“You are mine now, gaijin. My little—”

Kate made a choked noise. For a second everyone was frozen, all sound and movement dampened, only the firelight flicking with life.

Madoc tried to elbow his captor in the side of his temple, but swung only at air. Kate’s head was lying on the floor.

Dunstan managed to spit out some choice vulgarity before there was the sound of metal rending flesh and his head, too, was dropping from a stumped neck.

Mugs grabbed the pistol in his boot and fired at Madoc’s closest living man, striking him in the chest with blood-letting lead. The adrenaline that shot through his system pushed the pain of his injuries away but it could not save him from collapsing under the wounded ankle. He tried to push through it, toward another man that threatened his crew, before crumpling and hitting his head against the ground heavily.

The pain in his shoulder blossomed. Mugs rolled on the floor, mouth agape in silent agony. I wasn’t shot. I wasn’t stabbed. What the hell is happening?

Madoc appeared, hovering with a blade in one hand and a smoking pistol in the other. A murderous glee shone in his eyes, teeth glistening with spittle and his strange and youthful skin flush in the firelight.

This is my death, Mugs thought. A reaper of souls standing before me with his sickle. It was almost amusing, the suddenness. Of course he was aware of the banality of death, having himself been its reaper often. This was not a theater, but a battlefield. Yet the thought lent him no comfort.

Madoc’s sword came flashing down.

Mugs couldn’t see what happened. His vision was swimming and pulsating with the pain. He only heard Madoc scream, saw his form back away into the darkness. It wasn’t for another moment that he realized the warmth that had begun to spread on his cheek was blood, and the glint of metal on the ground was not just a sword, but the arm that had been wielding it as well.

It was Shin. His savior yelled something but Mugs’ senses were deafened. Nothing could be heard but a dull whine that seemed to grow with every passing second. He watched, numb, as the man touched his shoulder and pull away with black slime stretched between his fingertips. He watched the horror on his face as he whispered, and read the words from his lips: Black Blood, Black Blood…

Shin began to drag Mugs away from the fire, from the girl. The whine in his ears turned to a piercing ring. The cries and wails of the men around him echoed faintly. He could smell the blood as gunshots popped in the dark, their smoke drifting and curling into the firelight. The shadows of the men were falling one by one. And lying still.

Shin swore harshly in Japanese.

“I’ll get you out of here,” he said desperately to a deaf Mugs. “Don’t you worry I’ll get you out of here!”

It was only a moment later when he was run through with a blade.

Shin made a choking sound and blinked slowly, as if sleepy. He did not react when the blade disappeared, or when the blood began to flow freely from the wound.

Mugs tried to scream for his friend but found himself paralyzed. He watched Shin mouth something with his eyes closed. The man appeared at peace, almost. Serene. Then he slumped and collapsed soundlessly out of Mugs’ vision.

Shin was dead.

Fear, anger, and pain. The trifecta of anguish tore through his mind and body. Mugs became acutely aware of a cloaked figure standing over him as his vision was slowly blinded. It carried both a long and a short blade, and from the last of his sight before he was blinded he saw it: the Mask of the Hokkaido. The Ghost Wolf.

It was the last thing he saw. Mugs gave a sputtered sigh and went still.