Prey For Reign
Issue 50

In a Chicago bar, Bass, Victor and Sheila discuss the Ku Klux Klan, Snapple, the Boston Tea Party and Elvis as they await the arrival of Sheila's brother Harley. The bar is owned by Sheila's mother. Victor begins to tell the true story of the origins of America, and how thirteen families formed a pact to secure their power in the New World. Victor calls these founding fathers a gang of thieves.

Harley arrives, clears the bar of all but his family and demands to know who screwed up the diamond heist they were all just involved in, and why his brother Perry is missing. Harley has the money for the gang, but finds out Perry has been hurt badly, and will not pay up until his brother arrives. Victor, in turn, will not hand over the diamonds until the money arrives. He returns to his story of the Trust, and how the families have been thorns in the sides of the rulers of Europe for a long time. The families offer to leave Europe forever, if they are given free-reign to colonise and mould the fledgling America to their own needs.

Perry calls, he is staggering towards the bar, and has been shot. Victor sees that he has been followed and forbids anyone to help him for fear of being discovered. He gets Harley to call Perry back, telling him to play dead, which will lose the seven men tailing him. Victor returns to his story.

Elizabeth the First tells the Trust where to go. She has her own plans for America and has set up a colony on Roanoke Island. The Trust send seven Minutemen to the island to enforce their law. "No-one, including us, fucks with us". Overnight, every man, woman and child in the colony is murdered.

Outside the bar, Perry falls over to play dead, but one of the men tailing him crosses the street to deliver a coupe-de-grace. Harley steps outside, gun blazing and all hell breaks lose. Seeing her brothers lying shot, Sheila takes on the seven gunmen, and is shot  as well. Victor takes her weapon, and as he kills all seven men, he finishes his story. The Minutemen leave a sign nailed to a tree at Roanoke, the seven letters CROATOA. Unknown in any language, the message is clear to the monarchs of Europe...This belongs to us. Thirteen families, seven men, one hundred and nineteen dead...this belongs to us. The Trust have been established as the new power in America.

As Bass cradles Sheila's body, Victor returns to the bar and tells Ma where the diamonds are. She cares more about her three dead children, but asks where Victor heard his crazy story. He says he forgets, and that he forgot he even knew it for a while until an old man said a word that reminded him of a lot of things. The old man was on his way to meet a girl, but stopped by to see him first. The story ends "like any good one...in tears."

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