The Best of Penny Dread Tales (20 page)

And then they were through. The once-men shambled after them, but they were too slow to catch Rocinante.

Outside of town, the stallion’s hooves thudded into the desert, casting up puffs of sand into the late afternoon light. Hazel guided Rocinante into the wilderness where she hoped they could find a place to make a stand for the night.

As they rode, a thunderstorm gathered above the mesas. Lightning struck the heights, flashing through the dimness of the clouded afternoon. Within minutes, the clouds opened up and rain drenched them.

***

“Where are we going?” Dulcinea asked as Hazel slowed Rocinante to a halt.

“We needed to get away from the town, away from their power base.” Hazel dismounted and glanced around. “But now, we need to find a place to hunker down for the night. There has to be somewhere around here where we can make a stand.”

Hazel glanced up at the girl and her eyes met Dulcinea’s. She found herself blushing, of all things, as she noticed that Dulcinea’s wild hair cascaded loose down around her shoulders. She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat.

There was no chance that she would remember.… Hazel shook her head and held her hand up to help the girl down from the horse. It wouldn’t be right. Dulcinea had been through so much. It would be too much to ask.… She glanced around. “There’s a cave over there. We can seek shelter for the night and figure out a plan in the morning.”

“Can I help?”

“Not with him.” Hazel busied herself with picketing Rocinante at the mouth of the cave. They had just been friends, childhood friends. There was no way that Dulcinea could have the same feelings.

She glanced at Dulcinea and had to quell the sudden urge to take her hand. Instead she rummaged in her saddlebags and pulled out a torch. Dousing it with alcohol, she struck a flint and lit it. Glancing at Dulcinea, she led the way into the cave.

Although it was summer, the cave was freezing, the stalactites covered with the sheen of ice. Hazel shivered, feeling an unusual cold settle into her bones. It had to be at least thirty degrees colder in the cave than it was outside. An uneasy feeling settled into her stomach, and she used her free hand to unsnap her holster. Caves were always the homes of unpleasant things, but she had little choice.

The stalactites glimmered in the torchlight and the silica in the walls reflected the torchlight. She glanced at Dulcinea and wished she had taken the girl’s hand. She was pale with fear. “Are you all right?”

“This is one of the sacred places,” Dulcinea murmured. “We should tread carefully here.”

They built a meager fire with what little wood they could gather and sat on either side of it. Swallowing down her emotions, Hazel watched the girl curiously. What was it about this girl that had interested the lloronas? Why hadn’t they taken her already?

“They’ll follow me, won’t they?” Dulcinea’s voice was barely audible over the sound of the crackling fire.

“Maybe an hour until sundown and another while they’re on our trail. They can travel as fast as a horse.” Hazel undid the latches at her shoulder and began to disassemble her exoskeleton. Drenched by the rainstorm, she needed to make sure that none of the parts had been compromised.

“But what are they?” Dulcinea asked.

“The lloronas? Closer to the Rio Grande they tell the stories in the night.” Hazel rolled her shoulders to ease the strain of carrying the exoskeleton all day. “They say the first one was a poor woman who was very beautiful. One day a Spanish lord came to her and began to court her for her beauty. She grew to love him, believing that he loved her in return.”

Dulcinea watched, wide-eyed, as she cleaned and inspected her exoskeleton, taking it apart in segments and putting them aside as she determined they were sound. “When it became public knowledge that he had gotten a child on her, he disavowed her as a witch, claiming that she had seduced him in the night.”

Checking the engine that rested on the structure that covered her spine, she was glad to see that the creatures hadn’t pierced the protective cover over the batteries. If they were compromised she wouldn’t be able to move, much less fight. “After the child was born, he stole it and threw it into the Rio Grande to hide the evidence.”

Hazel began reassembling her exoskeleton, latching on the legs first before assembling the rest of the machine over her body. She strove not to be self-conscious about her withered legs. It never bothered her when she was in her armor, when she felt whole and strong. But now, now she was exposed, vulnerable. She kept her eyes down, finishing the story. “The bishop and his priests arrested the woman. They stripped her naked, examined her for marks of Satan and then declared her a witch for the blemish she had on her back. The next day they burnt her at the stake.”

She stood and stretched, the pistons hissing slightly as she made sure her legs were settled into the braces. The cold and damp hadn’t affected them, but she would probably have to replace the gaskets soon. Dulcinea’s voice was hushed as she asked, “But what caused the lloronas?”

“After she died they threw her ashes into the Rio Grande to rid themselves of the stain of witchcraft.” Hazel flicked her wrists up to eject the daggers from their sheaths, making sure the mechanisms were clear of grime. Retracting the knives, she checked her revolvers. Releasing the barrel latch, she flicked both open one handed and made sure that they were loaded. Flipping her wrist back up, she closed them and reholstered them with one motion. Perhaps a little showing off was forgivable. “La llorona rose from the river that night, a vengeful creature who wanders the banks of the river crying for her child. The lloronas here, your guardians, are the descendants of that creature. Whether or not that’s what actually caused them, they’re attracted to places of misery and injustice, preying on the heartsick and the lonely.”

“The lloronas …” Dulcinea took a breath. “Why has no one stopped them?”

“It’s likely no one knows what the problem is. Or no one has the wherewithal to hunt them as I do.” Hazel shrugged, now fully encased in her armor. “I don’t suppose the two there were preying on anyone but the mining men. Two are powerless, comparatively harmless in the grand scheme of things. Three is too many for a small town like Cibola. They would leave the town, bringing sickness with them to every place they visited. When there are three, no one can stop them.”

“I don’t understand. Why did they need me?” Dulcinea rubbed her hands on her skirt. “And why did they wait?”

“Because you are the child of sorrow,” Hazel said. “They couldn’t take you until you became a woman, filled with the desires of a woman. I don’t know why they waited as long as they did.”

“But they never told me. They kept watching me with the men, but they had to know. That … they had to know I …” Dulcinea’s gaze was riveted on the floor. “If they wanted me to be one of them …”

Hazel barked a laugh. “You thought they would ask? They run a brothel for a reason. They take what they need from men without permission or consent.”

The silence of the desert above was broken by an eerie wail. Hazel watched as Dulcinea shivered. “What is it?”

“I’ve heard that wail before … I … I was so afraid. My mother sang to me.” Dulcinea looked up, her eyes moist. “I can remember her face.”

Hazel smiled briefly, but before she could say anything, there was another wail, closer this time. She crouched at the mouth of the cave, blinking against the darkness. Of all the monsters she had fought, creatures like lloronas were her least favorite. Most other monsters had the courtesy of at least sometimes attacking during the day.

She heard them coming. The soft sound of footsteps on sand, the crunch of dead men’s boots on pumice. She unholstered her revolvers and held them steady at her sides. “They’re here.”

They’d only have one chance to get the upper hand. She didn’t like the odds. Two against two was fair odds. Two against a score or more made things a little more complicated. “Stay here. Keep the fire going. It should keep them at bay.”

“All right,” Dulcinea said in a small voice. Hazel glanced back and gave her a quick, reassuring smile. Or at least she hoped it was reassuring.

When she exited the cave, she looked around, trying to adjust her eyes quickly to the moonlight. A shape darted across the moonlit desert to her right. Hazel tracked it with her revolvers and fired. The other came from the left and she fired at that one too. A high-pitched shriek split the air, and she smiled in grim satisfaction. It wouldn’t stop them for long, but it sure felt good to score a hit.

Then the monsters were on them. The dead men walked forward, as unstoppable as a force of nature. She slashed out at the llorona as it passed, then turned to the men.

Her first shot caught one of the men in the torso, it kept coming and she thinned her lips in irritation. So it was that kind of gunfight. She shot him in the head and dropped him.

Another blur to her right and Hazel holstered her right hand revolver. Twisting her blade free, she struck out. The llorona was faster than it looked and dodged the strike. She spun to follow it and fired with her left revolver, missing by inches. The barrel flash lit the creature’s features, teeth sharp and silvered.

The llorona leaped on Hazel, trying to claw and slash through Hazel’s exoskeleton. The creature was horribly fast, faster than she had anticipated. But these creatures were after more than just food, driving their desperation.

As the llorona snapped at her, she caught its face with one hand and squeezed, feeling the bones bend under the augmented strength of her exoskeleton. With her left arm, she blocked a claw and fired her revolver, once, twice. She had one bullet remaining in that revolver, five in the other.

The llorona’s body buckled with each shot and Hazel could smell the rotten stench of its blood. Shrieking again, the creature tore itself free from Hazel and tried to dash to the cave mouth.

“Oh no you don’t.” Hazel leapt after her, her armor providing the burst of speed she needed to grab it by the hair and yank it back. She fell on top of the creature and plunged her knife into its throat.

The llorona writhed and knocked her off with inhuman strength. Wrenching its head, it tore free, leaving most of its hair in her grip. Dropping it, Hazel pulled her other revolver, firing the last shot from her left-hand revolver into the creature.

In the moonlight, the llorona looked nothing like the beautiful women in the saloon. Bleeding from her wounds and missing most of her hair, she was a bedraggled, skeletal creature. Feinting right, she dashed left, making for the cave entrance. Hazel shot the few remaining bullets in her right revolver and holstered it to give chase.

Hazel skidded down the loose sand to the cave’s mouth. Even in their damaged state, the lloronas were swifter than she was in her exoskeleton. She pushed herself to go faster. Dulcinea was down there. She should have left the girl a revolver.

Down in the cave, the creatures circled the fire, their features lurid in the firelight. Hazel reloaded as fast as she could, trying not to think of everything that had gone wrong. As she slid the special silver bullets into the Schofields, she exhaled, calming herself.

Dulcinea stood transfixed as the creatures neared her. She walked forward, reaching out to them. To the girl, they weren’t monsters, they were the women who raised her.

“No!” she shouted. “Leave her alone.”

“No,” Dulcinea echoed, more softly. The lloronas eyes shone and they held out their hands to the girl.

“Come with us, Dulcinea.” They spoke in unison, their voices echoing in an eerie harmony. “You belong with us. We are your mothers. We are your sisters.”

Dulcinea stopped walking forward. She shook her head. Hazel tried to get a good angle on them, but they kept circling the fire, moving closer to Dulcinea with every step.

Frustrated, she holstered her gun and ran forward, grabbing the closest one. The least damaged of the two, vaguely recognizable as Rachel, snarled and turned. Its fingers elongated into claws that raked across Hazel’s face. Despite the pain, Hazel kept her grip on the llorona and snicked out her blade, ramming the blade up and into the creature’s heart.

Sarah dashed around the fire to Dulcinea, its movements impossibly fast. If she hurt one, the other became more powerful. Hazel slashed at the llorona through the fire, drawing blood black as ichor.

Grabbing and pulling Dulcinea’s hair roughly, Sarah snarled. “None of that now.”

A weight landed on Hazel’s back. She stumbled and turned. Rachel scrabbled through her thick duster, tearing large rents in the leather. So close, the llorona’s stench made Hazel gag and cough. The cloying smell of decay insinuated into her lungs as she tried to shake the creature off.

With a horrible snapping noise, she overbalanced and fell backwards. Rachel jumped clear as she landed. Her head fell back and hit the ground with a sharp crack.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rachel throw something metal to the floor of the cave. Her battery pack.

Sneering, the llorona returned to its sister. “Enough of this.”

Hazel cursed and rolled over, her head throbbing. Dulcinea stood with the two creatures. One of the creature’s mouths opened more than was humanly possible, rows of teeth ready to latch onto Dulcinea. The girl’s eyes were wide, unseeing as the creature opened its mouth wider.

Hazel raised her heavy arm and tried to grab for her guns. Without the battery’s power, her limbs were weak under the weight of her armor. Thinking furiously, she tried to come up with a plan. Whatever she did, she needed to do it fast and without power.

The lloronas’ thralls would be coming after them soon enough. One thing to try then.

Hazel raised her revolver, heavy without the support of the pistons. Her arms shook as the creatures leaned in toward Dulcinea; the humming sound they emitted grew louder and louder. They had paused, as if caught in honey, the tableau before her apt to break at any moment.

The gun was heavy, her arm was heavy. Her heart was heavy. If she died here today, it would all be for nothing. Dulcinea would still be dead, the monsters would have won. If only … She raised her gun, aiming as best she could.