Hank stood at the window of his second-floor bedroom and thought about birds. A big, double-hung window. The room sported two of them. Thick, old-fashioned glass with faint ripples through it. But one large bird or a bunch of smaller, determined birds might break through it.

He had birds on the brain because he'd had that dream again and it was worse than ever.

He'd expected to dream about Szeto and his Eurotrash enforcers with bullets through their heads. Those three dead bodies tangled on the floor, all staring eyes and punctured foreheads and blood, so much blood ... he couldn't get the image out of his head.

The death and blood didn't bother him in the least - really, who gave a shit about Szeto and company? What did bother him was knowing that the guy he'd been looking for all these months had done it. Killed all three - single-handed. Hank was glad now that he'd never found him. Still couldn't figure out how he'd got free. But the guy was back on the streets now, and he knew Hank had gone out to find some tools to mess him up, so it was a good chance he'd be coming for Hank.

Bad enough, but then the new Kicker Man dream. Not completely new - it started like the others with the K-Man being attacked in the dark by birds or something like birds, unable to fight them off, and finally knocked down and repeatedly buzzed. But it hadn't stopped there. The birds had left the Kicker Man laid out on the ground. As soon as they flew off, worms slid out of the ground and crawled all over the K-Man ... eating him. They didn't quit till they'd devoured his diamond-shaped head, leaving behind a decapitated stick figure.

Hank didn't need any gypsy to interpret that dream. The K-Man was Kickerdom, and Hank was its head. Someone wanted Hank's head. And that someone could only be the guy known as Jack.

Well, Hank Thompson's head was staying right where it was, and the rest of Hank Thompson was staying right here. Neither that Jack guy nor anyone else was going to scare him off.

Hank was going to take steps.