Michael had gone out to find a pawn shop that was still open.
He had six of the old coins left and he needed cash for the deposit and also he'd realized he had no blanket, no pillow, no change of clothes, and was currently wearing a grocery store uniform that said REED'S FRESH MART across the chest which made him look insane.
Atalante had stayed at the apartment. She said she could sense him through the contract up to a quarter mile and would know if something was wrong.
He said okay and left.
That was a mistake.
The street he cut down was narrow. Trash bags stacked along one side, a dumpster halfway down leaking something dark onto the concrete. The smell was bad. Old food and piss and the metallic bite of cold air coming off the wet pavement. A busted streetlight buzzed and flickered above the dumpster. The far end of the alley connected to the main road and he could hear cars and voices down there, normal city sounds, forty feet away.
He got twenty feet in before the three guys stepped out from behind the dumpster.
The one in front was big. Not tall but wide, the kind of wide that came from actual weight, thick through the shoulders and chest and gut, a grey hoodie stretched at the collar, black cargo pants with a rip along the left knee. His hair was shaved close on the sides and left longer on top, dark brown, oily under the flickering light. His face was broad, flat nose slightly off-center from an old break, a scar running from the corner of his mouth toward his left ear. He was maybe twenty-eight. He had his hands in his front pocket and he walked like he owned this specific forty-foot stretch of alley.
Behind him were two others. One skinny, twitchy, a red beanie pulled low over small eyes. One medium build, quiet, hanging back, watching Michael with no expression.
Easy mark, the big one thought. Grocery store shirt, no muscle, alone. Quick job.
I don't like this block, the skinny one thought. Let's just do it fast.
The quiet one in the back thought nothing specific. He just watched.
"Hey man," the big one said. "Wallet."
Michael stopped walking.
His brain, helpful as always, gave him three seconds of pure white nothing.
Then his heart started going very fast and his hands went cold and he thought, with total clarity: I am going to get robbed in an alley in Queens and I have six ancient Greek coins on me and no way to explain any of it.
"I don't have a wallet," Michael said.
His voice came out okay. Barely.
"Pockets then," the big one said. He took two steps forward. He was a head shorter than Michael but outweighed him by probably sixty pounds and it was not the kind of weight that slowed a person down. "Everything in your pockets. Phone too."
"I don't have a phone either."
"Then this is gonna be quick." He reached out and grabbed Michael by the front of his REED'S FRESH MART shirt.
Michael grabbed at his wrist on pure reflex and accomplished nothing. The guy's wrist was the circumference of a baseball. Michael's grip did exactly as much as a child grabbing a lamppost.
The skinny one laughed.
Michael was very scared. He was not going to pretend otherwise. His legs felt wrong. His brain was not producing useful thoughts. The closest thing to a plan he had was the vague idea of screaming.
Then the temperature in the alley dropped two degrees.
The big guy felt it too. His eyes moved sideways.
Atalante stepped out of nothing six feet to Michael's right.
She didn't make a sound. One second she wasn't there. Next second she was, bow already in her left hand, arrow nocked and drawn to her jaw, yellow-green eyes moving across all three men in about half a second. Her dark green hair caught zero light because there was none, just shadow and her eyes and the tip of the arrow aimed at the big guy's throat.
Her tail was still. That was somehow worse than if it had been moving.
The big guy let go of Michael's shirt.
What the fuck is that, he thought. Not strategically. Just that. Exactly that.
"Back up," Atalante said. Her voice was completely flat. No performance in it. Just information.
The skinny one in the red beanie took three steps back immediately. Good survival instincts.
The big guy held his ground for another three seconds, which was either brave or stupid. Atalante's draw did not waver. Her bow arm was locked. Her back arm was locked. She looked like she could hold that position until next week.
He backed up.
"Far end of the alley," she said. "Walk."
They walked. All three of them. The quiet one glanced back once and Atalante's eyes moved to him immediately and he stopped glancing back.
They reached the far end and turned the corner and were gone.
Atalante lowered the bow. She unhooked the arrow and slid it back into the quiver at her hip in one smooth motion. She looked at Michael.
He was standing in the same spot. He hadn't moved through any of that.
"You did not run," she said.
"My legs weren't working."
She made the short sound again that wasn't quite a laugh. She looked at the end of the alley where the three men had gone, checked it, looked back.
"They will not return," she said. "Not tonight."
"Okay," Michael said.
He stood there for another second.
And then it hit him.
Not slowly. All at once.
He had a Servant.
He was a Master.
Those three guys were just guys. Regular, non-powered, no armor, no weapons beyond probably a cheap knife, no enhanced anything. Just three regular men. And he had standing next to him a Heroic Spirit with a bow she'd used to hunt since before most of recorded history who could materialize from nothing and draw on a man's throat before the man processed she existed.
He was scared of three thugs in a Queens alley.
He had Atalante.
Those two facts did not go together. At all.
Michael straightened up. Pulled his shirt back down where the big guy had grabbed it.
"That was embarrassing," he said.
"Yes," she said. She was not unkind about it.
"I froze."
"You did."
"I have a Servant. I'm a Master. I shouldn't be freezing because some guy grabbed my shirt." He said it out loud because he needed to hear it out loud. It sounded different outside his head. More real. More like something he could actually hold onto.
"No," she said simply. "You should not."
He nodded. The cold had gotten into his collar and his hands were still slightly cold from the adrenaline but his legs were working again and his brain was back online producing actual thoughts.
He looked at the end of the alley. Then he started walking toward the main street.
Atalante falls into step beside him, not behind, her hand resting loose near her quiver, her eyes already moving ahead of both of them into the lit street beyond.