"happy birthday to my favorite partner in crime."
no one ever saw them coming. this far outside the central circulatory system of las vegas, the star - speckled star was much clearer, especially on a moonless night like tonight. in fact, the sky was so laden with stars that one could imagine that the sky was sinking with the weight of all those gems. there was hardly a spot of absence between the sparkles. for those that milled about and lived in the house on the hill in the desert, this was a fantastic sight. romantic even. clearly, there was a reason why maxwell jennison had built his home all the way out here, far from the artifice of the boulevard, despite that being where the body and soul of his business belonged. who needed all those dizzying lights, buzzing and throbbing with the constant current of electricity, when you could have this: a starry night so bright you could reach up and touch the glittering sky yourself?
of course, a huge house placed atop a hill in a gated community in the middle of an expansive desert also had its benefits security - wise, and charlotte had to figure that that surely accounted for something to one of the top mob bosses in the city. but like a king in his castle, jennison had grown comfortable and complacent in the safety of his estate and under his blanket of stars. no one has ever dared to breach the natural fortress he had created; the vast barrenness of the desert was, in and of itself, already an intimidating challenge. next was the uphill climb that could offer nothing except massive disadvantages in the cases of speed and probable detection. the estate itself was sprawling and the house! fuck, the house was a goddamn maze, littered with twisted corridors, false alcoves, dead ends, and a team of guards that paced the square footage in neat little loops: SPECTRES FOR HIRE. it was a haunted house modernized and styled in excessive splendour.
yet while all that shone and glittered might've be found up above their heads, the shadows that were missing from the sky were busy prowling down here, in the dirt, through the sand, and up that hill. and these shadows knew a thing or two about haunted houses. NO ONE EVER SAW THEM COMING.
in the night, the desert was nothing more than another abyss. the ground could not be trusted and the darkness was so dense, the horizon itself ceased to exist. but there was one beacon of light in all this void and that was their target. charlotte and nox approached from the desert side, where there were the fewest guards to worry about because no one ever figured anyone would be crazy enough to march through all that SAND AND SHADOW. that same sand would make for a quiet send - off as they rolled the few bodies that had the misfortune of patrolling this border tonight and met their end with the deft snap of the neck or the precise insertion of a blade into the throat. sand, shadow, and now, blood too. those bodies were left for the sun to find.
the rest would fall, bleed, and stay exactly where they died: on the cobblestone of the steep, winding driveway, in the dirt of the flourishing gardens, on the polished marble floors of the house's interior. no one saw them coming. none of the dozens upon dozens of cameras could capture them. the men watching over the monitors could hear the shouts and gunfire of one reality and yet, turn to witness an entirely different reality on their screens: one comprised of static nothingness, darkness, and the eeriness of a false calm. TO SEE NOTHING WHERE THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING, ANYTHING, and yet, there is nothing.
nothing but shadow, blood, and the awful feeling that someone was staring right at them through the camera lens. the same someone who was out there laughing in tandem with the screams of terror as those who finally did see them coming, always saw them too late. the men in the monitor room also discerned much too late that the shadow that suddenly enveloped them was different from the usual shadows. by the time a certain blonde head poked into the room, only a few loose eyeballs were left to stare and keep watch over the flickering images. the bodies, however, were gone.
charlotte walked over to the desk, picked up one of the eyeballs, a green one, and rolled it back - and - forth across her knuckles as she considered the screens in front of her, smiling as a tendril of darkness stretched out pulled at a bloody strand of her hair. " Not my blood, don't worry. " she hummed to herself as she waited for a few discernible images to appear through the flickering of colour and static. most of the cameras were already dead, but there was one that eventually showed her what she wanted to see. one of the few rooms they had yet to gut. grinning, charlotte raised the tip of her knife and tapped the tiny, glitching picture of the boss running about his office as two of his men tried to hurry him. " I found you, " she sang. charlotte whipped around and trained that ghoulish grin on nox, her bright eyes meeting the twin pits of darkness on their gaunt face. " Looks like he's trying to get the vault open, " she remarked, leading nox out of the security room and down the hall to the central staircase.
in the end, it was too little too late. the first of the last two guards saw them coming up the stairs as if they owned the place. he was quick, in possession of the kind of reflexes men like maxwell jennison paid very well for. but quick wasn't quick enough. moving with practiced precision, charlotte maneuvered behind nox as the gunfire began. perhaps, ( and this is being generous ), only the first bullet fired had any chance of hitting either of them. the rest sprayed in an uninterrupted upward arc, bullets tearing apart the floor and ceiling until the arc finished with a deafening crack of bone as nox snapped the man's arm in two, the barrel of the gun now facing the man, spitting bullets into its owner's face. then, and only then, did the man's finger release the trigger.
inside the office, the second guard was trying to open a false door embedded in the eastern wall. maxwell stood shaking in his multi - thousand - dollar suit beside him, shrieking when he saw a blur of red, black, and blonde, come through the door. the last guard didn't last more than another seven seconds. in that time, charlotte managed to drag maxwell by the collar, with her knife pressing a fresh wound into the slant of his cheek, all towards the still unopened vault. to his credit, maxwell was attempting to pull himself together even as blood dripped down his face, over her fingers, and into the collar of his white shirt. I don't know the code, he was trying to say. I can't remember the code. " That's because you're panicking. It'll come back once you calm down, right, look at me. Let's take a nice, deep breath, " she told him, then inhaled through her nose, holding the breath and stench of his rancid fear until he followed her example. " Good, now let it out. Very good! He's a natural, " she said, smiling at nox. " Here, breathe with Nox and when the numbers come back, you just let me know, okay? "
the code, as it turned out, was the birthday of his firstborn child. quite the thing to suddenly forget, even if in a panic, but that was neither nor there anymore. the man, now tied up with his own tie and shoelaces, could only watch as charlotte cheerfully sat on his desk with a large folder in her hands. the folder contained everything to do with an old business he had stolen from a rival: deeds to land and buildings, records to stolen and laundered money, evidence and documents once used as leverage for blackmail. it was all there and now, it was all theirs: an agent of chaos and a shadow for hire. next to charlotte sat an open box filled with diamonds and a handful of gold bars. this, they might take as well. and lastly, out of the vault, was a very expensive bottle of champagne. whatever celebration jennison was saving this for was now obsolete. charlotte cooed and reached to take the bottle from nox, wanting to see the elegant label for herself.
@mimeticry / HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE PARTNER IN CRIME.
charlotte gasped and hugged the bottle to her chest, coating in slick red blood, even as she trained a gentle, astonished gaze on nox. " You remembered, " she exclaimed softly, her eyes flickering over their face before settling on their mouth, as bloody as her own hands. placing the bottle on the desk, charlotte reached for nox and pulled them in by their shirt until they were close enough for her to hold their face between her hands. " Come here. " a whisper and then, a laugh, both swallowed immediately as she slanted her mouth over theirs. legs parted to either side of the shadow's hips and she pulled herself closer until she was flushed against them. the desk jostled and the box of diamonds tipped over, landing with a thud while the stones skittered across the hardwood like the sound of rain. charlotte turned her head to look at the glitter at their feet. the furthest of the diamonds had rolled to where the mob boss lay on his stomach, his cut cheek pressed to the ground. he looked from the diamond back to the embracing couple, his gaze the textbook definition of doleful.
turning back to nox, charlotte nudged their nose with her own before making a satisfied sound placed somewhere between a pleasant hum and a moan. without taking her eyes - or hands - off the shadow, she jerked her head over at the man on the ground, a fiendish grin smeared across her lips. " What d'you think? Should we let him live? Everyone else is already gone. . . "
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