“Lane, you are fired!” Helena shouted at him, tears welling in her eyes.
“Perhapsss you are right, perhapsss I ssshould let you live to continue to ssserve me.”
Helena wasn’t sure what was happening, but by the tone of Lane’s voice, it wasn’t going well for him. She felt torn watching him beg, seeing her long-time friend experiencing such pain, and seeing the man that betrayed her facing the same pain.
“Yes, Mistress please I will serve you faithfully I promise.”
“Isn’t that what you told me?” Helena cried through her tears.
There came a most prolonged pause, then Helena detected the strangest sound, metal gliding over metal slicing through the white fabric then a slurping sound once it found flesh. She felt moisture land on her right cheek and saw pieces of cloth drifting to the floor like severed angel wings, others splattered with blood droplets. Doyle flinched in her direction, and she saw three blood drops on his face. They looked into each other’s eyes, Helena only seeing fear and surprise in Doyle’s, they did a quick inspection for damage on each other and found none.
“Where did the blood come from?” Helena asked as she wiped a drop from Doyle’s cheek, then turned to look at Lane. He still stood in the same place with a red line developing from the top of his head to where she lost it under his hat, running down to his groin. Lane had the most perplexed expression on his face both arms had dropped to his sides. Helena noticed that gravity had taken over his body first the right side, the side with the gun, started slipping away from the left. His face had the oddest look as the right slide slid to the floor and the left side crumpled on top of it. His body had been split right down the middle with one slice. The pair stood in shock.
Helena screamed, as the horror of the image seared into her mind, and the death of her friend even if he turned out to be a traitor.
“You bitch!” Helena screamed with her fresh breath.
“I did you a favor, you would’ve taken him back, and he would’ve betrayed you in the future. The two of you can no longer do damage to my plansss. You’re free to go. Live with the fact that you have been usssed in a game. A game that you could never win, and you sssaw the man that wasss your friend betray you and die in the sssame day.”
Coming to his senses first Doyle pulled Helena to the ground. “I think that’s a chain whip, the deadliest one I’ve ever seen.”
Right now, Helena didn’t care, she saw movement the other side of a translucent silk. She identified the outline of a woman, or at least the top half of woman her breasts bare, her hair piled on top of her head in an intricate design. However, the bottom half was the shape of a giant snake propelling the woman silently along the floor.
“A Naga,” Helena whispered.
“A what?” he said scrambling towards Lane’s body and his pistol now resting in a growing pool of blood and entrails.
“Half-woman, half-snake from--,” she was cut off by Doyle.
“I understand what a Naga is, please don’t try to convince me to believe we have one running around the streets of San Francisco. I think it would be noticed,” Doyle said sliding Helena’s cane to her.
She caught her walking stick giving the handle the quarter turn till she felt the familiar click. “Why must you infuriate so? How do we get out of here?”
“You two are abusssing my hospitality. I am late for a ssseremony to sssee the fruition of my plansss. The dessstruction of Sssan Francisssco’sss elite and posssibly the world. Young lady your parentsss would be proud,” said Sister Ping her voice growing fainter.
Helena jumped up forgetting her safety she began running in the direction she assumed the voice came from. Instantly lost in the cloth walls she shouted at the top of her lungs, “What do you know about my parents?”
Not that she expected an answer, but she received, a reply that proved even more outlandish. What sounded like a dozen or more small war cries let out from the direction opposite she had started in, answered her question. She turned on her heel, almost tripping over Doyle, she ran in the opposite direction towards the sound of a fight.
“Hey, wait for me,” Doyle followed right behind her.
The skirmish ended as quickly as it began, but Helena kept running the direction she thought it happened. To her surprise, she came to an area splattered with blood, the dismembered bodies of three Lost Boys in various sections. Annie, at least Helena thought the creature was Annie, sat against the far wall nursing her right arm an evil looking weapon laid coiled in front of her. Doyle burst in right behind Helena pistol drawn.
“We must be in the full moon cycle, they can’t control their shifting. Please don’t hurt them, there my friends, the Lost Boys,” Helena said rushing to Annie seeing if there was anything she might do to help.
Doyle let Helena attend the giant rat people while he inspected the fight scene. It didn’t take long before he had a general idea of what happened.
“As far as I can tell, Sister Ping headed towards this hole in the floor, her exit,” he walked around the room. He spoke and pointed to items he thought relevant, “Either she surprised them coming in, or they surprised her going out or some combination, the battle started here. These three cut down by the chain whip lying there next to your friend. That is the weapon I believed that has been used to dismember the bodies of the murdered women, I’ve been investigating. It looks like your friend attacked her sword arm biting her viciously allowing her to wrestle the weapon free from her hand. Once disarmed Sister Ping had no choice but to flee. Now I think we
