But the third and fourth…

Their necks are ripped out. A Hispanic kid, his throat torn from the front. A black girl, Dominican maybe, the side of hers chewed open.

Ahead is the door into their safehouse.

It is no longer safe. It hangs open. She sees the hallway and a handful of doors, and in that hallway and between those doors are more bodies. Another five, easy.

Then a door down that hallway squeaks open.

A bulldog of a man in a cheap gray suit steps out. Grinning at her. She knows his face. One of the Organization lieutenants. A hands-on hitter. Spall. Or Lutkevich. They come in a pair and she’s not sure which one is which, but he’s damn sure one of them.

He waves at her. Little waggling fingers. Playful-like. Toodle-oo.

They’re ahead of her. They knew. Somehow, they knew. The Sinner Boys gave her up. Or the Black Sleeves. She told them where she was going. Damnit. Damnit.

The bulldog’s got a gun. A shotgun. Pump action with the sling hanging loose.

But then he does a strange thing: he drops it. Holds up his hands as he walks toward the door, toward her. “Hey,” he says. “Wait there. Let’s be friends.”

Big smile.

A trick. It’s a goddamn trick. He knows the shotgun has a spray pattern. Won’t get a good hit on her from here. Pellets. Just pellets.

He’s going to get close. Stick her with a knife.

Fuck this. She knows enough. Time to run.

She pivots. Down the steps. Feet running a rumbling drum roll – fast, too fast, almost tripping, toe of one foot almost catching the heel of the other–

She catches herself on the railing. Down, down, down. Go, go, go–

Ninth floor.

She’s watching her feet now.

Mistake. Nora almost runs into him.

The other one. Of course the other one. Spall and Lutkevich. Those names, you always say them together. Partners in knee-capping.

(Partners in… throat-ripping?)

The skinny one has that same smile. Waves the same way. Wiggle, waggle.

She’s caught. Trapped like a rat between two cats.

Except this rat has a trick.

Her hand darts into her pocket. Finds the scales there – scales from a dead Snakeface, scales purchased from an old blobby half-and-half at the Oddments bazaar. Magic trick time. She pops one scale under her tongue. The taste is like licking a bloody battery.

The trick is she disappears. She can’t feel it, but she can see it. Disconcerting as all hell to have your hands fade from view, to lose sight of your own peripheral eye sockets – you never think about those until they’re gone.

The killer before her looks shocked – one minute she’s there, the next, poof.