Kirk resists us with all the verve of a side of beef; we get him up into a chair and restrained in seconds, his only reaction little pinprick winces when the duct tape hits his wrists.

"You're assaulting an officer," he growls, eyebrows jockeying for position on his forehead. "I could—you're in so much trouble—"

"Except you won't tell anybody," Paul replies. He nods toward a blank spot on the big man's shoulder. "Didn't bring your radio."

I shake my head at him. "Worried we'd hear you coming? Or maybe worried you might hit the Send button at the wrong time."

Something like worry ripples over the officer's face. "It's not—that's not—"

"Of course it's not," I reply, mock-soothing. "You were here to arrest us, right? Official investigation, and we could be dangerous." I hold up the gun as Exhibit A. "Except that we have eyewitnesses stating that we were victims of a crime in one case and exonerated heroes in another, which means that you are here for some ulterior and most likely highly illegal reason involving the planting of bullets in our vital organs." My innards slosh with antifreeze as I finish that thought; I shake it off, fly back to that big evil smile. "So, Kirk"—I gesture widely with the pistol—"I have to ask: why are you here?"

He looks at me, at Paul, at me, eyes wilder with every switch. This is in no way the kind of thing he was prepared for. I give him a couple abortive seconds to make his case, but he's not delivering.

"Okay," I sigh. "Let me phrase this differently: what do you think you know about us?"

Kirk's eyes spin in their orbits, mouth worming like it can't find the alphabet; I cluck my impatience and look over at Kelly and Paul.

"See those two?" I jerk at thumb at the demons. "They, and I hesitate to explain how, are very, very good at extracting information." I lean in close. "If you don't tell us yourself, nobody will even hear you scream when they do it."

However much he knows, it's enough that what I say sends him over the edge into terror. His face grays around the edges; his pupils are big enough to drive a train through. He shakes his head again and again in denial, an upset sloughing rapidly toward breakdown. But he still doesn't want to talk.

"Oh, fine." I clap my hand down on his wrist.

It's Mr. Clean for a couple of seconds, the leering mask and the whiff of lemony nostalgia; then I fish the shredded detergent label out of Kirk's chest pocket and things get much tighter and hotter, another cascade of images from another chaotic mind. I've got disappointments and tears in dark rooms, routines that he thinks shouldn't be routines—pull gun, bark order, cuffs onto struggling wrists. I've got thoughts of a taller, brighter world, some four-color dream that wraps itself around the nasty little core of existence, the whisper again and again that "this isn't what it's supposed to be". I see Kirk in his own mind's eye, brown trenchcoat and blonde hair, scratching well-cultivated stubble as he talks to monsters in natty suits. It all melts into a slurry of paperwork.

Then I've got a surge of hope; the words "special mission"; a secret meeting in autumn-crisp woods. I feel the memory thick and vivid as Kirk receives the order to come after us, delivered by a gaunt woman with aging skin and blonde hair.

He jerks; I come away from him with a rushed snap of reality. I step back and look a transfixed Kirk straight in the eye.

"Anna Doring," I say under my breath.

Kirk's red before I even ask a question.

"She made me a deal!" he shrieks; I almost clamp my hand over his mouth. "She told me I would work for them, told me I would—she told me I would have a job!"

My own memories flash back at me, bars and things I'd rather unsee, and I want to slap this guy until the naïve comes out. But I need to not have a cop break down in my hotel room.

"She made you a deal," I repeat.

He nods, rubbery, like a child caught cheating at algebra. "You were—I was told you were a threat, I was supposed to—"

"Kill us," Kelly grates.

Kirk's eyes bulge. "You were supposed to resist arrest, I mean, that was what I was supposed to say—"

"And what were you arresting us for? Again with the eyewitnesses?"

Kirk swallows. "We found a dead man yesterday." He says it like he's remembering 'Nam. "Murder scene. Anonymous tip."

My calm takes a coffee break.

"And we..." His head twitches to one side. "We didn't find any evidence, but I was supposed to—she told me she knew it was you, she told me she would provide evidence—"

"She'd frame us, you could blame us for the murder, and you could shoot us when we 'didn't come quietly'." I let the bite come out on that phrase.

Paul snorts. "I'd a opened this guy like a can of tuna."

"McCartney," Kelly snips.

Arabella brushes up next to me, hand seeking mine. "But why were you helping her?" Arabella asks; her thoughts tell me she's hunting the same game as me. "What possible reason do you have for risking something like that? A job?"

Kirk's jaw clenches. He looks at Arabella, then back at me; and with a glance at my fingers, decides to just spill the beans before I take them.

"A real job," he grinds. "Not this—not this paperwork hero stuff. Not this boring bullshit. Not this minutiae and these technicalities: she promised me I'd be a real hero." His voice twists up into a squeak. "She promised me I'd be a—an investigator of the weird." His eyes are slits. "A crusader against the darkness. A—"

"A peacekeeper."

Kirk looks at me, eyes screwed up as he wonders how I got to that word. "Yes," he almost-whispers. "That's it. Yeah."

"Peacekeeper," I maunder as I turn away from him. "What did she tell you that meant, Kirk?"

He appears to be done resisting. "That I'd hunt monsters." His words are feverish. "That I would be a policeman for the wizards and the psychics and the cultists. That I'd meet demons." He's almost pleading. "I'd be like John Constantine."

"Got it." That explains the thoughts about the trench-coat. I set the gun on the bed, tap Arabella on the shoulder. "Start letting him go."

Kirk boggles at Arabella undoing his restraints. I take the time to try on a nasty grin.

"We are going to let you go, Kirk. And you are going to never, ever talk to anyone about this again. Not Anna Doring, not her friends, not your friends. There are no magicians, no monsters, no nothing like that; and the things you call by those names would not be happy to find out you think otherwise. Understand?"

His mouth flaps while he finds the words. His eyes keep going back to the gun.

"Understand?"

His soul crumples. "I understand."

"Good." I pick the gun up, fumble until I find how to drop the clip. "Then I won't file a complaint with the police."

He hefts up out of the seat, watching me as I juggle the bullets free of his gun. I even manage to take out the one in the chamber. Kirk walks in a daze toward the door, almost forgets to grab back his pistol; I hand it to him with the bullets in my opposite hand and tell him to have a very good day. I'm snickering as I slam the door in his face.

"Told him he could be a peacekeeper," I maunder. "Told him about us. We've got that fucker." My whole body's shaking. "We've got that fucker right where we want him."

We head out in the Impala the same night, baseball cards in all four windshields and Coke cans lining the dash. I feel like a lightning rod dipped in cocaine; my brain's ice after global warming, moving too fast for coherence or patterns. Kelly heads north on Highway One, and it's all I can do not to make her speed up.

"We have to be being played," Arabella says, staring in disquiet out her window. "There's no way Master Gary is that stupid."

I just shrug at her. "Sometimes 'stupid' is in the dictionary right next to 'desperate'."

"Witty," Paul drawls from behind me.

I don't respond to him, but I can't keep the fangs from my voice. "Look, bottom line is, he got a mindblind human mixed up in our world. He's in violation and we're going to take him down." Buildings give way to hillsides alongside us; my feet practice their hero-march in the footwell.

"What's the plan, then?" Paul asks, either just being logical or wanting to kill my party.

I answer right as my phone starts up with "Man of Constant Sorrow"; I never thought I'd find that tune piercing. "We get ourselves properly shielded and prepped up, then we head up there like gangbusters and grab whoever we have to by the balls until they tell us what they're up to." I flip the phone open, put my ear to it. "Hello."

"That sounds dangerously stupid," Arabella replies.

"Did I just hear what I think I did?" Dr. Barg asks over the phone.

I'm all smiles. "Depends what you think you heard."

He's not playing this game. "You're trying to formulate a plan again, aren't you?" I like Barg better when he's not reminding me he's astute.

"'Formulate' is such a broad verb." I switch the phone to my other ear, giving myself time to wince. "What's up, sir?"

There is, as ever, a crisp little rustling of papers. "Information. I made some headway in researching your little friend Foreman."

"Foreman?" The whole car skitters with nerves. "What do you know?"

"Nothing I didn't have to fight for," Barg says with a little bite. "People were reluctant to talk to me about him."

"You understand how much that makes me savor your data."

"Yes," he sniffs. "There isn't much to say, unfortunately: Foreman is a psychic like any other, a little unhinged from close work with our friends the angle men. He was a child counselor before the Big Apology, working as Willits' local equivalent to Caring Tommy, and lately hasn't—"

A jet engine roars through my mind.

"What did you say?"

Dr. Barg hesitates, midway through some sentence I wasn't hearing. "I said...he was one of the way stations for post-emergent psychics. The people in Willits turned them over to him—"

I pinch the bridge of my nose. "How many cities did he do that job in before?"

"Excuse me?"

"How many cities, Dr. Barg?" My ears are ringing; if I'm shouting I don't care. "How many cities did Foreman do that job in?"

"No others that I—"

"Then how well-connected are guys like Caring Tommy?" I insist. "Do they know each other? Support network or something?"

Arabella sits up in the backseat, eyes wide. "Oh shit."

"Reasonably connected." Barg is growling, lost in thought. "Contacts in nearby cities usually swap numbers, make sure people know who to call...can't risk the Inquisition finding—"

"Dr. Barg?"

"What?" There's that imperious tone I know so well.

"I think ordinarily this is where I'd say I love you."

A moment's silence is all I get in the way of bemusement. "I just helped you solve this case, didn't I?"

I clench the phone as I look out into the night. My skin feels like it's made out of lightning. "'Solve' implies it's going to end clean." I close my eyes, sigh. "Thank you, Doc. Gotta go."

He mumbles and hangs up. I'm almost shaking as I turn to look at the rest of the car. Arabella gives me a look that will repeat on me in my dreams.

"And the plan now?" Paul inquires.

"Road 409. Right now." I hunker into the seat. "I'll explain on the way."

We're full of lightning as Kelly turns around.

Foreman's place is foreboding in the dark, the yard one flat shadow and the house just a darker piece of black. We pull in slowly with our headlights off; a dozen quips come to everyone's mind and die just as quick as they came.

The door's still broken, the side room still empty. My throat's full of bile as we head into the house. I come into the living room—no noise, no weird extra signatures—and stop right in front of the staircase, repeatedly thinking I must be stupid as I circle around the thick piece of wood that forms its base.

"You really don't think..." Arabella says, but not because she wants to hear my answer.

I look at her, wondering if there's any way I can shield her, but that requires a greater understanding than I have. Instead I continue my slow circle and bump into a staring Kelly, pointing at a closet set into the side of the staircase, completely concealed from our entry point.

"Feel a little better about not seein' that," Paul says. "Not a lot better, but a little..."

I don't bother reacting; just shove a wool glove on I found in the car and give the doorknob a slow, angry twist. The first thing that hits me is the smell of well-aged sweat.

There's a room inside the massive support pole, just a raw-wood hollow flanked on all sides with soundproofing. There are two beds shoved against the walls, both mattresses soiled yellow and what I hope isn't brown. Blankets are piled up under the bed-frames; a television sits on the far wall; here and there, stark against the soundproofing, are poster of cartoon characters, bright and wrinkled and unmistakably not for adults.

Then come the thoughts not long after: echoes of month after month of children, waking up in darkness, listening to the chatter of adults they cannot see, wondering with heads full of nightmares when they'll get to go to their new home.