He’d cold-bloodedly, unashamedly killed four people, and he’d done it methodically and with immortal patience over the course of eight hours before the police finally stopped him. It was the same kind of patience with which he served his time, a year for each victim, another brown face in a sea of the same.

You know what? He wasn’t even a little sorry.

But Ulysses had been lucky because he’d had a friend who understood what he did, who’d made sure he didn’t serve more time, or die with a needle in his arm. And now his friend was gone and he was coming home.

He hadn’t been to New York since he’d done what had to be done. He didn’t find it very much changed as he stepped out of Grand Central Station, but it did feel like an element was missing without his benefactor in it. Life? Maybe. Or vibrance. Who knew? It was like the city was dead or something. Dead but still moving, seeking something.

A zombie city …

He chortled darkly. The bitch would have loved that.

He hailed a taxi, home at last.