Michael Spradlin: Blood Riders

“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.

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.

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.