Darkness Girl: Trickster God

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Fluttering Pieces of Paper

Forester sat with his back against the door of the massive freezer and watched as Regan lifted the knife in her hand and pointed it at Gareth. She looked like a demon that had dragged itself up from the depths of hell. 

'She doesn't know there's another--' Forester whispered. 

He saw a flash of movement in the corner of his eye as Dieter's sickle flew out of the shadows. There was a high pitched whistle as it lashed out towards Regan like a whip. Regan was already moving though. She threw herself to one side and rolled over a metal bench as the blade flew past. It caught the corner of the table and left a deep scour in the metal surface before the chain went taut and it flew back into the shadows. 

Regan kicked over a metal bench with a loud crash and jumped behind it. Forester could see her searching for the source of the attack in the corners of the room, where the gloom gathered like dust. 

For a few seconds, nothing moved. The room was silent, except for a muffled skittering, scratching noise that sounded like rats trapped in a wall cavity. 

'It looks like the music changed and left you behind, girly,' said Gareth. 'You're going to kill me? You play yourself up as something else, but there are worse things than you around here.' 

Another sickle flew out of the darkness trailing its chain. It looked like a metal bird as it sliced smoothly through the air. Regan ducked behind the metal bench, but as she did the sickle suddenly twisted in the air and changed direction. 

Forester watched it swoop towards Regan, and realised that it was flying towards her blind spot. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but it was too late. The sickle sliced through the air with terrifying speed and curved around the table where Regan was hiding. It hit her in the side and sent her sliding on her side across the tile floor into the middle of the room. 

'He snuffed her!' said the enforcer with the tattoo. 'That was fast.' 

Forester saw the chain go tight again, but the sickle didn't return. Instead, Regan slowly rolled over and started to rise. At first he thought she was wounded, but then he noticed the chain clenched in her fist. 

'She caught it?' he said under his breath. 

Regan pulled back tightly on the chain as she got to her feet. The sickle dangled uselessly beneath her fist as she glared into the shadows. 

Dieter dropped from the ceiling into a crouch, still connected to Regan by the chain of his weapon. 

'You are skilled to evade my attack even without being able to see it.' 

Dieter unfolded himself from the bottom up, as if he was being constructed in stages. He looked relaxed, like a sprinter limbering up for a run. He stood on the tips of his toes and grunted as he stretched his thin, wiry body up towards the ceiling. He clenched the chain of his weapon in one fist, pulling back against Regan. He held the rest of the chain looped in his other hand; dangling at the end was a second sickle. 

'Another enforcer?' said Regan. 

Dieter dropped out of his stretch and looked at her silently over his mask. Something seemed to pass between them that Forester couldn't understand. Regan shifted her grip slightly on the chain. 

'No,' she said. 'You're different from them. You're like me.' 

Dieter adjusted his stance, sinking into an insectoid crouch. He looked at Regan speculatively. 

'I once heard of a silencer who looked a little bit like you, a young girl with blue hair. They say she was a prodigy. A natural killer. It couldn't be you though. I hear she's dead.'