Last we left our heroes, Vinny Lee had a massive discussion with Amos about the stupidity of hate. Funny, there was a Super Bowl ad condemning exactly that.

And now I should continue from the suspenseful note. Shall we dive in? If you dare.

I'd half expected someone to pull a gun on me.

Par for the course here. I mean, I was a crime fighter going undercover in a criminal underworld. I was about as out of place here as I was in the private schools I attended back in the day. But I hadn't expected it to be Charlie who started threatening me like that. She just seemed too decent to point a weapon at a child. Then again, I would've said she was too decent to take advice from Horzvedt.

"Whoa, calm down, amiga," Vinny Lee called to Charlie. "It's just me. You know, the chick from the tour. And mi amigo."

At the sound of Vinny Lee's voice, the girl calmed down enough to lower the pistol. Where she'd gotten the weapon, I didn't really want to know. But the bigger question was why. She seemed pretty scared, almost as if she was afraid we might seriously hurt her if she didn't pull a gun on us. (I mean, we would never hurt her.)

"I thought it might be Starr," she said, setting down the pistol as she departed from behind the desk. "He never knocks."

Thanks, Charlie. As if I hadn't heard enough confusing things for one day. "Why would you want to pull a gun on Starr?" I asked her. "He's your boss."

Vinny Lee shot me a look, reminding me that Starr hadn't treated her well, any more than he did his other employees. Which was apparently the understatement of the year, if she was willing to pull a gun on her own boss. Just what had he done to her?

But without the threat to my life to distract me, I began taking in my surroundings. Charlie's office was a small room with a desk, a couple of chairs, and pretty much no other furniture. Not even a separate set of drawers – all of them were on the desk. There were a couple of framed photographs hanging up – one of Horzvedt in Portland, another of Charlie, younger – a teenager, in fact – with a man in a mask. I couldn't make sense of it. Why would she keep Horzvedt's photos at her desk? And who was the man with her? Suddenly I was afraid to answer those questions.

"You said it was Horzvedt's idea?" I asked Charlie, recalling our previous conversation in the pottery shop – before DJ pulled me aside and chewed me out, at any rate. "Do you still talk to him?"

"Oh, yes. He's… quite friendly toward me." I got the sense she'd been about to say something else besides quite friendly. Her fingers were tapping as well when she said it, so it must not have been what she really meant. Something about that nervous motion seemed familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. "We exchange chats from time to time. He put in a recommendation to let me work here, but I suspect that he just wanted me to keep an eye on Starr. I was glad to, really. It's been on his mind, and I just wanted some peace for him."

Yeah, and look where that's got you. Scared and abused by Patrick Starr. I hadn't really had the opportunity to ask Horzvedt about Charlie, so I wasn't sure if he knew how she was faring at her task. But judging from their temperaments right now, the chase after the forger was wearing both him and Charlie down. If someone advertised a chance to off that creep, I wouldn't have faulted them for jumping at it.

"Why would it be on his mind?" I asked.

Charlie gave me a strange look. "Starr hurt him," she said softly. "He was caught in a fire. A shame, too. He was on his way to college in another few weeks."

College. The ultimate wish of any intelligent person – at least, back then. But then that fire would have debilitated him, and if it smeared Horzvedt's character enough, he could have gotten kicked out before he even got in. Leading Horzvedt to resort to scamming to find his way. No wonder Horzvedt resented Starr so deeply. He'd pretty much ruined the con guy's life.

"That had to be hard," I said quietly. Even that felt halfhearted.

"The college thing wasn't even the worst part," she said in more of a hush. "He lost a friend in that fire."

"I'm sorry," I said. What was there to say to that?

But then my attention was drawn to something else on Charlie's desk – some sort of tool kit. I moved in closer and read the label on the box. It was…

"A Junior Egyptologist Kit?" I laughed. I hadn't seen one of those in years.

"I know." Charlie turned her head toward me. She was actually smiling. "I always wanted to be an archeologist when I grew up. Seems kinda silly, doesn't it?"

It didn't seem very silly to me. I'd had several dreams of being a musician, an entertainer. Thanks to my pendant's musical-instrument morphing ability, I could now accomplish that dream. Of course, I didn't often have time for it, what with saving the world and whatnot, but still.

"I loved Ancient Egypt in particular," she went on. I looked on her desk to catch a book nearby. It was open to a page representing what looked like a court judgment. Although what courtroom judgment involves weighing a feather on a scale? And a guy with a jackal head?

"You do seem like an expert on Egypt," I said, pointing at the image. "What's that?"

"That?" Charlie was grinning now. "That's the Weighing of the Heart. An ancient Egyptian myth. Supposedly, when you got to the underworld, your heart would be weighed against the feather of truth. If it outweighed the feather, a monster devoured it, and–" she made a poof gesture with her hands, which conveyed her point well.

"And the jackal-headed guy?" I asked.

"Anubis, the god of funerals. He sometimes oversaw the duty."

They had a god of funerals? Wow. The Egyptians really were weird.

"Well," Vinny Lee said, "I had a great time. I should probably report back to DJ."

She spun on her heel and opened the office door. "See you, amigos," she said sweetly, and left. My friend was so, so strange.

"I'll, uh, go too," I said. "With what's going on between you and Starr, you probably need your space."

"Sure thing," Charlie replied. "And knock the next time you come in, please? The knocker's there for a reason, you know."

With that parting advice, I left the room. But I didn't leave the third floor itself.

My head was still spinning. Horzvedt had taken an interest in me – because I apparently reminded him of an old childhood friend he'd lost in a fire. Something about that story rang a few bells, but my head was pounding too much to hear them. There'd been a missile strike, only yesterday, and DJ wanted me to openly discuss it with Imira – something she wouldn't have done if it weren't really serious business. And something that might just get me beaten to a pulp. Why?

One thing was clear, though: Charlie had suffered a lot worse than I'd thought at first. At first I'd thought it was the usual things – lack of sleep, hard hours, constant fear of being caught by the cops. But now I realized that Starr had actually lashed out at her at some point. Given Starr's tendencies, that abuse could have taken any form – even the unspeakable. At this point, I would gladly have taken a monster attack over going after Starr.

Although an uneasy feeling was growing over me – the feeling that I'd felt in Norgate before the dracos revealed themselves. The feeling that I might already be in the monster's lair. And that monster was a sleazily dressed, card-game-loving, AC/DC and Sir Mix-A-Lot playing, overweight copier creep named after the stupid sidekick of the Nickelodeon sponge.

Starr certainly seemed despicable enough to torque off my David's star pendant – which reminded me, I was getting really tired of calling it that.

Yo! I thought, pulling out my pendant. Anybody home?

There you are, kid! The pendant sounded strangely eager to catch my thoughts – as if it hadn't been getting them before. It certainly didn't sound bloodthirsty at all. Normally I would have thought this just a little out of character, but now I was starting to wonder if there was something else sharing mind space with the necklace's spirit (that had to be what was inside).

At last, the real you, I thought.

What's that about?

Have you been aware of yapping to kill Starr? I didn't think that was you doing it.

Drat. He's getting out of control.

He? So there was something else inside the pendant! I almost asked what it was, but then decided I didn't really want to know. Besides, that wouldn't get my pendant's spirit identified.

You know, I'm going to need a name for you, aren't I? I thought about it.

I thought I caught a slightly soft pulse in the star's light, almost relieved. Finally! You realize how tiresome it is to be called just "the pendant?" I'm a little more than that. I'm your freaking magic item!

Did you just say that because I was tired of it? The pendant often synced with my own desires – when the other thing wasn't calling for Starr's blood, that is. That made it hard to tell whether it was really thinking on its own or just in agreement with me.

That and I'm going to forget my existence without it.

Wow, that desperate?

But I suppose I could understand that. Most sentient beings like having a name someone can speak. Speaking someone's name was tantamount to saying that person existed. I'd had bullies who'd never even addressed me by name. That hurt even worse than anything they could have done to me.

I hadn't been giving my pendant enough credit, I realized. That perhaps stung pretty good. Or else it was so busy dealing with the other voice that it couldn't wallow in it. Great – there's nothing like distraction to keep you from thinking about emotional injuries, but that also meant it might not be developing as quickly as it would like.

Starry, I thought, observing the David's star. Can I call you Starry?

Starry, the pendant thought with a contented sigh. Yeah, that sounds all right.

Before I could react, memories washed over me. The memories of the pendant. And I saw them all from Starry's perspective, which was quite weird indeed.

I saw a small cranny, where a brown-haired boy in a striped shirt found me and picked me up. I caught myself hanging around his neck while he played with another, older boy with blond hair. He grabbed me off my chain and I could feel myself becoming a scanner in his hands – a James Bond device.

The memories all flooded through me, happy and simple – until one tragic point in time.

There was a large warehouse we went through, heading over to Starr. He was younger, but just as hideous as in the Heid. Beside me – and beside my wearer – was the other boy, trying to talk to me.

"You can't just give it up, Jethro," said the man's voice.

"I have to," said the child's voice, which sounded eerily like mine. "My parents won't allow me to keep something magical in the house. It's an object of sorcery. The man you pointed out might just be the one to destroy it."

I could feel the pendant fuming with rage. Not that I blamed it. While many synonyms for magic item came to mind for my pendant, "object of sorcery" was not one of them. It just seemed way too harsh a descriptor. I got the sense that Starry's former owner was simply not into the idea. Not now.

The image suddenly blurred, and a scream arose from the owner. Flames stung in my eyes as I closed them.

When I opened them, I was back in the Terminal Commerce building – shaking in alarm at what I'd just seen.

Which was naturally when Imira decided to comm me.

"Rubr to Rose, do you read me? Over!"

Great. I didn't want to answer it, but I knew she'd start yelling if I didn't. "I read you loud and clear, Rubr. What's the–?"

She didn't even let me finish. "Pottery shop. The floor you left us on. Pronto. We need to talk. Rubr out."

Gee, wonder what that's over?

Verse for the update: Matthew 16:18. Stay tuned!