“Right.” Cheyenne turned the potion over in her hand and licked her lips. “Well, thanks for that. Getting that jerk outta your hair is pretty much all I need right now, so I’ll just finish that.”
She gave the grinning troll family another hesitant glance, then headed back across the living room. The first stop was beside her open backpack and the puzzle box lying beside it. The orc knew what this is. Hopefully that’s not a massive mistake I’m gonna regret.
After stuffing the box back into her backpack, Cheyenne took a deep breath. Her skin prickled under the awestruck gazes of three silent trolls, but what else could she do at this point? With her backpack zipped, she slung it over her good shoulder and pushed herself to her feet. Then she headed for the orc.
The cork came out of the vial quickly and easily, and she paused to turn back toward the family. “Just dump it on him?”
R’mahr nodded and gestured toward the body.
“Okay.” Cheyenne glanced back down at the thug she was about to make invisible and stopped. The thick silver chain around the orc’s neck had fallen out from beneath his stained shirt, now on the floor beside his neck. At the end of it was a silver pendant about three inches long, cut in crude, jagged lines in the shape of a bull. She frowned at the unexpected orcish jewelry, shrugged, then upended the vial and shook it all over him.
The orc shimmered on the rug and faded quickly. Cheyenne had just enough time to grab him with both hands by the shirt before he disappeared.
His weight was definitely still all there. As she pulled and tugged him, Yadje pointed at the halfling. “Oh, one more thing.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cheyenne sighed and let the orc drop to the floor again. Her grip on his shirt pulled her down until she stood in front of the door, hunched over, seemingly grabbing nothing in both fists. I really don’t have time for some kind of troll appreciation ceremony.
Yadje swiftly closed a drawer in the kitchen and hurried toward the half-drow. “Illusion charm. For you.”
“Right. Uh, thanks.”
“It was my sister’s. She…she refused to keep it on in the end, and, well, now it belongs to me.” The troll held up a thick copper armband with inlaid designs of silver and gold on the surface. She pried it open and settled it around the center of Cheyenne’s upper arm, then stepped back. “Ah. Yes, that works well.”
Cheyenne glanced at the armband and saw her normal, pale-white human skin beneath it, even though she was still in full drow mode.
“Cool.” She nodded at Yadje and lifted the orc’s body off the ground again. “Mind if I bring it back later tonight? I kinda have to be somewhere after this.”
“Oh, keep it as long as you like. We’ve set it aside for Bryl when she is of age to decide for herself. As long as it is returned in the next few years…” Yadje shrugged, and her husband let out a low chuckle.
“Got it.” Cheyenne glanced behind her at the door, trying to figure out how she was supposed to keep a tight grip on the invisible orc and get herself out into the hallway at the same time.
“Oh, yes. Please, allow me.” R’mahr leapt forward, and his wife stepped quickly aside so he could open the door and let their new friend out of their apartment.
“All right. Thanks.” Cheyenne nodded at the family and glanced into the hall before dragging the few hundred pounds of invisible orc with her. “Have a nice day, and, yeah.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Cheyenne.”
“Our favorite neighbor.”
The troll child sidled up beside her parents to peer through the doorway. “You’re going to bury him alive, right?”
The halfling paused, glanced at R’mahr and Yadje, and blinked. Neither of them looked remotely apologetic for what their child had just asked.
“Uh…” A surprised chuckle escaped her. “That wasn’t part of the plan, no. Good thinking. I’ll figure something out.”
“The drow knows what she’s doing, Bryl.” Yadje put an arm around her daughter again and turned into the apartment. “Come inside. Are you hungry?”
R’mahr lifted a hand toward Cheyenne in farewell, his head bobbing eagerly again, then closed the door.
“Okay.” Cheyenne shook her head and tugged the invisible orc behind her down the hall. “That was weird.”
She made it all the way to the top of the staircase before running into any of the other residents of the building. A woman with short, curly hair carrying her dry cleaning over one shoulder passed the halfling in the stairwell. Cheyenne gave the woman a brief nod and just kept walking down, the thump and slide of the orc’s invisible body behind her echoing. The woman gazed around, looking for the source of the sound, and frowned at Cheyenne.
“New shoes.” The halfling raised her eyebrows and nodded at her black Vans. “Gotta break ‘em in, you know?”
The woman scowled and hurried up the stairs, shrieking a little when an invisible orc body part thumped against her ankle. Then she scurried up to the third floor and burst through the door.
Cheyenne puffed out a sigh. Always a weird look for the Goth chick.
She got the orc all the way out into the parking lot and somehow managed to lift a beefy, muscular body she couldn’t see into the back seat of her beat-up Ford Focus. It took several tries to get the door closed all the way, seeing as she kept smashing some invisible body part in the process, but finally, he was in. Then she slipped behind the wheel, tossed her backpack onto the passenger seat, and stuck her keys in the ignition. She sniffed once
