The Bullet
IN THE HALF-DARKNESS of the field, the Bailiff’s ghostly muscle-bound Spirit arms were like a flashing neon sign marking his location.
The grass thrashed around our legs like war drums as Warcry and I cut a path toward him.
The Bailiff grinned and stood up, the bracelet perched between his webbed fingertips.
“I don’t suppose you boys are here for this little ol’ thang?”
Just before we reached the Bailiff, Warcry shot to the side. I barreled in from the front, covering my arms in Death Metal. With a last-second blast of speed, I launched myself at the Bailiff. He went to swing out of the way, but my right shield clipped his shoulder, spinning him off balance.
His king kong of a Martial Devil roared into the night from the totem he kept hooked to his belt loop, a glowing gray ghost ape the size of a house. The monster galloped at me on fists and feet, but Warcry had positioned himself perfectly to flank it. He shot in from the rear, clocking it with a massive side kick that bounced its head forward off its chest. Furious, the ghost ape roared and pounded the ground with earth-shaking blows, then whirled around to go after the newest threat.
I left Warcry to deal with it and followed the Bailiff’s hop-skipping retreat across the grass, pivoting hard with every direction change. He laughed as he jumped out of my reach.
“If it makes you feel better, Smart Boy, I never thought you’d get that close.” The Bailiff rubbed the shoulder I’d shield-bashed. “You’ve already exceeded expectations. Give yourself a pat on the back and an attaboy.”
I poured everything I had into Ki-enhancements, but now that the Bailiff was ready for them, he slipped every shot. It was as if he moved on the air currents from my attacks, one second within reach, the next second wheeling away on the breeze. I could see why Warcry had practically lost his mind fighting him back in Ghost Town. Even as far as I’d come in the last few months, I couldn’t lay a hand on him, whether that hand was Spirit or flesh and blood. Trying to hit him was like trying to catch dust motes; every time you closed your fist, they floated away untouched.
The battle between Warcry and the Martial Devil raged on, man against monster, both berserking like they had rabies. From the direction of the Technol encampment, I saw flashes of the Shogun’s yellow Spirit attacks and the flickering of flames. A bank of generators exploded.
“Whew-wee, it’s gonna be a hot one tonight!” the Bailiff crowed.
Rali’s bulky form and Kest’s blue-white Metal spirit streaked around the edge of my vision, answered by half a dozen colors of Spirit.
The Bailiff’s reinforcements had arrived.
I wanted to run over to help Kest and Rali, but I couldn’t leave the Bailiff alone. My constant harrying wasn’t doing any damage, but it was accomplishing one thing: keeping him from stopping long enough to put on the Heartblood Crown.
The sniper rifle cracked again.
Intellectually, I knew that by the time I heard the shot, it was already too late to duck, but that didn’t stop the caveman part of my brain from flinching and throwing my hands out like that would stop a bullet. When I regained control from the self-preservation instincts, I spun around to make sure my friends were okay.
Warcry slugged away at the Martial Devil, darting in for the blows, then back out to a safe range, giving the tireless ghost ape the runaround. Rali whacked hooligans left and right with his staff, a wild grin on his face as he ducked their increasingly frustrated attacks.
Kest stood with her real fist outstretched, slag running between her fingers. She was running bullet-catching duty. As long as she was okay, the sniper couldn’t touch us.
A freight train crashed through my ear and into my brain. My body slammed sideways into one of the boulders bordering the field. My left arm snapped, and pain detonated like a bomb from the knife scars in that side.
When I could see again, I was lying in the grass, my Dragon script tattoo burning like crazy as it worked on repairing the broken bones and bleeding eardrum.
The Bailiff flexed his huge Spirit arms and rubbed the giant hands together.
“I don’t get to use ’em that often, but boy do they pack a wallop!”
I couldn’t move yet, so I sent Three Corpse Sickness blasting off me instead.
Rip his Spirit arms off, I ordered through the haze of pain.
The translucent turquoise versions of me plowed toward the Bailiff, passing through the grass without disturbing it, like ghosts phasing through walls. The gray glow of the Bailiff’s Spirit arms blurred as he hopped away from them.
Most people panicked when they saw my Corpses rushing them, but the Bailiff thought it was hilarious.
“You’re playing catch-up, Smart Boy! You can’t win like that.”
I yelled through gritted teeth as my arm bone popped back into place with a grinding snap. The script tattoo was healing at top speed, feeding on one of my spirals, but it was still too slow. I couldn’t stay down while the Bailiff was up and moving around.
White sparks wriggled at the edges of my vision as I staggered to my feet. The world tilted crazily. I grabbed the side of the boulder with my good arm to steady myself.
“What else you got for me?” the Bailiff called, leaping easily out of the Corpses’ reach. “Make it count, now.”
He was so busy gloating that he didn’t notice how close he’d gotten to Kest. She was in his blind spot. Her chain weight lashed out at the beefy yellow hooligan in front of her, but I saw her throw a glance at the Bailiff on her three o’clock. She was trying to decide if he was within range.
Herd him toward Kest, I ordered the Corpses.
They closed in from the Bailiff’s side,
