The Eye contracted like a bicep. The vessels thickened as if pumped full of paint. One of the vessels popped, spilling greasy orange blood that fizzed as if carbonated. The black pupil yawned like a mouth and the iris shattered into triangular daggers of teeth, which gnashed at my eyelashes before someone yanked me back to safety.

“Bad idea.”

Jack slapped the box flap shut, wrapped ARRRGH!!!’s fingers around it, and shoved the hand away with all of his might. The towering beast snorted as if awakening from a daydream and discovering with honest surprise that the wilted box was resting in her great gray palm. Ducking her gigantic head like a chastened child, the troll tucked the box into her draperies of fur. Jack glared at Blinky, whose guilty eyes found eight different things to look at. Then Jack found someone else to glare at: me.

“You connect too often with the Eye, you start seeing things like Gunmar. Start acting like him, too. Not good. Believe me.”

Given that I was doubled over coughing the Eye’s invasive stink from my lungs, I believed him. If this was the effect of one small piece of Gunmar the Black, I had little interest in meeting the rest.

Jack hitched up a loaded burlap sack.

“Come on. Long night. Let’s get to it.”

Eager to return to Jack’s good graces, ARRRGH!!! and Blinky hurried by on either side of me. I took a personal moment to expectorate the rest of the Eye’s residue from my mouth. While bent with hands on knees, I glanced at the stone mural and remembered how the bridge depicted as stretching across the Atlantic Ocean was identical to the one procured by Professor Lempke.

“Hey,” I said. “What does the Killaheed Bridge have to do with all of this?”

The cellar dwellers halted in unison. First, Blinky’s wide red eyes oscillated in my direction. ARRRGH!!! moved next, turning her slobbering snout over her goliath shoulder. Jack was the last to look at me, his face unreadable in the chiaroscuro light.

I wiped the spit from my lips and cleared my throat.

“Did I say that wrong? Killa-hide-y? Killa-hoo-dee?”

Nobody moved.

“I just noticed it on your wall there. Tub and I saw the real one at the museum. It opens to the public on Friday. Tub and I could probably sneak you in free if you—”

Jack dropped his sack with a metallic crunch, stalked across the room, leapt over the pile of dolls, and collided with me straight on. He snared my collar with both gloves, his pin-studded knuckles ripping through the fabric.

“Here? How? What the hell are you talking about?”

Tub, my hero, patted ineffectually at Jack’s shoulder.

“Let up, man! It’s just part of a stupid exhibit!”

Jack threw me to the floor and charged Tub, who fell to his butt against the hill of bicycles.

“The Killaheed Bridge?” Jack shouted. “In San Bernardino?”