The Crew Bosses of Resville were not about to be muscled out by the wesps, but they were also afraid of inciting prolonged violence in a major Espenian tourist city, so they had reluctantly hired the Bad Keck to do the difficult work for them. The Snakeheads were not the most populous gang in Resville, but everyone in the Espenian underworld agreed that man for man, you couldn’t get more efficient killers than those jade-wearing Kekonese. In exchange for this service, the East Resville and Cranston Crews had agreed to cede all the gambling and prostitution business on the glitzy eastside Laholla Street to the Snakeheads. A worthwhile trade, in Remi’s book.
The second man accepted his new jade and stepped back, clutching it in his fist.
Going up against the Copas was no joke, and even though it got the Crews off his back, Remi would’ve hesitated to take on such a challenge were it not for certain assets that no one else in the city possessed. One was his jade-wearing Vipers. The other was the third and final man standing in front of him now.
Maik Tar was at least twenty-five years older than the other two men who were being promoted today, and he looked every bit of it. But he was the most reliable man among the Snakeheads. At first, as he did with all new members, Remi had given Maik simple tasks—make a delivery, shake someone down, hand out a bribe or a beating, as necessary. Maik did them all to perfection, without batting an eye. Remi sent him to murder a man, a former Snakehead who’d gone to the police. The informer disappeared the following day; the police never found a trace of him.
Remi was delighted and a little shaken. He sent Maik out on other jobs and Maik never failed. The man was a steely killer. A savage genius. Last month, three Copas had robbed one of Remi’s bookies, beaten him to death, and escaped town. Remi had given Maik two men and sent him after the thieves. Maik left the trio of charred bodies burning in a car at a gas station eight kilometers from the Tomascio border.
Unlike some other members of the Snakeheads gang, Maik Tar didn’t drink or do drugs, he didn’t start senseless fights, he didn’t have a wife or a mistress, he never talked back or questioned the work that Remi gave him. He was a league above the others in terms of his exceptional instinct for street operations and violence. He noticed and remembered crucial details, he emanated dangerous authority, and he was always good in a fight. Remi could only imagine what Maik must’ve been like as a young man. So this, Remi mused with jealous resentment, was the kind of work ethic and discipline you could find in the old country clans. These were the sort of people that the Kauls had. Nothing like some of the slipshod fuckups he had to deal with.
And Maik had done it all without jade. How much more could he accomplish after tonight? The other two men had never worn jade before and it would be months before they could do anything useful with it. Maik had worn a great deal of jade for decades before his exile. Remi lifted the final chain, and with everyone watching, he undid the clasp and slid two more precious jade medallions next to the first. It was the most jade he’d ever handed out at once, but Maik could handle it. Indeed, he would become an unstoppable force. With Maik at the head of his Vipers, Remi could wreak destruction on the Copa cartel and anyone else who dared to be his enemy.
Maik’s eyes widened. Remi could feel the man’s almost unbearable anticipation. “Once again, and from now on, a Green Bone warrior,” Remi said with a savage grin. “Maik-jen.”
Maik bent his head and Remi placed the chain over his neck. The man reached up and pressed the green medallions against his bare skin, shivering as the rush of jade energy hit his brain for the first time in nearly fourteen years. His roughened face lit with pure joy and triumph as he raised it toward the ceiling as if in transcendent communion with the gods. “Thank you,” he whispered hoarsely. “Thank you for this second chance.”
With the incredible speed and Strength of an Academy-trained first-rank Fist, Maik Tar drove his Steeled fingers through Remi’s throat, crushing his trachea.
Remi’s bodyguards and the other Snakeheads in the room were immobile with astonishment for two full seconds before they drew their guns. In that time, Tar seized the closest man and Channeled into his brain, bursting the vessels and killing him instantly. He threw the body into the second guard, bowling him over, and took off running as the remaining Snakeheads opened fire.
The Deflections that Tar hurled behind himself diverted most of the gunshots, but not all of them. He was using his jade abilities for the first time after a long absence and struggling as one might with a numbed limb. He was also much older than he’d been as a Green Bone in Janloon.