The Cellar City Chronicles

Giselle closed the door behind her. One fingernail hooked the clasp of the bracelet and the blonde façade flashed away.

Martin was already getting dressed in a hurry.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Giselle murmured. She rested one hand on her hip, idly playing with the ripped garter strap that hung uselessly down the front of her thigh.

“Where do you think? I’m going to go teach this fucker a lesson.” Martin growled.

They could both hear the gunshots down below, but they both had very different ideas of how this was going to proceed. Giselle had to be sure it went her way.

“The police are on their way.” She shrugged dismissively, and swayed her hips towards him, letting one hand trail across the small of his bare back as she passed.

She smiled as she felt him shiver.

“I’m not just going to fucking sit here.” He snapped, his irritation only making him more appealing.

Giselle bit her lip to stop from thinking about it. She tasted a touch of blood and almost purred out loud. “No. We’re going out the back.”

“Giselle, you –“

Giselle moved one hand towards the front of him, taking a nice handful of the only soft piece of him. He moaned involuntarily as she started to gently knead it.

“Martin, I’m here to protect you, remember?”

Martin’s head was tilted back now, and with a heavy thickness in his throat he grunted, “Why?”

Giselle pressed herself against him and hissed, “Because we’re just so good together.” She smiled cruelly as she worked him, pushing their chests together so she could feel his heart thumping. “And because we can’t have a kingdom if we don’t have a king, can we?”

Martin chuckled deep in his throat, and he tilted his head forward to look down at her.

Fuck him; he was always looking down on her. She kneaded him harder.

“We?”

Giselle’s smile grew wide and ravenous as she pulled back from him to let him breathe. She sashayed over to his jacket and pulled it on, tossing him the button-up shirt they had left on the floor.

“Get dressed, pumpkin. We’re leaving.”

It took X a second to realize that he was the one laughing.

He had torn into every single one of the armed bouncers until the remains had taken to hiding behind the staircase. Even those weren’t safe – X listened to the gunfire, counting each bullet off as it was fired into the meat-shield he wielded before him. When he was almost positive they were out – that was when he struck.

Two went down easy – but the third… he was proving a bit more of a challenge.

Like all the bouncers he had seen, he was built like a linebacker. He wasn’t exceptionally quick, but it seemed like this one had been paying attention during the rest of the massacre.

X’s knife strikes were deftly deflected in the robotic manner that suggested martial arts training in a body not suited for fluidity. He was rigid and poised but very controlled.

X flashed him a toothy smile, eyes narrowed through the crimson haze of his world. He twisted the knife around and aimed to strike – and as it was deflected X sent his other hand across the bouncer’s face, knocking the sunglasses off to send them skittering across the floor.

X hoped that the gesture was like kicking a hornet’s nest, and he was not disappointed. The bouncer let out a snarl of anger and went for him, swinging with his fists and pushing X back into the open.

Ducking and dodging, X avoided the strikes easily, letting out a laugh. The bouncer threw hook after hook, and the futility of his actions only made his face purple with anger.

Absently, X wondered if all bouncers and bodyguards saw their sunglasses as a sort of official shield. As if someone would be less inclined to damage (or attempt to damage) them if they wore the sunglasses all the time. It boggled X – it obviously didn’t make these bodyguards any more efficient, and it certainly didn’t provide any armor against a gunshot. But regardless, they always got upset when the sunglasses broke.

Every time.

X resisted the urge to stick out his tongue, but the idea of it brought a giggle bubbling out of his chest.

BANG.

X was faintly aware of a blossoming pain in his side as his step faltered and a right hook managed to clip him in the jaw. The strike sent him in a spin that ended with his face down across the belly of a chilling corpse.

“Where the hell have you been, Useless?”

“I…I uh….”

“Never mind. Nice shot.”

X moved his hands together, feeling the current under his skin. He reached for it, but just as he started to wrap his head around it, a solid kick to the ribs loosened his hold and his vision blurred. But as he toppled, he felt his one hand brush something familiar at the corpse’s side.

Good enough… Good enough…

“What are you just fucking standing there for, Useless? Shoot the fucker!”

X pulled the corpse’s gun from its holster and as he used his waning strength to flop himself over and aim, he heard:

“Useless, behind –“

BANG.

Blood exploded from the talkative bouncer’s neck as the bullet tore through skin and muscle. Surprised, the man staggered back and tumbled across the stairs, hands frantically grasping at his throat.

THUNK.

“Uuhh…” The one called Useless let the gun clatter to the floor, head bobbing forward comically. One hand went up to investigate the problem, eyes beginning to cross.

THUNK.

Useless’ head bobbed forward again, and as it did, his eyes rolled back and his knees buckled. X rolled to the side to avoid the mountainous tumble, immediately bringing the gun level with his next target –

And he froze.

Standing braced there, with bottle in trembling hands, was a wide-eyed, dark haired girl in a shiny green blouse. She wasn’t dressed at all like the other people who had been at the club. And now she was staring at him with lips parted in surprise.

He caught and held her eyes past the barrel of the gun.

“Lenora!” Someone from the right called out.

X’s eyes were starting to track, skipping in and out of focus, creating a dizzying strobe light effect. What he saw as his arm faltered and the gun fell from his grip was a blur of green hair, tumbling full-tilt into the dark haired girl and rolling into one of the booths.

X breathed deeply as the red started to leave his vision in splotchy patches. The current drained from his limbs, and all he could do was protest with a weak groan. As he retreated into his mind, floods of images replayed in his mind of what he had done here tonight. And he felt the pain. X took that pain and rode it all the way to unconsciousness.