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The following evening, Xcor stood in the recessed doorway of a brick building in the heart of don Set back by nearly three feet, the space for him shadows to conceal himself with, as well as cover from stray bullets

On his own, he was utterly and completely pissed off as he surveyed the area and kept an eye on the sleek black car he had followed

Lifting his forearain Where were his soldiers?

Splitting off froht him here, but before he had departed, he&039;d told the others to find hi - a locating task that shouldn&039;t have been difficult All they had to do was rooftop-to-rooftop surveillance in the part of the city where drug dealing was at its most prevalent

Not hard a&039;tall

And yet here he was, alone

Assail was still inside the building opposite, likely consorting with ht before The place of business he&039;d entered was ostensibly an art gallery, but Xcor was old-fashioned, not naive All oods and services could be contracted out of any sort of "legitimate" establishment

It was nearly an hour later when the other vaht his densely black hair and his predatorlike features That low-slung car he ambulated in was parked off to the side, and as he walked around it, a pinkie ring of so as he did, dressed in black as he was, he looked exactly like a vaerous

Pausing at the car&039;s door, he put his hand inside his jacket to get his keys -

And turned around to face Xcor with a gun "Do you honestly think I don&039;t know you&039;re watching me?"

That pronunciation was so old-world and so very thick, the accent turning the words into practically a foreign language - or ould have been one if Xcor wasn&039;t so intiinal dialect

Where were his fucking soldiers?

As Xcor stepped out, he had an autoloader of his own, and it was not without satisfaction that he watched the other nition dawned

"Did you expect a Brother, mayhap?" Xcor drawled

Assail did not lower his ht to shadow me"

"My business is whatever I determine it to be"

"Your ill not work here"

"And what &039;ways&039; are those?"

"There are laws here"

"So I have heard And I a several in your endeavors"

"I refer not to human ones" As if those were entirely irrelevant - and at least on that they could agree "The Old Law provides - "

"We&039;re in the New World, Assail New rules"

"According to whom?"

"Me"

Thealready?"

"Your conclusion is your own"

"Then I shall let it stand And I shall take my leave of you now - unless you have plans to shoot me In which case, I shall take you with me" He lifted up his other hand In it was a small black handset "Just so we&039;re clear, the boo off if my thumb contracts - which is precisely the kind of autonomic jerk that will occur if you put a bullet in my chest or my back Oh, and mayhap I should mention that the explosion has a radius that more than includes where you are, and the detonation is so efficient, you will not be able to deh"

Xcor laughed with genuine respect "You knohat they say about suicides, don&039;t you No Fade for them"

"It&039;s not suicide if you shootto test that out?"

"If you are"

The male appeared utterly unconcerned with the choice, at peace with living or dying, uncaring of the violence and pain - and yet not unplugged, either

He would have ht If he hadn&039;t been castrated by his mommy

"So your solution," Xcor murmured, "isto be?"

If Xcor had had his backup in place, there would have been a better way to handle this But no, the bastards were nowhere around And it was a funda a well-ed, then you did not engage - you retreated, reht under circumstances more favorable to your own victory

Besides, Assail had to be kept alive long enough so that the king could come to see him

None of this sat well, however And Xcor&039;s in with, went utterly black

He didn&039;t say anything further He simply de his departure speak for itself

As he re-formed by a shut-up newsstand, he was furious with his soldiers, his ire fronified as he thought of hisa search of his own, he went fro to club to tattoo parlor to tenement until he found them at the skyscraper: As he took forht better to do

Violence replaced the very veins in his body, threading throughout hian to feel the hum of insanity within the confines of his skull

It was the blood hunger, of course But the root cause did nothing to temper the emotions

"Where the fuck were you?" he de around his head

"You told us to wait here - "

"I told you to come find me!"

Throe threw up his hands "Goddamn it! We all need phones, not just - "

Xcor launched hi hiainst a steel door "Watch Your Tone"

"I a this discussion again"

Xcor shoved hi thrown to the side fro o&039;er the city

Throe, however, would not leave it alone "We could have been where you wanted us to be The Brotherhood has cell - "

He wheeled around "Fuck the Brotherhood!"

"You&039;d have better luck doing that if we had methods of communication!"

"The Brotherhood are weak for their technological crutches!"

Throe shook his head, all aristocrat-who-knew-better "No, they&039;re in the future And we can&039;t compete with them if we&039;re in the past"

Xcor curled his hands into fists His father - rather, the Bloodletter - would have pushed the son of a bitch right off the side of the building for this insolence and insubordination And Xcor did take a step forward toward the ic There was a o into the field Now"