by Jim Butcher
And he was pressing a tiny derringer pistol to my chest, just beneath my left breast.
“Timely,” he said to me in a fine German accent. “We knew a Warden would arrive, but we thought you would be another week at least.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Please,” he said, his eyes shading over with something ugly. “If you attempt to resist me, I will kill you here and now.” He moved smoothly, stepping beside me and tucking my left arm into the crook of his right, positioning the tiny gun in his left hand atop my arm, keeping it artfully concealed while trained steadily on my heart. He nodded once at the balcony, and the four men on it immediately put their cards down and descended, heading out the door without so much as glancing back.
“You’re making a mistake,” I said to him tightly. “To my knowledge, you and your companions are not wanted by the Council. I’m not here for you today. I’ve only come for Alexander Page.”
“Is that a fact?” he asked.
“He is a murderer. By sheltering him, you have become complicit in his crimes,” I said. “If you kill me, you will only draw down the full wrath of the Wardens. But if you let me go immediately and disassociate yourself from Page, I will not prosecute a warrant for your capture.”
“That is most generous, Warden,” said the German. “But I am afraid I have plans. You will accompany me quietly outside.”
“And if I do not?”
“Then I will be mildly disappointed, and you will be dead.”
“You’ll be more than disappointed when my death curse falls upon you,” I said.
“Should you live long enough to level it, perhaps,” he said. “But I am willing to take that risk.”
I flicked my eyes around the room, looking for options, but they seemed few. The fellow on the high stool had his eyes on a man dealing cards at a nearby table. The cowboys were far more interested in drinking and making merry than in what, to them, must have appeared to be a domestic squabble between a wife come to drag her husband from a den of iniquity. Even the deputy at the door was gone, his chair standing empty.
Ah.
I turned to the German and said, “Very well. Let us take this discussion elsewhere.”
“I do not think you realize your position, Warden,” the German said, as we began walking. “I am not asking for your consent. I am merely informing you of your options.”
I flinched slightly at the words and let the fear I was feeling show on my face. “What do you mean to do with me?” I asked.
“Nothing good,” he said, and his eyes glinted with something manic and hungry. Then he frowned, noticing that his last words had fallen into a silence absent of music or stomping feet.
Into that silence came what seemed like a singularly significant mechanical click.
“Mister,” the lanky deputy said. “You pass over that belly gun, or your next hat is going to be a couple of sizes smaller.”
The deputy had moved in silently behind him and now held his revolver less than a foot from the back of the German’s skull.
I let the fear drop off my face and smiled sweetly up at my captor.
The German froze, his eyes suddenly hot with rage as he realized that I had distracted him, just as his fellows had distracted me. The derringer pressed harder against my ribs as he turned his head slightly toward the deputy. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Mmmm,” the deputy said calmly. “You’re the fella who’s about to come quietly or have lead on his mind.”
The German narrowed his eyes and ground his teeth.
“He’s not asking for your consent,” I said. “He’s merely informing you of your options.”
The German spat an oath in his native tongue. Then he slipped the little pistol away from my side and slowly held it up.
The deputy took the weapon, his own gun steady.
“You will regret this action,” said the German. “Who do you think you are?”
“My name is Wyatt Earp,” said the deputy. “And I think I’m the law.”
EARP TOOK THE German to the town marshal’s office, which was on the southern side of the tracks and contained a pair of iron jail cells. I led Karl along, and the näcken was mercifully well behaved for once, playing the role of a horse to perfection when I tied him to the post outside the office.
“Deputy,” I said, as we entered the building. “I do not think you understand the threat.”
Earp passed me his lantern and nodded toward a hanging hook on the wall. I put it there, as he walked the German into the cell, gun steady on the man all the while. He made the man lean against a wall with both hands and patted him down for weaponry, removing a small knife—and calmly taking a charm hanging from a leather necklace around his neck.
“What?” he said evenly. “On account of he’s a sorcerer? Is that what you mean?”
I felt both of my eyebrows lift. Typically, and increasingly, authority figures had very little truck with the world of the supernatural.
“Yes,” I said. “That is precisely what I mean.”
Earp walked over to me and held out the necklace and its simple, round copper charm. A familiar symbol was carved onto its surface: a skull, twisted and horrifically stretched, marked on its forehead with a single slanted, asymmetric cross.
“Thule Society,” I murmured.
“Hngh,” he said, as if my recognition of the symbol confirmed his suspicions rather than surprising him. “Guess that makes you White Council.”
I tilted my head at him. “A Warden. Goodness, you are well-informed. I must ask, how do you know of the Council, sir?”
“Venator,” he said simply. “Lost my necklace in a card game. You can take it or leave it that I’m telling the truth.”
The Venatori Umbrorum were a secret society of their own, steeped in the occult, quietly working against supernatural forces that threatened humanity. They boasted a few modestly gifted practitioners, but had a great many members, which translated to a great many eyes and ears. The society was a longtime ally, more or less, of the White Council—just as the Thule Society was more or less a longtime foe, using their resources to attempt to employ supernatural powers for their own benefit.
I regarded Earp thoughtfully. It was, I supposed, possible that he could be in league with the German, playing some sort of deceitful game. But it seemed improbable. Had he and the German wanted me dead, Earp could simply have watched him walk me out without taking note of it.
“I believe you,” I told him simply.
“That cell’s warded,” Earp said. “From the inside, he’s not going to be doing much.” He glanced over at the German and gave him a cold smile. “Makes a lot of noise if you try, though. Figure I’ll shoot you five or six times before you get done whipping up enough magic to hurt anybody.”
The German stared at Earp through narrowed eyes and then abruptly smiled and appeared to relax. He unbuttoned his collar, removed his tie, and sat down on the cell’s lumpy bunk.
“Nnnngh,” Earp said, a look of mild disgust on his face. He squinted around the room at the building’s windows. Then he looked back at me and said, “Warden, huh? You’re a lawm—” He pursed his lips. “You carry a badge.”
“Something like that,” I said.
“What I mean to say is, you can fight,” Earp said.
“I can fight,” I said.
He leaned his lanky body back against the wall beside the desk and tilted his chin toward the German. “What do you think?”
“I think he has four friends,” I said. “All of them gifted. Do your windows have shutters?”
“Yep.”
“Then we should shutter them,” I said. “They will come for him.”
“Damn,” he drawled. “That’s what I think, too. Before dawn?”
The hours of darkness were the best time for amateurs to practice the dark arts, for both practical and purely psychological reasons. “Almost certainly.”
“What do you thi
nk about that?”
I narrowed my eyes and said, “I object.”
Earp nodded his head and said, “Only so much I can do about someone bringing spells at me. Can you fight that?”
“I can.”
Earp studied me for a moment, those dark eyes assessing. Then he seemed to come to a decision. “How about I’ll put up the shutters?” he said. “Unless you’d rather me make the coffee, which I don’t recommend.”
I shuddered at the American notion of coffee. “I’ll do that part,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “We got ourselves a plan.”
“WELL,” EARP SAID a few hours later. “I don’t much care for all the waiting. But this is some damned fine coffee, Miss Anastasia.”
I had, of course, used magic to help it. The beans had not been properly roasted, and the grinder they had been through had been considerably too coarse in its work. Some other Wardens thought my coffee-making spells to be a frivolous waste of time in the face of all the darkness in the world, but what good is magic if it cannot be used to make a delicious cup of a fine beverage?
“Just be glad you did not ask me to cook,” I said. “It is not one of my gifts.”
Earp huffed out a breath through his nose. “You ain’t got much femaleness to you, ma’am, if you pardon my saying so.”
I smiled at him sweetly. “I’m on the job at the moment.”
He grunted. “That Page fella you mentioned?”
I nodded.
“What’s he wanted for?”
“He murdered three people in Liverpool,” I said. “A girl he favored and her parents.”
“Guess she didn’t favor him back,” Earp said. “He shoot ’em?”
I shook my head and suppressed a shudder at the memory of the crime scene. “He ripped out their eyes and tongues,” I said. “While they lay blind and bleeding, he did other things.”
Earp’s eyes flickered. “I’ve seen the type before.” He glanced at the German.
The German sat in exactly the same place he’d settled hours before. The man had his eyes closed—but he smiled faintly, as if aware of Earp’s gaze on him.
Earp turned back to me. “What happens to Mr. Page when you catch him?”
“He will be fairly tried, and then, I expect, beheaded for his crimes.”
Earp examined the fingernails of his right hand. “A real fair trial?”
“The evidence against him is damning,” I said. “But fair enough.”
Earp lowered his hand again. It fell very naturally to the grip of his gun. “I’d never want me one of those, if I could avoid it,” he said.
I knew what he meant. There were times I didn’t care for the sorts of things it had been necessary to do to deal with various monsters, human or otherwise. I expect Earp had faced his own terrors, and the dirty labor required to remove them.
Such deeds left their weight behind.
“I wouldn’t care for one myself,” I said.
He nodded, and we both sipped coffee for a while. Then he said, “Once this is wrapped up, I think I’d like to buy you a nice dinner. When you aren’t on the job.”
I found myself smiling at that.
I was an attractive woman, which was simply a statement of truth and not one of ego. I dressed well, kept myself well, and frequently had the attention of men and women who wished to enjoy my company. That had been a source of great enjoyment and amusement when I was younger, though these days I had little patience for it.
But Earp was interesting, and there was a tremendous appeal in his lean, soft-spoken confidence.
“Perhaps,” I said. “If business allows for it.”
Earp seemed pleased and sipped his coffee.
THE TOWN HAD gone black and silent, even the saloons, as the night stretched to the quiet, cool hours of darkness and stillness that came before the first hint of dawn.
The witching hour.
We both heard the footsteps approaching the front door of the marshal’s office. Earp had belted on a second revolver, had a third within easy reach on the desk, and rose from his chair to take up a shotgun in his hands, its barrels cut down to less than a foot long.
My own weapons were just as ready, if less easily observable than Earp’s. I’d marked a quick circle in chalk on the floor, ready to be imbued with energy as a bulwark against hostile magic. The sword at my side was tingling with power I’d invested in it over the course of the evening, ready to slice apart the threads binding enemy spells together, and I held ready a shield in my mind to prevent attacks on my thoughts and emotions.
And, of course, I had a hand on my revolver. Magic is well and good, but bullets are often swifter.
The footsteps stopped just outside the door. And then there was a polite knock.
Earp’s face twisted with distaste. He crossed to the door and opened a tiny speaking window in it, without actually showing himself to whoever was outside. In addition, he leveled the shotgun at the door, approximately at the midsection of whomever would be standing outside.
“Evening,” Earp said.
“Good evening,” said a man’s voice from outside. This accent was British, quite well-to-do, its tenor pleasant. “Might I speak with Mr. Wyatt Earp, please?”
“Speaking,” Earp drawled.
“Mr. Earp,” the Briton said, “I have come to make you a proposal that will avoid any unpleasantness in the immediate future. Are you willing to hear me out?”
Earp looked at me.
I shrugged. On the one hand, it was always worth exploring ways not to fight. On the other, I had no confidence that a member of the Thule Society would negotiate in good faith. In fact, I took a few steps back toward the rear of the building, so that I might hear something if this was some sort of attempt at a distraction.
Earp nodded his approval.
“Tell you what,” he said to the Briton. “I’m going to stand in here and count quietly to twenty before I start pulling triggers. You say something interesting before then, could be we can make medicine.”
There was a baffled second’s silence, and the Briton said, “How quickly are you counting?”
“I done started,” Earp said. “And you ain’t doing yourself any favors right now.”
The Briton hesitated an instant more before speaking in an even, if slightly rushed, tone. “With respect, this is not a fight you can win, Mr. Earp. If the Warden were not present, this conversation would not be happening. Her presence means we may have to contend with you to get what we want, rather than simply taking it—but it would surely garner a great deal of attention of the sort that her kind prefer to avoid, as well as placing countless innocents in danger.”
As the man spoke, Earp listened intently, adjusting the aim of his shotgun by a few precise degrees.
“To avoid this outcome, you will release our companion unharmed. We will depart Dodge City immediately. You and the Warden will remain within the marshal’s office until dawn. As an additional incentive, we will arrange for the new ordinances against your friend Mr. Short’s establishment to be struck from the city’s legal code.”
At that, Earp grunted.
I lifted an eyebrow at him. He held up a hand and gave his head a slight shake that asked me to wait until later.
“Well, Mr. Earp?” asked the Briton. “Can we, as you so pithily put it, make medicine?”
Something hard flickered in Earp’s eyes. He glanced at me.
I drew my revolver.
That action engendered a grin big enough to show some of his teeth, even through the mustache. He lifted his head and said, “Eighteen. Nineteen …”
The Briton spoke in a hard voice, meant to be menacing, though it was somewhat undermined by the way he hurried away from the door. “Decide in the next half an hour. You will have no second chance.”
I waited a moment before arching an eyebrow at Earp. “I take it these terms he offered were good ones?”
Earp lowered and uncocked the shotgun and squinted thoughtfully. “We
ll. Maybe and maybe not. But they sound pretty good, and I reckon that’s what he was trying for.”
“What was he offering, precisely?”
“Bill Short went and got himself into some trouble with the folks north of the tracks. They want to clean up Dodge City. Make it all respectable. Which, I figure, ain’t a bad thing all by itself. They got kids to think about. Well, Bill’s partner run for mayor and lost. Fella that won passed some laws against Bill’s place, arrested some of his girls—that kind of thing. Bill objected, and some shooting got done, but nobody died or anything. Then a mob rounded up Bill and some other folks the proper folk figured was rapscallions and ran them out of town.”
“I see,” I said. “How do you come into this?”
“Well, Bill got himself a train to Kansas City, and he rounded up some friends. Me, Bat, Doc, a few others.”
I glanced at the lean man and his casually worn guns. “Men like you?”
“Well,” Earp said, and a quiet smile flickered at the edges of his mustache. “I’d not care to cross them over a matter of nothing, if you take my meaning, Miss Anastasia.”
“I do.”
“So, we been coming into town to talk things over with this mayor without a mob deciding how things should go,” Earp continued. “Little at a time, so as not to make too much noise.” He opened the peephole in the office door and squinted out of it. “Got myself redeputized so I can go heeled. Been over at the Long Branch with Bat.”
“The saloon the mayor passed a law against?”
“Well, it ain’t like it’s a state law,” Earp said. “More of a misunderstandin’. See, as much as the good folks north of the tracks don’t want to admit it, cattle and these cowboys are what keeps this town alive. And those boys don’t want to come in at the end of a three-month trail ride and have a nice bath and a cup of tea. Kind of country they’re going through can be a little tough. So they drop their money here, blowing off steam.” He rubbed at his mustache. “Hell, sin is the currency around this place. Don’t take a genius to see that. Those good folk are going to righteous themselves right out of a home.” He sighed. “Dammit, Doc. Why ain’t you here yet?”