My advice would be to find a woman from one of the poorer parts of Russia in need of a green card. English wouldn't be an issue and she'd treat you like a king simply because without you she gets deported. Other than that I'm pretty sure you're boned.

A human sneeze travels at roughly 100 miles per hour.

Contained* even. god i'm growing dumber by the minute.

Ok, tell a random trivial fact that sounds smart. I'll start: The acronym SCUBA stands for Self-Conatained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

Thank god. I love you guys. You saved me.

I just got out of Yahoo Chat and I feel like my IQ dropped 50 points. Somebody say something intelligent and witty, please.

Thanks, elwood. You're a scholar and a gentleman.

It was like any other night. A long, relaxing stroll through the mild moonlit darkness. An excuse not to think any more, just to enjoy the stillness only 3 a.m. can bring. Wait, scratch that, it wasn’t still. Not any more. I could hear…. A car? This late?

"Cops," I said quietly, "I never met a single cop on bad terms before I started walking."

As if in response to my comment, the night was suddenly pierced by carnival flashes of red and blue.

"Hold it right there, boy," said the loudspeaker in a tinny Southern drawl thick with the false bravado of a tiny man with a large gun.

I knew instantly that the cop and I were not going to be buddies, and my tranquil evening was going to end in a spacious cell in the nearest county jail. It had happened a few times before, but I try to avoid it if at all possible. It makes it easier for them to find me.

I could hear booted feet behind me, but decided not to turn unless they asked me. Small-town cops can get trigger-happy in the wee hours of the morning.

"Out a little late for a brisk constitutional, aren’t you son?" asked the voice above the boots.

This wasn’t the one who had spoken over the loudspeaker. This one sounded a lot like my father. I hadn’t heard that voice in years. Spooky.

"Could you turn around for me, please?" he asked.

"Sure, officer," I said, all peaches n’ cream, "Is there a problem?"

"We’ve had some problems with vagrants lately."

"I’m just passing through, I can assure you."

"Sure you are, but I still gotta check you out, and to do that I’m gonna have to ask you to come with me. It won’t take long, then you can be on your way."

"Okey-dokey," I sighed, holding out my hands.

"No need for that, you’re not under arrest, not yet anyway," he said, smiling. "Just hop in the cruiser and we’ll be on our way.

"Are you nuts, Howard? Are you going to frisk him, or should we let him shoot us as we’re driving along?" This was Loudspeaker again, but what was that tremor in his voice? Fear?

How strange that he should be afraid, I thought. There are much worse things than me out tonight.

"Okay, Art, okay," he yelled to the cruiser, "Don’t get your panties in a twist." Turning back to me, he shrugged almost apologetically, "Sorry, but it is procedure."

"Fine with me," I said, "But let me warn you; I’m very ticklish."

That got a laugh out of him, but it ended abruptly when he felt the knife under my denim jacket. Well, knife isn’t exactly the right word for it. It’s more like a dagger or short sword, about eighteen inches long. It’s almost too big to hide. The cop drew it out of the sheath inside my jacket and gave a long whistle. Not only is it a tad big, but the blade is inscribed with runes and figures. I looked some of them up at a library a year or so ago, and as far as I can tell they’re some kind of pre-druidic language. Oh, and it seems to be made of some kind of silver alloy strong enough to scratch steel and not dull. Not exactly something you find on every wandering longhair you see.

"Now, what in the heck is this?" he asked with a perplexed look on his face.

A reasonable question, I thought, deserves a reasonable answer.

"It’s a dagger used to kill demons," I said.

He just stood there, looking like they always do. Come see the crazy hippie, folks, only a dollar for admission. Oh well, another lost cause. He’d see, if he stuck around with me for long.

His cop face was on, impassive and a little cold. I looked down and saw his hand was now on the butt of his police-issue .38. I sighed. C’est la vie.

I ducked down into the back seat, and that old familiar odor of strong disinfectants and vomit was there as always, like an old friend.

"Lookit this," the older officer said, "You ever see anything like it?"

"Big, shiny pigsticker, so what?" The younger one asked impatiently, "Let’s just get this guy processed so we can go home, okay?"

"Fine, Art, fine." He turned the lights off and pulled back out onto the asphalt with a jolt that made Art squawk. I chuckled.

"Laugh it up, bum, we’ll see who’s laughing when UCK!" he was cut off as the cruiser came to a sudden halt, its back end jittering.

"Very funny, Howie, my belt almost cut me in half!" Art yelled.

I saw Howard through the mesh. He looked pale, almost ghostlike in the glow from the dashboard lights.

"My foot’s still on the gas, Art."

"What the heck?" Art exclaimed, "Well, let your foot off so I can get out and check it out!"

"You don’t want to do that," I said.

"Shut up, greaseball!" Art yelled, his voice quavering a bit. "Shut it down, Howard!"

Howard let up on the gas pedal and the rear end stopped shimmying.

"Okay, I’m getting out," Art said.

"Alright, I’ll call this in, then."

"Like hell! I’m not gonna have the guys laugh at us for the next three months just because we got spooked by our own cruiser. Just let me handle it, okay?" With that he threw open the door and angrily jumped out. He stood there beside the cruiser for a few minutes. "Doesn’t look like anything’s wrong from here, let me just…" He trailed off as he walked toward the back of the car.

"How’s it look, Art?" Howard called out his window.

"I told him," I said. My voice hitched. I reached up to my cheek and felt wetness there. Crying? You’d think I’d gotten past that way back when. No such luck.

"What are you talking about?" Howard asked?

"They found me," I murmured, "Again."

"Who found you? What the hell are you talking about?" Getting a tad hysterical.

"Give me my knife," I said quietly.

His eyes widened and then something landed with a meaty thump in front of the cruiser. Howard turned on the brights and there was Art, minus his legs and head, of course. Howard screamed and threw open his door. Before he could bolt something grabbed him. Something big. All I could see was Howard’s body lifting quickly into the air. I heard a breathy wheeze, a crunch like the sound of someone biting deep into an apple, then silence. I could faintly hear the crickets out in the field beside the highway. Then the car lurched violently to one side.

"Great," I said, "Just great." Leaning forward, I kicked at the heavy wire mesh between me and the front seat. It gave, just a bit. I kicked again, harder. And again. Finally, it gave way with a screech and I was able to crawl to the front. Just then I saw a large claw sink into the roof like it was clay.

"No pressure," I said with a little laugh.

The knife wasn’t on the front seat. Crap. I reached down into the floorboard and nearly cut my hand open on it. I grabbed the hilt and dove out the door into the darkness.

I ran into the pool of light cast by the headlights and crouched down. The thing climbed off the car slowly, sizing me up, unafraid. It was large and dark, almost reptilian, with glowing red eyes and fangs half as long as my knife. I’ve found that there are almost as many different types of them as of us humans, so this one was new to me. I don’t even try to classify them any more.

"Hello darlin’, wanna dance?" I asked

It emitted a raspy shriek and came at me then, but I had been ready for it before it had even touched the cruiser. I sprang from my crouch and met it head on. Leaping up into the air, I brought the knife down towards its neck with all my strength. It dodged, but not far enough. I buried the blade into its collarbone all the way to the hilt. It grabbed me then; in a bear hug I knew I couldn’t get out of. Its eyes glowed with triumph and it began to squeeze. I heard my ribs creak and I could feel its fetid breath on me, like brimstone and blood. I looked at Death then, right into its bottomless eyes, soulless, like a shark’s.

I smiled, and gave the dagger a sharp twist, cutting whatever excuse for a heart that thing had cleanly in two.

"Fin," I said through gritted teeth.

The light slowly went out of its surprised eyes and it crumpled lifelessly to the ground and began to smolder. Nothing would be left when the sun came up, just dust in the wind.

I looked sadly at the two mutilated bodies, wondered if I could have done anything more to save them, and pushed the thought away quickly before I broke down entirely. I wiped my blade on the demon’s hide and slid it back into its sheath. I’d need it again, probably soon.

"Well, crap," I said, standing up and dusting off my knees, " Why don’t they ever listen?"

I stood there a moment, watching the demon smoke and the bodies grow cold. After awhile I turned away and began to jog away at a pace that would get me far, far away before first light.

Be forewarned, I wrote this during my semi-religious phase. Looking back on it now it still seems ok though.


Madness… has a voice. It’s not always the same, no, but whenever things become warped and you can actually feel the moorings of your mind giving way, it’s there. Sometimes it’s the click of claws on concrete, other times it’s the dying scream of a little girl you weren’t fast enough to save. All the nightmares in the world are held in that voice, and don’t think you won’t wake up every night sweating, hearing it again and again and again.

But that’s neither here nor there.

My story began not with screams, nor with claws. In what I think of as "my previous life", I knew nothing of real Evil. Make no mistake; there was robbery, rape and even a few murders in my town, just like in any other. It just never happened to me therefore it didn’t matter. Most people might think that a cold assessment, but as my dad used to say; them’s the breaks.

At the time this all began, I had no direction, no set course for my life. I roamed from job to job, never finding exactly what I wanted. Finally, I became an assistant manager at a grocery store that my uncle owned.

It was late one night, as I had just gotten done closing the store, when I met the man. He was standing in the parking lot, just staring out into the darkness. Thinking he was one of the homeless people who sometimes wander into the store, I went to ask him if I could help.

I was within touching distance when I noticed the feathers.

There were about a dozen of them lying around his feet, gently floating to and fro in the breeze. They were unlike any feathers I’d ever seen, enormous and silver in color, almost ephemeral in the glow cast by the streetlights.

He turned to me and said, quite simply, "It’s coming."

"What’s coming?" I asked. "Your ride? Good, because you really shouldn’t be here at night by yourself. It’s not very safe."

"Fear not the night, only what it may bring," he said softly.

Just as he said those words, the trees across the street bent at an amazing angle, and something stepped out.

It was huge, at least ten feet tall and six wide. Insect-like plates of armor covered most of its body, but thick black hair sprang out in tufts in the gaps between. Its head was a mass of fur and foam-flecked, gnashing teeth. In one of its enormous clawed hands was a colossal scythelike sword. The sword looked like it was made of the same material as its armor, and almost seemed to absorb the glow from the streetlights overhead.

It howled, and it sounded like the wailing of a thousand tortured souls all crying out at once. I fell to my knees, holding my ears, and that’s when it charged.

Making no sound except for the machinegun tick-tack of its talons on the concrete, it swept down upon the stranger and I with all the unrestrained fury of a hurricane, its sword held aloft, ready for the downward stroke. The sword began its descent with enough force to cleave telephone poles in two and… stopped.

I looked up and saw the black sword held back by a shining silver blade held high in one shimmering hand. The man turned his head and fixed my panicked brown eyes with his coldly blazing gray ones and said, "Best back up now."

There was a flash of white and then it felt as though I were hit with a pillow as big as a horse. I had the sudden terrifying sensation of flying high into the air and landed on the hood of my car halfway across the parking lot. I blacked out, but only for a second, and when I looked up I saw the man as he truly was, all the disguises and illusions washed away by a tide of brilliance that stung my eyes.

His old overcoat was now a shimmering tunic and breastplate. His ragged, faded jeans were gone, replaced by silvery greaves. His battered tennis shoes were now white sandals.

But all these things were mere afterthoughts; the wings were what really caught my attention. Gigantic, powder-white, they must have been twenty feet from tip to tip. Then it occurred to me: if he was able to send me across the lot with a brush of his wings, what was going to happen when they really got into it?

That thought sent me scrambling over the hood to hide behind the car. Unable to resist, I hesitantly looked around the edge of the car.

They stood muzzle to nose, swords locked together, completely silent except for the heavy panting of the wolf-demon.

"After I’m done with our business, I think I’ll go eat that pathetic human cowering in the dark over there."

The angel said nothing, simply smiled.

"I’ll carve that smile off your face, human-loving coward!" the demon spat, leaping backwards, then racing forward with sword held low.

The angel deflected the blow to the side, then countered with a stab straight for the demon’s heart. The demon dodged, but just barely; the sword gashed its armor in a long strip down its side. The demon let loose with a howl of outrage, and swung with all its might in a furious barrage of bone-shattering swings. The angel dodged or parried them all, but the effort was showing. His face was set with grim concentration, and all of his muscles were taught with effort. A hideous smile formed on the demon’s face. It swung harder, batting aside the angel’s defenses, coming within inches of the angel’s head and torso. Then the angel struck. The demon was rearing back for a final big swing. Twirling his blade around his head, the angel reversed his grip on the sword and drove it deep into the demon’s chest. The demon’s eyes looked down in astonishment upon the gaping hole in its chest, and slowly fell backwards onto the asphalt.

"N-not s’posed to happen this way," the demon moaned.

"It was ordained by the White, of course it was supposed to happen this way," the angel said gently, "Go on, now."

With a final whimper, the demon lay back, and began to smoke. The angel turned to me, still hiding behind the car.

"You can come out now," he said.Then the demon reared up behind him, dark and smoldering, smiling through blackened lips. The angel turned, but, to my horror, he was too slow. The massive jaws closed on his arm just below the shoulder with a crunch, severing the limb. The angel’s other arm lashed out, and the demon’s head fell to the ground.

He didn’t bleed, just sat down calmly and asked me to do the same."Do not worry, it is only my corporeal form that is injured, just as I destroyed the fiend’s."

"Will you disintegrate like him, too?" I asked.

"Sadly, yes. With no body to hold my essence in this world, I will become so much dust in the breeze."

"Are you going to erase my memory of this?" I asked, walking cautiously toward him and the dead demon.

"No, no, quite the contrary. Tell everyone you want. The White needs good publicity, too, you know. Though I doubt anyone will believe you. And don’t worry about the body, it will be gone by morning."


"You don’t feel sad, or angry?"

"No, this was all preordained before any of this ever existed."

"So it’s true? There really is a God?"

The look in his eyes was one of pure childlike joy. He looked up at the sky, at the stars shining their light down on us. "Whatever name you give it, there is an elemental force of innocence, of purity, of Right, all around us, every day." he said.

"So, if there’s a God, then there must be a Devil, right?"

"That, too, goes without saying."

"What…"

"You humans are always so full of questions. I’m sorry, but I can give no more answers. You will have to find them in yourself and those around you. My time is drawing near."

"What do I do now?"

"You do what you can, nothing more and nothing less."

With that he laid his sword in my sweating hand, closing his palm over it. I felt a sudden surge, like an electric shock, but not uncomfortable. Everything suddenly appeared clearer, more vivid. I felt energized and calm at the same time.

Then the angel stood, his eyes clouded over, as though he were looking through me. He spoke in a strange voice, unlike his previous one. It reminded me of thunder and crashing waves.

"WALK THOU MUST, AND SEEK THY TRUTHS. MANY TRIALS MUST THOU OVERCOME, BUT THY LIGHT SHALL SHINE ON."

Then he rapidly collapsed in upon himself, and blew away in a sudden gust of wind.

"Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust," I said, staring at the silver blade in my hand.

That’s the beginning. My beginning. You can believe it. Or not. Regardless, I walk on.

Sigh, ignore the way JSH censors everything, if you can.

They waited in the mouth of the alleyway, obscured in darkness, nerving themselves up. The one who called himself Scag lit a cigarette with a trembling hand.

"What the **** you think you’re doing?" the second figure snarled, grabbing the cigarette and throwing it into the puddle at their feet.

"****, Joey, that was my last one!"

"Does it look like I ****in’ care? What if somebody saw you light up, huh? You wanna blow this for us?"

"Oh, sorry Joey," he said sullenly, " I wasn’t thinking’."

"You never do, so what’s new?" he said distractedly, glancing out of the alley down the sidewalk. "Now get back, there’s somebody comin’!"

Scag looked out around the edge of the brick wall, expecting a wino or a crackhead looking for a fix, but instead saw a suit stumbling down the sidewalk. A ****in’ suit! This time a’ night? But there he was, slacks, vest, even a big old overcoat like those Wallstreet pricks were always wearing. Scag could almost feel the suit’s fat leather wallet in his hand, bulging with twenties and fifties, maybe even hundreds! All sorts of credit cards, and who knew how much they could get for those
clothes. Or maybe he’d take the clothes for himself, deck himself out like a big-time player, watch-chain and all. He crouched down, then felt Joey’s hand on his
shoulder.

"Somethin’ don’t feel right," Joey said, "what if this is one of those cop stings?"

"I dunno," Scag said, "Why would they dress their guy up like a suit? Wouldn’t it be kinda suspicious?"

A dull light appeared in Joey’s eyes. "You’re right. Yeah, why would they do that? Wouldn’t catch anybody with a nice, clean suit for bait, would they? Yeah. Okay, let’s do ‘im."

"Yeah," said Scag, "Let’s do ‘im good. Stupid ****in’ suit! He deserves it!"

"Get down. Here he comes!"

The suit was shuffling closer now, zigging and zagging all over the place. It was a miracle he could even stay on his feet! He was so close now Scag could smell his
cologne, some weird foreign **** Scag had never smelled before.

"Ready?" Joey asked, "Alright, let’s go!"

They stepped quickly out of the darkness, grabbed the man, and yanked him back into the alley. He didn’t put up much of a fight, just let out a bleary grunt as he was dragged down the alley and pinned against the wall.

"Let's see what you got, mister businessman!" Joey snarled, shaking him roughly before picking the man up off his feet.

"Yeah, Joey, **** ‘im up!" Scag crowed.

Still holding the man, Joey turned a murderous eye on Scag. "I told you to never use my name!" He turned his face back to the suit. "Now, Mister Suit, I’m afraid you know a little too much about me for comfort, but I think I can fix that…"

With that he drew a wickedly serrated knife out of a sheath on his belt. To Scag it looked almost a foot long.

"You really gonna kill him, Jo- I mean, uh, Jimmy?"

"Too late for that, now, Scag," he said, gaze still on the hanging head of the drunken man, "Bye-bye, Mister Suit," he said softly, raising the knife, sorry to lose such a nice set of clothes.

The man’s head slowly raised, and Joey saw not the bloodshot eyes of a midnight drunk but eyes so vividly blue they seemed to bore into his own.

"Goodbye, Joey," said Mister Suit, "I’ll miss you always."

Joey felt a deep searing pain as something cold and sharp slid into his chest and out through his back. He coughed a fine red mist as one of his lungs deflated like a
punctured balloon and the blade sliced his heart cleanly in two. The light left his eyes slowly, fading as his lifeblood gushed out of him.

The mystery man pulled his blade free, and, almost as an after thought, swung it in a glittering arc that severed Joey’s head from his body in one fluid motion before the body could even begin to topple over.

Scag looked with disbelief at what was happening. Was that really Joey’s head over by the dumpster? No, stop the presses, that’s not the way things work. Grab, hit, run. Grab, hit, run. Every time it worked, so who was this guy to screw up the routine?

"Wh-What’d you do that for?" he asked, staring at Joey’s head in incredulity. "Why’d you kill Joe?"

"Because… he was bad," the man said patiently, as if to a child, " Very bad indeed. Evil, even, I would say. And I will not allow evil, not even simple thugs like you. You, at least, are one of the lucky ones. You’re one of the first. You won’t have to live with the fear I’ll bring to your kind in this city. And now, although this conversation is so very interesting, it is at an end. Tempus fugit." He silently glided toward Scag.

Almost all of Scag had stopped functioning when Joey’s head had left his body, but his low cunning was working overtime. In what felt like slow-motion he yanked his own knife free of his belt and ran at the man, shoulders low, hoping for a shot at Mister Suit’s guts. He jabbed forward and upward, trying to disembowel the man, but his swing was stopped short as the man grabbed his wrist and gave it a vicious twist. Scag howled in pain and clutched his wrist, then turned and tried to run. He stumbled through a puddle and shot a terrified look over his shoulder. The blade cut deep into his back, severing the spine and nearly cutting him in two. He pitched forward, landing on his back. As the blood began to cool around him and his vision began to fade, his final sight were the man’s eyes, and he thought Hell must not be the red of flames, but pure, glacial blue.


Vanessa D’ Angelo, homicide detective, Fifth Precinct, was not in a joyous mood. Not only had she had a fight with her landlord over a month’s late rent, she had gotten a call around 7 a.m. that some scumbags over in Brooklyn had evidently been thrown in an economy-sized chop-o-matic. The call hadn’t been about the fact that the men were killed; nobody really cared. But because they were killed in what the coroner called "a ritualistic fashion", there had to be a formal investigation. Nobody wanted this killer to graduate to respectable citizens. The mayor would have a seizure.

Too bad, she thought. Might do wonders for the bureaucracy around here.

She smiled at the thought, but it quickly turned to a frown as she entered the station. She could hear the Captain yelling at Keelings, which was nothing new. The Cap had it in for Keelings, or so Keelings said. The fact was he was a natural born screw-up, and a whiny one to boot. Vanessa tried to steer clear of him, but once the Captain got angry at Keelings, he had a habit of spreading it around so everyone could benefit.

She walked up to the Captain’s door just in time to see Keelings slink out.His greasy hair and five o’ clock shadow made him look like ninety percent of the guys that were dragged into the station everyday.

"Careful, ‘Nessa, he’s in one of his moods again," Keeling mumbled under his breath.

God, she hated it when he called her that! "What Keelings? You say the Captain’s PMSing again?" she said loudly, "That’s very politically incorrect and I take offence to it!"

"KEELINGS!" the Captain’s voice roared hard enough to shake the door, "GET BACK IN HERE!"

"oh ****," he said in a strangled croak, then bolted toward the station’s entrance.

Trying hard not to chuckle, Vanessa stepped into the Captain’s office. She quietly shut the door and sat in the highly uncomfortable chair in front of the Captain’s desk. It was said he had personally chosen that chair, as a way of keeping his underlings from getting too cozy while they were in his office. He, on the other hand, had a well-padded swivel chair in which he would recline whilst tearing them a new one.

He was a large man, but not overly so, big enough to be a quarterback but not a linebacker. He was old enough to be her father, but he was definitely not a pencil- pusher like some of the mucky-mucks in the larger precincts. Once he had been walking through the station with a file to take to Records when a perp broke free of the officer holding him and made a break for the door. The Cap (he had actually been the Sarge, then) calmly turned and caught the guy with a clothesline. The man did a complete backflip and landed at the Cap’s feet. He looked down, seemed satisfied, and resumed walking. Needless to say, Vanessa had a lot of respect for him.

He was rubbing his temples as she entered.

"That guy gives me migraines every time I see him," he said. He opened his desk drawer and pulled an aspirin bottle out. He swallowed a few, took a pull from his coffee mug, put his hands flat on the desk and looked at Vanessa.

"D’ Angelo, you’re off the Martin case," he said.

"What?" she asked incredulously, "Why? I have some prime leads! I was going to talk to an informant right after I came here!"

"Doesn’t matter. As much as I hate to, I’m giving it to Keelings. That’s what we were talking about just now, in fact. Be sure to send all your info to him as soon as possible."

She began to open her mouth again, but he silenced her with an impatient wave of his hand.

"I know what you’re gonna say, but I have a case which I think will better suit you. I’m giving you the slasher case you were called about. I would have brought you out there right away, but I figured you wouldn’t be able to give your all with no warning. The scene’s still fresh, though the blood’s dried, and you’ll find the full coroner’s report on your desk."

"What makes me so special?" she asked angrily.

"You’re the only detective we have around here who took more than half a year of forensic pathology, that’s what," he looked directly into her eyes, "Any more questions?"

She could tell he was getting angry but didn’t care. She’d spent months on this case just to get it yanked out from under her!

"This is bull****!" she growled angrily.

"Your feelings are duly noted and ignored," he said mildly, "Aren’t you gone yet?"

She stalked out of his office and down to her desk. The coroner’s report was the only thing on it besides her nameplate. It looked at least ten pages long. She decided to read it on the way.

He sat on the rooftop opposite the alleyway to see how quickly the police reacted. As was expected, the screams alerted no one and the first ones to discover the bodies were the garbage men who came in the morning. It took about another thirty minutes for the first policemen to show up. They had the alley taped off in five, and the bodies removed in fifteen. Not bad, for cops in this city, but they definitely wouldn’t hinder his… venture. Then another car pulled up, this one unmarked except for a light on the hood. A man and a woman stepped out. "A lady detective?" he asked sadly, "Such exquisiteness to be wasted here is truly a tragedy…"

As he trailed off, she suddenly whipped her head around to look in his direction. He ducked down, sure she had seen him and wondering how she’d sensed him. When he threw a cautious glance over the roof’s edge, though, she was turned to the other policeman again, a perplexed look on her face. Breathing a sigh of relief, he decided that was enough adventure for the day. He moved into a crouch and began to move back across the rooftop.

"Interesting," he murmured with a hidden smile.

That was weird, she could have sworn someone was staring at her, but all the others were engrossed in the crime scene. Oh well, back to business. Her first impression of the crime scene was that the killer must have either caught the men by surprise or he was terribly efficient. The proximity of the bodies indicated that after the first man had been killed, the second had only gotten about twenty yards before dying. There were no blood trails, both men had died where they stood. According to the coroner’s report, the cuts had been even and precise, almost surgical, so the killer looked after his weapon with great care. The depth of the wounds suggested a long knife, like a machete, or a sword. To swing such a weapon, even a surgically sharp one, and create such wounds required great strength, so he was definitely in good physical shape. All this pointed to a man who had contemplated his actions for a long time, preparing mentally as well as physically. He was (is, she thought sourly) well organized, and very clever, with a specific goal in mind. This was no random killing; he had probably observed these men for days before
striking. Two words stuck in her mind, and she couldn’t shake them: serial killer.

But why kill these two? Why not drive by any gang den and open fire? Was it a personal vendetta or just some vigilante going off the deep end?

"Bring the black bag from the car, Mac," she told the other officer. Time to see if those forensics classes really counted for anything.

I don't care what we're voting about, Joyce's legs get my vote. Yowza!

I'm all for giving political...favors to my constituents. Vote HCIJ in 2007!

300
Braveheart
The Matrix
Robocop
Batman (not the ones with Clooney or Kilmer, tyvm)
Die Hard series
Lethal Weapon series
Let's just say any movie with explosions and good fight scenes to shorten this down


Oh, and S.O.B in which you get to see Julie Andrews' boobies. I must say....absolute perfection.

LoL, good one.

You need to find a guy who worships you like his own personal goddess, then you'll have no problems with him cheating on you. There's usually one hanging around that you see every day but never really notice because he's so shy around you. Look for that guy. How did that song go? "See the man with the lonely eyes, oh take his hand you'll be surprised."

Kids are great. That being said...WAIT TIL YOU ARE 30 TO HAVE ANY. Maybe 35 even. Or get a vasectomy. That'd work.

I agree, age and maturity don't always go hand-in-hand. Then again, I'm only 23 and I feel 35. It's all in a person's life experiences.

I can kinda understand the wedding night thing (my wife and I were too exhausted from the wedding) but 2 1/2 years??? Did you check to make sure he wasn't castrated?

I shave it all off down there, but it's mostly because I work in 100-112 degree temperatures, not as a fashion statement.