The Shotgun Arcana Read online

  She had traveled in the bitter night and rested in the unforgiving day. All the tools Gran had given her to survive began to come back to her. She was surprised how many of them came to her without even conscious thought, simply instinct. She needed them to survive and they were there, waiting: rusty, buried but still there.

  On the third night she followed the big cat’s trail into a hilly section of the scrubland, and into what at first appeared to be a natural cave, about halfway up the small mountain. There was lots of debris from the mountainside by the entrance, small rocks and even boulders split and shattered as if the whole mountain had undergone some terrible upheaval, struck by a massive hand.

  Maude had been traveling by starlight, using a technique to adjust her eyes to allow her to see better in the low light. As she stood at the mouth of the cave, she realized this trick would do her no good more than a few yards in. The darkness was absolute—as dark as what waits for us on the other side of our final breath. She closed her eyes, measured her breathing, and moved the blood within her to the places her mind willed it. Gran had called it Blood Working, but explained that it was discipline and control over one’s facilities and body, not supernatural.

  “A lot of what you do, they will call magic, girl,” Gran had said, long ago, sitting on her driftwood bench on the beach, the crashing Atlantic her classroom.

  Anne Bonny, at well over one hundred fifty years of age, was slender, slight even, with a mane of snow white hair, a few stray strands of iron and copper remaining, and was still capable of making a sailor blush or laying any man on the planet low. She cackled and raised a bony finger at young Maude, age thirteen, sitting crossed-legged in the Indian fashion before her great-great-great-grandmother. A wicked intelligence, and a soul thirsty to drink deeply, drunkenly, of life, flashed from the emerald fire in the old woman’s eyes. “That’s so they can fear you, label you, call you a ‘witch’ and worse. Like animals afraid of lightning.

  “Bah! Magic! ’Tis nothing of the sort!” She spit onto the sand at her feet. “I know magic, girl, seen it all over the world. Different names, different sources—juju, Satanism, Kabala, hoodoo, Kapu and thousand others—and it’s all the same. Unpredictable, clumsy at times, relies on gods and spirits and all kinds of nonsense that ain’t you, ain’t in you, ain’t of you. Damnable stuff is less reliable than guns … or men. What we practice you can count on, from tit to tail, lass. You respect it, practice it and it will serve you.”

  “Isn’t the blood of Lilith magic?” Maude asked.

  “Is the sunset magic? The opening eyes of a babe? Cool water when you’ve been walking the desert? Love? Is love magic?” Gran reached under her tunic and pulled out the ancient flask that she wore on a crudely wrought iron chain about her neck. The flask was made of iron and yellowed bone with a thin filigree net of silver wrapped over its ancient, pitted surface. The flask was capped with a blood-red ruby the size of a thumbnail. “There are so many things in this life that are wondrous and defy being jammed into a category, hard as we might want them to. The blood is one of those. It doesn’t give us our abilities, or our skills. It simply toughens us up a bit, gives us the fortitude, the focus and the strength to endure the training. You can learn this stuff without the blood, lass, most of the abilities were added to by Daughters of Lilith from across the world over the long eons, since the first of us drank The Mother’s blood and took up The Load. Who knows, you might add a few tricks of your own to the repertoire.”

  “But how do Daughters from all over the world, from different ages, learn the knowledge, the skills of another half a world away? Do we all meet from time to time?”

  “No,” Anne said. “There are a few things that might draw us all together. All of them horrid. Hopefully you won’t have that happen in your time. No, it’s a property of the blood. We just ‘know’ things about the others who carry The Load and them about us. It comes in dreams and in the secret parts of your mind that are always at work, always whispering, but that you are mostly unaware of. As knowledge that affects us all is added, we all just sort of become aware of that possibility and then we have to still train and perfect the skills or seek out the full information, but we just … know.”

  “That sounds like magic to me,” Maude said, smiling. Gran growled.

  “Infuriating little wagtail!” she said. “Let’s quiet all those questions with some breath-control exercises! Into the water, now! I want you fully immersed and holding your breath for thirty minutes this time! Go!”

  At the entrance to the cave, Maude increased the sensitivity of her hearing and the acuity of her sense of touch. She could feel and “see” the currents of air moving about her, perceive the openings and the obstacles in the darkness of the cavern. Her nose picked up a hint of the heady musk of the mountain lion’s scent and even perceived a sourness in it that would indicate a sickness, perhaps a poisoning. She stepped into the darkness and swam with it, in it. She was as silent as smoke. As she moved deeper into the cavern, she discovered it descended, and that a well-worn set of stairs was hewn into the rock. The big cat had gone down the stairs. Maude followed. Continuing downward on the narrow, winding stairs, Maude’s closed eyes began to register some kind of light beyond her lids. She opened her eyes and could see, but she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  The stone stairs spiraled down into a cavern, the walls of which were carved in intricate relief; the façades of ionic columns of the Greek fashion circled the circular stone vault. Between the faux pillars were strange murals depicting scenes of monstrous beings crashing to the Earth, thrown by other monsters from on high, beyond the stars. Other murals depicted the creatures, composed of writhing snakes and parts akin to crustaceans, birds and insects, possessing millions of gibbering mouths, being warred upon by women with spears and others wielding flame. The final murals depicted the creatures being dragged down under the sea and into mountains, where, in chains, they slumbered, dreaming. The last panel of bas-relief depicted the stars tumbling down, the mountains shattering and the seas boiling as the horrible things arose from their slumber, and most prominent in the depiction of the destruction was a thing that seemed to possess the qualities of a man and serpent.

  The whole cave was bathed in a sick, lemony light that came from a small naturally formed cistern beside the foot of the stairs. As Maude silently neared the foot of the staircase, she noted that the water in the cistern seemed clear and clean, but gave off an unearthly greenish-yellow glow. She couldn’t tell if it was the water itself glowing, or if it was a property of something within the natural pool.

  The whole place reminded Maude of the well room, deep below the Argent Mine, where she had battled to save her daughter and the world last year. Similar, but this place’s architecture seemed to be firmly grounded in the ancient Western world, a temple to some blasphemous pantheon of gods the Greeks feared enough to placate but dared not worship.

  The chamber had an intrinsic wrongness to it. The very atmosphere, the feel of the gravity—it all felt wrong, off, to Maude.

  She didn’t have long to ponder the mystery of an ancient Greek temple buried in the foothills of Nevada as a dark shape dropped upon her with a growl that shredded the silence. Maude twisted her upper body and that instinct alone saved her from the mountain lion’s ambush. The great cat had been lounging on a rock shelf above the room and had pounced silently, surprising her. It suddenly occurred to Maude, as she pushed the pain of the gash in her back to a distant place in her mind, that despite her silent movement, the cat had smelled her approach and had been ready for her. She had grown arrogant, thinking her training made her invisible, untouchable.

  The cat scrambled to lock its teeth onto her neck, but Maude tumbled backward and landed a powerful kick to the side of the cougar’s head. The cat staggered backward and shook its head from the force of the blow. That led to a standoff, the two predators crouched near each other, knowing that only one was going to leave this cave.

  Maude felt the
wet blood on her back oozing. The wound needed attention, but for now all she could do was slow the flow of the blood and keep the pain contained.

  The cougar padded over to the cistern and lapped at the glowing water with its wide tongue. It shuddered, as if it had a seizure, then growled low and turned back to glare at Maude, some mad, alien light now reflected in its beautiful eyes.

  “So that’s what made you sick, you poor girl,” Maude said. “I’m so sorry, this isn’t your fault, is it?”

  The big cat snarled and began to pace before the cistern, its tail slashing back and forth. Maude stayed low and watched very carefully the fluid ripple of muscles and the twitch of tendons beneath the cougar’s golden fur.

  This was the reason she had come out here. Her training had taught her how to heal, manipulate, misdirect, kill or incapacitate people. She knew the roadways of nerves and pressure points that crisscrossed the human body. Very little time had been paid to types of animals other than man, but Maude had a vague feeling, like an old memory itching at the back of her mind, that there was … something.

  She stood and took a clumsy step to the left, slightly turning her back to the cougar. It was a feint and it worked; the cat launched itself at her with a roar. Maude twisted suddenly right and moved her legs to a stable, balanced position. The cat shifted, too, in mid-flight, to compensate for Maude’s trick. Clever girl, Maude thought. It was the only thought she had time for as she saw fangs and claws barreling down on her. Her response was pure instinct; she dropped to one knee and saw the cougar’s belly sail over her, claws flailing wildly at her. From this angle she could strike upward and most likely rupture most of the cat’s major organs. Again, by instinct, Maude didn’t take the killing blow. Instead, she launched herself from the crouch into a spinning flip that brought her above and behind the cougar as they both sailed toward the cave floor.

  Maude slid her arms under one of the cougar’s forelegs and behind the great cat’s neck as they hit the ground. The two tumbled and rolled. Maude hung on as the cat tried to get around and find purchase to rake Maude with her claws, or shake her loose. Maude held on. Quickly, she slid her free arm under and up around the cat’s other foreleg and completed the hold around the mountain lion’s neck. The cat raked her arm as she slipped by it, leaving an ugly, gushing wound on her right forearm. The pain was hot, jagged fire up her arm and shoulder. Maude didn’t let go.

  She now had the mountain lion pinned. She felt the cougar’s vertebra as she gripped the cat’s neck. Using the spine as her map, Maude was confident that the nerves she sought were there. She applied pressure to the site with her thumbs, the exact amount to affect a human. The cougar snarled and thrashed, fighting to get free. As it felt the pressure on its neck it fought harder. It wasn’t working. A thrill of panic ran through Maude, but then she applied more pressure, more. Maude squeezed with all her might and hung on. The cat kicked and clawed as best it could with its rear legs. A stray swipe caught Maude’s shin. The stab of pain made her wince and gasp, but she held on. This would work. This had to work.

  Time expanded and contracted as the struggle continued. The cougar began to shudder; its struggles became weaker and weaker. It made one last violent attempt to break free, which almost succeeded, but Maude held steadfast. Finally the cougar was still, becoming blessed dead weight in Maude’s aching, trembling arms. If she maintained the pressure now, the cougar’s fluttering heart would still. It was the right thing to do, the practical and the tactically sound decision. Her strength was faltering and her wounds were demanding attention. She might not be able to do this again.…

  She let the slumbering cougar slip to the cave floor. If she needed to do this again, she would. She knew it.

  She bound the cougar with knots that would tighten the more the cat struggled to free itself. She wrestled with loose rocks and small boulders to choke up the cistern and conceal it. No other animals would be poisoned by whatever unearthly force slumbered beneath the cold water. Maude went out into the chill predawn of the scrubland and scouted a few plants she needed to undertake what she was trying next: some wild licorice and creosote.

  She ground up the plants she harvested and added some of the powders in her satchel and then worked the compound into the bloody carcass of a small desert hare Maude hunted down and skinned. She left the medicated meal in easy reach of the unconscious and bound cougar. She ran her hands over the cat’s sleek flank, scratched it behind the ears and felt a tremble of a purr rumble in the golden lady’s chest.

  She mended her wounds as best she could, given her resources, applying poultices to the wounds to ease blood loss and minimize infection.

  Maude collapsed, hot, tired and exhausted from battle and blood loss, onto a cool corner of the temple floor. She dreamed of Constance’s city of bones and its inhuman inhabitants.

  She awoke to a low growl and a foul smell. Maude was sore, tired and cold. The wound on her back was warm and pulsing with pain. She stood silently and banished her own discomforts as well as she could, using her training. The mountain lion was awake. It had eaten the hare. It seemed that Maude’s concoction had worked. The cougar had gotten ill and had vomited on the cavern floor. It was thrashing and trying to free itself. Maude approached it slowly.

  “It’s all right, golden lady,” she said, keeping eye contact with the cat. “That feels better, doesn’t it?”

  Maude’s hand flashed out. Her nails sliced through the rope effortlessly. And the action seemed to startle the big cat as it shook off its bonds. Maude stood her ground, her hands at her side. The cougar snarled at her.

  “Go,” Maude said. “I’m glad this ended with no one dead. If you hunt people again, I’ll find you. It won’t end this way twice.”

  The mountain lion ascended the stone stairs out to the open air, to the scrubland. She paused to regard Maude with a roar. Maude met her eyes. The cougar looked away and continued her climb and was gone.

  Maude looked around the temple, frowned at the mystery of it and then began her own climb upward, back to the fading night and the trek to Golgotha. She knew she would make it home.

  Strength

  Mutt shouted to two local men he recognized riding a buckboard wagon down Bick Street, headed out of town. George Minter and Eustace Bloom were new hires, working for Sarah Pratt, the mayor’s wife, out on her ranch. They pulled the wagon to a halt.

  “We got a mess in the alley, fellas—a murder,” Mutt said. “You have horse blankets or cloth we could pitch up to cover up the entrance?”

  “Yeah, I think we do,” George said. “Happy to oblige, Deputy.”

  “You gonna take orders from some damned heathen savage, George?” Eustace rumbled. He was drunk, but even when he was sober Eustace was an ass. “Hell, it’s a damn miracle the fucking ‘deputy’ isn’t running up and down the street, naked and drunk off his ass on firewater.”

  “You caught me on a rare clothed, sober day,” Mutt said, and turned back to George. “Appreciate the help, George.”

  George turned and whispered to Eustace, “You are lucky he’s too busy right now to pay attention to you, or your stupid ass would be in jail.”

  Hatred aimed at you was kind of like being caught in the rain, Mutt reasoned. It was uncomfortable as hell at first but once you were good and soaked in it, you really didn’t pay it too much mind, even though it was still unpleasant. Mutt had been hated by so many people for so long, he hardly felt the sting of it anymore. At least that was what he told himself.

  With George’s help, Mutt was able to nail a pair of horse blankets up as a crude curtain at the entrance of the alley. It was less than two hours to sunup and most folks were off the street by now and home in bed, hoping their wives hadn’t heard them sneak in. A small crowd of the hangers-on gathered on the narrow mud- and shit-rutted path that was Bick Street. Others lurked on the partly warped wooden planks that were laid out on either side of the street, acting as sidewalks to allow gentlefolk to avoid the filth of the road. Many o
f the Dove’s working girls and some of their clients gathered on the porch to see what the commotion was about. There was almost a festive, party atmosphere to the gawkers, which made Mutt want to shoot each and every last one of them in the face. A few of the “Doves” ducked through the side door of their building to peek in the alleyway. When they saw what remained of their sister, the screaming began. The cry went up on the wind. Sadly, such sounds were all too familiar in the night air of Golgotha.

  “Y’all git on back inside now,” Mutt shouted to the girls. Most obeyed, but a few and their male company crept out into the alleyway to get a closer look. Mutt desperately wished the sheriff were here. Jon Highfather was a leader; people respected him, liked him and listened to him. Mutt was none of that on his best day. He didn’t talk pretty and most of the town hated him and the rest were afraid of him. Jon wouldn’t be back till tomorrow, so Mutt had to do it his way and Jon could apologize to everyone for him when he got back.

  “Listen up!” Mutt shouted. “This is now an official investigation of the sheriff’s office.”

  “And what does that mean, Deputy Red Nigger,” one of the drunken miners on the Dove’s porch shouted back. A roar of laughter came up from the crowd. Mutt walked over, grabbed the miner by the collar and pulled him off the porch and over the rail, into the dirt. Mutt drew his pistol as fluidly as breathing and cocked and aimed at the stunned drunk on the ground. Mutt fired a single round. The crowd gasped and a few of the Doves screamed. One swooned and fainted.

  The miner blinked and opened his eyes. There was a smoking bullet hole in the dirt next to his head.

  “That’s Deputy Crazy Red Nigger, sir,” Mutt said loud enough for everyone to hear. “The next one of your pasty-faced lick-fingers who says anything other than ‘yes sir, Mr. Deputy, sir,’ to me, I will put a hole in you and let all the stupid leak out. Y’hear!”