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Neen suddenly had the sensation of travelling in all directions at once. It felt like her body was being dissolving. It was painless, but terrifying at the same time as she felt her mind detach from her physical form and then also slowly disintegrate to nothingness.
Then as suddenly as it started the sensation stopped and in a blue flash of light she found herself hovering mid air in the middle of a wide city street. Sliver hovered to her left and Heliodor stood to her right just as they had in the shack. It was approaching dawn but the street lights were off, which left everything in semidarkness. She felt a little dazed and let herself drift back to the ground. At the same time Heliodor fell to his knees.
"Are you ok?" asked Neen.
"It's teleportation sickness. I need a few minutes to rest," mumbled Heliodor, sweating like he had just run a marathon.
A tormented groan suddenly echoed out along the street behind them. Neen spun around instantly, drawing her blessed pistol as she did so. Sliver followed suit, but instead drew his sword. In front of them was the library of Adarna, an ancient fortress like stone building. It stood in complete contrast to the more modern office blocks that filled the remainder of the street.
In front of the library was a large crowd of undead who were clambering relentlessly over each other to get to the heavy metal doors that led into the library. Several huge zombie orcs were amongst them, but the majority were formerly human and they each battered away in a rhythmic pounding of flesh against metal. Despite their relentless determination the doors held firm.
"Looks like we are going to need another way in," said Sliver.
At the sound of his voice one of the undead orcs turned towards them and let out a deathly howl. Suddenly all of the undead were staring at them.
"Damn it! I should have anticipated this," gasped Heliodor as he tried unsuccessfully to stand. The undead started ambling in their direction en mass.
"Get up, we have to move!" urged Neen.
"I...I can't. I need more time."
"Great! What now?" cursed Sliver.
Neen pulled the trigger on her blessed pistol and dropped the two nearest zombies in quick succession. As soon as the bullets made contact the zombies each let out a chilling howl before disintegrating into a cold black mist as their souls were returned permanently to the abyss.
Satisfied with the result Neen holstered her weapon again momentarily and hovered above Heliodor. She grabbed one of the pouches from her belt and took out a pinch of sparkling silver dust. She mumbled the words of a spell and sprinkled it onto Heliodor's forehead. As soon as the dust touched his skin his head started to become transparent. The effect quickly spread across his entire form until he was completely invisible.
"We will try and lead them away. You have about three minutes before the spell wears off. Then you are on your own, so you had better get those legs moving!" ordered Neen.
She stowed her pouch again and drew her gun once more. She started floating down the street away from the now invisible Heliodor, disintegrating several undead as she went.
Sliver followed more slowly, hovering just above the pursuing mob, darting down amongst them to strike at them with his sword then quickly dashing back out of their reach again. Those that fell to his blade disintegrated into same black mist as they dropped, much to Sliver's satisfaction. It was almost like it was a game to him and he even started to use some more extravagant moves as though he were showing off for her.
The two were able to slowly draw the crowd of zombies away from the library, but as they went more undead seemed to be attracted into the throng. Soon they started coming from all directions and they risked being surrounded. An undead female half blood elf suddenly came charging at Neen from a side street. The half blood moved much quicker and more aggressively than the human zombies and she had to move fast to avoid her thrashing hands and gnashing teeth. She spiralled upwards firing downwards as she did so, disintegrating the half blood as she passed by.
Neen looked back down the street to see that Heliodor had rematerialised and was now on his feet and shuffling shakily over to the library. She expected him to head for the now vacant front doors, but instead he went around the corner of the building to the entry of a side alley and gestured for them to follow him.
Neen flew high above the growing crowd and emptied an entire clip into them in a frenzy of disintegration. Sliver followed behind her spinning like a tornado right through them, with Tathra slashing in all directions at once. Between them they had taken out two dozen or more, yet there were now more flooding the street than they had started against. It was a relentless torrent of death and Neen began to feel the unnatural cold creeping into her bones again. She could not stand it and accelerated to the alleyway.
She stopped at the entrance as she waited for Sliver to catch up. She looked back down the filling street with dismay. How the hell were they supposed to fight an entire city even with enchanted weapons? She snapped in a new clip and pointed her pistol right at Sliver's head as he arrived next to her.
"I never should have taken this job Sliver, you ass hat!" she said angrily. His eyes widened as he saw her fingers put pressure on the trigger. As she squeezed she tilted her gun just to his left and killed another zombie, as it came charging out of the building opposite, with a shot right between the eyes.
Sliver looked behind him just in time to see it splatter into black mist with an ungodly howl. He spun back around and followed Neen into the alleyway angrily. He swooped passed her shouldering her hard as he went by. He came to a stop beside a fire escape mid way into the alley. Heliodor was already scaling it and urging them to follow. Sliver turned towards Neen as she caught up.
"I never forced you to do anything, you took this on because you love it, because you like the money!" he said pointing an accusing finger at her.
"I was a thief, you made me a killer!" she retorted as they flew up beside the fire escape to the roof.
"What?" said Sliver stopping in mid flight. "Is this about your first job?"
"It's about everything!" she yelled. "I just wanted to make enough money to...and now everything is screwed up! Don't you even comprehend what we have done? The blood you put on my hands with this?"
"Grow up! If it wasn’t us then it would have been someone else working for that damned orc wizard. Don't you give me that bullshit about me making you into a killer either! Nobody forced you to take on that first job. You love the thrill and the danger and you always have. You are a natural born killer Neen, you just don't want to admit it, all I did was give you the opportunity!"
"Opportunity! You used us all to get what you really wanted and you dropped us all into the shit while you did it! The only opportunity you gave me was to survive or die!"
"Yes and you learned a valuable lesson about yourself. Just like me Neen you will do whatever it takes to survive no matter who gets hurt. That's the reason you have never let me sleep with you. You're not afraid of me Neen, even though you should be, you are afraid that you are too much like me."
Neen was so livid she was speechless for a moment and could only manage what she hoped was the world's coldest ever death stare. It must have been pretty good because Sliver's hands moved slowly to rest on his own guns warily as he stared back at her. He had touched a very raw nerve and she wanted to rip the skin from his face. The problem was...
"Maybe you're right Sliver, maybe I am just like you," she said through clenched teeth. "So from now on you should watch your back!"
The pair flew the rest of the way to the roof in silence, watching each other warily. At the top they found Heliodor taking the cover off a modern air conditioning duct that was jutting out of the ancient stone roof and looking completely out of place.
"Have you two quite finished with your lovers spat?" asked Heliodor impatiently. His question was met with angry silence and dark glares from the pair of them. "This place used to be impossible to get into when those main doors were locked. They are magically
sealed, a modern day tank round wouldn't even scratch them. Thank goodness that these days everyone wants air conditioning."