Jack Thompson's Arc

Chapter 3 of 25

The three men pushed Jack off the circle and herded him down a side alley to a loading dock behind the café. A half-closed metal gate boxed him in. Stacked pallets cut off the sides. Jack's bad leg was shaking against the shotgun. He counted three barrels and one of him. "Out-manned, out-gunned," Jack muttered. He let his grip loosen on the dice in his pocket. Just a crack. Just enough. The cold rushed back behind his eyes. A shadow slid across half his face like a mask drawn in ink. Jack flung his hands forward and his fingers came apart in a torrent of playing cards. The cards tore through the dock like a black wind. They sliced wrists, throats, and the soft spots under jaws. The three men dropped against the pallets before they could fire a second shot. Blackjack wanted the rest. Jack felt his other hand lifting toward the nearest body, fingers curling for something worse. He shoved his hand into his pocket and crushed the black and red dice against his palm. The warmth pushed the cold back down. His heartbeat returned. The shadow slid off his face like water. Jack limped between the bodies, breathing hard. On the middle man's coat he found a small lapel pin shaped like a red moon, polished and bright. He pried it loose and turned it in his fingers. Luna Eclipsed. So that was the name behind the trigger. Tucked under the man's jacket was a sealed folder, his own name written across the front in plain black ink. Jack opened it just far enough to see the warning stamped inside about what he might become. He closed it again, slid it under his arm, and started back down the alley before anyone came looking.