How did these assholes find me?
That was all the time she had before she let the heat of her drow magic burst from the base of her spine and wash over her. The Goth girl on the sidewalk switched into the drow halfling, who would be all but invisible in the darkness if it weren’t for her bone-white hair.
Sneering, the orc tossed the fireball at her, and she ducked. She started to run for her car before realizing how much damage the thing would take in a match between her and a dozen pissed-off magicals, so she darted in the other direction instead. The lashing black tendrils erupted from both hands and writhed across the street. A few of them wrapped around the orc’s wrist and jerked it aside, which sent his next green fireball into the air. It barely missed crashing into the roof of the next apartment house, and Cheyenne tried again.
She sent the other tendrils whipping across the asphalt. They took the lead orc by the ankle and flung him and the troll behind him back into the group of thugs. Then her attackers scattered up and down the street, conjuring shards of electric-blue and churning spheres of orange energy and more bursts of green and purple fire.
Cheyenne took it all in. These are not the kind of odds I’m used to.
She dodged a crackling, hissing pillar of blue energy and threw one of her black spheres into the fray, followed by another, and then another as she darted this way and that to avoid all the spells casting their deadly light on the asphalt.
One of the goblins doubled back around her car and launched thick shards of what looked like bright-purple glass at her. The halfling felt the searing chill of them before they touched her, and she tossed aside the second troll caught in her tendrils before everything slowed around her. Her enhanced speed gave her enough time to dart away from the icy shards that would have pierced her body the next second.
A jolt of searing heat caught her in the back of her knee, and she cried out. The dark street swarming with magicals returned to normal speed as Cheyenne’s leg buckled beneath her. Orange lines of energy sparked down her calf and up her thigh, numbing her leg until she thought she wouldn’t be able to put any weight on it.
“Can’t hide now, mór úcare,” one of the magicals screamed, and another round of laughter issued up from the thugs closing in on every side. “Your secret’s out.”
“We know who you are!” The snarl came from Cheyenne’s right and slightly behind her, and she whirled that way as well as she could on her deadened leg to throw a black orb of drow energy in that direction. Someone cackled. She couldn’t focus on all of them at once. “And the Crown’s next cycle stops here. Right after we stop you.”
Two purple balls of flame hurtled toward her from the left, and the halfling staggered back to avoid them before sending her own black and purple spheres right back. Dirt and grass erupted in a spray somewhere behind her, and another troll rushed her head-on. He got close enough to get a face full of her lashing black tendrils whipping across his cheeks and tearing his flesh. They coiled around his neck, and Cheyenne got a glimpse of the thick silver chain around that neck before it disappeared under the troll’s black t-shirt. She was willing to bet one of those bull pendants dangled at the end of it.
She slammed the strangled troll into the grass face-first and took another step back. Footsteps pounded across concrete somewhere behind her, echoing too much for the open lawn between the rental houses. The halfling wanted to turn around and see who it was, but the orc with the loosened tusk was coming up fast on her right.
“My turn.” He swung a huge fist at Cheyenne’s face, and she lifted her forearm to block the punch. Her wounded shoulder screamed as their arms collided, then she grabbed the orc’s wrist with both hands and conjured her purple sparks right into his flesh.
Bellowing, the orc wrenched his wrist from her grip and shoved her away. Normally, it wouldn’t have done much but make her step back, but he’d slammed his hand into her damaged shoulder. That and her still-numb leg sent her crashing to her knees with a furious cry.
Wiping the spit from his swollen mouth and that wobbly tusk, the orc laughed and stomped toward her.
Then the dark street lit up with a flash of blinding white light. Daggers of silver energy like lightning hit the ground and raced across the grass in a dozen directions. A shrill cry rose from one of the trolls, then the two goblins beside him, and the entire gang of magicals coming after the drow halfling let out wails and shrieks of pain.
The orc stopped a foot away from Cheyenne, growing rigid as the white streaks hit his boots and raced up his legs, crackling along his body. He let out a bellow of rage and pain but couldn’t move an inch while the attack flared through him. A body dropped somewhere behind her.
The orc’s eyes widened as the blazing white current fizzled away from his body. “What the—”
He didn’t get to finish the question. A dark blur raced past him. It didn’t stop long enough to engage before hurtling by, but the orc’s right arm erupted in a spray of dark blood and the tattered shreds of his black jacket. The orc screamed and clamped a hand over his frayed bicep, doubling over and completely forgetting about the panting half-drow and her numb leg in front of him.
Cheyenne forced herself to move through the pain and scrambled across the grass, her eyes darting across the street toward the
