Hell's Marshal

by Chris Barili

  The face of Jesse James faded from sight.

  “First, you will need to find him,” Earp said. “We think he’s set on causing trouble in Clay County, Missouri, but we last detected him in Colorado.”

  “Don’t recall him doing any heists in the Colorado territory,” Frank said. “You sure he’s there?”

  “Positive.” Earp’s long moustache twitched, imp-like flames dancing as he spoke. “Near a place called Creede.”

  “How do I find him?”

  “He won’t look like himself,” Webber said. “He has taken possession of a body in the living world. Look for someone acting oddly. Speaking in tongues, hurting people. He could be anyone.”

  “Sounds like a demon,” Frank said.

  “He’s not a demon,” Hickok said, “but the signs are similar.”

  “I see. So, what next?”

  “The soul cannot pass from the living world straight to Hell,” Earp said. “It must pass through the underworld. His underworld, created from his nightmares. We’ll take it from there.”

  Frank remembered his own underworld, where he had to face his own sins again, do battle with his own inner demons. It was that way for all who passed through—everyone faced a nightmare world built from the dark shadows of their hearts and minds, and if they managed to correct their errors, they were forgiven.

  No one but Frank had ever chosen eternal damnation over absolution.

  “And how do I send him there?”

  “You must drive the spirit from its living host,” all three said at once. “You can do this through use of certain religious practices, but it is not easy and requires a holy man. Since you’re a denizen of Hell, no priest will help you.”

  “All right, so exorcism is out. How else?”

  “You must kill the body, then use talismans we give you to send the spirit to the underworld. If you fail to send it across, it will simply possess another body.”

  Bill Hickok spoke alone. “He may use people from the world of the living to do his dirty work. They’ll be his puppets as long as he needs them. Harm as few as possible to keep things quiet.”

  Frank stood, fists at his sides, taking slow, deep breaths. He hated being backed into a corner, but they’d done it nonetheless. He locked eyes with Webber.

  “Why me? Out of all the souls you got down here, why pick me?”

  Webber never looked away, the corners of his mouth turning up and his eyes smoldering.

  “We have a history, you and me.”

  So, it was personal. Frank could understand that, at least.

  “One condition. If I do this, you increase my time in the pit so it’s what I deserve.”

  The judges conferred, hissing.

  “Agreed,” they said as one.

  Frank nodded. “If I’m gonna be Hell’s Marshal, shouldn’t I get a badge?”

  Webber grinned and a bolt of lightning shot down from the ceiling, crashing into Frank’s chest. His body went rigid, and a searing agony blazed on his chest. Fire arced through his body, making his muscles contract until he felt his bones straining not to snap. He tried to scream, but couldn’t open his mouth even an inch.

  The acrid stink of burning flesh filled his nostrils as the skin on his chest sizzled and cooked like bacon over a fire.

  An instant later, the lightning disappeared and Frank collapsed to the floor. When he finally mustered the strength to lift his head, a marshal’s badge had been burned in swollen, pink flesh where the lightning had touched him. In the center of the six-pointed star, a skull stared out, flames dancing in the hollows of its eyes. The words “Hell’s Marshal” circled it all. The judges faded from sight, snickering as they disappeared.

  “Send Jesse James back to us, Marshal Butcher,” echoed their voices. “Dead or dead.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Frank looked around the tiny chamber where Damon and Hul had left him. Nothing. Just four gray walls, a gray floor, and the swirling pinks, purples, and grays of the underworld sky, starless and bleak. He stretched out his arms and touched his fingertips to the walls on either side of him, both too tall and smooth to climb out. Not that he wanted to run around the desert of his personal underworld. He’d seen it once and didn’t want to ever again.

  No, he’d be better off in the tiny room until someone came along.

  As if reading his thoughts, the wall in front of him dissolved from sight and Frank stood in a long, narrow chamber with closed cabinets lining either wall. At the far end, a man in a white coat leaned over a tall table, his back to Frank and his head bowed so Frank could only see the halo of white hair around a shiny bald spot the size of an apple. The man waved Frank forward with an age-spotted hand, not even looking up from his work.

  “Come here, Mr. Butcher.” His voice buzzed like lightning trapped in a bottle. “I need to issue your gear to you before you head on out. And give you your team, too.”

  Frank walked forward, placing himself just off center from the old man, hoping to get a look at his face. But all he saw was a scruffy black stubble on his jawline.

  “I work alone,” he told the man.

  The old man chuckled but didn’t look up from his work.

  Frank took one step closer and stood looking down at his own body, spread out in death’s repose. His eyes stared at the sky, cold and blue like ice, and the thin, pink line of a scar ran down his cheek. A forest of stubble stood on the harsh angle of his jaw, while blood and grime caked his straw-colored hair.

  A circle of blood stained the white cotton shirt in which they’d buried him.

  “What are you doing to my body?” Frank asked.

  “This isn’t your body,” the old man said. “Your real body’s been rotting in the ground in Tombstone for two years now. Extensive damage. This is an underworld representation of how it used to look.”

  “For what?” Frank narrowed his eyes at the old man’s hunched back.

  “I’m making a pattern, so it’ll know how to rebuild itself when you possess it again.”

  As he turned around, Frank reached for the six-gun he didn’t have.

  The old man had the face of a fly, with giant, shimmering eyes of blue, green, and silver. The stubble on his jawline covered much of his face, consisting of thick, black hairs. And his mouth was made up of long, rigid mandibles, suitable for shoveling slop or rotten things inside.

  He offered a hand—a normal, human hand. “Name’s Thaddeus Slater. But most folks call me Buzzy.”

  Frank shook his hand, unable to take his eyes off the hideous face before him.

  “It isn’t polite to stare,” Buzzy said, not turning away.

  “Sorry,” Frank said. “Just…”

  “Yeah, I’m ugly as Hell. Literally.”

  Uncomfortable, Frank changed the subject. “So, I’m using my old body in the living world?”

  Buzzy nodded. “Your…prey used a living body, but you can’t do that. Judges’ orders. So you’ll be placed back in your old, rotting corpse. Your body won’t really be alive, at least not as you know the word. We call it ‘reanimated’ instead. It’ll rebuild itself in a few days, faster with rest, but you’ll have to keep covered up or out of sight until it does. You think I’m ugly, try looking at someone who’s been dead two years.”

  Frank shrugged. “I ain’t goin’ there to dance with the ladies.”

  “You don’t want to stand out. People see a corpse walking the streets, word’s likely to get around. Giving Mr. James advance notice won’t help your odds.”

  Frank saw his point. “Anything else?”

  “Don’t eat. Your body will rebuild its exterior to match this pattern, but it won’t function right. Eating will hog-tie your insides. It’s your soul maintaining the re-animation, not normal body functions, so eating will only make a mess of things. You’ll breathe just to maintain appearances, but your heart will never beat again.”

  “Can’t drink?”

  “Not even water.”

  “Damn, I was hoping for a
whiskey.”

  Buzzy darted to a cabinet, Frank following.

  “You can’t bring back his soul without some help.”

  He jerked open a door on one of the closer cabinets. Inside sat a box of Colt .45 caliber bullets, a rope, a set of shiny steel wrist irons, and a cheap-looking bottle of whiskey with a hooker on the label. Buzzy picked up the rope, tying it quickly into a lasso.

  “All these items are made to help you send Jesse James’ soul back to the underworld, where the judges can deal with him.” He spun the lasso’s loop over his head, bringing it down around Frank’s neck. “If you can rope him with this lariat, it’ll pull the spirit from the host body, keeping it hostage until you get back here.”

  “I’m no rancher. I can’t use one of those.”

  Buzzy’s hands flew over the rope in blurs.

  “You might be more familiar with this knot.”

  Frank lifted the rope from his shoulders, frowning at the hangman’s noose the older man had tied.

  “Won’t that kill the host?”

  “They all kill the host. Only exorcism keeps them alive, though usually not much more than a potted plant.”

  Frank turned to hide his grimace, but the other man had seen it.

  “Oh, did you think you’d be saving the victim? Whoever they are, they’re already good as dead, Frank. A shell of who they used to be, nothing more than an empty husk holding his soul. Once you’re tainted with that kind of evil, nothing can save you.”

  He pulled the whiskey bottle out and handed it to Frank.

  “If you can get him to drink even a drop of this, it’ll capture his soul in the bottle until you bring him back. That might be tricky, though, since it’ll capture you, too, if you drink it. And he’ll be suspicious if you won’t drink with him.”

  “What if I pour it on him? Break the bottle on his head or something?”

  Buzzy shook his head. “It’ll hurt real bad for a minute—the whiskey has Holy Water in it—but then he’ll just be mad as a hornet. You gotta get it inside him.”

  Frank nodded and made a mental note.

  Next, Buzzy handed him the gleaming wrist irons. They didn’t come with a key.

  “Let me guess,” he said, “slap these on the host and they drive the spirit out.”

  Buzzy shook his head. “Opposite. Traps the spirit in the body so it can’t leave when you…uh…”

  He made a finger gun and pointed it at Frank’s head.

  “Until I kill the victim. Seems like I’m more of an executioner than a marshal.”

  Buzzy looked Frank in the eye. “You do have a certain reputation. Your skill set suits this mission perfectly.”

  “You needed a killer, not a lawman.”

  “Not me, friend. The judges.”

  Frank shrugged. “Then a killer is what they’ll get.”

  Finally, Buzzy handed Frank the box of bullets. Frank opened it and found one bullet inside.

  “That’s a last resort weapon,” Buzzy said. “Only use it if you have no other choice.”

  Frank narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  The old man shifted on his feet. It was a subtle movement, one Frank might have missed had he blinked, but it happened.

  “You see, this one bullet won’t contain a soul, or incapacitate it. Won’t knock it out or return it to the underworld. This bullet will destroy the soul, burn it out of existence and leave a gaping hole in the universe where it used to be. It’ll stop James’ reign of terror in the living world, but destroying a soul makes a lot of noise down here in the underworld, and in—”

  He let the sentence hang there between them.

  “And in Hell, too?”

  Buzzy nodded.

  “So the Boss-man will find out?” Frank pressed.

  Another nod.

  “So, when should I use this magic bullet?”

  “Never.”

  Frank gave him a flat stare.

  “Then why the Sam-Hell are you giving it to me?”

  Buzzy closed the now-empty cabinet and moved back to the examining table to look at Frank’s body there.

  “Mr. James may try to bring others across to help him. Use that bullet then and only then.”

  Frank was about to ask more when a door opened in the otherwise smooth, granite wall and an Indian walked in. He was only half Indian—the top half, to be precise—while the bottom half was that of a coyote, with scruffy brown-and-gray fur and a matted tail. His top half was naked but for beads around his upper arms and war paint on his angular face.

  The Indian grinned, a wide, crooked smile that spoke of mischief and deception. He raised one hand in greeting, a gesture Frank did not return.

  “Batcho,” Frank said, jaw tightening. “What the Hell are you doing here?”

  The guide stopped a few feet from Frank, his smile fading from his dark face.

  “Batcho is going with you, Frank,” said Buzzy. “He’s part of your little posse.”

  “No.” Frank turned his back on them. “Not him.”

  “What did I do?” Batcho asked. “I helped you through the underworld, Frank Butcher. I guided you, offered advice. I—”

  Frank wheeled, putting his nose just an inch from the Indian’s.

  “You lied to me every step of the way!” He jabbed his finger at the Indian’s chest as he spoke. “You tried to keep me from passing every test. If I’d listened to you, I’d be-”

  “Exactly where you are anyway. In Hell.”

  Frank tried to think of an argument, but the guide was right. He’d lived up to his reputation as a Coyote, playing tricks, but in the end, changing little.

  “You have no choice, anyway,” Buzzy said. “Judges’ orders.”

  Frank sighed and spit on the floor. “This time, Indian, no lying. Don’t send me on any wild goose chases.”

  Batcho nodded, his broad grin returning. “I promise, if geese need chasing, I’ll do it.”

  Frank raised an eyebrow at him and Batcho cleared his throat.

  “Besides, Frank Butcher, we won’t be in the underworld, so I will be…different. It is hard to explain.”

  Frank shrugged, then thought of something and turned to face the red man again.

  “You best not be answering to Judge Webber this time.”

  Batcho blushed and his tail went between his legs. “This time, I answer to all three judges. They ordered me to guide you well.”

  Frank studied him a moment longer, saw no hint of deception in his deep, dark eyes, and nodded.

  “I suppose we’d better get going, then.”

  “You will have more help once you reach the world of the living,” said Buzzy, as he led them toward the door. “We sent the other two members of your little posse ahead to do some scouting. They’ll meet you there.”

  Frank’s hackles rose. “Who else is involved in this little shindig?”

  Buzzy looked away, while Batcho shrugged and shook his head. “They didn’t tell me.”

  Buzzy returned his gaze to Frank, his face apologetic. “You will find out in due time, Mr. Butcher.” His eyes glittered in the wavering light from outside the door, and his mandibles clicked in anticipation. “Your stage is waiting. Please, there’s little time to waste. James has already started to kill. Before long, The Boss-man will find out.”

  “Then there’ll be Hell to pay,” Batcho said. “Literally.”

  Frank gave him a deadpan look and stepped out the door into the painted dusk of the underworld desert. An all-black stagecoach waited, its long-dead horses kicking and snorting, stirring up clouds of red and purple dust from the road. Their eyes glowed red as embers.

  Frank shivered as he saw the driver, a shadowy figure in a long, black duster, a black bandana covering his face. Yellow eyes peered out from under his wide-brimmed hat, locked on Frank and Batcho.

  The dead stare took Frank back to his first trip into the underworld, when the same driver had pushed him into the burning Colorado River. It had been just one of many painful, agonizing
moments for Frank during his testing. The testing that had wrongly found him absolved of his sins. The testing he’d defied to end up in Hell.

  He tipped his hat and even though the driver didn’t move, the sound of a whip split the air, telling him it was time to go.

  “He going with us?” Frank asked Batcho.

  The guide shook his head, black hair flying. “He cannot remain in the living world. He must guide others on their underworld journeys.”

  Frank glanced at the driver one last time, then mounted the coach.

  “We’d best get a move on.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The stage stopped so suddenly, it tossed Frank out of his seat and onto his knees. Beside him, Batcho seemed unfazed, simply rolling his chin down a bit, then turning a mischievous smile on Frank. He leaned his head out the window and spoke to the driver in a muffled voice.

  When he pulled his head back inside, concern wrinkled the brown expanse of his forehead.

  “The driver wanted me to warn you,” he said. “This part can be a bit…difficult. We will be traveling from the underworld to the realm of the living. A kind of wall divides the two, and crossing it is not easy, especially going this direction. Coming back, all you have to do is die, but this way, you must live. And living is always harder than dying.”

  Frank shifted in his seat. “What’s it like?”

  The Indian shrugged and closed the blinds on both windows. “It’s my first time returning to life, too. No matter what you hear, don’t look out the window.”

  Frank groaned, but had time for little more, as the coach pitched ahead, throwing him back into his seat. As they gathered speed, ethereal sounds, like distant singing, reached in, nudging Frank to open the blinds and find their source. Batcho covered his ears as howling arose, chanting in his native tongue, as if his voice could block out the sounds.

  The wind whistled by, and voices emerged, carried on it like leaves or dust. They grew into screams, wails of agony and terror so filled with grief, it almost brought him to tears.

  Next came words, voices he knew, but could not name, pleading with him to open the window, to peek outside for just an instant. His heart longed to do so, even as the stage continued to accelerate, racing across the desert like a train. All he could think about was opening the shade and looking outside. He knew these voices, after all. Trusted them more than the dark and foreboding stage driver.