Adult Content Warning

The following work of fiction may contain language, violence or themes considered unsuitable for young readers. Parental discretion is advised. (If this story was a film, it would likely pull a PG-13 rating.)

Such A Nice Girl

A Trick Molloy Mystery
©2008 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Twelve

You’re not surprised to see me, are you, doc?

Larson smiled, resting both hands on his walking stick. Students moved around us in a stream. “Mr. Molloy. I had expected to see you again. Would like to come to my office?”

I glanced up at the English Department’s gray façade, then shook my head. “I’ll pass.” I wanted him in the open, in a crowd. All these young minds would keep him overwhelmed and distracted, pretty much as I’d been dealing with the jac-offs the night before.

“It will make our conversation less constrained.”

“Oh, I’m not likely to be constrained at all, Doc. In fact, I like being in a crowd with you. Gives you more to listen in on.”

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Do you know, or are you guessing?”

I thought for a half-second and could feel him pushing at me. It was the itch, but hotter now, clawing. I’d drunk my breakfast, so I was able to push him back. I didn’t push hard, though. Didn’t mind if he came in, just didn’t want him in deep.

“That how you do it, doc? You ask a question you know the answer to, then you pick up on their thought pattern? That becomes the key to unlocking their minds?”

He raised an eyebrow. “A surprisingly adroit deduction, Molloy.”

“I got more. Walk with me.” I pointed off across the green toward where his creative writing center was being built. “You learned to do that in grad school.”

“Working as a TA. You try to make a student understand something complex, and you start by asking questions he already knows the answer to. You lead him to the conclusions you want drawn.” The man walked with me, but kept a distance between us. “I began to notice I could tell what they were going to say, and then I was able to go deeper.”

“Depending on how well you knew them?”

“Depending on the depth of connection.”

He said it in a way that made me immediately think of sex, which is what he wanted. He pushed again. I gave a little ground, then held him off. “You’re not going to get to know me that well, Doc.”

“You’ve nothing I want.”

“Been reading my journal, doc?”

His head came up. “Touché.”

I laughed. “I’ve done my reading. You stole things from Sarah’s mind, used them in one of your stories. You were able to read her thoughts on the matter. It wasn’t threatening. She wouldn’t have turned you in.”

“You, on the other hand, Molloy?”

“Oh, I could ruin you, doctor. Probably will. Bug in the right ear, some computer analysis of your stories and her journals, you’re done. You didn’t realize Sarah was keeping journals, did you?”

He hesitated, and I read it on his face. “You didn’t know she kept multiple journals. Why not, doc? That should have been easy to pick up.”

He composed himself. “I found her, one night after we had lain together, writing in a journal with three Xs on the cover. I thought she meant it as triple-X, and she was recording details of our tryst. It wasn’t until later I learned that was a number.”

“By later you mean after you killed her, right?”

“I didn’t know of the other journals because Sarah was a remarkable young lady. She had a great facility for compartmentalization. While she was easy to read, navigating inside her head wasn’t simple.”

I nodded. “I heard about your teaching methods. You take students through ‘creativity exercises’—guided visualizations and the like. They let the ideas flow and you just harvest them.”

Larson’s nostrils flared. “It’s far more complex than that. I work with them, evaluate their skills…”

“And then you rape their minds.”

He stared at me, pushing hard. I gave a bit more, then gave him a full dose of what I thought of him. The image had him all bloated and covered in boils that oozed. His nose grew long, he hunched over and his flaccid pecker dragged on the ground—not because it was long, but because his legs were stubby and infantile.

He recoiled.

I smiled. “I still don’t get why you killed her. Did she know she was carrying your child?”

“I sensed a second life in her. Sarah’s abilities would have let her know, too, soon. I asked her what she thought about having children, and how she would balance motherhood and a career. She said she wouldn’t. Children were more important than her writing. She’d quit and just raise them, just like her mother had.”

“She’d rob you of your muse.”

Larson laughed and spread his arms wide. “Take a look where we are, Molloy. We are in the midst of muses.”

“No sale, doc. Sarah was one of a kind. It wasn’t that she’d someday win a Nobel, it was that she was the way you could win your Nobel.” I scratched my throat. “She was determined to follow in her mother’s footsteps. You decide to convince her otherwise, so you invite her to a tryst, slip her a mickey. You found date-rape drugs made your victims more suggestible? You managed to use it and magick to erase memories from others? Nice. You start suggesting, she reads your thoughts on the matter and tries to resist. She was going to expose you. You had no choice but to make it look like suicide.”

“Nice fairy-tale, Molloy, but she was taking anti-depressants.”

“Placebo.”

“So she was unmedicated for her depression. Learned she was pregnant and that I would not marry her, so she killed herself. I’m so sorry. I never imagined.”

I nodded. “Works, save that you have journal thirty.”

“She mailed it to me before she killed herself. In fact, she had the motel clerk do it for her. He’ll remember that, and he won’t remember seeing me there.” Larson paused at the curb. “Any evidence you have will only convict me of the poor judgment of sleeping with a student. Other than that, Molloy, you have nothing.”

It was actually worse. As an active telepath, he could read the reaction of any jury. He’d pick out where they had doubts, and his counsel would be able to exploit them. I could have caught him with a razor in hand, covered in her blood, and he’d never be convicted.

Tired of waiting, I started across the street through a tight break in traffic. “You’re right, doc, all I’ve got is circumstantial. So I have one choice left.”

I gave him the bullet. Gave it to him hard. Big push, then a pull as he shoved back. Got him in and hooked. I imagined myself whirling through a roundhouse kick that would take his head clean off. I even began the turn.

That’s how I got to watch.

Larson, in fine form, dropped back into a defensive stance. His walking stick came up and started spinning. He’d block the kick and then beat the crap out of me.

He would have, too, except that Coast College really does have horrible drivers. His defensive backstep put him smack dab in front of a speeding Impala. A bloody halo marked where his head hit the hood. He didn’t fly as far as the snuff had last night, but he flew. His body twisted up. Impact pulverized his left leg so it wrapped around the right like ivy. He bounced a couple times, then rolled to a stop.

He stared at me. I don’t know if he was alive. He wasn’t trying to get into my head anymore, so maybe not.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I crouched over him, peered into those dulling eyes, and smiled. They’ll never remember you. I’ll see to it. You killed Lexie. I’ll kill your memory. It’s as close to even as things will get.

Cate confirmed that Larson was the father of Sarah’s child. Cops found Thirty among his effects. The affair had been torrid. Partners are easy to please when you really know what they want. Nicole helped box everything up and we shipped it off to Sarah’s mother.

Coast College originally announced plans to name the creative writing center after Larson, being as how he’d died in its shadow. Problem for Larson was that he’d been too overtly political in dealing with colleagues. A whispering campaign began about how he’d carried on affairs with undergrads, how one had committed suicide because she was pregnant. I’d have thought that would be enough, but when indignation stalled, I unleashed the big guns.

That being evidence of plagiarism.

Didn’t matter to folks that Larson was taking advantage of students and that one had killed herself. But, let him steal someone else’s work and all hell broke loose. Donors started to back off their pledges and former students started crawling out of the woodwork with “me, too” stories that kicked Coast College’s reputation square in the ‘nads.

In the end the Center and program went ahead, but Kenneth Larson’s contributions to the whole project got tossed into the ” and too many other people to mention them individually” category. Another ten years and the campus newssite would resurrect the story of Larson and create a scandal. Gotta love student muckrakers just for the chaos.

A week after Larson’s funeral, Cate met me in the Irish pub a block down from the Morgue. As she sat down at the bar, I slid an envelope to her. “The copy of the journal and a report on everything. Just so we both know how the records should have read.”

She nodded, then pointed to my empty glass and indicated two more. “We okay, you and me, on this?”

I gave her a sidelong glance, then nodded. “You had to suspect me.”

“I didn’t want to.”

I smiled and turned to face her. “Here’s the deal, Cate. You’re the kind of friend I need. You’ll tell me what I need to be told. You have in the past.”

“I’ll do so in the future.”

“You didn’t have to say that so fast.”

“But I’ll be saying it so often, Trick, I wanted to get the first one out of the way quick.”

She raised her glass. “In wine, truth; in friends, trust.”

I drank, letting it burn all the way down. I ordered two more, then looked at her. “So, ask me again.”

“I know you weren’t the child’s father.”

“I didn’t sleep with her.”

“Did you want to?”

I thought for a moment, then patted the envelope. “Not Lexie, nope. After what I’ve learned, maybe Sarah.”

Cate grinned, watching the bartender pour. “Maybe even figure out how to love her?”

“Love’s strictly for suckers.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

Talia’s hand slipped onto my shoulder. “Let’s hope, Mr. Molloy, you’re open to being convinced otherwise.”

I released 21 Days to a Novel less than a month ago, and you’ve been buying up copies of it as if I was selling gold.

I suppose, technically, I am. 21 Days to a Novel will help you put together all the material you need to start on that novel you’ve always wanted to write. If you were to buy the book today, do the exercises over September, you’d be primed for Nanowrimo. You remember starting a novel and having it peter-out after ten chapters or twenty pages? Not any more. Not if you follow the exercises.

But I wanted to thank you for your response to the exercises. I literally sold out of the disk at Gencon—and I’ve made more for DragonCon this weekend. Between Gencon and here, you’ve made 21 Days to a Novel my fastest selling e-book. (And you already have me thinking about the next book I’ll be doing, that will help you on the other side of the novel.)

You guys rock!

Adult Content Warning

The following work of fiction may contain language, violence or themes considered unsuitable for young readers. Parental discretion is advised. (If this story was a film, it would likely pull a PG-13 rating.)

Such A Nice Girl

A Trick Molloy Mystery
©2008 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Eleven

I called Talia and rainchecked the evening’s entertainment. I explained, in general terms, what had happened. She offered to come over and nursemaid me. She even hinted that she had a seductive little nurse’s outfit. My resolve almost wavered, but a breeze wafting up from the puddle that had been Wideload’s ground zero killed my libido. I thanked her and promised to make it up to her.

The fact was that magick had closed all my wounds and fixed my arm, but I’d not wanted to push things too far. I left some of the bruises. I’m not a masochist. I’d be hurting the next morning, but I didn’t want to burn myself out. There was a murderer out there somewhere, and I needed to tag him. Having the magick reservoir bone dry just wasn’t going to work.

A night’s sleep would help a lot, but before I headed off to bed, I started in on my research. I went back over the journals and compared them to Lexie’s blog. I made a key, deciphering who was what. For Club Flesh that was pretty easy. Lexie had a way of creating characters and explaining their situations that brought the actual circumstances to mind in a snap.

I tried doing the same thing for her school and family journals, but with not as high a degree of success. She did more to hide her family members, like dividing her mom up into a mom for several of the girls. Even though I didn’t know the people involved, the patterns Lexie had established in her writing about the club held true. I was able to link people back and forth. Again, no one emerged as a viable candidate for either an enemy, or the father of her child, but I was getting a better grasp on Lexie.

Which made painfully obvious what must have been in that missing journal.

Larson.

Nothing about Larson. Zero. Not in the blog, not in the school journals. I was willing to bet he’d been a journal unto himself—an honor she’d not bestowed on anyone else.

Back when I’d been a rookie detective assigned to homicide, one of the old bulls closing in on retirement told me the secret of catching murderers. He said that only the stupid or the really smart get caught. The dumb ones answer the door, covered in blood, knife in hand. The smart ones, though, they make sure every clue is covered. Making it look like a suicide is a favorite and there’s where we hit snag with Lexie.

She wrote volumes. Why no note? Was it conceivable that someone who expressed herself so well through words would go out without explaining why? Lexie regularly interacted with her blog’s readers. Would she leave them in the dark?

I didn’t think so.

Which led me to kick my Kenneth Larson research into high gear. Graduated in the middle of the pack from Middlebury College’s writing program, Arizona State for his MFA, Iowa for his doctorate. Nothing of note as an undergrad, but once he was earning those higher degrees he began to get notices. Never married, focuses on students, and when he got to Coast College he built a creative writing program from scratch. He got endowments for it and the college had broken ground on a center earlier this year.

I grabbed my phone and found his story in that journal I’d snagged. I’m no literary critic. The only creative writing I’ve done is in some crime scene reports. He wasn’t bad, Larson. Though I didn’t want to, I found myself sympathizing with the main character in his story. The guy was a broken-down salesman, all old-school, who got scapegoated for the loss of a big account. He was battling back, but was his own worst enemy. He drank too much, worked a dead-end job that was sucking his soul out.

They say literature is meant to hold a mirror up to the human condition. I knew this guy. I could feel for him. Larson made it easy to get inside his head and his flesh.

For me it would be easier than most, though, since the character was me.

And it had been easy for Larson. He’d had help.

That same portrait of me appeared in journal Twenty-nine. Different circumstances, but same turns of phrase. Didn’t appear in the blog. No place else, least not that I could find. Which meant Larson had pulled it from her journal.

Check that.

I went back over articles I’d read about him—and not just the college-connected ones. I looked for reports on tournaments and found more than enough references. A couple of his opponents had their own blogs, praising him for his skill and his ability to react. His attacks came as unexpected, his defense was impenetrable.

It seemed to many of his foes that he knew what they were going to do before they did it.

I was pretty sure that was right.

It all made sense. Lexie’s channel had been empathy which, for all intents and purposes, is surface-telepathy. She picked up on those things that concerned people in the moment. Coupled with some common sense and a writer’s attention to detail, she pulled vivid images from the minds of her friends. She got the description of my apartment from Nicole’s dream; the various other tales from her co-workers. She still had to translate their memories into words—there was a true talent—but she was able to do her research in the minds of others.

Larson, though, could go deeper and work past defenses. I’d once heard of an aikido sensei who dodged bullets. When asked how he did it, he said he didn’t dodge the bullet itself. He dodged when the image of a bullet appeared in the shooter’s mind. He dodged the intent to shoot, not the hot metal.

Larson’s career all fell into place. Like many people he may have been late in discovering his trigger or channel. Looks like he did that in graduate school. He started leeching off talented students. His ability to pull endowments also made sense. It’s pretty easy to talk someone into giving you something when you can look into his head, learn what his conditions for the gift are, then agree to meet them.

I shook my head. Lexie’s got writing talent. He feeds off her. Finds her very potent, because she’s feeding things back to him. He doesn’t want her to get away, so they have an affair. He thinks it’ll be temporary maybe, but then he looks inside her and finds she’s pregnant.

Why would he kill her for that? All he had to do was to marry her and have his muse at his side for all time. It made no sense, at least not in my skull. But my skull didn’t count. As long as it made sense in his, he would make his move.

Kenneth Larson, murderer.

Okay, I had my target. Now I had to go after him.

A quote from a guy he’d beaten in a national bojitsu tournament blasted into my head. “There’s no surprising this guy.”

Maybe not, but I’d have to try.

And somehow hope I’d survive the encounter.

Adult Content Warning

The following work of fiction may contain language, violence or themes considered unsuitable for young readers. Parental discretion is advised. (If this story was a film, it would likely pull a PG-13 rating.)

Such A Nice Girl

A Trick Molloy Mystery
©2008 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Ten

They were beating me like a Mike Tyson piñata at a Klan rally. Worse. No blindfolds, and they were ganging up. Kicks landed hard and heavy. Try to protect one part and something else would open up. Odds of my surviving were dropping faster than Congress’ approval rating. There wasn’t much I could do about it.

At least not now.

Luckily, I’d already done all I could.

The spells I’d worked earlier finally ignited.

Nameless Wonder showed the first signs. He started dancing as if his boots were on fire. He cried out every time his feet hit the ground, then fell and tore at his boots. They came off and blood dripped from his socks. He threw his head back and howled.

Craig wasn’t much better off. His left arm hung limp, his face contorted in agony. A red rash spread up his neck and along the arm. He reached his right hand back, trying to scratch, trying to sooth, but his body tightened. He went down, too, writhing on the pavement.

Gunther had taken two steps toward me, then he jackknifed forward. He hugged his belly and dropped to his knees. Moaning inhumanly, he vomited. His last meal came up dark with blood. That shocked him. As he gasped, he breathed vomitus back in, pitching him into a coughing fit.

But for Wideload, the magick worked the best.

Cate, maybe a couple other people, knew the truth about my magick. Most folks have simple channels: earth, air, fire, water. Some get more obscure: love, hate, desire. Mine? It’s rare, well outside two standard deviations beyond the mean. One in a billion. Maybe even more rare.

My channel is life.

Cate taught me how to use spells to identify and culture bugs.

I weaponized that magick.

Those little coins each sought a specific bug. They just filled it with life. They started bacteria, fungi and viruses humping like bunnies.

Nameless Wonder caught himself a nasty case of Athlete’s foot. The flesh blistered as fungi colonized his feet. If he pulled those socks off, most of his toes would go with them. And Craig, those Chicken Pox scars had been his undoing. The same herpes virus that caused the pox also triggered shingles. It’s seriously painful. Probably felt like a thousand cats clawing his flesh into ribbons then braiding them up tight. For Gunther, H. pylori, the bug that causes ulcers. He’d have a huge one. Right now his gut felt as if he’d swallowed an oxy-acetylene torch burning full blast.

Despite feet pounding me, I had to laugh at Wideload.

The human gut is home to countless bacteria. Most are incredibly friendly. Without them to digest food, it wouldn’t get broken down into the nutrients we need. But there are some foods that don’t digest right. They ferment. They produce all sorts of interesting results—much like the bubbles that fermentation produces in beer.

Food like beans.

Wideload’s belly became even more distended. Gas roared as it shifted within. Eyes widened, his jaw dropped. I think he was trying to burp—anything to get rid of that bloated feeling.

But burps, no matter how prodigious, just weren’t going to cut it.

Another kick to the head made me a bit hazy on what happened next. I know it involved Wideload spinning around. He farted loudly, as if someone had stuffed an assault rifle up his ass and was busy burning clips. All of that accompanied a complete intestinal track core-dump.

In about ten seconds he ended up emptier than someone chasing a ten day fast with a high-colonic.

Which, when you’re in a leadership position, makes it really tough to maintain dignity and control your minions.

Two of the snuffs stopped beating on me. The third kept working, dearly trying to pick up the slack for his friends. He’d have finished me, too, with a bat to the head, but Adrienne roared into the parking lot. Poor girl drove bad enough to be a Coast College student. I told the cops she tried to stop, despite what the lack of skidmarks would indicate.

The snuff she clipped landed in the salvage yard connected to the tire-shop across the street. He cleared the concertina wire easily. Could be he broke something when she hit him, and something else when he landed. He made really piteous sounds.

They changed in pitch when the shop’s Dobies found him.

Adrienne leaped out of her car. “Trick, are you okay?”

“Sure, darlin’.” I had to say that. If my bleeding from the ears, nose and split lips didn’t clue her in—and she missed that funny divot in my arm—she really didn’t want to know how much I hurt.

With her help, I staggered to my feet and braved the toxic cloud enveloping the Jac-off leaders. I ignored Wideload and rested a foot on Craig’s chest. I leaned, pressing his back into the ground.

He screamed.

“I can make it stop, Craig.”

His eyes wide, he nodded. “Yesyesyesyes.”

“Was Lexie’s baby yours?”

I actually think the news that she’d been pregnant hurt him more than the shingles. He blinked away a tear. “No. She wouldn’t. Never went bareback with her.”

“No accidents?”

“No, I swear.”

“Okay.” I stepped back and forced the pain away. I held my left fist above his chest and squeezed. Golden light surrounded it, and a droplet fell. It splashed against his flesh. His body spasmed once, then he lay there gasping.

Adrienne had retreated back into Club Flesh. Eddie, behind the bar, called the cops. McGetty caught the call and the uniforms followed his lead. I’d actually supervised McGetty when he was a rookie, so he took me at my word, rounded up the Jac-offs and hauled them down to lock-up.

Paramedics checked me out, but by the time they’d arrived, I’d fixed my arm and most of the cuts. I let one of the techs clean up the blood and put a butterfly bandage on my right ear—she was cute, after all, and didn’t look askance at me taking a nip from the pint bottle Eddie had slipped me.

Finally they all left, leaving me and Adrienne alone in the parking lot. “Thanks a lot, Adrienne. You saved my life.”

“I couldn’t let them hurt you, Trick.” She smiled, and had we been inside, I’d have tucked a Reagan into her g-string.

“Why’d you come back?”

“I was being followed. Same as last month.” Her face slackened as her hands rose. “It was that big glowing ball, again. You know, one of those UFO things. I was afraid I’d be kidnapped, so I came back here.”

I nodded. “It stopped following you when you turned around, right?”

“How did you know?”

“Just a hunch, darlin’.” No one had ever accused Adrienne of being a rocket scientist. Right now I was okay with that. Up beyond her head hung a full moon—the same full moon that had followed her home this time last month.

“Is it going to be okay, Trick?”

“Yeah. Just go north to Emerson, then head west through the hills. They’ll leave you alone.”

She gave me a peck on the cheek. “You’re the best, Trick Molloy.”

She backed out of the lot and her fading headlights left me in the darkness. I couldn’t help remembering the month before, standing in the same spot, laughing with Lexie about Adrienne’s UFO experience. Lexie had even promised not to get kidnapped by aliens, then wrote the whole thing down in her journal.

Had she been pregnant then? Probably. Had she known she was? No way of knowing. Was it the baby that got her killed?

I shook my head. So many questions. So few answers. I needed more, and I was pretty sure I knew right where to start.

Adult Content Warning

The following work of fiction may contain language, violence or themes considered unsuitable for young readers. Parental discretion is advised. (If this story was a film, it would likely pull a PG-13 rating.)

Such A Nice Girl

A Trick Molloy Mystery
©2008 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Nine

I really didn’t find it annoying that I was thinking more about Talia than Lexie as I drove to Club Flesh. Lexie had found a world beyond the club. I really didn’t have one—unless you counted the time I spent with Cate at crime scenes or in the morgue. Hell, that made Club Flesh look good.

As much as I wanted to see past the stereotypes, the simple fact was that I really did associate with a lot of bottom-feeders and zombies. Drug dealers, gangbangers, Jac-offs and lost little girls were my closest associates. It wasn’t like I didn’t have an education or brains or manners—just too often I wasn’t called upon to use them.

Talia had the power to change that. She could draw me out. She could take me to other places. She could open doors I’d forgotten even existed.

I must have wanted that. That’s why I’d shaved and put on a tie. I was hoping I’d see her. I might have even stopped by her office to see if she’d remembered anything else. Sure, any White Knight would do that.

I might have even asked her out.

Who are you kidding?

She was all the things the women at Club Flesh did their best not to be. Certainly not obvious. And she would open doors in me that I didn’t even know if I wanted opened. Seeing her would be a risk.

But not to see her would be a tragedy.

I clocked in at the club by one and arranged with Phillippe to pick up my late shift in return for his Friday night. Tips were better on Friday, but that was the night for fights. He’d just shucked a cast from a broken ankle and wanted to stay clear of action for a little while longer.

Nicole came in, played with my tie, told me she’d done the Sherlock Holmes bit around the apartment. She’d not found any pregnancy test. She figured there should be some kind of reward for her having been helpful. I laughed-off the opening. I couldn’t help but remember what Talia had said about coping strategies.

Nicole took my refusal with all the grace of a five years old.

The day went pretty quick, but that’s because it was daytime. Guys who come into a club during the day are figuring out how to expense lap-dances as lunch or got a bonus day off and don’t have anything better to do than drool. Two sides of a pathetic coin, but they’re quiet and pay my rent. Happy Hour remained quiet, too, letting me nurse my whisky in peace. A few guys with bulges in their jeans came in and spread some cash around, which meant some of the girls could go home early, having made their nut.

Sun had set by the time I escorted Adrienne out to her car. Up on stage she had the wanton librarian act down pat, even though she didn’t know what a library was, and was pretty sketchy on the concept of books. Off stage, and off those seven-inch platforms, wearing old sweats and a t-shirt, most folks wouldn’t have given her a second glance. When she wasn’t using her talent to enflame, she pretty much sank into the background.

I got her to her car, watched her start it and head off. I waited to see if anyone was following her. I’d already taught her how to check her backtrail and what to do if she was followed.

Everything looked to be clear, which is when the first Jac-off caught me in the shoulder with a tire iron.

He had been trying to take my head off, but clipped my shoulder instead. Instant pain down the length of my arm. I reeled away to the left, ducking instinctively. A baseball bat whistled over my head. I spun to face my attackers, and caught movement in the shadows all around.

Wideload stepped into the light, wiping several of his chins with a paper napkin, brushing the remains of a burrito from his shirt. “You went after the wrong people, Molloy. You’re surrounded. You’re going to get what’s coming to you.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

The fat man chuckled, his whole body rippling. “What you did to me will seem like a pleasant dream, you stupid bastard.”

I shook my head. Not out of fear, but pain. Pain at his stupidity. He had me, he really did. Eight guys. Four snuffs, two fireflies including Craig, Gunther and himself. They knew I was strong, so they overwhelmed me, gave me too many targets to take out easily. On top of that, one snuff had already connected. He hit me when I wasn’t looking and the pain made concentration impossible.

Or had when it occurred.

Now, not so much.

“Gonna beg for mercy, Molloy?”

“Here’s the deal, Wideload. You get your asses out of here now, I pound out the dent in my shoulder, and we’re even.” I growled my words. Some of his boys tightened their hands on bats and tire irons. Nervous. I liked that.

Wideload laughed even louder.

I liked that more. It bought me more time. I worked my right arm around, then hovered both hands near my hips, like a gunfighter. My vision changed. Wideload glowed blue and I suddenly realized why he was so enormously fat. His trigger had to be food, maybe even just Mexican food. He never dared let his guard down, so he was eating constantly. And the PCP buffet usually came from Cantina Chupacabra just up the street.

I dropped to a knee and summoned a round shield. Azure beams poured from his eyes. They smashed the shield. The shock staggered me. His gaze shifted. I lowered the shield, then angled it. One of the snuffs took a glancing shot. He went down screaming.

I opened my right fist. A handful of glowing silver disks coalesced. I whipped them out from behind the shield, backhanding them as if they were dime-sized Frisbees. They spread in an arc linking Gunther on the right to Craig and the other firefly on the left. The Nameless Wonder mistook one for a coin, so he stomped on it. Two hit Wideload in the gut—like I could miss. Gunther and Craig caught them in the torso, and all four of them stopped for a second, waiting and wondering what I’d done.

The snuffs didn’t stop. All they’d seen was Wideload give me a dirty glance that shook me. One of their pals reeled away, and I moved like Johnny Appleseed trying to sow an orchard on asphalt. Our magick pantomime might have puzzled them, but their lack of higher brain functions meant that wasn’t much of a problem for them.

A baseball bat snapped my right forearm. A booted foot caught me upside the head. I pitched forward, landing on the broken arm. I yelped. Couldn’t help it. The snuffs took encouragement from that. They closed in, letting me become personally acquainted with their Doc Martens.

Under normal circumstances, dispatching them wouldn’t have been tough. They’d go down faster than Gunther had at PCP. Problem was getting the spell off. With my arm throbbing angrily and pain erupting with every kick and stomp, thinking wasn’t happening.

No thinking, no magick.

No magick, no Trick.