Leon Muzetti took a long draw from his Lucky and watched a gang of kids playing stickball in Franklin Park. The front steps of Detachment-66's headquarters provided an unassuming perch for him to watch the world go by on K street northwest, and in the neatly trimmed park beyond. The ratcheting thrum of a compressor filled the air - the choirboys were up to some monkeyshines in the back garden. It was a cold day, made colder by the recent disaster up in Baltimore. Hardwood indeed, he thought. Coffin wood. Poor bastards.

The front door swung open and Niles Cranfield burst forth, interrupting Muzetti's reverie. The two men had served together in North Africa and had a special bond, which largely consisted of Cranfield bumming smokes and pocket change, which he threw away on dice and never repaid. "Christ, Cranfield," Muzetti mumbled, habitually offering the man a cigarette, "you're gonna give me a heart attack."

Cranfield waved the Lucky away. "Come with me," he said, poker-faced. "You've got to see this."

"What? I'm enjoying the kids and the stickball and so forth, f'crissake."

Cranfield arched an eyebrow and nodded. "You really want to see this," he said.

He led Muzetti back into the brownstone, past Penny's empty desk and the ringing telephone, and through the converted kitchen (now a chart room) and down into the basement. The compressor noise got louder.

"What the hell's going on?" Muzetti growled.

The basement of 1444 K street NW was divided into two large rooms. The larger was a crumbling brick and beam affair and was used for file storage. The other was an old root cellar with access to the garden. Dr. Justin Scoble stood outside the root cellar door, nervously flipping through a dog-eared biology manual. He smiled weakly and closed his book. "You can't go in there," he said.

Cranfield sighed.

"It's just," Scoble stammered, "he's, well, we're about to get started. It's crowded. And dangerous."

Muzetti shot Cranfield a withering 'this had better be good' stare, gently nudged the doctor aside, and walked in.

The room was crowded. Muzetti recognized half a dozen agents in the detachment, a few of whom were conspicuously armed, as well as a tiny stranger in a houndstooth jacket and moleskin pants. Torvald Manders stood glumly in a corner, cradling a shotgun. Bedford-Mitchell was there as well. Normally used as a small workshop, the contents of the root cellar had been re-arranged. A hand-loading bench and bullet-casting station had been pushed against the wall to make room for a low table, incongruously draped in a red-and-white checked tablecloth.

Centered on the table was a human head in a jar.

Motes of dust caught the light from the back garden - the cellar door was cracked open a few inches to accommodate a pair of thick air hoses that obviously connected to the compressor outside. The man in the houndstooth jacket was talking in low tones to Michael Shevardino.

Muzetti inched over to Torvald Manders, leaving Cranfield to argue with Scoble outside the basement door. The big man nodded in greeting.

"This looks like a Goddamn mess," Muzetti said quietly.

"I think so," Manders replied laconically. "Shotgun's loaded and my pocket's full of shells."

"I imagine that's best. Usually is, anyway. What the hell is going on?"

Torvald Manders drew in a deep breath. "As I understand it, that there" - he shrugged in the direction of the head - "is some fella named Filipe Espinoza. Some kind of mass killer who got tracked down and, uh, decanted in New Mexico 'round 1870. I guess the Virgin Mary told him to cut the hearts outta 600 gringos. They found it in some Pennsylvania gas station after the raid on the Bund. Gretchen Rose was there."

"Creepy." Muzetti thought about lighting a cigarette but restrained the urge.

"Gets worse, I'm afraid. Addie Vespers and Laszlo recognized the head. They'd snatched it from Kern back in '41, but lost it somehow. It's a big weird mess, like usual. Worst part of all is the thing is, uh…"

The man in the houndstooth turned and leveled a hard, disapproving glare at them.

"…apparently, uh, Mr. Espinoza isn't entirely dead," Torvald finished in a whisper.

"Who's the midget guy?" Muzetti asked.

"Some bigwig from England. 'Aint a real midget, just short. Corliss told me he keeps a demon in his attic. Name of Moloch."

"That guy's name is Moloch, f'crissake?"

"Naw, his demon. His name is Edmond-something."

At the table, Edmondsen was closely examining the jar, tapping it occasionally with a yellowed fingernail. "Interesting," he said, to no one in particular, "Not really that impressive. In theory quite easy to arrange. If it's retained a vestige of intelligence, well, then I'll be impressed."

Muzetti's eyes narrowed.

Beside the Englishman, Shevardino was holding a pair of air compressor hoses. "Whenever you're ready, Doctor," he said.

Endmondsen turned and sighed dramatically. "Well, lets just knock and see who's home, right?" he snapped, "If it was that easy, you wouldn't need me here. Sod off and let us work a bit."

Shevardino bit his lip and stepped back a few feet. Muzetti tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped.

"Sorry about that, Mike. Didn't mean to startle you. What's he planning on doing?"

Shevardino held up the twin hoses. "Give that thing some lungs, actually," he said. "It's alive in that brine, mumbling, moving its eyes around. Edmondsen thinks it's a real good idea to take it out and hook it up to some air."

"Thinks it can speak," Torvald added. "Personally, I don't support the idea."

The Englishman was still muttering to himself, removing his coat and rolling up his sleeves. "It seems to be a receptacle, hmmm? You keep the candies in the tin, you keep your mantras or what not in a pickled head." He turned to Shevardino and snapped his fingers. "Come on, then. We've got the contrivance hooked up, let's see what clever bits of wisdom it can impart."

Shevardino nodded to the little man and pointed meaningfully at Manders' shotgun before returning to the table. Without ceremony, almost eagerly, Edmondsen unscrewed the rusted metal jar lid.

A sour, ancient stench slowly filled the room. Edmondsen didn't seem to notice, his close set, simian eyes shining. He looked into the jar for a few moments, mumbling some sort of prayer. Then he reached in, grabbed the horrid thing by it's slippery, salt-encrusted hair, and pulled it out.

Eighty years in a pickling brine had not been kind to Filipe Espinoza. His skin was a supulchural white, with ancient, hardened blood vessels showing through in stark relief. The matted black hair had the sickening aspect of a failed taxidermy experiment. And yet, the thing was, repulsively alive. Eyes like cocktail onions moved left and right. The bloated, cracked white lips - like engorged larvae - twitched and moved. Brine dripped off the head and back into the jar.

Leon Muzetti felt his gorge rise, and looked away. Torvald Manders raised his shotgun.

"The hoses," Edmondsen said calmly. Shevardino offered them shakily. "Well don't just stand there like a schoolgirl, put them in," the old demonologist snarled.

Shevardino, his eyes wide with horror, jammed the air hoses into the throat-hole of the disembodied head and then backed away until he was against the wall.

Air flowed through Filipe Esponiza and he began to speak.

Not words at first - the air gurgled through and fluid came out, mixed with bits of Espinoza that had jellied and saponified over the years. These whole mess dribbled down his chin and onto Edmondsen's outstretched arm. It smelled like death - worse than death. The passageway cleared.

Hora, he said. The voice was, unexpectedly, high and reedy. Like a child. Too much air pressure, Muzetti thought.

If si usted puede Ãrme, he said, haga las paces su con el dios.

"Translation," Edmonsen barked.

"Uh, that'd be 'If you can hear me, make your peace with god'" Mitchell said.

"Oh do go on," Edmonsen said drolly, to the head.

Si usted puede írme, yo traen una alerta a partir del pasado. Sirvo al brujo Ãl es cruel. Usted tiene solamente las horas existir. Al viene a partir del pasado, del llano de tarros.

Bradford Mitchell struggled to keep up. "…if you can hear me, I bring warning from the past," he translated, "I serve the, uh, magician maybe? And, uh, but he is cruel…you have but hours to exist…he comes from the past…from the Plain of Jars…"

"Jesus," Muzetti growled.

Su mundo ahora termina, the head said.

"Your world ends now."

Filipe Espinoza's dead eyes rolled up in his head.

Ningunos escapan el fuego were his final words. The jaw went slack.

The assembled crowd in the root cellar was silent, stunned. After a moment, Edmondsen shook the head like a sodden football.

"All finished? Done?" he said, indulgently. With a flourish, he sunk it back into the brine and put the lid back on.

"And what was that last bit?"

"Ningunos escapan el fuego," Mitchell said quietly, "None escape the fire."

"Quite remarkable, and I don't say that lightly," Edmondsen replied, wiping his hands on a towel. "Just what I expected, of course, but remarkable nonetheless."

"You're a fucking nut," Shevardino said, leaving the room.

Muzetti turned to Mitchell, who was obviously shaken by the experience. "This can't be good," he said, and lit a cigarette.