Three more days passed more or less without incident after the brawl in the market. Mina, having escaped to the security of her safehouse (After checking that nobody could possibly observe her position), was almost completely healed after that. She had always been tough. She looked in the silver mirror. Aside from a small nick in the lip where that bitch had clocked her with the elbow, she was good as new.
Like she did every morning before an action, she unrolled her bag of tricks on the table. Knives, crossbow, claw-gauntlet, various thieves’ tools. She caught herself holding the claw-gauntlet a little too long, reliving the moment its razor talons had raked across Apollo Ridley’s tanned cheek.
It didn’t do to become sentimental, or too personally antagonistic towards someone you might have to kill. Mina knew this all too well. She had seen it happen. Her own master, for example, had been killed because he allowed personal sentiment to get in the way of his own senses. Mina placed the gauntlet down carefully. That had been a proud day for her. She checked her knives, edge and point, and set aside the ones that didn’t live up to her standard – a stiletto, her boot-knife, and two throwing knives. All four were made of the same midnight black metal that her bolts were made of. She didn’t know what it was called. She had once been told that it was mined in the heart of the Badlands by people so mutated they could only breathe the sulphurous gas that was exuded by the rocks there.
She thought about living that life. Suited only for one task, trapped underground by a twist of fate, breathing only toxic fumes and digging up the raw materials of death every day.
Didn’t sound so bad. She pulled a whetstone from a pouch in the roll and sat down to work on her blades. When she was done it was time to eat. She opened her backpack and retrieved a bread roll and a waterskin. The bread was stale. The water was old. Still, nothing killed killers like luxury. The phrase “I’m dying for some proper food”, heard from the lips of countless partners over the years, invariably came literally true. She never bought from where she worked. The bread she had picked up from a bakery at the town across, the water from a clear stream outside of town.
Await instructions was her least favourite order, but one she always followed. She looked out of the window, careful to avoid standing directly in view of ground level. Below, the market rumbled with life. This shallow in the Static the mutants were usually recognisably human, a sight that was quite spectacular to Mina. Where she came from the definition of human was necessarily expanded. Wordless, airless levitating beings rubbed shoulders, metaphorically of course, with snorting quasi-minds from the wrong side of physical space. Now those were a challenge in her line of work. Being held on retainer here wasn’t so bad. The work was easy enough.
Apart from Apollo Ridley. Mina had never fought someone so tenacious before. Of course, she had rarely fought anyone.
The creaky stair creaked, and Mina was on her knees, crossbow in hand. She trained it on the door, racking the windlass-bolt into position and loading in one fluid movement. She closed one eye and raised the sight into view. The thump of the step in the hallway told her it was only the landlord, but the thump in her chest told her not to relax until she knew she was in the clear.
A sheet of paper slid under the door. The thumping step retreated. Keeping the bow under her arm, she crept to the door. She pulled it open with her free hand. Clear. Looked clear. She closed the door again and picked up the paper. Her heart leapt at the red sigil that was inscribed at the top of the note. Beneath that, in a code that very few knew how to read, it said ‘Setback with A.R. acknowledged. Usual location. Midnight.’
That was unusual. Midnight. Usually in her line of work, the small hours of morning were preferred. Surprisingly many people just didn’t go to sleep until later, for one reason or another. But the rest of it was consistent with contact she’d had with her employers so far in Mutetown. All of that went through an intermediary of course, her handler in town. She’d never seen their face, whoever they were, but they conveyed messages from her employers whenever she needed them. This way, she could never give up her employers and vice versa, because the identity of both was known only to the handler, who was known to neither and was one of the organisation’s most proficient operators. Handlers had to be invisible, untraceable.
The usual place was a low rooftop, sheltered on three sides by buildings and on the fourth by the town wall. Two of the buildings were completely windowless; the third overlooked the meeting place with a small storage room, which was rented by Mina. She sat in the storage room, a looking-glass in her left hand, a notepad in her right, noting any anomalies in the guard patrols, anything that looked odd about the buildings, even down to movements of the birds. She locked and bolted the door of the storage room twice, from the inside, and then dropped the end of a rope out of the window and slid down to street level. She landed weightlessly, tugged on the rope, and it wound itself back up into the room on a counterweight pulley. Mina looked around. An old man was looking at her, quite shocked.
“You always go around dropping out of the sky?” he asked her. Mina approached him.
“I try not to make a habit out of it,” she said, smiling and palming a blade.
“You an angel?” the old man continued. A reeking bottle was clutched in his right hand. Mina saw the fog of alcohol over his eyes.
“Not quite,” Mina said. “Lean a little closer.”

She walked out of the alley, wiping the black blade clean on a handkerchief and tucking it back into her belt. She was an angel of sorts, she guessed. Nobody would find him where she left him until the smell of decay overpowered the smell of alcohol, by which time Apollo Ridley would be dead.
Ridley. The name sent a hot rush of anger flashing into Mina. She had made her bleed. Nobody had done that since- well, nobody had ever done it and got away before. She balled her fist, digging her nails into her palm to pull herself back into the moment.

It was midnight. Mina trained her spyglass on the roof opposite. The wooden trapdoor opened and a figure in a dark cloak came up the ladder. This was all normal enough. The tall figure was completely anonymous in the dark shadows. Mina wrapped her own cloak about her and opened the shutter of the window, perching on the sill for a second before leaping into open space.
She drifted through the air, and her soft-soled shoe touched the parapet of the lower building with the grace of a raven’s wing. She gestured to the figure, who bowed their head. No words were ever exchanged in these meetings. Mina stepped forward, raising her arms above her head.
“I bring no blade,” she signed, her hands twisting quickly through the secret language of the order. The hood bowed in acknowledgement. Mina took another step forward, lowering her hands. “News from the client?” she continued signing. The figure only nodded again. Mina’s eyes, the only thing visible through her cloak’s tight face mask, narrowed. A tiny sliver of light was shining up through the trapdoor. The hooded figure shifted, and a lock of hair escaped from its shadowy embrace, flashing white. Mina’s stomach lurched. Reaching up for the black hood, she pulled it back sharply, revealing tumbling hair so white as to almost seem lit from within.
“Hello,” Delta Delta said.
A soft sound behind Mina’s back alerted her.
“Don’t turn around,” said Apollo as her shadowy cloak fell off her. “If you know what’s good for you.” In her peripheral vision, Mina could see the blue-grey streak of a sword in Apollo’s hand.
“It seems you’ve gotten the better of me,” Mina spat. “It won’t do you any good. I know nothing of any use to you.”
“This isn’t an interrogation,” the snarling Apollo said, leaving unspoken the threat that hung over the words. “We’re just cleaning up.”
“Cleaning up?” Mina said. Her one chance was to keep them talking. “Why start with me? Why not the ringleaders? If I wasn’t being retained I would leave in peace.”
“Honestly? You’re the easiest. You’re not on the Watch, you’re not in the government. You’re nobody. And without you they can’t kill indiscriminately.”
“I’m not nobody, Apollo Ridley. You don’t even know my name,” Mina said.
“I don’t care about your name,” Apollo said.
“No, that makes it easier, doesn’t it? To kill someone without a name, well, that hardly even counts. A name is what makes you human, isn’t it? Don’t you think so, Apollo?”

Apollo raised her sword, poised to strike. In front of her, on the other side of the assassin, Delta stood watching her.
“Apollo. An interesting choice of name,” the assassin continued. “Did you know the name of the man you found?”
“The man you killed.”
“Yes, the man I killed, keep up,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He was a very boring man. His routine was far too routine. His name was Drashig Dorman. I followed him for a week before I killed him. I knew him better than you. I wonder why you care so much?”
“You don’t get to decide who lives and who dies,” Apollo said. “Do you?” the assassin replied. “If I’m not mistaken, I’m about to be executed by a private citizen with a grudge. I don’t know about Mutetown, but where I come from they call that murder.”
Now it was Apollo’s turn to roll her eyes.
“You going to tell me we’re not so different, you and I? Save your breath,” she said.
“Oh, no, Apollo. I would advise you to save yours,” the assassin said. Apollo lowered her sword, her brow furrowing. When she noticed the tension in the assassin’s limbs it was too late to stop her from springing into the air, far out of reach of Apollo’s blade. From behind she heard a noise, and spun, raising the sword into a guard position instinctively. A projectile pinged off the steel into the air.

Delta threw herself to the ground as soon as she saw the bolt spark off the flat side of Apollo’s sword, the hooded cloak billowing around her. She scrambled towards the trapdoor she had come from and struggled to lift the heavy ring that acted as the handle. Apollo had dropped down the same and belly-crawled over to her.
“Crossbow! Building opposite!” Apollo said. “I can’t open it,” said Delta. Her long arms strained, but low as she was she couldn’t summon the leverage to open the dark slab of wood. A glinting bolt whished overhead.
“Make that two crossbows!” Apollo said. She pressed down with both arms and lifted her feet under her, hopping into a crouch and looping her fingers through the trapdoor’s ring. She pulled it open easily. “Go!” she shouted. Delta began to protest, but thought better of it and quickly snaked down the opening. Apollo turned to grab her sword from the floor beside her.
“Apollo, come on!” said Delta, her heart pounding, her cool finally deserting her.
Apollo grunted, the sword clattering out of her hand. “Run,” she murmured, and straightened up to her full height. In her lower back, a black crossbow bolt protruded from her stiffened-leather vest.

Apollo let the sword fall from her hand. She took two steps, then fell to her knees again. They had stopped shooting. She got to her feet and walked painfully to the edge of the roof. She looked down. Not that far to the ground, really.

She stepped up on the parapet and let herself fall.