Hell Come Sundown (10 page)

“Cortes and the others did not know how to destroy me. After all, how do you kill something that is already dead? So they elected to lock me away and hide me in a place where I would never be found. I was placed in an iron box, the protection of which was assigned to Cortes's most trusted servant, Garcia. He was given a wagon, provisions, horses, a couple of Indian slaves, as well as a saddlebag full of gold, and was told to go as far away as humanly possible and never return.

“And so I spent three hundred years trapped in eternal darkness, immobile yet still aware of my surroundings. I felt my skin wither and the flesh rot from my bones while being tormented by a dreadful thirst that burned in my belly, just like the coals I used to roast that accursed six-fingered priest! I would have probably stayed buried until the sun dwindled to a cinder, if not for those fools searching for water.

“I am far older and wiser now. I shall have my empire, but I shall take my time building it. The mistake I made before was thinking in terms of human spans. Because of that, I exposed myself to the cattle on which I preyed, and gave sworn enemies a chance to unify against a greater threat. I know better, now. What are years, even decades, to one who measures his existence in centuries?”

Hell spat into the dirt at his feet in disgust. “So, are we gonna get on with this, or are you gonna keep jawing?”

“I had hoped that you, of all my spawn, might be able to appreciate what I had to say,” Sangre grimaced. “But I see you are as thick-witted as the rest of the natives of this wretched continent! But before we continue, you must rid yourself of that horrid bauble you wear about your neck.”

Hell looked over at Pretty Woman. The left side of her face was so swollen it looked as if someone had managed to shove a small rubber ball under her eyelid. She turned her head slightly, so that she could see him with her good eye, and mouthed the word ‘
no
'. Hell's fingers closed about the medallion, pulling it free from around his neck with a single yank, and let it drop to the ground.

As the bloodstone fell from his grasp, he was overcome by a rage so intense and all encompassing it tinged everything red, as if someone had dipped everyone and everything around him in blood. It was as if he had been standing on the beach and a great wave had suddenly come up from nowhere and crashed down on him, dragging him out to sea. He could not see, hear or breathe, and he could not regain his footing as he fought against the tide. But instead of water, he was surrounded by a fearsome darkness, and the harder he struggled, the more he drowned.

His belly burned as if packed with hot sand, and his tongue felt as if it was made of jerked beef. The agony was so intense he cried out, burying his face in his hands. He knew he would do whatever it might take to quench the thirst raging within him, even if it meant crawling on his belly through barbed wire and broken glass. Suddenly a voice broke through the screeching white noise that filled his head. When it spoke the words were like a cool hand on a feverish brow.

You need not suffer so. All that is needed to end the pain is a little blood. Drink from the woman. Her blood is yours. Take it, my son
.

Hell lifted his face from his hands and stared at the Indian woman before him. A part of him found her familiar, but he could not push aside the fire in his gut long enough to think of where he knew her from.

Her blood will be sweeter than any wine. It will slake your thirst and make you strong. Drink deep, my son, and bind yourself to my service for all eternity
.

Hell slowly approached the trembling woman. Although she struggled mightily to escape, she was unable to free herself from the two strong men pinning her arms behind her back. Her one good eye was wide with terror, and the fear coursing through her body made her carotid artery pulse even faster. If he concentrated, he could hear her blood rushing through her veins, pumping through her racing heart. It was as if it were calling out to him, begging him to set it free.

He leaned forward, brushing his cheek against the side of her head. She involuntarily gasped and held her breath. Her perfume was a heady mixture of fear and sweat. Something buried deep inside Sam Hell stirred, twisting about like a snake trapped in a jar.

“Sam,”
the woman whispered, a solitary tear trickling from her good eye.

Hell grabbed her by the hair, jerking back her head so that she could see his face as he grinned, exposing his teeth. He opened his mouth wide, arching his neck like a cobra preparing to spit its venom—and sank his fangs deep into the throat of the man holding Pretty Woman's right arm.

The bandit screamed and let go of his captive in a desperate attempt to pull himself free. With a savage sidewise shaking of his head, Hell tore open the bandit's jugular vein. The blood that spurted into his mouth tasted sweet, quenching the fire in his guts. Part of him wanted to keep drinking until his skin was as full and tight as a tick's, but he forced himself to stop for fear of losing himself in a feeding frenzy. The mortally wounded bandit fell to the ground, one hand clamped over the pumping gash in his throat, blood squirting between his fingers like water from a hose.

The smell of spilled blood was making the assembled dead'uns increasingly agitated. An undead dancehall girl leapt onto the wounded bandit before he had a chance to scream, and within seconds he was buried under a writhing carpet of pale, dead flesh. The dead'uns snarled and snapped at one another like a pack of jackals as they fought to feed.

“Madre de Dios!”
exclaimed the bandit holding Pretty Woman's left arm, recoiling from the sight of his comrade being ripped to shreds.

The second her remaining captor loosened his grip, Pretty Woman turned on him, slamming the heel of her palm into his nasal bridge while bringing her knee into his groin. He went down hard, cupping his hands over his shattered nose. He had time to scream only once before he, too, was swarmed.

“Run for it, Pretty!” Hell shouted before he disappeared under a sea of grasping hands and flailing limbs.
“Run!”

The shamaness sprinted toward the church with two of Sangre's human followers on her heels. Suddenly there was a hail of gunfire from the church, dropping one of the bandits dead in his tracks, and causing the second to dive for cover. The door to the church opened, and Pretty Woman darted inside. Cuss and Clem continued to lay down fire from the windows while the rest of the men hurriedly replaced the barricade.

Once she was safely inside and the doorway was blocked once again, Cuss handed his rifle over to Elmer and dropped down from his sniper's perch. “Good to have you back, Missy.”

“It's good to be back, Cuss. But this is far from over. Sam's still out there, and in greater danger than any of us could possibly imagine. I've got to help him.” She went over to where the Tucker children were busily loading the spare rifles with ammunition. “Girl!” she said, pointing at Katie. “You must answer the question I am about to ask truthfully: Have you ever been with a man?”

The young girl's cheeks turned bright pink and she her eyes.

“What kind of question is that for a squaw to ask a god-fearin' white girl?” Mrs. Tucker said indignantly.

“Stay out of this!” Pretty Woman snapped. “It is for the girl to answer!”

“It's okay, mama,” Katie said. “I owe her my life. I can answer her question. No: I've never been with a man. Not the way you mean, anyway.”

“Good,” Pretty Woman replied, taking out her knife and slashing it across the young girl's palm. “Then we stand a chance. But we'll still need a distraction.”

“
¡Bastante!
” Sangre shouted, angrily kicking the seething mass of undead flesh before him. “Stop it, you mindless fools! Stop it before I destroy you all!” The dead'uns quickly retreated, trembling before their creator's rage like cowed dogs fearful of their master's lash. “Get him on his feet!” Sangre snarled, pointing to Hell's prone body.

Two dead'uns obediently grabbed the former Ranger and jerked him upright.

“We undead are a hardy breed,” Sangre said, retrieving the knife tucked into his boot. “We break a leg and it knits within hours. Pluck out our eyes, and they grow back in a fortnight. While we cannot regenerate severed limbs, or survive a fire, for all practical purposes we are immortal. That can be both a blessing
and
a curse. As you will soon discover.

“I shall have you drawn and quartered, so that you can never again raise a hand against me or run away from me. Then I shall have your eyes gouged out, your ears cut off and your nose sliced off.” Sangre mimed the actions with short, sharp jabs of his knife. “I will keep you in your own little box, like
I
was kept. And whenever your eyes, ears and nose start to grow back, I will have them removed yet again. And again. And again!” Sangre pressed the flat of the blade against Hell's cheek, angling the tip so that it was directly under his right eye. “Perhaps then you will learn your lesson, eh?”

“Lord Sangre!” one of the bandits blurted. “Something's happening at the mission!”

The conquistador turned to see the double doors of the church swing wide open and Cuss Johnson come barreling out, bellowing at the top of his lungs, a huge wooden cross clutched in his hands like a battle standard. Sangre's spawn, made bold by their feeding frenzy, surged forward, shrieking in delight at the prospect of another meal, only to have the first of their number that came within striking distance of the cross burst into flame like dry kindling.

“Come on, you sorry sons of bitches!” Cuss yelled as he swung the cross like a giant baseball bat. “Come and get it!”

The dead'uns drew back, their hunger overridden by their sense of self-preservation. Since the enemy was refusing to attack, the former gunrunner waded in among them, swatting them like so many flies. “Hold on, Sam!” he shouted as he set an Apache dead'un ablaze with a backhand swing. “I'm comin'!”

Sangre cursed and motioned for his remaining human servants, who were gawking at the sight before them with open mouths, to close ranks around him. “What are you fools waiting for?” he shouted. “Shoot him!”

The bandits opened fire and Cuss went down in a hail of bullets, the cross falling from his hands before he hit the ground. Hell used the distraction to break free and run to where his friend lay dying on the hard earth. Without a moment's hesitation, the Dark Ranger snatched up the fallen cross.

Though he was wearing leather gloves, he could feel his hands grow hot the moment he touched the icon. Screaming in anger, grief and pain, he charged toward Sangre, who stood behind his wall of human killers. He could feel bullets enter his chest and belly, but they meant nothing to him and hurt even less. Smoke curled from his palms as he brought the cross down onto a bandit's skull, and he put the searing pain in his hands out of his mind. As he flailed away, all he could see in his mind's eye was his father, desperately chopping at the rattlesnake that had bitten him before it had a chance to slither away and kill someone else.

The bandits protecting Sangre fell away, their heads crushed and necks fractured, until there was nothing separating Sam Hell from Sangre. He swung the cross high above his head, but as he was about to bring it down with all his might, his leather gloves dissolved in a burst of flame, setting his hands afire. Though Hell tried to maintain his hold on the cross, the agony was too great. He dropped the wooden icon to the ground, where it continued to burn. Gasping in pain, Hell dropped to his knees, holding his charred hands before him in a grotesque parody of prayer. The skin was blackened, like that of roasted meat, with deep fissures that exposed the bones underneath.

Sangre stepped forward, amused by the turn of events. “You continue to amaze me, Ranger. You are damned, yet you seek to walk in the light. You battle against your own kind in the name of a deity who has turned his countenance from you. It is utter folly to deny what you are, to fight against the dictates of your nature—and yet you continue to do so, even when you know it is hopeless. You are either a deluded fool or the bravest man to have graced this planet. Either way, you are far too dangerous for me to allow you to continue to exist, even as a pet torso.”

Sangre retrieved Hell's gun belt and removed the revolver from its holster, holding it so that the barrel pointed to the sky like a steel finger. “If your bullets have enough magic in them to wound the immortal, then they must also be able to kill them.”

The conquistador aimed the barrel directly at Hell's forehead. Hell wanted to pray, but he knew that the words would burn in his mouth, so he closed his eyes instead.

Suddenly Sangre paused, a confused look on his face. He tilted his head to one side, then another, sniffing the air like a hound trying to identify a scent. “Do you smell that?”

“Smell what, my lord?” replied a dead'un with a United States Marshal's star pinned to his vest.

“Brine.”

A flash of lightning abruptly tore across the night sky, immediately followed by a crash of thunder. Thinking he'd been shot, Hell opened his eyes and looked around, surprised that his brains were still in his head A strong wind had come from nowhere, kicking up dust devils that danced among the assembled dead'uns, tugging on their clothes and hair like unruly children.

Fat raindrops struck the dusty ground hard enough to be heard. Instinctively, Sangre lifted his head to stare up at the clouds overhead. As a raindrop struck his cheek, the skin began to bubble and sizzle. The Spaniard screamed and clutched his face. His shriek was quickly picked up and echoed by his spawn, who also began to claw at their flesh like things possessed.

A raindrop struck the back of Hell's neck, burning the exposed skin like a drop of hydrochloric acid. As he leapt to his feet, yowling in pain, the Ranger saw Pretty Woman running out of the church, a bundle under one arm. Upon reaching him, she threw a man's jacket over his head.