Red Gambit: Book One of the Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  Jarek offered Michael the extra pistol and mag. “You’re the one who was harping on being prepared. I have a sword because people tend to think twice before poking guys who walk around with swords strapped to their backs. Plus”—he raised his hands in a shrug—“they don’t run out of bullets. And I might need to cut someone.”

  “Ten minutes in Deadwood, and he thinks he’s a rootin’-tootin’ cowboy ninja,” Rachel said from behind them.

  “Sweetheart, you have no idea. Whoops, that’s a slip on the S word there—force of habit.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  He drew one of his pistols halfway from its holster. “Did you, uh, want one of these fellas? I have one more in there.”

  She frowned at the pistol and hefted her staff. “I think I’m better off with this here whackin’ stick, cowboy. Doesn’t run out of bullets either.”

  He gave the hilt of his sword an affectionate pat. “Can’t beat that. And you two are all magically bulletproofed now, I assume?”

  A dark look crossed her face. “About that.”

  She pulled the small, glyph-etched metal disk of her bullet catcher off the back of her belt, checked the dial on its surface, and offered the device to Michael. “I want you to keep this on you until I finish yours.”

  Michael stuck the pistol and extra mag into his pockets and took the disk. After a few seconds inspecting it and a glance at Rachel, comprehension spread across his dark features. “That wasn’t you stopping those bullets back at the Fortress? It was this thing?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been playing with that prototype for a while now. Turns out it actually works.”

  “Wow, Rache.” He looked at the device in his hands. “This is amazing! But I can’t take it”—he offered the catcher back—“not when you might need it.”

  She pushed the little disk back toward Michael and waved her staff. “I have other ways, if it comes to that.”

  Michael stared at the device, unconvinced.

  “Shit,” Jarek said, “I’ll take it if you won’t, Mikey. I think it’s your turn to get shot, anyways.”

  Rachel glared at him while Michael shrugged, slid the catcher onto his belt, and pulled his shirt down over it. It made Jarek’s own backside feel woefully vulnerable.

  Reason 5,094 they needed to get Fela back.

  “Man,” Jarek said, kicking at a tuft of wild grass. “When do I get one?”

  Rachel shot him a wolfish grin. “Convince me I don’t want you getting shot.”

  He ran his hands along the front of his body as if presenting a particularly breathtaking piece of art. “You’re telling me this isn’t reason enough?”

  She snorted and was about to say something when Michael aggressively cleared his throat. “Time to go, then?” His eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them with irritation, or reprimand. Or could it have been jealousy?

  “Let’s hit it,” he said, shooting Michael his most jovial grin. “The door please, Al.”

  There was a faint hum and a series of sharp clicks as the ship’s boarding ramp closed and locked.

  “Thanks, sweetie.”

  “Save it for Alaric Weston, sir.”

  The three set off along the long, widening crest headed for the narrow point where it descended to the town. Several stubby trees sprouted up amid the hilltop’s wild grass. As the slope gradually angled downward, their numbers seemed to multiply, covering the hillside with pleasant shade and greenery.

  “I’m not sure what’s creepier,” Jarek said quietly as they picked their way through the trees, “how freaking quiet it is down there, or the idea that it’s that quiet because everyone’s at church.”

  “You scoff,” Michael said, “but the teachings of the church are something this world needs now more than ever.”

  “Half of the people that went all stabby-looty-rapey on the world when things went to shit were God-fearin’ Christians, you know,” he said, picking his way over the trunk of a fallen tree and turning to watch the others scramble over. “But that’s not the point. I’m just saying I have a bad f—”

  A pair of gunshots rang out in quick succession somewhere off to their left. Crack. Crack. Maybe half a mile away.

  “—a bad feeling about this, guys. A real bad feeling.”

  They all waited for several seconds to see if more shots would follow. For now, all was quiet.

  “So.” He drew one of his pistols. “Probably that way, then?”

  Michael yanked his own pistol out of his pocket, slightly wide-eyed. “Marauders?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  They set off in the direction of the shots. Jarek set their pace at a careful trot. They were on the clock—the gunshots had established that—but they’d have a better chance of handling whatever they might find if they avoided running full speed into it off the bat. Plus, running downhill through thick foliage wasn’t exactly conducive to rapid travel, at least not if one preferred not to break one’s neck.

  The slant of the hill grew steeper, and a highway came into view at the bottom. He picked his way over and around shrubs, downed trees, and other obstacles. The shallow wound in his shoulder awoke with a steady ache as his pulse picked up from the exertion.

  They’d just reached the crumbling highway when another shot rang out. And there—the faint trace of a scream from the same direction. It sounded terrified, not pained, and it hit him straight in his anger button.

  On the other side of the empty highway, they cut toward the heart of town, skirting the line of dilapidated wooden fences separating the road from the back yards of several houses. After a few properties, the fences ended and the space to their left opened into a paved parking lot. It was backed by a small brick building that was, like most of Deadwood, in surprisingly good shape.

  He led them across the lot to the corner of the building and pressed up against the warm brick wall, listening. The murmur of voices was unmistakable now. Slowly, cautiously, he peered around the corner.

  Michael had been right. It looked like most of the town had been at church when marauders had rolled into town and caught them with their collective pants down.

  Eight men were herding the townsfolk out of the church. The marauders were all armed, mostly with shotguns, pistols, and a couple of old lever action rifles. Given that the frightened townspeople were still filing out the doors at either side of the building’s front, there were probably at least another five or six marauders inside, maybe more.

  “Shit.”

  “What is it?” Michael whispered.

  “You were right about church,” he whispered back. “But we also have at least a dozen marauders over there, and it doesn’t look like they’re here to praise the Jesus.”

  “Shit,” Rachel agreed.

  “We have to help them,” Michael said.

  He pinched his temples between thumb and forefinger. Of course they had to help them. What the hell else were they supposed to do? Much as he’d rather have nothing to do with it, he’d never managed to find the shut-off switch to that incessant voice in his head that demanded he stand up for the weak and the helpless when assholes came knocking.

  He glanced at the cowering townsfolk again.

  No walking away from that; they were just too damn pathetic.

  He could see a few potential approaches, none of which seemed fantastic. He gnashed his teeth as one of the marauders smacked a graying man to the ground.

  Getting clear lines of fire probably wasn’t going to happen, and fighting around defenseless innocents was never a good plan. Scratch that; it was a totally shit plan, especially when the baddies were perfectly willing to use innocents as human shields. He was far from above half-cocked plans, but if they wanted to take these guys down without getting everyone killed, they needed a better plan than rushing in, guns and staff blazing, and hoping for the best.

  They needed a distraction.

  He met Rachel’s steady gaze. Maybe she could whip up some arcane chaos. He was a
bout to ask when a voice rang out ahead, cutting through the frightened murmurs of the townspeople and the confident jeers of the marauders alike with surly authority.

  “You boys’d be saving yourselves time if you kicked off to the next town now,” the new guy said. He was older, by the sound of it, with a bit of a drawl. “Ain’t much here worth your time, I’m afraid.”

  The guy had balls, Jarek had to give him that. He glanced around the corner again. Judging from the direction the marauders had turned their weapons, the guy was approaching from the next road over, the one running right in front of the church. The adjacent building hid the guy from sight, but on the much brighter side, it looked like the universe had decided to give them that distraction.

  “Let’s go,” he murmured to the others before creeping across the gap between their building and the next in a low crouch.

  “Well, look at this, boys,” one of the marauders called.

  Jarek took cover behind the first of several cars parked beside the building. Rachel and Michael piled in beside him.

  “We have a real, live fucking cowboy here on our hands! I think you’re selling your town here short, old man. I see plenty here that looks worth enjoying.”

  Jarek pointed Michael’s attention to the service ladder bolted to the building next to them on the side opposite the church. He slipped Michael an extra mag from his belt. Michael nodded and dipped behind the building. Once he made it to the front edge of the rooftop, Michael would have a great line of fire. With any luck, one or two of his shots might even be clear. Fingers crossed.

  Jarek gestured for Rachel to follow him and began slinking toward the church, moving between the wall and the line of parked cars.

  He’d missed the mystery cowboy’s reply.

  “ … got a lotta balls, old man, I’ll give ya that, but you need to shut your fucking mouth and get over here with the rest of these good people before I get bored and start shooting.”

  Jarek stopped at the second to last of the cars next to the building. Cars typically made for pretty shitty cover, but two would be better than one if bullets started flying. Rachel hunkered down next to him as he leaned forward to get a look between the hood and the corner of the building.

  “Son of a bitch,” he whispered.

  The mystery cowboy of many-balled repute was a dead ringer for the man in the two pictures they had to go by. Rachel’s hand pressed lightly on his left shoulder as she leaned around to look too.

  “Son of a bitch,” she agreed softly.

  Standing in the dead center of the road, twenty or so yards away from the marauders, was Alaric Weston.

  Fourteen

  Alaric Weston stood with his arms crossed, the battered, grayish-brown long coat he wore billowing lightly in the faint breeze. He wasn’t particularly tall or built—hell, underneath his gray beard and his stringy gray hair, he looked at least sixty, if not older—but even at a distance, Rachel could see the hard resolve in the man’s face.

  “And you called me a cowboy,” Jarek murmured, his cheek nearly touching hers.

  She met his eyes for a moment, then they both snapped back to the scene as Weston called, “These boys hurt anyone, Bobby?”

  “M-M-Mark’s dead,” came a reply, high with fright.

  “Stupid, Bobby,” the head marauder said.

  She wasn’t an expert, but the sound of a gun hammer being cocked was recognizable enough. A cloud of tension coalesced in the following silence, a heavy, tangible pressure that would only be alleviated in one of a few ways.

  “Get ready,” Jarek mumbled next to her.

  Ready for what, exactly? She swallowed and gripped her staff more tightly.

  Jarek hopped to his feet and began waving his free arm around like he’d spotted an old friend in a crowd. Aghast, she half stood to pull him back before anyone noticed, but it was too late.

  “Alaric, you old coot!” he cried. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  Dozens of heads, marauder and hostage alike, whipped around as if connected on a single track.

  She was too focused on the several guns rotating to face them to notice said old coot had moved until the gunshot roared and the two rightmost marauders fell to the ground.

  Two?

  Things clicked into place a second later as she saw Weston had a revolver in each hand. Two shots so perfectly synchronized they had sounded like one.

  As soon as her mind caught up with that, all hell broke loose.

  Weston fired again, but his next shots must’ve missed or hit armor, because none of the marauders fell. Instead, they began to return fire.

  Jarek’s pistol cracked out beside her.

  “Take cover, Deadwood!” Weston cried as he fired another pair of shots and ducked out of sight behind the building next to them.

  The few hostages who hadn’t already hit the dirt promptly did so.

  She was gathering energy in preparation to defend their position when Jarek yanked her down behind the car with him.

  She slapped his hand away. “Asshole!”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but the air filled with man-made thunder. Shattered glass rained down on them as a tidal wave of marauder lead sought them out. A few bullets tore through the car door beside her. Her head buzzed as she pulled a barrier into existence between them and the car.

  “Great plan!” she shouted, glaring at Jarek. “Really fantastic stuff!”

  He calmly pointed a finger upward. A second later, three steady, well-paced shots rang out from the top of the building next to them—Michael, she realized.

  On the crack of the third shot, Jarek poked his head up long enough to fire two shots. She rose beside him, holding her barrier in front of her and partially in front of Jarek. Weston’s and Michael’s weapons rang out again to their right.

  “Inside!” the marauder leader snapped, yanking one of his men along as he scurried for the stairs. “Get inside!”

  A third man turned to join them and promptly fell to a shot from Michael or Weston. More shots followed, kicking up chips of concrete and brick around the leader and his sole getaway partner as they cleared the crowd and scrambled up the front steps.

  Next to her, Jarek let out a long, deliberate breath. His gun cracked once, and the marauder leader stumbled and fell on his way through the doorway. The second marauder scurried into the church, pulling the door shut behind them.

  Rachel reminded herself to breathe as her heart began climbing down from record speed.

  Then a girl in the crowd screamed.

  An icy knife twisted in her stomach as a marauder who’d taken cover in the crowd stood, yanking the dark-haired girl who’d screamed up roughly by the throat. He hunkered behind her, firing a few blind shots from his revolver as he staggered back toward the church.

  The ice in her stomach melted into a bubbling rage that rose up and propelled her from the cover of the car.

  “Rachel!” Michael called from above.

  The marauder’s surprise gave way to a sneer as he took her in and turned his gun on her. What harm could this little blond chick be, right?

  She would show him.

  She extended an open palm toward the cowardly bastard without breaking stride. He pulled the trigger. Thunder clapped, and a lead slug crumpled against thin air five feet in front of her. The harmless lead clanked to the pavement at her feet. The stunned marauder tried again, to similar results, and dead silence descended on the yard.

  “What the—” he said quietly. “What …”

  He yanked his human shield tighter to him and jammed the muzzle of his gun against her head. “I’ll kill her! Stay the fuck away from me!”

  The girl’s eyes were wet with tears, but she didn’t make a sound. Rachel met the girl’s eyes and willed her to be brave. The marauder jerked her tighter, digging his pistol into her temple, and the girl let out a soft whimper.

  She wrapped her mind around his hand like an iron glove and yanked it away from the girl with vic
ious force. Something in his shoulder made a loud pop, and he staggered back, crying out as his pistol clattered to the ground.

  She pulled more energy and turned her hand palm up to focus her will. Waves of electricity crackled through her as she lifted the bastard eight feet into the air. He flailed and cried out in undignified protest. Beneath him, the girl scrambled clear.

  She turned her palm over and slammed the thug to the ground. He groaned, feebly shifting to pick himself up. She took care of that for him, then slammed him down again, a wordless cry boiling out of her throat. She panted, preparing to lift him up a third time, intending to bring him down harder yet.

  “Rachel!” Jarek bellowed.

  Then something crashed into her from behind.

  It should have hurt more, hitting the ground. Something helped break the fall. An arm. Jarek’s arm. He was lying next to her. What the h—

  Gunfire erupted from the front of the church, tremendously loud and fully automatic. The voice of a second weapon joined it. Jarek, lying prone on his stomach beside her, was already squeezing off several rounds in return.

  The enemy fire abated for a moment, replaced by shouts and the sounds of shattering glass. Jarek was somehow already on his feet, pulling at her arm.

  “Move.” There was a level intensity to his voice that set her feet scrambling.

  They took off for the front of the church, keeping low. More gunfire cracked out from behind as Michael and Weston covered their advance. The gunmen didn’t manage much more than a few potshots from the church windows before she’d bounded up the steps and out of their line of fire.

  Jarek was right on her heels. He methodically tucked an empty mag into his belt and slid a fresh mag into his pistol, then he holstered it and reached back to draw his sword with a smooth, practiced motion. The edge of the blade glinted in the sunlight.

  “Plan?” she asked.

  “Stick ’em with the pointy end.” He drew his left pistol. “Or something like that. Cover me?”

  No matter what his words said about him, the guy clearly had some idea what he was doing. She nodded.