It was also possible that the lone figure might be the sole survivor of another attack by outlaws, or, even worse, Indians. The Navajo were rarely a problem, though there were some renegade young warriors, but when the Apaches were bored or decided they were in a bad mood, then it was time to count and watch your tail feathers. Baxter had never really blamed the Indians. It would piss anyone off if someone moved onto your land and started tearing everything up. But he was also quite fond of his own scalp, and the Apache were notoriously difficult to reason with.
He began to wish he’d brought Quincy along, but Quincy had been drinking already, and when he was drunk, Quincy was about as useful as a three-legged mule. During those times, Quincy was more of a liability than an asset, because you could be practically assured that anything he shot with his coach gun wasn’t what he’d been aiming at.
Still, Baxter would have liked to have another gun with him now, drunk or not. He scanned the horizon again, and could pick out nothing but the solitary figure walking toward him. Baxter was a sizable man, and armed. He figured he could handle most anything a single man could throw at him.
Then why did he suddenly feel so nervous?
He was close enough now that he could tell the figure was a man, albeit a smallish one. The guy seemed to be either hurt or drunk; he didn’t appear to be too steady on his feet. Then again, it was untelling how long the little fellow had been walking. He might be exhausted, or dying of thirst. It was certainly a curious situation, and one that Baxter wanted to get to the bottom of, but it didn’t warrant the sudden paranoia he’d felt.
Baxter slowed the horses, still wary. He was starting to think he’d met the little man before, and recently, but he couldn’t remember when or where. The guy was walking with a noticeable lurch to his step, and he was wearing clothes which looked as if they’d been pretty nice up till recently. He had a bowler hat on his head which was cocked at an odd angle, making him look like a sot who’d just come stumbling out of a saloon after drinking up his last dollar.
“What’s happened?” Baxter said loudly as he pulled the stage to a stop. “Was there an ambush?”
The little man looked up at Baxter. His skin was pasty, and he had dark circles under his eyes, which were so bloodshot there was no white left to be seen, only red. After taking a good look, Baxter was amazed that the man was still on his feet, much less hiking across the desert. He’d seen people lying in pine boxes who’d looked a fair sight better.
“My good man,” the little fellow began, then broke off as he began to beat at his chest and belly, as if he were trying to knock bugs or crumbs off the front of his shirt and jacket. “Be quiet!” the man hissed. “I can barely hear myself think up here!” He stood still for a moment, then looked back up at Baxter, seemingly satisfied.
“My good man,” he said again. “I’m so happy to have run across you. I’m traveling to Phoenix, and I lost my horse some good ways back. Would there be any way I could inconvenience you for a ride?”
Baxter peered down at the man. He thought he recognized the fellow. Baxter himself had taken him from Phoenix to Vulture City a little more than a week ago. If Baxter remembered right, the man was from back east somewhere—Pennsylvania, maybe—and had come down to help test the ore at the mine. Or something like that. Baxter couldn’t remember the man’s name right off the top of his head. Quincy had been on that run, but Quincy wasn’t here now. And Quincy had probably been drinking, besides, so he wasn’t likely to remember a name anyway.
“I took you to Vulture City a week ago last Tuesday,” Baxter said. “What’s your name again?”
The little man seemed to think about it for a moment. Directly, he smiled. It was a gruesome sight.
“Seaver!” he said. “That’s my name, yes it is!”
“Well, Mr. Seaver, what the hell happened to you? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Indians!” Seaver hissed loudly, and looked all around him, as if he expected to see renegade Apaches hiding behind every scrawny creosote bush. It made Baxter look too, even though he’d just looked less than a minute earlier. He spat and cursed himself silently.
“Apache?” Baxter asked.
“I suppose,” Seaver said, but he now looked a tad disinterested. “They killed everyone else. Slaughtered them. I’m the only one left, and I simply must get to Phoenix.”
To tell the truth, Baxter didn’t much care for the idea. Seaver looked sick as hell, and Baxter wasn’t keen on catching anything that a few shots of whiskey wouldn’t cure. He’d probably be all right if he made Seaver ride in the coach, though. At least there wasn’t anybody else in there to catch whatever the little man had. He’d just have to remember to give the interior a good cleaning when they got to where they were going.
“How far back were you when you got attacked?” he asked Seaver.
“I don’t know. Six or seven miles, I guess. There were five men with me. They’re all dead now.”
“How did you escape?” Baxter wanted to know. It was possible that the Indians had taken one look at the sickly, scrawny specimen standing before him and hadn’t had the heart to scalp him. Possible, but not likely. Baxter had never before known them to be finicky when it came to a white man’s hair.
“Hid behind a rock,” Seaver said, and left it at that. He seemed to be growing increasingly impatient, and he’d taken to beating on his chest again and mumbling under his breath, but he was talking so low that Baxter couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Baxter looked around again and sighed. He couldn’t very well leave Seaver out there to fend for himself. It’d be pretty much the same thing as murder. He wasn’t a religious man, but he tried to live by the Good Book whenever it crossed his mind to do so. Which sadly didn’t happen as often as it should have.
“You can ride in the coach,” he told Seaver. “I got to try to get through to Vulture City, as long as I don’t see any sign of those Indians who attacked you. You can ride back to Phoenix with me later, if you’re still of a mind to. But if it were me, I might think about seeing a doctor first.”
Seaver had stepped up to the coach, but now he froze with one hand on the door latch.
“You’re not going straight back to Phoenix?” he asked, unbelieving.
“I’ve got some papers for the mine, and they’re hell-bent on having them today.”
“But the Indians,” Seaver protested. The little man was clearly flustered. “They’ll cut our scalps off. Or whatever it is they do to good, decent white men like us.”
“Look,” Baxter said, growing a tad impatient himself, “I ain’t no fool. If I even think there’s a war party around, we’ll turn around and skedaddle back to Phoenix. But until then, I’m supposed to make a delivery. I’ll get you to Phoenix, but we gotta do it my way.” He turned around on the driver’s bench, having said all he had to say on the subject.
Seaver sighed and let his hand drop from the door latch. He removed the bowler from his head and tossed it into the coach through the open window. Muttering under his breath again, he walked back to the front of the coach, reached up and grabbed Baxter by the leg, and drug the larger man off his perch and onto the ground as if the stagecoach driver were no more than a small child. Baxter hit the ground with a thud, and he was so surprised at the sudden turn of events that he didn’t have the presence of mind to draw his revolver until Seaver was on top of him, straddling his chest. He cleared the Colt from its holster, pointed it clumsily up at his attacker, and cocked the hammer and fired.
The shot blew off the left side of Seaver’s face, spinning the little man’s head around in the opposite direction. His grip on Baxter loosened for a moment, but only a moment. Then he pressed down harder on the trapped man and slowly turned his ruined visage back around to regard Baxter.
With what was left of his mouth, Seaver smiled down at Baxter.
“That’s all right, my good man,” Seaver said, his voice thick and bubbly with blood. “There will be so much more room inside yo
u. My good, big man.”
Baxter’s finger began to squeeze the Colt’s trigger again, then stiffened and went still.
***
Murphy looked down at what was left of Seaver. It took him a few moments to figure out what he was looking at. It looked like the little man had just up and exploded. It would have been disgusting under normal circumstances, but somehow, after the night he and Loco had just spent in Vulture City, it really wasn’t that bad.
“You reckon he was just so full of demons that he popped?” he asked Loco.
“Lilith found a new host,” Loco replied, his tone even and measured. “See the tracks? It must have been the stagecoach headed to Vulture City.” He pointed down at the tracks in the sandy soil. “The stage turned back here. And it’s headed back toward Phoenix.”
“Wonder who all was in the coach?” Murphy asked, eyeing the empty trail ahead.
“That’s the problem,” Loco replied. “We have no way of knowing. And if we don’t catch up to that coach before it gets to Phoenix…”
“We’ll play merry hell trying to find them,” Murphy finished. “They could just keep jumping from body to body, staying one step ahead of us.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, then,” Murphy said, tightening his grip on his horse’s reins, “we’d better get to moving. It’s twenty miles to Phoenix, maybe a little less. How far ahead do you think they are?”
“Hard to say,” Loco answered. “Judging by the condition of Seaver’s body, I’d say twenty minutes, thirty at most.” He bent and reached into one of his saddlebags. “I need to give you something before we head out. Keep it close. You’re going to need it when we catch up to Lilith.” He tossed Murphy a small glass vial, which the hired gun caught and held up to study.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“I’ll explain on the way,” Loco said, and spurred his horse down the trail.
Chapter Sixteen
It was nearing dusk when they saw the stagecoach up ahead of them. It was nothing more than a tiny, bouncing shadow in the fading light. Murphy and Loco had been pushing their horses hard, and neither wanted to push the animals much harder, but there was nothing to do but to spur their mounts on.
Phoenix lay a scant three or four miles to the southeast.
If the stagecoach’s driver was aware of their approach, he didn’t show it. The coach was moving along at a pretty good clip, but the driver did nothing to spur his team on as the two wranglers closed in from behind.
There could have been many reasons for this, but they mostly depended on who was driving. If Lilith had possessed the driver, then Murphy reckoned that it was either because the demon was inexperienced in the finer aspects of driving a stagecoach, or else she was too cocky to consider them an actual threat. His personal opinion involved the latter. He hoped for their sake that the demon was underestimating them.
They split up as they approached the coach, with Murphy taking the right side and Loco closing in from the left. Murphy had the Exterminator close at hand, even though Spider Grandmother had supposed it would be useless against the succubus. He’d killed a bunch of demons with it already, and he was going to try like hell to kill Lilith. Murphy didn’t much like the notion that he couldn’t kill Lilith, anyway. Anything could be killed, if you tried long and hard enough.
Loco pulled even with the coach, his knife at the ready in case anything tried to come jumping out at him. But he soon saw that he needn’t have worried. The coach’s interior was empty, save for a couple of small crates and boxes. There were no passengers seated inside—dead, possessed, or otherwise.
Murphy raced to the front of the coach. From the rear, he’d only been able to see the driver, but he’d been wary of a shotgun messenger, possibly crouched low, out of sight. But the reinsman was the only person on the box. He was a big guy who looked like a bear someone had managed to half-shave. The driver turned and looked at Murphy. His eyes were bloodshot-red.
“It’s her!” Murphy yelled at Loco, though the Apache had no chance of hearing him over the din of pounding hooves and creaking wood. He brought the mare’s leg up, but before he could chamber a round, a fist roughly the size of a lamb’s head came swinging towards him. Murphy ducked low and veered his horse to the side, out of the driver’s reach.
As the demon was distracted by Murphy, Loco hopped onto his saddle and leapt onto the driver’s box. Alerted by the noise and vibration, the demon turned around as Loco brought his knife down. The blade embedded itself in the driver’s chest, just below his shoulder. The demon grunted, but instead of howling in agony, or even trying to extract the knife protruding from it, it grabbed the Apache by the arms and pinned them to his side. With a violent shove, the demon pushed Loco back onto the wooden seat and towered over him. The driver’s red eyes almost glowed as the demon within glared at Loco with unbridled hate and fury.
While keeping the Apache pinned down with one hand, the demon grabbed Loco’s knife by its hilt and jerked it free, ripping the driver’s shirt and a fair amount of flesh in the process. With a guttural growl, the demon raised the blade, preparing to drive it deep into the struggling Indian.
The mare’s leg thundered, and a pair of holes appeared in the driver’s chest. He looked down at them, puzzled. Loco, not as given to overlook an opportune distraction as his partner, grabbed the driver by the shirt and bucked his knees upward. Off-guard and off-balance, the demon driver went sailing over the side of the coach. The demon hit the ground hard and began to roll through the creosote. The driver’s arms and legs flailed wildly as the demon sought to halt its progress, to no avail.
Jumping up, Loco grabbed the reins and pulled back, slowing the team and finally bringing them to a halt. Murphy steered his mount toward the demon, who had finally come to rest at the base of a rocky outcrop. The demon raised the driver’s body up to his hands and knees, and was shaking his head to clear the cobwebs out.
Murphy dismounted quickly, took the Exterminator, and fired another round into the demon. The impact of the slug tore through the stage driver’s side and knocked him back against the rocks. From behind the driver’s eyes, Lilith glared at Murphy.
“Foolish pup,” she hissed with Baxter’s husky voice. “You can’t kill me with that toy!” What she didn’t tell him was that he had destroyed one of the Anasazi with one of his damned magical bullets. She could feel the lone surviving Anasazi thrashing within Baxter’s body, insane with rage. With a little effort, she subdued the lesser demon. She would give control of Baxter’s body to the Indian spirit soon, but not quite yet. The succubus forced herself into a sitting position, leaned back against the rocks, and leered at Murphy, taunting him.
“I guess we’ll see,” Murphy said, and fired another round into the driver’s body. It caught Baxter square in the gut and lodged in the big man’s spine, severing control of his lower body. Inside Baxter, Lilith cursed. The more Baxter’s body was damaged, the more energy it required to hold it together. If the idiot attacking her kept blowing holes in her host, it soon wouldn’t be worth the effort.
But that was all right. She didn’t plan on staying in her present host for much longer, anyway. The cowboy was inching closer, confident in his ability to destroy her, and his Indian friend was rushing toward them. In a few moments, one or both of the fools would be close enough.
Murphy paused and loaded four rounds into the mare’s leg, replacing the bullets he’d already fired. He was going to need a full magazine to finish this business. He tried to appear cocky for the demon’s sake, and in fact he was feeling pretty pleased with the damage he’d inflicted on Lilith. He might not be hurting her, but he was tearing her stolen body all to shit. That had to count for something. And he might have already taken out the Anasazi, if one or two of his shots had landed lucky.
Loco, having retrieved his knife, came up beside Murphy. Both men knew what had to be done. It was a dangerous gambit, and even if they were successful, their victory would not be complete, unless th
ey were very lucky. They’d been prepared to face the Anasazi; as prepared as one could be, anyway. But they were lacking the tools to destroy an archdaemon.
They could, however, stymy her plans.
“You ready to do this?” Loco asked. He took a vial from his pocket and popped the cork.
“Might as well,” Murphy replied, unstopping his own vial. “There’s not a lot of light left.”
They both took a small swig of their respective vial’s contents, then splashed the remainder of the liquid on their faces, being careful to rub it around their eyes and nostrils. Tossing his empty vial to the ground, Murphy chambered a round and stepped forward. He blasted a hole in the hapless Baxter’s side, then levered another round into the chamber. He continued to advance, squeezing off a shot with each step he took.
Lilith shrieked as her host’s body was rapidly turned into a sieve. But it was no matter. The cowboy had come close enough now to take. She would leave this body to the remaining Anasazi, or it could take the cowboy’s Indian friend, whichever it pleased.
Leaving Baxter’s tortured remains slumped against the rocks, Lilith emerged and took the form of the beautiful woman she’d used earlier. Striding purposefully, the succubus advanced on Murphy, who was still firing while averting his gaze, so as not to look directly at the approaching demon. Though all of his shots hit home, the demon continued to move forward, seemingly unperturbed by the magical bullets.
The rounds actually stung Lilith quite a bit, but she was determined not to give Murphy the satisfaction of knowing it. His refusal to look directly at her bothered her even more, for it rendered her power of demonic enchantment essentially useless. But in two more steps, it wouldn’t matter. She would enter him, consume his soul, and use his body for whatever purposes she saw fit. The first of those purposes would be to kill his Indian friend. After that, she would head into Phoenix, and she would turn the city into her personal playground.
Loco came rushing in from the side. Lilith prepared to repel any clumsy attack the Apache might offer, but he ran right past the succubus, intent on the body she’d just vacated. Baxter was awkwardly trying to rise to his feet as the Anasazi within him struggled to gain control of its ruined host, which it now had all to itself. The Indian spirit’s newfound control was short-lived, however, as Loco drove his magical blade into the former stagecoach driver’s chest, putting an abrupt end to the demon inside. Baxter’s body crumpled to the ground to lie, finally, still and quiet.
Drovers and Demons: A Weird Tale of the Old West (Murphy and Loco Book 1) Page 13