Chapter Text
The Counting-House of Human Bones
Chapter 1 – Let Me Clip Your Dirty Wings
One moment Ashley Barrett was trudging down the sidewalk toward the subway station on West 34th Street where she could catch the train back to her brownstone after a hard day in the hell of Vought, the high heels of her Louboutins clicking on concrete, her briefcase swinging from one hand, as she tried to let go of the residual tension in her muscles from dealing with Homelander for hours, and the next she was fighting for her life. She’d never felt so grateful for the PTSD from the Congressional hearing massacre and the hypervigilance that was one of its symptoms as in the moment when the black van slammed to a stop next to her, all exhaust and screeching brakes as the sliding door opened. Even as the darkness inside the van appeared, Ashley had turned and started running back the way she’d come. Always run in the direction where they’ll have to turn their vehicle around to chase you, a self-defense instructor from her college days at Vanderbilt lectured in her mind.
Technically, it should have been easy to escape from her potential…kidnappers? Rapists? Murderers? Vought Tower was fewer than six blocks away, and the street was filled with witnesses. But why was she having to straight-arm her way through the hustling pedestrians, knocking them out of her way as she ran? Granted, a good half of them were doing the usual zombified stare at their phones as they walked, but the other half had their heads up and were looking straight ahead, straight at her, but made no move to avoid a collision. Sheer desire to avoid a possible ER visit should inspire them to make a hole, create space for her to pass; yet, somehow, it didn’t. They went about their business as though everything was normal, no chase occurring in front of them, no body-to-body impact knocking them off-stride. It rang some warning bell in the back of her mind, but the rush of adrenalin through her limbs and the clawing need for survival gave her no time to ponder it. She had to escape.
The bulk of Vought Tower had just appeared in front of her, festooned with the scaffolds holding workers repairing the shattered façade from Soldier Boy’s attack, when Ashley felt someone grab hold of her forearm and drag her to a stop, the ligaments in her shoulder protesting as she tried to get away. A quick look backward showed her a figure several inches taller than she was—she assumed this was a man—dressed all in black, a balaclava covering his face, along with two other people dressed identically, moving up to support the one who held her forearm. She had to do something, now, before his backup arrived, so she wrenched her arm upward against the place where his thumb and middle finger overlapped, the weakest part of his grip, and then she was free.
The shock of success froze her for an instant, but as the man nearest her began to recover, she started running again, against the current of blank-eyed oblivious passersby, shouldering through, elbowing when someone was especially stupid. Rage tried to rise in her throat but the fear overpowered everything else, sending speed coursing through her limbs. One of the men cursed, and another glance behind her showed the man she’d gotten away from gaining on her, almost close enough to grab her again. She knew he would recapture her in seconds and fought down the rising panic, her pulse in her throat, her breath coming out in gasps.
A bike messenger flew down the sidewalk at her, the bovine infuriating crowd parting without difficulty for him. Her plan formed in an instant and she sidestepped the bike messenger, grabbed the handlebars, and wrenched the front wheel to the left, between her and her pursuer. Ashley jumped backward as the black-clad man crashed into the bike and its rider, sending them both to the sidewalk in a sprawl of arms and legs and metal. The two other kidnappers hesitated for an instant, then sped up, the one in the lead cursing again and confirming that he was a man. Don’t waste your lead, she thought, and started running again.
Her sense of time stretched out, and she felt she might as well have been on a treadmill for all the progress she was making through the glassy-eyed crowd toward Vought Tower and safety. Her Louboutins did nothing but slow her down, so she kicked them off and ran barefoot despite the crawling sensation it engendered. There could be broken glass, used needles, dogshit—she could get hookworm. Stop fucking worrying about hookworm! All you need to give a shit about is getting away from these criminal freaks!
How far was she from the Tower now, two blocks, three? When she looked behind her, the man who’d fallen over the bike was back on his feet, but his buddies were closer to her, much too close, and she hurled her briefcase at the one in the lead without breaking stride. He batted it away easily, and another flare of terror lit her up as she returned her gaze to the pedestrians in front of her and, past them, the Tower. Maybe she could scream for Homelander? Stan Edgar hadn’t revealed the limits of his super-hearing, but Ashley couldn’t believe that he couldn’t hear something happening a couple of city blocks away. Who are you kidding? Homelander wouldn’t lift a finger for you. He despises you. So she kept the useless cry inside herself; after all, only beautiful girls get rescued. Plain girls manage on their own.
Seconds later Ashley felt someone smashing into her at hip level and knew she had failed to save herself as the impact knocked her forward, the sidewalk rushing up at her, the fiery blast of pain as her head struck the concrete, and she didn’t think anything else.
Homelander looked around the Seven conference room, not even bothering to conceal his irritation. Morning light shone through the big windows, illuminating the Deep and A-Train sitting in their seats at the table, and the other four empty chairs mocking him. Black Noir and Maeve dead, that fucking traitorous bitch Starlight defected, and the slot that had never been filled since Stormfront destroyed herself. Supersonic wasn’t worth remembering. Also Ashley dithered with her tablet, the scent of her nervousness—it hadn’t progressed to the point of fear yet—heavy in the air. “I don’t know where she is, sir. I’ve texted her several times and she hasn’t answered.”
“Have you tried calling her?” asked the Deep. “Maybe she just forgot she was working today.”
“Doubt that,” said A-Train. “She lives for her work. She’d be nothing without it.”
Without me, Homelander thought. She’d be nothing if I hadn’t called her after Madelyn…died, offered her the promotion to SVP of Hero Management, and then when I got rid of Stan Edgar I made sure she got CEO, someone who would never challenge me in any way. And she never has. That was why this lateness bothered him, in addition to the inconvenience of Also Ashley conducting the meeting about the new season of American Hero. He huffed out a breath. “Forget it. She’s probably in a traffic jam or her train’s been delayed. Start the meeting.” He’d make sure to give her a good scolding the next time he saw her. He’d never frightened her so much that she pissed herself, but there was a first time for everything. The idea brightened his mood a bit.
“Yes, sir,” said Also Ashley. She connected her tablet to the conference room’s screens and tapped the mouse. “The current front-runners for the Seven slots are Fantasy Girl, Diamondback, Controller, Bombshell, Dreamwalker, Vanish Mode, High Frequency, Reaper, and Heatwave.”
“And they are?” asked Homelander.
Also Ashley gave them a questioning look. “Have any of you been keeping up with this season of American Hero?” All three of them shook their heads. Tek Knight and Webweaver, along with a recruiter for Godolkin University named Sherry Brant who'd been included only because the judging panel needed a woman, had been assigned to judge the competition. “Okay. As far as their powers go, Fantasy Girl has super-strength, comparable with Queen Maeve’s, and she can morph her appearance like Doppelganger. Diamondback is a martial artist who can spit venom. Controller has hypnotic powers, like Mesmer but stronger. Bombshell can produce a concussive blast from her body like Soldier Boy. Dreamwalker can enter people’s dreams and influence them. Vanish Mode has invisibility like Translucent. High Frequency uses sound waves as a weapon. Reaper is telekinetic. Heatwave can produce fire from his hands. Do we still want to keep the balance of male-female heroes that we had before, four men and three women?”
“At this time, yes,” Homelander told her. “If someone proves extraordinary, we can always revisit that down the road.”
“Just FYI, Fantasy Girl, Diamondback, Dreamwalker, and Bombshell are women. The rest are men.”
He made an impatient hand gesture. “Go on.”
“The next elimination round is on Wednesday. Ms. Barrett wanted to get your opinions on who you prefer for the team. Once we have that information, we can massage the voting numbers to get the results we want. Subtly, of course. No more situations where the winner used to fuck one of the judges. We want to look impartial and make the audience feel like they have real input into the hero selection.”
“What happens if the vote goes for someone we don’t like?” The Deep asked.
Also Ashley looked to Homelander for the answer. That pleased him. “It’s not the final round yet. We’ll have time to deal with the situation before it gets that far. And we do need to watch the next episode to get an idea of who would fit with us best.” No more dumbass country girls who don’t know the score and betray us the first chance they get, no matter what kind of eye candy they are.
“Do you have any preliminary thoughts, sir?”
It was a good idea to ask, so A-Train and the Deep would have some idea of who he preferred and wouldn’t unknowingly wind up opposing him. Not that he thought either of them would, not after Soldier Boy’s attack and what happened to Black Noir. A wave of sickness washed over him—Noir had been right about Soldier Boy, but he’d been so focused on having a father that he hadn’t trusted his best friend, then he’d…Homelander cut the thought off. “I don’t like the ones with mind powers. That’s never been what the Seven was about. I’d be against Controller, Reaper, and Dreamwalker. How would entering someone’s dreams and influencing them even work in a combat situation? The bad guy would be fucking awake. Can she make people go to sleep?”
“No, sir.”
“Then she’s useless. How the hell did she even make it into the semi-finals?”
“Uh—she’s very pretty, sir. Bubbly personality. She does well in the interview sections, and people just seem to like her.”
He let out an aggrieved sigh. Sounded like another Starlight to him. “Can you pull up pictures of the women?”
Also Ashley nodded and clicked the mouse. Three of the conference room screens lit up with two profile shots and a head-on picture of a woman. She was pale-skinned, tall and willowy, with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a curvy build. Young, he decided, not more than twenty-two or so. Her costume was made of some iridescent material and showed a lot of skin. “That’s Fantasy Girl. This is her default appearance. She identifies as female.”
“Does she have a set time that she can stay morphed and after that the power fails?” Homelander pushed away the memory of Doppelganger and his doomed attempt to recapture Madelyn. Look forward, not back.
“Twenty-four hours, sir.”
“Beautiful. We can keep her in the running for quite a while, keep the ratings up. Next contestant.”
Also Ashley clicked the mouse and the next woman appeared. “This is Diamondback.” She was Asian, with a short cap of black hair, deep brown eyes, and perfect skin. Her costume was black and had a subtle shine, with a pattern of scales. She seemed around the same age as Fantasy Girl.
“The anime fans will like her,” said the Deep.
“And the internet will scream DEI hire, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Homelander. “The next one’s Dreamwalker?”
“Yes, sir.” Also Ashley pulled her up. The woman was tiny, barely five feet tall, with shoulder-length red hair and a freckled face. Her costume was all floaty white chiffon, impractical for a fight.
“Are any of these women old enough to drink?”
“They’re all between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five. Focus groups indicate that the public prefers younger women candidates.”
“Big surprise,” he said.
“They’re all graduates of Godolkin, so there won’t be another Starlight situation.”
Homelander shot her a disapproving look for mentioning that name. “What about the male candidates?”
“No age restrictions for them. Focus groups prefer men with some seasoning. It adds to the air of authority they project.” He indicated that she should show the last picture. “This is Bombshell.” The supe was a black woman with a short afro and a costume that tried to mimic an explosion, with jets of fire on a black background.
“I have a concern,” said A-Train. “If her powers parallel Soldier Boy’s, does that include the ability to strip supes of their powers? Because if that’s true, I don’t want her within twenty miles of me, much less on the team.”
“No, sir,” said Also Ashley. “The company studied her powers while she was at Godolkin and it appears to be only a concussive blast.”
“Then we wouldn’t want both her and High Frequency in the Seven,” he replied. “Since they each use sound waves. It would be a duplication of powers.”
“Good point,” said Homelander. “We’ll keep an eye on them and see who does better in the next elimination. Let’s move on to the men.”
A photo of Controller had just appeared on the screens—he looked about thirty and wore what appeared to be a stage magician’s costume, which made Homelander bite back a laugh—when Also Ashley’s cellphone rang. He smelled a bit of fear as she fumbled for her phone and stepped away a few feet to answer it. “I’m in a meeting, Jenny,” she snapped. “I gave you instructions—” Her voice cut off and she listened to Ashley’s secretary. Since Homelander had super-hearing, he listened in as well.
“Ms. Sobek, the head of Tower security is here, along with two detectives from the NYPD. They want to speak to either you or Homelander.” Jenny sounded panicky. “It’s about Ms. Barrett.”
She swallowed. “All right. I’ll speak to Homelander and get back to you in a minute or two.”
“Yes, Ms. Sobek.”
Also Ashley disconnected the call. “Sir, there seems to be an issue with Ms. Barrett. The police are here. They’re requesting to speak to you or me. Should I show them in?”
Homelander didn’t like the head of security putting her on the same level with him but let it go. “Sure. You guys can go. I’ll handle it. Keep some time open on your schedule for tomorrow so we can finish the meeting.” He didn’t miss the palpable air of relief around the two other supes when they left the conference room. Since the night of Soldier Boy’s attack, neither of them had been especially comfortable with him, but he’d expected it to fade into the background after enough time had passed. So far it hadn’t. Also Ashley called the secretary back and told her, “Show them to the Seven conference room,” before leaving.
Brian Lebell, the head of Tower security, preceded the two detectives. He was an ex-FBI agent in his late fifties with the generic corporate look his former employer had encouraged. The detectives were a balanced pair, male and female, their badges attached to their belts and their guns concealed. “Sir,” said Lebell. “Apologies for the intrusion.”
He made sure to put on his friendly, helpful face. “Not at all! I’m always happy to help New York’s finest. What seems to be wrong?”
The male detective stepped forward. He was in his early sixties, maybe five feet seven, with a receding hairline and a ruddy complexion that made Homelander think he might have a drop to drink on occasion. “I’m Detective Patrick Maas and this is my partner, Detective Carolina Vega. May we sit down?”
“Oh, of course.” He gestured at the chairs around the conference table. “I was told it’s something about Ashley?” Inside he was fuming. Leave it to her to inconvenience him—first missing the meeting and making him put up with Also Ashley, and now he had to entertain fucking cops, for fuck’s sake.
The female detective—Vega?—spoke up. “Could you tell us when was the last time you saw Ms. Barrett?” She couldn’t be older than thirty, with sleek chin-length black hair and flawless olive skin. Her notebook was open in front of her and a pen was in one hand.
Well, aren’t you a go-getter. “Yesterday afternoon. We had a meeting about a promotion deal for a hair-care line at four PM. It lasted maybe half an hour. May I ask why you can’t ask Ashley about that?” But he had a sinking feeling why they couldn’t.
Maas took over. “We have reason to believe that Ms. Barrett was abducted on her way home from work last night. Mr. Lebell has told us that no ransom calls have been received yet. We’ll want to set up a command center here to wait for the call. If she hasn’t returned by six PM tonight, the FBI will enter the case.”
Homelander found himself at a loss for words. “Why do you think she’s been kidnapped? If it happened last night, why am I only finding out about it now?”
Vega said, “We knew that a kidnapping had occurred, but we couldn’t identify Ms. Barrett as the victim until earlier this morning. There were some…odd circumstances around the situation.” Homelander caught Maas making a tiny headshake at Vega to shut her up. Why didn’t they want him to know what was odd about Ashley being grabbed off the street?
“We have some footage from security cameras that we’d like you to see. The kidnappers were disguised, of course, but we hope you might recognize one or more of them, or a direction we might explore,” said Maas.
Lebell moved over to the conference table and powered on the tablet Also Ashley had just finished using for the American Hero presentation. Then he produced a flash drive and connected it. “This footage is from several different security cameras. There will be different angles and there’s no sound.” Homelander didn’t bother answering that.
And there she was, Ashley in her little tweed Armani skirt suit, swinging her briefcase with the movement of her arms as she strode down the sidewalk amid the eddies of people, all unsuspecting of what was about to happen. “Which camera is recording this?”
“A security camera on the edge of Bryant Park,” said Maas. “Do you know where Ms. Barrett was going?”
He shrugged. “I assume home. She uses the subway, so she was probably headed for the nearest station.”
Vega spoke up then. “She’s alone. Why doesn’t she have a security detail, or at least a bodyguard or a driver?”
Oh ho, so the detectives were at least thinking about the possibility of someone inside the company disposing of her. Time to be cautious while still looking friendly and cooperative. Homelander spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Vought’s previous CEO, Stan Edgar, never had any form of security around him, and when he…left, shall we say, and Ashley came in, nobody ever thought it was necessary. Clearly it was, but hindsight’s always twenty-twenty. I guess you could call it normalcy bias.”
Even if Ashley had wanted security around her, he never would have allowed it. That might have given her the idea that she was valuable, not dispensable, and he would never want her getting ideas above her station. Also, he knew that, in the end, anyone concerned with her safety would have concluded that the gravest threat to her was him, Homelander, and then Vought would have been advertising a brand-new job opening in Security. And probably an interoffice e-mail requesting donations for funeral expenses.
The answer didn’t seem to satisfy Vega, but she was silent as the footage continued to unwind. “There’s a cut here of about forty-five seconds where nothing happens,” Maas told him. “Then the action starts.”
An intersection loomed up in front of Ashley, and the light had just turned red when a black van traveling at reckless speed slammed itself into an opening beside the sidewalk. Her head snapped around as the van’s door slid open, then she started to run back toward the Tower. The van discharged four people, all masked and clad in black, and Homelander almost rolled his eyes at the cliché of it. Three of them took off after Ashley, with the last one remaining by the opened van door. “So a minimum of five people inside the van, including the driver,” said Vega. “The ones we can see look male.”
Yeah, no tits on any of them, but he kept that remark to himself. Something interesting was happening onscreen. The flow of pedestrians on the sidewalk did not accommodate itself at all to Ashley’s attempted flight or her pursuit by the Ninja Man Group. It was as if the crowd did not register that Ashley or her kidnappers so much as existed. Was this one of the “odd circumstances” that Maas hadn’t wanted Vega to reveal to him? “I don’t recognize any of them so far.”
Neither detective replied to that. Then some asshole on a bike came at Ashley and she grabbed the bike’s handlebars, using it as a weapon against one of her pursuers, who fell straight on his ass, completely tangled up with the bike and the asshole. “Good presence of mind on her part,” said Maas. Homelander didn’t answer that. The crowd still wasn’t parting for her, and she elbowed some woman in a business suit straight in the face, who did seem to register the impact, a brief expression of pain and confusion crossing her face, but then she fell back into the big-city daze the rest of the crowd displayed. “We’re questioning what witnesses we’ve been able to identify.”
“Have you found out anything significant?” He wondered if the detective would mention the weird fact that nobody in the street seemed to register what was going on.
Maas let one shoulder rise and fall in a shrug. “At this point we don’t know what’s significant, so we’re collecting as much information as possible.”
So he wasn’t going to address the weirdness. Fine. Analytics would get on it as soon as the detectives and Lebell left. He’d have to ask Deep who his best analyst was and get them on the job soonest. He wasn’t going to be inconvenienced any longer than strictly necessary by Ashley’s absence. “Our Crime Analytics division can assist.”
“We can make recordings of the interviews available to them, if you’d like” said Vega.
“Yes, I would,” Homelander told her. “I’d feel much better if I thought we were doing something concrete to help get her back.” And he’d have a good idea what the detectives were working with, if they were encroaching on any sensitive areas of Vought that might have to be dealt with harshly. “Is there anything else that Vought can do for you?”
“Mr. Lebell has already supplied a copy of Ms. Barrett’s itinerary for yesterday, her meetings and the like, and if anything turns up that that seems relevant when we finish looking into that, we’ll want to touch base with you, of course.” Maas gave him a look of benevolence that he didn’t quite manage to pull off.
Homelander beamed. “Excellent job, Brian!” But he meant exactly the opposite. How dare he hand out Vought information like candy, without checking with him first? At the moment, though, he couldn’t take the man to task for it. “Keep up the good work.”
“Thank you, sir.” Lebell kept a professional demeanor, and Homelander couldn’t tell if he’d picked up on his displeasure. It didn’t matter now, anyway.
Vega restarted the footage, freeing Ashley from the frozen turn as she began to flee again. The two other kidnappers didn’t stop to help their fallen buddy free himself from the bicycle and its rider; they had enough discipline to stay focused on the mission, which he found troubling. That bespoke professionalism, not just some bumbling yahoos intent on an easy payday from grabbing some bitch off the street. While she did her best to sprint away through the uncooperative people on the sidewalk, the second guy chasing her leaped over his fallen buddy and the downed bike like he was jumping a hurdle at a track meet. The one behind him detoured around, losing speed even as the guy in the lead gained on Ashley. Her head turned, enough to see him closing, and then she whipped her briefcase up to fly at his face. He knocked it off-course, brushing away an annoying fly, and kept running. So did she, but the crowd still refused to give before her, making her lose time shoving people out of her way, and by now her pursuer was close enough to take advantage of the gap that she’d created.
Then he must have gotten tired of the chase, because he launched himself through the air and crashed into Ashley at hip level, throwing her forward several feet and knocking a bunch of thickheaded passersby to the ground. Her head smashed into the sidewalk and she went limp instantly. A twinge of discomfort went through Homelander. Fractured skull? The sidewalk was concrete, and her human skull was fragile. Did the kidnappers at least have a doctor on hand to deal with any medical issues?
As if Vega had heard his thought, she volunteered some information. “Some hair strands were found on the sidewalk. Does Ms. Barrett wear a wig?”
“Uh, yes. She has a problem with thinning hair and she thinks it improves her appearance. It isn’t common knowledge.” Homelander wondered if Ashley’s wig had been natural hair or fiber. He hadn’t cared enough about the subject to find out. “Do you think it might have…cushioned the impact?”
Maas took over. “It could have. There was some blood, but we don’t have any evidence that she was seriously injured.”
Vega hit the Play button again and Second Guy lifted Ashley over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and headed toward the van. First Guy had managed to untangle himself from the bike and its rider and was already climbing into the back. Third Guy got in right behind him, before Second Guy slung Ashley into the shadowed interior of the van and jumped in. Fourth Guy, who’d done nothing other than stand by the open van door the entire time, got inside and the door slammed closed.
The driver jerked the wheel and the van rocketed away from the curb, just in time to be rear-ended by a taxi. Oddly, the cabbie didn’t leap out of his vehicle, cursing and threatening. Then the driver threw the van into reverse and hit the taxi again, hard enough to move it out of the way, and got his own vehicle into traffic. The cabbie eventually climbed out to look at his damaged front end, his expression of confusion and disbelief visible even on the low-resolution footage. Detective Vega turned the video off. “That’s what video we have of the abduction.”
Supe involvement couldn’t be denied, not with the weird behavior of the sidewalk crowd and the cabbie. He might as well acknowledge it, since both detectives were already thinking it. “If supes were involved in this, it’s someone with mind control powers.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Maas.
“Oh, please,” he scoffed. “Ashley was shoving and elbowing people right and left and nobody even seemed to notice until they were on the pavement or had a black eye or bloody nose.”
“It might have just been people not wanting to get involved,” Vega said.
“If that were true, they would have been averting their eyes, moving out of the way, trying to avoid the entire situation. They wouldn’t have stood there to be shoved and hit. No, there was something going on that kept them from noticing what was happening, and that spells supe to me.”
“Would you have any suspects in mind?” Maas took over the questioning. Briefly Homelander wondered which of them was Good Cop and which was Bad Cop.
“Vought doesn’t have anyone under the corporate umbrella with mental powers of that sort. Ever since Payback and Teenage Kix, Stan Edgar preferred to restrict the team to supes with physical powers. Supes with mental abilities tended to be…well, erratic. Unreliable.” Bad investments, Stan would have said. Bad product. Rage flared but he forced it down. Stan was eating prison food right now, his place taken by Ashley, and now she was gone. There was no way this was a plot of Stan’s, was it? Homelander couldn’t think of anyone in the company who was still loyal to him, but if they were they were probably smart enough to keep it to themselves.
“Could there be anyone who has a grudge against Vought, or the Seven, or Ms. Barrett specifically?”
Homelander shrugged. “I’m sure it’s possible. Stan Edgar never avoided making enemies. I don’t know that Ashley has any enemies with connections to supes.” But then an idea occurred to him. She might not, but he himself did, and that enemy’s name was William Butcher. This kidnapping might be the Brit’s latest attempt to make his life more difficult by stealing his CEO so he’d have to find a new one, or at least an interim one. And William had managed to suborn Starlight into his plans, so who was to say he couldn’t find some other gullible supe or supes in the gutter scrounging for money and purpose who’d go along with his plans, completely unaware that Butcher would kill them the moment their usefulness came to an end? He’d have to instruct Analytics to devote more time to Mr. Butcher, take a deep dive, especially into past associates.
They asked a few more questions, but nothing that might have touched on any areas Homelander found sensitive, and eventually Lebell took them to a spare conference room on ninety-seven where they intended to have any suspicious calls rerouted by the switchboard. The FBI would take over that room if Ashley didn’t return by six PM. He sat at his seat, drumming his fingers on the tabletop, trying to control himself, and it took a few minutes before he was calm enough to get his phone out of the compartment on his boot and send a text to the Deep and A-Train: Conference room. Now.
Both of them turned up within the next couple of minutes, displaying degrees of anxiety that they both tried to conceal. “I guess you’re wondering why the police showed up.”
“If you feel it’s something we need to know,” said A-Train. The Deep gave him a sidelong glance but stayed silent.
Was there some sarcasm there, some defiance? Homelander decided against that. Both of his teammates had seen enough to deduce what happened to Black Noir, what he did to people who called themselves his friends and then betrayed him, and neither of them wanted to lose their lives, let alone their cushy gig as members of the preeminent supe team in the world. “Ashley…was kidnapped last night.”
The Deep swallowed, and he almost saw the other man thinking that she had just given them a presentation on American Hero before remembering that there was more than one upper-management Ashley at Vought. Dumbass. “Do they know who did it?”
Homelander shook his head. “Not yet, but they think supes are involved. Supes with hypnotic powers like Mesmer.”
“But he’s dead.”
He rolled his eyes. “I said supes with powers like his, not him. Who’s the best analyst in your department?”
“Anika Bhatta. They call her Ms. Sherlock Holmes down in Analytics.” The answer was instant. She must be all that if her name sprang instantly to his lips.
“Okay. Is she still in the office?”
Deep thought about it. “Not yet. She works the three-to-eleven-thirty shift.”
“Fine. When she gets in, tell her that she’s now in charge of looking into the kidnapping. The police gave us footage of the actual incident and will be sending videos of the witness interviews to us, probably tomorrow. I want her to go over that footage and give me any and every piece of information she can tease out of it. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.” Deep nodded, his unease clear.
“Have they called with a ransom demand?” A-Train hid his nervousness better than the fishman did. He seemed calm on the surface, rather uninterested.
Homelander shook his head. “Not yet. The head of Security is setting New York’s Finest up in one of the conference rooms to monitor suspicious phone calls. If Ashley doesn’t turn up by six PM, the FBI takes over her case.”
“You think there’s much chance of that, Ashley turning up?”
“No. So we have to plan for the FBI being in the building. Keep our photo-ready smiles on, our helpful demeanors, and our clean noses for the Feebies, and anything morally gray out of their sightlines. Got it?” Both of them nodded. “Let’s catch up on American Hero before Wednesday, and Also Ashley can brief us then, if Original Ashley isn’t back.” They agreed again, and he dismissed them before getting Ashley’s secretary on the phone. “I need you to get every member of the Board of Directors here for a meeting first thing tomorrow. Eight AM. Tell them I’ve personally requested the meeting.” That should take care of any stragglers who begrudged sleeping late. Then he went up to the roof and took off. The NYPD and the FBI could chase their tails with phone traces and suspicious calls, but he intended to do some focused, goal-oriented questioning of his primary suspect.
Butcher lived in a run-down top-floor one-bedroom apartment in a bad part of Greenwich Village, the one useful feature of his place being a balcony that Homelander used for his infrequent visits. It still confused him, a little, that the other man didn’t find a new place to live that was more secure, hidden, but so far he’d made no moves to do that. Through the glass he saw Butcher sitting at his kitchen table with a cigarette in one hand, smoke curling off its tip into the air, a tumbler of whiskey in front of him. Just his usual vices. What had Becca ever seen in him? Stifling his irritation, he rapped on the sliding door with his knuckles. Butcher turned his head and saw him, hatred flaring for an instant in his eyes until he could get his sardonic mask back in place and move to open the door. “William.”
Butcher inclined his head but said nothing, going back to his seat at the table. “What are you doing here?”
Homelander tsk-tsked at him. “Poor hospitality, William. You haven’t offered me a chair, or any refreshments.”
With a gesture at the refrigerator, which was making odd mechanical rumblings like a malfunctioning vibrator, he said, “Help yourself. It’s all the same to me.”
He didn’t actually want anything to eat or drink, but just to annoy Butcher he found a glass and poured himself some milk. “You really should get that refrigerator looked at.”
The Brit picked up the tumbler and took a sip. “I asked you before: what are you doing here? Better yet, what will get you out of here in the speediest manner?”
With a half-smile, Homelander seated himself and drank a few sips of milk. “Where’s Ashley?”
“Who?”
“Why, William, that makes me think you didn’t compile a proper dossier on everyone in upper management at Vought International for purposes of blackmailing and suborning them into your plans.”
“No one interests me there except you.”
“I’m flattered.” The black expression crossing Butcher’s face lifted his mood; the man looked almost as annoyed as Homelander felt, perhaps even a bit more. “I mean Ashley Barrett, the CEO. She was Madelyn’s assistant, Starlight’s handler before she jumped ship to join up with your little band of freedom fighters.”
Butcher’s teeth flashed, white against his beard. “Ah, I remember her. Your redheaded cunt.”
Ashley belonged to him, true, but not more than any other employee of Vought. “There’s that impeccable courtesy I’ve come to expect from you.”
“Think nothing of it,” he replied. “So you’ve lost her, then? Careless of you.”
The mockery struck a spark of annoyance, but he repressed it as that was what Butcher wanted. “As we both know, Ashley was kidnapped off Sixth Avenue last night. What’s it going to take for you to release her?”
Butcher stubbed out his cigarette and regarded him more closely. “Hate to disappoint you, but I’m not in possession of the bint. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“I hope you don’t expect me to believe that, William. Whenever something goes wrong at Vought, if I scratch deep enough, you’re at the bottom of it.”
“Believe what you like, but I don’t have her. She wouldn’t be useful to me. Starlight’s told me a lot of stories about how little you think of her. She went so far as to call Ashley’s relationship with you like an abused wife. Without the pesky marriage certificate, of course.”
“Are you sure you want to talk to me about marriage? I have some stories you wouldn’t want to hear.”
That got a more satisfactory response, as Butcher stood and pointed his finger at Homelander. “Keep your foul mouth shut about my wife.”
“Not even an ‘or else,’ huh? You are a disappointment tonight, William.” But Homelander had learned as much as he needed to know. Butcher’s heartbeat, breathing, and blood pressure all stayed within what he’d determined over time was his baseline. Hard as it was for him to believe, the other man wasn’t lying about not having abducted Ashley. On some level it was a relief, as he did have a hair-trigger temper and a drinking problem, which might mean he could kill Ashley without really meaning to. On another level, it bothered him because the simplest solution to the problem wasn’t correct. Oh, well, that’s what Analytics was for. “Have a nice evening with your whiskey and your cancer sticks.” He jolted a little bit, but Homelander had already turned his back and moved onto the balcony, taking off and vanishing into the sky.
Butcher didn’t try to hide the shaking of his hands; since the supe cunt was gone, there was no need as he took a deep drag of whiskey. For a moment there he’d felt sure Homelander had looked inside his skull, seen the cancer squatting there, sucking his life away, but seems he’d been too preoccupied with his missing corporate cunt. Who’d been kidnapped, interestingly enough. If he’d thought of it, he might have given it a try, but Starlight seemed too confident of the fact that it wouldn’t cause Homelander any real difficulty, so the Barrett woman remained in her executive suite, unaware of the danger which had just bypassed her. But he knew someone else with as deep and burning a grudge against supes in general for the destruction they caused, and Starlight’s information about their relationship had only been given to him and his group. Had he shared it with Grace? He didn’t think so.
His mobile phone sat on his nightstand, and he hit the speed dial labeled “Grace Mallory.” It rang a few times before she picked up. “Hello, Billy.”
“Grace. I have some news you might be interested in. Vought’s CEO got herself kidnapped last night.”
“Really? And you know this how?”
“Homelander dropped by a few minutes ago to question me about it. Seemed to think that I was behind the whole situation.”
“I wonder why.” But her sarcasm fell away quickly. “Have they been contacted about ransom yet?”
“He didn’t mention it if they have. And you don’t have her, then?”
“Afraid not. And you also don’t have her, I take it, or you wouldn’t be calling.”
He shrugged, although she couldn’t see it. “Just confirming. You don’t run all your operations past me for my approval. Thought you might have decided the Barrett bint might be a way into destabilizing Vought.”
“It’s a tantalizing thought, but not something I’d get behind. My objective isn’t to bring down what’s essentially a pharmaceutical company that creates abominations. I want to get rid of all supes everywhere.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Grace. Just wanted to let you know what I found out and check with you in case this was part of an Agency operation.”
“As I’ve said, it wasn’t, but I appreciate the information. I’ll put out some feelers to the FBI, see if we can hack into their systems if we can’t find out what they know in a congenial fashion. It’s worth looking into.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then, Grace.” He disconnected the call and sat for a few minutes, looking at the phone in his hand. The whole abduction gave him a bad feeling, like something had started to unravel and not only did he not know how to repair it, he didn’t even know what in particular had begun to come apart.
Grace Mallory stared at the “Call Ended” message on her phone’s screen until it vanished, then went to her speed dial and selected a number labeled only Lodge 1. The phone on the other end rang three times before being answered. “Grace?”
She didn’t bother with any pleasantries. “I just got off the phone with Butcher. He let me know that Ashley Barrett’s been kidnapped and wanted to know if I was the one behind it, or the Agency in general.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“The truth. I know nothing but will look into it.”
“This implies that he doesn’t have her either,” the person on the other end said. “That’s troubling. Do we know if it’s a standard kidnap for ransom?”
“From what he said, the people behind it haven’t contacted Vought yet. They might wait for a couple of days to build fear, but usually the victim is dead before a ransom demand is made.”
A sigh drifted over the line. “So we wait for a day or two to see. Get in touch with our mole inside Vought and confirm that she hasn’t shown up at the office. Nobody I’ve ever known likes to work the way she does.”
“If they have her—”
“We’ve always known this was a possibility, ever since she became CEO. It looks like the worst has happened, if this isn’t a standard abduction, or just some Bang Bus gang rapists who grabbed the first woman they saw off the street.”
“If they kill her…”
“They won’t. She’s too valuable to them alive, the same way she would be to us, had we acted in a timely manner. But I do credit you for your handling of Mr. Butcher. You did an exquisite job of twisting him to our ends. Now I think it’s time we get started on bringing him in all the way.”
Warmth suffused her at the unexpected praise. “Thank you.” In the sterile landscape of her life after the murders of her grandchildren by Lamplighter, one of Vought’s genetic abominations, anything that could cause a hint of positive emotion in her had the death of all supes everywhere as its wellspring. It had been she who saw what a potent weapon Billy Butcher could be in the right hands, stunned and credulous from Becca’s “murder,” and over the years since then had nurtured the mad hatred for supes in his heart until he would have killed every supe alive with a thought, had he been able. Why did he have to find out that Becca was alive? She understood why his wife had spun him a story of rape at Homelander’s hands, knowing how violent he was, but it had all worked out in the end. Becca had died without revealing the truth, and Butcher’s vendetta against Homelander and Vought had redoubled in strength. “I think you’re right.”
“I’ll be in touch later for the details. Keep an ear out for any leads on Ms. Barrett, although I think our opposite numbers will be too careful to leave traces. If I’m right, she’ll be returned after a certain length of time and will plead no memory of the entire incident.”
“Okay. So what should I do in the meantime?”
A sigh came over the phone. “As much as I hate to say it, there’s nothing either of us can do right now. The ball is in their court, and all that’s left to us is to react to what they do. If you find out anything, get in touch immediately.”
“Will do,” said Grace, but she heard nothing and the screen again read “Call Ended.” She sat in her living room, staring at that screen until it went black.