2

On the colder nights, whether there was rain or snow falling outside, my father would prop his leg up on a cushion, and pad his lower leg with hot water bottles. He didn’t say a word about how much his leg bothered him, it just wasn’t his way. But it was the only evidence I really had of his military service; even his medals were mostly kept locked up in his safe.

I’ve often wondered what he thought about me taking up marksmanship. Ryan and our mother had always made their feelings clear, even if it was just through silence. Yet my father was the one who’d bought me my Smith and Wesson for my eighteenth birthday, on the summer before I’d gone up to study at Doldrum. It was for some competition or another. Really, I don’t remember anything about it now.

I remember thinking, even as I stepped into the subway station with my brother, that I really should give him and Mom another call. You know how it is with these things. You put it off till tomorrow, then tomorrow turns into next week, and next week turns into Christmas, and then you’re staring across a gap you have no idea how to bridge anymore.

I’ll do it tonight, I told myself. Better late than never.

Ryan’s stupid little Lexus ripoff of a vehicle was still under repairs, so we’d had to take the subway for this trip. I yawned. It was already past noon, and the sun was setting into a bright, drowsy sort of afternoon, perfect for a siesta. Even the businessmen heading back to Greenpark after their lunch looked half-asleep, and I’m pretty sure you could rip those guys open and find silicon chips and circuits.

The train rolled in with an ear-splitting screech. Everyone lying back on the bench jumped at the sound, and started frantically stuffing themselves through the entrance.

My brother slipped through and pulled us in right at the last second. The doors closed with a ting and we were off. Ryan slipped a file out of his backpack and handed it to me. The same one I’d seen him reading earlier about the Eye of Eternal Freedom.

I didn’t want to take it. Frankly, I didn’t want to talk to him at all. Sure, he’d pointed out something that would probably save my life in the long road. He was probably right in thinking I was in no way prepared to go full-on Trickshot Neville on a sea of cultists. But it still rankled that he’d found a way to undermine the one thing I could do better than he could.

Shit, what was I thinking? I’d done a flawless job of undermining myself without him to do it for me. I sighed and grabbed the binder.

I can’t say it was an easy read, especially when having to tune out a group of Cub Scouts trying to sell cookies to everyone in the subway car. Not to mention there was also a loud match of Republic of Rue being played with what looked like the contents of a dumpster. I buried my head into the pages and tried to focus.

Turns out Cillian Pupil was the real name they’d slapped on this guy’s birth certificate. His parents had been a pair of hippies trying to restart a new commune in the midst of nature and with copious amounts of LSD. Dude nearly died of pneumonia when he was three years old. Was first brought into a police station at age eight, when his parents decided he would be the perfect drug mule.

I leaned back against the wall of the subway car and looked up. Ryan was studying the Rue players with interest. “Seriously, is there any major criminal out there who hasn’t had a screwed-up childhood?”

“Hmm?” He glanced back at me. “I’d say the people behind the Pink Sampan murders. Leopold and Loeb, possibly.” He gave a small, humorless smile. “I mean, it really depends on how far you’re willing to take the definition of a ‘screwed-up childhood’.”

There was a brief commotion in the subway car as one of the players grabbed a box of thin mints from the Scouts and started using them as supplementary pieces in their expanded game board. Ryan’s head snapped back to check it out, and I went back to the file.

After a brief stint in the military (in the same battalion my Dad was in, coincidentally) Pupil left for a spiritual pilgrimage through Bhutan and Mongolia. According to a few accounts, it was in Kashmir he finally decided the only guru he needed was himself. For reasons I still can’t understand, he set up his new tonic for the masses in the middle of the Australian Outback. Among his first converts were a group of programmers from a nearby university, and then –

Ryan tapped my shoulder. “Come on. We’re getting out here.”

“What?” I looked around me, a little miffed about getting disturbed right at the moment things were getting interesting. “Wait, this isn’t anywhere near Crocus.”

“Yeah, I wanted to make a little stop along the way.” I followed him out from amongst a crowd of business suits, who all petered out the second we stepped out of the Greenpark subway station.

Greenpark is the dreariest and most depressing borough in the City, filled with gunmetal grey office buildings and not much else. I heard somewhere it got the name by some politician who’d dreamed of renovating the whole area but instead settled for dotting all the roofs with shiny solar panels.

Hell, even the street life around here was soul sucking. What kind of food vendor sells dried prunes? I kicked up a stray soda can, caught it, and tossed it into a nearby bin. “So, what, are we heading for the nearest safe house of the Eye or something? This place isn’t exactly a residential area.”

“You’d be surprised.” Ryan said, checking his phone. “Huh, looks like Iqbal’s already taken up their request.”

“What, this quickly? It’s been like two hours.”

He stuffed his phone into his pocket. “Like I said, this one was personal business for him.” He pushed open a pair of doors and walked inside one of the office buildings. It was a pretty standard looking lobby, the receptionist with a frizzy ponytail typing out something on her phone as my brother stepped up to the counter. “Hey, uh, can you tell me how I can access the nineteenth floor from here?”

She tensed, looking up at him with wide and very dark eyes. “I’m – are you sure you don’t mean the eighteenth floor, sir? That’s where we have our marketing department.” She started picking at her nail polish. “It’s an easy mistake to make.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s the nineteenth.”

“No one’s gone in there for weeks.” She wrinkled her nose, her anxious expression briefly giving way to disgust. “I mean, we used to have homeless guys and other weirdos come in here each day just to go up there. But as far as know, those floors have been closed down.”

“Floors?” I asked. Ryan looked a little surprised as well, but he did a better job at masking it. He leaned forward. “Look, you don’t need to worry about it. We’re just doing a bit of an inspection.” He tapped a clipboard he pulled out of who-knows-where. “We’ll be in and out in under thirty minutes.”

It took us way longer than I liked to go up those nineteen floors, because the elevator kept getting stopped by office workers with their arms full of chai lattes (ew) and sandwiches. It made me feel wistful, in a weird sort of way. My only experience with real work was odd repair jobs and six hour restaurant shifts. I’d never had work that went from nine to five, and that situation didn’t look like it was going to change anytime soon. It must be nice to have a routine and a salary you could depend on, instead of well, this.

I would say the grass is always greener on the other side, but the only grass you’re likely to find around here is the plastic stuff. I leaned against the wall and watched the number on the dial click upwards. The nineteenth wasn’t the highest one, I noticed. Not even close.

“Any of you guys ever visit floor nineteen?” I asked. Ryan flashed me a look of warning, but the stupid elevator was so crowded anyway I might as well see if I could get something useful out of this situation.

A few of the other occupants sighed and studied their phones more intently. Most of the rest just flashed me looks that were in equal parts confused and exasperated. But one of them rubbed his stubbly chin thoughtfully. “I was dared to do it at an office party once. By Ronnie. You guys remember Ronnie, right?” He glanced around the elevator, and there were a few shrugs. “Don’t remember what I was dared to do there, exactly. Just that it looked crazy in there. Like, real shit.” Then this man, about a foot taller than I was and nearly twice as wide, shivered.

A woman frowned. “That’s where those cultist freaks set up their office, wasn’t it? What do you kids have to do with it?” She glared at us, as if worried we’d start handing out pamphlets any second now.

“A lot.” Ryan sighed, “and more and more with every minute.” The elevator doors opened at Floor Nineteen.

*

Here’s a riddle for ya: you’re a cult called the Eye of Eternal Freedom, and you’re one that forbids eyes of any kind in its imagery. What the hell are you going to use as your symbol?

What Cillian Pupil chose was eye sockets. Something shaped like an eye, colored entirely in black. Ah, well. I suppose it’s easy to use in graffiti.

My brother flicked on the light switch, and the whole hallway was lit up.

If you squinted, you could still make out the office trappings from the window blinds and air conditioners. But the walls, floor and ceiling were all painted in psychedelic patterns, almost shifting on their own when I looked at them too long. Bright, rainforest colors, which made the black eye sockets in the center of each pattern look all the more menacing.

I sniffed the air. “Place still smells of weed. Are you sure it’s still empty?” My hand went to the gun at my belt. I watched Ryan frown as I did it, but his gaze quickly went back to the hallway.

“No.” He admitted at last. “The Eye itself cleared out of here a while ago, but the main reason why we’re here is because if who’s ever been assigned to kill Ms. Vior wanted to set up a temporary base around here somewhere, these floors would be the perfect spot.”

His torch illuminated a flight of stairs. “They must’ve gotten these specially installed.” My brother said with a frown. “It wouldn’t match with the rest of the building’s layout.”

I opened one of the shutters, trying to let a bit of sunlight into the place, but the sun only lit up motes of dust floating around in the air. “Again with the floors. How? Why?”

My brother went up to a couch that had seen better days, smack dab in the middle of the hallway, and picked up another few pamphlets. “Two floors, nineteen and twenty. They weren’t even rented out, if I remember right. The owner of the building just allowed the Eye to set up here.” He checked under the table, brushing his hand over it to see if there was anything taped to the underside. “And it’s far from an inexplicable choice of location. It’s near the center of the City. Pretty much everyone can get a subway here. And while on paper it’s in the middle of a bustling office building, in practice we’re incredibly high up, and there’s only the elevators and the emergency stairs as entrances. There’s no way to just causally pop in and out of here.” He interlaced his fingers. “Makes it even easier to isolate people.”

He stood up and glanced at the stairs. “All right, how do you want to do this?”

“Floor twenty does look enticing.” I admit. “But somehow, I don’t like the idea of backtracking. Let’s finish things down here first.”

That’s what the work ends up being, most of the time. Ryan can be good, sometimes scary good, at pretending he’s executed a plan from beginning to end. He says it impresses the clients. But his primary method of operation is to poke in the dark corners of a case until something interesting floats up to the surface.

Still, he’s remarkably thorough with his poking around. We went through communal areas, stripped-down kitchens that still had their fair share of cockroaches and sleeping spots that had been stuffed with as many bunk beds as possible. He searched through each spot as closely as he could, not batting an eye at the murals and the piles of pamphlets.

“They left behind a lot of stuff.” I said. “I mean, look at this electric kettle. It’s probably in better shape than the one at your place.”

“I really shouldn’t have to remind you, but leave that exactly where you found it.” He tossed over a pair of gloves. “And wear these if you’re going to keep shifting stuff around.”

The gloves were a pale purple kind they use in hospitals, the ones that always feel just a size or two too small. “My point stands. Why did the cult leave this cushy little headquarters? I mean, this office space alone must be worth a fortune. And if they’ve been gone for a while, why hasn’t this place been renovated already?”

Ryan frowned. “I have theories.” He said, which was his way of saying he wasn’t sure. My brother opened the last door in the hallway and winced. “What?” I asked. What could it be? A dead body? Several dead bodies? More cockroaches?

Nope.

This mural covered the entire room, even the floor and ceiling. The shifting red and green patterns were relegated to the background, offering pride of place to a man with dark sockets where his eyes should’ve been. It’d been a while since I’d seen Cillian Pupil on the news, but the multicolored halo around his head made his status unmistakable.

The halo was kind of like a rainbow, though with an entirely different sequence of colors. I recognized it from the shrine my mother had set up in my parent’s attic, from the books my mother read Mantras from every Sunday. I don’t know why seeing it infuriated me so much – I mean, the man wasn’t exactly subtle about any of his other inspirations – but it touched something deep down that urged me to burn the image off the plaster.

Then my eyes went off the mural and towards the room.

Pupil’s hand in the mural was stretched out, palm open, as he pointed towards a playpen filled with toys. Most were cheap plastic you could buy out of gumball machines, but some looked handcrafted. Crude, maybe, but well-loved.

I thought about the Vior family. Two siblings who’d spent their whole lives separated because of this cult. Had Maryssa played with these toys? Surely this place couldn’t be that old.

I thrust my hands into my pockets, clenching and unclenching them over and over again. “If you want to believe doomsday is coming ten years, that’s your right.” I muttered. “But what kind of worthless piece of shit drags their kids into this stuff?”

This was followed by a few moments of silence, as we checked out a utility closet that had been stripped bare. “How much of the file did you actually read?” Ryan asked, sweeping the beam of his flashlight through the dusty shelves.

I coughed. “Not much. I skimmed the whole thing, naturally, but I only got halfway through Pupil’s life story before you dragged me off the subway.”

“So probably enough to answer my question, then. What kind of people do you think Pupil appealed to most?”

“The usual types, right? Hippies, addicts, basement dwellers, prostitutes - ”

“Runaways.” Ryan cut in, stepping back and shutting the closet door. “The homeless. People who were thrown out of shelters, or by their own families. People with jobs they hated and problems with their health and mind everyone else was unwilling or unable to help them with. You want to know why these people would take their kids here? Because this is where they felt safe. This is the only place they felt they had a community.”

I thought about the members I’d seen outside our AA meetings. If you want to look for lonely people, I guess there’d be few places better. “What’s your point?” I asked, turning to look at him. It must’ve been the lighting, but he looked like a pale shadow of our mother at that moment, his eyes so dark a grey they were almost black. “What you, want me to feel bad about these people? Or are you just wasting time we could be spending outside the crazy cult office?”

“I’m reminding you that no matter how tempting it may be to see Pupil a crazy eccentric attracting other crazy people, that’s not who he is. He’s a man with a gift of finding people at their lowest and using that to bend them to his will. Chances are we’re going to meet people who understand how to twist that stereotype to their advantage.” He sighed, realizing he’d led himself into another lecture, and shook his head. “So, yeah. I’d say all this is relevant.”

We walked out to the central staircase. I peered up through the darkness, lifting up the light on my phone to illuminate the gap.

“Anyway,” My brother said, still sounding exasperated, “it looks floor twenty is what actually holds the Inner Circle’s office.”

There was a door on top of the stairs. I squinted, trying to make out the words printed on it. “Hmm?”

“The Inner Circle. Leaders like Pupil usually need a group like that, someone the general rabble can look towards. Enforcers, administrators… influential patrons like Mr. Ruhk, the man who owns this building. But Pupil gave his Inner Circle a special name…”

“Iris.” I said.

“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious isn’t it, especially with the whole eye theme. Still, there’s something to be said for the classics.”

“No, I mean that’s what’s printed on the door.” I started climbing the stairs. “Come on. How much are you willing to bet they’ve actually locked this one?” Actually, he hadn’t been willing to bet at all. He slipped out what looked to me like a set of needles and picked the lock in under two minutes.

“The whole City is filled with shoddy locks.” He said, shoving open the door. “I’ve been thinking about writing a letter to the Aston and Vanderbilt Company.”

“We both know you won’t.” I said, slipping in after him. “Why make your job any harder than it already is?”

I fumbled around and flipped a switch. Floor twenty had the same cold white and grey décor we’d glimpsed in the rest of the building. Was it weird that I sort of missed the murals now? Ryan’s gaze immediately sharpened. “Do you smell that?” He asked.

It took me a few seconds to figure out what he meant. The scent was faint, and mixed in with the dust and almost papery smell of the rest of the office. “Bleach?” I said. “I mean, that’s not too weird.”

“This place hasn’t been cleaned in a while. For it to stay that long…” He sniffed the air, and started picking the lock of one of the other doors.

I glanced around the room. “I dunno, Ryan. I don’t think you’re going to be finding any incriminating documents around here. This place has been stripped clean.”

“Get ready to turn off the lights.” He said, opening the door to yet another white-tiled boring office room. This one had been stripped of all its furniture, though. The smell of bleach was a touch more noticeable here.

My brother pulled out a canister from his backpack, labelled LUMINOL. He shook the can, carefully spraying it across the room, then looked at me and nodded.

I flicked the switch once more, and the room was plunged into darkness. At first, it was pierced only by a few stray sunrays through the shutters. Then blue patterns started lighting up the room, blooming on the floor in puddles and showing up in splatters on the wall.

“So.” I swallowed nervously. “What exactly is this stuff supposed to show?”

“It reacts to most compounds with iron and copper.” My brother said, his voice sounding almost reluctant. “Animal dung, cigar smoke, hell even some types of bleach.”

“Right, bleach.” That had to be it, right? But if so, it was pretty weird only this room had been cleaned this way. Those glowing blue patterns, swiftly fading now, weren’t much more comforting. “Or it could be something else with iron. Like blood.”

“Very astute, Dy.” My brother turned on the lights, and I covered my eyes. “I’m not sure how much help calling the police here would be, especially with how old the traces here are already are.” He chewed his lip. “Not to mention that – ah.”

I opened my eyes to see Ryan already kneeling at a corner, prying one of the tiles off with a knife. I knelt beside him to get a closer look, and suddenly the bleach smelt overwhelming. Was I imagining something rotten beneath it now?

My heart was thumping like a jackhammer by the time Ryan ripped out the tile. But it was just files. I blinked. “You know, I don’t want to sound unimpressed with your efforts, but that wasn’t well hidden at all. Hell, why even hide it in the first place?”

“Like I said before,” My brother said, flipping through the files. “I have theories.”

The file I picked out looked pretty normal at first, with a bunch of newspaper clippings that mentioned the Eye. Angry complaints of how they were the corrupting the local youth, protest marches, that sort of thing. Even a few printouts from some blogs. Which meant when the clippings started to shift in topic I noticed immediately.

They happened in every country the Eye had sunk its claws into. One accident. Two suicides. A few overdoses. But even more had clearly been designed to send a message of some sort. One person had been hanged over his front yard in the middle of the night. The clipping that caught my eye was somewhere in the middle of the pack, yellowed around the edges and with fading text.

The described a Mrs. Violetta Brown, who had been shot outside a soup kitchen in Perth. It was noted that she’d been an avid member of the Eye, but had chosen to stay at a local boarding house within the week before her death due to what members of the Eye described as “trivial differences”, and was survived by her children and the members of her community.

I studied the photograph provided with the clipping. It was a close-up of a woman, clearly cropped from another photograph where she’d been walking on door-to-door speeches. I’d never met her before, but the family resemblance shone clear as day. “Ryan.” I said, tapping his shoulder. “Look, this has to be the clients’ Mom, right? She looks just like them.”

My brother grabbed it out of my hand and glanced over it. “Yep, has to be. I knew Pupil has a tendency to change the names of his followers, especially his Iris members. Justifies it with more of his ‘inner light” bullcrap, but the idea is to make them even harder to track down.”

“You don’t think it occurred to the Viors that this is need-to-know information?”

My brother pulled another piece of paper out of the file and handed it to me. “It’s the not the only detail they left out, unfortunately.”

It was another list, and it took me a few moments to see what Ryan was talking about, mainly because the last name had been changed.

It wasn’t that large a list. Cillian Pupil must’ve been reluctant to let too many people into his inner circle. But the name Maryssa Brown was plastered there as a proud member of the Iris, with a smiling photograph of our client. They made sure to take one with her eyes closed.

*

I checked my watch. “It’s only, what, eight p.m.? Are you sure none of the lights are on?”

“Except the guard tower.” My brother said, folding up his binoculars and stowing them deep into his jacket. I swear, the guy must have an entire pocket dimension in there. “They haven’t spotted us yet, but I’m really not liking our chances of sneaking inside.”

I blinked. “You were considering that option?”

He crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair. We were sitting outside a seedy looking bar, which unfortunately appeared to be the shining summit of Crocus’s nightlife. I finished the far too sugary lemonade and set the glass down. I’d give the drink about a five out of ten at best, but the spiral straw did bump it up a few points.

“If Ms. Vior truly was a member of the Iris, then that turns the chances of her being… overlooked by the Eye to nearly zero.” He drummed his fingers against the table. “Which means we can’t afford to waste too much time here. Not now.”

“As you so helpfully reminded me this morning, we can’t afford to do something stupid and get ourselves shot.” I tried to lift my arm off the table, discovered that decades worth of beers had stuck my sleeve to the surface. “At this point, I think knocking on the front door to that place would be preferable to staying here.”

“The snacks aren’t so bad, though.” He said, finishing his bowl of peanuts and brushing some dust off his hands. “But about knocking on the front door…hmm. I think you just gave me an idea. It’s a long shot, though, and it’ll probably have to wait till morning.”

Which meant the two of us had a free night. Huh. That doesn’t happen often in the middle of a case. Crocus proclaims itself as a city in its own right, but honestly I think it’s just delusional. It’s too manicured, especially on the outside. People greeted each other on the street and showed off their babies or their new shoes or both. Even the grimy bits like the pub felt more like deliberate local flavoring than anything else.

Dinner was grilled cheese sandwiches and steaming paper cups of tomato soup, eaten whilst sitting on the pier at the edge of the lake. There was a carnival not too far away that was still in full swing, complete with blinding spotlights that lit up the clouds and that tinny Beethoven music that always ends up playing in your head for weeks.

A couple of kids holding dripping ice cream cones had surrounded a nearby street performer, squealing about her cute monkey. My brother grimaced, clearly resisting the urge to correct them, because I was pretty sure the furry black animal scampering over its handler’s shoulders was actually a lemur.

I sipped from the cup and sighed. The sandwich was cold and greasy, but the soup really hit the spot, warming my insides up like a sauna. I sighed contentedly then stared out across the lake.

Suddenly the compound of the Eye of Eternal Freedom came into few, a dark speck on the horizon, surrounded by specks of light. Easy to overlook, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of it now. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about people the Eye recruits. That cults always target people at their most vulnerable. But like, that’s not really true, is it? I mean, I’ve seen those people go door to door, and most of those doors get shut in their faces.”

Ryan drained his cup and laid it down beside him, where a gust of wind sent it flying into the lake. “Well, there’s always going to be exceptions, even in the nicest of neighborhoods. Also, I’ve always presumed that in some ways, the rejection is kind of the point. I mean, when that becomes those people’s primary interaction with the outside world…”

I stood up, stuffing the sandwich wrapper back in my pocket. “Yeah, I get it. Shouldn’t we be finding someplace to sleep? I can’t imagine there are too many hotels around here.”

Even as we walked away from the lake, I couldn’t help taking one last glance back at the black speck in the distance. Was that orange dot near the top the light of the watchtower? Were those guards we’d glimpsed earlier staring at the carnival lights even now, with their rifles at their sides?

My hand went to the Smith and Wesson in my jacket, the smooth metal a cold comfort in my grip. At the right time, and for the right reasons. It was Keigo’s voice, but somehow I saw his wife instead, grinning at me as she hung the hat on top of the fireplace, the bullet hole facing the doors.

The memory rattled in my head, tagging on all the way across town and into the room we’d sleep in for the night. Ryan had picked a swanky looking place, with fur rugs and antelopes hung up everywhere and orange juice served in the lobby. He’d claimed it was the cheapest place that still had rooms open, which seemed impossible until we actually saw the room. There were some nice things, like a TV and a hairdryer and little shower gel and conditioner bottles. It was also so tiny our twin beds were about two inches apart from each other.

With this kind of case, this kind of client, I would’ve felt restless even when sleeping back home. But with this kind of room I was starting to feel downright claustrophobic. When Ryan curled up in his bed with a few folders from his backpack, I slipped out of the door and walked down the stairs.

It must’ve been later at night than I’d thought, or maybe Crocus just didn’t have many night owls amongst its tourists. Either way, I didn’t meet anyone until I stepped out into the courtyard. It was as cramped as the rest of the building, with only a few flickering lamps and scattered flowerpots to brighten up the space. I looked around a little nervously, wondering if there were any security guards around here I could warn before doing what I was planning to do next. I wouldn’t have much of a chance to explain myself if they got the wrong idea, if they gave me a chance at all.

Still, the place looked deserted. With the high walls around the courtyard, and the large spikes on top of them, I doubted these people were worried much about burglars. Probably.

I took a few deep breaths and unholstered my pistol. It felt like second nature. I’d done it a million times over the years, hadn’t I? But that hadn’t stopped Ryan from swatting the gun away like a bug and boxing me in the ear.

He’d once told me that most fights, most real fights, end within a minute or so. Today was the first time I had actually understood what that meant. If I was going to be useful tomorrow, if I was going to make an actual difference, then I had to make sure I could draw and fire within the space of a second.

I checked to see if the gun was empty, looked around one more time, then holstered it again. All right, Dylan. Starting on one, two…

“You’re too tense.” A voice said behind me, and I nearly jumped out of my sneakers. “Loosen your muscles up a bit, or you’ll end up freezing at the wrong moment.”

“Because the first guy I should be taking gunmanship tips from is Mr. Pacifist.” I muttered. “I’ve dryfired before, you know.”

There wasn’t enough light in the courtyard for me to study my brother’s expression, but he didn’t seemed particularly fazed by my hostility. “Start more slowly as well. I know you took to this kind of thing like a natural, but that’s exactly why the best way to help yourself at this point is to choreograph your movements more precisely. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”

Part of me had plenty of snappy comebacks to that last bit, but the rest was tired enough that I just wanted to get this over with. I adjusted my posture, spreading out my legs just a bit more, than drew and pointed towards the blood red bricks of the wall in front of me. Then I holstered it again.

I’m not entirely sure how many times I did it. I kind of lost track after a while, ending up just moving with the rhythm of the process, losing myself in it as much as I could. If my brother had been counting, he didn’t deem it fit to tell me a number, either. All I know is that by the time I climbed the stairs back up to our room, I was tired to the bone, and when I slept I endured a soundless dream, adrift in curling tongues of flame that seemed to shift into a sea of poison. I’ve had experience with both in my time.

But the last image of all was my brother sipping from a teacup, and tipping his hat in front of me, cowboy-style. But the hole in the hat was still steaming, the blood still dripping down his shirt, and his eyes were yellowish and glassy in the way only the dead can be.

I woke up with a throbbing head and my brother’s hand on my shoulder. He tossed something on the bed. A hanger and a… clothes bag?

“Put on the suit.” He said, adjusting his tie in the mirror. “I had to estimate your measurements a bit, but I think I did a decent job.” He tugged on the cuffs of his shirt. “Another perk of all those sewing lessons, I suppose.”

“What the hell are you planning?” I demanded, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. “Taking the Eye to court or something?”

“Oh, nothing so convoluted.” I saw the flash of gold in something in his hand. He turned it over showing me the card of an FBI badge.

*

I blame Tyrone, really. He was an agent who from what I’ve heard much lauded in the FBI for his accomplishment. The dude became practically family to us at one point, too. But he was not defined bythose things, either. He was the sort of person who helps me sleep better at night just by knowing he’s not my enemy.

With that kind of influence, no wonder Ryan thought pulling off a bluff like this was a good idea. It’s not exactly out of character for him to do, and that was the most thought I gave to that aspect of the matter.

Which, let’s face it, was not very smart of me.

Ryan leaned down and studied my shoes. “They look a bit too polished. Knock them against the wall a bit, scuff ’em enough that you could buy someone was wearing these everyday to work.”

“It’s telling that in spite of all my youthful experimentation, I’ve never been able to compete with your talent in finding new and fascinating ways to break the law..” I said, pulling on a pair of cufflinks. “And aren’t these suits rented, anyway?”

Ryan conveniently missed that comment by stepping out into the hallway. I sighed, and checked my profile in the mirror. I looked older, probably because of the stubble on my chin and a hair that had been just on the verge of curls for the last few months now. Perhaps the scruffiness would add a grim and realistic flavor to the disguise. I shrugged to myself and followed him out.

“So, how are we feeling about the whole, ‘our client actually grew up to become one of Pupil’s lieutenants’ thing?” I asked as we stepped out into the cacophony of the street. Crocus had turned a lot dustier and more chaotic during the morning rush hour, and consequently it made me like a lot more. It felt like somewhere real people lived in, at least.

Ryan was still mulling over my question. “I think ‘lieutenant’ is a strong word here, Dy. We don’t know exactly how many members the Iris contained. It’s possible there’s another few levels on the pyramid. Pupil, Iris… maybe something like the Cornea or Retina?”

“God, I sincerely hope not.” I said. “Well, I mean, all this explain why she was reluctant to actually let us investigate this stuff. She was probably terrified of him finding out. But the question I’m really asking you is this: do you want to keep looking into this?”

My brother was silent. I continued on anyway, squeezing myself between two delivery drivers with bundles of packages in their arms. “This is a pro bono case, and it’s not like we signed any official agreement or anything. If you don’t want to protect a woman who probably assisted with, if not outright ordered a killing herself… well, no one would blame you for that.”

We kept walking. I looked up and could actually see the compound in the distance, each step bringing us inexorably closer to a confrontation that could end in prison time or a painful death. Or both.Why limit our imagination here?

“There’s something of a grand conundrum baked into the heart of human leadership.” My brother told me. “It’s most noticeably in cults, sure, but it comes up in any group or tribe. That the more hideous a thing you command people to do, the more antithetical an order is to what people value…”

“The more people leave?”

“Some, yeah. But if you can wheedle the others into staying, the remainder becomes more valuable. Easier to bend into the shape you want them to be.”

“Sunk cost fallacy, right?” I said, trying to prod him along towards whatever point he was trying to make. If he did have a wider point he was trying to make at all. “The more you’ve invested in something, the more you’re willing to invest, because what else do you have left now?”

“Exactly. And that essential push and pull is going to be the center of any leader’s strategy. The breadth and depth of influence. And, ah, here we are.”

We stood in front of the iron gates, watching the words carved across the top: True freedom comes through service. I have to admit I wasn’t impressed with the guards at first glance. Long and scraggly haired, with tie-dyed shirts and rusty rifles slung across their shoulders. But there was a wildness in their eyes, a vicious breed of desolation, and suddenly I felt a lot less good about my chances.

Ryan flipped out the fake badge. They didn’t even ask any questions, about it either, their expressions hardening in a way that suggested they weren’t very impressed. Then one of them lifted his phone to his ear, and his eyes widened. He barked out an order I couldn’t make out properly, and the rest opened the gates, arguing with each other in furious whispers.

It was at that my point I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about what we were getting into. But too late! I couldn’t risk asking Ryan any more questions now, not with our helpful escort trailing us into the compound.

The interior was covered with similar murals to the ones in the office building, so many they must’ve taken years to complete. Yet now they were cracked and peeling, the paint permanently bleached from the sunlight.

Most of the compound’s inhabitants shrank away at our gaze, and all I got a look at was the equipment they’d left behind. There was a whole production line they’d set up for washing clothes with water from the lake. Wasn’t that a butter churn over there? The whole place would’ve felt charmingly rustic, if half the equipment weren’t still in pieces. If I didn’t see the palpable desperation in everyone’s eyes, even the ones giving the orders. Maybe especially them.

I could still see the inherent appeal of the place, under all the tension. Being self sufficient, having a warm, vibrant community… people miss those things for a reason. I know what Ryan said that people like Pupil preyed on the vulnerable.

But I have to – had to – believe that ordinary people could be drawn into this too. Because the alternative was that all these people had a better excuse than me for what they had done. That they hadn’t nearly blown an innocent woman’s head off because they thought a few beers before walking into the shooting club just wouldn’t hurt.

I caught a glimpse of one of the community’s children being drawn out of sight. She looked all right, if you ignored the shadows under her eyes and those too-sharp cheekbones. I gritted my teeth and kept my head down.

We were led into a surprisingly normal office, with framed pictures and staplers and everything. A man in his late forties sat on the desk, wearing glasses with silvery white frames and fiddling with his man-bun.

He looked up, and his right eye twitched just a little. “Leave us, Manfred.” He told the guard at the door.

“Honored Iris, are you sure –”

“Yes.” He said, and there was definitely something frantic about the word. He even got up after Manfred left to see if the door was closed properly. “Ahem,” he said, “right. You gents are a long way from Washington, you know. What brings you here? I’m Jorge Watkins. I’m sure Mr. Pupil’s spoken a lot about me to your superiors.” He suddenly looked a little uncertain. “I mean, um, if he hasn’t I suppose there’s no need to overstate things.”

Ryan leaned forward and slipped his phone out of his pocket. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard the news, Mr. Watkins? It only came out on TV early this morning, but in this modern age you never how quickly information gets out.”

“I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” If so, the look in those yellowish eyeballs of his made it clear he had a very good idea of what was coming.

My brother clicked on a video, and held it up. Watkins and I both leaned in to hear a news announcer declare that Cillian Pupil had just been arrested by the FBI. I understand his addiction to keeping people around him off balance, probably better than anyone else, but did he really think I didn’t need to know this?

It was almost ridiculous timing, too, but judging from Watkins’s face this was more of a confirmation of a long held fear more than anything else. I thought about the abandoned office building. How long had Pupil been speaking with the FBI? How long had the Eye of Eternal Freedom been slowly cannibalizing itself?

Ryan clicked off the video and leaned in. “They raided most of the compounds on the East Coast of the US this morning. They got one in England. Hell even the original in Australia.” He tutted. “No matter which way you slice it, Mr. Watkins, your boss has become a turncoat. The only question that matters here is: when do you think we’ll come for you?”

Watkins licked his lips. “Well, if there’s anything, anything I can do to help you gentlemen, just say so. I’m sure I can find a way to help out.”

That was practically begging for a retort, but for once I didn’t want to interrupt my brother. We were on thin ice in this whole situation. There was just too much I just didn’t know.One wrong comment and Watkins could call in the guards and riddle us with bullets. Maybe they had another room in this place that they regularly scrubbed with bleach.

Ryan checked his nails. “What we’re currently most concerned with at the moment is containing any collateral damage from the disbandment of the Eye. Like, for instance, any killings that have been authorized recently.”

“I assure you I haven’t ordered such a thing myself. But there are evil, truly evil people in the Iris, good sir. And even Mr. Pupil himself… I’ve been afraid for my life more than once.”

“Evidently.” Ryan said. “So you’re not aware of any operation happening in the City right now? Think carefully before you answer.”

“There is, erm, one I know of. Higher up people than I organized it, of course, especially because Ms. Brown was a former member of the Iris. Maryssa Brown.”

“Hmm.” My brother stood up. “So they’ve already been deployed? How many people were sent?”

“Two. Maybe three if we think somebody’s under protection, but usually that’s not – ” He paused. “Can we make this official?”

“What?” I said. It was such a bizarre thing to say, especially in this situation.

He cleared his throat. “I said, I’d like to sign something before I say anymore. I mean, I have… a lot to tell you about these things. The weapons we gave them, the training they had, the members who went there. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg! Even if you are already know what Mr. Pupil said, I can… corroborate everything he said, yes, yes.”

That spark of hope in his eyes was worse than just pathetic. It was that kind of evil that’s nauseating precisely because it’s so easily understood. Ryan stared at him for an endless moment with those owl grey eyes. “Perhaps, Mr. Watkins, perhaps. Take good care of your little flock here, and we’ll be back in a few more days.”

Even a blind man would’ve understood what that expression meant, but Watkins grabbed the lifeline with everything he had. “Right. Manfred! Escort these gentlemen out of here please! Give them anything they ask.” He flopped back into his office chair, and started stuffing papers into his briefcase.

Manfred and his buddies led us out with just as little fanfare as before, but I couldn’t help looking at the whole place differently.

Pupil had done a flawless job of isolating most of the people here, but they’d hear the news eventually. What would they do, in that moment? Run? Hide? Fight the men in armor to burst through a gates or do something even worse? I shivered, unable to stop looking for the kid with the shadows under her eyes, but before I knew it the gates were slammed behind us with a deafening clang.

Ryan didn’t say a word until we were a few blocks away from the compound. “We have to get back to the Viors.” My brother said at last. “The worst may have already happened.”

“What about the worst that might happen over here?” I demanded. “You’re seriously not worried at all about what these people might do under that asshole?”

I was afraid. No, more than that. I was furious. There’s a saying we have in America. “Drinking the Kool Aid.” We say it as a byword for unquestioning obedience, and it sounds like it has a fun, maybe slightly archaic origin. Not over nine hundred people drinking fruit juice laced with cyanide.

My brother’s expression softened when he saw that fear in my eyes. “The end of the Eye’s been a long time coming, Dylan. I don’t think it’ll shock too many people into doing something drastic, especially with kind of spineless leader at the helm. But still…” He shrugged helplessly. “You’re right. There’s always that risk. But there’s only so much we can do without getting the authorities involved.”

He peeled open part of his collar, and I saw the glimpse of a wire. “You had a hidden mic with you?” I asked. How much stuff did that man carry in that backpack of his?

“Yeah. I mean’s the recording’s not evidence that’ll hold up very well in court. But I reckon I can get some use out of it.” He sighed. “I can’t guarantee it’ll make much of a difference there. But with what we know now, I might be able to make it in time to help the Viors.”

“We might, Ryan.” I said, stepping up to the curb and holding out my arm for a taxi. “We can’t drag me along on this wild goose chase and not expect me to be there for the finale.”

*

It took most of the journey to convince Ryan to call the police.

“Look,” I said at last. “I totally agree there’s a chance the Eye has a few members among the cops. But with all the chaos going down right now, do you really think they’ll be able to do much? Hell, there’s a good chance they might not doing anything at all. I say it’s a risk worth taking.”

He sighed, and started to dial. “Sound reasoning, I suppose.”

The call was a nerve-wracking minutes, with Ryan mostly arguing with the detective on the other side before hanging up. “So, that’s over and done with. Here’s what we know right now: the last update Iqbal sent me was that Florian Vior’s been called in for a day shift.”

I took out my pistol and loaded in a clip. “Probably for the best. Is our guy still on the premises?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking of heading to our apartment first, calling in a few more favors, give ourselves some solid backup outside of the police. And –” There was an audible beep from his phone, and the screen flashed red. My brother swore. “And Iqbal just sent an alarm. Shit.”

“No time for backup, then.” I said slowly, my fingertip brushing the surface of the Smith and Wesson’s safety catch. “We’ll have to go there ourselves.” I leaned forward and tapped the separator between us and the taxi driver. “Hey, man, we’re going to have a quick change of destination. And do you have a way for us to pay you while you’re still driving.” Somehow I doubted I’d have time to count out change once we arrived.

The car seemed to move in slow motion, the streetlights heading up past in a blur. All the sounds outside were faint, until we rolled outside a small, cheerful little house and I opened the door to hear a gunshot.

They’re always so much louder than you get in the movies.

I don’t know if all the practice last night made a difference, but it felt my gun sprang into my grip of its own accord. I lifted it up and slammed the door shut behind me, and I heard the rev of the taxi receding far into the distance. Smart driver, I gotta say.

I was internally begging to hear sirens, or screaming, or something as we walked up the steps. The door was still ajar, and it creaked loudly even as I gently pushed it aside.

The dead man had fallen across the couch, salt-and-pepper spread over the cushions, and his body turned so I couldn’t see his face. The pool of blood was darker than I expected it to be, somehow. Almost more black than red. His black clothing and the gun still in his grip made me fear the worst, but Ryan didn’t seem particularly perturbed, so I decided it couldn’t be Iqbal.

Nope, instead we found the bodyguard lying on the floor, gritting his teeth as a held a handkerchief as he did so. Ryan leaned down beside him, pulling out a first aid kit, but Iqbal waved him away. He was a burly man in his early fifties, with oak brown skin and a nose curved like the beak of a vulture. He gave us a look that was equal parts of furious and relieved, then pressed a finger to his lips and pointed down the hallway. Sure enough, I could hear faint voices in that direction. Iqbal pointed down the hallway again, then raised his finger. One gunman, then. Or gunwoman?

Ryan pointed at me, and did a circular motion with his fingers. He wanted me to go around the house? How the hell were these people going to defend themselves if our last guy came out here? When I tried to express this question without words, my brother only rolled his eyes and patted the fabric of his jacket.

I cursed under my breath, but decided I really wasn’t in a position to question orders. I exited the living room, stepping over the plush carpet and ducking my head under the wind chimes, then went outside. No sign of the police yet, but there was at least one nervous looking passerby, holding an orange cat in her arms. I waved at her, then pressed a finger to my lips.

All right, Dylan. Around the house we go.

I don’t have my brother’s talent for moving silently. I heard the swishing of my legs through the overgrown grass and constantly worried if someone would hear my movements. It’s not like I could afford to take my time out here, either.

Yet for all that, part of me sensed the roar of blood in my ears and my heart thumping in my chest, and felt a kind of contentment. My gun felt perfect in my hands, an instrument I knew inside out.

The right time, for the reasons. What could be a better reason than this?

I could hear a male voice I didn’t recognize speaking. “You got a reason to give me, Mari, huh?”

Then Maryssa Vior her voice trembling. “I – I can’t…”

There was an open window, right there on the side. I flicked off the safety catch on my Smith and peered through it.

They were both facing the doorway, and I couldn’t see either of them too well, given the window was off to the side, and all the available light came through the window. All I could see was a young man with his arm around Ms. Vior’s throat and a gun to her head.

It would be a tricky shot from any other angle. But I could do it. I knew I could. I raised the gun, lined myself up with the sights. Just another target, I told myself, though I almost couldn’t hear my own thoughts through the sound of my own heartbeat. Just another target. What’s another bullseye out of the thousands you’ve made already? Just squeeze the trigger and -

“Good afternoon, Mr. Vior.” My brother said, stepping into the doorway. His arms were raised, with his palms open and his eyes the color of cold steel.

“That’s not my name.” The man said in his gravelly voice, pressing the gun against Maryssa’s head. She gave a little gasp, but didn’t dare say anything else.

“Mr. Brown, sorry.” Ryan bowed his head a little in contrition. ‘I forgot that wasn’t the name you grew up with. But I am right, aren’t I? This woman here… the one you’re about to kill… she’s your big sister, isn’t she?”

I suddenly had a flash of memory to the article we’d passed around in that office building. The one that said the Viors’ mother had been murdered, and then subsequently survived by her children. I hadn’t thought too hard about it at the time, but that article had been published with Violetta Brown, the woman’s false name the Eye had given her. That other child couldn’t have been Florian.

“What does it matter?” The man said, his voice sullen and full of desperation. “It’s all falling apart – there’s no point to any of it now. Who cares who she really is? Who cares about who I am anymore?”

“I do.” Ryan said. “Your parents joined the Eye of Eternal Freedom when they were young, and when the two of them reached a disagreement, your father left with Florian. Neither of them ever knew your mother had been pregnant at the time, did they?”

‘No.” Maryssa, trying to choke down a sob as she spoke, “she never said anything to them about Jamie.”

“No one asked you to talk!” Jamie Brown said, pressing the muzzle of the gun against her hair. The gun trembled in my grip. There was so much bitterness and resentment in that voice. This didn’t seem like an idle threat to me, not a negotiation tactic. This man had entered this house to kill her.

Wasn’t this what Ryan was trying to do? Buy me enough time to line up a proper shot?

“Your brother – the other one – hired me to figure out what kind of threat you were under from the Eye. But you immediately shut him down, Ms. Vior. At first I thought it was because you were too ashamed to admit you were a member of the Iris, but it goes deeper than that, doesn’t it?

“What does a leader do to turn a mere recruit into a worthy subordinate? They choose the right test. Something they know nobody can come back from without revealing their loyalty. That was the test that got you into the Iris, wasn’t it? They asked you to kill your mother”

Maryssa Vior was sobbing openly now, wild desperate sobs that didn’t hold anything back. Ryan’s gaze switched to Jamie Brown. “And you were the next one in the cycle, weren’t you?”

“Damn straight.” The man snarled, with gritted teeth. His gun gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, and old Beretta with scratches along the barrel. It had been terribly cared for, but I had no doubt it would still fulfil its purpose perfectly. “Only that’s all gone to shit now, hasn’t it? I think Mari knew it. That’s why she ran away, trying to live in this fancy house with Florian and forget everything she ever did. It’s why she left me behind. So you understand, don’t you, copper? I’m a killer. She’s a killer. That’s why she has to go down with me.”

Ryan sighed. “Maryssa isn’t the first job you were convinced to do, is she?”

The other man laughed out loud. ‘Job? I think you mean a Grand Mission of Justice, sir! I mean, why not, right? These people, they’re all the family I have left. Why shouldn’t I kill for them? They did such a good job of dressing it up as righteous, too.” He wiped his face on his sleeve. “In for a penny, in for a dollar. Are you judging me, copper? Have you ever shot anyone before? Not a shithead drug dealer or anything, but a real living person, with a family and all that crap? It’s not so bad, once you get a lil’ used to it. Once you shut their faces out of your head. ”

“Yeah.” Ryan said. “I’ve killed someone. An innocent someone, too. Pointed the gun, pulled the trigger, the works. I don’t think it was my bullet that killed her. I hope not. But yes, Mr. Vior. I’ve made that choice.”

No one said anything in the few seconds that passed. Then Jamie’s face hardened. “So you’re a crooked copper, then?”

“I’m not a policeman, Mr. Vior. Not now, and not ever. But to answer the intent behind your question, no. I shot my cousin because I thought I didn’t have any choice. Because I thought this was the only way to save other people. That doesn’t mean she deserved it.” He sighed. “Hell, I never even got to know her. But I do know she cared about me. That she saved someone I cared about, and the way I rewarded her was with a bullet to the face.”

I was the one who she had saved. I think I need to mention that, before we move on. It was a very long time ago, and it was never my story to tell, but I needed to tell you what that story meant to me. And the kind of person I am for overlooking it.

“When I was younger,” My brother said, and something broke in his voice within that moment. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t want to kill a single person, and I never thought I’d have to. That I’d always find a third option, but the one time I didn’t was the one time it mattered most.”

“What’s the point of this sob story then, copper?” Jamie Brown asked, though his voice was shaky as he said it. “Trying to relate me now, are you? Saying we’re one and the same, now?”

My brother took a step forward. “I’m saying I understand how it feels to cross a line. To think you’ve caused so much pain that a little more just won’t mean much in the wider scheme of things. I mean, you hurt someone you love that much, you hurt someone that good and kind, what’s the point of holding back for anyone else? How can you get more broken than you already are?”

“So what?” The man demanded. “What’s your point? You think a guy like me can fix his mistakes, just like that?” He snapped his fingers, and the sound echoed across the room.

“No, I don’t think so.” Even the pain in Ryan’s voice rose like sirens’ music, commanding every person present to listen, and listen well. “Take it from someone with personal experience. There’s nothing any of us can do to reverse the damage we’ve wreaked, or soothe the pain we’ve caused in a way that leaves no scars. You can’t do it. Not really.”

What was he saying? If he was trying to talk this guy down, why the hell was he saying the exact thing that would push him off the edge? My finger tightened on the trigger. You don’t need to tug it very hard, you know. If anything, that might damage the mechanism over time. Just squeeze just a little, and then you’ll hear the bang.

I saw Jamie Brown open his mouth to say something, but my brother crossed the silence first. “But don’t you see, Mr. Brown? That statement goes both ways. No matter what you’ve done in the past, it doesn’t change what you can do today. Right here, right now. It doesn’t matter what laws or principles you’ve broken, that doesn’t change the choice you have to make here. Just because your sister did what she did doesn’t mean you have to mirror her. You can put the gun down. You can still spend the rest of your life doing what good you can. No one can take that decision away from you.”

The man chuckled. “You really believe that, copper?”

Ryan uncurled his fingers, drawing the eye towards the hands he’d kept raised all this time. “I’d put my life on the line for it, Mr. Brown. I have.”

The gun trembled in his hand. I couldn’t see his expression, couldn’t guess at what choice he was going to make.

Then Maryssa Vior spoke, her voice still flooded with tears. “Jamie, I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry. I deserve this, I know I do. I left you behind. I… I…”

There was a clatter as the gun fell to the ground. It sounded like it was empty. Had it always been empty? Brother and sister’s legs wobbled, and they both sank to the ground, wrapping their arms around each other and hugging as if they would never let each other go.

I caught just a glimpse of the man’s face, but I doubt he noticed me. He was young, much younger than what I’d thought from hearing his voice. Younger than me.

I shuddered, flipping the safety catch on my pistol and kneeling down on the grass. Couldn’t trust my legs to support me anymore. I wrapped my arms around myself and rested my head against the wall, listening. I could already hear the sirens, heard policemen rush into the room. The yelling had just begun.

I’m not sure how long I just sat and listened. Everything turned into a haze of light and movement for a while. It felt like I’d walked a mile with the world on my shoulders, and I couldn’t find anywhere to keep it, now.

At last, I heard someone sink to the ground beside me. “Hey.” Ryan said. “You okay?”

“No.” I told him. I pulled up my knees to my chest and buried my face in the rough denim. “It’s just… I said some really shitty stuff about you and how you had a gun phobia and all. I wasn’t thinking about… you know. I’m so sorry.”

“It happens.” He said. I looked up and saw him staring at the wispy blue of the afternoon sky.

“Only someone like me would make problems for shooting stuff in the wrong places, and think the solution would be shooting more shit.” I muttered.

“You wanted to use your talent to help people.’ My brother said. “Nothing wrong with that. And honestly, a lot of people would say your solution to what was happening is a lot more prudent than mine. I took a risk back there.” He shrugged. “We were lucky enough that it paid off that time.”

I gripped my knees tighter. “I know. Deep down, I think I just wanted to kill someone evil. Someone everyone would applaud me for. Then I could up to Keigo and Daisy and show them that I wasn’t a stupid, irresponsible teenager. That they were wrong about me all along.” I laughed softly. “That’s never gonna happen, is it?”

“I doubt it.” Ryan admitted. We heard the voice of Florian Vior, demanding to know what was happening here.

“He’s in for a surprise.” I said. “And that family’s going to be put through the wringer for the next few years, aren’t they?”

“They will. But they have a chance now. And, hopefully, we can make sure the rest of the members of the Eye get that too.” He sighed, and shook his head. “But that’s a tomorrow problem.” He sprung to his feet, and held out his hand. “Anyway, I had a talk with Detective Reinhardt, and he said it’s all right if we come down to give a statement tomorrow. You want to get something to eat?”

I yawned. “For once, I think not. I’m just dead tired at the moment. I’d rather we just head home.” I took his hand, and he helped me up to my feet.

I remember that moment for a lot of reasons, but I think the main one is this. It was the first time I’d ever called that little apartment home.

There are worse places, I suppose.