“No! He’s dead. He’s dead. I know it.”

“What happened?”

Theo tried to think of a plausible explanation, something that would buy him a minute, a few more seconds even, but he couldn’t clear his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I–I heard gunfire. I was in the shed. When I came out, he was gone.”

“Then how do you know he’s dead?”

Theo couldn’t see any advantage to telling Burton that Molly had told him. Burton would track her down and put her in the same shallow grave that he was going to end up in.

“Fuck you,” Theo said. “Figure it out.”

The pistol whipped across the back of Theo’s head and he nearly passed out this time. He heard a ringing in his ears, but a second later he realized that it wasn’t in his ears at all. His cell phone was ringing in his shirt pocket. Burton rolled him over and put the barrel of the gun on Theo’s right eyelid.

“We’re going to answer this, Crowe. And if you fuck up, the calling party is going to hear a very loud disconnect.” The sheriff bent down until his face was almost touching Theo’s and reached for the phone.

Suddenly a series of deafening explosions went off a few feet away and bullets whined off the rocks like angry wasps. Burton rolled off Theo and into a shallow crevice just below them. Theo felt someone grab his collar and pull him to his feet. Before he could see who it was, a dozen hands closed on him and dragged him out of the sun. He fell hard on his back and the gunfire stopped. His phone was still ringing. A cloud of bats was swirling above him.

He looked up to see Molly Michon standing over him with a smoking assault rifle, and in that second, she looked like what he had always ima-gined an avenging angel might look like, except for the six naked white guys standing behind her.

“Hi, Theo,” she said.

“Hi, Molly.”

Molly pointed to the phone in his shirt pocket with the barrel of her rifle. “You want me to get that?”

“Yeah, it might be important,” Theo said.

There was a gunshot and a bullet whined off the edge of the cave entrance and ricocheted into the darkness. Theo could feel the roar that rose up out of the back of the cave vibrating in his ribs.

Burton reached over the edge of the crevice and fired a shot in the general direction of the cave, then braced himself for return fire from the AK-47, but instead he heard a roaring that sounded like someone had dropped the entire cast of The Lion King in a deep fryer. Burton was not a coward, not by any means, but a man would have to be insane not to be frightened by that noise. Too much weirdness, too fast. A woman in a leather bikini and thigh-high boots firing an AK-47 while six naked guys dragged Crowe into a cave. He needed time to regroup, call in backup, drink a fifth of Glenlivet.

It seemed safe here for the time being. As long as he didn’t move, no one could get a firing angle on him without making a target of himself. He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket, then paused, trying to figure out who to call. A general officer-in-trouble call could bring anyone, and the last thing he needed was television helicopters hovering around. Besides, his goal wasn’t to arrest the suspects, he needed them silenced for good. He could call in the guys from the crank lab, if he could get hold of them, but the vision of a bunch of untrained illegal immigrants running around on this hill with automatic weapons didn’t seem like the best strategy either. He had to call SWAT, but only his guys. Eight of the twenty men on the SWAT team were in his pocket. Again, he couldn’t go through dispatch. They’d have to be called in on private lines. He dialed the number that rang into the information center deep in the basement of the county justice building. The Spider picked up on the first ring.

“Nailsworth.”

“It’s Burton. Listen, don’t talk. Call Lopez, Sheridan, Miller, Morales, O’Hara, Crumb, Connelly, and LeMay. Tell them to come in full SWAT to the Beer Bar Ranch north of Pine Cove, the northern access road. There’s a cave here. Pull up whatever maps you need and give them directions. Do not use open channels. They are not to log in or report to anyone where they are going. There are at least two suspects in the cave with automatic weapons. I’m pinned down about ten yards from the west-facing entrance. Have them meet south of the rocks, they’ll see them, then have Sheridan call me. No aircraft. Find out if there’s another entrance to this cave. I need everyone in place ASAP. Can you do it?”

“Of course,” the Spider said. “It’s going to take them a minimum of forty minutes, maybe more if I can’t find them all.”

Burton could hear the Spider’s fat fingers blazing on his keyboard already. “Send whoever you can find. Tell them to come in separate cars. Tell them to avoid sirens if possible on the way up, definitely once they hit the ranch.”

“Do you have descriptions of the suspects?”

“It’s Theophilus Crowe and a woman, five-eight, one twenty, twenty-five to forty years old, gray hair, wearing a leather bikini.”

“Twenty-five to forty? Pretty specific,” the Spider said sarcastically.

“Fuck you, Nailsworth. How many women do you think are running around these hills wearing a leather bikini and shooting an AK? Call me when they are on the way.” Burton disconnected and checked the battery on the phone. It would last.

Since the roaring sound had come from the cave, it had been quiet, but he didn’t dare peek over the edge of the crevice. “Crowe!” he shouted. “It’s not too late to work this out!”

The naked guys were standing over Theo, wearing dazed smiles, as if they’d all just shared a big pipe of opium. “Jesus, was that it?” Theo asked, Steve’s roar still ringing in his ears.

“Him,” Molly corrected, holding up a finger to shush Theo as she pressed the answer button on his phone. “Hello,” she said into the phone. “None of your business. Who is this?” She covered the mouthpiece and said, “It’s Gabe.”

“Tell him I’m okay. Ask him where he is.”

“Theo says he’s okay. Where are you?” She listened for a second, then covered the mouthpiece again. “He’s at the Slug.”

“Tell him I’ll call him right back.”

“He’ll call you back.” She disconnected and tossed the phone in the pile of clothing by the door.

Theo looked up at the naked guys. He thought he recognized a couple of them, but didn’t want to acknowledge that he did. “Would you guys back off a little?” Theo said. They didn’t move. Theo looked at Molly. “Can you tell them to go somewhere? They’re making me nervous.”

“Why?”

“Molly, I don’t know if you’ve notice, but all these guys are in a—a state of arousal.”

“Maybe they’re just glad to see you.”

“Would you tell them to back off, please?”

Molly motioned for the naked guys to move away. “Go. Go. Back to the back of the cave, guys. Go. Go. Go.” She poked at a couple of them with the assault rifle. Slowly they turned and ambled farther back into the cave.

“What in the hell is wrong with them?”

“What do you mean, wrong? They’re acting like all guys do, they’re just being more honest about it.”

“Molly, seriously, what did you do to them?”

“I didn’t do anything. That’s how they’ve been acting since they saw Steve back there.”

Theo looked to the back of the cave, but could only see the partially lit backs of a group of people sitting on the cave floor. “It’s like they’re in a trance or something.”

“Yeah, isn’t it cool? They came to help me get you when I asked, though. So they’re not total zombies. I’m, like, in charge.”

Blood was dripping out of Theo’s scalp, matting his hair and leaving spots on his shirt. “That’s great, Molly. Could you get these handcuffs off me?”

“I was going to ask you about those. Every time I see you, you’re in handcuffs. Do you have a fetish or something?”