Devlin's Curse (8 page)

Esmeralda smiled. “I am not sure that is a compliment. Lilies are for funerals.”

“Lilies are the flower of Juno, the queen of the gods and you, my dear, are my queen.”

His compliment overwhelmed her yet she was not ready, in this lifetime, to become his queen. She did not answer but took them from him and placed them in a ceramic urn. “Thank you. Let us go to the theater now I don’t want to be late”.

They walked the short distance to Pipers Opera House, going first into the Corner Bar located in the building, for a glass of wine and some oysters, which only Esmeralda ate before the show.

For this special evening, Devlin had procured one of the millionaire’s private boxes. An elegantly appointed private box hung with red velvet curtains to the right of the stage that provided them with a perfect view of the performance. A box that was also conveniently located opposite the one that was occupied by Big Jim and his cronies. Devlin sensed their stares when they took their seats but tonight his eyes were only for the woman who sat next to him. 

He nuzzled her neck. “I can’t get enough of you Angel,” he whispered. You are like a sweet blood red wine. I could sip for all eternity.”

She moved away. He wanted to keep her close but knew he was a bastard who would try to press her for more.              When the curtain went up and the lights dimmed, they exchanged glances. He pressed a kiss into her gloved palm.

When Big Jim saw Devlin and a woman arrive at the opera house he felt his evening, had been ruined.  He had come to Pipers to be seen, not only by those that he wished to impress but also by those who feared him. This night he had brought Leonard White and his little black haired slut along with him. He turned towards Leonard. 

“White, who is that woman with Winter?

Leonard’s eyes shifted. “She’s, ain't no one special just that Monte dealer from the Emerald Salon.”

Big Jim nodded. He puffed thoughtfully on his cigar.  Maybe there was something between the gambler and that woman. He could see even from the distance how Winter fawned over her. He gulped his glass of champagne. Devlin Winter, mortal or not, may have a weakness after all.

Maybe this evening has begun to shape up after all,
he thought.

Devlin had begun to understand the power Esmeralda wielded over him. As they strolled arm in arm back to her salon he felt incredibly human. The smells of foods wafting through the air were suddenly tempting. Every sensation, the evening air, the feel of Esmeralda’s skin was different this night.  A silent communication passed between them. An urgency that made them rush up the back stairs to her rooms.

The door to Esmeralda’s boudoir had barely slammed shut before Devlin attacked her passionately. He kissed her lips, her neck and her shoulders.

Esmeralda drew back from him.

She placed her hands on his cheeks and looked into his eyes. “Slowly, Devlin, let us savor this.”

Devlin grasped her hands in his. Her scent enveloped him and raw desire pulsed through him. He forced himself to go slow, to kiss her neck as his hands reached around to the back of her gown and popped loose the long row of buttons. He divested himself of his hat and his fine suit of clothes and tossed them carelessly onto a chair.

He removed the silk confection of her skirt and bustle and threw it in the direction of his own clothes. Her corset followed until all that was left were her stockings and undergarments. He ran his hands up and under her pantalets. Esmeralda expelled the breath she unconsciously held as she exulted in the deep consuming energy surging between them. He pulled her close and placed himself between her thighs. She wrapped her legs around him. His hand came between them and his fingers found the tender folds of her flesh. He rubbed her sensitive nub inserting one finger then two into her moist center. She savored the building tension. Her head fell back against the pillows when then she felt his cock enter her, deep and sure. He hesitated for a moment.

Esmeralda’s eyelids flew open. “No Devlin, no don’t stop, I need...”

“What is it that you need Angel? Is it this?”

He pulled himself almost all the way out to tease her sensitive love petals.

Esmeralda tried to pull him closer with her legs.

“Devlin!” she cried.

For a moment he resisted, then drove himself into her to the hilt, his hips twisting sensuously.

Esmeralda took him in fully and matched his rhythm. They rolled together in abandon on her plush feather mattress. She found it hard to breathe as a delicious tension continued to build between her and Devlin, higher and higher until she slipped over the brink into ecstasy.

Chapter Eleven

The Beast

T
here were some things, hidden and obscene that had existed from the beginning of time. The thing that lurked at the bottom of the Gilded Bird Mine was one such creature. A demonic entity that sometimes manifested itself as a red dragon or serpent but was capable of many forms.

Some ancient writings described it as crawling out of the mud of a dark Egyptian river, or a Babylonian temple. Others believed that it was a Typhonian creature born from the open wound of a sinister god. Thousands of years ago it had been banished to the bowels of the earth. Throughout the ages it had been the cause of chaos and plagues whenever it had been brought up from its dark lair.

But fearsome as it was it still needed a human host to free it from its earthly prison.

It needed someone that was corrupt and rotten to the core; someone that could be lured by greed and gold. 

Big Jim was the Beast’s chosen one, a puppet to its evil, and the only human that could set it free. The Beast fed on anger, discord and every violent act perpetrated by its host made it stronger. 

The cave-in at the mine had buried it deeper instead of freeing it. Now it reached out to bedevil the thoughts and dreams of Big Jim.

Whisperings, demands and tremors that shook Big Jim’s body spasmodically, convinced him that something or someone had followed him out of the mine on that fateful day. He believed the fact that he survived and the others were torn to pieces was not a coincidence.

Big Jim had begun to fear the night and only when he had puffed on the opium pipe until he fell into a stupor could he sleep. Even then he was dogged by strange disturbing dreams as if a dark destiny awaited him.

After his return home, from the performance at Piper’s, he called immediately for his pipe. It only took a few deep inhalations before he was transported to a strange place. He found himself on a blood soaked battlefield where the sound of swords rang through the air. He swung a battle-axe in a huge arc and split the skulls of all who approached him. His eyes burned red in his bearded face. Arrows pierced his back but he pulled them out one by one yet mysteriously the bloody arrow holes stopped bleeding and closed. He was attacked from all sides but he felt no pain and he could not die. A surge of strength flowed through him. He was immortal. Something that all the gold in the Nevada territory could never buy him, at least not yet.

He dreamt on, his fantasies turning darker and darker and more bizarre. He saw the teasing vision of Esmeralda Jones, heard once again that terrible voice

“You will bring me a mortal vessel…” 

He filled his opium pipe over and over until he lay in a stupefied state upon the settee in his cold parlor. The fire had long gone out.

Yet in the corner of that same parlor, Chow Woo sat motionless and listened to the wild mumbling of his employer. He knew Big Jim was as crazy as a shit house rat. He watched the effects of the poppy flower, which ate Big Jim’s brain. He knew the drug created fissures in which the stinking pus of demons could enter.

Chow Woo reached into the sleeve of his silk pajamas and felt his razor sharp stiletto.

It would be so easy to plunge it into one of those bloodshot eyes. But I must have patience
.  He thought.

Leonard rented a room in a sketchy part of town a two story boarding house at the very end of C Street. After leaving Pipers Opera house he faked a stomachache and went straight home. Big Jim had not taken him and his information seriously in fact he considered the man to be downright condescending. He treated his news about Devlin as if they were the ramblings of a lunatic.

Well, it made no never mind to Leonard. He had seen what he had seen. And if Big Jim did not see fit to believe him then it would be his own high and mighty ass in a sling,
he thought.
 

He grew up huddled at the base of his Grand mammies skirt while she drove demons from people in the neighborhood. The experience had shown him a thing or two. When he closed his door and threw the bolt to secure it he reached under his bed for his ratty carpetbag. Inside was a leather pouch. He emptied the contents on the bed. Silver and gold rings, bracelets and watches and an emerald green ribbon bounced out onto the threadbare spread. He fingered the silver rings, separated them from the rest, and then stowed them in his vest pocket. Tomorrow he would make a visit to the blacksmith and also to the Catholic Church.

He was convinced Big Jim would reward him when he was successfully sent Devlin to Hell. But for that he wanted more than just the hundred dollars. He wanted a stake in the mine and Miss Esmeralda Jones. He picked out the green ribbon from among the remaining jewelry, sniffed it and then rolled it in his grimy fingers. Finally he tucked it into his vest pocket along with the silver rings then replaced the rest back into the bag.

Across town Devlin held Esmeralda in his arms until the first light of dawn. He rose reluctantly, pulled on his clothes, and left silently down the back stairs. The weak sunlight when it touched his skin irritated him. The slight burning warned him that he must feed, and soon. The longer he held off the more of his mortal sensations returned. He cursed himself for being twenty times a fool. He would need every ounce of his immortal strength to fight Big Jim and the demon he was about to unleash. A few more days without blood and he would be as weak as a kitten.

He pulled his hat down low and walked towards D Street. He had only walked a few steps when he felt a tug at the tails of his frock coat. He whirled around to see a diminutive cloaked figure. The hood fell back revealing the face of Dahlia.

“Mister, please…”

Devlin frowned. He removed her hand from his coat and looked down. “What do you want Dahlia, I told you that you must not expect more.”

Dahlia deftly untied the ribbon from her neck.

“Mister, you need Dahlia, I know there’s them that would harm ya, kill ya even.”

Devlin’s nostrils flared. He scented her and his hunger rose fiercely. She sidled up closer to him.

“Take what you want from me.”

He saw the pulse beating in her delicate white throat and it lured him. Unable to resist, he drew her into the shade between two buildings. His teeth sank into her tender flesh and he drank deeply. Dahlia held him close and in his hunger he sensed her desperation her willingness to please him.

When he pulled away, satiated he looked down at her, his dark eyes piercing through her. “I cannot say that I did not need this little minx, but you are dangerously near the edge of mortality, you may not be able to turn back.”

Dahlia placed a trembling hand on his cheek. “I don’t want to live as one of them no more, I aim to help you, protect you from them bushwhacker’s that have it out for ya.”

Devlin grasped her pale hand. “I thank you but I want you to stay out of this I will handle things my way.”

Dahlia pouted then shook her head.

“Please, do as I say, and be careful what you wish for,” he said. 

“I know I ain’t nothin but a donor to ya, and yer heart belongs to another, I don’t care.  Devlin placed a quick kiss on her fingers.

“Do as I say” he repeated.

Esmeralda was devastated. Her emotions ripped apart. She’d sensed Devlin leave her bed. Then she had watched him from the window. Watched him as he crossed into the alley and whirled a dark feminine form into his arms. She had known what he had needed but what she could not give even as she felt his body grow colder and colder in the bed beside her. She would not, could not, make any hasty decisions.

She went into her private parlor and sat down at her reading table. From a silk wrapped bundle, she took out her tarot cards. She shuffled the deck and placed them in the familiar Celtic cross spread. The tower card stared up at her from the future events position.

When she saw the way that the cards fell, a deep sense of premonition caused the hairs on the back of her arms to stand up. This was confirmation that Devlin had once again put himself and her on the road to hell, chaos and possible destruction.

The day before, she had gone as far as to ask Jamie if he could find out the departure times for the train and stage. She knew that Devlin was trying to shield her but she sensed what was coming. Virginia City was about to have a taste of what had come before in the past. Did she want to stay for that? Or cut and run? 

Damn, damn, damn Devlin for the devil he was
! 

She got up from the table and paced the floor.

“Annie, if you can hear me show me a sign,” she asked.  A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows and a draft of air blew through her parlor catching the cards and scattering them across the table. A single card flew up and stuck against her skirt. Esmeralda reached down and caught it. She turned it over. The High Priestess card looked up at her. She smiled. “Thanks Annie. Thanks a whole hell of a lot!”

Resolved, she left the parlor and went back in to her private rooms. She sat back down at her vanity and combed her hair. She piled it high and secured it with two tortoiseshell combs. She fished around for her green ribbon but gave up when she could not find it.

Esmeralda was not the only one to be plagued by a sense of foreboding. Sara Fenn, Suffragette, Reformist and virulent teetotaler, had seen the signs everywhere she had turned in this wicked town.

Like a flock of black crows she and her sisters of the Washoe Valley Woman’s Temperance League had walked up and down the boardwalk carrying signs that warned citizens of the evil of drinking, gambling and debauchery. She gleaned a lot of information between the hurled curses and insults of the saloon proprietors. There was malevolence afoot in desperate need of the righteous words of the Lord. The bloody blisters, from her half boots, were a small sacrifice in the name of the cause. At night, in her narrow bed, she felt the eyes of Satan on her. Red burning eyes accompanied by an unholy voice whispered horrible tempting words. It made her dry stick of a body sweat with unholy desire. It caused a painful pressure within her that even the tightest corset lacing could not subdue. 

Sara Fenn was sure she had seen the Devil himself, right here in Virginia City in broad daylight, playing cards in the Bucket of Blood saloon, in a gunfight on A Street and escorting that jezebel Miss Esmeralda Jones.

That woman! Her skin crawled at the very thought that she had sat next to the Devil’s consort on the stagecoach to Virginia City.

She met with her sisters in the Lutheran church that morning to discuss the sinful, deleterious state of Virginia City. Now she stood at the pulpit in her high neck black bombazine dress and matching poke bonnet with her bible in one hand and her hatchet by her side.

“Sisters, there is a new house of sin here in Virginia City, a gambling establishment where men are brought low by vice and drink. It is run by a notorious woman, a philistine by the name of Miss Esmeralda Jones”

The bright daylight filtered through the wooden blinds of Big Jim’s office. It caused his bloodshot eyes to water and burn. He poured some whisky in a tumbler and gulped it down. Leonard and Cruz were seated across from him. 

“Listen up you two, I‘ve got me a new plan.” He unrolled a map and spread it across his desk. It was a map of the mining tunnels underneath Virginia City. He stabbed it with a fat finger. “See this tunnel, the one that runs parallel to the Belcher Mine? It’s a dead shaft but it lies within 200 feet of the Gilded Bird.”

Miguel peered at the map. “It has a name on it, someone holds the claim, dead or not.”

Big Jim smiled. “Yes indeed, but he won’t own it for long.”

“Who is it?” Leonard asked.

Big Jim’s smile became broader. “That’s what makes this thing easy because it’s owned by a man called, Boots. He’s a no account drunk that likes to shoot off his mouth. Word has it he’s flat broke, sleeping on the boardwalk and beggin’ for handouts.”

“What do you want us to do boss?” Leonard asked.

Big Jim rocked back in his chair. “Do what you do best White, swindle him out of that claim and if that don’t work Cruz will beat it out of him.”

After Leonard and Cruz left Big Jim reached into the top drawer of his desk and took out a telegraph. He scanned it. It read:  PEABODY STOP ARRIVE STOP FRIDAY STOP MAY STOP 2
ND
STOP. 

He chuckled
.

Let Devlin get a hold of what he had in store for him next.  Him, and the whole whore-fucking town.