Also known as chapter the last. I’m torn about this chapter, its so very obviously thrown together to grab and finish as many threads as possible, and it tries to do in one chapter what probably would have taken at least five. On the other hand, mad props for actually doing it, bringing this project to some sort of finish.

CHAPTER NINE
LOOSE ENDS

Johnny Dancer circled the block outside his apartment for about the thirty-third time. He and Billy had been ducking and covering quite successfully at a motel across town; it was the closest thing to a vacation the big man had ever experienced. Last night, however, the front desk had a message for him. It was a phone number and a name: Lenora.
The man on the other end of that number had a strange tale to tell, one of blood and death and magick. If Johnny hadn’t already known better, he’d have thought the man was insane. Instead, he found himself checking out and heading straight back into the lion’s den. Anything for Lenora.
He pulled his yellow Dodge Caravan into an alley around the block and wrestled it into park. He thrust a box of Cherrios into Billy’s lap. “You stay right here, Billy. Understand? Stay right here. I’ll be right back. Don’t get out of the car, okay?” The big man just nodded his head around a fistful of cereal. “Okay.”
Johnny had never honed his sneaking and lurking skills; he just naturally gave off this Creepy Uncle vibe that made people try hard not to notice him. Slinking down the alley, he felt like a mouse scampering back home just before dawn. *This is a bad, bad idea.* The thought ran through his head in a continuous loop. He needed that address book, though. No way around it. *Hell, it worked for Bruce Willis… kinda.*
A fire escape wound its way up the back wall of his apartment building, looking more like a creeping vine than a venerable institution of public safety. Its rusted bolts and hinges made an irritating amount of noise as he climbed, but Johnny managed to reach his bedroom window with relative ease. He slid inside, gave his eyes a few seconds to adjust, and took in the ambient sounds of the tenement. The unemployed couple upstairs was going at it again (they had a taste for copulating right after lunch) and that damn terrier next door was yipping itself hoarse again, but the apartment itself sounded like a tomb.
Satisfied, he stole into the living room and kicked at one of the baseboards, popping it off the wall. Johnny reached inside and pulled out the proverbial “little black book.” Between its battered covers lay the names and numbers of every black market contact the real Johnny Dancer had accumulated over the years. He brushed off the dust and cobwebs, gave the book a kiss, and was back in the alley in a blink.
Billy was still in the van, right where he’d left him. Johnny threw open the driver’s side door, “Hey Billy, mission accompl…” The big man shook like a paint mixer, which caused blood to pool on the hatchet blade pressed against his throat. Its plastic handle, the sort you’d find in Walmart’s camping section, led to the calloused, meaty fist of a man Johnny had hoped never to see again.
“This is really no way to run a business, Mr. Johnny Dancer.” Andrew Miller shifting his grip on the axe. “I called first, but I guess you and your friend were out on the town.” He cast a glance towards Billy, whose own eyes were staring down at the hatchet at a cartoonish angle. “I’m sure he’s quite the party animal. Now that I’ve found your new, mobile service, how about letting me see the inventory?”
Johnny tried to fake nonchalance. Fear is the last thing you want a hostage-taker to see. “Hey, I don’t keep anything in the car, pal. I deal by appointment only.”
The Sleeper pulled his hatchet back just a fraction of an inch, enough to send a trickle of blood down the front of Billy’s shirt. “I hope that’s not true, Johnny Dancer, because I really need a gun, and I need it today.”
“Fuck it. I might have something packed away. Just a fucking second…” Johnny leaned over the driver’s seat and began rummaging through the luggage behind it.
“I never forget a name, Johnny Dancer, and I know I’d never heard yours before last week. Neither do I forget a face, though, and yours rings a very old bell.”
Johnny felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“I’m sure you do, but this is different. I have a talent for this sort of thing.” Johnny dragged a suitcase onto the driver’s seat, turned the combination locks to 3-3-3, and snapped it open. “Have you ever been to Chicago, Johnny Dancer?”
Johnny reached beneath his pile of boxer shorts, pulled out a brown, leather belt, and tossed it onto Billy’s lap. The big man jerked away, cutting a crimson gash across his neck. He bashed the door open with enough force to put the Sleeper’s head through the glass and knock him to the ground. The hatchet clattered to the floor next to the belt.
Johnny leapt into the van; Billy leapt out. He turned the ignition as Billy monkey stomped the hatchetman into sweet oblivion. The engine sputtered to life, Johnny pulled Billy back into the van, and they lurched out into traffic. The clock read 2:09.
Billy was already calming down; the belt and hatchet were safely concealed beneath a heap of soiled undergarments. “You’ll be okay, Billy. It’s not bad. We have to stop at a hospital, anyway. Think you can hang on until Pittsburg?” The big man nodded wearily.
Maybe it was just the adrenaline, but Johnny couldn’t help smiling. *Zed’s dead, baby.*

* * *
The demon had almost given up on Brian Novak by the time the shit started to hit the fan. He’d watched the psychopath torture that boy for what seemed like years, breaking his spirit like he was a recalcitrant draft animal. Dee had wanted to rescue him, but the demon felt certain that Novak was the path to their revenge, not the boy.
Where Novak went, so went the demon. Mostly, that meant his dingy, terminally boring video shop or the torture farm, as Dee called it. Even by demonic standards, he was one twisted, little fuck. What significance he could have to an occult war being waged hundreds of miles away boggled the mind, but the demon was certain. Novak had something he could use.
Then, Dee phoned him. The kid might be dead. The junkie went nuts, dashed his skull, and drove off into the night. She’d lost them after that. C’est la vie. The child was better off dead, anyway, and this only proved the demon right. Novak held the key.
By the time Dee joined him at the video shop, the demon was making plans to storm the place and beat Novak’s secrets out of him with a tire iron. While watching some evidently pleasing video footage (as if he watched anything else), Novak got a phone call that turned all that smug satisfaction into laser-guided rage. He stormed out and drove towards the city. When he returned, he had the woman in tow. Gripping her hair with bloody fists, he dragged her savagely into the shop’s cellar.
It took Dee a minute to get her mumbo jumbo up and running, then they invaded Novak’s sanctum sanctorum. The demon heard echos of their thoughts, channeled to him by Dee, and… something else. Something that drew him…
Novak was ranting. Something about not taking the rap for her coke-sponsored killing spree. “You can’t sell me out, asshole!” Nan spat the words around a black, swollen lip. “I’ll take you with me! I’ll tell them everything!”
“Not after I torch your corpse, Nan. I have evidence to plant. I hope you use these last few minutes of your life to reflect on the personal failings that have led you here.” Novak turned and walked back up the stairs, studiously ignoring Nan’s screams.
But the demon’s attention could not follow. It was pulled back to the racks of bootleg films and tapes that lived Novak’s cellar walls. Pulled by strings of desire towards a camcorder tape that hummed with synchronicity. Pulled by the seed of Daphnee Lee’s demise.

* * *
By the time Lenora and Francine had returned to civilization, there was a message waiting on the latter’s answering machine. They wanted to know if she could come down and identify the body. Her reaction was difficult to gauge; ever since the cabin, her eyes had been as glass. Lenora went with her to the morgue.
Not all morgues look like the ones in the movies: that washed out color palette, the blank tile walls, florescent lights that make the living so closely resemble dead. Not all morgues look like that, but this morgue did. It cast a dreamlike veil over Francine’s walk to the clerk’s desk, smoothed out her staggering gait a bit. Denial can be a panacea.
The clerk looked new. He beamed at them all the way down the hall, as if warmed by the mere presence of other beating hearts. “Francine Kirsch?” he asked. Francine nodded, a reflex response. “Great, we’ve been waiting for you.” The clerk popped out of his chair and motioned for the two women to follow.
He breezed through a set of double doors and into a meadow of white sheets. Tagged toes stuck out from beneath them, stirred just slightly by the air conditioning. The chill robbed Lenora of her breath, but Francine seemed untouched. The contrast between the mother and the clerk hurt Lenora’s eyes.
He pulled one of the sheets away with a flourish fit for Vegas, then snapped into a pose of solemnity so practiced Lenora nearly laughed aloud. “Jeffery.” Francine whispered the name like a supplication. The boy’s head wound had been cleaned; Lenora could clearly see where the back of his head has been punched in. Bits of skull peaked through the pulped flesh and hair.
“His wounds cleaned up nicely,” said the clerk. “With a good mortician, you’ll be able to have an open casket, no problem.” Lenora clucked her tongue at him, channeling The Reproachful Grandmother. He Looked up at her, then around the room, as if surprised to find it lacking students and an instructor. Cheeks flushing, he excused himself and scampered back to his desk.
Francine wept, quietly at first, as if she only distantly remembered how. Lenora wrapped a gentle arm around her shoulders, and the weeping turned to sobbing. They stood there, in a room devoid of time, while Francine anointed the child with her tears. When she ran out of breath, the silence closed in like a shroud.
Lenora heard something outside. Voices. “You don’t understand.” A male voice, urgent. “The Fates aren’t done with that little boy. I must see him right away.” A pause, the scent of magick. “Walk with me.” Lenora patted Francine’s shaking shoulders and went to investigate.
The clerk was doing his best to stand up to a young man in a leg brace and wire-rimmed glasses. Even in his position of bureaucratic power, the clerk was obviously fighting uphill. “Look, guy. I told ya, only family are allowed in that room.”
The man with the cane looked confused, and Lenora saw something familiar in that expression. She channelled a little magick of her own, and a smile spread across her face. “Jack King, is that you?”
“Lenora!” He hobbled towards her on a cane, leaving the deflated clerk behind. “Wonderful to see you. I trust you received my package?”
“I did, and it’s proven indispensable. I had no idea they even made flashlights that small!” She turned with Jack back towards the morgue. “It’s okay, young man, he’s with us.” As the doors swung closed behind them, Lenora lowered her voice. “You were putting the whammy on him?”
“Yeah. I guess I’m a little off my game. Do you still have the sunglasses?”
“I sure do. Been working on a whammy of my own…”
“Actually, we’ve got a plan. We’ll need the sunglasses and the boy.”
“Who’s ‘we?'”
“The good guys,” Jack said with a wink. “I know someone who can help the kid, but we have to get him to Pittsburgh. We know how you can help the Executioner, too, and save your own life in the process.”
Francine turned towards them. Her mascara had followed her tears down her cheeks. “What happened to your leg?”
“Oh, nothing much. I jumped off of a balcony for a friend.” To Lenora, “Are you in?”
The old woman sighed. “Why the hell not?” She slipped a small, green ring onto her little finger. “I’ll go finesse the clerk. You can handle these two?”
Jack just nodded and approached Francine with a grin. “Walk with me.”

* * *
Nan could hear the whir and click of Novak’s video editing machines, even in the cellar. *He’s probably making an annotated documentary on how I kidnapped, tortured, and murdered the kid. Asshole.* Then, she heard something else. A dull thud, a crash, and Novak came hurtling through the cellar door. He landed on his back amidst a shower of wood splinters, his humpty-dumpty head smashing into the cement floor. Blood sprayed outward from the point of impact.
Nan thought she saw her salvation in the arterial Rorschach. A figure appeared at the top of the steps. “Not dead already, I hope!” Nan knew that voice.
“It’s about time!” She spat. “You couldn’t have shown up before I killed the kid?”
“Killed a kid, huh? Well, you finally gotten yourself in some serious shit, then.” Andrew Miller strode down the stairs, a Home Depot claw hammer swinging in his right hand. “Good thing big brother keeps a telephone gimp in the trunk, or I may not have found you at all.”
“I don’t need to hear about your love life, ya impotent dick. Just get me outta here, okay.”
“Hmm… maybe you still need to learn your lesson, Nan. Maybe I need to beat some sense into you again.” He spun the hammer in his hand, then lunged forward and hooked Nan’s swollen cheek with its claw. “Maybe I should let you think about it while I board up this cellar and set the place on…” Andrew Miller’s rising rage vanished, his expression flashed from psychotic to something indescribable. He dropped the hammer, tearing a bloody chunk out of Nan’s mouth.
Roots burst forth from the Sleeper’s feet and shins, dug deep into the cement. His flesh darkened, bulged, and fell off his bones in muddy clumps. Maggots churned inside his organs. He collapsed into Nan’s lap, then fell apart like a mound of loose dirt in a rain storm.
“That’s a nice trick.” The demon entered. “It takes a lot of prep work. I meant it for Novak, but your friend with the escaped prisoner took care of that.” The demon nudged Novak gingerly with his boot, as if trying to avoid stepping in a pile of dog shit.
Novak’s eyes snapped open. He flailed about for a frantic moment, then focused on the claw hammer partially buried by pile of doughy earth and Andrew Miller’s shredded clothes. His gaze wandered up to the demon’s. His brow furrowed, his tongue struggled to interpret the chaos in his battered brain.
“Huh. Still alive.” The demon walked over to the wall of bootleg porn and plucked his prize from the rack. “You can leave, Novak, if you’re able. We’re just playing through.”
Novak lurched to his feet like a marionette. He dashed up the stairs, through the doorway, and straight into the barrel of Dee’s shotgun. A dozen lead spheres tore through his face, transforming the orange of misery and delight into a crimson mist. “That’s for Sam and the kid, you fucking meat sack.” She pumped another round into the chamber. “Got the tape?”
The demon kicked Novak’s corpse to one side. “Yep.” They left.
Nan could hear the police arrive, even in the cellar. She heard them storm the video store, heard them find the tape Novak had been editing. She heard David McAlister plead with them to find the “frickin’ maniac” who had nearly killed him, then kept him in his trunk for the better part of a week. She heard them ask if she was alright, and then call an ambulance to take her away.
But the only thing she saw was her brother’s face, torn apart by maggots, his eyes bursting like pressed grapes.

* * *
In a quiet Pittsburgh suburb, the good guys had assembled. Billy finished playing “Just a Job to Do” on the Knobel Kraft piano, while the Monarch of Ninth Street prepared the boy’s body. Johnny Dancer kept on eye on the prisoner, and Jack King watched Lenora stroll out to her car in the night. “You ready for this, Evans?” he asked.
“Just tell me when you get the signal.” Evans was taking deep breaths. He kept looking up at the ceiling, as if he could peer through it to the orrey upstairs. Quickly, he dug an antique, gold watch out of his pocket and thrust it at Jack. “You’d better take this. I don’t need the temptation.”

* * *
Lenora was in no hurry to reach the car. One way or another, that car was going to change her life, and at her age, that’s nothing to look forward to. So, she used her maglite to illuminate the ground at her feet, look small steps, and tasted the night air.
In due course, she reached the curb, opened the unlocked door, and settled into the driver’s seat. Something stirred behind her. Lenora turned. The light from her keychain glinted off the chrome barrel of an AMT automag pistol. “Lenora Washington, your time is up.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s about ti…” The old woman paused. “Are those your sunglasses?”
Agnes’ eyebrows furrowed above the leopard-print rims of her $3.99 gas station shades. “No. Mine were stolen by a clown.”
“No kidding.” Lenora suppressed a laugh, but let the smirk show through. “I suppose you’ll want me to write that confession before you ‘off’ me.”
“Actually, I had one drafted.” Agnes passed the one-page manuscript forward. It appeared handwritten, in a convincing duplication of Lenora’s own script.
“That’s very thoughtful of you.” Lenora pulled out a pair of reading glasses and pretended to peruse it by flashlight. “And this has the Sleeper stamp of approval, then?” Agnes nodded. “They must be powerful men, these masters of yours, to shoulder such responsibility.”
“They have a cause. Surely you can understand that, Lenora Washington, Finder of Lost Children.”
“Oops,” Lenora pointed to the forgery. “Missed a coma. Yes, I can understand causes, but I don’t think that’s where your strength comes from, Ms. Executioner.”
“My strength comes from my office, Lenora. I am a force of nature, as inevitable as the tides.”
“Yes, I can see that. But why do you work for the Sleepers? Why do you follow their cause?”
“I am an avatar. My survival depends on the success of their cause, as did yours, Lenora, before you grew careless.”
“In point of fact, I grew trusting, not careless. I know there’s more to it, Axeman. I’ve dealt with enough abuse victims, in my time, to know the signs when I see them.”
The gun trembled, just slightly, in the darkness. “All you know about me, Lenora, is that I’m going to kill you, right here, in this car.”
“That’s right, hide behind that office of yours. I’ll bet it makes you feel powerful, invulnerable.” Lenora wasn’t even pretending to read anymore. She just watched the emotions flash behind Agnes’ mask. “It takes away your responsibility, doesn’t it?”
“I punish the guilty. I am the Executioner, the hand of justice. I make them pay.”
“Do you? You punish adepts, like a good Sleeper lapdog, but they’re not the ones who hurt you.
“Who the hell are you, to question me like this? To question my resolve?!”
“It’s not your fault, it’s theirs. You should be punishing them.”
Agnes took a deep breath. “We had a deal, Lenora.” She pulled back the hammer on her pistol. Lenora flashed her maglite towards the house.
“Time to pay your dues.”

* * *
Sweat beaded Cheryl’s brow as she crouched beside the door. The sunglasses her captors had given her did little to block the heat from the spotlights. She thought about shooting them out with the pistol she’d found in the crawl space, but then they’d know she had it. Best to wait it out, then put the bullets into targets that deserved them!
The scar on her arm was itching, again. She should never have gone inside that tattoo shop with whatshisname. That asshole. She was a good girl. She should have known better. Then Smelly Guy and Rain Man picked her up at the hospital, but that one wasn’t her fault. They had her on so many painkillers and antibiotics that she would’ve piled into the Manson van with a smile.
The doorknob twitched. Cheryl felt adrenaline wash the muscle aches out of her legs. *Get ready.* The door started to open, and she sprang forward, blasting it outward. Smelly Guy was still sliding across the hardwood floor when she caught sight of whathisname. Suddenly, all the pieces fit together.
“You mutherfucker!” She pulled the trigger. A slug exploded from its chrome barrel and buried itself in whatshisname’s stomach. Another round shattered his jaw, spraying blood and brains across the wall behind him.
Cold reality settled into her brain, pushing the adrenaline to low tide. The gun fell to the floor. She tore off the black sunglasses and flung them across the room. Fear assailed her, then, and she fled out the back door.

* * *
The kill chill abandoned Agnes; doubt gripped her mind. She pulled the trigger back, but the shot went wide, boring a hole through the windshield. The scar on her arm itched like mad. She felt small, exposed.
She felt a Derringer pistol against her temple.
“Come on inside, dear. There’s something we want you to see.” Lenora pulled the automag from her hand, and plucked the sunglasses off her face. “You won’t be needing those. It’s nighttime, ferschrissakes.”
Agnes entered the old house on Pandora Way for the second time. Now, however, it was brightly lit and full of life. The killer clockworks were gone, or at least safely out of sight. She thought she smelled blood, but Lenora directed her up the stairs with a poke of the Derringer. Andrew would give her hell for this. *Fuck him!* she thought. *Lenora was right.*
At the top of the steps, she just stopped and stared. She didn’t see the woman who looked like she’d fallen too far down the rabbit hole, and landed on her head. She didn’t notice the old man kneeling beside the dead child. She didn’t even glance at the three other men scattered about the room.
All Agnes saw was the orrey. Its spinning and whirring filled her senses. She could taste its power, feel the magick flowing around it like ocean currents. It called her.
Jack King coughed pointedly. “Nice to see you again, too.” Agnes pulled her eyes away from the orrey. She recognized the clown in an instant, even without the face paint. “Am I on your list, yet?” he jibed.
“Yes.” The word rasped across her lips. Billy launched into a rendition of “Weapon,” by the Matthew Good Band.
“But you don’t feel compelled to remove him from that list, do you?” It was the old man. He hefted himself to his feet and dusted off his hands. “You’ve already accepted your new master.”
Jack beamed. “Welcome to the club, Killer!”
Agnes’ gaze returned to the orrey. “What is it?”
“It’s a microcosm,” offered Jack. “It’s a model of the universe.”
The old man took Agnes’ hand, guided her towards the clockwork monolith. “The orrey’s power is such that anyone can sense it, but it is difficult to read with precision.” He stopped beside the dead child. “This boy will become it’s Metatron, it’s voice. He will know the universe in a way no mortal ever has: as it truly is. To serve him will be to serve the world.”
“How? He’s dead.”
“His spirit was broken by a madman. His will was extinguished, then his life taken from him senselessly. I can help him regain the latter, but only the orrey can restore the former.”
“He’ll need protection, Agnes. You know the kind of people out there.” Jack King’s gesture encompassed the world. “His mother won’t be enough.” This time, he indicated the woman with the vacant eyes. “Hell, the Sleepers will probably come after him, sooner or later.”
The magic word snapped Agnes back to attention. “The Sleepers. They’ll send someone after Lenora, too, and Jack.”
“Hey now, I can take care of myself,” the clown protested. “I thought you were the best they had, and we know how that worked out.”
“And there’s no need to worry about Lenora, either.” That was the guy in the dirty shirt, standing beside the piano player. “She knows how to make people disappear.”
“I told you,” Lenora said, a suitcase in her hand. “I don’t wanna die tired. It’s time for me to rest. Johnny, you ready to go?”
“Yeah, sure.” Johnny gathered up his burly friend.
“God speed.” Coming from the old man, it was clearly a dismissal. He turned to Jack and Agnes. “We have so very much to do.”

THE END