Butcher held the packaging and looked at Jude. "You asked it yourself. You must have an idea."
"I didn't know until about sixty seconds ago." Jude lowered his phone. "Here's what I have. Samaritan's Embrace is a foundation. A supe charitable organization. Founded and run by a preacher called Ezekiel. Himself a supe. His body can stretch and compress like rubber."
"A low-budget version of Luffy," Jude added to himself.
"Doesn't matter," Butcher said. "Keep going."
"He does the circuit. Shiny stage, packed house, cameras. Says superpowers are a direct gift from God, that supes are God's apostles on earth, and that Vought International serves as the voice of those messengers. The full scriptural package." Jude paused. "He's also publicly and loudly anti-gay. It's a regular talking point."
"And?"
"And he goes to a club called the Secret Nest every night. Twenty-nine East Street. According to what I'm reading, he books two male models each visit, and neither of them is there to discuss theology." He looked up. "As a side note, the Secret Nest is an off-hours venue for New York's supe community. There are reportedly two of them floating decoratively near the ceiling of the lobby on any given evening."
Frenchie, M.M., and Butcher went quiet.
"Okay," M.M. said.
"The detail about the ceiling," Jude said, rubbing his temples. "That image is going to stay with me longer than I want, and I need everyone to stop talking so I can suppress it." He breathed out. "Multiple leads is better than one. Let's get the woman out of here first."
Frenchie stood at the gate. He had his lockpick out, working the mechanism in fast, practiced movements.
"He really likes her," M.M. said.
"What about Sherry?"
Frenchie kept his eyes on the lock. "Nothing has developed to that point. This is not the time to comment on it."
He rolled his eyes. The lock made a soft click.
"Couldn't you wait until we had something to subdue her with?" Butcher asked, moving forward.
"At minimum, the rifles," M.M. said. He drew his sidearm.
The old gate hinges groaned. Frenchie swung it open.
Inside the cell, the woman under the table turned her head.
Her posture snapped into a new alignment. She came out from under the table hunched low. Her arms extended forward, her weight settling onto hands and feet. She locked onto the open gate.
She went for the opening on all fours.
The half-open gate flew wide as she hit it. She cleared the threshold. Frenchie stood in her path. She launched herself at him.
Frenchie dodged the first bite, narrowly avoiding her teeth. He hit the ground staggering. She was already on top of him. Both her hands went for his throat, fingers curved.
A hand closed around her face from the side.
"Don't shoot," Jude said. "Anyone upstairs will hear it."
He yanked her sideways and slammed her onto the ground.
She hit the concrete. She came right back up. He put her on the ground again, and again after that. By the third time, the impacts showed no visible accumulation of damage.
She got an elbow free and drove it into the floor beside her.
The concrete dented.
There was a sound of breaking. He reached for her elbow. His fingers found the joint completely intact. The damage from the takedowns had already resolved.
Regeneration.
He adjusted his stance.
The Batman-derived joint-targeting technique was not designed for enemies who repaired themselves. The repair had to happen in sequence. If he moved faster than the sequence, he could stay ahead of it. Not breaking bones. Dislocations. He created structural misalignments to compromise the geometry of her musculature, turning her own physical force against herself.
Click. Shoulder.
Click. Elbow.
Click, click. Wrist, knee.
A series of dry, mechanical sounds rang out in quick succession. The woman convulsed on the ground. Her limbs thrashed in opposite directions, unable to coordinate. She tried to right herself, but her body folded at unnatural angles.
"Her fighting spirit is stronger than Translucent's," Jude noted, maintaining the physical locks. "He gave up after the first break. She's working through all of this on instinct." He tilted his head. "Has she been trained? Or is this something else entirely."
He reached into his jacket and took out a small lacquered flask.
He uncapped it and held it near her face.
A dense, layered scent leaked from the opening. She breathed it in reflexively.
Her thrashing slowed.
Then it stopped.
She lay on the concrete in deep, involuntary sleep. The three of them looked at the flask, then out toward the rest of the basement.
"That's what you used on them," M.M. said.
"They just needed to smell it." Jude put the flask away. "The effective radius is generous."
"Eastern wizard," Frenchie said quietly from the floor.
"I'm going to refrain from accepting or declining that," Jude said. He reached down and pulled Frenchie to his feet.
M.M. looked at the woman on the floor, then at the iron gate. "Do we actually need to bring her?"
"She's probably significant in whatever Vought is running through this address." Jude picked up the Samaritan's Embrace packaging. "Even if she can't work with us, she's a witness. What happened to her is evidence." He glanced at Butcher. "Your call."
M.M. and Frenchie looked toward Butcher.
Butcher said nothing. He scooped the woman off the floor and walked toward the door.
Villain Affinity, Jude noted. The passive works through accumulated contact time. A few weeks in, and he's started treating decisions as joint rather than his alone. He filed the thought away. Frenchie and M.M. will probably get there too, eventually.
At the exit, they stripped jackets from several of the unconscious guards and put them on. Someone found a hooded delivery jacket that fit over the woman's torn clothes. M.M. splashed water from a nearby bottle across her face, wiping away the worst of the grime. With the hood pulled up, she looked like a sleeping delivery worker.
"The people outside," Frenchie said. He looked toward the stairs.
"They only need to inhale it. The effective window is short." Jude checked his watch. "They're probably going to wake up soon. And they're probably going to have preferences about whether they want to be awake after this."
He moved toward the stairs without waiting. They followed him up and out through the white door, passing through the supermarket where Yomogi sat perched on a high shelf, waiting. They stepped out into the street.