The construction site looms against the night sky, a flat expanse of dirt and scattered equipment bordered by the silent hulks of car yards. Gossamer's scooter hums beneath us as we approach, the wind whipping at my face shield.

  "Goss to Lighthouse, we're approaching from the south side," Gossamer murmurs into her comm. "Any movement?"

  "Target is still center-field," Tasha - Lighthouse, I still have to sort of update my mental map here - 's voice crackles in our earpieces. "Standing stationary. He's doodling in a notebook, keeping an eye out. Nobody else here."

  I tap Gossamer's shoulder, and she slows the scooter to a stop about a block from the site perimeter. From here, I can just make out a tall, thin silhouette in the center of the lot, motionless beneath the quarter moon.

  "Flashpoint and Blink are in position," Lighthouse updates. "You're all set."

  "Remember," Gossamer tells me, sliding off the scooter. "If this goes sideways--"

  "Yeah, yeah," I groan. "We call in the cavalry and do things the right way."

  I pull my helmet on fully, taking a deep breath through the chemical filter. I click all the clasps around my face. There's a little mesh filter around my eyes, too - thin enough to see through, maybe enough to do anything about chemicals getting in my eyes? It's probably better than literally nothing.

  "You don't have to do this alone," Gossamer says quietly.

  "He asked for Bloodhound. That's who he gets," I answer.

  I start walking toward the site entrance, conscious of the soft crunch of dirt beneath my boots. As I approach, Shrike doesn't move. He remains perfectly still, watching me come closer with his head slightly tilted. He puts his little palm-sized notebook in his pocket.

  A different, slightly nicer brown suit. Starchier. Red tie, white undershirt, and an actual red armband with an actual red-white-black Iron Cross on it this time, not some quick and dirty mockup. His shoulders have a little more padding. His face looks a little puffy, like he's high on life, or been eating good. He opens both hands and puts them out in front of him palms up, as if to say nothing up my sleeve, Sam. Very functional. Fingerless boxing gloves, as before.

  A metal cabinet rail embedded in the soft dirt. He puts his hands down, wraps around the tip, and yanks it loose before flipping it over in his hand.

  I stop about thirty feet away, close enough to see him clearly but far enough to have reaction time if he attacks.

  "Bloodhound," he says, his voice carrying easily across the empty space. "Right on time."

  "Shrike." I keep my stance loose, ready to move in any direction. "You wanted to meet. I'm here."

  He smiles, revealing teeth a little too perfect. A little too white. Veneers? "I did want to meet. And here you are." His eyes flick to the perimeter. "Tell your ride to leave. This is between you and me."

  I hesitate, then give Gossamer a casual wave-off - not our planned signal, but she'll understand. I hear her scooter engine rev once before fading into the distance.

  "Better," Shrike says, clasping his hands behind his back. "Wouldn't want any bystanders getting hurt."

  "Let's get something straight," I say, taking a single step closer. "You threaten my family, terrorize my city, try to hurt my parents, hold everyone I know and love hostage. Give me a good reason why I shouldn't crush your windpipe right now. I'm not playing games."

  He chuckles, a sound like gravel being crushed. "Game?" he asks, starting to circle around me. I circle back, like two gunslingers. Binary stars at sunset, ready to throw solar flares at each other. "I don't do games. Distractions for lesser people. I invited you out here because I'm going to crucify you and leave you here to bleed out like I'm koshering a fat cow. The media will find you, and it will be the first lesson for a new society."

  "I don't think you'd talk such big game if you've ever been kicked by a cow before," is my automatic response. "I'd really love to see you try. Fifteen years in the slammer and all you've got to show for it is uglier and stupider. What happened to medical school, man? I gotta know what makes someone like you think society would be better served with plus one serial killer versus plus one surgeon."

  He continues his slow circuit, one hand trailing at his side now, the other hefting the cabinet rail over his shoulder like a baseball bat. "What, are you digging for some sort of Freudian excuse you can use to pity me? Dream on. There's nothing wrong with me. My mental competency has been thoroughly evaluated. You and I - and the rest of the scum - just have incompatible philosophies."

  "Is that what they taught you in art school before you flunked out? Philosophy?"

  His face twitches. A hit. "They don't teach philosophy in art school, you charlatan. No, I learned that all by myself. That there are leaders, and there are followers. There are abusers, and there are enablers. Winners and losers."

  As he speaks, I notice something strange happening to the ground near his trailing hand. Tiny black spikes, no bigger than pencil tips, sprouting and retracting in his wake like bizarre flowers following the sun. "You call going to prison and coming out more racist 'winning'?"

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  "Silly Bloodhound. What good has your anti-racism gotten you and the rest of society? It looks to me like everything is worse here than when I went in. Crime is worse. More murders. More social unrest. Liberal multiculturalism has had its time in the sun, and look at how well it's doing. The church is full of more pedophiles by the day, abusing their unearned power for homosexual gratification. Have you seen Kensington lately? The blacker it gets, the more murders, the more drugs. Your world order has failed. Time for something new," he lectures, stopping for just a moment to finish talking.

  I take another step closer. I... don't know enough to debate him. I didn't come here to talk politics, I came here to wipe that smug, drooling grin off of his face. "You've got it backwards. I don't blame you, though, given your lack of quality education. People like you want power, and they get power, and then they make the world worse, while all us peons are trying our best to unfuck it. You ever look into how many kids your dad put into juvie for minor crimes? You think they come out of prison better people, ready to make their neighborhood a friendlier place?"

  His face distorts like a screen tear wiping through his VHS tape. A shot in the dark, but I hit him somewhere real. Frankly, I was just guessing. "Don't talk like you know anything. What you're experiencing isn't principles, it's a disgust response, like how children are afraid of cooties but adults know you need to reproduce to keep your race going. You're a child. I don't expect you to understand. I expect you to take your medicine. I just peel the skin off and show you the twitching musculature underneath."

  "Speaking of reproduction," I say, watching those micro-spikes carefully, "how are those spike embryos working out? Still got our house booby-trapped? Or was that just one more spoonful of bullshit?"

  He stops circling, and his smile widens. "You figured it out." He sounds almost proud.

  "You lied," I say, as if shocked.

  He laughs. "I won't hold it against you. It's in your nature - the lesser sex, the lesser species. You can't help your limitations. That's why I'm about to kill you and all your friends--" he points to one of Lighthouse's drones overhead with the cabinet rail "--are just going to watch."

  "Species?" I shake my head. "Now you're making it sound like you're not human."

  "I'm quite human, thank you," he hisses, his cheeks pulling back.

  "Are we gonna do this, or are you going to just lecture me all night?" I ask, slowly starting to circle closer.

  "Ladies first," he replies, squatting down, digging both palms into the dirt.

  What happens next happens so fast I barely have time to process it. He grunts, palms buried, and the dirt tears upward in a ripping rush - first a ring of spikes around his hands, then more erupting outward in a fast cascade. The air whistles as needles shear it.

  "Jesus," I hear Maggie gasp through the comm.

  I leap backward as spikes burst from the ground from somewhere beneath my feet, barely avoiding impalement. The transformation is complete in seconds - the flat, open space now a deadly maze of gleaming black metal.

  Shrike stands at the center, arms raised like a conductor before an orchestra, pushing himself back up to standing with the rail. "What do you think of my canvas?" he calls, voice carrying over the forest of spikes. "I've been saving this performance for someone special."

  I duck behind one of the taller spikes, scanning for a path through the maze. The spikes are densely packed in some areas, more scattered in others, creating narrow corridors that all seem to lead toward Shrike at the center.

  "Lighthouse, what am I looking at?" I whisper into my comm.

  "He's funneling you into a kill-box. You can either try your luck at the spikes or follow the yellow brick road. No good options," Lighthouse answers, and I can hear the sweat dripping down her forehead. "Sam, I really--"

  "No," I cut her off.

  "People are noticing," Lily's voice adds. "I can see cars stopping on the expressway. Phone cameras."

  Great. An audience. Just what we needed.

  "I'm moving," I whisper into the comm. "Keep eyes on him."

  "Multiple people gathering at the perimeter," Tasha warns. "Can't tell if they're with him or just rubberneckers."

  I ignore that complication for now, focusing on my immediate problem. The spike field.

  "What's the matter, mongrel?" Shrike calls out. "Scared of a few little pricks?"

  I dart between two tall spikes, keeping low. The moment I move, three new spikes erupt from the ground where I would have stepped next. He's anticipating my path, trying to force me into predictable movements.

  "Your aim's as bad as your ideology," I call back, changing direction suddenly.

  Shrike laughs, disappearing behind a cluster of spikes. His voice is bouncing off the spikes, ringing like a bell. "Just herding piggies."

  I crouch, trying to get a fix on his location. The spikes aren't just obstacles; they're creating blind spots, breaking line of sight. I can't tell where he is anymore, not without cutting him or tagging him.

  "Bloodhound, he's circling around to your left," Lighthouse warns in my ear.

  I spin just as Shrike lunges from between two spikes, cabinet rail swinging for my head. I duck, feeling the wind of it passing inches above my helmet. Before I can counter, he's gone again, vanishing behind another wall of metal thorns.

  "Too slow," his voice taunts from somewhere to my right. A spike erupts next to my foot, forcing me to jump back.

  I see a glint of something in the air - what? A duct taped can of travel-size Raid? What sort of-- I bat it out of the air, clenching my fists hard enough that my teeth pop out in record time. It clatters harmlessly into the forest, hissing and shrieking somewhere to the side. Dude loves his cheap tricks.

  "What's wrong, Bloodhound? Getting tired already?" Shrike's voice shifts position again. "Belle would be so disappointed."

  I tune out his words, focusing instead on the subtle sounds of movement - boots on dirt, fabric brushing against metal. There - behind that cluster to my three o'clock.

  No spike, just cabinet rail. He's holding it awkwardly, one hand choked up all the way, the other on the back, and his two-handed swing twists downward sooner than I thought it was going to go. I take one step back, and it hits the muzzle of my helmet, whipping my neck down but not doing any real damage. I take two steps back, and from behind a cloud of black particles, he jabs forward like a fencer, trying to catch me in the stomach. The blunt end of the cabinet rail meets kevlar, and I get him out of my face with a suppressing right hook not aimed to hit.

  It's like two wasps battling over a poppy. Jab, jab, jab, and when I swing back, a wall of intermeshed spikes comes up to block me, rattling my knuckles. Then, they zip back into themselves, to reveal a cabinet rail mid-swing, aimed right for my head.

  What, you think I'm going to duck?

  I clench my jaw and step in, hips set. His swing bounces off of me like he's slamming into a brick wall. I can only enjoy his shock for a moment, because fights like this end in the space of heartbeats, but I can tell the recoil jars his wrist and channels right into his shoulder.

  My turn.

  Shrike is no Multiplex. He's not even a Rush Order. I would be surprised if trained boxers gave him any good pointers in prison. No, they probably just beat his ass, like I'm about to do. My wrist snaps forward like a whip and I can barely feel the contact, knocking his jaw backwards. Boom. There's my opening - his face ripped open by teeth-knuckles, nose bloodied, his entire vascular system singing to me. My second punch hits solid metal spike, and the reverb jostles my elbow and breaks my teeth.

  Don't retreat, reload!

  Shrike grins, blood staining his teeth pink.