by Wol-vriey
Doc and Nell looked at each other with grim expressions.
“I’m sorry about that,” Doc said, “but you can’t have this third coffin. There’s already someone in it.” He made a helpless gesture. “Not my fault at all, Mr. Bennett’s messenger only said two.”
“It was an oversight,” the cowboy said. “Ike was thinking only of Claudio and Jonas.”
“Still —”
The cowboy hefted the first coffin out and stood it by the wall. “No problem,” he said, returning for the second. “You’re going back to town from here, Doc. Give us this box, and get another for your stiff. The boss has no problem with paying.”
“It’s impossible,” Nell said. She tried desperately to think of a good explanation as to why it was impossible.
The cowboy frowned. He peered suspiciously at Jude’s coffin. “What’s so special about this stiff anyway? Why can’t they ride in the open for a few minutes? Who’ve you got in there?”
“No one special,” Doc replied quickly.
Too quickly.
The cowboy’s eyes hardened. He slipped his gun from his holster and pointed it at the coffin. “Open up that third box, Doc, I want to see who’s in there.”
Doc blanched. The cowboy shoved him out of the way, now certain something was amiss. “Open it,” he told Nell. “On the count of three, I’m gonna start shooting. One... two…”
The coffin lid burst open before Nell could pull it off. Jude sat up, pushed her out of the way, and plugged the cowboy between the eyes with a tooth-bullet.
The cowboy’s ten-gallon-hat toppled off his head. Next, a mass of short spines exploded out of his face. A head poked out of his right ear, a spiky tail out of his left ear. Four furry legs waved below the upper jaw of the man’s open mouth.
The cowboy toppled backward dead, blood mixed with erupted vitreous humor dribbling down his pin-cushioned cheeks. The porcupine implanted in his head started shrieking piteously, wrenching itself violently to break free of its skull prison.
Doc and Nell gaped at the dead cowboy, then at Jude.
Jude nodded grimly. “Like I said, it’s not as effective as the white pistol. Porcupines only kill if properly placed, and the critters ain’t silent either.”
Neither Doc nor Nell replied.
The porcupine’s squealing got on Jude’s nerves. He kicked the cowboy’s head. The porcupine’s head shattered. It went silent and limp.
“I heard what he said about needing a third coffin,” Jude said. “That’s a real loss. With Zizi dead, I don’t collect my balance if I kill Bennett.” He frowned. “Being shortchanged pisses me off.” Then he smiled. “Not that it matters. Revenge is its own pleasure.”
“What the hell!!?”
They spun around. A cowboy stood behind them gaping at the dead man.
“What the hell you done to Jackson?”
He looked about to sound the alarm, so Jude shot him.
The cowboy dodged sideways — the porcupine implanted in his neck. He began screaming. Jude quickly put another tooth-bullet through his head. The cowboy stopped screaming when a porcupine exploded through his face.
Jude decided it would waste too much time kicking both squealing animals to death. He turned to his companions.
“All hell’s about breaking loose here,” Nell said angrily. “So much for sneaking in unnoticed.”
“Don’t lose your cool,” Jude said. “We still have the element of surprise on our side.” He gestured to Doc. “Time to shoot our way inside. You any good with a gun?”
“Wait,” Nell said. “Let me first go in the house alone. I’ll see if I can find your pistol. I’ll be safe.”
Jude was unconvinced.
“I’m serious,” she insisted. “None of the cowboys will dare touch me.”
Jude looked at Doc.
“She’s right,” Doc said bitterly. “The lady of the house has given strict orders that no one is to bother her in any way, on pain of death.”
Jude nodded.
Nell got a water bottle from the wagon. She emptied it, then squatted over it and peed in it. When it was full, she stoppered it again and handed it to Jude. “In case you get shot up before I return.”
She kissed him on the nose, and then ran off around the corner of the house.
Right after she vanished from sight, three ranch hands armed with rifles charged around the opposite corner of the building.
On sighting the two dead men, they began firing. Bullets zinged through the air around Jude and Doc and ripped holes in the wagon canvas.
Jude yanked Doc into safety behind the wagon, and then returned fire with his wooden rifle.
He immediately hit one of the cowboys. The man began screaming as a mass of quills erupted out of his belly.
The other cowboys became more cautious and changed their attack tactics. They took cover behind a stack of hay bales. From this place of concealment, they popped their heads out, fired, then ducked back into hiding again.
The cowboys also started yelling for backup.
Jude stopped shooting. Waste of teeth.
He began worrying that the cowboys would shoot up and kill his horse.
CHAPTER 8
In their bedroom, Edison and Valhalla Bennett heard the gunfire and shouting.
“It’s started,” Valhalla said.
“Yes,” Edison agreed. “You were right, as always.”
“Not me, Edison. The never-born never lie.”
Edison nodded. “Of course, dear.”
Edison Bennett was not a superstitious man. He feigned agreement with Valhalla’s claims that she could read the future in his semen primarily just to keep her happy. His secondary reason was because assisting Valhalla in her semen-witching afforded him additional opportunities for sex with her.
(For Edison, sex with Valhalla Swede — owing to her canine distortions — was always heavenly.)
Though his wife’s cum-predictions came true with disturbing accuracy, Edison attributed her correctness to canny foresight, not mumbo jumbo. He was currently trying to reason out last night’s strange experience. To Edison, there had to be a scientific explanation for sharks exploding out of Zizi when he’d shot her.
Now, Edison buckled on his Colt Peace Maker and picked up a Winchester rifle.
“You’ll be much safer here, Edison,” Valhalla said. “Trust me.”
“Safer? I can’t just sit here and wait for people trying to kill me while the ranch hands fight, darling. That’s no better than cowardice.”
“Pride has nothing to do with this, Edison.”
“Pride has everything to do with this, darling.”
“Be reasonable, Edison.”
“No, you be reasonable, darling.”
Valhalla dropped her bathrobe, and squeezed her breasts. “For heaven’s sake, Edison, You’re in danger, don’t you understand? Please stay here and let’s do another summoning. Maybe there’s an easy way out of this.”
Looking at her, Edison was sorely tempted to remain in their bedroom. He got an immediate erection. His stiffened member bent agonizingly in his breeches. Valhalla’s beautiful human upper body, her sleek wolf hips framing that matchless continental carmine canine cunt…
Then his resolve hardened. “No,” he said. “I will fight to defend my property.”
He stomped off out of the bedroom. His footfalls as he descended the stairs floated back up to his wife through the ajar door.
CHAPTER 9
Ike Dallas and Rosa were the only two people in the Bennett ranch house not to hear the shooting outside.
They were having sex in the windowless, soundproof, wine cellar.
“Oh I ees really love you, Ike,” Rosa moaned as she came. “You are ze perfect man for me.”
Rosa had been happy since last night. After Zizi’s death, she’d been appointed new brothel manager. Valhalla had convinced Edison that it would look suspicious if they took the brothel over now Zizi had ‘gone missing.’
Rosa
was rewarding Ike for his contribution to her professional ascension by letting him insert ‘ugly gringo rat-shaped penis’ into her ‘tight Mexican culo’ for free.
CHAPTER 10
A reinforcement of cowboys had Jude and Doc pegged behind the wagon.
Doc was unharmed but gibbering with fear. Jude wondered how the man did an undertaker’s work if he was so afraid of death.
Most of the gunfire directed at them was hitting the wagon. Wood splinters were flying everywhere.
Jude was concerned about a ricochet hitting his horse. The horse was also a gift from the grateful Comanche squaw. It was even more special than his guns.
The white stallion was nervously clopping the flagstones. It could smell danger in the air. It wanted to be away from there.
Then Jude realized that his horse was only in danger if he was near it.
“Run into the house,” he whispered to Doc, “see if you can find Nell.”
Doc’s reply was a blank stare. “Huh?”
Jude repeated the instruction. Doc nodded. He handed Jude the water bottle of Nell’s urine he’d been holding for him. Then he scampered away between wagon and wall, going like hell was after him.
Doc disappeared around the corner of the building.
Rifle held high and firing; Jude stepped out from behind the wagon, and advanced on the cowboys.
“Hey there he is! Kill the bastard!”
Slugs whizzed through the air at Jude. Teeth-bullets whizzed back at the cowboys.
The salvo of bullets hit Jude and blew holes in and through him. He gritted his teeth against the pain. Hiding behind the wagon, he’d suddenly realized that with his present constitution, he was close to invulnerable.
The cowboys gaped in amazement as shot after shot hit Jude, but he didn’t go down. They also saw that the liquid pouring from his wounds wasn’t blood. It was transparent yellow.
Jude was bleeding urine.
Okay, Jude thought, I’ve seen everything now.
He remembered Doc’s instructions and raised the flask to his lips. He took a long draught of Nell’s ‘waters.’ Almost immediately he felt his body knit together again. He stopped leaking urine. His wounds plugged up with gleaming transparent pee-flesh.
Jude kept advancing on the cowboys. Kept firing.
Half a dozen cowboys already lay dead, all with porcupines stuck in their bodies. Some had several of the quilled mammals embedded in their flesh.
One cowboy had a porcupine in his crotch. He was having a screaming fit to wake the dead. Jude regretted hitting the cowboy that low. He rectified his mistake by shooting the hapless man in the head to put him out of his agony.
Terrified, the surviving cowboys turned and fled. They’d never seen shit like this before, and didn’t want any more of it.
Jude shot one of them in the buttocks. The man was yowling at the top of his voice as he turned the corner out of sight.
Jude frowned grimly. He reloaded teeth into the wooden rifle, stuck a toothpick in his mouth, balanced his Stetson just right, and went after the fleeing cowboys.
“Come back here and die, you damn cowpokes!”
CHAPTER 11
Nell stormed into the Bennetts’ bedroom.
Startled, Valhalla spun around. She relaxed on seeing who it was, though her expression was tight with displeasure.
“What do you want, Nell?”
“Hello to you too, mother.”
“Cut the wisecracks, what do you want here?” She smirked. “Don’t tell me you’re part of the plan to assassinate Edison.”
“Assassinate? Is that what you call it? Mother, Edison is a worthless, slimy piece of Apache shit!”
Valhalla slapped her daughter. A hard crack that flung her head back. “I won’t have you talk about my husband like that in my house, you little whore.”
Nell’s face clouded with rage. “It takes one to know one mother. Didn’t you fuck your way into Edison Bennett’s heart?”
Valhalla slapped Nell again. Harder than before. “I won’t have you talk like this to me either, you hussy!” She spat in her face. “Now run on home to that impotent, corpse-loving father of yours!”
Nell’s rage spilled over. She grabbed a hunting knife lying on a drawer and leapt at Valhalla. “You’ve gone too far now mother!”
Valhalla was stunned when her daughter stabbed her in her left breast. “You little shit,” she gasped, sinking to the floor as blood began staining her sky-blue bodice. “You disgusting piece of Sioux squaw afterbirth…”
Nell’s rage cleared from her eyes as she watched her mother bleed. Horror filled her. She regarded the bloody knife she was clutching with awe.
“You stabbed me in the heart, Nell — you Judas bitch!”
“I’m sorry, mother —”
“I don’t want your damned sympathy,” Valhalla yelled. “Disgusting slut!”
Nell’s rage returned magnified, fueled by a decade’s frustration over her strained relationship with her mother. It was all she could do to not leap on Valhalla Swede Bennett and stab her forever. “Fine, mother,” she yelled back, “have it your fucking way, as always. As usual, you’re always right!”
Nell rushed across to a table where she’d espied Jude’s white pistol. She stuck the revolver deep into her cleavage.
Still clutching the bloody knife, she ran out of the room without a backward glance.
“Yes, go on, prostitute!” her mother sputtered behind her, blood spilling over her lips with each word. “Run away like the excrement you are!”
CHAPTER 12
Thirty seconds after Nell exited it, Doc ran into the Bennetts’ bedroom.
He froze in shock on seeing Valhalla. He stood, framed in the doorway, catching his breath and staring at her in horror.
Doc still loved Valhalla Swede. Despite her having ditched him ten years ago.
Seeing her dying broke his heart. His eyes misted.
Valhalla opened her eyes. “Moses? Mo, is it really you?”
Doc rushed and knelt by her side. “Who did this to you?”
“Our daughter.”
Doc winced at the hatred in her voice. “Nell?”
“That little pig-tail-clitorised freak stabbed me.”
Doc considered. It was most likely true. Nell had a temper to her. Also, her hatred of her mother ran deeper than a Mount Ass mine shaft.
“That ungrateful tramp. And to think that she’s still alive today only because I warned Edison’s cowboys never to lay a hand on her…”
“Calm down, my dearest,” Doc said.
“I hate that little cocksucker. I wish we’d never conceived her.”
Doc sighed. This was the problem. Nell had simply inherited her mother’s temper. He was certain the girl hated herself now for stabbing her mother. Only thing was, she’d also be too proud to admit it. She’d keep claiming that Valhalla deserved what she’d done to her.
“Calm down. You need to conserve your strength,” Doc told Valhalla.
“Kiss me, Mo,” Valhalla whispered.
Doc was caught totally unawares by the sudden change in her attitude. “Huh? Val, what did you just say?”
She stared him deep in the eye. “Kiss me, Mo. I want to die in your arms.”
His body trembling with deSire for her, Doc bent down to oblige her.
Their lips pressed together like mating snails. Their tongues entwined. Valhalla’s regurgitated blood seeped into Doc’s mouth. It flowed over his tongue, down his throat . . .
Doc suddenly felt odd. He felt paralyzed. He felt himself stuck to Valhalla.
He pulled his mouth off hers. His eyes probed hers for an explanation.
Her eyes were no longer fearful of dying. They were now cold calculating ovals. He realized she’d tricked him.
Hell no, he thought. How the hell can I be so dumb?
“Let me go, Val. You can go to hell, for all I care now.”
Valhalla laughed coolly. Her teeth were shimmering ridges of blood.
Sensing disaster looming close on his near horizon, Doc fought to pull away. He was unable to.
In horror, he discovered their flesh was melting together.
All their clothes were gone, stripped away as if by magic. His belly was attached to hers.
With a wolf growl, Valhalla grabbed Doc’s head and forced his mouth back down on hers. An irresistible force opened Doc’s mouth to admit her tongue and blood.
Doc’s mind dissolved with his flesh.
Blood streamed from Valhalla Swede’s mouth into Doc’s and back again, to and fro, to and fro, to and fro. On each return it brought part of Doc back with it.
Doc shrunk like he was being whittled away.
When Doc was completely vanished inside her, Valhalla stood up. The treatment was a success. Her chest still hurt but…
She examined her wound in a mirror. Her stabbed breast looked... ugh.
Then she smiled with cool amusement. Edison was always saying he loved her for herself, not her body. As though there was any difference. Well, he’d have to love her and her disfigurement for a while.
Not that she’d show it to him immediately.
She got dressed.
CHAPTER 13
Winchester rifle held ready, Edison Bennett stalked his way around his ranch house, looking for the attacker.
Damn, he thought, I hate this.
Turning the side of the building, Edison found Doc’s funeral hearse. He studied the white stallion harnessed to it with a practiced eye. Excellent horse. Maybe he’d talk Doc into selling it to him. And where the hell was Doc anyway?
Then he saw Jackson’s porcupine-faced corpse. And that of the other cowboy, which still had live porcupines squirming in it.
What the hell? That punk Jude’s dead, so who...
A queasy feeling stirred in Edison’s gut. Maybe Valhalla was right. Maybe he should have remained upstairs.