A moment later, all gunfire stopped. Through the loud ringing came the moans of men in the saloon. Bateman looked over the edge, then stood. Bodies lay like broken dolls on the floor. A few deputies stood while others groaned or cried for help. So far as he could see, no Syndicate men stood.
He raised a fist to signal to his men to hold their fire. Gripping his gun tightly, he went in and stepped carefully down the stairs to a floor slick with blood.
Behind his upended table, Peake lay on his back, blood soaking into his shirt from a wound to his abdomen.
“Check for survivors!” Bateman called to the deputies outside. He knelt beside Peake, hands shaking.
The federal marshal breathed roughly and Bateman realized that blood came from the right side of his chest as well.
“How many left?” Peake asked.
“Our men? Four standing in here. About a dozen outdoors. We got theirs.”
“You have to go downstairs.”
“What if there are more?”
“You go after them, or they come after us.” Peake grabbed his arm. “You… have to.”
“We'll wait for Marshal Creed—”
“He ain't coming. Waylaid, probably. Go!”
“This is fucked.”
Peake gave a pitiful chuckle. “You fuck it back the right way.” His grip loosened completely and Bateman felt his neck. No pulse.
“So very fucked.” Bateman stood and gripped his hands, hoping to stop the shaking. He didn’t even care for being a marshal, and now Peake had given his dying request: for Marshal Bateman to see this through, putting his own life in grave danger.
He looked at the men left standing. Some were bandaging other deputies. A few dragged bodies to the side of the room. His hearing still muted, Bateman imagined some had to be grumbling in anger. He approached an older man tending to one of the wounded.
“You used to be a doctor, am I right?”
“Union medic.”
Another look around the room showed that all the men who had been there drinking seemed safe, lying or crouching behind the tables. None yet dared to stand.
Bateman stepped outside, where others tended to the wounded. “Two of you stay here. These injured men need your help. There’s a union medic inside. He’s in charge. The rest, come with me.”
His heart drummed painfully, and his belly churned as though he would vomit, but Bateman went back in, reloaded his pistol, and entered the back room. Though he didn’t bother to count them, about ten men followed.
Maxwell Gregg listened to the gunfire above, sure his men would win the melee. He kept the door to his suite open and relaxed on his bed, index fingers pressed to his lips, letting only the light from the hall come into the room. He knew he should hurry either way, but he needed to arrange his plans in his mind.
At last, he sat up, whisked out the door, and bounded along the hall. Though his men might protect the underground for now, within days, more lawmen would arrive. His operation had to move. He entered a small basement room, opened the far door, and spotted Gilmore striding toward him.
“What are you doing?” asked Gregg. “We need to secure your research.”
“I thought you were certain we had time,” Gilmore said.
“Best be smart. We’re going back, and we’re getting Blake. He needs to join the battle.”
Four minutes later, Gregg unlocked the morgue door and went to the body storage drawers. Gilmore flipped on the lights, and Greg glanced back to make sure the doctor went to get his research. Gilmore frowned and pressed one palm to the bandage over his missing eye as if to say he hadn’t signed on for this madness.
“It’s the nature of the business,” said Gregg. “I hope you’re ready to travel.”
“What about the other patients? I’d hate for anyone else to get our technology.”
Gregg opened Blake’s drawer. Cold air washed over his hands from a compartment empty except for a mess of healing belts. Maybe it was the next one over. Gregg slid it out revealing no body.
“What the hell happened to him?” Dread filled his gut. His hand dropped to the handle of his pistol, but he forced himself to make a fist instead of drawing. “Gilmore!”
The doctor stepped beside him, breath silent, then opened drawer after drawer. “Her too?” Within a minute, he had each one open and found them all empty.
Gregg grabbed him by the collar. “What did you do?”
“Nothing! This wasn’t my doing.”
“We need to find those walking corpses,” Gregg said. “They couldn’t have left long ago.”
“Left? You think someone activated them?”
“No one carried them out.”
“Are you going to send someone after them?”
Gregg closed his eyes tightly in thought. “After we get the important things here, I’ll send someone.”
In the next few days, they would have to pack up the machines. For now, Gregg took a book and loose papers from the shelves and handed them to Gilmore. The doctor went through drawers in the autopsy tables and recovered additional research. He squared the pages into two stacks and locked them in a leather briefcase.
All gunfire stopped.
Gregg enjoyed a bitter grin. His men had won, as the quote went, the battle. He still needed to prepare for the war. “Come with me.”
He had sent his best gunmen to fight the posse, but a fair number of repairmen, guards, and other Syndicate members had stayed behind. As they went down the halls, he knocked on the doors of those he had told to wait. As each answered, Gregg gave instructions to start packing the basic items they would need, and for others to head back to the morgue to pack the various parts Gilmore had tinkered with.
The next stage was to lock all entrances to the underground, including barricading Iron Nelly’s, and he felt sure his men had already begun.
“Ideally, we’ll get Blake and your other experiments back and we can haul them with us, too,” said Gregg.
“Where will we go?” Gilmore had to push himself to keep up with Gregg’s quick strides.
“San Francisco.”
They made it to Gregg’s room where he flipped the light lever and opened a waist-high safe. As he took the suitcase from Gilmore, the sound of panting and boots came down the hall. That was a woman’s voice and high breathing, almost wheezing.
“Mr. Gregg, was Sammy up there with the rest?”
Gregg stared at her a moment trying to recall her name. “Maggie, yes. Your husband’s fast, and protected with some of our best inventions. An excellent shot—”
Maggie ran her hands through her long, blond hair and sobbed. A tear dripped straight down to her homespun skirt.
“What happened?” asked Gilmore.
“We gotta run. The marshals, they’ve come down from the saloon. I think everyone’s dead.”
As Gregg stood stunned, Gilmore approached the woman and let her lean on him.
“Maggie, tell everyone to hurry. We don’t have time to organize,” said Gregg. “Head to San Francisco, and I’ll find you. All of you. Doctor, come with me.” He pushed the briefcase against Gilmore’s back until the doctor let the lady go and took it.
“So sorry,” Gilmore said as he and Gregg headed back along the hallway, the way they had come.
Gregg pounded on the wall with every few steps. That meant he’d lost his most trusted and effective men, and then some. First his sister and Roseberry, then everyone else. Those in Iron Nelly’s had mastered the technology, weapons, and brawling styles that made them perfect for assassination and extraction.
He also realized they had no time to get Blake and the other zombies. He wouldn’t send any more men after the proverbial wild geese. Maybe Blake and Creed would kill each other. “We have fewer men now, and three steelies.”
Gilmore asked, “What?”
“Just doing inventory in my mind.” Gregg threw a door open into a room and turned down a different passage. “I was sure those men could take out anyone. God dammit.”
They had just a few hundred yards to go. Gregg hoped his people would find their own way to the top. Any marshal worth a damn would send armed men to scout everywhere in the Flats. How many of his people would make it up north?
Not ten feet from the next basement, Greg heard pounding from behind. Next, two gunshots, followed by a stampede of footfalls.
Gregg shut the door, hit the light switch, and grabbed Gilmore by the arm. He knew these hallways well, but the doctor didn’t. At the next door, he fumbled briefly for the knob, swung it open, and went through.
They had entered a basement with four doorways and one light, already shining. “Go that way.” Gregg pointed to the right. Gilmore opened the door there while Gregg opened the one straight ahead.
“Where are you going?” the doctor asked.
“That's a distraction.” He went through past Gilmore. The doctor's footsteps, then the bang of the door, followed.
Next, they took a left branch to another basement, then the next hall. At each improbable turn, Gregg could swear he heard the posse right behind them. He turned a deadbolt and grinned at the welcome stairs leading to the surface. He had considered going to his office, but Gregg liked where this one led. The building had served a good purpose a month and a half back when it kept Marshals Creed and Nelsen from capturing Blake.
Gregg went a couple feet up the stairs. He fished a skeleton key from his pocket and turned it in the lock to the trapdoor. “This is a good spot. Even better than last time. I hope you’re ready to run.”
“Ah, shit!” The doctor sat on the floor, rocking on his rump and holding his ankle.
“Get up!”
“I know.” Gilmore grabbed the suitcase and reached for the stair railing. The moment he pressed down on his right foot, he shouted and fell again.
“We have to get the hell out of here now.”
“Okay. Give me a minute. I twisted my ankle. Broke, maybe.”
The pounding of boots grew, as did the burn of acid deep in Gregg’s throat. He shoved open the trapdoor. “That lock won’t hold long. Use your arms and good foot. Give me the case.”
“No.” Gilmore shook his head.
“No?”
“My work, I'll carry it.”
Gregg jumped down and reached for the briefcase, but the doctor held it tightly to his chest.
“We’re in danger. Give it to me, and up with you. I’ll help you climb!”
Yet Gilmore shook his head. His jaw had gone slack, his eyes empty. Gregg had seen men react to fear in several ways. Most fought back or ran. Some froze.
“I'll carry it!” cried Gilmore.
Voices came from the hallway, a man speaking muffled commands and others answering. The door pounded inward.
Furious, Gregg knew what he had to do. He drew his gun and shot Gilmore in the right leg.
The door shook again, this time with a pop, and a crack ran down its center.
Gilmore screamed and let the briefcase go. Gregg grabbed the handle, threw it out the opening above, and out.
“Sorry, doctor. Your work is too important to lose.”
On the other side, he shut and locked the hatch.
One of Bateman’s deputies gave the door a final kick and it cracked open down the center.
An old man, probably in his sixties, sat against the stairs, crying and holding on to his bleeding leg. Bateman removed his hat and held it to his heart. Blood flowed like the San Lorenzo river in the middle of rainy season. He’d been shot in the femoral artery. The marshal feared the man had little time to live.
“Help him,” he told one of his deputies and he himself climbed the stairs and banged against the trapdoor.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Blake swung his leg over his stolen horse’s back and leaped free before the steed had even stopped. “Go on, you!” He smacked its flank and scrambled back, in case it decided to kick, but it galloped toward the forest. Nancy rode into the clearing with a laugh.
“That’s style.” She pulled the reins and her steed slowed. “Something my dear husband never had. Help me get this bitch down.”
Nancy hooked her foot in a stirrup and lowered herself as Blake held onto Anna’s hips with both hands and pulled.
“Move or I’ll throw you to the ground,” Blake intoned, but Anna sneered at him.
“Why? You’ll just shoot me either way.”
Blake ran one hand down to Anna’s bottom and grinned at her look of revulsion. “I got no reason to kill you.”
“That never stopped you from killing anyone else.”
Nancy went to the other side of the horse and pushed against Anna’s backside. Anna looked at her and kicked, knocking the zombie madam back a step. Again, Nancy laughed. Blake pulled hard and managed to drop Anna to the ground without hurting her, much.
Anna glared up at him in the rain as he and Nancy grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet. Though faint, to his changed sense of smell, Blake took in the musky perfume of the forest. The rain had a way of bringing out the scent of bark, grass, and soil.
“Creed can’t be far behind,” said Nancy, waving toward the trees. Even in the pale light of the moon through the clouds, her skin had a white glow.
Holding Anna’s left arm, Blake pulled her forward. “Into yonder mansion.”
Water poured off the awning at the front doors and roared in the roof gutters. Blake tried one door and with no surprise, found it locked. He punched in a pane of glass, reached inside, and in a moment, had it open.
“I don’t know this place,” he said once they entered.
Nancy strode forward. “You think I do?”
“I think she does.” He shoved Anna’s back, but the madam said nothing.
Blake had been so intent on getting her, he hadn’t formed a plan. Of course, he had to understand the mansion first. He had seen a window above this room, a foyer, or maybe tea room, he wasn’t sure what people called it for sure. The room upstairs, though, from there he could watch for Creed.
He pushed Anna forward and she walked. She probably figured if Creed did come for her, she’d have a better chance of survival than if she fought at every step. “You bring her,” he told Nancy and walked ahead.
They went through a hall and found a stairway to the left. Up they went into the room he wanted. He wondered if he had ever seen a bedroom so tidy. Someone must have inherited this place, and lucky for them they hadn’t claimed it yet. An armoire was against the wall beside the window. Blake knelt there and gazed outside.
“Get your dirty hands off me, bitch,” came Anna’s voice behind him, then the creak of a bed frame. He glanced over to find Anna on the mattress with Nannette standing over her, fingers twitching.
Blake chuckled. “More of a rivalry between your whore houses than I thought. Damn it, leave her be for now!”
Nancy pulled a gun from the folds of Anna’s dress.
“That a madam maneuver?” Blake asked.
“Yes, it is,” said Nancy as she tucked the Deringer into her own belt.
With a grin, Blake stood at the window and watched.
Bodacious Creed reined Johann to a stop at the edge of the woods, dismounted, and hitched his steed to a thick branch. He no longer had need of the tracker, as he knew exactly where it pointed, toward Margarita Fullerton’s mansion. From the forest cover, he looked over the property. Just past the dead madam’s home, two untethered horses grazed, probably those he had been following. Yet which zombie had he tracked here?
A shadow shifted in the upper window. If not for his steely eyes, he surely would have seen nothing, as the house remained as dark as a sealed coffin.
If it was Blake, why had he stopped at Amber Doves? That seemed obvious: for bait. He knew Creed had a connection to the place, and that Anna Boyd had grieved openly after his murder. The best way to lure Creed anywhere would be to kidnap Anna. He glanced again at the grazing horses. Two of them meant more than one kidnapper.
Creed ran along the perimeter of th
e clearing, partly facing the front of the mansion, and partly facing the side. As he went, he heard faint hoof beats behind him, but he couldn’t say how far away. Then came what sounded like a door opening. He stopped and looked back up. The silhouette of a head popped up into a window, then vanished.
Once at the side of the building, where he was sure Blake wouldn’t see him, Creed ran to the side door, rain assailing him. How much time did he have? Had Blake hurt Anna already?
Did he even know it was Blake up there? Creed felt certain it had to be. At least, he had to assume it was until he knew better.
Though he hated to waste time, he couldn’t bust in without Blake hearing him. He fished out his lock picking tools and knelt. In moments, he engaged the tumblers and eased the door outward.
A gunshot banged through the study and pain flared in Creed’s right arm. He stepped back and dashed to the side of the house. His back to the wall, he tried to draw his gun but found his arm moved slowly. Had the bullet hit a nerve?
“You’re making this too easy, James!” Blake's voice. That confirmed it.
The marshal touched the wound with the claws of his left glove. That bullet had to come out. When he reached in with thumb and forefinger, the pain flared, greater than any he had felt since his rebirth, even greater than when he’d removed the bullet from his back. His body shook, but he held back a scream. Then came the pressure of the bullet against his fingers as the claws gripped it and tore it free.
Tingling, then feeling, returned to his right arm, and it now moved under his will. He drew his pistol and considered another way in. No matter how he approached, Blake could be there ready to shoot.
He rounded the corner, gun pointed toward the side door and found it swinging in the wind. Creed paced forward, the angry storm covering the sound of his muddy steps. Resurrection had improved Creed’s speed, reflexes, and strength. What had it done for Blake? How sly had the outlaw become? Did he have mechanical eyes as well?
Just as Creed cocked his gun, a series of thumps came from in the house.
Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western (The Adventures of Bodacious Creed Book 1) Page 36