Bounty Hunter

by Michelle E Lowe

  She smiled. “Too bad we don’t have any of your snake oil handy.” She gave him a sarcastic wink.

  Jaxton laughed. “Aye. Most unfortunate, indeed.” He took the bag from her. “I’ll take care of Itza-chu. I’ve had to patch up a few wounds before. Stay down here as long as you want.”

  Jaxton returned upstairs and told Itza-chu to breathe in the chloroform. He happily did so, letting the chemical blissfully take him under and away from his agony. After he passed out, Jaxton went to work. Pierce offered to help after finding him a pair of shears to cut off Itza-chu’s bloody shirt.

  “I can manage, lad,” Jaxton declared.

  He really wanted Pierce to rack off.

  “Sure, lad. I’m gonna have a look around.” Pierce started down the stairs, then stopped. “Cheers for saving my life—again. You . . . you’re a good mate to have.”

  Jaxton looked over his shoulder at him. Pierce looked sulky, no doubt feeling guilty about the damage he caused. He left, his footsteps echoing as he went.

  * * *

  Chibi returned to Guaymas after spending time in Scandinavia. He’d been doing repair work on his home, which had collapsed under the weight of the tree it was under while he was gone. He had heard his name being uttered by Harvey some days ago. Whenever someone spoke any of his names, Chibi heard it loud and clear. It was common for his gang members to talk about him when he wasn’t around. After all, he was a curiosity to them. A bundle of mystery, even. Harvey, however, had repeated his name days after the group went their separate ways. None of them had done such a thing before.

  Who had that mutt been speaking to? To find out, Chibi retraced Harvey’s steps. Chibi started at the hotel room where they had divided their bank money. Death was in the air. Chibi tasted it. Not Harvey’s, but the whore he had killed. He saw it all in echoes of actions that flew by in swooshes and fading colors. Chibi had a talent for homing in on someone’s past experiences, especially humans because they were so easy. This gift also helped him find things, mainly shiny things.

  Chibi moved on to San Carlos where Harvey had fled, and then to the cantina where he was apprehended by a group of people. Curious about who they were, Chibi continued following them to a beach where they’d made camp. Four men and a woman. A pretty girlie, at that. One of the men was Harvey in cuffs. He and a British man (by the sound of his accent) headed down toward the sea. The Englishman held a lantern and a pistol. For Chibi, it was daylight, but it was night when this had occurred. The shadowy men with the glow of the lantern against them looked strange in the brightness of the day. Chibi eyed the gun the Englishman held. It was a nice piece. Very nice, indeed. A unique copper beauty that would complement Chibi’s collection handsomely.

  He listened to what the men were discussing.

  “All right, you want names? You’ll be looking for a tall, spooky Spaniard by the name of Javier Saints.”

  “Spooky?”

  “Yup. If you catch up to ’im, you’ll see what I’m talkin’ ’bout. There’s a Cocopah Indian bitch, Nata. Pretty—not as lovely as the woman you have with ya—but attractive enough. Until she opens her mouth, that is.”

  “Who else?”

  “Chibi.”

  “Chibi? As in the Japanese word for ‘little?’”

  “Is that what that means? Yup, sounds ’bout right. He’s a stub of a man. That’s the best way to describe ’im. Always wears a gasmask.”

  The prick had given him up! Not that Chibi was worried that these humans would ever catch him, but it was simply the principle of the matter.

  Harvey had also ratted out the others. Nata was arrested and shortly afterward, had died from internal bleeding on the same day Harvey was hanged. Chibi saw this as he journeyed on through the past. While Chibi watched the lawmen beat Nata, he overheard her telling them where her share of the money was. Chibi examined Nata’s past and saw she had, in fact, hid the currency in her hotel room. So why wasn’t it there now?

  Chibi was highly curious. In the course of his investigation, he ended up following the man known as Sheriff Emmanuel Flores from the jailhouse after he’d questioned Nata about the loot. Afterward, he went straight home. Deputy Andrés Ortega, on the other hand, had gone to the hotel. He had the room key, and once inside, the deputy searched for the vault, found it, and twisted the dial. The money was there just as Nata had told the lawmen, and the deputy loaded it all into his own bag. He closed the safe and locked the door behind him as if no one had ever been there. The deputy had brought the funds to his own home and stored them inside a strong box.

  Chibi could have easily taken the loot if he wanted, and he planned to do so, but not before he had a little fun first. He devised a plan, something creative and deadly.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Back Through the Fire Fields

  Emma was thoroughly amazed by her discovery. Inside the chapel, she discovered journal after journal of notes about the process of making living automatons. The failures, and the minor successes. What worked and what hadn’t. A decade of notes for her to read. There were many diagrams of the animals that Saints had experimented on. Rats, frogs, squirrels, cats, hedgehogs, and then larger creatures such as dogs and sheep. Each step of progress and failure had been documented in fine detail.

  She read about the coyotes.

  In the diagram of the coyote with the prosthetic legs, Emma learned how each leg was securely bolted into the joint sockets by using knockdown joints to give the coyote mobility—though not much. Without being able to communicate with the brain to instruct the artificial limbs on how to move, the stiffness was required to keep the animal on its feet.

  Her heightened curiosity caused Emma to drag the coyote with the metal torso and lower jaw into the chapel to study it. As she dissected the animal, she was astonished to find that Saints had managed to replace bone and flesh with alloyed metals. The lower metal jaw was bolted in with gears that helped it move, though it also prevented the lower jaw from closing entirely. There was no tongue inside, only a triangular sheet of metal welded to the bottom to enclose it. The brain had been tampered with—some parts cut out.

  In his notes, Saints explained how he’d dissected the brain to cut off the nerves that registered pain. Nothing could survive an operation of this scale, which was why Saints had killed them first, put them together, and brought them to life.

  Brought the bodies back to life.

  He wasn’t turning living things into machines. They were already dead. By using the machine grid, Saints was literally jump-starting them to life using a high voltage electricity. Saints had accomplished incredible feat, especially where Iker was concerned. The Machine Man—that was what Pierce called him. The body had been moved from the stairwell to the floor downstairs.

  After Emma examined the coyote, she had a look inside the cadaver. What she saw astonished her. The heart was encased in some sort of metal shell—or it may have been replaced altogether. Later, when Emma had more time to read about the process in Saints’ ledger, she eventually learned that his next step was to make artificial organs to replace the natural ones. He had already done so with the heart, and he had learned to drain the blood from the body and replace it with oil.

  To her utter shock, she learned how Saints had programmed the human brain by literally rewiring it to do whatever he wanted. And it worked! Pierce said it himself that the Machine Man had obeyed Saints’ orders.

  Emma gathered all the ledgers and placed them into a surgical bag. Once Saints’ hostages found their way home, they’d most likely inform the authorities, who would then come and discover everything. The laboratory would probably be destroyed, as well as everything else Saints had created.

  Emma left the chapel with the excitement of this new discovery pumping through her veins.

  * * *

  Pierce had gone into the kitchen but found no alcohol to drink. He wanted to stay occupied, so he followed the path down to where everyone’s horses were and lead them up to the courtyard,
making it easier for the group to depart in the morning.

  As the mounts happily enjoyed the hay and water Javier had put out for his own animals, Pierce gathered the bedroll from his mount and went in search of a place to sleep. He stumbled across an old shoe shop near the bell tower, a small, vacant room with only a worktable and front desk. Pierce unrolled the bedroll over the countertop of the work desk. He thought it was probably best to stay clear of everyone for the rest of the night. In the past two days, Pierce had gotten his entire team turned against him. He’d let them down. He’d handled the situation with Emma wrongly; he’d misjudged Jaxton; and he was too damn impatient to listen to Itza-chu. These realizations had come a little too late. Christ, what sort of father was he going to be when he couldn’t even keep his people out of harm’s way?

  Pierce hadn’t felt so low in a long while. The worry of fatherhood and the feeling of being a worthless failure kept him awake for hours until exhaustion finally took him over.

  * * *

  Taisia slept little throughout the night. Nightmares about Pierce and Emma kept her restless, and at times, snapped her awake. The dreams were graphic—so realistic that at one point, she needed to leave the hut to vomit. By morning, she feared she’d have a nervous breakdown.

  Taisia felt so lost and alone. She wanted to go to Nona, Jasper, and Grandmother Fey, or even Sees Beyond, but what could she say to them? That Pierce was out there sleeping with another woman? There was no proof of it aside from her own suspicions.

  Taisia knew Pierce and all his little traits. When he avoided her, Taisia knew he was hiding something. And when he hadn’t returned that night, she feared the worst. Leaving for the Ekta after his visit with Grandmother Fey only proved he was avoiding her question. She began asking herself if Pierce would stray. After everything they had been through together and the love they’d shared, could he so easily push all of that aside for the first pretty face that came along? Taisia expected better of him, but did she really know him at all? She’d asked herself this once before.

  Instead of running off, crying to the family, she first needed to have probable cause.

  Ask the boy, suggested a soft voice that spread through her mind like hot cider on a chilly day. The voice did not startle her, nor did she ask herself where it had come from.

  “The boy?” Taisia uttered to herself. “Da. Tarak!”

  * * *

  Tarak woke with a strange feeling in his head. He felt as if someone had gone into his mind and shuffled his memories around, rearranging or reshaping them. It gave him a headache. His mother seemed uneasy, as if she sensed some intruder had been inside the hut while they were sleeping.

  She had a great gift that reached beyond the clouds and the stars. She spoke to their dead ancestors, who offered guidance and warnings. The gift made her one of the most valuable people on board Chief Sea Wind’s ship.

  She had joined the crew after Tarak’s father was killed during a hurricane in the Atlantic while he was sailing on the Ekta. Tarak had little memory of him, but his mother had joined Chief Sea Wind’s crew in order to keep the crew safe shortly after marrying Mohin. At first, when Tarak had learned of her gift, it frightened him, but now he felt nothing but pride. Because of her, not only was Chief Sea Wind and his crew alive, but they were able to save countless numbers of people from becoming slaves for the whites. His own mother was a hero and a jewel to humanity, which made her absence worthwhile.

  “How do you feel, my son?” she queried him when he rose from sleep.

  “My head hurts,” he answered. “It feels strange.”

  His mother nodded as if she understood something he did not.

  “I will need to ask the spirits about this. Tarak, go out and help your stepfather in making the roasted agave.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  As he headed for the ovens, that nice lady, Taisia Landcross, approached him. She was smiling, but she seemed tired. Her eyes were full of worry.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Landcross,” Tarak greeted her.

  “Good morning, Tarak,” she said sweetly, stopping in front of him. “I was coming to see you.”

  He pointed to himself with surprise. “To see me? Why?”

  Her smile faded, and her concern became more apparent. “Tarak, can you tell me what happened at the races?”

  The boy chewed his bottom lip. “You mean about the crash? I swear, I never started up the racing machine.”

  “No. No. Not that. I mean—” She stopped, looking thoughtful as if carefully wording her question in her mind. “I mean, what happened between my husband and the woman, Emma?”

  Her question was blunt, but it left him confused. What did she mean by that? Plenty had happened between them. They talked a lot, and she got both Pierce and Tarak front row seats to watch the races. Was she referring to the kiss? Oh, that had to be it. Apparently, White Horse hadn’t told her, or he had, and she only wanted to know if anything more had developed. It hadn’t. Emma had kissed him, and then White Horse pushed her away. And . . . wait, is that what had happened? Funny, he could have sworn that was exactly how it had occurred. Did more happen between those two? Everything about the moment began fading and changing. Suddenly, what he originally believed had happened wasn’t there anymore. A new truth came into focus, bleeding over the old and smearing it from existence.

  “Tarak?” Mrs. Landcross pressed. “Is there something I need to know?”

  Tarak suddenly felt uncomfortable in telling this nice lady about the disgraceful acts committed by her husband.

  “White Horse . . . I mean, your husband, Mr. Landcross. . . he met up with Emma at the races. They were very excited to see each other, hugging and holding hands.”

  What was he saying? Did that really happen? It seemed false, and yet he was unable to stop himself.

  “After the races, when Emma won, she and Mr. Landcross hugged again, and he kissed her.”

  Mrs. Landcross gasped, and tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Soon afterward,” he went on, “Mr. Landcross gave me some money and told me to stay out of trouble. He and Emma then left together, and I didn’t see them until later on at the square.”

  Why was he telling her this? It wasn’t right, yet his mouth spoke on its own while his mind wrestled with its tangle of thoughts.

  “They . . . they went somewhere together?” Mrs. Landcross choked. “Where?”

  “I’m not sure. But the hotel she stayed in was very close by, and when they returned, they were smiling and laughing a lot.”

  Mrs. Landcross clutched her chest. She seemed ready to collapse. A few villagers saw this and rushed over. Mrs. Landcross could no longer speak, only sob. Dena, a friend of Tarak’s mother, asked if she was all right. Mrs. Landcross fell against her, crying.

  “Go find her family!” Dena shouted to the men standing nearby. “Hurry!”

  Mrs. Landcross’s grief stole her strength, and her legs gave out on her. She slowly fell to the ground with Dena holding her.

  Dena turned to Tarak, her expression cross. “What did you say to her, Tarak? What did you do?”

  Tarak shook his head, wondering the same thing. Unable to give an answer, the boy darted off and ran straight out of the village. He needed time to clear his thoughts.

  * * *

  Pierce opened his eyes to a tarantula walking by his line of sight. With a shout, he tried getting up, only to fall off the countertop. He landed face down hard on the dusty floor. Sharp, burning pain spread through him all the way to his teeth.

  “Ow,” he groaned.

  Before he rose, he peeked over the countertop and watched the fat, hairy spider stroll across the counter and climb over the edge, disappearing from sight.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” he grumbled while standing.

  He rubbed his jaw, fearing that pain would be the theme of his day.

  He returned to Javier’s room upstairs, passing Iker’s body at the base of the steps. Pierce almost felt sorry for the bloke who had die
d so his body could be butchered and patched together to become some mindless servant. Perhaps, if the prisoners brought others to the mission, Iker’s loved ones would claim him and give the poor bugger a proper burial.

  He climbed the spiral staircase, and to his relief, found Itza-chu still alive. He stood at the gun racks, examining a rifle he held. He wore no shirt, showing off his muscular form. His wounded shoulder was dressed in gauze, his arm resting in a sling.

  Pierce swallowed thickly before saying, “How are you feeling, mate?”

  Itza-chu turned his attention to him. “Better than him.”

  He pointed his chin toward Javier, still sitting on the floor, cuffed to the railing. Someone had gagged him, perhaps to stop him from trying to negotiate. The cloth gag was soaked with spittle, and drool dangled from it. Javier looked none too spooky or handsome in such a state.

  “He’s been on that cold floor the entire night,” Itza-chu explained. “It cannot be good for a man’s . . . how do you British say it . . . pecker?”

  Pierce snorted as he approached their prisoner. “I’ll move him to a chair before getting us some food cooked up. Afterward, we ought to get going.”

  Itza-chu nodded and started walking away with his new rifle.

  “Itza-chu,” Pierce called before he reached the top of the stairs.

  He stopped and looked at Pierce.

  In a profoundly sincere tone, Pierce said, “I’m sorry, mate. Sorry I didn’t listen. If I’d known about those damn coyotes, I . . .”

  “But you had not, Landcross,” Itza-chu interjected. “None of us expected to find what we did here.”

  Bloody got that right!

  “You are doing your best, Landcross. I know you are. You’re honorable, and I shouldn’t have said what I did last night.”

  His statement should have lifted Pierce’s mood, but for some reason, Itza-chu’s gentle words did not. It wasn’t that Pierce doubted him, but he reckoned he didn’t deserve his understanding or forgiveness—at least, not until he succeeded in saving his people.