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Heather had thought it was some kind of gargoyle-like decoration—part of this odd, open-air holy place—a piñata, maybe. But a second glance told her it was real. That was the face she'd seen on the billboard and in the photograph on the dead doctor's desk. A wave of nausea swept her and, if the psycho hadn't been watching, she might have doubled over and vomited in the street. Instead, she did her best to hide any reaction. If she paled, the lighting here wasn't good enough for him to notice.

Matus climbed out of the other side of the Ford, pistol at his side. It took the psycho's attention away from her and she brushed cold sweat from her forehead.

“Another surprise,” the psycho said. “I hate to complain, Captain, but I was hoping for Chief Dempsey instead.”

“He's here,” Matus said, “but I don't think he wants to get out of the car.”

“He didn't come voluntarily, then?” the psycho asked.

“No more than Mr. Macklin,” Matus said, “though he's kept himself more together.”

The psycho laughed. “Perhaps I can correct that. Ask the chief to step out here and join us, won't you?”

Matus had told Heather about this place on the way over. It had sounded quaint and intriguing. Bobby Earl Macklin's head and the psycho's presence transformed it into something bizarre, like a set from a bad horror movie.

“Why?” she asked. “I think, rather than meet you, Chief Dempsey might prefer to turn state's evidence.”

“A deputy chief of police probably wouldn't do well in prison,” the psycho replied. “That's one reason. The other is I have a gun, too,” and he did, though Heather wasn't quite sure how the thing suddenly appeared in his hand. “If Dempsey doesn't get out of the car, I'll use it to kill your uncle.”

“In which case,” Matus said, raising his pistol, “I'd kill you.”

“Don't be too sure, Captain. I'm extraordinarily good at my profession, as you probably know by now, and that includes killing people and preventing them from killing me.”

It all sounded very macho, but Heather knew he wasn't bragging. “Get out,” she told Dempsey, and he did, though she couldn't understand why. Maybe it was because the chief believed this man, too. Maybe Dempsey hoped he could buy his way out of this. Or maybe he believed waiting in the car only delayed his certain death—together with Matus' and Mad Dog's and hers, as well.

Heather remembered the five stages her mother had gone through when she learned her cancer would be fatal—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Dempsey must have rushed through the first two on the way from the parking garage.

“You're a professional,” the chief said before he cleared the door. On Heather's side, she noticed, so maybe he was still clinging to a little denial, keeping the car between him and the psycho. “You don't kill for pleasure. You kill for money. That means you must be willing not to kill, as well, if the price is right. So tell me what you want. I'll see it's paid.”

The psycho smiled a peculiar smile and Heather thought Dempsey was wrong about the man killing only for profit. The psycho enjoyed his work. She started around the front of the Ford, hands raised to show she wasn't a threat.

“Look,” she said. “You've had your revenge. You got the man who ordered your death. Give us my uncle and step back and enjoy a stretched out version of Dempsey's suffering—public humiliation, the courts, prison. Do that, and you can walk away from here.” She dangled the Ford's keys. “Drive, actually, in a Tucson police car. And that's probably the only way you can get away from this spot, even if you kill all of us. They'll be looking for Macklin's SUV, and downtown is crawling with police. Some of them are probably on their way here by now.”

The night was filled with sirens but the psycho's shrug was casual. “You're right, I suppose.” He met her at the front of the unmarked police car.

“Ten million, Dempsey. If I don't get it I'll come back and….”

He snatched the keys with his bad hand and dodged the flying kick she launched, catching her other leg at the knee with a leg sweep that dropped her like a stone. His gun went off at the same time and when she looked up he had managed to get to Matus and disarm him. The psycho's pistol pushed against the captain's temple.

No one else had moved. Mad Dog looked dazed. Dempsey just stood in the street. He seemed shocked. The disbelief phase, maybe, since he slowly raised his hands to his stomach and looked down at the bloody horror he found there.

Matus tried to throw an elbow and there was a moment when Heather thought she could rush the psycho. It was over before she managed to get to her feet. The psycho smiled and shook his head and she knew she couldn't do a thing to him before he killed her and Matus. And Mad Dog, who, by then, would be trying to tear the psycho limb from limb with his bare hands, no matter what the odds.

“I should probably eliminate you all,” the psycho said. “But you've been a big help to me, Heather. I owe you for Bobby Earl and Dempsey, and now the car.”

His knee lifted off Matus' back and the gun left the captain's temple. The psycho started around the Ford to where Dempsey now sat in the middle of the street, watching blood well from between his fingers. Three steps from the door, the psycho froze. Heather didn't understand why, at first. And then she knew what he'd heard, even over the symphony of sirens that filled downtown. It was Hailey's throaty growl.

***

Mad Dog wasn't surprised. Nothing Hailey did surprised him anymore. Including, seeming to materialize here at the shrine as if by magic.

“Call off your wolf,” the killer said. “I don't want to have to shoot her.”

“I can't tell her what to do,” Mad Dog said. “And I don't think you have to worry about shooting her. You're fast, but she's greased lightning.”

Hailey growled again. She had crept closer to the killer, past Heather. No one else had moved and Mad Dog thought that was a good idea.

“I think she wants everyone to stay where they are,” Mad Dog said. “And Mr. Whoever-You-Are, I think she wants you to drop your gun.”

“Won't happen,” the killer said. Had he pivoted just a little? Hadn't the gun been down at his side a moment ago, not at his belt, its muzzle tracking toward Hailey? “I'm getting in this car and leaving and I'll shoot anyone or anything that tries to stop….”

The gun came around fast. Hailey rose from the ground like a missile and hit the killer in the throat. The gun might have reached Hailey if Heather hadn't gotten to if just before it exploded. A bullet scored the Ford's roof and went screaming into the night. Killer, niece, and wolf tumbled onto the street behind the Ford and Mad Dog vaulted the vehicle's hood as Matus ran around the trunk. Dempsey just sat in the street and bled.

By the time Mad Dog cleared the Ford, it was over. Heather had relieved the killer of his gun. Hailey had the man by the neck, though she hadn't clamped her jaws tight. Not yet. The killer was on hands and knees. No matter how efficient he might be at dealing death, he seemed to understand he couldn't hurt Hailey before her teeth severed arteries, veins, windpipe—maybe even spinal cord.

Heather put a little distance between herself and the killer. Mad Dog stepped back as Hailey suddenly pulled away, pausing for one quick nip before trotting to Mad Dog's side. Something hung from her mouth. He bent and took it. It was his medicine bundle.

The killer slowly climbed to his feet. He still had the keys to the Ford in one hand. “I won't let you take me in,” he said. “I'm leaving in this car now. That or you'll kill me.”

“Hailey's right,” Mad Dog said. “Let him go. We don't need to kill him.”

“Just cripple him,” Matus said. “Blow off a kneecap.”

Mad Dog held up a hand. “No. The only people he's injured here deserved it, more or less. He won't hurt anyone else. Hailey knows that or she would have finished him.”

“But…,” Matus sputtered.

“You're sure, Uncle Mad Dog?” Heather still had the man covered, but he knew she wanted a reason not to pull the trigger.

“Yeah,” Mad Dog said. “I just had a conversation with the spirit of this shrine. Nobody dies here. Nobody else gets hurt. Hey, all of us even get what we want. Except Dempsey.”

The killer opened the door, shook his head at such silliness, and put the key in the ignition. “I wished for ten million, you crazy asshole. Am I getting that, too?”

Mad Dog shrugged. “If El Tiradito decides you deserve it.”

The man laughed, but there was a hollow sound to it. The Ford roared to life, smoked tires, and disappeared into the night.

“Shit,” Matus said. “We should have stopped him.” He had his phone out and was dialing 911.

“No,” Heather said. “I don't think so. Crazy as it seems, I trust Hailey and Uncle Mad Dog on this one.”

“Maybe,” Matus said, then paused to tell an emergency operator they needed an ambulance right now at the Wishing Shrine.

“Anyway,” Matus told Heather, “that was impressive. The way you disarmed him. I know you're about to become a lawyer, but if you ever change your mind and want a job in law enforcement….”

A marked police unit careened around the corner and squealed to a stop. Doors flew open and two officers came out behind them, guns drawn, shouting instructions.

Heather tossed her weapon away before they were out of the car, refrained from reaching for her badge, and raised her hands. “Deputy sheriff,” she shouted. She nodded toward Matus and added, “Tribal police.”

“This what you wished for, old man?” Matus asked Mad Dog as they followed the officers' orders and lay face down in the street.

“Can't tell you,” Mad Dog said. “Otherwise it might not come true.”

***

Mrs. Kraus opened the door to the sheriff's office. The electricity was on, just like the man from the rural electric company had assured her. The ceiling lights glowed, though with the sun up for a good twenty minutes now, they weren't really needed.

The janitor had come in and swept up the shards of broken glass from the windows. He'd even covered the bottom half of one with a clear plastic sheet. The rest were open to the chill air that left her producing little clouds with every breath.

Mrs. Kraus didn't take off her heavy coat when she sat at her desk and picked up a phone. The dial tone was back. That was why she'd abandoned their temporary headquarters at Doc's office. The phone company never had managed to switch the sheriff's calls over to Doc's. That meant someone had to be here. There were lots of loose ends still out there, waiting to be cleaned up.

She fired up her computer. It came on, none the worse for the explosion except for a dusty screen. She got a cloth out of her drawer and wiped it down. The little blue bar at the bottom of her monitor told her it was 7:51 a.m. Hell, she wasn't even supposed to be in the office yet and she'd already put in at least half a day's work. And not slept a wink.

Sheriff English was out with Doc and the volunteer fire department, pulling the remains of Billy Macklin and Dana Miller, and pretty much every member of the Benteen County Board of Supervisors, out of the wreckage of the ethanol company's corporate jet. Just for the hell of it, she logged back onto War of Worldcraft.

Mad Dog's character was right where she'd left it, standing over the corpse of the once mighty Fig Zit. Recalling the host of upgrades the WOW tech had piled on this character, she decided to take a stroll through the waterfall trees. She soon found an epic fire demon in the mouth of a nearby cave. He hit her with a fire bolt the moment she stepped out of the mist. She charged, swinging the new infinity ax Madwulf had been given. One blow and the demon went down. And there, behind him, was a treasure chest. She dropped her ax and picked up the chest as a familiar voice sent a chill arcing down her spine.

“Good morning, Mrs. Kraus.”

She worked her keyboard and made Madwulf whirl. There was Fig Zit, huge and threatening, blocking the entrance to the cave.

“We haven't met,” the monster said, “but Heather and Mad Dog will know who I am. If they wonder how I got on your computer tell them I hired another internet firm to hack into Fick's. They told me how Billy Macklin and his friends have been using this game to mess with you and Mad Dog and they got me access to this character.”

Mrs. Kraus was too frightened to understand a thing he was saying.

“Tell Heather and Mad Dog I got my wish. I used my contacts to bribe my way through a border gate into Mexico, though we didn't get everyone paid off. After the shoot out, the car they gave me was a flaming wreck. I traded it for an idling three-quarter ton truck that someone abandoned during the gunfight. And I seem to have gotten clear with. It's equipped with everything, including a computer with a satellite link. That left me wondering what was back in the enclosed bed. U.S. Federal Reserve Notes. Counterfeit, though, and useless to me, but the face value should be…. Well, Mad Dog already knows that.”

His words refused to register right then. She'd let go of her ax to pick up the treasure chest and left herself defenseless.

“They may be interested to know what Fick means. It's more than a play on words—you know, Fig Zit, Fix It, Fick's I.T. And it's not just a naughty word in German. It's an acronym. Billy Macklin called his fake internet technology company FICK for Frank, Isaac, Colin, and Kevin. Get it?”

Not a word. The monster was back and it had trapped her. She did the only thing she could think of. She threw the chest at him. He dodged it and smiled.

“But none of that has anything to do with why I decided to pay you a visit, Mrs. Kraus. I've had time to think about what happened this morning. Tell Heather she's the closest I've ever come to matching myself against an equal. The idea of doing that again, once she's ready…. Well, it excites me. So, tell her to continue preparing herself. When the time is right, I'll be back.”