Red and blue light flared across the back passenger-side window as the cruiser sped through the streets. Raelyn sat in the back, trying her best to calm her breathing despite the circumstances. She had successfully summoned Andrew and sent him out with very clear instructions to incapacitate Kennedy. Alive if possible. If Juniper had not already flayed the boy alive…
“This is awesome!” one of the officers, Steve Harper, declared from the front passenger seat. “Nothing ever happens in this city!”
“Except, y’know, crime,” grunted his partner, Officer Bill Slater, who was driving.
Haper ignored him. Seatbelt be damned, he turned all the way around in his seat so as to speak to Realyn through the grid separating the back half of the cruiser from the front. “Ghosts and werewolves-”
“That wasn’t a werewolf,” Realyn said, finding herself mildly amused by his energy. It reminded her of Iggy. Oh, how she hoped he and Pita were behaving themselves overseas. “Officers, I appreciate the ride. Truly. But it is best that you keep your distance once we arrive. One that front, my son-in-law was very much correct.”
“Er, sure,” Slater called over his shoulder. “But, uh, good luck telling them.”
He pulled up into the heavily populated parking lot of a local mall. Dozens of cruisers were situated around the building’s front doors, with more, SWAT vans incoming. Even so, the sounds of machine guns and an animal’s roars managed to cut through all the sirens. Both came from within the building. And then an explosion made every cop and civilian in attendance jump.
Raelyn resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Boys,” they turned to look at her, “let me out. I need to find my daughter before she decides that the only to defeat Kennedy is to nuke Chicago.”
#
Of in the corner, stabbed into the tile floor, forgotten, I, Harpe, watched monsters go to war.
“But how can a sword ‘watch’ without eyes, Harpe?” you ask?
I’m fucking magic. You happy now? No? Too bad. Because nothing puts a bigger smile on my blade then watching Cerberus (even just a third of him) getting his furry ass kicked. Apex predator my pommel. But I’m getting ahead of myself. You humans perceive time so much more slowly than I do.
BAM! the bullets went, bursting from the necromancer’s gun. Cerberus was knocked back through a self-checkout register. The poor clerk, understandably, threw up her hands and ran screaming. Cerberus didn’t notice. He wheezed painfully as he rolled off his back and onto all fours. Blood streamed from bullet wounds in his abdomen and chest. Almost experimentally, the dog raised a clawed hand and touched at the wound, as if dumbfounded that something-a mortal at that!-had hurt him so greatly. His ears twitched. He threw his head around as the gunwoman took a step forward.
“Juniper,” the large, silly man huffed weakly, glancing between her and Hell’s Guardian.
She walked past him. She didn’t look at him, but she did say, “Time to do my job. You stay here, Armando, and focus on not dying. For Jenna.”
Juniper then called away the gun. The lights above flickered and died as translucent ghosts poured in from the ceiling and walls. The phantasm’s joined around her body, becoming a liquid-like second skin. She shined with such fierce brightness that I caught Cerberus lowering his head, eyes held tightly shut. It wasn’t until Juniper’s power settled and the lights in the building turned back on that he opened them again. Body armor in various tones of blue now covered the blue witch’s body. It was sleek and form fitting. Empty holsters hung at her waist and across her back. Mists of light trickled out of them, ready to from into whichever firearm she wished at a moment’s notice. But instead of a gun, Juniper held a two-handed katana. Its metal glowed like I do whenever I feel like going all out. Eyes hard, Juniper gripped the sword tightly and then went to work.
Having recovered, Cerberus charged to meet her head on. The idiot.
With incredible grace, Juniper ducked a swing from his claws, slid across the floor on her knees, and slashed the katana upward. She made a straight cut from the dog’s navel to his sternum. She was already back on her feet directly behind him, when the first of his organs began to tumble through the slash and out of his stomach. But she wasn’t done. She passed her katana over into her left hand and then drew a ghostly gun from her hip. A shotgun. Looking almost bored, she aimed the gun up at the back of the dog’s skull.
BOOM!
The upper half of his head burst, leaving only the majority of his lower jaw intact. The monster’s body shuddered, began to tip forward.
Only for his hindlegs to suddenly steady themselves. As if by an unseen puppeteer, Cerberus’ arms raised inward, towards the gash in its body. His clawed fingers gripped either side of the hole. And then pulled. The sound of tearing flesh and gushing of blood pouring across the floor filled the air. Like a woman removing her dress, the beast slipped out of its larger, mutilated body.
And a man fell out.
Drenched in blood, very naked, and gasping, Prez squeezed out of Cerberus’ stomach and collapsed onto his knees. His second body hit the floor with a great splash, now truly dead. Prez coughed and wiped blood furiously out of his eyes. “What?” he called out, looking around wildly. “Where-?”
BOOM!
He just barely rolled out of the way, avoiding another bullet to the back of the head.
He landed on one knee. “WHAT THE HELL, LADY?!” he exclaimed at Juniper.
In response, she reached into her back pocket, produced a grenade, and tossed it at him.
“Juniper!” Armando cried but he was drowned by the ensuing explosion. Smoke plumed outward and debris fell from the ceiling as the blast rocked the building. I noticed that Juniper quickly stepped in between it and Armando. Her body armor surged and a round, metallic shield appeared. It hovered in the air in front of her, protecting her, but most importantly Armando against the worst of the airborne shrapnel. Finally, once the majority of the dust settled, she snapped her fingers. The shield was reabsorbed into her body.
“Juniper,” Armando called out again, weaker this time. Cerberus’ claws had done serious damage to his stomach. He had lost a lot of blood. He didn’t seam to be a witch, red or blue. Just a very enthusiastic human. But enthusiasm can only get you so far.
“Shhh,” Juniper said. She narrowed her eyes as she peered into the smoke. Veins of light spread up across either side of her face before concentrating into the pupils of her eyes.
Both her hands moved.
Twin, silver hand cannons materialized in each.
She was fast.
But my boy Kennedy was faster.
Now that he’d shed all that useless, stupid, smelly, dead weight, the boy erupted through the smoke, faster than a speeding bullet. True. The grenade’s blast had done a serious number on the kid. It had sheared off sections of flesh off his body, including the left side of his face. To compensate against the damage, he called upon the remnants Cerberus’ power. Those sections of skin and muscle were became covered in scarlet fur, and his face became distinctly canine. Armed with the Guardian’s supernatural speed, Prez evaded Juniper’s bullets, skid across the floor on his knees, and popped up right in her face. One half of his mouth full of fangs, he snarled hatefully and brought a clawed fist back. Juniper’s eyes widened. Her armor surged again, likely to call up her shield again.
Kennedy’s fist clanged against something hard, but it wasn’t a shield.
Instead, a little boy appeared then, floating in the air between Prez and Juniper. He had bright red hair and was dressed in overalls. He’d caught Prez’s punch in one pudgy, plastic hand. The ghost’s smile warped the plastic texture of his doll host’s face unnaturally. His head whirled around, gaging both monsters with too-big, too-wide eyes.
His head then came to a stop, looking right at me.
“Well, that was dramatic.”
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