"What," the beautiful menace of a dark elven woman asked, head tilted to the side with dark droplets of blood staining her cheeks.

"Nothing," I wanted to say something, but I didn't particularly want to open that can of worms at the moment. I pivoted away from what I was going to say. "Thank you for getting up so quickly. I'm not sure I'd have been able to react in time to his last attack."

"You're welcome," she said, head still cocked. She examined me like some sort of interesting bug under a glass, confused yet also enthralled by me. Whatever she saw must have satisfied her, however, because she quickly continued. "I think we need to get out of here."

I immediately got angry at her words. We had just killed another one of her kin, and Karl, a friend a business partner of the Night Wolves, was literally feet away and in need of help. Help that only Natasha and I would be able to give him in time. I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I thought about her suggestion that we turn tail and run, leaving Karl to his fate. So what if I was tired already from using Bloodburst? I was sure I could use it a few more times before becoming too exhausted to move.

"Listen," Natasha interrupted me, pausing for me to focus all my attention on Karl's office down the hall. When I didn't do so right away, she frowned and tapped her long ears with a hand still wet with blood. "What do you hear?"

Caught off guard, I set aside my anger and did what she asked. Straining my ears, I tried to hear anything. Nothing. The realization must have shown on my face, because she continued talking before I could say anything.

"Exactly. The silence from the other room means the torture has stopped," Natasha said, "so the one you came here to find is either dead already or will be soon. In either instance, the other dark elves have heard the fight out here and will now be waiting to ambush us." She shook her head, "There is little point in taking the risk. Better to retreat for now and look for a better opportunity."

"What if this group has the cure to the poison we need?" I asked, desperately grasping at straws, looking for any argument that might sway the dark elven woman.

"They won't," she shook her head. Natasha pointed down at the dead dark elf with one of her knives. "Jehard is a member of one of the factions that does not use that kind of poison, and as such won't have the cure to it. Except for my situation, all those that came through will be taking action with their own groups only. Barring something else having happened, there are three more of my kin in the room with the human, none of which will have what we need."

My mind scrambles. Here words make a lot of sense logically, but I can't help railing against them. In my time with the Night Wolves I had seen some of the darker aspects of humanity, but the gang itself had always looked out for its own. Always. To turn against saving Karl now, even for no real benefit as he would likely disband the gang given his temperament, was not something I was willing to do. It was just not who I was. Say what you wanted about me. I am a criminal, one who lives at the edge of society amongst the dregs of humanity, but that didn't mean I didn't adhere to what the best of humanity was supposed to personify. Well, most of the time. I was still a criminal after all.

I almost began arguing with Natasha again, maybe even resorting to a threat to force her compliance with my attempt to save Karl. But my eyes caught sight of something along the far wall that stopped me from saying such ill-advised words.

A fire extinguisher.

Not an effective weapon by itself, unless you were some sort of improvised weapons master with thousands of hours training in mixed martial arts, it nonetheless sparked an idea for how we might increase our odds against the dark elves in the room with the accountant.

Ignoring Natasha's attempts to convince me to leave, I rushed over to the fire extinguisher and removed it from the case that was holding it. Turning, I brandished it at Natasha with a grin, one that only grew wider as her face took on a look that said she thought I had lost my mind from the stress of fighting.

"Yes, that is a very nice metal… thing," Natasha began, clearly trying to humor me to some degree, "but that doesn't change anything. We need—"

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Do you know what this is?" I asked, knowing with a high degree of certainty that no, she did not in fact know what it was.

"Some sort of metal club," Natasha threw up her hands in exacerbation. "One more weapon won't matter!"

"This, my beautiful dark elven lady, is a fire extinguisher," I said holding the piece of equipment like I would a sleeping child. Swept up in the moment, I did not notice the slight reddening of her face at my words. Of course, even had I been paying attention, it was likely I would not have noticed it in any case, what with only the still drying blood across her cheeks. "With this, I can blast a cone of a kind of freezing, white fog in the room to distract your kin, giving us a chance to kill them first."

Protests died stillborn on her lips. Natasha looked at my face, then the improvised weapon in my hand, and then back again. Chewing her lip, she quickly came to a decision. She knew she would not be able to pull me out of there so long as I felt we had a chance of saving Karl.

"Fine," Natasha finally spat, "but I go first through the door. You can shoot that…thing over my should as I go."

"Agreed," I hurriedly said, just glad that I had been able to convince her. Normally, I would insist that I go into the path of violence first, but given the vast disparity in training and skills geared towards physical combat, I reluctantly admitted to myself that Natasha was far and away the better choice to enter the room first.

Sharing a nod, we moved quickly towards the door of the office down the hall. Still silent, we took up position on either side of the door. Arm cradling the fire extinguisher, and hand holding the nozzle ready, I grasped the door handle with my other hand. At Natasha's nod, I twisted and yanked the door open as hard as I could. Barely was it open when she darted into the office fast and low, dodging a thrown knife that whirled through the doorway into the hall behind us.

Not to be outdone, I swung the nozzle around the open doorway and sprayed the first thing I saw. Luck was with me, as the cloud that sprayed forth blasted a charging dark elf full in the face. Briefly blinded, and gagging at the white froth that had pressed into his open mouth, I swung my leg back and then lashed out as hard as I could into the fork of his legs.

Only idiots fought fair in a fight to the death.

The dark elf let out a high pitched, gurgling scream before dropping his knives to reach down and clutch himself. Knowing exactly how outclassed I was should he recover, I swung the fire extinguisher down as hard as I could onto the back of his head. A hollow, ringing thump rang out and he collapsed bonelessly to the floor. I didn't know if he was dead, but he was certainly out of the fight. One down.

Knowing the fight wasn't over yet, I pivoted towards where Natasha was engaging two others of her kin in close, darting combat. Her grace and skill were breath-catching, but she was hard pressed with the two opponents. Growled recriminations of being a traitor and other not so nice names for a lady were spilling freely from the duo's lips, but Natasha's only response was a fanged filled grimace of hate.

Seeing an opening, I squeezed the lever again on the fire extinguisher, before cursing when I realized it was empty. Unthinking, I threw it at the nearest dark elf.

It was a costly mistake.

Seeing the oncoming missile, the dark elf feigned a stumble and stepped backwards, pulling Natasha into its path as she rushed to take advantage of his mistake. Recovering quickly, the dark elf blocked her strike, while his partner slashed both blades down at Natasha's side. Swiftly, she was already moving to dodge when the fire extinguisher struck her full on. Knocked off balance, she wasn't able to get out of the way before the blades tracked long, deep wounds across her body. She collapsed to the floor in a scream of pain. Both of her kin swooped downwards, blades raised for killing blows.

"Bloodburst!! Bloodburst!!" I shouted frantically at the nearest, sprinting forwards as I did so. With my focus shattered by my panic, the first cast landed upon the dark elves left shoulder. The burst of blood and bone drew an ear-splitting scream, but his inhuman focus and hate was still directed at plunging his other blade into the fallen Natasha.

Luckily my second cast caught the top of his head. Bits of skull as well as ears went up and away in the air. Two down.

But I was exhausted from the rapid casting. Feet moving without being directed into a stumbling sprint, I pulled deep from my reserves to intercept the other dark elf before he could strike Natasha. My diving lunge caught him low at the waist, lifting him up and away from my ally to crash into the wall. As we hit, I felt two sharp blows against my back as the dark elf thrust both daggers into my flesh. Screaming in rage and pain, I put all of my strength into a twisting motion, to smash the dark elf down across the floor.

It was another costly mistake.

The last dark elf alive in the room with us went sliding across the floor to come to rest against Natasha. Rather than being stunned like I had hoped, the dark elf recovered quickly. Seeing how close he came to Natasha, who was still curled up in agony on the floor, he lifted his knives again to strike against her.

In that frozen moment of horror at what I had done, my eyes locked with Natasha's. Her face was a mask of pain, of fear, and of something else that I couldn't quite understand. Her eyes began to close in acceptance, the tips of the knives plunging down to her vulnerable chest.

No.

Rage roared within me, partly at having messed up again, but more it was at the fact that someone I knew, someone I was coming to care about, was about to be taken away from me again. Something rose within me, reaching out and connecting with that rage. Fiery hot light shifted into a frigid darkness. The shadows of the room warped and bent ever so slightly in my direction. The first to touch was the thrusting dark elf's own. Delicately, it connected to the shadow pooled at my feet. I raised my fists high and instinctively I moved through darkness.

Right into the way of those outhrust blades.

One moment I was across the room, the next I was directly in the face of my last foe, Natasha sheltered by my bulk. Victorious, vicious glee morphed into horror on the face of the dark elf as I appeared so suddenly out of nowhere in front of him. Even so, he attempted to redirect his blades to strike me instead.

I put all of my body's strength behind my fist, shouting one final time, "Bloodburst!!!"

The dark elf's chest disappeared in a spray of gore and bone under my spell, right as my fist caught him in the face, knocking free a sharp fang to go flying across the room. He was dead before he hit the ground. I had done it. I had fixed my mistake. Natasha was safe.

I felt an instant of satisfaction at the strike, and a sense of confusion at my abrupt teleport. A surge of exhaustion welled up within me, causing the room to go blurry and dizziness to hit me hard.

Then there was only blackness.