Chapter 10: A Short Pause Before the…

Author's Note: A scholar of medieval warfare has informed me that chain mail is useless against a really good stab, so that ninja that Chloe stabbed in the spine should have died instead of going "chink." Obviously, the ninja was wearing a limited form of splint mail with metal plates along the spine. Remember: there are no errors, only retroactive explanations.

Out of the shadows of the night rose a shapeless fear.

It did a shaky-shaky dance, scattering shiny droplets everywhere.

"Teflon," thought Chloe. "What would I do without you?" She pondered this. "Die of pneumonia, I guess."

She slid the fork, her two-tined talisman, back in its place of honour by her right hand, and then lashed the hated milk to her belt. "Home," she thought. "I will get home, no matter what!" She stalked, determined, into the underbrush.

Squelch.

She cringed. Of course, the boots just had to be wet, now didn't they? No, no need for steps like the footfalls of the wolf on the snow-covered tundra, now is there? "No time for that," she admonished herself. "Adapt. Maybe if you did it like…" Squish. "How about…" Squirt. "Uh, maybe…?" Squink. "Oh, hell and damnation…"

The shapeless fear shuffled, limped, cursed, and (above all else) squelched through the forest, its fiery determination thoroughly extinguished by the bucket of Bad Luck. "Stupid boots," she thought. "Stupid milk. Stupid, stupid Altena and her stupid jam sandwich!"

She whirled at something in the corner of her eye, tripped, and did a face-plant into a tree.

"Stupid…trees." She sighed. "What next, dare I ask?" she asked the heavens.

Two thugs trampled by. "See, and when the watch breaks, it means — HEY! YOU!"

"Damn it!"

She stabbed them. A lot.

"That's better," she noted. "Not by much, though."

She crashed over a fence and blinked in the hellish streetlight. "Cover!" She hobbled down a few alleys, turning at random. A quick peek into the street…all clear. "Finally. Now, what street am I on?"

A man marched around the corner and bounced off her. "Sorry," she said.

"Glk!' he said.

She froze. The night went inexplicably quiet, as if forty-two people were holding their breath.

She looked over her shoulder.

Greaser, his snout protected by some bloody socks and forty armed men, looked back.

He made a decision. "Ghit 'er! GHIT 'ER NOW!" he screeched.

Blades sang. Hammers clicked.

Chloe literally flew up the side of the nearby building. Bullets followed.

"Okay," she thought, panting on the rooftop. "I'm 10 stories up. That's probably bought me 10 minutes."

"SEEL T' AREA! GHIT EFFYMUDDY EER NOW!" Greaser screeched.

"Five minutes," she noted. "And ow, ow, ow, that was not good for the shoulder. Shut up. Stand, move, get some distance!"

She hobbled along, jumped, flailed wildly as she noticed the next building was several meters lower than she'd expected, and bounced to an undignified stop.

Two violet-clad identical ninjas blinked at her surprise entrance.

So did Chloe. "Oh, for the love of…" she muttered.

They struck. She rolled, stopped just short of the edge, flipped to her feet, and drew.

"Gnh!"

Pain forced the knife from her hand and buckled her knees. She clutched the shoulder. It was slick with blood; felt like the stitches had ripped open (among other things). The arm was dead, she realized. "And so am I."

She was wrong — for now, at least. "They're…not attacking? Just watching?"

The women held out their blades. Slowly, and in perfect unison, each drew a vial from the folds of her costume, opened it, and poured precious, luminous death upon them. A flourish to spin off the excess, and they were ready.

"Ah. Tradition." Chloe, after picking up her fallen weapon with her good hand, stood shaky on her feet in a low stance, knife hand held high, the other down low beneath her cloak. "So," she thought. "This is it? Time for a last stand?"

They rushed her.

She spun.

A hail of darts met them from beneath her cloak.

"Maybe later," she thought. She jumped off the building.