Ricky Chiang stood five feet away from Chiedra, talking to two young women dressed nearly identically in red pleather miniskirts paired with red and black pleather corsets. The girls were both short, but teetered on spiked heels. Ricky had one hand on the bare shoulder of the brunette of the pair, and he was leaning over towards the blonde, whispering in her ear. Both girls held martini glasses half-full of some sort of pinkish liquid. Chiedra watched the scene carefully, while taking in the surrounding room deliberately.
“The Obsidian blades?” a familiar, cultured voice dripped sarcasm from just beyond Chiedra’s left shoulder. “Really, Ki, don’t you think that’s a bit much even for you. I mean, those guys really are scum? Dangerous, criminal scum.”
Without turning her head, Chiedra sighed softly. “Niall, what are you doing here?”
Niall Tiergnan, dressed in a dark brown oxford shirt and even darker brown dress pants, stood beside Chiedra, watching Ricky Chiang make time with two obviously underage girls. He shook his head. “Not protecting a sleaze while he prepares to perpetrate statuory rape, so obviously not the same thing you are, my girl.”
“Please, Niall, do we have to do this again?” Chiedra asked, exasperation evident in her tone. “I’m working. I know you don’t approve of my work, but I am working now.”
“So, you are working for Chiang, then?” Niall asked, disapproval dripping from every word.
“Yes, I am,” Chiedra replied, moving forward as Ricky started to walk away with a girl tucked under each arm.
“Where are you going?” Niall moved with her.
“As we’ve already established, I’m doing my job,” Chiedra replied, staying only a few feet behind her charge as he headed towards the crowded stairwell.
Rolling his eyes, Niall trailed Chiedra, who trailed Ricky and his new “friends” as they fought their way through the crush of people at the party. When Ricky hit the bottom floor, he veered towards the back of the building. Chiedra stayed with him, her eyes moving constantly from side to side, watching and waiting for any sign of trouble. As they moved, Niall kept his lecture going.
“Don’t you care about what these people represent?”
“No.”
“Isn’t there some better way for you to make a living?”
“No.”
When they reached the door into the back alley behind the club, Chiedra paused to glare at Niall. “We’ve talked this to death, Niall. You know I love you, but I am not going to stop doing what I do. I’ve told you that, many, many times.”
At that moment, Chiedra’s sensitive hearing picked up the sound of running feet coming from the head of the alley. Instincts suddenly on alert, Chiedra turned to the sound. She was momentarily stunned at the sight that greeted her. Two men ran down the alley towards Ricky and the girls, who had yet to realize anything was amiss. However, Chiedra had never seen men quite like these before. The one in the lead appeared to be riddled with bullet holes, and the man behind him was in even worse shape. His head was basically missing. It looked sort of like someone had attacked the man with a shotgun and blown the upper right side of his face away. He had a gaping hole where his right eye and the right side of his forehead should have been. Chiedra took a moment to process that fact. By all rights, these two men shouldn’t be standing, let alone running towards Ricky, brandishing two rather lethal looking knives, and rather mad, bloodthirsty grins.
“Behind me, Ricky!” Chiedra shouted, jumping in front of the young man and pushing him behind her, towards the door. The two girls followed him, screeching when they caught sight of what was coming towards them.
“What the fuck?!” Ricky yelled, craning his head around Chiedra’s shoulder to see what she had seen.
“Get back inside!” Niall shouted to the screaming women, as he stood next to Chiedra and brandished the staff he’d been leaning on. “Of course, I had to check my damn coat.”
Despite the seriousness, Chiedra grinned. “Come on, old man,” she joked, “you can make it without your security blanket, right?”
Niall grinned fiercely back at her, and gestured tightly as he pushed the staff out towards the advancing attack. “You haven’t bested me yet, little girl.”
Niall shouted a strange word and a blast of hot air shot out from his hands to blow the men back, making a terrible racket as it did so. Trash cans, and other debris in the alley flew with the harsh breeze. The two attackers tumbled backwards, one flying back into a sharp metal pole protruding from the far wall.
“Not bad,” Chiedra moved forward as the second man struggled to stand. She kept an eye on the one stuck to the pole though, as they appeared hard to kill. The man on the pole was the onemissing most of his head. She faced the man whose body was peppered with a pattern of holes as he lumbered to his feet.
Niall glanced quickly back at Ricky and his “girlfriends”. The girls were sobbing and shrieking. “Take them back inside,” Niall ordered. Ricky, eyes wide with disbelief, nodded dumbly. He grabbed the two girls and led them back into the building.
Meanwhile, Chiedra had begun to fight with “bullet-holes”. He charged her, and she dodged, reaching out with her power to grab at him with solid tendrils of shadow that flowed out of the dark edges of the alley. The tendrils wrapped around his body and pulled him towards the nearest wall. The man skewered on the pole was slowly pulling himself off the offending appendage as Chiedra moved towards her opponent again. “Headless” was reaching into his jacket, pulling out a gun.
“Look out, Ki!” Niall shouted, throwing out a hand with a silver bracelet made of interlocking shields. He spoke softly in the strange tongue again, and a silvery light enveloped Chiedra as “Headless” fired his gun. The bullets bounced off the shield of force and the man turned his head towards Niall, making, "Ooo 'i roo” sounds.
“Great! How do you stop these things?!” Chiedra shouted in frustration as the gun was aimed at her mentor.
“Beats me,” Niall replied. “I’m not even sure what these things are.”
Chiedra dropped as the monster in front of her took a swing. She dropped to the ground and swept her leg out, landing a kick at the side of the man’s legs. He stumbled, the tendrils of shadow holding him as he struggled and nearly fell over. Chiedra came up with a long, thin, lethal looking stiletto in her hand. Niall had a moment to wonder where she’d concealed the weapon, before he saw that “Headless” was finally free of the pole and was moving towards him. Swearing under his breath, Niall began to prepare a larger spell.
Chiedra was beginning to feel weak as the bullet-ridden hulk struggled against the shadow bonds she’d formed. She had to drop the tendrils if she was going to be able to finish this fight and hope to win. It was always this way. Her shadow powers drained her quickly. Wishing she was just a bit stronger, Chiedra dropped the shadows as she moved to attack the monster before her with the knife. She was unprepared for how quickly the creature was able to recover when he was free. She misjudged his agility and found herself struggling as one of his meaty hands grabbed hold of her long ponytail. Not for the first time, Chiedra cursed herself for keeping the hair, an unnecessary affectation for someone who regularly engaged in hand-to-hand combat, but Niall had always kept it long when she was growing up, and…
“Niall!” she shouted, struggling to free herself as tall, nasty, and undead pulled her closer. Niall’s head swung round, and he snarled. He ran towards Chiedra and her attacker, leaving his foe to his own devices for a few minutes.
As soon as Niall had moved away, a man stuck his head in the end of the alley and shouted, “Zoran, Miro! Quit screwing around! The boss says we got to get inside!”
“Headless” looked from where Niall and Chiedra struggled against his partner to the head of the alley and then shrugged. “Waa’,” he replied, moving towards where the third man had stood when he called out.
Niall reached Chiedra and her opponent, who had pulled the young woman off her feet by her hair so that only the toes of her boots scraped the ground. Cheidra’s face was contorted with pain and fury. She reached behind her, slashing blindly with her knife but failing to make contact. Pointing his staff straight out, Niall called another strange word and a shaft of light streamed out from the end, burning the hand the gripped Chiedra’s hair like a laser and causing her assailant to howl as he dropped the girl. Chiedra tumbled to the ground and rolled a few feet away, breathing hard as she lay on the ground, facing up into the night sky. Niall turned back to the perforated attacker and shook his head. “Enough is enough!” he shouted. Drawing himself up to his full height, Niall once more extended his staff, counterbalancing it with his empty hand. He shouted, his voice nearly hoarse, one more alien word and a blast of fire flew from between his raised staff and his outstretched hand. The fire flew out to the man before him like a wave, igniting the paper and other flammable trash in the alley as it blasted through the attacker and left him smoldering against the far wall.
From the ground near his feet, Niall heard Cheidra say very softly, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”
Chuckling, Niall helped Chiedra to stand and with a significant glance between them, they raced into the club just as the first of the shots sounded from inside.
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