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He hands me the bottle and points to the glass of water that’s been in front of me the whole meeting. If it had been a snake, I’d be taking a venom nap by now.

I pop the pills in my mouth. They taste like flowers. Like one of those goddamn violet candy bars my mother used to gnaw on with her whiskey. Very classy. Very sophisticated. I want to spit them out, then remember they’re medicine, so I don’t. Abbot pushes the water to me and I take a long gulp.

“How was that?”

I finish the glass.

“It tastes like the wreaths at a mobster’s funeral.”

He puts the cap back on the prescription bottle.

“It does, doesn’t it? Anyway, you should feel better in a few minutes. I can give you a few extra if you’d like to take them with you.”

“Thanks. But I’ll bug my doctor for something that doesn’t taste like a hobbit’s lunch.”

“Suit yourself. But if you change your mind . . .”

“Thanks. But I won’t.”

Listen to yourself. Stop whining. This is your boss you’re talking to. He’s given you free drugs and is offering more. That’s what people do when they see someone in pain. Shut up. Be a person.

“I feel better already.”

Abbot gets up, tosses the bottle in the messenger bag, and brings it back to the table.

“I doubt that,” he says, “but you will. Is your head clear enough to talk? I want to discuss something with you.”

“Is this the part where you chew me out for being bad in class?”

“No. I understand how awful migraines can be. But tell me next time and maybe we can do something about it. No, I wanted to talk to you about the real agenda for the meeting.”

“Going to dish about your rich friends? What do you tell them about me?”

He sits back down.

“Nothing. But trust me, they ask. What I want to talk about is the real reason for the meeting. Did you hear anything I said toni

ght?”

“Something about charities. Climate change. The end of the world.”

“You’re right about the charities part. What I wanted to see was who was pushing for which charities. I think some of the board members are in bed with Wormwood.”

Wormwood Investments. What can I say about that bunch? They’re into money and power. And they have a good time getting and keeping both.

Charity doesn’t really seem to be their thing, though, so I try to get my mind wrapped around that.

“You think that dicking around with charities will tell you which ones are on the take?”

Wormwood is like a mob-run bank if the mob was a Hellion horde and the bank was the world. They make money when the market goes up and currencies collapse. They make money on where and when famines kill the most people. They make money on who is or isn’t damned.

And they make money on me.

Who I kill. Who I don’t. Whether I’m a good boy or a bad boy, they make a profit, and it pisses me off.

“Wormwood has a lot of front groups,” says Abbot.

It clicks. “And the council can funnel to them through the charity fronts.”