Excerpt: Bad Luck Lady (WT)

The town of Samhain is known for a number of things, not the least of which being good parties and strong beer. It has the finest cloth and tailors in the region of Lemuria and had the second highest rate of fatal kite flying accidents in the world. As interesting as the all was, Marley was painfully bored. She had spent quite a lot of (admittedly stolen) money on a new wardrobe and weapons bought off of the black market. No one had wanted to sell her the latter, saying she was a silly little girl, until she had beaten the crap out of one of the sellers out of frustration. After that, everyone seemed rather willing to give her whatever she wanted, and half – price, too.
“You really shouldn’t do that to people, Marley,” Wes said. He had gotten used to her short temper rather quickly. He had said something about her behavior being “too good to be true,” but Marley had yet to figure out exactly what he meant by that.
It had been about a week since the fall of Valiet and subsequent kidnapping of Piper Amsel, age ten. In that time, Marley and Wes had traveled from Wes’s hometown to several outer lying villages until they had reached Samhain. Here, no tips as to the whereabouts of a strange silver – haired woman with a dark colored miniature dragon could be found.
Marley yawned and paused to look at some clothes displayed in a shop window. The clothes she had gotten for herself were considered “fashionable” enough in this country. A long, almost dress - like, hooded tunic made of silk covered her body over a black body suit, which functioned as a sort of cloth armor. The “armor” was supposedly woven out of Nemian Lion fur. Instead of a sash around her stomach, she wore a sort of tool belt stuffed with various concoctions that probably wouldn’t be found in most young women’s handbags.
As Marley stood there, she felt a tiny tug on her belt. She spun and saw a grubby child fleeing toward the alleyway. She swore and felt the pocket that the child had been digging in, then swore again and tore after it.
Wes ran after her, a tired expression on his face. “Let ‘em go. It’s not worth it,” he advised, but Marley shook her head.
“He grabbed explosives, fool. If that gets near water, he’ll blow himself up,” she snarled, disappearing into one of the buildings that she had seen the child vanish in to. Wes skidded to a stop. Explosives? When did she get those? He couldn’t remember her leaving him long enough to go off and buy them, unless she had snuck out while he had been sleeping . . .
He sighed and jogged after her, resisting the urge to shift into his wolf form once he was in the building. Marley had gone out of her way to make explanations for both of their strange appearances so that he didn’t have to worry about hiding from people. Really, it had been a simple as claiming to be foreigners, but she did it with such aplomb that it became almost painfully obvious. He wasn’t sure how much of it was acting, but he was fairly confident that it was a large part.
Wes looked around the room. It was in shambles. Clearly no one had used it in years. In the center of the room was a large hole lined with a ladder leading down into it. Or what used to be a ladder. Someone had broken it, probably the little kid Marley had gone after. Like that would stop her.
Wes looked at the hole for a long time, then yawned and sat down next to it. She was just going after a little kid. She wouldn’t need his help. If she did, he had a two-way radio with him that she could get a hold of him with. Wes shifted a little until he was leaning against a wall and closed his eyes. He’d take a little nap while he waited for Marley to get back.