“Again and again and again.” She switched her gaze to Preach. “You understand what I mean, don’t you, Whitman?”

Unfortunately, he did.

*   *   *

Charlie felt this creature, this homunculus, drive his knuckles agonizingly into one of her kidneys. She groaned, arching her back, and he slammed his other fist into her left breast. He was grinning as he straddled her, slapping her head back and forth as she squirmed beneath him, her exertions taking them closer and closer to one of the walls of mirrors.

He was small, but terribly quick, and he clearly knew jiujitsu, the American form of hand-to-hand combat, as well as some other crap she couldn’t identify. In any event, she was taking a pounding. The homunculus clamped his knobby knees down on her wrists, pinioning her. His own hands were free, and she knew she had only moments left in which to counter him.

Drawing one leg back, she slammed the heel of her heavy boot against the mirror. It trembled, but did not break. The homunculus’s thumbs were pressing into her windpipe, aiming to rupture her cricoid cartilage. She changed her angle and kicked out as hard as she could. The mirror shivered and broke apart.

Startled, he reared back, taking his hands from her throat to instinctively shield his face from the silvered glass raining over his head. Charlie wormed her right hand out from under his knee, grasped at a shard of mirror. She felt the bite of the edge cut into her, felt the hot blood running. Then she whipped the shard up and, in a perfect horizontal strike, severed his throat from one side to the other. She rolled away from the blood gushing like a cataract, rose onto her knees, watching the homunculus writhe and claw. His shoe soles beat a crazy tattoo against the floor. Then, with a last thick gush of blood, he died.

*   *   *

“What’s this about you wanting us here, Preach? Is she right?”

“I told her as much about herself,” Preach said. “Yes.”

“And me?”

“You.” Preach laughed. “You, my son, are the chosen one.”

“That means nothing to me,” Whitman said.

“And that’s so part of your charm. You have no ego about it. You don’t know and, furthermore, you don’t care. That all ends here, now. That’s why I brought Lucy here. She’s all ego, while you have none. You’re sun and moon, brother and sister; husband and wife, if you choose.” He shrugged. “That part is up to you. Both of you are perfect. Any way you slice it, you were made for each other.”

He beckoned. “Come here, Lucy. I want to show you something you alone will appreciate.”

“Stay where you are,” Whitman advised.

“Of course, he’s going to say that, Lucy. I know him better than you do, but that will all change when you both come with me. Advanced studies beckon.” He gestured again. “Now come.”