by Charles Dean
“So if I kill you, then I’d get that ability.” Eliza spoke slowly but confidently as she followed the logical path of Locke’s reasoning, and she gripped her sword in a manner that was far too menacing for Locke’s liking.
“Uhh . . . No, no. Surely not. It might be someone else. Yeah.” Locke stumbled on the words as he took a step back. “Wait, I think more are coming.” Locke quickly changed the topic and tried to direct her attention back to better targets for her blades.
Eliza cocked her head and listened intently, peering as best she could down the stairwell. “I don’t hear anything. Never mind, let’s cut the chatter and get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Locke answered, happy to have put the potential homicide behind him. Wait, she isn’t really the type to kill her allies, is she? She was just making a joke, right? Is she? No, she got really upset that I didn’t trust her or the others earlier, so why would someone who gets upset at that be the type to ever attack someone on her side?
For all of the murderous, TV-drama-serial-killer tendencies that he had associated with Eliza, he attributed most of them to the fact that she was living in a world where someone might go to bed one night, happy as can be, and wake up the next day with everyone they ever knew or loved dead with their heads on a pike. There was a good chance, especially in light of her previous chidings of him, that she was actually a much better person than he gave her credit for. If she lived in a world like his, in a world where murders were rarer than sharks on a beach, then she might be perfectly normal. She might even just be some average girl, fresh out of grad school, fetching coffee for her boss regardless of the fact she spent ten years learning more about the field than was even known when her superior graduated. Yeah, that’d definitely be her. He smiled to himself as he pictured her in professional business attire, running down to the local coffeehouse every few hours.
“Shy, I can feel where you’re looking, and it’s not appreciated,” Eliza snapped without even turning her head. “And you can wipe that smile off your face, too.”
Locke, who had been lost in his own thoughts as he walked behind her down the stairs, realized that he had been zoning out with his head tilted at just the right angle to make it look like he was perving. Why in the world does this keep happening to me? Locke cringed. In only one day’s time, he had already been wrongly accused of being a lecher ogling some young woman’s backside enough times to ruin him socially for life. I need to start making sure I’m looking up at the sky when I daydream. Why aren’t there any windows to stare out of like there were back in school? He pursed his lips in an effort to prevent even the possibility of smiling as he purposefully made sure to look a good foot above Eliza just to make sure there would be no misunderstanding.
Hey, Shy! I just want to let you know, I’ve talked to one of the other designers, Geoffrey, and he said that it might be possible to add in an achievement to reward your continuously-perverted eyes. We were thinking of calling it: The Gary. Just wanted to let you know!
Not you too, witch! He started off with the curse, and then he realized the implications of what she was saying. Wait, not only are you watching my every move, but you’ve also been talking about me with your coworkers? What! No! No way. She wouldn’t tell other people about me. That might get her in trouble. Relax, Locke. She’s just yanking your chain. He tried to console himself, but his worry didn’t fade. In fact, it stayed fresh in his mind until they rounded the last corner and spotted the empty room at the base of the building.
“Well, do you want to just make a break for it and hope that there’s not a mob out there waiting for us?” Eliza asked, looking back to Locke.
Locke wasn’t entirely sure if this deferment was part of the program, something born of trust, or just her assumption that he was used to scheming his way out of things, but it put him in a stressful position. After all, if something went wrong, the person who came up with the idea was always the one who was blamed.
“Hmm . . .” Locke looked around. “Maybe we should try and disguise ourselves or something before we leave. Like inside of a box or something?”
Eliza looked at Locke like he had just said the dumbest thing in the world. As soon as the words left his mouth, he already realized how stupid the idea was.
“What do you want for us to do? Just hop under a box, wait for the enemy to fill the room and hope that they don't notice the conspicuous container or check underneath it? That they’ll ignore us as we shuffle past them? Because they wouldn’t notice a giant, moving box?” Eliza’s condescension was impossible to miss.
“Umm . . . Well, I mean . . .” Locke thought quickly, doing his best to salvage both the idea and his dignity. “We could just hide in there, not moving around? If we’re good, they might run upstairs, and we can sneak past them while they’re checking to see if we’re still in that giant sky room. At the very least, we wouldn’t have to fight everyone.”
“And if they find us, how do you plan on fighting someone from inside of a box?” Eliza’s tone seemed to darken with every word.
“That’s a good point, but if we exit here, who is to say that there aren’t fifty men with bows trained at the door, all of them ready to turn us into a corpse so mangled your own mother wouldn’t be able to identify it.”
“My mother is dead.” Eliza switched from condescending to cold in one sentence. “But what other realistic option do we have?” she added after Locke’s face had already fallen faster than his self-esteem in this conversation.
“Mine too.” Locke frowned for a minute. Eliza’s icy demeanor cracked a bit, and she quickly got the conversation back on task.
“We still need an exit strategy,” she reminded Locke.
“Well, how about . . .” There were other hallways that they hadn’t taken the time to explore on the way up, and they probably led to other sections of the tower. If this place was like every other building, those rooms would have windows, and there might not be guards surrounding the entire place yet. “Let’s try one of the rooms and see if we can sneak our way out through a window. Worst case scenario, there aren’t any windows, and we can leave the door cracked so we can hear footsteps. That guy who went up by himself was likely either just a scout or some overly-eager foot soldier. There’s a good chance that he was also sent up just to see if we were still there and how many of us there still were. When he doesn’t come back right away, they’ll assume we’re still a formidable force and send up a larger party to kill us.”
“Then let’s get a move on before they decide to rush the place and find out what happened to that scout.” Eliza took a hard right and took off before he could say another word, pushing through one of the adjoining doorways.
Locke scowled as soon as they walked through the door. The room she entered was a massive library, so large that he would have expected to find it in some castle occupied by a cartoon beast who resorted to kidnapping bookish French maidens in the absence of a proper Internet-based, medieval dating system. But those libraries always had grandiose, towering windows. This one didn’t have a single tinted pane or swinging shutter. In fact, Locke couldn’t even see a source for the radiant light that seemed to dance off the shelves. It reminded him of looking up from the bottom of a swimming pool: The light was just everywhere.
“So crack the door?” Eliza asked as she looked around.
“Yeah. You listen for anyone coming, and I’ll keep looking for a way out of here,” Locke offered as he immediately went behind the bookcases. They were lined up just like one would expect in a public library, but they were far taller. The whole room was taller. By Locke’s best guess, the room itself was at least three stories, and that meant that these rows of shelves were blocking a lot from their line of sight. Even though they didn’t spot a possible exit as soon as they walked in, that didn’t mean they should give up hope right away.
“Make it quick. If they pass through, we can check the other side next.” Eliza pulled out her blades and flattened herself against the wall,
her head turned toward the door and a sword ready to swing in a nice quick arc just in case anyone was foolish enough to walk in.
“Yes, ma’am.” Locke ran as quietly as he could down the rows checking every wall for any possible sign of an exit. He was about to give up hope when he noticed that there was an unusual amount of light coming out from behind a set of books halfway up on one of the shelves.
He climbed up the lower shelves, praying the entire way that the case didn’t fall over on top of him like he had seen in every sitcom ever. When he reached the row and started pulling away the books, sure enough, he found a window that was easily large enough for Eliza and Locke to fit through it at the same time. Best of all, he couldn’t spot a single guard waiting below. Yes! They probably think these windows are sealed off, so they won’t be guarding this exit at all! Locke was happy that things seemed to actually be working out for once.
He rushed back and signaled Eliza with his head, nodding for her to come and join him. “Up there,” he said, pointing to the disheveled mess off books he had pulled aside. “There is a window behind that row, and it’s not being guarded from the outside. We can easily get out of here.”
“Alright, you go first,” Eliza said.
“You don’t want to?” Locke was confused. She was usually the first one to step up and offer to take the lead without any hesitation. She knew she was a far more competent fighter than he was and that she would do the most good out in front if something went wrong.
“I know what you’re thinking, and where your eyes will be, so how about you go up first instead. You said it wasn’t guarded on the other side, right? So, it shouldn’t be a problem for you,” Eliza insisted once more.
I swear, I’m not that kind of guy! Locke wanted to protest but just harrumphed and made his way up the shelves again, crawling out the window and dropping to the ground floor.
It’s pretty clear around here . . . He looked around for something to hide behind while Eliza made her way out of the window, but there wasn’t anything immediately obvious. The alley he was currently in was completely empty, so while it was clear for the moment, he didn’t exactly feel very comfortable hanging around for longer than they had to.
Eliza didn’t bother with so much as a word as she dropped down from the window and turned to let Locke know she was ready to leave. Without needing to be prompted, the two of them managed to make quite a stealthy pair as they edged around the building, neither making so much as a single sound. Locke peered around the corner of the tower and back toward the entrance, and his suspicions were confirmed. There were at least thirty guards, and over twenty of them were armed with bows pointed right at the entrance. It wasn’t as bad as he had anticipated, but it was still more than they would have been able to handle.
“Don’t even think about saying it,” Eliza snapped in a hushed whisper.
“About saying what?” Locke pretended he didn’t know exactly what she meant. It was a game he had always played with his sister when they bantered back and forth. She would insist that something was one way, and after a quick search in an encyclopedia or online, it would clearly be the other. She’d always protest, just like Eliza, that Locke shouldn’t ‘even think about saying it,’ and Locke always enjoyed playing dumb about it. ‘Say what?’ he would respond. ‘I told you so,’ she’d clarify. At that point, he’d get to grin and finish off the teasing with ‘Don’t need to: You just did.’
Unfortunately for Locke’s rather bad sense of humor, Eliza wasn’t the type to play into those jokes as easily as Jess. She just gave him a cold look and remained silent.
Locke was at a loss for what to do next. With so many people guarding the entrance, there was good chance that someone would spot them if they tried make it down the street and back out the same way that they had originally come up. There was also an even better chance that they were going to encounter even move groups on the stairs down. He hated to admit it, but she had been right. People would be streaming in from all areas of the city and possibly even recalled from the fight going on with the Demons. Once the word got out about the fallen White-Wing leader, it was going to absolute chaos, and the Holy Alliance would have to do everything in its power to keep control of the city and the White-Wings. As for the situation they were in now, however, they had two choices: They could either double back down the alley that they were in and hope that it led to somewhere with less people or they could try and sneak across the road and duck behind one of the buildings there for cover.
After a tense moment, Eliza made the decision for him. She doubled-back down the alley, and Locke was forced to scramble to keep up with her. He may have been doing pretty well when it came to coordinating fights, but he was still a far cry from being a warrior. She was much faster than he was when she wanted to be, and all he could do was watch from behind as her lithe form sped off down the alley. Within a moment, he was also forced to watch as her bright yellow sundress disappeared around the next corner.
By the time he caught up to her, she was standing over the bodies of three dead White-Wings waiting on him. From the looks of things, she hadn’t even given them the time to draw their weapons before she sliced them apart. Their daggers were all sheathed at their sides, and there was no sign of magic having been cast. Locke shook his head in wonder, grateful for the fact that he hadn’t been the one to find them first. The effects of the fragility potions had worn off, but he still wasn’t too keen on testing his battle prowess in a three-versus-one situation.
The rest of their escape went rather smoothly. Once he figured out where they were, it was only a matter of working their way along back streets until they were able to navigate their way back toward the stairway leading down. Yet, even if they had done a good job at avoiding detection on their approach, no amount of sneaking about would be possible at the exit. The courtyard leading toward the stairwell down to the city was still packed, and the stairwell itself was guarded by two people now.
“What now?” Eliza asked, looking over at Locke as they approached the stairs down.
Locke wasn’t entirely sure what to do, and he racked his brain as he tried to come up with the proper clichéd escape tactic. He had seen more than his fair share of daring escapes in movies and other games, so when his eyes fell on two soldiers guarding an armory who clearly weren’t paying attention to anything around them, a lightbulb went off in his head. They were caught up in their conversation, talking loudly and carrying on since there wasn’t anyone else within earshot, oblivious to anything that might be going on. He had no way of knowing what they were talking about, but judging by way the female guard was laughing at something the male said, Locke knew that they were focused on each other and not their surroundings. They’re totally into each other. That’s the same laugh I always hear in movies when the guy says something so dumb no one could possibly find it entertaining, but the girl still giggles.
Eliza smacked Locke’s shoulder. “Stop staring at that girl’s assets and come up with a plan.”
“I was just thinking of one.” Locke rubbed his shoulder, pretending to be far more hurt than he actually was. “I just need to know something: Can you take care of those two without drawing any blood or getting noticed?”
“You don’t want me to kill them?” Eliza gave Locke an odd look. “A dead enemy today is a friend saved tomorrow. We should just kill them and be done with it.”
Is that really a saying? “But if they’re part of the city, and the city is forced into joining the Demon Host, does that expression still apply?” Locke tried to work his way around it.
“Whatever.” Eliza replied curtly as she readied herself to make a dash towards the two.
“Wait! Hold on. After you’re done, just check the building and make sure that no one is inside. If someone is, knock them out and pull the other bodies inside.” Locke kept glancing around to make sure that no one had spotted them or was coming their way.
Eliza nodded once to indicated that she understood the plan and
then practically vanished as she made her move. She approached the guards like a black cat sneaking up on a dove at night, and it was only a matter of seconds before she had clubbed both of the guards on the back of the head with her sword hilt. She was so fast that the female guard’s laughter was cut off mid-chuckle. Warrior might not have been the right profession for her. Thief or assassin would have been better.
Locke watched in wonder as she gently propped the unconscious victims against the wall, snuck into the building and exited a minute later to pull the victims inside. Locke followed her into the armory and found Eliza laying out five bodies next to a row of bows on the wall. He had expected there to be a guard stationed inside as well, but not three of them.
“So now what?” Eliza asked, pointing at the bodies.
“Well, now we just take off their clothes,” Locke answered as he began pulling the shoes off one of the guards. He was about Locke’s size and probably the best fit for what Locke had in mind.
She eyed him skeptically and said, “There is something seriously wrong with you. Do you think any woman is ever going to be interested in you if you act like such a deviant all the time? I can’t believe you’re going to waste even more time during an escape from an enemy stronghold just to satiate your prurient interests.”