SHC vs. STAR, chapter 3
Killing General.
Roe Ironbones knew something was wrong the moment he saw General’s front door swinging open in the wind.
“Hordut, Sil, cover me,” he commanded as he cautiously approached the house, brandishing his star-iron revolver. Hordut Klumber and Sil Clender follow behind, keeping an eye out for anyone from the Silver Heart Coalition. Warily, they advance into the house through the front door into the kitchen, finding a broken bottle of scotch, a cinder block, a broken window, a shattered ceiling lamp, fragments of a vase, a few bloodstains, and finally General’s decapitated corpse.
“Aw hell,” Hordut mutters.
Roe kneels down to his fallen comrade’s side and picks up a silver heart-shaped token laid on General’s chest. Standing up, he barks an order.
“Get him loaded up, we’ll take him to the crypt.”
“Yes, sir. If you would, Hordut.”
Roe holds the token between his forefinger and thumb and examines it in the light. Engraved upon it are the initials S.B. He clears his mind and focuses his will on the token.
“OKAY GENERAL, YOUR TIME’S UP!”
A cinder block came flying through the living room window.
General’s eyes turned to golf balls and he dropped the bottle of scotch onto the kitchen floor. It shattered into countless shards as scotch flooded the black-and-white checkered linoleum.
Byrd leapt through the window and unlocked the back door to let Baron and Simon inside.
Coming to his senses, General ran through his secret door, bypassing the living room and hurrying into his study, grabbing his star-iron eight-chamber revolver and longsword from his panoply on the wall. Exiting into the hall, he stood with his back against the wall, listening for his foes.
“Where is he?”
“He must’ve been in the kitchen, there’s a broken bottle in here.”
“I’ll be damned, check this out! A goddamned secret door!”
“What?”
General stormed out from the hall shouting, barrel open, bullets flying, cylinder turning. Time dilated to a crawl. *BANG* Simon dove across the living room sideways spinning *BANG* and whipped out his black umbrella, *BANG* opening it just in time. The magically imbued material deflected a bullet into the ceiling lamp. Time returned to normal as Simon hit the floor rolling, finally stopped by a sofa.
Byrd rushed out of the kitchen with his violin, bow down hard like a steam engine piston, played a sharp screaming note. A shock of red energy flew from the violin strings to General’s hand, sending the gun to the floor sliding into a corner and nearly taking off General’s index finger.
General ducked behind a chair to nurse his hand and regain his focus. Spotting a heavy flower vase on a nearby side table, he grabbed it and hurled it at Byrd, striking him squarely in the side of the head. Potting soil and ceramic shards went flying as Byrd went down hard onto the elephant dog hide on the hardwood floor.
Seizing this moment, General brandished his star-iron longsword and charged Simon. Simon got himself to his feet fast enough to draw his own sword and charge to meet General. They collided in a clash of blades. The deadlock was ended shortly, as the stronger General made with a sudden explosive push, knocking Simon backward, causing him to trip over the cinder block. General was about to plunge his blade into Simon’s chest when the massive Baron slung a large chair into General’s general direction, smashing into his left side. The force was enough to knock General completely off his feet. He hit his head on the corner of a coffee table and crumpled on the floor, unconscious, bleeding.
“Yes!” Simon shouted, “Good shot, Hercules! Now help me up, I think I landed on glass. Ooh. Ouch. Definitely glass.”
Baron grabbed Simon’s shoulder and pulled him to his feet.
“Byrd?” Simon called. “You conscious over there?”
Byrd groaned, “Yeah, I think so.”
His head was bleeding pretty badly, and he had soil and fragments of vase stuck in there.
“Hurry up and kill him,” Baron said, “We gotta get Byrd to the doc.”
Simon kicked the table out of the way, lifted General’s head by the hair, and in a swift fluid stroke decapitated him. He wiped the sword off on an animal hide on the floor, sheathed it, and dropped a silver heart-shaped token on General’s dead chest. Still holding the head by the hair, he collected his umbrella.
“Okay, let’s go. Baron, carry Byrd so he doesn’t bleed too much.”
They ran out of the house. Colin Rawke was waiting with the getaway car.
Roe squeezes the token in the iron grip of his fist for a moment. Relaxing his grip, he pockets the token.
“Simon thinks he’s sending a message, eh? How cute.”
/cut to Roe’s house, later that night.
Roe walks in through his front door with Sil Clender and Hordut Clumber. The night is breezeless, and so no billowing of curtains reveals the broken window on the east wall of the room. He continues through the living room into the kitchen to get some food. Opening the refrigerator, he notices that the pot of leftover soup has a piece of paper taped to the lid, with a note written on it:
Just in case you didn’t quite get the message.
Love, Simon.
Roe takes the pot, opens it, gasps, and drops it. Bean soup spills out, followed by General’s severed head.