“What the hell is going on here?” Bunny demanded as she looked around with an expression of horror.

“Rogue player,” I answered I moved forward, carefully stepping over a puddle of blood.

I looked down at the body in front of me, or at least, the top half of the body. It had been cut in two at the waist. I recognized the man, though I didn’t know his name. He’d been a player, one of the regular customers at the Broken Yardarm. From the sword that was still clutched in his hand, he had gone down fighting.

“This is what happens when someone has too much power and not enough self-control,” Ramirez said, her expression just as grim as my own. “Or when they decide that they don’t have to play nice anymore.”

“Jace,” Turtle said with a snarl. “I bet Jace had another tantrum.”

“Jace uses a hammer,” I pointed out, indicating the body. “This wasn’t done by a hammer.”

There were a couple more bodies scattered about. The next one over was fully intact, except for a large hole in his chest. I took note of the charred marks and noted that this had either been done by a scepter or an ability.

“Axe and scepter,” Ramirez said after we moved past the other bodies. Her expression had turned hard. “This reminds me of a crime scene I visited recently. I think we might be dealing with the same players.”

I just looked around, taking in the entire scene. It was bad, but I’ve seen worse. Far worse. And in spite of the fire and bodies, there was still activity, but not any active fighting. Several players were busy trying to put out the fires.

“I need to find Agent Davis,” Ramirez stated, now in professional mode.

“I think I found Nash,” Ace announced, looking a bit sick to his stomach.

Owen Nash, or what was left of him, was sprawled out on the ground. His entire torso had been sliced open and much of his insides were now on the outside. The sight was horrific, disgusting, and filled me with a cold rage.

I hadn’t known Nash very well. Sure, we’d slept together once, but that had been about as far as our relationship went. Still, his death felt personal, as though it was an attack on me and mine. I clenched my mace so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

“Someone is going to pay for this,” I whispered.

“This is Warden business,” Ramirez stated, though she didn’t protest when the rest of us followed her towards the local warden office.

Davis was at her office, sitting on the sidewalk in front with her back up against the wall. The entire front of her uniform was soaked with blood, but she was still alive.

“God, damn it,” Davis cursed to the man beside her. “Can’t you work any faster?”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” the man responded with a look of annoyance.

The man was tall and slender, with light-brown skin and hair that was reddish in color. His coloring was pretty common among the respawned, which made him easy to peg as a player. The fact that his hand was glowing with a golden color as he placed it against Davis’ wounded shoulder, proved that fact as well as marked him as a healer. He clearly wasn’t a powerful healer, or he not only would have healed her by now, but he probably wouldn’t have been in Gideon Heights in the first place. Strong healers were valuable in practically any hospital and could practically rake in the money.

“What happened here?” Ramirez asked.

Davis stared up at her with a blank expression for several seconds before blinking. “Ramirez,” she finally said. “You’re back.”

“I’m a player now,” Ramirez told her. “But that’s not important. Who did this?”

“A couple players,” Davis answered with a grimace of pain. She pointed up to the board with the wanted posters. “Those two you were chasing.”

I stared at the wanted posters and the familiar faces that looked out from the pictures. The knot of cold rage burned even more in my chest and it was all I could do remain calm, at least on the surface. Just because I was royally pissed off, that didn’t mean I had to show it.

“Raze and Mad Mike,” Ramirez practically growled.

“Yeah,” Davis responded with a wince. “They came out of the Labyrinth and met up with a friend of theirs who was waiting in town. Someone recognized their pictures and…” She gestured around.

“I assume they’ve already left,” I said, carefully keeping my voice under control.

“Yeah,” Davis said again. “They ran back into the Labyrinth with a couple new friends that they picked up.”

Ramirez gestured back towards the direction we’d just come from. “I saw Nash… Where are Simon and Lewis…? Harris and McNichols?”

“Our remote office,” Davis answered with a forced smile. “They’re off taking care of some paperwork and weren’t here.”

Ramirez looked relieved at that. “How many dead?”

“I don’t know yet,” Davis answered. “At least five, though I haven’t been able to get an accurate count.” She looked at her wounded shoulder meaningfully.

“Please don’t move so much,” the healer warned her. “Not while I’m still working.”

“Then work faster,” Davis snapped at him.

The healer snorted. “You’re damn lucky that you didn’t lose the whole arm, but if you keep moving around, you still might.”

“We need to go after them,” I stated, looking towards the Labyrinth entrance. “They’ve left a trail of monster bodies, so if we’re fast enough, we can follow.”

Ramirez gave me a look of surprise, though she also nodded. “That might work. There isn’t much time though, because bodies have already melted.” Then she paused and shook her head. “But this is Warden business…”

“Screw that,” I snarled as my rage slipped loose. “I didn’t spend over thirty years as a Warden just to walk away now.” Then I looked at the wanted posters and spat, “Especially not when it’s those two bastards…”

Suddenly, everyone was staring at me with looks of stunned disbelief.

“Did you say you were a Warden?” Bunny blurted out.

“Thirty…years?” Ramirez gasped, her eyes going wide.

Ace quickly added, “Is this like when you said you were an accountant…or a dog catcher?”

“A Warden,” Davis exclaimed as she burst out laughing, though it was obviously painful for her. “I knew it. I knew you had to be a Warden… Sooner or later, a Warden was bound to be respawned…”

“Upton,” Ramirez whispered, immediately catching my full attention with that name. She was still staring at me. “You’re… You’re Carl Upton.”

I blinked at that, knowing that it was pointless to deny it. At one time, I’d been good at keeping secrets, but after retirement, I just stopped caring. It was more entertaining to play a few things close to the vest while throwing out vague hints. Back in the nursing home, that had been one of the few things that I had to amuse myself. Now, I realized, I might have been doing that a bit too much.

“I WAS Carl Upton,” I corrected Ramirez. “You know the rules as well as I do. Carl is dead and buried.”

“BULLSHIT,” Ramirez snapped, a new intensity in her eyes. “That kind of experience doesn’t go away just because you have a new body.”

“I’m feeling a bit left out of the loop here,” Bunny said.

“Apparently,” Ace said, a bit uncertainly, “Maggie used to be one of the Men in Grey. Or was that Woman in Grey?”

“Man in Grey, back then,” I said.

“Carl wasn’t just a warden,” Ramirez stated, not taking her eyes off me. “He was THE warden. He was one of our founders…from before we were called Wardens. From before we were even an organization.” Then, she touched the ka-bar knife on her belt and added, “Carl Upton trained the man who trained me.”

“Holy shit,” Ace exclaimed.

Olivia nodded. “That explains a few things.”

“The way you took down Jace,” Bunny mused.

“The Upton sweep,” Davis added with a pained chuckle. “No wonder you knew that move. You’re the one who invented it.”

“Carl was murdered a couple months ago,” Ramirez explained to the others, still watching me. She pointed at the wanted poster. “By them… By the men who did this…” She shook her head and told me, “I saw your body… I saw the video footage of it happening… I was investigating your death.”

“How often can you ask the murder victim to testify?” Ace joked.

I snorted at that. “My testimony would be illegal…” Then I reminded them, “And this isn’t going to court anyway. This is a kill order situation.”

“It is,” Davis agreed. “Rogue players with multiple civilian body counts… Capture if possible…”

“Kill if necessary,” Ramirez finished.

Of course, we all knew that killing could be necessary. Players like these never surrendered. They thought that they were above such things as rules and laws, which was why they got in trouble in the first place. Capturing them would be far too dangerous to even attempt.

“We need to go after them now,” I reminded Ramirez. “Time is on their side.”

“We’re coming too,” Bunny stated. She stared at me and Ramirez with an expression that clearly stated that she’d already made up her mind and wasn’t about to change it.

“You’ve had our back,” Turtle added. “We’ve got yours.”

“Especially if these are the assholes who killed you the first time around,” Ace told me. “It sounds like they’re due a bit of payback, and I want to be there to see it.”

I nodded at that, not bothering to argue or attempt to convince them this was too dangerous. They were players and the Wardens often worked with players in situations like this. Besides, these were players I trusted.

“We need fresh supplies,” I announced, gesturing towards nearest store that wasn’t on fire. “Grab food and water fast. We’re leaving in five minutes.”