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pain. He walked away casually toward the northern edge of Sheep Meadow and the Neil Singer Lilac Walk. Tomorrow there would be a slight downtick in the financial markets and the public would not know why. But those in power would.
    Ketterman was the third principal bank negotiator he had dispatched in a year. Bringing bad fortune to these people was Caine’s way of destroying and re-creating the world. I have done well and had fun doing it.
    During the preceding few weeks Caine had shocked a number of people who in one form or another were in conflict with Ketterman with the tweet “Ketterman will soon join his ancestors.” His death would work to their advantage if they prepared to act quickly. One of those people was Sam Conklin. That’s how the Trickster and Conklin met over a simple tweet. Conklin thought it was a miracle, but Caine knew better.

April, 1950
Edinburgh, Scotland
    C aine was walking on Calton Hill. To the west lay the Salisbury Crags and beyond them the Firth of Forth. The sounds of traffic were muted this early in the morning. He loved the slow walk. The infrequently traveled path was lush with gorse and everywhere around him were lochs and glens. He thought it was as if God had brought to the Scottish lowlands a wild piece of the highlands to remind all Scots of their true heritage. Each step brought him upwards, out of the mist that had settled over Edinburgh and hid the 400-year-old cemeteries of the capitol city’s Old Town. Holyrood Palace was barely visible. It’d been sometime since he had ascended Calton Hill to walk among Edinburgh’s prized collection of monuments—Nelson’s telescope, the city observatory, and Caine’s favorite national monument, the unfinished copy of the Parthenon.
    He sat atop the tall hill and breathed in deeply, wrapping the clean air around him like a blanket, and settling within its crisp folds like a babe nestling to its mother. The gods are near , he told himself, and sighed contentedly.
    In times past, he had sat here for hours, under the night sky waiting to be called. He always knew the best times to be alone. But today was not one of those times. The King was in residence and the cultural center of Scotland was buzzing with excitement. His Majesty’s presence had brought thousands of tourists from the kingdom and around the world. It can’t be helped. Transitions happen when they happen .
    He stood up and rested a slim fingered hand along the gray bricks of Nelson’s Telescope. The monument pointed north toward the Firth of Forth as if spying on the sea and what dangers it held. As he waited, the sun rose above the fog settling in the low parts of Old Town, brightening the cobalt blue sky. Somewhere out of the mist a bell tolled. He counted the peals—seven o’clock. It’s nearly time .
    The sound of lorries chugging up the main road, engines straining with the loads of tourists coming to visit Calton, made a plaintive counterpart to the rustle of the wind in the shrubs. Then into the dark blue heaven splashed a sound like God playing bagpipes. Caine looked skyward straining to hear. The sound, like breezes to anyone else, brought him a new task. He listened. There on the steps of the old observatory a woman is in labor. A baby is coming.
    The message ended. Caine had walked over to where the crowd had gathered. The terrified husband was yelling for somebody to help. A handful of onlookers gathered around helpless.
    Caine threaded his way through the tourists. He gazed at the mother. Her hair hung in stringy wet curls; her face was a blotchy patchwork of bright red and pasty white. Her breathing came in labored gasps, dampening, slower, slower with each contraction, each push weaker than the last. A young man began running down the hill, shouting he was going for help. The nearest phone booth was miles away and the ambulance miles beyond that. They would never arrive in time.
    Caine knelt down and