‘You going to finish this, then?’ the Vidora spat. He was recovering himself. No doubt his ears were still ringing, his shoulder throbbing, his eyes streaming, but none of the Second Circle were weak.

‘No, I’m not going to kill you. What are you running down here?’

‘See for yourself.’

‘Protection, some narcs. Cell-draining?’

The Vidora looked confused. ‘What?’

‘Illegal rejuve trade? Using coerced donors?’

‘No. No. Look, you can see…’

‘I can’t see much of anything in here. Someone blew the lights out.’ He leaned closer, looking the Vidora up and down. ‘But this is personal now, you understand. One of you, see, hit one of us.’ He smiled coldly. ‘Cause and effect.’

The Vidora stared at him a little longer, as if wondering if that could be true, before his gaze dropped, and his shoulders slumped a little. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘No, I guess you don’t. But we’re going to squeeze you until we find someone who does.’ Zidarov leaned back. ‘This place is shut down now. Don’t come back here. When we’re done, you’re free to go. I suggest you get the message back that we really don’t like it when you shoot at us. Got that? You’ll pass that on?’

The Vidora didn’t look up again. He suddenly seemed to find the floor fascinating. ‘You’ve made a mistake,’ he muttered. ‘It goes both ways. You squeeze us, we squeeze you.’

Zidarov got up. ‘Well, we’ll see how well that goes for you. You get the message back, now, won’t you? Give us the ones who did it, and things can go back to normal. We can all just get along nicely, like we used to. But you tell them.’

The Vidora didn’t say anything else. His shoulder looked like it was getting worse.

Onorova let go of him and came up to Zidarov. ‘You’re not taking him in?’

‘You heard what I said. I doubt that they’ll be pulling anyone much in this morning.’

But that wasn’t correct. Even as the words left his mouth, his iris pulsed.

‘Castellan directive for Probator Zidarov,’ came the disembodied voice of a relay-operator. ‘Recall to Bastion. We’ve got Yellowsnake.’

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Yellowsnake was a debt collector, one of the more junior of the Second Circle functions. He visited the legitimate businesses in strict rotation, making sure they paid, checking their profits, checking nothing was being hidden from them, meting out punishment if things didn’t come up to scratch. That was where an operative learned their trade. If they were good, they’d progress to bigger things. They’d come off the streets entirely, start getting others to do the rounds, maybe even find a way into the First Circle, where the real decisions were made.