The Devil's Standoff

chapter 8

Hettie pried her eyelids open, blinking back the afterimages. A dark shadow blotted out the center of her vision.

“I thought I told you to run.” She sensed Raúl next to her, and he placed a rough palm under her arm. “Where is your horse? Your sister?”

“He’ll take her back to the village. He’ll—” She paused at the sound of hoofbeats and broke into a sweat. “What is that? Is it another one of those things? I can’t see.”

“It’s your sister. She has come back.” She could sense his frustration. He added, “Your vision will return soon. The spell I used was quite powerful.”

“That was a chupacabra, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” He sounded troubled.

“Is it dead?”

“Not exactly. I sent it away.”

As long as it wasn’t coming after her. The edges of her vision were clearing, but the creature’s silhouette remained squarely in her line of sight. She summoned Diablo to feel its reassuring weight and wondered if it was broken. What could possibly cause a demon-possessed mage gun to misfire?

She heard more than saw Abby pull up on Blackie. The horse was breathing heavily, and he gave an indignant whinny.

“Are you okay, Hettie?” Abby asked fretfully.

“I’m fine, I just can’t see right now. I thought I told you to head for the village.” She glared at the stallion.

“Don’t blame Blackie. I made him come back.”

Made him? Abby couldn’t command a horse as big and stubborn as Blackie. Not by usual means …

“You okay, boy?” She held out a hand. Blackie snapped his teeth and pushed her hand away with an angry snort. Oh, yes, Abby had done something to him all right, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“We should leave,” Raúl urged. “There may be more chupacabra nearby.”

Blackie’s foul mood did not impede his pace. They rode hard. Less than five miles from Villa del Punta, a group of armed riders from the village led by Walker and Uncle met them. Hettie’s vision had cleared some, but the shadow lingered behind her eyelids. Walker pulled up alongside Blackie. “Jeremiah sensed Diablo go off. What happened?”

“We were attacked by a chupacabra,” Raúl answered tightly. The posse murmured, and the sorcerer reassured them. “We’re fine. I dealt with it.”

“Dealt with it how?” Walker demanded.

“Hettie distracted the creature and gave me enough time and opportunity to cast a banishment spell.”

“Banishment spell?” Uncle shifted. “I’ve never heard of that one.”

“It’s a kind of transportation spell. Something of my own devising,” Raúl explained.

“Why not just kill the thing outright?”

“When they die, they release a scent that attracts others of their kind. Anyone caught with that scent on them is hunted and killed.”

Hettie swallowed thickly. Maybe it was a good thing Diablo hadn’t worked after all.

“I thought you said they only attacked at night.” Walker sounded angry, his words growled through a clenched jaw.

“I said we’ve only known them to attack at night. You can’t expect me to know everything about these creatures,” Raúl snapped back.

A beat of silence hung in the air. Hettie imagined the brothers were staring each other down. “Are you all right?” Walker asked her quietly a moment later.

She’d been blinking and squinting past the blob in her field of vision, and could only imagine what she must look like. “My eyes are just dazzled.”

Walker’s fingers brushed against her forehead, sending tingles over her shoulders. “Let me help you—”

“You two can play doctor when we get back to the village,” Jeremiah interrupted, swinging Jezebel around. “We’re too exposed out here.”

They rode back to the village at a less urgent pace, but everyone’s guard was up. As soon as they’d passed the gates at Villa del Punta, a bevy of stable boys ran out and took the horses. Hettie and Abby slid off Blackie’s saddle, but when she tried to pat him, he shied and stalked off, half dragging his attendant behind him in his furious haste to get back to his corral.

“He’s mad at me.” Abby sighed. “I made him turn around.”

Hettie bit the inside of her cheek to keep her alarm from showing. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”

Abby only shook her head.

“So what are these chupacabras, anyway?” Uncle asked Raúl at supper. He filled his wine goblet to the brim. “I’d always thought they were just stories of magical summonings gone wrong or demon familiars gone feral.”

“The legends say demons crawled out of hell from cracks in the earth, drawn to our domain by wickedness and sin. But you are correct, Mr. Bassett. I think it is more likely these demons were summoned by sorcerers and put into a corporeal animal’s body.”

“Just like Diablo,” Hettie mused aloud. “But why?”

“Demon familiars were once status symbols among the witches and warlocks of old. A sorcerer today might have made a chupacabra to serve them. It’s also possible these monsters are the offspring of escaped familiars who’ve mated with local wildlife.”

“Like a wolf and a dog,” Walker brooded.

Raúl nodded. “For all we know, the chupacabra could be generations old with a long and varied lineage. The first one was spotted around a small village south of the capital about two years ago after it had decimated some livestock. A few weeks later, a man was attacked on the road. His description of the monster was his last testament.”

“And now these things are everywhere?”

“The government has made no effort to do anything about them,” Raúl said grimly. “They think it is a peasant problem only. I think they are quite happy to let the monsters savage the small villages. They care nothing about the people.” Anger vibrated beneath the sorcerer’s words like a catgut violin string in a storm, emanating a piercing note that warbled above the din. Hettie glanced at Walker and Uncle, but neither of them seemed to have noticed the man’s tempered fury.

Later that evening Hettie joined Jeremiah and Walker outside on the veranda where they smoked cigarettes. The blush of the rose sky was darkening to mauve. The smell of cooking fires laden with spices scented the air. She hated to break the peace of the coming night, but she had to tell them about Diablo’s ineffectiveness against the chupacabra.

Jeremiah shifted uneasily as she concluded her report. “Diablo should work on any creature.”

“It didn’t work on Zavi,” she pointed out. The revolver’s fatal blast had been about as effective on the Kukulos warlock as water droplets on a horse’s hide.

“Maybe whoever is summoning them has spelled them, made them immune,” Walker said. “But who could possibly do that?”

“More importantly,” Jeremiah murmured, “why?”

Walker set his jaw. “If the government isn’t doing anything about them, I’d give them a long, hard look. For years, the local governors have been forcing people off the land and selling the rights to the railroad companies or to ranchers, and the government’s been trying for as long as I can remember to get access to the magical node here. Could be they’re throwing these creatures our way, seeing if we’ll up and leave.”

Jeremiah leaned back in his chair, staring up at the darkening sky and the first bright star in the heavens. “We need to be careful. We can’t get involved in local politics. Last thing we need is the Mexican government after us, too.”

“This is my home, old man. My people. If it is the government—”

“Then you’ll do whatever damn fool thing you well please. But me and the girls are only here to unload Diablo. Once we do, we’ll leave. The sooner, the better.”

That night, Hettie couldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to admit how scared she’d been of the chupacabra. She hadn’t had time for fear—she’d simply acted on instinct. But the moment she’d discovered Diablo’s ineffectiveness, something cold and insidious slid through her. After Paul had been murdered by a horse thief, she’d sworn never to be defenseless again and had carried her Winchester rifle with her everywhere. Diablo had given her immeasurable power and protection against her enemies. But since the mage gun didn’t allow her to handle any other sidearm, she was defenseless against the chupacabra. For the first time in a long while, she was truly vulnerable.

She gave up on sleep and sat by the open window, drinking in the cool night air as she studied the village defenses. Walker’s words about the wall stuck with her, and looking at it from the second floor of the great house she could see exactly how ineffective it would be against the chupacabra: the beast’s long limbs, sharp claws, and powerful strides suggested it could scale the walls easily, if not outright jump over them. Raúl had said the barrier would protect them, but she wasn’t so sure about that. In her experience magic was never a sure thing.

Two guards manned each of the gates, and two more walked the gantry along the wall. She witnessed the changing of the night watch. One of the new guards was clearly a sorcerer of some kind. He waved his hands, and a string of warm orange lights glowed along the perimeter. Not torches, but something else. A beacon for the villagers traveling home from the city, perhaps? Or were they part of the village’s defensive wards? It was hard to say.

In the great house someone clomped up the stairs to the upper floor, and a different set of heavy boots descended. A guard must be manning the bell tower in case they needed to sound the alarm. It was quite a lot of men to protect such a small village. It should’ve made her feel safer. Instead it made her more anxious.

She turned away from the window. Abby lay asleep in her bed. Two rosy spots burned on her too-pale cheeks, and her complexion looked waxy. Worried she had a fever, Hettie touched her brow.

Abby’s eyes flew open, the pupils huge and black like beetles, and Hettie recoiled.

“He’s mad,” Abby said. Then her eyes closed again, and her soft breathing resumed.

She’s just dreaming, Hettie told herself as her heartbeat eased from its mad gallop. She smoothed the hair off Abby’s forehead. Her skin was clammy and hot.

She slit her trigger finger with her knife and let the blood well up before placing it against Abby’s lips. Abby latched on without waking and suckled. Hettie curled up next to her sister, watching as her complexion improved. It was some time before Abby was finished. When Hettie stood the room wobbled beneath her legs, and she stumbled to her own bed.

She didn’t remember lying down and closing her eyes. All she knew was that one moment she was heading for her bed and the next she was back on the ranch in Newhaven.

An incessant bone-juddering banging reverberated through the air. On top of the roof of the house, a figure with bulging muscles swung a hammer.

“Pa?” The shadowy figure kept on bashing away. “Hey. Hey!” If he didn’t stop, he’d put a hole right through the roof. “Hey!”

Hettie sat up suddenly, the rhythmic thuds still pounding through her skull. Her bed jounced beneath her, and she scrambled off. Only, her feet didn’t quite touch the ground. The air was like slurry, and she slowly sank until her toes drifted just above the floor.

That was when she noticed the chamber pot floating in front of her. In fact, everything that wasn’t nailed to the ground hovered midair. She pinched her arm—ow! No, she wasn’t dreaming. Abby thrashed her head side to side in bed, whimpering.

“Abby!” Her sister didn’t waken. Hettie half walked, half swam toward her sister’s bed, pushing a woven rug out of her path. She grabbed her sister’s arm, brushed her palm over her brow, and nearly yelped. It was like touching a hot stove top. “Abby, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”

She moaned. The bed bucked off the ground. Hettie squeaked as she was yanked off her feet, bare legs pivoting toward the ceiling as her nightshirt flopped over her face. She flailed, as helpless as the chamber pot.

“Ab—” She managed to swing herself around and reached out once more, but her hand met resistance in thin air. A barrier spell surrounded Abby.

She had to wake her sister. Carefully, Hettie pushed off Abby’s bed and propelled herself to the other side of the room toward the washbasin. She reached for the pitcher, the water within forming a loose bubble of liquid that sloshed around. She might not be able to breach the shield around her sister, but water might—Pa used to have a similar kind of protection barrier around the cattle herd to keep wolves and other predators out, and it crossed the stream from which they’d drank. Water had flowed freely through the barrier, so maybe it would flow here, too.

Careful to keep the liquid contained, she held the pitcher mouth forward and pushed off the wall, pointed at her sister like a human bullet.

“Abby, wake up!” She and the pitcher bounced off the barrier, but the water within kept going, propelled through the invisible protection spell in a big, wavering blob.

A few drops detached from the mass and settled onto Abby’s cheeks. Her sister’s lashes fluttered.

She opened her eyes. The water bubble splashed over Abby’s head.

Hettie plummeted like a rock and hit the floor, the impact driving the air from her lungs. Furniture crashed to the ground. Abby—startled, wet, and confused—opened her mouth and let loose a scream.

The sound expanded, shuddering through the rafters. There was a great cracking noise, and the shutters flew off the windows, winging from the casement like bats flying out of a cave.

Hettie scrambled to Abby and pulled her into her lap. She wrapped her arms around her sister and hushed her the way Ma used to when Hettie had nightmares. “Shh, shh, everything’s okay, Abby, you’re safe, I’m here…”

Uncle burst into the room, gun drawn. “What in the blazes—” He took in the room, wild-eyed. “What did you two do in here?”

“It’s just a nightmare.” Her heart thudded hard. She cradled Abby close as her sister blubbered. “It’s okay, Abby. We’ll clean you up, and you can sleep in my bed.”

“Must’ve been some nightmare.” It was only in the elongated silence that Hettie finally noticed the destruction around them. Solid wood furniture that would take at least two grown men to move had been upended or shifted. Smashed pottery and rumpled rugs littered the ground. Even the little decorations that hung around the doors and on the walls had been scattered. The window shutters were gone, and one plaster wall sported a long, wide crack that looked like a forked tongue of lightning.

Two servingwomen and a man carrying a shotgun pounded into the room. They took in the destruction and fell silent. The man lowered his weapon and glared at the girls.

“You make this mess?” he demanded in heavily accented English. “You scared the whole village!”

“I’m sorry,” Abby whimpered. Outside, the people had left their beds half dressed to see what was going on.

Hettie put herself between the man and Abby. “Don’t yell at her. She’s upset enough as it is.”

The women swept up the broken pottery and straightened what they could. Jeremiah and the man with the shotgun pushed the heavy furniture back and reattached the shutters. Dry sheets were procured for Abby’s bed, and then the servants hurried out, making signs against evil and crossing themselves as they left.

Hettie sighed as she smoothed Abby’s damp hair away from her face. “It’s not her fault. She doesn’t have control of her powers.”

“That’s the problem.” Jeremiah rubbed his red-rimmed eyes. “We can’t keep ignoring what she’s capable of. I don’t know anything about these indigo powers, and I don’t know how to help her.” He was silent as he regarded the grain of the wood floor, then got up slowly. “I need more information.”

“What does that mean? What are you going to do?”

“I won’t find the answers I need here. I have a few resources in Chihuahua. I’ll go there, see what I can find out.”

“But … what about Abby? You could train her, couldn’t you?”

“This is way outside my realm of experience. Besides, I’m not much of a teacher. I need to know what she’s capable of and how to deal with it. If she’s this powerful in her sleep, there’s no telling what else she might do accidentally.” He headed for the door.

“You’re leaving now?”

“The sooner I leave, the sooner I can get back.” He hitched his pants up and sent her a grim look. “Take care of your sister. Listen to Walker. And don’t leave the village. This is the safest place you can be right now.”

A tumbling sensation rolled through her gut, and her throat stuck as she asked, “How long will you be away?”

“As long as it takes to get answers.”

She pictured him sitting in a saloon, divining those answers at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey or in the lap of a prostitute. Hettie set her teeth, suddenly angry at the man.

“As long as you don’t do anything stupid, you’ll be safe,” he went on, oblivious to her seething. “The charms and protection spells I’ve put on you and Abby will hold as long as I draw breath. And when it comes to magical protection, this village is practically a fortress.”

Or a prison. She crossed her arms over her chest. She didn’t relish the idea of being stuck here.

Uncle paused and fixed her with a serious look. “One more thing, Hettie. I want you to remember this is not our country. We don’t need anyone looking at us too closely, especially the federales. So don’t go sticking your nose in places it don’t belong, y’hear?”

She glowered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that the only thing you need to worry about is keeping you and Abby fed and housed until I get back here. Be a good girl, keep your head down, and don’t go rocking any boats.”

Hettie pushed her jaw out. “You say it like I’m not capable of it.”

He snorted. “That’s just what yer pa would say.” He jammed his hat on his head and left.