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[right][sub]With [@BurningCold][/sub][/right][hr][color=#FA8072]“Just so you know, the neighborhood we’re headed to is a real shithole. In case you’ve never been.”[/color]

Yam resisted the urge to point out that the whole city, in fact, was a shithole. From the crime scenes to the homes to their own base of operations, New Helle was one flush away from a Richter scale sewage disaster, regardless of where you looked. But, the etiquette drilled into her from years of conversation with antsy tourists begged her: “[i]What does arguing here serve?[/i]” To which there was rarely an answer other than “[i]Nothing, but it’d feel good.[/i]” Besides, she wasn’t sure if shit was a sensitive topic, him being a fly and all. 

Anyway, he was right. The Paradise was a shithole. 

Worse than that, it looked like they’d missed a very lively, very relevant party. One could have been forgiven for assuming the last person in was some sort of bomb or a living tornado, which wouldn’t have been the least believable thing they’d seen [i]today[/i]. 

The tension shifted as soon as the remaining patrons caught sight of them; the gangs in New Helle might have been underhanded and sometimes terribly occult, filled with every flavor of demon and sleazebag and demon sleazebag imaginable, except rats. Even among the rat demons. Few things opened criminal mouths to authority ears in this city. Money worked, sometimes, but no one in Section 7 got paid enough for that, and anyway, they hadn’t come bearing a heavy briefcase. Talking was riskier, but, it could work—

If you didn’t instantly brandish a weapon or [i]four[/i]. 

She wasn’t sure what an intimidating voice would sound like coming from someone like Marty. Probably not like this, at least not to her ears, but maybe the incredulity was numbing her to his ferocity. She was afraid the gangsters would suffer a similar immunity. 

“[color=9173CA]Yeah,[/color]” she sighed. “[color=9173CA]You’re the good cop.[/color]”

Bel chuckled in the back of her mind.

As rough around the edges as Marty’s negotiating prowess might be, she couldn’t deny that between them he was infinitely more personable. Did that mean he could sweet talk his way through a conversation with a group of gangsters he just threatened at knifepoint? She didn’t know. Better not to gamble. 

So, while Marty stepped up to the diplomatic plate to bat, Yam picked a toppled chair over and set it back upright. She shucked off her coat and draped it over the backrest, flexed her shoulders and cracked her neck, then rolled up her sleeves. Mother’s runework slithered over her ashen skin, winding in arcane patterns that she couldn't have unwoven herself even at the height of her training. She grimaced; at least if things went sideways now, her mood was already ruined. 

Yam pulled her tie loose and used it to bind her hair back into a frankly still-too-big tail. She considered wrapping her belt up in her fist, but this wasn’t a tussle on the street after bar-close. Instead, she held a mental finger on the trigger of Bel’s contract, ready to shift. If she’d learned one thing about engaging with the city’s underworld, it was that you didn’t go into it half-cocked. 

On the bright side, Marty didn't seem physically capable of putting less than one hundred percent into pretty much anything, for better and, much more likely, for worse.