I am tired, but kind of excited to share this.  I hope somebody likes it.  It's flawed, sure, but it's a first draft.  Thanks for the time guys, and looking forward to the game.<br/><br/><b>CATCHING HELL</b>, part iii<br/>A Story of Katie Sinclair (conclusion)<br/><br/>I've drawn out the meal as long as I can.  The silver in my hands is cold and nimble as I cut the lamb.  It's rubbed with rosemary and some kind of smooth oil that I can't really place, but that makes it complex and delicious.  I'm conscious to use the closest thing I can approximate to table-manners, which means I place my napkin over my lap and keep my elbows off the table.  I try not to show how very hungry I am, nor how much I'm enjoying just sitting and<i>looking</i>at that man, at his concave, smooth jaw, his silvery gray eyes' sparkle when he smiles.  Baptiste, I've decided, is horrendously dangerous because he knows exactly how lovely he is.<br/><br/>I find it best not to be completely ingratiating when I'm already at a disadvantage, because doing so is admitting that the conrol is in another's hands.  So this time, it's not vinegar that I offer at first, exactly, but the honey's a bit more sour than usual.  "It's been my experience, Baptiste, that most people get rich either through inheritance or dishonesty."  I sip the wine.  "You've been most cordial to me, but I'd like to know, if you don't mind, just which exactly is the case with you."<br/><br/>He smiles wryly at this, wiping his mouth with the satiny white cloth from his lap before he answers.  "I was born a slave, Miss Sinclair, but I was fortunate enough to find freedom at a very young age."  He lifts his wine and sips, his gaze flowing up from the crimson globe to my face with a steadiness that is neither defensive nor accusatory.  "My Benefactor saw to me, though, and found it advantageous to help me see the world."  His mouth quirks a bit as he recalls the time, a gesture that I take as genuine only because it could afford him no advantage.  "I was raised in Versailles, London, Paris, Rome... I saw boarding schools across Europe, immersed myself in everything I could learn.  In fact, I only returned to this country only a few years ago."<br/><br/>Listening, I swallow a small mound of beans and rice before prompting him.  "So you didn't have a home, really?"<br/><br/>He grins at that, seeming to relish the prospect of answering the question.  "My mother here in the territories wrote me frequently, it's true.  But my benefactor-- my real father-- he was the one who kept care of me, really."  He smiles, adjusts his posture and crosses his legs as he reaches for a hunk he'd sliced of a pale and narrow loaf of bread.  "He sent me visitors, took me to carnivals, helped me study and showed me amazing things-- fireworks over the Seine, the galleries of Rome, the great ruins of Giza.  Things I would never have dreamed of here, things I would prehaps have glimpsed in a book, were I fortunate enough to learn how to read.  Now, I've read Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau, Sun Tzu... He's given me everything I have.  But don't you see?"<br/><br/>He grins at me then, one steely eye closing in a subtle wink.  I think something in my lower regions melts in response.  "None of it matters, my dear.  All of it is one big mirage, you see? Il fantome.  What matters is not that I make money with my shipping business, or give money to my benefactor's people, but that I serve a purpose."  With a barber's precision he shaves off a piece of lamb as he explains.  "Most of the Loa's chosen... they have next to nothing of material value.  This is fine-- we can take what we need, and love not what can be measured in number."  He takes a small bite of the meat and chews it neatly, swallowing before proceeding.  "This house lets me have the mayor for supper.  People who, out in the street, expect me to cross to the other side when they approach-- because of my color?-- they will share cigars with me in the drawing room.  I even drank bourbon with Jefferson Davis on the patio garden."<br/><br/>I must have a look of incredulity on my face, for he continues with an apologetic shrug.  "I do not tell you these things to impress you, Miss Sinclair, merely to illustrate my point."  He rests his fork and lifts his wine again.  "My people-- those of the Loa-- we this city has been built on our ashes, with the sweat of our brows, and from the labor of our backs.  The saints of New Orleans?  Our own Loa.  The French Market by the river out there?  It moves by our grace.  The mayor sits in his house because of our labors.  From the bayous to Jackson Square to the mansions of Baton Rouge... and yet there are some who would drive us to the gutters, who would hunt us."<br/><br/>My fork hasn't moved, I realize, as he pauses to sip his wine.  I let it rest on the now-empty plate and nod gently.  I'm not begrudging him that motive.  "Flinchum."  I reach for the wine, and by the time my fingers rest on the glass, he refilling it from the bottle.<br/><br/>He nods at me grimly.  "It's not pretty work.  But acting against him would be very risky for our investments."  My glass now half-full, he refills his own.  "At least, directly.  You understand, I know."  His eyes say he does.  They say he's not afraid of Flinchum, and he doesn't like being so removed from the process.  At least, that's what I see in his gaze.<br/><br/>"Your dirty work, then."<br/><br/>He doesn't bat an eye.  "You were going to kill him anyway, were you not?"<br/><br/>I breathe a light sigh, and my one visible eye fixes on the expanse of white tablecloth between he and I.  "My lady..."<br/><br/>"Artemis," he says.  He makes the word sound as beautiful as it should.<br/><br/>"Yes.  My lady does not like being used in another's schemes."<br/><br/>He blinks rapidly, as if offended, but containing his anger.  "I would never insult you like that, Miss Sinclair.  Vengeance is a righteous thing, and from what I have seen your work is immaculate."  I watch as he speaks.  "I merely wish to make sure that what you intend to do does not fail."<br/><br/>I don't like it.  It feels as if I'm playing a pawn, which I detest, to have someone standing behind me and egging me on.  But this isn't a logical thought.  It's pride, and I must admit that the justice of my actions must be greater than that pride if I'm to be true to what my lady chose for me.  I'll kill the fucker because he needs killing.<br/><br/>"What's he done to you?" I ask as I set my glass down on the table and lean closer to him, my face a placid mask of certainty.<br/><br/>Baptiste shrugs and studies my face, and seems to enjoy what he sees.  "It is more a matter of what he will do, unfortunately.  You know about his drug trade, and his selling of slaves.  Well... he has designs for the families of very powerful allies, and we cannot allow this to happen."<br/><br/>I pause to consider refugee women he took to sell.  I can't help but wonder if they are still alive, or if they would care to live after seeing the atrocities done their families.  I wonder what they've suffered since their taking, for my own such suffering at the hands of men was by instance, not as a routine over weeks.  It was still horrible to remember, though the goddess had alleviated that pain, had given for me to understand the many degrees of separation between what was done to me and what I have chosen to enter into with others, even with her, since.  Even having healed more than many in my position are able, the scar of those moments still burns deep in my heart.<br/><br/>"I can help you get to him," says Baptiste.  "But it will not be easy.  The address you are seeking is a boarding house in name, but it is a boarding house by name.  It it, his men sell girls and boys, opium, liquor and poisons and killing services."  He sighs, tracing his fingers on the table top, lovely hands with pale fingernails, smooth arching tendons that would be heavenly to feel in a caress.  "He has professional men, good killers.  But he is the one you must fear."<br/><br/>I don't reply to this, there's not much more to be said.  Or so I think.  I know already what the tales say... that he carries an eight-gauge shotgun on the rage, that he's built like a bull and boasts at his prowess with fisticuffs, and he's supposedly killed seven men in such matches.  I've heard that despite his size he's fast as lightning, but that most of the people he kills never see him coming because he prefers the ambush.<br/><br/>I've heard that he wears alligator skins on his jacket and hat and boots, though I've only seen alligators in books and newsprints from the coast.  He carries a knife like the Arkansas boys used to throw for fun when we were waiting for action--- big as a damn spade.  They called them 'toothpicks' when funning around.  But I hadn't heard what he says next.<br/><br/>"He's like us."<br/><br/>I exhale slowly and look up at his eyes with the steady realization that, yes, he's right.  And I should always have known this, should I?<br/><br/>"He's not<i>exactly</i>like us.  He's made from the old ones."  The meal in my stomach, lovely as it was, feels heavier now.  "Le Diable."<br/><br/>I realized I've pursed my mouth in thought.  "Okay then," I say softly.  "I might need a cup of coffee before this one."<br/><br/>With a smile that looks to carry an inkling of admiration, he slides a saucer and mug to the center of the table.  "I'm sure it will compliment dessert marvelously."<br/><br/><br/>SPIRITUS SANCTI, TEXAS.<br/><i><br/>The storms was whipping rain against the street with a vicious, needling persistence.  The sheriff was gurgling and stumbling behind me, gasping when he managed to get to his feet and stumble along at the noose I'd cinched under his chin.  He couldn't stop cursing me, but I wasn't really paying him much mind.<br/><br/>A noisy crowd had braved the weather and the growing dark of this night to witness the spectacle.  That was good, because I was going to need them.  "You cain't do that to a law-man, you crazy she-wolf whore!"  "I done told you that was One-Eyed Kate--" "And I done told YOU that there ain't no such person, she's just a story-book nothin'!" "Lord, go fetch the preacher, she's a headin' for the church!"<br/><br/>And I was, indeed, bearing down on the church, a mission-style building that was probably one of the first structures built in the town's occupants, which were white ranchers, tradesmen, and tin-mine workers.  The whitewashed, clapboard walls were well kept, and the narrow windows overstood small clumps of flowering gardens.  Beyond stretched a wide, picket-fenced yard of wooden crosses and, occasionally, white slabs like awkwardly placed teeth to mark where the wealthy rested.  The Sheriff had regained some breath and was trying to snatch the rope from me, but I managed more by dexterity than brute strength to maneuver him to submission again.  <br/><br/>The preacher had beaten us to the doorstep and, at my appearance before the stoop, flopped dramatically to his knees-- the gesture was made more humorous by the nightshirt he wore over his portly frame.  His dark hair was lank and dark with rainwater.  "Our father, who art in heaven" he started out, clasping his hands dramatically before his bespectacled nose, "hallowed be--"<br/><br/>Encouraged by his vulgar display of piety, the crowd tried to rally.  "Preacher, talk some sense into this crazy wildcat--"  "Yeah, preacher, we need some peace talk here!"<br/><br/>His display enraged me, and my voice was like a tornado's scream.  "You prayin' now?!"  I levered the Sheriff to the ground beside the preacher and pressed my gun to the lawman's temple.  "Huh?  You gonna pray that nobody makes a mess of your pretty little church?!  How 'bout when the very fucking devil you fear rides into your town, did you bar his way?  Did you pray for your god to save you from him?  Or did you not mind him killing all those yellow-skinned people, right where you could hear the shots, right where you could hear'em cry and scream?"<br/><br/>My accusations had interrupted his prayer, and evidently he'd lost his place.  He started another, "Merciful father--" <br/><br/>The fury turned my vision to a searing red.  "MERCY?!"  I kicked the pastor's face with one hard boot-heel.  The impact of the blow was sufficient to send out one high, crystalline note from the spur on my heel.  Blood misted up from the preacher's ruined nose with a spluttering hiss and he flailed about, finally curling into the tucked-up position as one might see see a babe sleep, tucking itself up for protection.  "WHAT MERCY?  The mercy that keeps you rich and fat?  Is that the selfsame mercy that had them workmen and their families wandering the fucking desert?  Waiting for a gang to rape their daughters and blow them'n their wives' n'their kids' heads off?"<br/><br/>The crowd was silenced with shame and horror, so I ignored them.  I headed through the broad doors of the church, spotting the narrow stairs for the bell tower right away.  My body felt weak suddenly, exhausted with the effort of trying to haul about the Sheriff, so I planted the muzzle of my gun at the base of his skull.  I directed him, thus, to climb.  "The rest of you bastards go get a damn shovel."<br/></i><br/><br/>NEW ORLEANS, CONTI STREET<br/><br/>Baptiste's words ring in my mind as I ride the horse at a walk up Conti Street.  The night has made the shadows long and the masonry walls violet and gray, and the moon is emerging fat and orange-red in the cloud-shattered sky.  The heat of the day fades into a sultry night of shadows and catcalls.  A woman and three men careen past me opposite of the roadway, her feathered hat dancing with the lolling of her head as they all laugh and wail at the night.  Walking the horse, my head is down, the long weapons at rest by either thigh, both hands hanging on the reigns.  I'm like a ghost slinking its way toward the reenactment of its death.<br/><br/>The door of 419 is broad and tall, french-doors with glass panes etched with an inlay of ferns and flowers between black wood panels.  The low glow of a gaslight casts a grisly pallor on the bowler-wearing, long-mustachioed sentry at the door.  His tweed and barrel-chested presence recall to me a Pinkerton I once befell in Dodge, and he catches sight of me and watches me in the unobtrusive way that a good watch-dog will: silently.<br/><br/>I walk the horse toward him, head still down.  Directly, relentlessly, I am closing the distance with the rhythmic clip-clop of my range-shod gelding on the gritty, pulverized stone of the way.  I think of the tens of thousands of souls who've walked this road, and I wonder how many came this way before this city sprung up cancerous on the shore of the river.  I wonder how many remember this same walk as the last lucid memory of their natural life.  I wonder how many will die tonight.<br/><br/>The guardsman's thick jaw and thick shoulders visibly tighten as I draw closer, and I realize just how good of a sentinel he is.  He can sense my intent, and he's not nervous or frightened in the least-- his reaction is only from certainty, growing with each resounding step of my horse. He wears a billy club at his waist, a pistol under his coat.  The time is nigh, and he must chose. Is it time to fire, or does he give me warning.  Like the gears of a clock churning, exposed to the air, his mind is logical and obvious and systematic.<br/><br/>Maybe he was a soldier.  Maybe he really is a Pinkerton, I can't tell for sure.<br/><br/>He can see that I'm a girl.  He should shoot.  If he's wrong, he'll catch hell.  If he doesn't I might kill him.  There's the sound of a high, rich laugh from inside the building, and the rapid sawing of violin music.  A moth flutters its shadow across the glass shade of the lantern beside his door.<br/><br/>He acts.  He pulls the revolver from his hip with the steady certainty of one with the advantage, and though his instinct was true, it was too slow in coming.<br/><br/>The catch on his holster yields with the rustle of leather on leather, and the sure grip of his pistol is in his finger has him dragging it from its sheath immediately, ready to aim, ready to fire.<br/><br/>With the sound of a wet log tasting the axe, he careens backwards and chokes a wet breath where my knife has buried itself between the twin knobs of his collarbone, just below his Adam's apple.  The blade and handle of this knife are over a foot long together, and most of the blade is hiding in his chest now.<br/><br/>This was how we entertained ourselves between fights, as I mentioned... we would throw knives for sport, laughing and wagering for tobacco or silver buttons we'd clipped.  We called the great blades 'toothpicks' in fun.<br/><br/>Like a good fighter, he tries to keep his feet and get off a shot, but his body is in the rigors of agony beyond reasoning, and his pistol too heavy to lift.  I shift slightly to my favored side, adding a little weight to the right stirrup so I can dip and snatch the blade from his chest without dismounting.  With him making a wet sucking sound as he clambors from the doorway to the street to die, I slip the knife-- still saturated with his blood-- back into its sheath at my thigh.  I ease the shotgun from aside the saddle and loop the reigns on the gaslight's stem.  I leave the Winchester, as the proximity inside will, without doubt, make it a liability, though I'll miss its deep magazine.<br/><br/>I stoop for long enough to take the doorman's firearm and tuck it into the front of my belt, then-- keeping my back to the brick of the archway, ease the doors open and let the shotgun lead the way within.<br/><br/><br/>SPIRITUS SANCTI.<br/><i><br/>We had a lovely view of the burning office from up on the ledge of the church's steeple.  I left the Sheriff standing in view of the expiring fire, its extinguishing now left to the elements.  The man's hands were at his back, bound by my own rope, and he was standing at the belfry's precarious ledge which was slicked with rain and wind.  The long rope of the church's solitary bell was knotted around his neck.  <br/><br/>Pendergrast had started his pleadings and cursing anew as I paced the tiny catwalk, my Sharps rifle in my hand with the action tucked protectively under my sealskin coat. I could take a few steps and survey the work on the outskirts of the town-- the work the whole of the town had mutually agreed to ignore.  <br/><br/>Their story came clear quickly after I had the Sheriff settled in.  The preacher had mumbled the tale between condemnations after I set his broken nose.  Flinchum had cowed them long before, and on this visit he had exacted protection money as often he did.  He'd expressed a bit of interest in the refugees-- whom the townspeople had voted could camp no closer than one thousand feet from the furthest structure of town-- and had gone out to investigate with his twelve men.  The scene then played out much as I expected, and rather than risk his wrath at their involvement they had opted to drink themselves to ignorance.<br/><br/>The rain changed, falling instead in heavy leaden drops that beat at the backs of the men and women of the village who now worked at the place of the slaughter, but they dug continually in the muddying earth, cutting the shape of over twenty shallow graves.  The preacher was out there with them now, where I'd sent him with his book to pray for their souls.  I watched him arrive, noting even at this distance that no one spoke to one another, nor made eye contact.  The preacher read aloud from his bible though the pages soaked with the rain.<br/></i><br/><br/>NEW ORLEANS.<br/><br/>In the first room, there's another Flinchum man.  I have little time to study him, and aside from that he is bald on top, I can see he carries a sap and pistol.  By some remarkable luck-- or misfortune on his part, rather-- he is in the middle of a broad yawn when I open the door to find myself immediately before where he sits.  The violin music is louder now that I am inside, and the laughter of several men and women rings up all at once.<br/><br/>I have the briefest moment to pull my knife again and drive it under his neck like the placement of a saw, where a rapid back-and-forth splits his flesh to the spine before he can draw a breath with which to challenge me. The gore of such close killing is profuse.  I haven't felt arterial spray since the War, and I do not relish it this time.<br/><br/>From here, I know that the knife's purpose will be insufficient, so I return it to its place as the man I've just killed sags onto his chair and sidles onto the blood-slicked tile of the entryway.  A high, open arch before me leads me to a wide, high-ceilinged room with red on red, paisley walls, tapers on the walls betwixt extravagantly framed paintings of women in the nude.  Beneath a dangling, elaborate chandelier with crystal teardrops, a dozen people are mingling about-- an old man with a white mustache dances with a quadroon girl.  He wears pinstriped pants and tails, and she wears frilled bloomers and stockings, her bare breasts pressed tight to him as they waltz in awkward time to the tune of the violin.  A man with cane and top-hat stands with his arm entwined with a woman close to his own age-- perhaps his wife, or perhaps the madam-- whose huge crown of white hair features a bright ostrich plume.  She is fanning herself and pressing close to the gentleman as they study the frame of a buxom blonde as she sits a red stool before them.<br/><br/>No guards can I see, though there is a bartender beyond a curtained arch to my right, although he has not noticed me.  I tuck the shotgun into my blood-spattered coat and duck my head, letting my had cover the flecks of red on my face.<br/><br/>I pass the fiddler; he plays beneath the portrait of a woman being mounted from behind by a centaur, and he tips his head.  A full-figured octaroon woman carries her substantial figure at the arm of a gentleman as she escorts him down a broad, curving staircase.  The newel post boasts a gaudy statue of a nude woman carrying fruit. I make my way up the stairs rapidly, hoping to reach Flinchum before there is gunfire.<br/><br/>At the top of the stairs, I smell opium smoke.  I pass several closed doors, some of which echo with the squeaking of mattress springs and the chirping cries of a woman faking pleasure.  Although the shotgun in my coat has been sawn down by a full foot, it still feels awkward in these close quarters.  I reach the end of the hallway, and there's a turn, and at that turn a man rounds the corner to face me.<br/><br/>It's not but a moment before he makes me for my purpose here, and he pulls his pistol immediately.  The shotgun's answer is like thunder, and the man's torso becomes perforated and his blood mists a spitoon stuffed with peacock feathers in the hall's corner.  I ease back the hammer on the second barrel as I reach where he's crumpling to a writhing, dying heap and I peek, quickly to the right where he'd come from.  A heavy, paneled door with a big brass pull waits there, closed and still.  Questioning voices and women's cries fill the hallway, so I round the corner and brace myself for an onslaught from either side.  Doors open and faces peek out from the guest rooms, but I wait.  The heavy door opens and two men with Winchesters tumble into the hallway.  I fire again, and at this distance I hit them both with the shotgun blast, though not as solidly as I'd have preferred.<br/><br/>I round the corner back toward the guest rooms to give them a moment to shoot back and bleed while I break down the shotgun and reload with as much rapidity as I can muster.  The practiced action takes a moment, and I can hear them groaning between unaimed shots that shatter the feather-vase and mar the gold-foiled trim and dark paneling of the hallway.  I am still watching behind me for someone from downstairs, or perhaps from the guest rooms, when I hear clumsy, lurching footsteps on the carpet.  I reach the loaded shotgun around the corner and fire both barrels blind, and the footsteps stop, followed a split-second later by the sound of a body landing hard.<br/><br/>Smoke spills from the barrels as I break the weapon down again, reloading it hot and slamming it shut.  I crouch low and peek quick, then pop back to the selfsame hallway I am in.  A body before me with his rifle askew some feet away, one man scooting on his ass back toward the heavy door.  He fires his Winchester when he registers that I am spying him, but he hasn't much chance to aim.  I gauge the height and distance with a rough guess, then angle the shotgun around the corner without presenting my head.  I fire one barrel, adjust my distance a bit, then fire the next.  I peek again, and he's prone and convulsing.<br/><br/>The whores and johns have, undoubtedly, hidden themselves under their beds at this point, so I know that the figure that emerges from the stairwell is not some curious bystander.  He fired at me and damn near hits me with a long-barreled pillbox gun, and I scramble around the corner and cast the shotgun aside.  My revolver gun-- my<i>lady's</i>gun-- hisses its way eagerly from its holster and barks one blast.  The barman from downstairs, stocky and fast, he's taken cover in at the top step when he catches the round somewhere in the forehead.  He looks utterly surprised before his head flops back down out of sight and I hear his body falling down the steps, as if he never would have thought I'd possibly make that shot.<br/><br/><i>Well, a trench full of Unions didn't think I could make that shot a few years back.  They ain't around to question my aim no more.</i><br/><br/>I check once more to see if I'm followed, then keep my back flat to the wall as I sidle up to that big door.  It doesn't budge, and through the crack I can see some kind of bar has been moved into place.  Drawing the knife into my off-hand, I prepare to try to lift the bar from this side, but there's a commotion of footsteps on the hallway behind me.<br/><br/>Perhaps too late, I realize that the place might have a basement, and that if Flinchum has a weapons business, it's probably down there away from the customers' eyes.<br/><br/><br/>SPIRITUS SANCTI.<br/><i><br/>Pendergrast called me again, his tone having returned from rage and terror to a mere desperation.  "Look... I know, I never did nothing.  I should have helped them people. I should have tried to stop Flinchum when he first come through, I coulda wired for a Marshall.  I see the errors I've made..."<br/><br/>His voice was trembling with cold and sincerity, but I didn't reply.  He kept trying.  "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.  I'm a terrible cur.  I'm a bastard.  I'll quit, I swear it, I'll find a new Sheriff who'll ne'er let this come back 'round.  I'll fix it, I swear it!"<br/><br/>At that, I answer.  We're alone, but I speak softly as if I don't want his Jesus down in the church to hear me.  "You gonna fix them?"  I wasn't looking at the Sheriff, just continuing to watch the murdered be cared for.  His voice croaked out a resigned roar, wet with the spit and mucus and rain that soaked his bearded face.  I lifted my hat from my head and turned my face to the black sky, letting the cold rain soak my skin like it did those out there dead under open sky.  I let it wash me clean as Pendergrast choked and spluttered behind me.<br/><br/>I removed my eyepatch then, let it dangle from my fingers.  I turned to face him, and he looked upon me without those affectations and he saw the real me.  He saw the delicate features of my face, he saw how few years I'd known and how breaking those years had been.  He saw the thin pale scars at my left eye and the dull silver glimmer of the eye my lady gave me.<br/><br/>The sound me made then was like the disappointment of a child, and he sucked in his breath.  He knew then what I was, and he knew what he was, and that was all that was left for him to know.<br/><br/>He stepped from the belfry ledge, and the rope snapped taught when his weight hit the end. The bell started to clamourously peal, and the shifting weight of it kept his neck from snapping clean-- his eyes bulged and he began to wriggle at the end of the line.  The bell rang out again, the clapper inside slapping the iron hull harder with each return stroke of the flailing body on its rope.  The Sheriff lost his bladder, his eyes bulged and his tongue lolled from his mouth in a grotesque mask in his silent, pinned-bug death, the moment that would last forever and end in oblivion.<br/><br/>I cut the rope with my blade, and his body tumbled the remaining ten feet to land before the church step.  For a moment his throat would not work, then he sucked a wet, choking breath, vomited, and coughed as he inhaled some of it.  The bell still echoed its hollow metal announcement as he lost consciousness there on the ground, his breath violent and desperate, but ceaseless.<br/><br/>That was the last I saw of Spiritus Sancti, for then I set off for Arkansas to follow Flinchum.<br/></i><br/><br/>NEW ORLEANS<br/><br/>The door to my right was what some call a broom closet-- with a depth of about eight inches, it doesn't make for a very acceptable cover point when one is in a firefight.  My best estimate is that there are four or five men around the corner, and two of them at a time can share that firing point if one crouches.  Lacking the time for diplomacy or surrender, I curse and fill the empty chamber in my pistol with a .45 bullet.  I check the pistol I lifted from the guard downstairs, and it seems to be in working order and loaded to its capacity of six rounds.<br/><br/>I am pressed as flat as I can and am rather glad, momentarily, that I'm not particularly well endowed or I might have already some of that endowment in the hail of bullets they are sending my way.  I gauge the distance and fire off several rounds from the dead man's gun, knowing that without aiming I will most likely miss entirely.  When it's empty, I make a point to cock the hammer again and let it fall on an empty cylinder.  I let them think I am firing wildly and do not realize I am out of ammunition, and like a baited groundhog it's not a moment before one thick, eager, bearded head pops around the corner to aim, then the other.  "I got her, I GOT THAT BI--"<br/><br/>Two reports from my lady's gun come almost together, like a double-tap on some massive snare drum, and both those men's heads snap back on their necks, fresh holes in the bridges of their respective noses.  They fall utterly limp with no lizard-brain left to command their bodies.<br/><br/>I can't help but grin a bit at the eloquence of the cursing that follows this little display, though I can't really enjoy it because, as I've mentioned, I have no real cover in this hallway.  So with the whisper of my lady on the night she chose me returning once more to my mind, "Have no fear, for you are my huntress", I hit the hallway at a rabbit-fast run, my gun in one hand and knife in the other.<br/><br/>They perhaps mean to move the bodies, to take up the two dead shooters' position of advantage, but the three men that remain in the hallway are not prepared to be assaulted so recklessly-- nor with the speed my lady has given me.<br/><br/>Flame gouts from the barrel into the chest of the first man, then the second's weapon goes off and perforates my coat, stinging my shoulder despite my speed-- a shotgun, even shorter than the one I was firing, with a spread only useful at very close ranges like this.  A terrible mistake for me, so I kill him next with a single shot to the face.  The third falls back with his hands up before him, his rifle having been set aside so he could move the bodies.<br/><br/>"Oh Christ, I'm unarmed, please no--"<br/><br/>The muzzle of my gun is searing hot when I press it to his cheek.  His breathing is rapid with the gasping cries of one in agony, though I haven't really hurt him badly yet.<br/><br/>"Flinchum."<br/><br/>He chokes out some noises and then emphatically gestures toward the heavy door, as I'd first suspected.<br/><br/>"Go tell him you got me," I hiss, sheathing my knife and fishing his pistol from his hip holster.  He seemed to have forgotten it.<br/><br/>"Wha-  wha--"<br/><br/>"Do it," I hiss, hauling him up as we both rise.  The hurt in my shoulder is still muted behind the sulfur-hot haze of battle.<br/><br/>He blinks at me, and I can see whisps of coppery red in his short beard and thick eyebrows.  He knows it'll be his death, and he's reluctant to rush headlong.<br/><br/>I lick my canine as I stare him down, scratching the tip of my tongue on its rough point.  "I<i>will</i>kill you if you don't."<br/><br/>This is a half-lie.  The silver eye can see his sin through even the black patch with which I hide it.  He was one of those at Spiritus Sancti.  I will kill him if he doesn't or if he does.  It makes no difference.<br/><br/>Keeping his gun on him, I crouch with my lady's gun propped on my knee, and I begin carefully reloading it so I can keep my prisoner covered.  I load chamber two, then three, and he calls out.<br/><br/>"Flinchum!"  His voice cracks mid-word.  "Flinchum, I got her!"  Silence answers.  I load chamber four, chamber five.  I draw back the hammer of his pistol with my thumb.  I load chamber six.  "She's-- she's still alive--" I set my jaw and grin at how much I'm going to hurt him.  "I mean-- she's wounded, and down.  But she's right pretty-- some crazy, one-eyed girl--"  My anger abates a degree, but he's still not getting away.<br/><br/>There's a noise at the end of the hall, as of something heavy pressing against that broad door.  "What did you say?"<br/><br/>The voice is deep and vicious.  Unperturbed.  My captive is pale, sweating cold along the whole of his skin.  "I said, it's a girl, with one eye."<br/><br/>"Has she got a glass eye?"<br/><br/>Flinchum's man rolls his eyes in resignation and works his mouth silently.   I holster my lady's gun and reach with my free hand to lift away the patch.  He sees it.<br/><br/>"NO!"  his voice is an octave higher.  "No, it's-- it's metal, silver I think--" and tears flow down his face.  He knows what he's done and he feels it fresh from what they must have felt and must still suffer.  He starts sobbing.  "Oh, my God, oh my God..."<br/><br/>I hear the ratcheting of gears-- I could never have opened such a heavy lock on my own.  I hear the door swing open on iron hinges, I hear the cocking of a hammer.<br/><br/>I can feel Flinchum's presence.  One of the old ones, the spawn of a Titan in a human form, a blob of flesh imbued with power beyond man.  "Come around," he says, and his voice makes my spine run like mercury.<br/><br/>But he's sensed me, hasn't he?  It's not that he believes I'm wounded, it's that he wants what I possess.  This war is older than anything else I know.<br/><br/>He fires a weapon that sounds like a mortar, and the wall beside my head explodes in a rupture of splinters and plaster.  If I hadn't guessed right, I'd be dead.  My prisoner flails and collapses with half his upper torso ripped away by the blast.<br/><br/>I don't wait to see what he's firing or if he's reloading.  I know he has to die, and I don't foresee having a better opportunity.  I skin the mystical weapon at my right and drop the dead man's iron.  Rounding the corner, I start fanning the gun and Flinchum tries to take cover.  He is bigger than I expected, but he moves fast and has partial cover from the door frame.  I hit him anyway, one bullet tearing a hole behind his ear, another penetrating his shoulder where he turned his profile toward me.  A third should have caught his heart, but he doesn't stop moving.  He wears no armor-- over his massive frame, nothing clads him but a pair of trousers and suspenders.  The blood that flows was profuse and black.<br/><br/>My feet are a flurry of long strides as I cross the hallway and dive into the room headlong, landing on a lush maroon and white rug before he can shut the door to keep me out.  He curses and I see the massive shotgun in his hand, and him stuffing a slug into the chamber that looks as big around as a spool of thread.  I have him, I know it, so I fire the next three bullets directly into his chest.<br/><br/>He roars, agony and rage twisting his face like a warthog's, and I can see that black blood dripping from the doorframe where I've surely blown quarter-sized holes through his whole body.  He lurches toward me, but doesn't fall-- instead, he swings his fist up at me, backhanding me across the small chamber and into something that crashes and breaks with the impact of my body.  I see diamonds everywhere, glistening and tinkling across the carpet, and I realize there must have been a mirror behind me.<br/><br/>His visage blurs, becomes double in my gaze, and then I shake off the cobwebs.  I've survived worse, I suppose, thanks to the lady's blessing-- but not much worse.  The giant bastard is bearing down on me with a chisel-tipped knife of the kind I have seen some men use to clear brush.  He spits a mouthful of blood and tosses the knife from one hand to the other.  "I will take that eye and fuck your skull."  There's a bed behind him, its brass rails tarnished and scratched, and on it is a young woman, younger than me.  Her features are Chinese, and through the haze of sheer terror I can tell that there's something tiny and alive in her heart: hope.<br/><br/>I eject the cylinder of my lady's gun, slide in one round-- there's not time for anything else as he bears down on me.  I spring to my feet faster than he would have expected, dart to the middle of the room and then dive back between his arm and leg.  I am faster than normal men, but so is he, and he manages to swipe his knife down my back.  The sealskin coat catches the blade, turns it from my split skin as I roll to my shoulder, slamming the pistol shut out of habit and taking aim up into his face.<br/><br/>His eyes are solid black as he looks down on me, his broad-muscled chest heaving and rippling with involuntary twitching.  He thrusts with the knife for a renewed attack, but I fire again, so close that the flash fills his face and the bullet burrows up through his chin and out through the dome of his skull with a cloud of matter.  His hair and beard are afire from the muzzle flare, and he topples forward like a fallen colossus.  I manage to turn aside and miss most of his bulk, but it hurts when he lands atop me.<br/><br/>Wriggling free, I call to the girl on the bed.  "Where are the others?"  She doesn't reply.  She's holding herself, tears flow down her face.  "The other girls.  The other girls like you." She can't take her eyes away from the fallen monster on the floor.  I point at her, touch her hair, point to her face.  "Other girls."<br/><br/>Tears spring from her eyes and her mouth flutters like a pinioned butterfly.  I know that sound.  It's like the Sheriff made when he tried to die, it's like I made when I could finally talk after the Jayhawkers killed my family, after I thought I would die by mob justice.  The sound that says "it is finished".<br/><br/>Her tears press to my face, soak my neck.  "There are others, right," I ask into her hair.  I hold her a moment, but we have to hurry.<br/><br/><br/>BAPTISTE'S HOME<br/><br/>On the patio, the evening cool is a relief, and the broad, green fronds of many exotic plants glisten in the breaching moonlight.  I'm drinking something called cognac from a wide glass, and it's settling my nerves somewhat.  I can hear crowds up the street, the music of guitars and fiddle mixed with laughter and conversation muted by distance-- even at this hour.  Baptiste is in a wooden, chair from his drawing room, and he is cleaning and examining my wounds with those lovely eyes as if I wasn't bloodied and beaten.  As if I was beautiful.  I am naked to the waist, a fact that doesn't seem to bother the man in the least, and in a show of modesty that I really don't care for, I keep my arms folded demurely over my breasts except to sip from the glass.<br/><br/>The sun will be up soon.  Local authorities are working to investigate the bordello even as we sit here smoking, and Baptiste's contacts are helping the four girls I managed to recover.  I don't know if the other three are dead or alive, or if they were shipped away or sold here in New Orleans.  I may never know, but I will try to learn.  He has assured me that I am safe here, and that his people-- remarkably convincing people, he insists-- are currently confusing the dispatched investigators as to the details of the shootings so that the description of "One-Eyed Kate from the dime novels" will be only one of the many remarkable tales told.<br/><br/>The alcohol stings fiercely where the buckshot grazed my shoulder, but the wound isn't dire.  Nor is the laceration of Flinchum's knife, thanks to the blessings of the goddess and well-placed leather, though it stings even more fiercely when he washes it with highly distilled moonshine.  "Are you certain you feel comfortable out here, Miss Sinc--"<br/><br/>"If you don't start calling me Katie," I say softly, "I am going to write it on your hand so you'll remember."  I smirk over my shoulder at him, and he grins.<br/><br/>His warm hands test the wound on my back once more before he nods, satisfied.  "Katie."  I can hear him smiling, and I study the garden for a moment.<br/><br/>"I'd like a bath," I say softly.  "If that's all the same."<br/><br/>Baptiste nods, having risen and turned from me in a show of chivalry.  "Of course, Katie, I will ask--"<br/><br/>I cut him off with my mouth over his in a firm, hungry kiss.  I know that I'm half-naked and still spattered with dried blood, but I do it anyway.  Baptiste seems to tense, then relaxes and returns the gesture with his mouth, his hands and arms encircling me, and I break the kiss long enough to draw rapid breath and speak once more-- "I'd like some company, too, if that's all the same."<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>When dawn comes, it finds my pale body half-asleep along his bare, brown skin, trailing fingers along every inch of him, so flawless and pure.  It's a transient pleasure that we share, though one I will find myself recalling fondly for some time.  He tells me of the great festival that the city will be hosting next spring, the day before Ash Wednesday as a last-minute celebration before the great sacrifices of Lent.  I promise to return then, and he smiles.  He doesn't say he'll still be here, only that it will be a sight to behold.  I am afraid to ask if I will see him again, but at least for that moment, my silver eye gazing out at the sun of my first New Orleans dawn, he knows every inch of me and I am not ashamed.  I feel less hollow, more like I can be with a human without seeing that human die.<br/><br/>I feel like I'll heal.