"So you're interested in the BB, eh?" said Jed.
"I think it wise I know something about the town and its main industry. Mr Lockson has given me some of its brief history--"
"Brief!" barked Jed. "That man wouldn't know brief if it birthed him!"
Annabelle smiled. "He has a rather…roundabout way of speaking, true. We did not get round to the actual mechanics of mining, though, and I would like to know."
"No better place than the BB. Though it's hardly a place for women, mind. Muddy, and the men are uncouth."
"This entire town fills with them every night, sir, and much of the day. If it is to be heard at the mine, I have heard it here, however much it may fill me with distaste."
"Well, then, as long as you're prepared, I'd be happy to show you, Miss Duniway. Shall we say, tomorrow after school?"
"Perhaps an hour later? I need to freshen up and rest a moment in my room after class."
They had come to the doorway of the Hopewell. The dining room was already beginning to fill up, and Annabelle smelled ham and onions. Julian saw them through the door and scowled at Bonham, who returned the look with a cool disdain before turning back to Annabelle. "Tomorrow, then, around four o'clock. I shall call for you here."
"I look forward to it," she said.
"Oh, it will give me great pleasure to show you what I can do," grinned Jed. He tipped his hat and headed back up the street toward the glowering mansion at the top of the hill.
Annabelle shivered and went into the hotel, greeting Hopewell with a near-absentmindedness. She was hungry, but wanted to be next to her own fire to digest her thoughts before anything else. One thing was sure: Tomorrow she'd be taking her etheric pistols on her hips and Misi in her pocket.
Episode 48: A Little Look-See
Sorry for the long break, there, kids. When you're as old as me, stuff breaks. I've been down for a while--hospital, rehab, it's boring, let's not talk about it--and haven't been able to send tapes down to the granddaughter like I used to. Or whatever you call 'em, em-pee-threes, I guess it's not tape these days, huh? I'm going to try telling this story myself for a while, the girl's in finals. Gonna go to law school, she says. Proud of that kid. Anyway, where was I?
Scryer's Gulch never quieted down much overnight, but it did enough so Mamzelle could stake out the Hopewell Hotel without drawing much attention that night, even though it was the first night of the full moon. Jed Bonham had a big mouth, and when he told her he was taking the schoolteacher out to the mines the next day, Mamzelle thought she'd have a little look-see; this Duniway woman bore watching if Mamzelle was going to kill her.
The woman's window opened. A slithery black shape snuck out and bounded over the rooftops: Misiriplinapos Son of Misorianatus, Duniway's pet demon in the shape of a cat. Some demon, she sniffed.
Oh, she believed Duniway had him under constraint, as he'd told her; he couldn't kill unless she let him. Mamzelle did not have such constraints. Jed had ordered her never to harm any Bonham, but he let her hunt and kill a human--preferably a greenhorn--every full moon. It soothed her savage breast, he thought--and it did. But at the same time it sharpened her teeth, claws and appetite for her eventual revenge on humanity in general and Jedediah Bonham in particular.
Misi, on the other hand, protected his mistress when here he'd been presented a perfect opportunity to win his freedom. All Mamzelle had to do was kill the Duniway woman this full moon when she had the chance. Then Misi would be free to kill Jed. Once the two demons were free, they could slaughter every soul in Scryer's Gulch, burn the town to the ground, gorge on hermetauxite and then fly off to freedom.
Misi said he had his reasons for keeping Duniway alive--"it's my own business, thank you, but mostly I want to kill her myself"--but Mamzelle knew the real one. He loved his mistress, like some lap dog. Cat. Whatever. She curled her lip. It wasn't uncommon for captive demons to love their owners in some way, but she'd never heard of one who wouldn't make a bid for its freedom like this. Once Duniway was dead, he'd thank her.
With Misi gone, Mamzelle would pay a visit on the so-called teacher--she didn't know what Duniway was, but what she wasn't, was a schoolmarm. If Mamzelle could get the drop on her it'd make killing her a lot easier. Actually, she was pretty sure she'd have to get the drop on the woman. At the least she needed Misi out of the way.
She slunk across the rooftops, changing her color as need be to keep herself camouflaged, till she reached Duniway's windows on the second floor of the Hopewell. The curtains were drawn. Better and better. Mamzelle drew her fist back to smash the window--
--and nearly broke her hand against a magical ward set so that she couldn't detect it. Hissing and nursing her hand, Mamzelle slunk back into shadow.
This woman was good. Really good, far better than expected. Not only that, but wards like that weren't natural. She had some kind of apparatus assisting her, and that kind of thing didn't come cheap. Mamzelle would have to take her in broad daylight. Jed hadn't said anything in his orders about her having to kill only at night. It was the only way to catch Duniway unawares; no one could reasonably expect a demon attack in the middle of the day, not even in Scryer's Gulch.
Besides, she wouldn't have to do it in the street. She'd do it out at the mines tomorrow. Misi wouldn't be near to help his mistress, either. Demons didn't go to the mines; the hermetauxite pulled so hard it hurt, and Misi was young and weak compared to Mamzelle. Hard enough to be in town with that urgent pull all around. But Jed had ordered Mamzelle not to feed from the ore, and once she was free her bloodlust would consume her. No amount of hermetauxite could turn her from her purpose. There was much to recommend the plan and nothing to say against it.
Which way had the cat gone? There, back toward the Palace--he must be looking for her. Mamzelle slipped along the rooftops, her coloration flickering with each change of backdrop, until she slipped into her own window. Misi sat nervously grooming his whiskers on the red velvet settee. "Well, well, mon chér, I did not expect to see you."
"Yeah, well, I was hoping to sneak in and back out before your boss came to see you. Wow!" Misi checked himself. "Well! If you look that good naked as a human, I can't wait to see what you look like as a demon!"
Mamzelle smiled, her teeth sharp. "Would you like to see me in my true form, then?"
"You bet, babe!"
"You know what we must do."
Misi's eyes went round, his whiskers drooped, but as he studied his paws, a decision seemed to come over him. "Yeah. Yeah! You're right. I can't stand it any more!" An incongruous grin broke out over the cat's face; he stretched, unsheathing his claws and digging them deep into the red velvet. "Tell me how we're gonna kill my master."
"I 'ave to know 'oo your master is first, petit chat." If Misi told her the truth--that Duniway was his master--then she knew she had him.
"Duniway," snarled Misi. "Annabelle Duniway. She's the bitch who caught me. Now how are we gonna kill her?"
Episode 49: Let 'Er Rip
The next day passed uneventful and serene, the weather dry, cold and clear. School let out. The little pack of kids scattered in ones, twos and three to their various haunts around town.
Jed Bonham called at the Hopewell once Annabelle had had a chance to freshen up. To his disappointment, she'd muffled her trim figure in a sturdy coat, but her cornflower eyes still sparkled up at him as she took his arm and let him lead her to the Big Blavatsky Mine. She seemed much more tractable today than she had in the past, and that pleased Jed no small amount. He'd hardly begun to pour on the charm. If this was the result of just a little effort, she'd jump straight into his lap in no time.
They strolled up the street, dodging street vendors, greenhorns pulling carts with their belongings stacked high upon them, and various comers and goers. They passed the jail; Deputy Runnels lounged on the porch and tipped his hat to Miss Duniway, and she smiled and nodded in return. At least Rabbit wasn't after the girl. Runnels's brother--who was--must be inside the jail or marchin
g around the camp somewhere with a stick up his ass, chuckled Jed to himself.
They strolled out of the camp talking of Lily, a subject Bonham never tired of. His precious little girl, his Lily, so like her mother. Annabelle reminded him of his first wife in a way. But his darling Lillian had been malleable, innocent, and too fine for this world. The Duniway girl's skin was just as porcelain, her eyes just as blue, her hair just as gold as Lillian's, but the porcelain was laid down over iron; he could tell by the way she'd stared Cherry down at dinner the other night. She wasn't for protecting, as Lillian had been. Annabelle Duniway was for possessing, and when he was finished with her he'd have little guilt setting her aside. She was the kind of girl who'd land on her feet, probably had already landed on her feet once. She wasn't as demure as she seemed, that's all he knew. She was a pistol.
Annabelle kept up the small talk all the way to the Big Blavatsky Mine, always mildly astonished at the depth of Jedediah Bonham's love for his little girl. So unexpected in a man willing to do almost anything to anyone for any amount of money or influence. Everyone has a weakness--she knew her own, that was for sure--and Lily was Bonham's.
Annabelle wondered briefly if she might use Lily to get at Bonham's secrets. If she could figure out a way to either implicate or clear Bonham in the ore contamination--and not hurt the child in the process--she'd do it. She'd feel like a rat, but she'd felt like a rat before in the pursuit of justice. Then again, if Bonham were guilty there wouldn't be much she could do to shield Lily from the pain of her father's downfall. No, she couldn't afford to think like that; Annabelle turned her thoughts fully outward, though her natural watchfulness had never ceased.
There. There was the flicker she'd been waiting for. It was time.
"Now then, Miss Duniway, here's how we separate the hermetauxite ore from the rock," Bonham was saying. "It starts with those men over there." Men were shoveling rock into a dry sluice; a flume from the north fork of the Ashen River would divert water into the sluice with the turning of a valve, and the water would carry the rock toward the machinery Bonham was displaying for Annabelle like a proud papa. They stood beside a tall, fat boiler with a funnel atop it; a black trickle issued from the smokestack. "This here's a steam donkey, the newest engine of its kind. Lucky for us it's not at full steam right now or we'd never hear one another, between it and the stamp mill it runs just over there. See the belts?" Connected to the steam donkey by the belts was a great iron frame. Suspended from it were ten giant cam-driven crushers, and beneath them ran the sluice.
"Oh, my," she answered, keeping her eyes forward but her attention everywhere else, "that must take a great deal of hermetauxite to run!"
"Naw," said a man standing beside an enormous pile of lumber. "We run it on firewood. It's free!"
"Stoke 'er up good, Johnny!" yelled Bonham. "Let's show Miss Duniway what she can do!"
"Isn't it a little late, Mr Bonham?" said Annabelle. The sky was already taking on a dusky look, but though the air was chillier by the minute, the boiler kept the area around it toasty.
"It runs almost twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week excepting the Prophet's Birth and Assumption Days on account of my first wife's memory. Money don't wait, Miss Duniway. The only reason it's not running now is shift change. Let 'er rip!"
It didn't take long for the steam donkey to get good and hot; the great engine began to vibrate. A boy--the whistle punk--pulled hard on a chain, and an ear-splitting shriek pierced the air to let everyone know the stamp mill was about to get under way. The worker Bonham had called Johnny took hold of a lever; the belt between the stamp mill and the steam donkey vibrated, then went taut. Johnny cranked a wheel valve hand over hand, the stamp mill creaked, and the heavy iron hammers came down again and again on the ore beneath them, crushing it into bits before the water swept it away.
The ground shook. Speech was impossible; Annabelle couldn't hear anything beside the rattling of the steam donkey and the pounding of the stamp mill.
And that's when Mamzelle and Misi struck.
Episode 50: Gonna Be a Show-Down
Mamzelle had picked her moment well. She knew Bonham would take Duniway to the stamp mill first. How could he not? It was a fine demonstration of his wealth and power. And it was also the best possible place for an ambush, even as surrounded as they were by other humans, for speech was impossible. No order Bonham or the Duniway woman might give could be heard, and Duniway had left Misi as half-cat half-human--a stroke of luck Mamzelle could hardly believe.
Misi had Bonham tied and gagged before anyone could blink, but his youth and inexperience showed. In his clumsiness he blocked Mamzelle's path, and she had to scramble to reach his mistress. The little whistle punk ran away the moment the demons appeared, but the steam donkey operator decided to be heroic and threw himself between Mamzelle and her quarry. By the Dark One, she'd wanted to get the drop on Duniway! Mamzelle unsheathed her claws, raked him open and tossed him aside to die.
It wouldn't matter in the end. Duniway was running, but Mamzelle was faster, and there was nowhere for the human to go. Mamzelle knew the area inside and out, and as far as she knew Duniway'd never been here. With Bonham out of the action and unable to stop her, she'd catch up in seconds.
And that's when Duniway struck.
Just as Mamzelle came within two claw-swipes of the phony schoolteacher, the woman turned on her heel. Without the operator feeding it fuel, the steam donkey was fast losing pressure; Duniway's clear, high voice cut through the diminished sound of the stamp mill. "VI GESTISCO, DAEMONIS!" Mamzelle stood rooted to the spot. Her feet burned whenever she tried to move them. Her human body shifted into her true form, wings spreading out into their full ten foot span, fangs long and sharp, eyes red with rage and bloodlust. Duniway's will pounded into her, forcing her to her knees; once there, she saw the sigils scratched into the earth. Mamzellarrainatta Daughter of Zelliniasipatiri wasn't born yesterday, but she'd walked straight into a trap anyway.
Misi loped up, and she turned her fury on him. "Misiriplinapos Son of Misorianatus--no, Son of No One, bastard of a human father!"
"Say, you leave my father out of this!" said the cat-man. "He was as demonic as--"
"I call down the curse of the Dark One upon you!"
"That and a plugged nickel will get you a cup of coffee at the Hopewell, babe. You're stuck." His furry face creased in sympathy. "Listen, Mamzellarrainatta, we had to stop you--I had to stop you. You weren't listening to me. Do you know what would have happened to us if we did get free here in the Gulch? We'd be doped up to the eyeballs on hermetauxite before we knew it--I know, I know, slaughter all the humans, burn the town down, blah blah blah. But we lose track of time. What is time to us? One year, two years, pretty soon here comes another bunch of humans and we're enslaved again, and by folks a lot nastier than Annabelle here. The only thing keeping both of us from soaking ourselves into a coma in all this hermetauxite is that we've been ordered not to. Don't you remember? It's how that two-bit Bonham got hold of you in the first place! No one could have caught a demon like you otherwise!"
Mamzelle stared wildly all around her. The area was deserted--sometimes humans were smart. "And so you will return me to him? No, kill me. Kill me instead. I would rather die."
"I won't kill you," said Duniway.
"You already have me on my knees. You wish me to beg?"
"Be silent," said the woman. Mamzelle's mouth snapped shut. "Listen to me. I will not kill you. Nor will I return you to Bonham. I never have held with treating demons like slaves, or pets--" Here Misi snorted. "Or pets," she reiterated. "I treat demons fairly, more as partners than anything. I like them, they like me. Go ahead, speak."
Mamzelle worked her jaw free. "How many demons have you snared, then, little girl?"
"Misi was the second. You're the third."
"What happened to the first?"
"I let him go," said Annabelle.
"I don't believe you. Why would you do that?"
"
I was twelve. I did it to see if I could, and because I needed help. He did what I needed him to do, I helped him with a favor, and we parted as friends."
"So let's say you did this thing. What was the demon's name, then?"
"Espinisollo Son of Eseprentussi."
Mamzelle knew Espinisollo, a strong, wise demon whose name was not generally known in the human world. If Duniway really had caught him, that made her a very strong wielder, but she might be bluffing. Mamzelle consulted her teeth and claws. "So if I do you a favor you will let me go, too?"
"Oh, no," said the woman. "For starters, you've been killing folks. Until you get that out of your head, I can't let you out of human control. And for seconds--"
"For seconds, she don't belong to you," boomed a voice. Mamzelle looked over her shoulder; Misi had freed Bonham. What kind of an idiot demon was he? "She's still mine, even if you have her under containment."
"That can change," said Duniway.
Bonham hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his trousers and rocked back on his heels to look down his nose at the petite blonde. "Are you challenging me for her? Little chit of a thing like you?"
"Yes, sir, I am," she said.
He roared with laughter. "You and what army?"
"No army, just me," she answered with a smile that made Mamzelle believe the woman could do it, even if Bonham didn't think so.
"Well, all right then, teacher," said Bonham, showing all his strong if tobacco-stained teeth, "let's have ourselves a show-down."
Episode 51: Trouble Is Expected
Annabelle lifted her chin. She didn't smile; smiles on a woman's face in combat always made them look weak, and she kept her gaze steady and sober. She unbuttoned her duster just in case, and a good thing.
Scryer's Gulch Page 21
