After the first sentence, Jack expected Zev to be done. Similarly after the second, and the third, until he was halfway through a lovingly detailed description of how to skin a man alive and too horrified to even raise his voice. But even when he felt like he could, he didn't. A small, sneaky tendril of thought countered that torture was exactly what these things did to them - placing them in situations where they had to chose to die or betray themselves, situations where the kindest and the most trusting were the most certain to be killed. Where was the wrong in torturing a torturer, in killing a killer?

He swallowed slowly, and when he laughed it escaped with a faintness, a shakiness that hadn't been there before. It was a sound made entirely of bravado, and bereft of pleasure. Even for loathsome things like these enemies, he didn't have the stomach for murder, at least not the slow kind.

"Christ . . . Zev. Warn me before you start up like that, all right?"