by Logan Jacobs
“We know the old trail eventually rejoins seventy-eight,” I pointed out. “And we have no idea where the Old Cut will take us.”
“All this to find one man who may not even want to help us,” Sorcha groused.
“Evan seemed to think we should talk to him,” I replied. “And if this Charles Darwin has more guns, then I also think it’s important.”
“You only want to touch his guns,” she said with a smirk. “Admit it, you boys only ever think about one thing.”
“I won’t deny it,” I admitted with a grin. “Though I don’t know how you managed to make that sound so dirty.”
Sorcha gave me a smile, and then we trudged over to the less worn path. I saw a few people stare at us curiously, but no one called out any warnings as we started on our way. The path narrowed as we moved further west, and I could hear more critters in the brush. Nothing too big, but small animals always attracted larger animals that liked to eat them, and I tried to estimate how much time I had to wait until I could create a new gun.
Sorcha seemed to be on edge as well, and we didn’t bother to stop when we were hungry. We dug some of our supplies from our bags and ate as we walked. I tried creating the Colt a couple of times as well, since it was nearing the twenty-four hour mark since I’d fired the last bullet from it, but it refused to solidify in my hand. I could almost feel it, like it was just there for me to grab, but my palm remained empty, while the wild forest around us encroached ever closer to the trail.
Finally, the trail started to widen once again, and I could see remnants of the old road. We passed a tumbledown building shaped like a box. There was still a sign over what was left of the door frames that said ‘White Castle’. Next to that was another square building with a covered area out front. Three lines of silver and black rectangular shapes stood in front of the building, most still upright, though two had started to tilt sideways. There was a strange smell in the air, something sweet but in an unpleasant way. I saw Sorcha’s nose was wrinkled and realized mine was as well.
“What is that?” she asked.
“It sort of smells like some of that stuff at Home Depot,” I replied as I tried not to sneeze. “Some of that pre-magic material.”
“Is it poisonous?” she gulped.
“I think it was only in really big doses,” I tried to assure her.
We were near a sign for something called a golf course when we both stopped and looked around. We could hear something large moving around in the shadows, though neither of us could see anything beneath the trees.
“Is it a person?” I asked quietly.
“No,” Sorcha replied. “It’s definitely an animal.”
A moment later, we thought we had our answer when a deer leapt from the underbrush. It hesitated on the trail for a moment as it caught sight of us, then bounded off into the woods on the other side.
Sorcha and I grinned at each other and started along the trail when we heard more snuffling from the shadows. We glanced at each other again, and then we started to jog along the old road.
We didn’t make it much further before the simple sound of snapping twigs turned into a riot of crashing sounds. And then something very large burst from the woods into the road.
I recognized the sleek black fur and brown muzzle right away. It was a black bear, a common sight in the area, but this was one of the larger ones I had seen. It was easily six hundred pounds, but probably closer to seven hundred. It stood up slowly on its back legs when it spotted us, so we could take in its full six foot height.
“He--ex,” Sorcha stammered as she started to back away, a move that caught the bear’s attention.
“Stay still,” I muttered as I grabbed her arm and tried to keep her from tearing back down the trail. “You won’t outrun it. Start shouting and maybe we can scare it away. Bears hate noise.”
At least, that’s what I’d always been taught. Of course, when I’d encountered bears in the past, it was always with a group of people and we could make enough noise to startle a bear several miles away. I’d never been this close to one with only one other person, and I had no idea if the rules were the same. I thought briefly about the Colt again, then gave up when it stubbornly remained absent. With no other options, I started to yell at the bear, and Sorcha joined in a moment later, though her voice sounded more high-pitched and a little more frantic than normal.
The bear dropped back to all four feet, but it didn’t run away like I had hoped. It swung its massive head back and forth as it listened to our shouts, clearly unimpressed with our efforts, though it didn’t surge forward either.
“Hex,” Sorcha pleaded as the bear stepped forward and we both stepped back.
“Damn,” I muttered as I tried to summon the Colt revolver again, but it remained elusive. It felt closer, but not quite substantial yet. I tried to remember what else we had in the bags, but all I could come up with were the firesticks we’d picked up at the mall.
“Can you control it?” I asked as I started to paw through the satchel for a firestick.
“Maybe,” the mage said as she bit her lip. “But wild animals are difficult under the best conditions, and I’ve never tried to command anything like a bear.”
“Just see if you can tell it to move on,” I replied, “or at least stay where it is until I can get the firestick lit.”
Sorcha nodded, but it wasn’t hard to see that she was seriously worried about the bear and her ability to control it. Her brow furrowed in concentration, and the bear actually went still for a moment.
And then the bear stood up again, and Sorcha gave a little squeak. Whatever control Sorcha had been able to exercise was gone, and the bear rumbled as it dropped back down to all fours and took two steps toward us.
I finally had a firestick in my hand, and I yanked it out of the satchel. I thrust it toward Sorcha, since I couldn’t find one of the Zippos, and hoped she would understand.
Sorcha jumped, but when she saw the firestick in my hand, she gave me a nod. She managed to create a tiny flame just as the bear roared and the sound nearly extinguished the flame. Sorcha gulped and looked away from the bear as she struggled to light the tip of the firestick.
And then a raucous din filled the air around us. It sounded like a band trying to tune up in the very worst way. There was the pounding of drums and clashing metal, the blast of a rusty horn, and something that made a shrill wail that made me want to cover my ears. The bear roared, then ran off into the woods and disappeared into the shadows again. We watched the bear for a moment, then exchanged pensive glances.
Before either of us could say anything, a handful of people stepped out of the woods as well. They all carried some sort of instrument, which they continued to toot and bang as they stepped onto the trail. Men and women alike wore a ragtag collection of clothes, most of them faded and stained. It was also hard to miss the swords, machetes, long knives and other weapons the group carried. Scavengers, I realized, which could only mean trouble for us.
“Well, well,” one man chortled as he looked us over. “What have we here? Take a wrong turn off the Old Cut, did ya’?”
“Thanks for your help with the bear,” I replied as I tried to tug Sorcha down the trail. “We’ll just mosey on now.”
“That’s it?” the man demanded in an aggrieved tone. It was hard to tell his age beneath the grime and scars, but the brown eyes glittered with an anger I usually associated with someone younger.
“We don’t have much,” I offered in a placating tone. “Just a few supplies we picked up on the way.”
“Supplies,” the man disparaged. “We don’t need no stinkin’ supplies. We got plenty of food and water around here.”
“We have a few firesticks,” I offered as I held up the one we had been about to light.
“You’ll have to come up with more than that,” the man demanded. “What else you got?”
I dropped the firestick back in the satchel and pawed through the rest of the contents. I had no interest in b
artering with the scavengers, but I needed a little more time. I pictured the Colt revolver again, and for a moment, I thought it would appear. Instead, my hand closed around one of June’s vials.
“We have medicine,” I offered as I pulled out the vial.
“How much money you got?” one of the women demanded. Everything about her was dark and smokey, from the color of her eyes to the painted fingernail she pointed at me.
“Not much,” I replied as I tried not to growl in frustration. All I needed was the Colt, and we could be past this nonsense and on our way.
“I say we just take what we want,” one of the other men suggested. “And I want the girl.”
“Then I get the boy,” the smokey woman added to titters of approval from the other women.
Sorcha turned her gaze on the man who had spoken first, and he turned slowly toward her.
“You’ll let us pass,” she instructed.
“We’ll let them go,” the man announced.
“She’s a witch!” one of the women howled. “Kill her before she tries to control the rest of us.”
A lot happened then. The scavengers turned on us like an angry mob, while their erstwhile leader turned to face them. Weapons were drawn, and the leader struck out at the others with a sword and club. But the scavengers weren’t much for loyalty, apparently, especially when magic was involved. They struck back with equal ferocity and cut down their former leader in seconds while the rest of their troop closed in on us.
Just one gun. That was all I needed. So why was it so hard to get?
Chapter 4
I kept picturing the Colt revolver, even as Sorcha and I started to back away. The smokey woman was only a few steps away when I felt the familiar grip in my hand. Power surged up my arm as I lifted the Colt and aimed at the woman, and I felt it pour through me faster than any healing magic.
Then I pulled the hammer back and enjoyed the beautiful sound of the mechanism clicking.
She never even saw the weapon in my hands as the Colt roared. The familiar kick reverberated up my arm as the quick trigger responded instantly. The bullet cleared the space between us in less time than it takes to blink, and the woman’s chest exploded in a fountain of red. She looked at me in surprise for a moment, and then thick blood began to pour out of her mouth. She fell to the ground with a gurgling sound and then laid still.
Before anyone else could react to the sound of the gun, I aimed at the next closest person, an older man with a beard to his waist. He was in mid-stride, with a machete raised over his head. He looked flummoxed by the sound of the gun and the sudden death of the woman, but he still kept coming. So I pulled the trigger, and the Colt gave me its kick as it boomed. There was a brief puff of smoke, the sharp tang of the discharge, and then the man fell backward with a hole in his chest and blood spilling around his body.
“Get back into the woods!” someone shouted as the scavengers started to realize that we had weapons.
I found a third target, one of the drummers who had been among the first to attack the leader. He ran his sword through the leader, and Sorcha gasped as the leader looked down at his stomach. The drummer had a joyful look on his face as he took in his handiwork, and he seemed oblivious to the fact that the rest of his companions had scattered into the woods.
He finally looked up and opened his mouth, probably to call for his fellow scavengers, but I already had him lined up by then. The Colt responded instantly as I pulled the trigger, and another sharp boom echoed along the trail. I breathed in the scent of sulfur and charcoal, and watched as the drummer twisted sideways from the impact, then collapsed onto the trail. He twitched for a few moments, but half his face was soaked in blood, and only a few rough-edged remnants of bone were left of one cheek. The eye socket was empty as well, except for the blood that dripped onto the road. The drummer wheezed one last time, and then he finally went still.
The woods were quiet again, and neither man nor beast could be heard. Sorcha and I both waited for a moment, to see if anyone else would try to attack us, then stepped past the three bodies on the trail.
“I’m sorry you had to feel that man die,” I said after we’d put some distance between us and the scene of the fight.
“I hate it,” she shuddered, “and it’s happened more times than I care to remember. But it’s always a risk when you do this kind of thing.”
“You mean wander through the woods, fighting mages and scavengers,” I teased as we finally slowed our pace.
“Something like that,” she agreed with a smile. “It’s a good thing you were able to call up the revolver.”
“I’ll be glad to have the rifle back as well,” I noted as I tucked the revolver out of sight. “Doesn’t it feel like we should be near the old highway by now?”
“And hopefully well away from any scavengers and mages,” she agreed with a nod.
We were half right, in any case. The trail soon widened again, and signs of the pre-magic world began to reassert themselves. We passed long gone businesses, rusting cars, and a few homes. Vines had started to cover many of the structures, but here and there, it was clear that someone had worked to keep an area clear.
“Scavengers?” Sorcha pondered as we walked past a small building surrounded by old cars. There was a well-worn path toward a door and a shiny new chain looped around a pole.
“Probably,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t look like anyone’s been back yet.”
There was another short stretch of trees and shrubs, and then the highway was in front of us. This far away from any major city, no one had ever bothered to remove the cars. Long lines of them dotted the road, like some sort of strange sculpture garden. Despite their bulky presence, though, people ambled along the highway on paths worn beside and between the cars.
I could see that the road we were on continued on the other side of the highway, at least for a short distance. I tugged Sorcha across the highway to the far side of Morris Avenue, careful to keep to the stones and concrete and off the dirt just in case a few scavengers came looking. There were fewer trees here and more long grasses and prickly weeds. A few yards in, the road came to an abrupt halt at a thick wall topped with barbed wire. A massive iron gate was the only obvious way through, but a large warning sign had been posted on the door that declared the area beyond to be a designated mutant resettlement zone.
“So there really is a mutant wasteland out here,” Sorcha murmured as she stepped back and eyed the wall.
“Shouldn’t there be patrols or guards or something?” I asked as I studied the undergrowth. No one had been here in quite some time.
“There are spells in the wall,” Sorcha replied. “I guess they think that’s enough.”
I took a closer look at the gate. There was an ordinary keyhole, one I was sure I could pick in a few minutes. I knelt down and prodded the lock, just to be sure it was as ordinary as it appeared.
“Hex,” Sorcha warned. “What are you doing?”
“Just looking,” I assured her as I stood up. “Still wishing we could go through here. It would be a lot faster.”
“Let’s get back to the highway,” Sorcha suggested. “I really would rather not add mutants to the growing list of people who are chasing us.”
I nodded and let her lead us the short distance to seventy-eight. We were near the edge when we heard the first commotion. Sorcha and I stopped for a moment, then walked more slowly toward the highway. As we got closer, we could hear screams and a high-pitched, rolling laugh. Above all that, we could hear the disconnected symphony of the scavengers.
“Are they looking for us or just working out their anger by causing some general mayhem?” I asked as I started to back away from the road.
“A little of both, I would guess,” Sorcha replied.
There wasn’t much in the way of hiding spots along this side of the highway, so we crouched low in the grass for the last few feet and inched our way forward. The scavengers were back, and some of them were even on horseback. The
y swept among the travelers and struck out at anyone who couldn’t move fast enough to avoid their weapons.
“I’ve got three shots left,” I murmured as I tried to pick out a target. I slowly eased the revolver out of my waistband, but Sorcha put a hand on my arm and pointed further down the road. A cavalry of deputies approached the chaos, and two mages rode with them.
“Crap,” I muttered.
One of the scavengers had spotted the approaching lawmen as well, and he gathered his own force together with a shout. The two sides drew up and eyed each other, with only thirty feet between them.
“What the hell are you doing here?” one of the scavengers spat. She was the only one I’d seen in clean clothing, a pale blue shirt and a pair of very tight pants. She also wore a feather in her hair and a heavy gold chain around her neck and carried an axe that was red with blood.
“I could ask you the same thing,” an older lawman replied laconically. I wasn’t fooled by his casual air, though. His hand was on his weapon, a great broadsword, and his horse was alert and waiting for his signal.
“We’re looking for a pair of trespassers who left three of our own dead,” the woman replied. “And since this is our territory, we have the right.”
“To go after them, but not the rest of these folks,” the lawman pointed out.
The woman sneered, but she didn’t disagree.
“How were the scavengers killed?” one of the mages asked. This was a balding man who looked uncomfortable on a horse.
“Portal mage,” Sorcha whispered in my ear.
“What does that matter?” the scavenger woman demanded.
“We’re searching for someone with a particular… weapon,” the portal mage replied.
The scavenger considered this response for several seconds, and then her eyes narrowed as she gave the portal mage a smirk.
“Will you pay us a reward if we bring you the boy with the gun?” the woman demanded.
The two mages exchanged a long look, and then the portal mage turned back toward the scavenger.