Saturday, January 29, 2022 - Miami, Florida, United States

“Now what?” asked Ella.

“Well we aren’t staying here,” said Charlie eyeing the drow corpse.

“Shit. I have no idea what to do with a dead body.”

“We will take it with us. Let’s clean up this mess and get out of here. We can’t hide any evidence at that house but we can do something here. Rifle the drug cabinet to make it look like it was junkies robbing the place and let’s mop up the blood.”

“Charlie, the SUV has fucking bullet holes in it. How will you return it to the rental?”

Charlie smiled a bit, “I lucked out. I was heading to the airport when I saw this guy with a for sale sign in his Suburban. And I had the driver chase him down and I bought it from him right there.”

“At 10pm on a Friday?” Ella said dubiously.

“I did overpay a bit. And honestly I think it was stolen anyway. The guy was shifty as all hell.”

Ella thought about it. She was forcing her brain to speed up through the exhaustion and the others noticed her eyes glowing a bit.

“We were lucky. The drow was incompetent. We didn’t have an escape route planned and no ability to clean up after ourselves. Our planning sucked.” Ella was shaking and sweating.

“Ella, stop. You don’t have to figure it all out now.” Charlie said soothingly.

Ella looked at her, lost, and then came back to herself and smiled tiredly. “You are right. Let’s get out of here.”

It took them two hours to clean up the mess they had left. They bleached the floors to get rid of blood. They scrubbed everything wearing gloves and had people rotate rooms to find things they had missed. The rug in the welcome room was a hopeless cause and they wrapped the drow body in it.

They cleaned each other up as much as possible and made their way to the safehouse where they crawled into bed still caked in filth and blood and shoe polish.

Ella woke up to a light shining. The old fluorescent tube lights were on and bright, and she moaned in protest before she rolled over to go back to sleep and almost fell off the bunk bed that she was in.

“Huh?” Was all she managed.

“Wake up Ella. It is two in the afternoon. Everyone else is awake.”

Ella blearily opened her eyes and saw that was true. Etana was freshly showered and his hair was still wet. Charlie looked, well, like Charlie. Ready to drop everything and go to a club right now. Tauthe was clean as well and was at the kitchenette.

Davcina was still dirty and sitting in a chair at the table drinking what looked like coffee.

Adra must have been in the shower.

“Wait, why am I the last one? Shouldn’t Adra or Tauthe get to be the last. They both got shot.”

“We woke up first. It hurts like hell!” said Adra.

“I was hungry,” said Tauthe simply.

Ella crawled out of bed and hit the floor with a thump. She felt terrible. Hungover.

Adra came out of the shower and Davcina went in.

Ella looked at her bed, it had dried blood and dirt on it. The pillow had shoe polish smeared across it. And she would absolutely crawl back in it if she could.

And she started to but Charlie nabbed her and handed her a cup of coffee.

Ella took a sip and almost spat it out. It was terrible. And Charlie had spiked it.

“Really?”

“Yep. It is after ten a.m. And frankly you all needed it.”

Ella looked over at Tauthe who gave her a thumbs up, “It’s true. We all drank it.”

Ella forced it down. The whiskey wasn’t bad but the coffee still had grounds in it. Together it was terrible.

But she did feel better after. And Charlie snickered when Ella poured another cup of coffee and looked around for the bottle of whiskey.

“Sorry hun. That was the last bit.”

Ella took a sip of the coffee: it was even worse without the whiskey.

They all sat companionably and eventually Davcina emerged from the bathroom toweling off her hair in the same long linen robes that everyone else wore.

Ella reluctantly stood up, but her desire to be clean won out and she grabbed a towel and robe from the rack and showered. Which felt amazing.

When she emerged, Adra flagged her and she walked over to the table.

Adra was talking to someone and it turned out to be Bahu. He was reporting the nights events in a formal tone on the speakerphone. The others stood around the table and Charlie was just one step away listening.

After he finished recounting the recovery of Davcina, he paused for a moment and then added, “The drow was after Ella, because she is Ekerri’s heir.” There was no hint of accusation in the voice. There didn’t need to be.

Ella leaned in to hear.

There was a sigh. “You guys weren’t supposed to know that, but I suppose it was unavoidable. Eleanor, are you there?”

Ella hesitated just briefly, “yes. I am here. I told them the truth about me being crowned. They deserved to know after it put them in danger.”

“And the civilian?”

“Ummm. Hi!” Charlie said brightly.

“What do we do with you?” And now there was a sense of boredom to Bahu’s voice. And that tone, Ella realized, was Bahu’s warning.

She was about to intervene and perhaps blow this whole thing open with some divine commands. But Tauthe beat her to the punch.

“She risked herself for me so nothing bad is going to happen to her. And… we haven’t broken any of the rules.”

“Yet,” said Bahu drily. “Charlotte Harris. Daughter of Wade and Amelia’s Harris. PhD candidate in the same physics program as our lovely Eleanor. Two arrests for substance abuse and one for vandalism, both quashed by your father. Blah, blah, blah… You can assume I know everything I guess. Welcome to a very select society. Your father won’t be able to pull you out of the fire.”

“If there aren’t dollar signs involved, my father doesn’t care. I won’t betray you. I already knew about Ella.”

Charlotte sounded strong but Ella could see she was nervous.

Fine, time for a tiny bit of divine guidance, for what it is worth. “Bahu. It is me, Ella. Charlie is my friend, and I would really like it if she was left alone.”

Bahu murmured something in Sumerian or maybe Akkadian and it sounded ritualistic, “Fine. Anyway, your group won’t be the first to get red on your weekend out. Good feasting, I always hated those shifty drow.”

After the call they all sat there drained.

Ella looked at the others and then the pot on the stove, “Charlie and I may order in.”