wound had healed. With his other hand, he stuffed the last bite of sandwich into his mouth, then joined her in peeking up over the lip of the grave. Above, a lethargically moving bullet hit the invisible edge of Wayne’s speed bubble. In an eyeblink, it zipped across the air—barely a foot over Marasi’s head—before hitting the other side, where it slowed down again.
She cringed belatedly. Anytime something entered a speed bubble, it was refracted, changing trajectory. While it was unlikely one would get bounced so radically that it would point downward toward them, it was possible. Beyond that, Wayne’s bendalloy burned extremely quickly. He’d have to drop the bubble before too long.
“Plan?” Marasi asked.
“Not dyin’.”
“Anything more detailed than that?”
“Not dyin’ … today?”
She gave him a pointed look. Another pair of bullets zipped overhead while, outside the speed bubble, Dechamp’s body hit the ground.
“We’ve gotta get close to them,” Wayne said, slipping one of his dueling canes out from the loop on his belt.
“That’s going to be hard,” Marasi said. “I think they’re scared of you.”
“Yeah?” Wayne asked, sounding encouraged. “You really think?”
“They’re unloading enough ammunition to take down a small army,” Marasi said, ducking as a bullet entered the speed bubble, “and they opened fire even though Dechamp was caught in the barrage. While I doubt he meant much to them, it indicates they were scared enough that they didn’t dare waste a moment to wait for him to climb back into the grave.”
Wayne nodded slowly, grinning. “How ’bout that. I gots me a reputation. I wonder…”
Marasi glanced behind them. This grave was near several others that had been left open earlier, waiting for occupants. “Can you get your speed bubble big enough to include one of those other graves from in here?”
He followed her gaze, then rubbed his chin. “The closest one maybe, if I drop this bubble and move to the back of this grave before makin’ another.” He couldn’t move a bubble once it was in place, and couldn’t leave its confines without it dissipating.
“So we have to get them to come check on our corpses,” Marasi said. “Which might be hard, if they’re really that scared of you.”
“Nah,” Wayne said, “might actually be easy.”
“How—”
“Runnin’ outta time,” Wayne said. “You still got that little popgun in your purse?”
She pulled out the small pistol. “It has terrible range,” she said, “and only two shots.”
“Don’t matter none,” Wayne said. “Once I drop this, fire it at the fellows. Then be ready to move.”
She nodded.
“Here we go,” Wayne said.
The bubble dropped.
Mists leaped back into motion, swirling above, and the sudden sound of gunfire pervaded the graveyard. Dechamp twitched, and he gasped, eyes going glassy in the lanternlight. Marasi waited until the assailants stopped shooting, the cracks of their guns echoing in the night. Then she leveled her little gun and squeezed off two shots toward the shadows.
She ducked back down, uncertain what that was supposed to have accomplished. “You realize we’re now trapped and unarmed, Wayne.”
“Yup,” he said. “But if those fellows are really bothered by my fearsome reputation…”
“What?” Marasi asked, glancing toward him as he peeked over the edge. A few cracks sounded as the dark figures fired back, but it wasn’t as frantic as before. What was …
“There!” Wayne said, leaping toward the back of the grave and then popping up a speed bubble. “Ha! They came prepared, they did. Good men.”
Marasi risked peeking up again. She came almost face-to-face with a spinning piece of dynamite frozen in the air, the wick spraying sparks and smoke that mixed with the mists. She yelped, scrambling back. It was almost to the speed bubble.
“Across we go,” Wayne said, taking off his top hat and tossing it out of their grave toward the next one. He scrambled after it. Marasi joined him, staying low and hoping that the attackers wouldn’t notice. Wayne’s speed bubble would make them blurs to the eyes of the men, but it was dark and the mists would help obscure things.
She slid across and down into the other grave, which was deeper than the first. Wayne nodded to her, then dropped the bubble.
Marasi pressed her back to the side of the grave, squeezed her eyes shut, plugged her ears, and counted in her head. She only reached two before an explosion shook the ground and dropped a wave of dirt into their grave. Rusts! People must have heard that halfway across the city.
She glanced at Wayne, who took out his other dueling cane and twirled one