Chapter 18

- Victoria-

"Really, Ames?" I whined, landing in front of her on the roof of our house. "Really?"

My adorable, awesome, grumpy, and complete and total addict of a sister rolled her eyes at me. "You're home early."

I tried to snatch the cigarette, but she leaned away from me and I was not doing any kind of fancy flying in a regular skirt. I settled for whining some more at my sister, "I thought you were trying to quit?" And if I ever find out which nurse had had the bright idea to get you started…

"Yeah well…" She leaned back against the roof and glared at sky. "Full moon tonight. Hospital's going to be... busy."

"You say that every month!"

"And it's true every month!"

"Is not!"

"Vicky, they made studies of that. Five percent increase in homicide cases, twelve percent increase in battery and animal attacks, fifteen percent increase in disappearances, and don't get me started on the weirdo patients who want extra arms and stuff. Or want extra arms that don't exist removed. Or try to bite the nurses. Or start speaking in tongues. Or… just, seriously, crazies all over."

"And this study was published in what? The Journal of Superstitious Bullshit? Ha!" I pointed at her. "Made you smile!"

"Shut up." Grumbling, she took one last drag of the cigarette and then snuffed it out. "Full moons are totally a thing."

"Well duh…" I turn to point at where the moon was visible despite the sun not having finished setting. "But they make tides, not crazy people."

"Fuck," I stared down at the junkie, who was still laying on the ground where he'd landed. "Fuckity fuck fuck."

I paced back and forth before staring at the guy on the ground again, wishing he'd wake up and say something just to prove his brain was in working order. Dammit! This is bad, this is bad… At least he still seemed to be breathing, and the phone he tried to rip out of my hands was intact, so it wasn't hopeless. Ames can fix this, she has to!

I dialed the phone and counted the seconds until she picked up.

"Ames, I need your help. Please pick up the phone. Please pick up the—"

The ring cut out with a click as Ames answered. "Vicky?"

Barely five minutes later, I was really regretting that stupid wish I'd made. The idiot meth head, judging by his remaining teeth, had woken up and immediately started making noise. No, not noise, calling the shit spewing out of his mouth that would be an insult to noise. Fortunately, either nobody heard, or at least nobody reacted, apart from one girl that came into the alley and kind of just stood there, watching us.

"Fuck you, you fucking cunt. I ain't done nothin'."

"Oh, would you shut up, already?" I gestured around the empty alley. "There's no one here but us and that one girl over there. No one cares."

"You broke my fucking legs!" he cried. "And I can't even feel them!"

"Okay. One, you tried to mug me. Me! I'm fucking invincible! Like… who the fuck is even that dumb? Seriously!? Two, jumping out of a dark alley at me while I'm on my phone? You're lucky I just shoved you." I studiously ignored the fact that said surprised shove had launched him a good fifteen to twenty feet back down the alley.

The girl had walked over to us while we yelled at each other. "Do you remember Sue?" She asked, an expectant look on her face as she stared at us.

"Who?"

"Sue!" The girl frowned, a look of concentration on her face. She looked familiar, sort of. Where have I seen her before..? "Sue... Min? She was a small thing, unimportant. But she had this book you see, her favorite book." School maybe? I didn't know any short girls named Sue though, Min or otherwise, so that association wasn't going anywhere. "She couldn't read it, being barely the age your sister was, but that was okay." The girl smiled fondly. Okay… think, Vicky, think. Sue being that young rules out her going to my school, so that's probably not why she thinks I'd know her. "Her father read it for her, everyday after work. She'd sit on the couch, her favorite book in her lap, and wait for him to come home."

Oh. I have a bad feeling about where this story's going.

Methbrain apparently agreed. "Why the fuck should I give a shit about that?" the thug gritted out through clenched teeth. Actually… given how upset this story seemed to be making him... she's not actually talking to me at all, is she? The strange girl glanced at me with a small smile, almost as if to confirm my realization, yet I still couldn't place where I knew her from.

"But he didn't come home!" The girl wailed, suddenly and without warning, her expression flipping from mild interest to utterly distraught. "She waited and waited and then waited some more. She was good! She was quiet! She was patient! She was still waiting, book in her lap, when the men of the law knocked on the door. Someone," she practically spat, "it would seem," the girl glared at the Merchant, expression hardening, "had stolen away his life alongside his wallet. So pray tell us again of this innocence you claim. You outran the law on that ill fated night, could you do so again now?"

The man had actually started shrinking away from her - though I suspected it was fear, not guilt - when a rather eclectic collection of people showed up. A tall blonde girl and a young black one. The blonde was pushing a wheelchair with a young black man in it. He was kind of attractive, from what I could see of… well, a black man in a poorly lit alleyway.

The weird girl looked over at the new arrivals and took a bow, pointing at me. "As promised, so delivered, Fair Maiden!" she proclaimed loudly. The last words were directed at the young black girl. "The young Margravine of Glory has already summoned aid from the Marquesa of Life."

Of course this had to be the moment when Ames arrived from the other direction. "...The what of the what now?"

"The Marquesa arrives!" The girl cheered. Stepping aside, she gestured at both the meth head on the ground and the cute boy in the wheelchair who seemed to be holding his stomach in pain before looking back up at the others. "We should give the Good Sisters their space, so that they may play doctor."

The blonde sighed as the black girl's snort of laughter echoed through the alley, everyone else, even the idiot, apparently rendered speechless by the crazy girl's antics.

Ames, who must have ran all the way here because her face was bright red, recovered first and pointed at the girl accusingly while staring at me. "Full moon! What did I tell you?"

"-and that's about when I figured out who the crazy girl was," I continued my story. "The cape from that DWA fight Dean told me about. ...Taylor, I think he said her name was? But she called herself Cassandra, which I can kinda see working for a crazy Thinker/Stranger combo."

"What did you do next?" Mom asked after a slow nod.

"Well, after Ames fixed the two guys up, they promised they'd keep it quiet, and we dragged the punk to the precinct. Oh! And she's totally gotta be some kind of post-cog or something because it turned out he really was wanted for the murder of one Chang Min who has… had... a four year old daughter named Soo."

"Interesting. We'll have to pass that along to the PRT," Mom said. "I don't suppose you got contact info from the civilians?"

"...No." I frowned. Damnit. "I should have." That guy was kinda hot, would have been perfect for the next time I need to make Dean jealous. "In our defense though, dealing with a Tay- Cassandra was distracting enough before I realized she was the new Stranger cape Dean was talking about and that she might just up and vanish at any moment."

"She didn't? You're sure?" Mom sounded somewhere between doubtful and concerned. Which… okay, fair, Stranger, but still…

"Well… not that I noticed? She thanked us and said goodbye before walking away and I remember it being her unlike De—" Aww, crap! "You're not going to make us go in for M/S screening, are you?"

Mom sighed, glancing from me to Ames. "I know it seems excessive, Victoria, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Speaking of which… you said she called you a bunch of weird names? Can you remember any of them? Never know what details might turn out important."

"Hmm... I don't think she used the same one twice. Most them were all stuff about Glory, like Glorious Princess—"

"Of course you'd remember that one," Amy stage-whispered, shaking her head with a faint smile.

"-so I think she was just being silly about my cape name? Oh! And like, some of them were really weird and kind of foreign sounding… umm… " I looked at my sister for help.

"Marshvine? Something like that? And then, I think she called me something in Spanish twice, maybe? Something like Marquesa or—"

And that was how I found out that my forcefield blocks spat coffee. Amy wasn't quite as lucky.