“People around me died, usually in horrible and bloody ways.”

“People around me die. They drop like flies. I've gone through life leaving a trail of dead bodies behind me. My mother is dead, my guardian is dead, my aunt is dead—because I killed her, and when my real father finds me, he'll move heaven and earth to make me dead.”

“You're not going to die?""Not right this minute." And of course, saying something like that usually resulted in immediate dying. I braced myself for a stray meteorite falling through the roof to crush my skull.”

“But then I didn't run from my challenges. I met them straight on and bashed my head against them, until it left me hurt, bloody, and dazed.”

“Any messages for me?" Usually I got one or two, but mostly people who wanted my help preferred to talk in person."Yes. Hold on." She pulled out a handful of pink tickets and recited from memory, without checking the paper. "Seven forty-two a.m., Mr. Gasparian: I curse you. I curse your arms so they wither and die and fall off your body. I curse your eyeballs to explode. I curse your feet to swell until blue. I curse your spine to crack. I curse you. I curse you. I curse you.”

“We need a bigger gun.”“We need a shower,” Raphael said.“Gun first. Shower later.”Ten minutes later I walked into the Order’s office. A group of knights standing in the hallway turned at my approach: Mauro, the huge Samoan knight; Tobias, as usual dapper; and Gene, the seasoned former Georgia Bureau of Investigations detective. They looked at me. The conversation died.My clothes were torn and bloody. Soot stained my skin. My hair stuck out in clumps caked with dirt and blood. The reek of a dead cat emanated from me in a foul cloud.I walked past them into the armory, opened the glass case, took Boom Baby out, grabbed a box of Silver Hawk cartridges, and walked out.Nobody said a thing.”

“You will tell me what you know now," he said."Or?"He said nothing, so I elaborated. "See, this kind of threat usually has an 'or' attached to it. Or an 'and'. 'Tell me and I'll allow you to live' or something like that.”