It had already been a good day, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Kevin sat at the head of the council room table in the chair that had once belonged to Sabin. He’d only been sitting in the chair for two days, but already it felt comfortable, as if the wood had been shaped and sculpted to perfectly fit his body. Like he’d been destined to take over the mantle as sole warlord of Wicker City.
His two advisors sat on either side of him at the table. Warsel at his right hand, carefully taking notes on everything Kevin said, still a bit shocked at his lofty new position and eager to please his boss. Urich sat to Kevin’s left. The man was the last of Sabin’s lieutenants who wasn’t dead or in a cell twenty feet below the complex. During the chaos of the fighting, Kevin and his Breakers had been able to subdue and drag Urich and one other lieutenant through the tunnel under the wall. Kevin had kept the man in power almost on a whim. Even though Urich had betrayed and stood against him, Kevin thought it would be fun to keep him in a leadership role for a while. He’d escaped the battle with only a cut on his right cheek, a new scar to join the cluster already there. Kevin would make him pay significantly more before he finally ended his life.
The two advisors had been tasked with putting together a list of candidates to fill the vacant lieutenant spots. It was no small order. They needed people who would be loyal to Kevin, but who still carried the respect of their particular part of the city.
“There’s a woman named Lanny the Strange on the south side,” Warsel said, his eyes on the paper in front of him. “As the name implies, she’s a little odd.”
“More than a little,” Urich said. “Didn’t she cook and eat her husband?”
Warsel shrugged. “I wouldn’t say the people respect her, exactly. But they do fear her.”
Kevin was doing his best to pay attention, but his mind kept wandering back to the battle two days before. And who could blame him? His side ached where a stray bullet had struck him sometime toward the end of the fight, and his lungs still burned from the yellow smoke he’d inhaled, thick with New Gold dust. The rush of it was still fresh in his mind.
Unfortunately it would be the last New Gold he’d experience for a long while. Perhaps forever. The stuff was getting rarer every year. The five pounds from Springtown had seemed like a miracle, and now all of it was gone, destroyed by a mysterious explosion placed by an unknown assailant.
The prevailing theory was that Victor, the man from the Elsewhere, had planted the explosive himself in a suicide run at Wicker City’s leadership. Kevin didn’t believe that for a moment. He’d seen the sunlight glint off of something metal on top of the wall, and he’d seen a flash of light a moment before the explosion. Someone had been watching from the wall, and they’d used a weapon of some kind—a weapon more powerful than any Kevin had ever seen. Finding and acquiring that weapon was high on his to-do list.
On the positive side, the explosion and resulting battle had taken out most of his rivals. By the time it was over, there was no one left to stand between him and his seat of power. He had the title he’d coveted for so many years—Warlord of Wicker City. Now he just had to decide what to do with it.
A thought came to him, and the moment it did he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it sooner. He held up a hand, cutting off Warsel mid-sentence as he droned on about another potential lieutenant.
“We’re not thinking big enough.” He leaned forward, looking the other two men in the eyes, one after the other. “We have the chance to make a big change in Wicker City. We can consolidate power.”
Warsel tilted his head in surprise. “You’re thinking about reducing the number of lieutenants?”
Kevin flashed a toothy smile. “Quite considerably. I’m going to reduce them to zero.”
Urich’s eyes widened.
Leaning back in his chair, Kevin let him squirm. “It seems to me the lieutenants are a relic of the time of the warlords. The city should be unified. One leader is all we need.” He stood up and clapped Urich on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. There will still be a place for you. The Breakers are always looking for good recruits.”
He left the room, whistling a happy tune, and headed down the stairs to the basement of the complex. A guard met him at the bottom of the stairs and unlocked the door, letting him through.
“Want me to take you to see him?” the guard asked.
“Nah, why don’t you just give me the key. I’ll handle this on my own.”
The guard nodded and handled over a large metal key.
Kevin headed deeper into the basement, walking down a long hall, passing empty jail cells on either side of him. Only the cell at the end of the hall was occupied. When he reached it, he stopped and stared at the prisoner. “Hello, Peter.”
The former warlord was barely recognizable. The explosion of the New Gold had stripped much of the flesh from the left side of his face, and he wore his left arm in a sling. He looked up at Kevin, but said nothing.
“I know you’re not very happy with me right now, but I come here as a friend.”
Still Peter said nothing. His skeptical expression said he didn’t buy the friend thing in the least.
“It might be difficult to believe, but it’s true. I want to help you.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “All I need is your confession.”
Peter finally spoke. “And what am I confessing to, exactly?”
“Only the truth. That you conspired to murder Sabin. That you hired assassins from the Elsewhere and helped them sneak into the city. And that you revolted against me, thus breaking the oath you made to Sabin.”
Peter chuckled. “Anything else? Maybe you want to blame me for the Great Downfall while you’re at it?”
The smile melted off of Kevin’s face. Even behind bars and facing execution, Peter remained smug. “It must bother you, the way things turned out. You built a strong crew. You held your territory. When a stronger warlord arose, you passed him your key rather than have your crew wiped out. And once you passed the key, you remained loyal. And even after all of that, you end up here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Peter got to his feet and walked up to the bars. “It was always going to end like this. It always does for guys like us. We live violent lives. Why should we expect our deaths to be any different?”
“You maybe. I’m not going out like that.”
“Maybe you’ll beat the odds. On the other hand, you’ve got a lot of enemies out there now, and not a lot of friends. My guess? You’ll be joining me in the realm of the dead before two years are out.”
Kevin supposed he couldn’t argue with this enemy’s comment. The Civilized were beyond pissed at his failure to deliver the promised pound of New Gold. The former lieutenants still had a lot of loyal friends even if they weren’t currently making their presence known. And Young Tom… that betrayal still hurt. The boy had disappeared once the fighting at the wall had started.
And then there was the biggest question mark of all—Elena. Kevin hadn’t seen her in days. Not since she’d watched him stab Sabin. He didn’t know the exact nature of her feelings about him, but he had to assume they were not positive.
“You’re wrong about me,” Kevin said. “And even if you’re not, at least I outlived you.”
Peter shrugged. “I guess you got me there.”
“Listen carefully. You are going to die this afternoon, but there are two ways it can go. I’ve found two hangmen. The one I ultimately use is up to you.” He paused for dramatic effect. He definitely had Peter’s attention now. “The first hangman has a sterling record. He drops his subjects from a suitable height, and his knots never catch. It’s a clean kill every time. A short drop, a snap of the neck, and it’s all over.”
“And the second?” Peter’s voice was hesitant, like maybe he didn’t want to know.
“His track record is spotty at best. His victims have been known to hang for a long while, kicking air and clutching at their necks until they finally die. Sometimes his ropes even snap, and the subject has to be hanged twice. It took three tries once, but that was probably an anomaly.”
Peter met Kevin’s gaze. “So what do I have to do to make the choice easier for you?”
“I already told you.” The hint of a smile curled Kevin’s lips. “All it takes is a confession, and hangman number one will be waiting for you at the gallows.”
Peter stared for a long moment. Then he sat down on the bed and let out a deep sigh. “I lived a hard life. I guess a hard death is about the best I can hope for.”
“That’s disappointing.” Kevin meant it, too. On a day when so much else was going well, he’d hoped to win this final feather in his cap in his years’ long war with Peter.
“Get used to it. Leadership is nothing but disappointment again and again until some asshole gets lucky and takes you down.”
Kevin turned to go, then paused. “I guess I’ll have to settle for watching you hang. See you in a couple hours.”
It was actually three hours before the execution could take place. Kevin had insisted it take place on the south side, in Peter’s home territory. This had required the construction of a gallows and extra security just in case his people turned out to be more loyal than they seemed. By the time Kevin arrived in the large, bullet-proof car that had formerly belonged to Sabin, Peter was already standing on the gallows, his hands bound in front of him. Kevin was pleased to see that he looked decidedly less smug than he had in the jail cell. A crowd of a couple of hundred people were gathered to watch the grim event.
Warsel ran up to the car and opened Kevin’s door. Kevin climbed out, trying not to wince in pain at the bullet wound in his side.
“Everything ready?”
Warsel nodded. “That hangman is even more inept than we thought, but he finally managed to tie a passable noose. “We’re ready.”
“Good.” Kevin steeled himself and walked to the gallows, careful not to allow any hint of a limp into his walk as he ascended the staircase. He gave Peter a nod and then turned to the crowd. “Good afternoon, we’re gathered here today for a grim task. A man we trusted betrayed us. Peter Mager, you invited men from the Elsewhere inside our walls. This in and of itself is bad enough to require the penalty of death, but you did it for an even more sinister purpose. You conspired to have these men kill the Warlord of Wicker City. Sabin is dead, and his blood is on your hands. You will now pay the price, and the people are gathered here to bear witness.”
A murmur ran through the crowd. It was difficult to tell if it was approval or dissent.
Kevin turned to Peter. “Any last words.”
Peter’s eyes were hard. “Just what I said before. You’ll be joining me soon in the Afterlife. And I’ll be waiting to repay you in kind.”
Kevin shook his head and nodded toward the hangman. “Do the deed.”
He walked down the steps of the gallows, not even watching the execution. The sounds of it were enough for him. The clang of the trap door dropping open. The snap of the rope going taunt. The desperate, airless grunts of a man being choked to death by a thin rope.
Kevin scanned the crowd. Every eye was on Peter, which allowed him to take a good long look. He didn’t find the face he’d been hoping to see. When he reached the car, he waved Warsel over. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Name it.”
“I need to have a conversation with my daughter.”
“We’ve got people looking, but no one’s seen her yet. Any idea how we draw her out?”
“Yes, actually.”
The time had come. His greatest enemy would be dead in mere moments, and he had control of the city. The only thing left was to make peace with Elena.