"Meeting," said Balyuk, tersely.

He slowed beamer down, stopping behind stalled moving truck.

I glanced at him out of corner of my eye: big beefy man in expensive suit, red hair, blue eyes, pale skin, the faint outline of a Roman cross under his pale green Arrow shirt. No way for me to read him. If only- Something smashed through front windshield. It was the size of an anaconda, but ebony with scarlet eyes, as big around as man's thigh and impossibly long.

It wrapped itself around Balyuk and squeezed. I heard crunch of ribs snapping. Then it reared back and sank three-inch fangs in lawyer's neck.

"Liod," I shouted, and suddenly the dragon was a statue of crystalline ice.

Giving me time to pull my Glock and shoot the Chinese thug coming up over the hood pop-pop-pop three times in chest. Then I dropped guy coming around pa.s.senger side with a head shot.

I put next bullet into the dragon. It shattered into a million pieces, filling car with tinkle of breaking ice.

It was already too late to save Balyuk. His throat was a b.l.o.o.d.y, broken mess, his stylish shirt stained black with blood, his breathing labored and ragged.

But he was still alive.

I reached over and touched his chest, feeling the cross beneath his slick shirt.

My eyes darted to the rearview mirror. The men in the dark sedan were running up, weapons drawn. About d.a.m.n time.

I turned back to Balyuk and for a second our eyes met.

Then I popped b.u.t.tons of his ruined shirt and my fingers found b.l.o.o.d.y cr- Knowing shot through me like electric current.

I stalked silently through cold warehouse, a wolf at home in the frigid wastes of the world, winter's master. From the shadows I saw Chinese and their heroin. The Black Dragons were powerful and brave, but it would not save them.

They were in my world.

I must've pa.s.sed out after that, because I came to in hotel suite. It didn't matter, though.

Because I knew everything.

When I awoke, Georgi was leaning over me, and for just a second I saw the boy I grew up with, not the man I knew now. His eyebrows were hunched with concern, his full, red lips slightly parted.

And when our eyes met a bright smile exploded across his face.

He glanced back at the others in the room. "You see? It will take more than Chinese tricks to kill my little brat."

Brat.

Brother.

My throat closed painfully.

"You are well, Valeri Mikhailovich, yes?"

"Yes," I said weakly.

Georgi quirked an eyebrow. "Apparently your sit-down with Zhang did not go so well. Why do they believe we stole drugs?"

My eyes flickered to the guards and then back to Georgi. "When Zhang and I were talking... our minds touched. I saw...

Georgi shook his head, the question plain on his face.

"Georgi," I murmured.

He leaned in to hear me.

"There are traitors," I whispered.

His eyes widened. "Nyet," he snarled.

I looked at the guards again.

It was impossible for someone to take advantage of Georgi's trust, for he trusted no one. No, the answer was suspicion. With Georgi, suspicion was the lever.

He turned to the guards. "Out."

One of them hesitated.

"Out," he roared.

The door snicked shut and just like that Georgi and I were alone.

There was a second of silence, and then he asked the question I knew he would. "You have proof?"

I nodded. "Square box in coat."

He pulled the box out of my pocket, opened it. Looked at the curled, black monkey hand. Picked it up and studied it, frowning.

Because, of course, there was nothing there. Just stupid good luck charm.

And for the second he was distracted, I pointed my right hand at him and shouted "Siw.a.n.g." The Chinese death curse worked instantly, turning his blood to dust, squeezing the air from his lungs. He looked at me, eyes wide, mouth distended in a silent scream.

Then he fell, still clutching the monkey's paw in his hand.

And there he lay, chieftain of a mob at war with Chinese, a Chinese charm clutched in his hand, the taste of Chinese magic still charging the air.

What would you think?

Zhang would take blame, and I would lead war of vengeance. And anyone who did not show me proper loyalty would find himself on front lines.

And so I found my prayer had been answered. I knew who set me up, had arranged for poor sculpting job, who had bought monkey paw, who had been holding heroin all along, and it was not Georgi.

Was me.

I stumbled out of bed and found my boots. Johnson had been looking for an object of extreme value, and his glance had pa.s.sed right over my boots. As a Chicagoan he thought he knew cold. Bah! He did not know cold. Anyone who has survived Siberian winter knows true value of good pair of boots.

I carefully tucked them away for time when I could use $32 million worth of heroin.

Then I went to the dried, blackened husk that was all that was left of Georgi Dorbayeva, and knelt down. A single tear slid down my cheek.

My brat.

But this is way of world. There can only be one lead wolf.

The thing Georgi forgot is that lead wolf owes his position to strength, but the second wolf owes his to guile.

I gently touched my brother's desiccated face.

Is not a lesson I will forget.

The Old Girlfriend of Doom.

by Dean Wesley Smith.

Sometimes even superheroes can't save the day, or the girl, or the dog, and that fact is even sadder when the girl is one of the superhero's old girlfriends.

Honest, Poker Boy, and just about every superhero, once had a childhood, a life as a young adult, without powers. I only discovered my Poker Boy super abilities later in life, after I had lived a fairly regular life until the age of twenty-nine. Little did I know that someday I would put on the black leather jacket and the fedora-like hat and become Poker Boy, savior of blind women, lost husbands, and dogs.

It was Christmas Eve, a holiday for me just about like every other one. I was home, alone, in my double-wide mobile home that I had bought twenty years ago with the money from my winnings in a poker tournament. The green couch and chairs had come with it, and so far I had seen no reason to replace the perfectly good, but dog-ugly furniture. As a national-level poker player, I had more than enough money in a dozen accounts to buy a nice home and nice furniture, but since I was in poker rooms and hotels more than I was here, what was the point?

I was watching some lame Christmas program on television and eating a television dinner with fried chicken and the really good cherry desert. I had about two hours to get to the casino to sign up for the poker tournament, and I was enjoying the quiet, to be honest.

Then there was knock on my door.

As Poker Boy, I very seldom have the people who need help come to me, but there have been exceptions. And since I wasn't expecting any company, I figured right off this was one of those exceptions.

I opened the front door of my double-wide mobile home and saw my old girlfriend, Julie Down, standing there on the other side of the screen door. Of course, right at that moment I didn't know it was Julie. All I could see was that it was some woman about my age with a nice smile and an overbuilt chest.

"Hi," Julie said, smiling at me as I stood there, hand on the wooden door, staring at her though the screen.

Now I have a great memory for faces across poker tables. I can tell you the moment a person sits down if I have played with them before, the style of their play, and their poker tells. I won't remember their names, but I know the important stuff and how to take their money.

With old girlfriends, from the life before I became the superhero Poker Boy, I am lucky even to remember going out with them, let alone things like their names or if we slept together. I a.s.sume that any old girlfriend coming to find me years later is someone I must have slept with.

On top of my bad memory, Julie didn't look like the Julie of old. Granted, I'm forty-nine, and Julie and I were an item back twenty-five years before, when she was only twenty. But that said, she just didn't look the same. Not even close.

Julie of old had long blonde hair that had touched the top of her b.u.t.t. I remember I used to love lying in bed and watching that hair flow over her back as she walked naked around the bedroom. This Julie standing in front of me had tight, short graying hair, curled in a style that made her look older and very businesslike.

Julie of old was rail thin, with no real b.r.e.a.s.t.s to speak of, and no body fat at all.

This Julie had filled out, as all of us have. She wasn't fat, but she wasn't that light and rail thin either. And she had had a b.o.o.b job at some point. Or one h.e.l.l of a growth spurt focused only on her chest. The white blouse she now wore under her open suede jacket made sure that everyone could see the growth spurts and the lace bra trying to hold back the progress.

"Hi," I said in return, at that point not yet knowing who the h.e.l.l I was talking to. I wished at that moment that I had my black leather jacket and hat on and was closer to a casino. Then I could use my superpowers to help me figure out exactly what this woman wanted to sell me.

Or wanted me to do.

"You don't remember me, do you?" she said.

Okay, I have to admit that those words are the worst words any guy can ever hear from some strange woman standing at his door. I didn't have a clue who she was, yet she remembered me well enough to track me down.

A guy is never allowed to forget a woman.

Ever.

I glanced at her b.o.o.bs, and since they were new since the last time I saw this woman, they didn't help. And her face rang a sort of bell when I looked right at her, and into her eyes, but not much of a bell. Actually, sort of a faint ding, like an oven timer going off in another room.

If I hadn't been a superhero, who didn't lie unless it was to save a life, or rescue a dog, I would have just laughed and said, "Sure I do, come on in." And then tried to figure out who she was through the conversation.

But she had asked me a direct question, and being a superhero, I couldn't lie. So instead I said, "I can't really see you very well in this light. Come on in."

I honestly couldn't really see her that well in the porch light and through the screen door, so I didn't lie. I just bought a little needed time.

As I swung open the screen door to let her come inside, she let me off the hook.

"It's me, Julie."

For a moment, as she stepped past me, leading into the room with those new growth spurts on her chest, I couldn't remember any Julie's in my life either. Especially Julie with a chest the size of the Rockies.

"Julie Down," she said, ending all torture.

"Oh, my G.o.d, Julie," I said, "what a great surprise."

Actually I sounded happy mostly because she had let me out of the trap, and not because I was actually glad to see her. The last time we had spoken, she had called me a lazy b.u.m, said I would amount to nothing, and that I should get a life. Or at least a reason for living and breathing.

Actually, at the point she left me, I was a lazy b.u.m, and I really did need a life, but I wouldn't find that life until a number of years later, when I became Poker Boy.

In all, I think we dated seven months, or, more accurately, had s.e.x for seven months. I don't remember much else in the relationship with her.

After I gave her the required hug, with her growth spurts holding us apart, she stepped back and studied me, then my abode, like a meat inspector looking over a side of beef.

"You look like you're doing well for yourself," she said.

Even without my superpowers I knew that was a lie. I was living in an old mobile home, with old, ugly furniture and a half-eaten t.v. dinner on the coffee table. I looked like, on the surface, the same guy she had gotten mad at twenty-five years before. If I had not had my Poker Boy ident.i.ty, and a lot of money in different banks from all my poker winnings, I would have been ashamed that an old girlfriend saw me living like this. But superhero status and large bank accounts tend to make a guy not care, and I didn't really care what she thought.

"Actually," I said, "I'm doing very well. Can I get you something to drink? Diet c.o.ke and water are the options."

She laughed, a high, soft sound I remembered from our past. Her laugh had been one of the things that had attracted me to her back then. That and s.e.x.

Now I just wanted to know what she wanted. And the only way I was going to be able to do that with my superpowers was get my coat and hat on and get back into a casino.