Placeholder A Weak Link in the (Brotherhood of) Chains

[Kaie]

30th of Summer, 514 AV
22nd Bell
A continuation from here!


Kaie remained seated on the lumpy, molded sofa of the dilapidated shack for several chimes after Kostaja left. Her cold, amber stare was directed at the blank, crumbling wall across from her. Her body was tilted forward, elbows resting on her knees. The muffled sound of curses and threats wafted from the floorboards beneath her feet. As if deaf, the Myrian only continued to glare hatefully into the darkness with her lip curled. Time ticked by. The muffled voice continued its tirade. She reached beneath her cloak to retrieve Zedra's cleaver from her weapons' belt, and balanced it between her hands.

It was an ordinary weapon to be honest. It wasn't marked by the divine or blessed with an Isurian's fine touch. It was merely what it was: a butcher's tool. Yet its meaning to Kaie laid within the knowledge of the butcher who wielded it last. Zedra of the Scattered Bones had emerged the previous season as a worthy adversary. She was another Child of Myri, and yet greed had set her on the warpath to destroy every last Scar on behalf of her employer. The two Myrians had fought, and when Kaie had spared her life, Zedra had thrown herself before the same mob she'd rallied behind to give the Scars enough time to escape. Rumor had it that she had been mutilated and sodomized after her death.

The fallen Scattered Bones warrior woman had not been of Kaie's clan. However, just as she had, Zedra mixed her blood with the Goddess Queen's and thus received Myri's blessing. Mr. Silver was the man who had employed Zedra, rallied the mob, and sought to bring harm to those Kaie had dared deem her chosen family. Blood always ran thicker than water. So with her fallen sister's cleaver, she'd see her personal vendetta through. Mr. Silver would pay. Only then could she rest.

Leth's glow slipped through the roof to give a gentle illumination along the cleaver's metal length. Her tanned thumb traced along its cool, sharp edge. Noticing a reflection on its surface, the Myrian tipped it until it revealed to her her own face. The voice below started up again. Her expression darkened and she rose from her seat. A hatch hidden in the floor was lifted and fell with a hard thunk! Darkness persisted below but her captive had no trouble filling the room with sound. A single flame from within a lantern provided enough light to brighten the area about the Myrian and tied prisoner. Its fiery dance worked its way ominously along the length of the exposed blade.

"Slit my throat, you bloody coward! Get on with it!" Mr. Silver snarled like a rabid dog, pulling futilely at his restraints that kept him firmly seated in the formidable wooden chair. "You already know I'm not here to kill you," Kaie responded oddly calm as she stood before him. "Like I warned you, I'm about to ask you for something and you've been given time to prepare to give it to me. If you don't, I'm going to hurt you."
"Silver ain't no rat, you jungle bitch!" Kaie approached him from the side and grasped at his sleeve. With the help of the cleaver's edge she managed to shear a long and thick strip of it. "Kill me! Save our bloody time! Silver don't tell no one nothin'! Besides, we both know how this ends!"

"Why did you incite the mob and send mercenaries to hunt The Scars?"
"I thought I told you to quit pussy-footin' around! I. Don't. Talk." The Myrian loomed over him and the pair locked stubborn stares. She adjusted her jaw. "Under different circumstances I might've admired your convictions." She shook her head and walked past his chair behind him. "It should've been you the mob butchered and raped on those docks, you--"
"You're right. It should have," Kaie agreed emptily as she cut off his soliloquy with the gag, tying its ends into a tough knot behind his scarred head. The hollowed shell of the Myrian navigated back around to stand before him again, thumb caressing the edge of the cleaver.

"Now I'm going to hurt you."

[Kaie]

He wasn't screaming quite yet, but gods could she find pleasure in the idea she could make him if it suited her. She was righteous. She was furious. She was filled with apathy...and yet her recovery in Zeltiva after the attack had cleared some of the brash idiocy from her head. The Myrian was seeing all too clearly.

She would not let emotions mislead her on her path for vengeance, and she would not confuse her vengeance with the noble quest for justice. For now the Tigress would not indulge in her most primal of violent urges. The surface of those impulses would do.

Mr. Silver groaned as the cleaver was drawn carefully along his cheek, leaving a long, deep trail of red where flesh parted behind the blade. Blood leaked from the opening without further command. A more distinguished scar to rest among the others, Kaie mused to herself as she removed the cleaver from his skin. Mr. Silver's teeth ground into the cloth and the muffled curses started up soon after.

"Why did you incite the mob and send mercenaries to hunt The Scars?" The gag was removed. Mr. Silver ground his teeth together, staring up at her defiantly. No? She shrugged and forced the gag back upon him again, brandishing the cleaver. Fine. Either way, you're making my petching day.

Kaie could've beaten him about the head with her bare fists. It would've been easy, natural even. A beaten head, however, is a foggy mind. She didn't want his pain to throb. She wanted it to be acute, to sting, to make him feel alive and wish he wasn't all the same. The cleaver dug in below the last cut. This time she drew a slower, deeper line that left him groaning with each tick of exaggerated slicing. One look at his eyes and she knew it was not enough. Mr. Silver snickered, leaning his bleeding head back against the chair.

The Myrian woman thought she had it together, thought she could proceed through the dirty work with a cold, calculating apathy. She was wrong. She snapped and The Tigress awakened.

[Kaie]

The restrained, furious woman became a mere specter as the feral creature set upon him with a steely substitute for tooth and fang. With a snarl her left hand removed all but the pinky of his left hand from the arm of the chair, and wielded cleaver recklessly upon the small cutting board with a sudden drop of her arm. Her captor's eyes widened, anxiety and fear coursing through his veins thicker than blood. Then came his muffled, panicked screamed against the gag with gaze fixated on a small, bloody stump upon his hand. It was an imperfect cut to be sure. The Myrian had managed to separate the finger just below the second knuckle, and the most grievous of injury was perhaps given to the viciously split wood that provided surface for punishment.

"Why!?" Kaie roared in the face of her prisoner with wild amber eyes, free hand ripping down the gag only when the loudest of the shrieking had ceased. "Loosen tongue! Or see it removed when I get bored of taking fingers!" Both their chests heaved, one in unbridled rage and the other in agony. Words were evidently lost from him. Mouth agape, he stared at the blood dripping from his hand as if he had become an empty vessel. It was only the fingers wrapping suddenly around his throat that spurred him back to his body.

"I was paid to of course!" Mr. Silver bellowed with furrowed brow and grit teeth. "Name!" The fingers measuring the circumference of his throat gave a motivating squeeze. "The Brotherhood of Chains...you mad bitch. My hand!" Kaie's lip curled and her hand moved down to seize the ring finger, setting it next upon her carving table as her gaze settled purposefully on his. Mr. Silver gasped, but the message was evidently well received. "Rumors spread...The Scars...they meddled with Slaver's Row. Made their lives Hai and business toward shyke."

"Who petching leads them? Who gave the petching order?" Mr. Silver rigorously shook his head, arm jerking despite restraints as if to remove himself from impending harm. "The Brotherhood has only just gathered. I know not if there is any one man who represents them yet." Kaie began to raise the cleaver up again. "No! Dammit. Wait. Wait!"
"To what end? Speak plainly with words of worth without dodging my questions." Silver licked his lips, nodding. Sweat seemed to bead upon his forehead as he found his reflection in the cleaver with the lantern's dim glow. "I knew one man that brokered a deal with me to rid your kind from our city. He called himself Flavus. Big blonde petch with hair down to his eyes and a thick beard. It was all his plan! One of his rats heard word of The Scars' escape from the city after the Quay was set upon. He told me to spur the crier to purpose against your lot and incite the mob on his behalf. Between my mercenaries and the mob, he told me it would be a quick and rewarding slaughter."

Kaie released his finger and turned from him to pace to the opposite wall. Mr. Silver dropped his head with a subtle sigh of temporary relief. The Myrian paused at the fringe of total darkness, watching blood drip from the edge of the cleaver. The emerging slaver gang was allegedly responsible for the murder of Zedra and the attack on her friends...and though to know the answer to that burning question that had taunted her for some time, it brought her no peace. After all, there would be no defeating Slaver's Row let alone the new group that was moving to overrun it. To set herself to such a task would be impossible, for she was neither an abolitionist nor a warrior capable of murdering the ideas held the gang together. Yet there could perhaps be one final victory, one last chance to soothe a wounded, righteous heart with blood. A stranger to assign the source of her suffering. There was Flavus.

[Kaie]

The seething hate burning in her gaze settled upon the dark abyss outside the small realm of light near her prisoner. The cleaver clutched in her hand continued to spit blood upon the floor, and the labored breaths from Mr. Silver admitted hidden panic as his wound bled.

"Where would I find Flavus?" The mercenary captive slowly looked up from his bloodied hand to eye the back of his tormentor. He swallowed hard, recognizing an emptiness in her voice that undoubtedly threatened his impending doom. Like any prisoner with half a mind, he knew his life only had worth so long as he had what she wanted. Thus he resorted to silence. Would the wrath of the Myrian and the suffering she promised to bring be worth it?

"I take pleasure in your suffering, Mr. Silver. I really do," Kaie sighed with back turned as though the shadows were her sole council now. Mr. Silver grit his teeth. "But I'm not a torturer. No. A torturer has great patience, which is a virtue I've never really possessed." She looked down at the cleaver again, muttering prayers to Akajia beneath her breath while Mr. Silver internally squirmed. With or without the help of the Mistress of Night and Keeper of Secrets, the Myrian was prepared to leave that hole in the ground only when she had what she wanted. "And I really petching hate repeating myself..."

With that The Tigress turned on her heels and stormed back to her captor, who moved to shout until the gag was thrust back into his mouth. He resisted to the best of his ability, tensing and offering muffled shrieks as she pinned his hand to what little remained of the chair arm. This time the cleaver did not fall with vicious intent once, but twice upon the chair arm with inexperienced hacks. The chair arm nearest the hand splinted and wood dropped to the dirty earth beneath them with blood.

The red was everywhere, on his clothes, upon the blade, spotting her face, and resting deep and angry within her eyes. His hand was a mangled mess. Careless cleaver-falls left ugly mounds of bone and flesh where all four fingers used to waggle in vain with fear. Blood emptied from the carnage with each flutter of heart. The Tigress's free hand smacked the hysterical man upside the head.

"Where?!" Kaie ripped the gag down only to be greeted with moans and a jumble of rushed words. Another smack came to the man's head. "I can't tell you!" he wailed, pressing his head against the back of the chair as if the gesture could alleviate the agony. "You think you can feed me that bull shyke? That you don't know?"
"He'll kill me!"
"I'll petching kill you!" The Tigress roared with curled lips that exposed teeth, planting a foot against the side of the chair until the man tipped over. He moaned with the impact, finding himself still bound to the sideways seat.

[Kaie]

"Petch, petch, petch!" Silver roared hopelessly. The Myrian wasn't quite sure his cursing was in light of his precarious situation, or the mess being created upon the floor by his amputated fingers. So long as he lived to provide her with what she needed, she truly didn't care. Sympathy. Empathy. Compassion. Those were traits The Tigress hadn't the time or heart for. If she was capable of expressing them at all, they were locked deep, deep within without promise of release until the final deed was done. Vengeance was a road unfit for the faint of heart. Even Mr. Silver knew this.

"He's one of the guys who's been trying to bring the slavers together! He's in Slaver's Row of course! Petch!" The man stopped his quarrel with gravity, letting his head fall to rest awkwardly upon the ground. Kaie crouched before him. When his eyes cared to look upon her belligerent expression, she only saw the gaze of a dead man. The cleaver loomed toward his bruised visage. "You've done this sort of business before...this thing you know I plan to do. Have mercy on yourself. Tell me what I want to know from you," Kaie suggested with hardly any affect at all. Silver looked past her into the darkness.

"A couple blocks left of Malum's place, there's a Brotherhood house owned by a member named Rita. Her whore house is a slave's Hai. No rules. Flavus had me meet him there most nights before he had his way with one of Rita's girls. You'll know the one when you see the pink lips above the door," Mr. Silver relented. The Myrian furrowed her brow. Rita...the same name of the Brotherhood woman pitting her fighter's against Kostaja when I got down in the pit in exchange for Silver, her mind began to make the connections.

His eyes drifted to the blood leaking from his wound. Kaie prodded him with the cleaver, lifting his chin so his gaze forcibly found hers. "This is good. More." Silver sighed but his lips did indeed yield to her will.
"Medium height. Muscled. Clean-shaven. Bald. Green eyes."
"What about security? How many of his boys follow him around? Have you ever seen him wave them off?"
"Four. Always four. They're always around even when he looks alone. Only time they're sent away is when Rita shows him to a room with a girl." The smile Kaie had to offer only held something between mockery and gratitude. She wiped the cleaver's harmless sides off on either of his cheeks, smearing his own blood upon his flesh to clean Zedra's weapon. Life seemed to return to him when he set his jaw.

"That was a good man you murdered," Mr. Silver dared with fiery gaze, presumably referring to his fallen Eypharian companion. "I've killed a lot of good men," Kaie retorted simply as she slipped the cleaver into her weapon belt. Her calloused hands rested upon her knees. "And after this night, all of Sunberth shall learn more will die by my sword if they choose to go after any of my people again. Myrian or otherwise."
"All I did was carry Flavus' message to mercenaries willing to see the job through."
"Which makes you my first lesson. Unfortunately for you, Mr. Silver, I don't believe in sparing a messenger? Do you know why?" The mercenary slowly and reluctantly shook his head. Kaie rose from her crouch with a darkened expression. "Because killing one petching sends a message."

[Kaie]

With blood and screams long behind her, Kaie left the suffocating house to take to the streets once more. There was no worry over whether Mr. Silver survived her. The hatch was dropped behind her when the lantern light was snuffed, a tattered rug spread over where it was carved into the wooden floor, and furniture dragged atop it. All she had left to wonder was whether anyone would hear his shrieks from below. Would they even care?

The Myrian threw the hood of her cloak back over her head as she quietly moved through the streets toward Slaver's Row. Her time window, she suspected, was small. The night, as far as the city was concerned, was still young. Surely a fiend as wretched as Flavus would still prowl within the belly of the beast, free to sodomize and spill blood as he pleased. She would waste no time for anyone to sour her plan. Peril already laid in the fact she was relying solely on the word of a desperate mercenary who would sooner see her dead than succeed. Yet, if her most recent actions over the season told any story, it might've been that she had returned to do just that.

Nonetheless, the young woman flitted through the shadows toward her target. Before long she was in the thick of Slaver's Row again. The familiar silhouette of Malum's bar and whorehouse of horrors was one she was quick to pass by despite memories of Kostaja's kindness within the establishment. One. Two, the Myrian counted carefully before hooking a left down the second street. While Silver wasn't exactly poetic with his description, it took no wizard to figure out which place was Rita's. Big, bold lips painted red loomed above an especially busy house on the block. Kaie pursed her own lips in hesitation.

Will he know my face? Will his guards? From which direction should I enter? Her mind was wildly inquisitive, desperate to ensure her most dastardly deed was done by night's end. A direct entrance was too risky. If a guard recognized her from elsewhere, she'd be finished on the spot. There was no Kostaja to hold her hand this time around, and with a place so busy, she assumed there must've been a better way within without being spotted. Her brow furrowed, careful gaze scanning the place from the shadows.

Most security to the building seemed concentrated on the main entrance. It made the most sense. Most individuals interested in seeing the inside of Rita's House of Horrors would make way for the front doors. The ones invited at least. Her brow furrowed.

What about the back...

[Kaie]

Kaie ensured the cloak hood indeed cast a long shadow over her face before she made her next recon move. She passed the next house to Rita's right and then hastily slipped into its alleyway, nearly tripping over a huddled body that was either dead or drunk. The Myrian woman pressed her back against the wall and moved along its length. Her quiet steps paused only when she reached the corner where a lantern light dimly illuminated the earth beyond.

"Cold as a dead whore's tit out 'ere!" a grisly voice complained bitterly, the distance seeming to match that of the light source. She swore she heard a muffled chuckle follow. Only two? Maybe three? How close? Are they standing near the lantern? Is the lantern closer to the door? What are they armed with? Kaie fought the urge to peer around the corner to sate her curiosity. "Ya'd think Rita'd let us inside jus' for a bit. Could use a nice pair o' hands ta warm my sack," a new voice protested longingly. "As if Flavus would spare us one o' his pretty things," The first voice seemed to hum in agreement. Kaie's lips twitched momentarily as if she thought to grin. Silver wasn't a useless venture after all.

For a chime or two a silence persisted between the voices beyond the wall the Myrian sought refuge behind. Unless she was willing to risk being seen in the lantern light, she couldn't surely lay eyes on guards she believed to be charged with guarding the back. She'd come too far to folly before she could even get close to her target, and yet she was too close to even consider a retreat. Bronze fingers curled around the hilt of her father's blade as if it could lend her some sort of worthy council. Movement from behind commanded her attention.

The motionless body she'd stumbled over earlier had stirred briefly to life. Bare feet rubbed against the mud and a soft moan escaped cracked lips. Even in the darkness she could see the silhouette marked that of a decrepit thing, weak and thin. The Myrian let her heart be hardened by the necessity of her vendetta. In order to do what needed to be done, the ruthlessness that resided within her needed to reign. Kaie seized the relatively light man and flung him with two hands into the lantern light. It had all happened so fast, the creature hadn't a chance to determine what was going on. Nonetheless, there he was: thrown to the wolves in their lantern light to elicit a telling response.

"The petch?" the grisly voice questioned before Kaie heard boots sloshing through moist grass. She retreated a few steps backward and quietly withdrew her gladius. "Not one of these sorry bastards again. Get goin' ya shyke! Ya lookin' fer trouble?" Another pair of boots began their sloshing, the two men's shadowing beginning to loom over the confused old man staring up with wide eyes. Her future was an uncertain as the old man's fate. The moment of action was quickly approaching. There would be no second chance.

[Kaie]

One of the shadows began to merge with the one she was hiding within. Her time to step out of the darkness had come. With a whoosh her blade cut the air and then severed the nearest man's windpipe. So quick and violent was her action that her second target never truly had a chance. Her backswing split open his carotid artery, and as both men began to collapse before her, she drove her gladius through his middle for good measure.

Their deaths were nearly silent. The old man should've remained the same. Instead he whimpered in the face of the bloodshed, wrinkled fingers shaking when they discovered red spatter had been flicked across his cheeks in the wake of her swordplay. And so the Myrian murderer was forced to send him too to Dira.

With her bloodied sword, she prematurely ended his life with the mercy of naught but a swift death. Kaie dipped back into her shadows in a low crouch. Her amber eyes glanced about, head on a swivel as she awaited any sign her deeds were heard from the guards out front. A quarter chime revealed nothing of note, and thus she moved next to quickly cover her tracks.

One by one, corpses were dragged into the shadows to appear as lifeless as the old man when she'd first come across him in the alleyway. Only the pooling of blood upon the ground where the bodies fell could give way to her sin. Kaie allowed herself only a chime to linger when the work was done to catch her breath.

In that time she procured from her pockets three tins that each held a different color of war paint within. It didn't take long for her to finish quickly designing her macabre canvas. With index and middle finger, a pair of blue lines ran from above her lips, down past her chin, and along the length of her throat. Black colored around her eyes, dripped with finger trails down her cheeks, extending across the bridge of her nose, and finishing only at the far reaches of her hairline near her ears. Short lines of red reached in vain toward the center of her face from either side of her jaw. Then, with the glare of a woman deeply scorned, she advanced for the back entrance now unguarded.

[Kaie]

For but a tick the Myrian did indeed appear to have the most fleeting moment of a logical mind. She denied her anger-driven instincts that bid her to storm the building, kicking down the door with dramatic flourish despite ignorance to what laid on its other side. Just beside the door she spied a window to the little house of horrors. Kaie licked her lips and flattened her back against the building's beaten siding. Gradually, she edged forward with slow, careful steps until she was at liberty of attempting to peek within. Her brow furrowed.

Too petching filthy to see inside, her thoughts observed of the dirt-ridden window. The dark of night certainly didn't help her case. She boldly lifted a fist to discreetly rub at the window. Again her heart sunk and her lip curled with disgust. The filth laid upon the inner side of the window, too. The warrior quietly beat her hand upon her thigh to knock away most of the dirt that layered part of it. It would seem her impulsive nature prevailed nonetheless. Blind to what laid beyond the door, Kaie would see her vendetta through to whatever end the fates destined for her.

The time for hesitation was truly through. It would only be a matter of time before carnage in the alley was discovered. Every tick counted. Kaie gripped the door handle and slowly gave it a quiet turn. At first opportunity, she peered within to find herself greeted by a grim hallway. The only movement to be appreciated was the flicker of candles that provided pathetic illumination. Empty. The Myrian slipped within and shut the door behind her. A boisterous laugh echoed from a cracked door at the halfway point of the hall to the right. Flavus? Candlelight danced fervidly along the length of her exposed gladius.

"Where ya goin', love?" A man's voice called out with playful overtones, giving the Myrian pause again before she pressed herself to the right wall of the hallway. A girl's giggle followed. "Jus' gettin' sum o' wine ta keep us warm!" a feminine voice purred, further away. "Ain't my warm embrace enough for ya? Would ya prefer the hands of the rotten bastard downstairs, eh?"
"So sour! Why don't you come warm up your hands with me?" It was a new, older woman's voice that final time mingling with the sound of wine filling a cup. The male voice returned with a patriarchal grunt before it sounded like he seized his plaything in his hands. Unfortunately, that was the only moment of distraction that seemed to potentially present itself. She took it.

A glance around the corner of the open door yielded a look into an unimposing room even by Sunberth's standards. A quaint fireplace heated the room, commanding the attention of the room's inhabitants on the cool summer night. Only a few furnishings were present. There appeared to be no color scheme, and if there had been, it was lost by worn and torn conditions. Curled upon a tattered couch before the fireplace rested a man with a dark-haired woman. He dipped her down and fell atop her, winning from his lover an excited giggle. Just beyond them sauntered the younger whore with cup in hand, eyes fixated hungrily on the pair she moved toward.

The threat of the younger whore's gaze finding her send Kaie's head back out of view. She scowled. The bastard downstairs. Could it be him? A muffled scream erupted from beneath the floorboards, seeming to rattle the individuals in the next room just as it did the Myrian waiting in war paint. "I do wish he weren't so bloody loud," the man grumbled from the other side of the wall. "That sorta shriekin' ain't the kind that keeps me firm." Kaie ground her teeth as another wail reached her ears. Her knuckles clutching her gladius went white. "But the boss likes what he likes, ain't it so?" While the whores agreed with eyes locked to their night's assignment, Kaie dared to glance once more into the room in hopes of finding a way down below.

[Kaie]

Amber eyes searched desperately around the corner, hoping for any indication of where she needed to move next. A door, a hatch, anything that might allude to a way down below to finish what she had started. Eyes! The Myrian whipped her head back behind the corner of the wall. Her heart thudded in her chest, pupils dilating while she fought the urge to curse. "What'sa matta, love?" It was the man's voice that rang out, his attention evidently drawn from the spread legs of the older whore in his company. If only she had the power to disappear into the shadows themselves...

"I--I dunno. Thought I saw someone's all...in the hallway there," the younger whore ventured cautiously. The man chuckled and the Myrian thought she heard the sound of a body rising from a chair. "Timid li'l thing ya are, aren't ya?" he teased, footsteps echoing closer to the hidden savage. "Reckon I ease ya nerves? Prove no boogeyman hidin' in the dark? Only a fool'd stroll in uninvited, love. Bet it's Barry come inside to beat his self to us!" Another chuckle rang out as he spun with drunken flourish, winking at the girls as he feigned being yanked into the murderous depths of the shadows by an imaginary monster lurking there. If only it were imaginary.

Before the ale-rotten playboy could rock back into the light to toy with the fears of whores, Kaie lunged quietly forth while his back was turned. Her left hand cupped over his mouth and pull him back as her right came around to slit his throat. The war-painted Myrian winced while she tried to muffle his death, pressing the dying man's body against her chest while she eased him toward the floor out of view. She wasn't always perfect. "Manny, cut it out!" A girly foot stop followed the cry of indignation. Kaie remained in her nervous place, hand still clamped over the mouth of her latest victim. Blood soaked the tattered robe wrapped haphazardly about the increasingly lifeless man. Slowly, she placed him down upon the floor so that her hands might be freed.

"I said, 'cut it out!' It ain't funny no more!" Silence. Kaie bit her lip. If I rush, they'll scream. Flavus might be warned. There was growing skepticism she had the luxury of a choice. She couldn't hide like a creature of the night in her spot much longer either. "To what end is this, lover? Look, you've got the girl shook," the older voice attempted to coax though even Kaie could still detect an unease in her tone. More silence. "Petch this. I'm gettin' Rita!" the younger voice shrilled, but squealed soon after as though someone had caught her some sort of vice. "No! See these scars? It used to be me screamin' down below. Never again. I'll strangle ya myself before I let ya petch this gig up for me!" the older woman snarled in a low voice. The girl gave a whimper of submission. Footsteps drew nearer to the Myrian again. Her hands were tied.