Blood Riders (23 page)

“Don’t stop!” he shouted. He realized then they had too far to go. They weren’t going to make it. He stopped, gesturing for the group to keep moving past him. “Keep going!” Shaniah and Dog kept the children and women moving toward the train. Chee pulled up next to him as if to stop, but Hollister pushed him toward the train. “Get these people on the train!”

Hollister gave the group a good twenty yards head start and then spun around, working the action on the steam-powered gun, his next shot ready. A large group of Archaics, more than he could count, surged toward him. He fired into the crowd. There were howls of pain and anger as Archaics were blown apart and others went down. He spun the gun around on the sling and used the distraction to slap his final two speed loaders into his Colts. He ran for the train.

“Monkey Pete! Open up!” he shouted. The train looked eerily deserted, the iron doors still in place and no sign of the engineer in the gunner’s turret on top of the armory car. For a god-awful minute he worried that Pete was dead. The Archaics had managed to somehow breech the train’s defenses. Now what? Even if they could get aboard, no way could he and Chee drive the thing.

A flash of light appeared on top of the armory car and the ground exploded in small pockets of dirt and sod behind him. As the sound reached him, he recognized the thumping and crackling of the Gatling gun being fired. One of the bullets whizzed past his ear.

“Holy shit!” he yelped as the ground around his feet erupted. He ran faster, trying to put more space between him and the pursuing Archaics.

The shooting kept up as they covered the last fifty yards, all of them stopping at the side of the train. The firing had had a devastating effect on the creatures. There was enough light now for Hollister to see Monkey Pete in the turret with a big grin on his face.

“Pete!” Hollister cried. “Let us in! Your fancy shooting won’t stop them for long.”

“Yes, sir! Give me a second!” the engineer replied. He disappeared with a hiss as his seat lowered out of sight. There was no sound from inside for several seconds. Jonas waited for the doors to open, but they didn’t.

“Pete! God damn it, haul ass!” he commanded.

He was loading his last four bullets left from his gun belt into his Colt, watching as the Archaics cautiously approached, when the door to the train slid open. Monkey Pete stood there with a hose in his hand. Before Hollister could say anything, he opened the valve and high-pressure water shot out, drenching them all except Shaniah, who with her quick reflexes managed to dive under the train and avoid the watery blast.

“Pete! What the hell!” He spat water.

“Sorry, Major. It’s holy water. Ain’t letting anybody on my train unless they are who they say they are.”

“Well I can vouch for all of us—”

He was interrupted by the sound of someone groaning.

Behind him on the ground lay Billy, twisting in agony as the water burned his skin.

Chapter Fifty

“D
emon!” Rebecca shrieked, pointing at the boy writhing in the dirt.

“Get Billy inside,” Hollister shouted.

He glanced back at the Archaics. They were regrouping forty yards out, the memory of Monkey Pete’s Gatling fresh in their minds. But they were getting ready to charge again. He had learned to recognize their approach.

“No time! For this! Chee! Grab the kid, the rest of you get on the train!” The children and women piled onto the train. Chee grabbed hold of Billy and followed. Shaniah waited.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked her.

“I think I should depart.”

“Why?”

“I am not welcome here,” she said.

“Maybe not. But I still need your help,” he said.

“Yes you do. But you don’t listen. You should kill the boy. He is an Archaic now.”

“For God’s sake I’m not killing a kid, I don’t care what he is,” Hollister said.

“He is turning. He has made no move yet, because his young mind can’t grasp what is happening to his body. But he will become dangerous, and soon.”

“Then we’ll tie him up or something, we don’t have time to argue. Get on the damn train!”

The roar from the Archaics sounded and they bounced forward, leaping in the air and covering great swaths of ground. Shaniah still hesitated.

“I’ve got questions, and you said you needed my help. Well, I need yours, so what’ll it be?” he pleaded, casting a wary eye toward the approaching hordes and hoping like all hell she would say yes. He needed her fighting ability if they were going to live through this.

“All right,” she said.

Hollister bounded up the steel steps and through the door. Shaniah tried to follow but was stopped at the threshold. She tried to push through but was stopped.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. The Archaics were thirty yards away.

Hollister remembered the painted markings around the doors and windows. Van Helsing had said they were designed to keep out demons and other creatures.

“Ah crap, the devil’s traps . . .” he said.

“What? Invite me in! Hurry!” Twenty yards.

“Invite . . . what the hell? Shaniah, get in here!” he shouted.

The spell broken, she burst through the door and he pulled the lever, watching the iron door slide down into place.

Billy appeared to be recovering but he was huddling in the corner by himself with no one else paying attention to him, not even his mother. Chee had gone to the armory car, and was now in the turret firing away. Hollister could hear the spit of the Gatling.

Something thudded against the side of the car and the train shook momentarily.

“Monkey Pete! Get us going! Back to Denver!”

Far ahead he heard the sounds of the engine starting up, but the train rocked back and forth and he worried it would be derailed before they could get under way.

He handed Shaniah a Colt from his holster and pulled a modified Henry from the rifle rack. Next to each door on either side of the car were small shooters’ ports that could be cranked open. It wasn’t a large field of fire, but it might drive off some of them.

He pushed the barrel through the port and it was nearly jerked out of his hands. An Archaic tried reaching through the opening, but the space was too small. With his other hand he pulled his Colt and fired point-blank, hitting it in the face and blowing the creature backward off the train.

Slowly, the engine came to life and they rolled back southward, in the direction they had come from. Hollister hoped Pete was secure in the engine room, because they were up shit creek if something happened to the engineer.

More thuds sounded as the Archaics saw their opportunity slipping away. The train gathered speed and huffed slowly away, leaving Absolution behind. After two minutes had passed with no sound from outside, Hollister thought they might have made it.

Two more minutes passed and now the train was going at a good clip. It was hard to imagine, as fast as the creatures were, that they would be able to keep up.

A few minutes later Chee entered the car. “Looks like we made it, Major,” he said. “They tried to chase us for a while, but eventually gave up.”

“Chee, would you and Sally take these folks up to the galley and get them something to eat? I reckon they’re starved. And have Pete telegraph Pinkerton about that town. The army needs to go and clear it out with artillery, nothing less than a battalion. Before somebody innocent wanders across it or that train arrives day after tomorrow. They’re going to need to burn it down.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. He opened the door to the galley and ushered the women and children into it, leaving Hollister, Shaniah, and Billy alone in the car. Billy now sat in the corner, his knees pulled up, his head down.

“I wondered how he could run so fast,” Hollister mumbled under his breath. He looked at Shaniah, who was studying the small boy. “What’s going to happen to him? Is he stuck at that age forever now? Like you?”

She shrugged. “Truly, I do not know. It has been centuries since . . . my people . . . we . . . do not normally . . .” She struggled, trying to come up with a way to explain something horrible in a way that wouldn’t make Hollister gun her down on the spot.

“Archaics have existed for thousands if not tens of thousands of years. For the last several centuries, we have retreated high into the mountains of my homeland. Humans are too fertile, too clever, and too inventive. We could not keep up. We are hunters. Not inventors or industrialists. Despite our physical superiority, as you have just seen and as you have known from your first encounter with Malachi, we can be killed. Humans have spent many hours and resources coming up with inventive ways to kill us . . .”

“Kill or be killed it seems to me . . .” Hollister interrupted.

“I don’t disagree. For many centuries, to Archaics, humans were nothing more than prey. But we could not compete, and since Archaics cannot procreate, no matter how many other Archaics we created, we were losing. Humans found weapons: control of the elementals, ways to thin our numbers, learning that fire and sunlight may not kill us but limits us in ways it does not limit humans. While your kind spread over the globe, we retreated in order to survive. The mountains hide us, and we hunt humans no more. We simply wish to live and be left alone.”

“What’s this got to do with Billy?”

“My point is, whenever it is, or was, necessary to . . . create . . . a new Archaic, we do not normally choose a child. Our society requires adults to survive. A child would not grow, would not gain the typical strength and instincts of an adult Archaic, so there is no point. I have never seen one, in fact,” she said. “I was not able to cross the threshold over your train until you invited me. Since your man Chee carried the boy, perhaps the invitation was implied and therefore did not need to be spoken. Or perhaps your man-witch understood, and put Billy under some kind of spell and . . .”

“Whoa . . . whoa . . . Chee . . . is a . . . you think he’s a . . .” Hollister started laughing. He didn’t know why, but it was a relief somehow. The idea of Chee casting spells, that was rich. “Shaniah I think the only spell Chee casts comes from the barrel of a gun. But don’t change the subject—why Billy, why now?” Hollister asked.

“I have no idea, Hollister. I can only surmise Malachi’s intentions,” she said.

“Surmise away,” he said.

“He wants us to know, as you humans might say, that all bets are off. He wants to show you how cruel he is willing to be,” she said.

“But to what end? What does this Malachi want?”

“It’s quite simple really,” she said. “He wants to destroy you.”

Chapter Fifty-one

S
later and his men stayed mounted on horseback, and from the safety of the trees, watched the events at the train take place far below. It had taken some doing, but Slater had found where the train had gone. He managed to gather a dozen men and get there in time to catch the tail end of the “festivities.”

Now watching the train puff its way out of Absolution and the creatures give up their pursuit, he had to admit this Hollister impressed him more and more. They had fought well and killed a passel of these creatures—and not only that, but they also managed to save a handful of women and children. It looked like they had hidden some heavy ordnance on their train, and that was duly noted—but fighting their way through those beasts and onto the train had been impressive. No doubt about it.

“Now what, Boss?” one of his thugs, named Nolan, asked.

“Now we get the hell out of here without those things catching sight or wind of us,” he said.

“What do you suppose them things are, down there?” Nolan asked. Slater sighed at the man’s stupidity.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Slater said. “But let’s avoid them just the same.”

But Slater knew what they were. And he found it even more surprising that Hollister had allowed the woman to come aboard. Letting the fox inside the henhouse was a dangerous and confusing strategy, as Slater saw it.

He rode along, the train ahead of them nearly disappearing from sight. And a flood of emotions rolled through him. Curiosity, confusion, and just like in Torson City, fear.

P
inkerton had a cadre of at least twenty agents waiting at the warehouse when the train arrived. The trip had gone without incident. The children and the women all had blank stares, working through their trauma, trying to achieve some way of dealing with the horror they’d experienced. Billy stayed in Hollister’s bunk, the door kept locked, and he and Chee took turns standing guard throughout the day.

Sally and the others mostly kept to themselves. Their world was no longer the one they thought they knew and it would be a struggle for them to find a place in it. Hollister was convinced that Sally would make it because she had the strength. Not to say she wouldn’t be haunted by it, but she would find a way to push it down inside and move on.

Now that the Pinkertons were moving the people off the train, the lead man, a big, thick Irish thug named Mullen, came back on the train in the office car and stared hard at Shaniah, then Hollister. Jonas knew what was coming.

Mullen pulled a letter from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Got a letter here from Mr. Pinkerton, says we’re supposed to take the woman and the boy with us.” He handed it to Hollister, who put it on the desk without reading it.

“Uh-huh. Well, that’s a problem. You’re welcome to take the lad, but I’ve got a tactical situation and I am using the woman as an asset. So I’m going to have need of her for a while longer.”

Mullen shook his head. A shade under six feet tall, he was a bull of a man, big head atop broad shoulders. For a moment, he put Hollister in mind of Senator Declan, but Mullen wasn’t that smart. It was written plain as day on his face, scarred and cut in dozens of places. He wore a bowler cap and his upper lip carried a thick mustache. His nose was wide and flat and had been broken more than once. “I got my orders. Mr. Pinkerton wants any of these captured subjects brought to—”

“She wasn’t captured,” Hollister interrupted. Chee and Shaniah watched the exchange with quiet but slightly stunned expressions on their faces. “She voluntarily joined us and saved several lives. I’m going after more of these things and I need her.”

“That’s all well and good, but I have my orders and I answer to Mr. Pinkerton,” Mullen said.

“And Mr. Pinkerton has given me full authority to run this operation as I see fit,” Hollister added.

Mullen stood up from the chair across the desk from Hollister, making sure as he did so that his suit coat opened so everyone could see the double-rig shoulder holster he wore. The tooled leather held two pearl-handled pistols.

“Be that as it may, Mr. Pinkerton gave me strict instructions, and I intend to follow them.” He looked at Shaniah, who had stood idly by. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

Shaniah’s gaze drifted between Hollister and Mullen before settling on the Pinkerton man.

“No,” she said.

“I . . . excuse me?” Mullen said. He was one of those men whose size and demeanor usually intimidated everyone. Now it wasn’t working, and it had thrown him off his game.

“I said, I won’t be going with you,” she replied.

“Ma’am, there’s no need for this. We’re just going to take you to a place where you’ll be safe.” He reached out with his arm as if to take her by the elbow. Hollister knew what was going to happen next, but Mullen had no idea.

With speed that could only fairly be described as inhuman, Shaniah grabbed Mullen by the wrist. She spun him around, his arm behind his back, her other arm wrapped around his throat, lifting him off his feet. Hollister and Chee both winced when they heard the crackling, tearing sound of his shoulder ligaments popping like firecrackers.

“Awww, goddammit, you bitch, turn me loose!” he begged. Shaniah did, pushing him forward as he staggered across the floor of the car, trying to right himself, until he crashed into the wall. He spun back toward them, his arm hanging loosely at his side, his face twisted in pain.

“As I said,” Shaniah repeated quietly. “I will not be going anywhere with you.”

Mullen looked at her, his eyes darting downward toward the pistol in the shoulder rig on his right side. His left arm was useless and his mind was trying to gauge if he could draw it in time to shoot the woman.

“If you draw your weapon, this time I will break your arm and not merely dislocate it,” she said quietly.

Mullen’s face took on a curious look. One that Hollister rarely saw in men he had gone up against. He was beaten and he knew it and his expression was neutral; neither angry or full of rage. But his eyes blazed. He needed to reassert himself somehow. Telling Pinkerton he had had his arm torn nearly off by a woman was not something he relished.

“I’ve got twenty armed men outside, waiting . . .” he said.

This time Hollister said, “Agent Mullen, I’ve no doubt you’re a good man and do your job well. I’d be willing to bet you’re one of Pinkerton’s best. But I can tell you from personal experience Miss . . . Shaniah here is special . . . and if you had forty men outside it wouldn’t matter. I know you’re doing what Pinkerton asked of you. And I admire you for following orders. But I work for him too, and he’s given me a lot of latitude. I’m telling you I need her.”

“I got my orders,” Mullen said. His voice was close to breaking, the pain from his dislocated shoulder starting to rage.

“Pinkerton has given me orders too. So let’s just call this one a draw. I’ll send a letter for you to take to him and explain everything. Will that work?”

Mullen was quiet a moment. Finally he nodded.

Hollister sat down at the desk, and scribbled out a note to Pinkerton. Blowing the ink dry, he folded it inside an envelope and handed it to the detective. “Thanks for this, Detective Mullen. I promise you I won’t forget it.”

Mullen stepped to the door, turned, and looked at Shaniah, then Hollister. “Neither will I,” he said. He lumbered out of the train, slamming the door behind him.

“Do me a favor,” Hollister said to Shaniah. “Next time, try not to injure the good guys.”

“He put his hands on me. Unnecessarily,” she said.

“I know, but the thing is, he’s on our side, and if you go around breaking the arms of all the good guys, we’re gonna run out of good guys and after what we just saw in Absolution, we’re going to need a lot of them.”

“Then instruct them to leave me alone,” Shaniah said.

Hollister sighed.

“Chee, could you do me a favor and ask Monkey Pete to get the train under way again?”

“Yes, sir. Where to?” the sergeant asked.

“Head west, tell him I’ll let him know our final destination shortly. We’ll go as far as we can by train, then ride the rest of the way.” On their way back to Denver, they had stopped and retrieved Demeter so Shaniah would have a mount if needed.

“Yes, sir.”

“But make sure we reload before we depart, ammo, all the stuff Pete used at Absolution, speed loaders, rations, more loads for the Ass-Kicker. Whatever he thinks we need. Oh, and a cannon if he has one. And have him be quick about it. I want to be under way before Mullen and the rest of his Pinkertons out there change their mind.”

“Yes, sir, but I don’t think Monkey Pete has a cannon, sir,” Chee said as he left the main car, leaving Shaniah and Hollister alone.

Shaniah walked along the train car, studying the drawings and paintings around the windows and doors. The weapons and other items stored in the rack.

“These drawings, around the windows, what is their purpose?” she asked.

“Well, I don’t reckon if I should tell you or not,” he said.

Shaniah looked at him, head cocked. “Really, it is some sort of human secret?”

“Naw, I was just joking with it. I don’t think it matters one way or another. According to this fella we met, named Dr. Van Helsing, they are called devil’s traps. He said there are creatures called vampires and these markings keep them from coming into someplace you don’t want them.”

Shaniah straightened up at the mention of Van Helsing. “I have heard of this man, Van Helsing, he has pursued a vampire Vlad Dracul for many years, it is said.”

Hollister had questions.

“Do Archaics sleep? Do you have to rest?”

“Only when we have not fed for a very long time. It is one of the differences between us and vampires. Vampires must sleep every night in the soil from their native land. Archaics can go days, weeks without sleep as long as they are feeding.”

“How do you know about Van Helsing? I thought you lived way up in the mountains. Don’t seem like news would get up that way very easy.”

Shaniah shrugged. “We are not without contact with the human world. Dracul is a vampire, not an Archaic. We are similar but different. But we have heard of Van Helsing’s pursuit of him.”

Hollister stared at her, plainly not understanding the difference.

“As I have traveled your world, I have seen different species but the same in the animal kingdom. Horses, dogs, cows, all the same, but different, do you understand?”

Hollister nodded.

“Take horses. Certain breeds are faster, stronger, more surefooted. Others are slower of foot but less temperamental. They all have different characteristics. Such it is with . . . my world. We are Archaics. Even vampires know we are the oldest, longest living of our kind. Dracul, who your Dr. Van Helsing bases his studies on, is a vampire and not an Archaic. He can be killed by sunlight, not just burned by it. He must sleep in the dirt of his native soil at night or he weakens considerably. And unlike us, he cannot survive without human blood. Which in a way makes him more dangerous to humans. He is a different species. Does that make sense?

“Or think of it this way,” she continued. “You might be able to kill a cheetah with a spear, but you need a gun to kill a lion. That is the difference between Archaics and vampires.”

From what Jonas had read in Van Helsing’s journals about vampires, and from what he’d seen of Archaics so far, they seemed like the same damn thing to him. But he wasn’t going to start an argument.

He sat at the desk, unrolling the map Monkey Pete had marked up with abandoned mining camps. Shaniah continued to study the interior of the train and Chee finally returned from the engine room.

The silence among the three of them was nearly unbearable. Chee was naturally quiet anyway, but finally even he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Where are we heading, Major?” Chee asked.

“Just a hunch, but I’ve been studying the map here of all the mining camps.” He turned it around on the desk so Shaniah and Chee could see it.

“Something the Declan kid said. It’s been bothering me,” he said.

“What did he say?” Shaniah asked.

“He kept saying ‘mine’ . . . ‘mine’ . . . and at first I thought he was just jabbering away about the mine in Torson City and so we went to Absolution to see if there was a mining connection and there is. Or was. But then something Shaniah said . . .” He was drawing circles on the map now, Chee and Shaniah waiting patiently.

“What did I say?” she asked, growing impatient.

“You said he wants to destroy us, correct?” Hollister said.

Shaniah nodded.

“He does?” Chee asked. “You didn’t tell me about this . . .”

“Didn’t have a chance, but he’s been killin’ people right and left, so it seems obvious he wants us all dead, doesn’t he?” Hollister asked, trying to mollify the sergeant.

“Yes . . . I suppose . . . but . . .” Chee started.

“You’re right, Chee, I should have told you. I’m sorry.” Hollister wanted to move on.

“After what we’ve seen at Torson City, and Absolution, there seem to be two logical places for him to hide. He circled two small dots on the map, a town called Clady, in southern Wyoming, and another called Lamont, in northern Colorado.

Shaniah looked at the map. “What makes you so sure Malachi would be in either of these places?”

“Tactics. I studied military tactics at a place called West Point. It’s where the government sends men to train them to become military officers,” Hollister explained.

Shaniah tried not to show surprise or emotion on her face, but this was another reason she feared her people would not survive the human incursion. They sent their best men to places to study tactics and battle. Humans were far too clever.

“And my study of military tactics tells me two things. Malachi needs a place to hide and gather his initiates, as you called them, and he also needs a place that’s easier to defend. Of the two, I’d say Clady is the best choice.”

“Why?” Shaniah asked, genuinely curious. She had been following Malachi blindly for years, using luck and intuition. Yet Hollister had come closer to finding him in a few days than she had in all this time. She needed to learn this thing he called tactics.