All along the watchtower, p.1
All Along the Watchtower, page 1
THE WORD OF HEAVEN HAS BEEN BORNE AGAIN, AND, WEIRDLY, IT WAS TO A RAGGED BAR BAND.
Now that band struggles to make its way into a post-apocalyptic Chicago ruled by Yamayol the Bull, to seize from him the Ensign to the Nations.
On the way, guitarist Eddie Marlowe aims to rescue his wife and settle a few old scores … unless they settle him first.
ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER
ROCK BAND FIGHTS EVIL
BOOK 8
D. J. BUTLER
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Also by D. J. Butler
About the Author
Other WordFire Press Titles by D.J. Butler
All Along the Watchtower
Copyright © 2024 D.J. Butler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
The ebook edition of this book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share the ebook edition with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
EBook ISBN: 978-1-68057-615-3
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68057-616-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023947554
Cover art by Carter Reid
Cover design by Janet McDonald
Kevin J. Anderson, Art Director
Vellum layout by CJ Anaya
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CHAPTER ONE
Go to hell,” Chuy said.
“Been there.” Eddie Marlowe, the wire-thin, jittery rock and roll guitarist, rolled his bloodshot eyes left and right around the rubble that had once been a parking lot. The S on the wall above Eddie had collapsed with the brick under it, but it had left behind EARS, and Chuy found the combination of that word and Eddie’s darting glances creepy. He felt like he was being spied on.
I think Eddie’s a prophet. Maybe you ought to show some respect, ese.
No he ain’t, you pinche maricón. And I wouldn’t care if he was. Still, he was always looking at unseen things, Eddie.
“Done that,” Eddie added.
“The Mare isn’t tired.” That came from Jane, who sometimes was Qayna, the stone-cold killer with knives strapped to her body and a cowboy hat.
She’s not a Latina.
I didn’t say she was. Shut your pie hole, idiot. I mean, shut my piehole. And don’t say anything about her boobs. You ain’t fooling anyone. Apparently, Jane was really old. She had crazy tattoos, seemed to crawl all over her like bugs.
The Mare was Jane’s horse, a big black snorting monster with fangs. When Jane let the horse free to graze, it came back with bloody teeth. Occasionally, it coughed up hairballs. Just like a cat, only what came up was bits of fur and bone. Now it stood glaring at the end of the reins in Jane’s hand, reeking of rotting meat. Chuy could feel Mike trying not to look at the Mare, trying to drag Chuy’s hand up to grab the crosses and medals that hung on his chest. Chuy forced the hand down to his side, fixed his eyes on the big animal, and spat his contempt on the shattered asphalt on which he stood. Living with Mike in the same body was like wearing the same clothes as another person—wherever you went, you went together, and you were constantly wrestling over control. Fortunately, Mike was a pussy.
“I’m tired of the Mare,” Twitch said. She was out of place among the ragged band of weirdos; she looked like a teenaged girl in skinny jeans and a T-shirt spangled with the photos of some boy band that had disintegrated along with everything else in the Fall. Dirty and scraped up, but Twitch could have been just another suburban kid.
She’s no kid, check out her … she’s a fairy. Be nice to her. Chuy ignored Mike. “We can’t all ride the Mare, anyway, we’re tired.”
“And there’s gas in the truck.” Eddie jerked his head at the vehicle.
“Do you hear something?” Twitch cocked her head to one side.
“There’s probably cans of refried beans in the truck, too. ’Cause it’s a taco truck. So hell no. Even if I could, which I can’t.”
At his own mention of refried beans, Chuy’s shared stomach slipped momentarily from his control and growled. The truck referred to squatted in the lee of the crumbling Sears, partially concealed by an adjacent pileup of smashed Japanese sedans, all impaled like shish kebab on a single metal light pole. The truck rested in a corner of what amounted to a clearing in a forest of tall piles of junk.
The truck’s red, yellow, and green color scheme offended him. So did the strip of triangular flags wrapped around the top of the boxy vehicle, and the scratched logo on the side: Señor Gustoso’s Delicioso’s the words read beneath a cartoon of a man in a black suit and oversized sombrero offering the viewer a trio of hard-shell tacos. Chuy was a good enough speller to spot the extra apostrophe, and felt embarrassed by it.
I can do it. How bad can it be? We’re tired of walking, too, Mike whined.
Shut up or I’ll punch you.
We’re in the same body, ese.
Chuy threw himself to the ground and started doing press-ups. He was lean from a meager diet and exertion—that, too, was partly to punish Mike, who craved candy bars almost as much as he craved booze—but Chuy had big arms. He had big arms because Mike hated press-ups. The more Mike complained, the more press-ups Chuy did.
“Ten, eleven, twelve …”
“This is Heaven’s plan?” Jane snorted, and sounded just like her horse. “I would lose faith, if I had any.”
“What faith do you have to have?” Eddie asked. “Weren’t you there when it all happened?”
“Seriously. I hear something. And it isn’t seven cheerful dwarves, whistling on their way home from work.” Twitch had a short walking staff, and she gripped it with both hands, like a weapon.
“Twenty-three, twenty-four …” Chuy wasn’t breathing hard. He could do press-ups all day if he had to. If he could get to Mike.
Stop this. It’s ridiculous.
So ridiculous you can’t stand it, you wimp. You ready to shut up about the taco truck?
I’m just saying it would be easy to hotwire the truck. Why not let me get it started?
“Faith isn’t about history,” Jane said. Her voice was far away, distracted. “It’s the power to move closer to God. The fact that I have seen the Towers of Eden and fled the ruin of Ainok has nothing to do with my confidence that Heaven can bridge the gulf between itself and its scattered, mewling creations.”
“Thirty-two, thirty-three …” Still not sweating.
Fine, I don’t care. Do push-ups until the cows come home. It only makes me stronger.
You think I’m so stupid I don’t know what pinche reverse psychology is, joto? More press-ups. I can tell you’d kill for a Snickers. I can feel it.
“Stop it,” Eddie grumbled to Jane. “You’re making my head hurt. So what are you doing with us, then?”
“Hi-ya, hi-ya!” Riders burst into the clearing.
There were three of them. They wore jeans and flannel shirts, and two had rifles. The third vato had a lasso in his hands and dragged it in a slow whirl around his own head.
Chuy kicked against the ground to throw himself sideways. Gunshots punched over his head, and Eddie and the others scattered left and right into the junk—Chuy lost track of them. He scrambled into a tunnel formed by a sheet of corrugated tin sagging against a pile of cracked cinder blocks, grabbing for the pistol in the back of his pants as he came up out of a crouch on the other side—
a loop of rope dropped over him, closing around his arms.
He lost his grip on the pistol, heard it thud to the asphalt.
You dropped the gun!
Chuy had no time to do press-ups to punish his brother, and his arms were roped to his sides to boot. He jumped, trying to drag the rider off his horse with the weight of his body.
But the rider had already looped his end of the lasso around his saddle horn, and Chuy’s weight wasn’t enough to budge the horse. He snapped to the end of the taut rope and bounced back as if he’d hit a wall, tumbling to the ground.
Elsewhere, Chuy heard the terrible war shrieks of the Mare, and more gunshots. The louder booms might be Eddie Marlowe’s Remington 870, which was almost enough to comfort Chuy until he remembered that model of shotgun was as common as dirt, and anyone else might have one, too.
“Chupacabra que eres,” he grunted.
The asphalt hurt. It was like being dragged on his face and b elly over a cheese grater, cracked and crumbling as it was. Chuy cursed, Mike cursed inside him, and then a jagged piece of glass did Chuy an enormous favor: it cut him.
The cut wasn’t big, just a short slit on Chuy’s and Mike’s shared right cheek, but it was deep enough that Chuy started to bleed.
Wait? he wondered. See how it turns out with the others, maybe jump back in at a key moment? Or is now the right time?
A boot kicked him in the head, grinding his cheek harder to the ground. Chuy gasped and blinked through tears of jagged pain. Forced to look left as he was, he saw something he didn’t expect. It was a cage on wheels and pulled by four creatures, like a wagon a circus might use to transport a lion. But there were people huddled inside, and through the sudden blur of his impaired vision, Chuy saw men with spears poke at the prisoners, force them back away from the door. The guys were dressed like gladiators in loincloths and sandals, and looked like real dipshits. One of the guards held a machete and wore a bull-head mask, and the others took his bellowed orders. The prisoners raced around like chimps, staying in a low crouch, and it took Chuy a moment to realize why.
There was something hanging from the ceiling of the cage. Not one something, but a bunch of somethings. Somethings that looked like gigantic, man-sized bats.
Then the men with spears threw open the cage’s gate and hurled Twitch inside.
Within their shared body, Mike flailed. Go, ese! Do something!
She’s not your type.
But Chuy went.
It hurt, forcing himself out through Mike’s blood. His own blood. In the moment of swimming through the thick red stream, he felt tiny, maybe even totally substanceless. He forgot, for a second, who he was. The person in the already clotting trickle might have been Mike Archuleta, bass player, drunk, and glutton. But the person who burst out on the other side, bodiless, drifting, energized, was his brother Jesus, though he’d never gone by the name his mother had given him, not since he was a tiny kid. He’d always been Chuy. Murdered, damned, bitter, Chuy Archuleta, sacrificed in his prime by gangbangers to the fallen angel Yamayol.
He wanted to help Twitch, but in the moment of his liberation from Mike’s flesh Chuy saw the bull-headed vato approach. Bull-Head had blood on his curved sword and he sliced it through the air experimentally as he drew near, grunting in satisfaction at the whistling sound. The rider sat atop his horse, laughing harshly, and keeping the mount back so the lasso was tight. The boot to the head had come from the third vato, a scarecrow-like apparition with tufts of torn clothing hanging out around metal plates that had been strapped to his body as makeshift armor. He held a twisted knot of wood as a weapon; at its business end, long construction nails had been driven all the way through it and poked out as spikes from all sides.
Chuy scanned them all. None of them was bleeding. He had a nose for blood now—not a nose really, but a sense. He could feel blood when he was in its presence. There was blood over in the cage, but that did him no good.
The bat-things seemed to sense the blood, too. Several of them arched their leathery backs and stretched wings as if yawning. The prisoners cowered, Twitch among them. There was more blood, Chuy could feel it. But where?
“The Drays must eat,” Bull-Head said. He raised his weapon.
The horse.
Chuy dove into the shallow gash on the animal’s flank. Again the disorientation, he didn’t know whether he should neigh or curse, and then he was shouldering aside a dumb animal spirit and grabbing the reins.
So to speak.
The vato laughing on his back pulled at the reins and the bit dug into Chuy’s horse-mouth, annoying enough that the horse was unwilling to face the discomfort and let its head be pulled back.
But Chuy could take the pain.
He jumped forward.
“Whoa!” Horse Vato yanked on the reins and it hurt. It felt like dental surgery without anesthesia, a rod shoved into the tender tissues of Chuy’s mouth and twisted around. He ignored it, barreled forward—
Bull-Head and Scarecrow turned. Bull-Head’s face was hidden, but Scarecrow’s expression was utterly priceless, for that split second before Chuy rammed his equine shoulder into the armored man and sent him spinning across the junkyard.
Neigh! Neigh! The horse inside Chuy—no, the horse spirit sharing the horse body with him—objected. It was against the creature’s instincts and training to run down a man like this.
Shut up, you son of a bitch horse!
He flattened Bull-Head, catching him right in the center of his horse chest. The man went down, lost his sword.
“Whoa!” Horse Vato yelled. Chuy thought he heard the cocking of a pistol. He didn’t let it slow him down. Rising up once, twice, then three times, he came down as hard as he could, plunging his front hooves into Bull-Head’s chest.
Bang!
Chuy felt the bullet behind his horse’s ear. It wasn’t the first time he’d been killed, and he recognized the deadly blow when he felt it, bringing along with it a wall of darkness. Didn’t matter. Just a damn horse.
Getting into the animal had required a push. Getting out was easy; he rode the animal’s spirit out with its blood and brains, emerging again into the junkyard and whirling to watch the horse collapse.
Horse Vato threw himself off the animal, yelling.
Scarecrow turned from the pile of junk into which he’d collided and raised his spiked club. “Dammit, Bob!” he yelled at Horse Vato, and spat blood on the ground.
“It ain’t me!” the horseman shouted back and pointed at Mike, who still lay on the ground, writhing uselessly against the rope. “Guy must be a sorcerer.”
“Chuy!” Mike hollered.
Horse Vato and Scarecrow both stepped toward Mike with evil intent on their faces, but Chuy was in motion, too. He hurled himself into Scarecrow’s mouth. Found the teeth knocked out of place and the freely flowing blood. Punched aside the startled natural inhabitant of the body and seized control.
Horse Vato cocked his revolver and pointed it at Mike’s head.
And Chuy, in Scarecrow’s body, whacked his spiked club into Horse Vato’s grinning face. Scarecrow, it turned out, was a muscular man, and had none of the underfeeding-induced weakness Chuy felt, despite his press-ups. So when Chuy swung the club as hard as he could—the weapon’s nails sank without effort into Horse Vato’s face—
Chuy lost his grip—
and Horse Vato’s head snapped off his shoulders. The moment of disconnect sounded like a snapping twig, and then the head and attached club winged out over the rusted hood of a blue Buick and disappeared. Chuy’s momentum carried him forward so far, he tripped over Horse Vato and Bull-Head and fell to the ground.
“Twitch!” Mike gasped.
Oh yeah. Chuy climbed to his feet and armed himself: Horse Vato’s pistol in one hand and Bull-Head’s curved sword in the other. He advanced on the cage and two spearmen who stood outside it. Scarecrow resisted, tried to take control of himself back.
Stop it, asshole, Chuy told him.
The Bull will be angry.
The Bull is dead. I killed him.
As he stomped in Scarecrow’s body toward the wheeled cage, Chuy got a good look at the animals pulling it. The Drays, Bull-Head had called them, unless by that he had meant the bats. They looked something like elephants, only smaller, and hairy, and they had huge lower jaws that gaped down, revealing teeth like Bowie knives.
Saber-toothed elephants?
Not that Bull. The real one.
I’m not afraid of the Bull. Chuy meant it. Dead and damned already, what was the Bull going to do to him, even if Eddie and the others were right and the Bull was one of the Fallen, the original rebels against Heaven?
The one, indeed, to whom Chuy’s mortal blood had been spilt?
Who are you?
The spearmen stepped hesitantly toward Chuy. They must not know what to make of the fight they’d witnessed, Chuy knew. Too bad. He raised the pistol and fired. Bang, bang! Two shots to the chest dropped the first guard and bang! a third, right in his neck, killed the second.
