I got no end of grief from Sakin and Aster and even Gilder for putting it that way. Quietly, while we were on the move, and only once we were out of earshot, because none of them were idiots. And sure, okay, “betray me” might have been a more grandiose than accurate way of phrasing “create a diversion,” but I needed to get people accustomed to respecting my showmanship. It was a bit of an uphill climb when it came to some of them, Aster.

Lady Gray had her people all up and down Cat Alley; we’d created a weak patch in their distribution by wiping out that one safehouse and hopefully my attack on the counting house had diverted some away, but the problem remained that wherever I popped up first, her entire forces would begin congregating there. That wasn’t what worried me, exactly. Just the thought of unleashing all my spells and Aster’s greatsword against a bunch of people conveniently massed in a confined street made the anticipatory bloodlust start bubbling up my spine, making me see red, and that was something I was probably going to have to deal with sooner than later. More at issue was that Gray was smart enough to strike at my weak points rather than just throwing men at me like wheat against a scythe.

I had over a hundred weak points. Every woman on this alley who I’d come here to recruit and how had to protect. As soon as I appeared, a bloodbath would start, and it wouldn’t be focused on me.

Therefore I needed the ability to appear without it becoming known that I had. I needed confusion.

And fortunately, I now had nine people positioned to draw attention to one end of Cat Alley, and a familiar who could spot people lurking on the rooftops whether or not they were within his line of sight.

“Oh, I thought that was a chimney,” Kastrin muttered, taking aim with her crossbow.

“Yeah, that’s why he picked that spot,” said Biribo. “You want the chimney on the left. He’s got on a big hat, so your headshot’s a little below where you’d expect.”

“Got it.”

I refrained from asking whether she was sure she could make the shot. Kastrin was proud but not prideful, and knew better than to endanger us by grandstanding. It was a long shot for anyone; my Slimeshot was technically more accurate because the spell did the aiming for me, but at that distance I was concerned it wouldn’t be a kill. Slimes were lousy ammunition, all things considered, and gently splattering a lookout with one would be a great way to have an alarm sent up.

The crossbow twanged, the bolt vanished into the darkness, and the chimney on the left slumped silently over, then tumbled off the roof.

“Nice,” I said, patting her lightly on the back. Kastrin gave me a brilliant smile over her shoulder.

“Sakin’s coming back,” Biribo reported. “All three targets neutralized without a peep. That guy’s good.”

“What’s his story, anyway?” Jadrin asked quietly.

All of us turned to look at her in the darkness. She glanced back and forth, then shrugged.

“What? What’d I say?”

Sakin scrabbled up onto our rooftop almost silently. “How we doin’, boss?”

“Biribo?” I asked.

“No scouts or lookouts within our line of sight,” he said.

“Wanna keep going, Lord Seiji?” asked Sakin.

I hesitated, looked up and down the row of dark roofs with the blue-tinged light of Cat Alley shining up from below.

“No,” I said finally. “This’ll have to do. We’ve silenced communications on half the street and at this point we’re on borrowed time. Every second makes it more likely there’ll be a shift change or someone’ll find a body. Let’s move in.”

It was a risk, but there was just no way to do this without risks—worse, without the certainty of innocent casualties. Even under optimal conditions we just didn’t have the manpower or time to silently pick off Lady Gray’s forces one by one until they didn’t have enough left to threaten the Alley cats, and that wasn’t even addressing the possibility that my nine new “recruits” would actually betray me rather than divert street soldiers to investigate the slaughtered and now abandoned safehouse they’d “found.” I was gambling that even if they were plants, they would play along in the short term to stay on my good side long enough to get close enough to me to pull something off.

If I was wrong, Gray’s people would already be beating up or killing prostitutes at that end of the street. If I was right, they’d quickly figure out from the mess we’d left in the safehouse that I was here and that would start in minutes at most. There was the possibility that the turncoats would manage to go the extra mile I’d asked of them, but it would be foolish to pin my hopes on that. Either way, we hadn’t even touched Gray’s forces all up and down the other half of the street, and kicking off the main event the way I was about to would immediately start the bloodshed.

I was going to get these women hurt and possibly killed no matter what I did. I took refuge in the pulse-pounding rage clawing its way up my throat like bile; it was easier to endure than the guilt.

Once I got my hands on Gray, her end was going to be…dramatic. Immolate was too good for that bitch.

We moved as lightly as we could, but this big a group leaping onto a roof one after another was inevitably going to create noise, so I put on a burst of speed. With me was the entire crew we’d brought: Aster, Sakin, Donon, Kasser, and Harold from North Watch; Jadrin, Kastrin, Adelly, Sicellit, and two other girls from the Alley Cat (those best qualified for violence, which most of the cats weren’t yet); and the strays we’d picked up in town, Gilder and Minifrit’s three bouncers, Thwyn, Olyc, and Raelther. Fifteen people wasn’t nearly enough of an army to take on Gray’s massed street soldiers, but it was definitely enough that moving silently wasn’t an option. We’d made it this far by the simple expediency of killing all potential witnesses, but from this point on I was forced to rely on speed and shock.

As such, rather than waste time scouting for a discreet entrance, I picked the nearest window, yanked it open, and hopped through. As luck would have it, this landed me in an upstairs bedroom which was currently in use.

“Uh…Healer?” said the woman inside, staring curiously up at me from under the shocked-looking young naked man currently between her legs. “Is there something wrong with the front door?”

“Yes, it’s in view of a lot of people I’d rather not meet,” I explained. “Speaking of which, is this fellow bothering you, Tazilit?”

“Hey, hey!” she protested, wrapping her arms protectively around the suddenly terrified man, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, and frowned at me over his shoulder.. “None of that! Kaenon’s a sweet guy. My best customer!”

“Ah, my humble apologies for the interruption, then,” I said politely, setting a red halo on the bedstand. “Have another hour on me, Kaenon. Terribly sorry. We’ll just get out of your hair.”

If all went according to plan for once he wouldn’t be getting his extra hour’s worth, or even the rest of this one, but the thought counted for something, surely. I swept into the hall, the rest of us filing through the room after me. Several of my crew, I was proud to hear, also offered polite apologies. Gilder loudly said “Hah, nice!” and Sicellit stopped to demand why Kaenon hadn’t visited her in two months; Aster had to collect them both by the collar, the three being last through the door. Thwyn, expressionless and used to this kind of thing, silently shut it behind us.

By that point I was already at the stairs, and accelerated my descent down them as I caught the sound of what was happening down there in the Jostled Jugs’s common room.

There was no music, either from singing or instrumental accompaniment. There was no exuberant shouting, as one often heard in the Jugs; there was laughter, but was all male, and it had that edge to it. Laugher is a social reflex we primates have, not unlike the hooting of baboons, and contrary to popular belief we don’t only do it out of amusement. People sometimes laugh when they’re nervous or frightened, and often to show solidarity with each other when acting out some bonding exercise or another. Bullies, I knew from experience, would often laugh while tormenting someone—not when doing so alone, but to solidify the group at the expense of its victim. The laughter I was hearing told me nothing was funny.

I landed at the base of the stairs, my cloak flaring behind me, and only half the room went silent at my entrance. Gannit herself paused, having picked up a fallen club and apparently been about to launch herself at one of the miscreants; it was a damn good thing I arrived when I had. She was scrappy for a grandma, but they’d kill her. All four of her bouncers were already down, two bleeding on the floor and two backed against the wall by men with swords out, holding bleeding arms. All of them, plus the toughs looming mockingly over them, turned to face me and froze.

Not the man who’d just thrown Madyn across one of the tables and grabbed her by the neck to hold her down, nor the four holding back three of her fellow prostitutes, who were trying to intervene; one already had a bloody lip for her trouble. They carried on guffawing while I began casting.

Heal, Heal, Heal, Heal, Heal.

The flashes of pink light, plus the sudden quiet, got the attention of a couple of the men currently raising hell on the opposite side of the common room. Not the guy on top of Madyn or his nearest cohorts, but one had the presence of mind to release the arms of the woman he was holding back and bolt for the door.

Slimeshot.

I nailed him right in the pelvis as he ran, sending him hurtling across the room to smash against the wall, where he slumped to the floor, whimpering in pain with a shattered femur.

“Aw, that looks uncomfortable,” I said, striding toward him. Now, I had everyone’s undivided attention. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it stop. They do call me the Healer.”

I stood over him, extended my arm, and took a moment to welter in the seething fury that had risen. I felt alive, buzzing with energy, free of consequence or remorse.

Slimeshot.

At that range, the squishy slime crushed his skull. Red liquid that was only partly blood sprayed.

“Do ya have to make such a fuckin’ mess in my common room?” Gannit demanded, aggrieved. “Look at that! You got any idea how hard it is to scrub blood outta the cracks in the floor? Who raised you, boy?”

“I really am terribly sorry, Gannit,” I said, turning and bowing toward her. I wasn’t. I was all but trembling with suspended violence; the only thing holding me in check at that moment was sheer showmanship. I was creating a spectacle. Timing was everything.

“Well, he finally turned up,” said the fellow who had just released Madyn and turned to face me, pulling his sword free. “I hope you—”

“Aw, isn’t that precious,” I said, pointing at him. “Look at the little guy, trying so hard to pretend he’s not pissing himself in terror. His knees are shaking!”

I couldn’t tell if they were or not, though I did notice a glow around his boots. Blessed with Might, then. Nothing else was glowing; artifact boots likely had some kind of mobility or traction property I’d have to watch out for. Biribo would warn me as soon as he had a moment.

“Listen, you,” the Blessed thug tried to bluster, pointing his weapon at me. “Lady Gray—”

“Immolate. Do not say that name to me. Aw, I guess he can’t hear me.”

Everyone scrambled away from him. By that point, my forces had fanned into the common room and raised weapons, while Gannit’s people had all retreated behind them. To judge by the divide this made in the room, there were no customers here. Just the Jugs’s personnel, and Lady Gray’s.

That made this next part convenient.

“Here, now,” said one of the thugs who was not currently thrashing around, screaming and on fire. “Look, we don’t want any trouble with you, Healer.”

“Oh, you don’t?” I replied in a saccharine tone which made them all stiffen up and back away. “Hey, Gannit. Have this lot been conducting themselves in the manner of people who don’t want any trouble?”

“Son, if you’re just gonna ask obvious questions, do you even need me here?” the old woman retorted.

“A fair point,” I acknowledged. “A more pertinent question, then: do you mind if I make more of a mess in your place?”

Gannit took a long, sour look at the guy by the wall, and the contents of his skull all over her floor, then heaved an irritated sigh and threw her hands up. “Oh, well. If you don’t, some other asshole will. It’s been that kinda week. Go ahead and take out the trash.”

“Wait a second,” squeaked one of the men who only moments before had been menacing the women in this very room.

“I’m only glad I can be of service,” I said courteously to Gannit, then turned my hood slightly toward my followers. “Kill them all.”

There was just…something…about giving that order. In practical terms, it was no worse than things I’d already done. But I’m not a practical person. I am a performer, and saying it out loud in so many words felt like crossing a line.

More, oddly, than the fact that I felt nothing but a muted thrill of satisfaction when crossbows sang and seven men fell.

One had been missed entirely; he let out an honest to god shriek and tried to run for the door. I didn’t bother to do anything about it, since Aster was already moving.

“Hey, Biribo, what’s with those boots?” I murmured as she cut him down, then turned and stalked toward the two others who hadn’t suffered lethal wounds yet.

“Surestep boots!” Biribo said after slithering unpleasantly up to my ear so he could be heard over the diminishing noise as the Blessed thug’s screams trailed off. “Nothing real fancy, but they’re an adventurer’s early standby. Wearing those, you’ll never lose your footing or miss a step. That’s not a flashy effect like some artifacts but it can be a real game changer in a fight.”

“I see. Hey, there, feeling better?” I called out to the man on the ground as the flames finally died. He was the last of his gang still alive, Aster having just pulled her sword from another’s chest.

“F-fuck…you…” he wheezed, laboriously rolling over and trying to push himself up with one arm.

“Glad to hear it,” I said. “I respect you for having the spine not to try to shmooze me. Almost none of your comrades had even that much. Immolate. I’m sorry to have left you with this so long,” I said, turning to Gannit and having to raise my voice above the renewed howling. “We’d have been here sooner, but Minifrit insisted we not run off in a hurry and half-ass it.”

“Glad to hear she’s safe an’ sound,” Gannit grunted, also ignoring the burning man screaming in her front room. “I see you brought a few stray cats home with a fresh set of claws, there. All the other girls all right?”

“Everyone made it out of the city. I have a safe and defensible place for them.”

“Good! Yeah, that Minifrit always was cool-headed in a crisis. It’s almost as admirable as it is annoying.”

“I know. She’s got a way of being right that makes you just want to grab her neck and shake her.”

“Heh, you should try that sometime,” the old woman said, grinning with mischief. “She jiggles real nice.”

I’d seen enough of Minifrit’s impressive cleavage that I couldn’t help immediately picturing that. And then—

Screaming, the smell of rot, agonized moans, the death rattle of a woman barely halfway through her teens—

I physically jerked and had to clench both my fists to steady myself mentally. Oh, good, so that was still going on, and apparently it could cut right through the red fog of rage that was keeping me moving. I swear, the human brain is just…defective hardware. Maybe what I needed was more rage. If I kept myself constantly so wound up that I couldn’t feel anything else, perhaps I’d be able to get through this disaster alive.

Yeah, great plan, Seiji. That was no possible way that could have any undesirable consequences.

“I’m afraid all this is unfolding faster than I’d planned, thanks to Lady Gray and her bullshit,” I said. My voice started out hoarse, but cleared as I spoke and recovered my equilibrium. Gannit was watching me with eyes as sharp as Minifrit’s and I had a bad feeling she had likewise singled out my problem, but for now she just listened without comment. “The problem is that Gray’s people are going to go after the Alley cats. I’ve done what I can to prevent that, but it’s not going to be enough; there are still dozens of them around Yrshith Street at least. What I need is a way to draw their attention and presence to me instead of going after the women. I’m open to ideas.”

“Hm, that’s tricky,” she grunted, stroking her chin and squinting. “Most of these goons are thick enough to buy pretty much anything you sell ‘em. Gray’s a clever bitch, though, and enough of her actual lieutenants are sharp enough to at least follow directions. Trick’s getting ‘em to react before they can consider orders and plans. Yeah, I may have a notion. Oh, hey, your roast is done.”

“Why, so he is.” I stepped over and picked up the man’s fallen sword; he scuttled back from me in a panic, having just ceased burning again. Rather than speak to him, I turned, stepped over to Madyn, and offered it to her hilt-first. “I believe you are entitled to this?”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” she crowed, taking the weapon. I had to step quickly back as she made a few experimental and visibly inept swings. “Sweet! I always wanted one of these!”

“Indeed. The question now is, what do you want to do with it.” I turned my cowled head to stare pointedly at the man who’d minutes ago been abusing her.

Madyn followed my gaze, her grin fading. She glanced over at my armed followers, specifically those who had been prostitutes like herself just days before, clearly putting two and two together.

“You want me to kill him?” Her tone betrayed no enthusiasm for the idea.

I shook my head. “If you want to kill him, his life is yours. But there is no reason you should have to. It’s your choice.”

“Okay.” She let out a sigh of relief. “Cos, y’know, I figure that shithead is probably better off dead anyway, but I don’t necessarily wanna be the one to do it. Know what I mean?”

“I very much do,” I said feelingly. Killing got way too easy, way too fast. Turning back to the subject of our conversation, I caught him trying to creep toward the door. He froze as I strode toward him again. “Aw, now what is that look for? I thought we were all having fun? This is your idea of fun, right? Someone being helpless, tormented, and completely at the mercy of a person with incalculably greater power?” I stopped, looming over him. “Come, now. No game is properly engaging if the same person is it every time.”

“He knows,” Aster said unexpectedly. Several of the Jugs’s employees turned to her in surprise; she almost never spoke when we were here. “You should save that speech for the highborn, Lord Seiji. Every lowborn knows what it’s like. This piece of garbage chose to vent his anger at the expense of others, instead of finding people to stand with and try to make things better. But he gets it. We all do.”

“Mm.” I turned from her, back to the fallen man. “She has a point. Well, that’s not an argument in your favor, is it? I suppose it doesn’t much matter. The question now is whether I have any reason to leave you alive.”

He breathed heavily, several patches of his clothing still faintly smoking, and stared up at me in silence.

“Well, if even you can’t think of a reason, that pretty much settles it,” I mused.

He bared his teeth viciously at me. “I’ll see you in hell, you fucking freak.”

“And I’ll kick your ass there, too. You’ll probably have to remind me who you are, though.”

Slimeshot.

I sighed, regarding the mess as his brains joined his companion’s all over the floor.

“Come on,” Gannit protested. “And why slimes, for fuck’s sake?”

“Take it up with Virya,” I muttered, then raised my voice. “All right, somebody help me get this guy’s boots off. Gannit, what was your big idea?”

Then an arm gripped me from behind, and in the next instant, a blade ripped through my throat.

I stumbled forward as I was released, spraying blood; by that point, it was pure instinct.

Heal!

Fully whole again, if blood-spattered, I spun. Everyone was staring at me in shock; several of the women screamed, and the rest raised weapons, but there was no sign of anyone near me.

“I can’t sense anyone!” Biribo squawked inside my cloak. “That’s powerful invisibility magic!”

“Ara, ara, ara,” I said aloud. I felt it rising up, taking over. Fury so potent it made my arms tremble. She was here. “Lady Gray, I pr—”

That time, the knife sank straight into my chest, right between my ribs, making me stagger back and jerk violently as the weapon was ripped free.

Heal! I caught myself mid-stumble, grinning maniacally behind my hood as adrenaline joined the chronic fury driving me. She’d missed my heart. Invisible and doubtless experienced, she had the perfect setup to strike, and yet hadn’t made the lethal blow. My cheap, looted artifact worked beautifully.

Of course, even a stab to the heart wouldn’t kill fast enough to stop me from casting Heal, but it was good to know the thing was effective.

“And here I thought you were a fast learner,” I chided. “What a disappointment.”

“I could say the same about you, boy,” a woman’s voice answered me out of thin air.

I turned in a slow circle, keeping my head up but watching the floor. There was enough blood everywhere… I could see footprints in it. All I needed was for her to make a fresh one while I was looking.

“And next, because you’re a sad, predictable little creature, you’ll go for one of the others,” I said. “And then I’ll save them as easily as I can think about it. We can do this literally all night, and it won’t be me who gets tired first. It wouldn’t be even if you weren’t an old woman.”

Her answering chuckle was low, throaty…and holy shit, projected. It bounced off the walls, such that even my trained ear couldn’t pinpoint her location. She’d had vocal training.

And apparently a knack for showmanship; Lady Gray waited until my slow rotation had brought me back around to face the proper way such that when she suddenly appeared, it was right in front of me, framed by the door of the brothel. Surrounded by the bloody carnage that minutes ago had been one of her gangs, with my fully intact forces at my back.

The way she projected confidence in a situation that should have placed her at a massive disadvantage was downright inspiring. This woman was almost… Hell, she was in my league. I wondered if she’d had some kind of stage experience before turning to crime.

Her hand was still on the heavy dagger sheathed at her belt, the glow around it telling me that was a powerful artifact indeed.

Lady Gray was a woman in her fifties, at a guess, with a brown lowborn face slightly lined and black hair dusted with silver. Her coat was charcoal gray, a longcoat with the high, folded collar and wide cuffs popular among noblemen even if it was otherwise a lowborn workman’s coat in style, with its fitted waist and knee-length hem. Also I presumed it had armored panels hidden inside, to judge by the plates of blood red akornin stitched onto her heavy leather boots and gloves.

The criminal leader of the Gutters and architect of so many of my problems eyed me insolently up and down, in exactly the way I’d done to others recently, and was visibly unimpressed.

“I’ll give you this much credit, boy,” she said, thumb subtly caressing the pommel of her artifact dagger, “you have caused me more pain in the ass than I think any three other idiots who’ve tried to make a play for what’s mine. And that’s really unfortunate, you see. Because after the mess you’ve made, now I have to waste even more time and resources creating such a monument of your suffering that nobody even dreams about pissing me off to this degree again. I am going to disassemble your entire life like a clockwork mechanism and replace each individual piece with a new flavor of anguish, hand-crafted to the specifications that will hurt you most. As if I don’t have anything better to do! Well, perhaps that’ll bring you some comfort when you’re kneeling alone in the ruins of what used to be your existence, cursed by the memory of everyone you ever cared about. You, out of all the other jumped-up little shits, warranted that much of my attention. Good job, Healer.”

I raised my hands and slapped them together. Then again, and again, slowly, filling the room with the echoes of sarcastic applause.

“Wow,” I drawled, “what a beautiful speech. I had one prepared, too, but now that I’ve met you? I think I’m gonna save it to use on somebody actually impressive. Immolate.”

Lady Gray held my gaze, and a smug grin languorously stretched across her features. She adjusted the position of her feet and flexed her fingers on the handle of her dagger, visibly in control and very much not on fire.

“I’m sorry, boy, did you just say something? You’ll have to speak up. I’m just an old lady, you know.”

Ah, shit.