Last Leg

8/3/2019 Last Leg

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8/3/2019 Last Leg


Last Leg

Chapter 1

Despite Starr’s passport not matching her

appearance, the airport employees gave her no problems. Her father, who was in the Air

Force, got it for her when she was twelve, for

when they were stationed in Germany. Now,

at sixteen, she’d changed a lot since then: her

hair was straight waist length and blue black

like the midnight sky, and she never went

anywhere without black eyeliner and red lips.Her seat rattled as the person behind

her put a tray in upright position.

She couldn’t stand the tight little seats

and the cramped little space of the 737

aircraft. All she wanted was to land so she

could stretch her legs; that and she was tired

of smelling the toilet.

Several hours later, she was

awakened by a glare of light through the

window, in front of her, that a passenger

opened. The sun had risen and reflected off

the icy clouds.

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She smelled it, again, coming from a

man in a black suit: a sweet scent thatreminded her of a light sage. His dark eyes

stayed forward, as though trying not to give

away that he was onto her, but she knew he

was.

Normally, once a human was turned,

they stopped putting off their pungent animalsmells – body odor - but they still secreted

pheromones.

Deeply, she inhaled the air, tasting the

sage and trying to pick out the pheromones

so as to determine if he was a threat to her.

She was distracted by the pilot’s

voice, coming over the intercom, letting them

know they had already begun their descent

toward the Sibiu Airport, in Transylvania,

Romania.

The man’s scent filled the air at the

news; he was just as happy, as she was, for

the long trip to be over.

She and the man, who continued to

pretend he wasn’t following her, made it

through customs and baggage claim, though

he didn’t have any bags; he even followedher to the taxi line.

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Was he really so stupid as to think she

didn’t notice?

Oh well; she figured it was better to

play naïve, for the moment, anyway. She

didn’t want to get on the bad side of Louisa

Credenza who was the reason for her flying

to Romania. Unfortunately, she was hopingto make the trip in secret, so already being

followed was real disappointment.

“Unde a face nevoie la spre energie?”

asked her cab driver.

A trick of being a vampire was Starr seemed to have gained a, sort of, extra

sensory perception to understand what people

wanted of her, even if the language they

spoke wasn’t English. Unfortunately, her

comprehension didn’t always mean that she

knew how to respond, which is why she spent

many of the hours, mid-flight, studying basic

Romanian phrases.

“A face pe plac lat, Marriott Hotel,”

she said slowly and awkwardly.

When he asked which one, she merely

looked into his eyes, in the rearview mirror,shrugged her shoulders and furrowed her

eyebrows.

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The man seemed to understand, for hesaid “Nici o problema,” and drove off.

Starr hadn’t much time to plan before

she’d left the city. It was a last minute

decision that she should come and track

down the headquarters of, what LouisaCredenza called, The Council.

Repeatedly, she looked out the back

window, trying to see if the man in the suit

was there, in one of the cars, but she couldn’t

find him, nor smell him out of all the exhaust

and crisp mountain air.

Twenty minutes later, the cab driver

parked in front of a hotel lobby in the center

of Sibiu.

If she were still human, her breath

would have been taken away by the beautiful,

old city.

As she stepped out of the car, she

turned around, looking at the exotic medieval

structures. It was true, what they say:

Transylvania appeared to be an excellently

maintained medieval territory.

The buildings were charming, though

old, and, yet, somewhat garish, with the way patrons mended their old frames; rather than

original restorations, the buildings were

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painted with colors of white, yellow and

pink; they simply didn’t match their structures, she thought. She couldn’t help but

think they shouldn’t have put drywall over

the beautiful wooden churches, or over the

old stone buildings.

Looking south, she saw enormous,

intimidating mountains with blankets of mistthreatening to drop down on them. She

wondered if they were the infamous

Carpathian Mountains that bordered the

Ukraine.

Looking at them, she imagined wars

upon wars, and blood and swords: people

fighting and people dying, centuries ago.As she walked up the path, to the

hotel, she tasted the air, but didn’t smell or

sense the man.

At the counter, a lady in a blue suit

with her hair in a tight bun asked, “Cum pot

ajutor tu?”

“A room, please,” Starr said, hoping

she understood.

“O’gay,” she said with a thick accent.

It wasn’t until the woman asked howshe’d be paying that Starr realized she’d

forgotten to visit the currency counter at the

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airport, for she didn’t have any credit cards,

as she was only sixteen.

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

“They ar-r-re expensive, the air-r-rport,” she

rolled each R short and harshly.

The woman gave her directions to a

spot down the street.

Starr couldn’t help but laugh at all the

Dracula propaganda posted in shop windows

and passed out in pamphlets on the street.

They all said, “Dracula lived here,” “Dracula

ate here,” and “Come visit Dracula’s …,”

something, or other.

When she returned to the hotel, Starr

was checked into a nice clean room, where

she crashed on the bed and sighed, loudly.

Traveling was exhausting and, though

she loved seeing new places, she hoped to

never have to leave the Unites States again.

Inwardly, she told herself she just

wanted to relax, after being cramped in a

steel tube for nearly a day and a half, but that

was completely changed when she looked out

of her room’s window.Once again she was awed by

centuries old beauty.

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Across the sky, and along the base of

the lower part of Sibiu, old houses werecrammed next to each other in a long row.

Up higher, she saw enormous solitary

structures: castles, dark and foreboding, even

in the light of day.

Pressing her face into the window,

she looked right and saw half a dozen castle-like structures; they had cylindrical shapes

and conical pointed roofs.

Anxious to see, up close, the old city,

she put her stuff in the safe, grabbed her bag

and walked down to the tourist counter where

she booked her first tour.

One thing that made her laugh washow all the brochures, behind the hotel’s

counter, called all the castles, Dracula’s,

whether he actually lived there or not. If he

stopped in for the night, or only for a café,

they were place was his.

She spent the day on the tour in the

city of Sighisoara, one of Vlad III’s real

homes when his father, Vlad II, was in exile.

Like Sibiu, the fortified city was

nearly perfectly preserved, and even the more

rotted parts of the city were beautiful and

enchanting; even the brick roads reminded

her of how old the place, she stood on, was.As she entered the infamous Clock

Tower, which was built in the 13th century,

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she felt truly overcome by the realization that

the clock was a truly special piece of magnificence, and especially for the common

people of the middle ages.

By early evening, Starr returned to

Sibiu where she wandered about for hours.

The town was known for having twolevels of division. For the earlier part of the

evening, she walked the upper level which

was a business district. There she felt

compelled to touch all the walls; to her,

touching them was like touching a person’s

essence, a person that lived centuries before.

Except for the garish paint, andoccasional dry wall, many of the towers were

so excellently preserved that Starr could

immediately see, in her mind, what life might

have been like there: the Harquebusier, home

to medieval infantry; the Carpenter Towers,

fortified with a beautiful octagonal shape;

Tanning Towers, and the Gunpowder

Towers. People worked themselves to death,

in those places.

To think that, in a mild way, she was

connected, being what she was, to the town

was a thrilling thought. After all it wasmythology that Vlad, himself, was the first

vampire. The fact that an ethical tribe of

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vampires, who called themselves The

Council, ruled and resided there, made therumor seem possible.

She wondered if vampires were first

born, there, in the Transylvanian territories?

Was Vlad Tepes III really a vampire? What if

she met Vlad the Impaler, and found he was a

maniacal vampire? What would she do then?

When she tired of the upper level, she

moved along to the lower level which was

comprised of mostly houses that were

centuries old, too.

The houses were all crammed

together, making long neat rows of houseafter house, just like she saw from her hotel

room. In her city, homes were crammed

together, too, though, unlike her city, the

long, crammed neighborhoods looked like

they provided little privacy or space.

The Romanian people stuck out,

greatly, in contrast to their medieval

surroundings. In fact, they seemed

completely out of place, in their modern

clothes, carrying their laptops and talking on

cell phones.

At the corner of a cobble stone street,

she spotted a little pub. Tired of wanderingaround, she decided to stop.

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Inside was just like most of the other

houses and small buildings she’d seen thatday; although attached to enormous

structures, the pub, itself, was small and dark

like a cave.

Inside, the décor was simple looking

with thick whittled wooden tables and chairs

crammed together, hardly allowing of patron privacy.

The crowd was mostly middle aged,

though a few of them were fairly young, but

their skin was ruined from years of drinking

and smoking; a trend that seemed to start

early in the towns of Transylvania.

She walked up to the counter andordered an Ursus: a beer from the top

brewery in Romania.

The myths would say that her kind

could only drink blood, but it just wasn’t

true. In fact, Starr really enjoyed the light

refreshing taste of the spiced ale, as she

poured it over her tongue.

It was at that moment she noticed the

scent of sage, again, but she wasn’t surprised.

Eventually, she knew he’d find her, again.

She remained where she was,

thoroughly surprised, and enjoying her corba

de peste, fish soup which turned out to bevery delicious.

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Finally, the man must have realized

she was onto him, for, instead of trying to blend in with the crowd, he sat right next to

her.

“So I figured I’d better just say hi,” he

said with a thick Romanian accent.

Starr kept eating as if he didn’t speak.“Ar-r-ren’t you going to say

something,” he asked, rolling his R.

“Go away,” she said icily, as she

sipped more of her fish broth.

“Well, that’s hardly nice, Madam,” he

said surprised.

She took a sip of her cold brew.After a moment of silence, the man

continued, “You are just as shocking of

tongue, as you are of presence: black hair,

black eye liner, black leather. What is this? A

chain ar-r-round your neck?”

Like an old character in a comic

book, Starr liked to fashion a thick chain link

around her neck, clasped off with a full sized

metal lock; the key was in her pocket at all

times.

The man reached out to touch the

chain.

“Don’t touch me,” but the manignored her.

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Faster than the human eye could see,

Starr put her hand around the man’s neck andslammed it to the counter, pinning him there.

He yelped and groaned as he clawed

at her hands, but she was too strong.

Starr, who was a black black belt in

Karate, a natural runner, and could bench

press like a man when she was alive, wasnow a real life woman of steel. It was for this

reason that The Council and, particularly,

Louisa Credenza had taken an interest in her;

however, Starr had a deep rooted feeling that

their intentions were not wholly pure, and she

wouldn’t be forced to do anything she didn’t

agree with.There weren’t many vampires, young

or old, who could take Starr on, which is why

she flew to Romania to spy on The Council.

If she could find out what their plans, for her,

were, then she could determine whether, or

not, she needed to prepare for the fight of her

life.

Personally, thought Starr a few times,

she’d rather just fall off the face of the Earth,

and if it weren’t for the people in her life that

she cared about, she would have.

The problem with hiding from other

vampires was some of them had the samenatural ability, as Starr, to sense each other’s

presence; to pick each other out of a crowd.

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Worse was the older they got, the stronger

their powers became. Hiding from Credenzawould be like running from the law with a

cell phone in her pocket; she’d always be on

satellite and easily located.

The barrister, who was cleaning a

glass stopped and stared, as did the other

patrons. Normally, people were surprised tosee that skinny, beautiful Starr could kick a

man’s butt.

He whimpered and clawed at her

hand, trying to get her to release her grip.

Finally, she let him up. He looked at

her, his face red and angry, and then walked

out.The patrons continued to stare; Starr

stared back, defiantly.

“Ce este?” she said loudly and

angrily; the patrons turned back to what they

were doing, quickly.

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Castle De Negru

Chapter 2

The next day, she took the Carpathian

Mountains Bonus tour, only it didn’t go high

up into the mountains, but, rather, just up into

the immediate hills where they viewed thecity from on high.

The road was a windy, winding path.

Occasionally, Starr wondered if the bus could

tip over the side. Judging by scent that other

passengers were giving off, many others were

a little frightened, too.

When they got to the top of their point, she caught sight of an enormous black-

as-coal lake; it was long fished out and dead.

The bus driver continued up several

more miles of road, and the further up they

got, the more the road diminished; leaving

barely enough room for the bus to drive on.

The higher they went, the more

nervous the passengers seemed to get.

After a few more miles, the bus

turned right onto a rocky road that took them,

steadily, down an incline.

As they made their way down, they

passed a herd of goats and a coupleherdsman.

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Crazy as it seemed, to her, and many

of the tourists, this was a spectacular site tosee; the idea that people still did such things

was unimagined.

Further along, Starr saw, ahead, a

dark castle approach: Castel de Negru, the

bus driver called it.

As they got closer to the castle, Starr felt a tickle in her ear. She rubbed it, but the

tickle turned into a buzz. Curiously, she

looked around to see if anyone else noticed

the weird noise, but no one appeared to be

bothered.

A few hundred more feet and her

head started to feel like it was being penetrated by infrasonic sound waves.

Trying to protect her ears, she put her

hands to her ears, but it didn’t help. Then,

instantly, her mind was flooded with the

thoughts of a dozen people, murmuring. It

hurt bad, making her eyes water.

Although she was a kind of telepath,

her specialty was sensing other people or

vampires around her, and seeing pictures in

her mind of what they were doing in the

present. This was the first time she’d ever

been able to hear conversations taking place,

too.Then, like someone put a movie in

her mind, she saw that inside they were

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preparing a blood bath. The sight made her

inner animal thirsty, and her fangs protrudedforward a bit.

Desperately, she tried to ignore the

images and commanded her fangs to recede,

but, then, she saw a large stone bath in the

center of the room, where a table could have

seated 50 people.A man in a white suit was tying up a

goat that cried, loudly, by the feet; he strung

him upside down, over the basin and slit its

throat.

The blood poured down in a thick

stream. There were six goats, next to it, that

were slowly dying, their cries becoming lessand less, as they’d had their throats slit

moments before.

Sometimes, when she didn’t get

blood, regularly, in her diet, she would ‘turn’

at the sight of it; meaning her vampire would

show its self; her fangs would extend and her

eyes would change colors. If she was really

starved for blood, she could even ‘vamp out.’

To vamp out was a serious thing that

could cause Starr to lose human

consciousness, turning her into a mindlesszombie and killing machine.

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Starr fidgeted, uncomfortably, in her

seat; she didn’t know if she could stop fromturning right there, as the images continued

to permeate her mind.

Finally, her skin started to tingle, she

felt her fangs extended all the way, and it was

too late.

She reached inside her jacket, pulledout her sunglasses and covered her

iridescent-kaleidoscope eyes, which was a

bizarre sight on anyone.

A low growl came from her throat.

She tried to silence it but she felt helpless,

like she was losing the fight against her inner

demon.Just when she’d given up, and was

about ready to jump out of the window to

avoid killing anyone, the feeling lifted.

She looked out of the window; the

castle was a hundred feet behind them, and

then five hundred, and then a thousand. The

further away they got, the calmer Starr

became.

The bus continued five more miles

down the path, and stopped in an obscured

little town.

Still unable to draw back her fangs,

she decided to go to the bathroom and splashsome water on her face.

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After seeing her sweaty, pallid

reflection in the bathroom mirror, shedecided to stay behind, rather than return to

Sibiu, because she didn’t know if she could

pass the castle, again. Next time, she would

surely vamp out and someone might die.

Maybe she could track one of thosegoats she’d seen being herded?

Staring at the ground, and covering

her mouth so as not to show her fangs to the

bus driver, she explained that she would stay

the night, at the bed and breakfast, and then

take the bus home, the next day.The driver stared at her and Starr got

the sensation that he knew what was really

bothering her: that she needed blood.

Fortunately, the man just told her to be

careful and then gave her a map of the area.

After checking into the town’s bed

and breakfast, she paced the room, trying to

calm her inner animal which had picked up

its growl again, but, like a nicotine addict she

was bouncing off the walls. The smartest

thing to do would be to go out and get a goat,

but she hated hunting when she wasn’t in her

right mind.

It’s too late; I need blood, now!

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Fortunately, for her, as soon as she

stepped outside, the scent of blood caughther. Tasting the air, she could tell that it came

from the town square.

Following the scent with her mind,

she saw that there was a little butcher shop. A

man was cleaning out a cow he’d only

purchased that morning, so the blood, shesmelled, was real fresh.

She walked fast through the dirt, for

the town had no sidewalks. Just before the

front door of the butcher shop’s building, she

turned left down a walkway between it, and

the building right before.

Twenty feet down, and to her right,was a little clearing where a man was

spraying the meat of a cow with a water hose.

In the corner, there was a bucket full

of the cow’s blood. From inside the building,

a phone rang. He put down the nozzle and

disappeared through the door.

Quick as she could, Starr ran up,

grabbed the bucket and then disappeared,

further, down the walkway.

At the end of the walkway, she turned

right and continued down the alley. A

moment later, she sat on a trash bin, put the bucket up to her mouth, and poured every

drop of the rich red liquid down her throat.

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“Ugh!” she blurted out. Cow bloodwas the worst! It was the sturdier breeds of

animal that tasted good: lamb, chicken, goat,

and even dogs. But if she had to drink animal

blood, her most preferred was chicken.

Despite the foul taste of the blood,she felt relief. She licked her lips and teeth,

which retracted, instantly. Then she pulled a

mirror from her jacket pocket and took off

her sunglasses: her eyes were still glowing. It

would be awhile before they’d return to their

normal sterling grey.

Not wanting to be found in such aweird position, on a trash bin with a bloody

bucket, she got up and walked, further, down

the road, taking in the rest of the little town.

There wasn’t much to it. She could

count the number of commercial buildings on

both hands. It was chilly and dusty, and

practically a ghost town.

As she walked, it did occur to her that

the Castel de Negru’s inhabitants might have

known something about The Council.

Perhaps they could give her some

insight about the organization and tell her where it was?

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Although the Castel de Negru’s

inhabitants might also be Council members,she thought, too.

After contemplating the Negru

vampires, she decided to check it out, later.

She spent the rest of the afternoon

lying in her bed at the bed and breakfast, asthere was nothing else to do in the little town.

When it was dark, she ran out and up

the road. Although this task would have been

arduous for a mortal, for Starr it took fifteen

minutes to run the few miles back up to the

castle.As she got closer, she immediately

sensed the dozen, or so, vampires in there,

laughing, mingling, and still preparing for

whatever was to happen, that night.

She stopped at a tree about fifty yards

from the castle and probed the place with her

mind.

Just like earlier, she could hear bits

and pieces of conversation: a lady in a white

dress was ordering the drained goats to be

spitted and roasted, a man was sitting in front

of a large fireplace, drinking brandy, andsomeone, whose face she couldn’t see

clearly, was setting up silverware in the

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enormous dining room where the blood bath

was.She looked at her cell phone and saw

that it was only 8 p.m.; whatever event they

were planning hadn’t begun yet.

From what she saw, she couldn’t

conclude if they were good or bad vampires;

whether they were in connection with TheCouncil or not.

Then, suddenly, it got quiet inside the

castle. She knew that some of them, if not all

of them, probably sensed her sensing them.

One of them, whom she’d seen

earlier, a man in a white suit with a red bow

tie, opened the front door of the castle andwas walking toward the gate. Several men

and women, from inside, crowded the

doorway.

Starr didn’t know if it were wise to

meet these vampires. They could kill her, or

trick her, make her Credenza’s slave. Who

knew what kind of laws The Council lived

by.

Caution told her to run, immediately,

so she hurried back down the road, toward

the town.

Briefly, she looked back and saw twored eyes gleaming at her, in the dark.

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By the time she made it back to town,

her legs felt gummy. Perhaps she wasstronger than humans, but she could still

exhaust her strength, as she’d learned in

previous battles.

She stopped into a little bar, if you

could call it that. It was the size of a closet,

and all they served was beer and wine.The place was barely lit by dim gas

lamps. There were five tables with chairs, but

no bar.

The dozen or so patrons looked

surprised by her sudden appearance in the

doorway.

Starr observed their ragged clothesand vagrant expressions. Unlike the other

Romanians, these people were dark and

ethnic looking. Starr wondered if these were

some of the infamous gypsies one hears

about in ancient lore.

“Assemanator un bere, Ursus,” Starr

said uncertainly. She’d only learned that

phrase yesterday, and it still wasn’t rolling

off her tongue quite right, but they must have

understood, for the fattest and ugliest man of

the bunch stood up and went behind a

counter.Ignoring the other patrons who

continued to stare, Starr watched the man as

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she walked to a table on the opposite side of

the room.

At the table next to the men, there

were two women in dirty jeans and tee shirts.

The blonde had hair like a poodle,

and her cheap red lipstick was smeared onto

her teeth and unevenly around her mouth.Her dark haired companion looked

even worse, with enough blue eye shadow to

pass for a smurf. She had a huge rip in the

knee of her jeans, and her rotting teeth

reminded her of George Washington

depictions.

Starr didn’t need her animal senses toknow they were threatened by her. She

figured she’d better drink her beer and get

back to her room because she didn’t want to

hurt anyone, but as she finished up and made

to leave, the blonde one stepped in front of

her.

She talked at her in Romanian, but

Starr only got half of what she said:

something about her being a trashy, ignorant

American which made her smirk. The woman

had, obviously, not looked in a mirror,

recently.

Starr could have, easily, walkedaround the woman but it was common that

vampires would walk slowly, so as to blend

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in better. Humans were often confused and

bewildered by the pace, at which, they couldmove and walk. It was only for this reason

that she tried, and failed, to walk around the

woman, once more; she was trying to appear

normal.

After her third failed attempt to exit,

Starr picked her up by the shoulders, like sheweighed no more than a large cat, and set her

to the side of the door, and walked out.

Dismissing the woman infuriated her,

for she went berserk and came at her from

behind, swinging her beer mug at the back of

her head.

Starr side stepped and made a sidekick straight into her gut. The blonde flew

into the wall and slid to the ground,

unconscious.

Next, her friend came at her, slappity

slap, trying to smack her to death, which only

made Starr laugh harder.

Were they serious?

She weaved back and to the side a

couple times, and then, like slapping a gnat

between two palms, fast like, she smacked

the woman on both her cheeks.

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The pain stunned her, and then she

plopped to the ground like fallen a sack of potatoes.

Shaking her head and laughing, she

wandered back up the road, toward the bed

and breakfast.

Halfway up the road, she knewsomeone was following her, and whoever it

was must have been incredibly filthy, for

although he was like Starr, he gave off a foul

stench from his pores; almost as though he

hadn’t bathed in a century, like he’d rolled in

pig slop.

“Now that was hardly fair, was it?”

said the foul smelling man.

Starr turned around and saw he was

just as foul to look at as he was to smell.

What was it with these crazy Gypsy

Romanians?

From what she could tell, the rumors

were true: they meant trouble.

She stood there and waited for him to

speak again.

“Who are you?” he asked brazenly.

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Silence; she wasn’t going to oblige

the arrogant piece of filth.Her resistance angered him.

“Did you hear me?” he asked, as he

walked up to her; the smell of dirty diapers

emanating from him; his eyes dark and full of

crazy. “What are you, deaf?” he asked

irritably, but she simply stood there.

“What? You think you’re tough?” and

he made to spit in her face, but Starr jammed

the palm of her hand into his nose, causing it

to break and spray blood.

The man called her an evil name and

tried to take a swipe at her, but failed. Nextmoment, out of the shadows, came a gang of

them: filthy, rot smelling vampires.

Starr was shocked. Were they really

going to gang up on her? Even the gang back

in NYC was hesitant to gang up on a woman,

but, then again, she’d always heard that

Gypsies did everything, including fighting,

dirty.

Suddenly, it was like a Kung Fu

movie, and Starr was the star as she whipped

out her ruby studded sickles that Lucenzo, an

old vampire, gave her.

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They were the worst fighters she’d

ever engaged, even the gangsters, back home,had better moves.

One guy, behind her, moved toward

Starr. The one with the broken nose told him

to hold Starr, in Romanian.

Starr made two elegant steps,

completing a full 360 degree circle. Nextsecond, both their heads lay severed, on the

ground.

Four more came at her, she spun like

elegantly, like she was turning for the ballet,

and four more heads rolled.

Starr was extremely disappointed. For a moment, she even wished they were still

alive, and that she didn’t use her knives.

The downside to being as strong as

she was, was never, quite, meeting her match.

In fact, it was downright depressing, for the

only person she ever could practice martial

arts with, anymore, was herself.

A high pitch, cross between a squeal

and scream, emitted from her throat as she

looked down at her blood spattered leather

pants and vest.

She could have cried! Her Jones NewYork lambskin would be destroyed if she

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didn’t wash and oil them, immediately! But

her stuff was at home, in the city!

Awakening Starr from her moment of

shallowness, she heard a woman scream

Bloody Mary.

She’d forgotten about the two

women, passed out, in front of the little pub!

Starr didn’t waste time; she took off

running.

Great! There goes my fact finding mission!

Now she needed to worry about

getting back to her hotel, and on the next

flight out of Romania.

But as she approached Castel de

Negru, she sensed the inhabitants were

anticipating her approach.

She wasn’t mistaken, either, for as

she got closer, three of the people she’d seen

in her mind were standing in the road.

Starr stopped running, pulled out her

sickles and raised them high to sky, then back

down so that they gleamed under the light of the moon: a grand gesture, letting them know

she was ready to fight.

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There were three of them standing

elbow-to-elbow: the dark haired man with thered bow tie, a Botticelli blonde in a white

goddess-like dress, and a scrawny blond guy.

Last Leg

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