At first, there were gunshots. Then screams. Then silence. Then the cycle would repeat.

Isaac and Jughead watched the abandoned building from the tailgate of Maloc’s truck. A bright moon and cloudless sky provided just enough visibility to offset the dark evening. Not that there was much to see in the vacant Rust Belt business park. Empty offices and shuttered warehouses. Every spot of green overgrown with weeds. Every bulb in every streetlight shattered.

The building the pair observed had formerly been the administrative office of a small toy company. Green Shamrock Toys was barely legible on the weathered sign. Across the front entrance, Isaac had strung strands of solidified shadows, much like a spider setting its trap. He had done the same to the rear exit and then settled down to wait and see if any of the occupants managed to escape the carnage currently being wrought inside.

“This is just about as boring as floating around in your purse,” the jug complained.

“I could put you back in. Or I could turn you so your only view is the cat.” Further up in the truck bed Testiculies let out a sleep-addled hiss.

“No. No. No. You and your damn threats. You know this is the equivalent of bullying a person with no arms or legs, don’t you? I bet if I had even one foot, without a leg, I could kick your ass.”

The conversation was interrupted when the door pulled open on squealing hinges and a man ran out in pure panic. He paused briefly when he hit Isaac’s spell, swatting at it like he’d run into a peculiarly strong web, and then kept going after he’d pulled the shadow strands free of their moorings. He didn’t even notice Isaac and didn’t react to Jughead yelling, “Hey, how about a drink?” as he sprinted by, the shadows flapping like streamers.

The man got further than Isaac liked before the shadow-work did its job, but there was nowhere for him to go, just dark, uninhabited streets in all directions. The cords of shadow constricted like snakes, including one around his neck, and he collapsed in the street, thrashed for a moment, and lay still.

“He get away?” Jughead asked hopefully, not that the spirit felt concerned but because it hoped to label Isaac a failure at any opportunity.

“No. He’s down.”

If Jughead could, it probably would have shaken its head. “That’s just a ridiculous way to go. Killed by shadows. No art or fun to it. This one time I got a truck driver drunk and he drove his rig off the road into a cow pasture. Thump-moo-thump-moo-thump-moo. Priceless. Then I convinced him the cows were to blame for the accident and he tried to fight them. He was road-raging in the pasture. It was pasture rage. Punch-moo-punch-moo-punch-moo. Then he was stampeded. And this is the best part. These were dairy cows, so they moved like molasses, but he was too drunk to get out of the way, so it became a slow-motion stomping as they trampled around all over him. Then he died.” The jug paused, almost like it had to take a breath. “Sometimes when I get depressed, I think about that moment and it cheers me right up.”

Jughead continued with a second violently pleasant memory, but Isaac quit paying attention when another scream came from the building. How many of these assholes were there? Glass shattered on the second story and a man either jumped or fell from a window. He landed hard, wobbled to his feet, managed a limping trot for several yards, collapsed, and started crawling.

Isaac sighed and walked after him. Just to be safe he pulled Wilma Wagon-Fixer from the Everbag and thumbed off the safety. Sensing the magician’s presence, the man gave up crawling and flopped onto his back. Isaac knew him, recognizing his face from the image that had been forced into his head when he had last talked to the Arrangement Voice. The man, clearly injured from the fall, also suffered other significant issues. The whites of his eyes were dark red and swollen. Blood trickled from his nose, ears, and the corners of his mouth.

Poison. Isaac knew the signs well enough.

“If you help me, I can pay you,” the man begged until he saw Isaac’s shotgun and indifferent expression. “So, you’re with her? That crazy bitch that killed all of my followers?” Isaac nodded which drew a scowl of defiance. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“You are Gregory Scott. You and your little crew of followers,” Isaac paused when another short scream came from the building, “have made a hobby of killing homeless people.”

Being identified surprised Gregory. “Then you must know I serve a powerful master.”

“That so?”

“A demon.”

“No kidding?” Isaac didn’t want to put any effort into killing the man and grew annoyed that the poison was taking its sweet time. “I know a few. What’s the demon’s name?”

“I don’t know,” the man said, and Isaac started an exaggerated roll of his eyes when he continued with, “It’s always just been a voice on the phone.”

“Voice on the phone?” Isaac’s interest perked.

“Yes. Yes. A voice. But not just any voice. It knew things. It seemed to know everything.”

Isaac kneeled. “It sure does.”

“You know it?”

“I do. When the phone rings it’s like a sledgehammer in your brain. And the voice is just...” Isaac struggled for the right term.

“Hollow.”

“Yeah. Hollow.”

Gregory looked confused now. “So, the Voice sent you? To kill me? Why? I did everything it asked of me.”

“And what was that? What did it ask of you?”

Gregory’s eyes drifted skyward and his voice weakened. “It knew I had the desire and the strength to clean up the streets, to purify this cesspool of humanity. It gave me permission to do what society needed. I even went above and beyond.”

“How?” Isaac asked but the killer didn’t answer. He hadn’t succumbed to the poison yet, but he was slipping away. Isaac slapped his face lightly, which brought more blood from his eyes and nose but roused him. “How? How did you go above and beyond?”

“It would call and tell me when to kill and how many. But it wasn’t enough. It was just one or two here and there. It didn’t make a difference. It scared people but it didn’t clean anything. The streets were as filthy as ever. I found some like-minded followers and started taking more of them. And more. So many...it almost started to work. I thought the voice would be pleased...” His speech faded and his life followed right after.

Isaac, lost in thought, didn’t even realize that Julia had come out of the building until she stood right next to him. Dressed in black, she looked very much like she just attended a yoga class that ended in a massacre. On her face, drawn like war paint in blood, were symbols that allowed her to see in near darkness. It was a favorite tactic of hers and had allowed her to dance through the lightless building taking lives at will. Isaac had done his part by telekinetically snapping the power lines running to the structure and then sitting in the truck drinking.

Isaac handed her a rag and instead of cleaning her gore-covered face she first meticulously wiped down her knife. “I can see why they were killing bums,” she said. “Bunch of wimps.”

“How many followers did he have?”

“Five or six,” she shrugged. “They were so boring and predictable I lost count.” She pointed her now gleaming blade at the body. “Did you finish him off?”

“Nah. I let your poison run its course.”

“God, you are lazy.”

“Not lazy. Quiescent.”

“So, is that why you were standing there with that daydreaming look on your face?”

“Exactly,” he lied.

“Whatever,” she sounded unconvinced but also uncaring and walked off to the truck.

“How many were there? How many homeless?” he called after her.

“At least seven bodies in there. They’ve been busy,” she answered.

Isaac looked back at Gregory Scott. He stood there for several moments, trying to imagine if the cult leader had been lying about the Voice. But nothing realistic or even plausible resulted.

He waited for her to move out of earshot and dialed Lefse. As it rang, he tugged at his unruly beard. He’d been neglectful of it in the nearly a year that had passed since the flaming disaster at Peter Goss’ mansion. It was past due for a trim but the scissor spell had proved too imprecise to be hacking away near his face.

Lefse finally answered and Isaac recounted the night’s events, initially withholding Greg’s claims of being directed by a voice on the phone. The librarian’s disappointment was evident.

“Well, that sucks. No artifacts? No magic? No monsters? No nothing? I’d even settle for a cannibal at this point.”

“Nope. It was just an amateur cult of murderers. They thought they were cleaning up the streets by killing off homeless people.”

“Oh. Well, that’s disgustingly brutal but still less than interesting. I’m not even sure why I should bother documenting this.” The sound of Lefse’s furious scribbling could be heard through the phone.

“Listen Lefse, and don’t write this down. This assignment bothers me a bit. This isn’t my kind of job.”

“Getting soft in your old age?”

Isaac glanced at the truck where Julia sat next to Jughead, with the latter spewing obscenities at her. “I’m not an assassin.”

Lefse’s voice quieted a bit, although it remained too loud if the man was actively trying to be sneaky. “I know. You’re more of a moderately talented errand boy. It’s not like you ever intentionally kill people. You’re just bad luck and lots of people die in your presence. You’re right though. Death was never the objective.” Lefse never failed to work Isaac’s Albatrossian history into every single one of their conversations.

“I was going to refer to myself as a magical handyman, but whatever.”

Lefse’s volume ticked down again. The man had more settings than a stereo. “Listen, it’s not just you. Over the last few months, Arrangement has brought in a lot more agents. And not just seasoned veterans. Lots of younger rookies like the one you got saddled with. There’s been an influx of artifacts coming in from all over the world. More assignments are going out, and frankly, a lot of them are more violent. It’s like the Voice is cleaning house around the world. I even heard a rumor that we have a pack of lycanthropes working for us now. And those hairy bastards are only good for one thing.”

Isaac grimaced at the news. “Fetching tennis balls?”

“Very funny. I’ve probably already shared more than I’m allowed. But you need to watch your back. I don’t think things are calming down anytime soon.”

The magician appreciated the warning and, against his better judgment, felt compelled to return the favor with the additional nugget of information. “One more thing, in a dying declaration, Gregory Scott said that he was being directed to kill by a voice on the phone. I didn’t have long to discuss it with him, but it really sounded like our voice.”

Lefse let out an excited gasp as if he were watching a movie that just had a surprise twist that he loved. This made Isaac immediately regret telling the man, as he now feared the librarian would take the information and start a full-blown investigation. Lefse was an excellent researcher but about as stealthy as a pillaging Viking. He wouldn’t slyly peek at papers after hours. He’d flip file cabinets at lunchtime with a battle cry. Isaac didn’t want any part of the man drawing that kind of attention and getting himself killed, but now, for better or worse, it was too late. “This is something I’ll have to look into and get back to you.”

“Tread lightly,” Isaac cautioned.

“Of course,” replied the Nordic giant with size fourteen shoes, before hanging up.

Isaac spared the body of Gregory Scott one last glance and joined Julia in the truck.

“So where to?” Julia asked as they drove.

“I’m tired. It’s late. There’s a state park not far from here.”

A look of dread came over her face. “No. No. Don’t say you rented a cabin.”

“Fine. I won’t say it.”