"Thank God," Kate said as she removed the last piece of armor and rubbed the insides of her thighs where the cuisses continued to generate raw spots even through the leather and Kevlar filament underlayers. They were not the only sore spots that she had. Anyone who who had the opportunity to see Kate Kane in the nude would notice several sets of raw spots, and if they asked the owner of those spots if they were just as painful as they appeared that naked owner would quickly answer yes.
It didn't help that Kate had had a series of long nights wearing her new armor; a series of nights, all of which began with her thinking, maybe I'll wear the old armor tonight. But her guilty conscience would always weigh in and remind her that pain was temporary and her new suit would break in quicker the more she wore it.
A long series of long nights that began to blend together. She wasn't sleeping well, which didn't help. When she did sleep, her dreams were disturbed; a jumble of images and feelings that she failed to recall clearly afterward. It wasn't nightmares she was having, far from it on some nights - those nights when the erotic heat built up in her before exploding with such force that she awoke amid a massive orgasm. On other nights the small pieces of images she could recall were more mundane. Those mornings when she could recall nothing at all she would still retain a sense of calm; a tranquility that had nothing to do with slumber, nothing to do with anything specific. A month had passed, as far as she could remember since it started. A bullet had ricocheted off the side of her cowl the day before the dreams began and she thought that the strange dreams might have been a symptom of something serious, but the MR spectroscopic scan that Luke had run hadn't shown any sign of concussion.
"Hold real still, and let me see if I can locate your brain," he had said at the time in his deadpan version of humor.
"Locate this," she had replied, the middle finger of her left hand on prominent display just before her body was swallowed up by the large machine.
She still didn't know what to make of it, but in all fairness, she hadn't really tried. Her schedule didn't have a whole lot of free time to contemplate the nature of the human brain, and the role that dreams played. There had been several instances across the span of years when everyone had thought Beth was dead that Kate experienced dreams that she thought were messages from the beyond. They were all variations on a theme: Beth and Kate sitting in their childhood bedroom, talking about something stupid when Kate would suddenly realize that she was dreaming, and that her dead sister was really with her - visiting her from the other side of whatever separated here from there. Kate would invariably burst into tears in her not-dream and tell Beth how much she missed her, and how much she loved her. Beth would reply that she loved Kate and that she missed her too. Their time together, once Kate and Beth had pierced the veil of the dream, was always short; and Kate would invariably wake up crying.
"It's called lucid dreaming," Sophie had said the first time Kate had described it to her.
"I've never heard of it. And it wasn't a dream. It was a message. She was reaching out to me. I fucking know it."
"Whatever," Sophie had replied, which hurt Kate more than she had been willing to admit. Sophie had never been very religious, Kate had known that. But Sophie knew that Kate's faith meant a lot to her, and if their positions had been reversed Kate would have been more supportive of her girlfriend.
But it wasn't a message from the beyond because Beth was still very much alive even though they did not know it at the time. Still alive, but still reaching out. It had been years since she had had one of those dreams when they had found out Beth was alive; alive but very much changed. Broken. Perverted. Corrupted. She hadn't been reaching out from death. She had been reaching out from Hell. The Hell that had been her life before that life consumed her completely. She had been asking for help in those not-dreams, and Kate had just blubbered about how much she missed her.
"It's not your fault," her father would remind her on those occasions when Kate would blame herself, "you were still young, and they were just dreams. There isn't anything you could have done."
"They weren't just dreams. She was my sister, and I just left her there to die."
Which, of course, was bullshit. Because Beth had not died. She had been through something that Kate would not wish on anyone, but she was alive, and clawing her way back to something approaching a normal life. Whatever else had happened, Beth was alive. Alive and mostly fixed if what Julia said could be believed.
Kate still didn't know what to make of him. She knew his name, his first name at least. She knew that he was a quarter century older than Beth (or Kate), even though he looked a hell of a lot younger. And she knew that he could do some pretty amazing shit. But she didn't know anything that was of any use in tracking down his history even though she (and her father) had put the entire weight of Kane Industries' more clandestine assets behind the effort.
"It's Norse, it means eternal ruler," her father had said, "it's not that common a name, but it's not so uncommon that it's any use tracking him down."
"Eternal ruler," Kate had answered, "That ties in with one of his abilities. He keeps his mutt from aging, and it sounds like he does that for himself too. Maybe it's an Alias?"
"Maybe, in which case we have no way to look into him."
"Beth said five thousand people showed up in a small village in Mexico once to be healed by him. Maybe somebody there knows."
Kate had to wait through several seconds of silence before her father's voice reappeared through the speaker of her phone.
"Maybe, but I guarantee if you go asking they'll clam up. It's like asking them where their buried treasure is."
Whatever else he was, he was an answer to Kate's prayers.
Merciful God, we pray to you for the recovery of Elizabeth Kane. We join our prayers with all who love her. May the Holy One, the fount of blessings, shower abundant mercies upon her, fulfilling her dreams of healing, strengthening her with the power of life. We praise You, Eternal God, the Source of healing and health.
She had recited that prayer more times than she could count. Kate was not sure whether God had brought Beth and Aric together. She wasn't sure that it was in answer to her prayers. But she wasn't taking any chances.
It took Kate about twenty minutes to clean her armor and place the liner in the wash. Her own shower was brief, and her short hair was only slightly damp when she lay her head back on the pillow, closed her eyes, and opened her lips.
"Baruch atah, Adonai, rofei hacholim..."
Trish kept her eyes on her target, sparing the briefest of glances at the asphalt below her that was approaching at a rate of speed a bit more than she would have liked, but was well within her margin of error. The hand grapples in her right glove, which most people mistook for claws, kept her rate of descent steady as they left indelible lines in the brick-and-mortar exterior of the building she had just stepped from. She switched from hand to foot grapples just before that hand came up to a window, repeating an exchange she had performed once already.
The alley was wide enough for delivery vehicles, even lined on one side with dumpsters, but Trish and the escaping man were the only things showing any sign of life. No one made deliveries at that late hour, and neither the man nor his amigo had been making one either. They had, in fact, been in the process of making a withdrawal, though an illegal one. And it had been one of those aforementioned dumpsters, either accidentally or intentionally, that had saved the man from death or serious injury. He hadn't gotten off completely unscathed however if the way he was running - more hobble than run - was any indication. Even Trish wouldn't have risked a jump that high but, equipped as she was now, she wouldn't have needed to. Anything taller and she would have shot a spike tether into the wall and rappelled down. But three stories was on the verge and Trish wanted to save the micropully and motor assembly built into her harness the wear and tear.
And he's not breaking any speed records, Trish Walker thought to herself as the limping man made it far enough to take a left and disappear from Trish's view. She knew that the man had chosen poorly and unless he found an unlocked door he was in a blind alley, and given his injuries there was no way he was climbing back out again.
Trish's feet finally found the filthy asphalt surface and she began to cover the ground that her prey had crossed a moment earlier. She stopped when she reached the corner of the alley before taking a peek around the corner and watching as the man checked all the doors he passed.
Wow, who'd have thunk it, Trish thought, all the doors are locked at midnight. Dumbass.
He was facing away from her as she stepped into the alley, his head tilting upwards at the fire escape that he might have been able to reach if he had been uninjured, and if he'd had time to find something to stand on. Trish walked slowly as the sharp points on the fingertips of her left glove dragged noisily across the surface of a green metal dumpster that was positioned almost as if it had been guarding the entrance to the alley. The man's head whipped around at the high-pitched sound, and his eyes and Trish's would have locked if hers had not been obscured by opaque lenses that were part of the FLIR system that allowed her to see through some walls and surfaces. His breathing, which was already uneven, became so rapid at the sight of the woman in the goldenrod (it's not yellow, goddammit, how many fucking times do I have to tell you) ballistic hyper mesh form-fitting suit that Trish thought he was about to have a massive coronary.
She knew from the file Kyle had given her that he was about sixty though, like many Asians, he looked much younger. She also knew that his name was Qingling but that in the States he went by Henry. The only reason she was being cautious was that Henry's partner Hui, who apparently had been perfectly happy to forego an American first name, had thrown shots when Trish had appeared almost as if by magic on the inside of the illegal overseas police station that the pair had set up in Chinatown courtesy of the PRC's Ministry for Public Security. He had emptied the first magazine of his QSZ-92 in Trish's direction as he moved backward towards the only door left available to him, the door that let him out onto Henry Street just under a red awning that still advertised a hair salon long since defunct. Henry had not waited to see the outcome of his partner's efforts and was already headed for the parking garage next door when the slide on Hui's pistol locked back. Trish had simply waited the four or five seconds it took for that to happen before hurling a large glass ashtray like she was throwing a Frisbee at the man as he fumbled for his spare magazine. It took her less than two seconds to close the gap between them while the man put both his hands up to his now bleeding forehead. A rising knee to his chin ended his struggles.
"I'll be right back," Trish called to the two men who were locked inside wire mesh cages as she exited onto Henry Street. Even without enhanced hearing, she would have had no trouble identifying the escape route the man had taken, owing mostly to the number of things he was tripping over or running into as he navigated the dark interior of the structure that was under heavy renovations. His path took him up just high enough for him to step onto the roof of the three-story building next door only to step off of it again as Trish emerged from the parking garage at almost the same spot he had. Trish watched as he took one backward glance at her before disappearing from view as gravity did its thing.
Holy shit, she thought as she stood stunned for a fraction of a second.
But her hearing was sensitive enough to detect that he had chosen well; his landing cushioned by an open dumpster filled to overflowing with black garbage bags that could only have come from the nearby church.
"Nowhere to run, Henry," Trish said in the comparative silence once the defaced green metal container was behind her, "I'm giving you credit for not shooting at me. Play nice. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to hurt you. Lǐjiě?"
She wasn't sure what surprised him more, her offer of mercy, or her speaking one of the few words in Mandarin that she knew.
"Lǐjiě," he replied, his head nodded rapidly before sitting down heavily.
"How many does that make?" Beth asked as Trish stuffed the liner of her suit, mixed with the rest of her laundry, into the washing machine with one hand while taking a sip of her drink with the other.
"For me? Three. For the city of New York? No idea. Nobody's saying. So figure that the number is high enough that it would be a major embarrassment if people found out."
"Yeah, a foreign government running secret police stations and kidnapping dissidents off the streets of New York makes for bad press."
Trish set her drink on the floor, closed the door of the washing machine, picked up her drink again, and started the automatic cycle. She had the laundry room to herself at that time of the night, but she still kept her voice down.
"That it does."
They were a team: Beth, Trish, and Julia; mostly, but not always. Not on nights like tonight when Trish would work on something special at Kyle's request. Other nights, when Beth and Julia had their own private gig for Bruce, Trish would take the opportunity to relax just like Beth was doing now as she and Julia sat and watched The Expanse. Julia had turned the sound down a bit, but they had watched this episode from season 5 enough times that Beth knew the dialogue by heart.
"I wrote this little… I don't know… poem… kind of took it on as a… prayer," said the woman on the screen.
"How'd it go?" the man on the screen asked.
"I have killed, but I'm not a killer. Because a killer is a monster, and monsters aren't afraid," the woman said before pausing, "I'm afraid all the time. Of the things that I did… how right it felt when I was doing them… how certain I was."
I have killed, but I'm not a killer, Beth repeated to herself, a prayer that had become her own almost from the first time she had heard it, as her mind drifted backward before it reconnected to the here and now.
"How are the two guys from the cages?" Beth asked her partner.
"They're fine. But I'm glad that I left them in those cages, they were ready to kill that other guy."
I would have let them, Beth thought for a fraction of a second before her mind made that subtle shift that she associated with Aric's mental repair job, would have, back in the bad old days. But not anymore.
The silence before Beth answered lasted only a second, but Trish had become attuned to pauses of that sort where it came to Beth, and she knew...if not the specific reason..at least the mis en scene.
"Gotta wonder how many guys like that didn't have a yellow guardian angel looking out for them," Beth said finally.
"It's not...what's the fucking point."
Beth smiled as her efforts to push one of Trish's particular buttons bore fruit.
"I can ask my father if he knows anybody at Justice if you have any interest in being read in."
Trish was well aware that Beth's relationship with her father was strained, and she knew how big a deal it was that Beth made the offer.
"It was just a thing for Kyle. Someone called in a favor. Now that I think about it, it should have been Kyle doing the leg work. He was the one that owed somebody a solid."
"When was the last time you think Kyle Richmond did anything for himself?" Beth asked.
The two women shared a laugh before moving on to other topics.