The bodies were waiting for her at the waterfall. They had been stripped of their gas masks. The two men in slickers waited, patient as Roman sentinels. On the lip of the cenote was a small pyramid of stones about the size of her fist.

“Bring the first one,” Lucy said.

The two men lifted the first corpse, laid him on his back against the lip. Lucy opened his jaws and one by one stuffed the stones into his mouth until it was filled. Then she closed the jaws and nodded to the men, who lifted the weighted corpse over the side of the cenote and dropped the body headfirst. It plunged into the dark turbulent water, vanishing within moments.

When the same procedure had been performed on all three, she turned to White and said, “Is that all for today?”

When he told her it was, she discovered that she was disappointed. She had to content herself with the knowledge that Preach had been summoned, that very soon he and she would be reunited, just not in the way he had foreseen.

*   *   *

“Someone’s gunning for you,” Jonah Dickerson said into his mobile.

St. Vincent, sitting in Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street, NW, had just taken a painkiller for his shoulder so he could enjoy the pair of chili dogs, fried onion rings, and jumbo Coke he’d ordered, and was in no mood for bad news. “What the fuck d’you mean?”

“Our contact in the AG’s office tells me an investigation jacket has been opened on you.”

St. Vincent sat up straight, the deep throbbing in his shoulder all but forgotten. “That’s impossible. I’m invulnerable. He must be mistaken.”

“It’s an unofficial investigation,” Dickerson said, “and he’s not mistaken. I’m looking at an electronic copy of the information they’ve pulled on you. I have to say it’s pretty damn impressive.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” St. Vincent snapped. “Recall you don’t have an opinion.”

Silence on the line. St. Vincent didn’t care. The pain in his shoulder was nothing compared to the roiling in his heart. From the moment that shit-for-brains White had told him Lindstrom had been killed an icy fist had gripped his intestines, causing an existential pain indescribable to anyone else. There were three things in life he despised above all others: losing, being wrong, and Preach. Of course, White was aware of his fear of Preach, which was why St. Vincent was sure he had reveled in their conversation. He might pretend to be the neutral bulwark in the Alchemists, but in the matter of Mobius and Preach, St. Vincent knew precisely where White stood. He did not relish the thought of he and White being adversaries, but shit happened, didn’t it? He’d have to adjust to the changed landscape, figure out a way around White—or through him.

“Sir?”