Get a real job

[Scotch]

Kaden had been in New York for more than a month now and hadn't taken up a particularly interesting job. Small jobs on the side, yes, but his main focus had been buying some properties and turning them into safe houses of a sort. The only big project he'd undertaken was building an underground home where he would sleep and store all of his equipment. Also, a soundproof torture room. But he wasn't there right now. That project had been completed a week ago and his trigger finger had been itching.

Calling around a few of the people he already knew, he got wind of a job that no-one seemed to want to touch and hadn't been activated in some time. Who could say that Kaden didn't love a challenge. He met with the person who held the contract and within a day had all the relevant information he needed. The strangest part was that his information came from several different people. Including a police agency. So people really wanted this girl dead then. Luckily for them, that was his job. Really his only job.

While none of them had a scent marker for him to start with, the picture he was provided with was more than enough though. It had only taken him a day to find her. Longer still to successfully track her back to an establishment. The first place was under surveillance. So was the second. And the third. He'd also checked all of these places out top to bottom, but found nothing that could tie him to anything. She was almost as good at hiding as he was.

Not better though. Still, despite this, she'd already managed to avoid four poisonings, three shootings and a gas explosion. It was starting to get personal. No-one had avoided him when he put this much effort into it, and he had well over three thousand kills under his belt by now. Hating every minute of it, Kaden employed sleepers and stationed them at frequent hangouts that she had attended in the last six months.

After getting especially annoyed one day, and because the two remaining houses under surveillance were practically useless, he blew those up too. It wasn't entirely based on hatred though, his plan was that hopefully, this would draw her to seek him out. He'd been used as bait before, this would be no different.

Still, if it didn't work to bring her into the open then Kaden would need to review his files. After hanging out at a cells house for the last 12 hours, he went to one of his houses on Staten Island where he kept all the files he'd collected, including his own observations. Some of the files were stuck to walls, or piled neatly on the floor. A large stack of paper sat to one side of him, which he had yet to go through, and a smaller pile in front of him that he was currently reading. A few of his smaller guns were laid out on cloth behind them and he was cleaning one as he read. One could never be to prepared.

[Crow]

Crow was not a happy spy. Over the last week, she'd been almost shot, blown up, and poisoned repeatedly. All of her houses had been destroyed—worse, all of her showers—and she'd caught a few people staking out some of her favorite coffee places. For the last few days she'd been resorting to scavenging for food, and she'd been too on-edge to sleep. She'd given up on procuring coffee entirely, which was honestly the wost part about this entire experience. Crow had all but disappeared from the city, spending her time as anything but human. This assassin knew far too much about her habits. He'd managed to make her very desperate, and very, very pissed off.

The worst part is that she knew next to nothing about this assassin. He was new to the area. Unfortunately, he was hardly a rookie. Almost all of her attempts to find information on him had come up blank; the most she had was his current employer, and a few past jobs. A few. Not nearly enough to explain his skills, or the price he was charging. The only thing that had managed to save her from the last shooting was the fact that she'd managed to pick up a few surface thoughts from him. He was a feral. Or...something. His thoughts had been different from anything else she'd encountered. Nothing like Tysk, thankfully; she was fairly certain that he wasn't another one of her bastard children.

There were, at least, still a few options left for dealing with him. She wasn't a fan of any of them. Disappearing entirely for a few weeks would be effective, but it would be damned inconvenient. She'd have to go somewhere remote, and probably stay feral for a while. She'd done it before, out of desperation. It was unpleasant. Another option would be to go for help. The X-Men would probably still take her in. Fury had to be freaking out by now; he'd bugged all of her houses. Both groups would be more than capable of taking down a single assassin, no matter how skilled he was. But asking for help would likely come with a price. Crow had a feeling that she knew what it would be, and it wasn't all that much more appealing than letting this assassin kill her.

Still, both options were...tempting. He was dangerous, and she didn't have enough information to come up with a solid plan. Both options were also the easy way out. Crow didn't want to run or hide, or get some well-meaning bastard to do her dirty work for her. She wanted to make this assassin suffer. Preferably watch him die, too, but that would be problematic considering he was a feral. She might hurt herself as much as him. So she'd just...make him suffer from a distance. Probably safer, anyway.

Last night, she'd managed to track down two of his sleepers, and paid him off. A few hours later, as she'd instructed, one of them tipped off the assassin that she was at his location. While he was out investigating, she'd set up a few explosive charges around his house, careful to avoid leaving a scent trail. She wasn't entirely sure how powerful the explosives were, but SHIELD's R&D team had been treating them very delicately. They'd probably do.

An hour ago, she'd watched his employer choke on his own blood. And now, she was laying prone on a rooftop a block away from his house, Dragonov targeted on the front door, and remote detonator laying beside her. She figured she'd lure him outside before killing him. If blowing up his house didn't kill him, then he'd get to watch it burn before she shot him in the face. It seemed like a solid plan. If she couldn't lure him outside...well, then the explosion would probably be enough. Crow checked her phone for the time. Her second sleeper was about to call.

[Scotch]

There was nothing new that Kaden was seeing as he went through the files again. There had never been an assignment that he'd gotten this frustrated on before. Usually the set time he had was enough to finish the job. Most of the time he'd been taking out humans. There was hardly a chance in hell that this target was human, but no-one had specified a power. Shapeshifting was the most likely though, and the most frequently listed in the files. It didn't help him though so it was filed under useless information. He was figuring that she had some kind of healing factor. That was the only way she could avoid his poisonings.

Kaden dropped the pistol barrel he was holding onto the table and flipped over the paper he'd just been reading. He needed to find out other places she had been hiding, other safe houses. Eventually he'd hit one that really pissed her off and drew her out. Maybe she'd show up at one of his houses. He, however, knew that he didn't hold the same possessive mentality that regular people did. If it came down to it, he'd blow them up himself if he had to.

Kaden took his phone out of his pocket and opened up his contact list. It was fairly small and he stopped between 7 and 63. He skipped over them and eyed his newfound parents names. They weren't named with their real names, hardly anyone was in his list. Except current contacts. They didn't deserve the secrecy. Kaden hardly talked to them anyway, and they were listed in a second phone. The only good contact was one that owed him a favor. In this phone though, the number Kaden stopped on was one of his cells. There were a few that he thought were getting flaky and he wanted to do something to ensure their loyalties until they'd served their use with him. This was the same one that had called him earlier to tell him that Crow was at his location and had lied to him. He'd be feeling those bruises for at least a few weeks.

He let the phone ring on speaker the three rings it took for his cell to pick up. After the initial hello, Kaden hung up. There was nothing to be said anyway. Keeping this cell on his toes would be beneficial and let him work up a decent sweat. Kaden put the phone back in his pocket and stood up, collecting the larger stack of papers and going over them as he walked into the hallway and started pacing. The fresh breeze from the open door was a nice change from the air in the dining room. Besides, this way he could smell everything from outside as it wafted in better.

[Crow]

From her location, Crow could just barely hear Scotch’s phone ring. With any luck, he’d soon be leaving his house. Then she could blow the place behind him. It rang several times before going silent. Hmm. Maybe the call had still gone through. She enhanced her hearing a little more, until the noise of traffic below was painful, but still heard nothing. Dammit. She waited, tense. Finally he appeared at the front door…and began pacing. Why wasn’t he leaving? Even if he suspected that the tip-off was fake, he should be going to investigate it. Well, that only put a slight dent in her plans. She could still blow the place up.

Still pacing. From her position she could catch a few glimpses of the papers he was holding; her eyesight was already enhanced enough to pick out words. Wait, was that her police file? Who the hell had he gotten that from? The information itself wasn’t an issue; there was nothing in the file that she kept secret. But if Jenkins was involved, that changed the matter slightly. Right, new plan. She needed those papers, and an explosion wouldn’t leave much behind. Shooting it was.

She slowed her heart rate and breathing, entering the focused calm necessary for shooting. The breeze had picked up, bringing his scent to her. She adjusted her aim accordingly. His pacing had become somewhat regular, and after thirty seconds with no apparent change, she decided to take her shot. Crow barely waited for the recoil before shifting into the shape of a pigeon and launching into the air. If she had missed, she’d need to get the hell out of here before he found her location. If she hit but he did have a healing factor, she’d need to get in and get those papers before he stood back up. If he was dead…well, there would still be some commotion over the noise. She needed to get out—and blow the place up—before anyone else decided to investigate.

[Scotch]

After going over a barely constructed... essay, from one person, Kaden flipped through until he found Crow's police file. There wasn't much there. No real definable photo, not because they were blurry of surveillance photos, but because there were apparently several different people, all called Crow, that had spoken to them. That information was also in there and Kaden bookmarked the photos between his little finger while he looked through those.

Not for the first time, Kaden was starting to think about mapping her location with thumbtacks and a map of New York. He'd done it before, but that was at Rostock. He'd usually been alone on his assignments and had never bothered with doing something that took time away from scoping and tracking. If he ever had need of that technique though, now would be it. Continuing through the police information regarding Crow was interesting. Had Kaden not been on the other side of the law, he might even been one. Their writing was neat enough, and their details were on par with someone of his profession. This Todd guy though, maybe Kaden would ring him up later if he couldn't find Crow again.

Stopping in the doorway, Kaden looked up from his work and noticed the neighbor across the street looking at him. He stared back. There had been a few people that had tried to welcome him to the street, but he'd managed to avoid them all. Either by actively ignoring them or just not being around when they'd come over. He assumed it had been one of them that had planted explosives in the house. If they wanted to blow up the house, he wasn't going to stop them and if he took the charges out, they'd probably just put new ones in. Waste of time.

The noise was what he, and the neighbor, heard first. The neighbor just had the good sense to look in that direction. Kaden, however, had the given grace of mutant abilities and put his hand up to slow or stop the bullet. Instead of stopping it, the bullet went straight though his palm and exited the other side, with a slightly different angle now. The bullet ended up lodged in his neck and he only just managed to keep a grip of the papers as he collapsed to the ground.

Dropping the papers underneath him, Kaden put a hand up to his throat, pretty thankful that it hadn't paralyzed him or hit the vein. If someone was taking aim at him, he didn't want to be crippled if they came to his house. Of course, the only person he knew that he'd pissed off so far was Crow, so he definitely didn't want to be crippled if she came up to his house. Kaden stuck his fingers into the hole and grabbed a hold of the bullet. He didn't really need to do that, but his neighbor was watching, horrified, and Kaden didn't want to have to call him an ambulance if he passed out. As he pulled the bullet out, Kaden coughed up some blood. Shit, that meant that the bullet had nicked his throat. Taking a deep breath, Kaden knew that he could hold his breath for around seven minutes. It would be best to be armed if that happened. Armed for a distance.

Pushing himself to his feet, he went up to the hall desk and opened the middle draw. It was only a Heckler HK45, but he would empty all ten rounds into the head of whoever tried to step foot on his property right now. Kaden checked the magazing, full capacity (as usual) and covered the bullet hole in his neck as a fresh gush of blood poured out. Yeah, he was going to shoot someone, and then torture them. Slowly. If it was Crow, there'd be no loss in just shooting her outright.

[Crow]

Crow kept her flight low, skimming over rooftops as she approached the assassin’s house. There was a dead ringing in her ears from the shot; she’d forgotten to de-sensitize her hearing before pulling the trigger. Hopefully she’d regain the sense soon. If Scotch was capable of fighting, she’d need it. He had dropped, but he was still moving. Not much, granted, but he’d probably be desperate right now. Making herself an easy target would be suicidal. She kept the doorway in view, but didn’t slow down. He wasn’t armed as far as she knew—and she’d be impressed if he had a concealed weapon on him right now—but she didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, if he hadn’t figured out she was a shapeshifter, now wasn’t the best time to let him know.

She could see him doing something with his neck as she got closer, and as he removed his hand, realized he was holding a bullet. Damn, dude was intense. It was also pretty unlikely that he’d do that if he thought he wouldn’t live. Another point of evidence that he could heal. Hopefully he’d at least pass out from blood loss for a little while; then she could get in and grab the files. If not…well, she’d just blow the house. It wouldn’t be quite as informative, but at least it would get her message across. She could find out who gave him the information later. There weren’t many people that had much on her.

Crossing the street, Crow shot up suddenly, dropping out of view of the front door. Hopefully he hadn’t noticed her yet; adrenaline would keep him awake longer. He was in range of her telepathy now, and she caught a spasm of pain from him. Okay. Avoid injuring ferals then getting close to them. It wasn’t quite as bad as she would have expected, though. Either he wasn’t very bothered by getting shot, or he wasn’t very feral. At least she’d be able to tell when—or if—he passed out. She was also pretty sure that he was waiting for her, which wasn’t entirely a good sign. He could be armed. Hell, he could have damn well expected she’d try this. But…that was okay. She could be patient.

Well, to a point. Crow figured she had at least five minutes until the cops showed up; up to twenty, if she was lucky. If he hadn’t died by the time she heard sirens, she’d go back to her detonator. It was a solid backup plan. She landed neatly on the roof of his house, flicked her tail, and waited. At the very least, he’d probably have to walk outside to shoot her.

[Scotch]

Despite holding his breath and lowering his heartbeat and keeping a hand over the hole in his neck, blood still managed to swim through and around his hand and it was flowing fairly steadily. Scotch didn't want to take a breath just yet because that would just make the bleeding faster and he still had about six minutes of air left. A flutter of wings swept over his house and initially, Scotch just thought it was a slow bird that was taking off. He wasn't going to let even a bird land on his property. Walking out into the front yard, he looked up at the roof and took aim before letting off a single shot. He wasn't aiming to hit it, just get it away from his house. If it was Crow, then he wanted to torture her personally, not just let a bullet do it for him.

Scotch didn't have enough time to see what happened with the bird as he took another breath. This only pushed pain through his neck, and a fresh wave of blood that slipped his hand from his neck. There was far too much blood and he knew he'd have to get something on it. Since he didn't have a shirt on, he couldn't take it off and tie it around his throat. Scotch headed back inside, picking up a handful of the papers on his way in and throwing them against the hall mirror as he strode into the living room looking for the shirt he'd taken off earlier. He could go upstairs and find one, but he wanted to close to whatever action was about to take place.

The shirt was folded up neatly on the couch. Scotch dropped the gun on the couch and tied the shirt around his throat. It would hold most of the bleeding, but his vision was already going white around the edges and if Crow didn't try to fight him in the next few minutes, his house was going to be open to her for the next ten or so minutes while he healed.

Scotch bent over to pick up the gun again and had to brace himself with the other hand as white washed over his vision and his stomach tugged into his throat. He started to dry retch but held on pretty well. There wasn't anything in his stomach anyway, so if he was going to vomit, he'd probably just get a curl out of it and get up and go. Oh yeah, he was definitely going to rip Crow several new holes in extremely uncomfortable places.

[Crow]

He was still walking? And shooting? Damn, that’s what she got for missing his head. As Scotch raised the pistol, Crow let herself flop over the peak in the roof, using it as cover. She heard a shot fired, and was honestly more pleased that she was regaining her hearing than worried it might hit her. Flapping her wings and twisting, Crow righted herself and scrambled for a hold on the shingles. Once she’d stopped, she began to creep back up to the peak of the roof. Crow poked her head over and found that the assassin had disappeared back inside. He had to be about to pass out, if the sympathetic pain she was picking up from him was any indication. There was a lot of blood on the grass, too. That was a good sign.

From her position on the roof, Crow could see one of the assassin’s neighbors on the phone, staring their way. Dammit. She was running out of time, and he wasn’t down yet. She’d have to take a chance and head in now. Not through the front door, though. Crow was pretty sure he was still close to it, and he’d probably still be armed. Even if his aim was way off, she didn’t want to take any chances. Getting shot would be a hell of a lot more detrimental to her than it seemed to be to him.

Taking off again, Crow circled the house, looking for an easy way in. There, air vents into the attic. Perfect. She shifted into a house fly and dove down, shooting through the vents. The attic was little more than an unfinished crawlspace, but it still gave her more than enough room to turn human once again and push open the door to the second floor. She was in. It would have made some noise, but hopefully running up the stairs would be enough to knock Scotch out. If not, things were about to get exciting. Crow paused, hit by a wave of nausea from the assassin. Ugh. Feeling him die was not going to be pleasant.

[Scotch]

Scotch finally had to brace himself against the couch using both hands as several waves of white washed out his vision. His stomach continued tightening, but he didn't dry retch again. There was no time to throw up anyway. When his vision settled, he scooped up the gun and swung around, half expecting to see one of the Crow faces standing in the doorway. Or at least one of his neighbors. No-one though. Well, good. He'd really not like to waste a bullet on innocent people. Innocent being ones he hadn't been paid to kill.

A noise upstairs confused him. Considering it came from the attic, more so. No-one could get inside from the attic unless... Unless they were Crow. That devious little bitch. Scotch walked out of the living room, through the hallway, and stood at the base of the stairs. Everything in him wanted to climb the stairs and empty the clip in her in as many places as possible, but he doubted that he would make it up there. If he was right, he had about three minutes before he died. Another ten-fifteen before he'd wake up again.

Passing out before she appeared over the stairs would be an issue though. He could always remind her that she's missed his head, but if he didn't get off at least one shot directly at her, she'd still have beaten him. Scotch stepped back and held himself against the wall. At best, this would give him fifteen extra seconds to not die. Now she just had to step into view.

[Crow]

Crow crept out of the attic slowly, keeping a mental tab on the assassin below. Her hearing was starting to return now, but it wasn't nearly enough to accurately track his movements. Gritting her teeth at the psychic backlash, she focused in on his thoughts. He definitely knew she was there, and he was moving around. There was no sound of footsteps on the stairs, though, which meant he'd also probably realized that stairs might just kill him. She figured staying upstairs was safe, unless he decided to try shooting through the floor. That wasn't the best of thoughts, but she couldn't afford to waste any more time waiting for him to die. Crow really hoped he wasn't healing from the shot. That would make the next few minutes really unpleasant.

There was a heavy male scent in the house that she could only assume was Scotch's. It was now mixed with blood and a touch of gunpowder. He was definitely close, but she wasn't entirely sure where. Still downstairs, at least. Crow ghosted down the hallway, keeping alert for any sign of the assassin. Nothing. He was definitely still alive, though, and she could feel his presence getting a little stronger. Not a good sign. Either he was healing, or getting closer. Both possibilities were pretty awful. Creeping up to the stairs, Crow paused. She couldn't see the base of them, and she damn well wasn't going to poke her head around the corner and check. She was, once again, stuck waiting. Why couldn't he hurry up and die, already?

[Scotch]

Closing his eyes would probably be for the best, if he could fire off a shot through the walls at her, he needed to be very aware of where exactly she was standing. Shutting off one sense just helped amplify the others. She wasn't opening doors to the rooms, so she definitely knew where she was trying to go. Which meant that she knew where he was, or close enough. He, however, knew exactly where she was. His healing capabilities for severe wounds may be shit, but his hearing worked fine after the initial gun shot. Probably because he was used to it by now.

Scotch was a little surprised to find him wondering how he neutralize Crow's scent after she'd been either killed or scared out of the house. He could just set the house on fire and buy a new one, or sell it. Selling it would probably be required now that Crow had been inside though. She was getting a sense of the place and he didn't particularly like that. It didn't matter right now though, Crow was getting closer to the stairs and when she stopped behind the wall, Kaden's brows furrowed slightly. He couldn't be sure he would hit her through the wall, but he'd try anyway. Guessing which height she would be, he aimed roughly for her stomach, hopefully a non-fatal wound, but enough to drop her for as long as he was down.

[Crow]

Crow crept up towards the stairwell, making as little noise as possible. He was close; she could feel it. If she walked downstairs, right now, she would get her ass killed. Crow had absolutely no doubts that, unlike him, a bullet to the neck would stop her pretty much instantly. It would be best if she didn't try that theory out. She was partially expecting him to try shooting through the floor; she wasn't expecting him to go through the walls on the stairs. More importantly, she wasn't expecting him to hit. Crow hissed as at the searing line of pain on her side, taking a few steps back. He'd shot her. Through a wall. Several minutes after she'd put a bullet through his neck. This was really starting to get old. Crow continued to retreat as she examined the wound tenderly. It look like it had just grazed her, thankfully. Skin and muscle. She could deal with losing some of those. Organs would have made things more exciting than she cared for. Blood would become an issue eventually, but if someone was going to bleed out here, she was pretty sure it wouldn't be her.

Pressing a hand to her side to slow the bleeding, Crow took another step forward towards the stairwell. This was problematic. There was a barely-conscious assassin waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, and Crow really didn't want to get into a fair fight with him if she could help it. She didn't have any weapons on her, other than what she could create. Bringing a bear to a gunfight would be...plan B. She was, at least, pretty certain that he had enhanced hearing now. Unless she'd been way off about how much noise she was making, there was no way a normal human would have been able to notice her, much less target accurately. That was...something. Bad news, certainly, but better than still being in the dark about his powers. Ugh, she was bleeding all over his floor now. This place was definitely getting blown up once she was out.

[Scotch]

He had hit. He was positive he heard at least skin being torn open, and the smell of blood that wasn't his own made him feel a little better about dying. That thought only made him realize just how close he was now. His gun lowered as his hand got heavy and Scotch sank against the wall until his knees were tucked tightly into his chest. The gun rested, still in his hand, against the floor, but he kept his eyes squarely on the stairs as he tilted his head back. This caused the blood to gush harder out of the wound. May as well get this death over with then. Pulling together a push of strength, Scotch made a small, crude stabbing implement and shoved it into neck, severing the main artery. All it took was a few short bursts of blood and Scotch was dead... for the next 8-13 minutes anyway.

[Crow]

Finally. He was down. Crow winced at the psychic feedback,but it quickly receded to leave her with a dull headache. After she got out of here, she was going to go find a cafe with one of his sleepers, sit down, and have a nice cup of coffee. Hmm, was he using a cell phone or landline? The sleeper she'd bribed earlier hadn't mentioned anything. It was probably the former; it didn't look like he used this house much. She had a feeling that answering his phone there, in front of the sleeper, would be incredibly satisfying. Nothing like putting the fear of maiming in some poor bastard. Granted making Scotch suffer himself would have been far better, but the fact that he was a feral complicated that a bit.

First things first, though. She had some items to collect. Crow crept over towards the stairs, still cautious even though she was damn sure that her target was down. Walking into a trap now would just be humiliating. Thankfully, it looked like the coast was clear. She could see a crumpled form at the base of the stairs, shirtless and bloodstained. That was him. Crow crept closer. He still wasn't moving, but she didn't exactly like the idea of getting close to him. Just in case. Still, if he had a cell phone, it was probably on his person.

The fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt made searching him significantly easier. She knelt down to him, hissing quietly at the sudden surge of pain from her side. Right, getting that bandaged should go into her plans at some point, too. That part might get problematic. She'd deal with it after getting out of here. After flipping the body over, she found what she was looking for in one of his back pockets. Excellent. The sirens that she could hear in the distance were significantly less excellent. Crow wiped the blood off her hands and the phone on Scotch's pants, and tucked it into her own jeans.

Papers next. She'd seen him drop them when he fell at the front door. Crow oriented herself, found the entrance just down the hallway, papers scattered across it. Great, they were covered in blood too. Reading them would get exciting. Nonetheless, Crow collected all of them, shuffled them into something resembling a neat stack, and hugged them close to her torso. On the non-bleeding side, of course.

And now that she was at the front door, Crow simply walked outside. Carrying the papers by themselves would have bee a bitch if she shifted, and being injured would only make the matters worse. She'd leave evidence. Her face might get seen by some witness or camera. There would be a blood trail. She'd deal with it later. On the bright side, the guy who blew up her damn houses was dead.

[Scotch]

Crow was gone before the paramedics arrived. At the sight of so much blood, they were already guessing a death, and when they got inside, they weren't disappointed. Of course, there was also the trail coming down the stairs, but they wouldn't know that that wasn't his. The speed at which they worked dropped slightly as there was nothing they could do for him. He was loaded onto the dolly and a sheet placed over his body before he was put into the back of the ambulance. This, of course, wasn't going to be an issue for long.

It would only have taken twenty minutes to get to the hospital, but ten minutes after he'd died, about 4 minutes into the trip, Scotch's heart was beating again and the wound in his neck was completely healed. As soon as some blood started to flow into Scotch's lungs, he took a deep breath and pushed himself into a seated position... while the paramedics trying to push him back down. Scotch, having none of that, snapped the neck of the paramedic and threw him into the other who was attempting to do something that Scotch knew he wouldn't like.

Before the van had even come to a stop, Scotch had pushed through the doors and jumped onto the road. The shirt had been taken from around his throat, either at the house or still in the ambulance, and he was still wearing pants, except... no, his phone was gone. Scotch took off in the direction of the house, running through backyards to cut time.

The stench of blood was, of course, heavy. Scotch could smell it from several houses away. Skirting through the back yard, Scotch went into the house from the backdoor and found where he'd died. It wasn't there either. Of course, Scotch kept all the numbers of contacts in his head, but if Crow had gotten them... then she could ring them. Scotch reached out to another blood trail, not his, and wiped his fingers through it. This was Crow's. He licked his fingers and then wiped them against his pants.

Speaking of, he would need new ones. Scotch took the stairs two at a time and headed into the bedroom. Only three spare sets of clothes were here, but all almost identical. A grey t-shirt and a pair of black cargo's were what he pulled out. He was changed in about thirty seconds and then followed the scent of Crow's blood to the front door which had been shut by the paramedics. The papers were missing. Not a huge loss to him, they were duplicates, if he wanted them again, he knew who to get them from. What bothered him the most was that that sneaky bitch had his phone.

With much restraint, Scotch picked up the land line on the desk in the living room and dialled his number. How nicely could he tell someone he was going to kill them and then ask that they not dial any of his contacts.