“Four to five days, my ba—”
“I’m sure Ms. Vernadette made her best estimate. Crossing the ocean in four days was already inhuman. Turns out the Gray Ghost did it in two and a half. I don't blame her for getting it wrong. The guy is...”
“A goddamn son of a bitch,” Adam interrupted.
“There's no need for profanity, Adam,” Eve reproached him.
“We've known each other for I don't know how many years, and you're still doing that?”
“I know you won't stop. But it is my duty, for the sake of my manners, to point it out,” Eve commented as she stepped out through the passenger door of the matte-black van that had taken them to the beach. “But I can agree with you on this. The Gray Ghost is a... Well, whatever you said.”
Adam got out of the passenger seat. He liked sitting there, even though it was unnecessary and arguably in poor taste. Sitting in the back made him feel like royalty. And he hated royalty. Except for Eva, of course. As he did so, he took a half-full box of cigarettes and pulled one out to light.
“I hate sand,” he commented as he stepped onto the beach in his combat boots. He would have preferred to wear his sneakers, but Eve had scolded him because she considered it a strategic mistake to attend a fight to the death against what was possibly one of the most powerful beings alive while wearing shoes that were on the verge of wearing out. At least she hadn't said anything about his ripped jeans or his colorful shirt, which he now wore open to enjoy the sea air against his bare torso. She hadn't said anything about his sunglasses either, despite it being almost three in the morning. “How are you going to walk in those heels?”
Eva, for her part, was dressed as if she were going to an important business meeting. She wore fitted dress pants, a crimson blouse, a scarf around her neck, and black wool gloves.
“I won't.”
“Of course. The dog goes alone. As always.”
“Don't complain, Adam. You know perfectly well I'll be able to see everything from here, and I'll be supporting you with my Angelino.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, drawing his revolver to reload it. “Three?”
“We always use three.”
“Yeah, but...”
“Are you nervous? You can tell me if...”
“I'm not nervous. I'm just confirming,” he interrupted her and loaded his weapon with three bullets. “Although I won't lie, I'd rather hurry this up and use just one.”
“One is too much of a risk, Adam. We've already talked about this.”
“Even so, we've never had to use more than one...”
“Trust me. The odds don't lie. Now go out there and face him. He's about to arrive, and we don't want him to get away. If he's that fast in the ocean, I don't even want to imagine how fast he'll be out here.”
“Then we'll have to ask Lady A how she's managed to keep track of him all this time.”
Without saying anything else, Adam advanced several meters toward the shoreline, stopping just before the waves could reach his boots.
He waited there for a minute. Then two. The atmosphere was very peaceful. There wasn't a soul in sight, and the only sound was that of the waves. Adam found it amusing. It gave the impression that the world was completely oblivious to the battle about to take place. Or perhaps the exact opposite, and life itself was holding its breath.
He finished his cigarette and took out another. Just as he was about to throw the butt into the sea, he thought about how Eve would scold him when he returned, so he put it in his pocket instead. He imagined her smiling at the gesture. He knew she must already be watching him.
That was another thing he found amusing: that his partner worried about such trivialities even while being part of that War. To him, nothing really mattered anymore after learning about the Processus Renaissance.
A few meters out on the horizon, a head began to emerge from the surface of the sea, and in less than half a minute, the Gray Ghost stood before him.
It was the first time Adam had seen him from this close. He really was as frightening as Lady A had described. His entire body was a pale gray, and the little clothing he wore consisted of a very worn dark-gray tunic, similar to those worn by Greeks and Romans in movies, and a leather belt carrying his sword, a long katana with a black edge. He was barefoot, and his hair was extremely long and white, just like his eyes.
All of that was what Adam expected, which was why he had been given the name Gray Ghost. But there was something else, a very important detail that no one had ever mentioned to him, and now that he saw it, it struck him as vitally important. So much so that he had to force himself to lift his sunglasses to make sure it wasn't some trick of the light. The Gray Ghost's body had dark indentations at every joint, exactly like the joints of a doll or puppet.
“Welcome,” he greeted him as he put his sunglasses back in place. The truth was, none of those details mattered. His mission was to finish him here and now. He could ask questions afterward. “I bet you weren't expecting us here.”
The only response he received from the Gray Ghost was silence.
“Our colleague already told me you're a man of few words. Well, it doesn't matter.” He took one last drag from his cigarette and went to throw it on the ground, but remembered Eve again. He extinguished it with his boot and put it in his pocket. “I propose we play a game.”
Silence.
“Although I say
propose
only as a courtesy. You don't have a choice. Just as I don't have a choice but to tell you the rules.” He drew his revolver. “It's simple. You win if you dodge three of Ingrid's bullets,” he explained, raising the weapon to make it clear he was referring to her. “Of course, if you take even one hit, you die. What do you think?”
Silence.
“Okay, as my partner would say. Silence gives consent.”
Without aiming or even moving the weapon an inch, he fired. The bullet traveled in a straight trajectory toward the sky for a second before veering off and curving toward the back of the Gray Ghost's neck. When, just one second later, the bullet was about to hit, the Gray Ghost moved his head to the right, and it passed by him toward Adam.
With an astonished expression, Adam made the bullet dodge him and circle around him a couple of times before sending it toward his opponent again. But the Gray Ghost, drawing his sword at an abysmal speed, struck it with the steel of his blade and drove it into the sand.
“Very well... I have to say, you're the first person who...”
Unable to finish the sentence, Adam ducked purely on instinct, thus avoiding losing his head to an attack from the Gray Ghost, who approached him before his eyes had even finished analyzing the movement.
As quickly as he could, he aimed Ingrid at his opponent's leg and fired.
At mere centimeters away, Adam expected to hit him that time, but his enemy once again proved to be inhumanly fast, and in the blink of an eye, he was behind him.
From there, the Gray Ghost executed another attack that traced across Adam's entire back.
Before the blood could touch the sand, the swordsman changed position again and delivered a slash aimed at Adam's neck from his left flank. Adam barely managed to stop it with the barrel of Ingrid.
“Good thing this isn't a normal gun, or else...”
The Gray Ghost interrupted him with a kick to the jaw that sent him falling backward.
“Goddamn so—” Adam began to complain, now bleeding from the mouth as well and thankful he hadn't bitten his tongue. However, his opponent, determined not to give him a second's respite, appeared over him and brought his black sword down toward his face.
Adam rolled across the ground and tried to get up, but immediately received another kick to the ribs that sent him flying several meters in the opposite direction.
Taking advantage of the distance, Adam didn't even bother getting up. He simply aimed. It was his last shot. If he missed... He didn't know what would happen if he missed; he had never lost the game before. He needed to hit him, but how could he do it against that monster? If the other two shots hadn't worked, would a direct one?
His mind hadn't finished forming those questions when he perceived his opponent's black blade about to strike him right in the middle of the face. Once again, instinct took over, and he used his third shot to deflect the sword.
The Gray Ghost, realizing that it was all over, stopped. He inspected his blade and, without ever changing his expression of indifference, looked at Adam and nodded.
Adam didn't know what to make of the gesture, but when the swordsman raised his sword above his head, it wasn't difficult to understand that he was going to execute him.
“Wait!” Adam exclaimed, raising his hands into the air and dropping Ingrid. The Gray Ghost remained motionless. “I've lost... Would you allow me to die standing?”
Although the Gray Ghost's eyes were completely white, without pupils, Adam felt his gaze settle directly on his eyes for an entire second. Then he nodded a second time.
Adam stood up, brushed the sand off his ripped jeans, removed his sunglasses, and looked at him again.
“I'm ready,” he said, but before the Gray Ghost's sword could begin descending toward him, the second bullet he had fired passed through him from the side and struck his opponent directly in the abdomen. “Oh, sorry. I think the outcome has changed,” he said, enduring the pain.
Although the bullet didn't seem to have caused the Gray Ghost any real damage, he collapsed onto the sand.
“Damn, that was way too close,” Adam complained, letting out a relieved breath and lighting another cigarette before worrying about his multiple wounds. “Way too damn close.”
“You did well,” Eva's voice told him through their bond from inside his mind. “Good thing we used three bullets.”
“I propose that next time we face someone like this, we try a different game.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Or better yet, you face him yourself.”
“I don't think that's a good idea. It makes no sense.”
“Whatever,” Adam said, sitting down on the sand to finish smoking his cigarette. “Now what?”
“I think you need a hospital.”
“Besides that...”
“Well, Ms. Vernadette will tell us when we report our victory.”
“Of course she will. Duty never stops calling,” he said, lighting another cigarette.