The legend of diablo, p.1
The Legend of Diablo, page 1
part #4 of The Devil's Revolver Series Series
Other Titles by V. S. McGrath
The Devil’s Revolver
The Devil’s Standoff
The Devil’s Pact
The Houseguests (A Devil’s Revolver Story)
Writing as Vicki Essex
Her Son’s Hero
Back to the Good Fortune Diner
In Her Corner
A Recipe for Reunion
Red Carpet Arrangement
Matinees with Miriam
The Legend of Diablo is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Vicki So.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Brain Mill Press.
Print ISBN 978-1-948559-33-1
EPUB ISBN 978-1-948559-36-2
MOBI ISBN 978-1-948559-34-8
PDF ISBN 978-1-948559-35-5
Cover illustration by Cassandre Bolan.
Cover design by Ranita Haanen.
Print spread by Ampersand Book Design.
Original interior illustrations by Ann O’Connell.
www.devilsrevolver.com
To you, the reader. Giddy up, y’all.
Land Acknowledgment Statement
The place I call home and on which I produced this work is the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and the Mississaugas of New Credit, and is subject to the Dish with One Spoon wampum. I acknowledge the Indigenous people who have lived and worked this land for over 15,000 years and continue to seek justice today.
Round and round the circle whirls
Red blood flows through boys and girls
Who so e’er the black thorn pricks
Is the one Diablo picks
The bones, the eye, the corn from ash. The water drawn three times from the bottomless well. The skin of an unborn black gosling. And, of course, the pistola. Javier went over the list of ingredients four times, checking them off as if one might disappear suddenly.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Fernando kept his eye out for coyotes, soldiers, or anything that might interfere in the ritual. The ring of torches in the middle of the desert would draw all manner of beasts, the worst of them man.
“It’s this, or Duarte keeps after me.” He ground his teeth. “I’ll never join them, Fernando. And I can’t let anyone else suffer.” He glanced toward the fire. “Is it hot enough, do you think?”
“You’re the prodigy. You tell me.”
The flames didn’t look special, but the fire had been lit with an ember from the funeral pyre of a virgin. The scroll had said the flames would need to be white and black—all he saw was mundane yellow and orange, and they were running out of firewood.
Would it still work? He delved into the filaments of reality with his magical senses, seeking the tenuous connections that would allow him to draw together the forces he needed to build the weapon.
“It’s almost time,” Fernando warned. “The moon is high.”
“I’m ready.” Javier checked and rechecked the protection circle, then gestured at his longtime friend to back out of it.
He’d memorized the incantation on the scroll before it had disintegrated. It was seared into his mind like a brand now—one of the things he’d sworn to erase from his memory after he’d made the mage gun. The knowledge was too dangerous in Duarte’s hands, which was why Javier had stolen the scroll in the first place. Three men had already died trying to perform this ritual. Few were skilled or powerful enough to cast this spell.
And you are?
Don’t think about that, he countered himself fervently. Doubt had no place in magic.
He began the chant, adding each ingredient as he circled the fire. The pistola went in last—it’d been an old piece, a single-shot antique found on a body by the side of the road. The threads told him it had once belonged to a pirate and had traveled far, but it was barely used and too rusted to be reliable.
With luck, Javier wouldn’t have to use this weapon, either. Its mere existence should be enough to deter the men pursuing him.
The incantation ended. The spell’s ingredients almost entirely smothered the flames now. Had he not built the fire up enough? The gooey eye of a hawk leaked and sizzled, while the bones released greasy black smoke. Plumes of white smoke wafted into the air.
Fernando hovered at the edge of the protection circle, looking forlorn. Javier sagged as despair took hold. All that work, all those months gathering the ingredients—
Then he felt it. The threads of the universe slackened and parted, like a beautiful woman’s face peering through overlong bangs. The flames leaped, and then a beam of light shot up from the firepit.
Javier stumbled back as a violet-rimmed portal opened beneath the firepit, the ingredients hovering within the light. The magic emanating from that pinhole in reality made his bones shudder. He heard all the realms singing in a chorus of minor keys, layers upon layers of resonance that threatened to pull him apart. It blasted his ears, filled his head, until his whole body shook, his bones pulsating with power.
“Javier!” Fernando shouted.
He held out his hand to stop him. He couldn’t let his friend breach the circle, for his own safety as well as for the spell’s sake.
The black-and-white smoke that hung in the air surged and recoiled, spiraling tightly. All of a sudden, it was as though he’d been thrust into a potter’s kiln. He hissed as his exposed skin blistered and peeled like flakes of ash. He covered his face as the flame focused down to the power of a tiny sun, all of it centering around the pistol.
In his mind’s eye, the threads of the universe tautened once more so that the tapestry of fate was rewoven. The pattern remained, the ropes and bundles strong and tight as always, but something was different about it now. It seemed…shorter?
As the flames receded, he shook his head and blinked past the dark splotches dancing in his eyes. Nothing was left of the ingredients except the pistol, which had melted to become…a lump of metal. Or was it ivory? Or pearl? It shifted through shadows, a braid of energy and matter. And it…sang. Just the barest echo of that fading chorus. He reached into the smoldering embers and picked it up.
Its warm weight was comforting, but also… Javier frowned. The song became a keen. Sadness. Anger. Hurt. Like a curious wolfling caught in a rabbit snare, whimpering for its mother. He stroked it gently, soothing it.
“Javier!”
A flash of light, and then a loud boom rang across the land. A blast of cold air hit him. He looked up. A white streak of light angled downward, a faint bluish glow trailing behind it. It got closer, bigger, and then Javier realized it was not going to stop.
He dove out of the protection circle as the fireball crashed, plowing a deep gouge into the earth and sending a wake of grit over Javier. The torches went out, and darkness engulfed them.
Fernando helped him to his feet. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” He glanced toward the crater with a frown, his heart hammering.
“Did it work?” Fernando held up a lantern.
Javier looked at his hand. The lump of twisted metal was still not a gun. And yet…
He closed his eyes. The gun’s threads were tangled, twisting, writhing like a knot of rutting snakes in heat. It was a gun. It had been a gun, and now it had been reformed. Transformed.
He opened his eyes and looked down. The pistola had been restored, the grip made of buttery ivory, the barrel shining. Fernando exclaimed, “You transmogrified it!”
He didn’t have a chance to correct him. Something rose from the crater where the firepit had been. No, someone.
Javier picked up a rock and whispered an incantation, then threw the stone into the sky so it hovered and cast its brilliant light over them. His knees grew weak; after the ritual, his energy had been sapped. He wouldn’t be able to defend them magically.
He raised the mage gun shakily as the being unfurled. No telling what had come through from the other side when he’d bound the demon to the pistola. He hoped El Diablo was willing to meet the challenge…
The creature moaned.
Javier drew back sharply. It was a man. At least, something that appeared to be human. The being’s neck was bent at an unnatural right angle to his body, and his shoulder blade jutted up at a sickening slope, but there was no blood. No open wounds spilling his guts across the ground.
The being slammed the heel of his palm against the side of his head, snapping his neck upright, then pulled his shoulder back so the bones popped into place.
“Madre…” Fernando crossed himself, eyes wide. Javier saw why.
The creature was entirely naked, only…there was nothing to show them it was a he. That curiously blank space made everything inside him squirm. He’d not been a terribly devout student of the Bible, but he did know what kind of creatures came without manhood or feminine clefts, and hazy memories of those lessons surfaced.
“You…you’re an angel…” He lowered the gun. It had to be. Magic needed balance: it made sense that the demon he’d summoned and trapped within the gun had also called down a divine power of equal value. That hadn’t been mentioned in the scroll, but it made sense…
The c
He’d said it in their language. With their accents, even. His shaking voice had a flutelike quality to it, as if he were speaking through choppy, windswept waves.
“I am not sure this place has a name,” Javier said carefully. “But we’re three days’ ride northwest of the nearest village. We’re safe here from the soldiers.”
“Soldiers?” The creature—a man, Javier decided, with his soft, deep voice—shook his head, as if having a hard time understanding. He staggered forward, those strange eyes panning the flat, dusty plain bathed in night. He cast his gaze toward the stars, faint beyond the hovering glow stone. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and he collapsed to his knees, moaning.
“Javier, what are you doing?” Fernando whispered as he drew closer.
“I don’t think he’ll hurt us.” He grabbed a flask and blanket from their provisions. “He’s a…guardian, sent to protect the power of this gun and keep it out of the hands of evildoers.” He didn’t want to admit to his friend he didn’t know what this being’s purpose was, or how he might have messed up the spell. “Get the horses ready. We should leave this place before we attract any more attention.”
Dutifully, Fernando hurried away. Javier draped the cover over the naked angel, noticing he had no wings. He thought of the stories of Icarus, the fool who’d flown too close to the sun… No, wait, Icarus hadn’t been an angel. Javier frowned. He’d never been a very good student.
He held the flask out. “Easy, friend. We will not harm you.”
The man refused the flask. “I… I don’t know… Why am I here?” he croaked, shuddering.
That was the question.
Perhaps God is testing me, Javier thought self-consciously. Cold sweat dampened his brow. He kept glancing at the creature’s back, expecting to see wings.
“Let’s get somewhere safe,” Javier urged. “I will do what I can to help you, friend. My name is Javier Punta.” He held out his hand. “What do I call you?”
The man considered him warily, but grabbed his hand and pulled himself to his feet. “I am called Abzavine.”
“The funds just aren’t available.”
Jane set her jaw. “You know that’s not true.” She dug her heels in literally, refusing to let the three men past the office door until she’d made her case. Though they towered above her five-foot-six stature, they’d never try to remove her forcibly. “If we’re going to catch her—”
“The agency has more urgent cases, Jane.” This from Eric, the Pinkerton Agency’s chief of sorcerers and her direct boss. “Paying cases, I might add. The Blackthorn Rogues are the Division’s problem, not ours.”
“The Blackthorn Rogues have killed fifty-six men in the past four months,” she said. “The Division and local law enforcement don’t have the resources to stop them. We do.”
Eric and Jefferson exchanged the briefest of glances, but they shook their heads. “I’m afraid it’s not within our jurisdiction.” Jefferson was the agency lawyer, the one responsible for telling them what they could and could not do. Ever since New Orleans, he’d been in a lot more meetings with her.
Jane clenched her fists. “Three years ago, Diablo was the only thing all of you cared about.”
“Three years ago, we had a paying client whose patronage we depended on to fund our other ongoing investigations. But that’s gone now, thanks to the mismanagement of those funds and a certain botched operation.” Eric huffed.
Jane folded her arms across her chest, heat rising in her. “Thomas Stubbs wasn’t my responsibility.” She took a step forward, pressing her unblinking gaze upon Eric like a thumb. “As for New Orleans, if you’d given me the resources I’d asked for—”
“Stop this right now,” William Pinkerton barked. He’d been silent up to this point, and his sharp tone cut through the room. “Jane, that’s enough. I won’t have you using your parlor tricks on your fellow agents. Especially not your superiors.”
She lifted her stare off Eric, and he relaxed. She cut her uncle a look. William Pinkerton was a fair man, but she didn’t dare push her luck. He went on, addressing the men. “Bringing up New Orleans doesn’t change what happened. It also doesn’t give Jane any credit, despite years of exemplary service.” He added that last for her benefit.
“You need to let go of the Rogues, Jane,” Jefferson urged. “There’s enough work for all of us without having to chase down a gang of common thugs.”
“I’d hardly call Hettie Alabama common,” Jane snapped. The gang leader had eluded her for over four years now. She hadn’t even come face-to-face with the outlaw yet. “There’s a reward out for her, right? What is it now? Three thousand dollars?”
“Five thousand,” Eric said, “dead or alive.”
“A reward like that would be worth the investment. Not to mention the publicity we’d get.”
“Jane.” William’s voice was low, sympathetic, but not warm. “I understand your dedication to this case. I know what catching her would mean to you.”
“Do you?” She set her teeth.
“Quentin was a good man and a good agent. They all were,” he said more quietly. “I want Hettie Alabama to hang just as much as anyone. But the Pinkerton Detecting Agency is not in the business of vengeance. Leave that to the gunslingers and bounty hunters. Put your feelings aside. Hettie Alabama is too dangerous to go after. We’re stretched thin as it is.”
“With Division truancy and missing persons cases,” she scoffed. “There’s a killer on the loose, and you expect me to stand by and let her go?”
“I expect you to do your job.” The steel edge of his tone and his unwavering glare were a stark reminder that William Pinkerton had not helped build what amounted to the largest private army in the United States because he had a bleeding heart. “Drop this Blackthorn Rogues business, Jane. That’s an order. Eric will assign you something worth your talent.”
He started toward the door. At first Jane wouldn’t budge, but William kept coming. He was a large man whose girth shouldn’t be mistaken as the result of idleness or gluttony. At the last minute, she stepped aside, and the three men barreled past her through the door and down the hall.
Jane cursed and punched the doorframe as she exited. This wasn’t just about Quentin, though the Pinkerton agent who’d taken her under his wing deserved far better than he’d gotten. All she wanted was justice and to put a stop to the killings. Over the years, Hettie Alabama had murdered eight of their agents, and dozens more men from the Division and police force. How could her uncle and the others let her get away with that?
She stalked to her office. It was one of the smallest, but it was private, and it was hers, and she’d worked herself to the bone to earn it. She extracted a flask of whiskey from the corner filing cabinet. The liquid scorched down her throat and into her belly, dissipating some of the haze of her anger.
Someone behind her cleared his throat, and she turned.
A man sat in the lone visitor’s chair crammed against her desk. He was in his thirties, with sandy hair that needed a trim, and spectacles. No ring, so he was a bachelor. And though the briefcase he clutched on his lap was of good quality, his scuffed shoes and threadbare suit were not.
“Does your employer know you drink on the job?” he asked pointedly. His accent was cultured—English, for certain, but toned down after years spent in America. But she didn’t need to take in all those details to know who the man was. She’d only scheduled one meeting today.
“Probably.” She returned the flask to the filing cabinet. “But I won’t tell if you won’t.”
He straightened. A ramrod would envy his posture. “See here, miss. I’ve been waiting for quite some time now, and I haven’t even been offered a cup of tea—”
“Would you like one?” she asked.
He blinked, nonplussed. “Pardon?”
“A cup of tea.”
“Y-yes, but—”
