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She’s overextending her powers a bit. Lizzie knows that. But she has to find Ethos tonight. Within the next few hours.
She has to find him soon. The sooner the better. The sooner she can get back to Jimmy. The sooner—
She's overextending her powers, but not by too much, not anything but sending her shadows further than normal, looking through them over longer distances than she normally does. Nothing painful. Not really. Not yet.
She's also moving as she uses them, which she does often enough, but not at these distances, but it's fine, she's fine. She just has to find Ethos.
So she searches. Carefully and thoroughly, and she will find him tonight. She has to, so she will, and it doesn't matter how much effort it'll take, she's going to find him.
It takes longer than she'd like, but every second from when she started was longer than she'd like and it's still the middle of the night so it's fine.
Lizzie finds Ethos hopping down from a fire escape into an alley somewhere north of her, and she barely even thinks more, letting her shadows turn liquid around his next step and it’s always harder to transport other people, but Lizzie forces it through.
He lands half the rooftop away with two knives already out which is impressive and rather terrifying considering her shadow travel is almost instantaneous and this was his first time.
“Ethos.” She greets neutrally before he acts on the likely thought of this being some kind of trap, arms and posture as relaxed as she can currently make them.
“Enigma.” The assassin returns with a bit more wariness. That’s fair. It’s fine. He doesn’t have to trust her, just agree to the job.
“I wanted to hire you for something.” Lizzie keeping her voice calm and even, and the assassin raises an eyebrow questioningly.
“Oh?” His posture shifts, not quite relaxing but no longer as ready for a fight. “Having me do your dirty work so your hands stay clean?” Ethos asks, voice snide, and okay maybe not as great of a start as she would have liked.
“No. He’s already dead.” Lizzie states, calmly, calm, she’s calm. “I just need you to take credit for it.” It is still him taking the dirty work from her, but her other options are much more dangerous. Leave more holes. Nobody questions Ethos.
Ethos looks almost surprised for a second, which considering her reputation as a vigilante (and vigilantes so rarely kill, the ones that stay vigilantes at least) makes sense, before turning considering.
“Isn’t that still me doing the dirty work so your hands look like they’re clean?” He asks, leaning back slightly, but there’s not as much of an edge, more humour. Probably.
She can’t be up here, meeting with a villain for much longer. They aren't on any patrol routes she knows of, aren't near any cameras and her shadows are keeping watch but she can't be up here for too long.
“And do your proxies complain so much when they get a commission?” Lizzie asks almost bitingly, arching a brow despite her mask, walking the careful line between imperious and rude.
“Not the smart ones.” Ethos replies maybe pointedly, maybe not. “Why should I let you commission me though?” He asks, also pointed, but it's not a disagreement, not a denial.
“Because I pay well and you barely have to do anything.” Lizzie replies, like it’s a certainty. Confidence seemed to be fine. Ethos watches her, leaning back on his heels, and she doesn’t flinch or fidget or curl in on herself or bolt back to Jimmy like she wants to, because she needs to solve this, needs to know what the solution to this is, which plan is unfolding first. She can’t go back to Jimmy until she has the full plan.
“Hmmm, ten thousand and you tell me why you killed the guy.” The assassin-villain names his price and Lizzie only hesitates a little because it’s an agreement.
“He hurt Quandry.” She says, voice even, refusing to say how much, how badly. He’d either guess or not, but if she didn’t elaborate it’d stay uncertain. She needs it to stay uncertain.
Ethos blinks and maybe she should have bartered more but she doesn't know how much time she really has, not a lot but…
“Steeple and 25th, the blue toned building, on the roof. Do whatever you want with the body, just make sure they say it was you.” Lizzie continues, waving a hand (in careful, telegraphed movements, even though it looks casual, dismissive). Moving the discussion on. Giving him the details. Bringing her persona back up. “Half payment on the roof tonight, half the night after it's confirmed.” There, that counts as bartering right? That seems appropriate?
“Fair enough.” Ethos says, casual, still watching her, but he agreed.
“I’ll leave you to it then.” Lizzie says with a nod, the most dignified “goodbye” she can think of in the situation, half her focus now on Jimmy, going back to him, checking in on him, making sure he’s safe.
She still waits the beat and a half for Ethos to nod back at her before letting her shadows envelop her, take her home. Home first, then she could go to Jimmy.
She had the plan now and it was one of the better ones.
It’d be okay.
Ethos would take care of it and no one questioned him on who he did or didn’t murder. Not really.
Everything would be okay.
No one would question things.
✾ ♛ ✾
Etho stares down at the dead body that’s exactly where Enigma said it was, but for all intents and purposes should not be a dead body.
There is not a single clue as to why the guy is dead other than the fact he is. No wounds, no markings, not even any signs of something internal.
Etho’s been around a lot of corpses.
There’s always a tell, even if it takes some searching.
Except for apparently whatever Enigma did to the guy that ended up killing him.
Etho had searched.
A lot.
This guy should not be a corpse.
Just was one.
Somehow.
Which meant that was the first thing Etho was going to need to take care of, because while being thought of as able to kill people without leaving any sign as to what killed them might be useful, it’d also be very, very dangerous in the long run.
Seriously, how the heck did Enigma kill him?
Ethos shifts the body around some while thinking of how best to make post-mortem death marks look anti-mortem.
…
Technically the best way would be for there to be as little of the body left as possible.
But it’d be a lot harder to link to him if there wasn’t a body.
So he’d have to leave enough to identify the body, but destroy everything else. Especially the chest. And head. And preferably the major arteries and veins. Teeth could stay. Maybe fingers. Lower leg?
Hmmm.
He doesn't have a lot of lye on him, which is his current preferred method for this.
Maybe dismemberment, remove the organs, put those and the head in the little lye and other acids he has on him, cut up the torso some more, then pack that and most of the limbs for future disposal?
Doesn't quite feel “normal” enough for him and his evident assassinations. Also difficult on a roof.
How did Enigma kill him?
And how many times is Etho going to double check for some kind of tell?
He can't take a lot of the body with him, he wasn't expecting to be dealing with one tonight, and Tango wasn’t in town so he couldn’t ask for a pickup. So he had to do as much as possible here.
Maybe he could just dismember everything and just steal some trash bags for transport back to the base at least, but, no, the body needed to be found.
Also the longer he sits around debating things means the body is getting older and the less time he has to do whatever it is he’s going to do.
Which isn’t stressful.
Less stressful than the fact Enigma can kill people with no sign as to what kills them.
He was going to have to tell Tango to be more careful around the vigilante and be much more polite in the future when he inevitably ran into the vigilante again.
Etho tended to try to avoid making enemies with powerful people who could kill him. Enigma was just going to have to be added to the same list as The Moirai and Disparity and sort-of Doc.
First the body though.
…
How was he even going to do this?
How did Enigma kill him?