17 – i – The Stalker

The Stalker pulled a dress from her closet and looked it over. Black and lacy, transparent in all the right places to be enticing. Was it too much? She held it up to her chest as she turned to her mirror. It would certainly accentuate her curves, but…

It was too flirty.

This was a business meeting. She wasn’t sneaking off to meet The Hanged Man again.

The Stalker tossed the dress aside, lumping it in the pile with all the other clothes. Why was everything she had so slutty? It was The Hanged Man’s fault. He liked that look, so she wore it. She wore it well. It had certainly become her signature look.

So was it bad to change for this?

The Stalker dug her fingernails into her scalp, scratching an itch in frustration before forcing herself to stop. Stalking over to the bathroom, she tore open the sink cupboard and pulled out a bottle of oil that The Hanged Man had recommended. Dabbing a small amount into the palm of her hand, she started working it against her scalp, all while glaring at herself in the mirror.

Her eyes were bloodshot with the veins prominent and red. The eyedrops helped, but not enough. At least blinking didn’t feel like dragging sandpaper over her eyes anymore. The cracking and broken skin around her lips was mostly gone. After working with her scalp and hair, The Stalker applied a few creams and lotions across her entire body, dripped a few more drops into her eyes, and promptly covered everything up with a heavy layer of pale makeup with some dark lines around her lips and eyes. All while considering what to wear.

Normally, she wouldn’t care. Some rando calling her private phone was someone she was more likely to shoot than dress up for. But, after discussing the call with the others, The Strategist had told her that this meeting needed to go well.

Nobody was quite sure who or what The Fixer was, only that the being occasionally appeared, usually when something significant was happening. The Puppet was a new faction in Chicago. They knew the major players. The Eclipse, of course, and The Castle. The Church as well. The latter group was someone nobody wanted to be on the bad side of. So if The Church thought that The Stalker was reliable enough to help someone, they didn’t want to do a thing that might alter that opinion.

The Puppet was still establishing itself, trying to work to be seen as a major player. With The Warrior being a powerhouse that most others in the city couldn’t contend with, The Strategist plotting and planning out worthwhile moves, The Healer ensuring that none of them could be put down for long, and The Puppet itself as the rallying figurehead which everyone could look up to, The Stalker felt she couldn’t fail here. She was even newer, both to the faction and to life on this side of the coin. Her abilities weren’t particularly powerful. Nor were they necessary.

The others could easily decide that she wasn’t in cohesion with the rest of the group.

She needed to make herself as valuable as possible. That meant succeeding here—showing that she could do it. She could be a worthwhile contributor to the rest of the group.

Her fingers lingered over the bottle of eyedrops. If the others ever found out about her dalliances with The Hanged Man…

The Stalker shook her head. Grabbing a hair tie, she swept back her long hair and tied it in a ponytail, looping it up to cut the length in half. With that done, she stalked back to her wardrobe. She shoved aside all the slutty clothes and dug into the older outfits she had. Plaid skirt and tee-shirt? Too casual. Black and white striped dress? Too Tim Burton. An asymmetrical dress, long in the back and short in the front, with long sleeves and a high collar?

That one might work. The front wasn’t too short. It did have a leather harness meant to highlight her chest, but… Well, she shouldn’t stray too far from her usual style. Maintaining a recognizable appearance so people knew she was The Stalker was just as important as dressing appropriately. Pairing it with some leggings and high-heeled boots, The Stalker thought she managed to nail the right balance between her usual look and something mostly professional. A bolero jacket thrown over the top would hide her gun enough.

The alarm on her phone beeped just as she finished lacing her boots. Time to go.

She swiped her revolver from the dresser, flipped out the cylinder, and checked over the six cartridges within. Each had been specially made by The Warrior, imparting some element of magic into the bullets. They all had different effects, differentiated by the color of the primer at the end of the cartridge. The Stalker removed a blue and a green and inserted a second red and a second yellow. They, together with the purple and brown, should be able to handle most threats. Reds and yellows would be good against undead, which the mentioned mummies might be, while the purple and brown had more… esoteric effects that would work on unknowns like The Fixer or his mysterious associate.

The Strategist had told her that, under no circumstances, was she to antagonize The Fixer. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to march into a meeting like this empty-handed. This side of the coin was dangerous at the best of times. She didn’t need to add idiocy into the mix to make it more dangerous.

The Stalker pulled out her phone and checked the time, having set her alarm well in advance to avoid lazing about for too long on accident. It was still a bit early. Early was good. It would give her some time to check out the meeting area.

Stepping out of her room and into the rest of her sanctuary, The Stalker headed down to the floor below. She lived in a small townhouse in Chicago’s Old Town. There wasn’t anything special about the building. It was just one among many, all lined up on the street. She had claimed the entirety of the second floor for herself. Not needing to eat, she didn’t need a kitchen or much space beyond a room and a bathroom to tidy up. The second bedroom gave her a small workroom for her art projects.

The lower floor was occupied. An older man and a younger woman sat, ready and waiting for her arrival. They were mundane humans. Cultists. The kind of people who saw something like The Stalker and decided to stick close in the hopes that they could reap some benefits. For some, that was just having someone big and scary at their backs. For others, they envied the unnatural nature of those on the flip side of the coin.

Technically, it was possible to become something inhuman. The Stalker had been mundane and utterly bland before her first death. No one she had talked to quite knew why Specter-class beings returned from the dead—The Stalker had certainly never rubbed shoulders with any undead that she had known about—so it wasn’t like she could impart her abilities or knowledge on others. That didn’t necessarily mean that these humans were wasting their time. There were a number of ways to become unnatural. Grafted-class beings, Contractor-class beings, Cursed-class beings, inhabited Parasite-class beings… All had been normal humans at one point in time.

Others were born into this life. There were rumors that someone could become Aberrant, Genius, or Leviathan-class beings. The Stalker didn’t know much about them other than that, if anyone did know, they had never told anyone. The leader of The Eclipse, The Emperor, was a Dragon-class being, and yet, she seemed too… new.

Then again, The Stalker had only risen from her first death in the last four months. What did she know? Even with the rest of The Puppet faction helping to show her the ropes, she was still working out how to navigate this new life she found herself in.

“Simone,” The Stalker said. “It’s time. Bring the car around.”

The young woman bounded to her feet, donning a white peaked chauffeur-style cap. She wore a white pinstripe suit, though without a shirt under the jacket, but with a bowtie that just hung around her neck like it was a choker. Giving a sloppy salute at the brim of her hat, she skipped off.

When The Warrior had first loaned The Stalker two of her cultists, The Stalker had asked about Simone’s odd dress and excitable attitude, only to be told that Simone was just hanging around for the fun and thrill of it all.

Michael, on the other hand, stood slowly. He was old. Somewhere between sixty and eighty. A veteran of Vietnam, The Stalker had initially expected him to carry himself with some kind of military decorum. He didn’t. The man reeked of stale whisky and cigarettes. His clothing was slovenly, made up of ancient blue jeans and a black-and-red flannel shirt that was more patches than original cloth. He had entered into some shooting competitions after the war and, even now in his elderly years, could draw and hit a target faster than The Stalker could blink.

The Stalker didn’t speak to him as he stood and followed behind her. She didn’t know what to say to him. Simone was young and high on life. Eccentric, but it was a kind of eccentrism that The Stalker could understand; it fit well with life on this side of the coin. Michael was a few generations removed and didn’t seem to find fun in anything.

It was enough that he was here as backup. His pistol, much like The Stalker’s, was loaded with specially designed cartridges that, if he was wise, would roughly match the same loadout that The Stalker had taken. Bullets that would dispatch undead and bullets that would handle just about anything else.

Despite Simone’s wishes to the contrary, she did not pull up in an open-topped limo with suicide doors. Even if such a vehicle wasn’t too eye-catching, it would be far outside the budget The Puppet had to work with. Perhaps after The Puppet took over the city and ousted The Eclipse, they would have cash to throw around at trivial things. Until then, The Stalker and Michael slipped into the backseat of a Nissan Rogue. Not even a modern model. The Stalker was fairly certain that The Strategist had bought it used.

Chicago passed by in a blur. The Stalker sat with her head propped up on her arm as she rested against the window. She… wasn’t looking forward to this meeting. It was one of the first tasks she had been charged with where she had only been given advice rather than having one of the others sitting on her shoulder for oversight. That should have been a good thing. It was a sign of trust and value.

Or it was a test to see if she could handle things.

Either way, it needed to go well. She just didn’t feel like she knew enough.

Her whole life had been like that. On both sides of the coin. From start to finish, she always felt just a little underinformed. Everything from sex-ed to college applications, how to cook to what movies and fashion were popular. Even things like slang somehow passed her by. Nobody else around her seemed affected. They submitted their college applications on time. It was like they had all gotten an instruction manual with birth.

Then she woke up dead.

The Puppet had found her and took her in, giving her some light guidance, but none were Specter-class beings. They didn’t know the unique trials and tribulations suffered by someone whose body no longer functioned. That was why she was so grateful to The Hanged Man. They were on opposite sides of this war in Chicago. But…

The Stalker bit her lip. She turned her head, eyes widening, drying out. She didn’t care. Her reflection in the SUV’s window brightened as a shimmering violet light circled the irises of her eyes.

She didn’t see it.

Her gaze went afar, seeking out the man whose unique signature she knew more than any other.

There he was. The Hanged Man was in his apartment in downtown Chicago. She couldn’t actually see him. She just knew where he was, a general and innate knowledge in the back of her mind. If she were less familiar with his apartment, she would have only been able to tell the direction and distance.

The Stalker stared with a longing sigh, wishing this meeting were any other time. Of course, she wouldn’t have liked it then either, but at least she would have been able to get some advice from The Hanged Man… and maybe other things at the same time.

The Stalker almost closed her eyes. Before she turned away, she noticed something else.

Her fingers clenched, long nails digging into her clothes as she ground her teeth.

The Hanged Man was not alone.

It was that bitch. The Art. She was close to him. In the same apartment, if not in the same room.

What did he see in that whore? She couldn’t possibly please him the way The Stalker could. The Art was a Parasite-class being without a host. Instead, it inhabited a porcelain doll, moving the joints and limbs with its long, squirming tendrils woven through holes in the doll. He couldn’t possibly find that attractive and yet…

They were together.

Again.

“Simone!” The Stalker snapped.

“Need something, Stalker?” Simone asked, eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror, which, for some reason, was already aimed directly at The Stalker rather than out the rear window.

“Downtown,” The Stalker said. “Turn the car around. We’re—”

“The Strategist won’t be pleased if we’re late to this meeting.”

The Stalker snapped her jaw shut. For the briefest of instants, she imagined herself drawing her revolver, placing it to the back of the passenger seat, and ending Michael’s life then and there. He was some nobody human. Questioning her?

But he was right.

The Stalker’s fingers unclenched. She relaxed her grip on the holster of her revolver and propped her elbow up against the window again, trying to affect a disinterested look. “You’re right,” she said, once she was sure that she could control her voice. “Carry on.”

It wasn’t just the meeting and the nagging she would get if she messed it up. Killing Michael wouldn’t be a good look. Too many had died under her watch, mostly as a result of The Hanged Man. And Michael wasn’t her cultist. He was on loan.

She didn’t have any. Nobody she could count on to be loyal to her and not to the others. There was a certain song and dance needed to find someone willing to lean over to this side of the coin that The Stalker just had trouble with. Something about her personality pushed everyone away.

It almost made her reconsider The Hanged Man’s offers to join his side.

The Eclipse had a philosophy. Lots of them, actually. Being the de facto leaders of the city, they felt they could impose their philosophies on everyone else. The primary tenant was to keep regular humans out of things as much as possible. Most cities had an organization like The Eclipse, always working to keep things as separate as possible. Some of The Warrior’s cultists were from families that had served her family for generations. Those would all be cut out if The Eclipse had its way. An end to centuries of tradition.

That was why The Art walked around in the rigid body of a doll. Its very nature, denied.

The Stalker didn’t give a single shit about tradition. The fact that old people had done something didn’t make it a good thing to keep doing. But she liked the idea of having servants. A way to flip the table on her old life.

The Strategist said she was too impatient. A cult didn’t form from nothing, nor did they form quickly. If she wanted people of her own, she would have to spend time, effort, and money attracting them. Someone who had only been around for a few months barely had a name, let alone feats and accomplishments worthy of drawing respect.

Casting her attentions far into the distance, The Stalker glowered at the skyline of Chicago as they passed between buildings. The Art and The Hanged Man moved further apart, no longer in the same area.

Slowly, The Stalker let out a breath, feeling some measure of true calm return rather than the mask of calm she put on after Michael shot her change in plans down.

Someday, things would be different.

For now, The Stalker pulled out her bottle of eyedrops, moistened her eyes, and let them close until she felt the vehicle come to a stop.

Time to meet this agent of The Fixer.

The meeting place wasn’t typical of inhabitants on this side of the coin. The Puppet held meetings in abandoned warehouses, hidden bars, or other underground venues where people of their ilk could meet without drawing attention. Through The Hanged Man, she knew that The Eclipse was quite different—the owners of the city met in high-rises and office buildings.

The Stalker stared at the small, locally owned diner. It was a stereotypical place, all brushed steel on the outside like it was some converted rail car. That was despite the obvious brick building behind the facade, which poked out at the corners. The block lettering over the windows identified the place as Nighthawks. With a name like that—and with whom she was supposed to meet—The Stalker had expected somewhere a little more isolated.

There were people around. Regular people. Humans. Being a bit later in the evening, just after the usual dinner rush but before true night, it was even fairly crowded. A family of four sat right in one of the front windows, eating thick slabs of French toast. A group of teens looked high as fuck over in the corner, and at least three other tables had pairs.

“We sure this is the right place?” The Stalker asked.

“It’s the only Nighthawks around,” Simone said, turning in her seat with a cheeky, confident grin that rankled The Stalker’s nerves. “Why? Feeling shy?”

The Stalker ground her teeth, biting back a retort. She threw open the car door, slipping her revolver into the holster under her short jacket. “Stay here. Watch for trouble,” she said, peering around the street. There wasn’t any place to park in front of the diner, so they wouldn’t stay, but they would probably drive around the block a few times.

If they were smart.

She would deal with them later if they weren’t smart.

The car drove off as she stalked toward the entrance. Her walk took longer than necessary as a feeling of regret crept up on her. She should have gone with the casual plaid skirt. Now she was feeling overdressed. She had looked up this place earlier, but had figured it would be recently abandoned, closed for the evening, or simply rented out.

The Stalker shoved those self-conscious feelings away. She wasn’t that person anymore. Not human anymore. She was a badass undead. Someone went out of their way to seek her out for her skills. And if anyone was going to make fun of her…

She felt the weight of her revolver hang heavy under her arm as she pulled open the door.

The scent of greasy food and overly sweet syrup greeted her. When she had first woken up, she had been unable to taste, smell, or even feel much at all. The Hanged Man had gotten her in contact with a supplier who provided these pills that returned most of those sensations to her undead body. They didn’t help with the dry eyes, though. Unconsciously, she started moving a hand to her face, only to force herself to stop before she could start rubbing.

The family of four looked her way. They were closest to the door. Three of them turned back to their meals, hurriedly minding their own business, but the youngest girl stared and wouldn’t stop until the father put a hand on her arm and forced her to look away. She still threw one last glance at The Stalker—which she returned with a sneer—before staring down at her plate.

“Table for one?” a waitress wearing some kind of sleezy fifties-style apron asked, stopping in front of The Stalker.

“Meeting someone,” she said, looking around the diner. The person on the phone had sounded like a woman, and she had said that she would be wearing a crop-top that showed off a large tattoo on her chest. The Stalker thought it had been an odd comment at the time; now she realized it was to pick her out of the crowd.

The Fixer’s agent would have been easy to spot even without the help.

The woman sat at the far end of the diner, back to the wall, all on her own. Her eyes tracked The Stalker, even as she occasionally flicked her gaze toward the front doors and the opening for the kitchen. An obvious sign of paranoia or, at least, worry.

She hadn’t needed any evidence that taking along her revolver had been the correct choice, but the agent’s mannerisms certainly did nothing to dissuade that notion.

Pushing past the waitress, The Stalker approached the far end of the diner. In those short few steps, she made a quick decision and slipped into the booth alongside The Fixer’s agent. Someone else might have sat across from the woman, facing her, but in an already sketchy situation like this, she wasn’t about to put her back to the doors.

Although her choice of seating surprised the woman, if she was bothered, she didn’t say anything.

Neither said anything. The waitress followed her over. “Can I get you two started on some drinks?”

“Diet Coke, please,” the woman said.

As the waitress turned in her direction, The Stalker’s eyes flicked over to one of the other tables. “Milkshake,” she said without hesitation. “Largest you’ve got. Oreo.” She didn’t need to eat, but she very much relished it anyway. If she was being forced into this situation, she might as well take advantage of it.

“Sure thing, sugar,” the waitress said as she sauntered off, making The Stalker wonder if the restaurant told her to talk like that or if they hired her because she talked like that.

“The Stalker, I hope? This will be awkward if you aren’t.”

Glancing over, The Stalker looked the woman up and down. She didn’t appear armed. There was nowhere to hide a weapon on the outfit she wore. There was a long coat draped over the part of the seat next to her, but any weapons it held wouldn’t be easily accessible. None of that meant she wasn’t armed, however. People on this side of the coin didn’t often follow human logic.

Drawing in a breath, The Stalker focused on the woman beside her, really looked at her. She wasn’t human. She could tell that much. What she was, however, The Stalker couldn’t say. Different types of beings gave off different feelings in her sight, and this was one she hadn’t ever encountered before.

Given her relative inexperience, having woken up like this only a few months ago, it wasn’t an uncommon feeling. But there were fewer and fewer oddities like this as time went on and she learned and experienced more. If nothing else, this meeting was useful just to add a new class of being to her catalogue. Now, if she could ask what kind of being this woman was, it would almost make her irritation at coming out here vanish entirely.

Almost.

“You’re the mysterious agent of The Fixer,” The Stalker said, letting the violet glow around her irises fade back to its usual black.

“Agent… Yeah, that sounds good. You can call me that for now.”

“The Agent?” The Stalker said, somewhat confused by the way she said that. Like she had chosen just now.

One of the first things she had been told after waking up dead was never to go by her old name. It wasn’t common, but certain classes of beings had ways of ruining the lives of people whose names they learned. Everyone went by monikers unless they were supremely confident or supremely stupid. Oftentimes, they went by multiple monikers. The Stalker was more of a title than a name and wasn’t something she would give out to regular people; she went by the simple name of Jane when needed.

Which didn’t happen that often. Although The Hanged Man’s ointments and oils and creams had helped soothe her undead body, she still drew people’s gazes with her odd appearance. For as much as her powers revolved around watching others, she didn’t enjoy being watched in turn.

“It isn’t taken, is it?” The so-called Agent said. “I’m a bit new to Chicago. Still trying to get my ear to the ground.”

The Stalker shook her head, still frowning. That tracked with what she had heard. The Fixer was a wanderer. It had been somewhere around ten years since their last visit to Chicago. If they had picked up The Agent in their travels, it was perfectly understandable that neither would know the current scene.

Their conversation couldn’t proceed for a moment as the waitress returned with their drinks. The Stalker ordered a load of French toast while The Agent got a simple burger. As soon as she was gone and the background noise of the diner once again covered their words, The Stalker shifted in her seat.

“So you know, my presence here is not an agreement to take on whatever job you have,” she said, paraphrasing The Strategist’s words. “I’ll hear you out, but what we do—what I do will depend on your request and what you can offer in return.”

“I figured. Then let’s start with what I need, and we can figure out what it is worth after,” The Agent said after a short sip of her soda. “I need to find The Fixer.”

“Excuse me?” The Stalker said before she could stop herself. Given her talents, she assumed she would have to find someone. She had not expected the agent of The Fixer to want to find The Fixer. Rather, she had expected The Agent to be a proxy for The Fixer.

The Agent must have anticipated the surprise. “We were attacked two nights ago. I don’t exactly know what happened—I wasn’t present at the time—but I have not seen any sign of The Fixer since. If he has been captured, I’d like to find him. If he’s dead, I’d like confirmation.”

“Can’t find dead people,” The Stalker muttered, mushing about her milkshake with the straw. “Who attacked you?”

“An organization or person I know only as The Mummy.”

The Agent had mentioned mummies on the phone, but The Stalker must have missed that she was using it as a title rather than as a type of creature. “Never heard of ’em,” The Stalker admitted with a shrug.

“You wouldn’t be the only one. Even The Church has been having trouble,” she said in a casual tone completely at odds with the ridiculousness of her words. “But The Fixer believes they are real, and now, I do as well. I have proof.”

She placed a large black cloth on the table and gingerly unfolded it. Wrapped inside was a shard of a porcelain mask with some worn linen bandages hanging off it. The Stalker’s eyes immediately honed in on a signature. She couldn’t tell what caused it, and this time, it wasn’t necessarily because she was unfamiliar with the type of being. It was just so faint. Barely there. Another two days and she might not have been able to sense anything at all.

Identifying the type of being was more of a secondary use of her abilities. She wasn’t called The Stalker for nothing. Looking up, ignoring the other people in the diner as her eyes took on a shimmer, she slowly turned her head, scanning. To her surprise, she got almost nothing from it. The Stalker did have limitations that she wasn’t keen on advertising, mostly related to distance, but her sight reached through the entirety of the City of Chicago. If she couldn’t find something she had locked onto, it was likely they weren’t here anymore.

Just as she had been about to tell The Agent that, The Stalker caught it. A faint glimmer in the distance. Somewhere off in the western part of Chicago, a matching signature flickered like a fistful of glitter tossed into the air. She would need to move around a bit to get a more accurate bead on the unfamiliar area and signature, but she had what she needed.

As The Stalker pulled herself back to the diner, she frowned. A stack of French toast sat in front of her, and The Agent had a bit of a strained smile on her face. Their waitress must have come back.

The Stalker shrugged it off. Even if someone saw her like that, it wasn’t a problem. Regular people would see her eyes and think she had some contacts in, or maybe the light was strange. Even if they realized something was odd, a random person wasn’t likely to think much of it beyond the evening. They had their depressing lives filled with the crushing pressure of bills and social contracts and general misery to worry over.

Slicing into her meal, The Stalker looked over to The Agent. “I think I can help with this,” she said, pointing at the mask shard that had been wrapped back up. “Though if you’ve got something of The Fixer’s, I might be able to locate him directly.”

The Agent’s expression turned sour. “Unfortunately, a fire burned away pretty much everything I think might work.”

“Then the mask will have to suffice.”

“Excellent. Shall we talk payment? I can acquire a fair amount of cash, but I imagine you’re more interested in things like favors.”

She might be surprised. The Puppet wasn’t the wealthiest faction around, and The Stalker wasn’t the wealthiest in their faction. A favor was tempting, but it depended entirely on one thing.

“What can you do for me?” The Stalker asked.

“My specialty lies in breaking things,” The Agent said.

The Stalker waited for more, but it seemed nothing more was coming. She could understand wanting to keep things close to the chest, especially if the woman truly had nothing more going for her, but that was a bit too vague.

“Anything,” The Agent said, reading The Stalker’s expression. “Walls, locks, cars, whatever. If it can be broken, I can break it.”

The Stalker couldn’t help but frown. That didn’t sound all that impressive. The Stalker wasn’t the strongest person around, but even she could take a hammer to a wall or door. But that was the way this world worked. She had a short-range teleport and stalking abilities. The Warrior could craft a bullet that would blow up a building. There was no point in complaining about the disparity in power since there was nothing she—or anyone—could do about it.

Leaning back, she brought her milkshake’s straw to her lips as she thought. Did she need anything broken that she couldn’t just as easily break herself? The Art, maybe, but The Hanged Man would be pissed if he ever found out. And he would, since The Agent had no reason to keep her mouth shut about who sent her once her favor was finished. It was the main reason she hadn’t gone after The Art despite being able to find her anywhere in the city.

Was money the better option then? It didn’t matter which side of the coin; money made the world go round. She didn’t eat, but others did. A roof over her head wasn’t cheap. Weapons cost money. Cars cost money. People cost money. This was her job. She wouldn’t have to share with the rest of The Puppet.

What would the rest of The Puppet say were they here instead?

The Warrior would have taken the cash. She didn’t need someone to break something for her. The Healer wouldn’t have cared one way or another—she probably wouldn’t have gotten out of bed for this meeting in the first place. The Strategist would have taken the favor, even if he had no use for it. Money could be acquired in any number of places, but having someone on call to handle a task in a pinch was invaluable.

“A favor then,” The Stalker said. “Though I have nothing in need of breaking at the moment. You’ll be sticking around the city for a while?”

“At least until I’ve found The Fixer. I’ll warn you if I’m planning on leaving. Then you can either hurry and decide on something or I’ll pass over some cash.”

The Stalker nodded her head. That would allow her some time to further consult with The Strategist. This was her favor, and she wasn’t going to let him twist it to his benefit—the bastard would try, she was sure—but that didn’t mean she had to completely disregard his advice. “Then we’ve got an agreement. How would you like to do this?”

“Give me a day to prepare,” The Agent said without a moment of thought. She must have planned that in advance. “Then you lead me to the owner of this mask?”

“Sounds good to me.” The Stalker relaxed now that the business was done with. “You’re paying for this, right?” At The Agent’s nod, she raised her hand to the waitress. “Another milkshake, please.”