The Nine Pound Hammer (24 page)

Ray laid the bottletree gently on the ground and looked over the log. From the low vantage he could see two men in simple black suits, one wearing a round bowler hat, trying to contain the kicking and struggling Marisol. They had lanterns set on the ground, which spread a thin orange light around the clearing.

A third man, dressed as the others, entered the clearing on the far side. As he approached them, he waved his hands irritably. “Take that stuffing from your ears. You got the wrong girl!”

One of the men holding Marisol managed to pluck something out of his ears while keeping Marisol’s writhing legs in the crook of his elbow. His hat had been lost, and his bald skull-like head glistened in the night’s heat. The other man, holding Marisol’s shoulders, had a short-barreled rifle slung over his shoulder.

There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about their appearance. They were plain-faced, indistinct in many ways. But Ray knew these were the Gog’s men. Only they would be after a siren. And the fact that they looked so ordinary chilled Ray most of all.

“What’d you say, Mister McDevitt?” the bald man who had just pulled the wad from his ears said.

“That isn’t the siren, you idiot!” McDevitt snarled. “You were supposed to meet us here with …”

As the men argued, Ray turned to Jolie.

“I’ll go around—” But as he said this, a dry branch snapped beneath his knee.

The man with the rifle dropped Marisol with an ungracious thump and swung the carbine rifle to his shoulder, scanning the surrounding forest. Ray scrambled to get to his feet, but before he could, Jolie grabbed a stone and hurled it at the man.

The rock caught him in the temple, and he stumbled back, the carbine firing into the trees overhead. He dropped to his knees, his hands to his bleeding head.

McDevitt pulled a pistol from under his coat as Ray charged from the underbrush, catching the man in his lower back and knocking him to the ground. The pistol tumbled a few feet away. Ray pressed his weight onto McDevitt’s head, mashing his face into the dirt and trying to hold him down as the man scrambled flat on his stomach.

The bald-headed man grasped Marisol from the ground, holding her around the shoulders and keeping her arms pinned tightly against her sides. She kicked back with her heel, but was unable to find the man’s shins. Jolie stopped a few feet before the bald-headed man, her head bent forward in a frightening stare.

The man seemed to realize that with her strange gown and wild-eyed ferocity, this was the real siren.

“Hello there, missy,” he said as he let go of Marisol and drew a pistol from his belt. Before he could grab Jolie, she relaxed her jaw and began a thin, piercing note. The man’s arms dropped limply to his side, and he stared at Jolie with a slack-eyed stupor. The pistol fell to the ground, and Jolie kicked it away.

The man who had been struck by Jolie’s rock seemed to regain his senses. Trying to wipe the blood from his eyes, he searched the ground for his rifle.

Scrambling to keep McDevitt pinned, Ray saw him. McDevitt used the moment to throw his elbow hard into Ray’s chin. Ray rolled to the ground. McDevitt stood, spitting dirt from his mouth, and kicked Ray in the ribs. Electric waves of pain shot through Ray’s body.

McDevitt pulled a tarnished whistle from his pocket. As he blew it, he gave Ray a slimy smile, flashing a gold tooth from his mouth.

That tooth. That terrible smile. Hadn’t McDevitt been talking to Seth after a show?

Something roared from the depths of the forest, bringing a pregnant silence over the scene of the fight. Marisol had scrambled to get away from the men but now froze with fear as another roar echoed across the night forest.

McDevitt backed away several steps, still smiling. Ray had heard this roar before, in his dream.

The Hoarhound.

The forest crackled as a deep cold enveloped it. The leaves around Ray shriveled with the frigid air filling the clearing. Ray felt his clothes, damp with perspiration, stiffen with ice. The glass on the lanterns cracked, but they stayed lit, still casting a dull glow onto the Gog’s men.

“You might just want to leave the siren with us and get out of here,” McDevitt advised.

McDevitt looked over to Jolie. She had stopped singing and was looking fearfully toward the far side of the clearing. The bald-headed man blinked heavily from the passing effects of the song.

The bleeding man got up and aimed the carbine at Marisol as he pulled stuffing from his ears. McDevitt said, “Make one little note, my dear siren, and Mister Horne here will turn this soiree into a tragedy. I don’t think your snake-charming friend would want that now, would she?”

Jolie looked between Marisol and Mister Horne’s rifle barrel. McDevitt bent to pick his pistol off the ground. He narrowed his eyes at Ray and said, “Don’t even scratch your nose, boy.”

McDevitt held his hand out toward Jolie and motioned with his fingers for her to come to him. “Time to go, siren,” McDevitt whispered. “Say your goodbyes before the Hound breaks this party up.”

Jolie backed a step away. McDevitt frowned and began walking toward Jolie. “If I have to ask again, Mister Horne will—”

Before he could finish, Conker leaped into the clearing
behind McDevitt and Horne, his large hands grabbing their heads and clapping them together. The two struck one another with a loud
thunk
and tumbled into a heap. The bald-headed man scrambled around, looking for the pistol Jolie had kicked away.

Si emerged holding a bottletree in each of her hands. “Let’s go!” she called.

Ray jumped to his feet, and as he did, an earth-splitting roar filled the clearing. The air swirled with ice and rimy mist.

He turned to see the Hoarhound.

Breaking from the forest, the monster was more terrifying than Ray remembered from his dream. Larger than a bull, the Hound bristled with frost-hardened spikes of fur. Long, terrible fangs crowded its mouth, and as it swung its head, the deathly, bitter cold breath whipped out from its snout. Ray felt his legs grow weak, and feared that neither he nor any of the others would be able to escape the beast.

Conker was closest. With a kick of its powerful legs, the Hoarhound lunged. Conker drew the Nine Pound Hammer from his belt and began to swing it, but the Hound reached him first, knocking him across the clearing onto his back.

“No!” Si yelled.

The Hound rounded on her next, baring its teeth.

Si dropped one of the bottletrees and took the other with both her hands. As she tried to spear it into the
ground, the Hound charged. Si somersaulted backward, out of the way, and the Hound struck the bottletree, spinning it in a clatter across the clearing.

“Drive the other in the ground!” Conker cried, getting to his feet. The bald-headed man had found his pistol, and as he lifted it to cock the hammer, Conker leaped over and slugged him in the jaw, sending the man reeling.

From his pocket, Ray felt something warm against his leg. The rabbit’s foot!

The Hound turned to glare at Ray and then charged. Ray backed up a step, starting to run, but his feet tangled as he turned. Falling flat, he felt the cold emanating from the Hound’s jaws. As Ray cast a fearful glance back, he saw those fangs and then, beside the Hound, Conker crashing down with the Nine Pound Hammer. The steel of the hammer’s head made a high-pitched
ping
as it struck the metal beneath the Hoarhound’s frosty hide. The Hound tumbled sideways, rolling until it landed back on its feet.

Stunned by how close he had come to the Hound’s jaws, Ray struggled to stand.

McDevitt and Horne were getting up dizzily to gather their firearms. But Conker reached them first, the Nine Pound Hammer clattering against the barrels, jarring them from their hands. The men scrambled backward on the ground to get away from him, backing almost into Si.

In a fury, the Hoarhound rushed at Si. She took the other bottletree with both hands and thrust it into the icy
crust of earth. Si dropped to her knees by the bottletree and covered her head against the Hound’s attack. But the Hoarhound pulled away just before reaching the bottletree.

McDevitt and Horne, closer to the bottletree than the Hound, vanished into a phantom mist, which was drawn into the mouths of the bottles. Conker turned to confront the bald-headed man, who was getting dizzily to his feet and reaching for Mister Horne’s rifle.

Growling, the Hound circled the bottletree but seemed unable to get any closer to the protective charm. Si was safe for the moment, but ultimately trapped.

Si called to Jolie and Marisol, “Run! Before it’s too late.”

The two girls hesitated, shivering against the paralyzing cold. Ray nodded for the two of them to run. The rabbit’s foot in his pocket was growing hotter. What was it doing? As he took it from the toby, he saw it glowing a bright gold-white, nearly too hot to hold.

As soon as he did, the Hound snapped its terrifying head around and looked at Ray. Its nostrils flared and the beast took several steps back from him. It’s afraid, Ray thought. Why was the Hound afraid of the foot?

Marisol took Jolie’s hand and began running. Immediately the Hound turned from Ray and ran in a wide arc around the bottletree. They would never get more than a few more steps!

In helpless desperation, Ray leaped after the Hound. The vast jaws of the Hoarhound opened, exposing the rows of jagged teeth. Marisol looked back to see the jaws
about to catch Jolie. Stumbling, she shoved Jolie out of the way, but Marisol’s head was thrust into the path of those icicle-silver teeth.

Ray cried aloud and felt his hand reach the cold hind leg of the Hoarhound.

Still clutching the Hound, Ray fell, half-dragged over the hard frozen earth. He closed his eyes against the horrible fate about to take Marisol.

There was a tense grinding of machinery locking up, metal tearing and whining in the resistance of gears frozen shut. Then the forest was oddly quiet. Ray lay outstretched in the bracken, one hand over his head, holding the hard iron encased in the brittle, cold fur of the Hound’s leg. His other hand squeezed the rabbit’s foot, the metal nearly searing Ray’s palm.

He looked up to see the bald-headed man who had been defending himself against Conker. Both he and Conker had stopped. The Gog’s agent stammered in dumbstruck amazement. Then with a shuffle, the man was gone, running as fast as he could into the shadows of the forest.

Fearing what he would see, Ray looked up.

The Hoarhound was statue-still, hunched up like a climbing wave suddenly frozen to ice in the surf. Within its jaws, inches from the teeth, Marisol stood trembling.

Jolie got to her feet. She took Marisol’s hands, and whispered to her, “Come with me.”

Marisol responded by squeezing her eyes shut and unleashing a gush of wetness on her cheeks. Jolie led her from
the frozen jaws and looked down at Ray still lying on the ground.

Conker stared in disbelief at the silent Hound. As he took a step closer, the Hound’s jaws snapped shut. Ray felt the machinery beneath the Hound’s hide fighting against its paralysis.

“Let’s go, Ray!” Conker shouted.

“No!” Ray said, still holding the Hound. “If I let go, it might come back to life.”

“It’s already coming back to life,” Si said.

“The bottletrees,” Conker said, turning to her. “Get those bottletrees.”

Si pulled up one bottletree and the limp, unconscious forms of Horne and McDevitt appeared, dropping to the hard earth. She drove the bottletree into the ground by the Hound. As she went back for the other, she said, “Where’s the third?”

Ray struggled to remember. “I dropped it somewhere. Over there. Behind that log.”

Si placed the three bottletrees in a triangle surrounding the Hound. She then came over to Jolie and Marisol. “Run. Follow me and just keep running no matter what.”

Conker knelt next to Ray and said, “When I count to three, let go of that Hound.”

Ray nodded.

“One.”

Ray got to his knees, still holding the Hound’s leg.

“Two.”

Ray stood. Conker began backing away into the dark of the forest.

“Three.”

Ray let go and began running after Conker. In a terrifying eruption of coils and machinery coming back to life, the Hound roared. Ray looked over his shoulder and saw the beast writhing and howling and snapping, its form struggling between matter and mist, trapped within the barrier of bottletrees.

They ran and ran, all the way back to the tracks and all the way back to the
Ballyhoo
.

F
IRE HEATED WATER
. W
ATER MADE STEAM
. S
TEAM THRUST
the pistons back and forth. Rods and cranks chugged relentlessly as the pistons moved the wheels across the tracks in the Mississippi night.

In the locomotive, sooty-faced Eddie was shoveling coal from the tender into the firebox. Ox held down the throttle, leveling the
Ballyhoo
to a steady fleeing speed. The engineer wiped his slick forehead and tapped the glass of the pressure gauges to make sure there was adequate water in the boiler. “Stoke it! Get them coals pretty and even,” he barked at his son as he released the steam whistle with a wildcat howl. The first dim blues of dawn filled the sky.