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“Does he think he can find Fig Zit?”

She nodded. “Unless Fig Zit really is some kind of magical character living in their machines. I think he was joking when he said that part.”

And then she was clearly listening again, the very picture of rapt attention. “It was from our time zone, he says. And a node on the net with only a few dozen players. But beamed by satellite. They're all off line now, so he can't tell for sure which one of them did it.”

“Can he give us the list of those subscribers?” the sheriff asked.

“Says he'll have to look 'em up.”

“But he can tell us where they are? What city? What neighborhood, maybe?”

“Middle of nowhere, he says.”

“And where's that?”

“Damn,” she said. “It's right here.”

“Buffalo Springs?”

“Yeah, but bigger. Parts of the Plains, all the way from Canada to Texas, with us included.”

“How many here? How many right here in Buffalo Springs or Benteen County? Can he tell us that?”

She shook her head. “Not until he can dig into the subscription records. And he says he's not allowed to give that kind of information out.”

The sheriff reached down and picked up his phone, punching onto the same line Mrs. Kraus was using.

“This is Sheriff English,” he told the man. “I know there are legal procedures that should be followed, but you saw him, right? You heard what he threatened to do to my daughter. What you tell me could keep her alive.”

He could practically hear the gears turning in the tech's head as the man mulled it over. “Okay,” the guy finally said. “I'll do it. But I've got to access those records from another computer. I'll put you on hold and be right back.”

“Hot damn,” Mrs. Kraus hooted. Her smile vanished as the line went dead. The windows turned bright and shards of glass came flying into the office from the explosion that rocked the front of the building.

***

The professional pried the dead coyote's jaws open and dug its canines from his flesh. He checked his hand for damage as the animal crumpled to the ground at his feet. The damage was painful, but not major. Still, he should see a doctor if for no other reason than a coyote, foolish enough to hunt in the heart of the city, might well be rabid. But he wanted the girl, now, worse than ever. His targets didn't get away from him.

He considered it. He could probably still catch her, though she was more than a block ahead of him already. But it would take time and she could raise enough of a clamor so that the best he'd be able to achieve would be a quick kill. That wasn't what the client wanted, and now it wasn't what the professional wanted, either. So she'd have to wait. He turned and began jogging back to his car.

The client had failed to provide necessary information yet again. The girl wasn't just some back-country hick-deputy. She was highly skilled. He should have known that going in.

He took a short detour on the way to his car, going by hers long enough to let the air out of two tires. Not that she'd be back for it soon. He'd put a good scare into her. She was probably still running.

Once in his car, he pulled a cell phone out of his back pocket, activated it, and dialed as he pulled away from the curb.

“How can I help,” a voice said. Sometimes at this company he had to leave a message or wait for a call back, but when that happened, or when it was answered, he always spoke to the same voice. The professional wasn't so sure it was always the same person. You could do so much with electronic voice alteration these days. He had used many information technology firms during his career. This was his favorite. He'd found it a few months ago on an internet chat room where unusual business arrangements were the rule. You had to know how to find the place and use some caution to be sure you weren't negotiating with law enforcement officers setting up a sting, but he'd made several valuable contacts there, including his current troublesome client. Considering what this firm researched for him, it must know he was involved with people who died violent deaths. The voice never expressed concern when he paid well, and he paid very well indeed. In fact, it seemed to have adjusted to his peculiar needs.

“Have you managed to backtrack my client?”

“No, sir. Not yet. He's built a complex web of false identities. We're weeding through them. This may take a few hours.”

The professional knew this firm could not be hurried. They always performed at maximum efficiency. If the voice said it couldn't be done yet, it couldn't.

“Signal me at all possible contact points as soon as you have an answer.”

“Of course,” the voice said, and the professional realized that wasn't an issue he'd needed to raise. They would get the word to him the moment they knew.

“I need to find a trauma doctor.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“No,” the professional said, “but sooner is better.”

“Privately and without record?”

They did understand his needs. He agreed that an undocumented transaction would be preferred and the voice put him on hold for a moment as he cruised slowly north on Oracle. Matus should be coming around soon and the professional hadn't even bothered to see if the Sewa policeman was armed. He hadn't taken the time because the girl might have looked around and realized a second person was following her. That could have scared her enough to call for local police help. Now, it made no sense for him to stay in that neighborhood. If he went back, it would be when he could make full use of both hands, or near it. He would go after her again, but on his own terms.

“The University of Arizona Medical Center,” the voice said, and gave him an address. “Do you need directions?”

“No,” he said. “But isn't that a rather public place?”

“A nurse will be waiting for you just outside the emergency room entrance. He'll be wearing blue scrubs and will have an unlit cigarette in his mouth. You'll tell him you are the client referred by Fick Internet Technologies. He'll see that your visit to one of the city's finest trauma surgeons occurs with the degree of privacy you require.”

“Good. Then I want a dossier on Heather English, Kansas University law student and Benteen County Deputy Sheriff. Go as deep as you can in order for me to have it in an hour.”

“Emphasis?” the voice asked.

“Strengths, weaknesses,” the professional said. “Motivation. The usual.”

“It will be done.”

He didn't say anything else before disconnecting. He knew what he wanted would be ready in precisely sixty minutes. He turned right at the next stoplight and headed for the hospital, or its vicinity. To be on the safe side, he would park in a nearby neighborhood and walk to his meeting with the nurse. This rental car had already spent too long near crime scenes. If anyone should look for him at the hospital, there was no sense leaving them a trail. But he wouldn't walk too far, he thought. With the imposed travel restriction he'd put on the girl by slashing her tires, and the information Fick would provide, he hoped to resume his relationship with Heather English soon after he left the hospital. It was something to look forward to.

***

The psycho didn't follow her so Heather made a wide, cautious circle. This guy was very dangerous. He hadn't looked like a Native American, but somehow, she felt sure she'd just run into the man Uncle Mad Dog said had killed the Sewa policeman. What other stranger in Tucson would know who she was? If this had only been some local neighborhood nut, he couldn't have named her and he probably wouldn't have described the tortures he had in mind for her quite so lovingly. No, there was something personal about it for this guy. Something seriously sick.

She set her cell to vibrate as she neared the spot where they'd fought. There was no sign of the psycho. Captain Matus still lay there, beside the street. And the coyote that had saved her life lay there too, a pool of congealing blood around its throat.

It must have been the animal she'd frightened when she went around that house. Amazing, that it would hide in the very bush into which she'd fallen. And then she remembered the distant howl she'd heard only moments before the animal exploded from cover and saved her. Could Hailey somehow be involved?

More important at the moment, was her attacker still nearby? He had seemed intent on doing her harm. But wouldn't he have chased her if that were the case? Had he been hurt enough to leave? Or did he know her well enough to understand she'd circle back because of Matus? She thought about calling for help. TPD might have a unit in the neighborhood. Only once they got her back in custody, she wasn't going to have a chance to help her uncle again before they caught or killed him

She took her time, because the psycho had told her Matus wasn't seriously injured and because he'd planned something much worse for her. But she went to the Sewa captain, all the same. And the psycho didn't spring out of the bushes or dash from behind a nearby building. Maybe the coyote had hurt him. Or maybe he'd only meant to scare her. If so, he'd succeeded.

Matus was still unconscious. His nose had stopped bleeding, though, and he was breathing normally. She tried shaking him a little and he moaned but didn't open his eyes.

“Captain,” she whispered in his ear, pivoting her head from side to side, half expecting the psycho to launch himself out of the darkness at any moment. She shook Matus again. “We've got to get away from here,” she told him.

He mumbled some kind of protest and she tried to get him to sit. He managed, woozily. His eyes blinked and he said something in a language that clearly wasn't English.

Heather checked around them again. Still nothing. From behind him, she got her arms under his and lifted. He wasn't a big man and she managed to get him to his feet.

“What's happening?” he said, then tried to fall down again.

She got herself under one of his shoulders and began walking him toward her car. Something painful gouged her from just under his coat. She felt good when she discovered it was a gun. It made her a little more confident about her prospects if they encountered the psycho again. She racked a round into the chamber and stuffed it in the waistband of her jeans.

Matus was getting a little steadier, though no less confused. She guided him down the center of the street, far enough from hiding places that she thought she could get to the gun before anyone got to them. It went well until she found her car and the two flat tires. He'd been there. And he'd probably be back. But Matus had followed her, too. She went through his pockets and found keys to a Toyota. Probably his own car, instead of a tribal vehicle. She punched the lock button and something chirped around the corner. She wasn't stuck here after all.

“Come on Captain. I'm thinking you should visit an emergency room.” There had been a hospital just a few blocks north of Ms. Jardine's neighborhood. A good one, she thought, because it was the University of Arizona's Medical Center.

***

The sheriff lay sprawled on the floor. His ears rang and he couldn't see anything except the afterimage of the flash that had shattered the windows. Something dripped down his face—blood. He'd been nicked by flying glass. Not seriously, if his exploring hands were to be believed.

“Mrs. Kraus?” he shouted.

“I'm all right,” she answered, “but what the hell was that?”

The sheriff explored the darkness with his hands, found a corner of his desk. He could pull himself up that way, but he was likely to be right back on the floor if he didn't find his walker. He picked up a fresh cut from the glass littering the floor. That convinced him to raise his arms as he searched and, fortunately, the walker was right where he remembered leaving it—on the other side of his chair.

“Grenade, maybe, like at Mad Dog's.” He used the desk and the walker to get to his feet, oriented himself with the desk, and started toward the nearest window. The blast hadn't blinded him. It had just knocked the lights out. Moonlight glowed on the other side of those windows. And something else flickered and burned out there.

“Lord God!” Mrs. Kraus was at the window ahead of him. “Would you look at that?”

And, finally, he could. Flames danced on the courthouse lawn. Some of them moved, scurrying this way and that in a manner that reminded him of the very different rules of the universe inside War of Worldcraft. This wasn't possible, was it? Fire didn't run around in circles. And then he understood. Fire didn't, but burning people did.

“That's a human being.” He turned to Mrs. Kraus and told her to get the fire extinguisher. It was on the wall near the door to his office, an old-fashioned thing that would be heavy and unwieldy for her. But her spine wasn't still recovering from the bullet fragment that might cripple him for life.

“Lord God!” she said again, but he dimly saw her scramble across the room, grab the thing off the wall and disappear into the courthouse foyer. He followed as fast as he could. By the time he reached the front doors, the fire had stopped moving. It lay on the ground in the middle of the lawn while Mrs. Kraus directed a stream from the nozzle of the fire extinguisher and gradually dimmed its glow.

The smell was overpowering—burned meat. The sheriff knelt beside the smoldering figure and tried to find a pulse. Scorched flesh pasted itself to his hand and blistered his fingers. There was no pulse to be found.

“I may turn vegetarian,” Mrs. Kraus gagged. “Who is it?”

The sheriff shook his head. There would be no way to identify this corpse in the traditional fashion. It was burnt and blasted beyond recognition.

“Ed Miller, maybe,” he said. “At least that's his pickup, across the street at the edge of the park.

“You want me to call Doc Jones?”

Doc was the coroner, and the only MD who currently lived in Buffalo Springs. But the sheriff thought it wouldn't be necessary. Lights were coming on in nearly every house the sheriff could see. And people streamed out of those houses, pointing flashlights toward the courthouse.