Fear Her Wrath III: It Runs on Blood

Chapter 8

It was long after midnight when I climbed back through the trapdoor in the church tower. Only Ben and Ellie were still there—Emery had returned to the orphanage, and Hazel and Fatima were across the river, taking turns at their watchpost outside the Dreyfuss Hotel. I was exhausted, discouraged, and pissed. I'd almost forgotten about the electrical burns on my arm until Ben insisted on letting him clean them up for me. I slumped onto the sofa, kicked off my boots, and stared at the ceiling as he started checking me over. For a long time, none of us said anything.

It was my low pain tolerance that finally broke the silence.

"Ouch!" I said as Ben wrapped a bandage around the burns on my left arm. "That hurts."

"Yeah, I bet it does," said Ben. "It'll hurt worse if you don't let me take care of it."

"I know," I said. "Just... never mind."

"You want me to be gentle," said Ben, smirking at me.

"Not funny, Ben."

His cocky smile faltered, and he went back to binding up my arm without further comment. He would never own it, but he was being more careful. It wasn't actually the pain that was bothering me, though. I was still thinking about my conversation with Corrigan an hour earlier.

"He's going to come for you," I said abruptly.

"He might," said Ben, without looking up.

"Ben, he will," I said forcefully. "I know him. He wants to hurt me, and he knows the best way he can hurt me is to..."

I paused, feeling suddenly self-conscious. I half-expected Ben to make some immature remark about how much I cared for him, but he kept his mouth shut.

"I'm not afraid of him."

"You should be," I said irritably. I was looking at the scars on Ben's face—the marks made by Deadstream's knife when he kidnapped and tortured Ben, just to get under my skin. I didn't want to go through that again.

Ben read my thoughts.

"Maggs, it'll be okay. I'll keep my guard up. Remember that I'm the one who trained you. Oh, and I'm also the one who—."

"Who's going to the Olympics," I said, rolling my eyes. "For a sport you don't even care about that much—I know. God, you're so arrogant."

"Some people would call it confidence," he said, kissing me on the cheek.

"Yeah," I said, trying not to smile. "Some people."

"Oohkay, now that we've worked through that emotional crisis," said Ellie. "I've got some updates for ya, Maggs."

"Go ahead, Prioress," I said, chuckling just a little at Ellie's obvious impatience with me and Ben's drama.

"Thank you, dear. There's no news on Psychosis, but I've let all your people know to keep an eye out. Chances are he's not gonna leave the Fen, so he can't be too hard to find, y'know? 'Specially with that gorilla. Icemane might skip town for a bit, but we can check up on known associates and we might get a line on him if he's still in Marbrose. Ooh, and Fatima says a car pulled up to the Dreyfuss about an hour ago and some very suspicious-lookin' people got out. She's got the license plate."

"Who's it registered to?" I asked.

"Galt Foundation," said Ellie. "Which checks out."

"Yeah, Glassface thought they might have had the plans for the machine," said Ben. "Makes sense they'd come to check on it after Maggs fried the generator."

"I'll have to look into that," I said, stepping behind the folding screen to change out of my costume. "Tell Fatima and Hazel they can go home. There's probably nothing else to see tonight."

"You know, I don't mind if you—" Ben started to say, but Ellie immediately shut him down.

"You two can be gross on your own time. One last thing, Maggs. Around the same time you were out at Rothko, some chick in a metal mask killed Ralph Lockhart and one of his girls. Like, beat both of them to an unrecognizable pulp with a baseball bat. Might be somethin' to look into, y'know?"

Well, this was turning out to be a very eventful night. I drapped my hood and cape over the screen and tried to find some point of reference for what Ellie was telling me.

"Ralph Lockhart is one of Frankie's pimps, right?"

"Mmhmm. Word on the street is he was, like, one of the worst. Makes sense that someone would wanna get rid of him, y'know?"

"What about the girl?"

"Maddie Wolf. I guess she tried to protect him and whoever was tryin' to kill him wasn't too happy about that."

"Well, keep tabs on that too," I said with a yawn. I'd finished changing back into my street clothes, and I was very ready to call it a night. Metal mask girl, like Psychosis and Icemane, would have to keep until tomottow. Ellie took the hint and immediately shut down her computer and snatched up her jacket. Even in early October, Marbrose nights were already long and chilly. I never noticed the cold when I was wearing my costume, but I was glad I'd remembered to bring a coat.

Even though I could always borrow Ben's.

After I finished locking up outside, Ben caught me in the doorway and pulled me into what would have been a really, really good kiss if there wasn't that unresolved anxiety about Psychosis lurking in the back of both our minds. I mean, I still enjoyed it. I won't gross you out with anything about the sculpted perfection of his body or how great he smelled—beyond, you know, what I just said—but kisses with Ben always seemed too short. We would have to schedule a day to see how long we could go without getting tired of it.

Not that I had that kind of free time.

When we finally broke apart, I turned around to see Ellie puckering at me with her eyes clenched shut.

"No," I said flatly.

"Aww," Ellie pouted. "But I feel left out."

"You don't want Ellie to feel left out, do you?" said Ben. I chose not to dignify his disingenuous question with a response.

As we started walking together towards the nearest subway station, I glanced back at the Night Chapel, which looked dark and deserted. No light came from its stained-glass windows, and its peeling paint and sinking roof would be enough to ward off even tramps looking for a warm place to sleep. Nobody would ever guess this place was the lair of the Fen's most notorious vigilante. Well, nobody except...

"Hey, Ellie," I said, struck by a sudden horrible thought. "Do we need to, like... move the Night Chapel to somewhere new? Because if Psychosis—."

"I'd be more worried that he knows where we all live," said Ben. "Besides, Ellie's got traps installed."

"Yep," said Ellie proudly. "And I've updated the Night Chapel's security since we found out... I mean, since Simon got arrested. No way he would get in there without tripping the alarms, at least."

I wasn't so sure, but I knew it wasn't worth it to argue with Ellie. They were her and Emery's traps, after all, installed on their own time without me even asking. Even if some of them were a little... elaborate, they'd hopefully be enough to keep my arch enemy out of my home base.

And Ben did have a point. Psychosis knew where we slept. That was way more concerning.