The shape within the dark cloak and cowl chuckled, a sound both sweet and shivery, as she spotted the lone witness to her reaping. She had just entered the room in her characteristic flash of light, then claimed the soul of the man who had been raping a young woman. The young woman in question had jumped out of the bed as soon as she appeared and cowered in the furthest corner of the room from the new arrival.

"Ahhh, thou art a young lass, I ken?" she enquired of the trembling girl in the corner of the opulent bedroom.

"What in the world are you doing?"

Rae, the tip of her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth, was concentrating on her task.

She finished gluing a prosthetic fin to the back of a hairless laboratory rat, and turned to Mary. "I'm running some tests on GLOO."

Part Five

"Guess what?" said Blue Impact, a couple of hours later, back at the lair. "Turns out the person who owns the house is the same Emil Logsdon who had to let the police in, years ago. He is part owner of the real estate company which bought the house, which is why there's no record of further transfers. He just had the company say it was waiting for a buyer to develop the property, in order to head off complaints about the house not fitting with the rest of the neighborhood. I guess he took it over as a private project. Or maybe as a memorial to his friend."