There were five faces looking at her with doubt, confusion, and concern. Three of them were old human men, one was the hunched elf Clementine met earlier, one was a young woman. The four males were dressed in more elaborate clothing, darker earth tones and greens in whorling patterns. By contrast the woman was dressed in a simple common tunic of faded blue pants, plain leather shoes, and a white shirt with a ruffled center just at the collar. Her blue hair tumbled freely past her shoulders and her eyes darted around her with a hint of grave nervousness. She raised a slender hand and bit her knuckle like she was trying not to cry.
Clementine turned her eyes to the men who, by contrast, all wore sour faces and crossed their arms defensively.
"None of you know why you're here." Clementine giggled and drew out her stiletto, the gesture sent shockwaves of alarm through the five. Traveling armed everywhere was one thing. Drawing a weapon? Another thing entirely.
Her predatory smile was accompanied by faint, pleasant breathing that picked up its pace the way it had the previous evening with her last disposable lover. She tapped the tip against her cheek, "The reason is that one of you is going to suffer terribly, and I just… I don't know which one!" She cackled, standing in front of the door, the five began to rise.
She thrust her stiletto out from her, pointing her arm straight as an iron bar with the stiletto as its tip, at each of them. "Sit! Go on! Be good dogs!" She cackled and seeing the blood hunger in her eyes, they slowly took their seats. The blue haired young woman shook with the greatest fear, her supple breasts rose and fell in panic, while the men opposite her at the long table were darting their eyes around, looking for an escape that didn't exist.
"One of you has had a hand in murdering dead rats… ah, I mean dead 'brats'." She giggled at her own joke, savoring the distress and shocked, open mouthed stares with almost orgasmic bliss running through her body. "See, all the dead brats had some kind of magic talent, all of that information ended up 'here', and from here it ended up with some Zuranon remnants. Only you five," she bobbed her outstretched stiletto up and down at each in turn, "had access to the records where those were kept. Maybe you thought nobody would notice, maybe you thought nobody would care." Clementine shrugged, "God knows I don't, but hey, a girl's gotta work, and what can I say? I like doing the penetrating." She licked her lips and watched as their faces turned absolutely pale when her cackling laugh washed over them again like water from a bath's public use buckets.
"You worked hard, clearly." She looked at them with mock sympathy, "but my sister… and I will never admit this, is very good at finding links, a few pieces of information… now one of you is waiting to be more exposed than a whore on discount day." Clementine looked around at their faces, and the blue haired woman spoke up.
It was a quiet, mousey voice, "I didn't do it… I'm just a secretary. I get what they tell me to get… I'd never, never do anything like that… I swear."
Clementine looked the girl up and down with clinical, predatory eyes. Years of experience interrogating information brokers and suspects and various random potential targets ran through her mind. It was enough. The short haired blonde agent came closer, rolling her hips like she was approaching a lover, the men opposite the girl glanced at the door, and Clementine read their minds.
"Please, run if you think you can get away from me." She giggled and gestured to the door with one of her weapons as she moved behind the blue haired youth. They chose not to move.
"I didn't… I'm just a secretary…" She whimpered and looked down at the table, hiding her hands beneath it, her eyes darted to her older colleagues with a desperate pleading that went unanswered in their own fearful stares.
Clementine stood behind the girl, she sheathed a stiletto and laid a hand down on the girl's left shoulder. "You really didn't, did you?"
"I didn't… I swear I didn't…" She sniffled and shook her head.
"Too frightened, too cowardly, to do something that could get children killed…" Clementine slowly lowered her face to the girl's ear and brought her other arm around her, holding her stiletto up to the girl's neck just behind her chin. "But you know something, don't you?"
She whimpered lightly, "Did you know what you were helping?" The tip of the stiletto pressed into the woman's skin enough to make a slight indentation.
Clementine's predatory eyes swept over the four while the girl desperately tried to shake her head. "I'm just a secretary, I just follow orders…"
"And what orders were those?" Clementine asked with a half cackle into the young woman's ear.
"T-To make copies! That's all! That's all! I didn't know what for, but… but I had to stay late sometimes to do it! Not very late, but it was always when work was nearly done and…" The young woman raised her hand and pointed to the stooped over elf.
"H-He, every time I-we got the test results, h-he had me make an extra copy for himself! I didn't know what for, though! I swear! I swear!" The young woman shrieked and the elf croaked out denials as he stood up.
"I didn't do anything! Those were official copies for official uses!" He exclaimed and glared at the blue haired secretary, his comrades stared at him in shock and answered in common...
"Bullshit!"
The elf stared from left to right at his human colleagues. "It's true!" He snapped, inching away from his chair and back toward the wall.
"Not a chance." One of the elder males uttered decisively, "No copies are needed elsewhere until we route talents and magic ability holders to the magic academy track, and 'I' handle that. You have absolutely no need of records of magic talented child test results!" His voice was creaky, but his fear and anxiety was gone and in its place was a rage.
"Oh, Hamno… what have you done? Why… why would you do this?" The old woman at his right hand asked him with a shaking in her voice that had nothing to do with her age. "We're your friends… if you needed money…"
"Friends?! You?! And money… you really think I'd sell out little human children for money?!" The stooped over elf spouted out with bile, "Why would I care about something petty like money?! I did it because of hatred and love… money is the least of it!" He snarled as the unintended provocation shot him to the heart. "Love of human pain, human death, and hatred for human life! Your race abused me for centuries, bending my back beneath piles of bricks to build your roads and cities and buildings! You made me stoop in fields to harvest food for your bellies! You tore out my voice… and now that you can't anymore, you say 'let us be friends?!'" The one identified as Hamno spat his bile, and only too late realized he'd lost his temper.
Hatred flashed in his eyes and he glared around the room at the humans who surrounded him, "You're no friends, you're no comrades, you're just human filth and killing human children is no different than exterminating baby rats before they can spread their infestation!"
Their wounded, horrified expressions met only a face of venomous hate, save for Clementine, who wore a very happy smile before she moved. "[Agility Boost][Lesser Strength][Paralyzing Palm]" She uttered her arts and in the span of time from the end of one eyeblink and the start of the next, she was across the table, her body moved like it always had. The fluidity of motion was like the caress of a skilled lover, the way the air raced over her exposed skin, strokinging her belly and kissing her lips, it was hard not to smile, and so she did.
The old elf had just a moment to catch her blissful human face drawing in close as if to embrace him, and then her palm slammed him like a hammer. He felt his ribs crack and snap, his stooped back snap erect and his own body flew just as hers landed on the floor.
He flew back into the wall, and it shattered, an elf sized hole appearing where a solid wall once been, and on the floor on the other side, the guilty elf lay staring up at the ceiling unable to move.
Clementine walked with her catlike prowl through the hole, rolling her hips and bowing mockingly to those who stared agog at the incomprehensible scene.
The sound of rubble and plaster crumbling and clattering, not to mention the sound of his terrible slam against the hard floor, drew numerous such looks, prompting Clementine to grin mockingly. "Found yer kiddie killer, well, one of them, anyway. I'll be leaving now. Nobody go too far, and…" She savored the moment of contradictory irony… 'You all play nice. Or maybe I'll get to come play again.'
She cackled insanely, throwing her head back and laughing as she drew out a message scroll and contacted her sister. 'I got one. Get me back, send one of those blasted gate things.'
'Right away. And… sister?' Myne replied after a moment's pause.
'Yeah, what, bitch?' Clementine asked without bothering to still her mocking laugh.
'I got mine first, so I win, but still… you did a good job, for a bloodslut bitch, anyway.' Myne answered before cutting off the message.
Clementine swore while the gate opened, and she dragged her paralyzed prey through to the other side.