Tessa Leapt From the Roof
on foot- “They’re after us, Bill.”
- perhaps a seal
- I don’t wanna call bullshit on that woman
- confiscated her hip flask
Tune in next time part 58 Click Here for Earlier Installments
Tessa leapt from the roof and landed in a squat on the sidewalk below. She waited impatiently as I clambered down the drainpipe and we set off on foot, Tessa leading the way.
Before we turned the corner onto the main boulevard, some quick adjustments to her ninja garb transformed it into a sleek black cocktail dress. The residents of Ipswich were still under Dr Minka Stiletto’s control. Her power over them had not ceased with her death. We would have to be careful.
“Where are we going?” I inquired.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” Tessa whispered as we joined the throng queued up outside the opera house. “Follow my lead.”
Tessa’s lead had a way of getting me in trouble, but in this case I had little choice.
She jostled and cut in line ahead of a pair of middle aged men, making just enough of a fuss that the ushers were sure to notice.
“What do you mean we should just let them? We were here first!” she said loudly in my direction. “They’re after us, Bill.”
She only called me Bill in times of great peril. It was code for ‘be on your toes.’
When the ushers rushed over to break up the kerfuffle, Tessa flashed something from her purse at them, perhaps a seal or a badge. I didn’t get a good look.
“I don’t wanna call bullshit on that woman,” said the shorter of the men we were scuffling with, “but we were here first.”
Tessa winked at me, and then slugged the man in the chin.
In the ensuing melee, I got a black eye, Tessa got a bloody nose, we both got arrested, and they confiscated her hip flask, which is what I had foolishly mistaken for a badge earlier.
In our holding cell Tessa explained that adrenaline and violence was the only way to break Dr Minka Stiletto’s hold over the populace. She’d sacrificed our freedom in order to return the town’s to them.
“And anyway,” she concluded, “Lyudmila will be here to bail us out any minute.”
bonus points for using them in order