Nemesis sat half-perched on a planter while Frankie Jacks paced in front of him. The pitter-patter of the rain on the glass that made up the greenhouse was all but forgotten as Frankie told all he knew about the Colonel and his proclivities. The soldiers who worked for him, the mercs he helped train and employed, the network of pimps, slave traders, drug traffickers, crooks, robbers and everything else…it was enough to give Nemesis a headache. He’d thought the whole terrible episode done and behind him, but apparently someone else felt he hadn’t done enough.

 

As Frankie talked Nemesis took a few notes, most of them mental, and tried to piece things together. It appeared that anyone who directly supplied the Colonel with his girls was a target, as was anyone who helped the Colonel dispose of the girls. There were a host of potential victims still readily available, and while Frankie wasn’t consciously withholding information, neither had he been privy to the actual logistics of the operation. He was basing all of his information on conjecture, second-hand conversations and vague experience. And yet Nemesis felt compelled to intervene.

 

He wished he’d been serious about his willingness to let them die, but the truth of the matter was that someone was actively hunting and killing people, and Nemesis couldn’t have that. Not in his city, and especially not now. Worse, in some ways he felt responsible for this mess. Maybe he hadn’t done enough. He certainly could have pursued the fringe element and locked away many of the perpetrators, but he’d been so caught up in getting The Conquistadors off the ground that he’d satisfied himself with taking out the Colonel himself.

 

What it boiled down to is, for whichever of the half-dozen reasons he could supply, he had to do something.

 

“…and it’s not like I ever got any of the girls, you know. I just made a couple of calls here and there. No one’s kid. Just runaways and derelicts and stuff like that. Hell, some of ‘em didn’t even speak English. This one…”

 

“Frankie.” Nemesis sighed. “Enough.” He stood up and stretched. “I’ve got enough to go on, Frankie. You can quit talking now.”

 

Frankie nodded. “Right. Right. You got all them names, right? I can go over ‘em again, if you want.”

 

“No, no,” Nemesis hastily interjected. He tapped his brow. “It’s all up here.” He paused, considering.

 

“You got a place you can hole up for a bit?”

 

Frankie thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” His eyebrows rose. “How you gonna catch whoever’s doing this?”

 

“That,” Nemesis replied. Outside the rain had stopped. “Is a damn good question. I’m sure I’ll think of something. I just need to get a handle on how their finding everyone.”

 

Frankie shrugged. “I got nothin’, man. It’s like I’m barely ahead of him. I gotta keep movin’, you know?, or I’m gonna be next.”

 

Nemesis froze. Frankie started to speak but decided against it. He just stared at the vigilante staring back at him. Finally he couldn’t take the silence any longer.

 

“What?”

 

Nemesis spoke carefully. “Frankie, when you realized what was going on, what’d you do?”

 

“What?” Frankie didn’t understand the question. “I ran, man! I started fucking running, and then I came to find you.”

 

“But what did you do? I mean, you started running, but where? Why?”

 

“I don’t know, man!” Frankie seemed agitated. “I just ran. I thought I should warn a couple of the guys who weren’t so bad, you know? Just let ‘em know what was going on, but it’s like whoever is out there already—what?”

 

Nemesis was shaking his head. “Frankie, they didn’t know where to look. They just followed you. You led them to their victims.”

 

Frankie tried to digest that. “No, man. That ain’t….no.” He began shaking his head. “No, no, no…”

 

“Yes, Frankie. You’ve been the bait all along.” The vigilante closed his eyes, thinking. When he reopened them again he had to blink. One of those little red dots you see when…

 

“Frankie, get down!” Nemesis leapt forward, tackling the smaller man and sending them both other a planter box. Above them the glass shattered and, over the din of falling glass and squealing criminal, Nemesis heard the tell-tale pock sound of a silenced round hitting a soft target.

 

He rolled off Frankie and came to his feet with his staff at the ready, his eyes already trying to find the source of the target laser he’d barely seen in time. Frankie started getting to his feet. Nemesis hit him with his staff and the small man went down like a sack of potatoes.

 

Nemesis flew out the side of the greenhouse, taking out the entire glass wall. He switched his goggles to night vision again and scanned the surrounding rooftops. Nothing. The skyline was—

 

 

Like a shot he was off, leaping the length of the alleyway to the next roof and giving chase to a figure he could barely make out. His booted feet slid on graveled roofs, leapt air conditioner units and ducked under antennas and clotheslines, and always his quarry was one step ahead of him.

 

As leapt across yet another alley he noted that the building ahead was a parking structure. He knew where he was, now, and his quarry would have to go down from here. He smiled grimly and pressed on.

 

He used his staff to vault the next space, landing in a roll on the second-from-the-top floor of the parking structure. He came to his knees in a crouch, listening and trying to catch his breath.

 

 

A slight scuff alerted him and he managed to roll out of the way just as another shot chipped concrete from a pylon beside him. He came back to his feet with a pair of throwing blades in his gloved fist. He threw them in the direction of the shot and started running. He heard the blades his concrete, but he hadn’t expected them to reach their target. It was covering fire so that he could move.

 

He closed the distance rapidly, heard a clatter and saw his quarry take off again, sans rifle. As the figure turned into the exit drive spiraling down the parking garage Nemesis dove the intervening distance, sliding on the pavement just as the shooter came around the turn.

 

For a moment they faced each other. Nemesis noted that the shooter was a woman, wearing form-fitting costume of some sort with a light jacket over her torso. Her face was masked, her hair in a tight ponytail. In her hand—

 

“Shit.” In his surprise he’d let her draw another weapon. Shots rang out as the woman fired from an automatic pistols, concrete chips and all-too-close whizzing of bullets following Nemesis as he ran a short arc around her. At the first click of an empty chamber he spun and hit the wall, leaping out with a slow turn.

 

His boot connected with the woman’s hand just as she slapped a fresh clip in. The gun flew away but the woman turned the motion into a roundhouse kick that Nemesis barely blocked. He countered with a jab combo but she deflected each, coming in with a knee kick and a low punch that he allowed to land on his armor. He drove an elbow into her temple. She rolled and came up holding another pistol. He dove sideways, simultaneously withdrawing several small pellets. They hit the ground and immediately covered the area in smoke. He came out of a roll and jumped backwards, flipping over once as the bullets continued their firing arc based on his previous course.

 

He flew out of the smoke and tackled the woman, using his staff to pin her down. She let go of the pistol in order to grab his staff and use his own momentum against him and flipping him completely over her. He came up and launched a back kick that she easily avoided, then had to jump to avoid her own leg sweep. They traded blows, one after the other, in complete silence. Finally she landed a hard kick to his chest, sending him back several feet.

 

The blow hadn’t hurt, not through his armor, but he paused anyway. She was good. She was damn good, actually, but Nemesis knew he could take her.

 

“You need to give up now,” he said. “You can’t win this.”

 

For a moment she said nothing. When she spoke there was a hint of an accent he couldn’t place. “You should be helping me,” she said in soft tones. Her voice was rich and full despite her attempt to mask it. She sounded like she was on the verge of singing.

“Not going to happen.”

 

“Finish what you started, Nemesis. Or allow me to. It is the only way this can end.”

 

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’ll end, but not like that.”

 

There was the ghost of a smile on full lips beneath a face mask. “I simply picked up where you left off,” she said. “I understand. You have an image, a role to play. I do not. Let me do this. Let me finish them.”

 

“No,” he reiterated. “You need to stop. You need to turn yourself in before anyone else has to get hurt.”

 

The woman let out a wistful sigh. “No, habibi, I will not.”

 

Too late Nemesis saw the marble-like item in her hand. She threw it on the ground even as he leapt forward. The small explosion threw him sideways but he recovered quickly and moved through the smoke. He saw her legs disappear over the side of the parking structure.

 

Running over to the edge he looked down. She was nowhere to be seen. He stared down for a long time, motionless except for his eyes scanning the city several stories beneath him.

 

Finally he turned to leave. In his mind he was replaying everything he knew about the woman, every move she made, every nuance to her fighting style. He’d have to be ready for her next time. He would be ready for her next time. Of that he was certain.

 

It still didn’t explain the unconscious smile on his lips as he walked away into the night.