“Draw him to the yard in the back of the warehouse,” Hettie instructed. “I’ll speak to him there alone.”
Missy eyed her warily. “You sure this ain’t about revenge?”
“If he tells me what I need to know, there won’t be any need for trouble.”
The hard lines between her eyes and around her mouth softened, and she rubbed her palms over the front of her skirt. “Teddy ain’t a bad man, you know. He’s downright gentle compared to some of the men who come ’round.”
“He shot my pa and let them take my sister.”
“Well, I ain’t sticking around for this. I’ll do my part. After that, you’re on your own. If he finds out I helped you—”
“He won’t.” Hettie walked around the big building and found a spot in the shade to wait. Missy disappeared within.
Hettie’s pulse pounded in her temples. It was a long time before she heard any movement, and she spent that time checking and rechecking the bullets loaded in the revolver. She had another six in her pocket but doubted she’d miss at point-blank range.
A door opened, and voices floated through. She gripped the weapon with both hands and pressed her back against the wall. She shivered, her whole body flashing hot and cold. She recognized Missy’s lazy come-hither drawl. Hettie leaned against a crate, breathing deep as she regained her balance. The weapon was solid and cool in her death grip.
“Dunno why you came to me now,” Teddy’s soft, low voice came. “It ain’t that I don’t appreciate your attentions, Miss Parsons, but…”
He emerged from the back door first, red-faced and wiping his hands on a rag. His bowler hat was perched high on his shiny domed head. He halted at the sight of Hettie, his face a study in puzzlement. Slowly, recognition dawned in his wide green eyes as Hettie pointed Diablo at his chest. Missy melted into the shadows.
Teddy’s nostrils flared in his suddenly pale face. “You a ghost?” he asked quietly. “Or did someone bring you back to flesh?”
A sour taste filled her mouth. “Butch missed.”
“Butch never misses.” His gaze traveled down to the weapon in her hand. “So you had it all along.”
“Where’s my sister?”
Teddy took a step forward. Hettie pulled the hammer back, and he stopped. “Don’t make me do anything rash,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice. “Tell me where Abby is and I’ll let you live.”
“I don’t rightly know,” he said, hands raised. “We parted ways a night’s ride south of your ranch. They took a remote Zoom tunnel back to the hideout.”
So that was how they’d eluded the marshal and his men. It told her something else: they had some very powerful sorcerers on their payroll. If the Kukulos were working with them, she shuddered to think what Abby’s purpose was. “Is she still alive?”
“Don’t know that, either. But I reckon she is if—” He cut himself off ruthlessly, glanced around. “You didn’t bring backup, did you?”
“Where’d they take her?”
“Why? You planning on chasing them?” He chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t you know who you’re dealing with? Butch Crowe is the meanest son of a bitch to ever lead the Crowe gang. He’ll eat you alive, especially if he knows you’ve got Diablo in your hot little hands.”
Hettie ground her jaw. “Where did they take her?” she repeated.
He lifted his chin. “South, to the Mexican border, a few miles from the Wall. I have no reason to lie. Not if you’re going to ride all the way to his front step to deliver that piece of work to him.”
Hettie’s blood surged, pumping so hard she could feel the pulse in her throat. The gun was getting heavier in her hands. She’d thought it was her imagination, but she had to shift her grip. Teddy’s attention was drawn by the motion of her finger stroking the trigger spasmodically.
“You even know anything about that revolver, girl?” He licked his lips. “That thing is cursed. You’ve no idea what kind of power you’re dealing with.”
“You’re going to take me to my sister,” Hettie said. Her shoulders ached, and her arms trembled. “Butch can have Diablo if he gives me my sister, alive and in one piece.”
Teddy’s face closed. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve washed my hands of them. Paid my debts. I want nothing to do with their plans.”
“And what would those be?”
“I ain’t telling you. Mostly ’cuz I can’t.”
“Seems we have a disagreement.”
His cheeks puffed out as he exhaled in a huff. His hands drifted to his sides. Hettie shouted as he reached for his gun, and she squeezed Diablo’s trigger.
A flash of green light, and the gun just barely ticked in her hands. The roar of a train engine rang in her ears, rumbled through her chest. Teddy staggered back, howling. Blood poured from the stump that was his hand, spilling across the dirt.
“You’re taking me to Butch Crowe,” Hettie declared, her vision clouding at the sight of his gruesome injury. She swallowed her gorge and kept Diablo leveled. “You’ll help me find my sister or I swear—”
“Hettie, you blasted idiot!” Out of nowhere, Jeremiah Bassett yanked her wrist above her head. “What are you doing?”
The moment she took her eyes off Teddy, he bolted.
Hettie threw off the shock of seeing Uncle and pounded after Teddy through the warehouse. Shots rang out. She ducked as bullets ricocheted from the metal struts and support columns.
“Coward!” She raced through the building and, momentarily blinded by the darkness, crashed into a barrel. She was still winded when she emerged from the street-side entrance, vision dazzled once more as she streaked into the sunshine.
Her quarry ran up the middle of the street. She had a clear shot. She stopped, squared herself, breathed deep, took aim. All she had to do was wing him—
A force like a locomotive slammed into her side, tackling her to the ground. Hettie shouted and threw wild punches, cracking the grip of her revolver against her assailant’s skull.
“Stop that!” Uncle cuffed her so hard her ears rang. “What d’you think you’re doing?”
“He’s getting away!”
“There’s no time. Stubbs has a bead on us now. We have to get out of here.” He grabbed her shoulder and started to drag her up.
Hettie pushed him off and rolled to her feet. Teddy heaved his bulk onto a horse, bleeding stump and all. If he got away—
He won’t get away.
The thought was crystal clear, superimposed over the image in her mind of his soulless stare, gun smoking, while blood bloomed over Pa’s chest.
One-handed, she leveled the gun and pulled the trigger just as Uncle shouted, “No!”
The moment of euphoria became a bubble, expanding, slowing, encompassing all as a ball of searing green energy squeezed out of the barrel seemingly in slow motion. She felt as though her heart was soaring, freed of its mortal confines. She sailed over the hundred yards between her and Teddy, breaching it in a fraction of a heartbeat, and plunged happily through his chest with a satisfying splash.
And suddenly the world was black and red with pain. Hettie tasted the dusty road as she pitched forward. Every muscle in her body pulled like taffy, stretched across her arching skeleton. She felt as though her skin were being dragged inside out and set on fire.
She screamed as her body seized. A thousand needles plunged into her flesh, burning and dissolving like acid through the marrow of her bones. The agony seemed to last forever, but in a too-long blink of an eye, it was over. She lay gasping on the ground. Her eyes burned, and she was soaked in sweat. A ribbon of thin, silvery smoke drifted from the mouth of the gun.
“Hettie. Hettie, you have to get up.” Uncle tugged her into a sitting position. “We don’t have time.”
She staggered to her feet, head spinning, searching for Teddy.
The peop
le who’d taken cover as soon as the shooting started peeked out, gathering around something on the ground. Hettie snatched up her revolver and shoved Jeremiah off in the same motion.
The crowd parted as she approached. Some of the men put their hands on their sidearms, watching her with trepidation. Teddy’s bowler hat lay in a wide splatter of blood around the big man’s body. His face had locked into a mask of sheer terror, his eyes huge and vacant and staring up at the sky. A meaty hole as big as a cannonball had been blown clean through his chest.
Beneath him, the horse’s head was missing.
Idiot girl, don’t just stand there!” Jeremiah barked. He dragged her away from the bloody scene, but her feet barely responded. “Stupid, arrogant, hay-brained, ungrateful whelp you are,” he muttered, “leaving an old man to die on the prairie like some mangy coyote. I should turn you over to the Pinks.” He snatched the revolver from her, yelped, and dropped it as he clutched his wrist. “Hell’s horns!” He grabbed her hands and studied them wide-eyed. “Dammit, Hettie, you bonded?”
She stared at the blood staining her fingers, saw the puncture wound where she’d impaled her trigger finger on the thorn. Bonded?
Something at the far end of the thoroughfare caught her attention. The air rippled. A spot about eight feet from the ground darkened, as if a shadow had been cast against an invisible wall there. The circle of darkness widened, and the ripples grew larger, like big waves on a stormy sea.
The townsfolk scattered as the remote Zoom tunnel roared open. Uncle swore and dragged her behind a building.
As the tunnel yawned wide, the wind whipped clouds of dust in the chilled air. The tip of Hettie’s nose went numb. The span of darkness flashed, and there, in the middle of the road, was a perfectly circular doorway to another place, as if someone had cut a hole in a theater backdrop, revealing the bare backstage.
Six men in finely tailored suits strode through, guns drawn, rifles at the ready. They appraised the crowd and their surroundings with all the gravitas their shining silver eye-shaped badges afforded them. The air crackled with power, and Hawksville’s residents skulked away, blending into the dust and shadows.
“Damn Pinks.” Uncle yanked her back. “Take Diablo and get out of here,” he whispered. “The mustang is picketed on the east side of town. You take him and ride as fast and far as you can. Get that gun as far away as possible—”
“Jeremiah?” Hettie jumped at the closeness and clarity of that smoke-roughened voice. It sounded as if it was right next to her ear. It must have been some kind of amplification spell. “Jeremiah Bassett, is that your godforsaken magic stinking up the air?”
Uncle closed his eyes and muttered an oath.
Hettie peered around the corner. The remote Zoom tunnel had left a steaming frosted path where it had opened. Mist swirled around the legs of the men, forming a ragged circle around a central figure. One of them restrained a great muzzled beast of a dog. She gasped.
“They’ve got Cymon!”
Uncle grabbed her collar to keep her from leaping out into the open. Cy’s ears perked up, and he looked pitifully in her direction, whining.
The man in the center of the group wore a dark gray suit with a red tie. He took off his bowler hat and wiped his brow. “Damn, it’s hot,” he said. “How do you stand it, Bassett?”
“Acclimatize,” Uncle replied gruffly. To Hettie, he murmured, “Get a move on. They’ll kill you if they find you with that.” He nodded at the revolver.
When Hettie hesitated, Jeremiah grabbed his hat off his head and smacked her across the shoulder. “Go!”
She shoved Diablo into the inside pocket of her duster as she scurried around the backs of the buildings. She could see the gray mustang two hundred yards away.
“How’ve you been, Bassett?” the man with the red tie asked casually. Hettie could still hear every word crystal clear.
“Not as well as you, Stubby.” Uncle’s voice was equally clear. More magic spells the old man knew and hadn’t told her about. “Mighty fine suit you got there. All those talismans you’ve got sewn in makes a man think you’re afraid of something, though.”
“Hazards of the business. Plenty of folk would like to see me dead.”
“Mighty long way for you to come to pay a social visit.”
He snickered, and his voice went cold. “I’m here for Diablo.”
“It ain’t here. Man who had it slipped outta here after he shot that poor fella and his horse.” His words urged Hettie on. She darted from cover to cover, unable to escape the conversation.
“You let someone get the slip?” Stubbs’s bark of laughter was sharp and humorless. “I don’t think so. No one’s ever escaped the Hound. Even I’ll admit you were good at what you did. Made me wonder why you quit the Division.”
“I resigned because I failed my mission.”
“But you didn’t, did you? Otherwise, why hide yourself all these years? No one believed me when your letter of resignation came. They all thought you were still the honorable, outstanding agent who’d had his heart broke or whatever nonsense you told ’em. They didn’t think for a minute you’d lied about losing track of Diablo. But I knew better.”
Hettie was only about twenty yards from the horse now. She slid out from cover and hurried toward the mustang.
Something fell across her shoulders, and she jerked back and landed hard on her butt, gasping as the rope closed around her throat and cut off her air. She was dragged backward, kicking and struggling to pry her fingers under the noose.
“Mr. Stubbs, I think we’ve found the wielder,” the man above her said, wrestling her into the street. Cy barked excitedly.
“Well, well, well.” The man in the gray suit bent closer. His eyes were a pale blue, making his black pupils stand out like the holes in turquoise beads. “Miss Alabama. We’ve been searching for you everywhere.”
“How do you know who I am?” She cursed herself—she should’ve denied it.
“There aren’t many who would’ve survived a gunshot to the side of the head.” He tapped at his own temple, indicating her scar, and leaned closer. “When the agent I dispatched to help you didn’t return from his mission, I thought perhaps he’d been compromised. Or maybe someone else had absconded with you. We were quite concerned, you know.”
She glared. His condescension was irritating and made her fingers itch to reach into her pocket and silence him.
“It’s a good thing someone pointed out your canine companion was still hanging around town. He had the stink of magic all around him. It was pretty easy to figure out whose.” He smirked. “I take it you haven’t found your sister yet?”
Hettie didn’t respond, and the man tipped his chin up.
“Forgive my manners, I’ve failed to introduce myself. I’m Detective Thomas Stubbs of the Pinkerton Detecting Agency.” He gave a short, mocking bow.
Cymon pulled at his lead and barked. The man holding his leash yanked hard on the choke chain, and he yelped and sat back.
“Leave him alone,” she protested.
“You seem like a smart girl,” Stubbs said, “so I’m going to cut to the chase. We’re looking for a piece of stolen property. A revolver with a white grip and black barrel. It goes by the name Diablo, or the Devil’s Revolver. I have reason to believe you might know of its whereabouts. Tell me where it is, and I’ll let you have your dog back safe and sound.”
She scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why does everyone insist on lying to me?” Stubbs sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, pacing. He faced her. “I can smell the muddy magic on you. Jeremiah Bassett’s work is hard to miss. He likes to mix up all the different creeds, you know. He’s covered you in a whole shoddy patchwork of protection spells, and there’s only one reason for that. He’s trying to keep you hidden.” Stubbs nodded at his men. “Search her.”
“Mr. Stubbs.” He reached into her coat and yelped, snatching his hand back as though he’d been bitten.
“That’s it.” Stubbs yanked Hettie’s coat off as if it were on fire. He turned it upside down and flapped it out until Diablo tumbled from the pocket, landing in the dirt with a heavy thud.
“Son of a bitch.” He laughed, eyes glinting with triumph. “Finally.” He picked it up with a gloved hand, but as he held it, smoke rose between his fingers. He narrowed his eyes, whispering an incantation. The smoke thickened, and he dropped it, swearing. Ashen bits of his glove flaked off. He glared at Hettie. “You bonded with the Devil’s Revolver?”
When she didn’t answer fast enough, he slapped her across the face. Blood filled her mouth as the sting became a dull ache. “C’mon, speak up.”
She spat at his feet. “I don’t know what I did.”
“Obviously. That’s your work there, ain’t it?” He pointed at the corpses lying in the street, a thick swarm of flies gathering on them. “Murder’s still a crime, far as I know. You’ll be swinging before the week’s up.”
“You’re not the law, Stubby,” Uncle’s voice boomed.
“I can still take this girl into custody for possession of stolen property. My sorcerers on the other side will have the remote Zoom tunnel reopen in a few minutes. We’ll take Miss Alabama back with us to Chicago and let the law deal with her there.” Triumph and menace tinged his words. He tilted his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t have to do any of that, of course.” He nodded, and the rope was removed from around her neck. He picked up her duster and flapped it out, then handed it back to her. She stuffed her arms through the sleeves, drawing it closed around her. Diablo still lay on the dirt between her and the lead detective. “In fact, I’m willing to forget any of this ever happened. All I want is to return what’s been stolen to its proper owner. I’m sure you can relate. Your sister is very dear to you. Alive or dead, not knowing can be so painful.” His smile was brief, grim. “I could ease that pain for you. You’ve gone through enough with your parents and your ranch. I went out there, you know, had a look for myself. It’s a beautiful piece of land. Shame you’re giving it up.”
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