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late-night attendant locked inside the brightly-lit kiosk, he easily observed the sloth picking his nose and thumbing through a glossy magazine in the reflection of the Lincoln’s heavily-tinted glass.
    If the bored clerk happened to take an interest and look outside, he might wonder if he was looking at an empty silhouette — an echo — rather than the man himself. A charcoal two-piece suit draped seamlessly over an ebony shirt and a minimal Western-style shoestring tie. Even the piercings in each ear were invisible: black metallic tunnels in the same circumference as a .45 shell.
    If the driver closed his gloriously bright eyes and sucked bruised plum lips inside his mouth, he could almost disappear.
    The cashier wiped sticky fingers on one of the magazine pages before turning it, causing a visible shudder to run down the driver’s back.
    Observing was a force of habit. As natural as breathing. And at times like these, a curse, especially when he was forbidden from bringing any undue attention to his presence.
    More the pity.
    The clerk was disgusting. A poorly-shaved monkey with an IQ no larger than his waistband, he was one of those useless specimens whom nobody would miss and whose only benefit to the planet would come when he stopped consuming its limited resources, especially oxygen and water.
    With his gloved left hand engaged with the gas nozzle, the driver’s bare right palm glowed purple from the screen of his personalized cellphone. Although to call the slender, touch-screen device a phone was a tragic misnomer. Boasting military-level encryption and specialized apps, the phone was the closest thing to secure communication since the Navajo Windtalkers stumped the Japanese.
    While texting with only one thumb slowed his overall speed, it was only a slight impediment as the phone’s artificial intelligence had a surprisingly good record of correctly auto-completing his words.
    When his latest message was composed, he hit Send. The phone’s software automatically encoded all of his outgoing messages and decoded his incoming. It did it with such alarming speed, it was virtually invisible.
    Like him.
    The driver returned the nozzle to its housing. Before pocketing the printed receipt, he glanced at the customer name gleaned from the credit card: Sean Black. He didn’t care for the Christian name, but the surname was surprisingly delicious.
    He could enjoy being Mr. Black.
    Before getting behind the wheel, Mr. Black endured one last unobserved glance at the sloth-like attendant. The young man’s skin was the color of ash under the booth’s harsh fluorescent lights. His milky eyes were already dead to the dim future of his existence.
    Spilling his blood would be a blessing, but such things were no longer that simple.
    It was better before. Much better.
    Inside the vehicle, Mr. Black placed his phone in its dashboard cradle and activated the tracker application. A detailed map appeared on the phone’s generous high-resolution screen.
    A pulsating red dot, like a single drop of blood, showed him exactly where to go.

CHAPTER 10
     
     
    When Crow turned off the main road onto the quiet side street that led to his home, Wallace finally emerged from his self-imposed cocoon.
    Crow had glanced over numerous times during the trip, wondering if his friend had fallen asleep. But every time, he saw Wallace’s eyes staring blankly through the windshield, seeing nothing.
    Or perhaps, thought Crow, seeing too much.
    He hadn’t pushed, even though the heavy silence made him nervous.
    The time to talk would come.
    Wallace stirred and took in his surroundings. “What are we doing here?”
    “The people whose help we need don’t appreciate drop-ins,” said Crow. “It’s best I give them a heads up first.”
    “I thought they were family.”
    “They are, but that doesn’t make them any friendlier.” Crow wriggled his nose. “Besides, you could do with a shower and a change of clothes.”
    When they were within two