‘Striker, Santos. How goes the battle?’

Striker didn’t bother to step out of his way. ‘I know about the warrant, Bernard.’

Bernard Hamilton kept the smile on his face, but his expression tightened. ‘What warrant?’

‘The Form 21. Which tells me why you were out at Larisa’s place last night and this morning. And why you created the CAD call. You want to apprehend her yourself – even though you know what we’ve been doing here. You’re trying to pad your goddam stats.’

The smile fell from Bernard’s lips. ‘What I’m trying to do here, Striker, is locate one of our patients – for her own well-being.’

‘Her own well-being? Really? You gonna seriously hide behind that?’ Striker took a step closer to the man. ‘Tell me, Bernard. Why didn’t you inform us of the warrant when we saw you this morning? You knew we were looking for her.’

‘I . . . I didn’t know at the time—’

‘The warrant came out last night. Car 87 gets first knowledge of anything related to mental health. So you of all people would have known first.’

Bernard’s face reddened. ‘There’s privacy issues here.’

‘Since when do privacy issues supersede protection of life?’

‘I’m not getting into this.’

‘No, you wouldn’t, would you, Bernard? What does a woman’s life matter when compared to your apprehension statistics?’

Hamilton’s eyes darkened. ‘Larisa Logan has a warrant out for her. She needs to be taken into custody. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Which would have happened already if you hadn’t screwed us.’ When Bernard’s face took on a confused look, Striker grew angry. ‘Larisa Logan was waiting to see me when you tried to nab her. Now she thinks I called you there. She thinks I screwed her. And she’s out there on the fly because of it. Good job, Bernard. Top ten as always.’

‘I . . . never knew—’

‘You would have, if you had even bothered to ask.’

Bernard offered nothing back, and Striker just stared at the man. After a short moment, Felicia touched Jacob’s arm to get him moving. He shrugged her hand away.

‘One more thing, Bernard. Anything happens to Larisa, and I’m going to make damn sure that everyone in this department knows just how badly you screwed this. How you put your stats ahead of her protection. You got that? We’ll see how far your bid for Cop of the Year goes after that.’

Bernard’s eyes widened at the comment, and Striker finally moved out of his way. Without looking at Bernard, or even Felicia, Striker stormed down the hall, kicked open the door, and made his way down the stairs.

Everything had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

Thirty-Five

Time was important, the Adder knew. Everything was progressing quickly. The items were prepared, all packed away and ready to go. And the van was filled with gas, the keys already in the ignition. It was parked, unseen, under the overhang of a weeping willow tree, at the end of a nearby dead-end lane.

He went over his checklist.

Leather mask. Check. Leather gloves. Check. Latex gloves. Check.

Video equipment . . . No.

The thought caused a frown to form on his face. How could he forget that? The camera was the most important thing.

He returned to his dwelling, opened the hatch in the floor, and climbed down the ladder into his home. When he reached the concrete below, he beelined for the east side of the room. On the wall hung a print of M.C. Escher’s Relativity – where people walked up and down stairs in all directions, in a world where gravity made no sense.

The Adder loved the image. However, his taste in art was not what made him buy the piece. What made him buy it was the size of the lithograph.

He reached out, grasped hold of the frame, and removed the picture from the wall. There behind it was an odd-sized door, two feet wide and three feet tall. Thin, made from wood.

An old dumbwaiter. It had been built God knows how long ago, and had long since been boarded up.

The Adder opened the door. Inside was the passageway leading up between the floors. It went all the way to the top of the house. Up there, the Adder knew – for he had rebuilt the system himself – were two strong platforms, each one less than one foot wide and two feet deep. The base of each was built on rollers, which rose and fell when the cords were pulled.

The Adder reached inside and grasped the cord. When he pulled it, the first unseen platform descended silently from above, revealing the array of electronic equipment. He removed the items he needed for the job.

Camera.

Relay.

Computer box with digital receiver.

And, of course, the back-up external hard drive. He always had a back-up drive. Because the thought of losing even one precious moment of the Beautiful Escape was horrifying and left him cold.

He took all the equipment out, placed it in the black leather duffel bag, and dropped it by the door. Then he raised the dumbwaiter once more, closed the door, and placed the painting back over it.

Almost set.

He crossed the room to the west side, to the only other door the room owned, and opened it. Inside was a small bathroom with a toilet and a shower but no bath. The Adder took off his clothes, revealing the marks on his back and legs – the unsightly welts he had received as part of his punishments – and turned on the water.

It was cold. Freezing cold – there was no hot water down here; never had been – but that was okay. He took the bar of soap from the rack and vigorously brushed it through his hair and across every inch of skin. Then he grabbed the horsehair brush and did the same, pressing hard, scraping it against his skin until the flesh turned pink.

He did this every time in preparation for a job. It was a necessary part of the routine.

By the time he was done, some twenty minutes later, he was chilled to the bone and his welted skin stung like it had been sandpapered raw. He climbed out of the shower, dried himself off, and redressed in a brand-new pair of unworn black jogging pants and a matching black hoodie.

One more thing.

And perhaps the most important of all.

He crossed the room to the cabinet where his computer sat, and logged on. He started the Private Search program, then navigated to his MyShrine site. Once he had logged on, he began typing. The message was brief, direct, and aimed well:

. . . I saw them first in Afghanistan and Kandahar. In human form. They came in rows, wave after wave of masks.

But I KNEW what they were. The other soldiers may have been blind, but not me. I saw through the shells. And I took them all down. A soldier. An emissary. The HAMMER OF GOD!!!

Then I was, as I am today.

There is only one way to kill a daemon. A goddam Succubus. And that is through the heart.

You’re moving downward. Into the mouth of hell, Hero. Can you kill your daemons?

I know I can mine . . .

The Adder

The Adder stopped typing. Read the message over.

And was content.

He hit the Send button and then logged off. Sometime today, Detective Striker would receive the warning. But would he get it soon enough? And would he make use of it?

It did not matter. Not in the end.

The Adder set up the KillDisk program. One wrong password and the entire hard drive would be deleted and then formatted. He logged off the computer and shut it down. Got up from the chair and headed for the ladder to the hatch above. The day may have been young, but there was still much work to do.