"You can't escape your judgement I hear them calling out your name Do not beg for mercy now You never showed any to them. Embrace your final punishment There's not a soul to hear you scream I have to thank you for letting out the animal in me." —Disturbed, "Old Friend"

Even this early in the afternoon, the club thrummed with a primal beat, announcing its intent to the world. I was content with that. Intent on my prey. I glanced at the bouncer—a newer face, one whose name I hadn't bothered to pick up yet—and he just nodded me in. More familiar to him than he was to me. That was fine. Now, it wouldn't matter if I found out or not. Not any more. I lifted my chin at him in greeting anyway. No need to make him wary. Besides, with my hair dyed sky-blue, I stood out whether I liked it or not. He gave me a nod back, and a grunt.

"Bernie in?" I asked him. Bernie managed the place. It wasn't unlikely that he would be, but as I had said. No need to make the bouncer kid wary—kid, though at this point, he was barely older than I had been, then, and I'd been all of eighteen, back then. Still. Let him draw his own conclusions as to why I wanted to know. He gave a nod and jerked his head back, deeper into the heart of the club. "Yeah. In his office."

"Thanks," I rasped, moving past him to go deeper within. I passed some of the other girls, dull-eyed and listless. Dressed in shimmering robes of bright satin, or wispy pastel lace, they all awaited their turn on stage. The stage, where they—and I—stripped for pay, for fat, sloppy men looking for a cheap thrill. Taking what they could when the greasy fingers of the patrons shoved dollar bills into their g-strings, or crowed about 'making it rain' in the same dismal denominations. A few of them lifted their gazes to me, the faintest hint of recognition in their eyes. One even spoke my stage name as I closed in, the hint of a smile on her lips. "Blue." I clapped a hand to her shoulder then, as gently as I could, and squeezed it before I passed on.

I had a job to do, after all.

The reek of lust and despair rode heavy on the air, carried along by the grease and stale-food smells that pervaded the strip joint. Underneath that welled the miasma of alcohol and cigarette smoke, and maybe something else, too. But I couldn't put my finger on it. And my Sight didn't have much to show, either. Most of the girls were just trying to get by, make ends meet, for themselves or whatever little families they built here. The bouncer outside" He was only doing the same, and it seemed like he actually wanted to help protect the girls inside the club. But that sort of thing was rare.

And, of course, there was Bernie. I closed in on him, the door that shielded him looming before me. Impressively arrayed in dark stained wood that tried to be mahogany, with the word "MANAGEMENT" embossed on it in letters that were probably polished bronze and not gold. I lifted my hand to knock. He called from inside, voice echoing. "Come in!"

I pushed my way in and Bernie's face, like a doughy roll with two currants pushed in it for eyes, lit up. He'd always been fueled by greed, and the sight of him now, with my Sight up" It made my skin crawl. But I had a job to do. I knew what he'd done, and I'd Seen that the only fear he had any more was getting caught. Not even that would be enough motivation for his own personal redemption. And really, at that point, I wasn't interested in making the attempt. Not then. The laws of the Euthanatos warn against joyous murder, but this was going to be exactly what it was. No reason to call it anything else. At least I could cling to the truth, if I couldn't separate myself from the desire for revenge.

"Blue!" he exclaimed, using my stage name and rising to meet me. He passed me, then, and moved to bolt the door behind me. I could sense what he thought was going to happen, and let my lips curve into a promise I had little intent of keeping. He sat back down at his desk, and I sat on it, leaning in so he could get a glimpse of my cleavage as my jacket parted to expose it. Distract him, even as I took a pill bottle out of my pocket and set it between us. Waiting for him to take notice. It took a moment, but he looked at it, and then looked back at me. Confusion writ large on his face. His lips worked, now, fat tongue moistening them as he looked up at me. A flick of my wrist to loosen one of my knives from its holster, held flash against my skin.

"Where did you get that?" he asked. "Did you need some" You know, you always could have come to me..." I must have made some noise, because he stopped, face going a bit more white under his fat and pasty pallor. I leaned in, to hiss in his face.

"Irina! I got them from Irina," I growled, reaching out my unencumbered hand to grab him. He squealed like the pig he was, and launched back away from me, trying to put the desk, the chair—anything!—between us. To escape me. He didn't know what was going on, but he didn't need to. He really couldn't get far, even if he'd wanted to. I was three decades younger and I'd never let myself go to fat the way he had. It took me moments to leap the desk and made him squeal louder, hunter claiming my chosen prey. I stabbed him through the shoulder as I shoved him up against the back wall of his office. Even as I did that, Irina's face was before me, tear-stained. She'd thought we'd hate her for falling to addiction. Morgan was better equipped to heal the physical chains that bound her. Me" This was what I did best. Taking out the serpent at its source.

That same primal beat that announced the club's presence to the world prevented anyone from providing a rescue. And Bernie had locked the door himself. I wasn't so stupid to think that he didn't have an intercom system somewhere—probably his desk—but I'd bullied him away from there on purpose. I had no intent of letting him live. I shook him, letting my blade grind into his shoulder as he howled. A new gout of blood soaked into the fabric of his cheap three-piece, and I smelled a fouler scent as he crapped his pants. If I had not been so intent on punishment, I might have laughed, at that point. I wanted him to know just how bad he'd been. So he'd know better, next time. When the Wheel spun him out again, into his mother's womb, where he'd be delivered to squall and shriek and start his life all over again.

"Why?" I snarled. "Why did you do it' She wasn't the only one, was she?" Not that I really was deeply interested in his words. I wasn't. But if there was any absolution to be had, it wasn't going to be from me anyway, so why not let him scream his confession to any listening god" He arched in my grip, and I shook him. Partly to get him to answer me, partly to get a better grip on him. And that shake released my second knife into my hand, in preparation to end him. How bad it would be would depend on his answer. Not that I was in any mood for mercy.

"MONEY!" he howled again. The word was torn out of him, and I narrowed my eyes so that my face was close to his. I shook him again. That couldn't be it, was it' That the source of all his corruption was simple greed" He whimpered. "If I could get the girls hooked, I could get more money out of them. Or pay them less! Get favors from them! Please, I—"

Favors. That made me snarl in his face again. Irina would have mentioned that, I was sure, had he forced her to that. But she still had been so damn close. The acrid stink of urine hit my nose as his bladder let go, and he did an antsy little dance, either trying to cover his shame, or the source of it, arms jerking. Moving his wounded arm made him scream again. And was that footsteps I thought I heard, even through that thick door?

I crooned at him under my breath, even as I started up the rote that let Bernie see, experience, just what he'd been doing to those girls. It wouldn't do to just make him die. He had to comprehend why this was happening to him, and I had no time to whisper his litany of sins to him.

But I could make him hurt more, for a few short moments before I made it go away. If that organ between his legs was so damn important—and he acted like it was, even in the everyday life of the club, like every girl wanted him despite any complaints—it should be the focus of my ire. Shouldn't it' I gripped my knife that much harder, and stabbed it deep into his manhood. The sound he made, as sweet to my ears as it was, soared a bit too loud and frantic even for the music to obliterate entirely. There was pounding at the door, now.

"Goodbye, Bernie," I said. His mouth was still working soundlessly when I lifted the blade to slash his throat.

(Written solely from memory, any mistakes are mine!)