The Devil's Standoff

by V. S. McGrath

  “Get her out of here!” Raúl shouted. Hettie struggled weakly as someone hauled her out of the infirmary, her heels dragging through the dirt. Her last glimpse of Walker was the look of pure agony on his face before the door slammed shut.

  She collapsed in the courtyard, shivering as if she’d just been dunked in an icy lake. Diablo lay dormant in her hand. At some point it had sensed a threat and come to her defense, but she was so drained she wasn’t sure she could’ve pulled the trigger.

  “That was reckless.” Beatrice stood above her, hands on her hips. “Didn’t it occur to you that you weren’t invited for a reason?”

  Thin air seeped through her nostrils into leaden lungs. “What’s happening? He’s hurting Walker.” It came out thickly through numb lips.

  “Raúl’s doing what he’s supposed to do—returning Javier’s magic. My husband made Diablo, so I’m guessing the spell was siphoning his magic off you and the mage gun, as well, and that’s not a good thing if you two are bonded. If you’d stayed there too long, you might have had your whole life force drained away.” She placed a cool palm over her forehead. “Don’t move too quickly. Take a moment to catch your breath.”

  The sun-warmed flagstones pressed against her back, gradually bringing Hettie’s blood temperature back up. Slowly she sat up and summoned the revolver as a check. “Why is Raúl doing this now? He refused to before.”

  “Walker insisted. Last night after he walked you home, he told Raúl in no uncertain terms that it was time to wake Javier. I agreed.”

  The bounty hunter’s eyes flashed in her mind, haunting her. She’d never seen him afraid like that. Hettie propped herself up slowly. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “My son is strong. He survived the transfer once, he’ll do it again.” She helped Hettie to a bench. “It’s what happens afterwards that I’m concerned about.”

  “Afterwards?”

  Beatrice’s mouth tightened. “Have you ever known a dope fiend?”

  She nodded. Newhaven had its share of opium addicts. “Whether he realizes it or not, Walker has been high on my husband’s power for thirteen years, juiced up as no other man could be. All that power is being siphoned off him slowly so it doesn’t kill him. They’ve already been at it for four hours.”

  Hettie was shocked at first, though she didn’t know why: this had been Walker’s intent since returning to Villa del Punta. That he was giving up his magic now, though, with the threat of the army hovering … She wasn’t sure she would have made the same decision. “When Javier gets his power back, will he wake up?”

  “Hard to say.” Beatrice glanced back toward the infirmary. “All we can do is wait.”

  Hettie kept Beatrice company while they waited. The healer went into the infirmary periodically to check on her son’s progress, and each time she returned, the lines in her face were deeper.

  The heat was stifling despite the breeze blowing through the open courtyard. Hettie fidgeted with Diablo, her gaze drawn again and again to the broken angel statue. She couldn’t help but feel its presence, for all that it was a crumbling piece of stone. Perhaps it had been magicked.

  “What’s with that statue?” she asked Beatrice.

  Walker’s mother glanced over and shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure. It was like that when I arrived. No one in the village seems to know how it was broken either. It’s been here a long time. All Javier’s ever said about it is that it met with an unfortunate accident.”

  The wistfulness in her voice reminded Hettie that the great sorcerer was her husband, a man she was presumably in love with. It bothered her that she’d somehow overlooked that.

  “What’s he like?” she asked.

  “Javier?” Beatrice smiled softly. “Kind. Firm. A man who has carried the weight of the world for a long time, watched many of his loved ones come into the world and leave it. When I first came to Villa del Punta, I was a refugee. I’d used up the last of my money to bribe the border guards to let us pass. Walker was barely eight years old when we fled the States.” She glanced toward the infirmary door. “We walked through the desert for days. I thought we would die out there. Then Javier found us and brought us here.”

  “What about … Walker’s father?”

  Before Beatrice could respond, the door opened. Raúl emerged, dark circles beneath his eyes and a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead.

  “It is done.” He leaned against the door frame. Beatrice hurried into the infirmary. Hettie followed, but Raúl put up a hand and stopped her.

  “Not you.”

  She glared. “Why not?”

  “My brother does not wish to see you right now.”

  Something like anger shot through her heart, clouded her thoughts like a storm boiling on the horizon. Only Raúl’s pallor and pronounced stagger distracted her from the bewildering emotion.

  “How is Javier?” she asked tentatively, sympathy leaching her rage away.

  “The transfer was difficult. I did not facilitate the first one, so putting my father’s magic back into his body was challenging.”

  “But it was a success?”

  “Despite your interference?” He huffed. “Yes. It was a lucky thing you did not contaminate the spellground. I’ve no way of knowing how Diablo’s presence might have affected the spell. For now, my father’s powers are back where they belong. But it might be some time before he opens his eyes.”

  Hettie looked longingly at the infirmary door. She wanted to see how Walker was doing, see Javier Punta. She was just a little closer to being free of Diablo …

  “I would avoid my brother for a while,” Raúl said sharply. “You will not want to see him in his current condition.”

  “I don’t care about that,” she insisted, but Raúl shook his head.

  “You do not understand. He will be craving magic, and he will seek it wherever he can get it. He might ask you for Diablo. Insist on holding it for you. And you … you might feel sorry for him and give it to him to ease his suffering. You must not do this. And you must keep Abby as far away as possible. Her power is raw and unpredictable, and he will not be able to withstand the temptation.”

  “Temptation to do what?”

  Raúl’s face clouded, and he pursed his lips. “Just keep away from him. He needs time to heal.”

  The men across the street propped against the buildings while smoking cigarettes were trying too hard to look casual, Ling thought. The same four men had been following him and Stubbs since they’d arrived in Chihuahua. He wasn’t sure if Captain Sanchez had sent them in addition to their escorts, who’d traveled with them and showed them around town as though they were honored guests. But the two soldiers, Jeffe and Inigo, hadn’t paid the tails any mind, so either they weren’t aware of the added security or they were very good at ignoring them.

  “You really need to relax, Tsang.” Stubbs sipped a glass of some golden liquor their guides had pressed on them. “It’s not every day a gringo and a Chino are treated like this.”

  “They fatten pigs before a slaughter, too.” Ling narrowed his eyes on a man in a serape and sombrero. The man tugged the brim of his broad hat lower. “We can’t just sit here.”

  “What do you think you’re going to do? Take that stinking mutt there”—he hitched a thumb at Cymon, who lay in the sun with one eye open—“and go sniffing around the countryside for the girls?”

  “Better than sitting around stuffing our faces. For all we know, the Alabama sisters might already have passed Diablo back to Javier Punta and moved on.”

  “They haven’t.” Stubbs said it with the calm assurance of a hunter who had his prey in the cross hairs and one eye on the predator stalking him. “I’d know if they had. Besides, between that group of tagalongs you’ve been glaring at and our earnest tour guides, we wouldn’t get two blocks before we were arrested and thrown in jail ourselves. No, I much pre
fer this to the hospitality of the warden.” He leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Try it sometime. You can learn a lot if you just close your eyes and listen. For instance”—he cracked one eye open—“General Vidal Cabello is visiting the nearby garrison.”

  “The one they call El Toro?” Ling sat up. Even he knew about the Mexican general’s vicious reputation. The Division had him on a list of Kukulos warlocks suspected of committing atrocities against innocents. “What’s he doing in Chihuahua?”

  “That is the question.” Stubbs closed his eyes again. “Rumor has it there was an attack on the army garrison outside of the city a few nights ago. A couple of very strange deaths, they said, had befallen their men. Heads cleanly wiped from their bodies, only they couldn’t find the heads.” He cut him a look. “Sound familiar to you?”

  The Devil’s Revolver was the only weapon powerful enough to do such damage, as far as Ling knew. If it was Diablo, then Hettie was closer than they thought. “We should investigate.”

  Stubbs waved a hand. “I am investigating. You might think I’m taking some kind of vacation, but you can learn a lot more by smiling and being quiet than by interrogating every stranger you meet.” He swished his drink in his mouth. “Mmm. That is just delightful.”

  Ling set his teeth. He was fed up with the Pinkerton agent’s stalling and condescension. While he was aware it would be foolish to go after the Alabama sisters himself, lounging around the city with Stubbs was not getting him anywhere closer to his goal.

  Perhaps it was time to part ways with Thomas Stubbs.

  “You’re getting that look,” the Pinkerton agent remarked archly. “That ‘I’m going to do whatever I want’ look. Not much of a poker face on you, is there?”

  “I don’t gamble.”

  He chuckled. “No, I don’t suppose you do. But then, you always were the good son, weren’t you, Tsang Li Ling?”

  Ling stilled. He’d pronounced Ling’s name in his mother tongue perfectly. Thomas studied his drink in the light. “I had you checked out, of course. Couldn’t figure out how a Celestial Paladin healer with your English skills ended up in the employ of the Division of Sorcery but got assigned to watch some brat in the middle of nowhere.” He sipped more of the liquor. “Ling Tsang, or Tsang Li Ling, son of Tsang Wai Keung and some peasant woman. Your father’s a magistrate in a little town in Hupei province. Important man with a lot of honor.” He raised a brow in contempt. “You people put way too much emphasis on that.”

  “Honor is all some people have,” Ling gritted.

  “That what you tell yourself? ’Cuz honor won’t bring back that girl you killed.”

  Ling’s fingers curled. His temper had gotten him into a lot of scrapes. But he didn’t lash out. His anger was turned inward.

  Stubbs smiled slowly, his gray teeth like little tombstones. “I know you were sent as far from your family’s honor as possible. And I know the Division found you in San Francisco, a drowned rat running dope for the local dens.” He picked his teeth. “I do wonder what kind of hell they put you through to make you join ’em. Things weren’t fun when I was in the Academy, and they sure as hell didn’t get better over time. So I’m guessing they gave you an ultimatum—work for them or die in prison. That about right?”

  Ling stared straight ahead, blocking out the nightmarish memories threatening to overwhelm him. He thought about happy old times before his exile—flying kites with his half brothers and half sisters, reading to his mother under the big tree in the courtyard. He thought about the sumptuous Mid-Autumn Harvest festival feast, the cacophonous lion dances on their doorstep at New Year’s …

  He thought about poor Siu May, eyes staring straight up from a too-white face while her lifeblood pooled around her …

  The horrors surfaced. The long, foul boat ride to California. The muddied streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown. The Division goons who’d caught him carrying a package whose contents he hadn’t known about. The bargain for his life …

  “The Division must’ve done a number on you.” Stubbs’s voice drew Ling out of his nightmare revelry. “What’d they tell you? That you’d earn your honor back? That they’d send you home someday if you did well?”

  “I owe the Division my life.” A ball of fire burned as bright as truth in his chest.

  “Not much of one, though, wouldn’t you say?” He filled his cup with more of the golden liquor. “I worked for the Division for more than fifteen years before I realized I could have more. That’s what makes America great, Tsang. You’re free to become something better.”

  “Like a hired mercenary?” he retorted blandly.

  “The Pinkerton Agency is a legitimate business. And the pay’s better than what the Division is giving you, I bet.”

  It almost sounded as if the man was trying to recruit him. To what end, he couldn’t say. “I’m not concerned about pay. I’m doing what’s right for everyone, Abigail Alabama included.”

  “Right, this whole ‘indigo child’ business. The Division’s been chasing that particular devil for a while now.” He scratched his nose. “Not worth it, in my opinion. Few times they’ve actually gotten ahold of one hasn’t ended well for anybody.”

  Ling ground his jaw. “Abby needs help. She’s a danger to everyone around her.”

  “Keep telling yourself that. The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Stubbs quipped. “But to my mind, any man who drags a little girl kicking and screaming to the Academy knowing what’ll happen to her there is more of bastard than I could ever be.” He shrugged. “Then again, for the right price, I might shoot her in the face. They paying you enough to do that, Tsang?”

  Ling’s chest constricted until his vision turned gray. He rose from the table suddenly. “Where you heading?” the Pinkerton agent asked snidely.

  “Outhouse.”

  He passed blindly through the café and exited through the back door. The air was a little clearer here. With a quick glance around, he grabbed the edge of the porch’s overhang, pulled himself onto the roof, and lithely scaled the clay downspout onto the top of the building. With light footsteps he jumped the gap over to the next building and made his way across the city.

  He didn’t know where he was headed. He just had to move, to flex his muscles and scramble over stone and brick to get away from Stubbs, from their tails, from the harsh memories and his sudden attack of conscience.

  He reminded himself that joining the Division had saved his life. But he still had nightmares about his accelerated training at the Academy. He vividly remembered the beatings and torture he’d endured to test the limits of his gift. He would never forget the way they’d hurt other students—some of them barely children—just to see how many he’d heal before he passed out.

  Those grueling trials had forged him into the man he was today. But at what cost? He was a Paladin-class healer, sworn to do no harm with his magic or his abilities as a healer. That meant nothing if he was willing to bring Abby in knowing she’d be subjected to the same torturous trials he’d faced. Worse, likely. The Division would take the most extreme precautions with Abby. She’d be treated like a rabid animal …

  Could he do that? Could he drag her away from her remaining family to be leashed and bound and probably put under a sleep spell for the rest of her short, horror-filled life? He’d practically watched Abby grow up.

  He ran faster, skating across the rooftops and leaping over the short walls to outrun the darkness. His breath rasped harshly from his lungs, the sun’s searing glare bearing down on him like a judgment. The rooftops ended, and he stopped. There was nowhere left to go but back the way he’d come.

  He glanced down at the empty streets below. He’d outrun his tails … but he could never outrun himself.

  “I was wondering when I’d finally get you alone.”

  Ling spun around, heart hammering. Jeremiah Bassett lean
ed against the chimney, watching him narrowly as an owl might watch a mouse.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I can find anything. Didn’t Stubby tell you? Back in the Division, they used to call me the Hound.” He pushed off the hot brickwork. “Woof.”

  Before Ling realized what was happening, the old sorcerer threw a talisman at him. The thing sprouted in an explosion of green, and in a flash the vines wrapped around his legs and snaked up his torso, tenacious tendrils and burrs hooking into his clothing, clamping his arms to his body. The more he struggled, the faster the vines grew around him. He collapsed to his knees and fell onto his side, cocooned in green. Jeremiah slowed his incantation, his words devolving into a fit of phlegmy coughing. He pulled a flask from his side and took a swig.

  “Where are the Alabama sisters?” Ling gritted out. Surely the old man hadn’t been stupid enough to bring them to Chihuahua?

  “They’re safe. Safer than they’d be with you, I reckon.” He eased down into a crouch. “I need answers. Give me what I want and maybe I won’t slit your throat.” Jeremiah leaned in, eyes shaded by the mangled brim of his well-worn hat. “Tell me about Abby and this indigo child business. There isn’t anything in the Arcanum about them.”

  There was nothing to be gained by withholding the information. And Bassett was a pragmatic man, if a touch paranoid. Perhaps the old sorcerer could convince the Alabamas to listen to him. “Indigo powers are a subset of magic the Division has had little success in studying. Every generation, only a few indigo children are born.”

  “And you think Abby is one of them.”

  “The Division tracked reports of Grace Alabama’s difficult pregnancy. Her symptoms were consistent with reports of other mothers who’d given birth to indigo children. Many of them do not survive the labor, but Grace did … and so did Abby.”

  “So how come in all those years you worked on the farm you didn’t notice anything? That girl was never right. You saw how they had to keep an eye on her all the time.”