“What do you do with all these objects? Just lock them away?”
“No,” he rumbled. “We use them. Let rogues check them out for missions—even trade with them. Once you are involved in this game, smaller matters such as money have little value. Barter is everything among the members of the Community. And there is only one currency that we all value.”
I sipped my drink as we paused for several long seconds. I thought of all the people who’d died. The Community had the strength and the knowledge to face the Gray Men, but they’d seen fit to sit back and collect scraps. From their perspective, they were becoming rich even as lesser people died. I wouldn’t soon forget that.
“What do you know about me, Mr. Rostok?” I asked, breaking the silence. “Do you know my past? Do you know if Quentin Draith is even my real name?”
“Worthless information. I don’t trouble myself with what people did before they gained an object. It does not matter. What matters is how a man plays the game once he has begun.”
I was disappointed. My history was still a blank to me, an empty void I’d like to fill some day.
“One more thing—” I began.
“No. You have milked me like a cow, and I must put a stop to it. Now you will answer my question. I have only one. Will you join my house or not?”
I looked at his bulky outline in the darkness. “I will not, at this time. I would prefer to remain like McKesson. Helpful, but independent.”
Rostok generated a rumbling laugh. “Independent? There’s no such thing. You’ve been working for Meng all this time, whether you knew it or not. You’ve been bird-dogging fellow rogues for her for years.”
For years. I let that thought sink in, and I didn’t like the feel of it.
“McKesson isn’t independent,” the old man continued. “He works for all of us collectively.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll take that route. Just as long as we are all on the same side.”
Rostok hawked and spat. “You can’t play me like this, Draith. You must be more careful when you are in my domain.”
I stood up, setting my glass on the coffee table. It gleamed a soft, eldritch blue, lit by some source of light that wasn’t immediately obvious to the eye. I calmly walked to the door.
“I’m sorry if I disappointed you, but I really must be going now.”
I felt something then, as my back was turned to him. A gush of force. It was an odd sensation, but one that I was familiar with. The wall in front of me shook, as if someone had thrown an invisible couch at it. Perhaps that was exactly what had happened. The force didn’t hit me, however. I was immune.
“Some kind of shield, is that it?” Rostok fumed behind me. “I can’t be stopped so easily. I have a dozen objects in my vault, Draith. You can’t insult me like this—”
“Rostok,” I said, turning around with my pistol in my hand. It was at my side, aimed down at the carpet. But it was there, and my finger was on the trigger. “Let’s not have any unpleasantness. Please accept my apologies, but I don’t trust you. Don’t forget, you just sent Robert Townsend to the desert to meddle in my affairs, and he killed a man named Souza, one of my friends.”
“Friends? Are you talking about those crazy cultist rogues? Is that what this is about? You might as well call things crawling under rocks in the desert your friends, Draith. They have many similar qualities.”
I slipped on my shades and forced the office door open. It had been locked, of course. I gave it an extra hard twist so the tumblers would never go back together properly. They would have to replace the entire mechanism.
“We’ll meet again,” I said, intending to step out of his office.
Rostok didn’t shout, nor did he send any of his minions after me. Instead, he spoke calmly.
“All right, Draith,” Rostok said behind me in the gloom. “I respect a man who can turn his back on me and live. What do you want to come work for me?”
“To work for the entire Community, you mean?” I asked. I glanced back, but I could no longer see him. I wondered what he must look like with the lights on.
“If you want it that way. But you’ll take your missions from me.”
I turned toward him. Standing in the office doorway, I was silhouetted by the relative glare coming in from the lobby area.
“I want peace between the rogues and the Community. Stop kicking us around. And I want war between the Community and the Gray Men.”
“Is that all?” Rostok asked incredulously.
“Well, that might be overstating it. What I want is to strike the Gray Men and take out the machine that allows them to come to our version of this universe. I want your help and your blessing to perform this mission. That’s my price.”