Shilloh wasn't sure she was breathing. In fact, she probably was because her eyes were flashing and—

  "Yes, yes, yes!" Birch shouted, her camera flashing again. "Perfect. Keep that exact face. I love it! Now, put a hand to your mouth. Really give me 'my whole world view is crumbling.' You can even cry if you want!"

  "Son of a—" Wade grit his teeth. "Birch! Come on! Give her a minute to breathe."

  "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MY ART!"

  "Sir," her world-threat level crush said, looking at Frost. Or was he Godkiller Thresher, since he was wearing the uniform? "How the hell did she even get in here?"

  Before Frost could do more than open his mouth, Birch had her hand in her pocket.

  "I'M RICH, BITCH!"

  "No one is that rich."

  "Well, I am. I am the Warlock of Wealth, the—"

  Shilloh tuned out what she was saying and tried to process what she had just learned.

  The power she had sensed from Wade made sense now. Sensing his magic was like, well, god-like. The difference in scale made it hard to use any other comparison.

  That also explained the secrecy, his extreme angst over how many people died every minute he wasn't out there killing shit and fucking up the guilty-until-proven-innocent cryptos of the world.

  But why the fuck was he in Forsythe? Godkiller, even if there were three of them, couldn't just fuck about for that long doing bane work that was easily outsourced to other people.

  "Ahh," Thresher said, running his hand across barely visible pure white stubble. "Based on your expression, I'm guessing that you have come across some incongruence you would like to ask us about."

  "You sure?" Birch asked. Until she had spoken, the little psycho had been reaching to squeeze Wade's cheeks and tell him what a cute little boy he was and otherwise mock his youthful naivety about how few barriers existed to the uber wealthy. Because of that, both of her wrists were in Wade's grip, and she was standing on her toes. She didn't seem to mind, though. She just lifted her feet off the ground and spoke while swinging back and forth like it was a ride. Well, until Wade stopped holding her up, and she almost fell on her ass. "'Cause that stank face looks more like she found a locker of questionable adult magazines under Wade's bed."

  "What?" Shilloh jerked back, nose wrinkling. "No one is thinking that. Where did that come from?"

  "Yes," Thresher said, sounding competent. "That match is uncanny."

  Shilloh's instincts had been honed by ages of traveling with Birch and Agnes. Without hesitating, she interrupted that train of thought and forced everyone back on track. She did not want to know about her new boss's box of porno mags, nor about who had stumbled upon it.

  "Wade, if you're Godkiller, then why the fuck did they have you in Forsythe clearing random trails in the woods?"

  "Sir?" he said, looking at Frost.

  "Happy to have you explain. Go ahead."

  "Alright," the Were said, taking a deep breath and gathering his thoughts. "So, the first thing you should know is that there are a lot of people who work behind the Godkiller mask. This is just one' cell.' We keep knowledge of each other compartmentalized because various political and magical organizations try to kill, kidnap, or temporarily incapacitate Godkiller very regularly."

  "Why would any human want that?"

  Wade shrugged, "Some people are short-sighted, some people think that the deities will give them favor now that they're out of The Vault, and others are just hoping to profit. Honestly, for every cult that thinks they can control a leviathan, or that they've been chosen to inherit the earth after The End of Days, three dumb twenty-something-year-olds just think they'll get rich selling whatever fancy equipment we must have."

  "So you, what, hid in Forsythe so no one would find you? Was it just to give your identity cover? Like three years on, three years off?"

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Oh, no. I've been active in several actions and have been doing work as Godkiller literally every single day I've been in Forsythe."

  She frowned, "And no one's noticed you fighting off hordes of invisible monsters or something?"

  He shook his head and gently guided her to a chair, and got her a cup of water. "Not quite. You see, the core thing that connects every single Godkiller is that we are only conditionally powerful. The people who can fight on our level any time, any day, no prep needed, they all get taken in by the government. Who even knows what wild shit they get up to? Still, those monsters aside, it's part of the reason that we work in cells. Each of us has narrow, situation-dependent strengths that cover for the others."

  Frost stepped in and took up the explanation. "We will give you more detailed explanations, possibly even demonstrations, before the incursion we're all here for, but I'll give you the short version." The debonair older man pointed at himself. "As Godkiller Thresher, I have more offensive power than anyone in this room. However, I have a narrow suite of spells, and my abilities are necromantic in origin. I can, so to speak, 'charge' my abilities by creating the magical equivalent of a hydroelectric dam on the border of life and death. If enough complex life dies in a short period of time, then I can put down most leviathans in a single strike."

  Shilloh stared; even after just drinking water, her throat was still too dry to swallow. Kill a leviathan? In a single hit? That was like saying someone could just punch out an air force base with a single left hook. Those units of might were measured in days of warfare, not singular units of action. Not unless you were talking about atomic-bomb-level actions.

  Thresher saw her expression and smiled. "Yes, it's strange. Even to me, after all of these years. But, and this is the important part. I can only do that with monsters that bring hordes of minions or swarms of fodder. Beige," he waved at the handsome, dark-skinned man slouching in his seat. "Has a binding that either cannot be broken or will permanently kill anything that breaks it. And he has no loopholes! The spirit and intention of the contract is what is enforced. Be you a demi-god, a fifty-foot crypto, or the spirit of a volcano, it is not possible to break his bindings. However, as you have seen yourself, the only way for him to bind another being is for them to play a game with stakes they have both agreed on."

  Beige looked up from his book and tapped the cardboard chess box he had offered her. "Not terribly useful against a swarm of nonverbal goat-ghosts."

  Shilloh mutely pointed at Thresher.

  He nodded, "Yes, that would be more of a 'me' scenario."

  She moved her finger to Wade.

  "Ahhh, Godkiller Stern. You've felt what he can do. Incredible control over an environment. However, his Mark is just a Were's Mark pushed to extremes. Though he can attack, it requires creativity since it's not the intent of that sort of magic."

  She snorted, "I can't imagine power being a problem."

  Thresher's smile dimmed. "Unfortunately, there are situations where it is. More because his true limitation is time. Wade needs many months, at the absolute minimum, to prepare a battlefield, and we prefer for him to have years when the stakes are high."

  "Years?"

  "Years," Thresher confirmed. As he spoke, he removed the black uniform and revealed a pair of regular athletic clothes underneath. "This cell is not a rapid response unit. Those Godkillers are real monsters when it comes to power. No, we work heavily with seers and statistical models. I can't do much unless there is a long battle to prepare me. Beige needs to trap, trick, or convince threats to join him at the table, and both of us need someone to guard us as we build up to the finale."

  Once she got past the shock—and the thought that there were people so strong that Godkiller referred to them as 'monsters'—it made sense. Also, as ridiculous as it was, it was nice to know Wade had limits. In her mind, she had been separating the ominous arcane presence from the man. The feeling of Wade's power was overwhelming, like its mere attention could push you out into the void. That domineering, unforgiving sense of command that cared nothing for reality, nature, or anything but the permission it had granted didn't seem like goofy-dancing, greasy-food-loving, and easy-to-tease Wade.

  But she could imagine his power stemmed from his willingness to put in the hours. It absolutely matched him to slowly build up a wall around the people he cared about and suffer no threat to pass its border.

  He was not, and would never be, a king meant to crush and control. But she could easily see Wade Raslow being a ranger or game warden who spent most of his days napping under a shady tree, but who would turn grim, unfaltering, and impossible to turn aside if he even thought a poacher was about to draw blood on his territory.

  "If Wade is your Uber Were defense person, what role do you imagine me being in? Scouting your battlefields? Picking the spots you'll make your stands on?"

  "No, Shilloh. I don't know exactly where you'll stop, but it's possible that, with this team's support, you might wear the mask. There are also many support personnel who are permanently attached to a Godkiller or cell of Godkillers and are critical to their success without wearing the black. You could be just like Scotty. Either way, I think your abilities now, and the ones I remember Dryads growing into, will bring you to he front lines with the rest of us."

  Well fuck.

  NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

  Piracy Notice: If you’re reading this anywhere other than Scribble Hub, Royal Road, or my Patreon then this is pirated. Please let me know by going to the Jeffrey Nix website’s contact area so I can get really annoyed, complain to my cat, have her tell me this never would have happened if I had just gone back for a Ph. D, send a takedown notice, and get back to writing.