Kite Collins
Okay, so all cards on the table: let's say you had the choice between fighting a fire demon barefoot on a bed of flaming coals...and speaking at an old friend's funeral.
If it's not obvious, Kite decided an hour ago that he'd rather have the demon. Funerals--like weddings, birthdays, magic shows, and baby showers--made him anxious. And not a normal kind of anxious where you just don't want to be in a place. That's to be expected with funerals. What Kite felt was more like...fat. He felt too fat for his clothes. His abs were a six pack of gummy bears. His trigger finger was too pudgy to budge. He just felt fat...out of anxiety.
Close to fainting, he popped a drizzle of tic tacs and munched them into dust. Looking at Brian, he swallowed. "How much longer until they call me?"
Brian had a pair of earbuds stealthily slid up into his ears, underneath his shirt, iPod hidden in his pocket. Casually, he looked at his watch. "Thirty seconds."
Kite choked. Demhara continued reading her Italian poem at the coffin, but Kite was dying. "I'm not ready!" he shout-whispered. "Nothing could prepare me for speaking after Demi! She's a bleeding heart and it's her brother."
Tears were streaming down a swamp of fucked mascara and concealer. Puffy cheaks bulged. Black-painted lips read words no one other than Sophie understood.
And then she stopped.
"I'm screwed."
Brian took a sip of Cola. Sunlight reflected off his head. "Not my funeral."
"Now, to close off our ceremony is, as written in Hadrian's will, his best friend...followed by a series of what my nephew tells me letters that stand for Laughing Out Loud." The old 3073 priest held out his hand for Kite to take the grass.
Kite stepped forward and placed a little flower on top of the other bouquets of flowers gathered from Hadrian's past teams. Say what you want, 3073 funerals were anything but cheap. Feeling keenly as though people were staring at his ass, Kite turned and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"It's a little cliche," he squeaked, "that the final speaker at a funeral is the person who was deemed closest to the dead...guy. Deceased. That's the word." He coughed. "With that in mind, I appreciate Hadrian's want for his funeral to be anything but cliche." He bent down, picked another daisy, tossed it on the coffin with a sigh. "What do you say at a douchebag's funeral? Certainly not that he was a douchebag. Not in front of his mess of a sister." A huff. "What I mean to say is that Hadrian was a tough guy. Not in the physical sense--because he was weak in a fist-fight, not really good with a gun...kind of a mess with ranged attacks, too, come to think of it. Wow, it's a wonder we didn't have this sooner."
He caught his train of thought as the audience splattered with coughs.
"I think what I can say is that Hadrian was loyal to a fault. He stuck to his metaphorical guns and that's what killed him. That and being tossed out a 13-story window after a brutal battle, possessed by a class-C demon."
Near the back, Marquee dabbed his black eye with a swab of Tabitha's make-up and sighed. "Not exactly the most moving funeral in history, is it, Tabby Cat?"
Jenson turned to him and leered. "The fuck do you think I am?"
Marquee sighed again. "Sorry, force of habit."
"So, in conclusion, the demon hunter is dead. Long live the demon hunter." He drew his spirit gun and aimed at the air. As did a dozen other agents. They all fired together.
It wasn't the best funeral an agent had had. It certainly wouldn't be the worst.
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