Ultor’s footsteps echoed unevenly through the derelict warehouse. The place had an almost clinical sterility to it. Its walls were bare. The floors were of uneven concrete. The whole complex had a ghostly stillness to it. A few pallets rested against one wall, but for the most part the hall was completely empty. The only other feature was the glass teeth of an overseer’s office, grinning down at the barren scene below, a spiral, steel-tongued stairway lulling from its mouth, lapping at the cool stone floor.

Ultor nodded, quietly impressed.

“Comrades, our brother, Arthur Edding, has made a great sacrifice so that we may advance our cause. He has relinquished his meaningless possessions so that our operation may have a home, a platform from which we can launch ourselves to grand heights. We must follow his example and shake free from our material bonds. If we crave, if we desire, if we long for something, then it controls us.

“I chose you all specifically. I chose you because you know of the sacrifices that must be made so that we may heal the crippled, detestable creature that is our world. You are more than men. You are no longer a name, or a card, or a bank account. Each of you is an extension of the same grand concept, one branch of a magnificent idea that will enrich the land, and offer shelter to those who seek sanctuary underneath the canopy of our glorious example.

“From now on, we live, move and breath as one. We are a unit. We are a grand, single, powerful entity and, this,” Ultor opened his arms wide, “this will be our home.’

With pride plastered to their faces, the recruits began to shuffle around the warehouse, attempting to breathe some life into their new home. They set about arranging metal cots, rugs, mismatched chairs, and various other ‘homely’ items.

Within two hours the place looked like a strange conglomeration of a barracks and an antiques store. There were desks, tables, even three fridges and a large freezer, which looked like it had been pilfered from a scrap heap. The practical items were offset by a collection of impersonal-personal belongings. There were posters, wall hangings, ornaments, all of which looked strangely arbitrary in amongst the homogenous mass of furniture.

The warehouse was situated in an area of town known as ‘The Scraps’, so called because the collection of stubby, grotty buildings looked like rejects of their infinitely larger, and more magnanimous, neighbouring brothers. It was not uncommon to find four or five story buildings in The Scraps, or even the occasional three story dwarf, much like their warehouse. Against the towering feelers of the one hundred story monoliths, ‘The Scraps’ looked as impressive as an ant hill against the Alps. However, access into the center was relatively easy and, better still, the lazy tendrils of the law rarely bothered worming down here from their lofty nest.

The hour was late and the sun, what little of it was visible, was low in the dusty grey sky when Ultor pulled aside four of his newest men and issued them with an assignment. Otherwise, the evening was uneventful. Ultor allowed the men to adjust to their new surroundings and encouraged social engagement. A poker game erupted in the late hours of the night, and many of the followers took to drink and laughter until the early hours.

Ultor watched on quietly, permitting the wake. That night they celebrated the lives of the men they had been, and lay them to rest in their steel-cot coffins. Tomorrow, they would lend their bodies to a much greater master.

---

Paul’s dreams were haunting that night.

Sounds, like the pounding of torn flesh on taut drums, permeated his sleep. He dreamed of blood-soaked carpets squelching underfoot; he could feel the warm liquid rise around his bare toes as they bunched and gripped the sodden fabric. Hoarse voices beckoned to him, pleaded with him, mocked him, from the torn lips of shapeless, ever-changing, pulsing figures. His skin constricted him, closed around him, suffocated him, until it began to tear and rip as it shrunk his buckling bones.

He curled in on himself, screaming voicelessly at the darkness. His face was wet with tears, or blood, or bile.

His tongue split along the center, forking. Twin blades of pink, bloodied tissue snaked from his mouth, protruding to preposterous, ghastly lengths. The lithe bodies intertwined and danced against their pitch backdrop, advancing and sallying against one another, until, finally, locked in a cruel embrace, they turned to their master and reached out experimentally. Their rough bodies coiled gently around his neck.

They tightened.

His throat became a burning lance of pain. He clawed mercilessly at his own skin. The prying of his fingernails carving bloodied chunks of flesh as he fruitlessly clawed away at the malicious tongue.

His hands gradually ceased to obey him. His fingers locked into rigid talons. His vision blurred. The darkness crept towards him.

---

Paul was among the last to awake. A few of the others were blearily rubbing sleep from their eyes but mostly they had already joined the loose semi-circle of people around Ultor, sitting in their mismatched, uncomfortable-looking chairs. Ultor waited patiently as the remainder joined; Paul must have slept through whatever instructions had come prior.

When everyone was gathered, and silence embraced the room, Ultor spoke.

“The Grey Wolf is without a doubt the most significant obstacle we have come up against to date. Those of you who were with me in our raid on the Gutter Vipers (‘An affectionate way to refer to his own brothers’, Paul thought with some annoyance) will have had marginally more experience than the others. But make no mistake, this is an entirely new challenge.

“We lack the element of surprise which has often been our ally in the past. Furthermore, we are outnumbered, and ill-equipped. However, when we face them, we will not be defenseless. We will bear the advantage of an iron will, unshakeable resolve, and the knowledge that, kill or die, we are righteous agents of a just cause.”

Ultor motioned up to the unlit super’s office, “To that end, I have prepared a test of your will. Consider this an initiation. Today we cast aside doubt, do away with fear, and ascend to inhuman heights. Today we offer a libation of blood to appease the hunger of long forgotten and neglected Justice.”

Polias appeared at the top of the stairwell, standing rigidly as four recruits marched by him, each guiding a hooded figure, calmly but firmly.

The first of the prisoners struggled against his bonds. He flailed recklessly, and by chance caught his captor on the chin with an elbow. The taller, rounder, and unrestrained man, snarled like an animal and launched his captive down the steps. The prisoner toppled and rolled like a rag doll, crumpling against the railings a few stairs from the bottom, unconscious.

The other captives proceeded quietly.

The shackled men were forced to their knees in front of the nervous spectators. Their hoods were removed. Expressions varied, but for the most part there was one prevailing emotion; they were afraid.

A reasonably young man on the far left, with a shaved blonde head and tattoos down both arms, began to sob. Beads of mucusy liquid began to form at the end of his nose, dripping periodically into his lap, staining his worn jeans.

The man who had ‘fallen’ down the stairs was beginning to come around, his head lulling comically to and fro. There were large purple welts down one side of his face, and it was clear from the quick breaths he took and the rapid contortions of his abdominal muscles that he was sporting various other concealed injuries.

Ultor paced to the front of the pack. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a deadly looking combat knife. Its vicious teeth of steel grinned at the assembled.

With not the slightest show of urgency, Ultor lay the eager blade in his hand, and offered the coal black handle forward.

“I don’t think there is any need for further instructions. Volunteers?”

Paul’s stomach turned. Alex could have been asking who wanted to participate in a magic trick, his tone was so candid. If the crippled revolutionary had any qualms with this situation, then his voice certainly did not betray it.

Only one hand went up with anything approaching enthusiasm. A grey-haired, sour-faced man, wearing an ugly checkered shirt, raised his hand. He had been one of the four escorts who had followed Polias, and now stood over his prey with poison in his eyes.

Following the gaze of his audience, the gentleman who had taken a tumble not moments before turned to see who had gained everyone’s attention. Even bound and on his knees, the thug did an admirable job of looking imposing; his head was completely shaven, and half-covered with a stylized emblem of an eagle, etched in black, which stretched towards his cold blue eyes. He regarded the older man with the same level of interest that one might regard a slug who had ventured boldly across their new carpet.

“What’s the matter, old man? I not give up my seat on the bus for you? Go home to the ashes of your wife and wait by the phone for a sales-call if you’re that keen for something to do.”

The older man pursed his cracked lips and screwed up his leathery skin into a deeper frown, but said nothing.

Ultor turned to assess the volunteer, surprisingly unsurprised. He nodded gently.

“What is your name?”

The ageing male straightened himself, “Peter. Peter O’Sullivan. I own a butchers over on Wessex Street, sir.”

Perhaps unconsciously, Peter crossed his arms, allowing the taut fabric of his shirt to reveal an unexpectedly impressive pair of biceps.

“And why are you here, Mr. O’Sullivan?”

‘This sounds like a damn job interview’, Paul thought to himself.

Peter swallowed audibly. He uncrossed his arms and deliberated for a moment over where was the most appropriate place to rest his anxious hands. He eventually settled them awkwardly at his sides.

“My son. My son is nearly thirty years old… To talk to him you’d think he were a child,” Peter cleared his throat, “When he was sixteen my boy was attacked by…” he shrugged, “I don’t know who they were. Some gang, a bunch of yobs, a couple of drunks with nothing better to do. Truth is, I don’t know. I don’t know, and my son can no longer tell me,” he lowered his eyes to hide the growing tears.

‘Poor bastard.’

“They left him for dead but, but,” he stammered, “They didn’t kill him. He was a mess. Blood. There was so much blood. The kindest thing would have been to kill him, but they didn’t. They made certain they didn’t, I’m sure of that.

“My son can’t walk, can’t taste, can barely hear, and can’t utter more than a few words. He was smart. He was going to change things. He wasn’t going to scrape by, like his pop,’ the words were stretched now; Peter’s voice was cracking and whistling amidst labored, teary breaths, “He could have done anything with his life, and now? Now he needs his ma’ to feed him.

“It happened just down the street from us. I was so close. So close, but I might as well have been a thousand miles away,” Peter looked Ultor dead in the eyes, “You know, they didn’t even steal anything. Not a damn, single thing. It was just for kicks. Just because they felt like it. Just because they could.”

‘Shit. I would want that knife too. I almost do.’

Ultor paced over to the now openly weeping Mr. O’Sullivan and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“The sad thing, Peter, is your case is just one of many. Such incidences are so common we scarcely even call them tragedies anymore. Disgusting, isn’t it? The authorities don’t help us, don’t care, and to the media our children and loved ones are just numbers and figures.

“With us, you can prevent such dreadful things from ever happening again. I know you want retribution for your son, I know you want satisfaction, but that is not why you belong here. This is not some tit-for-tat game of revenge. This is a chance to build a world where such lamentable stories as your son’s are the thing of myth, and are not just commonplace bar talk.

“Your pain will not be purged with this knife. This man’s life will not make your nights any more restful, or your cheeks dry. You can’t alter the past, but you can apply your pain. You can use your sorrow to steer the future for others.”

Ultor turned to address the rest of his brethren.

“We are walking corpses, gentleman. We are husks of flesh animated by idealism. Blood doesn’t flow in our veins, belief does. Skin doesn’t cover our bones, understanding does. We share a pulse, one unified song of pain. But it is not our pain.

“You are not individuals. You are not people. This, is not Peter O’Sullivan,” he pointed an outstretched metal finger squarely at the butcher, “We are instruments. You all feel his pain. I can see that. Why shouldn’t you after hearing such a heart rendering story? But I feel the pain of every soul in this accursed city, every being on this whole fallen world.

“We cannot fight for ourselves. One person, with a hundred selfish ideas and selfish motivations, is weak. One Idea backed by a hundred people? Now that is where strength lies.”

“I’m not going to give you this knife, Peter. At least not today. I have no doubt you will use it, but I question the purity of your reasons. I’m sorry, brother. However, you will find satisfaction, I promise that. On the day when the loathsome quiver in fear, and the admirable walk with their heads held high, then all will find satisfaction.”

Ultor turned to his flock.

“Now then. Since Mr. Arthur Edding has been so gracious and kind as to provide us with this sanctuary, I believe it is apt that he should have the privilege of becoming our first initiate.”

‘Some privilege.’

Arthur’s expression betrayed his agreement with Paul’s sentiment. He rose hesitantly, his pudgy fingers brushing imaginary dust from his billowing shirt.

It seemed to take an unprecedented length of time for Arthur to conquer the small expanse between his seat and the patiently waiting Ultor.

“Right,” Arthur gulped, taking the knife, all the while watching his target with glassy unfocused eyes.

The thugs eagle tattoo warped surreally as the gang member frowned. He broke out into a soft chuckle.

“Look at you guys! You’re a fucking disgrace! I’m ashamed I let myself be jumped by you clowns. Put the knife down and quit playing games, you fat shit. This isn’t the place for you, wage slave,’ he turned to Ultor, “What are you? The Piper? Calling the rats and the children away to settle some little grudge? Settle your own score, freak show, or is it too much for a cripple like you to handle? You need a bunch of disgruntled shirts and bitter geriatrics to help you win your own pissing contest? Stop wasting my fucking time.”

Ultor simply smiled, his damaged, cloudy cream eye as dispassionate as its storm-grey brother.

Satisfied Ultor was not going to rise to the challenge, Arthur returned to his duty. The blade shifted and danced clumsily between his pink, portly hands. A hesitant, musing hum escaped Arthur’s lips as he deliberated how best to approach the task at hand.

The eagle tattooed man sniggered, then he guffawed. Finally, he tipped back his head and let out great howling, hysterical laughter. He began to roar uncontrollably.

Then he began to die.

Arthur half ran, half tripped towards the man, blade cradled firmly between both pillow shaped fists. He fell forward, piercing the other man’s chest with cool steel.

The room fell silent.

Eons later, a gasp was heard. It was not a gasp of pain, but of pure shock. The injured man looked down slowly to inspect the alien object protruding from his body. Blood bubbled and swelled around the metal shard.

The thug’s face was a picture of disbelief. An expression he maintained as Arthur withdrew the blade and, with a grunt of effort, opened a second chasm in his victims damaged ribs.

Reality sank in. In a torrent of acceptance and realization, pain swept across the tattooed man’s face. He grimaced. His mouth twitched, flapping open and closed.

Again Arthur struck.

Again.

Again.

The dull thud of entry, and the sickening squelch of the blades removal, played a rhythmic melody to a chorus of determined, panicked battle cries.

When Arthur was satisfied the job was done, he stepped back uneasily, and admired his creation. Horror clutched mercilessly at him. He dropped the knife. Before Arthur Edding was a column of flesh and blood, kneeling statue-still in supplication. This was the fruit of Arthur’s labour.

Ultor strode up behind him and, in a fatherly gesture, placed a cold, metal hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

“I know it is hard. Death is never something we as people were supposed to deal with easily. This man was plagued, tormented by an illness. Circumstances and suffering have made him a parasite, a pest who feeds habitually on its host, our city. If there was a man in front of you, he died long before you buried your knife.”

He could feel himself nodding but Arthur had absorbed very little of what he had just heard. He was numb. There was no internal voice of regret or shame, nothing inside of him to show some humanity. If he could only tell himself, he had been right, or even that he had been wrong… Instead he was silent. His inner voice had deserted him. No conscience berated, and no righteous facet of himself congratulated. Arthur was empty. Absent.

He turned around, walked towards the others, and sat down.

Paul wasn’t sure what conversation, explanation or reasoning led to his own name being called, but he was aware it had been. He was very aware. Ultor’s voice had cut through Paul’s stupor like a lash of searing lightning, carving a burning wound where it struck. It had hoisted his heart to his throat and pinned it there, an ornament for the world to see in all of its trembling, shriveled glory.

Strangely, one thought shone clearer than any other, and it was not any thought he would have expected; ‘He called me Paul’.

“Brother, I know you shy away from taking life. As well you should. It is a terrible evil which we have been forced into. In an ideal world, no man should have to raise a blade against another. No blood should have to be spilt to teach sinners their wrongs. Alas, this is not an ideal world we live in. We spill a drop a drop of blood, to prevent a torrent. We take one life, to save a thousand. This is a path we must walk. Our hands are guided by the inaction of our forebears. We act, lest it be too late for our children to. We are sons of the age of change; we have been sired for this purpose.”

Ultor helped his brother to his feet.

Paul looked down to discover he had obtained the knife. His reflection stared back at him through a curtain of deep crimson. He looked at Ultor helplessly, who responded by guiding his eyes to the sobbing, pitiful creature huddled at the end of the row. This man, the youngest of the four, had continued to stream tears from the moment of his arrival, though now his yield doubled. He was folded over, with the pate of his head resting against the concrete. His eyes fixed on the bloodied form of his fellow captive, slumped to his side. Beneath him, tears had darkened the smooth grey surface.

Paul could hear his own footsteps. He watched himself trudge forward as if disembodied, a spectator in his own body. When he came within two paces of his quarry, he paused. The younger man looked up at him, his tear soaked eyes meeting Paul’s own. From where he was standing, Paul could smell the blood of Arthur’s kill. He fancied he could smell the bitter saltiness of tears too. It left a taste in his mouth.

Paul shook these useless thoughts from his mind. He tensed. He readied. As he hefted the knife to shoulder height he was made to falter once again. It looked as though the man had mouthed something.

‘Was he trying to speak? No, I’m stalling. It was nothing. He’s not a man, he’s filth. Think of poor Peter there, going home to his crippled son, his ruined life. Think of all the lives I’ll save. Good lives too! Not scum like this.

‘There it is again. He’s definitely trying to say something. What was it?

‘What had he been trying to say?

‘Was it..?

‘Did he say…?

‘Please?

‘Shit.

‘What am I doing? This isn’t me. Good or bad, right or wrong, he’s still a man. He’s just like me, just like those he has killed. I’m no better than him if I go through with this. And what if he hasn’t even killed? What if Ultor is wrong? Alex. What if Alex made a mistake? Sure they’re rough sorts, but are they all murderers? Are they really all capable?’

Apparently he had been wavering too long. Ultor cruised into his peripheral vision.

“Libertas, this has to be done. He may cower and look pathetic now, but that is because his actions have caught up with him; he must finally pay the price for his crimes. He thinks only of himself. He knows he deserves to be here, and he believes his hopes for survival rest on you being more human than he ever was. But it is not human to forgive evil, brother - it is foolish. How kind will your actions seem tomorrow when this same man stabs a working man as he walks home, or rapes a girl to satisfy his carnal desires? Will you think yourself a hero then?”

Paul could feel himself trembling, “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I know there are bad people out there, and I know that the world would probably be a better place without them,” he shook his head, a sheen of perspiration coating his brow, ‘But I just can’t do it. I can’t kill another person. I don’t even know what he’s done,’ Paul pleaded with his brother.

Ultor beamed cheerfully, “Thank goodness. I am so glad to hear you say this, brother.”

For a wisp of a moment, Paul allowed himself to hope that he had escaped this nightmare.

His relief was premature.

“So long as you understand what must be done, what is truly important, then there is hope for you. Nerves are natural. Misplaced compassion is normal. You think you are being benevolent, but this is simply what your mind tells you to ease the pain of the truth. You are being a coward, Paul.

“You are not restraining yourself out of any love for this man; you simply, like every person alive, fear the consequences to yourself. It is not your fault. As far back as our early ancestors we have been taught to fear only of ourselves. We have been controlled by our selfishness. That is what you are feeling now, brother. A crushing, crippling question hounds you – ‘what will become of me?’ What are the consequences to me?

“Fortunately, we are reasonable beings, and reasonable beings can be encouraged to overlook their egotistical fears, provided they are presented with sufficient motivation.”

Ultor looked up towards Polias, who had been standing sentinel-still at the base of the stairs throughout the proceedings. Acting in response to an unspoken signal, Polias went into the office and emerged a moment later with a young boy in tow.

Gently, Polias led the boy down the spiral staircase. Like all the other prisoners, the child had a hood covering his face and, like all the other prisoners, he was shaking violently.

A concerned comrade brought forward a stool and placed it a short distant from where Paul and the other captives were gathered. He steered the boy onto the seat.

Polias sat the youth down and removed his hood.

The boy’s hair was unfashionably long, and looked something like a blonde bowl draped clumsily over his scalp. He sniffed through a wrinkled pug nose, and bits of spittle and dribble snaked their way down his chin, forming viscous stalactites. He wore a simple T-shirt and shorts, and had grazes on his pale, nobbled knees, which Paul hoped were from careless playing.

Ultor clunked towards the boy.

“Brother Polias, there is no need to have the child bound so. He is a guest here, unlike these other wretches.”

Dutifully, Polias obeyed, cutting free the boy’s bonds.

Ultor squatted down to a little below the youngster’s eye-line, causing the child to wince as he noticed Ultor’s lifeless eye.

“What is your name, son?”

“Sam,” he said, rubbing his wrists where the rope had cut into his delicate skin.

“Are you afraid, Sam?”

The boy paused for a moment, perhaps considering how best to word his answer. Then he nodded energetically.

Ultor’s smile widened.

“Well there is no need to be afraid, Sam. Big brother Libertas is going to do the right thing, you see? And then everything will be ok. You can go home to your mummy and your daddy, and you won’t have to be scared anymore. You won’t have to ever be scared again. Does that sound good?”

Sam nodded, “And Becky?”

Ultor raised an intrigued eyebrow, “Becky?”

“Becky is my sister. She’s two years old. Her whole name is Rebecca. She has green eyes, like my mummy, and brown hair, like my daddy,” It was obvious this introduction had been rehearsed. The boy seemed to take some comfort in regurgitating what was presumably his well-practiced school speech.

Ultor nodded and spoke in an impossibly soft voice, “And Becky. She sounds lovely. She won’t have to be scared either.”

Sam attempted a smile.

In one swift motion, Ultor returned to his full height and rounded on his waiting brother.

“Well? Now the consequences are very real. Either this pathetic murderer, or poor Sam. One of them will die here today. What of the consequences to yourself then? Which burden is easier to sleep with at night? Whose voice will haunt you, Libertas? Whose face will you picture when you beg forgiveness for your sins.”

‘He can’t, surely.’

“No,” was all Paul managed.

“I’m afraid you have left me no choice. You resent me for putting you in this situation. I see that. You think I am cruel for weighing one life against another, but all I have done is make the grim truth real for your short-sighted eyes. This is the choice we make every day we do not fight.

“You see Sam here and you are moved to pity. So great is your concern for him that you would do terrible things in order to save him. You see him here now? I see him every day. Every minute I see him and millions like him. I see children, mothers, brothers, daughters. I see cities and towns brimming with people just waiting to become victims! These people need us. They need us to choose one evil over another. Sam needs you.”

Paul turned back to the cowering, shaven-headed, mess of a man.

He did look wretched.

His features were feeble and ghastly, his eyes full of self-pity.

‘Alex will do it. Of course he’ll do it, he’s fucking insane. That boy doesn’t deserve to die here. Not like this. This man is here for a reason. He is here because he has wronged others. He has wronged people like Sam and will continue to do so. What choice do I have?’

Paul walked forward. With one hand, he tipped back the man’s head, until his tear-soaked cheeks and bleary eyes were looking into Paul’s own. With the other, Paul raised the knife.

His stomach knotted. His heart stopped. Every muscle seemed to resist him.

He fought it. His eyes fixed, teeth gritted, he raised the knife. Distantly he heard the man pleading, crying out in protest. He knew what he had to do.

He struck.

His aim had been true. The knife pierced the man’s throat, immediately silencing his cries, replacing them with a low gurgle. Blood filled his gaping mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head.

Paul dragged the knife across the man’s neck, tearing a bloody rent as he went. When he finally let go, the man flopped forward, limp before his feet. Paul did not move, not even as the blood soiled his shoes and enveloped him.

Sam was crying uncontrollably.

“You did what you had to do, Libertas,” Ultor comforted, “We all are doing what we have to do. It hurts now, but we will one day be able to look at the new world we have created, and feel proud.”

Paul snapped back to reality. He marched over to his brother, leaning mere inches from his face. He motioned back towards the newly deceased.

“What is there to be proud of here? You are making us into monsters! This isn’t right! This is insane. We don’t have the right to make these decisions.”

“People made society, Libertas. People made the rules and laws you live by, and it is up to people to enforce them.”

Paul’s eyes flared.

“My name is Paul! Get it? Paul Oliver Blanc! Not fucking Libertas!”

Paul stormed towards the door.

Ultor sighed, disappointed. Casually, he reached a hand into his jacket and retrieved a pistol. Barely looking, he raised the barrel, and shot Sam in the forehead.

The crying stopped.

Paul halted. He turned around slowly. He retched, clutching a blood stained hand to his mouth. The smell made him gag again.

“Well, Paul Oliver Blanc, how do you think it will look when little Sam here goes home and tells his mummy that his kidnapper, Paul Oliver Blanc, tore the throat out of a bound captive?”

Paul’s heart sank. The numbness returned.

“You have killed this child. You have killed him with your carelessness and misplaced ideas of compassion. Paul Oliver Blanc, is a monster. Still want to be him?”

He didn’t. At that moment Paul would have given anything to be someone else, anyone else. He wanted to be someone who didn’t care. Someone who saw this tragedy as just one inconsequential life, as a stepping stone towards something bigger. He wanted to be able to comfort himself with that knowledge. That was what he wanted: to be Libertas.

Ultor turned to the others, “Does anyone else have an issue with the sacrifices we must make to achieve our goal? Does anyone take issue with what I was forced to do here today?’

There was silence.

Cautiously, one man raised a hand. All eyes turned to the newcomer. He an official looking sort, with neat brown hair and a pristine jacket and tie combo.

“It was a waste.”

Ultor cocked an eyebrow.

The man cleared his throat.

“You should have used a knife.”