Prologue: We Sinners, Three
When Charlotte Stratus was a child her mother read poems to her every night before bed. Not just any poems, but poems she had written herself, which would sooner or later find their way into a collection and be published. That was what her mother did, she was a poet. And while her mother was reading to her from her poems, her father -the Methodist Minister- would pray with the older daughter, Chloe. To Charlotte, it felt like each of the parents had claimed a child for themselves and were in contest to see which would grow up better. Their mother never got to see the outcome of that, being that she died when they were teenagers.
And walking along the platform of a Tokyo subway station, with a gun under her jacket, Charlotte remembered one of mother's poems. It was a long thing, about three old friends who met in Hell and had a conversation. The one section she remembered with absolute clarity went:
"A finer group of acolytes,
Never could there be;
No one better for the Devil,
Than we sinners, three."
With Bishop on one side, and Steve on the other, she thought it fitting.
The bright lights of the platform suddenly went out. Several women screamed and Charlotte reached out on either side to find a grip on her company. Steve's hand squeezed hers, while Bishop got a hold on his gun and she could only push two fingers into one of his belt loops. In the empty tunnel, emergency lights flicked on, illuminating the tracks. Above, round panels came to life like spotlights.
"They're coming for us," Charlotte said.
Steve checked his watch. "Train's late."
"Trains are late all the time," Bishop said. "It's no reason to panic."
"I don't know," Charlotte chimed in with a nervous smile, "panicking seems like a pretty good idea to me."
"This is the plan, we're sticking to it."
Steve walked ahead and peered down the tracks. Back a ways, Bishop ran his eyes carefully over the crowd. No familiar faces. Charlotte elbowed him and nodded to one man on a cell phone, who had avoided looking at her though she had been watching him for almost a minute. Bishop gave the slightest nod of his head to acknowledge her. He noticed another man who was watching the first, both hands shoved into his deep pockets.
"Where the Hell is the train?" Bishop growled.
Steve was still up ahead of them, surveying a map of the subway tunnels, his lips moving as he read and memorized. He thought it would be good to know the layout in case they ended up being forced off at the wrong stop, or ditched into the tunnels.
The chatter of the station, mostly in Japanese, covered the sound of a door opening on the other side of the tracks. Bishop glanced over at a sudden flash of movement, realizing that Charlotte had drawn her gun. A fraction of a second stretched on and someone screamed. He followed her aim and with a jolt realized the barrel was pointed straight at Steve.
She fired.