A Darker Path Pt 32 (Patreon)

Part Thirty-Two: Obligations

[A/N 1: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

[A/N 2: Relevant side story.]

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♦ Topic: Nacht und Nebel No More

In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► New Capes ► Atropos

Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)

Posted On Jan 13th 2011:

Goooood morning Brockton Bay!

It's great to talk to you all again. Time for the latest update on my activities. Posting again just after midnight because traditions are fun!

So, you know how I told Gesellschaft to not send any more drugs or weapons into Brockton Bay?

Guess what happened last night.

If your guess is anything like 'they tried to send drugs and weapons into Brockton Bay', then congratulations: you possess pattern recognition!

Operative word: "tried". The boat didn't make it to within half a mile of shore, at least in one piece. They thought they were playing hardball, too; two capes were on board. You may have even heard of them: Night and Fog.

Remember how I said 'no more villains in my city'? They tried to come back to my city. As the saying goes, "That's a paddlin'." For an extremely broad definition of the word.

Anyway, I blinded Night so she couldn't see a thing, then I stabbed her with a pointy blade lots and lots of times. This was after some totally inconsiderate person (spoilers: me) arranged for a bunch of grenades to be lying loose in the hold instead of safe in their crates, along with other bits of high explosive. So when I tossed a grenade down there while executing my exit strategy, Fog was caught in the blast and turned into pink mist. Most of him, anyway. Top half, definitely. They're going to have to ID him by his toenail clippings or something.

In other words, I stabbified the person who could turn into a stabby monster, and I turned Fog into mist. Only, the type he can't turn back from.

I'm pretty sure a lot of you would've heard the explosion.

And as those who know me well enough will have figured out by now, I've informed the individual responsible for sending those idiots to their deaths (including Rob. Yes, *that* Rob, Mr flyhomeET himself) that if he tries this one more time ... well, let's just say he won't be capable of trying it a third time.

Because, you know, I'll kill him.

What's that you say? Being a key member of Gesellschaft means that he probably thinks he's safe from my retribution, in Germany? Specifically, in his estate in Stuttgart Sud?

Mwahahaha.

In other news, the Committee for the Betterment of Brockton Bay (nice alliteration there, guys) met for the first time yesterday afternoon, being in possession for the plan to fix the city and the funds to do so. There was a little jockeying for position and a few attempts to slow things down "to really examine the issues", but Committee head Danny Hebert kept everything on track and moved forward with the agenda. The first drug rehab clinics will be opening across the city as early as this afternoon, and more will be getting placed as the need arises. Also, the stimulus payments will be starting on Monday, giving everyone in Brockton Bay who's living below, on and just above the poverty line a much-needed boost.

Impressively enough, nobody tried to blatantly redirect any funds to their own personal agendas, though two people did think strongly about it. Shame on you, Ms T and Mr K. I *am* watching.

I look forward to more good work from the Committee. In the meantime, have a lovely villain-free day. (You're welcome).

Oh, and later today? I'm going to start fulfilling my end of a deal I made with a particular hero. Who, you may ask? What hero would possibly have made a deal with me? And for what?

You'll find out soon ... and with any luck, the wait will have been worth it.

Toodles!

(Showing page 1 of 17)

►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

Okay, just going to say, wow.

Also, holy shit.

There was definitely a boat out there last night. The PRT is withholding the name of the boat and its owner at the moment, but it looks like some remnants of the Empire Eighty-Eight took it out under the guise of doing some night fishing. While they were out there, they met up with a ship (which has since been tracked down) and transferred a crap-ton of drugs and weapons on board. (Enough traces of both were found after the fact to verify that beyond a doubt.)

*Somehow*, Atropos knew exactly where the boat was, despite the fact that it was running dark, and got on board. And yes, she blew it up. Several bodies have been recovered, including one woman, who has been tentatively ID'd as Dorothy Schmidt, AKA Night. And yes, cause of death appears to be 'got stabbed a whole lot'. Also, she has a stab wound through one hand, that would appear to match a certain pair of horribly sharp shears. (Just going to say: being stabbed to death then blown over the side did her no favours whatsoever. Atropos is in fine form.)

The bottom half of a recovered body has been (via Atropos' description) tentatively ID'd as Geoff Schmidt, AKA Fog. An international request has been made for Mr Schmidt's birth details, in the hope that the hospital took a footprint at birth. Short of DNA testing, that's about the only way anyone's going to know for certain. (Okay, we all know it's him, but we don't 'know'. Thus, the whole 'jumping through hoops' thing.)

Note that she *also* appeared on the dock where the goods were about to be received, seconds *before* the boat exploded, and held the men there in attitudes of surrender until the Protectorate showed up. So yeah, apparently Atropos' ability to be *right behind you* now has a whole new level of scariness.

I know I'm shouting into the wind here, but for God's sake, anyone else who's planning to smuggle drugs or weapons into Brockton Bay, please don't! I say this for your sake, not mine. You can't spend money if you're dead, and Atropos is REALLY damn efficient at making people dead.

(Also, for my sake. Every time I see the result of another attempt, my faith in human intelligence drops by a few points.)

(I'm not even going to address the Stuttgart Sud thing. I'm really not.)

I don't know anything about the CB3 or its inner workings, so I'm just going to take Atropos' word on how it went. (Also, don't be idiots. You *know* she's invested in making it work.)

Just so everyone is aware: I have no idea what this deal is about, but by now we've all learned that when Atropos teases something, she delivers.

*Steals some of UnconcernedFox's popcorn and settles down to await the reveal*

►WingsOnHigh (Verified Not the Simurgh)

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

Wait ... Atropos said she blew up the boat by tossing a grenade into the hold, but she *also* showed up on the dock just before the explosion? More than half a mile away? Is it just me or does that say 'teleport' to anyone else?

Does Atropos now have an official Mover rating?

That would kind of explain a lot, actually.

►AntAuthor

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

hah hah. Nazis go "boom". Good riddance to bad rubbish.

►MostlyInsaneWriter

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

In the local PRT Office sits a man, a man that has just been reviewing a certain series of threat ratings for a certain Atropos. He has now broken down crying and will need something strong and alcoholic to recover.

►SootStainedEyeball

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

So wait ... when she killed Butcher, did she keep the teleportation?

Because that's gotta be more than coincidence.

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

Atropos - Hello again. I'd like to say that we could've intercepted the boat and taken Night and Fog into custody without incident, but we both know it could've gotten very bloody. Would've, rather.

So, I'm not even going to pretend to critique you this time, save to say that we still could have coordinated our efforts, to minimize the loss of life.

Everyone deserves due process, after all.

Once again, I'd like to renew my invitation to come on in, sit down and talk about our mutual goals and how to best achieve them.

How about it?

►Atropos (Original Poster) (Banned) (You Wish) (UnVerified Cape) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

Reave - thanks for that. I'll have to pass on the chat, though. I still can't help feeling that it would devolve into you asking me not to kill people, and outside idiots taking that as an invitation to wander into my city with drugs.

If they know they'll die when they try, then there's fewer headaches all around.

Also, I save on ammo.

See you around.

►UnconcernedFox

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

*rolls eyes and passes Bagrat a spare packet of popcorn*

►BigBoomNineThousand

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

SootStainedEyeball - But there's no explosion mentioned when she teleports. If she teleports.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 15, 16, 17

(Showing page 2 of 17)

►SootStainedEyeball

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

BigBoomNineThousand - What if, now bear with me here, what if Butcher never *needed* to do the explosion? What if she always had the choice *not* to do it, but always chose to anyway? And now Atropos is just ... choosing not to?

►EightySixEnhance

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

I'd like to call for a moment of silence for Rob (aka flyhomeET), would-be Empire internet tough guy.

Whoops.

►A_Dragon (Verified not *the* Dragon)

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

EightySixEnhance - just going to point out a well-known quote:

"First of all, and most importantly, never forget that people are stupid."

Personally, I think the Darwin Award people need to bring out a new category: "people who pissed off Atropos".

►BigBoomNineThousand

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

SootStainedEyeball - huh. Never thought of that.

That would make a scary kind of sense.

►AmateurScribe

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

A_Dragon - I think there are other quotes that can be referred to that, off the top of my head:

- The mother of all idiots is always pregnant

- Fools rush where angels fear to tread

- Make something idiot proof, and someone's going to invent a better idiot

- Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe - Albert Einstein

Anybody else got more?

►Darth_Psycho

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

I wonder ... if and when Gesellschaft tries to stick their nose into our affairs again, and Atropos takes offense ... how's Interpol going to take her visiting Stuttgart Sud and murdering the idiot who tried?

►AmateurScribe

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

Darth_Psycho - Imma go with 'a round of applause, followed by a sternly worded memo not to do it again'.

►Atrim

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

I can see about six different agencies taking an interest:

CIA, Interpol, the embassy in Germany, the FBI when she gets back, the entire German government ...

Atropos be saying, "come at me, bro".

►Darth_Psycho

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

Atrim - that's five, not six.

►Atrim

Replied On Jan 13th 2011:

Darth_Psycho - and Gesellschaft themselves, of course.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 15, 16, 17

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<><>

PRT Building, Director Piggot's Office

Thursday Morning

It never failed. Whenever Atropos went on one of her 'enthusiastic walks' (she had no idea where Assault got that phrase from, but it had caught on with everyone else) Emily would wake up to yet another cleanup of debris and corpses, somewhere in or around her city.

There were only three bright spots to this. First, the casualties were never her people, or even innocent civilians (so far). Second, there was never any doubt about who was responsible or even the timeline of events, because Atropos always posted on PHO what she'd done, and who she'd done it to. Sometimes, she even posted it ahead of time, just to rub it in that she was that damn good. Third, it was always a hit on a righteous target, and there was never any significant resistance by the time the PRT showed up. Literally all they had to do was sort out the debris and identify the bodies.

Oh, and the drop in crime rate (especially parahuman crime) was also a breath of fresh air, after ten years of having to deal with the same gang crap, day in and day out. The numbers coming across her desk indicated cautious optimism about the tentative rebound already showing in the city's economy, at all levels. Medhall, for instance, was still actually a going concern, even after a good number of their high-ranking people had 'inexplicably' left town. On the lower end of the spectrum, a lot of the mom-and-pop businesses which had been paying protection up until now were suddenly seeing a new lease of life.

All of which was great, except for one thing she couldn't ignore. It was all the result of blatant, unapologetic murder. Once upon a time, Emily had thought that as a member of the PRT, she could be a part of making life better for everyone around her by helping enforce the law. She'd never considered it might involve standing back and watching as an edgy-as-fuck vigilante did her job for her by killing people.

Not that she intended to try and do something about it. She wasn't stupid. But last she checked, she was still allowed her own damn opinions.

Clicking the mouse, she set the video running again, of the recorded debriefing between Renick and Velocity, at about midnight the previous night. As she watched, the speedster took another drink from the coffee-cup in front of him.

"When you saw Atropos, did she point a weapon at you, or show any other signs of hostility?" That was Renick, going through the checklist as normal.

Velocity shook his head. "She wasn't even holding a weapon. The men there were all kneeling with their hands behind their heads, but all she had in her hand was a phone."

"This is the phone that you handed in to our techs, once you were relieved at the scene?"

"Yes. She saw me and tossed it in my direction. It was a deliberate action. She wanted me to have it."

Emily paused the footage again, and looked over at Armsmaster. "Did we get anything out of the phone? Such as who it even belonged to?"

"That, and much more," he said with some satisfaction. "As far as we can tell, it belonged to Fog. There were several numbers saved into the contacts list. Someone—we're presuming Atropos—made a call to one of the numbers between the time of the boat's explosion and Velocity showing up. That call connected to a phone in Germany; it went out of service before we were able to ping its GPS, but we got a general location." He paused for effect. "Stuttgart Sud. Just as Atropos noted."

"To absolutely nobody's surprise," Emily observed dryly. "I presume all this has been handed over to Interpol." She knew damn well she'd be kicking asses if it hadn't. In any case, Renick wasn't that sloppy. Cautious, yes. Sloppy, definitely not.

"All the data we were able to mine out of it, yes. And we're mailing the phone itself to them."

"Good, good." She was perfectly willing to acknowledge that the threat of Gesellschaft was getting more and more distant from Brockton Bay, entirely due to Atropos' actions. It was just the nature of those actions that she disapproved of. Dropping her eyes to the screen, she clicked the mouse again.

"Your initial report said she 'vanished'," Renick went on. "Can you expand on that? As I understand things, she's been given a rating of Mover zero, but she's not a speedster, correct?"

Velocity grimaced. "We might have to upgrade that. She was standing on a part of the dock that was out over the water, facing me. A kind of doorway formed behind her, but it was hard to see against the darkness. She just stepped backward into it, at the same time as she threw the phone. I tried to tell her to wait, but she went all smoky and vanished, and the doorway did too."

Emily stopped the clip again. "So, Atropos has a way to generate teleport portals." She wasn't a Tinker or a Mover, but she knew the terminology. "The question is, how long has she been able to do that?"

"She's shown none of the signs of being a Tinker … hmm." Armsmaster paused for a moment. "What are the points against her always having been able to teleport?"

"Kaiser's death," Emily said promptly. "She was seen on camera, sneaking out of the building. Also, she literally rappelled down the side of the building, from one floor to another. If she'd had it then, she could've made it a hell of a lot creepier. And Atropos has always been about putting on a show."

"Okay, granted." He smoothed his beard with thumb and forefinger. "Let's assume she wasn't just holding back to keep everyone off guard. I figure she picked up the ability somewhere between then and when she threatened Wilkins on Sunday evening."

"Wait." Emily shook her head. "What if someone on PHO was right for once? What if she used that Thinker rating to be in New York in time to screw over Wilkins, but she couldn't teleport yet?"

"You're talking about the Butcher." Armsmaster was right on the ball. "You think she got the ability to teleport when she killed the Butcher, Tuesday morning."

"Well, where the hell else do you think she would spontaneously acquire the ability to disappear in front of a speedster?" demanded Emily, mostly rhetorically. "People who kill the Butcher get the Butcher's powers. It's the simplest explanation."

"But she's shown no other hint of being under the Butcher's influence, and she hasn't exhibited any of the other powers, even when it would've been useful," Armsmaster argued. "Semantic analysis of her PHO output indicates no particular alteration in her mindset before and after the death of the Butcher. Word choice is similar, and outlook remains the same. Unless she's got the sheer force of will to keep fourteen other minds in solid check all the time … they're not in there. Also, the signature's not the same."

"So where did she get the ability to teleport?" Emily spread her hands. "I can't see someone as competent and confident as her getting so rattled as to undergo a second trigger event."

"No, true," he conceded. "The only other thing I can think of is if she had access to Tinkertech. Just not her own."

She glanced sideways at him. "I seem to recall you mentioning that your halberd will teleport back to you at need. Have you, by chance, built any personal teleport devices that have since gone missing?"

"No," he said at once, then paused. "… I checked."

"Okay, granted. Do you think Kid Win is even capable of building a teleporter?"

He snorted. "Building it, sure. Keeping it together for more than a day before he scavenges part of it for something else, no."

"Ah, of course. And he's no closer to figuring out his specialty yet?"

"No." He smoothed his beard again. "Wait. There was one more Tinker in Brockton Bay. One I didn't even think about until now."

Emily was confused. She was pretty sure they'd covered all their bases, unless he meant … "What, Leet? Do you honestly think someone as aware as Atropos would go to him?"

"No, no, think about it." He was almost visibly excited, now. "Do you remember what Atropos said on PHO about them? She told them to stick around, because she wanted to talk to them."

"Wasn't that about borrowing Leet's stupid Snitch thing, to get footage of her taking down the Nine?" Emily had watched that footage several times over. More than a few still frames were still making the rounds as memes, usually in the vein of 'It was then he knew he dun fucked up'. The image that Dragon had taken with the missile camera now hung in the lobby down on the first floor; it was possible to buy smaller copies (signed by Dragon) in the gift shop.

"Yes, but what if it was more than that?" Armsmaster held up his finger. "The takedown of the Nine gave them the greatest ratings they ever had. If she then asked them for a favour, such as building her a teleport device …"

"Yes, yes, I can see that," she said impatiently. "But you're forgetting one important detail. Leet's tech fails, dramatically, more often than not. And he can never repair it. Why would Atropos go to him?"

Armsmaster looked pensive, or perhaps that was just what she could see under his helmet. "She's a highly aware Thinker. Maybe she's capable of figuring out how to use his tech without breaking it."

"So … you're saying she's better at using his tech than he is?" She didn't bother hiding her scepticism.

He chuckled. "Well, she could hardly be worse."

"True." She shook her head. "Is it just me or is that cheating?"

"No. That's Atropos."

<><>

Winslow High School

Taylor

I caught up with Cherie outside the school. She was less hangdog than she had been on her first day doing the remedial classes, walking along confidently with her head up. As I came up to her, she turned her head until she saw me, then dropped back to match pace with me.

"Hi." I gently bumped her shoulder with mine. "Did it go better today?"

"It went a lot better today," she confirmed. "Now that Miss Parrish knows what I don't know, she's giving me lessons that I can actually understand. I'm not saying it's fun, because it's school and school is supposed to suck, but knowing what I'm doing makes it a lot easier to work my way through it."

"Well, that's great." I beamed at her with pride. Such a short time out from under her father's influence, and she was already showing more self-confidence than in the whole time I'd known her. "I'm really pleased to hear it."

"Thanks." She gave me a grin in return. "So, what've you got planned for this afternoon?"

This was probably going to be the sticking point. "You'll be riding the bus home alone, because I've got something to do in New York."

"Alone?" She stared at me, and I saw the worry in her eyes. "Was it something I did? Can't I come to New York with you?"

And there was the downside of what I was doing. We'd formed a bond, and separation anxiety linked to a fear of having failed me somehow was starting to kick in. "It's okay. I need you right here in Brockton Bay. There's a job I want you to do for me while I'm gone."

She calmed down at that, as I'd known she would. She hadn't let me down and I wasn't abandoning her, so much as delegating a task. More to the point, I was trusting her to do something important in my absence, which I was pretty sure her father had never done in his whole misbegotten life.

"Okay, whatever it is, I can do it." She eyed me expectantly. "Did you want me to go someplace and scare the shit out of someone?"

I chuckled. "I appreciate the offer, and I'm certain you could, but I've got that aspect sewn up. No, see, the drug rehab clinics are opening this afternoon. Since I took out all the distributors in town, and put a stop to incoming shipments for the moment, people will be starting to feel the pinch. What I want you to do is take the temperature of the whole city. And if anyone starts getting particularly aggressive, especially in groups, just … tone them down. Keep them from stirring each other up to the point that they do something really stupid. Can you do that for me?"

From the look on her face, she'd been expecting me to challenge her with something totally impossible. "Well … yeah. I can do that. That's easy."

"Good." I patted her arm, knowing that with her power she'd be able to tell how proud I was of her. "Just remember, you're going to need to keep them calm—or calm-ish—until the clinics shut their doors, and a little bit after. Okay?"

That was going to be a little more difficult for her, but still well within her capabilities. It was also my sneaky way of introducing her to the idea of being responsible for people outside of herself.

She nodded seriously. "I can definitely do that. I know how much this means to you."

"Thanks. I mean it. See you at home." Turning, I headed back into the school. People were still coming out, which meant nobody paid much attention to me; those that did, hastily looked elsewhere. It seemed that being suspected to be Atropos had its uses after all.

I ducked into the first empty classroom and locked the door behind me. Then I opened the backpack I had slung over my shoulder (which wasn't the one I'd been carrying my books around in all day, though the two were deliberately identical) and took out my costume. It didn't take me long to change; I stashed my ordinary clothing in the backpack and slid it on over my long-coat. Then I locked the teleporter onto my arm, typed in the numbers my power told me to enter, and hit the go button. The portal opened in front of me, and I stepped through.

<><>

Diamond Dreams Jewelry Shop

Midtown Manhattan

Lenore Jefferson considered herself to be a conscientious employee. A twenty-two-year-old college student, she valued her employment with Diamond Dreams very highly indeed. As such, she'd paid close attention to the security training courses. It had been drummed into her that the shop inventory was insured, so if anyone came in to rob the place, she was not to risk her life or health trying to stop them.

She'd also been taught about presentation and showing a pleasant face to the public, so when she spotted a greasy fingerprint-smear on the corner of a display case, she limited her reaction to an annoyed sniff. With nobody in the shop right at that moment—the door buzzer would alert her to a new customer—she took the polishing cloth from her pocket and spritzed the case with a spray of Windex before setting to work on the defacing smear.

Which was when someone cleared their throat from right behind her. Where nobody had been ten seconds ago.

With a startled eep, she shot bolt upright and spun around, to find herself staring at the newest big-name cape. Everyone who wasn't literally living under a rock (and probably some who did) knew who Atropos was; the combination of the black morph mask, the hat, the long-coat and the suit and tie under it was a look that nobody could mistake for anyone else. The trouble was, Atropos was a mass murderer. And instead of being merely a memorable image on Lenore's computer screen, she was standing right there in the shop.

Lenore's smile went from warmly welcoming to something more approximating the desiccated grimace of something found dead in the desert. Her brain, knowing 'fight' would be stupid and 'flight' likely futile, flailed around inside her skull while she tried to figure out what part of the security training covered dealing with the Brockton Bay Angel of Death. "Uh, hello?" she ventured, thinking very loudly, please don't kill me, please don't kill me.

"Jeez, relax," Atropos said. "I'm not here to kill you. I'm not here to kill anyone. But I do need your help."

Looking at Atropos, one would imagine her voice to be low and hissing and full of menace, but it was nothing like that. Lenore had watched the footage of the Slaughterhouse Nine takedown (who hadn't?) and had been taken aback by the down-home sound of her voice. Now, face to face with the remorseless killer who had singlehandedly driven the villains from Brockton Bay, she was struck by the contrast all over again. In fact, just going by the voice, Lenore could almost swear that Atropos was younger than her.

"H-help?" Again, this was not what Lenore had expected. "How can I help you?" Normals didn't help capes. They stood back and let capes get on with it. Oh god, I hope she doesn't expect me to kill someone.

"Nothing too strenuous. Have you heard of Ravager?" Atropos leaned casually against the counter, managing to look both relaxed and lethal at the same time. Lenore had a sudden mental image of the Discovery Channel, with a black panther lying on a tree branch, its tail hanging down, the tip twitching back and forth.

"Well, yeah." Ravager wasn't hugely well known, but she was up there. "Doesn't she have a thing against Mouse Protector?"

"She does." Atropos tilted her head very slightly; Lenore got the impression she'd just rolled her eyes. "A few days ago, she tried to hire me to kill Mouse Protector for a million bucks."

"Uh, tried …?" Lenore didn't know many people for whom the offer of a million dollars wouldn't cause them to drastically re-evaluate their friendships. That was kind of sad, now she came to think of it. Or maybe that was just life in the Big Apple. "You didn't take her up on it?"

"Please." The word was full of scorn. "I'm not for hire. I kill people who are bad for society, and Mouse Protector is the very opposite of that. But she also asked me not to kill Ravager, so I'm not going to. However, I am going to utterly murder her credibility as a villain. By the time I'm finished with her, she won't be able to hire out as a henchman."

The hits were just coming too fast for Lenore now. A murderer who had casually turned down a million dollars on principle? Setting out to kill someone's credibility? "Um …" she ventured, not sure what to say. "How … how can I help you do that?"

"Easy." Atropos pointed at the shop exit. "In approximately ninety seconds, Ravager's going to come through that door with every intent of robbing you. She's in a horrible mood, so no matter how much you cooperate, she's likely to hit you with her power on the way out and give you some nasty facial scars. I'm not going to let that happen. Instead, I'm going to make her regret coming anywhere near this shop. You down with that?"

Lenore blinked. "Um … yeah." There was no other answer she could think of to give. "What do you need me to do? Let you in back?"

"Nah, I got that covered." Atropos straightened from her relaxed pose against the counter. Reaching back without looking, she tapped a code into the locked door leading behind the counter … and the lock clicked with a cheerful beep. "What I need you to do is film the action."

Lenore stared at the now-open door in total disbelief. "Wha … how did you …"

Taking out a smartphone, Atropos woke it up and passed it over to Lenore, who took it dazedly. "I'm just good at what I do. When the action begins, start filming. Okay?"

"Um … okay?" Right then, Lenore wanted to be anywhere but there. I did not sign up to be a serial killer's sidekick!

Atropos took a step closer and squeezed her shoulder. "I will not let them hurt you. Got it?"

Although she couldn't see the black-clad cape's eyes, the tone of Atropos' voice was enough to turn Lenore's uncertainties around. It held power and assurance, and put steel into her spine. "G-got it. And thank you."

"Hey, you're welcome." Atropos stepped back through the door. "Thirty seconds. Take a deep breath." The door clicked shut behind her, and she moved out of sight.

Lenore did as she'd been told and took a deep breath. It served to steady her, and she worked at putting the professional smile back on her face.

This was not how I expected my day to go.

Part 33