Chapter 11
The guns were gone.
Just like that.
A quiet return.
One stolen government lorry.
Every Lewis gun, every pistol, every round — accounted for.
A note nailed to the depot door:
> "Returned. No war. Leave Birmingham."
Polly had pushed for it.
John had laughed about it.
Arthur had snarled that it wasn't enough.
And Tommy?
Tommy had signed off without a word.
He thought it would be enough.
But James Shelby had known better.
Some men didn't want peace.
They wanted revenge.
And Campbell —
Chief Inspector Chester Campbell —
was exactly that kind of man.
It didn't take long.
The day after the lorry was returned, the raids started.
Steel-toed boots kicking in doors.
Truncheons breaking bones.
Young Shelby boys dragged into the gutter, faces smashed against the curb.
Shops smashed.
Money seized.
Betting books burned.
The Garrison raided twice in three days.
Arthur beaten half to death in a jail cell.
Polly's books torn apart.
John's boys thrown in wagons like cattle.
Small Heath —
the Shelbys' kingdom —
bled in silence under Campbell's men.
And Tommy sat behind the bar at the Garrison, cigarette burning low between his fingers,
staring at the smoke swirling above his glass.
Waiting.
Planning.
Watching.
James didn't wait.
James sharpened his knife.
The night it happened, the fog was thick enough to choke on.
It coiled through the alleys and around the lamp-posts, turning the city into a labyrinth of shifting shadows.
Campbell's men thought they owned the streets.
They walked in twos and threes —
Heavy boots clomping across the cobbles,
Swaggering,
Laughing.
They didn't see the wolf moving through the mist.
Not until it was too late.
The first kill was at the canal.
Two of Campbell's best — MacDonagh and Reed — leaning against a rail, pissing into the water.
James came up silent behind them.
Two quick strikes —
The first blade into a kidney, the second across the throat.
Blood sprayed the stones.
Bodies slipped into the black canal.
Gone.
Without a ripple.
The second kill was outside the old baker's shop.
A trio this time.
Laughing about how they'd "whipped the gypsies good."
James walked right up to them.
No mask.
No hesitation.
The first man went down before he even noticed the knife flashing through the fog.
The second drew a revolver — too slow.
James slammed it away with his forearm, slashed the man's throat in a single fluid motion.
The third ran.
James chased.
Not fast.
Not rushed.
Steady.
Inevitable.
He caught the man at the corner of Garrison Lane and dropped him with a knife to the spine.
Dragged him back into the dark like a wolf dragging a fawn.
Three groups.
Seven men.
All dead before midnight.
No gunshots.
No screams.
Only silence and wet stone.
By 1 a.m., Birmingham was a different city.
Campbell's men began moving in pairs, pistols drawn, eyes flickering to every shadow.
They weren't laughing now.
They were whispering.
> "He's out there."
"Shelby's mad dog."
"The dead one, the one from France."
"You can't stop him."
Panic spread faster than fire.
James didn't slow down.
The fourth group — two men outside a brothel —
dead before their cigarettes hit the ground.
The fifth — one of Campbell's lieutenants, drunk and swaggering up a cobbled lane —
his throat slit so precisely he didn't even bleed until he hit the stones.
No one saw him.
No one heard him.
The fog swallowed the blood like it swallowed the screams.
And James Shelby kept moving.
One name left on his list.
The Grand Hotel stood out against the filth of Birmingham like a gleaming jewel.
Campbell's temporary throne.
Guards posted outside, boots polished, rifles at their sides.
It didn't matter.
James came through the service entrance.
Slit a cook's throat.
Dragged a porter into a linen closet and crushed his windpipe.
Moved up the back stairwell like smoke rising.
He found Campbell asleep.
Fat.
Content.
Dreaming of victory.
James stood over him for a long moment, knife flashing in the dim light.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
One hand slammed over Campbell's mouth.
The knife went in slow —
under the ribs,
angling up,
twisting into the heart.
Campbell's eyes snapped open — full of terror — and stayed that way as the life drained out of him.
James leaned close, whispering:
> "Birmingham is ours now."
Then, calmly, he cut the heart free from Campbell's chest.
Wrapped it in an oilcloth.
Tucked it into a small oak box he had carved himself.
On the lid, a single word burned deep into the wood:
> "Payment."
Two days later, a footman at Winston Churchill's residence in London opened a simple package.
Inside:
A heart.
Still warm.
Still bleeding.
And a note:
> "Send another dog and we will send the head next time.
Birmingham belongs to the wolves now."
No signature.
No threats.
Just truth.
Birmingham woke to chaos.
Police barracks empty.
Coroners overwhelmed.
The press scrambling for explanations that didn't sound like fairy tales.
The papers called it "The Fog Massacre."
The people whispered a different name:
> "The Night of the Wolf."
The Garrison that night was quiet.
No loud singing.
No brawls.
Just quiet toasts raised to the dead.
To the living.
To the king in the mist who had written their future in blood.
James stood alone on the rooftop again, staring down at his city.
He didn't smile.
He didn't mourn.
He sharpened his knife in the cold light of the coming dawn.
Waiting.
Knowing.
Victory is just the invitation to a bigger war.