Which was lit up with electricity?

  Interesting.

  The gatehouse door was open, and there was a guard there, so Michael decided to see if walking in was an option. No need to make this harder than he thought it should be.

  The old Were passed the old tenements and then the buildings and another three miles beyond. He headed towards the place Jacqueline had explained she had described to him.

  The West Side bars.

  He visited two before coming to Kraven’s joint. He heard the commotion before he walked inside. Straightening his clothes as best he could, he opened the door and stepped in, immediately taking a step to the right and checking out what was going on.

  It wasn’t much.

  There was some guy off in the corner, with his guard standing behind him and three toughs sitting at a table in front of him. One was fine, one had a towel with ice to his head, and the last was awake, but groaning with his head lying on the table.

  Now that, he thought, just might be Michael’s work.

  He stepped over towards the end of the bar, catching the bartender’s attention who walked the ten feet down the bar to ask him, “Liquor or beer?”

  The old man reached into his pockets and pulled a small amount of change. “Beer, the cheapest that isn’t vile,” his gravelly voice said to the young barkeep, “and a story of what happened to the youngster back there, he drink too much?”

  The barkeep swiped the change into his hand while shaking his head. He grabbed a mug and pulled the beer from a keg before turning around and placing it on the bar. “No,” he inclined his head towards the three men. His voice was low and close to whispering as he answered, “Those three came in twenty minutes ago and tried to take a chair away from a new guy in town. The new guy doesn’t know who Kraven is, so he took offense to someone pushing him.”

  The barkeeper, who glanced to make sure the three men weren’t paying them any attention continued, “You should have seen it! The guy gets up, tosses the chair to one of them, lays out one and pops the one with his head on the table. Before he could collapse, he grabbed the chair for the dude to fall into. He asks the third if he wants a chair, but he was smart enough to shake his head. Then, he comes over here and grabs some money out of the one guy’s wallet. Pays me, just downs a shot of our moonshine and drops the glass back on the table like it was water. Then, he walks out like it wasn’t any big thing to beat the shit out of two guys.”

  The old Were took the beer and lifted it up, taking a long swig. He didn’t say aloud what he was thinking…

  What’s two when you have killed two hundred at a time without breaking a sweat?

  Michael was surprised. They let him keep his weapons and once inside, he understood why.

  This was a tiny little town within a larger town. The large building had bars, restaurants and other businesses all set up inside as well. There were a lot of men who looked like they had been mining out in the mountains, and a few businessmen as well.

  This was the local seat of power, he figured.

  The sun was getting lower in the sky, and with the buildings around plus the tall wall, it was getting darker inside what was probably a three block area. He could hear a fight going on around the other side of the building. Seemed like it was strength that ruled inside these walls.

  Michael grinned, that was the way he liked it.

  “You!” a voice called out and Michael glanced to his left. “Oh, sorry!” It was a guy in clothes that were better suited out in the country. “Thought you were someone else.”

  Michael nodded and then wondered how many people went around with bald heads?

  There were additional stalls set up outside the walls on the sidewalk surrounding the fifteen... he glanced up, no—twenty story building. Considering how many people he had seen so far in this town, this could easily house a quarter of the total population. Probably the top quarter if electricity was as rare as he had seen so far.

  The hustle and bustle of getting through the crowds as he reached the main doors into the building were a little surprising. So far, even in that small town with Childers, there hadn’t been thirty to forty people in a space this size.

  This building had eight doors leading in and out. All of the doors were braced open. There was enough heat in the building that the cool night supplemented the straining fans. No air conditioning in this place, it seemed.

  Michael chose to take the second door on the right, and the person in front of him suddenly darted out of the line. Michael looked ahead and could see a couple of men heading out of the building, aiming for the obvious entrances.

  Might makes right, indeed.

  Michael kept his hands in his pockets and kept walking. He acted like he wasn’t aware of the two men, nor the smirk on the one in front. That was okay. Michael sped up just a bit to make sure he would go through the door first. When he came out, he led with his shoulder against the other’s shoulder.

  Michael’s shoulder won.

  The man bounced off Michael, spun rapidly counterclockwise and tripped over another person coming in the other door. Michael was fifteen feet away as the man, cursing a storm, got up.

  His partner helped him stand up, Michael could hear his comment, “Fuck’ em Darren, c’mon. Kraven wants us to check out where the hell Robert and those pricks are.”

  Michael smirked, Robert should still be nursing a headache back in the bar he had just left.

  Inside the building, he paused to realize this was designed to have stores on the first three levels before the offices, or apartments, started above. He walked towards the stairs to go up a flight to the bar level. Businesses were on first, bars and restaurants on the second. Other services, it seemed, were on three.

  Taking the stairs up, he arrived on the second floor and turned right to walk towards the ‘Corner Bar.’ It was appropriately named because it took up the whole corner on this floor. There was no door, just an opening that looked to have had two doors sometime in the past.

  He nodded to a waitress as he took a table near the wall in the back, allowing him to sit with his back mostly to a wall and watch everyone. The bar was over his right shoulder so he couldn’t see very well in that direction. However, the far wall was mirrored, and it allowed him to keep an eye on it.

  “Liquor or beer?” The waitress asked. Michael looked over, the brunette was wearing an old style dress. It didn’t quite cover her knees, and frankly, she looked like she would rather burn it than wear it.

  “Water, if you have it?” Michael asked.

  “It’s still a dime out here, even for water, stranger,” she told him, smacking the gum she was chewing. “The gum is natural beeswax.” Michael raised an eyebrow. “Everyone asks how I got it. We sell it three for a dime.”

  “A dime is fine,” he said. “I’ve had the liquor.”

  “Water it is,” she turned and walked away, but Michael had already read her mind.

  She had tagged him as someone to set up. Michael closed his eyes and his shoulders dropped, just a little.

  I’m trying, Bethany Anne, to remember that everyone here doesn’t deserve to die. But if you were here, you would realize this is damned hard. He looked around at the patrons in the place, probably about twenty. When you are surrounded by so many that deserve punishment.

  The waitress came back, set the drink down on the table and picked up the dime Michael had set there. He had retained some more of Robert’s money earlier and probably needed to figure out how to acquire more. Nothing would point him out as a stranger faster than being someone who had no money.

  Which he had plenty of back in his New York home. He had a lot, actually, back in his New York home.

  She stepped next to him and bent down, kissing him on the cheek.

  “And that’s for what?” Michael asked.

  “Sometimes mister, you shouldn’t go where you aren’t known,” she said and then left, leaving him with a glass of water, no ice.

  He wasn’t particularly bothered by cold, and while the heat wasn’t a big deal, he didn’t really like it. He should probably figure out a way to handle modifications to his body. He had more reacted to the situations he was thrown into rather than thinking…

  The light from the door was blocked, and Michael turned, sizing up his next interruption and shook his head.

  This asshole had a sword.

  “Flirting with my woman, stranger?” This guy was easily six foot and probably pushing two hundred thirty pounds. Some of that weight, though, was definitely fat. He had suntanned dark skin and dirty blond hair and frankly smelled like the woman.

  “Why, isn’t she your sister?” Michael asked, loudly. A few of the tables had already noticed the altercation and were turning in their chairs to see what would happen. None of the people seemed bothered. “So, is this some sort of racket you and her are running?” Michael continued before big and beefy got another word in. “She fake kisses me, you come along to do something? Maybe try to shake me down for a little money?”

  “What I’m going to do,” he said to Michael, pulling out his sword. It was easily three feet long and gleamed in the light. “Is allow you to leave after paying a toll.”

  “Is that right?” Michael asked. While he was carrying on a conversation externally, Michael was weighing the pros and cons of taking out the leadership. They were taking advantage of people and frankly, they lacked something that had been annoying the hell out of him.

  They lacked Honor.

  “That’s right,” he said. “See, if you don’t, I get charged for getting the floor all bloody… again.” He held the sword out, its point just a foot in front of Michael’s chest. “And that upsets a few people who can’t have their…”

  Judgment Complete.

  Michael sped up, reaching under his jacket for the Wakizashi. He unsnapped the scabbard and yanked out the sword, easily parrying the one in front of him to his right. He kicked back his chair to bounce off the one behind him and pivoted on his right leg, kicking out with his left and catching the man in his stomach, knocking him flying. The big man’s feet caught the table behind him, dragging him down, but his body landed with a crash on the table one behind that.

  “You know,” Michael’s voice went cold. “You’ve taken advantage of strangers for the last time.” He walked to the table between them, grabbed it with his left hand and flung it through the air behind him.

  Cursing erupted, and chairs and tables were quickly evacuated. This wasn’t going according to the script they’d seen before.

  “BILLY!” the waitress screamed from the bar as she realized the stranger wasn’t going to pay the toll and leave. This had worked every time they had tried it so far.

  Billy, quick for his size, got up and held up his sword.

  “You’re holding that wrong,” Michael said. “That type of sword is best with two hands, not one. Unless, of course, you have phenomenal strength.” He darted forward and cut down, catching the sword as Billy screamed, his forearm spewing blood where Michael had severed his hand from his arm.

  Michael ignored the screams as he unwrapped the hand still clutching the sword and let it drop to the floor.

  “You bastard!” the waitress screamed and turned to reach behind the bar, coming back around with a shotgun.

  Michael turned towards her, flinging the sword. It stabbed through her stomach, embedding its point into the wall in front of the bar.

  She looked shocked, staring at the sword that now pinned her to the bar like a butterfly on an entomologist’s display board. The gun dropped from her fingers when she grabbed the sword and tried to pull it free, each tug had less strength as she slowly bled out.

  Michael turned away from her to look the other way. He spoke to the man who was reaching for his gun, “You pull it, you will die.”

  “I pull it, I ain’t the only one who’s going to go down fighting,” he growled. “You just killed a lady.”

  “One that set me up to die, yes I did. I don’t think you did anything to stop that, now did you?” Michael asked as he walked over to Billy, who had been trying to wrap his shirt around his bleeding stump. “Judged,” Michael spat out and slit his throat. When he reached down to clean his sword on Billy’s shirt, Michael reached under his jacket with his left hand. Standing up, he aimed the Jean Dukes special he had pulled and shot the man who was still pulling his pistol up.

  The man fell backward, his body crashing over his chair.

  “You see,” Michael told the group casually, “Injustice only survives when justice allows it to continue. When those who won’t shy away from violence are determined to see justice served? Then opposites attract, and only one, justice, or injustice, can continue. So, I’m going to go see Kraven and have this confrontation.”

  During his conversation, Michael had placed his sword back in the scabbard and then pulled his other gun. Another seven men had come to stand in the doorway to see what caused all of the noise. Michael could smell perfume, so he suspected another woman or two must also be in the group.

  He looked around the room, his pistols down by his side. “Now, I’ve tried this once before, so I’ll just say that I’m leaving and it can be with, or without you dead. Which is it going to be?”

  No one wanted to be the first to pull their gun at the moment.

  “Well, that’s rather disheartening, folks. I was rather looking forward to seeing what these completely unique pistols could do.” Michael pulled one to look at it, giving everyone a chance to see that it was, in fact, unique. No one had seen one before. “It’s a shame, really. Because with these pistols, a man,” he looked out at the crowd in the front, “or woman might rule.”

  Someone in the doorway yelled, “Kraven says fifty bucks in coin for each pistol!”

  Now, Bethany Anne might not approve of Michael’s baiting the people around him, but her lawyer Jakob Yadav would appreciate the gambit. He didn’t randomly shoot people, and those who had evil in their heart went for their weapons.

  Those that didn’t want to be a part of it were running, ducking, or jumping out of the way.

  They say that there is a certain enjoyment in being in one’s element. Michael wasn’t normally someone who enjoyed guns. However, these were beautiful weapons and made with exquisite care.

  Who was he not to use them appropriately?

  At least, that was his story for Bethany Anne, he decided, and he was going to stick to it.

  The first shot at Michael missed since he had already ducked and rolled out of the way, to pop up ten feet away from where everyone else was aiming.

  Chapter Nine

  It was a beautiful symphony of destruction.

  Michael stood up, his pistols aimed in opposing directions, each turned to eleven on the knobs. Then he became a blur of action.

  He would shoot from both guns, turn and roll backwards, popping back up five to fifteen feet away. Keeping the people aiming at him guessing.

  Twice, instead of shooting people, he shot the wall they were hiding behind. With a Jean Dukes special, walls weren’t that much of a concern. Most died immediately, it was a rather pass/fail pop quiz.

  When the last person who had been trying to shoot him was down, Michael looked around, making sure he had no one else to worry about, and reached out to feel the intent of any minds near him.

  Huh, one around the corner.

  Michael holstered his pistols and walked over to the woman, now dead, who was pinned by the sword. He grabbed the hilt and yanked, the dead body falling into the pool of blood congealing on the floor.

  Walking back through the wreckage of the room, he went to the wall and tapped on it with the sword. Moving down away from the door opening, he tapped again, and smiled.

  He took another step further down and tapped once. Using his vampiric speed, he rammed the sword through the wall. A scream erupting from the other side confirmed he had guessed very well.

  “One shouldn’t expect an ambush to work every time,” he said. He yanked the two pistols back out of their holsters and mentally listened for anyone.

  It was quiet, except for some movement where he had stabbed, what sounded like a woman.

  He stepped around the corner, noticing the ambusher on the side of the walkway, a few feet from where the sword had erupted out of the wall.

  Michael turned and walked towards the stairs.

  The person he wanted to talk to was up on the top floor. Why is it they were always on the top floor?

  With his enhanced connection to the Etheric, Michael did not feel like his energy had diminished so he felt no need to feed. Not having to ever drink from a neck again? Under normal conditions he would think that priceless, then he rubbed the top of his head and the payment was obvious.

  Again.

  His priorities, he decided, were first, figure out how to follow Bethany Anne into space. Second, have her put him into the Pod-doc so that they could figure out why the hair that should be on his head wasn’t growing.

  And, for dessert, kill Kraven.

  Bethany Anne had told him one time he needed to save the dessert for after he ate his dinner.

  Well, what she didn’t know, wouldn’t get him into trouble.

  Gerry made it to Kraven’s fortress and he could tell, based on all of the people running around, that Michael was still here.

  He smirked. The general chaos of people trying to carve out their own kingdoms in the Fallen Lands, or power in the City-States through economic means, was more dangerous for those alive now than before the fall. But what they believed was power was a mere pittance of what had been wielded centuries before.

  Michael and Bethany Anne had taken out the worst of the most powerful. For those in the UnknownWorld, the stories Gerry told of the times before were met with skepticism.

  He had his life enhanced and cleaned up by Bethany Anne before she left. He had taken on another wife after the fall. Then, later, they had a child. A daughter, one who didn’t believe his stories until now.