Fresh off a paid mission overseas, I had spent several years building up a reputation and career as a personal bodyguard for drug dealers, heads of criminal organizations, mob bosses and anyone else who paid upfront, asked no questions and didn’t care how many bodies piled up. They were the only kinds of jobs I could find after my two year murder trial ended five years ago. I was acquitted – compliments of the politician who hired me to make the hit landing me on trial – but I was also blacklisted from any sort of legitimate employment anywhere, thanks to a Supreme Magistrate determined to punish my former employer and anyone who worked for him. So when I saw the words, Supreme Magistrate feared dead, scroll across the screen for the fourth time, I laughed. I continued to grin as the news stations in Washington DC, where I lived, scrambled for coverage of what was happening around the world. Whenever they managed to grab a live feed from another city, it ended up flat lining once the other station was struck by the gods’ fury.
