Roy II glanced down, there was an awful lot of blood on the ground. Then his eyes rolled back.
"God dammit." Tset didn't hesitate and pulled a card with a red corner. He tucked it in Roy II's jacket pocket. "Sweet dreams, anyway. Liz-"
He stood and turned and Elisabeth had her gun on him. His jaw dropped a fraction and she smiled. "Tset." She said, sweetly, coyly.
He looked sad, "Yes, Liz?" So she had been acting. But hope held out...
"Step to your left."
He did so.
The two .22 rounds blinded and killed a man with a large machete who'd been skulking behind a bank of filing cabinets.
Tset smiled almost happily, and wanted to say something, but couldn't think what.
He kissed her instead. Lightly, on the cheek, like they were familiar. This and his hand on the small of her back stopped whatever comment had been on her lips.
He took her by the hand and kicked down one of the trap doors the killers had used to come at them in darkness.
The amount of gunfire going on below was blinding compared to the dimness of the attic.
"Oh, well..." He looked up - 'Something, something... there!' The electric box. He shot it.
The lights below went out.
The highly-trained assassins stopped shooting each other for four seconds. Tset realized precisely that he was dealing with highly-trained assassins when they started killing each other in the dark.
"Liz..."
He turned, she stood behind him, she was cold and distant.
She looked at him again. "I'm going to leave you up here for a minute."
Her lips parted in that smile again. He smiled back. Tender moment.
'What a weird life.' He thought while he rolled his pistols around, buttes out.
But soon the lead was too close and too fast. He dodged fire expertly. His sight was not impaired at all, so he did not use muzzle flash to expose targets - he simply saw them and whipped them, incapacitating them. His enemies were Z Section, and Tset wasn't one to strike outside his enemies' quarter.
He was clearing a way to the door when he saw Q on the ground.
He dove, knocking over a couch and coming down on his cheek. Regaining his balance he rolled to Q and rolled him over.
Q's fist was unyieldingly hard when it smashed into Tset's mouth.
His use of the operative F word was muffled behind his hand. He lifted Q angrily and shook him a bit, "Where's James?"
Q realized who he was talking to. He shook his head.
"Fuck, alright, you're out of here, yeah?"
Q nodded, once, and Tset heaved him across the room through the front windows before the second nod. He landed outside, beneath the level of the wall, 'Despite the shattering glass, that was probably the safest.' Tset thought - he hoped Q would see his point of view.
He looked up into the roof, "Now for Liz."
But the gunfire was too much, everyone targeting everyone else, all deadly. Tset caught a throwing knife in the arm and a spike in his back and he didn't even know if they were intended for him or who the throwers were.
He went back up through the hatch, "We're not going that way." He looked up at her and she asked, "Any suggestions?" He shrugged and pulled the wicked knife from his bicep and managed to get a grip on the spike and twist it out.
He looked up and past her shoulder, he pointed, there was a small window set in the gabled ceiling.
He put his arm around her and surprised Liz by hoisting them both up the ten foot invert and then out of the window one-handed, and again, by deftly sliding in his leather-soled shoes, down the shingles, not losing balance when they came loose, or stopping to jump off of the edge and to the walk below.
He lifted her gently from his neck, but before she could say anything he was sprinting with her towards his car - his prescience had kicked in on numerous beads, one was for her.
They stopped running when they saw Yonotan was there, leaned against the side of the car. He was sitting in a pool of gasoline from the tank and held a lighter.
He was badly beaten and looked at Tset from his left eye - the right was swollen shut or missing.
"Yonotan?"
"Tset. I do dis because dey've got a sniper on you. You touch me, dey gonna shoot de gas, kill us bot'. Run now. Take Liz."
He lit the Zippo and let it drop. Tset, who had put Liz down, whipped his leg and jumped. The lighter went flying.
"Dammit Yonotan!" Tset crouched and grabbed him, trying to lift him up.
Then a round punched through his back, knocking him against the side of his car and adding to its cherry paint job.
He dimly heard Liz shout his name. He felt the bead on his back again but it was cut off by another car that had pulled up.
He collected himself from the high-cal concussion and turned. Roy was in the car behind him. "You're not dead!"
Tset wiped the gasoline off of his pants. "No. But I know someone who is. Who's side are you on?"
"I'm a Haliburton agent, Tset." Roy was out of the car, coming towards him.
This got a grin from Tset - that very definitely did not answer his question.
He tossed his key to Liz. "Take Q," He looked behind her, an unrumpled and stylish James was heading up, reloading his .357, "And James and Yonotan, get somewhere safe. I'm going to handle a sniper."
Roy's hand was on his shoulder. He turned to face him. "Tset, no hard feelings about earlier?"
Tset scoffed, and dropped his mag, checking his load.
He slapped it back, "About six."
The gun bucked repeatedly. Roy's body was flipped over the hood of his car, where it landed in a shredded heap. "I'm good now, Ron."
Another sniper's shot took him in the cheek just then and he sprawled.
'Stupid!' he thought, his head ringing. There was an assassin on him - 'Keep your guard up!'
His glasses were under his car, he looked at Liz and she gasped, "Liz, get my sunglasses would you, dearest?" He winked one obsidian eye and he was gone. His speed was unnatural.
His prescience kept him safe from further injury. The sniper could not get him underneath the cross hairs.
While Tset sped up the molding on the side of the building he guessed the sniper was atop, the shots still zinged wide.
He reached the roof, quiet, empty.
A flash, a blur, away, over a twenty-foot jump and onto a lower roof. 'This guy's fast, too.'
Tset was on top of his prey. Silent pistol shots whipped by his face and chest as he dodged and dipped. In retrospect, he didn't know precisely why he didn't use his own guns.
They reached a roof's edge. The next building was a low restaurant, hundreds of feet to the earth.
"Time's out for you."
The sniper smirked and threw his arms wide, dropping backwards.
"Oh, you bitch!"
Tset jumped downwards off the side of the building, throwing himself heedlessly towards unyielding concrete.
His target became his steed as they approached, and this steed was recalcitrant, so Tset hit him in the face, once, twice, and then the curb backed him up, crushing the sniper's spine and breaking the man. Tset was cushioned but still jarred.
When he stood, he wasted no time in hunting for the sniper's ID card, but did not find it. Instead he found a skin-thin powered suit and a partially-crushed pack of Dromedaries.
"That's how they got around."
Out of spite he took the cash and smokes, two grand and ten sticks, four unbroken.
Tset lit his first cigarette in days and faced the midnight breeze, then brushed off his pants before walking back to his car.
Tset and Elisabeth
Allegiances IV, Zenith
When Tset arrived back at the car there was a note under the windshield wiper.
Tset laughed. "Cute." They had gotten into Roy's car to leave and Tset's key was in Roy's hand.
Behind the wheel, in gear, the car slammed, the wheels spun and screeched.
As muc
h as he wanted to, he did not drive over the abandoned corpse of Roy.
When he sped by the face of the Club there was little motion or activity - the assassins had fought brutally to the death. He paused to message Hal -
'Cleanup crew should swing by. Not my fault.'
Tset drove on and pulled into a SwissCo station and filled his tank with double premium.
"Seventy dollars?"
The Indian man nodded, Tset was annoyed and his eyes were simply unnerving.
"Fine, throw in a pack of cigarettes and a SlimJim and I'll go."
"Eighty-seven dollor."
Tset shelled out, and left.
He lit his cigarette while he wiped his blood off of his door - the squeegie soap ran red.
Then he was gone again - painting dual black rubber strips.
His cell vibrated, he picked up, "Y'ello?"
It was Liz, "I'm glad to hear your voice, Tset, how did it go?"
'I'm just as glad to hear yours.' "Fine. How's your night?"
"I'm waiting at the address Yonotan's going to send to you. He left for Haliburton to debrief. He's gotten us the rest of the weekend off."
"Oh thank God. I hope they don't have a Jacuzzi, 'cause I'm not leaving it."
Her throaty laughter. 'God.' Thought Tset.
"See you in...?" His question hung.
"Probably twenty from where you are."
"Five, then."
A small sigh, pleasant, from her, bringing his mind to wander over her curves.
He arrived and went upstairs, breezing past the fully staffed and idle desk unnoticed.
She opened the door, there she was. The only things scarring her image were a light bruise on her cheek, below her right eye and a bruise on her neck. Her smile was still perfect.
"Oof," He said, entering, "Let's get you patched up." He smiled at her. Was this love? Seemed like it. The feeling of pretectorship was different now than it was with others - deeper and important somehow.
A few minutes later Tset was rubbing an ointment on her cheek with a soft cloth. She'd forced him to remove his shirt and show her there were no injuries.
"You're amazing, Tset. What are you?"
He looked down then, "I have no idea." He looked up at her again, "Despite outward appearances, I am a man, I know that."
Her smile was coy, it caused a pleasant reaction in Tset, "Oh, are you now?"
His cheeks would've colored, "Oh, no! I didn't mean that at all."
She laughed! Oh how she laughed.
Tset fumbled then, "Nonono, I mean, you know, I- You know. Not to be offensive."
That got another light laugh, "You care about being offensive? Tset..." She tutted.
"Well, ladies are different, from what I gather."
"How so?"
"Lotsa ways, really, you aren't even supposed to hit them, apparently. Even if they hit you first!" He had a finger up for didactic emphasis.
She playfully pushed his chest. "Oh yeah?"
"Of course not! Hell, you could probably take me out right now, given my refusal to fight back."
"Oh yeah?" She shoved him harder, laughing.
"Definitely."
She pinched him on the shoulder hard and ran when he grabbed for her. "Okay, you earned it then!"
"Oh yeah?" She called back as he rose to come after her.
"Definitely!" And she was wrapped in his arms and gracefully flown off her feet.
Their lips met and he kept he kept his eyes closed until they awoke the next morning.
Liz and Tset never looked back - Tset was totally taken with her beauty and wanted her far from danger, and Liz never had liked the world of organized crime. And she was finding Tset to be a prince.
They spent a week in the Bahamas together, on a private beach, to start things.
Afterwards they lived in Greater Europe, in a five-star hotel. Liz spent her days writing, something she'd always wanted to do - first Tset thought stories, fiction, but no, she was writing every form of non-fiction available, letters to Parliament, biographies, bibliographies.
She would do it all in her perfect script and Tset, nearby, would translate it all into type with his laptop.
She would find inspiration after inspiration, and began delving into poetry and prose.
However, soon, writers block, and that particular urge wore off and Liz was bored. Tset continued simply to devour books, as was his wont.
They drifted like that for a little while until Tset declared it was time for them to attend... and he had picked this out of thin air... "Culinary School!"
They had been sitting on their mattress together, and while Tset read a violent manga Liz was trying to get around that writer's block. He had been quiet for hours, which was odd.
"What?" She'd asked, tapping her pen on her sheaf - Tset always bought her premium archival paper and had studied how to hand-bind her original works into books.
"Culinary School. We should learn how to cook. We're getting lazy and subverting to jelly-like monocells just sitting here being waited on hand and foot while we entertain our pleasures." She noticed he hadn't even put down his book, but one obsidian eye peeked around the edge of the page.
Liz smiled at Tset in a way he'd never experienced. She did this often - she simply adored him, in his crass manner, his leaning towards drawing a gun before an agreement, and because she paid no negative mind to the characteristics that gave Tset his steel-bristled edge, she thought she knew what was underneath - a man with a fierce sense of honor and chivalry, who stood by what he thought was correct despite the rest of the world's odds. He was terrible at keeping promises, but always made it up. Liz had learned to live with the small disappointments because when Tset did remember, and when he was there, which was better than nine out of ten ("I've been practicing." He'd told her), he was amazing and charming and fun and put life into life for Liz and always granted her the right to herself and existing as she saw fit.
Topping this, he was strong and deft. He was sharp and capable of brute force when someone else got the upper hand.
While Liz was brilliant, she'd never found the right compliment to her strengths. She often laughed at the fact that her mate often slept in through his alarm and had a ludicrous love of irony.
He was a true man, though he didn't even have a highschool diploma. And given her studies in universities abroad, this was an even larger thought for cause for rift, though obviously education didn't matter...
"Liz?"
She smiled and shook her head, "Sorry! I was just thinking."
"What about? Monocells?"
"No, about you."
"Monocells."
She laughed, he never meant his own deprication, "I love you, so you know."
Tset looked at her evenly, for the longest possible time until he could read the expectation of the cliche in return. His lips parted and he said, "Oh."
She laughed again, as she normally would, "But you do love me in return, right?"
He took her hand and kissed it, "Not a chance." Though his smile told her everything else.
'Tset knows his girl.' She thought as he pulled her over to him.
They lay together, thinking separately about similar things.
A few minutes later, "What were you saying?"
"Oh. Culinary school. We should learn how to cook."
"I'm not sure..."
"Well, I already got us invited for a week."
"What? How? Who do you know?"
"No one, I sent them a letter explaining that us, a pair of rich recluses, wanted to learn to cook and if we were treated well, we might dump a lot of money on the school."
"And they went for that?"
"That and a cheque for ten grand with the word 'tip' in the memo."
"Ten grand!" She pushed off of him and looked down at his grinning face.
"Ten Gs, big ones."
"You don't seem worried." She put her head back down.
Tset snickered, "Nope. Money I've got plenty of
."
"We're not running out?"
"For me to run out of cash I'd have to buy the Rockefuckers."
"I don't know about that, dearest." She was concerned.
"Exhibit A would be the cars."
She remembered them, twin Lotuses. He bought them knowing she would never drive either, but more as a practical joke less than four hours after she'd expressed her worries about finances.
She sighed, "Fine, you win."
"Tset one, Liz, a billion, so we're not keeping score anymore."
That got another laugh out of her.
"You know I returned them, right?"
"Really?"
"Yeah. The person who'd been my 'sales representative' looked so upset I only got a fifty percent return, I falsely claimed to have dinged a fender."
She patted him, "How is it that you kill people for a living but you're compassionate to salesmen?"
"Not entirely sure, I'll be sure to listen to any theories you have on it."
She giggled and sighed again, soon she was asleep.
And on it went: after three weeks of culinary school, Tset insisted on cooking unless he could land a booking in a restaurant reserved for Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Bilderbergers - not only because it was expensive and barely exquisitely beautiful enough to match his date, but because he was unconsciously keeping tabs on possible future hits under the guise of being socially infuriating to the secret world aristocracies. The guise brought him a smug smile, the true motive he ignored.
Soon, they took up swing dancing, which they were both naturals at and they would win contests and started to wear masks during performances so as not to attract attention in public.
And for quite some time, they were happy together - dining, walking, writing, talking, dancing, living and loving, they simply existed to the exclusion of the rest of the universe.
And Tset felt he knew, after all of this, because of Liz's delicate care for his person and his soul, which had been true and deep, why women had been invented at such an odds with their men - he felt an ancient and natural balance that he bet hadn't existed for about five centuries in any form. Women were the fairer halves and the men complimented them and gave them challenge. He had no idea how he, with his mental bent and his lack of a past, fit into this but he decided he didn't care.
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