[Deaths] Julian De'Ath
Title: bad timing
'Verse/characters: Deaths; Julian De'Ath
Prompt: 13D "misfortune"
Word Count: 645
Notes: follows recuperation.
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The suite had four major access points, barring someone deciding to chance climbing the drainpipes and coming in from upstairs. One of the four they had blocked off when they arrived, the glass panels cushioned with good black felt before nailing up a sturdy wooden lattice to keep people out. The nails had been cut from powered metal by one of the smiths among them, and when she'd looked at him askance over that--she'd seen nails used as warding symbols at home but never here--he'd shrugged and asked what else he was supposed to do with the stuff? They had an embarrassment of riches.
Two of the remaining three could be covered by one person, assuming they were either very fast on their feet or had a crossbow. Or something equivalent to a crossbow; the Morrigan's tendency to cultivate artisans in any city she wandered through had come in very, very useful. The back kitchen door and the old service entry door were connected by a hall with good sight lines and a couple of doorways into other rooms for cover if necessary.
The last door was the formal front door, and from there the door into the main living areas. She'd had to write it off as undefendable, had locked both formal and inner doors, and kept an ear in that direction.
Because the glow of powered metal coming up the lane towards the building she was standing in was not her side coming home.
As a plan, it wasn't terrible; Devil Death was bringing the fight to their doorsteps, after all. It was only logical to strike at his, catch him by surprise when he came home already tired from a day of killing their companions. Or their rivals, depending on how many of the peacekeepers had been killed already, leaving the infighters to scheme to their hearts' content.
Too bad for them she'd wrenched her knee--again, God damn it, and for no better reason than last time--and had no place on a fighting line until she could lunge with sword or scythe. While the knee would hold her now, well enough she felt comfortable leaving the sword-cane the Morrigan had found her behind in the library most of the time, she knew she was nowhere near even an unweighted lunge, yet. She'd have to rejoin the line sometime after they finished with this council, at the rate she was healing.
She'd filled her pockets with reload clips--she really, really needed to find out where the Morrigan had got these guns, she had a few friends back home who'd keep the man in business for the next decade if he could make reload clips like these for rifles--when she'd noticed the glow, and hadn't seen the First's, the Morrigan's, her uncle's or Azrael's distinctive edges in it.
With the reloads, if the visitors numbered more than fifty, she might be in trouble.
Unless she beat them to the Morrigan's collection, anyway. She'd destroy every bit of good the rest and wrapping had done her knee if she needed to, God knew, because she was a De'Ath and had a reputation to keep besides.
A pick-lock scraped at the service door, and she leaned back against the wall at the midpoint between kitchen and service doors, cane pinned behind her left hip to keep it out of her way.
A more impatient visitor kicked the latch, boot going right past his companion's head to crash the door open.
She gave them both her version of her uncle's smile, raised her arm, and put a bullet in the impatient one's chest and the picker's head, as they were the easiest targets.
The picker went to light, but the impatient one tumbled backwards, out of sight.
"Afternoon," she called to the cluster of metal outside the doorway, loud enough to make herself heard.
When no heads presented themselves for a few minutes, she grinned again.
"Come and try to take it, gents, I just have to hold out until my side comes home. You've got a deadline."
'Verse/characters: Deaths; Julian De'Ath
Prompt: 13D "misfortune"
Word Count: 645
Notes: follows recuperation.
---------
The suite had four major access points, barring someone deciding to chance climbing the drainpipes and coming in from upstairs. One of the four they had blocked off when they arrived, the glass panels cushioned with good black felt before nailing up a sturdy wooden lattice to keep people out. The nails had been cut from powered metal by one of the smiths among them, and when she'd looked at him askance over that--she'd seen nails used as warding symbols at home but never here--he'd shrugged and asked what else he was supposed to do with the stuff? They had an embarrassment of riches.
Two of the remaining three could be covered by one person, assuming they were either very fast on their feet or had a crossbow. Or something equivalent to a crossbow; the Morrigan's tendency to cultivate artisans in any city she wandered through had come in very, very useful. The back kitchen door and the old service entry door were connected by a hall with good sight lines and a couple of doorways into other rooms for cover if necessary.
The last door was the formal front door, and from there the door into the main living areas. She'd had to write it off as undefendable, had locked both formal and inner doors, and kept an ear in that direction.
Because the glow of powered metal coming up the lane towards the building she was standing in was not her side coming home.
As a plan, it wasn't terrible; Devil Death was bringing the fight to their doorsteps, after all. It was only logical to strike at his, catch him by surprise when he came home already tired from a day of killing their companions. Or their rivals, depending on how many of the peacekeepers had been killed already, leaving the infighters to scheme to their hearts' content.
Too bad for them she'd wrenched her knee--again, God damn it, and for no better reason than last time--and had no place on a fighting line until she could lunge with sword or scythe. While the knee would hold her now, well enough she felt comfortable leaving the sword-cane the Morrigan had found her behind in the library most of the time, she knew she was nowhere near even an unweighted lunge, yet. She'd have to rejoin the line sometime after they finished with this council, at the rate she was healing.
She'd filled her pockets with reload clips--she really, really needed to find out where the Morrigan had got these guns, she had a few friends back home who'd keep the man in business for the next decade if he could make reload clips like these for rifles--when she'd noticed the glow, and hadn't seen the First's, the Morrigan's, her uncle's or Azrael's distinctive edges in it.
With the reloads, if the visitors numbered more than fifty, she might be in trouble.
Unless she beat them to the Morrigan's collection, anyway. She'd destroy every bit of good the rest and wrapping had done her knee if she needed to, God knew, because she was a De'Ath and had a reputation to keep besides.
A pick-lock scraped at the service door, and she leaned back against the wall at the midpoint between kitchen and service doors, cane pinned behind her left hip to keep it out of her way.
A more impatient visitor kicked the latch, boot going right past his companion's head to crash the door open.
She gave them both her version of her uncle's smile, raised her arm, and put a bullet in the impatient one's chest and the picker's head, as they were the easiest targets.
The picker went to light, but the impatient one tumbled backwards, out of sight.
"Afternoon," she called to the cluster of metal outside the doorway, loud enough to make herself heard.
When no heads presented themselves for a few minutes, she grinned again.
"Come and try to take it, gents, I just have to hold out until my side comes home. You've got a deadline."