By Carl Rigney.
Wild Kingdom saved my life. Here's how.
"Miss Genevieve St. George?" the beautiful woman at my door inquired.
"I don't remember asking room service to send up a Lodge Assassin" I smiled, and kicked her in the stomach hard enough to send her flying through the door across the hall. In a second I could have followed her across the hall and broken her neck and been dead myself a second later, but what saved me was an offhand remark on a nature documentary. You know, the one where the old guy sips a cool drink while "Jim" checks to see if tigers are ticklish, then they cut to a commercial about how Jim really should buy more life insurance, if he's going to do dumb-ass stuff like that. I loved that show, I watched it every week, but not once did they ever show Dad, and I've never forgiven them for it. But now it had saved my life so I guess I can't be mad anymore.
So realizing the peril of going after her in the hallway I did a backflip behind the elegant 17th century couch just as her identical twin came sailing through the door with claws outstretched. I kicked the couch at her and she broke it in half, but it gave me time to cartwheel into the bedroom and wish I hadn't listened to Adrienne's stupid little lecture about never carrying a gun, there'll always be one around if you really need it, yada, yada, yada. Some huge honking bullet hose is what this situation called for, and instead all I had was a bedspread, a TV, two huge fluffy pillows, and a teensy chocolate mint. Still, I've made do with worse.
Two blows shattered the pillows, sending downy feathers everywhere and cutting the visibility to zip. By then they were both through the door and the feathers confused them for just the second I needed to whip the bedspread over their heads and then throw the TV at them, followed by the TV stand, the dresser, and the bed. I didn't delude myself in thinking I'd even hurt them, given what I knew they had to be, but while they were struggling to get out from under the remains of my hotel bedroom I leapt over them and surprised their identical twins, because I knew this important fact from watching that show all those years ago:
Armadillos are always born as identical quadruplets.
Oh sure, laugh. The Armadillo Sisters may not have nearly the impressive cool sound of Sting of the Scorpion or Soul of the Shark or any of that, but the four of them have been training together since birth and they're mean and fast and almost impossible to kill short of running over them with a car, and the nearest car was a dozen stories away and I wished I was in it with the gas floored.
With two working their way loose in the bedroom and two in the living room I had them all placed, so I tried to make it to the door and got nearly ripped in half for my effort, as they focused the chi flowing through a top-rated hotel into themselves and then into iron-hard claws. That was all part of my plan, but it still hurt like hell. Still, the second one had missed me; my kick when I answered the door had been unexpected, and if they had entered the hit without their shells focused it meant they had no idea what I was. I could use that. I also knew I could save myself with three words, but I'd promised Dad I would never, ever use those words and I wasn't going to go back on my word just because I was cornered by four top Lodge Assassins. I'd been in worse situations. Well, OK, maybe I hadn't been. At least I still had the chocolate mint.
"Are you at least going to tell me why you're trying to kill me?" I stalled.
As I expected, they were willing to delay while their sisters got free and rejoined them; they weren't as comfortable as a pair as with all four. Sibling weakness, curse of the litter-born. As each paused for breath the other continued the sentence, so it all came out in a breathy rush. "The Lodge has decided you are a liability. You will not join us. You will not oppose us. They are tired of factoring you in. They are afraid you can not take care of yourself, that one of the other factions will grab you like they almost did last week. We do not know why they think this. We do not ask. We do not care. We know only that they wish you dead, so dead you must be."
"But I escaped the emissaries of the Four Monarchs on my own, with no help at all from the Lodge. I can take care of myself! I will never Pledge!"
OK, so I hadn't exactly promised Dad I'd never use the three words, it was more of a vow, like I wanted no part of his life and didn't want to coast on his tail, that I wanted to do things my own way and I didn't need him to save me, ever, or use his contacts to make things so easy for me why would I bother doing anything at all? I told him all that as loudly and profanely as I could when I left home and I'm not proud of it now, but teenagers have no grace.
"They believe you cannot take care of yourself, and they have sent us to prove it by killing you. It will send a signal. It will make a statement."
By now the other two had joined us, and were looking pretty upset at the cheap trick I'd used on them. They had to get their words in, "It will be an elegant death. It will be painless if you only cooperate." The four of them drew closer, flexing their long sharp nails and wrinkling their cute little button noses. But they were talking now.
"You're everything that I hate about the Lodge. You could have been anything, done anything, and instead you're slaves to the Lodge's will, killing whatever the Lodge tells you to, a weapon for political infighting that has nothing to do with keeping the world safe from Magic anymore, a hollow mockery of what we stood for Once Upon A Time."
"We do not care about any of that." all four said in unison.
"I know," I replied sadly. "If you did, we could have been friends. Very well, if I must die at your hands, I want to be killed by... the prettiest one. Her!" I pointed at one, no different from the others as near as I could tell.
They looked at their sister with confusion. "Grace?" three of them asked, but one asked "Me?" They seemed startled. "I'm the prettiest?" "Why her?" "Why not me?" "Or Me?"
"And if you're going to take my head as a trophy for the Lodge, it must be removed by the smartest one. Her!" I said, pointing at another, at random.
Their heads swiveled, their eyes got wider. "Faith?" three of them asked, but one asked "Me? I'm the smartest?" "But we are all the same!" "We have always been the same!" "We Must always be the same!" "Why are we not the same?" "What do you see that we do not?" "What can you see that no other ever has?"
"Why don't you ask the firstborn?" I inquire with a smile, although I'm getting a little shocky by this point from blood loss. I point at one, but another squeaks indignantly.
"I am firstborn!" "I always thought that I was, and that mother just liked you better." "Sister, what are you saying!" "Sister!" "Keep our mother out of this!" "Please, sisters!"
"What about ME!" the remaining one squeaked, the one I had so far not pointed to.
"Oh, you're nothing. Nothing at all special."
Her eyes widened in shock and she leapt at me, catching her sisters by surprise for possibly the first time in their lives. Enraged, she hadn't focused her chi, and I grabbed her suit and rolled back to send her flying through the window with the $3000 a night view. You can bet on one thing: armadillos don't fly.
"Hope!" the others screamed and leapt to save their foolish sibling. One leapt out the window after her, a second sliced the curtains loose and flung them to the first, the third grabbed up the end of the curtain and braced herself. All this without a single word, but I didn't stay to admire their inhumanly graceful teamwork, I was out the door and across the hall to where I'd left the rappelling gear. Sure it's expensive to rent a second room just in case, but like the old commercials said, it pays to be prepared.
So out the window on the rappelling gear and on the ground by the time the four sisters came boiling into the second room. If they'd had guns I would have been in trouble but they were too sure of their Kung Fu and four to one odds to be packing, and by the time they were down the rope I was lost in the crowds. The bleeding had nearly stopped and by morning I'd be fine, which was more than was likely for them when they reported their failure. There was no way this was a legitimate enforcement action; someone inside the Lodge had decided to make a power play by misdirecting a team of enforcers, and when the news got back to The Unspoken Name the way it always, always does, he will have flushed another of his enemies into the open, to be toyed with and destroyed.
I could get mad about it, but that's just the way the Lodge works, and why I want no part of it, no matter how much they beg me or threaten me or offer me. I am my own person. Heredity is not destiny, and I will live or die by my own strength. Pleasantly warmed by the glow of my teenage defiance, I carefully unwrapped the mint and savored it. Mmmmm, chocolate. Time for a new identity and a new hotel. I really liked being Genevieve, but I guess the last name was a bit much.
I'm glad I didn't have to kill them, though. Maybe when I grow up I'll overthrow the Lodge, and then we could be friends. They seemed kind of fun.
Thanks, Wild Kingdom. I am in good hands. My own.
Shadowfist and Feng Shui: The Shadowfist Roleplaying Game as well as all characters described therein are copyrights and trademarks of Daedalus Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. Don't mess with the Ascended.
Last modified: September 12, 1996;