Little Hunter
Trent Bragg was not a hard man to find.
With his typical stalking grounds located, Nanku only needed three nights to track him down through Dusk and Dawn's eyes. The man cruised bars, going from place to place. Mostly on foot.
Nanku spent a few days simply following him. Looking at where he went. Who he met.
There was little consistency aside from the general area. Trent Bragg didn't seem to have any friends. He was friendly with lots of people but just that. The man cruised haphazardly from bar to bar, picking up money doing odd jobs one or the other.
Mostly bouncing and bartending.
Waiting across the street and out of sight on a fire escape, Nanku relied on her swarm to track his movements. She'd planted two black widows on his coat. Dusk and Dawn covered the flanks just in case and she kept a constant vigil on her back.
From her angle she could see fairly far. Relying on her swarm wouldn't work if the range had been discovered. Maybe her watchers didn't know the source but they'd figured she had some awareness of her surroundings and it generally reached out to a block.
She was in the southwest of the city, far from previous areas she'd run through. Hopefully, that kept anyone who wanted a fight off her back. If not, maybe she'd learn something useful.
It made Trent Bragg the obvious first target.
James Fliescher would take more time. His identity as Krieg was exposed. He never joined the Pure. Finding the man would be hard…
Especially since Nanku had killed most of the people who might know how to find him.
Not that Nanku would ever call it a mistake.
Inside the bar, Trent Bragg was managing rowdy patrons. The club was a bit dirtier than the others. A stage was the primary attraction and drunk men mostly sat around getting more drunk and watching women take their clothes off.
It was a very tiresome stakeout.
If only the man frequented the same locations more consistently. His patterns were so random. It made finding a good quiet place to drag him off for a chat difficult.
In the bar, Trent Bragg dragged one man to a side door and threw him out with the help of two others. The man—boy? He seemed young—had gotten 'handsy.' Apparently, that was against the rules.
Nanku presumed any man who had to go to such a place to touch a woman had failed in other regards.
What did that say about Trent Bragg? If anything.
When he finally left, Nanku followed. The man drank casually as he walked. A new set of strangers joined him. The men who helped him throw the other man out.
Nanku could only hear bits of the conversation but they clearly weren't close.
What a strange way to live.
Trent Bragg's next destination was another bar. He got work again, this time serving as a bouncer. He was physically imposing to his credit. Tall and broad-shouldered. Others were clearly intimidated by his presence at the club door.
It was a larger location than the last and lacked the stripping women. The main attraction was alcohol, drugs, and bands playing obnoxiously shaking music.
Actually searching the interior was hard. Earth insects were sensitive to vibrations. The music was violently shaking inside the club. Every insect Nanku sent became disoriented. Not quite confused, but partially blinded in their senses.
The task took four times as long as it should.
Not that Trent ever moved away from the front door for most of it. He stayed outside, but watching him and searching for an opportunity was boring work.
The club was weird. Not just because it was dark with beams of light dimly filling the room. That was a typical club and bar, apparently.
Aside from the spacious interior—which had three stories with an open center all overlooking the main stage—there was a whole back area that consisted of more than half the building. Even discounting the kitchen and storeroom where the alcohol came from.
Many of the rooms on the upper floors were empty or filled with boxes. One was an obnoxiously large bedroom with two beds and a single occupant. One floor, oddly, was sealed tight. Or at least so tight Nanku couldn't get any bugs into it.
The area was sealed.
Nanku had seen a lot of clubs.
Many. Clubs.
Many. Many. Clubs.
None of the others had that.
Nanku sent Dusk around the back but that revealed nothing. All the exterior facing windows were covered, and they had security cameras watching the rear approaches.
Palanquin was the name over the door.
The letters gave Nanku a bad feeling.
He stuck around there for a few hours, went in, and drank and few hours more.
Nanku took a breath and prepared herself to leave. Getting anywhere safe with Dusk and Dawn in daylight was too risky. She couldn't follow the man all over town when he slept all day and still never put himself anywhere she could—
When he did leave the Palenquin as Nanku prepared to go, he went back the way he'd come.
That was the way Nanku needed to go.
She might as well.
Nanku pulled Dusk and Dawn away and followed Trent two blocks north. They weren't near his apartment. He pulled out his phone a few times and checked it but Nanku couldn't see the screen.
Where was he going?
He went to an apartment building not his own. Rode an elevator to a floor not his own. Went to a door not his own.
A woman met him. They chatted a bit at the door and she let him inside.
Then the clothes started going off.
Nanku sighed.
There were things she just wasn't interested in seeing, but she saw them anyway.
She did her best to distract herself.
The apartment might finally be her chance. There was a balcony so she could get inside quickly and out just as quickly. There was only the woman to worry about as a witness.
Maybe Nanku would get lucky and Trent was good enough in the act to leave her asleep. It took some time. The sun would rise soon.
Well, Nanku could just hide in the apartment.
Eventually, her chance came.
Nanku got Dusk to help her cross the road. The Twins landed on the balcony and hurried over the lip to avoid being seen. Nanku scaled the building under the cover of her cloak and dropped between them.
Neither of her targets were moving.
The balcony door wasn't locked. It was four stories up. Why would the resident bother? Foolish, but usefully so.
Dusk and Dawn went in first, skittering into the apartment amid a small swarm. Nanku checked the front door and ensured it was locked. The other doors led only to bathrooms, bedrooms, an office, and closets. To be sure she'd have the time, Nanku dragged a chair over and braced it against the door.
That seemed too feeble, even if everyone did it on television.
She lifted the fridge and set it down behind the door instead. Her strength made it easy enough to do.
Front door secure. Dusk and Dawn are in the living room.
Nanku drew some line from her gauntlet and slipped into the room.
The woman was in the bathroom, but she wasn't paying any attention in the shower. Nanku grabbed a garment from the ground. She prepared her line and was quick to storm the bathroom. The woman didn't manage a scream before she was gagged and Nanku used her line to bind her wrists and ankles. Once she was secure, Nanku turned off the water and threw a towel over her.
"Be silent or die."
The latter wouldn't happen. She was unarmed.
But if thinking differently kept her quiet for a time, good. The gag probably wouldn't last the whole day.
Nanku grabbed Trent Bragg by the neck and wrenched him from the bed. He woke with a start. One elbow shot back and Nanku met it with her own. His bone bounced and she punched him in the shoulder.
"Be still," Nanku snarled. "And speak only when spoken to."
"Wha—"
She punched him again. Hard.
Nanku dragged him into the living room. Dusk and Dawn flanked him. They hissed and fluttered their wings. Bore their teeth and presented themselves with threat displays. Trent was disoriented from his lazy reaction.
His body hit the couch and Nanku sat on the short table. She found the remote and turned the TV on. The noise would be a decent distraction, especially when she found some horror movie channel. Plenty of screams and weird noises.
And no reality TV.
Trent Bragg strained while she bound him to the couch.
"What are—"
She punched him again.
"Be still," Nanku repeated, "and speak only when spoken to."
Nanku drew the curtain over the window shut and swept the building. She had full coverage. Every room, stair, and doorway. The sun was starting to rise. She wouldn't be leaving until morning. For safety, she began gathering small swarms in dark places. Empty rooms. Utility closets. The elevator shafts.
If anything happened, she'd be prepared.
Nanku returned to sitting on the table and deactivated her cloak.
She watched the man quietly.
He watched her back. When he wasn't watching Dusk or Dawn on either side of him. The two bugs snapped and clacked their jaws and talons to keep him constantly aware of their presence. Frazzled, but not so frazzled he became numb or incoherent.
Nanku needed the man startled but cognizant.
From her belt, she produced a piece of paper she'd printed.
Nanku set between the man's legs a mere inch from his crotch. With a knife to pin it in place.
Trent Bragg looked down.
Murder of Daniel Hebert, Still Unsolved
The man blinked.
"D—Danny?" He raised his head and shivered at the sight of the tall and fierce figure sitting before him. "This is about Danny?"
Nanku pointed at the paper and nodded.
"Five minutes," she said. "Tell me, and you live."
The man blinked at her, but his wariness faded.
Instead, he turned angry.
"The fuck is with everyone thinking I did it?!" he asked, incredulous. "Seriously! Lacy. The cops. His damn wife!"
Nanku stilled.
"I didn't kill him! Jesus come on! It's been twelve years why are you guys still on me about this?! What are you some kind of Shadow Stalker fan? I fucking told the rest of them! All I did was mess with my fucking timecard! It was stupid okay! I get it it's stealing but Danny let me keep the money and he let me quit instead of firing me! I had nothing against him Jesus fuck! I didn't fucking kill him! I don't know who killed Danny! It just wasn't m—"
Nanku grabbed his throat to silence him.
She leaned in, looking him in the eye with the lenses of her mask.
"His wife?"
Annette glowered at the evidence.
The screen over their booth prevented anyone else from seeing the contents or overhearing their discussion. Not everyone who used the private booths was a cape, but they ended up working for a lot of people. Such things were commonplace even where capes weren't frequent patrons.
Which only meant they served the purposes of capes even better.
It had all been there. None of it was new, or even hidden. All of the pieces to find her way to the truth had been there when she started. The string of murders in Europe. The odd source of 'something' from Africa. The death of Max Anders' wife in Boston.
She could have figured it all out years ago.
Instead, she fell into the same hole that always fumbled thinkers. She tunnel-visioned. Focused too much on the most obvious or convoluted thing. The creatures themselves. The assumption that Nilbog must have been related to the massacre.
Annette got carried away, and look what came of it? Multiple dead, her daughter alive and missing for a decade, and the source of whatever had massacred the camp was still out there.
And worse…
"She's going to go after Krieg," Annette determined.
"Probably," Lisa agreed. "Not sure we should stop her, exactly. When it was in our backyard it was one thing but fuck the Nazis and fuck whatever the hell they unleashed. On this one, I'm half inclined to help her rather than play damage control after the fact."
But they never used it again. Not that Annette or Lisa could find. The camp was a one-time event, whereas the murders and strange incidents went back centuries. The Nazis might have brought the problem near Brockton Bay, but they didn't create it.
"Did you find anything about those cases I sent you?" Annette asked.
"No." Lisa gave her a worried look. "It's a bit crazy, Anne."
"I know."
"Not that I'm saying you're wrong, but is it something we want to get involved with?"
She was working up her courage to say something. Annette could sense it.
Lisa sighed. "Fine. I'll say it. She's lost to you."
About what Annette expected.
"I mean it, Anne. Maybe she doesn't hate you as much as she thinks. She's angry and bitter and basically a young adult pissed at mommy… But she went pretty out of her way to paint the city in a very Nazi shade of red to protect you, and Rose, so she doesn't hate you that much."
"I know."
But Taylor was still her daughter, and if she went after Krieg—who had all but ceased to exist as a cape in a public sense—she might never be safe.
Killing the Pure was one thing. That could be spun. They were Nazis anyway; others were more worried they'd be next than they really sympathized with the Nazis.
But if she killed Krieg by hunting him down in his secret identity then Nanku would truly have a target on her back.
No cape would hold back against someone who killed freely and showed no compunction about killing through secret identities.
"We need to settle this ourselves."
"It's worse." Lisa sighed and pushed another paper Annette's way. "She's onto your dirty little secret, Anne. And yes. I know. Of course, I fucking know."
Annette paled and grabbed the paper. "She found Trent..."
"Yeah, and from him it's only a few more steps to the truth. You think killing capes and crooks is bad? Wait until she does whatever she's planning to do to her dad's killer. She's foggy to me because all her body language is off, but I get enough Anne. She's literally going to skin him alive."
Anne set the paper down and reached for her phone under the table.
Decisions made.
Lisa stiffened. "Anne."
"It's the only way."
"No. We go the nuclear option and we—"
"I won't fail her again, and we need to take control of this situation now."
Lisa groaned. "I reiterate that I hate this plan."
"It wraps everything up in a bow. If it works."
"If it works."
"It's also not something our actual enemy will see coming," Annette noted.
"No. No, I agree. Especially if her primary goal is to make me miserable. Like I can't do that myself."
Lisa looked away and Annette allowed herself to feel guilty for a moment.
It was for their own good, and if they hated her then they were alive to hate her.
With a few quick taps, Annette inhaled and sent the text message. It would relay through a few other numbers, all anonymous, and ultimately find its way to Hannah.
A simple tip.
Five words.
Hellhound is helping the hunter.