Most Santa Cruzans had a mix of fear, respect, and admiration for Creed. Perhaps time had come to step out from the shadows.
“You keep working with the marshals,” he told Cantrell. “We’ll talk again soon.”
About the same time Creed and Cantrell met to consult in the woods, Blake sat in his cell thinking about his life.
The Evil Eye Syndicate had taken him in when he’d come to town, put him under the protection of the Greggs. At first, he had his own room with modern comforts. Of course, there were no windows, none anywhere in these catacombs, but a cool breeze came in through slats in the wall. He had a mechanical icebox shining in one corner, a bed large enough to bring in a woman or two, if that were allowed, two brass standing lamps, and a shelf full of books. Gregg had positioned a steely outside Blake's room as a guard, not wanting him to wander.
That had vexed Blake, but on the Centennial, figuring Gregg and others in the Syndicate would be out watching fireworks, Blake had swung a lamp into the steely’s head. The lamp had bent, and Blake expected the automaton to strike him unconscious and lock him in his room.
Instead, the metal neck twisted, the steely collapsed, and sparks danced from a gap under its jaw.
With a whoop of excitement, Blake had fled his room, found the armory, bombed the marshal post, and shot Creed.
After he made it back, Gregg had Blake confined to a jail cell, something he didn’t even realize the Syndicate had. His bed and a chair had gone with him. The bright Tesla bulbs shined from the ceiling beyond the bars where he couldn’t reach them, and even the bookcase was outside the cell. He could set the chair beside the bars and read.
At the moment, he was almost finished with Oliver Twist. Most thought him stupid, and maybe they were right. He didn’t understand people, their attachment to each other, though reading helped him get a bit closer to grasping the emotions of others. Still, a dumb man didn’t escape capture a dozen times.
Maxwell Gregg had human guards in the hallway. Why people? Weren’t steelies stronger? He thought the Syndicate didn’t have many automatons. Well, people could think better in a jam, he supposed, and were no doubt better at retrieving the books he wanted from the shelves.
Gregg had promised to let Blake out eventually. The cell, he said, was for Blake’s safety. He had even trusted Blake on the mission to extract Creed from the new marshal’s post. Blake wondered if his failure, through no fault of his own, had convinced Gregg to keep him in the cell.
After that, Blake had decided he couldn’t trust Gregg. Time had come to move on.
He squeezed the book with both hands, realizing he had read four pages without any of it staying in his head. Blake hated it when his mind wandered, and it was all because of Gregg’s unfairness.
And Creed, of course.
The hallway door swung open and the night guard, Drew Ashman, came in with a plate of breaded fish, carrots, potatoes, and the one mug of beer Gregg allowed Blake every day. A cigar jutted from the man’s thin lips, its pungent odor covering the far more tempting scents coming from the plate. The smell brought memories of restaurants on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.
Blake dropped the book in his chair and moseyed over to the guard, who slid the plate under the bars. They still had no problem with Blake using utensils, and here, on his plate were a fork and butter knife. Maxwell probably figured that since he wanted out soon, he would know to behave. Blake picked up the wooden plate as Drew took a long drag from his smoke.
“How are you, Corwin?” Drew stood close to the bars, a lean man nearly as short as Blake with an angular face. “No need to worry about Creed. You’ll get him.”
For a moment, Blake just wanted to eat, but there would be food elsewhere. He grabbed the back of Drew’s head and pulled it against the bars. The plate fell from his other hand and clattered on the floor, sending the fish and vegetables flying. A crunch came from the guard’s face and blood sprayed from his nose. He fell, shouting obscenities.
“Fuck! Son of a bitch!”
“Probably.” Blake reached through the bars, grabbed Drew’s belt, and pulled him closer.
With the guard wailing, Blake had little time. He took Drew’s key ring and managed to get the right key into the cell door. He stepped out, then reconsidered.
“You’ve been nice enough,” Blake said. “But I can't have you screaming.” The butter knife would have to do. As he picked it up, Drew grabbed Blake by the leg.
The killer fell and landed on his hands. Though the pain shot up into his forearms, he kicked at Drew and heard another crack. Now crying, Drew rolled over and pushed himself to hands and knees.
Blake held onto Drew’s forehead and placed the tip of the knife where Drew’s spinal cord met his skull, then shoved as hard as he could. Blood spewed from the spot as the knife went in one inch, then two. Drew dropped to the ground, silent.
Blake picked up the cigar, took a drag, and coughing, grabbed the guard’s pistol. He rushed into the hall.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The instant Blake entered the hall he almost wished he hadn’t taken this moment to escape. Two guards who, like Drew, often brought his meals, scrambled through the door far down the left side of the hallway. Blake’s mind raced. He could go through the door ten yards to his right and just keep running, or he could face them.
Blake tossed the gun he had taken from Drew toward the men and raised his hands above his head. They watched it skitter to a stop halfway between them and Blake, then drew their own pistols. He figured Gregg had hired them for their ability to shoot more than for brute strength.
Mark and Jed stood forty feet away. The gun had slid past another hallway, branching to the right.
“What happened to Drew?” Mark held out his arm at eye level, aiming his revolver at Blake. He shook strands of black hair away from his eyes.
“Haven’t seen him.” Blake took two slow steps.
“Ain’t that his gun, with the black grips?”
“Blake killed him!” Jed intoned.
“That’s a bold accusation.” Blake puffed out his chest and kept easing forward. “If you believe it, I guess you’ll have to shoot me.” He thought they wouldn’t dare. Yes, Gregg might execute him for killing one of his men, but as far as Mark and Jed knew, Gregg needed Blake. Then again, Gregg knew that Blake had a penchant for killing. This might all be a test. If he died, so be it. He would go out spitting at life.
Blake came within five feet of Drew’s gun.
“Stop there!” Mark cocked his pistol.
Jed raised his own gun. Now both men had their sights on Blake’s head. If either pulled the trigger, he was done for. Blake imagined his head swinging back, blood and chunks of brain flying out the back to splatter on the stone floor.
“Kick the gun to us,” Mark said, “then walk backward, slowly.”
Blake watched the fear play across the guards’ faces, in their wide eyes, in Mark’s clenched jaw and Jed’s frown. Yet Blake felt none of it. Fear hadn’t troubled him since his first days at the orphanage. This allowed him to think clearly, though bullets could scramble his brain at any moment. Did he walk backward, as they requested, probably right back into his cell, or did he risk their fear making them foolish?
Blake had reached the new hallway and looked down it. Noises, like a demon with many voices, came from behind the door at the end. After a moment, he realized the sound was growling. Excitement made him smile and stand tall. Something strange and terrifying might be in there, something as fascinating as Bodacious Creed.
“You win.” Blake looked down and kicked the gun.
The guards followed it with their gaze and Blake bolted into the hallway toward the rumbling sound. It struck him as dark and dangerous, but hadn't the darkness always been on his side? He slammed the door then grasped the handle. If it was locked, Mark and Jed were bound to shoot him. If he lived, he’d face Gregg. If not, well, so much for escaping. He wished he had a shadow walker necklace or simply another gun.
Yet without those, this felt like a grand adventure.
The door swung open. Blake rushed in and slammed it shut. He held it closed, his quick breath brushing his lips. Immediately, he recognized the smell of dog fur and shit. He listened to the footfalls outside and tried to recall what he had glimpsed on entering: cages of dogs on the floor, and rodents on shelves above.
He flicked the lock, but surely Mark and Jed had a key.
“Fuck this,” Blake whispered. Surely enough, a rattling soon filled the lock. Kneeling, he felt along the cages. He found one cold latch, then another, then more, and each time opened a cage door. He could let the men kill him, or risk whatever dangers the dogs presented. The growling rose into an angry chorus, but none of the canines harmed him. Instead, they brushed against his legs in the narrow space.
With the guards arguing about the key and taking longer than anyone should to unlock a door, Blake figured he’d free the rats. He opened their two cages just as the door flew open. As light from the intersecting hallway streamed in, the dogs pounced on Mark and Jed, growls deepening. Blake stared for a moment and saw the metallic attachments to the animal’s heads. He guessed there were six or seven dogs, but it didn’t matter. He needed to run.
Blake pushed past the shouting men as the dogs snapped at their arms. Just past the canines he tripped and landed on his left elbow, but he ignored the pain as he staggered to his feet and back to the main hallway. Drew’s gun still lay where he had kicked it. He picked it up, then glanced back at Mark and Jed. Blake had never seen dogs so vicious, snarling and snapping at the men’s arms, their sharp teeth sinking through cloth and flesh. The guards screamed in rage.
“Well holy shit.” Rats squealed over the low growls and shouts. Why did the dogs keep growling? Why not bark?
Blake ran the rest of the way along the main hall in the direction Jed and Mark had come from. Behind the door, he entered a small room with light shining from the ceiling bulbs, cards on the table, and a stairway leading to a trapdoor above. He rushed up the steps and tried to open the hatch, then jumped down, fired at the lock with Drew’s pistol, and ducked.
Ears ringing, he went back up and gave the trapdoor a hard push. It flipped open. Blake scrambled into a room stocked with cigars and other smokes, then opened a door. He left the stock room of the smoking shop and ran past the stunned owner, out the front door, and into the night.
A few minutes after Cantrell left the edge of the forest, Creed stepped out onto the road. He wanted to make sure no one saw them together. He checked his brass pocket watch, which read ten thirteen. Tonight, he would circle around to Railroad Flats, hoping that someone might at last talk.
In no hurry, Creed walked up High Street, past the Santa Cruz Mission. He stood on the wide lawn for a minute, looking down at the city, then continued down Mission Street, passed the clock tower, and went past the shops and streetlamps on Main Street.
A block down Main, across the street from the Cooper Brothers Mercantile, he heard a long, low growl. Aside from constant chirrup of crickets, the night was deathly quiet. If not for the near-silence, Creed might have missed the distant sound.
That low, canine rumble sent a chill across his arms and back. He shut his eyes to focus on his hearing. The sound came somewhere up ahead and to the right.
He turned onto Cooper Street, rushed past a bit of Pacific Avenue and onto Church Street, and soon made it to Center. He extended his eyesight and nearly tripped, not used to Jonny’s enhancement, but regained his footing. Five dogs snapped and growled at a man on a black horse.
Rob Cantrell.
Creed snapped his eyesight back to normal and dashed as quickly as he could.
Cantrell’s horse, Malcolm, reared back and bucked Cantrell free. When his back hit the ground, the dogs pounced with gnashing teeth and flying spittle. These were the very dogs Creed had found in Fullerton’s basement, the two bull terriers and the three greyhounds. Cantrell punched one of the latter on the snout. It whimpered then snapped at his gloved fist. The others latched onto his arms and one leg, their guttural sounds a cacophony of bestial rage.
Creed skidded along the hard dirt, raising what little dust the earth had to offer. About twenty feet away, he drew both guns and fired into the pack.
Blood spurted from the head of a greyhound, then a terrier. They dropped on Cantrell as though the hand of the devil had pulled them down. The three remaining dogs scattered but quickly turned toward the men with those guttural rumbles.
Under the streetlamps, their gray snouts and the white skin around their eyes glistened. Cantrell stood and cocked his pistol. Creed hated the idea of putting down more of the animals, but he knew they were too dangerous to let go. Their brains, surely, were ruined, anyway.
Creed leveled his guns at two of the zombie dogs and split his vision for accurate aim.
Before either Creed or Cantrell fired, two shots rang out from the north. When Creed glanced that way, the dogs fled, as though on command, one north, and two south.
“Fuck this,” said Cantrell. “That's a second time I've been knocked off my horse recently, and the third time ambushed.” He holstered his gun and kicked the ground. “Those were in Fullerton's basement, weren't they?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Fur. I found a tuft of mangy fur there. Also saw these straight, regular marks on the floor, like there’d been cages.”
“They were there.” Creed noticed people gazing out from second story windows, the homes above the shops. “So much for folks not seeing us together.”
“We need to go after those dogs,” Cantrell said.
“Agreed.” Creed holstered his pistols. “There was a coyote, too.”
“Well that's different.”
“You going to be all right, after the dog bites?”
Cantrell turned his arms to look them over and felt his legs. “Leather and denim. I’m all right,” Cantrell said. “Might have some bruises. How about I take the one that went there, up Elm, and—look out!”
Creed wheeled around as one of the remaining greyhounds barreled down Center Street, clearly smart enough not to growl. It must have circled around to attack from behind. From six feet away, it leaped. Creed pulled a fist back as though boxing and punched it in the side before its teeth could go for his face.
With a yelp, it flew to his left and hit the ground with a crunch. Creed’s main pistol was in his hand, pointing at the undead beast when he heard snarling from behind.
He glanced back. The animal wasn’t threatening him, and it wasn’t a dog.
Cantrell cocked his Colt.
“Wait,” Creed said.
The greyhound got to its feet, baring its teeth at the coyote. As a wild scavenger, the lone coyote should have run from the big canine. Instead, it stepped forward, hair raising across its back. Its mechanical leg clanked as it struck the ground.
The reddish dog pulled its lips back, but the coyote let out a stream of barking and lunged. The dog’s eyes widened. It spun around and dashed south on Center, toward Railroad Flats.
“What in Hell?” Cantrell whispered, echoing Creed’s amazement.
The coyote pursued a full block, then swung back around, running for the men, tail high. Cantrell had his hand on the butt of his pistol but didn’t draw as the coyote trotted up to Creed. It lay down at his feet and rolled over, tail wagging.
Creed knelt and gently scratched its belly.
“That’s the third strangest thing I’ve ever seen, behind Fullerton and you,” said Cantrell.
“Damn strange.” Creed stood, and so did the coyote. “I have to get these bodies to, you know.” With citizens watching and listening, he knew it better not to mention Anna’s name.
Cantrell looked toward the Flats. “I’ll look for the other mutts, then. What do you think those gunshots we heard were?”
“Those were the reason that Bateman should make everyone check in their guns when they come to town, take a page from Bill Hickok.”
; “I’ll report to the marshal’s first, get some help finding those dogs. If I manage to put them down, I know where to find you.”
Malcolm, Cantrell’s horse, waited across the street, after having fled the dog attack. A well-trained steed, Creed mused. Cantrell mounted and, with a brief wave, rode south.
Carrying one dead dog over each shoulder, Creed made his way through alleys to The House of Amber Doves, the coyote following on his heels.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The greyhound and the terrier weighed on Creed’s shoulders like uneven sacks of grain, and even with his dulled sense of smell, their musk assailed his nostrils. By the time he reached the bordello’s back door, he felt ready to drop the animals anywhere. He pushed open the door and, to his surprise, the mingled scents of rolls, pork, beef, and beans stirred his hunger.
Creed stepped in, glanced toward the bar, and stopped. Dread filled his chest.
One of Anna’s doves stood behind it, watching him, several ringlets of curly red hair hanging over one of her blue eyes. This was it. In his haste to be rid of the dog corpses, he had pushed his luck. One of Anna’s women had seen him, and she would have to answer some tough questions.
However, the redhead gave him a curt nod, glanced to his right, where the coyote had stepped up beside him, then pointed over her shoulder with her thumb as if to say, “Go on in.” Creed flashed her a half grin, realized she couldn’t see it from beneath his mask, and went through Anna’s bedroom door. As he shut it with his boot, he guessed he had just encountered Maybelle.
Creed knelt and rolled the dead dogs, greyhound and terrier, onto Anna’s floor. He arched his back and stretched his arms. The carpet had been pushed aside; Anna and Jonny were downstairs in the lab. Creed flipped the switch for the overhead lights and squinted at the boards. In seconds, he found the trapdoor.
Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western (The Adventures of Bodacious Creed Book 1) Page 25
