Just an observation: I seem to break the fourth wall here, briefly. But I like the way it works out. Is it that bad a thing in the first person? She's got to be telling her story to someone. Sometimes, I think she's just telling the story to me and I'm writing it down. Pretentious, yes. But how I feel. And this is a rather short chapter anyway. Unrelated note: I've toyed with changing the name from Coil to something else. Thoughts or ideas appreciated.

***


What do you do with your last ninety seconds? Pray, probably, make peace with your world and face the music? Maybe if you’re a rational individual, but not if you’re me. I reloaded and swore to take at least one of them with me. A shot zinged over my head as I dashed to a new hiding spot. Only one, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. Aside from a sign that I should run like crazy. Which I promptly did. I stood up and ran to shelter behind the altar in the cemetery. Or I’d intended to. Before I’d forgotten that he’d shot through my calf. I ran out and got halfway before I fell with a yip of pain.

“Good job, silly child. You took two of us, and I commend you,” A deep voice came softly from somewhere behind and above me. “Unfortunately for you, you’re still dead.” I heard the click of him loading another high-powered round and I confess, I conformed—I prayed like hell. I’m not sure what I prayed for, but just that in that split second, I prayed like hell. I heard it fire, and then nothing. I didn’t make the mistake of assuming him sympathetic and I knew the gun had fired at me.

I also knew I was alive. You can understand my confusion, I’m sure. I dared look up, craning around. It was a mistake—I was face to face with a bullet. I vaguely recognized the caliber as being able to blow my head off in itty-bitty bits guaranteed to make a stunning spot on the evening news. It wasn’t completely stopped, but was spinning and straining against a dark blue barrier. I rolled out of the way, not one to stand in front of an oncoming train. Or, more accurately, to lay in the path of bullets. Whatever. From somewhere to my left, I heard a scream, deep and masculine, insofar as a scream can be. The bullet was released, burring itself into a stone mere feet from where my cranium had been moments ago. I struggled to a sitting position in time to see a pair of figures.

One was too far into the shadows for me to make out anything other than a vague silhouette. It was tall, lanky, masculine, and holding what appeared to be a part of the unlucky sniper. I would guess it was probably a very broken, mutilated arm. The other figure stepped closer, enough that she blocked my view of her compatriot. She reached down and offered me a hand. She was short and stocky—not the type you expect to save your life, in all honesty, but I wasn’t complaining. Her face was bland and heart shaped but gorgeous with the power still glowing through her. The blue eyes that dominated her face glittered with it, shining brightly and throwing light onto her long blonde hair. She wore a brown overcoat that looked too long on her and very large shoes. That’s about all you can really tell from the ground, so I took her hand and let her pull me up, steadying my wobbling. She smiled timidly at me, the light fading from her eyes.

“Shit,” I said, trying to duck. “There’s one more.”

She shook her head. “No,” her voice was melodically low. “We got both of them.” ‘He’ was gone, though. And the assassin had said three. But…but…

He’d sweated.

A hammer of a pistol clicks at an extremely soft decibel. From fifteen feet, you might be able to hear it. From fifty, no normal individual should hear it, especially not over the soothing noises my rescuer was making. But I’m not normal. I spun around in time and the Casting fired back before I could debate about it.

The shooter crumpled to the ground, howling. It wasn’t until the other girl gasped that I remembered that Coil and his men should have been arriving soon, and I’d shot someone on a guess. If it was one of his, I was screwed more ways than I could probably count.

But as he fired off a round in the air, I realized it couldn’t be the OWLE guys—they don’t carry anything with that kind of firepower under any circumstances. I took careful aim and shot him again, this time somewhere vital, because he stopped.

The girl took a step back from me for a moment. “Thank you,” she managed softly after a few long moments of hesitation. “You saved my life.”

“What a coincidence,” I said, reloading but not holstering the Casting. “You saved mine. Figure we’re square?”

She nodded shyly and said, “I’m Merula.”

I nodded curtly. “Lucifel.” For a moment, I was sure I’d be stuck in a graveyard, trying to make awkward conversation to a girl I didn’t know who’d saved my life before I’d saved hers. But before I tried to say something snazzy about the mayor’s newest proclamation, we both heard the wailing sirens. Saved by Coil—what do you know?

He wasn’t the first one out, this time, but rather followed the heavily armored guys who were pointed enough artillery to blow Merula and I into dust. So much for my assumption of their firepower….

“Coil!” I’d meant to yell, but it came out as more of a croak. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “GET ME SERGEANT COIL!” They took notice at that, thankfully, and Coil was there quickly.

“Lucifel, I swear to all the occult, if you do this ever again, I’m going to let them shoot the hell out of you, right after I have a heart attack!”

“Who’ll prosecute Nancy after she kills your ass for it?” I replied. His wife was constantly telling both of us that if he had a heart attack because of the shit we all pulled, she’d kill him. Then, probably me. His routine response was that they’d prosecute her.

The red and blue lights gave way under the portable searchlights they’d brought. “Clean?” Coil yelled when he saw I wasn’t alone.

I leaned over to Merula, “You have any weapons?”

She shrugged, “No firearms, but…I am a witch.”

“Give him name, class, caste, rank, whatever you’ve got.” She looked surprised by this, but turned obediently to Coil.

“Sergeant,” she said softly, turning her palms up and forward in something akin to supplication. She whispered something under her breath in a language I hadn’t ever heard of, and two dark blue marks leapt from her palms, their centers radiating to an earthy-brown. Coil understood it, apparently, but it freaked the shit out of me. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting—probably something like “Brownie scout, troop 42. Would you like to buy some cookies?” Not a display of magic, at least.

“Clear the scene,” he barked and the heavily armored men proceeded to sweep the graveyard with the lights, now and again barking orders at one another. “How are you two?”

“Fine,” I said, before I realized the word had popped from my mouth. Merula scowled, and I amended, “I’ve been hit, though.”

“Son of a…” Coil yelled for some paramedics, who ran over to us. They brought a gurney with them. That was all it finally took for everything to just go away.

“Coil,” I snapped, my voice frozen. “I’ll fucking walk, thanks.” I did just that, striding confidently over to him, despite the open looks of disgust on the medics’ faces as they eyed my calf.

“Lucifel—“

“There are at least three dead bodies in the graveyard,” I snapped at him. “The first I shot before he could shoot me. The second got my leg before I got him. The third grazed my arm, and then…” I looked at Merula, who shrugged at me.
“Then, the fourth I shot like the first,” I finished, my anger cooling under the throbbing insistence of my leg. “There may or may not be more.” I’d lost count, really. Were there three? Five? Fifteen? I couldn’t recall.

“There should be another dead in the area near the fence by those trees,” Merula said to the police. “I stopped his heart when I saw what was happening.”

“And how did you come along?” I hadn’t even thought to ask. It was Coil who managed the obvious question.

She shrugged. “I’m a witch. I was out here looking for a patch of grave herbs and I needed more of the grave-soil. I heard gunfire, and figured if I could help, I should.”

“Uh huh,” was all Coil said. I could see the suspicion there but he didn’t push it. Yet. For now, he wanted to believe her that she was an innocent hero. And she seemed content to let him think it. Win, win, far as I could see.

Which, shortly, was the grass and some assorted shoes, as my leg gave out. The paramedics had somehow forgotten I was wounded, and rushed to me with mumbled curses. They lifted me onto a stretcher and carted me off to an ambulance before I could protest. My head was restrained, limiting my field of vision in the crowded space. But one more form leapt on before the doors slammed shut. It was Merula.

“Let me do something for the pain,” she insisted. The technicians hesitated, but at my clipped nod, the let her place her hands over my calf. The pain disappeared, but my head didn’t clear. For a fearful moment, I was sure I had a concussion. But the other guys crowded into the ambulance seemed more concerned with my vitals and stopping the blood seeping alarmingly from my leg and my arm. They looked at my pupils as the ambulance pulled out and were apparently satisfied, so I tried to concentrate on remaining calm and amusing myself.

Mostly, though, I sat and looked at Merula’s openly relieved expression and her half-smile and wondered why.