“Man are you sure this is cool?” Jeep asked as we pulled up outside the PRT headquarters.

  “I called to tell them we were coming,” I said with a shrug. “Judging by the squaddies outside, they know.”

  “Shit…”

  We’d wasted little time, only stopping by Reese’s house to collect the weapons we needed for the fight ahead. Wick had opted out, but Reese had come along, his attitude like Zeke’s with preferring to die fighting. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to, hopefully none of my friends would have to, and if that meant I had to die a few times...so be it.

  There were three squads worth of PRT troopers at the base of the stairs, with a mix of lethal and non-lethal options. I checked my carbine, one of my beloved MC51s, then nodded to my team. We got out of the car, weapons slung, hands at our sides; no reason for them to be hostile towards us. I’d only borrowed a jacket from Papa, and my vest was buckled overtop, but I was still wearing my prison sweats with the blocky red letters naming me a ‘VILLAIN’.

  “Hold it right there!” one of the troopers yelled, raising the grenade launcher he held. Not quite aimed at us, but close enough that I’d have shot him if he’d tried it back in the spring. “Identify yourself!”

  “Amaranth,” I replied, raising my voice and noting the ripple through the gathered troopers. “And the Terriers. We’re here to—”

  “Amaranth,” a cold, commanding voice called. I looked to the top of the steps and grimaced; Miss Militia stared down, a carbine like mine in her hands. “Inside, now. And if you cause trouble, you’ll be shot.”

  “I sell my soul to stop the end of the world and all I get is a kill order?” I rolled my eyes and beckoned my team. “Let’s go, before they change their minds.”

  Two of the PRT squads followed us in, and we all trailed up the stairs and down the halls to a large briefing room that was already well populated. Weaver was there, standing next to Director Higgins, who glowered at me as I entered the room. I kept my expression neutral, having forgone a mask, as I caught sight of Amy. She was standing beside a hero I didn’t recognize but looked oddly familiar. His costume wasn’t one I’d seen, but his blonde hair and lanky build…

  Dean. It was a shock of icy water down the back of my spine, and it took everything I had to not go over there and figure out what the hell was going on. Besides that, judging by the stormy expression on Brandish’s face who was there as well, it would probably be the last thing I did. Tattletale and Grue were at the table too, and the smug bitch looked apoplectic when I met her gaze and offered a grin.

  “I did tell you she was coming,” Weaver said flatly, breaking the tense silence that followed our entry.

  “You didn’t say she was bringing an army,” Brandish replied evenly.

  “We just happened to have it laying around,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. “Would be a shame to waste a good opportunity to use it, wouldn’t you agree? Besides, Jack Slash is a lot scarier than a couple guns.”

  “Looks like more than a couple guns,” Tattletale said acerbically.

  “Well if you want to be accurate, it’s a dozen rifles and pistols, forty frag grenades, and twenty kilos of plastic explosives.” I jerked my thumb at a bag on Reese’s back. We were all carrying them, laden with as much ammo and explosives as we could carry. “But against the Slaughterhouse Nine? Honestly we’re a little lighter than I’d prefer.”

  “Nadir, you were retaining this much ordinance?” Miss Militia said angrily.

  “You should be glad she was,” I snapped. “Now let’s get to business. Weaver, have you brought them up to speed?”

  “Everything you told us and everything we know,” Weaver said. “Dragon dispatched a craft to Killington ten minutes ago, we should have visual soon.”

  “Understand your place here is extremely tenuous,” Director Higgins said, his voice cold as the winter air. “If you act out in any way, there is a pre—”

  “Signed kill order, yes,” I finished, rolling my eyes. “I’m sure the Nine will be happy to work with you fulfilling that once we’re done. Let me be very fucking clear, I’m here to kill Jack Slash, no other reason. I have no intention of orchestrating a reign of terror under my iron fist or whatever. Once that’s done…” I shrugged. “I could go for a smoke, probably.”

  “You’re such a fucking weirdo,” Tattletale said. “They just said they had your death warrant waiting.”

  “I know,” I said, staring Miss Militia dead in the eye. “And I don’t care. Try your best.”

  “Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Miss Militia said. A device on the center of the table made a noise and she twitched. “Enough, Dragon’s calling in.”

  She leaned over and pressed a few buttons, then after a moment a hologram sprang up in the middle of the table. It was an aerial view of a small town, no more than fifty buildings in all. The picture was clearly coming from high altitude, but Dragon’s craft seemed to be rapidly descending. As the picture grew clearer, I felt a pit grow in my stomach.

  “This is Dragon, we’ve arrived at Killington,” Dragon’s voice came through with a tinny ring. “From what we can see up here, the inhabitants of the town have been slaughtered.”

  Slaughtered was an understatement. The snowy streets of the town below, which had simply seemed plowed from higher up, were red with blood. As she descended further, I was able to make out bodies in unnatural positions scattered all over. But what I didn’t see was life, movement, anything that would indicate the Nine were still there.

  “Watch out for traps,” I said as Dragon began landing.

  “Understood Amaranth,” Dragon replied. Her voice sounded frigid, furious. Fair enough, since my being here was making her look like an idiot. “No signs of life, but the Cawthorne doesn’t have the greatest sensor suite. Director Higgins, confirm that lethal force is authorized.”

  “Confirmed,” Higgins said flatly. “If you see one of those monsters, destroy them.”

  The Cawthorne began stalking through the streets, the view swinging back and forth. The craft towered over most the buildings, but all that allowed it to see was more of the charnel house the village had become. Nobody spoke, there was nothing we could say, simply watching helplessly and praying there would be some clue to their next destination.

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  “Dragon, are those bodies leading somewhere?” Tattletale asked, pointing to a scattering of corpses to the left of the image.

  “What do you mean?” Dragon asked.

  “Look at how they’re arranged,” she said. “Heads all aligned to the same direction, and the one furthest from you has his arm pointing.”

  “You’re right.” Dragon sounded surprised. “I’ll investigate.”

  The Cawthorne began moving slowly down the street. It seemed the corpse had been pointing towards an intersection ahead, the largest so far. There was an unlit Christmas tree at the center of the square where the roads joined, towering over the rest of the city. As the Cawthorne approached, several people in the room swore violently.

  The tree was full of bodies, dozens, hundreds, in horrible states of dismemberment and mutilation to fit a hideous aesthetic of ornaments. As the Cawthorne stepped into the square, lights flashed on and lit the scene. Someone threw up, but I didn’t know who because my eyes were locked on the bloody Nativity scene in front of the tree, complete with a still squirming infant.

  “Fuck me,” Joy whimpered. I reached over and gave her arm a gentle squeeze.

  “It’s already dead,” I muttered as my stomach tightened. Even with all the shit I’d seen, this was on another level; but I couldn’t lose focus.

  “Dragon, can you rescue the—”

  Miss Militia’s request was cut off as the image lurched and fell. There was a loud ‘boom’ as the Cawthorne’s engines ignited and sent it careening across the square. The image flipped and whirled, revealing what had happened.

  The Siberian stood in the square, holding a chunk of the Cawthorne’s leg.

  “Bomb the area!” I shouted. “Manton has to be within the village. Flatten it!”

  “What about the—”

  “Do it Dragon,” Miss Militia barked, shooting me an ugly glare.

  The scene changed again as the Cawthorne rocketed into the sky, only stabilizing when the village was barely a broad smudge on the ground below. Missiles flew from the shoulder launchers and descended to the ground below with engines blazing. They exploded before impact, and seconds later the ground erupted in a series of detonations, a full square kilometer around. The Cawthorne zoomed down as the smoke from the cluster bombs cleared, landing in the cratered square it left only seconds before.

  The Siberian was gone, but so was the village.

  “Target neutralized,” Dragon said, her voice tense. “As is all the evidence.”

  “You have another way to kill the Siberian?” I asked.

  “Amaranth, shut up,” Miss Militia snapped. “Dragon, do a low level sweep, there may be something that survived.” The image shifted again as Dragon followed her order, taking to the sky and flying low.

  “Man fuck,” Zeke said shakily. “Uhh, shit.”

  “You okay?” Joy asked.

  “Can’t stop shaking,” he muttered. “How we supposed to deal with something like that?”

  “You leave it to me,” I replied. “I play grabass while you hunt down the guy projecting her and kill him.”

  “This is way outta our league,” J-Dog said.

  “It’s not,” I said firmly. “You remember Muspelheim right? Fire that could swap to ice?”

  “Yeah, you killed him didn’t you?”

  “I did,” I confirmed. “With a knife, not even a gun. The Nine had someone like that last time they were here, Burnscar; really similar actually. You’ve already faced down capes like they have.”

  “Weren’t easy,” Reese drawled.

  “And it won’t be this time,” I said with a nod. “But we can do this, we will do this.”

  We didn’t have another option.

  “Amaranth, a moment,” Weaver said as people began filing from the briefing room. I paused and Joy gave me a look.

  “Go ahead,” I replied. “Keep my seat warm, would you?”

  “Sure,” Joy said with a nod, staring at Weaver briefly before heading down to the motor pool.

  Dragon hadn’t found any more members of the Nine, but had found trails leading north and east. The heroes, villains, and us were all getting ready to move out and try to intercept them. Dragon had a number of craft in the air, sweeping their likely routes. Once she found something, we’d be off and racing against the clock.

  “What is it?” I asked as I joined Weaver in a corner of the room. Miss Militia and Director Higgins were across the room, speaking quietly.

  “Are you sure your team can handle this?” she said, staring after Joy. “I saw how they reacted to Killington, I don’t think they have what it takes, and that’s going to get them and you killed.”

  “You’ve got no clue,” I said flatly. “Since you’ve been working for Cauldron, you must know what I’ve been up to while you were off on vacation.”

  “I wasn’t on vacation,” she growled. “And I was too busy to keep up with anything going on here. This is my first time back since…”

  “Since you messed with me?”

  “Not even then.” Weaver shook her head. “I just had a swarm clone hidden nearby, I was back in the base.”

  “Well let me fill you in,” I said coldly. “What was left of the Empire got in bed with Gesellschaft, they were consolidating power in the South End, and not even your old team could root them out. So I got everyone who would fight and we burned their hideouts and drug dens to the ground. Any of their soldiers who survived the firefights were either banished or executed. And we killed every single one of their capes.

  “That is why I know they can handle this,” I said, staring at the door. “Everyone coming along has been face to face with a cape before, a few of them have killed other capes.”

  “They’ve never faced anyone like the Nine,” Weaver said.

  “They can handle it,” I said firmly.

  “And if they can’t?”

  “Then I’m going to have a lot more blood on my hands,” I said, my stomach squirming with anxiety. I flinched as Weaver’s hand landed on my shoulder.

  “I hope they can then,” she said flatly as she headed for the door. “For your sake.” If they couldn’t...at least there’d be a next time.

  With that ugly thought in mind, I headed down to the motor pool to join my team.

  “Man I wish we still had ammo for our grenade launcher,” J-Dog sighed as the van raced along, staring enviously at the PRT trooper across from him. “Now that shit woulda handled this no prob.”

  “When the hell did you handle a grenade launcher?” the trooper asked, getting a grin from J-Dog.

  “Drilling and killing in the South End,” he said in a low voice. “Thanks to the corrupt motherfuckers at the Third Precinct, god bless their bacon asses.” Another trooper stiffened and Joy elbowed J-Dog in the ribs.

  “Don’t,” she said flatly. “They’re going to be watching our backs soon, and we need them.”

  “Unbelievable you escaped justice,” the trooper, a corporal judging by his chevrons, muttered.

  “I sure didn’t,” I said, shooting a glare at him. “The only reason I’m here is they probably think I’ll die and stop being a problem.” Joke was on them if that was their goal.

  “We could only be so lucky,” he replied dryly.

  “Enough,” Miss Militia barked from the cabin. “Amaranth, control your men.” Right, because it was my fault of course…

  “Pipe down guys,” I sighed, leaning my head against the side of the van. “Get some rest, god only knows the next time we’ll sleep.”

  I took my own advice and shut my eyes. It was no exaggeration of course, the last encounter with the Nine had me running around the city with Amy, and hardly any chance for rest. This time, we couldn’t afford delays at all, every second wasted was one closer to everything unraveling.

  Could my team handle this? I’d answered without hesitation, but her question stuck with me. More concerning though, could I handle this? Jack Slash was a monster without equal when it came to capes, to say nothing of his merry band of fucks. The last time we’d clashed, I had come out in pretty bad shape. Not just physically, but it had really cracked me. Now?

  Now I was stronger, now I had the experience of not just surviving, but fighting. I had put myself through the worst training imaginable with the sole purpose of stopping Jack, or Scion if need be. And I knew I had the strength to throw myself back in time to try again, and again, and again. As many times as it would take.

  Hopefully not too many…

  I was thrown against my restraints without warning, head banging against the wall of the van. Curses echoed around the rear as the others were too, and I heard the tires screeching as we braked hard. I clutched my carbine, hair on the back of my neck rising as I heard the muffled sound of screeching metal outside.

  “Ambush!” Miss Militia shouted. “Get out now!”

  “Let’s move!” I bellowed, tearing off my restraints and rising.

  I was the first out of the doors, leading my team straight into a nightmare.