Chương 33: Bk 1 Ch 30: Harbinger

My little display hits the local news like a bombshell. The police do their best to reassure everyone that it's not a sign of the gang war flaring back up, but they're also under heavy fire themselves for their perceived (and actual) impotence; if they can't stop me from pinning a body to the wall of their own station, then what good even are they? Undermining public confidence in the cops is a useful side effect, but it's also likely to draw retaliation as a demonstration that they are actually doing something.

There's nothing they can do to seriously harm the gang as a whole right now, but they can still make life unpleasant for some of our members. I send out an announcement to the gang on the situation. First, I warn everyone to keep their heads down a little for the next week or so, until the story blows over. Second, I advise them to be a bit more careful about who they get friendly with.

Plenty of customers are bound to be curious about us, but anyone who seems especially persistent in asking about the gang or eager to get more involved should be treated with caution. It's possible Jaden wasn't the only informant in the gang, of course, but I can't let the possibility paralyze me. Besides, it's not like I'm trying to hide the fact that I'm hunting for rats anymore.

There's a bit of nervousness in the gang afterwards, but most of it seems to be about the fact that we had an informant in the first place. I make sure everyone knows that if they think someone might be an informant, they should kick it up the chain and never try to take matters into their own hands. For the most part, I've built enough trust by now that no one seems to doubt Jaden really was an informant. Unfortunately, one person who doesn't seem a hundred percent comfortable with the situation is Alex.

"So, uh, I guess you dealt with that informant?" she asks me after school the next day.

"I did," I acknowledge. I don't say anything else, waiting for her to decide what she wants to say. She stews for a few seconds, then says, "Was… Was it really, you know… necessary to do it that way?"

"Which part?" I ask.

"Killing him, or making a public example of it?"

"... I dunno," she says, shrugging.

"Both, I guess?"

"Maybe not necessary, strictly speaking. But you can't afford to go soft on traitors, or you're just inviting more betrayal in the future. People will be a lot less tempted to make a deal with the cops after this, which means we'll hopefully have to deal with a lot fewer informants in the future than we would otherwise. Better to take a real harsh stance immediately, so you don't have to keep doing it." She sighs.

"Yeah, I guess you're probably right, you're definitely a lot better at this kind of thing than I am. I just… I dunno. Forget it, it doesn't really matter."

"Do you feel guilty? For being the one to tip me off about the informant?"

"I-" She cuts off, frowning.

"No, not really. Like… I can't really think of anything you should've done instead, or done different. I just… feel like there should've been something anyway."

"Sometimes there aren't any perfect solutions, or even any good ones, just less bad ones."

"Yeah, I know." She's quiet for a few seconds.

"Doesn't it bother you, though? Killing people? Even if all the alternatives are worse?" I hesitate for the briefest moment, barely noticeable.

"I don't like it, no. But if that's what it takes to keep you and everyone else I care about safe, then I don't regret it." That helps reassure her, and she seems mostly okay after I give her a long hug. Instead, now it's me who feels a little uncomfortable. I didn't exactly lie to her; I don't like killing people, in the sense of actually enjoying it. But that wasn't the question she asked, and the truth is, none of the many people I've killed have ever bothered me much at all.

If I'd told her that, would she be okay with it? The fact that I decided not to kind of speaks for itself. And that's something that does actually bother me. Well, the months since I told Alex who I am have been pretty quiet. This is the first time I've needed to kill someone since the gang war ended. I guess it's not really that surprising that it might rattle her a little, especially since I made such a spectacle of it. It'll probably be less of a big deal next time, and even less the time after.

It's just like how some people are naturally unafraid of heights, but others need a while to get used to them. Elliot and Anja aren't super happy with me either, but they also have a better understanding of how dangerous secrets can be. After all, if I ever get exposed, they'll be exposed right along with me, whereas Alex is unimportant enough that the worst she'd probably have to fear is getting grounded. They've also mostly given up on trying to argue any kind of philosophy with me.

The worst I get from them is a "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed" sort of sigh from Elliot, and a "Impaled anyone else lately, Vlad?" from Anja. On the bright side, the scrutiny on Elliot from ABRA seems to be fading. Just a couple of days after I deal with the informant, Elliot gets a call from the head of the local ABRA office, apologetically asking if they can reschedule a meeting "so that the Chief of Police can yell at me some more."

Given that, I feel safe restarting our sparring matches for the first time in almost a month. Chimera is still technically a risk; it's entirely possible she can shapeshift into smaller creatures as well as larger ones for purposes of spying, but I can't imagine ABRA keeping her on stakeout duty for this long with their priorities clearly shifting away. No one comments on his little late-night adventure, so it seems I'm correct about that.

Meanwhile, the cops do unfortunately manage to grab a couple members of the Sun Eaters for the first time, a pair of associates and one full member. None of them had any connection with the informant, and I hadn't even realized the cops knew who they were, so they hadn't bothered taking any extra precautions. I quickly dispatch Mr. Sterling to deal with it. The news he brings back is mixed, but mostly positive. On the upside, he's confident all three of them kept their mouths firmly shut.

The two associates were caught with only a gram or two of weed each, not enough for even the most rabid prosecutor to push for heavy charges. On the other hand, the police are clearly desperate to prove they're doing something, and the full member was caught with several ounces of weed, along with a fair bit of coke, ecstasy, and mushrooms. Mr. Sterling tells me he'll probably be looking at prison time even under the best-case scenario, but he believes he'll be able to get it down to no more than a year or two.

I pass along a message that if he serves his sentence quietly, we'll make sure he's set for life once he gets out. The other consequence of the whole informant situation is that quite a few members of the Sun Eaters come to me with concerns that one of their customers might be potential informants as well. Most of these, I can dismiss fairly safely; if the customers had been informants, the members in question likely would have already been arrested.

I simply tell them to use their best judgement, and cut off any customers who give them a bad feeling. A couple of cases are a lot more convincing. In one case, a member named Laura had gone over to one of her customer's houses for a scheduled hang-out the day after the murder story hit the news, a girl named Rachel. But Rachel hadn't been home, and hadn't answered her calls, either.

Getting a bad feeling, Laura went back to her place and cleared out anything incriminating, then asked a buddy if she could crash at their place for a few days to be safe. When she'd checked in on her own place the next day, she'd found the door kicked in, and beat a fast retreat. In my opinion, assuming Rachel is an informant, she's probably already skipped town, but I tell Laura to keep an eye out for her just in case. I also offer a safehouse to her, but she tells me she's fine with her friend for now.

Another member who comes to me is AJ. As known Sun Eaters, him and Zach have already gotten in the habit of keeping a low profile, and they seem to have successfully kept the cops from finding out where they live. He tells me he also had a fairly new customer named Ray who seemed a little overly interested in the gang, asking questions a little too persistently.

He'd gone over to the guy's apartment once just last week to sell him some weed and hang out for a couple hours, but after getting a weird vibe, he decided independently to cut the guy off. He hadn't thought a whole lot of it at the time, but the informant getting revealed a few days later made him take a second look. I praise him for trusting his instincts and again tell him to keep an eye out for Ray; apparently the guy has a lot of tattoos that make him fairly easy to spot.

In the end, it only takes a few days for everything to settle down. As expected, the cops make a big deal in the paper about the arrests they've made, the majority of which aren't even Sun Eaters, then quietly return to business as usual. That's nice, since we've got a big rave planned for Saturday night, and it would've been a real shame to have to cancel it.

It's out in the country this time, the same property as the one where I first got together with Alex, and Alex is still excited to come despite the little bit of friction between us earlier in the week. I get there early to help get everything set up, even though my set isn't until 2. Alex drives over separately, since she won't be staying all night like me. I say hi to everyone I know, and get some ecstasy from Cassie, although I wait until Alex arrives to take it.

The next couple of hours are a happy blur: Dancing with Alex, dancing in front of the stage while twirling around a glowstick staff someone handed me, sneaking off into the woods with Alex for a while, then coming back and dancing some more. Eventually, a bit before my set as the ecstasy is starting to wear off a little, me and Alex go over to the bonfire with Cassie and a few other friends. She's talking to some guy, probably a customer, but turns and gives both of us hugs as we arrive.

"Man, how come you guys get to dance and have fun while I'm stuck here working?" she complains.

"Cause you said you're sick of techno anyway, so you'd rather make some dough?" I reply, grinning.

"Right, I knew there was a good reason," she says, snapping her fingers and grinning back.

"Man, you gotta- You gotta take some time to have fun, man," slurs the guy Cassie's trying to sell to, obviously already shitfaced. He's wearing baggy pants, a baggy T-shirt, and a baggy unzipped hoodie, all of it in bright neon colors.

"Like, discon- disconnect from the rat race a little, man, you know?"

"Yeah, but if I did that, then who's gonna sell you weed?" points out Cassie. He laughs uproariously, like that's the funniest shit he's ever heard in his life.

"Maybe, uh, maybe- maybe your friends can take over for a while, you know? Like, spread the work out a little, you know? That's, like- That's, like, the way to make the world a better place, man." I refrain from snickering, and instead give him a cheerful smile.

"I'm just the DJ, sorry. No drugs here."

"No shit, man? When do you play?"

"My set's in like twenty minutes."

"Fuckin' awesome, man," he says, grinning and holding up his hand for a high-five. I oblige him. For a moment, his hoodie slips down his arm, revealing a full sleeve tattoo under it. It's only visible for a second, but my eyesight is real good, and I pick out a kraken with its tentacles trailing down to his wrist, one of the details AJ mentioned to me about that guy Ray. I don't show any reaction, but I'm suddenly a whole lot more focused.

"Thanks!" I say, keeping my own grin firmly in place.

"Hope you'll hang around for the whole thing. Don't think I've seen you around before, what's your name?"

"Troy," he says, shaking my hand. Am I jumping to conclusions? All I have to go off of is a brief glimpse of a tattoo and an off-hand description. But I've also learned to trust my instincts. In my experience, people with tattoos usually like showing them off rather than covering them up, at least at raves and parties.

"I'm Gabby, nice to meetcha." Part of me would rather give a fake name, but lots of people here already know me, he could easily ask any number of people who I am.

"Hey man, not to rush you, but I think some other people wanna get some shit too," says Cassie.

"Oh, yeah, for sure, sorry man," says Troy.

"Lemme just get a couple grams of flower, cool?"

"I can do thirty bucks for an eighth."

"Sweet, thanks." He passes over some bills, and Cassie passes him a little baggy, already measured out earlier.

"Yo, man, I'm actually looking for a new dealer right now, any chance I can get a number?" I get a little more suspicious.

"Sorry, mostly just work parties and stuff," lies Cassie easily, to my approval.

"All good, man. Have a good one, have some fun, right?"

"Yeah, you too." Cassie turns away, to another nearby group. Troy moseys away, stumbling a little as he walks. Thinking quickly, I wait until he's passing by another guy holding a bottle of whiskey or something, and give that guy a gentle nudge with a gravity field. The guy completely loses his balance, as expected, falling straight into Troy. Instead of going down with him, Troy catches him, taking a couple quick steps back and lowering him to the ground.

"Hoh, shit man, you good?"

"Yeah, fuck, thanks man," says the other guy, carefully climbing back to his feet with Troy's help.

"Sorry bout that."

"All good, man, all good." He pats the guy on the shoulder, and they go off in separate directions. So, not nearly as drunk as he's pretending, then. Yeah, I feel like my suspicion is justified. I wait until Cassie's done with the next group, the approach and whisper in her ear.

"That guy, Troy? Keep an eye on him, and tell our other dealers here to keep an eye on him too."

"Yeah? Something up?"

"Not sure. Could just be nothing, but could be more than nothing."

"Right," she says, nodding. Unfortunately, I don't see him again, even though I try and spot him in the crowd during my set. When it's over, I talk to Cassie again.

"I haven't seen him, looks like he left," she says.

"But Nick says he sold some weed to him earlier, and he tried to get a number from him, too. You think he might be another rat?"

"Could be," I say. I consider for a moment, then nod.

"Meet up with AJ tomorrow. He had this customer who was acting a little sketchy the other week, different name, but I think it might be the same guy. AJ knows where he lives. Keep yourselves out of sight, but try and get a look at him, see if it's actually the same dude or not."

"Sure," she says, nodding back.

"What if he is?"

"Just let me know, I'll want to investigate a little myself."

"Hey, something up?" asks Alex as she joins.

"Hopefully just nothing," I say, shaking my head.

"Alright, cool. Anyway, I'm gonna head home now before I crash completely. Great job up there."

"Thanks," I say, smiling and giving her a kiss.

"Night, love you."

"You too." Troy doesn't reappear, so I do my best to put him out of my mind and enjoy the rest of my night. I sneak away and transform for a minute to get rid of the ecstasy crash, then come back and get a rum & coke and some weed instead. The party winds down as the sun is coming up around 5: 30, and I head home after helping to pack everything up. I wake up a little before noon, but I'm not expecting to hear anything from Cassie yet; she'll probably sleep a lot longer than I did.

I check my phone during my dinner break at work, and I'm a bit surprised to see that she has called me already. I step out back to call her back.

"You have something?" I ask.

"Something, yeah," she says.

"There were a couple guys moving furniture and shit out of the place when we got there. None of 'em were our guy, looked like professional movers."

"I see," I reply.

"And you're sure you had the right unit?"

"Uh huh. We stuck around for a couple hours until they finished, the office manager or whatever came out a couple times, but our guy never showed." I'm not quite sure what to make of that. It sounds like he just completely abandoned his apartment, but it must have happened a while ago for the manager to already be getting rid of his things. Maybe Ray panicked and skipped town, and Troy was a completely different guy after all? But the coincidences make me uncomfortable.

"Understood. I'll let you know if I need anything else," I eventually reply. After work, I meet with Mr. Sterling. Troy and/or Ray are apparently in the wind, but the property manager might be able to help us after a bit of good, old fashioned bribery. The cops are apparently dragging out the cases of the arrested Sun Eaters a little, letting the news story finish fading away before they offer plea bargains, so he's got a little time to investigate.

I meet with him again after school on Monday, and find him looking unusually perturbed.

"The manager had little to say, but what there was, was rather odd," he tells me.

"First off, I was able to secure a photocopy of Mr. Ray Perez's driver's license. Can you confirm whether it's the same gentleman you encountered at the party?" I take it and study it. It's pretty low quality, but I can still make it out.

"Yeah, that's him, I'm almost positive."

"I see. Curious," replies Mr. Sterling.

"According to the manager, Mr. Perez was a tenant for barely two weeks. He moved in on the 1st of May and paid for the month in cash, but he abruptly vanished on the 17th, leaving most of his belongings behind."

"So right after I dealt with the informant, then," I say.

"That part makes sense, except it doesn't sound like he just panicked. It sounds like the whole thing was nothing but a cover to start with, and he abandoned it once he realized that identity might be compromised, then immediately made another attempt under a second identity." I consider for a few seconds, frowning.

"I'm starting to think we're not actually dealing with the cops, here."

"I agree. The manager was quite irritated with the situation and talked easily, but he knew little. However, there was one other oddity that he mentioned. When Mr. Perez was first moving in, he happened to notice that the van had California plates."

"California plates?" I ask, nonplussed.

"He had an Oregon license, though. Fake, you think?"

"Possible. Another explanation would be that the vehicle was stolen, and the plates hadn't been swapped out yet. But that seems… a somewhat odd oversight, for someone with enough funds on hand to abandon a full apartment without a second thought." The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yeah, but it still makes more sense than some random Californian driving all the way up to Franklin just to start poking their nose into our business specifically," I say.

"If it's not the cops, you think it might be Surf 'n Turf?"

"That would seem to be the most obvious culprit, yes. But…" He trails off.

"But it doesn't quite feel right, does it?" I finish.

"Everything we've got on Surf 'n Turf suggests they're struggling hard, they haven't really been able to recruit anyone after the way we thrashed them, and they're still losing people, too. Our best guess is that they're down to no more than thirty or maybe forty members. I guess they could be hoping Chimera will leave, and they'll have an opportunity for a big strike on us, turn things around? Doesn't seem like much of a plan to me, but they're probably desperate."

"Desperate people do often act in irrational ways," agrees Mr. Sterling.

"Still, this doesn't strike me as an act of desperation. Too… casually wasteful. It's the attitude of someone who isn't remotely concerned with running out of money. But then, I could easily be reading too much into it. We have very little to go on."

"Yeah," I agree, sighing.

"I don't like it. It feels like we're missing something."

"It does. For now, though, there's little you can do except keep a careful eye out for anything else unusual." It's good advice, even if it's not really what I want to hear. I decide to spread the word about Ray/Troy just in case he makes a third attempt, but I don't mention anything to the gang at large about my suspicions that he's more than just another potential informant for the cops.

I don't really have anything specific I can tell them to watch for beyond what they already are, so there's no reason to worry everyone. I have to work to keep myself from getting paranoid over the next few days, but I really don't see or hear anything else suspicious. I assign a few extra people to have a quiet look around Surf 'n Turf's territory, and they don't report any obvious changes either.

If there is something weird going on under the surface, it hasn't caused any visible ripples yet, or at least not as far as I can tell. At least there's other stuff to occupy my attention in the meantime. Myself and several other people have done quite a bit more "testing" with Elliot's improved weed, including Elliot himself. The results are very interesting, and a little confusing.

The effects of the drug (and I really don't think it qualifies as just weed anymore) seem to depend heavily on the context it's taken in, even at relatively low doses. Jess tried it in a more "responsible" environment than me, at home with David with some quiet music playing and no other distractions. She didn't have any hallucinations, instead reporting one of the best naps of her life. Meanwhile, Cassie tried it at a punk show and said the rush of energy it gave her was better than cocaine.

Elliot tried it while watching a nature documentary, and was able to tell me a truly impressive amount about tropical birds afterwards. As best I can tell, the drug more or less enhances whatever activity you're doing when you take it, with a pretty absurd degree of variety. It's somewhat similar to the way regular weed can make even the most mind-numbing TV seem absolutely fascinating, for example, but only in the sense that a mouse and an elephant are both mammals.

I'm almost positive there's a bit of residual magic in it, although testing that is gonna be tricky. None of the other weed plants Elliot grew, the ones where he was just doing his best to duplicate another plant, have any unusual effects. Jess and David are gonna see if they can grow the improved version the natural way, but that'll take a while. In the meantime, we're conducting a few more experiments to see if he can produce strains of weed with specific effects.

He grows a plant intended to be a pure upper, another intended to replicate the hallucinogenic effects I experienced, and a third focused entirely on relaxation and eliminating any kind of anxiety or paranoia. As before, I make sure to test them myself first, although I'm fairly sure they're more or less safe by now. The most successful strain is the third one, leaving me feeling like I'm floating on a cloud for a good couple of hours.

The first strain does give me an energy boost, but it also makes me find basically everything absolutely hysterical; watching Beavis and Butthead with Cassie makes me laugh so hard I literally start crying. The second strain is… interesting. I have a long and fascinating philosophical debate with the light stand next to my sofa, and Alex tells me afterwards that I was pretty much just mumbling gibberish the entire time. The third strain, at least, I can recommend to the others without any hesitation.

I convince Anja and Elliot to come to a party with me Saturday night, just a regular house party rather than a proper rave. This one's up in the hills in south Franklin, and there's a big sort-of treehouse on posts in the backyard that we claim for ourselves. I bring a tupperware container full of brownies with me (triple checking that it's the right one), and pass them out freely to my friends.

"Wow, where'd you get all these?" asks Lisa.

"Friend made 'em, gave 'em to me in exchange for DJing a party," I reply sort-of honestly. Meanwhile, Anja is looking at her brownie with a bit of trepidation.

"We'll be here the whole time, I promise we won't let anything go wrong," Elliot reassures her. Lisa glances over at them and frowns slightly.

"It's okay if you don't want to, don't let yourself get pressured."

"No, I… I think I want to give it another try," she says.

"You're sure these are the super chill ones?" she asks, glancing over at me.

"Yup, I made sure," I say, nodding. She nods back, gives it one more glance, then eats it.

"Huh, these are actually really tasty."

"I know, right?" says Cassie.

"Just remember, if you start feeling even a little anxious, say something right away," says Elliot.

"Right," she agrees. Forty minutes later, she's sprawled in a giant cuddle pile with the rest of us on the sofa. She's resting her head on my shoulder while I sit in Alex's lap and she sits in Elliot's lap, while Lisa lays across both of us plus Cassie and Tyler.

"Holy shit, this stuff is amazing," says Lisa.

"It totally is," agrees Anja, giggling.

"You were totally right, this was a great idea." Elliot mumbles something resembling a thank you; between the drugs and Anja sitting in his lap, he doesn't quite seem capable of stringing together words right now. Lisa giggles as well.

"You guys are so cute. Aren't they super cute?"

"Super cute," I agree. Anja blushes.

"Shut uuuup, you guys!"

"We should, like, start a betting pool for which one will finally admit they like each other first," says Cassie, ignoring her.

"Ugh, I would totally kick your ass if I could move right now," grumbles Anja, still blushing. Cassie laughs, but doesn't tease her more. For a while, there's silence. Then Anja says, "Hey, um, Elliot? It's… It's okay if you don't like me, you know. I'm okay with just being friends."

"W-what?" stammers Elliot.

"I, uh, I mean, I… I just-" He stops, swallows a couple of times, takes a deep breath, and says, "I, uh… I do. Like you."

"O-oh," says Anja, somehow still managing to sound surprised.

"I just… I thought… You never, you know…"

"... I'm sorry. I… I guess I just wasn't really sure how." The rest of us all hold our breath, not saying anything.

"That's… That's okay. I'm not really sure how either. But, um… Would it… would it be okay if I kissed you?"

"That… That'd be okay, yeah." It takes her a few seconds to get herself twisted around, a combination of the way everyone's laying on everyone else and the drugs making any kind of movement feel like a huge ordeal. Then it takes her a couple more seconds to work up her nerve. They both lean forwards simultaneously, and it's pretty obvious neither of them really have any idea what they're doing. It's really more of an awkward mouth bump than a proper kiss.

Still, Lisa immediately breaks out into an almost painfully high-pitch squee.

"Finally!" I say, grinning and clapping halfheartedly a couple of times.

"I guess that was alright for a first attempt, but maybe try some tongue next time," advises Cassie, grinning as well.

"Bite me," says Anja.

"That's Elliot's job now, remember?" says Tyler.

"Congratulations," says Alex.

"I'm happy for you guys."

"Thanks," mumbles Elliot, blushing heavily but also smiling goofily. There aren't really any further developments for now, mostly because everyone's too busy becoming one with the couch. Some other kids come up into the tree fort occasionally to check things out, but none of them stay real long once it becomes clear that we're all completely baked. Cassie does manage to bribe one kid into bringing us a couple big bags of chex mix and chips.

It's not exactly the highest-energy party I've ever been to, but with the faint music coming from inside and the gentle breeze coming through the open walls of the fort, it's just about perfect anyway. The brownies start wearing off sometime after midnight, and we eventually force ourselves to get up so we don't just fall asleep. The party as a whole is starting to wind down as well, with lots of kids hanging out out front, slowly migrating towards their cars.

We join them, chatting for a few minutes longer before we split up to head home, peer-pressuring Elliot into giving Anja a proper goodnight kiss. I nearly miss it. The street is packed with parked cars, and it's dark enough that a normal human wouldn't ever be able to see someone in one of them from more than a few feet away. But I'm not a normal human, and the little flicker of paranoia I've been trying to suppress over the past week has got me extra vigilant.

So I spot the guy in the driver's seat of the parked car parked on the other side of the street, around twenty feet down from us. I can still barely make anything out, and I don't want to give away that I've seen him by staring, but something about him still twangs my instincts. I casually shift a couple feet to the side, so I can look at him properly without turning my head. He's staring right at us, I'm almost positive, and I'm also pretty sure he's way too old to be just another partygoer.

For a minute or two, he just looks. Then, with a slow, careful movement, he raises something up in front of his face: a camera, I realize after a couple of seconds with a cold flash of adrenaline. Possibilities whirl through my head. As far as I can tell, he's focused entirely on us, ignoring the other groups of kids hanging around. Which of us is he here for? It might be Cassie, and that'd be bad enough, but the possibility that it's me is way worse. Is he a cop? Surf 'n Turf? Someone else?

There's no way to tell without grabbing him, and I don't think I have a choice. If he is a cop, making him vanish is a big risk, but not as big of a risk as letting him hand those photos over without knowing what he's up to.

"Something wrong?" asks Alex, noticing my distraction. I hesitate for a second, then lean over to her.

"Try to act normal. There's a guy in a car watching us, he just took a photo." Alex doesn't quite hide her reaction, but she doesn't actually start looking around, so I doubt the guy notices.

"Shit. The cops?"

"Not sure. I'm gonna have to check it out. Here, lemme pretend to leave with you, and then I'll double back on my own."

"Right," she says, nodding, then, "Hey, I think we're gonna head out now."

"Bye! Thanks again for the brownies!" says Lisa. I give hugs all around, then head over to Alex's car, sparing a brief look to make sure the observer is still here. I get in the passenger seat, and she takes the first turn around the corner. Once I'm sure we're out of sight, I give her a hasty goodnight as well, then jump out and hurry through someone's yard until I find some trees I can transform behind.

I quickly shoot up into the air and back over to the party, making sure to stay high enough that I won't be seen. Fortunately, the observer's car hasn't moved, although I can't actually see him from this angle. The fact that he didn't try to follow Alex's car is somewhat reassuring, although that could just be because there was no way to avoid making it obvious. The rest of the group heads out a couple of minutes later.

A minute or so after the last of them leave, the observer starts his car and drives off as well, heading in the general direction of downtown. I briefly consider following him to see where he goes, but decide it's not worth the risk. I'm almost certainly going to have to interrogate him anyway, and if it turns out he is heading for the police station, it'll make grabbing him a whole lot harder. Instead, I wait until he's in a nice, dark, isolated stretch of road. Then, I swoop down.

A pair of gravity fields crumple the front and rear bumpers of his car, crushing the headlights. Before he has time to react to that, I yank the entire car into the air. I fly him a ways outside of town, setting the car down in a random clearing. The more time I give him to think, the more time he has to realize he's most likely fucked no matter what he says, so I land next to the car and immediately rip the driver side door straight off its hinges.

Now that I'm transformed, the dark barely affects me at all anymore, so I can finally take a proper look at him. He's well into middle age, probably late forties or early fifties, with a slightly scruffy beard and a worn brown jacket. Unsurprisingly, he's completely panicking.

"Wait, wait, wait, fuck, wait!" he shouts, reflexively trying to push himself away from me even though he's still buckled in.

"You got the wrong guy! I didn't do anything, I swear!"

"Who do you work for?" I demand.

"Why were you taking pictures tonight?"

"Look, this- this has nothing to do with the Sun Eaters!" he says frantically.

"I'm not a cop, I'm just a private investigator, I never take cases involving gangs or black masks! Apollo! I got hired to investigate Apollo, I swear it has nothing to do with you!"

"Explain," I say flatly.

"It was Charles Fletcher, he's the CEO of the Gottfried Clinic, he wants to blackmail Apollo to stop him from quitting or something, I don't know all the details! He just hired me to follow Apollo around, he says Apollo's been using his magic to create some kind of magic drugs or something, but he wants more proof, it doesn't have… Oh, fuck me sideways." He slumps in his seat as he realizes that it does in fact have something to do with me.

A teenager experimenting with drugs on their own is one thing, but when that investigation suddenly runs straight into a notorious drug lord? Well, it doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together.

"How did Mr. Fletcher know Apollo was creating drugs with magic?" I ask.

"He- He's still got access to Apollo's home somehow, one of the cleaning staff or something like that, I don't know. They found, uh, some kind of pot brownie or something, but there was something weird about it, I'm not a chemist, I didn't really get it. Shit, I knew I shouldn't have taken this job. Look, uh, this case just got way too hot for me. Just- just let me go, and I swear I'll leave town by the end of the weekend, you'll never see me again, I won't-" My spear takes his head off in a single clean strike.

He has barely an instant to see it coming, but he looks resigned rather than surprised. A partnership between a celebrated white mask like Apollo and an infamous black mask like me is already a secret worth more than his life, and if he's especially quick, he might've even realized that I was one of the kids he was photographing. The best I can do for him now is make it quick. I let my staff vanish, frowning. I'm not entirely shocked that Mr.

Fletcher would pull something like this; blackmailing a magical is stupid, but if Elliot were still the same complete pushover he was for years, there's a decent chance it would've worked. The bigger risk probably would've been ABRA getting curious about why he suddenly changed his mind. I'm certainly glad I discovered his little scheme now, while he's still apparently in the dark about any connection Elliot has with us.

At the same time, though, I'm not at all happy to uncover someone else poking their nose into my business, apparently completely unrelated to the mystery of Ray/Troy. Well, this problem, I can actually do something about. I crouch down and start going through the investigator's pockets until I find a wallet, and pull out his driver's license to get his name and address. Then, I toss the door I ripped off into the car and raise the whole thing into the air.

I haven't tried exactly this before, and I'm a little curious to see what'll happen. I create the strongest gravity field I can make around the car, pulling inwards. It takes less than a second for the entire thing to crumple into a lumpy ball just three or four feet across.

With a sound between a bang and a whump, it bursts into flames, although the flames are strange: not rising into the air or flickering, but instead a bright white flash which fades into an orange globe surrounding the crushed car evenly, and then further to dull red over the course of several seconds. No smoke escapes, the heavier particles getting pulled back in by the field. I maintain the gravity field for a couple of minutes, until all that's left is a rough, unidentifiably charred ball.

Then I relax the field into one just keeping it suspended, and create a second, weaker field to excavate a deep pit. I dump the crushed remains of the car into the pit and cover it back up, packing the dirt down and smoothing everything out until the only sign is a patch of bare dirt a few feet across. Sparing one quick glance to make sure I'm not missing anything, I fly away. Fortunately, when I visit the investigator's small house, I find he wasn't married; that could've made things messy.

As it is, it'll probably take a while for anyone to report his disappearance to the police, depending on what his schedule looked like. I consider trying to obfuscate things a little more, but decide that's more likely to backfire. Better to leave things mysterious, with nothing at all suggesting my involvement. The immediate problem is dealt with. Now, I need to decide how I'm going to deal with the larger problem named Mr. Fletcher.