Demon Card Enforcer 3, Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One: You Weren’t the Main Character

            Wolfe hurried out the side of the van while shrugging on the backpack. It was heavy with a familiar weight as he jogged toward the mansion ahead of him. The mansion that he was almost a hundred percent positive that Gurjit Singh currently occupied.

            He was tense partially because Gurjit was nothing like his corpulent cousin. If you were what you ate, Gopal was cake and Gurjit was steak. The man was nearly as tall as Wolfe, more muscled, and even meaner. On the other hand, he was half a decade older and had considerably less street experience, especially recently. Wolfe would bet he could take Gurjit, on even terms, nine times out of ten. But in his own lair, with bodyguards? It was a dicey proposition at best, since Gurjit was a solid fighter on his own.

            So Wolfe had hunted differently than he usually did—carefully. First, the allies. Then, the tools. Last, the distractions.

            Now it was time to see if it would pay off.

            Shel followed him out, carrying a small, awkward looking rifle with a cylindrical canister under the barrel and a bracing stand—the second part of his plan to eliminate as many of Gurgit’s people as quietly as he could.

Shel rushed after him even as Wolfe touched his chest, the two of them running down the sidewalk, past small, manicured trees on the street side, and the large mansions set back on the housed side.

            Counting on his Bulgar Moon Chaser card to stop anyone from finding out about his deck, Wolfe pushed his hand out from his chest. Eight cards appeared in front of him—his base five and his effective three companions.

He immediately yanked Malviere out. Crimson light flowed to the ground, and Malviere appeared in a swirl of smoke that smelled faintly of dogs. She wore her usual black dress, to complement her black hair and nails.

            “Where is big brother?” she asked as soon as she appeared.

            Wolfe was briefly non-plussed as he ran, thinking about it. In truth, the last couple times that Wolfe had deployed Cereboo, he hadn’t helped as much as Malviere had. But Wolfe tossed him next, and his pooch came out running on padded feet across the concrete of the carefully manicured streets in this ultra-rich neighborhood.

            I wonder what he’ll look like when I complete the set, assuming that I do, in fact, complete the set—and don’t take the actual Hellgate.

            Wolfe kept going, and pulled his ‘companion’ Obsessed Cultist as he did, but he didn’t pull the second one, instead swiping his deck and looking for the next card he wanted. Hope I get the Demonic Portal when the time comes.

            Shel hadn’t pulled her deck, not wanted to alert people to what was coming. She was struggling a slight bit under the weight of her weapon—over a thousand foot run even a moderately heavy weapon was a chore.

Wolfe saw that his second card was his Master of the Hunt mantle, and touched it. The light flowed across him and he felt the power. He took the odd rifle from Shel and caried it easily, one-handed, as they ran.

They reached the predetermined spot, a manicured bush a couple hundred yards from the front of the mansion. Wolfe set the odd-looking rifle down, popping the stand open and laying on the other side of the bushes, scooting through them until the barrel and scope poked through.

The red energy of his mantle played across him, his features slightly more bestial as he stared through the scope, rapidly searching the front of the estate, which was currently devoid of people and all but one car.

Shel, Malviere, and Cereboo all plopped down behind him, and Wolfe turned away from the scope momentarily to face them.

Shel shuddered dramatically enough to vibrate the bushes, then said, “I’ve been dealing with some pretty rough characters now that I’m in the police, but when you’re in that mantle, your eyes all red… you put them all to shame.”

Wolfe was unsure if her statement was positive or negative. Probably positive since she’s still with me.

But his mind was on other matters, and he touched his hand to his ear. “Are they doing what we want still?”

Fern responded, her voice the tiniest bit tinny in his ear. “Yes, with their lowered numbers, they’ve moved to single man patrols—just two guys on the outside patrol. Your trick with Gopal did what was needed, just like you said.”

It’s nice to be told you’re right, Wolfe thought to himself with a feral grin. Especially when it comes to something as serious as killing people.

Fern kept talking over Wolfe’s introspective moment. “First guy will come around the corner in just over a minute, most likely.”

“Perfect,” Wolfe whispered.

Shel pulled a ski mask from her pocket and put it over her head, and Wolfe did the same. Don’t want any rando seeing us and being able to identify us to the police.

Then he looked back through the scope of his FX Impact, taking his time now that he knew he had a few moments.

The Singh family mansion was large and ostentatious; even larger than the Grimm family mansion had been. Its front was shielded from view a bit better than most mansions with a lightly treed front lawn, but Wolfe still had a solid view of the majority of his target area–the large entrance area near the front of the house.

“One’s coming around now,” Fern said.

Wolfe watched quietly, barely breathing, as the man walked around the side of the mansion to Wolfe’s far right, and started walking across the front. It was still a couple hundred feet to traverse the whole thing.

Even though Wolfe hadn’t shot, Fern continued. “Remember, wait till he’s far enough past that the next guy won’t see him before you can get a shot.”

Wolfe didn’t say anything, just waiting as they had planned. When the man was abut ninety percent of the way, and probably hidden by a pillar on the front of the house, he squeezed the trigger.

The FX Impact was an interesting rifle, powered by compressed air in the cannister under the barrel rather than gunpowder in the bullet. That, along with a subsonic bullet, meant that its stopping power was extremely low compared to similar rifles—it was best used for hunting small vermin, like coyotes.

But Wolfe had done some experiments earlier, and the interaction between his mantle, his perk, and Malviere meant that even though the rifle wasn’t normally good at delivering good stopping shots, it was when powered by infernal magic.

The interesting—and most important—thing, however, was that it remained quiet. Its noise was barely that of a chirping bird, although quite unique, a metallic noise that had vague similarity to an insect buzzing past your ear.

 The guards head was perforated, a brief spray of blood through an extremely improbably large hole for what was barely different than a .22 bullet. He fell in the direction of the shot.

After about ten seconds in which Wolfe sat with coiled muscles, prepared to charge forward, Fern said, “No reaction that I can see.”

Wolfe waited, and a few moments later, when the second guard came around the corner, he killed him too, dismissing the ‘no experience,’ notification.

“Go,” Fern said, her voice urgent. “We don’t know how long till they miss a check-in.”

“They’re only eight guards left,” Wolfe said as he pulled back and then leapt over the hedge.

“Yes,” Fern replied.

A savage glee, reminiscent of Wolfe’s old days as a street enforcer, rose in him. “Will it even matter, then?”

“They still have at least two deckbearers, possible three, very improbably more if they hired them. And Gurgit is, as you reminded me, far tougher than his cousin. Be smart—you’re the one that wanted to do this differently, and this was your plan.”

Wolfe nodded, and reined in his savagery. Fern—or earlier Wolfe, really—was right. Even if he could kill them all the old way, in a blaze of talent fueled glory, he needed to practice his new, more professional methods.

He ran to the gate, hoping that they didn’t have some kind of sensor system—something Fern hadn’t been able to figure out, but had figured against given the active guards and number of people constantly coming and going, and the lack of visible cameras.

Still, even as Wolfe accelerated, leapt, and flipped himself onto the top of the gate, his butthole clenched.

He relaxed when nothing happened, and held his hand down to Shel, who ran up, hit the gate and then jumped down inside with an assist from Wolfe, who followed her down onto the perfectly moved front lawn, lightly split up with carefully maintained trees.

Malviere ran up, Cereboo behind her, and Wolfe smacked himself. He unsummoned them, as well as the Obsessed Infernal Cultist, then flipped his deck as he hurried across the lawn. I’ll need to resummon them. I should have only brought out Malviere—she was the only one whose bonus I needed on that first part. Oh well, it’s a tiny error, but something to remember for later.

Shel glanced at him, opened her mouth, but then closed it and shook her head.

Yeah, it’s mission time, we’ll figure out whatever else is going on later.

“Don’t forget they’re a ton of innocent women in there,” Shel said as they hurried across the lawn, from tree to tree.

Wolfe pulled his STI Edge as they got closer, but his mantle winked out.

“Innocent is hardly the term I’d use, but I understand what you mean,” Wolfe replied to his fiancée.

As they reached the last line of trees, a sudden hissing, slightly mechanical, filled the air around them.

Wolfe whirled, expecting a monster, but he saw nothing. Shel glanced up, and Wolfe pointing his gun up, slightly panicked.

Then it hit him, just as the sprinklers popped up all around him.

But he hadn’t seen anyone, so he grabbed Shel and ran forward from the lawn even as they went off. He was hit slightly, but hardly soaked as he rushed forward to the side of the house.

“Fucking cliché,” Wolfe muttered, angrily, as they reached the edge.

Shel giggled, a tiny hint of the fun-loving girl coming through her tension, but she spoke seriously. “It’ll still give us a tiny bit more cover, so let’s count it as a win.”

            “Sure,” Wolfe responded, gripping his gun tighter as he walked over to the front door.

            He gripped the handle. “Let’s go get card number five.”