“You are now a subject of Pugsy Capone, and as such, you have no rights beyond the ones Mr. Capone gives you, if any. You will speak only when spoken to, you will perform all tasks given to you. You will cast your eyes to the ground when Mr. Capone or any of us pass. Should you disobey any of these orders, you will be gagged, tied to a cinder block, and hurled out into the living world, where you will sink quickly to the center of the earth. Do you understand these things as they’ve been explained to you? Do you need anything repeated?”

They waited for Mary’s response, but she said nothing, just glared at them, refusing to cast her eyes the slightest bit downward.

The gray-suited thug got right in her face and shouted, “I said, do you need anything repeated?”

“No,” she finally said. “How long will I be imprisoned here?”

“No questions!” he shouted. Then he said, “You’ll stay like this as long as he wants you to. Maybe a month, maybe a year, maybe forever.”

Speedo had been right—if only she had listened to him. She could only hope that Pugsy Capone would be curious enough to come see her himself—if only to gloat over his victory. A face-to-face encounter could only help her situation.

Mary finally cast her eyes down, and, satisfied, the gray-suited thug stepped back. “Your blimp is now the property of the Death Boss,” he said, “and so are all your Afterlights.”

Mary tugged at her chains but it did no good. Her miscalculation had not only cost Mary her own freedom, but her children as well. The anguish stabbed as deep as a blade in living flesh, but she would not let it show. Instead, she said with all the defiance she could muster, “It’s not a blimp. Any imbecile can tell you it’s a rigid airship.”

To which the largest of the thugs calmly replied, “It is whatever Pugsy Capone says it is.”

Then they left her there to stew in her own intentions, chained to a flying statue that couldn’t fly.

Pugsy Capone, Death Boss of Chicago, Lord of the White City, was a very shrewd Afterlight. Shrewd enough to have trapped almost a thousand Afterlights under his “protection.” He was a spirit who not only saw afterlife as a competition, but as a competition where points were scored by creating the greatest amount of misery. The thought of dethroning the infamous “Mary Queen of Snots,” was the stuff of dreams for him, and had a very high point value, indeed.