The signs say what I expected them to say.

  PROTECT OUR CHILDREN. POWERS = DANGER. NO FREAKS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD. One guy in the back has a sign that just says REMEMBER SHRIKE with a photo of the man I killed underneath it. What? Remember - What? You have to be fucking joking. Remember the dead Nazi? Sure, man.

  "Bloodhound!" The megaphone guy's voice crackles across the parking lot. He's got the look - mid-thirties, beard, the kind of face that probably looked friendly before he decided to make hating people his whole personality. "Bloodhound, we just want to talk! We're concerned citizens with questions about this facility!"

  I stop about fifteen feet away. Close enough to hear without the megaphone, far enough that I'm not in grabbing range. "Then talk. Megaphone down, first. You don't want the legal spice that's gonna come with blowing out my super-hearing."

  His hand wobbles at the megaphone. I take exactly half a step closer. "I'm serious. It's legally considered a disability. We can talk like gentlemen without the hate crimes, okay?"

  His face distorts into something uglier and... happier? He lowers the megaphone, and instead starts shouting. "The people of this neighborhood have a right to know what's happening here." He's projecting for the cameras now - his people's cameras, phones out and recording. "A facility for dangerous powered individuals, right in the heart of our community? Without any consultation? Without any safety measures?"

  "It's a community center. With counseling and job training."

  "It's a recruitment hub for child soldiers," he shoots back. "We all heard the speech. 'We used to put them in costumes and send them into danger.' His words, not mine. And now we're supposed to trust that the same people are going to do better?"

  Behind me, I hear Maggie's footsteps approaching. I put a hand out without turning around. She stops.

  "This is a public event," I say, keeping my voice flat. "You're welcome to protest. But you're scaring families who came here for a ribbon cutting."

  "Are we?" Megaphone guy grins. It's an ugly expression, the kind that knows exactly what it's doing. "Or are those families scared because they know what their kids are? What they can do?"

  One of the other Songbirds - a woman with a camera - swings her lens toward the dispersing crowd. Toward the families still milling around. Toward a cluster of teenagers near the refreshments table who are very carefully not looking in our direction.

  "Lot of young faces here," she calls out. "Lot of potential threats to public safety. Maybe we should be documenting this. For the community's protection."

  My teeth itch. That's not a metaphor - I can feel them in my gums, and I almost want to pull my helmet's mouthpart down so they can see the rows. Well, first I need to grow rows. Instead, I breathe through it.

  "You're not protecting anyone," I say. "You're intimidating children."

  "Children?" Megaphone guy takes a step closer. "Like Deathgirl was a child? The one you let walk away from that courthouse? How many people died because you didn't put her down when you had the chance?"

  My eye twitches.

  "And then there's Shrike." He gestures at the sign in the back, the one with the photo. "A man you beat to death with your bare hands. Judge, jury, executioner. That's what you are, Bloodhound. That's what all of you are. Dangerous freaks who think the rules don't apply to you."

  I can't help but want to growl. "Shrike came to kill me specifically, and I gave him multiple opportunities to stop and walk away. Then, he killed himself because he refused to stop. Don't pin that on me."

  "So you say. Funny how there's no trial, no jury, no evidence anyone can examine. Just your word that you had to kill him." He spreads his arms wide, playing to his audience. "This is what we're inviting into our neighborhood, folks. Killers. Murderers. People who decide who lives and dies based on their own judgment."

  I don't respond. There's nothing to respond to. He's not making an argument - he's throwing gasoline and waiting for a spark.

  The woman with the camera has drifted closer to the crowd. I track her movement in my peripheral vision. She's not filming me anymore - she's filming the families, the kids, anyone who looks nervous. Building a database. Taking names.

  "Sam." Maggie's voice, quiet, from behind me. "Let me--"

  "No." I don't turn around. "Help Blink get people inside. Keep them away from the cameras."

  "But--"

  "Flash. Please."

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  A pause. Then her footsteps retreat.

  The megaphone guy is still talking - something about registration laws and public safety and the rights of normal citizens - but I've stopped listening to the words. I'm watching his people. Watching how they move through the parking lot, phones out, filming everything. The building. The street signs. The license plates of parked cars.

  They're mapping us.

  "--and what about accountability?" Megaphone is saying when I tune back in. "Who holds you accountable when you murder someone? When you destroy property? When you terrorize--"

  "You done?"

  He stops. Blinks.

  "Because I've heard this speech before." I take a step toward him, just one, and watch three of his people tense up. Good. "Different guy, different megaphone, same bullshit. You're not here to talk. You're not here to protect anyone. You're here to provoke. You want me to throw a punch so you can run to the news and say 'look how dangerous she is.'"

  "I want--"

  "I don't care what you want." Another step. The cameras are all on me now, which means they're not on the families heading inside. "You want to stand out here and yell? Fine. It's a free country. But we both know what you really are. We both know what that--" I point at the REMEMBER SHRIKE sign "--really means."

  Megaphone guy's smile flickers. Just for a second.

  "Shrike was a monster," I say, loud enough for the cameras to pick up. "He was a Nazi who killed people for fun. And he died like a bitch because he started smoke that he wasn't able to finish. I don't think you should want to follow his footsteps. Unless you're cool with Nazis?"

  "That's a threat--"

  "I'm not threatening you. I'm telling you some Z-list serial killer tried to fuck with me and couldn't finish the job even with Hypeman. And if you want us good guys out of the picture you're gonna have to bring a lot more smoke than he did."

  Something shifts in the parking lot. I feel it before I see it - the Songbirds near the back straightening up, looking past me at something. Someone.

  I turn my head just enough to catch movement in my peripheral vision. A figure approaching from the east side of the building. Red helmet. Brown coat. Familiar silhouette.

  Derek.

  He doesn't say anything. Doesn't need to. He's just there, nearly silent, cornering them between two capes. Two Bloodhounds. Two sets of teeth. And one of them is a grown man who doesn't have my hang-ups about throwing the first punch.

  "Oh, this is interesting." A new voice - one of the journalists from the ceremony, a woman with a press badge and a recorder. She's approaching from the other direction, eyes bright with the particular hunger reporters get when they smell a story. "Bloodhound and Bloodhound. The original and the successor. Can I get a comment on--"

  "Not now," I say.

  "Is this a formal partnership? A handoff? Are you coming out of retirement?"

  "I said not now."

  More journalists are noticing. I can see them peeling away from the packing-up news crews, drawn by the commotion. Phones coming out. Questions starting to form.

  Megaphone guy reads the room. His smile is gone now, replaced by something more calculating. This isn't the situation he wanted - one isolated target he could needle until she snapped. This is two targets, growing press attention, and a narrative that might not break his way.

  "Sure. Challenge accepted," he mumbles, lowering the megaphone. "This isn't over. The people of this neighborhood deserve to know what's happening in their community."

  "Looking forward to it, dipshit. Better bring more than a microphone next time," Derek says. First words he's spoken. His voice is flat, unimpressed.

  The Songbirds start retreating toward their vehicles - a couple of vans parked on the street, blue and nondescript. They don't run, don't hurry. They're making a point: we're leaving because we choose to, not because you made us.

  The woman with the camera takes one last slow pan across the parking lot before lowering her phone. She catches my eye. Smiles. Mouths something I don't catch, but the shape of it looks like "see you soon."

  Then they're gone, piling into their vans, pulling away from the curb. The whole confrontation lasted maybe ten minutes. It felt longer.

  "You good?" Derek asks, not looking at me.

  "Yeah. Thanks for the backup."

  "Wasn't backup. Just happened to be in the area."

  "Right. Coincidentally. On the rooftop across the street."

  He shrugs. The journalists are getting closer, questions overlapping - "Can you confirm--" "What's your relationship--" "Is this a new team-up--"

  "I should go," Derek says.

  "Yeah. Probably."

  He turns and walks away, ignoring the reporters calling after him. He's good at that - the disappearing thing. Comes with the territory when you spend half your life as a wolf.

  I'm left standing in the parking lot with a handful of confused journalists and the lingering smell of exhaust from the Songbirds' vans. Behind me, I can hear Jamal's voice, doing damage control, assuring people that everything is fine, the event was a success, just a minor disruption.

  Maggie appears at my elbow. "That was intense."

  "That was a warning shot."

  "You think they'll come back?"

  I look at the community center - our Music Hall, transformed into something public and official and exposed. I think about the woman with the camera, the license plates she photographed, the faces she recorded. I think about Zara and Liam and Alex and Jasmine, somewhere in that crowd, trying to be invisible.

  "Yeah," I say. "They'll come back. And next time they'll have more than signs."

  Maggie doesn't say anything. Neither do I.

  A journalist comes up to me and doesn't put a microphone in my face. This one has a clipboard. "Anthony Robinson, Philadelphia Inquirer. It's a pleasure to meet you in the flesh, Bloodhound. Retirement aside."

  "The pleasure's all mine," I say, which is the sort of thing you're supposed to say in this situation. I squat down on my heels, resting my elbows on my knees, feeling a level of exertion that I definitely don't deserve. "If you have a question about the Community Center--"

  "Something else, actually. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the breaking news of shapeshifter 'Elena Morales' confessing to impersonating Maya Richardson?" he asks. His face is bruised up a little. Bandage over his nose, bright white against his dark skin. But he's smiling in a way that's trying so hard to be polite.

  Anthony Robinson... Anthony Robinson... Who is that? I'm sure if my helmet was off he would see me screwing my face up in thought, but without that it looks like a brooding silence. He's got a recorder on his clipboard, and I can see that it's on, but I'm glad, at least, he's not shoving it in my face. "I think..." I start, and his face goes neutral again. "Maya needs to get a better grip on her district."

  He breaks out into a toothy grin. "Anything else?" He asks, writing down, presumably, what I just said.

  "No," I look over my shoulder towards the departing Songbirds. "No, that's it."