by Martha Carr
Cheyenne lashed out with the black tentacles bursting from her fingers again. Two of them struck the oncoming orc across the face. He stumbled sideways, and the other black whips wrapped around his waist, ankle, and bulging gray-green bicep. She whipped him against the ceiling, bringing down a shower of drywall and dust, then slammed him onto the ornately woven rug. His shoulder smashed into an old armchair that was a little lopsided to begin with. Its leg now broken, the chair toppled over.
The coiled black vines of magic around the orc’s body tightened and constricted. With a grunt and dark, almost black blood oozing from the crooked tusk in his lower jaw, the idiot tried to summon another attack spell.
Cheyenne used her other hand to send a burst of purple sparks at his fingers, which was as close as she could get to hitting a small target without blowing his hand off. The orc’s frustrated growl choked off when her black tendril tightened around his neck.
“Don’t try that again. We’re done.” The halfling summoned a churning sphere of black and purple energy to show him she meant it and stepped forward. “If you can play nicely after this, I won’t have to make it any more painful.”
The orc sneered up at her, tied tightly by the black tendrils stretching from her left hand. Then he growled something in a low, guttural language she wouldn’t have understood even if it hadn’t been muffled and thickened by his swollen lip and the crooked tusk.
Whatever he said, it didn’t sound like he would be playing nice.
She dropped into a squat in front of him. “It’s pretty clear you’re not welcome in this family’s home, so why don’t you tell me what you were trying to do?”
Those green-gold eyes within the scarred orcish face studied her, then fell to something on the floor behind the halfling. She briefly glanced back to see that the copper puzzle box spilled out of her backpack when she’d tripped over it.
“That’s not yours,” she snarled.
The orc chuckled, choked in the strangling grip of her black tendril, then spat a thick, dark-red glob onto the carpet between them. Cheyenne jerked away from the nastiness. “It’ll be easy as shit to find you now, mór úcare.”
With a sigh, Cheyenne gritted her teeth and smashed a right hook into the orc’s beefy face with the full force of her drow strength. His head hit the rug, and her tendrils released him before disappearing. The pain ripping through her shoulder after a punch like that brought a sharp growl of pain and frustration from the half-drow, and she fell backward out of her squat to sit on the rug in front of the orc, who apparently knew something about that puzzle box.
“Thank you.” The word was soft and timid, but without any fear now.
The halfling pushed herself to her feet, forcing herself not to grab her shoulder because it burned too much now. Then she turned slowly around to face the troll family staring at her with wide eyes. “Sorry about the mess. I’ll pay for the damages, so just let me know about the plants. And the chair.” She gazed around the small apartment and shrugged. “The walls too, probably.”
“None of that matters,” the female troll said, stepping forward while her husband wrapped his arm around their daughter. “We owe you for what you just did.”
“Okay. Glad it wasn’t just a misunderstanding, at least.”
“That one’s been trying to get more out of us for the last few months.” The male troll nodded at the unconscious lump of orc in his living room. “I stopped paying him when he found me at work, so he came here. To my home, you understand?”
“I do.” Cheyenne rolled her shoulder and shook out her right hand, which only now had started to protest how much power she’d put into socking the orc’s thick jaw. “I hope you don’t mind me stepping in. I didn’t even know there were other magicals in this building.”
“Please don’t apologize.” The female troll gestured toward her family. “We’ve been here only a year. It’s difficult to know exactly how to meet others when none of us is allowed to show who we are once we step out that door. Thank you for stopping to help us.”
A year? That’s what I get for not being friendly with the neighbors.
“Yeah, well, I had some extra time.” Cheyenne glanced down at the unconscious orc and frowned. “Obviously I can’t call 9-1-1 for this. Is there some kinda number or something you can call for someone to come grab this guy?”
The troll couple blinked at her and exchanged confused looks before shaking their heads.
“Right. Of course not. Look, I don’t know how to clean this mess up without dragging an orc through the apartment building. Not the best idea with everyone else heading out at rush hour too, so…”
“Of course. We have something to help you with that.” The male troll nudged his daughter forward to stand beside her mother, then took off down the hall toward one of the bedrooms in the back. Cheyenne was left with mother and daughter in the living room, plus an unconscious orc beside a puddle of bloody phlegm. The child held onto her mother with violet-tinted hands, her scarlet eyes wide and glassy as she took in the half-drow’s appearance. Cheyenne tried to smile. “Sorry if that was a little scary, kiddo.”
The girl shook her head, one long braid of scarlet the color of her eyes swinging back and forth. “I wasn’t scared.”
Cheyenne smirked. “Yeah, you look pretty brave to me.”
“Like you.”
The halfling had to look away, rubbing the back of her neck and letting out a wry chuckle. I just ripped up their entire living room.
“She’s not wrong,” the girl’s mother added. “We haven’t seen… I mean, a drow Earthside is not something most of us can say we’ve seen. And you live right down the hall?”
“Yep.” Cheyenne nodded, and the awkwardness reappeared while mother and daughter troll gazed at the halfling with admiration and gratitude. Then the dad walked swiftly back down the hall toward them.
“Here we go. Had to look through the drawers to find it. Just for special occasions, you know?” He shifted from foot to foot as he approached Cheyenne, weaving self-consciously, and held out a glass vial with a shimmering clear liquid inside. “Has about an hour in there, I think.”
“Um…” The halfling gingerly took the vial, making the troll dad bob his head eagerly, and raised an eyebrow. “What is this?”
“To make that one invisible.” He nodded at the sorry sack of orc on the rug. “So no one will see you with him.”
“Oh. This is a potion.”
The trolls all nodded vigorously. “Just throw it on the body, and it will disappear.”
The mother clasped her violet hands and smiled, showing slightly crooked teeth that didn’t make the expression any less genuine. “We are indebted to you, thanna—”
“Cheyenne, actually.” The halfling wrinkled her nose as soon as she’d given her name.
“Cheyenne.” The male troll placed a hand over his head. “I am R’mahr. This is Yadje and our daughter Bryl. Please, if you need anything, we will do what we can. We’re still learning how to follow the Accord on this side, but we brought plenty with us from home. Whatever you need, it’s yours.”
“Right.” Cheyenne turned the potion over in her hand and licked her lips. “Well, thanks for that. Getting that jerk outta your hair is pretty much all I need right now, so I’ll just finish that.”
She gave the grinning troll family another hesitant glance, then headed back across the living room. The first stop was beside her open backpack and the puzzle box lying beside it. The orc knew what this is. Hopefully that’s not a massive mistake I’m gonna regret.
After stuffing the box back into her backpack, Cheyenne took a deep breath. Her skin prickled under the awestruck gazes of three silent trolls, but what else could she do at this point? With her backpack zipped, she slung it over her good shoulder and pushed herself to her feet. Then she headed for the orc.
The cork came out of the vial quickly and easily, and she paused to turn back toward the family. “Just dump it on him?”
R’mahr nod
ded and gestured toward the body.
“Okay.” Cheyenne glanced back down at the thug she was about to make invisible and stopped. The thick silver chain around the orc’s neck had fallen out from beneath his stained shirt, now on the floor beside his neck. At the end of it was a silver pendant about three inches long, cut in crude, jagged lines in the shape of a bull. She frowned at the unexpected orcish jewelry, shrugged, then upended the vial and shook it all over him.
The orc shimmered on the rug and faded quickly. Cheyenne had just enough time to grab him with both hands by the shirt before he disappeared.
His weight was definitely still all there. As she pulled and tugged him, Yadje pointed at the halfling. “Oh, one more thing.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cheyenne sighed and let the orc drop to the floor again. Her grip on his shirt pulled her down until she stood in front of the door, hunched over, seemingly grabbing nothing in both fists. I really don’t have time for some kind of troll appreciation ceremony.
Yadje swiftly closed a drawer in the kitchen and hurried toward the half-drow. “Illusion charm. For you.”
“Right. Uh, thanks.”
“It was my sister’s. She…she refused to keep it on in the end, and, well, now it belongs to me.” The troll held up a thick copper armband with inlaid designs of silver and gold on the surface. She pried it open and settled it around the center of Cheyenne’s upper arm, then stepped back. “Ah. Yes, that works well.”
Cheyenne glanced at the armband and saw her normal, pale-white human skin beneath it, even though she was still in full drow mode.
“Cool.” She nodded at Yadje and lifted the orc’s body off the ground again. “Mind if I bring it back later tonight? I kinda have to be somewhere after this.”
“Oh, keep it as long as you like. We’ve set it aside for Bryl when she is of age to decide for herself. As long as it is returned in the next few years…” Yadje shrugged, and her husband let out a low chuckle.
“Got it.” Cheyenne glanced behind her at the door, trying to figure out how she was supposed to keep a tight grip on the invisible orc and get herself out into the hallway at the same time.
“Oh, yes. Please, allow me.” R’mahr leapt forward, and his wife stepped quickly aside so he could open the door and let their new friend out of their apartment.
“All right. Thanks.” Cheyenne nodded at the family and glanced into the hall before dragging the few hundred pounds of invisible orc with her. “Have a nice day, and, yeah.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Cheyenne.”
“Our favorite neighbor.”
The troll child sidled up beside her parents to peer through the doorway. “You’re going to bury him alive, right?”
The halfling paused, glanced at R’mahr and Yadje, and blinked. Neither of them looked remotely apologetic for what their child had just asked.
“Uh…” A surprised chuckle escaped her. “That wasn’t part of the plan, no. Good thinking. I’ll figure something out.”
“The drow knows what she’s doing, Bryl.” Yadje put an arm around her daughter again and turned into the apartment. “Come inside. Are you hungry?”
R’mahr lifted a hand toward Cheyenne in farewell, his head bobbing eagerly again, then closed the door.
“Okay.” Cheyenne shook her head and tugged the invisible orc behind her down the hall. “That was weird.”
She made it all the way to the top of the staircase before running into any of the other residents of the building. A woman with short, curly hair carrying her dry cleaning over one shoulder passed the halfling in the stairwell. Cheyenne gave the woman a brief nod and just kept walking down, the thump and slide of the orc’s invisible body behind her echoing. The woman gazed around, looking for the source of the sound, and frowned at Cheyenne.
“New shoes.” The halfling raised her eyebrows and nodded at her black Vans. “Gotta break ‘em in, you know?”
The woman scowled and hurried up the stairs, shrieking a little when an invisible orc body part thumped against her ankle. Then she scurried up to the third floor and burst through the door.
Cheyenne puffed out a sigh. Always a weird look for the Goth chick.
She got the orc all the way out into the parking lot and somehow managed to lift a beefy, muscular body she couldn’t see into the back seat of her beat-up Ford Focus. It took several tries to get the door closed all the way, seeing as she kept smashing some invisible body part in the process, but finally, he was in. Then she slipped behind the wheel, tossed her backpack onto the passenger seat, and stuck her keys in the ignition. She sniffed once and scowled at the orc’s rank body odor. Why does it have to be my ride?
Now she just had to figure out where to dump him and fast. Her first class started in forty minutes.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
The city landfill seemed like as good a place as any to ditch an unconscious orc. Cheyenne had left her car out here the night she’d gone into the event center looking for Durg and ended up crashing a huge FRoE sting operation.
Getting the orc out of the back seat was a little easier, at least after she got a good grip on his shirt again after fumbling around his face. He thumped out onto the asphalt, and she dragged him back toward the landfill gates, which were open for normal working hours on a Friday. Piles of stacked boxes crunched beneath the unseen weight when she tossed the orc inside, then she dusted off her hands and took another look around.
Something scurried through a pile of garbage, then a three-foot-tall man in a bright-orange tracksuit with a matching orange beard and rust-red skin stumbled out from between two stacks of old tires. He blinked at Cheyenne as if he’d broken into her house, then glanced urgently around for a place to hide.
“It’s okay. If you don’t have an illusion spell, we’re still cool.” The halfling patted the armband, grateful for the gift from a troll family on the verge of worshipping her. “This one’s just on loan. Gotta get my own one of these.”
Her new red friend nodded quickly, then scanned the entrance to the landfill and noticed the unconscious orc, who was now shimmering back into visibility on the pile of boxes. “Taking out the magical trash, huh?” he squeaked.
“Yeah, recycling wouldn’t take him.”
The next car shooting down the frontage road made the orange-bearded man freeze. He darted into the piles of trash again, snatching an old broken toaster and taking it with him. The frayed cord whipped along the ground behind him before disappearing into the shadows.
When she got back to her car, it was already 8:11. Hissing out a sigh, the halfling started her car and drove it another block down the freeway, just so the orc wouldn’t see it when he woke up in the landfill. Then she got out with her backpack, locked the car this time, and pulled out her phone. Her stomach let out another morning growl, and she slapped it. Later.
With a groan, she tucked both her phone and her keys into the pockets of her black pants, shook out her hands with a jingle of the chains around her wrists, and stretched her neck from side to side. Guess there’s a first time for everything. Like running to school.
She took off in a flash down the freeway, followed by a loud crack and loose trash trailing after her. It wasn’t that long a run, but the halfling wasn’t in the best shape, especially after her injuries yesterday and the impromptu ass-kicking in her neighbors’ apartment. Still, she only had to stop once between the landfill and the VCU campus to catch her breath, and then she was off again.
Running at near-supersonic speeds got a little trickier on campus, with thousands of college students milling around, trying to get to their classes on time. She slowed down just around the corner from the entrance to the Computer Sciences building, hoping she’d timed it right and there wasn’t anyone close enough to freak out when a Goth chick with a weird armband suddenly materialized out of nowhere.
Fortunately, she was alone on that side of the building. Unfortunately, the sound of her dropping back into normal speeds didn’t go nearly as unnoticed. A harsh
crack echoed between the buildings and sent a shockwave of dirt, leaves, and gusting air out onto the walkway. A few students got caught by the force of it and stumbled sideways, blown off course. Someone screamed. Other people shouted in surprise, and Cheyenne’s enhanced hearing picked up on a muttered squeak: “Attack.”
Whoops. Probably could’ve thought that one through a little better.
She stepped out from around the side of the building and hurried quickly toward the front doors, ignoring the chaos and panic as other students shouted at each other and scattered away from her. None of them knew what the crack and the shockwave had really come from, and Cheyenne didn’t have the time to try calming them down.
Clearing her throat, she jerked the door and slipped inside, hurrying the rest of the way to her first class. When she got there, the clock hanging over the desk at the back of the room said it was 8:29 a.m.
The rest of the students in her Advanced Social Network Analysis and Security class were already in their seats, laptops and notebooks out in front of them. The halfling went right to her self-designated place on the far left side of the elevated rows of seats and slipped into the chair on the end.
Professor Hersh glanced up at her from the stack of papers he was shuffling around on the desk. His thick jowls wiggled a little as he glared at her. “Good to see you figured out how to show up on time. Though you might wanna pick up a hairbrush. Looks like you fell out of the sky on your way here.”
He’s just jealous that I have hair.
The halfling just raised her eyebrows at him, folded her arms, and sank into her regular position for bearing through another obnoxiously boring class. Hersh liked to hear himself talk more than any of them, so she was clear to zone out.
“I expect no more interruptions once we start,” Hersh added, having to get the last word in even though Cheyenne hadn’t said a thing.