I’d originally intended to come to Church Walk alone, but both Max and Adrian insisted on coming with me since I was doing this for their sake. So I was saddled with having to babysit both of them during the funeral as well. I had to make some quick preparations for the occasion.

It was important that we concealed our identities while also blending into the crowd. Heavy coats, brimmed hats, and work boots. I looked like a child trying to sneak into an age-restricted area, but it did make it hard for people to see my face from above, which was advantageous given my short stature.

“Oh, and when we get there – put this into your front pocket.”

I handed them a pair of white handkerchiefs.

Adrian was confused, “What for?”

“Everyone at the funeral is going to be a gang member, or at least connected to one. They’ll be asked to wear something white. If we wear these where they’re visible the locals are less likely to give us a hard time.”

They took them from me and stuffed them into their pockets, while I tied back my hair and made it look less well-kempt. I’d also brought along enough ammunition to stop a small army. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to use it. A crowded area like this meant the potential for collateral damage and being witnessed by a bystander in equal measure.

With my tools in hand, my compatriots prepared and instructed on what to do, and the funeral precession beginning the journey from the morgue to the graveyard, we set out from the carriage and wandered towards Church Walk in a small group. Even on the outskirts of the district it was obvious that almost everyone in the area had come out to see the convoy move through the streets.

And, true to my estimation, they were all wearing white – either as a part of their outfit or through a small cloth folded neatly into a visible pocket. I signalled for Max and Adrian to do the same, though Adrian seemed to struggle with folding it neatly for a time.

It was a cold, wet, windy and all-around miserable day – perfect for a funeral. A gust of wind threatened to send a ripple through the crowd that assembled on the sidewalk. An occasional downpour of rain would drench anyone unlucky enough to have left their homes without a hood or hat.

“Do you think the police are here?” Maxwell whispered.

“Given what happened here the other day, I imagine they have disguised officers keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings.”

It was difficult to find them amongst the huge group of onlookers that blocked both sides of the road. We stuck to the back and moved our way towards where the graveyard was located. The Church Walk graveyard was one of the largest around, and it stood on the site of an old chapel that was burnt to the ground during the war. Nothing was left of it aside from a few stone walls and some foundations.

Perched atop the hill, it stood as one of the major geographical features in an area that had long since been swallowed by the growth of the urban sprawl. The crowd became even more intense the closer we got to the chapel.

“I didn’t even know this many people lived in Church Walk,” Adrian muttered.

“It won’t just be them. It’ll be family and friends from across the city too.”

The entire district was thrown into chaos. Hundreds and hundreds of people had crammed themselves into the narrow streets to pay their respects. The heavy spray of the rain kicked up into the air and inhibited visibility even more. Without police officers around to direct the crowds, they were pushing and shoving and flowing with the tide. It was a miracle that nobody had been crushed to death yet.

It took a lot of patience to work our way through, we eventually broke out onto the other side of the graveyard behind a stone wall. This position didn’t offer a good view of the convoy, so the other mourners ignored it. It served me perfectly well though. I could see the back entrance to the graveyard and up the pathway that wound across the hill.

“Let us take a moment to breathe.”

Adrian and Maxwell made sure that everything was still in place. I tugged down on my hat to make sure it stayed on, even as the wind tried to snatch it away from my head.

“This is mental,” Adrian said, “I’ve never seen so many people in one place before.”

“Same. I didn’t realize the gang held so much sway over people,” Max concurred.

But I was far too distracted in crowd-watch to add my two cents to the discussion. The visitors had adopted a similar strategy to us, wearing heavy coats, hoods and hats that served to conceal their faces. It was going to be difficult to spot a potential assassin hiding in the crowd. There were a lot of places to hide, both physically and by utilizing the movement of the mourners.

I turned my attention to the graveyard itself which was mostly unmolested by the swelling crowds. Only a few people were filtering their way towards the site of the burial, but my eyes were drawn to a peculiar pair of people loitering by one of the grand trees that hung over the area.

The word left my mouth before I could stop myself.

“Shit.”

The profanity alarmed Adrian, “What? What are you saying that for?”

“My Mother’s here.”

I nodded towards them. She and another WISA agent were lurking by the tree. I recognized the coat she was wearing, and a brief glimpse at her face confirmed my worries. I pulled Adrian away before he blew our cover by staring for too long.

“Looks like we weren’t the only ones to come up with this idea.”

“Isn’t she with the police?” Adrian asked.

“She works for WISA. They do not directly collaborate unless they have to.”

“She isn’t going to beat your bloody head in again, is she?”

“I presume not. There’s no reason for her to.”

But it did pose a new set of problems for our decision to isolate one of the assassins. She was looking to do the same thing that we were, and that was a potential point of conflict. Veronica held the legal authority to do that. This was an above-board operation too, dressed under the façade of catching a group of dangerous killers. She wouldn’t let us off with a slap on the wrist if we got in her way.

“Don’t look at her. We’re lucky she didn’t spot us already,” I warned.

“Wouldn’t she be better for catching these crooks?”

“Maybe. Let us observe how the funeral goes first before rushing to any conclusions.”

I wasn’t sure of how ‘on straight and narrow’ Veronica was. She seemed to have few qualms about putting the Book of Cambry into the hands of some very dangerous people. Was she fully dedicated to her role as an officer of the law, or did that serve to insulate her so that she could work for a darker purpose?

If she followed orders without questioning them – then it was a possibility that capturing the culprit would result in no progress being made. This was an institutional conspiracy. People high up on the chain could snap their fingers and make those records disappear. They’d never show up in court. Cedric could get away as clean as a whistle.

Or, he could be chosen as the designated fall guy. He was not in control of what was happening here. He wanted the gang to clear the way through a negotiated settlement. Instead, he was forced to spin more plates and evade accountability from the police. There was no chance that they hadn’t questioned him at least once in conjunction with their investigation. He had a clear motive.

I kept an eye on them. Veronica was paying very close attention to the funeral itself, where three dozen high-level members of the Church Street Gang had assembled to pay their respects, including Robert Van Gervan himself. As craven as he was, not showing his face during a dangerous time like this would shatter his credibility with the other members.

This was the perfect place for the monarchists to launch another attack, and it was obvious that the security agencies agreed with my assessment. Veronica watched the funeral area, whilst the stranger to her left scanned the rest of the yard and the back gate for any sign of potential attackers. I kept my head down and avoided making eye contact with him.

“Claude will kill me if he finds out we were doing stuff like this without him,” Max joked.

“How are we gonna’ catch one of these blokes if the police are already here?”

I brushed some of the water from the rim of my hat; “For a gathering this big? They will send more than one man. We will have to pick our target wisely.”

“What does that mean?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“She means that they’re going to try and kill as many people as possible,” Max replied, “Is that why you didn’t want us to come?”

I nodded, “It’s dangerous. Even if you are not directly in the line of fire, there is a high probability of being struck by a bullet. In a crowded place like this – a rush of people trying to get away will kill many more through crushing.”

That put both of them on edge. They’d read plenty of stories in the news about such incidents in a variety of places and under different contexts; sports events, public unveilings gone wrong, horse races, technology expos and ship launches. Packing a crowd tight was a recipe for disaster.

But there was no prospect of the gang and Robert listening to any warnings issued by the police. That was why any and all officers on site were in plain clothes, and why there was no organized crowd control on hand to direct people away from congested areas.

A few minutes later and the procession from the morgue finally arrived. A lot of trouble had been caused by the police retaining their bodies for a few days, but it was unlikely that any of the gang members would recognize that their allegations were unfounded.

A set of three horse-drawn carts arrived on the scene by the front gate. The wooden coffins were simple in construction, with unvarnished wood and iron handles. A group of fellow gang members unloaded each from their respective carriage and carried them up the path so they could be buried in the assigned spots. It was no easy task given the muddy ground and steep elevation.

Each coffin was brought in turn to the graves and placed beside their final resting places. Funerals in this world were a little different to what I was used to. They were normally organized exclusively by the families, purchasing a plot from the landowner and commissioning their own headstones.

As for the presiding religious figure – that all depended on which interpretation of the faith they followed. Organized religion was not a big deal in Walser, and the denominations that did exist normally consisted of extremely local collectives of two to three chapels, with their own practices and values.

In this case, the ceremony was being handled by their friends and family.

Robert Van Gervan hobbled his way to the front and stood behind the coffins. One of his men unfurled an umbrella and held it over his head so that he could remove his hat as a sign of respect.

“Friends, family, comrades – today we are here to mourn the passing of Andeu, Mark, Francis, Bradley, Wallace, Adam and John...”

I tuned out the speech and focused on what mattered, the subtle movements of the crowd outside of the main gate, and the back entrance which had been so happily ignored by all present at the event. I recognized this. A murder at a funeral. I’d done that before.

Pretty callous of me, I had to admit.

It was smart too. If you wanted to cause as many causalities from a specific group of men as possible, then you couldn’t do better than a funeral. Robert’s pride demanded that the procession go on, and that everyone wear white to pay tribute, but those were clear signals to the killers trying to hunt them down. All of the highest-ranking members of the gang were standing right there.

“They embodied the proud spirit of our community. They always strived to do right by their families, to provide for them, to protect them. They were cruelly and pointlessly robbed from us.”

Kelly’s Father must have been among them too. She bragged about him being a big shot around these parts. There were some smaller figures, but with so many jackets and hoods being used it was impossible for me to tell who was who.

Movement.

A small group of three was moving towards the gate. I kept my eyes on the floor and spared a single glance, but that short window was enough to make my blood turn cold. The kid who tried to murder me was there.

“When they start, you two get down behind this wall.”

They passed through the heavy iron gates and meandered their way up the path. Robert was still speaking at length about what the dead meant to him and the other gang members. He wasn’t even paying attention. Veronica and her pal were. They stepped away from the tree and approached them, ready to fight at the first sign of resistance.

“You three! This is a private ceremony,” Veronica warned. She was trying not to tip them off.

The response she received was anything but subtle. The man at the front of the trio held out his palm and summoned forth an incredible burst of energy that even I could feel without submerging into my focused state. It made the hair on my arms stand on end. Veronica and her partner were sent flying through the air, only just avoiding the tree they were hiding behind before.

The noise sent a wave of alarm through the funeral attendants. The unarmed visitors fled towards the front gate, spurring the assassins to hurry up and charge towards the sight of the burial before their targets could get away. The kid drew a gun, while the other two chose to use their magical abilities to attack the gangsters.

Robert and his underlings weren’t going to sit there and let themselves be slaughtered. Almost every one of them reached into their coats and drew firearms of their own, ranging from old-fashioned revolvers to modern semi-automatic pistols. It was a mad scramble. Two dozen gang members went to ground, hiding behind tombstones and trees, and whatever else they could find to form a dangerous firing line.

A bolt of lightning from one of the killers sent one man stumbling back into one of the graves. The rest of the men pulled the trigger and started unleashing a hellacious barrage of gunfire down the way. I barely had time to duck behind the stone wall as several stray bullets ricocheted from various surfaces and turned the entire area into a death trap.

I thought it was loud before thanks to the rain, but the sound of the guns crackling drowned out everything else and recontextualized what ‘loud’ meant.

“Chuff me!” Adrian yelled, “I’m going bloody deaf!”

Maxwell was terrified, with dilated pupils and uneven breath. He couldn’t hear me even if I barked a set of orders at him. I struggled to unbutton my coat and unlatch the holster that was resting against my side. My hands and fingers were frozen solid even with a pair of gloves. Pulling the trigger and keeping a steady shot would be difficult.

I wanted to avoid using the gun if I could. There were too many witnesses around, and I’d been saving up my magical power for this moment. We wanted to capture one of them alive for some pointed questions. I was starting to worry that there’d be nothing left of them before the gangster ran out of ammo.

The initial barrage finally slowed as some of the gunmen started to reload. Those who had preserved some of their shots by being precise continued to pin the assassins down. Veronica and her friend were still struggling to get back to their feet after that concussive blast.

Occasionally a bullet would graze one of the attackers – but in a display of supernatural endurance, it did not seem to faze them in the slightest. The shock of being hit would normally keep them from moving, but it was clear that these guys were doped up to the gills with something special.

The man at the front roared with blind rage and broke cover. He fired his own gun at several of the gang members in an attempt to thin their numbers or suppress them. Several spurts of blood and fabric flew from his hulking body. They only slowed him down by virtue of the force they exerted. He kept walking, shoulders hunched, until he reached the destroyed chapel and took a position behind one of the destroyed walls.

“These guys are insane!” Adrian shouted.

“Keep your head down!” I repeated.

I couldn’t sit here and let this play out. They were only going to get further away from my position and make the follow-up task of dragging them away harder. I kept my head low and hopped the wall. The only cover was a handful of trees and rows upon rows of headstones, which wouldn’t stop a bullet’s shrapnel from ripping into me.

My best option was to approach by keeping the hill and chapel between me and the gang members. I moved to the right and tried to find a good angle from which to approach the assassin who was now perched on top of the mound. It was at that moment that Veronica finally got back up and pulled her own gun, firing shots at their backs and forcing them to move.

It was clear that hitting them in the body wasn’t going to do it. They tanked more than a handful of bullets between them, though the chaos of the situation was making it hard for anyone to hit what they were aiming at. Sensing an opportunity, I charged towards the ruined chapel and ducked behind one of the large foundation stones.

The man who was concealed inside couldn’t hear me, but he caught a glimpse of my leg sticking out from behind it. He pulled away from fighting the gang members and approached me with teeth bared. He looked like a grizzly bear, he was hopped up on adrenaline and maybe something else. He was only thinking about how to inflict violence on me.

His first mistake was approaching me with a low-pressure environment surrounding us. I closed out the chaos and entered my focused state. Channelling the energy I needed to direct a bolt of energy in his direction was child’s play. The air around us crackled, but he was the one who took the brunt of the attack. I unleashed a vicious bolt of electricity at him, which struck him square in the chest.

Bullets were one thing – but a bolt of lightning was something else. His muscles seized up and he fell to the floor, clothes smoking and agony running through his nervous system. I grabbed the nearest loose stone and ran at him, leaping from one of the upturned foundations and coming down with a bone-cracking strike to the back of his head. He fell face-first into a puddle and twitched unconsciously.

I smirked, “You might be bulletproof – but there’s nothing in this world that beats blunt force trauma.”

I tossed the stone aside and hooked my arms under his shoulders. With a mighty heave, I started to pull him back the way I came, though my first choice of target soon proved untenable. There was simply no way I could get him back down to the back entrance and away from the firefight without someone noticing. I needed to get that kid instead.

“Shit! Why couldn’t you be lighter, asshole?”

I dropped him into a heap and turned my attention back to the gunfight. The gang members were beating a hasty retreat with the families who weren’t able to fight. Several of them had been shot and killed, or blown away by powerful magic spells that would have normally knocked out a grade five mage like me. Whatever these guys were juiced on, it let them access power that defied the rules.

Maybe I could dangle him as bait for Veronica and her friend.

The kid was sick of them harassing him from the left flank. He dropped his gun into the dirt and clasped both of his hands together. My senses were still active, and I knew right away that it was bad news. I’d never seen a mana signature like it. If a bolt of lightning was a torch, then he was preparing to use a floodlight, and all of his fury was pointed in their direction. The man with Veronica sensed it too. He pulled back hard on her shoulder and tried to get them both out of sight as quickly as he could.

The kid unleashed his magic, and for a scant moment, the air around him was clear from any drops of rain. Then, a deafening boom, mud and grass ripped from the roots and thrown into the air, a wave of sheer physical force that was so powerful that it was possible to see the very air distort as it travelled. Veronica and her partner dove into the nearest ditch, but even that wasn’t enough to protect them completely.

It kept going.

The elder tree they were hiding behind was shattered into millions of pieces. The bark exploded, and then the trunk gave way, causing what remained of the top half to come tumbling down. The wave passed through, over the ditch, and towards the outer wall destroying everything it came into contact with. Gravestones, trees, the very ground itself – nothing was spared.

The perimeter wall stood no chance. The stones were decimated and sent across the street like a set of deadly projectiles, crashing through windows and houses, and liquefying a poor horse who happened to be in the way. Blood and organs splattered against the ruins of the houses demolished by his spell. The dust, water and dirt caught up after that, muffling the chaos under a thick blanket of nature’s splendour.

I staggered against one of the walls. The blowback from it was almost enough to knock me over, and I was nowhere near the scene of the devastation. The sound of two dozen guns firing suddenly sounded quaint by comparison. My ears were ringing. How many people did that kid turn into a fine paste, then and there? He destroyed the entire damn street.

The singular sound that stood atop the mountain was his. He was laughing, deliriously, manically, but he was laughing. A high-pitched shrill that pierced to the heart of the matter more profoundly than words ever could. The rain returned and muted him again.

I had second thoughts about capturing this one alive.