“Why would you stay and help us defend our territory?” he asked, with understandable wariness. Well, at least whatever was scrambling his brain had left him with a few neurons to rub together. “What do you want?” “You’re welcome, by the way,” Charlie drawled. “And I don’t want anything, except a return to equilibrium in the neighborhood. Oh, and Sam Kimball’s head on some kind of spike, or possibly mounted on a plaque. I used to do some taxidermy in my younger —”
