"This Pavlov is giving me the chills, boss."

Jorge is my second in command. He looks like a darker version of Conan the barbarian. Definitely not the easiest person to scare.

"He's not a man I'd want to meet in a dark alley, boss," he goes on.

"You don't have to," I tell him. "I'm the one meeting him. You're just coming with me."

I know, I'm avoiding the question. Jorge's been hating on Pavlov since the moment they met.

"He's the devil, boss. His eyes are dead. An evil spirit killed his soul and took his skin."

"Jorge, please," I sigh, but he interrupts me. Something he never tried before. Because he wanted to live, probably.

"You think it's a joke, boss," he says. "But my abuela taught me everything about spirits and how to recognize them."

"Right," I snort. "That's why you identified me as a death demon at first sight, right? Do I remember correctly? You also told me that it was worse than a simple devil."

"Yes, because you're dead inside, too. But since I've joined you, you became a protective spirit for me. That's a huge difference!"

"Exactly." I nod for emphasis. "And that's why you shouldn't worry about Pavlov, right? Death demon beats them all. All the fucking spirits are my bitches. Comprende?"

He can't dispute my logic. Yet, he's still as nervous as a rabbit at a racetrack. It's something uncharacteristic of him. Usually, he's as calm as a frost spirit, which is the chillest fucking spirit of them all. The one that cuts your throat without blinking while humming a lullaby.

Okay, I definitely should spend less time with Jorge. His spirit nonsense is rubbing off on me.

"Hey, mate," I tell him. "No worries. I'll keep an eye on him."

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. I spread my hands dismissively.

"He wants to kill off gays!" he blurts out. "He told me so! First, it's those who are not useful members of society, right? Those who can't work and therefore are a burden to us. Old people. Ill. Disabled. He wants to restore the honor of hard work, right? And the unemployed, of course, they can't pay for the vaccine; that goes without saying. But gays can work! And now he wants gay people dead too. That son of a bitch walked up to me and told me so!"

I curse under my breath.

"He doesn't know you're gay," I tell him. "It's not written on your forehead."

It's supposed to calm him down, but I know it's a lie. That's precisely why that sadistic devil told him about his plans. Because somehow, he knows. And he enjoys seeing people squirm.

"I work, right?" Jorge goes on rambling. "I work hard, boss!"

"Of course you do," I assure him. I refrain from going into detail regarding the social usefulness of that work, though. I'm not sure that beating up and killing people would be classified as useful by Pavlov's standards.

"Yet, he wants to deny me the vaccine," he rants on. "So if we kill him first, it would be justifiable self-defense, nothing else."

It's my turn to shake my head.

"We can't back away from this contract, Jorge. Not in a way that allows us to stay alive. Someone would take our place in five seconds after it's leaked out that we have failed to deliver. And not just our place, our heads as well, obviously. We're not vacuum salesmen. We're mercenaries. We face different occupational hazards."

"I know, boss," he says. "But his plans are crazy."

"What plans? You believe fucking everything. How many times have I told you to use your brain, huh? He won't be the only one owning a vaccine. He'll be just the first. He wants to make a fortune out of it, and everything else is bullshit."

"Are you sure, boss?"

I nod. And Jorge believes me. He respects me as if I really was a death demon, with glowing, red eyes, as his abuela taught him.

Well, he shouldn't. I lie to him all the time, apparently.

"Your orders?" he asks me, falling back to his role.

"They relocated the code to Fort Aubert. Retrieve it. Take at least thirty men with you."

"Should we expect armed resistance?"

"It's a fort, mate." I shrug.

"I'm on it, boss." He grins, salutes in a half-mocking way, and leaves.

Just in time. I need to sort out the details of my mission, too.

I have something to do while they're away. I have to neutralize the factor that made me fail last time, to make sure that I won't fail again.

It wasn't Duke.

It was her.

Gabriel. She works as a kindergarten teacher. Can this get any weirder?

She's a person. A very strange one, but a person. Not an angel.

Not like I imagined her, not at all.

She's not beautiful. She's so small. And weak.

But, first and foremost, alive. Somewhere out there, all alone. She'd need someone by her side to protect her. Is it safe for such a small woman to walk around alone? I have no idea. I've never thought about things like this before.

So unprotected and vulnerable. Just thinking about how fragile she is, almost triggers one of my panic attacks.

Thinking about how I'll kill her would trigger one without a doubt, I'm afraid. So I refuse to think about it. I plan the details but avoid that specific moment I pull the trigger. This way, she seems just like an occupational hazard of my job I need to get rid of.

I'll simply eliminate a problem.

A problem called Gabriel.