To Protect and Serve Ch. 06

"Crap!" she said quietly. Apparently, not quietly enough as two other shell walkers looked her way, pulling out far too many knives to make her comfortable. Shamira felt a surreal experience as she stepped into battle, the cowboy hat that Shane had given her blocking the water from reaching her eyes. These things were violating the rules . . . it was her job to enforce justice. That made her grin a little, then she whistled the theme from high noon as she pointed her gun at another, but it dove away before she could pull the trigger. "Damn! That thing's fast!" With the the lights out and the water falling, she looked out with her shadow sight. She just barely was able to dodge the knife thrown violently at her head. All the remaining shell walkers were converging on her location. And there were more of them than she'd thought . . . twice as many.

With her gun in her left hand, she took several shots at one while doing a wrist-snap with her whip, keeping another honest and at bay. She put another bug on the pavement when she heard a buzzing noise. She'd forgot . . . wings probably meant they could fly. She ducked and rolled, avoiding have a knife shoved into her skull but suffering a gash in her arm several inches long, the knife somehow finding one of the bare-spots in her armor. She yelped but turned on the ground and fired straight up, bringing the bug down on top of her, dripping some heinous goo all over her. She shoved the corpse aside and rolled under a car to the other side.

'Fuck, I should've waited," she thought. She lashed out with the whip while rolling, causing something that had once resembled a knee to explode in goo. Unfortunately, she was wrapped up in incredibly strong and hostile arms when she regained her feet.

"You will --" the thing behind her started to hiss, but it's one and only possible soliloquy was cut off when its head exploded. Shamira looked around but didn't see the perpetrator of her rescue.

The rest of the fight went rather quickly, making Shamira realize just how carefully chosen Shane's house was. Reaper and the newcomer Valeska were picking people off from another building entirely. Henry came in under sniper cover and blasted another insect to bits. Yosyp provided cover fire while Sebastian . . . Sebastian danced.

Dancing was the only way Shamira could think to describe it. He moved with uncanny grace, jumping over cars and shooting down into the top of an opponent's head, then landing on one foot, jumping again, and blowing someone else's head off. Shamira barely remembered to finish off her knee-capped opponent from earlier with a silver-tipped whip shot to its head.

"Duck," Henry shouted and, without hesitation, Shamira ducked and rolled forward while her compadre shot over her head. She finished her roll and dove over his head, firing at a shell walker behind him, then rolled again and came up to her feet. She found herself face to face with Sebastian, who looked impressed. Then he put both his guns on her shoulders, looking her in the eyes while he shot at two remaining opponents. He got one, but the other one was able to stand up and take aim. Unfortunately for the bug man, standing up exposed him to Reaper's bullet from across the street.

The garage was quiet except for the falling rain. The entire fight had taken less than twenty seconds, but it had felt so much longer. Shamira smiled at Sebastian, and the werespider smiled back.

"You're not afraid of me right now are you?"

Shamira grinned and shook her head. "Way too pumped and --" She was cut off when he placed his mouth of hers and kissed her.

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To be continued . . .