In that moment, Henry understood that he was wholeheartedly, royally screwed. Especially when the Constable didn't wait for a response from him in kind.

A rapid ka-krak of what sounded like two handguns filled in the space that would normally be reserved for open discussion. Like clockwork, the dazzling beams of curving light sailed his way mere split seconds later, leaving him with no illusions as to how bad the situation was. His only saving grace right now was that he knew that the current volume of fire could be mitigated by his abilities. Every bullet struck true, but so far his reactive shield was putting in work to keep him all in one piece.

That gave him a few seconds, maybe, to either run or face the man. Neither option seemed particularly sane to him, but he definitely couldn't hide. Not with bullets curving around his cover midair, leaving those damnable trails of light behind them whenever their course corrected.

A high-velocity piece of lead plinked off the shield near his ribs as if to emphasize his point, causing Comet to hiss and scamper off into the fog. He still had no idea whether this current misfortune was caused by the unassuming Devil or just his own rotten luck. It didn't matter right now. He needed to move.

Henry leapt to his feet, and made the split second decision between fight and flight. Impact after impact peppered him from afar. The sound of gunshots in a confined space threatened to permanently damage his hearing once more. And to add insult to injury, the Constable's maddening laughter still resonated from one end of the tunnel, the side that had been the source of the attack.

He ran in that direction.

The water churned below him as he sped past, bullets rattling against his shield like hailstones. Zigzagging between wrecked cars and rusted-out motorbikes, the few seconds where the Constable remained obscured proved useful to inventory his own arsenal. A few seconds was truly all he needed for the task; he only had a pair of knives to work with for weapons this time.

He grimaced. On the one hand, it meant that at least his death would be no great loss for the others. If his life was spent delaying Comet from wandering into them again, as well as convincing the Constable to back off with a few well-placed stab wounds… well, it was more than he'd expected to get. He'd take that deal in a heartbeat, any day of the week.

But damn, what he wouldn't give to have a gun of his own right about now. As it stood, he was as close to being a baseline human as he'd been in months. There wasn't even space for an extra set of hands to help him, given the current occupancy of his powers.

Just like the old days, huh? Hopefully I don't break anything, then...

"Well well!" The Constable shouted from within the mist somewhere just ahead. "Here I was, takin' ya fer the type to run away from a confrontation! I'm impressed, honestly. Not enough to not kill ya, but… well, the effort is appreciated."

A manic giggle punctuated that last sentence, followed by an addendum of even more bullets. Cylindrical ripples tore through the mist as he charged, some whizzing past to circle around and strike him from behind, others meeting his sprint head-on. Heedless of the risk of death approaching nearer, Henry pressed forward. He was finally close enough to make out the silhouette of his assailant.

The towering form of the Constable stood face forward, feet shoulder width apart with both arms raised into firing positions. One after the other, the muzzles of the pistols flashed and seasoned the air with the scent of burnt gunpowder. They were so close to each other now, that whenever one of those rounds chipped away at his reactive shield the flash was enough to fully illuminate the lenses of the man's glasses through the fog. He could very clearly picture the rest of his face, an insanity-riddled visage that without a doubt held one of the creepiest smiles he had ever laid eyes upon.

The Constable, upon seeing that he had gotten close enough to make him out, only barked out yet another laugh as he wound up to pistol whip him on entry.

"Surprise! Ya miss me?"

The butt of the handgun swung down towards his head like a club, forcing a high block out of Henry that rattled his forearm sore and still had momentum carry it to mere inches away from his forehead as he slid past the man's guard. No time to process anything. Just get in close, attack with everything you have, and hope something lands. One of the crudest, and yet most effective working strategies he had at his disposal, and probably his most practiced by now. It had gotten him through the first Witching Hour, and with any luck it would work out here at least a fraction as well. All he needed was one good shot.

He pushed off his back foot and lunged. Hips twisting, shoulder twisting, knife tip straight as an arrow so he could put every last scrap of strength he had into this one hail mary. As close as they were, most of the Constable's prodigious height worked against him. It left low points that couldn't be completely covered by a proper guard, make no mention of the fact that he wasn't even bothering to protect any part of his body. The blade pierced through the outer layer of weather-proof clothing, making a beeline straight for the Constable's kidney.

Unfortunately for him, that was as far as it managed to get.

Sure, he felt it slide in a few centimeters, and the Constable certainly felt the impact from the way he recoiled slightly from the touch, but underneath the heavy jacket the blade struggled to find purchase anywhere. There was a brief screech like nails on chalkboard, then the knife tore free, slashing a wide gouge in the fabric on the way out but dealing only superficial damage at best.

Good thing I brought more than one knife!

His stance shifted to keep up the pressure. No sense trying to deflect something if he could keep his opponent off balance, especially if he really didn't have a chance at defending against anything to begin with. A rhythm emerged, almost like clockwork: step, step, lunge, back-step, probing attack, lunge again. Vital point by vital point, he worked his attacks over every part of the torso he could reach. Dodging when prompted, blocking when he absolutely had to, but slowly working his way towards two realizations.

One: there was nowhere where his knives were strong enough to puncture whatever armor he was wearing underneath. Two: the Constable was most definitely playing with his food in this moment.

"Good form," he commented. "But not good enough."

The much bulkier man clapped Henry's head between his hands, disorienting him tremendously as his newly repaired ears suddenly rang with the blowback of the sudden impact.

Just that hit alone had him dead to rights, but it appeared that the Constable was just getting warmed up with him. He kicked Henry to the ground, dazed and now soaking wet, pointing both pistols at center mass. As quick as he could pull the trigger, round after round poured from the magazines of the two service pistols into his prone form.

Henry's shield flashed like a thunderhead full of lightning, weakening slowly but surely as the low-caliber bullets whittled away his defenses. With each flash, a squashed lead projectile fell into the brackish water that soaked through the back of Henry's shirt. Partially disorienting, but not completely. The Constable's battle-crazed grin drooped closer and closer to a frown as he realized Henry still had plenty of time to recover.

Henry considered himself lucky, for once. The time spent breaking his shield gave him a chance to roll on his side in the hopes of getting up.

What it did not give him, however, was a chance to dodge the bullet that finally broke through the shielding.

He heard a gun click dry as the round shredded into his abdomen mid-roll. There was pain involved with such a wound, naturally. Enough to have him writhing on the ground, clenching his teeth together hard enough he might crack a molar. More worrying to him in the moment, however, was the odd popping feeling that came with the pain, and how it suddenly got very hard to breathe.

Shit… I think he got my lung…

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Henry didn't even have a chance to fall back to the ground and retch up the blood. Stooping low, the Constable lifted him up onto to his knees by the hair. With one hand. He raised him up to eye level, glowering through the heavily reflective lenses of his glasses, nostrils flaring with unrestrained anger.

"You better hope the vampires get to the rest of you first," he growled, the former joviality to his voice dropping away in an instant. "Because they're next. And don't think they'll be getting a chance to regroup, either. I'll keep killing you, again and again, over and over and over, for as long as I need to. Until you finally learn to bite the bullet. It's the least you deserve."

Henry spluttered, finally able to cough up a mouthful of blood. Just barely enough air reached him to allow him to speak again.

"Don't…" his breath came out raspy and wheezing, the mere act of forming a coherent sentence proving a Herculean trial. "Don't you… think that's a little… excessive?" With every pause, came another ragged, gasping breath.

The Constable didn't laugh. His face went perfectly, blankly neutral. Somehow, that felt even more unsettling.

"The fookin' nerve," he seethed angrily. "The fookin' NERVE!! I gave you one job, one that you not only failed to accomplish, but did so in such a spectacular fashion that I have no method of recourse, and you have the balls to call me excessive?! You're the one who fookin' went out of yer way to kill Guillaume, ya daft bellend! You're the one here who's been excessive!!"

A slap to his ribs radiated pain throughout his entire left side, causing him to splutter in agony as the bullet dug in deeper from the impact.

"I do things the way I do 'em fer a reason, ya know!", the enraged officer exclaimed. "None of ya seem to understand that there's a reason, even when I play as fair as I can! Honestly, why do I even bother? It would save me so much trouble if I didn't!"

His fingers clenched harder against Henry's scalp, digging in deep and threatening to tear a tuft of hair from his head. And maybe some skin with it, judging by how strong his grasp was. Addled from every direction, Henry's vision began to blur as the Constable slammed his head face-first into the shallow water. Not only did that manage to bloody his nose on top of all the other damage, now his already ruined lungs were filling with even more liquid.

Stringing together a coherent thought became harder and harder. Maybe he should… just… drift off…

…

He faded towards unconsciousness, only for a sudden jerking moment to drag him back towards the light and into the face of his attacker once again. A blow to the stomach caused him to expel all the dirty water he'd taken in, along with the contents of his bowels. He was still alive, apparently. Why wouldn't he be? He was clearly not done being toyed with.

"Because of you, now I have a permanent blemish on my record! And there's nothing I can bloody do to convince them it's not my fault!"

Henry dragged in a deep inhalation of oxygen, coughing as water was pushed out of his one working lung and losing half of the air in the process.

…Them? Who's them…?

Callously, he was once again dropped to his knees, no more words forthcoming to elucidate him. A fresh magazine slotted into the empty pistol in the Constable's other hand, the barrel pointing squarely at him once it clicked into place.

"Any last words?", he raged frostily.

Words were hard for him to piece together at the moment. Thoughts, equally so. All he really had to work with were feelings. And behind the pain, the approaching cold and the worrying rattling of his own chest, there was one feeling he could make out rolling off the man responsible for all of those in waves.

Not anger. Desperation.

Henry took in one last, ragged gasp before he spoke.

"Killing me… won't fix your problems, will it…"

Silence filled the tunnel. Even the periodical dripping of water seemed to pause to assess his words.

"No," he finally declared. "But it certainly will make me feel a hell of a lot better."

It was a petty attitude that made sense to him completely. A sound loosely approximating a laugh escaped the Constable, apparently not having the heart to keep up his usual energy.

"Goodbye."

The pistol fired, and Henry faced the end.

It was a point blank shot. Aimed straight between his eyes. Maybe… three meters away from his face? Certainly close enough that even an untrained marksman should have been able to pull it off easily. The moment he saw the flash, he expected that to be the last thing he ever saw. One last moment etched into his memory before his crystal shattered, delivering that visual along unseen highways to its destination in the three other minds he shared a connection with.

But, that never happened. A secondary flash of light came a split second after, and the bullet instead curved up, towards the ceiling.

It… missed.

A look of shocked confusion enveloped the Constable's face, and he glanced down at the gun in a panic.

"The… the bloody hell happened?!", he shouted incredulously. A rhetorical question, but one that he ended up getting an answer to, anyways.

"Miau."

From the mist behind them both, a familiar black cat strutted into Henry's view. Heedless of the apparent danger of the situation, it made straight for him and hopped up onto his lap, curling up into a ball as if to take a nap.

Henry blinked, unsure what to make of it.

The Constable fired again. And again. Then a third time, too. None of them made their way to the intended target. Something that should have been downright impossible in any other circumstance.

"Now what have you done?!" He roared furiously as he slammed home two fresh magazines, repeating his prior mag-dumps in hopes of finishing him off. Invariably, each one veered away in a random direction, sending chips of stone flying from the walls and ceiling.

Not a single shot landed. Much to the infuriation of his opponent.

"Oh to hell with this!", the Constable finally decided. "Sometimes you just have to be willing to get a bit dirty, anyways!" He stomped forward angrily, intending to throttle Henry by the neck and finish him off the old-fashioned way. His hand grasped outwards, forcibly lifting his chin up in anticipation of the need to choke him.

Mere centimeters from crushing his windpipe, Comet stirred. Yawning without a care in the world, the cat stretched and looked up at the officer with half-lidded disinterest. Yet, for some reason, that was enough to get the much more threatening figure to pause mid-stride.

From seemingly nowhere, three parallel scratches on the back of his hand appeared below the surface of his glove. Henry could only just barely make out the cuts, the white fabric slowly began to leech red and drip blood to the floor.

The Constable stared back with a sudden look of great interest. There was silence for a moment, as Henry was caught in the middle of the staring contest, still slowly bleeding out, head still firmly upturned by the iron grip of the Constable. Funny. His life was literally in the hands of these two. As he struggled to stay awake, a single, barking laugh from his opponent made it just a little bit easier to keep his eyes open.

"Hah! So that's how it is!", he exclaimed. "They must be handing out Exotic Domains to just about anyone nowadays, if this is what we're getting!"

Uproarious laughter followed. Without another word, the Constable spun on his heel and backed away from finishing the job, acting like he'd just heard the best damn joke in all of Hallow London. To Henry's complete shock, he was suddenly no longer interested in fulfilling the promise he made.

"Well, that's that, I suppose. Nothin' more I can do here, if I value being able to keep doing my job."

Henry coughed again. "Does… you're not going to kill me? What was all that talk about, then?! Did I pass your test, or something?!"

"Haha! Oh, Henry, you're a real riot sometimes, ya know that? Yer close, but not quite there. The cat passed, not you. I imagine that says a lot, considering that a literal housepet makes for a better Devil than you do!"

Laughter pealed through the tunnel as the crazed man trudged off into the fog.

"But in all seriousness," the words of the officer echoed through the mist before he left completely. "With the state I got you to before that little imp showed up, I'll eat my damn hat if you make it even three steps from that spot."

Despite the claim, he didn't stick around to find out. After a point, obscured by distance, the source of his haunting laughter disappeared entirely, leaving only the faint echo to ever indicate he'd been around.

Henry and Comet shared a look, the cat's expression unreadable as he processed just what the hell had happened.

I wonder where that leaves us… as well as whether or not I should be telling that bloke to start setting the table.

Strangely enough, he was starting to feel better already. He might even go for a walk, later.

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