It was 3:14 am in the Salazar home. Its owners, Anthony and Monica, slept deeply and breathed heavily in their marital bed.

I stood over them, still and silent, mentally preparing myself to execute the final part of the plan.

Baron von Blütvinnich’s manic cackles echoed through the halls of his ancestral home as the cathedral bell struck midnight. A bolt of lightning hit the manor’s ornate dome just as the clangs faded away, exactly as he had planned it.

“Ant farms?’

Arthur sat on the other side of his desk. His countenance was inscrutable. But that was what he’d said, wasn’t it?

“Yes. Clearly. Take it from me.”

“But everything?”

“Traditional investments are faltering. The bubble is going to burst. Real estate, energy, pork bellies. It’s all going to crash.”

It started with Delbert and Martha Robinson. At least their incident was the first made public.

Nose popped into their kitchen out of nowhere, glided to the vegetable soup on the stove, then to Delbert’s collar. Next day the Robinsons received an email: Soup needs more broth, Delbert less cologne.—Nose.

The room was festooned with garlands and tinsel. Pinecones and sprigs of holly were taped to the walls, and a foamy blanket of fake snow covered the teacher’s desk. On the chalkboard was a crude drawing of a late-model SUV, along with some dollar signs and percentages.