This was always the hardest part: picking drinks that he didn't hate that fit with his persona. He finally settled on a 20-year single malt and prayed this place didn't refill their bottles.

In deference to the vamp's seeming dislike of physical contact with anyone but victims, Grudge just nodded his way as he approached, but he had a hearty high-five and a private but intense, "Baby C!" for their other teammate.

There wasn't a chair that could hold Grudge or Gyro for long without breaking, but that wasn't unusual. They just pushed a couple aside and sat on the floor, which meant they could better see eye-to-eye with their fixer anyhow. Grudge's accent came on, thinner than usual as he shouted over the din. ...

Grudge absently wondered, as he pressed the glowing ACCEPT button on the telecom, if anyone else was here in the Citadel of Pain, or whatever half-mocking name the team was calling their warehouse headquarters today. If anyone else was getting this same call, right now, courtesy of Lynch's ambiguous...