The Puppet Master - Part III

Continuation from.....
Part I - Link: The Puppet Master - Part I
Part II - Link: The Puppet Master - Part II

“Isa.”

Mel hissed the word as it left her lips in a cloud of icy cold mist to combine with the slash she made with her dagger in the foggy air. The rune took the form of smoke that solidified momentarily into ice crystals. The rune winked before dispersing into something akin to diamond dust. The cocky grin temporarily wiped itself off the puppeteer’s face. The grin began to look more like a rictus of anger as he struggled against her rune. It would not be enough to hold one such as he, she knew that much, but at least it would buy her some time to fend off the girl.

Ghostly in her powder blue dress, the elder sister weaved with a jerky gait across the cobblestones that were slick with slime and sewage. Mel cursed as the girl lunged, nearly catching her neck in a death grip and that was when her foot slipped. Careless. She had not been watching her steps.

“Nauthiz!”

Mel felt the burn of the word in her throat before her scream even ended. The back of the girl’s dress burst into flames as the rune took effect. Ashes spiralled in a sudden gust of cold air as what was left of the sending fluttered away on the blessed breeze.

The puppeteer seemed a lot fainter than before, the edges of his cloak bleeding into the darker shadows behind him. Mel struggled to her feet, cursing under her breath as she cleaned the blade of her dagger on her skirts, one eye still trained on him.

A flash of light caught her eye before she realized what he had done. The rune thurisaz had the power to break her power over him, that much she knew, but in the mouth of a puppet master like him, it had the power to summon a storm. Mel always knew when it was time to leave a party. She gathered her sodden skirts and ran.

Lightning flashed across the sky as he made his way back out the other end of the alley. She was impressive, the young witch, Melisande. Not only had she calmed two of his sendings that had originally been sent to assassinate her, but she had even killed another two freshly made ones. Freshly made sendings were the ones who retained most of their living body’s agility and speed since they had only recently crossed the threshold of life and death.

He had been rather disappointed with the two girls however. The madam was not going to be pleased that her two new acquisitions whom she had planned to train into the best night ladies in all of Lower London had just been scattered into the foggy night as ashes and dust. He hummed a wordless melody to himself as he crossed the street and vanished into a blackthorn bush.

~Rei Shiori