by J. C. Staudt
Lokes dismounted in front of the pub and handed Gish’s reins to Toler. He checked his sweeties and went inside. Waiting for him to reemerge spanned three of the most grueling minutes of Weaver’s life; more grueling than waiting outside the collapsed highway tunnel had been. There at least she’d been safe; here, she was a sitting duck. Every moment, she was sure a gunshot would be the next thing she would hear.
There was no gunshot. Lokes removed his hat and wiped his brow as he came out into the daylight, shaking his head. “Gone,” he said. “Coffers are gone. Got a tip on ‘em, though. Fella inside says they’re hiding out in the old steel mill, ‘leven or twelve blocks thataway.”
Weaver sighed. “Let’s get a move on, then.”
Lokes hesitated. “Fella also said Fink was a mite vexed when he left here last night.”
“I’d reckon he would be. Let’s go cheer him up with some hardware.”
Lokes ran a hand through his hair. “Look, Jal. I know you want to make amends and all. I know it gets you tickled pink, me bein’ the good dway for once.”
“Will, we’re doing this—”
“Hear me out, woman. Hear me out. You know how you get them feelings sometimes? Feelings like something ain’t right?”
“Yeah, and most of the time they’re legit.”
“Well I never get them feelings, but I got one now. Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”
“Will,” she said. “Everything’s gonna be fine. We pay up. We leave. Simple. Kid stuff.”
Weaver saw something in Lokes’s eyes that she’d never seen there before: fear, genuine and profound. She’d been afraid plenty, and had never hesitated to let him know. Scared or not, they’d always overcome every obstacle—together. She assured herself this time would be no different.
The dilapidated remains of a railway track ran alongside the Jethartia Steel Mill, vanishing into gravel where scavengers had pilfered its wooden ties and steel rails. A gigantic warehouse with blown windows housed the mill’s machine shop, while a scaffolding of rusted pipes and girders snaked around its four towering blast furnaces.
“This place used to produce all the shipping crates for my family’s business,” Toler said proudly. “Never been here before. Kind of interesting to think about all the shit they made here, though.”
“Ain’t this place sorta big for a posse the size of Fink’s?” Weaver asked.
“More room to hide,” Lokes said, fingering one of his sweeties.
“Will,” Toler said. “Would you believe me if I promised to be on your side in case shit goes bad?”
Lokes studied Toler with a slow, one-eyed wince. “Shep, I done picked you up and carried you when you couldn’t walk. I put your horse to rest. I fed you all through the desert, taught you a thing or two about shootin’, and introduced you to the best reloader in this here city. I figure by now you owe me a few. So if you ain’t on my side, you better let me know now, ‘cause that means you a rotten dway through and through.”
Toler smirked. “Fair enough. I’ll help you if you give me a weapon.”
“Aw, see, now you’re just—”
A gunshot rang out, interrupting Lokes mid-sentence. His neck opened above the clavicle, and a red shower doused Gish’s rear end and spattered to the ground behind. Lokes grunted, touched the top of his shoulder, pulled his hand away wide-eyed. He drew both sweeties with sticky red fingers, swaying as he scanned the skyline for a target he couldn’t find. The fiendsight may have made him sharp-eyed in the dark, but in broad daylight his sight was the same as any other man’s.
Weaver heard the click-clock of a lever-action carbine, followed by the hollow jingle of the ejected shell bouncing across a steel grate. Not too far off, then, she thought, spurring Meldi forward. Toler grabbed Gish’s reins and followed her behind one of the derelict railcars, a silver tanker with a green-and-blue Shalemoth Petrol logo stamped on its side.
“Did you see them?” she asked, dismounting. “Did you see where the shooter was?”
Toler helped her pull Lokes off his horse and prop him against the tanker’s wheels.
Lokes coughed up a mouthful of blood and let it dribble down his chin. “Aw, shit, Jal. I done told you—this’d happen. I done… told you.” His words were mere outlines, damp whispers of his fears come to life. When he coughed, blood leaked from the wound in his neck.
“Fink,” Weaver screamed, tears bursting forth unbidden. “Coffing Fink.” She dug her hands into the dirt—split fingernails, hard knuckles, soft skin and all. The Guild’s teachings went out the window; neutrality and balance uprooted from lifelong habit and became twisted abominations of themselves, far removed from their former context. Death for retribution’s sake, and a thousand could never pay for the first.
This time, she promised, they will. Whether Lokes lives or not, they’ll pay.
Sand rose from the dust like flecks of gold through a prospector’s sieve. Precious. Every grain was precious. From cracks in pavement; from drifts left by the recent sandstorms; from every curb and cleft for hundreds of fathoms around, Weaver found the grains and lifted them into the air.
Meanwhile, Toler took up Lokes’s revolvers, unconcerned with the blood coating the handles. He was no deadeye like Lokes, but Weaver would’ve guessed he was a decent shot. “We should get out of here,” Toler said. “Will needs help.”
Weaver didn’t have time to respond.
A voice as cracked and dry as the light-blanched railroad ties behind them shouted from the steel mill. “That you, Jallika? No need for a sandstorm, sweetheart. Why don’t y’all come on out now and show yourselves? This’ll all go a lot easier for you that way.”
She was still holding up the cipher, millions of grains of sand hanging in the air like stars waiting to come to life. “We’re here to pay Fink,” she yelled back. “That’s all. There wasn’t no need to get violent.”
“My mistake. Thought you all was somebody else.”
“He’s lying,” Toler said. “You know how long you’ve got to look down the barrel of a carbine to sight someone in at that distance? Whoever he is, he had plenty of time to figure out who it was. He was aiming for Will’s heart. That, or his head. Either way, he was trying for the kill shot.”
Weaver nodded. “How you holding up, Will?”
“Seen worse,” he said with a grunt. “Pretty sure my neck bone’s coffed, though. Don’t s’pose I could get me a hot touch from that friend of yours at the old church.”
Toler shook his head. “That key might’ve gotten us in once, but that’s all the luck we’re going to get with them.”
“Come on out, Ms. Weaver,” said another voice. It was Fink this time, she knew. “Let’s settle this nice and civil-like, shall we?”
“First put your weapons down, or you’re asking for a whole lot of pain,” Weaver shouted back.
A pause.
“Certainly,” Fink said. “You heard her, gang. Lower your weapons.”
“Don’t do it, Jal,” Lokes said. “Don’t you do it.”
“I’m with Will,” Toler said. “Don’t trust him. There’s no reason we need to risk our necks for this dway. Just leave the hardware on the ground here and let’s go.”
“Hardware don’t matter none if Fink’s still got his grievances. We can give him all the money in the world and it won’t make no difference as long as he has it out for us.”
“That’s no reason to go getting yourself shot,” Lokes said.
“Will. I’ve got to do this.”
“I’m going with you then,” said Toler.
“Shep,” Lokes said, grabbing him by the forearm. “You gotta shoot somebody… don’t you miss. You coffing miss, even once, Fink and his gang ain’t gonna return the favor. Not to mention you gonna pay me back for every daggum bullet you waste puttin’ a hole in something that don’t bleed. Understand?”
Toler nodded. He tethered the horses to the built-in ladder on the side of the railcar, then took Lokes’s gun belts and donned them
himself. Weaver stood, dropping her cipher. Thin clouds of hovering sand whispered to the ground.
Weaver and Toler emerged from behind the railcar. Squinting against the daylight, she could make out two silhouettes on the dusty patch of earth between them and the steel mill. One was Fink; the other was one of his goons. Weaver suspected it was either Lally McNally or the Weasler, but she couldn’t tell which.
“That’s a good girl,” Fink said.
Weaver considered dropping to a crouch and sandholing the bastard where he stood. But on terrain like this, with so much dust and dirt and pavement in the way, a gambit like that might fail. “We brought you your money,” she said.
Fink took a step forward, blotting out the light-star behind him. Weaver saw it was Freckles Hinderson beside him, a pink-faced redhead sporting a fiery mohawk and sideburns. He carried a shotgun and wore a man’s chest-baring corset over tight leather leggings which left little to the imagination.
A skeletal smile crept onto Fink’s face. He ran a knuckle along his bottom lip as if wiping away the remnants of his last meal. “You’re late,” he said. “Real late.”
Weaver stood her ground. “It rained.”
“It stopped raining two days ago.”
“Yesterday, part of the city we were in.”
“That right?” He drew out the words, as if convincing himself to believe her. “Well now. I reckon I’d better charge you a little interest. Can’t be running low on funds every time there’s a spot of poor weather. What kind of man would I be if I let every little act of fate put me out?”
“A reasonable one,” Weaver said.
Fink wheezed.
He was laughing, Weaver knew. Judging by the confused frown on Toler’s face, he didn’t. The shepherd widened his stance, perhaps believing Fink was experiencing some sort of asthmatic episode.
When Fink’s laughing spell let up, he said, “Let’s have it, then.”
Weaver tossed him the leather pouch containing what was owed him. Fink opened it and took a careful look inside. While his gaze was diverted, she scanned the mill’s various rooftops and blast furnaces, looking for members of the gang hidden within the network of scaffolding. Toler was searching too.
Satisfied with the amount she’d given him, Fink closed the pouch and handed it to Freckles. “Now for the interest.”
Something in the way he said it put a knot in Weaver’s stomach. His smile was cunning now; creepy. She waited, knowing his interest had nothing to do with hardware.
“You know what, Ms. Weaver? I always did have myself a hankerin’ for some of that sweet pussy. Yeah-h-h. What do you say, huh? You give me and the boys a quick round, and we’ll call it even. Who knows… Lally might even have herself a go.”
Freckles laughed, a gaping, rotten-toothed guffaw.
He can’t be serious, Weaver thought. He’s trying to make me mad—make me slip up and get myself shot. If angry was how Fink wanted her, he was making progress toward that end. “Sit on a cactus, Fink.”
Freckles laughed harder.
“I know you got Lokes back there, bleeding like a stuck pig and prob’ly still fixin’ to jump out and put one in my skull. There’s only one way out of this, Ms. Weaver, and that’s doing what I tell you. You pay up, or I got no choice but to consider your debt unpaid.”
Weaver glanced at Toler. The shepherd had a good poker face on, but he was struggling by the second to keep it there. At least Fink had overestimated Lokes and thought he was ready for action. That was an advantage, however small.
“We paid you what we owe,” Weaver said. “Now be a man of your word and let us go.”
Fink gave her a patronizing smirk. “I didn’t reckon I’d have to explain this to you more than once, but here’s how interest works: when you—”
“Fight for your coffing life, Shep,” Weaver said, dropping to one knee.
Toler Glaive was a shepherd; he buttered his bread with desperate battles and last-ditch efforts. He knew his way around a six-gun, sure enough. Both were blazing by the time Weaver had the sand raised again. She threw it at Fink and his gang in a blinding gale, leaving Toler’s bullets clear and unopposed for the split seconds it took them to get downrange.
Freckles dropped first, hands clutching sand-stung eyes, chest and thigh stinging with magnum slugs. Fink took two bullets but didn’t go down. He drew blind and shot wild, a revolver so long it took a second or two to see the whole thing. A long revolver for a long man, Weaver thought as she began to run out of sand. Had she been in the desert, the sandstorm she conjured with this cipher would’ve been a marvel to behold; fierce, turbid, extensive in duration, and near-limitless in fuel. As it stood, she was reaching the end of her supply after only a few seconds. She could only pray those seconds had made the difference.
Toler was running out, too. He was running out of targets. Fink finally fell twitching with a hole in his cheek, leaving Toler to swivel between furnace towers and the machine shop roof. There were no visible members of Fink’s gang in the steel mill’s tangle of metal mezzanines. Though the sandstorm had probably blinded the whole gang momentarily, it also made them harder to spot from the ground.
“Let’s go,” Toler said, waving her forward. He jogged up and shot Fink in the head, then picked up Fink’s long-barreled revolver and shot Freckles with it. He tossed her Freckles’s shotgun and the pouch full of hardware, then said, “Keep up,” and sprinted for the nearest blast furnace.
Weaver jogged after him. There was little help she could give him now; she’d picked up every grain of sand in the area and shoved it away. This was why she hated cities. Pavement. Concrete. Steel. It was everywhere, and she was powerless to wield it.
They reached the base of the blast furnace and put their backs to it, taking a moment to catch their breaths.
“How are you with those things?” Toler asked, nodding at the shotgun.
“I stay as far away from ‘em as possible,” she admitted. “Never had much use for ‘em.”
“Well you’ve got use for them now. I’m going to need you. How many people in Fink’s gang?”
Weaver shrugged. “Half a dozen, last I counted. Which was a while ago.”
“Okay, so we have no idea how many are left or where they are. This is some shit, Jallika.”
“You sound like Will.”
“There’s one big difference between me and him: I’m not blaming you. This isn’t your fault. It’s his, if it’s anyone’s. These bastards aren’t going to stop hunting you as long as they live. What else can you do with your sand powers?”
“Without any sand? Nothing,” she said. “We’re in way over our heads.”
“That might be true, but I’m not running all the way to Unterberg with a bunch of freaks on our heels. I don’t think you want that, either. We’ve got to end this.”
“I’m telling you, Toler. I come up on one of them, they’ll blow me away before I can point this coffing thing in the right direction.”
Toler frowned. “You used up all the sand around here?”
“Sent it about half a horizon thataway.”
“You sure you got everything?”
She glared at him.
Toler rapped his knuckles against the side of the blast furnace, a thick stony sound. “These things are open at the top, you know. Years’ worth of sandstorms have come through here and dropped their treasures inside.”
“How am I supposed to get at it, you reckon? Climb to the top and fall in?”
“There’ll be a way in around the other side,” Toler said. “A tap hole or something. Don’t know how big it’ll be. You might have to squeeze through.”
“If there’s sand in there, I’ll make it work.”
“I’ll cover you.”
Weaver pressed herself against the massive cylindrical furnace and peered around the side. The shotgun was heavy, and she couldn’t find a comfortable position for it. “Looks clear.”
“I’ve got you,” Toler said, touching her on the shoul
der.
She turned back. “Why are you sticking your neck out for us?”
“Because Lokes was right. Without you, I’d still be in that mall, starving to death on two broken legs. Now go.”
Toler watched the network of scaffolded walkways above them with Fink’s long revolver poised in his hands while Weaver circled the furnace. She kept one hand on the wall and held the shotgun under her arm, crouching as she ran. Soon she came to an opening, a low rectangle a few feet across, with a wide, shallow trough running out from it. She ducked inside.
Within she found signs of recent squatters, empty cartons and frayed blankets and discarded clothing. Toler was right; her boot landed on two inches of coarse, gritty sand. Drifts clung to the side walls, sloping like miniature dunes, a stockpile separated from the earth by the concrete floor below. Hers for the taking. The furnace walls soared upward, tapering toward a round opening onto the clear sky above.
Weaver wasted no time. She leaned the shotgun against the wall, then knelt and gathered every grain in the silo, piling it all at the center. She could create a barrier strong enough to walk on, but not one so strong it could stop a bullet. With Fink’s gang spread out across the towers and rooftops, the best she could hope for was to create a visual obstruction.
Toler’s footsteps rang softly on the metal staircase outside. What’s he doing? she wondered with alarm. That crazy dway don’t even know whether I found sand in here. She wanted to stop him, but she dare not call out for fear of giving away their position.
A gunshot.
She rushed to the opening and looked out to see Dockerel Trelk topple over the railing of a catwalk and tumble fifty feet to the machine factory roof, ricocheting off a pipe on his way down. Lally McNally darted out from behind an HVAC unit and dragged Dockerel back in her muscular arms. Toler fired a shot, but the bullet punctured the unit’s metal frame and pinged around harmlessly inside. Lally vanished where the roofline obstructed Weaver’s view.