“No,” Rotten said, to the Clockwork Dogs.

“No from me too. Fuck your alliance,” Digger said.

Detente nodded. “Four?”

“What do you think about Orchard?”

“We have a tenuous business relationship with them. Nothing that can’t be broken.”

“Break it. Give us Hyde Park.”

“Yes. We’ll talk,” Detente said. “Brothers?”

“We’ll get back to you.”

He turned to the people at the fringes. To Damsel. He even looked at her. “The rest of you know where to find us.”

He thought that it was a good thing that he’d been reminded they existed. With two of the major groups that were vying for the area saying no, another giving a ‘maybe’, and only one sounding interested, he must have been disappointed.

Damsel was now the salvation of the Clockwork Dogs—she’d helped them and she had given them a path that kept this from being a complete loss.

She would give them a helping hand, lifting them up from the cliff they were holding on to, and then she would cast them out and away, for the dramatic fall and her own triumph.

The meeting was wrapping up. It wasn’t the first of its kind, it wouldn’t be the last. The same things had to be covered now and again, as new players showed up. Terms of war, the formation of alliances, and agreements on who and what couldn’t be tolerated. If someone was designated as a problem that threatened everyone, then that someone was… how had he put it?

Eliminated from consideration.

A villain reached into the bonfire, grabbing the remnants of a drawer that had been near the top of the pile. He held the burning wood with one hand and walked off to one side, where he unceremoniously dropped it in a ring of stones that had been dragged from the base of the hill.

The major players were leaving. They were major because they’d done something, and that meant they had things to do.

Damsel, too, had things to do. Others were staying.

The second meeting.

“The big dogs have finished barking,” she said, as she approached the fire.

“You’re new,” Someone said. He was older, and he had prison tattoos, a wispy goatee, and greasy hair.

“To Boston, yes,” she said.

“You’ve been active elsewhere?”

“My last big job was a bank robbery. Singlehanded, more or less. I’ve been active for three years.”

“I’m Marrow. I’m here with some boys.”

“You don’t have a mask. No powers?”

“No powers. We come to keep an eye on things, sometimes people are hiring.”

There was a quirk of the eyebrow as he said it. An invitation.

“Who did you work for last?” she asked.

“Soldat. They’re still around, north end.”

“They left you behind?”