Bark 2-A (Night)
Today was turning out to be a perfectly average day. That is to say that they had thought of seven ways to kill Accord, though Dorothy had to admit that they were mostly the same ways that she had thought of before.
Creativity was all well and good, but classic methods were best. She'd gotten dressed, including the heels that reminded her of her monster--which of course reminded her of way #4 from last week: chop off his leg and arm and watch him bleed out, the asymmetrical moron.
She held the coffee pot and reminded herself of the next words. She knew them so well that she shouldn't have to remind herself, but things had been very stressful ever since they'd slowly tortured to death that one nosy hero.
It had started slow, with some burning up and down his back, but she had gotten a little out of hand. She had read that people did it all the time, going a little farther than they expected, and thus if it actually mattered, it really wasn't that unusual.
Plus, Dorothy knew that despite their games, she had begun to drift from her husband. This too was normal. She had read it in a book. She spent far too long studying to be normal, and she should just be herself: so she'd lashed out at some teenage vigilante, and Geoff had joined in.
They'd had fun, but then came the police and the PRT, looking for piddling clues on yet another vigilante disappearing. They were dime a dozen, and to the extent that anyone's lives mattered, theirs certainly didn't.
Dorothy had killed people like that before, and she'd do it again.
There were limits again. When she had thought about murdering Purity, the thought of it had twisted in her head, turning around and around and some part of her she hadn't known existed had rebelled.
It was likely a failing in her training, and one that was no doubt a problem. After all, the master race could not triumph over the Jews if she did not give her all in total obedience to the cause, obedience that did not have any room for moral compunctions.
Yet:
"You can do it, can you not?" Kaiser asked. He was sitting there, as casual as can be. "I am not asking because I want it done now, but because I want to know it can be done. She'll no doubt come back within a month or so."
Kayden was a good houseguest. She kept to the rules Dorothy set down, the rules of how to be a normal person in a normal household, and her presence meant that Dorothy had 'a friend' which was important.
She wasn't sure why, but something felt wrong about this request.
Plus, it was just not right: a husband and wife were supposed to be loving and ask each other about coffee and read the newspaper.
They weren't supposed to divorce, yes, and they weren't supposed to plot the murder of each other.
"I… can do it," Dorothy said honestly.
"Will you do it?" Kaiser asked, his eyes dark. He didn't like it when people left without his permission. And he was willing to do a lot just to keep up the impression that it was his choice, including sending off people who were about to leave.
"I will if you order me to," Dorothy said.
And resolved to leave.
Because that was the truth: if she was ordered, she would do it. She might not even regret it for that long, but she'd be down a friend. Or someone who was friend-shaped.
Now she was in Boston.
Way to Kill Accord #35: Slowly drown him in water. Ask him questions. Each time he answers correctly, dunk him under. Teach him not to be such an arrogant asshole. She had never met him, but Fog told her that that was how he acted, and there had been enough other capes that said the same that she believed it to be true.
"Would you like cream with your coffee, Geoff?"
"No thank you, dear," he said, and it wasn't her imagination. He was saying it with less enthusiasm. It made her so mad for a moment that she almost didn't get the next line right.
Dump the coffee in his face and then eat him. Eat him and he'll never leave you.
Her monster form did not expel anything. Ever. It devoured and took away to nowhere.
She liked that feature.
"I have… finished the bacon." No, it was completed!
There was a beautiful spread on the table. She had seen a spread like that in a magazine once. It had called it, "The Perfect Breakfast." She had recreated it exactly in varying quantities since then, and Geoff never failed to complement it.
It was in the script.
"Finish?" he asked, suddenly distracted.
"Put. The paper. Away. It's time to eat." She held the coffee, and imagined his death. It made it easier. She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.
He needed to shave. But this was a normal thought, that couples had.
Heterosexual couples, at least. And the Gesselchaft had taught her that those were the only ones that counted. They'd said all sorts of things, and yet she'd been forced to compromise while in Boston.
It helped that she both cared and didn't care at the same time.
She cared for the triumph of the race, but in her experience, Jews and Gentiles alike died equally satisfying deaths, when it came down to it.
"Yes dear. Mmm, smells delicious," he said, with a smile that almost fooled her for a moment.
She smiled wider as if to praise this, and then looked down at all the food. A healthy appetite was important. Of course, they usually threw away half of what they made, but conspicuous consumption was not bad.
She moved to sit down, and she tucked a napkin under her chin and looked at the food. She had an order to eat. Eggs, bacon, fruit salad, more bacon, eggs, strawberries, toast with butter and blackberry jam, take one more strip of bacon, and then french toast.
They divided it all down the middle, and left what they couldn't eat of each course on the plate.
It was economical like that.
It was easy to eat breakfast, though she really didn't understand the point of food. To her, it all tasted just about the same, and yet she knew that people set great store by women who could cook, and properly judged as defective women who could not cook: she had read it somewhere, or perhaps she had been told this.
The two were not all that different to Night, and Dorothy was a simple woman, who had simple tastes, and knew that these tastes would only be allowed so long as she fought for the right cause.
And that meant that she kept to the rituals, because they kept her within the right mindset. Those whose mindsets were discordant would be killed. She had seen it happen, when a cape triggered that the Gesellschaft decided couldn't be controlled, or was too broken to operate. She'd killed one on orders, as a final test to prove that she knew for whom she killed.
It had been her first kill, and she still remembered the way he kicked and struggled, his power useless because it was a long-term power, that showed him the paths that people could take. Had he known that she would kill him? She liked to think so, because she had been told that it was irony when a person who could see into futures was surprised, and she did not like irony.
It seemed like a game that people played to get around the rules and obscure things. She kept to a schedule. Sex exactly once a month, because regular copulation was what couples did. She never enjoyed it, and she wasn't sure if Geoff did either. She did know that he enjoyed the more spontaneous actions when they both were able to hurt someone else.
She had a perfect life: if she looked it up, she would find that this was objectively true. The kind of life that all other women were supposed to have.
She didn't feel happy with it, but then again, she rarely felt happy anymore.
*******
Boston was a city. That much could be said for it. It was the start of America, to whatever extent it mattered, or so Fog told her. He also told her that half of the population of the city was sub-human, which she could believe.
That meant it was the kind of city where if you launched a nuke at it, you'd do more good for the world than bad. You did that math when it was time to start a race war, because those that lived in the city were probably race traitors anyways.
It was math that she liked, because it was simple math, without having to divide people up into categories. Less guilty, more guilty?
But she was sometimes vaguely aware that it was math that set her up against the world. It didn't matter with her powers, and she loved every moment she wasn't seen, the way that her form was so unrestrained, so bizarre. She'd mauled her handler, and yet killed her way into being a perfect weapon.
Her muscles were better like that, her nerves stronger, those moments when she was a monster were the moments when she felt as if she were alive, as if she were something more than human, and if there was some way to make it so that her power never stopped, she would pay any price for it.
As it was, she was as much a threat as anything else.
"Now, put ze money in ze bag," Fog said, putting on a thick german accent as he looked over the drug dealers. "Or ve kill you."
He hated the stupid accent, but he also claimed that it helped make people underestimate him. He was dressed in his usual costume, which she ironed herself. Grey and a mask. It was simple, but it was a good costume. She had been told so by Fog. He would know.
The mongoloid trembled where he stood, and said, "Fuck, man. You know you never go this far north usually. You're right next to Accord's territory."
"Ve have an.... understanding with him," Fog said, trying to throw drama into his voice. He just sounded bored, though Night was frowning a little. She hadn't known they had. In fact, she'd been angry at Accord and the way he kept them from robbing too much from the dealers and others that he oversaw.
He was an odd sort of criminal boss, who killed dealers who cut their drugs with bad shit because it was not proper, and seemed to hate the trade with a passion. That she could understand, since she'd never taken drugs in her life, at least not since her real life had begun.
If you didn't count any drugs used in torture, that is.
"Oh. Shit."
******
They let him go and took the money.
"An understanding?"
"We do have an understanding. He is sending someone to meet with us this afternoon," Fog said. He was talking normally now, and Night liked it better than the accent.
She wasn't sure why, just that she did.
"Why?"
"I don't know. But he said it had to do with the E88."
"Why?"
"We shall ask him. Or her."
******
It was a woman, an ugly, short woman with greying hair, who strode forward carefully, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Their hideout looked just about her speed, an abandoned part of a strip mall that they'd been using in the time since Purity had left and they had left after her.
"Good afternoon, Night, Fog."
"Yes, ve have ven expecting--"
"Must you," the woman said. "You may call me Needle, I suppose, if we are going to work with that sort of cape name business."
"What do you want?" Night asked, striding forward, her heels clicking. She liked heels.
"Me? Not all that much. A sandwich would be nice," Needle said, with a shrug. "I'm an intermediary, from Accord, and I want to tell you something important: Purity is going back."
"What?" Fog asked, shocked out of his fake accent. "Why?"
"How would I know? But Kaiser will come to you in a few days, asking for you to come back."
"Good," Night said, unable to keep from feeling a thrill of excitement. Boston was boring compared to Brockton.
"But I'd like to propose something else. Or rather, there are people who would ask you about something. What if we said we had evidence that Kaiser intended to kill Purity if she tried to leave again, or that he was lying to her. You wouldn't care, I'm sure. But what about evidence of a different sort: that he was acting against the interests of the race."
"The race?"
Needle smiled. "Do you think I'm not a part of it?" Certainly, her skin was pale. "If you had evidence of that, what would you do?"
"Not join him," Fog said.
"What if you joined him… and waited for the opportune time to act against him? Think on this: you have reasons to dislike Kaiser, and I'm going to give you a few more. His big picture is broken and fractured." Needle shrugged. "It's just a suggestion, and if you take it, it could be an opportunity to do great things. I know it costs money to live the proper married life, money that Kaiser is stingy with, and if you agree to the deal, all you have to do is listen, and then watch, and when the time comes, perhaps you can kill him."
That convinced her. She had 129 ways listed in her mind, over the years, on how to kill Kaiser. Even more than killing Accord, she would enjoy this.
One involved gutting him and then cutting off his hand. Another involved slowly burning every part of his body. Many of them were similar methods, but with minor twists to make it interesting.
Still, there were one-hundred and twenty nine of them. Almost too many. Like eating at a buffet.
"So, we'd just… work for Kaiser until we don't?"
"Yes. Purity might well be a better choice, and we can pay you handsomely."
She couldn't tell him what to do, because they were a couple, and the one of the couple who was a woman needed to be submissive and make his life a living hell if he ever decided to do anything other than what she wanted him to do.
She had seen it in highly successful life simulation television shows.
Fortunately for him, he made the right choice.
******
A/N: Thanks to
@NemoMarx.