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ROUND 2 I burst out of the Circus of the Damned into a slimy back-alley. There wasn’t any light, the alley was just shades of dark and darker. The humid summer air was heavy with the stench of rotting refuse. I heard the skitter of rats running away at the sound of my feet. It was good to be on familiar turf again. I hightailed it to the edge of the alley and almost got run down when a rusty red Jeep squealed to a stop in front of me. The door flew open like it had been kicked out, and the driver of the Jeep hissed, "Get in!" I threw myself into the car and crouched down in the back seat. The driver grabbed the door, slammed it behind me, and punched the gas like it had insulted his mother. The Jeep squealed away from the curb so fast that I thought it would tip over when it turned the corner. I took a deep breath as my new best friend sped me away from the scene of the crime. I thought I would choke. The interior of the car was saturated with years of cigarette smoke. I examined my rescuer in the mirror through the brownish haze of stale smoke. His face was thin, pale, softening with the early stages of middle-age. The lines around his mouth and eyes looked like they had been put there by scowls, rather than smiles. He had ginger-colored hair that might once have been very red, but was now doing a slow fade to gray. He was older, but I recognized him from the description Death had given me years before: "The sidekick. Larry, not Lawrence. Short kid, red hair. Think Jimmy Olsen, with a bad attitude and a pack-a-day habit." After a few silent miles he said, "Don’t talk much, do you?" I shook my head. After a few more moments of silence, he started to talk again. I’ve noticed that most people need to fill silence with talk. If you don’t give them any, they’ll supply it themselves. "You went into the Necromancer’s lair and came out alive," he explained. "Most people don’t do that. I’ve a few friends who would be very interested in knowing how you managed it." I stared at him steadily in the rearview mirror. Finally, he blew out a harsh, exasperated sigh and said, "Fine, explain later, but if you want me to keep driving, you’ve got to at least tell me who you are." I held off speaking for a moment. "You can call me Terry," I said. He knew it wasn’t my name. He gave a sharp snort of laughter and pulled a cigarette out of the pack he kept on the dash. "Is that Terry with a ‘Y’, or Terri with an ‘I’?" "Pick one," I ordered, tersely. It had been a long time since anyone had made fun of me. I was prickly. "Okay, ‘Terri’," he said, choosing the name he knew was most likely to annoy me. "Have you got a last name?" "Forrester." I said, giving him my favorite ID. I should have used another name, but sometimes, I get sentimental. "Jesus H. Christ!" He almost drove off the road when I said the name. I guessed that he’d met Ted. "The guy with the flame-thrower! You his kid or something?" I didn’t nod, but I didn’t deny it. Like most people, Larry mistook silence for affirmation and plowed on with his questions. "Then, why were you trying to kill her? Her and that Ted guy used to do some serious damage together." "Why do you want her dead?" I asked in return, answering his question with a question. He didn’t notice that I hadn’t really told him anything, he just assumed that my reasons were the same as his, and kept talking. "Because she’s an evil murderous bitch who needs to be stopped." His voice was bitter, derisive, and self-mocking. Beneath his dry smoker’s grate, I heard the sad voice of a kid who’s ideals and innocence had been destroyed by his mentor’s fall from grace. I didn’t say anything to his reasoning. By most people’s standards, I was as much of a "murderous bitch" as the Executioner. Better to keep my mouth closed than to tell my new friend he’d rescued an amoral assassin who’d probably killed just as many people as his necromantic nemesis--and with less reason. Telling people that you kill for money is no way to make them trust you. Usually, it just makes them run away. And it’s always such a bloody pain to hunt them down, later. Better to just stay silent and let them think you agree. "I can’t wait to introduce you to the others," he examined me in the mirror, blowing a slow stream of smoke into the silent air. The longer he looked, the wider he smiled. "None of that blood is yours, is it? What is that saying? "The enemies of my enemy are my friend." The only thing Larry knew about me was that I wanted Anita Blake’s head on a platter, but I was suddenly his new best friend. Deliberately, I returned his smile, and said the three words that would cement my status as his ally. "No, it’s hers."
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