Ivo felt the air within the car thicken, become charged, as if lightning were readying a strike.

“Vuk, please!”

“Vuk?” The man laughed. “That’s a name? Sounds like someone puking. But I guess it goes with the rest of you, donkey-man. Dumb name, dumb hair, dumb ass.”

Ivo sensed sudden movement behind him and knew, just knew that Vuk was swinging his pistol at the man’s face. And he saw the burst of triumph in the captive’s eyes that said this was just what he had been waiting for.

“Vuk, no!”

Ivo yanked the wheel to the right and slammed on the brakes. As the car lurched to a halt he pulled his pistol from his shoulder holster. But it was too late.

He heard the man roar, “You turn upon your creator?” The shot from the rear seat sounded like a cannon as warm droplets sprayed the back of Ivo’s neck. “You two are beyond salvage!”

Ivo had his pistol on the rise, about chest high, and was swinging his head around when the muzzle of Vuk’s M57 appeared, an inch from his right eye. As he gazed down that narrow tunnel to eternity, a flash bloomed in his vision and all became bright white light, engulfing him, consuming him.

5

Half blind with rage, he jumps out and aims Carrot Top’s pistol at the car. Occupants already dead, which is just what they should be for threatening to harm his women.

A vagrant thought intrudes: Wasn’t I just thinking of harming them myself a few minutes ago? but he brushes it aside. Yeah but that was different. What I do is one thing. Doesn’t mean anybody else can do the same.

Took a supreme effort of his magnificent will not to tear their heads off as soon as they’d accosted him. But he wanted to give them a chance to redeem themselves.

After all, he created them, and he is nothing if not a benign creator.

He is Moreau. Dr. Jack Moreau.

No fear is the key. A lesser being would have been afraid of the gun and the manlike thing holding it, but not him. He has no fear, and no fear means no hesitation, means no self-doubt, means simply doing what must be done, taking what you want when you want it with full knowledge that you can do it and that none of these lesser beings has the right or the means to stop you.

Oh, he was good in that car, so good, so fast, so much faster than the two creatures who dared to oppose him. But why should he be surprised? After all, hadn’t he created them, transformed them from lower species? A shame to waste them, but they were reverting to their lower forms, the beast flesh had crept back so far that they forgot the Law, and forgetting the Law is punishable by death.

No, wait. Breaking the Law means a trip back to the House of Pain. Not death. He must have forgot. Oh, well.