It was little wonder they wanted Absher back so badly. A weapon that could pierce a Dragon's scales? Who could say no to that? With a thing like this, you could have your very own pet Dragon.

After all this talk of helping me and pretending to care. Were they going to hold something like this over my head? The could get fucked, then. I wasn't going to stand for this.

I took the knife and turned it over in my hand. The scar on my palm burned faintly and the flimsy plastic of the handle cracked in my grip. I knew just how to bring my message across.

Clay's office door was wide open. That alone made me suspicious. I stopped outside the door, watching for the tell-tale crystal blue colour of a tripwire. Nothing so far, that didn't make me feel any better. I stopped by the edge of the doorway and carefully scanned the inside of the office was identical to Copper's and just as cluttered as the storage room, if much more organized. Fewer piles of unidentifiable stuff and more neat stacks of boxes with proper labels. The cheap wooden desk didn't take well to having a knife driven into it.

“You mind explaining this to me?!” I had to hold back a shout through gritted teeth. Clay didn't answer right away, he just stared up at me from what he was doing on his computer with hazy, sleep-deprived eyes. “I'm not your obedient little slave so you gotta hold a knife to my back?!”

There was a long pause, Clay just sat back in his chair, staring at me and sighing. “I told them we should have just left you.” He admitted, speaking softly with his eyes half-closed. “But no. They told me you were clean.” He shrugged, making his whole chair shift and creak. “Doesn't matter. You're too late anyway. Every word of Paul's work has been copied to a hundred different servers around the world.”

Now he was trying to mess with me! Lying to my face! Rage surged over me, into my lungs where it turned into a wild, feral roar. I raised the knife and hurled myself over the desk to swing down at Clay. Clay reacted first, pulling something from the piles on his desk and thrusting it at my face. An engraved metal disk with a coloured circle set into the middle. The circle glowed with a blinding electric blue light, brighter than any camera flash I had ever seen in my life. The flash itself didn't last long but left a purple spot in the middle of my vision. By the time I could see straight again, Clay was running for the door.

He didn't get far. My initial swing had clipped his side before he could dodge fully and he was pressing his hand against a bleeding wound. The Wizard lost his balance and clattered across the shelves, knocking some of the contents to the floor. Now Clay was exactly where I wanted him, on his knees and bleeding. I grabbed his collar and balled it up into my fist, pulling Clay up far enough that I could force his back against the wall and drive that knife into his gut. He barely even reacted, instead, he grabbed my forearms and squeezing with all his power. I could feel his grip crushing down even despite my scales.

The air grew hot, stinking like burning engine oil and metals. Clay was forcing in air through his teeth and I could taste the electricity building with every cycle he made. I had seen enough movies to know that he was building up for something truly nasty. Something that would turn us both to stains on the carpet and I wasn't going to give him the chance. I brought my wing up and formed it into a single downward claw. Clay didn't even have a chance to give a proper look of horrified surprise before I jammed the pointy end down through his collarbone. That finally got him to stop moving, his iron grip relaxing and his leg convulsing before finally going limp. Dead. The power in the air held, filling the room with an oppressive heat that made me wince. There was no sound anymore, previously you could hear the constant traffic outside, now there was just nothing. I could hear the fluids rushing in my ears and my heart beating. The walls dripped and wobbled with the kind of desert heat-haze you normally get in those American salt flats, every breath I took made the room shudder like the cardboard set of a low-budget sitcom. So I stopped breathing. I was standing in the middle of the magic equivalent of a leaking gas main with a mind of its own and I wasn't about to give it a spark or a target.

I whirled about the room, still holding my breath and grabbing Absher's faux-leather pouch from Clay's desk. Bingo, it still had all the cash and that was exactly what I needed right now. There was no doubt the others had caught on to the clattering and the fact that Clay's office could explode at any second. So it was time to get going.

There was one thing I had to do before I left. I grabbed the handle of the kitchen knife, still jutting out from Clay's abdomen and pulled it free with a meaty heave. I placed the knife flat on the floor and put my boot on the blade, getting my fingers between the handle and the floor and pulled up, pushing down with my foot at the same time. The cheap pound-shop “Stains LessTM Steel” flexed at first but quickly cracked and split apart along the join between the handle and the blade proper. There, I had made my point. Time to go. There hadn't been any sounds of movement yet, but I wasn't going to stick around and push my luck. I made straight for the stairs and headed down a floor to get my stuff. A fresh set of clothes, my old House Knight uniform, gloves and anything else I could easily pack into a nylon draw-string bag I found in the cupboard and bailed. I got off lucky, by the time I heard shouting and commotion I was already out the front door.

The night air was cold and humid, autumn had made itself known and the sky was blanketed with a heavy bruise purple signalling some heavy storms. The streets of Manchester's town centre were fairly busy, on account of it being a Saturday night there were plenty of people of people hitting the pubs and clubs to have some fun. Myself included. Sure it wasn't exactly prime motivation after all the shit I had been through but right now a drink sounded great.

A worrying thought tickled at the base of my skull, reflexively making me reach back to scratch it. I had killed a man. Properly killed him with my own hands, not a frantic accident like it had been before. And I didn't feel anything. No acidic burning in the base of my throat, no trembling of adrenaline.

I supposed now looking back on it I wasn't disgusted at myself for taking a human life. I was more worried about getting caught and going to prison. But that wasn't exactly a problem for me any more. They could come after me, but what could they do? Even if they hauled me off to prison somehow all I had to do was wait until the walls rotted away around me. That was if I didn't carve my way back out of there first. And why should I care to begin with. I had evidence they were readying to stick a knife in my back the moment I stepped out of line. So fuck'em. I was going my own way now.

I had stopped at the edge of the water the surrounded Princes Quay shopping centre and I was now just watching the dark water of the old docks flow lazily by.

“Excuse me.” Came a voice from somewhere behind me. “Can I have a word?”

I didn't turn to look at the voice, just lifting one hand from the railing and gesturing for them to shoo. “Not in the mood to talk.”

“It's rather important.”

“Look, mate.” I huffed, standing up straight and turning around. “I don't-”

Less than four feet away from me, stood the assassin. The man who had framed me for the death of Bishop and killed Absher minutes before we had gotten to him. There he was, smiling politely with his hands in his pockets like it was nothing. He wore the same plain black shirt and cargo trousers I had always seen him in before, but this time with a black and white varsity jacket with no emblem or university name attached. It was old and frayed with age but it looked like he took good care of it.

He smiled thinly and took a step forward, I responded by springing a single spike of my wing over my shoulder.

Surprisingly, he held up his hands, palms out and stopped where he was.

“I've come to apologize.” He said in a steady tone. “I made certain assumptions about you when we first met.”

I narrowed my eyes and didn't move the spike from eye-level. “Excuse me if don't believe you.”

He blinked with actual surprise. “Oh, I thought you were interested in our cause.” He indicated my burned arm, which was hidden beneath my coat sleeve. “Fine work on the Wizard. By the way.”

That one offhand remark made it all suddenly click. Absher had learned how a normal human could kill a Dragon and Bishop was sponsoring his research, so both of them had to die. Clay must have been the next on the list since he had picked up Absher's notes.

“What do you want from me, then?”

“Your mother is very highly regarded in my circles. That means there are people watching you with a lot of interest.”

“That a fact?” My spike didn't waiver. He started moving closer until he was leaning cordially against the railing next to me.

“Grey.” He said, offering me his hand. I shook it warily and kept the spike aimed right at his ear. “I'll be blunt if you don't mind. You're playing the wrong game.”

“And you're playing the right one?”

“I'm playing the long one. In the last century alone humanity has nearly wiped itself out no less than five times. Once it finally does, wouldn't you rather have already carved out a place for yourself? Instead of wasting all that time on trying to please a failing system?”

I have to say that made an appealing kind of sense. I had spent my entire life drifting from soul-crushing job to menial job, and what did I have to show for it? Not a damn thing. So why not free myself of the grinding-wheels?

Though the gleam in Grey's eye made me think that when he said “place” he had something very particular in mind.

“That's why you were hunting Absher.” I finally let my spike lower and slip back below my jacket. “Because he figured out how to kill a Dragon.”

“Gods can't be killed.” Grey snapped back, suddenly glaring at me. But he had tipped his metaphorical hand.

“Bit of casual blasphemy on a Saturday night. Why not?” I joked, flashing my teeth in a grin.

“Jehovah can judge all he wants.” Grey shrugged and stood up straight, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. “But until he gets off his cloud, then I'll happily indulge in some reverence.” Grey started grinning back, showing his own over-sharp teeth. “I think you've earned some yourself.”