She was the moonlight in his night sky, and often, the only thing that gave him any ease. Just the sight of her, whether with her basket of weaving wares or as she minded her brother, was enough to give him the strength to carry on.

As the female and her brother rounded by the barn, Syn was content to watch and spin fantasies that wouldnae e’er occur. Verily, he imagined he was the one being chased by her, and he would be sure to allow himself to be caught. In his mind, he went forth into the future, after his own transition. He saw himself tall and strong, capable of defending her and keeping her safe, his brawn the guarantee against this cruel world that naught would hurt her—

The snap of a stick made him jump.

“Whate’er you do here, son of mine,” came a growl behind him.

The sound of knocking returned Syn to the present, although the reorientation was neither immediate nor dispositive. Part of him was back in those trees, at the edge of that flowered meadow, and he was grateful for whoever had interrupted his memory-lane’ing. He resented the revisit of his history. There were so many reasons not to dwell on any part of his past, but especially that particular night. Maybe if things had gone differently back then, he would be different now.

Then again, maybe he’d been cursed at birth, everything that happened then and since, predetermined and inevitable.

“I’m coming,” he muttered as the knocking started up again and he got over his intermission gratitude.

Whoever was on the other side better have a good fucking reason to disturb all his totally-not-sleeping.

He was even less interested in other people than usual today.

Butch finished off the last inch of Lagavulin in his glass, and just as he righted his head from the toss back, the door he was rapping on ripped opened. On the far side, Syn was obviously not a morning person, his glare right out of the Hulk’s playbook, his big-ass naked body the kind of thing that could do serious damage to anyone with an alarm clock. Cheerful greeting. Piece of toast.

The Bastard had a case of the cranky-wankies.

“Well, well, well,” Butch said. “If it isn’t sunshine personified.”

“What do you want?”

“Right now? Ray-Bans to shield me from the glare of your happiness.”

Balthazar stepped up, putting his solid wall of a body between the two of them. “Let’s relax, cousin.”

Leaving the blood relations to sort out the welcome wagon issues, Butch barged his way into the completely bare set of rooms. Syn lived like a monk, which was his call, but come on. Like you wouldn’t take advantage of a pillow top mattress when they were available to you? But no, we gotta be Old Country hard-ass on the floor.

“So,” he said as he strolled around, the remaining pain in his groin from his case of Chrysler-itis something that was briefly eclipsed by the job he’d come to do. “You wanna put some pants on or are you okay airing your junk out like that?”

Balthazar was the one who closed the three of them in together, and the Bastard stayed right by the door, as if he knew there was a chance his cousin could vote with his feet.

Syn put his hands on his hips. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

Butch laughed. “You have no idea what my roommate’s into. So no, I’m good. But you, my friend, are causing some problems for yourself. And not just in a draft-on-your-shaft kinda way.”

“How so.”

“I think you know.” Butch took the hard copy of the Caldwell Courier Journal out from under his arm. “You read the paper this morning?”

“Cover to cover. And did the crossword.”

“Did you.” Butch looked for a place to put his glass down and ended up setting it on the floor. Then he flipped the front page open and faced it toward the guy. “Curious, did you think something like this wouldn’t get noticed?”

Syn’s eyes didn’t dip down to the black-and-white crime scene photograph that took up most of the top half of the fold. And given that the Bastard didn’t have a computer, and wasn’t on Fritz’s paper-boy delivery list, it was impossible to believe he’d read anything—and to hell with the crossword bullshit.

“No comment?” Butch murmured as he jogged the pages. “’Cuz I’m afraid that’s not going to be good enough.”

Syn’s shrug was not a surprise. Neither was his dead calm affect or the hostile light in his eyes. The Bastard was like a torch of aggression as he stood there, all banked natural disaster—and for a split second, Butch kind of wanted the guy to do something spectacularly stupid. A good fistfight might actually burn off some of his own nervous energy.

“See, this is interesting to me.” Butch refolded the paper and put it back under his arm. “I thought you’d want to take credit for your work. Otherwise, why leave the body out in the open like that? And hey, considering you managed to skin this guy alive on the street, that is impressive. I mean, complications aside, it’s nice work with a dagger. Like shucking corn, was it? Or ripping the slipcover off a couch.”

“You’re not judge and jury for me.”

“Oh, you’re wrong about that.” Butch shook his head. “So what do you have to say for yourself.”

“Nothing.”

“Again, not really an option.”

Balthazar cursed softly. “Syn, you and I talked about this. This is the New World—”

“I know where I am. I don’t need you to give me a bloody geography lesson.”

“So, I’ll do the teaching.” Butch stepped forward, getting tight with the guy. “You’re going to get deported back to where you came from if you keep this up.”

“I didn’t skin that man.”

“You don’t have any credibility.”

“So why are you here. Why bother talking to me at all?”

“Because I need things to be clear between you and me. Consider it a professional courtesy between soldiers.”

“Last thing I heard, Wrath was in charge. Why isn’t he here?”

“First of all, you’re not that special. And second, I’m the dumb fuck who’s in charge of dead bodies. Granted, it’s less of an official position and more of a calling leftover from my days as a homicide cop—but I think we can all agree that the last thing anyone needs to worry about is what you’re doing with a knife on your off-hours as we come down to the end of the war. We want the humans to chill and stay out of our business. So you’ve got to go if you can’t curb this shit.”

Syn finally looked at his cousin, his Mohawk turning to the side.

Balthazar spoke up. “Come on, Syn. You know this has been a problem. You’ve got to channel your talhman somewhere else. Or at least not do it so publicly.”

“And what about the other one?” Butch said. “The corpse they found twisted around that fire escape early this morning.”

“Fine.” Syn shrugged again. “I killed him. I killed the other one. I killed everybody.”

Butch ground his molars. “See, why you gotta do me like this? You could just be honest.”

“I am. You got me dead to rights. I skinned the one and then I beat the other senseless on a fire escape—because I was bored.”

Narrowing his eyes, Butch kept his voice level. “Guess you were really bored, cutting those legs off.”

“Both of them. Can we be done here?”

Butch glanced around the room. There were holes in the wallpaper where picture hangers had been taken out of the plaster, and he imagined the fact that things hadn’t been properly retouched drove Fritz insane.

He kept his curses to himself. “I’m trying to help you, Syn. You can choose to make this easier on yourself by cutting this out as of today. Right now? This is just me running it up the flagpole. If Wrath gets involved, there’s no wiggle room left for you. He’s going to get rid of you and you’ll be lucky if it’s only packing you off on a fucking boat. He won’t hesitate to put you in a coffin.”

“You’re assuming that would be a loss to me.”

“We do not need this complication. Don’t be something we have to solve.”

“Duly noted.”

Butch gave the guy a chance to say something else. “You’re not doing yourself any favors here.”

Syn pegged his cousin with hard eyes. “And everybody can stop talking about me anytime they’re fucking ready. Anytime.”

Balthazar crossed his arms over his chest. “The way you are is not your fault. But you need help—”

“Don’t tell me what I need.”

Now Butch was the one putting his body in between two males. “My guy, I don’t get the games you’re playing here, and considering the shit that’s on my plate right now, I really don’t have time to fuck around with you. Stay in your lane, or I’m going to make it so Wrath puts you back on your side of the highway. I’m really trying to be decent to you— although I’m wondering why in the fuck I bothered.”

On that note, Butch limped out, and when Balthazar came with him, he was surprised. He expected a heart-to-heart to happen between the cousins, but clearly that wasn’t on the menu. Then again, as the door clapped shut, there was the sound of glass shattering against the inside panels.

“Guess I won’t have to go back and get my empty,” Butch muttered as he headed down the hallway of the new wing that had been opened.

“You hurt your ankle?” Balthazar said.

“Wish it was that. You remember those protective bras people used to put on cars? Like, back in the late eighties?”

“Not with any great particularity, no.”

“Well, then you lucked out. But tonight, I saw fit to actually make a front grille need one. With my nuts.”

The Bastard was still making wincing noises of consolation as they entered the second-story sitting room. There was a bar cart off to one side, and Butch went right over to the liquor. No Lag in the truncated lineup of bottles, but he was thought up enough to settle for bourbon. After he poured himself some I.W. Harper over ice, he motioned the diamond-cut bottle toward the other male.