by Joey Ruff
“You!” he snarled. “Esper sent you, didn’t she?”
I pulled myself to my feet and said, “What can I say, mate. She figured you might do something stupid.”
He laughed, heartily, throwing his head back and shouting towards the open hole he’d created in the paneled ceiling.
“She obviously wrong,” I said. “You’re clearly in a sound mind.”
“Fool,” he said.
I popped Grace open and thumbed the spent shells out of the chamber, but before I could replace them, a piece of ceiling hurtled towards my feet. I cursed and slammed in to the wall beside me as the tile turned to powder beside me.
I saw two more of the doctors squeeze past the tanuki and run down the hall behind Synder. Ape grappled with one of the tanuki while the other went for a female doctor who had been backed into the corner.
I fumbled in my pocket, pulled out a couple of shells, and popped them in the chamber. I slapped Grace shut, and I charged Synder, firing off both rounds. He took a couple steps back as more smoke poured from new holes, and he swung his sword at me. I leapt forward, missing the blade, but the back of his fist struck me across the chest and threw me into the vending area.
I connected with one of the tanuki, slamming the creature’s bollocks and rotund gut through the glass front of the coffee machine. I fell over, and my head was spinning too fast for me to stand right away. I felt a new pain in my arm as well, and knew I’d cut it on the glass. I was just fucking lucky not to be sliced in half by that wanker’s sword.
I looked up at Ape, saw him still dancing with the other tanuki, and said, “Just knock his hat off.”
Ape had one fist planted in the creature’s mouth, and its teeth were digging in to his wrist, but with his other hand, he reached up and plucked the lotus leaf from between its ears, and it vanished.
Ape dropped the leaf and grabbed his wrist, blood trailed down to his elbow.
“Look out!” I said, and Ape ducked as Synder’s sword sliced through the top of the Coke machine behind him and clean through the head of the other tanuki. Before the lotus leaf fell from its head to the ground, its body had disappeared as well.
I rolled over on to my back, and the nurse who had been hiding in the corner knelt over top of me. “You’re hurt,” she said. I could only nod at her. Her name tag said Dr. Cooper.
“Look,” I said. “I get you want to help, but you need to get out of here. Now.”
She looked up at Synder, who was trying to bend low enough to see into the smaller vending area, sword awkwardly balanced in his hand. “I…,” she said. Her voice sounded far away.
“Let’s just get you clear,” I said.
Ape was pulling himself to his feet, and I shouted to him, “Distract Synder.”
He nodded, turned, and lifted the top half of the Coke machine. With little effort, he hurled it at the centaur, and as he did, I looked at Dr. Cooper and said, “Go now.” She did.
I rolled over on to my stomach, wincing at the pain as I pushed myself to my knees.
Synder had backed into the elevator hallway, and when I looked, Kevin Hastings had vanished. Probably smart of him.
Ape turned to the coffee machine and wrapped his arms around it in a bear hug. He pulled it out from the wall and turned with it, walking awkwardly with it to the hallway. Knowing him, it wasn’t heavy, just bulky and hard to find a spot to grab.
As he chucked it at Synder, I chambered some fresh rounds, and looked in time to the see the blade of the sword cleave the vending machine in two.
“Can you get his sword?” I asked Ape.
He considered it a moment and said, “What are you planning?”
“Can you get it or not?”
“I can get it,” he said.
I nodded and tossed him my Glock. “Go get it then!”
He didn’t like guns, but he didn’t have any other weapon, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt. He started firing as he stalked forward steadily, and Synder backed towards the potted plant as the bullets struck.
I didn’t see what happened next. I holstered Grace and turned to the floor behind me. With some effort, I managed to bend down and pick up the lotus leaf hat which was all that remained of the tanuki. It was their source of power, the reason they were able to assume different forms. It was knowledge my mentor had passed on to me a long time ago.
I must have looked like an idiot when I stuck the hat on my head. I don’t think green leaves go so well with leather jackets, but I wasn’t going for fashion so much as function. I’d never used a tanuki lotus before, but the words of my mentor echoed in the back of my head: “Dey kin uhsoom any form dey kin t’ink uv.”
I walked towards Synder, thinking invisible thoughts. I don’t know if it worked, but he didn’t seem to notice me.
Ape leapt to the side as the sword split the tiled floor at his feet, put two bullets in Synder’s chest, rebounded off the elevator door, fired a shot in to his leg, and landed lightly on the other side of the hall. Synder brought the sword back by his ear as if preparing a back-handed strike, and Ape put three bullets in the back of his hand.
He screamed, and his sword clattered to the ground at his feet.
I still hadn’t been seen, and I ducked under his flailing arm, kicked the sword into the corner, and laid down still between his hooves trying to think sharp, dangerous thoughts.
“I’m tired of your meddling,” Synder bellowed. “I must end this now.” He reached down for the sword, took hold of my feet, and lifted me in to the air. I was so close I could smell his scent, like burnt hair and wet dog.
With his attention firmly focused on Ape, and Ape’s Glock poised and ready to fire, nobody saw me draw Grace. Her lips hovered inches from Synder’s neck as she blew him a kiss.
The fingers that held me lost their hold, and Synder’s arm fell slack. As I fell to the floor, I made myself think soft thoughts.
Ape would tell me later how he watched, completely dumbstruck, as the tip of Synder’s sword erupted in fire and turned in to a pillow as it fell to the floor while a bolo round took the centaur’s head off.
Kevin Hastings was found cowering in one of the elevators. He was grateful to us, of course, for saving his life, and he tried to cut me a check, but Ape wouldn’t hear of it. He said Esper’d already paid enough. Bollocks.
The tanuki leaves only retained their magic for so long apart from the tanuki they belonged to, and before we’d made it back to the car, they were nothing but useless leaves.
I went back the next day to see Dr. Cooper. Turned out, I had a few broken ribs and a punctured lung. Nothing that wouldn’t heal.
All in all, I think only two doctors and one janitor were killed in the incident, and a few of the nurses were injured, but that was it. A memorial was put up near the vending area.
The hospital leaked a story to the press and the insurance company about a disgruntled parent with an assault rifle who shot the place up when their kid was denied a transplant or some shit. I’m not sure what happened with Synder’s body. I think Hastings arranged for Esper to dispose of it.
Kathy and Dr. Cooper and the other staff that knew what actually happened, were worried something like that might happen again, so at my insistence, they hung iron horseshoes above every entrance. It was a ward against the Fay, though Hastings, being a Halfling, wasn’t affected at all.
As Ape and I drove home, I asked, “So what about the Shades and those fucking Red-Cap bastards?”
“I guess Synder had some kind of hold over them. An allegiance bind or something. Once he was taken care of, the other creatures just left.”
“That was pretty smart what you did back there, Swyftt.” I didn’t look at him. I hurt. “The tanuki hat.”
I nodded. “Saved your life.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the smile spread across his face, and we drove the rest of the way in silence.
Follow Swyftt and Ape’s continuing saga in book 1
of The Midnight Defe
nders:
The Dark
Communion
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