4. Traitor
The good thing, Riley decided, was that everyone was already dead. It wasn't like they would have been better off alive once the Nine arrived, and at least Jack couldn't single her out to deal with the survivors in front of everyone else.
The smell of death used to be so mundane she barely noticed it, but the familiarity had dimmed with the lack of exposure in her time with the Wardens. The flick of a switch shut down her olfactory system to keep the distraction at bay.
The shop was a single room with open space and checkered floors. A partition wall made from wooden pallets created an alcove near the entrance, with couches and magazines. It also served to display clothes and accessories for sale. Framed designs covered the walls, numerous enough to leave the bricks barely visible. There were four tattoo stations, but only the one at the back had privacy curtains drawn around it.
Jack breezed past the two bodies in the waiting area and the one at the front desk, his firm grip dragging Riley along. He glanced at the woman in the first station without breaking stride, and only stopped when they reached the curtained enclosure.
Two bodies, on either side of the chair.
The wheeled cart serving as a desk had been tipped over, its contents scattered over the floor. Sickly shades of green, purple, brown and yellow mixed with the blood where the ink caps had spilled. The mirror on the wall had been fractured with repeated impacts, and a handful of fallen shards glinted under the fluorescent lights.
"What do you think?" Jack asked her, nudging the nearest body with his boot.
Riley crouched, half-hoping he would let go of her hand. He didn't, and bent down with her instead.
Shatterbird walked past them to examine the mirror, and used the reflection to keep an eye on them as they examined the body. The others could be heard milling around the shop.
"Two hours, maybe," Riley answered, poking at one of the man's wounds. "Three at most."
He'd died before she'd woken up, which was consistent with what Riley remembered. Cherish had pulled an all-nighter to meet her deadline, and killed the artists once they were done.
"I meant, what can we learn from the picture she painted here? This is good practice," Jack said.
He'd tried to teach her, but she'd never been very good at getting into people's heads. Didn't matter. He was far more interested in what her words would reveal about herself than in any insight she could provide about Cherish.
Better stick as close to the truth as possible, to limit how much he could read into it.
"She snapped."
He nodded for her to continue.
"The others are self-inflicted. These two aren't. She killed them herself instead of using her power."
Riley reached for the tattoo machine, attempting to pull it out of the man's eye socket. It was stuck, and the angle made it hard to force with her right arm.
She turned her attention to the stool that had been used to bludgeon the other guy's head. One of the metal legs was bent out of shape.
"Nothing creative," she continued. "Just some straightforward lashing out. She kept going after they died, so maaaybe she had a bit of anger to work through."
"What's missing?"
"Her, duh," she replied without missing a beat.
Better to let him talk than walk straight into that trap.
Jack inhaled sharply, a flicker of annoyance on his face, but it was the kind of annoyance she'd seen aimed at her every once in a while back then, not the kind where he decided to stop playing with his food.
"I see anger. Hatred. Despair. Disgust. Maybe some of the most genuine emotions she's experienced in a long time, all in consequence of her own ambitions. It's almost poetic," Jack said, using his blade to draw a swirl of ink into the blood for emphasis.
The blood had started to congeal, so the effect wasn't quite what he was going for.
He rose, and she followed, stepping back to take in the whole scene. Shatterbird turned to look at them.
"Oh, Mannequin can be proud of himself for this one," Jack continued. "You can practically see the cracks radiating outward from the moment she broke. Except that the story she's telling here ends with her doubling down on her plan to get a return on her investment, not running away to cut her losses. Something happened after she left."
His expression made it clear he suspected it was linked to Riley, but was enjoying this game too much to say it outright. She wracked her brain for an excuse that had nothing to do with her, to keep up appearances.
"Her brothers might have caught her before she came back to the hideout."
Jack raised an eyebrow.
"I would be very surprised if they were still looking for her."
The first thing Cherish had done after Jack accepted her nomination was to take a selfie with them and send it to her dad.
Most of them had humored the request. Even Jack, despite his opinion on the practice. Shatterbird, however, had let her distaste be known by blowing up the smartphone, her emotions barely giving Cherish a second of warning to throw it away. Burnscar had lent her own as a replacement, and Riley distinctly remembered pondering whether they should include Hatchet Face's body in the picture, and trying to convince Siberian to make a silly face.
Cherish's brothers were definitely long gone.
"Maybe they were waiting for her to be alone," she insisted. Jack hadn't called out any of her lies yet, so she might as well keep derailing the conversation for as long as possible. "They could be back in Canada with her by now. Oh, we've never been to Montreal. Road trip!"
The cheer she'd injected in her voice felt more fake with every millisecond of silence before Jack answered.
"I don't think Crawler will be up for that."
Shatterbird inhaled to say something, but Riley hurried to speak before her. Couldn't risk it. Unlike Jack, Shatterbird had no interest in playing games.
"We can get a bigger vehicle, like when we went to Mexico," she said, careful not to look at Shatterbird. "It was a nice trip. We should do it again sometime."
With a screech, pieces of the mirror were ripped out of their frame, flying to Shatterbird as she stomped off. One passed within an inch of Riley's face.
She tittered.
Then she realized she was alone with Jack.
Her boots were sticky with blood as she took a tentative step forward on a white tile. Jack answered by setting foot on a black one. He followed as she skipped to the other occupied station, neither of them breaking the pattern.
The woman had died long before the others, a half-finished outline on her arm. Either Cherish had wanted to make a dramatic entrance, or the staff had needed some convincing to drop what they were doing and prioritize the 'we accept walk-ins' policy advertised with a neon sign on the door.
Riley gave the body a cursory inspection, then moved to check the tools and supplies laid out on the cart.
How far was Jack willing to play along?
"This is nice stuff," she said, lifting one of the machines with her free hand. "Can I keep it? Pleeease!"
Siberian looked at her from the front desk, and Riley made sure to give her a good view of the tool. Even if Jack said no, Siberian might steal it for her behind his back.
"Only if you can fit it in your pocket," Jack said. "We're not here to loot."
In the waiting area, Burnscar sheepishly dropped the pile of clothes and junk she'd liberated from the display.
Riley placed the machine in her coat's pocket, and tried not to think too much about whether Jack's permission was a good or a bad thing. He stood beside her, watching as she selected a few more bits and pieces.
Then, he let go of her hand.
He leaned against the wall, retrieving a handkerchief, and everything about the casualness of the move screamed danger.
"Maybe I've been reading this whole thing wrong," he said, eyes on his knife as he meticulously cleaned the blood and ink from it. "Maybe she just changed her mind about being part of our family."
Riley froze.
Less than a second.
More than an eternity.
Long enough for him to get his answer.
"What do you think?" he asked, meeting her eyes with an expression she forced herself not to decipher. "What would she do next?"
She grasped at internal controls, mechanically regulating her breathing so she could talk.
Even with breath, she found no words.
It'll be over soon, she reminded herself. It has to be.
The resolve gave her clarity.
Jack wasn't invincible. She'd read the report of his defeat. Her therapist had pulled strings and insisted it was important for her to see.
Not invincible. Just tricky.
"I guess we'll find out soon enough," she answered.
He smiled.
"I guess we will."
She smiled too, acutely aware of every single muscle holding her mask in place.
An electronic chime sounded behind her as the front door opened, but she couldn't look without turning away from Jack.
He looked over her head, a hint of concern crossing his features. Then, his eyes settled back on her.
He stood straight, putting away the stained handkerchief without breaking eye contact, and walked forward.
Black tiles, again.
She stepped on the white ones as she followed him to the front of the shop.
Mannequin and a sulking Shatterbird were already outside, and Burnscar was holding the door open to let Murder Rat step through.
Riley nearly melted with relief when Siberian's hand found her shoulder, shielding her as they walked outside with Jack in tow.
Crawler, one third of his body now in the parking lot, was demonstrating impressive flexibility as he attempted to extricate the rest of himself from the RV without bursting it open.
The strip mall had been evacuated by the police, and half the spaces were vacant anyway, but some of the people driving on the adjacent road were starting to notice them. Riley could tell, because they slowed down enough to check what was going on, then hurried past the speed limit to get away.
She waved at them, because that's what Bonesaw would have done.
It was just enough of a distraction to keep her eyes away from the police officers lying on the ground.
Shatterbird and Burnscar were exchanging quiet words, but Riley couldn't hear them over the rasp of Crawler's armor plating against the metal.
Jack's attention was split between tracking Crawler's progress and scanning their surroundings.
Poison gas or an airborne pathogen would be the best way to take him out, as he was too close to avoid or outrun them once they were released. It was hard to gauge the nature and potency of the experimental samples in her pocket without examining them, but if she smashed two or three test tubes at the same time, one of them was bound to do the job. Shatterbird would feel the movement and might warn the others, but she couldn't do anything else as long as the glass was under Siberian's protection with Riley.
Even if she was killed right away, most of the Nine would die over the next hours or minutes.
And then it would spread, along with all the plagues contained within her body.
How many people were in the area?
She'd lost track of her body count a long time ago, and couldn't even tell for sure how many digits the number had. It wouldn't make a big difference.
It was still big enough to bother her.
Her hopes for a fresh start after Gold Morning had been quickly dashed, but the principle of the amnesty was that what you did now mattered more than what you'd done before.
The number wouldn't go down no matter what, but the certitude – the choice – that it wouldn't go up either had been an anchor in a world that made little sense otherwise. A reminder of who she was, and who she wanted to be.
The Nine didn't count, but the other casualties would.
At the same time, it was fewer people than they would have killed in the coming years. A lesser impact in the grand scheme of things, at the price of letting go of everything she'd worked for.
Did it matter, when she would most likely not be there to feel bad about it afterwards?
The ethics professor she'd been saddled with on a weekly basis hadn't done much to prepare her for this kind of dilemma.
Her eyes fell on one of the bodies on the ground. Siberian was rubbing circles on her shoulder, with a gentleness miles away from the violence with which she had ripped the man apart.
No plagues, Riley decided. She wouldn't let that number go up as long as she was alive.
She disabled the mechanism that would have released an explosive cocktail upon her death. She'd made an off-switch, because–
Because she'd considered the possibility of Jack being the one to kill her, and had told herself he would have a good reason, and he hated plagues, and–
Siberian squeezed her shoulder, a concerned look on her face.
Riley consciously released the tension in her body, and found it replaced with the restless urge to crack all of her joints. She shifted position, inviting Siberian to lift her up to sit on her shoulders.
Just like old times.
With one last shriek, the RV spilled out the rest of Crawler, suffering surprisingly little damage in the process. Riley ordered the spider boxes to come out.
"Crawler? What's the meaning of this?" Jack asked.
Crawler took his time, popping joints back the way they were supposed to be and stretching each limb before he answered.
"She's close. Less than a mile."
At once, two things became evident.
First, that Riley had been wrong about Cherish's intentions. No point in waiting this long to alert the rest of the Nine, and it certainly looked like she wanted to see how things would unfold before stepping in one way or the other.
Second, that Cherish was dumb. She'd been warned before her tests that joining the Nine was a lifelong commitment, in the sense that they would make sure her life didn't outlast the commitment by much. She could track their location, and should have been able to infer that they were about to fulfill that promise, but she trusted her power so much that she didn't question the inaccurate picture painted by the safeguards. She'd never even considered the possibility that they could fool her power until the plan was revealed.
That was useful, at least.
"Where?" Jack asked.
One of Crawler's tentacles gestured vaguely to the road they'd arrived from, giving no real indication of distance or location.
"Thank you," Jack said dryly.
"Could be an ambush, if she was waiting for us to come here," Shatterbird said.
Crawler shook his head, and everyone reflexively stepped back as a few droplets of acid flew with the movement.
"She left, and followed us from a distance."
In her peripheral vision, Riley saw Jack frown and look at her. She pretended not to notice.
"That makes it more likely to be some kind of trap."
"Bonesaw," Jack said. "Turn on the protections. It wouldn't do for us to be caught off-guard."
She hesitated.
Jack had hoped for a dramatic reveal where Cherish would think her plan was a success, only for the rest of the Nine to free themselves from her influence. She'd provided the means and centralized the controls, because you couldn't have a dramatic reveal without impeccable timing.
The safeguards were only noticeable when they were actively blocking something. If she lied…
If she lied, Jack would know right away. Not something she could get away with.
She flipped the switch, rendering everyone immune to Cherish's power.
"Done."
As soon as Jack looked away, she reached for her own safeguards, turning off the artificial neural system serving as a smokescreen over the emotions directed at Cherish.
Your power is feeding you bad info, and everyone is immune. We're two minutes away from hunting you down. Help me, and I'll help you.
"If she has the audacity to attack us, I fully reserve the right to sand off every layer of her skin one by one," Shatterbird said, sounding like she really hoped Cherish would have the audacity.
Mannequin lifted one fist, then brought it down on his other hand, index and middle finger extended.
Crawler raised his head to inhale, turning it left, then right, then left again until he found what he was searching for.
"She's moving."
Jack's eyes went back to Riley, expression unreadable.
"I guess she can feel the difference," she lied.
Burnscar, standing behind Shatterbird, looked almost worried. She was having one of those days where she was fine in the quiet moments, but would dread using her power until she was coaxed into the right mindset. She'd put out her flames when they left the hideout, and Jack had been too focused on Riley to manage her since.
"She's coming after us?" she asked in a small voice.
Yes, Riley thought.
"No," Crawler said. "Going that way."
This time, he used one of his hands to point with more clarity.
Siberian tensed as she saw the direction, and Riley's heart dropped.
Manton.
Cherish was going after Manton.
Of course, Cherish would go after Manton, if he was close enough. Mastering him before they found her was the easiest way she could secure protection against almost anything they could dish out.
The cold that spread beneath Riley's skin didn't lend itself to shivers. It was the negative space of warmth being stolen away.
No one else seemed to notice Siberian's reaction, and they lacked the necessary context to understand it if they did.
Shatterbird took to the air.
One spider box climbed up and folded its legs around Riley like a backpack. The others joined Jack, Mannequin, Burnscar and Murder Rat to hitch a ride with Crawler. Jack, she noticed, had positioned himself to keep both Murder Rat and the spider boxes in sight, with enough distance to strike them down if they attacked.
"Lead the way," he told Crawler.
Siberian dashed out of the parking lot and into the street before Crawler had even moved, but her silent and steady footsteps were soon joined by his blustering run.
There was something exhilarating about moving at high speed without even air resistance in the way. It made it so tempting to tell Siberian to keep going and never stop.
The traffic had trickled down to almost nothing, which suggested that word had spread about their presence. The sirens sounding in the distance reinforced the idea. The town was small enough that it might not have much in the way of parahumans, but she couldn't discount external reinforcements.
If heroes showed up…
Her priorities would still be the same. The only difference was the number of people who would be trying to kill her. If nothing else, a fight might provide distractions and opportunities.
Crawler was making headway, but hadn't caught up with Siberian yet, and had to yell for her to make a turn.
Had she been headed for Manton? Did it mean that he was far enough from Cherish to be safe? It was hard to focus, when she couldn't help but imagine herself falling to the ground as Siberian vanished, her affection stolen by Cherish.
Nothing she could do about it, she told herself, and Jack remained the priority.
With her back to the rest of the Nine, Riley retrieved the tattoo machine from her pocket, careful not to shift her posture enough to give away what she was doing. She took it apart in a matter of seconds, and set out to rearrange the components, adding the other pieces she'd stolen.
If she successfully disabled Jack's power, she might be able to convince Siberian to turn against the others and run away with her.
The "if" was pretty big, but it was her best chance. Running away while the group was already in hunting mode was a terrible idea, and would only lead them to find out about Manton. Better to take out as many as possible, starting with Jack.
By the time Crawler caught up with Siberian, the modified machine lay hidden on Riley's lap, under a flap of her coat. She couldn't touch the jar of prions without alerting Shatterbird that shenanigans were afoot, but loading it would take only a second.
The machine looked like someone had taken a laser pistol from one of those old timey sci-fi shows Burnscar liked, took a hammer to it, added some random garbage, and instructed someone to reconstruct it from memory under a minute.
A less desperate person, such as the Riley of one day ago, four years in the future, would have rightly described it as embarrassingly crude junk.
Crawler took another turn as they reached the outskirts of town, where the forest on one side had been partially torn down to make room for new developments, then came to a halt.
A car had been abandoned next to one of the buildings under construction, door open and keys in the ignition.
"Hers," Crawler confirmed. "Less than a minute."
Riley relaxed a fraction. If Cherish had ditched her car, then she knew they would find her before she reached Manton.
Crawler turned to look at Shatterbird, who had fallen behind, then bent down to allow his passengers to dismount.
They gathered around the car while waiting for Shatterbird. Even while sitting on Siberian's shoulders, Riley had to look up at Mannequin, who stood a few inches taller. Burnscar was next to him, the flame in her hand matching the glow of her eyes. The ride had allowed Jack to push her enough to start using her power again.
Riley carefully avoided looking at him, and drew Murder Rat and the spider boxes closer to Siberian.
"Shatterbird," Jack called out as she joined them. "I believe you wanted to do the honors."
Shatterbird looked absurdly pleased to take the lead. She flew with regal poise, wreathed in glass, and Riley couldn't help but notice that some of it was bloody. She must have gathered it on the way.
They passed machinery and piles of materials as they went around the three story building, but no crew. A relief.
As they moved between the building and the forest, Riley was hit by a crashing wave of something too desperate for fear, but too hopeful for desperation. What it was didn't matter as much as the fact that it fell sharply on the other side of her safeguards.
She glanced around, but no one else seemed to notice.
Oh, now you want my help?
Hope.
It hit a wall, but found an echo on the other side. Riley wasn't about to discard an ally out of pettiness. Without any movement betraying her actions, she slammed off everyone else's protections.
Now. They're unprotected.
Nothing happened.
Use your power.
Nothing.
What was Cherish waiting for?
Riley found the answer as she turned her head a fraction. Jack had fallen behind, standing a distance away at what she could only assume was the outer edge of Cherish's range. A line he wouldn't cross.
Don't wait for him. Do it now, or it's over.
He met her eyes.
Now!
Shatterbird screeched with unbridled fury as she turned to face the rest of the Nine.
Jack swung his knife at her without hesitation, but a wall of glass blocked the attack.
"Get Murder Rat," Riley urged Siberian as spider boxes climbed on them for protection. Their components were insulated against Shatterbird's power, but not against the incoming storm of glass.
Some of them were too far to make it, and took cover instead.
Shatterbird didn't have enough buildup to reach the whole city, but the freshly installed windows of the building began to sing in response.
Fire erupted around Burnscar, wide enough to engulf Mannequin, and bright enough that Riley had to look away.
Then, the glass exploded.
Shatterbird's song was a spectacle they usually enjoyed from the balcony rather than the parterre, but the sound remained the same.
Deafening.
Riley reflexively squeezed her eyes shut as the tide of glass fell upon them, even though Siberian's protection rendered it as harmless as a light drizzle.
She opened them wide as she felt Siberian step forward, eager to join the brawl.
"Don't," Riley told her before looking over her shoulder.
Jack had taken cover, but she could see his footprints in the mud.
She filled her machine with the prions, and drew a sigh of relief when it fired without trouble. The stream of powder spread in the air like a drop of milk in a glass of water, clouding the whole area around Jack.
His power would stop working within seconds.
Convincing Siberian to attack him would be too risky, she decided. Instead, she sent a few spider boxes.
A blazing inferno had spread inside the building, with Burnscar's silhouette visible behind one of the broken windows.
The fire she'd left behind was still roaring around Mannequin, who glowed a bright orange.
No, that wasn't right. The molten glass around him was glowing. The combined efforts of Shatterbird and Burnscar had encased him to the point that he couldn't even move.
Cherish might have had a bit of a grudge there.
Crawler looked at the fight with uncharacteristic confusion, cocking his head like a dog and barely paying attention to the glass Shatterbird was pelting at him.
Cherish had mentioned before that he and Mannequin showed little emotion, to the point that she had trouble keeping tabs on them from a distance. She'd tried the offensive part of her power on him, at his request, to very little effect. Maybe her power was working at peak efficiency right now, or maybe something low-key like confusion gave better results than one of the more extreme emotions he wouldn't feel otherwise.
Siberian cranked her neck to send Riley a pleading look.
"Not yet," Riley answered.
Once Jack was out, they could deal with the others. Once his power–
The connection to one of the spider boxes abruptly vanished from her awareness.
Followed by another.
No.
Another.
She couldn't see Jack, but knew he was cutting them down before they reached him.
His power was still active.
No.
Why hadn't it worked?
Her heartbeat pounded in her throat, so loud she couldn't hear anything else.
"We need to go," she told Siberian.
Cherish had already offered the perfect excuse to convince her.
"Your other self is in danger."
Siberian bolted.