The streets had changed.
Birmingham no longer whispered.
It growled.
Two years after Billy Kimber's death, the Peaky Blinders were gods in the Midlands.
But gods only rule so long before someone decides to tear down their temples.
The Italians came first.
Sabini's men, sharp suits and sharper razors, flooded the racecourses like rats with wine-soaked claws.
They smashed stalls.
Burned betting books.
Beat Arthur within an inch of madness outside the Eden Club.
And behind them?
A wave of corruption so thick even Tommy Shelby struggled to outthink it.
The coppers were bought.
The judges twisted.
And from London came a whisper:
"Alfie Solomons."
Mad. Jewish. Dangerous.
A man with factories, guns, and a blood pact with no one but himself.
But none of them terrified James as much as what followed behind the smoke—
A presence.
One colder than death.
It began in a prison cell.
Far from the fire and steel of Birmingham.
A man sat cross-legged in a circle of ash.
His name was Thaddeus Vale.
No one had spoken it aloud in twenty years.
He was Campbell's last move.
The final piece on the board.
The guards opened his cell at dusk.
Campbell entered, gloves tight, eyes bloodshot.
"I need your particular... talents."
Thaddeus lifted his face.
His eyes were burned shut.
But he smiled anyway.
"I've seen the boy in my dreams," he rasped. "The one who walks with fire. He's not yours to kill."
"He's not yours either."
Thaddeus stood.
Chains fell away like dead vines.
"He will be."
James stood on the roof of the Garrison, watching the smoke rise from Eden Club where Arthur had been attacked.
His senses had changed again.
No longer just sight, sound, scent.
Now it was weight.
James could feel people before they turned corners.
He could smell sins.
And he felt something else now, stretching from the horizon—
A cold breath down the back of his soul.
Polly climbed up beside him.
"They're coming for us."
James nodded. "All of them."
"You're not scared?"
James looked east, toward London.
"I'm not the one who should be."
That night, Campbell made his return.
Striding into the Garrison like a vulture wearing silk.
Tommy greeted him at the bar, revolver within arm's reach.
"Come to threaten us again?" Tommy asked.
Campbell smirked. "I won't need to. You're already surrounded."
His eyes flicked toward the corner, where James sat in shadow.
Unmoving.
Unblinking.
Campbell's smile faltered.
"I see your brother's still playing the ghost."
James didn't speak.
He didn't need to.
Campbell's fingers trembled as he poured his whiskey.
Then he said something quiet.
Something that wasn't for Tommy.
"I found one like you."
James's head lifted slowly.
Campbell leaned in. "But trained properly. Raised to hunt those who burn too bright."
Tommy looked between them, confused.
But James understood.
He had felt Thaddeus Vale.
The way a wolf smells a trap long before it's set.
Three nights later, a child from James's tribe was found dead in the canals.
Torn.
Marked.
A symbol carved into her skin:
The Mirror Rune.
James recognized it.
It was old.
A symbol not of power—but of counter-power.
A weapon carved from faith and fear.
And only one kind of man left those marks.
A witch-hunter.
Polly met James at the riverbank.
He stood over the child's body, hands clenched into fists.
"She's one of ours," Polly said softly.
James nodded. "She's not the last."
Polly looked down at the wound, at the rune.
Her voice cracked.
"This is different, James."
James didn't move.
"He's not coming to fight."
He turned, and his eyes glowed faint gold again.
"He's coming to erase me."
Polly's eyes widened.
"You think he's like you?"
"No," James said coldly.
"He's worse."
Back at the betting shop, Tommy gathered the family.
"There's more at play here than London thugs," he said, laying out papers—names of Sabini's men, locations of Solomons' factories, photographs of Campbell in Westminster.
James stood in the corner, silent.
Tommy turned to him.
"You've been quiet."
James stepped forward, slowly.
"I've seen the man Campbell's bringing."
Arthur scoffed. "What, you've seen him? In a dream?"
James didn't smile.
"No. In the fire."
Tommy watched his brother carefully.
And in that moment, he realized—
The James who had come back from the war...
Was no longer just a man.
He was something else.
And war was coming again.
But not the kind with bullets and bribes.
This time, it would be waged in the shadow of old gods—
And one of them now walked under the name Shelby.