The dark blur barreled down the street before another brilliant white flash of light erupted on a troll’s chest. He choked and dropped. The goblin beside him flung a hissing streak of purple energy at where his thug friend had stood. It whistled through the air, and the troll’s open mouth crashed shut with a crunch before his spell hit a tree in the open space. Whatever force had slammed his jaw shut and lifted him half a foot off the ground now thumped him back down onto the pavement with a sickening smack. The dark blur kept moving.
Magicals shrieked and screamed and fell silent again all around Cheyenne as they lit up with white light or were thrown aside like bowling pins. The dark streak made one more circle around the street and the halfling’s car before finally stopping. There stood Corian, his Nightstalker form revealed.
He let out a quick sigh and scanned the street again, which was silent now but for a groan or two coming from the fallen magical thugs scattered around them. Cheyenne might have seen the goblin pushing himself up on one knee before Corian did, but it hardly mattered. The Nightstalker whirled and raced toward the goblin. A flash of something not entirely silver streaked through the air before the goblin froze where he knelt. He choked, his eyes wide and unseeing, as a spray of dark blood erupted from his slit throat. The body hit the grass with a thump, and Corian stood there looking down at him.
The Nightstalker hissed, then turned slowly toward Cheyenne. The five inches of dazzling razor-sharp claws—or blades—at the tips of his fingers drew back into his hand with a sickening whisper. After glancing over his shoulder one last time, Corian stalked toward the drow halfling propping herself up with her hands behind her in the grass. She couldn’t find a single thing to say.
Apparently, the same loss for words hadn’t hit him. “Not quite ready for this kinda showdown, are you?”
The halfling glanced at the magical bodies scattered across the grass and the sidewalk and the glistening asphalt under the streetlights. When she looked back up at him, Corian had extended a hand to help her up. She took it, grimacing at the extra ache even that much pressure brought to her shoulder, but at least the feeling was coming back to her leg. It was like pins and needles on steroids.
Corian grabbed her wrist with his other hand too when she swayed on her feet. The concern in his glowing silver eyes was unmistakable when he scanned her, then he released her and nodded. “You good?”
“I’m…yeah. I’ll be fine.” She couldn’t help but study the devastation the Nightstalker had wrought on a dozen magicals in about thirty seconds. “What was that?”
“That was what happens when someone as powerful as they’re supposed to be knows what they’re doing.” His silver eyes bored into hers, and there wasn’t a hint of a smile on that feline face this time. “I’ll take care of these idiots. You should go home. Get some rest. Maybe walk off that bum leg until it starts following orders again. Then come back with that box, Cheyenne, and I’ll show you how to do what you can’t yet.”
“Yeah, okay.” Nodding slowly, still not sure what had happened, the halfling limped slowly toward her car. When she opened the driver’s door, she stopped and looked over the hood at Corian again. “Thanks. For coming out here when you did.”
A short huff escaped through his nose, and he nodded as he scanned his body-littered front yard. “It’s my job.”
Cheyenne ducked and slid into the driver’s seat, grimacing at the pain of…well, pretty much everything at that point. She started the engine, got a quarter of the way through buckling her seatbelt before giving up, and took off slowly down the street.
The Nightstalker who knows my dad just demolished a magical gang and told me to get some rest. She puffed out a sigh and shook her head, blinking heavily under the streetlights racing past on her way back downtown. If I’m gonna take anyone’s advice, I guess it should be his.
Chapter Ninety-Four
It took her ten minutes to climb the stairs to her second-floor apartment. Everything still hurt, and she was too exhausted to pretend she didn’t care. When she reached the second-floor landing and pushed the door open into the hall, she wondered how long it would take her to walk past the five other apartments on either side to get to hers.
Although she could feel her right leg and her foot again, it still didn’t want to listen. The hall filled with the slow thump and drag of the halfling half-limping, half-pulling herself across the stained old carpet. Halfway down, a door on her right opened quickly, and R’mahr stuck his head out into the hall.
“Cheyenne. Hello.”
The most she could give him was a grunt and a hand lifted in a weak wave. If I look away from my front door, I’m not gonna make it.
“Are you busy tomorrow evening?” The troll standing cheerily in his doorway grinned at her as she approached, leaning forward between his hands clutching either side of the doorframe. “We’d love to have you in our home for a meal. I’m…well, I’m sure you have plenty of obligations, but if tomorrow would suit you to—oh. Uh, are you all right?”
The halfling just gave him another grunt, weaker this time, and shuffled past him down the hall.
“Cheyenne?”
“What is it?” Yadje asked from inside the trolls’ apartment. “R’mahr, what did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything. She’s just… She looks hurt.”
“What do you mean, hurt?”
“I mean hurt, woman. What else could that mean?”
Cheyenne didn’t have to turn around to know Yadje had joined her husband in the doorway and poked her head out alongside his to stare at the drow halfling moving at a snail’s pace.
“Oh, for the love of— Leave her
