Ain't War Hell?
By: Maximillian von Fischgeist
Chapter Five
Shadow
They'd stopped. He leaned her against a tree, and she gripped it forcefully, using it to keep herself
on her feet. He lit a cigarette, and said to her something inaudible to their watcher's ears.
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Continued in Part Six!
The watcher froze in her hidden position, coiled herself in a crouch that was somewhere between
readiness and unreadiness. The thoughts in her mind were somewhere between eagerness and
fear. She watched as Lowlight sucked hungrily at his cigarette, setting his gaze in the direction from
which they'd fled. Her own training including the fine art of assassination, she did her best (there
wasn't much to go on) to follow Lowlight's career. He was the best, and she would learn all she
could from him before she removed him permanently from the world. And she vowed that his
removal would be her achievement.
She would feel more comfortable if she could see his eyes, see through the red shield that hid
them. She longed to glimpse the eyes, those reflections of the beast within. She had two separate
imaginings as to their appearance. One: Cold and unfeeling, hard and calculating. The eyes of a
wolf scanning for the weakest prey. Predatory. Inhuman. An enemy to be despised and yet
respected. She rather liked that image. Two: Haunted and paranoid. The eyes of the wolf's prey,
always darting about in search of that hungry pack of killers. Alone. All-too-human. An enemy to
be pitied, and therefore despised. Such a man - one who has chosen murder as a job - could be
only one of the two extremes. And, either way, he was to be despised. And respected. And
pitied.
Wildcat (a tongue-in-cheek moniker if there ever was one; Katherine - Kat for short - Wilde was
the real name hidden behind that particular smokescreen) continued watching. Scarlett slumped
and, using the tree as crutch, lowered herself to a sitting position. Lowlight knelt beside her, the
cigarette in his lips, smoke hovering in his face, wisping around his head. He went to work on
bandaging Scarlett's wound. Wildcat felt her nose wrinkle a bit as she imagined the smoke leaking
straight from the cigarette's tip into one's nostrils. Her hatred of cigarette smoke was on par with
her hatred of having to sit idly and simply watch when she could so easily eliminate two important
members of G.I. Joe. Thirty yards was all that separated them from Wildcat's expert aim.
The glory of it was enough to make her palms sweat. She felt hot blood surge in her temples. But
the cold knot in her stomach reminded her of the danger. She had her orders and they were to
"follow them without any interference". Bludd's cutting Australian accent had a vicious ring in her
memory. She was to observe their safe escape, head south a few miles, and take on the simple
disguise that would make possible her own safe return home. Her report would be waited on with
anticipation by Bludd. But his orders didn't account for one of the targets having been dealt a
mortal blow before Wildcat's job began. Scarlett was halfway to death already. Why not finish her
off? There was still glory in that. The woman who killed Scarlett! It was tempting, but there was
the problem, then, of Lowlight. Much as she would love to claim his death as her doing, she
probably wasn't a match for him. Yet. But one day...
Wildcat's musings halted as Lowlight finished his work and stood up again. She was - foolishly,
but nonetheless - startled and couldn't stop her body from its already-decided need to shift
positions to assume a crouch ready for reaction. She hadn't really noticed the chirping crickets
around her until they fell silent at her movement.
Lowlight froze and snapped his shielded gaze more or less in her immediate direction. Oh God,
why had she dared to follow so closely? Only thirty yards away?! She had grossly underestimated
him. Such a small change in sound, and such a huge possible change in fate! She was well-hidden,
surely not visible... hopefully not visible...
"I know where you are," Lowlight called towards her, letting what was left of the cigarette fall from
his lips. Where it landed Wildcat couldn't be sure, as its red glow could no longer be seen. She felt
her breath return to her, had not been aware that she had been holding it. The blood in her temples
throbbed sickeningly (like one of Stravinsky's elaborately ugly works pounding in her veins) as she
watched him pull his pistol from its holster (he had dropped his sniper rifle a while back, assumedly
to lighten his load; why this killer-for-hire cared so much about saving this one life Wildcat could
not fathom). He leveled the pistol shoulder height, pointing at where she was. She didn't have time
to hold her breath again; he immediately fired.
She flinched at the crisp report of the shot and the brightness in the gun's barrel. But the bullet
didn't find her. It slashed a low-hanging branch a few feet to her left and thudded to its end in a
tree behind her.
Why is it so cold suddenly? Wildcat wondered. She realized then that it was the night's cool
breeze drying her sudden sweat. Her eyes never left Lowlight, though. His bluff was bold (and
almost not a bluff!), but at least she was sure that he couldn't actually see her. For another moment
he held the gun steady, then, finally broke his aim. He backed off, rejoining Scarlett.
A brick fell from somewhere in Wildcat's throat and landed in her stomach. She slowly - oh so
slowly - reached for her own sidearm. Her grip on the handle was unsure (damn sweaty palms),
and so she would wait. Though she was still hidden, her position was not the secret she had
believed it to be. She could not afford to make the wrong move. She would leave the next one to
him.
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