The state trooper waves his flashlight across the night sky and into the ravine, catching the chrome of the crumpled station wagon's bumper. Blood smeared across the back window reveals the scene is not a good one.

He turns to his cruiser, the sheen of his shoes revealed in the magenta glow of the flares placed on the side of the road. He had found the accident by fluke, nudging his cruiser to the side of the road for a coffee break.

He opens the passenger door of his car and reaches in for the radio.

The scuff of a boot causes him to pause. The officer looks over this shoulder.
A silver blade slides across his throat, leaving a red line.

The officer drops the flashlight and grabs for the wound, his life flowing between his fingers.
Sensing his demise, he clutches at the pistol on his right hip. His fingers flip away the strap over the holster as he stares into the darkness of the forest. The flares reveal little, only the outline of a figure at the edge of the pink light.

The pistol is half drawn when the trooper loses his vision and the strength in his legs. He buckles to the ground, landing on his rear.

In a matter of seconds, he is unconscious, his hands flopping down beside his cooling body.
“Number forty one,” the figure says, stepping into the light of the flares. He is youthful in ripped jeans, a rumpled jacket and hiking boots. From a hand hangs a bloodied knife.
He stares down through the brush at the battered station wagon at the bottom of the ravine. He'd just had time to pop the car into neutral then push it over the ridge when he'd seen the approaching lights of the cop's car. The officer had stopped at just the right place, and now the cop had joined the family of four in death.

Another pair of headlights brings a curse to the killer's lips. He glances down the long road that winds up through the hills. Another car approaches.
He decides it best to disappear.

A few minutes later a black Lincoln Continental winds around a curve and pulls to a halt behind the patrolman's cruiser, the flares separating the cars and spreading their glow on the chrome grill of the new vehicle.

The Continental's lights die. Its driver's door creaks open. Into the night steps a tall man with dark hair. He wears a simple black suit. As he moves away from his car, he limps, favoring one leg.
The driver halts in the middle of the flares, his eyes focusing on the body of the trooper. He says, “John Lee Dowd.”

The killer steps from the trees, the pistol extended in his right hand. “How do you know my name?”
“I know a lot of things,” the man says.
Dowd pulls the trigger twice, bringing thunder and fire to life on the side of the dark hills.
The man in black stumbles away and drops on his back on the asphalt.
“Forty two,” Dowd says.
The man in black sits up. “Forty one.”
“What the hell?” Dowd raises the gun again and fires. He pulls the trigger several times, slugging warm lead into the other man’s body.
The man in black jerks, his teeth gritted as blood spatters his chest. But he does not drop back.
“We’ve enough of that,” the stranger says. He waves a hand in the air.
Dowd tries to pull the trigger again, but nothing happens.
The man in black pushes off the blacktop to stand in front of his vehicle, the nearest flare fizzling as if losing its life at his feet.
Dowd stares along the barrel of the useless gun. “Who are you?”
“Simon,” Simon says. “You may call me Magus.”
The killer drops the gun and yanks his knife from it belt sheath.
“That would be futile,” Simon says.
Dowd waves the blade between them. “What do you want?”
“You.”
The knife stops. “You here to take me in?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” Simon says. “I serve a higher power.”
“A religious nut?”
Simon grins. “I wander the world doing my Lord’s bidding in hopes He will someday allow my presence before him.
“Which is why I am here. To deal with you.”
Dowd’s blade quivers. “You’re going to kill me?”
“I am going to heal you.”
Dowd smirks.
Simon steps forward.
The knife comes up.
“Make this easy on yourself,” Simon says. Then he blinks.

John Lee Dowd finds he can not move. He tries to stab out with the knife, but his muscles are locked.

Simon wraps his hands around the murderer’s head, his fingers digging into the yellow hair. The mage closes his eyes.

Dowd’s mind screams inside his head. His inner eye flashes back to all the murder and mayhem he has caused. Forty one people dead, many tortured. He relives all of it, from the victims‘ point of view.

Simon shoves away from the young man.
Dowd drops to his knees, the knife falling from his hands.
“Oh my God, oh my God.” Dowd bends over, his head nearly touching the road.
“It is quite something to realize what one truly is,” Simon says.
Dowd looks up, his red eyes blazing with self hatred. “I don't deserve to live.”
Simon nods. Then, as if his job is done, he marches back to his vehicle. The Lincoln’s headlights soon flare to life and outline Dowd’s kneeling form. Within seconds, the black car is cruising into the night.

The killer sits back on his heels, his chest shuddering.
Then he spies the trooper’s pistol in front of him, the weapon’s chrome the color of rose in the dying flares’ glow. He grabs up the gun.
With tears streaming down his face, he places the warm barrel beneath his chin.

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