Prologue

Now:

They call me Michael King Slayer, and it pisses me off. Such a stupid, fairy-tale name, something Sellack himself would coin. But then when Sellack comes to me on these weird foggy nights, his first words are always, “You had to do it, Mikey. You had to.”

Old Charlotte said the Final War ripped apart not just the Old World, but everything that world held in place, and that dead people haunting the living used to be a fantasy reserved for Halloween night.

I tell myself it’s a small price to pay for getting rid of a tyrant bastard. He can’t hurt anyone now. He’s mist.

Tonight, the ghost asks, “How long have you been the leader, Mikey? Six months, a year? Harder than you thought, huh? ‘Uneasy lays the head that wears the crown.’ ”

I say, “It’s not like when you were alive. Things are settling down. The government’s getting control again. There’re soldiers camped over the ridge.”

“And you think your wild children will be able to live in a civilized society?”

“We’d give it a try.”

He laughs his ghost-crazy laugh.

“I hate you for making me have to do it,” I whisper.

He evaporates into the night.