The Null in the Void (Blackbird)

"Why does everything weird happen in New Orleans? This is like the third time we've been here." Shifting between realms of reality and plane disillusionment, the tiny, spectral corgi spoke to his counterpart in the stillness of the mostly vacant dive she decided to retire to for the evening.

"We're just waiting for someone to get here. And technically they're going to Metairie." In the absence of patrons, Elaine rested the barrel of her pistol against a shot glass. She lifted the gun from the rim of the glass and gently set it back to chime a soft note.

"Where are we sitting right now?"

"A bar." A bar so vacant, no one could set their gaze to wonder why Elaine was chiming a pistol against a shot glass while speaking to what seemed like herself.

"Right. And you're sure this person is competent?"

"They can use the Internet, so I'm sure they're pretty on the ball with stuff."

"Racists and pedophiles use the Internet."

"Those people aren't incompetent, just amoral. Evil works really hard and succeeds a lot, which is why I'm sending someone else." A few days prior, Elaine was tipped off about an ancient relic within the area. A knife said to possess some markings of an ancient being of immense power from a forgotten time.

"And you're sure this person can get this knife."

"No."

"I'm sorry, I assumed you would at least lie to humor me. Why did you send this person to fail?"

"Well, the dagger is an ancient shard of The Nothingness, so anyone touching it loses any powers by touching it."

"And you told them this in the ad?"

"Of course not, this is privileged information." Information given to Elaine by her part time alchemist part time barely employed companion, Amethyst. Amethyst believed Elaine to be capable of keeping the dagger from one of the trouble cults she kept tabs on. Elaine waited until earlier today to put up an ad on Craigslist.

"And how long does this loss of powers stay around for."

"I don't know, like five minutes or so."

"So, you just sent this person to recover a dagger, in a race against a cult, and failed to inform them on the small caveat about the dagger's power?"

"Yep." She sure did.

"One question."

"Shoot."

"Why?"

"I need to know where the cult plans on taking the dagger, and if I went in and got it, I would be in a predicament trying to get out."

"So, once this person realizes there was additional information that compromises their escape, what happens to them?"

"Who knows, the cult probably ties them up, leaves a ticking bomb, and then leaves with the dagger. But, the power loss only lasts for five minutes, so they'll be just fine. Then, once being just fine, they come here to tell me about everything that just happened and I come up with the next part of the plan." Whether or not the power loss lasts for five minutes is actually a guess Elaine devised by thinking of a number and then assigning the word 'minutes' after it. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I'm not saying it's right.

"So, you're going to wait here until someone, whom could very well be dead, comes in and tells you about how they failed, while you, fully knowing that, pretend to listen, and then come up with a plan to act on the information you already know."

"Yep."

"And this doesn't seem inefficient or convoluted to you?"

"I'm solving for a variable. Besides, if they're smart enough to look for work on Craigslist, I'm sure they can figure out any of the things I just said."

"You are solving for a variable, using about at least five unchecked variables. Who taught you math?"

"Don't worry about the math. I'm Asian." A generalization now kept the universe in a very tightly held conundrum. An inefficient, convoluted conundrum.

Deep in her bones, Sadie had known it wasn't a good idea to advertise on Craigslist. There were too many variables. It could be a trap set up by the cops, the person could try to get away without paying her, etc. What she had never expected though, was for the item to disable her powers. The second she picked it up, she knew something was wrong. But, like an idiot, she had ignored the warning bells in her head, content to deal with them after she met with the client. She had attempted to phase through the wall to easily slip out without calling any undue attention to herself from the cult, and ended up with nothing more than a headache from walking into the wall. That had caused her to curse loudly, and some of the cult members had come to investigate the noise.

Thankfully, she had her grappling hook gun with her and cults liked to put skylights over their precious objects. By the time the cult members began alerting the others to her presence, she had already secured the hook to the roof, and pushed off from the floor. It wasn't long before she reached the ceiling, practically clawing at the roof in her attempt to get out of the skylight and onto the roof itself. After that, she attached the gun to her utility belt and slid the dagger into her boot, before fixing the grappling hook to the edge of the roof and propelling down the wall. Then she scurried to the spot where she'd hidden her motorcycle, got on it, and drove to the bar to meet her client.

Once finally at the bar, Sadie glared furiously at the client. Or, the woman she assumed was her client, since she was the only one around. She stalked over to her and sat down, downing the other woman's shot. "You didn't tell me it would void my powers," she said, her voice dangerously low. In the moment she hadn't had the time to be worried but now that the moment had passed, Sadie had moved past worried and straight into terrified. There was no way in Hell she was going to let this woman know just how scared she was, so she covered it with anger. It was an obvious cover to anyone who had basic knowledge of psychology, but Sadie was going to cling to it as hard as she could.. "How long until they come back?" Her voice probably betrayed more worry than she would have liked.

Something went wrong when everything went right. Elaine reached down to grab her hat and set it upon the bar top. "You didn't tell me you weren't going to do the job right. I'm beginning to think putting off coming up with a plan and then finding people on the Internet is a bad idea."

"You found something useful on the Internet that doesn't come with a hateful comment section and you're complaining?"

"Getting this dagger and not knowing about the cult is worse than Hitler. Before Elaine could fully prepare herself to explain what she was willing to explain, Sadie broke in with an ambiguous question about durations. "How long until your powers come back or until the cult comes back? Because the powers will be anywhere from now until the end of time, and the cult will probably come back..."

Alcohol erupted as bullets shattered the bottles along the back wall. "This is all your fault!" Elaine leaped behind the bar and pulled out her sidearm to join in with her already drawn weapon. "How dare you perform the task I ask you to and then show up with the object at the location specified. It's like you speak Chinese." A cavalcade of bullets continued to riddle the walls as raised voices from the outside could be heard yelling through the calamity. "Shi Shei de ze ren!"

Those responsible would send one more care package through the window of the blasted out pane. "Don't worry, the dagger can survive the blast!"

"It's like they don't even care about our safety." Elaine looked around the now even more decrepit bar for a way out. The door she spotted was quickly becoming broken scrap wood under the hail of bullets. With the way the bar looked, no health inspector would be certifying the place in the next couple of days, so an escape route looked to be in just about any direction, but cults always kept the secrets close and surprisingly big for their size.

Creeping in from behind to cut off the escape, a ritual took place to open a portal into the Void. Three cultists drew a marking on the ground in the back alley coinciding with a circular marking that grew in dimension as it became more enlarged. Shadow slithered into form as a tendril pulled forth a mass of primordial chaos. Taking the form of a bipedal creature, the mass stood to a height of ten feet and allowed its shadowy tendrils to drip away from its body. Each drip burned the shadow into nothingness, but the mass never lost any of its form. Before the cult members could flee the scene, a tendril wrapped around the neck of the closest man. His body slowly began to take the form of the shadow of the eternal void.

The shadow filled cultist flew through the wall towards Sadie and Elaine, just moments before the bomb would explode.

Sadie raised an eyebrow incredulously, but let out a heavy sigh as Elaine barreled on talking to herself. Of course the girl was nuts. Making a mental note to never advertise on Craigslist again, Sadie asked when her powers would return. Though obviously Elaine didn't understand her.

Unfortunately, Sadie didn't get the chance to clarify before bullets were flying everywhere. "Maybe I would've been more prepared if someone had told me that they would be armed or that OH HEY my powers wouldn't work," She shouted back, diving behind the bar. "Take this stupid thing!" Sadie pulled the dagger from her boot and threw it at Elaine. "It's so not worth all this trouble." Though perhaps Sadie would feel differently if she knew what it did besides take away her powers.

Her eyes widened in visible fear as she saw the shadow creature approach them. "Tell me when my powers are coming back; I can get us out of here!" That was actually a bit of a lie. Sadie was far more likely to simply save her own skin than put herself in more danger just to get Elaine out. But if it got Elaine to tell her how long she had to survive for before her powers would kick back in, Sadie was happy to lie her ass off. Not that she found it overly hard to lie as it was.

While the bar found itself more tested by the barrage, the trial by combat found a brief reprieve to allow the two pinned girls to air out the grievances surrounding the recent management change. "You can't just give me things I asked for in a plan you weren't supposed to accomplish. Best laid plans of corgi and cowgirls." Grasping the cursed dagger in her hand, Elaine jumped to her feet and prepared to shadow jump through the door. But, with the clutch of the dagger stripping her of power, Elaine immediately impacted against the wall. "You said it took your powers. Why didn't you tell me it would take mine too?! We'll go out the back. It's safe."

Before the words could draw out of her mouth, the shadowy tendrils shot through the back of the wall to ensnare Elaine and Sadie. The appendages would pull the girls through the wall and into the back storage room full of kegs and refrigerated brews. Flailing its multitude of limbs in savage capacity, the creature grabbed shelves and furnishings from around the room to throw towards the interlopers as it tried to hold them still in its clutches.

Without her ability to jump between the shadows, Elaine found her escape much more difficult. Given her disposition from being turned upside down, Elaine let her pistols drop and grabbed hold of the grips midair, letting loose two bullets. An odd gravity projection caused the bullets to swirl in a circular orbit. Shadows broke off and began to encapsulate the bullets in darkness. After the bullets circled, gaining momentum with each revolution, until they finally broke from the spiral and shot towards Elaine. Elaine dodged a tendril flying towards her by pulling herself up to place her head next to her feet. The bullets flew by with a ferocious scream, letting Elaine know she missed the worse thing that could happen to her, but as a tendril wrapped around her arms, she now needed to escape the second worse.

During the altercation between Elaine and the shadow beast, a well dressed woman with a veil cast over her face walked into the fray of battle. Looking over the battle, she smirked beneath the hidden presence and flipped an elegant rod with an ivory falcon resting on the edge. Her finger rested upon a trigger on the haft as she made her way through the battle and would attempt to press the edge of the staff against Sadie's neck to try and knock her out with a great surge of electricity.

Sadie couldn't even believe the girl in front of her was real. She stared incredulously as Elaine blamed Sadie for not telling her that she'd lose her powers. Much like what Elaine did to Sadie in the first place. Except, Elaine should have known. But before Sadie could even think about a reply, they were attacked by the shadowy tendrils. Seeing that Elaine had pulled out a pair of pistols, Sadie once again wished she had known in advance that she would need something like that.

A moment later, she realized that she still had her grappling hook gun and a spare hook hidden in her belt. Frantically, she dug both out, almost dropping the hook in her haste but managing not to. Just as the veiled woman approached her, Sadie managed to aim the loaded gun at the wall and pull herself out of the tendrils. The force that the gun pulled her with nearly catapulted her into the wall, but thankfully her powers kicked back in and she phased right through.

Unfortunately, her powers were still on the fritz, even if she had been able to phase. She landed painfully on the other side of the wall. With no time to waste, Sadie pulled herself from the ground to make her escape. As she did, Sadie went over what had happened. There was no way the cultists could have tracked her, she'd made sure of it. She was a professional and knew how to get away clean. So either there was a tracking spell on the dagger, which was incredibly likely but something Sadie couldn't have done anything about, or they knew about Elaine and knew the location she would choose as a meet-up.

Both options made Sadie feel a little sick (though to be fair that also could have been from the pain... she wasn't used to that), but neither mattered as she ran as fast as she could to get away. Sadie didn't even spare enough time to worry about how easy it seemed. Which was why when a surge of electricity struck her, Sadie's last thought before passing out was: I should have known.

Abandoned by her apparent partner, Elaine struggled to escape the grapple of the creature shrouded in darkness. Instead of a finesse escape, a sudden pull of weight slipped Elaine from the grasp and sent her plummeting to the ground. Just before her laid the knife, in between the inter dimensional dilemma and an explosion just waiting to making its announcement. For all the fuss over this blade, something must be right about grabbing it- or horrific about leaving it. Her hand wrapped around the hilt of the blade while the wall behind her gave out under the concussive force of the explosive tossed into the common room. For all the subtlety associated with cults, this one got straight to the point when it needed to.

Losing her ability to jump through the walls cost her a great deal of mobility, but so did the tendril wrapping around her leg. Proximity between the air and the floor grew more distant as the body of the creature filled the ground under Elaine. An open pit to some other realm or time laid outstretched before her, rows of jagged teeth encircled the lining of the pit. "Jeg befaler dig tilbage." The ancient tongue forced a command from the creature. "Don't eat her here." Still under the cover of the black veil, the static impulse clicked and pitched a savage hiss. "There's plenty to eat at home."

Elaine fell once more to the ground as the pit began closing. A blast of cold surfaced from the gap while a cluttering of voices sounded in her ear. Tiny hands from the rows of teeth reached out to grab Elaine's poncho and hair as she pulled back. When the maw finally closed so did the eerie sensation bestowed upon her by the impending doom. The electric prod shot towards the distracted Elaine, the smell of burned material rose to Elaine's nose. Out of instinct, the dagger she held with importance shot into the veiled woman's hand. "Let's see how you like it!" Elaine didn't know what she just shut off in the mysterious woman, but knew she did something right by how she cried out. Spinning with the dagger to pull it from the newly minted sheath of the woman's hand, Elaine threw the dagger at the shadow creature in hopes of dissipating him entirely.

Hope is stupid.

The dagger passed through the creature and landed in the wall on the far side of Elaine. Even behind the veil, a fury stirred in plain sight to everyone. Fighting the futility the dagger placed upon her, the woman tried to cast some manner of incantation into Elaine. While facing a powerless, but nonetheless evil, powerful woman, a cult full of armed maniacs, and a creature made from the very fabric of void itself, Elaine felt this was no time to be a hero. She could be a hero at a later time and place. While her power of shadowjumping still didn't come back, her mayhem of gunplay never left, and under the spray of bullets and a display of Eskrima, Elaine fled the scene with the dagger of power left behind.

Stopping to catch her breath and wipe a blood stain off of her forearm, Elaine wondered if her idea of terrible power or just lost insight would come true.

"It's the bad one. It is always the bad one."

"You don't even know what I was..."

"Always the worst thing you can imagine and then taken to the next obvious step of oblivion. Where is the blonde girl?"

"She's fine."

"Where's the dagger?"

"They probably forgot about it."

"You know we have to follow them right?"

"That's profiling."

"We can discuss the finer line of things you do and do not get later. This blonde girl is just as interesting as the other blonde girl and way better than Amethyst."

"That's true. I guess it were Ame we could safely leave her behind."

"Without a doubt."

Before any emergency services could arrive to the bar, the cult packed what they needed and left. The dagger and Sadie were both things they felt necessary.

Hidden beneath the salt air of the lower piers in the darkest district of New Orleans, a ritual waited within a warehouse stockroom for the perfect time to come. "Madame  Cramoisi..." A hurried man stepped out to direct the veiled woman towards the preparation circle. "We have the circle prepared for the summoning."

"Good, we lost a few to gaining the dagger, but not as many as I thought. We also gained a sacrifice." Cramoisi removed her veil and handed it off to her attendant. Spirals swirled around her forehead bleeding down towards her eyes, black as pits with light clouds spiraling around the top of her eyes. "Get this cursed thing away from me. Let our guest keep it close to her. But make sure you keep it sheathed. I don't need an escape." Swelling energy of a dark purple hue began to wrap around her hand, tending to the wound Elaine visited to her. No longer did the pain bother her, but the unseemly scar made her disdainful for the imperfection. "I would hope for another sacrifice, but within the hour we will have our host returned." Madame Camoise turned to the chair where ropes kept Sadie and her legs tied to the the chair with her hands tied behind her back.  "Unless anyone has any objections?" A piece of tape would wrap around Sadie's mouth to keep her objections noted only to herself while the dagger rested against her stomach, held in place with several lines of tape.

When Sadie came to, the first thing she noticed was that she was tied to a chair. The second was that damned dagger had been secured to her stomach. It wasn't until she attempted to swear in response to her situation that she noticed the tape over her mouth, causing her to let out a muffled scream of frustration. Unfortunately that also drew the attention of her captors. They turned to her, smirking as they continued speaking. Sadie rolled her eyes at the mention of objections, she clearly had a great deal of objections but obviously none of them would be heard. Even if she were able to voice them, she would simply be ignored.

But that was actually a good thing. As long as she was ignored, they wouldn't notice her slipping her spare lock pick out of her sleeve. Like any good thief, she liked to keep a set of picks on her at all times, specifically in preparation for safes that were too small for her to walk into. It was usually not a good idea to stick your hand into something without being able to see inside of it. This particular pick also happened to have a filing edge, making it the perfect tool to escape duct tape. Sadie sawed through the tape, on the inside of her wrists. One would think people would learn not to leave the hands exposed, especially if one was dealing with a thief, but Sadie definitely wasn't going to complain.

As she wasn't an idiot, Sadie didn't make any move to untie the rest of her. Her captors were still in the room and would obviously notice if she did anything else.

As the cultists moved around to finish their preparations, the majority of them left the room. Clearly they didn't think she needed to be guarded in her current state. When only two members were left, both of whom were occupied with something she couldn't see, Sadie moved into action. With her hands free, she was able to peel the dagger off of her stomach, wincing slightly as the tape pulled at her skin. Managing to keep her movements subtle enough so as not to draw attention, she unsheathed the dagger and got to work cutting through her restraints. But as she moved to cut through the ropes around her ankles, the chair moved. That movement caused the legs to scrape against the floor, which made a loud enough noise that the grunt cultists looked over at her.

Eyes widening as they moved towards her, presumably to tie her up again (and this time would probably include some pain), Sadie quickly cut through the ropes on her legs. She stood up just in time to pick up the chair she'd been tied to and use it as a weapon against the thugs. It broke over him, but at least it kept him at a distance from her.

The second thug tried to grab at her, but she was able to twist out of the way. She picked up the broken seat of the chair and hit him over the head - the back of the head - effectively disorienting the large man enough that a swift kick sent him tumbling to the floor. A grin formed on Sadie's lips as she noticed that he'd fallen onto the other thug, but she didn't have time to celebrate. Before she could think twice about it, she grabbed the dagger and headed into the hallway.

As much as she hated the damn thing, she knew better than to leave it in the cult's possession.

Sadie looked perfectly fine with all of her body parts intact. They were tied together, but she still had them. Given their relationship Elaine assumed Sadie would find a way to blame her for it. Well, even if this rescue did turn out to be ungrateful, Elaine assumed a hero should do it anyways. And, then tell people who do think you're a hero about it.

Perfect.

So, Elaine went about crawling down from the scaffolding overlooking the warehouse floor. Elaine spotted a small staircase she could cling to and descend unnoticed. She stepped over the body of two guards she knocked out on her way in and started going down. Suddenly the sound of violence broke out within the same small room acting as a prison. A little pep kicked into Elaine's step and she burst into the room with both pistols pointed at the seemingly victorious Sadie. Letting her guns go back the holsters, Elaine walked up and ripped the tape from Sadie's mouth. "Okay. I saved you."

Before Elaine could continue on a vibration shook the foundation of the warehouse. "It doesn't normally do that here right?" Even the full blown melee Sadie enacted on the two men beneath her couldn't pull focus away from the howling winds and shrieked terrors. "While you were busy being tied up and all, did you learn anything or were you completely useless until I saved you?" Both pillars supporting the side of the wall keeping the room separate from the main storehouse broke, sending their cover faltering to the ground.

A dark gaze focused on Elaine and Sadie. The darkness of the purple haze pierced the veil of the woman in black as she commanded her men to go forth and claim the sacrifices. Two tentacles of dark energy lashed out to knock the girls to the ground. Elaine grabbed Sadie and shadow jumped out of the trajectory to avoid the blow, hopefully with Sadie in tow.

A cultist charged forward wielding a lead pipe with reckless abandon. A quick shadow jump would set her up perfectly to land a blow to the back of his head, but when she moved to jump forward, her power failed. She sighed as she remembered the dagger. Now she knew how Sadie felt and this was kind of an inconvenience. Even without her jump she landed a kick to the face of a cultist swinging a lead pipe at her. He crashed to the ground and Elaine pulled out her pistols. "I think I know how to stop this."

The glare Sadie leveled at Elaine was the very definition of: if looks could kill. "Oh, you saved me? Really? Listen you bitch..." she let out a frustrated breath, opting to shove the dagger at Elaine instead of speaking her mind. It was never a good idea to swear excessively at crazy people, and most of the things Sadie wanted to say included a slew of curses. There were even some actual curses mixed in there.

Even if she had wanted to continue, the violent shaking of the building would have quickly cut her off. "How am I supposed to know? I just got here!" There was a joke in there somewhere, but Sadie didn't care enough to chose her wording better.

"Again, I saved myself." Sadie had never needed someone to save her and she never would, at least not if she had anything to say about it. In fact, this little adventure pretty much proved that even without her powers, Sadie was perfectly capable of saving her own skin. "But actually, I did find some things out-" Unfortunately, she wasn't able to relay her information. The pillars falling and subsequent escape attempt sort of rendered anything Sadie had to say fairly unimportant.

Sadie almost felt smug when Elaine's powers failed due to the dagger. After all, Elaine had put her life in danger too many times by not telling Sadie about the dagger voiding her own powers. However, since Elaine's powers meant that Sadie was just as trapped, she couldn't be too pleased.

As the cultist charged forward, Sadie braced herself for more pain... except, it never came. Instead, Elaine had moved forward to kick the attacker. Sadie nodded at the other girl, "I've got your back." She said as she plucked the lead pipe from the fallen cultist's hands.

Elaine looked back as Sadie grabbed the pipe and prepared for the escape. "Okay, well, it looks like we need a hero."

"Have you put out an ad yet?"

"Oh Em Gee, I forgot about you." Elaine lost track of her current situation as her long lost companion came back to her. "It's been so long since I've done adventures I almost forgot you always showed up."

"It's been literally tens of minutes."

"It feels like months."

"That guy is going to hit you with a pipe."

A quick lunge of her elbow struck out and caught the cultist in the throat, sending him to the floor in a puddle of a man. When a second man encroached on the door, Elaine spun her hat off her head and struck the man in his face. More tremors shook through the room, tearing apart a large portion of the ceiling. A large support beam tumbled down towards Elaine. With her shadow powers MIA, Elaine took to a simple roll to grab her hat and break towards the stockroom of the warehouse. Grabbing the pouch from her belt, Elaine tossed the satchel into the gaping pit. Momentum pulled her forward and she came face to face with a piercing oblivion forming in the visage of an eye. Lidless and without empathy, the eye pierced deep into Elaine's mind.

Darkness overwhelmed Elaine's balance. She tried to stagger back, but found herself falling forward. Before her face could fall into the pit, the powder broke forth into the grasp of darkness, returning the oblivion to the wooden floor. Elaine slumped to the ground, knocked asunder from the force of pure void.

"My reclamation!" The veiled woman shot forward with her prod to avenge her plans. "You have ruined this attempt, but others will come. I will open a thousand gates and pull forth the unheard into this world. I will have the knowledge I need to bring back those I lost from the grips of death! But not you. No, you will die in pain." Cramoisi prepared to bring down her staff against Elaine with pure virtiol.

Sadie should have known it would only be a matter of time before Elaine started talking to herself again. She had half a mind to bolt and leave the other woman there... but she wouldn't. Elaine saved her, so it was only right that she repaid the favor.

"Watch out!" she yelled, seeing the cultist running at her with a pipe. Thankfully Elaine saw him in time, allowing Sadie to go back to her own fighting. She swung the pipe at one cultist, then used her strength to fix the pipe to the floor so that she could use it as leverage to pick her body up and swing around it, knocking three other cultists down.

She jumped down, picking the pipe up again. Her face felt weird and Sadie couldn't figure out why until she realized that she was smiling. Making a mental note to worry later about the fact that she smiled so rarely that she could barely recognize the sensation, Sadie turned to Elaine to make sure everything was okay with her.

Of course, that's when everything went wrong. "Elaine!" Sadie shouted, fear filling every part of her as her eyes found Elaine. Apparently against her wishes, she'd gotten attached to Elaine, and seeing her falling, clearly hurt, was terrifying. Time seemed to slow as she ran to Elaine, wrapping her arms around the other woman just in time to get her out of the way of Cramoisi's staff.

With Elaine in her arms, Sadie kept running until they were outside the building. Even if she didn't know the cultists would be following her, she would've been clued in by all their yelling. Too bad for them, Sadie noticed a truck outside. Pushing Elaine into the front passenger seat, Sadie glanced around for a set of keys -- and to her surprise, she actually found some tucked into the passenger visor.

So the fighting went well enough. Elaine and Sadie both dismantled the bulk of the fighting force the cultist could throw at them. That is, until Cramoisi's staff grew closer to making blunt trauma with Elaine. Without adequate time to dodge, Elaine could feel the fury of the blow making way to descend upon her.

And then she felt nothing. A very odd feeling came over her and left. A feeling of knowing her surroundings, the danger, and the color of her sight. And then replacing it with a new surrounding. One with less raving cultists, less electric prods, and more Sadie. "I don't know how I saved you from that, but I'm pretty amazing." Before Elaine could fully come back to Earth, she felt Sadie grab her and pull her towards a truck.

Safely tucked inside the cab of the truck, Elaine fastened her seat belt before sighing in impatience for Sadie. "I'm going to find something to listen to." It wasn't until Elaine moved forward she noticed the distinct lack of a dagger about her. Patting her shirt and hips, Elaine looked behind her back as Sadie roared the engine. "We needed that dagger right?"

Before Elaine could get a response from Sadie, the dagger tore through the roof of the truck, planting itself between Elaine and Sadie. The canopy began to part under the grip of two hands. Two dark orbs under a veil pierced in. "Now, where are you two off to in such a hurry?"