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To Dad, for years of westerns, action movies, and guns.
(P.S. You don’t have to read this book either. I just need you to read these next two sentences: Thanks for being everything I ever needed in a father. I love you.)
Table of Contents CHAPTER 1 Kitty saw the bullets tear into Mary’s belly, watched the red stain cover the flowered dress that she’d just stitched up for her closest friend, and her first thought was that there was no way she could repair that kind of damage. The dress was ruined. Close on the heels of that thought was: someone needs to kill the bastard that shot Mary. They were supposed to be at a meeting, a peaceful, weapons-not-needed negotiation with representatives of a local monastic order. They were supposed to be collecting a payment. They were definitely not supposed to be dealing with trigger-happy monks, but reality had collided with expectations several minutes and a few corpses ago when the monks had pulled guns out from under their gray robes. Worse yet, as Kitty reached for her six-shooter, she heard the atonal mutterings as several of the monks started their prayers. She slid the gun back into the holster. She’d much rather shoot than deal with the alternatives, but bullets and spells tended to mix poorly. Her partner, Edgar, tossed her a knife. Kitty caught it and kept moving, scanning the area as she walked. There were the two praying monks, two more that her brother, Jack, was dealing with, and the one she’d lost track of in the initial round of gunfire. She couldn’t shoot the praying ones, and Jack was handling his. It was the missing monk—the one who’d shot Mary—who had to die now. She needed to flush the monk out or lure him out. She stopped and turned slowly in a circle, watching for her prey and waiting for him to do the obvious. Edgar’s expression was tense as he watched her. He never liked it when she was brash, and if she were honest, she’d be even worse if the roles were reversed. She averted her gaze from him and was about to move toward the shadowed interior of the nearest building when a bullet came from the building and grazed her shoulder. “Found you,” she whispered as the second bullet hit the ground next to her. The monk stepped out of the building; simultaneously, she charged him. The monk closed his eyes and joined his voice to the other praying monks, summoning their
