as his skin was broken. Losing purchase, he crashed down to the pavement and was dragged backward through dirty puddles and oil stains. With his bloody fingers, he fought the claiming and got nowhere—
All at once he was up off the ground and spun around. Suspended in midair, his feet dangling to a point, his arms were pinned to his sides and his body became immobile, though there was nothing on him.
The robed figure didn’t walk to him. It drifted, hovering above the filthy ground.
“I chose you,” it said in that weird voice, “because you were the only one with a brain. This may have been a mistake on my part. Brawn usually works better. One would think I would have learned that after all these centuries.”
With a flick of the wrist, the evil sent Mr. F flying through the air, and the momentum stopped only when he slammed face-first into the side of a tenement, his nose busting wide open, the impact of his chin such that it nearly dislocated his jaw joints. Pressure on his back increased until he couldn’t draw a breath, and he had some thought that he should be suffocating. He didn’t, though the pain made him see stars.
The voice of evil closed in on him as he was once again dragged down to the ground, the rough brick wall shaving off layers of skin on his cheek. “You are a summary disappointment.”
As his feet registered a return to the asphalt, he strained his eyes to see what was behind him.
“I shall give you one more chance to dazzle me,” the evil said in a bored tone. “And then I shall move on.”
Mr. F squeezed his eyes shut. “Let me go—”
A hand palmed the back of his head and pushed so hard, he could feel his cheekbone start to give way against the brick.
“I will not let you go. And you need to be punished for your transgressions—”
“Against what?” Mr. F gritted out.
“Against me!”
“How have I transgressed . . .” A toxic sickness flooded into Mr. F’s body, and he told himself to stop talking, but his mouth wouldn’t listen. “I have done nothing—”
“And that is your transgression.” The horrible voice was right next to his ear. “You are supposed to serve me.”
“How?” Mr. F groaned. “You never told me how. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
The evil relented some of the pressure, as if it were briefly reconsidering the condemnations it leveled. “Listen to your mind, it will tell you what I want. And in the meantime, I know what you can do to service me now.”
There was a pause.
And then something was driven so far into him that Mr. F screamed from the pain.
Back at the Brotherhood’s mansion, Butch was in the process of opening the door into the vestibule to leave when a gloved hand slammed the thing shut on him and stayed put like it was a car parked grille into the wood.
“Where do you think you’re going,” V said grimly.
Butch pivoted around, and had to catch himself to keep on his feet. “I’m picking up Marissa.”
V looked confused. “What?”
“I’m going to go pick up Marissa.”
Those diamond eyes narrowed. “You think you’re picking up Marissa?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Not even close, my guy.” V linked an arm through Butch’s. “And you’re going nowhere this drunk—”
Butch meant to separate himself from his roommate, but it was weird. The mosaic floor seemed to be made of liquid, everything shifting under the soles of his loafers. As he went off-kilter, he ended up pulling himself back to rights on V’s biceps.
“I have to go pick her up at work.”
“You mean pick her up from work? It’s not four a.m.”
“Yes, it is?”
Now Butch was the one frowning. And things got even more confusing as he lifted up his wrist and looked down at his Audemars Piguet. The Oak’s famously eight-sided dial was all smudged, and the numbers appeared to be moving instead of the hands.
“I think my watch is broken.”
“You wanna try that again?”
“Is your hearing bad?”
Vishous gave him a bored look. “If what you just asked me was whether my hearing is a problem, I think it’s more your mouth. ’Cuz what just came out of it was something like ‘Ian Ziering mad.’”
“Huh. Weird. Maybe he is mad, though. They’re not doing any more Sharknados.”
“Gimme that.”
When a tumbler half-full of brown liquid was taken out of his hand, Butch wondered where the thing had come from. Then again, everything felt like a mystery.