Live and Let Drood

the rifle out of his hands with one swift movement, turned it around, and shot the sniper with his own gun. The biting bullet hit him square in the left eye, even though that wasn’t where Molly had aimed. The things must come preprogrammed. The impact sent the sniper flying backwards, and he crashed to the ground, dead. But he didn’t lie still. His dead head whipped back and forth as the bullet raged this way and that inside, eating up everything it found there. Whoever designed the bullets had been determined that whoever was shot by one would not recover. The head’s movements grew fainter and fainter, until finally the bullet was still, satisfied. Molly looked down at the dead sniper, studying him expressionlessly, and then threw the rifle aside.
    And while she was preoccupied, one of the trees beside her threw off its disguising illusion and became a mercenary soldier.
    He hit Molly round the back of the head with a heavy wooden staff, and she dropped to her knees. She cried out briefly. I ran forward, but I could tell I wasn’t going to get there in time. I’d let her get too far ahead. I’d just strolled along after her because I was sure she could handle the situation. More soldiers appeared out of nowhere, running forward to block my way. I ploughed into them, throwing their broken bodies aside. Molly needed me. I could hear the soldier who’d hit her talking to her. He didn’t even bother to look in my direction.
    “Major Tim Browten at your service, dear Miss Metcalf. The wild witch herself…Sorry to have to come at you so ungallantly from ambush, but I’m not stupid. This staff in my hand, this very old item that just struck you down so easily and so completely, is the Witch’s Hammer of Matthew Hopkins, witch finder. Just one blow with this blessed wood is all it takes to rob a witch of her powers for a time. Now, you be a good little girl and just lie there, and let me kill you quicklyand efficiently. So much better for both of us, eh? You’ll only make it worse for yourself if you struggle.”
    I was still fighting through a growing crowd of soldiers. They were throwing everything they had at me just to slow me down.
    I saw Molly try to get up, anyway, and the major hit her again, slamming the heavy wood into the side of her head with calm efficiency. I heard her cry out again. I heard the sound the staff made as it hit her head. I saw the blood leap from her torn scalp and rush down one side of her face. Molly went down on one knee, staring dazedly at the grass before her as it turned red with her blood. And then she forced her face up again to glare at Major Browten.
    “Don’t embarrass yourself, Miss Metcalf,” he said calmly. “You have no magic now, remember? I took it all away with my Witch’s Hammer.”
    “I’ll see your Witch’s Hammer, you son of a bitch,” said Molly. “And raise you a protein exploder.”
    She brought up the small box in a steady hand and pointed it at his groin at point-blank range. She hit the button, and I swear I actually saw the major’s testicles explode in slow motion. He sank heavily to his knees before Molly, and clutched desperately at the gaping wound between his thighs, blood spurting thickly past his hands. Molly looked at him with her bloody face and then put the protein exploder away. She forced herself back up onto her feet, now with the Witch’s Hammer in her hands. She hit Major Browten over the head with it, a blow so hard the staff broke in two. The major fell forward, dead before he hit the ground. Molly laughed at him breathlessly and threw the broken pieces of the staff aside.
    I’d finally fought my way through the last soldiers and caught up to Molly. I was reaching out to her to make sure she was all right when another tree dropped its disguise, to become another mercenary soldier. Molly and I both turned to confront him, and then stopped abruptly as we saw what he was holding. It was a monkey’s paw made over into a Hand of Glory. Very illegal, very dangerous, completely bloody foolhardy. In some countries you can still be executed just for admitting you’ve heard of such a thing. The flames rising from the tinywrinkled fingers were bloodred and didn’t tremble at all. Molly and I stood very still. A monkey’s paw is hideously dangerous in its own right, able to alter reality itself. But to add to that the gifts and power of a Hand of Glory? That’s like deciding a thermonuclear device isn’t dangerous enough and