Remington strode forward and then tripped over a piece of garbage from the trash. As he fell over, one of his guns sailed from his hands and just happened to land at Lacey’s feet.

She bent over and plucked it off the ground. Remington scrambled up as she lifted the gun up. Without even aiming she pulled the trigger, hitting him right between his eyes.

“Jaysus,” I said. It was one thing to know someone had all the luck in the world. It was another to witness it. He flopped backwards, unmoving. Five seconds and she’d got his gun and shot him. All she had to do was stand there.

“There,” Lacey sighed. She turned to me and crossed her arms. “I killed the problem. Now give me the Tower.” She looked apathetic about shooting a man between the eyes.

The sprinkler system kicked on, drenching the fire while people tried to stop bullet wounds from bleeding out. Lacey lifted her arms above her head, trying to shield herself from the water raining down.

“I wish it were that simple,” I sighed. Then I leaned forward, snatching her up in my arms. She dropped the gun, gasping in shock as I held her against me. I reached down and plucked it up, slipping it into my pocket.

“What are you doing!”

“Be a good girl now,” I grumbled in her ear. I didn’t need her squirming while we got away.

“He’s dead!” She hissed, squirming exactly like she wasn’t supposed to.

“Yeah,” I said, watching as Remington sat back up. “He’s been dead a while.” The cowboy zeroed in on Lacey with a look of hatred in his whitened eyes.

16

“Come on,” Dullahan growled, his large fingers sliding over my waist as he tugged me harder against his body. The words were hot in my ear, the low octave humming deeply inside me.

The high-pitched panic around us kept rolling on. The trashcan fire was going out, but the bullets left their mark–from the moans of the dying to the spreading pools of blood leaking from still warm but now slowly cooling bodies. The cowboy stood up and his eyes were momentarily milky, a film over his dark eyes. A shiver crawled up my spine as those dead eyes focused solely on me. Dullahan walked us backwards as Remington cracked his neck, never losing focus of me as his corpse eyes slowly regained darkness, becoming a deep brown again.

My feet had trouble staying on the ground and I found myself stumbling on tiptoes as Dullahan tried to draw me into a hallway.

The cowboy shoved his guns back in their holsters before fetching a cigarillo from his pocket. A smile slid over his face as he lit it. Then he tugged his guns back out and turned back towards the crowd.

“Stop,” I hissed at Dullahan. I wasn’t running away from a fight, especially one that I hadn’t won yet. Remington seemed at peace with the scene of chaos and destruction he’d wrought, like a sinner gone to church and finding absolution.