The joker cocked his head and stared at her. The flickering half-light lent a peculiar sheen to his greasy skin. He was backlit, making it hard to see his face, but she’d recognize the smell anywhere. It made her woozy. She leaned against the table to steady herself while her heart stopped trying to chisel through her breastbone. She knew Vaporlock; they’d worked together, doing snatches for the fight club. They weren’t besties, but they’d talked a little, enough to know he wasn’t keen on the cage matches. And that he found the drooler in the wheelchair creepy as fuck, too. So they shared a couple things in common.

“I guess we both had the same idea. I take it you-know-who isn’t around?”

The instant the words came out of her mouth she realized she had just kicked herself in the molars. Vaporlock hadn’t returned to the casino as she had—he must have been here when the shit went down and got left behind. Oops.

She didn’t need to see his face to know he wasn’t all that happy about it. There was a tension in his body language, like a tightly coiled spring. He stepped closer. A wave of medicinal miasma crashed over her. Mollie’s head spun. She tried to retreat but bumped against the roulette table. “Back off, hey?”

He didn’t. The funk threatened to suffocate her. Mollie created a new pair of portals. One hovered in the air to her left; its flipside opened on an observation deck overlooking the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia. A stiff sea breeze gusted through the casino, blowing cocktail napkins and loose currency past Mollie’s feet like autumn leaves.

The smell didn’t dissipate. Vaporlock reached for her, stepping into the light to do so. Mollie gasped.

Dried blood caked his fingernails, but it was still wet where it coated his hands up to the wrists. His mouth, too. Oh, God, flakes of blackened blood peppered the grease around his lips and coated his teeth like he was some kind of goth-vampire wannabe. But Mollie knew it wasn’t makeup. He’d done somebody, done them messy, and very recently.

“Oh, Jesus. What … what have you done?”

He lunged. She tried to sidestep through the portal but the wooziness turned her legs to jelly. She stumbled. They went down in a heap. The portal disappeared. The wind died. Vaporlock crawled atop her. She held her breath. He took a fistful of her hair and slammed her head against the floor. The blow caused her to inhale; she got a lungful of fumes. The room spun. She felt herself sliding into darkness. He pulled her head back for another bash. Soft, soft, make the floor something soft—Blacking out, she struggled to envision one last portal pair. They splashed down in the People’s Paradise of Africa, or whatever it was called these days.