“But what about Diablo? Weren’t people still looking for it?”
Uncle scratched his nose. “They were. But Jack—your pa, that is—had disappeared. Butch and his boys were way down South, so I didn’t think they’d come all this way looking for him. Didn’t think they’d even figure he was still alive. I did what I could to keep John from curious busybodies and stayed off the radar myself. And I made sure Diablo stayed hidden, too.” He pulled the brim of his hat lower over his eyes. “Shoulda known it wouldn’t last forever.”
Hettie struggled to make sense of all this information. She might have chalked it up to an old man’s drunken delusions of grandeur if it weren’t for the fact that Uncle hadn’t had a drink in nearly six hours. “If you were working for the Division, why didn’t you take the gun and bring it to them?”
“It’s complicated. Let’s just say I didn’t agree with all their politics. Anyhow, I’d quit the Division long before I found your pa in Alabama. I only kept after him because…” He trailed off, wiped a hand over his mouth. “Well. It’s a long story.”
“So why is Diablo so important? What makes it so special?”
He pursed his lips. “I’ve already said too much.”
“It’s a gun, right? So what does it do? And where is it now?”
“Damned if I tell you,” Jeremiah scoffed.
“If Butch’s gang has Abby, we could trade it for her.”
“By the Almighty, Hettie—” He bit off his words. “Abby’s probably maggot food by now. There’s no reason to believe otherwise.”
Her blood sizzled in her veins, pushing through her hot and thick. She said through clenched teeth, “She’s my sister. If she were dead, I’d know it.”
He met her eye. “Blood bonds are the strongest, Hettie, but even they can’t possibly tell you that.”
“I don’t care.” She had to cling to this if her grip on her old reality was slipping. The world could go to hell; but until she saw Abby’s lifeless body, she would stick to this one truth. She fixed her sight on the horizon. “She’s out there somewhere. I won’t rest till I find her.”
He sighed. “Then I hope you’re prepared to never sleep again.”
They made camp when the moon was high and Hettie’s chin started to droop. While she started a small fire, Uncle walked in a wide circle around the site, muttering a spell that made her skin feel tight, as though someone had pulled a shroud around her.
“If you can do all these spells, why’d you make Pa buy all those wards? We could’ve saved that money for other things.”
“Didn’t they teach you anything in regular school about how magic works? Working long-lasting spells takes strength and willpower. They’re like trying to hang on to greased-up boulders. You have too many spells going at once, you’re bound to lose your grip on one, and I was juggling ten or fifteen at a time already.”
“Why so many?”
“To keep John and me out of sight. The Division never did take my resignation gracefully.” He sat heavily, wiping a hand across his brow.
“Are you all right?”
“I’ve been keeping us under a protection spell all day. I don’t have the energy I used to.”
She felt a little sorry for the old man. They’d never gotten along much, but he was doing his best to take care of her, she supposed. She was the one who’d gotten them into this mess in the first place. “I’ll take the first watch.”
He waved her off. “No need. The barrier should keep out all the nasties. Just get some sleep. We’ve got a long road ahead.”
“But where are we going?”
“Georgia. I’ve got friends there who can protect you.”
She bristled. “I don’t need protecting. I need to find Abby. And anyhow, aren’t we pointed in the wrong direction if we want to go to Georgia?”
“We’ll circle back, get a train heading south from Jacobs Springs. The important thing right now is avoiding the Pinks.”
She rubbed her temples. “I don’t understand. Why are you so worried about them?”
Jeremiah eased himself down onto the dirt, leaning up against his saddle. “Thomas Stubbs, that man who wrote to you—he was a colleague of mine in my government days. He had an unhealthy obsession with finding Diablo and was mad as hell when I was picked for the mission over him. I’ll never forget ol’ Stubby’s face when I rode off.” He stirred the fire and then got comfortable, pulling a blanket over him. “I guess he quit and joined up with the Pinks.”
He closed his eyes, his breathing evening out. Hettie’s mind kept circling back to the object everyone was bent on finding, and she couldn’t sleep. “In the stories Pa told me about Elias Blackthorn … his demon—Diablo—could kill five men in one swoop. Does that mean—”
He cracked an eye open. “That the Devil’s Revolver can shoot five men dead with one bullet? Far as I know, no. It’s an enchanted gun, but it’s still a gun. Magic plays by certain rules. No one knows how Diablo’s enchanted, though. Your Winchester, for instance”—he nodded toward her rifle—“the wood in the stock was magicked so that it would never warp, never need much in the way of care. It’s what keeps it shooting straight.” For a moment, he watched the sparks from the fire sail into the sky. “Diablo’s made of metal and wood and ivory. It takes bullets, but it doesn’t need ’em. Magic takes care of that.”
Hettie thought about the other tales she’d heard. “Can it shoot around corners? Like in the story about Elias and the Mad Bull?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“You mean you had it all this time and you never tested it out?”
His look cut her like the lash of a whip. “You don’t need to stick your hand in the fire to know it’ll burn.”
“I don’t get it. What’s so dangerous about it?”
He burrowed deeper into his blanket. “Go to sleep, girl. The thing is buried and long gone. No one will ever find it.”
Hettie closed her eyes, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that wherever Diablo was hiding now, it wouldn’t stay hidden forever.
Hettie was in a cage. The straw bedding was damp and filthy, and the stench of urine filled the air. Disgusted, she pulled away and drifted up toward the high ceiling. She was in a dark, dank, windowless room. Cages big enough to hold pigs lined the walls. Inside, she saw movement—filthy animals curled in balls … except…
“Abby!” She sat up, the cold night air slapping her to wakefulness. The dream faded, leaving only ghostly impressions of squalor and despair behind.
Jezebel nickered softly from where she was picketed.
“I’m okay,” she said, rubbing her eyes. Just a nightmare.
She glanced over to see if she’d awoken Uncle, but he wasn’t there. The gray mustang was still picketed, so he couldn’t have gone far. Maybe he just had to find some privacy to do his business.
Jezebel chuffed and tugged on her lead line.
“You saw where he went?” The mare tossed her head. Hettie pulled up the stake and climbed onto her bare back. She let the horse take her around the trees and into a hilly area. A lone bat winged across the full moon high above, shrieking.
Jezebel slowed, and Hettie slid off. The hills seemed to pile on top of each other here, fighting for dominance. Fresh clods of moist soil were piled all around the base, almost as if the hummocks had been recently pulled up from the earth. The raised ground formed a crescent-shaped rise. She walked around it to the lower inner curve.
She sucked in a breath when she found Uncle, naked, arms stretched toward the sky. His wrinkled, spotted back was turned to her, and a small fire burned in front of him.
He picked up a raven feather and a hunting knife in each hand, spoke in some alien language loudly. The fire brightened as he put the feather into the flames. Then he plunged the knife into his stomach.
Hettie’s throat closed on her
scream, and she pressed her palm over her mouth as Uncle dragged the knife across his abdomen with a sickly squelching noise. Blood poured onto the ground.
“What are you doing?” she cried, and leaped forward to stop the old man from this horrific ritual.
She ran straight into a wall and fell back, stunned. She scrambled to her feet and gave him a wide berth as she circled around the invisible barrier spell to face him.
“Uncle—” Her cry was cut off. His pupils had swallowed his eyes so they were fully black. Blood ran down his cheeks. The dagger lay on the dusty ground now, caked with bloody mud. And in his gory hands, Uncle held the box that contained Diablo.
She stared, gorge rising. “Uncle,” she whispered, but he didn’t answer.
His guttural muttering continued. The wound that should’ve been spilling his guts onto the ground had closed, though he was still drenched in blood. A foul stench darkened the close air around them.
“Reee … eeee…”
“Uncle Jeremiah?”
The voice was not his. “Re … eeturn … me…” He held the box out to her.
Hettie reached for it, but the barrier slapped her back.
“No!” Uncle thrashed on the ground, arching and spitting like a hissing cat fighting a small snake. Hettie backed away, helpless, until finally, finally, the old man subsided and lay still.
Power shimmered as the barrier collapsed, as if the air blinked, and it was suddenly easier to breathe. She scrambled to Jeremiah’s side. He lay half curled in a pool of viscous goo and blood, like some giant stillborn baby. Scratches crisscrossed his face, and a big purple bruise swelled his right cheek. His stomach was bloody, but there was no sign he’d ever cut into himself.
In his arms was the box.
She licked her lips. If Butch Crowe had her sister and he wanted the Devil’s Revolver, then she had the ultimate trade for him. Or maybe she could offer it to the Pinkerton Agency in exchange for Abby’s safe return…
She reached for the box.
Uncle’s eyes snapped open, and Hettie jumped away, startled. He looked down at his naked, bloody body. “Dammit.” He pushed into a sitting position. “Don’t just sit there, girl, give me some dignity.”
She turned around while he pulled his trousers on. “What happened?”
He shoved his arms through the sleeves of his shirt but didn’t bother with the buttons. “We have to move. They know where we are.”
“Who?”
“The Pinks. Or someone else who wants Diablo. Someone strong. They must have found something of me in Newhaven and opened a channel to my mind. They got into my head while I was asleep and possessed me. Got everything out of me—where we are, where Diablo is. They made me cut it out. We have to move quickly. They’ll be on top of us soon.”
Mounting Jezebel bareback was difficult, and he winced when the horse started at a brisk pace over the hilly terrain. Uncle gave a low moan.
“Uncle?”
“Just keep moving,” he rasped.
They packed up the campsite and saddled the horses quickly. Uncle picked up a handful of dirt, whispering to it, then scattered it across the fire. He coughed harshly. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and the foul, acrid tang of sweat and blood wafted from him.
“Shoulda brought some whiskey,” he muttered as he climbed onto his horse. “Change of plans. I’ll take you as far as St. Jeffries Landing, but then you’re going to ride on to Jacobs Springs alone.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got to get this thing somewhere safe.” He patted the box snugged under his arm. The grim lines on his face plainly told her there would be nowhere safe enough.
Hettie had no intention of going anywhere until she found Abby. Diablo might be her only bargaining chip with the Crowe gang. Getting it from Uncle, however, wasn’t going to be easy. The way he clutched the thing reminded her of an eagle with a writhing snake in its talons.
“I’m not leaving you,” she said staunchly. “Not in your state, and not with Abby still out there somewhere.”
“Stubbs’s men—”
“To hell with Stubbs’s men,” she snapped.
And then she realized she wasn’t afraid of the Pinkerton Agency. Not nearly as afraid as Uncle insisted she ought to be. She stared. He leaned hard on the pommel, holding his head. Her fear was slowly slipping away, as if someone were drawing a thick blanket off her head and she was remembering what fresh air smelled like.
She patted herself down and found a flat sachet of herbs in the back pocket of her trousers. Her hand trembled as she held out the familiar-looking packet. “You magicked me. You’ve been manipulating me.”
His bleary gaze climbed up to her face. “John always said you were too stubborn for that trick to ever work on you.” Jeremiah slouched in his saddle. “You wouldn’t listen. I had to make you go. It was the only way.”
She threw the sachet to the ground. “How dare you. How dare you violate me like this.”
“I’m doing it to protect you.”
“From what? You haven’t proved a thing to me. All your stories could be lies, for all I know. What if you’re just trying to keep Diablo for yourself?”
“You think I want this cursed thing on my hands?” He coughed harshly and spat a dark wad on the ground. “Don’t ask any more questions. You want to die, then go ahead and stay here, find out what the Pinks’ll do to you. If you don’t want to throw away everything your parents worked to protect, then the best thing for you to do would be shut up and obey me.”
Blood rocketed to her brain. She kicked Jezebel into a sudden gallop, charging at Uncle. As she passed him, she snatched the box from his hold and took off across the field.
Jezebel’s rebellious hoofbeats galloped in time with her heart and drowned out Uncle’s shouts behind her. As old as the mare was, she was strong and well-rested. She was also ten times smarter than any newly broke mustang, and she chose her path in the dark carefully.
They raced over the hills and across the plain, heading south. Doubt only crept in when Jezebel slowed to a trot. Uncle hadn’t followed. Or hadn’t been able to.
An hour went by, then two. She kept glancing over her shoulder, expecting to see Uncle waiting for her, his look of stern reprimand skewering her. No one was there. If he was tracking her, he would’ve caught up to her by now. The old man had been on the verge of collapse. What if he’d fallen off his horse and passed out?
Well, then, he deserved it. He’d kept all these secrets from her about her father, about him, about Diablo—and then putting that influence spell on her to control her! Her fury renewed itself. She wasn’t going to let him manipulate her like this, not when Abby’s life was at stake.
She inspected the box she’d been clutching. As far as she could tell, it was just a block of solid wood, lacquered on the outside. Uncle’s still-wet bloody handprints marred its surface. Nothing rattled within. It was a little heavy, but there was no lid or seam to indicate it could open.
If Diablo was inside, then the box could only be opened by magic.
She stowed it in her bag and dismounted. She lay down on a patch of grass, surrounding herself with a loop of rope to keep the snakes at bay. She hoped Jezebel would warn her of anything worse than that encroaching. Every inch of her was stiff from riding, and her eyes were heavy. If Uncle was going to catch up with her, she might as well be rested enough to take a good thrashing.
She drifted off, but her sleep was not restful. When the birds started singing and the sky turned a pale gray, she groggily sat up. Jezebel pawed the ground nervously.
“Breakfast first,” she told the horse. “Then…” Then what? Turn around and find Uncle? Go back to Newhaven?
No, there was no going back. She had to admit Uncle was right—something did seem off about the Pinkerton Agency’s interest in her case. She’d been too eager and excited to see t
hat clearly. Working for her pro bono … it was simply too good to be true. Maybe the letter had been spelled to convince her to trust them, the way Uncle’s sachet had influenced her.
She wasn’t sure she could trust Uncle, either. He’d seemed sincere about protecting her, but what about Abby? He certainly had no intention of looking for her sister.
The only thing she could do was go back to her original plan—find someone to lead her to the Crowe gang and figure out where Abby was.
After a quick breakfast of bread and hard cheese, she set off. She hit the main road, following the signs pointing to Hawksville, which was about a day’s ride northwest of Newhaven. By the time she rode into town, the sun was setting, streaking the sky with rusty oranges and pinks as bright as cactus blossoms against a purple backdrop. The city limits were marked by a few skeletal fence rails and a dirt road. No sign to welcome or warn visitors.
Jezebel gave a low neigh. Hettie scanned the streets, keeping the brim of her hat tugged low over her eyes and her Winchester within easy reach. A few rough-looking men smoking cigarettes propped up the walls of the shuttered and abandoned sorcerer’s salon, watching her. Pa had said magic didn’t stick well here anymore, though no one could say why it’d left Hawksville and not Newhaven. Spells still worked, but they were weak, or else they took a lot more out of the sorcerer to cast. With the sorcerers went a lot of businesses—charm sellers and potion makers and such. The town was pretty thoroughly mundane as a result.
A sand-blasted sign creaked in the breeze above her. The Dove looked about as reputable and hospitable as the rest of the town and was likely the only place she’d get lodgings for the night. She couldn’t afford to be picky anyhow.
She hitched Jezebel to the post around the side of the building. The old mare drank greedily from the water trough. At least someone was looking after the animals around these parts. A man across the street eyed the mare steadily, and Hettie gave her a reassuring pat.
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