David paces the darkened hallway, kicking bits of plaster molding that has come off the walls. Behind the closed doors he can hear the voices of the gang leaders going back and forth. He can’t make out the individual words, but he recognizes some of the muffled sounds. Levi’s rumbling bass growl, the punctuating strikes of Victor’s cane against the floor, a shrill sound that can only be Tink’s squealing, and a silence between all of these things that disquiets him the most.

After a while, David can’t keep his pacing up anymore. He’ll wear a rut in the floor before the people behind the door come to any sort of consensus. So he sits down, propping himself against one of the decaying walls. Forgetting the blow Flint gave him earlier, he absent-mindedly rolls his head against the wall, smacking the raised knot against the wall. Swearing to himself and rubbing the back of his head, David decides a better solution is to cross his arms over his knees and rest his head that way.

For a second the thought rolls through his head about death caused by your brain swelling in your sleep after head trauma. David laughs to himself, he should be so lucky, then closes his eyes and lets himself drift off to sleep.

He dreams of his city covered in snow. The roads are packed with cars, navigating the furrows made by previous vehicles. The street bustles with activity. Men and women in thick winter coats and stylish hats fill the streets, arms over flowing with bags and boxes full of wrapped presents. Children press their noses, rosy colored from the cold, against the shop windows and while pointing emphatically and yelling for their parent’s attention. A banner is stretched across the street, proclaiming a Merry Christmas to everyone. Cold touches his cheek, and he looks up. It is starting to snow. Big, fat flakes glide down out of the early evening sky. David closes his eyes, extends his arms, points his face up, opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue. The snow melts the second it hits his tongue. The taste is cleaner than anything David can remember. More snow starts to fall, dusting his arms and shoulders. It sticks in his beard, melting away after a few seconds. The snow comes faster yet, soaking into his hair and the cloth of his coat. David feels water running down his face and opens his eyes. The snow has turned to rain. The white noise roar of a driving rain fills the street, but the pedestrians pay no notice. Without warning, the building to David’s left erupts in flames. Glass explodes out from the windows as the fireball rolls upwards, encircling the building like a bonfire halo. Then the building to his right explodes, then the one behind him, in a blink of an eye, the busy row of storefronts has become a hellish inferno. The banner, its support lines burned away, floats gently downward in the rain. David opens his mouth to scream, but no sound will issue forth.

A sharp jab in the shoulder brings him back to consciousness. Victor is standing over him, his old, dark eyes studying him. He pokes David in the shoulder with his cane again just for good measure.

David waves the prodding stick away. “I’m up, I’m up.”

“C’mon, boy. We’ve got something for ya.” Not waiting for David, Victor turns and walks back through the doors. David follows behind a moment later. The five leaders of the Magictown gangs are spread across the room, all of them silent. Victor takes his worn chair with a grunt and a mumbled curse at his old age. Levi, the giant, squats off to David’s left, leaning against one of the support columns for the ballroom. Caduceus and Tink avoid David’s glance by picking at various bits of their clothing. Mary sits in her chair, snapping her fingers and making gouts orange fire with each pop.

Victor clears his throat, calling everyone to attention. He rolls his cane from one hand to another for a moment before speaking.

“Alright, then. I’ll get right to it. David, boy, you’ve made some strange choices over the last bit. Ya turned your back on family – and don’t ya start up now. Ya had your piece.”

David had started to say something, but Victor had cut him off before he even got a sound out.

“Now, yes, things look different from any side ya look at. Ya think ya did right. Made some sort of peace to keep everyone safe. But look at it from our side. The flames weren’t even out on the fires – the fires you set – and there ya were, shakin’ hands with the people that were tryin’ to string us all up the night before.”

Victor stops for a moment, scratching his head, thinking, before starting back up. “Your behavior’s been inconsistent, unpredictable, and just all around unacceptable to us. Ya say you’re still one of us, but ya sure as shit don’t act like it.

“Boy, ya don’t know Kellerman from a stray dog in the street. He’s just as likely to rip ya throat out as he is to let ya pet him. And things are too important right now for us to let him make kibble outta you.”

David looks around the room at the other four people. Levi, whom David thought would be relishing this, wears a furrowed brow and stares down at the floor. Tink is shifting back and forth on his stool, his anxiety more likely rooted in a need to get back to work than proceedings going on around him. The most attentive person is Caduceus, who’s head is cocked a little to one side, like a bird listening to the wind. Mary has stopped making fire, but judging by the shimmer of heat coming off of her, she hasn’t calmed down any.

Victor continues, “So here’s how things are gonna be. In a few minutes we’re gonna put you back on a boat and take you home. Now some people wanted to put a bag over your head or take the sap to you again. But I think I’ve convinced them that while you might be a pain in our respective asses, you aren’t likely to go gabbin’ ’bout this place to the first normal you come across. Don’t make me look a fool now, boy, you keep your mouth shut ’bout riverboat.

“When you get back, you go and you babysit the vice mayor. You, take your bow when the time comes, and then you try to find whoever or whatever did that family of normals in. You string Kellerman as long as you can. And, Lord willin’, you’ll find what you’re after. But, odds are, ya won’t. And we can’t have that comin’ back on us, ya understand?”

Victor swallows hard, looks to the ground, then back up at David.

“If ya don’t come up with some kinda bone to toss to Kellerman, we’re gonna have to give him Maggie Constant.”

Their eyes lock; David’s full of disbelief at what he’s hearing, and Victor’s with sadness and resolve. Victor can see his prodigal pupil’s anger rising to a head, and holds his hand out, pantomiming for calm.

“We all know what that woman’s capable of, and ain’t no amount of scrubbin’ dishes and changin’ diapers that are gonna to wash the blood offa her hands. This may not be wrong done by her hand, but she’s done worse, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna give those normal sons of bitches some poor sap magic that ain’t never done anyone a lick a’ harm.”

His voice grows louder and more forceful as the ultimatum is given, Victor is almost shouting those last words, then it cuts back to something soft and caring.

“I’m sorry, kid.”

David feels numb. Like he’d been standing in ice water the entire time Victor’d been speaking. He wants to scream and shout at them, to call them hypocrites and cowards, but he couldn’t. A tightness in his throat keeps his voice, and his protestations, down. Maggie is a dirty little secret they’d swept under the rug years ago. The slaughter of a single family of normals was horrific, but didn’t come close to what Maggie had done. She’d made dozens of walkers before she’d learned how to control herself. Each one a life snuffed out, each one a feral animal loosed on the world to bring God only knows how much pain and suffering.

All David could do was give a stiff nod at no one in particular.

“There’s one more thing.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing Victor had just told him that they were going to turn over the wife of his best friend if he couldn’t come up with some phantom killer, and they had the audacity to declare that there would be ‘one more thing’?

“We can’t have you choking during the hard calls, or doing anything rash, like telling Mrs. Constant what we’ve got in mind. So we’re sending one of us along with you. Now, normally I’d be up for a romp through the city. But I’m getting old, boy. Too old to keep up with the shit that’s gonna come at you. Can’t spare Tink or Cad, and Levi’s, well, just look at the big ape.”

Levi gave a harrumph. David could see where he was going, and it wasn’t some place happy.

“We’re sending Mary with you.”

She snapped her fingers, sending more tongues of flame into the air. They looked at each other blankly for a moment. Mary spoke first.

“Don’t give me that look. I’m not happy about it either…partner.”

Right then, David wished, more than anything else, that his brain would swell up and kill him. He didn’t know how painful it was to die of brain swelling. But odds are it would’ve been less painful than what he was about to go through.