“You run into many times like this?” Cantrell asked.
“Some.” She turned and marched back toward the estate.
Cantrell separated Bernard from the saddle loop and snapped it open. The automaton reformed into a hound and gazed at its master, a patch of moonlight illuminating its metal fangs.
“Guard the horses.” Cantrell patted its steel head and went to where Anna and Dixie waited. There, he signaled for them to follow and they walked toward the mansion, grass crisp beneath their boots.
All the while, he looked around to take in anything he could, particularly any sign of people but saw no suspicious movement. He glanced at the young madam and pointed toward the back of the house. Anna raised a questioning eyebrow, and he whispered, “Back door.” Cantrell figured it was less likely to be locked.
They found closed double-doors with reddish curtains, making it impossible to see inside. He tried the door and found it locked, after all. Pain lanced through Cantrell’s lower back; he leaned against the wall and held up a hand, letting Anna know to wait. After he took several breaths, the pain decreased and he shook his head at the madam. Cantrell took his lock picks from his coat and in short order, pulled one of the doors open.
Two long tables, surrounded by fancy chairs with pillow-covered seats, a painting of the Santa Cruz municipal wharf, and an ornate, brass chandelier above one table, revealed this as the dining room.
The bounty hunter drew his Colt, stepped in, and glanced at Anna, who entered with her Deringer drawn and Dixie behind. Since his eyes had adjusted to the outside darkness, he saw the room in shades of gray. Anna had already pulled her goggles to her eyes, which he thought a good idea. Cantrell retrieved his own from his pack, slipped them on, and could immediately see more clearly. To their left, a set of windows extended out into a small alcove.
Before them stood two closed doors, and Cantrell opened the one on the right. Beyond he found a hallway. They passed a stairwell, then stepped into a living room with a couch, chairs, and bookshelves to the left. In front of them was an oddly sloped table, and beyond it, a fallen chair and broken window.
Glancing back, he witnessed Anna’s wide-eyed astonishment. The madam went to the table and lifted a leather strap. Cantrell realized it was an operating table reminiscent of one, no, two, he had seen in Anna’s laboratory. This was where someone had operated on Margarita Fullerton.
“Come with me,” Anna said. They walked through the kitchen with its wood-burning stove and bulky mechanical icebox, then into a study. A framed map of Santa Cruz from eighteen sixty-five and more recent maps of California and North America hung framed on one wall. Anna went directly to the desk.
“Mister Cantrell, please open it.”
“Yes ma'am.” He pulled open the main drawer where he found half-length pencils with bite marks along the edges, ink bottles, and pens.
“Where's all the paper?” asked Cantrell.
A grin flickered on Anna’s lips, and Cantrell wondered if she was hiding something.
“Come with me.” She strode to the stairs with Dixie in tow and disappeared behind them. Cantrell came around behind the automaton and found an open door. Dixie clanked down the stairs and the bounty hunter followed. At the bottom, a pitch-black hallway turned to the right, and a moment later, a door ahead creaked open and Tesla bulbs flared to life.
Anna let in a tight gasp while Dixie and Cantrell looked over her shoulders into an empty room.
“What is it?” Cantrell asked, but Anna simply passed him on her way back to the stairs. Dixie bumped Cantrell’s shoulder as it followed Anna, but he ignored this. If Anna was going to keep her own counsel, Cantrell could at least look for evidence. What expectations did Anna have about this room?
Cantrell spotted a pattern of squares on the ground and even on the shelves. Cages. He knelt and brushed his hand on the floor. Dust was minimal. The outlaws had cleaned up well. Yet when he stepped into the room, in a far corner, he found a pinch of dark fur.
He met Anna and Dixie beside the stairs above.
“The room held animals, probably dogs,” said Cantrell. “But you knew that.”
“Yes.”
“Creed came first, and told you what was here.”
“He didn’t get to the second story,” she said and marched up the stairs.
There, they discovered two rooms. One had a large bed and various paintings across the walls, showing snow-tipped mountains, a lake surrounded by pines, and a sandy beach. There, Anna opened the wardrobe filled with high-quality dresses. Cantrell found a few black hairs scattered across one pillow. The second room had two beds but otherwise stood empty.
“They did a nearly perfect cleaning job.” Anna turned off the lights. “I couldn’t even spot any blood by the operating table. Though I’m surprised they left it.”
“You have a lot of secrets, don’t you, Miss Boyd?”
“I suspect you know the majority by now. What am I going to do with you?”
Cantrell couldn’t tell if that last was a joke. “What’s next?”
“I’ve seen all I need to,” said Anna, and went to the front door. In the foyer, she turned the lock and stepped outside. Once there, she glanced at Cantrell. He had lagged about eight feet behind, thinking about what he should do next. Going to the marshals seemed the right move. They had to look over Fullerton’s place, too, but he would not tell them about Anna.
As he stepped out with Dixie behind him, he allowed himself a moment of peace. No outlaws had lingered in the mansion. Cantrell had half expected he’d have to shoot someone before they left. They could go back to town and part ways.
Anna began to turn when a shot cracked to their right. She staggered, hands flying to her belly, blood flowing between her fingers. “I…” she intoned, and fell to her knees.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Dixie dashed by Cantrell as the bounty hunter reached for his revolver. Cantrell aimed past the steely, his goggles revealing a human figure, pistol glimmering faintly with moonlight. The bounty hunter cocked the hammer of his Colt and fired.
The gunshot rang through the woods and momentarily, Cantrell went deaf, the sound of the crickets dropping to nothing. The stranger collapsed. Dixie bent over and took the gun from his, or her, hand.
Cantrell watched, stunned. Where had his shot landed? He’d had no time to aim, but thought the bullet had struck the attacker in the head. So much for not having to shoot anyone.
“It's alright, it's gonna be alright.” Cantrell knelt beside Anna and hoped his words were true. He whipped a folded handkerchief from his pocket, tore open the front of Anna’s dress, where the bullet had struck, wiped away enough blood to see the bullet wound, and held the cloth to it. “Can you hold it down?”
Shaking, Anna pressed it to the tear in her gut.
“Dixie!” Cantrell called.
Within a moment, the steely knelt by his side. “Hold the cloth for her while I get something to tie it on with.”
“No,” Anna said. “I can keep it up. Dixie, medicine, then guard me.”
A needle issued from the automaton’s forefinger and pressed into the skin of her belly beside the handkerchief.
“Right. I’ll be back.” Cantrell rushed upstairs to Fullerton’s bedroom, found scissors in the nightstand drawer, and cut strips from a sheet. For each, he made a snip at one end then tore it down to the other. With the makeshift bandages in hand, he returned to Anna and tied the cloth segments together. Blood flowed down her sides while she gazed at him, wide awake and breathing steadily.
Dixie lifted her, one arm around her back, her legs draped over the other. Cantrell wrapped the cloth around her a good seven times, then tied it tight.
“Get a doctor,” said Cantrell to Dixie. “I'll get the horses.”
Dixie shook its head, and Anna said, “It doesn’t obey your commands. But that’s all right. Dixie’s taking me to Jonny.” Her eyes fluttered, which Cantrell thought might be alright if they hurried.
“Anna,” he said, “you need a doctor. Someone professional.”
“Jonny is better.”
Cantrell bowed his head to Anna’s stubbornness and a second later, Dixie was running toward the forest, holding Anna tightly. They soon fell out of his sight.
Sweat ran into the bounty hunter’s eyebrows and he brushed it away with his sleeve. Cantrell went to the ambusher and found a man of perhaps thirty with a bloody hole over his left eye.
“Fucking hell.”
He had been in gunfights before, and standoffs, but rarely had he killed anyone. Usually, he found he didn’t have to. A shot in the wrist, forearm, or biceps would disarm an opponent instantly. With a grunt of frustration, he took the man’s Colt and marched back to the horses.
After unhitching them, Cantrell turned Barnard back into a ball and attached it to Malcolm’s side, then mounted his steed and led Espiritu by the reins beside them. He shoved the stranger’s pistol into one of his saddle bags, thinking that he had to report this to the marshals, but first, he’d go to The House of Amber Doves. Maybe there would be a way he could see how she was doing. Still, he doubted there was time to save Anna. Even with the bandages tight, the blood was flowing too quickly.
The moment they came out of the forest and onto a street, he pulled his goggles down to his neck and checked his pocket watch. He simply wanted to get back to his hotel room and sleep, but he crossed to Pacific Avenue then to Main Street, the better to approach The House of Amber Doves from the back. He felt warm under his coat, and his sweat smelled to him like guilt.
The brothel was as quiet as the rest of the town, but light shined through Anna’s bedroom curtains giving the alley a mysterious glow. Was she healing in there, or had she succumbed to the bullet?
Cantrell dismounted and tied the horses to the hitching post beside the back door as the power generator puffed steam. Reaching for the doorknob, he glimpsed a shadow to his left. Immediately, it crashed into him and slammed him to the earth.
A flurry of fists rained down on him. Cantrell struggled to put his hands up. Blows cracked into his cheeks but finally, he got his arms in front of his face, though he kept his eyes shut and winced against the pain. The punches were stronger than any he'd ever felt, like steel wrapped in cloth.
Just as he feared the attacker would break his arms, the punches stopped. The stranger stood and Cantrell heard a gun cock. He moved aside his arms and gazed upward.
With the lights shining behind him, the silver mask covering his alabaster visage, and his coat that might have belonged to the grim reaper himself, Bodacious Creed stood above Cantrell, finger on the trigger of his Austin Equalizer. “You made a big mistake shooting Anna.”
“I didn't shoot her.” Though Cantrell had defeated Creed once, he dared not move. Creed had hurt him, and he’d have bruises come morning, but he felt sure the zombie marshal had pulled his punches. Cantrell didn't like the creak of fear in his own voice, so he swallowed before he spoke again. “We were working together.”
“You had it in for me, now her too?” Creed's voice seemed deeper.
“First, she kicks my ass, now you? You must be related. She caught me unaware on my way to the federal post. She... convinced me to go back to the Fullerton mansion.”
Creed remained silent, to the point that if Cantrell didn't know better, he would have thought the man a statue. That silence said that Creed hadn’t heard enough, so Cantrell summed up the major events of the evening, starting from when he saw Creed chasing after Fullerton. When Cantrell got to the outlaw who shot Anna, Creed’s gaze narrowed.
“Why did you turn me in?”
“My family’s come on hard times. That’s personal, but I sent the money to my wife. If it makes a difference, the underground wanted you, too. A man named Gregg was going to pay me a lot more.”
“You're after Corwin Blake.” Creed still held the gun steady.
“I am.”
Creed’s slow breath filled his chest, making him seem larger. “Here's my proposal. Neither of us has been able to capture Blake alone. There’s a criminal syndicate protecting him, I have no doubt, possibly led by Gregg. We get to them, we get to Blake. When we do,” Creed said, at last holstering his gun, “you turn him in. You get the reward, I promise you. In exchange, you keep mine, Anna’s, and any other secrets we say, to yourself, forever. If Anna is ever in danger again and you can protect her, you will.”
Cantrell thought for all of three seconds. Here was a chance to work with the legendary James Creed, and to make up for wronging Anna and her partner, Jonny.
“I accept your deal,” Cantrell said. Creed reached down and helped Cantrell to his feet. The bounty hunter noticed that Creed’s hands were bare. How strong were his bones to feel so hard when he punched?
They were both tall men, Cantrell about two inches taller than the former marshal and of larger build. It seemed supernatural that Creed could help him stand while scarcely budging.
“How is Miss Boyd?”
“They brought me back from the dead. She’ll be fine.”
Cantrell crossed his arms. “I’m going to report to the marshals, then try to sleep. Nothing about Anna, or you, or Jonny, though. I’ll tell them I went to Fullerton’s alone. They’ll want to investigate, but there’s not much to find besides the man I shot.”
To Cantrell’s surprise, Creed gripped his shoulder like an old friend. “I’ll call on you soon.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Hours before, just after Anna left for the marshal post, she had told Jonny to go over Creed’s mechanical parts to make sure they were in top working order. Jonny nodded and wished he could say something to her, even, “See you soon.” In any case, he would take the opportunity to fine-tune the heart and head units. His schematics for additional parts rested on his desk, but Anna had not yet reviewed them.
Jonny stood before Creed, who sat on an operating table, and the tinker pantomimed removing his shirt.
“Right.” Creed removed hat and mask, set them on Anna’s desk, then took off his long dark coat, vest, and shirt, and arranged them neatly on a chair. Under the harsh light of the Tesla bulbs, blue veins showed from beneath his pale skin.
Jonny wondered if he and Anna could return Creed’s—and Math’s—skin to its natural shade. Perhaps, but it was not a priority. They knew from tests on the cat that Creed would need the machinery for the rest of his life, however long that might last, and not simply because they had replaced his heart. Even if he had been in perfect health and died of suffocation, after being gone a few hours, only the ether power could keep him alive.
Scar tissue covered Creed’s skin around the heart unit. As the former marshal followed him with his mechanical eyes, Jonny removed the circular cover and used a small screwdriver to fine tune the gears. They turned well, jerking back an eighth of an inch then forward a half with each beat.
As Jonny worked, time seemed to slow, and when Creed lay back and closed his eyes, it seemed to stop. Though he and Anna had put those metal orbs into Creed’s eye sockets, they still put Jonny on edge.
After what might have been a few minutes or several hours tuning the heart unit, Jonny replaced the cover. He then opened the head unit, made to continuously rejuvenate Creed’s brain cells. While Creed had lost memories, Jonny felt proud that they had brought him back with his reason, sense of purpose, and, according to Anna, increasingly his personality, intact.
Jonny wanted to make some modifications to the brain unit, but that would have to wait. A small set of steely brain circuits might improve Creed’s senses. The man had reported dulled smell and taste, but better hearing, more strength, a higher threshold for pain, and the ability to move his gaze so that he could aim at two targets simultaneously. With a small set of circuits, they could potentially improve his taste and smell, and maybe even help his memory.
With the ether flow on the head unit tuned, Jonny closed the cover. From the top drawer of his desk, he removed a pair of specialty gloves. The back o
f each had a steel plate embedded between layers of leather. Inside each finger was a jointed steel rod, and at the tips, metal claws about a quarter-inch long. Creed could already climb well, since his rebirth. These would improve that skill even more.
Jonny had heard of roach claws, but he and Anna had never seen a pair and didn’t know how they worked. He thought the gloves he designed would work just as well.
He tapped on Creed’s shoulder and the undead marshal’s eyes shot open. The young man couldn’t help but smile as he handed Creed the gloves.
Creed sat up, took them, and turned them over. “Steel, and claws. Better for climbing.”
Jonny nodded and took a step back.
“That reminds me,” Creed said. “My bones are stronger, like, well, like steel. Look at this.” He set the gloves on the table, turned, and pointed over at his shoulder blade.
Jonny’s fingers brushed over it, and Creed could tell the wound was already scarring over.
“Someone shot me there. Didn’t feel like the bullet even cracked the bone.” Creed turned back around. “We should tell Anna.”
Jonny nodded, and he frowned at the gloves. Did this mean that Creed didn’t need the steel there at all?
“Oh, these will still help, I have no doubt,” Creed said. “Steel on steel, and claws to climb. Yes, they’ll help greatly.”
Creed looked up toward the alley as though he could see it from behind the subterranean walls. Jonny had merely tightened screws and slightly adjusted the ether valves in the head unit. Had that alone helped Creed’s hearing?
The gunfighter rushed to the first floor. Jonny followed, taking the stairs two at a time, while Zero watched.
Jonny feared one of the girls might see Creed in the hallway. Most would be sleeping, but the bordello was open all hours, and some stayed up late to entertain the town’s night owls. Creed had the back door open and for a moment, Jonny stopped in shock, heart dropping to his belly. Dixie pushed past Creed and Jonny, an unconscious and bleeding Anna in its arms.
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