“What was that about?” Maigo asks.

  “What?”

  “Those police officers,” she says. “They were—”

  “Afraid of us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Everyone is afraid of us. If you don’t have a significant other, I suggest leaving your job description out of your profile.”

  “We keep them safe.”

  “And occasionally serve one of them up on a platter,” I say.

  “Only the bad ones. Like the really bad ones. And there aren’t many of those.”

  “You know why therapists make more than movie stars?” I ask, thinking about when I used to smoke and how I wish I still did. “Supply and demand. Because there aren’t many people who want to hear the world’s dirty secrets and assure us that we’re fine, that Nemesis won’t turn her vengeful eyes in our direction. Same reason it’s hard to find a priest these days, even though there are more people praying for forgiveness than ever before, despite knowing it won’t help.

  “People know if we show up on their doorstep, they’re fucked. And they worry that if we look them in the eyes too long and don’t like what we see…”

  “We don’t choose who she’s after.” The kid’s righteous indignation will take her far, but she’ll eventually hit the cold, hard brick wall of truth—that there’s no truth as far as Nemesis is concerned. We do a decent job of keeping the damage to a minimum, but we’re mostly flying in the dark, hoping we collect the right perp in time.

  “Not everyone is so sure. You’d be surprised how many people think that Nemesis is under the government’s control. That we choose the sacrificial lambs. Even if they don’t believe it, people fear it—and by extension—us.”

  “The NSO has never unjustly extracted someone,” she says. “Our record is perfect.”

  “My record is perfect,” I say. “Yours starts today.”

  She casually pulls the car over next to the curb.

  I lean forward and point to the house at the hill’s top. “Starts here.”

  She leans forward, looking at the home. “It’s huge.”

  “Wealthy area,” I say. “Old money.”

  “I pictured it being, I don’t know—”

  “A run-down trailer home with a murder shed?”

  “Well, yeah. I guess.”

  “Most of those guys were caught in the early days. The ones that are left, that are still active, usually have money to burn on concealing themselves.”

  “That’s why you asked about the neighborhood?”

  I nod, drawing my FNX .45 Tactical handgun equipped with a red dot sight, under-barrel light, and a sound suppressor that I’m spinning onto the muzzle. The neighborhood is quiet. Suppressors dull the sound of a gun firing, but don’t silence it completely. Not like in movies. But it’s now just shy of ten in the morning. Most of the neighborhood’s inhabitants will be at work or school. Most, but not all, hence the subtlety. And we know our guy will be home, because he’s retired, fifty, and a night owl. We’ve known about him for a month now, just waiting for Nemesis to catch his scent.

  While Maigo attaches her sound suppressor, I toggle my comms on and connect to dispatch. “NSO Graham for SitRep.”

  “Spider, my man,” Owens says. “Out to catch another fly in your web, I see. Probably the last one, right?” Ryan Owens. Pain in my ass. Thinks we’re friends. After five years on the job, what he has failed to understand is that I don’t have friends.

  “Just the SitRep, please. I need an ETA.”

  “Sure,” Owens says. “Right to business. Okay, she’s still on course. Passed Bermuda about thirty minutes ago. ETA…ten hours. She’s, ahh, she’s really hauling ass.”

  “Hudson rating?” I ask. Jon Hudson was head of the FC–P when things first went to shit. Saved a lot of people. Was the one to figure out what Nemesis was after. And he created a rating system that calculates the seriousness of a target’s crimes. It’s pretty simple actually—the faster Nemesis moves, the more serious the crime. Ten—the highest rating—has never been reached. But there have been a few 9.8s. Not in my jurisdiction, thank god, but it happens. Hudson gave his life developing our response to the Nemesis crisis. Created my division. So, they named the rating system after him and gave him a statue in Neo-Boston.

  “Holy…” Owens says. “9.5.”

  I hang up on him and turn to my partner. “Last chance to sit this one out.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I’m serious, kid. Sit it out.”

  She squints at me. “You’re being nice. You’re not nice. What was the rating?”

  No point in lying. “Nine five.”

  Her eyes widen. “ETA?”

  “Ten hours.”

  She gives a nod. “Then we need to move fast.”

  Nothing will deter her. “When you spend a fortune on therapy, make sure to tell your shrink that this was the fork in the road where you should have gone a different way. After this, there’s no going back.”

  She smiles, kicks open her door, and starts up the hill.

  I sigh, shove open my door, spend ten seconds prying myself from the tiny vehicle, and follow her. Destination: Hell on Earth.

  3

  We frame up on the door, glancing through the windows like we’re about to breach and blast away. But that’s not how these things go. Best case scenario, we catch the target unprepared, maybe just getting out of the shower, or having breakfast. Even better if they’re still asleep, which our guy might be.

  I used to carry around a copy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Watchtower magazine. Pretend I was at the door to offer them life everlasting. Then, before the door could close in my face, I’d light them up with a taser. Worked every time, but the routine got boring. Sometimes you gotta mix things up to keep the job interesting.

  Maigo looks through the side window, following every protocol. “Clear in the living room. No movement.”

  “Clear on the other side,” I say.

  She’s incredulous. “You didn’t even look.”

  I give a one shouldered shrug. “I have a feeling.”

  “A feeling…”

  “A guy like this… Someone Nemesis is hauling ass to reach… He’s not making Pop-Tarts in the kitchen or Lemon Pledging his living room furniture. He’s either sound asleep or lurking in his den. If you survive long enough, you’ll learn to trust your gut, too.”

  “But we’re supposed to—”

  “Knock, engage, and subdue. You find me one extractor that follows that arcane guideline, or anyone other than your academy teachers who cares, and I’ll do my next extraction with no pants on.”

  She winces.

  “I don’t want my first extraction to be my last,” she says, annoyingly earnest.

  “Fine,” I say, pulling open the screen door and leaning into the thick wooden door behind it. “Knock, knock,” I whisper, inserting my auto-key and pulling the trigger. As the device goes to work, testing each pin and adjusting to the deadbolt, I continue. “Who’s there? Spider Graham for Frankie Robles. Oh, well, why didn’t you say so? I did, motherfucker, now you’re coming with me.”

  “You…are a child,” Maigo says.

  “Sorry, hon, my inner child is buried beneath a mountain of corpses. You still have a chance to run and lead a normal life.”

  The light on the auto-key turns green. Mission accomplished.

  “Normal was taken away from me a long time ago,” she says, and for the first time, she sounds a little bit like me. Something in her past gave her an edge. She keeps it hidden, but it’s there. I see it now.

  “On three,” I say, and then open the door. I’m a grumpy asshole. I know it. Whole world knows it. But messing with Maigo puts a smile on my face. I enter the house, gun leveled, sweeping back and forth.

  A befuddled Maigo follows me in, keeping me covered, forging ahead like a blindfolded soldier through a mine field. I can tell she wants to chew me out, but she’s on task now, same as me.

  Inside the front door is a hallway. One door to the right. One to the left at the far end, and a staircase leading up. “Apartment building.”

  “Occupied by just the owner,” she says.

  Oddities like that are never a good sign. Mr. Robles either bought the apartment building for himself or converted it after purchasing what would have once been something like a mansion. I’m not sure it matters which. Either way, a single man living in an apartment building on his own is a red flag.

  Because he might not be alone.

  I hold a finger to my lips and approach the door to our right. Test the knob. Unlocked. The door opens without a squeak. Place is well maintained. Inside, a living room. If I’d followed protocol, we’d have noticed two living rooms and entered knowing it was an apartment building. Wouldn’t have changed much, but I hope Maigo doesn’t notice. She’ll rub it in, and that will be annoying.

  Inside the door, gun raised, I take a sniff, testing the air.

  I smell nothing—not even the smell present in old houses, turned apartments—a commingling of scents from layers of human occupation over a long period of time. Different foods, deodorants, cleaning supplies. It all mixes together and, over time, they all smell the same. This place smells nice. Like Lemon Pledge actually. Clean.

  Place is tidy, too. Reminds me of my grandmother’s place before she kicked off. Couch and loveseat are covered in tight plastic. The rug still has perfectly aligned triangles in it from the last time someone vacuumed. A real neat freak. But this is the outer surface. When we find Frankie, and we will, he’s going to be put together. Clean cut. But it’s all a façade to cover up what he really is—a nightmare.

  I head through the living room, leading with my gun and dragging my feet to mess up the rug’s surface. Because I’m a douchebag like that. Need to squeeze a little joy out of the job during my last days.

  Living room is clear. Entrance to the dining room is a wide, arched opening with pillars on either side. I edge up beside a pillar then step out into the room, searching for targets and finding four.

  But not one of them is alive.

  They’re…

  “Oh my god.”

  Takes a lot to surprise me these days. But this…

  Maigo steps in beside me. Flinches at the sight of the four diners, but she doesn’t puke. Because like everything else, it’s clean. Not a hint of rot in the air.

  “What is this?” she asks, leaning down to one of the corpses, looking at the thin clear layer encasing each of the four bodies.

  A man, a woman, two children. Frankie has them arranged like they’re enjoying a nice meal, frozen in time. The polished clear coating, within which each of them is encased, has perfectly preserved their bodies. If not for the afternoon sun gleaming off their bodies, I might have thought they were alive. That and their eyes being closed. Every one of them.

  Is that because Frankie doesn’t want to be seen? Or…

  “They were asleep when he did this,” Maigo says. “Probably drugged. Unable to open their eyes. Dunked them in epoxy. They’d have suffocated in their sleep. No pain. No struggle. No fear.”

  She’s quick.

  That’s how Nemesis didn’t detect this guy earlier. She can sense the black heart of a killer, but what really screams her name across the planet is the anguish of victims. Killing them peacefully wouldn’t register.

  So, what changed?

  “Should we check each apartment?” Maigo asks.

  I shake my head. “We’ll just find more of the same. This place is like a doll house. He probably sleeps up here. Eats with these guys. But right now…he’s probably working.”

  “Working.”

  “In the basement.”

  “Why the basement?”

  My face screws up like I’ve just had my nose rubbed in a wet turd. “It’s always the basement.”

  “Because basements are scary?” she asks.

  “They really don’t teach this?” I ask. “It’s because basements are the best places to keep digging. Unless they’re out in the boonies. Then you need to look for natural cave formations or signs of a bunker. But here, in a neighborhood, someone like this, they’re going to go down. Frankie is smart. He’s been avoiding Nemesis for a long time. That’s good for us.”

  “Good for us? How?”

  “Means he’s comfortable. Won’t expect us. Unless we keep chatting with the Keaton family long enough for him to find us.”

  Maigo frowns. “He might have already.” She motions to the centerpiece on the table. At first, all I see are fake white flowers. Then I see them. Cameras. Four of them. Each pointed at one of the family members so he can watch them remotely.

  We haven’t stepped in front of the cameras, but our shadows are on the walls.

  “Goddamnit,” I mutter and head for the door, gun drawn. I bang a right into the hallway. The layout is predictable. Basement door is beneath the stairwell. The door is closed and locked. The time for subtlety has come to an end. I kick out hard, putting my weight into it. The home’s old wood shatters.

  Maybe Frankie isn’t as smart as I gave him credit for. This door should have been reinforced. He’s overconfident.

  I thump down the steps, leaning forward, aiming my gun around the orderly basement. “Where the fuck are you, Frankie?”

  “I don’t see anything,” Maigo says as we finish our sweep. “Maybe he’s out?”

  We both know he’s not. Extraction wouldn’t have been approved if the target was getting a new tank top at Walmart.

  The stone-walled basement has a concrete floor. It’s all as clean as the floor upstairs. Storage shelves are lined with clear, well-labeled storage bins. The labels make me cringe. They’re not ‘hats’ or ‘Winter’ like most neat freaks might do. They’re names. April Firl. Adam Craig. Stacy Parr.

  His victims.

  “Oh no…” Maigo says, glancing at me to confirm the reality of what she’s seeing.

  “His victims,” I say.

  “But there are—”

  “Dozens,” I say. “A kill count like this over a few years would have set off all kinds of alarm bells. Means he’s been at this for a very long time. Probably long before… Did you get a look at the victims’ clothing up there?”

  She shakes her head. “Wasn’t really paying attention to their fashion sense. Why?”

  “Willing to bet their fashion style is somewhere between the late nineties and twenty-ten.”

  “You think he stopped,” she says, searching every nook and cranny of the dark basement. “After the Clean Slate Act.”

  Clean Slate was a government program that launched soon after we figured out what Nemesis was all about. It became clear that crime persisted as long as criminals felt they were being pursued by Nemesis, or the law. Why stop if they were already screwed? Clean Slate did exactly what it sounds like, wiped the slate clean, and reduced criminals’ motivation to continue the questionable lifestyles. Because if the law wasn’t hunting them, maybe Nemesis would leave them alone, too. Any unprosecuted crime committed before the arrival of Nemesis was forgiven. Case files were erased. Prisons stayed full. Crazies stayed locked up. But mental health and safety became prisons’ top priorities. As a result, more and more were rehabilitated and returned to normal life. In a few decades, prisons will mostly be empty. Crime quickly dropped off, and all but disappeared when we began extracting Nemesis’s targets and offering them up as a snack for the Goddess of Vengeance.

  “Stopped and waited thirteen years before giving it another go. Something like that, yeah.” I open a metal storage cabinet. Instead of looking at shelves of batteries, half-used paint buckets, and jars full of pennies, I stare into a downward-spiraling tunnel. “Here.”

  Maigo stands beside me, looking down. “That…is a big hole.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say. “And not the fun kind.”

  4

  “Looks like another Shawshank job,” I say.

  “Shawshank?” Maigo asks.

  “The Shawshank…Redemption? The Stephen King story? And a movie? ‘Get busy living or get busy dying?’ No?” I shake my head. “Forgive her, Nemesis, she knows not what she’s done.”

  Maigo backhands my shoulder. “Not funny.”

  “Gotta make your fun where you can in this job, kid.” I step into the downward-spiraling tunnel. “Everything from this moment on is going to suck.”

  The tunnel was meticulously hand carved. Frankie had time to work. Electrical cables run along the floor, mostly hidden by wooden steps. Light bulbs guide us deeper into the hill, past layers of stone, supported every five feet by wooden beams on either side. Feels like we’re walking down the throat of some ancient beast.

  I wonder if Frankie’s subconscious was preparing him for his eventual fate. Hell, maybe he’s been looking forward to it, waiting for the right time to reveal himself. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  At least fifty feet down, I spot the bottom just around the bend ahead. I pause and put a finger to my lips. Maigo nods, and I lead the way, inching out from the stairway. I’m ready for anything, gun raised, senses focused, eyes darting.

  But…I’m not ready for this.

  The spiral stairs empty out into a natural granite cavern—a hollow in the center of the hill. Parts of the rough floor have been carved smooth and polished. But natural formations of granite pock the area, giving it an almost Science Museum feel. Curated. Like a docent in a maroon suit is going to welcome us, hand us a pamphlet, and tell us where the bathrooms are.

  We step into the cavern, searching for targets.

  I flinch when I see the first. A smiling man, hand raised in greeting. I nearly blow his head off. But aside from announcing our presence, my narrowly avoided mistake wouldn’t cause too much trouble. Because the man is already dead. Whatever process Frankie uses to encase people in epoxy, he’s perfected it down here.

  The man’s eyes are open. His smile looks genuine. His posture is natural. If I didn’t know there was a real human being at the creation’s core, I’d be tempted to call it art.

  I wonder if Frankie does.

  Creeping deeper into the chamber, I keep myself low behind an outcrop of rough granite. Goosebumps spring up on my arm. It’s cool down here, but this tends to happen when I’m about to engage with the enemy. Like my body knows shit’s about to go down. I wear long sleeves to hide it.