"If you have any ideas," Weiss murmured, "I'd be more than glad to hear them."

Blake didn't understand how Weiss could still be asking the question. The heiress had shown good deductive ability so far, but obviously it had let her down. Their driver had been replaced or suborned, either bribed to bring them here—wherever here actually was—or the cab had been stolen outright as a lure.

Who was responsible was still unknown, but that answer would become obvious almost immediately, she was sure. Less obvious and more important was the question of how the unknown party had been able to lay the trap. Had the hotel manager been bought off, or was something else responsible for the knowledge?

As for the purpose of what was occurring, there were really only two possibilities: a meeting, or an attack. There were figures who would shanghai a person's mode of transport to bring their quarry to them unsuspecting and off-balance, and to prevent surveillance from getting in place to follow. But so far as Blake knew, there was no party involved in this business that wanted that. The White Fang would seek to capture her and Weiss. Pandora—Hyde and Garnet—would do the same or just kill them out of hand. The Dust Company would want to recover Weiss and capture Blake. And there was, so far as she knew or could imagine, no hint of a fourth faction involved, or fifth if Blake and Weiss themselves were counted as one.

All of which explained why, when the cab door was yanked open, Blake was ready and in motion. Her feet lashed out together, thrusting with the full force of her legs as she slammed them hard into the door. She felt the shock echo up her calves and thighs as the door slammed into the one trying to open it, knocking him or her back.

She didn't hesitate, launching herself upright and reaching out and up to grab the lip of the four-wheeler's roof and pulling herself up and out the door, bracing herself off the door itself to help swing her body up on top of the growler. The driver was already turning even as her feet echoed off the wood, and Blake recoiled to see the face beneath the brim of the high hat and framed by the greatcoat collar was not thrown into shadow but a gleaming bone-white mask streaked in red.

Her surprise left her off-guard as the man continued his pivot with a backhanded swipe. The knife in his hand had a matte-black finish, almost invisible in the near-darkness to anyone without Blake's cat-like vision. She pulled back, but her reflexes were slowed by surprise and the blade traced a line of fire along the outside of her left forearm.

Without hesitation, the masked assassin sprang to the roof of the growler after her. Or perhaps "sprang" was the wrong word; it was more that he seemed to flow, continuing the motion of his attack so seamlessly that the movement appeared to carry him forward.

The knife came back around, reversing into a forehand stab, and Blake barely managed to get Gambol Shroud into position in time to deflect it. The driver's free hand came around and up, fingers open, and Blake only saw the needle-like blade running up from the wrist along the palm at the last instant and pulled her left side back and away from the strike.

Poison? she wondered. That could have been the trick of it. Or was it something else, some other deception?

What was beyond doubt was that this man—these people—were professionals at their craft. The mask to frighten and surprise, the fluidity of movement that deceived the eye, trick weapons designed to aid in lethal deceptions, they all added up to a single picture, of experts in murder.

"Weiss! Assassins!" she shouted, countering another swipe of the knife. "We have to get out of here!"

~X X X~

Weiss hadn't needed Blake's shout to realize what was happening; the way the Faunus had lashed out when the door was opened was enough all by itself, the ringing clash of weapons that followed merely confirmation.

That wasn't to say that the cry had been worthless, though. On the contrary, it had directly addressed a genuine problem: what now? Caught off guard by the ambush, Weiss was not at her best, and unlike at Saulbridge, she hadn't even had a clear goal. The cab represented safety, if limited; it had solid walls to block some attacks and restrict vision, and it had only its doors as portals for the enemy to get inside, as Blake had demonstrated to her advantage. Unless they were going to do something ridiculous like roll sticks of dynamite under the growler, the cab was the closest thing she had to a defensible spot, and fear naturally made her want to seek that out.

Blake's cry cut through shock and instinct, making Weiss realize that the cab wasn't a defense at all, just a trap that would keep her cornered and vulnerable, with only a single bullet to defend herself with (and why hadn't she reloaded during the ride? Her complete lack of combat instinct was damning her to foolish acts!).

Knowing that the enemy Blake had kicked away was just outside and likely regaining their feet, Weiss went for the other side, the closed door, and pushed it open, only to find herself staring into a bone-white mask, its paleness doubly eerie against the darkness outside. The gun cracked in her hand, the relatively quiet sound of the small weapon reverberating in the enclosed space until it seemed deafening.

The mask, though, showed no reaction at all as the bullet plunged into what she assumed had to be the body of its wearer, though the inky shadows could just as easily have been anything—or nothing at all. There was no cry or grunt of pain, though, no wavering to indicate a flinch, no reaction at all.

With a shriek, Weiss flung herself forward, desperately thrusting her hands into the mass of shadows. Relief cascaded over her as she felt cloth against her skin and the firm solidity of a body beneath. The terrifying apparition had been a person after all, not a monster—one, moreover, that had apparently been perched precariously on the outside of the cab, for they went toppling away before Weiss's shove, the mask flying backward and the darker silhouette of long limbs visible in the shadowy night now that the attacker's body wasn't blocking the door.

The sight of the body, the sudden appearance of the figure as a person (human or otherwise), flung Weiss out the door as much as anything else. Her feet hit the cobbles, and she spun, looking up at Blake on the roof of the carriage. She was fighting another one of the figures, this one in the hat and caped greatcoat of the cabdriver, the lightning-fast footwork and strikes made all the more impressive by the tiny space they had to do it in.

Weiss seized upon the situation in an instant. They'd been driven to this silent close for the ambush; like Blake had said, they needed to escape.

She sprang towards the front of the cab, swinging herself up off the ground onto the driver's seat. Almost before she had settled onto the bench she had snatched up the reins and with a flick of the leather had set the horses into motion.

~X X X~

The jolt of sudden movement caused Blake to sway, trying to catch her balance. Her masked opponent lunged at her, knife coming whip-quick, and she took a slash along the right shoulder.

The motion hadn't even fazed him, she thought, not without a stab of resentment, even though he couldn't have seen it coming. Was her enemy as hyper-aware as that? Or just had that level of superb body control even above her own? Again, she wondered if the masked figure was even human; were he another Faunus it certainly would explain his physical abilities. But even if he was, and if for whatever reason the White Fang had turned on her, she'd never heard of anything like these masks, obviously chosen by the three attackers to unnerve and disconcert as well as conceal their identities.

Unless…they're not White Fang at all?

The idea that Hyde might have created more Faunus, creatures that worked for him, served him as assassins, shocked her to the core, so badly that she nearly missed a step and in recovering let herself be turned out of position to block the knife and nearly found herself gutted by the palm-needle for her pains. Only a last-second twist saved her from a serious or fatal injury, and even that left her out of position to deal with a surprise overhand stab of the knife.

It was the streets of London and their poor state of repair that saved her this time; one of the cab's wheels struck a loose paving stone and the whole thing lurched, sending the masked driver toppling back and Blake stumbling to her left. They both regained their footing, but it was enough to negate the killer's momentary advantage.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder at his deftness, his agility so like her own, to say nothing of his ease in the dark. If these assassins were Faunus, servants of Hyde, it would explain why the doctor had had drugs on hand to affect her physiology when he'd interrogated her. Or had he just concocted them in his laboratory from a formula?

Too many questions, and not enough answers! But she could get those answers in one step: by taking down her attacker and seeing what lay behind the mask, within the shadows cast by his coat.

Doing that, though, wasn't going to be easy. The unstable footing was bad enough, but at least it was an enemy to both of them. The real problem was the space available. The growler's roof was only so big, and Blake's fighting style was based on mobility. In the cramped space, she had no way to dodge, spring, or leap aside. Gambol Shroud's whip attack was worthless like this, just as trying to line up a pistol shot was merely inviting her enemy to grapple her and take away her weapon. Even the saber, in all truth, was too long and cumbersome a blade for this tight space; only her raw dexterity made it work at all. Her enemy, on the other hand, seemed to have chosen his weapons precisely for these close quarters; he used knife and needle in quick, short thrusts and feints, with no wasted movement that would leave Blake an opening. And, of course, there were two weapons, an edge that Blake's empty hand couldn't match.

In desperation, she grabbed Gambol Shroud's chain-mesh ribbon with her left hand, leaving about a foot of it protruding past her fist. This gave her a second weapon, if a makeshift one, and its metal links carried enough weight to injure if they struck cleanly. Blake flicked it towards the driver's face and heard it clack! off the mask, but this did not seem to faze him; he came in low and quick.

But perhaps it did have some effect after all, for Blake was able to not only parry the knife, but turn her wrist to use Gambol Shroud to push the blade out and away from her, opening up a chance for her to snap a kick up against his thigh. The greatcoat blocked her ability to aim cleanly as well as stealing some of the force from the blow, so he did not flinch or topple, but he did not come snapping back at her with a counter at once. Instead, he shifted his footing, drawing that leg back while leading with the other side.

Blake didn't hesitate. As her enemy made a sweeping motion of his hand—almost certainly a feint with the needle—she let another foot of Gambol Shroud's ribbon slip through her fingers and snapped it at his wrist. The mesh coiled around his arm twice, again. He gave a sudden yank, aware that his ensnared arm actually had a more secure hold on his end of the whip than Blake had on hers, and she actually swayed hard to her left. She was the master of the weapon, though, and before her center of gravity could extend over the side of the carriage she slackened her grip again, letting more of the ribbon play out instead of resisting the masked man's pull. He went swaying back from the force of his own effort, and Blake slashed down hard, making him whip the knife up to parry and still dropping him to one knee as he was thrown even more off-balance.

Despite her momentary advantage, though, Blake's heart was still thudding with fear at what she'd seen when her head had swung over the edge:

Another one of the masked killers clinging to the door of the four-wheeler as it raced along.

~X X X~

Driving a London cab, or indeed any carriage, was a skill. Eighty years ago, any fashionable lady might have been known for her ability with the ribbons. Even these days, a practical country girl of the upper or middle classes would likely have known how to handle a conveyance for genteel travel.

The Schnee heiress had been raised in cities all her life and had barely even learned to ride—and that no more than to keep from embarrassing herself as a woman of refinement. Everything she knew about carriage-driving came from watching other people, and that only because Weiss was an observant young woman who remembered most of what happened in front of her.

She probably could have managed a hansom cab. That was drawn by only one horse, and fundamentally that was little different than riding, only with longer reins and a seat that was harder to fall off of than a sidesaddle. A four-wheeler, though, was drawn by a pair, and that was an entirely different proposition. Weiss had gotten the horses going, and by the grace of God or blind good luck had managed to aim them at the open mouth of an alleyway on the far side of the square. Beyond that, she had no idea of what was required.

"I don't suppose you'd care to help?" she called, not entirely sure if she was taunting the masked man who'd been driving or calling for Blake to come with her hopefully superior knowledge. Maybe it was both. But the ring of steel and grunts of effort from behind her told Weiss that a reprieve wasn't going to happen any time soon.

The alley or lane lasted a good sixty yards or so. There was a jog halfway in the middle, but the horses navigated it with almost no trouble, one wheel lightly scraping the corner as the beasts rudely failed to account for the cab being wider than they two of them were. But then, the alley came to an end, opening up into a much longer street running across their path—and one where the alley most definitely did not continue on the other side.

Weiss had no idea what the horses would do. Turn on their own? Maybe. Stop? Also maybe, but that was no good; she and Blake needed to keep moving, to get away. Or would they just keep on going, trotting right up the stairs to the front door of the house across the way and wreck the growler behind them? She didn't—couldn't—know, and so she hauled hard on the reins, desperately trying to get the horses to turn.

In a way, Weiss succeeded. The horses swung around to their left, the cab slewing behind them, the metal rims of the wheels screeching as they were dragged across the cobbles.

In another way, though, Weiss failed, and her failure was more dramatic than her success. The cab-horses weren't used to such cow-handed treatment, and perhaps the sensitive animals caught some of their driver's fear pulsing through the reins as she dragged clumsily on their heads. For whatever reason, they, too, were struck with fear, and their response to that fear was to try to run away from whatever was causing it. Bolting, they surged forward, and the growler rattled ahead at a pace it hadn't reached in a half-dozen years.

Panicked, Weiss yanked on the reins, trying to bring the horses to heel, but she didn't have the raw arm strength to make a difference and all she accomplished was to frighten them more. The cab hurtled through the streets, sweeping past a dray-wagon on the left, a couple of seamen talking to a gaudily-dressed tart on the right, drawing curses from both sides.

It was sheer chance that the drayman's oath had been pungent enough to get Weiss to turn her head that way out of shock so that surprise was immediately eclipsed by a greater one: a blade coming straight at her heart as one of the masked shadows whirled around the front corner of the cab to leap at her.

~X X X~

The masked killer snapped his head forward, and the wind did the rest, catching his high-crowned hat and flinging it up at Blake's face. She pulled her head to one side, letting it sail past harmlessly, but at that exact moment the man heaved upwards, slipping his left hand out of its snare so he could use it as well, putting all his weight behind the thrust, and he shoved Blake up and back with their locked weapons.

She fought for balance even as he tried to regain his feet, when suddenly the cab swung wildly, flinging itself through a crazed left-hand turn. The motion was too much for the already off-balance Blake; she toppled, hit the roof with bruising force on her right shoulder and arm, and slid right over the edge. For a single, terrifying moment she found herself flying away, and then her outflung hand caught the edge and held on. She didn't even remember the moment that she'd let go of Gambol Shroud, but she still had hold of the ribbon with her left hand and somehow the weapon hadn't gotten snarled in one of the rear wheels; in stead it was rattling along behind them, bouncing and scraping off the paving-stones. It was a testament to Bell's fine construction that none of the bounces and jolts set the gun off even though there was a round ready to fire in the chamber.

Pain screamed up Blake's arm and shoulder as she hung on for dear life, but then she pulled, and was able to get her left hand, ribbon and all, over the edge, and swung her legs up, finding footing on the molding at the bottom of the carriage. Just beneath her, the cobblestones whipped by, the cab picking up more and more speed with every moment.

What on Earth is Weiss doing up there?

Or worse yet, was she able to do anything at all?

~X X X~

Weiss flung herself back from the killer's knife, falling back onto the far side of the seat. She couldn't believe that this was happening—could barely comprehend that the masked figure was there at all; they must have been the one Blake kicked away when she first got out of the cab, who'd run and grabbed hold of the four-wheeler's side, the door handle, something as it first started moving. The knife was barely visible; had it not been that several of the windows they hurtled past spilled light out into the streets from within she'd never have been able to see it, not in the first instance and not in time to jerk away from the second stab, which thunked into the bench a scant inch from her side when she twisted.

Desperately, she kicked out, but the attempt landed badly, barely making the killer flinch. In panic, she lashed out with the reins and managed to hook them around the knife as the shadow was pulling it free.

Ha! she crowed, and added another twist of leather while the killer was trying to wrest their hand free. Yanking hard with both of her own hands she was able to pull the knife away from her body.

The killer was bigger and stronger than Weiss was, though, and as they came onto the seat fully, crouching over her, they were able to push her down so that her back was pressed against the planks, her head actually most of the way over the edge so that her ponytail whipped in the rushing air.

"This is…

"Your end…"

"Weiss Schnee!"

The voice was harsh and sibilant, barely human, and Weiss was put in mind of Hyde's fire-scorched tones, and of the strangely-shaped skulls and mouths of some of the Faunus she'd seen at Saulbridge. In that instant, had she been offered the chance to rip away that eerily glowing mask she'd have refused, terrified of what monstrosity lay beneath.

The fingers that clamped around her throat like an iron vise were no shadowy thing of her imagination, though. They were all too real, too tangible, and they squeezed down with crushing force, throttling off any breath she might try to draw with cruel effectiveness.

~X X X~

Blake had no idea what was going on with Weiss or why the cab was speeding up with every passing moment. She did know that she had to get up, off the back of the growler and onto the roof or she'd end up at the masked assassin's mercy. She had no hope that he'd been hurled off as well; that would be far too much blind luck to count on.

She hurled herself upwards, feeling the sting from along her cut left arm as she did so. The wound had seemed superficial at the time, but the exertion might well have made it worse.

Of course, that only matters if I get out of this alive!

She grunted as she rolled back onto the cab roof, but there was no time to relax; the driver was indeed scrambling towards her on his hands and knees, looking like nothing so much as some kind of eerily shrouded insect as his coat flapped around his long arms and legs. Despite its protective qualities, though, she had a feeling that the coat hampered him more than it helped once he was off his feet. Blake swept her foot out in a scything kick that took him high and hard on his left shoulder, dropping him with a thud back to the roof. He started to slide at once, and while he fought to keep his purchase she sat up and yanked hard with both hands on Gambol Shroud's ribbon.

The sudden pull was enough to bring the weapon sailing up through the air at her, its blade whirling through the scattershot light. Blake watched it spinning at her, and with unnaturally keen reflexes shot her hand out to snatch the hilt without being cut.

Her feat of dexterity hadn't come without a price, though. She'd had to watch the spinning weapon carefully, even with her enhanced night-vision, and the second of attention had given the assassin time to recover himself, and she had to stifle a scream as the needle-like palm-blade slashed through the back of her trouser leg and across the meat of her right calf.

~X X X~

Weiss fought for breath as the masked shadow bore down on her, fingers digging into her throat with bruising force. Her chest heaved, trying to suck air into her lungs, but it was a hopeless attempt: the killer's strength had her windpipe completely sealed. Nor could Weiss get a hand loose to try to pull it free; it was taking all the strength in both of her arms to keep the other hand off of her, prevent it from driving the knife into her chest for an even faster death.

"Fight…

"As you will…

"It avails naught."

The mask descended, shining in the dark, until it was scant inches from her face. Despite the bouncing and jostling of the runaway carriage, it hung there, unwavering, filling her vision as if drinking in her fear, her pain. Was the shadow killer right? Did it matter at all, what she was fighting for? Or was she just drawing it out longer, doing nothing but giving herself more pain? Weiss's arms trembled from the sheer effort it took her to hold off the creature; it was a race whether her strength or her last dregs of air would give out first.

Blake… she pleaded mentally, but the Faunus was caught up in her own battle, pressed by an enemy as vicious and deadly as this one. There was no way she could spring to Weiss's defense; she might not even have any idea that Weiss needed help—at least not this desperately.

She stared up into the eyes of her would-be killer, only to realize that there were no eyes that she could see, nothing within the dark sockets of the mask but more blackness. It could have been some clever trick of crafting, but whatever the reason, the effect chilled her to the bone, almost made her flinch and let the knife-hand go. Had her arms not been at nearly full extension—

Her arms!

Realization crashed in on her, not even in a fully formed thought but just a flash, an inspiration. The assassin was hunched over her, face hovering just over hers as she lay prone, but their body wasn't lying on hers, it was arched above her.

Weiss yanked her legs up, pulling her knees to her chest, and kicked up with everything she had. It was her shins that made the most contact against the shadow's belly, rather than a clean shove with her feet, but the murderer's bent-over perch was precarious enough on the narrow seat, and the blow was able to shake them. One foot went over the edge, the shadow toppled, and the killer fell cleanly over the side, gravity and momentum doing what Weiss's legs alone could not. The hand jerked loose from Weiss's neck, unable to hold on, and Weiss's fingers were no stronger, the reins torn away from them as well.

The killer hit the cobbles hard, and continued to be dragged along, just next to the rattling wheel, by the reins wrapped around their hand and wrist. The force of the fallen assassin's body weight yanked hard on the reins as the cab pulled him, hauling the fear-maddened horses' heads to the left with more force than any driver's mere arms could manage. Instinctively, they obeyed, swinging sharply to the left, and the runaway growler scraped across the pavement as it tried to follow but couldn't.

The horses shrieked in pain as the tremendous force bore down on them, but luckily for the animals it was not their legs or necks that gave way first but the shaft that held them harnessed to the cab. It wrenched itself apart with a hideous cracking, splintering sound, and the horses bolted, rushing along the street, still dragging their unwilling passenger behind them.

Weiss, though, had no time to waste worrying about the murderer's fate, for in the next instant the cab's wheels crashed up against the curb, and she found herself falling, flung from her perch as the four-wheeler began to topple.

~X X X~

Blake had barely pulled her leg back in time to avoid more than what she hoped was a relatively superficial injury, then stabbed towards her opponent with a quick thrust of Gambol Shroud that grated along the side of his mask. This forced him to pull back, giving her the time to come back to her feet. Seeing her act, he reacted by doing the same, but it was the driver who struck first, coming after her with the needle while Blake was still making sure she could trust her injured leg with her weight and balance.

He's lost the knife, she realized, probably having to drop it to keep his purchase on the cab like she had, and his weapon hadn't come with a convenient way to bring it back like hers. It was a telling loss, for while she was only able to parry at the last second, without the threat of the knife she was able to turn her blade to slide down along towards his wrist and he jerked his arm back, stung by a shallow cut.

Whether she'd have been able to press the advantage, she'd never know, because it was at that moment that the horses tried to turn hard to the left while at full speed. Facing forward as she was, she realized at once what would happen and snapped Gambol Shroud into its pistol mode, with the back-pointing spike that formed its grappling hook.

The shaft broke in the next instant and the cab went skidding wildly away. Even as the wheels struck the curb, Blake hurled Gambol Shroud high and long as she twisted the ribbon around her left forearm. It hadn't even reached the edge of the building roof she'd flung it towards when she sprang forward, past her would-be killer to reach for Weiss, the falling body a silver-blue flash in the dark. Blake's right arm wrapped around the heiress's form, pulling Weiss hard against her as they swung out and away from the toppling cab. The growler smashed hard against a street lamp and the iron fence in front of a weathered old house; wood was torn to bits while the carriage lamps shattered, spilling flaming oil out over everything. The driver howled in terror as his long coat went up like a wick even as his body was crashing down, while his would-be victims sailed up and away, their bodies silhouetted against the light of the burning wreck.