He watched her low-top black Chuck Taylors pad around the floor of the diner. It was almost soothing, the movement of her shoes as she moved from table to counter to table. Staring at the sneakers, he could safely glimpse her slim ankles and strong calves; he was not ogling her body, just enjoying the rhythm of her steps. He watched the Converses walking toward him and looked up in time to see her topping off his coffee.

"Anything else, Mr. Kovacs?" Arete asked. Her manner toward him, as always, was pleasant but simple. No annoying chatter. No brash teasing, even aimed at a regular like him. The waitress was too nosy by half, though. She was always trying to peek over his shoulder at his newspaper or his notes. The first time she did it, he had wanted to fling her petite frame across the diner.

"Is that a code of some sort?" she had asked, squinting down at his notebook. Is that even English? she had been thinking.

His expressionless stare had been enough to warn her off then, but his intimidation factor seemed to be diminishing over time. The waitress was more circumspect about her insufferable snooping, at any rate.

He shook his head, smoothing out his newspaper. The black sneakers scuffed a little closer. His eyes wandered back to the article facing up: "Russians Pick Up Supernatural Experiments Where Hitler Left Off."

"Is that you?" Arete asked. Her voice dropped discreetly: "I didn't know you wrote for the New Frontiersman." The final words were practically an undertone.

His gloved hand spidered over the byline. "Surprised?"

"Yes," she admitted, smiling. "But sometimes I like surprises."

"Waitress!"

He watched the Converses pad away.

This was only the twelfth time Rorschach had followed her home. It was primarily self-interest, naturally; she was a good waitress, despite her nosiness, and he did not feel like having to adapt to a new server at the Gunga Diner. This was a dangerous city, as he well knew, especially for a young woman walking alone late at night. And she was such a tiny thing.

His concern was justified tonight as Arete crossed the street and disappeared behind a large van, without re-appearing on the sidewalk. Stepping closer, he heard voices.

"...straight a long time, Shiv. This isn't my scene anymore."

Rorschach crouched behind the bumper of a parked car. He could see Arete talking to a group of men. She appeared to be addressing one in particular: a tall, slim Knotzi wearing a leather jacket and jeans too short to touch the top of his boots.

"Gonna try to recruit me to your merry band of clean and sober fags?" the tall man (presumably "Shiv") asked as he proffered a small, clear baggie. His buddies giggled, the shadows of their topknots bobbing on the asphalt.

Darkness shrouded Arete's face. "Trying to get you to a meeting would suggest that I gave a shit what happens to you. I don't." She ignored the baggie in his hand.

"You used to give a lot more than a shit." Shiv grinned lewdly.

Arete sighed and pushed past him. "I used to do a lot of things."

One of the Knotzis, shorter and broader than Shiv, knocked her back against the doors of the van. Rorschach tensed.

"Don't be a jackass," she insisted tiredly. "This is a public street."

"Think someone's gonna stop us? Think someone's gonna save you?"

"That's the katies talking. Go home before you do something really stupid."

The tall man shrugged. "We can do this the easy way, kiddo, even if you won't put out for horse anymore," the tall man said. "Everybody's got their price. What's yours?"

"Screw you, Shiv."

"Such a foul mouth..." Shiv's voice was silky as he loomed over her. His lanky frame had at least a foot on her petite frame. Rorschach wondered if she even weighed a hundred pounds.

Arete closed her eyes and pressed herself against the van. "Please don't do this."

"Some girls think it's hot: to have a man pay money for them."

"Fuck that, Shiv. Let's just do her."

Shiv put up a hand to his comrade, but his eyes remained on Arete's face. Her eyes were squeezed shut. "How much are you worth?"

***

Arete heard some scuffling and a grunt. One of the men cried out, and something large dented a car. Terrified, she opened her eyes to see two of the Knotzis sprinting down the sidewalk away from her. The stocky man lay draped across a car parked behind the van; he was not moving. A dark shape sprawled on top of Shiv, pounding him with leaden fists so hard that his head bounced off the asphalt at each blow.

Bile rose into Arete's throat. She swallowed it down.

The strange assailant looked up at her from his perch atop his prostrate foe. Arete gasped at the face which observed her from underneath his fedora. Properly speaking, it was not a face. For a panicked moment she saw a bleached skull with black cavities where eyes and flesh should have been. The gruesome head tilted slightly, like a bird's. She feared that he would spring at her, perhaps to kill her, perhaps to make her like him.

Then Arete realized her mistake. The black and white swirls resolved into a mask, a piece of fabric which covered a face bookended very normally by a hat and a trenchcoat.

"Are you a whore?" the mask asked. The voice was low and rusty as if from disuse. It was also vaguely familiar.

"No!" she insisted, eyes wide. "They just came toward me, and I didn't recognize Shiv until he got close. I..." her voice failed for a moment under his dispassionate examination of her. "I used to know him."

"Do you have any narcotics on you?"

Arete shook her head wildly.

The man rose and stepped toward her. She backed into the street.

"He...he was going to-"

"Wait for the police. If you want."

"What do I tell them?" She glanced from the carnage on the sidewalk to the masked man, and the penny dropped. "You're Rorschach, aren't you?"

The wail of sirens erupted from several blocks away. Suddenly he flung his arm out and grabbed her jacket.

"Wha-?" Arete gasped, as Rorschach pulled her toward him. A car barreled by, right where she had been standing; she was so flustered that she had not even heard it approaching. Momentum toppled her toward his body, but he stopped her before she collided with him. His leather-gloved hands were warm and strong on her arms. She dragged in a deep breath and smelled a dark cocktail of odors: blood, sweat, adrenaline, and something like wet autumn leaves.

"That's twice in five minutes!" she exclaimed unnecessarily.

"Just go home," he muttered, as if to say that there would not be a third.

The sirens were coming closer. Rorschach released her arms. Arete nodded and hurried onto the sidewalk, sidestepping Shiv's prostrate form.

"Neither of us was here," she agreed. "You definitely weren't. But thanks anyway!" She grinned at him. She watched him back athletically into a dark alley, then she sped home.