Guns of Perdition

by Jessica Bakkers

  “I asked, what do you think you’re doing?”

  Tokota hid the knife behind his back. “We got turned around. We were looking for the grand parlor.”

  The girl scowled. “Oh yes? Then what’s that?” She pointed at the carved wall.

  Tokota glanced at the carving. Jessie caught his eye for a moment and lifted his shoulders uselessly. Tokota’s eyes flicked upward briefly, then he flashed a smile at the woman.

  “It’s a ritual among my ancestors. A way to honor the people who live in a place.”

  The girl looked skeptical. “A ritual?”

  Tokota nodded and took a step closer to her. Jessie stood frozen, watching silently.

  “My time here has been so...pleasurable... I had to express my thanks. I would have captured the moon and the stars to lay at your feet, but I cannot. I am just a man. Instead, I leave you this ritual. To watch over you and this place of pleasure.”

  A small smile tugged the girl’s lips. “You have the heart of a poet.”

  Tokota took another step closer. “No, I do not.”

  Before the girl could flinch, Tokota slashed her throat. Jessie gasped.

  The girl’s eyes went wide and her pupils turned into slits. Her irises flared red, and when she opened her mouth, rows of fangs protruded from her gums. But it was already too late. Black blood poured from her ruined throat and splashed down her chest. She glared at Tokota with monstrous eyes and dropped to her knees. The hand she pressed to her throat was no longer human; claw-like talons raked the gaping wound. Tokota jumped backward to avoid her gushing black blood. Jessie grabbed Tokota’s arm and steadied him.

  With a throaty gurgle, the girl fell face-forward on the floor. Tokota frowned as he peered at her. Two bone-like protuberances had pierced her flesh beneath each shoulder blade. They were the nubs of her wings.

  Tokota glanced over his shoulder and looked at Jessie. “You, uh, you slept with that?”

  Jessie dry retched and turned away.

  A heavy hand clapped on his shoulder. “You are not the first man to have his woman turn into a harpy after relations,” Tokota said.

  Jessie frowned at the native. The lines around Tokota’s eyes crinkled and Jessie couldn’t help but snort in return. For a serious Sioux warrior, Tokota sure had a weird sense of humor.

  “I gotta find Grace. Finish up quick as you can and get out front. They need help.”

  Tokota clapped Jessie’s shoulder again and turned back to the wall. He set to work on the carving with renewed vigor. Jessie dashed back into the bowels of the brothel.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jessie winced as a board creaked beneath his boot. He’d already searched downstairs and come across Ruby. After telling her to cut out, he’d made his tentative way upstairs. He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. Forty-rod. The place reeked of it. A glistening rainbow of forty-rod stained the furnishings and floor. Grace had splashed it here and there and then wandered in a straight line to the suite at the opposite end of the house. A large earthenware jug sat on the soaked floor outside the suite. Jessie crept closer and glanced down at the jug of firewater. It was empty. She’d splashed every drop of the powerful alcohol around the brothel. Behind the jug, the door to the suite was open. Jessie peered in.

  The suite was large, and unlike the rest of the brothel, the room was sparsely decorated. This was most definitely not a room used for fornication. It held rows of bookshelves, a polished leather chair, and a commanding wooden desk. It was at this oak monstrosity where Grace stood, a flickering lantern casting a warm glow over her as she stared down at a piece of parchment in her hand. At first, Jessie thought it was the shadows playing across her face that made her look so thunderous, but as he inched toward her, he wondered if it was the contents of the letter that had enraged her.

  “Grace? Uh, we gotta get moving.”

  Grace didn’t acknowledge him. She didn’t even blink.

  Jessie frowned and came up beside her. He inhaled her scent and his head swam. “Grace?”

  Without moving her head or shifting her gaze, Grace handed him the parchment. He took it gingerly and examined the fluid cursive penmanship.

  Grace, I’m sorry I won’t be able to make our rendezvous here in Temerity, but pressing matters call me elsewhere. I trust you to do the right thing and I trust Ruby to do the same. It’s in your nature—it’s in both your natures. When the smoke clears get yourself to Barren Banks, Death Valley. Don’t keep me waiting.

  He hadn’t signed off. He hadn’t needed to. No one else would’ve left the letter.

  Jessie lowered the missive and reached for Grace.

  “If you go to him it’ll be what he wants.”

  Jessie flinched at the strange voice.

  Grace spun and smoothly drew Justice. She clicked the hammer down and aimed in half a heartbeat. A small cry fled Jessie’s mouth as he looked at the lovely redhead who leaned against the doorframe. Viola.

  Grace pinned Justice on the woman, though it was clear from the scant negligee she wore that she was not armed. Not that she needed a gun to be dangerous. Jessie knew that from first-hand experience.

  “Viola,” he said.

  Grace eyed the redhead. “You read it? The note he left me?”

  Viola shrugged. “I don’t need to. I know what he asked you. Come to him. It’s all he’s ever spoken of. ‘The day Grace comes to me’...” Gone was the seductive burr in her speech. Her tone was old now, old and weary. “It’s why he was so angry when Mozelle interfered.”

  Jessie’s mind flashed to an image of Mozelle, held in the Gunman’s cruel grip. He saw the Gunman flick his wrist, saw Mozelle’s neck snap and her lifeless body drop to the ground. Jessie shivered and shook his head to clear the horrific images from his mind’s eye.

  Grace’s frown deepened. “You know him?”

  Viola shrugged again. “He comes here often. To speak with Ruby. And to check on the binding.”

  “The binding?”

  Viola nodded. She held out her hands, palms up. Both Jessie and Grace looked at her lovely white palms. Jessie drew a quick breath as the girl’s flesh seared and sizzled. A mark appeared, burned into her flesh as though she’d grabbed a white-hot branding iron. The hissing flesh and ugly red weals faded away as quickly as they’d appeared until her palms were again unmarred and beautiful. Jessie whispered her name in sorrow. Grace looked at the girl and frowned.

  A wan smile tugged at Viola’s lips. “You see, my sisters and I, we’re as bound to play his game as you are.”

  Grace’s expression darkened. “What do you mean?”

  “When he came to us oh so many years ago, we did not live in your towns and society. We made our home on the outskirts of La Nouvelle-Orléans. My sisters and I lived among the Creole. We taught them the gris-gris and they favored us with blood. No one was hurt. No one suffered. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Until he came.”

  “The Darksome Gunman.”

  Viola shrugged. “He has never provided his name. Who needs a name who wields such power? He commanded us to leave our home. He bade us enter this house and cast off our true skin and wear this pink flesh. He bound us to this place, and here we sat, like glutted pigs, supping on the abundance of blood offered to us, all the while pining for our home.”

  Grace frowned. “Why? Why’d he put you all here?”

  Viola’s eyes narrowed. “To watch over her.”

  “Her?”

  “Ruby. It was always about Ruby,” she said in a dark tone. “Watch her. Keep her. Train her. Love her. That’s all we heard. And if we mentioned our home within his hearing? At best it would be a sharp bolt of pain, like a strike of lightning.”

  “At worst?” Jessie asked quietly, though he needn’t have bothered. His vision was filled with Mozelle’s image.

  Viola looked away. When she turned back her eyes glistened. “We were thirty-three when we first came here. We are twenty-one now. Twelve of my sisters learned the hard way that it’s his wa
y or no way.”

  Justice held steady as Grace eyed the girl.

  Jessie swallowed, reached out, and placed a hand on Grace’s revolver.

  As he tugged the gun down, Grace hissed and snapped, “Jessie? What are you doing?”

  Jessie peered at Grace’s hard face and felt a wave of weariness roll over him.

  He sighed and said, “Don’t you see, Grace? They’re as much victims of the Darksome Gunman as you, or Tokota. As anyone who finds themselves playing his game.”

  Grace snorted and tugged the revolver from his hand.

  Jessie put his hand on Justice again and firmly pulled it down. “They’re as much victims of his game as the folk of Whitestand Hollow were. Will you let these girls go the same way as the Hollowers?”

  Grace’s jaw clenched and she stared at Jessie silently for a long time. Finally, she lowered the revolver of her own accord and glared at Viola. “You don’t have to keep playing. We mean to bust Ruby out of here tonight. You all can leave too.”

  Viola’s sad smile turned bitter. She shook her head and her red hair danced. “Leave? Where would we go? He would find us. Wherever we went. He would find us and punish us.”

  Jessie took a step forward. “Then come with us! We mean to challenge him at his own game! We’re gonna find the sonuvabitch and tear him—”

  A gunshot rang out. Jessie spun and dashed to the window. He peeled back the curtain and peered into the gloom.

  Kaga and Richmond had their guns out. Tokota stood with a rifle in his hands. Jessie squinted through the darkness and swore at the long shadows skulking through the night toward the brothel. Temerity’s menfolk.

  “You cannot win. Not against him.”

  Jessie frowned and turned from the window. He drew a quick breath as he looked at Viola. She was fully transformed into a half-woman, half-winged fiend.

  She reared up and lunged.

  Grace raised Justice and riddled the whore’s naked gray breasts with bullets.

  “No!” Jessie cried.

  Viola slammed against the wall and her leathery wings thrashed violently. Black blood spattered the pastel wallpaper and smeared as she slid down the wall. Her reptilian eyes focused on Grace and a hiss fell from her lips. “Do not...fight him...”

  Viola’s claws rattled against the floor and her wings twitched for a few seconds, then stilled. Grace stared at the dead whore, started toward her, then hesitated. She lowered her smoking equalizer and winced. “Didn’t have to go that way.”

  Jessie came up beside her and shook his head. “Just another low card caught up in his ace-high game,” he muttered.

  Grace turned to Jessie and frowned. He was taken aback at the shadows beneath her eyes.

  She lowered a heavy hand onto his shoulder and said, “Then no more bluffing, Jessie.”

  Another gunshot echoed outside, and Grace started. She holstered Justice and clambered over the dead whore. As she dashed outside the suite, she squelched through a pool of forty-rod and stopped abruptly. Jessie, hot on her heels, ran up behind her and stumbled to a stop. Grace was staring down at the soaked floor.

  “There’s still time to throw in the hand,” she muttered.

  Grace took off for the staircase as gunshots filled the night. Jessie cast one last look at the suite with its dead whore, then dashed after Grace.

  Jessie burst onto the front steps of La Chatte Affamee as Tokota fired a shot in the air. Everywhere he looked, torchlight pierced the night as scores of Temerity’s lusty menfolk approached. Tokota and Richmond crowded close against the haycart. Kaga had his rifle in hand and peered into the gloom with narrowed eyes. Jessie eyed the approaching menfolk and yanked the Colt from his waistband. He thundered down the steps and squeezed off a shot into the sky. He flinched at the roar of the Colt, but it made no difference to the tide of men advancing on them.

  Jessie dashed to Tokota’s side and brandished the Colt. The big native held his polished Sharps rifle in one hand, heedless of the weight of the weapon.

  “Grace?” Tokota grunted.

  Jessie waved his hand at the brothel. She’d been right in front of him as they made for the parlor, then she’d peeled off right when he went left. Tokota pressed his lips together grimly.

  “Any grand ideas?” Jessie asked.

  Richmond lowered his arm and aimed at the approaching horde.

  Jessie’s heart lurched at the gesture. “We cain’t just beef them!”

  A sudden crash drew their attention, and the trio turned as Ruby barreled through the front doors of La Chatte Affamee. She lugged an earthenware jug in her arms and poured a trail of firewater down the front steps. At the foot of the steps, Ruby dropped the jug, which shattered as it hit the ground. She hesitated on the grass as the forty-rod seeped into the soil.

  Jessie frowned. “Ruby! The menfolk are advancing!”

  Jessie’s ragged shout didn’t seem to pierce the madame’s addled state. She shook her head and dashed to the haycart. “Jessie! Matches!”

  “Ruby, the menfolk...cain’t you do something about them?”

  Ruby’s face flushed as she grabbed Jessie’s shirt. “Give me the goddamn matches!”

  Jessie blinked dumbly and was awarded a sharp slap for his inaction. He fumbled in his pockets and withdrew a box of matches.

  Ruby snatched the box from his hand and waved at the menfolk. “Shoot them! Kill them if you have to! Just buy me time!”

  Jessie’s brows drew together. She meant to set the place on fire—now! He grabbed Ruby’s arm. “Wait! We cain’t— ”

  “Passe!” Ruby shouted and shook him off. She ran back to the soaked wooden steps and didn’t pause as another gunshot rang out.

  Jessie spun and saw Richmond double over and vomit liquid bile down his suit. Jessie’s eyes dropped and he saw a body on the road. One of Temerity’s menfolk.

  “Christ!”

  Though Richmond had drawn first blood, the advance hadn’t slowed. Almost like the undead they’d encountered at Sandycrag Creek, the wave of menfolk continued undeterred. If killing them was the only way to stop them, Temerity’s streets would be awash with blood come dawn. Jessie glanced about in desperation and his gaze raked over the remaining jug of fire-whiskey twice before inspiration hit. His eyes widened, and he stuffed the Colt into his belt.

  “Tokota! Cover me!”

  Jessie lugged the earthenware jug to one side of the fence that separated La Chatte Affamee from the street and started pouring a long, thick line of whiskey on the road. Sweat ran down his forehead and stung his eyes as he lugged the heavy jug and poured around the haycart. He sensed a figure loom up beside him and glanced up in time to see an ax-head flash in the torchlight. Jessie’s bowels clenched as a boom broke the night.

  The Temerity man flew backward and collapsed on the road. His ax clattered uselessly by his side. Jessie licked his dry lips and picked up the jug with shaking hands. He trusted Tokota to continue protecting him as he worked on the semicircle of firewater. As he joined the line of whiskey to the fence, a boom told him Tokota had put down another man.

  Jessie tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. He fumbled in his pockets for another book of matches and came up with one from Temerity’s own general store. He lifted his heel and scratched the entire book of matches against his boot. The heads flared to life. Jessie flung the matches at the trail of whiskey and stepped back as the spark caught with a woof. The trail burst into fire, and within seconds the haycart and the small band of miscreants were surrounded by a three-foot wall of fire.

  It wouldn’t last long.

  Jessie turned, panting with exhaustion, and scanned the brothel for Ruby. She stood at the bottom step of the brothel and stared up at the manor, heedless of the racket behind her. She only had eyes for the building that had been both home and prison for the vast majority of her life. In her hand, she clutched the Little Lucifers box, slid the top back, and plucked three matches. She held them over the scratch strip.

  “Ruby! Stop!�
�

  Ruby raised her head and her eyes fell on the figure who strode through La Chatte Affamee’s grand double doors. Grace’s boot heels thudded dully against the soaked porch boards.

  Jessie’s heart thumped—Grace was still inside all this time?

  Grace looked down at Ruby and held out her hands, palms up. “Ruby, you cain’t kill them. It ain’t their fault. The girls. They’re as much pawns in his game as we are.”

  Ruby blinked and frowned. Behind Grace, a bevy of beautiful faces peered through the open doors. The whores stood on the threshold and screeched but made no move outside. Tokota’s ward was working.

  “We’ll find another way. Get all the menfolk in and have the whores undo their hoodoo. Killing them,” Grace’s eyes found Jessie’s and she nodded, “it ain’t right.”

  Ruby looked at the matches in her hand. She cocked her head and sniffed the breeze. “Can you smell it?”

  Grace frowned. “The fire? I smell it.”

  “No. Hoyt’s Cologne.” Ruby’s emerald eyes flashed as she blinked. Grace frowned and opened her mouth.

  Ruby cut her off. “It was Hoyt’s Cologne he was wearing my very first time. He was a card shark celebrating a winning streak. He had coin to spend and an appetite that couldn’t be sated. Over the course of a single week, he’d already bought and had every girl in the brothel. Then he demanded more. I was the only girl left. I was fourteen. Until then, I’d only seen what went on behind closed doors and through keyholes. I remember the smell when he rode me. Hoyt’s Cologne.”

  Grace glanced at the others. They shrugged. There was only the stench of fire, blood, and death in the air. If Ruby smelled Hoyt’s Cologne, it wafted on a breeze meant for her alone.

  Grace licked her lips. “I know what happened to you weren’t right, Ruby—”

  “Right? Who are you to lecture me on right?” Ruby’s voice was thin, stretched.

  Grace frowned at the madame. “Whoa there, I know what they did—”