Author Note

I know that it's been a while since I updated this story. I just fancied doing something different. I've decided to focus on something other than the smut for this chapter as the MC does have other interests.

Thanks to James Pratt for beta reading this story.

Mutant Gothic

Part 7

Down town. New York.

The gun fired. I was already diving for cover when I saw the man aiming for us because no mutant power was perfect, and I didn't want one be out in the open when someone figures out how to get past my abilities. Which I figured could be any time considering all the whack jobs running around this planet.

Still, that was why I wore body armour under my black coat, the kind of armour that could only be made from advanced materials that super-geniuses could make in exchange for large bundles of cash. Why those kinds of people didn't just patent some of their inventions, sell out to some big company and then live off the profits on their own desert island, and spend their time getting served fruity drinks by girls in tiny bikinis, I'll never know. But since I needed supplies and equipment from them I never brought it up in case a common-sense brain cell fired off somewhere in their heads, and they disappeared.

The bullet missed me by several meters as I rolled into cover, i knew this as I could hear the bullets impact on brick wall to my left, Bullseye this guy was not. Not that the bullet would have done me any harm as my powers would have removed the threat without any thought from me as that was just how my reality-warping ability worked. Something would have happened to make the bullets far less dangerous, their kinetic energy would be removed, or they'd simply vanish.

Looking around I could see that everyone else had dived into cover too which I was please to see, especially Laura, it had taken a lot of work to get her to start taking her own personal safety seriously. Rather than following her fathers example of getting shot hundreds of times while charging a enemy head on just because you knew you could survive it.

I'd brought my girls the best sets of body armour that I could afford as well. The suits offered good protection from most guns while only moderate protection against energy attacks. Still far better than running around in skin tight Lycra. When I saw the girls trying them on for the first time during training I did wonderer something so thin could offer so much protection. Far more protection than they should, given how tight they hugged their curves. The suits really shouldn't work as well as they did. In the end I thought comic book universe and just shrugged. And had to admit they all looked damn good in them.

"Can you get him?" asked Rogue.

The man we needed to talk to was either by accident or design, staying just out of my range. However, I could play the role of mage and say throw a fireball at him as the fireball, once created, would keep going until it hit the target due to momentum. To make that work, I'd have to desire it rather than will it since my powers were emotion-based.

"No, but I can keep him distracted while Kitty gets behind him" I replied.

My team/harem was made up of three young mutants at the moment Kitty, although she preferred Shadowcat when out on a mission, Rogue and X-23, who looked rather bored as she crouched by me, despite all the gunfire coming our way .

"I'll get him" said Laura.

Without waiting for a reply, she leapt from our cover with the kind of speed and agility rarely seen in a human. The sort of daughter of Wolverine quickly covered the distance to the gunman. Dodging his gunfire with ease, and a few seconds later there was a scream. At this point I knew that it was time for the crook and I to have a little chat.

As to why I wanted to talk with some guy who looked to be a street level drug dealer, this was because he was connected to much more important people. The kind of people whose actives did interest me. We had spent the last day slowly working our way through a chain of low life thugs until we got word on this one. I was hoping he would know where the person we were looking for was.

"What the hell do you freaks want?" the man screamed as Laura gave his arm a violent twist

To keep him scared she slide the blades out from her free hand in front of his face. The man was more than twice Laura's size, but she had her father's strength, and that made it easy for her to apply enough pressure to the man's arm to almost break it. The thug looked at the blades waving about in front of his face with a scared look. Laura was very defensive when it came to the group. Outsiders who hurt or insulted us did so at their own peril. We were her pack, end of story. No one hurt the pack and got away with it.

"We want to know about the mutant woman that was brought into the city" I said.

Miss Emma Frost, the White Queen of the Hellfire Club, who I served as one of her White Knights, despite wearing all black and not being a hero, would never call herself my boss. She didn't issue orders. Instead she informed me of problems and paid me well once they were sorted out. Her latest concern was the underground sex trade, or to be more precise, how a young mutant woman had gotten caught up in it.

The young woman we were looking for was called Sooraya Qadir, better known as X-Men comic fans as Dust. She was an adolescent Sunni Muslim girl who possesses the mutant power to turn herself into a sand-like substance. While living in Afghanistan, Sooraya was kidnapped by a slave-trading ring after being separated from her mother. When one of her slavers tried to remove her niqāb, she instinctively lashed out with her powers and flayed them all alive with her dust form before passing out. Emma had a copy of that happening on a video, and she understood that Dust could become a powerful mutant with the right training.

Sending me to find this young woman made sense since I could use my powers to suppress hers. It used to be that I just cancelled them upon making physical contact with someone. However I was getting better at using them at a distance, so I could protect myself from Dust's ability and Emma figured that the young girl would be unlikely to lash out at other young women, such as those who made the rest of my group.

My interest wasn't so much in Dust. I was just going to drop her off at Xavier's as Frost wanted, which I felt sure Frost would find some way to profit from. I figured that sending Xavier a mutant was meant to be something of a peace offering to him from Frost since he disapproved of me and my girls doing work for her, and by extension the Hellfire Club. If she became an X-Men, or X-Women in this case, then that was fine with me as Dust would owe me a big favour for rescuing her. One can never have too many favours owed by influential or powerful people.

"I don't know nothing about no mutants," protested the street dealer through gritted teeth.

Thankfully we didn't need him to talk and this was good given his poor use of English.

"Rogue do your thing," I ordered.

She hated doing this, and if not for the fact that we were looking to liberate an abused mutant from whatever slaver scum had her, she might have protested despite my level of control over her as she wasn't my puppet. Rogue made skin contact with the man after removing her gloves for just long enough to find out what we wanted to know.

Over the last several weeks, Rogue had gained significant control over powers to the point that she could take either a person's memories along with their life force, and she'd gained a lot of control of how much she took from someone, rather than simply taking all their memories and life force at once. This resulted in much less noise in her head afterwards. Not that this made it any more pleasant for whoever she touched.

We hadn't targeted this piece of scum at random. He was a link, a chain, a piece of a puzzle. We had gone through several other low level crooks to get to him.

"He knows where the girls are kept," said Rogue as she let go of the criminal.

The bad guy groaned as he lay insentience on the floor.

"There's a closed down gym. It's not far from here" Rogue shared.

"So Zero, what are you going to do with this one?" Kitty asked me.

I was now looking down at the man on the floor with a frown. Xavier would disapprove of me killing anyone, and if there was a body, then someone could follow a trail back to me, so I avoided ending lives whenever I could. Lucky for me there were ways to remove someone as a threat to me without ending their lives.

Kneeling down, I put my hand on his body, and I focused on my desire and how I wished the world to be. The dealer quickly began to shrink and grow brown fur. In less than a minute, the man had transformed into a small brown rat, the small rodent took a look at us before scurrying off into some rubbish. I wondered if the reality warping could be undone by time or something else, but I wasn't going to stick around to find out.

"I'm still not sure how I feel about you doing that" said Kitty.

Since Laura had been an assassin during her early life, she didn't really care much. Rogue usually went along with whatever I wanted only Shadowcat had ever expressed concern over me turning crooks into rats.

"I find it hard to care what happens to people who go around selling addictive poisons to desperate people and children" was my counter-argument "And I doubt there's an actual law against turning people into animals. Outside of Salem".

It was a clever way of getting rid of people I didn't want getting in my way ever again.

Downtown. New York City.

"There's a lot of guys in there," reported Kitty "And they have guns, lots of guns."

While Katherine couldn't turn invisible, she could stick her head through a wall and spy on people. As long as they didn't see her head, it made for an effective way to scout out a location.

"How many guys?" I questioned.

Ten as it turned out.

"They don't look like their from the Middle East. They look more like a biker gang," stated Kitty.

"There likely a New York gang" I said.

The use of local muscle didn't surprise me.

"The slavers were part of an international organisation that brought young women here from all over the world." I said, repeating the information Frost had given me. "The slaver ring isn't just one organisations. The guys in there likely work for the Kingpin if I had to guess."

The Kingpin, also known as Wilson Grant Fisk, was one of the most feared, and dangerous crime lords in the Marvel Universe, usually depicted as New York City's crime lord. He was known to me mainly as an adversary of Spider-Man and other street level heroes. I remembered him from several cartoon series I used to watch as a kid. He controlled a lot if not all the major crime in N.Y.C. and the slavers must be working with him rather than running the risk of going against him. Fisk would normally be a concern, but since all the witnesses who had gotten us here were running around the New York sewers as rats, there was no one to point in our direction.

"What kind of guns?" I asked.

Shadowcat shrugged.

"Who am I, Rambo. I don't know anything about guns," Kitty replied.

I could tell that Rogue was nervous, and given that her powers didn't work on anyone she couldn't physically touch, I didn't blame her. Kitty could phase so bullets went right through her, I could alter reality, and it might not even be possible to kill Laura.

"Maybe we should back out" I mused.

I could always just go and tell Emma where she could find Dust, or I could inform the X-Men and let real heroes handle this matter. I was just about to suggest that when I heard gunfire and screaming coming from inside. I wondered if Dust had managed to get free of whatever means they were using to keep her under control, if so she might need help escaping.

"Okay looks like we're going in. Rouge stay close" I said to the girls.

Once I got inside I saw that all the equipment had been cleared out, leaving plenty of space however I didn't get much time to examine the gym because we soon got shot at. Holding up my hands I stopped all the bullets in mid-air Matrix style, before plucking one of the frozen bullets out of the air with a smile. Before the three bikers who fired at us could marvel at what I'd done to their bullets, the projectiles turned around and went back the way they'd come at very high speeds, killing all of them.

"Brutal" commented X-23.

"That wasn't me," I said.

But I already had a good idea of who it probably was.

"We should go" I said.

As soon as I spoke those words he appeared. Never in my life would I picture anyone pulling off the red cape with a helmet look, yet Erik Lehnsherr managed it just fine. I figured having Ian McKellen's looks, and stage presence helped with that. Rogue and Kitty were so shocked by his presence that neither of them seemed bothered by the corpses that Magneto had just made, nor did any of us make for the exit.

"Is Charles sending out his children again?" asked Magneto.

That made Laura growl a little, and since I knew what would happen if someone with a metal skeleton attacked someone who could control magnetism, I gestured for her to back down.

"We're not here on the behalf of the Professor," I said.

I saw no sense in lying to the leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants as while my powers were arguable greater than his, he just shown me that he had a level of control far beyond my own for the moment and much more experience in dishing out violence.

"So Miss Frost then, said Magneto".

I just nodded in agreement.

"What does she want with the girl?" I was asked.

"I don't know for sure, I'm just here to get the girl to the school in one piece" I admitted.

While floating there like a god of old, Magneto gave me a look of curiosity.

"Your not going to hand her over to Frost?" he asked.

My mind began to work overtime.

"I think we can both agree that after being put through this she needs a somewhat safe and nurturing environment" I said "And say what you will about Professor Xavier he is good at helping people with mental trauma".

The powerful mutant seemed to consider my words.

"Very well Charles can have her," he decided.

This was good as I'd rather not have to fight Magneto over Dust. Not without an entire X-Men team backing me up. I'd only ever battled him in simulations as part of a team exercise that had safeties in place.

"Follow me" ordered Magneto.

We did as instructed as the man had a commanding presence. I could see from the looks on Rogue and Kitty's face that neither of them were precisely happy about this. Having to step over several dead body's to cross the room probably didn't help. As for X-23, she looked like she was out for a stroll, and I was unbothered by letting someone else do all the hard work for me. I had to wonder how I'd become so de-sensitised to violence given my lack of experience with it in my past life, but this was not the time for such introspection.

With a gesture, Magneto ripped open the doors that barred the way between Dust and us. We found the young woman trapped in a cell, and right away I noticed the large metal collar around her neck. It must be some means of stopping her from using her powers. Otherwise, she'd have turned to sand and simply left.

"Humans they never stop trying to cage us," muttered Magneto

With a wave of his hand the collar broke and fell on the floor. The young girl screamed trying to make her self as small as possible, I could see several deep red marks on her skin where it looked she had been beaten with some sort of rod. I imagined that seeing this would make my team mates less concerned about the biker gang that Magento had just wiped out.

I'd been able to guess what was going to happen next, I felt glad that I'd taken my telescopic staff from my pocket as I needed its aid in directing my powers. Focusing my desires a shield sprung up and drawing the girls closer to me before the collar hit the ground. As soon as Dust realised her powers were back, she lashed blindly lashed out with them trying to flay the skin from our bones. She was scared out of her mind and lashing out blindly. I could barely see the rest of the room. It was like we were standing in the middle of a massive sand storm. Impressive I thought.

"We're not here to hurt you," shouted Kitty who was able to be heard over the howling of the storm.

Dust looked at Kitty suspiciously, with a look of fear and hope on her face. Dust did speak English as it turned out, and as I backed off, my girls made their way forward, doing their best to keep the scared mutant as calm as possible. Rogue and Kitty both knelt down and tried to calm the young woman down. The mutant had been chained up and locked up, so she took some convincing. In the end, I think it was the fact that she was exhausted more than anything that got her to calm down and stop using her powers.

"I think you upset her," I said to Magneto.

The powerful mutant turned to leave.

"I trust you can handle matters from here, Zero," he said to me "Just get her to Charles."

Seeing that we had the situation under control, Magneto turned and walked off. I got the feeling that he was going off to make someone pay for what had happened to Dust and I actually felt a little sorry for them. Then after looking at the crying young woman in Kitty's arms, I thought no they deserved everything Magneto would do to them.

As for us, I figured that all we had to do was call someone at the school and get them to come pick us up from somewhere that wasn't here. Charles wouldn't appreciate all these dead bodies for sure. While we waited I ponder how Magneto knew my name.

Classroom. Xavier's School for the Gifted.

I was no superhero. I worked for money and my own personal power, not to do good. I could sympathise though, as it had been a tiring day yesterday playing the role of hero as I lead my team to save the mutant called Dusk from slavers. I'd also saved several other other girls that we had found in other cells in the building while I was searching it, most of them were in a pretty bad shape.

Once we got Dusk secured and I'd cleaned up all of the mess/bodies with my powers, I called the police to come and sort them out since the other girls weren't mutants. Helping them cost me nothing but a little time, and made me look good to Kitty and Rogue.

What I did care about was trying to be a college student at a school for mutants while working part time for the Hellfire Club. It was exhausting.

Add to that I'd been up late last night handling my harem. Not in a fun way I was sorry to say. Now that the novelty had worn off, the more annoying parts were becoming noticeable, such as having three girls all wanting control of the T.V remote and separate date nights. Then there are the issues caused by having two of the harem members being best friends. Kitty and Rogue, didn't mean to, but I had noticed they did tend to leave Laura out of certain actives. Overall it was worth it, even if I did have a headache from time to time.

Beast's class wasn't helping my headache, thankfully the chemistry teacher was only lecturing this morning. I could hide at the back of the class and use my powers to get everyone to mostly ignore me for a while for some peace and quiet. I was also glad for my hot coffee, at least until Bobby Drake leaned over and touched the coffee's container which froze the contents into something undrinkable with a smirk. Bobby wasn't a bully, so I didn't take any offence at the prank. Instead I focused on my desire for a hot cup of coffee, and powers did the rest so soon it had steam coming off it.

The lecture only seemed to drag on until halfway to the heat death of the universe, and I wondered at one point if I could perhaps speed up time a bit to make the class shorter. Then I thought, I'd probably end up 3000 years in the future fighting Apocalypse if I did that. This was a Marvel universe after all.

As soon as I got out of class, I was directed by another student to Xavier's office, who was not as happy to see me as I would have hoped given that I'd delivered a new student to his doorstep only yesterday. Not that dealing with a traumatised teenage girl is a fun activity.

"Zero, I wanted to talk to you about your meeting with Magneto."

I sipped my still half full cup of coffee that I had been refilling with my powers, as I took a seat in front of his desk. Being able to alter reality according to your desires was very useful. In theory, I could provide myself with anything I wanted, yet I still liked having full bank accounts, so I'd keep working for Frost.

"Yes he was an interesting fellow to meet," I commented.

The man has no regard for human life and a level of control over his powers that I envied. I remembered how calm he'd been while taking out all those crooks.

"Yes many mutants have been led astray by Eric," said the headmaster of this school "He can be very charming when he wants to be".

Xavier and Magento were both leaders of mutant factions who wanted very different things for mutant-kind, and Magneto was willing to do whatever it took to see his goals carried out. He wanted an army of mutants and as a reality warper, I would be a very powerful weapon for his cause just as much as I could be one of the more powerful X-Men. Personally, I figured that both of these old men needed to retire and stop interfering with the lives of younger mutants.

"Magneto's crusade doesn't interest me," I assured Professor X.

Mostly because I had no desire to go off and die for his cause. I'd much rather side with Emma Frost who paid me well for my work and who looked good in a thong. Perhaps that was overly shallow of me, but the tangible rewards just meant more to me than the causes that Magento and Xavier rallied people to.

"I'm glad to hear it" said the man in the wheelchair.

If he could read my mind, he'd be disappointed in my reasons for not joining the Brotherhood of Mutants.

"Could you tell me why Eric didn't take Sooraya with him?" Xavier requested.

I had to wonder if the X-Men ever handed in written reports for Professor X or if he just looked into their minds to find out what happened on a mission.

"He didn't seem interested in taking her" I mentioned "I did mention that I planned to bring her here. Perhaps he just figured that it was best place for her."

Magneto isn't a monster. He does actually care for mutant kind even if he can be very extreme about how he goes about defending it.

"What of Emma's interests?" he asked, "I hope she isn't making you do anything that makes you or the girls uncomfortable".

Not for the first time, I wondered what would happen if I wanted to leave this place badly enough, and I made use of my powers. Could I make a portal to some place far away? That was something worth thinking about later on.

"She hasn't told me anything important" I answered, knowing what the professor really wanted to know "At least not about Dust."

I changed the subject.

"How is the young lady doing?" I enquired.

She was understandably skittish around men I knew that much. I'd not gotten in the car when Storm and Jean had turned up just to make Dust feel safer.

"She's spending some time alone before we introduce her to the rest of the school" the teacher told me "Given her experience it seems best to let her acclimatise to life here at her own pace".

That seemed wise to me.

"You know that Emma has plans for you" said the Professor "She is using you for her own ends. Frost is not known for her generosity".

And in other news water is wet.

"She's been frank about what she wants form me," I stated "Which is more than I can say about you".

Of course, he had plans for me. He didn't bother to deny it.

"I just want you to be careful, Zero" said Xavier.

With that I got up and left his office. I'd skipped breakfast, and I was suddenly very hungry.

The Hellfire Club. N.Y.C Branch

As ever, the club was filled with V.I.P.S who came to be seen by other V.I.P.S, and to try to strike that deal that would elevate them to the inner circle. Most people saw the strippers, the drinks and the over the top décor, and didn't look much deeper into what went on, which is what the inner circle wanted. They wanted people to see a hedonistic club which wasn't much of a threat since most of the members spent most of their time drunk or chasing tail.

Those who formed the leadership of this organisation were broken into two courts based on chess, which included me. This was where the real power was of the club was centred. The type of power that could topple country's if the kings and queens put their minds to it. Each court was ruled by either the king or queen, depending on who was more powerful at the time. The deals made in the court were focused on increasing either the black or white courts economic power or political domination. I'd heard about a red court as well, but Emma had told me not to concern myself with them and to stay focused on building up my own position.

Having a good time was not on the agenda of the court while they were here. Which wasn't to say I disapproved of the drunkenness, debauchery, the orgies, or the crimes that were planned lower down. Honestly some days I looked down on them having a good time and wished I could be one of them for a bit, then I'd shake it off and remember which universe I was in.

While heading for Emma's office, I stopped to give Psylocke, who spent some of her time working as a stripper, picking the men's minds for useful information while they were half drunk and distracted. Motioning her over, I slipped a nice tip into her cleavage as I gave her my most charming smile. She reached down and gave me a big kiss to the approval of the crowd.

We'd slept together several times now over the last few months, I'd had gained some degree of influence over her, not enough to turn her completely to my side, her mind was too powerful for that, but enough that she was happy to tell me what S.H.I.E.L.D had her getting up to before I passed the information along to Frost, the Hellfire Club's White Queen.

Walking up the stairs to Frost office, I had to pass a couple well armed guards who waved me through without a word into her office. Without looking up from whatever she was reading, she motioned to a seat.

"You'll be happy to know that the Kingpin blames Magneto for what happened with Dust" she let me know "After you parted ways, Eric made a very loud and very public mess, one that made the Kingpin look weak in the eyes of his contemporaries so he's focused on revenge, but Eric can look after himself".

Emma tossed me a newspaper that reported about a cargo ship having been torn apart while docked. I deduced that this vessel had been the one being used to smuggle girls into the country. No one was reported killed according to the story, so I imagined Kingpin was annoyed about losing whatever money he'd had tied up in that operation.

My little group didn't even have a name, and we were far from ready to tangle with the Kingpin or whoever he paid to come after us. Once I had better control over my powers, then I could handle such people. Until then I'd be better off keeping my head down.

As I closed the paper, I noted the headline about Tony Stark having gone missing.

"My stock in Stark Industries has already taken a massive dive," complained Emma.

Assuming that things played out as they did in the MCU movies or most marvel stories, then Stark Industries would be playing havoc with the stock market for some time to come.

"He'll turn up soon. He's being held by terrorists" I mentioned "But he'll escape".

That got Emma's attention.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

I'd known this would come up sooner or later so I had thought ahead and I'd come up a convincing lie.

"My powers mess with both time and space" I answered "I've started seeing stuff before it happens, but I can't control what I see and a lot of it doesn't have any context so it's difficult to understand what I'm seeing most of the time."

Before she could enquire more on that subject I focused her attention elsewhere.

"When Stark gets back the company's stocks drop drastically when Stark declares that he won't be making weapons any more, that will be a good time to buy as much of his stock as we can get our hands on as he'll find a way of turning things around" I advised "Also you might want to buy into Hammer industry's. But sell the stock just before Stark Expo next year, Hammer is up to a lot of shady shit. But he's sloppy and will get caught we should be able to make a mint short term."

The look on Emma's face as I ploughed on about my plan on making me one of the wealthiest people on the planet was very amusing.

"Stark Industries will do better in the civilian market than they ever did in the military, judging from its future expansions" I mentioned "Also, all those high quality weapon designers and engineers that will get laid off by Stark, I'm sure you can find a good use for them if you're quick of the mark."

Given that Tony hosted the Stark Expo and built Stark Tower, likely Pepper Potts must have found some way of making a lot of money from his inventions when he put her in charge of his company.

"Since he'll no longer be making weapons for the military, the U.S. government will have to turn to other suppliers such as Justin Hammer" I went on to say.

This meant investing in his company made sense until the Stark Expo, as I couldn't imagine his stock doing well after all those drones go on the rampage.

"Oh and Obadiah Stane is a traitor" I let my sort of boss know "He's the one who bribed the terrorists into attacking Stark so he could take over the company, this whole thing will result result in his death".

Emma was now looking at me as if I'd gone mad.

"How can you know all of this?" she asked.

I acted as if it was no big deal.

"My powers allow me to mess with both time and space. I've been learning how to control them and along the way I picked up a few things." I reminded her.

If she started to think that this meant I could see the future, that was fine with me. I couldn't and I had to be careful of the butterfly effect I didn't want some time traveller coming after me for changing to much, so I'd have to be careful about what I gave away.

Emma sat there for a full minute looking at me, with a blank face.

"Fine I'll follow your advice" said Miss Frost "and if it works out you'll be the richest White Knight in the history of the club. This will definitely prove to the rest of the court that you are worthy of the role I gave you".

There was no need to mention what would happen to me if I was wrong. She'd given me the role of White Knight as a gift as something terrible had happened to the last one. It was a big promotion given that I'd been a mere pawn only a few weeks ago, and I had no doubt that the rest of her court weren't to happy with me jumping ahead of allot of people. These moves, should settle them down to Game Of Thrones levels of wanting me dead and gone.

"How is your newest classmate settling in?" she asked.

"No clue. I've not seen her since I'd dropped her off at the school," I replied "The Professor let me know that he's letting her accumulate for awhile, smart given what she's been through, before she's introduced to the rest of the school. She has a ways to go before she'll have recovered, even with Xavier's help, she was in a pretty bad way when we got to her."

Emma didn't really seem to care, though with her, it was always hard to tell what was going on in her mind. She was a master at presenting herself in whatever way would get her whatever she wanted, though she could be surprisingly soft hearted in certain ways.

"Hopefully Charles will get some use out of my peace offering," she said.

I could only speculate as to why she needed Xavier to be in a good mood with her, but it wasn't hard to imagine how the X-Men could make themselves a serious pain in the ass for the Hellfire club's leadership if they wanted to be. Since this included me, I would also have to be careful not to annoy him too much.

"Any work for me?" I asked.

Emma smiled at me, and I suddenly felt nervous.

"Do you own a tux?" she asked.

That seemed like an odd question.

"I have to attend a rather formal party tonight and I could so with some arm candy," she let me know with a cat like smile "So get cleaned up and meet me back here at eight. A knight must not let his queen go unescorted to the ball."

If I wanted to rise to the top of the Hellfire organisation, I would have to pay my dues. It could be worse. At least she was only pimping me out to herself. It should be fun.