“Oh. You. You’re…” Eva said. She paused, groping for the name. “Can’t quite place the name. You’re easy to forget, apparently.”
“I’m-”
Eva pulled the trigger.
The girl in the checkered scarf managed a strangled grunt.
Watch enough action movies, spend enough time sitting in class, bored out of your skull, and you spend a little time imagining how you’d do in a proper fight. You like to imagine you’d dodge the arrow.
She hadn’t. She’d barely registered what had happened.
She gasped, clutching at her throat. The bolt had penetrated the door, and it had punched through her scarf in the process, pinning her to the surface, scarf tight against her throat, the bolt itself so close to her neck that her struggles made skin touch cool, smooth wood.
The crossbow landed on a broad, square landing that marked the turn in a staircase leading upstairs. Eva was drawing a knife from a back pocket, closing the distance with long strides.
The girl in the checkered scarf didn’t even try to fight. Hands went up, flush against with the door, above her head.
Eva kicked her squarely in the sternum, and didn’t move the foot after it made contact.
It hurt, and Eva hadn’t really held back, but the girl in the checkered scarf left her hands where they were.
Eva’s face was only a foot from her own, and the knife-
She didn’t dare look. No doubt the knife was in a position to do some immediate, terminal damage if she did anything else that Eva didn’t like.
A long ten seconds passed.
“Next time, you die. Understood?”
Slow nod.
“Good. Don’t even think that agonized screaming or blood are a problem. The walls are thick, and Andy lacquered the floors after doing the spring cleaning. Nice and thick, so there won’t be anything seeping into or between floorboards. Cleaning up is easy.”
The young woman stepped away, arm extended with knife pointed, not once shifting her posture, position or eye contact in a way that suggested she couldn’t close the distance in a half-second and stab something vital.
Eva didn’t touch the shaft of wood that had penetrated the door, either. She managed to reload the crossbow with a knife in one hand, eyes fixed on her new prisoner.
The only movement the girl in the checkered scarf made was to press her neck against the shaft, giving slack to the scarf and freeing up her neck for easier breathing.
“Now,” Eva said, as she raised the crossbow again, “You have my permission to say whatever it was you felt you needed to say.”
“I’ve honestly mostly forgotten what I was going to say.”
“Can’t have been that important.”
The girl in the checkered scarf remembered halfway through that sentence, opening her mouth to speak, but not letting a sound escape.
Eva indicated for her to speak, using the knife to make her ‘go on’ gesture.
“My name was stolen, which is why you can’t place it. One of the Faerie has it.”
“Oh? Well, that sucks. Probably really bad for you. But that doesn’t explain why the lamb came to the slaughterhouse. Where we specialize in slaughtering lambs, among other things. Explain.”
“All the creatures I captured got released. Some are after me with vengeance in mind. I was also thinking of going to see Johannes, and I’d rather make that visit as armed as I can possibly be.”
“You want our weapons?”
“Yes.”
“The only thing people negotiate with me is slow or fast. You’re out of luck, Jane Doe.”
“If-” the girl with the checkered scarf said, pausing only to make sure she wasn’t about to be shot, “-If you could, please don’t call me that.”
“How come?”
“An lack of a name is a void waiting to be filled.”
“Really? I could give you a goblin name like Twatface, and it could stick?”
“Yes. So please-”
“Clitwart? Ragstain? Shitdribble?”
“You could call me anything you wanted-”
“Even Madonna? No, that’s not nearly creative enough. The Olsen Triplet? Fatalie Shortman?”
The girl in the checkered scarf felt a chill. A little too intense to be just in her head. Not just cold seeping through the door, either. “Please stop.”
“This could be the most fun I’ve ever had putting the screws to someone. What about something off the wall? Like Hitler? Dahmer? Satan?”
“That would be a bad idea. Names have a power unto themselves, and some of those names probably have a lot of curses aimed their way. You might bring something to pass.”
“Seems too easy. Losing a name, replacing it…”
“It’s not easy at all.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m a newbie to all this. I’m in bad shape, I just… I need to find a solution, before I degrade and I can’t do anything. I need tools and weapons to do it, and you guys are the best source available.”
“In theory only. I’m curious how this works. You degrade?”
“No name, nothing at the center of my self. I think it’s like the metaphysical equivalent of taking ten pounds of flesh out from within someone’s ribcage.”
“So take a new name. Replace thy flesh.”
“That doesn’t help the fact that I don’t have many connections. If I have too few and they get severed, or if they grow weak-”
“Hey, stop,” Eva said. The crossbow moved a fraction, giving weight to the words. “I’m not big on the magic stuff. When people explain the magic stuff to me, I work it out in my head, and I distill it down to a simple, clear explanation. I can do it with any magic. Really.”
The girl in the checkered scarf nodded.
“Right here? All this talking you’re doing? It says one thing to me. Nobody will miss you if I shoot you right here and watch you-”
Eva shut up right as the lock clicked. The door moved, but stopped short.
“-bleed out. Ugh. Worst timing ever.”
A whisper, a male voice. “Is that you at the door, Eva?”
“It’s not me!” Eva called out. “I’m here.”
A pause.
“Wait, shit, don’t try anything! I’m fine, I’m safe. Password is Creevey.”
“…Okay. Let me in.”
“Let him in.”
To avoid being strangled, the girl in the checkered scarf was forced to make twenty or so tiny steps to follow the motion of the door.
Andy stepped inside, throwing a foil-wrapped sandwich to Eva. She caught it while still keeping the crossbow aimed more or less at her target.
He walked right across the crossbow’s line of fire to put bags down on the square stair where Eva had tossed the crossbow earlier. Milk and the like.
“You let someone in?” he finally asked.
“Don’t lecture me.”
“The deal was I wouldn’t get in your way when you have a job you want to do, you don’t argue when I outline protocols. There are some things out there that you don’t want to let inside.”
“She’s not a thing. She’s just a practitioner who’s in a bad way.”
He reached into one bag to grab a chocolate bar.
“Gimme,” Eva said.