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Nice girls did not come to that part of the city. It was why Rue had made certain to not bring any signs that she was one of those nice girls with her. The Prada shoes and Coach bags were left at home, the real jewelry in her case on her dressing table. Lighter, more airy attire had been replaced with jeans, sneakers, a dark green windbreaker, and beneath that a plain black t-shirt. Her chestnut brown hair was braided over her shoulder, and hung past her collar bone, tied with a plain elastic band.

She could have done a better job. Of course, all of her items were clean and pressed and from a designer brand. But she could always claim they were knock offs if someone tried to point out that she should have a lot of cash with her. The only thing she carried openly though was her cell phone, because she had copied the pictures onto it.

The pictures she had found in the storage area of her guardian's penthouse. Buried in amongst her mother's things, she found a number of candid photographs, some of which her mother did not even seem aware of, as if the photographer had been taking them without her knowledge half the time. They had been taken in different places, but she was in the same outfit in all of them, so it had been over the same day or same few days that they were taken. Rue found herself drawn to them also because it was about the age her mother must have been when she herself had been conceived.

Her plan was to find the places in the background. Her mother had looked so happy. Maybe they were places she had returned to recently. Or someone might recognize her and know where she disappeared to a decade ago, leaving behind nothing but a note that Rue found when she got home from school and a call to child services to let them know Rue was at the apartment they shared alone. The temptation was enough to get her to the deep heart of the city that was rotting out on its own.

There were so many bars, so many little hell holes where she had to walk in without looking afraid. That she had to meet dark, lingering eyes with her own amber ones because if she looked away, she would be prey and not a predator. Not that she was a predator at all. Violence was still shocking to her, despite watching the news, spending her life in such a city, but most of it had been gently protected from that side of the world.

"Nope, ain't seen her," said one bartender, barely taking a look.

Rue pushed the phone forward again, "Take another look. Please?"

"Why the hell should I?"

"She's my mom. I'm just looking for my mom."

The bartender looked her over, "If I were you, and I had a mom who hung out in a place like this, I'd let her stay lost. But I ain't seen her, kid."

Rue did not like being called kid, but she supposed it was better than sweet cheeks or sugar tits or the plethora of other unsavory things she had been called over the past couple of nights, out on her search alone. The one time she had been accosted by some punk who thought she needed to hang out with him, he had gotten a face full of mace and had thought twice about what he wanted to do when her knee had found its way into his groin.

She left the bar, disappointed, and moved on to the next photograph. It was another interior shot, and not of a bar she had been in before. She was so intent on studying the photograph that she was unaware of the two men in suits that pulled up in a sedan behind her. They got out and approached her from behind, startling her when they spoke.

"Miss Essex."

Gasping softly, Rue turned and relaxed, knowing the two men as employees of her guardian, Christophe Gilgamesh. It had been a long time though since Christophe had sent his personal goon squad after her. Most of the time he barely noticed she was around, having his secretary send her birthday presents and give her the wildly over-budgeted allowance that she received each month. To have noticed she was gone meant something was wrong.

"Is something wrong? Is Christophe okay?"

"Mr. Gilgamesh is fine, but you need to come with us."

"Why?" she asked.

The man to her right frowned, and for the first time ever, put his hands on her, grabbing her arm painfully tight, "Please get in the car, Miss Essex."

"Let go!" she cried, the fingers biting into her arm to the point that she was certain she was going to be bruised the next day. "Christophe would never let you put your hands on me!"

The other man moved to her other side, grabbing her arm silently, and she knew something was desperately wrong. Rue struggled and cried for help as they tried to shove her into the back seat of the car.

She had not been in a self defense class before, but Rue knew that there were places on the human body to try and target. Her foot went into the back of the leg of the man on her right, and because he was not expecting it, he fell down into the gutter, splashing in the dirty water. It gave her the leverage to shove the other man away, so she could take off running. Rue only got a step or two though before a hand closed around her braid and jerked her backward painfully, hands holding her arms behind her back.

"Excuse us, Miss Essex, but you are coming with us," the one in the gutter said.

Reaching into his suit coat, he pulled out a slender needle filled with some kind of liquid and her eyes went wide as he moved forward, pulling of and discarding the cap. The needle did not get close to her skin though as a stranger pulled him backward by the shoulder and threw a punch into his jaw. He staggered backward, while his partner pushed Rue into the back seat of the car and slammed the door shut, effectively locking her in the back seat.

Her fists pounded on the glass, to no avail, while the second suited thug turned to Nero, frowning deeply.

"This is none of your business, boy. Walk away."

The first was up off the ground, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, "Walk away my eye, he's going to pay for that."

He pulled off his suit coat and tossed it aside, and one arm began to twitch and roil, like there were millions of bugs moving beneath the skin. His right hand disappeared, the skin melting together, and it re-congealed into a long blade, tearing the shirt sleeve apart. He grinned viciously, lips peeling back over his gums as he looked Nero over.

"This won't take too long. Then we'll deliver the girl."

The second thug shrugged and leaned against the car, "Whatever."

Inside the car, Rue watched as the man's arm twisted and changed and became something like a monster movie villain. She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming and watched as Christophe's goon swiped at the young man who had tried to help her. Her fists pounded on the glass after a moment.

"Go! Get out of here!" she yelled, hoping he would hear her.

The other man turned to glance at her, "Don't worry about it, Miss Essex. One boy isn't worth your effort."

The first man, now more monster than man, was painfully quick. He could turn and swipe that arm more easily than if he had just been using a knife in a human hand. And his goal was to skewer Nero so that he could enjoy killing him.

Rue could not look. She was afraid she would see the young man slaughtered in front of her. But the two men suddenly collided against the car, cracking the window, and she gasped, scrambling backward. Had the stranger done that? What was he? What were they all? Her hands shook as she went back to the window, watching the second man shift and change as well.

Instead of just one arm changing, he shifted into a creature that looked almost like a dog, his clothing shredding as he became a hellhound, three eyes in its face and horns on its head. The bladed man walked forward, pointing it at Nero, shaking his head.

"Kid, could have run off. Now I'm just going to let him chew on your entrails for a while."

The hellhound came running out from behind him on huge paws that ended in twisted black claws, teeth dripping with ichor as it tried to take a chunk out of Nero. The bladed man walked forward and cut off any chance for Nero to escape, the hellhound in front of him, the other man behind him. As the hound darted forward again for another attack, the man made his move at the same time.

The animal howled as it was hit with the blade and scuttled backward, licking the wound in its side. The bladed man turned toward it and snapped at it, his eyes no longer dark but glowing coals in his face.

"Don't be such a p***y! Get back over here, we're not done with him yet."

Wincing, the hellhound came back over, side dripping with strange black blood that steamed in the night air, and left nasty marks on the sidewalk. The hellhound ran for Nero again, and Rue's voice could be heard from inside the car, calling to him.

"Behind you!"

During the fight, the man with the bladed arm had cut through a fire escape and a piece of rebar was hanging off precariously. She knew the stranger was concentrating too hard on the fight to have noticed it, but she had. A weapon would even up the fight a little more.

Rue had covered her eyes when the stranger had gotten rid of the two monsters, not wanting to watch that last moment. When she slowly took her hands away from her amber eyes, she saw that he had succeeded, had actually saved both of their lives. She moved to the cracked window, and gestured down to the handle. The door would open from the outside only.

When he opened the door, she got out of the back seat of the car and looked over at the monstrous apparitions that had once been men who had tried to kidnap her. She put a hand to her lips for a moment, then glanced at Nero, her eyes going to his side.

"You're hurt..." she said softly.

Quickly, Rue grabbed the two discarded suit coats and went through them, finding car keys, and unlocked the passenger's side.

"Here, get in. Let's go get that taken care of."