The Death of All Things

  * * *

  He’d contemplated mentioning the place to Walker, but unless it was filled with ghosts and demons, the Chief would know nothing about the town, let alone be interested in it. Plus, Barrett was already thinking this place might be useful to him.

  He watched it now from a distance, back out in the woods, peering through binoculars, focusing in on the watchtower.

  Barrett grinned. The guy up there was a bonny fucker. Tattoos, scars, a sneer that a rock star would die for—not to mention a great big rifle in his hands.

  Barrett pondered taking him out—just a single shot in the dark and the guy wouldn’t have a throat anymore. But that would put the town on red alert, wouldn’t it? It might even make them move on.

  But who were they? Why were they here? Why did they need an armed guard? Barrett needed to figure these things out—they could be useful to him in some way. The smallest trace of a plan started to form in his mind.

  “What do you think, boy?” he asked the horse, dropping the binoculars. “What do you think I should do?”

  Its dark eyes stared back at him, as if seeing what lay at the back of his mind. As if approving of it.

  * * *

  The riders came out the next morning.

  Barrett had made a camp in the woods and had woken up early to watch. Now his surveillance routine was paying off, as four men set forth from the town on horseback.

  His own steed seemed eager to give chase, perhaps sensing how such a pursuit would end. But if he wanted to get some answers, Barrett knew he would have to be stealthy, tail them discreetly.

  As it turned out, they didn’t go far. They went to the stream.

  They left their houses high on the hill overlooking the water and headed down towards it. Barrett saw that they were armed. Sort of.

  They had sharpened sticks, which they began to jab into the stream.

  “I’m sick of eating fish,” one of them, a man with a beard that seemed to be chewing its way across and around his face, said.

  “Head to the next town, then, wherever it is,” another of them replied—this one with his back to Barrett. “See how long it takes them to organize a necktie party, just for you.”

  The other two laughed at this.

  “Eat shit, Collins,” the bearded man said.

  “Make me.”

  “That’s enough,” said the last of the quartet. This one was older, white of hair but bright blue of eye. Barrett could sense that this was the man in charge, the man that he needed to talk to. “Let’s just do our job and get on home.”

  “Some home,” the bearded man commented.

  “It’s the only one we’ve got,” the old man told him, sounding so sad and weary that Barrett almost felt sorry for him. But pity wouldn’t stop him from beating some answers out of the old guy.

  As if sensing this thought, as if drawn by violence, the steed came up silently behind him.

  The four men were pulling fish out of the water now, stuck to the end of their sharpened sticks, and throwing them to the ground, where Collins quickly gutted them and placed them all in a big pile. A messy business, to be sure, but the situation was actually starting to make some sense to Barrett.

  Is the whole town a sanctuary for criminals? Does that lone sentry stand on guard against the forces of law and order?

  Had Barrett worked for a regular bounty hunting agency, he could have been sitting on a goldmine here. But since the Furthest Reach only dealt with supernatural criminals, Walker wouldn’t give a shit about this place.

  Still, though…

  There was other business in his life, was there not? Yes, indeed. And his plan was becoming clearer all the time.

  Barrett went to take care of the quartet’s horses.

  * * *

  They came back up the hill and Barrett didn’t even give them a chance—he just drew his gun and dropped the three younger men. Leaving just the old guy.

  Barrett was hoping he would piss himself with fear, but he was disappointed. The man, instead, threw his sharpened stick at Barrett.

  The bounty hunter threw himself to the ground, firing instinctively and hitting the ground just as a bullet tore out the man’s throat.

  The old guy collapsed backwards, meeting the ground with a crash, sprawling beside the bloody carcasses of the torn-open horses.

  “Shit,” Barrett said, holstering his gun, walking over to the body. “Wanted you alive, you old fart.”

  Still, he thought, looking around, four dead horses and four dead people, all within a matter of minutes, was pretty good work, even if there wasn’t any money in it.

  He looked towards the town in the distance.

  That was when the dead old man spoke.

  “Bounty hunter,” the voice said. “Thief. I’ve been looking for you.”

  Barrett looked down. His horse looked up. Both of them recognized the voice.

  A voice that, quite clearly, did not belong to the dead man. It was not even a voice that belonged to this world, yet Barrett knew to whom it belonged.

  “Tonight,” it said, “I come for you.”

  Then it spoke no more. The corpse was just a corpse, but Barrett knew he was working now to a deadline.

  * * *

  He still couldn’t get a signal in this godforsaken place, so he had to backtrack quite significantly before he could use his phone. When he finally found some coverage, though, there was only one call he could make.

  “Furthest Reach Detective Agency.”

  “Linda! They got you manning the desk now?”

  “Oh, hell. What do you want, Barrett?”

  Just in case the calls were recorded, he decided he’d best be all business. “Get me Fingers, please.”

  She did so.

  “Got some business for you, Fingers,” he said, and then gave his colleague directions.

  * * *

  He didn’t know how long the four fishermen normally took on their travels, wasn’t sure how much time he had before someone in the town might get suspicious. But Barrett didn’t suppose it mattered too much; either his plan would work tonight, or he would be fresh out of tomorrows.

  Fingers arrived just as evening was settling in, parking his shit-mobile near the entrance to the woods. “This better be worth it,” he said, exiting the vehicle.

  “Oh, it will be.”

  Fingers leant back against the car. “So what’s this ‘business’ you were talking about?”

  “The best kind, Fingers,” Barrett replied. “How’d you like to take down some bad guys?”

  Fingers looked uneasy. “Any hunting activity has to go through Chief Walker.”

  “Only if it’s supernatural crooks we’re chasing, Fingers.” Barrett shook his head. “That’s not what we’d be doing.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No,” Barrett said, and told Fingers what he thought they would find in the strange town up ahead.

  “I checked the ID on the guys I shot,” he concluded. “In self-defense, of course. They’re all known criminals, Fingers.” This was true—well, apart from the self-defense bit. But here he deviated slightly from the truth, adding, “And one of them, just before he died, he told me that’s what the whole village is. A safe haven for criminals.” Playing to his colleague’s sense of justice, he added, “You willing to let them get away with that?”

  Fingers wasn’t.

  As Barrett had known he wouldn’t be.

  “So what do you want me to do?” Fingers asked.

  Barrett smiled, and pointed towards the watchtower.

  * * *

  7:22p.m.

  The night was drawing in.

  Barrett had made his way around to the other side of town and he was unsurprised to find they had a guard there, too. This one, though, didn’t have anything as fancy as a watchtower to hide in; he was just patrolling the street, rifle in hand.

  Barrett attached the silencer to his gun, waited until the sentry was turned away from him, and shot the guy in th
e back of the head.

  Then he crept over to the body and dragged it into a dusty back alley, out of sight.

  Fingers would be taking out the other sentry, the one in the watchtower, soon. He knew this was a necessity to keep the element of surprise on their side. But the fool also thought that they would be taking some of the fugitives in alive.

  Wrong. So very wrong.

  Barrett checked his gun, smiling.

  * * *

  7:40p.m.

  Barrett was creeping through the town.

  There wasn’t much sense of a community here; there weren’t many people on the streets. He guessed that was what happened when you were surrounded by criminals; it would be hard to open up and trust anyone. But he would take care of that.

  He knocked on the first door he came to, gun held out in front of him, ready and waiting to be used.

  Seconds later, the door swung open, revealing a heavily-tattooed woman with an eye-patch and a sneer. “Yeah?” she said.

  Barrett answered with his gun, a single, well-placed shot taking away most of the girl’s face. She fell back into the house.

  It had begun.

  * * *

  The insular and unfriendly nature of the town worked to his favor—everyone kept to themselves, no one had visitors, and Barrett was able to slaughter his way through dozens of households before he was spotted.

  It was a thin, weedy guy in a jogging suit—pedophile, Barrett would have said, if he’d had to guess a crime—that saw him, and he immediately shouted, “Hey, hey, intruder!”

  The guy got a bullet through his teeth as reward for his big mouth.

  But now doors were opening and people were emerging from houses with guns, and Barrett knew he was in trouble.

  * * *

  He leapt through the window of a dusty, derelict building as a barrage of bullets swept over him.

  He returned fire, but there was a veritable posse out there. He needed a vast number of corpses to save his own skin, but he’d been hoping to catch them all unaware and alone, not have them ganging up on him like this.

  They were pressing close to the building. And now more people were joining them. He needed a miracle, but God had long since abandoned him. Ever since he had committed the crime that had brought him here, to this moment.

  Fuck it, he thought, and jumped to his feet, ready to make his last stand.

  But that was when two members of the posse fell. Shot down. The shots come from far away.

  Some of the posse turned away from him, firing back in the direction that the other shots had come from. Some leapt for cover, but it was too late. The element of surprise had not left them enough time to mount an adequate defense, and soon they all lay dead.

  That was when Barrett’s savior arrived: Fingers. Walking towards the scene with gun in hand, the weapon still smoking.

  “Boy, am I glad to see you,” Barrett said, but he couldn’t help noticing that Fingers hadn’t lowered the gun, that it was now pointed at him. “Hey,” he said, “you can put that thing away now.”

  “Everyone is dead, Barrett,” Fingers said.

  “Self-defense. I don’t know if you noticed, Fingers, but they were trying to kill me.”

  “Not them,” Fingers replied. “I just took a walk around the place—you murdered people in their homes, Barrett. They were all unarmed.”

  “Would you believe they were resisting arrest?”

  “No,” Fingers replied. “Now tell me what’s been going on.”

  Barrett shrugged, a chill in his bones telling him that the guest he’d been expecting had arrived.

  Fingers felt it, too.

  “You never liked my horse, did you?” Barrett suddenly said.

  “What?”

  “Well, here’s a fact for you, Fingers old boy: it’s not really my horse.”

  As if on cue, the steed walked down the street towards them. It stopped to sniff at the pile of dead bodies, then came to stand behind Barrett. “I stole it,” he told Fingers. The chill was growing stronger now. “I stole it from Death himself.”

  “Death?”

  “That’s right. Why do you think so many people can’t be killed? Death’s not as powerful as he once was. Some of the power is in him, some of it is in his horse. They need each other to do the job right. And I…I sort of ruined that.”

  Barrett gripped his gun tighter, feeling as close to fear as he had ever felt in his life.

  “That’s why I had to shoot William Blackstone,” he continued. “Once I knew he’d talked with Death. I didn’t want him letting my secrets out to you.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” Fingers said.

  Barrett shrugged. “If you don’t believe me, ask him.” And he pointed.

  Fingers looked around.

  Standing there behind him, black of cape and skeletal of face, was the form of Death himself.

  Barrett looked at its blank white face. “I know you’re angry, Death,” he said. “But we can work this out. We can do a deal, Death.”

  The figure said nothing. Yet its empty eyes seemed to scream a million threats of vengeance into Barrett’s mind. But he knew what he was doing, knew one important fact about Death. The guy was greedy.

  All those deaths he’d been deprived of over these last few years, not being able to fully operate without his horse, that must have meant a pretty hungry stomach. And Barrett knew just how to fill it.

  “We’ve killed a whole town here for you,” he went on. “And there’s much more where that came from.”

  Death came closer.

  “Haven’t I proven that to you tonight?” Barrett asked. “Haven’t I just sent hundreds of dead souls your way?” He smiled. “And I know you get these ones, can feel them, Death. You always can, with murders.”

  Fingers looked back towards him. Mouth hanging open, eyes wide, looking shocked that he’d been played this way.

  “If you let me escape,” Barrett told Death, “I’ll send even more, whole towns full of souls your way.” He grinned. “A feast of dead bodies.”

  “Oh, you bastard,” Fingers said, “you’re not using me.” And he raised his gun.

  But Barrett shot first.

  Fingers’ head exploded, cascading over Death’s cape.

  “Consider that a starter,” Barrett said. Then he walked out into the street, towards Death. “So, big guy, what do you say?” He motioned around the massacred town. “Plenty here to keep you busy.”

  Death looked around, too. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. There were no eyes to peer in to, no soul to investigate. All Barrett could do was stand there, feeling the power of this ageless being, diminished though it was, wash over him, and hope that he had laid enough temptation in Death’s way.

  And finally Death looked back at him. “Deal.”

  This close to that voice, even Barrett shivered. The imposing figure began to turn.

  “Oh, and one more thing.”

  Death looked back, to see Barrett’s gun at the horse’s head.

  “I like this world just the way it is,” the bounty hunter said. “I’m not ready for you and the rest of your Horsemen yet.” He smiled. “So I keep the horse.”

  There was almost a smirk in Death’s voice. “Don’t you trust me, human?”

  Barrett shrugged. “Does anyone trust you?”

  Death did laugh at this. Then he walked over to the pile of bodies, crouched down over them.

  Not too keen to see what happened next, Barrett turned away, but Death’s voice called him back.

  “Many people you’ve sent my way,” he said. “Even before you took that which was mine. Keep up the good work—but know that one day, I will come for you.”

  Barrett nodded.

  Much like the rest of the world—except those taken from it by murder, many of those at his future hands—he guessed he could live with that.

  He climbed back onto the horse and set out for the Furthest Reach Agency, hoping to find a few more towns alon
g the way.

  THE WOLVES OF LADY DEATH

  Christie Golden

  “That is a happy audience tonight,” Lev said, listening to the crowd from the shadows.

  “Yes, they are,” agreed his wife, slipping an arm around his waist. “I wish we had audiences like this every night!”

  “The Man No Lock Could Hold” could seemingly escape from everything—except for his wife’s loving embrace. Lev pulled Dava close and kissed the top of her dark head, while their daughter Gillien watched fondly.

  “I warmed them up for you, Gilly,” her brother Kellien Steadyhand said airily. “No rotting fruit will be thrown at you tonight.”

  Gillien, known as Songespynner, rolled her eyes. “I’m the one who opened the show,” she reminded him. “I warmed them up for you, and Mama, and Papa…and no one’s ever thrown rotting fruit at me.”

  “That’s all beside the point,” Kellien said, and then, “Ow!” as his twin sister gave him a pinch.

  The performing family had an established routine. Gillien introduced each act with a song or a story, and now, she was to provide the final performance of the evening. Every time she’d stepped out before the audience tonight, she’d told them to prepare. I will close the evening with a special challenge! See if you can find something that I can’t make a story or song about!

  Thus far, over the last few years she’d been issuing the challenge, no one had bested her. Gillien knew a song about almost anything—and if by some odd chance she didn’t, it wasn’t hard for her to make something up with a moment or two of thought. Many in the audience came back night after night when the performers were in town, eager to find out what the new challenge would be.