“Fucking bitch!” Blake cried.
Creed rushed to the door. Blake crouched in the hallway, and the older gunfighter fired at him. The outlaw dashed in the direction of the front door.
Running after, Creed spotted what had to be Anna’s lower legs at the top of the stairs. He had to stop Blake, but could he leave Anna here alone?
Unsure what motivated him, he rushed up to where Anna sat with her hands behind her back.
“Go get him!” she cried.
Creed pulled the knife from his boot and sawed off the rope tying her hands together. He dropped the weapon beside her and handed her his gun, then hurried down the stairs.
Out the front door, Creed drew his left pistol and tossed it into his right hand. The approach of hooves came louder now from the south, and he heard Blake panting up ahead.
Nancy forced herself up and rubbed the back of her head. Her hair felt damp with rain, and when she checked her skull, there was another bloody spot. Anna and her fucking man, taking head shots! The bitch had kicked her when Blake went out the door! How long had she been out?
As Nancy gazed out the window, she spotted a man running from the mansion. Squinting, she saw another figure just entering the forest. His wild run meant it had to be Blake, with Creed right behind.
So much for his promises! When Anna had taken over Amber Doves, it had crippled the Hartgraul business. Then her girls had dared show up and beat on her husband, with no consequences.
She wouldn’t stand for it. With a snarl, Nancy rushed for the stairs.
For an instant, the gunshot came louder than the rain pelting leaves and branches around them. Rob Cantrell kicked into Malcolm’s flank, but his steed was already galloping as fast as it could. Jonny’s arms tightened around Rob’s midsection. Thanks to Jonny’s halting explanation, he had some idea what to expect. Blake and Nancy Hartgraul, another corpse come to life, had taken Anna.
Cantrell’s guess had to be correct. They had brought her to the Fullerton estate. He rode past Johann but knew he would have no time to hitch his own horse.
Once in the clearing, he pulled Malcolm to a halt. It surprised him how quickly Jonny dismounted. He had no idea the young man could move like that, but he descended not a second later and ran past the boy toward the side door, which jerked in the wind.
The front door, too, banged against the house, but he was already nearly to the other. Cantrell ran into the dark room just as a scream came from the living room, ahead and to his left.
He scrambled past the stairs down the short hall. His goggles allowed him to see everything in black and white, and here two women fought. One hefted a lamp and swung it. Then came a gun blast as the other shot an Austin Equalizer. The gun flew from her hand across the floor, toward the operating table, and the wielder fell with a cry.
At last Cantrell recognized the second woman as Anna.
Nancy pointed a Deringer at the owner of Amber Doves, but the younger madam’s foot swept upward, her boot kicking Nancy’s right hand and sending the small gun sailing toward Cantrell. As the bounty hunter came in, Nancy pounced on Anna, jaws swooping toward her throat. Cantrell grabbed Nancy by the shoulders and jerked her back before she could bury her teeth into Anna’s flesh.
Nancy spun, grabbed his right hand, and clamped down with dirty teeth.
The pain turned everything white. Screaming, Cantrell punched with his left fist. It connected with nothing. Then came another gunshot and he hit the ground.
Cantrell cradled his hand to his chest, aware only of his own screams as his hearing slowly returned. Someone grabbed his arm and he swung a backhanded punch, smiling when his left fist hit flesh and bone.
“Robert! Robert! I’m trying to help you!”
His vision returned, fuzzy with tears. Anna knelt before him and placed her soft hands against his face.
“Did… I hit you?”
“Don’t worry. Hold your hand a moment longer.”
“What about Nancy?”
“She ain’t getting back up.”
Anna went away. He heard the sliding and shifting as she rummaged through drawers.
“Have Jonny help,” Cantrell said. “He can—”
“Jonny came with you?” Anna’s voice climbed several notes. “Where is he?”
Creed ran for perhaps half a mile, the forest blurring around him as he focused past the rain, past his own pounding boots, past the smell of rich mud, and concentrated on watching and listening to Blake. He caught sight of the murderer a few times, but for the last ten seconds or so, he had heard and seen nothing. With a tight sense of dread in his belly, Creed stopped.
The Syndicate might have altered him with any array of gadgets. He might simply have brought dust bombs or specialized guns.
So, where had the outlaw gone? Creed held his gun tightly and surveyed the area, turning slowly, relying on his superior vision and hearing.
“Now what?” he whispered, hearing a running horse from the direction of the Fullerton estate.
Rustling came from above. Creed looked up at darkness so thick it couldn’t be real. As he aimed, Blake came into view.
Creed fired, and a streak of red appeared just under Blake’s head unit. Down came the outlaw, not falling, but leaping. He landed on Creed’s shoulders and both fell like boulders to the mud and leaves. Creed shoved the outlaw off him and rolled, then pushed Blake to the earth and leaped on his back. He pounded the grip of his pistol and his left fist against Blake’s head, shoving his face into the mud. Had Blake’s bones gone as hard as Creed’s yet? The former marshal doubted it.
Blake’s head jerked to the side, freeing his face. He drew his gun and fired. Creed clenched his jaw as blood flew from his right leg. Ignoring it, he kept punching, but when Blake cocked the pistol again, Creed jumped to his feet and pointed his own gun at the outlaw’s head.
Blake’s bullet had gone close to, maybe into, his knee. Creed pulled the trigger as Blake’s next shot boomed, then all went black.
In the darkness of the woods, Jonny recognized Creed from his tall, proud stance. A minute or so earlier, when he and Cantrell had arrived at the mansion, he had seen Creed dashing into the forest. Did that mean he was going to save Anna, or to fight Blake? Either way, Cantrell could handle whatever lay in the mansion. Something told him that Creed might need help.
So, Jonny had climbed on Malcolm’s back and ridden after Santa Cruz’s hero. Now, as he slowed the horse to a halt, he watched in horror as Blake, covered in mud, stood and faced Creed. Just as the tinker dismounted, Blake fired at Creed’s head.
Jonny screamed in rage as Creed’s head unit sputtered, yellow and orange sparks popping underneath the brim of his hat. He stepped away from Malcolm and reached for his gun as quickly as he could.
Unfortunately, he was no Bodacious Creed. Blake already had his Colt aimed at Jonny’s head.
“Ain’t this fun?” Blake asked. Even under a layer of mud, clearly Blake’s nose was broken and a bloody scratch went along the left side of his head. With his free hand, he pulled his mud-caked goggles down. “I won, you son of a bitch! He’s dead, and now you’re gonna be too.” Blake swaggered toward him. Jonny wanted to fight back but found himself frozen. It was like Cantrell stunning him all over again.
“You know who else? Your lady friend. Is she just your employer? Or are you, you know. Nice story. But Nancy, she’s crazy. She’s probably already killed Anna.”
Jonny no longer cared if Blake shot him. Besides, guns were not the tinker’s forte. Fighting was. His leg snapped and he kicked Blake in the gut. Those last words had done it, and Jonny’s body took over. Blake landed on his backside. Jonny stamped on Blake’s right hand and kicked the gun six yards away.
Blake grabbed Jonny’s legs and yanked him down before leaping to his own feet. He rushed for the tinker, but Jonny rolled and rose. He shoved Blake forward into a tree and punched him in the face. The killer spun, laughing, his nose now all but destroyed.
“A challenge! Not a bad night—”<
br />
Jonny pulled Blake toward him and kneed him in the crotch. Blake gasped, so Jonny elbowed him in the back and sent him sprawling again.
He knew how fast Creed could be, but it still came as a surprise when Blake jumped up in a split second. He stood in a boxer’s stance, hands to his face. Blake was fast and strong, yet Jonny had martial arts training. He stepped back, uncertain it was enough, and again reached for his gun.
Blake’s punch came like a log to the face.
The world spun and Jonny’s face hit mud. He wanted to get back to his feet, but his face stung so badly he thought Blake had broken his jaw, and he failed to open his eyes.
Blake spoke, but it came at him jumbled. Rain water hit Jonny’s face and the outlaw’s voice grew angrier. At last, Blake chuckled as one might at a bawdy joke.
Jonny finally managed to open his eyes.
Blake held one of Creed’s own pistols and pointed it at the former marshal’s head.
Creed’s bones had grown exceptionally strong, but at that range, Jonny knew that Blake would kill him.
Creed understood he was about to die, and he accepted it. In the numb darkness, he felt relief. What had his life become? Surely an empty echo of whatever it had been. He saw Heidi, felt her naked body against his, her arms around his neck, his around her hips, her moist lips parting as they kissed. She smelled sweet. He felt warm, aroused, and happy.
She married Bennett. Creed tried to recall why he had let her go.
Despair swept over him like a rush of wind. He stood with a congregation of people in their nicest outfits, dresses, trousers, coats, and vests that came out only on Sundays. They surrounded two fresh graves. Though unable to see the names on the small headstones, he knew.
One belonged to his wife. Becoming a widower had been enough. He never wanted to marry again. The tears of that day felt cold on his cheeks. What about the other grave? Who lay there?
In his memory, Creed dropped to his knees and bawled. The preacher stopped his eulogy, knelt beside him, and put an arm around his shoulders. No rain fell that day in Virginia, but it should have.
Her name was Laura. Laura Anne Creed.
“Papa, can you help me with this?”
The voice came from the bedroom of their cabin, where Laura had her own bed. They owned the place, thanks to Creed’s work as local marshal. His wife often feared for his life, but he told her many times that he had so much good that he would just have to live forever.
Laura sat against the headboard of her bed, her black hair tied in a ponytail. He sat next to her and she passed him the ledger she had been scribbling in with a pencil.
“Can you read it?” she asked.
He could.
“It says ‘I love you, Papa.’ I can’t see anyone breaking this code.”
Code.
Laura Anne.
Anna Lynn.
He forced himself to gaze at her face. They had died. The hearth had caught on fire while he was after an outlaw one day. His wife’s brother, last name of Boyd, had burns on his arms and back, as he had gone in to save them, and failed. Just after the funeral, he and his wife had moved out of grief.
Creed had left Virginia as well and joined the federal marshal service. Years later, he’d met Heidi in Texas, fallen in love, but gave her up.
He had only the service to live for until Blake’s bullet had destroyed his heart. Then, even the law didn’t want him. What did he truly have to live for?
Laura Ann Creed. Anna Lynn Boyd.
His daughter was alive.
The bedroom faded to nothing, just the black of death. Yet Creed himself remained.
Slowly, he felt cold water pattering on his face, mud beneath him. His eyelids fluttered and he screamed inside, “Open, damn you! You left her behind!”
He stared up at Corwin Blake.
Jonny struggled to stand the moment Blake cocked the hammer. Blake’s voice became clear. “Can’t let anyone bring you back again.”
As he aimed at Creed, his legs went out from under him.
The former marshal, who must have kicked Blake down, pushed himself to his feet, though not at his usual speed. He moved like a man who had downed an entire bottle of whiskey. His breathing became rough, a thunder deep in his throat.
Though Jonny could scarcely believe it, Blake dropped his gun and pushed himself back as the zombie approached.
Bodacious Creed’s eyes burned a hot red, brighter than Jonny had ever seen them, more radiant than their design. He grabbed Blake by the shoulders and hauled the man up.
“Let go of me!” Blake yelled as Creed slammed him against a tall tree. The outlaw pounded his fists against Creed’s chest, then face, but the undead marshal took no notice. He pulled Blake back and slammed the killer’s head into the trunk, but Blake kept fighting.
Jonny had never thought of Creed as a zombie before. Tales from New Orleans and Africa about the risen dead had them mindless, like Fullerton, not bright, not good. Not like Creed had been.
He had no idea how Creed had control of himself at all. The brain unit couldn’t be functioning, yet the man had pulled himself out of death. Instead of fear though, Jonny’s heart filled with admiration.
Creed lifted Blake higher, one arm around his throat, and with the other, grasped Blake’s head unit.
With his clawed glove, Creed pulled. The sound was like kindling catching fire in the hearth at The House of Amber Doves. The series of cracks punctuated Blake’s scream. The outlaw’s eyes widened and his feet flailed.
“Mercy!” he cried, but the thing Creed had become had none.
The unit ripped free in Creed’s grasp. Even in the near-dark, Jonny saw bits of skin and gristle hanging off it, and the thickness showed that along with the unit, Creed had torn out a chunk of skull.
Creed, teetering, looked at Blake’s hanging body. The unit fell from his hand, then Creed dropped the outlaw, and collapsed.
Jonny managed to stand and staggered to the bodies. He removed Creed’s hat and mask, but before he examined Creed’s head unit, he noted the look on the man’s face.
Contentment.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
“This is for you.” In her laboratory, Anna stood before her desk and held a small wooden box.
Rather than take the gift, Cantrell was watching Creed on the operating table. The man lay naked under a sheet. “He just about ready to wake up?”
“Soon.” She held the wooden box to the bounty hunter.
“You shouldn’t have made anything for me. All your focus should be on him.”
Anna frowned at that. She had given most of her attention to Creed since bringing him back, and only over the last week did she truly realize how restless it had made her doves. Her belly had fully healed even before the gunfight that killed Heidi. Through it all, she had thought only about her father.
Since the night of August eighteenth so much had happened. She had apologized to the girls and began working with them again. Fortunately, the work on Creed didn’t take long. He simply had to heal. Blake’s bullet hadn’t broken Creed’s steel-hard kneecap, but it had lodged between it and the bones behind. Jonny focused more on Creed, tuning his improved head unit and monitoring his mechanical heart.
Blake's brain unit, once cleaned of bone, blood, and flesh, had proven especially interesting. Though Jonny had fixed Lucky and Dixie the day after Blake's attack, they only understood how the outlaw had stopped them later that night. His unit included sections of steely circuitry and could send out signals. On seeing this, Anna considered adding something like it to Creed's unit but felt it too risky. That would require more research to implement correctly.
From the eighteenth until about the twenty-third, Marshal Bateman, the unwounded deputies, and two new federal marshals, had arrested more than twenty Syndicate men and women and sent many to Monterey. There were just too few jail cells in Santa Cruz.
The funerals had not stopped for the deputies, though Hector Peak’s body, along with Corwin
Blake’s, had been successfully sent to San Francisco.
To Anna’s surprise, Miles Morgan had insisted on paying for the funerals and offered jobs to the grieving widows. Some would help manufacture merchandise, including steelies, others write letters, and some clean and cook. They would make do.
“What he needs now is time. Another day, maybe,” Anna told Cantrell.
The bounty hunter flexed his right hand. Under his glove, he wore a flat healing unit. Nancy had bitten off his trigger and middle finger, but with the unit, the skin had grown over the knuckles in a matter of days.
Cantrell took the box and went to the desk. Working with his diminished hand felt awkward, so he set the box down and slid off the lid.
“Another glove?” he asked.
“Well, put it on.”
After Cantrell pulled the glove off his right hand, Anna unstrapped the healing unit. “You’ve healed enough.”
He picked up the gift and noticed it had an underlying structure to it. He slipped it on. As his fingers went into their respective sleeves, he felt rings around their bases.
The middle and index fingers had been built in.
“Looks nice,” he said.
“Move them. The new fingers.”
“What are you—” Cantrell flexed the new fingers and stared.
“Practice with them. I can’t make them feel, but in time you’ll be able to use them just like the ones you lost.”
“Thank you ain’t enough. I gotta do something in return. What do I owe you?”
“I owed you! You saved my life.”
“I was paying Creed back with that one.”
“All right,” Anna said. “You owe me one thing. If you need anything else from me, any help, don’t break in. Just ask. Oh! Before I forget. Zero, bring out Robert’s property.”
The large steely left the blacksmithing room with a metal ball in its hands, set it on the floor, and pressed a panel.
It unfolded. Bernard gave a bark and marched over to Cantrell, tail wagging.
Anna felt too excited that night to sleep, so she coaxed Jonny awake with kisses. Soon they threw their clothes aside and she climbed atop him. They were alive, and soon, her father would be back as well.
Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western (The Adventures of Bodacious Creed Book 1) Page 37