Chapter 1
There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony at ten thirty—a couple of dozen faculty members, some local press, a few students, Donna,
lit glass box behind him, and he snipped a black ribbon while a smattering of cameras flashed. The dean said he could keep
the scissors.
There was a reception planned afterward, at the dean’s house. The crowd began to push down the gravel path between snowbanks,
out to the winding lane where the cars were parked: here a Benz, there a Benz, everywhere a Benz-Benz. All except for Colin’s
cherry Caddy, which looked the same as it had thirty years ago, except now it was all electric: there was a Tesla battery
under the chassis, three hundred miles of range, motors on each tire so it could accelerate from zero to seventy in three
seconds. Elon’d had his guys see to the conversion personally.
As he closed in on his ride, Colin spotted Gwen Underfoot’s pickup truck parked right behind it. She got out when she saw
him, climbed down, and stood there in her peacoat, rubbing her hands together against the cold. Her small, round face was
solemn and pale, and he thought he knew what this was about but couldn’t be sure. He was walking with Donna, his hand on her
upper arm, and now he squeezed it and leaned in to whisper.
“Look who.”
Donna’s gaze leapt up. She saw Gwen and caught in place.
“I’ve got this. Get in the car with Allie.” He looked back over his shoulder at Allie, who was a few steps behind them and hadn’t seen Gwen yet.
“What if she’s got a gun?” Donna murmured.
“What if?” he asked and tapped his chest. “He’s faster than she is. If someone ever managed to shoot me, then I guess I’d
have to admit I’m wrong about everything.”
He released Donna’s arm and she swiveled away, turning back to Allie. People streamed by them on the way to their cars, although
most of the crowd remained behind Colin. He quickened his pace, walking past the Caddy to get within ten feet of Gwen.
“You missed the boring bit,” he said. “But you’re in time for mimosas and little quiches at the dean’s. Want to join us? I’m
sure it wouldn’t be a problem to come with.”
“Did you kill Arthur?” Gwen asked.
He glanced around to see who might be listening. No one. The scissors dangled from his right hand, the blades a foot long.
But he had a better weapon on his chest. He unbuttoned his coat. If he called King Sorrow now, he figured only a half dozen
or so would die, just the people standing closest to Gwen. But the optics would be rotten and it would ruin a good day.
He had been fighting a wave of bad noise lately. He had had to appear in front of Congress in May to explain why Dragonware
had sold the personal data of 120 million users (hey, kids, if you didn’t read the terms of service, you’ve got nothing to
bitch about) to foreign powers. There had been a nasty little Guardian hit piece about the money he had banked in Monaco, Ireland, and other nations where the tax code hadn’t been designed to create a Marxist welfare state.
There was anger about his data mining software being used by the Chinese to spy on their own citizens (like Apple and Facebook weren’t cutting exactly the same deals for access to the Chinese market).
The heavy money invested in his VC fund was making unpleasant noises; he spent most of every morning now responding to emails that boiled with rage, accusations, and lightly veiled threats.
He had a sense of humor about it . . . and he also knew how to create a good story to bury a bad one.
Photographers loved to take his picture in front of glass buildings, surrounded by pink-cheeked kids.
He looked like Lex Luthor’s leaner, fitter, kinder twin brother, looked like he was probably dreaming up how to make low-cost jet packs or build a luxury hotel on the moon.
“I know you think I did. You and Robin.”
Her eyes widened—then narrowed. “Oh. Of course. I’m so stupid. You’re up on my computer, aren’t you? What do they call it,
spyware?”
“Gwen!” Allie called. Donna had her arm and had clearly tried to steer her toward the back of the Caddy, but Allie had seen
her friend and was waving and looking a thousand times more cheerful. She was drunk, of course. How Colin tired of it sometimes,
the stink of it on her. She had a smell like someone had squirted perfume on the dumpster behind a Hooters.
Donna opened the back door of the Caddy, but Allie—in a really shocking show of independence—pulled away and came toward Colin
and Gwen. Not ideal.
“Do they know?” Gwen asked.
“Know what?” Allie asked, reaching Colin’s side.
“Colin sicced King Sorrow on me,” Gwen said. “I’m this year’s sacrifice.”
Allie shouted with laughter and put a mitten to her mouth. She gave Colin a jolly sidelong look, nudged him with her elbow,
as if to say: Good joke, huh? Colin smiled back—but Allie saw something in his face. Her hand fell from her mouth and her very blue eyes muddled with confusion.
“What?”
Colin shifted his gaze back to Gwen. “What did you say to Robin? I wouldn’t attack him . . . with your hand right here?” Brushing his fingers across his collarbone. “You would have used the
mark and called King Sorrow down on me. Or waited until next year, when it’s your turn to pick. I had to protect myself.”
“You thought that’s what I meant?” Gwen asked. Her jaw slackened slightly. She looked genuinely incredulous.
“Wait, what?” Allie asked. “Gwen was going to kill you? Am I going crazy here?”
“I had my hand on my heart,” Gwen said, “because I just found out about Arthur. It’s a gesture common to people with emotions, Colin.”
“What did she find out about Arthur?” Allie cried.
Donna took her arm. “Come on. Let the grown-ups talk, Allie.”
“And you heard what you were afraid to hear,” Gwen said. “You got the emphasis wrong. I didn’t say ‘I wouldn’t attack him.’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t attack him.’ I was talking about going after King Sorrow. Not you. This all ends when we end him. I can’t forgive you for what you did
to Arthur, but I don’t want to kill you—or anyone else, Colin. It’s time for the killing to stop. Don’t you get that? Don’t
you know by now that killing only sows more dragon’s teeth?”
He turned this notion over in his mind, tried to calculate if he could’ve misunderstood her. Then he discarded the whole chain
of thought. It didn’t matter. She knew about Arthur, and that wasn’t all. He had seen her Google searches.
Allie yanked her arm free. “Get your hand off me.” Any trace of her loopy good humor was gone now.
“This is a terrible place for a conversation,” Colin said, glancing around, hoping there wasn’t any press nearby. The NECN
news van was parked up the lane, already loading up. No one seemed to be loitering to listen in on them.
“Sorry I didn’t pick a more private place to discuss my own death,” Gwen said. “But I figured this would be the safest place
to meet. You can only use the mark against me if I’m right in front of you, an active threat. But you won’t reach for it here,
not on your big day, not with all these people around.” Three elementary school children went by tailing their mother, chattering
loudly, and Gwen looked at Colin defiantly, as if to say See what I mean? “Two years ago, we used King Sorrow to kill a Middle Eastern financier who was privately funding jihad. The dragon took him
at his granddaughter’s wedding and killed forty other people.
Forty innocent people. Oh, and that financier?
Maybe he was funding jihad and maybe he wasn’t, but his tech start-up won a contract with the French Department of Defense that you wanted for Dragonware, didn’t it?
Be honest, Colin. Did he have anything to do with terrorists at all?
Does a guy who finances terrorism help French security services protect their people?
Seems a bit contradictory. And then there was the Congolese lawyer.
The engineer in Turkey. Is that all of them, or did I miss a few? ”
“This isn’t real. This isn’t happening,” Allie said.
“Tell me something, Gwen. Is it gone?” Colin asked, genuinely curious. “Your own mark?”
“Yes. That’s the one good thing about being chosen to die, I guess. I’m finally out of it. I’m not one of his subjects anymore—I’m
free of him. You’re safe from me. But then, you always were, Colin.”
“I know what I heard,” Colin said, and, playing it back in his mind once again, he felt his certainty return in full. “You
know how I’m sure you weren’t talking about getting rid of King Sorrow, Gwen? Because that’s like talking about getting rid
of the sun. It can’t be done.”
“Stop it!” Allie cried. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t, Colin.”
“Get in the car, Allie,” Donna said.
Allie looked at her as if she didn’t know her, then back to Colin. “Take it back.”
“No takebacks,” Colin said. Then he strode three feet closer to Gwen and said, “And I don’t believe you. I think you’d kill
me right now if you could. I think you’d kill us all.” He raised his voice slightly. “Like you killed those helpless old folks.”
Gwen gave him another bewildered look—he might’ve just started speaking in a foreign language—and while she was trying to
puzzle him out, he lifted the scissors and pushed the blades at her chest, forcing her back a step. “I’m saddened, though,