So that’s his tactic, I thought.

Donnegan held the gun low in one hand, scanning the area around him. His eyes were wide as he looked all around him. He took a few steps away from the pimp, his feet scraping and scratching against the dust-covered brick pavement. After a few seconds of waiting, Donnegan walked back to the dead pimp and held the revolver above the body, aiming down. He fired two more times in quick succession.

I waited a few minutes, not moving as Donnegan stood and lit another gumbush stick. We both wanted the same thing, Donnegan and I. He smoked while I watched, both sets of eyes keeping watch for movement. I thought I heard something on the catwalks of rusted fire escapes on the building behind me. When I looked up, it was nothing, only a clump of plastic tossed about in the wind and falling on the roof.

I waited still, eyeing Donnegan as we both became increasingly on edge and impatient. After waiting that long, it was clear this was not the night.

I stood up and started walking toward Donnegan, casually holding my helmet under my arm, and said, “He’s not coming, Detective.”

Donnegan turned and leveled the revolver at me, his gumbush stick falling from his cracked lips. He hadn’t recognized my voice, or my face through the thick fog and darkness. With my helmet hidden behind its cloth cover, I looked like any other chemical-enhancer pusher or vagrant.

“I guess our hunch was wrong,” I continued as I walked closer to the detective. He didn’t flinch as I approached. When my face pushed through the fog close enough for him to see, he grunted.

“You,” Donnegan said, holstering his revolver beneath the flap of his trench coat. “How much did you see?”

“A good try, though,” I said, and walked around to make sure the pimp was dead. I had little doubt. “One of the only districts where he hasn’t been spotted. It probably took you weeks to put this together, Detective. I’m honestly disappointed it didn’t work.”

Donnegan balled one of his thick hands and looked on the verge of reaching for his revolver. He spat out the dust that had collected in his mouth, and searched for words. “Nothing wrong with what I done,” the detective said, and pointed at the pimp’s body. “I know you Golds are strict about rules but—”

“He was far from an innocent man, Donnegan, and I’m far from a fool. We both know you didn’t kill him just to prevent him from pushing his chemical-enhancers. If you shot every pimp and drug dealer in this city, it would be a better place. But you would quickly run out of bullets.”

I walked over to the pimp’s body and looked down. Strangely, I felt comfort in the sight. After seeing Shane’s work at the power plant, the familiar sight of a gunned-downed man seemed almost nostalgic.

“You gonna call your people then?” Donnegan asked.

“Why did you think shooting someone in cold blood would attract Shane?” I asked.

Donnegan balled both fists, taking quick breaths before relaxing them.

“No more deception, Detective, I’ve had enough of that from the beginning. Everyone on this planet knows exactly why I’m here and what I’m doing,” I said. “I’ve had nothing but closed doors from everyone I’ve talked to. Now tell me what is going on with Shane.”

Donnegan spat again and said, “They must not tell you much at all, that Sept of yours. Yeah, I see it now. Rookie like you, not caring if he knows everything. Just gung-ho to get the job done. Never even think about the consequences.”

I bent down and picked up one of the packets on the ground. It looked like nothing more than a little sweetener packet. I didn’t have to examine it too closely to know exactly what type of chemical-enhancer it was. “Consequences, like keeping information hidden so I can’t do my job? Why are you trying to speak with Shane, Detective? Is it because you let him go at the power plant?”

Donnegan sniffed loudly. “I didn’t let him go.”

I walked toward Donnegan, getting right in his fat face. “But someone did. The police could have shot or engaged him. They could have at least radioed he’d broken through. Is the entire police force in on whatever it is you and Shane have? What did you offer to make him go renegade and take care of the filth your force can’t even begin to stop?”

The punch Donnegan landed on my nose did more to push him away than hurt me. I didn’t even feel it, and he fumbled backward in shock and fear, putting his uninjured hand to his revolver but not taking it out of his coat. My calm face did more to agitate him than my unharmed nose.

“Should I ask again?” I said. “Or will you shoot me this time?”

“You don’t understand,” Donnegan said, panting noisily. “There’s too much of it. There’s too many people and too little of us. We didn’t mean to let it get like this.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“But you didn’t stop it. And when Shane started killing and went off the deep end, you didn’t stop him. Why?”

Donnegan didn’t say anything, only sniffed loudly and rubbed his hurt knuckles with his other hand.

“Of course. Letting him escape the plant, the woman who didn’t mourn her husband, and you trying to attract him. You didn’t want to stop him,” I realized.

“It took you this long to figure that out?” Donnegan bit, kicking his pudgy foot at one of the dropped chemical-enhancers. “They didn’t tell you why the other Prophets met with Shane and just walked away?”

It was my turn to look away in shame.

“Shane kills. Mostly ones we want dead. A few innocent dead are well worth the loss of some of the most evil filth in this city,” Donnegan said.

“Are you saying Shane isn’t evil?” I asked.

Donnegan coughed and spat. “Don’t try and lump this city into all black and white. There’s good, there’s evil, most of us lie in between. Then there’s Shane.”

I nodded. “Going from department to department, chasing him down from scene to scene. Captain Rosen knew who you were and why you were there at the power plant. You’re trying to use Shane. Are you doing this with the police’s support or is this a personal mission?”

Donnegan bent over and picked up the few remaining chemical-enhancer packets and stuffed them into his pocket. “Prophets’d never let it down if we tried to help a rogue. I’m on this unofficial.”

I shook my head. “I have to stop him, Donnegan. Whether you think it’s right or not. He’s insane, a blight on everything the Prophets stand for. He’s taken the great power the Reds can use and twisted it to evil means — you saw what he did to those hostages.”

“Which is why I’m trying to talk to him, tell him where the big targets are so he can do some real good for this city.”

“Someone who flays a woman alive or sucks the life out of a fleeing man isn’t going to listen to reason or guidance. If he saw you standing over that body tonight he’d probably just kill you.”

“Worth the risk.”

The helmet in my hands wasn’t heavy at all, its ribbons of metal brushing my fingers through the dark, dusty cloth covering it. It felt solid and powerful, giving me energy to remain calm and strong. Power like that went to those with great courage, courage like Donnegan had. If only it was directed toward a proper goal.

“The people love him,” Donnegan went on. “He kills them but they love him. And the pushers and pimps and even the bosses of the pushers and pimps, they’re afraid of something for the first time since before the refugees flooded the city. I can’t just let that go.”

“You’re going to have to, Detective,” I said, and shifted my weight. I put both hands on my helmet to remove the cloth. “Tomorrow, I’ll expect a full report on all that you’ve found. No secrets this time or I’ll report this little conspiracy to the—”

Pain like a raging inferno confined to my sternum burst through my back and chest. I fell to my knees, my covered helmet still clutched in my fingers, and looked down at a curved red blade sticking out through my ribs.

Donnegan said something I couldn’t hear and pulled out his revolver. He shot once, just over my shoulder, and I felt something behind me push. I barely kept hold of my helmet as I felt cold hands grab at my face. A flash of red burst from the curved blade inside me and struck Donnegan just as he shot a second time, the bullet bouncing into the street. The detective fell back into the brick wall of the apartment building, panting as I was pushed toward him. The hand on my face reached out to grab the detective and pull our guts together, two bodies on the same knife.

The red blade burned through me, and I could feel the touch of death spreading toward my heart. I cleared my mind of pain and fear and sucked all the power I could through my now uncovered helmet. With one hand, I held Donnegan, pushing at him to prevent the knife from passing through me into him. With the other I pulled my dimly glowing helmet onto my head and swung down the nose guard.

Two cold hands covered my face and blinded me as Donnegan cried out, straining to pull away. After enduring agonizing seconds of the blade straddling my spine, I finally felt my healing powers pushing back and sealing up around the wound.

With a sudden thrust, I pushed a few inches away from Donnegan and pulled my helmet off, swinging it down and striking the tip of the red blade like a hammer to a nail. With a twist, I pulled myself and the now cupped blade away from Donnegan.

I stumbled, quickly strapping the helmet back onto my head as I searched for the now disappeared assailant. “Donnegan, you okay?” I asked, not wanting to remove the blade still protruding from my chest as I scanned the darkness. Donnegan was on his knees, coughing. I couldn’t see anything on the misty pavement as I searched for the blade’s owner. “He hasn’t left. He wouldn’t leave his—”

The red blade flew out of me, its owner calling it back to his hand. The blade’s exit made a sickening sound as it passed through my already sealing flesh. I fell to my knees only a moment before I healed myself and looked to where the blade might have gone.

Donnegan was on his feet then, his revolver out. “I’ve never seen a Gold heal like that,” he said, panting and fumbling in his pocket for his shells.

“Get out of here, Donnegan,” I said, peering at the rooftops through my golden nose guard. “This is Prophet business.”

“He went after you, not me.” Donnegan coughed loudly.

“And he tried to kill you after that. Get out of here now, Detective Donnegan. He won’t listen to you.”

“And he’ll listen to you?”

“No. But he can’t kill me.”

Donnegan hesitated, licking his cracked lips as his hands shook on his rusty revolver. “Fine,” he said, and ran out of the courtyard without another moment’s hesitation, not bothering to holster his gun.

I watched him go, wary that he might be attacked while fleeing. The detective’s bulk passed through the yellow fog and into the dark streets beyond my sight.

Satisfied after waiting a few moments that Donnegan was either safe or beyond my reach, I walked into the center of the courtyard. Three streetlights lit the courtyard. A fourth was broken, shattered glass littering the brick pavement. The three lamps gave more light to this spot than any other and there I stood, my helmet glowing, my hands at my sides.

“Shane,” I said in a flat voice, hearing my words echo through the empty courtyard.

From the rooftop of a ten story apartment building, I heard the sickening screech of a blade slowly cutting through brick. Above a streetlight, sliding down with that gut-wrenching noise, I saw the red glow of a Prophet’s blade.