"Oliver, that's-"

He cut me off. "Yeah, it is." Macho clearing of the throat. "Anyway, based on his recent book on the life of Marco Polo, we have taken it as a challenge from McGovern that he's going for the same thing we are. Marco's treasure. And if he gets his hands on something big, I wouldn't put it past him to weaponize it just to spite us."

By this point, we had climbed several flights of stairs, and Oliver seemed to have taken all the heaviness he could. "So, these are the apartments," he said as we walked down a long hallway. "They're for people who stay here regularly, like Minnie and I. He stopped at a door that would've been nondescript were it not for the message Oliver is a boob scrawled across it. "Oh ha ha, Pete. Very mature." He turned to me. "He's just mad because I trashed his bedroom when I was in Brooklyn watching you."

"By which you mean stalking me."

"Anyway," Oliver said loudly. "Minnie and Katie want to talk to you. In you go." He threw open the door and retreated back down the hall so quickly that I almost expected some sort of Pagan worship thing to be going on when I stepped into the apartment.

Instead, I found a relatively small place, with a lot of natural light and weird décor that were the hallmarks of twenty somethings. Street signs and license plates adorned the walls, and there were several takeout cartons scattered about. Sitting on a battered leather couch, patched many times over with duct tape, in the middle of it all, were Katie and Minnie, clutching coffee cups and deep in conversation.

They both turned when they heard me enter. "Oh, Jamie, hey. There's a beverage of questionable composition for you on the counter. Grab a seat."

I retrieved my cup, which smelled like hot chocolate but also kind of sharp, and took a seat in the white rocking chair across from the two women, feeling a bit like I was being judged by a panel.

I took another sniff at the drink. "Is this..."

"If you don't ask, it was never there," Katie cut across me. "We forgot you were young. I thought you were more like seventeen."

"That's still not... legal?"

Minnie shrugged.

I took a sip.

It tasted like shit.

Shit combined with hot chocolate, so like deceptive shit, which was even worse.

"So, what's up?" I asked, setting the mug aside.

Minnie smiled, her eyes twinkling. I really could see why she and Oliver dated. "Well, my friend, it's a tradition in the Society that when a boy joins, the other guys kidnap him, steal his clothes, and make him stay outside for half an hour in nothing but his tighty-whiteys."

Damn. I knew these people were too nice.

What did I even do? Did I just let them haze me, or was I supposed to fight them or something?

"But lucky for you, the girls are way nicer, so you just have to let us do your hair."

I exhaled. "Oh. Okay. Cool."

Katie held up a long finger. "Not so fast. When we say do your hair, we take it seriously. Hair can be both practical and stylish, if you do it right."

"What, are you going to cut my hair?" I laughed.

The other women stared back at me, dead serious. "Be grateful it's just us, the girls who did mine buzzed it," Katie said with a grimace. 

******

It was an interesting experience, and a harrowing one.

They insisted that I not look in the mirror, so I was staring directly into Kate's face for the better part of an hour, and just staring into the bathroom wall's soul when she moved behind me.

When Kate finally finished, Minnie brought out dye, and despite my protests, they wouldn't even tell me what color it was.

And that was how I found myself, two and a half hours later, staring my myself in the mirror. My wavy hair, which had before been halfway down my back, was now chopped off below my jaw, so it looked tousled instead of just depressed. And it was no longer brown but a light pink. I actually looked...

Kinda nice.

"Do you like it?" Minnie asked, but from the way she and Kate were beaming, they both already knew the answer.

"Yeah. Thank you."

"Good, because the dye is permanent," Katie said extremely quickly, and she and Minnie fled the bathroom, leaving me to clutch at the dye box. Sure enough, it said on the front: PERMANENT DYE.

I laughed. Somehow, that made it better, that I was stuck with it.

I was stuck with a lot of things.

At least I liked this one.

"Okay, one more surprise before we head back to New York," Kate said as I exited the bathroom. I had taken to calling her Kate and she didn't seem to mind. "Another tradition we have for a newcomer is taking them to the armory and letting them pick their first weapon of choice."

"Oh, thanks, but I already have my knife."

Minnie wrapped her arm around my shoulders and began steering me towards the door. "Jamie, Jamie, Jamie," she said. "So young, so naïve. The truth is-" She spun to face me, hands on my shoulders, face serious. "Your knife is a piece of shit."

I must say, I was a little offended. That knife was the first birthday present I'd ever gotten, from Johnny on my thirteenth, and it really helped me to ignore the feelings of unease stirred up by the thought that Johnny knew enough to know my birthday. It had gotten me out of a lot of tough spots, most notably one involving a drunk hobo and a snowball.

"What's wrong with my knife?"

"Nothing. For a knife. But knives are just so ineffective in our kind of work. Everyone else will have guns."

"And then you'll die," Kate chimed from her spot on the couch, flipping through the newest edition of Good Housekeeping.

"Essentially. I like you, and it would suck if you died, so do this for me. Come to the armory."

"Uh, okay." I was more than a touch freaked out. Renee had said that there was combat on "the rare occasion" but they were kind of making it sound like a regular occurrence. "But I thought Renee said-"

Katie tossed the magazine aside. "Whatever Renee told you is bullshit." Her voice was icy, and I looked to Minnie for confirmation. She looked ridiculously uncomfortable, and there was steel behind her eyes.

"She's right," Minnie said flatly. "Renee's nice, but she is by no means honest. She's well versed in the art of pulling people in and twisting the truth to suit her purposes. She has to be, with a job like hers."

Silence.

"So, are we going or what?" Minnie stalked out. Katie shot me a small smile and followed.