Chapter 47: Prison City [Part 1]
Marcus looked toward the far corner of the street. He narrowed his eyes, sensing something on the other side — but just then, the church doors flew open with a sharp bang. A very old man, ancient by any measure, stepped out from inside, carrying a double-barrel shotgun. His skeletal hands trembled as he struggled to hold the weapon between his thin fingers.
His sunken eyes, buried in his gaunt face, stared at Marcus in wild alarm. In a voice that was authoritative but shaking with age, he said:
"Who dares disturb the house of God?! Speak up now or eat lead!"
"Father Sunday, please calm down!" said a woman stepping out alongside the old man.
She was a nun dressed in black and white — quite young, with golden eyes, dark greenish hair, and a lively expression, though her gaze was worried and naive. A small mole sat beneath her left eye like a tear, and hanging from her chest was a silver charm in the shape of a perfect circle bisected by a straight line.
She held onto Father Sunday's arms as he burned with fury over the noise in the night. He was waving his weapon from side to side while the nun tried to get him to lower it.
"Not now, Rosa! I have to make these blasphemers answer to God!"
"Father, that is not our job! And you're pointing a gun at the County Sheriff!"
Hearing those last words, the old man stopped and blinked a couple of times. He looked at the figure standing in front of the church, who happened to be pressing two fingers to his forehead in quiet disappointment, cigarette hanging from his lips. The old man couldn't see well — he squinted hard until Marcus's silhouette gradually took shape.
Startled, the old man nearly dropped his weapon. Then, flustered, he handed the shotgun off to Rosa to hold. She had no idea what to do with it — she gripped it by the barrel to keep it from falling, but it slipped anyway…
Meanwhile, Father Sunday addressed Marcus with respect.
"Sheriff Marcus, what a surprise. I wasn't expecting to see you this early… or this late."
Marcus walked up to the church door and looked down at the old man. He was considerably taller than Sunday, which made the elder shrink into himself a little. A few people watched from their windows.
"Your shouting is disrupting my work, old fox."
"Your work? Are you after some new criminal terrorizing our humble county?"
"Not so humble, as it turns out. Either way — just the job. However, since you already opened the door, I won't have to force it."
"…what?"
"Hey, woman," Marcus said, glancing at Rosa. "Set up the Assimilation Frame. I'm going to use it for a while."
Unsure of what to do, Rosa looked at Sunday, who gave her a nervous nod to go ahead. The nun returned the nod with a brief bow and hurried back inside.
Marcus followed her, with Sunday walking at his side.
"But Sheriff — don't you think using the Frame at a moment like this is a bit much?"
Without looking at him, Marcus answered casually.
"No need to worry. I've already made my own arrangements. Since arriving here, I've turned this city into a big prison. Nobody gets out unless I want them to — so it won't affect the civilians. Unfortunately, that doesn't save them from whatever tricks our Coward might try while he's running."
"Is that so? My, my… Your work must be quite complicated."
"Yeah. That's why you're here, spouting nonsense to people while everyone else busts their backs doing real work. No wonder it all seems hard to you."
"Ah… I…"
Embarrassed, the old man lowered his head, looking out into the darkness of the church's interior as faint candles flickered to life inside. At the same time, out in the moonlight, a thick mist rose into the sky and across the city, filling every corner of every street in a dense, suffocating white.
Running after the coyote, Bonnie breathed hard. She could barely keep up with the creature while Scaramuccia's shadow kept slipping across the rooftops, his footsteps making no sound, his presence dissolving into the shadows in the moonlight. His breathing was really the only thing Bonnie could pick up when she pushed her heightened senses to the limit.
'They're fast. They're too fast!'
Sweat ran down her forehead, her breath growing shallower with each step. She pushed to take another stride — but the harder she pushed, the more Scaramuccia slipped away from her senses.
In one moment, during a brief lapse of her focus, a thick fog spread across the streets. At first it was like a faint cold breeze that sent a chill through Bonnie — but in the next second, the streets had been painted over in the bleak white of the mist.
"What is… this?" she muttered, skidding to a stop.
She looked up at the sky as though hoping it would give her an answer, but all she got was a pair of howls in the distance. A few seconds later, dozens of soft footsteps rang across the cobblestones, followed by dry, crackling growls like flames snapping in a bonfire.
Bonnie couldn't help looking around her, her mind jumping to everything that could go wrong, every regret she had packed into this precise moment.
'Instant mist, sudden howling, the coyote… That man did this,' she thought. She drew her revolver and checked the cylinder. She had loaded the weapon beforehand, so that wasn't a problem. 'Which means he really did see me — and he's treating me as a threat.'
She wasn't completely sure that was the case, but the fear that it might be was very real. Evelyn had mentioned fearsome criminals the sheriff had taken down — which meant she had to brace herself for supernatural abilities far beyond what she had.
A creak. A growl. Bonnie aimed behind her — both hands on the weapon, shoulders squared, one foot slightly raised onto its toe to absorb the recoil in case of a shot. Her slender arms wouldn't hold up through careless firing the way she'd gotten away with before.
'Come on then. I'm not afraid of you.'
In reality, her legs were shaking and her breath kept cutting out, and she prayed none of them could hear or sense her nerves.
A footstep. A creak. A growl. Six white eyes opened, glowing like lanterns, inside the mist. Ahead. To the sides. Behind. Those eyes moved toward her from every direction at once — out of the alleyways and even from on top of the rooftops. She aimed upward in a panic, but she had no idea which target to choose first.
'There are… there are too many of them.'
This was not looking good at all. She pulled the hammer back with her thumb and narrowed her eyes, waiting for exactly the right moment to fire.
Growls… Creaking across the roof tiles. One second. A roar exploded at her back. Bonnie's senses surged to their absolute limit, her eyes showing exactly why she carried the power she did. Without a single second of hesitation, she fired. The bullet tore through the mist and punched through a coyote's chest — the creature twisted and rolled before disappearing back into the white.
Bonnie breathed hard. It felt like her heart was going to burst straight out of her chest. The other eyes held still after the shot — but the whispering voices inside the surrounding houses began tearing through Bonnie's mind like a hurricane.
She looked toward one of the houses, which was already barely visible through the dark. A person was peering from the edge of a window frame — and like that one, others murmured among themselves, frightened by the gunshot that had cut through the night.
'You people…'
She tightened her grip on the weapon.
"Can't you see I'm being attacked?!"
Nobody did anything. Their murmuring rose, swelling like a dissonant chorus between the brick and wooden walls, fracturing the silence of the night. And that was the strange part. Normally people would be screaming in fear at the sound of a gunshot in the middle of the night — but nobody screamed. If anything, many of them stared at her from their windows as though confused.
In the middle of the chaos, another coyote lunged. Bonnie fired without hesitating — but she felt the fangs of one of the creatures sink into her leg. She looked down: a coyote biting hard. Blood welled up like juice from a split-ripe apple, and Bonnie screamed, falling backward.
Desperate, fighting through the pain, she kicked the animal with her boot and managed to throw it off. She grabbed her revolver with both hands and fired — but without the proper stance, even as the bullet went through the creature's head, the recoil snapped the gun back and knocked her to the ground. From there she saw another coyote looking down at her from above, its glowing eyes deep and unblinking.
That was when Bonnie understood that everything had gone completely to hell. The coyote opened its mouth — its sharp fangs connected by strings of saliva between its tongue and the inside of its jaw. Ready to bite. Time slowing in Bonnie's green eyes.
'Did I… make a mistake?'
This is the luck of an Outlaw.
There was nothing left to do but try to fight them off with everything she had before the beasts tore her apart. She aimed her weapon in that tiny fraction of a second — but the other coyotes were already launching themselves at her from all sides.
She was dead.
A whisper. Dark mist. Scaramuccia, in a fraction of a second, appeared at her side. He extended his arms and scooped her up in an instant. The coyotes barely had time to register his arrival before they watched him leap back into the darkness.
Bonnie opened her eyes in disbelief.
Scaramuccia — the Coward — who had spent the past few days running, embodying his Ballad in the truest sense, wore a hardened expression on his face. Brow furrowed. Teeth clenched tight. Eyes fixed on something far beyond what they could reach. His arms were slender and fragile — and yet they carried a mysterious strength that came from somewhere beyond what the eye could see.
That night, trapped inside a city full of dangers, Bonnie Jones and Scaramuccia truly met each other for the first time.