Thursday, January 6, 2022 - TriBeCa, New York City, United States

It was perhaps too soon to go out but Ella felt pretty great actually. She had been in bed as long as she could and was practically bouncing.

Charlie and Jade both relented when she started doing burpies. Her ribs felt fine. Her face had some fine mottling but had mostly healed. There wasn’t too much time left until school started again and she wanted to do some preparation for this “dragon”.

She had been attacked and almost killed three times now and she knew that she couldn’t keep playing those odds. So she restocked on pepper spray and some other odds and ends. Plus a long awaited item.

Charlie and Jade stuck with her tight. Their concern was more than a little touching and Ella thought that if it had been five years ago they would have had a cry together or something like that. They had just about moved into Charlie’s at this point and Charlie had even talked about making it permanent. She said the place was too empty for her.

Another thing Ella hadn’t known about Charlie was how much she studied when nobody was around. “My secret is out. We can’t all be geniuses like you Ella. Especially not with hardbodies like yours.” And she licked her lip’s lasciviously.

Ella had gotten used to Charlie’s wildly over the top flirting. It helped that Charlie was straight as an arrow. And her boyfriend, Connor, came over every so often but was discrete and polite when they did run into him. But Charlie wasn’t exactly quiet at night which was no surprise to either Jade or Ella.

Both of them had started running with her sometimes. They usually flaked after the first mile or two, especially if Ella was running interval sprints in the snow. But Charlie had taken to lifting with Ella and was surprisingly strong. They both refused to get in the ring although Craig kept needling his sister, but she just said no.

If anything Ella was feeling a bit claustrophobic with her friends always around, and so she noticed that she was being followed sometimes. Sometimes out of the corner of her eye she would see someone that didn’t feel quite right. The magic that had infused her body was tapering off, as if the initial rush was leading to some new equilibrium. But she flared her eyes a few times and finally caught the barest hint of a scorpion tail around a corner.

It was just a few days before school resumed. Ella had the music cranked on her headphones while she studied financial calculus1. The math wasn’t that complicated and she pretty much saw how you would model the market outcomes. She even started thinking about more advanced versions of the algorithms and papers she could write about them until she remembered this was all just preparation to meet who she had come to dub Scary Banker in her head.

The hotel across from Charlie’s had lovely tufted leather couches, warm ambience, and pretty good burgers.2 All pretty solid for studying. But she wasn’t so relaxed she failed to catch someone sitting at another table out of the corner of her eye. She waited until a waitress was distracting them and shined her eyes to confirm the scorpion lower body she knew was there.

She took a brief glance around and didn’t spot anyone else suspicious.

Now or never, she thought. She stretched her arms up and stood up; Dropped enough cash to cover her tab. And started to walk to the back of the hotel lobby towards the bathroom.

It was midday and the light off the snow was intense so she had a good excuse to slip on her sunglasses which let her keep her eyes at a low burn.

She had realized that when her eyes were lit, she wasn’t actually seeing with them, but she could sense some things, things involved with magic and so she could tell when the scorpion person got up to follow her. She changed directions in a slow meandering way and head outside and then picked up the pace around the corner to Canal Street.

There, in the hustle of Chinese street vendors she quickly worked her way over to a mostly empty alley, this time it was her turn.

The creature paused around the corner of the alley, and Ella silently said come on, come on.

Then the creature rounded the corner, and Ella dropped from the fire escape to land behind him with a thud. She almost lost her balance on the slick snow but held on for a bit while she drew a bead with her finally-legal pistol3. Right at center mass and ready.

The woman spun around and then regarded her for a moment before dropping to the ground, forehead pressed to the snow, heedless of the slush and cold. Ella could hear the same refrain about “Innana” and “service”.

“Get up” she growled, keeping the small green dot on the groveling creature in front of her.

She stood up and faced her. Her features were odd and angular, her skin a slightly redder color than Ella’s golden brown. Her eyes were dark black and she had long hair, braided intricately.

“I have no idea who you are… or why you are following me. But…” and then it clicked for Ella. This woman was the same one as the one in the alley. Ella almost pulled the trigger right there.

Ella used her left hand to reach into her parka pocket and pulled out an already looped zip tie. “Put this around your wrists and pull it tight with your teeth. I want it to be absolutely tight. And if I see your tail come out, I’ll put you down.”

The green bead stayed centered on the woman’s chest. Ella watched it wave erratically as she tried to not tremble. Her eyes glowed and the crown felt felt heavy on her head.

The scorpion woman slowly reached down and picked up the zip tie and did as Ella had asked. She turned around and put her tied together hands behind her head and Ella slowly approached, keeping her eyes out for any sudden transformation. She yanked on the tail of the zip tie hard and immediately stepped into the back of the woman’s knee and then another kick into her back to send her one the ground hard.

Then she spun around to find another one, a man this time with similar features, behind her. And already kneeling with his forehead down and muttering the same sort of chant, but this time in a language she did not recognize.

“Get up.” And she kept the gun on him with her right hand and her left hand began to glow. She didn’t have another zip tie accessible and she was about to make the hard choice.

It was perhaps a bit contrary, but the realization she could do it, that she was willing to pull the trigger if necessary — something she had wondered about — caused her to pause.

“There is no need for the gun.”

Ella dodged to the side and looked back to see the woman having rolled onto her back with her hands still bound in front of her.

The woman nodded, “Good instincts to dodge before you even look.” She then kipped up to her feet.

“We will not harm you. Earlier… it was a mistake. I promise you, Blessed Innana.”

But Ella didn’t relax and kept her aim on the one in front of her and slowly traversed around him to have both of them in her view.

“You keep saying that name, Innana. Who is that and what exactly is going on?”

“You are her. Our patron goddess. The one destined to bring magic back. May we serve the Blessed Inanna.” And she did something incredible - she kneeled and prostrated herself before pushing up with her knees and jumping back to her feet. Ella wasn’t sure whether that was more impressive, or the fact that she didn’t even care about the dirty slushy and snow that now covered her. Her hands where the zip tie had them together were turning pale from lack of bloodflow.

“Okay. We are going to talk. But… he leaves.” She waved the gun back over to the other one who was still kneeling. If the woman had been graceful, this man had just scooted around in a circle in his knees to still be bowing in the snow, but towards her.

The woman barked something in a language that Ella had never heard before but somehow she understood, “Leave now you fool. Innana has spoke. Blessed is she who shall redeem us.”

Thr man stood up, took one look at her and slowly backed away to the other end of the alley before turning and disappearing around the corner.

Ella pocketed the gun, keeping a tight grip on it. She let her eyes fade and motioned with her free hand for the woman to walk ahead of her.

The woman brought her hands to her face and then bit right through the zip tie and shook her hands to move her circulation. And then she walked past Ella and asked, “Where to, Honored One?” without looking back.

Stochastic Calculus for Finance II by Steven Shreve ↩︎

The Roxy Hotel in TriBeCa. They actually do have a pretty good burger. Maybe not S-tier, but A-tier for sure. ↩︎

CZ P10C. ↩︎