BrutalBx

Vanguard: Calder City

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It was the smell of Calder City that always woke him. Not the sound. Not the light. The scene. That unique concoction of smoke, salt water and something he never could quite figure out.

Rafael Garza climbed out of the bed slowly, like men of his vintage of fifty one often do. Years of aches and pains finally catching up to him. He did not mind getting older, it was nature's way of providing a new challenge different to the impetuousness and energy of youth. Like most mornings, his shoulder was giving him the worst of the pain but he wore it like a badge of honour, a scar of his time representing his country as a goalkeeper for Mexico. Still, that was another life, another time.

He started his morning as he always did. He said a prayer to the Lord and then one to the picture of his father that hung on the wall on his side of the bed.

His wife had already gotten up and gone to work. She never could be tempted to stay in bed any longer than what was required; her work was too important to her and Rafe understood that. Her passion and drive were simply two of the many of thousands of things that he loved about her.

The mirror reflected his moustachioed face back at him and he smiled at the reflection as the little tuft of grey at the front of hair stuck up. Something in the air made him think it was going to be a good day, he wasn’t exactly sure why. His dark eyes drifted to the nearby window as outside, dawn had only just begun to colour Calder City’s skyline. The neighbourhood was quiet and respectable. The sort of suburb where children still rode bicycles and neighbours knew each other’s names. Rafael liked it that way.

After his shower, he dressed himself impeccably as he always did. He adorned himself in a beautifully pinstriped white shirt and grey slacks. Like is dear Abuela used to say, “Appearances are everything.” He descended the stairs before slipping into the leather shoes which sat at the bottom of them. Time for breakfast. He turned on the radio to listen to DreamWave FM, his favourite station. It only played retro eighties classics, what could be better?

By the time the kettle boiled, Rafael already kneaded dough he’d prepared the night before into neat rounds, pressing each one flat before laying them into a hot pan.The smell of fresh arepas filled the kitchen, as did the amazing vocals of Luther Vandross on “Never Too Much.”

Only then did little footsteps thunder across the landing above. “Dad!” A blur of pyjamas launched itself down the stairs. Rafael caught his youngest daughter before gravity had the chance.

“Easy, Mercedes. I’m too old and you’re getting too big.”

Another pair of footsteps appeared, slower this time. His eldest son wandered into the kitchen, headphones around his neck and school tie hanging untied. “Mornin’.”

Rafael nodded toward the tie. “You know how, Esteban.”

“I know.”

“So why am I still looking at it?”

The boy sighed dramatically.

Within minutes the kitchen had become chaotic. Lunchboxes flying everywhere. Homework sitting half undone. One missing shoe. Even arguments over orange juice. Domestic bliss. And for Rafael it was normal, wonderfully normal.

By seven-thirty the children were climbing into the family SUV. Rafael looked at each of them before pulling away. “Rules?”

His daughter groaned. “Dad…”

“Humour me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Be kind.” His son continued. “Work hard.” His daughter smiled. “And always come home.”

Rafe nodded. “Exactly.”

The school gates buzzed with parents and teachers. Rafael crouched beside his daughter. “You’ve got your spelling test.”

“I know.”

“You’ll do brilliantly.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. ”And if you don’t, then we’ll just practice some more and be ready for the next one.”

She smiled. “I love you.”

“I love you more, caramia.” Mercedes laughed as she ran toward the school entrance.

His son climbed out next. “Dad? “You coming to my match Saturday?”

Rafe didn’t hesitate. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

The teenager nodded, pretending not to care. It mattered anyway.

He watched both children disappear through the gates before returning to the car. Only then did his smile fade. Not because he became someone else but because another part of his day had begun.

Calder Metropolitan Hospital occupied six city blocks. By eight-fifteen Rafe was wearing a white laboratory coat, surgical gloves, and an identification badge that identified him as:

Dr. Rafael Garza
Consultant Forensic Pathologist

The morgue smelled faintly of disinfectant and steel. Exactly as he preferred.

“Morning, Doctor.” His assistant handed over a tablet. “Male. Thirty-four. Possible overdose.”

Rafael accepted it with a nod. “No obvious trauma?”

“None.”

He approached the stainless-steel table. The deceased lay peacefully beneath a white sheet. Rafael pulled it back with the quiet respect he’d afforded every patient for nearly fifteen years; living or dead. “They all deserve dignity,” he’d once told a medical student. He still believed it. He began the examination. The scalpel moved with astonishing precision, with every incision exact and every observation dictated into a recorder. Then he paused. A single droplet of blood rested beside the incision. It should have remained perfectly still.

Instead…

It rolled. Against gravity. His assistant looked away, busy updating paperwork. No one noticed. Rafael raised one gloved finger and the droplet floated into the air where it then divided. One became two. Two became eight. Tiny crimson spheres orbited one another in perfect silence, hanging above the body like a miniature solar system.

Rafe studied them thoughtfully. The blood was speaking. Telling him everything. High cortisol. Trace narcotics. Elevated adrenaline. Microscopic haemorrhaging invisible to conventional tests. He closed his hand gently and the droplets merged once more before settling back exactly where they had begun. No evidence remained.

His assistant looked up. “Anything unusual?”

Rafael removed his gloves. “No.” he said before waiting a beat. “Cause of death is consistent with accidental overdose.”

The assistant nodded, making notes. “I’ll notify the detective.”

Rafe watched the covered body for another moment. His expression softened. “So young.” He drew the sheet respectfully back over the man’s face. “Let’s make sure his family gets the answers they seek.” He meant it. Every word.

An hour later, alone in his office, the pathologist unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk. Inside sat a polished wooden box. Nothing about it appeared remarkable. He opened it anyway. Nestled within the velvet lining rested a black and gold luchador mask. He picked it up, holding it against the morning sunlight streaming through the window.

A thing of beauty.

Rafael glanced back down at the box and what had been hidden beneath the mask; a single vial of glowing orange liquid; King’s Blood, his blood. More and more dead Gray’s were coming to him and the blood was always flowing to the point it almost felt like it was an endless supply. It was all he really needed to keep the plan in motion

The next phase was already in motion. Wicklow was under his and by association the Cartel’s grasp. It was the perfect foothold for them to begin the expansion of King’s Blood into other territories. Rafael had already begun developing through lines. There was going to be pushback, probably from the likes of the Raciti’s but that was ok. He’d offer a hand in friendship first. If they didn’t take it? Well then what happens would be their own doing.

He carefully returned the mask to its box, locking the drawer as he went. Rafe straightened his lab coat and walked from the office with the same gentle professionalism that had made him one of Calder’s most respected pathologists.

No one he passed looked at him twice. No one suspected. Because monsters, Rafael had learned long ago; rarely looked like monsters.

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Vanguard: Calder City

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^{_________________________________________________________}

The square was the kind of place that looked like it had been there longer than anyone could reliably remember - cobblestones worn smooth by decades of foot traffic, a stone bench along one side that had seen better centuries, and a fountain in the center that had clearly given up any pretense of functioning some years ago and was now simply decorative in the way that things become when nobody could be bothered to fix them.

Sienna walked beside Bret with her coffee in both hands, the good kind, properly made, the first sip of which had done more for her in thirty seconds than Father Riordan's burnt offering had managed in twenty minutes. She let the silence run for a little while - it was comfortable enough, which was its own surprise - but a thought kept gnawing at her.

"I owe you an apology," she exhaled eventually. Like most people, she hated taking ownership of her missteps. "For the other morning. I left without - " She paused, turning the cup in her hands. "There should have been a note. At minimum."

She glanced sideways at him, briefly.

"I had reasons. They felt considerably more convincing at six in the morning than they do right now." The corner of her mouth lifted slightly. "But I somehow talked myself into believing the best thing I could do was leave quietly and go back to minding my own business." A beat. "In hindsight, that was fairly naive.”

“It’s a completely understandable train of thought.” Bret walked alongside her at a slightly slower pace, fighting through the aches and pains that had become all encompassing over the last few days. “I pulled you into something that really wasn’t your fight. Any sane person would probably have a similar idea to run as fast as they could.” His words were easy, as they so often were. Bret had learned that speaking softly meant that people had to pay more attention to what was said. “Please don’t apologise any further. That side of my world, it’s a lot, to say the least.”

Bret began to smile again, that damned half smile.

“Anyway, it’s probably a good thing you left when you did,” He raised a hand to the back of his neck, giving it a firm rub before he continued speaking. “As you can tell by my slow walk and usually pretty face, it’s been a rough couple of days. Still, every step counts and I’m getting closer and closer to an answer.”

He dwelled on that thought for a second. Whilst it was true that he was indeed getting closer, he was also finding more questions that didn’t have answers. At first it was simple, where was Tae? Then King’s Blood entered the equation. So-Mi and her powers. Billy and his rampaging alter ego, The Hart. All cast under the shadow of El Jefe. Bret had asked himself, multiple times by that point, how many of these questions he actually wanted the answers to.

“Maybe one day we’ll meet under regular circumstances. Probably not at your bar though, no offense it’s a bit expensive for my humble pockets.”

"None taken," Sienna replied, a smirk gracing her lips, "Though for what it's worth, I have a discretionary fund at my disposal. I am the owner, so, what I say goes." She was quiet for a moment, the open invitation standing, her eyes on the cobblestones ahead of them.

"Regular circumstances," she repeated, turning the phrase over lightly. "I'm not sure I'd know what those looked like anymore." She stated it without self pity, just the dry acknowledgment of someone who had spent long enough in the particular orbit of this city to know that ordinary evenings had a way of not staying that way. Another quiet moment passed, the sounds of Wicklow filling the silence. "You said you're getting closer," she commented eventually. "To finding Tae." It wasn't quite a question. "Is that actually true, or is that the thing you say so people don't worry?"

She glanced at him again, and this time didn't look away.

"I'm asking because it matters. Not just for the kid." A beat. "The man who came into my bar knew about the casino. Which means whoever sent him is connected to whatever you're already pulling at. Which means" - she exhaled slowly - "whether I like it or not, I'm already in it."

Bret knew better in that moment than to try and talk around the subject. Not that he particularly wanted to anyway. Sienna, both times that he had met her, seemed to pull something out of him. Something that was honest, a rarity after so long in a world submerged in the dark depths of deception.

“I’m getting there, I think.” He began to explain as he slipped his hands into the front of his jeans. “After Thursday, I started looking a little more at this El Jefe character, and didn't really find much. He’s basically a ghost. Then..a friend who’s been helping me got a ping from Tae’s phone at a club so I headed out that way and, well I got my arse handed to me by some rampaging thingamabob that turned out to be some terrified kid hopped up on King’s Blood.”

He stopped to look at the disused fountain that sat before them. Like most things in Wicklow, its beauty was not to be ignored but it was probably lost on those that walked by everyday. “I’m working on the theory that Tae is using the Blood himself. Probably tried to cut a deal that he shouldn’t, now he’s on the run. Teleporting, I think but he’s lost or he can’t control it and it won’t stop. But that’s just a theory.”

Staring at the carved face in the stone for a moment, Bret turned his attention to Sienna. “At the end of the day, he’s just a scared kid that needs help and that’s all that matters. The rest of it? Well I’ll do what needs to be done, if I need to.”

Sienna listened without interrupting, the way she always did when something was worth actually listening to. As he spoke of his trials, she thought about the vial he’d placed on her bar that first night; thought about Sauvage’s face splitting open in the casino, about what King’s Blood had done to her.

It went without saying she was grateful for her abilities. Her father used to say they made her - and him, for that matter, as a Gray - special. But the bottom line was this wasn’t the life she would have chosen for herself, not by a longshot. Being a Gray these days was a constant target on her back, a secret she had to hold so close to herself for fear of retaliation. She couldn’t wrap her head around why someone normal would want a taste of that kind of existence.

“Teleporting without control,” she stated, mostly to herself. “That’s not a power. That’s a prison.” She was quiet for a moment, taking a slow sip of her coffee, before stopping in her tracks and turning to face him completely. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but be careful, Bret.”

“That boy needs someone to help him, and you’re considerably less useful to him six feet under.”

Her words struck hard and somewhat surprisingly so.

Even as a youngster, Bret had consistently put himself in positions that were not inherently safe. Was this on purpose? Not necessarily but it also wasn’t completely by accident either. Without his father to guide him, without any real friends to call on, all the child version of Bret had was the mountains, the lakes and the woods. He could be up there for days, weeks at a time and he would feel more comfortable than he ever had in town. Amongst the trees, the deer and murder of crows, he fell at peace, no matter the danger he was in.

Both his time spent in the Royal Marines and Directorate Nine was the same. Gunfire, explosions, the singular battle between him and his opponent. It was all dangerous and it was all an opportunity for him to be taken from the world. Yet it never happened. As a God fearing man, he had to believe that was for a reason. He had to believe that he was given the power of the Pilgrim for a reason. Perhaps it was this? To find Tae Park and bring him home. So far, it had tested much of the skills he had learned over the course of his life and he imagined it would continue to do so.

“I’ll try my best.” Bret spoke with that easy smile that always did but his eyes were a little more serious this time. “Try not to worry, I’ll get this all squared away and when I do, I’ll make you pancakes.”

Sienna looked at him for a moment - really looked at him - something shifting quietly in her expression. The fact that he’d remembered, filed away without being told to and surfacing now in the most offhand way possible made her head spin a little.

“Pancakes,” She repeated, and smiled. “I’ll hold you to that.”

She finished the last of her coffee, turning the empty cup in her hands, and let the square settle quietly around them for a moment. Then, because she hadn’t come all the way to Saint Brigid’s on a Sunday to leave without asking the thing she actually needed to ask.

“The man who came to my bar,” she commented, her voice dropping back into the register she used when she was serious about something. “What do I do if he comes back?” The brunette looked at Bret directly, no deflection in her brown eyes. “Not the version where I pour his drink and smile and act like everything’s fine.”

“The real version. What should I do?”

“Call me.”

Bret’s response was immediate. The tone was serious but not stern. He wasn’t trying to treat her like a woman who couldn’t handle herself because he knew she could. Hell, if it came down to it she could probably take him down with relative ease. Instead, he was simply answering her question the only way he truly knew how; by offering to deal with it himself.

“I’m not trying to play the hero or any of that. The simple fact of the matter is the Velvet is meant to be Switzerland, impartial and safe. You’ve worked so hard to make it like that.” His voice softened somewhat. “And you need to keep it like that. This guy is a disruptor. He’s there to throw you off your game, force your hand into making a mistake. Don’t.” He put his hand gently on her arm, reassuring and delicate.

“If he turns up again, you call me and I’ll come down. I’m not part of the game but I sure as hell can be.”

His hand on her arm was steadier than she expected, given the state of the rest of him. There was something grounding about it. She was aware of it in the way you were aware of something that was both small and not small at all. Bret wasn't wrong about the bar - about not making a mistake. About what the man had come in to do and how she shouldn't let him do it. Sienna had known that, somewhere underneath the two days of running it back in her head and had just needed someone else to say it out loud.

“Okay,” she replied finally, the word landing with the particular weight of someone who didn't say it often. "If he comes back, I'll call you." She reached into her jacket pocket and held her phone out to him, unlocked, without ceremony.

"You should probably put your number in there, then." The corner of her mouth lifted, just slightly. "Given that I had to locate the church you barely mentioned and endure genuinely terrible coffee to find you today. I'd rather have a more direct option next time."

“Yes ma’am.”

The easy smile returned as Bret took a hold of her phone and typed in his number. It took him a few tries to remember it in his head. Despite very much being a modern man, he tended to only use technology when he had to…and that meant primarily his microwave for dinner. Thus, remembering his actual phone number became a bit of a mission in itself. Or it could be the multitude of concussions and undoubtedly abundant CTE that drifted around his grey matter.

“I mean it though, Sienna. This number isn’t just for this guy. If you need anything, day or night, just give me a ring and I’ll be there like…well I’ll be there fast.” He handed the phone back to her and placed his hand on top of hers in a gesture of comfort and confidence. “You said you’re in it now. Well you’re not in it alone, we’ll get through this together alright?”

It was foreign, really, the feeling that washed over Sienna as Bret reassured her. He was effectively a stranger, and yet, she knew his words were no less than the absolute truth. It was magnetic, the way she was drawn to him - Father Riordan had made a vast understatement when he said the Englishman had this way about him that made people feel safe. In fact, it was rare for Sienna to feel supported, a warmth she wanted to bottle up and save for a rainy day.

But, she was still the same spitfire of a woman after all, so her mask stayed put and the brunette simply nodded in agreement.

“Alright.”

Bret smiled and released her hands, though selfishly he probably didn’t want too so quickly. He placed them back onto his pockets and offered her the same smile he always did, although at this point, the painkillers were starting to wear off and he was actively fighting the grimace that was trying to break through. “Alright, now that all that seriousness is out of the way, let’s get out of here before we get arrested for loitering. Wicklow’s been a bit like that lately.”

As he led Sienna away from the fountain, Bret felt that same feeling on the back of his neck, only this time it seemed to drift down his spine.

He didn’t notice that a shard of glass that had been broken off and left in the fountain was reflecting in a way that it most definitely should not have been…

_________________________________________________________
^{_________________________________________________________
Collaboration with @Melissa}

Vanguard: Calder City

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The bass hit first.

It rolled through Bret’s chest before he ever reached the entrance, rattling the corrugated steel walls of the converted warehouse like distant artillery.

The sign above the doors simply read:

THRICE

Inside, Calder City’s forgotten youth had found religion.
Hundreds packed shoulder to shoulder beneath rusting girders and hanging speaker arrays. Sweat clung to the air. Guitar feedback screamed across the venue as the lead singer threw himself into another chorus, the crowd erupting into a violent sea of elbows and bodies. Thrice was an alternative music venue in Wicklow that lay in stark contrast to finer sites like The Velvet Room. It was dark, dingy, loud and full of life in all its sacred forms; good and bad.

Bret stood just inside the entrance, rain dripping from the hood of his coat. His phone vibrated once. He pulled it out as So-Mi’s face appeared on the screen in the same pixelated form it had earlier.

“Find him Bret.”

That’s all she said before she disappeared. His pulse quickened. Somewhere inside this crowd, Tae’s phone had finally resurfaced. So-Mi, and her strange and wonderful tech ability had apparently got a ping from it. When pressed why she couldn’t have done that earlier, all she said was that the signal was way too erratic to follow. This further mended credence to an idea that had been forming in Bret’s head for a while now. Tae was using Blood and he was being granted some sort of teleportation ability. Yet, if the church man had to guess, he would think the boy had little to no control over it and was bouncing around like a ping pong ball, making it damn near impossible to track.

Entering Thrice, he handed his coat to the young man at the counter. He was genuinely surprised cloak attendance still existed in this here twenty first century. Bret descended the stairs briskly, the Pilgrim scratching beneath his skin. The crowd below parted and closed in waves around him. Every movement created another possibility, another route. He slipped between dancing bodies with practiced ease, his eyes never stopping, his ears filtering conversations beneath the roar of distorted guitars. There were drug deals, arguments and the laughter that could only be heard from young people in the prime of inebriation.

Then…

A smell, rusted and metallic. Blood.

His head turned sharply. The scent was wrong, it was way too fresh, way too familiar. The Pilgrim whispered danger was close, very close.

A scream tore through the music.

At first almost nobody noticed. Then there was another. People nearest the stage began backing away, not in panic, but confusion. The mosh pit opened unnaturally, like water flowing around a rock. Bret pushed forward as the band faltered. The guitarist stopped playing first. Then the drummer followed.Finally the vocalist turned. His microphone slipped from numb fingers. Standing atop one of the towering speaker stacks, silhouetted against strobing white lights, was something no human mind could immediately understand.

Tall. Far too tall. Its body was all tendon and bone, stretched into proportions evolution had wisely rejected. Digitigrade legs bent beneath it like those of some impossible hunting animal, while jagged antlers rose from a blood-soaked skull, scraping sparks from the lighting rig overhead. Rainwater dripped from matted black hair. Its breathing echoed through the now eerily silent venue. It was less loud than it was heavy.

Bret felt an old word surface from somewhere deep within memory. His grandfather pointing toward distant fells. A story from childhood. A creature glimpsed between ancient trees. A name; Hart. Not a stag but something older, something wilder.

”Bollocks.”

The Hart slowly turned its head, its black eyes swept across hundreds of terrified faces. Then it screamed. The sound was almost human, almost. The venue erupted. Bodies crashed toward every exit simultaneously as people climbed over one another in an attempt to escape. Someone fell. Another disappeared beneath the stampede. The Hart leapt. It didn’t jump. It covered the distance between the speakers and the dance floor in a single impossible bound, landing hard enough to buckle concrete beneath its feet. Panic became chaos.

Bret moved, not toward the creature but toward the people. “LEFT!” His voice cut through the noise. “There!” He grabbed a fallen woman beneath the shoulders and hauled her upright before shoving her toward a side exit. “You two!” A pair of security guards looked at him. “Open the loading bay!” They hesitated.

The Hart crashed through a steel support behind them.

That got them moving.

Another high pitch scream. A lighting truss snapped loose overhead. The Pilgrim had already seen it. Bret sprinted. Three strides. He vaulted a barricade and caught the falling aluminium rig before it crushed a cluster of teenagers. His shoulder exploded with pain. Old injuries reopening beneath fresh strain. It was always in these moments, in the midst of fear, chaos and pain that he wished that he had been gifted with some sort of super strength or durability like nearly everyone else. Instead, he’d have to fork out for more bandages and painkillers and the bloody church didn’t pay him well enough for that to continue.

It didn’t matter in the long run, he had to keep moving.

The Hart hit him from the side, he didn’t even see it coming. The impact launched Bret across the venue. He smashed through an empty merchandise stand before crashing into a stack of spare amplifiers. Everything rang in his head and his vision doubled.

The creature didn’t wait. It was already moving again and it was bloody fast. No, not merely fast. The Hart was erratic. One moment it was galloping across the floor, the next it was clambering halfway up a concrete pillar before then ricocheting sideways across a walls d launching itself toward another fleeing concertgoer.

“No!”

Bret threw himself into its path, using his entire body to knock it off its charge. The antlers missed the civilian by inches. One tine ripped through Bret’s sleeve instead, carving a line of fire across his upper arm. He answered with an elbow beneath the creature’s jaw.Bone met bone. The Hart staggered. He doubted it was from pain, more likely it was from surprise.

Bret didn’t press the attack. He couldn’t. Another section of balcony gave way. More people. Always people first. The fight became movement. The Hart bounded through the venue like a terrified animal, every instinct screaming for escape while its immense strength turned every collision into catastrophe. Bret followed as best he could, reading paths, predicting collapse and redirecting momentum away from the people.

He made a point not to try and chase the creature away, instead only intercepting where innocent lives intersected its panic and trying to herd the Hart away.

A charge sent Bret through a window and into the rain-soaked alley behind the venue. The Hart rounded on him there. For the first time, there was no one else around, just the two of them. Steam rose from the creature’s body as it breathed in ragged, desperate bursts. This was not rage, it was exhaustion, fear. Bret had been around animals enough to know the difference.

He lowered his stance. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

The Hart answered with a broken, mournful cry, then it charged.

The alley became instinct. Brick walls. Fire escapes. Overflowing bins. Every surface was a potential path. Bret slipped beneath slashing claws and kicked off a wall. He twisted around the antlers, running purely on adrenaline and probably one too many energy drinks. He scrambled toward the rusted chain suspending a construction scaffold overhead and with every ounce of strength he had, pulled on it, forcing the steel to snap.

The scaffold crashed down between them, though it did not trap the creature. It did but Bret a few more seconds. The Hart stumbled, trying to get back to its feet. Its movements then changed, becoming slower, its body jerking.

The King’s Blood was burning itself out.

Another step. Its antlers cracked, breaking away from its skull and hitting the floor. A sharp report echoed through the alley. One tine shattered against the pavement. The creature stumbled again then collapsed. Bones began to move, not outward; inward. Legs folded back into human anatomy with wet, sickening pops. The remnants of the antlers splintered, shrinking beneath torn flesh. Muscle receded. Hands returned. The impossible monster shrank into a young man curled on cold concrete, naked save for torn articles of clothing clinging to bloodied skin.

A boy, no older than nineteen, lay bruised, shivering and utterly terrified.

Bret did not even think. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off as quickly as he could, revealing his blood stained torso to be washed by heavens tears from above. He covered the young man up and then leaned back against a wall, trying to catch his breath. He could hear the sirens in the distance, no doubt to quickly be followed by Vanguard’s best and brightest come to take the glory.

The boys eyes fluttered open. “…please…” Barely audible. “I…” His body trembled violently. “…I couldn’t…”

A voice broke through the rain. “Billy?”
Bret turned.

So-Mi stood at the mouth of the alley, soaked through, breathing hard as though she’d sprinted the last mile. Her confidence was gone. In that moment, she looked impossibly young, like the girl who had first appeared to him at St Brigid’s, looking for her brother. She hurried forward, dropping to her knees beside the boy. “…Billy?”

His eyes found her and recognition flickered. “So…” He tried to smile and failed. “…Mi…” She stared at him in disbelief.

“Oh my God…” Her hands hovered uncertainly over his shoulders, afraid to touch him. “I know him,” she whispered, more to herself than Bret. “He… he and Tae used to skateboard outside my apartment.” A tear escaped despite herself. “He’d come over after school.” She laughed once; broken. “He could never beat me at Mario Kart…”

Bret leaned his head against the wall, the heat from fresh wounds beginning to sizzle on his skin as whatever chemical inside him that allowed him to carry on, evaporated. Silence settled over the alley for a brief moment as the weather masked the sirens. Rain washed diluted blood toward the drains.

Among the shattered concrete lay a single broken antler. Ivory. Still warm. Bret looked at Billy. Then at So-Mi. Then at the fragment of the Hart resting on the floor. And he came to two realisations.

The first was that So-Mi had been right before when she said he needed help. It seemed clear that this El Jefe character was going to keep sending people out onto the concrete wilds of Calder City, doped up on King’s Blood, consequences be damned. Bret had options, paths branching out before him. He could leave it all alone, forget about Tae, forget about So-Mi. He could go to Cressida and hand everything over to Directorate Nine. He could do that. He could also leave it for the police or Vanguard but he doubted anything would come of that. People like them, people from the streets, they’re forgotten about so easily.

The second realisation was much easier to contemplate. Bret’s eyes fell on Billy and then drifted down to an open slash across his torso and the glass protruding from his left wrist. He was angry.

For the first time, in a very long time, Bret was really fucking angry.

Vanguard: Calder City

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Billy Albion had never been particularly brave. People mistook desperation for courage all the time. They weren’t the same thing. Brave people had choices. Billy had debts.

The apartment around him looked as though somebody had tried very hard to forget it existed. Water stains spread across the ceiling. A single lamp buzzed weakly in one corner. Outside, Calder City’s rain drummed steadily against the cracked window. He sat alone on the edge of a threadbare mattress, turning the small glass vial over between trembling fingers.

The orange liquid caught the light. Beautiful. Wrong. Billy swallowed. He didn’t want to scare or hurt anyone. He just wanted Ronnie Jacobs to stop breaking his nose every Friday outside the bookmakers. He wanted his mom to stop pretending that everything was fine after his father got shot in Hudson.

He wanted her to stop bringing home men that tried to fill that void by kicking the shit out of both of them. He just wanted to walk home without looking over his shoulder every thirty seconds.

He wanted—He laughed bitterly. Wanted. As though wanting had ever changed anything.

That’s what had brought him to El Jefe in the first place. His wanting. Billy thought being part of his crew would be temporary, thought it would be an easy bit of money. He didn’t expect this. His hand closed around the vial. When Tae had used it, the effects were instant. They were flashy and cool, like something out of a comic book.

He glanced at his phone and the picture of the man on there. The man from the casino. The one that El Jefe wanted him to stop.

“Just once. Just for this”

The words sounded pathetic spoken aloud. He uncorked it. The smell surprised him because they were not chemical. Instead it smelled Earthy, like rain and fresh cut grass. The scent of damp woodland after a storm. For one impossible moment he was seven years old again, running through the woods with his grandfather, laughing because he’d found deer tracks in the mud.

He smiled and then drank.

Nothing happened.

Billy frowned. “…that’s it?”

The warmth arrived a heartbeat later. It spread through his chest first. Pleasant and comforting, like a hot cup of cocoa or like standing a little too close to a fire. Then hotter. Much hotter. His smile disappeared.

“Oh…”

The vial slipped from suddenly numb fingers. Glass shattered and the warmth soon became pain. Billy doubled over as something beneath his ribs shifted violently. A crack echoed through the apartment. His own. His spine arched backwards. Another crack. Then another.

“No…”

His voice broke halfway through the word. Not emotionally. Physically. His jaw spasmed. Teeth grinding so hard he felt two molars split. His heartbeat accelerated becoming far too fast, was if it was trying to escape his chest. His skin rippled as muscles swelled beneath it, not growing larger so much as rearranging themselves. His shoulders lurched forward with a sickening pop. His arms lengthened. Fingers clawed at the floorboards as his nails thickened into black, blunt hooks.

Billy screamed.

The sound emerged wrong. Too deep. Layered beneath itself. Like another voice had tried speaking at the same time. His knees slammed into the floor. Then bent. Not forwards. Backwards. Bone pressed against skin until flesh split. Blood soaked into the threadbare carpet. He watched in horror as his own legs reformed beneath him, tendons tightening, joints twisting into an anatomy no human body had ever possessed.

“I don’t want—”

His throat convulsed. The sentence dissolved into an animal cry that shook dust from the ceiling. Pressure exploded inside his skull. Billy clutched his head. Something sharp pushed outward beneath the skin of his forehead. Once. Twice. The skin tore. Bone emerged. Branching. Growing. Antlers. Not smooth, or elegant. They were jagged ivory, bursting through flesh in violent, uneven forks.

Blood streamed down his face. His vision blurred and then just as quickly sharpened. Too much. He could suddenly see every crack in the opposite wall. Every raindrop racing down the window. Every insect crawling beneath the skirting board. The apartment became unbearable. Every smell intensified. Mould. Dust. Old cooking oil. His own blood. Someone smoking three floors below. A leaking gas pipe somewhere across the street.

Billy stumbled backwards, crashing into the wall. The impact left a crater. He barely noticed. His breathing came in frantic bursts. No. Not breathing. Scenting. His pupils stretched unnaturally until the world widened around him.

Run. The instinct arrived with terrifying clarity. Run. Nobody can corner you if they can’t catch you. Nobody can hurt you if they never reach you. Run. Billy tried to say his own name. What emerged was a guttural bellow that rattled every window in the building. Somewhere downstairs a neighbour shouted. Another door opened. Footsteps filled the air, coming closer.

Billy panicked. His body moved before thought. One bound carried him the length of the apartment. Another sent him through the window. Glass exploded into the night. For one impossible second the creature hung silhouetted against Calder’s rain-swept skyline.

Tall. Lean. Sinewy. Antlers crowned with blood.
Long, digitigrade legs absorbing the impact as it landed four storeys below without slowing. Then it ran. Not like a man.Not like a wolf. Not like anything nature had ever intended.

It flowed through alleyways in impossible bursts of speed, ricocheting from walls, clearing fences without effort, vanishing into the darkness with the terrified cries of the city echoing behind it.

Far above, unnoticed in the shattered apartment, Billy Albion’s phone vibrated one final time.

A single unread message.

EL JEFE
Walk your path, hijo.
The screen went dark.

No one was left to read it.

Vanguard: Calder City

---

---

By the time Bret returned to his apartment, he’d all but lost track of what day it was.

The city outside had settled into that strange hour where even Calder seemed tired. Rain drummed softly against the windows. A siren wailed somewhere in the distance.

Then silence.

For once, nobody was actively trying to shoot him. Bret considered that a victory. The apartment lights flickered on as he stepped inside. Immediately he regretted the movement. His ribs protested. His shoulder wasn’t much happier. The bruises from the casino fight had darkened considerably over the last few hours, and the collection of cuts decorating his arms looked increasingly unpleasant beneath proper lighting.

“Right.”

The familiar routine began. Jacket off. Bandages off. Antiseptic. Regret. More antiseptic. More regret. He sat on the edge of his bed, carefully rewrapping his ribs while his mind drifted back toward the maps at Saint Brigid’s. The routes. The distribution network.

The television in the corner suddenly turned itself on. Bret frowned. He hadn’t touched the remote. Static filled the screen. Then advertisements. Then static again. His phone buzzed. Stopped. Buzzed again. The lamp beside the bed flickered. The kettle in the kitchenette clicked on. Off. On. Off. On. Bret slowly lowered the roll of bandages.

“…that’s not normal.”

The television volume suddenly jumped to maximum. An infomercial screamed across the apartment. Then the image distorted. Pixels twisted. Colours stretched. The screen dissolved into digital noise and a familiar face emerged from the chaos. Young. Dark-haired. Entirely too pleased with itself.

“You.” The face leaned closer to the camera. ”You look like shit.”

Bret blinked. The television blinked back. “…So-Mi?”

“Congratulations.” She pointed finger-guns directly through the screen. “You remembered my name! Someone buy the boy a biscuit.”

The lamp exploded. Not dramatically. Just enough to send sparks across the room. Bret stared at it. Then back at the television. Then back at the lamp. The microwave began displaying symbols that definitely weren’t part of the original software. “Well this is interesting.”

“I know, right?” She grinned. “Wait until you see what I did to three ATMs and a police database.”

Bret suddenly understood several things all at once. First; So-Mi Park had powers, which she did not tell him upon their first meeting. Second; this meant that his working theory that Tae was using King’s Blood himself and may have the ability to teleport, seemed more likely than before. Third; So-Mi had absolutely no intention of using her powers responsibly. Already, she did not seem the same as the woman who came to his church looking for help. There was a confidence that didn’t seem like it was there before. This begged the question, was she using Blood too? Or were her and Tae natural Gray’s?

The television volume increased by itself. “I’ve been watching you.”

“That’s concerning.”

“You’ve been investigating King’s Blood and been talking to criminals. You got into a fight at the casino and you’ve been hanging around with Tits McGee.”

The kettle switched itself on again. The apartment lights dimmed. Every screen in the room suddenly displayed So-Mi’s face. Phone. Television. Microwave. Even the smart thermostat. It was deeply unsettling.

“So let me get this straight.” The faces spoke simultaneously. Creepy. Very creepy. “My brother disappears, a super-drug starts flooding Calder, some lunatic crime lord is handing out powers and instead of finding Tae, you’re apparently taking J-Lo from Temu to casinos.”

Bret rubbed the bridge of his nose. His headache immediately worsened.

“I’m trying to…”

“I DON’T CARE!”

He watched his Alexa explode. That shut him up before he even considered speaking again.

So-Mi leaned closer to the screen. For the first time since appearing, the humour faded. The energy remained. The intelligence remained. But underneath both was something else. Fear. Real fear. “Tae isn’t dead and you need to find him, Bret, please! He’s all I have!” This was the first time since she appeared that she sounded like the scared sister that walked into Saint Brigid’s earlier that week.

Bret didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say.

So-Mi looked away first and the screens flickered. Static briefly consumed the room. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. More dangerous. “If you can’t do this alone, I’ll find you some fucking help.”

The television switched off. The lights stabilized. The kettle finally surrendered. Silence returned to the apartment. Bret sat alone on the edge of the bed. Bandages half-finished. Mind racing. For several seconds he simply stared at the dark television screen.Then he sighed. Reached for the remaining bandages.

And added “cybernetic hacker gremlin” to the growing list of problems currently trying to ruin his life.

---

Across Calder City, several miles from Saint Brigid’s, a man sat alone in a private booth overlooking a crowded nightclub.

The music below shook the glass. Lights flashed. People danced. Drank. Forgot themselves. None of it seemed to interest him. His attention remained fixed on the small vial resting on the table before him. Luminous orange liquid swirled behind the glass. King’s Blood. The crown jewel of a growing empire.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Enter.” The voice was calm. Almost warm.

The door opened. A nervous young man stepped inside. No older than twenty. The sort of man who had spent the last several hours convincing himself everything would be fine.

“Jefe.”

The masked figure looked up. Black and gold. Elegant. Regal. The lucha mask concealed his face completely. Only his eyes remained visible. Patient. Amused. Dangerous. “The shipment arrived?”

The young man swallowed. “Yes.”

“And?”

A pause. Too long.

El Jefe smiled beneath the mask. The expression somehow still reached his eyes.

“We lost two couriers.”

The room grew silent. Music thumped somewhere far below. The young man visibly tensed. Waiting. Expecting anger. Violence. Punishment. Instead, El Jefe simply sighed. A disappointed father. Nothing more.
“That’s unfortunate.” El Jefe nodded then reached for the vial. Turning it carefully between gloved fingers. “Make sure their families looked after.”

The young man nodded quickly. “Of course.”

“Good.” The kingpin leaned back in his chair. Below, the nightclub roared with life. Above, the city stretched endlessly into the darkness. For a moment neither man spoke. Then, Jefe reached out his arm with the vial, offering it to the boy. ”When you’re done with the arrangements, you take this and you find whoever is delaying our shipments.”

The young man hesitated. “I’ve never….” He swallowed hard. “I don’t know what it’ll do.”

El Jefe considered this but only for a moment. ”Well then, I guess we’ll find out together, won’t we?” The masked man stood with the nightclub lights reflected in his eyes. He turned fully to look at the boy and slipped the vial into his jacket breast pocket.
The crown embossed on the glass briefly caught the light. Then vanished.

Jefe placed his large hands on the cheeks of the young man in an embrace that was almost fatherly. Though the reality was much plainer. He didn’t even know this child’s name. “Keep up the good work, mijo.”

Beneath the city, hidden far below the streets of Calder, machinery continued to hum around thousands of gallons of luminous orange liquid.

---

---

Vanguard: Calder City

---

---

The routes made no sense.

Bret had spent the better part of three hours trying to convince himself otherwise.

The office attached to Saint Brigid’s looked less like a workspace and more like the aftermath of a nervous breakdown. Maps covered nearly every available surface. Shipping manifests sat beside photographs. Names, addresses and delivery times had been scribbled onto yellow notepads before being crossed out and rewritten elsewhere.

Somewhere inside the chaos was a pattern. The Pilgrim insisted there was. Bret just couldn’t see it yet. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed at tired eyes. There were three confirmed distribution points so far; two abandoned warehouses and a nightclub. There were no named distributors but based on a symbol printed on the paperwork, he could assume that one avenue was the American Dragons.

King’s Blood moved through Calder like water through cracked stone. There was no obvious hierarchy or central hub of supply that he could see. There was no efficient route. Everything about the operation seemed designed to be deliberately inefficient. Which bothered him more than it should. Criminals liked efficiency. Smugglers liked efficiency. Intelligence agencies practically worshipped it. Yet every time Bret mapped a shipment, it doubled back on itself. Crossed districts unnecessarily. Passed through locations that should have served no logistical purpose whatsoever. Almost as though the destination wasn’t the point.

The confusion of it all began to seek intentional, that was the only logic Bret could apply to the situation.

A television mounted high in the corner of the office continued playing to an audience of absolutely nobody. Father Riordan often left it running during the day. Normally Bret tuned it out. He had barely noticed it at all.

“…our continuing retrospective on Calder City’s forgotten heroes…” He ignored it. “…many younger residents have never heard of…” Ignored. “…The Wayfarer.” Bret froze. The pen in his hand stopped moving. The room suddenly felt very quiet. “…Brian Fleming first appeared in Calder City during the late eighties…”

Against his better judgement, Bret looked up. The documentary displayed grainy footage from another era. A younger city. A younger world. A younger man. The image wasn’t particularly clear. Old news footage rarely was. But even through decades of visual degradation, Bret recognized him immediately. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. The posture. The eyes. It was like looking at a version of himself that had lived a completely different life.

“…known primarily for rescue operations and missing person recoveries, The Wayfarer became famous for his ability to navigate impossible situations.”
The footage shifted. A collapsed building surrounded by emergency vehicles. Heaving crowds of both excited and terrified onlookers. Then Brian Fleming emerging from the wreckage carrying a child. The crowd erupted and then the reporter’s voice continued.

“Unlike many heroes of his generation, The Wayfarer rarely pursued notoriety. He worked independently for most of his career and often disappeared for weeks or months at a time following investigations.” Bret found himself standing. He hadn’t consciously made the decision.

The documentary moved to interviews. Old firefighters. Retired police officers. People who’d known the man. People who remembered him. “He always showed up.” An elderly firefighter smiled at the camera. “If there was a way through, he’d find it.” Another voice. A former detective. “Never met anyone quite like him.” The detective laughed softly. “Most heroes charged toward danger. Brian followed it.”

Something about that statement unsettled Bret. Because it sounded familiar. Far too familiar.

The documentary continued. The years passed. The footage changed. The Wayfarer grew older. More weathered. More isolated.

Then the narrator’s tone shifted.

“Several years before his disappearance, colleagues noted a significant change in Fleming’s behaviour.” Bret felt his stomach tighten. “He became increasingly isolated and his routine disappearances became more frequent, lasted longer until eventually the day came where he never came back.”

Bret’s breath caught in his throat.

“Where is the Wayfarer? It is a question that has boggled Calder City for over twenty years. Every theory is slightly stranger than the last. Some say he simply retired, others that he died, some say that he’s still wandering, still searching. For all that we don’t know, what know for a certain that The Wayfarer, Brian Fleming was a different kind of hero. He never smiled for the camera, he didn’t stop to shake hands and kiss babies. He followed roads into danger, no thought for himself and he made sure to light the way home for any lost souls he found on the path. March on, Wayfarer.”

As the broadcast ended, Bret collapsed back into his chair.

A strange feeling that he couldn’t really identify washed over him. He didn’t know his father, he couldn’t really remember him either. His blessed mother told him stories, tall tales of a hero who always knew where to go. Bret didn’t really believe them until he gained his own abilities but by that point, Brian was long gone. Back to Calder, back to the mystery and toward whatever fate befell him. He didn’t really have a solid idea of what happened to his dad. On certain mornings, he wasn’t even sure he cared.

Bret thought of loss in that moment, of those no longer with us. His dad, of course. His mother, the way she just faded in a way that seemed mostly peaceful. He thought of Dean Cowan. Cressida had not gone into specifics of what happened to him but knowing Dean, he likely went down fighting. Bret thought of Tae. He truly hoped that the boy was ok and that he could find him sooner rather than later.

Every one of them was a lamb of God and wherever any of them were, Bret hoped they were at peace.

His eyes returned to the map and schedule that sat before him. There had to be a weak link in the chain. Something, somewhere that didn’t fit the pattern or more specifically lack there of. Perhaps if he couldn’t get to them through friends, maybe there was a way to figure this out via enemies?
A couple of these routes ran through the territories of some of Calder City’s other less desirables.

Surely going to be pissed off enough to talk? At least, Bret hoped. Because at that moment there all he had.

Hope.

Vanguard: Calder City

_________________________________________________________
^{_________________________________________________________}

Bret had never particularly cared for casinos. The noise. The lights. The desperation masquerading as confidence. Still, this wasn’t any regular casino. Hidden beneath Skoll and Hati, a Norse inspired cocktail bar in Wicklow, it screamed opulence and excess. Places like this existed to convince people they were in control, right up until they weren’t. This one was worse. Because nobody here was gambling with money. Money was easy. Money could be earned back. Information was something else entirely. Information was leverage. Information was survival. Information got people killed.

The game itself was buy-in only, hidden behind three layers of introductions and an absurd amount of security. Officially it didn’t exist. Unofficially, it attracted exactly the sort of people Calder City preferred to pretend weren’t running things.

Criminals. Political operatives. Corporate intermediaries. Hell, even the occasional enhanced individual clever enough to realize power was temporary but secrets lasted forever. The buy-in wasn’t chips. It was knowledge. Every player arrived carrying something valuable like an account number or a blackmail file. Maybe even the location of some witness that needed to be silenced. Whatever was brought, it had to be enough of a truth to hurt somebody. The winner walked away with everything accumulated at the table. The losers walked away lighter.

Assuming they walked away at all.

Bret’s own contribution sat quietly in his pocket. A fragment of intelligence acquired during his years with Directorate Nine. Not enough to compromise national security. Not enough to start a diplomatic incident. Just enough to buy a seat at the table. Just enough to hurt if he lost it.

The jacket concealed a shoulder that still hurt every time he moved it. His ribs weren’t much better. The fight earlier had left him with fresh bruises and several new reasons to reconsider his life choices. Unfortunately, reflection could wait. Tae Park couldn’t. Bret intended to leave with at least one new piece of the puzzle. Preferably before somebody decided to shoot him.

Again.

His odds of achieving that seemed approximately fifty-fifty.

Multiple different games unfolded around him and his companion for the evening, the heartbreakingly beautiful Sienna Mercer. As he leaned at the bar, ordering their drinks, he couldn’t help but admire the effort she had put into getting ready for their “date.” She looked phenomenal, as requested. Her dark dress making every line and curve of her form appear sculpted by Gods.

“Feeling lucky, Miss Sienna?”

Sienna had walked into a lot of rooms.

Rooms designed to impress, to intimidate, to seduce - she knew what that architecture felt like, had learned early how to move through it without letting it do any of those things to her. This one was doing all three simultaneously and doing it well, which she noted with the detached appreciation of someone recognising a craft they respected even when it was being deployed against them.

She kept that to herself.

What she let show was something else entirely - a version of herself that was softer at the edges, easier, the particular warmth of a woman who had somewhere better to be and had chosen here instead. Her dress was dark, the kind of cut that followed rather than announced, a neckline that stopped precisely where intention became statement, no further and no less. Something about the fabric caught the light of the room differently than it had caught the amber pendants of The Velvet Room, holding it rather than deflecting it. Her hair was down, and she had added exactly the right amount of jewellery - not much, just enough to catch the eye and hold it a moment longer than expected.

She had, it seemed, taken his brief seriously.

The brunette accepted the drink Bret handed her and leaned into him slightly, just enough to sell it, her shoulder brushing his as she brought the glass to her lips. To anyone watching they were simply that - a couple at a bar, her attention on him, his world temporarily hers for the evening.

Her eyes, however, told a different story. They moved across the room with the quiet, practiced ease she had spent years developing behind a bar - taking in the players at the nearest table, the positioning of the security, the exit she had already noted without appearing to look for it. The particular stillness of the man in the corner that meant he was holding something and knew it.

"Lucky?" she said, her voice low, pitched for him alone, her gaze drifting back to him with the expression of a woman who had nothing on her mind but the evening ahead. "I don't tend to leave things to luck." Then, quieter -

"Tell me who we're looking for."

“I’m not sure, yet.” Bret responded honestly. He had been trained in deception. He knew how to lie, how to make his heartbeat and pulse. That sort of thing came easy to a point. Yet for some reason, he felt no need to lie to Sienna. He wondered, quietly if there was something more to that than even he knew.

Coming to the game was a shot in the dark, a Hail Mary. He didn’t like to call himself a vigilante for many reasons. One in particular was that he didn’t have the street contacts that others in the same sort of profession did. He didn’t have informants or snitches or whatever the Americans liked to call them. He and his gut, the Pilgrim and for the lack of their better judgment, Cressida and now Sienna.

He brought the rim of his glass, which was coated with a sweet citrus dust to his lips and took a gentle sip from his old fashioned cocktail. Now was the time that either his people watching skills needed to come in handy or the Pilgrim needed to pull its finger out of its arse and lead him down the right path. As his blue eyes scanned the faces at the table, he spoke, not in hush tones but quietly enough that only Sienna could hear him. “Each table has four players and a dealer. We need the ones that will either lead us to Tae or El Jefe.” The fact that he said “Us” was not lost on him. “It’s a law of averages. We just need to find the right three players, and I’ll make myself their fourth.”

For a moment, he broke away from his room watching, taking stock of the cameras that had locked onto himself and Sienna. Bret turned into her, gently pushing a strand of hair down her face and back behind her ear. “Smile.” He spoke as he played the doting lover for the gogglebox. “You’re on candid camera, darling.”

The brunette didn't miss a beat.

The smile that followed his touch was warm and unhurried, the kind that reached her eyes just enough to be convincing - she had spent enough years reading people across a bar to know exactly what genuine looked like, and how to wear it. Her free hand found his arm, a light touch at the elbow, the easy familiarity of a woman comfortable in the company she was keeping. To the cameras, to anyone watching, it was effortless.

It was effortless. That was something she decided not to examine too closely.

"Yes, darling," she mimicked, the word landing with a faint, private amusement that only he was close enough to catch, her eyes staying on his for just a moment longer than the performance strictly required.

Then she let her gaze drift over his shoulder - back across the room, back to the tables. Four players, a dealer. She let her eyes move across each face in turn with the unhurried patience of someone who had spent years watching people decide things they thought nobody was watching them decide.

"Third table," she stated quietly, her lips barely moving, the smile still in place. "The one with his back to the wall. He's been watching the door since we walked in." She brought her glass to her lips and took a slow sip. "I'd start there."

“Careful.” Bret teased as he looked at the reflection of the table in her big brown eyes. “You keep feeding me good intel, I’ll get down on one knee right here.” He smiled widely as he fully turned to view the table she had pointed out. Third table in. Four players and a dealer. As with all the staff, the croupier that was handing out cards was dressed in all black. A form fitting dress that, much like Sienna, was deliberately woven to attract people to her table.

The players were a different breed between all of them. The first, with his back to them, the one Miss Mercer had mentioned. He was a pro, you didn’t need to see his eyes for that. Crisp black suit, perfectly quaffed hair. The slight coffee color of his skin meant he was likely Hispanic. Not a terrible place to start when looking for a man called El Jefe. The second man at the table was drunk as a skunk, a cowboy based on the white ten gallon hat he was wearing. Bret had clocked him when they had first entered, mostly because the drool visibly dripping from his mouth when Sienna walked by was unmissable. The third man seemed oddly familiar, in the way that, you may not know a person but their face rang some sort of bell. The fourth at the table was a woman, with ashen hair and scars across her face, hidden by dark sunglasses.

“Alright, we need to get rid of one of them so I can sit in.” Bret let his hand drift to the small of her back, though his eyes never left hers as they silently asked for consent. The hair on his neck began to stand, not from the electricity he was feeling from her gaze but from the waiter passing by with a tray of drinks, heading towards table 3. The Pilgrim was opening a path but this was not one that he could walk down alone.

“If you’ll indulge me, Sienna. The waiter that just went by, I need him to drop his drink on the cowboy. Would you be so kind as to make that happen the same way you handled those boys at the Velvet? Just trust me on this one.”

The hand at the small of her back was light, questioning. She answered it by shifting fractionally closer - for the cameras, she told herself, which was mostly true. Sienna let his request sit for exactly the length of time it took her to bring her glass to her lips and take a slow, unhurried sip.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she murmured, her eyes staying on his over the rim. "But if I could do such things-" A beat. She set the glass down. “You’d better be ready.”

Her gaze drifted across the room - not quickly, not with any particular intent that anyone watching might clock - settling briefly on the waiter making his way toward table three, the tray balanced at shoulder height, the cowboy's white hat a beacon at the far side of the table. She didn't move. Didn't gesture. Didn't do anything that looked like anything at all.

The tray tilted.

Just slightly, just enough - a fraction of a degree, the kind of shift that looked entirely like the waiter's hand was not completely level. The drinks slid with the easy inevitability of physics doing what physics did, and the cowboy took the full weight of it across the front of his shirt with a sound that cut briefly through the low murmur of the room. The brunette had already looked away by the time it happened, let the commotion settle for exactly the right number of seconds, then tilted her head toward the now empty seat at table three.

“Care for a game of poker?”

“Give me three rounds, then come over.” Bret moved away from her with a wink. This night had started to take some unexpected turns and for all of his ability to predict the way forward; he had no idea how the rest of the evening was going to unfold.

As the cowboy left table three to go clean himself up, the former intelligence officer danced his way around the other tables, playing the part of the slightly tipsy rich boy that these sort of folk would have loved to capitalize on. “Gentlemen…oh and lady. Sorry to disturb you but it looks like you need a fourth.” He leaned down on the table, licking his lips like a feral dog. “Mind if I buy-in?”

The croupier motioned with her eyes to the center of the green felt. Where in normal casinos that area of the table was populated by multicoloured poker chips, in this instance there instead sat some smoking guns. “If you read the welcome pack, sir, you would know this isn’t the usual buy-in. Mister Aguilar has generously put in a list of smuggling routes. Miss Sauvage has offered up her assassin services and Mister X has antied up with blueprints for a new technology. What can you offer, Mister…?”

“Pilgrim.” Bret casually sat in what was once the cowboys chair and placed his drink on the beer mat. He could now directly see most of the casino and especially he had eyes on Sienna. He blew her a “drunken” kiss before turning back to the dealer. “Those are some good bets. Though, I think I can raise the stakes a bit.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pen drive, placing it with the other bets. For this next part, Bret raised his voice a touch. “Oh this little gadget is the name of every Directorate Nine agent active in these United States. Their cover identities, their locations and their schedules.”

The room fell near silent as it processed the information he had just given.

“So, are we going to play or what?”

Sienna caught the wink as he moved away and felt, to her mild irritation, the faint warmth that crossed her cheeks before she could do anything about it. She turned back to the bar before anyone could make anything of it, reaching for her drink with the ease of a woman who had absolutely not just been caught off guard by a wink from a man she had known for the better part of an evening. She signaled for another drink, and settled into the particular patience of someone who knew how to wait without looking like they were waiting. Around her the room continued its quiet, expensive business - cards and conversation and the particular atmosphere of people who had decided tonight that the ordinary rules didn't apply to them.

She was watching from the corner of her eye when he sat down and blew her the drunken kiss across the room. She caught it - performed catching it, rather, pressing her fingers briefly to her lips with the delighted, slightly indulgent expression of a woman watching her companion be charming.

Then he reached into his pocket and put the drive on the table.

Her smile stayed just a fraction too still, just a beat too long - the difference between an expression and a mask, visible only to someone who had been watching her carefully all evening and knew what the real thing looked like. He had sat down at her bar tonight as a man looking for a missing teenager. That was what he had told her.

Seems it was the only thing he had told her.

Sienna reached for her drink and finished it, then signalled for another without taking her eyes off the table.

The first round told her that Bret played the tipsy rich boy convincingly enough that at least two of the other players had already decided he was the easiest mark at the table. The second told her that he was letting them think so, which was considerably more interesting. By the third she had worked her way through half of her fresh drink and formed a working opinion of each player - the one with his back to the wall who gave away nothing, the woman with the scarred face who gave away slightly more than she intended to, and the third whose familiarity she still couldn't place but filed away regardless. Picking up her bag as the dealer dealt the fourth hand, she sauntered towards table three.

She approached from behind, one hand settling lightly on Bret’s shoulder as she leaned down, her lips finding the side of his neck with the easy familiarity of a woman who had done this a hundred times before. She hadn't, for the record. But nobody at this table needed to know that.

Then she straightened, looked across the table at the assembled players, and reached over his shoulder for his drink.

“Don’t mind me,” She took a long sip and set it back down. “I just came to watch.”

The plan worked perfectly. As much as he wanted to enjoy the moment of a beautiful woman kissing him, Bret watched his fellow players and his senses began to tingle.

The man that the croupier had identified as Mister Aguilar grimaced at the sight of the “lovebirds.” Whilst the woman called Sauvage began to moisten her lips. Mister X, however, did not flinch, did not move. Aguilar reached into his pocket and slammed down a familiar vial with a black crown, only this one was full of the bright orange liquid that had come to be known as King’s Blood.

“Add this to the pot.”

Then something changed. It was like a scent. Something entered into the atmosphere of the table and it wasn’t Sienna’s perfume, although that in itself was to die for. At first, Bret thought it smelled like the damn air, just before a rain shower. Then mould, maybe? The Pilgrim began to scream in his ear that a fork in the road was about to appear. He saw it a few seconds before it happened. Springing up to his feet, Bret grabbed Sienna with both arms and pulled her away from the poker table.

The woman called Sauvage lunged forward, grabbing the vial of King’s Blood before anyone could react. There was no pause as the table flipped and she quickly ingested the drug, container and all. The room began to move but it was slow, these men and women were not people of action. They were those behind the ones that did the dirty work. A split began to appear from Sauvage’s lip that ran down to her chin. Then the split opened wide like a Dilophosaurus and blood spewed out, hitting Aguilar square in his face. Bret could see how it began to burn, melt and sear his skin away from the bone.

The smell was sickening.

Sienna had seen a lot of things behind a bar. Fights, breakdowns, confessions, the full spectrum of what happened to people when the night ran long and the drinks ran deep. She had seen things in this city that most people wouldn't believe over breakfast. She thought, on some level, that she had developed a working immunity to being surprised.

Yet, she had not accounted for watching a woman's face split open like a wound and dissolve a man's flesh from three feet away.

But what stayed with her, even as the room came apart around them, was that Bret had already been moving before any of it happened. His chair scraped back, his hands found her arms with a certainty that brooked no argument, pulling her away from the table before she had registered there was anything to move away from. She let him move her for exactly as long as it took her composure to locate itself. Then she found her footing, her hand closing around his arm, and looked up at him with the particular expression of someone filing a very long list of questions away for later.

“What now?” The brunette whispered amongst the chaos, heart racing.

Instinct was an incredibly powerful thing, Bret had always believed that. And even though his instincts were somewhat Grey-powered, he still trusted them beyond anything else. In that moment, he found himself torn between too many different instincts at once. The first was telling him to help get people out, even if they were mostly morally bankrupt. The second was telling him to grab the info that had been dropped and run. The third, well the third was the one that he was likely to listen to.

“Now I’ve got to go to work.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and let the pathways around him open up. He inhaled as his mind travelled the phantom roads of choice and the Pilgrim guided his way. Grabbing the chair that he once sat on with a single hand, Bret spun his full body with a great amount of force. He launched the chair at Sauvage to distract her before rushing at her with all the might that his frame could carry and tackling her by the waist to the far side of the room.

Mister X, who had not moved from his seat, casually leaned down and picked up all the paperwork and the pen drive that had been the point for the table. Gathering them up all neatly, as if filing was something he cherished, he moved over to Sienna and offered them up. “He was going to win anyway.”

Simultaneously, Bret narrowly avoided another spit of acid from Sauvage before spinning and elbowing her in the nose, the only target on her face that wasn’t terrifying. He didn’t manage to hit the second time, being thrown back across the floor by a kick and coming to a stop a few feet from Sienna and Mister X, who casually shot a finger gun at the pair before sauntering off into the chaos.

“Next time we go on a date, can we just go to a quiet pub?” He dragged himself to his feet and reached into his jacket. He didn’t want to do this. He had to give her the choice. Bret pulled a gun and aimed it at Sauvage.

“Go now. It’s the only warning you’ll get.”

Sienna had filed Bret Lowther under many things over the course of the evening. Intelligent. Perceptive. Attractive. Considerably more interesting than he had initially appeared. What she had not filed him under was this - the chair already in his hand before she had fully processed the need for one, his body moving with the particular economy of someone who had done this before and expected to do it again. The tipsy rich boy was gone. What was in his place had clearly been there the whole time, waiting with considerably more patience than she had given him credit for.

She watched him go and felt the read she had been building on him all evening quietly revise itself. She was, it seemed, going to have to start a new file.

Mister X appeared next to her then, a man who had decided the evening's chaos was someone else's problem, holding out the gathered intelligence and the drive with the mild, administrative air of someone returning a lost item. She took it without hesitation - smoothly, naturally, tucking both into her bag with the same composure she might use to accept someone’s payment at the bar.

She turned her attention back to the room - to Bret dragging himself to his feet, to Sauvage still standing at the far end of it, to the gun appearing in his hand. Had he had that the whole time?

"Next time," she replied simply, "I'm picking."

Then she looked at Sauvage - really looked, the way she looked at things she was about to do something about - and waited.

Sauvage moved.

Sienna reached for the thing that lived just beneath the surface of her attention. The same quiet renegotiation of terms she had used in her bar, in her room, on her conditions. This was none of those things. But the boy was seventeen, and Bret was bleeding, and the gun in his hand deserved better odds than he currently had.

The weight came down.

Sienna had never seen firsthand what King's Blood did to a body's tolerance of her powers, but Sauvage's movements quickly slowed, her frame pressing toward the floor under the incremental addition of gravity doing quiet, insistent work.

Except it wasn't quiet. Not this time. Sienna felt it immediately - the resistance, the way Sauvage pushed back against the pressure with a force that had no business belonging to a human body. She held it, jaw tight, the effort of it moving through her in a way she wasn't accustomed to and didn't particularly care for. Her free hand found the edge of a nearby table without meaning to, steadying herself against something she couldn't let show on her face.

"Bret." Just his name, quiet and clipped. She kept her eyes on Sauvage and said nothing more - the line of her shoulders said rather a lot.

There it was. In all its glory.

Bret was right. She was a Grey and now she was controlling Sauvage. Or more specifically, she was holding her. They would have a lot to talk about after all this was over. But first things first.

He didn’t say a word as he pulled the trigger of his gun three times. The first two entered Sauvage’s open mandible, one going straight through her skull and piercing the wall behind her, the other lodging herself in the base of her brain stem. The third bullet went lower, a fair few feet, off slightly to the left hand chest and just slightly above her breast. The heart. Sauvage crumbled to the floor in a pile, acidic blood seeping from her mouth and beginning to burn a hole in the concrete floor.

He lowered the pistol to his waistline and wiped a fresh wound on his face with his palm. Bret refused to get blood on his new suit, Cressida would murder him dead. He turned his head slightly to look at Sienna. He didn’t shy away from her eyes, he couldn’t. They would have to talk about this. The Pilgrim had gone quiet but he knew it wouldn’t be for long. They didn’t have the time to dwell and fester in the chaos.

“So, late dinner?”

_________________________________________________________
^{_________________________________________________________
Collaboration with @Melissa}

Vanguard: Calder City

You’ll get what you’re given and you’ll like it.

Vanguard: Calder City

---

---

The gun went off.

The sound was deafening inside the stairwell.

Bret felt the round pass close enough to brush his coat before he slammed the shooter’s wrist against the concrete wall. The pistol clattered away.

A second man crashed into him immediately. Too fast. Too heavy. This big fuck was a Gray or more likely given the circumstances, on King’s Blood.

Bret hit the railing hard enough to rattle the entire staircase. Pain exploded through his ribs. The same ribs that had been stitched together less than twenty-four hours ago.

“I hate everything.”

The enhanced man grabbed him by the throat. Bret’s boots left the floor. The Pilgrim screamed warnings. Wrong angle. Wrong position. Wrong path.

The man drove him into the wall and the concrete cracked behind him. For a brief moment Bret’s vision blurred, not because of the impact but because he’d made a mistake.

The Pilgrim wasn’t certainty. It never had been. It showed paths, not outcomes. And sometimes, most of the time, Bret had a tendency to choose wrong.

The man’s fist connected with his jaw. Then again. Then again. Bret tasted blood in the crease between his teeth and cones as the world tilted. The stairwell became motion. Possibilities. Momentum. The enhanced thug raised his arm. Bret saw it then. Not the punch. The railing. Loose bolts, a structural weakness.

A path.

He shifted his weight and the punch missed. He kicked his feet back, pressing them against the damaged wall and pushed off as hard as he could, forcing himself and his would be attacked into and through the railing. The metal screamed and both men crashed through it. Three floor of free falling before the impact.

The thug hit first and Bret landed badly next to him. His shoulder dislocated instantly. Pain lanced through him. For a second neither moved.

The sound of sirens echoed somewhere outside beyond the shattered windows. The thug groaned and started to stand. So did Bret. Slowly. The fight quickly continued. Because sometimes that’s all fights were.Not choreography nor heroics. Sometimes it was just two stubborn men refusing to stay down. Though quickly the other man collapsed and Bret remained standing. Barely.

He looked at the unconscious criminal. Then at his own shaking hands. Then at the blood dripping from his sleeve.

“Should’ve took that job at McDonalds.”

---

Saint Brigid’s was dark when he returned.

The side entrance clicked shut behind him and the silence welcomed him like an old friend. Ancient stone. Familiar shadows. Safety. At least for a little while.

Bret sat heavily in a storage room converted into a makeshift office. The church first aid kit lived beneath his desk. For entirely legitimate reasons, of course. He reset his shoulder himself. The resulting noise was deeply unpleasant. Then came antiseptic which stung worse than the pointed words of an ex-girlfriend or disappointed parent. The routine was becoming depressingly similar; bandages, fresh bruises, stitches and a cornucopia of fresh regrets.

An hour later he sat alone in the sanctuary. The candles flickered in the darkened room and the wider city felt distant here. Bret preferred it that way. He had not been in Calder that long but he had been there long enough to develop a dislike of it. There were good people, there were more bad ones. It was really no surprise that it had such a large number of superheroes and villains. It felt like the type of place town straight out of a comic book.

Maybe that’s why his father went back? Maybe The Wayfarer couldn’t handle the quiet of the fells and mountains of rural England and felt the need to get back to the hustle and bustle of the city. It was strange, really. When Bret took the job at Saint Brigid’s and moved to the States, he thought he was going to discover a secret life that his father had. That something that would be revealed in this home of heroes that perhaps would shed light on his life.

He didn’t.

There was no statue of The Wayfarer in Memorial Park. There was no plaque honouring him. There were stories, sure. Stories of the hero that went back into burning buildings and guided people out. Though that was often overshadowed by another hero freezing the flames with ice breath or some crap.

Bret had no desire to follow in his footsteps. He was not going to don the spandex and wait for a signal in the sky. He would help people in the only way he knew how, the way he was taught. Efficiently.

His phone rested beside him. He glanced down from the altar and at the photograph of Tae Park that had remained on screen since he found it. The dots were starting to form connections. It seemed, at least to Bret, that Tae was dealing King’s Blood for this El Jefe character. A few calls in the right places helped fill out some of the other details.

Tae was seventeen, parents both deceased. Only family he had was his sister So-Mi, who dropped out of college to look after him. Bills add up, they always do, dealing becomes a way to quickly make some change to keep the lights on and fold in the fridge. Tae sees an opportunity, sell on the side, make a little extra. Jefe doesn’t like this so Tae goes on the run. It was a classic tale, save the fact that the drug in question could turn people into walking tanks or gelatinous cubes that could shoot fireballs.

Bret also had to assume, given what had occurred earlier that evening, that Tae was using the King’s Blood himself. The way he disappeared in that warehouse, Bret was a millisecond behind. There was no way it was a secret door or a getaway vehicle. He just vanished and there was no trace. All that meant was that the path still existed. Bret just simply hadn’t found it yet.

A vibration interrupted his thoughts. Encrypted channel. D9. Again. This time he answered straight away. A small projector hidden at the top of his phone activated.

Blue light unfolded into the colour and shape of one Cressida Billington. Even as a hologram she looked disapproving. An impressive achievement but if anyone could make it work and still have time to be attractive, it was Cress.

“You look like shit, babe.”

“Why does everyone keep telling me that?.”

Her crystal blue eyes narrowed. “Because you do, darling.” She placed her hands on her hips as she cocked an eyebrow. “Are we in the church? Thank God I’m a projection otherwise I’d likely be melting for my sins.” The hologram sighed. A very Cressida sigh. The sort that suggested disappointment had become a permanent emotional state. “What do you need, Bret? Because I know, even after my message about Cowan, this isn’t a social call.” Straight to business. Also very Cressida. “And if you make a joke about it being a booty call, I swear to your beloved God Bret…”

“I need money.” A pause. “A discretionary fund. Off the books, if you can swing it?.”

“No.”

“I haven’t explained why yet.”

“Don’t care.”

“Cressida.”

“Nope.”

Bret smiled despite himself.

She noticed immediately. Which somehow made her more irritated. She hated that damn, stupid, awful, charming smile of his. “What are you planning, babe?”

“I’m looking into a missing person. The type that falls through the cracks if someone like me doesn’t help out.” There was no reason for Bret to try and tug on Cressida’s heart strings. She, like him, had seen far more in her life than she needed to and was jaded by it but unlike him, she didn’t ever question the orders that resulted in that skepticism. “I’ve got a lead, need to go to the Velvet Room.”

That changed things. Immediately. The quiet amusement vanished and Directorate Nine analyst emerged. “The speakeasy? Bret, sweetpea. You’re not just investigating a missing person, you’re investigating King’s Blood distribution.”

“No, I’m investigating a missing person.”

“Which inevitably becomes a King’s Blood distribution. Trust me on this, boo. D9 is aware of this growing issue” Cressida folded her arms. Even holographically she managed to look expensive. “You don’t even work for us anymore.”

“I know.”

“You don’t have the right credentials.”

“I know.”

“You certainly don’t have a suitable suit. Like do you own anything that doesn’t come in flannel?”

Bret glanced down at his bloodstained coat.“Fair.”

“I’ll transfer funds. You owe me for this, Bret. I mean it. I’m putting my perfectly pert Pilates arse on the line for you here.” The hologram flickered. Then softened slightly. Only slightly. “Try not to get shot again and give me a call sometime, yeah? I’d like to have one conversation with you where you’re not bleeding out and I’m not worried about losing my job for giving you a hand.”

Bret made a heart with his hands eyebrow. “You’re the best, Cress”

She rolled her eyes. “And you’re a cunt.” The connection terminated.

---

The Velvet Room existed beneath the neon lights of the Later District, in rooms that officially didn’t exist.

Naturally.

The entrance was hidden. Entry might’ve required a recommendation or enough money to convince the staff you belonged there. Fortunately for Bret, a Directorate 9 expense account remained surprisingly useful. The new suit helped; Cress picked it out because of course she did. Dark charcoal. Tailored. Expensive enough to hurt his feelings.

Bret descended a hidden staircase. Music drifted through the air as he entered the club. It was filled with low conversation, crystal glasses and a myriad of different external allegiances. There were political fixers nestled next to known criminals. There were wealthy socialites mixing with superheroes and supervillains alike. All of them, the sort of people who preferred their sins accompanied by a live piano.

Nobody noticed him. Which suited Bret perfectly. The Pilgrim stirred quietly beneath his skin. Not giving him any kind of warning but it was observing and following threads. This room was one filled with all kinds of paths, connections and possibilities. Somewhere in this place somebody knew something that would get Bret one step closer to finding Tae Park.

He just needed to find them.

He made his way to the bar, taking his seat next to a brunette who held presence like gravity itself was hers to control. He looked at the bartender who raised a hand.

“Vodka Martini? Shaken not stirred I’m guessing?”

Bret smiled. “Nah, just a pint of the best thing on draught please, mate.”

---

Several miles away.

In a cluttered apartment illuminated by half a dozen monitors. Someone sat cross-legged in an office chair. Empty coffee cups surrounded them like fortifications. Security feeds filled every available screen. Traffic cameras. Business cameras. Private systems. Public systems.Some legal. Most not.

A cursor followed a single individual moving through the Velvet Room. The suited man entering the establishment. The same man appearing on traffic
footage. Church cameras. Warehouse footage. Hospital security. Saint Brigid’s.

Again. And again. And again.

They leaned closer. Brows furrowing. “Who are you?”

The man paused briefly at the bar. One camera caught his face. The software highlighted it instantly. A profile began building automatically. Not enough information. Not yet.

But enough to be interesting.

Vanguard: Calder City

<Snipped quote by BrutalBx>

whey aye man, gan on doon

@Stormyx

Don’t confuse them!