panicked, and ran away. It was then that Peter understood.
“You’re an assassin, too,” Peter said. “You’re just as evil as Wolfe.”
A strained look spread across Zack’s face, and he did not reply.
“You screwed up your last job in Africa, and they sent you to New York.”
Zack said nothing.
“You don’t like being a spy. You’d rather kill people.”
Still nothing.
“How do you plan to kill us?”
Zack finally found his voice. “I can make it painless, or you can suffer. It’s up to you.”
Liza let out a little shriek, Snoop a soft moan.
“Bring it on,” Peter said.
Zack let out a savage yell and charged him. Peter ducked as the sword sliced the air inches above his head. He danced away, and Zack chased him. Zack took another swing, and destroyed a lamp sitting on a table. He tried again, and demolished a chair. Each time, he was getting a little closer, and his eyes danced at the inevitable outcome.
Herbie had been right. He couldn’t beat Zack with his bare hands. Snoop still had the screwdriver he’d been using to repair the illusion. Peter clicked his fingers, and Snoop tossed it to him. Peter held the screwdriver by the tip. The demon inside of him told him to strike.
“Last chance,” Peter said.
“For what?” Zack replied.
“Give yourself up.”
“No thanks.”
“That’s my final offer.”
“Up yours, magic boy.”
The demon said
“That’s not possible,” he gasped.
“Wrong,” Peter said.
Zack staggered around the loft. As the life drained from his body, he found the strength to pull the screwdriver out. A geyser of blood followed, and he pitched to the floor.
Liza let out a shriek, and covered her face.
Snoop let out a war whoop.
The demon in Peter said nothing.
Peter became himself again a few moments later. It was like snapping out of a daydream, and he gazed at the dead man lying on the floor. He’d killed Zack, as hard as it was for him to believe. He went to where Liza was standing, and put his arms around her protectively.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said.
“Oh, my God, Peter, this is so awful,” she cried.
“Wow, Zack was going to kill us,” Snoop said. “To think I roomed with the guy.”
Zack had known everything about the Friday night psychics there was to know. More than likely, he’d stored the information on his computer. Peter needed to call the police. But first, he needed to find that information, and erase it from the computer’s hard drive.
“Herbie is parked down front. Have him drive you to my place,” Peter said.
“What about the police?” Snoop asked.
“I’ll deal with them.”
“You sure you don’t want us to stay, and give them statements?” Snoop said.
“Just go. It’s for your own good.”
Snoop grabbed Liza and started out the door. His girlfriend came back inside the loft, and stood directly in front of him.
“Look at me,” she said.
Peter looked into her beautiful face.
“Tell me how you feel,” she said.
“Like I might get sick.”
“You didn’t want to kill Zack, did you?”
He shook his head. The demon had wanted to kill Zack, but he hadn’t.
“Say it,” she said.
“I didn’t want to kill Zack, despite everything he’d done.”
His answer seemed to satisfy her. She turned around and walked out of the loft. He shut the door with his head spinning. The shock of what he’d done had started to set in. He found a chair and sat in it. For several minutes he did nothing but stare at the floor.
36
Once he started to feel better, Peter went searching for Zack’s laptop. There weren’t that many places in the loft to look, and he tried Zack’s bedroom first. Zack had been a minimalist, and the room had little in the way of furnishings save for a mattress on the floor, and a weight-lifting bench with barbells and dumbbells lying around it. A laptop lay on the floor beside the bed, an ultrathin Dell Latitude. Peter tried to see what was on it, only to discover he needed a password. He called Snoop, and his assistant’s cheerful voice answered on the first ring.
“You don’t know the password to Zack’s computer, do you?” Peter asked.
“I know the passwords to everyone’s computers,” Snoop said proudly.
“You don’t know mine.”
“It’s Houdini, spelled backwards.”
“That’s actually a little bit scary.”
“I’m just that good. Zack’s is BULLYBOY, in caps. Was Zack really an assassin for the Order of Astrum?”
The less Snoop knew about what was going on, the better. But at the same time, Peter couldn’t keep his assistant in the dark forever. Trust ran both ways. “I’m afraid so. He would have killed us if I hadn’t stopped him.”
“But why? What does the Order of Astrum want?”
It was the same question Peter had been asking himself from the beginning.
“I wish I knew. I’ve got to go,” Peter said.
“Call me if you need me. Liza says she loves you.”
“Tell her that I love her. Talk to you later.”
Peter returned to the main room of the loft, where he sat at the dining table with the laptop in front of him. Zack lay on the floor a few yards away. His assistant had died with his eyes wide open, staring lifelessly into space. Peter’s stomach started to do strange things, and he looked away. He had come here with the intention of making Zack tell him the Order of Astrum’s secrets, and knocking him around a little bit. He had never expected it would end like this.
He focused on the laptop. Its hard drive contained fifteen files, each named after a major city. He opened them, and scanned their contents. Zack had been gathering information on psychics in other cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., and preparing hit lists. Strangely, there was no file devoted to the Friday night group, and he supposed Zack had erased the file from his computer after sending the information to his bosses.
He had to find that file. It would explain why Wolfe was trying to kill them, and what the Order of Astrum’s reason was for sending Wolfe to New York. He knew enough about computers to know that nothing was ever permanently erased from a computer’s memory. The New York file was still on the laptop, and needed to be
