Ross was bouncing one leg on its toes as he sat on the grounded helicopter's rear bench, rubbing the tips of his left hand nervously across his lips. He could see the constant motion was starting to get to Lieutenant Garcia.

"Sorry," he apologized to the pilot, and again to the gunner. "Sorry, Corporal. It's this or biting my nails."

"No worries, sir," Thompson replied, leaning casually against the stealth machine that was currently unstealthy. "Everybody copes with anxiety in their own way."

"Where the hell is he?" Garcia groused, pacing back and forth along the left side of the aircraft, hands on hips in the posture of a Little League baseball coach waiting for a tardy player. "It's ten o'clock, for God's sake. He's always here by seven."

"Well, it is a Sunday," offered Thompson. "Maybe he decided to take the day off."

"What the hell would The Slayer do with a day off? Go bowling?" Garcia kicked a rock into the golf course's overgrown grass.

"We have no idea what he does when he's not with us," Thompson reminded them. "He could be taking a pottery class for all we know."

"Or detailing his armor," Ross mused. "Even though demon blood and guts burn away after they die, there must be gunpowder residue and dirt in all those little grooves."

Garcia grumbled, "Great. I'm sure all the people dying out there will be comforted to know that The Slayer didn't rescue them because he's doing something more important: his laundry."

"And you and I could fly around sniping demons 24/7, but instead we shoot the breeze with the techs down in Fabrication every evening," Thompson reminded his superior officer. "Everybody needs downtime to recover so you don't lose your mind, especially when you've seen awful shit." He didn't need to mention the caravan from two days ago. The one they'd arrived at far too late to save.

Ross told himself, 'Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't –' but it happened anyway.

There had been no bodies. The only things left were the line of burning cars, warped and broken firearms, torn clothing, and human scalps. Apparently the demons didn't digest hair very well, so they removed it along with the shoes and clothing, the way humans peel an orange before eating.

Most of the scalps had been very small …

Ross put his head on his knees and breathed deeply so he wouldn't start throwing up again.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Thompson uncap a canteen of water and pop in an electrolyte tablet in case Ross needed to rehydrate, like he had after finding the caravan.

"Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to bring it up."

"S'okay," Ross slurred. "It'll pass."

"Dammit," Garcia swore. "Where the hell did he go?"

'More to the point,' Ross thought, 'what do we do if he never comes back?'


Ayers reminded Vincent of the tiger.

Even as early as his twenties, Vincent had garnered a reputation for being good with captive wild animals, and he had frequently been contracted to help transport rehabilitated wildlife back to their natural environments. One of those animals had been the biggest Bengal tiger he'd ever seen.

The giant cat, easily six hundred pounds and seven feet from nose to haunches, had taken a few paces out of its travel cage and sniffed the air with its mouth half-open for maximum scent capture. Then it had turned and looked Vincent – and only Vincent – right in the eyes. He'd immediately known that the tiger was deciding whether the first thing it was going to do with its freedom was become a man-eater. Fortunately for him, the giant feline had blinked once, slowly, and then swaggered off into the jungle.

His wife used to brag that he had "stared down a tiger" but Vincent knew better: the beast had allowed him to live because it was in a good mood.

That was the vibe he got from Ayers: a contented predator. Temporarily docile, but by no means tame.

If Ayers was a predator, though, did that make Lizzie prey? Vincent would prefer to think not. Ayers took Lizzie-related advice well, like when Vincent had told him it would be more respectful if he didn't stare at her ass every chance he got. That compliance could be an act, though. A smokescreen for Vincent to let his guard down. Well, if this soldier-of-fortune turned out to be yet another scumbag who thought a "disfigured" woman should be grateful for any scrap of affection, Vincent could always lure him into one of the bear traps.

He squinted at Ayers, searching for signs of predatory behavior.

The merc looked up like he'd felt Vincent's examination begin, gave him a small nod, and returned his gaze to the woman whose emotions he had better not be toying with if he wanted to keep his feet.

"Oh, come on," she sweet-talked him, even batting her lashes once. "Don't be like that."

Ayers was leaning back against the cave wall with his arms crossed and the sole of one boot flat against the stone. He moved his bent knee to symbolically block Lizzie from his personal space.

"It's just a card game." Her tone was cheeky with a hint of flirtation. "We don't even play for real currency, so it's not like you lost all your rent money because of one bad hand."

He raised a brow. One bad hand? said his expression.

"Okay: nine," Lizzie admitted. "Nine bad hands. You had a losing streak. Happens to everybody."

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Not to you, it doesn't.

"That's because I used to play professionally. I can tell right away if I need to fold. You, on the other hand, don't know when to quit."

Ayers turned his face away petulantly. Vincent recognized the tension around the marine's eyes that meant he was holding back a smile. 'Ah, yes,' he thought, 'a common tactic for getting a pretty girl to talk to you: act like you need persuasion.' Fortunately Ayers wasn't truly being manipulative. He was play-acting, with the implied subtext that all he really wanted was her undivided attention for a few minutes.

Harry had been monopolizing the soldier's time all morning and hadn't stopped until they told him he could play with Veronica and the baby skunks in the infirmary. Then the adults played cards, but Lizzie wasn't the type to exclude an old man from conversation, so Ayers hadn't had her full attention then either. Vincent would have accused him of throwing the game so this little face-to-face would happen, except that the man honestly never folded unless he was letting Harry win. When he was dealt a bad hand, Ayers would still hold on to the slim hope that he could make it through, and was genuinely puzzled each time he lost. That mindset was not helped by the fact that Ayers was unusually lucky and tended to win when he shouldn't have. Well, today they weren't playing with the boy, so Lizzie had gone in for the kill and now the merc was flat broke.

Vincent shook his head in amusement and went back to his woodburning tools.

"Consider it a life lesson, okay?" Lizzie continued. "Sometimes you have to lose small so you don't lose big."

Vincent raised his voice slightly. "It's no use, Liz. Ayers is incapable of losing on purpose. You'll have to keep mopping the floor with him."

Ayers gave him a tiny glare. Gee, thanks.

Vincent rebuffed his glare with a bland look. "Would you rather I say you're just too dumb for poker?"

… No.

"I could teach you a different game," Lizzie offered. "Cribbage, or Hearts, something like that?"

He fanned his right hand out like arranging cards. Poker. He made a zero with his left hand. Or nothing.

"Okay, then, what are you going to bet with? Because you've refused to take a loan, and we established last week that 'finding' a box of Jujubes in your ammo belt is cheating."

Ayers turned his face the other way and re-crossed his arms. Lizzie giggled. Ayers's mouth twitched like he wanted to smile.

Vincent pointed sternly at him with the woodburning tool, a tiny wisp of smoke coming off the end. "Do not say 'Strip Poker', young man."

Lizzie's cheeks went pink.

Ayers tilted his head. Strip Poker? What's that?

Vincent rolled his eyes. "Right. A forty-something man who's spent most of his life in the military has never heard of Strip Poker."

Ayers shrugged.

"Uh-huh."

Harry popped up at Vincent's side. "What's Strip Poker?"

"Uh … it's …" Vincent glanced at Lizzie for assistance. She folded her arms and leaned back against the stone wall next to Ayers.

"Don't look at me, Carter," she said. "You got yourself into this one."

"Well, Harry, my dear boy …" Vincent left pauses every few words so he could think. "Strip Poker is the name of a … variety of the game of poker where … the players who are playing … the game of poker … make bets in order to … win the pot … which … is … strips of bacon."

Lizzie chuckled behind her hand. Ayers looked confused.

"Bacon's messier than wrapped candies," Harry said. "And you wouldn't be able to keep any in a drawer for the next game."

"Very true, son. Very true." Vincent wiped his brow.

Harry bounced on his toes. "I think we should play Candy Poker instead."

"We haven't decided what certain people are going to use for their ante." Lizzie elbowed Ayers, who flicked his gaze down at her and away again. She giggled.

"Well," Vincent said, thinking quickly. "We could bet with chores."

"Or kazoo time!" Harry put in excitedly.

Dear God, Lizzie said under her breath. At her side, Ayers made the low hum that was his version of laughter.

"That would certainly raise the stakes, Harry." Vincent stroked his white stubble, thinking. "We'd have to come to an agreement on the value of certain chores or rewards as we go."

"Kazoo time! Kazoo time!" The boy jumped up and down in excitement.

"Kazoo time would be quite expensive, Harry," Lizzie decided on the spot. "It's very valuable. Very."

Ayers hummed again.


Forty minutes later, a sullen-faced Ayers was holding the frame for the library's roof up over his head. Vincent worked on hammering it into the support posts while the marine's power armor allowed him to hold it in place. The noise of Harry's damn kazoo was coming from grain storage this time so the skunks could have a break from the squawking.

Lizzie sanded down the planks for bookshelves and tried not to sound patronizing. "I told you it was probably a good idea to fold."

Ayers grumbled wordlessly.

She bit back a grin. " 'Ayers,' I said, 'there's an awful lot riding on this. Three hours of handyman work for Vincent is no joke.' "

He responded with an ambiguous grunt and a refusal to look at her.

Holding in the laughter was starting to make her stomach muscles feel like she'd done too many sit-ups. His disgusted expression at the situation he'd gotten himself into had gone so far beyond grumpy that it had circled back around to cute again.

Once more, Vincent got the feeling that Ayers wasn't actually upset that he had a reason to stand there looking at Lizzie for minutes on end. Knowing her, she was completely unaware that the vigorous motion with which she was sanding the planks made certain "feminine features" jiggle. If the trickle of sweat running down Ayers's temple was any indication, the marine was having a hard time not staring whenever the motion caught his eye. But he was making the effort not to ogle her, and that was important.

He also knew her "dad" was watching him.

Eventually Lizzie wandered over to look at their progress. She hopped up onto the finished flooring and circled Ayers admiringly.

The mercenary had been bracing the roof for a good forty-five minutes now, so Vincent wasn't surprised when she said, "Wow, you've kept it up for a long time."

Ayers and Vincent exchanged a look. Vincent burst out laughing.

"That's not what I meant!" Lizzie protested.

"So," Vincent snickered, "you're interested in how long Ayers can keep it up, eh?"

Ayers smirked but didn't meet her eyes.

"Stop that!" she demanded. Her cheeks were practically fuchsia with embarrassment.

"I'm sure Ayers will be happy to erect some more wood for you when he's finished here."

"Shut it, Carter. You know what I was trying to say. I meant his armor lets him keep it up longer than a regular person. An ordinary soldier would have gotten tired already."

Ayers gave her a crooked grin.

"That is not an innuendo!"

He raised a suggestive eyebrow. Lizzie made a frustrated noise.

Vincent guffawed so hard that he almost lost his grip on the roofing frame. "Li–Liz, you're gonna make me f–fall off this ladder."

She stomped her foot. "You two are impossible."

Ayers's back was to it, but she and Vincent saw the two-by-four move. Shaken out of its tilt against the wall by her stomp, it fell toward Ayers like a headsman's axe.

Lizzie lunged and caught the toppling plank in her palm. She hissed in pain, tossing it aside and grabbing her wounded hand with the other.

It was a good thing the roof was now secure, otherwise both it and Vincent would have taken a tumble when Ayers spun around to check on Lizzie.

She was making those growling noises that people use to deal with pain. Ayers's hands hovered around Lizzie, wanting to help her stop the trickle of blood. Vincent jumped off the ladder and hustled to her other side.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Had a nail in it," Lizzie explained, lifting her left thumb so Vincent could see that her palm had been pierced. Fortunately it was a not-too-deep puncture in the muscle at the base of her right thumb, and nowhere near the bone or ligaments. It sure was bleeding, though.

"I'm sorry, Liz, that's my fault. I shouldn't have stood it in the corner like that."

Ayers glared at Vincent, teeth bared in an expression that was as far from a smile as it gets: a bad-tempered tiger about to take a chunk out of someone.

Vincent was suddenly aware that he was unarmed, and too old for a bare-knuckle brawl with a guy like Ayers.

Then the threatening display of teeth vanished. A shiver of relief ran down his back.

"And if I hadn't stomped my foot like a child, it wouldn't have moved, either. So we're equally at fault."

"Let's get to the infirmary," Vincent said. "Liz, have you had a tetanus shot?"

"Yeah. Rusty machines at work and whatnot. I'm not due for another until '52."

"Let's get you a booster anyway. Just in case."

Ayers moved like he was going to pick her up.

"Ayers," she told him gently, "I don't need to be carried. It's a puncture, not a broken leg."

Vincent herded Veronica and the kits toward the storage closet and shut them in while Ayers paced around Lizzie like a mother hen.

She hopped up to sit on the examination bench and Vincent arranged supplies on the steel surgical table next to it.

"It stopped bleeding already. See?"

Ayers jerked his face away as if the small puncture stank of gangrene.

A lot of things were flickering across his face, but the predominant message was Why did you catch that?

Lizzie smiled in confusion. "I couldn't let it fall on you. A puncture in the hand is a lot easier to treat than a head wound. You could have been seriously injured."

Ayers looked a little green around the gills.

Vincent thought quickly. A guy didn't want to vomit in front of the object of his affection if he could help it. "Say, Ayers, would you go take care of that two-by-four? I don't want Harry to hurt himself while I'm patching up Liz here."

Ayers turned on his heel and strode out.

"Is he okay?" Lizzie asked. As usual: worried about something other than her own injuries. "Maybe he can't stand the sight of blood, although that would be unusual for a soldier, right?"

"I think he can't stand the sight of your blood," Vincent clarified. "Watching the tetanus shot would not have been fun, either."

He flushed the wound with antiseptic and began to apply the ointment and bandages. They heard splintering noises, and smashing. Ayers was taking his frustration out on the plank that had injured Lizzie.

"I hope he cleans that up," Vincent mumbled.

Lizzie sprang off the bench as soon as he'd given her the tetanus shot.

Ayers was now pacing back and forth in front of the exit. The hand that wasn't holding his helmet was clenching and unclenching so forcefully that they could hear the leather creaking. He appeared to be breathing hard, and wouldn't look at them.

Finally he jammed on his headgear and punched a code into the keypad. He was gone before they could even call out to him.

"You don't think he's having some sort of combat flashback, do you?" Lizzie asked with concern.

"No, Liz. If I had to guess, I'd say he's upset you got hurt protecting him." He patted her shoulder. "Give it some time. He just needs to walk it off."


Oppenheim's desk beeped in the particular sequence that meant a presidential call was incoming from NORAD. He tapped the Accept icon.

"Director Oppenheim," President Georgiou said almost cheerfully. "Your special project is here. He appears to be … perturbed. It's really quite fascinating."