Tales of Magic and Misery: A Collection of Short Stories by Tim Marquitz

by Tim Marquitz

  I didn’t so much as hear the reports as my rope was tugged once again, a gust of air swinging me up over the top of the rail car where the slack played out, and I found myself up close and personal with the steel roof of the rail car. Bells rang somewhere in the distance of my cloudy brain. I resisted the urge to vomit.

  When I looked up, Unktowa stood there holding the other side of my rope. He shook his head and muttered something.

  “He say you make drunken, three-legged buffalo with Hoof in Mouth look nimble.”

  I slipped the rope from around my wrist with a hiss, layers of skin going with it. May Lin crouched nearby, her robes fluttering out behind her. There was no compassion in her narrow eyes.

  “Well, boy, there ain’t no question they know we’re here now,” Clay said. He checked the load in his rifle.

  “Think so?” My head hurt so bad my asshole puckered, and my side felt as if I’d gotten romantic with a leprous porcupine. All I wanted to do was lie there and whimper for a few minutes, but that was clearly too much to ask. A bullet ripped through the roof about three feet from where we gathered.

  Cletus pointed to the smoking hole. “Yeah, I’m thinking you’re right, Clay.”

  May Lin dropped off the front edge of the train before Cletus even got the words all the way out.

  “We best get to movin’,” Clay shouted after seeing her disappear, not waiting to see if anyone was paying attention. Cletus and Unktowa darted off, leaping across the space between the rail cars to land on the other side. The wind whipped the Indian’s hair out behind him as though he were wearing a cape.

  There was a metallic clunk from between the cars, and Mika and I had the same thought at the same time. He shot off first, all ashy elbows and brown asshole.

  “Shit!” I shouted as I chased after him. The car beneath me rocked, and I spied the distance between the two inching wider. My heart hit my throat as I jumped. I almost thanked God—almost—when my feet landed flush on the roof where the others stood, my palms slapping down on the steel and scrabbling for a handhold. I looked back with a slow exhalation.

  The car I’d just been standing on eased away from the other, the line of them behind it going as well, unshackled from the engine by May Lin. She popped back up alongside us just as the train rumbled into Tombstone. Wide eyes stared as we clacked past the station, heads snapping to follow our hurtling passage. I pulled my gaze from the rapidly disappearing pedestrians and cast them forward. A short line of three cars splayed out before us, not counting the coal car and engine. Billows of blackened ash spewed from the stack, dark, acrid clouds tearing by us.

  “Which one is it in?” I asked.

  Clay shrugged. “Could be any of them.”

  “That’s helpful,” I muttered under my breath. These yokels were gnawing on my nerves.

  “I think we oughta—” was all Cletus got out before our choices got taken out of our hands.

  Red-skinned natives climbed over the sides onto the roof, but they were no ordinary Indians.

  Naked, with all their bits and pieces swaying loose and all over, they crawled like spiders spilling from a nest. They carried no weapons but their bodies gleamed with jagged shards of glass, which had been embedded into every spare piece of skin. Sharp pieces were buried in each of their fingertips, glistening claws that gleamed in the fading sunlight. Blues eyes glowed in their sockets as the Indians advanced in ominous silence.

  “Manitou!” Unktowa shouted. There was no mistaking the fear that etched his expression. Had to give him credit, though. He stood his ground.

  Clay blasted the first of the things off the train, putting a bullet right between its shiny eyes. “What the hell are these critters?”

  Mika sidestepped one and sent it plummeting over the edge. “Spirits trapped in flesh by powerful shaman,” he answered while pulling his pistol free of its holster. “Bad, bad stuff.”

  It didn’t get much more obvious than that.

  I blasted one in the chest, but it kept coming, grinning a mirthless smile. It swung a claw at me, and I ducked under it, shooting it in the nuts and then the face. The Manitou stumbled back and was whipped away by the wind.

  May Lin danced along the roof of the car, her sword a silver sheen that was barely visible. Severed limbs fell in her wake.

  “They feel no pain so long as Manitou possesses the body.” Mika shot another of the spirits made flesh, blowing its knee away so that it toppled.

  Unktowa grabbed two by their necks and smashed their skulls together, flinging them aside as though they were broken toys. They just kept coming, though. For every one we cast to the cruel whims of gravity, another took its place, the host bodies pouring out of the windows of the car beneath us. We were being pushed back toward the center of the roof. Even May Lin had ceded ground against the wave of creeping spirits.

  “We ain’t gonna get nowheres like this,” Cletus shouted even though he didn’t need to, his voice ringing in my ears.

  I unloaded my first pistol in the face of a Manitou that slipped past the others. It stared at me without emotion while it stumbled backward into the rest of the horde, the spirit host pushed aside by the others as they continued their relentless march forward.

  “Unktowa!” Clay shouted. I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and realized the cowboy was pointing at me.

  “Wait. What are you—?”

  The huge Indian grabbed me from behind and lifted me bodily into the air over his head, answering my unfinished question with terror. Before I could do anything to stop the giant, he tossed me. Too surprised to scream, I stared helplessly as I flew over the heads of the Manitou, their blue eyes locked straight ahead, and landed with a dull thump on the roof of the neighboring car.

  “Get that sonsabitch Mares,” Clay shouted at me. “We’ll hold these things off.” He shot another of the spirits as I watched before turning back to me. “Go on, now, boy. Get!”

  I lingered for another couple of seconds but what Clay wanted me to do made sense. If Mares was the shaman controlling the Manitou, then stopping him would probably release the spirits. That thought in my head, I glanced over the edge to confirm there weren’t any more bogeys waiting down there, and then dropped between the cars. My feet hit the platform with a loud, metallic clang, but luck was with me. The Manitou swarmed just the other side of the windowed door but none came storming out.

  Time against me, I pulled open the door to the next car and ducked low, slipping inside with my gun leading the way. The cold steel of a gun barrel was pressed against my skull just as I cleared the door.

  “”We meet again, heathen. Drop the gun.” There was no mistaking the Reverend’s gritty voice or the righteous fury in it.

  I straightened slowly after setting the pistol on the floor. “You don’t actually believe your daughter was a virgin before I came across her, do you?”

  The trigger creaked under Ansell’s finger. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to say right then. I glanced over at him to see his forehead and nose swollen and red, both eyes yellowed with the hint of bruising. His cheeks were flushed with anger.

  “You will not cast aspersions on my daughter’s innocence ever again.” He pressed the barrel harder against my skull, and I could hear his teeth grinding. “I’ll be certain to thank Mr. Mares for the opportunity to mete out justice.”

  The good old Reverend hadn’t learned his lesson the last time. I twisted my head just as he squeezed the trigger. The gun roared beside my ear, deafening me, but that was better than having my brains splattered across the windows.

  A sweep of my hand knocked the Reverend’s pistol clear, and I drew my second gun, slamming the barrel into his throat. He urked and dropped to a knee. I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and lifted him to his feet, placing my gun against the base of his skull.

  “Relax, Reverend, and you’ll live to go home to your family.”

  Ansell grunted something noncommittal, probably because he was still choking
on the insides of his throat, but I didn’t give him time to find his pride. I thumbed the hammer back, and he stiffened.

  Last thing I wanted to do was kill the man. He might well be a gullible father twisted around the finger of his little girl, but that wasn’t anything to die over. He’d been fooled but it hadn’t been by me. If he’d be reasonable for just a couple minutes, we’d both walk away with all our pieces.

  I nudged him forward, still clutching to his neck. “Let’s go talk to Mares and get this bucket of bolts slowed down so I can let you off to go about your business. How’s that sound?”

  It wasn’t the Reverend that answered.

  “That’s not going to happen, demon spawn.”

  I looked past the preacher’s shoulder to see an older man slip through the far door. Dressed in all black, a flowing duster was draped over his shoulders. His eyes glinted with a subtle blue. The casual waft of magic that tingled against my senses confirmed what I’d already guessed. This was Mares. His hand hovered near his waist, his pistol pointed my direction.

  “Easy with the name calling, wizard,” I answered. “I’m a might sensitive. Wouldn’t want me to have to shoot someone because you hurt my feelings, now would you? That would weigh on your conscience something fierce, I imagine.”

  Mares chuckled, the sound setting his Adam’s apple bouncing in his throat. His gray eyebrows narrowed as he stared at me, his age-lined but clean shaven face contorted into a look of disdain and amusement all at the same time. It was impressive, I had to admit.

  He grinned. “Not hardly.” A shot burst from his revolver.

  The Reverend’s solid frame in front , I just ducked a little lower figuring Mares wouldn’t blast his own flunky just to get little old me. And I was right—

  —sort of.

  The bullet that flew from his gun glowed with a cerulean brilliance. Before I could figure out what he’d done, the bullet dodged around the Reverend and hit me in the gut. The blow knocked me back. I slammed into the door, glass shattering, just as the pain of the shot registered. Ansell stumbled forward, my restraining grip gone. My eyes darted to my stomach to see blood and black ooze gush from the wound. I could taste copper, fog crowding the inside of my skull.

  A blur of motion in front of me drew my gaze back to Mares and the Reverend. Ansell grinned, having collected the pistol I’d laid on the floor. The ugly black O of the revolver spit fire. Two shots slammed into my chest. The wall creaked behind me as my full weight was knocked into it, but its support kept me standing. Agony seared through my veins, but it was nothing compared to the rage that followed.

  Reverend Ansell stood with a crooked smirk, confident in his aim as he waited for me to die. He had every right to be, too. Both bullets had hit center mass, punching holes in my chest, one reaching as far as my lung. Blood filled my mouth with every breath, the searing ache of hot lead buried in the meat of me. Unfortunately for the good Reverend, though, his bullets weren’t magical.

  “Gonna take more than that, Rev,” I told him as I fired. The shot took him right in the face, obliterating his smugness and replacing it with a shower of red and gray and bits of hair.

  Fully aware of what Mares could do now, I forced myself to move before he picked me apart. I stepped forward and put a foot in the Reverend’s sagging chest, booting him down the aisle. A barrage of bullets followed the instant Mares slid into my line of vision. He cursed and went to fire back but my volley got there first.

  Blood painted the wall beside him as the first shot tore through flesh, though I didn’t see where I’d hit him. He spun away with a shout, the other bullets ripping divots in the wall where he’d just stood. Mares kicked the connecting door open and dove through it, my last couple shots pecking holes in the glass at his back. I was after him in a heartbeat, only pausing long enough to snatch up the Reverend’s pistol as I passed his limp body.

  I burst through the door and leapt across the intervening space between cars, rolling into the one where Mares had run. A scream bubbled out of my mouth as I staggered to my feet. As many times as I’ve been shot and stabbed, you’d think I’d remember not to do acrobatics right after, but I never learn. I spit a mouthful of blood just as Mares fired at me again. This time I was prepared for his fancy hoodoo.

  I waited just an instant longer than good sense dictated when being shot at, and then dove aside, returning fire. Mares’ bullet swerved at the last second, but it was too late. The shot veered past me and punched a hole in one of the side windows. My own bullets ripped up the wall where Mares had just been, the wizard already through the far door and vaulting across to the next car. I got to my feet, cursing the oozing hole in my gut. My lung had already sealed the puncture left behind by the Reverend’s bullet, so at least I could breathe. It still stung like a pride of lions were scratching at my insides, but there was nothing I could do about it. Once Mares was resting comfortably in Hell, Uncle Lou would treat me to a healing and a cold beer.

  The latter spurred me on.

  I did the math—a couple of times since I suck with numbers—and realized we’d come to the end of the train. There was only the next car before the coal car and engine. Mares was running out of places to go. To get any further, he’d have to run out in the open, and I didn’t imagine anyone thought that would be a good idea. There was no cover along the coal car railing.

  Confident I had him cornered, I dove inside the open door of the last car. Able to hit me while I peeked around the frame, there wasn’t any point in lingering. Surprise and pressure were the best bet. Too bad I didn’t have much of the former.

  Another of Mares’ magical bullets creased my shoulder as I stormed inside returning fire. There was a metallic ping of a ricochet, and the lovely sound of lead meeting meat, then both were superseded by the waspy buzz of magical energy. I saw Mares drop out of sight and got ready to dodge his next attack, but that was when I realized the magic wasn’t coming from him. It was coming from the thing he was hiding behind: a golden sarcophagus.

  “Stay where you are, demon, or I’ll destroy Lucifer’s prize.” There was an unhealthy quaver to Mares’ voice that made the vindictive part of me happy. The memory of my mother nagged me to behave, but I couldn’t help myself.

  The fucker had shot me.

  “You don’t want to do that,” I replied hoping to sound confident while I checked my pistol load and snapped off a shot. He could hit me from where he was and I couldn’t get him, not without accumulating a bunch more holes in my ass. I needed him nervous.

  “You can’t stop me.” His voice drifted over the large coffin, my eyes unconsciously tracing the intricate knot work of sigils and symbols that had been meticulously carved into its face.

  “I don’t need to, Mares,” I lied. “All I need to do is hold you a little longer and the portal my buddies are connecting will teleport us all straight into Hell. You can explain this to the old man yourself here in a few minutes.”

  There was a moment of silence where I held my fire, willing him to believe me. I almost shit myself when his head and pistol popped up over the sarcophagus. He glared at me through reddened eyes, both our guns aimed at one another. Still I stood my ground. There was nowhere for me to hide. If Mares starting shooting, I was gonna eat mystical lead. My only other option was to rush him, but he had cover and I didn’t.

  “You’re lying,” he said, hoping to call my bluff.

  I shrugged and let my gun arm drop, the barrel sighting the floor. “You think so?” I forced a smile.

  The wizard glared for a moment, clearly torn between his desire to shoot me and the consequences of the time he was wasting. His decision flashed across his eyes, and I stiffened, getting ready to get shot. He dropped behind the sarcophagus and fired. I ducked, bracing, but the bluish glint of his shot flew out from the cover of the coffin…headed the opposite direction.

  I stared at the glow as it ripped through the glass and disappeared over the coal cart. There was a sharp clang of something metal being struck
by the bullet, and the train shuddered. The smokestack hissed and the ground flew out from beneath my feet. I hit the floor and slid into the nearby wall. The whole car trembled as the world outside blurred past the windows. It hit me then what Mares had done.

  The train rocketed forward out of control.

  I scrambled to my feet, but the wizard was quicker. He’d known what was coming. Mares sprinted out from behind the sarcophagus and whipped the door aside, bolting to the coal car. I tried to get a bead on him, but the shaking of the train threw my aim off. My shot went wide, pinging off the coal bin. Bloodied across his chest, his left arm hanging limp, Mares climbed to the edge of the car and jumped, snatched from view by the merciless wind.

  “Nitis!”

  I spun and nearly shot Mika as he clung to the door frame behind me. His eyes were wide,

  “The train—”

  “I know,” I answered, cutting him off. “We need to see if—”

  “No!” He cut me off in turn, pointing in the direction of the coal car. “We crash.”

  My eyes followed his finger, and though it was hard to see anything past the whipping clouds of black smoke and piled coal, I spotted the sudden rise of hills that signaled a sharp turn of the rails.

  “Oh…hell.”

  Mika nodded and stepped deeper into the car. The train bounced beneath us, ready to take flight. There was no time for us to jump free. It was too late.

  A thought hit me then.

  It was as ugly and stupid a thought as I’d ever had, and there had been a lot of stupid thoughts over the years, but it was our only chance. No time to think it through, or to even shit my pants, I grabbed Mika by the arm and ran to the sarcophagus. He started at me as though I was stupid, and I couldn’t argue.

  Three thick, heavy latches sealed the ornate coffin. I popped all three as the train danced under our feet and muscled the huge sarcophagus open.

  “What are you doing?” Mika screamed, but I wasn’t listening.