Coup de Main

[Bailey Raptis]

February 18, 2019
Bwyty Cymreig
Old Temple

Bwyty Cymreig sat in a quiet northwestern corner of the Old Temple district, just west of the Westbridge that connected the neighborhood to Old Temple and a stone’s throw from the wall separating it from Dockside. The bar and grill’s distance from the city’s major shopping centers made it less of a dining destination and more of a local joint, a fact backed up by the mews surrounding it and its less than stellar menu and decor. Most patrons came to drink, not eat, and those that actually ordered food would probably have been surprised to learn the restaurant’s name, translated out of Welsh, was in fact “Welsh Restaurant.” The array of fried fish, chips, chicken tenders, hamburgers, wings and pasties didn’t exactly scream “Wales”, and its handful of nods at the cuisine (cawl, rarebit, and Glamorgan sausage) were so poorly done that few customers who ordered them ever tried them again -- or returned to the restaurant. Likewise, the exterior of the building, plain and painted black with the name in brass letters above the door and the windows frosted to make peering inside difficult, seemed designed deliberately to be off putting.

That didn’t stop the tall woman with peacock’s feathers looped into her long blonde hair from walking down the street, up the half-step to the door, and in. She took little notice of how empty Bwyty Cymreig was, even for a Monday night. The hostess just sort of waved at the array of empty tables in the front, then gestured toward the bar, where an orc in leather armor nursed a bottle of Badsider and a half-eaten bowl of stew. The bartender, a tall thin man grossly overdressed in a white dress shirt, black tie and suspenders, looked up the woman, lifted an eyebrow, and then returned to checking his inventory. The newcomer, for her part, took little notice of them, nor did she spare a glance for the gaggle of waiters sitting back by the kitchen door, leaning over a waitress’ shoulder to watch some video she’d started playing on her smartphone. Not even their laughter broke her stride.

She ignored the squeaking and sagging floorboards, the chipped cream paint on the walls, the yellowed patina of cigarette smoke on the ceilings, and the table lamps with dying and dead light bulbs in them as she walked back towards the bar’s game area. A stack of phone books propped up one of the legs of the pool table, and a lifetime of poor cue shots had ripped the green felt in several spots on its surface. Only shreds of red tape remained on the floor to indicate where players should stand while throwing darts, but somehow the board itself had survived Bwyty Cymreig’s malaise intact. She smoothed down the sides of her navy blue sheath dress, then approached the board.

Her green eyes lingered on the bullseye for a moment, turning ever so slightly towards the chalk and scoring board nearby. She picked up a nub of yellow chalk, turned it over in her fingers a few times, then flipped it into a writing grip. With long, languid strokes, she drew a sigil on the blackboard that took up nearly all the available writing space. When she finished, she flicked the chalk over her shoulder and waited.

The glyph began glowing until the entirety of the wall around it shimmered a blinding white. She shielded her eyes until the light faded, and when she looked again, she saw a mahogany door where the back wall had been. She grabbed the smooth brass handle, turned it, and stepped inside.

“You’re late, Glesni.” A smooth basso profondo addressed her as soon as she stepped into the magical speakeasy. Her eyes darted around the room, taking in the intentionally dim lighting, the darkly stained bar with a full array of liquor bottles, and several oak aging barrels that had been repurposed into small tables. She found the man who addressed her sitting in the back on a burgundy leather couch, his muddy brown boots propped up on a steamer trunk that had been fashioned into a cocktail table. The rest of his attire -- robes that covered him from neck to toe, gloves that hid his hands, and a cowl that obscured his head and face -- was white.

“Ya know I had to see if this’s a trap, right, Sandman?” Glesni rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue even as she walked through this even emptier space. The only other person present, a golden-skinned bartender with unremarkable brown eyes and short brown hair, just snorted as she strolled past. She responded by blowing him a kiss, before taking a seat in a garnet velvet club chair across from Sandman.

“If I wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t be here right now.” Sandman leaned over to tap his cigar into a nearby ashtray. “Besides, this is neutral ground. A shame you had to burn Cooke’s to the ground. We could be eating huevos rancheros right now.”

“Collateral damage,” she said, her eyes gleaming like emeralds as she smiled.

Sandman sat up, leaned forward, and jutted his cigar toward Glesni. Still, his voice stayed calm and even. “Deliberate sabotage.”

“If ya called me here to apologize for some shit that happened years ago, ain’t gonna happen. Ya’re wasting my time, and Kheems’s time over there.” She thumbed over towards the bar.

“...No. I’m not. I have a proposal for you.”

“Tch. If ya think we’re gonna surrender-”

“Just listen to me for a moment.” A ripple of agitation coursed through Sandman’s tone, before he flattened it out again. “We have a mutual enemy that I think we can agree trumps our current...issues.”

“What’s that?”

“Bailey Raptis.”

Upon hearing the name, Glesni guffawed, pointing at Sandman. “Ya have a problem with him. We don’t.”

“I would like to hear you tell your followers that,” he said, laughter rumbling at the edges of his speech. “I’m sure your zealots who brook no tolerance for the Fae would love to hear you say we should leave a collaborator alone. Kheems?” Sandman lifted his voice so the bartender could hear him, and Kheems hustled over with a bottle of port and two glasses. He poured the wine out for both of them, and returned to his post as quickly as he’d arrived. Sandman swirled the port around the rim of his glass, lifted it to his lips, and took a tiny sip. He then gestured for Glesni to do the same. “A 40 year old tawny. Graham’s. Don’t worry, it’s not poisonous. Not anymore than alcohol usually is.”

“How reassuring.” Despite that, she took a larger swig than he had. “It’s...a bit much? I’ll stick to whiskey or beer, but thanks.”

“Now, where were we? Oh, my apologies, I never did let you explain why we shouldn’t all be scared shitless of the new Archmage.”

Sharp and unexpected, Sandman’s words seemed to push Glesni back in her chair. “Archmage?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t follow the duels,” he purred, his words almost obscured by the rim of his glass. “Nevermind that. All you need to know is that Bailey is about to become very very powerful very very soon. This is a man who openly aligns himself with Fae. Who openly uses magic. Who’s to say that he won't decide to tell the world about us? If he is no longer afraid of Them, if he no longer sees himself as one of us, then he might very well do so. And I don’t need to tell you how much of a disaster that would be. Our little guerre will pale in comparison to what the Fair Folk will do to us.”

Glesni shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “...Ya should have killed him when ya had the chance.”

“Yes. We should have. But as you said...we’re not here to apologize. We’re here to compromise. We’re here to set aside our differences temporarily, and unite against our most imminent threat.”

Despite her misgivings, Glesni found herself leaning forward. “What are ya proposing?”

“If we cannot attack Bailey in the numbers necessary to defeat him without unduly calling attention ourselves, what can we do?” The question was purely rhetorical, as Sandman soon answered it himself. “We target his friends. We kidnap some of them, kill the ones who resist too much. We target his allies. We make the price of supporting him too prohibitive to pay. We target where he works -- even if he lives on the Isle, he still has to work in the city, but it’s hard to do that when your restaurants are burned down. We target where he plays. We spread our attacks out. We make every aspect of his life a living hell. Then, when his world is in tatters, and he comes crawling to us, begging us to spare his friends?” Sandman made a gun out of his gloved hand, pointed it at Glesni, and mock-fired.

“That for him, or for them?”

“Him? Both? I don’t know. We’ll play it by ear. But-” He stopped to twist the lit end of his cigar into the ashtray until the cherry went out. “- we need to strike fast, we need to strike strong, and we need to strike at the same time. We need to put aside our differences, combine our forces, and hit this bastard as hard and swift as we can. Are you with me?”

Glesni drained the last dregs of the port in her glass, licking her lips as she reached over to pour herself another round. After she’d done that, she lifted her drink up, waiting until Sandman got the hint and did the same. She brought her glass forward to clink against his. “Yeah. I’m with ya. Let’s snuff this traitor out.”

[Eden Parker]

February 19, 2019
Dragon’s Gate

The weather had warmed just enough to make the walk home from work almost pleasant. The lights at the Triple A were off, the gym locked up tight for the night as Eden bounced out into the street. She was bundled up still, her purple hat with the fuzzy ears pulled down tight, her hands covered in purple mittens. But she couldn't hide those wings, ever-present on her back having been threaded through the open panels in her coat, floating weightlessly as she bounced along, the silver veining catching the light as she went. It had been a good work day and she was already thinking about what to eat for dinner and whether she should pop in on Nat on her way home.

Little about the trio across the street from Eden stood out in the dimly lit streets of west Dragon's Gate, and that was by design. They each wore plain street clothes -- blue jeans, dark winter coats and jackets, snow boots and sneakers. They leaned against a construction windscreen casually, whispering to each other as she passed by. One of them, a tall and slightly muscled man with a pronounced hook of a nose, nodded to the others. After Eden had walked a half block up, two of them hustled south, then back west, and then sprinted through several back alleys, leaving the man with the hawk's nose to continue following behind her. With any luck, the pair would be in front of her on the sidewalk, with the team's leader at Eden's back.

It wasn't that Eden was oblivious to the threats of the Rhy'Din streets. It's that she saw few things around her as an actual threat. She knew someone was walking behind her, but she didn't think he was following her. When she finally turned, she smiled and waved, then continued bouncing along. Right into the path of the two intending to cut her off.

To Eden's left, an average-sized man with a sunburn, black braided hair and eyes stood with the slightest of grins on his face. To her right, a short woman with blotchy skin, reddish-brown hair, and eyes the color of antifreeze spoke. "We need you to come with us to talk about Bailey," the woman said, between racking coughs.

Her bouncing came to an abrupt stop. The immediate expression on her face was worry. "What happened to Bailey?" She looked between the two of them, then back at the person who was behind her. "Are you Bailey's friends?"

A surprised look flashed across the black-eyed man's face, and he looked over Eden at his companion, who nodded. "We are," said the man in front of Eden. "Just come with us, and Bailey will be alright."

Her head tipped. "Come where?" Her brow furrowed and she looked behind her again. "Are you one of Bailey's friends too? How come you didn't come talk to me a few blocks ago?"

The two looked past Eden, to their leader, who just sighed and spun a finger in the air. The black-eyed man's braids suddenly ignited into whips of fire, and the blotchy-skinned woman shook out her fingers, dripping a yellowish-green substance that began hissing as soon as it struck the sidewalk. Hoping this might have distracted Eden, the hawk-man unsheathed his talons from under his finger nails and slashed at her wings.

It was distracting, but it was also enough to put her on guard. She was already trying to position herself to see all three of them at once, bouncing aside like the way she did in the ring. But the slash still caught her right wing, and she winced as it sliced through. "What are you doing!?" She took up a defensive stance, but three against one did not seem like a fair fight. Eden shifted her cross-body bag so that it was out of the way of her arms and legs.

The woman seemed to slap at thin air, but that was only so she could try and splatter some of the acid from her hands onto Eden. The fire-haired man reared back, as if preparing to head-butt her, then swung his head forward so that the fiery braids cracked in her direction. The man behind Eden with the talons tried to sidestep into a better position, hoping to box Eden in between his two friends and the closed bank office building nearby.

Eden bounced back some more, acid sizzling as it hit the pavement at her feet. Alarmed, Eden back-pedaled more and then ducked as the fiery braids came swinging at her. Running out of pavement, she held her hands out and a bright pink shield appeared in front of her. Of course the shield was only color, shimmer, and light. It wouldn't stop anything, even if it looked impressive.

The summoned shield gave the three pause for a second, as they stood in front of her, blocking her path back to the street. "Make this easy on yourself, and give up," the hawk-man squawked. "We don't have to take all of Bailey's friends alive."

Eden needed a way out. She looked between the three of them, heart pounding. Just before her shield started to dissolve into pink sparkles, she bounced through it, coming right after the man with the talons. Acid hands and fire hair seemed best avoided, but claws she could handle. Fist first, she came at him, trying to use the element of surprise to her advantage and get enough of a piece of him to break their line of three. The first strike she attempted was high, with the intent to follow with a low sweep to knock him off his feet.

The man with the hooked nose had underestimated her pluck. He caught the jab right in the throat, coughing and gagging and left wide open for the following sweep. He hit the ground with a gasp as the air rushed out of his lungs. His companions tried to take advantage of her focus, with the fire-haired man grabbing for both of Eden’s arms to attempt to pin them behind her back.

One arm was caught, while the other flailed. She tried to send her elbow back into his stomach, kicking out defensively to make sure the acid hands didn't get close to her. All the while, her wings floated gracefully at her back, even the damaged one, as if they alone were oblivious to the desperate fight of the rest of her body. "Let me go! You're bad people! Bad!"

The black-eyed man caught the elbow full in the stomach, reflexively clutching at his gut and letting her arm go. The defensive kick caught the grasping acid-handed woman right in the fingers, bending her right pinky and thumb into grotesque angles. She wailed and coughed as she clutched at her hand. The taloned man finally made it back to his feet and reached inside his coat for something: a black rectangle that fit into the palm of his hand. He flicked a switch on the side, and electricity arced between two prongs on the front of the device.

Eden didn't know what that was, but she knew she didn't want any part of it. Momentarily freed, she seized her moment. Turning to the only open direction, she took off in a hard run.

Acid hands had collapsed against one of the bank’s columns, her eyes tearing up from the pain. Fire hair was still doubled over from Eden’s elbow, a hand pressed against the doorway in an attempt to stay somewhat upright. That left the leader, with his talons and his stun gun. "Kheems always sends me the worthless..." He cut off his muttering as he sprinted after Eden, his long strides eating up the distance between the two.

She could hear the pounding of feet behind her, closing in. She tried to lose him by turning corners, flinging harmless bright pink sparks behind her, but it didn't seem to slow him down. She heard something crackle. Practically felt her pursuer breathing down her neck. So she did the only thing she could think of. She twitched her wing.

Immediately she disappeared from the street in front of him, a trail of bright pink light leading off down the road until it faded, leaving behind nothing but the sound of her scream.

((Written with the player of Bailey Raptis))

[Eden Parker]

Eden awoke in a snowy field. The lights of Rhy’Din were in front of her, but far enough away to be worrisome. Her mittens were gone. One snow boot was gone.

She sat up, and reached back for her wings. They were still there, but battered like the rest of her.

A few yards away, she could see her missing boot. And her bag was even closer. Her bag! She crawled through the snow to grab it, cold fingers struggling with the zipper, finding her phone in its pocket.

Text to Bailey: Somebody bad came to get me!#%^*#@ Be careful!!! Not your friends!!!

[Bailey Raptis]

February 19, 2019
Max and Bailey’s Apartment
Dragon’s Gate/New Haven border

Max and Dany sat close together on the black Victorian chaise, the former holding a bowl of buttered popcorn while the latter rested their head against the tall bartender’s shoulder. Their TV was tuned to Orc Championship Wrestling, and the OCW Multiverse Champion Hork Orkan had just defeated their bitter arch rival “Dandelion” Dorlan Gralhas in a grueling cage match. A skimpily dress ringside reporter now interviewed Hork, who threatened extreme violence and degradation to anybody who dared challenge for his belt. The crowd cheered and banged together thundersticks as he continued to rant. Dany looked up at Max, caught their eyes, and rolled their own.

“I can’t believe you like this,” Dany teased as they snuggled up closer to Max. Where Max, tall and lean, edged just slightly towards the masculine side of androgyny, Dany only barely favored the feminine. They were shorter, a little softer and less muscled, and although the two of them both wore jeans, Dany paired theirs with a cream-colored peasant blouse, in stark contrast to Max’s black tank top. Dany’s fingers traced the handle of the kitchen knife tattoo on Max’s right wrist, slow and steady.

“What’s not to love? Almost everyone’s ring music is "Oh Damn!", everybody’s wearing as little clothing as possible, and then they beat the hell out of each other.” Max sighed. “It’s perfect.”

“Well, if you love it, I can live with it.” Dany kissed Max’s cheek with a sigh of their own.

The television screeched, ruining the moment and causing them both to cover their ears. “I thought we weren’t supposed to get anymore snow!” Dany shouted over the din. Max shook their head.

“No, it’s not that,” they replied, pointing at the screen. Where the wrestling had been, a glowing white-orange glyph now covered the screen, a series of squares and circles linked together with dark lines. “It’s the ward Bailey’s friends set up. We’re going to have company, and not the friendly kind.”

“I-I’m ready.” Dany hopped up and ran for the kitchen, gathering a clutch of butter knives from the silverware drawer. Max went to their bedroom, pulled open a drawer on their nightstand, and retrieved a white safe. They quickly punched in the combination, unlocked it, and slid it open, revealing a Glock 19 pistol. Back together in the living room, the pair turned off the television and pushed the chaise out so that it faced the front door. Then, they waited.

Something thumped against the door -- a hammer? A battering ram? It must have been a testing blow, for the next time something struck the entryway, the door broke in half and folded inward. The pair flinched momentarily as splinters struck the chair’s legs and hinges sailed over their heads, but they kept their eyes forward and waited to see what stepped through.

A grey-skinned ogre, tall enough that he had to bend his neck to fit inside, dragged an axe that might have been as long as Dany was tall. He looked at the black chair, strangely positioned in the middle of the hallway, and scratched his head. Max didn’t hesitate, leaning around the chaise and firing at the ogre’s center mass. The bullets drove it backwards into a floor lamp, and the shade fell on top of his head as he collapsed in a crumpled heap with the black metal tube bent beneath his body. Blood began to pool beneath, but the residents didn’t have time to think about it, as their next foes rushed the door.

One of them, a short woman with hypothermic blue skin, stayed near the entryway, flinging sharp icicles at the occupants from cover. Their other enemy, a taller and thinner woman with red eyes and a cloud of dark smoke that poured out of her mouth, searched for an opening to dash into the apartment. While the wintry woman and Max exchanged potshots, the other home invader spat puffs of black fog into the room, dashing from cloud to cloud in an attempt to close in on Max and Dany.

Eventually, the red-eyed woman drew close enough to the two that she could spring from the smoke safely, wielding a wicked kukri. She swung it at them, and the blade bit into the arms of the chair, before she flung a faceful of smoke into their eyes and dove back into the fog. Max saw Dany cowering by the bookcase, their cache of makeshift weapons stuck beneath the chaise.

“DANY!” Max shouted, over the ringing in their ears from the gunshots. When the two locked eyes, Max lunged for the kitchen. An icicle caught her just below the ribcage on her right side, but they gritted through the pain and returned fire, forcing the cold woman back. Dany scrabbled on their back, trying to dodge the slicing blade wielded by the woman of fog. Their fatigue eventually caught up with them, and, after a quick stabbing feint, she managed to slice into Dany’s right shoulder. They cried out, and Max did as well, as they heaved the mini fire extinguisher from the kitchen.

Max had been trying to toss it over to Dany, but they’d misjudged the angle and distance. Fortunately, it meant that instead of landing near their partner, it cracked right into the back of the smoke-spitting woman’s head. She took one woozy step forward, then crashed into the bookcase, scattering paperbacks across the floor.

That left the blue-skinned woman by the door. Desperation sunk in, and she redoubled her efforts to skewer Max and Dany. Max hid behind the island, popping up to fire their gun when there was a lull in her attacks. Then they heard the tell-tale clicking of the empty magazine, and their eyes went wide.

“SHIT!” Immediately realizing her adversary had run out of ammunition, the icicle tosser abandoned that strategy. Instead of storming into the room to make quick work of her opponents, she taunted them, strolling into the hallway.

“I might’ve let you live,” she said, before gesturing toward the ogre’s body. Then, she touched the index and ring fingers of her left hand to the crook of her right elbow. Her right arm shifted from flesh into a long, icy blade of translucent blue. Max desperately started tossing pots and pans at her, but she deflected each blow with ease.

“NO!” Dany screamed as they popped out from behind the chair, a butter knife in each hand. They gritted their teeth as they flung the cutlery. As the knives cut through the air, turning end over end, they grew sharper and sharper, until they whistled with each rotation. A pair of sickening thunks sounded through the apartment, as the thin razors found their target: the woman’s eye sockets. There wasn’t time for her to scream, or even claw at her face, before she pitched forward against an end table and fell, unmoving.

Max and Dany clutched their respective wounds as they limped over to inspect the damage: scuffed floors, blood-stained carpet, a ruined lamp, shredded cushions, chipped armrests, ripped books, a dented bookshelf, and, of course, the two splintered halves of their front door. The chorus of gunshots from the Glock had deafened them both, so instead of speaking, they just leaned against the wall. Dany immediately rested their head on Max’s shoulder. Despite the pain in their side, Max leaned over to pat Dany on the shoulder. That was when they saw the red and blue lights flashing outside their window.

Hissing in pain, Max reached into their pocket to retrieve their cell phone. Any moment now, the guard would be there to question them. There would be no time to text Bailey once that happened. So Max frantically tapped a text out to their roommate, hoping that he read it before it was too late.

Text to Bailey: bad guys attack apt were ok wtch out

[Mallory]

February 28, 2019
Kabuki Street
Dockside

They had been following Mallory since she left the house in Riverwatch.

She always kept an eye turned towards Three Foxes’ Court, more than familiar with redcaps and how vicious they could be, but when she saw a few much taller figures in work clothes strolling up towards the far end of the Kabuki Street, she didn’t think anything of it. Secure in the strength and reputation of the rengou-kai, she walked down the street without escort, heading into the heart of the neighborhood to resupply at the Sunny Mart -- and to see if Eri had fallen asleep upstairs again.

“Babe? You up there?” Mallory called over the tone of the door as she pushed her way inside. The cashier glanced and gave her a vague smile, unconcerned by the shout and seemingly familiar with both the sukeban and her wife. There were only a couple of customers present, late enough in the evening that most people were already finishing dinner, but too early for the usual gaggle of loitering delinquents.

Rather than wait for a response or head upstairs herself, the witch decided to get her shopping done first. She scooped up a basket, plucking toiletries off a long shelf as she strolled down the aisle, and turned towards the refrigerated section at the back. She reached for the door to the milk cartons and paused at the beer instead. She worried her lip as she considered a case of Kirin, paying little attention to the three workers from earlier putting out their cigarettes as they made their way inside -- and completely missing several more unfamiliar figures lingering under the eaves across the street, their gazes fixed on Sunny Mart’s cheerful storefront…

In the storeroom turned meeting room, Eri was slumped in the sukeban’s white plastic outdoor chair napping beneath the large banner of the Kabuki Street Rengou-kai and display of Lucky and Sumire’s retired sukajan. The call woke the half oni and she sat up, cracking her neck with a turn of her head. As she emerged at a shamble into the store, she was smiling at the sight of Mallory doing her shopping, not noticing the cashier or other customers.

It took a few moments for the witch to manage the case into her arms, with the laden shopping basket already in hand. She was nudging open the door for the dairy section when she spotted Eri nearby, and gave her a grin. “Just getting the essentials,” she stated, lifting the Kirin a little higher with a grunt, and looked over her shoulder as another group of people pushed their way inside.

There were six of them now, though it didn’t occur to Mallory to group them all together -- at least, not until they all seemed to turn to her and Eri at once. There was a very tall woman with bright red eyes, and another whose hair fell past her waist in writhing tendrils. A shorter humanoid was walking towards Mallory, and as he rolled up his sleeves, she realized there were thorny vines winding their way around his arms. Two more men advanced past shelves of garishly colored cereal boxes, withdrawing machetes from their belt, and Mallory dropped her case of beer and began to shout a warning to Eri when she should have been paying attention to their friend --

-- a woman in a drawn-up hood and a long coat, dislodging a pickle jar filled with rice from her pocket and lobbing it towards Eri. It shattered on the floor, scattering grains in every direction.

Eri had begun to move toward Mallory already when the six strange assailants entered and armed themselves. When the pickle jar shattered, she suddenly veered toward the spilled rice, crouching down as she began to pick up the grains one by one, counting each of them with care.

“Bitch!” Mallory snarled towards the wizard standing by the door, stretching out a hand to her as she began to race across the store, trying to lead the supernatural assailants away from Eri. With a few precise motions of her fingers, a bloody line appeared across her palm and three black tendrils tore out of the floor, restraining the wizard painfully, pulling at her neck and arms. The cashier was not still either, looking beneath the counter for a weapon, but one of the men with a machete leapt up onto the counter and swung low, shattering bottles and scattering glass and sending the cashier scrambling for cover.

The other man with the machete was ignoring Eri, advancing on Mallory instead. Her eyes widened, flaring with surprise and anger, and she stretched out her hand again -- only for three thick tendrils of hair to snake across the floor from the strange-haired woman, lashing around her arm and holding it in place. “Eri...!” Mallory called out desperately as her assailants closed in on her, as she struggled to reach the pendant hidden in her shirt with her right hand.

The half oni was still squatting by the broken jar, unaware of the entire fight for the moment as she took meticulous care in counting each grain one by one and stacking them in a tidy pile nearby. She didn’t even seem to take notice when the shrill blast of trench whistles could be heard outside, sounding ever closer as a squad of security delinquents moved in.

“Will you--?!” began the man with the vines around his arms.

“On it!” the red-eyed woman snapped at him, and as she raised her hands, gouts of shimmering crimson flame seemed to erupt out of the street, surrounding the Sunny Mart in a fearsome barrier.

The man with the vines was the first one to strike, and stumbled right into the fiery blast emanating from the warped glass pendant clutched in Mallory’s right hand. It set his vines and much of the rest of him alight, and he shrieked and scrambled to put himself out as the witch burned away the hair that bound her. She was drawing in another breath, when a new tendril snapped around her arm --

-- and one of the men with a machete brought his blade down, cutting flesh and bone and sending her left hand to the floor with a terrible gout of blood.

The witch screamed in anguish as she fell to her knees, and the wizard by the door had to shout to be heard: “Kill them, now! We need to get the fuck out of here!”

Once the flame barrier appeared and was visible from the many windows of the storefront, Eri sensed that she was in danger, and against that feeling the spell broke. She stood up and blinked once, the dark of her eyes replaced by the familiar sight of lamp-like baleful yellow. Their light blurred as she charged rapidly, a full sprint toward the one who had just hacked off Mallory’s hand.

There was the first half of a surprised grunt before her charge launched him bodily across the store, slamming into several heavy shelves of soda and buried under a cacophonous avalanche of cans. “What the hell--?! Never mind, kill her first!” shouted the wizard as she unleashed three blasts of concussive magical force behind the counter, forcing the cashier to stay away from his weapon and stick to his cover.

At once, the rest of the attackers converged on the oni, stepping over the witch who was crawling across the floor and reaching out her bleeding arm towards her severed hand. One of them caught his feet on a bloody vein snaking across the floor and kicked it off in disgust, raising his machete to hack at Eri as several more tendrils of hair tried to wind around her legs.

Eri eyed the flames through the window, then looked back at the group of assailants converging on her. As the machete wielder raised his weapon, she reached into her sukajan and produced her trench spike. She brought it up quickly, the machete blade deflected off the bow hand guard and the sukeban was quick to counter, stabbing the crude spike forward in a blurring sewing machine-like motion.

The machete barely broke Eri’s skin on the follow-through as she embedded the spike in his torso. He gasped unintelligibly over the blood dribbling out of his mouth as he stumbled backwards, slumping into a pile of broken milk bottles. He hadn’t even drawn his last breath when the wizard was already retaliating: “Die, you demon bitch!” A dozen needle-sharp darts of magical energy erupted from her clawed fingertips, spiraling overhead and shooting down into Eri’s back.

The man with the vines around his arms had put himself out, and was helping the remaining machete-wielder back to his feet again. As they advanced on the oni from behind, one twirling his blade, the other fashioning vines into a long, poison-barbed lance, they paid little heed to the witch bleeding on the floor -- and missed the way that her hand now crawled backwards towards her, reattached by blood-slick veins that writhed on the linoleum as they swelled up larger and larger…

Eri was knocked forward by the impact of the darts of magical energy that pierced her, but did not fall and appeared eager to fight on. This became clear when she disregarded the pair approaching her and sprinted with a gale-like howl at the wizard that had attacked her, spike in hand raised high with the murderous intent to plunge downward. Even when her attack met a magical shield that the wizard had cast on herself and broke with a flash, her momentum still carried her short stature forward with enough force to knock the caster back into the tempered glass door of the shop.

“What’s the freaking hold-up?! We’ve trapped them in here with us!” said the woman with the strange hair, already gathering the tendrils back to her head to send them out again. She watched the others advancing with narrowed eyes, willing the tendrils back out to Eri, hoping to help them land a killing blow on the oni...

...when a voice behind her uttered, “Οχι. Είστε παγιδευμένοι μαζί μας.” The woman’s eyes widened, but she whipped her hair back a split-second too late as a twisted, pulsating red arm plunged into her chest, its long black claws pushing out through her back. The witch was back on her feet and raising her victim off of hers, beholding her with eyes of searing green flame, her lips pulled back in a sadistic smile. “Περνώντας το σώμα σας. Περνώντας την ψυχή σας.”

Spared from the hair strike by Mallory’s return to the battle, the enraged oni grasped the stunned magician after the impact with the door in her non-weapon hand and hurled the wizard toward the pair of attackers who had been pursuing behind her. She growled as she made the throw, propelling the unfortunate caster with enough force of acceleration to momentarily cause the victim to lose consciousness in flight. When the impact came the vine lance pierced the body of the magician and all three tumbled like pins onto the floor. Still believing that the building was on fire, Eri remained free of the rice’s compulsion and stalked after the fallen trio with heavy hobnailed footfalls.

As if realizing her error, the red-eyed woman lowered her spell, but did not get the chance to spring out the door. The long-haired woman was flung from Mallory’s arm, bowling her over and pinning her down under a pile of gore, and the witch swiped her left arm dismissively and uttered, “Ἀληκτώ.” With the invocation of the Implacable Fury, a violent wind howled through the Sunny Mart, scattering goods and debris, sweeping up the rice from the floor and a number of other items with it, and sending it howling up the stairs and behind a slammed door.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Eri’s two attackers were struggling back to their feet, backing away from her in open terror, but Mallory left the oni to her quarry. She was advancing towards the door, where the red-eyed woman had managed to extract herself from what was left of her ally and pulled on the door... only to find it held firmly shut. Grim-faced Riho stared coldly back at her, unmoved by her pleas as she pounded her blood-slick fists against the door. “Help us! Let us out, please! They’re killing us!”

At least a dozen more delinquents stood behind Riho, but none of them dared take a step towards the Sunny Mart, looking on as Eri and Mallory stalked what remained of their would-be assassins. Not one of them flinched as the man with the machete found his weapon embedded in his own head, or the man with the vines wound up strangled by them. The red-eyed woman backed away from the window, disbelief and terror warring across her features. She made a dash for the stairs, but slipped on her ally’s remains and fell to the floor. She made it several feet on her hands and knees --

-- then a bloody red arm closed around her ankle, pulling her screaming across the floor and out of sight.

((Co-written with Eri, with thanks!))

[Bailey Raptis]

February 28, 2019
Saint George Office Park
New Haven

“Yah, Vicki, the collection’s turning out real good.” Roshie turned the key to lock the door to her office, then turned to walk down the hallway toward the stairs. One hand shaded her eyes from the bright fluorescent lights overhead, the other held a cell phone to her ear. She listened to the voice on the other end, nodding to no one in particular. Her brown Chelsea boots thumped on the gray carpeting until she reached the atrium, where they ticked against the beige tile.

“Dinner at Peak? Tomorrow at 7 p.m.? Yah, I can make it. Bye!” She tapped the red button on the screen of her phone, slipped it into a pocket on her black cross body bag, and descended the stairs. This late, the lobby was empty, except for a lone security guard dressed in a blue uniform seated at a curved cherrywood reception desk. The faint glow of a small camping television illuminated his face, and Roshie couldn’t help but lean over his shoulder to catch a glimpse. Highlights from the recent Overlord challenge between Matt Simon and Nat Candle flickered across the muted screen.

“Huh,” she said, as they replayed Nat’s headbutt on Matt in slow motion.

“Brutal, right?” The guard laughed a braying laugh as they cut to the crowd’s reaction towards Nat’s attack.

“It’s something, alright.” She patted the security officer on the shoulder. “Have a safe night, Victor.”

“You, too.” Roshie nodded as she walked past the desk, over a large floor rug that depicted a red wyvern about to take flight, and through the sliding glass front doors. Outside, the long-passed end of the work day had emptied out the parking lot, save for Victor’s vehicle, a white Crown Vic with “RhyDSec” written in bold black letters and a yellow-and-orange lightbar on top, and Roshie’s car. She’d parked her 1969 red Mini Cooper (she had saved months to get the car from her favorite movie) a couple of spots to the left of the giant fountain located directly across from the entrance. Her focus drifted to the overly ornate monument, bathed in flickering magelight. The water basin was made of concrete, treated to look more like marble. With winter in its full bloom, though, all the water had been drained out, leaving just a smattering of copper coins and blue tiling visible. In the center of the basin, a series of smaller copper basins sat, artificially oxidized to green so that it appeared older than it was. Atop the smallest and highest basin perched a half-lifesize marble statue of a knight in full armor on horseback, trampling a dragon as he swung his sword at the beast.

Distracted by the ostentatious design, she almost missed the trio of toughs by the passenger side of her Mini. She lifted an eyebrow as she moved to circle around them, her hands digging through her purse for her keys. One of them, a squat teenager whose face was dotted with porcupine quills, sidestepped to block her.

“What’s the hurry?” He slid a smile over to his two friends, a taller and thinner man with bony plates sticking out of his back and a halfling woman with glowing purple eyes whose remaining features were hidden in a cloak of shadows.

“I’m meeting a friend for coffee at Radical Ray’s.”

“That friend wouldn’t be Bailey, would it?” Roshie tried to slip past the porcupine guy again, but he held out a hand (also covered in quills) and stopped her short.

“What?” Her eyes narrowed, her nose wrinkled. “Nah, we just work together sometimes.” She watched the teen blocking her path, her hand still rooting around in the purse.

“Good enough. Stegg?” Roshie didn’t wait for Stegg, whichever of the two that might have been, to act. She pulled a can of mace from her bag and fired it straight into the kid’s eyes, sending him stumbling backwards screaming and clawing at his face. The bony-plated man tried to take advantage of Roshie’s focus on his friend, but his sprayed partner’s wailing distracted him, enough that he didn’t put all of his strength into his jab. Still, Stegg managed to graze Roshie on the side of the head, sending her reeling away from her vehicle and knocking the mace away. She kicked sharply at Stegg as he advanced on her, then reached back into her purse again. She jammed all of the buttons on the key fob, setting off the aftermarket alarm on her Mini. It was a good thing, too, because the shadowy halfling, after backflipping onto the lip of the fountain basin, had somehow killed all the lights in the lot. Only the flashing reds, whites, and yellows from her brake lights and head lamps lit up the asphalt, as the horn beeped an insistent rhythm.

Victor nearly smashed into the glass door in his hurry to get outside. “Roshie, hang on!” he called out to her, before making his voice even louder. “I’ve called the guard, so you better leave!” The quilled teen staggered, raised his right hand blindly, and fired in the direction of the voice. The sharp spines embedded in Victor’s throat in a series of rapid-fire thuds. He grabbed at his injuries, gurgled and spat blood onto the curb, and keeled over. The group of three accosting Roshie paused, as did she for a split-second, before she rushed to the guard.

“ ‘Sblood, Cade, you killed him!” the woman shouted in an echoey voice from her fountain perch. Cade wheeled in her direction, hands aimed at her. "Hands down, you idiot!"

“I-I couldn’t see, Seraphine!” Cade called back. With an exasperated sigh, Seraphine jumped over and tugged his arms down, then slapped him several times across the face. He yelped with each blow, but once she had finished, he found his sight had returned.

“Don’t matter, boy,” Stegg rumbled. “Gotta kill her now.”

Roshie glanced up as she cradled Victor’s limp body, checking futilely for signs of life. She saw the trio stalking their way across the parking lot. Cade lifted his left hand, still filled with quills, and Roshie dropped as low as she could and dragged the corpse in front of her, just in time for more spines to embed themselves in the security officer’s skin. Stegg drew a dagger from a sheath on his right hip, and Seraphine held her hands up to the heavens, undoubtedly preparing to cast another spell. Despite the fear creeping upon her, Roshie forced herself to look at her would-be killers. She would not cower. She would not close her eyes. She would face her death with dignity.

The sound of stone cracking, followed by a high pitched scream, pulled attention away from her. The dragon that had been perched on top of the fountain -- the marble dragon -- had somehow come to life, flying around and breathing gouts of flame.

“Stop that...thing, Cade!” Panic began to creep into Stegg’s voice.

“I can’t! I’m out!” Cade shook his hands, now stripped of his weapons.

“Seraphine!”

While the other two continued approaching Roshie, Seraphine gestured frantically at the wyvern, firing what appeared to be bursts of electrical energy at it, each one missing as the creature dipped and dived, hovered and flipped out of the way. Finally, the beast had enough. With a triumphant screech, it exhaled a cone of fire towards her. When the smoke cleared, all that remained was a billowing, shadowy cloak, drifting slowly onto the asphalt.

Stegg looked at what remained of Seraphine, grunted, and promptly chucked his dagger at the dragon’s eyes. It pierced one of the creature’s pupils with a shriek, and the wyvern soon crashed into the ground, shattering into chunks of stone. Stegg walked over to retrieve his knife, while Cade resumed striding toward Roshie.

“Catch!” A strangely distorted, nasal and familiar voice shouted from across the lot. Everyone’s heads turned towards the source: another living statue, this one of the knight on horseback. He arced his marble blade up and over Stegg and Cade, until it fell into Roshie’s hands. The rock around the weapon crumbled, revealing a real iron sword. She gave it a few practice swings with her right hand as Stegg and Cade stood dumbfounded, then charged at the unarmed man.

Cade reared back with his spiked head, but Roshie was ready. She braced high, and Cade cracked his skull uselessly against the metal. He spun away from her in a dizzy circle, and Roshie didn’t let the advantage go to waste. She plunged the blade into Cade’s chest, ripping it back out before he could even look down at the wound. His lips moved, blood dribbling over his chin, and then he fell. Stegg, meanwhile, had his hands full dodging the stone hooves of the knight’s horse. He swung the dagger at the golem, again and again, but the sharp report of steel on marble let him know his efforts were wasted.

“Statue!” Roshie yelled. The fighting stopped, as Roshie flicked the sword off to her side to whisk away Cade’s blood. “I’ve got this.” The horse trotted back a few feet, whinnied, and stood stock still. Stegg’s expression twisted into a wicked grin, as he pivoted from his solid opponent to one of flesh and blood.

“Gonna put your head on a pike outside Y Goron a Gwaywffon. Maybe right next to Bailey’s.”

“You should just give up. You’ve got a dagger, I’ve got a sword, and I fenced sabre at Wayne State University for three years.”

“That may be so-” Stegg flinched, and Roshie instinctively darted to the side, twisting her body to make it as small of a target as possible. He’d tried to use the conversation as a distraction, flinging the knife with a hair-trigger, and it nearly worked. Only Roshie’s last-minute sidestep kept the blade from piercing her heart. Instead, it lodged in Roshie’s left shoulder. She gasped in pain as she peered down at the hilt sticking out from her charcoal double-breasted coat. She felt the blood dripping out, trickling down her biceps, and wondered if it would stain her gray sweater, if she would bleed enough to ruin that and her jacket. Her eyes drifted over the knife for a moment. Then, she looked at Stegg.She saw the realization dawn on his face, and a grim grin spread out on her own.

“Wait, wait! We can negotiate!” Stegg backpedaled, hands up, and tripped over a chunk of the dragon’s stone corpse. He tried to stand back up, but Roshie leaped forward and plunged the sword into the back of his right knee. Then, the left. He screamed and blubbered and crawled, cutting his hands on the jagged marble remains. Roshie let him fumble for a little while longer, before she circled in front of him and swung the sword at his head, deliberately missing with a loud *clang*. Stegg stopped, folded his hands together, and began to plead.

“We’ll-we’ll give you anything! Money, power, y-you name it!” Roshie responded by sticking the blade beneath Stegg’s chin, forcing him to lift his head up off of the pavement. She jerked the edge towards Victor’s body, slashing open the underside of Stegg’s chin. Blood poured freely from the wound, and he howled bloody murder.

“Bring him back.”

“I-I can’t! We don’t even have any necromancers!” She smacked the flat of her sword against Stegg’s cut, eliciting another cry of pain, and then pressed the tip against his forehead. Red blossomed and trickled down into his terrified green eyes, and his voice degenerated into wordless whimpers. She pulled the weapon away, paused for a second, and reared back.

She bashed the flat of the blade against the top of Stegg’s head, then struck him again on the side. His face flopped into a pile of marble dust. A sigh escaped her lips.

“Should just kill you. You lucky bastard.” She reached for the hilt still stuck in her shoulder, when the clip-clop of stone on pavement distracted her. The battle haze dissipated, dropping her right back into reality: there were two dead bodies here, the remains of a third person, and a seriously wounded and unconscious man right in front of her. Sirens whined in the distance, growing closer and closer with each moment. Her car alarm continued to blare, although the battery had drained enough that each honk dropped lower and lower in pitch. Even as she gazed at the knight, she reached into her purse and shut the panic button off.

“I think this is yours, yah?” Roshie offered the sword back to the knight. Both of his hands grabbed the edge, the marble impervious to iron, and she watched as the weapon turned to stone as he flipped it to grasp it by the hilt.

“Thank you!” Again, the knight spoke in a warped voice that made it impossible for Roshie to place where she’d first heard it. Her mouth opened to ask him that question, just as he and his steed began trotting back to the fountain. Shaking her head, she retrieved her cell phone from her purse and fired off a quick text.

Text to Bailey: They came 4 me, but I was ready. Thank u.

[Bailey Raptis]

March 1, 2019
Y Goron a Gwaywffon
Old Temple

“Kheems?” Sandman’s sonorous voice broke the silence of the hidden bar within Bwyty Cymreig. The furnishings had all been stripped, save for a garnet velvet club chair, a steamer trunk which Sandman rested his feet on, and an old oak aging barrel that had been cut down and given legs to serve as an end table. An empty glass and an ashtray with a finished cigar sat on the table. Kheems stood behind the bar, even though all of the stools, liquor bottles, glassware, and anything else that might be useful in tending a bar was gone. Still, Kheems kept up the pretense of running the place, wiping down the bar.

“Yeah?” He stopped mid-buff, peering over at Sandman. As always, his features were hidden by his white robe and cowl.

“Would you bring me the Taylor Fladgate? The 40 year old. Tawny. Oh, and an Arturo Fuente.”

“Sir, we’ve packed everything up.”

“Check the safe in the office. Or did you forget my instructions not to pack that away too?” Irritation leaked into Sandman’s voice.

“Uh, sure thing.” Kheems tossed the rag on the counter and ducked back into what had been his office. Nothing remained to suggest it had ever held that function. Neither his black oak desk, nor his top-of-the-line computer, nor his ergonomic leather office chair were left. They’d even taken down his PlayElf 2019 calendar! Tucked in a lonely corner of the abandoned room was a beige, fireproof safe with a combination lock. He gingerly hefted it back to the bar and set it down, calling over to Sandman. “I don’t have the combination for this?”

“3-3-8-4,” Sandman answered back. With a nod, Kheems spun the dial and opened the safe, retrieving the cushioned bottle of port, a small humidor, and a cigar cutter. He lifted the lid on the box, took the cigar out, and expertly snipped off the end.

“Sir-”

“Yes, the glasses, the glasses.” Sandman stood up and walked to the bar, handing his sipper to Kheems. The bartender twisted the knobs on the sink until the water temperature came close to boiling, then rinsed out the residue of wine from Sandman’s previous drink. Kheems shut the hot water tap, gave the glass another rinse in cool water, shook it over and over until most of the water was gone, and then poured a measure of the Taylor Fladgate. By that time, Sandman had already returned to his seat, fidgeting with a torch lighter. Kheems set the port down first, then handed off the cigar. Sandman wasted no time lighting it, puffing lightly at the Arturo Fuente as he seemed to stare off into the distance. Then, he crooked a gloved hand at Kheems. His shoulders sagged, but he dutifully obliged his boss and approached the club chair.

“...What part of strike fast, strike hard, and strike at the same time didn’t you understand, Kheems?”

“Glesni pulled most of her people at the last minute. Said there were some new Stolen Ones escaping Arcadia, and she wanted to make sure they got here safe. I wanted to send teams of two after the fairy, Bailey’s roommate, and his fashion designer friend, but Glesni threatened to pull everybody if we didn’t attack in teams of three, so I sent them after the first two. Not that it mattered,” he muttered in conclusion.

“And the attack on Kabuki Street? And this Roshie Armin-Zadeh?” Sandman sipped at the dessert wine, tapping ash into the tray.

“I thought six and three would be enough,” Kheems stammered.

“Remind me why I put you in charge of our wetwork teams?”

“Excuse me?”

Sandman gripped the sipper tighter. “Let’s summarize your experiences dealing with Bailey Raptis. You got three of my men killed in Cadentia by him three years ago. In between your ‘well-planned’ attacks of late, you’ve managed to get 10 more killed, two of them in the hospital under armed city guard, and one more unable to fight with broken fingers. As a result, we have to abandon our sanctuary for the past five years, and scurry around the city like rats trying to avoid not only the Fair Folk but the gang of super-powered hooligans you’ve just managed to righteously piss off because they embarrassed you!” His voice grew louder and angrier until he shattered the glass in his hand. Startled, Kheems jumped backwards, but quickly regained some semblance of his composure.

“Need me to clean that up?”

“No need.” Sandman tapped at the shards and kept tapping. Slowly but surely, they dissolved into sand. “What I need is for you to take care of Bailey, once and for all. This is your mess, fix it.”

“But he hasn’t been seen in the city in a couple of weeks. He’s probably on the Isle, and...I’ve tried to go there. Portal won’t even let me through. He’s probably got it locked out to me.”

“Find a way. Or I’ll find someone who can finish the job.” He dismissed Kheems with a flick of his wrist, content to spend his final moments at Y Goron a Gwaywffon smoking in silence.

***

March 2, 2019
The Wilds, North of RhyDin City
Late Evening

Years ago, at one of the court’s balls to celebrate some solstice or equinox, someone had slipped a business card into Kheems’ back pocket while he was dancing with a deer-masked woman with bovine horns jutting out the sides of her head. He failed to seal the deal with her, and wound up returning to his run-down Dockside studio apartment drunk and alone. He only discovered the card a week later, when taking his tuxedo to the dry cleaners to remove the smell of stale beer and cigarettes. Even for a business card, it lacked details. Plain white, it had only a green snake wriggling from right to left, and a set of instructions written in Stolen One glyphs: Night. After sunset. Forest north of Battlefield Park. Your blood is the key.

He probably should have given the card to Sandman or one of his advisers the moment he realized what he had: a calling card from the Snake. There were whispers about him in the Taken community, of a traitor who worked with the Gentry to return his brothers and sisters to Faerie. The Raptis incident only amplified this rumors, and they only diminished in frequency and volume once Bailey eliminated the Stolen Ones who had destroyed his motley. Some speculated that his disappearance from the court soon after was the Snake’s revenge, a theory that seemed to hold true as the number of disappearances in their community dropped. Others suggested that the Snake and Bailey were one and same, highlighting the increase in community infighting and vanishings that came once he returned. Kheems doubted that rumor, but he didn’t have one of his own to suggest in its place. All he knew was that the Snake -- or one of his allies -- saw Kheems as a kindred spirit. And so he kept the card, an ace in the hole for a problem he and his assassins couldn’t handle on their own.

The fastest way to the woods that the Snake’s business card said would serve as a meeting place was straight north through Battlefield Park, but in the aftermath of his failed attack on the Rengou-kai, he thought it better not to press his luck traveling through the Baroness’ territory. Instead, his path north hugged the shore of Kaiju Lake, past the tall trees and summer cabins lined up along its edge until they gave way to full thickets. Once there, he turned west, pushing through dense bushes, ignoring the prickly seed pods that stuck to his coat and jeans, and eventually finding a slight break in the vegetation, enough that he could stand and look up and see the stars through the canopy of branches. After sneaking a quick peek at the moons, he went to work.

He pulled the card from his pocket and pricked his index finger on one of the seed pods, waiting for a small dot of blood to form before smearing it against the paper. With a flash of golden light, the card transformed into a small brass key, and a lock of the same metal appeared from thin air, hovering just in front of him. When he stuck the key into the lock, a half-rotten wooden door with a loose knob materialized. As he turned it to open the door, he swore it was going to fall out, but fortunately it held fast, opening onto…

Daylight. A cloudless sky, the blue so bright that Kheems had to shade his eyes before they adjusted. The scent of fresh cut grass tickled his nostrils, followed by an array of fruit. Robins and cardinals flitted around a bramble, picking blackberries here and there. A pair of persimmon trees flanked the space where the door had been, dropping orange fruits that smelled like apricots. Low bushes of blueberries seemed to line a path leading to the centerpiece of the area: a tall apple tree, bursting with bright red fruit. Kheems dutifully followed the trail that appeared to be laid out for him, stopping at the trunk of the tree. Soon after he arrived, a candy apple green snake slithered down from the highest branches until it was at eye level with the visitor. Kheems stepped back, took in the total sum of the scene, and burst into laughter.

“A little obvious, don’t you think?” he said, between guffaws. “What’s next, you speak in a hissing voice?”

“No, no hissing,” the Snake responded, in a sibilant tone that one would only notice if specifically listening for it. “But I do have a reputation to uphold. Now, what can I do for you? I must say, I am surprised that you came at all, so long after I left my message with you.”

“You know what they say. Desperate times, desperate measures, and so on.”

“Yes.” The Snake’s tongue darted out at thin air. “So what has you so desperate that you would turn to me?”

“Bailey Raptis.” Kheems couldn’t help but clench his fist at the name.

“Ah, yes, he does seem to be a thorn in your sides,” the Snake said, wheezing with laughter. It didn’t last long. “He slaughtered a lot of my good men, too.”

“Can you get rid of him?”

“Luckily for you, I have better men now.” The Snake paused to rattle his tail. “Such skill does not come cheap.”

“The Sandman’s coffers-”

“The Kindly Ones care not for silvers and gold. They will want something more...special.”

“Like?”

“Oh, come now, Kheems.” The Snake slithered down the trunk, across a patch of dirt near the roots, and began crawling up Kheems’ leg. The man stood still, willing his knees not to knock together as the collaborator made his way up. “I thought you were smart. They will want a Stolen One.” Now perched on Kheems’ shoulder, the Snake whispered in his ear. “Someone special. Bring me what They want, and I will handle Bailey.”

“A-any suggestions?” He felt slight pressure against his windpipe, and he gulped, wondering if the Snake could hear it, or if he could smell his fear.

Finally, the Snake hissed in full, his tongue just brushing against Kheems’ cheek. “Surprise me.”

[Mallory]

March 6, 2019
Twilight Isle

Mallory stepped through the portal onto the Twilight Isle late in the afternoon, not even a full day after Bailey had sicced his living statues on Mist at the Golden Perch. In the blink of an eye she went from the steady snowfall of RhyDin to the clear, starry skies of the Isle, and she lowered her hood and unzipped her jacket as she examined her surroundings.

The rings held no combatants, not even for practice, just a few goblins traversing the perimeter to look for magical anomalies. There was a student slumped over at the bar, leaning on a stack of textbooks on elemental energy and drooling on her spiral notebook as she snored. The witch spared her a sympathetic look for what she was sure was about to come, but her plight didn’t dissuade her; she stepped forward until she reached the approximate point where she’d seen previous archmages descend from the Citadel in the past.

A serving goblin ran up to tug on her sleeve, and gulped when she turned to him abruptly. “Uh, excuse me, miss, but--?”

“Is he up there?” She pointed up at the massive chunk of bedrock floating high overhead.

“Yes, miss, and uh, he seemed pretty--”

She ignored the goblin and turned to face the Citadel, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted: “Archmage Bailey Raptis! We need to talk about last night!”

The student snorted in her sleep and shifted her arms uncomfortably, but did not fully rouse at the witch’s call. The goblin took a few uncertain steps back, glancing at the others who had stopped their survey. And Mallory started to count down from one hundred in Koine, quietly murmuring each syllable to herself.

She’d just reached “ἑπτά” when she saw movement in the distance -- a figure that looked like it could be Bailey, stepping up to the edge of the floating island to look down at her. After a long pause he turned around, retreating out of sight.

“So we’re doing this the hard way,” Mallory said to herself, and stretched out her left hand. She could hear the retreating footfalls of goblins sprinting away from her as thorny vines wound around her arm, biting into her palm until the blood fell freely. She breathed a swift invocation to Death itself, and a howling skull made of dark mist rose from the wounds. She breathed it in through her nose, her skin turning pale and sallow, her eyes and lips turning tarry black, and she opened her mouth to scream.

It pierced the air in a shrill blast, loud enough to make the goblins cover the ears, to awaken the student with a violent start as she threw her books in every direction, and to rattle the windows in the distant Citadel as if there had been an earthquake...

* * * * *

Sitting at a mahogany workbench in the Celestial Tower’s study, Bailey stared into a polished plane of black marble, trying to see into the city. Both of his hands rested on minimalist sculpted busts, their plain eyes just as closed as Bailey’s were. Tall bookcases made of smoked gray ash hid the actual walls of the tower from view here, and several of those books had been scattered across the room: on a walnut end table beside a brown leather recliner, on a black floor rug that faintly glowed with starlight, on and around the workbench itself. Proxinho stood by the doorway, its head turning at regular interviews from the entrance to Bailey and back, a perfect and automatic bodyguard.

For all the power that the key hanging from Bailey’s neck gave him, it didn’t give him the knowledge of how to use it best. His magical expertise rested primarily in marble manipulation, both within himself and any object made of the stone near him, and secondarily in water magicks. Even though he could force himself to see through the eyes of any marble statue in the city, and even though water was a traditional medium for divination, his talents and training did not center on spying and scrying. Keeping an eye on RhyDin --and staying in control of his army of sculptures -- required the bulk of his focus and skills.

So it was Proxinho, not Bailey, who heard Mallory’s first shout at the Tower -- he had missed her traveling through the city to the Isle. The golem tilted its head at Bailey, whose eyes fluttered open as Proxinho broke his link to a replica David statue in one of the city’s art museums and a carving of St. Francis pouring water out of an urn for a deer and a squirrel located besides a pool behind a New Haven mansion. It shared what it had heard, and Bailey rubbed his eyes several times. When Bailey remained stationary, Proxinho gestured out the door.

“Tch,” Bailey clicked his tongue, rising from his seat. “Fine.” He dragged himself through the door, down the long and high-ceilinged hallways that led to the Tower’s numerous (and ever-shifting) rooms, past goblins who scurried out of his way when they caught sight of him, and out onto the floating bedrock. He peered out over the edge, muttered a quick cantrip for farsight, and spotted Mallory on the ground. He took her in for a long moment, wondering if she was doing the same, and then spun around, heading back inside.

Just as he passed the kitchen, a piercing shriek struck the building. Dishes clanged together in their cabinets, a glass or two fell to the floor and shattered, doors slammed shut, reopened, and slammed themselves again, and the windows bent and danced so much that Bailey thought they might break. The Tower’s wards held, and other than those unfortunate glasses, and a few rattled goblins who huddled in a cupboard underneath the sink, no harm befell its residents.

* * * * *

The purplish-black portal that formed a few feet from Mallory seemed far more stable -- and formed faster -- than Bailey’s previous attempts at that spell. He emerged with his arms folded, a disheveled mirror image of the night before. He clearly hadn’t bothered to change since he left the Golden Perch Inn.

“If I refuse, are you going to keep doing that?”

“Yesss.” Mallory remained a ghastly version of herself as she hissed her reply to Bailey, ichor hanging from the corner of her rotting mouth as she stared at him unblinkingly with glassy black eyes. Her pale, rotting left hand was tensed, fingers curled towards her throat, ready to unleash another blast at the Citadel.

She gestured her right hand towards a massive petrified tree stump beyond the rings, a quieter place for them to talk, as ashes trailed from the smoldering flesh beneath her glove.

Bailey pursed his lips, as if considering whether or not he and the Tower could withstand a continual assault of magical screeching. “...Fine. But would you mind getting rid of all the…?” He waved his hands in front of his face, then tapped his own left hand.

Mallory simply relaxed her left hand and blew a whisper like a death rattle over it: “ζωή.” Her ghastly features faded, and the ashes drifting through the air popped out of existence one by one as she led the way to the spot she’d picked.

He followed her to the stump and carefully took a seat. His shoulders visibly rose and fell as he sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “Life, huh.” His words split the difference between question and statement, aimed at no one in particular.

Mallory nodded slowly, draping her left arm across her knees and holding up her hand, examining it idly. “The essence of my magic.” She turned it towards him as she looked over at him. “They cut this off of me the other night, at the Sunny Mart. Right after they dumped rice all over the floor in front of Eri. They’ve been studying us -- probably all of us.”

“One could argue it is the essence of most magic, but then again, I am not a student of the arcane arts, not the way you and your Lyceum operate.” He allowed a bitter laugh to escape. “I am just an amateur scholar, who literally learned how to tear open trods through the Veil by bashing against it until it gave way.”

The witch’s lips curled a fraction. “You and Eri have the same approach to problem-solving.”

“Is she alright? That is not to say that I am not worried for you either, although seeing your hand-” He ran his right hand up and down the length of his left forearm by way of demonstration. “- I am guessing you are physically okay. I could not begin to hazard a guess as to the mental part, nor would I presume to.”

“She’s fine. Mountain demons are made of sturdier stuff than I am.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “But that’s not me giving my blessing to throw her over the bar whenever you feel like it. That goes for Mist, too.”

There it was. He had been waiting for it since the moment Mallory showed up. He shut his eyes and straightened up, steeling himself to be yelled at--

And promptly sagged. His self-discipline crumbled, his voice tired and defeated. “...I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. And... I get it.” She gave him a meaningful look, trying to inject as much sincerity into the assertion as she could, and relaxed her posture with a long, quiet breath. “We still have a problem. Casing all your friends and bum-rushing them didn’t work out too well -- I’m guessing they’ll change tactics. They don’t have that many numbers, right?” she added, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

He opened his eyes back up and nodded at Mallory, trying to smooth out the wrinkles of his dress.

“Then if it was me in their place... I’d go back to focusing on you. Just you. And even if you pissed me off last night,” she added with a playful curl of a smile, “I’d rather they didn’t have you.”

“I’ll stay here, then. The Isle is blocked to them -- and they would be unlikely to want to fight me on my home grounds anyways.” His gaze drifted skywards. “And I can watch out for everyone up there, keep you safe. Although -- up to this point, about all I’ve been able to do is keep people alive.”

Mallory didn’t appear to disagree with his strategy of holing up, turning her gaze to the Citadel with a thoughtful hum. “It’ll take them a while to figure something out... and hopefully leave them stationary.” Her eyes narrowed. “Do you know... anything about them? Names... descriptions... pieces of them, or items they once owned... any places you think we might find them? Scrying is... one of the older tricks in my book. Most things don’t stay hidden from me for long.”

At the mention of scrying, Bailey laughed, good-naturedly this time. “I have tried my hand at scrying, but it is not something that comes naturally to me, even with the Key’s power. If I focus, I can see through the eyes of any humanoid marble statue in the city, but you can see where there are limits to that. And my attempts at more...classic divination have not borne fruit the way I would like them to. Wait here.” Bailey stood, took a few steps back and away from Mallory, and began tracing a circle in the air. When he finished, he snapped his fingers, and a portal, fueled by purplish-black and faintly miasmic energy, formed. He stepped through it and vanished.

While he was gone, Mallory calmly withdrew a brass-colored tin from her back pocket, and removed a cigarette with a warm black filter. She set it between her lips and, with a moment of focus, lit the end with one of her gloved black fingertips. Scrying was mellow work for her -- and she still felt very, very tense.

Bailey re-emerged after less than a minute. He appeared to have come back empty-handed, except - “Here.” A business card appeared in his hand. The right side listed the phone number and e-mail address of an Andre’ Kheems, and a physical address near the Westbridge in Old Temple for a place named Y Goron a Gwaywffon. On the left, there was a black stamped image of a crown and spear, partially obscured by a thumbprint colored brownish-red.

Mallory took the card between two fingers, and while she examined the writing on it long enough to take note of the details, her eyes flared at the sight of the bloody thumbprint, and she turned a sadistic smile on Bailey as she held her cigarette aside, watching him through a wispy trail of smoke. “Tell me about Andre’ Kheems. Is he the reason some dead fucker chopped my hand off?”

“I would suspect so. I also suspect he leads the court’s... assassins? Is that the correct word?”

“Tch. Only if they’re successful,” was the witch’s derisive reply. She was already tucking the card away, apparently having resolved to put it to good use. “What condition do you want him in?” she asked, fiery green eyes snapping back to him. “Alive?”

“At least long enough to give us some intelligence on the court. It has been... years since I was active there, so all I know is hearsay so old that it is probably not of much use. I have a general idea of their numbers, minus the dozen or so we have killed, injured, or had captured by the guard. We have a general idea of their abilities. I know that the leader is someone called Sandman. I was not fortunate enough to meet him when they captured and exiled me the summer before last.” Bailey watched Mallory smoke, a silent question resting in his expression.

“Kathmandu Express,” she said, and gave him a cigarette. As soon as he’d set it between his lips, she lit it with the end of her own before drawing back, swinging her legs off the side of the trunk and dropping down. “I’ll bring Kheems to you alive, and capable of answering questions.” There were no other promises made regarding his condition, as he had asked her for none. “Take care, Bailey.”

Long strides took her up to the portal and through it, leaving a trail of pungent smoke in her wake.

((Scene co-written with Bailey, with thanks!))

[Bailey Raptis]

March 6, 2019
Twilight Isle

The sun never set on Twilight Isle, but neither did it rise. It hung in the sky, perpetually dying but not quite dead. The perpetual battle between daylight and dusk made keeping track of time on the Isle difficult, because the lighting overhead never really changed. It was enough to disrupt anybody's normal sleeping patterns --but Bailey didn't have to blame his insomnia on some eternally setting sun, even if he had spent the past fortnight in the pocket dimension. He had been working too hard to fall asleep anyways.

Much as they had the previous night -- the night that things had gone so wrong so fast for him -- the Isle's goblins insisted that Bailey leave his workbench. If not to return to the city, to at least step away from the grinding, exhausting task of scrying for the Stolen Ones' court and spying on the city through the eyes of its marble statues. He had reluctantly agreed to their request, teleporting down to the beach with Proxinho in tow to stare at the waves lapping at the sand. He had dressed for the lagoon, but the usual care in his clothing was gone. The white button-up shirt he wore was wrinkled, the blue shorts didn't quite match the shirt, and the sandals were cheap synthetic brown flip-flops that he ditched after a few steps. He sat down, legs stretched out, and stared at the water while his statue stood guard.

There were definitely benefits to having been an Archmage. For Eden, one of those was the way the goblins always seemed to know when she was coming. Which is why there was a goblin waiting with a glass of freshly prepared cherry coke just on the opposite side of the portal. Eden usually remembered to jump through a little to the left. She beamed at the kind goblin who held up the glass high above its head for Eden to accept. "Thank you!" She patted the goblin on the head, then turned to look for her quarry. A soft smile found her lips as she realized she wasn't going to have to try to figure out how to approach the Celestial Tower. Having left her winter gear in a locker at the Arena, Eden bounced barefoot through the sand towards Bailey at the shore. Unable to hide her exuberance, she called her normal happy greeting. "Hi!"

Proxinho turned, tapping its throat three times until a recording of Bailey's voice played from it. "Hello!" Bailey, however, did not look over at her. Eventually, though, he did greet her as she approached, in a much more subdued voice than his golem had used. "Hello, Eden."

"Hi Bailey's friend!" She hopped up, trying to give Proxinho a high-five. One of its hands imitated Eden's gesture, the stone on its palm still cool even outside in the sunlight. The other hand tapped its throat a few more times.

"Thank you!" the statue said. Bailey kept his gaze steadfast on the waves, although a few snickers escaped from him.

She smiled at Proxinho, then veered over to flop on the sand beside Bailey. "Hi." Her second greeting for him was a little more subdued too. And once she said that, she didn't say anything else. She just sat there, sipping cherry coke and looking out at the water.

He sat in silence with Eden for what felt like ages. Long enough that one might have thought that he was the statue, and not the mannequin-esque creature lurking nearby. At some point, Bailey glanced past Eden, to Proxinho, and with a single *look*, the statue wandered away from the lagoon, towards the Isle's bar.

The dull crash of water, the murmurs of the goblins, even the occasional shrieks of seagulls above him, combined with the presence of his friend, seemed to set his mind at ease, seemed to relax him. He found his eyes closing despite his best efforts to stay awake. His body suddenly jerked upright when he caught himself dozing off. "Shit!" All the tension he'd released rushed back in, his hands at his sides digging into fistfuls of sand.

Eden looked aside at him, jumping a little when he jumped, the ice in her glass clinking with the movement. "What happened?" She looked a little worriedly at him.

All the control he usually had -- of his posture, of his words, of his appearance -- was gone. His shoulders sagged, and he rubbed at his eyes, then the rest of his face, trying to force some energy back into his body. "I almost fell asleep. I can't do that now. There's too much at stake." He peeked over his shoulder, up towards the Celestial Tower. "I'm wasting time even being here." He began moving, as if to stand up and leave.

Eden looked back too, her brow furrowing. "What do you have to do?" She reached out, one hand to touch his thigh, trying to encourage him to stay seated.

His resolve to leave crumbled almost immediately. Instead, he heaved an exhausted sigh. "I have to keep you all safe. I've done such a bad job of it so far, I have to do better. Your wing -- Mallory’s hand -- Max and Dany got stabbed -- Roshie too, and she told me she's not sure she'll get full use of that hand back. They even sent a couple of kids who didn't even know what they were doing to attack the catering office and Black Magic Burger last night, while I was at the Golden Perch. The wards held, but - " He shook his head. "I know you said friends work better together, but I can- what I am supposed to say to Nat? To Eri? To Dany?"

Eden was quiet a moment, listening and taking his concerns seriously. Attacks on all of your friends would obviously shake you up. "Bailey, why do you think they sent people after your friends? The places that matter to you? Why do you think they did that?"

He'd had plenty of time to think on that, alone in his study with only the goblins and statues to keep him company. He had an answer ready for that question almost immediately. "That's my weakness. They knew as soon as I became Archmage, I would be too powerful to tackle head-on without drawing too much attention to them. My friends, though? They did not know Max is a crack shot with a pistol, that Dany is a Sharpener, that Roshie is arguably better with a sword than I am." He paused briefly, smiling somehow despite his agitation. "That the Kabuki Street Rengou-kai are not to be messed with. They just saw easy targets, easy ways to make me miserable."

"Or..." She leaned to gently nudge him with her shoulder. "They knew that if they hurt your friends, you would isolate yourself to protect them. And this way, they would get you alone."

"They can't hurt me here. I reworked the portals so no other Stolen Ones can get through. I can stay up there-" He didn't need to, but he pointed up at the sky anyways. " - and keep watch. I will find them, and I will send statues for them, and no one else has to get hurt again."

Eden nodded, mulling over that plan. "How long do you think it will take? You seem a little tired."

"I..." He couldn't finish the thought right away. He flopped back, rather dramatically, onto the sand. "As long as I hold the Key."

"Well--" Eden looked at him, then looked out at the water. After setting her empty glass on the sand beside her, she wiped her hands on her pants. "I don't know, Bailey. But that could be a long time. Especially if you're not gonna sleep the whole time."

"I do sleep!" he protested weakly. Even now, he had to fight the urge to shut his eyes. "Just not a lot."

"It's hard to tell what time it is here, isn't it?" She looked over at him. "I have an idea. Why don't you come and sleep at my place? I can keep watch while you sleep, and then you can keep watch while I sleep, and then we'll both be fresh and we'll both know what time it is!"

"It is." One eye shut, and it almost looked like Bailey was winking. He let it blink back open though, and sat up. "Are you going to make tea? And tell me that story about your favorite sheep again?"

"I can." She smiled a little, trying to figure out if he really wanted to hear more about Pinkie or if he was just teasing her. "I have lots of stories about the sheep, you only heard one of them."

It took a couple of pushes up from the ground, but Bailey eventually rose to his feet, dusting off the sand that clung to his shorts and shirt. "Hey...do you trust me? I can open a portal that will take us back to your apartment faster but it is, hã...you have to be careful when you are in it. No touching the thorns, no wandering off of the path. I just- I think if I go back up there to change-" Another finger point at the bedrock floating in the sky. "- I am not sure I will come back down for a while."

"Ooh, yeah, let's try it!" Eden readily agreed, eager for the new experience while getting to her feet---her bare feet, since her bag and all of her winter gear were in a locker in the Arena.

Unlike the other times he opened his portals -- where he punched violently at thin air and seemed to rip them open through sheer force of will -- something about the Key made the process smoother now. He traced a large circle in the air, finishing it with a snap of his fingers. It seemed to shimmer and ooze with purplish-black energy, but Bailey snapped his fingers again, and the inside of the portal was revealed, slightly distorted by magic: a dirt path, surrounded by thorny bushes on either side, with nearly all the sunlight blocked out overhead by a tangle of tree limbs. He stepped through first, then held out a hand for her to take to join him.

((Co-written with Eden Parker's player. Thanks!))

[Mallory]

March 10
Battlefield Park/The Wilds, following reports of riders...

Kheems had planned it out perfectly. He’d started by stashing a small drawstring backpack with a flashlight, rope, handgun and ammunition behind Geist Kneipe. He’d invited Vireo, the taloned man who led the attack on Eden, to the bar. Instead of arriving on time, Kheems arrived deliberately late, giving Vireo a head-start on drinking. While he drank with him, he stuck to beer, and encouraged Vireo to imbibe glass after glass of his favored rum & coke. And when nature called, and Vireo rushed off to the bathroom, Kheems “accidentally” knocked the short straw out of his drink, apologized loudly and profusely to the patrons at the pub, and replaced it with one of his own. Stirring quickly, the “paper” straw infused with GHB dissolved into the drink.

It didn’t take long for the drug to work its magic after Vireo drank his last rum & coke. Combined with the liquor already in his system, Vireo soon passed out at the bar, and it was only Kheems’ quick hands that kept the man from cracking his skull against the counter. After apologizing some more to the pub staff, he paid for their drinks and slung an arm around Vireo. Carefully walking him outside, he retrieved his bag from underneath the bar’s dumpster, and set off due north.

He knew that the roundabout way to the Wilds would never work. It would take twice as long to cut all the way back across the Marketplace, Dragon’s Gate, New Haven, and then all the way up Kaiju Lake. And with a severely intoxicated person in tow, there would certainly be questions asked of him, if not by some City Guard member who suddenly decided not to turn a blind eye to Vireo’s plight, then by some good samaritan who would insist they stay at an inn on her silver, or even at their house. No, Kheems would risk cutting across the heart of Battlefield Park tonight. After all, the district’s Baroness, Mallory Maeda, was currently participating in the All Ranks Tournament.

Everything had gone off without a hitch, right up until the moment Kheems crossed into Battlefield Park. He had grossly underestimated how difficult it would be to walk a semi-conscious person through the hilly, overgrown terrain. Under normal conditions, the hike through the forested region was a tough one. With Vireo being dragged along? Sometimes it felt like they were running on a treadmill, going nowhere.

After one stumble too many, Kheems got fed up. He let Vireo drop onto his knees. The sudden lurching stop sent the contents of his stomach spilling out onto the dirt. The stench of alcohol wrinkled Kheems’ nose.

“Get up,” he snarled at Vireo. The taloned man moaned back in response. Kheems sighed, drawing his knife from the sheath on his hip. He stepped behind Vireo and clubbed him in the back of the head with the hilt. Once. Twice. Groaning, Vireo pitched face-first into his own vomit. Kheems let him rest there for a while as he retrieved the flashlight from his bag. He gripped the rubbery handle with his teeth as he lifted Vireo into a fireman’s carry across his shoulders. With the added weight on his back, he still moved slow, but it was still faster than when he had been dragging Vireo around.

A whinny echoed through the darkness, followed by an ominous silence. The wind stopped swaying the branches, the creatures of the forest went still, and even the insects ceased their rhythmic chirping.

The underbrush rustled in one direction, and a branch snapped in another. A whicker from nearby, just out of sight; further off, a growing chorus of eerie howls.

The sounds of the forest’s denizens stopped Kheems’ progress, although he didn’t set down the body draped across his back just yet. He dropped the flashlight clenched between his teeth, scattering its yellow light uselessly against the ground. “Spirits of Battlefield Park!” he called out in a voice filled with just a touch of false bravado. “I mean you no harm! Please, allow me safe passage through your territory!”

From not twenty feet in front of Kheems came the sound of a sword scraping and sliding its way out of its scabbard, and in a burst of green flame, the shape of the red horse and its rider was revealed: twisted and ugly shapes, covered in jagged plates of armor and bristling with weapons. It held a heavy black greatsword in one hand, flickering with green flame and pointed directly at the two men in its path. From beneath its helmet, its blood-slick flesh stretched and tore until it formed a mouth to carry its words:

“Είμαι Πόλεμος. Και είσαι νεκρός.”

Kheems couldn’t understand the words the crimson rider spoke, but the intent of them -- and the greatsword that had been drawn -- was clear. He assessed his options, and found no good ones. If he turned to run, the horse would undoubtedly run him down with little effort. The knife at his side seemed unlikely to penetrate the armor the knight wore. And he would be damned if he surrendered when he was this close to having his revenge on Bailey. That left him one choice.

Adrenaline surged through Kheems, as he lifted Vireo off of his shoulders and flung him at the spectre. He dove to the side, ignoring the thorny bushes that tore at his skin and clothing, and set the bag down, frantically pawing through his things in search of his pistol.

It sounded as though Vireo had awoken, because he was screaming as soon as the horseman that called itself War fell upon him, and emerald fire erupted from every inch of his flesh. The horseman lingered and watched this man’s hysterical fear with a low, cruel laugh, ignoring Kheems for the moment -- though that did not mean the three of them were alone.

Long, loping strides thudded their way through the underbrush from creatures that snarled at Kheems as they picked their way towards him. And from across the clearing came the thundering of hooves, as eight more horsemen, grim knights in service of their leader, charged for the man desperately grasping for the means to fight for his life.

Right as Kheems’ fingers brushed against the smooth metal of the stock, he looked up as eight more enemies joined the one that blocked his path north. The odds had been against him, even before the additional combatants joined the fray, and so Kheems stood with his hands held high, his clothing ripped and covered in burrs. Vireo crawled desperately on the ground, but he soon found that he could not move more than a handful of feet before his egress was blocked by blood-red hooves. He whimpered, and vomited once more.

The riders circled around the two men, lowering their weapons to hem them in, unmoved by Kheems’ surrender and Vireo’s sickness and suffering. The creature with the flaming greatsword turned its point to Kheems and, with effort, twisted its ripped-flesh jaws around the Common tongue:

“Andre’ Kheems, thou hast crossed into the realm of the Blood Witch. What man lieth there, that reeks of thy stench? Answer us truthfully, or we feedest thou to the Void.”

Kheems tried to think of an answer that would reveal as little about himself as possible, and still manage to keep himself alive. “He works for me.”

“And what hath he done for thee?” the horseman asked, walking its heavy steed in a slow circle around the fallen man.

“Wetwork.” Kheems paused as he considered the knight. His adrenaline had burned out and that, combined with the fear creeping up on him, left his legs shaking and his arms hanging loosely by his sides. “Assassinations. On behalf of the Court of the Taken.”

“And hath he hunted the ladies Maeda?” When Kheems shook his head in reply, the knight continued, “The Archmage?” Another headshake. “The Baroness, Eden Parker?”

Drunk, drugged, and half-crazed with fear, Vireo clawed at the dirt in the direction of Kheems’ voice. His boss couldn’t bear to look him in the eye, as he betrayed him for the second time that night. Nothing remained of his plan but ashes, but if he played his cards right, maybe he could save his skin. He could spin this as yet another plot by Bailey, further confirmation of his treachery towards the court. “He led the team that attacked the fairy. Unsuccessfully, I might add.” He snorted dismissively, not having fully abandoned his pride yet. “He worked with Achlys and—”

Vireo screamed as the greatsword plunged through his back and into the earth, and the rider shifted its steed out of the way as nine red-eyed hounds erupted from the underbrush to feast on the dying man. There was no way for the torn flesh that was the being’s jaw to approximate a smile, yet it could be heard in its satisfied rasp to Kheems:

“Thou hast spoken enough. The Witch will see thee now,” and extended its arm towards the west, where the glowing windows of the haunted armory could be seen shining through the treeline. “Come.”

Kheems bent to pick up the bag at his feet, quickly finding eight blades pointed at his throat. He stood slowly, hands raised once again. He kicked the bag in frustration as the knights surrounded him, escorting him to the Baroness’ manor as Vireo’s dying screams faded behind them...

* * * * *

The spirits ushered Kheems through the low, broken stone walls that surrounded the manor, and through the open door of what appeared to have been a barracks for the enlisted -- back when the haunted armory still counted its soldiers among the living. Candles flickered in sconces along the narrow corridor that led to the back of the building, with darkened doorways into cramped rooms that on either side.

As the door slammed shut behind him, the light flickered and dimmed against the gust of air. A warm glow emanated from the last room on the left, where flames could be heard crackling as wood burned in a hearth. Kheems glanced back over his shoulder, pondering if he could escape. With a shake of his head and a sigh, he entered the room instead.

He still had his knife, though. No gun, no rope, no flashlight, just his ruined clothes and a knife. And his Gift. He hated using it -- years of training with his fellow Stolen Ones had beaten into his head the dangers of using magic unless absolutely necessary -- but this situation seemed to be the very definition of that. He clapped his hands together, and the gold in his skin tone glowed brighter, washing out the brown typically mixed in with it. It spread out across his body and then concentrated in his right hand. His eyes darted around the room, searching for something, anything, that might possibly be of value.

What had once been the sergeant’s quarters was barren, empty aside from a stripped cot, a small desk, a chair, and the logs burning in the hearth. Even the poker had been removed. But there wasn’t enough time to check the drawers in the desk, before every light in the barracks went out, leaving Kheems in darkness pierced only by the golden glow from his right hand.

Shadows slithered and hissed just out of sight, writhing shapes that flashed across the edges of the halo of light that surrounded him.

He touched his right palm to his left, transferring the glow, and reached for the dagger at his side -- when the shadows lunged at him. Black tendrils lashed out at him, wrapping around his arms and anchoring him around his waist. They seemed to be growing out of the cracks in the floor, and tightened their grasp around him as successive pulses of shadow seemed to feed them.

“All right, all right!” Grasped by the shadows, Kheems let his body go slack, though it did little to relieve the pressure squeezing his torso like a vise. “I heard your horseman speak Greek. I don’t know it myself, but I know of the legends. Midas, right? I have a bit of the Midas touch.” With his arms pinned against his side, all he could do was jerk his head in the general direction of the furnishings. “Nothing too big, but surely enough to let me go?”

There was a long moment of silence following his plea... then the long, inexorable hiss of metal dragging through stone as a dim glow appeared out in the hall. As the hiss grew louder, the glow became brighter, until it highlighted the shape of a horned figure standing in the doorway, dragging a heavy, flame-wreathed sword behind her. “Andre’ Kheems.” Mallory drew Drachenbane up to point at the man, smiling as the writhing tendrils twisted his arms out painfully. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Well you found me,” he said, deepening his voice in a late attempt to hide his fear. The truth rested in his brown eyes, which bounced around the room, intentionally avoiding her gaze, which she made all the more difficult as she moved in front of him, angling her head to stare at his trembling face.

Her lips curved into a cruel smile. “Do you know how much it hurts... to lose your left hand?”

“A lot, I’d guess?” She made it impossible to avoid looking at her, so he forced himself to stare into her green eyes. He prayed he’d find a shred of mercy within those irises, but there was nothing but infernal rage staring back at him.

“More than you know... Let’s fix that,” she hissed, and with a flourish of her flaming blade, brought it screaming down into his outstretched left arm. Kheems howled in agony, pinned in place, as the golden glow that once surrounded his severed hand dimmed, flickered, and died.

((Written with Bailey’s player!))

[Mallory]

March 11
Twilight Isle - very early morning...

A burlap sack burst through the portal, impacting the volcanic rock that surrounded the rings with the sound of rattling chains, shifting straw, and a muffled grunt as flesh struck earth. The witch followed a few steps behind, her face red and sweaty from the strain of hauling this "gift" from the rengou-kai's truck that had brought her close to the portal, and stood there with her hands on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath. Blood subtly stained the dark sleeves of her long coat, and Drachenbane was strapped to her back, its rubies gleaming strangely under the light of Twilight Isle. There were not many of the usual goblins active at this hour, but the few nearby openly stared at the scene unfolding before them.

The bagged man started to groan, struggling within the confines and flailing his bound legs against the end of the sack. Mallory hissed out an irritated noise through her teeth, stalked over to the sack-bound form, and kicked and stomped with her heavy combat boots. When his groans became audibly less spirited, she dropped to her knees to shift him over her shoulders, bracing her arms around either end of him and standing unsteadily.

Tottering steps took her the rest of the way to the point where she had stood and shrieked at the Citadel just five days ago. It was difficult to manage, but she stretched her left hand until it dipped into a coat pocket, closing around a vial of gray mist twisting itself into the shape of laughing skulls. She popped the cork and another shriek went echoing up to Bailey's refuge, lesser in power than the last she'd used but still a pretty terrible substitute for a doorbell, and waited for the Archmage to make his way down...

* * * * *

The witch was quick to answer Bailey's questions, barely waiting for him to finish before firing off every reply, eager to return home and sleep off what had been a very long night for her and Kheems both.

"He's alive. And he can answer questions -- no snipped tongue, no pulled teeth, no blows to the head. That's all you wanted, right?

"Questions from me? Ask him where Achlys is. If Achlys is dead, then I need to know about another one of his buddies in the Court. I need this. Don't ask me why.

"Spells for compelling the truth?! Ha... no, that's not something I can really do. Look, if you're really worried about it? Tell him you'll bring him to Kabuki Street if he tells you any lies.

"Remember. Achlys, or another one of his friends. The sooner, the better -- this needs to happen before Beltane. Don't fuck me on this."

[Bailey Raptis]

March 11
Twilight Isle

“Does the Archmage...seem different to you?” one of the green-skinned serving goblins whispered to the other, watching from a safe distance as Mallory deposited a burlap sack in front of Bailey.

His companion, an olive-colored fellow clutching a large serving spoon, nodded. “He was much nicer when he was here before. All he does now is work...read...and his friends!” The goblin shuddered as Mallory stepped back through the portal to the city.

“I miss Gren,” the first goblin said, quickly adding, “And Eden.”

“Yes, they were nice. Very nice!” Both of them scattered when Bailey approached the usual spot for Archmages to ascend to the Citadel of the Stars. He dragged the bag across the sand and dirt of the island, doing nothing to avoid the occasional stones dotting the ground. Each one he struck elicited a grunt of pain from within the sack, until he reached his destination. Yawning, he spun a circle with his free hand and opened a portal to the Tower, nudging Kheems through the passageway with the sole of his foot before stepping through himself.

***

Despite the fact that Kheems appeared thoroughly subdued, Bailey took no chances with him. He kept him cooped up until he found an empty guest room -- Bailey hadn’t bothered to reconfigure the Citadel to include formal prison cells, but he figured that between a locked door, his statue proxies, and the fact that they were hundreds of feet in the air, Kheems wasn’t going anywhere. He stripped the room of anything that might possibly be used against him as a weapon, leaving only a surprisingly comfortable queen-sized bed (sans any sort of sheets), a solid oak double drawer dresser, a glass-topped night stand covered in candles, and a slatted beechwood folding chair. After summoning one of his statues to serve as his bodyguard, he let Kheems out of the bag.

Bailey couldn’t help but wince when he caught sight of the scorched stump that had once been Kheems’ left hand. A night and an early morning spent with Mallory and the rengou-kai left his body mostly bruises, and they made no effort to replace his clothing, still bearing the burrs and slashes from his ordeal in Battlefield Park’s brambles. He scrabbled across the floor, away from Bailey, until his back touched the bed. His lone good hand reached back to clutch the bare mattress.

“Sit.” Bailey gestured toward the chair in the center of the room. When Kheems didn’t immediately move for the seat, the statue beside Bailey took one step forward, and the man practically tripped himself scrambling for it, knocking it to the floor with a clatter. “Pick it up.” Kheems did so, finally sitting. The proxy stepped back, nodding at Bailey.

“...I can make you a prosthesis,” Bailey said, his tone softening. Despite the suffering that Kheems and the court had inflicted upon him and his friends, he decided to extend an olive branch, in hopes that he could end his conflict with the court without further bloodshed. “It would be out of marble, but I can make it fully function-”

“Fuck you.” A spark of defiance blazed in Kheems’ eyes, as he spat on the floor. “I should’ve killed you myself.”

Bailey took little notice of the expletive, although he shared a look with his golem. “I seem to remember you going to the Maedas’ wedding to find me and getting beaten up by the delinquents.”

“Fuck the delinquents.” Kheems seemed ready to foam at the mouth, as he continued to rant. “Fuck the fairy. Fuck your jobs, fuck your roommates, fuck the Empress, fuck Faer- *gggh*!”

The stream of profanity and rage cut out, as Bailey’s statue dashed across the floor, impossibly fast, and grabbed Kheems by the throat. His lone hand pawed at marble arms in a desperate attempt to escape, before the proxy tossed him onto the mattress. He sprawled out across the bed in stunned silence.

“Get. Up,” Bailey seethed. The golem rejoined him by his side, warily keeping an eye on Kheems as he struggled to stand. “Sit. Down. And mind. Your. Manners. We could have done this the easy way, but you never knew when to leave well enough alone, did you? You and the goddamn Sandman.” Kheems put his head down, quiet, and Bailey continued. “I am going to ask you some questions. You are going to answer them truthfully, because if I find out you have not, either I will hunt you down, or Mallory will. Either way, you will find yourself meeting with the rengou-kai again. Do I make myself crystal clear?”

“...yes.”

“Good. My first question. How many of us are there now aligned with the court?”

“‘Us’?” Kheems spluttered, breaking into hysterical laughter. “You have the nerve to say ‘us’? You’re friends with a Fae, you use magic openly and freely, you killed us without a second thought -- you hold me captive here!? You’re not ‘us.’ Not anymore.”

Bailey listened to his answer, holding off on his own reply as he methodically paced around the room. He stopped at Kheems’ side, chin held high, and then lashed a snapkick at one of the chair’s legs. Kheems tumbled to the ground, and Bailey set a foot on his chest that suddenly felt heavy as pressing stones. “I suppose I am not. After all, what did the court do for me when the Raptis family died? Did they send you to search for and kill the Snake’s men? Did they sic our scryers on them? Did they interrogate the community? Did they even lift a damn finger? No! You hid in your holes, while I begged and bribed and fucked my way to the answers I needed. I took care of those collaborators. And then you have the gall, the unmitigated gall, to question my loyalty just because I was seen in the presence of Jewell a couple of times? To try to kill me for that? To imprison me? To exile me? To attack my friends, my colleagues, hell, my acquaintances, just to get to me? To get back at me? No. Let me rephrase the question. How many of you are there?” Bailey finally lifted his foot, allowing Kheems to choke and cough and gasp for air. He nudged him in the side with his shoe for good measure. “Get. Up. Sit. Down. Answer. The. Questions.

***

The orange Skoda van careened through Old Temple, its cargo grunting with each hard slam against the sides that accompanied the vehicle’s hairpin turns and rapid acceleration. It skidded to a halt right outside the former Bwyty Cymreig in Old Temple, near the Westbridge that connected the district to Old Market. The plywood in the windows and the chains locked in place around the door indicated it was closed for good. This didn't seem to faze the delinquents. They rolled out, one by one, and flung open the doors to the back. They hefted a bloodied burlap sack onto their shoulders, carried it up and over the curb, and chucked it against the front door, rattling the chains. Kheems whimpered, but otherwise remained motionless. The vehicle’s driver -- a brown-eyed woman with reddish streaks in her black hair and a patchwork printed white silk bomber jacket -- pulled the bag down, enough to expose Kheems’ upper body. Two notes had been pinned to his chest, on stationary swirling with bright yellow stars and comments. The first had a simple message in Common, written in thick black letters: He sang. The second, pinned closer to his neck than his heart, consisted of an abstract depiction of a house, with smoke curling into distorted curves around the structure, drawn in blue ink. A thick red diagonal line nearly obliterated the glyph, its meaning clear as day to anyone of Fae blood.

No Shelter.

((The Kabuki Street Delinquents are the property of Eri Maeda, and used with her permission (and my thanks!).))

[Bailey Raptis]

March 12, 2019
Impulse
Star’s End

The pneumatic stainless steel doors hissed as Sandman approached, nearly drowning him in the loud and insistent drum’n’bass that had only been a muffled thump seconds ago. The bar seemed strangely full for a Tuesday, with every table and nearly every seat at the bar taken. A quick glance around revealed the reason for the crowdedness: most of the patrons wore navy-blue tunics and trousers, with many sporting rows of multi-colored rectangular ribbons on their chests. They were mostly men, boisterous, fast to finish their drinks, and even faster to order their next round. A pair of tall, bulky uniformed men struggled to drag one of their friends to the door past Sandman. The white-clad Stolen One leader had to scurry backwards as the drunk soldier puked all over the gleaming white floor.

“Tell...tell Commander Xhophon...tell zir I’m sorry.” The two men sent apologetic looks of their own towards Sandman, who just waved them off as he avoided the vomit and made his way to the bar.

Even in a crowd, Glesni couldn’t help but stand out. Taller than many of the men inside, she wore a low-cut midnight blue evening dress with peacock feathers tucked into several strands of her blonde hair. She sat at the obsidian bar, turning a martini glass filled with some pink concoction this way and that, watching the neon backlighting by the liquor bottles as it shifted between purple and green and red. When Sandman sidled up on her left, she finally took a sip of her drink, before setting down a few silvers and nodding her head back to the entrance.

The Sandman exhaled loudly once they stepped outside again, the music muted once again by the walls. It leaked out every minute or two as new patrons went inside, but the occasional burst of squalling synthesizers beat having the electronica constantly jackhammered into their ears. Sandman pulled a stogie from one of the pockets in his robes and lit it.

“You couldn’t pick a more civilized place to meet?” The smoke drifted over toward Glesni, and she not-so-subtly wafted the floating gray out of her face.

“I’m sorry it’s not to yer liking, yer highness,” she replied with an exaggerated bow.

“...Fine. I deserve that.” Sandman tapped against the cherry end of his cigar, ash falling off of the end like snow.

“Damn straight. Ten dead. Another missing. Two in the hospital. And Kheems is worthless to us now.” She turned her green-eyed gaze square on him. “Don’t know what ya ever saw in him.”

“I saw...someone who was good at managing his men. He kept them from operating outside of the directions that I gave him to give to them. They thought of him as a good leader. He inspired respect and obedience from them.”

Glesni shrieked with laughter, pulling a few eyes her direction from some of Sandman’s fellow smokers outside. It took her some time to recover and actually respond. “I see someone who, when given 15 killers to work with, can’t even get one of them to kill their target. Someone who lets their vendettas get the better of them. Someone who can’t wait -- someone who can’t follow yer damned directions to attack all at once. Simply put: a liability.”

Sandman puffed away at his stogie in relative silence, then dipped his head into a nod. “Unfortunately, it would appear that you have been proven correct. Normally, this would be the time where I would send someone to take care of Kheems but…” The shoulders under Sandman’s robe shrugged.

“Can I suggest something?”

“...Go ahead.” A note of annoyance crept into his tone. Glesni didn’t seem to notice as she paused to adjust one of the feathers in her hair.

“Let me send some of my more...diplomatic people out. We’ll talk to his friends. Raise some doubts. We tried to isolate him through violence, and it didn’t work. Let’s try subterfuge, sabotage, undermining, whatever ya wanna call it.”

“I am willing to give it a shot,” Sandman said, flicking his finished cigar out into the road. “But I am also going to hedge my bets. I still have Achlys and Bolér. We know he will be out and about much more than he has been recently. He has his match for the Duel of Swords tournament, and he will almost certainly be out and about for Fashion Week.”

“Ya should send Achlys. Fire’s not gonna do much against a former Water Keeper, not to mention the whole marble thing he’s got going on.”

His head turned, to the left and to the right, as if searching for someone else. Eventually, Sandman’s attention drifted back to Glesni. “I am in agreement with you on that. Now, I think we should end this tête-à-tête lest someone track us down too easily. You have my encrypted phone number, and you know where the dead drop is.”

“I do. Ya stay safe, yeah?”

Sandman snorted, then slipped into a group of departing soldiers and seemed to disappear.

[Bailey Raptis]

March 13, 2019
RhyDin General

Rhydin was a tough city -- a city where many folks minded their own business, even when faced with something like a one-handed man groaning in a burlap sack, messages pinned to his chest. After all, stranger things happened all the time, and often well before breakfast. So perhaps it should have come as no surprise that it took a little more than a half-hour for someone to notice Kheems, propped against the door of the closed Bwyty Cymreig, and another ten for the EMTs and their ambulance to pick him up and take him to RhyDin General. With the missing limb long gone, and the wound cauterized by the time they found him, the doctors could do little but treat the burns, monitor the heavily bruised man for internal bleeding, and keep him in a sterile environment so infections and sepsis did not set in. Once he was fully stabilized him, they hoped to work on his left forearm in preparation for a prosthetic. With the latest technology being developed in Star’s End, Kheems had a shot at receiving a new hand that would be virtually indistinguishable from his old one…

He had arrived without a wallet, not entirely lucid, so they treated him like an indigent at first. Even after he finally regained full consciousness, though, he refused to give them any details about himself -- no name, no address, no phone number, no friends or family or next of kin. Kheems stared at the nurses sullenly as they helped him to the restroom, adjusted the IV in his arm, brought him bland meals of dry turkey, mashed potatoes and mushy peas covered in a thin brown gravy. Despite his rude behavior, the nature of his injuries and the state he’d been found in dictated posting a rotating watch of city guardsmen and guardswomen outside his door.

The latter currently protected Kheems, a tall orcish woman with her jet black hair done neatly in a bun that spilled out of the back of her brimmed cap. She sat in a folding chair, scrolling through her cell phone and peering up from the screen every few seconds to find the hallway empty. This late -- this long after visiting hours -- only the janitor and his yellow bucket full of soapy off-colored water were still hanging around the patients’ rooms.

“You keepin’ busy, Officer Vythruk?” A guilty look crossed the guardswoman’s face as she pocketed her phone and faced the voice. Another guardsman, an average sized human male with a brushy brown moustache and glassy brown eyes, approached her with a broad grin on his face.

“Don’t tell the sergeant I was…” she trailed off, her green skin darkening with embarrassment.

“We’ve all been there, officer. I’m here to save you. Sarge wants you down by the docks. Black Bulldogs’re actin’ up again.”

“This because I’m an orc?” Officer Vythruk did her best to hide a smile as the guardsman’s eyes widened.

“No, no, I-”

Her gruff laughter rumbled through the halls. “Relax, Officer Barnes. I’m messing with you. You taking over?”

“Yep. You stand relieved, officer.” It didn’t take her long to pop out of her seat. She made an elaborate gesture out of brushing invisible dirt off the chair, before presenting it to Officer Barnes.

“All yours.” The guardsman sat down, watching Officer Vythruk as she walked down the hallway until she turned the corner. He glanced around to look for anyone else nearby. Once he felt confident he was alone, he stood up and headed for the public restroom.

He stepped up to the sink, ignoring the whir of the automatic paper towel dispenser he triggered as soon as he set foot inside. He peered into the mirror, leaned forward, shut his eyes, and touched his forehead to the cool surface. When he opened his eyes back up, he had become a completely different person. He now wore a doctor’s mask, white scrubs, and a stethoscope. His brown moustache vanished. He shrank several inches and put on about 50 pounds, turning from muscular to chubby. His brown irises shifted to blue, still glassy and slightly reflective like the mirror he examined himself in. After one last nod, he returned to the hall.

Another once-over of the patient wing revealed no one else in the vicinity. He turned the knob, opening the door just enough to slide through, and took in Kheems’ room.

The Court had abandoned him. This was plain to see in the emptiness of the room. No cards. No flowers. No balloons. If not for Kheems himself sleeping in the bed, attached by wires and tubes to an IV and heart monitor, one might think the room unoccupied. The ersatz doctor silently shut the door behind him and examined his patient.

Bruises still mottled Kheems’ face, while the rest of his body hid beneath a thick, scratchy white blanket. The former Officer Barnes looked at the oximeter hanging off Kheems’ right index finger, then his eyes slid to a small beige control panel fixed into the frame of the bed. He kept tapping one of the buttons with a grimacing face, listening as the liquid rushed from a hanging bag through tubes into Kheems’ arm. Eventually, the machine beeped angrily at the doctor, and so he moved on to his next step. He pressed the button with a photo of a woman in a nurse’s cap. While he waited for her to arrive, he swapped the instructions on Kheems’ chart with ones of his own, stowed safely in his pocket.

“Doctor Korhonen?” A short woman with leathery wings and metallic yellow eyes entered.

“Nurse,” he said, in a commanding tone that he hoped covered for the fact he didn’t know her name. “We’re transferring Mr. Kheems to Star’s End Medical Center. Dr. Caerson is the region’s most-renowned prosthetist -- we’re going to make his left hand almost good as new.”

The nurse carefully slipped by Dr. Korhonen to take a look at the altered chart. Seeing nothing wrong with it, she nodded. “Shall I get a gurney?”

“Please. He’s sound asleep and seems to have been in some pain before that.” She twisted her wings around the bed and the doctor to get back to the hallway. A couple of minutes later, she returned with the stretcher and together, they lifted Kheems out of bed and onto his transport without waking him. “Thank you -- would you mind running the charts up to Doctor Radeson?”

“Sure!” She took the papers off of the clipboard and nearly skipped out of sight, leaving Dr. Korhonen to wheel Kheems down by himself.

Only a handful of nurses were still in the building, and none of them gave the doctor a second glance as he pushed the gurney to the elevator, stepped inside, and pressed the lobby button. After a sharp ding, and a little jerk from the cables, the car descended to the waiting room. Korhonen picked up speed as he saw a few scattered humans and elves waiting for treatment, swinging past them towards the ambulance dock. He looped around the gathered vehicles, leaning in close to read each license plate. Finally, he found the one he was looking for, and rapped on the back door. Shave and a hair cut…

“You’re late.” The neon-green scaled man in a black parademic’s outfit pretended to be annoyed, before slapping the doctor on the shoulder.

“Damn straight I’m on time, Mamba. Whose driving? Don’t tell me it’s Garter…”

“Screw you, Ninguém!” a voice shouted from the driver’s seat. He looked over his shoulder into the back of the ambulance, his black-and-red forked tongue flicking with annoyance.

“Kidding.” Ninguém and Mamba slammed the transport’s door shut and locked the latch, pulling away from the hospital.

“Should we wake him before we get to the Snake?” Mamba asked, smiling so that his long fangs showed. Ninguém shook his head.

“No.” Menace crept onto his face as he patted Kheems’ bandaged stump. “We should surprise him.”

[Bailey Raptis]

March 27, 2019
Three Foxes Court

After nearly a day’s worth of negotiations and enough back-and-forth messages to pay a courier for a week, Glesni and Mallory came to an agreement on a meeting time, day, and place: late afternoon, just before sunset, at a ruined old fountain in Three Foxes Court. It was neutral ground for both sides -- or, at the very least, territory that held equal dangers for a Stolen One leader and the wife of the Rengou-kai’s sukeban.

Glesni insisted on bringing one bodyguard, a stout wolf-like man with yellow eyes and a gray sharkskin suit bursting at the seems. He wore a sour expression as they walked through redcap territory, watching the short figures stare and then scramble away whenever he shot them a look. “I don’t like this, boss,” he whined in a deep voice.

“I don’t pay ya to think or be comfortable, Raff,” she replied, smoothing out the hem of her blue dress as she walked. “I pay ya to protect me. Ya remember yer oath?”

“...Yes.” Raff lowered his head, but looked up at Glesni with his eyes.

“Good. Then let’s keep going.”

They ducked down narrow alleys and twisting roads without street signs, the sunlight partially blocked by well-worn brick apartments and crumbling houses. Raff sniffed at the air the entire time, catching whiffs of dried blood, sweat, powdered mortar, iron, and, eventually, algae. As they drew closer to the fountain, hints of keratin and gunpowder mixed in with the vegetation, and Raff growled.

“At ease,” Glesni said, scruffing him by the collar of his suit.

“But-”

“This’s what I agreed to. Behave.” She let him go with a little shove that sent him stumbling into the square where the Three Foxes Fountain -- and Mallory -- were waiting.

The witch lounged on the crook of a swan statue’s neck, her legs dangling over the eponymous three foxes fixing their jaws around the poor beast, perched above the dismal little square like a queen above her court. Scattered on the rooftops around her were the sources of what Raff had scented -- delinquents, a few standing tall to make themselves known, others crouched along the edge for better cover, all well positioned to rain hellfire on whoever opposed them.

Whatever the substance of their agreement, Mallory clearly did not take it to mean that they were meeting as equals. She idly turned and curled the fingers of her burning right hand, then sneered down at the two approaching figures as she pulled a weapon from her back -- *Drachenbane*, the same that had reduced Kheems’ gifted hand to a cauterized stump. She plunged the infernal blade into the fetid water below, letting pungent clouds of steam roll across the courtyard. “Glesni,” she said, though her eyes soon moved past the other woman, narrowing on the far more anxious form of Raff.

She granted him a slow, cruel smile.

Raff stayed back, folding his arms and trying to look tough, while Glesni’s heels clicked against the stone as she ambled up to Mallory. About halfway up, she stopped. “I forgot something. Sorry.” She hurried back to Raff, who reached into one of the pockets of his jacket and handed her a velvet purple bag, the contents of which clinked together in the exchange.

Weapons cocked loudly as Glesni hurried away and the big man reached into his coat, but Mallory raised her left hand to stay them, and watched with interest. “What do you have there?”

Glesni stepped back up, bag in tow, offering it to Mallory, who bent down to take it from her tarnished bronze perch. “A peace offering. With sincere apologies from the...True Court of the Taken.” Raff growled and looked alarmed as Glesni spoke those words, but she glanced back over her shoulder and smiled sweetly at him. “Raff, dear, the cat’s out of the bag I’m afraid. Besides, if we’re going to work with non-humans-” she turned back to Mallory as her green eyes fell briefly on the woman’s horns. “- we need to be honest. Kheems was way out of line, and we’d’ve handed him over to ya gladly, but he seems to have disappeared. How much did ya lose when the Sunny Mart closed?”

Mallory watched Glesni’s study of her horns, and her expression stilled; but she moved past that and the subject of money to simply ask, “Disappeared?” She sliced her left finger on the edge of her blade, and her eyes turned a solid blood red as she used her Sight to behold the bag itself, before carefully opening it. “I thought he’d be given no shelter... unless someone decided it was to their advantage,” she mused.

“We had eyes on him at the hospital, but…” She plucked a peacock’s feather from her blonde hair and tucked it behind her ear. “Could be the Nexus, could be the Fae…” Raff growled again, but Glesni held a hand up to quiet him.

Counting the contents of the bag, Mallory wrapped it up again and hurled it to the nearest rooftop, where a delinquent’s waiting hand quickly caught it. “Do you know the first fucking thing about money? About how a shop like that operates? How any shop operates?” She tightened her fingers around the hilt of Drachenbane, the bloody Sight fading from her eyes, replaced with green flame as she leaned forward to hiss at them, “You cost us twenty thousand nobles, and that’s just the money. We’re not even getting into the kind of price you owe for attempting to murder the sukeban and her wife in cold blood.”

Glesni took a couple of steps back, hands up in defense. Raff lunged forward, and Glesni had to deliberately bump into him to stop his progress towards Mallory. A high-caliber shot went off, and the damp brickwork exploded in a little burst where the lupine man would have been if not for his boss.

No further shots followed, but the witch dropped down from her perch, seizing Drachenbane from the fountain with a burst of fire around her hand, pure and hateful Wrath etched into her features.

If the gunshot and Mallory’s drawing of the sword fazed Glesni, it wasn’t plainly evident on her face. “Do I need to send Raff away?” The question asked as much of her bodyguard as it was towards Mallory.

The witch stepped forward, and the vigilant delinquents followed her closely with their guns. She raised the sword, holding it perfectly level as she pointed it at both of them, her lean muscular arm taut, coiled tight like a snake. “I need you...” she began, her voice shaking with barely controlled rage. “...to kneel.”

“Boss-”

Glesni kneeled immediately, a serene look on her face. “Do as she says, Raff.” He grumbled, and his movements were more halting than hers, but he eventually followed suit.

Mallory took slow steps towards the pair of them, until she was close enough that they could hear the angry sparks and feel the heat coming off of her sword. Her fingers tightened around the hilt with an audible puff of ash. “I need you to tell me how... very sorry you all are for what you’ve done.”

“I’m sorry.” Glesni kept her gaze on Mallory’s horns. “I clearly screwed up allying with Kheems and Sandman -- which is why I’m here now, by the way -- but my followers did help at all stages. And I’m sorry.”

The witch seemed to weigh this at length... and then nodded, very slightly. “I’m mortal,” she stated, backing a few steps away from them as she slid the blade home in the scabbard on her back. “I might even still be human... and everything I have, I’ve had to fight for it with every drop of my blood, every screaming breath in my lungs, against older, more powerful, immortal creatures.” As she settled into place at the edge of the fountain, she folded her arms and jerked her head to indicate that they could rise. “Now what do you want?”

Raff immediately clambered to his feet, while Glesni more deliberately stood, adjusting her dress and rubbing her red knees. She clicked her tongue as Raff kept her distance from Mallory. “Good help these days, yeah?” Laughter trilled from her, as if she hadn’t just been forced to bend the knee at swordpoint. “Well, we’ve gotten part of what I wanted out of the way -- saying sorry. Next’s an explanation.”

Mallory made a soft sound at Glesni’s joke and sat down on the edge of the fountain. She dipped her horned head slightly for her to continue.

“I won’t insult yer intelligence. Yer obviously powerful enough --” She stopped to gesture with her hand at all the rooftops and the delinquents hidden away above. “ -- to have spies of yer own. Ya know why Sandman and Kheems targeted ya. Yer friends of Bailey Raptis. But why Bailey? Tell me, Mallory... how much do ya really know about him?”

“That he’s a friend of Eden’s,” Mallory said mildly, “and damn good with a needle and thread. Skilled with magic... propensity for clubbing, a few recreational habits we hold in common...” Mallory curled her fingers around the edge of the brickwork to either side as she tipped her horned head at Glesni. “And a... difficult history with the Fae.”

“Would it surprise ya to learn he tried to kill yer friend Jewell?”

Mallory lifted her chin at that, staring at Glesni silently for a few moments. “...I have a difficult history with Jewell, too... but she’s family. I’d kill for her, and I have before -- people who’ve tried to bring her harm.”

“He got a wild hair up his ass, said the Kindly Ones were getting too comfortable in the city. We tried to stop him from going through with it, but he wouldn’t listen. Of course he failed, and when we tried to bring him in for punishment…” Glesni trailed off, tearing up. “He killed three Taken trying to arrest him. We finally caught him two summers ago and exiled him -- a decision I disagreed with strongly -- but he couldn’t leave well enough alone and came back. He’s a loose cannon, a threat to -- ”

“ -- a lot of people,” Mallory said, drumming her fingers against the fountain, punctuated by the click of her claw-like left ring fingernail. “Yeah, he had a little... incident at the Golden Perch not too long ago.” She studied Glesni closely, her own expression almost dispassionate. “And after all this is... taken care of... the True Court of the Taken will never bother the Kabuki Street Rengou-kai, myself, and my friends and family again.”

“I can deal with that. We’d obviously prefer to have yer help against...the others, but I can understand being reluctant to ally with us. Besides...ya have other concerns, I’m sure.”

The witch granted Glesni a rare smile. “We’ll just have to see how this plays out. Right now, Bailey will take shelter at the Twilight Isle if he’s in danger... but if he’s cut off from it, or if I can take that from him, then I imagine he’ll turn to Kabuki Street for sanctuary... and it would be easy to keep him there until your people can come for him.”

“And then-” Glesni punctuated her words with an alligator clap, her hands like jaws snapping shut on their prey. “ - the trap closes.”

((Written with Mallory's player. Thanks!))