by J. R. Hanson
      Blood dripped from his hands as he answered the door, and he raised them as if he were a surgeon ready to be gloved up. Nan Arbor felt her eyes focus on them even though some deep reserve begged her to pretend she didn't notice. But, the sight of the blood cast a spell over her...
      ...The man had floated down the hall of their one-story home like a bad dream...
      Gooseflesh tingled Nan's spine as if it were crystal; and she shook her head, breaking away from the memory. She caught the hint of a taunting odor whose name teetered on the edge of her brain like an inexperienced acrobat.
      "You my attorney?" he asked.
      "Nan Arbor." She extended and withdrew her hand all in one motion.
      He wiped his blood-stained palms on his work pants. "Don't mind me. I've been butcherin'."
      She met his dark brown eyes and felt a strangled smile tighten her lips. Butchering what, for God's sake?
      "Let me clean up. Make yourself at home." He disappeared down a dark hallway on the other side of the trailer's cramped living room. A door closed.
      Stepping inside, Nan eased the door shut without really wanting to. The air inside was musty as if everything were damp. She edged over to a stained green couch but couldn't sit down. Tipping her head back, she sniffed three times fast, the hair on the nape of her neck stirring as if she were a bloodhound who'd stumbled onto the trail of a jack rabbit:
      Blood.
      That was the smell.
      She moved cautiously, glancing toward the dark hallway. At the kitchen sink, she let her gaze rest on its contents. Too bloody to recognize. It could have been a chicken. It could have been a baby.
      Something as brutal and unrefined as fear made her open the refrigerator. Several ceramic bowls, covered with aluminum foil, lined the shelves. She started to reach for one when he stepped around the refrigerator door.
      She gasped and backed away, their stares locked together as he closed the door.
      He had wet and combed his hair back with something that smelled sickly sweet.
      "Do ya always look in your client's refrigerators?"
      She lowered her eyes. "No. I'm sorry." She sidled away, the sickly sweet odor a tourniquet around her neck. "You're difficult to reach, Mr. Ward. No telephone. Your arraignment's next week. You need to come down to my office first thing in the morning. We have work to do." She held out a business card. "Directions are at the bottom. I guess you're going to plead not guilty. I read in your police file that this is your first offense."
      Cocking his head, Victor Ward tucked the card into his shirt pocket without looking at it. "You don't think I cut that gal's head off on purpose, do ya?"
      Nan blinked. "Someone did, Mr. Ward."
      He clicked his tongue, cupping his hand under his smooth angular jaw. "There's alotta sickos out there, Counselor. But, I'm mighty lucky to have a pretty little thing like you doin' my dirty work for me. Tell me—why do ya do it?"
      "It's my profession."
      Oh for Chrissake, Nan, you didn't just say "it's my profession," did you?
      Victor Ward was quiet for a moment, then whispered, "I like that. I guess that's kinda how I feel. It's my profession. Come here. I wanna show ya somethin'."
      Half-closing her eyes, Nan watched him walk over to the couch, stoop, and retrieve a stack of papers. Then, he settled onto the couch and patted the cushion beside him. Hesitantly, she perched as he turned the papers over—black and white 8 x 10's. Her stomach rumbled, and he smiled at her as if he heard it. Slowly, he filed through the stack, showing her each one.
      First, there was a pair of legs lying in thick grass. They were attached to a body that had been cropped out of the photo. Dark splatters covered the skin. Next, there was an arm. More dark splatters. Then, a forehead, a finger, a foot...so many she lost track. Dead body parts. Her blood railroaded from one ear to the other. Her jaw popped, and she realized she was clenching her teeth.
      Suddenly, she stood up, her high heel overturning. With two awkward side steps, she caught herself.
      "Oh wait. Here're the best." He held up a yellowed newspaper headline: Local Man Arrested For Brutal Murder Of Sleeping Mother. "Wait." Downs Charged With Three Other Murders. "They get better." Ray Downs Sentenced To The Electric Chair. "Or maybe you'd like something a little more near and dear to your heart." Jackson County Man Murdered After Acquittal.
      Nan stared at him eye to eye.
      "Sickos." He clicked his tongue again. "Here. You take `em." He stood up and shoved the headlines into her hand.
      She clutched them, the feel of the paper sending shivers up her arm. "I have to go." Escape.
      Somehow, he reached the door before she did, and he put his hand against the worn surface, the sickly sweet smell turning coppery. Quietly, he spoke into her ear, his breath like spoiled honey against her neck.
      "No reason to be `fraid of me, Counselor. I'm your guardian angel."
      She twisted around and gaped at him, their lips inches apart.
      He smiled, lowering his arm.
      Turning, she grappled for the doorknob and slipped out as if her body were water escaping through a sieve. Outside, she gasped for air, aware of his stare without even looking.
      "Tomorrow mornin'," he said.
      Waving once, Nan hurried toward her Volvo. Inside, she locked all four doors, noticing several long dark boxes behind the trailer. The sight of them made her stomp the gas pedal. Several miles down the road, she pulled over and put her head on the steering wheel. As hard as she tried, she couldn't stop her teeth from clattering.       Nan Arbor tore her bedroom apart; at last dropping onto the bed, exhausted. Her photo album was nowhere to be found. The dresser drawers were gutted. The closets, blank and staring. The underside of the bed, raked clean. She shook from the inside out. Somehow, Victor Ward had stolen her photos.
      But how? How had he learned the truth? How had he gotten past her apartment's security system? How!
      The murders: She had been so careful. In nine years, she had never been caught, never suspected. She was considered an overly quiet attorney who served her clients well. Little did anyone know: All through the state of Indiana—she waited for the scum bags to be released on bail, or worse, acquitted; then, she slipped up to their doors in the middle of the night....
      The lining on the inside of her nose suddenly tingled as if she could once again smell their blood.
      All of it, she thought, all the blood, all the death, all the deception—all for my mother.
      The memory skittered across her brain...
      She tried to keep it at arm's length. Over the years, she had reserved the horrible tragedy for the ritual. Her mother's murder had become her catalyst. Her guide. If she overplayed the memory in her mind, she feared it would lose its power—as if it alone could motivate her to take another's life.
      ...The man had floated down the hall of their one-story home like a bad dream...
      No, Nan, it's not time to remember!
      ...and five-year-old Nan Arbor had sat up in bed, blinking. Two soft clicks—a door opening and being closed again—echoed up the hall. Nan untangled her feet from the covers and felt the velvety crunch of the carpeting. In the hall, she noticed the garage door ajar and automatically closed it. Cold air licked across her ankles, and a sudden noise exploded over her body. A muffled cry darted from her lips. She had no idea what the sound was, but it was loud and it hurt.
      From the hallway, a dark blur moved toward her.
      She backed against the garage door.
      The man knelt in front of her. He wore a dark green monster mask as if he'd come to trick or treat; and, as he smiled at her, his teeth glimmered like pearls in the moonlight peeking through the picture window. Nan never considered screaming. Even when he held up his hands, red juice trickling onto his sleeves, she only pressed against the cold wood and stared at him. In one hand was a gun; in the other, a huge square-shaped knife. He used the barrel of the gun to touch her cheek once. Then, he left.
      "Mommy! Mommy! There's a man in the house!"
      Nan ran to her mother's bedroom and turned on the light.
      In the middle of her mother's full-sized mattress was a body that looked like her mother's, but the head wasn't right. It was lying upside down on the bed beside her, the mattress covered with more red juice.
      Nan stared at the body for a long time, then closed the door and went back to bed. Her relatives whispered behind her back at the funeral that she didn't understand what had happened.
      They were wrong.
      Attorney Nan Arbor got up and paced, her hands tingling. This was another sign that it was time to avenge her mother's brutal murder once more. She rubbed her palms together until they hurt. Then, nothing was left except—the ritual: First, the memory. Then, the tingling. Next, the Bible. Lastly, the act.
      The Bible rested on a curio shelf in the living room. She smiled to herself as she turned the key and lifted the book out. Victor Ward might have found her photos, but he hadn't found the Bible. Tucked in the seam was a black and white photo of her mother and father, a fat bundle cradled in her mother's arms. The couple stood side-by-side at the altar of Jonesville Lutheran Church.
      Nan felt the same tears she always felt.
      Why did Dad die of that heart attack? If he hadn't, Mom would have never met Ray Downs.
      She replaced the photos and read the Bible's inside inscription: To my beautiful daughter on your baptismal day. Then, she flipped to the back. Hidden there were crumpled newspaper clippings. Carefully, she unfolded each one and laid them end to end:      Local Man Arrested For Brutal Murder Of Sleeping Mother.

      Downs Charged With Three Other Murders.
      Downs Sentenced To Electric Chair.            She searched for the headlines from Ward and matched them with hers. Then, standing back, she stared at them, cocking her head as if they were pieces of a puzzle. Suddenly, she turned and hurried across the apartment's hardwood floor to her den. Her throat tight, she checked the bottom desk drawer, relieved to find her safety deposit box.
      Why didn't Ward steal this too?
      Lifting the box out, she unlocked it and sifted through twelve newspaper clippings, unearthing the one that matched Ward's headline: Jackson County Man Murdered After Acquittal. She remembered that. In the woods behind his country home, she shot him once and opened him up from his neck to his groin—just as he had done to the teenage girl he had raped and murdered.
      Chewing her thumbnail, she skimmed through the article about Vince Wayne, her Jackson County victim. Then, she focused on a small photo to the right: penetrating eyes, dark beard, moon-slit lips.
      Victor Ward threatened me, didn't he? That's why he brought up this man's murder. It was a threat that he'd kill me before I killed him.
      Or was there more?
      She narrowed her eyes. Did Wayne and Ward look alike? The call was difficult; she'd only met Victor Ward once. But she'd seen Vince Wayne a hundred million times. Court. His back yard. Her nightmares. However, their differences confused her: Wayne had a beard, blue eyes. Ward had been cleanly shaven with brown eyes.
      Sighing, she dropped into her leather desk chair. What was she thinking? That Wayne and Ward were the same person? And where did Downs fit in with all of this insanity? She observed the newspaper clipping's date: October 27, 1991, almost five years ago to the day.
      Suddenly, a spear of ice pierced her spine.
      Almost thirty years ago to the day, Downs had killed her mother.
      What the hell's going on?
      Gazing at Wayne's photo, she dug down for feelings that were as slick and cold as graveyard bones. Hate. Revenge. An eye for an eye. She caressed the photo with her trigger finger.
      The phone jingled; however, she could do nothing more than listen to the soft ring. The ritual had begun. Nothing could stop that.
      She put her head back and closed her eyes.       Dressed in a black suit with a red handkerchief, Nan walked into the courtroom as if she expected to find Victor Ward waiting at the defendant's table. As she approached her seat, she noticed a sheet of paper and slowed her pace. Her fingers trembled as she turned it over: a black and white 8 x 10 of Victor Ward dead in his bed. Sudden blackness buzzed in her mind like static on late night television, and she plopped into the chair.
      The smell of blood twined around her senses like a seductive cat; and, as she glanced toward the prosecution, she saw nothing except Victor Ward asleep in his twin bed, his bare feet jutting from the bottom.
      When she had arrived, the trailer's front door was unlocked. She held her handgun to her breast, one gloved hand taking the door to its full width. He would be waiting for her, she knew that.
      In a black hooded sweat shirt, she felt like a dark apparition. A doomsday cloud, and she liked that. She slithered through the living room, down the hall, to the bedroom. The door was ajar. When she found him sleeping, a segment of her heart burned. He should have been waiting. Ready. He should have shown her the fear in his eyes. Two steps and she was next to the bed, the gun's barrel even with his temple.
      "Ms. Arbor, where's your client? Ms. Arbor!"
      Fumbling with her briefcase, Nan crammed the photo inside and glanced at the judge. She had no idea when he had entered or when she had risen to her feet. In response to his dark scowling eyebrow that spanned the width of both eyes, she opened her mouth; but the words were slow. More than slow. Wedged tightly in her throat.
      He's dead, Your Honor. Thanks to my own skilled hand. Would you like to see the photo?
      She clutched her briefcase with both hands and glanced at the prosecution. Lou Monan was staring at her, his hand to his thick gray beard. Suddenly, though, in slow-motion, he turned and gazed toward the back of the courtroom.
      Nan followed, her eyes widening.
      In a gray three-piece suit, Victor Ward moved toward the defendant's table. He walked the way honey poured. At the front, he apologized to the judge about being late, then observed Nan with his—blue eyes! A smile lifted one corner of his mouth, now encircled by dark beard stubbles.
      When the gun's barrel touched Victor Ward's temple, he opened his eyes.
      Nan sucked in her breath and jumped back.
      Ward made no attempt to get up. Instead, he lay perfectly still, the only movement, his eyes: Slowly, he worked his line of vision over Nan's body as if he were admiring her shapely figure.
      For God's sake, Nan, pull the trigger!
      Her hand shook, and she braced the gun in a double-handed grip.
      Suddenly, Ward sat up.
      Nan jumped back another step but kept the weapon aimed at his head.
      Pull the trigger!
      "I never was gonna kill ya, Counselor." He grinned, his teeth like white pearls in the moonlight peeking through the bedroom window.
      Nan's head spun.
      "I've been with ya more than you'll ever know. Remember in your livin' room when I caressed your little cheek?" He rolled his head back, then met her eyes. "Remember cuttin' me open in the woods behind my house?"
      "Shut up!" Nan screamed, waving the gun.
      Ward whispered, "Counselor, is that anyway to treat your guardian angel?"
      "In hell!" Nan fired.
      A slew of brains and blood splattered the wall as Ward plummeted backward, his head hanging awkwardly off the side of the bed.
      The chirp of crickets wafted through the open window. Otherwise, absolute silence.
      Cold chills prickled Nan's arms as she stepped around the bed and stared into Ward's face. His brown eyes marveled at the ceiling. Moving back, she noticed something on the floor. Her stomach muscles tightened. Hesitantly, she leaned over. A green monster mask. Grunting, she swung toward Ward, swearing his body moved.
      For the next thirty minutes, she stood beside him, her body rigid, the gun locked in her sweaty palms.
      Come on, Nan, you don't really think he's going to get up, do you?
      Finally, she shot him again and walked out with her hands dangling at her sides.
      In the courtroom, Nan pulled back as Victor Ward's grinning face loomed toward her.
      "You don't look so happy to see me, Counselor."
      Attorney Nan Arbor sank into her chair and covered her face.
      Ward sat down beside her. "Surely, ya ain't forgot I'm your guardian angel."
      She lifted her eyes to his face.
      "We got a lifetime," Ward whispered.
      "In hell."
      "There too."
      "Counselor," the judge boomed, "we need to begin."
      Nan concentrated on the front of the courtroom, finally nodding. One shiver. Then, she poured herself a glass of water and stood up to plead her client's innocence.

J.R. Hanson has published works with White Knuckles, Eclipse, Nighteyes Anthology, and other magazines, although "The Deadly Match" is the first sold to a paying market. A novel, The Soul Hunt, is in progress. For more about J.R. Hanson, see the Author's Pad.

by J. R. Hanson
      Blood dripped from his hands as he answered the door, and he raised them as if he were a surgeon ready to be gloved up. Nan Arbor felt her eyes focus on them even though some deep reserve begged her to pretend she didn't notice. But, the sight of the blood cast a spell over her...
      ...The man had floated down the hall of their one-story home like a bad dream...
      Gooseflesh tingled Nan's spine as if it were crystal; and she shook her head, breaking away from the memory. She caught the hint of a taunting odor whose name teetered on the edge of her brain like an inexperienced acrobat.
      "You my attorney?" he asked.
      "Nan Arbor." She extended and withdrew her hand all in one motion.
      He wiped his blood-stained palms on his work pants. "Don't mind me. I've been butcherin'."
      She met his dark brown eyes and felt a strangled smile tighten her lips. Butchering what, for God's sake?
      "Let me clean up. Make yourself at home." He disappeared down a dark hallway on the other side of the trailer's cramped living room. A door closed.
      Stepping inside, Nan eased the door shut without really wanting to. The air inside was musty as if everything were damp. She edged over to a stained green couch but couldn't sit down. Tipping her head back, she sniffed three times fast, the hair on the nape of her neck stirring as if she were a bloodhound who'd stumbled onto the trail of a jack rabbit:
      Blood.
      That was the smell.
      She moved cautiously, glancing toward the dark hallway. At the kitchen sink, she let her gaze rest on its contents. Too bloody to recognize. It could have been a chicken. It could have been a baby.
      Something as brutal and unrefined as fear made her open the refrigerator. Several ceramic bowls, covered with aluminum foil, lined the shelves. She started to reach for one when he stepped around the refrigerator door.
      She gasped and backed away, their stares locked together as he closed the door.
      He had wet and combed his hair back with something that smelled sickly sweet.
      "Do ya always look in your client's refrigerators?"
      She lowered her eyes. "No. I'm sorry." She sidled away, the sickly sweet odor a tourniquet around her neck. "You're difficult to reach, Mr. Ward. No telephone. Your arraignment's next week. You need to come down to my office first thing in the morning. We have work to do." She held out a business card. "Directions are at the bottom. I guess you're going to plead not guilty. I read in your police file that this is your first offense."
      Cocking his head, Victor Ward tucked the card into his shirt pocket without looking at it. "You don't think I cut that gal's head off on purpose, do ya?"
      Nan blinked. "Someone did, Mr. Ward."
      He clicked his tongue, cupping his hand under his smooth angular jaw. "There's alotta sickos out there, Counselor. But, I'm mighty lucky to have a pretty little thing like you doin' my dirty work for me. Tell me—why do ya do it?"
      "It's my profession."
      Oh for Chrissake, Nan, you didn't just say "it's my profession," did you?
      Victor Ward was quiet for a moment, then whispered, "I like that. I guess that's kinda how I feel. It's my profession. Come here. I wanna show ya somethin'."
      Half-closing her eyes, Nan watched him walk over to the couch, stoop, and retrieve a stack of papers. Then, he settled onto the couch and patted the cushion beside him. Hesitantly, she perched as he turned the papers over—black and white 8 x 10's. Her stomach rumbled, and he smiled at her as if he heard it. Slowly, he filed through the stack, showing her each one.
      First, there was a pair of legs lying in thick grass. They were attached to a body that had been cropped out of the photo. Dark splatters covered the skin. Next, there was an arm. More dark splatters. Then, a forehead, a finger, a foot...so many she lost track. Dead body parts. Her blood railroaded from one ear to the other. Her jaw popped, and she realized she was clenching her teeth.
      Suddenly, she stood up, her high heel overturning. With two awkward side steps, she caught herself.
      "Oh wait. Here're the best." He held up a yellowed newspaper headline: Local Man Arrested For Brutal Murder Of Sleeping Mother. "Wait." Downs Charged With Three Other Murders. "They get better." Ray Downs Sentenced To The Electric Chair. "Or maybe you'd like something a little more near and dear to your heart." Jackson County Man Murdered After Acquittal.
      Nan stared at him eye to eye.
      "Sickos." He clicked his tongue again. "Here. You take `em." He stood up and shoved the headlines into her hand.
      She clutched them, the feel of the paper sending shivers up her arm. "I have to go." Escape.
      Somehow, he reached the door before she did, and he put his hand against the worn surface, the sickly sweet smell turning coppery. Quietly, he spoke into her ear, his breath like spoiled honey against her neck.
      "No reason to be `fraid of me, Counselor. I'm your guardian angel."
      She twisted around and gaped at him, their lips inches apart.
      He smiled, lowering his arm.
      Turning, she grappled for the doorknob and slipped out as if her body were water escaping through a sieve. Outside, she gasped for air, aware of his stare without even looking.
      "Tomorrow mornin'," he said.
      Waving once, Nan hurried toward her Volvo. Inside, she locked all four doors, noticing several long dark boxes behind the trailer. The sight of them made her stomp the gas pedal. Several miles down the road, she pulled over and put her head on the steering wheel. As hard as she tried, she couldn't stop her teeth from clattering.       Nan Arbor tore her bedroom apart; at last dropping onto the bed, exhausted. Her photo album was nowhere to be found. The dresser drawers were gutted. The closets, blank and staring. The underside of the bed, raked clean. She shook from the inside out. Somehow, Victor Ward had stolen her photos.
      But how? How had he learned the truth? How had he gotten past her apartment's security system? How!
      The murders: She had been so careful. In nine years, she had never been caught, never suspected. She was considered an overly quiet attorney who served her clients well. Little did anyone know: All through the state of Indiana—she waited for the scum bags to be released on bail, or worse, acquitted; then, she slipped up to their doors in the middle of the night....
      The lining on the inside of her nose suddenly tingled as if she could once again smell their blood.
      All of it, she thought, all the blood, all the death, all the deception—all for my mother.
      The memory skittered across her brain...
      She tried to keep it at arm's length. Over the years, she had reserved the horrible tragedy for the ritual. Her mother's murder had become her catalyst. Her guide. If she overplayed the memory in her mind, she feared it would lose its power—as if it alone could motivate her to take another's life.
      ...The man had floated down the hall of their one-story home like a bad dream...
      No, Nan, it's not time to remember!
      ...and five-year-old Nan Arbor had sat up in bed, blinking. Two soft clicks—a door opening and being closed again—echoed up the hall. Nan untangled her feet from the covers and felt the velvety crunch of the carpeting. In the hall, she noticed the garage door ajar and automatically closed it. Cold air licked across her ankles, and a sudden noise exploded over her body. A muffled cry darted from her lips. She had no idea what the sound was, but it was loud and it hurt.
      From the hallway, a dark blur moved toward her.
      She backed against the garage door.
      The man knelt in front of her. He wore a dark green monster mask as if he'd come to trick or treat; and, as he smiled at her, his teeth glimmered like pearls in the moonlight peeking through the picture window. Nan never considered screaming. Even when he held up his hands, red juice trickling onto his sleeves, she only pressed against the cold wood and stared at him. In one hand was a gun; in the other, a huge square-shaped knife. He used the barrel of the gun to touch her cheek once. Then, he left.
      "Mommy! Mommy! There's a man in the house!"
      Nan ran to her mother's bedroom and turned on the light.
      In the middle of her mother's full-sized mattress was a body that looked like her mother's, but the head wasn't right. It was lying upside down on the bed beside her, the mattress covered with more red juice.
      Nan stared at the body for a long time, then closed the door and went back to bed. Her relatives whispered behind her back at the funeral that she didn't understand what had happened.
      They were wrong.
      Attorney Nan Arbor got up and paced, her hands tingling. This was another sign that it was time to avenge her mother's brutal murder once more. She rubbed her palms together until they hurt. Then, nothing was left except—the ritual: First, the memory. Then, the tingling. Next, the Bible. Lastly, the act.
      The Bible rested on a curio shelf in the living room. She smiled to herself as she turned the key and lifted the book out. Victor Ward might have found her photos, but he hadn't found the Bible. Tucked in the seam was a black and white photo of her mother and father, a fat bundle cradled in her mother's arms. The couple stood side-by-side at the altar of Jonesville Lutheran Church.
      Nan felt the same tears she always felt.
      Why did Dad die of that heart attack? If he hadn't, Mom would have never met Ray Downs.
      She replaced the photos and read the Bible's inside inscription: To my beautiful daughter on your baptismal day. Then, she flipped to the back. Hidden there were crumpled newspaper clippings. Carefully, she unfolded each one and laid them end to end:      Local Man Arrested For Brutal Murder Of Sleeping Mother.
      Downs Charged With Three Other Murders.
      Downs Sentenced To Electric Chair.            She searched for the headlines from Ward and matched them with hers. Then, standing back, she stared at them, cocking her head as if they were pieces of a puzzle. Suddenly, she turned and hurried across the apartment's hardwood floor to her den. Her throat tight, she checked the bottom desk drawer, relieved to find her safety deposit box.
      Why didn't Ward steal this too?
      Lifting the box out, she unlocked it and sifted through twelve newspaper clippings, unearthing the one that matched Ward's headline: Jackson County Man Murdered After Acquittal. She remembered that. In the woods behind his country home, she shot him once and opened him up from his neck to his groin—just as he had done to the teenage girl he had raped and murdered.
      Chewing her thumbnail, she skimmed through the article about Vince Wayne, her Jackson County victim. Then, she focused on a small photo to the right: penetrating eyes, dark beard, moon-slit lips.
      Victor Ward threatened me, didn't he? That's why he brought up this man's murder. It was a threat that he'd kill me before I killed him.
      Or was there more?
      She narrowed her eyes. Did Wayne and Ward look alike? The call was difficult; she'd only met Victor Ward once. But she'd seen Vince Wayne a hundred million times. Court. His back yard. Her nightmares. However, their differences confused her: Wayne had a beard, blue eyes. Ward had been cleanly shaven with brown eyes.
      Sighing, she dropped into her leather desk chair. What was she thinking? That Wayne and Ward were the same person? And where did Downs fit in with all of this insanity? She observed the newspaper clipping's date: October 27, 1991, almost five years ago to the day.
      Suddenly, a spear of ice pierced her spine.
      Almost thirty years ago to the day, Downs had killed her mother.
      What the hell's going on?
      Gazing at Wayne's photo, she dug down for feelings that were as slick and cold as graveyard bones. Hate. Revenge. An eye for an eye. She caressed the photo with her trigger finger.
      The phone jingled; however, she could do nothing more than listen to the soft ring. The ritual had begun. Nothing could stop that.
      She put her head back and closed her eyes.       Dressed in a black suit with a red handkerchief, Nan walked into the courtroom as if she expected to find Victor Ward waiting at the defendant's table. As she approached her seat, she noticed a sheet of paper and slowed her pace. Her fingers trembled as she turned it over: a black and white 8 x 10 of Victor Ward dead in his bed. Sudden blackness buzzed in her mind like static on late night television, and she plopped into the chair.
      The smell of blood twined around her senses like a seductive cat; and, as she glanced toward the prosecution, she saw nothing except Victor Ward asleep in his twin bed, his bare feet jutting from the bottom.
      When she had arrived, the trailer's front door was unlocked. She held her handgun to her breast, one gloved hand taking the door to its full width. He would be waiting for her, she knew that.
      In a black hooded sweat shirt, she felt like a dark apparition. A doomsday cloud, and she liked that. She slithered through the living room, down the hall, to the bedroom. The door was ajar. When she found him sleeping, a segment of her heart burned. He should have been waiting. Ready. He should have shown her the fear in his eyes. Two steps and she was next to the bed, the gun's barrel even with his temple.
      "Ms. Arbor, where's your client? Ms. Arbor!"
      Fumbling with her briefcase, Nan crammed the photo inside and glanced at the judge. She had no idea when he had entered or when she had risen to her feet. In response to his dark scowling eyebrow that spanned the width of both eyes, she opened her mouth; but the words were slow. More than slow. Wedged tightly in her throat.
      He's dead, Your Honor. Thanks to my own skilled hand. Would you like to see the photo?
      She clutched her briefcase with both hands and glanced at the prosecution. Lou Monan was staring at her, his hand to his thick gray beard. Suddenly, though, in slow-motion, he turned and gazed toward the back of the courtroom.
      Nan followed, her eyes widening.
      In a gray three-piece suit, Victor Ward moved toward the defendant's table. He walked the way honey poured. At the front, he apologized to the judge about being late, then observed Nan with his—blue eyes! A smile lifted one corner of his mouth, now encircled by dark beard stubbles.
      When the gun's barrel touched Victor Ward's temple, he opened his eyes.
      Nan sucked in her breath and jumped back.
      Ward made no attempt to get up. Instead, he lay perfectly still, the only movement, his eyes: Slowly, he worked his line of vision over Nan's body as if he were admiring her shapely figure.
      For God's sake, Nan, pull the trigger!
      Her hand shook, and she braced the gun in a double-handed grip.
      Suddenly, Ward sat up.
      Nan jumped back another step but kept the weapon aimed at his head.
      Pull the trigger!
      "I never was gonna kill ya, Counselor." He grinned, his teeth like white pearls in the moonlight peeking through the bedroom window.
      Nan's head spun.
      "I've been with ya more than you'll ever know. Remember in your livin' room when I caressed your little cheek?" He rolled his head back, then met her eyes. "Remember cuttin' me open in the woods behind my house?"
      "Shut up!" Nan screamed, waving the gun.
      Ward whispered, "Counselor, is that anyway to treat your guardian angel?"
      "In hell!" Nan fired.
      A slew of brains and blood splattered the wall as Ward plummeted backward, his head hanging awkwardly off the side of the bed.
      The chirp of crickets wafted through the open window. Otherwise, absolute silence.
      Cold chills prickled Nan's arms as she stepped around the bed and stared into Ward's face. His brown eyes marveled at the ceiling. Moving back, she noticed something on the floor. Her stomach muscles tightened. Hesitantly, she leaned over. A green monster mask. Grunting, she swung toward Ward, swearing his body moved.
      For the next thirty minutes, she stood beside him, her body rigid, the gun locked in her sweaty palms.
      Come on, Nan, you don't really think he's going to get up, do you?
      Finally, she shot him again and walked out with her hands dangling at her sides.
      In the courtroom, Nan pulled back as Victor Ward's grinning face loomed toward her.
      "You don't look so happy to see me, Counselor."
      Attorney Nan Arbor sank into her chair and covered her face.
      Ward sat down beside her. "Surely, ya ain't forgot I'm your guardian angel."
      She lifted her eyes to his face.
      "We got a lifetime," Ward whispered.
      "In hell."
      "There too."
      "Counselor," the judge boomed, "we need to begin."
      Nan concentrated on the front of the courtroom, finally nodding. One shiver. Then, she poured herself a glass of water and stood up to plead her client's innocence.

J.R. Hanson has published works with White Knuckles, Eclipse, Nighteyes Anthology, and other magazines, although "The Deadly Match" is the first sold to a paying market. A novel, The Soul Hunt, is in progress. For more about J.R. Hanson, see the Author's Pad.