8

Chapter 8

A Darker Path

Part Eight: End of an Era

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

Tattletale

"I think we lost them." Alec turned from the peephole in the boarded-up window and leaned against the wall, sliding down to rest against the floor.

Exerting her power just a smidge, Lisa nodded. "Yeah, we have. They will keep looking, though."

"Why?" Rachel had pulled three bowls from her backpack and was pouring water into them for her dogs. "They never came after us this hard before."

Lisa didn't want to push her power again—the headache was lingering more now—but she wanted to know, too. It cost her a brief burst of pain, but she had her answer. "Coil was involved somehow with the PRT. He would've had access to some extremely sensitive information. They can't afford to assume that he didn't share any of it with us."

"But he didn't." Alec peered at Lisa. "Did he?"

"No." She frowned. "But it's impossible to prove a negative. They must be turning Brian inside out now, trying to find out what he knows."

Alec shivered. "Poor bastard."

Grue

Brian Laborn sat in the interrogation room. The cuffs on his wrists were threaded through the ring-bolt in the table, and the guard in the corner of the room looked ready and willing to fill his half of the room with containment foam at the slightest provocation. It was extremely clear that he wasn't walking out of here without the express permission of the PRT.

While he did his best to maintain a calm façade, internally he wasn't doing nearly as well. His bank account with the Number Man was quite healthy (that was if the PRT hadn't somehow frozen those funds), but he needed more than money to get custody of Aisha. The apartment had been part of it, and a steady job (or appearance of one) the other part.

And now, it was all for nothing. Everything he had worked for, gone. There would be no last-minute escape, no death-defying chase. The PRT had gotten an access key (he guessed) and entered the apartment silently; he'd woken up when they foamed him to the bed. Surrender had been the only viable option.

He glared at the broad mirror covering most of one wall. There'd been rules, damn it! The cops weren't supposed to pull this shit!

The door opened and a tall, spare man walked in, carrying a Manila folder. Instead of a uniform, he was wearing a suit and moved like a bureaucrat, not a soldier. Placing the folder on the table, he sat down opposite Brian and pushed his glasses slightly farther up his nose.

"Good morning, Mr Laborn," he said politely. "My name is Paul Renick. I'm the Deputy Director of the local PRT. How have they been treating you?"

Brian eyed him warily. He didn't even know if 'Renick' was telling the truth; the Deputy Director never made the news. Besides, all this bullshit was just fluff and nonsense leading up to whatever they wanted to do to him. "You ought to know," he said bluntly. "You're the man in charge. Anyway, why am I talking to you instead of the Director?"

The raw hostility in his tone may as well have been sunshine and rainbows, for all the effect that it had on Renick. "My apologies. There's a slight misunderstanding here. I only came on duty half an hour ago. Director Piggot would have been, but she was pulled out of bed at oh-dark-thirty to oversee the operation in which you were captured, and has had to return to rest due to health issues. There's another reason I'm talking to you, but we'll get to that in a moment. Right now, I honestly do want to know; have you been treated fairly? I've skimmed the reports, but we both know that what is done isn't always reported."

"Given that the unspoken rules seem to have been tossed out the window, I suppose I'm lucky I didn't get beaten up or thrown down the stairs," Brian snarked. "But what I want to know is, how did you know it was me you were after? I've gone out of my way to keep the apartment separate from my cape identity." That one of the team could've dropped a dime on him wasn't even a possibility.

Renick shook his head. "Oh, no, we didn't have the slightest suspicion. However, your boss had extensive files on all of you, including faces, names and addresses. When he died, we got access to them. We are, of course, permitted to act on such information, the 'unwritten rules' notwithstanding."

"Fucking Coil." Brian had had time to absorb the new information, but this didn't mean he was any happier about it. However, curiosity trumped his unhappiness at this cavalier dismissal of the rules. "How'd he die, anyway?" He tried to hold up his hand, and the chain jingled. "Wait, are the others here too? Are they okay?"

"As far as I'm aware, the rest of the Undersiders are alive and well," Renick said. "They managed to escape before we had a proper cordon around their building. As for Coil, he met his end last night at the hands of the cape called Atropos."

"Atropos?" Brian tilted his head, trying to figure that out. "What's going on with that. How'd she get to him?" He recalled how Atropos had killed Oni Lee and called out the big gang bosses. There'd been a team meeting due to talk about the situation, but events had overtaken it.

"That's a good question." Renick's voice was matter-of-fact, not gloating or even self-satisfied. "Don't be surprised about not knowing about it; the man apparently made a habit of keeping a lot of plates in the air, and never letting either hand know what the other was doing. With his level of institutional paranoia and backup plans, I am actually somewhat surprised that he was killed so easily."

"But he is dead now, and I'm sitting in here." Brian decided to bring the discussion back to the matter at hand. "If you've got his files on me, you probably have chapter and verse on everything I've done since I started working for him. So why am I here?" He gestured at the Manila folder. "Is that a confession for me to sign, to make it easy for when the trial rolls around?"

"Hardly." Renick opened the folder to reveal a single letter-sized photo, of Aisha laughing at something, from a couple of years ago. "I'm fully aware of why you went to work for Coil in the first place. You care deeply for your sister, do you not?"

Brian clenched his fists. "I'm her only real family. Dad … doesn't really know how to be a dad to a problem kid like her, and Mom …" He grimaced and shook his head.

"… has a history of drug abuse, yes." Renick's tone was sympathetic. "I've seen situations like that go from bad to worse in a heartbeat. For her to have a fighting chance of growing up outside the juvenile detention system, you need to be able to both have a stable household and prove to child services that it's going to remain that way."

"You can stop rubbing it in now," growled Brian. "I get it. I failed her."

"Not necessarily." Renick slid Aisha's photo out onto the table and turned it to face Brian. There was a single sheet of paper under it. "You've been going out as Grue for a couple of years now, as I understand things. While there are many instances of assault and battery, there are none of grievous bodily harm, manslaughter or murder. When you've gone in as parahuman muscle, you've gotten the job done but you've never gone over the top. Everyone you've faced has walked away with minimal injury."

"Wait." Brian shook his head. "You're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting, are you? Because it sounds like you're trying to flip me."

"And is that so bad?" Renick even had the hide to make the question sound reasonable. "If you'd tried out for the Wards as soon as you got your powers, you would've been in with a very strong chance. And we have actually flipped … problematic individuals … in the past, with moderate levels of success."

"So why isn't Armsmaster in here, making the pitch?" Brian sat back in his seat. "What's going on? Politics?" He already knew that it wasn't going to happen, no matter how the subsequent conversation went. There was no way in hell he was going to be a Ward in Brockton Bay.

"Armsmaster isn't in charge of the Brockton Bay Wards," Deputy Director Renick stated. "That duty has fallen to me. And yes, I am making the offer. Also yes, there would be a pro forma trial, but with your history of restraint, a sincere expression of remorse, your evident utility to the team, and a description of your family situation for those of a sentimental bent, you would end up on probation, effectively performing community service via the Wards."

It sounded goddamn tempting, but Brian knew it was never going to happen. Still, he couldn't help asking, like probing a sore tooth with his tongue. "And what about Aisha? If I sign up to be a Ward, what happens to her?"

Renick closed the folder. "We explain to child services that there are special circumstances at play, and she goes into PRT housing along with you. There would a nominal caretaker to watch you both, but we both know that would be a mere formality. You turn eighteen in June, thus ending your time in the Wards and your probation at the same time. At this point, if you opt to go straight into the Protectorate, your pay increases commensurately and you can start taking care of Aisha on your own dime."

"That sounds all very nice," Brian admitted. "But there's no way it's going to work. Sorry."

The Deputy Director frowned, for the first time on the back foot. "Is there a problem I've missed here? You're being offered a free ride out of trouble, young man."

Brian took a deep breath. "Reading between the lines, this is a Brockton Bay only offer. And I can't be a Ward in Brockton Bay, because I don't trust Shadow Stalker not to try to kill me. She's attempted it too many times before." That they'd take her side over his in a he-said-she-said, he assumed by definition. After all, she was already a Ward.

"Ah." Renick blinked. "Well, then, allow me to put your fears at rest. The reason I am pushing this harder than I might otherwise be doing is that Shadow Stalker is no longer among us, and there is more than a little pressure from above to fill that gap. Thus, you and I, in this room."

"No longer … what does that mean?" Brian frowned. "Left the Wards? Transferred to another city?"

Renick grimaced. "She was murdered two days ago. We've been keeping it on the quiet until we could get someone else in."

"Murdered? Who by?" Brian knew better than most just how slippery the crossbow-happy vigilante-turned-Ward could be.

"We suspect Empire involvement, but that's beyond your purview." Once more in charge of the situation, Renick folded his hands in front of him. "So, with that out of the way, what do you say, young man?"

Well, shit. Brian felt all his carefully mustered arguments fading away. Without Shadow Stalker to complicate matters … how could he not take the offer? He looked again at the photo. Aisha was depending on him, after all.

Taking a deep breath, he held out one hand as best he could. "Sir, give that to me in writing and you've got yourself a Ward."

Renick smiled. Leaning across the table, he grasped Brian's hand and shook it firmly. "Excellent."

Observation Room

Armsmaster

Colin glanced across at Gallant. He'd had his voice-analysis software running while Grue was talking, but it was still only about sixty to seventy percent accurate. Gallant, on the other hand, could literally see emotions. "Your read on that?"

"I didn't pick up any deception or smugness, sir," the lad replied. "He's still coming to terms with the fact that he's been working for Coil, and he's extremely concerned about his sister. If you want my opinion, he doesn't know anything he shouldn't, and he's going to try his best to make this work."

"Good, good." Colin nodded. "That's what I got, too."

Tattletale

"So, what now?" asked Alec. "No more boss, Brian's behind bars, and you said they'll be hunting us."

"Well, there's nothing keeping me in this shithole of a city anymore," Rachel declared. "Just a few more things to do, then I'm out of here."

"Wait, wait." Lisa felt the last of her old life slipping through her fingers. "Maybe we can spring him loose? I mean, all three of us ..."

Alec shook his head. "Nah, screw that. Even if you could pinpoint which cell he's in, we're on their radar now. They're hunting us specifically, and thanks to that asshole Coil, they've probably got all the details on our powers. Worse, if we get captured and a certain someone finds out, I'm fucked nine ways from Sunday. So, I'm with Rachel. See ya, don't wanna be ya."

"But ..." Lisa sighed, aware that trying to argue with Alec at his most passive-aggressive was about as fruitful as arguing with Rachel at her most stubborn. That is: not very. "Okay, fine, I'm going too. You said you wanted to do something first, Rachel?" Maybe if she assisted her erstwhile teammate, they could stick together until Lisa got her feet under herself somewhere else.

"Yeah." Rachel set her jaw. "Gonna kill Hookwolf before I go. Fucker wants to fight dogs, let's see how he likes it."

"Ah." All of a sudden, solidarity seemed a lot less attractive.

Kaiser

They convened in his office, at the top of the Medhall building. Even up here, the problems with the breaker boards and fuses were evident; several of the inset fluorescent tubes flickered intermittently, and a few stayed stubbornly dark. Once this Atropos nonsense was dealt with, he decided, he would bring a maintenance crew in to go over the building and fix all the lingering issues. Not until then, of course. It would be all too easy for a stranger to slip into a building that way.

"So, how are we going to do this?" asked Bradley. "Everyone on the inside looking out, or some inside and some outside?"

Krieg rubbed his chin with forefinger and thumb. "We cannot discount the idea that Atropos has Mover, Breaker or Stranger powers. The assassin may be among us before we know it."

"Exactly," agreed Victor. "So, some of us stay with Max and provide personal support, while the rest of us patrol the perimeter." He nodded to Othala. "You stay close to Max, honey, just in case something does get through."

"Should I make him invulnerable?" she asked. "So even if they do get him, it doesn't do anything."

Max fielded that one. "No," he decided. "I'll be in armour, and as skilful as this Atropos has shown themselves to be, they would be able to pick the interval between the effect dropping and you renewing it. Better if you hold back, then apply it if anything unusual seems to be happening."

"Quick question," Stormtiger offered. "Do we want them dead or alive?"

"Dead," Max decided with no hesitation at all. "If they're willing to go into my house and steal my property, they're just as likely to come back and cut my throat if we go easy on them."

Cricket just grinned and cracked her knuckles. Though no words were spoken, the gesture was easy to understand.

There would be no mercy.

That Afternoon

PRT ENE Building

Director Emily Piggot

Thomas Calvert's body lay on the chilly metal table, his secrets open to the world. The medical examiner had placed a block under his neck so that his head lolled back, exposing the vicious gash that had opened his throat almost to the bone. It might have been Emily's imagination, but it seemed some of the surprise at his sudden death still remained in his expression, even after death.

"As you can undoubtedly understand, the primary cause of death was exsanguination via the wound in the neck," the examiner said in a professorial tone. "All the major blood vessels were severed, along with the windpipe. Even if an ambulance had been waiting outside, he wouldn't have made it to the hospital. In fact, I doubt he would've made it to the sidewalk."

"Yes, yes, it was a spectacularly fatal wound," Emily interrupted, irritated. For all that the medics said it was psychosomatic, she had a vague headache from the interrupted dialysis, and she wasn't about to take any more time-wasting bullshit than she had to. "Why am I here, exactly?"

"The weapon Atropos used to cut his throat had two blades," the examiner explained. "Both sharp, cutting in parallel. It was unusual enough for me to go looking up weird weapons with that kind of damage profile. But even that wouldn't have been enough to talk to you directly … except that I found it."

"What, the type of weapon?" asked Emily, mildly irritated. This could've been handled with an email to her office.

"No." The examiner smiled. "I found the actual weapon. I know what she used, and I know where she got it from."

Emily's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. You're shitting me, she barely avoided saying. "Explain," she invited instead.

The examiner picked up a tablet and tapped it to wake the screen up. "Medieval bodice shears," she said, showing an image of something that looked like the offspring of a fighting dagger and a pair of scissors on steroids. "Weapon and tool in one. Cut cloth one day; cut your enemy's throat the next. And a pair of these was stolen from a private collection in Brockton Bay yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Emily blinked. "Not that I'm doubting your word, but how did this theft report work its way through the police system in time for us to get access to it today?"

"Well, for one thing, it's down on the report as a parahuman crime." He tapped a few icons and showed her the report. "It came straight to us. Apparently, the thief waltzed straight through a top-of-the-line security system, danced between the security cameras so cleanly that no real details were gained, opened a code-locked display case, and took exactly two items. Some old sword, and that pair of bodice shears. The owner is reportedly livid."

"No surprise there, and I can see why it was reported as a cape heist," Emily said thoughtfully, calling up the image of the weapon again. Atropos … shears … yeah, that definitely fits. Out of curiosity, she flicked back through the report to find the name of the owner, and hid a smirk.

She'd met Max Anders more than once, at high-society functions. It wasn't her cup of tea, although she could wheel and deal with the best of them. On the other hand, it absolutely was Max Anders' chosen element, and he excelled in it.

The first time they met, he'd given her the impression of a spoiled rich kid making it big on inherited money, and she'd never seen fit to revise it. It was unfair of her to draw a certain amount of schadenfreude from his reaction to the theft, and so she didn't. Much.

"Well done," she said warmly. "Be sure to leave a note regarding the sword so we'll be able to identify it if Atropos also uses it in a crime." It wouldn't help the victims, certainly, but as Atropos seemed to be focusing on gang leaders at the moment, her sympathy was somewhat minimal.

Not that she would shirk her duty in trying to catch Atropos. Criminals were criminals, whether they wore costumes or not. Anyone who thought the presence of super-powers changed that particular equation was just deluding themselves.

Taylor

I'd told Dad I was going to bed early because I was tired, and in fact I did take a nap once I got upstairs. When my phone alarm woke me at ten, the house was dark and silent aside from his gentle snoring, audible from the hallway. I dressed in my costume, all except the hat and mask, and double-checked my special cargo. Both containers were intact—I was pretty sure I would've known if they weren't—and the bag of capsules was present and correct.

When I left the house, armed with the Screwdriver of Car Opening, I went in a different direction, not wanting to use the same car too often. It would be unfair on the poor guy to keep refilling the tank when he hadn't even driven it anywhere. Fortunately, leaving spare keys in the car seemed to be a prevailing habit; in the car I tried this time, they were in the ashtray.

I was fully aware that I could break into any of the houses here and take their actual car keys with nobody being the wiser, but that would be more time-consuming, and I preferred to have as much wiggle room with my Paths as possible.

It appeared Kaiser had something to do with the Medhall building, which meant that Max Anders was probably covering for him. The preparations I'd taken in that building the previous night had been on the elaborate side, but that was the whole point of a magic trick. It was all about deception and misdirection, and my power seemed to be really good at those. Idly, I wondered if the guy who kept fishing gear in his desk would ever notice he was missing a few yards of line. Or the guy whose hobby seemed to be rock climbing.

I pulled up a block away from Medhall, in a quiet side-street where nobody would notice the car for the time being. Then, once I got out, I put on the mask and the hat. It was time to go to work.

Medhall Building

CEO's Office

Krieg

James Fliescher frowned, wondering if they were missing a bet. He turned to look up at the large clock on the wall of Max's office. It read two minutes to midnight. Outside the windows, Rune swooped past on her latest orbit of the building. If anyone was climbing up the outside, she'd spot them.

"Do you see anything?" he asked Crusader, who was reclining at his ease in one of the padded visitor chairs.

"Nada," the young man replied. "I've got ghosts in every elevator, in every stairwell, and outside with Rune. Nobody's here who shouldn't be. Atropos is probably going after Lung."

"In which case," Max declared, "they will cease to be our problem after tonight. Killing Oni Lee and Coil is considerably less problematic than putting an end to Lung, I think you'll all agree."

Seated at his desk, covered in metal armour from head to toe, he took a bottle from his desk drawer. From the same drawer, he took several glasses.

"Wait, boss," Fenja objected from where she stood alongside the desk. "Where did you get that bottle from?"

"My personal stock, downstairs. Why?" He uncapped the bottle and poured some into a glass. "This is for the toast, after."

"Because the easiest way to kill you right now would be to make you kill yourself." James stepped up to the desk. "Fenja is right. We can't trust anything right now." He glanced over to the clock on the wall; it showed thirty seconds to midnight. "Alabaster?"

"Right here." The white-skinned man left his post at the main door to the office and came on over. Cricket moved to replace him without being told. "Food tasting duty? Let's see how we go."

"Be my guest." Kaiser handed the glass over. "I think you're being a little paranoid, but better safe than sorry, I suppose."

"Down the hatch." Alabaster tossed the drink back, then set the glass down on the desk. "Whoa, that's got some … ugghhh … urgh …" Clutching his throat, he fell to the carpet and writhed for a moment.

Then he reset and sat up. "Wow, that was unpleas—urrghhh …" He grabbed the metal wastepaper basket beside the desk, and threw up copiously into it. Everyone around him stepped back instinctively from the horrible smell. Then he fell over again.

Sitting up for a second time, he swayed woozily, then threw up some more. James could see, to his consternation, how some of the vomit had eaten its way through the side of the receptacle and was busily attacking the carpet.

On the fourth go-around, Alabaster struggled to his feet. "Son of a bitch," he groused, shaking his head and pointing at the bottle. "That stuff is beyond lethal. It's some kind of battery acid. It has to be. Every time I reset, it started attacking me again."

Othala's face was pale. "If you'd drunk that, Max, I doubt I could've saved you."

Kaiser nodded. "You're right." Carefully, he replaced the cap on the bottle. "Take that for analysis. I want to know exactly what Atropos put in it, and where it came from."

"On the upside," James observed, checking the clock once more, "it's ten minutes past midnight. We've dodged the bullet, so to speak. Atropos was clearly depending on a remote kill via the bourbon." He looked at Fenja and inclined his head slightly. "Well done."

"Absolutely well done," agreed Kaiser, retracting his helmet into the rest of his armour. "In fact, well done to everyone. If Atropos was depending on acid to do the job, it means they don't have the wherewithal to fight their way through you to get to me. Call everyone in. We're going downstairs."

"Well, that was easier than I thought." Crusader stood up from his chair and stretched as his ghosts flooded back into the room and re-merged with him. "Think Atropos will try again?"

"Not until word gets out that Max is still alive," James decided. "And if we hold that off for a while, we can contradict word of his death and make Atropos look like a fool."

The window at the side of the room opened and Rune floated in on her manhole cover. "And another win to the Empire Eighty-Eight," she declared. "Imma go on PHO and tell Atropos to go get wrecked." Reaching inside her robes, she pulled her phone out.

"Not until later," Othala said. "We're going to let Atropos make the announcement first."

"Oh, okay." Rune glanced at her phone as she paused with her tapping. "Hey, wait a minute. My phone clock says it's not midnight yet."

Instinctively, James looked across at the office clock. Clear as day, it read eleven minutes past midnight. Nobody there was wearing a watch, of course; supervillain costumes tended to be hard-wearing, and wristwatches were notoriously fragile. Scheißkerl! Atropos set the clock forward—!

That was when the lights went out.

Krieg heard a thump, followed by a more pronounced thud. He turned, eyes straining in the darkness, only to be driven to the ground by a tremendous blow. The lights went out for him again, this time in a far more personal way.

Alabaster

When the lights came back on, Cricket and Krieg were both sprawled on the floor, and a dark-costumed cape was standing in their midst, just at the point where nobody could reach her immediately. She pointed her finger at Kaiser in a parody of a gun, and said, "Bang."

Then, as everyone began to move, the lights went out again.

Taylor

The first remote button I pressed triggered the breakers again, deep in the building, turning the lights out. As darkness fell, I was already moving, twisting away from the two Crusader ghosts I knew were lunging for me. Then I threw the paperweight I'd stolen from a lower floor right through one of the ghosts. It slammed into his groin, and he slumped to the floor, his ghosts losing all interest in stopping me. As a continuation of the move, I performed a flawless shoulder-roll past Alabaster and threw a decorative snow-globe to hit Rune in the temple, not quite hard enough to kill her. Then I pressed the second remote button.

Up in the ceiling, the tiny mechanism released one end of the hundred-pound fishing-line it had been gripping in its spring-loaded jaws. The sword dropped down out of the 'malfunctioning' light fitting, popping the cover off, then swung down point-first, suspended on two other lengths of fishing-line. The ceiling was high-set, as befitted a penthouse office, and it had the room to build up quite a bit of forward speed.

As I headed for the open window, I heard the sibilant whistle of nylon line cutting through air, followed by the meaty thud that told me I'd scored my latest kill. It was, of course, exactly midnight.

I pulled out my shears and tossed them up, handles first, to dislodge the ceiling panel next to the window just far enough to allow the rope (that I'd tied up there the previous night) to fall down into my hands. Catching them again, I re-sheathed them and leaped out the window, all in the same motion.

Two floors down, I'd left a window fractionally ajar before I interrupted the self-congratulation party on the top floor; arresting my downward slide, I hit the window with my heels and swung in. Then I tossed the rope back out and closed the window, securing it properly. If anyone wanted to follow me, they'd have to take the long way around, down the stairs.

Reaching into my pocket again, I pressed the two remote buttons that would release and retract the lengths of fishing-line that the sword had swung down on, then the one that would turn the lights on again. The second button on each of those remotes set off the self-destructs, overloading the batteries and demolishing the devices.

There were two more things I needed to do before I went home. Stopping at a cubicle, I picked up the phone and pressed the button to dial out of the building, then called 9-1-1. Ten seconds later, I was speaking to an operator, who wanted to know what I needed.

"Police and, and PRT, I think. I'm, I'm working late in the Medhall building, and I heard some shouting from upstairs. I think Max Anders has been murdered by a cape. You better come quick."

Putting the phone down again, I hummed gently to myself as I made my way down the stairs to the basement-level laboratory. The process I'd set in motion before I came upstairs should've just about finished by now, and I needed to pick up the end result before the PRT arrived and ruined everyone's night.

Lung wouldn't kill himself, after all.

Fenja

The lights came back on.

"What's going on? Where is she?" Grown to ten feet tall, Jessica Biermann held her shield and sword in front of her while she scanned the room. What she saw wasn't promising; Cricket, Rune, Krieg and Crusader were all down, while Alabaster and Othala were staring around as wildly as she was. How had Atropos done all this in the few seconds of darkness?

Victor and Hookwolf burst in through the office door, with Stormtiger and Nessa right behind them. "What happened?" barked Victor. "What's going on?" Then he stopped and stared at something behind Jessica. "Oh, FUCK."

Slowly, Jessica turned. Beside her, she heard Othala let out an almost soundless whimper.

Kaiser sat bolt upright in his office chair, left eye staring sightlessly, accusingly. From his right eyesocket trickled a line of blood. This was because a sword was sticking into the eyesocket, nailing his head to the back of his chair. He was irretrievably, unequivocally, dead.

How Atropos had done it, Jessica had no idea. But in a sudden epiphany, she realised the truth. They'd been played, the whole time.

We thought we knew what we were doing. But she moved us all into position like chess pieces, then went for the kill.

Well, shit.

End of Part Eight

[A/N: I'm going to be slowing down my output after this chapter, as I have other writing to do. But A Darker Path will be back!]