Jack Thompson's Arc

Chapter 20 of 25

Blackjack chased the burning lioness out of the storefront and down the street. Glass crunched under his boots. Leona's black flames scorched the cobbles in long streaks. They tore past awnings and bolted chairs until the road opened wide at the foot of the old clock tower. The cul-de-sac waited there like a stage. Blackjack stopped at its center and smiled with Jack's mouth. He raised one hand. The stones under his feet split into wedges of red and black. Numbers burned into the ground. The whole circle began to turn, slow then fast, until the cul-de-sac was a roaring wheel. Wind ripped through the sidewalk café. Tables tumbled. A chair sailed through a shop window and shattered it from the inside, glass raining onto the floor between potted ferns. Leona dug her claws into the spinning stone. The wheel flung her sideways. She hit a storefront window hard and crashed through it. Her fire guttered. The black flame peeled away in strips. On the shop floor lay a thin red-haired young man, breathing shallow, eyes shut. Just One. Just a boy. Blackjack walked across the slowing wheel. He racked the shotgun easy, one-handed. He stepped through the broken frame and aimed down at the unconscious body. Locked behind his own eyes, Jack saw the barrel drift toward One's forehead. He shoved. He shoved hard. He found the bridge and threw himself across it the wrong way, dragging his weight back into his own chest. The shotgun jerked. The shot punched a hole in the wall above One's head. Jack staggered, gasping, his hand shaking on the stock. The wheel beneath the cul-de-sac sank back into plain stone. The wind died. Around him sat overturned chairs, a shattered café window, and the slow drip of plaster dust. Jack looked down. His bad leg was wrapped in inky black, curling like smoke held to the bone. Under it, the leg felt strong. Steady. He took a step without his shotgun for the first time in years. Something on the other side of the bridge smiled back. The door he had pulled himself through was open now. It would stay open. Both ways.