Harker’s Malchai stood closer to the action, skeletal arms crossed over their dark clothes and eyes burning like embers in their gaunt faces. Most looked male, a few vaguely female, but none of them remotely human. They seemed to radiate cold, leeching all the heat from the air (Kate shivered, remembering Sloan’s icy grip), and each and every one of them bore the same brand—an H on their left cheekbone. Nearby, a Corsai got too close to one and it hissed, flashing row after row of jagged teeth. Men and women dotted the crowd, thugs with hardened bodies and scarred cheeks, their very presence a show of strength—but next to them, the Malchai looked far more monster than human.

The only things missing from Harker’s collection were Sunai. Those rare creatures—the darkest things to crawl out of the Phenomenon—had aligned themselves with Flynn down in South City. Some said the Sunai refused to be controlled; while others said they refused only to be controlled by Harker. Either way, Harker’s were many and Flynn’s were few, and their absence didn’t make a dent. Everywhere Kate looked, the basement was brimming with monsters, every set of eyes—white, red, or ordinary—focused on the platform, and the pool of light, and the man standing at its center.

Callum Harker had the kind of face that cast shadows.

His eyes were deep-set and blue—not light blue or sky blue or gray blue, but dark, cobalt blue, the kind that looked black at night—paired with an aquiline nose and a severe jaw. Tattoos—bold tribal patterns—snaked out from under his collar and cuffs, black ink trailing onto the backs of his hands and tracing up his neck, the sweep and curl ending just below his hairline. Harker’s hair was the only part of him that didn’t fit. It was fair, a warm, sun-kissed blond, like Kate’s, that swept across his forehead and trailed along his cheeks. That one feature made him look like a “Cal.” But only Kate’s mother, Alice, had called him that. To everyone else, he was Sir. Governor. Boss. Even Kate thought of him as Harker, though she made an effort to call him Dad. The way his face twisted—discomfort? disdain? dismay?—was its own kind of victory.

Harker wasn’t alone up on the platform; a man was on his hands and knees before him, begging for his life.

“Please, please,” he said in a shuddering voice. “I’ll find the money. I swear.”

Two Malchai hovered at the man’s back, and when Harker motioned, they wrenched the man to his feet. Their nails sunk into his skin and he let out a stifled cry as Harker reached forward, and took hold of the metal pendant that hung from the man’s neck.

“You can’t,” he pleaded. “I’ll find the money.”

“Too late.” Harker tore the pendant free.

“No!” cried the man as one of the Malchai holding him yawned wide, revealing rows of jagged teeth. He was about to sink those teeth into the man’s throat when Harker shook his head.

“Wait.”

The man let out a sob of relief, but Kate held her breath. She knew her father, watched as he considered the medal and then the man.

“Give him a head start,” he said, tossing the medal aside. “Five minutes.”

The monsters let go, and the man crumpled to the floor, clutched at Harker’s legs. “Please,” he cried. “Please. You can’t do this!”

Harker looked down coldly. “You’d better start running, Peter.”

The man paled. And then he scrambled to his feet, and stumbled down off the platform, and ran. The crowd of men and monsters, held quiet by Harker’s command, now burst into noise, laughing and hissing and jeering as they parted to let the dead man through. A few peeled away from the group and followed him toward the concrete steps that led up to the street, into the dark.

Back onstage—that’s what it really was: a stage, a performance—Harker held up an iron walking stick, its grip shaped into a gargoyle like the one on the front of their car (cult leaders, Kate had read in that same book, had a flare for the dramatic, the pomp and show). Now rather than raise his voice to quiet the crowd, Harker drove the pointed end of the walking stick down against the concrete platform. The sound reverberated through the basement, and the crowd fell to whispers, the murmurs sinking from a wave into an undercurrent.

“Next,” he said.

Kate’s eyes widened as a Malchai was dragged up onto the platform. The monster twisted and writhed, strength dampened by the iron chains circling his wrists and throat. Where his brand should have been, there was a patch of ruined skin, as if he’d clawed the mark away.

“Olivier,” said Harker, his voice carrying across the event space, “you’ve disappointed me.”

“Have I?” snarled the monster, his voice a rasp. “It is we who are disappointed.” A ripple went through the basement hall. We. The Corsai rattled and the Malchai began to whisper. “Why should we starve because of deals you make, human? We did not make such deals ourselves. The Corsai may speak as one, but the Malchai are not yours.”

“You’re wrong,” said Harker, bringing the iron gargoyle up beneath the Malchai’s chin, smiling as the monster recoiled at the metal’s kiss. “I give each and every one of you a choice. Stay in North City, under my command, or go south, and be slaughtered by Flynn’s. You chose to stay in my city, you chose to take my mark, and then you chose to bleed a family dry. A family under my protection.” The Malchai’s eyes burned angrily, but Harker’s calm smile never faltered. He looked up, and addressed the cavernous space. “I have a system. You all know what happens to those who disrupt it. Those who follow me reap the rewards. And those who defy me”—Harker looked down at the Malchai—“die.”