Well, the end of the fight, at least.

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No one moved, not even after Anne hit the ground. She was a tactician without par. She might look like she was in trouble, but surely this was just a ruse to make Ace overconfident. Any minute now, she would sit up, laugh, and throw a lightning bolt at the brat. Even as the dog continued to savage her, moving from her throat to gnaw on one shoulder, still no one could believe what had happened. It was outside the realm of possibility that she could be beaten by so weak an attack. Not her, not someone who spoke of being a master assassin, a killer without equal. Anne was not the sort of person to lose a fight, and if, by some small chance she might not win she still would have fought.

But Anne had never been a master assassin. That had been Kiley, and in giving up the need to see herself as a killer she had given up many of the rituals and exercises that had once allowed her to be the best of the best. Had she given herself time to retrain, time to reacquaint herself with the demon that lurked inside, then there is no doubt that she would not have gone down so quickly. But she trust instead in her reputation, forgetting how hard she had needed to fight to maintain it, and in her reflexes, and those were what had lost the battle for her. She had forgotten how to think in battle. Had she been able to deflect the first salvo then it is likely that the ability that had lain dormant for the past few years would have awakened. But it was not to be.

The first person who actually comprehended that Anne had lost was Ace. She stood, waiting and waiting for the attack to come, the attack that she knew would come but never did. Seconds drifted by like hours, each portion of time an eternity while she anticipated what was to come. Watching Anne, watching her dog, and waiting. All until she noticed something, something small, something nearly insignificant. Anne's hands, which had been pushing at the dog, trying to push it off of her, the hands she had been watching for clues of what was to come next, had fallen to the ground. The fingers still tried to dig in the ground, fingernails scrabbling weakly against the dirt, but there was nothing in then now for her to fear.

Ace lifted one hand from its guard position and placed it delicately before her mouth. A giggle escaped her, then another, and then she sat down hard as her knees grew weak beneath her. Laughing like a maniac, she lifted her head to look at the roof above and guffawed until the tears rolled down her face. This was too rich. She had feared someone who had fallen faster than a feather dropped from waist high. She had thought that killing Anne would be hard, but it was so easy. The irony grabbed hold of her and filled her with more mirth then she could physically contain.

Ace's laughter broke the spell that held Knives immobilized. Without conscious thought he found himself at Anne's side, falling to his knees, hands reaching out to the horror that he could hardly believe. Some part of his mind threw the dog off. He didn't pay enough attention to his actions to know what he did, but he flung the dog away with enough force that when it hit the wall eighty feet away the skin burst and blood splattered and poured down from the point of impact.

His hands were drawn to the mess that remained of her throat. Blood still pulsed weakly from the severed veins and a high, shrill whistle indicated that she still tried to breathe. Her mouth opened and closed, shaping words that she no longer had the ability to put voice to. A romantic would be irked to learn that they were curses, and not terms of endearment to her stricken lover, but there you have it. Her right hand came up and grasped his sleeve, her eyes fighting past the haze of pain just long enough to see him there. The curses stilled, and she mouthed, "I'm sorry," then tried to say nothing more.

He said nothing, no soft words of encouragement, no lies that things were going to be okay. Softly, he drifted his right hand over her face, closing her eyes.

Then she quit breathing, and her heart quit pumping.

The room seemed to eat the sound in it, sucking the energy from the sound waves, making the space seem deathly quiet even when it wasn't. Ace's laughter still pealed from her, her tears still falling past her ears to moisten her hair. Effie whispered a denial over and over again, her throat so tight that she could force no more sound past it, even had she been aware that she was saying anything.

Then there was the scrape of fabric against the ground, of shoes sliding in the dust as Knives carefully gathered Anne in his arms and arose. She dangled so gracelessly from his grasp, arms and legs swaying without volition as he turned towards the door. Her head was rested so carefully against his shoulder, positioned and cradled in a way that the gaping wound did not show. Save for the blood that covered them both she might have just been sleeping.

Knives turned and slowly stepped his way out of the room, his gaze not resting on anyone there, not seeing anyone as he carefully made his way to the exit. Ace ceased laughing and called after him, "I'm still available. Maybe if you beg prettily enough I'll let you come back." Her tone was singsong, the words oddly blank of malice.

He said nothing, not even a tightening of the muscles in his back to indicate that he heard her, or that he cared at all. He passed beyond the threshold to the hallway and the darkness there swallowed him up.

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Sorry about not updating. I wasn't being sadistic, just sick. After work on Friday I came home and pretty much passed out, and yesterday saw me pretty much not moving from my bed. I tried just surfing the web for a bit but sitting up was too much work.

I'm better today, though. And come on, did you think that I'd really end it like that? That abrupt?