Blood Riders

by Michael P. Spradlin

  Chapter Seventy-four

  Chee had watched as Hollister and Dog disappeared inside the mine. The major was following Malachi and Shaniah. Unless Chee acted, and soon, Jonas Hollister was going to die. He pulled back the slide on the Gatling and loaded a new belt of wooden bullets. Hollister had found an opening in the Archaic line and made it to the entrance. But there were another twenty or thirty Archaics still standing, and they needed to be dealt with first.

  He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. This was not good. He pulled the slide open and immediately saw the problem. One of the wooden bullets had fractured into several pieces and jammed the action on the gun. He tried clearing the splinters but there were too many. The gun was momentarily useless.

  The Archaics realized the shooting had stopped and slowly they ventured closer to the shed. Chee tried desperately to free the action of the gun. No time. With the butt of the Henry, he knocked open the crate of dynamite left on the cart. He removed two sticks of dynamite and lit them. There were howls and shouts coming from outside as the Archaics grew bolder. The fuses on the dynamite hissed as he stepped back to the window and was shocked to see how close they had gotten. He tossed the dynamite through the window.

  The Archaics were hit full-on from twenty yards by the concussion wave of the explosion. A few of them tried to turn and run when they saw the sticks spinning through the air, but they had ventured too close to the shed and they were blown down like dead stalks of wheat. Chee poured it on, keeping the flame working over them until there was nothing left but piles of charred flesh.

  Looking out through the opening in the shed wall, he could not see an Archaic standing anywhere. He picked up one of the Henry rifles and hung it on his shoulder. Monkey Pete had designed the Gatling to be released from the cart by untwisting a large screw. He took the sling from the spare Henry and fastened it to the Gatling gun so it hung at his waist. Looping a belt of ammunition around his shoulders, he left the building. He worked his way through the mass of destruction and dead bodies that lined the ground between the buildings and the mine.

  At the entrance he looked behind him, making sure there were no signs of life among the bodies on the ground. Archaics could heal quickly, and he wanted to make sure no one was left alive to attack from the rear. The Archaics in the field lay still. Their weapons had reaped mass destruction on these creatures. He and Major Hollister had brought killing machines to this fight. And they had won. At least this battle.

  He heard noise up ahead, coming from deep inside the mine shaft. It sounded like a fight.

  Chapter Seventy-five

  Hollister was never happier in his life than when he saw Shaniah still alive. If he could rush to her right at this moment and hold her in his arms he would. But that would get them both killed.

  Malachi should be dead. Or at least unconscious. But after receiving a direct hit from the Ass-Kicker, Malachi was climbing to his feet. Shaniah was crawling around on the ground looking for the blade she carried.

  “Holy shit,” Hollister muttered as he watched Malachi, now standing.

  Malachi had changed. His jaw was elongated, the fangs had descended, and his eyes had turned red. He charged at Hollister, who barely had time to work the action and shoot before Malachi was upon him.

  Dog came to his rescue again and charged at Malachi. Malachi laughed at the thought of the hound attempting to stop him, and when Dog leapt for his throat, he backhanded him across the head. Dog spun through the air, hitting the chamber wall with a loud yelp and fell silently to the ground.

  Hollister fired the Ass-Kicker a second time and Malachi tumbled backward, the shell catching him square in the chest and knocking him down. He had to be dead now, the shot should have felled a bull elephant. Malachi lay on his back, not moving.

  Shaniah rose, the blade now in her hand.

  “I think that did it,” Hollister said.

  “No, it is not finished. Not yet,” she said. Holding the blade in both hands, she walked toward Malachi. Hollister remembered what Van Helsing had said. Decapitation was the surest way to kill an Archaic.

  Standing over him, she raised the blade over her head and brought it down in a vicious whistling arc.

  An inch before the blade reached his neck, Malachi caught it with both hands. He leapt to his feet, twisting the blade from her grasp.

  “How the hell do you kill this bastard?” Hollister shouted.

  Malachi laughed.

  “I remember you now. You’re the bug I nearly squashed on the plains of Wyoming almost—when was it now, four years ago?”

  “Yeah, but I’m still here, aren’t I, you piece of shit,” he said. “And this bug bites back.”

  Hollister worked the action on the Ass-Kicker but he couldn’t shoot because Shaniah was in the way. He dropped it on the ground. It only had two shots left and it wasn’t having any effect anyway. He drew one of his Colts, knowing those shots wouldn’t kill him but they might distract him like a bee sting. Long enough to get Shaniah away.

  “Shaniah, watch out . . .” he cried. But he was too late. Malachi threw Shaniah against the rock wall of the chamber and Hollister knew she was hurt now. But he had a clearer shot and he fired the Colt, hitting Malachi in the shoulder. There was no reaction. He shot again, this time hitting him in the side. Still no response. He fired a third time.

  Malachi turned toward him.

  “Ow. Stop,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  He leapt across the chamber to where Shaniah lay in a crumpled heap and grabbed her by the throat, raising her up and slamming her into the chamber wall. Jonas fired again, hitting him in the arm. The bullet had barely entered his flesh before it popped out again. Whatever had happened to him since their first encounter in Wyoming, he was much stronger now.

  “You are only wasting bullets,” Malachi said. “If you are smart you will put one of those bullets in your head. Do it now and I promise to kill Shaniah quickly.”

  Shaniah was conscious now and clawing at Malachi’s hand at her throat.

  “Fuck you. I’ve got plenty of bullets,” Hollister said. He raised both Colts, firing at Malachi until both guns clicked on empty chambers.

  “I almost killed you too, you fucking bastard, but you were too afraid of the sun to keep going,” Hollister said as he slapped two new speed loaders into the Colts.

  Malachi laughed. “You almost killed me? You are humorous, human. What is your name? I wish to know it before I drain you of your blood.” He casually threw Shaniah aside like she was someone’s doll. “I will kill you first,” he said. “You are suddenly more interesting to me than Shaniah. I can always find another wife.”

  The words hit Hollister like a punch in the gut. A wife? Malachi was her husband? Well, this was news. He tried hard not to let his face show anything, but failed. And Malachi noticed.

  “You . . . are you . . . ? Incredible. She has taken a human as a lover? You? A puny, pitiful man? And she never told you?” He threw back his head and laughed. “We have been lovers for centuries. Longer than you can ever imagine, and now you think . . .”

  Hollister had heard enough. His first Colt empty, he raised the Colts again and fired, point-blank, trying to hit Malachi’s heart, but the bullets could not penetrate far enough. Hollister emptied the gun, making a nearly perfect circle of bullet holes in the Archaic’s chest. Malachi looked down at his chest, then up at Hollister.

  “I give you humans points for ingenuity.” A bullet was working its way out of his skin and he removed it, holding it up to examine it.

  “Silver on the tip, projectile made of wood, and judging by how much they burn, I’m guessing you dipped them in holy water?”

  “Go to hell,” Hollister muttered. Malachi was less than an arm’s length away.

  “Oh, we will all go to hell,” Malachi said. “That is no question. Except for me of course, as I am about to become immortal.”

  His hand was closing around Hollister’s neck when there was a loud
explosion and Malachi flew sideways, hitting the wall. Chee stood in center of the chamber holding the Ass-Kicker. Malachi shook his head, rolled on his back, then got to his hands and knees and looked at Chee.

  “We may all go to hell, but I think we’ll send you first,” Chee said.

  Chapter Seventy-six

  They were dead now and Hollister knew it. Nothing worked. The Ass-Kicker had one shot left and it would be the least powerful. Chee was wearing the Gatling somehow slung over his shoulder, but who knew if that would even stop Malachi? It appeared that nothing short of a mountain dropped on him would work. And maybe not even that.

  Chee raised his Henry and shot Malachi in the face. The bullet collapsed Malachi’s left cheek just below the eye and the force of the shot staggered him backward. But almost instantly, his wound started healing. For the love of God, Hollister thought. How much blood has this asshole drunk? The way it was going, he must have drained the entire city of Chicago.

  “Sir!” Chee shouted. He tossed Jonas the Henry and with both hands free, turned the Gatling toward Malachi.

  “The Gatling, Chee! Now!” Hollister shouted.

  Jonas had one speed loader for his Colt left and that was it. He loaded it up. They needed to get the hell out of here.

  Hollister shot Malachi again, to distract him, but the Archaic paid him no attention; he jumped across the chamber toward Chee and tried wrestling the Gatling from his grip. Chee saw his chance and opened up with the Gatling at point-blank range.

  The wooden bullets had effect this time. They drove Malachi back. As he staggered toward the opposite chamber wall, Chee advanced, and as the belt of bullets writhed through the action of the gun, Malachi actually cried out. The stone wall finally stopped him, and Chee, from no more than five feet away, fired and fired, until the gun was completely empty.

  Malachi staggered toward Chee, and Hollister took careful aim and shot him in the eye. He dropped to the floor of the chamber. Hollister shot again trying for the heart, and again and again, and then he pulled the trigger and his heart sank as he felt the hammer land on an empty chamber. He pulled the trigger again and again. It was no use: the gun was empty.

  Malachi looked up at them from the stone floor.

  “You’ve done well, humans. I will grant you that small satisfaction. You’ve killed far too many of my people and no one has damaged me to such a degree in centuries. But you cannot kill me. I will leave here and heal, and raise more followers; then I will kill all of your kind. Every last one of you. Remember . . . in a few short days I shall have lived for fifteen centuries. Nothing will stop me then,” he said.

  With a degree of strength Jonas could not fathom, he climbed to his feet. He backhanded Chee, who tumbled backward onto the ground and was still. He was upon Hollister in an instant, pressing him against the wall of the chamber. His hand closed around Jonas’s throat. Somehow, through it all, he had maintained his grip on his blade; he thrust it into Hollister’s gut and Jonas remembered thinking that he should have told Pinkerton to go fuck himself when he’d come to Leavenworth that day. Digging wells was far better than having your guts strung out by this pompous asshole. Malachi pulled the blade out. Hollister clutched his gut, blood seeping out of his stomach, as he slowly slid down the wall toward the floor.

  “You will all die,” Malachi said “Remember that . . .”

  But Malachi died first, as Shaniah rose behind him, swinging her blade with all of her might, connecting at the spot where his neck met his shoulders, and his head came cleanly off his body.

  His face had one last instant of surprise and shock as it rolled onto the chamber floor.

  “You know what, Malachi? Go fuck yourself,” Hollister said as the head rolled to a stop a few feet away from him, the empty eyes taking on a curious look of amazement.

  Chapter Seventy-seven

  Shaniah stood over Malachi’s dead body, holding her Archaic blade. Jonas pressed at his wound, but the blood still seeped through his fingers. He’d seen enough wounds like this in the war to know he wasn’t going to make it.

  She secreted the blade in her boot and rushed to his side. Dog came to then, standing on unsteady feet and shaking his head. He went to Chee and licked his face, but Chee didn’t seem to respond much.

  Shaniah held Hollister’s face in her hands. He was gravely wounded, but she knew a way to save him. The blade Malachi had stabbed him with lay on the ground a few inches away. She picked it up, and drawing it across her palm, she opened a cut.

  “I thought you told me your blade was all you needed,” he said.

  “I lied,” she said.

  “Hmm. Lied about a couple of other things too, apparently?” he said. “You forgot to mention the whole married to the evil mastermind thing.”

  “Would it have mattered?” she asked him, putting her hand on his cheek.

  He tried to focus on her face but it was hard. It seemed like someone was taking great pleasure in making the world spin. He finally found her, with one eye closed. She was still beautiful.

  “No, it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference,” he said.

  She held her hand, the cut seeping blood up to Hollister’s face.

  “You need to drink this,” she said.

  Without warning there was a gun against the side of her head. Chee stood there, his Colt pressed against her temple. Dog was next to him, growling. How she hated that goddamned dog. Chee pulled back the hammer on the pistol.

  “What are you doing?” Shaniah said.

  “Don’t move,” Chee said.

  “He’s going to die,” she said.

  “He might not,” Chee answered back.

  Hollister was losing blood and getting the giddy, nearly drunken feeling one can only experience with too much blood loss.

  “What are you two doing? You need to stop arguing and start getting along. And stop calling each other witches. I mean it,” he said. Then he giggled, slightly delirious.

  “Archaic blood can heal him. He only needs a little,” she said.

  “Better he dies than turns into one of you,” Chee said.

  “He won’t. He can’t become . . . he won’t turn. He has to be bitten first, then he has to drink the blood of the one who bit him, the sire. That’s the only way it works. But this will keep him alive, it has healing powers.”

  “I don’t believe you, Brujana,” he said.

  “Chee,” Hollister said. His voice was weak. “It’s all right. Let her do it. It might work, it might not, but I’m done otherwise.”

  Chee stared at Shaniah hard. Dog still looked like he wanted to see if he could fit her entire head in his mouth.

  Finally, he lowered the gun. “Dog, off,” he said. Dog stopped growling instantly and sat on his haunches.

  Shaniah pushed her bleeding hand to Hollister’s mouth. She pulled open his lips and squeezed blood into his mouth. She kept at it until his face was covered with it. He slipped into unconsciousness.

  “What now?” Chee asked.

  “We wait,” Shaniah said. They waited several minutes. Chee checked Hollister’s pulse.

  “Shit,” Hollister said, his eyes open again. He had slumped over onto the floor when he had gone unconscious, and now he came to, staring face to face with Malachi’s dismembered head. Staring at the head locked in a death grimace, he said, “Remind me never to make you angry.”

  “You’re alive,” she said, falling to the ground beside him and taking his head in her hands.

  “Either that, or we’re all dead. Can dead people talk to each other? Chee, you know a lot about dead people.”

  Chee shook his head. “I don’t know, Major.” But he smiled. Glad that Hollister was alive.

  The color slowly returned to Hollister’s face. “All right. I think we’ve killed everyone we were supposed to, so let’s get out of here. Help me up.”

  Chee and Shaniah lifted him slowly to his feet.

  “Getting stabbed sure does hurt,” he said. “Got stabbed a couple ti
mes in the war and it always hurt more than getting shot. Which always surprises me.” Hollister realized he was babbling, but he was so happy to be among the living he didn’t care.

  Shaniah laughed. They slowly left the chamber behind, Dog in the lead, Chee and Shaniah on either side of Hollister, holding him up.

  “Wait, I forgot something.” He reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out the two bundles of dynamite. There were six sticks in each bundle and the fuses were wrapped around the bundles.

  “What do you say we make sure old Malachi stays put?” Hollister said.

  “Keep going, I’ll back up and set the charges,” Chee said.

  Every step brought Hollister searing pain, but he could also tell he wasn’t going to die anymore. Shaniah’s blood was bringing him some relief. They were a few feet away from the entrance when Chee came sprinting back.

  “Probably best if we hurry,” he said. He took Hollister’s other arm and they picked up the pace, wanting to be outside before the dynamite went off. Twenty yards or so ahead of them, Dog starting barking and growling, sniffing the air ahead of him, the hair on his neck standing up.

  Chee racked a round into the chamber of his Henry. Shaniah took hold of her blade with her free hand. “You think some Archaics survived out there?” Hollister asked.

  “Don’t know,” said Chee. “That’s not his Archaic bark.”

  Even though it hurt, Hollister had to laugh. “He has different barks?”

  “Yes, sir,” Chee said. “That is his ‘bad man’ bark.”

  They finally cleared the entrance and found why Dog was barking. It wasn’t Archaics. Standing just outside the mine was Slater, holding the Fire Shooter Hollister had abandoned before he entered the mine.

  “Howdy,” Slater said. “Good to see you survived.”

  Chapter Seventy-eight

  Slater was standing in front of six mounted horsemen, deployed in a semicircle behind him. Some of them held torches, painting the area in a flickering orange-blue light. Slater was pointing the barrel of the Fire Shooter at the ground but in their general direction. All six of his men had their guns pointed at the three of them.