Double Or Nothing: A Coin Flip Away

As Alive As Dead

Slamming to the floor with a guard's face beneath his boot was not the way The Sin Hunter had expected to land on his feet, but nonetheless the trap had been sprung. Sneaking past two guards and tranquilizing the third, Jack flung himself through the rift with gunfire licking at his heels. One bullet had, unfortunately, grazed his right rib and another had torn a bit out of his left shoulder. Rolling on top of the guard, Jack slammed into a gloomy green hallway, grasping his arm with two fingers and keeping the other three on his revolver.

Stopping beside an overturned trash can, the heavily breathing Sin Hunter slouched against the wall, his boots sliding on the cool linoleum floor. "Agh," he growled, rubbing his sleeve up and down while the rift opposite him began to vibrate and shimmer. Someone or something else was coming through. Jack's mind flashed from pain to anger, snapping his revolver barrel from his arm to the rift with his finger locked on the trigger. But before Jack could gather his finger to pull the trigger, a female voice came screaming out with a physical form.

As quickly as Jack had stumbled over the unconscious body of the disarmed guard beside him, Eleanor flung out of the rift into the hallway, crashing into Jack and shattering her glasses all over his jacket. Although Eleanor was stunned and confused, Jack was quick to slide to his feet, his jacket sweeping over Eleanor and shielding her from the gunfire that ripped through the rift after the Sinners. "Nell, get the hell out of here! I'll draw their fire, just don't stop till you reach that stairwell!" Jack barked, pointing at the stairwell entrance. Eleanor, dazed and shocked, nodded before scrambling to her feet and sprinting for the exit.

Jack swallowed back saliva and blood, his eyelids cracking from the strain. 'How long has it been since you slept, Jack? You gotta stay on that.' Before Jack could blink, the rift swarmed open, bursting with blacks and grays and muted blues as armored guards charged out of Hell and flooded into the hallway. The first guard swung out at Jack with a sharpened black combat knife. Jack swept his hand out, knocking the guard's arm away and retaliating with his revolver hand, swinging beneath the guard's chin and pulling the trigger. The bullet exploded through the back of the Demon's helmet as they crumpled to the floor.

While the first guard fell, two more stormed forward, both wielding large steel pipes. The first lunged at The Sin Hunter, but Jack moved away from the steel bar, disarming and shattering the Demon's arm with their own weapons. The second Demon, however, took a clean whack at Jack's exposed backside, bringing The Sin Hunter down to the floor with a burst of air leaving his body. On his hands and knees in all the commotion, Jack's weary eyes drifted toward shouting in the hallway. Two police officers, both human, pistols raised at the armored Demons.

"Step away from the man!" The leading female officer yelled, but as the Demons prepared to kill the police, Jack's throat burned with a roar. "GET DOWN!" He yelled at the policemen, seizing the guard with their raised rifle by the ankle and yanking hard. The guard slammed into the linoleum floor with a loud crash while the Demon with the steel pipe crashed into Jack again, sending The Sin Hunter flying into the wall with a loud crash. Jack rolled out of a dent in the wall, his hand falling over the combat knife from the first guard he had killed.

Throwing the knife down into the last guard's foot with a squishing noise, Jack kicked himself around and twisted his legs tight around the guard's waist, throwing their neck back into the corner of a garbage bin and sending the last guard crumpling to the floor. With his sleeves ripped and his lungs wheezing from the adrenaline rush, Jack struck the garbage bin with his glove, dragging himself up from the wall into an upright stance in the hallway. Although pistol loading clicked in his ear, the female voice of the policewoman spoke up. "Wait wait, hold on a minute. I recognize this guy!"

Jack's eyes drifted toward the two officers, both lowering their firearms. The man had his radio at his mouth while the woman ushered for her partner to lower it. "No need to report this. The Sin Hunter's just cleaning up a job is all." Jack's eye twitched while his shoulders hung at his sides, his mouth open and gasping for air. Before the officers could react, the stairwell slammed open behind Jack, causing him to turn around and see Eleanor, alive and unharmed, slowly enter the hallway, stepping over the corpse of a Demon guard. "Whew!" She muttered, "you took care of these guys alright."

Jack swallowed back stale spit, his eyes narrowed. "Yeah." Turning to the police officers, Jack motioned his left hand in a sign of recognition. "You two could have been hurt by these people. But thank you for being here regardless. You served your job well." The police officers both shrugged, holstering their pistols. "Do you, uh, need some medical stuff, maybe some bandages for that arm?" The policeman asked. The Sin Hunter chuckled, spitting on the back of a dead Demon. "Nah," he muttered, "I'll be alright. Thank you, though."

Turning to Eleanor, The Sin Hunter cracked one of his fingers back into place before waving his wrist around, exhaling. "We should go. If those guards came out of here, there's likely more on the way. We need to lead them away from these people." Eleanor crossed her arms, her eyes wide and awake with flexing fingertips. "I'm...I'm corporeal again," she breathed. Jack turned, resting his shoulders while standing in place. Eleanor was just as humanoid and fresh as she had been when she was alive in Hell. "Well," the detective whistled, tipping his fedora with a chuckle, "wouldja look at that."