Deputy Athena Marion looked out over the city from the large arched window at the very top of the tallest tower in the Shards. Lights and stars illuminated New Jade City and covered the town in an incandescent glamour. She was speechless. Not just from the view but from her suspect's manner of escaping her watchmen. She would have at least seen the ninja’s body falling to his death, yet it was as if he never leapt out into the night or was even ever here at all.

“Deputy Marion?” she heard one of her men questioning from behind.

She turned away from the window, feeling queasy. “He’s gone,” she said, failing to hide her disbelief.

“Aye,” agreed Malborne, pulling Adrian Thorne up to his feet. Above his black triangular goatee, his devilish smile was present. “Dead now, at least.”

Adrian started kicking as two of her men grabbed his arms, “Get off me you filthy pigs!” the old man started protesting. “It’s that assassin you should be looking for. Go out and check that he is dead!”

The Deputy scowled at the Gargoyle, who more or less resembled one. “Oh, we’re here for you too, old crow. Some of your men broke into a chapel and attempted to kill a priestess. You’re coming with us to answer some questions.” She nodded to Malborne, and he and two other guards dragged Adrian Thorne away.

Other guards carried the unconscious bodies of his henchmen, hauling them away over armoured shoulders. The satisfaction that she felt was exquisite. She had only dreamed of the sight of Adrian Throne being dragged away ever since she joined the watchmen. The feeling swiftly soured as reality’s cold and violating fingers crept through her skin. He will be sitting back up here tomorrow as if nothing happened. No doubt Thorne would find a way to bend the law and what influence he had on it to weasel out of his crimes. It had taken many years for Athena to accept these kinds of unjust realities.

“You shouldn’t be afraid of me!” the Gargoyle cried out as his boots screeched against the stone floor. “Be afraid of the monsters that are going to bring damnation to the city!”

“Someone please shove a cloth in his mouth,” Athena commanded. “His ravings are giving me a headache.”

“They will make barbarism the only law,” the old man continued to rant. “People will run in fear as city blocks fall into ruin, mothers will cry as-” He was cut short as one guard wrapped a stained, used cloth down his throat. They disappeared down the stairs, leaving just Athena and a few of her men left.

They started to search every corner of the chamber. She searched Adrian’s desk but could find nothing of incriminating origin. Merely letters to other noble lords discussing land and money. “No blue dust this time,” she said to herself.

“The assassin was here,” one of her men answered tremulously. “We all saw him with our own eyes. His body must be at the bottom of the tower somewhere.”

The Deputy nodded dismissively in agreement. “All of you, check outside. I want proof.”

“The Gargoyle’s little rant about monsters getting under your skin, Deputy?” Malborne mockingly jested with an arrogant smirk. He was perusing through Throne’s bookshelf, flicking absentmindedly through a hardback, clearly not focusing on collecting useful evidence.

“Just do it,” she ordered, stone-faced. Athena then stood alone at the top of the Gargoyle’s tower. The cold breeze from the window made her shiver. The Princess had been telling it true. Monsters were in the city. She was not going to allow them to stay.

The moon was still shimmering over the Shards when Athena joined the watch escort; a convoy of three carriages, one of which held an iron cage to keep the captives that were apprehended at the tower and the nearby Pax church. The bloody ninja apprehended half of them, not us. If there was one thing Athena Marion hated, it was someone else reaping rewards she had worked tirelessly to obtain herself. The carriage ride through the city streets was tumultuous at best. Many peasants and commoners cursed and raised their fingers as the convoy’s splintered and blackened wheels inadvertently splashed puddles over passers-by. Some hurled insults and slights as the carriages wheeled through mud and stone. Some were directed at the Gargoyle in his iron cage, but most were directed at the City Watch themselves. We are not welcome here; she thought with increasing unease. The City Watch had earned a notorious reputation in the Shards. Some watchmen were corrupt, but Athena didn’t know which, others used excessive force, but few were ever willing to corroborate the claims of victimised suspects. The City Watch would sooner look after their own than ensure prisoners and suspects were treated with kind of dignity. Even if they were innocent. Some watchmen persecuted and profiled based on their own prejudices whilst many simply didn’t lift a finger to help the poor and starving and simply thought their duty was to keep them at bay. She knew it was all broken. But there were hundreds of watchmen and only one Sheriff and only one Deputy. She did not wish to linger in this borough. Every look she got from locals was scornful glares, and she stood out like a swan in a viper nest in her silver-plated armour.

Shortly after arriving at the barracks in Dorfchester, Athena managed to stow away into her quarters and sneak a bottle of honeyed mead into her administration. She had also pinched some Purestar from an evidence locker and had arranged lines of the pink dust under her desk. Better not to let it go to waste.

As she snorted the sparkling powder up her nose, she felt that welcoming, warm rush of adrenaline. She went from loathing herself to feeling proud of what she had done and achieved. The city did not feel so hopeless when she was intoxicated enough. Then she went for the mead to take the sharp edge off. Before she could finish the first precious swig, somebody hammered on her door. She yelled at whoever was standing outside to piss off… But the hammering persisted. When she begrudgingly opened her door, she found Malborne lacking his kettle helmet, his thinning hair dishevelled from sweat. “Sorry to disturb your respite,” he said with a knowing smirk. “The Sheriff awaits you outside the interrogation chambers.”

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Athena rolled her eyes and thrusted the bottle of mead into his chest. “Put the cork back in it for me.”

She indeed found Sheriff Redtower awaiting her company in the questioning quarters, peaking through the slit in an interrogation room door. He was adorned in his heavy silver and jade armour. The honorary armour of the New Jade City Sheriff. His star badge was golden with black streaks. Despite being indoors, he still wore his steel galea. A crest of green plumes was displayed at the top. It amused Athena that the Sheriff wore such ostentatious armour. It did not match Víctor Redtower’s disposition. The face that looked at her through the silver helmet was as hard as unbroken grey stone, the jaw chiselled and grinding. “I already smell the burning breath, Marian,” he condemned. The Sheriff was not a forgiving man nor compassionate. Athena supposed that it would be impossible to hold his position without losing those qualities.

“I only took one swig,” was Athena’s meek defence to the accusation.

“It would be a great shame to demote you so soon,” the Sheriff warned with a voice of burning iron. “See that you keep your drink at home, not in the barracks.”

Athena felt strangely victorious. As far as she was concerned, if the Sheriff hadn’t found the Purestar, she was still winning. Sheriff Redtower turned to peer back into the interrogation room. His green eyes were studious and piercing. “If you are sober enough, I shall task you with questioning a suspect.”

“Thorne?”

“Thorne is beyond talk or wits. All he does is rant and kick at my men. This one is Wes Maver. He led the attack on the Pax chapel.” The Sheriff’s square face frowned inside the frame of his galea. “I would like to know his motive. Why was Thorne sending him to attack some hapless monks?”

Athena dutifully nodded and approached the door before the Sheriff blocked her with a steel gauntleted hand. “I will be going with you, but you will take the lead.”

It is well past midnight, and now I must take a bloody test? Athena was too tired for this. Each throb in her head felt like a thwacking cane to the temple.

On the other side of the door was a grimy crow of a man in a purple hood hunched over a chipped table. His hands were chained to the oaken wood, yet he did not seem to care. His pale eyes beamed, and he held a gleeful smile at the Deputy as she took the adjacent chair. His gaze made her feel as if something cold was slithering down her skin.

“What were you doing in the Pax church?” she asked him curtly. Sheriff Redtower stood in the corner and watched with his armoured arms folded.

“My my, I’m meeting New Jade City’s new Deputy,” the suspect deflected with feigned marvel. “The first wench, one in fact, and such an… Exotic one.”

Athena knew full well what he was insinuating, and she was tired of hearing it from so many, especially her own suspects. She was born in New Jade and spent most of her life here. It mattered not to them. All that mattered was her family’s provenance. “You can say Sunderranion, Wes,” she said, irritated and weary. “Stop deflecting and tell me what you and Thorne’s men were doing in the chapel. You don’t strike me as the pious type.”

“Maybe I wanted to change my ways and prayed to the Pax Goddess for guidance?” The chains rattled as he raised his hands in a mocking prayer.

“Funny way of doing it. Praying doesn’t usually involve so much attempted murder.” Athena took note of the dry blood around Wes’ ugly mouth. A cherry droplet fell from his hooked nose and splatted onto the iron chains. “Did the priestesses do that to you?” she asked askance.

Wes frowned. “One of them got me in the back of the head, sneaky boar. We merely went there because we were in search of someone.”

The Deputy raised an eyebrow and sat back in her chair. “Do you mean the blue ninja?”

Wes gave the game away when his aquiline nose twitched at the question. “We did not start the feud,” he started to divulge. “He attacked us at the Green Goat, where we were being merry and minding our business.”

His business was selling Purestar and Momentum, but alas Athena had no strong connecting evidence of this, nor were his drug crimes the priority. “He must have wanted something from you?” she pondered out loud.

Wes made a ghastly attempt at an innocent smile, but it just made him look more hideous. He was halfway to fluttering his eyelashes. “What would a ninja want with a lowly merchant such as me?”

Rosamund Greenfire prattled on for what felt like an eternity during their carriage ride from the Duke’s manor, but one important thing she said stayed with Athena. There were two of them. One of them had a burnt face. The likes of the Gargoyle and Wes would make strange company for a mystical assassin, yet the connection was there, staring brazenly at her.

“Did you hear that the other night someone attempted to assassinate the Duke?” Athena casually informed the ugly perp.

“Tragic shame,” he said dismissively.

“This ninja you got into a conflict with allegedly stopped the attacker.” Her face turned hard and vindictive. “I think he’s still looking for him and he seems to think you and Thorne have contact with him. Am I correct?”

Wes leaned in closer to her with that ominous grin and spat a ball of blood into the Deputy’s face. Athena sighed and pulled out a handkerchief she always had stored under her breastplate. Wes was not the first criminal to spit blood at her, nor would he be the last.

Sheriff Redtower sauntered forward from the shadows and removed his steel galea. He walked behind Wes without uttering a word and struck the perp with the shining side of his helm. Wes was knocked out of his seat, his chained hands leaving him dangling from the table like a puppet. The Sheriff kicked him with a steel boot. Wes grunted and thrashed. “Manners,” Redtower said frigidly.

“Who tried to kill the Duke, Wes?” Athena asked once again, peeking over the table to see what sort of state he was in after the thrashing.

The perp spat and his chains rattled. “Beat me and hang me if you wish. I have my honour to uphold.”

“There’s no honour in you,” Athena said scornfully.

Sheriff Redtower kicked him again. And again. And then another time until it appeared that Athena’s suspect was no longer conscience. He never gave them another word, let alone a name. Redtower’s galea was stained with blood. Athena offered her handkerchief, which the Sheriff silently accepted.

“I might have interfered too much in your interrogation,” he said in that matter-of-factly tone he always used. “I apologise.”

“He wasn’t going to talk, anyway.” Athena gazed down at the unconscious man. All they had managed to achieve was a continuation of the man in blue’s beating. “Am I dismissed?”

The Sheriff nodded. “You are. I want daily updates on this case.”

It was a clear, starry night when Athena left the barracks. She was greeted by a refreshingly cool wind and for once, sobriety did not seem so unbearable. Another night of duty was complete and tomorrow the same beatings and questioning would begin all over again. Perhaps all this talk of ninjas in the city was a sign of the end of times. Athena would not have minded that one bit.