The Changeling

39

The door burst open with a shattering rain of splinters. Lovou came barreling through and stumbled down onto his stomach. Xocthl hopped on through behind him, sword drawn and ready to attack or defend. Her eyes found the corpse first since he'd stumbled over and died just a moment ago, right in the middle of the room. Lovou was just a few hops away from it.

"Shit!" Lovou rasped as he scrambled away from the lifeless body of Ezren Armistead. The weight that had been lingering in his chest broiled. Blood dripped from Ezren's mouth and neck into a slowly widening pool of crimson. Lovou's heart was in his throat, sure he was choking on it.

He turned his head and found her. She was half holding herself up by the bookshelves, bent over and heaving to the side. Covered in red with a virulent set of shakes, blood flickered off

her fingers and onto the floor by her bared toes.

He got to his feet in an instant, skittering in her direction and slamming himself hands first into the bookshelves around her as he tried to stop himself from crushing her. Her name rasped on his lips was like a plea, a promise, and an apology all at once.

Her hands still flicked out in front of her.

Eyes frantic and wide, she turned and stared at his chest and nothing at the same time. He backed away, realizing he'd probably done more than just overcrowd her in a moment where she likely wished to be left alone. She gripped at his biceps, bloodied fingers sinking between the armored plates and holding on for dear life. Arms and legs quivering, she dissolved into sudden, aching tears.

Xocthl stared down at Ezren with a severe frown on her face. She kicked at his side to make sure he was well and dead, and maybe just because she could. She turned away to find a sword leveled at her face.

"Pleasure," Xocthl nodded at the sword. Her eyes followed down the blade to see a windswept looking woman standing there with a cutlass. The sword steadied, held at Xocthl's nose with one hand. The other pressed into a gigantic bloodstain at her side.

"Might want me to take a look at that,"

Xocthl muttered and went to step forward. The woman gave a small thrust with the sword while growling. Xocthl slowed her step and tipped back to avoid the point, arms raising with a tight, but winsome grin, "Hey now, love, you let him through. I'm with him. I won't hurt you."

Seun snarled her response. "I know him. I know she trusts him. I don't know you from fuck all, other than you're in Ezren's pocket."

Xocthl grinned at her for true, "I can appreciate your skepticism, I truly can —,"

"She's fine." Lovou spat over his shoulder at Seun, "Better friend to me than most."

"Good then," Seun dropped the sword and keeled over to the side.

Xocthl jumped to catch her and guided her to sit in a nearby chair as she hissed with agony.

"That sure is a lot of blood, girl." Xocthl looked over her shoulder to check on Lovou and Cetlali. He eclipsed her entirely. His rumbling tone was saying something, anything, to her.

He shielded her from the surrounding room, the rest of the world, if he must. All Xocthl could hear in response were tiny, jagged sobs through bit shut lips.

"M'not a girl, I'm older than you, probably,"

Seun spat and sat up with a groan. "It's not so bad. I feigned being hurt worse so I could call for help. He just hit me a bit low. Might have gotten bone cause my hip is aching something terrible." She looked around Xocthl, narrowing her eyes at Ezren's cold and paling corpse. A little smile ticked on her lips. "Thonul forsake him. The old bastard couldn't even cut me good enough." She spat at the empty flesh with such relish. It would've impressed the god of death themselves.