Chapter 25: The Sharpening

  A crack resounded as the cue ball slammed into the triangle of the other pool balls. Devin eyed the balls as they spread out, some of them sinking into pockets. He’d been going for a second ball break, designed for a good spread.

  He achieved it.

  The sound rolled through the bar. In the candlelight, the colored balls flashed for a moment as they scattered, then slowed, then settled into new positions.

  Carefully, he lined up his next shot.

  He took his time. Rushing was for people who didn’t have control.

  Candles lit the room, his guys were good for a lot, but tinkering with electricity wasn’t one. Still, they could clean a bar, and they had done just that.

  The place smelled like an actual bar.

  The counter had been wiped down until it shone in warm flickers. Bottles stood in neat rows, labels facing outward. A few were cracked or scuffed, but the arrangement was deliberate. Rugs covered the floor, thick enough to muffle footsteps and catch glass before it crunched. Someone had even found curtains and hung them over the worst of the broken windows, making the place feel private instead of exposed.

  After all, the boss of the Wraths couldn’t be staying in some rundown destroyed place. No, it was clean, orderly, with rugs over the floor, a stocked bar, and a room in the back with a nice comfortable bed.

  The bed wasn’t just comfortable. It was a statement. Clean sheets. A blanket folded at the end. A little lamp that didn’t work, but still sat there, because appearance mattered. Devin liked the idea of comfort.

  The area itself was well defended, with new checkpoints going up all the time.

  He’d been building them. Makeshift barricades, lookouts, and a few boys with guns who’d learned to shout before they learned to think. The city was chaos, but chaos could be shaped. People wanted that. People begged for it without even realizing.

  Devin sank another shot as he heard pounding down his steps. He sighed, straightening, as Rorick entered the room, looking wild eyed.

  Rorick tracked street grime onto the rugs and didn’t even notice. His chest heaved. His eyes were too bright, too frantic, and the demon skull patch on his shoulder looked even uglier under candlelight.

  “Boss, boss, we got a problem. A big fuckin’ one.”

  Devin watched the balls settle, watched the slow spin of one near the rail, then die. He let silence do its little work.

  Devin eyed the pool balls. The three ball would be a little tricky to hit. Setting his stick against the table, he gave his attention to Rorick.

  “Go on Rorick, I’m listening.”

  Rorick nodded, closing his eyes briefly, likely his poor brain was struggling to keep up with his racing thoughts. Devin could almost see the poor hamster moving.

  Rorick opened his eyes and swallowed hard.

  “It’s a guy, boss. He, uh, he’s a real fuckin’ problem.”

  Devin pinched the bridge of his nose, then straightened his tie. It was already perfect. That was the point. He straightened it anyway because it gave him a second to keep his temper from becoming visible.

  He walked over to Rorick, putting a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

  “Rorick, that doesn’t really explain the nature of the problem to me. It lacks needed context, it lacks the who, the what, the why, you see? Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

  Devin’s voice stayed smooth. Warm, even. The kind of tone that made lesser men relax at the exact wrong moment.

  Rorick swallowed, nodding.

  “Beginnin’, right. So, we were close to that Hawthorne warehouse, ya know, one of the last places not under our control. We ambushed one of the groups that came out of it—”

  Devin held up a hand. Rorick promptly closed his mouth.

  Devin stared at Rorick.

  “Strange. I believe I ordered all Wrath members to leave Hawthorne alone for now. You defied my order, Rorick?”

  Devin’s voice had gone soft as he studied his subordinate.

  Soft was dangerous.

  Rorick shook his head fast, almost tripping over his own urgency.

  “We just wanted to get a toll from em’. It’s our territory they entered, gotta pay, right? Seems fair, an all.”

  Devin’s expression didn’t change. He turned away from Rorick without any hurry, picked up his pool stick, and reached for the chalk. The sound of chalk grinding into leather was small and gritty. He chalked the tip slowly.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Rorick, when I said leave the settlement alone, what did that mean to you?”

  Rorick suddenly looked frightened.

  The fear came late. His eyes darted to the pool table, to the candles, to the rugs, to anything except Devin’s face.

  “Uhh. It meant leave em’ alone. Not to, uh, not to attack em’ or anything.”

  “It meant leave them alone, Rorick. Don’t accost them, don’t talk to them, don’t do anything with them. That’s what leave them alone means, Rorick. When you saw this group, you knew they were from Hawthorne, yes?”

  Rorick bobbed his head down in an affirmative.

  Devin nodded once.

  “Yes, you did.”

  Devin took out a pocket knife, flipped it open, and started working on the end of the pool stick, the wooden shavings falling to the floor.

  The blade whispered through wood. Thin curls peeled away and dropped onto the rug like dead leaves. Rugs could be replaced. People could be replaced too, but the message mattered more than the material.

  He angled the knife, shaving the tip tighter, cleaner, turning the rounded end into something that could puncture instead of push.

  “Go on. What happened in this confrontation of yours.”

  Rorick swallowed, looking at the stick.

  The stick was doing more to his focus than Devin’s words were. Good. Let him look at the consequence forming in real time.

  “Um. So, we demanded they give us their stuff. Which, as I said, was only fair. Except they had this guy I told you about. He told the others to go inside the pharmacy, that’s where we was at, the pharmacy there. He played the tough guy, tried to get us to back off.”

  Devin’s knife kept moving. Shave. Shave. Shave. The point sharpened, the wood bright where fresh layers showed.

  “By your apparent fear and lack of the others you took with you in your company at the moment, I would say you should have listened to his warning.”

  Devin looked at the stick, it was starting to get sharper at the end. He adjusted to get a sharper point.

  “I’m still listening, Rorick.”

  Rorick’s throat bobbed.

  “Right. Well, yeah, we should have listened. He, uh, he did something. We were on the ground, and he had this halo over his head, wings an shit comin’ out of his back. Never felt anything like it.”

  His voice sped up as he talked.

  “Then it vanished, we could move, an I tried to shoot him. Only the bullets suddenly stopped in midair, ‘cus he said somethin’. Then this black light came outta the ground, killin’ my crew. Only, I was ready, an I used the enchanted patch you gave us.”

  Rorick tapped the demon skull patch on his shoulder.

  “Then I used my smoke step ability to hop away, an I ran here so I could tell you.”

  Rorick puffed up a bit.

  Devin stopped carving for a moment.

  He took a breath through his nose. Slow, controlled, smelling the air.

  Then he resumed carving, just a little faster now. The point became wicked. Tight. The kind of point that didn’t forgive.

  “Let me guess,” Devin said, voice calm enough to be polite. “You told him you were Wrath.”

  Rorick nodded.

  “Of course. He had to know who he was dealin’ with.”

  A sudden snap split the air as Devin broke the pool stick in half over his knee. Rorick flinched as Devin discarded the back half of the stick into the bin.

  The sound of the break echoed off the walls. The candles trembled in their holders. A few wax drips slid down the sides.

  “Never know when you’ll need another weapon. I have other pool sticks after all.” He said casually, stepping up to Rorick.

  Devin held the sharpened half in his right hand, angled down like it was nothing.

  “Is there any reason you can think of as to why I ordered that the settlement be left alone?”

  Rorick scratched the back of his neck.

  “Um. Uh. No boss, sorry.”

  Devin pressed his lips together, curling them inward for a moment before his expression settled.

  “This is why I am the boss. See, I do have reasons, Rorick. Very good ones. For starters, I have someone on the inside who is supposed to be delivering me those children they have in the settlement.”

  A confused light entered Rorick’s eyes.

  “Kids, boss? Why?”

  “Because the demons want them. As to why, well, I wouldn’t know, they’re demons. But my patron has asked for them.”

  Devin’s voice stayed conversational.

  “It is a lot easier to accomplish that when those running the settlement aren’t worried about us attacking them. Then there is the advantage of surprise. If they don’t believe us a threat, then their guard won’t be up when we finally do decide to take the area, you see?”

  Rorick’s face shifted as the meaning finally landed. Recognition that he’d messed up a plan bigger than him.

  “Oh. Yeah, I do now boss, I’m sorry.”

  Devin stepped closer.

  He raised his left hand and put it on Rorick’s cheek. His thumb pressed lightly near the corner of Rorick’s mouth, smearing a bit of grime there.

  “It’s okay, dear idiot. Nothing you’ll ever have to worry about again.”

  Devin’s right hand flashed and the pool stick he’d sharpened into a point slammed into Rorick’s right temple.

  It went in with a wet crunch.

  Blood spurted as the pool stick penetrated bone, brain matter coating the end of the stick that stuck outside the opposite end of Rorick’s head.

  Rorick’s eyes went glassy instantly, mouth slack, and his body folded.

  He had died instantly, his corpse dropping to the ground.

  The candlelight flickered across the pool of blood spreading into the rug, dark and fast.

  “You fucking idiot!” Devin roared at his dead subordinate.

  “How fucking dare you disobey me! Now I have a fucking powerful goddamn mage to worry about? One you practically brought to my doorstep, you shitstain?”

  Devin raged at the corpse, kicking it with his polished dress shoes.

  The shoe scuffed against flesh and bone. The body rolled slightly, the stick still pinned through the head. Devin kicked again with rage.

  His yelling echoed out of the bar and onto the street where others heard it.

  Footsteps hurried above. A muffled voice called out a cautious, “Boss?” from somewhere outside the room. Devin ignored it and kept staring at Rorick’s dead face.

  After a while, his rage subsided.

  Devin inhaled slow and straightened his tie again, hands steady now.

  Others came in, taking the body.

  Two Wrath members entered first, eyes down, quick and obedient. They didn’t ask questions. They’d learned the right kind of blindness.

  One of them grabbed the corpse by the ankles, the other by the shoulders. The pool cue scraped against the rug as they dragged him, leaving a thick smear of blood behind.

  “Get someone to clean the blood. It’ll stain, that’s fine.”

  “Yes sir,” a wrath member said.

  Devin ran a hand through his now frizzed black hair, then he pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his inner suit pocket.

  His suit was still immaculate. That was almost funny. Blood on the rug, brain on the stick, and his suit made for a boardroom.

  He tapped a cigarette out and held it between two fingers. Holding up a finger, a small green flame appeared over it, and he lit the smoke before taking a drag.

  The flame was neat, controlled, and unnatural in a way that made the candlelight seem childish. The tip of the cigarette glowed, and Devin exhaled slowly, smoke curling up toward the ceiling in thin, lazy strands.

  He stared at the pool table without really seeing it.

  He’d need to tell his patron about this.

  He wasn’t looking forward to it.

  The patron didn’t like surprises, and Devin didn’t like admitting he’d been handed one. Especially not by a man as stupid as Rorick.

  He knew one thing.

  Whomever this mage was, he needed to die.