A notification popped into Wolfe’s field of view: The Temple of Corruption will despawn in 5 minutes. Leave now, or make peace with any result thereafter.

“Well, that was pretty clear,” Shel said. “Shall we?”

“Shall we what?” Wolfe asked.

“Turn ourselves in,” Shel replied.

Wolfe was flabbergasted. “What? Why would we do that?”

“It’s the police. They’ll arrest us, but then we’ll be released when the fact we were rescuing my kidnapped sister—and others—comes out. It’ll be fine.”

“You didn’t meet Deputy Chief Charleston,” Wolfe replied. “Seriously bad dude. If we survive, he goes down for sure. I mean, at this point he probably goes down regardless, but he’ll do his best to survive and take us down, with no hesitation as to methods. He gives me the same vibes that Damian and Nico did. That ‘No-loyalty-even-among-thieves’ type vibes. We need to get out of here, away from them, and quickly.”

Shel twisted her finger in her red hair. “Okay, I’m with you. Where to?”

“Out the back, or the side, of the warehouse. Somehow.”

Shel walked over and picked Caine’s cards off his back. She pocketed them and turned to Wolfe. “Lead on.”

Wolfe left the huge central area of the temple, stepping past the stone spikes on the pews, clean of the card blood that had briefly been on them. He exited into the antechamber, and then went to the front door. As he left, he brought out Malviere and Cereboo, noting with delight that his stats increased by one across the board when she was out. That’ll be extremely handy.

Shel put her mantle on as well, a glowing third eye appearing on her forehead and starting to weep blood. Liurenia and Sorenia walked beside her, the three looking like a mystic prophet and her angel bodyguards.

“If we’re going to run, you should put the lantern angels away,” Wolfe commented.

“Yeah, sorry,” Shel said, and both of the angels turned into gold light and flowed back into Shel.

My own team looks like a demon, a demon child, and a demon dog—a tiny, screwed-up Infernal family. Appropriate, I suppose. We definitely don’t shine though.

Wolfe’s brief musings were broken by the sound of the police. “Everyone out now! You’re all under arrest, and anyone leaving will be considered to be resisting arrest.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wolfe said. He reached out and pushed the huge front door of the Temple of Corruption open.

Light, bright and powerful, hit his eyes. Wolfe briefly saw a floodlight pointed at him, with vague outlines of people near it.

Shel’s eyes widened in shock as blood spewed from her chest, and the CRACK of a rifle sounded.

Time seemed to slow to Wolfe. Shel started to fall back, her arms wide, but Wolfe was already moving. He reached out and touched the nearest creature card—his Gehenna Kennel Master—and summoned it blocking the door just as another CRACK sounded, the Kennel Master grunting and stepping back. At the same time, Wolfe felt magic flowing into him and from his Kennel Master and fired out into the warehouse, aiming for the giant spotlight, which exploded. Wolfe caught Shel with his other arm and let her drop gently to the floor on her back, then dragged her back from the door, her blood leaving a massive smear across ground.

Cereboo, empowered by both Malviere and the Kennel Master, ran howling into the light, charging the enemies of his pack heedlessly.

No thugs had been outside, and the police had already been there—including one with a sniper rifle, Wolfe guessed.

They never, ever had any intent to let us surrender, and now the thugs have police allies.

“No, no, NO!” Wolfe growled as Shel’s body convulsed, blood spewing from her mouth. If they’ve killed her, I’ll leave a trail of bodies like no one has ever seen through this city.

But no cards appeared, and Shel’s wound stopped pumping blood and started to close, painfully slow.

“Shel? Shel? Talk to me!”

Shel coughed again and blood spewed across Wolfe. She convulsed one more time but then managed to get ahold of herself and rolled over, coughing more blood onto the worm-track floor of the Temple of Corruption.

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Wolfe was pretty sure he was ‘privileged’ to witness a rare event—someone with exactly zero Health, or maybe one, who would have died from bleed damage but for active healing.

“We need to go!” Wolfe said, grabbing Shel and heaving her to her feet as the magic of her mantle repaired her. Malviere pushed her shoulder under Shel’s other side.

It was easy, like lifting an empty doll.

Wolfe glanced at his stats.

He was at a massive additional eight to all stats, not just his attack. He was also an Infernal, meaning he took half damage from Mortals. It was interesting that the stats were making him stronger.

Wolfe did quick math in his head. It was most likely he would only take two damage from each officer firing at him every thirty seconds or so, if they were in clear light and without cover. As it was…

Wolfe growled. He could summon one more card, and he knew what it would be. He pulled Shel back into the temple, going to the far back, behind the dais, where he dropped Shel off.

“Heal, and send cards to aid me,” Wolfe said.

“I will. What are you going to do?”

“Murder them all,” Wolfe growled.

Shel reached up and grabbed his arm. “There has to be another, better way. Please. They’ll kill you, and if they don’t, you’ll go to jail forever for murdering that many police officers, even if you’re justified.”

“They tried to kill you,” Wolfe said darkly.

“They failed. I’ll be fine in a few minutes, thanks to Raphael’s gift. We can still live the rest of our lives together happily.”

Wolfe hesitated. Even as he stopped to think about it, however, another plan formed in his mind. It’s risky, giving the enemy a clear shot if they get the light back up, but only for a few seconds, and we might get away clean…

“Alright—we’ll do it your way. Come with me.”

Wolfe ordered his wounded Kennel Master to hide as best he could and not engage the enemy. At the moment, the Kennel Master was a walking buff for him, and he needed to keep the bonus.

Wolfe jogged to the side of the Temple of Corruption, between two pews, and knelt, pistol out. He was fast and limber, despite his wounds, empowered by the magic of his cards. He scooted just a bit, positioning himself so he was right next to the outside wall, about a foot away. Shel followed after him, her hand over the slowly healing wound on her chest. She dropped down next to him.

Malviere followed, silently, kneeling on the other side of Shel from Wolfe.

“What’re we doing?” Shel whispered.

Wolfe fired a single shot blindly out into the opposite wall, and Shel clapped her blood-covered hands over her ears.

“Warn me when you’re going to do that,” she muttered.

“Sorry, I’m just delaying them, keeping their heads down. Get in line with me, the same distance from the wall please.”

Shel complied, going behind him the next pew over. “What’re we doing?”

Malviere climbed over the pew to the front.

“Avoiding any falling debris,” Wolfe responded.

The building around them disappeared. Wolfe fell about a foot but caught himself easily, staying upright even as Shel half-fell and posted her hand against his back to catch herself.

A rain of objects, including modern chairs, computers, paperwork, and some heavy furniture rained down around them, but none of it hit Wolfe or Shel—Wolfe had positioned himself beneath the empty hall that he had used to get into the temple in the first place.

A string of cussing from what had been the front foyer of the temple a second ago told Wolfe that the police had been coming for him.

“Go!” Wolfe whispered, pointing toward the side of the warehouse.

“Thompson’s down, we need a medic!” someone called. “A goddamned file cabinet landed on him!”

“Oh no, I’m gonna miss him,” Wolfe muttered sarcastically as they rushed to the side of the building. But he knew it was a lucky break. Thompson had seemed the most competent of the crooked cops after Charleston himself, and not by a small margin.

The deep, dark voice of the deputy chief called out into the darkness. “We’ll get him to a hospital when we’re done! Find that thug and his damned woman and kill them. Everything else comes after!”

Wolfe turned, letting Shel go in front of him, and then rapidly ran, hunched over, to the side of the building. Malviere trailed behind him.

Thanks to Wolfe’s Kennel-Master-fueled shot earlier, the warehouse was still dark, and he reached the outer edge of the warehouse without incident. The two of them rushed along the side till they came to a door in the wall.

“Alright, when we open it, run out. If there are still any of Damian’s guards then we need to end them quickly. Ready?”

Shel nodded, her eyes wide, her hand on the handle of the door.

“Go!”

Shel pushed the door open and ran out. Wolfe followed half a second later, and a bullet impacted the wall of the warehouse next to him.

“Wolfe!” Deputy Chief Charleston roared.

Wolfe fled into the moonlit night, and for a wonder, there were no thugs—or anyone else—waiting to stop him. He wondered if they’d fled because they weren’t receiving orders, because of the cops, or because Charleston had told them to leave so there’d be no witnesses. Either way it was a welcome relief, and Wolfe gave a half smile as they ran onto the lawn, between the few carefully manicured trees, heading toward the road and freedom.

“Wolfe!” Deputy Chief Charleston roared again, and he sounded closer. Wolfe glanced back.

The huge man, almost three hundred pounds of muscle, was running at Wolfe from the side of the warehouse—at the speed a car might travel down a residential road—with cards circling around him—brown cards. Wolfe turned and had just enough time to bring his hands up as Charleston close-lined him, slamming Wolfe back six feet to hit the ground hard.

Wolfe dismissed the two-damage notification, about a third of what he had taken when he had been hit before, thanks to his mantle and canine-stat increases.

Still, Charleston hit as hard as a pistol shot and then some.

Wolfe launched to his feet, firing rapidly at Charleston, hitting him three times. Each knocked the man back a step and caused minor damage, but on the fourth shot, Wolfe clicked on empty.

The two men stood staring at each other across the lawn. Wolfe knew he was wounded, and Charleston looked almost whole, despite the three bullets. His veins were popping out, and he had fur growing across most of his body, despite his bald head. His eyes were red.

One more round, then, Wolfe thought as Charleston growled and charged.