The coast is clear. At least I think it is. Shit. All this rain makes it hard to run for your life.

A crow gives me away - cawing like a maniac as I come bursting out of the bushes. I hear a shout in the distance. I crash through the door in front of me and slam it shut. More angry voices - more insane villagers heeding the call of the first.

I drop beneath the window but it's too late. They're coming.

I can hear my heart hammering in my chest despite the rain - that, and the mindless moaning of the villagers. I can hear the sizzle of their torches, smell the putrid stench of rotten cooking in the ruinous kitchen. Lighting flashes, bright and startling - the dark room momentarily opens up. There's a bookcase. I throw my weight behind my shoulder and push it in front of the door. I've bought myself a minute, maybe.

I peak over the widow sil, the barrel of gun cold on my cheek.

Five. Just five. For now. Brandishing pitchforks and scythes, walking towards this ratty two-storey without hurry. They're plotting.

One of them shouts to the others in a language I can't understand. I think it's French. I doesn't matter - I didn't need to stay away in languages to know that they're calling reenforcements. And man, do these fuckers move. I have to think fast. The rain's coming down hard.

Lighting - there's a string handing from a brass ring on the ceiling. I holster my gun and jump for it. Missed.

I turn to the window. Shit! A villager lets out a garbled cry and hucks his scythe at me - glass shatters - I fall to my knees and narrowly avoid getting shortened by a head. Before I'm on me feet, he's halfway through the window.

My house, bitch.

I whip out my shotgun and let it roar. His head explodes in a flash of red and the bullet takes out the guts of the woman climbing in behind him.

The toppled bookcase creaks in front of the door. More than five now. Definitely.

I get the string - yank it and stairs come spilling out of the ceiling.

"Allí él es! La ventana!"

More villagers pile up around the opening. It's like the fucking highschool prom - these bastards are so focussed and so stupid at the same time. The pounding on the door gets furious.

I scramble up just as two young men simultaneously spill through the window. The first lurches at the stairs but I make him a puddle with one shot to the head. I grab the stairs - heave - and pull them up before the second makes a grab. The trapdoor shuts neatly behind them. My fingers scramble around for the end of the string - I pull it up and slash it with my knife. I can hear the brass ring hit the floor, and the man grunt in surprise.

Dark as a face-full of velvet. I flick my lighter and the pitch black attic retreats into shadows. Silver glints at the edge of my vision. Padlock, right on the seam of the trapdoor. I snap it shut.

I can't heart the rain anymore. I can only hear my heartbeat, and the moans of the creatures downstairs.

A quick look tells me I'm safe for the moment - that is unless they get ambitious and decide to burn the village down. I wouldn't put it passed them. I've learned to be very open-minded in the hour since my arrival. Like, for example, your modern rural European farmer can take six fucking shots to the gut and keep on rolling. Life's a goddamn education.

There's one small window - I close my lighter and sneak a look out. Turns out I picked the one building in town not attached at the roof to any other. Good, I guess - no surprises. Except if they think of that burning thing. Today just isn't my day.

My heartbeat slows as I watch the villagers - six... no, eight now - convene in front of the house, torchlight casting their warped faces in horrible shadows. The banging on the door stops.

I'm ready to break out the glass and do my best Cassidy... but something's wrong. They've stopped coming at me. And they aren't going anywhere. They're just... standing there. Looking up at the window. Right at me.

A few are still downstairs. I can hear them knocking around. Trying to find something to stand on, maybe.

I get a smoke from my chest pocket, light it, and wait. The lighting flickers half-heartedly.

Minutes pass, heartbeat slows to near normal. I figure they aren't coming after me. Whatever's giving them their stupid strength is making them hang back.

I don't like it. I know where I stand when it's on the trigger end of a gun. Something's going on.

After a while I get tired of watching them watch me. The cherry on my cigarette winks at me in the glass.

So - attic. There must be something. I pull out my lighter and pan the flame around the room. There are boxes and crates, a few old furnishings covered in dusty cloths. I pull the nearest one off - a chair. Despite the smell of mildew, it looks comfy.

You want to wait? I can wait. I can wait 'til Armageddon if I have to.

I rest my shotgun across my knees and lean back in the chair.

Stalemate. It's going to be a long night.

It was getting to be a very long day.

Leon gave me his most sour look. "You're a shit."

I shrugged. "What else is new?" As irritated as he looked, I noticed he didn't stop packing his suitcase. All the necessaries - clean underwear, shirt and jacket, sawed-off and a dozen boxes of shells. Thank god he didn't have to go through customs. He tossed them in together roughly and had a hard time snapping the latch.

"There's nothing I can do, Bailey. I have to go." When he looked up his face had softened. He flicked his hair out of his eyes and crossed his arms.

"The question is, are we going to be friends when you get back." I ran my tongue over my teeth and tried to look more pissed-off than I felt. I was worried. Sure Leon's a big boy. But this didn't feel right. The late-night phone calls taken in the basement; the anonymous envelopes dropped off with the mail; this wasn't typical Secret Service stuff. I knew procedure back to front. Cloak-and-dagger bullshit went out with Hoover.

"Don't fight with me," said Leon wearily. All the strength suddenly sapped out of him and he sat heavily on the bed. "I don't need this right now."

"There are things you're not telling me. This is a contract job. You don't have to take it. You can walk away."

He let out a wild sort of laugh and shook his head. "Not now."

Leon had just got back from a two-week stint in Prague when another envelop found its way into our house. I dreaded the sound of the mailman on the porch. When I went to airport to get him he was pale and feverish - for three days he lay in bed and wavered in and out of consciousness. I've never been so scared in my life. He pulled out of it fine except for body aches, which even now, a week after coming home, still made him wince when he moved his left arm. He said it was just a flu. He had bruises all over his back and down his legs - and one small pucker between the toes on his left foot. When I asked him about it he said, "Probably a spider bite," and quickly went on to show me his snapshots of the Old Jewish Cemetery.

He suddenly got up, grabbed his suitcase, and headed to the door. I bit my lip.

"Be careful," I called after him. He paused in the doorway and flashed me a dashing smile.

"I always am, babe."

And then he was gone.

And here I am.

I dozed for a bit, the ebbing rain like a lullaby, the moaning bastards downstairs like nightmares on the edge of breaking. It wasn't really rest, but it was something.

Suddenly a bell tolls - sharp and loud enough to rattle the glass. I jump to my feet and peer out the window. My guards drop their torches and pitchforks. They turn as one to the source of the bell - the church at the top of the town's farthest hill.

Stomping downstairs, glass shatters. - the ones in the house come outside to join their friends. The group ambles off like nursing home seniors called to lunch.

More bodies sway out into the streets and join the throng. Soon it's a dozen, then nearly two, all headed towards the bell.

I wait until the streets are empty and the bell stops toning before I blow off the padlock and kick down the stairs.

I'm coming, Leon. Wherever you are.