the same damn pocket.
I could feel the vibration of heavy feet from my place on the floor, Lila's killer making his way up. The gunfire stopped. I peeked around the corner of the counter towards the outside. Three people, holding heavy assault rifles. They were wearing leather riding jackets and jeans, their heads bald, their faces expressionless. They knew that I was either dead or trapped.
"Conor," the one in the middle said. A woman. "You might as well come out."
They knew who I was. I was afraid this wasn't a coincidence, and now that fear was realized. I put my back to the wall, keeping my hand on the floor, feeling the vibrations of the oncoming heavy. I had trouble shooting the 500 one-handed, and that was standing and planted. From my ass? The recoil was liable to break my arms.
I still felt the stinging along my side, and I looked down and saw my coat was nearly on fire, the bottom of the pocket simmering and being slowly eaten away.
Everything about this was going wrong. It was as if the entire world had turned against me at once, my luck running out in an instant.
"Come on, Conor," she said again. "I know you're still alive. If you come out, I promise we'll do you quick, and then we can all go back to where we belong."
Where we belong? I peeked out again, trying to get a closer look at my attackers. Other than the similar clothes and the shared baldness, there was nothing special about them. Even so...
The assassin from downstairs had reached the back room. He approached the door cautiously. I shifted my feet, rising to a painful crouch and stifling a cough. This was no time for my body to quit. I found the boot knife with my free hand, careful not to brush against my coat while I brought it forward. The smell of the burning fabric was thick in my nose.
"Conor," she said a third time. "What's the big deal? You're going to die soon anyway. Why not make it quick and easy?"
I waited by the door, ready for it to start opening. The second it did, I forced myself into action, rising up and guiding the knife towards where I hoped the attacker's eye would be.
I hit a hard, leathery chest beneath a black t-shirt and riding jacket. The blade slipped from my hand.
"You got that cannon there, and you tried to stab me?" the orc asked, noticing the 500 in my other hand.
"The recoil," I said, feeling my hope and my life slipping away.
His smile was full of pointed teeth. "Shoulda just come out. Now I'm gonna make it hurt."
My dice were some kind of enchanted, but they didn't rely on the fields for power. I had a different connection to them. A deeper, more intimate connection, like a bad touch. I noticed when they started slipping through the hole that had burned into my coat pocket. I noticed when the first cleared and dropped towards the floor.
Was it an amazing coincidence or was there something more to it? I wanted to believe the former. I knew it was the latter. The entity that lived in the dice and the mask was as dark and evil as they came. It was also more powerful than I understood. Something had made me unable to touch it. A hex? A curse? Something else?
Whatever. It had found another way.
My fist to the orc's face was just strong enough to surprise him for a second. That was all the time I needed to collect the still-hot dice in my hand and mouth the words "this one" to them before letting them go.
They hit the floor with a soft clatter and rolled to a stop. Snake and dagger. A hollow feeling joined the room, and then the orc began convulsing.
The attackers on the outside had noticed. The bullets came in again, and I barely avoided the maelstrom, throwing myself back behind the counter while the dying orc was peppered with friendly fire. His thick skin helped the severity, but it couldn't do anything for the volume. Not that it mattered, he was already dead. Snake and dagger would leave him a twisted mess on the floor.
I scooped the dice and eyed the door to the back room. If I could slip past the corpse, I could get down to the relative safety of the underground room. The assholes out front could either try to wait me out and