The meeting place was strangely easy to find, a brick and mortar square building surrounded on all sides by samey two-story townhouses, like an old warehouse surrounded by residential weeds. Cars lined both sides of the street, so that what should've been two lanes got squeezed into one, surely a tradition of parking violations so well-practiced that law enforcement had completely given up on ticketing. It was bad enough that they went around the block a couple times before Donny just dropped them off and went to try his luck at finding a parking spot alone.

They weren't the only ones out. Mothers pushing strollers, a group of old men cackling at some joke, gaggles of children on their way home from a nearby ball court. Not exactly the kind of place you'd expect professional criminals to meet up in. But the alternative—some shady warehouse well out of the city—would've just made the other Captains think it was some kind of trap. Which it was, just not for them.

So it came as no surprise that they stood out. Three suited figures, one a solid red and a teenager besides, walking down the sidewalk looking like they owned the place. Every passerby stared hard, some merely curious, others vaguely scornful, and a small few with a bit of fear, some sixth sense of theirs telling them that, whoever these people were, it could only mean trouble.

Kitty glanced at the staring passersby, and though they couldn't see her they still looked away, as if subconsciously prodded off by the full weight of her hidden attention. She'd put her ring on in the car, and when they'd gotten out she'd positioned herself at the center of their triangle formation, protected from an accidental bump that might compromise her concealment.

This unfortunately meant she got a full view of Red's back as he preened in front of her, shamelessly reveling in the attention of strangers, marching heel-first in his crimson suit like he owned the place.

"If anyone comes at me," he said, "I'll tell 'em 'you're aboutta be sleepin' with the fishes.' Just like that. 'Sleepin' with the fishes.' That's on brand for this sort of thing, right?"

The question was directed over his shoulder at Roman, who Red figured was about as real an authority on such matters as one could get, being a literal mafia guy and all.

"I'd rather we de-escalate any fight before it happens," Roman said. Then, noticing Red's pout, he sighed. "But sure, kid. If it really comes to it then send 'em to the aquarium."

That got a grin out of the boy, and now Kitty felt the need to whisper to the man herself. Her voice went directly into Roman's ear, thrown silently over the short distance. "Please try not to enable him. He's bad enough already."

Behind her, Scarlet smiled. Chances were the shadow assassin would recognize her usual flamboyantly redheaded persona, so she'd morphed to be suited up like the rest, donning a pair of sunglasses, hair now a pale blonde cropped short, face far more slight and drawn in. Her Makeover was an uncannily effective Trick, but though she now looked far more muted and nondescript—one might even say boring—something about her still exuded a kind of reckless humor.

"It might help to ruffle some feathers," she said. "We need him to draw all the attention, after all."

"The whole idea is to stop things from devolving more than they already have," Roman said.

He sighed again, sliding a hand down his face, fingers catching on his burgeoning wrinkles. The man wasn't that old—maybe in his thirties, if Kitty had to guess—but it was hard to tell at a glance. Something had stolen more than a few years from him, slackening his brown skin, filling his jaw with a perpetual five-o-clock shadow he seemed only barely capable of grooming.

Kitty might've felt bad had she been anyone else. As it was, she only thought that this would make it harder to get him out should things go wrong. Last thing they needed was him being too tired to run properly.

Reaching the building, they were met by a pair of men suited up just like them at either side of the entrance. The first impulse was to deny them entry, but then the men got a better look at Roman in the dwindling daylight and stepped aside instead, inclining their heads.

One of them cleared his throat. "The others are waiting for you inside, sir."

Roman nodded and waited for Scarlet to open the door. Slipping through, he patted one of the bowing men on the shoulder. "Keep up the good work."

"I guess we're fashionably late," Scarlet said, following him in with the others.

They walked into a hallway lit bright by a row of electric chandeliers. Their gold matched the same glint as the candle holders set along the various entryway tables, the same glint as the knobs embedded in the doors flanking the hall and the metal frames of impressionist paintings lined up alongside them. The carpet underneath stretched purple and blue in a swirl of patterned squares, and the walls rose high with dark upright planks of airtight wood.

The whole place felt more like a fancy mansion than some random meeting place surrounded by a middle-class neighborhood, and it made Kitty once again reassess their circumstances. With this and the tailor shop from earlier, it seemed the Volante Syndicate had a knack for hiding in plain sight.

Other suited men and women, underlings of some Captain or another, sat around on the couches and chairs, stood leaning against the walls, playing cards or chatting in muted tones or scrolling on their phones. Their guards weren't down, however, and Kitty noticed them all tense up the slightest bit once they saw Roman coming through.

An atmosphere of suspicion pervaded the hallway. Some of these were Roman's people, and all these shared a respectful nod or even a friendly smile with the man, but most seemed to belong to some other Captain's crew. They quieted, glancing from the corner of their eye, sometimes hunching, sometimes sharing a whisper.

Roman met it all with a straight back and a stony face. He looked each and every one of them in the eye, never once wavering, and it was a rare goon who could resist breaking contact, looking down at their hands or feet with a brief grimace.

Good. Ultimately, none of their plans would mean much unless Roman could convince these people that he was someone worth following once all was said and done. At the very least, Kitty could assure herself that the man she was helping probably wouldn't be the one to fumble things. And obviously Scarlet was as dependable as they came despite her blithe attitude.

Which left Red as the one weak link. His suit clashed starkly against the colors which surrounded him, and his flagrant gaping at all the shiny stuff marked him as an obvious outsider. That was part of the point—no hired mystic could help but stand out in some way—but he needed to stand out as the kind of person a criminal like Roman would actually hire.

Kitty came close to him, still hidden from sight even as she walked alongside the others. "At least try to look scary."

Red turned his head, eyes glancing around at nothing. Scowling, he looked forward again. "I hate it when you do that."

If he was surprised by how no one else seemed to hear what they were saying, he didn't show it. Chances were he was too annoyed by her chiding to think about it.

"Remember, you're the muscle," she said. "Take this seriously."

"I take everything seriously," he said, then punctuated it by sticking out his tongue in her general direction.

Kitty was about to call him some variation of stupid, but stopped herself once she noted the crease of his brow. He looked vaguely irritated now, and if that wasn't the look of a true bodyguard she didn't know what was. "That's a good face. Stick with that and you'll do fine."

"Won't be hard to if you keep yappin' in my ear, Darkness."

A pair of doors waited for them at the end of the hall, their wood carved with intricate diamond ripples, and at either side of these were another two suited men. One took a velvet handkerchief from the shelf beside him, holding it out to Roman.

"Your gun, sir."

Smiling, Roman reached back and pulled out the handgun he had hidden under his suit jacket on the hem of his pants. "I assume we're all getting this treatment."

"No weapons allowed inside. Keeping things peaceful, you know."

"That's something I can appreciate."

He handed the gun over, and the guard put it away with the others, a row of guns folded in fabric. The other guard opened the door, standing aside and inclining his head as Roman and his party went through.

There they found a room furnished with a single table at its center. The room was bright, much more than the hallway, lit not only by chandeliers but also by a series of white lamps propped along the sides of the room, clearly brought in from elsewhere. As little as they knew about the assassin coming after them, the stories of moving shadows had spread well enough, and Kitty supposed this was them being careful. Even the table's underside had been fitted with a small electric candle, lighting up the leather shoes of everyone who sat around it.

At the back loomed a large window just as round as the table, its stained glass depicting combat between a panther and a lion. They wrestled on an open field, and it was hard to tell which was atop the other, both their maws wide open in a silent snarl, teeth sharp and glaring.

Sitting around the table were four men all now looking up at Roman as he entered, eyes passing briefly to Scarlet and Red at either side of him. Lions at rest, Kitty thought, sensing the rigidity of the air, the strain of an audience waiting restlessly for the show to begin.

"Gentlemen," Roman said. He walked calmly and, without hesitation, sat down on the only empty chair left. His smile was slight, and his hands came together on the table. "I should thank you. Things being how they are, I worried you might not have trusted me enough to meet like this."

Going right for the jugular. He had fangs just like the rest, Kitty thought, watching Scarlet and Red stop to stand at either side behind him. As far as everyone knew, she wasn't even there, standing just beside Red but completely unseeable by the naked eye.

"It's rude to call a meeting and then be the last one here," one of the men at the table said.

Short and stout, his bulbous face seemed to stretch down over his collar, nose a big ball of flesh between his eyes, head a pale egg propped up by thistles of hair at each balding side. His eyes, though, were sharp, narrowed to slits and pointed like the barrel of a gun.

Scarlet had filled her in enough that Kitty could at once tell this was Ferdinand Volante, the Don's brother. Stern and ruthless, the man took no chances and wouldn't let an enemy go without putting a bullet in their head first. Real old testament sort of guy, but Kitty supposed that's what she should expect from anyone who'd been in this world for as long as he had. She noted the one guard behind him, a brick of a man with massive hands, fingers filled with gold and silver rings. How many necks had Ferdinand ordered those hands to strangle?

Next to Ferdinand, another man spoke up. "Personally, I'd be up for waiting a bit more," he said, yawning into his elbow.

His words came lazily, His hair was dark and disheveled, coming down almost to his shoulders, combed back with seemingly as little effort as he could get away with. Even his clothes looked half put on, shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest and blazer on the table in front of him like a waiting pillow.

The woman standing behind him reached over to slap the back of his head. Her face was chiseled and her shirt bulged with muscle, but most striking was the eyepatch that covered her left eye, a leather thing whose rough black stood out against healthy and unblemished peach skin.

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"The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we get back home," she said, scowling at the grumbling man before her. "Don't tell me you need even more coffee."

"No, no," the man said. "That'll just make me stay up all night. Imagine that nightmare."

The Don's nephew Yovanni Volante, and his wife Emma. Apparently, the former had been something like the family disappointment before getting married, after which he'd risen quite quickly. It seemed Emma had pounded enough ambition into her husband for his talents to bear fruit, which spoke highly of her powers of persuasion considering how hopeless the guy was said to have been. Still, Kitty figured anyone who'd get so high up in a criminal enterprise like this shouldn't be underestimated even if it couldn't all be attributed to him. Emma might've driven him to it, but Yovanni had met her expectations.

"We're all here now, so let's get started already," another man said. He glared at Roman, arms folded over his massive chest. "I'm looking forward to whatever bullshit you're about to spout, Jackson."

Their principal enemy, Agrivon Volante himself. He was broad-shouldered and equally broad-faced, hair shaved at the sides and pulled up in a moussed flat-top Kitty could almost smell from across the room. A frat boy who'd been given more power than he deserved, at least that's how Scarlet had described him, and to an extent Kitty could agree. His finger tapped against his arm in clear impatience, and he seemed to bite the inside of his mouth, some insult pulled taut like a stringed arrow.

But there was something else there too. An almost animalistic anger that set Kitty's trained senses blaring. He might throw out an insult, but Kitty saw too that he might just as easily leap over the table and rip at Roman's throat. It almost made her wonder how he'd found the restraint to hire an assassin rather than do the deed himself.

"Is the Don not joining us tonight?" Roman asked.

"The old man's feeling a little too under the weather today," Yovanni said.

"So his condition has gotten even worse..."

"Too bad, right?" Agrivon said. "It'd be much easier for you if you could strike us all off the map in one go."

"Now, let's not throw out any more accusations," said the last man.

He was the oldest one there, sitting hunched over a cane a few feet out from the table. His round glasses and shaking, wrinkled hands made him look distinctly frail, but there was a hardness in his voice that silenced the whole room and even the muted chatter from beyond the closed door.

Luther Perkins, the Don's right-hand man. He'd been a Captain himself, Kitty knew, and had by now reached the closest thing people like him could come to retirement. Though technically not in the game anymore, Scarlet had stressed that the whole Syndicate respected him almost as much as the Don himself, and it seemed that reputation had been leveraged here to position him as a sort of mediator.

"The last thing we need," Luther continued, "is to destroy what little trust is left in this group. You four are here to clear things up, not vilify each other more than you already have."

Agrivon's scowl deepened. "You wanna clear things up? Let's clear things up, then." He put a hand on the table, tapping the surface with his finger. "Maybe you didn't notice, Uncle Luth, but we're one man short! And you know why? 'Cuz there's some fucking ninja maniac out there who killed him! If it was a driveby or a rumble I'd get it. I'd be mad, but I'd get it. Things like that happen in this business. But a complete massacre in the dead of night, in the safety of his own home, right when Dad's about to kick the bucket?"

Raising his hand, Agrivon slammed it on the table with a loud wooden clap. "It doesn't smell right! I'm thinking there's a conspiracy! And fine, I won't make no accusations. But I think we all know that if anyone's gonna benefit from this, it'll be one of us, and I don't know about you all, but there's only one person here who isn't family!"

He glared at Roman then, and the other man only smiled ruefully back, a strained look of near-exhausted patience. The tension in the room spiked, and sensing it, Red took a step forward that drew everyone's eye.

"Who the fuck is this kid?" Agrivon spat.

Red grinned at that, a reckless grin of pure trouble, and Kitty felt pressure roll off him like a gushing mist. It was enough to send shivers down the spine of everyone there, a sudden and completely uncanny spike of fear that made no rational sense but felt nevertheless as real as the floor under their feet.

Still, Agrivon swallowed down the nerves and continued his assault. "Th-This meeting's for grown-ups. Go back to school, you lil' shit."

Cracking his knuckles, Red took another step forward. "I'm about to take you to school, motherfu—"

Roman stopped the boy with a hand on his elbow. The look he gave Red then was quite similar to the one he'd sent Agrivon: wilting patience held together by sheer will. He nudged the boy back, and Red, somewhat sheepishly, returned to his place behind him.

"He's with me," Roman said. "You could call him a... special case. Even beyond his strength, I'm sure you all felt that, didn't you? That... wave of danger?"

Ferdinand gave a hesitant nod and Yovanni rubbed his temple, as if it hurt to even remember. Even Agrivon looked away, frowning at the stained glass window and humming out affirmation.

"You've all heard the stories," Roman said, hands returning to their place intertwined before him. "Moving shadows. A body coming from the dark. Donny was very clear on that."

"The guy freaked out," Agrivon grumbled. "He went crazy and started hallucinating. I don't even blame him. All those bodies, it must've been a bloodbath."

"It wasn't a hallucination. The killer—the assassin—really did those things. They were a special person."

"How do you know that?" Yovanni asked.

The question was innocent enough, asked in an uncaring drawl, but Kitty saw well the trap that lay within it. These men were only pretending at denial—they'd lit the whole place up for fear of shadows, after all. They definitely knew something strange had happened. It was only a matter of what exactly. As far as any of them knew, the only one who'd know for sure would be the person responsible, and to have any sort of exclusive information on this matter would be one more point of suspicion.

Luckily, Roman swerved around it well enough. "I know because this boy is the same way. He's... well, there's no easy way to say this. He's got magic powers."

"There's the bullshit," Agrivon said, rolling his eyes.

Roman smiled, and now there was something alive to the quirk of his lips. "Red, a demonstration, if you please."

Grinning again, Red reached over and grabbed the table's edge. Without a hint of strain, he then raised the whole thing over his head with a single arm, holding it up and twisting it around like a jumbo card at a boxing match. Everyone gaped up at it, noting how the table was about as wide as Red was tall.

It was now that Kitty sharpened her senses. Red had revealed himself as Roman's hired mystic, so if the assassin were to strike it would be now while the shock of it was fresh. Her eyes darted from one spot of shade to the next, trying to spot any bulge or bend in their dark surface. She looked at Agrivon, trying to see if his own eyes might betray where the assassin was hiding. Her ears strained, waiting for the sharp ring of a knife, trying to listen past the buzz of electricity that came from all the lights and the argument that now broke out through the room.

"So it is you!" Agrivon was saying. He'd risen from his chair, leaning forward with a sudden bout of rage. "What, wasn't one super freak enough to get rid of us?"

"I brought Red here because the only way to deal with magic powers is to have magic powers," Roman said.

"This isn't real," Yovanni mumbled. "It's gotta be a trick. That kid's some kind of bodybuilder or something."

"How did you find out about this, Roman?" Ferdinand asked, voice stern. "Who told you about it?!"

"Let's calm down, everybody," Luther said. "Agri, please sit back down!"

Nothing in the corners of the room. Nothing in the shadow Red cast with the table overhead, or even the same shadow cast once he dropped it back to the floor with a thump. Nothing along the thin shadows at the edge of painting frames on the walls, or the nooks under the shelves underneath them. Kitty spun around, eyes straining hard, and she saw Scarlet doing the same thing beside her. Where are you, she thought. Where will you come out from?

"It's a fucking trap! Should'a never come here—"

"Why do you need it to be my fault—"

"How are you guys actually believing this—"

"Roman, the proof! The source!"

"Agri, sit down! Everyone—"

There!

Kitty leaped, arms out, and her body crashed down on the figure that had suddenly grown out from the thin shadow behind Luther, a square slip of darkness behind a bookshelf. They both fell with a grunt, and right before her eyes Kitty saw the shadow morph into proper form.

Inky black faded into a skintight gray. Dead brown hair and deader pale skin, a thin mouth set in an unfeeling line, eyes whose life had burnt into lifeless charcoal. Kitty heard the gasps behind her, everyone seeing a human being rise from the dark, their worlds shattering, but she didn't care about that. All she cared about was the confirmation, the final proof that yes, this was her.

Kitty stared down at the girl, remembering and appreciating all at once, pushing evenly against the strength that sought freedom from her invisible grasp. Quietly, almost too quietly, she whispered a name.

"Owl."

The assassin stopped struggling. Her gaze, once looking through it, now seemed to focus on the air before her, as if seeing her transparent shape. There was no change in expression. No anger, or sadness, or joy. There was nothing.

"Mouse." The word came in monotone. Owl said it like a fact, a simple observation, same as commenting on the weather. "You're here."

"I am," Kitty said. Hand shaking ever so slightly, she reached for the handcuffs hung on her belt. "It's over, Owl."

Again, there was no change in expression. But when Owl next spoke, there was a drop—the smallest, most minute drop—of humor.

"If you really think that, you've gotten rusty."

Kitty frowned, then her eyes widened, but it was too late.

It happened in three seconds. In the first, a low cracking sound rang out, just loud enough that Kitty turned to it. In the second, the round window at the back exploded into a shower of sprinkling multicolored glass, panther and lion shattering into endless little pieces. In the third someone leapt through the open window frame into the room, a muddled blur of black and green, arms raised and pointing forward, a dark handgun ready in each hand.

Cracking pop after cracking pop shook the air, smoke coming out in bursts, lights exploding and disappearing at the same moment. Bullets, bullets, bullets, a ratatata symphony of burning lead that split the floor, the walls, the ceiling, blasted lightbulbs out, rocked everything in sight with a rapid constellation of miniature craters. For a brief few seconds everyone deaf, everyone blind, and then color came back into the world, as did sound, as did feeling.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Agrivon screamed, holding one bleeding shoulder. He stumbled back and almost slipped on something, and looking down he saw Ferdinand lying on the floor a gory hole drilled into his forehead, blood seeping out like a puddling river. "Jesus fucking Christ!"

Kitty had dived for Luther, knocking him to the ground before he could get killed. The old man groaned in pain beside her, both of them laying flat against the floor, and she could smell the fear in his sweat. She felt it mingling with her own fear as she stared up and saw Owl slip back into shadow, her territory growing with each light that got blown out by a stray bullet.

"Everyone come in now!" Emma shouted, hunched over Yovanni against the wall of the room. The man's lack of care had been thoroughly shocked out of his system, and his wife seemed just as panicked, though that didn't stop her from giving out orders. "Everyone outside, come in now and shoot the bastard!"

The door swung open, crashing against the wall, and the first three goons who walked through got blown back with exacting pops on the head. The shooter stood at the room's center with his guns held out, tall and bulky, black hair shaggy and almost hanging over his eyes, donned with a thick bulletproof vest and metal plated combat boots and a thick green duffel bag slung over his shoulder, seemingly every inch of him covered with an array of knives, a pump action shotgun and a compact rifle strapped to his back.

He looked like he'd bought the gun store. Hell, he looked like he'd bought every gun store. And every twitch of his body communicated one immutable truth: imminent death.

Scarlet had grabbed Roman and flipped the table onto its side for cover. Red crouched beside her, eyes wide, heart pumping. He tried looking around the edge, then threw himself back when a bullet fired and shot right through where his head had been.

"Who the hell is that?" he asked.

"That," Scarlet said grimly, "is the absolute worst person who could've come."

More goons came in, not bothering to look before they fired at the man, and soon enough bullets flew all over, hornets of destruction streaking this way and that, their buzz an endless fury of noise. Blood leapt over and over, splashing on the floor, covering other bodies as they gasped in pain, every moment filled with the crack of thunder.