

BLACK HONEY 5

THE LAST

BLACK MARTIAN

By Dennis Osondu

Edited by Lashawn Gholson

Cover concept by Lashawn Gholson

Copyright 2012 by Dennis Osondu

Smashwords Edition 10/13

This free ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be given away or resold to other people. You went through the trouble of finding it, and we thank you profusely. If you would like to share this ebook with another person however, please have them go to smashwords.com and let them get their own copy.

Thanks.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental, and rather scary.

12:56 pm.

A warehouse in Queens, New York.

PART ONE

"When are you people going to learn that they're not playing by your damn rules!" Jack Bauer...Twenty-Four.

1.

"Who the fuck is that?" a high-pitched male voice called out from far across the huge room, making everyone sitting around the table jump in surprise.

Nadia didn't think the voice was as high as the High Talker from that hilarious Seinfeld episode she'd seen at Julia's house, but thought it was high for a male. Even if she could see it was what appeared to be a young boy who'd called out in the uneasy silence.

Other than the smell of bleach, and a bunch of crates stacked up against a far wall, the room was empty and filled with shifting, almost creepy, shadows. And for some reason, even the slightest sound seemed to echo wildly.

They all immediately turned from their plates to look. Nadia, who was sitting at the far end of a rectangular wooden table, was still chewing as the new boy walked into the wide circle of light coming from the lamp above them.

She watched him approach, wondering why she suddenly felt so fucking nervous.

"What's cracking, Jack?" he asked, grinning and walking over to the table with his right hand extended. Jack Hampton, who had been in the process of stuffing mashed potatoes into his gold toothed mouth, frowned and slowly placed the fork down on the table beside his plate. It clinked softly against the edge of the dish.

"You're late," he said, daintily picking up the large embroidered white napkin on his lap and dabbing at the corners of his lips. He tossed it down on the table, half-turning to glance at the boy who was obviously disturbing his lunch.

Even if it's actually what most people eat for dinner, Nadia thought: fried pork chops, mashed potatoes, and sweet corn. She may have even seen a few pieces of broccoli floating around on his plate.

"Sorry," the boy said, stopping beside Jack, and still holding out his hand, palm upwards. "What's up, dog?" he said. "You gone leave me hanging? Now, I know you ain't gone leave a motherfucker hanging like that?"

Jack sighed, smacking his palm. The sudden sound was loud in the silence, like a textbook dropped to the floor during a finals math test, Nadia thought, and couldn't help flinching in her seat.

"We have a few guests," Jack said. He ate more food and talked as he chewed. "Baby Divine. Pretty ill name huh?" he asked him. "Baby Divine? I like it. Sounds like an old Diana Ross movie and shit, don't it?"

"Yeah," the boy agreed, "it's crazy hot, Jay."

He was speaking to his boss as he said it, but was staring hard at Julia. A heavy set, caramel complexioned kid, maybe around eighteen, Nadia guessed, with jet black curly hair. But it was the black look in his eyes that was suddenly making her feel even more nervous.

For the first time, she began to really have second thoughts about her plan. Her plan to gather info for her new book; which would eventually result in a very lucrative book deal if she handled it properly. She had already decided she wasn't going to jump the gun when it came to passing judgment on anyone she met. It was crucial to the book that she kept an open mind.

She wanted to depict the characters as accurately as possible, and avoid embellishing on the truth as much as possible. She thought it would ensure that the narrative felt real, and brought on clarity—the clearness of thought.

But regardless of all that, she could tell that this kid was crazy. There was a cold gleam in his eyes that didn't match his jovial tone in the least. He seemed like the type of kid who might murder his own father for no reason at all; or maybe walk out of his house one bright and sunny day, out of his family's life forever, and never stop going.

In other words, Nadia thought he seemed like the perfect weapon. And according to Eddie, he was.

They called kids like him the Foe-Hammer in her part of town.

He gave the rest of them a dark, sour-faced once over, but quickly returned his attention to Julia. And his face visibly brightened the instant he did, as if he'd just discovered the wondrous secret of life and couldn't wait to share it. His eyes were boggled, his mouth hanging wide open.

"I'm Almeida," he said. "And you are...?" he asked her, bowing a little. "Besides being my fantasy, I mean. I'm sure you're name's even prettier than you are, but not by much."

Julia smiled, reaching her hand across Jack's plate. The man had insisted she sit near him. He had Julia on his right and Kelly on his left. Eddie and Nadia, on the other hand, were sitting at the opposite end of the fancy, cherry wood table. A table that had to be at least fifteen feet long, Nadia thought. The kind of table she always saw in TV mansions that had butlers and maids roaming through them. It almost felt like they were in another room.

"I'm Precious," Julia said. "What's up?"

She briefly shook his hand, and released it. "I hear you're a top dog around here Almeida. According to Crazy E, you're one of the best, if not the best. And that's pretty impressive."

Almeida looked pleased, but still shook his head. "Nah," he said, in what was really a harsh whisper. "I'm just another hired hand. Doing my thang, you know? I'm just trying to make a little paper, shorty."

Almeida had a really cool voice.

"She's from Miami," Jack explained. And his voice wasn't just gruff and cool, in her opinion; Nadia also found it rather creepy. She couldn't help thinking of the man who played the bad guy in The Crow. "All of them, from your boy's old block," he went on. He jerked his head in Eddie's general direction. "Precious, Bubbles, and Baby Divine," he growled. "Crazy E's peeps."

Almeida glanced from Julia over to Eddie. "Why didn't you tell me?" he said. "Motherfucker, didn't I tell your ass to bring anyone you found to me first?"

"They came in last night," Eddie lied. "There wasn't time because they didn't reach my crib until four in the morning." He looked up. "You wanted me to wake you up at that crazy time?" he asked the boy. "I know you ain't saying that...I know you."

Almeida chuckled. He turned his strange eyes to Nadia now, observing her for a few seconds before grunting: "You want to work for us? I know you ain't thinking about joining the Marauders? You think this shit's a game?"

Almeida's playful tone had vanished; now his ice-cold voice matched the cold glint in his bland, dark eyes. Nadia thought he had the eyes of a boy who might find killing small creatures with a blow torch, the height of hilarity.

"These streets ain't the same as Miami's!" he said. "I don't know what kind of Disney World shit you might be expecting, but around these here parts, motherfuckers get they craniums cracked on the reg. You feel me?"

"I know a little about these streets," she said. "You think we don't hear about shit in the Dade? You never know, I might even be able to teach you a thing or two about hustling!"

For a moment, Almeida didn't say a word, he only gazed at her.

Then he grinned, and a tremor of fear trickled down her back. She'd never seen anyone grin like that. "I don't know what the fuck you've heard," he said, finally. "I'm just trying to give you a heads up, know what I'm saying?" He chuckled sarcastically. "You got lizards instead of rats!" he said. "What kind of bullshit is that?"

"Almeida," Jack said, groaning. "Stop it."

But he didn't answer him, didn't even look in his direction. All of his attention was focused on Nadia, and she didn't like that feeling, being the center of his attention.

"Well 'round here," he went on, "it can get real cold; we don't have too much fun in the sun around here. And there ain't no fucking pools but pools of blood. What, you like the idea of leaking blood, bitch?"

"Relax Almeida!" Jack said, "she didn't mean nothing by that, and must you always intimidate people?"

"So, what?" Almeida said. "That's what I do. I'm still your best worker, other than O-dog. And he ain't right in the head!"

Almeida poked himself in the forehead with his first two fingers hard enough to leave dents in his skin. Then, he broke out in a huge smile. "The trigger-happy motherfucker," he said, laughing. "He wiped out Razor's entire scout crew last night in ten minutes, Jack! He used a mach-ten he found somewhere. Didn't he tell you about it?"

Jack sighed, glancing at Julia. "Pardon him," he said. "I honestly didn't mean to subject a woman of your obvious class and beauty, to such embarrassing gutter talk."

He looked at Kelly, and then at Nadia next. He sighed again, placing his elbows upon the table as if in the act of prayer.

"Almeida is a good guy, underneath the bullshit," he said. "It's just that he's been slipping the past few months. Ever since Crypt and Mack got smoked, those were his older brothers."

"What?" Almeida cried. "Come on man, I'm way past that shit. Ain't shit wrong with me!" He moved his eyes to Nadia. "I'm just sick and tired of you putting strange motherfuckers down with us," he said. "I'm not feeling this shit, word up. Something feels very wrong about this, Jack!"

Nadia and Julia exchanged identical looks at that, and Almeida noticed but didn't let on. He would mention it much later to another person, however. And the simple act of his telling would have severe repercussions on Nadia's future. On all of their futures, in fact.

Now, he said: "Who the fuck is this bitch, anyway? A narc?" He glanced at Jack who was holding his forehead in both hands. "Don't be like that Jack," he implored. "You know I'm right man, we can't keep bringing people into our shit!"

Jack finally raised his head, sighing and staring up at Almeida. But Nadia couldn't read his face, and it was just about the best poker face she'd ever seen.

A sickeningly famous poker face, in fact. Because, Nadia could see she was correct about who she'd thought Jack resembled. Especially, the way he'd looked just now, as he glanced up.

But she tried her best to ignore it, as she had tried to ignore seeing the image of Nicki Minaj suddenly come to life like something out of a fucking Straub novel. And she was having about the same amount of luck with it as she'd had with the shirt.

"We need people for Dominoe's," Jack said quietly. "Not to mention girls for the G-Spot. Unless you have some willing applicants to fill those slots, Almeida..."

"I know," he said, "but you can't get careless again Jack. Remember when Mayor Sharptongue..."

Almeida stopped suddenly, as if realizing for the first time that they weren't speaking in privacy. "Pardon me," he mumbled, looking at Julia, apologetically. "I'm not usually this high-strung," he said. "I'm just getting worried about the rumors I've been hearing."

"What rumors?" Jack asked him. "Rumors from where and about what, exactly? Then, maybe I can finish my goddamn meal." He exhaled. "I swear you motherfuckers is annoying!"

But Eddie suddenly spoke up and his voice was as depressing as his demeanor had been since they arrived.

"About narcs infiltrating some of the biggest gangs in the city," he mumbled. "Males and females, all working undercover. All the gang leaders are getting nervous."

Everyone turned to stare at him and Nadia thought he looked bad, besides the acne, like a boy in intense pain.

"Glad you could join us again," Jack told him. "You okay son? You sound kinda fucked up, sitting over there all quiet and shit."

"I'm cool," Eddie said. "But he's probably talking about Poker's last gun and coke shipments getting high-jacked. It happened two days ago, and all of his men were slaughtered. I heard they didn't even get the chance to fire their weapons."

"They knew exactly where the transaction was going down," Almeida said. "They were waiting in armored trucks. All of 'em wearing black, like they were from the SWAT team."

Jack glanced up at Almeida who was still standing beside him. "This the same shit you're talking about?" he asked him, gruffly. "Motherfuckers swiping Poker's product? Where'd you hear it? And what took you so long to mention it? Last time I checked, I'm a fucking gang leader."

Almeida pulled out the straight backed chair next to Kelly and twirled it around until the seat was facing him. He sat down, straddling it like a man riding a horse he wasn't used to riding. A gloomy expression had replaced his previously excited one.

"Yeah," he said, "I heard it from Orion." He shrugged and hesitated a little. "But I just found out so don't blame me...he said he was down by the docks when the shit happened."

"Orion?" Jack asked, frowning. "Why the hell was he over there? I told all of you stay away from the docks." He placed more food in his mouth, his eyebrows making a dark V above his nose. "I told you I heard the docks were bugged," he said, "and were being watched with high powered cameras."

Almeida shrugged again. "I know," he said, "but remember that Nicki Minaj graphic novel he found? The one where she's a vampire with glowing red eyes? I said they drew her with a crazy big ass, even bigger than her real ass, and she had some huge tits? I think they're making a movie out of it or something?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, you said she was gorgeous, and that he found it by the Saint Victor's Church. Covered in blood and nailed to a tree?" He paused. "Some asswipe wrote ROAN in actual blood down the front of the cross?" he said. "Sounds satanic to me."

Almeida nodded and sighed. "Yeah," he said, rolling his dark eyes. "Satanic. I thought it was a new gang, but it's not. Whatever it is, I didn't like it. And he's been having crazy nightmares lately, Jack. Ever since he found it, probably from reading that psychotic shit!"

"I didn't know he could read," Jack said, seriously. "Funny, I never even asked him about it, I should have. I just assumed he couldn't read or write." Jack gazed at him. "Can he?" he said.

"Yeah, he can read," Almeida said. "I've been teaching him. But the motherfucker started sleepwalking, and somehow walked his big ass all the way downtown. He woke up to mad gunshots and crazy shouting. Right across the street from it, where that old firehouse used to be?"

Nadia glanced across the table, for some reason suddenly reminded of Julia's haunted shirt. Maybe, she thought, because of Almeida mentioning Nicki Minaj being in a graphic novel.

Julia suddenly stopped laughing, and sipped from the tall glass of lemonade Jack had also provided. Nadia marveled at how easily she was selling herself to them. She clearly knew how to use her blue eyes, too. And Nadia thought her expression was that of a girl stuck between two of the most interesting guys she'd ever met.

"Orion said they came out of the woodwork like roaches!" Almeida said. "They were hiding everywhere Jack. It had to be an inside sting. Dominoe spoke to Poker yesterday, as soon as he got the word about the situation from Lady M."

"What did he say?" Jack asked. "Poker, I mean?"

Jack had resumed eating his meal, using both a knife and fork like a proper gentleman. And Nadia felt it totally jibed with his gangster image. But every now and then, he glanced over at Julia and smiled at her warmly. Julia smiled back and at times, she didn't seem to be pretending, to Nadia.

In fact, she was beginning to think Julia was starting to fall for him. Because, facially, he was a carbon copy of Chris Brown, in her opinion. And like it or not (and she didn't), she knew plenty of chicks liked his crazy black ass.

They had the same dark eyes, she thought, and the same bone structure. And except for the overall difference in size, they could have been identical twins; the ones impossible to tell apart, even if she already knew who one was. Nadia wasn't exactly sure how she felt about that either, but she guessed Chris Brown was okay look wise. But otherwise...well, they wouldn't be going out on any dates any time soon.

Nadia wondered what Kelly thought of his looks, but figured she already knew. Her previous fear seemed to have vanished, and she now appeared to be fascinated. Kelly was a huge Chris Brown fan and was always playing his music around the office.

Now, Almeida said: "He said Poker knew who dropped dimes on him, said it was dudes he had working with him. Some motherfuckers and a bitch he just put on!" He smiled. "Know what I think?" he said. "I think we should make 'em smoke some shit, Jay. The way they did back in the Iceberg Slim days?"

Nadia thought she heard Kelly gasp at that, but kept her eyes lowered. So she didn't see Jack frowning at Almeida, starting to really seem upset.

"Start 'em off hooked on the shit to avoid confusion," Almeida went on. "Everybody but Precious, we can use her to get in certain places. Fuck the stripping or hustling, we'll keep her clean and clear headed. I'll personally teach her the game myself."

"So, if they are cops," Jack said, smiling, "they'll be junkie-cops, and that way we can control them, right?"

"Exactly!" Almeida said. "And we can start with their fucking leader, Baby Divine. Let her hit the pipe a few times! Let's see how smart she is after that shit!"

Nadia didn't see Julia's reaction, she used every ounce of her self-control to stop her head from immediately turning to her. It took a measure of self-restraint she didn't know she even had. But her heart was knocking, her hands shaking badly, as she raised the fork to her trembling mouth and continued eating.

Nadia clearly felt the heavy stares of both Almeida and Jack slowly turn to rest on her. The question in those stares was undeniable, and the room, which had been rather chilly to her a second ago, suddenly felt as hot as a sauna. In fact, it felt like someone had just covered her entire head with an invisible plastic bag, and then closed and padlocked the sauna's doors.

2.

"I say she's a fucking narc!" Almeida screamed. "Look at her fucking face, Jack. Look past the outfit she probably got out a rap magazine and shit! Really look at this chick Jay, when you ever seen a fucking hustler look this damn pretty?" His brows lowered. "And motherfucking soft?" he added.

The boy had jumped from his seat like a lunatic and stalked over to where Nadia sat, where she was still shoveling food that had a taste like sawdust all of a sudden, into her numb, trembling mouth. She had never felt so frightened in her entire life! So scared, she even missed Almeida calling her pretty.

She hadn't heard the boy's shaded compliment just now, but still managed to feel thankful that neither of them had really focused on Eddie. He could have blown their whole cover right then and there!

Almeida was fired up again, and she was getting scared. He had finished pleading his case, quite convincingly she felt, and was now shooting her some of the meanest looks she'd ever seen. Nadia wasn't sure she could keep up the charade much longer.

Jack, who mostly resembled a heavier Chris Brown, she felt, wasn't saying a word. Which she found somehow even worse than Almeida's insane ranting and raving.

"What about that?" Jack said, at last. "She a fucking cop?"

But he wasn't talking to her, Nadia realized. His voice was suddenly aimed over to her left, where Eddie was sitting.

Fucking shit! she thought. Damn! That's even worse!

Nadia slowly glanced up, holding her breath, and saw Eddie staring at Jack. His face was ashen and he wore a dejected expression; the acne bumps on his forehead seemed to gleam in the light coming from the fluorescents.

"Come on," he said, "you just kidding right Jay?" He smiled weakly. "You know me better than that man," he said, "you think I'd shit on you? I thought we was cool?"

Jack shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "In reality we just met your ass a month ago, didn't we? I remember Twenty-one Jump Street. Maybe, we should check you for wires?" he said. "Huh? Should we do that, my dude?"

There was a silky threat in his faux pleasant tone that made Nadia perspire. She was sitting up now, and was glancing down the length of the table where she saw Julia staring at her.

She guessed the girl was likely scared to death, and was seriously thinking of her brother's safety. Jack suddenly didn't seem so friendly.

"I'm no fucking cop," Nadia said. "That's some insulting crap you just said, we didn't come here for this wack bullshit! I thought you needed workers?"

"Maybe we should test her ass out?" Almeida said. "Maybe we should put her out on the boulevard? Let her show and prove, nah mean? Get her feet wet, so to speak." Almeida chuckled at that. "Good one," he said, "right Jack?"

Nadia, who wasn't a total prude, knew what he found so funny. Wet was also a hip-hop slang term used to signify shooting someone, or having been shot. The gangster rappers used it all the time.

Almeida said: "I call shit the way shit is, and I smell a fucking rat Jack. Three fucking rats, to be specific! One, who could pass for a fucking white girl, and know what we do to rats around here?" he said. "We gut the sneaky motherfuckers with rusty razor blades!"

"Almeida," Jack said, wearily. "Calm down, please."

"Nah," he said. "Not this time Jack, because you look like a fucking pig to me bitch." He suddenly spun back to Nadia, pointing right at her. "You look just like a goddamn actress to me!" he yelled at her. "I bet you are wearing a fucking wire!"

When he raised the hem of his white tee with his left hand and revealed the huge, gleaming silver Glock, Nadia's heart jumped in her chest. She watched in utter shock as Almeida grabbed the gun and whipped it forward!

"You okay with that?" he said. "Huh? I'm just dying to see your fucking female hustling skills bitch!"

He glanced down the table at Eddie. "She's a moneymaker, right?" he said. "That's why she's here, right motherfucker? You wouldn't bring a fucking cop in here would you? That's a no-no, son!"

Eddie was just about to speak, but Jack hushed him with a raised hand; a huge meaty hand, with ashy, rough looking knuckles. Every finger had a glittering diamond ring on it.

"According to Eddie she's hot," he said. "Good at accumulating that paper, might even be a natural. But I don't know if throwing her right into the fire is smart...at least, not yet."

His voice was calm, but he was clearly upset with Almeida.

"Working at Dominoe's is a better idea," Jack said. "It's the same shit, either she'll swim or her ass will sink. That's how it works with exceptional ability. Only God does shortcuts. And put that shit away son, you're scaring the pretty ladies! That's how your momma raised your ass?"

Almeida exhaled, lowering his weapon, but he didn't return it to his waist. His facial expression conveyed barely suppressed anger. And it was actually a rather tense moment. Nadia didn't know if he had ever so blatantly defied Jack before, but he was certainly defying him now.

Jack clearly didn't like it. He had been staring down at the Glock in Almeida's hand during his entire speech, and now slowly raised his eyes to the boy's face. His obsidian eyes suddenly had a threatening glint in them.

"You've been disobeying me lately," Jack said. "Going against every thing I tell you to do motherfucker. I only let you stay out of respect for them."

He sighed deeply, his fingers still forming a steeple over his plate. "For Mack and Crypt," he said. "Even though some wanted your black ass kicked the fuck out; they keep claiming you're a troublemaker, and I'm starting to agree."

Nadia was surprised Jack's words had apparently affected Almeida, because his face twisted up even more, but he slowly put his gun away. For a moment, he just stood there with his broad shoulders slumped. His real name was Allen Pintero, but they called him Almeida due to his uncanny resemblance to the famous CTU agent. Nadia thought he even spoke like him.

"Motherfuckers want me out?" he mumbled, staring down at the floor. "Like who?" he said. "Slope? That ugly bitch motherfucker? It's him, ain't it?"

"Almeida," Jack said as if in warning. "Watch it, Slope's one of my best. He even survived a gunfight with Dagger. Not many dudes in Saint Albans can say that. Your brother's sure can't, he killed them both by himself."

Nadia thought his tone of voice was saying: I didn't wanna say that, but you made me do it. Now will you cut the childish bullshit?

"Fuck him," Almeida said, "he's on my dick because I move that weight! Nah mean?" He sucked his teeth glancing at Kelly and Julia. "If ya'll last in this game, you'll see what the fuck I'm talking about. They can't do it, so they hate on you!"

He suddenly grinned a very strange grin.

As if on cue, there was a heavy, almost frantic pounding on the front door that made Nadia jump. Or was it the back door? She didn't know for certain, but she supposed it depended on where you were standing in the building.

She only knew that the door was far away from them, deep in the shadows. And that it seemed to lead further into the warehouse, or whatever it was they were currently sitting in.

The crazy banging was coming from over there at the single metal door that had DANGER printed on it in black lettering. There was a dim light bulb glowing above it, that didn't shed much light, but made the word glisten and shine. Like some of that tinfoil Eddie had mentioned earlier, she thought.

When the pounding came again, everyone reacted in unison.

"Who the fuck is it!" Almeida screamed, and Nadia knew he was only upset because he'd been badly surprised by the loud knocking. It was as if someone were hitting the door with a goddamn sledgehammer, or like the cops and the firemen usually pounded on doors in the projects.

"Go and check," Jack said, "and be careful, ask who it is first. Orion and Allyssa have keys and shouldn't be knocking. I gotta get a peephole made in that bitch."

Almeida was about to go, when the door suddenly opened up on its own. Everyone immediately turned towards that side of the room, and it reminded Nadia of some movie she'd seen once where all the students in an auditorium had done that.

Except this group of people turned just in time to see a mountainous-sized person enter through the door, trailed by what appeared to be a dark skinned black girl. A rather attractive one, it seemed to Nadia, though she sensed that more than actually saw it. She could hardly see anything in the diffuse light.

But just before the metal door was slammed closed, Nadia thought she saw bright sunlight, and the flash of what appeared to be green grass or hedges in the distant background. So, perhaps it actually led outside and was really a back exit?

This of course, made a mockery of her belief that the door led further into the building; and served as a reminder that this was no longer a game, or a simple fact finding mission for a new book. If she wasn't careful, she would never get that book deal. And her ability to write wouldn't have anything to do with it.

She was considering various escape strategies when the pounding came, and could only stare in frank amazement as two people entered the room, and strode towards them. They quickly crossed the warehouse, their heels clacking.

They were as odd a pair as Nadia had ever seen, and had she still been wearing her schoolteacher glasses, she would have taken them off to make sure of what she was really seeing.

3.

Stereotypically, the black girl was all attitude (Nadia couldn't tell if it was authentic, or media driven, because she knew quite a few sweetheart black chicks that messed up the negative stereotypes; many of which she had used on her previous book covers), but Nadia still found her extremely appealing.

Now, she watched the same girl as she walked up to Jack's chair and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. He may have resembled Chris Brown in the face, but Nadia thought he was built much more like Mike Tyson before his life had spiraled out of control.

He reached up with his huge gravedigger hands and grabbed her slender forearms. She couldn't see his angry expression. But Nadia could, and he looked utterly insane. Which isn't so far from the actual truth, she guessed.

The girl smiled, leaning over and hugging him. "What's up," she said, planting a kiss on his hazel nut colored cheek, and inhaling deeply. "You smell good baby," she said. "Goddamn! Is this Jordan's new shit? Wind-Dancer? It is, isn't it?"

She hugged him again, as if trying to squeeze his head from his shoulders, Nadia thought. "You know it," Jack said, "Tawana got it for me, now cut the fucking bullshit! I called your black ass thirty minutes ago. How come you didn't contact me before now?"

Nadia had watched Allyssa intently from the second she clearly saw her face. The girl had to walk through a large patch of shadows before finally reaching them. But once she stepped into the light, Nadia's heart had leapt violently.

First it was Julia's Nicki Minaj shirt snarling at her, then pulling a silver fucking gun on her.

Then, there was Jack looking like Chris Brown, only a pumped up, steroid version of him. And now, she was staring at the doppelganger of her third favorite actress in the world who had literally taken her breath away just now!

She glanced over at Julia and Kelly, hoping to see some reaction, but either they didn't know who Jennifer Nicole Freeman was in the first place, or they couldn't see the obvious resemblance.

For the first time, Nadia couldn't help wondering if anyone else was even able to see it. It didn't seem possible that they couldn't, but....

"From now on, you answer when I call you, got it?" Jack said, "I'm trying to run a business here, so get serious! And I'm not gonna tell your black ass again!"

Allyssa rose up from Jack's shoulders, smiling and glancing down at him. His harsh tone of voice hadn't affected her at all. "Pull out your chair," she purred. "Please, baby?"

When Jack finally obliged, Allyssa immediately plopped her huge butt down on his right leg.

Most of her right hip and ass cheek were sticking far off his left knee, making Nadia wince at the thought of that much ass sitting on her own leg. Then, Jack put one muscular arm around Allyssa's surprisingly slim waist, and began nuzzling her neck.

While the man kissed on her, Allyssa glanced around the table at each of them. She immediately stopped her scrutiny and focused on Julia the second her strange eyes reached her.

Her beautiful face nearly turned Golem-ugly with her psychotic frown. "Who the fuck are you?" she said, turning back to Jack, not even waiting for Julia to respond. "Who's this light skin chick?" she asked him. "Who the hell are any of these clowns?" the girl added, glancing around again, and giving all of them a very cold sneer. When she got to Kelly, the nasty sneer seemed to grow.

4.

There was a loud smacking sound as Jack hit her hard on the ass. "Stop it!" he said, as if scolding a child, and exhaling. "I swear to God!" he said. "Between you and Orion's crazy assed brother, my shit's going to fold Allyssa!"

He lightly pushed Allyssa away until she finally got the message and slid off his lap, standing up straight. "I'm serious ma," he said, looking up at her. "I'm tired of your fucking jealous nonsense!"

"I hate it when you bring in new people," she said, sulkily.

"I don't pay you to like my decisions!" Jack said. "I pay you because you look fucking good. But I have enough advisors!"

Allyssa sucked her teeth. "I'm just trying to help," she said, returning to her position on his lap, and getting comfortable by shifting her ass around. "Especially, if I'm a part of this shit—"

"If I wanted your opinions," he said, "I wouldn't be tapping that." Jack slapped her ass again. "Now cut the bullshit like I said, and start acting professionally! You're starting to get on my nerves and this ain't the day for games, Allyssa! I don't care if you got a fat ass or not!"

Nadia was stunned, Allyssa was apparently Jack's girl.

But when the other person suddenly cleared his throat, the one who'd entered with Allyssa, but hadn't said a single word since (and hadn't been acknowledged by anyone as of yet), an increasingly nervous Nadia studied him carefully.

A part of her mind was quietly cataloguing every face she saw, and every characteristic. It was a subconscious thing she did that always assisted her while writing. According to one book she'd read, utilizing the process would give her characters more depth.

"I spoke to Dominoe," he said now, his voice seeming to rumble like distant thunder. It was much deeper than Nadia's phony Latifah voice was. "He says you can get started," he said. "Everything's ready, and he says if you break it, you bought it. I didn't know what that means though."

"We can move in already?" Jack asked, looking up at the hulking figure. "That was quick," he said. "When did he tell you that Orion? Shit's news to me."

"A few minutes ago," he said. "He called the phone downstairs, the one on top of the TV."

Jack frowned. "Slope's phone?" he said. "Why didn't you bring me the damn phone then, Orion?"

Orion shrugged. "Because he told me I didn't have to," he said, "he claimed he was busy and couldn't talk. He was breathing hard and seemed in a big old hurry, like he was running or lifting heavy stuff."

Jack only stared at him for a moment. Then, said: "But you sure that's exactly what he said Orion? Think hard, I know you get shit confused sometimes, just try to remember everything," he told him. "Did he mention any coke shipments?"

Orion closed his eyes a moment, tilting his massive head to the ceiling. Nadia guessed it was how he thought hard.

Then he spoke with his eyes still closed:

"He said, 'tell your boys to come on, they can start setting up shop." He stopped talking and peered up to the ceiling. It was the most amusing depiction of a man thinking Nadia had ever seen. "But hurry up," he continued, changing his voice now. "I want it done by three, because I don't need any surprises in my condition.'" Orion opened his eyes. "Those were his exact words," he said, "and then he hung up."

"Holy shit!" Almeida cried. "You know what that shit means Jack? It means we can get the jump on them Black Felony bitches! We can get started way before them!"

"They're trying to get up in Dominoe's too," Allyssa said. "Remember, I told you I drove over to Lady M's Golden Goose? Dagger was trying to get at me again, saying I could work for his ass when he takes over your shit." Her pale blue eyes were as huge as doorknobs. "He must have been talking about tonight!" she hissed.

Jack grinned, but it wasn't too pleasant a grin as far as Nadia was concerned. "That's how they're talking about me?" he asked. "Like I'm a joke or a motherfucking clown? Tonight, we find out who's really running shit around here, the fucking pussies!"

Almeida suddenly leapt from his chair, making it topple to the floor where it clattered noisily. "I told you Jack!" he said. "You should have let me smoke Dagger while we had him trapped in that movie theater!"

He pounded one fist into his open hand with a loud smack. "Motherfucker was by his self Jack!" he said. "You should have let me blast em! Dirty fucker killed my favorite brothers!"

Jack's face went through a startling transformation that stunned Nadia. "What the hell's wrong with you!" he said. "I don't know a Dagger. Blast his ass? Sorry, but I don't get involved with violence."

His teeth were clenched in a frightening mock grin, and he reminded Nadia of the old man from the movie, Poltergeist. The creepy old skeleton faced man who could walk through brick walls.

Jack simply gazed at Almeida. After a moment, the boy obviously realized what his boss's expression signified, because he promptly stood his chair upright again, and sat down in it. This time in the proper fashion.

Nadia almost expected him to cross his legs he seemed so mollified. "Sorry," he said. "I forgot about that—about them."

He had glanced up, but quickly lowered his eyes, again.

"I can see you did," Jack replied, still glaring at him. "Since we can move into Dominoe's crib right now, we can move forward with my original plan. Got it son? Calm your ass down before you get in trouble."

Jack smiled as he glanced at each of them. "You'll have to forgive my excessive caution," he said. "But Almeida's right about one thing." He rolled his dark eyes back to the boy. "Even if he forgot his own argument in his excitement, but one of you could be a narc." He turned back to them, especially looking at Nadia. "If I had to guess," he said. "I'd say you're straight. But I can't afford to chance it, not these days."

Jack smiled at Julia, who looked utterly terrified to Nadia.

"Females too," he said. "His ideas to test you out are a little extreme to say the least, but I'm still going to be cautious."

He reached out to gently stroke Julia's chin for a moment, then cupped her face briefly, and released it. "God, I love that face!" he said. "It's like staring straight into heaven!"

"Uh-oh!" Almeida said, "Y'all better watch out, Jack's getting started up again! You better grab your children and run for the hills!"

Jack glanced at the boy, frowning slightly. "Stop it," he said, and turned back to Julia. "He's referring to my addiction," he said, grinning a little. "I've been dealing with it for a long, long time. But it's really wearing me down...thanks to you."

"Thanks to me?" she said, glancing over at Nadia, and then looking at Kelly. Both of whom, only shrugged. And then, she even glanced at Allyssa, who looked royally pissed, now. She had her arms folded, and was glaring darkly across the room at Julia.

"What addiction?" Julia asked, turning back to Jack, a puzzled frown on her pretty face. "An addiction to what?"

"Put it this way," he said, "they're like crack to me, and once I have my eye on some I want, I never quit until I get them."

"Jewels?" she said. "Bling?"

Jack shook his head. "Nope," he said. "Not even close."

Julia peered over at Nadia again, but she couldn't figure out the man's riddle, either. She could only shrug again, feeling stupid, and slow, watching the girl turn back to Jack.

"I don't know," she said. "I guess it could be anything...a real fly rap song? A particular type of car? Wait, is it rims?" Julia said excitedly.

"Nope," he said, "I'm talking about black girls, shorty."

"What?" Julia said, grinning a little herself. "Excuse me?"

Jack smiled. "You heard me," he said, "black girls...all of them, but African American chicks are my specialty."

"I've never heard of that," Julia said, still staring at Jack. "Are you two being for real?"

"What?" Almeida said. "Is he for real? He loves black girls with long hair, short hair, or no hair at all! And if she got pretty eyes? Motherfucker goes crazy for them. I've been trying to find a sex therapist for his horny ass!"

Julia smirked. "I hope you don't expect me to believe you only like black girls?" she said. "You think I'm fucking stupid?"

Jack grinned.

"Then, you'll agree when I say there's beauty in all women," Jack said, and Julia nodded.

Nadia watched Almeida smirk, and glance at Allyssa, who had remained quiet during this entire exchange. But she was glaring at Julia like she wanted to kill her. And since Nadia had basically been watching her the whole time, she witnessed the entire range of emotions the girl went through as she listened to her man and Julia talk. She had managed to look even crazier with each one.

"Well, I've messed with just about every race of girl out there, give or take, and I simply have a thing for black honies," Jack said. "Does that make Selena Gomez any less beautiful? Does that mean Chelsea Hightower is no longer one of the prettiest females to step foot on this lousy planet? Does that mean I wouldn't literally fuck the shit out of Lucy Lui? "

"I don't know," Julia said, "Iguess not."

"Then, calm down," he said. "Unlesss, you would rather I didn't feel that way about my black queens?"

Julia threw up her hands. "Hey," she said, "don't mind me. Like who you please; it's still a free a country, isn't it?"

Jack shrugged. "I guess it is," he said. "Whatever that means. And I take exception to you saying I can't just like black girls. I'll like whoever the fuck I want to like, and that's that."

"Okay," she said. "I believe you. Don't get so upset."

"That's better," a grinning Jack went on (thankfully changing the subject, Nadia thought), "and over here at Castle Greyskull," he said, "we've devised a simple but effective technique for combating the skill of New York's undercover pigs. They rarely make it past stage three, and by stage four..."

Almeida suddenly started chuckling. "Tell them what we do first," he said. He was leaning his elbows on the table and sitting forward in his seat. He was looking crazy and nodding. "Boss, tell 'em how we—"

"They'll see when the time comes," Jack interrupted him. "Didn't I tell you to calm down Almeida? Save your energy for tonight. Dagger will know we're fucking with Dominoe by then."

"Fuck them," he muttered, waving his hand.

"They might set shit off early," Jack said, "probably as early as four or five this time." He looked at Julia. "They might even send a hitter dressed as a fiend," he said, "they almost got inside our old spot doing that bullshit."

He glanced at Nadia again and gave her a long, hard stare.

"Here's your chance," he said, "starting right now. Almeida thinks you're a cop. Me? I think you're a thrill-seeker. A girl bored with her mundane, run-of-the-mill life, looking to live on the wild-side. Like when you're reading a really good hood novel? The kind that grabs your attention from the first fucking page?"

"Something by R. Kayeen Thomas, or Intelligent Allah," Almeida said. "I've been trying to get Orion to read them forever; those black dudes is geniuses."

Jack smirked, and continued as if Almeida hadn't spoken. "Not forever," he said, "just until you satisfy that fascination you have with the gritty, grimy, streets. You got the deep voice, the hard stare, even the proper attire."

His eyes narrowed, as if he had suddenly figured it out, she thought. Or perhaps, figured her out.

"But underneath the outward image," he said, "you're just tired of the college your parents forced you to attend. You wanted to experience real motherfuckers, not that watered-down bullshit. Am I right? Tell me the truth, sexy, you're among friends in here."

"Then who are the females?" she said, ignoring his sexy comment, and making a show of slightly grinning. As if she were caught red handed, and Jack was simply too shrewd for her.

Jack shrugged. "Probably just some of your college buddies," he said, "along for the ride, seeking thrills too." Jack smiled at Julia. "You're definitely a college chick," he said, "beautiful and brainy. But Mommy kept her under lock and key, now she's oh so free."

He made the gesture of a flying bird with his interlocked fingers, kissed his fingertips, and grinned at her.

"I can see it in those sexy eyes," he whispered. "God I love black bitches! And I'll be damned if I lie about it!"

Nadia made an instant decision, and like most decisions that get made without much thought, or the proper amount of thought, she would have plenty of time to go back over the decision. Looking for flaws in her logic; looking for what she could have said or done, differently.

The old saying: Act in haste, repent in leisure, came to her. And she hoped it didn't prove true.

But her response was: "You've got me Jay, I guess the jig's up." Nadia smiled, shrugging with her hands raised. "Eddie didn't know about me being in college," she said, "because he always saw me on the block, and I told him I hustled at another spot after I left him each night, to cover my tracks. But what I really did was go to school, a night school where I was studying creative writing and anthropology."

This last part had actually come from Julia, and she had only thrown it in on a whim.

"So you did actually hustle?" Jack said, his eyebrows rising. "I can buy that. I'm pretty good, huh? You worked with the Dade Boys?" he asked. "And you were in a crack house?"

"Yeah," Nadia said. "I've hustled with them and got hella paid. I even held down the spot by myself. But my moms found my shit in my room, it was some of my heroin, in small squares of tin-foil. Bitch kicked me the fuck out for it, we haven't spoken since and that was months ago."

She was highly impressed with this unexpected fabrication. But then, she was a novelist.

"Oh shit!" Almeida said, nodding and grinning. "We use that shit too! Don't we Jack? Whenever we don't—"

"Hold up," Jack said, briefly rolling his eyes at Almeida again. "Consider this your employment interview Baby Divine. If you pass the test, you'll start tonight. Lucky you," he said, "Hell Night." He chuckled softly. "I certainly wouldn't have suggested tonight, but..."

Jack glanced up at Orion, who had just been standing there, still as a statue. "Go get the guns," he ordered and smiled. "If we gone have more soldiers, they gotta have burners, don't they?" He grinned at Nadia. "In the meantime we can finish our little chat," he said. "You can explain to me what the fuck made you wanna hustle in the first place. You're an educated girl with a death wish, huh? Don't you feel you're way too intelligent for the likes of us?"

Before Nadia could even think of a reply, Jack lowered his eyes to Julia's face, speaking softly. "I hope it doesn't frighten you," he said, "but the sorry jealous cats around here don't care about chivalry. And you can never be too careful in Saint Albans boo, don't let the houses fool you."

"Hell no!" Almeida said. "They're more into women's rights around here, their street rights. If bitches wanna play the game, they can get it too!" He cackled like a drunken gargoyle. "Nearly as many chicks get killed around here as dudes," he said. "Especially, on Hell Night!"

Nadia didn't know what Julia was feeling, or Kelly for that matter. But her heart had just done the mambo in her chest, and though she hadn't done much talking the entire time, because she was feeling a bit too dazed to speak, too much like a character from Alice in Wonderland, she just had to say something.

"Wait Jack!" she called out, peering up at the gigantic Orion who was lumbering across the room and was just getting to the metal door. "Hold up big guy!" she said. "We won't need any guns, because I've changed my mind." She spun her head back to Jack. "I don't think I even want the job, Jack," she said, "never mind, okay?"

Nadia began to rise to her feet, but hesitated as she noticed the new expression on Jack's face.

When Almeida, Jack, Orion and Allyssa all broke out in harsh laughter (Allyssa still standing by Jack's chair with one hand resting on his shoulder), Nadia didn't know what to think.

She exchanged puzzled looks with Julia and Kelly, even glancing over at Eddie, who looked just as confused as they did. Then, she turned away, seeing sudden movement on her right and hearing loud smacking sounds.

Nadia stared at Orion who was bent over from laughter, and was wildly slapping his wide thigh with one huge fist. The sound reminded her of a woman beating an old rug.

The others were still laughing when Jack stopped and said:

"I know it done got crazy in this country when motherfuckers think they can do this type of shit. I mean, come on, and get real. I think Obama got 'em losing their minds! Brother said it's time for change not strange!"

"What?" Nadia said, a lump in her throat now. "I don't understand what..."

"Let's say you are cops," Jack told her. "If I just let you walk out of here, you got more than enough shit to fuck me up for life. And that's without me ever admitting to any homicides. And I would never raise my hand in violence against another person. So help me God, I abhor violence."

Jack was raising one hand as he said it. But then he dropped it, and his eyes were suddenly very cold. As cold as January, Nadia thought.

And at that very moment, she knew that he was lying. She knew that Jack had hurt and probably killed plenty of people. And that he could do it again, either one, was also clear.

"But I have hustled," he finished, "and we've just admitted enough on tape, were you taping us, to fuck ourselves in the ass. The mere mentioning of drugs was enough." He looked at Almeida. "Isn't that right?" he asked him.

Almeida was nodding his head vigorously and smiling. "Right as rain, Jack!" he shouted. "Speak, my black brother! Lay down the low!'"

Allyssa, who had sat down again, suddenly leaned over from Jack's lap and snatched up his fork. Her ass was hiked up and fully spread against his broad chest, and Jack placed both hands on it, one on each ridiculously wide hip.

Allyssa placed the fork in her mouth slowly, using her tongue on it. A very long and thick tongue, Nadia saw, nearly like a small fucking snake.

A Miley Cyrus tongue, she thought.

Then, Allyssa scooped up some of Jack's cold mashed potatoes and ate them, her herky jerky movements seeming somehow threatening.

Allyssa rolled her eyes as if it were the best thing she'd ever eaten. "How was your food?" she asked them, snidely. She was talking to all of them, but was only staring at Julia. Much as her partner Almeida had done earlier.

"You," Allyssa, said. "Yeah, I'm talking to your ass. Where the fuck you from, Dade County? Oooh, ain't they rich out there? What you slumming over here for?" she said.

Allyssa was smiling sarcastically until she finally glanced down at Julia's shirt, and her face immediately turned angry. "Oh yeah, bitch!" she said. "What's with the fucking shirt? You dig that conceited, big assed tramp?"

"Gorgeous, conceited, big assed tramp to you!" Julia yelled. "Weren't you taught to respect your betters?"

"My betters?" she cried, jumping up from Jack's lap. "My betters? You talking to me, you fucking dumb bitch?"

Allyssa ignored Jack's rather half-hearted attempt to keep her sitting. "Uh-uh Jack," she said, "if this bitch is gonna fuck with us she's got to know the rules. In this kingdom I'm the queen!"

Allyssa turned back to glare at Julia, who was nearly as tall sitting as Allyssa was standing.

The light skinned little girl was staring back at her and looked totally enraged now. As if on the verge of attacking her, Nadia thought, and was totally taken aback.

She had never seen Julia look so violently angry before.

And now, she watched Allyssa give her the middle finger. "You annoying bitch!" she said. "What are you staring at?"

"Come on now!" Jack said. "Enough of this bullshit!"

He sucked his teeth, wearing an exasperated expression.

"Shit!" he said. "Why can't females ever get along? Huh? You're arguing over beautiful multi-million dollar chicks who got the world at their feet, when I got killers on the way over here? You females are too petty to run a fucking lemonade stand!" Jack glared at Allyssa. "Motherfuckers want me dead," he said. "And as of this minute, everyone in this room as well, simply because your ass is here! You hear me, Allyssa?"

"Why are you just talking to me?" she said. "Tell her something too! Why is she even here?"

Allyssa glanced down at Kelly, who immediately cringed in her seat. Kelly was staring up at her as if she'd just turned into a snarling werewolf.

"And this one," Allyssa said, "I don't like no quiet bitches. You thinking something nasty 'bout me, bitch?"

"Yo chill out Allyssa!" Almeida said. "Jack's right, calm down." He folded his arms and favored them with a sour grin. "Y'all can forget about making plans for the future," he said, "'cause no matter what you say, or how much you pay for your fucking lawyers, you're going down if Jay say so!"

They had all forgotten about Orion standing there. Actually, none of them had seen him leave the room and come back in. But he must have, because he was now holding a large metallic box in his huge, bulging, arms.

A gigantic fucking box, Nadia thought.

"The guns," he said, looking down at Jack, with a mostly blank face. "I brought the whole thing sir, because you didn't say which ones to go and get."

5.

Eddie had told her all about Jack's cache of weapons. Enough to start a war, the boy had said in a whisper, as if he'd thought the FBI were maybe somewhere listening.

Supposedly, Jack even had surface to air missiles. But Eddie wouldn't answer any more of her questions about it. In fact, he had quickly changed the subject the minute she'd asked.

Jack was smiling up at the strangely quiet man now, and was still looking apprehensive. Only, Nadia knew Orion wasn't actually a man. Yes, he was six-foot two, and weighed a stunning two-hundred and fifty pounds, but was only fifteen. Nadia was surprised once she realized who he was.

"Very good," Jack told him in a soft voice. "Now place it down right there O, nice and gently please."

When Orion was done lowering the metal box to the tiles, Jack slowly rose from his chair, sighing, and regarded them all with a very steady gaze. He then indicated the box.

Finally, he spoke:

"These are the only things preventing Dagger and the rest of them from walking in here right now," he said, "taking over my shit, and killing all of you." He turned to Nadia. "So I hope you ain't lying about knowing the streets, even a little knowledge would be better than none. I know dudes that figured out the game by going to jail for one day."

He held Nadia's eyes with his own. "But this ain't the same as getting locked up," he said, "there's rules in there. A few sharp objects to shank a motherfucker with, but no guns, and no real cops."

"If you a cop," Allyssa said, "you won't be after tonight. And if you a real hustler, cool, you'll get rich as shit once we take care of them other bullshit gangs. But either way, you belong to us now." She gazed daggers at Julia. "Basically," she said. "You're ass is trapped here, bitch!"

"Get up!" Jack ordered, clapping his hands. "Each of you, come here and choose a weapon...we can tell a lot about people by the motherfucking guns they choose. Let's go!"

The three of them, Nadia, Kelly and Julia, all looked at one another in utter shock. "We're getting weapons right now?" Julia said. "I only came here to dance. Don't we have to train or something?"

"Train?" Allyssa said. "This ain't the goddamn Girl Scouts! It's into the fucking fire Nicki Minaj lover!"

Faster than lightning, she pulled out a huge pistol and held it directly in Julia's astonished face! Nadia inhaled sharply, unable to imagine how she'd moved that fast or where the fuck she was even carrying it!

The girl was so shocked, she didn't move a muscle, didn't bat an eyelash. She reminded Nadia of the pewter human sculptures she'd seen at the museum, once.

Allyssa's slender arm was fully extended, and Nadia was amazed at how perfectly straight the gun was. Despite her pounding heart, she couldn't deny Allyssa looked sexy standing like that; not to mention, incredibly dangerous.

Like a veteran gunfighter from an old movie, she thought. If any of them had been fine black girls with big, round, butts.

Allyssa had her head tilted slightly to one side. "You wanna see what you're up against?" she said. "I could show you, it wouldn't take too long. I'm a real good shot, right Orion? I can hit a flying bird at a hundred fifty yards with both eyes closed!"

"Allyssa!" Jack shouted. "Let them get their fucking weapons, Dagger's boys could show up at any time!"

By his voice, Nadia thought he may have been joking with the volatile girl, but couldn't be sure. At the moment, she wasn't sure of anything, except the growing feeling that she'd made a colossal mistake. Quite a few of them, actually.

"Go on!" Allyssa yelled, finally lowering the gun, after winking and blowing a wet kiss at Julia. "Orion, get over here and open the goddamn case before I fuck around and blast this bitch! I still don't get all of this silly Nicki Minaj shit," she said. "Who the fuck is she, anyway?"

The huge boy eyed Allyssa warily for a second, then quickly bent over and undid the shiny metal clasps. He opened the lid and let it fall sideways. It rattled against the floor as he stood back up and quickly moved out of the way.

Then he went back to staring at Allyssa like a person might watch the growling wolf that had just crept from the dark trees around their campsite, its tail wagging with deadly anticipation.

"Everybody gets one," Jack told them. "Sorry, but nobody escapes the killing without having to kill tonight. Or at least, having the means to kill," he added, and shrugged. "Hell Night rules," he said, "now that you here, ain't shit I can do about it."

Earlier, Eddie told her Orion was a demon when it came to shooting. (Which unbeknownst to Nadia, she would soon get to witness first hand.) He said that as slow as Orion was in thinking, he was that much faster with a gun.

Jack used him often, Eddie said, when they had gunfights.

He told her those things while Julia sped effortlessly through the city, and she was so surprised by how casually the boy spoke of killing, her skin had broken out in tiny goose bumps. He had made gunfights actually sound like pillow fights, and Nadia finally realized that she might have severely underestimated them.

Perhaps, they all had.

Now, she rose from her seat and walked over to the case. Her legs didn't want to move, but she forced them into it. They all went through the metal box, picking up weapons, Nadia wondering what the hell they were supposed to be looking for in a gun.

She also wondered if the cowboys of the past, or even the gangsters of the present, had ever gone through shit like this.

After some time, the eight of them had finally chosen guns and the heavy lid on the case was closed and locked tightly again. Before it was, Nadia thought she saw what looked like at least a hundred guns; and what may have even been the rockets or missiles, Eddie had mentioned back in Allysa's jeep.

She couldn't help shivering.

Nadia had chosen a gun she'd never seen before. Jack didn't respond when she asked him what it was (it resembled a white Magnum and actually looked rather fake to her since she didn't know they even made white guns!); he just smiled a knowing smile.

Of course, Nadia didn't have a clue what his knowing smile meant. But as she held it (the gun was remarkably light, too, almost weightless), she suddenly remembered something she was taught a long time ago. Something crucial about the handling of guns.

"Never touch another person's gun!"

That advice had come from one of her jailbird uncles. Uncle Damien from Staten Island, to be specific. He was a career criminal, and it was told to her at the innocent age of ten.

And then, it fully dawned on her.

Nadia was filled with a suffocating dread as she realized that effective immediately, they had just put their fingerprints all over strange guns. Any crimes already committed by the guns would eventually be linked to them.

Uncle Damien's fucking words, she thought. My God!

Jack suddenly broke out in harsh laughter, causing her to jump, and jerk her head in his direction. He was regarding her with a very bizarre expression.

"I was watching you," he said, pointing at her. "Yeah you Baby Divine. I see you've figured it out huh? No, ain't nobody coming," he said. He cut his dark eyes to Julia, and smiled. "At least, not right now they ain't," he added. "But I still got your prints on these burners, don't I? We always catch 'em sleeping over at Castle Greyskull, baby!"

"Sure do!" Almeida said. "Worked again, Jack!" He broke out in wild applause. "Caught 'em like flies on a sticky tape," he said, laughing insanely. "Damn, I hope they ain't this gullible in everything, or they gone wind up perfectly dead tonight!"

"Those are special made grips," Jack said, "so your prints will never come off." He grinned. "God bless American ingenuity!" he said."Each of them has got a body on it. The body of a cat that had lots of run-ins with the jakes."

Jack laughed again, his deep voice echoing as if in a cave. "So if you are cops," he said, "any one of you, it's going to be a real bitch trying to explain why you were touching the weapon."

"Yeah," Allyssa said, "and that won't be shit compared to a straight homicide rap, either! Fresh fucking homicides, too."

"Homicides?" Nadia said, and nearly swooned with shock.

Jack laughed wildly, slowly walking towards the door. He waved one hand, and Almeida and Allyssa immediately followed him, checking their guns as they went. Popping out weird looking clips and slamming them back into their slots.

Jack reached the door and stopped, not turning around. "This is going to be some crazy shit, Almeida!" he said. "And by seven o'clock, there's going to be a war going on in the streets motherfucker. All kinds of chaos with nobody to help us...but us."

He raised his voice again. "So if you don't think you can take it," he said, "kill yourself right now! Use one of the guns you just chose, don't take another step forward and save us the fucking trouble! We don't run with no cowards no way!"

Sudden laughter came from the shadows around her. From Almeida, Orion and Allyssa, Nadia thought. Though it actually seemed like more than the laughter of two or three people, to her. It seemed like everyone was laughing for a moment. Everyone but her.

Jack finally turned around and stared at Nadia for a few seconds. And then said: "Too bad it ain't one of those novels you could just put down, though." He smirked at her. "Am I right?" he whispered, "the ones you could just stop reading, and simply walk away from saying, that was some bullshit? You think you could do that Nadia, if this was a book?"

Jack turned around with a flourish, and opened the door, the gray metal door with the word DANGER printed on it.

Now that she was right on top of it, Nadia could see that the door had recently been painted. Some of the battleship gray paint had dried in long slightly raised streaks, she noticed, and they almost looked like alien veins.

And a strange thought suddenly occurred to her: Why would there be a DANGER sign on a door leading outside? Had she ever seen that shit before?

As the door swung open and bright sunlight and cheerful bird song flooded the area that was previously steeped in silent, dusty shadow, Nadia thought of The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. Of how it had felt to read about the young English children pushing through the back of the wardrobe and out into another world. Going straight from a dusty wood floor onto snow.

Other than Stephen King's The Eyes Of The Dragon (which was actually her first novel, that she'd read at ten years old; given to her by uncle Damien, in fact), and Keith Lee Johnson's magnificent Black Girl Lost series, Nadia owed her love for reading and writing fiction to that single book.

And to the excellent cartoon she'd seen as a child. But this definitely wasn't Narnia they were entering. As far as she knew, they hadn't sold crack, or carried guns in Narnia!

Nadia could suddenly smell the fresh spring air sweeping inside (a refreshing smell, she thought) but she couldn't enjoy it. She wasn't sure if she could ever enjoy the sunlight and fresh air again.

"Get ready for Hell Night!" Jack screamed, chortling laughter and startling her. As if he'd read her mind, and had known exactly when to scream his statement in order to best frighten her. "Let the games begin!" he screamed even louder. "Let's see if you can hang motherfuckers! It's fucking Hell Night!"

6.

In the end, Jack turned out to be a fucking liar. Because, no sooner had they all walked out the back door of the building and were just reaching the painted yellow curb, when a shiny black van skidded to a violent stop right in front of them.

Of course, Nadia would fantasize about how she'd actually saved Allyssa that day, and pretend she raced over to the black van with reckless abandon, and using her new weapon, blasted a dozen holes in the dark figure hunched over the steering wheel.

But she hadn't done that, not even close. She only stood there as the door was swung wide, and someone jumped out carrying an automatic weapon that was liquid black, and glittered in the glaring sun. Nadia thought it was the same kind the modern terrorists used, but couldn't be sure.

A machine gun was a machine gun, in her book.

But the person, who was wearing a black ski mask and a black jumpsuit, didn't waste any time talking. There were no flowery introductions, no loud violent threats.

They simply raised the weapon at Allyssa and squeezed the trigger. And as long as Nadia lived, she knew she would never forget what she witnessed during that hot afternoon on Biel Street in Saint Albans, Queens. What she would eventually come to consider the strangest neighborhood on earth.

The crazy black girl was empty-handed as the killer leapt from the van. But before they were flung up against the side of that same van, bleeding in at least six different places, Allyssa had spun in place, and was suddenly holding two gleaming pistols! Huge silver things, that were entirely too big to conceal, Nadia thought, but she'd managed to conceal anyway.

Using them, Allyssa blasted her would be assassin from mid-air even as they leapt!

The figure flipped backwards, doing a somersault into the side of the van, making a hollow thudding sound, and slamming to the pavement head first! The ski mask was scraped from the person's face; blood flying from the shattered skull in all directions.

They remained that way, arms and legs twitching wildly as the driver started backing up the van, the back tires smoking and peeling on the asphalt.

But Orion apparently had other plans, and Nadia watched in amazement as he let loose a flurry of shots at the van's front wheels; the bullets tearing into the tires as if Orion were firing handheld Gatlin guns!

Both of them exploded like black rubber watermelons, the van's front end suddenly dropping to the asphalt with a resounding crash! The van slowly spun around, the front rims spinning and sparking on the ground, until the back of the vehicle was finally facing them.

Orion didn't stop there.

Nadia watched as he next shot out the back windows; and then, somehow, shot the driver up in the front seat, through the back window! It was an impossibly risky shot, but one Nadia watched him make easily, and also watched the darkly clad person jerk over violently in the van.

The window before them was now covered in a deep, maroon colored blood which looked a lot more like ketchup, or mud, from where Nadia stood.

When their forehead struck the van's horn, the blaring sound cut the air like a siren; and then she heard the loud shouts and screams coming from across the street where Julia's Hummer was still parked.

A cavalcade of sounds, and Nadia thought of men racing up and down on a basketball court during a summer tournament. So these are men! she thought, and saw three of them in the masks now advancing towards the curb.

Muscular-looking dogs were straining against metal leashes that were attached to thick silver chains; the heavy links flashed in the bright sunshine.

"Dagger's men!" Allyssa screamed. "And they've got the pit bulls! The deadly ones Big Momma sold em; the ones Mayor Sharptongue tried to ban!"

"We can't use their ride!" Almeida screamed back. "And they already know what our shit looks like! We can't let them trail us back to his crib, Dominoe would flip! He might even call it off, and then every gang in the city would come after us!"

"They probably know where we going already!" Allyssa shouted. "Fuck that shit! We gotta get the fuck outta here. Come on, let's use the decoy van in the garage! If the dogs chase us, we can kill 'em when we get around the corner!"

She was breathing rapidly, her chest rising and falling. "We have to avoid doing any more shooting out in the open!" she said.

"Calm down!" Jack yelled.

The men were in the middle of the street now and if not for the unruly dogs struggling to break free of their chains, one of them even biting on the chain as if it were a chew toy, they would have definitely reached them by then.

"You're right!" Jack said. "And there might be more coming, so stay alert!"

Then the bullets started smacking the concrete all around them, kicking up pieces of pavement and glass. But when Nadia finally noticed that the gunshots she had expected to hear were absent, as if the men were using silencers, she felt completely stunned. Her mind had somehow only imagined the loud gunshots, and the ricocheting sounds!

How was that possible?

Suddenly, one of the bullets struck the asphalt by Nadia's foot, scaring the shit out of her, real or not, and causing her to leap backwards! She looked down and saw a button sized hole in the ground, right were her left foot had been. And her mind certainly wasn't imagining that!

Then, she heard footsteps and jerked her head up; the group of men were racing towards them. "Hold it!" one of them yelled. "Yo Jack!" he said. "We just wanna talk!"

The pit bulls were jumping wildly now, the chains slithering and rattling on the ground like metal snakes.

"Fuck you!" Jack yelled back as bullets struck the pavement right beside him. One may have even nicked the side of his left boot, because he suddenly leapt to the right, raising his foot as if he'd been struck there.

But they had apparently missed him, because he was covering his head with both arms, still holding his shotgun.

"Go on!" he said to the rest of them. "Lead the fucking way Allyssa! And don't wait for me—just keep running! Don't stop until you reach the garage!"

Nadia watched them run off. And with a pounding heart, she saw that the entire area behind them was as deserted as a post office on Columbus Day.

Strange she thought, for the middle of the fucking day! People were never around when you needed them to be, were they? Any other time, and they stayed snooping.

But there were no cars or pedestrians at all, Nadia saw. Not even a lone little kid riding their tricycle up one side of the empty street. She only saw the pale cracked sidewalks that she imagined covered the whole neighborhood, and the sun washed barren road that stretched off for what seemed like a thousand miles, to her.

Hearing a faint shout, and suddenly turning around, she saw them following Allyssa up the street and they were all running behind the girl in single file. But she didn't see...

And then, she saw them.

Almeida and Orion were far behind the others, holding their guns up in the air as they ran, and peering back over their shoulders. Clearly looking for the pits, she thought.

Incredibly, bullets struck the ground just behind them as they fled, almost like something from a cheesy action movie where the hero never got killed regardless of the ridiculous odds against them. At least on Twenty-Four, she thought, (which she considered easily the best television show ever made) the agents often got shot and even killed.

She wiped a trembling hand over her sweaty face, not believing what the fuck she was seeing! What was all of this?

Nadia stood up and started after the boys, and before she even got three steps, another black vehicle swerved around the corner far down the block and started speeding towards them!

"Fucking shit!" she whispered, backing up so fast she nearly stumbled. Another one? she thought, where the fuck did it come from? A low groan slipped from between her parched lips as the sound of screeching tires filled the air.

She glanced towards the row of buildings to her right, and saw Jack and the others running along a brick wall. Almeida and Orion were closer to her than they were to them, but neither saw the vehicle heading in their direction.

And with good reason, she thought. They were distracted because the men had suddenly released the pits and the dogs were running straight for them!

Running like hunting dogs chasing rabbits through a meadow. Only, the frantic barking was missing and the dogs were running in utter silence!

Nadia was about to flee again, but had to stop once more as she watched one of the pits zero in on Orion and charge at the slow footed boy. Which meant the dogs had cut her off too!

None of the others knew what was happening. Not even Almeida, because he'd turned around and resumed running long before the pits even reached the middle of the street.

He was flying down the road now, his army boots clomping, not bothering to turn and see what was happening to Orion.

Some fucking brother! she thought, panting, and watching him go. Hustler, my motherfucking ass!

Which meant she had a horrible decision to make. A decision she would have to live with, assuming she lived, for the rest of her fucking life. And if it backfired...if it backfired it wouldn't matter.

If she could outrun the dogs, Nadia thought she might be able to make it to the next boulevard, where she'd noticed traffic zipping back and forth when they first left the dimly-lit building that had been chilly, and reeked of bleach. And once she got there, she could flag down a cab or even better, a cop.

If she was lucky enough to see a cop car first, she would chase it down if she could, and would immediately send them after Julia and Kelly. "They went that way officer!" she would say. "Straight down Biel. Men in black military uniforms, they've got dogs and they're carrying machine guns and they're chasing them! Please help them!"

Yes, she thought, as she watched the first pit bull prepare to leap at Orion's throat. I could save all of them, If I could only find the damn police!

But she had to help Orion, first; there was no other way. Not only did she need his fancy shooting, she had to dispatch of the dogs first if she planned on helping Julia and Kelly.

Nadia could easily imagine them chasing her down from behind (these strangely silent dogs), and leaping on her fucking back.

7.

The men in the black outfits had stopped in the street and were watching one of the pits attack Orion. But incredibly, the boy was holding the dog by its thick neck, and was shaking it in mid air!

The other pits were running circles around him, not making a sound, apparently waiting for a chance to lunge at him.

Surprisingly, the men hadn't noticed her yet. Partly, Nadia thought, because their attention was split between focusing on Orion as he battled the dogs, and on the four people running for their lives down the block.

Nadia could see they were only dark specks far down the street now. And to her dismay, she realized that the vehicle that had suddenly come from nowhere, really was a van. Just like the one the man in the uniform leapt from.

It had nearly crashed into the brick wall after just missing her friends, and she could see it speeding down the road towards them again. In a few seconds, it would run them all down in the street like stray dogs!

Now, she raced from behind the dumpster and raised her strange gun in Orion's direction. "Hey assholes!" she screamed. "Why don't you try picking on someone your own fucking age!"

It was a ridiculous thing to say, she knew that, but it did the job. Because, the boy didn't respond to her, but the men with the automatic weapons did. "Hey bitch!" one of them screamed. "Drop that shit, and don't move!"

Nadia ignored him, glancing over at Orion, instead. To her surprise, the boy had thrown the first pit bull away from his body (threw him at least ten feet, she thought) even as she ran out into the street, and the squat dog struck the asphalt hard, rolling over at least seven times before laying still.

But after a second, it silently scrambled back to its feet and simply charged Orion, again!

It bore down on him like a cheetah, and as Nadia watched the white pit leap at the boy, her right hand flashed, and she shot the dog while it was still soaring through the air.

It flew past Orion's shoulder, a shower of blood pouring from its obliterated head, to land behind him, striking the pavement like a sack of raw meat and rolling to a violent stop.

It didn't get up a second time.

Nadia had only aimed the gun and pulled the trigger.

There was no calculation involved. In fact, she wasn't even sure what she'd aimed at. It couldn't have been the dog's head which just exploded like a ripe melon, because her eyes had been closed.

But her hand (a hand faster than any cowboy's ever was; even Clint Eastwood's, she guessed), was still tingling from the gun's recoil, and she could hardly breathe.

Nadia then saw movement to her left, and turned the gun on the other two pits. They had tried to sneak up on her, and the biggest one was coming at her like a furry torpedo with legs.

It ran in low, snapping viciously at her feet! It was jet black, had a bright white spot on its angular forehead, and its eyes were small, but looked evil and hungry. And it was still eerily silent.

Nadia nimbly stepped back, aimed down, and shot the dog in the back of its neck. Its head was wrenched towards the ground and its muzzle (which she clearly heard snap), smashed into the pavement, blood and teeth exploding from its silently snarling mouth!

Cringing at the sound, Nadia raised her head, and her gun, just in time to shoot the last dog in its muscular brown chest! It was jerked away from her as if pulled by a bungee cord, blood splashing as it slammed into the ground, and slid on one side all the way to the opposite curb. It left a crooked path of bright red on the asphalt, and strange gray objects were mixed in with the blood along the entire ghastly trail.

Nadia could see that the sun made these objects, whatever they were, twinkle and shimmer like the view through a prism. And what the fuck are those? she wondered, panting harshly.

*********

Orion had immediately raised his forearms to block the white pit's attack, but lowered them in surprise when no attack came. He hadn't heard Nadia's gun go off, which was fitting, because neither had she. Luckily, he already knew what that may have meant.

Either she'd been too afraid to shoot, or she shot and he just hadn't heard it.

They called him slow, but he wasn't that slow. Orion could understand quite a bit more than either Jack or Almeida, suspected.

But when he turned and saw the new woman holding her gun up (the pretty woman who was nearly as quiet as he was), and the smoke drifting from the gun's muzzle, Orion knew for sure what had happened. And after a second of hesitation, just a moment to formulate his plan, he went into furious action.

His every move would be as precise as a surgeon operating on a hemorrhaging crash victim.

He shot the tallest of the three in the chest, right in between the lining of his bulletproof vest and his hoodie. The bullet ripped into his skin, exiting from his left shoulder and flinging him backwards.

He flew like a rag doll to land on the sparkling ground, his body bouncing twice, then lying completely still in a swatch of brilliant sunshine.

It was the only place on the man's torso that was vulnerable to gunfire, and Orion had found it unerringly in a split second, already looking away for his next target.

He was grimly facing the last two men when they decided to fight back, but it was much too late. Orion mowed them down, shooting the short, fatter one in the stomach, chest, and right kneecap, damn near simultaneously.

Methodically exploding his kneecaps into white bone and bloody gristle, and meaning to.

When the fat guy screamed and did exactly what Orion had hoped he would do, falling forward and into the street like a scarecrow toppled from its perch, the boy simply shot him in the top of his skull. The man shrieked as if being attacked by gators that had suddenly crawled from the sewers.

His scalp was instantly pulverized, Nadia saw, and glistened where his brains were exposed through the shredded material. A torrent of dark blood came gushing from his nose and mouth still hidden behind the mask, as he raised his jittery arms to the clear blue heavens, and finally crashed forward with a grunt.

Amazingly, he slowly staggered up from the ground as she watched. He began to twitch as well, but was doing it from his hands and knees. She could only gape at him as he crawled a few feet, and finally collapsed for good.

The next one, Orion shot in the mouth right through his ski mask, shattering his upper and bottom teeth like glass; leaving a smoking hole in the front of the mask, and a much larger one in the back of his head before he could react.

The man had been screaming something when the bullet shut him up forever, spinning him around, and revealing the terrible hole in his head. He also flew backwards as if caught in a hurricane, when Orion let off more shots.

When he finally smacked the street he was already long past dead. And to Nadia, his outfit resembled something similar to Swiss cheese, now. Only, this Swiss cheese was jet black, and the holes covering it, were a bright, glistening red.

Orion gazed at the bodies lying in the road for a long, long time, before finally turning to her. "They were trying to kill us," Orion whispered, as Nadia slowly walked over to him.

He was still pointing one of the guns at the dead men. As if he thought they were about to leap up at any moment and start shooting, again. And for all Nadia knew, they were. This Hell Night craziness was new to her!

"They were trying to hurt us with those fancy fucking doo-dad guns," the boy said, scowling. "I hate those guns, they're not fair." He was whispering now. "They're cheating people's guns Nadia, Almeida said so." He nodded. "Uh-huh, for real," he said, "Almeida told me that's really why I killed so many with one last night. About twenty of them, and they was Razor's scout boys, too! Almeida told me not to get all gassed up...do you know what that means?"

Nadia looked from Orion to the men lying motionless in the street. Then she peered at the van Orion had just shot up. It was filled with holes, and now resembled something someone had abandoned in a junkyard.

"It means Almeida is feeling a little threatened," Nadia whispered, mostly to herself.

Her arms and legs were still trembling violently and her mouth felt bone dry (a glass of ice cold water would have probably brought tears to her eyes), but wasn't her main concern at the moment. It was the least of her concerns, as a matter of fact.

She had watched the whole thing from start to finish, and still couldn't believe her eyes. The boy had done some of the best shooting she'd ever seen in any fucking movie.

It hadn't looked real how good he was. How accurate. But what was even more startling, more impossible to believe, was how good she herself, had been!

She'd just killed three vicious dogs as easy as a child kills gnats. She had suddenly felt like a gunslinger from one of Stephen King's upcoming films. Perhaps a character in Wizard and Glass, where Nicki Minaj was slated to play Susan Delgado.

Maybe Susannah, the black one without legs, who Roland taught to kill by saying racist shit to her, until she finally attacked. Until she finally saw the face of her father.

And what was strangest of all?

The fact that her gun, through all the shooting, hadn't made a sound. What in the holy hell was going on? she wondered. Orion's guns had, but hers hadn't. Why not? she thought, peering around. Things were clearly getting weirder by the fucking minute!

She walked over to Orion, reaching up to grab his thick arm with hands that still felt numb, and almost alien to her.

Since when can I fucking shoot like that? she wondered, exhaling, and glancing up at him.

Once again, she was shocked by how gigantic the kid was. How muscular, as if he'd been bodybuilding since birth.

"Come on," she said, her own body still trembling from the adrenaline rush. She said: "That's enough Orion, you did very good honey, and I've never seen anything like it."

She barely got both her hands around his left bicep to pull him forward, and he barely moved. It was almost like trying to pull a fully grown oak tree. "I don't care what Almeida said," she went on, "you're pretty good!"

Orion glanced down at her. "We can leave now?" he asked. "We can go to Mister Dominoe's?" He wore such a hopeful, child like expression, she decided to say yes.

Even though she didn't know exactly who Dominoe was. She'd heard Jack and Almeida mention that name many times, but certainly couldn't put a face to it. She got the vague impression he was somewhat old from their words, or at least, he was sickly, but that was the best she could do.

"Yes," she said, anyway. "We're going to Dominoe's honey, but put the guns away before people notice us. You don't want them calling the cops, do you?"

Nadia said the words, but when she glanced around, she saw that the street was still completely deserted. And across the street, where Julia's Hummer was still parked, was also empty.

Far down the block to her left, the way she had been looking earlier, cars and the occasional city bus still moved in a steady flow of traffic. She could see metal twinkling in the sun; she could hear the faint sounds of honking horns and rumbling motors. But it might as well have been sounds coming from another world, and there were still no people at all.

The whole neighborhood seemed like a ghost town and she even had the weirdest impression that the vehicles down there were driving themselves. "We have to go!" she told Orion, suddenly thinking of Julia and Kelly. Suddenly getting the strongest sense that they were in grave danger.

She seemed to feel Julia's fear especially, but before she could even turn around, a loud screeching sound made her scream in terror, and whatever it was, was clearly coming straight at them!

Nadia jerked, turning and looking down Biel, and was shocked to see that the black van was now headed their way!

How did it get so close? she thought. This is impossible!

It was angling in towards them from the right hand side of the street, on a direct collision course with her and Orion.

Nadia knew there would be no escaping them this time; they were caught. Her feet felt glued to the ground, her knees were knocking together hard enough to hurt.

And before the van blocked out her view of the entire road, Nadia realized that she no longer saw the others. Either they had managed to get away, or they were lying dead and broken somewhere far down the block. Too crushed and flattened in the street to even see from where she stood.

8.

Nadia watched in stunned horror as the black van squealed to a stop right in front of Orion, just missing him by what she knew had to be mere inches!

A cloud of greasy black smoke slowly drifted up to the clear blue heavens, filling the air with the stench of gasoline and scorched asphalt. A little more to the left, and she knew he would have definitely been road kill.

Her limbs felt filled with hot lead as she stumbled backwards, awkwardly lifting the gun which suddenly felt heavy in her hands. But she knew it was useless, regardless of what she'd just done.

That was the past, and she was thinking about it now; there would be no more lucky shots or catching anyone by surprise.

The cat's out of the bag, she thought, and the game is on!

The shiny black doors opened up even before the vehicle had stopped rolling. Movement on Nadia's left caught her eye, she turned and saw Orion had already raised his own guns and he was pointing both of them at the van, clearly about to fire.

(Maybe there's a chance, she thought, desperately. Orion's a fucking incredible shot! I saw what he did to those other men!)

But before anything could happen, a loud female's voice shouted: "Stop O! It's us motherfucker! Big Momma Swift and your little makeshift posse! Look at me boy—no, over here!" the voice yelled. "Lower that gun and calm the fuck down, boy!"

Nadia was shaking with fright as she gazed into the open van sitting sideways in the street. It was dark, but there seemed to be people inside—a number of them.

When a tall shadowy figure suddenly emerged from the darkness, fear, and then relief, flooded Nadia's entire body. It was Julia, and she looked sick with fear, Nadia thought. Worse even than she'd looked while Jack was becoming hostile back at his headquarters.

"Hop in!" she called out. "Big Momma said there's more on the way, a whole darn army of them!"

"Big Momma?" Nadia shouted. "Who the fuck is that?"

But thought she knew. It was obviously the person who was just screaming at Orion, telling him to get in the fucking van.

Was this the one I saw speeding around the corner? Nadia wondered, still gasping for air, and glancing at the front of the vehicle where she saw a brown skinned woman in dark sunglasses leaning out the window.

She was nodding her head to the music coming from inside the van (Nadia realized the song was I Want Your Sex, by George Michael), the sun was dancing off one curving sunglass lens, and long brown dreads were snaking from beneath a dingy baseball cap.

The NY logo on the front of the cap had clearly once been white, but was now closer to a dishwater gray color, Nadia thought, suddenly envisioning the black comedian Wanda Sykes pandering to Yankee fans on her old talk show.

"Orion!" the woman said. "Get yo big ass up in this van motherfucker!" She even has a Wanda Sykes voice! Nadia thought.

And was surprised to see the huge boy jump, immediately shamble over to the van, and scamper inside. He still had a sullen expression on his kind face, but moved faster than Nadia had thought possible. The van sank noticeably from his substantial weight, and bounced a few times.

"What about these dead bodies!" she asked the woman. "And these fucking guns, we can't just leave them here. Kids might come along and see all of this shit! What if they—"

Nadia was about to do some more arguing, but a loud gunshot distracted her. The bullet dinged off the side of the van, making her flinch and duck. From one knee, she glanced up from the pavement and saw the quarter-sized hole the slug made in the van's shiny black metal.

The edges of the hole were a metallic gray and seemed purposely designed into a tiny starburst.

"You wanna stick around to play good citizen and meet them motherfuckers?" Big Momma said. She was leaning even further out the window now, and was twisting her body to view the hole.

"Be my guest sweetie!" she said. "But you on your own, 'cause we getting the fuck outta here!"

She slammed her hand on the side of the van twice, making hollow bonking sounds. "Close that door baby!" she yelled, ducking back into the window. "Momma gotta show these fools how a real bitch drive! We gone be taking over the racing industry next, just you watch!"

She turned up her radio, and started backing the van up. It suddenly drew away from Nadia, but like a movie being played in reverse.

"Come on!" Kelly screamed from somewhere in the shadows of the vehicle. "Hurry Ms. Reece! We gotta go, you want those zombie-men to catch you? Big Momma said they on something called kill mode, and Jack said they shouldn't even be here!"

As if on cue, Nadia heard more gunshots and like magic, more holes appeared in the hood of the van in a perfect line that ran from the windshield, nearly to the van's silver grill. One of the bullets even struck the windshield, but didn't fully crack it.

"Come on, and jump the fuck in, Divine!"

The van was still retreating, and the voice was faint, but Nadia knew it was Jack speaking to her. "Get in!" he shouted. "We got a date with D-Black, motherfucker said whoever survives tonight might get complete control of his crib forever!"

He'd said something else, but Nadia didn't catch it.

The sun was a hot bright hand on her face, now. And for a moment, all was relatively quiet except for the revving motor and spinning wheels of the van as Big Momma drove it backwards, and the sound of her radio blasting. But even those sounds seemed strangely muted and were diminishing rapidly.

Nadia started for the vehicle the second gunshots ripped through the strange, pulsating quiet.

The sound made her eardrums vibrate, making her think of giant mosquitoes and as she clamped her hands over her ears, it occurred to her that the other gunshots may have come from her imagination, but these were most certainly real! Any realer, and she figured she'd be writing a book from her fucking grave.

Nadia finally leapt to her feet, and started sprinting all out.

Her gun hadn't made a sound, but the guns these new men were using made her think of thunder as she caught up to the leaving van, jumped into it, and slammed the sliding door shut. She rolled over on the ridged metal surface, striking her head on something hard and crying out in the solid darkness.

"Hold on!" Big Momma yelled from up front, cackling like a demon. "Big Momma 'bout to make this bitch fly!"

Her stereo system was blasting the horn intro of George Michael's Careless Whisper, now. One of Nadia's favorite songs under calmer, saner circumstances. It reminded her of hot summer nights on New York City fire escapes, and of peering down on the tiny bright lights of the city while it played in the background. She couldn't say why, but her ears were filled with those hypnotic horns as they fled the scene, and she could feel the pounding base thumping in her bones...and in her teeth...

Suddenly, the van swerved violently to the left, its tires screaming like overheated gears!

And then, they were flying down the long sun drenched street doing at least seventy. As Nadia tumbled into bodies in the darkness, she still clearly heard the shouting voices behind them, even as she tried to control her budding terror.

Trapped! she kept thinking. Trapped in a closed space!

The multitude of hollow thuds she heard as bullets bounced off the van's doors, made her want to curl up on the hard metal floor and cry.

"We're gonna get you motherfuckers!" someone screamed suddenly. Right outside the back doors which she knew simply couldn't be! "You only getting closer to Hell Night no matter where you run!" the voice yelled, the voice that couldn't belong to a normal person, because no normal person could run that fast, she thought, not fast enough to keep up with a speeding van!

"Go on try and escape us, go on and run!" they shouted. But the voice suddenly fell away, as if realizing Nadia had been right all along, and what they were doing couldn't be done.

The word run seemed to stretch out behind them like audible taffy, and then there was only Nadia's heart, that steady, rhythmic sound, thumping in her own ears like Congo drums in the darkness.

9.

By the time the red Hummer slammed into them, causing them to crash, knocking them into the middle of next week, Nadia had learned a great deal. The woman driving the van, Barbra Swift (or Big Momma, as she claimed her friends and family called her), hadn't stopped talking the entire hair-raising trip. It was as if she couldn't stop, Nadia felt, not even if her life depended on it. But she could most definitely drive, even if it was a bit recklessly.

"I was going to get my hair did," she said, laughing shrilly, and bouncing in her seat. They were traveling at least ten blocks away from Biel Street at this point. The drab brick buildings that had resembled warehouses, to Nadia, had given way to three storied structures that she guessed were bodegas.

"Yep!" Big Momma said. "I went to Katrina's over on Broadway and Twenty-fourth Street. The new beauty shop she just opened up? You know the one Jack, Katrina's? Her new beauty parlor with the Nicki Minaj posters in the window?" She shook her head. "Especially, that one of her in the shorts? With her back to the camera, showing that fat booty? Goddamn!" she yelled.

"I know it, I know it," Jack answered, clearly not wanting to talk. "Please pay attention to those cars Big Momma," he said, "watch out for that green Accord!"

"I see the cars baby," she said. "Boy, I been driving longer than you been breathing!" She broke out in wild laughter. "Anyway," she continued. "She wasn't there, so I decided to come see you baby. You know? Get a little something-something for tonight."

She raised her sunglasses with one hand, and dropped him a sly wink. Nadia gasped, thinking she'd seen something weird about the woman's eyes, but then dismissed it as a trick of the light.

Big Momma reached out to pat Jack's left leg while still steering with the other. He was sitting next to her in the van's passenger seat, with the nickel-plated shotgun resting between his legs, seeming very nervous and glancing over at the woman every five seconds while she drove. Which was only making Nadia nervous because Big Momma rarely kept her eyes on the road longer than five minutes at a stretch, and she couldn't help imagining a collision.

Julia and Kelly were sitting next to each other on the floor in the middle of the van. Orion and Almeida were off in one corner with their heads together, whispering something Nadia couldn't hear, and they kept glancing over at her. Allyssa was lying down on her side a few feet from her, and Eddie was over by the street side window, seemingly lost in thought.

Nadia, herself, was sitting up against the back doors.

The floor beneath her vibrated steadily as they traveled the unfamiliar roads. And it was still gloomy in the back of the van (the only light, was the strained sunlight coming through the small heart shaped windows to either side of her), but Nadia's eyes had finally gotten used to it.

After looking around, she realized they were in the back of what appeared to be a work van. She saw a red metal toolbox, a few hammers and what looked like a box of nails. The reek of gasoline invaded her senses.

The radio was still playing, though not as loudly as it was when they first pulled up. It was another George Michael song that Nadia thought was called, One More Try.

Big Momma had laughed again, saying:

"I heard the shots and barking before I even reached Biel Street, or saw y'all running! I thought maybe your shit was getting raided Jack. Even though it's Hell Night and that ain't supposed to happen on Hell Night. Tell you the truth," she said, "I ain't know what to fucking think. But then I heard my babies...Oh Lawd, my babies," she moaned, rocking in her seat. "God rest they souls—that damn no-good Poker!"

Big Momma had turned from the road then, glancing back at Nadia while she drove. Which didn't do much to improve her emotional state! She couldn't see Big Momma's eyes through the dark glasses which was unsettling.

"My babies were the dogs you just killed," she went on. "It nearly ripped my heart from my chest 'cause I hate seeing my babies die! Sometimes, I wish I never even started raising 'em!" She shook her head solemnly."Guess it's a blessing God gave me so damn many of 'em, huh?" she said. "At last count, way over a hundred, and one's all you really need, ain't it?"

Her almost southern-tinged voice was very grave. But she didn't seem particularly angry to Nadia as she turned back to the road.

At least not with her. "That was a shame they had to die," Big Momma said, ruefully. "I wish to God I could have got there a little sooner. I knew Lady M was controlling Poker's black ass, but what could I do? Some dudes get a taste of that pure whiteness and go crazy! Guess I finally understand why they call smoke Mary Jane!"

Big Momma glanced around her seat at Julia, wearing a sad expression. Nadia couldn't see her eyes, but her lips were twisted into a frown. "That can work both ways too," she said. "Feel me?"

A terrified Nadia was about to scream to the woman to turn around, but she turned back to the road on her own just as Jack was raising his hand to turn her around manually.

"And I always know the sound of my babies," she said. "I heard 'em barking up a storm back there, and knew it was Poker's boys. I told 'em, train them pups before they get too goddamn big! They born killers and need specific training or you won't be able to handle 'em at all once they grown up! You know," she said, "kinda like how some black people's kids is?"

Nadia glanced at Jack and saw that he was staring right at her. His eyes were wide and dark, and he had one long finger up to his full lips. He was telling her to hush up. All of them, to ignore the craziness they were hearing.

Nadia didn't know why Jack was telling her to ignore Big Momma, why it was so important. But she knew that the woman was either psychic, or she was incredibly good at taking one glance at a crime scene, and figuring out what the fuck had happened.

The agents on CSI had never done anything like this! There was no way Big Momma could have heard the dogs barking because they hadn't made a fucking sound. Nadia was absolutely positive about that!

The gunshots didn't become noticeable until just now, when the second group of men had shown up. Nadia's didn't make noise, and the other men hadn't shot their weapons at all.

She was pretty sure of that as well. Orion shot too, her mind whispered. Remember how good he was? And Nadia was shocked for a moment.

Yes, he did shoot. She had somehow forgotten that.

And then, she saw Jack waving his hand briskly, trying to get her attention. The man was nodding his head in Big Momma's direction. At first Nadia didn't understand. Then she looked, and felt a deep, debilitating panic course through her.

Big Momma was now driving with one hand, her left one. The right one, she was using to hold a shiny crack pipe to her lips!

(Why the hell was Jack even showing her this? Nadia wondered. Was he trying to frighten her ass!)

Big Momma put the stem in her mouth, then used her left hand to put a lighter to its open end. And for a few seconds both of her hands were off the fucking steering wheel!

Nadia watched her inhale deeply and suddenly exhale a huge unnaturally white cloud of smoke. She squealed with joy, grabbing the steering wheel again, before the van could swerve out of control. The acrid odor swept to the back of the van, blown by the wind rushing into the vehicle through Jack's open window.

"Sorry!" Big Momma shouted. "Hope you don't mind me taking a hit, but I'm a little antsy 'cause of Hell Night! Momma really need her medicine at times like this!"

She was still yelling as she glanced over at Jack. "Open up that window a little more baby," she said. "I think the smell's disturbing em back there. Sorry if it's fucking with y'all! Ya hear me? Lawd know my mind ain't what it used to be, but I gets by best I can!"

Before Jack pressed the button that would lower his window, he gazed into the back of the van. His face was as serious as Nadia had seen it so far.

"Not a word!" he said under his breath. "You don't smell shit, got it? We need her! So keep your traps shut!"

Big Momma suddenly turned his way. "You saying something?" she asked. "I didn't catch that hon, the wind and radio blocked it all out baby. Say again?"

"Nah, Big Momma," Jack replied. "I was just sneezing and coughing, it's my allergies and shit. Just watch where you going, and slow down just a little. We don't need the fucking cops pulling us over right now!"

Nadia had glanced out the large front window at that exact moment. They were currently traveling down a long empty street where leafy green trees bordered the sidewalk at the curb.

She'd thought the area looked unfamiliar, but in truth, couldn't be sure about anything. They may have actually been a few blocks from her own house for all she knew.

Not only was she completely disoriented, she was still pondering the crazy woman's claim of hearing the pits and the gunshots before she reached Biel Street, when she knew that both were simply impossible. Even allowing for her possibly hearing Orion, she certainly hadn't heard the fucking dogs!

She wondered if the woman's habit had anything to do with her strange talk. Hadn't she read somewhere that crack caused hallucinations?

She was watching Big Momma turn back to the road, still smoking her crack pipe, when the unseen vehicle came barreling in from the right side of the van (which meant it came from the fucking sidewalk, Nadia would think much later) and rammed into them!

The impact was tremendous, like getting struck by a runaway train.

Nadia heard both Kelly and Julia scream like frightened schoolgirls. She heard Big Momma's frantic voice shouting: "My crack! I'll murder yo ignorant black asses if you broke my last fucking pipe, goddamn it!"

She thought she even heard Allyssa yelling something and thought: What a way to wake the fuck up!

But as Nadia's world was brutally turned upside down, three very distinct things occurred to her. The first was that she was very sorry she'd gotten involved in this mess in the first place.

He warned you, her mind said, gleefully. That annoying voice again. He warned you while standing outside of his apartment building in Brooklyn! He said: "I hope you know you about to walk into a nightmare, a place where everything goes. This is that Hurt Locker type shit!" But you ignored him, didn't you? Still feeling so motherfucking smart?

The voice fell silent after that, perhaps to continue tumbling with the rest of her thoughts. Nadia only knew that she seemed to be floating in a deep weightless space that left her breathless. And the second thing she thought as she flipped through the air with the rolling van, was that if she lived to actually do any writing, or could manage to type with broken fingers, arms and legs, she would have one hell of a tale to tell! A guaranteed best seller, bring on the awards! Writing down what had happened so far was the only ticket she would ever need, the rest would be a snap.

And then, as if God didn't approve of her prideful thoughts, or her foolish boasting, Nadia slammed down to the roof of the van landing on her head and left shoulder.

"Fuck!" she heard herself yell, and felt a sudden, massive pain explode in her neck, just above her collarbone. A hot searing pain, as if she'd been shot there at close range with a large gun.

Nadia felt the van come to a violent jarring stop, only it was obviously upside down, and was rocking slightly. Creaking like an old rocking chair, she thought. Something huge and heavy suddenly clunked right beside her head, just missing her!

Lots of loose metal objects were now falling from somewhere above her to plink somewhere beneath her, as if it were raining pennies.

The toolbox, Nadia thought dazedly, and the fucking box of nails. And for a time, all she heard were the sounds of approaching footsteps, and the van's rumbling motor.

And men shouting something she couldn't figure out; it was much too far away to hear. But the pain in her neck was throbbing and seemed to spread all the way down through her spine. She vaguely hoped she wasn't paralyzed. She'd heard lots of stories about people getting paralyzed in car crashes.

"Pull they asses out! Quick, before the shit blows!" a deep voice said, suddenly right on top of her. "I think I smell gasoline leaking! You smell that shit, Snack?"

She didn't hear Snack's reply, but she heard groaning metal, the doors being pried open, perhaps with a crowbar. There were the sounds of men grunting as if lifting heavy objects. They're lifting us, she thought crazily. We're the heavy objects. But I'm only a hundred and fifteen pounds...that's not so heavy for a black woman, is it? I'm damn near anorexic compared to them Straight Stuntin chicks!

Then, her body was roughly pulled from the darkness and into blinding light. Whoever was grabbing her, wasn't overly concerned with where they grabbed her.

Nadia blinked rapidly, hearing birds chirping directly above her head. Invisible birds, and she was smelling smoke and hot tar. The type of odors that reminded her of old rusty train tracks where weeds ran wild, where mountains of tires grew to the pale sky like ghetto monuments.

Somewhere far off, a whistle was blowing and even further away, a Mr. Softee ice cream truck was playing its universally popular theme. Ice cream, she sang in her mind, barely clinging to consciousness. Ice cream, we all scream for eyes scream!

Then her head was jerked up from the edge of the van, where the unforgiving metal had been a sharp pain in the back of her neck. And it was still bright when the darkness suddenly returned, blocking out the light, even though she was still rapidly blinking her eyes.

She had severely damaged her head somehow and was blind—that was her very first thought. But the truth was even stranger, and somehow much more frightening than merely becoming blind.

It made her think of being buried alive in a coffin beneath the dark ocean floor. Being buried alive forever.

It was the burlap bag on her head that had brought on the new, stinking darkness.

Nadia thought she could smell the musty scent of raw potatoes on the verge of rotting, which immediately made her think of earthworms and maggots. And before she passed out, the third and final thought came to her. Something that had apparently been gnawing at her mind the entire time:

How did Allyssa know Julia had come from Miami? she thought. Allyssa wasn't there when Jack told that to Almeida, her or Orion. Was Jack mentioning the Dade Boys enough to explain it? Wasn't there a place named Dade somewhere else in America?

A city or a town?

Probably insignificant questions, she thought. But still...and then, mercifully, her eyes closed after fluttering a few times like a child having a vivid dream about huge black ogres, and all Nadia knew for certain, was that she knew no more.

But they're coming, she'd thought faintly just before her mind completely blanked out, the thought like a dying pulse.

Those terrible answers are coming, I can feel it!

10.

Nadia Reece was having a very strange and lucid dream. She didn't know it was a dream while she was actually having it; but realized it was only a dream once she finally awoke from it.

In it, she was standing in some cold, dark place, and was facing what appeared to be three separate doors.

At least, she thought they were doors. But they were actually three bright rectangular shapes floating in a vast blackness that had no beginning and no end. The numbers one, two, and three, were shining from each door in succession.

Only, they were huge jet black numbers, maybe five feet high, and as dark as the air around her. A part of Nadia's mind wondered if the numbers weren't simply cut-out shapes, and she was basically seeing the darkness behind and surrounding the doors.

But three different voices called to her from each door, saying: "Me! Me!" over and over, like a record with a deep scratch in it.

Nadia thought she recognized each voice and that she knew exactly who it belonged to. The first door was Julia's voice, the second was clearly Kelly's. And the third belonged to the foul-tempered Allyssa Black.

The girl she'd just met after embarking on her lunatic's mission. She didn't recall hearing her last name before, but was somehow positive it was Black. Or at least, it was Black in the dream.

Allyssa Black was gorgeous, as Jennifer Nicole Freeman was (since they were twins in most regards). It seemed important she acknowledge that too, even in the dream.

But unlike her, Allyssa had the mind of a juvenile delinquent. There was something weird about her personality she simply didn't trust, something off.

But in the dream, Nadia was suddenly attracted to those doors. To all of them at the same time, even Allyssa's. Her body wanted to race over to them through the vast darkness, not even seeing what she was running on, and not caring.

The only problem was, she knew somehow that one of the doors would be dangerous to her if she touched it. The owner of one of the voices behind the doors, would be extremely dangerous!

Nadia didn't know how she knew this, but she did. She suddenly had the powerful sense that one of the females speaking to her, whispering: "Me! Me!" in a way that was almost sexy, as if she were getting fucked long and hard, would kill her if she opened their particular door! And when the glowing image of Nicki Minaj holding a little boy in her arms, one she had obviously just drained of blood with her jagged vampire's teeth, suddenly materialized in the air before her, Nadia had screamed in the echoing darkness. Nicki Minaj had suddenly glanced up and screamed with her! Curving fangs yawning, as if mocking her, blood pouring from her cruel mouth. Her eyes blazing red light that sliced through the inky blackness.

And then, it vanished. Even in her dream that was a terrifying image. Perhaps, had Nadia been awake, she may have connected the vision to what she saw happen to Julia's shirt earlier. But she wasn't awake.

What was worse, was the fact that Nadia seemed to be getting that same threatening vibe, if not the horrid vision, from all three of the doors. How could she possibly ever choose one if that was the point? When her body suddenly began to move towards the trio of doors, Nadia had thrown up her arms against them. Again, screaming out shrilly in the solid darkness.

"Get off of me!" she screamed. "Let me go! Let me go! Shhhstop!"

She struggled against the invisible force that had hold of her, that was dragging her towards the blazing white light, her eyes shut tight as she wildly thrashed her arms. But ironically, Nadia actually opened her eyes when she felt the light increase in intensity upon her eyelids, as if touched by warm fingertips. The pulling sensation suddenly lessened, then finally quit altogether.

It's a dream! Nadia thought inside her dream mind.

She was standing right in front of one of the doors, and it was now opening very slowly! Nadia watched the light grow less and less, as the bright white was gradually replaced with blackness; as the blackness slowly encompassed everything. She knew a door was opening even though she couldn't see it, because she suddenly felt an even colder air blowing through the opening, and could smell a horribly rancid odor. Like the foul smell of acne pus, or the stench of spoiled pork crawling with maggots and flies some rat had pulled from the trash.

Just before the door opened completely, Nadia felt a slap! A sharp smack in the face that rocked her head backwards even in the dream! Wake up! And when she opened her eyes again, she saw that she was no longer standing in a completely dark place. The bad smell was gone, replaced by what she thought was the scent of pine.

Brilliant orange light suddenly flooded her vision, making her turn sharply away. Which only made her neck and shoulders roar in pain. The right side of her face still stung where she had been smacked, which didn't make sense to Nadia, because she knew it had only been a dream.

It had to have been!

But when the slap came again, even harder, Wake UP! Nadia immediately knew the truth of the matter. It was no fucking dream, this shit was real!

Then her memory returned in a flash of ghastly images and violent sounds, a flood of threatening data. The three vicious pit bulls, the men in the black masks and outfits. They were carrying black automatic weapons, she recalled, but were now lying dead in the street! Somewhere on Biel Street, right?

Jessica Biel? she wondered.

Jessica with the beautiful eyes, perfect face and round, poking ass? And wasn't Justin Timberlake lucky?

Merely a coincidence, Nadia thought distractedly, trying desperately to gather her thoughts. And then, she also remembered the strange gun that she'd taken from the metal box, that didn't make noise when it shot. She thought of crazy assed Big Momma, who for some reason, resembled Wanda Sykes, and was a functioning crack addict. She remembered Jack, Almeida and Orion. Julia with her Nicki Minaj T shirts, and her embarrassing Nicki Minaj complex. The only person Nadia knew who watched The Scavengers film every single day.

She remembered Kelly, and the suddenly very somber Eddie. And of course, Allyssa. Beautiful Allyssa Milatto. Built like Buffy The Body, but with Jennifer Nicole Freeman's face, weird eyes, and the brains of a fucking sparrow.

Only Nadia thought a sparrow had the much higher I.Q. Probably seventy points higher, if not more.

The only thing she couldn't recall was how she'd wound up here—wherever here was. But she had opened her eyes after the second slap, and was now peering up into the face of a tall white woman. A very tall one, she saw.

Though still feeling dazed, Nadia thought she was beautiful. She had long flowing red hair, and absolutely enormous tits like Christina Hendricks had, she thought, if not a little bigger.

And that was the most Nadia saw because the woman was standing in front of a light bulb that hung from the ceiling.

It formed a halo of radiance around her head, as if she were an angel, but also managed to block most of her face. And when she finally spoke, Nadia immediately pegged her accent as being Irish. She spoke like a female who had just come from Ireland.

"So you're finally up?" she said, walking away from Nadia and stopping a few feet beyond her. The clacking sound had come from her high-heeled boots striking the floor.

She chuckled, softly. "I told Poker not to hit ye too hard," she said, "but he can be so vindictive and he drives just like a lunatic." She grinned. "I spend all me free time controlling his violent ways, don't I Harpo? But I'll have him properly trained in the end," she said, "they don't call you niggers dogs for nothing!"

Nadia blinked, thinking: Did I just hear that shit? and turned her head to the left, spikes of pain immediately attacking the tendons in her neck, making her scream.

She eventually stopped screaming, and just sat there gasping for air, her eyes leaking badly. Nadia wanted to grab her neck and massage it, but couldn't do it. She tried desperately to reach it, but it was no use. She might as well have been wearing handcuffs.

"Ye didn't break it," the woman informed her, "but ye nearly cracked the back of ya blooming skull, which wouldn't have done. Not until we figure out who ye are, and what the fuck ya doing around here, of course!"

"Yeah," another voice said, but a man's voice this time. It was gruff, and definitely not Irish. "Tonight's Hell Night bitch!" the voice said. "Didn't you know that shit? You done stepped into a real nightmare girl. So fuck whatever you was just dreaming 'bout, you in some serious assed trouble now!"

Nadia flinched as the hazy image of a short brown skinned man suddenly approached her. "You and your friends are going to miss Hell Night though," he said, "and when midnight comes, Poker's gonna own this whole goddamn town. Just like he already owns all of you."

The white woman giggled. "And since I own Poker's black ass," she said. "I'll be the one really running shit."

She snapped her fingers, obviously imitating a sassy black girl, Nadia thought. "All I gotta do is stare into his dark, beady eyes," she whispered, "and he'll do whatever I tell him to do, like a fucking slave."

"You better watch yo mouth!" the shorter man said, laughingly. "Before Poker does some rearranging to them pretty ass features. I don't want that dirty fucker damaging my precious white jewel!"

He moved over to stand beside the much taller woman, gazing up at her lovingly. "Give me some of that vanilla honey," he said, "this little motherfucker's thirsty as shit!"

The woman leaned over, hawking snot, and spat in his grinning face. Covering his lips in a layer of mucus, that immediately began to drip down his chin! And then, shockingly, she hauled off and slapped him in the mouth, right where she had just spit!

Nadia jerked in her seat, thinking the woman had smacked him even harder than Julia hit her brother earlier, and that had been a shockingly hard blow. She watched the man stagger backwards a few feet, before finally regaining his footing. But when he finally looked up, Nadia could see he was grinning even harder than before.

And she finally saw the woman's face clearly, smacking the man had caused her to move out of the light, and despite her aching head and the assorted bruises covering her entire body (and her shock over watching anyone get smacked so hard), Nadia thought she looked gorgeous. Like an actress, or a model, she felt.

Nadia could easily see the Irish in her blood, because it was evident in her facial features, and especially in her green eyes. Eyes that seemed a much lighter shade of green than Rihanna's were. Rihanna's were more the color of emeralds with flecks of brown.

"I'm not worried about him," she said dismissively. "Ye just make sure he's here at ten o'clock Harpo. I've got to make sure his men clean up the mess and put everything back in its proper place. Can't have the authorities sniffing around, can we? Too much at stake baby, one false move could ruin everything."

Nadia couldn't turn her head completely, but had turned it enough to see Julia. She was sitting maybe ten feet away from her, tied to a straight backed chair, and seemed to be unconscious.

Her eyes were closed, her chin resting on her chest, which was steadily moving up and down. There seemed to be many dark bruises on her pale sleeping face, too.

At least, she's breathing, Nadia thought. Thank God my sweet baby's alive! I love you Julia!

Nadia suddenly realized that there were other people sitting directly behind Julia. Quite a few of them, sitting all around her, in the exact same kind of chairs, too.

But Nadia's sight hadn't returned fully and she only saw fuzzy human shapes back there.

"All of your friends have been drugged," the woman told Nadia. "They'll be okay, I just need them cooperative if ye catch me drift? Can ye speak little lass? Or did the accident snap off ye blooming tongue?"

Nadia peered up at her face, thinking she was even prettier than she'd first thought. Chelsea Hightower pretty, in fact—close enough to be her twin, and she felt completely bewildered. The last thing she fully remembered was jumping into the black van while the unseen men were shooting at them.

"What happened to us?" she whispered, glancing up.

After ye van went tumbling," the woman said, "Poker's men hurried and pulled ye and ye mates from the wreckage. But what happened before that is beyond me."

"Was anyone hurt badly?" Nadia asked her. "My friends? Was any—"

"None of ye pals were injured," she said, "at least, not suh far. I told 'em don't damage the merchandise just yet."

Chuckling, the woman clasped her hands together. Pale hands with very long fingers and expensive looking rocks glittering in the lights on most of them, Nadia saw.

"Of course, that can always change," she finished, "if ye catch me fucking drift?" She grinned down at her. "You do, don't you?" she said.

Nadia thought she did. "So, why am I still awake then?" she asked, groggily. She was also tied to her chair with rope. Her expensive new jacket was gone, and the rope bit into the skin on her arms where the sleeves of her T shirt stopped.

She'd already glanced down and noticed that her feet were free. But her brand new three hundred dollar Jordans were scuffed up and covered in ash, totally ruined. Money down the fucking drain! she thought.

Harpo responded instead. "Because we need one of you to send a little message to Dominoe," he said, and smiled, shaking his lumpy head. "That was some incredible shooting you did girl. Thought I was watching one of Dagger's boys for a second. You and that big dummy motherfucker who found that machine gun last night."

He folded his arms across his chest. " Whoo-wee!" he said, "I heard he was kinda nice with the gat, but never believed it. I guess I was wrong, huh?"

Nadia suddenly thought of the young boy, recalling how the mere kid had blasted the first man in the chest, somehow hurting him even though she clearly saw his Teflon vest. And then, another thought came to her. "The guns," Nadia said, before she could stop her traitorous lips from revealing what was on her mind, but guessing it was already too late for that.

Damn, she thought. Me and my big fucking mouth! Shit!

"The guns?" the woman asked, and Nadia turned to her, badly startled. The white woman was now standing right next to her!

Nadia knew she was wearing high-heeled boots that clacked on the floor, boots similar to the ones Julia had just bought, as a matter of fact. But she hadn't heard her walking at all, even though she could clearly hear the soles of her own sneakers smacking the floor by merely tapping them lightly.

"You'll get ye guns," she said, "don't worry about that. But I've never heard of such shootin' skill in a black lass, other than a certain New York City police officer named Feris Jones, and in a certain fantasy book—but then, Lady Dread Jones isn't from earth, now is she?"

Nadia, ignoring her (not knowing who the fuck she was referring to with Lady Dread Jones and not processing the rest of it at all), took a moment to examine the room they were in, or as much of it as she could under the circumstances. It was painted a pale shade of green and seemed nearly as big as her office over on Eighth Avenue. The floor was shiny black tile, and was bare except for her chair, the chairs of the people that had been kidnapped with her, rows and rows of empty chairs, and what appeared to be a red duffel bag. She saw no windows and if there was a door, it must have been far behind her.

"I'm from the Bronx," Nadia lied, turning back to her, not understanding why she was lying, but thinking it was somehow important that she was. The less info she gave the bitch, the better.

"I was only coming to see Big Momma about picking up some work," she said. "Maybe a few keys, and she was taking us to Jack to hook it up for me."

"So you hustle?" the man said. He snorted laughter into one ashy fist. "You think I was born yesterday bitch?" he said, glancing up at the woman again. "This hoe thinks we dummies Michelle, she didn't have any fucking money on her so that's a bullshit story! Like I don't know a fucking hitter when I see one!"

He lowered his dark eyes to Nadia's face, again.

"Harpo?" the woman said, in a soft, pleasant voice.

Harpo ignored her, and snorted, again. "Hooker, I been running in these streets for years!" he said. "I was here before your boss could lift a piece, let alone shoot one! Where you really from bitch, Brooklyn?" he asked her. "You shoot better than most of the dudes in his crew. Even Slope, who nearly killed Dagger's bitch ass!"

"Harpo?" the woman said again, a bit louder this time. And the man finally glanced up at her, and he was still smiling.

"Nigger!" she screamed, grabbing him by the throat with both hands and suddenly lifting him up!

He was swept off his feet as if he only weighed a pound, and before Nadia could fully blink, Harpo's boots were hovering five feet off the floor!

Michelle was holding the man straight up in the air, still clutching him by his throat. "Address me as Mistress Michelle nigger!" she screamed up at him. "You fucking ugly African nigger! Address me as Mistress Michelle!"

She spun on her high heeled boots, and threw the man as if throwing a baseball! Nadia was so utterly shocked she didn't move a muscle until she heard his head connect with the wall.

The meaty thud from the impact was nearly as bad as the sound of his body hitting the stone floor. She expected to see blood pouring from his shattered face once he'd finally staggered to his feet, but he didn't appear to be bleeding at all. And what was even stranger, was that his face didn't appear to have any damage.

"I know that Jack had you flown in from somewhere," Mistress Michelle said in a pleasant voice, ignoring Harpo's screams and groans, and turning back to Nadia. "It's just a matter of finding out where from," she whispered.

She was leaning directly over her, close enough for a stunned Nadia to smell her perfume (a scent she should have recognized, of course), but Nadia barely noticed it. She was too busy trying to recover from her violent explosion, coupled with marveling over how her voice had changed just now. The heavy Irish accent had vanished.

"I want to know where you're really from," she said. "You're new, I haven't seen you before." She reached down and scratched Nadia's head. "But I love the look!" she said. "What is that boo, modern day Planet Of The Apes?"

Nadia stared up at Mistress Michelle for a long time with conflicting emotions warring in her fuzzy mind. She was captivated by her light eyes, she couldn't lie about that. They seemed to glitter like expensive crystal; like precious stones she'd come upon at the bottom of a shallow pond.

Gorgeous, Chelsea Hightower eyes. Goddess eyes.

But she also imagined ripping them out of her pretty white face with her bare fingers, and stomping them into the fucking ground.

And that was after ripping her pretty head from her shoulders.

The woman's sudden outburst had scared the shit out of her!

"I'm no fucking hitter!" she said, finally. "I'm Baby Divine from the Bronx and I'm down with the Dark Realm Crew! We run the entire Concourse from One hundred sixty-First Street, down to Two-hundred thirty-Fourth Street!"

"Is that right?" Mistress Michelle said. She was now right up in her face. So close, Nadia could feel her body heat.

"Yeah," Nadia said. "That's right. I'm a hustler, not an assassin!"

"No problem bitch," she said, "you wanna play it this way?"

Mistress Michelle shrugged, blew Nadia a kiss that tickled her face, and rose up, again. Nadia couldn't help smelling her breath and it was realms beyond weird, because she thought it had smelled faintly like Nubian Sunrise, as if she'd just been drinking it!

"You're still going to do our bidding," she said. She was gazing down at Nadia with her hands on her wide, curving hips. Hips that complemented her full, nicely rounded ass and made black guys go utterly wild, Nadia was sure.

"You see that red bag right there?" Mistress Michelle said. "Go on bitch, look!"

She suddenly kicked Nadia's chair, scaring her. Nadia knew the woman obviously meant the duffel bag she had noticed earlier. "What about it?" she asked, glancing down at it and breathing heavily. It was sitting on the floor almost near Julia's feet.

"Your guns are in there," Mistress Michelle, said. "And after you take care of something, I'll give you and your little squad here, your weapons back, and we're going to let you go. You can do whatever you like after that."

"Let us go?" Nadia said, and her heart started pounding again. "What?" she whispered. "Are you serious? Why would you do that?"

"You heard her," Harpo said. "Or do you have to clean the gobs of wax out your motherfucking ears to hear us better?"

He was standing next to the Irish woman with his muscular arms still folded across his broad chest. Nadia eyed him, thinking he would make an excellent character for her next novel. The loud-mouthed motherfucker nobody could trust, and everyone wanted dead.

The statuesque Caucasian woman, Mistress Michelle, was standing beside him wearing a skin-tight shirt with a picture of Tiger Woods smiling on it. Nadia imagined a younger Chelsea Hightower wearing it, the way she'd looked on DWTS, dancing with Romeo. Tiger was giving a thumbs-up sign to the camera, like he had on one of his famous Wheaties covers.

She's a funny bitch, Nadia thought, I can't deny her that shit.

"You're going over to Dominoe's crib to deliver him a message for us," she said. "You're going to say you just left Poker's headquarters, and saw proof he's been lying about someone infiltrating his organization—and can show him that proof. Say that Poker was the one who hijacked his own shipment, the guns and the sixty thousand in coke. Set the entire thing up, himself."

"Why would he do that?" Nadia asked. "It sounds stupid, and unbelievable. Plus, Dominoe doesn't even know who the fuck I am! Why would he listen to anything I have to say? And even if he did listen, why the fuck would he believe me?"

"Because Dominoe's been waiting for Poker to try something!" Mistress Michelle said. "Shit's been heating up over here for a long fucking time, and it won't take much to spark a war. It's a powder keg, and you're about to light it!"

"Poker wants to hijack Dominoe's shit," Harpo added, "as well as everyone else's in the game. Don't worry about it making sense, you just worry about saying what we tell you to say. He knew that robbing his own shit would make him look like a fucking victim, so he did it to himself, it's that simple." She peered at Harpo's face again, and saw there was a slight bruise on his forehead, right above his left eye. But that was all. Which she knew was simply impossible.

"...even had some of his men killed to complete the illusion," Mistress Michelle was saying, grinning at Nadia mirthlessly. "Of course, that was actually us doing what we do best," she went on, "wiping out the competition. But that's the story, like it or not. Just make sure you stick to it, bitch!"

"After you tell that to Dominoe," Harpo said, "you're going to wait until he rushes over here like a bat out of hell, and then you're going to kill all of the men he leaves behind to guard his shit, got that? That shouldn't be a problem, not with your skills."

"Or what?" Nadia asked, defiantly.

"Or you're going to watch one of these bitches die," Mistress Michelle replied, "That's or what; we're keeping Jack, Orion and Almeida right here, for insurance. And one of these other bitches, which one is up to you. After you've done what we tell you to do, we'll let you all go. But if you decide to play hero, you'll be sorry. We'll bury all of you in Dominoe's basement and Hell Night won't even miss you."

"See I don't know where you're truly from," Harpo said, nodding at the white woman. "But Mistress Michelle here? She's fucked with all them dudes moving product around these streets and she's smart, 'bout the smartest white chick alive."

He threw a dark glance in Nadia's direction. "Got all kinds of secrets on them," he said, "all of it on audio and video too, right M? We got dirt on the whole fucking city, don't we?"

"But we won't use it just yet," Mistress Michelle cooed. "Not unless it's necessary baby."

She rubbed Harpo's head with one hand, as a woman might rub her favorite kitten. The same way she'd scratched her head earlier, Nadia noticed. "And if you handle shit properly," she said, "and do what we say, it won't ever become necessary. It'll be the easiest takeover ever and then you can come and work for me."

"Why would the fuck I work for you?" Nadia said.

"Because I compensate my hitters extremely well," Mistress Michelle said. "The best in the business, I've been told. Or you can simply leave, and act like we never even met." She shrugged. "No hard feelings baby, just keep your mouth shut about it."

Nadia was about to reply, she was just about to open her mouth and say: "You've got it all wrong. I don't know shit about the Saint Albans drug wars! I've never even been to this area before, not other than just riding through on my way to Long Island! I'm not a hitter, or a hustler, I'm just writing a fucking book so I can meet Nicki Minaj!"

Which she knew probably would have been the last thing she ever said. But before she could open her mouth, a voice croaked:

"I would love to know what the fuck you think Poker's gonna do when he finds out about this shit!"

Nadia, Harpo and Mistress Michelle, were all startled as they turned to look at the man sitting near the far left hand wall. Jack was finally awake, he was sitting up now, with his head reclined as far as the back of the chair would allow it to go.

His chest was rising and falling quickly, like a man pumping iron and blood seemed to be trickling down his face.

Nadia thought it also could have been his own sweat mixed with grime. But other than that, he seemed mostly intact.

"You a crazy bitch!" he said, breathing harshly. "You too Harpo, you cutting a motherfucker's throat?" He gasped and started coughing. "I hope you got your bills paid the fuck up," he grunted. "'Cause Poker's gonna chop—"

Jack never got to finish.

The woman moved so fast, Nadia barely saw her move. In the snap of a finger, Mistress Michelle had crossed the room, a distance of perhaps twenty feet Nadia guessed, and was standing right in front of Jack!

Even he seemed surprised by her incredible cat-like speed. As if he too, couldn't understand how she had moved that far, that fast, on high heeled boots.

Jack immediately tried to jerk his head backwards, but Mistress Michelle had already seized the sides of his face with her bare hands!

11.

"Get the fuck off me!" he yelled as Mistress Michelle dug her nails deeply into his flesh.

Either Nadia was losing it again, or the woman's nails appeared to have grown longer as she did, like the claws of a wolverine puncturing Jack's brown skin! The man screamed, jerking back even harder.

"I'm going to kill Poker!" Mistress Michelle said, "as soon as we've taken control of the gangs running around!"

She yanked his head to the left, causing Jack to moan again, but he didn't cry out this time. "Oh yeah?" she screamed. "Think you can take my punishment?"

She suddenly smacked him so hard his entire body seemed to vibrate in the chair; then she grabbed him by the hair and punched him viciously in the face five times! A spray of blood exploded from his face and splattered on the floor.

Nadia was astonished.

"Poker's washed up in this game!" Michelle said, breathing heavily and grabbing him by the neck. "Harpo's taking over in his place, and he'll answer only to me!" She was grinning as she reached down with one suddenly clawed hand, and grabbed Jack's crotch. "You've been replaced baby," she whispered. "How's it feel, my nigger?"

She grabbed Jack through his pants and twisted hard. And this time, he couldn't help screaming. "Mother fuck!" he yelled. "Get off me you fucking bitch!" He was leaning to one side, supported by the ropes, and was gasping for air like a salmon dying on the deck of a boat.

Nadia watched a panting Jack slowly lift his head and look up at Mistress Michelle. Five thin lines of blood dripped down his left cheek to his chin; he appeared dazed and was glassy eyed.

"So you're going to shit on Poker?" he rasped. "After the idiot rescued your ass out a fucking snowstorm? He could have left your white ass right there, you fucking bitch, and let them motherfuckers rape..."

And then, he seemed to notice the look on her face. The sarcastic grin Nadia guessed he probably knew quite well.

Mistress Michelle was nodding her head and her expression said the whole thing, the pretending to be stranded after arriving in New York and getting robbed and nearly raped by blacks, had all been a lie. Like what the American media did on a daily basis. She couldn't recall the last news report or documentary regarding African Americans she actually believed; good or bad. But even Nadia could read that sly look.

"Oh shit," he said, fully understanding it seemed. "You fucked up, deceitful bitch!"

He coughed harshly. "I don't give a fuck about Poker," he said, "and he actually deserves it, but some shit's just wrong! I told him you hoes is dangerous, I ain't never buy that sweet white girl bullshit! Just 'cause yall got pretty eyes!"

Mistress Michelle peered at Jack for a moment, as if considering something. Then she laughed merrily.

"Deceitful?" she asked. "Your jealousy is showing, Jack. Haven't you learned some people are just smarter, and better at doing things than others? You had four years to learn these streets, and all you've done is manage to regress. Don't hate nigger, congratulate."

"You're fucking dead!" a new voice yelled, and Nadia flinched in her seat again. She immediately looked towards the back rows of chairs and saw that Almeida was also up, and was swinging his head back and forth like a madman.

Nadia thought his face looked even crazier than he had when he first walked into the room back at Jack's building.

"Tonight's Hell Night!" he snarled. "Our boys know all about them and are going to call in, and when we don't answer they'll come looking for us. They'll use the tracking devices in our weapons, then you'll find out how the fuck we get down, bitch!"

Mistress Michelle laughed. "Oh yeah?" she said. "I seriously doubt that homey, because your boys are all fucking dead."

"What?" Almeida said, panting, his anger losing steam. Like a locomotive going up a very steep hill, Nadia thought.

"And as far as the tracking devices go," she said, "you mean these?" Mistress Michelle suddenly raised one hand to the light, but so they could all see, and opened her palm.

A bunch of shiny objects sparkled there. "The bugs," she said. "Harpo did it, and as you can see, I train my niggers very well."

She grinned down at Almeida. "It's amazing how much he wants me," she said, almost wistfully, "and you can belong to me as well, simply learn to obey your gorgeous white Mistress."

She blew him a kiss, and smiled her adorable Chelsea Hightower smile. "What?" she said, "have I offended you, boo?"

Nadia, wondering what made the insane woman feel she was an authority on men (particularly her black men), watched the understanding dawn on Almeida's ashen face.

She watched as his body slumped in the chair, and he suddenly resembled a crazy person who has come to the realization that some people you are destined to meet in life, are simply crazier.

But they were all awake now. Julia was blinking her eyes as the bright lights invaded her thick lashes.

Even from where she sat, Nadia could see the sooty black streaks left by the girl's tears and she wished she could get up and go kiss them away.

"We have covered all our tracks," Mistress Michelle said, "and by the time Poker figures out what happened, I'll already have control of everything. We're going to sit back and watch the rest of you monkeys wipe each other out, then sneak in and pick up the pieces. But perhaps sneak is the wrong word?" she said. "I won't have to sneak."

She winked at Almeida, striding across the floor. She came to stop right in front of Julia, and gazed down at her. Nadia's heart lurched (remembering the claws, had she truly seen that fucking shit?) as the woman reached down and clutched Julia's shapely chin with one hand. She lightly thumbed her dimple, as Jack had done earlier, then her fat bottom lip.

But her fingers were normal again and Nadia exhaled, explosively. Julia however, immediately jerked her head away, only Mistress Michelle was gripping her face tightly.

"You're a lovely girl," she said, "and I'd lick the shit out of you. I'd stick my six-inch tongue in every hole you have, if it wasn't for Hell Night!" She exhaled. "Shit!" she said, peering at Julia's face as if examining an expensive painting.

Mistress Michelle smiled. "Your beautiful Julia," she said. "There's something about you black girls," she whispered, "besides the pretty faces, big tits, lips, and butts. I don't know...you make something stir deep down inside me!"

Mistress Michelle bent her head closer to Julia, as if about to kiss her with her own full lips. Lips like Scarlet Johanson's, Nadia thought. "There was a time when my husband would have owned you," she whispered, "and once he left on business—"

Something suddenly started playing loud R&B music and Nadia turned from watching Mistress Michelle and Julia doing whatever it was they were about to do, to watch Harpo immediately reach into his pocket.

The ringtone was Rihanna's song Umbrella, and Harpo was now pulling out a black cell phone and flipping it open. "Hello?" he said. "This is Harp, and this better be good, I'm busy!"

He glared down at Nadia as he listened; then they jumped in unison when he shouted: "What? How the fuck you know that shit! They told me to tell her he was in there! Where could he possibly go? Huh? He's sick and dying! You sure you checked everywhere motherfucker?"

Harpo had been staring up at the ceiling as he spoke. Now he glanced over at Mistress Michelle and shook his head slowly. "So he just disappeared?" Harpo asked. "How? He's eighty or some shit! What? I don't give a flying fuck that he's only fifty! He just made you look like the old senile motherfucker, didn't he? Didn't he? Don't hand me that smart mouth shit, Kaliek!"

"What is it?" Mistress Michelle asked, sighing deeply. "It certainly doesn't sound good. You blacks are animated and demonstrative! I mean my God, the White House?"

Nadia noticed how frightened she looked as she gazed down at her stocky accomplice, even though she was trying to pretend she wasn't with her nonchalant comments, and grinned.

Whatever had happened, it didn't appear to be a part of their fucking plan. Good, she thought.

Harpo was gazing up into Mistress Michelle's face when he said: "Hold it, shut up Kaliek! I'm giving the phone to M, tell her your own crazy bullshit!"

He covered the receiver with both hands, took two deep breaths, and released them. Then he cut his eyes back to Mistress Michelle's suspicious stare. "They just got there," he said. "Pinky said that Dominoe's crib was empty when they arrived and all of his men were dead. All of them!"

He sighed. "As of this minute, there's absolutely no sign of Dominoe," he went on, "or the damn money and if that shit's really gone, the whole operation is dead!"

There were startled gasps from around the room, and Nadia couldn't tell where they had come from, and for some reason, wished she could. "You told me Dominoe was there!" Mistress Michelle screamed at Harpo. In a flash, she reached her hand out and snatched his phone.

She slammed it to her right ear. "Hello!" she said. "Kaliek? Yeah, it's me. What's happening over there?"

She listened to his response, and then said: "Did you get rid of the fucking vehicles? Huh? Thank God," she breathed.

She exhaled, giving Harpo a strained look. "Okay then," she said into the phone. "Stay calm and tell the others help is on the way...huh? No! No, don't move! Just hide the bodies, we'll get him back. We're handling Poker on this end, things haven't changed."

Mistress Michelle suddenly turned to glance at Nadia, making her flinch backwards. "Tell the others that we just captured one of Jack's best shooters," she said, "Baby Divine and some of her crew. She claims she's from the Bronx, the Dark Realm Crew. See if any of the others have ever heard of her before, and tell 'em the worm has just fucking turned, only this worm's black and rocking a nappy fucking afro."

Mistress Michelle wore a gleeful expression as she listened to Kaliek's response. She was still gazing into Nadia's eyes when a rather sinister grin slowly spread on her pretty Chelsea Hightower-like face. And for just a moment, she was facing her fully and grinning at her with a mouthful of curved needles!

And there seemed to be something wiggling in the dark crevice between her jaws, Nadia thought. Maybe a thin scaly tongue...until she blinked her eyes, and Mistress Michelle's face went back to its regular snide grin.

It was like watching some George Lucas special effect, Nadia thought. And wanted to run away from the strange woman as fast as her legs would carry her, but could only sit there tied to the chair, her sweaty body shaking...

"Yes," Mistress Michelle was saying, "the one that killed Big Momma's dogs. Harpo said she was amazing. As if she only had to point the gun and shoot, it was that effortless."

Her grin seemed to grow as she peered into Nadia's eyes. "Tell them don't worry," she said. "Each of them will get a bonus once it's over out of my personal cut. Because from now on, regardless of who sent them, they're all working for us."

She started laughing, her huge breasts swaying in her tight Tiger Wood's shirt, Tiger appearing to dance the hula, while Nadia Reece looked on in sheer horror, waiting for her beautiful Chelsea Hightower face to change again. To change into a horrid fruit bat's face.

12.

"Sometimes, a man just falls for a woman; it don't have nothing to do with anything she said, or did. He just finds her that damn sexy...it's called a natural attraction."

Billie Neal

Before they had even arrived at Jack's building that morning, Eddie had explained to Nadia that Hell Night was an annual event in the town when the various drug gangs battled over territory. Supposedly, the police looked the other way the entire day, letting the gangs settle their personal beefs in the street.

But by six a.m. the next morning, life would be back to normal. The rat race would continue again. And Eddie claimed that the day after Hell Night was even known as The Aftermath.

The cops would be back on the prowl, he said. And more eager than ever to do some policing, now that they knew at least one of the gangs had moved up on the food chain. Because, it meant there were also gangs that would be more vulnerable than ever.

He claimed that Jack, who was looking to expand his own business, wanted workers to serve his fiends from Dominoe's house. He planned this despite Hell Night rules, thinking he could somehow slip it past them.

The them, were apparently some kind of committee made up of the Saint Albans gang leaders, though Eddie couldn't say who had given them that lofty title.

But Dominoe, as it turned out, was an ex-hustler who was dying of cancer. And he was desperately looking to accumulate cash to pay for his growing medical bills.

Against his better judgment, according to Eddie, the man finally relented to Jack's incessant pressure and decided to use his split level home on Kruek Street (Beauty and The Beast's, Kristen Kruek? she'd thought bemusedly at the time) as a crack den.

He struck the deal with Jack despite the rules. The rules that stated quite clearly: No Fraternizing! as rule number one. The rule it was an automatic death sentence to break, according to Eddie.

Despite that, Nadia considered it a smart set-up, judging by what Julia's brother told her. The fiends would walk up to the house as any person would, he said, the mailman, or a child selling cookies. Only, they would open the metal gate, which triggered the surveillance cameras and wait to be seen instead of simply walking in. They wouldn't worry that there wouldn't be anyone there to see them. That was how Jack had made his name in the hood. He was known as one hundred percent reliable with his product, and was hoping that rep would follow him to Dominoe's crib.

And after a few seconds of showing his or her face, the fiend would then enter the yard and walk around the left corner of the house. They would continue walking until they came to a green wooden door, but they wouldn't knock on the door.

Instead, they would ring the bell three times in a row and that would be the secret ring. They had secret rings like that and secret knocks for everything, Eddie said.

The bell actually made a loud buzzing sound, but the cops, or any other intruders, wouldn't know that—at least, not for some time. But Eddie said they would catch on eventually, that some fiend would eventually give in. (He said it was impossible for a crack head to refuse free crack, unless they were uncommonly strong-willed. Thus, the concept of being an ex-crack-head, in his opinion, was mostly bullshit. Of course, the fact that he'd met quite a few people who did break the habit, he kept to himself.) But they always gave in. he'd said.

And then, they would have to change the secret ring; he also said they went through a dozen secret rings a month.

But if the cops for instance, ever tried to raid them at Dominoe's while they were bagging up, they wouldn't wait to be seen by the surveillance cameras. So as soon as the bell buzzed wrong without one of Jack's soldiers seeing who it was, they would immediately flush everything.

All of the cooking equipment, and even the drugs if it came to that. The boy said Dominoe had extra toilets built into the basement of the building designed specifically for that purpose.

Once Jack realized just how efficient a set-up it was that Dominoe had going, he just had to horn in on the action. And Nadia Reece was thinking of that conversation with the boy as they were getting out of the white van Mistress Michelle had provided. (Or Lady M, as Harpo said she preferred to be called by her workers.) Because this was the house they were planning on using once they could begin the operation.

It was in a nice middle-classed looking area, Nadia thought, as long as she didn't include this particular house in that description. She thought the shit was virtually a wreck, and it actually reminded her of the Amityville Horror house.

Everyone was being quiet, even Kelly, who Nadia expected to be going through hysterics by now. She was standing on the curb, staring up at the top floor of the large stucco and brick house before them as they all were.

It was a ramshackle and strangely foreboding structure, Nadia thought, and it stuck out like a sore thumb among the other sprawling homes they had seen on the way there.

The stucco was an angry burnt orange color on top and a dingy avocado green below, only the fence looked new.

"It looks scary," Kelly said, "even in the daytime. We really have to go in there?"

"You heard what she said," Harpo replied. "You work for us now, everybody inside. And don't piss me off, I'm only here because Lady M doesn't really trust you. I'd just as soon shoot all of you and call it a fucking day!"

"We didn't ask for this shit!" Nadia said.

He shrugged. "I don't care what you asked for bitch," he said. "But she ain't got no choice right now, does she? No, she don't, because Dominoe's missing, damn it! And she wants to find out what's going on before Poker gets back. He'll pitch a fucking fit when hears what's been happening around here!"

"Where'd he go?" Eddie asked. "I heard he sits around in his mansion like Jabba The Hut and shit, smoking trees, surrounded by fine hoes and listening to Prince albums. But that real fly shit," he said, "like Lovesexy and Come?"

Harpo, who had just finished re-checking his weapon for the third time, shoved it back in the waistband of his jeans, lowered his shirt, and said. "I don't know nothing about Prince, except he wears make-up, and sings sbout sex, but he's supposed to be picking up supplies. Some weapons, who knows?"

"Maybe, he's hanging out with Dagger," Eddie said.

Harpo glanced at Eddie who was also gazing up at the house. "He ain't never did this kind of shit before," he said, "not on Hell Night and I don't fucking like it." Harpo frowned. "Keep your mind on what's going down son, you just might learn a little something about this bullshit city!"

"You used to be a good boy," a voice said and they all turned their heads to look at the middle-aged woman who was walking up on the curb now, carefully as if she were sore all over.

Which was most likely the case, Nadia thought. It was Big Momma. She'd been quiet ever since waking up tied to the chair in Poker's crib, but had apparently decided to join the fray.

Now she wore a sad expression that was clear to Nadia even through her sunglasses. "I used to baby sit you," she said to Harpo. "Remember that boy? You was a real quiet little motherfucker, and very respectful," she said, "and you knew your place, too. Always said thank you and please, always walked behind me and shit, bowing a little."

"Shut up!" Harpo said. "And I mean it!"

"It's a shame what you've fallen to," Big Momma said, sighing. "I thought you was supposed to be special?"

"I said shut the fuck up!" Harpo screamed, suddenly snatching up his shirt and pulling his gun from his waist. He rushed over to the woman and reached up to put the muzzle against her left temple! Big Momma immediately bent her head away from it, clearly shocked. But he only moved the gun closer.

"You wanna die over your smart ass mouth?" he said. "You make me sick! You black bitch!"

"Yo ugly-assed mama!" she shot back.

"Chill the fuck out!" someone shouted. "Leave her alone, and stop waving that gun around. We got a real bad situation going on in here, you trying to make shit worse, motherfucker?"

They all looked at the front steps of the house where they saw a tall, pale skinned man leaning halfway out the door. Nadia also saw the gate that Eddie had told her about, the one that would set off the video equipment once opened. The shiny new gate was attached to a chain-link fence that went around the entire front yard.

She noticed that the yard was empty except for an assortment of human litter: empty soda cans, candy wrappers, yellowing sheets of newspaper. Ankle high, squash colored grass dotted with small white flowers, filled the entire yard from end to end. Huge horseflies and fat bumblebees flew lazily among them.

Harpo lowered his weapon and released Big Momma's shirt. "Who the fuck you ordering around?" he said. Harpo was now giving the man at the door a dirty sneer. "Last time I looked," he said, "you ain't running shit, and nobody cares about your little gang Kaliek. Motherfucker is laughing at you clowns!"

He laughed himself, as if to prove the point. "The Ghost Riders?" he sneered. "What the hell is that? A fucking comic book? You're in way over your head in Saint Albans, boy!"

"Lady M put me in charge!" Kaliek said. "You don't like that shit take it up with her. But get off my dick!"

"Get off your dick?" Harpo said, raising one eyebrow.

"You heard me," Kaliek said, "and what up, motherfucker?"

Nadia only knew the man standing halfway out the front door by his street name, which was Kaliek. Eddie had told her his government name in the jeep, something Nadia could actually pronounce, yet couldn't remember. But according to Eddie, Kaliek was brought into Poker's crew directly through Mistress Michelle.

He said Harpo thoroughly despised him. Claimed Kaliek was sneaky, and felt the man was sorely jealous of Harpo's relationship with the crazy Irish woman.

Great! Nadia thought as Harpo finally put his gun away and started bopping towards the house. It's Housewives Of fucking Atlanta! And this crazy PAWG addiction is going to get me killed!

"What more proof you need?" Harpo asked him. "I'm running this shit baby. And I don't give a damn what M told you, 'cause she just gassing yo ass! But I'm the one pounding that fat white booty, motherfucker. I'm hitting her cute Puerto-Rican and Dominican friends, too. You feel me? What you packing, me boyo?"

He laughed harshly, clapping his rough hands together.

The others had followed Harpo up to the front gate and stopped. Kaliek was still standing in the doorway and was glaring down at him. His face had just turned as red as the brick steps Nadia saw at Julia's building.

"Fuck you!" he said. "It's big enough and everything in life ain't about sex! That's some dudes problem right now! That's why they ain't done what they really supposed to be doing in life!"

"Big enough for what?" he shot back. "M couldn't even tell you were inside her motherfucker, stop dreaming. You can't keep a bitch longer than a day, not after they get to see it!"

Kaliek snapped at that, and Nadia knew in that instant (had she cared about the man's penis, which she didn't) that it was the truth.

Kaliek rushed from the doorway, and literally flew down the steps, coming to a skidding stop right in front of Harpo, but on the other side of the fence. His combat boots made deep grooves in the loose dirt and completely trampled a cluster of the yellow flowers.

He grasped the fence, shaking it angrily. "Fuck you!" he said. "I'm getting sick and tired of your mouth. I'm tired of hearing your name down at the G-Spot, too! What the hell did you do to them, rape them like a fucking animal?"

He was much taller than Harpo, Nadia saw, even taller than Julia's six foot four. And for a very intense moment, the two men only gazed at one another. Harpo staring up, Kaliek staring down.

And then, Eddie spoke: "Shouldn't we go inside?" he said, in a voice that was soft, and plaintiff. "It's kinda dangerous out here, you know? I ain't trying to interrupt, I'm just saying..."

Kaliek finally glanced at the boy. "What the hell are you even doing here?" he said. "M didn't say they had you too, and I've never seen your ass during HN before! What the fuck is this?"

Before Eddie could respond, Harpo said: "Step aside and let us in, you wasting our time. Me and Mistress Michelle got an empire to build, so you can stand in the background where you belong, jacking off, and watch us do it." He winked. "And don't worry 'bout what I did to 'em either," he whispered. "Stay out of grown folk's business, motherfucker."

Kaliek was clearly pissed and Nadia thought his eyes would pop from his head they were bulging so far from his face.

But after peering around at the rest of them for a few seconds, he finally opened the gate and stepped aside. "Come on!" he said, exhaling loudly. "You're lucky I know how to follow instructions and happen to like my job. Fucking pussy, just remember what day this is." He grinned down at him. "Make sure you watch your fucking back son," he whispered.

They all walked through the front gate. Harpo went next to last, clearly still wanting to fuck with Kaliek, Nadia guessed. Eddie said the man was like that. And once he got a bee in his bonnet, he never let it go.

"Is that a threat?" he said, smirking up at the taller man. "Don't threaten me Kaliek, you can't handle this. Don't hate on me because the beautiful girls don't want your bitch ass. Quit thinking you the leading man in some fucking movie, stop thinking the world revolves around your wack ass!"

He glanced down at Kaliek's crotch. "You ain't important boy," he said, "you're barely a blip on the radar and oh yeah, I heard you far from Nicki Minaj material motherfucker."

With that, Harpo strode through the gate and into Dominoe's yard. And he was still laughing as he walked up the steps and into the house. Nadia didn't know why he mentioned Nicki Minaj (perhaps, it was because of Julia's new shirt), but guessed Kaliek was too embarrassed for words, because he had kept quiet as Julia and Kelly walked by him and into the yard.

As Big Momma passed too, and according to Eddie, they supposedly had a pretty amicable relationship.

Nadia went last so she saw Kaliek roll his eyes at Big Momma and Kelly, but smile brightly at Julia as she passed him. She also noticed, with a slight grin, how hurt Kaliek was when the sixteen-year old simply ignored him.

*********

Now Nadia walked into the three-family house on Kruek Street and immediately closed the door. "Lock that shit," Harpo said. "Until we find out what the fuck's going on in this bitch, I want every window and door in this place locked and fully barricaded. I'll do it myself if I have to."

Words that would eventually come back to haunt them, though none of them knew at the time.

Nadia immediately turned the latch on the doorknob, and then turned the bolt lock at the top of the door. She heard it click home, and felt something like relief. "I didn't know anything could scare you," she told Harpo, smiling. "With your muscles and your tough talk, I thought you were some kind of super hero and shit."

"Real funny," Harpo said, walking into the living room. "I guess Jack didn't tell you about Hell Night huh? He didn't tell you how the cops stay out of the area each year? Homeboy's falling off his fucking game," he said. "But there's a good reason them pigs don't come around here at night."

"What reason?" Kelly asked. She was standing in the middle of a large, gloomy room where pale light was shining through the curtains covering a huge picture window, giving the entire area a creepy bluish tint. It was still dark, but enough light to see by. Kelly's squeaky voice seemed to startle the squat, toad necked man.

Nadia thought he resembled a human pit bull as he spun around from staring at the window to look at Kelly, almost as if he'd never seen her before.

Harpo shrugged. "I can't explain it," he said. "But ever since I was a kid, there was a Hell Night. It ain't on no calendars and they won't be having any Hell Night sales. Or be throwing no parades with pictures of Satan on the flags and shit. But Hell Night does something to the dudes around here."

He shrugged again. "That's the best I can explain it," he finished lamely. "I ain't make the damn thing, I just seen 'em."

Harpo went to the window that was located behind a plush blue sofa, and he pulled aside the heavy curtain. He peeked outside for a few seconds. "Motherfucker turn into zombies or some shit," he said. He grimaced, closing the curtain, and glancing at each of them. "I been living around here all my life and I've seen plenty of Hell Nights, just like Big Momma has."

Harpo nodded his head at the woman. "Despite her slick mouth, she is right about that shit," he said. "She also used to baby sit me while my father went to Hell Night since he wouldn't let me go. Motherfucker did everything he could to keep me away from his street shit. Even moved me down south for a few months. I guess I'm immune to it, somehow."

"But you came the fuck back," Kaliek said. "Immune to it? You're right in the middle of it, motherfucker!"

The man had retrieved a chair and was now sitting down facing them. He hadn't stopped sneering at them until finally deciding to speak just now. Right before entering the house, Kaliek told them all to take a seat on the couch in front of the window and wait. "And don't touch anything!" he'd said. "We got shit set up a certain way!"

He left, going upstairs, using a staircase in the middle of the room, but had quickly returned. Now, he was glaring at Harpo, not even trying to hide his anger.

"You came back 'cause you're a low life motherfucker!" he said. "Anyone who decides to live in this goddamn sewer can't be worth shit. The drug addicts, the rapes, and the murders. Right up your alley, huh?"

Harpo surprised Nadia by laughing. "Look who's talking," he said. "You ain't even from around here, but you still sitting in that chair. You felt left out when I started tapping Lady M, didn't you?" He smiled. "When you clowns gone figure out you can't fuck with me?" he asked him. "Harpo's short for harpoon, son!"

"Fuck you," Kaliek said, "you ugly bitch!"

"What is this!" a voice called out, startling them, and they all immediately turned to look at the staircase that went upstairs into deep shadow. The one Kaliek had used earlier.

A woman was standing there. She was short, and extremely light skinned, with exotic features, Nadia thought. And she appeared to have red hair, or maybe it was actually pink? Though she could barely see her; the light glowing through the window didn't reach quite that far.

"Why didn't you tell me they had arrived?" the woman asked, staring hard at Kaliek. "And why are you and Harpo always fighting?"

13.

"You're worse than my damn kids!" the woman said with disgust. "I told you not to fuck any of those strippers, didn't I? But you wouldn't listen, would you? Horny nigger."

Kaliek began to talk.

"Stop blaming him," she said, neatly cutting Kaliek off.

She glanced up and surveyed the rest of them, smirking a little. "I'm Big Butt Pinky," she said. "Lady M told me you three are going to protect us? Uh-huh, should I feel relieved or more scared than ever?"

Nadia gazed up at the woman, feeling nearly spellbound. Eddie had told her about Big Butt Pinky as well. She was supposedly Michelle's best friend. A stunningly pretty chick, with a ridiculous body, who handled Lady M's personal business. Making hotel reservations and things like that, he'd said. Supposedly quick witted, and verbally sharp as a tack, Eddie claimed she was M's most trusted assistant.

"You don't look like much to me," Big Butt Pinky now told them, "you kinda remind me of the box of wet puppies someone left outside by my trash last Friday. Squirming around and mewling, shits kept me up all fucking night!" She laughed. "Shit," she said, "they might still be there, but whatever. If M says you're good, I'll take her word for it. She's pretty good at judging motherfuckers."

She was wearing a light blue man's dress shirt that was tight against her small, but perky breasts, and a pair of tight blue jeans that looked incredible on her huge, round ass. She continued down the stairs and stopped when she reached the green carpet.

"I also heard you discussing Hell Night," Big Butt Pinky said, turning to Harpo once more. "You didn't get to finish because of our little friend here..." She chuckled lightly. "Interrupting you," she said, "but would you like me to finish explaining it? I don't mind at all."

Feeling a bit horny herself, Nadia watched Big Butt Pinky walk across the room on blue high-heeled shoes, and lower herself to a velvety-looking loveseat. It was sitting next to a large screen television, and matched the sofa perfectly. It was clearly part of an entire ensemble.

Big Butt Pinky was facing them and smiling softly as she reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a long blunt. Nadia wondered about her comment regarding hearing Harpo speaking. She glanced around the room, thinking it was probably bugged, as well as the front yard that supposedly had a hidden camera somewhere that was aimed at it.

But if it was bugged, Nadia didn't have the slightest idea where the bug, or bugs, were. She probably couldn't find them had she the entire fucking day to look.

Most of the furniture looked like shit from a pawn shop or an antiques store, she thought. Other than the sofa and love seat, hardly any of it matched.

Nadia watched Big Butt Pinky light the weed, puff on it, and exhale. She had a very confident air about her Nadia noticed, and she had noticed something else. She noticed that Harpo didn't seem too surprised by Big Butt Pinky's admission either, or particularly upset. As if he had almost expected the woman to listen in on their conversations. As if Big Butt Pinky could do or say whatever she wanted.

"Be my guest," Harpo said, "we have a little time." He glanced down at his wristwatch. "It's only two o'clock," he said, "and we got until five-thirty or so, depending."

His demeanor was different with her, Nadia noticed, much softer and friendlier. Which she hadn't thought was even possible.

"Until five-thirty or so, for what?" Kelly asked.

Big Butt Pinky glanced at her. "Until Hell Night of course," she said. "Until the niggers in this city all go berserk." She sighed. "This would only be my second one, but I've seen footage of most of the others." Big Butt Pinky suddenly whistled, crossing her thick shapely legs. "It started around the Nixon era," she told them. "Big Momma knows all about it, she's been around here longer than any of us except for Dominoe."

"What do you mean by berserk?" Julia finally spoke up. "You make it sound like they turn into, I don't know, monsters or something," she said, "or like they lose all self control!"

She glanced at Nadia. "Isn't that what berserk means?" she said.

"Something like that," Big Momma said. And Julia turned her head in the woman's direction.

"It only affects the boys and men," she told her. "Nobody knows why. They don't discuss it on the nightly news, so in reality, it doesn't even exist. I never seen shit about it in the New York Post, neither. In none of them shitty newspapers."

She shook her head slowly. "But it's real baby," she said. "Each and every year the cats in the drug gangs 'round here go at it and they all seem to fall under some kind of spell. They always say afterwards that it's about dividing the territory. That's how they put it too, that they know exactly what they've done once the fighting stops. And that they could have stopped at any time, but..."

"But you don't believe that?" Julia said. "Do you?"

Her blue eyes were wide and bulging from her pale face.

Big Momma shrugged. "All I know is this," she said. "On April thirteenth of every year, at exactly six o'clock p.m., the entire town of Saint Albans turns into a fucking killing zone." She gazed at each of them in turn. "They come out the fucking woodwork baby," she whispered. "All of them in what we call killing mode 'round here. All of them aiming to take over the top spot. Anyone out on the streets after six is fair game. Some of the older cats 'round here even call it Body Bag Day."

"But the Top Spot," Harpo said, "is what they call it when they get to hustle out of a particular house, basically cop-free, for a whole fucking year. They get together and choose a new house every April thirteenth, and this year it was Dominoe's shit. He's about to die so he didn't care, he would have died anyway."

He glanced at Nadia. "Now he can choose how it happens," he said, "or maybe he'll even live awhile longer, and get rich. You can make a lot of paper in twelve fucking months!"

Harpo paused, gazing at Big Butt Pinky, now. "Kaliek said his money was gone," he told her. "Did you search everywhere? I mean even down in his fucking basement? I heard he has lots of crazy hiding places down there."

"We searched everywhere," Kaliek said. "You think we can't handle our duties? I'm a lieutenant! You need to watch your motherfucking mouth!"

"I'm speaking to Pinky, first of all!" he said. "And if motherfuckers really have snatched Dominoe, we gotta find that fucking cash box. I'm talking about at least eighty-five thousand, and no matter what happens tonight, I want a piece of that goddamn money! You feel me? And I ain't leaving here without it either!"

"That's part of Lady M's plan?" Kaliek said. "She know you thinking about Dominoe's paper? About his private stash? I wonder what she would say if I asked her that fucking question. I notice you do lots of talking when she ain't around motherfucker!"

"Can you two niggers stop with the fucking arguing!" Pinky said. "I'm nervous enough about this shit as it is! We have to keep level heads until there's some word on Dominoe! And Harpo's right," she said, turning to Kaliek. "If they've killed Dominoe, we've got to find his money before the rest get here. I showed you those fucking videotapes nigger, you had nightmares for days after seeing it, remember telling me that?" She exhaled smoke. "Yes, I can see you do," she said.

"What are you two talking about?" Nadia asked. "What tapes?"

Eddie hadn't mentioned anything like that. "And where the hell are our weapons?" she asked. "My gun? What's the point of giving us guns just to take them back?" she said. "How we supposed to do any fucking fighting gun-less?"

"They put them in a bag Baby Divine," Kelly said, "right Precious? Didn't you see it?"

"Yeah," Julia mumbled, clearly still upset. She sighed. "They put them in a red duffel bag," she said. "I saw it in the van just before we got out. There was a woman's face on it, but I couldn't tell who she was."

"Where is it?" Nadia asked, glancing around. "I don't see it anywhere," she said, continuing to scan the living room, and the silence that greeted her question was almost shockingly heavy. She was already turning to question Harpo when Kaliek spoke:

"Please don't tell me you left the guns in fucking the van Harpo!" he said, his voice filled with blatant disgust as he rose to his feet.

He sighed. "I just know mister running shit didn't go and do nothing that goddamned stupid!" he said.

"Harpo!" Pinky shouted. "Where are the fucking guns?"

She suddenly jumped up from the love seat and hurried over to the window. "You mean he's right?" she said. "Please tell me he's not! That's about the worse news in the world right—"

"I thought I brought them in!" Harpo said. "But don't worry, calm down, I'll just go and get the shits." He exhaled, standing up. "Goddamn!" he said. "Shit! Give me the damn keys Kaliek, hurry up motherfucker!"

"Fuck the keys," Pinky said, with what Nadia thought was a slight tremble in her voice. "Fuck the keys Harpo, it's too fucking late. The keys won't help us now."

"What?" both Kaliek and Harpo said in nearly perfect harmony, both of them walking forward. When they reached the window and both of them had peered outside, they seemed to quickly forget their nasty argument.

The look they gave each other didn't seem like the look of enemies, to Nadia. It was more like the look men condemned to a firing squad might share just before the guns were raised at them.

It was a look that frightened her more than anything that had happened so far did. "It's too fucking late," Pinky repeated, "because they're already here. A fucking entire squadron too. I've never seen this many all at once!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Big Momma thundered, also leaping from her seat, causing Nadia to inhale sharply.

The woman seemed to have jumped ten feet just now! She'd leapt halfway across the fucking room, landing in a crouch on the carpet and popping right up.

"That's impossible!" she said, walking briskly towards the window. "It's way too early for Hell Nighters, you must be mistaken, child!"

A startled Nadia thought her Wanda Sykes face looked amused as Big Momma walked over to the window and bent over.

Everyone else had quickly moved around the couch to stand in front of the window, Nadia as well (still trying to figure out if she'd really seen what Big Momma just did!), where Pinky was already holding back a flap of the curtain, letting each of them peek outside.

"Oh my God!" Julia said, bending over at the window when it was her turn to look, her long wavy hair nearly blocking her entire face. Her already vampire-pale skin had drained of even the slightest color. "Why the fuck are they here?" she whispered. "And more importantly, what the fuck are they doing?"

Nadia had already looked, and fully understood why the pretty young girl was reacting that way.

Especially when what seemed like at least twenty men were coming from across the street at a dead run. They all had on black outfits, black ski masks, and they were all carrying huge, black guns.

They all glinted in the sun, those guns, promising blood and pain and horrible screams of anguish. But what was most terrifying, what really had Nadia wishing she could disappear like Peter Pan or Nightcrawler, was that they were clearly all headed for Dominoe's house!

PART TWO

The Ripping Grounds

14.

Nadia was actually thinking of Black Felony Publishing as she watched the men in black race towards the house on Kruek Street. She was thinking of how great it would have been to get signed by them, regardless of the money. Money, unfortunately, hadn't prevented a horribly long list of rich celebrities from taking their own lives. And in some of those cases, she guessed, had probably contributed to the problem. Plus, money came and went, she knew, and even though her last two books had failed, she'd made a nice amount off of her previous work before that and had saved a decent portion of it in the bank. Eighty-nine thousand, in fact.

Enough to keep Dark Realm Novels Ink in the black for maybe another two years or so, she figured. But what she had really wanted was the prestige of writing for Black Felony.

As she watched three men race over to the white van and use a black crowbar to smash in the back windows, it occurred to Nadia that she might never get to finish her book. As good as it might have been, she would never get to meet the amazingly talented Nicki Minaj. And truthfully, it was that fact which actually hurt her the most.

These were her thoughts as she gazed out the window watching the siege of Dominoe's makeshift castle. None of it, not even the guns, felt very real to her at the moment.

A dangerous notion, she knew. A notion that could get her killed.

Most of the men had crossed the sunlit street and were now surrounding the vehicle. They didn't make a sound and Nadia couldn't help thinking of Big Momma's pit bulls, again. Of how creepy it had been to watch them fight in utter silence.

She saw one of the men reach into the shattered window and unlock the door. She saw as he crawled inside, was gone for a few moments, then reemerged from the van. Carrying a small, red duffel bag.

"Mother fuck!" Harpo said. He was kneeling down on the green carpet as he peered through the curtain. He glanced up at Pinky who was staring down at him. Nadia could see she didn't look happy.

"I'm sorry, Pinky," he moaned. "Shit! I could have sworn I brought that goddamn bag in." He turned to the other man. "Kaliek distracted me with his bullshit!" he yelled.

"A lot of good lying on me's going to do," Kaliek sneered. "You're sorry? We're about to die motherfucker! Didn't you see them on the videos? Huh dummy? Didn't you see them slaughter that whole fucking family in cold blood?"

"Fuck the videos!" Harpo screamed, visibly scared now. "And fuck blame!" he said. He peered out the window again. "There's about twenty-six of them," he whispered.

He paused, thinking of something else. "Oh shit!" he hissed, glancing frantically around the room. "I forgot to lock the damn windows, and the fucking back doors!"

"What's wrong with you?" Pinky asked, throwing down her blunt and stamping it out on the carpet. "Move!" she said, reaching over, grabbing Harpo's left shoulder and shoving him out of the way. Nadia watched the man go tumbling to the floor.

"You've got to be kidding," Pinky said, "you niggers been wasting time arguing over bullshit when you should have been making sure I'm safe?" Pinky took his place at the window and peeked through the curtain. "Fucking shit!" she said, after a moment. "Oh no!"

Remnants of the weed smoke puffed lazily from her fat glossy lips. She reminded Nadia of those little cigarette puffing dogs they sold down in China Town.

"What?" Kaliek said. He was now standing next to Julia, and was spending more time staring at her left profile than worrying about the men outside the house, in Nadia's estimation. But now he strode forward, again. "What is it?" he asked her. "What's wrong now Pinky?"

"They're through the gate carrying weapons from the duffel bag," she said. "They're carrying SW-15's, the silent guns! We can't defend ourselves against those shits, we won't even be able to see the fucking bullets!"

Nadia could suddenly hear them, a rabble of voices getting closer, and it was the sound of a mob advancing on them. A mob wearing hard heeled shoes or boots. She glanced over at Kelly and Julia, and they both looked utterly petrified.

"Why can't we lock the shit now?" Nadia said. "Why are we just standing the fuck around in this living room, doing nothing? Don't you have any guns in this goddamn place?" she asked, turning to Harpo. "I thought you were all supposed to be hustlers!"

For a time, no one spoke and only the sound of the approaching Hell Nighters filled the air. "Well?" Nadia said. "Somebody answer me! What are we going to fucking do?"

"It's Hell Night baby," Big Momma said, and her voice was filled with a deep sorrow that chilled Nadia's blood. "They wearing special suits," she went on, "and nothing can hurt them. Except for those special bullets the cops give out every year, so the media can't catch on to what's happening, I guess."

She exhaled, removing her sunglasses for the first time, and rubbing one lens with her sleeve.

Nadia could finally see her eyes, and noticed that one of them, the right one, was missing. Instead of an eyeball, she saw an empty dark socket. But the left eye appeared to be hazel. And then, she recalled thinking there had been something strange about her eyes while they were back in her van.

So, that explains the fucking sunglasses, she thought.

"You can't report on gunshots you can't hear," Big Momma was saying. "But they're in the duffel bag honey and they can't help us from way out there."

"And it's way too late," Eddie said. "What's the point when it's over for us, anyway?

Eddie was standing at the other end of the large picture window, and he was also peeking through the beige curtain.

Nadia had turned to look at him, and saw he was clearly about to speak again, when a loud pounding sound shocked all of them! She watched Eddie fall to the ground in a frightened crouch, his eyes wide and staring.

"Open the fuck up!" a voice yelled. "It's Hell Night motherfuckers! The time has finally come and guess what my find feathered friends? My little chickens, it's time to fucking die!"

Big Momma shrugged off Harpo's attempt to restrain her and rushed over to the door. She was about to say something, but Pinky was suddenly standing right next to the shorter woman and was grabbing her by the throat with both hands.

"Not a motherfucking word!" Pinky said. "Are you out of your fucking mind, bitch?"

Kaliek moved towards the women, perhaps to help Big Momma, Nadia thought. But Harpo immediately blocked his path. "Mind your fucking business!" he said. "Back up motherfucker, she'll handle this shit!"

Pinky was strangling the woman and Big Momma was really choking now. (Nadia immediately thought of Wanda Sykes again.) "They ain't supposed to be here!" she said, gagging and gasping. "Something's wrong Pinky! Can't you hear how Dagger sounds? And it's way too early for that shit! Why's he changing now? I gotta see his face, Pinky!"

"You think I can't hear that?" Pinky said, still choking her. "We have to keep quiet and maybe we can find out what the fuck's happening if we just wait and listen!"

Nadia cringed as the pounding came again, only much louder this time. "We know you motherfuckers are in there!" the voice called out. It was a deep, gravelly voice and Nadia immediately thought of Return Of The Living Dead, and of putrefying zombies screaming out brains! She also thought of something she hadn't thought of in a long time. The cartoon she had always loved watching, even as an adult. The ugly voice reminded her of a Great Ape. And especially, of her favorite character, Vegeta.

"We know who you are and we have your guns!" the growling voice said. "Why not just open the door huh? I promise, we won't kill all of you at once, just the ones who resist us. Surrender and you'll live. For the rest, it's eternal fucking pain!"

The gravelly voice howled then, and it was a horrible sound that would haunt Nadia during the nights to come. She thought of a dark cemetery brooding beneath the moon. A dreary fog-filled place with tombstones sticking out of the ground like monster teeth. She thought of shallow graves filled with rotting body parts.

The kind Dr. Frankenstein would never have used in his horrid experiments. She thought of the stunning Dee Wallace in The Howling, and of the scene where Eddie had finally revealed his horrible werewolf side to her. Nadia hadn't known a mere sound could cause such bone-chilling fright!

And when the chorus of laughter came, an even sharper chill raced up her spine and her heart nearly leapt from her chest. "Oh my God!" she said, trembling violently. "What's wrong with them." She turned to Big Butt Pinky. "They almost sound like..."

Nadia wanted to say: They almost sound like they're fucking dead. Like in Return Of The Living Dead. But didn't say anything at all, only stared at Pinky who was still holding Big Momma's neck. Now Pinky released it, placing one manicured finger up to her own lips.

"Hush!" she said angrily and glanced at the rest of them. "We're going to the basement, and don't worry about the windows and doors, I locked them myself, assholes. While you were arguing over who's got the biggest dick—stupid fucking men. You two niggers are both clowns," she said, "thanks for reminding us of exactly how to control you!"

She was clearly talking to Harpo and Kaliek. Then she said, "Did you think I'd wait around for you two little dicked kids to grow the fuck up? Huh? I should kill you both right now!"

Nadia thought she seemed capable of it, too. She had yoked up the woman with frightening ease and Big Momma was still hacking and wheezing on the couch, as if she were dying.

But everyone else gave a collective sigh of relief, especially the two men. "And not so fast," Pinky said. "We're not out of the woods just yet. I don't know what's going on, why Hell Night is starting early, but if we don't deal with it we're all dead. So, we have to stick the fuck together!" She frowned at Harpo and Kaliek. "Whether we like it or not," she said. "And believe me, motherfuckers, I don't. But the arguing has got to stop, and stop right now!"

"Shut the fuck up!" the Great Ape's voice literally roared now. As if it felt left out of all the fun, Nadia thought. It was a male's voice that had clearly undergone some horrendous change, and now resembled the grunts of a bull gator as he laughed. And this time, the door rattled violently in its frame as it was struck. And was probably kicked extremely hard, Nadia thought, cringing.

"You think we can't hear you?" the voice said. "Right now we have the most amazing abilities and we're just getting started with you motherfuckers!"

The voice chuckled. "We can even smell you!" it snarled. There was loud grunting, and then: "Smells just like scared fucking meat and that's the best tasting kind!"

Crazy sniffing, snuffling sounds came through the door like a demented Saint Bernard was standing on Dominoe's front step, Nadia thought. Maybe even that fucking nightmare mutt, Cujo.

"Oh, it's going to be fun drinking your blood my dudes," the voice said. "And tasting your hot tender fleshes!"

The doorknob rattled violently again.

"What the hell is he talking about?" Kelly asked. "Drinking our blood?" she whispered, turning her eyes to Nadia. "Tasting our flesh? What's he talking about, Baby Divine?"

Nadia felt a deep pang of regret because Kelly hadn't signed on for any of this. Nadia knew she had only come along to protect her, to keep her boss out of danger. And it was killing her to think that Kelly's innocent loyalty would be her undoing. Unless...unless, they could somehow escape, she thought.

But was that even possible? If the entire town was going through this craziness...

"We'll talk downstairs," Pinky said, "and after Lady M calls I'll ask her where the real guns are."

"What!" Harpo said. "What the hell do you mean?"

But Pinky only smiled. "Downstairs," she repeated. "I'll fill you in on Lady M's plan down there." She peered at Nadia. "You're going to get to be the hero," she told her. "I only hope it wasn't a fluke, what you did over on Biel Street. Because Dagger's boys are already here and like Kaliek said, these niggers are damn near invincible. I've also seen tapes of 'em wiping out whole neighborhoods; each one to a fucking neighborhood." She glanced at Kelly. "I've seen 'em kill at least a hundred people each without breaking a fucking sweat," she said.

"Yeah," Big Momma agreed, and her voice was extremely hoarse; as if she were suffering from bronchitis. "They real sharp shooters!" she said. "But this shit ain't never happened before! Not like this, they always started up at night and as soon as the sun set over the horizon we knew what to expect. We locked up our homes and waited it out."

Big Momma shivered, her long dark dreads trembling; her dark glasses reflecting the bright windows.

"As long as it wasn't our shit that year everything was cool," she said. She sighed, rubbing the area just below her jawbone and wincing a little. "Part of me always felt bad about it," she admitted. "You know, about thinking there was somebody out there who was innocent, who ain't had nothing to do with the fighting, but might get killed before the night was over."

"Then what went wrong?" Julia asked frantically. "Why are they here now? Jack said this wasn't supposed to happen." She looked from Big Butt Pinky to Big Momma. "Didn't he say that back in your van?" she asked her.

"Because the cops want them here," Pinky answered her. "Because if I'm correct about the police shipment, the pigs probably put something extra in the marijuana before Poker got to it, and did it on purpose. Put something in it that's making them go even crazier much earlier. It's the only thing I can think of."

Nadia was about to ask the woman what she meant when Kaliek finally spoke up. "It wasn't the police," he said, "not this year, at least. Not exactly." When everyone looked at him he said: "They didn't taint the weed but I know who the fuck did! I think she made a mistake in the dosage this time though. In fact, I guess it's pretty fucking obvious that she did. I've never seen them act insane like this."

"Downstairs," Pinky said for the final time. "Dagger's men are crawling all over this place as we speak, and he's already changing. The windows are fine for now, but won't keep them out forever. Not after they change all the way."

"What do you mean by change all the way?" Nadia said.

Big Butt Pinky turned to Nadia."Right now they couldn't care less about turf," she said, "or drugs and money. They're programmed to kill everyone they find alive; no exceptions. And after kill mode...comes the cannibal mode and believe me," she said, "it isn't pretty."

Her voice had become so dead serious Nadia couldn't help shivering a little. And what had she said? Cannibal mode? What the fuck did that mean?

"Tonight," Eddie said, ignoring the startled gasps, and heading for the open door in the hallway beneath the staircase. It led straight down to the basement. He stopped at the door with one hand on the knob.

"Tonight they won't be trying to kill us," he said. His eyes were bloodshot and overly wide as he gazed directly at Nadia. "It might be better if they broke in and got us right now," he told her and sighed.

The only light was coming through the picture window and Nadia could see the sun was clearly beginning to set. The light was fading rapidly and Nadia had watched the shadows shrink with each passing minute. They slid across the carpet as if conjured by an evil wizard. Perhaps, a malevolent one named Flagg.

"Tonight they're going to eat us," Eddie said. And he laughed suddenly, a shrill crazy sound, that made everyone jump. "And I wasn't even supposed to be here!" he said. "Ain't that some bugged out shit? I'm about to die because I was just being helpful!"

With that, the boy strode down the stairs and disappeared. And they all heard his footsteps going down and down, until they finally faded from earshot. After a moment of exchanged nervous glances, Nadia, Kelly and Julia, followed him. Big Momma, Harpo, Kaliek and Pinky, brought up the rear (no pun intended). All of them, silently.

They walked with their heads bent as if in a funeral procession, Nadia thought, and could still hear the horrible voice shouting as they descended the long flight of stairs into cool darkness. The pounding hadn't let up, and seemed to follow behind them like a living thing; a thing that wanted to grab them and pull them back upstairs where the Hell Nighters were.

Or she thought, would soon be.

Nadia could sympathize with how the others felt, if they felt even remotely as bad as they looked. Because she felt it too, the unshakeable sense that they were all going to die. Downstairs, Pinky would provide them with ice cold sodas and ten sandwiches (fried chicken meat lathered with ketchup and tartar sauce, slapped between two thick pieces of potato bread) that she'd already stashed in a small blue cooler (just in case things got out of control, she said, though never explained when she'd done it, or how she did it without Dominoe knowing), and the food made them all feel a little better.

But even while they took turns using Dominoe's fancy blue bathroom (Nadia hadn't realized how badly she had to go until she actually stepped into it) the maddening pounding and violent screams would continue. It got to the point that it seemed weird, as if something vital were missing, or lost, when the loud banging finally stopped.

15.

They all jumped, collectively startled, as a phone suddenly rang in the dead silence. "Fuck!" Harpo said, immediately reaching into his pocket and retrieving a cell phone. He seemed to have at least three, Nadia thought, and this one was Nicki Minaj pink. Another of his phones was a weird yellowish hue.

"That's for me," Pinky said. "It's her, give it here, nigger."

The short man obliged, handing her the cell phone. Nadia watched as Pinky placed the phone to her right ear, she had to move aside a sheaf of dark curly hair to do it.

"Hello?" she said, and started listening. This was the call she'd been waiting for, the one from the great Lady M.

They were all sitting at a round wooden table down in Dominoe's cluttered, drafty, basement. There was a lamp on the table (the kerosene kind Nadia hadn't seen in ages; not since watching reruns of Little House On The Prairie on TLC, at least) and the dull light cast a warm glow over their somber faces.

It seemed like a large gathering of parishioners, to Nadia, in the middle of intense bible study. And though some of them actually may have prayed at some point, Nadia didn't feel too warm at the moment. She felt cold inside, as if it were wintertime beyond the basement windows, not the thirteenth of April.

The sun and warm air she'd felt outside were like a vague memory from the distant past, and now all she felt was a dark and frigid despair that threatened to overwhelm her.

Julia and Kelly hadn't spoken to her since coming downstairs. Nadia could tell that Kelly was pretty upset with her, for getting herself into the situation in the first place more than likely. But she didn't understand Julia's problem with her at all. Especially, when it was mostly her fucking bright idea!

Kaliek, Harpo and Eddie were sitting in straight backed chairs, but far away from the table. Big Momma was sitting next to Nadia and was in the process of re-lighting her crack pipe.

She watched as Big Momma inhaled the drug deeply, tilted her head back and exhaled a cloud of it up in the air. Nadia recalled her driving the van and doing the exact same thing. She also noticed that Julia and Kelly were both watching her and Big Momma with dirty looks on their glum faces. As if she were smoking, too.

"You have to smoke that poison?" Kaliek asked her. "With all of this crazy shit going down? What the fuck does smoking that shit even do for you? I've never understood it, myself," he said. "It's a waste of money and a non-productive high."

He shook his head, somehow smiling sadly, and Nadia could easily see what he thought of Big Momma's crack usage. But she was surprised the man was acting this way, was shocked actually.

According to Eddie, Kaliek started Big Momma smoking crack in the first place. About ten years ago, he'd said.

"You know Big Momma," she said, and laughed. "Fifteen hit's a day, baby! No more, no less, and this is my sixth one. What's that saying? Six of one, half a dozen of the other!"

"Fuck you," Harpo deadpanned, "keep that disgusting shit to yourself. A little beer and weed and I'm just fine. Anything more than that and you asking for trouble!"

Big Momma only grinned, and nodded, inhaling on her pipe again. Nadia thought her expression said: Yeah, I expected as much you uppity motherfucker. Think you better than me, huh?

Nadia gazed at the thing between the woman's smoke darkened lips. It was rather thin, and looked made of plastic or glass, she thought. She'd heard of crack pipes before, but had never actually seen one in real life. But the one Big Momma was merrily puffing on made her think of a test tube with cotton stuffed into its burnt bottom.

"At least light a fucking incense or something!" Harpo said. "Smells like burnt cow shit down here!"

Actually, Nadia thought it smelled more like burning plastic. But he was staring at Big Momma with his huge arms crossed, and his face was twisted into an ugly grimace.

No, Nadia thought, an even uglier grimace!

Big Momma suddenly cackled laughter. "Funny how you don't mind taking my money, though!" she said. "You bullshitting self-righteous hustlers is all the same, ain't ya? The kind that fuck bitches, get 'em pregnant, then go on Maury and call them sluts and hoes! How many times you done that grimy shit?"

Nadia thought Harpo's angry look as he simply gazed at her, could've frozen ice and after a brief moment, Big Momma must have agreed because she quickly turned away.

Nadia glanced from her to Pinky, who was still listening to Harpo's phone as she received whatever information it was she'd been waiting for.

Earlier, when the picture window upstairs exploded, the sound of the shattered glass hitting the wood floor had shocked all of them. Luckily, Pinky said, it had fallen to the one spot where there was no carpeting, so they actually heard it. She claimed it was a very lucky break. No pun intended.

"What's that!" Kelly had squeaked. "The window by the couch?"

She had clutched her own enormous breasts, trying to hug herself and looked like a woman carrying two massive sized watermelons, to Nadia. The split in her cleavage was dark and outrageously deep. And the more she squeezed them, the more they swelled until they appeared about to burst from the front of her fucking shirt. Nadia couldn't begin to count the number of times she'd imagined herself worshipping them.

"More than likely," Pinky had replied, "the Hell Nighters are upstairs now, can't you hear them?" She had paused, letting them all listen. "They're about to come down here...unless we figure out a way to stop them," she'd gone on. "Each one of them is stronger than ten men together, and they feel no real pain." She glanced upwards again. "Any ideas?" she asked them.

There were no ideas, but Nadia and the rest of them had listened carefully, none of them breathing, and they easily heard the heavy footsteps stomping throughout the living room upstairs. The steps were erratic, Nadia realized, as if the people walking up there were either drunk or were stumbling about the place on purpose.

But they aren't people, are they? she'd thought.

The metal door separating them from the first floor was locked and double bolted. Kaliek had seen to it personally. "You ain't gotta worry about me fucking up," he'd muttered as he did it, staring at Harpo. "I can't wait till Poker hears about this bullshit!"

But Big Butt Pinky said it didn't really matter that the men had broken in upstairs. That they were safe, at least for the time being, down in Dominoe's basement. She claimed everything they needed was already down there.

After they first got downstairs, Pinky had immediately walked over to a metal box attached to the wall, and laid one hand against it. They all took seats at the table where the kerosene lamp was already steadily burning and watched her flip open the box.

"Dominoe didn't take any chances," Pinky said. "He knew he had cancer for years, so it was really his daughter he was thinking of when he volunteered to be the Top Spot this year. Cutting a deal with Jack was his only mistake, he broke the most important rule of all when he did that stupid shit."

"He what!" Harpo had said. "He volunteered? Since when? What happened to the fucking Death Lottery? What happened to putting names in a bag and—"

"I know," Pinky said, and frowned. "It's never happened before, and most of the gangs were against it." She sighed, shaking her head in wonderment. "But someone persuaded them," she said, "someone who's turned out to be extremely persuasive. I knew her for years and I've seen what she can do, but even I was impressed by this one." She exhaled again. "They'd sell their fucking souls for her and just might have to before this shit's said and done!"

"It was Lady M?" Nadia asked. "She persuaded them?"

"Exactly," Pinky said. She was touching flashing objects inside the box and they all immediately went black. A curious Nadia thought they resembled the long clear tubes she'd noticed in broken old televisions once, and if so, they were ancient relics now.

Pinky looked at Nadia. "This is the security system Mistress Michelle got him to purchase," she said. "She wanted to make sure she'd have access to the security codes when the time came. She's been planning for every possible contingency since we first got here."

Kaliek said, "Should we be discussing this fucking shit? Her personal shit? This ain't none of their fucking business, so why are you telling it to them?"

His face visibly reddened as Pinky blatantly ignored his question, not even acknowledging his question. He seemed about to speak, but apparently thought better of it, and only stared at her, his pale eyes gleaming.

Pinky was still glancing at Nadia as she closed the gray box again and walked back towards the stairs.

"Turn on the video screen Kaliek," she ordered, rolling her eyes. "Chop, chop!" she said. "Make yourself useful you lazy assed nigger, and hop to it!"

For a second, the man didn't budge. But then he exhaled and rose from his seat, wearing an angry expression. "I hope you know what the fuck you're doing!" he said. "Too many of you are making decisions only meant to be made by Mistress Michelle. Don't forget she's the fucking boss, we pledged our allegiance to her, and you'd all do well to remember that shit!"

"You just turn on that motherfucking screen!" Pinky said, stopping at the bottom of the stairs and glancing up into the shadows. "Show our guests and our heroine some of what they can expect tonight. Wouldn't want them realizing Hell Night should be taken literally too late to do anything about it would we?"

The hard banging started then and even Pinky jumped. "Lady M got around," she said, raising her voice over the violent sound. She was still staring up the dark stairs and was now breathing heavily. "As soon as we got to New York," Pinky said, "she immediately hooked up with the local cops."

"Why?" Kelly said. "Why would she do that?"

Nadia thought she could hear the man named Dagger shouting something, now. But she wasn't completely sure if he was even shouting real words because the voice had become even more animal-like, more like a growl than actual speech.

"Lady M hooks up with po-po wherever we wind up," Pinky continued. "She feels it's the easiest way to find out who the big dogs in town are. She ain't on that the cutest nigger shit, so she was fucking the captain down at the eighteenth precinct."

"That's this precinct," Big Momma said. "Who? Captain Jenkins?" She scowled. "I wouldn't be surprised," she said, "that motherfucker loves fucking with white girls as much as he does the black ones! Fucking traitor! I hope M burned his stupid monkey ass!"

"No," Pinky answered her, frowning a little. "Lady M doesn't burn men, bitch. Are you okay hooker? Or do I have to beat your ugly ass again?"

Pinky suddenly turned to the far corner of the basement, where Kaliek was still standing in front of the wall. "What's taking you so long?" she said. "We don't have all fucking day! So, could you hurry up!"

Nadia had immediately turned to follow Pinky's angry gaze and saw Kaliek flinch when she spoke. Then she watched as the man pressed a large round silver knob she hadn't noticed before.

"You better hope everything works out!" he said. "I told Lady M to pay closer attention to what all of her workers be doing. That means you too. You ain't excluded from that shit, Pinky."

Pinky seemed utterly shocked by Kaliek's words; this was an even more shocked expression than she'd been wearing while staring out the window at Dagger's men, in Nadia's opinion.

"How dare you nigger?" she said. "You've been whispering shit behind my fucking back? Like a squealing little bitch?" She strode towards him. "I oughta fuck your bitch ass up!" she said.

"What the fuck did I say?" Harpo asked Pinky. "Didn't I say you can't trust no motherfucking Ghost Riders?" His eyes lowered as he turned to stare at Kaliek. "They all the same," he snarled. "Tell me one you met that's different! The sneaky motherfucker!" He harrumphed. "The motherfucker's just jealous," he said. "Cause they ain't got that hot product where he from. I say we kick him out right now!"

Pinky stopped and turned on him. "Mind your own business!" she said. "You're in enough trouble nigger. It's your fault I gotta bother M now with this bullshit!" She looked over at Kaliek again, her face still angry. "Well?" she said. "Are you ready?"

They all looked, and were stunned to see a portion of the wood paneling slowly sliding upwards. Nadia saw a small television screen beneath the paneling, perhaps a thirteen inch one.

"Good," Pinky said, "and about time." She took a few more steps towards Kaliek, as if still considering making good on her threat, and then suddenly turned back to them. She pointed across the room towards Kaliek.

"Now everyone go over to Kaliek the fucking sneak," she said, "and watch what happens. Watch carefully too, don't take your eyes off the screen. Things are going to speed up the closer we get and there really isn't time to explain it in more detail, but you'll see what I mean soon enough."

When they were all standing huddled around the man, Kaliek said in a pissed-off voice: "Lady M decided to use the captain's information against everyone. Against him too, but she hasn't figured that part out as of yet. But give her time, she always figures it out. She's a fucking mastermind." He spoke it in deeply reverential tones, grinning broadly.

"Stick to the facts," Pinky said. "Time is wasting, nigger."

Kaliek rolled his eyes. "He told her that it was the government that first started Hell Night," he mumbled.

"The government?" Nadia said. "Obama's government?"

Kaliek said: "Yes, Obama's, Bush's, Clinton's, whatever. It's all the same shit, to me. They were working on a new biological weapon they wanted to test on real people, to see real reactions. They wanted to know if—"

There was a series of loud blasts upstairs and the house seemed to rock and shake! The females screamed, and even Harpo cried out in fear. But Pinky and Kaliek didn't seem concerned in the least. The house eventually stopped rocking, but they could still hear heavy things falling upstairs in the living room.

"They're using your guns," Pinky said, making quotation marks in the air with her first two fingers on both hands. "Some of them just exploded," she said, "they won't try using them again but we have to hurry because they're still coming in. Nothing will prevent that, they'll just regroup and try something else."

"Anyway," Kaliek continued as he reached out and flipped a tiny metal switch right beneath the screen.

Something beeped and then there was a loud whining noise, like a vacuum makes, Nadia thought. And Kaliek said: "The police captain told her they started off putting the drug in the liquor and beer along with a tiny tracking device that the drinker would unknowingly swallow. Whatever the shit was, immediately turned everyone who drank even one sip into raging maniacs. After that, they tried putting it in weed. Trying to find the best way to use it, wanting to maximize its effects."

Nadia squinted as a bright picture suddenly jumped onto the screen. It rolled once, twice, and then stopped. The color was extremely vivid and was obviously state of the art digital. Maybe even HD, she thought. She wouldn't have been surprised, it seemed damn near everything was HD now.

Nadia gazed at the screen in bewilderment as she easily recognized the living room upstairs, but also saw the intruders in the black masks that were still walking around in wide circles! How did they survive? she wondered.

"They wanted to know if the people infected could possibly be controlled," Kaliek said, pressing a small button and adjusting the picture. The image slid to the right, then to the left, then upward a notch until it was perfectly centered. He turned to them.

"They wanted to know exactly how long it took for them to lose all self control," he said. "And if the self control could ever be retrieved. So you were right on the money about that one, Precious. That's exactly what Pinky meant by go berserk."

Kaliek's pale face clouded over. "But this time I think she went way too far," he said, "because, from what I've been seeing, nothing can control them, now. It's too late for that bullshit and I don't even think they wanna control 'em, anymore"

Nadia, upon hearing the man's words, couldn't avoid feeling another deep chill. Her body felt cold again; nearly as cold as Dominoe's drafty basement, felt. And she wondered had they already come too far to turn back. Because, she wasn't sure she could continue on like this, not with such overwhelming fear rising up against her.

16.

They all watched as the men gathered around the basement door, and Nadia noticed that some of them were still carrying their automatic rifles. She idly considered the possibility of them getting some of those guns but couldn't imagine actually accomplishing that goal.

She was standing right beside Julia, who still wasn't speaking to her, and hadn't even glanced in her direction. But Nadia didn't care, not this time. She normally hated it when the girl was upset with her. Ever since high school, it had made Nadia feel uncomfortable when beautiful girls got mad at her for whatever reason. She would feel nervous the entire day.

Regardless, she was going to get Julia's attention when she got the chance. Because she was planning on making a run for it the moment they got the opening (if they got the opening), and she desperately needed Julia's help. If she would actually get the help or not, was the only question, and she certainly hoped she would get it. But Julia was acting exceedingly weird and Nadia couldn't understand why.

Pinky was still standing across the room by the stairs, and she was watching them intently. "Hurry up!" she called out. "Before they figure it out you fucking jackass!"

A glowering Kaliek nodded and said in clipped tones: "When they shattered the window they triggered the first line of defense. The drug the city instructed by the Feds, put in the fifty cent beers and finally the smoke, it only made them violent."

"And fucking stupid," Big Momma said. She hissed, crossing her arms. "Dumb ass motherfuckers almost killed me once!"

Kaliek rolled his eyes at the woman and continued. "As I was saying," he said, "the other shit made them only want to kill. This new shit Lady M put in the weed, makes them smarter. Not much, but enough to figure out rudimentary booby traps. And even set them if you teach them how first." He exhaled. "They're clearly getting too smart," he said, "so the police want them to wipe themselves out. That's why they showed up so early and I think that much is pretty clear, if nothing else."

"Lady M?" Big Momma said, and a light bulb seemed to go off above her head. "To catch the others off guard," she offered, as if just understanding what Kaliek was telling them and the ramifications of it. "Oh no!" she said, turning to Kaliek. "That'll be a mass homicide, it won't be about no fucking drug turf. Not if motherfuckers just start shooting each other at random!"

"What does that mean?" Kelly asked in an exasperated voice. "Stop talking in riddles and tell us what the fuck is going on! This shit is driving me goddamn motherfucking nuts!"

The room went dead quiet, and had a pin dropped, they all would have heard it. Nadia simply stared at Kelly, completely overcome with disbelief. Everyone was obviously shocked, but none more than her. The others were staring at the woman with mild amusement because they hadn't heard Kelly curse the entire time since they met her.

She hadn't said much anyway because she was normally quiet around strangers, and her voice was so soft and sweet, it probably didn't seem possible that she could curse.

Kinda like the voices of white girls, Nadia thought, and quite a few African American ones, too. Like KeKe Palmer and Keshia Knight Pulliam, for instance. But she had never heard Kelly swear in three whole years. Not even the words bitch or ass, which were commonly used on television, as well as in thousands of classrooms across America.

Eddie said: "It means this is the last one, the last Hell Night."

He seemed more frightened than Nadia had seen him since the whole thing started. This time his fear frightened her.

Kaliek was nodding his head. "The city is done with the gangs," he said. "People are complaining again, and I'm not sure how they controlled them all of these years, but they did. And I guess they've had enough, they want Hell Night erased. Captain Jenkins and Mayor Sharptongue are handling it, two more of the government's lap dogs."

"So they're going to wipe out an entire population?" Julia asked. "Isn't that illegal? Where are the other cities? Where's this one? Don't they know what's happening over here? It's not like it's happening somewhere over in Africa, how's it allowed to go on?"

Kaliek shrugged. "The whole country has Hell Nights," he said simply. "A well kept secret, but Pinky and I found out through Lady M, because Jenkins gave her the information. But she's fucking him, most people aren't, and consequently don't have access to it." He shrugged as if to say: What can you do?

"If you want to call it that," Pinky said. "Fucking."

Kaliek ignored her. "The government keeps it quiet," he said. "They got the media under lock and key like what's going on in politics right now. I call it the government media complex. Both parties blame the other guy, but the fucking entire government's really behind the whole operation. Jenkins and Rodriquez are only expendable pawns, in place to make sure motherfucker won't dare write about it in the daily rags or do extensive reports on it."

"Holy shit!" Harpo said, really appearing stunned to Nadia. "Congressman Rodriquez? I thought his ass was still in prison. And the whole fucking country?" he whispered. "Even I didn't know that fucking shit!"

Kaliek gazed down at him. He'd momentarily lost his angry composure, but it returned immediately thanks to Harpo.

"Enough talking," Kaliek said, glancing at the screen again. "Look and watch what's about to happen," he said. "This is just a portion of tonight's nasty surprises, but one of my favorites."

He was pointing at the screen and they all did as he bade. The guns going off had killed some of the men, but the majority of them were just fine, Nadia saw. If walking in aimless circles could be considered just fine.

Now that Nadia was really seeing them, she could understand what Harpo, or whoever had said it, meant by zombies. The one that had spoken to them, Dagger, still seemed normal, to her.

Or at least, she amended, he seemed more normal than the rest of them did. She had immediately noticed the green light emanating from something that was attached to his broad chest; something that appeared to be made of metal.

He was marching back and forth on the outside of the house (obviously sensing that it may have been a trap, Nadia thought) where she could see the light had nearly faded from the sky. Back and forth, right past the broken picture window he marched. There was nothing to block the view, the curtains had been blown to beige shreds.

But the others were clearly on the verge of using a large coffee table to try and ram it through the basement door. Nadia had noticed the table earlier. It was made of glass and had exotic dragon designs etched on its translucent flat surface.

Four of the men in the black outfits and ski masks were now grabbing the table on both sides, two to a side. They were having a hard time working in unison and at one point, had even tried to use the broad side of the table. They had to maneuver it again, until the proper end was finally facing the door. Quite a funny scene had Nadia been in the mood for laughter.

"You're probably saying they don't look too smart," Kaliek said, surprising her. "But compared to how they were on this day last year, these motherfucker is damn near geniuses, watch this happy shit."

On the screen, the zombie men had moved back from the basement entrance. Enough to get a good running start, and after a bumbling second or two, they suddenly all rushed at the door!

There wasn't any sound, but Nadia imagined them screaming as they ran. And just before they reached it, Kaliek flipped another switch beneath the screen and Nadia watched in astonishment as a red beam of light shot from the chandelier!

It crisscrossed the entire living room in two seconds. In the time it took for Nadia's heart to beat, stop and restart.

The men were sliced into pieces as they all watched! Where the beam touched them, there was an explosion and a shower of blood. Chunks of glistening flesh rained to the ground.

"No!" Kelly screamed. "Oh my God! Sweet Holy Jesus!"

A part of Nadia's mind thought: She seems to have forgotten who they were! as she watched on in horror.

The others had screamed too, even tough guy Harpo who claimed to have seen plenty of Hell Nights in his life. Apparently, he hadn't seen anything like this, Nadia thought. It reminded her of the first Final Destination movie, where the pretty blond girl gave an impassioned speech for peace, and then promptly stepped in front of a speeding bus.

Her entire body had exploded like a ripe pumpkin and it was the most shocking scene in the entire film. (And the best film in the entire series by far, in her opinion; the rest were pitiful.)

But the image on the screen was crystal clear and Nadia had no trouble seeing that the men carrying the table were simply no longer there. Nor was the glass table, they had been vaporized. As had every one of the men walking or standing around upstairs, she realized. All that remained were piles of dark smoking lumps.

If they were pumpkins, they were black and brown ones. Nadia thought she actually saw the charred lumps moving once or twice, in different areas of the living room, but dismissed it. How could she have possibly seen that, she wondered, when they were only the remains of the men?

A cloud of smoke billowed in the air and Broken furniture lay everywhere. Blood dripped from the ceiling and down the walls in long, jagged streaks. Some of the streaks bled together and made what looked like alien words, to her. One actually seemed to say: TORIN.

17.

Now, Nadia watched as Pinky nodded her head at something, turned off the phone, and then handed it back to Harpo.

"Here," she said. "You're a lucky little motherfucker, you know that? You just better make sure this shit doesn't happen again. You know her, she'll rip your dick off and eat it, and then she'll really get mad!"

"What she say?" Kaliek asked. "She isn't angry with me, is she?"

Nadia saw him absently reach down to his own crotch, and thought: Damn, the bitch has them all scared to death! What the hell are they so afraid of?

"She said, there's another duffel bag," Pinky told them, and paused dramatically. "She actually expected something like this, don't ask me how. But it's taped up under the fucking van. Someone's going to have to go get it before six o'clock comes."

"Send his ass!" Kaliek said. "The motherfucker that fucked up, or maybe those Hell Nighters will get the shit for him! Didn't you use to work for Dagger? Huh, traitor?"

Harpo turned on him. "If the guns was fake motherfucker, that means I didn't fuck up!" he barked. "That means the plan worked. Maybe not exactly like it was supposed to work, but we would have tried to use them shits ourselves if..."

Harpo suddenly stopped talking as he realized what he'd just said. And more importantly, what he was about to say.

"Goddamn!" he said, glancing up at Pinky. "We would have used them Pinky! Right? We was about to? You would have been here too when the shits exploded! It would have been like committing suicide!"

"What are you saying?" Kaliek asked, stalking over to his chair. "You saying Lady M was trying to kill us little motherfucker? I know you're not saying that crazy shit!"

Kaliek was now standing right in front of Harpo, looming over him like a human tree. "You wouldn't have shit if it wasn't for her," he said. "She's blinded by your dick, but I'm not! You're a fucking rat and I happen to think you're the motherfucker who set up Crypt and Mack too. I just might look into that shit," he growled. "See what the committee thinks about that. But I can't believe you just said that fucking bullshit!"

"Stop Kaliek," Pinky said, walking over to them. "Please let me explain what—"

Before Harpo could do so much as blink, Kaliek jerked out a gun and pressed it against his forehead. Nadia didn't even see where it came from! He grinned terribly, like a demonic corpse, then pulled the trigger.

"No!" Pinky was screaming. "Don't do it!"

She was reaching out, grabbing for Kaliek's arm. But it would have been much too late had anything happened. Luckily for Harpo, nothing did. It was silent for a few seconds, even Dagger's loud banging upstairs had stopped again.

As if the zombie man were listening, Nadia thought. As if he had his ski masked face cocked right up against the metal door and he was grinning behind his mask.

But Harpo was bent over in his chair with both arms covering his head, and he was trembling violently. The bullets, had there been any, would have gone through his arms and into his skull quite easily. Now he uncovered his head and peered up. Kaliek was still pointing the gun at him and was smiling. Pinky was still clutching his arm.

"I heard the shit click," Harpo said. "You pulled that fucking trigger, I fucking heard it motherfucker!"

"Yeah," Kaliek said. "I did pull the trigger but this is one of Poker's guns. It's programmed not to shoot any of us, or allow its bullets anywhere near us. And it wouldn't explode while any of us was using it, either." He frowned down at him. "Did you really think M would do some fucked up shit like that?" he whispered.

"Put that away," Pinky said, releasing him. "To be honest, I can't blame him. She got 'em from Jenkins, not Poker. So you're wrong about that Kaliek, they've never actually been tested. I told her it was too risky but obviously, she wouldn't listen."

She exhaled. "Lower your weapon Kaliek," she said. "At ease, soldier." She patted him on his chest.

Kaliek's face went blank as he considered her words. He lowered his gun and simply stared at it.

"So you were willing to risk your life?" Julia said. "Are you all fucking crazy?"

She backed away from them, staring at Pinky especially. "All of this because she's pretty and she's white?" she said. "That's all I can see! This is too much to go through for one woman, even a pretty one with a big butt! What's wrong with this motherfucking country?" she screamed.

"Everybody gets a little crazy on Hell Night," Big Momma said. "Calm down baby, because her white skin ain't got nothing to do with it. But I agree, this is taking shit too far."

She frowned at Pinky, placing her hands on her narrow hips. "Look at us dumb motherfuckers jumping through hoops for her ass!" she said. "I fucking lied, it is 'cause she white. That fucking snowflake got us at each other's throats and she ain't even here!"

"You can leave," Kaliek said, angrily. "Nobody's stopping you, motherfucker. Go smoke your crack somewhere else bitch, but watch how you talk about her, you hear me motherfucker? Disrespecting a queen is dangerous fucking business!"

"Nobody's going anywhere until I say so," Pinky said. "And here's the fucking deal, she got dudes licking her ass and I mean literally." She shrugged. "You just better recognize which way the fucking wind's blowing," she said, "all of you, and get in where ya fit in, or get blown out the fucking picture. Because we're taking over this shit, starting tonight." She paused for a long moment. "And if you ain't with us," she said, finally. "You're against us."

Big Momma adjusted her sunglasses. "I ain't gotta get in shit," she mumbled. "Fuck that! Big Momma ain't too good at taking no goddamn orders. Especially from one of them bitches. I ain't working for her white ass and I ain't no damn Viola Davis!"

"Well you'd better learn to start taking them," Pinky said. "'Cause by this time tomorrow, M will own this entire city. All drug sales are going through her. Hell Night ends eventually don't it?" she asked her. "But your addiction will go on forever and ever. You'll need her long before she ever needs your black ass."

Big Momma didn't respond, only stared across the table at Pinky. Nadia could only imagine what she was thinking.

"Why can't we leave?" Kelly asked. "Most of those men are dead, we saw what happened to them. Why are we still down in this damn basement? It's so cold down here!"

Kelly sneezed violently and sniffled, as if to punctuate the remark. "We still have time," she said, glancing down at her watch, and her nose was clearly getting clogged.

"They didn't hurt the van other than busting the back windows," she said. "Why don't we run out there, jump in the van and get the hell out of here? We can kill Dagger ourselves can't we?"

She looked around. "If we ambush him?" she said. "Well, can't we? Somebody say something!"

Pinky said: "Didn't you see them moving?"

Kelly stared at her. "See what moving?" she said.

"Them," she said. "Upstairs." Big Butt Pinky pointed towards the television screen embedded in the wall. "Go on and look if you didn't see it yet. But prepare yourself."

"Prepare myself for what?" Kelly asked, her eyes wide.

Nadia watched as she got up from her seat and slowly walked over to the wall. Her expression was doubtful, as if perhaps she had made a mistake, and didn't really want to see. "What am I going to see?" she whispered.

"Just look," Pinky said. "You asked why we couldn't simply leave through the front door, didn't you? I think that will be answered once you take a fucking look."

Kelly stopped at the small television screen that was still on, and was glowing softly. She stood there for a moment, the grayish-blue light imprinted on her face, and then she gasped. "Oh, no!" she said. "Oh my fucking God!"

"They're reforming," Pinky said. "It takes some time, but they'll eventually become whole again. And they'll be stronger than ever once they do."

The rest of them had jumped from their seats and also went over to the television. Nadia saw the look of terror on Kelly's face and almost didn't want to look, but she looked anyway. When she saw the Hell Nighter lying in the middle of the room, not the whole body, only the torso and a portion of its head, she screamed.

The misshapen lump of flesh was writhing like an eel on Dominoe's carpet!

Its skin was no longer burnt to a blackened crisp, but looked a wet and nasty pink. Nadia couldn't help thinking of a movie she'd seen once called Altered States, where a scientist had turned into a monster that resembled the abomination she was watching.

Nadia could see other shapes moving now, all over Dominoe's living room. Pinky was right, they were reshaping and becoming brand new Hell Nighters! She had thought she'd seen something moving earlier. And then, something suddenly dawned on her.

"So, we're stuck down here?" Kelly said, staring at Big Butt Pinky. "We can't leave?"

"No, because Lady M's not leaving that money behind," Nadia said, finally coming to a realization. "She found out where Dominoe keeps his loot and she wants it?" she added. "That's what all of this bullshit's really been about, hasn't it?"

She was looking directly at Big Butt Pinky. "So where is it?" Nadia said. "Or should I say, where the fuck did you put it now? The stolen money, how much was it? Eighty-five thousand?"

Pinky gave her a stoic look. "I don't know what you mean," she said. "Do you Kaliek?" The woman checked beneath her fingernails a moment, then blew on them. She glanced up again and shrugged. But Nadia thought she looked extremely upset.

"Nope," Kaliek said. "Shorty must be smoking something strong. Sell that shit girl, you'll make a real killing around here." He grinned. "They'll love smoking it," he said.

"The only smoke," Nadia said, "is coming from your fucking mouths and you keep trying to blow it up our collective asses! You've found that fucking money, and if I'm going to risk death to get that bag from out there, I have a right to the truth!"

She indicated the rest of them with a nod. "We all do," she said. "How long before those things out there finish regenerating or whatever the fuck it is they're doing? Everybody in this basement is in deep fucking trouble the longer this craziness continues!"

"Okay," Pinky said, glancing around the table. "You all want the truth? Is that it? You all want to know what's really going on? Are you sure you're even ready for it?" she asked them. "Are you? This country seems to like avoiding the motherfucking truth."

They all nodded, everyone but Kaliek who Nadia guessed already knew what was going on. Finally, Big Butt Pinky sighed, rubbing her pale hands together lightly. "The five million dollars," she said, "is already right down here with us. All we have to do is retrieve it and we can go. It's that simple and that's why we're here."

She snapped her fingers. "Satisfied?" she said.

Nadia didn't think she could have been more stunned had she been watching the men in the black outfits getting sliced to bits again by the laser beams.

"Five million?" she said. "Are you fucking serious? Five million dollars?" She hadn't been prepared for that, there was a sizeable difference between the two amounts.

She was no fool, it would have lasted her ass forever and a day.

"As cancer," Pinky said. "Kaliek found it a few minutes after we arrived." She glanced at Kaliek who Nadia saw, was wearing a very smug expression. "Lady M told us exactly where it was," she said. "Very good Baby Divine, you're even better than they hoped. Even if it took a little longer than they hoped. But alas, most motherfucker wouldn't have figured it out at all. They would of been too busy being scared."

Nadia didn't know what she meant, but before she could ask her, Harpo said: "So you fucking lied?" He was glaring at Kaliek. "I asked if you found the shit!" he said. "Five fucking million? I thought it was like eighty something thousand. You yellow, lying mutt! Why the fuck are you holding back information!"

Kaliek shrugged. "I follow orders motherfucker," he said, "unlike some motherfucker. Loose lips sink ships, ever hear that one? That's why we don't tell you important shit now. And like I said, I'm still going to look into what happened to Crypt and Mack, motherfucker."

"Fuck the silly arguing!" Nadia said, surprising herself. "Okay, so there's five million dollars," she went on. "And it's down here somewhere."

She glanced around, thinking the money could have been almost anywhere. It was like a yard sale down there, she thought. Worse than upstairs even after the explosions.

Everything from old bicycles to snow sleds with salt stains still on them, were scattered about Dominoe's basement in jumbled disarray. There were so many round tables, it resembled a catering hall to her.

"But the fucking guns are out there," she finished. "And this Hell Night, it's still coming...isn't it?" Nadia truly hoped they said, no.

But Big Momma guffawed. "Oh hell yeah, honey," she said. She waved her hand. "Hell Night always comes 'round and it's damn near a holiday to us. Shit, and it's nearing that time now, I can feel it. I get to trembling all in my fucking bones."

"It's five-ten," Harpo said, glancing down at his watch. "About an hour to go."

Nadia was completely staggered. She gazed at Harpo with open wonder. Five-ten? she thought. How had time moved so damn quickly? She thought she could recall someone, maybe even him, just saying it was two o'clock!

This was how the time had moved before she realized. This was what it had been like when Nadia suddenly noticed an entire month had flown by. An entire month since she first met Julia Bradford.

"We still have time," Harpo said, as if reading Nadia's thoughts. But he was staring at Big Butt Pinky with his eyes wide. "Why does he have that kind of cash lying around?" he asked her. "I thought it was eighty-five thousand, that's what Allyssa said. You saying Allyssa's a fucking liar now?"

"Allyssa can't even take off her own jeans without help," Pinky said. "But Lady M knew about the dough ever since she first got here. She wanted, no needed, Jack to spread the word to the hood. I guess his first stop was Allyssa. Especially, since he's fucking her."

"Why?" Eddie said. "What would lying to Jack gain? Or to the hood?"

Pinky stared at the boy as if surprised he was addressing her. "She wanted to make sure the gang leaders would eventually okay using Dominoe's crib," she said. "The amount she told them didn't really matter since she wanted it all for herself, anyway."

"All to steal Dominoe's money?" Harpo asked. "Where the fuck did it come from?" he said. "Who knew he was that fucking rich?"

He looked at Kaliek suspiciously. "You knew about it too?" he asked, and seemed almost afraid of his answer, Nadia thought. And of what it might say about his standing in the crew. Clearly, they had been hiding crucial shit from him.

"That's what the real fuss had been over," Kaliek said. "You know Dominoe was once a big time hustler around here, they called him Dominoe Black. But his operation was ruined after he got caught picking up a coke shipment with a street value of twenty-five million. What motherfuckers don't know, is that he became an F.B.I. informant immediately after that happened."

"What!" Big Momma exclaimed. "You must be lying, motherfucker! Dominoe Black's a fucking stool-pigeon?"

"If you like," Kaliek said snootily, "in Miami we call them snakes, we don't have many pigeons. But yes, he's basically a rat."

At that exact moment, Nadia heard a low sound. Like a stealthy footstep over by the dark stairway. But she ignored it and continued listening raptly to the conversation, because what they were discussing seemed too good to be true! She'd been waiting for it to come, the bright idea, not really concentrating on it because of all the craziness, but still waiting for it. Knowing it would come eventually, and it had. This was it, the Big One! The possible plotlines and connecting themes were endless! Ideas were taking shape in her mind, she was in her writer mode and was loving it!

Nadia had nearly forgotten the circumstances they were in, and for a moment, she wasn't trapped in a stranger's basement. Waiting for monsters to break in and...what? Kill them? Or maybe even eat them? She grinned slightly. Had Crazy Eddie been serious? she wondered. Maybe his name was more than just a silly hip-hop moniker? Perhaps he really did need psychiatric help?

"Whatever you want to call him," Pinky was saying, "the motherfucker dropped dimes on just about everybody he could think of. I don't expect him to even make it past tonight, cancer or not."

"How the fuck they find out he got it?" Harpo said. "The Feds have the tightest lips in the world!"

"I'm not sure how," Pinky said. "But they obviously did find out, and personally, I happen to think it was his—"

But Pinky never got to say what she thought. In fact, it was as far as the woman (or any of them for that matter) ever got to get on that particular topic.

"Look!" Big Momma screamed, and they all glanced in the direction she was frantically pointing towards.

Disbelief swept through Nadia as she peered over at the stairs.

The world seemed to be swimming in slow motion as she watched the black pant legs coming down one step at a time. She heard the deep thud of his footsteps, she saw the black combat boots, some shiny material that stopped knee-high, and immediately knew who they belonged to.

"It's Dagger!" Kaliek yelled. "He broke through the fucking door! But how, when the shit was locked? It was locked, I double checked it myself! What the mother fuck's going on around here!"

"I didn't hear anything!" Julia shouted, jumping from her seat and backing away. "They're ghosts too?" she said. "How did they get through a locked metal door?"

Nadia watched as Dagger kept on coming and the thud of his boots was nearly hypnotizing.

And a split second before all hell broke loose, Nadia had the opportunity to wonder what may have happened had she run away when she'd first had the chance. When they were back at Jack's building and the men with the pit bulls had just shown up. When she saw the cars moving back and forth far down the sunny street, and had thought it resembled a ghost town.

Everything had gone wrong since then. She had only wanted to get some material for her next book Allergic To Gods, one of the coolest titles she'd ever had.

But as she rose from her seat, her heart was thudding sickeningly against her ribs, and Black Felony Publishing was about the furthest thing from her mind.

18.

When Dagger finally reached the bottom step, everyone was standing away from their chairs. Dagger stood swaying side to side like a grotesque cobra and he was still wearing his ski-mask, but his hands were completely hidden behind his back.

I heard him! Nadia thought as she and the others continued backing up towards the paneled wall. While they were talking, I heard him walking up there! I ignored it because the conversation had turned interesting. Because I was getting the Big One!

"It's Hell Night!" Dagger yelled, now. "Time to fucking die! It's too late for surrender, motherfuckers! I smell me some blood and we're HUNGRY MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU SHOULD HAVE OPENED THE GODDAMN DOOR!"

"Divine!" Pinky screamed. "Hurry! Take Kaliek's weapon!"

"What!" Kaliek said, glancing at her. "What the fuck do you mean? Why should I give—"

He stopped talking as he noticed the sudden change in Pinky, and in Eddie, who was standing next to her, clutching her arm. Perhaps, the wideness of their eyes, Nadia thought, as she watched Kaliek spin around and look at Dagger.

Nadia saw when the zombie-man suddenly brought one of his arms from around his back, but hadn't paid attention to what he was doing because of Kaliek. But now she looked at him, and saw that he now held a bag. It was a red duffel bag with V-nasty's face painted on one side and the bag swung slightly in his hand.

"Guns!" Dagger growled. "Want them motherfucker? Come and get them!"

The words turned into a slobbering laugh that barely seemed human as he walked forward. His huge body was hunched over, his knuckles nearly touching the floor, and Nadia thought of the Great Apes on DBZ, again.

"Those are the ones from up under the van!" Pinky shouted.

The woman had already retreated to the back of the basement where Nadia had watched her, Eddie, and Big Momma reach the far wall and quickly kneel down. But she couldn't see exactly what they were doing because of all the empty tables that were blocking her view.

"Get the light!" Harpo screamed from somewhere directly behind her, his deep voice making her flinch. "Somebody turn that shit off!" he yelled. "Divine, can you get to it!"

"No!" Kaliek screamed back. "Are you fucking crazy? We'll be in the dark too! I don't know this basement that well, and there's too much fucking junk down here! Keep the lights on!"

"Guns!" Dagger howled again. "I'm going to eat you motherfuckers!" he growled. "I lied, I'm a eat you all the fuck up! I got plenty of room inside me and I'M ABOUT TO KILL!"

And then, Dagger snatched off his ski-mask.

Kelly and Julia both screamed, the sound tearing at Nadia's eardrums, making her reach for her ears.

"Oh shit!" Big Momma bellowed from behind her. "Oh my God!" she said. "Please God, no! Look at his...look at his fucking face!"

And then, the world went dark.

Nadia didn't know who turned the lamp off, only knew it wasn't her. A part of her was glad they did, whoever it was because of Dagger's horrendous face. But a bigger part of her, the claustrophobic part, was in a state of mortal terror.

She sucked in air as the darkness engulfed her senses. The basement was now pitch black and it felt like she was suffocating, and even her ears seemed clogged.

"Guns!" Dagger screeched this time, and Nadia thought the voice seemed much closer than it had a moment ago. And if not, it was definitely moving towards her!

"Divine!" Pinky called to her in the darkness. "Divine, if you can stop him, I have another way out! But I need time to get the money!" she said.

Nadia thought the woman seemed hysterical herself, and the idea pushed her even closer to panic.

"Can you do it?" she yelled. "Do you think you can hold him off?"

Dagger suddenly roared like a bear! "Stop him how?" Nadia said.

She was still walking backwards in the dark, fighting back the hot panic, doing her best to envision the basement before the fucking light went out. It wasn't easy, however. She seriously thought the place had resembled the cluttered front yard on Sanford And Son.

"Kaliek!" Pinky shouted. "Give her your motherfucking gun! Cut the bullshit motherfucker, we gotta change our fucking plans!"

Nadia was about to turn around when she felt the edge of the round table. She bumped it hard with her right hip and cried out, badly startled. She was just about to continue around the table, her heart pounding, when something grabbed her right arm, something hot.

"It's me!" Kaliek said. "Don't talk, listen. You better be as good as they said," he whispered, "here, take this shit!"

Something was shoved into her hand and she grabbed it instinctively. Even in the complete darkness, she could tell what it felt like. "What do I do with this?" she said. "Why are you giving it to me?"

"Arrrrgh!" Dagger screamed in his Great Ape voice. "Hell Night motherfucker! Hell Night! Death to the world! I smell you! I'll eat you! Death! Death! Death!"

Nadia ducked in the darkness, and managed not to scream.

"He's searching for us!" Kaliek whispered. "Stay still, he's going in the wrong direction. Listen, Pinky didn't say it, but my gun was really for you. Lady M left it, that's why it wasn't with the others." He exhaled. "I admit I wanted it," he said, "but shit's about to get stupid, I don't want the shit anymore. It's all yours!"

For me? Nadia thought. Why?

But said: "I can shoot with it? Will it work for me? I heard what you told Harpo about the guns and will it work if I use it?"

It was now taking all of her determination not to panic. Why was he forcing this responsibility on her? she wondered. And why the fuck was she accepting it so willingly?

"Like you wouldn't believe," he said, "there's another way out of here. Lady M prepared for everything. Fuck Dominoe and Hell Night, she was only after the five million. But there's more than that," he told her, "she just doesn't know it. See, she's been getting rather careless lately, so we had to—"

"What?" Nadia said. "There's more than five million? For real? Are you saying it was Dom—?"

"We'll talk later," he said, "but I'll need to know I have your trust and that I can count on you when the time comes. Things are just getting started, and escaping with that money is my only concern. But it's about to get fucking crazy around here!"

Nadia wasn't sure what trust she was agreeing to giving, but she did it anyway. "You have it," she said. "Now what the fuck do I do? How will I know when to shoot, how will I even see him in the fucking dark?"

Kaliek chuckled. "Good one," he said. "I'm leaving now. But I know this basement like the back of my fucking hand, I was lying to Harpo's ass. When I give you the signal blast him! And don't hold back Nadia."

"Signal?" she said. "Wait! How the fuck will I know it?" She reached out wildly and just grabbed his arm in the dark.

"You'll know it," Kaliek said. "It's your show now Divine."

With that, he removed her hand, and left Nadia in the smothering darkness, still hearing his cryptic words (not realizing he had just called her a name he shouldn't have known). Nadia did her best to beat back the fear that was descending around her like a blanket. She closed her eyes a moment, trying to envision light, bright beautiful light, and opened them.

But the darkness didn't change, and they might as well have still been closed. Nadia glanced down in the dark. She was gripping the gun she saw Kaliek pull on Harpo. At least, according to Kaliek, she was.

It felt comfortable in her hand and the rubber grip nearly seemed familiar. As if she owned the weapon and her fingers knew it, even if she didn't.

Strange, she thought.

Then she ducked in the pitch blackness as Dagger roared again. She'd somehow forgotten about him, and he was right beside her!

She suddenly heard footsteps moving away from her, loud clomping ones. It's Kaliek, she thought, trying to distract him!

"Oh, I hear you!" Dagger yelled. "Stay right there, I'm coming boy! I'm so motherfucking hungry I could eat me a whole plate of burnt motherfuckers!"

Even heavier footsteps followed behind the first ones.

Nadia was on the verge of crawling around the table when bright light suddenly flooded the entire room! As if the very sun had silently fallen to earth, she thought, through Dominoe's roof, and into his basement.

Nadia was blinking sheepishly as she rose to her feet, raising the gun, shaking uncontrollably, and anxiously looking in all directions for Dagger. She wondered if he really had gone chasing after Kaliek, or had it only appeared that way.

It was totally dark when she heard those footsteps, and in truth, she couldn't say for sure exactly who she'd heard running, or where they'd gone. But it didn't matter because Nadia finally saw him standing behind a stack of tables, and she steadied herself, taking careful aim.

Dagger who had planned on jumping her anyway, even before the lights came back on, noticed her movements and immediately raised his own gun. "Hell Night motherfucker!" he yelled at her.

And finally started shooting.

When Dagger shot his gun, Nadia didn't think. Her body immediately dropped to the floor of its own volition (as if she were a puppet on invisible strings), and she immediately rolled beneath the round table! She came out on the other end and jumped up, grabbing the edge of the table with both hands and pushing it down, hard. Tilting it just in time to block Dagger's gunshots!

Bullets tore into wood, thunking like meat cleavers chopping into a log, as she crouched there, terrified.

Dagger screamed: "One bitch against me? You're wasting your fucking time! Stand still motherfucker!"

Nadia ignored him, and instead of standing still, she stood up again, raising the gun Kaliek gave her, and aimed for his chest. Thinking it was a big enough target to hit even with a badly trembling right hand.

Nadia pulled the trigger on the weird weapon and jerked back as the powerful gun fired.

There was a strange sizzling noise, a flash of red light. And then, she saw an impossible thing. She actually saw the bullet exit the muzzle—and it was the size of a M-80! She watched in stunned surprise as it got even bigger!

Like a mercury bullet, she thought in awe, it left the gun's chamber normal sized, but somehow expanded in flight, and it's now the size of a fucking stinger missile!

It sped towards Dagger, but she saw Dagger's chest begin to glow in that same instant. Blinding green light leapt from his upper body, from that fucking metal plate she noticed earlier, and rushed outward to intercept the giant bullet!

It was like watching a life-sized video game!

Nadia saw it strike the glowing field of light, and saw the bullet get repelled back at her. Only it did more than just repel it. The field shattered the bullet missile into separate identically shaped missiles, all of them as big as the first one!

They came at her like a swarm of metal bees; humming like bees, she thought. Or perhaps in her distress, she only imagined the buzzing sound. But the bullets were close now, coming at her fast and yet somehow slow enough to clearly see...

And that was when Nadia did it. The most remarkable thing she had ever done in her entire life. (In the sane life she'd had up until that day.) A cold feeling dropped down upon her, like an ice net, surrounding her in a bubble of clear-eyed precision.

Nadia didn't think. She didn't even breathe. But she fired the gun again; only this time, she aimed for one of the bullets.

The original one.

And when her next liquid missile flew out, but actually seemed to leap out of the gun, it hit the middle one coming at her dead on and exploded it in mid flight, silver shrapnel striking and destroying the remaining bullets around it!

There were five mini explosions that resembled fireworks going off, and the basement was lit up in colorful flashing brightness. She could suddenly smell the pungent scent of cordite.

She pointed the gun at Dagger again, hoping to God it didn't need reloading, and pulled the trigger as hard as she could. When nothing happened, her heartbeat stopped in her chest. Stopped dead. But then, returned with such force, she swooned and nearly fell. Please God no! she thought. But the gun really was empty...

Nadia pressed the trigger three more times, and heard three dry clicks. Fuck! she thought. It's my fault! I asked for this bullshit!

"What's wrong?" Dagger screamed. "No more fancy shooting, bitch? That's what happens when you, take that!"

His words were meant to distract her, and worked like a charm. Dagger quickly raised the hand holding the gun and let off six shots. It was like automatic fire, and Nadia never had a chance.

Bullets ripped into her body, exiting her neck and back, forcing blood from her lungs that she heard splatter on the floor behind her, sounding like wet paint thrown to the ground from a bucket.

She was too stunned to scream, too shocked to move. And so fucking numb, already losing the feeling in her limbs. Thick blood gurgled in her throat, bubbling from a huge tingling hole right below her jaw line.

Nadia couldn't catch her breath and couldn't stop wheezing. Her legs buckled again, and when she finally hit the floor with a muted thud, Nadia was dead.

But that didn't happen, not for real. Nadia pictured it happening, though. Only she was behind the table, not knowing how she got there, imagining that, and listening as bullets punished the varnished brown surface blocking her.

Something had jerked her down again; so fast, she didn't recall it happening! One second Nadia heard the shots, the next, she was kneeling with her back up against the overturned table, hearing the bullets hitting wood!

"How the fuck did you do that!" Dagger screamed. "You should be dead bitch! You...should...be...fucking...DEAD!"

He was going to scream something more, she thought, something about Hell Night, but he suddenly fell silent. Nadia was still ducking behind the table, breathing harshly, and expecting more gunshots, thinking that the bullets really did hit her.

It had happened. She could even feel the points on her body that had been struck. But it hadn't happened, obviously. And the next shots, for whatever reason, thankfully hadn't come.

When Nadia stood up on trembling legs, to her utter surprise, Dagger was just standing there in place like a statue!

As if frozen, she thought.

She raised her gun and slowly approached him, watching for the slightest movement. She realized it could have been some kind of Hell Night trick. But he remained still, and seemed to be screaming, but like a statue screams.

His body was frozen in time in the act of staring down at his own arm. Or perhaps the watch.

Nadia walked over to him and waved one hand in front of his motionless face. His eye didn't move, and where the other one should have been, there was only an empty wet socket.

What looked like raw pumpkin guts dangled inside the glistening hole. Trembling, Nadia moved even closer, gagging at his foul smell, and peered at his watch. Amazingly, she saw that it had already turned six o'clock. In fact, it was actually 6:02!

19.

"Nadia!" a voice said, and when she jerked in surprise, spinning around and already raising the gun which was somewhat funny since it was empty, she saw Julia's head poking from a blank space in the wall where a panel was missing.

"Come on!" she said. "Hell Night's here and they're outside! It sounds like all of them too, girl. The whole fucking town and they're all coming after us!"

Nadia jumped at that and then, as if dreaming, she saw Dagger's body slowly beginning to move! He was starting to turn his ugly head in her direction!

"Holy shit!" she said. "He's coming back to life!"

Then, she noticed the red duffel bag resting on the floor right beside Dagger's dirt-caked boot, just sitting there, still wide open.

We need that bag! Kaliek had said. And Big Butt Pinky had said something similar; the guns were in the bag, right?

Nadia jumped and ran to it, snatching it up, and quickly zipping it shut. After a moment's consideration, she unzipped the bag again and placed it on the floor.

Then, turning back to Dagger and using two fingers, making sure not to touch his grimy black fingers, she plucked the gun from his hand, placed her empty one in the bag, and zipped it closed again.

As she turned to leave, Nadia heard the sound of the monsters barging into the house upstairs!

She could suddenly hear a mob of screams and shouts and noises she couldn't identify. And lots of breaking glass, she thought. It was as if an entire zoo had been released up there!

"Hell Night!" a deep and thunderous voice boomed. "I smell me some niggers! The dark and tasty kind I likes the best. We call it sweet meat around these here parts!"

The voice was identical to Dagger's, Nadia realized, glancing at the zombie-man who was still standing frozen, but was now snarling at her silently. His remaining eye seemed pinned to her face, but was blinking sluggishly as his body reanimated.

"Death! Death! Death!" voices chanted in unison from upstairs. More of those dead fucking voices. All of them upstairs, and suddenly coming towards the top of the staircase in a rush!

And then, Nadia heard the gang of footsteps charging down the stairs! The voices were growling now, and shrieking, above a tumultuous cacophony of stomping zombie feet!

Nadia snapped out of it, running to the wall and throwing the bag on the ground ahead of her. It slid perfectly, right into the hole and vanished. Then like a copy cat, Nadia did the same thing, falling on her stomach with an oomph! and sliding across the wood floor and right through the space, praying she would land on a surface that wouldn't injure her too severely.

As soon as Nadia was through the hole it closed up behind her with a loud snap! And she found herself in a weakly lit tunnel that went forward for a few feet and stopped at a metal door.

The walls of the tunnel were made of some dark stone that appeared to be wet.

The ground beneath her was packed dirt, nothing to worry about there, other than a few scrapes, mostly to her knees. But surprisingly, she noticed that the red duffel bag was gone.

Where did it go? she wondered, glancing upwards, and breathing harshly. High above her, she saw a light bulb in a metal casing attached to the right wall. Nadia stood up from the ground, dusting herself off, and walked up to the metal door.

Still huffing, she peered up at the white sign that was posted there. It read: ATTENTION AFRICAN AMERICAN GIRLS...A female's true worth is reflected in what she inspires. You are my first experience with true beauty, inside and out, and I am indebted to you BLACK HONEY. But beware, for BEYOND THIS DOORWAY LIES BLACK MADNESS!!!

Nadia shivered after reading it, thinking it was a strange sign to have posted in a goddamn basement! Who had written those words on the sign, she wondered, a sign that was fading and covered in dust, as if it had been up there for a hundred years? And why?

It's Dominoe's basement, isn't it? she thought. Was it him?

But that seemed wrong to her, because Eddie claimed Dominoe only had a thing for white girls. And Big Momma claimed he liked both types of women, equally. She wasn't sure she could trust either one of them.

So, was it Jack? she wondered.

But that seemed even more wrong somehow, because though Jack had expressed his love for black chicks, AA girls especially, what would he be doing down here?

She glanced at the wall, again. "And what the fuck does it mean by black madness, anyway?" she whispered. The crazy shit she was running from already qualified as madness in her book!

Maybe if I ever meet this Dominoe, she thought, I'll ask his ass about it.

Nadia yelped as something started scrabbling at the panel that she had just come through, making her leap backwards! Something that seemed fucking huge, to her. And something else started shrieking like a red-tailed hawk right behind the same wall!

Something angry! she thought. No, someone angry, she told herself, trying to catch her hitching breath. Desperately trying to control her thumping heartbeat before she passed out.

She knew these were only men, the zombie-part notwithstanding, but it was getting harder and harder to remember that shit. Nadia reached out and grabbed the silver doorknob long before she knew she meant to.

For a moment, she just held it, feeling its cool slickness with her eyes closed, as she inhaled and exhaled at an increasingly slower rate.

But then, besides the moans and groans, she suddenly heard another strange sound coming from behind her.

It was a steady chunk! chunk! chunk! sound that grated on her nerves, making her body cringe. So, Nadia opened the metal door, not bothering to look behind her, already raising Dagger's heavy assed gun, and peeked warily into the next corridor.

Nadia blinked, letting her eyes adjust to the gloominess, and her nose, to the dank smell coming from the area. She could see yet another metal door down there, perhaps fifteen feet away, and another white sign. Something was written there too, she thought, but she couldn't make it out.

The people standing there however, in the next part of the tunnel, she made out easily and nearly collapsed with shock.

Her heart was pounding as if she were a baseball player juiced up on steroids, and she couldn't believe her own eyes, but was becoming entirely too used to that goddamn feeling.

"What the fuck are you doing here!" she said. "And who the fuck is this?"

A sudden sense of unreality filled her as she stared at them and at the girl's glittering eyes. When was the last time she'd actually seen her? she wondered. And then she remembered: When Nadia couldn't decide which one of the females should stay behind with Lady M, the crazy white woman had chosen Allyssa, for her.

The man standing beside Allyssa was tall, and had a stooped gait, as he strode towards her. He looked African-American, Nadia thought, and she imagined he might have once been quite the ladies man. She thought he was still almost boyishly cute, despite his apparently advanced age.

She thought the look on his brown face spoke of great confidence even though the expression was nearly hidden beneath a mask of brown wrinkles. But she felt they actually complemented him. He looked like a hustler to Nadia or like a man who had once rapped.

She knew rappers were some of the most confident people in the world. It was confidence, that she felt most aspiring emcees lacked; a confidence that was more than a good flow, or intricate lyrics. A confidence that couldn't be purchased or taught, or willed into someone's makeup.

The confidence which made Little Wayne, Kanye, Ross and T.I. great. The kind she saw in Jay Z and Nicki Minaj, and Miley Cyrus, which she felt explained the hate they constantly got from the media.

And while there was no way to be positive about any of her theories, no way to be sure she had figured out who the man actually was, Nadia thought she still knew. There was really only one person he could be.

"I'm Dominoe," the tall elderly man said.

But no, Nadia thought, immediately. Not elderly. He's middle aged but he's very sickly, they'd said.

"You're gallivanting through my goddamn house and got the nerve to question who I am?" he said. " Talk about having some goddamn gumption!"

His voice seemed more amused than anything, which only further confused her. Couldn't he hear the sinister groans and the eerier, woeful shrieks echoing behind her?

"I'm Baby Divine," she said, "we got ambushed and kidnapped and some strange motherfuckers have been trying to kill us!"

She glanced at Allyssa warily, breathing fast, and unsure of how much to say, and of exactly how to proceed. She had to stay in her role as a hustler, she knew, until she figured out a way to catch up with the rest of them.

She couldn't trust this man, regardless of his race, or his looks, or his confident demeanor, and certainly not Allyssa!

But Allyssa, surprisingly, was no longer looking at her nastily. She actually seemed to be smiling now. Jennifer Nicole Freeman rarely looked mean on television, but when she did, Nadia found her frightening. Her smiles were much more fun.

She wondered what was wrong with Allyssa, but decided to chance it. "I was brought here against my will," she said to Dominoe. "I don't even know what's happening! All I know is that I made a fucking mistake getting involved in this bullshit!"

"He can tell you exactly what the fuck's happening," Allyssa said, surprising Nadia with her friendly tone of voice, and still grinning. Nadia searched that grin, but saw no malice in it at all, none. She couldn't understand what had made her change so dramatically, but she apparently had.

"You'll soon understand, Divine," Allyssa said. "Don't worry about that, but come on, 'cause we gotta hurry!"

Allyssa turned away from them, and started walking towards the second door. Her horse's butt was lifting and falling like boulders in her tight black jeans.

But Nadia stopped watching her, her heart thumping, and glanced up at the much taller man.

She didn't understand what was happening, but didn't have time to figure it out. Allyssa was acting like a brand new person, that much was clear. And as weird as it was, those were still the facts.

"Wait!" Nadia said. "Before we go anywhere, what's Hell Night? At least, tell me that. I heard what they said, but I want to hear your version since you seem to be in the middle of everything."

Nadia frowned. "And how come I never heard about it before?" she asked him. "It's been going on for over thirty years and they still kept it a fucking secret? How?" she said. "Like they've been doing with U.F.O's? When even I've seen one!"

The man shrugged. He suddenly looked weary, and his hazel eyes were small behind his wire rimmed glasses. But not just hazel, she thought. There was another, lighter color, mixed in with it that she could somehow see despite the poor lighting. A color she had never seen before. She thought it was an almost orange shade; a color stuck between that of a pumpkin and squash.

"You may not have heard about it," he said. "But you damn sure heard them running through the streets. You must have just ignored it and gone back to sleep." He smiled softly. "Or maybe you actually woke up, and thought you had only been having bad dreams?" he said. The man started limping up the corridor, then slowly turned back to her, wearing a glum expression.

And something suddenly triggered in her memory.

Dominoe seemed to see the understanding dawn on her face and said: "Uh-huh, just like I thought. I used to trick myself about it too, baby. Thought I was losing my damn mind. After you heard it the first time, you probably dismissed it as kids running through the streets, getting up to some mischief, right? I made up anything I could to avoid the truth and wouldn't even look out the window to see for sure." He exhaled. "Uh-huh," he said, "I was some fucking coward, fighting against my own mind! Trying to convince myself that there was something wrong with me when I knew better. I just didn't want to face it."

Then, his gloomy expression erupted into a huge grin. "Just thank God I done seen the truth!" he said. "Better late than never, I guess. But enough dallying 'cause we gotta go baby." He turned back up the passageway.

"Go where?" she asked. "I don't want to go anywhere but home!"

She'd had enough of Hell Night and of inexplicable shit! Her body was still sore, her feet hurt, and she was impossibly thirsty.

Dominoe laughed, his pleasant voice vibrating in the tunnel. "Why, to meet up with your friends," he said, turning back to her. "And to get back my ten million dollars they all stole!"

"What the fuck do you mean they all stole?" she said, her heart still knocking from her initial shock, and steadily speeding up. "Who the hell is they all?" she asked him.

The man had kept walking towards Allyssa who Nadia could see waiting for them at the next door. Which was standing open, revealing more dim corridor. Nadia thought the sign down there said, NEEQ SANIRBAS which didn't compute in her overworked mind at the moment. Though it seemed important, somehow.

As if figuring it out would explain what everything that was happening, really meant.

"The Marauder Gang of course," Dominoe said, jerking her from her thoughts. "The ones that used you to hold off Dagger while they escaped with my fucking money! I'm sure you remember them."

"You mean Harpo, Kaliek and Pinky?" she said. "Them?"

Dominoe stopped with his back to her, then slowly turned around. "I mean every single one of 'em," he said, and shrugged. "Lady M's no slouch, she plants her people years in advance of the shit she plans. I guess she got you too, from the sound of it. I bet it felt like you really knew some of them, didn't it?"

"But don't worry," Allyssa said. "You'll get the chance to pay them all back...if you can stomach it."

"You can't mean Eddie and Big Momma?" Nadia asked. "I just met them today!"

"Big Momma?" Dominoe said, looking down at the floor. "Jack never mentioned her ass, but now I see why. I'm dead positive of where they headed now." He glanced up at her. "And uh-huh," he said, "Eddie, too."

"Are you saying Bubbles is a part of it too?" she asked. "You can't be saying that!"

"What don't you understand about English girl?" he said. "Ain't you American? They're all down together honey! But they was only doing what she programmed them to do. Or someone down with her did it."

"Lady M," Nadia said softly, looking at the man in amazement. She at least knew that much; he was saying Lady M was behind everything. "But how did you know their real names?" she asked. "Or, at least, how did you know the names we used were phony? And you said 'programmed', as in computers?"

Nadia suddenly felt very exposed, almost naked. She had heard how familiarly he referred to her friends. As if he knew exactly who they really were.

"Exactly," Dominoe said. "First off, we know all about you. Why you came here in the first place, but never mind that for now. Mistress Michelle O'Hara, that's her real name. She did it. She must have been watching you for a long time baby. Long enough to know you like a book. But here comes the shocker," he told her, "all of the folks you was just upstairs with? The ones you called friends and acquaintances? They're all androids girl, machines."

"Machines?" she said. "What do you mean..."

"Yep," he said. "They been putting on a very elaborate play for you baby. Pretty damn good, huh? But the violent bickering and the nasty name-calling? It's all been fake baby. In fact, only thing that's been real is Hell Night itself. And those fuckers Kaliek blew to smithereens in my living room. Can't forget them, they used to be humans, but they were transforming."

"I still don't understand!" Nadia said, disgustedly. "Where did they come from in the first place?"

Dominoe only chuckled dryly, turned around and ambled the rest of the way down the tunnel, until he reached where Allyssa was standing. He placed one hand on the girl's shoulder and turned back to Nadia, his eyes seeming to glitter in the dim passage.

Even through though his spectacles. Like fragments of glass on a lonely beach at dusk, she thought.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But everything you just went through, every word uttered by them, every facial expression, everything that happened and is still happening, came right out of your head, girl. We all have stories inside of us," he said, "fossils, Mr. King calls them. You should know that since you're the writer. But the androids are able to touch these ideas in your mind, even if you don't know they're there, and broadcast them back to you in real life."

Nadia realized what he was driving at, and shivered. All of that hatred and anger and violence had come from her mind? She thought of the mean things Allyssa had said to Julia.

The girl hadn't said it, but Nadia knew that most of the problems Allyssa had with Julia, stemmed from her white skin. Dominoe was saying they had really been her words. Was that how she'd felt about Julia all along, and just didn't realize it?

She didn't think so, she didn't have a problem with anyone's race, despite all the racist-wannabe people she dealt with on a daily basis, and tried to treat people fairly as a rule, but...

And just when she thought things couldn't have possibly gotten worse!

"I imagine you were fond of them," he said, "but there's a lot going on you don't understand, and dealing with it won't be easy. But I think you can do it." He grinned, rubbing his hands anticipatorily. "So come on if you're game!" he yelled suddenly. "'Cause we got a fucking train to catch baby!"

.

The three of them were still standing deep in the dim and dusty corridor. Dominoe was leaning up against one wall, breathing heavily and getting some rest. He claimed to have a bad knee, from getting shot years ago, and he was limping badly.

Nadia was standing with Allyssa near the opposite wall, right beneath a faintly glowing light bulb.

She was doing her best to keep her composure, which grew harder by the second. Because what Allyssa was telling her was unbelievable. Despite the crazy shit she had already witnessed, this was somehow even crazier than all of that.

"I know it's hard to swallow," Allyssa said, and sighed "But it's the truth Nadia, even the one you call Kelly who started it off. You said she showed up three years ago, didn't you? It was raining that day? I'm not sure why, but it usually begins on rainy days. I never figured that part out, but we've got people looking into it."

"Yes," Nadia said (hardly hearing the very last thing that Allyssa had said, and not focusing on it in any event). She couldn't seem to talk above a whisper, she was that hurt.

And so fucking angry.

She couldn't help imagining what she would do to them if she ever got the chance. She didn't have any reason to believe what they were telling her, but a part of her had believed it all, regardless.

"A week after I opened the damn business," she said. "She was so damn nice, so friendly. It had been a long time since I came across a person so kindhearted. And I admit her big, round butt, and double E tits didn't hurt, did they?"

"Who seemed so kindhearted," Allyssa corrected her. "That bitch is ruthless, and I've heard stories that would curl your fucking toes. You're just lucky she wasn't sent to kill you or you wouldn't be here now."

"That's what all the motherly shit was for?" she said, still thinking of Kelly. The sweet Kelly Valentine—even her perfume smelled overly sweet, nearly like milk chocolate.

"To make me think she cared about my well being?" she said, looking up. "And what the hell do you mean by androids anyway?" she asked. "Robots? Like on that Will Smith movie, Hancock I think?"

"You heard her," Dominoe called out, his voice sounding incredibly hollow in the tunnel. "They came from some very advanced folks, and the technology's light years ahead of yours. You shouldn't be getting it 'til...around 2020...I think that's the right date if the planet's still around, of course."

They both saw Nadia's puzzled expression, but Allyssa shrugged it off. "Never mind that part," she said, cutting her eyes to Dominoe momentarily. "They were designed to gain your trust, and that's all you really need to know."

Allyssa sighed. "And don't waste time trying to rationalize the existence of androids," she said. "Fact is, your employee, Julia, wanted you to bring her today. They both did 'cause Lady M wanted it." Allyssa shrugged, sliding her hands up and down her own wide hips. "Julia is gorgeous," she said. "She's one of the prettiest females I've ever seen on this planet. But fuck her for now. What's important, is that Lady M probably wants to extort you, so there must be something you possess that she needs. Think about it for a while Nadia, maybe it'll come to you."

Nadia stared at the girl for a moment, feeling a vague sense of shock. Partly because of what she was saying. Partly wondering why she, herself, hadn't asked the most obvious question of all.

"How do you know about this anyway?" she asked her. "What does any of it have to do with you?"

Allyssa didn't answer for a moment. But Nadia saw a strange expression flash across her face before she shrugged and said: "Good question and I was hoping you didn't ask it."

"Well?" Nadia said. "What's your part in this?"

"I can't tell you that," she said simply. "Sorry."

"Why can't you?" Nadia said. "I think I deserve better explanations than the strange shit you've been giving me!"

"I agree," Allyssa said. "But I'm not the one to give them to you. Maybe, if there's time, all of that will come later."

"Maybe all of that will come later," Nadia repeated. "Well maybe I don't want there to be a later. What if I just walk back the way I came, and fucking leave right now?"

"You'd never make it," she said. "Too many of 'em. You'd feel every bite as they ate you alive."

"Maybe not," she said. "But I could still try, what the fuck have I got to lose? I certainly can't trust you two!"

Allyssa's face softened at that. "I would love to tell you everything," she said. "But I can't. At least, not yet. But I promise, you'll find out everything before the end of Hell Night. You trusted Kelly and Julia, didn't you? And they were both lying to you, only setting you up for tonight?"

"So you say!" Nadia shot back. "I've only heard a whole lot of talking. I haven't seen any proof of anything you've said so far! You could be setting me up too. Didn't you start out acting like a real fucking bitch? You're saying that was because of me?" she asked. "Bullshit! What happened to you anyway? Androids," she sneered, "you both sound fucking crazy!"

Surprisingly, Allyssa only laughed at her. "That's the same thing Almeida said," she replied. "After we told him our android theory concerning Julia." She grinned. "But then, that was before he saw you two. Or saw her. After that, we had to keep him from killing her. 'Let me blast her!' he kept saying."

"Yeah," a voice said, startling Nadia.

It was Dominoe, who had walked over as silently as a person could possibly walk. As if he had tiptoed. "Her name ain't no Julia, either," he said, stopping in front of her. "It's Nicki Minaj. She actually changed her name legally. Crazy bitch, Jack saw her shirt but ain't think nothing of it." The man cackled. "Those three nitwits are human, by the way," he said. "They're as innocent in this as you are, to a degree. But anyway, it was O who remembered it way before Allyssa did."

Allyssa said: "Orion somehow recalled hearing that one of Lady M's girls had an obsession for the actress. Orion who can't even remember his own age on most days."

Allyssa glanced at Dominoe. "It's a damn good thing he did," she said. "Because if he hadn't, we'd still be locked up in Lady M's fucking attic, watching Jack bleed. You never would have sent men over there."

"Where are the others?" Nadia asked. "Jack, Almeida and Orion? I thought they had a bigger part to play in this."

"Oh they do," she said, "they've got a real big part to play. But they're taking care of something first, and then they're meeting us here. But since Hell Night has officially started, the streets are now filled with gangs. Unfortunately, these ain't normal Hell Nighters. You might have had a chance of escaping them. But not these, these motherfuckers never stop coming. And they turn cannibal." Her eyes were wide. "Yeah, they really do," she said. "It's fucking horrible Nadia. I've seen 'em eat the flesh right off a motherfucker's bones. And then, they ate his fucking bones!"

"That's all Eddie kept talking about," Nadia said, feeling a sadness so deep, it was nearly debilitating.

She wondered if what she was experiencing was anything like what a person whose child suddenly vanishes, feels. Like the world is a dark and gloomy place, where rain will eternally fall and the weather will always be cold and gray.

Nadia actually felt like dying and she supposed it was silly to compare her current situation to a person's kid getting abducted, but she didn't care. What was worse than this?

"Lady M is long gone," Allyssa said, apologetically. "She's gone to the meeting place where they'll divide the money and then split up. She'll probably go back to Miami."

"Until it's time for the next score in another locale," Dominoe said. "She knows this will be the last Hell Night, because she's the one who poisoned the smoke. The police want every gang wiped out, so she can take over the town."

"But Allyssa just said she's leaving," Nadia said. "Didn't she? After they divide the money, she's going to Miami?"

"Captain Jenkins and the other pigs and politicians she been fucking, don't know that. Yeah, that's her plan, but they all think they're doing something special for her."

"But don't take it too hard," Allyssa said. "They ain't even human; none of 'em. So killing 'em should be nice and easy. Just point your gun and shoot, and you shouldn't feel the least bit guilty about it."

"Oh my God," was all Nadia could think of to say, which was quite a feat, considering her entire universe had just come crashing down. "So Julia's really down with it?" she whispered. "And Kelly, too?" She still couldn't accept that.

Dominoe laughed, but there was no humor in it. He exhaled and rubbed his face, then he shrugged. "We spend a lot of time in this country looking for the same old villains," he said, expansively. "Even while we got a whole new set of enemies lined up and hating on us. You better wake up, and stop letting the media dictate what you think and how you feel. Your enemy's whoever they happen to be, period. And right now, you got plenty."

"Okay, I guess," Nadia said, doing her best to reenergize herself, which she knew wasn't going to be easy.

Nadia didn't think she had ever felt so hollow inside in her entire life. As if a strong wind would simply blow her far away.

"But if you want to become a rich young lady," Dominoe said. "I suggest you drop the pity party and do something 'bout that storm you got inside your head. You can't control what this crazy world do, so pay attention to it, but don't let it affect your ambition. Stop wasting what God done gave you complaining, and learn to make the myths. Come on over here girl."

Nadia walked to him and Dominoe reached out one brown hand, gently touching her shoulder and drawing her closer. "You can still write that book girl," he said. "You don't need no million dollar publishing contract to do what you love to do. You ain't learn that by now? And you don't need no damn Nicki Minaj, either! Look at your face!" he said, and chuckled. "Calm down, calm down," he said, "I know that sounds blasphemous, I know you love her, I'm just kidding, baby. But if we get my dough back and I hit you off with some, would you keep on writing? I got the strangest feeling you're real good and probably one of the best ever."

"Keep writing?" she said. "I'd use some of the money to publish my own fucking book! Self-published books are getting better than the traditional shit by a lot. I'm not doing it for money! Can't nobody make you take your craft seriously 'cause they giving you money. That shit gotta come from inside you!"

"Now you're talking girl!" Dominoe said, patting her on the shoulder. "That's what's really wrong with our folks, they quit too early. Shit," he said, "that's everybody's problem if you ask me, but you got drive in you black honey...just like her."

He closed his eyes. "Damn right!" he said. "You'd be perfect for this shit!" Dominoe opened his eyes and broke out in dry chuckles.

Nadia didn't know what he was rambling on about, but she suddenly didn't feel quite so down in the mouth. And vaguely wondered if Obama getting elected had made some African-Americans feel the same way. If so, she hadn't gotten the memo on that one.

"I want to catch them!" she said suddenly, not knowing she was even about to speak. "This shit is so fucking outrageous!" she said. "To think, I trusted that little fucking bitch with all my personal shit! She even knows all of my computer passwords!"

Dominoe grinned, revealing nicotine stained teeth. "But you all just wasting time!" he said. He made a hurry up gesture. "Tell her about the food!" he said, and chuckled. "Tell her why we ain't already hurrying after they goddamn thieving asses Allyssa!"

"Because I put some shit in their food," she said. "A chemical that corrodes their metal wiring; why the fuck you think Jack fed you?" She laughed. "What niggers you met that generous for free? I'm the one that got him to do it."

"What!" Nadia said. "You poisoned me?"

"Not you girl, them!" Allyssa suddenly grinned at her.

"Caveat Emptor Jennifer!" Dominoe said. He winked at Nadia. "Which means buyer beware in case you was wondering," he went on. "And it also means they still in for a mighty fine surprise! The best is up ahead, but it's coming baby! Just as sure as we standing here!"

Nadia thought Dominoe was referring to Allyssa resembling the actress with his use of Jennifer. As if someone else had finally noticed the resemblance. But who knew? The man was clearly a few cards short of a full fucking deck!

"What's going to happen to them?" she said in a whisper. "When whatever you fed them starts working?"

"You'll see," Allyssa said. "Because they're gonna stop and that's a fucking fact. You ready Dominoe?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," he replied. "Fire her ass up baby girl!"

He reached out and smacked the girl on her thick round butt. The sound was very loud, as if he had smacked her naked skin instead of jeans. Both of her beach ball sized cheeks bounced a few times. She had the kind of ass Nadia never saw on television shows, but seemed to be an epidemic down south.

Allyssa simply laughed and strode over to the large metal panel Nadia had noticed when they first entered the corridor. It was built into the right wall of the tunnel and there was nothing special about it as far as she could tell.

There was nothing flashing or blinking. Then, Nadia watched as the girl bent over and did something down at the base of the wall that she couldn't see.

Dominoe cackled again and stood back from the wall as a deep rumbling sound started up. It was coming from right in front of Nadia. From somewhere behind the shiny metal panel.

Her heart seemed to bump harder and harder the louder the sound got. "Here we go!" Dominoe screamed, suddenly. "Here comes the catch-a-thieving-motherfucker-express!"

Nadia stood there stunned in the dim hallway as the panel slid up, revealing what at first glance appeared to be a rollercoaster seat. The curving metal parts shone dully in the somber light.

But after further study, Nadia realized she was staring at a real life carnival seat that was attached to more carnival seats. At the bottoms of the box like structure, she saw miniature metal wheels. The kind she saw beneath the rollercoaster seats when she'd gone to Great Adventures a few times.

Even in the dim light, Nadia could see a wide array of colors painted on the rolling sofas. Red and yellow and pink. Green and a gorgeous shade of blue she'd never seen before.

"What the fuck is that?" she said as Dominoe and Allyssa both started laughing.

Nadia stared down at the antique looking thing, wondering if it would really work, wondering what the fuck was next. If there was still other insane shit that would happen before the day was through? And then she thought: What did Dominoe say? That the best was still coming?

Nadia wasn't sure she liked the sound of that! But Dominoe and the young girl only kept laughing, their voices doubling and trebling in the tunnel as Nadia stared down at the strange contraption, wondering if she'd lost her fucking mind for real this time.

20.

"A fucking rollercoaster?" Nadia said. "You've got to be kidding?" She was looking at raised white metal in the shape of a large silver D on the side of the carnival seat facing her.

"Nope," Dominoe said. "Do it look like we kidding? Help me now young lady. Grab my arm, and hold me up!"

For a moment she just stood there, smelling tar and mildew until he called her again. Then, Nadia helped the man walk over to the metal seat and step up into the opening the panel had revealed.

Once Dominoe was there, he didn't have any trouble climbing into the seat that was currently visible. Nadia thought the chair would have been more at home in Coney Island, than in Dominoe's dreary labyrinth of a basement.

"This was built a long time ago," Allyssa explained as she pressed another button Nadia couldn't see somewhere near the bottom of the seat. A beeping sound came that made Nadia jump.

There was a whirring sound, a huge metal clanking, and Dominoe suddenly moved forward and out of sight! Another ornate carnival seat took his place. "I'll program it to roll forward again," Allyssa said, punching more buttons. "Hold on...one second...there!" she said. "Now it's all ready."

Something metallic fell into place with a heavy thud!

Nadia gazed at the shiny colorful seat, and she knew the corridor actually kept going for miles in the dark to some unknown place. Glancing into the tunnel was no good. In there, everything was total darkness where a smelly wind blew.

Earlier, when Allyssa said that they had long since gone past the boundaries of the house, and were now walking beneath the street, Nadia's claustrophobia had suddenly come to life and nearly gotten the better of her.

Now Allyssa was telling her to climb up into a rollercoaster beneath the ground and let it whisk her away to only God knew where? In the darkness with that foul wind blowing against her face as they flew through black tunnels at impossible speeds. Maybe, even going down further beneath the ground?

That idea alone closed her throat. She would be trapped once she got on even if it turned out that the two of them had been lying to her about everything, had made it all up. Nadia would still be trapped on the flying seat, unable to stop it from moving no matter where they were headed! Not a good thought to an imagination as active as the one she had.

A part of her mind couldn't help imagining the rollercoaster coming to a stop in some cave-like place where stalactites dripped from a rocky ceiling and eerie howls drifted on the wind. On that putrid wind she was trying not to smell.

Glowing red eyes would dot the shadows like Christmas lights only these wouldn't blink. Her face was hot, her mind busy envisioning the carnival seat suddenly slowing up in the pitch blackness. Allyssa and Dominoe would tell her in frightened tones that they didn't understand what was happening. Why the shit was suddenly slowing up! What then?

"Do we have to go this way?" she asked Allyssa, feeling cowardly and not caring.

She wrung her hands, trying to take deep breaths. It wasn't easy with her heart pumping like this. Like it would explode right out of her chest if she wasn't careful. And every breath she took was filled with that horrid stench.

"The entire neighborhood is teeming with Hell Nighters," Allyssa replied. "They're a step from being full fledged zombies. Only these zombies carry automatic rifles and can regenerate their bodies no matter what. Only burning them will keep them dead. So, I'd say the answer is yes."

"And they have other guns earth people have never seen before," Dominoe said from up front. And Nadia couldn't see his ass at all! It was like speaking to a ghost. "If you want to live, this is the only way," he said. "And you do want to live, now don't you?"

"Does it work?" she asked. "It's not going to get stuck and shit?"

She tried her best to ignore Dominoe saying earth people. And what had Allyssa said earlier? That Julia was one of the prettiest females she'd ever seen on the planet? What the hell had that meant? That type of talk was common on the Syfy channel not in everyday fucking life!

And that other thing, concerning Kelly arriving at Dark Realm Novels Ink on a rainy day; something she had barely heard: "We've got people looking into it."

That had come from Allyssa. What "people" did she have looking into it? And why was that important enough to look in to, in the first place?

Allyssa chuckled. "Oh...claustrophobia?" she said, breaking off Nadia's thoughts. "Yes, I remember that. Don't worry, this shit moves fast! So fast you won't have time to get scared. It goes all throughout the entire city. Nobody knows about it other than Dominoe, me, and now you. Welcome to the club, girlfriend. Sorry, but there's no hats or uniforms, just yet. But I'm working on it."

She grinned at her.

"What the hell y'all doing!" Dominoe yelled from his seat in the darkness. "Time to move your booty, Jennifer!" He broke out in womanish laughter. "Get it?" he said. "Jennifer's Booty?"

Now Nadia was positive that he was referring to the actress, Jennifer Nicole Freeman, but simply couldn't imagine why. "Who is he to you?" Nadia whispered. "And why are you even with him? This motherfucker's nuts!"

"He's my father," Allyssa said.

"What?" she hissed.

"Yeah, I know what you're thinking," she said, "I've seen that look a thousand times. But he refused to let me join his crew, so I went out on my own and hooked up with Jack. Once I found out Jack was fucking Lady M, I gladly started working for her behind his back." She shrugged. "That's how I found out all the crazy shit the bitch was planning," she said. "I overheard some of it, but she told me the rest. Guess I had her trusting me the way you trusted Kelly and Julia."

A stunned Nadia grinned in spite of herself, and watched Allyssa climb up. Thinking she may have been joking just now, but her ass really was off the hook. Fat and round, with flaring hips like a cowboy from a spaghetti Western, and she had a sudden urge to feel it.

Allyssa sat down and slid over a little on the cushion. Nadia also got in pressing up against her spread hips that nearly took up the whole seat, with her own shapely, but much smaller, ones. It felt like her thigh was touching a large, hot pillow.

Nadia was attempting to get comfortable when suddenly the seat jerked forward and came to a bone jarring stop!

The solid darkness surrounded her and she couldn't even see the knuckles of her hands, and they were close enough to tickle her nose. "Wait a second!" she screamed. "Hold it!"

"Calm down!" Allyssa said. "Remember, I already programmed it to do this? Relax, everything's fine."

Nadia exhaled, trembling, and gripping the metal crossbar attached to the back of Dominoe's seat, with both hands. "Where are we going anyway?" she whispered. "I still don't know that shit." Nadia felt very lightheaded, and her heart was thumping enough to hurt. It actually felt like she was suffering from indigestion.

"Big Momma's place," Allyssa said. "Dominoe had this shit built to stop at everyone's house. Right beneath them and none of them even know. That's why he told Jack and the others to meet us here, to keep it that way."

"So they wouldn't see this?" Nadia said, feeling strange talking in the dark. As if she were floating in cold outer space, talking to some unseen alien. Only, the air around her was hot and the cold was coming from deep within her. "To keep it hidden?" she asked, nervously. "Next thing you know, the entire neighborhood would be using it, right?"

"You're catching on!" Allyssa said, laughing musically. The seat whirred and jerked violently again and Allyssa said: "Next fucking stop, ten million dollars baby! Whoo-wee!"

The seat beneath Nadia was vibrating, and she gripped the bar even tighter as they started rolling forward. She felt the wheels rumble along the metal track and perhaps it was Nadia's deep paralyzing fear that prevented her from hearing the growling man climb into the car behind them. Or maybe it was because of the rumbling motor, and Allyssa's loud voice shouting in the dark man made tunnel, that Nadia couldn't hear him. But she couldn't.

Nadia was suddenly thrown backwards against the headrest, and she took her hands off the metal bar and covered her eyes!

The man behind her didn't cover his. They were glowing a bright orange, like twin flares on an airport runway, and they lit up the backs of the people sitting directly in front of him. But since their backs were turned, the deep shadows surrounding the rollercoaster nicely concealed the glare.

The stranger chuckled, jerking back against his seat as they rolled faster, suddenly seeming to go downward on a sharp incline. One gloved hand gently caressed the SW-15 assault rifle between his legs. And in front of the dark figure, Nadia screamed as the seat, rattling and rumbling like a steam engine, suddenly sped off into the stinking darkness.

21.

They came to a stop with Nadia feeling as if she were going to puke. It had been a wild and horrifyingly fast trip. One she thought was basically a theme park ride beneath the ground and she had even thought up cute names for it. Names like The Mine Shaft. Or, The Highway To Hell.

Or, maybe not so cute.

Now, a quick glance showed her that wherever they were, it looked exactly like the place they had just left. The wall to their right was as smooth as the metal panel had been. There was a light bulb glowing there too, making it gleam. And Nadia thought the door really was metal. "This is Big Momma's house?" she asked. "How can you even tell? How the fuck do you kno—"

"Shhh!" Dominoe said from up front. The car had stopped with Nadia and Allyssa directly in front of the panel, and he was still sitting in the dark. "It's her basement," he said, "it was a real bitch building these tunnels and this track without anyone hearing us and it took two goddamn years. Had it built in 2000, and I always used them during Hell Nights. Hands down, it's the quickest way to get around unseen!"

His voice seemed to shift a little, as if he had turned his head. "That's a sliding metal panel you looking at I can control from this side," he went on. "But there's a huge cabinet blocking the way on her side, it's filled with her dishes and other junk."

"We can move it?" Nadia said. "It's not too heavy?"

"You two should be able to," he said. "You're kind of small, but Allyssa's a thick thing ain't she? Girl got some strong fucking legs, too. Got it from her momma; one hundred and sixty pounds of leg, hip and butt! I told her, her momma also had—"

"Dad!" Allyssa whined. "Could you please fucking stop? She's not interested in my goddamn measurements!"

"Sorry," Dominoe said, chuckling softly. "But I think the both of you working together should be able to manage it. If not, I'll lend a helping hand, as much as my knee will let me."

As it turned out, they hadn't needed Dominoe's help at all. Now they were all standing in Big Momma's basement and Nadia couldn't make any sense of what she was seeing.

What she was seeing didn't seem real at all. It seemed more like something she'd seen in that movie, X-Men Generations: Wolverine.

"What are those?" she asked, pointing at the far basement wall, her hand slightly trembling. "Is that what the fuck I think it is?" she said, but she knew what it was of course. Any child would have.

"Guns," Allyssa said. "Big Momma must have set this up recently. This is the shipment of guns M had men take from Poker; guess she kept the drugs. Her original plan was to claim Poker was the rat trying to set them all up for hijackings. She planned on framing his ass, she wanted to ensure that the drug war got started."

"Why?" Nadia asked. "I thought she only wanted your cash Dominoe? What's the point of all these elaborate schemes?"

"For fun," Dominoe said, and shrugged. "The bitch is fucking crazy. Ain't you never heard that some white girls—wait!" Dominoe said suddenly. "Listen!"

He was crouching now, and facing the broad side of a wooden flight of stairs. The stairs clearly led up to the first floor.

Nadia and Allyssa did as he asked, and both heard the low sounds of harsh retching coming from somewhere above them. Allyssa grinned. Her face, especially her snow colored eyes, looked rather spooky in the murky light of Big Momma's basement.

"They're feeling the effects of the shit!" she said. "That'll help our element of surprise. But right now, we're getting some of those fucking guns because we'll need all the firepower we can get!"

Nadia watched her cross the basement and stop at the display of guns on the wall. Allyssa carefully checked a few of them, and then walked back to her. "Here," she said, handing her what looked like a Beretta. At least it wasn't one of those weird colors, it was a deadly black.

"What about Jack, Almeida and Orion?" Nadia asked, taking the weapon. It felt heavy like a gun was supposed to feel, like her uncle Damien's had. "Won't they be surprised when they get to Dominoe's and we're not there to greet them? You said they're supposed to meet you." Nadia turned the gun in the light, watching it gleam. "How can they meet you if you're here?"

"These motherfuckers don't know shit about working together!" Dominoe said. "I ain't fucking with them! Now that I got my daughter back where she belong, I'm through with all these sad assed motherfuckers. Fuck what happens to 'em, let the Hell Nighters get their black asses!"

"Dad!" Allyssa said. "You promised you'd take them with us!" She wore a severely shocked expression and also managed to look royally pissed, to Nadia.

"No you promised that," he said, "I just didn't say shit against it! You think I want them fuckers around? Huh? When they were scheming on my motherfucking stash?" H e glared at her. "And on your fat ass?" he finished.

Allyssa exhaled. "But I promised Jack dad," she said, "you fucking up my multiple orgasms! And are you gone find me a replacement 'cause I ain't fucking you!"

"That don't concern me," her father said. "After Nadia here takes care of them upstairs, we getting up out of this damned city. The pigs won't be expecting any of us to still be alive by tomorrow morning. Any of us they find, won't be when they're done. So it's high time you got over your man, Mr. Jack. He can stay here and explain shit to Sharptongue and Jenkins for all I care!"

Allyssa was about to speak, but they all jerked with surprise as heavy footsteps suddenly came pounding down the stairs!

"Where did you say it was?" a female voice called back up the staircase.

The person had stopped halfway down the flight and they could all see her legs. Nadia clearly saw the white sneakers, the brand new overly priced high-tops that cost her five hundred bucks, and were the newest addition to Nicki Minaj's line.

Her heart sank as she realized exactly who it was.

A part of her had clearly been hoping Allyssa and the man were lying about it. But they apparently hadn't been.

"Kelly!" the voice shouted. "I'm fucking dying here bitch! Where the fuck Big Momma keep her stomach shit? And speak the fuck up! We can't travel far like this, and I wanna get my fucking cut and split! I fucking hate New York!"

"In the cabinet against the left hand wall, goddamn it!" a voice screamed back. A voice that Nadia easily recognized. The words were followed by harsh coughing sounds. "In a small medicine box!" the voice said. "Now hurry the fuck up, or I'm taking your motherfucking cut!"

That wasn't Kelly. That was her new assistant, Julia Bradford.

"It better be down here, bitch!" the person called out and continued thudding down the stairs, grumbling beneath her breath.

When she reached the bottom step the female paused and then slowly walked over to the display of brand new shiny guns hanging on the wall. "What the hell happened?" she said. "Where is it? Wait a motherfucking second, it was right here..."

She was gazing at an empty space on a huge wooden square where the weapons were kept. A rather large weapon had obviously once been hanging in that spot. She took a step forward and stopped again. She turned to the left and was shocked to suddenly be staring down the barrel of a black shotgun.

"Don't say a motherfucking word," Allyssa said. She jerked the gun at Kelly's dazed face and the woman blinked rapidly. "I want you over there!" she said. "By that open space in the fucking wall. Move, and if you go into alert-mode, you're dead!"

Kelly suddenly doubled over, clutching her stomach, clearly in serious pain. "Oh shit!" she screamed. "What's wrong with us? You did something, didn't you! You fucking bitch! What'd you do?"

She looked up at them, grimacing. "And how the fuck did you do it?" she asked, groaning again.

As Nadia stared at the dark-skinned woman bending over, Nadia's own dark face grimacing now, she realized that everything about what they'd said didn't make sense. Assuming the majority of it was true (and what real choice did she have but to assume that?), nothing Dominoe or Allyssa told her had really explained why she was involved.

They spoke as if it all made perfect sense, but couldn't Lady M have done everything she'd already done according to them, just as easy if Nadia wasn't there? Of course, she could have, she thought.

So why did Lady M go through the trouble of planting Julia and Kelly at her business if her plan didn't involve book publishing?

There was clearly something they weren't telling her. All of the insanity she'd witnessed notwithstanding, the craziness with Julia's Nicki Minaj shirt for example, nothing the father and daughter relayed to her really accounted for why she was considered so crucial to Lady M's machinations.

It seemed like an awful lot to go through just to have her hand off a bag of weapons down in some Queens basement, she thought. Anyone could have done that shit.

But Nadia felt one thing was for sure: Allyssa and Dominoe were definitely hiding something from her. Were it a book, she would have tossed it aside, feeling the plot was much too convoluted to enjoy.

But it wasn't a book, it was real life. Hers, as a matter of fact. And regardless of her doubts, she would have to continue on until the story was over or she was killed.

It was apparently in her people's blood to react like that to adversity. And there would be no answers to her questions if she got killed somewhere along the way.

But Allyssa hadn't answered Kelly's question. "Get your greasy robot ass over by that hole bitch!" Allyssa yelled. "Or I'll shoot you in your face and fuck up your eye modules and shit!"

Allyssa said it as if she meant it, so Kelly immediately started walking across the basement, still grabbing her flat belly as if in dire pain.

When she reached Nadia and Dominoe, she smiled. "Ms. Reece," she said sweetly. "How've you been baby?" But her face was still dark with fury. "So I see you escaped Dagger huh?" she asked her. "Too fucking bad bitch. I was hoping he'd be cutting up your stinking dead body by now. They do that on Hell Night you know?" She grinned. "Maybe I should have told you that, but it was more fun fucking with your head!"

She seemed totally insane now.

"Shut the fuck up and stand with your back to the hole!" Allyssa said, still aiming the sawed-off shotgun at her face. "Hurry the fuck up! Move!"

The woman did as Allyssa said, and was now facing Nadia with her hands held high above her head. She was groaning, and Nadia could see a light film of sweat glistening on her dark forehead. Apparently these androids perspired.

"They're everywhere!" Kelly said. "The city's surrounded!"

Her voice had changed. It was no longer pleasant, or squeaky; it was more like the voice of a bitter old woman.

Her face too, it seemed different and meaner somehow, Nadia thought. Her dark eyebrows were a vicious slant in the middle of her wrinkled forehead, and the strange flat glint in her eyes was one Nadia had never seen before. And even her gigantic breasts somehow seemed to have gotten bigger. They were bulging from her spandex top, as if steadily growing.

"Fuck!" Kelly said, bending over with her hands still held up. "You won't make it out of town!" she said. "This ain't the same old Hell Night, Dominoe! Usually dudes go crazy in the streets killing each other but not this time," she said. "This time, they only want y'all! Their killing modes are programmed to only find you motherfuckers!"

"Keep quiet!" Allyssa said. "Hold that bullshit talk in or you're dead! And I don't give a fuck if it feels like you're shitting out your goddamn screws. One more word and that's it bitch!"

Allyssa glanced at Nadia. "You still got your gun?" she said. "Good, now watch this metallic slut, and if she makes a fucking sound, kill her." Allyssa stared at her. "I'm serious," she said, "don't hesitate and don't fall for her fake ass sweet-talking!"

"Where you going, girl?" Dominoe said, walking towards his daughter. Nadia could see that his limp was much more pronounced now, and he was sweating profusely.

"To see who's upstairs," she said. "They'll be coming down here soon, looking for this piece of shit, and I don't want them surprising us."

"Be quiet," her father said, "just like I always taught you to be; silent as the black panther. Stay real focused on keeping quiet because them goddamn droids have superior hearing, and don't forget that. Rumor has it they can hear as good as a Kit-fox."

Allyssa grinned. "Oh, so now I have you to thank for my superior skills huh?" she said, glancing at Nadia, her pretty grin fading from her face. "Listen," she said, "don't take your eyes off of her Nadia, this bitch is real fucking sneaky. And you too dad," she said. "You've got more than enough experience with Lady M's slaves to know the deal, they all lie like fucking rugs."

They watched Allyssa turn and walk across the basement, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. Kelly immediately looked at Nadia.

"Come on Nadia," she said soothingly. "You don't want to do this, this isn't your fucking fight. You can simply walk away. It's between these dumb Saint Albans clowns and you ain't even from around here boo. Remember?" she whispered. "I know all about you, don't I?"

"It's Nadia now?" she said. "What happened to Ms. Reece?"

Kelly grinned. "Ms. Reece then," she said. "What's really in a name honey? Didn't you like having me around to look at?"

She was gyrating her lower body like an amateur stripper on her first night, Nadia thought. Or like Ralph Kramden doing the Huckle Buck, and she was unable to process this information, properly. She couldn't understand why any of this crazy shit was happening.

Nadia gazed at her in wonder as she kept dancing; if she weren't so confused and pissed, it may have actually been hilarious. But Nadia had always felt Kelly was a closet lesbian. It was mostly in the way she would touch her at times.

And she had a habit of getting undressed right in front of her, changing into a different outfit whenever the mood had struck her. Often, parading around Nadia's office in a bra and panties.

But she thought this was ridiculous.

"I know you always wanted to see these huge shits naked," Kelly said, grinning at her. "Now didn't you? Come on, baby, look. What woman you know with real tits this fucking big?"

Nadia watched, stunned, as her formerly demure secretary, used both hands to raise one huge right tit out of her shirt, and noisily sucked on it. Kelly stuffed as much as she could into her mouth, making wet slurping sounds. After a few seconds, she pulled the breast out of her mouth with a loud plopping noise, and exhaled. "Delicious!" she said. "God how I love sucking my own shit!"

She squeezed it with both hands and shook it at Nadia. "I do sometimes too," she said, "while on my fucking lunch break, bitch!" She cackled insane laughter.

It flopped over Kelly's hands; she used one finger to wiggle the thick fat nipple, and Nadia thought it had to be at least two inches long. The jet black areola surrounding it looked as big as a small saucer, to her. Then amazingly, the nipple began to wiggle and stretch out on its own while Nadia watched! Until it was as long as a strand of cooked spaghetti!

It wavered in the air like a worm, as if looking for her, and Nadia realized she was right about the size of Kelly's breasts. They had gotten bigger, much fucking bigger!

"You're not Kelly!" Nadia said. "I don't know what the fuck you—"

She had lowered her gun a little, now raised it again when Kelly suddenly laughed at her. "Don't move!" Nadia screamed. "Stay where you are!"

"There's no goddamn Kelly!" she said. "I'm—"

Kelly broke off talking and groaned. She leaned over, her tit hanging like a sixty-pound bag of sand. It flopped against her face and might have smothered her if she hadn't moved her head and if she were human, of course.

"Shit!" she said. "Give me something for this fucking pain, please Ms. Reece! I can't take it, feels like shit is chewing up my fucking stomach from the inside! It's like I'm drinking molten lava!"

"Too fucking bad!" Dominoe said. "Ignore her Nadia and don't listen to a word of it!" He glanced across the room to where Allyssa was still standing. The girl was finally beginning to creep up the stairs and Nadia wondered what she was waiting for.

"Allyssa will be back soon," he said. He was standing near the right hand wall, and he shuffled over to them. He pointed at a straight backed chair that was standing by the opening in the wall. "Sit your ass down!" Dominoe ordered, glaring at Kelly. "Before I give Nadia the go ahead, and let her blow your fucking barbwire brains out! You fucking house nigger droids disgust me!"

"I'll scream," Kelly said suddenly. She was standing again, but was still clutching her stomach. "I swear I will, I'll scream my fucking head off motherfucker!"

"What?" Dominoe said. "You do and you're dead, bitch! I'll take her fucking gun and shoot you my damn self! We ain't got no reason to let you live. In fact, there's much more reason to kill your black ass!"

"They'll still hear me," she said, "and then all of the Hell Nighters outside will come running inside Big Momma's house! They'll come down here eventually, then what you old ass motherfucker? You stupid infant-dicked faggot!"

She was bobbing and weaving now, like Dagger had in Dominoe's basement, Nadia thought; like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Her naked breast was swinging wildly.

"Shoot her now then!" Dominoe said. "Mayhap, she's right Nadia. Whether we shoot her ass or the bitch screams, they're gonna hear us up there!"

Nadia gazed at Kelly for a moment because she was back to sucking on her tit again, and her eyes were rolling madly in her head. The nipple was still growing, it seemed at least twelve inches long to Nadia now, and was twisting around the robot's artificial lips like a ribbon snake. "Stop that shit!" Nadia said. "It's fucking disgusting."

"Make me, motherfucker!" she teased. "Make me, make me, make me! Suck my big titties motherfucker; lick my asshole, too. Or would ya rather hear me—"

Her words were suddenly cut off as Dominoe grabbed her around the neck. "Shut the fuck up!" he hissed. "Right now!"

He viciously choked her, and Nadia knew that the man, who had moved incredibly fast just now, much faster than belied his fragile appearance, had made a terrible tactical mistake.

Nadia glanced over at the steps; she didn't have a clue where Allyssa was, she only knew that she could no longer see her legs. The fucking staircase was empty.

But if Kelly screamed, Allyssa would most likely get caught no matter where she was. Yes, Nadia thought, that's a pretty safe fucking bet. And she heard Dominoe's words in her mind again: "Rumor has it they can hear as good as a Kit-fox."

Nadia realized with a deep sense of almost hypnotic dread that she would have to kill Kelly and right now. If the Hell Nighters ambushed them this time, Nadia couldn't even imagine them escaping. Not when she was standing in the basement of a house she didn't know, in a neighborhood she had never been to before.

And it was just as Nadia aimed her gun at the short woman (she didn't think she could ever see her as anything other than a woman), that she heard a loud rasping voice behind her, screaming: "Hell Night! Hell Night! Die you dirty black fuckers!"

Nadia immediately thought of Freddy Krueger as she turned to look, and saw Dagger! He was standing up in the visible carnival seat, and his eyes were glowing brightly. He was holding an automatic rifle and was pointing it straight at Dominoe! Then Dagger snarled in his Great Ape voice: "Did you really think you could escape me!"

He's making too much fucking noise! Nadia thought. They're going to hear him up there! And what happened next would haunt Nadia's dreams forever more.

The zombie man shot his gun, and Dominoe turned Kelly's body at that exact moment! The blast was powerful; Nadia knew this because of the way Kelly's right breast (and the dark spandex material covering it) was suddenly blown from her chest and went flying across the room, a jumble of colorful wires following it like flying worms.

Kelly had nearly screamed, anyway.

But Dominoe quickly covered her mouth with one hand that she promptly bit in to! They were struggling now, seeming to dance as the man tried to keep her quiet.

Her American flag beaded braids were whipping about wildly as she jerked her head side to side. Horribly, Nadia saw that they were actually alive! The fucking braids! They slashed at Dominoe's horrified face, trying to snatch off his glasses and slither into his nose, and mouth, and ears! Nadia thought of Uma Thurman in Percy Jackson And The Olympians. But she had never felt less god-like in her entire fucking life.

21.

Nadia had never seen so much blood. Blood was pouring freely from the wound on Dominoe's hand, to the floor, and the robot kept right on attacking his fingers like a rabid dog.

Dominoe's entire hand appeared to be inside her mouth now, and how he was keeping himself from screaming out in pain was beyond her comprehension. But how he was keeping Kelly quiet, Nadia found a total mystery.

And in the end, it wouldn't even matter.

Dagger's next shot took off Kelly's entire left arm and it was flung backwards as if she were doing the windmill with one hand; only it kept on going clear across the basement where it smacked the floor and rolled like a soggy newspaper.

Kelly really went crazy then; she was thrashing like a giant eel in Dominoe's hand!

Dagger fired again, aiming at Dominoe Nadia assumed, but promptly shot Kelly in the throat, exactly where a man's Reece apple would have normally been! And Kelly's screaming days were finally over. The massive hole in her neck began pumping out something that resembled blood, but Nadia guessed was old motor oil. The dark skin had been blasted apart at the throat area and the wiring directly beneath, shredded and torn.

Liquid poured from the gaping wound as Dominoe released Kelly's body, letting it flop boneless to the floor. The body suddenly began to twitch and jump on the ground, a shower of blue sparks bursting from Kelly's eyes! And the eyeballs themselves were set aflame and oozed from her face, plopping to the ground, burnt black and smoking.

Nadia looked away, and saw Dagger turning his gun towards Dominoe's chest now, and without any further thought, she finally started shooting at him. And as luck would have it, she actually hit the hand he was using to steady the muzzle of the rifle!

Dagger released a bloodcurdling howl, his fingers literally exploding and flying from his bloody knuckles like sausages. The rifle's muzzle jerked up to the ceiling, blowing a saucer sized hole through it! Sawdust or some other white material, showered down like flour to cover that area of the floor, pattering like rain.

A cloud of white dust billowed across the ground, immediately reminding Nadia of The Fog.

Dagger's features were twisted in agony as he opened his mouth—perhaps, to scream, Nadia thought, and got a face full of hot lead for his fucking trouble! Nadia yelped as her gun bucked and Dagger's nose and mouth were instantly replaced by torn flesh and a deep gash that revealed his upper teeth; or what were now left of them. Nadia had ducked down with her smoking gun after firing, watching in terror as Dagger flopped backwards, still shooting his own deadly, but silent rifle.

"Nadia!" a voice shouted. "Look over here, girl!"

It was Dominoe trying to get her attention, and when Nadia turned towards the voice, she saw Dominoe down on one knee cradling his bloody, mangled right hand against his chest. He was rocking back and forth while moaning and there was a red blotch on his white dress shirt, a blotch that was growing rapidly.

"We have to get to Allyssa!" he said. "You gotta go, 'cause I'm no fucking good like this!"

He raised his hand so Nadia could see it, and she screamed, because Kelly had bitten two of his fingers off! Apparently, it was his middle and ring finger.

"Go!" Dominoe said. His face was drawn and his wrinkles seemed to have multiplied. "Don't worry, I'm left handed!" he hissed. "Just save my goddamn daughter!" Then he went back to cradling his hand again. "I'm so sorry Allyssa," he wailed. "Daddy done fucked up again!"

"I'll try," Nadia said, feeling like she was trapped in a Playstation 3 video game, again. Maybe, Resident Evil. She glanced at the open panel. "Do you think more got in?" she said. "Will you be okay? Maybe, I should—"

"Never mind me!" he said, hissing with pain; a pain she couldn't imagine. "You heard what that bitch upstairs was saying. That fraud, Bradford bitch! There's some kind of first aid kit down here. Go on! Luckily he used one of them silent weapons. But they might have still heard us already, his damn screaming. Go see where Allyssa is, and see if she needs your help. Please! That's my only child up there!"

Nadia didn't waste any more time talking. She turned and immediately raced across the room, stopping at the steps.

"Okay! I'll be back," she said, turning to face Dominoe again. "Just hold on, and find that first aid kit before you bleed to death!"

Nadia turned and glanced up the stairs. It was dark up there and she didn't see Allyssa, but she could see that the door at the top of the stairs was cracked open. Pale light was shining through the crack in a slant that touched the wall and traveled down the steps, making a long, crooked V shadow on the stairs.

She glanced down warily at her new gun.

"How will I know when it needs reloading?" she said, glancing back at Dominoe. "And what do I do if it does?"

Dominoe was still kneeling down, examining his injured hand. He slowly glanced up at her. "It'll get hot when it's nearly empty," he said. "But you won't have to worry about it...go on now!"

"I'm going, I'm going," Nadia said, thinking that the man hadn't really told her anything at all. But she raised her weapon and crept towards the steps. She could no longer hear the retching sounds. In fact, she couldn't hear anything coming from up there.

So Nadia quickly ran up the stairs as quietly as she could and stopped at the open door. She put her right ear to the opening and listened. Now she finally heard loud talking. Both male and female voices she thought, and they were apparently arguing about something.

The sounds were coming from very far away. Probably from another room, Nadia thought. She pushed the door lightly and it swung outward. She cringed, hoping the hinges wouldn't squeak, and exhaled when they didn't. Gathering her nerve, she took a deep breath, and moved forward a few steps. She could still hear voices, but could tell they weren't coming from this room.

Nadia peered through the doorway, turning her head to the right, and she saw a long dark hallway. It stretched off for a few yards and stopped at a closed door. Light was glowing at the bottom of the door. Nadia thought the voices were most likely coming from down there. Yes, she thought, after listening a moment. They really are down there.

Looking the other way, she saw a brightly lit living room. Or perhaps, it was a dining room. But it was lavishly furnished and Nadia could see that Big Momma obviously had very expensive tastes for a fucking junkie android. Furniture Palace and Lord & Taylor, type tastes, Nadia thought.

A giant flat screen television was standing in the middle of the room and the shiny black sides were gleaming beneath the overly bright lights. There was a pricey looking Oriental rug beneath it and the colorful design matched the burgundy leather furniture, perfectly.

High above her, Nadia saw a crystal chandelier almost like the one in Dominoe's living room. The kind she always saw in mansions on scary movies and she wondered if this one also shot lasers. Nadia lowered her eyes.

Straight ahead, she saw a large window over by a mahogany armoire.

Taking another glance to the right, and seeing nothing, Nadia ran across the carpet and went to the window. She reached out and paused just before opening one flap of the blood red velvet curtain. She thought she had heard a whisper just now!

A soft voice, that seemed to come from somewhere inside this very room! A sound like dry leaves being swept across a kitchen floor.

Nadia glanced around in the hopes of locating the source of that sound, but instead, noticed the artistic jade sculptures. And the fancy oil-paintings hanging from the hot pink walls. For some reason she thought of Andy Warhol as he had been depicted in The Doors movie. She thought of the gorgeous coke-sniffing black chick, too. The one from the party scene where Andy presented Jim Morrison with the gold phone that was supposedly a line straight to God. Boy, how she had wanted to lick her!

Then Nadia shook her head briskly, as if to clear it.

She needed to focus! She exhaled, and studied the room again.

There was a huge sofa up against the right wall, but it didn't appear to sit high enough off the carpet to hide a person beneath it. Nadia surveyed the room once more, her eyes focusing on the massive aquarium for a moment (it was filled with water and had a sandy bottom but didn't appear to contain any fish, only what seemed to be a large porcelain fox standing at the bottom—a blue one, which she found passing strange), then she hurriedly turned back to the window. Nadia peeled back the curtain and slowly glanced outside and then inhaled sharply. She released the flap of curtain and ducked down, her mind racing.

Oh my God, she thought. We're in big fucking trouble! How the fuck did they find us?

She didn't know where Big Momma lived, and she couldn't tell by merely looking out her window. But it was fully dark now and the skies above were obsidian black except for a handful of glittering white stars.

For a moment, Nadia had felt insanely jealous of them. Jealous of the stars. It seemed like the name of a new reality show, to her. Because they were safe up there weren't they, where Hell Night didn't exist? Where there were no such things as zombie-men who carried silent guns.

But when she rose up and returned her attention to the scene outside the window, trying not to shake herself apart, Nadia had calmed herself enough to see that the area looked different at night. It now seemed like a pretty fancy neighborhood.

Expensive cars were parked along the curb where she saw a black BMW and a Hummer like Julia had, only it was bright white instead of her garish apple-red one. There were other large vehicles out there. One that may have been a pink jeep, she thought, but she couldn't tell the exact color in the darkness. She also made out what appeared to be three pink Escalades.

Nicki Minaj, she thought nonsensically. Starship.

But craziest of all, Nadia even saw a white stretch limo. Only, it was covered in dark peppermint stripes! The limo was apparently parked in Big Momma's gravel driveway.

But none of that had made her hiss and suddenly draw in breath. It was what was happening to those vehicles that had stunned her. They were all on fire, and were burning steadily as she watched. And yet, even that wasn't the worse part.

Nadia recalled what Allyssa had said about burning the zombie-men. That fire was the only way to really kill them. Well, it didn't appear to be working right now.

They seemed to be enjoying the fucking flames!

She didn't understand how they could touch the flaming metal barehanded, or how their feet apparently weren't getting burned either, zombies or not. But they were going wild amidst the fire, ripping the bumpers from the cars and smashing the windows. Others were jumping up and down on the hoods and trunks like baboons in the zoo.

Most of the men were on fire and they were all carrying guns they had slung around their shoulders. The weapons dangled by the black straps as if the men didn't know they were even there.

She could suddenly hear them grunting and moaning, like the machine phantoms in a carnival's Haunted House. Or like the fake ghosts on Scooby Doo, she thought.

Manic shouts of: "Hell Night! Hell Night!" were coming from out there; rising in the night like the chants of Satan worshipers practicing their sacred rites in the deep dark woods.

Then she noticed that all of the cars weren't burning. The only vehicle that hadn't been touched so far was the stretch limo. But that the men would get around to it, was perfectly clear to her.

Nadia closed the heavy curtain, frowning. "Was that what I heard?" she whispered. "The soft voice that seemed to come from right in here?" She didn't think so, but then again...

When the pale hand fell on her shoulder, Nadia nearly fainted. "No," a voice said as she spun around, her heart sprinting. "It was me, calling your noisy ass," the voice said. "Some motherfucking hitter you are; I think Jack should ask for a fucking refund!"

Allyssa was standing behind her, and she was grinning. She looked wild-eyed and her irises seemed to be glowing on her mocha colored face. "They're all in there," Allyssa said, jerking her head back the way Nadia had come. "In that room with the closed door, counting the fucking money. My father's money."

A violent chill ran through Nadia, and her heart was still knocking as she said: "Dagger showed up downstairs! He came out of the tunnel, and tried to kill your father, but wound up killing Kelly's ass by mistake!"

"Where is he?" Allyssa asked, glancing over her shoulder.

"Dead," she replied. "I killed him myself."

Allyssa looked at her again and smiled, giving her a strange look. Making Nadia think of Kelly complementing one of her novels; novels she couldn't have possibly read. But she'd always had a similar expression on her fucking face. "Is my father hurt?" Allyssa asked suddenly, staring down into Nadia's eyes.

Nadia shook her head. "No more than he already was," she lied. "He sent me to come find you." Nadia pointed at the window, and Allyssa looked that way. The sounds out there seemed to have gotten even closer.

"What?" Allyssa turned back to her. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Did you see that shit out there?" she said. "They're going crazy, fucking up people's cars like maniacs. Are those Hell Nighters? And whose fucking limo is that?"

"Lady M's," Allyssa said, walking away from her. "Bitch is a show-off and it means she's here. But yeah, those are the Hell Nighters. They're after us, but they're working their way inside. Come on, it's time we settle this bullshit before they get here."

Nadia's heart lurched. "What do you mean?" she said.

Allyssa stopped walking towards the hallway and glanced at her. "It's time to pay those lying fuckers back," she said. The girl stared at Nadia, seeming to gauge her expression. "You said you wanted revenge, didn't you?" she asked her. "For how they hurt you? Haven't they been getting away with this bullshit for too long?"

"I do," Nadia said. "But so soon? I mean, shouldn't we scout the place out a little more or something?"

Allyssa sighed, walking back over to her. She pointed towards the door down the corridor. "There's nothing to scout out," she said. "The plan is simple. We go down that hall and through that fucking door, shooting. We do it now, before one of them comes looking for Kelly."

"Are they still sick?" Nadia said.

"They're sick enough," she said, "that's why they're still here." Allyssa exhaled again. "Big Butt Pinky and Kaliek hid the other half of Dominoe's money upstairs in Big Momma's bedroom and their plan was to wait until the five million was divided and then make up some kind of excuse to come back. Probably just one of them. I'm thinking Pinky, to make it seem less suspicious."

"How did you find all of that out?" Nadia said.

Allyssa shrugged. "When I first got up here, Kaliek was leaving the room down there, and passed right by the basement door. So, I followed him upstairs." She smiled. "He made a bee-line for her room and went to check on the money. Then I heard him on the phone telling someone what I just told you. I was standing at the door and he was crouching down by her bed and never saw me, the motherfucker was too busy being greedy."

Nadia inhaled, deeply exhaled. She shook herself. "Okay," she said. "Let's do this! We gotta do something before they—" she nodded towards the window and the creepy howling grunting sounds. "Get in here," she finished.

"You sure?" Allyssa asked. "I can take them on alone if I've got to, I've done it before."

"No I'm ready," she said, "just lead the way." Nadia shook out her arms once more. "I got us into this shit," she said, "even if it was a fucking set-up in the end." She nodded slowly. "But I was being greedy too," she said. "I wasn't happy with what I had, with what God gave me. My grandmother always called it being long-eyed. She said that God took from those who were long-eyed."

Allyssa momentarily searched her face again, her unusual eyes seeming to bore into Nadia's. "Okay," Allyssa said. "I'll take your word for it, follow close behind me. But when we go in, it's got to be fast. Once we start shooting, the Hell Nighters outside are coming. And it looks like the entire fucking town is out there!"

Not just the town, Nadia thought. The entire city!

But she didn't say that as Allyssa patted her on the back, rather hard, and started off across the living room again. She turned down the hallway and Nadia immediately followed behind her.

And then, something occurred to her. "Allyssa!" Nadia whispered, and the girl immediately stopped walking and spun around with her gun raised, and an angry expression on her face. When she saw that there was no danger, she relaxed. "Are you crazy?" she said. "I thought you were in trouble, Nadia. Don't do that shit again!"

Nadia walked up to her. "I just wanted to ask you a question," she said. "And I wanted to do it now because there might not be time to do it later."

"What is it?" Allyssa asked her.

Nadia exhaled. "It's about that sign I saw at the entrance to this place," she said, "the one about African American girls."

Allyssa only gazed down at her for a moment. Then she said: "Is that what you found so fucking important you almost got killed to ask me about it? Well," she said. "What about it?"

"I only wanted to know who wrote it," she said. "Was it your father?"

Allyssa frowned. "My father?" she said. "No. That sign was up there when we bought this house. My father always assumed the previous owner put it up there."

"Do you know who they were," she said, "I assume it was a man, did you ever meet him?"

Allyssa shrugged. "I never met him," she said, "but I saw him on the day we first moved in. My father said he's a writer." She grinned at her. "He really likes African American girls, huh?" she asked her. "Enough to put up weird sign like that?"

Nadia returned the grin. "Yeah," she said, "he credits them with somehow bringing out his creativity. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that shit before."

Allyssa shrugged. "Maybe it's true," she said, "His name was Derrick, or David. I'm not sure, but I do know that the sign was up there ten years ago and my father believes it was there even long before that."

Nadia exhaled. "Okay," she said, "that's it. That's all I wanted to know. Let's go and take care of those motherfuckers."

"And when we're done with them," Allyssa said, "it's straight upstairs for the rest of my father's dough. Then we're out of here, and it's back to my crib, long before the cops come!"

They continued walking, moving quickly down the hall in silence. Nadia was going to respond. Maybe to say that she wasn't so sure exactly what she would do once the nightmare had ended. If it ended, because it didn't seem like it would ever end.

But she stopped herself as the door down the corridor suddenly swung wide open! They were halfway to it, right near the open basement door, as a man staggered out, pausing to rest one hand on the wall. Nadia could see he was carrying a large gun in the other one.

"The bitch is probably down there playing with herself!" the man shouted. "We up here vomiting blood and she's..."

Harpo started coughing, dropping to one knee. "Fuck!" he said. "My fucking stomach!" He had dropped his gun, it clunked to the carpet and now lay on its side, gleaming softly. "I think Allyssa did this shit!" he screamed.

He never saw them standing there. Nadia had stopped in her tracks, shocked that the man had come rushing through the door like that. But Allyssa, who was standing right in front of her, never stopped at all.

The girl suddenly ran towards Harpo and tackled him! They both hit the carpet hard, rolling over like two lovers frolicking on the beach. Nadia saw Allyssa immediately cover Harpo's mouth with both hands and then she slammed his head down to the floor! Nadia heard the thud from where she stood utterly motionless.

She couldn't believe Allyssa had just moved that fast. She moved like a mongoose, her huge body had only been a blur! "Get his gun!" Allyssa said harshly. "Quick! This motherfucker's strong!" She was now straddling him as if fucking him.

Nadia jerked, and started running down the hallway. The door up ahead was still standing open and bright white light was shining into the shadows of the corridor, revealing the left corner. Nadia was panting as she finally reached Allyssa, bending down and snatching up Harpo's weapon.

It feels hot, she thought, almost as if it's been sitting over an open flame! Hissing, Nadia glanced at it for a moment, not wanting to drop it despite the heat, and saw it was bright silver and had a strange, extremely blunt muzzle that seemed to sparkle.

The words: BLACK SEXY'S MACHINE were imprinted on one shiny side, and on the other, the logo of a sexy female fox with big tits and a big, round, butt. Her tail was huge and bushy and curved down from the top of her poking ass, ending in a pointy tip.

Nadia immediately thought of black female strippers.

She quickly stuffed the gun in her waist, wincing from the heat of it, and glanced at Allyssa. She was still fighting with Harpo and though she had him pinned with her own body, he appeared to be struggling to his feet. Nadia was stunned by his, as well as Allyssa's, strength.

"Grab him Nadia!" Allyssa ordered. "We're going to need him alive!"

Nadia placed her own gun down on the carpet and slid next to Allyssa. She reached down and roughly grabbed Harpo's ankles which stopped him from kicking out. Then she slammed her knees into his calves, Harpo bucking as Nadia's bony kneecaps bore into his flesh. "I've got his legs!" Nadia said. "Lift him up!"

Allyssa rolled over, still covering Harpo's mouth with one hand, and stood up straight. It was a swift feline-like motion that startled Nadia. Allyssa had one arm around Harpo's neck as she rose to her feet, and soon the man's boots were dangling in mid-air. And then he started kicking his legs out violently like a swimming frog.

Allyssa staggered backwards a little as Harpo went wild, but she immediately regained her footing. Her father was right, Nadia thought. She does have some strong fucking legs!

"We're going inside with him!" Allyssa said, grunting. "Use his ass as a motherfucking shield!"

Nadia didn't respond, only nodded. She picked up her gun and took out Harpo's as well, which seemed to have gotten even hotter. "Me first?" she asked. Then realized how dumb the question was, and simply started walking. "Stay back a little," she said to Allyssa. "Give me room to work."

"Room to work?" Allyssa said, and chuckled softly. "Okay Chuck Norris," she said, "The Force Of One. Go get 'em!"

Nadia smiled as she moved up against the wall and started hop-skipping down the rest of the corridor. She didn't wait to see what Allyssa was doing.

Now that the action was really going to begin, Nadia felt strangely at peace; almost eager to fight. She glanced to her left and saw Allyssa was right there with her. She was still carrying Harpo by his thick neck, yoking him up with one arm.

The man's eyes were bugging from his sweaty, dark face and Nadia could see he was crying (or he had just stopped), because tears sparkled in his eyes above Allyssa's apparently strong fingers. She was still covering up Harpo's mouth, and was staring down at her, waiting.

And that was when it finally occurred to Nadia, the man's strength. She had forgotten just that quickly that Harpo was supposed to be an android! It explained why his face hadn't been bruised in the least after Lady M threw him into the wall, didn't it?

And then, she realized something even more startling; she realized what it meant concerning Allyssa's strength if he was an android. But she decided to ignore it, because this simply wasn't the time for pointless distractions. Shit had just gotten real!

Nadia made a motion with her left hand, telling Allyssa to wait a second. Then she swung her head around the wall beside the doorway and peered into the next room. Nadia looked for some time, and then quickly withdrew her head.

She glanced up at Allyssa. "Come on," she said. "Get in front, and no matter what happens, don't let that motherfucker go!"

The girl nodded and duck-walked herself and Harpo until she was in front of Nadia. "Okay," Nadia said. "On the count of three, you walk around the corner and shout...got it?"

Harpo suddenly kicked out again, making Allyssa step forward. "I'm ready!" she said. "Start counting, this nigger's getting too heavy to keep still!"

Nadia nodded, taking a deep breath, and letting it out. "One," she said. She raised both weapons, trying to picture the motley crew of thieves and deceivers as they had been standing. Or in some cases, sitting and she saw them all: Lady M and Big Butt Pinky, bent over a large metal case that was sitting on the floor.

The case looked very familiar to Nadia. That's right, Orion was carrying it, she thought, the guns came from there.

But Kaliek was sitting on a bar stool, holding his forehead in one hand, his belly in the other and he was closest to the front door. Standing right beside him, Nadia saw the conniving bitch Julia Bradford, who seemed to be discussing something of importance with him. Ms. Smarty fucking Pants, Nadia thought with disgust.

And she'd spoken of giving her a fucking raise!

It had only taken Nadia one look to see that the two of them were an item. (Whatever that meant to androids.) But she hadn't spent any time considering it; instead, she had glanced behind them, and saw Big Momma sitting in what appeared to be a lawn chair. It looked distinctly weird inside the modernly furnished room.

She was currently puffing away on her crack pipe and kicking up her heels as a cloud of gray smoke drifted around her head like steam. A gleaming shotgun was propped up against the wall beside her, and Nadia wasn't sure, but it also looked nickel-plated. Like Jack's gun, and light was reflecting from both barrels.

Nadia had smelled the foul odor coming from her pipe, but figured it was coming from all the burning rubber on the automobiles outside. Apparently not. And Nadia decided in that instant that Eddie was the one she would kill first.

Why? Simply because he was standing off to one side of the room, brooding it had seemed. The boy had been brooding the entire fucking day, as if still thinking about his private promise regarding his sister.

That would make sense if he were human, Nadia thought. But according to Dominoe and Allyssa, it was all made up. Now that she knew Eddie was only a machine programmed to feel, his attitude seemed even stranger to her. Perhaps, she thought, his wires had gotten a little crossed somewhere along the way?

But whatever his quandary was, Nadia was going to see if she couldn't help him solve his fucking problem. In reality, he had actually set the shit up, hadn't he?

"Two," she said, imagining Eddie's annoying pimple face as he'd just looked. With his back and right foot up against the wall, as he puffed on a cigarette. (A cigarette puffing android! she thought) His head had been lowered, as if deep in thought.

The gun dangling from his finger by his left knee, was a Llama. Only it was bright green, which somehow reminded her of Dagger, and Nadia finally made up her mind. She placed one hand in the small of Allyssa's back and pushed her lightly.

"Three!" Nadia screamed. "Three! Three! Three! Dark Realm motherfucker!" And they both rushed forward.

22.

"Hell Night!" Allyssa screamed as she rushed headlong into the room still carrying Harpo by the neck. When Eddie saw her carrying him, he immediately dropped his lit cigarette. It hit the floor in a bright shower of orange sparks and bounced away.

"Watch out!" Harpo yelled. "They're here! They're here!"

Eddie raised his gun at Allyssa and was about to pull the trigger, but at that exact moment, Nadia leapt from behind her and shot the boy in his left kneecap!

The sound of the gunshot was nearly deafening, and the boy's leg was blown from his body as if it had never been! "Arrrrgh!" Eddie yelled, crashing to the floor and crumpling up in a heap.

He was still holding the gun, but the hand holding it was resting on the floor as he reached for his injured knee with the other. But there was no knee, so he flipped over and on to his back, with blood literally pouring from his blasted thigh.

"Oh my God!" Eddie said, wiggling frantically on the floor. "This shit hurrrts!" he screamed. "Alert! Alert! Enemy breach! Alert! Enemy Breach!" His voice had turned into a loud robotic whine!

Nadia continued into the room, pushing Allyssa before her, and she thought the girl was doing an admirable job of controlling the kicking bucking android. But how? the voice whispered in Nadia's mind. How can she be that fucking strong? She's only a human, isn't she?

But Nadia ignored this as well.

"Get the fuck off me!" Harpo was yelling at Allyssa. "You're going to get me killed you fucking bitch! Alert! Alert! Get off me you fucking slut! Enemy Breach!" he shouted. "Alert! Enemy Breach!" Both their voices had turned decidedly robotic!

Allyssa didn't respond. She just kept walking forward with him, straining to hold him up as he struggled against her. Nadia, who was still right behind her, glanced at Eddie who was still moaning on the floor, and shot him in the top of his head! It exploded like a stick of dynamite, metal shrapnel flying everywhere.

Eddie's alerts and enemy breaches fell silent as Nadia stared at the mush of brains leaking from his shattered cranium. It was silver like Arnold Schwarzenegger's skull on Terminator 2.

And his brains weren't gray, she saw, they were black. And something seemed to be glowing inside his skull; it seemed to be squirming around sluggishly, and looked a lot like—

"Nadia!" Julia said. "Alert! Alert! What the fuck are you do—Enemy Breach!" she screamed. "Alert! Enemy fucking breach!" Nadia glanced at her, shooting her in the left eye, her head snapping upwards as she was driven backwards into Big Momma's lawn chair!

The tall girl robot screamed, stumbling over the android woman and clutching wildly at her face with one hand. She hit the floor hard and lay there in a puddle of fake blood, still screaming and convulsing like an epileptic.

Kaliek had jerked his head up the moment Julia said Nadia's name, but seeing what happened to Julia had stunned him momentarily. He was now leaping from the stool, raising a black handgun in Nadia's direction. "Alert! Alert!" he said. "Enemy Bre—"

But Nadia, deciding not to wonder where the gun had come from this time, used BLACK SEXY'S MACHINE to blast a hole through Kaliek's narrow chest and send him flying back into the stool! He flew through the air and struck it hard, tripping over it backwards and tumbling violently, never getting to finish the word.

"What the mother-FUCK?" Nadia whispered, glancing down at the weapon in awe, I think I'm in love! she thought. It was clearly no normal gun; it was a goddamn cannon! The robot man had flipped over in mid-air twice, slamming into the stone floor right beside Julia so hard, his entire head exploded! And he was now lying face down on the ground, twitching and sparking like fallen electrical wires on a rain soaked road.

A fitting fucking end! Nadia thought, smiling grimly as tendrils of black smoke curled from the lifeless body.

Then, Nadia heard gunshots and looked towards Allyssa. She had managed to get at her own gun, she saw, even as she held Harpo by the neck and was shooting it at Big Momma. Who now resembled Wanda Sykes mixed with a fucking gremlin, she thought. Her face had somehow become a fucking monster's face!

"Alert! Alert!" Big Momma yelled. "Alert! Alert!"

Her suddenly deformed Wanda Sykes face started writhing, and it seemed as if a nest of flesh colored snakes had slithered from her pores and taken up residency all over her fucking head! Her features were completely hidden as if by a rubber mask.

"Enemy Breach! Alert! Enemy Breach!" she screamed.

The woman was dipping and dodging behind the overturned lawn chair, moving in a very unnatural fashion, wielding her shotgun as if it were as light as a feather. "Fucking shit!" she said. "Goddamn!" She was dodging Allyssa's bullets like a cartoon character. "Allyssa!" she said. "You done lost your fucking mind bitch? How come you gotta go and fuck everything up?"

"You're trying to take my father's money!" Allyssa said. "And I'm here to make sure you motherfucker don't! Keep still, bitch!" Allyssa shot at her again, and just missed again. The bullet struck the floor right beside Big Momma, making her leap nimbly aside.

"It's too late for that shit!" Lady M said, laughing hysterically. "The Hell Nighters are coming! Can't you hear them? They're singing your motherfucking song, bitch!"

Nadia yelped in surprise, she'd forgotten about her in all the frantic action! But now she spun around and watched as Lady M reached into her pants pocket and pulled out some small shiny object. Nadia expected some kind of weapon, but saw with something like wonder, that the woman was now holding a tiny silver whistle. It seemed like something a Smurf might use, Nadia thought, and it sparkled brilliantly in the ceiling lights.

She raised it to her mouth and blew it. The sound was shrill and piercing and really bothered her ears. Bothered them so much she immediately covered them.

"Now they'll come!" Lady M said. "While we get the fuck out of here with your daddy's dough!" She twiddled her long pale fingers at her. "Bye, bye bitch," she sang in a crazy voice. "Now don't you fucking cryyyyyyy!"

Nadia, who finally noticed Pinky kneeling down by the metal trunk, watched as she now pulled something out of it. But it wasn't any of the money she had just seen stacked up in neat piles. Instead, it was something that looked like a military bazooka off Apocalypse Now, to her. She thought of what Eddie had said regarding Jack's collection of weapons and his supposed surface to air missiles.

"You should have stayed in your motherfucking place!" Pinky growled at Nadia. She put the bazooka on her right shoulder, seeming to bend from the weight, and aimed it at Allyssa. "You ain't no real writer!" she said. "Blacks can't read or write for shit! Now you'll get what this whole fucking city got coming bitch!"

"Wait a second!" Big Momma said. "Don't be shooting that shit in my fucking crib! What the fuck's wrong with you, ya crazy bitch! I didn't sign on for—"

Big Butt Pinky swiveled the bazooka around and pressed the trigger. Nadia saw the rocket or whatever it was, blast from the weapon in a flash of light and a loud whistling noise. She watched a cloud of white smoke speed at Big Momma!

It struck the woman in her Wanda Sykes face and instantly decapitated her! Then the missile continued on its smoky trail and exploded against the wall, bringing down an avalanche of bricks and plaster while Nadia blinked in amazement.

She watched Big Momma's headless body tumble backwards, smacking the floor like a bag of wet clothing. Her bodiless head had slammed into the wall, where it cracked open like a coconut, and dropped to the floor, exploding like a rotten pumpkin on impact!

It came to an awkward rolling stop up against the same wall, leaking a red fluid Nadia knew wasn't blood. Big Momma was still wearing the sunglasses, she saw; the fluorescents were reflecting in them. The crack pipe was still poking from between her thin brown lips, too! Not even scratched, Nadia bet. But it didn't matter, because Big Momma would never again have to worry about stretching her crack cocaine!

"Who's the crazy bitch now!" Pinky shouted, training the powerful weapon on Allyssa. She got up and started walking towards her. "How dare you double cross Lady M NIGGER!" she said, seeming to adjust something on the weapon as she went, nearly running now. "HOW DARE YOU BITCH!" she screamed. "I'LL KILL YOU, NIGGER!"

But before she could fire, Nadia shot her in the finger that would have pressed the trigger! Just like she'd done to Dagger and she was astounded in spite of herself. She was too far away to see the damage, but somehow knew it had been a direct hit.

"Fucking shit!" Pinky said, falling hard to the ground. "Enemy Alert!" she screamed. "Enemy Alert! Breach! Bre—"

The bazooka tumbled from her bloody hand, clattering on the floor and on impact, releasing a rocket that struck the ceiling, causing a mind numbing explosion! Nadia ducked involuntarily, thinking of flying debris, and metal shrapnel.

"Drop his ugly ass!" she yelled to Allyssa. "We're through with him! Let's take care of Lady M and get your father's money!"

The girl obliged, violently throwing Harpo away from her body. "No!" he squawked, and Nadia promptly blew his face off before he even touched the floor! It was another amazing shot that she couldn't believe she'd actually made.

His frog eyes had been blown from his head, completely erased like foul sex words from a blackboard. His nose and mouth had completely vanished!

All that remained was a square-shaped object that resembled hamburger meat to Nadia, and it had multicolored wires hanging from it, as if from the back of a speaker.

A puddle of dark red blood or another liquid most likely, Nadia thought, began to spread out from his mangled head in a wide puddle that resembled an oil spill. Here and there, some of those strange sliver objects she'd noticed before, back at Jack's place, were throwing off heavy sparks and crackled with electricity.

Then Nadia heard the sounds, the loud groans and shrieks outside the room and getting closer. And she knew it was the Hell Nighters that Lady M had just summoned, they were finally coming!

"Allyssa!" Lady M said. "That nigger's dead but it's not too late for you! I control those things out there and if you come with us we can share everything! I've got the money!" she said, a wild expression on her pale face. "There's more than enough to go around, at least five million in cold hard cash!"

Allyssa was now standing over Harpo's body, pointing the shotgun at Lady M, and managing to hold it steady despite her heavy breathing. "What about the other half of it?" she shouted. "The five million Big Butt Pinky and Kaliek stole from upstairs? You didn't know you had rats on the ship, huh?"

Lady M's face went blank. "What the fuck are you talking about?" she asked her, glancing down at Big Butt Pinky who was still screaming on the ground. And then she broke out in laughter.

"It's the truth!" Allyssa yelled. "That's why Kaliek has the rest of Dominoe's money hidden upstairs in Big Momma's bedroom! Right, asshole? Did you know that shit, Ms. Smart Ass? You're just a dumb assed fucking bitch!" she screamed.

"Lies!" Lady M said. "Bullshit, especially coming from you! I trusted your black ass and I oughta fucking rip you apart!"

"Fuck your trust!" Allyssa said, moving a step closer. "I didn't know you wanted to wipe us out!" she screamed. "You said you only wanted the cash and would use the dough to set up shop in Cali! You ain't a hustler, you're a lying racist bitch!"

"What the fuck do you care, huh?" she said. "Fuck you! You were born to be down at my white feet licking between my motherfucking toes!"

Nadia had turned to look up at Allyssa while Lady M was talking, spewing her craziness, so she didn't see that both Julia and Pinky were still alive. And were slowly, steadily, creeping towards their respective weapons. (She may have even thought of zombies again, had she noticed them.) But Julia was nearly to hers and when Lady M saw this she grinned and began to back away.

"Kill her!" Nadia shouted at Allyssa. "What the fuck are you waiting for? Wake up and do something!"

Allyssa turned to her, and Nadia's heart suddenly went ice cold as she gazed at the girl's face. Oh no, she thought, and Lady M erupted in harsh laughter behind her, but Nadia ignored it. "What's wrong with you shorty?" she asked Allyssa. "Are you okay?"

Nadia did everything she could to ignore the horrid sounds getting closer, coming from not too far behind her, now. But it was getting harder and harder not to turn around, because the shrieks had suddenly become weird grunts and snarls!

"I...I can't do it," Allyssa said, shaking her head briskly, and Nadia clearly saw the tears sparkling in her cream colored eyes. She found that those tears actually made her want to cry and she knew this shit wasn't good.

"She's right!" Allyssa said. "I'm addicted to her, Nadia. I thought I had gotten over it, but..."

When Allyssa finally turned her sawed-off shotgun on her, Nadia's mind immediately flashed back to much earlier that day, to the moment she first set eyes on the beautiful young Julia. She had marveled at her height—sixteen years old and six foot four!

She had taken pleasure and pride, in her delicate, almost ethereal, beauty. Nadia also thought of how pleased she'd been to meet her, of how she'd tingled down there in that most private of places, and suddenly felt hot inside.

And then, Nadia jerked her head up. She could clearly hear the zombie voices inside the house, now! The violent smashing sounds had ceased, the sounds of Hell Nighters busting through Big Momma's window. She now heard footsteps approaching, what seemed like hundreds of them to her!

"Allyssa listen to me!" she said, realizing time had finally run out. "She's only concerned with herself! Once she escapes with your father's money, she's going to kill you. And you know that shit!"

"I'm sorry," she said. "But she's like a drug to me and I know how that sounds, but I can't help it!" She paused and exhaled again. "Fucking shit!" she screamed.

And for a moment, Nadia thought Allyssa was going to end it right there. Just raise the shotgun a little higher and blow her fucking head off. But she didn't, and instead, she screamed out in frustration again. "She's that fucking incredible!" Allyssa said, and groaned. "What's wrong with me, Nadia?" she asked, peering at her through red rimmed eyes. "What the fuck did she do to me?"

"My shit's magical!" Lady M shouted. "Wait 'till you taste it bitch! Why you think I got the whole city on my shit?" she said. "Know what I think? I think you need a little cream in your coffee boo!"

"You'll never make it out of here," Nadia said to Allyssa, still ignoring Lady M. "Not without me! Do you really think this bitch will protect you from them? From the fucking Hell Nighters when she just called them!"

Lady M laughed, and Nadia finally glanced at her.

"Tell her to drop the weapon!" she said. "Or else, you dirty, troublemaking slut!"

"Or else, what?" Lady M said, laughing harder. "I hold all the cards, you ignorant wretch! You're best bet's to stop wasting time running your fucking mouth and just put—"

"HELL NIGHT!" a chorus of voices suddenly roared out in the hallway, causing Nadia to scream. She thought it was like listening to a hundred Great Apes yelling in one thunderous voice. They had all jumped with surprise but Nadia couldn't help jerking her head around to look this time.

And the feeling that swept through her mind as she saw them, the army of men that were finally staggering into Big Momma's den, nearly caused her to drop both guns.

Their clothing was smoking and the ski-masks had been burned from their dark faces.

They were groaning and walking like creatures straight out of Dawn Of The Dead, she thought, as they came ambling into the room pointing the automatic rifles. The same military issue ones Nadia saw them carrying out in the front yard.

"Yes!" Lady M yelled behind her. "Now we'll see who's leaving and who's staying! Get her boys!" she screamed. "Tear her fucking head off!"

"HELL NIGHT!" they roared again in a multitude of monstrous black voices. "HAIL LADY MICHELLE! HELL NIGHT! DIE YOU DIRTY MOTHERFUCKERS!"

And then the mob of horrific looking men (if they could still be called men, Nadia thought) all turned around, clearly focusing on Nadia and Allyssa. "HELL NIGHT!" they all screamed as one. "TIME TO FUCKING DIE!"

PART THREE:

FOE HAMMER

23.

Nadia hadn't seen Julia finally reach her gun and pick it up. She didn't see when the girl stood up on shaky legs and aimed the gun at her back either. But Dominoe did. After Nadia left him, he'd planned on going back to make sure none of the other Hell Nighters had broken into the tunnel.

He couldn't help imagining them hiding from them somewhere, waiting for them to get close enough to attack. But when the shadows in the rollercoaster seat behind him suddenly moved, Dominoe nearly had a cardiac arrest.

He immediately snatched up one of the guns he had taken from the wall and shot it in the direction of the movement! The flash of the gun going off made him squint. The loud report ricocheted and echoed in the darkness. This was no quiet gun! It was something called a Jaguar, he knew. He'd heard about them, but didn't know what one looked like until now.

But the shadow had moved impossibly fast, and his bullet missed, striking the wall of the tunnel instead. "It's us!" a familiar voice said. "Calm the fuck down, motherfucker!"

"Jack?" Dominoe whispered back, peering into the shadows. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

More shadows moved as Almeida and Orion rose from the seats they were ducking down in. "We did what Allyssa told us to do motherfucker!" Almeida said. "She said, go to your fucking house and wait there! You were supposed to call us!"

All three of them were dressed in the traditional Hell Night garb: black sweat hoods, black pants and combat boots. Only the ski-masks were missing. "Yeah," Orion said, "but nobody was there, just Hell Nighters tearing up your front yard like ferrets in a fucking china shop. We killed them all, except for one."

"It was Dagger," Jack said. "We saw him wiggling into a hole in your fucking wall down in the basement. So we waited awhile, then we followed his ass. That's how we found your little toy." He reached out and struck the carnival seat with his gun, the sharp clink echoed.

"How long have you had this shit?" Almeida said. "And where the fuck does it go? Allyssa never mentioned it to us, you been holding out on us motherfucker?"

"What the fuck do you mean holding out?" Dominoe said. "I already know you was planning on—"

"Hush!" Jack said. "You hear that shit?"

Everyone stopped talking for a moment. "What was it?" Almeida finally whispered. He was turning his head side to side in the nearly dark tunnel, as if expecting someone to leap from the shadows at any moment. "Hell Nighters?" he said.

"An explosion," Jack told him, "from in there." He was pointing his gun at the open space in Big Momma's wall. "Where the fuck is this anyway?" he asked, turning to Dominoe.

Dominoe didn't reply at first. Not until Orion grabbed him by the neck. "Answer him!" he said. "Where is this place? For I choke you like one of them goddamn ferrets!"

"Okay!" Dominoe wailed. "Alright motherfucker! Just get your grubby fucking hands off me!"

"Release his ass," Jack ordered. "Let the old fucker speak and the shit better be good. I better not get the impression you're trying to double cross us...again."

"This is Big Momma's place," Dominoe said, gasping. "You're looking at her basement, and they all up there counting my goddamn money! You hear me? The ten million they stole from my fucking crib and I want it back!"

*********

After the loud talk had died down, Jack said: "If we help Allyssa and get your money back, we want a fucking cut. No ifs ands or buts about it either, half motherfucker."

"Hell fucking no!" Dominoe spat out. "I ain't sharing half my shit! That's too fucking much, I gotta live too!"

But after listening to Almeida's take on things, Dominoe had finally relented. He simply couldn't deny the truth of his words. The police weren't going to stop until they were all massacred and then Lady M would get his money anyway. Or if she was killed, the cops would simply make the shit disappear. That shit was standard procedure. Almeida had even mentioned the plot of Denzel Washington's flick, American Gangster.

Dominoe nearly told him the movie was supposedly a true story, but thought better of it. "Okay," he said. "Five million, but nobody gets shit until we safe away from here. You understand me? Not a dime!"

Jack had laughed. "Don't worry," he said, moving to pat him on the shoulder, but Dominoe immediately jerked his body away. "I'm not looking to cheat your ass!" Jack said, gazing down at him for a moment, and then exhaling. "Just hold on motherfucker," he said. "Stay your ass down here."

Before going upstairs, Jack and the two boys went over to the wall with the guns displayed on it and carefully chose six. Two for each of them, they left their own weapons. Then they quickly snuck upstairs and stopped at the basement door. Much like Nadia had done only a half-hour before them.

They had heard another explosion, and then a multitude of gunshots and wild shouts. "Sounds like a fucking war's going on!" Almeida said. "Why the fuck are so many Hell Nighters over here, anyway? And what's wrong with them? They're going fucking crazy out there!"

Dominoe waved his hand. "No time for that!" he said. "You have to go and save my daughter! You saw Dagger and Bubbles, didn't ya? The shit's already started, but you can forget fighting for the use of my fucking house. Once this shit is over, I'm taking Allyssa and bouncing! Fuck this place, it ain't brought me nothing but trouble!"

Jack was peering into the brightly lit room. "The fighting is coming from down this hall to the right," he said. "Stay here, and you just better pray we're not too fucking late."

24.

Jack was just creeping into the room when the Hell Nighter suddenly came barging through the window. Luckily, he had only placed one foot through the doorway when the silence erupted in violent smashing sounds. The window across the living room shattered as if struck with a baseball bat.

Jack pulled his leg back just as a Hell Nighter slammed his head through the remaining shards of glass and began to wiggle into the house! He was screaming out wild incoherencies as he came. Jack closed the door, turning to them in the gloom, his sweaty face set in a grim expression.

"Sir?" Orion said. "Maybe we—"

"Not now!" Jack said. "Them motherfuckers are breaking in! One just crawled through the damn window!"

He turned to Almeida. "These guns make noise," he said, "a lot of fucking noise, they're real cannons. And if we start blasting them fuckers, the rest will know exactly where we are!"

Almeida thought for a moment. "How many you think there are?" he asked, finally.

"Sir?" Orion whispered this time. "I think that—"

"We ain't got time for no bullshit!" Almeida said. "Just keep quiet until we figure somethin' out!" He waved his hand in anger. "And back up a little!" he said. "You breathing all down my fucking neck and your breath smells like shit! Was you eating onions again?"

Orion frowned, nearly speaking again. But he didn't. Instead, he obediently took two steps down the stairs.

Now they could all hear the Hell Nighters chanting: "HELL NIGHT! HELL NIGHT! HELL NIGHT!" in perfect unison. Like members of Satan's glee club and from the sound, they were obviously inside of Big Momma's dining room now.

"We gotta move!" Almeida said. "Let's just go for it, take our chances shooting it out with them. I don't know what's going on but they ain't normal. You saw Dagger," he said. "You saw his fucking face! How could he look that bad and still walk around Jack?"

"That's what I'm worried about," Jack said. "They could be on something we never even heard of, and ain't no telling how they might react to us shooting at them."

Loud smashing sounds came from beyond the door.

"Wait!" Jack said. He turned, cracked it open and peered out. After a few seconds he said: "They're walking this way, marching with their guns raised." He closed the door quietly and turned to them. "Marching like zombies out the movies!"

"Why don't we join them?" Orion said quietly, slowly lifting his head, a hopeful expression on his face. And for a moment neither of them spoke. In fact, they didn't breathe. They only stared down the staircase at him.

"What?" Almeida said finally. "Join them? Are you fucking nuts Orion? Join them how?"

"Just get in line with them," he said, "like we're with them. And then we can walk right into wherever it is they're going easy as pie. They all look alike, don't they?"

Jack stared at Almeida, and then glanced at Orion again. The wide shouldered boy seemed nervous, as if he'd maybe done or said something wrong. "You're a fucking brain!" Jack said, chuckling. "Good one, son. We could do that, hell yeah we could!"

"Yeah!" Almeida said, finally understanding. "Come on Jack! We got our fucking masks with us and we can act just like them and shit. Like in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers!"

"Take me with you," a voice said, and all three of them pulled their guns as fast as thought, and were pointing them down the staircase and in his face before he could take another breath! When they saw who it was, they all relaxed. But not completely and Dominoe's stubborn expression hadn't changed a whit.

Almeida hesitated a few seconds before lowering his weapon. "Shit! I almost flattened your dome motherfucker!" he said. "Why the fuck are you creeping around?"

"What the fuck you mean take you with us?" Jack asked. He gazed down the stairs at him. "You smoking product now, motherfucker?"

"I'm serious," Dominoe said. "That's my only daughter up there and I can't wait down here with dead bodies. I'd rather be up there, facing some live ones, I'll take my fucking chances!"

"How?" Almeida asked. "We about to pretend we down with them, and walk with them. You ain't no Hell Nighter and they'll see your ass in a heartbeat!"

"Not if you get him one of those outfits," Orion said. "From a Hell Nighter, one of them should fit."

They all glanced at him. "Yes," Dominoe agreed. "That's one smart fucker right there! Ain't I been telling you that all night? Get me one of them black suits and I can go with you!" He went to clap Orion on the shoulder but suddenly thought better of it. Maybe, because of the cold expression on the boy's brown face.

"I don't know," Jack said. "I suppose I could use a smoke grenade." He gazed at Orion, as if seeking the boy's approval. As if perhaps, he'd underestimated him.

But Orion remained silent, as if his quota for brilliant ideas had been reached.

"We ain't got time for this shit!" Almeida said. "He wants to come, let his ass come! Anything happens to him we still get that money!"

Jack thought about it for a few seconds more. "Come on," he said. "But it's on your ass if shit goes wrong, now keep quiet. And don't move. I mean it, not a fucking muscle till I say so!"

Jack carefully cracked open the basement door again, peeked out and smiled. A Hell Nighter was walking right past the door, so Jack left it open a bit. He reached into his pocket and removed a small metal canister. He shook it, pulled the metal tab with his teeth and threw it into Big Momma's dining room. The can hit the carpet and immediately began to hiss as clouds of pea green smoke billowed from it.

The Hell Nighters behind the first one began to shout and moan and make other strange sounds. They let their assault rifles hang from their shoulders, and waved at the smoke.

Before the green cloud could completely block them out, Jack counted thirty-five of them. All heavily armed like the A-team from Hades. "Get him!" Jack said, stepping to one side on the staircase.

The Hell Nighter was going by and had nearly passed. Almeida immediately scurried up the steps and through the open door; he reached out and grabbed the Hell Nighter by the right arm and yanked him back through the doorway!

The man let out a scream that seemed more like the noise some ferocious Amazon creature might make. He tumbled down the flight of steps, landing on his neck at an awkward angle. All of them heard his neck snap and it was the sound of a dry twig broken between a grown man's fingers.

The body slid down the steps, bouncing as if boneless. But Orion reached down and stopped the body from sliding to the bottom. "Got 'em!" he said, and grinned. "That was a good one Dukey!"

"Hurry up!" Jack said. "Take his shit off before the rest of them get too far down the hall!"

Almeida and Orion quickly undressed the dead Hell Nighter, both of them covering their noses to block the powerful stench of rotten eggs. And when they were done, Dominoe surprised all of them by getting dressed in the clothing in under five minutes. The clothes weren't a perfect fit, but he said they would have to do.

When he was finished, the four of them crept back up the steps. Dominoe was limping and carrying the Hell Nighter's machine gun. His right hand was wrapped in a white bandage that blood was already beginning to seep through. "Follow me," he said. "I know this house like I know my own, back from when I use to hustle with her. Before Glints took her back and changed her ass. When we reach the door down there, wait. Don't do shit until I locate my damn daughter!"

"It's your gig," Jack said. "But if they sniff us out, I'm letting loose on motherfuckers. I ain't waiting for you to make up your fucking mind!"

Dominoe turned to Jack, frowning. "I thought you was messing with my daughter?" he said. "You don't strike me as giving too much of a fuck about her."

Jack shrugged. "It's Hell Night," he said. "After this shit's over, it's back to normal. But as for now, I'm all about the fucking paper. It's the code of the streets."

Dominoe didn't respond. At least, not verbally. "Let's go," he said, taking off his glasses which he then deposited in his back pocket. He tugged the ski-mask over his head, then turned the doorknob and opened the door. Green smoke had already slipped beneath it, now it rushed in and swirled around their heads like mist. Dominoe could still hear the Hell Nighters walking past them, but couldn't see them. "I'm going in," he whispered, and silently walked out the door.

The others followed him and they were all wearing ski-masks now. Dominoe walked right into the progression of marching men, and felt their rigid bodies brushing up against him, and he could smell burnt clothing and roasted flesh. He gagged, his stomach roiling, a sudden wave of nausea hitting him.

But he refused to let it break his spirit. If he could possibly save Allyssa, he had no choice but to try. He didn't know if all the negative things he'd heard about how blacks treated their children in this world were true or not, but he loved his daughter.

And would die, or even kill, to protect her.

Now, they were marching along with the Hell Nighters, holding hands so they wouldn't lose one another in the odorless green fog, and touching the wall on their right with their fingers. They could hear the guns the Hell Nighters were carrying, the metal parts clattered against their smoking bodies like pots and pans. They finally neared the end of the hallway (only a few more feet and they would reach the doorway) and Dominoe stopped suddenly. He turned in the smoke, putting his back up against the wall, and breathing harshly.

The Hell Nighters brushed past them, some with their weapons raised. Their moans and howls had gotten even louder. Dominoe jerked Jack's hand down, which made the man bend over. "I'm going first!" he said where Jack's ear should have been. "I'm going to see where Allyssa is and when I start shooting, you'll know to come in blasting. She'll either be safe or dead by then!"

Dominoe released Jack's hand and rejoined the marching Hell Nighters. They were behind him too, and they were also grunting like hungry pigs, and some were even howling. Dominoe didn't have to fake raise his gun, he simply held it out in front of him until they reached the open doorway.

Then he dropped to one knee in the fog as the Hell Nighters marched on past him. "I've got to find Allyssa!" he said, and his voice was easily drowned out in the din of noise. "I feel something's wrong!" he whispered. "Like something that shouldn't be happening! And I may have fucking slipped up!"

Dominoe got on his hands and knees, crawled up to the open doorway, and listened. The altered men had already entered the room and were now screaming: "Hell Night! Hell Night! Hell Night!"

They reminded him of college kids at a varsity football game, and Dominoe's heart lurched in his chest because he knew exactly what that meant. It meant the Hell Nighters were gearing up and were just about to start shooting.

"Fuck no!" he said, ripping off his ski-mask, and thinking of Allyssa. He quickly crawled closer to the doorway and peered around the corner.

25.

Dominoe saw the entire scene in one look, and was shocked because most of the Hell Nighters had apparently been decimated; their mangled body parts seemed to cover every inch of the wood floor. Who had managed to kill them, and so viciously, was the only question. (The idea that his own daughter had taken part in the carnage, never even occurred to him.) But he saw Kaliek and Big Momma too, and they were covered in the fake blood, lying sprawled out on the ground, side by side. Their mechanical guts were indistinguishable from the fake body organs.

To the far right of them, he saw Eddie who was also lying on the floor, either dead or unconscious, and appeared to be missing a leg. Dominoe couldn't see his head, there was too much of the green cloud floating about, but he wasn't moving.

The remaining Hell Nighters had their backs to Dominoe, and were still chanting though, like Halloween carolers in the heavy blanket of fog, he thought. When he looked beyond them, he noticed Lady M standing in the middle of the room right by his stolen money. He could see it stacked up neatly in the metal case.

She was shouting something he couldn't make out over the chanting Hell Nighters, but appeared to be addressing them.

"TIME TO DIE!" they all screamed as if in reply. And at that exact moment, the green smoke seemed to lift, and Dominoe finally noticed Allyssa and Nadia standing huddled together; perhaps ten feet away from the zombies. And then he glanced to the left of them and saw Julia.

Allyssa had described her when she first contacted him earlier that day. "She's gorgeous dad!" she'd said, "I mean really, really pretty. Paula Patton and Julia Jordan, pretty. And she's wearing the shirt!" she'd said. "The Nicki Minaj shirt. You were right to look for it, dad! The fucking rumors were telling the truth!"

That was the signal Dominoe had been waiting for. The corrupt Feds that warned him about a possible takeover attempt hadn't gotten any more specific than that. She'll be black, they'd said, and she'll be wearing some form of Nicki Minaj attire.

"She's got some kind of spooky crush on the woman," one had told him in a whisper.

But Dominoe had always been diligent when it came to scoping out the competition and their tendencies, and he didn't trust the Feds, so he figured that if anyone knew what was going on, it would be Jack and Lady M. After many sleepless nights, he had come to the conclusion it would be a good idea to infiltrate Jack's gang through the use of his own beloved daughter. Allyssa.

That she would be in grave danger had also occurred to him, but he felt she'd be okay long enough to get through the rigors of Hell Night. After that, it wouldn't matter. Once the killing was done, they could escape with his money and perhaps a little something extra. Luckily, the tiny bugs he'd put in Allyssa's favorite pairs of jeans had picked up everything.

They were waterproof, and were stitched into the very fabric, one on each ass cheek sewn into her back pockets. And by the time Hell Night came, Dominoe knew that it was Lady M and her crew that had robbed those jewelry stores in Miami. They had performed the robberies that currently had the entire Miami police force baffled. It was why they were really in New York, he'd found out, to try and get rid of them for fair value.

And they were planning on putting some of the diamonds right where nobody would ever suspect them of being: On Julia's Nicki Minaj shirt. The one Lady M personally had designed for just that purpose. (And one other purpose, though Dominoe automatically blocked that thought from his mind before it could fully form.)

Then no matter what happened, he knew they'd have at least a few diamonds as an insurance policy. Under normal circumstances, none of this would have made any sense. The notion that Lady M was only interested in Julia as a kind of "mule" was ludicrous. And someone was clearly fucking around, Dominoe thought, but ignored his misgivings.

"One of the girls is wearing the shirt, Dominoe and Allyssa thinks she's the one they told you to look out for!" Almeida had called him to say that. He had never told the boy why a Nicki Minaj shirt with fake jewel eyes on it was important to him, and after counting the five hundred in cash the man had given him, Almeida never asked.

When Allyssa eventually called him to confirm it, "It's her dad," she'd said, "and she looks just like her! She's breathtaking!"

Dominoe was thrilled, because it meant he could finally enact his master plan which at the moment, seemed to be falling completely apart.

*********

Now Dominoe watched Julia raise her weapon in one shaky hand and point it at Allyssa, whose back was turned. He understood his daughter was the one who had just double crossed all of them, so they would see to it she died first. "But not if I can help it!" he hissed. "You stay the fuck away from her!"

He leapt from the floor, wincing at the pain in his hand, and limped past the Hell Nighters. There was so much noise, so much commotion, Dominoe's sudden movement fit right in. In fact, Julia didn't even see him until her mouth was already long gone.

He shoved his way through the chanting zombies and seeing an opening, immediately shot Julia in her mouth! Julia saw movement at the last second, and tried to turn away, but her chin was still pulverized in a billowing rope of artificial blood. It splattered on the floor even as her bottom teeth tumbled from her face like huge grains of rice.

Julia howled, dropping the gun and falling sideways. Her abnormally long waist made it a near graceful thing, but there was nothing at all graceful about the sound she made when she struck the floor. It was a strange sound similar to a drain unclogging, Dominoe thought, and though he'd noticed Nadia and Allyssa spin around when his gun went off (and figured he should probably say something to them), he ignored them both and ran over to Julia's body, instead.

"What the fuck are you doing!" Lady M screamed, finally noticing him. The Hell Nighters piling into the room suddenly let loose a tremendous roar, as if in response. "Stay away from that fucking shirt!" she said. "Get him motherfuckers! GET HIM!"

Dominoe heard her screaming now, but ignored that as well. He knelt down by the dead robot girl and immediately began to tug her Nicki Minaj shirt from her lifeless body. He didn't care that his hand was burning and stinging maddeningly.

He didn't give a fuck that he was surrounded by chemically enhanced men who weren't going to make it through the night. If they didn't kill each other by mistake, he knew they would definitely be destroyed by the corrupt cops that were coming. There would be absolutely no witnesses left alive.

Dominoe, not caring about them either, unceremoniously ripped off the black shirt and held it up. Not caring how he scraped the girl's perfectly smooth skin, leaving dark ugly bruises.

He rose to his feet, suddenly filled with a sublime joy because he knew exactly who the woman was on the shirt: Nicki Minaj. The stripper who just so happened to be his favorite chick in the universe. Dominoe had mostly dated African American women through the years, with the occasional fat assed white girl, but felt God hadn't made 'em like this black girl in a long time.

She had it all in his opinion, and even that guy she was messing with, Tigga or something, he thought, seemed like he had some pretty good taste in women.

"Don't worry, I got you now precious!" Dominoe whispered. "You and them motherfucking diamonds! You gone make daddy rich in more ways than one sweetheart," he said, "God bless ya!" He giggled. "You're fucking magical, beautiful! And I mean that, mommy!"

Dominoe didn't notice that the Hell Nighters storming into the room had suddenly turned to focus on him. He didn't hear Jack, Almeida and Orion, come running into the den either. Or notice how they stopped in their tracks as soon as they rounded the corner.

His attention was focused squarely on Nicki Minaj's face, on her beautiful, grinning face. And he felt strange...

Her diamond eyes twinkled as he turned the shirt this way and that, gazing into the hypnotic patterns the reflecting light made. Time seemed to slip on by, and then he heard Lady M screaming again, and everything came back to him in a jagged rush. He glanced up from the shirt, wide eyed, suddenly realizing how quiet it had become.

Even Lady M's screaming had ceased.

Despair rushed through Dominoe, enveloped him, as he also realized he was now completely surrounded by Hell Nighters! And they were all staring directly at him!

"Oh shit!" he said. "What's wrong with me? It's like I was hypnotized by the fucking shirt. But that ain't supposed to happen! Who's disturbing the micro—?"

"Kill them all!" Lady M yelled, startling Dominoe and luckily, breaking off his train of thought at the very last second. "Hold them off until I gather up the fucking cash!" she said frantically. "But I want them dead! You fucking hear me motherfuckers? I want them all fucking dead!"

"Dad!" Allyssa yelled, staring at her father, and then glancing at the Hell Nighters suddenly crowding around him in Big Momma's den, standing as still as maple trees. "Where the fuck did you come from?" she screamed. "I told you to wait for me downstairs!"

"Never mind that!" Dominoe shouted back. "A lot of good that bullshit did, start shooting!"

And it was at that moment that Big Butt Pinky, who nobody had noticed struggling to her feet holding the bazooka, fired one of the missiles at them. She had to use her left hand, since most of the fingers on her right one were gone, but Dominoe heard the missile whistling through the air long before he even saw it was headed right for his only child!

26.

What happened next, happened pretty fast:

"Allyssa!" Dominoe said, he took two running steps and leapt for his daughter, and tackled her just as the missile swooshed over her head! The rush of wind carried dust and chips of plaster in its wake that smacked Dominoe in the face. The missile cut a straight course through the air, ripping through the Hell Nighters behind them with sickening ease, and exploding against the far wall.

Allyssa screamed as they both tumbled hard to the floor, Dominoe wailing in pain as his knees and elbows connected with the slick, unforgiving surface. The gun clattered out of his hand and slid across the tiles, as he rolled over, moaning as if in agony.

He couldn't see that Jack, Almeida and Orion were lighting the Hell Nighters up behind him. (Orion in particular, who was really letting them have it.) But he clearly heard them.

"Mother fuck!" Lady M said, making Dominoe lift his aching head and look that way. And then the gunshots started coming at him from her direction, though he saw no gun in her hands! Dominoe immediately covered his head with both arms as he lay prostrate on the ground, thinking the sudden barrage of bullets were coming from everywhere now, and he was in trouble!

*********

Nadia heard the Hell Nighters chanting and cringed. When she heard the gun blast behind her, she spun around just in time to see Julia's mouth literally get blown to nothing. Julia, who she thought she'd already killed! Then she finally looked up and saw Dominoe, who for some reason, was dressed in Hell Night gear!

When Nadia heard the whistling sound again, and knew it was Pinky, she didn't hesitate. She ducked and immediately started firing at the Hell Nighters behind her. As she hit the ground, still shooting, she saw Dominoe jump on Allyssa, knocking her out of the path of the oncoming missile. It obliterated the first rank of Hell Nighters. They were toppled like bowling pins and flung like rag dolls in all directions.

One of them who'd escaped the missile, and was in the process of shooting Allyssa, was thrown from his boots as Nadia's bullets tore into his head, arms, and shoulders.

The gun was powerful and each bullet took off a thick chunk of the Hell Nighter's burnt flesh. But it wasn't until she glanced down at her hand, realizing for the first time that she hadn't had to reload even once, that she saw BLACK SEXY'S MACHINE instead of the gun Allyssa gave her in Big Momma's basement! And now the words on the gun were glowing a bright pink!

Nicki Minaj fucking pink, right? she thought, crazily.

"What the fuck?" Nadia whispered, not understanding how that was possible (the fact that it was glowing, or the fact that it was the only gun in her hands!) because she could feel her own weapon in her front pocket now, the weight of it, or thought she could. But she didn't remember putting it in her pocket at all.

How the fuck did it get there! she wondered. She'd been holding both of them just now! But she had to ignore it, because there was simply no time to check and see. And besides, she thought, grinning a little, what does it even matter?

Nadia was suddenly in her own kill-mode!

The zombie she shot staggered backwards into the other zombies in black, and they all fell in a monstrous heap. Nadia quickly fired into the pile of tangled arms and legs, aiming for their vital parts. Wet pieces of the men splashed as the bullets sliced into them, and their horrid inhuman screams shook the air.

Nadia heard people running towards her, and Jack and the others were suddenly by her side; panting and dropping Hell Nighters by the dozen. "Get the fucking money!" Almeida said. "I heard the goddamn cops when we were out in the hall! We gotta go! It looks like another hundred Hell Nighters came and they're going to rush the joint!"

Nadia, shocked at their sudden arrival, saw that Almeida was talking to her and for some reason was pointing towards the back of the room. But she could barely hear him over the screaming Hell Nighters.

"What?" she yelled to him. "I couldn't hear you!"

"Lady M's trying to bounce!" he said. "She's got the cash! You have to stop her Divine!"

Nadia didn't know why Almeida was telling her to stop the woman, but she didn't pause to think about that either. Instead, she glanced at Dominoe and Allyssa who were still on the floor.

The man was lying on top of his daughter, covering her up with his own body, but he wasn't moving. She thought she could hear him moaning, but wasn't sure; there was entirely too much noise coming from the Hell Nighters to distinguish between the sounds.

Nadia didn't know why Dominoe was holding Julia's Nicki Minaj shirt in one fist either, but she could see it beneath his arm. It had fallen alongside him when he jumped to save Allyssa.

Was he also obsessed with the actress? she wondered idly, and didn't have the slightest clue. So she ignored it as well and raced across the room, and came to skidding stop in the white dust and debris facing Lady M. "You might as well give it up!" she said, breathing harshly. "Surrender right now and you might make it out of here alive!"

"Bitch, why can't you quit while you're ahead!" Lady M yelled back in response. "Surrender to you?" she said, "you're about to die!"

And her red hair seemed aflame as she strode backwards, holding a large black bag before her. Her pale face was flushed, her green eyes glazed, and Nadia didn't need to see what was in the bag to know it was Dominoe's five million dollars. According to Allyssa, the rest of it was still upstairs.

Nadia glanced into the metal case that was still on the floor and saw it was empty. No, she thought. Not empty. There was something else inside of it, something that was wrapped in shiny red cellophane. "Explosives," Nadia whispered. "What Eddie mentioned back in Julia's Hummer before we arrived!"

It was the last thing he'd told her, and she thought it had been very good information at the time. Knowing that she was in the presence of such a powerful explosive, one that could possibly explode while they were there, could only work in her favor, Nadia thought. But at the moment, she really couldn't see how.

Behind Nadia, the noise had increased; there were shouts and yells and the firing of a multitude of weapons. But she didn't turn to look, she was too busy staring at Lady M who looked scared to death, she thought. As if finally realizing that she could pretend all she wanted, but her entire plan had just failed.

And before the woman standing with her back to the wall lost her mind completely, Nadia thought she could hear the crazy warbling sounds of a dozen police sirens. Still far away, obviously, but getting closer by the second.

"Stay back!" Lady M said. "This will all be over soon! I suggest you get out now because if Sharptongue and Jenkins find you here, you'll wish you were fucking dead! They'll lock you up and throw away the goddamn key for my pussy!"

Until that moment, Nadia hadn't noticed the dark space in the wall, but it appeared to be another escape tunnel, like the one Dominoe had built for his personal rollercoaster. The one he said went throughout the whole town and possibly the city.

"I'll blow this whole fucking place apart!" Lady M threatened. "I'm not going back to no motherfucking prisons!"

"It's already over!" Nadia said. "Your perfect scheme is all fucked up! I guess the wrong people panicked!"

"The only thing all fucked up," she said, "is you! get her Pinky!"

Nadia saw movement on her left, and glanced that way. Pinky was raising the bazooka at her again and without a second thought, Nadia shot her in the foot this time!

Her hand was a blur of brown movement and the tip of the android's high-heeled boot disappeared in a splatter of bone and fake blood.

Pinky screamed terribly, dropping the heavy weapon which banged against the floor just as hard as it had last time, but didn't fire this time. The android had immediately reached for her shattered toes and Nadia shot her in the left shoulder.

She was spun around until her back was facing Nadia, so she simply shot the robot in the spine. The gun's recoil jerked her arm upwards.

Big Butt Pinky arched her back, flying forward, and Nadia didn't see the bullet exit the android's chest. But she saw the red liquid that came gushing out and it hit the floor like spewed vomit. "Goddamn!" Lady M said. "I gotta do everything my fucking self, don't I? Niggers ain't good for nothing!"

Nadia watched in stunned surprise as Lady M reached into the black bag and pulled out a handgun that was easily twice the size of hers, and was also glowing with a pink light that shimmered along its barrel.

"This is my money!" she yelled. "Anything I want is mine, bitch! I'm a white girl and all I see belongs to me!"

She raised the gun in a startlingly fast motion that caught Nadia totally off guard, and fired; the bullet grazing Nadia's right wrist!

Nadia nearly dropped her own gun, wanted to, but in the end, didn't. Instead, she re-gripped BLACK SEXY'S MACHINE with both hands and aimed it at Lady M's head.

And that was when she heard the Hell Nighters scream: "Hell Night bitch!" and suddenly rush at her from behind!

She didn't turn to look even though she heard them coming. Instead, she watched as Lady M quickly stuck one leg through the opening, with a crazed expression on her white face.

"Yes!" she yelled at them. "I love you fucking Hell Nighters! Now get her fucking black ass! Tear her to pieces before the cops come! Rip out her hair my niggers, poke out her motherfucking eyes! Yee-hah!"

The woman had finally snapped, it seemed, and she was laughing like a loon as she finally ducked inside the hole and vanished.

Nadia couldn't help turning to look now, as the thunderous footsteps bore down on her like a stampede of buffalo, and unfortunately, she turned and also saw a terrible thing. And wished she could pretend that she hadn't, because they were dead—all three of them. Laying around on the floor like discarded old toys.

Uncontrollable tears welled up in Nadia's eyes, and her breath came in sobbing gasps. She couldn't stop the tears this time because they had been her last hope. She had been holding out for another miracle; praying to God that the three of them would come to their rescue.

But now, Jack and Almeida were both lying motionless in the middle of the room and Orion was crumpled up right beside them, among a huge pile of Hell Nighters. As if he had killed them all single handedly before he died. Nadia fought off the sense of defeat that suddenly washed over her and glanced around for Dominoe and Allyssa.

Were they also...? And then she saw them, just as the mob of zombies had finally reached her with outstretched hands that she thought looked a lot more like burnt and crooked talons!

27.

On Planet Zombia, nobody down below noticed the black crow fly through the missing pane of glass in the domed roof. The bird soared through the air silently, finally coming to a stop atop the head of a huge ivory statue of a human female. It walked to the edge and peered down upon the gathering of people far below.

It squawked. The large hall was crowded, but was still surprisingly silent. And cool, as if a brisk wind blew down along the shiny black floor. Long tables were covered in silver platters of food the bird had never seen before, but it was a colorful, almost festive, spread.

The bright reds and greens and purples caught its attention but the voice inside its head had warned it against eating any of it. The voice whispered to the crow that the people down below would kill it if they saw it trying to sample the food. And would eat it, the voice said, right there in the chamber, not even waiting to cook it. The crow hadn't needed more warning than that.

Now that it could actually think, and knew it was only a bird, it had become much more afraid of the world than it had originally been. But the voice had actually promised it humanity.

The voice promised to make the bird human if it obeyed its requests. So the crow had agreed. It only had to go where the voice told it to go, and stay until the voice summoned it to return. The bird hadn't thought that it was too much to ask, not for the gift of becoming a human being. Humans could do things birds could never do and the possibilities were endless! He felt humans who made excuses for why they couldn't accomplish things were hilarious. His mental list of goals was quite lengthy.

And it now studied the scene thirty-feet below. To its crow eyes, it might as well have been perched right on the female's lap. The female sitting in the sparkling crystal chair that resembled the statue the crow was currently standing on.

The voice told the bird she was called a Queen. It couldn't make the bird fully understand how important she was supposed to be, but the bird had eventually understood the word "beauty."

The voice flashed images of various birds through its bird brain: Red, white and pink flamingos, and tropical parrots of all kinds; finches, canaries, and parakeets. Ivory white swans and shiny black Mynah birds; all beautiful birds, the voice said, and then the crow had finally understood. The female the crow was currently watching, was considered beautiful. And her beauty, most importantly, the voice said, was supposedly a unique one.

Perhaps the crow was already becoming human, because it could certainly see what the voice meant. The human female attracted it somehow as she clearly had the multitudes gathered in the chamber below. And down on the ground, everyone was carefully watching the action unfolding before them. This was what the voice had told the bird to listen to and also, to watch.

It squawked again, fluffed its glossy, dark feathers and curled its talons beneath its plump body.

It didn't take long to zero-in on the person talking, especially since it was her talking. The bird found her voice pleasant and soothing, and could listen to it all night. It had to resist the strongest urge to fly down to her shoulder at that very moment, to stare up at her.

"She is better than you expected?" the Queen asked. "Huh Yarakki? Her bravery is unquestionable, is it not?"

She slowly gathered the folds of her robe about her slender dark brown shoulders. She was a delicate boned human and her facial features clearly revealed her noble African heritage.

The bird knew that she was called Royalty and her bloodlines could supposedly be traced back to the very first coupling on her family tree. The voice had carefully explained these complicated human concepts, and the bird had somehow understood.

Now the bird listened, training its suddenly excellent ears down towards the humans talking. (And are they really humans? it wondered. They appeared to be but the bird felt they were close enough to them not to really matter in the end.)

It now saw a commotion and peered harder; the short male was apparently bowing before the female sitting on the sparkling chair. He was white skinned, the bird noticed (a rare trait in their dimension), and wore glasses.

"Perhaps Torin was right about her," the male said. "But there are still obstacles my Queen and I hesitate to congratulate them just yet, they could still fail. Planet Zombia has had its own share of false heroes over the years, has it not? "

The woman tinkled soft laughter, and everyone laughed along with her. The crow ruffled its feathers at the din of sudden noise, and saw that some people were even clapping and cheering. When the hall eventually quieted down, the bird could hear the Queen saying: "If she makes it, we'll use her. I believe she is the one. And no doubt, you know what that means? He will become the new Wizard."

The male was still bowing. "Yes my Queen," he said, "he'll receive the Royal Snooper and become the Wizard Of Realm, he will lead the effort to protect the princess on Alphius Sixteen. The fate of the dimensions will rest on him."

"Exactly," she said. "You disappoint me Yarakki, I expected more of a fight from you. Have you been feeling ill lately? Perhaps from the effects of Valon's suns, Cuarto-4?" she asked him. "It really is a rather nasty dimension, isn't it?"

"No my Queen," Yarakki said. "I am only suffering from a case of humility, perhaps he is simply better than me at this point? Though he did slip a few times. He did actually mention Glints, allow me that."

The Queen only stared down at the man kneeling far beneath her; much too far away to reach her had he entertained thoughts of assassination. Not before her Royal Guard tore him apart, and the Brownie Scavengers? They made Queen Priscilla's Scavengers look like Cauc children. No one tried them.

"That's rather gracious of you," she told him, touching her robes again. "Quite unlike you too," she said and frowned. "Are you hiding something from me Yarakki? You aren't conspiring against me, are you? You wouldn't try deceiving me on behalf of False-Queen Priscilla, now would you?"

The crow saw the woman's eyes suddenly shine like twin suns and it was momentarily startled; it thought of bright, blazing comets lighting up a black, midnight sky.

"No my Queen," Yarakki said, "you offend me, I would rather die than betray such beauty! I only know when I've possibly met my match and my only goal is to serve you with all my heart and soul! What is the blood in my veins," he asked her, "without you to quicken it with one glance?"

The bird's head suddenly jerked up as it listened to the male speaking, it knew that voice! That was the voice that it constantly heard whispering in its own mind! Late at night as it soared over the dark, quiet kingdoms or early in the morning, as it watched the first pale light of the sun beginning its inexorable climb to the heavens. It hadn't expected to ever see the body the voice belonged to, not until the time came to get turned into a human!

But the male was down there right now! With his head lowered at the base of what he himself, had called a throne. The male had told the bird all of his plans, so the crow knew for a fact that everything he was currently saying to the beautiful female was a blatant lie. It had to be, because according to the male, he was planning on killing the Queen.

The male had some complicated plan all worked out. Something that involved androids, and doppelgangers, and the crossbreeding of strange creatures that didn't exist in their dimension. But the crow only had a vague sense of his intentions and it couldn't quite grasp what he was really after.

And now, the Queen said: "You still have time Yarakki, cheer up! This last phase is the toughest, their minds usually break long before the end." She smiled. "You are right," she said. "Dominoe Black has slipped a number of times like when he sensed you changing the plot once he obtained the phase-gadget designed into the shirt?" She clapped her hands, chuckling.

"That was very naughty, doctor," she said, "but they have all faltered to some degree and who knows? If he does win again it's possible he'll actually let you go with them this time. Dominoe is certainly the forgiving kind though I can't see what you would possibly be needed for. You utterly ruined the last mission."

The Queen couldn't see Yarakki's livid expression, but the bird could. And moreover, it could sense it.

"I only live to serve you my Queen," Yarakki said. "I'd die for you Black Honey and as long as it pleases you, I am pleased. If they make it," he said, looking properly humbled, "if she makes it, I'll step aside. The Histories Of The Future demand it."

The woman sitting on the throne erupted in more of her musical laughter, and the other people standing or sitting around the wide open space, joined in again and it was bedlam.

"Of course you would die for me!" she said, her voice booming and echoing. "Everyone in this chamber would do the same should I require it, am I right my loyal meaningless peasants?"

Her eyes were glowing again and she had raised her voice tremendously. "Yes, Queen Black Honey!" the entire gathering of people screamed in unison. "Death over you is our life eternal!"

The bird, squawked and flapped its black dusty wings. The people below were chanting now, chanting: "Black Honey! Black Honey!" and they were slowly approaching the Queen's glittering crystal throne. Before the crow left the domed structure, it heard the male whisper in its mind. "Find the shirt that looks like her!" he said. "And the shining eyes like blue fire. You must follow them from earth back to Valon...and continue to report to me!"

An image of a shirt came to the crow and it squawked again. It knew of shirts, humans were always wearing them. The male had even told him of a New York Jets Tebow shirt that was supposedly insanely popular in one of the dimensions. But had never fully explained what a New York Jets Tebow was. And then the image of blue jewels came to it. The ones on the shirt it must locate. Jewels that were the same as the Queen's terrible glowing blue eyes...

28.

The Hell Nighters lunged at Nadia, and she staggered backwards, tripping over the metal case and slamming to the floor right beside it. "Good for your ass!" Lady M said. "You clumsy black bitch!" She was poking her head through the opening in the wall as she screamed: "Nice knowing you motherfucker, but all rotten things must come to an end! Did you think your luck would last forever bitch?"

Nadia was on her back with her legs and feet up in the air to ward of the attack of the Hell Nighters, but it was no use. She could hear the white woman's voice, yelling something at her, but barely registered her words. She was completely surrounded by zombies, and she'd lost her weapon. The one in her pocket could have been on the moon for all the fucking good it could do her.

As the zombies finally fell on her, blocking out the ceiling lights, and smothering her in a stinking darkness, Nadia tried to remember the good things about the day. The fact that in the end, she had only been trying to better herself. It had begun as what she felt was a well-intentioned, mostly harmless idea. She would do everything legally in her power to meet Nicki Minaj.

But it had turned into a story so rife with excitement and thrills, it had amazed even her. And it really was too bad that she was about to die, she thought. She felt it would be a shame that she would never get to write the book.

The light above dimmed as the crowd of bodies fully blocked it out, and Nadia had long since closed her eyes, already accepting her fate...when the world was suddenly shaken! The floor beneath her seemed to lift a few feet, before thumping back down, as if God had plucked the planet with the tip of one gargantuan finger!

The darkness was ripped apart with a blinding flash of light to go with a massive blast of sound, and Nadia opened her eyes just in time to see the Hell Nighters grabbing at her get blown into blackened tomato paste!

"Nadia!" a voice shouted. "Nadia, I'm over here!"

Nadia glanced up, turning towards the voice, and the tears that sprung to her eyes left streaks which couldn't be seen due to her complexion. Because God help her, but it was Allyssa! And she was holding the bazooka, Nadia saw. Apparently, she'd fired one of the missiles into the metal case where she'd just seen the explosives wrapped in cellophane!

The metal case had been vaporized, but how she hadn't also been blown to atoms, was beyond Nadia's comprehension. She was only extremely happy that she wasn't!

"Come on!" Allyssa yelled. "We gotta get the fuck out of here!" She threw something and Nadia instinctively reached up and caught whatever it was. But she knew what it was even before it reached her outstretched hand. Nadia clutched it and suddenly felt renewed hope and knew it had come from what she held.

"The fucking cops are outside!" Dominoe said, and Nadia was further relieved, but the feeling was short-lived as she noticed the man's facial expression...something was clearly wrong.

"What's the matter?" Nadia said.

"They've surrounded the place!" Dominoe said. "They're coming to save Lady M's ass! Didn't I tell you she had the whole city working for her? If they see us, it's fucking over! They'll kill us before we say a fucking word!"

Nadia struggled up from the floor as more Hell Nighters came storming into the room. She could hear the sirens clearly now. She saw Allyssa and her father facing the zombie-men.

"You gotta get that money Nadia!" Dominoe said, shoulder to shoulder with Allyssa, now. "We'll hold 'em off as long as we can but the jakes can't find us. It's forbidden, so go! Stop her!"

Nadia heard his words and didn't stop to let them sink in. She knew that would have only paralyzed her. She was severely battered and bruised (had he said, it's forbidden? she wondered, forbidden how?), but she managed to scramble to her feet, holding the gun with both hands (BLACK SEXY'S MACHINE that Allyssa had somehow recovered and thrown to her) and looked towards the far wall. The open space was still open, that solid black space she'd noticed before.

Nadia swallowed hard, her claustrophobia seeming to whisper sweet nothings in the back of her mind. And when she just caught the heel of Lady M's boot moving past the open space, she resisted the urge to scream her name and simply followed her instead.

Nadia quickly crossed to the opening as the sounds of Dominoe and Allyssa shooting it out with the Hell Nighters came from directly behind her. But she ignored them, and hoping she didn't take a bullet in the fucking back before she could leave, Nadia pointed her gun through the hole and then, her entire body. She was now standing in a dim, narrow, passageway.

It reeked of ancient grease and rust, mildew and some other foul odor she couldn't name. And when she listened carefully, gagging from the low stench, she thought she could hear footsteps now, quickly moving away from her and up the tunnel.

"That's her fucking ass!" she said. "And she sounds hurt!"

Her own right wrist was burning with a pain that would have reduced her to tears normally, but she wouldn't let it stop her...she couldn't. But the footsteps really were coming from the left, she realized, echoing down to her from the foreboding darkness.

So she hurried after the sound, holding her injured wrist as far from her body as she could, pushing back her growing terror, and hoping to God she could catch Lady M in time.

She only prayed she could stop her once she did. (Nadia didn't consider herself much of a fighter, unless there was no other alternative, but to fight. And it was beginning to feel like fighting the white woman, to the death, would be her only way out of this shit. She was resigned to that fact, but wasn't too happy about it.)

She had already taken lives (even if they were only androids) and it wasn't a pleasant feeling now that the euphoria of the battle had worn off. There seemed to be a deep emptiness inside her heart now; one she didn't believe she would ever be able to fill.

Glancing around her as she ran, Nadia thought the area was another section of Dominoe's tunnel. She wasn't sure if Lady M was supposed to be aware of it, but she obviously was. And the passageway really did smell bad.

Nadia clamped one hand over her nose and mouth and continued running, thankful that the place wasn't completely dark. Thanks in part, to the gun which was still glowing with a pink radiance that managed to light some of her way. She vaguely wondered if the pink light had some significance; something to do with Nicki Minaj perhaps?

And the further into the corridor she went, the closer she got to a glaring white light, and seeing the light up ahead pushed Nadia's pumping legs onward. She found the source of the light eventually, and saw that it was coming from a single light bulb attached to the wall in a metal casing. The casing was red or orange, it seemed, and covered in rust. Nadia found that relieving because at least she wouldn't have to travel in the smelly darkness.

But running while she tried to hold her breath was becoming a problem, so she stopped for a moment, gasping for the foul air, and trying to think. This wasn't going to work. She didn't know the tunnel and it had gone perfectly straight so far, but that didn't mean it wasn't going to turn somewhere. Probably while she was deep in the tunnel and already feeling terrified and dead tired.

In that state, Nadia knew she would certainly get lost when the tunnel did start twisting. And after awhile of intense listening, and waiting for her own harsh breathing to subside, Nadia realized that the running sounds had apparently stopped.

"Shit!" she said, the sharp sound echoing wildly. She was still resting her hand on the cool brick wall, and beneath her, she noticed the metal tracks that Dominoe's rollercoaster traveled on. They clearly weren't electrified, because she would have been burnt to a crisp a long time ago, if they were.

"She's fucking vanished!" she said. "But how did—"

Nadia stopped talking (and breathing), because she'd just heard a strange sound, like a soft whispering noise, she thought. And it hadn't come from up ahead or from behind her. It had come from right beside her. Which was impossible, she felt, since the only thing right beside her was more of the solid wall.

Nadia carefully studied the wall to her right, and saw it was filthy. She hadn't wanted to touch it while she caught her breath anyway. She couldn't help associating the wall with the horrid smell permeating the corridor, and hadn't really looked at it at first.

But now, she slowly looked down and finally noticed the small square door that was built right into the filthy bricks!

It looked perfect for a dwarf or maybe an elf, Nadia thought. But if she wanted to go through it, she would have to crawl, because the door didn't stop much more than three feet from the stony floor, if that. Nadia walked a little closer to the wall.

"Another chamber?" she whispered. It was certainly possible that Lady M had used this tiny door, because she was pretty far ahead of her the entire time...

But assuming the door was even open, Nadia wasn't entirely sure she wanted to go inside even if Lady M had. There were too many weird things happening, and a part of her couldn't help imagining it was another trap.

Nadia could still hear the whispering voice though, just one. And the harder she listened, the more positive she became that it was the white woman talking to someone. Mistress Michelle O'Hara. Or is it Lady M? she wondered. And did it matter?

Nadia knelt down and placed her head up against the metal door, and listened. She tried not to touch it too much, it also looked rather nasty, and was covered in some green slimy substance, but she heard the voice even better. Yes, it was definitely Lady M, and she was definitely talking to someone and seemed extremely upset by the harsh tone of her voice.

Suddenly deciding to open it, Nadia was reaching out to grasp the small rusty door handle, already trying to prepare herself for the showdown with Lady M, when she heard something huge coming straight down the corridor!

No, she thought, not something huge. It actually seemed like the sound of running dogs to her, at least a thousand of them!

Fear sweeping through her, she screamed, nearly peeing on herself, and quickly grabbed the handle. (In a distant part of her mind, she thanked God they'd all used the bathroom after retreating downstairs into Dominoe's basement; having a full bladder would have been fucking bad!) Rust chips cut into her hand like broken glass, but Nadia barely noticed.

If they really were dogs, Nadia thought they were much closer now; horribly close! And as she peered down the tunnel towards the roaring sound, a sound similar to waves crashing along a sandy beach, she thought, Nadia could see the next patch of pale light that was glowing far up ahead, and was like a neon sign shining in a ghost town. The same light she'd run past on her way to the door.

Squinting hard, her heart raging, she finally saw them. The pack of dogs coming for her, flashing by the brilliant arc of light in groups of twos and threes. And she realized she'd been a bit extreme in her original estimate because no way were there a thousand dogs racing towards her. But there were definitely over fifty of them! she thought. Nadia could hear them growling now, growling like revving motors as they stormed towards her.

When she turned the rusty handle again and jerked the door backwards, still nothing happened and her heart came to a thudding stop in her chest. She turned the handle again, and it moved easily. She pulled back on the small door again and again, trying to control her sudden panic, and still, nothing happened. Which was unfortunate since the first of the charging dogs had finally reached her!

29.

Nadia had given up on trying to open the dwarf door, and had finally turned to face the oncoming animals. As if realizing it would make much more sense if she at least tried to fight them head on, even if she was confident they were about to slaughter her.

As the outrageous roar of at least two hundred paws striking the tunnel floor seemed to shake the very foundation of Dominoe's house, Nadia thought the sound resembled a stampede of cattle in the movie, City Slickers.

And it didn't take long for her to figure out that these were Big Momma's dogs. The ones she had trained from pups. The fact that they weren't barking, not a single one of them, didn't prove that theory to her. Nor did these dogs having the same powerfully built bodies as the ones back at Jack's.

Because these weren't silent at all; they were howling like dogs hearing an ambulance speed by the house they lived in. (Something Nadia knew usually happened on cold rainy days for whatever reason.) But figuring out where the dogs had come from was easy as pie, because she could clearly hear the name "Barbara Swift" echoing in the undulating howls. It was the eeriest, most unnerving thing, she'd ever heard in her entire life!

There was no real way to describe what that many canine throats sounded like as they actually sang the woman's name, as if they somehow knew she'd been killed. Nadia couldn't help thinking of The Hound Of The Baskervilles as they came at her in a dark rippling flood. A living flood of glinting eyes, flashing teeth, and shiny black pelts. They reached the circle of pale light down the corridor, and seemed to run even harder.

Nadia nervously raised her gun and tried to aim for the largest one coming towards her and it was huge, a monstrous looking beast, and was running at her as if called to its fucking supper.

But these weren't normal dogs, she knew, and didn't believe they had ever been called to any suppers! The one bearing down on her had an enormous head though, which was clearly too big for its squat body, and actually lolled to one side as it ran. That the head belonged to a human male wasn't noticeable until it was already right on top of her!

It was perhaps fifteen feet away now, and time suddenly seemed to slow down. She knew it was only her imagination, making it easier for her to analyze the situation, but it actually felt like the progression of time had paused. The dogs were running in slow motion too, making Nadia think of those commercials where the dog would be fucking around in the backyard chasing rabbits, and come storming into the house as soon as their master whistled for them. "Time to eat Fido!"

Nadia also envisioned the seventies horror film with Donald Sutherland in it when she finally saw it fully, the one about the malevolent alien doppelgangers. And especially the scene where the old banjo playing wino fell asleep next to his bulldog and woke up half man, half canine.

She thought of how frightening it had been to see the hybrid creature scurrying down the street towards the last full humans, the funky banjo music plinking in the background. She'd always wondered what she would have done in that position; if she was one of the last humans the man-dog was coming for.

It seemed she had been given the chance to find out in a way, and Nadia wasn't going out like the people in the film had. No, she was going to shoot this one in the head if she could, in its ugly leaning head. And as she raised her gun to do just that, her body was suddenly jerked sideways, making her stumble wildly in that direction!

She reached out, trying to steady herself with her left hand, trying not to drop BLACK SEXY'S MACHINE. But instead of the metal door, she only felt empty air.

Nadia screamed in pain when her head struck the wall and she instinctively ducked. And then she felt herself being yanked through the opening! She panicked now, jerking herself in the opposite direction as hard as she could. Not caring at the moment if she pulled her own arm from her shoulder.

Her skin was getting scraped off as she yanked backwards again and again. She was breathing harshly, grunting with pain and desperation, her feet scrambling wildly in the dirt. And it seemed she'd gotten her wish because her arm was actually being ripped from the socket! She could hear the sleeve on her shirt starting to tear!

The pain was excruciating, unbelievable, and when the man-dog finally reached her, it was rushing in to bite her foot with its nasty growling mouth, when a loud gunshot suddenly tore through the tunnel!

The sound was ear-splitting as it rumbled along the corridor, causing the dogs trailing the first one to stop suddenly, skidding into one another, all of them making a strange sound that reminded her of sirens. Only, they looked a lot more like wolves or coyotes howling at the moon to her as they sang their eerie song.

Her arm was no longer getting pulled through the tiny doorway, and the first dog was no longer trying to bite her foot. It was too busy lying on one side on the ground bleeding from the gaping hole in its human head. Its lifeless body was draped across the two gleaming tracks like an old bear rug.

Nadia was watching the dog, wondering if it might get up again, when she was suddenly yanked all the way through the doorway scraping both sides of her body and tumbling into a small brightly lit room!

She dropped BLACK SEXY'S MACHINE on the dirt floor and rolled over again, crying out in pain.

Despite her terror and her multitude of cuts and bruises, Nadia frantically scrambled to her feet. She was panting and cradling her left arm with her right hand, as she turned and nearly screamed when she saw one of the horrid animals trying to come inside! It snapped viciously as it came, yellow drool dripping from its beard, its human eyes blazing with green light!

It lunged for her legs and Nadia was already backing away as the small door before her suddenly slammed shut with a hollow boom! Right on the man-dog's furry brown neck and it was immediately decapitated!

The glassy-eyed man head rolled further into the room, gushing what she guessed was blood, and flopping awkwardly as the man nose hit the floor and bounced over. It came to a mucky stop, still leaking a mud hued liquid and amazingly, Nadia saw a few of those gear-like objects resting in the dark dirt beside it.

"You're lucky we still need help," a silky voice said. "Very fucking lucky."

Nadia screamed this time, spinning around and immediately seeing Lady M. The bitch was standing across the room, aiming a large gun at her, the one she had pulled from the black bag earlier and it was still shimmering pink in the lights.

"We don't have long," Lady M said. "They'll eventually realize that we're headed for the surface if we follow this timeline. Then they'll simply keep on running around to the other end of the tunnel. They can talk to each other, and they'll beat us there unless you come with me right now."

Nadia gazed at the woman, unable to comprehend why she wasn't already dead. "Why didn't you kill me?" she said. "Or keep going without me? You've got the money, five million wasn't enough?"

Nadia felt like she was on the verge of blacking out, but she fought that feeling, knowing that if she did, she would never wake up again. Lady M would definitely see to that.

Lady M chuckled, and behind them, Nadia could still hear the dogs scratching outside the door and their eerie howling sounds.

"You can never have too much money," Lady M said. "Why would I leave five million behind? Not to mention my diamonds, the ones Julia was wearing on her fancy new shirt?"

Nadia had been stooping over and she now stood upright so quickly, it hurt her spine to do so. "Her shirt?" she said. "The Nicki Minaj shirt? What about it?"

"Eureka," Lady M said, "her obsession, ever since she saw her in Diary Of A Fine Black Honey. REM programming, thanks to Doctor John Clark. He invented the device using a sand crystal, and her apartment is covered in wallpaper of the woman. Nicki Minaj dressed in different costumes for all kinds of fantasies. Nurse outfits, cop uniforms, vampire costumes. Wonder Woman, the First Lady. There's even one of her as an evil Bat Girl and I think—"

"The First Lady?" Nadia said; she was curious in spite of her deep fear and bewilderment. "How does she look in that one?"

"She's posing with a life-like Obama cut-out," Lady M said."Wearing some dress that Mrs. Obama made popular. It's a striking photo, and I think you'd like it."

Nadia blinked twice at that. "That doesn't explain why you didn't shoot me," she said. "Or why you saved me from the dogs in the first place! You didn't have to and you're risking your own escape, aren't you? It doesn't make any fucking sense! What the fuck is going on?"

Lady M was holding the bag with the money in it. At least, Nadia thought it was the same bag, and she couldn't help staring at it. She had never seen a bag with five million dollars in it before.

Lady M walked over to Nadia and lowered her gun. "I thought by now you would want revenge on them," she said, "for deceiving you this way?"

"On them?" Nadia asked.

"On Big Butt Pinky," she said, "Precious, Crazy Ed—"

"Why not on you?" she said. "You're the fucking ring leader!"

"Not the ring leader," Lady M said. "Just the one that was sent to get you." She exhaled. "Please take a deep breath and listen carefully to what I have to say," she told her. "This will sound strange, and you won't want to believe me, but I was sent to bring you back into my world. There are things you have to do young lady and this was only the first stage."

Nadia gazed up at her. "What the fuck are you talking about?" she asked. "Bring me into your world? You high?"

Lady M surprised Nadia by busting out in soft laughter. "Good one," she said. "But I don't drink, or use any drugs at all. It would mess up my abilities." She grinned. "You know," she said, "the way it nearly messed up yours?"

She raised the bag. "But I came for this too," she said. "You can't fight a war without money, and we'll need this and more from other dimensions to purchase the necessary supplies. The tacticians at Mount Chrysler predict a very lengthy campaign."

Nadia frowned. "Fight a war?" she said. "Who's war? Where? What the hell are you talking about?"

"No time for those questions," Lady M said. "I think...oh wait, and here they come now!"

Nadia turned around so quickly she re-injured her sore back. But she barely felt it as she watched the small door suddenly swing open again. Even the slight pain was forgotten as she watched Allyssa wiggle into the room, tracking in the blood of the gruesome dead beast, immediately followed by Dominoe!

Allyssa finally stood up and peered down at the decapitated head. "Nice one M," she said, smiling. "Excellent timing, as always."

Lady M laughed. "Me?" she said. "I should think that our friend has you to thank more than me, nice shooting out there. But you cut it pretty close, didn't you?"

"Oh shit!" Nadia said. "What are you two doing here? Is this shit for real?" She turned back to stare at Lady M. "And why are you talking to her like that?" she asked her.

Dominoe closed the door behind them after yanking two duffel bags into the small room, and when they finally turned to Nadia who was watching them again, both of them were grinning.

"So you made it," Dominoe said. "Very good young lady. It appears Torin was a hundred percent right about you!"

"Who was right?" Nadia asked. She was completely confused now. She looked at Lady M, then back at the man. The woman had been smiling at him pleasantly.

"Jack and his boys were killed?" she said. "Weren't they?"

It was a rhetorical question because they were dead, and Nadia couldn't explain why she was even asking it, but she suddenly had a strange feeling about it; she suddenly didn't trust anything she had witnessed.

Allyssa chuckled, walking further into the room. "They're still looking for my father's money," she said. "That's why I just happened to mention it after we defeated the Hell Nighters. Works every time, greedy people always lose in the end, right father?"

Nadia gasped, because she could have sworn she'd seen them lying bloodied on the floor!

No, she had seen that!

"They wasn't dead," Dominoe explained, as if reading his thoughts. "Just knocked out after I stunned 'em with a sand crystal."

"But what about the cops?" she said "I heard them coming!"

"Don't worry about them," Dominoe said, glancing around the room. There was a kerosene lamp hanging from a metal hook embedded in the wall. The flame danced on its wick and the lamp's shadow flickered against the pale stone. It made Nadia think of scenes from The Mummy but not the bad Brendan Fraser film, the good Anne Rice novel.

"I had this room built last year," he said. "Something told me I might be needing another escape route, in case anything like this bullshit went wrong." He glanced at Allyssa. "Somebody was fucking around, baby girl," he said. "Somebody broke the time—"

"What is this!" Nadia screamed suddenly. She glanced from Dominoe to Allyssa, to Lady M, but neither of them spoke. Then she stared down at the duffel bags for a long time.

"Is that the money?" she finally asked in a breathless whisper. "The other five million?"

"And the shirt," Allyssa said, grinning. "The Nicki Minaj shirt which is most important. We'll need it to get back into Valon where the real journey is about to begin."

Nadia turned to gaze at the girl. "What the fuck is going on?" she asked her. "I thought you three were enemies and now I find out you're fucking working together? And doing what, exactly?" she said. "Besides fucking up my head?"

Lady M finally spoke up. "Didn't you stop to wonder why we chose you?" she asked. "Why they chose you? Did you really think it was just coincidence that Kelly and Julia came to work for you? Or that it just so happened to be Hell Night, tonight? On the night that you were supposed to change your life? On April thirteenth? You honestly haven't figured any of it out yet?" She was regarding her with a slight frown, as if disappointed in her.

Nadia shrugged. "I never even heard of Hell Night before today!" she said. "I don't know what to fucking think anymore! It feels like everybody's against me!"

"Well we've been watching you for a long, long time," Lady M said. "Ever since you were born, in fact. November twenty-fifth, right?" she asked him. "A Sagittarius, some of God's most talented soldiers?"

Dominoe chuckled. "No sane person can deny the truth of this. Google it. It's quite the list," he said.

Lady M smiled. "But never mind that," she said. "According to legend, our hero would be born during the eighteenth cycle of our Valonian moons. And that was you, so we decided the time had come to bring you over."

"Where's...that?" Nadia said, slowly. "Over—where?"

"Where we come from," Lady M said. "And you're eventually going to lead an army against the forces of Priscilla and the Scavengers. But first, you must enter Planet Valon, where you will train for this ordeal. My true name is Mistress Michelle Roan, and I'm commander of the Valonian Sand Fleet, loyal servant of the Dark Realm, Mother of Roan Bloodleaker."

"All of the others work for Queen Priscilla," Allyssa said, "though she is no queen of mine!" She had picked up one of the huge bags, and carried it over to Lady M.

Or Mistress Michelle Roan if that was her real name.

She placed the bag down by the woman's feet and stepped back. "Wait 'till you see her," Allyssa said. "You'll probably scream your fucking head off! Realmians resemble fourteen-foot tall black women, only they wield a powerful magic and have solid black eyes! They have enslaved the very first Valonians," she said, "which are called Glints by some, but False Queen Priscilla is a gigantic rat creature!"

"The Hell Nights were started by their people," Mistress Michelle said, "the Realmian Scavengers. And only because they were waiting for you." Mistress Michelle glanced at the man and young girl. "Our people," she said. "The Blood Leakers, intercepted a coded message that was sent from one Scavenger base to another over eighty years ago."

"Yes," Dominoe added. "It spoke of the plot to assassinate you. It is written in our Histories Of The Future that a young African American woman would come to lead us."

"According to Torin, she would have inherent skills with weapons, especially guns," Allyssa said. "Which we witnessed in you. Prince Torin is our Kingdom Historian, a very formidable creature in his own right. But once he finally deciphered the scheme, thirty of your years ago, we started our own in preparation for this day."

Dominoe chuckled. "Perhaps you need a small display of our power?" he said. "You told Allyssa that we had yet to prove anything, didn't you?"

Nadia nodded slowly, feeling dazed.

"Color makes no difference where we come from," Dominoe said. "Not how you'd think it might and it's the workings of the mind that divide us now. Just like in your dimension. My rollercoaster does more than travel beneath this city," he said, "it travels into other worlds, into other realities. But this is the point: we routinely monitor your air and radio waves, and I once heard one of your earth women ask a very poignant question: 'Where is our black Harry Potter?' she said to some talk show host late one night. 'Where is our fantasy tale for our children?' I couldn't decide who she felt was responsible for this injustice. I couldn't understand why she, or anyone, would want something simply because another already possessed it."

He smiled ruefully and strode towards her. "What if the following takes place?" he said. "What if your potential fans can't grasp the notion of you writing a horror novel about a famous stripper turned actress, simply because she's a stripper and you're both black? Or African American. Or colored. Or Negro." He paused. "Or a nigger?" he said. "Funny, that you've never been called The Learning People."

"How did you know that!" Nadia said. "I just came up with it a few hours ago, just a few random thoughts!" She stared at Dominoe, horror-struck. "How did you know I was thinking about that?" she asked him. "What the fuck is this crazy assed shit?"

Dominoe laughed. "Well, it is your future, it is the reason you were born. The reason any of you were born."

"An actress in your world is going to become our queen," Allyssa said. "And it's your job to make sure she gets to become it, for it is her child that will do the most wondrous things."

"You will record this tale once it has been completed," Dominoe said. "That was why we infiltrated the Scavenger operation in the first place, to gather the last pieces of the puzzle. Jack was sent into your world by Poker (who is actually Rat King), and the Goddesses Kia and Marlana, to kill you. But they couldn't act until tonight, April thirteenth. And certainly not until after six o'clock p.m."

"Poker?" Nadia whispered. "I've heard about him, but never saw him." She decided to completely ignore the rat king part.

"Thank God you didn't!" Dominoe said, glancing at Allyssa. "He's on Alphius Sixteen, hiding out in an abandoned building in a place called Harlem, we surmise. Awaiting the opportunity to lead an assault on your earth. Marlena awaits their return, meaning the Marauders."

He turned back to Nadia. "Hopefully with your dead body," he said. "But bringing you back alive had also appealed to her. She's secretly learning the art of torture from Doctor Yarakki. Even the False Queen doesn't know what she's been up to yet, so she's the one we must locate and eliminate first."

"Which won't be easy," Allyssa said. "Not with her magical abilities and her damn phase clouds!"

"People are monitoring us," Dominoe said, "and you'll find out who one of them is soon enough. But beyond that, we're all being manipulated by a covert operative. It's most likely Yarakki," he said. "He has become desperate and his desire to own the false princess has made him reckless."

"We believe he is on Planet Zombia at this very moment, plotting against us," Allyssa said. "It wasn't easy going through the motions, but at least I knew what was coming this time...we all did."

Nadia frowned. "You knew what was coming?" she asked. "What do you mean by that exactly?" She glanced at Dominoe.

The man shrugged. "Through our technology, something called a time-splitter," he said, "we've seen the future. But only up to this point." He waved one hand. "Time is wasting and I really must go, there is another girl we must try and bring over. Another potential warrior named Dawn Laurelton on Alphius Sixteen. Though, I am not as certain of getting her assistance, her mental stability is quite questionable."

"We must still try," Allyssa said. "Torin said she is necessary. Or, that she may soon prove to be."

"I know," Dominoe said, "that's why I'm sending Roan after her."

He exhaled and suddenly dropped to one knee on the dusty ground. He opened one of the duffel bags, put his right hand inside it, and took out what looked like a piece of black cloth to Nadia. But then she saw something flash or sparkle on it, and remembered the diamond eyes on Julia's new shirt. The ones she thought had seemed strange somehow. Only now, the shirt was torn and tattered, as if someone had placed it in a paper shredder.

Dominoe stood up, holding the garment above his head. He reminded Nadia of a man using his newspaper to block a sudden downpour of rain. "This is the key," he said. "I asked you earlier had you noticed anything strange about Julia, but you hadn't."

The man chuckled. "There's more to this shirt than just the rare diamonds for eyes," he said. "Just as there's more to the woman on the shirt. It's the thirteenth of April, goddamn it, Black Honey Day, and the time has finally come!"

Nadia watched as he limped over to the left hand wall, still carrying the shirt above his head, and came to a stop just before he touched it. "Captain Jenkins and Sharptongue will suggest that dark agent Benn Bratticus hunt you," he said. "They have no choice since the extremely volatile Kia will skin them alive, if they don't."

"Who's Kia?" she asked. "Why are you—"

Before Nadia could complete her question, a loud feminine voice suddenly ripped through the small chamber:

"ENOUGH!" the voice said. "TIME IS WASTING! YOU'VE PROVEN YOURSELVES, BRING THE CHILD. WE MUST PREPARE FOR THE TRUE MISSION. I HAVE GIVEN YOU COMMAND OF THE ROYAL SNOOPER, YOU ARE NOW THE WIZARD." The last word echoed and finally faded away. And suddenly, Nadia noticed that Lady M was gone! She had vanished, and she didn't know when or how!

Dominoe kept facing the wall. "We're coming, my queen!" he said, bowing low, the ruined shirt still high above his head. "I'm pleased that you finally trust us, and I promise you won't regret your decision this time. We won't rest until our enemies are destroyed!" He placed his fist to his forehead and rose.

"Come and stand with us," Allyssa said, turning to Nadia. "The time has come to take you over and into Planet Valon." She smiled. "Where you will finally get to meet her," she said. "She who began this, but her from another dimension."

"Meet who?" Nadia said. "That voice? It sounds...familiar."

"It should," Dominoe said, and when he finally turned from the wall Nadia was startled to see that the black man's eyes were blazing with red light! "You're going to meet her," he said. He was apparently crying and the red light was running down his face like glowing hot wax!

"The Mother Warrior Goddess," he said, sniffling. "Our Warrior Goddess, the once and future queen of all in existence. She who made me possible."

He threw the shirt straight up in the air, and Nadia watched in stunned surprise as the shirt went straight up to the ceiling and then dropped back down. Only instead of hitting the ground, it began to levitate!

She screamed, and the shirt was now glowing with a blue light as bright as the one in Dominoe's eyes! No, it was much brighter, she thought. And it hovered like a magic carpet, rippling slightly.

And then the shirt began to twist in the air until it was right side up, as if someone Nadia couldn't see were wearing it. What had once been strips of shredded black material, quickly stitched itself back together as Nadia watched! It was like magic, she thought. Like BLACK magic.

Only this time, the words: YOU ARE NOT ALONE BLACK HONEY! THROUGH THIS SIGN SHALL YOU CONQUER; STAY IN SCHOOL AND WRITE! were written beneath the Nicki Minaj face.

That hadn't been there before, Nadia knew, not on the shirt Julia bought that day!

It was still hovering, perhaps five feet off the ground, and the diamond eyes were shining like bright blue flares now! She thought she heard a crow squawk somewhere high above her at that very moment, but couldn't be sure. And couldn't imagine where a crow had come from or where it could have possibly been. She glanced up but only saw the ceiling. A normal ceiling, that was maybe ten feet high, and six feet across...but no birds. Blinking slowly, Nadia lowered her head and peered at the shirt again.

Nicki Minaj looked different too. She was still phenomenally gorgeous, Nadia thought. But where she had once been mugging at the camera, showing off her perfectly white smile and her cute dimples, a fat joint clasped between her pretty fingers, she was now staring straight up into heaven as if in solemn prayer, Nadia felt. Or, as if she were looking for the bird Nadia believed she'd heard just now!

After finally pulling her eyes away from the image and glancing up at Allyssa, Nadia thought: My God, I've never seen her look so good! Imagine if what they were telling me turns out to be the truth?

"Put the shirt on," Allyssa said. "It'll start the next phase of the journey and you'll feel strange at first, but don't worry about it. Nothing untoward will happen to you, and you have my word on that."

Nadia only hesitated a moment, then she walked over to the shirt as if on broken legs, and gently grabbed it from the air. Electricity seemed to shock her the moment she touched it, but it didn't hurt.

In fact, it had actually tickled!

Like it felt the one time Nadia had touched a broken light socket with a wet finger. And in this one touch, Nadia's mind was suddenly filled with a hundred images that flashed through her head as if driven by a tropical tornado.

She saw lush green grass and clear blue skies; and large mountain landscapes overlooking wide bodies of still, silver water. She seemed to be soaring high over the land, like a bird, maybe a crow, and for a second, Nadia could feel a soft wind blowing.

She could smell a strangely sweet scent on that wind (a fruity pineapple aroma that she knew shouldn't exist since pineapples didn't have scents!), as if coming from flowers that grew in a dense forest on an alien planet.

Nadia, no longer feeling sore, put the shirt on and a moment before the darkness came, she actually saw her. Saw her sitting on a throne, wearing what appeared to be a crown. Only instead of gold or some other metal, the crown was made of pure crystal.

She was sitting atop a massive hill in the sun, surrounded by golden blades of grass and the crown glittered and twinkled. Shafts of white light flickered, and it was a glorious sight.

The woman was staring down at her from that great height and when she finally smiled, Nadia felt a happiness deep within her bones that she didn't know was possible!

"Come," she said. "Come to me; for I am truth...and light. The light of all lights, as your Anthony Hopkins told the adorable young girl in that wonderful film."

Nadia knew those words from somewhere; from some horror movie, perhaps...

Trumpets began to blow above her and a harp was also playing sweet music. The beautiful sounds meshed together to form a soothing, mellow sound that made her feel drowsy. Nadia then heard a loud cheering as if a crowd of people were down there in the tunnel with them.

The crowd noise seemed to increase by increments as the seconds passed and then the chamber began to ripple, as if the very air were baking! But though Nadia felt no heat, she could see the walls beginning to twist, and could feel the ground beneath her starting to vibrate.

The Nicki Minaj shirt was tingling now, seeming to mold itself to her trembling body like rubber. And when the walls around her suddenly disappeared, Nadia found herself standing in what appeared to be an arena of some sort! A massive cavernous one that she couldn't see across, though nothing blocked her view.

"You will lead us through the next phase," Allyssa's voice said. "When you awake we will begin. With you as he, and he as you."

But when Nadia looked about, there was no Allyssa. The girl had also vanished!

Nadia glanced all around her, feeling confused, but didn't see any of the others she'd just been talking to! And yet, somehow knew they were there. She could still feel their presence.

High above, Nadia saw rows and rows of stone bleachers. She saw a massive white statue of a naked woman, too. A breathtaking woman, she thought, that she nearly recognized.

Looking down, she saw that the ground beneath her was shiny black marble. She'd seen her own startled reflection in it when she first glanced down, like a frightening apparition seen in a nightmare, and couldn't help gasping.

But all around Nadia, the wind had gotten stronger and the trumpets were blowing even louder now...

When the darkness finally came, the pale skinned woman was leaning over her as if about to touch her face with her moist, red lips; lips as red as ripe pomegranates as Cleopatra had told Moses in The Ten Commandments.

Nadia closed her eyes, unable to gaze into those liquid pools of blue moonlight anymore. She wanted to reach up and feel her face—that face. That perfect mixture of chocolate and alabaster silk. To touch the perfect lines and angles, to tell her there was no need to change anything! That she was utterly perfect, and it was all expressly forbidden! FORBIDDEN!

Nadia grinned to herself as she finally realized her own folly; as she finally noticed what she had missed about Julia all of this time. But of course she hadn't really missed it, had she? She'd known it from the second she saw her, didn't she? The sense of déjà vu that day wasn't merely a coincidence, because it really was that noticeable. Nadia had simply blocked it all out! Dominoe's laughing words suddenly came back to mock her.

"Welcome warrior," She said, and still far away, the woman flying across the arena (Nadia could still somehow manage to hear her soft voice talking, and could see her clearly!) had on the exact same outfit that Julia had been wearing!

Only the outfit, the shirts specifically, kept changing as she crossed the stadium, her body sliding over the marble floor at least six feet above it! Seemingly a month of shirts came and went, and Nicki's image went through a multitude of faces on the front of those shirts

Then, the faces blurred by so fast, Nadia could no longer distinguish between them, and the last one was the breathtaking image of her Julia!

"Julia was really Nicki all along!" Nadia said, panting harshly. "My God, but why didn't I see it?"

"Because you have been blinded!" the Queen answered her. "You are not alone in this and your entire planet has lost its way. BLACK HONEY!" She yelled suddenly, and the ground beneath Nadia quaked and trembled violently! Somewhere far away, she heard a chorus of pain-filled screams.

Nadia was crying profusely as her Queen finally reached her, and She was now carrying something in her pale hands, and whatever it was, it seemed to be shining or glowing, as if filled with some magical healing light. Nadia thought she could actually feel its power and god-like force, radiating outward to touch her.

The Queen laughed loudly. "It will always be you!" She said. "Forevermore Nadia, and never fear Nubian daughter."

The Queen roared laughter then, causing the ground to rumble and shake even harder. And Nadia, who had finally managed to glance up from her knees and into the face of the Chocolate Skinned Goddess, was compltely stunned.

Her skin color had just changed as She spoke!

Actually changed in mid-sentence, and She was now...Nadia couldn't believe it, but She was now Michelle Obama! The President's wife! The black First Lady!

The only one that mattered, to her.

But how? Nadia thought.

She nearly fainted dead away, because it was the most amazing piece of special effects she had ever witnessed in her entire life! Only, she knew this was no special effect. This was no movie that would eventually come to an end.

She had a feeling this would go on forever and ever. And if not in reality, then certainly in her heart and mind. And in everyone's as well because it was utterly unavoidable. And she knew it was just the beginning.

"My God!" she whispered. "Now I truly understand!"

And when she could finally see what the Goddess was holding out to her, Nadia cried uncontrollably, still down on her knees because it was truly that beautiful! Nearly as beautiful as all the women she'd just seen were, she thought. All the beautiful black women.

"Take this," She said. The true Goddess said. Not white this time, and not black, either. Oh, no.

She was actually the two races merged! African American and American Caucasian. The architects of the greatest country to ever exist! Was that the big secret? Nadia wondered, frowning up at the Queen in near religious awe. Did that explain the hatred and the jealousy over America's superiority? Even from some in America, itself?

Perhaps, she thought. America is utterly filled with haters, now.

But Goddess Nicki Minaj had changed and was now split straight down the middle, she realized. Only with moist brown skin on one side, and polished alabaster skin, on the other. One eye a palest turquoise blue, Charlize Theron blue perhaps, one a walnut brown she thought, and nearly black.

Her hair was still waist length and dark, still shimmering like silk and billowing gracefully, but it had turned into long beaded braids of silk. She was both of them now, Nadia realized. Earth's favorite and most beloved Queens! And she knew the beaded design in the back of Her head would be of their victorious flag, Old Glory.

God finally blessed America, Nadia thought, despite everything and now they all pledge allegiance to us!

"We are the shining white kingdom across the sea!" she whispered. "We are burdened with carrying the American torch that will shine throughout eternity and across the globe, and across the galaxy! We are God's blessed; so go and tell them all," she said, with laughter in her voice. "For none else can ever do it like our fucking Clique!"

And when Nadia cried this time, it seemed she was crying for all her brave and incredible ancestors—the blacks as well as the whites.

Goddess Nicki Minaj touched her still dark fingers to Nadia's head, gently rubbing her fingertips through her kinky dark hair.

"You will do nicely," She said. "I believe you have already met BLACK SEXY'S MACHINE? Or Torin? He will guide you to Little Sonia, only as a book, instead of a gun. You won't realize this, but he awaits your coming on West 110th Street in a place called Harlem, of New York."

Nadia glanced down and watched the glowing silver gun levitate a few feet off the floor, and the words BLACK SEXY'S MACHINE were literally blazing now. The gun spun rapidly, like a top, then stopped when Nadia opened her hands, and the gun automatically floated down to land softly in her palms.

The metal was hot, burning like flame now, but didn't burn Nadia's fingers as she gripped the gun with one hand, unafraid, and held it aloft. Some of the golden light struck the gun and it sparkled like tin foil.

"When you awaken, you will be inside of his body. You will actually be David Jackson," the Goddess said. "Enjoy being a male warrior young lady and perhaps you can even write about this next adventure as well? You can even use your title, Allergic To Gods. I am not as sure of your abilities as the others are, but I promise you, this next level won't be pretend. Your test has concluded and the dangers you are about to face will be very real. At this Cambridge Hotel, especially and I cannot guarantee your safety this time."

Nadia desperately tried to raise her head, to speak.

"No!" the Queen said, and Nadia bowed again, still whimpering and crying hard now. "It has already been written," the Goddess continued. "You must face Rat King, Queen Priscilla and the evil Scavengers. Sand cats and poisonous albino serpents. Sand sharks, the great monstrous creatures that prowl the sandy Void during the frigid nights. This among many other obstacles, mostly alone, and those are only the enemies I have knowledge of. Our sight can only see so much, even mine."

She seemed to sigh and a strong wind blew. "There will be too many factions attempting to destroy you," She went on, "to guarantee that you will accomplish your goal. The odds are severely against you, impossible odds, some have said. And I can only say that it has been prophesized you would save our collective dimensions. But in the end, it is God's will that matters. So I will help as I can, where I can, and I bade you farewell young soldier."

30.

And with that, the lights completely went out and Nadia Reece knew no more. At least, not until she awoke inside the body of an eighteen year old black boy named David Jackson.

David lived in a Harlem shelter, and had himself, suddenly awoken from a sound sleep with an idea running through his mind: He would write a novel! The best urban fiction book ever.

A horror novel about New York City rats, and monsters, and magic. Other dimensions and some young up and coming actress named, of all things, Lorna London...a cute name, David thought.

He had never seen her in person before, but there were whisperings in his dreams about her, and he actually saw her once in a glorious vision. For some reason, her face was on a GOODWILL newspaper above an article written by Nadia Reece. The free kind they kept in yellow plastic boxes in his neighborhood. And the headline above her smiling face had read:

But when he awoke, he couldn't remember the whisperings or the woman's face, which hurt. He could recall the excellent title, and could sense that she'd been gorgeous, and her body, utterly phenomenal. Plus, David knew exactly where to find one of those yellow boxes, now didn't he? And he still had the strangest feeling the actress would inspire him to actually finish his damn book this time.

But then again, David would think with a yawning grin, isn't that simply impossible? African Americans can't read or write for shit!

And he was still laughing as he went into the bathroom to take a nice, long piss. "Perfectly good beer down the drain," he whispered, and laughed even harder, knowing there was always more where that had come from.

THE END.

March 15, 2010 to September 30, 2011.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

African American writer Dennis Osondu was born in Harlem, New York, was raised in Queens, N.Y., and resided in the Bronx for ten years before envisioning this, his first book, in the BLACK HONEY series. He cites his love for the works of Stephen King, Robert Jordan, Relentless Aaron and Endy, as having greatly influenced his narrative style.

