Six

This part of the city was always empty, it seemed.

A restaurant with a glowing neon sign stood, maybe in defiance of that emptiness, the last remaining bastion of an abandoned neighborhood deep below the streets of a city built on top of it.

Always climbing higher, always reaching for the sky, Covnan was the city the entire world wanted to live in.

The newest technology, the newest spells and magical research, all of it was developed by major labs here in the heart of the world.

Incomprehensibly large, the city had as many refugees and fresh faces as it did born residents, and underneath it, Benny's shone as a beacon to anyone who needed work on short notice.

Crawling with delivery people who carried packages and meals to all neighborhoods and districts, Benny's had a reputation for attracting dangerous and desperate people in equal parts.

The food was average, maybe even overpriced, but regular customers knew that with Benny's they were getting a guarantee that they'd get whatever they ordered.

New customers got average food at prices way higher then they had any business being.

Auros stepped through the threshold, shivering as memories came flooding back, and fighting along a floor so greasy there was no way it had been cleaned any time recently.

The music in the building was so loud he could barely hear himself think, customers, new and old, partying and enjoying themselves.

Raising his hand, he said, "Auros771, here for delivery."

As soon as he finished saying his tag, the bar went dead silent.

He sighed and a voice called out, Benny's by the sound of it.

Dressed in all yellow, Benny was a powerfully respected woman, and her word was law.

"Auros. As I live and breathe, here you are, at my doorstep again."

Sighing, Auros walked through a crowd that parted for him, clearing way past the bar and up the stairs to the office.

Her office.

Benny sat at a desk overlooking the floor and without turning toward him, said, "Give me one reason I shouldn't put you back in that hospital."

Unsurprised that she knew about his stay, he figured she probably knew why he was there too.

"I'm not looking for any trouble, Benny," he said.

"Trouble? Trouble!? Why would I think you're looking for trouble, Au-ros," she asked, dragging out the syllables in his name.

He hated that.

He hated how she treated him.

"Auros, you're one of my favorite people," she said, "this is, and always will be, your home."

Benny doted on him.

Doted on him like he was her son, even though he was almost thirty and she was twenty three.

Benny made sure he got the highest paying jobs, the best food and the best room, every time.

Auros had never once been sent on an assignment with a team or a partner.

Nobody wants to work with the office favorite.

Auros had spent half his time on the streets and the other time here at Benny's, with her breathing down his neck every second of it.

Benny probably didn't even realize what effect this had on him, and he wasn't interested in whining about it.

"Where've you been, the last few days, Auros."

Straight to the point then.

"I've been in the hospital, Benny, you know that," he said, with far more annoyance in his voice than any living person had dared speak to Benny with.

"What for? Had a cold? Scraped up in a fight," she asked coyly, still turned away from him.

"I tried to kill myself, Benny," he said indifferently.

She wanted to drag this out for some reason, and he couldn't let that happen.

The Auros standing next to her behind the desk made a face and shook his head.

She turned to him, looking at him standing in the door to her office and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

"Am I really that bad, Auros," she asked, heartbreak tangible from her voice alone.

He looked down.

"You know its not you, Benny."

"You know I love you, right," she asked bluntly.

Maybe that mother thing was off the mark.

"I tried to provide for you, I tried to care for you and keep you safe," she continued.

"Benny...you know why I left," he started.

"You left because you missed that slut," Benny shouted, suddenly furious.

She radiated anger and pain, waves of them hitting him like bulldozers.

The elegant office practically sang with her energy, the energy of a person holding generations of work and power on her shoulders.

He watched himself walk to her desk and hug her from her side, a him that loved her the same way she loved him.

She continued, unaware of his affections, "I offered you a place by my side...and you walked away? And for what?!"

Her energy was intoxicating in its passion, almost overwhelming him.

He'd always liked that about her. Even though it wasn't always healthy, something about her sheer passion had kept him going at a bad time.

She put her hands on the mahogany desk and tapped her fingers in rhythm with some song he didn't recognize.

Changing topics so abruptly he almost got whiplash, she asked, "Why are you here, Auros."

"I need work, Benny."

"You almost died."

"I certainly tried. I'll probably do work better than I did killing myself," he said dryly.

Benny wasn't amused.

"You never answered my question," she said.

"What question, Benny," Auros asked, annoyed he was still playing this game.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you," she repeated.

"I hate to be this guy, but that's not a question, Benny," he replied, mimicking her coyness.

"I've got twenty people down there right now who want a piece of you, and all of them are willing to share. Why. Shouldn't. I. Kill. You," she said, enunciating hard.

"Benny. I survived a fall from three hundred stories. Survived and walked out of the hospital in only three days," he said firmly. "What makes you think you'll do any better?"

She rolled her eyes and said, "The reason I won't kill you is because I love you."

Benny threw a stone at Auros and said, "There's your work, bastard."

"Thank you."

He turned to leave and she said, "Oh and Auros."

"Hmm?"

"If you survive another suicide attempt...you'd better stay far, FAR away from here. You won't survive who I send after you."

Auros left without answering her, the doors closing on their own.

A few minutes after he left, another Auros stood up from the chair he was sitting in, light bending and refracting to reveal him.

"Invisibility is such an easy spell to detect. He really isn't very observant, is he," this Auros said.

Benny stood up from behind her desk and beckoned him with a finger.

He walked to her and took her by the waist, pulling her close and up to his lips, kissing her deep and hard, reveling in the feeling of her body shivering ever so slightly.

"He's not very clever," she said dreamily, "not like you."

"Well, he's probably the worst version of me, so I'm not surprised," he responded.

"You know, when you came walking through my door, dragging the bodies of my best guards behind you, you gave me quite a start," Benny said, running her finger along his jaw.

"I had to show you I wasn't like him, that I was better."

"Oh...believe me, I know you are," she said, kissing him again. Benny looked into his eyes and said, "I even like your eyes better. His eyes are black, practically dead...yours...that bright red...ugh, I could look into them forever."

Auros's eyes glowed bright red and he said, "Am I good to start with the plan, love?"

Smirking wildly, she said, "Please do, my heart."