A Lust For Lead (22 page)

The silence that came after that dread tolling of the bell seemed to resonate with its memory. In dark places across the town an eerie grey smoke began to rise. It poured from holes in the ground and from the cracks between floorboards, its smell a bitter mixture of sulphur and nitric acid.
And men emerged from that smoke.
They strode out of it with solemn purpose in their gait: stern, wraith-like figures in clothing that was ragged with holes. Their skin was dry as parchment, pale and yellowed and stretched tight upon their bones. Beneath the shadowed brim of their hats, all that could be seen of their faces were their lipless mouths, grimacing with long, sharp teeth.
Howard Anderson was one of the first invigilators to see them. His patrol had taken him off West Street to the yard behind the bath house and he was startled to see one of the figures striding from the alleyway towards him. Not recognising him, he shouted out a challenge and called for two of his comrades to back him up. The figure did not slow his pace. As he drew closer, his hand reached for the gun at his waist and Anderson did not hesitate to shoot him. At such close range, Anderson could not miss. The shot hit him in the chest, at a place where it should have torn through his heart, but the man did not go down. He drew his revolver and fired, dropping Anderson and his two colleagues in three deadly-accurate shots.
The Cordite stepped over their bodies without a second glance and moved onto West Street. The killing had begun.

The sudden noise of gunfire carried clear across town and alerted the sentries who guarded the perimeter. Frank Hammill was one such man. He twisted on his rooftop perch and looked back across town, where he was surprised to see what looked like mist crawling through the streets. It was the colour of soft lead and seemed to glow softly with an ethereal light.
Curious, Frank brought the scope of his rifle to his eye. It was a powerful German-made Vollmer sight, as expensive and precision-crafted as the rifle it was mounted on. The gun had previously belonged to another invigilator: the man called Penn, who had died in Chastity’s rampage two days earlier. Frank had traded his own rifle and the last of his tobacco to possess it. It was a .45-120 Sharps Creedmoor with a heavy thirty-two inch target barrel and gain-twist rifling. It was a truly exquisite instrument.
The scope had an incredible twenty times magnification and the faint light of the mist made it possible to see in good detail. Frank scanned the road until he spotted two men that he recognised. They were shooting at another man who was walking down the street towards them. Frank had never seen the stranger in town before. He was thin and wiry and carried a single revolver, which he drew lazily, as if unconcerned by the shots that were being fired at him. Looking more closely, Frank fancied that he could see the man’s clothes twitching, as if the bullets were striking him, but he showed no sign of being hurt. He fired his revolver from the hip and Frank tore his eye away from the scope, unable to believe what he was seeing.
The man’s hand moved impossibly fast, fanning the hammer in a blur. Flame spat from the barrel and a volley of shots erupted like a burst from a Gatling gun. Impossibly, he seemed to fire ten times more than just the six shots that the cylinder should have contained, and the two invigilators were ripped down where they stood, falling in a red rain of blood and shredded flesh.
The colour drained from Frank’s face. He was no stranger to violence but he had never witnessed murder on such a scale before. It horrified him, and yet it exerted a sickening urge in him to see more. He put his eye back to the scope and watched as the man stalked past the bodies of the men he had just killed and move on in search of more.
The rooftop creaked behind him but, like everyone in Covenant, Frank was used to the noise of the town settling at night and he thought nothing of it, despite the fact that the buildings had all been eerily quiet since the clock tower had struck twelve. He kept his eye glued to his scope, feeling insulated from the bloodshed by his distance from it. A foul smell washed over him and, suddenly, his scope went black.
Jerking his head back, he was astonished to see a man towering over him. He gripped the barrel of the rifle in one hand, blocking the view through the scope. ‘What the–’
Frank’s words died in his throat as he saw the gaping hole in the man’s forehead: a wound that no man could have taken and survived. It didn’t disfigure him so badly that Frank could not recognise him. ‘Penn?’ he asked incredulously.
Penn’s eyes were as deep and as cold as gun barrels. ‘You’re holding my rifle,’ he said.
Frank’s mouth became too dry to speak. He scrambled to his feet in a burst of energy and tried to wrench the gun from Penn’s grasp and shoot him with it, but Penn’s grip was stronger. He twisted the rifle from Frank’s hands and turned it on him. The gun went off and Frank felt a chilling numbness engulf his chest. He stepped backwards and lost his footing. Silently, he toppled backwards from the roof and landed heavily on the sun-baked earth below, his neck snapping on impact.

‘I don’t understand.’ Madison said.
Shane was not running but he was walking quickly and with such long strides that she was finding it difficult to keep up. ‘I thought Nathaniel said he could control them.’
‘I don’t think Nathaniel ever really understood what he was doing.’ Shane told her. His words were drowned by the sound of gunfire close-by. Shane pressed himself flat against the wall as a small group of invigilators ran past him. They had only just woken and one man had not even had time to tug on his boots before joining the fray.
They did not see him and Shane waited until they had gone before hurrying out across the road. He held Chastity tightly in his arms. The atmosphere of the town had changed since the clock had struck. Whereas before it had seemed like a dead place, now the streets felt horribly alive, coursing with an energy that sang deep within Shane’s soul. It touched him on a primal level, exciting him with promises that tempted him to go to the Cordites and join them. It was only that he understood the price they demanded of him that he found the strength to resist them.
Chastity had no such insights. She squirmed and wriggled against his grasp and cried out from time to time in a voice that was choked with need. Shane held on to her tightly, determined not to let her go. If he had doubted before that he should take her with him, those doubts were gone now. He was certain that what he was doing was right. It was not about redemption. It was not about atonement. It was just something that needed to be done. For all of his many failings, Shane refused to be the sort of man who would abandon a girl like her to become a Cordite.
He refused to be that much of a coward.
Resisting the urge to run, he strode purposefully along the edge of the street. Another invigilator ran out in front of him but did not see him. He was too intent on escaping from whoever was chasing him. There was the sound of a shot and Shane ducked as the side of one of the nearby houses exploded as if hit by a cannonball.
The invigilator was blown from his feet. Splinters of burning wood rained down around him and he screamed as he tried to stand. One of the splinters had become embedded in his thigh. He clutched at it, his hands becoming slick with blood as he yanked it out.
A Cordite strode through the smoke and flames of the devastated building. He was a tall man with broad shoulders and a straight back. In his hand he gripped a breach-loading pistol, from which he tugged a spent cartridge and inserted a fresh one.
The invigilator scrambled to his feet and started running again, favouring his wounded leg and gasping with pain and fear.
The Cordite took aim and fired. He did not miss and the invigilator’s body exploded like a pumpkin hit by a shotgun blast.
Madison covered her face with her hands and looked away, whimpering. The Cordite opened the breach of his pistol and plucked out the empty cartridge, then inserted a new one and walked on by, seemingly attracted to a band of invigilators who had gathered further down the street. He did not seem to be aware that Shane and Madison were nearby.
‘That was Mark Crowood,’ she whispered, once he was out of earshot.
Shane nodded in agreement. Crowood was one of the six men who had won the first tournament. He had always been known to favour the heavy .50 calibre Remington 1871 Rolling Block pistol over the more popular six-shooters, reasoning that it was better to fire one shot and make it count than shoot six and waste them all.
The .50 calibre pistol was well-known for its devastating stopping power but since Crowood had bonded with it and become a Cordite it had clearly become an even more devastating weapon. Shane had seen horse-drawn artillery that hit with less force.
He noticed that Madison’s face had gone white with shock and her eyes were distant. He thought about killing her. From this point onwards she would only slow him down. Then again, she might yet be useful to him. She carried the food and water and he would need somebody to mind Chastity while he saddled his horse. He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her after him.

The stable door was open when Shane got there and several of the horses were missing. No doubt some of the invigilators had tried to get out of town; the ostler being one of them. There was nobody guarding the horses, for which Shane was thankful.
The building stank of sweat and fear. Horses had senses that humans lacked and knew as well as Shane what sort of nightmare was loose in town. A couple of them looked ready to kick down the gates, and their panic was spreading among the others.
Shane closed the door behind him and lit a lantern. While he did so, he heard a retching noise as Madison doubled over and was sick onto the floor.
‘Feeling better now?’ he asked her.
She wiped her lips and nodded. ‘I never . . . .’ She could not finish her sentence.
Shane gave her the courtesy of not looking at her while she cleaned herself up. He had been a few years younger than her and fighting in the Civil War when he had first witnessed killing on such a massive scale. He set Chastity down on the floor and gave her into Madison’s care. ‘Keep a close eye on her,’ he warned.
Madison grabbed her tightly by the wrist. The girl stared straight past her, looking about the room with wide eyes as if tracking things only she could see.
‘You could be one of them couldn’t you?’ Madison said. ‘Like Crowood, I mean.’
‘That’s right.’ Shane replied.
‘So why don’t you?’
He looked at her sternly. ‘You’d want to be one of those things?’
‘Rather one of them than one of the invigilators right now,’ she replied, and in a weak voice added: ‘I don’t want to die here.’
Shane turned his back on her. ‘There are worse things than dying,’ he told her.

Buchanan had been dreaming when the striking of the clock tower woke him. He surfaced from red memories of rape and bloodshed not knowing if the sound was real or just an echo of his dreams and he lay still for a time, uncertain of himself, until the first gunshots made him sit upright and reach for his revolver.
He crossed to the window in his jeans, his heart hammering with excitement, and looked out onto the bedlam that had seized the town. Alarm had been called and he saw invigilators running to the summons through streets that were choked with luminous grey smoke.
He knew at once what was happening.
He tipped his head back and whooped with joy, his voice echoing through the building, dropping slowly into a manic laughter.
They had arrived!
Buchanan was rapturous. His long wait was finally at an end. The Cordites had arrived and he would meet them! At last, after all this time, all his long years of faithful patience would be rewarded. He was so moved that he wept.
He shouted his encouragement as the gunfire cracked in the streets below. The invigilators were dying and he revelled in it. There was scarcely a man of them who had the slightest idea what the Fastest Guns really were and Buchanan had despised them for as long as he had known them. He had suffered their boasting, their claims of how they were worthy. Well, now they would learn the truth.
He paused, a worm of fear gnawing at its gut. As the ecstasy of his joy evaporated, it occurred to him that this was not the great arrival that Nathaniel had envisioned. The trap had not been sprung. The Cordites had not been bound by Whisperer’s magic; they were free.
And Buchanan suddenly knew fear, because the truth – the awful truth that it hurt so badly to admit to himself – was that he was no more worthy of the Fastest Guns than the invigilators he despised. Maybe once they would have embraced him, taken him to their breast and shared with him their power. But not now. He stared at his stunted hand in loathing. He was nothing!
He stepped away from the window, sobbing to himself. Crestfallen, his joy and his fear hardened inside his gut, tightening into a knot of white-hot anger that exploded from him in a rage. He scattered the room’s furniture, smashing it against the walls, spitting a violent stream of cuss-words without sense or meaning.
It was not fair!
He had waited. He had been patient. He had been faithful. And yet it was all for nothing.
‘Nothing!’ he roared. He slammed his good fist into the wall, breaking through the thin plasterboard and bloodying his knuckles. The pain meant nothing to him. All he could think of were the people who had brought this failure on him: Nathaniel, Whisperer, Shane.
‘Shane.’ He hissed the name to himself.
Yes, it made sense now. Who else could have lured the Cordites out of hiding? It was because of Shane that the Cordites had turned their back on him last time; now he was doing it again! Buchanan’s rage hardened into something tight and compressed. It formed a black hole inside his chest that dragged in all his wayward thoughts with the crushing weight of its emotional gravity, focussing his intentions. The red mist of his anger dissipated and he could see clearly again.
Buchanan knew he was going to die. There was no escaping the Cordites, no defeating them. But if he was going to die then he would make certain that he took Shane with him. He would have the satisfaction of completing his revenge.

Beyond of the stable’s walls, Madison could hear the continuing sound of gunfire as the Cordites stalked the streets, killing everyone they found. Inside, the horses were getting more and more nervous and Madison was becoming anxious. She suspected that they could sense when the demons were getting closer.
‘Do all the Cordites carry guns like Crowood’s?’ she asked Shane nervously.
Shane was in the stall, saddling his horse. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘It depends.’
‘Depends on what?’
‘Depends on the fighter, and the gun. The qualities they possessed in life get exaggerated. Crowood carried a powerful gun, so now it shoots like a cannon. A man who was quick on the draw would probably move even faster. Someone who could shoot long-range might be able to shoot you from over a mile away.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I just know,’ he answered vaguely.
He finished and climbed out over the top of the stall. ‘Which one’s yours?’ he asked.
Madison’s horse was nothing special. She selected a better-looking one instead. ‘Him.’
‘He is a she,’ Shane corrected her, but he did not argue. He chose a saddle and bridle and climbed into the stall. The horse snorted at him. ‘Easy,’ he told her, and put out a hand to touch her, to reassure her that he meant her no harm.
From somewhere outside, a loud burst of rapid gunfire rang out like a jagged crack of thunder. The horse stamped away from him.
‘Get over here and help me,’ he said.
Madison came over and set her carpet bag down on the floor. She waited while Shane attached the bridle, then held the reins for him while he put on the saddle. The horse shook its head nervously.
‘Hold her steady!’
‘I’m trying.’
Madison was holding onto the reins when she heard the door open behind her. Cold fingers of alarm seized hold of her heart and she glanced over her shoulder to see a man walk slowly in. Thinking that he was one of the Cordites, Madison let go of the reins with a cry and snatched hold of Chastity’s hand. The newcomer fired at her as she dragged the girl into the nearest empty stall, but the shot missed and took a splinter out of the gatepost as she ran through.
The shot startled the horse and Shane narrowly leapt out from under its legs. He took shelter, pressing himself flat against the wooden wall, and drew his legs up against his chest to keep them from getting trampled on. He peered between the bars of the stall and saw the man come stalking towards him. He cursed silently under his breath when he recognised that it was Castor Buchanan.
‘I thought I’d find you in here, Shane. It’s a long way across the desert to go it on foot.’
The layout of the stalls blocked his line of sight, preventing him from taking a shot, but he could tell where Shane was and strolled leisurely down the aisle towards him.
‘Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?’ Buchanan asked maliciously.
Shane moved to avoid Madison’s horse stepping on him.
‘I can hear you!’ Buchanan called in a sing-song voice. ‘Come out and play with me, Shane. You too, girly!’ he called out to Madison. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you.’
Shane contemplated trying to rush him but didn’t favour the odds. There were too many obstacles barring his path and Buchanan was a good enough shot with his left hand to make short work of Shane the moment he got out in the open.
The horse in the stall next to him snorted nervously as Buchanan drew closer. Shane looked through the wooden bars that separated them and regarded the animal with a critical eye. It was a healthy stallion, but frightened by what was happening in the town. By the look of things, it had already kicked the gate several times and the hinges had broken.
Shane had an idea. He drew his knife and slashed out, raking the blade across the horse’s rump. The animal reared in panic and bolted for the gate. It broke through with a single kick and the beast ran out into the aisle. Buchanan leapt out of its path and narrowly avoided getting trampled beneath its hooves. He swore loudly and the horse, wild with terror, reared up onto its hind-legs and kicked at him. He retreated, firing into its belly at close range. Shane leapt the gate during the confusion and ran across the aisle to where Madison was cowering. He snatched Chastity out of her arms and bolted for the back of the stable, where there was another door.
Buchanan saw him and opened fire but the rearing stallion got in the way. Two shots sank into its neck and the horse pitched sideways and fell to the ground. By then, Shane had already reached the door and was out into the night. A bullet gouged splinters from the doorframe as Madison ran after him.
‘Run Shane!’ Buchanan yelled after him. ‘Go on, run! It won’t do you any good.’
The stallion lay before him, blocking the aisle, still kicking and thrashing in its death throes. Buchanan broke open his revolver and reloaded six cartridges into the cylinder. He shot the horse until it stopped moving and then stepped over the body.
‘You won’t escape me this time, Shane,’ he promised.