Chapter Four: Blood

Noah was only a couple of minutes away from the mall when he came across something else strange: a pond. He’d seen a murky breach in the ground near the forest that had water bubbling up from the crack, and a fire hydrant that was flooding a street, but nothing like this.

Directly in the centre of an intersection, a dense stand of smaller trees and bushes were clustered together, a random oasis contained by the concrete jungle around it. Noah had moved several blocks away from the strange split between forest and city, but it seemed whatever force had thrown the two environments together wasn’t as precise as he’d first thought.

The vegetation in the intersection was clearly not local. Noah wasn’t certain it didn’t even come from Earth. For that matter, he was relatively sure these trees couldn’t have been a part of the other forest, either. They were all far too slender for their height, and their bark was oddly smooth. The wood showing through was incredibly pale and finely grained.

The low lying shrubs were familiar, but still alien. Glowing in all varieties of bright, synthetic looking light, they shivered in unseen breezes, seeming to waft one way before suddenly snapping in another direction. It almost looked as if they had gotten a fright.

Mist drifted along the ground, spreading and coiling as it crept along the concrete. The spectral coils glowed faintly in the refracted light of the plants. Some kind of insect chirruped from inside the grove -a strangely metallic noise.

Noah was entranced. He crept forwards, his curiosity overcoming his caution. He parted a teal fern-like plant with his fingers, and pushed inwards.

He found himself beside a pool. The waters themselves glowed a soft, pure blue in their centre; at the edges, the light of the plants surrounding it reflected in the rippled surface, making a dazzling, chaotic, mandala of the water’s edge.

Noah gasped softly. It was beautiful. He stood, staring at the water, until the insect chirped again and brought him back to reality. He should not be navel-gazing at the edge of an alien pond. For all he knew, it was home to an alien alligator. Or an alien hippo.

And yet, he couldn’t stop himself. He had been so tightly wound since the disaster hit that he felt like he was about to snap. This place felt peaceful: overwhelmingly so. He sank down to the gritty soil beneath him.

Noah wasn’t sure how long he sat there by the pool for. It couldn’t have been much longer than a quarter hour, but it felt like an entire day. The water seemed to radiate peace like ice radiated cold. His mind, so turbulent from everything that had happened, stilled. The scars on his soul from the life he had lived seemed soothed.

God, this is better than ket. Better than H, even, he mused.

He gazed around, trying to soak in as much of the feeling as possible before he eventually had to leave. On the ground just next to his hand was a small green gem.

Noah shuffled his hand to it and picked it up. The green was so vibrant it appeared to be glowing, but he couldn’t tell whether it was simply a trick of the light in this luminous environment.

What the fuck are these things? All different colours, all crystalline. Are they some kind of resource..? Some kind of energy..? Crystals in games usually are. He fancied he could feel something from it, some kind of energy, a liveliness, almost…

He brought it up to his face, reaching up with his other hand to hold it between his fingers for closer inspection. As his left hand touched it, the gem dissolved into it and the bars running up his arm let out a small flash of green light. His fingers knocked together without the gem between them.

The strange lines on Noah’s left tingled slightly, but he didn’t stress about it. He felt peaceful by the mystic pool. The tingling was nice, anyway: invigorating, but like a cold breeze in winter rather than chugging an energy drink. It felt natural.

Noah found himself perked up a little. He noticed another green gem sitting under a shrub just a little further away. He reached out and grabbed it too, then touched it with his left hand. Once again, the gem dissolved and his tattoo tingled. Now that he was expecting it, he could see the gem didn’t really dissolve, not like a tablet in water at least; more like a star-wipe.

Except it’s a gem, he considered sagely. A gem-wipe, then.

Noah scanned around himself for more. There was another sitting just behind him on his left side. He pressed his palm down on it, and it wasn’t there when he lifted it. He got to his feet and wandered the couple feet to the next one he’d spotted. When he picked it up, he pressed it to his wrist instead of his hand. It still merged with the tattoo.

Weird, he thought. It’s definitely the tattoo then. Is it a powered tattoo? What does it do when it’s …charged? Then he had a sudden thought.

Noah slung his backpack off one shoulder and rooted around in it until he came up with the small black gem he’d found by the elf and the weirder brown-and-gold he’d found on his chair after the disaster. He touched them both to his tattoo, one after the other, but neither of them were absorbed. There was a feeling of rejection, but it was so slight and vague that Noah wasn’t sure if he was imagining it. Stumped, he put them away and then set to scouring the vegetation around the pond for more greens.

He hunted around for ten minutes, and found dozens of the little gems. They were absolutely everywhere around the pond. One by one, they were absorbed by his tattoo. The tingling felt like it was getting increasingly strong, though that could’ve been his imagination too. Noah was becoming so engrossed in the process that he got a shock when he went to touch a gem to absorb it and his finger just hit the smooth surface and nothing happened.

The fuck? he thought. Rude. He glanced over at light-bro, who had been hovering over the centre of the pool while he fossicked. It kept on floating, oblivious.

You’re no help. He stared at the green gem, now pinched securely between two black-capped fingertips. He studied the tattoo. Then he delved into some introspection.

The tingling was gone. The gem hadn’t been absorbed. There was no vague sense of rejection like with the black and brown-and-gold gems either. Maybe a vague sense of satiation, but once again, he couldn’t quite be sure. Noah put the green gem in his backpack and scrubbed his hand through his hair.

This is fucking frustrating. I feel like I’m stumbling around in the dark. What the fuck is all this? What the fuck?! He took several deep breaths, waiting for the anger to recede.

Okay, he thought, mentally resetting himself. The tattoo liked the green gems. It doesn’t like them anymore. It’s ..full of them. Charged up from them? He shook his head. Either way. There’s other types of gems, which are all clearly related. But the tattoo doesn’t like all of them. It has specific requirements, then. It must need other gems, ones I haven’t come across yet.

Noah nodded to himself, satisfied with the conclusion. He was intensely keen to find more gems. He’s found a lead, and he wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Strange fucking tattoos shouldn’t just be appearing out of nowhere. Not to mention strange lights. Or strange gems. Or strange forests. Or fucking elves, or whatever.

The revelation had given him back some impetus. He needed to get moving. He quickly scoured the rest of the grove for any more green gems. He found another few dozen and stowed them in his pack.

Just as he was about to leave, he noticed something amongst the multi-coloured fractal reflections at the water’s edge. He nosed closer, and found he could see something sitting on the bottom of the pool, just a few inches under the surface.

Noah deliberated for a moment. The pond wasn’t realistically big enough for any large predator to live in, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. There could be alien piranha in it, or the water might be caustic, or poisonous.

But he was still suffused with the strange sense of peacefulness. He knew, logically, that it could be some kind of nefarious effect of the pond, meant to lull them into a false sense of security, but he didn’t think so. He reached down, and plucked the stone from the water.

Nothing happened. The water was at the exact same temperature as his hand, and felt… softer than he was expecting. It felt like he’d dipped his hand in liquid silk. Other than that, there seemed to be no effect whatsoever.

He examined the gem. It was the same blue as the pond, and when he looked closer, he could see it was slowly radiating little curls of mist too. He reached out with his left hand with some trepidation. The gem looked pretty nifty. He was sure something cool would happen.

His left-hand fingers poked it. Nothing happened. Noah frowned, then sighed. Then he stowed the glowy-mist gem in his bag too.

He crept cautiously to the edge of the grove and peered out. When he decided it was safe, he ventured out.

Within five minutes, he had reached the strip mall. The side he was approaching from was occluded by a large building. He wouldn’t be able to see into the mall car park until he was close.

As he passed the office building he checked the side streets. Off to his right, he could see the forest merged with the city again a few blocks away. He paused, trying to figure out his mental map. The forest must curl or corner at some point, wrapping around the city on this side. He’d ideally like to be as far away from the forest as possible when he found somewhere to hole up in.

Noah crept past the larger building and peeked into the mall car park. The entire strip mall wrapped around it in a U-shape, with the supermarket at the base of the U. He was currently at one of the ends.

It was a disaster. The car park was a scene of complete and utter chaos. There were several cars flipped upside down. Several more were burned out, gently smoking husks. One had been used to smash through the front window of the supermarket.

There was food strewn throughout the car park, but mainly around the entrance to the supermarket. There were bodies strewn around too. Some were hanging out of cars, dead when they’d lost control and crashed. As Noah passed some, he could see they’d clearly assaulted. Skulls were deformed. Glistening knife wounds lay open to the sky. Bruises from bats and poles and pipes stood stark against pallid, clammy skin.

Noah gripped his own bat tighter. He’d been expecting some looting, but he hadn’t expected anything like this. Fucking COVID taught everyone to rush to the supermarket whenever something happens, he concluded. A disaster of this scale, panic running out of control, no one even able to use their phones. It’s no wonder…

He passed a middle aged woman who looked like she’d had the back of her head caved in with something blunt and heavy. She was lying face down on the ground, sprawled on top of the bundles of toilet paper she’d been making off with. The paper was spread around her, half-congealed in her blood, like some kind of obscene snow angel.

Noah’s foot struck something as he edged around her blood. The small object clattered away across the pavement. He winced at the noise, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else around.

He could tell straight away that it was another of the little gems, a different colour this time too.

Great, he thought, his heart beating in excitement. Hopefully my tattoo likes to eat you.

He chased after it and picked it up using his right hand. He was oddly nervous about whether or not it would be absorbed. He guessed that it felt good to be making tangible progress towards something, after everything had gone to shit. Besides, he wanted to get a good look at it too.

The gem was small and red. Blood red, even. He glanced back at the body, brow creased in thought.

The black one was on a dead person. The green ones were all around the pool. The brown-and-gold one was on his chair. And this one was next to a pool of blood. They were connected to the environment, somehow.

Looking at the blood red gem in his hand, the connection seemed obvious.

This one relates to blood. What do the others relate to? The green could be plants? That makes sense. The black one …death? Seems about right. No idea what the fuck the brown-and-gold one could be. Or the misty gem. Is it a pool-gem?

Noah began scanning around and found a few more gems straight away. Now that he was looking, he could see a few more red ones and a few more black ones. He scooted around, picking them up, stowing the black ones away in his pack and keeping the reds in his pocket. Several of the latter were lying in their associated pools of blood. He left those alone.

Once he’d gathered them all, he pulled the red ones from his pocket. He hesitated for a moment, then clapped his hand overtop of them. There was a muted red flash, his tattoo tingled again, and then his palms were pressing together.

Noah grinned with satisfaction. Nice, I definitely need some more red gems. He eyed the ones sitting in blood near him. Not that desperate yet, though.

He straightened up and looked at the wrecked entrance to the supermarket. He glanced back at light-bro.

Come on then, he thought, and headed for what was left of the front door. The light bobbed merrily after him.

He stepped through the entrance, his shoes crunching on a patina of shattered safety glass. The air smelled faintly of exhaust from the car that had smashed the front of the store in. The store had gotten one back, though: the front half of the car was crumpled up from where it had hit a checkout lane.

Noah crept around the wreck and into the store. This late at night, with the lights out, eerie shadows played through the shelves. He strained his ears, hoping to catch any sounds before he alerted anyone lurking to his presence. It was likely there were still looters in here. He wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible.

He picked out the canned goods aisle and stalked over. He peeked around the corner and found it empty.

Cans were all over the floor. He scanned the ones still on the shelves as quickly as possible and loaded up his backpack with anything that looked okay. Once his bag was mostly full, he went off in search of water. He was going to need a lot of it. He couldn’t guarantee wherever he holed up would have a fresh supply.

When he reached the bottled water display it turns out he needn’t have worried. It had already been stripped. There were two bottles rolling around in the back of the shelf, which he took, but aside from them, it was completely bare.

He sighed, trying to figure out what to do. His mind flashed back to the glowing pond. Maybe he could set up in an empty shop or apartment near that? Surely water that gave off such a peaceful feeling would be safe to drink.

Noah shook his head, banishing the useless thoughts. As he did, he noticed a dark streak on the floor at the end of the aisle. He decided to investigate, though he was fairly certain what he’d find.

He knelt down beside it, and proved his hunch correct. It was blood.

The trail extended towards the back of the store. As he followed it, he noticed several other patches of blood, unconnected, and with no bodies nearby either. Morbid curiosity drew him onwards. His breath was a whisper.

He reached the entrance to the stockroom, nudging aside the thick plastic flaps. The strips pattered gently against each other as he slid through them. An overwhelming metallic scent struck him and he spent a moment mastering his gag reflex.

There was another couple of feet of hallway before the warehouse. He slunk up to it and peered in, but in the low light, this far from the front of the store, he couldn’t make out much.

Noah strained, listening for any sound, any indication that there was anything alive in there with him. He stayed like that for several long minutes, trying to breathe shallowly, but he heard nothing. His eyes had adjusted a little, but he still couldn’t make anything out.

He decided he needed to know. There could be water back here. Perhaps people had fought over it. He slid his phone out of his pocket and thumbed on the flashlight.

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He couldn’t help the startled gasp that escaped his lips. There was blood everywhere. Red, fleshy piles lay around the storeroom at random. Scraps of cloth stuck out of them in odd places. Most had shoes next to them. One pile in particular was much larger but the chunks were furry instead.

Noah couldn’t help it. He doubled over and emptied his stomach. Then he emptied it again. Then he hunched around his cramping stomach until it finally realised he had nothing left to expel. Eventually he stood, wiping his eyes and mouth. At least the taste of vomit had overpowered the smell of blood.

He pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose and panned around with his flashlight, trying to figure out what had happened. He still couldn’t tell. Everything was just a red, wet mess. Then he saw a glint.

His heart raced. It was a gem. Over to the side of the storeroom, sitting on a shelf. He scanned the floor. It was messy, but he could see a way there that was mostly clean.

He began navigating slowly across. Whenever he had to tread in blood he raised his torch so he couldn’t see it and ignored the sticky feeling on the soles of his shoes. Soon enough, he’d made it to the gem.

He shone his light on it directly and his heart leapt again. It was new! One he hadn’t seen. It was a cloudy colour, like quartz, he thought, but murkier, more translucent and less white. He touched it with his left hand and was gratified to feel the usual tingle.

Buoyed by his find, Noah began searching for more. He panned his flashlight around slowly, looking for the telltale glint of reflected light. It wasn’t long before he found one. Again, he made his way over and touched it. Again, it was absorbed.

As he was looking for more he considered what these gems could be. Warehouse gems seemed silly. But what else could they be?

Suddenly, just next to where he was standing, he noticed a small abnormality. A shadow, sitting just outside the light from his torch. It looked normal enough, at a glance, until he realised there was nothing to cast a shadow in that particular spot on the shelf. He shined his torch directly on it, and another gem was revealed. He picked it up.

This one was black too, but different from the glossy black ones he found on the dead. This one was smokey and matte, and the gem didn’t glint or seem to reflect light at all. A dark gem if he’d ever seen one. He touched it to his tattoo, but found it didn’t take. Disappointed, he slipped it into his bag.

Noah lost track of time as he roamed around the storeroom. He found quite a lot of gems. A bit of a treasure trove, really. He found several more of the cloudy ones, but his tattoo didn’t want more than three. He found a few more of the dark ones. He put them all in his pack. He found another new type, bright, bright white, almost glowing. Definitely light gems. His tattoo didn’t want them either, though.

Eventually he had to turn to the blood. There was, of course, a lot of blood gems sitting in it. Noah managed to fish a few of the less messy ones out, but he found his tattoo stopped accepting them after two more. For once, he was not disappointed.

While he worked, he thought he’d figured out what happened in the storeroom too. If his theory was right, some mutant dogs had been drawn in by the sound of looters and cornered them here where they couldn’t escape. At least one of the looters had managed to kill one that he could see. It was difficult to tell with all the blood. Once the dogs had killed everyone, they’d eaten their fill and then left, probably drawn off by other sounds in the night.

Noah was glad none had stuck around. The half-eaten bodies around made it clear they killed mostly for the sake of it, and not just to stay alive. He shuddered. He had to get going.

~~~~~

Piper sat huddled in the booth, watching everyone carefully.

The two groups on the floor had shifted about a little, some of the members swapping out and sitting with other nearby groups, others going to sit nearer the front of the bar. A few of the girls got up and went to the kitchen. They came back with arm fulls of the heavy glass water bottles, and passed them around too.

The furtive murmuring and knowing glances and secretive looks had spread. Piper could see several other people who hadn’t been brought into the fold glancing about suspiciously, knowing something was going on. The vibe in the room was changing, becoming fraught, tense.

Piper shifted her eyes to the front of the bar, to where the bouncers were lounging around on stools, smoking and drinking. There were even more of them now, around thirty thugs laughing raucously all trying to prove whose dick was bigger and most importantly, keeping everyone else inside though implied threat of violence.

Kira and Chloe were still with them, and a few more of the girls from inside had noticed they could trade their dignity for increased freedom and joined them in their flirting and pandering.

June had her sights set on loftier goals. She’d left some thirty minutes ago and was hovering around Marcus and his supervisors.

Marcus and his cronies had been deep in discussion for an hour or so now. They’d managed to reel in all of their colleagues and had sent them out on various errands. Since then, they’d all come and gone, returning with groups of random patrons from nearby bars. Some of them had returned empty handed, but had given lengthy reports to Marcus.

Piper knew they’d be scouting a more secure location to move everyone to. Things were not going back to normal anytime soon, probably not ever. They’d want to keep everyone penned up until they were sure whether they could trust them or not, until they’d managed to establish and solidify their authority.

It looked like things were coming to a head. Marcus and his handful of supervisors finished up their discussion. The supervisors moved off a short ways and began talking among themselves. Marcus beckoned June closer. His body language was practically pornographic. June began chirping in his ear, and his body language became more serious.

He nodded several times, glancing towards the bar. Then he wrapped an arm around her waist and whispered something into her ear. June giggled and slapped his chest playfully.

Marcus walked over to his supervisors and said some brief words. Then he walked back towards the bar. June trailed after him, somewhere between the lovestruck puppy and the proud hen.

Marcus walked past the group of idle guards and straight into the bar. They perked up a little as he marched past. The supervisors joined them, fanning out amongst them, and they all came alert in a ripple. The atmosphere in the bar changed, quick and complete as a cold wind sweeping through.

Something had gone wrong. It was happening. It would be now. Piper’s pulse began to quicken.

Marcus stopped in the destroyed entrance, framed by the gloomy forest behind him. He scanned the room, and then fixed on a knot of the largest men. The men, sensing their moment, surged to their feet, squaring up. Marcus just stood in the entrance, a smirk spreading across his face. June hovered about behind him as the rest of the security stood and slowly spread out behind him: a pride of lions stretching, a pack of wolves circling.

“What’s going on, guys?” Marcus asked lightly.

The men looked at each other. One of them, a tall blonde, took the lead.

“We want to leave,” he said, jutting his chin out. Piper thought he’d surprised himself with how forceful he’d sounded.

The other men echoed him, more getting to their feet. Many of the women squared up too. Just as many retreated up against the far wall, putting themselves as far away from the brewing confrontation as possible.

Marcus chuckled at the display. He rubbed a thumb over the handle of the sword belted at his waist, but he didn’t draw it. He didn’t need to. The display with the impossible red claws ripping a man apart was still fresh in everyone’s minds.

“Just relax, guys,” Marcus said. “There’s no need for this to get …messy.”

The guys shared another quick round of glances. The blonde de facto leader spoke up again.

“We want to leave,” he repeated. “Get out of our way.”

He pulled a cook’s knife from his jacket pocket, trying to seem menacing. Taking their cue from him, the rest of the group began producing weapons from pockets and sleeves and coats.

Piper gripped the tin of mace in one hand and the handle of the boning knife in the other. She didn’t move from where she was sitting, but she was tense, like a cat who’d spotted a mouse.

Marcus threw a lazy glance over his shoulder at June. “Looks like you were right,” he said. June preened under the attention, oblivious to the hateful glares the people in the bar were directing her way. Kira and Chloe and the other girls who’d joined the bouncers had the good grace to look sheepish at least.

Piper sat up straighter as a flash of anger burned in her. There was no way June could have known what was going on. She hadn’t seen anything in the kitchen, and she hadn’t been in the bar long enough to notice. It might’ve been an easy enough guess, but that just meant she’d sold them all out for the chance to get closer to Marcus. She seethed at her former friend. She’d pay her back one day.

The blonde man with the cook knife seemed to feel the wind changing and decided to get ahead of it. He lunged at Marcus, knife extended, trying to stab him in the chest.

Marcus barely even looked at him. The red claws, those horrible, red rips in reality, appeared again. They slammed into the man, completely halting his momentum even as they tore long gouges down the length of his body.

There was a moment’s silence. A moment’s stillness.

Then the man collapsed, and chaos erupted.

Marcus drew his sword and slashed at the nearest man. His friends crowded in, menacing him with skewers and scissors, cleavers and knives. The bouncers rushed forward, trying to protect him, brandishing their poles and bats and pipes.

It was madness. Although the front of the bar had been sliced off, there was still only so much space. Now, it was full of men, all grunting and pushing and stabbing and swinging, all trying to move forward, to move past each other, to make room, all at the same time.

One of the bouncers must have pulled their gun. Piper couldn’t even see who he’d shot, or if he’d even managed to hit anyone. But after the crack of the bullet, the press at the entrance redoubled.

Piper was frozen. This wasn’t going how she’d imagined at all. She envisaged sneaking away during the confusion, or at least being able to rush past. She had never considered the fight forming an ugly, violent plug and trapping her inside. She had to move. The bouncers had guns, and if more of them started firing into the crowd, with her behind them, she could be hit. She sprang to her feet, mace and knife in hand, and scurried in a crouch over to the kitchen.

As she moved she saw a man’s eyes roll back in his skull when a bouncer brained him with a pipe. The crush was so tight the man couldn’t even fall. She saw Marcus trying to leverage his sword against someone with no space to do so, his face locked in a feral snarl. She saw June, her eyes wide and panicked, as she was trapped between the bouncers in front and behind. She saw her fairy light, incongruously merry, bobbing above the brawl. She saw another man held up by the crush, a bouncer, a particularly ugly thug. His head lolled on his shoulders, rolling to and fro as he was jostled about. There was an arrow through his head, the point sticking from the ruined socket of his eye.

Piper caught it all in flashes, the violence pushing her onwards like a fire held to her skin. She hit the door to the kitchen at a sprint, shoulder first, sending it flying open. She pulled up in a hurry, flinching as the door rebounded off something and crashed back into her. Her momentum sent her stumbling sideways. She collided with a bench, the metal countertop digging painfully into her hip. Her boning knife went clattering away across the floor. She heard something else clang on the ground too.

She clutched at her side, rebounding off the counter, reeling towards the figure in front of her. The figure hissed, clutching at its face, backpedalling away from Piper and the door that had smashed into it.

Piper fixated on its hands. They were delicate, slender, the skin porcelain smooth and pale. Then it removed them, its teeth bared in a hateful snarl.

Its features had the same delicate structure as its hands. Its eyes were a polished, almost luminous grey, and slightly canted. The teeth it was baring at her featured canines much longer than any human’s. The pointed tops of its ears poked through its long, spun-silver hair.

Piper’s mind spun in its tracks for a moment. It was an elf. A fucking elf. An angry as fuck fucking elf.

The elf assessed her as she assessed it, both of them thrown by confronting an alien being in such close quarters. It glanced at the ground to its side, where a sword had been smashed out of its hand. It saw Piper follow its look.

There was a moment’s indecision. Then there was no more time for thinking.

The elf reached for the ornate handle of the knife at its belt. Piper threw her hand up and pressed the trigger of the mace. A thick jet of liquid sprayed across its fine features. It blinked a few times, almost comical, and then began to howl in pain and paw at its burning eyes.

Piper caught a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye. One of the vents in the far wall was open, and another elf was wriggling through it. It had most of its chest through already and was struggling to get free while watching their altercation.

Adrenaline flooded her system. She couldn’t take two of them. But she couldn’t go back into the bar either. She could only go forward.

Piper rushed the elf she’d maced, grabbing the handle of its knife and smashing into it with her shoulder. It toppled backwards and its knife slid free as it fell.

She darted across the kitchen to the other elf. It saw her intentions and its struggling became desperate. Though they were slender, they were still slightly too bulky to fit through such a vent with no issues. Piper let herself be blinded by her anger and fear and adrenaline, and raised her knife to plunge it into the trapped elf.

Strong, slender arms grabbed her from behind, wrapping around her chest and neck, constricting her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move her body, but the situation triggered the memory of Marcus grabbing her earlier. Her nostrils flared wide and the muscles in her jaw pulsed.

She whipped the knife down and struck out blindly, low, behind her. She felt the sickening sensation of it parting meat with far too little resistance. Suddenly, she was free, her breath coming in great, ragged gasps.

She spun on the elf and found it clutching its thigh, blood pouring in red rivulets over its fine fingers. She prowled forwards a step. Her mind was a white hot whistling noise, nothing coming through above her fear and anger.

She stabbed at the wounded elf, a vicious strike aimed at its chest. It managed to get an arm in the way, blocking her, but it was weak, and losing strength with every moment. On the other hand, Piper felt strong, stronger than she’d ever felt. She wrestled with the elf, and the scales began to tip in her favour.

A sudden weight smashed into her from behind, bearing both of them to the ground. She felt something scrabbling at her back. The elf had freed itself from the vent and fallen on top of her. It would have a knife too. She had to get out from under it.

She wriggled, and while struggling to get clear she saw that the knife had ended up lodged in the wounded elf’s chest in the fall. It was limp, its puffy eyes lifeless, its mouth open in a moue of surprise. She managed to roll onto her back, then the other elf’s hands were around her neck.

It was half straddling her, one of its legs looped over one of hers. She fumbled at its belt, trying to feel for the knife handle she knew must be there. It removed one hand from her neck and drew it, but it tossed the knife away across the floor. The movement let her take a breath before it managed to lock the hand back around her neck.

White spots began to form in her vision. She struggled against it wildly, but it was lithe and agile, moving with her panicked bucking, its hands locked firmly around her throat. It growled at her in a strange, sibilant language, the sheer hate in its words passing through the language barrier like a bullet through cloth.

She gave up trying to buck it off and tried to pry its hands from her neck. It was hopeless. It had its full body weight behind the grip. And yet…

She felt its hands loosen. She strained to her utmost, digging deep into a reserve she didn’t know she had. The hands loosened some more. She pulled again. They came away from her neck.

Their hands remained locked in their death grip, shaking, shuddering, as each of them tried desperately to outmuscle the other. The elf’s eyes were wide with shock. She was much shorter and slimmer than it. Piper thought her own face must look the same. She didn’t know where her strength was coming from.

She wasn’t going to question it though. She mustered herself, gritting her teeth, and with an animal snarl, she pushed. The elf tipped to the side, unbalanced, and went sprawling.

Piper staggered to her feet, her vision slewing about as she tried to regain her balance and choke down enough air to stay conscious. On her way up, she snagged the boning knife she’d dropped when she’d crashed into the door.

The elf wriggled to its feet in a single, sinuous movement. It narrowed its eyes at her, noting her thin knife. She saw it tense, and tried her best to prepare herself. She was stronger than it, but that might not count for much. It was faster, and likely knew how to fight too. She had to finish this quickly. She couldn’t let the elf draw this out.

Strangely, the elf lunged at her. Perhaps it was trusting in its superior speed and training to carry it, but as it flew towards her Piper noticed another oddity. She was having no trouble following it. The moment it started moving, she reacted. She felt fluid. Fast.

She shuffled forward half a step and brought her knife up. And it was over just as easy as that.

The elf stared at her from less than a foot away. It gurgled and spat as its mind caught up with the reality of the situation. Piper removed her hand from the knife handle jutting from its chest. The elf slumped to the ground, dead.

Piper stood in a daze for a moment. She was aware that she was in shock. She’d just killed two sentient beings. All she could think of was how light the elf had been when it had crashed into her, trying to tackle her back down.

Sound came back to her first. She could hear the clash of metal, shouts and screams of pain and frustration and anger from the bar. A memory flashed back to her, a head lolling lifeless with an arrow protruding from its eye socket. She put two and two together.

The elves were attacking the bar. She had to get free.

She glanced at the vent the elves had crawled through. She was more slender than they were. She should be able to fit.

She started towards it then stopped again. She needed a weapon. She hurried back and picked up a sword. The second elf had seemingly dropped it through the vent ahead of it onto a bench but had been unable to retrieve it for the brawl.

She glanced at the vent again. Remembered the elves struggling to wriggle through with it. She tossed it back on the counter. She didn’t know how to sword fight anyway. Instead, she looked around for the elven knives.

She reclaimed one from under a bench, then mentally braced herself and pulled the other from the first elf’s chest. She cleaned it quickly on its robes, then undid its intricate belt. She undid the other elf’s belt too, removing the sheath and adding it to the first belt. Then she strapped it on, sheathed both knives, and hauled herself into the air vent.

It was dim and hot inside, and it smelled faintly of fat and spices. Piper wriggled through on her elbows, using her knees to push herself forwards like a frog. The vent was short, barely longer than her body. The other end was a tiny window looking out at the brick wall of the next bar across. It took her less than a minute to get through.

She poked her head out and saw the dumpster that had been pushed below the vent to climb up to it. The rest of the alleyway was quiet, but she could hear the sounds of fighting coming from around the front of the bar.

She slid out of the vent and dropped onto the dumpster, hitting it shoulder first to break her fall. She rolled off the top and hit the ground hard, not managing to get her hands underneath herself in time.

She groaned, forcing her abused body to stand. She turned to the other end of the alley and found it blocked by a chain link fence topped by razor wire. Only one way out, then. Piper crept down the alley, towards the open end of the bar and the forest.

She peeked around the corner, just in time to see Marcus eviscerate an elf with his red claws. The slender creature fell to the forest floor in pieces.

In the single glance she snatched she could see things were not looking good for the elves. Somehow, in the middle of a brawl, Marcus and the guards had managed to rally enough to fight them off. As far as she could see, there were only a handful left, peppering the bar with arrows and trying to keep them pinned.

She poked her head back out, trying to figure out what to do. An arrow clattered off the bricks right next to her face. She picked out the archer, standing in the gloom under one of the massive trees, already drawing another arrow.

A gunshot rang in the night and the elf slumped against the tree, its nocked arrow spinning uselessly into the grass a few feet away from it. The damage had been done though. Whoever had shot the elf had seen it fire on her. She saw the man lower his handgun and bump Marcus’ shoulder. The demon turned and saw her. Its face broke into a snarl.

Piper had never experienced such fear as she found in Marcus’ black eyes. It was as though he had condensed all the hate and hurt and rage and spite since the disaster and focused it into a lance.

And so she ran. She fled. Like a startled deer, unable to control herself, she bolted into the forest.

Arrows whistled around her. More gunshots cracked into the night. People shouted to chase her, to grab her, to shoot her. She heard the pounding of footsteps, a miracle, given the pounding of her heart.

She ran. Body aching, breath coming in laboured gasps, she ran.

Black, hateful eyes chased her.