Visions emerge like pages from a book flipping past, faster and faster until they tear out of the book: a school play, a skinned knee, her parents fighting, shattered plates, a broken microwave, her father storming out the door, a funeral, her graduation with no one there to congratulate her, the check from the lawyer, her first hit of Blue, her first gun, a gut-shot old goat, her father’s face of fear and disappointment and rage.

She tries to push back, tries to find a psychic handhold in the storm of images – it’s like fighting through wind and rain, through cutting ice and hammering hail. But the Blue lends her fortitude, and she pushes on – her own mind pushing back against the trespasser, and then it’s like she pokes a hole in a dark sheet–

A whisper through static, snippets of voice through a screeching frequency –

It’s like the door falling off an airplane in flight: a sucking vacuum. New visions pull her forward then draw her down. Like hands out of grave-earth grabbing. The horror of a dead city, this city, New York: a gutted carcass. Hollow buildings, windows like frightened eyes. Creatures moving among the streets. Survivors screaming. A car on fire. An infant’s wail cut suddenly short. Shadow things stalking alleys. Goblins running in packs, faces smeared with blood. Snake-men coiled around lampposts. And just below the surface, the worms crawl. Worms bigger than city buses. Big as buildings. Worms that pass underneath and tent the street, sending manhole covers blown skyward.

Werth paces the second floor hallway. Haversham stands nearby, idly fingering a button on his cuff. Werth keeps his voice low. “This is fucked up, Haversham.”

“Yes. I know.”

“Some weird shit is going on.”

“I… know.”

“The Boss ain’t the Boss.”

“We don’t know that.”

Werth stops pacing. “We do know that,” he hisses through his teeth. “We do. You didn’t see his eyes.”

“I didn’t see him at all.”

“Well, he’s here. Downstairs. Go have a look.”

Haversham doesn’t budge. All he says is, “Maybe it’s good the Boss is back.”

“Good? It’s not him. And did you see what they did to Mookie? Shit, Haversham, we’re on the hook here. This is on us. We’re the last ones to have any chance to do anything.” He hears his own words, knows he’s barely making any sense. “The girl. The little… Mookie’s daughter. She dead?”

Haversham shakes his head. “No. She’s alive. For now. The Vollrath wanted time with her.”

“What the fuck are those things?”

“I don’t know.”

“This isn’t how we do things.”

“Maybe this is the new order.”

“It isn’t. Can’t be. Won’t be.” He stops.”You have a gun, Haversham?”

The question hangs between them like dangling spider.

Finally, Haversham nods. “Yes.”

“Good, because you might need it when the shit hits the–”