Kitty ran.

Her feet landed hard on the carpeted floor of blue and purple patterns, the long hall topped and flanked by a repetitive assortment of tables, shelves, chandeliers candles gold and silver ornaments, all of it shaded in muddled colors, all of it stretching on and on with no end in sight. No doors, no windows, just an endless path, a narrow cage.

Turning to look behind her, Kitty saw the monster—oozing tendrils of pitch-black shadows, stretching itself forward, crawling, pulling, taking up the whole hall so that it looked like one big inevitable wall consuming everything it touched. Kitty heard it drone with each centimeter it traveled, a hollow groan like the echo of an unexplored tavern, calling to her, threatening her, heading right in her direction and set to consume her too, fold her in its wide, empty maw.

Kitty had to get out, but her legs almost buckled with each step forward, and her arms strained as they pulled along an immobile Scarlet. The woman tried her best to ease the effort, clinging to Kitty with a trembling strength, but even now her gut spilled red as clear and bright red as her hair, and her feet dragged roughly every time they strained forward inch by horrid inch.

"Don't let me go!" Scarlet heaved, her nails like claws hooked on Kitty's arms, nearly piercing through flesh. "Don't let me go!"

She repeated the words like a mantra, their syllabic rhythm filling the endless hallway as much as the sucking hiss of the shadow beast behind. Kitty listened to it, determined to follow their instruction, teeth grit and hands gripped tightly on Scarlet's clothes, pulling them nearly to the point of ripping.

But it was so hard. Scarlet only got heavier, a growing ball and chain keeping Kitty in place, and the more the girl tried the less it seemed to matter. She looked back at the beast again, saw its tendrils slapping closely at their heels, and her heart tightened, each pump painful, her veins flowing like rapid lava inside her, but she couldn't let go of this weight, she couldn't.

Then, ahead, Kitty saw Jason just a few feet ahead. His back turned to her, the man walked slowly ahead, stepping further and further away into that eternal distance. What was he doing here? Did he not see her struggling so close behind?

"I need help!" Kitty said, feeling the sharp sting of tears bubbling behind her eyes. She blinked, her vision blurred, almost fell forward, gasped with pain and frustration and terror as she saw him shrinking out of sight. "Jay! I need help!"

"Don't let me go!" Scarlet kept saying, and Kitty didn't want to but the monster vibrated a hair's breadth away, and her skin tingled with the unrestrained need for survival, and Scarlet's nails dug deep enough to spark blood, and when Kitty swerved her head to look she saw that it wasn't Scarlet at all but a black panther snarling up at her, teeth flashing like knives and foam snarling down its lips, eyes a vibrant deadly yellow. It clawed at her, scratching deep grooves on her arms, and Kitty screamed, letting go, watching wide-eyed as it fell into the wall of darkness and rippled out of existence.

She ran, though each step still felt weighed down and each swing of her arms pushed against air that felt more like swimming through water, and the hallway shifted, its carpet gone, cabinets gone, bright chandeliers gone, all a monochromatic square box of empty nothing, floors a gray wood, and Kitty kept running through it even when she knew she hadn't moved a single bit, kept running despite feeling even more trapped in this soulless place, knowing its blank walls and its moody light like an image from an old dream, and she did not want to be back here, anywhere but here, and now the dark behind her called Don't let me go in a low boom that rattled her skull and filled all of time and echoed forever, louder and louder, and then Kitty fell, panic and horror filling every pore of her body and her mind until there was no more sound, no more sight, no more time, and all at once she suddenly flew up awake.

Each heave of air hurt, rocking her chest, but now it alone filled the space around her, and Kitty heard herself breathe. She looked around and saw a soft morning light seep through the thin space between otherwise closed curtains, and she saw the dulled shapes of the empty bed across the room, the table by the corner, the television hung up on the wall. Clean and impersonal, like somewhere out of a home decor magazine.

A guest room. Right. Rebecca's guest room. Kitty had shared it with Baba last night. The boys had slept in the living room downstairs. All of it came back to her in a single calming moment, and Kitty put her hand on her chest, forcing herself to breathe slowly, in and out, until her heart slowed in equal measure. Blinking, she felt something raw at the edges of her eyes, and when she reached up to touch it she realized she must've been crying in her sleep. Even now her nightmare flashed through her mind in a mingled series of snapshot images, and Kitty felt the pit in her throat.

Unacceptable. Things being as they were, there was no room for Kitty to suffer some kind of breakdown, so she put her face in her hands and forced it into shape, palms pressed against her cheeks until she pushed all the sadness out. Don't feel, just do. Don't feel.

When her mind had settled, Kitty got out of bed and journeyed out of the room. The house was quiet, and big as it was the stillness felt eery, each step of her bare feet on its marble floors tapping louder than they should, and light suffused the whole space, coming grandly in from the tall windows that blanketed nearly every wall.

Coming out to the main chamber, Kitty looked to her right and saw the disco ball hanging by the entrance. Walking into the house it would have loomed far above, a sort of artificial sun that even now glittered with daylight. Even seeing it now from the third floor, Kitty was a little surprised to see how big it was, surely of custom make, and it made sense why Rebecca hadn't taken it down yet—if anything, it was a wonder how she'd hung it up there in the first place.

Kitty found everyone out on the porch downstairs. Baba and Roman sat on one of the tables under the shade of an overhang, the former sipping coffee and the latter reading what looked like the morning paper. Stretch, Red, and Rebecca sat cross-legged on the grass some ways away and seemed already engaged in conversation, while Donny loitered at the edge of the pool, not joining them directly but clearly listening in.

"Morning," Baba said, looking surprisingly well-rested. In her hand she held a lit cigarette—apparently Rebecca's mother was a smoker, something to be thankful about. "How'd you sleep?"

"Fine," Kitty said. She looked at Roman, glancing over the paper in his hands. "What's it say?"

" 'Late-night gang war rocks the peace,' " the man recited. "Twenty confirmed dead, over a hundred wounded. Local hospital filled to the brim."

He seemed tired as ever, but at least all the grime from the day before had been washed away, and his ruined clothes had been replaced by jeans and a polo courtesy of Rebecca's out-of-town father, who the girl had stressed 'wouldn't even notice.' Having seen the size of her parent's walk-in closet, Kitty couldn't even disagree.

They all wore borrowed clothes now, save for Stretch and Baba who still sported the pajamas they'd arrived in. There hadn't been any other choice—as hospitable as Rebecca had been, she drew the line at staining all her family's furniture with drying blood. The evidence of a house party could be explained away or forgiven, but the evidence of a shootout? Not so much.

"We need to buy supplies," Kitty said. "I could go now if you give me Scarlet's ring."

Roman raised a brow. "Can't you turn invisible?"

"I can, but I assume you don't want the next news story you read to be about haunted shopping bags floating out of their stores."

"... Fair enough." Roman took the ring out of his pocket. He hesitated, staring at it for a long moment, before holding it out to her. "Try not to get caught. We can't lose you too."

Kitty bit back a retort about how preposterous a worry it was. She was good, but it was impossible to say she'd be definitely safe with Hound hanging around somewhere out there. Nodding, she put Scarlet's ring in her pocket and, with the same hand pulled out her own translucent one. She gave it to Baba, who took it with a questioning glance.

"If I do get caught," she said, "it's better that they don't end up with all our weapons."

Baba hummed. "You need any money?"

"I can steal whatever we need. ATMs aren't that hard to break into."

"Nice to know we've been raising you right..."

"And what are they doing?" Kitty asked, looking over at the others out in the backyard.

"Spirit lessons. They were all pretty eager." Baba grunted. "Even your minion's taking part, Roman."

"I don't blame him," the man said, amused. "You have to admit, real magic is something worth at least being curious about."

Which raised the question of why he wasn't out there with them, but Kitty figured he might just have other things to worry about. "It's a waste of time," she said, arms crossed. "One week isn't enough time to make any real progress."

Baba shrugged. "What else is there for them to do? You two are the planners."

Roman threw her a glance. "And you?"

"I'm the moral support." She dragged on her cig and blew a thin stream of smoke. "Anyway, I wouldn't count the kids out just yet. Red's talented, and even if it might not look like it half the time Lawrence usually knows what he's doing. They might just surprise you."

"Well, I'm not holding my breath," Kitty muttered.

Regardless, it wasn't her problem what the others wasted their time on. If anything, this was better than having them cooped up not doing anything—knowing Red, that would've only led to some impulsive disaster that might assuage his boredom at the expense of everyone else's safety.

So sure, keep the hamster on the wheel. In the meantime, Kitty would go be useful.

- - - — MKII — - - -

This felt decidedly kindergarten.

Rebecca sat crisscross applesauce on the damp grass as she'd been instructed, Red doing the same right beside her, and they both faced the man who claimed to be called Stretch, though personally she still thought it was some kind of weirdly specific prank. It was hard to say what she'd thought learning magic would be like—maybe something to do with a decrepit tome or at least getting handed a wand á la Harry Potter—but being told merely to "sit still and breathe" hadn't been high on the list.

Stretch hadn't told them to close their eyes, but he had so Rebecca tried copying him. After a couple of minutes where nothing happened, she glanced sideways at Red and saw that he was already fidgeting around. At least it wasn't just her.

"I know it's weird," Stretch suddenly said. Rebecca looked up at him, seeing his smile, and there was no way he wasn't messing with them. "But this is step numero uno."

"Can you at least tell us why?" Rebecca said, exasperated. "Is this some woo-woo meditation thing?"

"Heh, I guess you could say that. But you're new to all this, so I guess it might help to start from the beginning." Stretch reached up to scratch at his goatee, choosing his words. "You've probably already felt your Spirit before. It's that thing inside you that makes you go 'oh shit!' or 'hell yeah!' That thing that makes your body wanna get up and dance, or run away, or really do much of anything. That fidgety feeling."

He pointed at Rebecca, smile knowing. "You see it as a metaphorical thing, right? Like when you're trying hard at something and someone tells you 'that's the spirit' or something like that. But the truth is, Spirit is a real kind of energy you actually use, like an electric current inside you. Without it you wouldn't even be alive. No one would be. You just use it subconsciously, because you don't know any better, but for a Magician it's not subconscious like it is for normal people. Magicians learn how to mold that energy to do all sorts of crazy stuff."

Putting his hand on his chest, Stretch's smile softened. "So it's not really a superpower, see? It's not a mutation or some super serum or some weird radioactive bite, or even really magic. It's something everyone already has, even when they don't know it. When you learn to use Spirit in a way that's outside the norm, that's what Magicians call a Trick, though officially the RC would call it a Mystic Art."

Ah, so it was some woo-woo stuff. Rebecca tried taking it seriously, made herself remember all the things they'd shown her the night before—Red lifting just about every heavy thing in her house without breaking a sweat, Stretch extending his wingspan to cover the whole diameter of any room they stood in—but even knowing all this had really happened it was hard to wrap her head around it. "Okay, and what does breathing have to do with anything?"

"Spirit comes from the breath." Straightening up, Stretch sucked in one big lungful of air, held it in his chest, then let it out just as deliberately. "Without breathing, there's no life, at least not for us. When you think about breathing, it connects you to your body, makes you... conscious, I guess. You stop taking what's going on inside you for granted, and that's definitely something you need to do if you wanna learn how to use your Spirit. Breathe deep, all the way until you can't anymore, then let it all out slowly. Feel the air move in and out." He looked them over, was met with two perfectly bemused faces, and after a moment of thought put his hands together, holding them in a praying gesture. "And it might help to do this."

Red perked up at that. "Hey, Four-Eyes does that before he starts blowing fire!"

Four-Eyes? It sounded somewhat familiar, and Rebecca felt like she should know who he was talking about, but no familiar face came to mind. Was it just some other magic friend of theirs?

"It's a pretty standard thing for a lot of Magicians," Stretch said, hands still clasped. "To be honest, it doesn't really matter what you do as long as it helps you concentrate, but I guess doing this caught on. Other places have their own versions, though. Like, I'm pretty sure over in Japan they do it like this." Now he lowered his hands and had one cup the other, palms up and thumbs touching, but after a second he frowned. "Or, wait, was it like this?" Now his hands shifted again, this time with one hugging the index and middle finger of the other, pointing like a rifle up at the air. "I'm not sure."

Shaking his head, Stretch put his hands back down on his knees. "Anyway, just trust me. The first step is feeling out your Spirit and noticing it in your body. Pay attention to your breath, and really try to feel how it gets spread out along your chest and down your limbs."

At this, they fell into silence again. Rebecca closed her eyes and breathed in, held the air in her lungs for one, five, ten, twenty seconds, then breathed out. She tried to feel what Stretch was talking about, tried imagining her veins like wires and the incoming oxygen like lightning passing through them, tried to spot that spark wherever it was hiding, but after a while of nothing happening she clicked her tongue. "This is hard..."

"It is for everyone the first time," Stretch said. "You're... trying to look for something that feels different, right? Something weird and special?"

Rebecca frowned but nodded. Hadn't that been the point?

Stretch just gave her a patient smile. "It might help not to look for anything weird. Spirit isn't some alien energy, Rebecca. Remember, it's already a part of you. Finding it's the same as telling the difference between your foot and your knee; they're different because they do different things, but they're still a part of you. Don't think of your Spirit as that magic power inside me. Think of it as that part of me that gets me moving."

Well, that didn't exactly make it any more clear as far as practical advice went, but Rebecca supposed this just wouldn't be the kind of thing that came with easy answers. The part that gets me moving. What made her move, act, want to do? It felt like some kind of daily journal prompt.

Next to her, Red raised a hand. "I'm having a hard time too."

Stretch scratched his goatee again, turning fully to the boy. "You probably have the opposite problem, Red. Rebecca here's flailing around in the dark trying to find something she can touch, but you have so much Spirit it's more like someone turned the floodlights on right in front of your face and now you're totally blind. What you have to do is find that part of you that isn't Spirit, the part that doesn't want to act. Then you'll be able to tell the difference, and you'll know what there is to grab."

Red stilled, trying to make himself stop bouncing around. Something that doesn't want to act. Except Red always wanted to act, because how was he supposed to live otherwise? There wasn't anything but action. Even ants went around doing stuff. Only rocks didn't act, and Red wasn't a rock.

Seeing his scowl, Stretch sighed. "Haven't you ever felt..." He paused, lips grasping at the words. "Felt... I dunno, worn out? Hasn't there been any point where you just felt like you couldn't do anything?"

Grunting, Red clapped his hands together and tried to think. He'd been pretty tired after his fight with Harmony, but he hadn't exactly felt like he couldn't do anything, his body had just been too beat up and strained to match any of his desires. Maybe... last night, during the shootout? He'd felt pretty useless then.

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Scowl deepening, Red felt it again. That pit, like he was falling off of something and could only watch as he tumbled down. But the feeling only made him want to reach up, claw at the walls of his mind and climb right the hell out of it. That argument with Kitty back during the party; really, just Kitty in general. Scarlet's death too—all any of it did was make him want to do more, not less.

Closing his eyes, Red felt the sun on his skin, the breeze in the air, the moisture of the grass. He heard the waves crashing softly against the nearby shore, the far-off cries of gulls. Everything just... moved. There wasn't anything that didn't move. The whole world supposedly spun around the sun at a billion miles an hour. How exactly was he supposed to not notice that? How could he reject it?

Somehow, the black behind his eyelids darkened. It took him a second to realize it must've been a cloud passing overhead, a momentary shade amidst the bright blue sky, but in that moment of confusion he remembered... something. The warmth of the day left him, the breeze froze, the grass turned hard and nondescript, the waves fell into sudden silence, the gulls disappeared. He remembered somewhere dark and silent and alone. He remembered four walls and a ceiling and nothing else. A place where all was the same and nothing changed.

His blood curled at it, body hardening, and Red refused.

Pins and needles consumed his body. Opening his eyes, Red looked over at Rebecca and saw her leaning far back away from him, eyes wide and a little scared, skin noticeably pale. Looking at Stretch, he saw the man smiling at him, though with thin lips and a forehead suddenly matted with sweat. Even Donny, Red noticed, had nearly fallen off his chair by the pool, staring wide-eyed over at them from over his sunglasses.

"You feel it?" Stretch asked. "I mean, you sure as hell better. Look at yourself right now, man."

Red looked. Holding a hand in front of his face, he saw the air around it... blur. A translucent white light seemed to coat his skin, flaring up like a low flame, seemingly dissolving into the air.

And, watching it, Red did feel something. It was a buzz not entirely dissimilar to what he'd felt Friday night, a sort of muted body drunkenness, but one that came along with a mind made clear.

Almost too clear, even. The green of the grass seemed somehow more green, the blue of the sky more blue. The edge of every shape around him seemed sharper, in high definition. He could taste the air, listen to the music of its passing current, feel the moisture of the sea. If everything always moved, now it seemed to dance. The whole universe was dancing.

"This is so cool," Red breathed. He moved his arm around, watching the light follow in its wake. "I think... I think I could get used to this."

Next to him, Rebecca licked her lips and settled back down, though it still looked like something was squeezing at her throat. "That was quick..."

"Red's already been using Spirit all this time, so this part was bound to be easy enough," Stretch said, turning to Rebecca. He put a hand on her shoulder, and something about his touch seemed to ease her tension. "For him it's just a matter of consciously doing the stuff his body already knows how to do. For you it's learning all that from the very beginning. Don't beat yourself up for not getting it right away. Just keep at it, you'll get there eventually." Glancing at Red, he smirked. "And I'm happy for you, man, but think you can cut it out for a bit?"

Red tilted his head, wondering why he should and honestly not wanting to—it just felt so good. But Stretch's look was rather insistent, so fine. He let out a long breath and dimmed the fire inside him. It took some effort, like turning a runaway faucet closed, but after much pushing and prodding he managed it. "Okay," he said, voice coming along with a bit of a heave, "so what now?"

Stretch let go of his own breath—had he been holding it all this while?—and let go of Rebecca, who also looked strangely relieved. "Now comes the hard part," the man said. "We need to start thinking about what kind of Trick you want to make. Gotta brainstorm first, and then we can figure out how to make your Spirit do it. So, any ideas?"

That got Red back on track. He'd thought about this very question the whole night, going over that last fight, then thinking back to all the scraps he'd gotten into over at the World Tree. Taken together, he'd come to a pretty obvious conclusion. "All my fights so far, I haven't been able to do anything unless I could get in close. It's worked out so far, more or less, but it'd be nice not to have to worry about that. I need something that lets me hit from far away."

"A ranged Trick, huh? Not bad. I was thinking the same thing." At Red's stare, Stretch tapped his own head. "Remember back at the harbor, when Jay cut through that tornado? That was his Trick. Kinda. He calls it Overextension. You ask me, that's what you should try to learn."

Immediately, Red's face flattened to a grimace, like he'd eaten spoiled food. "Dude, I don't wanna copy someone else's schtick. Talk about lame."

"I'm not asking you to copy it. I'm asking you to try and learn it. Along the way, who knows what could happen?" Stretch raised a hand and lengthened his fingers, waving them around in the air like flailing spaghetti. "I got this Trick trying to learn Jay's, y'know."

"Yeah right."

"Swear to god, man. Truth is, it's almost impossible to perfectly copy other people's Tricks. It's hard to figure out exactly how they do it even if they tell you, because Spirit's not something that you can really describe in too much detail."

"I've noticed," Rebecca muttered, making Stretch laugh.

"Anyway, your own Spirit also has a sorta... natural flavor? Even when you think you're doing things the same as someone else, your Spirit leans a certain way and messes it up." He retracted his fingers and looked down at his hand, recollecting. "Jay's Trick lets him shoot out the force his body creates. He swings his sword and that swing comes out like an invisible wave. I knew that's how it worked, and in my head I thought I just needed to extend my Spirit from my body. I kept trying to hold my hands out and shoot it, then next thing you know I do shoot something out and it's not the Spirit but the hand. Kinda freaked me out, not gonna lie, but I got used to it, and it feels more... me."

Rebecca leaned forward. "So, what'd you call yours, then?"

"I call it Stretch."

"... You're kidding me."

Stretch shrugged—he'd named his Trick before anyone had come up with his nickname, so as far as he was concerned it was everyone else's fault. Looking at Red, he saw the boy frowning thoughtfully, a strange sight he now found himself getting used to after the past few days.

"We have less than a week to make your Trick," Stretch said. "Honestly, man, it's gonna be close. But I think we can do it if we're smart. Think of Jay's Overextension as a... blueprint, or a guideline. It helps having something to base yourself off of, believe me. Most Magicians do it like that."

Red sighed. "I guess that makes sense... So fine, let's do it your way. Where do I start?"

"Same place any Trick starts." Stretch crossed his arms, looking suddenly serious. "The three Root Arts. They're the absolute fundamentals of any Magician's skill. Without learning those, there's pretty much no hope." As sudden as his severity now came an impish grin. "Lucky for you, you already know 'em."

"I do?"

"Would've been hard to survive as long as you have if you didn't, man." Stretch held out a hand and started counting them out. "The first is Spirit Boost, using your Spirit to strengthen your body. Don't think you need any help there, obviously."

"... There's an actual name for that?"

"The second," Stretch continued, "is Spirit Sense, using your Spirit to feel the Spirits of other people around you." He looked intently at the boy. "When you fight, don't you kind of just... know what the other person's up to without even having to see them? I noticed back when we sparred, your instincts are nowhere near normal."

Red remembered his battles, feeling like someone had told him the moon came out at night and he'd somehow never noticed. Because Stretch was pointing to something. That fight with Lorcana had him on the back foot, but he'd somehow always known just when to dodge out of the way of her spear even if it had been hard to gauge its direction. "Now that you mention it, yeah. I guess I never really thought about it."

Stretch chuckled—leave it to Red to think having a straight-up sixth sense was somehow anything but bizarre. "People who get really good at it can use their Spirit Sense to track everything around them. I've even heard some blind Rangers train it up to let them keep working even without being able to see."

He shook his head. "But the third Root Art's definitely the most important one for you. I'm sure you've felt it before when you're in front of someone strong, a sort of pressure, right? Like the air just gets heavy."

Harmony. The name came to Red right away. Especially during that second fight, when something about the fairy had changed, he remembered it feeling like the whole world was somehow getting pulled into their orbit.

It must've come across in his face, because Stretch nodded at him. "That's called Spirit Flow. Pushing your Spirit out, pointing it at other people and totally dominating them with pure will." His lips curved up. "I guess you haven't noticed this either, but you're constantly doing it, Red."

Red blinked. "I am?"

Stretch turned to Rebecca. "You feel it too, right? When you're around him, something about the air just feels different."

The girl sent Red a nervous glance. "I guess... yeah. I knew there was something sorta special about him right away." Her cheeks colored and she looked away, but after a second she frowned. "Especially just now when you... unlocked your powers, or whatever. It was actually pretty scary. I... I felt like I was gonna die for a second."

Red blinked again, looking at her with blatant surprise. Seeing it, Stretch scratched the back of his head. "It's all that Spirit you have, man. Usually, these three techniques are something you learn, and even then most Magicians have to actually think about using them, like turning on a light switch. But for you it's like... you have so much Spirit that it's overflowing. Your light switch is always on. And that thing you did, where you could actually see your Spirit coming out of you?" Stretch shook his head. "Spirit's not supposed to be something you can see. I can't even imagine how much you gotta have to make it actually visible."

"So basically," Red considered, "I'm even more awesome than I thought." It was nice to know, but then he looked at Rebecca, recalling her moment of fear. "Is it really that dangerous?"

"A little," Stretch said. "Luckily it's just sorta been bubbling out of you this whole time, pretty contained. But that thing you did just now? That was you using Spirit Flow for real. Rebecca doesn't know how to use her Spirit yet, so you could do some serious damage to her if you're not careful."

"What kind of damage?"

"The kind that, uh, kills people." Rebecca and Red both blanched at that. "Not that I'd let it happen! The best way to deal with someone else's Spirit Flow is blocking it with your own, and mine's strong enough to block yours, more or less. At least as long as you don't point it straight at me and really try to break through." Stretch glanced at Red. "Don't do that, by the way. I'm pretty sure your Spirit would shred right through mine if you really tried, and I'd rather not turn into a vegetable, thank you very much."

By now Donny had smartly retreated to the safety of the porch, joining Roman and Baba at their table and watching the Spirit practice from a more comfortable distance. Seeing that, and seeing Rebecca nervous beside him, Red sighed. "I'll be careful. But you said this one was the most important?"

"The most important for you," Stretch said, putting on a calming smile. "See, every Magician's Trick is really just a jerry-rigged version of the Root Arts. That's why they're, y'know, the root. Jay's Overextension is pretty much all Spirit Flow, so that's what you'll have to spend your time practicing before anything else."

He clapped his hands. "So there you have it, man. First class over, and now it's up to you guys to make it happen. Rebecca, you just keep on meditating 'till you find your Spirit. Red, practice controlling your Spirit Flow until it's less all over the place. I wanna see you turn it on and off like it's nothing before we move onto the next step. But, er... Go do it over there."

He waved the boy to the pier, and Red got the message clear enough. With so many normies around, it'd be stupid to keep him too close while he practiced, at least until he got a better handle on his Spirit.

He stood up and breathed in deep, feeling the air fill his lungs and his Spirit come alive. "I'll get it down in no time," he said, willing it to be true.

Stretch and Rebecca watched him walk off. Once he was far enough away, the former glanced coyly at the latter, noting how her eyes lingered. "You have your work cut out for you. He's a good kid, but he's not exactly easy to pin down."

In an instant she glared at him, and in the next instant she closed her eyes, head bowed and brow frowning deeply, hands coming together with a loud clap. "Shut up, I'm concentrating! Ouuummmmmmmmm..."

Laughing, Stretch got to his feet. He'd check in on them in an hour or so. For the moment, he might as well try out that perfectly good pool. He'd noticed Kitty leave earlier, so hopefully she'd be back with some dry clothes to change into by the time he got out.

- - - — MKII — - - -

Barry had gotten out clean.

A whole Outpost full of Rangers wasn't anything to sneeze at, but then again neither was he. Three stars in their little ranking system last he'd checked—as big an ego boost as mystic reprobates like him ever got. Maybe it'd even go up now that he'd hone and killed a governor.

Really the guy had it coming. Bastard got plenty of kickbacks and had already planned a speaking tour to every fancy dinner on the northwest coast. When you made your donors happy enough, sitting to hear your boring bullshit and then paying you for the privilege was the least they could do in return. He'd been as corrupt as they came, just like the rest. The public should honestly thank Barry for dragging him to asphyxiate some fifty feet underground.

Once he was far enough away from the scene of the crime—and far enough away from the Rangers who even now surely panicked at having lost sight of him—Barry retraced his steps, created a false trail, and only then headed for his hideout. Not for long, of course. He just needed to get all his things before he disappeared entirely. This job had given him enough cash to do that for a good few years, and thank god for that. The work was fulfilling in its own way, but like anyone else Barry wanted to find some way to retirement sooner rather than later.

When he reached his hideout—or rather, felt the particular frequency he'd set his speakers at just above him—he swam up through the ground and popped out of the floor. His Groundhog wasn't the flashiest Trick, but it was certainly the best way to get around that he could think of.

It was only once his whole body was out in the open air of the room that Barry felt it. A presence right behind him, hidden in the shade, silhouette lit by the low blue light of his speaker system. Even now those speakers rang loud with a dry, characterless beat, something distinct yet orderly enough for Barry to feel vibrating as he traveled, and somehow it made the knowledge that he wasn't alone in what was supposed to be his secret hideout even more ominous.

"So, one of you was good enough to find me after all," Barry said, turning around.

He saw the figure leaning against the wall, a grizzled face hidden under a wide-brimmed hat, body covered by a long leather coat, and was that a... a toothpick trapped between those lips? What was this guy supposed to be, some kind of cowboy? Hell, he even had a badge for chrissakes—

Wait. That badge. Barry squinted his eyes even as he also stepped back toward the nearby wall. If worst came to worst he could always just dive into it and out of sight.

But that badge. Barry was sure he'd seen it somewhere before. A pair of crossed swords...

Oh. Oh.

Barry made to leap at the wall, but in that very instant the man before him twitched and suddenly his knee stopped working. He crumpled to the ground, breathed in, tried to form his Spirit so he might at least defend against whatever had just hit him, but it didn't matter. The man twitched again, a sharp split of light shot across the room, and Barry's head flew back with zero resistance, eyes dead in an instant. His body fell on itself like a ragdoll, now a lifeless husk of meat and bone.

The man gave it a second, just watching the corpse lay there. Then he spun his gun around his finger, a sleek silver thing that almost seemed to glow in the dark, and though there'd been no bullet fired and so no smoke now streaming out of its muzzle he blew on it as if there was.

Putting the gun back in its holster under his coat, he raised a hand up to his ear. "Agent Vincent here. Target down."

A feminine voice came to his ear, soft and professional. "Received. Any trouble?"

"No."

"Good, because you'll probably want to get ready for another job."

"You know, I could use a break," Vincent grumbled.

"I don't think you'll want it. There's just some news out from the east. News that might have to do with your, ah... special case."

The words hung in the air. When Vincent next spoke, his voice was gruff and stern and pointed. "The House?"

"Maybe. At first it just sounded like some Rogue Magicians getting into gang trouble, but I've been hearing stories about a shadow Trick, and a girl who can turn invisible. Sound familiar?"

Oh yes, it certainly did. Vincent raised his head, steely eyes narrowed hard at the blank wall of this two-bit hideout, feeling the rage and hatred sweep through him for the first time in years. He wasn't the same as he had been, he made himself remember. He wasn't the kind to fly off the handle anymore.

No, this anger would be grappled, tamed, and pointed directly at his enemies.

"I'll check it out," he said, grounding out the words. "You gimme what I need. Names. Addresses."

"Sure thing. Just remember our deal."

"You'll get your pay."

"And I'd appreciate you keeping quiet about where you got this news from. I can keep this from reaching Internal Affairs until you're done, but in the meantime it's not in your jurisdiction."

"Everythin' about the House is in my jurisdiction, whether En likes it or not."

"Unfortunately, official regulations don't see it that way. If you're going all cowboy cop on this, I'd rather not be involved."

"Not my fault red tape's such a pain in the ass."

A sigh came from the other line. "I have no clue how you of all people became an Enforcer."

Vincent had already made his way out the door and now walked through the dingy hall of a beat-up apartment building. "It's a simple thing, darlin'. An Enforcer's number one job is to deal out justice to the people who deserve it. An' that's what I do. Deal out justice."

Walking out into the street, he squinted against the morning sun. Folk passed by him on the sidewalk, looking him up and down but always looking down when he threatened to meet their eyes. "By the way, I'm leavin' the body in there," he said. "Just can't be bothered. Make sure you send someone else to pick that shit up."

That was justice. And if there was anyone who deserved his justice, Vincent knew—had always known—that it was the House and those two monstrous girls. A shadow user, and an invisible ghost. If he was lucky and it turned out this lead was solid, they'd both end up just like Barry had the moment he laid eyes on them.