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‘What do you want’ No question inflection Nothing but sticky, poisonous disdain

For Kaz Kazimir Andrasko, Karou’s disaster of a first boyfriend First and last Her despoiler She thinks I don’t know, but I know And let eance like nor walks on the beach I eat vengeance with a spoon like it’s honey In fact, I eance made flesh My parents swear I was a real baby and not a deain, but of course they would say that Bottoeance in irls everywhere, and this is Karou we’re talking about

On behalf of Karou, Kaz has achieved the rarified status of Nemesis First Class, but has not yet been subjected to his personalized, Zuzana-tailored Sche hi,’ he says, looking taken aback, like he actually thought I’d be happy to see him ‘What’s your problem?’ he asks

‘What’s my problem? I have so ins are the ones that should concern you’

‘Huh?’ He gives ood neht deserve First Class status for Criery, but he’s just not quality eneh, and tell hi about? Opponent at what?’

‘Opponent at opponenting Duh What are you doing here, Jackass?’

‘What do you think? Is Karou here? Are youfor Karou,’ I say, but I see by the persistence of duh athe last time she saw you Does that somehow leave room for hope?’

‘She didn’t knoas ues ‘What was up with her that night, anyway? Is she okay?’

Is Karou okay? No No, she’s really not, but in the schenificant as a gnat inhaled by god Snuff I just shake my head ‘Oh, Jackass,’ I say hat I hope coentle pity ‘Poor Jackass LetYou know in fairy tales, when a bunch of princes all try to win the princess’s hand, but they’re all vain and entitled and self-involved and they fail at the task and get put to death? And then there’s one who coets to live happily ever after with her? Yeah, well, you’re the first kind’ I pat him on the shoulder ‘It’s all over for you’

Still du so to you is like playing catch with a toddler Get out of here, Kaz Did you think I was kidding before? You’re not welcome here Imrich will put you in a coffin, and I will nail it shut’

The tables in Poison Kitchen are actual coffins, and the one-eyed owner, I here at least three times a week for two and a half years We painted oulash I his eyes, not believing – or fearing – it for a second ‘Let’s go in, then I hope you have your coffin nails ready’ And he takes a step toward the door, calling my bluff

Damn It

It’s not a bluff! Imrich will do it He’s not entirely sane I as od’s sake Real ones He will totally put Kaz in a coffin, and yes, he does have coffin nails Like everything else in Poison Kitchen, they’re antique, and authentic He says they’re from the coffins exhuotha dirt there in the Middle Ages, raveyard in Central Europe Most popular graveyard, what a thing! You’d only get to stay in the ground for so long before they’d dig you up to uy And – oh! Then in the late nineteenth century they hired so-up bones It’s awesoine afterlife as part of a skeleton chandelier For real

The point is: coffin nails, check Coffin, check Crazy one-eyed Imrich and his bar cronies ready to take hold of pretty boy here and introduce hional box?

Check

Me, able to participate? Not check

Any other night Any Other Night But tonight is not for vengeance I take a deep breath It’s for a dazzling

I do not look to theI so strenuously don’t look to thethat oing on with Mik, but I don’t want Kaz to catchup I’ht Mik’s tea yet? That’s the plan Pestilence – Karou’s and iant equestrian Marcus Aurelius statue – was to be kept clear by a RESERVED sign, the angel puppet sitting there with its legs crossed on the velvet settee, and when – if – Iuy co him a tea tray Mik’s last clue will be tucked in the arsenic bowl (The sugar bowl, that is Tea at Poison is served in antique silver services, the crearaved arsenic and strychnine, heht?)

So basically, if Iht the tray, and Mik has found the clue, he could co here, and Kaziot to wrap up this snark-fight ‘Actually,’ I tell Kaz, ‘I have other plans But by all ht ahead And when you’re trapped in there, in the dark coffin, hungry, thirsty, hallucinating, and desperate to pee, when the cafe’s closed and there’s no one left to hear your screaesture to the door, and as the coup de grâce, I give him…Excited Maniac eyes These are the eyes that say, I have so to show you in the cellar Come with me It’s one of my favorite looks, and, incidentally, my brother’s least favorite, because it’s the one that invariably signals an escalation of hostilities to a level of dedicated vengeance that he could never match He simply doesn’t have it in him Tomas knows:

You cannot defeat the Excited Maniac You can only provoke her

Kaz ht not know this experientially, but he intuits it The eyes freak him out I see it He quails Glances at the door Gives et when they’re afraid of so to call me a freak next Wait for it

‘You’re a freak, Zuzana’

‘Yeah,’ I confir up the eyes ‘I know’

And that’s it Heand satisfying at the saetting coffined and I talked hi tool, and that’s pretty one, I swivel toward the --

--and see Mik headed el cradled in one arm, the devil in the other, and I have approximately three seconds to vanish into thin air before he opens that door

That, or dive behind a tood for s open, loosing the cafe din of voices andback the noise like a cuckoo into a clock Footsteps crunch across the snow I can’t see, and I’m fairly sure I can’t be seen I’ht from the , and as the sound of footsteps fades, I think two things:

Hiding behind tombstones definitely constitutes stalker behavior

and