: Prompting Needed_

Spa Day (NIB)

From Daily Quordle 359 (1/18/23): DRIER, CINCH, SHEER, ROWER

The best thing about the air that flowed through the open windows, Erin decided, was its lack of humidity.

With her eyes closed and her wrists hanging loosely off her bent knees, she focused on the way the arid breeze shifted her sheer shawl off her shoulders in gentle waves. It slid over her skin in a hypnotic way, and in the peace of the mountain air she could hear the shawl brush against her. She took in a silent breath deep enough to crack her back in that spot that always gave first. "Mmm," she hummed as the pain of the disk slipping back into place spread across her scapula. The twinge faded into warmth and eventually dissipated into the air around her.

That dry, dry air.

Her eyes flickered behind her lids as memories of Louisiana brought phantom humidity on her skin. She shifted uncomfortably against the unwanted imagined damp. With a push of mental effort, she swept away the sound of the bayou and brought herself back to the present. The whisper of still air and shifting cloth prevailed once more. Her serene smile soured.

"Aberash," she murmured. Her assistant moved for the first time since they had settled. Soft foot steps made little blooms of light behind Erin's eyelids as she followed Aberash's path to the wall where their robes hung. When the steps were right behind her, Erin stood and extended her arms. As Aberash lifted off her shawl, Erin opened her eyes when the hem passed over her head. She pointed her fingers to allow Aberash to slip the sleeves of the robe on. She decided to cinch the garment herself. Ahead of her, out of the carved stone windows, the peaks of Tibet sat still and uncaring. She thought of the other side of those slopes and the humidity and chill that covered them. She shivered.

"To the rower, Ms. Hanson?" Erin shook her head. Aberash walked around her to stand as a silhouette against the light. She glanced back to smile at her boss. "Then what are we going to do for the rest of the day?" She looked back out to gaze at the mountains. "The sun will set soon."

"Oh, I don't know," Erin sighed. "I suppose we'll have to get back to work eventually. But..." She trailed off and pointed to the peaks with one hand while placing the other in her pocket. "...that."

"It is beautiful," Aberash agreed. Her accent was almost completely gone by now, having been away from her home for years. But a trace tilting of her voice brought her back to Ethiopia as she wondered at the placid majesty of the mountains beyond.

Erin let the slide of her pistol slap into place then turned. Her bare feet padded against the stone as she began to descend the wrapped stairs of the spire. "Come, dear," she called after Aberash. Her assistant turned and pulled her own pistol out. She followed quickly until she was only two steps behind. She checked her chamber as well.

The first to fall on the way down hadn't seen them as his back was to them both. Erin shot the man in the leg, and he fell screaming. Erin's gun was already swinging to the left to anticipate the curve of the tower as Aberash crouched and fell to the floor of the landing below. She checked the tables. "Clear." Erin had already swept further down and before Aberash could catch up, Erin had let off two more bullets. Cries of alarm started to build a couple of stories below them, echoing off the bricked walls of the spa. Aberash pushed around Erin's side and leaned her head over the edge to the flared walled below. "More on the way."

Erin paused and pressed against the sun-warmed stone and counted again. There had been fourteen armed guards when they had checked in. The assumption that Falah Sawaya would have at least six more surrounding him in the inner suite seemed reasonable. "Can you reach the next floor?"

Aberash checked again, nodded once, then slid down the slanted wall and into the window. Four sharp pops of Aberash's weapon drowned out then silenced the surprised cries.

Erin smiled and rolled her shoulders to release her spine's tension and felt the disk snap back into place again. One. She pushed off the wall and steadied her feet. Two. The gun settled into her palm and she raised the barrel to center her aim. Three. Her left foot pushed off and her right began the descent once again.

Two men in black rounded the steps ahead and she squeezed the trigger twice in the same breath. The guards fell back and down, the once closest to the edge teetering over and plummeting to the next landing three floors below. From the sounds of the shattering glass, he used a table to break his fall. Screams of confusion broke out. The actual staff was beginning to notice the gunfire.

In the next ten steps, Erin counted four more shots followed by a small explosion that shook the spire. She had to place her hand on the wall to steady herself. As she rounded the far side of the tower, an even drier breeze rose from the depths of the mountain and filled her with the scent of rocky slopes and trees. She grimaced as she dispatched a woman and man who ran up to her wearing the same predictable guard's clothing. She stepped over them and stopped as Aberash ran out of an archway that led into the spa. Her assistant glanced behind her boss and then at her boss's body. "You are unharmed," she noted.

Erin took note of the soot that marred the fluffy robe and an inflamed furrow that blazed across her bare shin where a bullet must have gone astray. "You are not."

Aberash shrugged and then motioned for Erin to go in. "I am not hurting."

Erin chuckled. She stepped into the archway, checked the hall, and called out, "Falah Sawaya! By my count, you've already sent... two? of your personal detail to stop me." She idly replaced her ammo with a clip offered by Aberash. She slid back the slide. "Come on out, and I'll only extract the information I need." The slide fell back into place. "If I have to find you, you'll die afterwards."

A flicker to her left made her flinch back and stone shattered and chipped where her feet had been. Powdered stone rose from the bullet holes like smoke. Small rivulets of blood began to run down her shins.

Erin set her jaw. "Fair enough."

~~~

Falah cringed as the taller, paler bitch of an assassin stepped forward to grab him by his gold chain. He began whimpering when he realized that she was going to try and lift him off the ground by using it as a handle. His shoulder was on fire where the broad African bitch has shot him. The smoke in the air from where his idiotic detail had wasted bullets and time was settling and he was amazed at the... blandness of the smell. The blond pulled up on his chain and he jerked up, his shoulder pulling down and slicing into his chest with a splintering pain.

"I promised I'd kill you, Falah." She glanced to his shoulder then back to his eyes. He felt as if the pain from her holding him up would split him in half. "That won't kill you."

"Bitch," he spat. The black one shoved the barrel of her weapon in his face. He bit his tongue.

"So you've said. Say it again, and I'll shoot the more important bits off." The blond lowered her gun towards a more intimate area. "I hear bleeding out like that is nice. But I wouldn't wait that long."

Fear bubbled up and tightened his throat. "Wha-" His voice croaked. "What do you want?" he coughed.

The blond smiled then crouched. The motion allowed his back to rest on the floor a bit and he tried to take in a calming breath. The black one, however, refused to lower the gun. "The rabbit and the robot," said the blond. "Where are they?"

Falah paused, then laughed. He couldn't help it. The sudden absurdity of the situation dug in and forced him to chuckle until his shoulder told him to stop. "You?" He waved at the two weakly with his other arm. "You are looking for the... the, the... 'arnab and his appliance?"

"You catch on fast," the blond purred. Pain exploded from his wound. He turned to see her still-warm barrel pressing into the puckered flesh. "Start talking."