Amy had refused to follow me. That was fair, Nazi territory wasn't exactly safe for lesbians; for kith and kin though? No one had bothered me, though considering the state of things that wasn't too surprising. What was was that these neighbourhoods were shockingly intact. I guess when you had as many capes as the Nazis did, trouble didn't crop up too much unless someone missed a payment...or had the audacity to be born non-white.

  I had considered myself lucky, to not wind up here yet. Now my hand had been forced. I saw a few skinheads on the corner, eyeing me up as I drew closer. I probably looked pretty conspicuous, hood up, a red bandana around my face. I wasn't going here in costume, so had to make due with whatever I could scrounge up on the way.

  “Who th' fuck are you?” One of them with a practically glittering bald head spoke up.

  “A girl in need of some ink,” I replied flatly. “From someone who doesn't mind some...old military symbols.” He looked me up and down.

  “Fuck off, pig.” He spat on the ground. I frowned and took a step closer.

  “Okay degenerate,” I snapped. “If you won't fucking tell me where to get my runes, I'll find someone with a drop of pure blood to instead.” I felt like throwing up, but choked it back as I stared him down.

  “Let me ask again,” he said coldly. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Freya knows,” I said rolling my eyes, thinking of Mom, blinking back tears. “If the name D'souza means anything to you, tell me where the fuck your tattoo...artists are.” He seemed to size me up again.

  “You're her kid?” I stared him down, unable to answer through the choking feeling in my throat. “Tyr's tears. You need a place to stay? Food?” I narrowed my eyes at the sudden shift in tone.

  “Tattoos,” I demanded. “I'll handle myself, I just...need that.”

  “Mm,” the man mused, then sighed. “Two blocks down, Fred's. The window sign's gone, but the one over the door's still there. Hand-poked only, for obvious reasons. Oh, and if you need suggestions, ask him about Werwolf.” I stared, not believing it for a second, but finally nodded.

  “Thanks,” I said, not even slightly meaning it.

  “You ever need anything, you have a place here.”

  With that disturbing send off at my back, I trudged down the street the Nazi had indicated. I abso-fucking-lutely had no place here, except maybe as a hero taking this shitbirds down. And yet, here I was walking through like I owned the place. I kept my eyes moving of course, I wasn't that stupid, but things seemed...quiet.

  Probably helped that the sun was still up. Even Nazis didn't want to do all their crimes in the cold light of the day, it seemed. Well, besides loitering, but that wasn't a real crime anyway. The ones and twos I saw around were badly cut up, but some had similar scars that weren't so fresh. I guess the Nine had been here before their big reveal. Sucked for these people, but they'd made their bed. So had I, in a way.

  I caught sight of the sign for 'Fred's Tattoo and Barber' as I came around a corner. The building was intact, though all the glass had been replaced by plywood. There was an angular '88' tag, far too elaborate to be anything but official signage. It made me shudder but I forced myself to walk up and rap my knuckles against the door frame. I heard some heavy footfalls, then the door was pulled open.

  The guy answering it...didn't really look like a Nazi, at least not the poster boys. Short, brown hair, a heavy brow with black, bush eyebrows. A pair of beady, dark eyes gazed out suspiciously, surrounded by tanned, scarred skin.

  “Who're you?” His voice was small, timid almost.

  “D'souza's kid,” I replied. The cat was out of the bag, but they didn't know about my powers at least. Well, unless Victor and Hookwolf had loose lips. “I'm here for some ink.”

  “Shit you're finally joining?”

  “Let me in,” I deflected. “I have some ideas and I'd rather not announce them to the world.”

  He nodded and stepped aside, letting me in. It was a pretty normal tattoo shop, not that I'd ever been in one. Well I had but...fuck this was annoying. The leather on its chair was pretty torn up, though considering the state of things that wasn't surprising. It looked like the glass had all been cleared out, and the shop was relatively clean. At least I wasn't going to walk away with HIV or something.

  Fred sat at a table and pulled out a pen and paper. He cleared a few things from it before gesturing for me to sit across from him. We got right to work. It wasn't hard to plan these out, I'd done it before after all. With a crude drawing of an arm, I marked out spots and noted what went where; my blood-type tattoo, the black sun, SS Wiking, the lot.

  It made me sick, and if I hadn't thrown up while fighting Mannequin hours ago, I would have doing this. I pressed on though and, knowing it was a test to change for the worse, brought up Werwolf. Fred seemed excited, taking the paper and drawing on the exterior of my arm, a pennant stretching from my shoulder to just above the elbow. At its center, a wolfsangel. I'd wanted to avoid that one because of fucking Hookwolf, but of course. I nodded and Fred beamed at me. I could barely muster the energy to look at him.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  It took an half an hour to plan the tattoos, but it wasn't long enough. Too soon, Fred had retreated to the back to fetch his tools, leaving me to stew. Like Cherish, this was going to ruin me. I already had a bitch of a time talking to the other Wards, and after this...yeah. If Mannequin didn't accept this, I was going to break his arm, again.

  When Fred returned, my nerves lit up. Suddenly I was clammy, sitting in the chair. The feeling of pins and needles rippled up my right arm and I felt my hair stand on end. The Nazi tattooist hummed happily as he laid out his inks, all black, red, and white. Dozens of small needles lay on what I hoped was a sterile napkin, and Fred himself had a pair of latex gloves on.

  I licked my lips as I slipped my hoodie off, shivering as I forced my projection to move off the belly of my arm. I laid it facing up when Fred grabbed one of his needles, then gave him a nod when he looked at me. He nodded back, a smile growing on his face. He dipped the needle and got straight to work.

  The worst part of the process was...it really didn't hurt as much as I expected. Whatever his shitty politics, Fred was an expert. It was a series of repetitive stings, less painful than the insects Skitter sicced on me, definitely not as bad as everything else. The lack of pain didn't make it easier.

  I forced myself to watch the whole thing. I'd laid the stones for this shit years ago, and I knew then what I knew now: people would hate me for it. This meant I couldn't even try to hide it, to bury the past so no one would find out. About what I deserved for the shit I did. I blinked away stinging sweat, ignoring how it made my sight blur.

  I lost track of time under the slowest torture. Trapped in a chair, constantly stung by the needles, and hounded by my own whirling thoughts. Fred asked a dozen times if I needed a break, and variously through tears, cursing, or manic laughter I told him to keep going. Through it all, my projection stayed away from my skin, traitorously following my orders, bitch that she was. Fucker. Source of every woe and misery.

  Unfair? Maybe. I didn't choose to have it stuck in my brain, didn't choose to be stuck in this brain. Fuck my mom, the Nazi bitch, and fuck me for following in her footsteps; and falling back in my own. “Lia.” Fuck the Nine for scrapping any chance I had at getting better, fuck me for going along with it. “Lia.” And most of all, fuck whatever god had decided I wasn't fucking allowed to just stop. “Amelia!”

  “What the fuck do you want?!” I screamed, jolting upright in the leather chair, panting heavily. In front of me, with Fred cowering behind him, was a face familiar to me; a face I'd seen on both sides of a mask, I realized. “Oh. Victor.” He frowned.

  “Should I call you 'Amaranth' then?” he asked sharply. Fred's eyes widened.

  “You already did,” I snapped hoarsely, wincing at the pain from my throat. “Fuck you want?”

  “Well, seeing as you're in our territory, getting marked in our colours, I thought a visit was in order.” Victor's gaze traced up and down my arm, sending a shiver up my spine. I yanked on my hoodie, ignoring the sharp pain from the barely-scabbed tattoos. “I take it you've accepted our invitation, then?”

  “Invitation?”

  “Rickard mentioned extending one to 'the D'souza kid',” he explained. “I'd like to extend the same, you have a place with us Amelia.” I curled my lip and forced myself to breathe slowly, just so I didn't throw up or go for his throat.

  “Why?” The question came unbidden. “I'm no one special, my mom was no one special.” Except being a Nazi, but I wouldn't call that 'special' beyond the 'needs' sense.

  “You're wrong,” he countered, his tone steely. “Your mother was one of the best humans inside the Empire, she was brilliant. Engineered, targeted drug epidemics through neighbourhoods filled with waste, all with a few phone calls and some discount coupons. She even made sure MedHall profited” He shook his head as my eyes widened. “You're her daughter, even if you've made some stupid decisions, you're still one of us. I, for one, would be glad to have you around since Carol can't be.” I looked at the floor, my lower lip trembling.

  “She did all that?” The words spilled out like blood from a gaping wound.

  “The greatest crusader in the War on Drugs,” Victor said without a hint of irony, his hand extending into my field of view. “Come on, we'll protect you.” I looked up at him, guts roiling.

  “Promise?” He smiled and I took his hand.

  He screamed as I crushed it to pulp.

  I didn't stop, grasping his other wrist as it reached out for me. It snapped like kindling, and I drove an unshielded knee into his groin. He wasn't Alabaster. I let go and rolled out of the chair as he collapsed to his knees, huffing and sweating, cursing under his breath. He stared at me with eyes full of hate.

  “You little fucking whore!” Victor screamed. “I'll kill you!”

  “You'll die trying.” I snorted and spat on him. “Steal whatever skills you want, you can't stop me from crushing your throat, and you can't hurt me.” Not in a way that mattered. “I guess you're right though, I do have a place here; because you fucks need to be taken apart, root and branch. My mom was your greatest crusader? I'll be your worst fucking nightmare.” I lashed out with a foot, striking his cheek as he tried to move away. I snapped my gaze to Fred, making him flinch. “Get the fuck out of my city.”

  “You can't stop us you stupid cunt,” Victor wheezed as Fred fled. “We'll rise because we're better.” I sighed.

  “How many people did my mom kill?” I demanded, the roaring inferno of hate in my chest turning in. “How many lives did she destroy? If this is what 'better' is, then we're better off worse.” I began walking towards the door.

  “You won't get away with this!”

  “I will,” I retorted, turning on my heel. He'd managed to rise to his feet, leaning against the chair and cradling his broken limbs. “The only reason you're getting away today is Carol taught me that blood doesn't wash out blood. But if you come after me, I'm going to fucking try.”

  I stormed out, slamming the battered door out of the way hard enough to break one of its weary hinges. I kept my head down and my hand on the knife hidden in my pocket. My breath came in ragged gasps, and my vision kept blurring. I was crying, I didn't know why. I was fucking furious, I wanted to go back and gut Victor while he screamed. My teeth creaked as I clenched my jaw. If I passed the tests, if I was taken on the Nine, I could wipe their stain out of this city. Like I'd told Victor, blood didn't wash out blood, but enough might cover the damage.

  A choked sob escaped my throat, and I stifled it with my sleeve. I breathed slowly into the fabric of my hoodie, biting my lip until the scabs broke and bled freely. I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself, for mourning over the fact that, deep down, I was Nine material. It didn't matter. It didn't matter because however much of a monster I was, however much worse my mother had been, I could stop someone from becoming the same. It took too long, but I managed to calm down. I still felt sick, still wanted to talk to Piggot about carpet bombing this neighbourhood, but right now there were more important issues.

  I kept going, it was the only thing I could do.