A pall falls upon the city. Perhaps it stems from the gentle lapping of the cold wind against the edges of Liberty City’s edges and narrows. In those same narrows where the chill seems to seep in, finding purchase where it has no right, Detective Anderson judges the cold an appropriate accompaniment to the night. He stands in front of a broken storefront, glass from the display strewn across the street. A robbery took place earlier tonight, an ordinary smash and grab except for one small detail. One small detail that has the detective on the case, despite the chilly evening air. This, dear reader, is the scene of the crime.

Flicking back the cap on his lighter, he brings the weak flame to the cigarette hanging out of his mouth and takes a long drag. “This is the third one this week,” he says with a growl.

At his side, his new partner slaps him on the back and says in a folksy tone, “Ya pardner, it’s a mess.”

Gritting his teeth, Detective Anderson shoots him an irritated glance before nodding.

“Ahhh I tell ya bud, I wuz werkin down at tha school when the Chauvinist showed up an’ this is jus like that time. If it ain’t fer Ellydritch I’da been cooked, but ya gotta have faith eh buddy? Jus don’ let it’tall git ta ya.”

Anderson growls again, a little more feral this time.

“An’ then when he wuz escapin’ from tha prison, I tell ya, things wuz pretty crazy. But I got outta that jus fine, all on account ta I kept mah hopes alive. We jus gotta keep em alive an we cin catch these guys.”

Anderson lets out a mix between a whimper and a sigh before saying, “I need a smoke break.”

“Uh, pardner, yer already smokin?”

Gritting his teeth, Anderson walks to the entrance of the store and kicks a few shards of glass out of the way before easing open the broken door and stepping inside. Pointedly ignoring the no smoking sign, he walks around the counter and to the till in the back. Quietly, he surveys the scene in front of him as his partner chases after him.

Stepping gingerly around the glass, his partner says, “Eh, heya ya know why’d we git brought out ‘ere anyway? Coupla detectives like us.”

“You’re a trainee,” Anderson growls.

“Eh, right, a trainee detective an’ you, ya know, obviously ya ain’t no trainee. So why we out ‘ere?”

Detective Anderson waits until his new partner is standing next to him. Then he pulls the cigarette from his lips and uses the glowing tip to gesture toward the wreckage in front of them. “Because of that.”

Someone smashed the counter, breaking open a panel that ought to have nothing but wiring behind it. But instead of wires there is a blown open safe, conspicuously empty, with the door lying a few feet away. Someone tore the safe apart, breaking into whatever it contained.

“This store wasn’t just a tall and wide ladies underwear store,” Anderson says, gesturing around at the damage. “It was also a front for the mob. We suspected they kept part of their money here, turns out, we were wrong. Whatever was in there wasn’t money. It was something more important. Worse, turns out we weren’t the only ones that had eyes on this place.”

“Ah.”

“Exactly,” Anderson grunts in approval.

The two men stare at the empty safe for a minute, each thinking through the implications of such a robbery. Liberty City might have recovered from the recent spate of supervillain activity, but the balance always hangs by a thread. Tonight, in the dark storefront, that thread is fraying. The cold seems even more pervasive and sinister than before as it sinks into the pair, preying on their fears.

Anderson breaks the silence with a grim pronouncement. “This is the start of something bigger. Someone is making a power play.” Then he bends over and pulls on a pair of latex gloves before inspecting the remains of the safe. “No explosives residue. Whoever did this didn’t need any help and,” he shoots a pointed glance at the door lying a few feet away, “they didn’t bother with the combination.”

“Powers?”

Anderson nods as he rises to his feet. “Possibly super strength of some kind. I doubt this was the Queen of Hearts though. She’s been laser focused on freeing the other queens and getting The Deck back together.”

The detective falls silent again as he rifles through the cash register. “They didn’t even bother to take any cash,” he adds, pulling up a wad of bills to prove his point. “Whatever they were after, it wasn’t money.”

Then he gestures to the window and the spray of the glass. “They didn’t bother with subtlety either. They came in right through the front window, blew the display up and everything.” He points to a blood splatter on the floor. “Took out one,” his hand moves to the next, larger, red spot, “two, and three,” he points to the ground behind the counter, “and four.”

“An’ then?”

Anderson drops his hands to his sides and shrugs. “Then they took whatever they were here for and left. I suspect that for a place like this, most of the security was the secrecy. Four guards isn’t much, but it is more than most storefronts would have.”

Peeling off the gloves, Anderson adds, “All we have to do now is figure out what they were after.”

“I believe I can be of some assistance there,” a female voice says from just outside the store.

A moment later, Anderson’s hand is on the hilt of his gun. He leaves it in the holster, but remains wary as the woman carefully steps inside the shop. She is short, heavyset, almost made frumpy looking by the nondescript bob cut to her brown hair and plain dark coat. Seeing his reaction, his partner also reaches for his sidearm, suddenly wary.

“Madam,” Anderson growls, hostility evident in his tone.

Stepping carefully in her flats, the woman reaches over to his partner to stabilize herself as she navigates around a large piece of glass. “Hello,” she begins. Her tone is immaculately polite. “I’m the store owner.”

“I know,” Detective Anderson says, his eyes narrowing. “This is an active crime scene. Why are you here?”

Pausing her careful steps, the woman shoots him a pleasant smile and replies, “To help, of course. Something of mine was stolen. I’d like it back. That is what the cops are here for, right? To help an innocent store owner retrieve her stolen goods?”

“Innocent,” Anderson snorts. “You?”

The air shifts, and the cold of the night seems to return in force. Cocking her head to the side, the woman asks Anderson as if regarding a particularly irritating bug, “Yes. Innocent. Unless you would like to charge me with a crime and attempt to arrest me?”

Anderson’s eyes narrow as he regards the dumpy looking woman in front of him. Slowly, he eases his hand off his gun. Seeing his movements, his partner does the same. The tension remains, but the threat of imminent violence is gone, for now.

“I know better than that,” Anderson says with a grimace. “So what do you want, Madam?”

“To help with the investigation.”

Anderson shoots her a look that clearly communicates his skepticism but dutifully pulls out a notepad and pencil anyway. “So what was it?”

“A keepsake,” she dutifully responds. “Of no real monetary value, but immense personal importance.”

“And what was it?”

The woman reaches into her coat, causing both police to tense for a few seconds until she fishes out a photograph. Walking closer to the detective she says, “This.”

Anderson takes the photograph and looks it over for a few seconds, writing on the pad while he does. “What is this, exactly?”

“A miniature sculpture,” she answers. “I received it as a child.”

“I can’t make it out clearly,” Anderson says, squinting at the photo, “you say it’s a sculpture? Of what exactly?”

The Madam gives him a polite smile. “A keepsake. One that I would expect to be returned exactly as it was, in case the police had any ideas about confiscating my property upon its safe recovery.”

Anderson glares at her, but restrains him tone as he asks, “Then why show us the photograph? This thing is blurry, it’s impossible to get any useful details.”

“Because,” she answers, plucking the photo out of the detective’s hands, “now you know I have a photo. So there won’t be any misunderstandings regarding precisely which item I want returned.”

“I see,” Anderson replies warily. “Is there any point in reassuring you that the police department would never do anything like what you’re suggesting Madam?”

She gives him a patronizing look, the police façade slipping for the first time. “Oh I know all about Liberty City cops, dearie. But so long as we understand one another,” she huffs as she tucks the photo away in her coat, “well there won’t be any misunderstandings that way.”

Tottering over to Anderson’s partner, she reaches out. The move prompts him to offer her his arm again and help her make her way across the glass-covered floor. As she crosses the threshold of the shop back into the street, she turns back for a moment to face the detective. “I look forward to hearing from you, detective. And good luck with your new trainee here, I hope he turns out. I like him. He’s much more polite than you.”

“Thanks?” murmurs the confused partner in question before turning back to look at Anderson with a confused expression on his earnest face.

Atop a roof on the opposite end of the street, swathed in the darkness, a pair of eyes hidden behind an expressionless black mask watches the exchange before retreating. As he leaves, the dark figure tosses a small figurine in his hand.

Far away, in a different corner of the city the cold air sends a chill running down Hailey Juniper Penze’s spine. Letting out a breath of nervous air in a visible puff, she arranges herself in a cross-legged position and begins a low murmur. Slowly, as her words rise in tempo and cadence, a sheen of white slowly starts to climb up her arms and across her body. Lifting her hands up to the sky in supplication, Hailey continues to speak unintelligible arcane words bringing a pair of lights to her hands that she then brushes across her face and up through her hair creating a mystic cowl that covers her face.

The magic fades away from her hands, the light receding with it until it becomes a subtle glow above the surface of her costume. As the last arcane syllable falls from her lips, Hailey stands and plucks a dagger from the air. Her eyes blaze with unrestrained magic. Her weapon gleams with power. And yet she stands uncertain, staring down at the blade in her hand.

“Am I ready? Bel?”

She slowly runs her fingers along the blade. The cold of the night seems embedded in the weapon, the metal chill as ice even through the magic of her suit.

“Will I ever be?”

Hailey looks up, surveying the city in front of her. She sits on a rooftop overlooking her school, St. Cecilia High. Beyond the flat roofs of the school buildings skyscrapers jut out from downtown. Beyond them is the gentle reflection of the moon on the water out by the docks. Where the two meet, Liberty City University sits with its collegial construction and open quad. Nestled in between the larger buildings are endless rows of houses, apartments, and businesses running along the worn streets of Liberty City. Out there, somewhere, someone needs Eldritch Maiden.

Hailey knows it, just as she knows that the city did not wait in her absence. Events are moving forward, spiraling toward an inevitable conclusion even now. Players, both large and small, perform their parts, either in storefronts or on otherwise empty rooftops. The game is in session.

It will continue, with or without Eldritch Maiden. But how many more innocents will find themselves caught up in the deadly machinations of those less inclined toward the side of good? How many more Amandas and Bellas?

The question, dear reader, haunts Hailey and spurs Eldritch. So she hesitates. Out of fear, out of uncertainty, out of nerves. All of these emotions and more war within the teenage girl as she gazes out at the city.

But she never looks away.

So it is that with a determined gleam in her eyes and the burning force of her magic running alongside her, Eldritch Maiden returns to the city, buying back into the endless game no matter the price.

What else is a heroine to do?

The story continues next week in… “Out of the Mouth of Babes!”