Part Twenty Seven: When The Time Comes Caleb caught sight of the Cultist again as soon as he had taken the corner, just glimpsing the hem of its robe as it immediately ran out of the range of his vision once more. Even Caleb who was far from   being the brightest of bulbs was still astute enough to know what that meant; whoever it was that was hidden under that heavy garment had never intended to take him out in the first place. Instead, they had killed the woman merely as a means of getting his attention. Even though he had never really like her and had in fact been threatening the lady in question right before the time of her death, something about that still managed to rub him the wrong way. He still felt the bloodlust burning within him, his eyes looking as if they were going to burst out of their sockets based on the amount of radiant red warmth that was emanating from them. More people were going to die tonight, that much was certain. Caleb had already sussed out the Cultist's game; they were going to lead him into a trap, but he was ready for them. He had a surprise on him that they probably did not know about. His trench coat harboured many secrets, and not every bulge was as innocent as it may have first appeared. Having finally approached where he had seen the Cultist last, Caleb pressed himself against the wall and inched himself forwards, peering cautiously into the room that the Cultist must have entered in order to have made its escape. Even at this point in the night, the room was crowded. A fancy dress party had been scheduled for the evening, and while it had already begun to die down the room was still full of people in a variety of outlandish and outrageous costumes. It really was no surprise that the Cultist could have been able to slip into this mess unmolested and undetected. For Caleb, the distinction of what was what, who was who, or which was which had by now become rather unimportant. He grabbed from one of his many pockets a bundle of dynamite, extracting one stick from the mass and lighting it carefully with his lighter. He then casually tossed it around the corner and into the room. At first, nothing happened. Caleb began to wonder if the thing had somehow managed to burn itself out and questioned whether or not he would now have to go in and get it, something which was every explosives expert's worst nightmare. Then, like music to his hears, came the explosion and the screams. Death may have been the main effect of the blast, but fear was Caleb's real watchword. He wanted to let the Cultist and all of its fellows know that he was coming. He rounded the corner with his sawed-off drawn, blasting anything and everything that moved. As the smoke cleared, the extent of the carnage began to become clear, and more targets became visible for him to shoot at. "Run, run!" Caleb cried out, right before he started cackling. All of his fears, concerns, and frustrations left him as he fired, evaporating into the bloody haze that increasingly started to envelope the room around him. When all the smoke had finally cleared there was no one else left alive, but he had still not spotted any robed bodies lying on the floor. Caleb stomped through the blood and viscera and came to the room's only other egress, repeating his performance of before by flattening himself against the wall and slinking forwards towards the opening. This time upon glancing around the corner however a shot came forth to greet him, striking the door frame and causing wood shards to fall to the floor. He certainly had managed to get them twitched at least. "They're gonna need a bucket and a mop when I'm done with you!" Caleb shouted back, extracting another stick from his dynamite bundle. This time the fuse almost burned through while the stick was still in Caleb's hands, causing him to fumble it a bit and not give it the distance that he had hoped. Regardless, this time it exploded almost as soon as it had hit the deck, granting Caleb the cover he needed to come in guns blazing. This time he saw robes, and shot them down before they could return in kind. His initial satisfaction with finally making contact with his enemy began to subside nonetheless as more and more robed men became visible to him, presenting more targets than he could possibly hit. He was going to lose this particular game of whack a mole. "In marana domus-bhaava crunatus!" one of the Cultists cried, aware of the advantage that they had suddenly acquired. Caleb had fallen for their trap anyway, even if their only real trap was one of numbers. In among all this shouting Caleb noticed something about the ground where his last blast of dynamite had hit. He doubled back slowly, still firing, and stood on the spot in question. "Vilomox this, asshole..." he shot back, right before pointing his sawed-off down to the ground and blasting the area beneath his feet. As he had predicted, the floorboards gave way and sent him plummeting down to whatever lay below. None of the Cultists were brave enough to follow. Hamish Paul Wilson September 7, 2014