Cowboy Necromancer: Infinite Dusk

by Harmon Cooper

  He already had enough enemies.

  Sterling stepped off the wooden deck and saw that there was a green vein in the earth, one which led to a building on the other side of the complex, the compound lit by lanterns with insects buzzing around them. He began following the green vein in the soil, Sterling noticing that it had been freshly swept, that the cultists took good care of it. He paused once he came to a series of cages, naked people chained inside, all of them half-starved. A child looked to Sterling and called out to him, his mother quickly grabbing the boy.

  And that was all it took.

  The telemancer picked up on the fact Sterling was in the compound; he was sure of this once people in cages began biting and scratching at one another. The doors of the compound kicked open and cultists began pouring out, all of them in brown robes and carrying firearms. Sterling’s single animate tore out of the jungle, catching the attention of a group of cultists that had just come out of the largest building. The perfect distraction.

  Following the bright green vein, Sterling was ambushed by two cultists with shotguns, barely able to bring one down with a direct shot, the other firing and missing, Sterling’s ears ringing. And it wasn’t his own flesh he was worried about; he was worried about losing his cowboy hat and his protection against the telemancer. His free hand going onto the top of his hat, Sterling fired several shots into the man’s body which blew him backward, the cultist wearing a bulletproof vest. Sterling reached him in a flash and buried one in the center of his forehead.

  Back to tracing the green vein, Sterling ran at his top speed, not able to shake the feeling that he was being followed by something. He noticed movement to his left once again, the foliage of the jungle shifting. Whatever it was, it was large. Sterling was just turning the corner to circle back toward the compound when a cultist sprang out at him.

  The man wielded a large sword, and as he spun forward, Sterling recognized instantly that the cultist had put some serious Technique Points into his sword skills. It had been a while since he’d been challenged this way, and as much as Sterling wanted to have a sword fight, in the jungle, in a demented cultists’ compound in the middle of the high desert, he knew that now wasn’t the time.

  Bam!

  The cultist fell, and Sterling continued on, reminded of an old phrase about bringing a knife to a gunfight. The green vein crisscrossing the compound stopped in front of a wooden door. A tributary of it continued onward to another, but Sterling figured he would take his chances, especially because the wooden door was part of the larger compound, and he didn’t think that they would be keeping someone as powerful as the Sunflower Kid in the adjacent building.

  He shouldered his way through the wooden door, tearing it off its hinges.

  A musty smell came to Sterling as he stepped into the space, one of incense and juniper. The inner walls of the place were bare, the only furniture in the room being a chest on the opposite side of the room. A cultist kicked open another door and burst in with her shotgun drawn. She was close enough for Sterling to swipe at her, which he did with the grip of his revolver, Sterling finishing the job once she went down.

  Bam!

  He moved into the next room, which had a twin bed in the corner, the quilt disturbed. This led Sterling to believe that the woman he had just killed had been resting when she received the telepathic alarm. There was a door on the right, but something told Sterling to continue straight, to the door directly in front of him. Positioning himself beside it, he twisted the handle open and moved in with his weapon drawn.

  “Whew…”

  Sterling found the Sunflower Kid seated in the center of the room, vines and flowers alive all around her. She was exactly as Sterling remembered, the biomancer with the youthful appearance of a sixteen-year-old . She wore an oversized collarless shirt made of a thick off-white cotton, her legs bare beneath, moccasins on her feet. Bracelets hung from her thin wrists, and her long brown hair was piled on top of her head, loosely held in place by hairclips and shredded bits of bandanna.

  She opened her eyes and saw Sterling, her expression blank for just a moment. Then her eyebrows narrowed at him.

  “Sorry I have to do this,” Sterling told her as he aimed his revolver at the teenage girl. He shot her in the shoulder, and the Sunflower Kid twisted backward, vines starting to lift off her form. Sterling quickly grabbed her and pistol whipped the young woman, hating to do so. He struck her again and she passed out, the vines and flowers all around him instantly starting to wilt.

  “You’ll thank me later,” he told her as he threw the Sunflower Kid over his shoulder. “Trust me.”

  The last thing he wanted was a combative biomancer.

  Sterling expected an entire army to be on the other side of the door once he emerged, he even thought he might run into the telemancer herself, especially with the fact he was stealing the Adapted woman’s prized possession. What he didn’t expect was for the ground to rumble and the wall to give way as an enormous serpent amalgamation tore into the space, its body easily eight feet in diameter, its skull that of a vulture.

  Sterling was thrown backward, the Sunflower Kid still flung over his shoulder. He began firing indiscriminately at the absolutely enormous serpent amalgamation as it withdrew from the hole it had burrowed into the adobe wall. Sterling still didn’t like his odds, but he knew he was going to need to make it out before the ceilings came tumbling down.

  Summoning every bit of guts he could muster, Sterling shot forward, just clearing the hole the amalgamation had made before it tried to do the same thing again. He almost dropped the Sunflower Kid in his mad dash, but he managed to hold on to her. Sterling quickly turned his focus to the jungle. It didn’t matter how dense it was. He knew if he could make it to the wall of cactus that he could burst his way out of the cultists’ compound.

  Ignoring the gunfire, and the serpent amalgamation for that matter as it withdrew its sharp beak from the main structure, Sterling narrowed his focus on one thing and one thing only—getting as far away from this madness as humanly possible.

  As he tore through the jungle, he stumbled into a stream, colorful frogs hopping in the opposite direction, their bodies glowing neon. He got slapped a few times in the face by stray limbs, one almost taking off his hat, which would have made things a lot more complicated. But he pressed on, Sterling making it to the wall of cactus just as he sensed movement behind him.

  He had formulated the idea in his exodus through the jungle, a way to bust out without having to utilize his mold manipulation power. Sterling turned toward the sound behind him and began firing his revolver indiscriminately, drawing the amalgamation toward him.

  He leapt out of the way just in time for it to strike, the snake’s hardened beak ripping through the wall of cactus as it passed to the other side, to the desert beyond.

  The amalgamation had made Sterling’s exit.

  Its forward momentum propelled it in such a way that Sterling had time to holster his weapon and actually climb through the hole it created before the snake could whip around, Sterling with one hand on his cowboy hat, and the other keeping the Sunflower Kid on his shoulder.

  He had never been so happy to see the desert, but he also knew that the amalgamation, the giant serpent easily the length of a tour bus, would be hot on his tail. Sterling whistled and Manchester came running, the horse startled once he noticed the serpent heading directly for him, the ground parting around the monster.

  “Git!” Sterling ran in the direction of a glowing orb on the horizon, wishing Paco hadn’t given his location away yet thankful that it gave him a target, a beacon, an area to escape to. It wasn’t going to be easy, but as Manchester caught up with Sterling, he launched himself into the air and managed to get a leg over the bone horse, one hand still holding onto the Sunflower Kid. He nearly tipped over, but secured himself with his hand on his saddle horn. Once he was in place, he began firing shot after shot at the pursuing serpent amalgamation.

  Sterling held the Kid
tightly, armed cultists riding horses and dirt bikes out of the front gate of the compound. Moving even faster now, the serpent gaining on him, Sterling cleared the distance between the compound and where Paco was waiting, the solimancer at a pass with a small overlook nearby, glowing orb overhead. Sterling slowed his horse for just a moment to lower the Sunflower Kid into Paco’s arms.

  “The Sunflower Kid is a girl?” he asked.

  “What did you expect? I need to finish up here, at least the amalgamation. You and the Kid need to get away, head that way, and put that light out,” he said hurriedly, nodding toward the cliff side they had been on earlier. “This won’t take me long. Go!”

  Before Paco could answer, Sterling turned back toward the serpent amalgamation, which was just starting to rear up to strike him with its vulture beak. An idea came to him, one that he knew would challenge his fear of heights. Sterling turned his skeletal steed toward the crest separating him from the amalgamation below. Now holding the reins with one hand, he balanced himself on the saddle and hit the air just as Manchester reached the edge of the ridge.

  Sterling collided with the serpent amalgamation midair just as it tried to strike his bone horse.

  Manchester jumped and avoided the attack as Sterling latched onto a bone protrusion that was part of the amalgamation’s skull. He drew his sickle-sword from its breakaway scabbard and began stabbing the enormous serpent repeatedly in the fleshy part of its neck, again and again as the amalgamation tried to buck him off.

  Sterling ignored the cultists coming up around him as he held on tight, each jab from his sickle-sword filling the air with darkened ichor that carried the smell of sulfur and iron. The serpent amalgamation slammed its upper body against the ground. Sterling dug his sword in even deeper.

  He expected the cultists to start shooting at him, and was surprised to see that the few that had reached him on their dirt bikes had all stopped, watching in absolute shock as Sterling did his best to slay the amalgamation. It took a half dozen more jabs, but he eventually brought the amalgamation to the ground, the cowboy necromancer hopping off its neck at the very last moment.

  His chest heaving up and down, he stood before the beast, wishing he had a cigarette as more cultists appeared. They gathered together, a few of them lifting their weapons, others not quite certain of what they should do as they tried to understand how a single man could take down an amalgamation of that size, the same man was now standing before them, his strangely shaped sword charged with turquoise energy and dripping with blood, his form illuminated by the pale moonlight. Sterling wiped his face with his good arm and pointed his sword at the cultists. “Last chance,” he said as he sucked in a deep breath. He brought his hand to the small of his back and curled his fingers.

  The serpent amalgamation came to life.

  It was the largest thing he had ever animated, but it worked just like a human or animal, Sterling mentally sending the colossal snake at the cultists. They tried to fire their weapons at it, but mere bullets weren’t going to bring down Sterling’s animate with its sheer size and sharp vulture beak. The serpent collided with the group, their horses rearing up, their dirt bikes flung into the air as the amalgamation crushed cultists left and right.

  Sterling snuck away. The cries of terror and the sounds of the serpent’s body slithering across the parched soil as it killed indiscriminately were behind Sterling now, yet another troubled chapter in the story of his post-Reset life. He reached Manchester, mounted up, and turned toward the cliff, where he saw a flash of light, as if there were a firefly waiting for him, a lighthouse in the desert.

  “What did you do?” Paco asked as Sterling came upon him, the native youth wide-eyed now.

  Sterling hopped down from his horse and paused for a moment with his hand on Manchester’s saddle. Rather than answer Paco’s question, he equipped his bag of tobacco and his rolling papers. He rolled up a pair of cigarettes with shaky hands. Once he was finished, he placed one cigarette behind his ear and the other in his mouth and lit it, finally turning to the young man. “I did what had to be done. Look,” he told Paco, who had one knee on the ground so he could support the Sunflower Kid, the teenage girl still passed out, the wound on her shoulder already healing. “I need to get going before the cultists fan out. That is, if any of them are left. Got a place to hide around here?”

  “My horse is a mile away.”

  “Why didn’t you bring your horse here?”

  “I didn’t want to leave any tracks, and I didn’t want her to get killed. They won’t find me. I know this area well.”

  “Fair enough. Get to your horse, and then get back to your people,” Sterling said as he ashed his cigarette. “I’ll be coming for you. I don’t know when, but my guess is it will be within a week or so. I will have to speak to Abuela first and get her approval. You will need to talk to her as well. Finally, you need to get stronger,” he said, nodding toward the commotion below, his zombie amalgamation still wreaking havoc. “That’s the kind of stuff I’m going to be doing from here on out, but with more dangerous targets. There’s no shame in saying you ain’t interested. Hell, if I were your age, I don’t think I’d be interested. I prefer to be chasing skirts than dealing with the kind of shit I’m about to attempt.”

  “No,” Paco told him doggedly. “I’m in.”

  “That stubbornness will get you killed, but hasn’t gotten me killed, so there’s hope for you yet. Good luck, and keep a low profile.” Sterling mounted up once again, cigarette clenched between his teeth. “Let me have her.”

  Paco lifted the Sunflower Kid and Sterling took her into his arms.

  “Do you know when she will wake up?”

  “No, and she ain’t going to be too happy when she does. Best I get going. You take care of yourself, Paco.” Sterling tipped his hat toward the young man. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  Part Three

  Carrizozo Fiesta; White Sands Fiasco; Lizard Eat Lizard; Roxy and the Technomancer

  .Chapter One.

  Somewhere between Mountainair and Alamogordo, not too far from Carrizozo, New Mexico.

  Not too distant future.

  Riding all night with a teenage girl slung over his shoulder was by no means something Sterling was looking forward to, but the Sunflower Kid was light, and she couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds wet. He grew used to the additional weight as the morning sun began to peek over the horizon, the Kid still out, Sterling on the verge himself. At some point during the night, he had dozed off as well, cigarette in his mouth, which he’d somehow kept there as Manchester started down a rocky path, waking the cowboy necromancer.

  Much to his surprise, Sterling had gained a level in his fight against the Culto Demente Sagrado and the enormous, vulture-skulled serpent amalgamation. He yawned as he accessed his stats yet again, just to help him stay awake:

  You have received 4,159 XP!

  You have gained a level!

  You have received eight Stat Points!

  You have received two Technique Points!

  You have received nine bonus Technique Points!

  Name: Sterling Monedero

  Race: Human

  Mancer Class: Necromancer

  Class Ranking: Bone Sculptor

  Level: 61

  Fortitude: 117

  Strength: 40

  Resolve: 155

  Mana: 123/159

  Current Armor Rating: 28

  XP: 314,523

  XP to Next Level:10,437

  Stat Points Available: 0

  Technique Points Available: 12

  His gut response had been to sink all of the Stat Points into his Strength, but he ended up putting five there, and the rest in his Resolve, figuring he would need to be able to heal up as much as he needed to punch. He still hadn’t assigned Technique Points, but he would do that once he finally was able to take a break and peruse the Buy Store.

  He was in no rush.

  They were just coming to the junction between two sta
te roads when the Sunflower Kid trembled, the morning sun casting playful colors across the desert. Sterling had been preparing for this moment over the last several hours, going over what he would say, how he would broach things. The Sunflower Kid had always had an eerily calm personality, but he had never seen her in this position before, plucked from the grips of a cult spearheaded by a telemancer.

  “Easy,” Sterling said as she jerked awake. She was just bringing her fist against his back when he clicked his tongue. Manchester stopped; Sterling hopped off his horse and set the Kid down in front of him. He noticed the absence of her weight now, the Sunflower Kid taking a few steps back as plants began to rip from the soil, something he’d seen her do multiple times before, the Kid preparing to fight.

  “Sterling?” she asked as she looked up at him, strands of her dark hair battering across her face, a smattering of dried blood on her shoulder. She lowered her shoulders, and tilted her head to the left as she took him in, plant constructs settling around her.

  “In the flesh. Morning, don’t kill me, and more importantly, are you hungry? Also, this goes without saying, sorry I shot you.”

  The teenage girl placed her hand on her shoulder. She took a look around, more confusion setting in. “Where… where are we exactly?”

  “Exactly? There ain’t no exactly when it comes to where we are. I’d say somewhere in the middle of nowhere, on our way to Alamogordo, and the White Sands desert from there.”

  “White Sands?”

  “I’ve got a lot to explain to you, so let’s hash it out, and then we can get on our way if you so choose. Shit, I need to find something around here to animate for you to ride. I suppose you could just hang on to me for a little while, but…” Sterling took off his hat and held it over his chest as he offered the Sunflower Kid a smile. “Sorry, I probably should have started with saying hello. I’m tired, been riding all night.”