April 20, 2022 Maipú, Chile

Ella looked at the poor kid, he looked terrified. The light in his face washing it out, he looked tired. And Ella could sympathize with anyone having been caught up in this mess.

She motioned to Etana to lower his flashlight.

“Hey kid, I am going to cut off the zip tie on your hands. We aren’t going to hurt you. In fact I think we are going to be good friends.”

“Mierda!”

Ella shrugged, pulled her knife and cut off the zip tie. The boy rubbed his wrists. She motioned him over to sit in the van and with a shrug, he headed back in, she climbed in after him as did Etana.

Bahu got back into the front seat and Adra stood outside with Davcina.

“Look kid… I want that dagger. I am not going to pretend I don’t.” Ella started. And then decided this was ridiculous, she wasn’t going to kill some kid.

She pulled off her mask…

Seb knew he was in the shit when the kidnapper started pulling off her mask. They would never let him live after seeing their faces, he knew how this worked.

And then he saw her face, and she was, well, she was very, very pretty. Then he was very sure he was dead, because this wasn’t some well-armed street gang, this was something else.

The woman looked at him strangely and then holstered her gun.

“You want something to eat? ¿Tienes hambre?”

Her accent was typical American unlike the other man. He nodded yes and she handed over a power bar which he wolfed down. She handed him another and he made it disappear as fast.

“I think you have been running for a long time. From Donna?”

“Is she tall, spikey hair, pecas”

The other man, who still wore his mask translated for him, “freckles.” His voice was hoarse.

“Exactly.” And she pulled out her phone and pulled up a picture of her and the woman wearing boxing gloves standing together.

“This her?”

Seb nodded again. They looked friendly in that picture but why was she asking about her then?

“Hmmm… What do I tell you? Let’s start with this… I’m Ella. What’s your name?”

Seb thought about lying, but whoever these people were, they were dangerous and it didn’t matter anymore.

“Seb. Sebastian Gonzalez.”

“This woman, Donna, and I know one another. We both want the dagger.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you.” Ella frowned for a moment. “I really can’t tell you. But… Donna and I are not friends. And I am guessing since she has a bounty on you, you are not her friend either.”

“She killed my Papa,” Seb said flatly.

Ella gave a surprised glance at him and then her face softened with sadness. With sympathy. It had been the first time he had said it out loud. It felt like water in the desert after he had been running so long.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Seb got the impression she wanted to reach out and give him a hug which was crazy, she had kidnapped him and now was offering sympathy. It scared him how much he wanted that hug.

“They… my… my Papa, he used to work in the mines here in Chile part of the year.”

“In Atacama?” asked the masked person at the front of the van.

“Si. And then he came home. He seemed a bit happier than normal, still drinking a lot though. Then I came home from a soccer game, and this guy was sitting at my own table and the woman, she came home and had blood on her, and it was my Papa’s blood. They said he took something of theirs.”

Seb was lost in the past, it all coming out in a rush.

“I was going to kill them, but they knew it. And then they just walked away.”

“I spent a lot of time looking for it, and when I found the dagger, I knew it was the thing they wanted. I found it and a bunch of Chilean pesos, so I found a bus late at night and snuck on; It was heading over the mountains to Santiago. And I have been hiding…”

“And then Donna came to town and you were going to…” Ella asked.

“I was going to kill her with the dagger for my Papa. After she told me where the man is too so I can kill him.” His eyes were shut and they were leaking just a little bit.

Seb waited, to see what would happen. And when he opened his eyes and used his sleeve to brush his face off, he saw the others had removed their masks.

The man next to Ella was the most handsome man Seb had ever seen. The woman in front was plain, but almost motherly in her gentle smile.

“The man, was he very tall and thin. Looked like he could be a dead, homeless man?”

“Yes.”

“Kothin.” Ella said.

Ella thought about what Seb had said. He had been through a lot and he was a tough kid.

“Seb, believe me or not, giving me the dagger is more revenge than you could imagine.”

Seb didn’t believe her, she could see it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bahu said smoothly. “He is going to get his revenge.”

“Wait, what?” Ella asked.

They drove back to the hotel, they were about to abandon it for a safehouse they had found anyway, so it was no great loss to reveal it to Seb.

He sat and kept eating, but nervously, as he saw the number of people involved increase.

“We want to draw her out, and the best way to do it is to leak the location of the dagger and catch her when she comes to grab it,” Bahu said, like it was the simplest plan possible.

“Why? To kill her…” Ella looked nervously at Seb. “Look, I don’t like Donna, but I am not sure I am ready to kill her.”

“Idiot,” hissed Zaidu. “She has done far worse than what she did to that boy. You see an opportunity to remove an asset, you do it.”

“Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, capture her?” Ella tried.

“And do what? Torture her?” Zaidu said. Ella shuddered thinking of Ansheth. Zaidu thought her soft, and if that is what it took to be hard in Zaidu’s estimation, Ella wanted no part of it.

“I can try tricking her again,” Ella offered.

“Ella, you barely pulled it off last time. There is no chance that you will succeed again in other circumstances.” Bahu said, circumlocuting the issue with Seb there - that Ella’s illusion had only succeeded because of the dark garage and distractions.

“I want to kill her,” Seb said.

“Sharp ears,” said Zaidu.

“Come on…” Ella, Bahu, and Zaidu left the room after seating Seb at the television to watch old soccer games.

“Look - why can’t we just leave with the dagger? Let her waste time looking for it while we just walk away.”

“Because the boy isn’t going to tell you where it is without revenge. Will you lie to him?” Zaidu’s eyes were intense, disapproving.

“Fine, but with conditions.”

Two days later, Valparaiso, Chile

Djara took the pose of excitement when she heard the news. Finally, a lead on the dagger. She would find the dagger and bring it to God and He would make her a Matriarch among Matriarchs. Their people had slept so long, lost in the Kingdom of Mists where God had put them to await his awakening. And the world was so different now.

She regarded the humans in front of her with annoyance. They could not tell her emotion because they were blind fools and heretics. Soon she could begin cleansing their kind from the planet.

“Doña Donna, shall we go get the item?”

“Of course.” What a stupid question. They should have already been preparing. Mithre was already getting ready, he knew his Matriarch’s commands without words. “Two cars, eight total including me. Let’s go.”

They all ran to grab their guns, these police officers in their ridiculous uniforms. Mithre, disguised among them, went in one car and her in the other.

They drove to Valparaiso. The boy had been spotted sneaking around the docks, and the gang boss, a man called the Goat for some reason, had said he was trying to buy passage on a ship to Mexico.

When they got there, one of the Goat’s soldiers was there to point the way, the boy was waiting in the container stacks.

Djara felt her anticipation heighten. Soon God would be served. She could maybe go back north and kill the girl and her friends. Kothin had said she might, her use was over. She had survived the drow attack which had always been a fake, the ghul near her home should have had her, but had failed. The shooter in front of her apartment who was still unknown but Kothin said he would find out. And that didn’t count the attacks she herself had foiled as God’s enemies had revealed themselves.

Soon these humans would be brought to heel, and the drow could resume their war against the Ascendants.

She left Mithre and his group at the entry to the docks to look for problems. Perhaps she would allow him a mate from one of the lesser women.

And then it was time, the gang soldier had led them this far and his phone rang, he stopped and indicated that the boy was right around the corner.

She and her three officers rounded the corner to see the boy sitting there in-between two rows of containers at the end of an alley. She paused to savor it, the hunt was over. And then she took the pose of wariness.

There was something wrong. The image wavered and then vanished and instead of the boy, a woman stood there.

“Hello Donna,” Ella said.

Djara growled slightly and pulled her gun and fired, the bullet went flying through the image and it faded. She heard some movement and numerous soldiers on top of the containers revealed themselves.

“Your other squad is already down. You are covered from an elevation and are dead men if you move. Put down your arms.” Bahu called down.

Djara looked around, and saw the gang member who had led them here with a rifle pointed at their group from cover along with several others at a variety of elevations.

“You’ve lost, Donna. You lost a long time ago and didn’t know it. Put down your gun and live.”

And then she heard a young voice yell, “No, kill her!” and she traced the wail to see the young boy, Seb, above too. And he was holding the dagger in his hand.

Death for her God was nothing to fear. And her progeny were her future service and lived on. She grabbed a gun and pulled one of the Carabineros in front of her for cover and fired on the boy. If she could get him to drop the dagger, perhaps…

Bullets ripped through her from each angle, many getting caught in the body of the officer, but enough got through to drive her backwards and then to fall, dead.

Ella moved out from in front of Seb, where she had moved the moment he had revealed himself. She dropped her mag and loaded another but the enemies were all down. Her ears still rung, the staccato noises of gunfire having echoed through and around the stacked containers.

Was this kill easier than the last, she wondered? Was it having the convenient excuse of protecting Seb that made it easier. Was she a sociopath and hadn’t known it? It bothered her that it didn’t bother her to see Donna, someone she knew if she didn’t exactly like, down there, dead by her hand.

“What happened to her face?” Seb whispered. He had crept up to the dead body of Donna. Whatever magic disguised her had reverted, perhaps the item having been destroyed in the gunfire. Ella hopped down from the container, landing balanced on both legs and walked over, her rifle at the ready.

Donna had taken two shots to the head, one had gouged the side of her head, taking part of an ear with it, the other through her cheek. Her eyes were open and staring, her angled, elfin eyes. Seb stared at Donna’s face.

Ella heard additional shots ring out and she ran towards them. When she got there, she saw the four others with Donna, bodies sprawled forwards where they had been executed. One of them had a faint whiff of magic she could see.

Zaidu was putting an extra bullet in each of them. Ella almost yelled at him to stop, but he looked up at her as if daring her. She swallowed her bile, she was not okay with this and even if her feeling of revulsion was muted, it made her feel a bit more sane.

When he was done, she went to the other bodies looking with magic and found a bracelet that had magic, which when she pulled, led to the body changing into that of another drow.

Seb had followed her and gasped. Zaidu swung his gun to point at Seb and Ella moved in the way, “No.”

He hesitated, turned to the side to spit, and then holstered his gun, “Talk to Bahu and Arcsa. If they say he dies, he dies.”

She looked at Seb who looked at Zaidu and then her, wide-eyed. He looked pale.

“Welcome to the club Seb.” Ella’s smile was bitter. She turned to get the dagger from where they had left it on the container.