“I told you. She’s Helen. At least that’s the name she uses,” said Jake. “The Helen I knew, that was her, and the Helen who killed your friends on account of they were witnesses, that was her too.”

How did you know about that, Todd wanted to ask. But he didn’t, because Jake was just getting warmed up.

“Oh, yeah, Helen can do a lot of things,” Jake said. “That conversation you never had with Janis’s lawyer? The time you saw Janis at the truck stop? All those people who read the fucking book and bought the fucking book and forgot all about the fucking book and then fucking remembered the fucking book? She did all that.”

“But how—”

“That’s what she does.” Jake almost spat. “Todd, she put a fucking book in your head, how hard would it be to make you see someone who wasn’t there? She made you think Janis was seeing the Dyke with the Bike, she made Behm think it too…”

Jake leaned into Todd’s face.

“And that’s not all she wrote,” he said.

The room was suddenly empty again. Todd and Jake stood alone amongst the shelves.

“You’re an educated man,” said Jake. “You’ve heard of the Muses. The Greeks, they had a fucking Muse for everything. A Muse of Dance, a Muse of Poetry, Theater…. they even had a Muse of Tragedy, did you know that?”

Todd didn’t know that, but he wasn’t going to admit it. He still had some pride left.

“But Helen is something different,” said Jake. “She’s the Muse of Death.”

Todd looked at Jake.

“Okay, fine,” he said. “She’s getting revenge on men, I can understand that. None of us is perfect. But I just screwed around. I never killed anyone.”

“You killed your private eye buddy,” said Jake. “You killed Timothy when you opened your mouth about the story. Oh, and Billy. Poor old boozehound never harmed a fly. But someone had to tell you about their trip to the hardware store else how would you remember the book, Todd? So that’s why he died.”

Todd was barely listening now. In amongst the terror and the disbelief an old familiar emotion rose up: self-pity. All he could think was how dare someone do this to me.

“I still don’t see how any of this is my fault,” said Todd.

“Okay,” said Jake, and this time his teeth were blades. “Don’t take my word for it.”

In the distance, Todd could hear a familiar roar.

“Ask her,” said Jake.

And there she was, in leather and black, straddling that damn motorbike. She was smiling at him, as if to say Do you get it? Do you get it now?

She had a knife in her hand. It was sharp, and it dripped.

She gunned the engine.

“Run,” said Jake.