Page 69 of Elven Shadow

The troll in the corduroy suit and newsboy cap sucked on his teeth, looking quickly back and forth between the devastated Cruorcian kneeling in front of his severed magical bits and their relatively useless leader of a Cruorcian still casting his indecipherable spell on the poor woman locked in a terrified stupor with that smokey clown laughing in her face.

“Since when has there been a fucking elf in Chicago?” he snapped.

“Since right now,” Rebecca replied flatly. “As far as you’re concerned.”

She stepped forward and brought the deadly sharp point of her spear up beneath the Cruorcian’s chin as he knelt in front of the broken pieces of himself. With the tip of her spear, she forced the guy to look up at her, careful not to skewer him through the face in the process.

“I wouldreallylove to know the story behind that fun new toy of his over there,” she told him, jerking her head toward Boyd.

The warlock’s gaze barely flickered in that direction. “Boyd?”

“Jesus Christ,” the Cruorcian snarled. “Do I have to do everything myself?”

His minions didn’t answer, though, seeing as they were all caught up by the very real and present threat of a genuine Bloodshadow Elf holding them all at spearpoint.

Which, of course, the Cruorcian didn’t notice until he’d completely turned away from the woman in the air to eye Rebecca.

When he did, the surprise of seeing his decimated Cruorcian kneeling beside three other majorly terrified goons-for-hire made him back away from the human altogether. He lifted both hands in concession before growling, “What do youwant?”

“Well, it started with just wanting to know where that lady’s clown came from and what you’re trying to do with it. But now I’m feeling a little ignored and kinda pissed off. So how do you think we’re gonna fix that?”

“Shit, lady,” he said, his poor attempt at a snigger catching in his now-breathless throat. “Are you for real?”

Rebecca’s smile twitched. “Last time I checked. Now let’s talk about how you think we can rectify this little…problem you fellas got yourselves into tonight.”

The small gang’s leader and the other three dudes still on their feet eyed each other warily. The Cruorcian, however, was too wrapped up in the pain and horror of his severed magic to be of much use to anyone now. Which was the point.

She waited for what felt like a sufficient length of time for anyone to offer a few suggestions. No one did.

If these guys hadn’t learned to think as quickly on their feet as they tossed around attacks, that was their own damn fault.

Rebecca wasn’t a babysitter.

“That’s fine,” she said. “Here’smysuggestion. I’m gonna give you guys two choices. First, you can hand over that fun little toy making the human do…whatever she’s doing over there. I heard you talking about testing it out, and I gotta admit, Ireallywanna see what else it can do.

“So you can make it easy on yourselves, hand it over, and save everyone the trouble,or…you can try to keep it, fight me for it, and I’ll end up taking it from you anyway. Your call.”

Now that she’d given an actual choice, which was the most she could offer, Boyd seemed to regain his mental faculties enough to scoff at it. “You’ve totally fucking lost it.”

“And you’re not the first person to tell me that,” Rebecca quipped. “The jury’s still out. So what’s it gonna be?”

With a snort, he gestured to his stupefied underlings. “This is the part where you learn to stay out of other people’s business. If you want what’s ours, you’re gonna have to take it from us.”

His buddies seemed surprised by this being their leader’s final decision, but they didn’t argue with them.

Rebecca grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Then, lifting the tip of her Bloodshadow spear, she pointed it directly at Boyd and winked. “Let’s dance.”

The little gang shuffled on their feet, shooting each other confused looks.

The Cruorcian in charge let out a not-so-encouraging battle cry and leapt toward her first, leading the way.

The rest of them, minus the Cruorcian, recovered quickly from their shock and surprise.

Then they dove after their head idiot, flickering magical attacks in varying colors bursting at their fingertips—whirling fireballs and crackling bolts of light, blades and whips and explosions and whatever else they’d trained themselves to drum up for a fight like this.

It didn’t escape Rebecca’s notice that Boyd still held tightly to the unidentified object controlling the human woman and her clown, refusing to put it away even for a fight.

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