“You made quite the mess,” Miss Militia commented as she approached the building, Triumph at her side. Unhappy with property damage, believes Undersiders should have held back.

  “Trust me, it’s cleaner than when we got here,” Tattletale said sarcastically, gesturing to the cuffed, unconscious, one-handed Hannibal. “And we even got you a gift, don’t say we aren’t thoughtful.”

  “He looks pretty badly injured,” Triumph said, crossing his arms. “What did you do to him?” She offered him a shrug.

  “Bentley was hungry,” she replied, jerking her thumb at the panting hulk. “Can’t blame a growing dog.”

  “Your dogs don’t do things like this without express orders,” Miss Militia said coldly. “The Protectorate doesn’t take kindly to suspects being maimed.”

  “And we don’t take kindly to you letting Nazis throw big-ass parties,” Grue retorted. “Didn’t hear any sirens til after Tattletale gave you guys a call. Besides, look, the brick’s already healing.” He pointed to the wound where flesh was already starting to crawl over the scabby-red absence of hand. Miss Militia took a deep breath.

  “Don’t push it,” she said gravely. “There are a lot of people in the PRT that want to see your whole gang in chains and sent off to the Birdcage, and a lot of heroes who don’t believe in the peace.” Referring to Amaranth, does not believe in truce terms despite cooperation, may go after Undersiders when Wotan’s Wolves, Werwolf, the Pure, Fallschirm—

  “Won’t happen again,” Tattletale said tersely, making a show of crossing her heart. “Scout’s honour. But you should know this wasn’t just a random party.” Miss Militia narrowed her eyes.

  “Go on,” the hero said.

  “At least two white supremacist gangs from outside the city were here,” she explained. “Small-time, no capes, but the fact that they were in town means they’re probably not the only ones. Werwolf poached Victor and Othala from the Wolves last week, and I’ve got reasonable info they aren’t the only ones. Krieg’s building up his power base, trying to recreate what the Empire had before everything went to shit.”

  “None of this is new information,” Miss Militia said flatly.

  “No, but you should be able to put together what it means when Krieg is the one running the operation.” Tattletale smirked as her eyes widened, didn’t need her power to see it.

  “They wouldn’t—”

  “Not directly,” Tattletale cut her off. “Not yet at least, but I don’t think either of us want this becoming international.”

  “I’ll pass this information along,” Miss Militia said gravely. “We appreciate your cooperation, Tattletale.”

  A pair of PRT uniforms hauled the unconscious Hannibal into their containment van. A few minutes later they took off, flanked by Miss Militia on her bike while Triumph rode desant on the van. Tattletale and Brian climbed aboard Bentley and took off in the opposite direction. First they’d need to drop the dog off with Rachel, since he was already shrinking, then could head home.

  A hell of an encounter tonight, something Tattletale certainly hadn’t expected; the little soldier breaking the rules, and for a decent cause no less. How much of that was her, how much of it was her apparent brain wipe? That was a fucking shock, worse was that she wasn’t lying. Doesn’t fully understand, working off Panacea’s explanation.

  That made more sense, no way little miss incest knew what was going on. But what was going on? Was it tied to the passengers? To Cauldron? Or was it all tied up in the niggling little detail about Gold Morning that, for the life of her, Tattletale couldn’t remember? A couple notches up on her migraine and a wave of dizziness was her only answer.

  There was a damn good reason Grue was driving. In her infinite wisdom of agreeing to pick up where Taylor left off, Tattletale had been riding the highs and lows of constant headaches. All the medicine in the world wouldn’t help, at least not the stuff that kept her lucid. She’d been forced to cut back on her digging into the passengers and Cauldron because, for all their effort, the city was still a fucking mess.

  The heroes were helping, but lacked the numbers and will to do anything meaningful; and wouldn’t use the Wards either. Made sense why Amaranth would go out then, little psychopath. Although, she hadn’t seemed upset the Undersiders had been there. Hell she’d offered genuine thanks, to Tattletale’s shock. Whatever Scion did had mellowed her out on the Undersiders, that or she was a candidate for multiple personality disorder.

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  She hated it, not knowing. Months ago Tattletale could have dedicated herself to figuring out the answer, spending every waking moment she wasn’t working to dig it out of whatever rock it’d been buried under. But that wasn’t the way things had shaken out. She had a gang to run and a city to take over, and that was taking every ounce of attention she could spare.

  Besides, Tattletale really didn’t want a lobotomy via the first hero.

  The trip to Rachel’s was uneventful, and before long one Grue and Tattletale were on their way back. Even shrunken down, Coil’s band of mercenaries was a hell of an expense. Worth it, ultimately, since the Undersiders didn’t have much muscle besides themselves anymore. Maybe with her freshly scrubbed brain, Amaranth would jump aboard once her career was in shambles, but Tattletale wasn’t holding her breath; not that she even wanted the little wretch around, but Amaranth was muscle.

  “Deja vu tonight, huh?” Grue said as they drove through darkened streets.

  “What?” Tattletale wasn’t sparing the brain power to figure that one out.

  “Undersiders versus a big, bad Brute,” he said, staring out the window. “Some random kid winds up doing half our job for us. Sure it’s not exactly the same but…”

  “It rhymes,” Tattletale sighed. “Fuck sake.”

  Much as she didn’t want to admit it, she’d noticed. It was coincidence of course. Amaranth had gone out without her costume so the heroes didn’t catch her, she’d gone after the Nazis because mother was ranking Empire member, non-powered, involved in drugs or similar operations. Tattletale winced at the twinge from her forehead. Well, that was as good a reason as any.

  “Why’d you cover for her?” Grue asked out of nowhere. “Amaranth’s been enough of a pain, telling the heroes would have got her off our asses for good I bet.”

  “Hey you did too,” Tattletale countered, pointing an accusing finger. “Besides, we agreed to a truce right?”

  “Been longer than a month,” he grumbled.

  “Sure,” she agreed. “But she hasn’t broken it either.” He grunted.

  “Guess not,” he said. “Wish I didn’t feel like it was only a matter of time.”

  “And if it is, we deal with it when it’s a problem,” Tattletale replied. “But we’re not going after a Ward because she reminds you of Taylor.”

  They didn’t say another word after that. Jaw dropped Grue off at his base, then drove on toward Tattletale’s. Truth be told, she wasn’t dealing with the reminder much better. Even months later, it was hard to believe she was just...gone. Taylor had always been a risk-taker, but she’d also always come through intact.

  But Tattletale had read the reports herself, bought off a disgruntled consultant on his way out of the PRT. Suspicious as her death had been, DNA and dental had both confirmed it; or at least what little of either had been left from the inferno. She’d gone to the funeral with Brian and Alec, said a few words when Danny had asked her to.

  The man knew, she’d talked to him after Taylor died, come clean as it was. Despite that, he’d still invited her, invited all of them. They were her friends, he’d said, wherever they’d come from. He wasn’t taking it well though, taking time off work. Tattletale sent people by to check on him, make sure he wasn’t in any real danger. It was just grief, of course, but grief made people do stupid things…

  Whatever the case, she made sure he was taken care of; Taylor would kill her if she didn’t. She’d made enough that his house was paid for and property taxes wouldn’t be an issue for the next decade or so. Most of it had gone to Danny, some more to Taylor’s crew. Tattletale had only taken what she’d needed to cover the little operations Taylor had been running, enough to keep them going for a while longer.

  “Boss? We’re here,” Jaw interrupted her, earning a glare.

  “I noticed,” Tattletale snapped. “Take the car to Johnny, change the plates.”

  “It was one ride,” he complained.

  “Between three of our bases,” she retorted. “Do it.”

  He grumbled, but drove off when she left the car and walked through the little car park attached to her base. She was just down the road from the portal, the thing that would make running this city viable. Thank god for Taylor’s minions, willing to go along with her scheme. Litigation was going to be a pain, an expensive pain, but it would all be worth it for a planet’s worth of resources to exploit.

  She winced, walking through the hallways. The lights in her base were too damn bright, she’d have to see about getting the lot replaced with dimmer ones. Damn her mercs, they could use their NVGs if they had a problem. The base of her skull was throbbing along with her heartbeat, an agony inducing bass drum. Tattletale felt sick, she’d overdone it for sure.

  Mercifully, her own room was pitch black. It had to be, with her walls covered in tidbits of information that would drag her down rabbit holes to a literally blinding headache if she wasn’t careful. She pulled off her mask and massaged her eyes, glad she couldn’t see the massive bags no doubt marring them.

  Lisa changed from her costume into more comfortable clothes, sweats and a DAU sweater Taylor had given her when she’d complained about the chill in her base. She navigated blind to her cot and laid down with a sigh, shutting her eyes.

  It had been a long night after a long week of getting ready for a good hit on Wotan’s Wolves, and it had gone off without a hitch. Sure the encounter with Amaranth had been unexpected and unpleasant, but as annoying as the lack of answers from her was, Lisa couldn’t say it had gone poorly. Learning their biggest problem from the heroes may not be anymore? It was almost worth it.

  Lisa wished, curling up and gripping her sweater, any of this had been.