The Six-Gun Tarot (37 page)

“Sweet, merciful Lord in Heaven, no.…”

The tiny, still form was held high in the left hand of the priest, who stood behind his living altar. He was a tall man with a mane and beard of gray. His eyes, unlike his congregation’s, were human, but there was no sanity, no mercy, in them. He squeezed the last of the infant’s blood into an inverted animal skull, a dog’s or perhaps a coyote’s, he held below in his right hand.

Mutt appeared at the doorway on the opposite side of the room, his gun in one hand, his knife, wet, in the other. Stains of shadow covered his shirt and hands. He was alone.

The priest tossed the baby’s body. He smiled at Highfather and with a simple gesture brought the wailing and chants to an abrupt halt.

“Ah, Sheriff, welcome. You’re just in time to take communion.”

The gunfire behind Highfather ended. There was the sound of a scuffle, a whimper, a choking sound and then silence. He could feel inhuman eyes on his back. He looked to Mutt and the deputy nodded slightly. They were alone now.

“I’ve heard so much about you, Sheriff,” the priest said. “You were the only one to resist the Black Madonna’s charms. Pity. You have no idea how liberating it is.”

“It’s not too late, Jonathan,” Holly purred as she stood. Two of the Stained stepped forward and draped a black cloak around her blood-slick body. “Come to me now. I need you.”

Highfather leveled the Winchester. Two silver bullets left. One for the priest, and one—sorry, Harry—for Holly. Highfather wished there had been some way to get her out of here. He hated to break a promise. He felt dry, sticky breath on his neck and knew there was no way any of them were getting out of here alive.

“You’re the one responsible for this,” he said to the old man. “What do you call yourself? So I know who I’m sending back to Hell.”

“Hell?” the priest said. “You presume to send me to Hell? Oh, Sheriff, you have such a puny vision. Your Hell is a playground for sick children. No, our vision is … deeper, richer, too complex for such limited minds. I am Ambrose, servant of the True God, the First God, not the imposter who cowers in Heaven and whose ass you and your ilk kiss.”

“Say hello to him for me.” Highfather’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Ambrose smiled.

There was a blur in the shadows to Highfather’s left and a massive man, dressed in black like a priest, grabbed the barrel of the rifle and jerked it out of Highfather’s hands before he could fire it, like taking a toy from a child. The huge figure tossed the gun casually against the wall and it shattered as if it were glass.

“And this is Mr. Phillips, my deacon,” Ambrose said. “He is living proof to the power of the Milk of the Wurm.” He raised the skull chalice, as if offering a toast.

Highfather saw Mutt moving, then lost sight of him as all the congregation began to rise. He launched a powerful right at Phillips’s chin.

“We’ve made great headways toward bearing witness to your entire community of the power and the glory of the Greate Olde Wurm. We are nearly a hundred strong now.”

The punch landed with a sick crunch but no other effect. Jon followed up with a strong left hook, which also seemed to do nothing. It was like hitting a stone wall.

“I sent the rest of the faithful down the mountain to share the glory with their former friends and family in the town,” Ambrose said. “With each new follower, each new soul tainted, liberated, the chains holding the Greate Olde Wurm grow weaker. He awakens, grows more restless. By noon tomorrow, we will be powerful enough in number, in will, to free the Great One, the crawling, gibbering chaos—”

Highfather drove blow after blow into Phillips’s face, again and again and again. His knuckles split from the force. The black-garbed giant’s head didn’t even snap back from the barrage of punches. Phillips drove a single thunderous right into Highfather’s chest. The sheriff felt a bright star of pain in his left side as the wind left his lungs. He fell into darkness. An instant later he opened his eyes with much effort. He was on the floor smashed up against the side of the doorway. He tasted blood, and it felt like he was being stabbed in the chest with a burning knife. Over him, surrounding him, were several of the Stained, including two of his recent deputies. Ambrose’s voice boomed from somewhere out of Highfather’s dim vision.

“It’s a shame you didn’t give in to your temptations when you had the chance, Sheriff. Once the final rite is completed and the Great Old One is freed, He will shake off this blasphemous world, like a dog shaking itself dry. He will pull the sun from the sky and hurl it into the Void. He will tear down the false universe and return things to their beautiful, pristine origin. There shall be no more temptation; there shall be no more want or need, no more tears, no more joy. All will be blessed darkness.”

The Stained reached down for Highfather. He fumbled with his numb, bleeding hands, drew his pistol and fired twice. Heads exploded and alien blood rained down on him. The bodies fell back and remained still.

Silver and shots to the head, good to know.

He struggled to his feet. Every breath, every movement, was brilliant pain in his side. The other Stained shuffled away from him as Phillips strode forward like a dark prince. Highfather fired, emptying the remaining normal rounds into the hulking deacon. One bullet caught him squarely in the forehead. His head jerked, and then straightened. There was a trickle of blood, as if he had been knocked in the head by a rock instead of a .45-caliber bullet. His eyes darkened and he reached for Highfather’s throat.

Mutt roared as he dived through the crowd of the Stained and crashed into Phillips’s back, driving his knife deep between the shoulder blades, with all his weight behind it.

“Jon, git! I got this!” the deputy shouted. Phillips shrugged and Mutt flew off his back and hit the ground with a crash. The deacon reached behind him, grunted and tossed Mutt the knife.

“I like killing Indians,” Phillips said. “It takes a little more work to get them to scream, but it’s worth it.”

Highfather put his fingers to his lips and whistled loud and long. With his other hand he shrugged the shells out of the Colt.

Ambrose was laughing. “Bring them to the Mother for communion!” he called out to the inhuman congregation. “The sheriff and his deputy can lead us in our next hymn.”

A wall of hands was tearing at his coat, his arms, his legs, his face. Highfather jammed a bullet into the pistol’s cylinder and snapped it shut with a flick of his wrist. All he could see around him was horribly familiar faces smeared with blackness; all he could smell was Holly’s, the Wurm’s, spoor.

Mutt wasn’t faring much better against Phillips than he had, but he did notice the deputy was taking the punches better. Mutt was hurt, there was no denying it, but he seemed to be much hardier than his slight frame suggested.

“Get the gun,” Ambrose said to his followers. “Don’t let him kill himself; this will be too fun to miss.”

The Stained were abnormally strong. Their hands gripped Highfather tightly as he struggled to raise the gun. He winced and pulled his gun arm free long enough to level the pistol, find his target and fire.

With a thunderous boom, the bullet smashed one of the oil lamps near the small mountain of candles in the room. The lamp oil splashed everywhere. The candles and the curtains behind them were suddenly devoured in brilliant, violent flame. A few of the Stained caught fire as well, screaming and staggering, further spreading the blaze.

“How much fun was that?” Highfather called out to the shocked priest as he drove an elbow into the face of one of his attackers.

Before the enraged priest could collect himself, the large windows on the southern side of the room exploded inward as Bright and Muha crashed into the room, trampling bodies as they came to their masters’ aid.

“Mutt, stop fooling around; we’re leaving!” Highfather called. The deputy was pinned to a wall, being held six inches off the ground by Phillips as the dark deacon continued to pummel his swollen face.

“In a minute, boss,” Mutt mumbled through pulpy lips. He spit blood in Phillips’s eyes and the giant dropped him, wiping wildly at his face.

“Damn you!” Phillips bellowed.

Mutt staggered toward the battered Highfather, who was already climbing on Bright. The sheriff pulled a scattergun from his horse’s saddle and fired. Three of the Stained staggered backward from the blast, but none of them fell.

Smoke was filling the room and flames crawled along the walls, lapping at the ceiling. Ambrose was yelling orders to the swarming congregation. Holly and Phillips were nowhere to be seen.

Muha kicked another attacker when it lunged toward his master. Mutt scooped his knife up from the floor and used it on two more of the creatures trying to grab him, without a second’s pause of motion. The things that had once been townsfolk bled the black blood of the Great Wurm from their opened throats, but did not die. His free hand wrapped around the saddle and he pulled himself up. Highfather was reloading the shotgun, firing cover for his deputy’s retreat and then reloading it again. Though the shot didn’t kill the infected, it did keep them at bay for a moment and off the two men and their horses. Bright snorted the smoke and shuffled nervously from hoof to hoof.

“It’s okay, girl; we’re leaving,” Highfather said, petting her. “I’m sure glad we learned that little trick.”

Mutt was in the saddle and had drawn his own rifle.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” he shouted over the roar of the flames.

“Enjoy your little victory, gentlemen!” Ambrose shouted as he headed for the room’s rear door, surrounded by a swarm of his loyal congregation. “Enjoy it while you can! We grow stronger with every moment. Your town and its people are mine, Sheriff,
mine
! Our God stirs and your God is afraid to face Him. Mark my words, this world has seen its last dawn! Its last!”

His voice was lost in the crash as part of the flaming ceiling tumbled down.

The two riders plowed through the crowd, still intent on capturing them, both men shooting as they went. The windows were wreathed in flames, but neither horse balked as they charged forward, leapt over and through the maelstrom of fire and landed in the cool, dark desert night.

The riders stopped long enough to look back at the Reid house being devoured by flames. The smoke that coiled out of the broken and missing windows took ominous, unnatural shapes before scattering on the wind, which seemed to have risen up to cast the foulness of this place out faster.

“I want another crack at that bastard Phillips,” Mutt said, hawking out more blood as he stroked Muha’s neck. “I think I can take him.”

“Later,” Highfather said, reloading his pistol. “We’re both low on silver and you heard Ambrose—more of those things are headed for the town.”

The mansion creaked and groaned its death rattle as the flames rose higher into the night. Dark silhouettes emerged from the dying house, shuffling slowly, relentlessly.

The riders galloped away from the house of flame and shadows, and raced for home as fast as their horses could carry them.

The Tower

Since Golgotha had an uncommon number of denominations and faiths for such a small town, events like the social were usually held on “neutral ground” to ensure a good turnout and fewer theological arguments around the buffet table. Dale McKinnon had, as he had in the past, volunteered his small barn, just off Prosperity and a few lots over from Pratt Road, for the festivities. It was close enough to the First Baptist Church and the Mormon temple to make most of the faithful in town happy. Dale was in the rare position of being pretty much universally liked in town.

Auggie and Gillian worked all day on the finishing touches for the church social. Gillian pushed a wayward strand of hair out of her eyes as the first wagon of guests arrived. It was a little past noon.

“See,” Auggie said. “I told you. Mysterious disappearances, rumors of sickness and strange goings-on—bah! Nothing keeps people away from free food, yes? Especially yours.”

She smiled and hugged him. “Ours,” she said.

People kept coming: husbands, wives, children, the few babies the town had been blessed with, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics. Day to day these groups kept mostly to their own small enclaves in the town, but today they all gathered—to eat, to gossip, to laugh and to play.

And the Mormons! It seemed every Mormon in town came out, whole families with wagons and carts and horses and food. It was as if the whole town collectively sighed in relief. Auggie knew, like anyone who had lived in Golgotha for any amount of time, how much they all relished these days, these chances for laughter and companionship in between the chaos and tragedy. It created a bond in old-timers like him, like Gillian.

Golgotha was a strange, almost-cursed place, true. But it was a good town too. It seemed to draw out as much good in some people as it did evil. The good folk who lived here needed these events to keep going, to keep the light alive here in a desert of darkness. So even with all the murder and the madness and the feeling of impending catastrophe, the town came today to draw strength and to remember why they fought the darkness.

The music started about two. The band arrived in a piecemeal fashion. Josiah Kemp and his brother brought their guitar and fiddle. A few hours latter, Sadie Aimes arrived with her banjo. Ernie Greene broke out his harmonica when he and his wife got there. By four, half the place was eating and dancing and the other half was playing and singing. Many of the local young men and women were here, Auggie noted. Taking their first steps in the dance of adulthood, of independence and of love.

He saw Arthur and Maude Stapleton’s daughter, Constance, dressed in mourning colors, laughing, surrounded by her friends. A beautiful young woman dressed in black, haunted by death, laughing, forgetting and embracing life. It was, Auggie thought, like she was the spirit of the town, given life.

Constance stayed close to one boy, a tall, handsome lad with an unruly mop of hair the color of wheat. Auggie recognized him as Jess Muller, the son of Auggie’s countryman Gerrard Muller, the town cooper. Auggie had to smile; when Jess moved, she moved. He smiled when she smiled. They each looked at one another when the other wasn’t looking and occasionally they caught each other in the act and both smiled and reddened. Auggie thought about him and Gillian, how they were and how much they had acted like these children. He chuckled despite himself, and shook his head. Madness.