed that belied his enormous frame, grabbed both Howland and Stroud by their shirt fronts and yanked them inside just as Hollis' saber whistled behind them, cutting only air.

I suddenly felt nauseous and fought the urge to vomit, feeling as though a barrel of black, foul oil had been poured into a basin of the holiest water, my very soul crying out at the presence of the gaijin in our most sacred place.

Now we all huddled in the torchlight of the castle's entryway, Ota standing in the doorway waiting for a charge that did not come. The enemy massed just feet away outside the castle, but they made no move to enter. After a few moments, Hollis stepped aside, and the Magician strolled up in front of the door, just feet from Ota. Even after the day's fighting, his tuxedo was pristine, and he had not a scratch on him.

"Ota-san, be sure to stay on this side of the doorway. He cannot enter." Ota backed up two paces, leaving the entryway open. For a long time, all was quiet, save for the panting of my exhausted soldiers and the muted groans of the wounded. The enemy army was massed on the other side of the archway, but they made neither movement nor sound.

After a few long moments, the Magician- standing mere inches from the threshold- raised his hands and pulled back his cuffs, showing us that there was nothing up his sleeves. Then he ever so slowly began to raise his right foot and step forward, closer and closer, until he brought his polished, black leather shoe down on the cobblestone floor inside the castle. When his foot hit the ground, the very earth shook, and behind him was the deafening crack of a thunderclap.

"Oh, sh*t," Fukimitsu gasped as the Smilers poured around the Magician, flooding inside the entryway and throwing themselves upon us in wave after wave of wrinkled, supernaturally strong flesh, their sheer mass pressing us down and pinning us in the confined quarters.

In an instant, with a single footstep, the Magician had won the Battle of Hitoshirezu-jo. Disarmed and defeated, we could do naught but await our fates and the grand trick that would end our world.

Josh: Komei

Mary, Kisho Yoshida and I rode in a stretch limousine, following the Yoshida brothers' car to the outskirts of the city. Outside our car windows the sleek skyscrapers of Kyoto were replaced by rural housing and then by the beautiful rolling trees and hills of the Japanese countryside.

As we drove, Mary and I sat in the rear seat with Kisho facing us, Yoshida never taking his eyes from his PDA as we rolled along. As the sun went down over the hills, Mary placed her head on my shoulder and whispered, smiling, "Back in the office? What you did? That was very sexy."

I smiled back at her and was about to reply when Yoshida pulled out his phone, opened it up and pointed it at us. Mary scowled. "What are you doing? Are you videotaping us?" Yoshida made no reply. Her scowl deepened. "You think we're going to have sex right here?" He shrugged, closed the phone and put it back in his pocket, picking the PDA back up again and ignoring us once more.

As Mary glared at him with a combination of disbelief and loathing, I gazed back out the window and murmured, "We should probably get some new friends."

"Ya think?"

The rest of the trip was a touch frosty, and we rode in silence until the cars arrived at a large, wooden gate, with twin rows of lanterns hung on posts on either side of a gravel driveway leading across a bridge and up a small hill.

In no time we'd reached the top, and when the car door was opened for us we found ourselves standing before an actual, medieval-style Japanese castle, with torches mounted alongside enormous, dark, brass-bound, wooden doors. In the darkness it was difficult to make out just how large the castle was, but looking up I could see a significant portion of the sky blotted out by the structure.

I began to walk toward the doors, but the Yoshida brothers' assistant sidled up to me from the other limo and informed me in no uncertain terms that I was forbidden to enter the castle. He and the brothers then ushered us down a path running alongside the gigantic stone and wood structure to a pavilion in a clearing in the back. As we approached I could hear the sound of music- one of those Japanese guitar-things I never knew the name of was being plucked one string at a time in its distinctive, quavering style.

Walking into the pavilion was like strolling into the past. It was brightly lit with lanterns and decorated with red and gold banners (actual design, below), and everyone there was dressed in kimonos, with not a hint of anything modern or technological on display. There was a lovely young Japanese woman on our right playing the shamisen (the weird guitar-thing. Kisho filled me in later), along with a half-dozen men and women sitting on mats and talking quietly amongst themselves. At the end of the room in a clear position of "boss" was an elderly Japanese gentleman, his silk kimono covered with a long, opulent, golden robe that spread out behind him like a fan. To his left stood a young man in his early twenties with just the hint of a smile on his face, reading to him from a small black book. Kisho whispered that the servant's name was Fukimitsu. To the elderly man's right was the most muscular Japanese man I had ever seen, with the mass of a sumo wrestler but without the fat. His name was Ota, according to Kisho. Both of the men standing were holding curved, long canes which were obviously swords in very thin disguise.

As we stepped into the area, led by the Yoshidas, the two brothers actually went to their knees and then bowed so far their foreheads touched the floor. I glanced over at Kisho to see that he was doing the same thing, so Mary and I followed suit.

While we were bowing, Kisho whispered, "It is Yamamoto-Sama. Lord Yamamoto is President and C.E.O. of the Bengosha Corporation." His expression was deferential verging on terrified. He hissed, "Please, please, please be respectful. Do not act like, uh... like you do."

Finally we rose, and the Yoshida brothers spoke in Japanese to Yamamoto for a minute before he nodded and waved us forward to stand in front of him. For an elderly man, Yamamoto's eyes were white and clear, and he gave no impression of frailty whatsoever. As we approached, the sumo guy Ota's knuckles went white on the handle of his sword cane, and it was then that I decided to adopt an immediate and binding "no sudden moves" policy.

Yamamoto cleared his throat and spoke a few words of Japanese to Fukimitsu- the smiling man with the book on his left- and he bowed, lifted up the book and began to read aloud in perfect English:


"Frustrated once again by all our efforts, I retreated to the bar just off the base, hoping that some time away from the project would clear my head. The bar was mostly empty as usual- no surprise given its combination of isolated locale and lack of hygiene.

A middle-aged man in a white suit sitting two stools down ordered another whiskey and drank it in a single gulp, sighing with a smile at the empty glass as he put it down on the bar. He turned to me and commented in a southern drawl, 'Whiskey didn't used to be the drink of the world, my friend. Oh, no. Back in 1831, Aeneas Coffey invented the Coffey still, which produced a far more drinkable whiskey. Later that century, by a remarkable confluence of events, the phylloxera beetle annihilated France's vineyards, and in just a few years there was an enormous shortage of wine and brandy. Then the Scots discovered marketing, and the rest is history. Out with the old, in with the new, so they say.' He grinned at me with yellow teeth as he lit a cigarette and rose from his chair, picking up a thin briefcase as he got up.

I thought he was turning to go, but instead he stepped closer, gestured at the stool next to mine and asked 'May I?', sitting down without waiting for my reply. He ordered another whiskey and took a gulp as he stared straight ahead, gazing at himself in the mirror behind the bar. He looked wistful as he spoke, his voice barely louder than a whisper, 'The fire... the plumes of flame that will jet up into the sky... it was mankind's first discovery and you want to talk about beginner's luck! There is nothing so pure, hypnotic and lovely as a fire, and you will make the greatest of them all.

'Every sweet family home turned to charred ash in an instant, their carefully tended gardens scorched down to the bare earth... and the people! Mothers incinerated as they instinctively but futilely attempt to turn and shield their tiny babies... little boys and girls, their hair catching fire as they play in the street, running like a parade of mad matchsticks and screaming for help that will never come. Sweet fire. How I do admire you, sir.'

The man raised his glass in a toast and drank the rest as I gaped at him, horrified, and demanded to know what in God's name he was going on about. Then as I told him to get away and leave me alone, he turned to look at me, the intensity of his gaze stopping me in mid-sentence. 'Hit a bit of a snag, have we? This might be of some small service.' The man reached down within his briefcase and pulled out a file folder, laying it carefully down on the bar in front of me. I opened it, my curiosity getting the better of me, and I sat stunned as I saw laid out in very clear detail precisely how to solve every problem we'd come up against.

I looked up at the man then just as he was rising to go, asking if he knew what he had there, telling him (stupidly, against protocol, but I was just so damned amazed) that with that file we would be able to construct one by next year at the latest.

The man nodded and tossed a few bills on the bar in payment for his drinks. Suddenly I felt something run across my right ankle, and I looked down in time to see an enormous, black centipede run under the bar and out of sight. With a shiver I looked back at the man to see he was already at the door. He turned back to me before he left and said, 'One? The Japanese Emperor is an extraordinarily stubborn individual, with all due respect.' He gave me a wide, yellow smile that gave me a shiver worse than the centipede just had, then he winked and said, 'Better make two.'

After he'd gone I drove back to the base and read the file from cover to cover. Next year's date was stamped on every page.

And every word was in my own handwriting.

May God have mercy on my soul. 'I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.'"


Yamamoto cleared his throat once more and gestured to one of the women, who instantly rose and brought him a tray with a small cup of tea. He took a sip, and Fukimitsu said, "The diary of Robert Oppenheimer, architect of the atomic bomb. Secret diary, or at least he believed it was." Yamamoto motioned for us to come and sit before him, and two of the servants shuffled mats over to the center of the room. We sat cross-legged and waited, saying nothing. He took another sip of tea, then another. We waited some more. This better be good, I thought to myself, biting my tongue.

It was.

He stared at us with those clear, calm eyes and spoke, Fukimitsu translating. "My lord says: when I was born I was given the name Hiro-no-Miya. I was the fourth son of Emperor Ninko of Japan. When my father died I was proclaimed the one hundred twenty-first, divine, sovereign Emperor, and following what was believed to be my death, was posthumously named Emperor Komei. I am one hundred and seventy-seven years old.

"Tell me everything that you know of the Magician."

Tate: Taras

A fine snow slowly fell upon the city of Kiev, as powdery and gritty as flakes of ash from a crematorium's chimney. The snow only barely stuck, covering the concrete like a thin, slippery membrane that was easy to forget was there right up until your feet shot out from under you and you found yourself foolishly gazing up at the sky. When the snow came down in thick, white flakes it seemed to cleanse and refresh the dusty, ancient city, or at least disguise its multitude of sins, but this snow looked gray before it even hit the ground. Eskimos were said to have hundreds of different words for snow, and the old man was sure that if they had a name for this one, it would be a curse.

Spying his fare, the man opened the taxi cab's driver's side door and slowly extricated himself from the car, steadying himself using two mismatched, wooden canes. He hobbled over to the man just exiting the airport's baggage claim and gestured meekly toward his cab, urging him in. The man was pale and muscle-bound, with a shaved head and a barb-wire tattoo creeping up the side of his neck. He turned up his lip at the old man's enticements, growling in heavily accented Russian, "F*ck off. I need someone who knows how to find sh*t in this town."

The old man cleared his throat. It had been months since he'd last used his voice. "Booze, grass, coke, guns, girls, boys... also I have just purchased a car deodorizer. It is green, in the shape of a tree and grants the illusion of cleanliness." The young American shrugged and threw his suitcase into the backseat, lunging in after it. The old man shuffled back to the front of the cab, narrowly avoided slipping on the damnable snow and eased himself down into the driver's seat.

As he put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb, the old man heard the American say, "I'm not into guys, so forget that sh*t right now. I need a piece and some blow. And girls. Young."

The old man sighed and peered out the driver's side window as they drove out of the airport complex and into the city. Because he enjoyed the architecture and never passed up a chance to see it, he guided the car past the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the Monastery of the Caves. Some monk long ago had wandered here and chosen a cave in which to start a monastery, and Prince Iziaslav I of Kiev went ahead and just gave him the whole mount. The monks did all the work building churches and bell towers and digging out catacombs, and the Prince was blessed and ushered into heaven for gifting them a giant rock he'd probably never even known existed before then.

On their right the Dnieper river wended its way around the city, a rusted barge chugging its way through its polluted, dark water. Since Chernobyl spewed its radioactive discharge into the Dnieper over twenty years ago, the old man always had the urge to walk near the water on cold winter days just for the illusion of warmth. In a few thousand years the river would finally purify itself, but of course it had nowhere near that kind of time.

"I want girls no younger than twelve, got it? Girls that won't be missed." The American lit a cigarette, and the smell wafted up front. The old man had given up smoking years ago because it reminded him of Hollis, but on snowy days the craving for tobacco still gripped him. He breathed in deeply, enjoying even the second hand smoke, and pondered asking the American if he could have one. He decided just to be patient and take the pack later if he still felt the urge.

"Nine. I can make a call and probably get a ten year old as well. It will cost."

The American spat on the rubber mat covering the floor in the back. "Nine? F*ck that. I never done a girl younger than twelve."

The old man swerved to avoid an old woman whose heel had broken in the middle of the crosswalk. "A man with standards, and in my cab. It's a Christmas miracle."

"This ain't your cab." The young man pointed to the photograph on the back of the driver's seat. "The picture is of a young guy."

"My son. We share it. You looking for anyone or anything in particular?"

He took a drag from his cigarette, the tip glowing red. To say that he pondered the question would be going too far. More accurately, he finally remembered the answer. "Yeah. Yeah, actually, why not? I'm looking for a guy named Taras. Taras the Mutineer. Heard of him?"

The old man smiled. "The name is redundant. 'Taras' means mutineer. It would be like naming a boy 'Michael, Like Unto God'." The look on the young man's face in the rear view mirror was blank. "Michael means 'like unto God'."

Snorting, he replied, "No sh*t. My bitch in my last stretch in the joint's name was Mike. That's hilarious. My name's Ricky. What's that mean?"

"That your parents were first cousins?"

It took a good ten seconds before Ricky processed what he'd heard, then he lunged up at the old man, putting a hand around his throat. "I'll f*ckin' cut you, you f*ck with me, *sshole. You know who I am?" The old man nodded slowly, struggling to keep the car on the road, then he pointed to a bottle in a slim, brown bag on the seat next to him.

"Apologies. It's yours. And the girl, I pay for, just please don't hurt me." Ricky snatched at the bottle and nodded, satisfied with the reparations.

The old man absently rubbed his neck as they passed a block of apartments that had been entirely leveled by Germans in World War II, then rebuilt. They had also been destroyed by fire and rebuilt again in the seventies. The old man imagined the same dwellings being put to the torch by Genghis Khan's Mongols when they had annihilated the city back in the twelve hundreds. Laying waste to Kiev was the conqueror's rite of manhood. Kiev stood like a resigned, grim-visaged bride just waiting at the alter for foreign lords to defile her. The only black mark on Rome's record was that they had not invented Kiev simply to crush it. Napoleon's greatest regret in life had to have been that he failed to advance past Moscow to Kiev to deflower her.

Meanwhile, Ricky sucked at the bottle in the backseat, griping about the way Russians peppered their vodka. Normal vodka wasn't good enough? They had to put pepper in it? The old man rolled his eyes and was patient, and in a few minutes the young man was unconscious.


It was said that if the Red Lady of Babil was the oldest of them, Theophanes wasn't far behind. While Taras had never met him personally, he knew all about the ancient Greek's habits. Every time Theophanes awoke to the dawn of a new world he rose from his bed, stretched and gazed out of his window at the island of Evia sprawling beneath him. Then he sat down and wrote four words in Greek on parchment, striking out two of them. Finally, he prepared and drank an entire bucketful of poison, his body twisted at the foot of his bed, frozen in his death throes and cold by noon.

Taras spent decades of time and millions of dollars tracking down that little slip of parchment, but he had finally done it in nineteen seventy six, the so-called bicentennial year that celebrated the United States' "freedom". He brought the parchment back to Kiev and hung it on the wall of his bar, framed for all to see, though no one did. Translated from the Greek, it read: SAME SH*T, DIFFERENT DAY. The words "DIFFERENT DAY" had a line through them.

One year to the day after acquiring the parchment, Taras took it for a walk after consuming far too much vodka and stumbled into one of Kiev's more disreputable alleys. There he was surprised to see the magician putting on a show for a pack of orphan children. He had not seen the magician since the day they had made their bargain and he had performed his trick.

He flipped his cape back and forth, showing one side crimson and the other black. Gesturing for a volunteer, a boy not more than thirteen stepped forward, his step unsteady. The magician smiled at him, his mouth full of straight, white teeth, but this only caused the boy to break out in a sweat. The orphans halfheartedly jeered him for his cowardice, but even they could sense that there was something not entirely benevolent about this performance. The magician held up a hand for silence and the alley became utterly still, with even mighty and ferocious Taras standing in the back row holding his breath. Then with a flick of his wrist he flipped the cape up in the air and caught it in front of the boy, holding it in such a way that it blocked him from view. The magician's eyes shut in concentration, and from somewhere far, far away they could hear and feel a deep humming, a vibration deep in their bones. The hum combined with a high-pitched whine that hurt their teeth and caused the empty liquor bottles in the alley's garbage cans to rattle. The hum and whine grew louder and louder until most of the orphans had tears staining their cheeks, and then abruptly it ceased as if it were never there.

With a flourish, the magician lifted up the cape to reveal that the orphan boy had disappeared, and he smiled once more as the childrens' applause echoed in the alley. Before it could die down, he reached out his hand and tossed a handful of shiny gold coins among the orphans who squealed with joy. All except one tiny girl not more than eight years old who strode up to the magician and looked up at him with enormous brown eyes, asking plaintively, "But where is he? Where is my brother?" The magician silently shook his head. He began to walk away but her tiny, dirty hand grasped at his cape. "How did you do it?" Grinning ever so slightly he bent down, put his mouth to her ear and cupped a hand over it so no one else could hear. When he was done whispering, she smiled the smile of all those who have seen something truly magical. It was amused, amazed and... something else. The little girl walked away smiling and never, ever stopped.

Taras stared at the magician and pulled the parchment from his pocket. He decided to be clever. "Can you autograph this? It seems only fitting."

The magician's dark eyes stared into his and Taras wobbled, his drunkenness evaporating in an instant. The eyes stared and stared, growing larger and larger, darker and darker until the rest of the world narrowed and it seemed that there was nothing in the universe but those eyes. Their darkness was consuming, voracious and infinite. The magician never spoke, but the message resonated with hideous clarity. I have signed it. I signed the parchment and the ink. I signed the writer and his desk and the island upon which they sat. I signed the lands and the seas and the skies and all they contain. I signed the heavens and the Earth, and I signed you, Taras the Mutineer. I signed your hair, your skin, your muscles, blood and bones. My name is written in darkness upon your soul.

The mighty and ferocious Taras fell to his knees then and wept. He wept through the day and into the night. He wept until no more tears would come and then he wept some more. For three days and nights he sobbed until they came and put him in an asylum. On the fourth day he finally slept, and when he awoke he broke out of the hospital, took the parchment back to the bar, set it on its place on the wall and burned the building down, the fire spreading to the apartment complexes above and beside. Eight people died, ten suffered severe third degree burns and the entire block was utterly destroyed as it had been in the days of the Great Patriotic War, the Mongol invasion and so many other occasions when Kiev had been raped by conquerors.

Above the bar was an apartment owned by a ring of black marketeers involved in counterfeiting American bicentennial commemorative metal cookie jars. When the roof collapsed one of the jars fell down into the bar, knocked the parchment off the wall and landed on top of it face down, covering it.

The parchment was the only thing to survive the blaze perfectly intact.

When the fireman handed it to Taras he folded it, put it carefully in his pocket and decided to never again try to be clever with the magician.


Ricky Tate awoke with a start. He was entirely naked, his wrists bound with a chain connected to a thick metal hook which hung from the ceiling. Ricky swung very slightly back and forth, the tips of his toes just scraping the round, metal drain set into the concrete floor beneath him. He tried to speak, but discovered that he had been gagged, his mouth forced open wide by a foul-smelling towel.

A door opened and a gray light shone in, revealing his surroundings as being that of a simple shed, the walls adorned with rusty tools and cans of paint that had long since separated. The old cab driver strode in (suddenly walking quite well without his canes) and went over to a dusty workbench that stood against the far wall. Ricky tried to speak, but through the gag it just came out as a meaningless groan. The old man opened a drawer in the bench and brought out a hunting knife with a brown, leather-bound hilt and serrated jags on one edge of the blade.

The American knew nothing and the old man knew it. He could go through the charade of questioning him, but he was tired of speaking. Remembering the quality of their previous conversations, on the off chance that Ricky decided to try and think of something to say he decided to leave the gag in.

One to torture, one to be tortured and nothing to come of it but blood down a drain. One cut, the other screamed, nothing learned, the status quo maintained. It was all very Russian.


Leopold had visited him just after the turn of the century, right before Einstein was going to formulate his theory of special relativity again. Taras got a little thrill every time the kindly German had his stroke of genius. The thrill didn't last, but he still awaited the event with anticipation every time. Leopold bubbled with excitement, describing all the ways they could use their abilities to help change the world. His enthusiasm was like a tonic, especially considering how much time Taras had spent in Kiev, a city whose main industries were vodka and despair. Taras nodded patiently to Leopold, kicked everyone out of the bar and kept pouring drinks. He had been like that the first time, too, and he loved Leopold for it.

He had been to see some of the others with discouraging results. Nhlakanipho Mabuza never stopped f*cking one of his wives during the entire visit and as such the conversation had suffered. The Red Lady just stared at him over her veil, but at least she had given him tea. He had received the most elaborate welcome from Hollis in America, but the two had a falling out over some perceived slight over dessert and Leopold had wound up running for his life to the sea.

It was only a matter of time before the Belgian would learn the limits of their powers, and time was not a commodity in short supply. They each had their special tricks, but should they try and use them in a fashion unapproved of by the magician they would quickly find that their efforts would come to naught or even backfire.

After Leopold left, the two men having embraced and sworn their friendship, a rabid wolf emerged from the woods surrounding Hollis Crossroads and bit the popular postman Jebediah Greely on the ankle, gnawing off his foot. He died three days later. The day after he expired, one of Kiev's most promising young ballerinas-a golden-haired angel of a girl named Galina-was bitten on her rosy cheek as she slept by a giant, poisonous centipede. Her left eye ballooned and popped by the next morning, and she was dead by noon.

The two men tired of their feud after this, but Taras quit smoking as cigarettes reminded him of Hollis, and the profit from them went to his part of the world.


A flick of the knife, and another piece of Ricky flopped down on the metal drain with a wet smack. He screamed into the towel gag, and the old man sighed, bored and thirsty. It was tedious work, but he wanted to be certain that they sent no one else to Kiev. He had received the order just that morning to kill whomever they sent and had hastily stolen a taxi, all the while terrified that they would send the boy, Leopold's descendant. His relief had been palpable when he saw this thick-necked, mean-eyed primate swagger from the airport gates. He could not-would not help them in their struggle against the magician, perhaps because it was not a struggle at all. Does the horizon struggle to keep the sun in the sky in the evening, attempting to forestall the coming darkness? They sought to battle him in chess but possessed only checkers.

"Theophanes," the old man whispered to himself. "You are truly wise, my friend, or at least you became so after you sealed your bargain." From behind him Ricky Tate moaned in response. The old man chuckled and shook his head. "My apologies, my good man. I am old, I am old. I have to admit, I had completely forgotten I had not killed you yet." The knife slashed his throat and blood poured over his chest like an overflowing toilet, gushing down and pooling by the drain in the floor.

The old man eyed the cigarette pack on the workbench, walked over to it and crushed it into a ball in his powerful fist. For Leopold, he could resist. The world had only a year or two left at most anyway, he could wait at least until the next world to revisit old habits.


The Dnieper river flowed slowly by, and the old man sat at its bank struggling mightily with the tiny keys of Ricky Tate's electronic device. He would take great pleasure in hurling the annoying gadget into the cold, radioactive water when he had finished his entry. The young man had helpfully left the code key active, and while it was impossible to read what had been previously written, anything could be typed in and transmitted. It didn't matter, the magician read everything and he didn't need codes or magic to do it. Checkers vs. chess. Horizon vs. night.

Leopold: Valediction

My thoughts grow more scattered and I do not have long. If there is such a thing as a benevolent God or Gods, my single desperate prayer is that I am allowed to stay dead. To begin:

In attempting to explain the events that led her to contact me and ask for my help, Cynthia eventually decided to allow me access to this archive, and for this I am most grateful. I write this valediction while flying on my golden, gleaming, private jet, soaring through light blue skies over dark blue, glittering seas, and while most would consider the sight beautiful or even breathtaking, I for one care not a whit for it. The world is an ancient, used-up thing, running down to its final hours and I both cannot stand to see it grow another minute older and at the same time cannot bear to watch it die. I suppose I am a coward. It is why I became who I am and why I have not the stomach to fight an unwinnable battle now.

While I can, I shall inform you of what you face, or more properly what faces you. I trust you will find my knowledge of the matter to be as pathetically limited and useless as I have, and probably even moreso as my faculties desert me.

He is old... far older than myself or Hollis or Nhlakanipho Mabuza or Taras the Mutineer or Crayton or even the Red Lady of Babil, who is so old she no longer remembers her own name. He is older than all of his creations combined, and he changes his name with every new conquest. The human soul is not meant to be trapped inside a host for longer than a few hundred years. It gets pulled taut and stretched so thin that it feels as though you can see through it, the world tinted with a filthy gray haze.

Is he even human any more? Was he ever?

My mind is going... I know that now. He is withdrawing his favour, allowing me to unravel because he knows that I have broken my oath to him. There is so much I want and need to tell you, but it is all a swirling, glittering dust in my brain.

Before I can forget or before I am forced to forget, I tell you this despite knowing that any endeavor to stop him is almost certainly doomed: he will perform a trick. He will use the charms, his knife, a rabbit and his own blood, though his body contains no blood any longer, if it ever did. It is quite probably too late to stop the charms, but the knife and his blood may yet be within your grasp. Keep them separate and failing that, use Yoshida's formula.

There are twenty-five million American dollars in a Swiss bank account under the name "Joshua Frederick". Falsified driver's licenses and passports under that name are being delivered to your hotel now.

Some barriers are beginning to erode in anticipation of what is to come. You will hear things... comments coming from the mouths of those who speak them but do not think them. Expect this phenomenon to increase in the days ahead and try to pay it little mind as most of the bleed-through thoughts will be gibberish.


I willingly ceded him my homeland and was then granted dominion over it in the next world when it was renewed; I swore my oath because someone else would have anyway and I thought I could use the power to make things better, but whenever I tried of course it always went wrong. Women and children... I wanted to pass laws protecting them but was defeated. He has a particular hatred for women, though I know not why and neither did Taras when I asked him in Kiev.

I feel it now, his gaze upon me... there can be no question that he knows, that he is doing this to my mind from afar. I had such vast power, such wealth and endless grinning slaves, but it was I who was the slave, though I wore a crown.

Oh, God, Scott I didn't know... I hoped he could not, would not find out. I thought that if I kept you totally in the dark and asked you to do me the favor on faith that you might be safe. I had to end this, had to break the cycle, cut short the loop and pray that either time would play out as normal or simply end. I had hoped so foolishly that if you had supported Yoshida's efforts at a last-ditch failsafe plan he wouldn't notice. Sorry, so sorry, nothing but sorrow for you and for us all. You would think after so many generations it would be easier to accept the death of your own blood. Scott, please forgive me and forget that favor I asked you- Doctor Yoshida will find funding on his own somehow. Forget the favor. Scott, do me a favor and send me photographs of that newborn son of yours. Please do. Please do not send the check. Nevermind, please. Void, void, void, void please write void on the check if you would, my second cousin my great, great, great grandson, my blood, your blood, your blood if you wouldn't mind, mind, mind my mind is going goddamn you to hell you beast I will fight for this for one more minute I will be myself and sign my name and write my will and use my will and please God let me stay dead this time I'm so sorry I'm I am I am I remain for this cycle and next and forward through all eternity, eternally, eternally yours,

Eternally Yours,


Leopold George Christian Frederick, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, King of the Belgians

Josh: The Difference Between A "Hotel" And A "Motel": My Will To Live

So, so, so tired. Words can't express. Mom, we took your advice, got our stuff from the hotel (including the file box containing the Human Calicivirus-you know, the formula for a virus that could potentially wipe out all human life on Earth? Seemed kinda important) and motored out of Atlanta. Mary and I took turns driving and we just checked in to a Motel 6 in Dallas. We thought we'd downgrade to keep a low profile. The Dallas Motel 6 is exactly like the Atlanta Ritz Carlton except instead of classic, gold-inlaid Venetian wallpaper over soundproofed walls it has whitewashed cinder blocks, and instead of being greeted by a beautiful, dark-haired Spanish maid when you open your hotel room door, you're faced instead with a three-foot cockroach holding a gun. I'm thinking of inviting Hollis here just so I can give him our room and depress him to death.

The one bright spot was when we checked in I sidled up to the blond, bored desk clerk and asked, "Hey, you know the actor who played the bad guy in Die Hard? Do you know who that is? I'll take the room either way, but nail this and you win an extra ten bucks."

She stared at me blankly and intoned, "I heart Alan Rickman."

Did I do an awkward, exhausted, white-man, fist-pump-riddled victory dance right there in the lobby? I think you know me well enough by now to know the embarrassing answer to that. Mary's punch on my arm was just hard enough to not be considered "playful".

We're going to pass out for hopefully the entire day, so just leave a message regarding whatever arrangements you're going to make for us moneywise.

And Mom, obviously these dates being wrong is beyond weird, but given everything I've seen and heard over the past week I'm just going to go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt. You've earned it, and my faith in what passes for reality has been shaken just enough to pretty much believe anything at this point. As long as you keep my birthday straight I'm on board. I'll post again when we wake up.

Mary: Apologies For The Unprofessionalism

Congratulations, Yoshida. There is now officially no one on Earth I want to punch in the face more than you, and amazingly that includes Hollis.

Cyntha: Insania

I have been loathe to introduce a facet of my own existence to this journal of events as I was not only highly skeptical of its relevance but also was reluctant to expose what I perceived as psychological instability at best and utter madness at worst. Understand that while on these specific points obviously my opinion is open to scrutiny or even ridicule, but overall my psyche is intact, my mind is sound and my will endures. Based on the night's events and the undeniable fact that there are phenomena occurring beyond our capacity to comprehend, I can no longer justify withholding recent personal experiences despite the wound to pride or ego.

Two instances in your post on the most recent encounter with Mr. Hollis struck me as being relevant to some unnerving shifts in my memory. Firstly, the song he was whistling, and secondly his virtually incomprehensible screed on slavery, where he proclaimed:

"Why be beholden to the history of the industry when history could not have less meaning?"

This struck a chord with me, as I have been having tremendous difficulty of late with two separate dates in world events. Understand, throughout my entire classical education, the study of history was stressed most highly, and specifically on the timeline of world events. More modern teaching methods deemphasizing the committing of dates to memory have been put in play in recent years in the field of history, but in my formative years the stress was placed on memorization rather than the recounting of anecdotes. As Joshua can attest, my retention of information on this subject has been beyond reproach, at least until now.

If you remember back to the unfortunate interrogation of Miss Stroud, where I questioned her at some great length regarding history and world events, I was seeking to discover if a "layperson", if you will, would be confounded in a similar way with either the happenings I was concerned with or others I had not yet uncovered. She was not. Miss Stroud's thoughts were clear and her recollections accurate, at least as far as the reference material could verify.

The problem is- from my admittedly limited perspective- is that the reference material is wrong. Every online resource, every encyclopedia, every book on the subject says that Genghis Khan began his conquest of Asia in 1206 A.D. He did not. This is one of the most important dates in world history, and one that shaped the modern East as we know it. It is not I date I would ever forget. Temuchin took the title of Khan and begin his subjugation of the Eastern world in the year 1207 A.D.

Similarly, another date is incorrect, this one even more relevant to the modern world. The French Emperor Napoleon's domination of Europe rolled unabated until his eventual downfall at the hands of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. As any avid student of the past well knows, his defeat occurred in the year 1818 A.D., yet even cursory research into the matter reveals that every compendium of historical data nonsensically reveals the date of the Emperor's defeat to be 1815 A.D. Go now- if you doubt it- look it up and you will see the incorrect date on every web site; on every page of every tome regarded as the standards for historical fact.

I cannot comprehend how or why this was done, but cannot believe that Mr. Hollis' casual references were entirely coincidental to these events. I also am incapable of fathoming what possible use this information I've shared could have, but seeing as how even some of the most trivial matters have ballooned into larger developments, I felt I had to unburden myself. Also, though the thought is utterly terrifying to me, there is the distinct possibility that I am going mad. I have suffered the loss of both my husband and, essentially, myself. I understand that in such cases dementia can set in, and since my mind is all I have left obviously even the slightest chance that I may lose that as well is wholly agonizing.

I confided these thoughts to Jeffrey at the time I was having them, and he assures me that with the exception of the shifting dates he finds nothing else out of order as concerns my mental health. He has also assisted me in scouring the pages of history for other anomalies, and thus far we have found none. He assures me that should my thoughts or behaviour grow erratic that he will not hold back, communicating to me at once any issues.

Again, I cannot imagine what possible use this revelation could be to you, but as I began this endeavor and wish to see it continued to whatever end, I felt an obligation to report it.

Yoshida: 10

What was the song Hollis was whistling? The last one had meaning, this may as well. There are computer programs available that are capable of identifying songs if your memory fails you.

Cynthia: Cautela

Post nothing further. Under no circumstances are you to attempt to access this archive until I have called and spoken to you personally.

Mr. Hollis' comment regarding Joshua's reservations on Miss Stroud's hiring could only have been made if he somehow possessed access to this resource. I believe we have been compromised, though how I cannot say. I will contact each of you with a new encryption code key within the hour.

Mary: Bingo

October 29th, 2008: Josh and I pulled up to the Hollis Nursing Home later than I had hoped after stopping off to buy him his new suits. It was past nine in the evening, and a bright moon loomed large in the Georgia sky. We drove into the parking lot and I pulled into a spot far away from the front door. Josh looked at me quizzically, but I told him that I wanted to find a side or rear entrance to have a look around first to get a sense of what the place was like without a tour guide. He was apprehensive, but I told him to trust me- if we were caught we could simply say that we made an innocent mistake. What we needed to remember was that we were there scouting the home and considering putting my dear, old, infirm, imaginary mother there, which meant we were the customers, and customers are at least theoretically always right, no matter how dumb they are for going in the wrong door.

Remembering our cover as husband and wife, I switched my favorite ring from my right hand to my left and held out my arm for him to take, but Josh just stared at it like I was an alien that had landed next to him on the asphalt. I reminded him that we were supposed to be married, and he said that with his newly-blond hair we looked more like brother and sister. I wish he had told me beforehand that he would find it so impossible to even pretend that we were a couple- I would have come up with something else. Finally, after I insisted, he took my arm and we walked as quietly as we could around the side of the structure in search of an alternate entrance.

On the right of the nursing home, the drooping branches of a line of weeping willow trees hovered over a simple concrete path. Brushing leaves out of our faces as we walked single-file, it was only a few feet until we came to a glass side-door. To my surprise, it opened. Every door but the main one in a nursing home should be locked to the outside at all times, and I joked to Josh that I was already considering dumping my imaginary mother somewhere else that was a little more secure. After waiting a second for a chuckle that never came, I once again held out my arm for him to take, and he again just stared at it like it was a dead fish. Finally I just decided to give up on the cover and walked inside alone into a musty-smelling hallway with muzak piping softly from a loudspeaker in the ceiling.

The hallway stretched out straight ahead for quite a ways, with numbered doors on either side covered in various macramé, knitted and dried-macaroni-covered decorations. I stepped up to a door adorned with a "#1 GRANDMA!!!" plaque and let myself in. Josh hissed behind me to stay in the hall, but I flicked on the lights and took a quick look at the accommodations. The apartment was clean and surprisingly roomy, even sporting a brand-new high-definition television. Of course, it still had the trademark mysterious mustiness that seemingly every old person's domicile possessed, but overall it was probably the most comfortable living arrangements in the entire town. I poked through the nightstand and dresser drawers while telling Josh to keep watch in the hall, and after I was satisfied I crossed the corridor to the apartment opposite and repeated the search. Finally, I had Josh do the same in a third room just in case there was something I wasn't seeing. "Let me know if you find anything in the nightstand or dresser besides clothes, bibles or medication. So far it's all the same story."

He reported back within less than a minute that there was nothing out of the ordinary, with the exception of what he referred to with a shudder as, "A lady's personal pleasure device. With high, high mileage." I rolled my eyes, made my way down the corridor toward the central commons area and froze when I got there.

The nursing home's main room was two stories high with plush leather couches, love seats and recliners scattered about. In the center of the room were three enormous plasma TV's placed in a triangular configuration facing in all directions, the one I could see displaying a silent episode of "Murder She Wrote". One other long hallway connected to the room at a ninety degree angle, the complex built in the shape of an "L". The lights were dimmed and it took a moment for it to sink in that all the many large lumps scattered about the carpeted floor were bodies. Everywhere we looked corpses of elderly people were lying on the ground or on the furniture, their eyes wide with shock and terror. Not three feet away from me an old woman lay prone, her dead body contorted and the area around her mouth scratched and torn by her own bloody hand. There was something else around her lips as well- some brownish goo I couldn't identify.

As I bent down to check the old woman for life signs just in case, I heard someone coming down the other hallway, whistling a tune I didn't recognize. I motioned for Josh to get down behind one of the recliners and hide, and I did the same. The whistling echod off the walls of the main room, then ceased. Slowly and as quietly as I could manage, I eased my gun from its holster, the first time I'd ever drawn my weapon with the thought of having to actually fire it. It was a Glock 26 subcompact slimline model, quite common and easy enough to conceal but still with decent stopping power and ten rounds of ammunition in each magazine. I never carried extra magazines as I had never so much as fired a single bullet in combat much less ten. Besides, until now I had always been of the thought that if it takes more than ten rounds to stop someone then I should probably just put down the gun and concentrate more on prayer anyway. Now, though, hiding behind a love seat and surrounded by wrinkled, bloated corpses, I would not have turned down an offer of extra bullets.

Towards the middle of the room I heard a voice begin to speak and watched Josh's eyes widen in recognition. Silently he mouthed the words, "The Old Man." I thumbed the safety off my pistol, but otherwise stayed stock-still, listening.

I heard The Old Man make a "tsk"-ing sound and say, "Harrison, my good man, this room is a disaster, and there can be no question of it. Do be a fine fellow and open the gas main, we simply cannot leave the old home in such a state. Much as I-"

Rising from behind the love seat and pointing my gun, I yelled, "Freeze!" I had no intention of allowing anyone to destroy more evidence, and knew that I could not permit The Old Man to escape, leaving Josh to take the fall for the murder he had committed. The Old Man was just as Josh had described, even wearing the same clothes, complete with dried blood on his shirt cuff and down his leg where Josh had shot him. He carried a cane, though while it was touching the ground he didn't seem to be leaning on it. Behind him stood an enormous black man dressed entirely in dirty denim, his frizzy, wild hair covered in dust. His smile was wide and never wavered, and it did remind me of the smile on Mrs. Walentowicz's face when we discovered her body. He carried an ancient-looking wood and iron chest-about the size of a microwave oven-seemingly without effort.

Josh hesitantly rose from behind the chair and shuffled over, standing just next to and behind me. The Old Man's expression was one of wonderment, then delight. "Why, Mr. Howland, you are a marvel, sir. A great pleasure to make your acquaintance once more. And what have we here? You must be Miss Stroud. Lovely, lovely girl. If circumstances permitted I would kiss the back of your pale hand and pay you every compliment, but the developments of the day do not permit, I well understand." All the same, he gave a little bow, his pale blue eyes never leaving mine. A shiver went up my spine, and I fought the urge to retch.

I took a deep breath and said, "You are coming with us. You are going to confess to the police that it was you, not Josh, who-"

The Old Man put up a hand to stop me. "I think we both know that will never happen, Miss Stroud. Let us not labor under delusions neither of us share. Now unless you care to shoot me in the back or make conversation that is either more pertinent or agreeable, I will bid you both good night. Come, Harrison." The two men turned, and my finger tightened on the trigger. Foremost in my mind was the fact that if I killed this man, he would never be able to confess to framing Josh for his bodyguard's murder.

I decided to stall him, whispering to Josh, "Call 911, but don't draw attention to it." Then louder, I said, "Then let's make conversation. You know our names- what's yours? How did you kill all these people? Poison? Some kind of gas? Why are you doing this... whatever you're doing? What's your relationship to the driver that crashed into the Howlands and Doctor Yoshida?" My hope was that by bombarding him with questions I might find something he would want to talk about long enough for the police to arrive.

The Old Man turned back to us, as did Harrison, both smiling. The Old Man put out a hand and casually swatted the corpse of an elderly man off a recliner and sat down in the newly vacated seat. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out an unfiltered cigarette, lighting it with a match he had hidden in his palm. I was relieved to see the flame as up until then I hadn't been certain that the room wasn't already filled with gas. Harrison remained standing motionless behind him. The Old Man exhaled, cleared his throat and said amiably, "The name is Hollis, of course. As to my relationship... I am an assistant." He seemed to think better of it immediately, shook his head and amended, "No... not even that. I am a mere stagehand, that is all. Or even simply a favored slave who has been given some small access to a few rooms of the master's house." He chuckled a little at this, and turned back to look behind him at Harrison, whose grinning expression never changed.

He leaned back in the chair, getting comfortable and growing expansive, pausing only for the occasional pull on his cigarette. My pistol was beginning to grow heavy, so I lowered it to my side, still aiming it at him as best I could. Hollis continued, "The trouble with slavery was, they decided who should be slaves based on criteria that was far too broad-based, in my own, humble opinion. Why be beholden to the history of the industry when history could not have less meaning? Every Negro a slave? Every one? Preposterous. Have we not all met the rare Negro who was the match and even the better of some white men?" He leaned forward, warming to his subject. "In the perfect world, slavery should be individually decided. Why, have we not all known at one time or another some shiftless, useless layabout that gives nothing to society and only takes? A man who never once considers any civic responsibility but instead grifts and swindles everything they can hold? Would life not be far better if it were these bottom-feeding leeches who were pressed into slavery, all the decisions they had made wrong all their lives suddenly being rightly made for them instead? Do not tell me you have never met individuals who would not fit this criteria, for I would find such a claim impossible to recognize."

Josh and I exchanged looks, both of us for the first time utterly unable to think of a thing to say. Sensing this, Hollis crushed out his cigarette on the upholstered arm of the recliner and stood. I jerked my gun up and aimed it at him carefully. "I can't let you leave." Ignoring me, he turned toward the front door, as did Harrison. My mind scrambled for something, anything that could be used to delay him. Finally, desperately I blurted, "I have a wager for you."

He turned back to us, his eyebrow cocked. For the first time, I believe he was genuinely surprised. "What? What is this? A wager." His smile split his face, exposing a mouthful of dark, yellow teeth. "This is unexpected. Continue."

Taking a deep breath, I said as evenly as I could, "I bet I can tell you the contents of that chest."

Hollis spared a glance back at Harrison then turned back to me, his blue eyes gleaming. "Doubtful. Highly. But it is your wager, my dear. The stakes?"

"The murder weapon. The blade used to kill Mrs. Walentowicz. I want to know where it is. The Driver's name, I want that too." I tried to think of something else and failed.

Frowning, Hollis said, "The first I would provide, but not the second. However, having found the former it would give a clue to the latter. His initials were carved into the knife's hilt long ago." His expression turning more severe, he added, "Do not refer to him as 'The Driver'. You walk, yet that does not make you 'The Walker'. It is insulting and demeaning to his true profession." Before I could ask what I should call him instead he continued, "And for my prize I ask only that I receive a lock of your pretty, pretty blond hair. That is all." The eagerness in his voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Josh spoke for the first time. "F*ck that, old man." Turning to me he said, "Don't do it, Mary. Just shoot the bastard. I don't know why he would want your hair, but whatever he wants that badly would be-"

"I agree to the stakes."

Josh swore again. "Are you entirely insane?! Don't bet with this-"

Hollis raised his voice, saying, "Mr. Howland, the wager is agreed upon." He turned to me confidently. "You may make your guess, my dear. What is inside the chest?"

My heart pounding, I raised my head and said, "Bingo charms."

Giving me his best what the Hell?? expression, Josh put a hand on my arm and began trying to gently pull me back into the hallway. Hollis stared into my eyes for a long moment, then smiled again in that way that made my skin crawl and began softly applauding while still holding his cane. "Bravo, my dear. It seems we may have underestimated you. You are certainly not obligated to answer, but how did you know?"

"It was what I didn't see. There were no charms on any of the bodies, nor in their rooms. Since everyone here was recruited because they were the best Bingo players, it stood to reason that at least some of them would have those charms. I should have thought of it back at Mrs. Walentowicz's house in Milwaukee, but I didn't see her Bingo necklace at the murder scene, either. He took her charm, didn't he? The killer."

Hollis nodded. "He has it in his possession this very moment." He once again sat down in the chair, making himself comfortable and putting a foot up on a nearby corpse. "The game of Bingo began right here in Georgia, did you know that? Back in the twenties. Not the game itself, that had its roots in Europe in the fifteen-hundreds, a game that later was called 'Beano' here in the states until someone was so excited with a win they mistakenly called out 'Bingo' instead and the name stuck." He lit another smoke and continued genially, "The game is played around the nation and the world... it has infiltrated virtually every single city and town in this nation, primarily played by those too old to contribute anything else of worth to the world. It is played in halls and even in churches everywhere, and no one thinks about it for a second." He laughed, a grating sound conveying more cruelty than actual mirth.

He gestured at all the bodies at our feet, saying, "These were the best of the best of them. The world considered them 'lucky' of all things. Ridiculous. Their friends and family were under the mistaken impression that they played Bingo all the time. They thought about playing all the time, but the fact is that the very best played rarely. Played rarely, but won often, and big. We would ask them if they wished to go to one large Bingo contest or another, and you would think that they would all want to go, but it was only one or two every time. Why didn't they all go? Because only one or two knew they would win. They did not win at Bingo because they were lucky or because they played constantly, they won because they only played when they felt that they would win."

Josh stared at him incredulously, "So... all these people were, what... little Bingo Nostradamuses? They could see into the future and tell when they were going to win? Gimme a brea-"

"They didn't know, necessarily, but they felt something. Not with one hundred percent accuracy, mind you, but enough. More than enough." Hollis took another drag and leaned forward in his chair, animated. "Do you have any idea how many people play this game around the globe? With what frequency they sit and stare at that piece of paper, desperate to blot out a single line, their will bent entirely toward that purpose? It is in every community everywhere and no one asks any questions about it because it gives the elderly something to do besides rot, take up space and complain of their own obsolescence."

I considered it. "It's like an experiment. For generations you have people crowd in and take part- actually, they pay to take part- in a system where it's essentially determining, what... how to tell when you are going to win? Seeing the future in a way, is that right?"

Hollis grinned. "Think of the size of the sample... the sheer number of those taking part. Eventually, if someone was paying attention, they could find those impossibly happy few that posssessed... special gifts."

"What about the charms, then?" Josh pointed to the chest. "Those necklaces and bracelets of worthless plastic... are they, what, 'special'? They squirt out of the machine at the factory and give someone the ability to see the future?" I kept my gaze-and my gun-on Hollis, but I could practically hear Josh's eye-roll from behind me.

I took a shot, answering for Hollis, all the while thinking, where are the damn police? "They aren't special when they buy them... but after years and years of being looked at and touched and concentrated on by the best players... they become special?" Hollis winked and gave a single nod.

A thought occurred to me then about something Yoshida had said earlier. Seeing as my guesses had been hitting the mark, I ventured, "The money they won... if these people were the very best of the best- if they somehow knew when they were going to win- they must have made millions. This is a nice facility, but it's nowhere near what they must have been pulling in. The town... all of Hollis Crossroads... this is how you kept it going, isn't it? Subsidizing the entire dying town with money won from the nursing home."

The old man rose from his chair once more and said, "My dear, we have absolutely undervalued you. It is too bad for us that the young gentleman there did not get his way early on as concerns your employment." Hollis brushed a stray cigarette ash off his sleeve and gave an unconvincing stretch. "Well, I believe it is time that I be on my way. While I fully comprehend that the two of you were merely stalling until the authorities could arrive, I found our conversation to be genuinely agreeable." Josh and I shot each other a look, then he continued, "Just so you do not think ill of our local gendarmes here in Hollis Crossroads, I thought it best to kill the town's police force and disable their communications system before the night's foray, so the delay in response time could hardly be considered a mark against them. They are- or were- quite a competent brigade, and I would hate to think their reputation would be slandered based on this evening's events. The call will eventually be re-routed to the sheriff's department, but their travel time is more significant."

I took a deep breath, raised the gun and pointed it at Hollis's head. "I can't let you leave. I want you alive so we can clear Josh's name, but I'll shoot you if I have to. Sit down."

Hollis nodded but didn't move. "I was granted a boon this time around... my special trick. At first I found them unpleasant, but you get used to them. In time. And to answer your earlier inquiry, it was not poison." Another pause, then, "Oh, and to pay up on our little wager, the knife is currently aboard the Liberator, a small cargo ship in the North Pacific bound for Nagasaki, Japan. Farewell, I doubt we shall meet again until the next world."

Tightening my grip and preparing to fire if he took one step toward the door, I began to hear a muted rumbling sound coming from all around me. Keeping my eye on Hollis, I felt Josh tug at my sleeve and whisper my name. Refusing to be distracted, I ignored him, but then he pulled harder. "Mary," he hissed. "Look down." Finally lowering my gaze, I saw the corpse of the elderly woman at my feet shift ever so slightly. A quick scan of all the bodies showed subtle movement. Just then I gave a sharp yelp as the woman's mouth opened and an enormous, black, blood-covered centipede crawled out. This followed by another and another, until centipedes of all shapes and sizes gushed from her open maw, spilling out onto the carpeted floor.

Josh and I staggered back, and we could see that every corpse in the room had centipedes pouring out of their mouths and in the case of the smaller insects, their nostrils. I was petrified that they would begin scuttling over in our direction, but they did the opposite, charging toward Hollis and Harrison. There were thousands of centipedes swarming around his feet, and after a minute we could see that they were moving in a sort of pattern, a figure-eight between his legs. After a few long moments of this, Hollis looked up at Josh and I, smiled that vile, yellow grin and pointed right at us.

Suddenly, all the thousands and thousands of bloody, glistening, writhing centipedes began skittering straight at us. I let out a scream, and this time when Josh pulled at me, I went with him. The two of us ran back down the hallway, the centipedes advancing with astonishing, terrifying speed. The glass door we used to enter had a push-bar on the inside, and we hurtled into it, bashing it open. Josh turned around and began pushing the door closed again, but at the top of it was a hydraulic device that hissed and protested, forcing it to be shut slowly. "Come on, come on," Josh muttered through gritted teeth as the wave of centipedes flowed like an obscene river down the hallway toward us. "Close, goddamn it, close!" he yelled, but it was still open almost a foot wide and the centipedes were almost on us. He turned to me and yelled, "Sh*t, not going to make it. Run!" He abandoned the door just as the insects slammed into it en masse and spewed outside like water through a broken dam. I started to run down the narrow path next to the nursing home heading toward the front of the building, but even as I sprinted I could feel multiple tiny legs begin to crawl up my pantyhose past my ankles and up my calves. I heard Josh scream behind me, "In my pants, biting! F*ck! Don't stop, head for the car!"

We broke from the willows and into the parking lot, the majority of the swarm of centipedes still behind us. I could feel the ones that were on me reach my knee and continue up, their long antennae scraping my thighs underneath my skirt. I screamed again and swatted at them ineffectually as I ran, pulling the car keys out of my purse and praying I wouldn't drop them in my haste. As I unlocked the car with the remote, the centipedes crawled all the way up to my belt and began squeezing through underneath my blouse to my bare belly and back, biting as they went. Finally I reached the car, ramming into the side of it at full speed and nearly losing my balance, narrowly avoiding falling to the ground. Recovering quickly I tore at the handle, flung open the door and dove inside. Once there I pawed at the car door and slammed it shut, then reached over and opened the passenger door for Josh- all while the centipedes under my shirt continued their inexorable, frantic crawl upward, their many wriggling legs grasping for purchase against my flesh.

A moment later Josh threw himself into the car, slamming the door behind him, and the two of us began essentially beating ourselves up, pummeling our own bodies in an attempt to crush the centipedes underneath our clothes. Before we could kill them, though, Josh pointed to the car's dashboard vent, and I saw a pair of long antennae jutting out, waving around tentatively. "They're getting in! Drive, drive, drive, Mary!" I fumbled with the keys, and this time in my panic I actually did drop them on the floor with a clatter. Desperately, I bent over, running my hands over the plastic floormat in search of them. The centipede that had crawled through the vent dropped down right on the back of my exposed neck, and I jerked up with a scream, banging my head on the underside of the dashboard. Before I could completely lose it, Josh quickly swiped at the centipede trying to wriggle up into my hair, pulled it off of me and smashed it against the dashboard, turning it to pulp. A moment later the keys were in my hand, the car was revving and we were peeling out of the Hollis Nursing Home parking lot.

As we hit the street there was a large explosion behind us, and in the rearview mirror I could see flames pouring from the nursing home's many windows. Another few moments and we could see flashes and hear the muffled thumps of other explosions throughout the entire town. "The fire must have traveled down the gas main somehow," I said, my voice sounding distant to me. "The whole town, every building... it's all going, all burning..." I floored it, and Josh and I fled north, bypassing what we could of the ruined inferno that was Hollis Crossroads, the flames reaching up ever higher into the night.

The car swerved all over the road as Josh and I tore open our clothes and crushed the centipedes underneath, their smashed innards mixing with the blood that seeped from our many bites. Modesty was forgotten as we stripped down to our underwear to be certain of killing every last bug, and I never took my foot off the gas. Finally, after driving for a solid half-hour I pulled the car over to the side of the two-lane highway and put it in park.

My voice came out in a husky whisper. "He said not to call him The Driver. Hollis said that he was an assistant... a stage hand, and that he had been granted a 'trick'. Those are show-business terms, and there is only one type of performer that fits the description. I know what to call our enemy now- I know what to call Hollis' master. He was right, he isn't The Driver.

"He is The Magician."

We sat there in silence, our breath ragged, and then I put my head on Josh's shoulder and sobbed, crying and crying until the thought of the swarm of centipedes somewhere behind us spurred me to put the car back in gear and continue the drive back to the city.