While he had been reluctant to join with her at first, he had to admit that they were an unstoppable team. The future was looking brighter than ever before. So when he was approached by Moose, who told him that a truck had arrived full of tributes and gifts from the Indianapolis Afterlights, foul play was the last thing he suspected.

As he crossed the midway with Moose, it didn’t trouble him that his trio of bodyguards were nowhere to be found. He had come to rely on them less and less since security, and a need for six-fisted intimidation, had become less of a priority. He was caught off guard by the sack that was thrust over his head, and before he knew what was happening, his hands and feet were tied, and he was carried off.

He was dumped some time later on a wooden floor that creaked beneath him, and when the bag was ripped from his face, he was looking up at three Afterlights glowing in the dark night: It was the new skinjackers. All three of them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Pugsy shouted.

Milos was way too calm. “We are having a meeting. I am so glad you could come.”

As Milos was a Ruskie, Pugsy hated him on principal. It was Mary who had convinced him that Milos could be trusted. Well, Mary would get an earful for this!

He tried to stand but his legs were tied too tightly. “All three of you have just bought yourself a place on the mantel.” Which was one of Pugsy’s pet expressions for a trip to the center of the earth—along with “earning core time” and “sleeping with the magma.”

“Look around you, and think again,” said Milos. Pugsy glanced around, and instantly knew exactly where he was. This was what he affectionately called “the submarine terminal.” It was an Everlost dock on Lake Michigan where he would dispatch unwanted Afterlights into the “dirty deep,” yet another pet name for the center of the earth. In fact, right now, there were three others bound and gagged, with cinder blocks tied to their ankles. He would have thought the work was done by his bodyguards. Except that they were his bodyguards. Now Pugsy began to worry.

“Tell me,” said Milos, “how many are the Afterlights you have thrown from this dock?”

“I don’t know,” said Pugsy nervously. “I don’t keep count.”

“Guess.”

“Throw him off! Throw him off!” shrieked Squirrel, but Milos threw him a gaze that shut him up.

“I said guess.”

“Uh, maybe, a hundred? Two hundred?”

“Just as I thought.” Milos nodded to the other two, and they lifted up one of Pugsy’s boys, then tossed him off the dock.

“No!” screamed Pugsy.