Lotus crashes through the ceiling and lands between the pews. Her opponent tips his hat. “I like your style, lil’ lady. How do ya like this dramatic backdrop? I’ve been dying to shoot the hell outta it for months.”

She brushes some glass off her shoulder before locking eyes with him. “What do you want from me, Guy I’ve Never Met?! You told the Tailor you quit, so why are we doing this?”

“Just because I quit my job don’t mean I quit bein’ me,” he explains. “I never worked for the man’s money, though he paid me pretty damn well. He made me strong, no tellin’ how strong, not unless I test myself, which is where you come in.”

“If that’s all you want, how about you let the asshole go and gimme that bottle?! I’ll test you for free and nobody’s gotta die.”

“What the hell kinda test is that? Gotta make sure you’re motivated. Gotta make sure you’re committed...” He gets down behind Four Fingers and puts his bowie knife to the gangster’s throat. Lotus draws both her guns. She aims one at the knife and the other at The Shootist’s head. “You’re a complicated woman, ain’t ya? This man here wants you dead. Not quite an hour ago, he offered me money to put a bullet in ya.”

Lotus does not waver.

“Still want him alive, huh? What would you do in exchange for his life.”

Lotus does not plead.

“Well now, that just leaves the one motivation.”

He starts to slice and Lotus fires. As the bullet streaks towards the bowie knife, The Shootist tilts his blade slightly up and pushes it just a little bit forward. Lead bounces off steel and the bullet ricochets up into Four Fingers’ face. His head slumps forward over the knife.

The Shootist looks down at the dead man’s scalp and lets out a low whistle. “I thought that was gonna penetrate his skull for a second. Then I’da been in some kinda trouble, huh?” Judging by Lotus’ expression, he’s still in trouble.

The Shootist pulls his knife free, cutting Four Fingers’ throat for good measure. Lotus charges him. Both her guns bark like wild dogs. The cowboy steps back and parries each bullet with his blood-soaked main gauche. He draws his rifle and tries to bring it between them, but Lotus leaps up and kicks it to the side, then pounds him in the face with her other foot.

She flips backwards and spins as she flies over him, landing on the other side of the altar, and reaches for the spirit bottle. He keeps her at bay with a point-blank rifle blast. She blocks with her off hand, but the force of the bullet pushes her back a few feet. Her father’s soul stays where it is.

They circle away from each other in opposite directions, each flying over the pews as they empty their clips. The glass walls shatter in their wakes. Debris fills the air like glittering snow.

Lotus drops her clips and reloads. The cowboy draws his six-shooters.

They close in on each other and meet in the center aisle. They fight hand-to-hand, saving their bullets until they can line up a sure shot. She gets a gun against his temple, but he headbutts out of the way as she pulls the trigger. He gets a gun under her chin, she shoots the barrel to the side and plants a heel in his stomach. They each get the other in an arm lock, then try to twist each other in front of their own weapons.

They part like ballet dancers. The Shootist gets his gun hand up first, pointed right between Lotus’ eyes, but she crosses her guns in front of her and crimps the cowboy’s barrel like a silly straw. She smiles wide and gives him both guns. He parries two bullets with his broken pistol and kicks a third away with the spur on his boot.

He continues flying backwards as Lotus drops her clips, but prevents her from reloading by fanning his good gun. That gives him just enough time to pull two sawed-off shotguns from beneath the altar.

“Cheater!” she accuses him.

“I don’t reckon we specified terms.”

Clouds of buckshot fill her vision. Lotus swats away what she can as she dives behind a pew. Another blast tears the pew to pieces around her. A third almost eats her hat. Lotus closes her eyes and take a deep breath, imagines dancing with Dante back at the bar.

Then, she bolts out from behind cover and slides around the end of the pews. She swings as if with a partner, dipping and twirling around each successive shot. They’re back in front of the altar when he finally runs out of ammo and she closes in for the kill. He swings his shotguns like cudgels, but she flows around every blow, still dancing.

She hops over a low sweep and traps one shotgun between her knees, then twists it out the Shootist’s grip. The rotation carries her into an elbow jab to his face and, while he’s reeling, she kicks his other gun across the cathedral. She reaps one leg out from under him, catches his neck in a headlock, and presses her pistol against his skull.

“This is for my husband, who deserved worse than he got.”

A stream of them escape through the window, but one spreads out on the back of the passenger’s seat like a wanted poster. Steel glints in Leviathan’s hand as he swings his arm around and impales the upholstery, stabbing the Tailor’s effigy through one arrogant eye. Another scream explodes from his chest as he pulls the knife free to stab again and again and again. His arm pistons back and forth, hacking both the drawing and his automobile.

The Duesy escapes the warehouses and emerges onto a wide rail yard. It hops up onto a set of tracks and heads straight for an oncoming locomotive. The brakes come on like banshees and spit fire in the train’s wake. Leviathan compresses his shocks and leans off one side of the track, but his finger lingers over the release. He stares at his own, approaching end like a man lingering over his last meal.

Then, his finger flicks the switch and the Duesy lauches into a barrel roll, but just a moment too late. It clips the passing engine and twists into a gyroscopic spin. The cabbie’s world flashes around him in broken bits of blue sky, gray gravel, and the gleaming sides of passing train cars.

When the car hits the ground, it’s with all four wheels. The Duesy whirls to a dusty stop at the edge of the rail yard. Its driver hunches over the dash, grinding his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut. Tears well up from deep within and march slowly down his face.

~

Leviathan gazes up at the moon as it hangs high over the city. He’s parked in the alley behind a long row of brownstones. The Tailor emerges from the window of the one nearest and drops two stories onto pavement. He lands in a forward roll that brings him to his feet with his hand on the Duesy’s doorknob.

“Mr. Daniels decided to come home early,” he tells his driver. “Our friend is keeping him and his wife company whilst we bring the car around.”

Gunshots pop-pop-pop above them. “He’s killing him!” Leviathan turns in his seat and slings the accusation at his passenger.

“Hardly. I’m sure he’ll leave the drunkard more than well enough to sign a cheque.”

Leviathan turns back around like a key in a rusty lock. “I can’t be a part of this. I need to end it.” He hits the gas and tears down the alley. The Tailor calmly restores his hat to head and stifles a yawn. The car clears the alley and crosses street in a blink, headed straight for a telephone pole on the opposite side, but the brakes come on at the last second. Leviathan lurches to a sliding, sideways stop that puts the telephone pole just inches from the Tailor’s face.

He spares it a disinterested glance through the window before saying, “Don’t waste my time, cabbie. That’s not a road you can travel. Just do your job, wait for your moment, and think real hard about whether you’ll be able to live with yourself after it comes.

“In the meantime, please bring the car around front.”

Leviathan puts four knuckles into the dashboard, but does as he’s told. When they round the corner, Jack’s already lying in his front yard, surrounded by shards of glass. The Shootist flies through the broken window and lands on the hood as they pass.

While he’s climbing inside, Leviathan tells them both, “I will be the end of you. When the time comes, I’ll kill you both.”

The cowboy laughs. “The way you drive, you’ll kill us all. Now hold it steady while I leave that fella somethin’ to remember me by.” He fires one shot out the window. It crosses half a dozen doors before plunging into Jack’s chest.

Dante slides in behind them and starts to say something. Jack covers his mouth with one hand and gives him a look that could cut glass. Lotus pokes both her pistols through the crack and fires two simultaneous bullets. They hit the Tailor square in the spine and he shatters. Where the tailor appeared to stand, broken glass falls away to reveal an empty corner. The man himself is already running through a side door and into the adjoining room on the right.

“Oh, Christ on a stick!” Lotus takes off down the hall, her men nipping at her heels. Two rooms later, the Tailor throws open a door and dashes across the hallway. Lotus plugs the door with one bullet and grazes the Tailor with another, but he’s just barely fast enough to evade her. Dante looks at her, surprised.

“Shut it, Dante.”

They follow their prey into a photo studio. The Tailor is gone, but orange light streams in through an open window. Lotus pokes her head out and gets a flashbulb in the face. The Tailor steps in front of the window, throws the camera at Dante, and takes off across the back lawn. Jack shoves them both out of the way and dives through the window.

Dante lets the camera fall and puts his arms around his girl. “You alright, baby doll?”

“Sure, except all I can see is pain. I’ll be okay in a minute. Don’t let him get away.”

“Jack’s on it,” he assures her.

“Jack’s a drunk.”

“Point taken.”

He follows the drunk through the window.

Grave markers and mausoleums crowd a wooded area bordering the Tailor’s estate. It’s the kind of necropolis you’d expect to find in New Orleans, not the bible belt. The Tailor vanishes easily into this labyrinth, leaving Jack and Dante to play hide-and-seek.

“Do you like my monuments, Mr. Daniels?” the Tailor taunts them from points unknown. “I have a talented mason on retainer. He’s preparing the following epitaph for you: ‘No greater potential was ever squandered.’ What do you think?”

“I’d prefer ‘Husband, Criminal, Executioner.’”

The Tailor applauds. “I admire your optimism. You know, you’ll be the first people buried here who were not on my payroll. These are all of the workers who died during the construction of this town. I built it from nothing, willed it into being from the dust of the Earth and the sweat of lesser men.”

Dante catches up and cuts in. “That supposed to be noble? Remorse won’t wash their blood off your hands.”

“You misunderstand. The widows couldn’t afford funerals and some of my experiments require ready access to cadavers. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

Jack wades in and waves Dante around the other side, casting a wide net. “You’re not leaving this cemetery!” he screams into space. “You’re gonna pay for my wife and my friend and everyone else you’ve put in the ground!”

“And for sucking the life outta half a continent!” Dante adds.

“Please,” the geomancer retorts. “The steel plow caused the dustbowl, my illiterate friend. I’m merely taking advantage of undervalued real estate. I’m a savvy investor.”

Lotus appears on a tree branch above Dante and gestures to a mausoleum with one of her guns. Dante nods and heads in that direction, still talking. “You’re still stealing the life from those places and for what?! What are you doing with it? What’s worth all of this?!”

“Why, I do whatever I want with it!” the Tailor laughs. “I push back the veil of ignorance that keeps mankind shivering in the dark. I do things here that would leave your worldview weeping in a corner, mourning its lost innocence. I do the impossible three times before breakfast!”

Lightning flashes in the distance, but it’s going in the wrong direction. Blue arcs of electricity shoot up from the railroad bridge in the center of town. The canal waters begin to glow.

A gunshot rings out from the treetops and Dante turns back just in time to see a pin-stripped suit vanish behind a cloud of broken masonry. “Still not seeing straight, Mrs. Fang?” The Tailor sounds honestly disappointed. “That’s unfortunate, because you’re going to need your eyes in a moment. You know what they say about seeing and believing? Prepare to do both.”

A wave of explosions washes over the cemetery. Corpses fly out of their graves and land everywhere: in the trees, perched atop gravestones, crouched on the ground like hyenas in tall grass. They start hopping towards our heroes, their hands and feet still bound for burial.

The Tailor steps into view on top of a hill, his arms outstretched and his head held high. “That’s right! I can raise the goddamned dead!!”

The zombies break through their bonds and set upon the living like a flood. Lotus empties her clips into the mob approaching Dante, but bullets have little effect. “Thanks anyway, dollface.”

“Don’t thank me, yet!” She jumps down beside him and begins knocking down zombies with her fists and feet. They break like marionettes. Dante does the same, but the mob quickly engulfs, then separates them.

Nearby, Jack’s still trying to get his hands on the Tailor. He kicks his way up one corpse, then runs over their heads towards the hill, but a war vet launches itself at him and they both tumble into the throng. Jack emerges with a flagpole in his hands. His makeshift staff blurs around him, knocking back the dead in waves.

Meanwhile, Dante leads his portion of the horde on a merry chase. He slides between their legs, vaults over their heads, runs along mausoleum walls, and makes his way up the hill. The Tailor gets ready to defend himself, but Dante sails three feet over his head. “No time to chat! Sorry!”

His pursuers take the hill like a calvary charge. The Tailor smiles. He controls the crowd with fast footwork and quick counter-attacks, taking them out one at time. He hits them along their spines, in the head, and under the jaw. Lightning erupts from their bodies at each location, ending with a burst from the eyes and mouth. Then, they fall lifeless to the ground, their strings cut.

Dante rejoins Lotus by flying into the melee and planting both knees in a zombie’s chest. Bloody corpses lie all around her. She hits the dead hard enough to crush rib cages, sever limbs, and shatter skulls. Dante just tries to keep the surplus off her back until it’s time for them to die. Again.

Jack whirls through his attackers like a tornado of wood and shoe leather. Corpses fly into trees, crash through headstones, and break into pieces under his onslaught. He finally gets free and leaps up to the Tailor, bats aside the last of the zombies, and tries to jab his enemy in the face. The goemancer catches his makeshift staff in one hand and twists; the wood splinters all the way down its length, slicing Jack’s palm.

He’s about to press his attack when a gunshot pushes between them. Jack watches it sail past his pupils in slow motion. They both look up to find the Shootist standing at the far end of the cemetery, thunder still rolling from the barrel of his rifle.

“Punctual, as ever!” the Tailor spits. “I thought I was going to have to fight them all myself! Did you bring it?” The Shootist raises the spirit bottle for everyone to see. Dante and Lotus trade looks as they drop the last of their cadavers. “I hope you’re prepared to negotiate terms, Mrs. Fang. There are so many things I could do with an enlightened master’s soul.”

“Actually, boss,” The Shootist interrupts, “I quit. If the lady wants this, she can come get it.” He turns and flies off toward the crystal cathedral. Lotus looks to Dante and he nods. She takes a pot shot at the Tailor on her way out, but he dodges without effort.

“You sure that’s wise?” Jack asks Dante. “What if she needs help?”

“She doesn’t need any help, Jack, but I’ll be here when she gets back.”

“This guy’s got yer damn answers, doc.” The cowboy forces Four Fingers into a chair.

The Tailor turns, takes in the man’s swollen features, then gives him a quick physical exam. “You have a talent for taking punishment, Mr. Fang. Who did this to you?”

“Who else? My wife.”

“Have you considered divorce.”

“It’s frowned upon in my culture.”

“I see. Murder must have been your first choice, then.”

“Second, actually, but no more successful than the first. She’s a spitfire.”

Something starts humming through the walls and the Tailor turns back to his work. “I think I met her a few hours ago. She shot her way out of my hospital.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

“Tell me something, Mr. Fang: What brings your wife to my town?”

“Well, from what little I gathered while she was pummeling my face, I’d say she’s looking for you.”

“I see. And her friends?”

“Some redskin and some spook. I don’t know either of them. Must be strays she picked up between here and San Francisco.”

“And what brought you to Allentown, Mr. Fang?”

“A dead man’s finger.” The Tailor turns back around, obviously expecting more information. “Her father’s finger, actually. I have it in a spirit bottle. It guided me here.”

“Interesting. She must have loved him deeply.” He strokes his chin, checks his pocket watch, glances at the geomantic compass on a table nearby, then addresses his minion. “Take Mr. Fang back to his accommodations. He’ll show you were to find this spirit bottle. Bring it back here with considerable haste. I believe Mrs. Fang and her friends will be here shortly; we’ll need that spirit bottle as collateral.”

“Collateral fer what?! I’ll handle her my own self. Been lookin’ forward to it, actually.”

“I have confidence in your skills, cowboy, but my confidence in you has been sorely shaken. I’ll need some leverage on the little lady and there’s no better leverage than a child’s love for his father.”

The Tailor steps into the cowboy’s personal space, jabs one finger into his third eye, then delivers an elbow strike to his chest. The Shootist flies backwards and crashes into the wall. Wood and wallpaper pour onto his hat as he crumples to the floor.

“This is the last time I will suffer your remonstrations! You’re not even a man!! You’re a gun with a corpse attached!!!” He turns back to Four Fingers, as calm as can be.

“Mr. Fang, you will take my manservant back to your accommodations and show him where to find this spirit bottle. He will then bring it to me with considerable haste. If he does not, I will take the both of you apart and make one complete man from the pieces.”

~

“Please, mister, gimme one more chance!”

A teenage boy clings to a steelworker’s leg as the former tries to leave a pub. “One more chance, double or nuthin’! Come on, mister! I need this!”

“Goddamn, kid! Fine, but I swear to Jesus, you better be good for it.”

“I ain’t never welshed on a bet an’ now’s no time to start.”

“Damn straight, it ain’t, ‘cuz I’ll take it outta your ass, son.”

The teenager releases the older man’s leg and stands up, privately rolling his eyes. He tosses a dart over his shoulder like it’s a pinch of salt. It flies all the way across the bar, past the Tailor, who sits at a table piled high with dusty tomes, and stabs a dart board right in its eye.

The boy’s smile is full of smug. “Pay up, fucknugget.”

One minute later, the teenager is pressing a handkerchief full of ice against his face. His whole face. The Tailor sits down next to him at the bar. “That was the single most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.

“If you’re from the circus, buzz off.”

“Stupidity, son. I meant the display of stupidity. It was truly amazing.”

“You like kickin’ a guy when he’s down, huh?”

“That is usually the best time, but I suspect your question was rhetorical.”

The boy slams his cold pack down and fixes the Tailor with his one working eye. “Ya know, if yer lookin’ to insult me, ya might wanna do it in English. Otherwise, shake a leg. My head hurts plenty already.”

“Now, there’s a problem I can solve.” He plucks a needle from his lapel and inserts it at the base of the boy’s skull.

“Hey!” he fliches. Then, relaxing visibly, “Oh... hey. How’d you do that?”

“Years of diligent study and a monumental degree of talent.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t got no money, so don’t bother peddlin’ any cure-alls here.”

“Quite the contrary. I was about to offer you a job.”

“An’ I ain’t no hustler, neither.”

“I’m not soliciting your penis, just your arm. Well, most of your body, but I have no use whatsoever for your manhood. Do you want a job or don’t you?”

“I want money, so we’re half way there. What I gotta do for it?”

“I’ll turn you into the greatest gun fighter in the world and you’ll be my bodyguard.”

“Is that all?!” He almost pats the Tailor on the head, but returns the icepack to his face instead.

“Not by a long shot, but it’s enough to get us started.” The Tailor throws a stack of bills onto the bar. “There’s your first month’s pay.”

The teenager stares at the money, then the Tailor, then the money again, then the Tailor again. “You’re serious, ain’t ya.”

“We’ve just met, so I’ll forgive you for asking that question.” He extends a hand and the teenager shakes it with vigor. “Welcome to your life.”

~

The Shootist kneels amidst the ruins of a crystal cathedral. Lotus has him in a headlock, one of her pistols pressed against this temple. Behind them, Four Fingers’ body lies beside the altar. All around them, the floor is buried in broken glass.

Lotus tightens her grip around the cowboy’s throat. “This is for my husband, who deserved worse than he got.”

“Mercy!” he victim pleads. “I just got my life back from that madman.”

She pauses, still tense as a violin chord. “You ever killed anybody who didn’t need killin’?” she asks. “Anybody he didn’t tell you to kill?”

His eyes drop. “You know I have.”

“Then you die.”

Jack looks like Ahote stole his thunder. “How did you know?”

“Not sure. I just know.”

“Do you think he knows?” Dante asks, peering into the side mirror.

Twin fins of vaporized rubber erupt from Leviathan’s back tires and he whips into a 180 degree spin that sends him crashing sideways through the cement divider. The Duesy roars after them.

Lotus refills her ammo. “He sure as hell knows somethin’.”

“You guys should probably hold on to something.” Ahote veers off the highway and zig zags his way between industrial buildings. Each time they cross an intersection, Leviathan is one block closer.

“He’s faster than you.” Lotus notes.

“I can see that.”

“He’s a lot faster than you.”

Dante raises a finger. “You know, they say the only car that can pass a Duesenberg is another Duesenberg, and then only with the driver’s permission.”

“Cute,” Jack taunts.

“Idea!” Ahote exclaims.

He ducks into a huge warehouse with Leviathan nipping at his heels. Sweetness starts swerving and spinning around the support beams. The bigger car can’t turn so tight and Leviathan begins to loose sight of his prey, so he starts pounding through whatever gets between them: wooden palettes, shipping crates, even the support beams.

A long, deep, groan of stressed metal fills the building as Sweetness heads for the door. Lotus fires a shot through the cable holding the door open and it slams shut behind them. Everyone, even Ahote, watches out the back window as the building collapses. The metal door stays closed, but Leviathan explodes through the brick wall beside it.

They all curse in unison.

Leviathan gains quickly and tries to ram them. Sweetness weaves around each lunge, dodging left and right, but all the stalling slows her down. The Duesy pulls alongside and slams into her, muscling the smaller car onto the sidewalk.

Ahote kicks Sweetness up onto two wheels and drives up the side of the building, then lets her crash on top of Leviathan upside-down, crunching his roof. She rolls off the other side and lands back in the street, none the worse for wear.

Leviathan punches the roof to make some headroom. He glowers at Ahote, then opens up the throttle and pushes a few feet ahead as they cross an intersection. The Duesy pops back onto the opposite curb and plows through a line of parked cars, knocking them into Ahote’s path.

The road shaman goes right, clearing the first few, but Leviathan puts more mustard on each one until they’re barreling into the opposite building. Ahote ducks left, passing beneath two more as they cartwheel over the road.

Now, he’s riding in the Duesy’s wake. Leviathan slams on his brakes and slides to a sideways stop directly ahead. Again, Ahote gives gravity the finger and drives up the side of the building, clearing both the Duesy and a wall at the end of the block. Leviathan blasts right through the wall and continues the chase.

Dozens of railroad tracks weave in and out of each other in a broad switching yard. Train cars litter the landscape in chains both long and short.

Sweetness heads for a tight cluster of short ones, swerving madly between empty stretches of track. Leviathan follows suit. Ahote swings wide and puts a short chain of cars between them for a few seconds. He drops even with the Duesy and, when the coast is clear, veers back into his enemy. The cars slam together, sparks fly, and Leviathan is forced onto a collision course with a long train of empty cars.

The Duesy’s shocks compress, then it leaps up into the train car, driving right through the back wall... then the front wall... then the back wall of the next car. Leviathan plows through several more, then leaps out of the last and lands right back beside Sweetness.

Lotus’ gun is waiting. She fires almost point blank through his shattered side window, but Leviathan is already on the brakes. The Duesy falls back just enough to let her first shot pass harmlessly through the cab. The rest ricochet off the windshield, hood, and grill.

He falls in behind them and they race out of town on a lonely rail line.

The Duesy pulls off to the side of the track, slanted down a slight embankment. Ahote looks down and sees the spikes extend just as Leviathan rushes up the embankment and slams into them. They arm wrestle back and forth across the track. Sweetness groans as the spikes dig into her side.

The Duesy’s shocks compress, primed to toss both vehicles, but Leviathan looks over at his prey and sees Faro behind the wheel. His hand pauses over the trigger. Ahote finds a loose plank and bounces off it, sending Sweetness skyward. Both cars barrel roll away from each other, Leviathan less gracefully. The Duesenberg crashes on its side and tumbles across the plain before slamming into a telephone pole. It comes to rest upside-down on its already weakened roof.

Sweetness lands on all fours, then approaches the wreck as it would a wounded tiger. Lotus springs out of the car before it’s even in park, twin pistols in hand.

Ahote intercepts her. Surprise is plain on her face. “He might not be dead.”

“Let’s try to keep him that way. He’s just as much the Tailor’s victim as anyone.”

Jack hobbles out of the car, supporting himself on the door. “Bullshit, he is! I don’t care how he got there, but he’s been standing by that murder’s side for long enough. He’s responsible for every death he failed to prevent, including my wife’s!”

Ahote gestures toward the wreck. “Look at this. That’s not just an automobile; it’s his life and he’s trapped inside it. They don’t make metaphors like that anymore. If I can get him free, it won’t be because I’m good with a lug wrench. If I can save him, he won’t be the Tailor’s stooge anymore and he won’t be our enemy.”

Jack’s head rolls back and forth like a tetherball. “How many times does a guy gotta try to kill you before you get the hint?” He raises his gaze and addresses Lotus. “That dog needs to be put down. If you have doubts, gimme the gun.”

She looks to Dante, but he just shrugs his shoulders. “I’m about outta compassion, for today.” He pulls the jackrabbit out of his shirt and releases it.

Ahote gives her his most sincere face. “If he’s still here in the morning, you can murder him all you want.”

“Deal. Are the keys in the car?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Jack needs a drink.”

They leave Ahote and his toolbox alone with Leviathan.

“Amen, brother.” Behind him, Dante distractedly pushes a broom across the floor. The jackrabbit peaks out from the collar of a stolen janitor’s uniform.

The Shootist turns in his chair and looks him over. “Mind yer mop, pork pie. Is that a rabbit in your shirt?” Dante pushes the jackrabbit’s head back down beneath his collar and minds his mop.

Leviathan tugs his cap over his eyes. “You’re the bitch, cowboy. All you ever do is whine. Take some goddamned action, if you’re so bent outta shape.”

“Maybe I will, cabbie. I don’t need his damned treatments anymore. That’s why his bonnet’s been in a twist. He knows I’ll be leavin’ soon.”

“Still thinking like a bitch. ‘I’ll just walk away. He’ll miss me when I’m gone.’ You’re the one wearing the skirt.”

The Shootist is an unwatched pot. “Fuck you right in the corn hole. You’re the one who can’t get it up in the revenge department, not me. I’ve got no score to settle.”

“Sure, you don’t. It’s not like you’ve saved his life over and over again. He amped you up, but how is that equal compensation for his life? If you don’t think you’re owed any severance, you’re an idiot as well as a bitch.”

The Shootist pours anger into his coffee through his eyes. “Maybe I’ll steal your baby and leave with all that cash in the back seat.”

“Maybe you will... if your testicles choose this night to descend, but I have doubts.”

The cowboy leaps out of his chair, tosses his coffee on the floor, and puts one pistol to the road shaman’s forehead. “Maybe I’ll end you and him. What’s holdin’ me back, wise man?!”

Dante decides to duck out. He ushers his mop quickly down the hall and finds the Tailor tending to his patient. Jack is strapped to a gurney and covered in acupuncture needles. An I.V. drip is attached to one arm. The Tailor watches him twitch and scratches his chin.

Dante keeps shuffling down the hall, his mind clearly not on his business. “Married, for the love of... Obviously has no respect for the institution. Leaves her first husband, if that is her first, tries to turn me into a polygamist. It’s shameful.”

He remembers them dancing at the club in Dodge City.

“Just how many guys has she tied to a chair?”

The bank vault flashes through his mind. She’s perched on his lap, her hair falling around him like a privacy curtain.

“Thinks she can do whatever the hell she wants just ‘cuz she can shoot bullets outta the air.”

He’s in the back of Ahote’s car and she’s asleep under his arm.

“Self-righteous, self-centered skirt.”

The Tailor nods to himself in apparent satisfaction, then gives his patient a quick slap across the face. Jack’s eyes flutter open, but he only achieves semi-consciousness. “You’ll be an interesting hobby, kung-fu hobo. We’ll get you fixed up tonight, then it’s off to the torture chamber in the morning! I’ll be right outside. Sleep while you have the chance.”

He turns and marches out of the room. Dante scuttles away from the door and manages to escape notice. He watches the Tailor enter the waiting room to fanfare only he can hear. “Alright, boys, you can knock off for the night...”

Dante doesn’t wait for the rest. He leaves his mop next to the door and approaches the gurney. He yanks out the I.V. needle and starts working on the restraints. “Jack. Hey, old man! It’s half-past rescue time. Wake the hell up!”

The older man stirs, but does not wake.

“I shoulda brought some booze,” Dante laments. “Hey, old man. It’s Dante. You tried to steal my girl and kick my ass, but you failed ‘cuz you’re old? Remember? Then you locked us both in a bank vault ‘cuz you’re a dick? God, why am I even doing this?”

Behind him, Lotus appears on a window sill. “There you are!” She lets herself in.

Dante grimaces. “Keep it down, Mrs. Whatshisface. The Tailor’s outside.”

She glances back out the window. “I didn’t see him.”

“Outside in the hall, not outside with the damn birds.”

“I should’ve told you...”

“You have trouble finding the right time for things, don’t you? Help now, talk later, or just go back to your domestic disturbance.”

Jack groans and his eyes roll around the room, taking in everything at once. His eyes finally fix on Dante, then flick to Lotus as she approaches. “Hey, boss lady. Missed me, I see.”

“Not really. You’re just one of my chickens, come home to roost.”

“Always thought I was the fox in the hen house.”

“For the love of Saint Fucking John,” Dante execrates. “Chit chat later, old people.”

They yank needles free by the fistful, but they’re not quite fast enough. The Tailor frames himself in the doorway. “You’ve got pals in every port, don’t you, sailor?”

Lotus strikes a defensive stance while Dante pulls Jack out of bed. The old guy’s hobbled as soon as his bandaged leg makes contact with the floor. Dante buckles under his weight. “You gotta quit drinkin’, grandpa.” Jack uses the bed to support himself, but he clearly won’t be running away.

“That’s right, Jack. Back to bed.” The Tailor’s bedside manner is impeccable. “Your friends will be going to the emergency room. It’s six floors down and on your left.”

Dante pushes the old man towards his girl. “Help your loverboy, Lotus. I’ll be right behind you.” She takes custody of Jack, easily hoisting him on one arm.

Dante comes at the Tailor sideways, moving along the floor on his hands and feet. He drives the geomancer away from the door with a flurry of off-balance kicks and spinning sweeps. Lotus and Jack bolt past them.

The Tailor blocks Dante’s attacks almost mechanically, studying each move. When he begins to counter-attack, Dante just flows around every blow. “Do I detect a splash of swing in your capoeira? Interesting.”

He gives up blocking and starts to dodge around Dante’s attacks, mirroring the dancer’s technique. It quickly becomes a battle no one can win. “Your Qi is quite fluid, highly responsive. I bet you’re a natural talent, no discipline. If I wanted to lead you towards the window, all I’d have to do...”

He starts throwing telegraphed punches to Dante’s sides. As the dancer dodges, he moves steadily closer to a closed window near the gurney. “And then, if we switched places and I left you an opening...”

The Tailor throws a slow kick towards Dante’s mid-section. Without any room to retreat, Dante hits the floor and rolls past the geomancer into the room. The Tailor lowers his guard and Dante moves in to strike, but connects with nothing. His opponent steps inside the attack and shifts Dante’s center of gravity, effortlessly flips him upside down, and throws him through the window.

As Dante watches the jagged window frame recede from view, his eyes grow wide. Slowly, he rotates and finds himself staring down six stories to an unforgiving curb. His eyes close. His breathing becomes slow and measured...

When he hits the pavement, it’s in a perfectly controlled crouch. Cracks spray outward like lightning bolts. One intersects a parked car and its tire blows out. Broken glass falls around him like cherry blossoms in spring.

Dante opens one eye, then the other. “Ho. Ly. Shit!!!” He lets out a few celebratory whoops and does a victory dance in the street.

Six floors up, Lotus and Jack rush past the nurse’s desk towards a door marked ‘Stairs.’ The nurse on duty in nonplussed, as if she sees fleeing prisoners every day. “Hey, stop,” she commands with neither authority nor enthusiasm. She reaches for the phone without looking to see if they obey. “Runners on six, hon. Yep, the stairwell.”

Jack and Lotus look down a half dozen flights of stairs, then at each other. “Catch me?” he asks.

“Sure thing.” She lets him down and hops up onto the railing. Jack ducks behind the still-open door as a couple of armed orderlies come running down the hallway. They watch Lotus spin around and drop down the center of the stairwell. Right as they cross the threshold, Jack whacks them with the door.

Lotus draws her guns and shoots several more orderlies making the same entrance as she drops past the intervening floors.

Jack vaults over the railing and descends the stairwell by leaping back and forth between flights. He slips on the last one and falls, but Lotus catches him in one arm while she shoots a few more goons.

Outside, Sweetness rolls up behind Dante while he’s still celebrating in the street. “Did you see that, daddy-o?! I was spec-fuckin-tacular!”

The road shaman leans across the passenger seat. “Who’s in the what now?”

Jack and Lotus burst through the front doors. “I thought you were right behind us,” she tells Dante.

He waves his arms toward the crater. “He threw me out the window! I fell all the way down here, then bam!!! I focused my whatever and landed and all the force just whooshed through me and into the ground!”

Lotus tosses Jack in the back while Dante’s gushing. When he turns her attention back, there’s murder in her eyes. “He threw you out the window?!”

“Yeah, but it’s okay ‘cuz I focused and I...” He hops back in the impact crater and poses in a crouch. “... and it was amazing!”

“I’ll kill him. I will kill him.”

“Look, dollface, you’re missing the point.”

Jack leans out the window. “Hey, kids! Can you bicker inside the car?”

Ahote revs the engine. “Yes. Yes they can.”

The hospital doors burst open as the Bentley’s slam shut. The Tailor and a few limping orderlies hit the curb just in time to watch Sweetness rocket down the block and vanish around a corner.

The Tailor doesn’t curse or scream his frustration. Instead, he whirls on his henchmen and takes them all down with a blur of calculated strikes.

Ahote paces back and forth near the door. “So... how often do you do this, Lotus? Tie people to hotel chairs, I mean. It’s becoming a motif.”

“We need to know how he found us.”

“Are you going to murder him?”

“If I wanted him dead, he’d be dead.”

Ahote’s expression repeats the question.

“I coulda killed him back in San Francisco, easy as breathin’, but all I took was his ring finger.”

“So, no murder, then? Just, what... torture?”

“We’re going to have a polite conversation, Ahote. We’re married, ya know.”

“That’s not a point in your favor.” Four Fingers stirs in his seat. Lotus punches him hard in the gut. “Quite polite,” Ahote mutters to himself.

Four Fingers sucks in a breath, collects himself, and gives his wife a smile. “You can come home now, Lein. Father won’t be a problem, anymore. I’ve seen to it.”

She shakes her head. “Right move, wrong time. The right time would’ve been when he poisoned my scotch or when he sent that hitman after me on the balcony. Or, and here’s the one I woulda really appreciated, maybe when he tried to have me executed right in fucking front of you!!!”

She punches him across the jaw.

“I know that was a set up, Lein. He admitted to it, near the end. I had Tino peel his flesh off one strip at a time. It was better than he deserved.” He turns to Ahote. “Father never liked her. Too strong-willed for a proper, Chinese wife, you see. He got one of the household servants in some trouble, then gave Lein an opportunity to help her out... by stealing from the Triad. She took the bait and he had a firing squad ready.”

Ahote continues his pacing “I know all about it, Mr. Fang. Lotus told me everything.”

Four Fingers turns back to Lotus with a congratulatory expression painted across his face. “Look at you, changing your stripes.”

Her eyes peel that paint right off. “If I kept things to myself, before, it was because everyone around me was a liar and a cheat. You people can’t be trusted with the truth.”

“Please. You always had to be the big dog in the yard, that’s why you couldn’t stand to be anyone’s bitch, not even mine.”

Her fist backs up to get a running start at his face, but she holds it in check. Her fingers relax with reluctance. She looks down at his missing digit. “Do they call you ‘Four Fingers’ now?” He gives her a withering glare. “Holy shit, they do!” she guffaws.

“And yet, here I am, offering you forgiveness. I take ownership of my disgraces, Lein. I don’t run away from them. Think about what I’m offering you. Do you really wanna go back to living like a monk? Poverty never looked good on you.”

Lotus is still laughing. Ahote kicks her foot to get her back on task.

“Aren’t you supposed to be watching the door?” She returns to her husband, all business. “Do you work for the Tailor? Did he bring you here to distract us?”

“You mean the guy with the acupuncture needles? He’s a geomancer, not a tailor. Seriously, Lein, where’s your mind at?”

“I know, jackass, that’s just what they call him. Capital ‘T’ Tailor. You know him, then?”

“Sure. He’s renting me a house, but I work for nobody, not anymore.”

“Then how did you know where to find us?”

“Your father brought me here.”

For the second time today, she’s stunned silent. Ahote pinch hits. “Her father’s dead.”

“I know. She is my wife, medicine man. I visited a witch doctor in New Orleans, brought him a little piece of the old man’s corpse.”

Lotus pops him in the face. His head snaps back like a speed bag. He flashes her another smile, this one bloody. “I have your dear father’s spirit trapped in a bottle, Lein, and coming home with me is the only way to set him free.”

~

Dante hides behind a hospital sign on the second floor of Allentown Memorial. A few club-wielding townies still wander the streets in search of him. The jackrabbit pokes its head out of Dante’s vest and surveys the scene.

“The coast ain’t quite clear, yet, Jack. Keep cool. Thanks for not shitting on my shirt, by the way. You’re much better than the last Jack I met.”

The demon Duesenberg roars down the boulevard and through the hospital entrance. It parks beneath Dante and its passengers emerge to stretch their legs. Dante gives them as close a look as he dares. The Tailor’s voice drifts up on the wind as he orders The Shootist to “Take him upstairs.”

The trunk pops open of its own accord and The Shootist drags out a comatose Jack Daniels.

“Speak of the tap-dancing devil.”

~

The sounds of breaking tile emanate from behind the bathroom door. Four Fingers, still tied to the chair, looks considerably more injured than before. Ahote dabs his wounds with a handkerchief while trying his hand at interrogation.

“What can you tell me about the Tailor?”

“You? What would I want to tell you about anything? She’s the one who can crush skulls with her bare feet.”

“I think it’s fair to say that, at this very moment, my influence is the only thing keeping you from that fate. It might be in your best interest to do me a favor or three.”

“From where I’m sitting, it looks like I don’t have to buy your influence. I think you’ll defend me, no matter how much of an asshole I am. Soft hearts make soft heads, kemosabe.”

“No, Lotus makes soft heads. You said it yourself, friend. Look, my will isn’t the one you should be worried about. Keep taking her down this path and she will kill you. The only thing I will distract her from that, I imagine, is the thing we came here for in the first place, and that’s the Tailor. He’s spent years redrawing the dustbowl and every road leads to this town. Why? What is he trying to do?”

“Hell if I know! One night, the rain starting falling upward. Night before that, about a thousand toads paraded north on Main Street. I just saw their tracks in the morning, but the croaking woke the whole town. Locals have to exterminate the jackrabbits twice a month. The feng shui here is fucked.”

“There’s no greater pattern to it? No hint of his purpose?”

“I’ve only been here about a week, Little Big Man, but there’s always a light show in the center of town just before shit starts--” The bathroom door bangs open and Lotus storms out, a large piece of broken tile in her hand.

Ahote hops to his feet and tries to intercept, but Hurricane Lotus blows right past. “This cocksucker’s gonna fess up or I’m gonna show him his intestines.”

“That won’t do any good, Lotus. You know it won’t. This is about you and your anger.”

“Somebody’s gotta make the big boys pay.”

Four Fingers flashes Ahote a knowing look. “There’s the girl I married.” She slashes the front of his shirt open with one swipe.

“Monsters beget monsters,” Ahote cautions. “Plus, this sounds just really, really disgusting. Let’s please not do it in the hotel, okay? Lotus?”

She’s busy waving her shiv at the end of Four Fingers’ one nose. “Where is it, asshole? Where’s the damned spirit bottle?”

He doesn’t answer her, just keeps his eyes locked with Ahote’s. “We may have over-estimated your influence, wise man.”

The door opens and Dante enters. He sees Lotus bent low over a bloody, shirtless man. She looks up at him, blushes deep, then stares daggers at Ahote, who should have been watching the door.

Dante takes it all in like a wide angle lense. “So, so many questions, right now, but I think I’ll start with... Who’s this guy?”

“Her husb--” Lotus’ fist interrupts Four Fingers’ words, but not his meaning. Dante’s face contorts from shock, through anger, and finally into pain.

Lotus finds his eyes, but her lips won’t form anything useful. “Dante... Is that a rabbit in your shirt?”

“Yes, Lotus, it is a rabbit. He has many enemies. Maybe someday I’ll find out he has another protector that he’s been keeping secret from me, but for right now he’s mine and I’m going to take care of him.”

“Dante, listen...”

Dante turns his back on her and heads out the door. “I’m gonna go rescue your other old man. The Tailor’s got him trussed up in the hospital somewhere.”

Then, he’s gone.

The road shaman shakes his head wearily. “Why is it that, every time you two argue, somebody gets beaten and tied to a chair?”

“What’s that about?” Lotus wonders.

“What is that ever about?” Ahote replies.

~

A crowd has gathered outside of town. Men, women, and children dressed in their Sunday best, carrying pots and pans and wooden clubs. They’re lining up shoulder-to-shoulder when Dante arrives. He stands beside a little girl, as if he’s been there all along.

“What’s this, some kinda dance?” he asks her.

“It’s a rabbit drive! Where are your noise-makers, mister?”

“Well, I just came from the library and they don’t allow any noise in there, so I gave mine to a real quiet hobo.”

She giggles. “You’re funny. We don’t got no library. Here. You can use my pot and I’ll just bang my spoons together.”

“You’re quite kind, little miss. I’m in your debt.” He starts pounding out a mambo rhythm.

“Not yet! Not yet!” she reprimands him. “Ya gotta wait for...”

One of the men fires his shotgun into the air and everyone starts banging away. Ahead of them, the earth appears to move as hundreds of jackrabbits flee their hidey holes and flow across the field. The line advances after them. The little girl dances to Dante’s beat and clangs her spoons together with abandon.

As they approach the edge of town, the purpose of this ritual dawns on Dante with creeping horror. The jackrabbits are being herded in a large pen that funnels them towards a group of men with cudgels. One by one, they catch the jackrabbits by their feet and bash their brains out.

Dante’s drumming trails off and the line leaves him behind. The little girl looks back, perplexed. She’s about to ask a question when one of the jackrabbits rushes between her legs and leaps up into Dante’s pot. “That one’s mine!” she screams. “It landed in my pot! Let me kill it, mister! Please, please, please!!!”

Dante looks down at the jackrabbit, up at the little girl, back down at the jackrabbit... and takes off running. “That guy’s stealing! He’s a stealer!!” She takes off after him and a bunch of the other children join in. Hearing only scattered shouts of “thief” and “get him,” many of the adults do the same.

Oh, what a merry chase ensues! Dante vaults over fences and cuts through backyards, but the children enlist more help on every block and soon it seems the whole town in on his tail. He ditches the pot and stuff the rabbit into his vest when he needs both hands to climb up the side of a store. He flies from one rooftop to the next, but there are angry townsfolk on every corner. It’s like trying to outrun a maze, much less the minotaur.

Dante baseball slides into an overturned garbage can, knocking it upright with his momentum, and pulls the lid on in the process. He and the rabbit share a few, tense moments as the alley fills with footfalls and angry shouts. Then, silence.

He lifts the lid to take a peak and finds a gaggle of filthy children giving him the stink eye. He yelps and pulls the lid back down. They start beating on the can with their clubs, quickly tipping it over. They roll Dante down the alley and into the street. He busts out of the garbage can and takes off down the median, passing the cafe where Lotus and Ahote are reviewing the Tailor’s maps.

“What’s that about?” Lotus wonders.

“What is that ever about?” Ahote replies. “Look, Lotus. There’s something I have to tell you, too.“

“But look at this--”

“That can wait. This might be important, if I’m right. I hope I’m not, but just in case I am, you’d better hear it from me. I’m sure you won’t sit down for this, so I’ll just say it... I think your husband’s in town.”

Her face is a mask of terrified skepticism.

“I think I saw him when I went to check out that glass cathedral...”

~

Ahote meanders down the aisle between four rows of wooden pews. The sun shines down through a vaulted ceiling made entirely of glass. Metal supports arc across the interior at seemingly random angles, and stained glass windows pepper all four walls without any obvious pattern. It’s like standing inside a kaleidoscope.

In his mind’s eye, the sun accelerates across the heavens. The moon and stars come out, then set. Day, night, day, night. The celestial objects begin to trace paths that match up with the cathedral’s support beams. At key times, they line up with the stained glass windows.

“It’s an observatory.”

Afterwards, Ahote drives down a residential street in a wealthy neighborhood. He stops at an intersection and notices a strange group hanging out in front of a colonial with paint so fresh it still looks wet. They’re all Chinese men dressed for a night out on the town, not visiting with the neighbors. More than a few of them are openly carrying guns.

The crowd parts for a moment and Ahote spies a man with only four fingers on his left hand. His ring finger is missing; the wound is angry. Ahote steps on the gas a little too hard and Sweetness squeals through the intersection.

The man with four fingers watches Sweetness lurch around the corner.

~

Lotus’ face is still a mask of terrified skepticism.

Ahote clears his throat and soldiers on. “Certainly, there’s more than one four-fingered, Chinese man in the world. There might even be more than one four-fingered, Chinese man who travels with a dozen Triad goons, right? It’s entirely possible that this is just a big coincidence and absolutely nothing will come of it, so let’s get back to the Tailor and his infernal machine, huh? Lotus?”

Just then, three black sedans screech to a stop in front of their table and disgorge a dozen Triad goons. Ahote sighs. “Or, more likely, this could happen.”

Lotus flips the table on its edge and kicks it into the oncoming goons. She draws her guns and shoots bullets out of the air on either side, covering their flanks while Ahote runs for cover.

She drops her clips and flies into the air, reloads as she flips over the goons’ heads. She lands in the back of the mob and proceeds to tear them apart. The sedans absorb a hurricane of bullets. The goons don’t fare any better.

Lotus is wiping out the last few when she suddenly comes face-to-face with Four Fingers. He opens his arms wide and declares, “Lein. It’s time to come home.”

She freezes, guns still drawn, and stares at him with wide eyes. The last goon standing sneaks up behind her and puts his gun to her head. “Put them dow...”

Lotus backfists his firearm, knocking it away. He fires reflexively, but in vain. Lotus extends her arm and, without looking, puts her gun squarely between his eyes. Blood sprays across Four Fingers’ face.

Her other gun rises up beneath his chin. He closes his eyes and waits for death... continues waiting. One eye peeks at her, then he smiles. “You still love me.”

“No, I hate you, but you never could tell the difference.” She brings her other gun across his temple with a crack and he slumps to the ground. “Ahote! Meet me upstairs. And bring some rope.”