Chapter Two

Sector Three had flourished since the end of the war. Everywhere Deacon looked, repairs and construction dotted the once-ravaged streets, turning the desolate landscape into something vibrant and alive. It was good to see something new arising from the ashes of destruction.

Not that the war had torn the sector apart--that was a pre-existing condition. Though nearly two decades had passed, he could still remember the day those first bombs fell, the final move in a deadly power play between the Council in Eden and the collective in charge of the electronics factories in Three. The collective had pushed back against production quotas that meant horrific conditions for its workers, banking on the fact that the city needed the technology they produced too much to risk losing it. And the city had responded by blowing every single factory in Three right off the fucking map.

The message couldn’t have been clearer if they’d carved it into people’s hearts--you are all expendable.

In the years that followed, Sector Three was a wasteland, a slum within the slums, the kind of place where a person could get knifed in the street in broad daylight and folks would barely notice. They had their own problems to worry about. More than once, Deacon had stood at Gideon’s side as the man agonized over whether the time had come to overstep his authority and take over Three, just to stop the suffering.

Then Wilson Trent, the self-proclaimed leader of Sector Three, had decided to be the one to overstep. Despite the fact that he couldn’t even handle his own business, he made an ill-fated play for Sector Four, so all Gideon had to do was sit back and let Dallas O’Kane take care of the situation.

And he had. He’d taken Sector Three for his own and started rebuilding. When the conflict between the sectors and the city had boiled over into war, they’d all been stronger for it.

“It could have been faulty wiring.” Lucio ran a hand over his short hair and tilted his head at an exposed power box as they passed by a building. The metal frame was crumpled on one side, and it hung askew on the chipped brick. “Maybe someone fell asleep with a lit cigarette. Or left something flammable too close to a heater.”

“In this heat?” Deacon snorted. “I don’t think so.”

Lucio relented. “Just speculation. Possibilities. We can’t know until we get there.”

“It’s bad.” Deacon spoke without thinking, then shrugged at Lucio’s sharp look. “It must be, for Six to call us.” She might be an O’Kane, more than willing to reach out to the gang’s contacts for assistance, but she was also a proud woman, the leader of a sector in her own right.

She wouldn’t ask for help if she didn’t need it. Which meant the situation wasn’t just bad--it was potentially deadly.

They cleared the end of a narrow alley, and Lucio cursed under his breath. “There it is.”

The smoke from the fire had cleared, but the scents of charred wood and burned plastic still hung thick and choking in the air. It was a squat building surrounded by others like it. They were untouched, but the top floor of this particular building had been reduced to a smoldering shell.

A grim-faced brunette leaned out of what was left of a window. “Hey, Deacon,” she called. “Watch your step on the way up. Bren says the stairs are solid, but shit’s still hot.”

“Thanks, Six.” He pushed through the front door and almost recoiled. The smell was exponentially worse inside, acrid enough to burn his eyes as well as his nose as he made his way up the stairs.

“You smell that?” Lucio asked as they reached the burned-out hull of the top floor.

“All I smell is charcoal.”

“Right,” he answered absently, then wandered into the ruined apartment, straight past Bren and Six without another word.

Six watched him pass, shrugged, and turned to Deacon. “Thanks for coming over.”

“No problem. We’re here as long as you need us.” He nodded to the man standing stoically at her side. “Bren.”

Bren nodded back, a quick jerk of his head. His expression was even more severe than usual, and the hair rose on the back of Deacon’s neck.

“The fire was easy enough to put out,” Six continued. “But I need to know what happened. If it was a freak accident or...”

“You suspect it wasn’t?”

She hesitated. “I don’t wanna sway you one way or another. You should just look.”

The next room over was worse, like opening a giant wood-burning stove and walking right into the middle of it. There was an old iron bedstead in the center, reduced to not much more than a charred lump of mattress and springs poking up everywhere.

Except for the dead man on it.

Lucio looked up from where he knelt beside the ruined bed. “He definitely wasn’t bound.”

No, the man’s stiff arms were still raised in the air, clenched into fists, the eerie picture of someone ready to fight. “Struggle?”

Lucio followed Deacon’s gaze. “No, that’s the fire. Pugilistic attitude. The heat coagulates proteins in the muscles, makes them contract like that. It happens even to the dead.”

“Was he?” Bren asked shortly. “Dead?”

“When the fire started? I hope so.” Lucio went back to peering under the iron frame. “Because it started right here on the bed.”

Six exhaled roughly. “How can you tell?”

“Fire burns upwards. So we have that.” Lucio gestured to the ceiling. It had burned clear through so that blue sky peeked through the roof in a spot above their heads. “But under the bed...” He rose and heaved the frame aside with a grunt.

The wood beneath the bed was mostly untouched, edged with a clear border of burned flooring in what looked like puddles. But what caught Deacon’s eye was a flash of white and blue as a card that had been tucked into the bottom of the frame fluttered to land face-down on the floor.

A playing card. Deacon’s blood was ice, but he reached for it automatically, before anyone else--like he was the only one who could handle what he knew he’d find when he flipped it over. Then he did, and the ice solidified, crystallizing in his gut until he wanted to puke.

It was just a normal card, the kind you’d find at any poker game or blackjack table. The king of hearts, staring blankly, one arm thrusting a sword through his head.

The suicide king.

Six frowned and leaned over his shoulder. “That’s weird.”

Six might not know what it was. Lucio might not. But Bren had served in Eden’s Special Tasks force, so there was no hiding what this meant. “It’s a message,” Deacon murmured through numb lips. “Your friend was murdered. Professionally.”

Bren took the card and turned it over between his fingers. “It’s a mercenary group called the Suicide Kings,” he explained. “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen one of their kills.”

Lucio glowered. “Makes sense. The fire was destructive but contained with surgical precision. It didn’t spread to other buildings, or even downstairs. They knew what they were doing.”

“They always do.” Deacon turned to Six. “You should find out what your friend was up to. The Kings don’t work cheap. If someone hired them, it wasn’t over a personal beef. This was business.”

“Shit.” She sounded more resigned than surprised. “Okay. Laurel’s been needing a new job, so I’ll set her on it. We’ll keep you guys in the loop.”

They kept talking, words that tumbled around in a haze that Deacon couldn’t quite catch. His attention kept drifting back to the card in Bren’s hand, like a ghost in the room that only he could see.

Gideon would probably say that ghosts were like that--elusive things that showed up when you least expected them and shook you to your core. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a proper haunting, would it?

“You know how to reach us.” Lucio held out his hand.

Six grasped it. “Thanks for the help. If anything else catches fire, now we know who to call.”

“Once the flames are out, you got it.”

Deacon couldn’t take a breath until they were outside, away from the death and the soot that seemed to coat everything, including the air. He stood on the cracked sidewalk and drew in deep, bracing gulps, but the pressure in his chest didn’t ease.

“You all right?” Lucio asked, low enough not to carry.

The pressure twisted tighter. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Lucio shrugged, his words as bland as his expression. “It’s a rough scene. Corpses are bad on their own. When they’re in that condition...” He shrugged again. “It’s enough to unnerve anyone.”

“Right.” Let him think that--for now. Deacon didn’t relish explaining, especially when half his attention was focused on their surroundings. Sometimes, the Kings left behind sentries to make sure their calling card had been found and their message received.

He saw no one, but his skin crawled at the thought that someone could be watching them now, so he picked up his pace. “We need to get back. I’ll brief Gideon, but he might want a word with you.”

“Sure thing.” Lucio paused. “You think it means something, the Kings pulling a job in Sector Three?”

On that count, at least, Deacon could offer him the truth. “I don’t know, Lucio. I honestly don’t fucking know.”