by Martha Carr
PWNpalACE420: @FreddyKrugerrand1oz Great. Just like an Earthside-lover who’s forgotten everything about who we are. Go choke on your wannabe human illusion spells. Nobody cares what you find offensive.
gu@rdi@n104: @PWNpalACE420 Stand down. This is your first warning.
Cheyenne leaned back in her chair with a snort and kept reading through the comments until they all started to look the same. Aside from the obvious trolling—and an admin warning apparently went a long way on the Borderlands forum, because PWNpalACE420 didn’t comment again for a long time—there was some really good information on here.
“Okay, ignoring the speculation about who I am, these are some pretty good leads.”
The ones that interested her the most came from comments mentioning the little pockets of black-magic dealing that had popped up all over Virginia and the surrounding states. Now that people had figured out what was killing their kids, they kept a sharp eye on those places. And if none of these magicals on the forum had mentioned the black magic shops or whatever they were being busted by the FRoE or anyone else, that meant nothing had happened so far.
It took her several minutes to slog through the comments for the ones mentioning the distribution points for Q’orr’s instant-death products, but she finally narrowed it down to two of the most common locations in the Richmond area—Carytown and South Richmond. Sir specifically and the FRoE in general didn’t seem like the kind of people who would go clean up low-level spots like this. Taking Q’orr out had cut off the supply at the source, but what hadn’t been sold to kids yet was still out there.
Heading out to this distribution sight for black magic crap couldn’t be that much harder than following Rhynehart through Rez 38 just so he could tell her she was on her own with the Skaxen. This first site in Carytown wasn’t that far away. I could use the target practice.
She left the Borderlands forum, got out of the dark web, and shut her computer system down for the night. “You’ve been running nonstop for a while, Glen. Take a rest. Maybe after I bash in some ugly thug faces, I’ll get a good night’s sleep too.”
Amped up at the chance to unleash her drow side for a good cause, the halfling left her desk and headed toward the kitchen to look for anything remotely edible. The cabinets were empty except for a can of baked beans all the way in the back. She scowled at them and turned the can from side to side. I don’t even remember buying these.
The loud, obnoxiously digital ringtone made her freeze.
She rolled her eyes, gritted her teeth, and abandoned her cabinets to walk around the kitchen counter until she stood glaring down at her backpack on the floor. The front pocket flashed with a muted light as the FRoE burner phone Sir had given her kept ringing.
Ember was right. I’ll end up regretting it if I don’t answer. This is gonna suck.
Jerking open the front pocket of her backpack, Cheyenne pulled out the clunky old flip phone and gave it the middle finger before flicking open the top. Then she stuck the phone to her ear and hissed, “This better be good.”
Chapter Seventy-Five
“Honestly, halfling, I was pretty sure you weren’t gonna answer this call.” Sir’s dull, humorless voice came over the line with perfect clarity.
“Yeah, well, you guys wouldn’t be able to get anything done without me, would you?” Cheyenne sat on the floor by her backpack and leaned back against the half-wall of the kitchen counter.
“Fair enough. You might be entitled to rub it in. I take it you’re open for another assignment.”
“Is that what you’re calling it?” The halfling snorted. “Sounds like you’re about to beg me to finish something your guys can’t.”
“Everyone has an opinion, kid. Whatever you wanna call it, I’d like you on another operation tomorrow. Figured the least we owe you is a little advance notice.”
“As long as it’s after two o’clock tomorrow,” she said. “If it can’t wait ‘til then, you’ll have to find someone else.”
“That’s right. Because you’re just swamped with work for your graduate studies, aren’t you?”
Of course, Sir knew about her not-so-regular life outside of being the FRoE’s new half-drow asset. Now that they’d figured out who she was, he was bound to make some kinda jab about it.
“Something like that,” she muttered.
“Right. Like you even need to go to school, with all the skills you already have.”
“Cut the crap. I know you didn’t call me to talk about my dreams and aspirations.”
Sir let out a dry chuckle. “That would be way too boring. Don’t worry about the time, halfling. We won’t need you ‘til tomorrow night. I’ll call you then with more information. Got it?”
“Yep.” A long silence followed, and Cheyenne rolled her eyes. “Is that it?”
“That depends. Anything else you wanna tell me?”
Yeah, eat shit. “Nope.”
Without waiting for a reply, Cheyenne ended the call and closed the phone, then tossed the burner back into her open backpack. Sir had nothing to hold over her head now, beyond the fact that he’d said he could tell her about her dad if she kept tagging along on FRoE operations. Knowing she was Bianca Summerlin’s daughter didn’t give him any extra leverage, either. Not after the way Cheyenne’s mom had crushed him during their tensely civilized debate yesterday.
As soon as the guy gives me what I wanna know about Inmate 4872, I’m out.
The call had definitely dampened her enthusiasm for going out on her own tonight to crack magical-criminal skulls together. Her eyes were suddenly way too heavy, and her head dipped toward her chest. Just before she decided to turn in for the night, her stomach growled. Cheyenne looked down, then rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
* * *
Her trip to the gas station down the street went just how she liked them—short, boring, efficient, and without anything feeling even remotely off. The asshole clerk who’d taken over Katie’s shift after the attempted and failed robbery the other night was as much of a jerk as ever, but Cheyenne managed to ignore him. The thought of zapping his cocky mouth with purple sparks got her through the chore of listening to him drone on about some sports team, then she brought her dinner back up to her apartment—bag of chips, jar of salsa, a frozen linguini dinner, and a bottle of vitamin water.
She brought the steaming tray of linguini with her to her desk in the living room and turned Glen back on again to finish one more task. At the very least, and probably a lot more, she owed Ember this much.
Hacking into VCU Medical Center’s server to access the billing department and all their records wasn’t any harder than slipping into the patient files. She pulled up the existing bills for Ember Gaderow and sucked in a breath through her teeth. The whole thing would have put Ember under more than two master’s worth of student loans.
And that was why the drow halfling knew she could help. After several more minutes of looking through Ember’s patient files and the recommendations for rehab and therapy Dr. Andrews had given her, Cheyenne had selected all the best options plus adding several more days in the hospital.
Wiring the chunk of money from her savings account, which had been opened and fully stocked with the inheritance Bianca Summerlin’s parents had left their grandchild just before they died, took a little longer. But then everything was paid in advance, all at once. “Guess we’re all lucky I turned twenty-one before any of this happened. Thanks, Elaine and Clive. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have liked each other very much, but you helped my best friend get her life back. That counts for something.”
Ember would probably freak out when the hospital told her everything had already been paid for and they could funnel her straight into the treatments she needed, but the fae in a hospital bed would just have to deal with it. That was what friends did.
The halfling shoveled the rest of her linguini into her mouth, ignoring the over-cooked crunch around the edges, then shut Glen down one more time and downed the vitamin water.
* * *
Apparently, she wasn’t supposed to get a decent night’s sleep. Her dreams kept her tossing and turning, aggravating her shoulder even more. She kept seeing the copper puzzle box, her drow legacy, neatly bundled up in that infuriating package of runes etched in thin lines. She dreamed about the damn thing glowing again, spinning in every direction while some mechanism whirred and clicked inside it.
Things got really weird when a face materialized behind the puzzle box—old, wrinkled, deathly pale, and covered with painted symbols in black and deep blood-red. The eyes were nothing but empty black pits, smoking around the edges, and the mouth when it opened with an expectant slowness looked like it might have been filled with blood. It had only four sharp, stained teeth.
“The Cu’ón will be doomed to lose his bloodline time and again. The endless search for an heir will bring each of them to death’s door. Only the scion never pursued will rise to their destiny. When the shackles of the old laws crumble, their purpose will be fulfilled.”
The copper box flashed with that golden light like a strobe, growing brighter and brighter before that grotesquely wrinkled face let out a high-pitched, grating cackle.
* * *
Cheyenne jolted upright and groaned. The first thing she did was check the bedside table for the drow legacy box, but she found only her cell phone and the lamp. She sighed in relief, then shook the grogginess and confusion out of her head. What the hell kinda dream was that?
Her hand slapped sleepily down on her phone so she could check the time—6:23 a.m. “I could’ve slept another forty minutes. Great.”
She tossed her cell phone onto the sheet beside her and grimaced at the sharp pain shooting through her shoulder. Gritting her teeth, she jerked off the gauze taped over the wound, grunting when the dried, crusty layer of blood stuck to the bandage and ripped away. The tracking device was gone now, sure, but the two black-magic-acid burns in her flesh looked almost as fresh as when she’d gotten them.
“Should’ve let Dr. Andrews patch me up. Shit.”
Pushing herself out of bed, Cheyenne went into the bathroom and grabbed the bottle of hydrogen peroxide from her personal attempt at home surgery. The liquid splashed onto her shoulder, in and around the wounds, and into the sink. She gritted her teeth against the pain. If things got bad enough, she might have to make another phone call to her mom and ask if that offer for one of Bianca’s personal physicians was still on the table.
With a fresh bandage taped to her shoulder again, Cheyenne got dressed, added more heavy eyeliner over what was left from yesterday, and ran a brush through her black hair. She had plenty of time to stop by the gas station for breakfast before an entire day of wanting to gouge her eyes out in all her boring classes.
TGIF, right?
Rolling her eyes, she stepped out into the living room and turned on her computer. No new messages from Todd or anyone on the Y2Kickass server, but she knew the guy would find a way to sweeten the deal for anyone willing to take a look at her file from gu@rdi@n104. There was a chance nobody there even wanted to help her after how long she’d been silent on the server. Taking on magical crime rings and living a double life could take all the credit for that. I just need a mask and a skin-tight costume, and I’d have an in with the Avengers.
She snorted, turned away from her desk, and grabbed her things for school. Screw that.
With her backpack slung over her good shoulder and the wounded shoulder still screaming at her beneath the new bandage, the half-drow slipped into her black Vans and reached for the doorknob.
Before her fingers touched the cold metal knob, an image of that wrinkled, almost-toothless face from her dream burst into her mind. The shrieking cackle was so loud, she staggered away from the door with a growl of surprise. Then it was gone, and the drow halfling stood in front of her door, feeling like she stood in front of an open furnace.
“What the actual—”
“Only the scion never pursued will rise to their destiny.” Cheyenne shook her head. “Worst dream ever.”
She reached for the knob again and saw her fingers, purple-gray and tipped in black fingernail polish instead of her normal ridiculously pale skin. That hand went up to her ears to check for the tell-tale points of her drow side fully unleashed. Sure enough, there they were.
With a hiss at such a close call, Cheyenne dropped her hand again and closed her eyes.
In a moment, she’d gotten her drow magic back under control where it belonged. The next time she reached for the doorknob, her pale human-looking hand had returned.
Having locked the front door behind her, the halfling shook her head, readjusted her backpack, and took off down the hall. She hadn’t gone more than a few feet before an electric-blue light flashed and sputtered from beneath the door three apartments down. Cheyenne kept walking.
Then someone screamed, shouts rose from inside that apartment, and she slowed with a sigh and stared at the door.
“Stop! You can’t just show up whenever you want and—”
“Shut it, Earthside-lover. You gave up your rights when you turned your back on the O’gúl Crown.”
“What about you, then? You came over here just like the rest of us—”
“I said, shut up!” Another blue light flashed behind the door, followed by more green bursts and a subdued scream. It sounded like another orc.
Not even a minute after drawing her drow magic back inside, Cheyenne let the flare of heat burst at the small of her back and wash over her. By the time she knocked on the front door of the apartment, which belonged to neighbors she hadn’t bothered to meet, her skin was purple-gray and her hair bone-white.
Time for the friendly neighborhood half-drow to show up and lend a hand.
Chapter Seventy-Six
“Get lost!” the orc shouted from inside the apartment.
“That’s gonna be a little hard,” Cheyenne replied, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. “I know the area pretty well.”
“We’re handling business in here, and it’s none of yours.”
“Anyone wanna open up and let me take a look for myself? Flashing lights and screaming before eight in the morning are bound to draw attention.”
The pissed-off magical inside the apartment growled in frustration, then stomping footsteps approached the door. Someone else let out a whimper, then the apartment door burst open. Sure enough, a gray-green orc with more fat on him than any of the others Cheyenne had seen stood on the other side of that door. He snarled at her, summoning a ball of sickly green magic in his beefy hand. Then he noticed he was staring at—for all intents and purposes—a drow. His eyes grew wide, and he lifted his green magic toward her.
Cheyenne was faster. She let off a churning, crackling orb of black energy with purple at its center. It struck the orc in the chest and launched him back into her neighbors’ apartment. Someone else squeaked in surprise, and the drow halfling stepped in before closing the door behind her.
The orc grunted and picked himself up from the crunched radiator beneath the window where he’d landed. Cheyenne took in the apartment scattered with toys, crude drawings, and a whole bunch of weird tchotchkes before her eyes fell on the family of trolls huddled together just off the kitchen.
“Hi,” she told them. “I noticed you have an orc problem this morning. If you tell me he’s right and it’s none of my business, I’ll take off.”
The taller male troll with much darker purple skin than his wife couldn’t take his wide, shocked eyes off the half-drow. His wife sucked in a sharp breath and glanced anxiously at the orc, who was now back on his feet and summoning more attack spells. The troll woman shook her head but didn’t say a word.
“I’ll take that as a—”
The orc’s ball of green magic hurtled toward Cheyenne, and she ducked. The spell hit the top of the door behind her, and then the orc was roaring and charging at her across the tiny living room.
She let her backpack slip off her shoulder and onto the floor, then fired two more black orbs of sizzling energy. The first struck the orc just off the center of his chest again, jerking him sideways as he kept charging. The second hurtled into a collection of hanging plants beside the windows. Plastic planters and dirt and shredded greenery exploded in all directions. Cheyenne turned toward the troll family. “Sorry about that.”
And then the orc was on her, crashing into her body and knocking her into the wall beside the door. The halfling hooked her arm around his neck and brought her knee smashing up into his face. One tusk dug painfully into her thigh, and she both heard and felt a crunch. Roaring again, the orc let her go to bring his hands up to his possibly uprooted tusk.
At the same second that the lashing black whips of drow magic burst from her fingers, the slavering orc let off two more electric shocks of green magic. Cheyenne leaned sideways to avoid them, watching her opponent’s magic slow with the rest of the world as she moved ridiculously fast. The first shot exploded in slow motion against the wall just behind her head, knocking down some framed photos. The halfling stepped toward the kitchen and noticed too late that she’d set her backpack down in the perfect place to trip herself.
She lost her enhanced speed, everything moved normally again, and the orc’s second attack smashed into the wall too. Cheyenne stumbled forward and caught herself on the half-wall of the family’s apartment, although she wasn’t fast enough to keep the ceramic bowl of fruit from flying off the counter onto the kitchen floor.
“Sorry!” she shouted over the sound of shattered pottery.
The family shuffled away from her and farther into the apartment, the male troll hugging his wife and child close and still trying to put himself between them and the chaos in his living room.
