Steven was quivering with rage. "You fucking asshole!" he shouted. "You killed my dog!"

Steven Foreman was a man who never avoided a duel. He wouldn't use one if his opponent didn't have a firearm. He certainly wouldn't make an exception with this guy because he would show the bum where the hammer hung, even if the guy were a giant.

Steven pulled the hunting knife from the sheath on his boot and got ready. Hand-to-hand combat was far too rare, anyway. And what was he training so much for? Boxing, kickboxing, karate. He would break all the bones of this scum.

"Think of something nice real quick," he said, raising the knife. "Now it's your turn, you lousy piece of shit!"

Steven sped toward the stranger with a speed that would never have been expected from a massive man like him. He wanted to knock his opponent unconscious with a quick blow to the chin and, at the same time, ram the knife into his carotid artery from above. In with the blade and let it stick. This way, the arteries bled out into the inside of the body. And he, Steven, didn't have a mess on the floor.

Afterward, he would call his boys, who would come in with a big plastic bag. And tomorrow morning, by the time the contractor had collected his bribe, the guy's body would already be built into a bridge abutment on the city highway. Gone forever.

No body. No clues. No questions.

Steven's hand jerked forward. The heel of his hand touched the man's chin. But it remained at the fleeting touch, for in the last split second, the stranger had backed away quickly like a shadow. A blink of an eye later, he grabbed Steven's hand, which held the knife that came crashing down on his neck like a guillotine. Steven felt his opponent's free hand on his temple at that moment, and it was a clamping grip from which there was no escape. With his right hand, the giant held Steven's hand with the knife away from him; with his left, he pushed his opponent's head down.

Steven gasped as he tried with all his might to free himself. Feverishly he considered how to get out of the trap.

At that moment, the stranger jerked his knee up and hit Steven in the head with full force. He heard a wet crack, like a melon bursting. Glaring pain shot through his skull. He screamed and screamed.

Then his eyes went black.

xxx

When Steven awoke, he saw everything double. His skull felt heavy as lead and strangely damp, as if someone was pressing a giant wet sponge on his head.

When he tried to move, he found to his horror, that he couldn't move.

Only then did he see the giant stranger looking down at him, a knife in his hand - the knife he had taken from Steven.

"Well, that's too bad," the man said. "You cracked your skull, and that can happen when you mess with the wrong guy. But don't worry too long; you won't live anyway."

Steven looked down at himself, and the guy had pulled off his T-shirt and tied him up.

"Time to show the world I was here," the stranger said. With those words, he put the knife to Steven's muscular upper arm. At first, it hurt only slightly as the skin and upper layers of fat was cut. But as the blade penetrated deeper, it seemed to eat through Steven's flesh like acid.

He screamed in agony. His screams only ceased when the stranger covered his mouth with his massive paw while he continued to cut with his other hand. Steven moaned muffledly and tried to fight back, but he was useless. His body no longer obeyed him, and he was at the stranger's mercy. And he continued to cut mercilessly.

Oh God, Steven thought, what kind of animal is this?

In passing, the giant had almost finished him, the feared boss of the Deathguards. And his attack dog, too. Without a weapon.

Steven felt the man grab his other arm.

Then the blade drove through his flesh like a glowing flame. Again Steven felt his blood flow warm and sluggish over his skin.

At some point, the stranger took his hand from the tortured man's mouth. Greedily taking a breath, Steven looked up at his tormentor in pain, his eyes wide.

"Don't get impatient," the giant said. "It's going to take a little while."

"Who are you?" asked Steven in a quivering voice. "Listen, I ... I'll make you a deal. If you let me go --"

"No," said the stranger. "I'm not going to let you go, I'll kill you."

Steven wanted to retort something and beg the man to let him live, but in horror, he couldn't bring himself to utter another word.

The stranger took a step back, looking at the battered body of the Deathguard leader, transformed into a bloody trophy, lying on the table in front of him, helpless and trembling with pain and fear of death.

Finally, the stranger gently placed the tape over his victim's mouth, almost caringly. Steven watched the giant, rigid with terror. He was more afraid of what was coming now than he had ever been afraid of anything before.

My God, what kind of monster is this?

Then Steven saw the knife again.

Felt the first cut on his chest.

But this time, it was different.

The cuts were even more profound.

Even more painful.

Even worse.

xxx

Maura came down the stairs and frowned deeply, it was already late at night, and actually, she was just on her way to the kitchen to get a bottle of water from the fridge to quench her nightly thirst. But the dim light in the living room and the absence of her wife in bed led her to conclude that Jane was again unable to sleep for whatever reason.

She took two bottles of water from the refrigerator. She went into the living room, where the Chief of Detectives sat with her glasses perched on her nose, reading absorbedly through several files with a furrowed brow.

"An interesting case?" the attorney asked, holding one of the bottles out to the chief.

Jane peered over the rim of her glasses and, with a sigh, gratefully accepted the bottle of water as the attorney sat down next to her on the couch. "Rather an interesting personnel question."

Maura nodded slowly; even to her, it had filtered through that the FBI was more than interested in her daughter's work and approach and had launched a first attempt at poaching her. "And you're thinking about how to convince Liz to stay?"

Jane took her reading glasses off her nose and furrowed her brows. "If it were up to me, Elizabeth would already be a lieutenant, if not a captain. Just because of her track record. She's --"

"She's what?"

"I was good then."

Maura nodded slowly. "You're damn good at your job, always have been."

"Liz is better and thinks faster than I do."

"Someone told you the FBI was on to Elizabeth, didn't they?" Maura gave her wife a long look.

Jane took a deep breath and closed her laptop with a serious expression. "It would almost be a personal insult if they didn't try to poach Elizabeth. I mean, they've snatched up every one of us." She smiled wryly as she caught her wife's skeptical gaze. "At least, almost everyone. I mean Kate, Frankie, and Nina. Every one of them eventually ended up in the FBI, and two of them stayed there, too."

Maura pursed her lips and nodded slowly. Shortly after Jane managed to persuade Katherine to stay with BPD, an offer came to Nina from the FBI, who had shown great interest in her IT skills. And on top of that, the FBI was confident in Frankie's leadership skills, so the agency had managed to lure the couple to Colorado with some enticing offers.

Nodding, Maura took a deep breath. "Would you hold it against Liz if she accepted the FBI's offer?"

"I'd resent it a lot more if she didn't even think about it," the chief replied, opening the laptop again.

Maura frowned a little but smiled before kissing her wife on the cheek.

xxx

The following day at BPD, Elizabeth told herself what you always said to yourself when you'd stayed up too late the night before and also really needed another glass of whiskey. Next time, go to bed earlier. Next time, you'll be fine with just one glass of whiskey; next time, it will be different.

Elizabeth had read her emails and gone through the mail. Now she was standing at the stertorous coffee machine on the third floor of the BPD building, pouring herself a cup of coffee, when she heard familiar heavy footsteps in the hallway. She knew who it was. Because somehow, this person managed to pass by the break room whenever Elizabeth was here. To boot, this person was her immediate supervisor and the Chief of Detectives. This person had scared her a little bit. After all, what was the woman supposed to think when she kept running into the detective in the break room and not at her desk or at a crime scene?

But Elizabeth's supervisor sometimes loved to open the window near the break room. And if Elizabeth kept her company, all the better.

"Good morning, Detective," the Chief of Detectives said as she entered the break room, placed a file on the table, and poured herself a cup of coffee. "How was your vacation?"

"Very relaxing," Elizabeth replied, blowing into the coffee cup with a meaningful smile. "Only last night, I didn't get very much sleep." She rolled her eyes as her mother pulled her upper lip up. "It was so fucking hot, and I don't sleep well in the heat."

"It has nothing to do with your hormone-flooded pregnant wife," Jane replied, taking a deep breath as her daughter smiled slyly. "We should be glad it's still this warm. It's the last nice days of the year before the damn winter gets on our backs. Cold, wet, and roads not cleared. We should take Kate to that place again, okay? What was it called?"

"You mean The Oak and the Castle?"

"That's right, The Oak and the Castle. How about Thursday, when you're all settled back in?"

Elizabeth smiled, nodding. "Why not," she said, though she couldn't see any more whiskey now. "What's been going on around here?"

"Colleagues have been raiding funeral homes for the past week." Jane exhaled noisily. "Islamic funeral homes do it a little differently with funerals. Anyway, all owned by one owner, these institutes offered the relatives an all-inclusive carefree package. According to the motto: We'll take care of all the official paperwork for the dead person, including handing in passports and so on."

"I can already guess what happened."

"Yeah. They flogged the passports for two to five thousand dollars to Syrian refugees who wanted to get into the U.S. They could even pick the one with the picture that most resembled them from different passports."

"Now that's a weird business model. You'd think funerals would make enough money without the extra passport business."

Jane nodded and raised her eyebrows briefly. "I think so, too. People always die, and it's crisis-proof. When the economy's in terrible shape, suicides caused by personal bankruptcies are added to the mix, giving the business an extra boost. It's just that no one wants to do the job anymore, even though it pays well. There's a desperate need for skilled workers in the industry." She drank from her coffee. "But fixing up dead people isn't as hip as taking pictures of each other and then posting that shit on Facebook."

"But 'take pictures and top it off with social media' doesn't sound as cool either. They call it a 'viral marketing agency' then." Elizabeth laughed briefly. "Now, what about this funeral home owner?"

"License revocation and remand. I don't think he'll be deported, even though he doesn't have an American passport. It wouldn't be too bad for him, though. I'm sure he has enough passports on hold if he gets deported and wants to return to the U.S. But that's just the official reason."

"And what's the unofficial one?"

"That the CIA and FBI are already on the case. You see, it's suspected that this mortician is being controlled by IS terrorists, who use it to smuggle Islamists into the U.S. for attacks by providing terror fighters from Syria with American passports for entry."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah, holy shit," Jane said, eyeing her daughter for a moment. "What are your plans for today?"

Elizabeth looked at her smartwatch and took a deep breath. "I have a court date, one of those where I have to explain everything to the judge again because he was too lazy to read the files."

Jane shrugged. "So he won't read the files. It's him who ends up looking stupid, not you."

"Not quite," Elizabeth replied, taking a deep breath. "It's about the Incubus. Remember?"

Jane pursed her lips and nodded slowly. "That crazy guy who collected the tampons."

"Yes. And he made tea out of them. Because he thought that would make the women want him." Elizabeth drank from her coffee, trying not to think about the Incubus' tea. "When that - unsurprisingly - didn't work, he went back to raping the women as normal."

"Normal, aha," Jane said, shaking her head with furrowed brows. "So, I thought the guy went to jail for eight years."

"Yeah, but his defense attorney is now pleading insanity to keep him out of jail or preventive detention. He wants to plead waived culpability due to pathological mental disorder, disturbance of consciousness, or feeble-mindedness."

"The good old way out when all else has failed."

"Exactly. We have to stop this shyster from getting away with this. Why have we been chasing this guy for months if he's going to be free and clear tomorrow?"

"Right," Jane said, nervously fiddling with her blouse. "Anyway, I wish you the best of luck."

"Won't need it with Mom's new protégé if he's as good as everyone says," she said, frowning as her cell phone buzzed in her pants pocket. She fished it out and looked at the screen, it was the cell phone number of Nick Simms, her partner and brother-in-law. She answered the phone. "Nick, what's up?"

"How was your vacation?"

"It's officially over now."

"That's what you think," Nick replied. "It's not over until you see what I see."

"And what do you see?"

"A battlefield."

"Where?"

"Downtown Boston. Where those old buildings with the lofts are."

"Want me to come by?"

"Would be good," Nick said after a brief pause. "It's a little hard to get all that junk into BPD, and that's why it would be better if you came over."

"Very funny." Elizabeth thought about the court date but told herself she needed to be back in two hours.

She packed her necessary things in her briefcase, got in the car, and drove off.