The Nix didn’t need to ask who the “arrogant boy” was…she didn’t want to sit through another diatribe on the ineptitude and inexperience of Eliot Ness. The year before, Mayor Burton had appointed the young man as Cleveland’s safety director, head of the police and fire departments. As good as Ness was at cleaning up mobsters and gambling dens, he—and the rest of his force—were clueless when it came to the serial killer in their midst.

“Six victims, all decapitated,” Agnes stormed. “Do you know how rare that is?”

“Um-hmm,” the Nix said, stifling a yawn.

“But do they see the connection? Oh, dear me, we seem to have an unrelated rash of beheadings in the city. Fancy that.”

“They’re starting to pay attention,” the Nix said. “Articles in every major paper after that last one. The fear is spreading.”

“And spread it shall. Like wildfire, purifying the city.”

The Nix smiled. This was more like it. “A veritable feast of fear.”

“And well they should fear. The wrath of God is upon them—”

“Um, Agnes? It’s getting late. It’ll be dawn soon.”

“Oh?” Agnes looked into the sky. “So it will. Thank you.”

The Nix gave Agnes the strength to cut the vagrant’s torso in two.

“Are you taking this one back to Kingsbury Run?”

Agnes nodded and kept cutting.

“May I make a suggestion?”

Another abrupt nod as Agnes began to saw off the legs.

“Throw the pieces in the creek. Someone’s bound to see one of them floating along. But hide the head.” She paused. “And maybe the hands. Yes, hide the head and the hands. They’ll need to call in help to dredge the creek, and that’s bound to draw attention.”

Agnes rocked back on her heels and stared out into the night, then nodded. “Yes, I think I shall. Thank you.”

“I’m here to help.”

The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. Agnes hated the name the press had given her. The Nix agreed it was rather harsh. Mad? Yes. But “butcher” was uncalled for. Agnes was a qualified surgeon, and the expert dissection should have made that clear.

Several people had speculated that the killer was indeed a surgeon, maybe even a crusader, but the public preferred the image of a raging maniac with a meat cleaver and bloodstained apron. If that scared them more, well, the Nix wasn’t about to argue.

Some had even whispered that the killer could be a woman, because the first two victims had been emasculated, but this idea was quickly shot down. No woman would ever do such a thing—to suggest it was to taint the very notion of womanhood. That had made the Nix laugh so hard she’d nearly popped right out of Agnes’s body. Clearly these people didn’t run in the same circles she did.