The metal grappling hook sailed out, trailing rope behind it as it flew away from the building.  I stared after it, feeling the rope flying out through my fingers and watching the little black dot zoom away.

It landed on the closest nearby building, and I heard a clink as it hit.  I waited a moment, feeling the rope drop to slackness, and then carefully gave the line in my hands a gentle tug.

For a heart-stopping second, it slid loosely, suggesting that the grappling hook had failed to catch on a target.  But then, just as I cursed and prepared myself to haul it in for another throw, I felt the line suddenly flex with tension.

“We’ve got a line!” I shouted to Danni over the pop of gunfire, pulling the rope tight and hauling it around the doorframe.  “Come on!”

I could see Danni leaning up against the side of the doorframe, sheltered from bullets that now poured in through the open holes.  She had popped the revolver open, but I saw her trembling fingers struggling to fit the new bullets into their chambers.

“Leave it!” I shouted, beckoning to her.  My own shoulder still throbbed where I’d been hit, but I still pulled out my gun and sent a few shots back through the open door.  I doubted I’d hit anyone, but it at least forced the shooters to take cover and stop firing for a moment.

Danni gritted her teeth as she pushed herself across the floor to me, but I scooped her up in my arms as best I could manage.  We hurried over to where the rope descended out through the shattered glass, into empty space.

For just a second, we both looked into each other’s eyes, knowing how risky this next move would be.  Impulsively, despite the lines of pain that were clear on her face, Danni pulled herself even closer to me and kissed me soundly on the mouth.

“See you on the other side, Jasper,” she whispered as she broke away, reaching out and looping her arms around the rope.

I couldn’t say anything; my mouth felt slack as she threw a leg over the rope as well and, with nothing bracing her, she slid out the window.

I was tempted to stay there, to watch as she descended.  But the bullets now once again pouring in through the doorway, growing closer to my position as the other shooters became emboldened, told me that I had to move.  I put my gun away, but before I reached up to grab the rope, I fished out my pocketwatch and flipped it open.

A minute until the clock struck nine.  I didn’t have any time to spare.

I reached up and grabbed the rope, praying for it to hold me as I trusted it with my weight.  For a moment, I felt the rope give a sickening lurch, but I knew that I didn’t have any other option.  I kicked off, and my stomach dropped down to my feet as I plunged out of the building, sliding along the rope.

As I exited through the shattered window, I realized that I was sliding down the rope head-first, making it difficult to know when the other building was approaching.  I craned my head around, twisting my neck in order to time when to clamp down on the rope to slow myself.

The other building rushed up towards me.  I tightened my grip on the rope until I could feel the threads burning my fingers, just barely managing to slow myself enough to survive the landing.  I hit at the far side, tumbling off of the rope and rolling across the building’s roof.

As I finally slowed, I flipped over and pulled myself up to my feet, looking around for Danni.  I spotted her a few feet away, still looking pale but hurrying over to help me up.  She didn’t appear too injured, I saw with a wave of thankfulness.

“Are you okay?” she asked, as she reached down to help me up.

I let her lend me her uncertain support, but as we rose up, a bullet ricocheted off the roof only a couple feet from our position.  The shooters up on the sixth floor of the tower now stood in front of the broken window, their guns still firing down at us.

There was nowhere to take cover.  All we could do was crouch, looking up at the high tower of the Organization behind me-

-just as it suddenly erupted into orange flame, with a roar like a giant’s howl.

In that moment, as we both stared up, the entire tower vanished as multiple explosions around its base burst up through the ground.  Huge gouts of flame shot up, lapping at the sides of the tower like a hungry tongue.  The roars of multiple explosions washed over us like shock waves, obliterating all other noise.

It was exactly nine o’clock AM.

To be continued – not much more now . . . 

Both Jenny and Old Hillpaw audibly gasped.  “What?” they both stammered out in unison, staring at the man in black.

Jasper couldn’t help grinning at the stunned looks on his audience’s faces.  “Wait,” he said, glancing back down at the pages in front of him.

“It will make more sense soon.”

She looked pale, but she was on her feet.  And the hand offered down to me felt solid enough.

I let her pull me back up, although I tried to use my own muscles as much as possible.  “You aren’t supposed to be here,” I told her, as I regained my feet.

Danni didn’t look impressed.  “And look what would have happened,” she pointed out impatiently.  “You down on the floor, with more Priests-“

Before she could finish, bullets whizzed overhead with sharp cracks.  The Priests climbing up the stairs had reached our floor.

Moving together, Danni and I dove behind the dead man’s desk.  My shoulder made me grit my teeth and grunt against the pain as we landed, but the next hail of bullets stopped against the heavy wood.  I closed my eyes for a moment, doing my best to block out the pain and push it away, to the back of my mind.

When I opened my eyes again, Danni was watching me closely.  “After all I’ve been through, you can’t die on me, now,” she remarked, but although her words were flippant, her eyes looked concerned.

I waved a hand at her.  “I’m fine,” I insisted, pulling out my revolver.  Only one – I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to fire on my wounded side, and I would rather use the hand for faster reloading.

This, now, this was a skill I knew well.  Pop up, just for a moment, get a glimpse of where the enemy is taking cover.  Cock the gun – single action is more accurate than a full pull.

Listen to the next rain of bullets.  Wait for the pause, listen for the click of an empty chamber.  Rise, fire, anticipate their retreat.

Don’t wait for the sound of the body falling.  Swivel.  He’ll be partly behind cover, now, but he’s predictable.  Two through the plaster – it’s no armor against lead.

Gun back on the entrance, waiting for stragglers.  Listen to the two impacts of bodies hitting the floor.

Thump.  There’s one.

And the second-

Even as my mind realized that I’d made a mistake, Danni’s gun roared beside me, and the second man fell back with most of his head reduced to vapor and splinters.

The girl nudged me as she climbed up to her feet once again.  “Getting sloppy, are we?” she teased, moving towards the door.

I put a round in between the eyes of the next man as he appeared at the entrance to the floor.  “You’re just too distracting,” I retorted, as he hit the ground.

Danni scoffed at me as we both moved towards the door.  I couldn’t help noting that she remembered much of my training; she kept herself behind cover, protecting her chest and keeping her gun out and in front of her, ready to take a shot as soon as it presented itself.  Her steps were careful, always ensuring that she was braced and wouldn’t be knocked back when she squeezed the trigger.

We dropped two more as they climbed the stairs, but a glance down the stairway revealed more Priests milling beneath, clearly trying to plan their next assault.  We retreated quickly, but bullets still followed us.

I glanced over at Danni.  “Looks like they’re all coming up after us,” I commented.

“Good.  Let them come.”

I held her gaze for a moment longer.  “You okay to cover the entrance?  I know you’re still recovering from-“

She waved me away before I could finish.

Still, I spared one last look at her as I stepped to the large window in my dead supervisor’s office.  When I pulled her from the burning wreckage of the cabin in North Dakota, she’d been a twisted, broken thing.  I could still see the signs of that trauma in the ropy burn scar that ran up one leg, in how her foot twisted slightly inward.  The back room doctors had done their best, but for days she had been unresponsive.  I couldn’t count how many times I’d pulled myself from my bedroll, my heart pounding as I struggled to listen for her breathing, fearing that I would hear nothing.

The Priests had been watching for a man with a girl, maybe a man by himself.  They weren’t checking cripples.

The window’s glass was thick, but it shattered at my blows.  I reached under my coat, finding the iron shape I’d concealed there.  Once more, I checked the knot that connected the sharp instrument to the thin rope I’d worn coiled around my waist.

From behind me, I could hear exchanged gunfire.  Cries and thuds told me that Danni’s rounds were finding their targets, but I knew she couldn’t keep up that sustained fire for long.  I could feel her pushing down the pain that surely came with each recoil.

A twirl of the iron hook.  I knew I couldn’t take long.  I had to make this throw count.

The chunk of metal thrummed as it swung past my head, looping until it was a blur.  From behind me, I heard Danni’s revolver click empty.

I couldn’t wait any longer.

I let go of the rope in my hand, watching the iron grappling hook sail away, out into empty space.

To be continued . . .

Inside the tower, the receptionist behind the counter was already rising to her feet.  The Organization didn’t pay a full Priest to sit behind the front counter and take messages, but every employee went through basic training.  Everyone was supposed to know how to fight back in an emergency.

For some people, however, that training was a while ago, and there’s been no call for that information in their head ever since.  They get rusty.

I put a hole in the woman’s head from across the lobby before she had taken two steps away from her chair.

The receptionist wasn’t the only person in the lobby, of course.  Two other men, businessmen from the looks of their suits, were also climbing out of their low chairs where they’d been waiting for their appointments.  I put them both down with a single shot each.

The gunshots would attract attention, of course.  I sprinted forward, for the doors that were just around the corner.

A second later, I nearly died.

Two more guards were thundering down the stairs, their own revolvers drawn and in their hands.  The only reason I survived was that they weren’t expecting me to be so close to the stairs already.

One of the men got a shot off, but it went wide.

I made sure he didn’t get to take a second attempt.

I jumped over the bodies and hurried up the stairs.  From each floor, I could hear shouts.  A minute later, a jangling sound of many bells ringing simultaneously assaulted my ears; someone had pulled the building’s alarm.

I didn’t let myself slow down.  My legs were already burning, but I mercilessly forced them to move faster, taking the wide steps three at a time.

Finally, the doorway for the sixth floor came into view.  I was glad to see it; already, other Priests were barreling out into the stairway both above and below me, their guns drawn and at the ready.  With my getup, it would be tough for them to instantly spot me as the intruder, but the building body count would lead them to me.

A man was stepping through the doorway to the sixth floor into the staircase as I reached it.  I slammed my knife into his throat and shoved him down the steps as the line left behind from the blade blossomed in red.

I was through the doorway before the dead guard’s body behind me hit the stairs.  There were more guards, of course, and I knew that my boss’s receptionist kept a sawed-off double barreled shotgun in a cubbyhole beneath her desk.  They weren’t ready for my entrance, however.

In the eyes of a Priest, unprepared is only a single bullet away from dead.

The receptionist fell last, and she at least managed to drag her gun out from its hole beneath the desk before she toppled backward in a spray of blood and brains across the wall behind her.  I stepped past her, reaching down and snagging the weapon out of her lifeless fingers.

One blast shattered the lock on my former boss’s doors.

Of course, I should have known better than to think that I’d catch my boss unawares.  He had his own gun drawn, pointing at the door as I blasted in.  I could barely see the little tremble in his hand as he pointed the weapon at me.

“Jaspers,” the man rasped, staring at me with eyes that looked bloodshot.  “Why?”

Did he deserve an answer?

“Because this is wrong,” I replied, watching him closely.  “We claim to be above the rest, but we’re just killers.  We may be the best, might demand the most money, but we still kill at the whim of others.  What right do they have, to choose who lives and dies?”

My supervisor shook his head.  “Our targets deserve-“

“Death?” I finished before he could.  “For disobeying, for petty theft?  And what do we deserve, for all the blood on our hands?”

The man opened his mouth, but no words came out.  Instead, he closed it again after a second, and I saw his eyes tighten ever so slightly.

I pulled the trigger first.  The pellets in the shotgun’s second barrel didn’t have much room to spread before they collided with my boss’s head, but the force was enough to shatter his face into fragments.

The man was fast, however.  I felt the slug from his gun punch into my shoulder, spinning me around and sweeping my feet out from beneath me.

The shotgun fell from nerveless fingers.  I shook my head, gritting my teeth against the pain, and tried to stand.  I couldn’t put any weight on my right arm, however, and felt myself collapse back to the ground.

“Need a hand?”

I knew the voice.  I looked up, my eyes widening in surprise.  For just a moment, all of the pain belonged to a different man, one far away from me.

Danni.

Almost to the end, now – to be continued!

The next morning, I rose solemnly from where I had spent the night sitting on the floor.  My joints felt stiff for a moment as I stretched them, but they quickly limbered up.  I still went through the full range of exercises, making sure that I had a full range of motion for all of my limbs.

Once all of my muscles were loose and ready for action, I began to dress myself.

I didn’t let myself stop to consider that this might be the last time I ever did so.

First, I pulled on the lightweight armored vest I had picked up.  It wouldn’t stop a direct slug, I knew, but it might slow down and deflect shrapnel or ricochets.  More importantly, it let me keep the flexibility and speed that I knew would be my best defense.

Next came the two belts of ammunition, bandoliers that slung across my chest.  I made sure to tighten the straps so that they wouldn’t catch on anything.  I couldn’t let them slow me down.  The bullets slid into their little leather loops weighed me down a little, but I knew that the belts would grow lighter as I expended their contents.

The revolvers slid snugly into their matched shoulder harnesses.  I made sure that they were loose enough for me to draw in a single, fluid motion, without any snags.

To cover it all, I pulled an item from the bottom of my pack.  I hadn’t worn my Priest coat in weeks, now.  To do so would be to draw attention to myself.  That wasn’t what I wanted.

But now, for my destination, it would serve as my camouflage.

And finally, finishing the ensemble, I pulled out my old black, flat-brimmed hat.  Its time in the pack had flattened and crushed its shape somewhat, but I smoothed it back out with my hands.  Only once it was once again somewhat crisp, as best as I could manage, did I carefully fit it on my head.

I was walking into the place where I would be most known, most likely to be recognized.  Every other man and woman in the building would know me, would instantly know the price on my head.  Each second of anonymity I could buy was precious.

I looked around the room, gazing down at the bed for several minutes.  I didn’t speak.  What else was there for me to say?

And then I left.

The sun was still barely a red shard above the horizon, and the streets were not yet filled with people.  It was nearly silent as I made my way through the maze of little back roads I’d mapped out.  My eyes remained up on the horizon, locked on the black tower that rose up from the other buildings, directly ahead of me.

The Organization.

My first challenge lay in front of the tower.  A large courtyard, covered in stone, with no cover, stood between me and my destination.  Even in building their headquarters, the Priests had thought defensively, strategically.

Despite my focus, my heart quickened slightly in my chest as I began crossing the courtyard.  Keep calm, betray nothing, I thought to myself.  Don’t let anyone question you.

I made it more than halfway across the courtyard before someone noticed me.

“Hey, you’re coming in early!” a voice called out behind me, nearly making me jump in surprise before I clamped down on my reactions before they could betray me.  “Wait up a moment!”

The other Priest jogged forward; I could hear his footsteps on the smooth stones.  It wasn’t until he came up alongside me that he slowed, and I saw his expression shift from open greeting to one of confusion.

“Wait a sec,” he said, his brow furrowing.  “Hold on, aren’t you the rebel-“

I spun towards him, my hand flashing out.  The knife blade extending from my fist buried itself to the hilt in his neck, silencing him forever.

But now, my cover was blown.  The man’s body sagged, his eyes already glazing over.  I pulled the bloody knife free, but the man was dead weight, and he sagged down onto the ground.  Already, blood spurted out from his body to puddle beneath him.

As soon as I’d released him, I broke into a run.  I was scarcely thirty paces from the front doors of the tower.  I could make it.

Thankfully, luck was on my side.  There were guards stationed outside the front doors of the Organization’s tower, of course, but their reactions were slowed, by some combination of the early hour and their surprise at a direct frontal assault by a lone man.  My knife cut deep across the left guard’s throat before he could even draw his weapon.

The right guard was drawing his gun, but I didn’t slow down.  I spun around, pulling my arm back in against my chest to increase my speed, and let go of the knife with my hand tilted sideways.

The blade flew true, disappearing into the other man’s chest.

I got to see the man’s eyes go wide as he tried to sluggishly comprehend what had just happened.  He looked down, down at the handle protruding out from his chest.  He opened his mouth, trying to say something, or maybe ask me a question.

I reached out and grabbed the handle of the knife, pulling it free.

It was as if I’d flipped a switch.  With the blade out of his chest, the other guard slowly toppled forward, falling to the ground like a felled tree.

I didn’t watch him drop.

My eyes were up, on the doors leading into the tower.  I didn’t see any panicked movement inside, not yet.

That would soon change.

The time for subtlety was over.  I drew one of my revolvers, wiped my knife blade clean of the blood and tucked it away.  I took a deep breath, several breaths, filling my muscles with oxygen.

And then I entered the tower.

To be continued . . . 

When I arrived in the Iron Range, finally reaching my destination, obtaining the supplies I needed proved to be surprisingly easy.

Gunpowder and dynamite both were in no short supply, and in these areas, a little extra money could ensure no questions about the purchase.  I still made certain to buy from several different vendors, not allowing any of them to know the true amounts of explosive I obtained, but the extra caution didn’t seem necessary.

Some of the detonators and other equipment proved harder, if only slightly.  I needed some specific equipment for delayed reaction, and that meant clockwork.  I had many talents, but figuring out how to re-jigger a little bit of clockwork for a new purpose wasn’t one of them.  I was instead forced to rely upon visits at night to little old men with a shop full of tiny tools, paying in cash and hoping that I could afford their silence.

It took a while, but eventually I had all the parts.  It was a series of heart-pounding trips to get them all assembled and properly stored, ready to travel, but eventually I had it all complete.  Everything on my shopping list had been crossed off.

And then I once again climbed aboard a train.

This time, it was easier to move without attracting too much notice.  I still made sure to take every possible precaution, but the Organization was looking for a man and a young woman, traveling together.

I no longer fit that description.

A week later, after several back-tracking trips (like I said, it never hurt to be cautious), I arrived at my destination.  As soon as I climbed off of the train onto the platform, I felt the bustle of Philadelphia hit me like an ocean wave.

The city!  For so long, now, I had been out of the urban environment.  For a moment, I felt overwhelmed as I stared around at the thousands of people, all rushing off on their own errands.  I felt like a million eyes were on me, too many to track.

I took a deep breath, using those techniques I’d learned so long ago to force down the fear, the emotion.  I carefully threw away each emotion, pushing it down and out until only determination and an inner void remained.

And then I retrieved my precious trunk, filled with its explosive cargo, and headed into the city.

I got a cheap room, but it wouldn’t matter much.  I had many trips to make, and I wasn’t planning on returning to pay my bill at the room afterward.  I just needed a place of safety, somewhere I could duck back to between trips.

It took three days to put everything into place.

The whole time, I felt uncomfortably aware of those eyes on me, watching.  I had done my best to alter my description to make sure I no longer looked like the Jasper that the Organization knew and remembered.  My long beard itched, and I’d lost weight in some places and gained it in others.  I had long since discarded my black coat for prospector’s brown, and my flat-brimmed hat had been replaced with a shapeless lump of leather.  It shaded my eyes, but it was anything but fashionable.

I didn’t care about my looks.  The bulky brown coat hid the two revolvers – mine and Danni’s – that I carried beneath it.  The hat kept the sun out of my eyes as I prowled through the streets of Philadelphia, and helped to keep me from looking up.

Whenever my gaze did wander upwards, however, I couldn’t help but hiss and suck in my lips against my teeth.  There it stood, a black tower, rising up into the sky like a middle finger raised against the Lord.

The tower of the Organization.

Inside, I knew, were files, desks, records, and more.  An armory with weapons for the Priests inside.  A vault, built into the basement, containing the most secure information.  The building was an armored bastion against the forces of chaos in the world, a heavy hand of order on this new and growing nation.

My fingers itched as I stared up at the tower.  Unbidden, my mouth twisted into a scowl.

They had done this to me, had put me up against Danni, and then wrenched her away.  I didn’t waste any time grieving.

Not when there was work to be done.

After those three days, after I’d carefully slid the last little brown oilskin-wrapped package into place, I spent one last night in the hotel room, sitting with my legs crossed on the floor.  I had taken apart both revolvers – I’d pulled Danni’s from the wreckage, had carefully rebuilt and restored it – and put them back together, fully oiled and gleaming.  I’d checked every bullet on both belts that crossed my chest.

I knew that I wouldn’t get any sleep tonight.

Instead, I passed the long night’s vigil, staring at the bed in front of me and letting my mind go blank.  I embraced that blankness, the void.

It would serve me well tomorrow, until I could do no more.

To be continued . . . 

For just a moment, as the air turned to fire around me and violently threw me back, all I saw was blinding light.

An instant later, I hit the ground, the violent blow knocking the air from my lungs and splaying out my limbs.  My brain was already racing, however, and I scrabbled like a spider to get up.

Once back on my feet, however, my hand dropped away from my side, away from where it had rested on the butt of my revolver.

There was nothing left for me to fight.
All around me, little charred unidentifiable scraps rained down.  Of any other living soul, Danni or the old man, there was no sign.

The house that had stood before me only seconds previously was gone.  Only a few charred beams remained, canted at crazy angles, blown out by the force of the blast.  Most of the cabin was little more than rubble.

I shook my head, my brain not yet comprehending.  I was still in fight or flight mode, not able to reason or think logically.  I ran forward, ignoring the heat radiating up even through my boots or the little guttering flames that curled up around my footprints.

A half dozen steps closer to the house, I heard a groan off to one side.  This time, my gun did come sliding out of its holster, but as soon as my eyes fell upon the man, I knew that it wouldn’t be needed.

He lay up against a tree – what remained of him, at least.  Ash already fell across him and hid the full extent of his injury, but where his legs should have been, only a dark stain persisted.  He coughed, however, and I saw his eyes flicker sluggishly.

I stepped forward, my gun coming up beneath his chin.  “What happened?” I demanded, trembling with energy coursing through me.

He coughed again, and I saw the little dribble of red from one corner of his lips.  “She’s smart,” he rasped, his voice unsteady.

“What did she do?”

He just shook his head.  I could see his energy ebbing quickly.  “Didn’t know that she could draw that fast,” he wheezed.  “Should’ve hit her first before trying.”

But then, the man’s lips quirked up into a smile, revealing bloodstained teeth.  “But she didn’t know ’bout the gunpowder behind me,” he spat with vicious enjoyment.

My eyes tracked down the man’s chest.  Sure enough, I could see the hole where Danni’s bullet punched in through his ribs, clear even despite the other damage of the explosion.  Glancing past the man, I realized that the tree against which he lay was likely the only thing still holding him together.

I stood back up, looking down at the man for a moment longer.  He let his head sag back to look up at me, still grinning and showing the red droplets staining his lips and teeth.  “Can’t get away, Priest,” he hissed.  “Can’t ever get away from us.”

I didn’t respond.  But my leg swung around in scything kick, knocking what remained of the monster in front of me sideways.  He hit the ground with a grunt of pain as his shattered spine tore away from the tree, but I was already turning away, towards the house.

The man in black paused here, and with a start, Jenny realized that the storyteller was shaking in his seat.

She didn’t even think.  She leaned forward and threw her arms around the man in black, pulling him in up against her.  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she whispered in his ear as she hugged him fiercely.  At the corners of her eyes, Jenny could feel tears of her own welling up.

For several seconds, she hugged the man, feeling him shiver.  Beside both of them, Old Hillpaw looked more awkward than ever, although even he reached out and uncomfortably patted the man in black on the back.  “Sorry,” he murmured as well, knowing that the words brought no comfort.

A good minute passed before the man in black was finally able to suck in a shuddering breath and speak once again.  “I can go on,” he finally said, reaching out blindly for his sheaf of typewritten pages.

“It’s okay.”  Jenny surprised even herself with the strength of her voice.  She let go of the man in black, but kept her hands on his upper arms, trying to somehow draw off and lessen his grief.  “You don’t have to keep going.”

But the man in black, even through the little drops of liquid shimmering on his cheek, managed to look determined.  “Yes, I do,” he stated, with gentle finality.

Old Hillpaw touched Jenny on the shoulder.  “It’s good for him to finish, to get it out,” he suggested.

Reluctantly, Jenny let go of the man.  But she looked more watchful now, like a mother anxious about her young offspring playing outside for the first time.  For the first time he could remember, Old Hillpaw didn’t think of her as childishly young, as he watched her expression set itself.

The man in black picked up his notes once again, although he had to set them down once or twice and wipe his eyes clear so that he could read the carefully typed words.  He opened his mouth, but the words didn’t come, even after several attempts.

Finally, Old Hillpaw decided to give their speaker a break.  “Maybe jump ahead to the next chapter,” he offered with uncharacteristic kindness.

Their storyteller didn’t argue.  He shuffled through the papers, setting the rest of that chapter aside.  Neither Jenny nor Old Hillpaw had any inclination to pick it up and read the rest for themselves.  Whatever tragedy lay in those pages could remain unseen.

To be continued . . .