“Goodbye, Tiffany. I’ll let you spend your final moments in peace.” Even as she cried and pleaded with him, he laid down the bucket, wiped his hands on a towel, and left the room.

She screamed for more than an hour before it was over.

“Who the hell is the leak?” Patrick bellowed, slamming the front door behind him.

I looked up, as did virtually everyone in the building. Outside, I could see reporters’ faces jammed up against the glass like trick-or-treaters with their own perverse way of celebrating the forthcoming holiday. We were under siege. Had been all day.

Patrick stomped through the aisles, pushing aside locals and feds alike. I had never seen him in such a state. “It’s one thing to leak our theories. New developments. But we don’t even know for sure that Edgar took these girls!” He pounded his fists against the staircase banister. “For all we really know, they could be holed up at the Flamingo with their quarterback boyfriends!”

I knew what he was talking about. The morning papers had leaked the names of the three potential abductees-Tiffany and Judy and JJ. While cautiously reporting that the LVPD was investigating the possibility, they strongly suggested that it was a fact-that the girls were now dead and that it was all our fault.

“Is this tirade supposed to accomplish something?” I asked when he made it to my desk.

“Excuse me very much,” he spat back. “You may be used to this kind of amateurism, but at the Bureau, we don’t countenance leaks. They compromise the investigation!” He headed down the stairs. “I’m going to talk to our criminalists.”

Because those FBI guys are so much smarter than I am? Even though they don’t have the sense to take off their sunglasses when they come inside? Even though they dress like extras from Men in Black?

I gave the desk a shove, kicked back in my chair. I shouldn’t let it get to me. He was just frustrated, like everyone else connected to this case. But he doesn’t have to take it out on me. Especially after all I’ve been through. After all that we’ve… shared.

Damn. Amazing how much less sexy guys are when they’re acting like assholes.

Tiffany did not die. The leeches were infected with a mild paralytic, enough that she might well think she was dying (and did). But not nearly enough to kill her. He had planned it that way.

She had screamed and begged for mercy till her voice was shredded and her tears were dry and there was nothing she could do but wait to die. But she did not.

“Tiffany! Still with us? Lovely.” She was shivering, making quiet sobbing noises, her naked body covered with dried slime, leeches, and the remnants of leeches. They had sucked all over her body; her flesh was variegated with bruises and discoloration. Her eyes were cloudy and her expression was vacant, but he could see she was still there. Part of her, anyway.

“I’m sure you must be thinking horrible thoughts about me right now, thinking I’ve been terrible to you. If only you could understand that it is not so. Per contra, this has all been for your benefit.”

She shuddered, trembled, but did not attempt to answer.

“I know you’re probably not able to speak, so I won’t expect you to hold up your end of the conversation. I’ll do it for you. Look what I brought.”

He loosened the straps just enough that she could peer up and see what he had brought with him.

Two bizarre hairy orange costumes. Orangutans.

“I knew you were anxious to see your two friends, so I brought them with me. They’re quite agreeable these days. They put on their costumes without any hesitation. I hope you will, too.” He leaned closer. “I’m afraid I exaggerated a bit beforehand, my sweet. The leeches drugged you, but they didn’t poison you. This time.”

She stared at him, shivering, her eyes wide and lost, like a broken doll.

“No need to feel left out, my dear. I’ve got a costume for you, too.”

It was like the others, except that a huge section was cut out at the bosom, with a similar cutaway at the groin.

She trembled as she spoke. “If-if-if-if if if if if I put it on, will you get this… slime off of me?”

“My dear, you’ll be able to do it yourself. I’ll provide the soap and water. You can pass the day away in indulgent lavation.”

He unstrapped her. She took the suit like an automaton, barely thinking. He handed her a towel and she wiped herself off, wiped and wiped and wiped, leaving red abrasions and in some places bleeding. She picked the leeches away, crying as she did it, from her waist, her breasts, her pubis. Some left round sucking circles, others left blood oozing from her skin. But she did not scream or misbehave. She just sobbed quietly, desperately.

Then she took the suit. “Seems… wet.”

“Coated with paraffin wax. I’ll tell you why in a moment. Go on now. You must be anxious to get dressed.”

She pulled the suit over herself. Her breasts hung out through the opening at the upper torso, while the midriff cutaway exposed her genitalia.

She put it on without complaining.

“What you have to understand,” he said gently, almost paternally, “what it took me so long to grasp, is that it isn’t enough to simply make an offering. The offerings must be true participants. Willing.”

He took a book of matches from his pocket, struck one, then lit a small torch-a club with oily rags wrapped and secured at the top.

“Hard to imagine, isn’t it? That all this might have some wondrous purpose? But I can assure you that it does. One day, all humanity will give you its thanks. Your suffering will lead this troubled world to eternal bliss.”

He smiled genially, then passed her the torch. “Set your friends on fire, Tiffany.”

She looked at him, peering through the eye holes in the orangutan mask.

“Don’t worry. They won’t resist. They only exist to please me. Set them on fire.”

Her arm twitched.

“If you refuse, of course, I’ll have no choice but to put you back on the table. Perhaps it will be time to restart the pendulum. Instead of putting it across your chest, we’ll let it take off an arm. Or a leg.” His eyes narrowed. “Or perhaps I should bring out more leeches. Would you like that, Tiffany? Shall we bring them back?” He paused. “Or perhaps I should give one of your friends the opportunity I now offer you. Remember-you’re wearing a suit, too, highly flammable. Perhaps I should ask JJ if she will light your fire.”

Tiffany hesitated. Her arm moved indecisively.

“What shall it be, Tiffany? Them, or you?”

She took the torch.

“That’s a dear. Finish it up now.”

She did not cry or wail. It was almost as if sensation had fled from her, as if the idea of resistance was beyond imagining.

“Do it, Tiffany. Do it now.”

The wax caught fire immediately. She stepped back from the flame, dropping the torch. One suit caught the other and in only a few seconds both were consumed in a blistering inferno.

“They won’t suffer long. The suits will fuse to their skin and the smoke will choke them and they’ll die before they experience… too much of the burning.”

Tiffany crumpled to the floor, the orangutan suit bunched around her, her head buried beneath her hands. Her limbs were limp, as if all strength, indeed the bones themselves, had disappeared. He sensed that she wanted to cry, but no tears would come. There was almost no feeling at all, just a deadness, and a felt horror, not at him, but at herself.

Blessed be the prophet. The time was at hand.