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cigarette dangling from his elegant fingers.
                  “Thought you changed your mind.”
                  It would have been his lucky day if I had changed my mind, but the need in me was too strong. He wasn’t a virus like my father, he was a bacterium and I was the antibiotic. This was what I was meant to do.
                  “Just had to say my goodbyes and freshen up.” I’d never actually made it into the restroom to freshen up, but it was more about the ritual than anything else anyway.
                  “What would you like to do?” He dropped the cigarette and put it out with his boot.
                  Interesting. He wasn’t going for the score, asking me if I wanted to go to his studio to look at his art, but I was sure his true art was death. “I didn’t get that far.” I offered him a shy smile and put the ball back firmly in his court.
                  I felt a presence at my back, some intensity burrowing though my spine like a bullet. I spun around and saw the tails of a leather trench coat like bird’s wings disappear around the corner and into the alley on the other side of us.
                  The Cross. It had to be. Just what I fucking needed. I decided maybe I should resign myself to zero productivity. There was no way I’d get anything done with Jason and the Cross up my ass every time I turned around.
                  “You know that guy?”
                  “What guy?” Had Richard seen him?
                  “The guy that just darted around the corner. He was staring at you when we were inside.”
                  I was really losing it if he’d been inside and I hadn’t even seen him. “I’m a cop. I meet new people every day under less than ideal circumstance. They tend to remember me more than I do them.”
                  “I don’t know, Brynn. He was looking at you like he wanted to kill you.”
                  “Also nothing new.” I shrugged. It didn’t matter if the Cross saw me kill. He knew what I was. I guessed if it came down to it, I wouldn’t stop if Jason was watching either. I’d rather he didn’t because I didn’t want him to see that part of me yet, but I had no choice. I’d been forged for killing—for death. I suppose it was stupid, but I wasn’t ready. “But I wouldn’t mind if we talked and walked at the same time.”
                  “Of course.” He offered me his arm like some gentleman of yore.
                  “So polite.”
                  “A modern world doesn’t have to be an inconsiderate one.”
                  I took his arm and felt silly doing it, but all the more so because of his seriousness. We wandered in companionable silence for a few moments, moving amongst the throngs out on the street. Then he pulled me into The Jerusalem Café. They had the best gyros I’d ever tasted, the meat so succulent and tender. The thought made my mouth water.
                  We ate and talked—shared Turkish coffee and marzipan cake. I still hadn’t decided how I was going to kill him.
                  When he excused himself to go to the restroom, I played with my salad, pushing it around on my plate trying to decide the best method of extermination.
                  Someone slid in the booth a few minutes later, but it wasn’t Richard. It was the Cross.
                  “What do you want? Either kill me, or fuck off. I’m working here,” I snarled.
                  He tsked at me like I was some kind of naughty child. “You should be home reading the Hel Cycle. However will you ascend if you don’t know your seven labors like Hercules?”
                  “Seven? I don’t have time for seven of anything.”
                  “You have plenty of time