Fletcher Street fled from Central Avenue like a cat desperately hoping to evade its pursuer—-twisting peculiarly, frenetically spitting dead ends left and right, and eventually disintegrating into a stumbling series of alleys which dissolved, with its buildings, into the bay. Halfway between Central and the waterfront sat Benny’s corner, the proprietor’s athletic frame leaning with apparent ease against the crumbling brick of a semi-demolished building whose other half housed a family of twelve. Someone had attempted to start a garden amidst the rubble that shared walls with the questionably-sound structure, but the leaves of the potato plants were yellowed and withering—-no surprise there. Good earth was expensive and hard to come by besides. Benny sometimes paid the smaller children to keep watch for trouble, be it cops or competitors, but recently he’d had no need. Business was good. Every person who hurried down the ancient street was a customer or potential customer, even the lawmen. Benny didn’t distinguish—-everyone had a price, and everyone had a need, and Benny had been blessed with an acute awareness of peoples’ desires. No matter your tastes, if Benny didn’t have it, he knew where to get it. Local bottle-dens paid him a stipend to divert business their way, and in return, they’d steer those in need toward his corner. He had a reputation of being stringently fair; money was exact and prompt, or he was not above extracting it with ruthless diligence. Those who knew him knew not to cross him, for he was armed with a cold ambition that sentimentality could not sway. For now, he allowed them to call him “Benny”, but someday soon, he would be addressed as “Mr. Gussman” or simply “Sir”. Soon, he assured himself, soon.

The evening descended gently, the dwindling light bringing even more customers to the streets in search of pleasures only available after the sun set. Benny’s dispassionate gaze turned upward, briefly following the movement of bats near the angels silhouetted against the sky. Older buildings were often decorated with stone figures—-some monstrous and animalistic, some somber and serene, but all uniformly refered to as “angels”. Statues were a rarity; most had been destroyed many years ago, leaving only these strange little refugees stranded on their lofty perches—-forgotten relics of a time before modern history. In the distance, rhythmic music announced that the bottle-dens were opening for the night, and Benny’s attention returned to the street, where it belonged. A figure was approaching, one that he recognized immediately, but did not greet. The girl paused a yard or so from him, her blank face offering only the fresh bruises and cuts of the day. Benny knew better than to expect a smile.

“The usual, love? Ah, that’s right, you don’t like it when I say that. Rough day at the station?” Benny extended his hand, palm up, and smirked. There wasn’t much that went on in this city without him hearing about it, especially when one of his regulars got hauled in for questioning. He also knew she hadn’t ratted him out—-if the abuse on her pale skin wasn’t evidence enough, he knew she needed the rush. She had a habit, and he was her supplier. In all the months he’d known her, Benny still hadn’t heard her speak, but he’d quickly learned to read her. Sometimes the lack of expression made it even easier to see when something hit home—-a minute narrowing of the eyes, a momentary downward curve of the lips; ah yes, she was hurting, and still held such disdain for him and his profession, and more than a little self-disgust for depending on both. It was all there, plainly laid out for him, and Benny didn’t give a shit. With a shrug, he took her money, smoothly tossing the inhaler to the uncommunicative wench in return. She turned to leave, stubbornly refusing to hit up in his presence. Benny just snickered to himself, counting his credits and shaking his head as the trenchcoat disappeared quickly down the closest alley. The other junkies had a nickname for the woman. They called her “The Dead Angel”. Some whispered it with reverence, some spat the name like an insult, but for Benny, it was simply further evidence of his personal philosophy.

“Even angels have a price,” he muttered, pocketing the credits with a cool smirk. Benny was moving up, and he planned to have an office overlooking the streets, far above angels and junkies alike. Everything around him was temporary. Soon, they’d know it. They’d all know it.

“No. This is not my daughter.” A harsh voice cut through the ambient sounds of the station, causing a momentary lull in the day’s work as heads turned. Captain Chesla’s face twitched, his expression that of a man straining to maintain his professionalism.

“Counsellor Cullum, the system—-”

“Are you questioning my ability to distinguish between my own daughter and a complete stranger? You’re walking the wall, Captain, do not try my patience!”

“Sir, I assure you—-”

“Chesla, a word in your office. Now.” There was a pause as the Captain straightened his shoulders, trying to retain some small dignity in front of the officers who were obliged to revere his position over them.

“…Of course, Counsellor. Right this way.” Olivares noted a certain tightness around the Captain’s eyes as he escorted Counsellor Cullum to the office. Fenn did not envy the Captain his political obligations, especially when they involved so waspish a Counsellor. His thoughts, however, were pleasantly interrupted by the familiar mutter of greeting that accompanied Troy Roski’s agreeably fit figure. Troy immediately made himself comfortable, slumping casually into the seat across from the detective and resting his heels on the corner of the desk. The newcomer jerked his chin toward the Captain’s door, a barely-contained grin hiding at the corners of his lips.

“What’s with the suit?”

“Apparently, this junkie we picked up isn’t his long-lost daughter,” drawled Fenn, gesturing vaguely with his pen toward the rail-thin girl slouched against the far wall. He resumed scratching at the report in front of him. Troy leaned in, riding out the anticipatory silence while Fenn steadily ignored the urge to divert his attention from his task. It was the oldest game they played—-he could feel the young man’s eyes on him, waiting for the moment when the detective would eventually pause, pen poised over the document, to add the last tantalizing detail. “Mark says otherwise, though.”

“Does it?” murmured Troy with a pleased grin, exposing a rarely-seen set of perfect teeth. “Huh. Now that’s damn interesting…” The smile was gone in an instant, replaced by his usual contemplative frown as he glanced toward the waif leaning silently against the wall. Her eyes were closed, the black longcoat once again hanging from its owner’s bony shoulders, emphasizing her pallor in an unflattering manner. Troy smirked. “Bit of a den-bunny, is she?”

“Yeh, thought you’d like that.” Fenn discontinued his efforts at paperwork with guilty relief, gaze lingering on his preoccupied friend.

“…but not the reason you called, right?” Troy swung his attention back to Fenn, who offered his own subdued smirk as he coolly cast his eyes downward, to the open drawer of the desk.

“We’ll make a detective of you yet, boy.” Olivares’s dry tone earned a roll of the eyes from his guest, who now toyed idly with the abandoned pen. After a moment’s rummage, Fenn found what he was looking for.

“So what do we have today? A tidy double-homicide near Queensgate? Perhaps a high-profile theft in Moon’s Garden? I could do with a holiday, you know.”

“Something like that.” Fenn pulled a large file free and let it fall heavily before his companion. There was a brief pause as recognition crept up into Troy’s face, earning a confused blink, pen forgotten.

“…The Trashman case?” Troy’s voice was louder than necessary, disbelief and sudden skepticism following each other too closely to know which came first. Fenn simply nodded.

“You’ve got to be joking.” The detective’s continued silence was reply enough. Troy leaned back with a scoff, but his eyes remained keenly focused on his friend. “Don’t tell me brass has you busting bricks again…!”

“No.” Olivares flipped the cover open at last, index finger tapping the most recent page. “There’ve been new victims.”

Troy frowned as he leaned forward to review the top sheets, brows furrowed. Any hint of apprehension disappeared as he familiarized himself with the gory details—-It’s all just a big puzzle to Troy, thought Fenn, noting with half-hearted jealousy the eagerness with which Troy absorbed the new information. Lucky bastard. With those looks, he could get into anything he wanted… yet he chose this, even with his family history. So much like his father, and yet—-

“No.” Troy let the papers fall back into place and steepled his fingers, lips slightly pursed, still pondering the discrepancies. “Same MO, but a different purpose. You’ll notice the ritual burning, here and here, but the cause of death—-”

“Thought so. When I noticed the dump sites were concentrated in one area, I guessed we might have—-”

“—-a copycat.” Finished Troy with a sigh. He sounded somewhat disappointed, which worried Fenn.

“What about the victims, then?”

“All freaks, this time. Some without criminal records. Almost like it’s personal, whereas before…”

“Could be he’s just refined his targets—-like he refined his technique?”

Troy snorted, shifting irritably. “I’d hardly call this new guy ‘refined’. I mean, has the brutality of the murders increased? Yes. Does that make the killing somehow more effective? No! And this ‘mutilation of the genitals’ mess—-Trashman wouldn’t bother with that. He’s a worker: passionless, methodical. It’s a job for him. Not personal. Not some kind of… revenge. These new kills… they’re unworthy of him. Don’t you see?” A weighty silence followed Troy’s rant, and the younger man looked away, face flushed. Fenn frowned, about to speak before Troy cleared his throat, interrupting quickly. “Does brass know it’s not our guy?”

“Not yet. Wanted your input first.” Fenn paused only slightly, swallowing the impulse to sigh and replacing it with a tight-lipped smile. “Couldn’t be sure until I heard it from our resident criminologist.”

“Actually, it’s ‘psychological profiler’ now.”

“Oh? Why the change?”

“Well… sounds fancier, doesn’t it?” Troy grinned wryly, obviously relieved to have the focus shifted from his obsession with last year’s headliner. He closed the folder and leaned back in his chair, stretching casually. “And I read it in a book. Who’s gonna bother arguing with me?”

Olivares smiled slightly and shook his head, but didn’t argue the point. Troy’s place here was tolerated primarily out of respect for his old man, and regardless of any help he might be, he was still simply that—-tolerated. Nobody cared what he titled himself; to the force, he would always be “Roski’s kid”.

“Well, you should be careful what you read, Troy.” Although the mood had lifted somewhat, the detective’s tone turned serious as he made another attempt at finishing the stack of paperwork before him. “Not saying I don’t <i>love</i> our little chats, but very time you come down here, you risk—-”

“Huh.”

“Hmm?” Olivares glanced up, thrown off by the monosyllabic grunt. Troy was staring off in the opposite direction, expression obscured by the angle of his face. Fenn saw him twitch reflexively and quickly traced his gaze to the source.

Across the room, the Counsellor’s daughter stared directly at them, as if intent upon their conversation. Her eyes were a pale grey that seemed almost white; eerily reminiscent of the milky blankness of the sightless, but with such an intensity that any notion of blindness was immediately dismissed. The greyscale apparition stood as a statue, unmoving, with jaw clenched firmly. She stared without blinking, yet it seemed that it was Troy who gawked, transfixed—-caught in her flat, grim gaze. Fenn shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the sudden change in character, much less its impact on his friend. The girl had scarcely moved of her own volition all morning, yet now she seemed positively alert. Perhaps the drugs had finally worn off… the alternative made him uneasy. He noticed Troy still holding the girl’s disconcerting gaze and cleared his throat, politely requesting his colleague’s attention.

“Strange, I could almost swear…” The younger man trailed off, shaking himself free and turning back to the task at hand, frowning distractedly. “There’s no way she could have heard us, right?”

Olivares shrugged, unsettled by girl’s cadaverous stare. The door of the Captain’s office opened, the disdainful tones of the Counsellor once more slicing through the air.

“Bring the girl forward, Chesla. This charade has gone on long enough.”

Fenn noted that his superior’s tenseness had dissipated somewhat, tempered by a kind of smugness that almost created an illusion of calm. “Well, look at that. Captain’s struck a deal.” His murmured comment was lost on Troy, whose attention was drawn back to the Counsellor’s daughter. An officer had pulled the girl away from the wall, and was leading her forward. Her eyes stayed on Troy until she at last stood before the Counsellor, and then they shifted, finally, to meet her father’s gaze. He sneered, tone sharpened viciously.

“There, you see! My daughter had brown eyes, this… impostor… has grey. Just how unqualified ARE your people, Chesla? Can’t even swipe a scanner properly? I am offended by the neglect of this department! Offended, sir!”

“What will you tell Mother.” The girl’s voice was quiet and remarkably flat, lacking even an upward inflection to mark the sentence as a question. It seemed that all emotion had long since been bleached from her sadly thin soul—-not a rare occurrence when one was drawn to the bottle-dens of the Littles. That Troy and Olivares caught the utterance at all was due wholly to their proximity to the Captain’s office, a characteristic of Fenn’s desk that its owner had often regretted.

Chesla dismissed the attending officer as the Counsellor drew closer, lowering his voice to a hiss. “How dare you speak to me so familiarly. You are nothing! Nothing but a disappointment, and you have lived off our kindness long enough!” He paused, then snapped archly, “As far as I’m concerned, I came down here to identify a corpse. We’re done with you, Jessica.”

Her expression remained blank as her father stepped back, raising his voice once more.

“Chesla, your incompetence disgusts me. Whoever this girl is, return her to whatever sorry state of existence you found her in. And don’t ever contact me again regarding this matter.”

“Yes, Counsellor.”

As he turned to leave, Counsellor Cullum paused, speaking to the Captain without deigning to look at him. “I want that faulty mark in my hand before evening. I will personally deliver it to Reclamations. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Counsellor.” Chesla nodded toward Olivares as the Counsellor took his leave, turning to Fenn as the closest available person of rank and gesturing toward Jessica with a sour frown. “Olivares, take her out of the system.”

Fenn took a moment before slowly moving to stand, displeasure etched into his delicate features. Troy stood swiftly, brows knit in righteous indignation as he squared his shoulders.

“We aren’t equipped for live extractions! The pain—-”

“Is NOT my concern, Roski. I want her mark in my hand in the next ten minutes, Olivares.”

“We have no sedatives! Chesla, be reasonable—-”

“It’s ‘Captain’,” snapped Chesla, his pent-up anger finding a perfect outlet in Troy’s defiance. “And this is a police matter. So piss off. Olivares?”

Fenn paused, then shook his head. Chesla looked about to rip the detective in half when suddenly a large shadow moved toward the twice-orphaned waif, a huge hand clamping around her marked wrist.

“I’ll fuckin’ do it.”

Pikeshanks loomed, eliciting absolutely no response from the blank-faced teen. He grinned down toothily, grip threatening to disrupt circulation to her hand. The obvious pleasure that Pike would take from the task gave even Chesla pause, but the hesitation was short-lived.

“Fine. Thank the wall SOMEONE in this station knows how to follow orders. You and I, Olivares, will have a little chat about this later.” The Captain swiftly returned to his office, leaving the task in more than willing hands. Fenn and Troy exchanged glances, Olivares instinctively reaching out to hold the younger man back as he jerked toward Pikeshanks. Any words were lost amidst the quiet scuffle, leaving Pike free to drag the girl from the immediate area. She offered no physical resistance, seeming to have retreated once more into herself. Pikeshanks didn’t care.

“Welcome to th’ other half, Princess,” sneered the brute as he yanked her roughly toward the morgue, “Daddy ain’t here t’ help ya now.”