“Plan?” Marasi asked.

“Not dyin’.”

“Anything more detailed than that?”

“Not dyin’… today?”

She gave him a pointed look. Another pair of bullets zipped overhead while, outside the speed bubble, Dechamp’s body hit the ground.

“We’ve gotta get close to them,” Wayne said, slipping one of his dueling canes out from the loop on his belt.

“That’s going to be hard,” Marasi said. “I think they’re scared of you.”

“Yeah?” Wayne asked, sounding encouraged. “You really think?”

“They’re unloading enough ammunition to take down a small army,” Marasi said, ducking as a bullet entered the speed bubble, “and they opened fire even though Dechamp was caught in the barrage. While I doubt he meant much to them, it indicates they were scared enough that they didn’t dare waste a moment to wait for him to climb back into the grave.”

Wayne nodded slowly, grinning. “How ’bout that. I gots me a reputation. I wonder…”

Marasi glanced behind them. This grave was near several others that had been left open earlier, waiting for occupants. “Can you get your speed bubble big enough to include one of those other graves from in here?”

He followed her gaze, then rubbed his chin. “The closest one maybe, if I drop this bubble and move to the back of this grave before makin’ another.” He couldn’t move a bubble once it was in place, and couldn’t leave its confines without it dissipating.

“So we have to get them to come check on our corpses,” Marasi said. “Which might be hard, if they’re really that scared of you.”

“Nah,” Wayne said, “might actually be easy.”

“How—”

“Runnin’ outta time,” Wayne said. “You still got that little popgun in your purse?”

She pulled out the small pistol. “It has terrible range,” she said, “and only two shots.”

“Don’t matter none,” Wayne said. “Once I drop this, fire it at the fellows. Then be ready to move.”

She nodded.

“Here we go,” Wayne said.

The bubble dropped.

Mists leaped back into motion, swirling above, and the sudden sound of gunfire pervaded the graveyard. Dechamp twitched, and he gasped, eyes going glassy in the lanternlight. Marasi waited until the assailants stopped shooting, the cracks of their guns echoing in the night. Then she leveled her little gun and squeezed off two shots toward the shadows.

She ducked back down, uncertain what that was supposed to have accomplished. “You realize we’re now trapped and unarmed, Wayne.”

“Yup,” he said. “But if those fellows are really bothered by my fearsome reputation…”

“What?” Marasi asked, glancing toward him as he peeked over the edge. A few cracks sounded as the dark figures fired back, but it wasn’t as frantic as before. What was…

“There!” Wayne said, leaping toward the back of the grave and then popping up a speed bubble. “Ha! They came prepared, they did. Good men.”

Marasi risked peeking up again. She came almost face-to-face with a spinning piece of dynamite frozen in the air, the wick spraying sparks and smoke that mixed with the mists. She yelped, scrambling back. It was almost to the speed bubble.