Page 5 of Hell and Halos

Savannah says, "There's one in the hallway."

I pan my hand to the open door of her bedroom. "Lead the way."

Savannah brushes past me, her scent assaultin' me in a torturous way. Then she turns left. The grand foyer is on my right as we walk the hallway lit up with sconces that throw a soft amber glow. She stops at a narrow closet, opens it, and inside is a fully stocked gun rack.

I choose a short-barreled pump action. Light enough it won't rip her shoulder off. Mean enough it'll rip everything else.

I find a box of shells on the shelf below, crack it open, and feed them in one at a time. The sound of each one slidin' home is clean and final. A little promise repeated five times.

I rack it once to make sure it cycles smooth, then carry it and the box back to the bedroom.

Then I grab the overstuffed chair by its arms and drag it across the hardwood. It fights me the whole way, heavy and stubborn, legs screamin' against the floor like a cat bein' pulled from a ledge. I bully it into the far corner, angle it so it faces the door dead-on, and step back.

I point to Savannah. "Sit down."

She looks at the chair. Looks at the shotgun. Looks at me.

"I know you won't want to, but I need you to sit in this chair, and hold this shotgun, and wait for me to call. Do you understand me?"

She nods, steppin' towards me. When she reaches for the shotgun, our eyes lock. I don't know what she sees in mine, but in hers, I see sadness.

Like she's picturing a world without me.

Then she practically says it out loud. "You're gonna be careful, right?"

I nod. "Baby, don't you spend one fuckin' second second-guessin' me. I'm due for a win."

For a long moment she doesn't move. Doesn't react.

Then… she laughs. "I don't think it works that way, Demon."

"You'd be wrong," I say back. "God fuckin' owes me."

Then I offer her the gun and she takes it. We lock eyes one more time, then I point to the chair. "Sit. And shoot if you need to. It's ready to go."

She lets out a long breath, but sits, leanin' back into the overstuffed cushion.

I turn, forcin' myself not to look back, and just before I leave, I flick the light off.

Leavin' her in the dark.

CHAPTER 2

I memorize Legion's footsteps as he leaves. It's a new sound—cowboy boots, not biker boots—and I feel like I haven't gotten to know them yet. So I strain to hear every clue that tells me they belong to him.

He walks the hallway, skips down the stairs, crosses the foyer.

Outside they sound different still. Where the old boots would thud a little. A dullness. A heaviness. Just things livin' inside the substance of the sound that tell you—this man is this way.

These new boots deliver the same message, but they take the long way around to get there. Like a sentence rewritten in a different language—same meaning, opposite architecture.

Where the old ones said heavy, heavy, heavy, these ones say sharp, sharp, sharp.

Where the old ones absorbed the ground beneath them, these ones strike it. Announcin' themselves.

There's a click now, a heel-clip against the flagstone, and it carries a kind of authority that his biker boots never had. Not better, but not worse either.

Just—redirected. The same man, walkin' the same earth, but the boots are tellin' a new story about who he's decided to be this time.