The one thing I hadn’t thought about when signing on to be a bodyguard was that they have to have the same thought process as an assassin, and then a little more creativity to prevent those same thoughts from coming true. For example, had I wanted to kill someone at an open air concert venue, I’d likely have taken a long distance shot from an elevated position. The problem there is, there’s a lot of places that are elevated, and a lot of places I could imagine taking a shot from. So how does one prevent the potential murderer from getting the drop on the pop star? A little bit of magic, some monkeying about with stage lights, and just a little bit of experimental process, and you get instant defensive shield.

The stage was almost all set up, but there I was, making my last minute adjustments. A wall of ice that would spring into position should an item of sufficient speed cross a perimeter line, which was the plan. The issue is: that “sufficient speed” needed to be determined at the time of setting things up, and I don’t know the speed of a bullet, so I used a ball being thrown as hard as I could throw it as the minimum speed to set the barrier off. It was kind of a pain in the arse, and that’s why I made sure to triple ply the barrier.

I saw Ed testing all the stage equipment, a needless task since I had already done that ten minutes ago, but at least he wasn’t being useless. I figured he might see something I didn’t know was there since I’d been focusing on my task here. Or, and this was a more likely case, his heightened sense of smell would find something I couldn’t trace without tools. I hated to admit it, but the guy had a few tricks I couldn’t replicate even if I wanted to. The problem with being human, you know, is that we’re only human.

Shoving the last little wisps of will into the spell I had set up, I stood and walked over to Ed. “Anything I should know about?”

Ed looked over at me and shook his head, “Everything is clear. I assume you did a sweep before I got here.”

I nodded, took a second glance around the area, and moved my hand to cover my mouth.

“I assume you’ve already picked him up, but there’s a creep show at four o’clock.”

Ed bent his neck and covered his mouth as well, “Yeah, I’ve got a team trained to deal with him coming around the back right now. He’s not really a threat, but it’d be better not to underestimate him.

I nodded, turned, and walked off. I had a few more fuse boxes to look over, check the other crowd seating, and then check the security gate. Lots to do, and not as much time as I would like. So I did everything I could to keep from having any slowdowns.

By the time the show was getting ready, everything had slowed to a crawl. Nothing was going wrong, but I couldn’t be certain things would go right, and that made me nervous. And that’s a problem.

See, as an assassin, you wait and take the shot. It wasn’t much, so you could meditate. As a bodyguard, that was not a great plan. You had to have a head on a swivel, you had to make jumps in logic and make assumptions. But you had to not kill people, and you had to follow protocol.

The lights went down, the universe quieted, and all I could think of was enchiladas. Sweet, tasty enchiladas. Then Trish took the stage and I let my mind run away with the image she projected. She was beauty, grace, and maybe just a little arousing in her punk princess get up. The torn fishnets, shredded skirt, the black torn up tanktop, and a black jacket accented the pale make up and raccoon eye mascara kind of really worked a chord that lead right to places I don’t want to mention.

I waited, I watched, and I almost felt the crowd stiffen a second before the crossbow went off and the wall stopped the bolt. The wall took another four or five bolts before hysteria erupted. I got onto the stage and got Trish out the back doors, onto my bike, and we sped down the side streets. Monsters melted from the walls like… they were coming through portals from the Abyss.

I threw up a massive ramp of ice and we all but flew off the top. We landed hard and almost skidded out, but we kept balance and I managed to get to get us to the secondary safe house I had set up earlier in the day. It was near enough Ed could get there by foot in about ten minutes, but it also was in a part of the city that if I had to get rough we wouldn’t be suffering a load of crap for things blowing up.

I got Trish inside, raised all of the defences I had prepared, and started plotting out immediately the next few hours. We had to move, we had to get gone, and I needed to find out who was pulling the trigger on this operation. Ed did show up and got through the wards with the talisman I had made him, and I could tell he had gotten rough on the way in.

“Who took the shot?” I asked, certain that he had looked for the culprit before showing up.

Ed threw a dismantled automatic crossbow on the ground, “It was on a timer. Three of the others were too, and it made it hard to track. I think they escaped into the Abyss before I got there.”

I nodded, the streets were crawling with ugly buglies from the other side. I think this was staged.”

Trish, who had fallen asleep while we waited made a sudden motion. She shot off the couch as if electrocuted. There, among the couch cushions were hands. A portal, opened in the midst of one of MY safe spaces, that shouldn’t be possible. Ed was stunned, I started immediately to force the portal closed… but I couldn’t. There was too much raw energy spilling forth and maintaining the portal, there had to be a creature of insane magical power fighting my will to close it.

Trish screamed and vanished as a portal appeared behind her and arms grabbed her. And I could do nothing to stop it.

You know, for a bodyguard, this is not the kind of thing you want on your resume.