Spoiler for use of naughty words below (swears).

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Orianna crouched in front of the servant's entrance behind the old townhouse Hobby had tracked Maddy to. One of the other street girls let him know that Maddy had ignored their warnings and went off with him after being offered a heavy coin purse.

“Oi Lucky, what's taking so long?” Hobby complained, looking around as if someone was going to walk behind the creepy old building for kicks. Hobby was the youngest of the gang with a gummy leg. He was barely a toddler when they’d fled the orphanage that night. He was terrible at slinking through the shadows, picking pockets, or anything else really. But he was the smartest of the group and somehow people just ignored him which made him great at tailing people or listening to tavern gossip.

"Been done by now if you'd shut your mouth," Ori responded, her tail flicking behind her irritably. The pick slipped and fell out of the lock, but when she flinched reflexively, she put just the right amount of pressure on the pushrod and the lock sprung open. The Beggars used the phrase "devil's luck" for a reason, especially when it came to her, the Beggars' Devil herself. "Got it."

She slowly pulled the door open, her eyes easily seeing into the darkness within. Like most other houses, the back door opened into the kitchen. "All's quiet, wait here."

 “I can’t see a thing,” Hobby said nervously. "We should’ve waited for the twins." The twins, Finn and Pitt were the bruisers of the group. Now that the door was open, he seemed to have a change of heart about rushing in.

"Ain't got time, sides we ain't seen 'em for weeks. Guild's got their claws in 'em good." Anyone could be a thug, but the twins seemed to enjoy the art of threatening or hurting people until they paid up. If that didn't work, they'd float your corpse down the river, casual as can be. "Good riddance," she added, a bit too quickly. Maybe they'd taken a few too many hits to those thick skulls of theirs or they’d always been like that and she didn’t notice. But to her mind, there was something wrong with someone who could kill as easy as eating breakfast.

“ Watch yourself, Lucky." Hobby shook his head and went to the mouth of the alley to keep watch. He knew better than to tell her to be careful.

Their little street gang, more of a social club these days, the 5th Street Beggars started as a group of orphans. Maddy had led them out one night when a group of soldiers broke into the orphanage and started rounding the kids up. The Beggars took their name from the street they usually worked. They were too small to do anything other than beg at the time but slowly each developed their own talents. Of the original twelve, six were left. Some disappeared or joined the Guild when they got old enough, some got the bad end of a knife when they got too ballsy with another gang. Orianna slowly made her way into the townhouse, testing each board as she went. Her specialty was burglary. That and her seemingly endless supply of luck.

It was dark and quiet, just the way she liked it. She passed a servant sleeping in a room the size of a closet. Orianna doubted she'd cause her any trouble even if she woke up. Still, she cut the string to the bell in his room with one of her daggers just in case. She wasn't the Twins, she didn't take out people just in case. Making her way to the sitting room and up the stairs, she had to bite her thumb to keep herself from adding the silver candlesticks to her bag. It was a trick Maddy’d taught her. It didn’t always work, but this time it was too important for it not to work.

Upstairs, there was one door with flickering light visible underneath. Orianna walked up the door quietly listening for any sounds, but didn’t hear anything. What if Hobby was wrong?

She kept walking, she trusted her friends, even Finn and Pitt to do what was right for their family if it came down to it. She still hesitated at the door and prayed he was right because this could get ugly if he wasn't. Slowly opening the door a crack, Orianna looked inside.

"Ah tits," Orianna whispered. Maddy was there alright she could see that crazy red hair of hers hanging over the side of the bed. She couldn't see anyone else, but to be fair, she couldn’t see much of anything besides the bed. Opening the door just enough to slip through, Orianna slid into the room, silent as a feather.

"Maddy," Orianna hissed, trying to wake her friend up. "Gotta go home you fecking nympho, no time for your kinky shit, yeah?" Everything felt wrong, Orianna just wanted to get Maddy and get the hell out of there. Threatening her with death for being stupid could wait for morning. There was a sweet smell in the air that she couldn't place, adding to her sense of dread. As she walked further in, she could see a large bookshelf stacked to the high ceiling. Ori had to bite her thumb again, almost drawing blood to keep herself on track. This was no time to go 'shopping', Maddy needed her.

Before she could move much closer, she heard a rustling of cloth behind her. Spinning around, knife in hand, she saw a middle-aged man wearing a fine purple silk robe that just screamed money. Why he was living around here if he could just walk around in something like that was anybody's guess. "Just gonna take my friend here and leave, yeah?"

"No," he smiled. She'd met enough people to know someone who wasn't 'right' and he looked further down the road from sanity than most. “I want to see what a tiefling looks like, what you really look like.” The way he said it made her skin crawl.

"Keep them crazy eyes to your..." Before Ori could finish, he took a thin wand from his robe belt and pointed it at her. He said something in a language that seemed slippery, almost understandable but gibberish if you tried too hard.

She managed to say, "Fucking wizards," before everything went black.

Slowly Orianna came to. She felt softness beneath her and when she opened her eyes, it was apparent that she was on the bed. But this time there was no sign of Maddy. How long had she been out? Long enough for her to be naked except for her necklace with the first silver coin she’d stolen thread on it at least. She felt intact and unintruded upon so that was something she would worry about later.

"Normal, just like the others." Orianna heard the man say. He let out a disappointed sigh. "Strange though, I’d have thought that the red hair would have made the liver reversed." A wet plopping sound followed. Slowly she turned her head in his direction, not wanting to alert him to the fact that she was conscious.

Her attention went first to Maddy, her head was turned towards her. Her eyes were open, fixed in a half-lidded gaze in Orianna's direction. It took a few seconds for Orianna to realize what was wrong. Maddy's head was on a plate next to her body on the table. The wizard, if he was a wizard and not just someone with expensive taste in sticks was holding what was probably Maddy's heart in his hand, lamenting the normalcy of its features.

Orianna's vision went red with anger and before she could even think of what she was planning to do, she rushed towards him. He looked up in surprise. Too surprised to repeat the wand trick, but not so surprised that he didn't react at all. With a heave, he knocked over the table, sending Maddy's remains to the floor. Orianna was still too groggy to react quickly enough and her inertia carried her forward into the table and Maddy's body. She went down with a thud, letting out a yelp of pain when the wizard kicked her in the side and followed up with another.

Looking like she did, Orianna was no stranger to beatings. Rolling out of range, she managed to stand before he could follow up with another kick. She stood up and charged at him again, grabbing his wrist just as he took out the wand. Orianna was pretty strong for her size, but the wizard seemed to possess unnatural strength. She got her leg behind his ankle and they both went down on their sides. He rolled on top of her and wrapped his hands around her neck. Years of practice had trained her to act without thinking, and she slashed him across the neck. He looked surprised for a moment before falling lifelessly on top of her.

Orianna pushed him off with a grunt and gasped for air. Weren't wizards supposed to be skinny little freaks? "Maddy," it came out in a sob. She looked at the woman who'd been the big sister of their family, her insides scattered to the floor, and screamed in rage. She started throwing whatever was at hand, breaking as much as possible. How could this have happened? Even if they went to the guards, they’d still be ignored. People like her didn’t exist and were certainly worth less than a wizard who owned a house this big, even if he was a nutty one. Orianna pulled an oil sconce from the wall and hurled it with all her strength at the bookshelf, setting it ablaze, adding to the scattered pools of fire scattered around the room. Her hand was on fire from where the oil had spilled on it. She put it out with her other hand. It hurt like hell but she knew from experience that it would feel fine in no time. Maybe the only good thing she’d gotten from her parents beside her luck.

Part of her realized that she didn’t have a knife in her hand and that there was no blood from where she’d slashed the monster that’d killed Maddy but there wasn’t time to think about it, the fires were spreading now and even her ability to resist it wouldn’t hold out for long. She ran out of the room and met the twins with Hobby in tow, limping behind them as she reached the stairs. “What the fuck, Lucky? It’s been hours!” Finn held out his arms angrily.

“Don’t fucking call me that.” Her fists projected a blade-like cone of light, surprising everyone, most especially her. “Maddy’s gone.”

“Gone?” Hobby asked, looking like someone punched him in the gut. Between the weird magic knife and what Orianna’d just said he looked as confused as she felt. “What…?”

“Fucking shitter of a wizard, I don’t want to talk about it.” The blade was gone, she had no idea how or why. “Place’s goin’ up a time to hoof it.”

They ran down the stairs and out through the kitchen. Orianna noted the dead serving girl she’d passed earlier. Probably the Twin’s work. How had she ever been with them? Had they always been like that?

Outside, they silently made their way back to the abandoned townhouse that served as their home. Maddy had the presence of mind to give her his cloak, not that they’d run into very many people, it was a couple of hours to sunrise.

A big hand grabbed her shoulder and pushed her against the wall when they got inside. “Why didn’t you wait for us Lucky? You fucked up and now Maddy’s dead.” Pitt yelled at her.

“Me? Where were you when we needed you?” Orianna felt responsible for what happened, maybe she should’ve waited but that didn’t mean the twins weren’t just as much at fault. “Off on important Guild business? Too important for Beggars now, yeah?”

“What about those things that keep coming out of your hands? You turning like old Matre did? Going to set up like those freaks down Admirals Way?”

Hobby put himself between them, leaving Orianna and the twins to glare daggers at each other. Nobody in the Beggars hit or pushed Hobby, not even the Twins, it was an unspoken rule.

“I ain’t Lucky anymore, stop calling me that,” Orianna said quietly and went up to her room. If she was lucky, Maddy’d still be alive.

Matre was the only other demon blood she’d met in their part of the city. A few years ago, he’d started a cult worshiping Asmodeus, kept saying the demon was his father. The temple of Tyr got wind of it and sent some Paladins to clear the place out.  The whole thing gave her nightmares, what if she ended up like that? Maddy always said that her soul was her own, but how did she know that?

Over the next few months, the remaining Beggars went their separate ways. Without Maddy, there wasn’t anything holding them together anymore. Orianna found a place in the attic of a retired ship’s captain’s house. Close enough to smell the sea when the breeze came in at night. He said that his old second was a demon blood like her and he didn’t ask questions.

She still did the occasional job with her old family. Finn and Pitt went into the leg-breaking business full time and Hobby somehow became an accountant for the Guild of all things. As for Orianna herself, she resisted the Guild. They were just another power broker looking to take advantage of the little people like her. Being an independent made her unpopular with the Guild, but she threw the occasional “membership fee” at them so she wasn’t actively hunted down. With practice, she learned how to control her ‘knives’ even how to throw them. It was something she kept on the down-low though, like her newly acquired ability to talk to people by thinking about it. There were rumors of course, but when you’re sporting horns and a tail, those were just part of daily life.

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