Inspector Campbell had waited long enough.
For weeks, he'd watched James Shelby drift through the city like a ghost. Too fast. Too precise. Too perfect. Wherever James went, things simply... fell into place. Men surrendered. Gangs vanished. Enemies folded.
Campbell had stared into the darkness and finally understood what he was looking at.
Not a man.
Not merely a Shelby.
But something more.
And it terrified him.
So Campbell stopped chasing ghosts.
Instead, he started pulling strings.
It began with a letter—slipped beneath the door of the betting shop before dawn. No seal. No signature. Just a name written in black ink across a torn scrap of ledger paper.
"Elena Marks."
James found it.
He hadn't heard that name in years.
Elena Marks had been the daughter of a gypsy seer—one of the elders from the tribe James had grown up among in the mountains of Northumberland. They had shared blood, not by family, but by fire and steel. She had been the first to recognize the change in him after the trenches. The first to tell him his eyes weren't just sharper—they were ancient.
James hadn't seen her since the war.
But now her name had found him.
And that meant she was in danger.
Tommy was the first to raise a brow. "What's this then? A woman from your past suddenly popping up the week before we're about to put a bullet in Billy Kimber?"
James folded the letter once more. "It's personal."
"You don't have personal, mate. Not anymore."
James gave him a look—one that reminded Tommy that no matter how clever he was, he wasn't the only wolf in the pack anymore.
Tommy sighed, stepped back. "Don't die. And don't drag our name into it."
"I won't."
But deep down, James knew this wasn't about names anymore.
It was about his past.
And Campbell had just opened the first page.
James tracked the message to an abandoned tannery on the outskirts of Digbeth. The place reeked of blood and rust—memories of war. He entered without hesitation, senses stretched thin.
He felt the first hit before he saw it.
A dart. Needle-tipped.
Pierced his shoulder.
It wasn't enough to stop him—but it slowed him.
The room spun.
He heard boots behind him. Four men, maybe five. Gas-masked. No scents. No names.
James roared and charged.
He moved through them like a storm.
Bones cracked.
Masks shattered.
But his limbs were heavy.
He was drugged.
His strength was slipping.
Not fast enough to fall.
Just enough to feel human again.
And then he saw her.
Elena.
Chained to a chair.
Eyes wide.
But something was wrong.
Her lips were moving—but there was no sound.
James ripped the last of the guards apart and stumbled toward her, blood running from his temple.
"Elena—what happened? Who—"
But it wasn't Elena.
Not really.
It was a trap.
She vanished. The image dissolved. Gas hissed into the room.
James fell to one knee, vision blurring.
And then he heard the voice.
From the shadows.
Measured. Refined.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" said Campbell, stepping from the dark, his coat impeccable, his revolver gleaming beneath the lamplight. "Even at half strength, you're still enough to scare the devil himself."
James tried to rise.
Campbell aimed the gun between his eyes.
"Ah, ah. Stay down. This isn't a fight. This is a warning."
Campbell knelt in front of him.
"I know what you are," he whispered. "And I know how to take it apart. Bit by bit. You're not the only one who's spoken with higher powers."
James gritted his teeth.
Campbell smiled.
"You think you're special, boy? You think God gave you these gifts because you deserved them?"
He leaned in.
"I think you were left behind."
James lunged forward—but his body betrayed him.
Campbell raised the butt of the revolver and brought it down hard.
Darkness swallowed everything.
When James woke, he was in the alley behind the Garrison.
His coat was missing.
His ribs were broken.
And on his chest was pinned a card.
Plain white.
One sentence, stamped in red ink:
"Stay out of the light, or I'll drag you into it."
Polly found him first.
Dragged him inside. Cleaned the wounds. Didn't ask questions.
Tommy stood nearby, arms crossed.
"Well," he said. "Seems someone's finally managed to rattle the ghost."
James didn't speak for a while.
When he finally did, it was quiet.
Measured.
"He's not just coming for us."
Tommy raised an eyebrow.
James met his brother's eyes.
"He's coming for everything."