Devlin's Curse (6 page)

Chapter Seven

Maelstrom

T
he play inside the Emerald Salon was in full swing. Roulette wheels whirled and the card tables were full and liquor flowed. Upstairs in the back rooms Esmeralda received another patient.

Kate was a hurdy girl from the Brick Brothel, a buxom blond, and an Irish immigrant. For several days she had lain naked and feverish in a hipbath. She swore that snakes had entered her stomach and she’d tried to cut them out with a knife before another prostitute had taken the knife from her. She had thrashed about in pain and desperation. Finally the madam of the house had tied up her limbs and given her opium but to no avail. She screamed and thrashed as she became increasingly violent. She was convinced that she had been violated by the Devil.

Eventually five sturdy men carried her bound and gagged to Esmeralda.  She lay now with her feet and wrists tied to the four-poster bed. Esmeralda bathed her in salt water then took up a cross, made from two pieces of rowan wood, bound together with red thread.  She held it above the girl’s head as she spoke words of magic over her

“
By the goddess, Diana and this holy cross of Rowan, by fire and water, I purify thee. I, Esmeralda, caste out and forbid all hostile forces and entities that may enter the corporal body of this girl. I forbid you her flesh and blood, her body and soul, I forbid and deny your entrance to her mind, fears and strengths, I caste out all demons and entities in the name of the God and Goddess. That she shall be free and whole, cleansed form all negativity. And shall refrain from all Evil and dark thoughts and actions
.”

While she spoke, a young Chinese man and Esmeralda’s assistant, Kuong Woo placed acupuncture needles in strategic areas. The acrid scent of burning herbs filled the air. Kate writhed and thrashed. Her eyes rolled up in her head. She placed the rowan cross around Kate’s neck.

“What do you see, Kate?” Esmeralda asked.

Kate’s eyes focused suddenly. “Them eyes, burning like coals, they are. I kin feel em burnin’ me. The Devil he’s got inside me.” She began to retch violently.

Esmeralda motioned for a washbasin and it arrived just in time for Kate to vomit a large blood red mass of writhing worms. After a while Kate became still, Her body clothes and sheet sodden with sweat. “Is that it? Is the Devil outta her?” Came a question by one of the women that had accompanied Kate.

Esmeralda nodded. “She needs sleep. She can stay here overnight and I will send word to you tomorrow morning.”

After the women left Esmeralda washed and changed. It was not the first time she had heard about the burning devil’s eyes. She had seen them in her dreams lately. They floated in the darkness, watching, just beyond the realm of her consciousness. For that reason she was careful to cleanse herself after each session. She did not wish to bring any of the negative energy into her salon or onto her person. She had studied demonic possessions and observed that the possessed were often weakened in some way, physically, spiritually or emotionally in order for the demonic energy to enter the body. After Red Bluff, and what had transpired there, she never wanted to find herself in the position of being vulnerable again.

Laredo swaggered into the Bucket of Blood. He sat down at the table where Miguel and Leonard were playing a game of cards.

“Hey Amigo what has you all swollen up like a rooster? Miguel commented.

“You two can kiss my arse, that hunner’t dollar reward is in my pocket.”

Leonard narrowed his eyes. Miguel rocked back in his chair.

“You took care of him, Amigo?”

Laredo grinned. “Him an’ that Injun is now buried under a mountain of dirt where they belong.”

“Don’t be so sure, men have survived cave-ins. I won’t believe it until I see his body.” Leonard said. 

Laredo laughed. “Yer just sour bout it cause he run roughshod over you with that red haired sportin’ gal.”

Leonard flushed. “Shut the hell up, Laredo!”

Miguel shrugged. “If they cannot dig him out we may never know and El Diablo may just go back to his Lair.”

“The amount of dynamite I put in that charge? Ain’t nothing gonna survive that lest they are El Diablo, an he’s just some friggin’ cardsharp what’s good with a gun.”

Miguel laughed. “Drinks are on you Amigo!”

“Cave in! Cave in at the Gilded Bird!”

The cry started on the boardwalk, eventually moved up to B Street and was finally shouted through the doors of the Emerald Salon. Patrons milled around the tables and the bar. They talked and traded stories and speculations regarding mining accidents while drinking fine spirits and puffing on cigars.

Esmeralda waved Jamie over to her table. She folded the hand she was playing and motioned for another dealer to take over. The noise and talk made by her patrons almost drowned out their voices. “Jamie I want you to get some men together and give them whatever they need to help those men down at the mine. A cave in is tragic business.”

Jamie nodded. “Yes ma’am, right away”

“And Jamie, wait a moment, who is the owner of the Gilded Bird mine?”

Jamie shrugged his shoulders. “It’s that gambler, what’s come to town. Devlin Winter. He won the mine from John Anderson.”

Esmeralda swayed and caught the back of a chair to steady herself.

“You alright Ma’am?” Jamie asked.

She nodded her head. “Yes.” Inside she felt as if the ground had shifted beneath her. Devlin! Could he be hurt from this or even killed? She handed her table to another dealer. “Belle, take over my table. I am going down to help with the cave in.”

Esmeralda hurried out of the room and up the stairs. She needed to change into some more practical clothes. She removed her gown and replaced it with a plain cotton dress and then filled a carpetbag with medicines, bandages and whiskey. She’d already instructed Jamie to go into the kitchen with a large basket to gather up some food and water.

Soon, laden with supplies, they walked down to C Street to the livery stable to find a wagon to take them to the Gilded Bird mine.

When the dust settled, the Gilded Bird was plunged into the pitch black of a sepulchral tomb. Luckily, Devlin and Walking Ghost had nearly reached the entrance before the mine caved in. Heavy timbers used to brace the mineshafts had partially shielded them from being crushed alive. Their lanterns had all been shattered but Walking Ghost had fortunately brought along a couple of
tommy sticks
– candlesticks mounted on thin pointed spikes. He now fumbled in his pack for a candle stub and matches and lit them. When the feeble light flared, they looked around to see themselves surrounded by dirt, rocks and timber. They were walled in on all sides. The support timbers creaked ominously, pebbles dropped steadily down on them and there was scarcely enough room to turn around.

Devlin was furious. He peered through the dust and gloom looking for Walking Ghost. When he appeared by his side he could see that his friend was pretty scraped up. Devlin himself was unhurt.

“Are you alright?” Devlin asked.

Walking Ghost rubbed the dirt from his eyes and nodded.

“This has got to be a planned ambush. A situation that is almost funny my friend for what better way for an immortal to die than be buried alive” Devlin continued, “I blame myself for not seeing it beforehand.

“They think we’re dead but we’re stronger that that. When we get out of here we will have to kill them.” Walking Ghost replied.

Devlin nodded grimly. “I agree. Luckily, we were almost to the entrance when it caved in on us. We may be able to dig our way out. Big Jim and his hired guns had better pray for death, for death will be their reward when we get through with them.”

Walking Ghost coughed. “ Death might not be enough if we are to fight against this new enemy, much like before”

“ If it has a head it may be parted from it’s body, then sent back to Hell”

Devlin said as he caressed the cold steel of his sword, and coddled it with a promise of fresh blood.

His need for vengeance expanded like a flame inside of him one that he was sure would burn through the confines of the collapsed mine.

Esmeralda’s face floated towards him in his minds eye. He could feel her thoughts piercing him like glass.  As Walking Ghost might say they were caught between the buffalo and the lance, powerless, waiting for a rescue that may or may not ever come.

Something he refused to believe.

  Above ground, miners and engineers gathered around the collapsed entrance to the mine. A doctor and an undertaker were among the first to arrive. They parked their wagons side by side. After much deliberation the rescuers began to unblock the entrance. They estimated several days were needed to clear enough rubble to get to the mineshaft.  One by one buckets and wheelbarrows of rock and debris were carried away. Esmeralda and Jaime joined the bucket line alongside volunteers from every walk of life. For hours they removed the stones and debris. For hours they worked until their fingers bled. The only breaks they took were when the black garbed suffragettes, walked up from the town and served them hot coffee and sandwiches.

As she worked Esmeralda was careful to keep her hair covered by a scarf so that not a wisp was shown; she knew all about the miner’s superstition. It claimed red haired women were bad luck, or worse, their presence heralded death. She prayed it was not true.

As she worked she wondered if immortal vampires, like Devlin, could be buried alive. With her psychic powers she could feel the press of darkness around him.

“Hang on, damn you!” she called out in her mind, and willed him to hear.

In the bowels of the mine the Beast stirred restlessly. The quaking earth had driven it from one bottomless crevice to another. Its sightless eyes sensed the heat of two bodies.

One was mortal and one was immortal.

Insulated beneath an armory of scales was a creature that was ravenous for the taste of blood and bone. It flattened its shape and slithered as easily as a vapor through the smallest of holes towards the human scent.

After a few short hours Devlin and Walking Ghost had used up the last of the candle stubs. They now worked in total darkness feeling for the rubble before them to move it inch by inch by inch. Thirst consumed them. Walking Ghost had drained the last dregs of water from the canteen. Devlin, though, had not had a drop. The smell of sulfur made the air close and stuffy. The cloying darkness created what miners knew as ‘night blindness’ in which the darkness became a blank canvass and provided an environment ripe for nightmarish visions.

Walking Ghost paused. He dropped a last handful of rubble at his feet. He could see Spider Woman. She stood before him, bent and wizened, smoking her corncob pipe.

“I ain’t never seen an Injun yet what gave up without a fight.” She harangued him. “You just keep diggin’ I can see the daylight up ahead.”

He gasped and stepped back. “Spider Woman…” 

“It’s all right. I can see her too my friend,” Devlin rasped. 

They dug on for several minutes.

As a vampire Devlin’s vision was as sharp in the gloom of the mine as it was in the daylight. Out of the corner of an eye he saw a serpentine slither. He drew his sword and swung it. A piercing shriek filled the humid air. Walking Ghost stumbled forward his hands covered his ears.

The cry penetrated the rubble to the rescuers outside. When they heard the cry they paused in their labors then raised a ragged cheer. It was with renewed energy they attacked the mounds of fallen rocks. Once they knew there were men alive down in the Gilded Bird it was a race against time.

Momentarily they looked at each other but no one voiced the unspoken truth. It could be days before they broke through. Days before the trapped men had food or water. Days while the tainted air got thinner and thinner, until the men ran out of oxygen entirely.

Side by side men and women increased their efforts and worked around the clock.

After what felt like an eternity, in the close confines of their debris choked prison, Devlin and walking Ghost heard a faint cry,

“Haaaaloow in there!”

They shouted back.

Twenty-four hours later the townsfolk had tied a chain around a large stone, the one that blocked the entrance of the mine and hitched it to a four mule team. With a great heave it came tumbling free.

When the dust cleared Devlin and Walking Ghost emerged from the mine.

Esmeralda rose unsteadily to her feet. She hung on Jamie’s arm for support.

“You alright, Miss Esmeralda? You need to set down a spell?” he asked.

Esmeralda wanted to run to Devlin but hung back.  He was safe that is all she cared about. She pulled her scarf close over her hair and with Jamie at her side made her way through the crowd and back down to Town.

Chapter Eight

Reckoning

F
or days Laredo had been riding high on his dirty deed.  He drank whiskey and bragged about how he put the lights out for a certain gambler. Winter had tried to make him look yellow in front of the whole town; well he had shown them all. That gambler and his dirty Paiute sidekick were dead as doornails by now. Washed up and suffocated by the blast he set to destroy the mine. He used the last of Big Jim’s hundred dollar reward to buy another round. As long as the alcohol flowed he had an audience because everyone in town knew him to be nothing but a trumped up jackass with a trigger finger. He poured himself a shot and pounded it back.

The sound of the door to the saloon being flung open startled him. A ragged young newsboy popped his head into the saloon and shouted. “Thier alive! Thier alive, survivors found in the Gilded Bird mine”

Laredo gagged and spewed his whiskey.

Fit to be tied he grabbed the poor boy by the collar and shook him. “What the hell is you spoutin’ about boy!”

The boy squirmed. “It’s that gambler and that Injun, they were found alive.”

Furious, Laredo flung the boy away from him. The boy stumbled and fell onto the sawdust floor. Laredo pushed himself away from the bar and started towards the door but before he could reach it a shadow blocked his view.

He looked up and saw that the gambler,

Devlin Winter stood there. Whole, and in the flesh, dressed immaculately with not a speck of dust soiling his black frock coat or the brim of his hat.

“Going somewhere Laredo?” he drawled.

Laredo rocked back on his heels. His eyes bugged out. “You!”

“Surprised to see me alive? Don’t worry it won’t be for long. You won’t be seeing anything after I plant a 44 slug between your damned eyes.”

Devlin drew back his coat and rested his hand on his gun. 

Laredo blustered.  “Oh Yeah, well mister I ain’t scared a you, won’t be the first time sum’ un thought they could kill me. You can take your best shot.”

The crowd in the saloon had parted around them muttering. The bartender reached for his shotgun but Devlin spoke out. “There’s no need for that. If Laredo wants to settle a score with me he can meet me at the corner of Taylor and A Street at noon.” He took an antique silver watch out of his vest and perused it. “You have ten minutes.” With those words he turned and walked out the door.

Devlin waited for him and took a casual stance in the very center of the street. He had no doubt that Laredo would follow him, along with half the drunks, on the boardwalk. He stood motionless while Laredo walked jerkily up the hill.

It took a minute for the stupefied expression to leave his face but by then Laredo found himself on Taylor and A Street where small crowd had gathered. Now he looked stone cold sober, and from the expression on his face – scared to death, the alcohol that had soaked his brain all but evaporated by the hammering of his heart.

Devlin and Laredo faced each other. They stood about fifty feet apart. For a split second they were motionless. Then leather was slapped and two shots rang out.

Laredo was flung backwards and a thin stream of blood ribboned out around him. When he hit the ground Devlin replaced his smoking gun in his holster. He walked and stood over Laredo’s lifeless body. He flipped a playing card out of the pocket of his vest. The Ace of spades fluttered down to stick over the ragged bullet hole between Laredo’s sightless eyes.  

Devlin knew then that the reckoning had begun.

A maelstrom would be drawn to him and his curse, setting the wheels in motion for the confrontation that was sure to come. He glanced at the crowd that had gathered for the gunfight. He saw Esmeralda standing under a tree and a serpent of dread wound its way through his mind. He would have to ask Walking Ghost to shadow her every move. He had no doubt that history was repeating itself placing him directly in the path of the Demon; one that he must slay again and again. Perhaps it was fortunate he was immortal after all? Mortal man had proven to be fodder to such evil, easily possessed and corrupted. It especially preyed on the weak, the vain and the drunk.

After the fatal shot sent Laredo home to Hell, a brief silence filled the air for a space of a few seconds, then the noise of the town resumed. Not one person made an attempt to approach Devlin. No one took notice as he walked away and left a pack of ragged drunks to swarm over Laredo like flies on a road apple while they emptied his pockets and pulled off his boots. 

There was one person that did watch Devlin go.

Mr. Leonard White had witnessed the speed in which the gambler had drilled Laredo and he now knew for certain that he dared not meet Devlin face to face. Dry gulching was the only way he could be sure to plant the gambler for good. Fortunately ol’ Leonard White knew a fair amount about that.

After the gunfight, Devlin walked swiftly to intercept Esmeralda before she could flee back to her salon. He blocked her path. Esmeralda would not meet his eyes. He reached out and took her arm.

“Angel?”

She pulled her arm free and looked up at him. Her green eyes blazed with fury.

“Oh God Devlin. Wasn’t it enough to be trapped in that mine? Was this display necessary?”

“Laredo had it coming, he set the charge that buried Walking Ghost and me in that mine. His associates had better think twice before they try to harm those that are under my protection,” he said.

“Does that include me?” Esmeralda asked. Things had begun to take a sinister turn. “To be under your protection is to be a part of the danger, surely”

“Yes.” He stared at her. She tried to hide the expression on her face.

But he knew.

Devlin smiled slightly.

“Open the door to me tonight Angel,” he said.

Chinatown was one vast living organism. It was like a giant web with Grandfather Woo in the center. There was not a single whisper from C Street and above that did not come to his ear. The events of the past few days had been gossiped about and even bet upon in the Chinese lotteries. Chinese servants worked tirelessly in all the great houses, and as the silent backbone of Virginia City they provided everything from fresh vegetables, firewood and laundry services to opium.

Woo was the English word for Wu. Chinese for sorcerer, spirit medium and doctor. Grandfather was all of these and came from a long line of Wu’s. In their native China the Wu family was revered, feared even, for their extraordinary talents of magic and healing.

This particular branch of the Wu family tree, were the guardians of the Demon, or Beast, the Red Dragon of the earth. They were experts in demonic possession and spirit warfare. Their presence in Virginia City was the same as in many mining towns where the excavation of the mines had opened portals to the lairs of Demons. Through ritual and sacrifice they had held these Demons at bay but what concerned them now was the extraordinary fascination between Big Jim Diamond and the Demon of the Gilded Bird Mine.

Grandfather Woo and his three young sons gathered in the back of the herb store. Grandmother Woo and two young Chinese women moved silently behind them serving them tea and lighting their pipes.

“My sons,” Grandfather said, as he puffed on his long pipe, “a demon, like the one that killed your brother Hop, is here in Virginia City. As you all know, for hundreds of years this family have been the guardians of that evil and now Chow, my number two son, you are the guardian of the Demons host, a bloated water buffalo that calls himself Big Jim.”

Chow sat up straight and smoothed the front of his black silk suit. “It would be easy, most honorable father, to kill this host. He is not only disgusting but he is addicted to the poppy flower.”

Grandfather Woo disagreed. “No my son, there are other mysterious things happening. The Jiang Shi, the blood drinkers, they are here. And now this gambler, Devlin, their Lord, is in Virginia City as well. No we must wait, observe.”

“What about our brother? Must he not be avenged Father?” Chow asked
.

“There is something different at the center of this my sons until it is revealed we must take no action.” Grandfather replied.

The scavenger Wing watched from the shadows as the sons of Woo entered the Herbalist shop. He hated Grandfather Woo and his family. He was tired of the scraps that they threw his way along with the beatings that he received from Grandmother’s broom handle when she caught him harassing her customers. He crept closer and put his ear to the door. What he heard did not immediately register in his opium pickled brain, stuff about dragons and the Jaing Shi. All he knew was, if that old donkey’s pizzle, Grandfather Woo, was involved there was sure to be some profit in it and this time he wanted a share in it. They were whispering secrets like old women and Wing was a peddler of secrets, to the highest bidder, of course.

All sorts of people made their way down to Chinatown and to Wing’s tent. Sooner or later he would hear something, a word dropped here and there. A boast or a confession blurted out in the midst of an opium delirium.

He laughed soundlessly, then spit on the porch, and crept away into the dark.