Tales from the Broken Moon - Down the Streets of Hong Kong All Summer Long

August 2067. Blade is now part of Lucia's crew and is forced to act as her second in command. Like a fish out of water, he follows her on a trip to Hong Kong, where she's planning to meet an old acquaintance of hers, an acquaintance that might be more dangerous than he could have ever thought.

Blade didn’t know whether to feel relieved or annoyed by his current predicament. If anything, he wasn’t thrown to the sharks and eaten alive by his distant relatives, but was his current position significantly better? Maybe. Maybe not.

“Oh, look! Look! They’re selling spicy fishballs there!”

“You’ve already got a serving of them three stalls ago.”

“But they’re so yummy! And I’m hungryyyy! Wait a second, I’ll just get some! You sure you don’t want any? I thought sharks loved seafood.”

He grumbled, waved his hand as a no comment answer, as the bane of his existence, one of the causes of his hardest times, as of late, was strolling around with a carelessness and levity that didn’t fit what essentially was the head of a dread pirate vessel. And yet, there she was, trotting and galloping among food stalls, stuffing her mouth with fishballs with nothing but ecstatic bliss. By the time she came back, paper bag in hand, she had already devoured half of those she bought, with a beaming smile and puffed, hamster-like cheeks. Blade shook his head, not knowing how to react. That diminutive girl, so much smaller than him, dangerously looking like a failed mutant hybrid specimen, was his new boss – Lucia Lunarossa, the former seventh Angel of Stratosphere. Wolf-like, twitching ears that listened to all noises and voices with embarrassing precision, neck-length spiky hair of the same hazel color, amber eyes with black sclerae, fangs coming out of her lips, hazel fur covering her forearms and calves, right up her knees and further beyond, with small differences between her right and left limbs. And, of course, hands and feet that were weirdly intermixed with paws, in no precise way. Her feet, specifically, were digitigrade but she could somehow rest on them as if they were plantigrade, in a surprising slap to all evolutionary experts. Lucia was what Blade would have described as a freak, even by mutant standards, and yet she didn’t care in the slightest. If anything, she was proudly showing her new outfit – a sleeveless white shirt, completely buttoned up, on top of long, satin black pants, covering part of her leg fur and ending on a pair of gold-colored sandals that made her walk look weirder than it already was. Oh, and the obvious elephant in the room – that ripped red cape he didn’t see her taking off even once, in the month they had spent together – not even for sleeping.

He knew for a fact that it was the only item of clothing she wore at night, under her bedsheet, which sounded at least a little bit unhealthy.

“Here, I’ve bought some for you too, grumpy!”

A second paper bag landed directly in Blade’s hands, filled with two sets yellowish balls skewered on a stick. He shortly considered letting them accidentally fall to the ground, but that would have resulted in two minutes straight of reprimands, something he wasn’t sure he could deal with.

Thus, he just accepted he had no way out and snatched the first fishball from the bamboo, munched it. That tasted better than expected, causing his eyes to widen in a puzzled flash of surprise.

“See? I was sure you’d have liked them.”

That dumb wolf girl was grinning from ear to ear. Maybe a human would have found her endearing, but not Blade. To him, she just looked like a bite-sized pest that somehow got her hands on an undeserved power. So, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t, wouldn’t manage to keep it to himself anymore. After gulping down the fishball, he let out a sigh, stared at her from his towering size.

“You shouldn’t act like that, boss. You look like an excitable puppy, or – worse – like a child. How old are you, twelve? Bloody moonfish, motheranglin’ Kobase looks more of a leader than you!”

Bloody moonfish. He gritted his teeth, as those unwanted words came out of his throat. That utterance, the utterance his ex-boyfriend used to say every time, had now became part of his vocabulary, as a way to cope with the complex network of mind locks dear Dr. Kobase was paid to install inside his brain. Every single time his thoughts steered to D., he resorted to think about Shaz instead. And, somehow, that ended up with him picking up the catchphrase of that idiotic, mononeural, smoking hot (yes, smoking hot) great white. The one thing preventing Blade from considering Shaz as a long-term romantic partner was his absolute, mind-numbing lack of ambitions and his over-reliance on brawn over brain. If something doesn’t work, just punch it harder. No philosophical discussions, no weighing all options. Just punch it harder. To think Shaz used to be very slim and have very little muscle tone. He was almost feminine, with delicate features and a well-toned, but not hypertrophic body, wearing his form-fitting assault suit with grace. Blade loved that old version of him, but those days were long over. When everything went south with the cancellation of their show, Shaz coped with it by putting on muscle mass and drinking his liver out. He went from a thin, athletic, refined, slim shark to a hulking brute with biceps that would break concrete, thighs that would smash watermelons, cheese-grater abs and obscenely monstrous pecs. Blade thought both of his incarnations were hot, he still thought it, but wouldn’t say it out loud. As much as he would have liked to plan ways to get back at that bitch D., his mind fell more and more often in the Shaz memory basket, looking for refuge. Not that his former partner would have been able to help him, though: according to the latest news Blade had access to before his… let’s call it reassignment, the idiotic great white had opened a fishmonger in New Langdon, together with an equally idiotic musclehead – Lazor Loyra. Yes, Lazor Loyra, that fishface son of a piranha whore that acted like he came from another dimension. If there was anyone dumber than Shaz in their original roster, that was certainly him. At least Shaz had some semblance of a brain. Lazor thought with his muscles, when he thought. Blade’s head buzzed, as Lazor’s battle cries of SUPREME DIAMOND CRUSHER thrashed through his mind like a runaway train, completely unhinged. It was good that Lazor left the Syndicate as soon as he realized they were becoming a criminal organization, otherwise he could have caused so much damage just by being part of it and doing nothing.

“Oh, really? So you believe I don’t look the part, huh. Well, it might be a fair assessment, after all.”

The voice of his current boss brought him back from the DIAMOND CRUSHER prison of mind.

Her tone was different than the cheerful one she had until a couple seconds before. It was deeper, calmer, almost eerie.

“Then, should I start wearing nothing but lace and black leather and whip your ass in shape every time you tell the crew how much you don’t like me? Would you prefer me electrocuting you every single time you defy me or fail to show me respect? Or would you want me to step on you with heeled shoes, while gloating like a movie villain, just because I feel like it? Or, wait, wait, even better…”

She licked her lips, as her pupils shrunk, her fangs peeking out of her lips in a deranged smile.

“… what if I slowly ripped you to shreds with my claws, limb by limb, and had Kobase patch you, only for me to rip you apart again, in an endless, gory cycle of suffering? How does it sound, Blade? Ah, your desperate screams of pain. That sounds delicious.”

Blade shivered. He couldn’t stop his body from shivering, from feeling oppressed by the mere presence of that little freak standing in front of him, feasting on street food. As a trickle of curry sauce limped down her chin, Blade’s heart stopped, skipped a beat, resumed. It looked like blood. As if she had just devoured a living being. That was just a suggestion, he knew it, but couldn’t shake it off. Then, her expression relaxed, ended in a chuckle.

“Well, if that’s your kink, Blade, it can be arranged. I’m not sure I’d find that pleasant, but you do you! Now…”

She returned her attention to her oversized bag of fishball skewers, eating one of them whole right before speaking again, seemingly lost in thought.

“… where’s the shopping district? I’ve heard there’s a nice, exclusive Sun Sea atelier in this part of Hong Kong, but my sense of direction is trash.”

That was a by-the-book example of mood whiplash, if Blade ever saw one. He recollected himself, simply staring at her while his heart went back to beating at an acceptable pace.

“… what about using a phone, like everyone else on this planet?”

Lucia pulled out something from her pocket. An antiquated box with physical buttons, somehow refitted to be useable with cutting edge phone network. The display was cracked and so small that only four-five lines of text could be displayed. She quickly tapped on the rightmost button, being careful of not scratching it too much with her claw. She groaned.

“Mine doesn’t seem to have a map.”

At the sight of that technological oddity, Blade frowned. It was still something unusual, despite having glanced at it several times in the past weeks. That sight switched on his sarcasm mode, almost making him forget about the primal, visceral fear he felt not even one minute before.

“What century is that device from? Ever heard of smartphones? They were pretty huge in… I dunno, was it 2010? Just sixty years ago. Incredible how fast technology evolves, huh?”

Yet, Lucia shrugged at that remark.

“I’ve lived without one for months, best detox session ever. No way I’m going back to one of those hyper-connected devices. Besides, with ears like mine I don’t even need it, I can listen to everything that happens on my ship. Everything.”

He didn’t like how she had stressed the everything part of her message. In combination with her former, less than playful, threat, he started to get the message. She knew. Suddenly, Blade felt nostalgic about Go. Sure, he was a motherangler blowhole, but at least he had more respect for his privacy than that excitable excuse of a wolf hybrid staring at him with her cheeks full of half chewed fishballs. On top of that, he was more rational, predictable even. Lucia, in comparison, felt like a kid playing minesweeper on a real mine field, blissfully ignoring what the numbers on the grid meant, but somehow having such a good instinct that she could survive it unscathed. It was not clear, though, whether her underlings could survive it too and, if so, in which state. Indeed, she didn’t seem to care that much about the consequences of her gestures.

What a drag .

Blade didn’t like her risky approach to life and leadership. He argued several times that the longer the Mattanza remained docked in Hong Kong, the higher the chance they would be arrested. But Lucia didn’t saw that as a problem. In fact, she was certain that nobody would have touched them, out of a simple geopolitical consideration: The diplomatic relationships between China and Japan had never been more strained than in recent history, not even after the Sino-American war in South Africa. Thus, there was no way Beijing would hand them to Tokyo or their American allies, even if they found out about them. Blade had to admit that hers was quite a smart assessment and – in the five days they had spent on the island – sure as hell nothing had happened. If anything, they had quickly become the center of the local attention, as a wolf girl and a great golden strolling around the city wasn’t a common sight. Hong Kong was still fairly lax with their mutant laws, compared to mainland China, where being a mutant equated to having no rights and being treated as nothing more than an animal.

A beeping sound came from the battered device currently resting on Lucia’s hand. Twice, with very basic tones. Blade squinted at her.

“Was that… an SMS? Really, now?”

“Mind your own business and look for the store, yes?”

Lucia stared at the display, nodded as he claw clumsily navigated through the cramped menus, highlighting an envelope-shaped icon that was no more than thirty pixels wide. A bunch of words, not even one hundred forty characters Long, appeared on the green-ish screen. Whatever it was, whoever it was, they had to have a good reason to contact her that way. Plain SMSs. In 2067. The stupidest, less secure, less reliable messaging protocol that was ever invented. Would she have started using homing pigeons too? Blade didn’t feel like excluding that, but it dawned on him that – probably – she would have eaten the pigeons instead. Truly the pinnacle of end-to-end encryption. He turned his attention back to his device, something more modern that could even connect to the public Wi-Fi. A technological marvel, compared to that cramped piece of hardware she carried around.

“Okay, okay, let me check where the stupid atelier is.”

He switched on his phone’s GPS, begrudgingly called in a map of the city block. What a great career step, from chief executive of a mafia empire to personal valet of an inexperienced brat. D.

really did him dirty, that bloody finned bitch. It would have been less humiliating if she actually shot him dead.

“Alright, five minutes of walk from here. I’ll lead the way.”

He picked up the pace, nervously peeking at his boss, hoping she wouldn’t be distracted by yet another food stall. During their stay, she had tried virtually every variety of street food she could put her paws on, with a bliss and joy that felt completely out of place, as if she never had the chance to taste it. Or, maybe, it was a question of her half-wolf form naturally amplifying her sensations, including the flavors she perceives. She probably didn’t spend much time in that bizarre shape, before the explosion that razed a building in the Kiku apartment complex, and still adapting to it. He wondered if that enhancement extended to all of her senses. Definitely, hearing and taste were on that list. Sight too, as she could see dangerously well in the dark. Smell? Most likely, it would have been strange if not. Touch? That was a rough one. If her sense of touch was amplified, did that mean that stuff like physical pain and pleasure were too? Wouldn’t that make her easier to dispose of, if any little wound would cause her to yelp like a scared puppy? He decided not to press the matter further, it didn’t sound healthy for him to think about how to get rid of her. What if she could even read thoughts, somehow? He had no evidence of it, it would have been outrageously stupid, and, yet, he preferred not to test that hypothesis. She couldn’t read thoughts, yes, but since she openly said that in her perspective everything else moved in slow motion, she could definitely read all smaller changes in facial mimic and learn how to interpret them. That was dangerous.

As the crowd of mostly Asian-looking people split to let them through, they finally reached the place Lucia so badly wanted to see. Blade groaned. Just another stupid atelier. Like the last four, where she bought hundreds of dollars worth of clothes – including her current outfit – with the excuse that, due to the deterioration of the diplomatic relationships with Japan and the West in general, Chinese top brands were nowhere else to be found. Still, was that overcompensation for the months she had spent naked aboard the ship? If she kept going on a shopping spree like that, they would have needed a container just for her personal belongings. In a way, she reminded him of D., of her passion for cosplay. The shine in their eyes was similar, with a substantial difference: D. watched those outfits with the feeling her body wasn’t worthy for them, Lucia watched them with the feeling they weren’t worthy for her body. Yet, there she was, putting her paws on the glass, her nose stamped on it too, scanning the interior of the shopping window, moving her sight from dummy to dummy, glancing at the prices too from time to time. Only to detach herself after a couple minutes, shrugging and shaking her head.

“That’s a bummer. Nothing that caught my eye. Well, except some… rather risky lingerie, though it’s not something I’d wear. Well, better luck next time, I guess.”

She really looked dejected, much to Blade’s relief. That meant he didn’t have to help her choose between seven slightly different shirts for the next hour. He blessed his good luck, for once. She pulled something out of her bag, something that looked like a folded fashion magazine. She lifted it, eyed at it, eyed at the atelier clothes again.

“Yeah, they looked better in picture. Myadeline does such a good job at selling them. I wish I had her physique…”

She put the magazine back, but not before taking out a folded slip of paper. She walked to the big shark, with a mischievous smile, showed him the crumpled advert.

“I sorely need a tea to quench my disappointment. Blade, find the cafe on this flyer and bring me there, please!”

**

Blade grumbled, as he started sipping his soda, while finally sitting at the table, his legs aching a little. Not a random cafe, no, she wanted to go to precisely that one, for Poseidon-knows-which-reason. That took him several attempts at spelling the Chinese characters, while asking people around for support, hoping they wouldn’t freak out at the sight of a talking golden shark. All in all, that joke cost them something like half an hour of walking around the streets, with Lucia stopping at two additional food stalls to grab some stinky tofu and soy-soaked cuttlefish. Her stomach’s capacity was truly endless. Now, after several fruitless attempts, they were sitting there, inside that cafe whose name he couldn’t even try to spell, let alone pronounce, surrounded by Chinese-looking people that eyed them with a mixture of disgust and doubt. Chinese words were also being spread by the holographic TV screen, sharing news from the world. Blade couldn’t understand a single word, but the pictures reminded him of the plant that bloomed in Shard. Only, the background was not that of the British city – it didn’t look like an European landscape at all. Maybe somewhere in East Asia? Or was it a nondescript African country? He would have sworn to have recognized some of the buildings, but admittedly his knowledge of geography was bad. Were they actually pictures of the same city? Or even two different locations? What did he miss, in the time he lived as a de facto prisoner of the Mattanza? Yet, despite his attention being sucked in by such weird and catastrophic news, said news had to be fairly old, since nobody else seemed to care. That included her boss, as she was peacefully sipping her tea with what looked like happiness in her eyes, giggling like a little girl, amid all the chatter. And singing. Singing.

“♫ Chasing my dreams down the way, down and down their rabbit holes. Down the streets of Hong Kong all summer loooong!♫”

A pop song by Combat Idol MIRAI Nanami, no less. They had recently plundered a cargo vessel that had a stash of vinyls from said artist. Blade had never heard of her and neither had Lucia, but she had quickly became a fan of that annoying gynoid singer – much to the chagrin of the Mattanza crew. She couldn’t use a personal device to listen to it, no, she had to plug one of those battery gramophones to listen to those annoying pop earrapes. Blade was lucky his cabin was located on the other side of the vessel, but not that lucky because the South-Italian crew had the bad habit of putting on neo-melodic Neapolitan music instead. Between MIRAI Nanami’s cheesy refrains and Ciro Capocciuolo’s ‘O core mio se schiatt blasted at full volume in the ship’s corridors, it felt like being smashed between a rock and a hard place. Which ones he hated the most was up to debate.

“♫ Down the streets of Hong Kong all summer loooong! ♫”

Blade grumbled. That girl was such a useless puppy – a useless puppy that could kill him at a moment’s notice. He had seen her in action, he had seen her tearing through sailors and armed soldiers as if they were nothing – all with that deviant smile on her face, licking her fur right after, sitting on a pile of wounded bodies. That made him painfully realize how little of a chance he had, if he decided to betray her. Her senses were sharper, her body was a perfect killing machine. One on one against her, he wouldn’t have stood a single chance.

“Aaaaw, this is godlike! Not as good as hot chocolate, but good enough! I miss hot chocolate, but I’m not sure my body would like it. I should have Kobase run a couple more scans – I need to know whether I can drink it or not!”

And, yet again, useless chatter. Did she like to idle and do nothing for five days like that? She had a role to play, as a leader, but she acted like a schoolgirl on vacation. Wasn’t she a ruthless killer, before? Didn’t she murder several Stratosphere scientists without a second thought? If so, something had to have widely exaggerated those rumors, because this was not what his experience with her. When they made landfall, he expected her to have some critical priority, maybe some juicy informant waiting for her. But no, not a chance – she had just spent her time doing nothing but seeking her own entertainment. Food stalls, sightseeing, shopping, going to a cat cafe, chatting in Chinese with the locals, singing karaoke with them, even playing soccer with some teens in a cramped street, while trying on some recently acquired sportswear. No, Blade couldn’t understand her. Go Ottari did everything with a purpose. Every movement, every second of his life was geared towards the benefit of the syndicate. No room for leisure or wasting time with such childish activities. He couldn’t stand it anymore. He had to ask.

“Why Hong Kong, boss? Of all places, why here?”

Lucia stared at him for a while, her ears bent a little.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re wasting time, drinking tea, on an island with no commercial opportunities for us and where your crew cannot even interact with the locals, because almost none of those swines speak a language that is not a South-Italian dialect! And we’ve been at it for five freakin’ days! Bloody moonfish, Lucia, what is your plan? Is there even a plan to begin with?!”

She dipped a biscuit in her mug, looked at its color changing, as it soaked the tea all around it.

“I needed some time off and Hong Kong is one of the few places where nobody would arrest me on sight. That’s all there is to the plan.”

“Some time… off? As in… you are having a little, private holiday?! I can’t believe it! And you call yourself a boss?!”

Lucia looked at him, at those green eyes that didn’t seem to be able to understand her.

“Blade, do you have any ideas of what being an Angel means?”

He bent his head, had his chin rest on his hand. No, he didn’t. He didn’t know what being a Stratosphere Angel meant. The only thing he knew about Angels was that they were all female and that almost all of them had bested a chaingear. Oh, yes, and that they were all convicted criminals and – probably – murderers. He also knew how that foppish fop of Reiner Greschnik loved to flaunt them as his possessions, having them pose for several erotic magazines more than once. Now that he thought about it, what was, really, an Angel? How did their abilities work? Without internet on the vessel, he couldn’t search for information as much as he liked to. He had to make use of their landfalls to actually manage to get some scraps of intel. So, as much as it pained him to admit it, he had no idea of what being an Angel implied. Before he could begrudgingly admit his ignorance, she started talking again.

“How old do you think I am, Blade?”

“Mental age? Twelve. Physical age? I dunno, early twenties maybe.”

She groaned, as she bit the soaked cookie.

“That was uncalled for! But yes, I’m twenty-four. I’ve been an Angel for the past two years. Before, I was an inmate of the Paolo Borsellino prison in Esperia. I made the mistake of committing my first serious crime while already eighteen, so jail it was. I was sentenced to twenty-five years for participation in an attempted coup.”

She twisted her spoon inside her mug, made circles around it.

“You know what Neo-Lightism is, Blade? Or Lightism at all? Italy has done a great job at deleting every trace of it – except for, well, a couple entire cities that were founded during that period, such as Euterpe. The short version is that I was born in a… rather nostalgic family. My father, Scipio Lunarossa, was a founding member of La Legione – a bunch of morons that wanted to turn Italy into a dictatorship again, as if the disasters Lightism caused in the 2020s were something to look at with pride. So, I grew up with… pretty extreme ideals, that led me to leave school, enlist and become part of Il Branco, an elite group of soldiers that underwent a voluntary deep genetic reprofiling process to become…”

She paused her speech, took her time to make those words come out.

“… real werewolves.”

Blade blinked twice, three times. Of course he knew about Lightism, but Fascist werewolves?  Really? That was something that only a deranged idiot would have ever considered as a viable tactic, let alone a political leader. That felt weird on so many levels he couldn’t even begin to unravel.

“I was thirteen, when I got selected for modifications, fourteen when the process ended with a failure. None of the candidates managed to turn into a werewolf during a full moon. Some of them, though, developed an appetite for meat or a urge to chase squirrels.”

She blushed a little, when saying that.

“I was in the squirrel-chasing side-effect camp. I still… huuuuh, kind of enjoy doing that, even in my human form. But that’s not something you should tell around, okay? Keep it for yourself.”

Blade shook his head as his brain answered her statement with an of course you ended up like that. She recovered from her embarrassment pretty quickly, albeit not instantly, went on with her story.

“Squirrels and failed werewolves aside, I was fifteen when I took part to a raid that destroyed a police station in Euterpe, seventeen when I shot my first firearm. Eighteen when hell broke loose, after a failed kidnapping of the then prime minister. La Legione was exposed, and that incident led to a brutal deployment of army and policemen that quickly uprooted it. I think only one regiment survived the purge, but I don’t know what they are up to right now. So, as a result of that little mistake of ours, I’ve spent four years inside a cramped prison cell, around the size of my personal cabin on the Mattanza. And that’s when Mr. Magnifico entered the picture. He wanted me for his little show, his Rapture. Why me specifically, among the countless prisoners, I don’t know. Maybe he thought I looked pretty. No, wait, of course it was because he thought I looked pretty. He’s one hell of a lecherous bastard, Blade, I tell you!”

“And yet you accepted.”

“I really didn’t want to spend the rest of my life behind bars, you know? Treason and conspiracy against the state is a hefty crime. Might as well end it with a bang, while fighting a mechanical dinosaur. That’s a cool way to go.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. You didn’t have a nice childhood and never managed to enjoy your teen years – is this the message? Well, guess what, life sucks. Do you think Go, Shaz, De… she, and I even had a childhood in the first place? I’ve never had time for such things as drinking tea in the early afternoon. I’ve never done that, before today!”

“You should have, though.”

Blade clenched his fist. That retort made him unreasonably angry. Spoiled brat. Like all humans. She left school for joining a bunch of terrorists? Oh, at least she had a choice. He had never had a chance to even think about going to school. But yes, life sucks, right? Going to prison sucks. What about being created for a motherangling prime-time show with the not so hidden goal of selling tons of action figures and microtransactions to children? And now, now his current boss, a stupid girl younger than him with a sob story, was overcompensating for her lost years? That was so messed up. He fought the urge to flip the table or pour his soda on her so-carefully-licked-fur. Humans. Entitled pricks. They didn’t deserve to be the dominant species. Blade breathed. Inhaled. Exhaled. It wasn’t the right moment to put on a show. He would have time to think, to try and build a plan to improve his situation. After all, his current predicament wasn’t that bad. Lucia wasn’t half as smart as Go Ottari. Outmaneuvering her would have been way easier, if he managed to keep his attention high. He stared at her again, forcing himself to cool down. Yet, her attention was directed elsewhere. Her eyes were staring at the door, while something akin to a smile had opened to her face. He turned around, tried to understand why or what. Only to see her. Another girl, same age group, with slick chin-length hair and grey eyes, wearing what looked like a short red dress and white sneakers. She was looking at them, her mouth agape, almost frozen in time. Before running towards their table, at a now standing Lucia. And hugging her, against all the odds.

“L… Lucia! It’s you! It’s really you?! I can’t… I…”

The unknown girl sobbed softly, without loosening her grip, shoving her head in Lucia’s chest, biting her lips as a stream of tears flew down her cheeks. Under Blade’s even more puzzled expression, incapable of reading the situation, as Lucia started patting the newcomer’s head with her paw, while hugging her in turn. He coughed, cleared his throat to force her to notice him.

“Is there anything you’d forgotten to tell me, boss?”

Lucia smirked at him, in what could have been only described as a smug expression.

“Oh, yes, about the reasons why I chose Hong Kong… well, I was planning to meet with an old acquaintance of mine too.”

“An old… acquaintance?”

“Blade, this is Ghost. Greschnik’s Third Angel.”

**

Blade sat in silence, as the newcomer had taken a seat at their same table, on the opposite side of him and his boss, and ordered a mug of tea too. The more he looked at her, the less he could believe what Lucia had just said. First, she looked even more harmless than the wolf girl. Second, she didn’t seem exceptionally athletic. Third, she was weirdly emotional and restless, fidgeting with her arms, constantly touching the underside of the table in what he assumed to be nervousness. Fourth, she had just stopped crying, after using Lucia’s cape as an impromptu tissue to blow her nose. If that was really Stratosphere’s Third Angel, that would have been a huge disappointment. Yet, her face checked out with the one he knew – courtesy of Salvatore’s hidden stash of Lust issues, one of which showing Greschnik surrounded by all his adult Angels more or less in the nude. That South-Italian sailor was really proud of his collection, asking Blade in extremely broken English if he liked Lucia more with or without fur, crudely comparing her with the printed version of her figure. In light of the realization that – indeed – the notorious Ghost was nothing more than a wimp, suddenly, even the rumors surrounding the First Angel Nadia Nagase, the platinum reaper, felt terribly inflated.

“So, she was the one you sent an SMS to. Well done, you fooled me, boss.”

He didn’t really want to concede she was smarter than him, but a compliment here and there didn’t mean he suddenly approved of her. Yet, that bizarre wolf specimen couldn’t help but grin, as if she had won who knows what prize.

“Yup. She got in touch with the Mattanza via our private radio address. I didn’t want to reply at first, but…”

“Wait, wait, wait! Was she that motheranglin’ stalker that kept on sending us short radio bursts that just consisted of the same date, over and over? I swear, that made half the crew mad and I had to convince those idiots not to thrash our radio system!”

At those remarks, the girl Lucia had introduced as Ghost shrank even more in her seat, avoiding direct eye contact with the sharkman. Lucia nodded, though, as if she wanted to amend the explanation.

“Yes, exactly. The date was the day she saved me from the frontlines, during a failed operation. We agreed to keep it as our secret code, in case we needed help from each other. Only Ghost knew about it.”

Blade snickered.

“I thought you hated all Angels equally.”

“I still do! And they do hate me too!”

Ghost’s voice interrupted their bickering, almost as if she wanted to take part to.

“We don’t! I mean, not all of us! Nivandra misses you!”

“While Mr. Magnifico, Miho, Yu, and Lemur would like to dance on my corpse and Nadia doesn’t care in the slightest, right?”

At that remark, the black-haired girl fell silent. That was… actually the truth. Lucia was so spiteful against all other higher-ranked Angels that she had soured her relationships with everyone. Except Nivandra, who wasn’t yet of age and was going through her teen angst period, and Ghost, just because they saved each other’s lives a couple times when they could have left the other to die. So, not really friendship, but at least there was a little bit of camaraderie between them. When news broke of her disappearance, almost none of them mourned her, except Nivandra. Ghost had kept a front of indifference, not to be seen as a traitor. Still, among them, she had been the only one to experience a long withdrawal from their life-saving medicines, the only one to feel her organs painfully rupturing, before her sister saved her. It was a horrible way to die, cruel, absolutely inhumane. Knowing that Lucia was going to suffer the same fate, provided she was still alive, made her feel sick. As much as they weren’t in really good terms, that was too much to bear – nobody deserved to die like that, not even someone who betrayed the company like she did. Greschnik, though, didn’t allow her to waste her time on a lost cause. For what was worth to him, Lucia was gone and buried. They had already found a replacement, a new Seventh Angel who could take her place too. Lucia had been the first and sole Angel to die on duty and – Ghost thought – retiring her number would have been a way to remember her. But no, a new Seventh Angel it is. If anything, Lucia was now on Stratosphere’s strike list – if she ever came back, she was to be terminated on sight. When rumor had it that a pirate vessel led by a wolf woman was wrecking havoc in the Sea of Japan, and the crew of said vessel had left their communication channel open, Ghost tried her luck – it was too weird of a coincidence to be left to its own devices. Picking up a single, one-word signal on that same frequency – Ghost? , caused her to grow excited. A couple transmissions later, she was given a phone number, the word SMS and a date. On that date, she sent an antiquated SMS to said number, using a burner phone. Then, around five hours later, she received the answer. And the answer was Hong Kong, a span of dates, and a wolf emoji. Those SMS communications went on until the day before, when – whoever sent them – sent also the name of a cafe and an approximate time window. Ghost was already in South-East Asia, spending some of her time in wait, roaming through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. From there, taking a plane to Hong Kong had been relatively easy. And there she was, sitting at a cafe, drinking tea with a girl she presumed dead and a burly, golden shark with pecs for years. She wasn’t one for mutants, but she couldn’t help admiring the figure of Lucia’s aide. She wondered how he looked like, under that pink shirt and purple jacket and how many dicks he had. If that weird porn movie prominently featuring a similar sharkman was to be trusted, Schwanzerblitz or whatever it was called, he must have had just one appendage between his legs. Still, she wouldn’t have refused the opportunity to check it out in person. At which point, she asked herself if Lucia had already satisfied that curiosity, but decided to keep that for later, when the guy wasn’t around. Lucia clapped her hands, looked at her two guests, making eye contact with both.

“So… let me introduce each other properly. Ghost? This is Blade, my personal secretary and second in command. Blade? This is Ghost, the only person who made any effort to track me down, after I went missing.”

Blade. So, that was the name of the sharkman. She hadn’t heard it wrong the first time. That moniker piqued her curiosity.

“Oh, so you go by a codename too?”

“No, Blade is my real name.”

“Oh. Huh. Your parents… must have been pretty creative…?”

“I didn’t have parents. Only a bunch of corporate rats that created me for profit and threw me in the rubbish when money stopped flowing.”

Awkward silence fell among them, with nobody knowing what to say. Lucia groaned. Of course. Three people without any social skills, gathered around a table. What could she expect from it? It was time to bring the conversation back on rails, somehow. But how? The answer came from Ghost’s bracelet. A continuous beep, annoying, very loud. Ghost pushed a button on it, opened her wallet, extracted a pill from it. She put it in her mouth, sipped a little tea to gulp it down. Her whole body shivered, as she coughed once, twice, before calming, returning to normal. Then, she started looking at Lucia, expecting her to do the same. But nothing happened, much to her surprise. That was the right time. Every Angel had to take their pill at that moment. Her sister had too, she felt it through her stomach. So, why? Why didn’t Lucia take it? Maybe, her rhythm had been disrupted and now needed to wait for a different time of the day. Yes, that was the most likely explanation, hopefully. Because the other would have been…

Ghost stared at her, her skin going pale.

“… don’t tell me you ran out of death suppressant…? How many days already…? Lucia, is this the reason why you wanted to see me?”

Yet, instead of freaking out, the wolf girl was playing with her spoon, without a care in the world.

“I don’t need it anymore, Ghost.”

“What…?”

“See, this body of mine…”

She admired her paws, licked the back of her hand with her eyes closed.

“… transcended the need for that drug. In my beast form, the death trigger doesn’t work. My altered metabolism makes it moot. Of course, if I went back to my human form, something I ironically can’t do without Stratosphere drugs, the clock would start ticking again.”

Blade’s voice showed a marked interest. Something had raised his awareness, something that made him curious.

“… death trigger? Death suppressant? What is that supposed to mean?”

Lucia grinned. That was the hook she needed.

“Being an Angel ain’t fine and dandy. All of use became Angels to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. All of use murdered other people to be chosen. All of us received a Gift… or, well, a curse, if you prefer calling it like that. And, since we are all convicted criminals, Stratosphere can employ us only with the provision that we can be terminated at will, if we go AWOL or we desert.

Greschnik’s brilliant idea was to wire our internal organs to rupture and fail if we don’t take a counter drug every twenty-four hours. That’s what we call death suppressant or death stopper. Angels can’t stash it either, there are severe punishments for those who do. We are allowed to keep at most seven pills with us at any given time, more only if we are on an away mission in enemy territory. One of Fruity Fop’s favorite punishment methods is forcing an Angel to wait for one additional hour before she can ingest her pill. To his credit, he uses it very very sparingly and only for major screwups – like, really, really big ones. Still, when it happens, sucks to be you.”

“One hour? Doesn’t sound so bad…”

“It’s not simply one hour, Blade. It’s one hour in which you feel your body being eaten from inside out by your own cells, as your blood vessels break down and your lungs are perforated. One hour where the only thing keeping you alive is the regeneration power of your Gift. I tested it on my skin, Blade. It wasn’t pretty. Yet, one hour can still be survived, but one day? Good luck with that.

Blade. Ghost and I… we both tried it on our skin.”

She sipped down her tea, emptying her mug, with a tired, jaded smile.

“Being an Angel means that you can’t allow yourself to lower your guard. Even Ghost here, she’s never really off duty. I’m sure she’s actually on some wild goose chase for Mr. Magnifico and has an earpiece to be contacted at any given time. But, if not, she still has… how do you call it?

Synchronicity?”

Ghost nodded, staring at her mug of tea, letting the vapor caress her face.

“Yes, correct.”

She gazed at Blade, anticipating his question.

“My sister Lemur and I feel what each other feels. Pain, fear, anger, pleasure… the closer we are, the stronger the resonance. The farther apart, the weaker. She’s currently in Prague, at Stratosphere’s HQ, so it’s just a faint trace, but I can still have a good idea of her mood. The stronger the emotion, the better the signal and its propagation is still bound to the speed of light. Of course, this trait of us has some… interesting drawbacks.”

She blushed, as her mind went back a couple months, when she was on duty during a press conference and her body started to react weirdly. Lemur, her twin, was having the time of her life with her boyfriend-of-the-week, completely oblivious to the fact that Ghost was accompanying Greschnik in front of a crowd of photographers. Fortunately, her sister was at least a couple city blocks away, otherwise Ghost’s body reactions could have turned that boring shareholder event into an adult-only Booner stream. She had hit her own foot with the butt of her assault rifle two or three times, causing herself – and her sister – enough pain to suppress her urges and send her a message. That, though, was just a minor annoyance. Sometimes she thought about what would have happened if her sister or she died in action. Would the other die too? How much pain would they feel? What did Lemur perceive, when Ghost’s organs started to rupture due to her death stopper deprivation? What would happen if one of them run out of it and passed out in that horrible way? Those were questions she didn’t want an answer to.

Then, she noticed it. Lucia’s paw on her head, caressing her hair.

“If I tickled you, would Lemur feel it too?”

Ghost almost spit her beverage.

“Don’t joke about it! Lemur had a boyfriend that did that every time they met, and that made me go insane! I needed to convince him to leave her and move to Nicaragua, to stop that torture!”

Convince him as in shoot both of his kneecaps off and throw him on the first cargo flight to Managua, hoping he would survive the trip. The fact that her sister and she were splitting images of each other meant she had no problems impersonating her – which also gave her a chance to dump her most annoying boyfriends in her stead. Not that she needed to do that often – Lemur changed boyfriends as she changed underwear, even without her rare interventions. Ghost gulped down what remained of her tea, stared intently at the wolf girl, at her shark aide.

“I’m… relieved to see you healthy. I assume you aren’t going to come back to Stratosphere…?”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m never bowing to that piece of foppish crud ever again. ‘Sides, Mr.

Magnifico is still angry at me for having killed his star scientists, those pricks who wanted to replace me, maybe us all, so sucks to be him.”

“If… if I wanted to contact you, can I still use the number you gave me?”

Lucia shrugged.

“Who knows. But if I want to contact you, be sure I will.”

Ghost nodded, stood up, smiled at both of them, tiredness in her eyes.

“Well, I am afraid I must go. Mr. Greschnik will notice I’m staying too long at the same place. I should scramble before…”

“Just a second…”

Lucia browsed her purse, took a small carton box out of it, rested it in her palm.

“Here, take this.”

Ghost looked at the box, which looked like something cobbled together from cartons of breakfast cereals, her hand moved carefully towards it. In the meanwhile, Lucia kept on staring, analyzing each and every motion she made. She looked more fatigued than she tried to show, signs of recent capillary rupture at the corner of her eyes, under her skin. Lucia’s eyes could see that and more, the minimal hitches in her posture, in her motions. Yet, Ghost’s attention was drawn to the box, as she grabbed it, examined it.

“… pills?”

“Courtesy of Dr. Kobase.”

She grinned at his aide, waved her paw.

“Blade, remember how I told you about that werewolf enhancement that didn’t work out? Well, there was indeed a silver lining. The Gift I’ve received from Stratosphere was partial wolf transformation. In my human form, I can literally turn every part of my body at will… but why a wolf? Well, they look cool and I did like to be one, but there’s more: those Legione idiots did something right. The only reason why I can use this mixed form is due to their failed manipulations, to what they did to my DNA. Even Greschnik was surprised, the first time I attained my current appearance.”

Blade glanced at her, glanced at the box, not understanding the connection. Lucia, though, didn’t wait for him to ask.

“Those pills are my present for you, Ghost. They contain an RNA retroviral carrier that codifies for a very specific enzyme… which can block your death trigger from activating. Forever. Kobase reverse engineered it from my own blood samples.”

She touched the cardboard envelop, let her claw slide on its side.

“Take one of those once per day, until the box is empty, and your body will learn how to produce it. Side effects might include a urge to chase squirrels and to consume inordinate amounts of steaks, but it’s not a bad deal, is it?”

Ghost blinked at the box in disbelief, checked the content. White and red capsules, probably filled with powder of some kind. If that was true… no, she couldn’t decide yet. She had to check that independently, but how to do what without Greschnik knowing it? She sighed, putting away the box in her own purse.

“I’ll have that analyzed. It’s a risk I can’t… take so lightly.”

“Oh, of course. Unfortunately, there’s only enough of it for one person, in that box. Sharing is caring, but I wouldn’t do that, if I were you – especially not with Fruity Fop. He’d go ballistic, if he knew his precious toys could get free – maybe even re-engineer you with a more effective death trigger. Still, it’s your call, Rebecca. Do what you want with them.”

Rebecca. Hearing someone using her real name startled her. She had given it up when she became Ghost, when her sister Katja became Lemur. The twin angels of the battlefield, one with a Gift that allowed her to move unnoticed and wield any weapon intuitively and the other able to shoot a three-meters long sniper rifle which shot tank-sized bullets with an absurd level of precision, hitting targets kilometers away. Rebecca and Katja had died in Sarajevo. Ghost and Lemur had emerged from their ashes.

“… thanks, I guess.”

She nodded at Lucia, without saying another word, turned around, slowly walking away from the table.

“Wait, wait, wait, Becky. Haven’t you forgotten anything?”

Ghost jolted, glanced at Lucia, bowed to her.

“T… the bill? Oh, darn it, sorry! I’ll go pay, I don’t want to be a burden and…”

“I was talking about the bomb.”

Silence. All voices died out, as Lucia said that word. Bomb. The locals could understand English pretty well, they all picked it up. Bomb. Puzzled confusion, words half eaten, vowels chewed.

Blade blinked, looked first at Lucia, then at Ghost, then at the table. A bomb? What? That had to be a prank, he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. He started to stand up, to examine his surroundings. But Lucia stopped him, pushed him down with her clawed hand.

“Don’t move or we’re toast.”

“… what?”

Ghost stared at her with mouth agape, incapable of processing what had just happened, what she had just said. Lucia went on, with a sullen, grave expression on her face, her eyes half closed in contempt.

“Daddy Greschnik wouldn’t have allowed you to use his expensive Japanese massive radio array to contact a ghost ship, without a good reason, Becky, and there’s no way you could do it without getting caught. Too many signals, too many repetitions, too much power. No, someone at Stratosphere knew about this and sent you here too. Days off? Go figure, Angels are lucky if they get one afternoon every now and then!”

She crossed her hands under her chin, rested her elbows on the table.

“How long did he torture you, before you broke down, Becky?”

Ghost clenched her fists, stopped moving, breathed heavily.

“I… I don’t know what you are…”

“I saw them. Your capillaries. Your skin pores. You’ve been through a rupture, recently. More than one, even. You can’t deceive someone who knows what to look for. How did he find out?”

Ghost raised her gaze, found the strength to look into Lucia’s eyes.

“… I am doing it of… of my own volition.”

Tears. Tears down her cheeks, crazy eyes, her pupils shrunk, a sad smile open on her visage.

“I’m… sorry, Lucia. I can’t… I don’t…”

Blade tried to stand up again, only to be pushed down by the same paw as before, in an unexpected show of force.

“Relax. It’s not your moment yet, champ.”

Lucia stared at Ghost again, shook her head.

“Listen, Becky. I know. I can… imagine which methods he used on you. A songbird told him about our secret code and he got mad that you never told him, huh? What a pain. But, really, sending you to bomb a cafe with so many innocent bystanders won’t win him any goodwill among the locals.”

Yes, that move was pretty untypical of Reiner Greschnik. He was so annoying about avoiding collateral damage, always so careful about PR. The fit he threw after the Chaingear smoked his audience at the Rapture was legendary. Someone even shared it around the offices as a meme, with gag dubs and subtitles on it. He truly had the meltdown of the ages. So, ordering such a move, such a potential screw-up for to his already damaged public image, didn’t fit him in the slightest. Did he wake up in a bad mood or did the order come from… someone else? Another Angel, maybe? But who would be so reckless? Not Nadia. As much as she hated her, she had to admit the emotionless First Angel had a very strict code of conduct – harm no innocents. And, for every life taken, one more self-inflicted scar on her forearm. Lemur? Impossible. She loved her twin sister and would have never tortured her to the point of breaking her – plus, she would have never been physically able to do that, since their synchronicity would have caused her to feel the same pain. As much as Lucia knew, Lemur was no masochist either, so that was one more reason to strike her out of the list. Nivandra? Unlikely. She was too young and emotional for such a large amount of potential casualties. Miho? Not her style. That stiff ice queen would have gone for a ritual duel or a targeted assassination attempt. She would have definitely done it herself, not delegate it to Ghost after putting her under duress. That left only…

“It was Yu, was it?”

At those words, Ghost’s body jerked, as if shaken by a terrible headache, excruciating pain traveling through her nerves.

“N… no, it was… it was my own plan to…”

To stop my suffering.

But Lucia wasn’t wrong on all counts, and that was what made Ghost’s heart ache more, as her dull irises reflected into hers, as she clenched her fist around the box of pills the wolf girl gave her. Said wolf girl, her ears turning up, still with her hands crossed under her chin, kept talking with an unnatural calm.

“If I were you, I’d file a complaint with HR. Fruity Fop takes those very seriously. He’ll be happy to know that idol bitch needs some spanking.”

Then, sensing the gazes of the people around her, she cleared her throat, started yelling in perfect Chinese, albeit with a somewhat strong Italian accent.

“Hey, people! Get out of here, quick! Mr. Reiner Greschnik, yes, that Reiner Greschnik, has bombed the place! If I stand up, everything goes kaboom! You don’t want to die, do you?”

That caused the crowd to react, to look around puzzled, oblivious about what to do, thinking about a bad joke. Most went back to their chatter without thinking much about it. Only a couple of them left the premise with a suspicious gaze. Lucia rolled her eyes. Of course they wouldn’t take her seriously – after all she was just a filthy furry mutant for them. She decided to ignore them, focus on the matter at hand instead. She touched the underside of the table, reached for a small device, stuck underneath it.

“A motion octopus. Smart move, I’ve heard that it’s still the favorite weapon of runaway dolls – so many newbie hunters killed like that, after being lured by a sexy, scantly clad lady. Very easy to find on the black market and cheap too. Elegant, even, despite its simplicity.”

Blade gulped down a lump of saliva. Motion octopuses were dumb, dirty bombs that exploded if their infrared light beam stopped being reflected back – or if the reflection timing changed significantly after they were activated. The beam itself was usually pretty uncollimated to allow for scanning a larger area. Hiding it under a table was a standard tactic: The moment the victim stood up and left, the infrared laser would stop being reflected back to the sensor by their body, triggering the detonation. He had used some of them in the past, but being subjected to it instead was a first. Now, though, who was the target of the beam? His boss, him, or both of them? The fact that she had kept him from standing up meant she either didn’t want to take chances or she knew he was the trigger. But how did she spot it? Blade’s eyes widened. That’s what Ghost was doing when fidgeting with her hands under the table. Of course, that looked innocent enough from his position, let alone from Lucia’s, but then…

“How sharp are your goddamn senses, boss?”

A smirk was her answer, grinning from ear to ear.

“Enough to see that there was something wrong. You’ve grown rusty, Becky…”

But the person she wanted to call out was gone. Ghost was nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be found. Which led Lucia to sigh heavily, while shoving her claw inside the plastic envelope of the sticky bomb, ripping it apart. Still first of the class in moving unnoticed, when she wanted to. That moniker was not for show, huh? Whatever, she thought, she had more pressing matters to deal with than chasing a broken Angel down the streets of Hong Kong all summer long, as the song said. She browsed through the internal mechanisms, without standing up or crouching down, without being able to see what she was doing, found the wires, carefully maneuvered around them. With her claws it felt much harder than with her human fingers. The risk of ripping the wrong connection was way higher than she was comfortable with. She knew what to look for, though. Every motion octopus had a reset switch, hidden inside the internal core. It was meant as a way for the user to disable it, in case of error. That switch was what made those dumb bombs useless against targets who spotted them and knew how to work with them. After a little bit of time, she finally found it, touched it with the tip of her claw, all blindly. Yet, something felt amiss. She shivered, as a wry smile opened on her face.

“Blade? Throw everyone out of this place. Whatever the means.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone. I don’t care about them at all, but Hong Kong is one of the few places left in this world where I can have some peace, and I’d rather not lose it.”

“Whatever the means, you said.”

“Yes, I don’t care how. Just do it, alright?”

Blade smirked, glanced at her with an unreadable expression.

“As you command, boss.”

He reached for the internal pocket of his jacket, took out his concealed Sachson Daybreak revolver, aimed it at the ceiling. And pulled the trigger, causing the whole venue to shake. Lucia gritted her teeth, as her ears trembled in pain, as her paw managed to close just one of them. She wanted to punch him, shove that gun down his throat, but his was the right call. Now they had the attention she required. With all eyes in the cafe silently staring at them, she shouted once more in Chinese, louder, so that everyone would hear her.

“That black-haired girl that ran away without paying put a bomb under my table, and it will explode soon! This is not a joke, run away! I’ll take care of it, but you have to leave this place! Do it! Now!”

Her last words came out as a roar, as she howled, closing her eyes, bending her head backwards.

At first, nothing happened. Everyone was still, not able to elaborate on it, as people exchanged weirded glances at each other. After a couple seconds of confusion, two guys got nearer, carefully, without saying a word, crouched, looked under the table, where her claw was ripping the octopus open. Then, stood up, pointed at it and shouted something that Blade’s hear couldn’t understand. Whatever it was, though, it had a huge effect.

Chaos unfolded. Shouts and cries, a stampede to reach the exit, following the first two guys, as he and Lucia kept sitting down, watching everything unfolding as if they were in a cinema. In less then a minute, everyone was gone, except for the great golden and the wolf girl – a wolf girl with a grave expression.

“Blade, now you go. The sensor is pointing at me.”

Her free claw went for her neck, grabbed the hem of her cape, moved it over her head.

“Please, take this out with you. I’ll need it later. It would be a shame, if it were damaged. Ah, and take my bag too, please!”

Blade stood dumbfounded, with the red mantle among his arms, not understanding what her deal was. A wry smile was her answer to his doubts.

“She jammed the switch and I have no way to disarm it. This bomb is going to explode no matter what, as soon as I get up. That was… clever of her. But trust me, okay? I’ll deal with it in my own way.”

Blade growled something under his breath, still failing to get her. Was she really standing behind to save him instead? That also made no sense. If anything, she should have sacrificed him for her goal. That’s what a leader would have done. That’s what Go Ottari would have done. Begrudgingly, he slowly moved away, without losing eye contact. What or who exactly was Lucia Lunarossa? He couldn’t focus her. He really couldn’t.

As he stepped out of the venue, he noticed how some people were still around, staring at him without a word, glancing at the red cape among his arms. He saw nobody with a mobile phone, no one calling the police, everyone simply watching. He also didn’t understood that, maybe it was a cultural factor. Or maybe, just maybe, they were curious. Mutants, right? Which powers did she have? Which kind of monster was she?

It was then that it happened.

The deflagration.

He heard the boom. They heard it too, as the windows cracked, glass shattered, shards falling on the road, a cloud of smoke filling what, seconds before, was a bustling cafe.

Then, silence fell.

Blade stared at it, at the entrance, the cape still resting among his arms. The explosion was smaller than he expected, anticlimactic even, but, again, octopuses were meant for single targets.

Nobody said a word. Nobody moved. Blade was immobile, paralyzed by his own brain, not knowing what to wish for. Seconds passed. Not a motion. Not a noise from inside. The crowd started to chatter, to point at him, to point at the door. Phones rang, pictures were shared. A photo of a girl who looked like Ghost appeared out of nowhere, as an holographic record, as one of the customers showing it with his device. In his complete indecision, he found the strength to grin. That would have given a bad time to good ol’ Greschnik, provided Ghost’s face was well known – which, considering Salvatore’s hidden Lust stash, might have been more than a simple possibility. Until he noticed it – Ghost’s face was nowhere clear enough in the recording. Blurred. Vanishing. Was that a part of her Gift? Somehow, it reminded him of that Johnson fellow (pardon, Jackson). Granted, it was clearly the girl sitting near him not even five minutes before, but, at the same time, he felt he couldn’t have identified her, if he didn’t know who she was already. Point for Stratosphere. Then, it dawned on him.

Silence, again.

Fingers pointing at the cafe, at the door

He turned around, not knowing what to expect.

And yet, he couldn’t help but stare in utter surprise.

In front of him, stood a wolf girl, her fur slightly burned, covered in sawdust and wood splinters, her clothes in tatters, showing everything that could have been shown. But her skin, underneath the poor remains of her garments, was intact.

Flawless.

Not an open wound.

Not a drop of blood.

“My cape, please.”

Blade’s mouth fell agape, as the clawed hands ripped the mantle out of his arms, putting it on that slender body of hers, in a way that made her recover some of her modesty. She licked her blackened paw, as some jolts of pain made her shiver. There were bruises all around her furred appendages, her hair was slightly burned too, even if not as much. Still, she was moving elegantly, as if nothing had happened, as if she didn’t just survive the brunt of a point blank explosion. Blade’s heart skipped a beat. What is she? What are those Angels? Monsters. They are all monsters. He felt lost. No way in hell he could have challenged such a creature. No way at all. Lucia was simply out of his league, out of everything he could have thrown at her. That realization made his heart sink even deeper. He was nothing compared to that freak. Nothing. Yet, as she glanced at him, with something vaguely resembling a weak smile, he noticed that she was, indeed, not unscathed, though she was doing her best not to show weakness.

“That was… unpleasant. But hey, better than being crushed to unconsciousness by the debris of a collapsing building. I… kind of speak from experience, here.”

All around, people were staring at her, talked in English and Chinese, both languages at once.

Wolf queen. Láng huánghòu. This was how they were addressing her, pointing their fingers at her.

And Lucia didn’t seem to mind it. If anything, she was still intent at licking her sour patches, as her small body jolted a little every time she found a new bruise, while enjoying a little bit of popularity, for once. She smiled at them, at the crowd of people of all genders and ages, staring at her in disbelief. Then, she bent her head backwards, howled, howled so loud that it echoed all around the street, so loud that all food stalls operators, all tourists, all people around could hear her rallying cry. Suddenly, with all eyes on her, she started shouting, with a boisterous tone.

“I’m Lucia Lunarossa, leader of the Broken Moon Circus! That explosion was the result of a vile attempt on my life, perpetrated by a filthy Western power! I apologize for what happened, I didn’t want anyone to get involved! Their foul attack destroyed a nice cafe I was sitting in, sadly. I’m angered it was damaged that way, without fault of the owner. I’ll pay for repairs, if the insurance doesn’t cover for it!”

She let her cape flow, with a dramatic gesture.

“My ship is always looking for new crew members. If anyone wants to join me, the Wolf Queen of the Sea, join my travels on the wide ocean, plundering the Japanese vessels that are spitting on this precious island, negating us access to goods this land produces, show yourself this night at the eastern docks, at 2100 sharp! I’ll be waiting for you there!”

Blade felt a fire inside him, ignited by her short speech. Those words. The way she spun the situation around, that powerful howl she let out. That left him in awe, for the first time since he had been in her service. She repeated her message once more, in Chinese, with the same exaggerate motions. Then, she limped forward, grabbed Blade’s arm, moved through the crowd, all eyes on her, on them, as they slowly left the venue. As soon as they got out of sight of the people, as soon as they were left alone, she let herself go, all her weight crushing on the great golden, as her legs stopped supporting her. Blade kept her from falling, took her in his arms, looked at her with a puzzled expression, still trying to understand what had just happened.

“You seriously took that explosion to the face?”

“Yup. I knew… my body could withstand it. And… hey… it was… a nice stunt to pull… huh?”

She let herself sigh, rubbing her soft fur on his pecs, while yelping a little, as she finally allowed some tears to flow down her cheeks, all the tears she had bottled up until that moment.

“It… hurt, though. A lot.”

Blade nodded. So, she wasn’t invincible. Her body had limits too. That was good to know. And yet… yet, for the first time, he felt something else for her. Pride. He felt proud of that weird freak he called a boss. She put herself in danger, without sacrificing him or any bystander, acted on her word, didn’t delegate. True, her goal was selfish – keeping Hong Kong as her safe harbor, a place she could call home, but that had left an effect on him. That thought made him blush, though.

“Thanks… for the stroll… too. It was… fun. I’ve never had… so much fun… as in the past five days. You are so… cool, Blade. The brother… I wish I had.”

He instinctively caressed her hair. She looked so weak, pitiful, coddled in his arms like that, like a little puppy. He could have snapped her neck as they spoke – or, at least, attempted to – to finally regain his freedom. Yet, he hesitated. He had finally started to understand. Her present to Ghost – someone she knew was her to kill her – together with the words to the crowd gave him the last piece of the puzzle. That chat at the cafe, that bomb stunt, the rousing speech, those days spent idling like a schoolgirl on vacation…

Loneliness.

That was it. That was the explanation.

Loneliness.

Lucia had been alone for so long, and that made her bitter, grizzled, uncaring. Three years in prison, followed by three years chained as an Angel, in a dog eats dog world, fueling her paranoia of being replaced. While Blade had people he could call friends (up to a degree), she only had competitors. And now, for her, the crew of the Mattanza had become a very large, dysfunctional family. A family she wanted to make even larger, a family she wanted to protect. He felt weird, for once, not knowing how to react. She was still a cold-blooded murderer, someone that nobody sane would have ever called a good person. Yet, she was trying to build connections, trying to get other people to trust her – other cutthroat criminals like her, true, but her willpower, the lengths she went to, just to keep what she cared for safe, was inspiring.

“I’ll need new clothes, Blade. That atelier we went before… wasn’t… all that bad. Can you… bring me there? My legs… hurt a little.”

“Wouldn’t It be better if we went to the ship, first?”

“N… no. Please… bring me… to the atelier first. My wounds are already… getting better. Just a question… of minutes.”

She groaned, let out a weak yelp. Then, as if to soothe her own pain, she started to sing.

“♫ Lonely shadows in my path… as the sea is calming down. I am gonna enjoy… those fishballs here… tonight... ♫”

Blade recognized that. She had sung it already too many times, since they made landfall. Yet, that time, he didn’t feel like chastising her. If anything, he let her go on, while carrying her around in his arms.

“♫ Starting something from the ground… it is hard, but makes me proud… I have left myself behind… and found her back… ♫”

When she finally reached the refrain, as her ears bent down, as she grappled Blade’s shirt to fight the urge to cry, she found it odd. The refrain. It had an echo. It wasn’t her voice. Not just her voice anymore. Not that alone. She opened her eyes, only to gaze in disbelief. Blade. Blade was singing with her, with his tone deaf, deep-ish, baritone voice. Yet, yet he was singing too.

“♫ Chasing my dreams down the way, down and down their rabbit holes. Down the streets of Hong Kong all summer loooong!♫”

She closed her eyes again, letting a smile open on her tired face. And enjoyed every second, every instant, as their voices mingled in one, long last refrain.

“♫ Down the streets of Hong Kong all summer loooong!♫”