by David Boop
Palmerstone affected to look hurt, but the half-blind squint ruined the effect. “Come now, old school chums, out here, in the middle of nowhere. We’re the only civilized men for hundreds of miles. I was thinking—”
“No you weren’t. You were scheming.” Chance set his enameled cup down. “What do you think you can convince me to do?”
“Chance, I will offer you a deal that is to our mutual benefit.” Palmerstone pushed his glasses back up. “You want the digging spider. I will give it to you, free and clear, in return for some simple work on your part.”
“Such as?”
Palmerstone removed a small, leather bound book from his coat pocket. “My automatons. They follow instructions for patrolling and security. I would like to repurpose them to other tasks, more menial tasks, like hauling and loading coal. It’s a simple exchange of services.”
“Nothing is ever simple with you, Bertie.” Chance leafed through the book of cleanly written instructions. Not his handwriting. “You have miners to do that hauling and loading for you.”
Palmerstone shifted impatiently in his chair. “I’d rather not involve them.”
Chance crossed his legs. “You have a labor shortage. That little stunt, that execution, yesterday, that frightened them off. You’d already laid them off. Why do you need them now?”
“It’s really none…”
He tossed the book back on the table. “I guess you don’t want me to help you after all.”
Palmerstone sighed. “Very well. If you must know. I received a cable last evening. A coal mine in Colorado collapsed. I got an emergency order for coal and—”
“And the price had soared, correct? You’ll make a killing?”
“There are financial advantages to be had right now, yes.”
“What’s my cut?”
The man’s eyes widened behind the lenses. “I told you, I’ll give you the mining spider.”
Chance leaned forward, forearm on the book. “You’ll have to do better. We split fifty-fifty, and I get the spider.”
“That, sir, is outrageous!”
“This is more outrageous, then.” Chance sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not going to help you. Not at all. I am going to stay in Chimney Springs and watch you get your soft white hands all red and rough as you shovel coal into a railroad car. It’ll be the first honest work you’ve ever done in your life. I wouldn’t miss it for all the tea in China.”
“You’re making a mistake. A big mistake.” Palmerstone shot to his feet. “You’ll regret your decision, Chance Corrigan. You have no idea how much.” He turned and headed for the door. “Just remember, I might have spared you, but no more. You’ve brought your doom upon yourself.”
* * *
Chance gave Palmerstone five minutes, then retreated to his room in the Grand Hotel—the only place in Chimney Springs where he’d be safe. He figured Palmerstone wouldn’t actually do anything until the dead of night, but underestimating him would have been a foolish mistake. And while he’d been fairly effective in manipulating Palmerstone so far, there remained one thing he didn’t understand, and that made him uneasy.
After he’d visited the mine, Chance’s tap on the Western Union line picked up messages going in and out from Dominion Brimstone. Palmerstone’s messages had been in cipher and should have been secure. However Palmerstone was using a code which he’d obtained from his older brother. What Bertie hadn’t known, or had forgotten, was that Chance had created that cipher at school. Chance had been able to read Palmerstone’s messages with no difficulty at all.
Palmerstone had never worked well under pressure, and did even worse when trying to prove himself to old acquaintances. Killing the miner created a situation which Chance exploited easily. Once the miners headed to Five Oaks, Chance sent a cable to the Western Union office about a mine collapse near Denver; then he coded one from Palmerstone’s brother, Randolf, demanding coal. Greed had always motivated Bertie, so offering him a fortune, then having him realize he no longer had a workforce to help him deliver, really tightened the screws.
Chance anticipated Palmerstone’s appeal for help. Chance knew his refusal would further frustrate him, and would make Bertie feel humiliated. Bertie, in turn, would see only one way to redeem his honor.
He’d send Azrael to murder Chance, which was exactly what Chance had wanted.
And prepared for.
The only loose end that caused a bit of concern was figuring out how Bertie had come to be in Chimney Springs in the first place. The man had avoided anything even approaching work the way a drunkard avoided temperance meetings. Bertie wanted something from the mine, and the demand for coal did make such ventures profitable; but certainly not on the scale that Bertie had always desired.
But what?
Bertie always had his secrets. His schemes, shared with the Brotherhood, had grown more and more outlandish. Chance found it hard to imagine that one of Hubert’s schemes might have borne fruit—especially in the middle of nowhere. He caught himself before he dismissed Bertie out of hand however, because even if he’d failed at everything else, he might have finally succeeded. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and again.
That thought sent a shiver down Chance’s spine. Whatever it is, it won’t be as benign as an acorn. He drew in a deep breath and double-checked his preparations. He might not be able to imagine what Hubert had gotten up to; but he was equally confident that Hubert believed he couldn’t be stopped. And that belief, quite literally, could be the death of him.
Then Chance heard the first of Azrael’s heavy footfalls on the Grand Hotel’s staircase.
Smiling, Chance tucked himself down behind the room’s cast iron stove. Here goes nothing.
* * *
In the depths of Dominion Brimstone Mine #1, Chance walked up a short incline, following the mining cart rails directly into what appeared to be a shadowed wall. He played the light from his electric torch on the wall, but the shadow just swallowed the light. Not sure what to expect, Chance reached a hand out, but it passed through the shadow as if passing through mist.
He pulled his hand back and studied it in the torch’s glow. It tingled a bit, but he didn’t see anything amiss. A heartbeat later he exhaled sharply and stepped through the shadow. Beyond it lay a massive cavern at least thirty feet high and twice that in diameter. Off to the right lay the spider-digger machine, on its back, legs pulled in as if a true spider that had died.
The chamber’s illumination came from the far side of the opening. A lintel, threshold and doorposts made of obsidian defined a doorway in the far wall. Letters of a language Chance had never seen before glowed gold and wavered as if being viewed through great heat—yet he felt no warmth. Flames filled the open doorway, leaping, twisting and writhing, yet in silence. No snapping, no roar from the inferno, and no heat. The opening stood twenty feet tall and half that wide.
That shouldn’t be here.
Bertie thumbed back the hammer on a Colt revolver. “I don’t believe it.”
Chance ignored him in favor of the other figure in the room—his eyes involuntarily drawn in that direction. Well dressed in a mourning coat, with matching black trousers, vest and cravat, the only hint of color on the figure was the incarnadine shirt that remained all but hidden by the outer clothes. Black also described his flesh—not the color of an African, but the color of coal. Or darker.
He looked hauntingly familiar, but Chance couldn’t place him.
The man held up a hand. “I told you, Hubert Palmerstone, it was not yet his time.”
Chance gave the dark man a frown. “Who are you, and what is that portal?”
“I go by many names.” The man smiled indulgently. “You may call me Mr. Scratch, if that pleases you.”
“And I’m in Hell?”
Bertie’s snarl filled the chamber. “Should have been there sooner, Corrigan. I sent Azrael to deal with you. How did he fail me?”
“The telegrams about the mine collaps
e, and then the order for coal? I sent those—you forgot I created your cipher. I also got the miners to leave. I knew you’d come to me.” Chance smiled despite staring down the bore of a .44-caliber revolver. “And, after I turned you down, I knew you’d send Azrael to murder me. So, I visited the hardware store, got a lot of copper wire. I turned half the room into a Faraday cage. Azrael stepped in and the Tesla generator’s power couldn’t get to him. He became a statue.”
Bertie’s jaw dropped open. “That’s not possible.”
Chance fished in his vest pocket and tossed Bertie a plum-sized iron ball. “I pulled that out of his skull. I liked how you had one of those in each Black Bart, so they could identify each other through Marconi telegraphony and know not to shoot each other.”
Bertie caught the ball and his shoulders sagged a hair. “Azrael, you were so perfect.” He tucked the ball into his pants pocket. “Very clever, Corrigan, but all your cunning won’t get you out of this. I warned you.”
Mr. Scratch chuckled. “Your restraint, Hubert, is admirable. I would have thought a bit of gloating justified.”
Chance snorted. “Gloating just leads to disaster. That’s his history.”
“Not this time, Chance.” Bertie tipped the pistol toward the ceiling. “You dismissed my studies as frippery. They were anything but. Did you know the Koran says there are Seven Gates to Hell in the world? The Greeks and Romans believed Mount Etna was one. Scholars fight over where the others are, but I learned a truth. Seven gates do exist, but not in a fixed place. They move. They locate themselves where they need to be.”
“And this is one, here, at the bottom of this mine?”
“You see it. Could it be anything else? It’s here because I willed it to be here.” Hubert’s voice rose in triumph. “I found this place, Chimney Springs, to be like so many of the other fabled locations. I made the sacrifices. I performed the incantations. I even tricked my brother into exiling me here, to keep me out of his plans—all the while knowing he was sending me to my victory.”
Chance wanted to think Bertie madder than any hatter, but he couldn’t dismiss what he saw as hallucinations caused by breathing mine gas. “What do you get for your victory?”
Bertie glanced at Scratch. “For opening the doorway, I get what I desire, yes?”
“As we agreed, yes.” Scratch opened his hands. “However, your desires are, well, rather plebeian.” The man covered a yawn with his hand. “Why give you mansions and concubines and even an empire, when I can give you the power to take all of those things? And so much more.”
Bertie blinked. “I, ah, I…”
Chance laughed. “Of course you don’t know, Bertie. You’ve only ever wanted what others have. You’ve never earned anything. Never worked for anything. Mr. Scratch, he can never appreciate what you offer him.”
Hubert snarled. “Give me power. Give me all the power!”
The dark man gestured casually, as if a rich man sowing pennies in a crowd of beggars. A series of sparks leaped from his fingertips. They swirled as if fireflies, changing colors quickly, growing angrily intense. They flew up toward the roof, then dove upon Hubert. They swarmed him and stung him, hitting every joint. Hubert jerked with each sting.
Violent muscle spasms shook Hubert, flinging the gun from his hand. The sparks landed on his flesh, then burrowed their way into his body. Light shot through him, tracing veins and arteries. His head jerked back, his spine bowed, his mouth opened, yet no screams sounded. The light shifted colors, running down his body in green, then racing back up in a molten red. It shook Hubert so mightily that when the light blazed up his neck, Chance expected the top of his head to explode and brains to geyser out.
Then the light died, and Hubert slumped, yet avoided completely collapsing. He looked like a scarecrow half-fallen from his watch post. Chance clicked his eye in for a closer look. Fire, swirling as had the sparks, played through Hubert’s eyes. He lives?
Hubert’s head snapped up, then slowly turned toward Mr. Scratch. “What power is this?” He raised his left arm, hand limp at the wrist, as if a marionette in the hands of an apprentice puppeteer.
“The greatest power. Men are now to you as puppets are to the puppeteer. Your will is their will.”
Hubert turned to look at Chance. “Dance for me.”
Power burned through Chance’s body. His electric torch fell from his open grasp. His arms came up as if to embrace an invisible partner. He began stepping through a waltz, spinning about in time to music he could not hear. He danced with a woman he could not see, yet he remembered the essence of her. His fingers tingled with distant memories—things he’d long since shut away.
“No!” Chance balled his hands into fists. His feet stopped. “I don’t dance for you.”
Hubert’s nostrils flared as he looked at the dark man. “You have lied.”
“Have you forgotten that I am the Prince of Lies?” The obsidian figure shrugged. “But I have not lied to you, Hubert. Mr. Corrigan is a man of strong will. He will not be able to defy you once you have mastered your skills. Your ability to bend men to your will grants you access to everything you desire.”
Hubert threw his head back and laughed. “The people of Chimney Springs shall be a whetstone for my skill.”
Chance’s dancing had taken him close to where Hubert had dropped the Colt. He turned, but Hubert frowned.
“Stay!”
Chance froze, the vehemence in Hubert’s voice locking his limbs in stone. “You can’t do this, Bertie.”
“Do what? Claim what you and others have denied me?” Hubert snorted, then sketched a brief bow in Scratch’s direction. “Thank you, my Lord. And you, Chance, you’ll remain here until I have determined what I will do with you.”
Chance struggled against that command, but might as well have been trying to shift the whole planet without benefit of a lever. “You don’t have to do this. It will not end well.”
Hubert chuckled coldly. “This is what I was born to do.” He turned and walked off into the darkness, slowly regaining control of his body as he went.
The Prince of Darkness walked over to Chance and studied him. “Many people will suffer at his hands.”
“You’ve read my mind.”
Mr. Scratch shook his head, but before he spoke, he completed a transformation into a feminine avatar. She wore the same clothes, clearly outsized for her, but somehow suddenly more alluring. “I do not read minds. That is the purview of my adversary.” She brushed a taloned figure over Chance’s chest, picking at his vest’s buttons. “It is given to me to read the hearts of men. In you, so much emotion. Hatred, the desire for vengeance, hints of love, all that wickedness. Better, there’s regret, remorse. Those last, so wonderful. So rare.”
She twirled away as if she’d been his partner, long hair flying. “If people die because of Hubert and you’ve done nothing to stop him, you will feel true pain. Someone like Hubert, there’s never any remorse. Sadness, yes, and frustration, but those are too common to be interesting.”
“If he bores you, why let him destroy the lives above?”
“It’s not for me to stop him. I do not care.” Her eyes became red slits. “But I would let you do it.”
“In return for…?”
“Mr. Corrigan, you may have long since abandoned belief in my adversary, but you certainly have heard the stories.” Her lips twisted ever so slightly. “All that you are. All that you will ever be.”
“Not interested.”
She cocked her head. “You would be able to stop him. No deception there. No lie. As I did with Hubert, I keep my bargains.”
A ripple of gunshots, a dozen or more, echoed from beyond the shadow curtain.
Chance, having regained the use of his limbs, straightened up. “I don’t think I will need to test the truth of that claim.”
Her brows arrowed down. “How…?”
“The ball I gave him. The one in his pocket.” Chance rotated his wrists, stretching his forearm muscles. “
I altered the message it sent out. It broadcast a shoot on sight order to the Black Barts patrolling the mine. If I had to guess, Hubert saw them, used his power to order them to stand aside…”
“…and discovered the power only worked on people.” She raised an eyebrow. “You intended him to die from the beginning.”
“I warned him.”
“Barely. You set him up to be murdered.” She pressed her hand over his heart. “And you are not sorry in the least.”
“I don’t believe I am.” Chance shook his head. “And I don’t believe you offer anything that interests me.”
“Here and now, perhaps not.” She ran a black talon lightly down his right cheek. “But you are not so far from being my plaything that you should sleep easily.”
“I haven’t in years.”
The obsidian woman smiled, white teeth a bright contrast with her dark lips. “Then I look forward to our next meeting.” She snapped her fingers. The chamber immediately fell to darkness. The portal vanished, and she along with it.
Chance dropped to his hands and knees, suppressing a shudder, and searched for his electric torch. It appears I have a new quest. Altering part of Azrael to get the Black Barts to kill Bertie had been the work of moments. To alter Azrael to be able to drop a god; that wouldn’t be so quickly done.
He found the torch and smiled. “Time, not really a problem.” After all, no rest for the wicked, and he had it on the best authority that he was quite wicked indeed.
THE GREATEST GUNS IN THE GALAXY
BRYAN THOMAS SCHMIDT & KEN SCHOLES
John Selman had shot John Wesley Hardin, the deadliest gunman in the West, in the back, you’re damn right. He’d done what had to be done to take down a monster. To some, including Selman himself, that made him a hero. To others, it made him a target.
So when the two odd-looking strangers with distended eye sockets and peculiar orange-tinted skin walked into the Acme Saloon and called his name, Selman knew they had come for one reason: to challenge him. He downed his latest shot in one gulp and left his cane resting against the bar as he whirled to face them. “You two must be the ugliest strangers to walk in here in months,” Selman said with a cocky smile.