Dust of the Damned (9781101554005) (36 page)

Behind Zane, water splashed. He whipped around, cocking the Henry and extending it straight out from his right hip. He eased the tension on his trigger finger when he saw Angel and
Hathaway running across the stream behind him, about ten yards apart.

“Be careful!” the ghoul hunter yelled. “Might be a trap.” He gestured for the two to head on up the fast-darkening street, then slipped around the side of the building and strode quickly down the gap between it and another hulking structure, toward the rear.

When he reached the back of the building from which the man with the ponytail had ambushed him, Zane slowed. He stepped out into the open behind the buildings on either side of him. Something hot ripped into his right cheek, just beneath his eye, then hammered the corner of the building to his right. Zane lunged forward and dove into a stone trough of some kind—probably part of some elaborate sewer or freshwater system—as at least three rifles thundered before him. The slugs tore into the lip of the stone trough and into the shrubs lining it, throwing torn sage and rabbit brush branches every which way, spitting rocks.

When the shooting died, Zane lifted his head to see one shooter standing crouched atop a ruined rock wall about thirty yards ahead and to his left. One more was crouched at the base of the wall the first man was shooting from, while another stood atop a boulder perched on a low ridge straight ahead of Zane.

As the rifles exploded once more, all three shooters howling and yipping devilishly, Zane ducked his head behind the lip of the stone trough, gritting his teeth as the bullets hammered into the ground above, spitting more dust, branches, and rocks into the trough.

When the shooting tapered off, Zane whipped his rifle up but held fire. He looked toward where the ghoul whom he’d
recognized as One-Eye Langtry had been standing atop the boulder. The ghoul had disappeared. The others had disappeared as well.

To Zane’s left and up the rocky, ruin-stippled slope, spurs chinged. He heard the thudding clacks of boots running on stone, and saw the three bushwhacking ghouls dashing along the base of the far ridge as they ran deeper into the canyon.

Rifles barked to Zane’s hard left and from about twenty and thirty yards away. Angel and Hathaway were both down on their knees behind a ruined wall overgrown with ancient vines, firing toward the base of the ridge as they slid their rifles left, tracking the fleeing wolves.

Zane scrambled out of the draw and ran over to where both Hathaway and Angel knelt behind the wall, reloading.

“Only three,” Zane said. “Must’ve been looking for us.”

He knelt down near Angel, pressed his back to the ruined wall, and slipped the loading tube up from beneath the Henry’s barrel. Quickly, automatically, while gazing through the ruins and the brush between him and the base of the ridge, he slid silver cartridges from his bandolier and punched them down into the loading tube.

Angel gave an angry grunt as she racked a shell into her Winchester’s breech. “Ravenna must’ve missed her dragon, figured she had someone behind her.”

Hathaway said, “Or maybe they heard our shots when we threw down on them guardians, as Turnipseed calls ’em.”

“Well,” Zane said, “they know we’re here…and don’t like it.”

“Where do you suppose Charlie and the witch are?”

“Lookin’ for what they came here for. That’s why only the
lesser three in the pack came after us. They’ll likely try another bushwack so’s we don’t interrupt Charlie and his sweet Mexican darlin’. I got a feelin’ they’re hearin’ ole Eurico’s howl.”

Angel frowned at Zane, genuinely puzzled, more than a little worried. “Who’s Eurico?”

“I’ll tell you later.” Zane shook his head and rose a little higher to stare off through the ruins. “But that they’re here now and the moon’s full is no coincidence.”

“The moon’ll be up in an hour or so,” Hathaway said, “if I got the calendar right, an’ I usually do. Somethin’ big’s gonna happen here, tonight, with that moon on the rise. I can feel it in my blood.”

Zane shuttled his glance between Hathaway and Angel. “The other three haven’t given up—they’ll try to circle around us. I’m gonna head up this slope a ways, try to cut their sign, stay behind ’em. You two split up again and gradually move down canyon. We’ll likely run into ’em again soon. We have to get those three out of our way, ’cause they’ll do everything in their power to keep us from getting to Charlie and Ravenna.”

Zane broke away from the others, running at a crouch up the slope, weaving among the ruined outbuildings and cisterns where the city had probably stored its water during the dry months. He walked a hundred yards, following the clear sign of the three running ghouls until they split up, one angling straight back into the city, one angling up canyon, the other continuing along the base of the slope.

Zane glanced at the sky. The light was almost gone. Heavy shadows plunged down the canyon walls, and the air was growing cold. Zane’s heartbeat quickened. He squeezed his rifle in his hands as, on one knee where the tracks of the three ghouls had split up, he gazed off over the darkening city.

Where would Charlie and Ravenna find Eurico?

He crossed the stream and headed back into the city, where he promptly lost the tracks of the ghoul he’d been following. The man must have followed the stream either up or down canyon. Zane didn’t want to take the time to backtrack and look for him. He had to concentrate on Charlie and Ravenna. The moon would be up soon, and it was those two he needed to kill first.

A half hour later, as he prowled a back alley and silently willed the moon to slow its ascent, there was the spatter of belching rifles. He broke into a run, leaving the alley and finding himself in a broad street between more golden ruins that were dark gray now in the thickening darkness. The rifles crashed from up the dusty, cobbled street down which a breeze now kicked up tumbleweeds and brought the dank odors of the canyon.

Three rifles flashed above street level on the right side, while an answering gun barked in a shaded portico on the left. Just then a man screamed and dove forward out of a balcony on the right. Zane made out a black eye patch as One-Eye turned
a somersault and dropped his rifle, his body thudding to the street, kicking up dust.

The other two ghouls, one firing from a rooftop, the other triggering lead from a third-floor window, stopped firing. In the street, One-Eye arched his back and groaned. A rifle flashed and barked from the shaded portico, and One-Eye’s head jerked sharply to one side, dark blood jetting into the street.

Zane sprinted to the street’s left side. The other two shooters opened up once more, hammering the building fronts around Zane. The ghoul hunter felt the burn of a bullet across his right
thigh as he threw himself into the shaded portico behind four gold pillars, the base of each suspended on a long-clawed wolf’s paw.

Zane flung himself back against the front of a building, saw Hathaway lying on his side a few feet away, one bloody leg stretched out before him, the knee bent slightly. The man’s left hand was clamped over the bloody wound just above the knee. His other hand held his rifle.

“How bad?” Zane asked, edging a look around one of the support columns toward the rooftops on the other side of the street.

“Just pinched me but I can’t straighten my leg.”

“Where’s Red?”

“She was up the street when they bushwhacked us. Last I seen she ducked back into an alley.” Hathaway looked at Zane gravely. “She might be hit.”

As two bullets smashed into the cobbles around him, Zane dashed up to one of the support columns and snaked his Henry around the side. He triggered two shots at the shooter to the left, who gave a yelp and dropped flat atop the opposite roof. His hat poked up from the level of the roof, and Zane triggered another shot.

The hat flipped up off the Angel’s head and disappeared.

The ghoul gave an angry howl. “For that, amigo,” he shouted tightly, belly down against the roof, “I’ll be takin’ your hat just as soon as you have no more use for it! Won’t be long.”

Meanwhile, the other Angel, to the right of the first, was continuing to pound Zane and Hathaway’s position with lead. The slugs barked against the front of Zane’s column as well as the one covering the scout.

Zane turned his body and slid a glance out around his column’s right side. He saw the silhouette of the shooter and the man’s rifle in the second-story window. Orange flames jabbed from the Winchester’s barrel, and Zane drew his head back behind the column. The shooter’s slug hammered the side of the column, ricocheting against the building behind him and Hathaway. The screech of the slug was deafening.

There was another shot. This one sounded more like a
crack
than the thundering rifle shots—a pistol shot. A man screamed hollowly. The scream echoed inside the building across the street.

A familiar voice added its shouted echo to that of the scream. “That’s for Frank and Cole, you mangy, yellow-livered coyote!”

Lines cut across Zane’s forehead. “Jesse, that you?”

Zane looked around the pillar, saw Curly Joe slouched beside the empty window, one arm slung over the broad gold ledge. His hat was off, and he was facing toward Zane’s right, where a figure just now leaped through a window between the joined buildings and into the same building that Curly Joe was crouched in.

The new figure, Jesse James, aiming two pistols out in front of him, stumbled in front of another window. Jesse’s pistols cracked and leaped in his hands. Curly Joe’s head snapped back, and he dropped down beneath the window.

Jesse walked over to Curly Joe’s window, looking down before turning his head toward Zane. He threw an arm out in a wave, then slumped forward and to one side with the effort, grabbing the shoulder that the guardian’s arrow had pierced. “At least I got one of the spineless damn killers!” he bellowed. “I got one of ’em, by God, and Frank’s smilin’ in his Catholic grave!”

Zane saw movement on the roof to the left of the building
Jesse was in. He raised his Henry, trying to draw a bead on the figure running from the building’s rear toward the front, taking long, leaping strides. The ghoul gave a shrill cry and bounded off his heels, throwing his rifle out to one side as he launched himself over the street.

Zane lunged out from behind the pillar, desperately trying to plant a bead on the airborne wolf. He triggered the Henry, but the ghoul arced up and over the street and disappeared above the roofline of the building behind Zane and Hathaway.

In a pain-pinched voice, the scout said, “Did he do what I thought he just done?”

“Yep.”

The ghoul had felt the gold—probably also the full moon—as Zane was feeling the otherworldly influences himself. It made him light-headed and electric, fairly bursting with energy.

“I’ll be back, Al!” Zane leaned his rifle against the side of the pillar and ran around the corner of the building and down the side about twenty feet, until he saw a second-story window directly above him.

He did not hesitate, but set his heels, bent his knees, and sprang straight up off his feet. He gave a great groan as he closed his hands over the gold, grime-encrusted ledge, and was surprised that he could so easily hoist himself up with his arms and swing his feet over the ledge and through the window.

He got his feet beneath him and landed at a crouch. The ghoul before him, who’d been heading toward a stairway at the back of the empty, pillared room, likely intending to get behind Zane and Hathaway, was as surprised by Zane’s burst of strength as Zane was himself.

He swung around with an exasperated grunt, the flaps of his
yellow duster winging out to his sides, and pressed the stock of his Winchester against his hip. The gun roared, flashing in the nearly night-dark room. The slug hammered the wall behind Zane as the ghoul hunter flung himself forward and dug his LeMat out of its shoulder holster. Rolling up off his shoulder, he aimed the revolver quickly and pulled the trigger, detonating the twelve-gauge shotgun cartridge beneath the main barrel.

The fierce hogleg thundered and leaped in the ghoul hunter’s hand. The wad of silver dimes he’d filled the cartridge with tore through Lucky’s chest, lifting the ghoul a foot in the air and punching him six feet straight back before he hit the floor hard and lay, limbs akimbo, snarling and quivering. Zane flipped the latch-like switch on the side of the versatile weapon and fired two silver.45 rounds through the dying ghoul’s forehead, putting him away for all eternity.

Zane turned to a front window and barked a curse. The full moon was up. As large as a dinner plate, it fairly throbbed with pearl light. With anxious eyes, Zane followed the trail it would take across the city. His gaze held on a high, cylindrical tower about two hundred yards away and capped with a snarling wolf’s head mounted at the edge of the domed ceiling and limned in the milky lunar wash.

From the direction of the tower, a woman’s terrified scream rolled over the hulking buildings.

Zane’s spine tensed as he stared across the night. He ground his fingers into the window ledge.
“Red!”

Chapter 35
    

WOLF MOON