“What about you, then? You came over here just like the rest of us—”
“I said, shut up!” Another blue light flashed behind the door, followed by more green bursts and a subdued scream. It sounded like another orc.
Not even a minute after drawing her drow magic back inside, Cheyenne let the flare of heat burst at the small of her back and wash over her. By the time she knocked on the front door of the apartment, which belonged to neighbors she hadn’t bothered to meet, her skin was purple-gray and her hair bone-white.
Time for the friendly neighborhood half-drow to show up and lend a hand.
Chapter Seventy-Six
“Get lost!” the orc shouted from inside the apartment.
“That’s gonna be a little hard,” Cheyenne replied, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. “I know the area pretty well.”
“We’re handling business in here, and it’s none of yours.”
“Anyone wanna open up and let me take a look for myself? Flashing lights and screaming before eight in the morning are bound to draw attention.”
The pissed-off magical inside the apartment growled in frustration, then stomping footsteps approached the door. Someone else let out a whimper, then the apartment door burst open. Sure enough, a gray-green orc with more fat on him than any of the others Cheyenne had seen stood on the other side of that door. He snarled at her, summoning a ball of sickly green magic in his beefy hand. Then he noticed he was staring at—for all intents and purposes—a drow. His eyes grew wide, and he lifted his green magic toward her.
Cheyenne was faster. She let off a churning, crackling orb of black energy with purple at its center. It struck the orc in the chest and launched him back into her neighbors’ apartment. Someone else squeaked in surprise, and the drow halfling stepped in before closing the door behind her.
The orc grunted and picked himself up from the crunched radiator beneath the window where he’d landed. Cheyenne took in the apartment scattered with toys, crude drawings, and a whole bunch of weird tchotchkes before her eyes fell on the family of trolls huddled together just off the kitchen.
“Hi,” she told them. “I noticed you have an orc problem this morning. If you tell me he’s right and it’s none of my business, I’ll take off.”
The taller male troll with much darker purple skin than his wife couldn’t take his wide, shocked eyes off the half-drow. His wife sucked in a sharp breath and glanced anxiously at the orc, who was now back on his feet and summoning more attack spells. The troll woman shook her head but didn’t say a word.
“I’ll take that as a—”
The orc’s ball of green magic hurtled toward Cheyenne, and she ducked. The spell hit the top of the door behind her, and then the orc was roaring and charging at her across the tiny living room.
She let her backpack slip off her shoulder and onto the floor, then fired two more black orbs of sizzling energy. The first struck the orc just off the center of his chest again, jerking him sideways as he kept charging. The second hurtled into a collection of hanging plants beside the windows. Plastic planters and dirt and shredded greenery exploded in all directions. Cheyenne turned toward the troll family. “Sorry about that.”
And then the orc was on her, crashing into her body and knocking her into the wall beside the door. The halfling hooked her arm around his neck and brought her knee smashing up into his face. One tusk dug painfully into her thigh, and she both heard and felt a crunch. Roaring again, the orc let her go to bring his hands up to his possibly uprooted tusk.
At the same second that the lashing black whips of drow magic burst from her fingers, the slavering orc let off two more electric shocks of green magic. Cheyenne leaned sideways to avoid them, watching her opponent’s magic slow with the rest of the world as she moved ridiculously fast. The first shot exploded in slow motion against the wall just behind her head, knocking down some framed photos. The halfling stepped toward the kitchen and noticed too late that she’d set her backpack down in the perfect place to trip herself.
She lost her enhanced speed, everything moved normally again, and the orc’s second attack smashed into the wall too. Cheyenne stumbled forward and caught herself on the half-wall of the family’s apartment, although she wasn’t fast enough to keep the ceramic bowl of fruit from flying off the counter onto the kitchen floor.
“Sorry!” she shouted over the sound of shattered pottery.
The family shuffled away from her and farther into the apartment, the male troll hugging his wife and child close and still trying to put himself between them and the chaos in his living room.
Cheyenne lashed out with the black tentacles bursting from her fingers again. Two of them struck the oncoming orc across the face. He stumbled sideways, and the other black whips wrapped around his waist, ankle, and bulging gray-green bicep. She whipped him against the ceiling, bringing down a shower of drywall and dust, then slammed him onto the ornately woven rug. His shoulder smashed into an old armchair that was a little lopsided to begin with. Its leg now broken, the chair toppled over.
The coiled black vines of magic around the orc’s body tightened and constricted. With a grunt and dark, almost black blood oozing from the crooked tusk in his lower jaw, the idiot tried to summon another attack spell.
Cheyenne used her other hand to send a burst of purple sparks at his fingers, which was as close as she could get to hitting a small target without blowing his hand off. The orc’s frustrated growl choked off when her black tendril tightened around his neck.
“Don’t try that again. We’re done.” The halfling summoned a churning
