Crossroad (The Gunsmith Book 3)

by C. K. Crigger

  “See,” he said. “I told y—”

  With a gentle click, the door swung open.

  When I, not caring to wait any longer, would have crawled through the aperture, Teagun grabbed me by the arm. “Wait.” He mouthed the word without sound.

  I knew what he meant. Wait for signs of anyone on the other side, prepared to blast one of us into next year. Wait for any booby traps preprogrammed into the safe. Wait⏤on general principles.

  Looking through from this side to the other, I could see only a narrow area of the room. Everything appeared completely normal. The lights were at their most brilliant. No need to worry about hidden cameras here, for although Petra had said this room was free of surveillance devices, Caleb and I hadn’t risked an unknown addition.

  The bed showed from this vantage point, tumbled and unmade as we’d left it. The reason for the disarray started me blushing, but I felt hot, too, in remembering last night.

  Other than that, the black gauzy overskirt lay on the floor where it had been dropped, hours ago, along with the lace bolero. Nothing was in the room that shouldn’t have been there.

  “I’m going.” I thrust my head and shoulders into the opening, and, on the theory that the rest of my body could always follow where my shoulders had passed, I wiggled in the rest of the way. In no time at all, I scrambled out into the other room.

  After a brief survey of the room, I turned to grin at Teagun and Petra. “Piece of cake.”

  “Luck,” said Petra. “Don’t count on it.”

  On occasion I might go into things blind, but I never rely on luck to get me back out. I’m not often lucky; usually only hard work and determination let me win my battles, whatever they may be. And sometimes, the strength of my friends.

  “No,” I said, agreeing with her. My heartbeat was already starting to accelerate. “I won’t depend on luck. Have you got your sparkler charged up and ready to roll, Teagun?”

  His dimple danced. “Yeah. It’s just Ma’s old bedside stunner and it’s not very strong. But it makes noise and spouts fire. You got your gun?”

  “Sure,” I said. In an automatic fashion, I pulled the Guardian from the holster in my boot and flicked out the magazine. “I lost the LadySmith,” I told Teagun ruefully, “over by the waterfall when Duncan was bombarding me. All I have is my little pocket pistol.” Then I gasped. “Oh, no!”

  He bent almost double trying to see what alarmed me. “What?”

  Alarmed, indeed. Although I had no memory of firing the Guardian more than once or twice, I discovered one lone shell remaining in the magazine. One shell, one shot. What did I expect to accomplish with that?

  I hardly realized I’d said these things aloud until Teagun swore. I heard a conference going on between him and Petra, and a metallic clatter as an object slid across the safe’s floor.

  “You win,” Teagun said, his voice ringing hollowly. “Here’s the Weatherby. Now what you going to do?”

  Complications, I thought in disgust. He hands me the Weatherby— at last—and now I have to be sure it doesn’t waft me home. I couldn’t, in all conscience, leave him and Petra stuck in this predicament, and more importantly, Caleb was on the loose in the hotel looking for me. I couldn’t leave him either.

  Lowering this admission might be, but I was downright afraid to touch the big CFP. I hesitated long enough Teagun stuck his head into the safe to get a better look at me.

  “Well?” he said. “Take it. This is what you wanted, no?”

  I smiled ruefully. “To tell you the truth, I’d prefer to have the Beretta right about now. Or the Glock, that I so carefully, so according to plan, and so damn uselessly, hid in the waterfall. When I get out, I’ll try for one of them.”

  This wasn’t an honest answer to his question, although he agreed, as if it were. I swallowed, and setting the Guardian inside the safe in exchange, reached for the Weatherby.

  Power, hot and strong, rose into my hand, spreading all over my body. Oh, I felt it, all right. But I didn’t go anywhere. Of course not, I remembered a heartbeat later. There’s no blood. My power always requires blood.

  I took the gun in a firmer grip, trying to convince myself the reason I remained in control was because I’d grown stronger in my power. That I knew what I was doing these days. Oh, you bet. And if you tell yourself often enough, the tale might become truth.

  A box of cartridges followed the heavy pistol into the chute. The Weatherby already had three in the magazine and one in the chamber. Fully loaded. Time to cut to the chase.

  “Yes,” I said, making up my mind. “This is what I wanted. Are you ready?”

  I felt more than saw his nod. “Good. Let’s take this hotel back.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “Off,” I said aloud. The lights in the room went out, leaving me in a frightening darkness so deep I felt as though I’d gone blind. Even if the outlaws had managed to put surveillance in this room, which seemed unlikely, there was no one left at the monitors to observe. Or so I told myself.

  No surveillance. Because they were all outside that door, waiting to kill me.

  As soon as my eyes had become as accustomed to the dark as I figured they ever would, I moved over to the door, sinking onto my knees beside the handle.

  Every place in the hotel had been soundproofed, therefore, I listened intently for any indication of Teagun’s opening salvo in our offensive. I didn’t have long to wait. The hissing and buzz of the old stunner was almost inaudible; the frenzied yelling back and forth between Adainette, Duncan and Diego was not.

  “Watch the door, watch the door,” Duncan yelled, tension and excitement in his voice. “They’re coming out!”

  He must have been very close to where I knelt, for his voice resounded from scant inches beyond my side of the wall. Quick action on my part would open right on to him. A chance to take him unaware.

  This must be my cue. The click as the door unlocked seemed loud, although the amount of noise already crashing through the corridor must certainly drown so slight a sound.

  I opened the door a crack. Orange fire was crackling like lightning strikes all up and down the hall. Each time one of the shots hit a solid object, there would be a kind of explosion which lit up the immediate area. The light was illusory, sort of underwater wavy, so I wasn’t absolutely certain my view was accurate. I could only trust the deception worked both ways.

  Perhaps it did, for as I pushed open an inch-wide crack and put one eye to it, Adainette let out a screech, urging the male members of her gang on to greater glory.

  Although I’d believed Duncan right outside the door, he was the only one I couldn’t see from my room. Diego had taken position in the reception area, near where Kirsten’s body still sprawled. Adainette was giving her orders from under the stairs, partially hidden behind the risers. I supposed they would deflect the stunner fire, possibly laser fire also, from her.

  For the Weatherby to take her out, I needed a clearer line of vision. With only four bullets, I couldn’t afford to waste a single one. Get Diego first, I told myself. After he’s taken, I can step out of this room and try for Adainette. Only where had Duncan gone? He was the wild card in all this. I didn’t dare make any outward moves until I knew where all the players were, and that included Caleb.

  “Get me the woman’s gun,” Adainette barked, demanding and furious. “Diego, Kirsten dropped it. You go. You’re closest. Duncan, watch his back.”

  “Going,” Duncan sang out, and I heard the shuffle of his feet as he retreated along the hall.

  He had been close. Close enough I felt sick in the aftermath. He had been lurking right outside my door, and I can assure you, the weak feeling in my gut had cause. It seemed as if I could feel his hands, or the deadly touch of a light garrote, tightening around my neck even now. If he had come only two or three feet further along the hall, he’d have found the door open. It would’ve been the simplest thing in the world to rip the door from my grasp and overpower me. I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot, an
d you can take that to the bank, but I wanted the element of surprise.

  In any case, I didn’t hear him protesting Adainette’s order to back off and find the Beretta. Perhaps he didn’t care for frontal attacks anymore than I did.

  But if there was anything in this world we didn’t need, Adainette Plover in possession of a 9mm Beretta automatic came right out on top of the list. The pistol wasn’t anywhere in the corridor, so a logical conclusion was that it must be hidden under Kirsten’s body. And, since she lay almost in the center of the corridor, retrieval was going to be risky. They could count on that.

  Diego knew it, too, and I heard Adainette cursing at him, urging him to get a move on as he delayed. I knew he’d work up his nerve to make a try soon. He was too cowed by Adainette not to. And we simply must not let him get hold of the Beretta.

  Teagun, being no deafer to the outlaw’s instructions than I, took matters into his own hands. Flinging his door wide, he hurtled out of the room, his stunner crackling blue. Immediately, he dropped to the floor. Orange laser fire sparked along the walls, following him down. He rolled wide until he came up against the far side of the hall.

  Diego, secure in the knowledge his laser had the advantage both in range and power over the stunner, stepped away from the reception desk. He had a death’s-head grin pasted on his face as he pointed the laser at Teagun’s prone body.

  “Bad mistake, sonny,” he said, smirking.

  At the edge of my vision, I saw Adainette dart from behind the stairs. “Watch him, Diego,” she said. “He has a gun.”

  Diego half-turned. “No gun. Only the stunner.”

  Of course he was wrong. Teagun snatched my Guardian from his belt and in this window of opportunity, fired the last round. The bullet slammed into Diego’s chest at heart height. And in case the single slug wasn’t enough to finish him off, the stunner being set to maximum certainly was, for Teagun fired that also, and kept on firing until he was sure of the kill.

  With attention centered on Teagun, I slipped out of my room and stood tight against the wall, very still, watching and listening as events unfolded. The strange ozone odor the stunner emitted filled the air, tickling the inside of my nose.

  “No,” Adainette howled, long and drawn out. She stopped in mid- stride and stumbled for cover. “Duncan! I need that gun. Now.” Her shriek of anger was loud enough that, if Diego’s spirit hadn’t gone too far across the great divide, he, too, must have heard her.

  She had the most horrified expression on her flat-nosed, scarred-up face as she watched her control of the situation rapidly slipping away. And anger? Oh, she was maddened! She kept the laser in her hand pegged, the fire lancing unpredictably down the hall toward us as she vented a storm of frenzied rage. I started believing in miracles, because no matter how many times she fired, she didn’t get a hit on either of us.

  And the reason I knew all about her expression was because I had her, fair and square, caught clearly in the Weatherby’s scope. Teagun had given me my shot.

  “Ms. Plover,” I said, yelling over the top of her tirade. “I’m holding a gun on you. Give up before anyone else dies.”

  She made a snort of derision. The laser swung toward me.

  “Your men are gone. You can’t win.” I felt I had to give her warning, though my flesh cringed in dread of her laser’s searing heat.

  Her head tilted in a listening stance. “Duncan?” she called, her voice straining.

  “Duncan’s out of the game,” I said, absolutely sure of myself. Even after I saw the smile break across her face, I knew she was wrong and I was right. And when Duncan shuffled forward like a trained bear walking on its hind legs, I still knew because Caleb stood behind him.

  Nobody sane argues with a sawed-off 12-gauge Defender held snug against his spine. Not in my year, and not in 2120. Duncan didn’t argue, but Adainette did.

  With a cry, her hand holding the laser swept up and away from me. This time she had a more likely target in mind. As though on well-oiled skates, she shifted to her left. Duncan now stood between the two of us. The move gave her a clear break at Caleb, who, Defender in hand, held Duncan prisoner.

  I don’t know. She must have reasoned that I wouldn’t shoot—or couldn’t.

  But she bargained without knowledge of a gun like the Weatherby CFP, especially one equipped with a good Leupold scope. She bargained without knowing Boothenay Irons, the gunsmith. And she most definitely bargained without ever considering I would go to the edge of hell for the man she threatened now. I didn’t care who got between us.

  The .223 is a good caliber for a varmint gun. Adainette Plover, locked in my sights, I saw as just another varmint. I needed only the bit of her head visible behind Duncan as a point of aim. That part swelled to fill the crosshairs of the scope—and then it went away. Splinters of white bone and the splash of red blood sank beneath my field of vision.

  Meanwhile, Duncan, like a fool, whirled and tried to wrest the shotgun from Caleb’s hands. Although only a few shot hit him, it was enough to put an end to this whole treacherous business.

  The fight was over. The battle for the Crossroad hotel was won.

  “HOW MANY DOES THIS MAKE, Petra?” Captain Clive Hawkinson asked. We stood in the hotel courtyard and watched him shoving bodies into the holding bay of the big patrol hovercraft with little ceremony. Duncan, the only outlaw to survive, wore electronic cuffs and lay on a stretcher, sedated and ready for transport. I wondered if the power on his manacles was set as high as the outlaws had set it on Petra.

  “This year?” Petra asked. Caleb had done his best to make her comfortable, and though her face still looked pinched, for now she was hanging tough.

  “Yeah, dating from the first of January.” Clive bent over Diego, examining the hole in the dead man’s chest. A .32-caliber, and later, a 9mm slug had cut a channel that looked a little larger and more ragged than it should.

  In the two hours it had taken Clive to get here, we’d had time to get our story straight, and to set a proper scene. The LadySmith and the Guardian were securely out of sight; the Weatherby and the Beretta prominently displayed.

  Hawkinson sent a measuring look at our four, too-bland faces, lingering longest on Caleb’s, before shrugging and tying the ends of the bag.

  Petra must have had to nudge her memory to answer his question. “Um, sixteen as I recall.” She gave an exhausted sigh, as though wishing for a tamer life.

  “Uh, Ma? There were a few more from out of this gang. But Clive already knows about them.” Teagun took hold of the bag’s foot, helping the policeman with the body.

  Petra’s arm rested in the sling Caleb had rigged up for her, taking special care of the raw stump. Her severed hand had been packed on ice and prepped for possible reattachment. Clive would be taking her into Spokane to a hospital when he left here. She sighed, shaking her head as the men bagged the last body. It was Adainette. “I don’t understand. This woman was different and smart enough to make her own fortune. She didn’t need to steal—or to kill.”

  “She probably enjoyed the thrill,” I said, remembering the things Adainette had said, and the way she’d looked when she said them. I shuddered convulsively, nestling more deeply against Caleb who stood behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist.

  His arms tightened. “The thrill,” he agreed, “and the challenge of pitting herself against a strong adversary. It’s like an addiction. There are a good many people born with the inclination.”

  “And the addicts all seem to turn up here at one time or another.” Petra sounded legitimately bitter. “This country draws bad people— wrong people from the rest of the states like they’re magnetized or something. I wish I knew why.”

  Clive laid his hand on Petra’s shoulder, his expression tender as though he’d have preferred take her in his arms. “If we, if society, didn’t have people like you, Petra, or like Teagun, or these good strangers who helped you today, everyone would be vulnerable. I know it’s hard. Just be glad it isn’t l
ike this everywhere.”

  She looked up at him and twisted her mouth into a smile. “Doing our part, eh?”

  “You’re tired, Petra.” He released her and bent over Adainette’s body once more. “And hurting. Maybe you’re ready to hang it up. Let Teagun take over this place.”

  She went very still. Teagun did, too, as mother and son exchanged a long look. “Is that an invitation?” she asked Clive.

  Clive returned her startled gaze, his eyes honest and steady. “If you want it to be.”

  When I looked at Teagun he was grinning, his dimple slashing. “I think you been proposed to, Ma.”

  Petra quelled him, though an answering grin tugged at her mouth. “I’ll think about it,” she told Clive softly with promise. She stood a little straighter after that; her eyes shone brighter.

  CLIVE HAD PUSHED the seat back in the police hovercraft and eased Petra in beside him, ready to leave, when a truck with no trailers attached, pulled into the courtyard and stopped near the cruiser. Maganda was at the controls, squinting against the searing morning sun, her face flushed and sweating in the heat. She looked worried and intent.

  Her big dark eyes went straight to Teagun, causing Petra’s brows to lift in speculation before Captain Hawkinson gunned the hovercraft up onto the air cushion and whisked away.

  “I came to help,” Maganda said, speaking directly to Teagun. “You can’t make me leave.” Only a blind person could have missed the way Teagun’s eyes lit from within.

  I stifled a fit of giggles that fluttered through me, although Caleb felt my body shaking.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispered, his breath stirring the curls by my ear.

  “Do you feel left out and ignored? Look at this! Romance and dead bodies all over the place. Sheesh! What a century.”

  He laughed. “Just like all the others we’ve encountered. Only generally, the romance is ours.”

  When he said that, I knew we were going to be all right. The constraints separating us had vanished as though they’d never been. I turned in his arms. “I think we’re done here, don’t you?”