A Brief History of Noimoire, by Chris Zinn: As is the case for most of the arenas the gods gave humanity, the Arena of Three Fires reflected the local structural mores—in this case, it took the form of a huge grove with a few scattered tents, whose towering trees and shrub ‘walls’ are invulnerable. While parks weren’t a convention in either city planning or the American conscious at the time Noimoire was founded, multiple religious groups, led by the church of Raphael and heavily funded by the church of Persephone, decided to create a segment of the city in the same style as the Arena, with the result that Noimoire arguably became the site of America’s first municipal park.
“Not another one!” Emmett yelled, moving forward. He held his own Glock out and fired rapidly, bullets heading toward the mooks as fast as the sweaty P.I. could pull the trigger.
None even came close to hitting any of their enemies that Wolfe could see.
Wolfe was nearly shocked into inaction by the ineptitude of his team. He still had the presence of mind to grab Emmett by the back of his suit jacket and yank him behind the train car nearest them just before a hail of return fire filled the space the old detective had occupied seconds before.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Wolfe yelled, then he ripped his own pistol free. “Never mind. Moot question. I can berate you when we’re both in the deadlands.”
Wolfe stuck his hand around the edge and fired off, the lower recoil of his new pistol helping with the awkward angle.
A notification appeared in his view, and for a brief second, Wolfe thought he had hit someone, but then he cussed.
A deckbearer has pulled their deck.
“Run!” Wolfe said.
“We can’t leave Bart!”
Wolfe almost face-palmed with a pistol, he was so frustrated. “Bart is deader than disco! Get. The fuck. Out of here!”
“What are you going to do?” Emmett asked.
“What I do best,” Wolfe replied before running around the other side of the train car they were hiding behind and sprinting across to another one.
He didn’t see anyone, so he leapt to a ladder on the side of the car and scaled it crazy fast, feeling the skin around his chest scar stretch as he exerted himself. But he still landed on top of the train car in barely three seconds.
He waited a couple more seconds then looked over the edge.
Emmett wasn’t running toward the gate. Wolfe silently cursed in the quiet of his own mind.
This situation was likely to go bad, and in the moment, Wolfe only wanted to hear one voice. He took his phone out and dialed.
Before the phone picked up, two of the mooks came running up the path between train cars, probably to try to flank the original position, Wolfe guessed. Wolfe hit mute on his phone even as Shel answered.
Wolfe couldn’t hear her, but he whispered into the receiver, “If I don’t make it, keep going—you’re everything right with this fucked-up world.”
He put his phone down and leaned over the edge of the train car. He hit the first mook with a cluster of three rapid shots to the torso, then turned and hit the other in the legs as he dived behind the other end of the same train car Wolfe had come from.
The thug screamed, “One of them is over here! And he got Pedro!”
A chill filled the air, and Wolfe glanced over. A spectral mass of robes and rags was floating toward them, out from behind another of the train cars. Wolfe stared, and the card appeared.
Wraith
Common Tier-2 Undead/Shadow creature
1 Undead, 1 Shadow power
Health: 8
Attack: 0
Defense: 3
Magical Attack: 8
Magical Defense: 3
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Special: Incorporeal: Immune to physical attacks
Special: This card fully heals if it kills any living card
“A common denizen of the Deadlands, the Wraith feeds on souls unlucky enough to find themselves on the plains of the Lightless Wastes.”
Wolfe was torn. On the one hand, he really didn’t want Piper or Tracy seeing him or his cards, because soon after, all of Noimoire would know he was alive. However… he wouldn’t be alive if he fought an experienced deckbearer assassin without a deck of his own.
Wolfe would just have to try to limit the use of cards he was known for and stick with some of his lesser-known cards.
Yeah, I’ll fight one handed instead of no-handed. Screw Emmett and this job and trying to do things the right way.
Wolfe touched his hand to his chest, feeling the darkness and hunger. He held it for two seconds, then pushed his hand outward. Red and brown energy came from his chest and coalesced into five cards—first, a Tier-three Angry Hellhound; second, Malviere, his named orphan card, which was grayed out, as she was already out back at his house; then one of his Rescue Pups; fourth a Pack Howl; and off to the side, his companion card, Cereboo.
Wolfe barely ever used his Angry Hellhound, and it had been an extremely common card in the previous drop ten years ago—so hopefully, no one would connect it with him. It also made a small, magical attack every time it made a physical attack, so it could at least fight the wraith. Wolfe reached out and touched the card, and a great dog, man-high at the shoulder, with red fur and two horns on its head, appeared. It leapt from the top of the train car and rushed the Wraith.
As soon as his new doggo leapt, Wolfe rolled over and pointed his gun over the edge of the train again. He saw Tracy come around the side of a train car and fired. He got a single hit, but Tracy was wearing a mantle. The magic of the mantle clearly increased his defense and prevented Tracy from being seriously hurt by the bullet—at least at the moment, when Wolfe didn’t have a mantle of his own.
Tracy glanced around the corner, and in the moonlight, Wolfe could see his smile. “The deckbearer is on top of the train car at the end of the line—here. Surround him and finish him!”
Wolfe wasn’t sure if the remaining people would comply, but he wasn’t willing to take any chances. He rolled back to the other side and leapt down from the train car top. He hit the ground almost ten feet below and grimaced as his ankle twisted and he fell to the ground. Shit! Not one enemy has tagged me, but I just damaged myself.
Wolfe came to his feet and limped toward the next line of cars, rolling underneath one. He touched a card and howled. A pulse of magic went out, giving his Angry Hellhound a boost—Pack Howl gave +2 to every single stat of any canine for thirty seconds. It was doubly effective on the Angry Hellhound, which normally made two weak attacks.
Then Wolfe dismissed his deck—the cards glowed, and he didn’t need the distraction. Plus, he had an idea…
As he predicted, two more thugs came running around the corner—the last two, Wolfe was pretty sure. One was Piper, which made Wolfe grimace. But Piper was against him at the moment, and his loyalty had been deeply suspect from their first interactions.
Wolfe aimed carefully and shot both in the chest, one bullet each, less than his usual expenditure. His notifications told him neither had died, but both hit the ground, bleeding and moaning and trying to drag themselves away. Good enough.
Wolfe leapt up and ran as fast as he could toward his original position: the train car he had been at when everything had gone wrong. He heard a series of gunshots as he ran.
Wolfe re-summoned his deck.
“They have a second deckbearer!” Tracy yelled. “Caine, you need to join us!”
Wolfe smiled as he came around the corner of that first boxcar. Emmett was down, and Tracy was standing over him, a spectral outline around him, his gun pointed at the detective.
Wolfe fired rapidly, hitting Tracy twice more, but again, the mantle protected him enough. Tracy turned and fled as fast as he could, however, not wanting to face any more bullets, Wolfe presumed.
The night air was penetrated by the faint sound of sirens. Shel must have called the police. He was glad he had joked with her about the ‘stupid train mission’ before leaving.
“Let’s go!” the man in the suit—Caine, Wolfe guessed—yelled from near his car.
Tracy kept running, head down, dodging and weaving. Wolfe shot a few more times but then clicked on empty. He had no more bullets or clips for his gun.
Tracy made it to the car and jumped into the passenger seat. The car spun out for a second in a massive spray of gravel before it raced out of the abandoned train junction.
Wolfe rushed to Emmett’s side. The old detective was on the ground, hand over his chest. Blood leaked from a separate wound on his arm, and his already pale complexion was verging toward translucent.
“You okay?” Wolfe asked, then he grimaced. Of course he isn’t okay!
“Never mind me,” Emmett said through gritted teeth. “Are they okay?”
“I doubt it. They all have lead poisoning,” Wolfe quipped. “Although Tracy got away with his suited friend.”
“Not the thugs,” Emmett ground out, then he slumped back to the ground. “The van…”
Wolfe wanted Emmett to relax—it appeared as if the pudgy P.I. was on the verge of losing his last Health through sheer stress. “I’ll check it out, Emmett. Be still. Just focus on trying not to leak everywhere.”
“Ha ha,” Emmett said, no mirth in his voice at all.
Wolfe got up and headed to the van, grimacing as he slowly limped through the gravel while the sirens grew louder. His old instincts were telling him to run—police were trouble. But he couldn’t abandon Emmett, and besides, he thought that for once, he wasn’t on the wrong side of the law, except for trespassing. Everything that had happened after had been defense of self or others, Wolfe was almost positive. Almost.
As Wolfe limped up to the back of the van, he saw that it was unlocked. He grabbed the door and threw it open even as police came blaring into the trainyard.
He was confronted by twenty long, thin coffins. One was open, and the inside was a freezing container with a naked woman, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, lying in it. Her head was entirely shaved and her eyes closed. For a second, Wolfe thought she was dead, as she barely breathed, but he saw tubes leading from her body to a machine at the end, which included a vitals monitor that showed slow heartbeat activity.
Police poured from their cars, surrounding Wolfe and screaming at him to get on the ground, but all he could do was stare into the back of the van.
What in all the Infernal realms?