Prologue

BRIAN GALLAGHER stormed out of the bar into a cold February night, but he failed to notice when the door opened again behind him. A man with silver-framed glasses emerged slowly and focused his eyes on Brian’s retreating back.

Brian twisted his scarf around his neck and then yanked up the zipper on his red puffy jacket with trembling hands. The zipper stuck, and he muttered, “Shit,” but kept tugging until finally the slider moved and the teeth closed. The parking lot was mostly full with people coming and going from Mata Hari, the newest gay bar in town, and the nearby dance club Pyramid. He stomped across the lot toward P Street and pulled out his phone.

“Hey, kiddo.” Sandra sounded cheerful when she picked up the call, even though she probably guessed what was coming. “Whatcha doin’ calling on a Saturday?”

“I’m going home already because I’m having a shitty night.” Between his own anger, the pulsing beat from Pyramid’s music system, and the chatter of men scurrying from car to club, he practically had to yell into the phone. “Talk to me and make me feel better, please?”

“Aw, baby, wassup? I thought you were gonna hook up with that guy again.”

“That’s what I thought. Well, it’s what I hoped, anyway. We were so hot last week. I was sure he’d want to get together again. He wasn’t even talking to anyone important, just this guy. But when I walked up, he shut me down.”

“So… you didn’t have a date. You just surprised him?” Sandra asked.

“Well, you know.” Brian was aware he sounded whiny. “He wouldn’t give me his number last week, but I still figured he’d be happy to see me.” He emerged from the parking lot and headed up P Street toward his apartment. “The sex was just spec-tac-ular. Like ‘once in a lifetime’ great. And he was so nice to me. I thought we had, like, a connection.”

“Baby, did he say he wanted to see you again? If he didn’t give you his digits, then that sounds intentional….”

“Okay. He did say it was a one-time thing, he doesn’t do dating, blah blah blah. But come on. We had sex twice that night. Twice. Like, I never gave it up so fast before.”

“Bullshit. You’re as easy as they come,” Sandra said, probably to get a laugh, but it didn’t work. Brian just got mad again.

“That asshole. Who does he think he is? God’s gift to men?” he fumed. “Yes, he’s gorgeous, but come the fuck on. Like, I got so pissed that I threw his own drink at him.”

“Well, he’ll remember you, then, no question. But I’m sorry he hurt your feelings.”

Brian deflated suddenly. “What’s wrong with me, Sandra?” he asked as he turned right onto Hopkins Street, where he lived. “Why do I keep going for these guys who treat me like shit?” The streetlamp on the corner was out.

Oh, fucking perfect.

His footsteps sounded loud to him once he turned off busy P Street. His quiet block was dark because of the busted streetlight.

“Nothin’, baby. You just get close too quickly because you’ve got a big heart and you want a big love,” Sandra cooed in his ear.

“You always say the right thing,” Brian sighed. “But I’m a goddamn mess. I know it, and you know it.”

As he expected, Sandra kept talking and tried to persuade him the right guy was out there somewhere, waiting for him. He just needed patience. She’d given him variations on the same speech so many times she must have it memorized. But he loved her for it.

As he hurried down the street toward his rented garden apartment, he heard the scuff of a shoe behind him. He glanced back over his shoulder and noticed a man with shaggy blond hair and glasses, walking in the same direction but on the opposite side of the street. He thought no more about it and got out his keys to unlock the wrought iron security gate at the bottom of the stairs. He was relieved the metal didn’t squeal anymore when he turned the key and pushed it open. His landlord must have oiled the hinges.

“Thanks, Sandra.” Brian locked the gate behind him and then unlocked the front door. He pressed the phone between his ear and shoulder as he pulled off his jacket and hung it on the coat tree by the door. “You have once again fulfilled ‘Best Friend for Life’ duties.”

“You home safe?” she asked.

“Yeah. Home at ten on a Saturday night, alone,” Brian groused as he unwound the scarf from his neck and placed it with his coat. “Guess it’s time for, like, ice cream and a sappy movie.” As an afterthought he flipped the lock on his front door and then turned on a lamp.

“You want me to come over, baby?” Sandra asked.

“Nah. That’s sweet, but I just need some time to beat myself up. I’ll get back out there again next week. Besides, I don’t want you on the streets this late.”

“I’ll see you in class Monday, ’kay? Call me if you need to talk some more.”

“Thanks for listening.” Brian signed off with another sigh. He set his phone on the side table and then changed out of his bar clothes and into comfortable sweats. He pulled a pint of Ben and Jerry’s out of the freezer. Curled up on his small sofa. Searched through his Netflix queue and finally settled on a really bad romantic movie he’d seen three times already.

Just to make sure I’m completely miserable.

ACROSS THE street the man with the silver-framed glasses stood back in the shadows and stared at the front window of the garden apartment. He could see the back of his quarry’s head as he watched a small flat-screen TV.

Time passed.

Eventually the head nodded forward and then jerked up. When it happened a second time, the creature turned off the TV and then the lamp and headed to bed.

The man waited for another half hour with his back pressed against an alcove formed where two brownstones met. The street was quiet. Almost no one walked by, and the lone person who came down the street failed to notice him in the shadows.

The man felt his breath grow hoarse, and blood rushed in his ears as his heart began to pound. He cultivated that sensation as he reached into his coat pocket for the screwdriver that rested there and made himself imagine the creature’s hands touching the Beloved’s face. Stroking his body. He curled his fingers around the screwdriver and then clenched and unclenched rhythmically. Its thick handle felt rough against his palm because of the grooves and sharp edges he had chiseled into it. He had ideas for other implements that would serve his purpose, but for now, this would do just fine. This would make his point.

His throat was dry, and his eyes burned from focusing on the darkened window, but he felt invincible. The tension in his body climbed exquisitely, and when he could take no more, he slipped across the street and stepped down to the locked gate. It opened easily with his small set of picks. The gate made no noise when the creature went through it earlier, so he was confident and quick and didn’t bother to lock it behind him. Child’s play, he thought as he worked the lock on the apartment door.

The tumblers clicked into place.

He stored his lockpicks, slipped inside the darkened apartment, and then closed the door behind him as silently as he could. Streetlight came through the slatted blinds the boy had failed to close completely. He waited quietly until he heard a faint snore from the back and then removed his glasses and tucked them in an inside pocket of his jacket. The scarf his quarry had been wearing caught his eye, and the man bared his teeth as he lifted it off the coat tree and tugged it tightly between his hands. It was well made. It would hold. He smiled.

He slid through the gloom toward the room where the creature lay sleeping. He was hard, and the blood in his erection pulsed in time to the pounding of his heart. That boy had dared to touch his Beloved. He had probably even been fucked by him. But that wasn’t enough—oh no. He came back for more.

It had taken the man so long to find his Beloved and interpret his subtle clues. He finally understood what was required of him. The undeserving gnat must be chastised, and he would be the Beloved’s angel of retribution. He was conscious of the weight of the screwdriver in his pocket, the scratch of the wool scarf in his hands, and the power in his arms.

He reached for the boy on the bed.

ON MONDAY, when Brian Gallagher failed to show up for class, Sandra Yu went by his apartment. She found the gate open and the front door unlocked. After an anguished moment, she called the police rather than go inside. That was a good decision because the sight of her best friend—face down, naked except for a scarf knotted around his neck, his buttocks and bed covered with blood and other matter—would have scarred her for life.