As if the piercing noise had announced its uncovering, what Grigg indicated was a milk orb, embedded in the floor of the depression. One of the blades had exposed the gleaming upper surface of the sphere. These and the scrying balls grew randomly throughout the Fallen’s tissues. What function they served the Fallen, Nate could not say. They might as readily be needless tumors as critical ganglia, for all he knew.
“Hold!” Grigg commanded the rope team above, showing them a staying hand. He then pointed to Nate and gestured for him to descend from the cutting-stage. “Go on!” he yelled. “Go fetch it!”
Nate stared at Grigg, not having heard him and not ready to comprehend.
Grigg pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt, and gestured with this toward the milk orb below. “Fetch it! We will wait for you! Go!” He made stabbing/digging motions in the air with his blade. “Do as I command!” he roared, because no one could hear him. “Do it for your beloved, you fucking lustful dog!”
Nate turned back toward the thing in the water.
Warrick made some hand gestures to the rope team, and then took Nate’s arm and helped him into a sitting position on the edge of the cutting-stage. From there, Nate dangled his legs lower until his feet touched the slab’s surface. Shakily, afraid to lose his balance, he went down onto hands and knees as the team gave him more slack. The mass bobbed subtly beneath him in the water. He crawled around the peeled rind of meat into the rectangular depression itself.
He withdrew his own knife, the pocketknife he had used to etch Lottie’s gift, and unfolded its blade. Nate inserted the blade’s tip into the rim of flesh puckered around the globe, which poked up like the top of a buried skull.
The moment he did this, as if a snare had been triggered, a great maw split open in the depression’s raw floor.
Before he could fully scuttle backward out of the depression, the five pointed lobes or petals that formed the edges of the star-shaped opening rapidly curled upward and slapped around Nate’s body like the fingers of a giant boneless hand. Nate couldn’t hear his own wild screams as he stabbed at one of the lobes, which had encircled his left arm and squeezed it tight. He was being drawn down into the black pit at the center of the star.
One of the five flaps that had seized his body had the milk orb set in it, a blind but glaring eye.
The rope team pulled at the lifeline attached to Nate’s monkey belt, and so far this had kept him from being sucked into the orifice altogether. Meanwhile, Warrick slashed at the lobes with his blubber pike. In his frenzied efforts, however, and because of Nate’s panicky struggles, one of his blows cut Nate across the back of his left thigh, cleaving it to the bone.
Warrick snapped his head toward Grigg and shouted, “Help me! Cut it!”
Grigg nodded and scooped up his boarding knife in both hands.
One of the lobes shifted position, wrapping itself around the back of Nate’s head. Its tip pushed its way into his mouth, gagging his unheard shrieks.
Extending the boarding knife, Grigg sawed at the taut and straining rope attached to Nate’s monkey belt.
“No!” Warrick cried.
“It might kill the rest of us!” Grigg shouted, and the rope parted.
Nate went into the maw head-first. The petal-like appendages closed up after him, leaving no visible seam.
“Cut it loose!” Grigg yelled to Warrick. “Cut the tethers, cut the buoys! It is tainted now!”
Warrick, though, only stood dazed and watched as Grigg snatched away his blubber pike and used this to cut through the ropes that lashed the blob of flesh alongside his ship. He actually lay down on his belly first on one side of the cutting-stage and then the other to reach as many of the buoys as he could.
One end of the huge, elliptical chunk of meat tipped down into the water and it submerged as if it were diving. White as it was, it seemed to glow beneath the gray water, ghost-like, for a time until it finally dove too deep to be seen any longer. Whether it had simply sunk, or whether it was swimming deeper with undulations of its severed body, perhaps even to rejoin itself to the Fallen, Warrick and the other crewman couldn’t guess. Though seasoned harvesters, none of them had ever seen a segment of the Fallen act in this manner before today.
“It has been appeased!” Grigg screamed as he got to his feet. He was grinning and wild-eyed. “The beast has been appeased!” And he yelled this with all the air his lungs held, even though the roar of the Fallen had ceased the moment the hungry orifice had sealed shut.
The silence rolled off and away from the harvester ship Coinchenn. Rolled through the streets of New Bedford, between its houses and places of business like a deadening fog, and up toward an expensive house that stood on a hill overlooking the town and its harbor.
Sweet Angie Tailor in: Subterranean Showdown
John Langan
THE AMBUSH CAME LATER THAN ANGELA EXPECTED, A SUCCESSION of explosions on the boulders around her, scattering chips of rock, lead fragments, followed close on by the cracks of the rifles from the low ridge at her back. Had positions been reversed, she would have opened fire when her target was halfway from the foot of the ridge to the mouth of the cave and the weird arrangement of boulders in front of it. Assuming she had Petty’s bravos at her disposal, she would not have had all of them shoot at once, either, since she was fairly certain none of them was in possession of a repeating rifle, giving their target whatever time she needed to find cover, as Angela was doing now, ducking behind a rock like a large stone talon. Her Schofield was in hand, but the ridge was too distant for accuracy with the pistol. Better to be patient, wait for her would-be assassins to descend to finish her, and if necessary employ the terrain to balance the advantage of their numbers. She was sufficiently ahead of schedule to be able to pause here for a moment.
High on the ridge, Petty shouted at her, his threat or taunt rendered unintelligible by the distance. Angela resisted the urge to waste a bullet making him flinch. There was a low, wide rock three running steps closer to where the cave mouth slanted up from the earth; she preferred the protection it afforded to the rock against which her back was pressed. One hand on her derby, she sprinted, leaping on and sliding across the boulder’s smooth top, dropping off—into something like a feather quilt, a softness that yielded to her weight while flowing up and over her. Had she been moving with less speed, had she touched the edge of the Jellied Time with the toe of her boot, and had she recognized it for what it was immediately, she might have been able to avoid it, to yank her foot free of her boot and wait while the Jelly investigated it. This way, though, there was nothing she could do, no escaping the memories into which she was plunged—sitting at the bar in the Gates of Perdition saloon, its name the most elaborate part of the business thrown up to profit from the influx of cowboys looking to take advantage of Runyon Hawk’s expansive cattle empire, as well as the irregular traffic headed west, in the direction of the mountains Angela still thought of as the Rockies, although most of the newspapers this last decade had adopted the name given them (so the story went) by one of the cavalry officers who had survived the disastrous attempt to retake them, the Break. All manner of things had poured out of the gap the mine outside Denver had made between this world and the other, hellish place whose nature was still not understood (though Satan’s domain was a popular explanation). Some of what had streamed forth was alive, albeit, in ways to boggle the mind, smite the senses: conglomerations of limbs from what should have been half a dozen different creatures; shimmering masses that rolled across the sand, burning it to glass behind them; flies the size of sparrows, their fleshy mouths trilling sounds some claimed formed the words of awful songs, songs to drive you mad. Some of what spread from the Break was inanimate: chunks of rock studded with crystals whose color and configuration were alien; pieces of metal fashioned by who could imagine what hands into strange instruments; even scraps of paper, torn and charred, covered in the symbols of no known alphabet. In short, there was a great deal of potential treasure for the i
ntrepid and resourceful adventurer to retrieve and return back east, to the government bureaus and the universities dedicated to studying whatever they could lay their hands on from that wasteland. Not to mention, there were private collectors, of motivations frequently unclear and dubious, who were willing to pay well—pay extravagantly, in many cases, for an especially unique specimen of the disaster that had rendered the western third of the country uninhabitable.
Of course, the hazards accompanying any voyage into the territory bordering the Break were many, ranging from the minor (such as the areas of thickened space known as Jellied Time, which enveloped the unwary and spun them through their memories) to the irritating (such as the tiny toadstools that might erupt from the armpit, or crook of the elbow, or behind the knee, and then itch uncontrollably until burned off) to the deadly (the Crescent Moons, named for their shape, each no bigger than a pinky, but covered in a sharp, bony exterior that they used to their advantage when they shot up from where they lay buried in the earth and sliced through the feet, legs, and bodies of whoever had trod on them). Should the adventurer survive any of these encounters and return from their expedition, the Army enforced a stringent medical exam that was as likely as not to send the hapless survivor to one of the quarantine camps visible from the major roads, their residents fenced behind barbed wire. Few, it was reported, who were confined to the Army’s care left it.
All of which was likely to cause the adventurer riding west a spot of unease, possibly fear, which saloons such as the Gates were happy to modulate with their house specials, whose names ranged from the familiar and somewhat pedestrian firewater and rotgut to the colorful and exotic Mother’s Ire and the Undertaker’s Yardstick. On the Kansas border, the saloons were large, brick and timber affairs, with a long, polished bar, a floor full of tables for cards or conversation, and a set of stairs leading to a second storey whose rooms might be employed for a variety of relaxing activities. The further west you traveled, the more modest the establishment became, shedding their extra stories, their tables, their fancy bars, and finally their firm walls and ceilings, until what you had was a canvas tent at one end of which a plank was balanced on a couple of sawhorses, and a bookshelf that had seen better days on the other side of the makeshift bar, its shelves lined with scratched bottles whose contents resembled rust-tinted water. A barrel positioned in one corner held the glasses of those who favored conversation; what appeared to be the former altar of a Christian church set in the corner opposite and was the location for a local subset of poker that had been underway when Angela strode to the bar, and had continued as she tossed back two shots of the Undertaker’s Yardstick (which, true to the name, tasted as if they brought her that much closer to the ministrations of that universal servant), then switched to something called a Morning Glory (whose mix of bitter and syrupy sweet suggested the Yardstick dumped into a glass of sarsaparilla). Despite a series of dramatic reversals of fortune, accompanied by some ominous pronouncements from several of the players, the poker game was not done when one of Petty’s bravos leaned on the bar to her right and said, “Well, if it ain’t Sweet Angie Tailor.”
Had there been a mirror behind the bar, Angela could have avoided turning to the man. As it was, she pivoted on her stool, allowing her right arm to drop casually, sweeping back her duster so that her pistol was exposed in its holster. Certain that she didn’t, she said, “Do I know you?”
Her fellow patron was on the tall side, dressed in the worn and torn tunic of a member of the U.S. Cavalry. His face was tanned, the skin tight on the bone, a black mustache overhanging his upper lip. “No ma’am,” he said, nodding, “I don’t reckon you do.” What teeth remained him were yellowed stumps, his gums black. “But me and the rest of my crew know you. Sweet Angie Tailor, the woman who will get the job done. That’s what the newspaper stories say. And that,” he gestured at her Schofield, “must be the Solution! You know, you are the only one I ever heard tell of named their iron. Such an unusual name, too. Some of the boys think it’s a woman thing, but I said I ain’t too sure about that.”
Angela didn’t answer the man’s speculation. Out of the corner of her eye, she had noticed the group of figures massed to her right, ten feet away. The fellow’s crew, no doubt.
“What I was wondering,” the man said, “is if it’s true you’re here about the trouble over at Mr. Hawk’s ranch?”
“What business is it of yours?” Angela said.
“It’s funny you should say business,” the man said, “because that’s exactly what this is about, is business. Namely, our business, me and my associates’. You see, we also have come in answer to Mr. Hawk’s call for help with his cattle problem. This places us in competition with you.”
Already, Angela could predict the next half-dozen exchanges she and the bravo would have, each of them crafted to nudge them closer to the moment he could draw the Bowie knife jammed into his belt, whose hilt the fingers of his left hand were inching towards, and try for her. He wouldn’t succeed, but he would provide his fellows the opportunity to enact whatever play they had scripted. She smiled at the man as she raised her glass to her lips—and dashed its contents in his eyes. He jerked back, but she was off the stool, catching the side of his head with her left hand and slamming it into the bar, while her right hand drew her pistol and pointed it at his comrades, who were too startled by her burst of motion to do anything but gawk.
“I call my sidearm the Solution,” she said, “because it solves problems.” The man was lifting his head from the bar; she grabbed his hair and drove his skull into the wood a second time. He groaned deeply and, when she released his hair, slid to the ground. Stepping away from him, she turned her attention to his companions, all of whom were holding their hands clear of their knives and guns, lest they offer her a provocation. With one exception, the men were dressed in the same scavenged military uniforms as their fallen friend, their faces worn and ravaged by violence and disease. Positioned behind the front row of three, the exception was obviously the leader, a rail of a man wearing a denim suit and a stovepipe hat. A fringe of fleshy tendrils bearded his jaw, consequence of one of the newer venereal diseases. “Mr. Petty,” she said.
Petty’s eyes widened, his face flushing to the tips of his flesh beard. “I am flattered,” he said. “I was not aware that my humble activities had brought me to the notice of the illustrious Sweet Angie Tailor.”
“I pay attention,” Angela said, “especially as concerns the competition.”
Petty’s lips curved into a smile. “I suppose we are,” he said. “Which sets me on the horns of a dilemma. The prize Mr. Runyon Hawk is promising to whoever can settle his cattle difficulties is not inconsiderable. To be frank, even split nine ways, it is enough money to ease a poor man’s situation for quite some time. While I am certain of our ability to address Mr. Hawk’s concerns in both a timely and effective manner, due to our numbers, we cannot move as speedily—as nimbly, you might say, as a lone…businesswoman.” He wrinkled his lips, as if the word tasted sour. “Especially when that businesswoman has the well-earned reputation of dealing with situations such as this one promptly and directly, the possibility arises of her doing so before any of her rivals has the opportunity to put their plan into action.”
“However,” Angela said, “if you and your men kill me here, then there’s no more dilemma. I assume that’s what you did to whoever else answered Hawk’s advertisement.”
“Not everyone required so extreme a means of persuasion,” Petty said. “Many—most of them simply left. It would do no harm to the considerable esteem in which you are held if you rode after them.”
“Your friend,” she tilted her head at the man on the floor, “gave me the same speech, without the flowery bullshit. You see where it got him.”
“There are eight of us,” Petty said.
“I’m impressed you can count that high,” Angela said. “I’m not sure I can kill all of you. But if any of you tries for me, I promise you, I will kill you
, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you,” she said, pointing the Schofield at five of the bravos, watching their faces pale as the muzzle slid over each of them, and ending with Petty. “In fact,” she said, “I’ll shoot you first, Mr. Petty. Should one or two of you survive, I guess you could try for Hawk’s reward, yourself, but I can’t say I like your odds without the help of your friends.”
Petty’s face was still red, but it was with choler. “I can assure you—”
“I can assure you,” Angela said, “that I have been threatened by many men, and not a few women, besides. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll be on my way.” Her gun trained on Petty’s head, she circled him and his men, noting the rifles slung across their backs, single shot Springfields and Lorenzes. She backed to the front of the tent and stepped out—
—into Runyon Hawk’s study. A museum of the man’s accomplishments, the fieldstone walls of the room were hung with mementoes of his six decades: a Mexican regimental flag and officer’s saber, souvenirs of his participation in the war with the United States’ southern neighbor; the pistol and saber of the Confederate horseman who had almost run him down during a skirmish outside of Chattanooga; the taxidermied heads of grizzlies, wolves, elk, and deer, as well as a pair of sizable glass containers that held what appeared to be a couple of gallons of blackish water each, until an eye opened in the liquid, and another, then a third, and whatever was imprisoned in the glass splashed furiously against its confines. Below the trophies of war and sport, glass-doored bookcases alternated with racks staffed with assorted long guns, from muskets that might have taken aim at British redcoats to the latest Winchester repeater. Angela suspected the man could tell her the history attached to each weapon, but he did not. Instead, he sat behind the great oak desk at one end of the room and waved her to one of the chairs in front of it. The desk did nothing to diminish Hawk’s considerable bulk; rather, he loomed over it, a craggy mountain, rising over a plain, his head of curled white hair a crown of thunderheads. His voice was deep, the promise of a coming storm. Although there was a decanter full of undoubtedly fine whiskey and a pair of tumblers on the right hand side of the desk, he did not pour himself a glass, nor did he offer to do so for Angela. He said, “Most of the territory from the Kansas border to what formerly was Denver is mine. Even after the Army drove the creatures of the Break back to the city and its surroundings, no one who held property in these parts had much desire to retain it. No one could blame them. There were plenty of things that escaped the military’s push west, and while editorials back east might exhort the residents of these parts to remember their pioneer heritage, none of that legacy included herds of ticks the size of hound dogs and other, worse, creatures. I bought their houses and land for less than their owners had paid for them, but not for as little as I might have. The men and women took my money and were glad of it.
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