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  Nemesis does not wait for the killer to catch his breath. She kicks his side with my boot, and I hear ribs shatter beneath the force. His breath catches, and he chokes as he tries to cry out. I feel Nemesis’ remorse that She won’t hear his screams.

  I’m emotionless in my dreams when I see Her enact vengeance. My hand, sparkly blue nail polish and the scar on my right ring finger from a childhood accident, disappears inside the killer’s torso. Organs move and squelch in my fingertips, and Nemesis finds his intestines. She peels them out.

  I should be horrified. I want to be horrified.

  I cannot close my eyes. I cannot unsee what She does next. Upon waking, I cannot forget that though She appears to care for me, the vengeance dwelling inside my goddess is vicious.

  Pain for pain.

  Death for death.

  4

  PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Some mistakenly believe PTSD is a thing common only to soldiers who have survived war zones. But it’s a psychological disease that can strike anyone who has survived a trauma — a wife who finds her husband after he committed suicide, a cop who shot and killed a man in self-defense, the victim of a hate crime.

  A girl who played conduit to a vengeance goddess.

  I was the only assassin who recalled the take-overs in dreams. Even Nem didn’t know why it happened.

  Lying beneath cartoon covers in my childhood bed, I lifted my palm and gazed at the healing gash on my hand. Cut on a serial killer’s broken ribcage.

  I could have lived without knowing that.

  The drive from Lebanon Junction to Savannah was long, but mostly uneventful.

  Despite the easy-peasy drift down the interstate, I found myself with a flat tire in some middle-of-nowhere place fifty miles from my destination. I suppose sharing a blood bond with an immortal being didn’t keep me from the negative aspects of human existence, but seriously — couldn’t I get some better employment perks? Immunity from bad luck, perhaps?

  “Although,” I grumbled to my dashboard as cars whipped past me, “it sure as shit keeps me from the positive aspects of human experience.” Love, family, home. A life free of vice.

  I honest-to-Nemesis tried to never call my aide. He pushed my buttons, and not in the sexy way. But he was my contact when I needed intervention, so I had to suck it up and dial the number.

  Cell service was sketchy out in the boonies, but I wandered around in the overgrown grass beside the interstate with my phone above my head for several minutes and managed to catch a bar. I only tripped twice.

  Ewan picked up on the first ring. “Yo.”

  “It’s Saffron. I’m on detail, and I’ve got a flat.” I stayed perfectly still in a bush of ripe blackberries, tempted to munch on them. It was easy to imagine the hot, tart juices breaking open in my mouth, but I wasn’t the foremost expert on which wild berries were safe and which would put me on an IV drip in an emergency ward. A couple of cars swooshed past me on the road, blowing my ponytail in my face.

  “You’re the biggest disaster I’ve ever met,” Ewan told me, popping his gum across the line. I heard him typing fast in the background, the click-clacking tinny through the ear piece. I knew his radar was zeroing in on the blip of my GPS.

  “You’ve never met me,” I shot back grumpily, because he was right. Bad luck followed me like an odor. It all started with a curse from a madwoman, by the river where I was born. I usually left that tale up to Mom and Dad, because it was funnier that way. I was born during the storm that destroyed Town Hall and the Lutheran Church in one fell swoop. My mother went into labor on the banks of Miller’s Creek, a trickle of water that during heavy thunderstorms became more river than creek, swelling its banks like a class-four rapids. The rest of the story consists of traveling circus gypsies, an irate Dad, and a life-long curse.

  It had nothing to do with my current employment at Vengeance Inc., but there was a novel in there somewhere; I figured it was something to fall back on if Nemesis ever retired me. You know, barring death.

  “Do you remember Buffalo?” Ewan asked, jolting me from my reverie.

  “Remember? It was last week!”

  “How did you get your car stuck in the ditch again?”

  “Shut up and get me help,” I grumped.

  “You know, if you were capable of changing out a tire, you could just use your spare and move along.”

  “In the time it’s taken you to make fun of me, a tow truck could have been here.”

  Ewan had been my point of contact for only two months, and already he’d driven me batty. I missed my thorough, monotone Julie, who’d retired after thirty years manning the phones for my area. But, to be totally honest, I kinda enjoyed our bantering.

  There were four of us covering the States and working under Nemesis, each with our own little corners of vengeance and our own personal assistant, like Ewan. Caraway had the Northeast, Anise the Northwest, and my best friend, Frank, covered the Southwest. But we were only one country; that didn’t count the operatives working out of all the other countries of the world, for other vengeance gods besides Nemesis. There were the goddesses Adrestia, Erinyes, Invidia, and Poena, not to mention the gods Petbe and Vejovis. These deities all did the same thing — doled out punishment on the damned, sending us lowly, mortal operatives to mete it out. Sad that we lived in a world with too much evil for the gods to fix alone.

  I’d never met any of the other gods or goddesses, but I bandied around with my world-wide coworkers every January at the annual conference.

  Ewan came back on. “There’s a truck about twenty minutes away. Stay with the car. Can’t be too careful with those crazy Southerners.”

  I had a “terrifying” flash of fried chicken and Southern hospitality, and shuddered in ecstasy. The man was off his rocker. My mouth started watering, and I vowed to hit the nearest KFC as soon as the Chevy was running again. “You do realize I’m a crazy Southerner, right?”

  “Can’t miss it, hotcakes. It’s in your twang.”

  I made a face at the phone. “Thanks. You’re a gem.”

  “When are you going to ask me out?” Ewan quipped.

  I hung up on him.

  If anything, the employees of Vengeance Inc. were prompt. Eddie Mitchell sidled up in his wrecker not fifteen minutes after I shoved my phone in my pocket, pulling in behind my car with the ease of a man who’d driven trucks his entire life. The metal of my trunk was hot under my butt where I leaned against it. I watched him clamber down from the cab and hike his oversized blue jeans over his prominent belly.

  Eddie ran his own tow company, and made pretty good money at it. He was simply a contractor, on standby in case Vengeance Inc. ever needed him. Nemesis had built a pretty impressive network of contractors over the past fifty years. Some of them could go a couple years without ever hearing from us, but at least we knew they were there.

  “Saffron! Been a while since you come around these parts, sweets,” he greeted me with a hug. As sweaty as he was, he smelled good, like expensive cologne. The good ol’ boy look of ball cap and stained white t-shirt was just a costume, I knew. I’d met him several times before. He and his wife owned a significant amount of land and a Georgian mansion up in the northern part of the state. Like I said — tow trucking paid him well.

  “Hey, Eddie. Just a flat.” I motioned to my rusty little go-getter. “I must have rolled over a nail or something.”

  We made small talk while he worked, about his kids and his wife. The man was quick, having flipped tires like burgers for years, and within ten minutes, I was back on the road with a brand new wheel.

  Damn, but it was good to have friends in high places. Or a boss on Olympus. Whatever.

  5

  It felt ridiculous sometimes, how easy it was to find the people on whom Nemesis unleashed little ol’ me. It seemed like every average Joe Murderer was conveniently found on Google/Facebook/Pinterest, and a little bit of detective work could locate them. I guess being a killer wasn’t a paranoid business. It mad
e divine hits on soul-stained humans seem rather normal in comparison.

  I had high hopes Amy and Andy McClore would be no different.

  I was determined to get in and out of Savannah; my mind stuck on Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Fried chicken and hospitality aside, Georgia gave me the willies. Savannah in particular, with its colorful history and haunted streets. Ghosts gave me the willies, especially since I knew they were real.

  Plus, come on. I was anxious to get back to Kentucky in time for Sunday dinner.

  I hadn’t eaten since I’d left my parents’ house, so I picked a local dive restaurant and pulled into the lot, then killed the engine. Still, I didn’t immediately get out of the car.

  Sad, wasn’t it? I’d only been Nem’s runner for three years, and already this life was weighing on me. I was constantly on the move, so what good was owning my own place? So I slept on ten year old Harry Potter sheets every other week. I subsisted on a standard diet of processed lard, caffeine, and alcohol, and I hadn’t had a real boyfriend since… ever.

  I didn’t want to be ungracious. Nemesis took care of me. She gave me an opportunity I wouldn’t have had to begin with.

  She cured me of cancer when She called me to Her service.

  Yeah. I was indebted. All the Vengeance Inc. girls were. Nem didn’t choose just anybody, and She liked to dangle that fact over our heads when it suited Her purposes.

  With a sigh, I shoved open my car door and went to alleviate my low blood sugar.

  I slid onto a cracked red vinyl bench and pulled the overly-large laminated menu towards me. Bright, happy red letters declared, “WE SERVE BREAKFAST ALL DAY!” My mouth watered, and I fought not to squeal with joy. Bacon and eggs over-easy could make up for the last irritating twenty-four hours.

  While I waited for a server, I unlocked my smartphone and ran a Google search on Amy and Andy McClore. I found pay dirt on a “production company” page — Movies McClore. Obviously a dummy for something else, because the contact information consisted solely of an email address, and the client list was empty. A sweet little blonde girl in a tutu smiled from the corner of the web page.

  I gritted my teeth. These two were going to die scared.

  The White Pages online listed Amy and Andy McClore between Amelia J. and Andrew M., but I hit a snag — no address or phone number. What damn good was a phone book? What damn good was Google? Was I supposed to use my Jedi mind powers to magically pull their details out of my ass?

  The waitress who stopped at my table, pen and pad in hand, was shaped like an hourglass and had a vivid white smile. Shaking back her curly brown hair, she drawled, “I’m Sue Ellen. What you havin’, honey?”

  “Coffee, please,” I told her, slipping my menu back against the wall behind the pepper. “And the breakfast special. Eggs over-easy. And bacon.”

  “How many eggs, honey?”

  I was famished. All those burned calories in that little motel room, then the energy it took just to be in the same room with my parents. “Three. And biscuits, you got biscuits?”

  “Sure thing, darlin’.” She smiled once more and left, ripping my order from her yellow pad as she yelled through the open window into the kitchen.

  I turned my attention to the growing darkness outside the window, ignoring the low murmur of conversation from the few occupied tables. My car looked shiny and new next to the battered pickups and ancient Buicks littering the small parking lot. That was saying something, seeing as I was missing a back bumper (don’t ask), and the passenger side of my car looked like it had gotten into an argument with an elk.

  There was a lot of foot traffic in the lot: teens walking in groups, a couple strolling with their infant, and the dark silhouette of a man having a cigarette next to a black SUV.

  I started. It felt like he was staring at me.

  I couldn’t see his face, just the glow of his cigarette. He leaned against the SUV, his shadow seemingly facing my way.

  Maybe working for Nemesis had made me paranoid, but wasn’t there a guy in the same kind of black SUV smoking a cigarette back in Chicago?

  Sue Ellen came back with a steaming mug of black coffee and set down a handful of packaged creamer next to it. “You okay for now, sugar?”

  I was tempted to count how many pet names she could come up with during the course of our social interaction, but I refrained. “I’m great. Thanks.”

  While I waited on my late-night dinner, I grabbed a section of newspaper off the empty table next to me and perused it. I didn’t really expect to find something perfectly placed to clue me into the McClores’ whereabouts, but you just never know.

  Of course, nobody had taken out an ad along the lines of “SERIAL KILLERS LIVE HERE,” but on the back page, an article headline read “GLORY INSTITUTE TO BE REFURBISHED; HOTEL TO COME.”

  I’d heard of the place. Four stories on a sprawling seven acres of land, said to be one of the most haunted places on earth. My favorite ghost hunting show had covered the institute numerous times over the years. Anyone in the South knew of it. People had died there: before and after it closed.

  Sue Ellen brought the coffee pot to my table. “Order’s in, sugar. Shouldn’t be but a minute. Need a refill?”

  “Please. Is this big news?” I asked her, pointing to the article.

  She tilted the pot over my mug. “Oh, yeah, honey. You know of the place?”

  I nodded, closing the paper. “We have a similar place back home getting the same kind of facelift.”

  Sue Ellen put a hand on her jutted hip, coffee pot dangling from her fingers. “Blows my mind, it does. Why anyone would wanna sleep there! Took the new owners three years just to get the permits approved. Word is construction’s gonna start come September.” She shivered. “That ol’ place gives me the heebie-jeebies. You want some extra biscuits while you wait, sugar?”

  My mouth watered. “Yes, please!”

  After Sue Ellen walked away, I glanced around. The diner was empty but for the staff cuttin’ up behind the counter, so I unlocked my phone and dialed Ewan. “I’m ready to be briefed.”

  “Are you now?” The tone in his voice made it obvious his “briefing” wasn’t what I had in mind. The real problem with Ewan lie more in the fact his voice was like hot molasses on pancakes, and a niggling part of me found that appealing.

  “Shut it, dude. Give me info.” I ripped open a packet of sweetener and let the manufactured white powder drift down into the mug. Nemesis’s missions would probably kill me quicker than bad food, anyway.

  “Let me pull up the file.” I heard his fingers on the keyboard, moving a heck of a lot quicker than mine could. “Good timing. I just finished putting it together.”

  Ewan’s sole purpose with Vengeance Inc. was to be my assistant. He gathered any intelligence available on the internet and parroted it to me. He answered my calls, dug into things for me when I didn’t have the time to do it myself, and basically just served my needs while on missions. It was nice. Everybody should have an assistant. Just not Ewan and his off-color come-ons.

  “There’s not much on them, so I’m guessing they’re really good at hiding or keeping to themselves. Moved to Savannah two years ago. Thirteen kids missing over two years. The police think it’s a whacko sex predator, but we know better, thanks to Demeter.”

  “You ever met Her?” I asked, smiling at Sue Ellen as she set my plate in front of me.

  “Nah. Demeter’s scary.”

  I laughed. “And Nemesis isn’t?”

  “Aw, She’s just a big teddy bear, Saff.”

  “Are there bodies?” I asked, ignoring my mental picture of a Nemesis-shaped teddy bear, complete with a little plastic Hubris on its hip.

  “No. No bodies. Poor kids.”

  I was touched by the tone in his voice. Seemed like Ewan was as bothered by this case as I was. That alone made me consider my original opinion of him in a different light. Maybe he wasn’t such a horny jerk after all.

  Ewan went on. “They run a pr
oduction company—”

  “Yeah, saw the site on my phone. It’s a front for something.”

  “Obviously. If you can hit Savannah PD, we can pull their driver’s licenses from NCIC. Find any of their legal aliases. Track ’em down.”

  “Can do, partner.” NCIC — the National Criminal Information Center. An indispensable database used by the cops.

  “I’m working on gathering info on the kids. You want it when I’m done?”

  I winced. Did I want to see their faces and read their names? No. Should I? Absolutely. Anything to help me finish the job. “Yeah. Send them over.”

  “Hey,” he said, his voice going low and serious. “Good luck. Let’s kick some ass.”

  I set my phone on the table, stirring in another creamer as I closed my eyes, his “good luck” staying with me. We’d talked several times in the past month about serial killers, rapists, and hardcore criminals, but the severity in his tone was different this time. Could he be as invested in this case as I was? The very idea of children being abused or exploited by adults — grown men and women who should at the very core want to protect them — made my stomach turn. The steam from my coffee warmed and wetted my hands.

  The McClores had no idea what hell was about to rain down upon them.

  6

  We’re taught a lot at Vengeance Inc.: how to seduce our way into situations, how to pick locks, how to properly hold a gun, and how to disguise ourselves. We had to be able to get into places and situations an average person couldn’t.

  The building housing Savannah’s local PD operated twenty-four hours a day, which would be an issue for a normal person looking to break in. For a conduit of Nemesis, it was damn near child’s play. All I needed was a cape.

  “Nem-uhhhh-sis,” I said in a sing-song voice, lurking beside my car down the street from the brightly lit station. “A little invisibility can do a girl wonders… ”