Little Hunter

Tony pointed both hands forward.

"Nah, look. It's like this. So, two Nazis walk into a bar."

"A bar joke?" Eric groaned and kept his gun pointed at the woman's head. "Serious—"

"Yes. Shut up. Okay. Two Nazis walk into a bar."

Eric started to talk again but Jim batted his shoulder and shook his head.

"Two Nazis, walk into a bar," Tony repeated for the third time. His smile grew big and wide. "They die."

Eric and Jim stared from their position by the wall safe.

Tony sat on the kitchen island, looking back and forth between them. Gun in his lap.

His big smile grew and he declared, "They die."

Eric and Jim kept staring.

The apartment was dark with the lights out, but their faces were plain enough in the dim light. They'd turned the lights out to keep anyone from merely seeing in through the windows. Nothing appeared out of place in the kitchen or the living room save the bag of tools. They'd come prepared to be in and out.

"Okay, see—"

"Bro," Eric interrupted. "If you have to explain it, it's not funny."

"No. No. See, a bar—"

"We know what a bar is," Jim said. "It's just not a funny joke."

Eric nodded. "And I like dead Nazis. Dead Nazis should be funny."

Jim pointed at him. "Dead Nazis should be funny."

Tony shook his head. "Dudes, a bar—"

"Browning Automatic Rifle," Eric and Jim said together.

Jim turned back to the safe and removed the rest of the contents. "We played Call of Duty in high school too."

"Yeah." Eric waved his gun in the air. "Video games make you violent, not stupid."

Jim hacked a laugh. "See? That's funny."

Tony shook his head. "Bitchin ass bitches."

Jim looked back from the safe. "Look. It's a pun, okay? The only people who think puns are funny are dads and losers on the internet."

Tony nodded and waved his gun. "Says the guy who spends all his free time on the internet."

"Oh, like you don't."

Eric turned his head and leaned around, looking toward the balcony. His brow rose but he didn't move from his seat.

"What's wrong with spending free time on the internet?" Tony asked. "Not all of us have fancy apartments with wall safes full of money."

"Why does this bitch have a fancy apartment with a wall safe full of money?" Jim asked.

Eric looked over the room past the kitchen. "Because some idiot on TV who sells safes told her thinkers are running the banks and stealing all the money so she should put hers somewhere safe."

Tony glowered. "Really?"

Jim nodded. "Yeah, man. Like those scam artists who used to tell people to buy gold, but they didn't really have any gold they just had a piece of paper saying they owned gold."

Eric squinted. "Because the economy goes to shit and a piece of paper saying you own gold is so useful."

"Anyone will buy anything these days," Tony mumbled.

Eric shrugged and looked away. "But not puns."

"I like puns," Tony said. "And I like the internet. It has porn on it."

"You would watch—"

A can clattered over the floor and all three men turned. Their eyes searched.

"The fuck was that?"

Tony and Eric raised their guns warily, while Jim brandished a power drill.

Weapons were tools, but not all tools were weapons.

Nanku let that one slide.

One gun struck the ground.

Eric screamed, his hand bent back and his fingers broken.

Tony panicked. His finger tensed, and the gun fired randomly through a window. He started, jumping back while Jim shouted and Eric kept screaming.

Jim saw the shimmer too late and could only begin to shout as an invisible hand grabbed Tony's arm and twisted it around. The bone audible cracked, and Tony joined Eric in screaming as his gun dropped.

Nanku stepped back, shuffling around behind the island and ducking while Jim pointed and snapped.

"Did you fucking see that?! Did you see that?!"

"No!" Tony replied.

"Fuck out of here!" Eric wailed.

"That's a fucking cape!" Jim said.

Coming around the island—just to be safe—Nanku pulled her knife and stabbed it into Eric's shoulder.

He screamed.

"Fuck out of here!"

They could run fast when they wanted to.

Nanku let them. Bugs tracked their movements as they ran out of the apartment and down the hall toward the stairs. Meanwhile, Nanku moved back toward the window she'd opened from the outside—terrible security was becoming a theme—and scaled her way back to the roof.

Dawn met her.

The insectoid's entire body roiled, shivering and twitching as she clapped her mandibles together.

"Patience," Nanku whispered. "Patience."

Dusk flew to the next building over and lingered around the edge of the room.

Nanku walked over and waited, looking down. The van was parked casually in the back alley. The would-be robbers were still working their way through the building, so Nanku stepped off the roof and let herself drop.

Her feet hit the ground hard, and the cloak shimmered from the impact.

It wrapped around her again by the time she'd climbed atop the van and stabbed her wrist blades into the roof to secure herself to the vehicle.

Three men burst out of the building's back door a moment later.

Nanku didn't think they were very good at the whole affair.

They tumbled over one another as they ran. Like frantic animals, but too stupid or lacking in instinct to herd properly. Eric hit the ground and wailed. Tony ran right for the driver's side door of their van but fumbled with his broken arm for the keys.

"You drive!" he snapped.

"What?" Jim asked.

"My arm's fucking broken!"

Jim got the keys from Tony's pocket with a start and opened the vehicle. Tony paid Eric little mind as he went around and climbed in. Jim got back out in the meantime, helped Eric up and, pulled him around the back.

Once all three were inside and the doors shut, the engine started and the trio peeled out of the alley and onto the street.

Nanku held firm as the vehicle lurched and accelerated. She'd planted bugs inside already and made sure each of the men had no less than three on them, including one black widow each. Of all the spiders available in Brockton Bay, they were the most poisonous. Not that they'd kill anyone quickly.

The panicking didn't stop once they were out on the road and driving. Jim pushed the pedal down all the way, racing down the street and taking a turn hard. Nanku braced herself, free hand and leg subtly hooking around the roof. None of them noticed her wrist blades stabbing through the roof, but the back of the van was dark and Eric wasn't looking.

Between the bugs and her own proximity, listening wasn't too hard despite the roar of the engine.

"—the fuck was that?"

"Stalker?"

"Stalker ain't invisible!"

"Maybe it was a Nazi? Huh, Tony? Ever think of that?"

"My arms fucking broken, and you want to—"

"Fuck your arm! That freak stabbed m—My hand!"

Nanku didn't really care one way or the other, but not killing these idiots felt about right.

They were too pathetic. She might as well hunt down and stab a kitten.

"What do we do?"

"Is she following us?"

"It's not fucking Stalker!"

"How do you know?!"

"We're on the wrong side of town dumb ass! Jim!"

"Wh—What?"

"Back, now!"

"But what about—"

"Now!"

Jim turned again and a horn blared as he cut off a small sedan.

"And slow the fuck down! Do you want the cops to pull us over! Fuck! My! Wrist!"

Nanku didn't mind the vehicle slowing down. It made the ride easier as Jim drove north and into an older industrial neighborhood. It looked a lot more like how Nanku remembered the city. Brick buildings. Warehouses. A fair amount of grit to everything.

There was even a car sitting on cinder blocks with its tires removed.

'Back' was a building at the end of a strip of small stores and fronts. Most of the parking consisted of potholes rather than cars. The van didn't take any of the available space. Jim directed the vehicle around behind the mall and parked.

"Okay," he mumbled between breaths. "Okay. We're here."

"Get me out then!" Eric snapped.

Nanku held herself still and watched quietly.

Dusk and Dawn flew overhead. Jim did glance up as they passed, but it was too dark to see anything. Eric shouted again, and he helped the man up. Tony got himself out of the van and half-ran shakily toward a door in the back of the building.

Nanku directed Dusk around, using his eyes to read the sign at the front.

'Smith and Sons Lockingsmithing TM.'

Locksmiths.

Moving a few bugs through the building, Nanku found several safe's exactly like the one Jim, Tony, and Eric were breaking into. The image of their game came together fast. They deserved some credit for cleverness, but the lying was rather rotten. Selling safes to people and then breaking into their homes and robbing them.

"If they weren't shameful"—Nanku withdrew the blades and stood—"they wouldn't be bad bloods."

The store itself was dark with a closed sign in the door. It was the basement where lights were on, and several angry voices rang.

There were six men, but two were the ones talking. One was Eric and the other a man with a deeper voice.

She waited a moment, but making out their words was harder through walls and with only a few bugs.

No matter.

She could wait.

Nanku scaled her way onto the roof of the building and sat.

Dusk and Dawn settled at her sides. it was a good chance for them to rest and they were far from the center of the city. Nanku didn't see any flying people in the sky. Even if one happened by, the area around the Locksmith was dark and more shadowed. She'd have time to hide if need be.

The shouting lasted awhile.

Something about 'cape, what cape.'

About what Nanku expected.

At one point, the man in charge started shouting at everyone. He pointed and spat and snarled.

"Out!" he screamed so loudly she could hear him outside. "Out!"

Someone said something, the man said something back. He waved a hand dismissively and ushered everyone away.

Jim came out first.

He jumped into the van, backed up, and drove away. Fortunately for him, Nanku didn't hunt cowards. There was no point in bullying the pathetic.

The other two men she'd been aware of—older and more fit—left with Tony and Eric in tow. Tony appeared untreated, but Eric had a shirt wrapped around him to cover the wound Nanku left in his shoulder.

"Think it's Stalker?" one asked the other.

"It wasn't Stalker!" Eric snapped.

"Stalker plays with her food."

"Stalker isn't invisible!"

"In the dark?"

The second man shook his head. "Idiots led her right here. She'd already be busting down our door shooting broadheads."

"Someone else?"

"Boss will deal with it. Cozen's business. He's the one who deals with her."

They kept saying that word. A name, Nanku guessed. Stalker.

She recalled.

Shadow Stalker.

Nanku did her research after her first error. She'd gone through as many capes as she could and memorized what was available. Shadow Stalker was a vigilante, a former Ward. Her reputation was violent, but there was little online about what she'd done since leaving the Wards.

Apparently, she'd been doing some hunting of her own.

Nanku wouldn't complain.

It might keep the PRT and the Protectorate off her back a bit, and that was something she could use.

Cozen too. The Red Hands. So these men were associated with her in some way. Nanku supposed she wasn't so lucky they'd lead her right to the woman, but Nanku didn't see much point in going after the Hands. They were thieves and crooks. Easy to find, very little triumph to hunt.

No. She needed them to show her something else.

"Let's get them in the car," the second man said. "Come on, you two."

"Brance isn't going to kill us, right?" Tony looked back and forth. He winced as he went along, arm hanging limp where Nanku broke the bone. "We're not getting fitted for any cement shoes or anything?"

"You watch too much TV kid."

"Or Internet."

"That too."

There was another car in the back. Tucked into an alcove between the stores in a parking space. Private Nanku guessed.

The two men helped Eric and Tony in and then got in themselves.

Nanku couldn't climb onto the car—it was too small even if they wouldn't hear her—so she took out another track and waited it for it to pass. She timed it right and dropped the device so it landed on the roof.

With that done, she let the men pass and sent the twins into the air.

She'd already tried this twice only for the men she injured to go running to a hospital. That wasn't right. Too many people. Too many doctors. It wasn't the place she'd find what she wanted.

Hopefully, stabbing Eric got her to her mark.

Nanku let them drive and made her way across the rooftops. The area was Captain's Hill, the one part of Brockton Bay that hadn't seemed to bounce back. Several capes operated in the area, and there was an ongoing turf war between the Pure and the rest of the city's villains.

She wouldn't mind tracking down the Pure. Many of their members had been around when her father died. They might know something.

That wasn't on the table for the moment.

Fortunately, her real target was.

When she caught up to the car, it was at a single-story building with a red cross on the sign in front of it.

Captain's Bend Free Clinic.

"Finally."

Nanku jumped down from a roof and crossed the parking lot.

She wasted no time in retrieving her tracker and searching the building. It appeared abandoned from the outside, but inside it was active. Three women and a man moved about rooms with beds and boxes of supplies. Tony and Eric were both in one room with the man looking them over. The two men who'd driven them stuck around, talking with one of the women.

Nanku checked for security. Cameras. Defenses. Traps. There were a few but nothing fancy.

Now, if only—

Abruptly, the man grabbed Tony's arm and shoved it upward.

With a scream, Tony fell back onto the bed, and the man pointed at Eric.

"… biotics and… up that… quickly."

The woman nodded and left.

"Not stalker," one of the drivers said.

"… not."

Nanku focused on Tony.

The lights were dim. Too dim.

She flew a fly onto the hand of his broken arm to check.

Tony recoiled and swung his arm out. There was a yelp, but his arm moved naturally.

The man had shoved the bone back into place.

"Mark," Nanku declared.

With her target found, she retreated and began looking at the surrounding buildings. She wanted somewhere she could camp and go unnoticed. For a few days if need be. Longer even.

The best bet was another building across the street. Fenced in with large open areas inside. A small warehouse, she guessed, but there was an office inside with a bathroom. It had a view of the 'clinic' and was close enough she could track the building with bugs.

That would do.

Nanku approached it quietly and forced her way in through a back door.

The spartan and undecorated building wasn't the Bakeman family home, but it would do.

Nanku held the door for Dusk and Dawn to scuttle inside and pulled it shut.

The two drivers left the clinic. Eric and Tony remained. One of the women was near Eric while he sat hunched over. It was hard to make out, but she was sure.

He was getting stitches. If Tony's arm being mended wasn't good enough, that confirmed it.

This was where the bad bloods—some of them, at least—came to lick their wounds.

Hunting was universal.

It never changed.

Every wounded animal had somewhere it went to ground.

Finding that was a good start.