Bianca felt as though she was a full time worker now at the theater since she kept getting called to do things for the people there by letters directly to the inn. She had not figured out how they found out about her address, but she figured they were not innocent people after the last job she did for them, a request that involved the killing of a girl you could safely call a bitch. Bianca was pretty glad she had the opportunity to kill someone like that. It was her first kill in a long time, now that she thought about it, one that didn’t happen unexpectedly in the middle of her eating.

This morning, she received another letter, this time from Alice herself who seemed to need help with something again. Bianca liked receiving these letters. It saved her the trouble of having to go to the request board herself and looking over the different request papers, trying to pick which one to do. Bianca woke up fully energized, entering the bathroom to freshen up. She was actually looking forward to the day. This time, the job was a bit harder than the last ones as it said one rank higher than her previous ones. Bianca liked challenges because in the end, whether she failed or succeeded, she got something out of it and that was the experience. At least she got to learn something from it. So she ripped open the envelope, pulling out the letter inside and unfolding it. Apparently Alice wanted a lead role in a play and the director was not letting that happen. It was Bianca’s job to make sure that Alice got the role. That should not be too hard, she thought, folding the paper and getting dressed. She wore her workout outfit that was the easiest to move in for her. Who knows what she might have to do this time again, right? The difficulty of the requests seemed to get higher and higher. She sort of felt regret for not having done much spell training in the past few months. She knew if she had to fight, she could not use her magic because of her lack of training. She would probably fuck up if she tried. So she would have to rely mainly on her hand to hand if the current request involved fighting.

Bianca walked to the theater again. It was raining so she borrowed an umbrella from the inn and headed out. She did not really like to borrow things from other people, nor did she like to borrow her things to other people, but since she did not have an umbrella and did not want to walk in the rain, she had to borrow one. She made a mental note to remember to buy a raincoat. That would have been much easier and comfortable. Now she had to hold an umbrella the whole way and since it was someone else’s property she would have to make sure she did not lose it or damage it.

Once she reached the theater, she left the umbrella in the bucket just outside the backstage entrance, trusting that no one would steal it. If anyone did, then she would just take one of the new looking umbrellas too and give it back to the inn saying that she bought a new one because she lost the one they gave her. She fixed her hair as she stepped inside. Alice had told her to come from the back door that she had only been given permission to enter from for this job. She had to enter from the front doors for the previous jobs, not that it was a problem or anything. According to what Alice had told her in the letter, she was to meet the director and try to convince him to let Alice have the lead role in the upcoming play. Now, Bianca was not great at convincing people to do things, but she had her way, although it was a bit different from what people would normally call ‘convincing’. It was more like ‘threatening’. She was not sure if she should do that to the director, but she would try her best to give ‘convincing’ a try.

Bianca followed the arrows to the director’s room, knocking on the wooden door that had the director’s name engraved into a golden plate on it. A tall bald man answered the door, asking her business. Bianca simply said, “I need to talk to the director.” She was let in, however the bald man had his eyes on her the whole time as if she expected her to attack the director. The director sat behind a table stacked with papers, probably scripts, she thought. “Hello,” she said to the director, seating herself in the chair opposite to the director while her eyes never left his. She wondered what kind of a person the director was.

“Hello.”

The director’s greeting was short and flat, as if he did not want to talk to Bianca. The vampyress gave him a small smile, giving the brute who stood beside him a wary look before telling them her business here. “I’m here to convince you to give Alice Nightingale the role that she deserves,” said Bianca firmly. The director raised an eyebrow, giving her a look of disbelief.

“And what is that? The stagehand role?” he laughed. Bianca gritted her teeth. Not that she was friend of Alice or anything, but she had been working for the lady for a while now and felt offended by the director’s statement.

“You know very well what role she deserves,” she spoke in a threatening tone. This seemed to give the director enough reason to get rid of her. He simply gave a wave of his hand and the bald man advanced from his position towards Bianca. She got out of the seat immediately, backing up towards the door of the room. She didn’t mind fighting him if she had to, it was not a big deal.

The director got up from his seat as well, instructing his bodyguard to take it outside. Bianca moved away from the door that the bald man approached to turn the knob and gesture for her to exit. She did so while her back was to the hall outside, keeping her eyes on both the brute and the director. So the director wanted some kind of entertainment by making her fight his bodyguard? She would make sure that entertainment didn’t last long. She stood in a battle ready stance and the brute did the same. She waited for him to make the first move, which he did by charging towards her like the dumbass he appeared to be. Bianca twirled on her feet so that she rolled sideways to avoid him. He was not completely dumb though. Now they stood facing each other, but having switched sides. The director watched from a distance. “I don’t know why we’re having this fight. It’s completely unnecessary,” she said, but neither of them replied and instead the bald man charged at her again, which she countered by trying to kick him in the side. The previous mission she had to kill a small girl, but this time it was a big, heavy man so it was bit harder. The good thing was that he was heavy, so she was sort of faster than him, only a bit, though. He was surprisingly fast for someone his weight. He probably had a lot of training. Why did a theater director need a bodyguard so strong?

As they fought, Bianca finally found an opening and struck with a knife hand turned upside down at his throat. It was enough to make the brute fall to his knees, grabbing his neck as he made choking sounds. Bianca took a few steps back just in case he was acting and tried to do something funny. But he rolled around still making the choking noises. She just stared at him, not really trusting him enough to check if everything was alright. The director however, jumped straight out of his office to check on his bodyguard. After seeing how hurt he was, he yelled, “STOP! I’ll give Alice the role, just stop.” He seemed super defeated and so did the bodyguard who was on the floor now like a useless heap of flesh. The vampyress stepped even further away from the two.

“Thanks. I’ll let Alice know,” she told them before turning around and walking down the hallway. Her ears would still be alert to pick up on footsteps in case they tried to come after her after pretending to let her go or something. The hallway was short and she arrived at a top of a flight of stairs that she descended down until she was back on the first floor where the dressing rooms and everything were. She would find Alice now to inform her of what had happened and collect her reward. The dressing rooms were empty at the moment, so she assumed there was either a play or a rehearsal going on.

Apparently she guessed right and there was a rehearsal going on. It was a bigger play than the ones Bianca had helped with so they had rehearsals and things like that. She decided to sit and wait for the rehearsal to finish in Alice’s dressing room while she looked around. She would not steal anything, however. She was not that type of a wizard, even though she was associated with an illegal guild that was Phantom Lord that people usually would not trust. But since Alice called out to a dark wizard to do her dark deeds you could say that she was doing illegal business, too. She was not just calling her to substitute the stagehand or help out with a performance, but killing snitches and fighting bodyguards to get her a role. The snitch killing job was requested by someone else, but still from the same theater.

Bianca sat in the other chair that did not say ‘Alice’ on the back. There were only two chairs in the dressing room, one that said ‘Alice’ on the back and another one that was just a wooden one for her assistant or something, who knows. The vampyress sat there with her legs crossed, waiting patiently for the rehearsal to be over. She checked the clock, it was almost four in the evening. She did not realise how fast the time had passed, especially while she was fighting the bodyguard upstairs. It was the most unnecessary fight of the year, to be quite honest.

The door to the dressing room was swung open as Alice stepped inside, letting out a loud sigh. She did not notice Bianca sitting there until she turned in her direction, and jumping up out of shock upon seeing Bianca who stood up and greeted her saying, “Hi, Alice.”

“Oh god! Don’t scare me like that, Bianca!” laughed the brunette lady who took a seat in the chair that had her name on it. Bianca then started to tell her about what happened upstairs with the bodyguard and the director. Alice listened carefully and gasped in surprise when she heard that Bianca had to fight the bodyguard. “I can’t believe he tried to get rid of you using his bodyguard!” said Alice in a surprised manner. Bianca just nodded and told her that she got her lead role. Alice clapped her hands together in excitement and thanked her properly for finishing the job without failure. She also rewarded the sorceress handsomely for it. Bianca accepted her reward and thanked Alice for paying her so much. She did not expect her to pay more than the usual, but she guessed it was only appropriate since she had to fight the bald man. She could have been beaten up badly and that would not have ended nicely. Bianca then stepped out of the theater through the backstage door and picked up the umbrella she borrowed from her inn, walking in the rain back to the inn.