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    The Killing Circle: 1, #1
    The Killing Circle: 1, #1
    The Killing Circle: 1, #1
    Ebook463 pages6 hours

    The Killing Circle: 1, #1

    By MA Moon

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    About this ebook

    One Island.

    One Government.

    One Chance.

    One Future.

    The world has collapsed and London has become humanities last home. London has become The Last City.

    Gone are days of liberty, opportunity and uniformity, fast replaced by the call for survival. And that survival is articulated, echoed by The Conclave, the last standing government, sitting in the centre of London and dictating not only the city, but now all of humanity. And their message simple, comply to survive.

    But Michal and Kristof, two Detectives, have a different outlook. Driven by their pasts and both immigrants that are ridiculed as part of the 'problem', both these men are spurred by far more than survival.

    Michal is the quiet and calculated one and his partner Kristof spirited and dedicated to justice, both these Missing Person's Detectives now put on the trail of a missing orphan boy.

    But in a new city born out of survival this one missing child is barely noticed. But this boy is not just another boy, and his disappearance not just another case of the many.

    To find the boy the two Detectives will have to wade through the underbelly of The Last City, must fight through endless bureaucracy and intolerance, with their beliefs questioned and tested at every turn.

    But one Detective has a weapon only few have. A coin, a coin devised by the new constitution when London became The Last City, shaped only to preserve power for the privileged, now in the hands of a Detective, an immigrant, with no privilege.

    Detective Novak has a Kill Coin, a coin that allows you to kill once.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMA Moon
    Release dateFeb 28, 2019
    ISBN9781386635499
    The Killing Circle: 1, #1

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      Book preview

      The Killing Circle - MA Moon

      The Killing Circle

      MA MOON

      In a mad world, only the mad are sane. Akiro Kirosawa

      1

      Wood Green, The Towers.

      They said when it happened wood would turn into fire. The said when it happened smoke would fill the sky. They said when it happened families would turn against one another.

      They said everything would change, when the world almost came to an end.

      Michal stood and waited as the elevator meter slowly ticked down. He listened as the building around him hummed with the noise of its residents, children’s untried voices echoing down from the floors above, adults hardened and desperate voices ringing from down the hallways. And it was normal. Unaided and underfed children, defeated and desperate parents. It was all normal.

      The Close In had made sure of that. The Conclave over in Westminster had made sure of that.

      Michal’s feet slightly shuffled with anticipation, his mind counting down on the plan, his hands firm like stone as he kept his eyes on the elevator meter, showing no nerves for what was to come.

      A glare caught the corner of his eye, the added light coming from outside where a dumpster fire battled with the night air, little yellow balls spitting over the courtyard as the small blaze stayed contained but looked equally volatile. It was as deceitful as Michal’s situation. Calm, soon to be followed by anarchy.  

      Whilst stood in the foyer Michal continued to contemplate, just like he had done throughout his journey here to North London, if his intentions today would be judged by others the way he had judged it himself. He was taking a huge gamble tonight, and he knew the consequence in this city, The Last City, would be fractious, and maybe even deadly. But he had made up his mind, and Michal was not a man who tended to waver. The elevator meter hit 11.

      What floor?

      Michal turned to see a stout man wearing a plain white vest, his belly hanging out over his trouser belt, his beard busy and dirty across the bottom of his face. Michal didn’t answer.

      Prostitutes? Drugs? the man asked as he smiled a wry smile, his voice deep and broken.

      He was an older man and he didn’t strike Michal as one that made many jokes or provoke many laughs. He looked like he had been made poor when he was once rich, limited and restricted from the few choices left in society. Like everybody in this tower and the other two towers that surrounded it. He was the thicker bottom line of society, the side that drifted further from even the working class. Michal then felt he owed him an answer.

      Neither, going to see a stranger, he said genuinely with his straight but adopted English accent.

      You are here willingly? The man smiled properly this time, teeth missing and the ones remaining almost impractical. Nobody comes to these towers unless they have to. Usually sex or drugs is my theory brother. He shrugged. But I could be wrong.

      Michal looked back at the birdcage elevator door, the meter above it showing 7. He was close.

      Where are you from brother? the man asked as he edged a step closer, Michal though paying it no mind. This man was no threat. You look European. East?

      Maybe.

      The man waved his hands up to his chest. Fair enough, you don’t want to tell. I wouldn’t either, if I came here. But I am stuck here. I’m Iranian, came to this dump of a city only because I had to.

      Like everybody else, Michal said.

      Right like everybody else. Come to London...or die. Unfortunately, I didn’t choose death.

      Michal almost smiled, but he was too focused today to be jovial. He looked out the open door he came through a few minutes before, the dumpster fire outside still going as the yellow made the entire courtyard go alight with colour. The distinction between it and the night sky above was obvious, and the contrast only struck up similarities to London. Spring had become autumn in The Last City, and summer had become winter.

      Be careful up there European, the Iranian said as he tapped his wide belly, his beard big but not enough to hide his heavy chin. This place is not for the unwilling. Be careful up there.

      Michal nodded in acknowledgement, but also felt he should give more. Czechoslovakian, he said.

      What?

      I am Czechoslovakian.

      Ah, of course you are brother, the man said with a face signalling success. The Czech.

      ––––––––

      As the birdcage elevator slowly climbed the tower it only served to expand Michal’s vista, every floor capturing the true details of this city. As it continuously stopped and started he watched on through his advantage of an open carriage, each floor proving incredibly revealing.

      The next floor the elevator passed he saw a nervous woman rummaging through a man’s pockets. The man lay unconscious across the hallway floor, the rotting wood of the ground around them ugly and brown with torn splinters and damp from years of decay. The woman’s eyes were almost exclusively black from days of no sleep and years of malnourishment, the round whites moving left and right as her hand buried deep in the man’s left pocket roamed perilously for something. Desperation.

      The next floor Michal saw two brawly men stood opposite another as they guarded their respective apartment doors, the decor no better on this floor to the last. He noticed both men were almost identical in their outfits as they wore huge black coats over their swollen frames. They stood unmoved as they simply watched one another with little appreciation or recognition that they looked almost alike, the only difference between the two being one’s ancestors came from Thailand and the others from Kenya. Now joined in land, but still divided in loyalties.

      Michal knew because Michal was good with faces and backgrounds, and with countries that existed no more.

      As the birdcage elevator slowly rose above them Michal saw through the lift doors that the two men would continue to watch one another for as long as it took, ready to pounce if one overstepped to the others territory, to the others asylum. Division.

      The final two floors only added to the growing reach of barriers, greed and a city that was failing to work, after all the world’s changes and all the lessons to be learnt, they were still failing to realise the strengths in faction.

      The shaft suddenly jerked and then stopped, the steel pipes scraping against the buildings skeleton as it jolted and halted, the thinly spiral patterned door slowly and gently opening. Michal smelt the floor through the divulging cage door as it finally stopped widening, stood and ready he saw the long hallway here was a little different to the ones below, counting only four apartment doors as opposed to six. He stepped out and immediately the floor creaked, the base of his shoe and the ground sandwiched by what seemed to be mud and sand. Michal didn’t pay it too much attention and looked straight down the hallway again, quickly seeing a neon blue and red light filtering through the bottom of the second door to his left. The lambent colour was vibrant and inviting as it shimmered from the end of the hallway. But Michal was not here today to query the unexplained, he was here to liberate and hand out redemption.

      He looked at the walls and saw cleaner impressions of where paintings used to hang, dark green rectangular shapes surrounded by lighter shades of wallpaper. And cracks were breaking from the foot of the wall to the top, as if the building was slowly breaking in two. He finished studying the empty hallway once he decided it was safe to approach, gently then lowering his head and programming every step before he took it. He cocked his head to the side as he gently brushed his left shoulder against the wall, the metal button on his trouser rubbing against the mix of brick and wallpaper.

      From the first door on his left he heard noises of a couple shouting in disagreement, or conversation, he could not tell which, predicting a south Asian tongue. Indian, Bangladeshi, maybe Pakistani. They were the neighbours to his adversary, to which he gathered was where their association ended. Michal could not imagine anybody having a rapport with the man he was to confront.

      The first door to his right unexpectedly crashed with the noise of drums and the electric guitar as he read the pitch as too low, too manufactured for reality. It was the TV.

      The ruling naturally forced him to look upon the fourth unaccounted door as it gave him no inclination of its nature or more importantly to Michal...its threat. He assumed they were out, or this was his targets apartment too. His craft would require the space.

      But Michal lacked the capacity to govern all four doors. He could only see to one and that was solely the neon coloured door, the colours still radiant and alive through the base of the entrance as it lay just ahead to his left. He kept listening as the Asian idiom gently evaporated whilst we walked, then stopping in front of his target’s door he gently gripped the round metal handle, turning his wrist as slowly as he knew how.

      The door blessed him with silence as it leisurely clicked out of place and ajar, a steady stream of blue and red then shooting past him and painting the door behind to then disappear before he could identify it. He didn’t take the time to ponder what the neon light was before it evaporated, giving himself only a second to wonder what that light was, to then swiftly get back to his task.

      He lowered his torso and shimmied inside the apartment, and right into the small gap of coats beside the foyer. Now inside he hunched in the gap as his head brushed the feet of strung-up coats, the reason for why the door was unlocked unknown. He listened before he looked in further as he anticipated approaching feet, nothing coming his way he watched the small hole opposite him that shelved shoes and blankets. Adult shoes outnumbered by children's shoes.

      I am in the right place.

      He rubbed his nose, he felt the wet at his pores, and he believed in his own unease. This was real now.

      He moved back out of the gap possibly a little hastily as he looked to push his operation through with little delay, turning the corner and hugging the wall inside the apartment as his metal button this time did not scratch the walls. Looking ahead he saw two steps rising to reveal the floor as an open plan setting, the kitchen to the left and doors to other rooms to the right. He noted the seating area straight ahead.

      The apartment was dirty and impure, but it was also spacious, the wooden floor stretching for over twenty metres wall to wall. He then observed the large window ahead, the backdrop of the city of London and its tall buildings ablaze with light.

      But he was not here for the view. He was here for them, for him.

      A door to the right suddenly opened as the hinge creaked, a man rushing into the open plan room fast and aggressively, as Michal stood in the centre, static, awaiting him. Michal watched and he watched, until the man turned, his lack of a weapon telling Michal his stealth had worked up to a point.

      Who the hell are you! the man shouted, his hair tangled and his face disjointed and unseemly.

      Michal didn’t answer.

      The man then moved forward, close to the steps he shook his head in a fusion of anger and distraction, his eye playing to his right whilst he spoke.

      "Who are you? He asked less aggressively but more desperately this time as he almost squealed, Michal noting the man was even gaunter than he had expected, pity almost coercing him to rethink his own plan. But the man was a Hunter, and he had to go.

      Todd Wright, Michal finally said.

      What do you want?

      You Todd, Michal said quickly.

      Todd shook his head in denial. What do you want? he repeated, hurriedly. What the fuck do you want? Despite the curse Todd spoke in a clean accent, with no twist and no hint of the endless mother tongues in this city. He was very much old country, middle-class, touching on upper.

      He blinked more than he needed as Michal could see he was in mid process, the Hunters mind itching to return to his sick task.

      You were let off last time with two years in prison, too short. Since you got released you have just returned to what... Michal looked at the door Todd came through. Your sick games.

      Who gives a damn? He spat at the dirty wooden floor. What can you do? They can only throw me in a cell, nothing more. So, what else are you going to do fool? Todd’s face was remarkably broken in, his cheekbones pointed and shining amongst his pale white skin as it only served to enhance his bulging round eyes.

      More than a cell, Michal promised. Because a jail cell is not enough for you Todd. Michal heard the movement of a chair leg from behind the walls.

      Not here to take me away? You are not Met?

      No. Yes.

      Then what? He was getting impatient. What do you want, he said with a jolt of his frame, flinging his shoulders forward, but his cowardice then drawing him back.

      Only you Todd.

      Todd laughed for the first time, his freshly grazed teeth sharp and browned Michal could only imagine what he was cutting between those fangs.

      Who do you think you are? You here to kill me? Are you new to this town you fucking weasel! Go ahead and try and kill me. If you do, you can look forward to a decade of the Ballistic Drug. He looked at Michal with a grin, as if he had revealed something new.

      I know the rules Todd. But I'm still here for you.

      Todd’s face dropped and he looked immediately toward Michal’s pocket. You don’t... He smiled mockingly. Fuck off, no you don’t...

      Maybe I do, or maybe you are worth the ten-year sentence.

      Michal then decided on action as he quickly rushed down the steps. Todd though was motionless, again the Hunter looking right toward the door as Michal only saw a longing in the man to finish what he had undoubtedly started. But Todd would not finish tonight, not on his final night. Michal quickly took out the small switch knife from his right pocket and flipped it open, then without even a hint of hesitation he pierced it straight through the rough of Todd’s neck. Blood immediately began to filter down Todd’s freshly stubble beard as it reached and slowed at the birth of his neck, falling quickly again down his white vest and across his arms, all whilst Todd continued to look at the door.

      Michal took a step back as he let Todd fall to the floor, and bleed out, the cut purposely small enough to let him feel some sort of agony before his last breath. Michal knew it was only right, after everything Todd had done, it was only right. And with that Michal was done, the aftermath to come immediate as he saw the little blue light flash from behind Todd’s blood-soaked neck.

      Todd was dead, but Michal could not help but feel a little grieved by something else he had sacrificed. It was something with far more significance, far more consequence and far more weight than Todd’s death. And it stayed hidden in Michal’s pocket.

      Michal put his hand inside his trouser pocket and felt the gold coin against his fingers, watching as the light flashed dramatically from Todd’s neck, Michal waiting for the arrival of the authorities. First though, he had to unveil the secret room. 

      The room was burnt from the roof to the floor. Like it had been set alight in isolation from the rest of the apartment he could see the chamber was littered with black coal and ash. It was the room Todd had come out of, the room Todd kept glancing to even when Michal was taking his life.

      Michal moved the fallen shelfs away from his path in front of the door, walking further in the four children moved simultaneously back. He saw the tallest child looked no older than seven, her sharper eyes signifying possibly North Asian, but her face slightly brown meant likely Polynesian. The other three all fell differently in age but were bound in ethnicity, and in Todd’s cruelty. Their faces tucked in and pillaged Michal knew they were starved, teased and encroached.

      This city has no pill for cruelty, only for murder.

      And that is why Michal acted, that is why he ended Todd, before Todd could warp another child.

      The tallest girl gave Michal a misgiving stare as she looked the eldest and the most gallant, stepping in front of the other three she happened to also be the most malnourished. Michal predicted she likely passed the little food she was given to the other three. She was their guardian.

      My name is Michal... he said and then paused, and then finished, Detective Novak. He stood in the doorway, not daring to take another step into the room. I am here to help you.

      The girl only watched him with what was undoubtedly mistrust. The two bunk beds to each side of her were soiled in urine and excrement as the other kids huddled close to one of the lower bunks, all their eyes large and angular as Michal saw all the scepticism swimming in their convictions.

      These children would never be the same again. 

      Michal heard the noise of approaching boots, breaking his gaze he backed back out of the room. The girl though still watched him doubtfully.

      The front door was already down, Michal watching as the five Enforcers entered the fray, guns hanging from their shoulders as the calling came swift and necessary.

      Get down! the leading man shouted. Down now with your hands behind your head, he added breathlessly. Michal stopped beside the body of Todd, his dead face pointed to the sky as his eyes lay open, blood settled around him in a steady circle. Now!

      Ok, Michal acknowledged as he dropped to his knees and placed one hand on the back of his head, the other still placed in his pocket. The Enforcer was pumped and ready, all five of them padded head to toe, and even through their visors Michal could see they were prepared for anything. They were looking down at the dead body and then back up at Michal. Likely it was the first time a few, if not all of them had seen a dead body.  Because people did not kill in this city anymore, they dared not kill anymore. 

      Both of your hands, he heard one of the other Enforcer’s say as she moved closest and lifted her automatic higher. I want to see both your hands.

      Michal gripped the gold coin tight again whilst it was in his pocket. The metal slowly drew sweat from his palm, his hand balled into a fist as he gently removed it from his trouser and raised his hand above his head.

      Behind your head! Not one, but both your hands behind your head.

      Michal only kept one hand behind his head, the other above.

      What are you doing, I said behind your head.

      He ignored her again, the hand up in the air he lifted two fingers from his grip as he slowly revealed the gold coin.

      The Enforcer quickly backed off, her feet catching on the top of the steps behind her. Her attitude had changed, her intensity swiftly replaced by curiosity. She then blankly looked at Michal to figure out who he could be.

      She took a few seconds to process it until she said, Ok, then nodding behind her, to which one of the other Enforcers pulled out a device and began to thumb at the rare procedure they had to perform.

      The Enforcer keyed at the square device a few times as he looked lost in its operation. He passed it to another who then made it suddenly come alive, the device beeping with a yellow flashing light on top. They all looked back at Michal.

      The coin, the Enforcer said as she moved closer to him with her hand reached out.

      He dropped it into her leather hand, her eyes behind her goggles though only on Michal as he knew she still deliberated who he could possibly be.

      Nobody important.

      She walked back, and four out of five of them huddled in almost fascination whilst she dropped the coin into the mechanism. The strip down the side turned green as they all simultaneously turned back to Michal and dropped their guns.

      Ok, you can put your hands down now.

      2

      Enfield, St Marks.

      The boy loved watching movies. His genres varied from Superheroes, Sci-fi, Thrillers and even Horror. But the movies in his arsenal were limited as he would sit and re-watch one of the twenty-two movies available to him in the open communal room. He would watch them all day until the DVD player became exhausted, or when he was pushed off the TV by some of the bigger boys and girls. His appetite went from Star Wars to Halloween, Stephen King to John Grisham, and even as far as Oscar winners Chariots of Fire and Schindler’s List. Dipping in and out of each genre he loved to fill his head with other worlds, insight that gave him the tools to whisk himself away from here.

      Today he was in Shawshank Redemption, accused wrongly of a murder he was caged in a prison he never earnt the right to be in, his orphanage doubling as the lockup. He imagined he was fooling them all in the shelter, the Sisters all going through their daily droves whilst he plotted his escape day by day.

      They won’t catch me out, he thought. He thought a lot, because he didn’t speak.

      He looked up at the darkened wall, sleeping on the bottom bunk of his room he portrayed the picture of Raquel Welch’s poster hanging and covering the imaginary hole that he picked away at inch by inch with his little rock hammer. He imagined a big gap already dug out from the wall just like in the movie, opening day by day with his hammer until he could escape here, until he could be free. Sister Slade was Warden Norton, the considerate but hard lined leader of the orphanage. If the boy did have a nemesis, then he would choose her, just like Andy Dufresne had Warden Norton.

      It excited his young mind to conjure such distractions as his head was always alive with thought. Even in his dreams he would dream about flying an X-Wing through space or jump through time like Marty Mcfly. But today as he stared at the door he only had horror on his mind, the DVD’s in the communal room popular with Stephen King movies, the master of horror’s creations enough to play endless games in the boy’s mind.

      He was wide awake in his room, unable to sleep.

      He looked at the door and almost willed something to happen, the double chain locks fastening him into his room with the other three boys he just wished he could be free for at least one night outside the orphanage.

      All the cool stuff happens at night.

      He shifted in his small bed as the springs popped beneath him, the boy on the top bunk stirring in his bed, him then looking slowly over at the other two boys on the other bunk. Fast asleep. But he himself restless. He wanted to sleep, and he wanted to dream tonight, but he couldn’t sleep because of what he was told.

      The woman earlier today had told him he could meet his mother tonight. His mother, the woman that he had never met. He could meet her tonight.

      All day he was red hot with anticipation and he put that down to why his sleep never came. Waiting like every boy and girl in this orphanage for somebody to come take them away from early morning alarms, cold breakfast’s, hymns, chores and endless running from bullies. Well, he ran from bullies anyway.

      He ran because he didn’t talk, his mind so busy and so vibrant he never really found the use of his tongue, other kids shouting at him as the ‘mute boy’. The sisters too would keep trying to pull words from him. He couldn’t lie he did struggle to get his words out, but he didn’t really see any point no more, he was doing just fine without it.

      Who needs words when you have nothing good to say?

      The way the boy saw it he was an orphan, and in their new world orphans mattered even less than in the old. So, he accepted it, and he kept his thoughts to himself. 

      He kept watching the door and he kept thinking if what he was told was true, that his mother would come for him tonight. He stared and stared at the door, minutes closing on hours as the night went by, no clock in the room he was clueless to how much sleep he would get if he did eventually doze off.

      Then the door moved.

      The double chain locked from the inside suddenly undone he almost forgot if he had undone it himself or not, the chain jingling as the wooden door edged an inch forward. He took a deep breath and he pulled his covers closer to his mouth, tonight of all night’s his mind in horror mode.

      He only envisioned Stephen King’s worst pushing the door from the other side.

      The window was beyond his head and the light streamed into the centre between their bunks, giving him perfect moonlight to watch the door.

      The door continued to gently open and close a little, as if a small mouse was trying and failing to push it open. But he didn’t imagine mice for long, instead imagining The Shining’s Jack Torrance hammering on the other side with his axe. Then he imagined Randall Flagg and all his evil deeds pushing the door open, and then he imagined Pennywise the clown tapping his clawed hand at the door whilst holding his reassuring red balloons with the other.

      The boy’s mind landed on that, landed on the clown, as the handle of the door began to turn and the boy’s feet did too, hiding between his sheets, his heart pounding in his small chest as he purposefully blinked over a dozen times for insurance. But the handle was still turning.

      He closed his eyes, but they opened quickly, and he saw the clown standing near the door, and then instantly standing at the foot of the bunk. All its makeup and all its teeth, scaring himself the boy closed and reopened his eyes, the clown disappearing. The boy looked at the door again as reality unfolded, as the door unfolded. The door edged so slowly he didn’t know how wide somebody would need to be to fit through, but he contemplated on screaming. The boy that wanted adventure and an escape now wished it away. He was frightened.

      The door stopped, the thin sideways handle having returned to its latch the door became unremarkable again. He held his breath and waited for almost half a minute until he gasped and almost woke one of the three again, the handle not turning but the door still ajar. He thought about what would come next. If this was his opportunity then he needed to be brave and show the same steel his favourite heroes did. He had to breach that gap that held him from breaking outside of the orphanage and being free, and finding his mother.

      The possible acquaintance leaped around in his mind as the door began to let in a draft, his senses now confirming that this was real and this was his chance. That he had nothing to fear.

      He pulled the covers down to his waist and reached down the wall on the side of his bed, gripping the small leather bag with his belongings he pulled it out slowly as it scraped against the cold chipped wall until he had it on his lap.

      This is it, time to get out of here.

      He imagined being Andy Dufresne on his escape out of Shawshank State Penitentiary. He imagined being as brave and as smart, of having the same determination. And with that he unwound his legs and stepped onto the cold stone floor.

      Immediately his body yearned for the warm sheets again. His legs shivered with the cold as it always tended to get overly chilly at night in the orphanage and church. But he made himself hold still, not bothering to give the other three boys another look. He only had eyes for the door. He took another long and meaningful breath. Readying himself he stood up slowly and slipped his feet into his shoes, bag wrapped over one shoulder.

      I can be free, I can be out of here.

      He took the first step forward toward the door, and then the next, until he stood close enough to pull the door all the way open. But he was unable to restrict his wild imagination as he still had Pennywise the clown scratching at the other side, fast replaced by the Tommyknockers. He shook it out of his head, putting the endless visions to the back of his mind, and then mustering the courage to take his opportunity. He pulled at the handle as the door opened, then stepping out into the weight of the night still expecting to come across a killer clown, or at least a grisly man wielding an axe. But he found her. 

      3

      Charing Cross, Precinct 11.

      The office was quite this time of night, the perps almost walking the Enforcers as they moved lethargically and without thought. Michal had been sat for an hour now with little knowledge of what came next, waiting in the almost empty police Precinct whilst the sun slowly came up. He tried to entertain his mind with the dressings of police cases all around him, the Homicide Department generously spread out across the left side of the floor as twelve desks occupied the space amongst a host of spoiled whiteboards and unorganised chairs. It was the most prevalent and funded function within Precinct 11. Behind him was the department for Crimes and to his right Missing Persons, the wall plastered with his own case work. And it oddly felt out of reach, because he sat where the criminals did today.

      He was waiting for the inevitable storm to come, alone and isolated he knew soon he would be surrounded by questions, inquiries, antagonists. But the one man he could always trust, always rely upon, appeared from behind the shutters. And Michal’s partners face was visibly vexed.

      Really Michal?

      Kristof was wearing a simple black jacket and blue jeans, his shoes functional for the long day ahead his hair was a freshly cut mess and his mouth dry like he had not drunk water in days.

      You being serious? He wanted it out straight out. How long?

      Michal played dumb. I don’t know...

      How the hell do you not know? How long you had one? Kristof’s face was almost transformed as he still looked half asleep, as he stopped in front of Michal the evidence of morning dust busy and obvious around the edges of his eyes. How long Michal? he asked more impatiently. Kristof was the wiry one, and Michal was reserved in comparison.

      Long. Michal pushed back in his chair and looked at his desk to the side of him, but he knew he could not simply get back to work. He had no idea what happened next. What happens now?

      Kristof released a ball of air from his nose as he pulled a chair out for himself, sitting as close as only a partner could. He spoke softly, and he spoke frankly.

      I don’t know. Kristof looked properly at Michal and said, fine, you don’t want to tell me anything about your coin, but you are not stupid Michal. You know what this does to you?

      They both had a suspicious look through the police floor and nothing inclined change, yet.

      You’re a mark now Michal, as long as you have that coin you are a mark.

      Michal saw a level of remorse in his partners eyes as the blonde and brown waves floated over Kristof’s forehead, his frown adding to the dozens of lines that already defined his face, from years of heavy case work and a decade as a failing husband.

      You have my back? Michal asked.

      Of course I have your back, the Visegrad never breaks. If there are no Czech’s in this Precinct to watch out for your secluded ass then who will? Us Hungarians are all you have.

      And the Polish, Slovaks.

      And them too yes, fucking smart ass.

      So, what happens now? Michal asked again, the talk of national bonds on a foreign land not enough to break his curiosity to what came next.

      The Lieutenant is speaking to the Captain who is bypassing up to the Commissioner.

      The Commissioner? That high up? Michal pushed back up from the frame of his chair. His actions had made it so high up the chain he struggled to fathom how he could not be a target now for as long as he was a cop. I thought this through, I did. But did I anticipate all this...

      What did you expect? You have a fucking Kill Coin Michal, not even Commissioners have that sort of protection.

      Michal could see his partner was still dealing with the revelation. It was unrivalled news. ...and now.

      It’s just a bullseye on your back. You idiot, where did you find it? What were you thinking?

      Look. Michal scanned the room again, leaning in after he was convinced he would not be overheard. Todd Wright.

      That lunatic, got two years. What about him?

      Yes.

      He got released last year. What about him? Kristof asked again.

      Exactly, released because he never killed. No Ballistic Drug, no death. Only jail time. A shitty two years. He had four children chained up and emaciated.

      I know this, everybody does. What’s your point?

      He got two years...

      Because he is a Minister’s nephew... Kristof paused. He thought on it, and then the revelation made him shake his head repeatedly. No...Michal don’t tell me...

      Yeah, he confirmed, almost apologetically.

      You used your Kill Coin on Todd Wright?

      Michal nodded. "The lads on homicide, the

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