Day One

"You must leave this place immediately," murmured the glimmer of white and gold at the corner of her vision.

"I'm sorry – what?"

"I can say no more. Please. I am your friend. Heed my warning…"

"Hermes…" Desdemona furrowed her masked brow, her eyes on the dark corner of the city that she was patrolling. "Running isn't my style. You know that."

"If you think on it, you will find it is."

"Look," she snapped, suddenly cranky, "If you want something from me, spit it out. Otherwise – get lost."

The flicker sighed, and then flitted off into the night sky.

"I should have listened. But that's hindsight for you. He was right, of course. I should have left. And running… well I guess that is my style... It turns out that maybe there's a lot about my style I didn't know…"

"Go on."

"There were a few dead kids that had turned up over the past week… Runaways, street kids… No one that would be missed by anyone 'important'. Fingerprint-covered paraphernalia found with the bodies. The cops wrote them off as drug overdose, case closed-and-lost under a stack of more important paperwork."

"And you suspected differently?"

"Not at first…"

Red and blue flashed rhythmically across the alley walls, cut off by a bulky fire escape before it could fall on the black-clad form perched on the edge of the roof watching the scene below where a pair of police officers loomed over the body of a blonde teenage boy.

"Looks like another one, Steve."

Lieutenant Steven Richardson sighed. "Any ID? No? Of course not."

"His name was Daniel."

Startled, the cops glanced towards the sound of the voice. "You…" Richardson breathed, more than a little surprised. He quickly covered the expression with a scowl. "Finally decide it was time for us to meet face to face?"

Swinging over the edge of the roof, Desdemona caught onto the fire escape railing and swung the rest of the way down to the ground, landing in a crouch. "I would have preferred different circumstances."

"Whoa. Steve… You know her?"

"Yes. No. Those tips I couldn't explain? They came from her. Look, Chris… give me a couple minutes, okay?"

"Sure. I'll be in the car. Calling the coroner."

Watching his partner back away, Richardson frowned a little. "Why me?"

"I needed a friend in the department."

"That's not an answer…"

"It's not the answer you wanted."

Steve stared slightly, then smirked. "I suppose I was expecting something about being the only one you could trust…"

"You watch too much TV."

"Probably." His smirk faded. "Do you know anything about this?"

"I know Daniel wasn't into shooting up." She paused. "And I know you're going to make sure the coroner does a full blood workup on him."

"What makes you say that?"

A grapple-gun was produced from under her heavy coat and fired into the sky, yanking her airborne as she said, "Because you're the only one I can trust."

"I checked in with Richardson at the end of the night… The chemicals they found in Daniel's blood didn't match up with what was in the needle they found in his hand." Desdemona lowered her voice. "They closed the case anyway. Confiscated the paperwork. Warned Richardson to drop it. He practically hung up on me."

"How did you know Daniel?"

"He was a source of information," she murmured and then sighed, admitting, "He was a friend…"

"Just a friend?"

"I wasn't boffing him, if that's what you're looking for," she snapped.

"Sorry. I didn't mean…"

"Yes you did."

"All right. I did." Superman shifted slightly. "What happened next?"

"I put in some overtime while the sun was up. Asked some questions. Knocked a few heads together till I got a name. Doctor Holtz. I tracked him to his labs at Hensbrid."