Boston

Steven Foreman, boss of the Deathguard Boston Chapter, got out of his Mercedes, opened the back door for Grinder, his Pitt bull terrier, and swiped the key card through the front entrance. Steven didn't need a bodyguard; he had Grinder, who brought tons of biting power and had already mauled several attackers.

The door opener beeped, and the door to the outside elevator opened. Grinder dashed into the elevator, barking. His master shoved his massive frame after him. Steven Foreman lived at the very top, on the eighth and ninth floors of the building, like a king, high above the city he ruled like few others. He had just made his rounds, collecting protection money, talking to the pimps, and checking up on business in his nightclubs. There were also a few new girls to break in. There had again been a few bitches among them, where Steven had to lend a hand himself. But that's what he was the boss for.

The Deathguards were always called a 'rocker club' in the media, and Steven was only fitting. Because in reality, they were much more; they had their hands, among other things, in the drug trade, which flourished especially in the clubs.

However, the cops were glad that Steven's Deathguards kept order and not countless small gangs. Besides, with Steven, they had only one contact person.

The American rule of law was about to abolish itself anyway, and the state was throwing its monopoly on violence overboard like a load of rotten potatoes. Tax evasion and parking tickets were the only illegal things in America, which was okay with Steven. Ultimately, the Deathguards took over the tasks that the cops would be responsible for because the government and the judiciary forbade them from doing their job correctly. Who had driven the Russian mafia out of the neighborhood? The Deathguards, not the cops. Who had killed more than twenty Albanian pimps in a large-scale operation? The Deathguards.

They agreed with the police: We ensure peace and order prevail, and you give us a free hand in return. There's nothing else you can do anyway.

And the police had quietly agreed because they had no other choice.

The elevator whirred upward. Grinder eyed his master expectantly.

"It's okay; you're about to get fed." Steven glanced at his cell phone as he rode up. He had the rest of the evening off, and he could have another beer, then go to bed. After all, it was three in the morning. But such were the hours when dealing with businesses that thrived best at night.

The elevator door opened, and Steven entered his realm. He tossed the key card on the rack outside the door and was about to hang his leather jacket on the coat rack when he heard the growl.

"Grinder?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

At that moment, he saw it.

A figure stood at the end of the hall. Tall, broad, dark.

Motionless as a statue. But he was not a statue; he was a flesh and blood human being, for he was moving.

Grinder had instantly scented the stranger. The pit bull pulled his lips up and bared his teeth as the light of the moon cast the stranger's shadow on the carpet.

"Okay, asshole," Steven said. "Either you come forward with your hands up, or you're going to be made mincemeat."

He could barely contain Grinder. The dog let out a low growl and shook with excitement like a ravenous predator scenting blood. If Steven let him off the chain now, the stranger would be mauled within moments.

The hulking man did not move and didn't seem to have a weapon. Bad for him, good for Steven. Still, he made one last attempt. "Who are you, and what do you want? Open your mouth, Shitface, or my dog will make dog food out of you."

For a few seconds, Steven heard only his dog's growl. Then the giant's voice rang out, "I am Death."

Steven laughed. "You're a real comedian. You're not Death; you're dead." He let go of the chain. "Grinder! Go get him!"

The dog lunged forward like a projectile. But the Shadow didn't move. Only at the last moment did he casually pluck a rug from the floor and wrap it around his arm in a flash. Grinder jumped, his mouth wide open. The hunky man threw his arm forward, and the attack dog bit into the thick carpet.

It was the split second the man needed.

His free hand shot forward, snatching a ballpoint pen from the side table and ramming it through the pit bull's eye and into his brain. A twitch ran through the dog's body. He emitted a shrill, almost human screech as he detached himself from the carpet, jaws grotesquely open, and fell to the floor like a doll. There he remained, wriggling until death delivered him.

"Dirty dog," the giant spat contemptuously and flung the carpet aside. There was something strange in his voice.

He bent down and pulled the pen from the dead animal's head. Blood, brain matter, and parts of the eye clung to the silver pen. He raised it in the air. "Did you see? I just butchered your dung beast with a ballpoint pen."

The stranger threw the pen to the ground and strolled toward Steven. One step, and one more. And another.

Steven forced himself not to back away.

"And now," the stranger said, "I will slaughter you."

Slowly, Steven made out the man's outline and face as he drew closer.

It was rare for the boss of Deathguards Boston to be afraid.

Now he was afraid. Terrified.

xxx

It was the last evening of the vacation. A Sunday evening. Sunday evening was a day that didn't play fair anyway. On the one hand, it was a holiday, the best day of the week for many, and on the other hand, it was so close to the gray Monday and the work week that it was almost a work day. In other words, Sunday was a day that was only too happy to allow Monday to stretch its dirty neck ominously into the weekend. All in all, therefore, a day that could only be described as a giant screw-up.

If Sunday alone was depressing enough, it was even worse when a three-week vacation was over, and the last day also fell on a Sunday. Which meant you had to work five full days before it was the weekend again.

Hard to believe, there were enough idiot men and idiot women who laid their vacation precisely in such a way that the last day was a Sunday.

I'm one of those jerks, too, thought Elizabeth Rizzoli, sitting on her portio in the balmy evening air of this late summer, comfortably drinking a glass of whiskey and smoking a cigarette. She only briefly saw the wisps of smoke rising into the evening sky; then, they were gone in the twilight.

Elizabeth was happy in her job. She loved it and lived for it. She couldn't live without it, as the saying went. But when she had a few weeks of distance, she realized how many other things there were. How many unsolved questions and mysteries - mystical, uplifting, interesting. Questions beyond which lunatic had once again killed another lunatic, which lowlife had microwaved a baby, or which pervert had stuck quarter sticks into the vaginas of defenseless women out of boredom.

Elizabeth shooed those thoughts away. It was nighttime, so it was no good dwelling on such things. A new day would come at the BPD, where Elizabeth was on duty as a homicide detective. Starting again tomorrow. In a few hours.

That's as sure as eggs are eggs, the detective reflected. After all, you're an enlightened person, unlike our ancestors.

The fact that the sun chariot crossed the sky again the following day had always been a surprise for the ancients. A joyful surprise at that, since for them, there was always the danger that the Fenris Wolf would swallow the sun and thus bring about the end of the world.

Elizabeth was not afraid of the end of the world. For it would also sweep the scum she hunted day in and day out from the face of the earth. The wolf that swallowed the sun chariot came anew every day, just as the world's end came every day. A thousand times. For he who kills a man kills a world.

Indeed, death came for everyone. But how it came was beyond control.

The realm of the dead, the detective thought. The old dead gave way to the newly dead. One corpse tossed another from the grave. Final rest, my ass. Not even that lasted forever. All that remained was the hope of life after death. Another, better existence. But Elizabeth believed less and less in that.

Well, she said to herself on vacation. Hope dies last.

Fortunately, she hadn't struggled with such questions while on vacation. She had been in Italy with her wife Maggie and their two daughters Ashlyn and Nikke, first by the sea, then in several cities. By car from Florence through Tuscany: Montepulciano, San Gimignano, Siena. They had seen a lot, had rested well, and eaten well. Elizabeth had deliberately not stepped on the scales at the end of the vacation, but her pants already told her that she had put on weight. But the holiday had distracted her, and it should.

But the question that the detective had wanted to clarify was still unanswered.

Elizabeth stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray before rising from her chair and entering her home.

Her wife, Maggie Ross, stood at the kitchen island reading two letters spread out before her, her lips pressed together, a deep frown adorning her forehead.

Elizabeth didn't have to ask what her wife was reading that caused the frown; she knew full well that this letter was the question she wanted to grapple with while on vacation in Italy, and still unanswered.

Maggie, the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, sensed her wife's presence and slowly raised her gaze, which was meaningful.

Elizabeth dropped her shoulders instantly. "Maggie --"

Maggie tapped both letters alternately with her fingertips and furrowed her brows. "When were you planning to talk to me about this?" she asked. "Before or after our family vacation?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath and walked toward her wife. "I was going to talk to you about it ... when I made something like a ... decision."

Maggie nodded slowly and licked her lips, no reproach evident in her gaze. "These are --" She paused, searching for words. "These are incredible opportunities for your career, Liz. Why ... Why haven't you talked to me about this before?"

Elizabeth waited for a few seconds for the next question, 'Did you even want to talk to me about this before you made a decision?' but the inquiry failed to materialize, much to her surprise.

She took a deep breath and walked to the kitchen island, letting her eyes wander over the two letters in front of her. The first letter bore the letterhead she knew very well and saw daily. The paper of the BPD. The second letterhead bore the emblem that, under other circumstances, she would face with suspicion and distrust. The letterhead of the FBI. She ran her hands over both letters with a thoughtful frown.

Shortly after the Guardian of the Death case, and just before she was about to take her well-deserved vacation, Jane had called her into her office and announced that she and the Chief of Police Boston had agreed in a one-on-one meeting that the detective had once again done an outstanding job, ridding the city of a monster one more time, even if the outcome didn't necessarily meet the expectations of the citizens of Boston, but that Elizabeth was not at fault, since no one could have foreseen that Carl Martinek would hang himself in his jail cell to escape the criminal justice system, even if it meant that he had saved a lot of money by committing suicide.

Jane had also submitted to her daughter that it was more than overdue for Elizabeth to take a step forward career-wise and give due credit to her hard work.

Elizabeth had expected to be invited to a ceremony after the vacation where she would be presented with a medal. What she hadn't counted on was finding a highly official letter on her last day of work stating that the Chief of Police would personally recommend her, Elizabeth Leigh Rizzoli, Boston Police Department homicide detective, for the sergeant's exam.

She had expected even less than the same day, an agent from the FBI in Quantico would intercept her in the BPD's underground parking garage after hours and ask to speak to her privately over drinks at the nearby cop bar.

At first, the detective thought that the FBI was dealing with a similar case and had sent an FBI agent to ask for her expertise while the Guardian of the Dead was still fresh in her mind.

She had immediately agreed to the drink and sent a text to Maggie and the girls that she would be a little late that evening after all, as the FBI would probably need her opinion on a case, even if she didn't know if that was factual.

That evening, the agent named Monroe had told her that the FBI had been following her work for several years and was highly impressed with her clearance rate and the way she analyzed cases and that he had been sent from Quantico to Boston to make her a job offer.

At first, Elizabeth had been shocked, surprised, and almost accepted in a burst of euphoria, but then her mind had kicked in. She had told the man that she was more than flattered that the FBI was interested in her and her work but that she couldn't make such a decision without talking about it with her family. The FBI agent had accepted this decision without an injunction, and he had handed her his business card, telling her that she could call him anytime once she had made a decision. He had also told her that he had heard about the Chief of Police's promotion proposal and that there would be no wrong decision.

Since that evening, the detective has been in a quandary. Either continue living in the city where she had grown up and where all her friends and relatives were, where she and her two daughters were deeply rooted. In the city where her life would have ended in tragedy more than once since she was a child. Or venture a new start in a strange city where neither she nor Maggie knew a soul, and at some point have to face the accusation of her eldest daughter, Nikki, that Elizabeth would try to manipulate her life because the girl, until that day didn't chnage about her plan to join the Army after graduation.

Maggie looked closely at her wife and tilted her head a little. It hadn't escaped her attention during the Italian vacation that her wife had been absent-minded from time to time but had put it down to the fact that the Guardian of the Death had demanded the utmost of all those who had been involved in the case. "Is that it? The reason you weren't always with us when we were in Europe?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath and licked her lips before emptying her whiskey glass with a final sip. "I'm conflicted, Mags," she said with a deep frown. "I grew up here, my ... Our kids grew up here, you grew up here. Our families and friends live in and around Boston. And the BPD ... the BPD is as much a thing as a family; I would never have gotten as far as I am today without the BPD. I owe --"

"You don't owe anything to anyone, Liz," Maggie interrupted the detective, and Elizabeth looked at her with wide eyes. The redhead shrugged and pulled the corners of her mouth down. "Jane and Maura shaped you and maybe even showed you the path to follow, but you alone chose to follow that path and become the woman you are today. You got to see humanity's good and bad and didn't become one of the monsters you hunt every day. Others wouldn't have been able to do that, would have been broken by what you and your family went through." She walked over to her wife and ran her hands over Elizabeth's shoulders, down her arms to her hands. "You alone have made yourself into the woman I fell in love with the first day I saw you. And no matter what you decide, BPD or FBI, I will follow you. Just like Nikki and Ash will follow you. And no one will hold anything against you."

Elizabeth relaxed and smiled a little now before kissing her wife. "I don't deserve you," she whispered as she rested her forehead against Maggie's.

Maggie kissed her again, then another time, a little longer and more intense, which the detective returned. Then she took Elizabeth's hand and walked toward the stairs that led to the upper floor where the couple's bedroom was located.

Elizabeth paused and drew her eyebrows together. "Maggie?"

Maggie looked over her shoulder with a lascivious smile. "This is our last night off, Liz. I may be pregnant, but I'm far from dead."

"Jesus," Elizabeth breathed with a suppressed growl and followed her wife upstairs without argument.