Damien and Lane walked through the afternoon shadows up the long path to the front door of the Lord Mayor’s residence. He’d suggested Lane remain at the inn while he handled the mayor, but she insisted on joining him. Just to be safe he wrapped her in an invisible shield. Damien didn’t expect any real trouble, but after everything they’d been through these last eleven weeks he’d hate for anything to happen to her now that they’d almost reached the end.

A pair of guards holding spears stood beside the pale wood doors. They looked young, older than Damien, but still young. They probably received the assignment straight out of training. They crossed their spears to bar his way. “The Lord Mayor isn’t seeing anyone else today,” the older guard said. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“I’m here to remove the mayor from office.” Damien drew on his soul force and caused his shield to crackle. “I know his crimes. Stand aside or be judged with him.”

“Please, sir, we have sisters. If we let you through we lose his protection. They may be taken. The Lord Mayor is a man of great appetites.”

Damien crossed his arms and scowled. “So you serve this pig to protect your own families while others less fortunate have their daughters kidnapped and given over to his tender mercies. You dare call yourselves men of the kingdom? I should kill you both for your cowardice. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind.”

Spears clattered to the ground and the guards fled back down the path. How had they even made it through training? Damien didn’t know what sort of training the regular army required of its cadets, but if those two were representative they needed to improve their standards.

“Would you have killed them if they didn’t run?” Lane asked.

“Of course not. They were only doing what they believed necessary to protect their families. Still, if they’d had the courage to run a spear through the mayor’s guts when he came out this door some morning it would have saved a lot of people a great deal of trouble. I guess that’s why the crown keeps people like me around.”

Damien yanked the heavy iron door handle. It was barred from the inside. A golden blade made short work of that. The bar clattered to the floor and the doors swung open. Inside waited a grand foyer. Paintings, all of them erotic and explicit, decorated the walls and a pair of nude statues stood beside a sweeping staircase leading to the second floor. No guards waited inside the door. Either the mayor trusted the two outside combined with the bar to ensure his privacy or the guards were stationed elsewhere.

Damien glanced at Lane who was gaping at the artwork. “If you were a pig with grotesque appetites where would you be late in the afternoon?”

At the same moment they both said, “Bedroom.”

Damien didn’t know the layout of the place, but he figured the bedroom would be above. They went upstairs. The halls were lined with red carpet and more paintings like the ones below decorated the walls. If anything the ones on the second floor were more explicit and violent than the ones downstairs.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Lane stared at a painting of two little girls tied up, naked, getting spanked by masked men.

“Try not to look at them.”

At the end of the hall a muffled thump sounded above them followed by a soft sob. Damien pointed at the ceiling and a cutting beam shot out. He sliced a disk out of the ceiling and let it fall to the floor. Staring down at them, his mouth partway open, was a fat, naked man with a scruff of gray hair around the base of his skull. He held a small, thin knife in his hand.

Damien and Lane flew up into a bedroom-cum-torture chamber. One girl, she looked about Karrie’s age, was tied to some sort of restraining device, her back covered in fresh welts, Damien guessed from the cat o’ nine tails on the floor beside her. A second girl, younger yet, lay bound on the bed. She bled from three shallow cuts on her bare stomach.

“Guards!” the naked man bellowed.

The door burst open and four men with drawn swords rushed through. Fifty golden lances pierced the guards from every conceivable direction. Lane went to the bleeding girl and tore strips out of the bedding to make bandages.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the fat man asked. “Do you know who I am?”

“You are a dead man,” Damien said. “The only question I have is: are you the Lord Mayor?”

“I am.” The fat man drew himself up to his less-than-impressive height. “Baron Kannon is my cousin and when he hears of this outrage he’ll have your head.”

“I’ve already informed him of your removal and advised him to find a replacement who’s less corrupt.”

The mayor lunged at Damien, striking him with the little knife. The blade bent in half when it struck Damien’s shield. The mayor whimpered and held up the ruined weapon. “Please. I have gold, jewels. Please, take anything, everything, just let me go.”

A golden band formed around the mayor’s neck and Damien squeezed, choking off his pleas. Damien drew power, maybe a little too much power, and blasted the wall. It exploded out, reduced to little more than splinters. Damien hurled the mayor out the hole with way more force than necessary. His body exploded when it hit the ground.

Damien turned away from the hole and found Lane had bound the girl’s wounds and dressed her in a thin shift. “Is she okay?”

“Physically she’ll be fine. The cuts weren’t deep.” Lane stroked the trembling girl’s hair. “Mentally I have no idea.”

Damien went over to the second girl and cut her down. She latched on to him and cried. Damien held her and looked over her head for something he could dress her in. He spotted a dirty shift lying discarded in the corner. A tendril of soul force brought it to him and he got enough space between him and the girl to slip it over her head.

“Is he dead?” the girl asked.

“Yes. You’re safe now.”

“I want to see.”

Damien winced when he thought of the mess he’d made out of the mayor. “It isn’t pretty.”

“Nothing about him was pretty. I want to see.”

Damien guided her over to the hole in the wall. The girl stared for a long minute then spit on him. Damien couldn’t help smiling. She had spirit. “Are there any others?”

“I’ll show you.”

In the next room three more girls, all of an age with the first two, sat huddled in an iron cage. None of them wore more than a stained shift. The girl spoke to them while Damien opened the cage. Once they had all the girls free he and Lane took them home. Long after dark they returned to the inn.

He walked with Lane to her room. They paused outside. “I never imagined it would have been that bad,” Lane said.

“Me neither, but you know, this might be the best day I’ve had in my short career. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything as satisfying as helping those girls. I hope they’re okay.”

“I think they will be, thanks to you.” She kissed him. “Good night.”

Damien touched his lips and stared at the closed door. What was that about?