— The Devil Rode Beside Her

chapter 8

Rudy waited outside the gunsmith’s shop like a scolded dog—leaning forward on his mule, trying not to look at the boot prints pacing circles around him.

When she stepped out with Marlowe behind her, Rudy nearly wept with relief.

“Thank God,” he croaked. “I thought maybe that thing ate you.”

Marlowe scoffed. “It’d choke.”

The tracker mounted her horse, new revolver heavy at her hip. The night had settled deep, moon high and cold as a blade. Red Hollow lay quiet—too quiet for a place with living folk. The only warmth radiated from Marlowe’s forge.

“You stoppin’ for the night?” Marlowe asked.

“No.”

“You should.”

“Can’t.”

Marlowe studied her face—its old scars, its tired steel.

“…Alright. Then listen close, rider.”

The tracker paused.

“The Shepherd’s not the same man you remember,” Marlowe said. “He’s worse. Somethin’s crawled inside that preacher suit, and it ain’t leavin’ him.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

Marlowe stepped forward, lowering her voice.

“That shadow of yours? It’s got a tether in him.”

Her pulse stilled.

“Explain.”

Marlowe glanced at the empty footprints beside them.

“That thing followin’ you? It weren’t born. It weren’t summoned. It’s… unfinished.”

She raised her chin.

“Half of it’s with you. The other half? Still bound to the Shepherd. Through pain. Through fire. Through whatever he did the night your family burned.”

Rudy looked like he wanted to vomit.

The tracker’s jaw tightened. “You’re sayin’ he split it?”

“No,” Marlowe murmured.

“I’m sayin’ he made somethin’ so wrong it tore itself apart.”

Silence stretched.

The shadow behind the tracker flickered—its silhouette sharpening, wavering, then condensing again like it was struggling to stay whole.

Rudy whimpered. “Why’s it… movin’ like that?”

“Because it’s rememberin’,” Marlowe said calmly.

“And remembrance hurts.”

The tracker stepped away from them both, feeling the shift in the air—the temperature drop, the press of unseen weight. The shadow loomed taller behind her, stretching up the side of the workshop like a living stain.

“What are you tryin’ to show me?” she whispered.

And then it did.

The world didn’t go dark.

It went somewhere else.

A rush of sound hit her—screaming wind, crackling fire, the shrill cry of a child. The horizon warped and twisted until it bled into memory.

She staggered.

“Ma’am?” Rudy shouted. “Ma’am!”

But she was no longer in Red Hollow.

She was back in the ash.

Flames climbed the walls.

The preacher’s silhouette stood in the doorway—hat brim glowing like a halo of hellfire.

Her mother’s voice was screaming her name—her real name, the one she buried to survive.

And in the corner—

Something crawled out of the burning floorboards.

Smoke-shaped.

Hollow-eyed.

Mouthless.

Reaching for her.

No, not reaching—

Clinging.

Begging.

Needing.

A soundless cry ripped through the memory—one she hadn’t heard in ten years.

Not a demon’s voice.

Not a monster’s.

A child’s.

Her breath caught.

The shadow in the present world quivered beside her horse, edges jagged, like a reflection in shattered glass.

“No,” she whispered. The word slipped out raw. “No. You’re not—”

But the memory crystallized.

Her family burned.

The preacher stood over them.

And something inside her—some broken piece—had torn loose and crawled after her like a dying twin desperate to live.

She gasped as the vision snapped.

Red Hollow returned.

Cold.

Still.

Real.

Marlowe watched silently, eyes knowing.

Rudy was sobbing without understanding why.

The shadow slumped behind the tracker—smaller now, almost curled in on itself.

“What did it show you?” Marlowe asked.

The tracker didn’t answer.

She couldn’t.

Her voice shook—a rare, dangerous thing.

“It ain’t just a ghost,” Marlowe said softly. “Ain’t just a demon. That thing is the part of you that survived when everything else didn’t.”

Rudy’s jaw dropped. “You mean—she’s… she’s ridin’ with her own—”

“Don’t say it,” the tracker snapped.

Marlowe stepped close, hand warm despite the forge-stained calluses.

“Listen to me,” she said. “It’s got a grudge. And not just against the Shepherd.”

The tracker stared forward at the horizon, at the line where night met land.

“What else?” she asked.

Marlowe’s eyes softened.

“It’s angry at you.”

A long, cold silence fell.

The tracker swallowed.

“Why?”

“’Cause you left it behind,” Marlowe whispered.

“And it’s been followin’ ever since.”

The boot prints in the dirt deepened—shuddering once—like a fist pounding the earth.

Not hatred.

Not malice.

Hurt.

The tracker mounted her horse with a shaky breath.

“We ride,” she rasped.

Rudy scrambled after her. “But ma’am—what if it remembers more? What if it—”

“It already remembered,” she said.

“And so did I.”

Marlowe called out one last warning:

“You can’t outrun it. And you sure as hell can’t bury it.”

The tracker didn’t look back.

“I ain’t burying anything,” she said.

“Not until I bury him.”

And with a ghost beside her and a fire inside her, she rode into the night—toward Drywater Gorge.

Toward the Shepherd.

Toward the truth that would break her or bind her forever.

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Say “Continue” and I’ll deliver Chapter Nine — The Shepherd’s Town, where they finally reach the settlement the preacher has twisted into a holy cult compound.