Michael Spradlin - Blood Riders

“What the hell is that?” Hollister asked. He noticed Chee had perked right up at the prospect that Monkey Pete might have invented another weapon.

“See that pile of scrap wood yonder?” he said.

The two men nodded, fascinated as Pete worked one of the gauges on the contraption he was wearing. He pulled one of the triggers on the shotgun handle and Hollister thought he caught a brief smell of coal oil, then Pete turned another knob and there was a spark near the head of the barrel. Without warning, a flame shot out of the barrel with a mighty whoosh. Pete leveled the barrel at the pile of wood and it burst into flames.

Pete released the trigger and the flame from the barrel died out and disappeared. The wood continued to burn.

“Holy shit!” Hollister exclaimed. “What in the hell have you done, Pete?”

“I got the idea from Winchester’s Ass-Kicker,” he said, shrugging out of the contraption and setting it on the ground. “I figured out a way to pressurize one of the tanks, just like on the gun, only this tank is a little bigger so it can hold more steam, which means more pressure, and it can push out more of the mixture with extra force and distance. It funnels the mixture out through the barrel, sort of like a beam of fire, and you can aim it how you please and burn up most anything. Think of it like a shotgun that shoots fire instead of slugs or buckshot.”

“I’ll be damned,” Hollister said.

“What’s in the mixture that catches fire?” Chee asked.

“My own little concoction of coal oil, kerosene, and corn alcohol,” he said. He glanced at Shaniah “and there’s some special additives, certain… well these things we’re after won’t like it.”

“You can make fire… with this machine,” Shaniah said, the look on her face a combination of fear and admiration.

“Yes, ma’am,” Pete answered.

Shaniah shook her head in amazement.

“Pete, if I’m wearing one of these, can I still carry the Ass-Kicker?” Hollister asked.

“Oh yes, sir. You can store the barrel for the Fire Shooter in the holster, like this.” He slipped it into a slot on the canvas straps that fit over the shoulder. “The Ass-Kicker won’t get in the way. In fact, you could shoot off your four rounds, leave it on the sling and then draw the Fire Shooter. You’d have hell of a lot more power,” he said.

“I’ll bet you would,” Hollister said.

“How many of these do you have?” Chee asked.

“I made three,” Pete said, “but there is one thing. If you’re facing someone that’s got guns, you don’t really want them shooting at you when you your tank is full of mixture.”

“Why not?” Chee asked.

“ ’Cause if a bullet punctures the tank, you’d likely explode and any parts that was left of ya would burn to a crisp.” The engineer replied calmly.

“All right. That’s a drawback,” Hollister said. “But from what we saw in Absolution, the Archaics ain’t much for guns. So we should be okay.”

Chee nodded in agreement. The young sergeant was a fan of anything that might kill more of his enemies faster and more efficiently.

“All right then,” Hollister said. “Let’s head for Clady. See what this Malachi fellow has to say for himself.”

They spent the rest of the ride in the armory, checking weapons, charging the Ass-Kicker, sharpening bowie knives and generally getting ready to go to war. Hollister didn’t like going into a fight like this with so little intelligence. Especially when they were likely to be heavily outnumbered. Chee looked happy as he prepared his weapons. Shaniah’s face was impassive. Dog didn’t seem to care. He lay on the floor of the car, never far from Chee, chewing on the giant knotted rope the sergeant had made for him. He also never took his eyes off Shaniah.

Hollister tried hard not to stare at Shaniah and he knew she was trying just as hard not to stare back at him. But there were times he couldn’t help himself. She was beautiful. He was not a poetic man. The words to say she had eyes like pools of melted emerald, or hair like golden flax-those words weren’t in him. For him it was enough to say she was beautiful, the most gorgeous woman he had ever been so close to. He couldn’t for the life of him imagine what possessed her to make love to him. He didn’t particularly consider himself a catch. Now though, it didn’t matter. It had happened. And that was all.

At the Point he’d been required to go to balls and cotillions and had occasionally heard young women speak of him as he passed by, calling him “handsome” or “dreamy” or some other such girly description, but he didn’t understand it. And especially after the war, with the way he’d been beat up, scarred, his face pocked by shrapnel, so much so that when he looked in the mirror he saw forty miles of bad road.

But Shaniah had seen something different. She had been the one. While he had lain beaten and battered on the hillside in Wyoming she had come to him. Like a dream. Only not a dream because she was real. And though Hollister didn’t believe much in these things, he felt like she was an angel. He knew, intellectually, that she was an Archaic, by all accounts a monster, though she had given up her very nature in order to be more human and though she hadn’t specifically been there to help him, that day had led to this moment. At least that is how he saw it. In his mind and in his heart she came from heaven. She had saved him. He didn’t know why, he didn’t care how he had been deemed worthy of a woman so beautiful, and he was not foolish enough to ask. He would take this blessing and no matter what happened, if he died tonight or tomorrow or next week, he would do so knowing he had found the one.

He couldn’t read Shaniah’s mind, but he knew she felt something for him. While they worked she studied him and smiled. Her hands lingered over his when she handed him a box of bullets or a weapon, and she watched him as he worked.

“What are you carrying, Chee?” Hollister asked.

“Modified Colts in a double rig. One Henry, two backups on my saddle, and I reckon I’ll give Pete’s Fire Shooter a try.”

“Well, you ought to be able to conquer Canada with that,” Hollister said. “Shaniah, what about you?”

“I have the Archaic vengeance blade.” She pulled it from her boot, and it gleamed in the lamplight of the car. She had cleaned and sharpened it since Absolution, and Hollister had to admit it was a formidable weapon.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“But you…”

“It will be all I need,” she said.

“What about one of Pete’s Fire…” Hollister started to say, though he knew he wasn’t likely going to change her mind.

But she held up her hand. “No.”

“Why not?” he asked. Chee looked at her curiously as well, wondering why anyone would chose to decline a weapon of such destructive capability.

“The Archaics Malachi has turned are not likely to use weapons. However, there is the possibility. And let’s not forget the men following us who do carry guns. And as your Monkey Pete explained, if I am shot at I do not wish to explode into pieces and burn to a cinder.”

“Fair enough,” Hollister said.

Their inventory complete, their weapons ready, there was nothing left to do but wait.

The opening to main shaft 7 at the Clady mine was crowded with Archaics. Most of them were initiates, although Malachi had sired a few of them when he first landed on American shores. He had kept his band intentionally small then, hiding, feeding either in major cities or remote towns. Places where they could either blend in and find easy food, or out-of-the-way locations where no one would likely notice when they did feed. They moved ever westward until he found what he was looking for. A place much like the Archaic homeland in Europe. Filled with mountains, defensible and secluded, but populated enough so he could begin raising more followers.