The P.I.M.P. took a wild swing at Emanuel, his dagger slicing shirt but missing flesh. His follow-through knocked a vase off of a nearby table, which had previously been under a plaque reading "Remains of the Grand Cardinale's Pet Tortoise." He continued to spar, blissfully unaware of the sacrilege he had just committed, drawing Emanuel up yet another flight of stairs. The red carpeting made bolting up them a little less feasible, so he had to continue focusing on parrying the dagger thrusts while simultaneously not tripping back over himself. But the stairs were long. Extremely long. They turned a corner about every ten steps, so they couldn't even see the light at the end of the tunnel. The P.I.M.P. found himself bored enough to start a conversation mid-daggerfight.
"So, who are you?"
"My name is Emanuel. I'm something of a freelancer." A quick lunged that he redirected at the last minute resulted in the first blood spilled so far.
The P.I.M.P. grabbed at the slice, briefly, before realizing it was nothing too serious. "And why are you trying to kill me?"
"Why else? I'm getting paid."
"Ah. I have a lot of people who want me dead. Who is it? A rival pimp? An angry client? A ghost from my old life come back to haunt me?"
"As far as I understand, it's one of your former employees."
The P.I.M.P. cursed under his breath, then more loudly. "It has to be fucking Marenda. She was always complaining that she got the rough clients and needed a bigger cut. Then she gets a fucking patron saint as a client and he 'reforms' her or some shit like that."
Emanuel tried the redirection trick again, but the P.I.M.P. anticipated it and batted the blade away. "So not exactly the glorious death you had envisioned."
"Her sugar daddy must have given her a little loan to call out this hit. Who are you working with? Felipe? Giocomo? Luigi?"
"I don't think I'm allowed to say."
"Who the hell are you two?"
Emanuel and the P.I.M.P. paused their sparring to reassess their location. They had both stumbled into possibly the most lavishly decorated room in Sant'Elia, everything inset with ivory and lined with gold. A magnificent glass chandelier hung from the ceiling, unlit as there was still plenty of sunshine streaming in through the panoramic cityscape-windows. There was also a giant stained-glass window depicting some sort of deity, but oddly no light shone through. Not that fact would be relevant later. No way.
"Are you going to answer my question or just stand there like idiots?" There was a short man sitting on a throne. In fact, he looked an awful lot like Giocomo Re. An awful lot. Was that Giocomo in disguise?
"Ah! I am so sorry, Grand Cardinale. I am Emilio Burgess, and this is an assassin vying to take my life for valuable recompense." Probably not; the P.I.M.P. apparently knew Giocomo, from the mention of his name earlier, and he had a genuine belief the Grand Cardinale stood before them.
"And were you two the scuttle I heard coming down the street for the past fifteen minutes?"
"Yes, sire."
"With daggers? That's no way to spar. Here, come with me." The Cardinale led them over to a chest just below the sill of the panoramic window, unlocked it with a key attached to a necklace he wore, and produced two fine swords. He handed one to each of the combatants. "There. Now you can have a proper duel and give me some entertainment, to boot."
", said Girano Wang, our director of NFAJ.
