by Logan Jacobs
But there was no time to mourn. The Colt was gone and the rest of the mutants were still there. And I’d just killed one of their own.
Chapter 6
The other mutants started to shout and curse at us, and Sorcha and I bolted to the tiny house. We bounded up the two steps to the front door and twisted the knob.
“It’s locked!” Sorcha said in disbelief.
“It’s also old,” I pointed out as I kicked at the door.
The door crashed backward and slammed against the wall. Sorcha and I ran inside and closed it again. There was a heavy cabinet just inside the door, filled with plates and other oddities. I signaled Sorcha, and somehow we managed to push the cabinet in front of the door, though we probably broke at least half of the items on display.
“Check the rest of the windows and doors,” I told the mage as I ran toward the large window next to the door. “See if you can find some way to block them.”
I peered around the edge of a dusty curtain and tried not to sneeze as I sucked in fifty years’ worth of dirt and dust. My eyes watered, but I held off long enough to see the rest of the mutants converging on the house. I counted to twelve before I gave in and sneezed.
“Here goes,” I muttered as I pictured the Ruger rifle.
I heaved a sigh of relief as I felt the comforting weight of the rifle in my hand. The energy of the twenty-two rushed up my arm, and I ran my hand along the stock, the same way I would to calm a skittish horse. My palm started to itch, but I ignored it as I glanced out the window once again. With the Ruger in my hand, I figured the itch would fade.
“Anything?” I asked Sorcha as she reappeared from one of the other rooms.
“All the doors and windows are locked,” she offered, “and I tried to block the rest of the windows. I also found the previous owner.”
“There’s someone in here?” I asked in surprise.
“Just a skeleton,” she said. “Of a human and a cat and a small dog.”
“Oh,” I murmured.
“They’re very old,” she added. “Probably pre-magic.”
There wasn’t time to contemplate the fate of the previous owner after that. The mutants had gathered outside the house and were no longer satisfied with hurling epithets. A large rock crashed through the window, and Sorcha and I barely ducked out of the way in time.
With the glass gone, I pointed the rifle at the closest mutant. A woman, older than most of the others, with a fuzzy tail and a cruel expression. She stood with her legs wide and hands balled into fists as she shouted obscenities at the house. I thought of Dani for a moment and begged her forgiveness for what I was about to do.
The Ruger cracked as I pulled the trigger, and I had to remind myself that the rifle had almost no kick compared to the Colt and the snub nose, so I didn’t need to adjust as much. Still, the bullet hit higher than I meant and the angry woman howled in pain as it plowed into her shoulder.
She whipped around and yelled something at the other mutants, and then I aimed at her back. There was another sharp crack, and the smell of sulfur started to fill the room, just as a bright red spot appeared along the woman’s back. She fell forward, into the weeds, and I saw her tail sway for a moment, then it drooped out of sight.
The other mutants were in a frenzy after that, and not at all certain what to do. Most hung back as if waiting for instructions, which Peter was happy to supply. I saw him point to people and then at the house, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that he was sending people to check the rest of the windows and doors.
But Peter was smart enough to stay as far away as possible at the back of the crowd, and it was hard to get a clear shot. I had a feeling the rest would leave if I could just get rid of him, but he wouldn’t oblige me with an easy shot. He finally slunk behind a maple tree, and all I could see were his hands as he issued more instructions.
There was another crash, this time from a room at the back of the house. We both turned to look, and Sorcha scowled.
“Bedroom,” she said as she pointed toward a hallway that I could cover in two long strides. “It was a small window, but up high. There wasn’t much in the room that I could block it with.”
“Keep an eye on these folks for a moment,” I replied as I slipped away from the window and jogged toward the back of the house.
The bedroom was barely wide enough to hold the bed that ruled the room. The bed itself looked like it was big enough to hold three adults and still have room for the dog and the cat. There was a thick layer of dust on everything though, and a quilt on the floor had faded to a pale yellow.
The bed frame was still on the floor with the box spring on top of that, unmoved since the owner had died, but Sorcha had tried to push the top mattress against the window. Unfortunately, the old mattress wasn’t up to the task, and it had started to sag toward the floor, and was nearly double over in the middle. One of the mutants had knocked the glass out of the window and was trying to squeeze through. Even as I watched from the edge of the jamb, I saw the man shrink into himself, like a mouse trying to squeeze through a tiny hole.
I waited until the mutant had thumped onto the mattress, and then I fired a shot at his head. The mutant went down quietly and with almost no blood. One eye was gone, and the other one stared vacantly at the ceiling. I heard someone outside the window squeal at that point, and I swung the rifle toward the broken glass as I tried to find the source of the sound.
A young woman with the scales of a snake looked back at me. She hissed, which gave me a quick view of her forked tongue. We stared at each other for a moment, and I thought she would make the smart decision and leave. But she seemed to think she could move faster than I could fire, because she laid down on the ground and slithered through the window.
It was the oddest thing I had ever seen. She had a human body, and yet she could move like a snake. She poured through the window in one swift motion and then ducked behind the mattress.
But I’d killed plenty of snakes on the trail, and I wasn’t afraid of this one. I could hear her sliding around on the floor, and I knew she was trying to find a way to sneak up on me. Hard to do when you’re a human sized snake in a small room with no furniture.
I saw her slither toward the old bed frame and waited for her to emerge. As soon as her head appeared, I pulled the trigger. The rifle boomed in the tiny room and the smoke from the end of the barrel seemed to linger longer than usual, so I waited for it to clear, then checked the spot where the snake woman had been.
The bullet had left a bloody furrow along the top of her head, but she still had enough strength left to pull herself back under the frame. She hissed at me from under the bed, no doubt hoping I would take the opportunity to run, but I stayed by the door and waited for her to move.
It was a short wait. She only had two options, either come at me or try to make it out the window. If she tried to make it out the window, it left her as an easy target, and she would have to count on my generous goodwill not to shoot her in the back. I knew she had to attack me, and eventually, the snake woman realized it as well. She hissed again, and then I heard her slither around under the bed for a moment.
The snake woman could be quiet when necessary, I’d give her that. She managed to turn herself around under the bed without me realizing it, and I was momentarily surprised when her head appeared at the foot of the bed instead of the side. I realized the hiss and the noise had been a misdirection on her part, one she thought would buy her enough time to attack me.
Unfortunately for her, the Ruger twenty-two was such an easy weapon to handle that I could change targets in less than a heartbeat. By the time her shoulders had appeared, I already had the barrel redirected and my finger ready to react. As she started to rise from the floor, I pulled the trigger and felt the rifle recoil in my hands.
The bullet hit with a solid thunk right between the shoulders, just below the throat. Blood fanned out in front of the snake woman for a heartbeat before spraying across the floor and walls. The woma
n’s chest turned a dark crimson as the stain spread. Blood trickled from her mouth as she gasped for air, and then she fell sideways.
Before I could make sure the woman was dead, I heard the sound of glass breaking in another room, so I ran back toward the front door and found yet another mutant trying to sneak inside. This one looked like a human-sized buzzard with a nose and lips rather than a beak, but the rest was all bird, from the grey skin to the brown feathers and the talons on the hands and feet.
Buzzard man must have thrown himself at the window where Sorcha had been keeping watch. What was left of the glass was scattered across the carpet and glittered in his feathers. He gave us a guttural, hissing call as he scanned the room with his yellow eyes.
Sorcha had backed up and grabbed a floor lamp, which she swung at the buzzard’s head. The buzzard managed to take the hit in his shoulder, but he hissed at Sorcha as she tried to regroup. The two faced off across the living room, and that was all the time I needed.
The rifle cracked as I pulled the trigger, and the sound filled the room. Sorcha jumped, even though she’d heard the Ruger plenty of times before. The smoke filled the room for a moment, along with the caustic scent of gunpowder and bullets.
Buzzard man squawked as the bullet hit his torso and buried itself deep inside. Blood gushed from the wound and down his side as he looked at the hole in disbelief. A red stain started to grow on the carpet beneath his feet, yet he managed to stay upright.
The Ruger was accurate, but it wasn’t that powerful. I had to be sure I hit an opponent in their head, lungs, or heart.
Before he could move, I swung the rifle around and charged toward the buzzard man. Part of my brain tried to calculate how many bullets I had left as I swung the rifle up and caught the buzzard man right between the eyes with the butt of the gun. He made a hissing sound as his eyes crossed, then he tried to raise a clawed hand toward my face. I punched with the butt of the Ruger one more time and heard the bone crunch under the blow. A third blow laid him out on the carpet, with blood pouring from his nose and mouth, and his eyes rolled back into his skull.
“I don’t have many bullets left,” I warned the Irishwoman.
I’d used six so far, by my count, and I’d only taken out four of the mutants. That meant I had four bullets left, and a lot more than four mutants circling the house where we were holed up.
“I’ll see if I can find any other weapons in the house,” she replied.
I took up a position in the front window again while Sorcha went back through the house. I could hear her moving around and opening drawers in the other rooms, as she looked for anything that might be useful in a fight. I kept my own eyes focused on the street outside and tried to decide on the best way to use my last bullets.
The remaining mutants had heard the additional rifle shots that I’d fired at the three mutants, and they must have been trying to determine who had been killed. There was an intense discussion taking place behind a car parked across the street, though all I could see was a few angry hand gestures as the mutants reassembled behind the car that now served as their shield. Several angry voices floated my way, and a few braver souls threatened to charge the house, but the mutants had learned their lesson, and most stayed low enough to avoid becoming my next target.
The voices died down for a moment and Peter popped his head over the edge of the car to look at the house, but I wasn’t able to get off a shot before he ducked back down again. I was starting to become impatient with the stand-off when one of the mutants finally moved. Actually, two of the mutants.
A furry man and a woman, both with cat eyes, whiskers, and speed, darted from behind the car and moved in opposite directions. There wasn’t time to think about which one to shoot because they moved so fast. I let the gun guide me and felt the Ruger respond. The stock felt warm in my palm for a moment, and then I swung the sight just ahead of a fast moving figure.
I knew instantly when to press the trigger, and the bullet raced down the barrel faster than any human or mutant could move. I knew the exact moment when the bullet cleared the gun and saw the trace of smoke that accompanied it. The crack of the rifle ripped through the air, and I saw both of the runners flinch.
But only one dropped. It was the woman who started to fall to the ground as the bullet ripped through her throat. Blood spurted as she fell, and she opened her mouth for a second, as if to yell, but nothing emerged. She hit with a soft thunk and laid still in the grass and weeds as they turned red.
The cat man yowled in pain, and I turned the rifle in his direction. He’d already made it behind a tree, though, and all I could see was the edge of his body. I waited for a moment, and he took a step toward the woman as I’d hoped he might. I fired again, though I fired too soon. The cat man had time to duck back behind the tree, and I saw the bullet strike the trunk instead. Splinters of wood sprayed the ground, and the cat man curled up as tightly as he could behind the tree. I could tell he was shaking, though, and I heard him hurl an epithet. I wasn’t sure if it was meant for me, for Peter, or for the world in general, but Peter yelled at him to shut up.
For his part, Peter seemed to have a hard time convincing any of the others to leave the safety of the car. I could hear angry voices from across the street again, and then Peter finally gave me the chance I wanted. He stood up for a moment, and I fired the gun before he could disappear behind his shield.
He must have moved as I fired though, because Peter survived what should have been a kill shot to the heart. Peter yelped and disappeared again, but I could still hear his voice, even over the sounds of the alarm bells in my head. I did a quick recount and had to admit that the magic was right. I had one bullet left, and still too many targets.
The itch was back in my palm as well, though the alarm bells nearly drowned out everything else. I scratched at my palm for a second, then forced myself to focus on the targets outside.
“Hex,” Sorcha called from one of the other rooms.
“Did you find anything?” I asked without turning around.
“Maybe,” she called back.
I heard her walk up behind me, and then she held something that looked unmistakably like a gun in front of my face. The itch suddenly made sense, and I could have kicked myself for not paying more attention to it. I had felt that same need when I stood in the museum and saw their display of guns, and again when I had spotted the snub nose on the gangster’s hip, but with the mutants circling outside and the Ruger nearly out of bullets, I’d pushed it aside.
“What--where?” I stammered as I took in the new gun.
I set the Ruger twenty-two against the wall next to me where I could reach it quickly, then held out my hands toward Sorcha.
“In the cellar,” the mage replied as she let me take the gun from her hands. “It was just leaning against the wall near the bottom of the stairs.”
As soon as it touched my palms, I felt the gun imprint on me. Every detail was now a part of me, right down to the grooves in the barrel and the small nick at the bottom of the stock.
The new gun was dusty, but otherwise still clean. Beneath the grime, I could tell it was a flat black color, though the letter M and the word Maverick had been etched into the stock just above the trigger. There were two barrels rather than one, stacked on top of each other, but it was shorter than the twenty-two Ruger.
“Mossberg Maverick HS12,” I read the inscription on the side. I couldn’t identify what the stock was made from, probably some sort of pre-magic material, but it felt comfortable in my hands, like the grip on the snub nose. I could tell that it was heavier than the Ruger rifle by a couple of pounds, maybe because of the double barrel, but it was still easy to hold, and I could imagine sitting in wait with it.
I could also tell there weren’t any bullets in it, but I pointed it out the window anyway, just to get a sense of what it was like to hold it on a target. One of the mutants squealed when they saw the gun, but no one showed themselves.
“Did you find any bullet
s?” I asked curiously as I handed the Maverick back to Sorcha.
“I didn’t really get a chance to look,” she replied as she accepted the weighty Maverick daintily then studied it for a moment. “The barrel is really big. The bullets must be really huge. I’m sure I would have spotted them if there were any.”
“Well, you can always hit someone with it,” I said with a smile
I pictured the Maverick in my hands, and the gun’s ghostlier cousin appeared. It took a moment to adjust to its greater weight, but the new weapon felt like a reliable friend, something that would be easy to use and always there in a pinch. I raised my own version of the double barreled weapon and used it to track along the street. It felt perfect in my hand, from the white strip that guided my eye along the sights, to the curve of the grip.
I waited for my first chance to fire it when I saw the cat man behind the tree peek around the edge of his hiding spot. Peter and some of the others yelled at him, though he looked undecided about what to do.
“Do it for Myrna!” Peter shouted.
That spurred the cat man into action, though probably not in the way Peter intended. The cat man shot from behind the tree and ran toward the car. He leapt on someone, and I could hear the sounds of punching and cursing from the hiding spot.
And then the cat man tumbled from behind the car and laid on the sidewalk for a moment. He climbed to his feet and shook his head, and he glared at someone behind the car. I thought he was about to launch himself toward the huddled group again, but with a roar, he turned toward the house, then sprinted across the street.
The Maverick roared to life in my hand, and I felt a surge of power as the top bullet sprang to life. The gun cracked and a quick burst of flame shot from the barrel. It had more kick than the Ruger twenty-two, and I nearly dropped the gun as it popped in my grasp and punched my shoulder. Despite my surprise, and the bruise that had to be forming, I managed to hold on to the Maverick and keep it pointed dead ahead.