Monday. August 14, 2006. Nearing midnight.

Buckles and straps. Salvador didn't often wear clothing so tight and restricting. Likely nobody was even aware he had such attire in his collection. It certainly wasn't specially made to withstand his blood, but it didn't need to be. Treated leather burned slower than cotton and other loose, breathable fabrics. It also didn't make quite as much noise. Standing at the base of a thirty story building, he pulled one of the straps at his thigh taught. The leather groaned and then snapped into place. "Sure you want to do this, old man?"

Dris tilted back his head and looked up, way up, as far up to the top of the building as he could see. Hearing the quiet hiss of metal against leather, he looked back down to watch the younger boy set up close-range assassination gear. Knives. Dozens of knives. Throwing knives mostly, sheathed into the leather up and down the boy's legs. Smaller knives on the chest. Spools of wire fixed into the leather at his waist. A tanto slid into a sheath at the small of his back. And a pair of weaponry the likes of which the bard had never seen.

That pair of weaponry were known as hooks or hook swords. Flat but lethal. Sharp crosspieces curved outward by the grips like crescent moons. Unlike normal swords the ends were curved out like hooks. Dris watched the boy spin them in his hands and turn them over his shoulders with ease. He secured them there with a click. Some sort of easy access latch. Salvador made him feel like an amateur just looking at him. The boy was dressed to the nines for murder.

The bard had killed before. Out of necessity, during his younger adventuring years, he'd had to kill or be killed. That was the law of the land in some places. Especially when roguery was the name of the game. He was a little surprised he could fit into his old gear. Fit for burglary. Folding grappling hooks. Lightweight but strong rope. Lock picks. A few knives of his own. He'd favored rapiers once upon a time, but Salvador insisted he not bring them. After getting him to show off his aim at throwing, darts and knives, the boy'd convinced him to go a little more modern. Earlier that day they'd picked up a pair of pistols with silencers and extra clips. Sal didn't carry guns. He'd said he preferred to get in close and wasn't afraid of getting a little shot up. But he'd insisted Dris carry guns. Even as Mesteno had said, the bard wasn't invincible.

Hell. Salvador himself wasn't invincible, but he could take more hits and survive more body damage than Dris could. Once he was satisfied with the placement of his weapons and their security on his person, he settled his gaze on the bard. Only to discover the man staring at him. He hadn't answered the question yet. The young predator lifted a brow. What was it he saw in those eyes? Fear? Admiration? Trepidation? What was it? And what color were they? "Well?" He asked that one aloud at least.

Dris cleared his throat, torn out of some unexplained reverie, and nodded faintly. "Aye," he said. Looking back up at the top of the building, he seemed to be considering his decision. Or reconsidering it. But he only nodded faintly again. "Aye. I'm sure. I need t'do this, Sal."

"Bueno." That was all he needed to hear and all he needed to say. A few nights ago, Dris had called him, drunk, and asked to go hunting with him. He'd mentioned it to the bard once or twice before, but it had been Mesteno who had clarified what his particular brand of hunting entailed. He tugged on his gloves, tightened the straps one last time, and stepped over to the bard to hook an arm around him. "We're going to the top," he explained, pulling the man close against him.

He'd seen Dris's lips curve into that 'o' shape and start to twist into words. He knew the bard was going to question him about this unexpected seeming affection. Dris nodded and swallowed down those words when the clarification was made. He turned to face the boy and wrapped both arms around his waist, careful of the swords as much as he could be. There was some benefit in them being the same height, as well as some discomfort. He was never comfortable looking into those eerie yellow-green eyes. Closing his own eyes, Dris tipped down his chin and locked his arms tight. "I hate this part," he murmured.

Salvador grinned and hooked his fingers through one of the bard's belt loops. He'd tried to prepare Dris for this sort of thing. The first time he'd pulled the bard into a relocation, the man had been shit-faced drunk. He knew it made most people dizzy. A few puked. Dris had been one of those few the first time who puked. But over the past few days, they'd done quite a bit of relocation travel together. Dris didn't lose his lunch anymore, but it still made him disoriented for a few moments after landing. That was pretty typical for normal people actually. Skipping through time and space as if it simply didn't exist for a fraction of a second was boggling to the human mind. The way Sal experienced it was as if he had always been standing in that spot. As if reality had suddenly shifted for him and his passenger. But being half human, it was still a little boggling even to him. Not quite as much as it was for Dris, who'd lost his equilibrium and strength the moment they landed, as it were.

The bard sagged heavily against him. Only by holding the boy's waist tighter was he able to remain upright. Closing his eyes hadn't really defeated the sensation at all. The muffled groan might have indicated that it had made it worse. Probably didn't help that when he opened his eyes he was looking thirty stories down instead of up, either. He gasped and stumbled.

"Whoa, whoa." Salvador grabbed the man by the shoulders and pushed him back. Dris toppled backwards and fell a full three feet, landing heavily on his tailbone with a sharp hiss. "Careful, Dani. You almost pushed us both off the ledge." The young predator grinned and hopped down onto the roof next to his partner in crime for the evening. A near silent chuckle shook him. After all, he had relocated them up onto the ledge on purpose. Consider it a test. Had Dris passed? "Quick recovery, though," he said approvingly. Must have.

Dani. He had to use that name, didn't he. Dris looked up at the boy and scowled only a little. Carmine used to call him that name. All the time. His sisters all called him that name. He should be used to it by now. But it was a name full of too many memories. Most of them good memories. Despite that, the bard wanted nothing more than to sooner forget them and move on with his life. He sighed and reached up a hand toward the boy. Salvador clapped his hand and walked past him, not bothering to help him up. "Don't let me down already, old man," the boy said.

Sighing dismally, Dris rolled aside and then pushed up to his feet. Gods! Having landed so hard on his tailbone like that, such movement sent sharp pains shooting up his spine. But he endured them. "Quit callin' me old ye bloody pup."

"Keep calling me pup and you're only admitting it to yourself," Salvador said, grinning over his shoulder. The predator chuckled quietly while he stalked over to the door on the roof that lead to the main stairwell inside the building. Dris brushed himself off and watched in amazement. All that leather and metal and Salvador didn't make the slightest sound when he moved. The tar and gravel combination used on most high rise rooftops didn't so much as scrape or crunch under his weight. The boy was like a cat stalking across a landscape of crumpled papers, somehow managing to find the spaces in between to avoid making any and all sound. He envied the boy. It'd been years since he'd practiced stealth, but it was like riding a bicycle. He smiled, somewhat smug, when he realized he was nearly as silent creeping along behind him.

"What're we here t'do again?" Oh sure. Dris knew there would be killing involved, but he was hoping he wouldn't have to be the one doing the killing. The only reason he had asked to tag along was because he needed to. He needed to prove to himself that he still had it in him to be a right good rogue. And Salvador had mentioned something about acquiring an item in this building.

Salvador halted at the door and tilted his head to listen. He lowered his voice to a barely hushed whisper. The bard had to lean up against him carefully just to hear him at all. "I'm here to kill someone," he informed the bard. "His name is Niklaus Kostya. Some jackhole of a black market kingpin. He'll have dozens of other men with him. They'll all need killing." He turned his head with narrowed eyes to observe Dris's reaction to that.

The reaction was a little bit of lost pallor in his face. He also swallowed a lump in his throat and tried not to think about the killing. Dris looked into those yellow-green eyes and saw nothing at all. That's what terrified him about Salvador. He could never read the boy properly. Carmine he'd been able to read clearly. The mercenary had always opened up to him and let himself be read in situations like this. If only his son would give him a touch of emotion for his empathy to pick up on. Anything at all. But he saw and felt nothing. Only a wall of darkness that blocked him out. Much stronger than Carmine's reflexive walls had ever been.

"You don't have to kill anyone," Salvador reminded him, looking away. Touching a hand to the door, he leaned a little closer, pressed his ear to it, and closed his eyes. Still he whispered. "Unless you need to," he added. Never hurt to remind the bard that killing might become necessary if he wanted to save his own ass. "There are two floors we need to clear at least." Reviewing the plan they'd discussed earlier. "Kostya's on..." Salvador twitched his head a little and paused. He was silent for a long moment, as if processing information slowly, searching through an endless database of information the bard was not privy to viewing.

That was a fairly accurate assumption, to tell the truth. What Dris didn't know was that Salvador was opening up his metaphysical channels and searching the building with his clairvoyance. Slowly but surely he was extending his sight to examine every floor from the roof on down. Until he found who he was looking floor. A sly, victorious smile stretched upon his lips. "...the twenty-sixth floor," he finished.

Dris blinked and raised a brow. "How can you possibly know that?" He too whispered, of course. Holding onto the boy's shoulder, he was practically plastered up against his side.

Opening his eyes, Salvador tipped his head again and grinned aside at the bard. He lifted his hand off the door and used two fingers to point to his eyes. "I can see what you can't see, hombre. Things far away. Is ... clairvoyance, I think it's called."

"Oh." That was a sound of understanding and revelation. Dris really wasn't all that surprised. Come on now. If Salvador could relocate them quickly like he had mere moments ago, he couldn't even begin to imagine what else the boy could do. "What other fancy tricks ye got up yer sleeves, lad?" He grinned a little at the possibilities he might be informed of.

Salvador only chuckled quietly, though, and tipped his head back to examine the door. "Too many to count, amigo." He pushed away from the door then, nudging Dris with him. The bard straightened up and removed himself from the boy's side. First the boy touched a finger to the corner of his eye, then he pointed at the door. "Locked," he said. "And there are cameras in the stairwell. I can trick minds but not machines. Any ideas?"

"Can't ye just spirit us in?" The boy made it seem so easy, after all. It was the first idea that came to mind. Dris raised a brow and looked at the young Spaniard suspiciously.

The boy snorted and shook his head. "Takes too much energy. I can only do it so many times a day. Wears me out."

Dris eyed the door, then, and thought on other options. Most of the places he'd burgled before weren't quite so state of the art, but he'd studied and learned as much of modern times as he could. "I can pick the lock," he said. "Might be an alarm system, though. And it won't do us no good me pickin' the lock if there's cameras." He looked left and then right. "Should be a box 'round 'ere somewhere."

"There." Salvador pointed off to the side after a tilt of his head to listen. Sure enough, there was a box on the wall nearby. Just around the side of the roof door. For a moment, Dris considered how he had been so quick to find it, but then he remembered he had teamed up with a preternatural boy for the evening. With a silent chuckle and a nod, he stepped around to pry open the box and have a look at the wires inside.

Now, Dris was no amateur when it came to breaking and entering. But he was no expert when it came to technology. He came from a different time period. That was the beauty of Rhydin. So many times and places merging together. If he were more than a simple human (with a quarter elven blood), he'd be able to bypass these systems much easier. He'd been studying, however. Trying to keep up with the times. Never knew when he'd end up in a situation like this. "Best I can do's cut the power, but someone's bound t'notice," he told the boy.

Salvador grunted. "I'll be right back," he said. Before Dris could ask him where he was going, the boy was gone. He'd vanished in a blink, leaving only a quickly dissipating cloud of rust-colored mist in his wake.

"Bloody 'ell," the bard muttered. "Thought ye could only do it so many times a day." Shaking his head, he looked back at the wires in the box to double-check his work. "Guess we're gettin' started," he said to himself. One final cut and he took the cameras offline. At least, he was fairly certain he'd taken the cameras offline. He was relying quite a bit on luck, which he often had in vast quantities. Leaning back to take a look at the door, he was satisfied to see that he'd also managed to shut off the alarm. The light had changed from red to green. With a self-congratulatory grin, he moved from the box to the door to work on picking the lock. There was, of course, still a standard lock to deal with, which was much easier to deal with than an electronic one.

Just when he'd finished picking the lock, the door opened from the inside. Dris stumbled back and again fell on his tailbone. He reached instantly for the handgrip of one of the 9mm's they had bought and had it in his hand, ready to fire. "Very good reflexes," Salvador said. The boy was leaning against the doorframe, grinning down at him. "Come on," he said, reaching a hand to the bard. "I took care of the guards watching the cameras."

"That was fast," Dris said, surprised. He calmed his beating heart as best as he could and accepted the boy's hand. Salvador pulled him up to his feet and into the stairwell with him. The boy only grunted in response and didn't seem inclined to say much more. So Dris lowered his voice to a whisper. "What is it I'm after again?"

"Documents," Salvador answered. Once more he spoke so softly that the bard had to attach himself to his side. The boy helped with that by setting a hand to the small of the man's back and guiding him down the stairs with him. They moved together, like a unit, one silent step at a time. Dris smiled some, reminded of his younger years of intrigue and roguery at Carmine's side. They'd always molded so well together. Salvador truly was so much like his father, if only he knew. "Kostya's meeting with an informant tonight," the boy continued. "They're supposed to meet together tonight and exchange information for money. Take them both if you like." The information and the money, he meant. Dris was clued in instantly of the unspoken part of that statement. Salvador did intend on killing them all, which was what made him a little different from his father. Carmine would have only incapacitated.

"They all have to die?" He had to ask. It seemed a little harsh to the bard. Together, he and Carmine had always been much more merciful. When hired to do a job like this, they turned down the ones that required assassination for the most part. Unless it was the only offer, which was rare. Most clients just wanted the goods. Ancient artifacts, magical tomes, lost heirlooms, a kidnapped family member. That sort of thing.

Salvador stopped their progress when they reached the first door. The boy paused to listen through it a moment, eyes closed, then proceeded further down the stairwell after a glance up at the camera. The light was off. Dris grinned again with a sense of pride. He'd succeeded! "All of them," the boy whispered. "Can't leave any witnesses. Don't want anyone tracking us down later, do we?"

He had to admit. The boy did have a point there. He remembered the many times he and Carmine had run and run and run to escape being tracked down by the people they'd interfered with. Gang leaders, criminal masterminds, pirate captains, and so much more. They'd all demanded he and the mercenary be brought back dead or alive. In most cases, preferably dead. "Aye," he whispered back. "Good point."

"We're going in through the twenty-seventh floor," Salvador told him. As they moved down each curve and flight of stairs, he checked every door. Finally stopping at the exit that lead to the floor in question. "This one," he said. He pulled his hand away and let the bard stand on his own finally. Pressing both gloved hands on the door, he turned his head to lean his ear against it as well. Dris admired the intense look of concentration on the boy's face, but he couldn't watch him for long. He reminded the bard far too much of his father, of Carmine. Instead he examined the stairwell, inspected the cameras in the corners, pleased to note that the lights were still off.

"Dropping down on top of them, I'd wager?" Vaguely, Dris wondered how it was the boy knew precisely where to go once they passed out of the stairwell and into the hall. But then he remembered. Preternatural senses. All Salvador had to do was concentrate, right? He could see anywhere he wanted in this building, without even having to be there. He envied the boy that ability. He makes a better rogue than I do, he thought.

"Sí," the boy hissed. He only needed to say that much. While Dris was inclined to ask more about these documents, he figured he could check them out later for himself. He remembered being briefed. A suitcase. Naturally, they'd be in a suitcase. Likely the money would also be in a suitcase. Everything these modern bigshots did involved suitcases. It was all pretty much cliché.

Salvador's hand slid down to the handle and he very carefully, very cautiously, pulled open the door. He held up two fingers, closed together. Then folded one down and pointed to the right. Two fingers again, then one, and this time he pointed to the right. He looked back at Dris through the corner of one eye and the bard nodded understanding. There were two guards on this floor that they'd need to bypass. Crouching down low, Salvador crept out into the hall and slipped off to the left. Dris took that as a sign to take the right, so he too crouched low and followed the boy out into the hall.

He made certain to hold the door and close it slowly, gently, so that it didn't make a sound. Lingering for a moment, he watched the boy's back. Noticing him reach around for the tanto, he suspected that meant it wouldn't be much of a battle just yet. Though Dris was still reluctant to kill, he decided not to use the firearms yet. Sure, they had silencers on them, but it was better to sneak up on the guard and disable him as quietly as possible. Sneaking up on guards was something he could do very well. Or at least, he could once upon a time. These days he was a little rusty.

All his old knowledge of infiltrating and burgling came back to him amazingly fast, however. The guard he was sent off to disable was around the corner of the hall, taking a drink from a water fountain. By the looks of the place, it was an office building. The halls were dark, with only faded evening lighting overhead. The guards were armed with a handgun each, no silencers. They also had walkie talkies and clubs. Dris was amazed at how easy it was to creep up behind the man, catch him from behind, and knock him out with the butt of his own gun.

The bard dragged the careless night watchman into a nearby office and tied him up. Cuffed his wrists together with his own handcuffs even! He also made certain to gag him. It would be a while before the man woke up, but Dris chuckled silently to himself. Guards were stupid no matter what time period they were from.

He met up with Salvador back by the stairwell. He was actually a bit surprised that the boy didn't have any blood on him. By the look on his face, Salvador must have guessed what the bard was thinking. "Wife. Three kids," he whispered.

"How...?" Dris shook his head. "Nevermind. So where we headed?"

Salvador tipped up his chin a bit and then pointed down back the way the bard had come from. "Room 2717," he said. "There's a grate in there that leads into the air ducts." Go figure, Dris thought. Air ducts. Just like those newfangled movies. "I don't want to waste my energy relocating us into the middle of it. Besides..." He touched the bard's shoulder and turned him about with a shove. Start walking was the silent command, so he started walking. "You wouldn't recover quickly enough."

Well! For all his earlier talk about how Dris had quick reflexes and better recovery rate, it wasn't good enough? So be it. He started walking as silently commanded. They both crept down the hall silent as two hunting cats. "Seems a bit suspicious, don't ye think?"

"Hm?" Chancing a glance over his shoulder, he noticed the boy had raised a brow. Clearly he didn't understand what the bard meant by that.

"I'm just sayin'. Air ducts leadin' straight on down to the room where these folks're meetin' t'exchange the goods? Wouldn't ye think they'd be a bit more cautious o' that sort o' thing?"

He didn't hear the boy stop, but he felt a bit of distance between them. When he stopped, he turned back. Salvador had a puzzled look on his face. It was as if the bard had splashed cold water on him to make him realize something he hadn't taken into account before on his own. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted.

Dris tipped his head and raised his brows. "So don't ye think they'll be expectin' somethin' like that?" That is to say if they were even expecting a foul up in their discrete meeting plans at all. If Dris knew anything about criminals (for in some ways he was one), he knew that they always expected a foul up.

Salvador frowned, his own brows furrowing. He didn't say anything at first, so Dris simply watched his eyes. He thought it might have been simply a trick of the dim lighting, but he could've sworn he saw the boy's eyes change from that eerie yellow-green to an even more eerie pure yellow. Again that look of extreme concentration invaded the boy's face, and the bard didn't dare interrupt him. Who knew what sort of thing he was up to? The hairs on the back of his neck rose up a little, though. A shiver ran its course down his spine. Salvador was creepy. There was no other word for it, except perhaps terrifying. After a long silence, the boy blinked and his frown deepened. "Hijo de puta. I can't see them."

"What's that mean?" If Dris weren't second-guessing his decision on accompanying the boy before, he certainly was now. If clairvoyance were anything like empathy, a confession like that could only mean that there was some sort of other preternatural presence interfering. He didn't like that possibility, not one bit.

"It means something's blocking me," Salvador said, growling his words. "Could be a person. Could be an item. I don't know. I can't see. Fuck." He grabbed the bard by the arm and hauled him back to the stairwell. "Change of plans."

Dris almost tripped over his own feet, but regained his balance quickly. "But... Ye saw 'em before didn't ye?" He let the boy drag him along without much of a complaint. This, however, was startling news.

"Sí. I saw them before." The boy's words were gruff and disapproving. It was pretty obvious that this revelation unsettled him as well. "It means someone knows I'm here," he said, perhaps a bit reluctantly. Once they reached the exit door to the stairwell, the boy shoved it open and hurried down the stairs to the next floor. Dris wasn't sure whether or not he was comforted by that news. No. In fact he was certain he wasn't. If someone knew they were here, that meant they were in for a shitload of trouble. He unholstered one of the pistols from his side and decided it was best to be ready for combat. Salvador nodded approvingly and hovered by the door.

Just as he had done on the floor above, Salvador pressed his gloved hands to the door and leaned in close to listen. "Maldita puta," he growled under his breath, but Dris heard him clearly. "Dan..." He pushed away from the door slowly, and turned his head over his shoulder to eye the bard levelly. "You might want to go home. Ahora."

Dris raised his brows again, silently questioning why. But he didn't get much of a chance to do that. When Salvador had said now, he had meant now. The stairwell suddenly went dark. The lights hadn't flickered or faded out. They had simply been snuffed as if they had never been lit at all. There was no residual lighting to see by. The bard sucked in a sharp, startled breath and backed himself up against the wall. Only... It wasn't a wall.

He heard a growl in the darkness. Strong arms wrapped around the bard from behind and restricted him from moving. By reflex, he pulled the trigger and sent a bullet ripping through the ceiling. No matter how much he struggled, he couldn't free himself from the grasp of the person who held him. Foul breath assaulted his face and a deeply masculine voice chuckled into his ear. "No sense struggling, pretty boy. Drop that gun and let's play nicely." He cried out when the man squeezed his wrist, so tight he was pretty sure he heard bones crack. The gun fell out of his grasp surely enough and hit the floor with a clatter.

He heard more growling, and the clashing of metal against metal. He felt something wet and warm land against his face. Spanish expletives broke into the darkness. First from one side, then the other. The scent of blood started to fill and clog the atmosphere rapidly. Then as suddenly as he'd been grabbed, he was released. "Down, old man!" Salvador shoved him down into a crouch. "Gun's at your feet. Just start shooting!"

Dris reached between his knees and found the handle of his pistol by pure luck. He heard another growl nearby, then far away. Damn that boy could move fast! "But what if I--?"

The boy shouted at him before he could finish the protest. "Just fucking shoot!" Well, all right then. Pulling the other gun out of its holster, Dris rose quickly to his feet and aimed in opposite directions. He pulled the trigger of both guns, repeatedly, and fired bullets blindly all around him. He heard a few grunts close by from men getting hit and dropping before they could get to him. His heart was beating rapidly, and suddenly the adrenaline was pumping out of control. In a blind panic, intent on saving his own ass, he did as instructed and fired both weapons until they were both out of bullets. He heard the cartridges click and hit the floor. Fuck all. He dropped back down to a crouch to quickly reload them. Provided he could find the extra clips he had on him fast enough.

Without the deafening sound of gunfire from his own pair of 9mm's, he was able to hear the laughter in the darkness. "Iss thiss the besst you can do, boy?" The voice sounded a bit odd. Serpentine and of an undetermined gender. Even the laughter sounded like hissing. By the authoritative tone, he waged it must belong to this Niklaus Kostya that they had come to kill. From the feel of everything all around him, the sensation that made him quiver inexplicably, he also guessed this Niklaus Kostya wasn't any ordinary human being. The perpetual darkness was a pretty damned good clue as well.

Salvador answered the challenging words with a savage growl. At least, he was pretty sure that growl had come from the boy. That sound also made him quiver. "I'm just getting started, dickhead." Swords clashed. Dris knew that sound well enough. Then he heard the sickening slurp of metal impaling flesh. And again. Followed by the slick scrape of blades being pulled out of flesh. He was pretty sure that was blood that showered his face just then.

When the darkness faded, he realized they were no longer standing in the stairwell. He found it a bit odd that he hadn't experienced any disorientation from being relocated from one location to another. They were in a large room that might have been a conference room at one point. Fifty people could have fit in the room comfortably, with a large table in the center for them all to sit around. Overhead lights flickered, uncertain as to whether they had the strength to turn on completely, but it was enough to see by.

Dris looked up in awe at the sight ahead of him. Salvador was standing over a man, or what had once been a man, covered from head to toe in dripping red blood. Some of the blood was lighter in color, a rust-colored orange that practically glowed. That blood was oozing out of holes in the leather of his outfit. Those twin hookswords were dripping as well. The room was littered with bodies. Dris was amazed by the number of them, at least twenty and most of them with bullet wounds. Well damn. He'd managed to successfully kill some of them without seeing them? None of them were armed! That was disconcerting. "Sal..." Trying to speak, he'd almost lost the contents of his stomach. The stink of the room was overpowering. He'd never been in the middle of a human slaughter this thick before. Orcs and other odd monsters, sure, but never people.

The boy turned around sharply and glared at him. For a moment, he looked possessed. He looked like some savage beast painted red. Blood dripped off his face, over his lips and into his mouth. Chancing another look around, he noticed that some of the men had been hacked into parts. No mercy all right.

At the boy's feet was the body of the man Dris assumed was Niklaus Kostya. Or rather, what was left of him. His torso had been ripped into pieces. Three skillfully tattered segments of a body. Arms still attached to their shoulders, and the head still attached to one of them. It was as if Salvador had cut him crossways from top to bottom. The body twitched. Perhaps it was residual nerve activity, but then it twitched again. And again. And those pieces of the body seemed to be pulling themselves back together gain. "Gods above an' below," the bard whispered. "Sal, look!"

Purely yellow eyes flared with rust-colored light. That mist crept out of the boy's eyes and left a trail when he whipped around to look down. A low and menacing growl layered his words. "Two cases," he snarled. "Behind you on the table. Take them and get the fuck out of here, Dani." He took a step back and spun those blood-dripping swords in his hands, preparing for a second round.