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.”
    Santoro leaned forward, rising onto his toes so that his lips were an inch from the back of Grey’s neck. “You told me that you were a man of faith, Dr. Grey. Do you remember? That first day when fortune brought me to you? When I showed you the pictures of those angels.”
    “Angels … ?” The pictures that this man had shown him were not of angels, but he understood what Santoro meant. Grey gagged at the thought of such horrors being described as angelic. They were images out of hell itself.
    The blade was an icy promise on his flesh. “Are you saying now that you were lying to me? Lying about faith?”
    “No! No,” pleaded Grey. “That’s not what I meant … .”
    “Then tell me what you meant, Dr. Grey. Tell me that you believe the All is capable of everything. Everything.”
    “Y-yes … .”
    “Say it,” Santoro growled. He raised the knife from Grey’s cheek until the beveled edge filled his vision.
    “Yes,” Grey said hastily. “I believe, God help me, I believe, but—”
    With a snarl, Santoro withdrew the knife and with his free hand grabbed Grey’s shoulder and spun him violently around.
    “ God may believe you, but you are a piece of shit in the eyes of the Goddess!” Santoro wore a black mask, but through the eyeholes his eyes blazed with dark fire. He then snatched Grey’s right hand and slapped the knife into his sweating palm.
    Grey sputtered with confusion and looked dumbly down at the vicious weapon he held. It had a six-inch double-edged blade and a handle wrapped in red silk thread. It looked as much like a tool of ritual as it did an instrument of destruction.
    “Do you know what faith is, Dr. Grey?” Santoro asked quietly. When Grey shook his head, the small man smiled. “Faith is my shield; it is the armor that covers my flesh and soul. I am a man of faith, Dr. Grey. I know that the Goddess protects me. I know that she has forged me into her sword.”
    “I … I … ,” was all that Grey could manage.

    “If you are a true man of faith, Dr. Grey, then you will believe that the Goddess lives in you. Use that faith. Prove its existence to me and to yourself. Cut me.”
    Grey looked at the weapon in his hand. His face twisted into a mask of horror as if he held a squirming scorpion.
    “Do it,” insisted Santoro.
    “I—can’t … No …”
    “Do it or I will go into the house and find young Mikey and show him the knife. Would you like that, Dr. Grey? Would you like to watch? I will leave you one eye so that you can see it, and I will leave you most of your tongue so that you can scream. You will want to scream.”
    Grey suddenly stabbed at the small man. He saw his hand move before he felt his muscles flex, the dagger point glittering as it tore through the shadows toward Santoro’s smiling mouth.
    But Santoro was not there.
    In the gloom of the garage he became a blur. He pivoted on one foot and shifted so that the stabbing knife pierced only empty air. His hands flashed out, striking and striking and striking, the movements unspeakably fast, the blows hideously powerful. He struck Grey in the groin and the floating ribs and the solar plexus and the throat. Santoro pivoted like a dancer and struck Grey in the kidneys and tailbone and between the shoulders. Then the scientist was falling, falling, all in a fractured second. His arm still reached for the stab, but his body crumpled within the cocoon of blows.
    He collapsed onto the cold concrete floor of the garage, gagging, gasping for air with lungs that seemed incapable of drawing a spoonful of breath. His mouth worked like a dying fish, making only the faintest squeaks.
    Santoro stood above him, composed, relaxed, not even breathing hard. He knelt and picked up the knife, cleaned away the surface smudges on Grey’s shirtsleeve, and stood. The knife vanished into its hidden sheath beneath Santoro’s jacket.
    “When you can breathe again,” he said, “I suggest you spend some time on your knees. Pray to the