The Headhunter passed DeClercq on Marine Drive. So deep in thought were hunter and hunted that neither saw the other drive by. From his home DeClercq headed east toward Lions Gate Bridge. The killer passed him driving the opposite way. Conversation with Mother an hour ago in town echoed in the psychotic mind unable to separate fantasy from reality:

"Mommy, he knows!"

"Easy, Sparky. We've been through this before."

"DeClercq isn't Flood!"

"DeClercq can be broken. You broke him once. We'll break him again."

"It's too late! He knows!" "If he knew, you'd be under arrest. Or there would be a takedown alert for you."

"If he doesn't know, he's damn close."

"And that's why you must do exactly what I say to cover our tracks."

"Our tracks, Mommy?" "The tape of you and me. We're not the only head-shrinkers in this." "What tape, Mommy?"

"Think, Sparky. Think. The tape in the recorder on his desk."

"I was taped!"

"You were under hypnosis. Taping what patients say is standard procedure."

"What did I say?"

"You spilled the beans. His office, and his desk, and his tape recorder. Your deepest secret on the tape in his hands. What if he decides to play the tape for DeClercq?"

"I'm fucked."

"We're not fucked yet. Both he and the tape must be erased."

"What about DeClercq?"

"Break him, Sparky. Fill his mind with anguish so he can't solve the case."

"The kid?"

"That'll break him."

"What if it's too late and DeClercq comes for me?"

"I'm dead, child, yet I live on. Death is a door to afterlife. If he comes for you, come to me. Promise you won't let him take you alive."

"I promise, Mommy."

"Good. Give 'em hell."

Beams probed the darkness for numbers up the road. Except for artificial light, this was a black-and-white world. The night was clear; the stars were out; and the moon had yet to rise. From black sky right to black sea left the mountain sloped white. The Jeep scurried along Marine like a black bug. Trees looming along the route gloomed it with shadows. The eyes of houses glared gold from the seaside woods. The address jumped like a jackrabbit into the beams. Sparky drove on and parked the Jeep out of sight.

Like Marine, the path to the house was shadowed by trees. Wind jerked the shadows like a silent film. Bony black bogeymen stripped of leaves voodoo shuffled amid thin pyramids on a snow-white screen. One hand around a limp sack to bag the head, the other gripping that two-foot machete with sliding six-ounce weight, the shadow of the Headhunter spooked the dark.

The windows of the cottage ahead glared like cat's eyes. Twin gables jutted from the roof like cat's ears. Bushes bristled by the door like cat's whiskers. Jagged icicles over the threshold yawned like cat's fangs. The Headhunter crept close to peer in one eye.

A real cat snoozed in front of the cheery hearth. The hearth was flanked by reading chairs. Glow from the fire gilded several books circling one chair. Window to window, the psycho circled the house, but there was no sign of the reader within.

No one home.

Sparky would have to wait.

The wait was filled with winter sounds. Foghorns out on English Bay. Trees groaning and creaking before the wind, and occasionally the snap of a broken branch. The swoop of an unseen owl overhead, then the squeal of prey caught in its talons. Cars slushing by on the road up the path. A car pulling in off the road, followed by the slamming of a door. The trudging of footsteps along the path. The soft crunch of snow as Sparky hid behind a tree near the cottage door.

Machete raised.

Weight near the handle.

The footsteps drew closer as a new shadow entered the horror film. The newcomer passed the bogeyman cast by Sparky's ambush tree. The shadow hugged something to its chest. Breath plumed from passing lips to blow back on the breeze. Swoooshhh! the machete arced from behind the tree. The leafless bogeyman near the door sprouted an extra arm. The weight slid to the tip of the blade with a metal-on-metal clang, centrifugal force added to the beheading.

The head of the shadow jumped off its shoulders in fright.

A fountain of fake blood exploded on-screen.

Moments later, real blood showered the path.

The headless body crumpled to its knees, releasing the bag clutched to its chest, then pitched stump first toward the door.

Sparky emerged from behind the bogeyman.

Sparky plucked the head with twitching lips out of the film.

Sparky gazed into the fading eyes of consciousness dying.

Like a servant of Madame Guillotine, Sparky showed the head to a mob of one.

"Delicious!" Mother cried in glee from deep within the Headhunter's head.