Dust of the Damned (9781101554005) (3 page)

“Let’s set to it,” Zane said, moving to the first coffin and unslinging his crossbow from his shoulder.

The coffin had varnished wooden handles carved in the shapes of lions’ feet. Zane grabbed one of the feet and raised the lid to stare down at a pale, silk-suited man with gray hair and a carefully trimmed gray beard and handlebar mustache. He slept with his thin-lipped mouth closed. Wrinkles at the corners of his eyes made it look as though he were smiling. A leather-bound copy of
Ivanhoe
lay open on his chest, as though he’d been reading just before he turned out the lamp on the table beside him and drew the coffin lid closed.

Zane lowered the crossbow in both hands and triggered an arrow through the swiller’s chest, just above the book. The eyes and mouth snapped open. The large, powder-white, beringed hands jerked as though to grab the arrow, but they didn’t come up even halfway before they relaxed, and the light left the swiller’s eyes.

Blood oozed out around Zane’s arrow, which he’d bought from some Hunkpappa Sioux up in eastern Wyoming—he preferred Sioux arrows because they used the tough, reliable wood of the chokecherry shrub—to stain the silk shirt behind the black silk double-breasted jacket. That was a lot of blood for a swiller, which meant he must have drunk recently—a bedtime snack, perchance?

Zane moved to the next casket, Junius following him closely, wringing his hands. As Zane opened the next lid, the prospector plucked a battered old railroad watch from a pocket of his baggy duck trousers and flipped it open.

“Oh, Jesus…damn near six, Uriah. The sun sets around six in these parts this time o’ the year!”

“Don’t get your bloomers in a twist,” Zane said, as he fired another arrow, mortalizing the immortal, red-haired gent in his crossbow’s sites. As the beast’s jade eyes opened in shock, Zane said, “Nighty-night, pard,” and hurried over to the next casket.

Nocking his crossbow again, he opened the lid. His eyes widened in surprise. The female’s eyes were already open and staring up at him, fear trickling into them and causing the pupils to widen. Her red-painted lips began to spread, as though she were preparing to scream. Zane quickly aimed the crossbow straight down at her chest, and thumped an arrow between her breasts that were all but revealed by her low-cut, green velvet gown.

“Oh!” she cried, lifting her head sharply and closing both slender hands around the arrow, groaning and grimacing. “Oh, you dirty…
shit
!”

“Holy hobgobbies!” Junius exclaimed, leaping back. “Your fear up now, Uriah?”

Quickly plucking another silver-tipped arrow from the quiver down his back and nocking the crossbow, Zane hurried to the next casket, finding another swiller coming to life before he hastily killed it forever. The next two were also beginning to awaken before Zane drilled arrows through their hearts, then turned to the final coffin.

Junius stood beside the casket, facing Zane, who yelled, “Look out!”

Too late. The suited, black-haired beast leaped out of the open casket and kicked Junius hard in the side of the head. Junius yelped and flew sideways into one of the other coffins, he and
the casket tumbling in a heap from the pedestal and hitting the floor with crunching thuds.

The black-haired beast—a young man in shiny black cowboy boots that had never been near a cow pie, and an Indian-beaded, fringed elk-skin jacket stained snow-white and fancily trimmed with whang strings along its arms—bolted, snarling, toward Zane.

The beast’s fangs were fully extended, its eyes red as it sprung off its shiny black boots. Zane triggered the crossbow a half second before the beast slammed into his chest. Zane flew straight back into another casket, knocking the casket off its platform and following it down to the cave floor, the snarling, slithering, red-eyed beast on top of him clawing at his throat and trying to bury its jaws in Zane’s neck.

Zane released the crossbow, managed to snake his arms up and close his hands around the beast’s throat. He wasn’t trying to kill the thing—he knew strangulation wouldn’t work—but only to keep those damn fangs from tearing into his neck.

No need. The beast’s jaws stopped snapping. His body relaxed. The pale lids did not close down over the red eyes, but the eyes lost their savage light.

Wincing at the pain of the casket under his back, Zane shoved the swiller off him and lay there against the coffin, catching his breath. Junius was on all fours, breathing hard and groaning and shaking his head as if to clear the cobwebs. Blood dribbled down from a cut on his earlobe.

Zane heaved himself to his feet and grabbed his hat and crossbow. “You all right there, partner?”

“Ah, hell, Uriah.” Junius winced and cupped a hand to his ear. “I don’t know how you do this for a livin’. Let’s get outta here. I need a drink. I need a drink bad, hoss!”

Zane grinned and was about to inform Junius of the bottle he had in his saddlebags outside the cave, but closed his mouth and frowned. He heard a distant squawking sound, as though of creaky hinges, and the scuffs of shoes across the cave floor behind him. There were groans and what could only be described as muffled, savage snarls.

Junius’s torch was almost out. Uriah scooped up the second one and touched it to the first. Fire caught the kerosene-coated burlap with a
whoosh
, and Uriah swung around to face the direction the sounds were coming from, fear making his heart skip beats.

It skipped more beats when he saw that this anteroom of sorts led to others, and from those others, more well-dressed swillers were stumbling, bleary-eyed and a little disheveled, still waking up from their naps, but, realizing the lair had been invaded, were hissing and starting to run toward Zane.

The ghoul hunter swung around and grabbed the prospector’s arm, pulling the man to his feet. “Let’s pull our picket pins, Junius!”

“What the hell is that?”

“More!” Zane shoved the torch into Junius’s hand and pushed him toward the door. “Run—I’m right behind you!”

He swung around as the first swiller sprinted, snarling and cursing in some language Zane didn’t recognize, and Zane quickly nocked his crossbow and buried an arrow in the center of the beast’s paisley vest. That slowed the throngs of others that were jostling shadows behind him, but not by much. There were too many for Zane’s crossbow.

Cursing under his breath, he dropped the crossbow down his back and grabbed the stout LeMat snugged into his shoulder
holster. He triggered the shotgun shell under the main barrel. The shell was filled with crushed silver dimes and nickels, and it laid out two or three of the oncoming horde, before Zane, striding awkwardly backward, flicked the LeMat’s lever toward the main cylinder and squeezed off a silver.44 round, dropping a fat, blue-fanged woman in a gaudy pink dress. He bolted out of the room behind Junius, who was sprinting as fast as his old, bowed legs and creaky ankles as well as his heavy hobnailed boots would allow, the torch flaring above his head and showing his long, thin hair bouncing across his shoulders as he ran.

“You’re a dead man, Uriah Zane!” one of the swillers shrieked behind him.

“Damn,” Zane said, not breaking stride as he headed toward the rush of the underground river. “I didn’t realize I was famous in these parts.”

“Oh, you’re famous in all parts, Uriah!” a male swiller shrieked behind him.

Through his moccasins, he could feel the vibration of the stream as well as the pounding of running feet behind him, and just a glance over his shoulder showed the jostling shadows of the horde catching up to him—at least a few. One made a dive for his feet, tripping Zane, who nearly went down but regained his balance and momentum after firing the LeMat into the swiller’s head, and continued chasing Junius.

Ahead, the torch dropped, and Zane saw Junius’s crumpled frame on the cave floor beside it, about ten feet in front of the bridge.

“Goddamnit, Junius!” Zane shouted above the river’s roar. “Get up an’
run
!”

“Twisted my ankle,” the old prospector grated out.

Zane grabbed the old man’s arm, and Junius tried putting weight on one ankle. He cursed as it gave out beneath him.

The ghouls were too close, their shadows lurching across the floor around the torch. The hissing sounded like an awakened rattlesnake nest. Zane aimed the LeMat and fired, the report sounding like a hammer rapping an empty rain barrel in the close confines. That gave the running horde momentary pause. Ten or fifteen of them were behind him. Except for their blazing eyes and bared fangs, they could have been a moneyed, well-read group of civic boosters just now leaving a natty opera house on Larimer Street in Denver. Despite their slight dishevelment upon waking, the ladies were immaculately coifed and gowned, the men suited and well-groomed, pomade glistening atop several combed black or sandy heads.

Zane shoved the LeMat at them, and they lurched back. He triggered a silver round into the chest of one who looked especially determined, and then, as the dead, snarling swiller fell back against several of the others, Zane reached down and pulled Junius up and over his shoulder, leaving the torch where it lay, heading for the bridge.

Not to be thwarted, the howling vampire horde jerked back to life behind Zane. As he gained the bridge’s other side, he could feel the jostling of the planks. He set Junius down near the Gatling gun, palmed his Colt Navy from the cross-draw holster on his left hip, and drilled the first swiller on the bridge in the chest while triggering his LeMat into the swiller behind the first.

The second swiller yelped indignantly and clutched his breast, from which blood issued as well as several white smoke tendrils.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Zane said, his face brightening.
“I believe Father Alejandro’s blessing gives these slugs an extra pop!”

“Huh?” Junius asked, incredulous.

“Never mind.”

Zane emptied both the LeMat and the Colt, then holstered both pieces. He scooped up the Gatling gun, quickly spread its three legs, and directed the canister toward the nattily dressed figures once again making a dash, Indian-file, across the bridge. The first one was ten inches from the end of the Gatling’s six-mawed barrel when Zane began twisting the wooden crank.

Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam!

The first slug tore a big hole in the belly of the nearest ghoul, who stumbled back and down while the next slug tore into the gent he’d fallen into. That gent screamed and fell sideways over the bridge and into the raging river.

As the Gatling gun continued roaring, the shots sounded like massive empty barrels tumbling down a rocky ridge, causing Junius to drop to his knees and clamp his hands over his ears. The other ghouls on the bridge were blown back onto the planks or thrown over the sides and into the stream.

Junius whooped and hollered as the blasts continued, cutting into the hordes still coming, so enraged at the invasion of their lair that they’d sacrifice themselves to the Gatling gun in an attempt to get at the big man in wolf furs crouched over it, cranking the flashing, hammering cylinder.

Three rounds ripped through a stringy-haired woman in a plain muslin dress, and Junius whooped louder. “There’s Bonnie. Woo-hoo! You drilled her good, Uriah!”

Suddenly, the torch on the other side of the bridge sputtered out, probably under a swiller’s boot, but Zane kept cranking the
Gatling gun, hearing the screams and the splashes as the bodies dropped into the river and were washed on out of the cave. He’d fashioned his own cartridge belt, which held a hundred rounds of ammunition, so it took a while to empty it.

When the crank clicked on an empty chamber, Zane unsheathed his second Colt Navy and aimed it out over the dancing bridge. He listened as the Gatling’s roars faded beneath the rush of the river.

In the inky darkness he could spy no movement. He wished he had another torch. Suddenly, the stygian blackness before him moved, and he heard the bridge squawk on its worn ropes. A persistent ghoul was marching toward him. He triggered the Colt. There was a squeal, but he could smell a sickly sweet perfume as the bitch continued toward him.

He emptied the Colt. The squeal came sharper this time, and there was the thud of a body slamming down on the bridge.

He waited, listening, quickly reloading the smoking Colt from the shell belt around his waist. Finally, he fished a match out of his shirt pocket, scratched it to life on his thumbnail. The glow spread well enough that he could see no more ghouls heading toward him. Four or five lay twisted atop the bridge. Several more lay with their heads and arms dangling off the opposite bank. He couldn’t see any farther than the bank beyond, but he could detect no other movement.

He heard nothing but the river.

Junius lit a match, too. He held it up and looked around warily. Finally, he cast his glassy gaze to Zane. “That was a fine mess o’ Yankee swillers, Uriah.”

“Yeah, we cleaned up,” Zane said after a while. “Sorry about Bonnie.”

“No need.” The prospector paused. “I sure am glad you came loaded fer bear, Uriah.”

“Blessed bullets.”

“Huh?”

“I had an old friend bless the silver bullets. Gives ’em a little extra punch.” Zane gave the old prospector a wolfish grin. “Don’t tell no one, Junius. I want it to be my own special secret.”

“Blessed bullets. Whatever you say, Uriah.”

Zane dismantled the Gatling tripod, hefted the gun onto his shoulder, and rose. “Come on—I’ll buy you a drink.”

Chapter 3