The Shotgun Arcana (51 page)

In the cold, wet predawn hours of Thanksgiving morning, some of Zeal’s followers, escorted by Praetorians, came to specific houses: seven homes, marked by Zeal himself with a blood-red handprint. They took the families’ youngest children. In almost every household visited, the parents resisted, struggled, fought for their babies. Gunfire and screams followed in the early morning darkness, then there was silence again.

Many of those who had cheered Ray Zeal’s arrival sobered up and saw exactly what was becoming of their town. However, few of them had the courage of their convictions, so they sat in their dark homes, drank their gifts from Mr. Zeal and brooded. It wasn’t so bad, after all, was it? They weren’t the ones hung up in town hall, right? They didn’t have children or family held hostage, right? No, things were bad, but not bad enough to risk your life and get yourself killed. That was someone else’s damn job, anyway.

*   *   *

Harry Pratt wished he had more tobacco while he sat in the hidden cavern below his family’s mansion and crushed out the last of his cigarettes. The cave was natural, part of a maze of small, dark chambers. The main cave was filled with the treasures of the Mormon faith, including the golden plates containing the wisdom of God and Heaven and given unto Joseph Smith for a time. There were the Urim and the Thummim, the seer stones, residing in the wire-rimmed spectacle frames Smith had placed them in as he used them to interpret the angelic script of the plates. This was the point of origin for the breastplate and the Sword of Laban Harry had taken to carrying as his own.

Every manner of treasure, heavenly or earthly in nature, resided in the cave and all of it was Harry’s responsibility. His father had been tasked to guard them by Joseph Smith himself before his death. It was the prophet’s last commission to seek out the treasures of the faith in the desolate Nevada desert. When the caravan led by Josiah Pratt found the tiny, nameless settlement past the 40-Mile Desert, they had known they had arrived where the Lord had wanted them. They founded Golgotha and the Pratts built a fine home above these caves. When Harry’s father had passed away, the task had fallen to him to guard the treasures with his life. Harry had never wanted to do this, ever, but it was his duty and for all his failings as a father, Josiah Pratt had managed to impart a sense of obligation to his son.

The lantern Harry had brought down the ladder with him guttered a bit and Harry checked his pocket watch again. It was late morning. Thanksgiving Day. He heard the thump of boots on the floorboards in the narrow corridor that led to the ladder and the secret trapdoor in the floor of his mansion. Zeal’s men were still looking for him. This was their third visit since yesterday. What they lacked in effectiveness they made up for in persistence. He heard something hit the floor and smash upstairs. He shook his head.

“Another banner holiday at the Pratt Estate,” he muttered.

His stomach rumbled and he wished he’d had a bit more time to prepare for his sequester down here. For the hundredth time, a thrill of terror slithered through his innards at the idea of James coming to check on him and confronting Zeal’s people. But he gave Ringo more credit than that. James was a survivor, having grown up among the worst elements of the Barbary Coast. Ringo was all right, wherever he was. That certainty calmed his nerves. Being alone in this damned cave, not knowing what was happening up there to his town, his people, gnawed at him.

“And you, you’re not good company at all,” Harry said. “Not one damned bit.”

The ancient yellowed skull that sat on a low rock did not reply, only staring with dark, empty sockets at the mayor. Harry tried to figure out why the hell he had agreed to guard the ugly thing. Harry looked at the Sword of Laban and wished he was up there fighting beside Highfather and Bick and Mutt—making some kind of damned difference. Tonight he’d sneak out and take the lay of the land. He wondered how Golgotha’s other guardians were faring.

*   *   *

The rain kept falling and it was getting colder, just a hair above freezing. In the darkness, the fog and the overcast of downpour, no one noticed a coyote hunched low under the steps and porch leading into the Paradise Falls Saloon. The coyote had snagged, crooked yellow teeth, but his incisors were straight and sharp. There was a great deal of pain in his eyes. The coyote slowly belly-crawled deeper under the foundation of the saloon. He began to hear the thuds of boots, laughter and very bad piano playing. He waited, closed his eyes and listened, drinking in every sound, every voice.

The coyote’s heart was heavy, sick with loss. The one he loved had fallen and he had been too far away to do anything, even to die with her, as she fell. Now all that was left to him was the desire to destroy, to wreck everyone who had taken her from him. He would save his friends, kill all his enemies, and then he would head out into the desert to moan and howl and weep for his lost love, his only love.

The ache in him bit deeper than the cold, and he did not care to walk on two legs anymore, to live among men and to carry a man’s heart in his chest. The pain was exquisite and the most terrible he had ever experienced. His father had been right; it was foolish to want to be a man. They never knew themselves until the soul-gutting agony of clarity showed them what really, truly mattered, and then it was too late. Only a fool, or madman, would want to live that way, loving and losing over and over and over.

The coyote was silent, lost in his pain, listening, learning all he could to help him hurt those who had stolen his heart, his life.

*   *   *

The force of Praetorians, led by Col. Bradley Whitmore, smashed down the doors to the Dove’s Roost Thanksgiving afternoon. The parlor was empty, the lamps all dark. The place still held the lingering scent of lilac and rose water.

“Where the hell are the whores?” Whitmore growled as he and his men entered the establishment. “We promised a mess of Mr. Zeal’s people that they’d have all the whores to do with as they pleased. Where are they?”

There was a thudding sound as two figures slowly descended the grand staircase in the foyer. Black Rowan, a curled horsewhip in her hand, and the Scholar, his ever-present cudgel tapping slowly against his leg, regarded the intruders.

“I’m afraid I gave the ladies some time off,” Rowan said, “after Mr. Bick, the sheriff and I had a lovely chat about your arrival. Deals were made, agreements kept and all. I’m sure we can accommodate you gentlemen, though, somehow.”

“Dammit, you stupid cow,” Whitmore said. “I’ve got men who came here to get fucked!”

“Well, then,” Rowan said, smiling and readying the whip in her hand, “prepare to get fucked.”

*   *   *

Inside the Paradise Falls Saloon, dozens of Cook’s Praetorians drank, laughed and gambled. One of the cult, a scar-faced man named Muldoon, played the piano to the best of his ability, doing a horrid version of “Looking Back,” while drunken soldiers tried to sing along.

Snake-Man sat sullenly at the bar, nursing a drink. He had wanted to go after Mutt, but Zeal had other plans.

“Tomorrow he’ll come to us, I promise you that,” Zeal had told Snake-Man. “Then you can do whatever you want with him, once he tells me where the skull is.”

Ray Zeal sat alone at one of the red-felt faro tables, the one Bick normally claimed as his, a bottle of Monongahela in his fist. He took a drag on the bottle of whiskey, smiled and continued to watch the show up on the main stage.

Bick and Highfather had been stripped to the waist, each lashed tightly, spread-eagle, to a pair of crossed boards by their wrists and ankles. The two men had been beaten ruthlessly, their faces swollen and bloody. The cultists had taken turns torturing them since yesterday. Zeal’s only stipulation was that they had to look good for the spectacle tomorrow, so no cutting things off.

One of the Teeth of Cain, a dead-eyed former slave named Ayot, was applying a red-hot branding iron to Highfather’s chest. The sheriff hissed through clenched teeth. Ayot dabbed the sheriff’s lips with a sponge of vinegar and blood in between applications of the iron. The cadaverous Haitian, who had wandered the French Quarter murdering and torturing whites for years, caressed Highfather’s old and new scars with wanton familiarity, while whispering gibberish in Jon’s ear.

Professor Zenith, having finished applying steel-wool-covered clamp-cables to Malachi Bick’s nipples, was now sending waves of stinging, numbing, bone-aching electricity through the saloon owner’s body via one of the odd little wooden-box contraptions off his wagon of horrific miracles. Bick’s whole frame tensed on the cross but he made no sound. Smoke rose from his chest where the clamps had burned flesh.

Zeal stood, somewhat wobbly. He had allowed the alcohol to affect him, part of his Thanksgiving/Victory Day celebration. He carefully made his way up onto the stage, nearly stumbling on the stairs, and stood before his prisoners.

“Where’s your star, Sheriff?” Zeal said. “I want yours and you didn’t have it with you when you surrendered.”

“Gave it to a better man than me,” Highfather muttered, spitting out the bitter vinegar and blood that stung his torn lips. “And a damn sight better man than you.”

“I see,” Zeal said. “Well then, I’ll have to be sure to take it when I kill him. That was a very impressive job you did on the Brechts, by the way. You and your allies do not disappoint. Oh, that reminds me,” Zeal said, slipping his hand into his pocket, “I have something for you.” Zeal held one of the silver deputy stars he had taken from Jon’s desk at the jail. “A small down payment for what you did to my son.” Zeal extended the long, sharp pin on the back of the badge and rammed it fully into Highfather’s upper chest. Highfather let out an involuntary gasp. His eyes rolled back in his head. He slumped, passing out. Zeal regarded his handiwork and then turned to his followers on stage.

“Leave us,” Zeal said, and his worshipers departed, heading down into the saloon to drink and gamble with the mercenaries. Muldoon began to attempt to play “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior.” Zeal stepped close to Bick.

“Alone at last,” Zeal slurred. “Enjoying the show? Why are you putting up with this, Biqa? You could shake these humans off like fleas, lay waste to them and turn every being in a hundred miles of Golgotha into salt, present company excluded, of course. Why put up with this indignity, this pain? Still waiting for the Almighty to come save you and all his innocent flock?”

“No,” Bick said through his swollen, cut mouth. “I’m not. Not anymore.”

Zeal smiled. “See? There’s hope for you yet, Biqa.”

“Yes,” Bick said. “There is. I am going to beg you, Raziel. Please…”

“Beg?” Zeal said. “Biqa, you are full of surprises today.”

“Please,” Bick repeated. “Stop this. Remember who you are and why we are here. Remember who sent us here. For your sake.”

Zeal laughed and then punched Bick square in the jaw. Blood exploded from the saloonkeeper’s mouth. “How noble of you, Biqa,” Zeal said. “‘For my sake.’ I’d be more worried about yourself than trying to redeem me. The skull is out of the cave, away from the protective magics you and the Indians put on it. Its influence is whispering in the ear of anyone willing to commit atrocity, susceptible to a stronger will. It’s singing to the desperate and the weak. These people already hated you, Biqa. Now they want your blood and I intend to give it to them—and you are playing right along.”

Zeal clapped his hands and several carts of vegetables, breads, stuffing and gravy as well as heaping platters of steaming meat were wheeled out from the Fall’s kitchen. The assembled troops and cultists on the saloon floor cheered and began to line up to the succulent Thanksgiving dinner arrayed before them.

“Care for a little meat and blood of the firstborn, Biqa?” Zeal said. “It’s one of the Almighty’s favorites. He does love to slaughter innocent little children, doesn’t He? They’re more tender when you cull them young, and tastier.”

“God didn’t kill those children,” Bick said. “You did. You had the choice not to, and you did it anyway.

“Why do you want it back now, Raziel? The skull? You told me a long time ago you had figured out why you had been commissioned to guard it. You were happy to shirk your duties before. Why do you want it so badly now?”

Zeal took a knife from the cart of Professor Zenith’s instruments. He sunk it into Bick’s shoulder an inch or so and then began to slowly rip and tear the flesh, moving down toward Bick’s chest. Bick shuddered and pain glazed his dark eyes. He did not make a sound.

“The skull contains the power to end a thing, to end anything, really,” Zeal said, carving. “The Almighty created these divine monkeys and gave them more potential power than you or I or any of the Host could ever dream of. Why did He do that, Biqa? Why create such flawed, broken, confused little critters, with so much potential for creation…”

The blade sunk deep into Bick’s chest, and Zeal leaned in as he twisted the blade. Bick jumped again and his skin was now waxy and pale, covered in sweat. He could feel the blood running in rivulets down his chest.

“… and destruction?” Zeal continued. “And that was when I finally understood it, Biqa. Why God made me this way, why He allowed such a horrible creation as the skull to continue. He wanted it to be used, Biqa. He wants me to use it. To kill Him; to kill all the gods, save one, of course. I was groomed and created with this nature to rule over a cosmic slaughterhouse . A universe of cruelty and blood and rage. Forever and ever, amen.”

“No,” Bick muttered, fighting to hold out from the pain.

“Look what it’s done to you.” Zeal shook his head and made another looping cut with the knife across Bick’s chest. “Living among them, living as one of them. You are so far gone you even suffer like them now. You’ve even tried to have families like them. You haven’t asked what I’ve done to your pretty little daughter yet.”

“You’ve done nothing,” Bick said. “Because you don’t have her. If you did, she’d be here now for me to watch you torture her. No. These mortals are full of surprises, Raziel. They are His agency here. They have the power and the will to bring even our kind low.”