Blue Skies Prompt #3 - Lock and Load (The Dresden Files)
Title: Lock and Load
Author: chococoffeekiss
Prompt: #3, shelter
Fandom: The Dresden Files
Characters & Pairings: Harry Dresden, Anastasia Luccio
Rating & Warnings: PG for language, violence & innuendo, set circa White Night, after Camp Kaboom.
Word Count: 861
Summary: In which there is lots of shooting, vague flirting and reptile dysfunction.
Author’s Note: Good to see that LJ's back up and functioning within normal parameters. I seem to be stuck in the Dresdenverse. Here we go, taking a stab (ha ha) at action/adventure.
We were pinned down near an abandoned cabin in the mountains outside of Colorado Springs. I had my back against the haphazard woodpile we had taken cover behind when our pursuers opened fire.
Lying prone in the dirt a few feet away was the Captain of the Wardens; a young woman peering around the edge of the pile. Not a lot of people would have guessed she was several centuries older (and deadlier) than she looked. She scowled and muttered to herself in Italian - I didn’t understand the words but I definitely recognized the tone.
Bullets buzzed overhead. Several ghouls with assault rifles were tailing us as we led them on a merry chase while Ramirez and Co. took down their employers; a Red Court outpost in a nearby cave.
“Harry.”
“Huh?”
“Harry,” she said again, this time in an anxious whisper followed by a papery-sounding buzz that was definitely not a bullet. And then I saw what she was staring at, slinking through a narrow high noon shadow.
A rattlesnake had slithered out of the heap of firewood onto her outstretched arm, just a few inches from her face. Its creepy little tongue flickered curiously and there was malice in its beady eyes.
“Do. Something. Now,” Luccio ground out between clenched teeth. The last time I’d seen her this unsettled was the time I’d showed up to a necromantic throwdown with a reanimated tyrannosaur.
The captain may have nerves of steel but apparently she’s no fan of reptiles.
“Working on it. I’m working on it,” I said and dropped to the ground, low-crawling and trying to put as much of me and bulletproof leather duster as possible between her and the snake.
“Here, boy. Good snakey.” It turned to look at me. Wincing, I grabbed the rattler and at the same time got an arm around the captain’s waist and hauled her backwards. The damned thing started winding around my wrist as I held it out at arm’s length - I tried not to scream like a nine year old girl and flung it as far as I could.
“Get outta here, you creepy little bastard!”
It landed with a rattling thump and a pissed-off hiss. The ghouls opened fire on the sudden movement for a few seconds and then it was silent.
“Dresden.”
“Yeah?”
“Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
It was at this point that I realized she was still pinned against my chest, kind of sitting in my lap. We were both breathing hard. I let go of her and in the awkward pause that followed, there was the crunch of footsteps in dry, end-of-summer grass on the other side of our shelter.
We both reached for our weapons, and as the vaguely-humanoid shape came over the top of the woodpile, I planted the end of my staff in its chest. There was a crack of breaking bone and its trajectory was radically shortened - the thing tumbled in front of me, sending up a cloud of dirt.
It immediately started scrambling away from me.
There’s a reason they do that.
I pulled my .44 magnum from the pocket of my duster and put all six hollowpoint rounds into the ghoul...and it still tried to get up.
I kicked the AK-47 out of its reach and turned around in time to watch as Luccio planted a Doc Marten in the stomach of another ghoul, shoved it backward as she drew her sword from its belly, lopped off an arm at the elbow, then called up a force evocation that slammed it into the trunk of a pine tree.
Ouch.
The last one scrambled over the top of a rusted-out Ford. We both hit it with fire before it had a chance to land, scorching the old truck and melting the glass from the windows.
There was a few seconds of incomprehensible screaming, and then it was silent again.
The whole skirmish was over in less than a minute.
Luccio looked around with an expression of justified satisfaction - we have a shared vendetta against the sick sons of bitches, which is probably why she asked me to be her backup.
“Was that last one yours or mine?”
“Difficult to say.” She flicked the blade in her hand clean, spattering the sand with ichor, and sheathed it. “I think it was yours.”
“Meh. Doesn't matter, you’re still three kills ahead of me,” I said as I thumbed open the cylinder of the revolver, dumped the empty brass and reloaded. “And in response to your previous question,” I held up the .44 and made a show of putting it back in my pocket.
“That is a big gun,” she said with a dimpled grin that might have evaporated a lesser man. “Though I hope for your sake it isn’t too much of a false advertisement.”
By the time I’d figured that one out, blushed like a teenager and recovered, she had collected one of the ghouls’s rifles.
“Perhaps I should embrace conventional weaponry as well.” She held the AK up to her shoulder and lined up the sights. “What do you think?”
“Permission to speak freely?”
She gave me a sideways look and nodded.
“I think you’re scary enough without it.”
---
Author: chococoffeekiss
Prompt: #3, shelter
Fandom: The Dresden Files
Characters & Pairings: Harry Dresden, Anastasia Luccio
Rating & Warnings: PG for language, violence & innuendo, set circa White Night, after Camp Kaboom.
Word Count: 861
Summary: In which there is lots of shooting, vague flirting and reptile dysfunction.
Author’s Note: Good to see that LJ's back up and functioning within normal parameters. I seem to be stuck in the Dresdenverse. Here we go, taking a stab (ha ha) at action/adventure.
We were pinned down near an abandoned cabin in the mountains outside of Colorado Springs. I had my back against the haphazard woodpile we had taken cover behind when our pursuers opened fire.
Lying prone in the dirt a few feet away was the Captain of the Wardens; a young woman peering around the edge of the pile. Not a lot of people would have guessed she was several centuries older (and deadlier) than she looked. She scowled and muttered to herself in Italian - I didn’t understand the words but I definitely recognized the tone.
Bullets buzzed overhead. Several ghouls with assault rifles were tailing us as we led them on a merry chase while Ramirez and Co. took down their employers; a Red Court outpost in a nearby cave.
“Harry.”
“Huh?”
“Harry,” she said again, this time in an anxious whisper followed by a papery-sounding buzz that was definitely not a bullet. And then I saw what she was staring at, slinking through a narrow high noon shadow.
A rattlesnake had slithered out of the heap of firewood onto her outstretched arm, just a few inches from her face. Its creepy little tongue flickered curiously and there was malice in its beady eyes.
“Do. Something. Now,” Luccio ground out between clenched teeth. The last time I’d seen her this unsettled was the time I’d showed up to a necromantic throwdown with a reanimated tyrannosaur.
The captain may have nerves of steel but apparently she’s no fan of reptiles.
“Working on it. I’m working on it,” I said and dropped to the ground, low-crawling and trying to put as much of me and bulletproof leather duster as possible between her and the snake.
“Here, boy. Good snakey.” It turned to look at me. Wincing, I grabbed the rattler and at the same time got an arm around the captain’s waist and hauled her backwards. The damned thing started winding around my wrist as I held it out at arm’s length - I tried not to scream like a nine year old girl and flung it as far as I could.
“Get outta here, you creepy little bastard!”
It landed with a rattling thump and a pissed-off hiss. The ghouls opened fire on the sudden movement for a few seconds and then it was silent.
“Dresden.”
“Yeah?”
“Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
It was at this point that I realized she was still pinned against my chest, kind of sitting in my lap. We were both breathing hard. I let go of her and in the awkward pause that followed, there was the crunch of footsteps in dry, end-of-summer grass on the other side of our shelter.
We both reached for our weapons, and as the vaguely-humanoid shape came over the top of the woodpile, I planted the end of my staff in its chest. There was a crack of breaking bone and its trajectory was radically shortened - the thing tumbled in front of me, sending up a cloud of dirt.
It immediately started scrambling away from me.
There’s a reason they do that.
I pulled my .44 magnum from the pocket of my duster and put all six hollowpoint rounds into the ghoul...and it still tried to get up.
I kicked the AK-47 out of its reach and turned around in time to watch as Luccio planted a Doc Marten in the stomach of another ghoul, shoved it backward as she drew her sword from its belly, lopped off an arm at the elbow, then called up a force evocation that slammed it into the trunk of a pine tree.
Ouch.
The last one scrambled over the top of a rusted-out Ford. We both hit it with fire before it had a chance to land, scorching the old truck and melting the glass from the windows.
There was a few seconds of incomprehensible screaming, and then it was silent again.
The whole skirmish was over in less than a minute.
Luccio looked around with an expression of justified satisfaction - we have a shared vendetta against the sick sons of bitches, which is probably why she asked me to be her backup.
“Was that last one yours or mine?”
“Difficult to say.” She flicked the blade in her hand clean, spattering the sand with ichor, and sheathed it. “I think it was yours.”
“Meh. Doesn't matter, you’re still three kills ahead of me,” I said as I thumbed open the cylinder of the revolver, dumped the empty brass and reloaded. “And in response to your previous question,” I held up the .44 and made a show of putting it back in my pocket.
“That is a big gun,” she said with a dimpled grin that might have evaporated a lesser man. “Though I hope for your sake it isn’t too much of a false advertisement.”
By the time I’d figured that one out, blushed like a teenager and recovered, she had collected one of the ghouls’s rifles.
“Perhaps I should embrace conventional weaponry as well.” She held the AK up to her shoulder and lined up the sights. “What do you think?”
“Permission to speak freely?”
She gave me a sideways look and nodded.
“I think you’re scary enough without it.”
---