Stirred

“Which one?”

“The freestanding brick one.”

It was big, in similar disrepair to the other buildings in the area. “Yeah, I see it.”

“Start walking toward it.”

“What do you want, Luther?” My balance was returning and the noise in my ears begi

That brick, windowless warehouse stood several hundred yards ahead on the far side of an empty parking lot, and even from this distance, a strange noise seemed to emanate from inside—a soft, machine-like hum.

“I’ve been watching you for close to a year, Jack. You’ve lost your way, haven’t you?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You used to be a cop. The best of the best. But now you’re a nobody. And you feel like a nobody, don’t you, Jack? Are you even happy to be bringing this child into the world?”

His question u

But he might actually be right.

I thought quitting the force would make me happy, that I could slip into a domestic life like I slipped into a new pair of Ferragamos. But it had been harder than I’d expected. Even if I hadn’t been constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for Luther to show up, tripping over my 24/7 protectors, I was still unsure this was what I really wanted out of life.

But I was sure of one thing. I was damn sick of Luther Kite.

“Feel free to answer every question I throw your way,” he said.

“Go to hell.”

The side mirror of a long-abandoned car, missing an engine and sitting on concrete blocks, exploded three feet away from me, and I jumped back as the gunshot echoed between the houses.

It had come from a few hundred meters away.

High-velocity sniper round.

I ducked, covering my head, fear coursing through me like electricity.

Nothing, nothing, was scarier than being shot at.

“There’s a blast from the past, eh, Jack? Pi

“What the hell do you want?” I managed, teeth chattering, my whole body a knotted cramp.

“Any time I feel like it, I can end you. Any time I feel like it, I can end Harry or Herb or Phin. Or just hurt them and make you listen. Do you understand me?”

I ground my molars.

“Answer me.”

I had no choice. “Yes, I understand.”

“Are you even happy to be bringing your child into the world?”

“Under the present circumstances—”

“No, period. Before all this started. Before the first murder.”

“I’m…conflicted,” I said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” It was an honest answer, and it nearly brought me to tears.

“Are you afraid of being a mother? Or afraid of losing who you think you are? What if I told you who you are, Jack? What if I showed you how to be the person you were always meant to be?”

“What do you want from me, Luther?”

“I want you to appreciate every moment of this, Jack. Most works of art are intended for the masses. For the widest possible audience. But imagine if Picasso had painted something only for the benefit of a single human being. What if Hemingway had written a book only to be read by one person? I’ve created something just for you, Jack.”

I’d heard too many psychos spout off their insane reasons for doing the horrible things they’d done, though admittedly none had put this much effort into it. Luther must have been working on this project for years. It told me something about the scope of his deranged fantasies, and the depth of his depravity.

It also told me that I probably wouldn’t get out of there alive.

“Why me?” I asked.

The noise of whatever was inside that brick warehouse in the distance was growing louder.

“Because you’re worthy of it,” Luther said. “I’ve followed your career. I know what you’ve witnessed, the killers you’ve chased. There’s never been anyone like you. There’s never been anyone like me. We’re like two sides of the same coin.”

I found my spine, managed to stand up straight, even though I could feel a dozen bull’s-eyes all over my body. I stared in the direction the shot had come from.

“There’s nothing special about you at all, Luther. You’re scum, just like all the rest of the assholes I’ve gone after. Just another broken human being, getting your rocks off hurting others.”

Another round went off, cracking over my head. My legs went to jelly, and my baby began kicking like crazy, but I stood firm.

“You’re wrong, Jack,” Luther said, his voice a whisper. “I stopped being a human being a long time ago.”

He lies under a tarp on top of a building, watching her through the scope.

Jack looks so small from four hundred meters away, stumbling through the vast, empty parking lot like a lost soul crossing a desert.

Something undeniably heroic about her.

No question.

She’s been tested before—Alex Kork nearly killed her several years ago. Charles Kork, Barry Fuller, that trio of snipers, The Chemist, a fat slob named Donaldson—but Jack has always prevailed. He figures she must contain a carbon core. A soul as hard as a diamond.

So what happens when a diamond finally breaks?

He knows.

It’s spectacular.

Catastrophic change.

Nuclear fission.

And he’s the man to break her. The only thing that can cut a diamond is another diamond.

He says into his mike, “This is the only help you’re going to get from me, Jack. When you reach the door to the warehouse, there will be a keypad. What do you think the code is to get inside?”

“How should I…wait.”

He hopes she’s putting it together.

“Six-six-six.”

“Exactly.”

He watches her go, trailing her movement with just the barest movement on the bipod. Nothing rivals following someone through a high-end scope from a quarter mile away. The target’s next breath just a finger-squeeze away from never happening.

Back when he was first building this place, he’d occasionally come across a dealer or a foot soldier. The occasional heroin whore who’d made the mistake of wandering out into his urban ghost town to find a quiet place to shoot up.

He’d grab them, explain the rules, and cut them loose.

Supply a bottle of water and a two-minute head start.

If you lasted until morning, you got to leave.

To live.

He’d snipe them with his bolt-action Bor.

7.62 x 51mm rounds.

They’d only play after dark, Luther tracking his prey with night-vision from the top of the water tower, his goal to keep them ru

Just make them run until they dropped from exhaustion, then go and finish them with his hands.

When he closes his eyes, he can still see the gray-green graininess of the ru

The fear in their faces. The abject fear. Nothing like it in the world.

An acquired taste, sure, but once acquired—pure addiction.

He’s so happy he bought this town.

Not the entire town. No need for that. It was abandoned. But he’d snatched up enough of the foreclosed homes for pe

This neighborhood belonged to Luther. Or rather, he owned the rotting carcass of what was once a neighborhood.