“Won’t someone give us work already,” Krein murmured. Holding his cigarette between two fingers, he leaned on the wrought iron railing that separated him from the fifteen-story deep void on the other side. It was slightly rusty. The door behind him opened and a girl, Eve, came through the portal.
She breathed heavily, chest heaving from the many flights of stairs that she had just ran up. Her breath came out in puffs, the air condensing her breath even though it was only fall. It was that cold. Viridian City was very high in the north after all. The migratory birds such as ducks and geese had long gone south, leaving only pigeons that scavenged from humans behind. They were the only ones that that populated the gray skies of Viridian city.
“Krein, we got a contract.”
Well isn’t that convenient. Krein inhaled, burning the cigarette down to a stump in a single breath and flicked the butt off of the side of the building. Grabbed his coat, he turned and draped it over his shoulders. A cold wind from the north blew in just as he moved and he sneezed. “Blasted Viridian weather,” he muttered. Louder, he called to Eve. “Who we got?”
Eve had retreated back inside the building when the wind blew in, and she stayed inside, forcing Krein to walk closer to her. She handed a file of papers to him, but he didn’t take it. “Kat accepted a contract as temporary security guards, to defend some kind of house from any fishy people until the professionals they hired arrive from overseas.”
Krein snorted. “Professional? We’re nothing if not professional. Just because we don’t do long-term work doesn’t mean we’re unprofessional. Who’re the insolent lackadies that hired us?”
Eve rifled through the files and separated a single sheet from the folder. She held it out insistently. When Krein didn’t take it, she set it on the floor. “I’m not reading it to you.”
Grunting, Krein bent to retrieve the paper and held it up to his face. A fat man stared back at him in the picture. He read the name. It seemed that a businessman hired them. One Arandal Blice, of the Blice firearms dealer. A note in the corner read that his old bodyguards quit after some sort of falling out, and he couldn’t hire new ones in time.
A weapons dealer always made equal parts friends and enemies. It was much easier to devise a way to kill someone than to protect them. The day and a half it would take for his bodyguards to arrive would be the most dangerous Arandal would experience; it had to be for Arandal to pay their ludicrous protection fee.
Krein handed Eve the paper. “Got it. Kat accompanied him back, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’s minding the base?”
“Cardinal, Jane, and Voltic.”
He grunted again. “That should be enough. You return, I’ll head to Kat. See ya later, Eve.” He took out his phone and opened the map. One red dot blinked next to him, spiraling as the owner trotted down the spiral fire escape stairs. He zoomed out until a second one showed up, rapidly moving north. Kat.
He stepped up onto the rails and flexed his back muscles. His skin crawled and the muscles convulsed until two white wings spout bloodlessly from his back. The itch around the base of his wings faded soon after.
Spreading the huge wings, he let himself fall forward and the winds caught in his feathers, lifting him up into the night. Flapping his wings with barely a thought, he overtook two fighting pigeons and they scattered as he passed. His wings let him fly much faster than normal birds and faster than the limousine that carried Kat north into the private sector of Viridian City. He found the third highway easily and it followed it. Somehow, between him flying at almost sonic speeds and him looking at his phone as he flew, he didn’t hit any birds, but that’s probably more luck than anything else. The sky was a big place after all.
The dot drew closer and closer until he was right on top of it. Slowing to keep pace, he looked down and instead of the white limousine that he imagined Arandal would own, given his white tux in the picture, it was a sports car.
Black and sleek, low to the ground, it was driven by either a maniac or an expert. Kat was both. It weaved around other cars, going over twenty above the posted speed limit.
Tilting to the side, he angled his wings and veered to the side. Kat drove in the front seat. A man in a black suit with shades sat next to her. The only white tux sat directly behind Kat and a second agent sat beside Arandal. Looks like there wouldn’t be any room for him even if he did ask Kat to stop. Not that she’d stop for him.
The solid road became a bridge as the highway passed over the Atlas River. Despite that, Kat stopped for nothing and the car came perilously close to the edge at times. Silently, Krein willed for her safety. The money they’d get for the contract was nowhere near enough to repay wrecking the car. And, while Kat will live, the others with her might not survive a dip.
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Luckily, the car he followed returned to land without incident. Speeding the entire way, it blazed past an exit, only for Kat to stamp on the brakes and made a hard left, sending them into the other lane going the other way. A cacophony of car horns drowned out his thoughts, and the screeching of tires gave him a headache.
With complete disregard for the other cars or her passengers, Kat seemed to floor the accelerator once more as the sporty pulled ahead of the other car on the highway. Sure enough, as soon as the exit of the highway was in sight, Kat aimed for it, pushing the sporty to its limits as she threaded a needle through the passing cars. As always, Krein’s heart leapt to his throat and stayed there as he watched her drive.
He’d gotten into a car with Kat exactly once, so he could somewhat imagine what Arandal would be experiencing, but that kind of driving was rare even for Kat. Still, he supposed, Kat has to be given the opportunity to be that dangerous. On good days, she’s merely a reckless driver. On bad days, well, you have Kat and then you have Kat.
The road that Kat pulled into was quiet. Not a single other car drove toward or behind her. The sports car made a mostly straight line toward a small mansion sitting atop a hill. Fences lined it and some sentries patrolled perimeters, armed with shell cannons. With Krein’s sharp eyesight, he counted about a dozen of them. His white wings would make him stand out like a sore thumb against the black sky, so as Arandal’s car approached the main gate, he folded his wings into a dive. He pulled up at the last moment until he flew parallel to the ground, in view of Kat if she would just look in her mirror. As such, he almost splattered like a pigeon on glass windows against the back of the car as Kat flattened the brake.
Although he couldn’t hear Kat through the thick bulletproof glass of the armored sports car, he’s sure she said something, because Arandal whirled around to stare at him with wide eyes. Krein gave him a little wave and Arandal made an obscene gesture at him before he brought a phone to his face. A few second later, Arandal waved him onwards and Kat drove on.
Unfurling his wings again, he took to the skies. As he passed the perimeter of the fences well ahead of the car, no one shot at him. No one told him to halt even when he touched down in front of the mansion’s front steps.
When the car finally arrived, the rear left door swung open and Arandal staggered out. The fat man was sweating, something Krein didn’t notice when Arandal was in the car. The dealer ripped open the driver seat door a single savage motion and pointed a finger at Kat.
“You... you witch! Are you trying to kill us all?”
Krein closed his eyes. He’d heard variations of that phrase so many times. He even knew Kat’s answer.
“What do you mean? We got here alive, didn’t we?” Kat replied. She pushed his pudgy finger aside and stepped out of the car. Straightening to her full height, she was taller than Arandal, but shorter than Krein. On top of that, Kat always insisted on heels, so that added another five centimeters to her height. When Krein first courted her, he’d mistaken her for someone a bit more... normal. Her graceful build, indifferent expression, and soft-spoken voice hid a much more active nature, but her fiery red hair should’ve tipped him off.
Pulling the keys out of the ignition, she tossed it to the suited agent in the side seat. The man dove to catch it before it fell to the ground. Kat tossed her hair, pushing it out of her face and over her shoulder. “This is Krein,” she told Arandal.
Krein grinned, waving at the fat man. Arandal still looked peeved, and strands of his hair stuck to his sweaty forehead. Finally, he ducked his head by the smallest amount.
“It’ll be a pleasure to work with you, sir.” Arandal held out his hand, and Krein gripped it firmly. He must’ve been a bit too firm, for Arandal’s finger writhed in his grip.
“And me you, Mister Blice.”
“Let’s get to business, shall we?” Arandal smiled and jerked his head toward the direction of the house. “If you will, gentlemen.”
Kat‘s expression darkened. However, she said nothing and stepped into the mansion. Krein sighed and followed.
The interior was brightly lit, with glass displays encasing weapon parts lined the walls. Every hallway was the same, filled with parts of weapons, but never a whole. Launchers, pistols, rifles, swords, daggers, every mundane weapon he could think of was here in some form or another.
Arandal continued to walk and came to a wall. He turned around, hesitated, and then bowed low. “Forgive me, gentlemen, but I have lied to you.”
“What?” A knife appeared in Kat’s hands, and Krein dropped his hand to his pistol.
Arandal jumped at the sudden appearance of a weapon and he stepped back, holding out his hands. “No! I mean, my real request is for you to protect not me, but an object.” He tapped the wall, and something a current of blue light ran around invisible circuits. The seamless wall rumbled and then a section of it moved back, revealing a basement below it. “The truth is, I obtained a crystal; a relic of an ancient age you might say. Every appraiser I’ve gone to confirmed its value. The professional guards I hired will arrive tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I’d like to delegate that job to you. If you cannot, then please think of that crystal as my life.”
Krein looked at Kat and she nodded. Krein shrugged. “Well, you paid us for bodyguard duties, which we made excessively high because we hate guarding people, but… objects are much easier to manage. This once, we’ll throw in two extra helpers for free.”
“Thank you!”
“No need,” Kat answered, pointedly. She opened her cellphone. “Oh, hello, Eve? Yeah, we’re fine… Yes. Yes… No, never mind that. Can you come over? We’ve got a change of plans since we’re now protecting some kind of crystal. I think we’re going to need as much firepower as we can get. Can you and Cardinal come over?” She hung up. “They’ll arrive in about an hour,” she said.
“Good.” Krein yawned. “Well, you can leave this to us, Mister Brice. Nothing will happen to the crystal under my watch... our watch.”
Arandal rubbed his head and nodded agreeably. “Forgive me earlier rudeness, sir. Now, excuse me.” He tapped the wall and the blue circuits appeared again. The wall slid forward and shut.
An hour later, a servant showed Eve in, along with Cardinal. Chairs and tables were put up and they settled down for a sleepless night.