Chapter 2 #2
It wasn’t a logical reaction, but I didn’t care. This was my home. My guildmates were my family. I wasn’t leaving. I could and would park my ass behind this bar twenty-four seven if I had to.
The bell above the door jangled cheerfully. I turned toward the sound.
Five men stepped over the threshold one after another. All in their thirties or forties. All fit, stony-faced, and wearing similar leather jackets. I didn’t know them. Were they from the Pandora Knights? I’d only met a few members of the elite guild.
Aaron pushed to his feet. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
That ruled out the Pandora Knights.
“Who’s asking?” the centermost man shot back.
“Aaron Sinclair, Crow and Hammer officer.”
“Ah, that’s nice and convenient, then.” The man flashed a silver badge. “MPD. I have a notice for the Crow and Hammer’s leadership.”
Aaron strode forward. Ezra was a step behind his best friend, guarding his flank. I grabbed the TV remote and punched the power button, then vaulted over the bar, landed with a thump, and speed-walked to Aaron’s left side.
The agent pulled a folded piece of paper from his jacket and held it out. Aaron grasped it, and the two men stood like that, eyes locked, the paper held between them.
With a smirk, the agent released the paper. Aaron unfolded it. I craned my neck to see the page. The dense blocks of text were too small to read, but the document’s title jumped out at me. My blood turned to ice, hands instantly trembling, the air thin and cold in my lungs.
Aaron crushed the paper in his fist—then it burst into flames. Fire danced over his fingers as blackened and burning flakes fluttered to the floor.
“Get the fuck out.” Aaron’s words blistered with the same heat radiating off the flames creeping up his forearm.
Most mythics would have backed away from a world-class pyromage using that tone of voice while heating the air around him until it shimmered, but the agent didn’t flinch. “That was a signed and sealed—”
“Get the fuck out,” Aaron snarled, the muscles in his arms flexing and his weight shifting forward.
Ezra grabbed Aaron’s elbow and pulled him back onto his heels before he could launch himself at the agent. I didn’t know whether I wanted to help hold Aaron back or push him forward, but I couldn’t do either without burning myself on the flames licking up his arm.
With a clatter of chairs, our guildmates abandoned their tables and made a beeline for us. Drew, Gwen, and Darren crowded to my left, while Laetitia, Sylvia, and Andrew joined Ezra on Aaron’s other side. The rest of them clustered behind us.
Even though they were outnumbered three to one, the agents didn’t look fazed. They looked eager, like they were waiting for us to throw a punch.
The guild’s first rule—Darius’s first rule—bloomed in my mind: Don’t hit first. Suddenly, that rule felt more important than ever before.
“You really should have read that notice first, Sinclair.” The lead agent bared his teeth in a cruel grin. “It’s done. This visit is just a formality.”
Aaron twitched his right arm as though testing Ezra’s grip. “The MPD can’t—”
“Oh yes it can, Sinclair, and there’s nothing you, your famous name, or your GM can do to reverse it. Now”—the man’s smile sharpened—“you and your former guildmates will vacate the premises.”
“This is our guild,” I growled. “Like hell we’re vacating it.”
“You can leave on your own or in cuffs, sweetheart. Your choice.” The man’s gaze shifted to my guildmates.
“Time to go home, boys and girls. The MPD is expropriating this property. You’re prohibited from occupying the premises of your former guild or gathering in groups of more than three while unguilded.
You have five minutes to leave before we escort you directly to the precinct instead. ”
A beat of silence.
“Unguilded?”
The whispered word came from behind me, but I couldn’t tell which of my guildmates had uttered it.
“What does he mean, ‘unguilded’?”
“Former guild?”
“What did that notice say?”
“Aaron, what’s happening?”
Their questions overlapped, creating a jumble of sound in my ears.
Rising panic competed with my seething fury.
An internal voice of denial screamed that the MPD couldn’t do this, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t allowed—but I could see the blank TV screen out of the corner of my eye.
I’d been compiling an endless list of warning signs for three months.
The title of that slip of paper Aaron had burned was etched into my brain, the words floating across my vision like one of Kit’s warps: Notice of Disbandment.
Aaron pulled his arm from Ezra’s grasp and raised it, the gesture silencing everyone behind him. The flames running over his other arm had vanished, but sparks jumped from his clenched fist.
“We’ll leave,” he said.
My stomach lurched with panicked disbelief.
“The MPD can have the building,” he continued. “They can deliver their notices, and they can rewrite their own laws to suit their agenda, and they can put bullshit bounties on all our heads. But that won’t be enough.”
Aaron turned his back on the agents. His blue eyes burned with determination as they swept across me, Ezra, and our guildmates.
“The Crow and Hammer,” he said, the words low but emphatic, “won’t go down that easily.”