Smiths. He hated all Smiths.
He ran a finger across the tip of the Reaper’s Blade. He had done much with it already. He had planted many seeds. Soon the harvest would come.
This would be a year the world would remember.
Five minutes later, Phoenix stepped down a flight of tight stairs and pulled open a heavy metal door. Frozen air flowed out around his crippled legs, and he hobbled in, passing between stacks of long metal boxes, each with a glass door in its side. Naked shapes were visible behind them.
Finally, he stopped, breathing hard, puffing vapor.
Behind a glass door, three boxes up from the floor, lay the lifeless body of a tall man with blond hair. His puckered bullet wounds were pale. His dead lips and ears and eyelids were blue. His name was written in ink on a small card attached to the glass.
LAWRENCE JOHN SMITH
END OF BOOK ONE
Obsecro ut haec recites: Jam incipio calcare orbem terrarum, colere agrestia, jugum injicere maribus quemadmodum antea fecit frater meus, sanctus Brendanus. Nec prae timore avertam gradum ab umbris nec mea lumina a luce. Secundum imperia Procuratorum me geram, nec quicquam secretum ab Sagis habebo. Sint stellae mihi duces et Dominus me servet semper. Ceterum, in Bibliotheca inhaustu abstinebo fumorum.
GRATITUDE
Kate Klimo and Mallory Loehr
for eyes, words, and belief Meg O’Brien for laughter
Dennis M., Joe E., and the rest of the sixth floor
for batting cleanup Ellice Lee for my new uniform Heather Linn for every little thing Rory, Lucia, Ameera, Seamus, and Marisol
for being (and test-driving large portions of this
in their own bedtime adventures)