One of the lovelies broke my reverie by pulling a small silver pistol. The look on his face was anything but attractive as he lowered it and fired. I dodged but the bullet hit the exact spot of the first bullet wound, an unbelievable bull’s-eye. To describe the pain would be impossible. Suffice to say, I screamed.

The kid never got off a second shot. Mo’Lock had arrived via the window. He was on the armed kid like stink on shit, a flailing angry marionette, hitting the shooter while kicking the other male, the only blond of the three, in the lower back. Blondie hit the ground, and I followed up with a smack from the blackjack, hitting him square in the mouth. His teeth blew apart like china teacups, raining on the street with a hundred gentle tinkles. It was incredible.

Mo’Lock was out of control. He had the kid over his head. I wanted to say something, but it was too late. The ghoul threw pretty boy through the Mustang’s windshield and the brief skirmish came to a sudden and resounding halt. All we needed to do was get the three of them up to my place for a little chitchat. I grabbed the girl and Toothless and left Mo’Lock to deal with the one wedged in the windshield.

The trio slept for awhile, giving us time to tie them to chairs after patching them up. Mo’Lock played nurse, applying cold packs and bandages to their bruises. As they began to stir, I removed their ascots and wrist bands. What I saw underneath, just below the neckline of their shirts, cleared up a mystery I had been trying to resolve for years and confirmed the hunch I got when I first saw their faces.

Wrapping all the way around each of their wrists and throats were very faint but visible stitch scars—scars from where the body parts had been grafted together by Dr. Polynice at the request of Francis Lazar, founder of ManChildLove. Tied to chairs in my apartment were the mail-order Voodoo Love Teens, kids that those two creeps had created. I’d broken the case wide open and sent Lazar, Polynice, and all those involved to prison, including anyone who had ordered a love slave, but not a trace of the teens had ever been found.

Until today.

I stared at their chiseled features. If you looked very closely you could see faint signs of plastic surgery. It was very important to Lazar and the good doctor that the love dolls could never be traced to the original victims. Their entire bodies, including their heads and facial features, were a jumbled mishmash of dissected, murdered young men and women, complete with burned-off fingerprints and brittle teeth.

The teeth were a nice touch—you’ve gotta admire attention to detail. Fake teeth meant no dental records. They must’ve used porcelain for that perfect white color. Evidently, being smacked in the mouth with a blackjack wasn’t in the plans.

Windshield was the first to come around. He shook his head, blinked, and blew his dark hair away from his eyes which were a deep, unnatural navy blue. They locked on me immediately. The look was pure hatred.