Two years dead, and One2 still wanted his block back. The outbreak had rotted his skin gray, but the gold teeth still gleamed when his jaw fell slack. Gold chains hung from his neck. Cracked sunglasses rode his nose. He shuffled past burned cars toward the streets he once ruled, and he had a problem. Someone new ran his corners now. He didn't know their name, their crew, or their guns. Blind, he could walk right into their hands. So he needed a name. Before the outbreak, his crew wrote down every debt. Every dealer who owed them. Every runner on the payroll. They stashed those records in one safe place, and One2 remembered where. He found the cottage at the edge of the quiet streets. Wood walls, a stone chimney, painted trim faded but whole. His old friend Rex McCaslo had let them hide their books here, because no one suspected a warm little house. One2 pushed the door. It stuck, then swung. Rex sat inside, alive, a rifle across his knees. Gray beard, brown jacket, boots planted like he'd waited years for this. He didn't flinch at the corpse in the doorway. "I knew you'd crawl back," Rex said. He didn't raise the gun. "Nobody else remembers this place." One2 tried to speak. Only a wet rasp came out. He pointed one gray finger past Rex, toward the floorboards near the hearth. Rex followed the finger. His face went hard. "The books." He set the rifle down. "You still want the block. Even like this." One2 nodded once. His chains clinked. Rex knelt and pried up a loose board. Beneath it sat a metal box wrapped in cloth. He lifted it out and set it on the table. Blue weed plants leaned in a pot on the sill, their bright stems catching the light, the same ones Rex had always grown to hide the smell of the money. Rex opened the box. Inside lay a thick ledger, water-stained but readable. He flipped it open and ran his thumb down a page. Then he stopped. "There's a new name in here," Rex said quietly. "Somebody's been adding to it. Recent ink." He turned the book so One2 could see. One line sat fresh at the bottom, the letters sharp and dark. One2 leaned close. The name meant nothing to his rotted memory. But it meant everything. Whoever ran his block now had found this book first. They had used it. They knew every debt he once held. Rex closed the ledger and pressed it against One2's chest. "You wanted eyes on the ground. Here they are." His jaw tightened. "But whoever wrote that knows you're coming. And they know this house." One2 gripped the book with dead fingers. He had his name at last. He also had a hunter who shared it.

One2 held the ledger against his chest. Rex watched him, jaw tight, still worried about the hunter who now shared the book. But One2 had more to show his old friend. He needed Rex to believe he could win the block back. A dead man could not do it alone. He gripped Rex's sleeve and pulled him toward the cottage door. "Slow down," Rex said. He grabbed his rifle and followed. "Where are we going?" One2 led him behind the cottage, to a stump where he'd hidden something during his crawl back. He clawed the dirt loose. His gray fingers dug into a buried tin. He pried the lid and tipped it out. Neat bundles of hundred-dollar bills spilled across the ground, crisp and clean, Ben Franklin's face staring up in green ink. Rex knelt and picked up a stack. He fanned the edge. "This is real." He looked up. "Where'd a corpse get money like this?" One2 tapped the ledger, then the cash. Old debts, paid before the outbreak, buried and forgotten by everyone but him. Enough to buy guns. Enough to buy men. Rex counted three more bundles, and his hands started to shake. But money was only half of it. One2 stepped back. He fixed his cracked sunglasses. Then he set his dead hand flat against the cottage wall. His arm tensed. Wood split under his palm. He drove his fist through the boards, and a plank cracked loose and fell. Rex jumped up, rifle half-raised. "Easy." One2 gripped the fallen plank. He bent it slow until it snapped like a dry twig. Two years dead had made him strong. Stronger than any living runner. He dropped the broken wood at Rex's boots and let his jaw hang, gold teeth showing. Rex lowered the rifle. He looked from the cash to the split wall to the corpse who used to be his friend. Something changed in his face. Fear left it. "You've got money and muscle," he said. "That's more than the man running your block has got." He rubbed his beard. "But he knows this place. He knows you're breathing again, near enough." One2 nodded. He scooped the bills back into the tin. Rex made his choice. He slung the rifle over his shoulder. "I'm in. You need someone who can talk. Someone alive." He pointed at One2's throat. "Because you sure can't." One2 rasped once, low and wet. It was the closest thing to a laugh he had left. Then Rex went still. He looked past One2, toward the tree line. "We need to move the money and the book," he said. "Tonight. If he knows the cottage, he'll come here first." He grabbed the tin. "And I don't think we're gonna beat him by much."

They carried the tin and the ledger through the dark, following an old path Rex swore was safe. One2 kept the money bundles pressed under one dead arm. Rex walked ahead, rifle up, breath fast. He pointed at a dark shape with a cracked screen glowing faint purple in the weeds. A busted arcade machine, its bright trim flickering like a dying candle. "We stash it inside," Rex whispered. "Nobody checks a dead game." One2 pried the machine's back panel loose. He shoved the tin into the hollow. He fed the stack of bills in behind it, hundreds sliding into the dark cabinet. Franklin's face caught the purple glow, then vanished. He set the ledger on top. Rex tapped the panel shut. For one breath, they had done it. The money was hidden. Then a flashlight cut across the weeds. Two men stepped out. Block runners. They wore the block boss's colors. One raised a pistol at Rex. "Hands. Now." The other stared at One2. "That's him. That's the corpse he told us to watch for." Rex froze, rifle useless at his side. The gun was already on him. One2 saw it. A living man could not win this. But he was not living. One2 turned toward the man with the pistol. He pulled his cracked sunglasses down slow. He fixed his dead eyes on the runner's living ones. And he pulled. It was a thing he had not shown Rex. A thing worse than strength. He reached through the man's eyes and dragged the soul out of him. The runner's mouth opened. No sound came. His pistol dropped. His knees folded. He hit the weeds and did not move, eyes wide and empty, a shell where a man had stood. One2 straightened. He felt full, warm, alive in a way the grave could not give. The second runner ran. He crashed through the brush, screaming into the dark. Rex swung his rifle up, but the man was gone before he could fire. Rex lowered the gun. His hands shook. He stared at the empty body in the weeds, then at One2. "What did you do," he said. It was not a question. His voice had gone thin. One2 slid his sunglasses back up. He said nothing, because he could not. He pointed at the arcade machine. The money was safe. That part was done. But Rex kept staring at the dead runner's empty eyes. "One got away," he said. "He saw your face. He saw what you did." He wiped his mouth. "He's running straight to the block boss right now. Marcus Vane's gonna know you're not just a strong corpse." He picked up the fallen pistol with trembling fingers. "He's gonna know you steal souls. And he's gonna come for this spot with everything he's got."

Rex was right. The runner had reached Marcus Vane by now. One2 and Rex were only two men against a whole block. Push too hard and they would get cornered fast. One2 needed more bodies. Bodies willing to follow a dead man. He turned from the arcade machine and walked into the dark. Rex followed, rifle up, muttering about how nobody sane would sign on with a corpse. They found a fire burning in a lot two streets over. A big man stood by it in a white football jersey, the number one on the chest. Gold teeth flashed when he grinned. A pistol sat easy in his hand. Rex stopped dead. "Beno Lace," he whispered. "Runs the Takeover crew. Down south boy. He don't scare." One2 knew the name. Before the outbreak, Beno had bought guns from One2's crew. They had done business. Bad business, mostly, but business. Beno saw One2 and stopped grinning. He raised the pistol. "Heard a corpse was walking my streets stealing souls." His thumb found the hammer. "Give me one reason." One2 could not talk. He reached into his coat instead. He pulled out a fat bundle of hundreds and dropped it in the dirt at Beno's feet. Then another. Then a third. Franklin's face stared up from the mud. Beno looked at the money. He looked at One2's dead eyes behind the cracked shades. Slow, he lowered the gun. "Well now," he said. "A dead man who still pays." He crouched and scooped up the bills. "Vane's been squeezing everybody. Me included. You wanna take his block?" His gold teeth showed again. "I got fifteen guns say yes." A voice cut in from the shadows. "You always did trust a fat man too fast." A young woman stepped into the firelight. Red jacket, red boots, black dots down the sleeves. She smiled like a friend. Her eyes did not. Rex went stiff. "Ladybug," he breathed. "Runs a crew of women. Sweet face, cold heart." Ladybug circled One2, studying him. "A soul-stealer," she said. "That's new. Vane took two of my corners last month." She stopped in front of him. "I don't follow men. But I'll fight beside a monster, if the monster wins." She held out a small red hand. "My girls make thirty guns." One2 looked at the hand. He took it. Cold met cold. Behind him, Rex let out a long breath, half relief, half fear. Two had become four. Four became an army. Beno's Takeover crew and Ladybug's women, bought with old debts and dead eyes. One2 flexed his fingers. He was not cornered now. He was a general. But he saw the way Ladybug watched Beno, and the way Beno watched her, and knew neither one would stay loyal a day past the moment he stopped winning.

The army was bought, but the block was closed. One2 stood at the edge of his old territory and saw the change. Vane had learned the truth. Every corner had guards now. Barrels blocked the streets. Men with rifles watched the rooftops. The block boss knew a soul-stealer was coming, and he had sealed the whole place shut. One2 could not walk in. Not even a dead man walked through that. Rex lowered his rifle and spat. "He's ready for us," he said. "That runner talked. Vane thinks you're the devil now." He nodded at the barrels. "We push in there, we die in the street. Even you." One2 turned away from the light. He led them back through the weeds to a broken building his crew used long ago. The new hideout. Inside, dust covered the floor. He set a candle down and waited. Beno Lace filled the doorway. His white jersey glowed in the dark, the number one stark on his chest. He kept his pistol out, thumb near the hammer. "Vane locked it down tight," Beno said. "My boys can't move a crate on his corners. He's scared. Scared men shoot first." His gold teeth caught the candlelight. "So how's a dead man plan to crack that?" Ladybug slid in behind him. Red jacket, red boots, black dots down her sleeves. She smiled the way she always did, sweet on the mouth, cold in the eyes. She ran a finger through the dust and rubbed it off. "My girls counted forty guns on his block," she said. "He's turtled up in that fancy building he took. Gold doors. Marble front." She looked at One2. "Front doors are for fools. You want him, you go under." One2 could not speak. He crouched and drew in the dust with one gray finger. A square for the block. Lines for the streets. He tapped the barrels, then dragged his finger around the edge, past them, into the old tunnels under the block. His crew had run debts through those tunnels years ago. Rex leaned close and understood. "The service tunnels," Rex breathed. "They come up inside the old buildings. Vane can't wall those. He don't even know they're there." One2 tapped the center of the square. Vane's fancy building. The plan was plain. Let Beno's guns hit the barrels loud from the front. Let Ladybug's thirty women push the corners. While Vane looked outward, One2 would climb up through the ground behind him. Beno grinned wide. "A dead man crawling up out the floor." He holstered the pistol at last. "I like it. My boys make all the noise you want." Ladybug crouched by the dust map. "And I get his corners." Her cold eyes met One2's. "Kill him clean, monster. I stay. Miss him, and I'm gone with my girls." One2 pressed his finger flat over Vane's building. The plan was set. Tomorrow night, they went under the block.

The next night, One2 went under the block. Beno's guns cracked at the front barrels. Ladybug's women screamed and pushed the corners. One2 crawled up through the service tunnel, into the dark of Vane's fancy building. Gold doors gleamed above him. Marble shone under his gray hands. The plan was working. Vane looked outward, and One2 came up behind. Then the floor lights snapped on. Marcus Vane stood at the top of the stairs, all in black, pistol low in one hand. He did not run. He did not shout. His red eyes found One2 and held. A gold watch flashed on his wrist. "There he is," Vane said. "The dead man they warned me about." He was calm, and calm men are the worst kind. He had known One2 would come from below. One2 climbed toward him. His fingers reached for Vane's chest, ready to tear the soul loose the way he had torn the runner's. Vane's other hand came up. It held a small glass jar. Inside crawled a bright yellow ant, slick and glossy, its body shining like wet oil. Vane threw the jar at One2's feet. Glass burst. The ant scrambled onto One2's leg and bit. Cold ran up through the corpse. One2's soul-hand went dead. He reached for Vane again and felt nothing pull. The power was gone. His fingers grabbed only cloth. Vane stepped back, smiling. "A runner told me a soul-stealer was coming," Vane said. "So I paid for the cure. That little bug eats what makes you the devil." He raised the pistol now. "You're just a corpse again." One2 was still strong. He swung. His fist smashed the marble rail and cracked it wide. Vane fired. The bullet punched One2's shoulder and spun him sideways. Down the front, Beno's guns were slowing. One2 heard men shouting. His allies would not hold if they saw him fail. He could not steal the soul. But his arms still worked. One2 lunged, seized Vane by the jacket, and hurled him down the stairs. Vane hit the marble hard. His pistol slid away. One2 came down after him, gray hands closing on Vane's throat, and squeezed until the block boss went limp. Marcus Vane was dead. But it took no soul-stealing to do it. Any strong hand could have. One2 stood over the body in the empty hall. The ant still gripped his leg. He crushed it flat. It made no difference. His soul-hand stayed dead and cold. He flexed his fingers and felt no pull, no hum, nothing. Beno and Ladybug pushed in through the front, guns hot. They saw Vane dead on the marble and grinned. But they did not know the truth yet. One2 had won the block. And he had lost the one power that made them fear him.

One2 stood over Vane's body in the shining hall. Beno and Ladybug's people crowded the doors, guns still hot. They grinned at the dead boss. But down the block, One2 heard the other truth. Vane's old men had not run. They hid in doorways and whispered. They still feared a boss they had never seen fall. Word alone would not break them. They needed to look at the corpse and know. "Show them," Beno said. He wiped sweat from his gold teeth. "Drag him out front. Let every man on the block see Vane dead. Then they line up or they run." One2 looked down at Vane. He could carry the body out. He could hang it high on the rich building for all to see. That was the plan. But One2 knew the deeper problem. His soul-hand was dead. The ant had killed it. He was just a strong corpse now. Once his allies learned that, they would leave. Beno stayed for winning. Ladybug stayed for winning. A corpse with no devil in him did not win for long. One2 crouched. He touched Vane's cooling chest. He tried the pull one last time. Nothing came. The power was gone for good. But the body was still here. And the body had eaten the ant that stole his power. One2 did not carry Vane outside. He bent low over the corpse instead. Beno stepped back. Ladybug's women gasped. One2 opened his gray mouth and bit into Vane's throat. He tore and swallowed. He ate the boss down to nothing, flesh and bone, and with it the last of the yellow ant inside. The hall went silent. Beno's grin was gone. "You crazy dead man," he whispered. Then One2 felt it. A hum crawled up his arm. His soul-hand woke. Cold power poured back into his dead fingers. The ant had eaten his devil, and now he had eaten the ant. He had taken it back. One2 rose. There was no body to show now. Vane was inside him. The whispering men in the doorways saw a corpse standing where their boss had been, and their boss was simply gone. One2 lifted one hand. He curled his fingers toward the nearest hiding man and pulled. The man's soul ripped loose. He dropped dead on the marble without a mark. The whispers stopped. Vane's old men fell to their knees, all of them, right there on the gold floor of the rich building. They did not need a corpse to fear. They had a new one. Beno laughed loud and slapped Ladybug's shoulder. "He's back," Beno said. "He never lost it." They did not know the truth. One2 let them believe the easy story. He had the block's men on their knees. But now every soul on this block belonged to a hunger he could not stop feeling.

The block was One2's now. Vane's men knelt in the gold hall. But by morning, everything changed. Rex found One2 first and shook his shoulder. "They made a gang," Rex said. His gray beard shook. "Beno, Ladybug, Rex—they call it Da Ones. And Beno, Ladybug—they took the blocks back while you slept. They say you're just a dead man now." One2 stood. The hunger clawed inside him. Every soul on the block called to his cold hand. He walked outside into the bright morning. Beno waited on the corner in his number one jersey. His pistol hung at his side. Ladybug stood beside him in red boots, thirty women behind her. "There he is," Beno said. He grinned with his gold teeth. "Da Ones runs these blocks now. We don't need no corpse taking cuts." He patted his gun. "You ate a man, One2. Even we got limits." Ladybug smiled sweet. "Nothing personal," she said. Her green eyes stayed cold. "You stopped winning. So we win without you." One2 looked at them. He had bought Beno with cash. He had bought Ladybug with cash. Both had warned him with their eyes from the start. Now they turned on him together. He felt the hunger rise, and this time he did not push it down. "You want the blocks," One2 said. His voice ground like gravel. "Take them." He raised his hand and curled his fingers. He pulled from the whole street at once. Ladybug's women dropped first, all thirty, souls ripping loose in one cold wave. They fell in the road without a mark. Ladybug screamed and grabbed at nothing. Her soul tore free next. She hit the pavement in her red jacket, still. Beno raised his pistol. He fired twice into One2's chest. The bullets punched through dead flesh and did nothing. One2 walked forward. Beno's hand shook. "You said I stopped winning," One2 said. He closed his fist. Beno's soul came out slow, and Beno fought it, big body twisting. Then he dropped. His lucky jersey soaked up the gutter water. The block went quiet. Da Ones was dead in the street. Rex stood back, pale, one hand on the wall. "You didn't have to eat all of them," Rex whispered. "You could've stopped." But One2 could not stop. The souls filled him and the hunger only grew. He looked past the block now. Past the corner. He saw the towers of Sunspire City rising bright against the sky, block after block, more souls than he could count. "One block ain't enough no more," One2 said. He wiped his mouth. His gold chains swung. "Da Ones wanted the city. Now I want it." Rex said nothing. He looked at the dead gang bosses, then at the towers, and understood what One2 had become. The block was won. But the man who won it was hungry for the whole city, and no ally was left to slow him.