Title: Amazing, Arizona (10/??)
Name: Allaine
Spoilers: Certain characters are based on characters belonging to Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Disney, and various other companies. To name them would mean spoiling the surprise of who you'll encounter. If you don't recognize someone, it's either because you're not a member of the fandom, or it's an original character.
Rating: R
Summary: Driving a hijacked gold train southeast through the Arizona Territory in 1879, the Charnel House Gang's next stop on the line to Tombstone is the town of Amazing, a not-quite-normal place where people just want to be left alone. The Gang's plan to pillage the town and kill the inhabitants hits a snag, however, in the person wearing the tin star - Sheriff Raven Darkholme.
Chapter 10
The snake narrowed its eyes and let its tongue flick out briefly, almost caressing the boulder. "Thisss should not be here," it said.
"Maybe it fell," Whale suggested.
Forktongue shot him a look of contempt. "From where, exsssactly? There are no cliffsss here, idiot."
"I don't know," the fat man mumbled.
"You're thinkin' someone put it here," Wolf said, his hands resting on his hips. "Why not just tear up the tracks? Seems like a lot less work."
"Don't know," Forktongue said. "Very sssussspiciousss. The people from the next town mussst have done thisss."
"Coulda been the folks at Tombstone," Whale pointed out carefully, as if afraid the rattlesnake would bite his head off again.
Which he in fact did. "SSSure, Whale," Forktongue sneered. "They rode tensss of milesss into the desssert to put a sssingle rock on the tracksss. Then they rode away again. Perhapsss we should not engage sssuch tacticiansss."
"It ain't my fault if I don't know what's going on!" Whale burst out. "You don't know what's going on neither!"
"No, but I can guesss," the rattler said. "It isss posssible that we have a sssolution to our problem."
Wolf and Whale digested this for a moment. Then Whale burped and spat something out that kicked up dirt near Wolf's feet.
"Shit, watch where you're spittin' skulls, Whale," Wolf snapped.
"Sorry."
"Where isss Striker?" Forktongue asked.
"Back in the cab with Palmetto," Wolf answered. One head looked back at the train while the other held the rattlesnake's gaze. "Wonderin' what we're talking about, most like. You're sayin' - "
"I sssay we sssend Striker into town, like we alwaysss do," Forktongue answered. "And then we wait. We let Palmetto play with hisss whissstle, and we wait for Striker to return while we hope for sssomething different."
Whale smiled with the grin of a predator. "I get it now," he said.
"Good. It isss about fucking time!"
"I tell ya, it ain't my fault!"
"I do not care! Move the boulder or eat it, and make yourssself ussseful!"
"What's the one thing to remember, Kay?" Raven asked.
Kay made a face. "Hell, Sheriff, we've gone over this a dozen times. Ah think ah know what we're supposed to do by now!"
"Humor me."
"Don't look like you're laughing," Kay muttered. "We split 'em up. Don't let 'em fight together."
"That's right," Raven said. "We scatter. Even with 'em outnumbered two-to-one, they'd kill us in a slugfest. But if we get 'em without someone watchin' their backs, we can take them!" she added fervently.
"And then we celebrate. And I git good n' drunk."
"Nice of you to stay sober for the occasion, Kay," Raven murmured.
"Don't mention it."
The town had been cleared of citizens, except for their little deputized posse. If any - or all - of the Gang survived today, they'd have to ride or walk for ten miles if they wanted to kill anyone else. And even then, Mayor Frost was guarding the townsfolk with her not-inconsiderable powers.
Raven had spread her forces out on either side of the main thoroughfare. Lorna Cassidy, Ororo and Thomas were in the hotel lobby. Deputy Rose and Sean Cassidy at the bank. Deputy Waylon and Angelo Espinosa in her office. She'd taken Kay under her wing and stationed herself at the saloon. Each building had a back entrance through which they'd be able to fall back through if they could draw out the individual Gang members. Which Raven believed they would. They would be too confident in their own individual powers.
Simon Stagg was still unconscious at the jail. Raven was inclined to leave him there and let God sort it out.
"And don't forgit - the little one they call Palmetto. Don't kill him. Killin him's easy. We gotta knock him out withOUT killing him."
"Damn it, Sheriff, you tell me this shit one more time and I'm a-going to start forgetting some of - "
She grew quiet as she heard the noise. Raven heard it too, of course.
Train a-coming.
Demona hissed with barely-contained fury as she stuffed a small satchel with shotgun shells and attached it to her waist. Stupid humans with their stupid, accursed powers!
Well, she had powers of her own, and she had ways to compensate for the powers she didn't have. Like, say, being able to walk freely during the daylight hours. How did those egotistical humans think she had arrived safely in the Arizona Territory anyway? In a crate on the railroad?
She touched the diamond-shaped pendant around her neck. Allegedly it had been scavenged from the body of a monster killed in the jungles south of Mexico. She didn't know if the legend was true, and she didn't know if the monster in question was a gargoyle. What she did know was that it kept her awake when the sun was up, for those emergency situations, so it was probably intended for gargoyle ownership.
And she'd murdered the previous owner on the reasoning that if it was his, then perhaps a gargoyle's blood was on his hands.
Although even if it wasn't, what was wrong with one more dead human?
Speaking of which, there was going to be a bloodbath today in the town of Amazing, and Demona was going to watch. Specifically she would watch the death of that arrogant blond insect, and her impostor, that manipulative whore who had attempted to trick her into helping them.
And perhaps once the Gang arrived and occupied their attention, Demona could slip into the shadows and locate the bitch who had mindfucked her the night before. No slow torture for her, sadly. A quick death would be necessary, before the presumptuous creature stole her mind again.
Demona buckled her mace to her waist. The club and the firearm were for protection, in case she crossed paths with the Gang themselves. They couldn't kill her permanently, but that didn't mean she wouldn't defend herself to the death.
She sneered. Maybe she should just kill whoever was left standing. Let the humans see how far gargoyles outstripped their kind.
"This is plumb stupid," Striker growled as he hopped down from the train. "Why the fuck am I still doing this?"
"Tesssting the watersss, Striker," Forktongue hissed. "Let usss know if today will require a chassse."
"You know damn well it will!" Striker snapped. "The last town was deserted, and you made us hunt 'em down! There's gold and killin' to spare in Tombstone, and by the time we fuckin' get there, they're gonna have the goddamn Eighth Army - "
"You've made your posssition known, Striker," the rattler interrupted. "Now go into town and do your cursssed job!"
Striker muttered a string of choice vulgarities as he adjusted his longcoat so that his tail was more comfortable. Then he strode past the telegraph office and into Amazing.
"I think you just lahk makin' him mad," Palmetto tittered.
"I have my reasonsss," Forktongue told him. "And I don't much like him anything, including mad."
As Striker went on cursing the rattlesnake's name in a low voice, Raven couldn't believe what she was seeing in the distance. A single man, marching up the street. From what she knew of the Gang, there were only two members who could fit that description - the scorpion Striker, and the snake Forktongue. If the snake was in human form, that was, and since that was also its weakest form, Raven couldn't imagine it was him.
Striker didn't know it, but he was heavily outnumbered. He would be, that was, until the Gang stormed in to back him up. She had to put as much ground between Striker and the rest if she wanted to cut the Gang's numbers by one right off the bat. "Kay," she murmured. "Do me a favor?"
"More humorin'?" Kay grumbled.
"If you don't mind, go into the street and start running away from the man who's coming towards us."
Kay glared at her. "I'm here for my fists, not my feet, beggin' your pardon, Sheriff," she said wilfully.
"You're also an attractive young woman who most men drool over, so if he sees you, I think it's likely he'll want you before one of his pardners gets you first," Raven replied. "Just shake a leg, Kay."
"And what do I do if he catches me?"
"He won't, but if he does, you just beat him into a stain on the dust."
"Well, that's a bit more to my liking," Kay admitted before she burst out of the saloon doors, took one look at the man coming, and ran away.
Striker froze in place. If the rest of the Gang had been with him, odds were Wolf woulda fucked her, or Whale would've eaten her. Or both. "Well, he DID say somethin' about a chase," Striker muttered, a leer emerging on his lips. He dashed after her.
By then Kay had turned the corner and run to the left. Once Striker had disappeared after her, Raven took a last look down the thoroughfare and ran across the street to the bank. "Rose!" she hissed.
"What in tarnation is Kay doin'?!" Rose blurted out.
"What I damn well told her, which is what you need to be doing!" Raven shot back. "You go after them, and you take that man, and you carry him as far AWAY from the train as you can without goin' too far for the rest of us to catch up. We kill him fast and quiet, the Gang won't be able to save him. And if we AIN'T quiet, then at least we'll be far!"
"You got it, Sheriff," Rose said instantly, running out the door.
"What about me, Sheriff?" Sean asked.
"You stay behind, Sean," she told him. "I'm takin' some of the others. You see the rest of the Gang coming, well, we'll hear your voice faster'n any gunshot."
She hurried back into the street. What could the rest of the Gang be DOING? Was the scorpion a distraction while they flanked the town? The thought chilled her, but why WOULD they? They couldn't have anything to fear from a few farmers.
"Thomas!" she called as loudly as she dared. "Waylon! Follow me now!"
Her deputy and the newly-liberated Negro burst out from their stations, but Raven had already turned and run the moment she spotted them. Three strongest people in town, a fourth who could copy 'em - and her. As Emma had pointed out, she was the fifth wheel on this Conestoga, but she was also the one holding the reins.
"Well, now ain't your peaches fine?" Striker slobbered as his tail squeezed Kay tightly around the waist, holding her against the wall and out of arm's reach.
Kay pounded squarely on his tail, but it was like punching solid metal. And it was long enough that her first few swings had fallen short of his jaw by inches. "I'da take offense at having these compared to peaches, cocksucker, but I'm already offended as it is."
"You're a-gonna wish you were better DEfended when I'm through with you," Striker said, laughing at his joke.
"If it's a peach you're in the mood fer, we got one right from Georgia," Kay told him.
An arm suddenly wrapped around his neck and pulled mightily. Striker arches his back, shocked. He let go of Kay, dropping her, and arched his tail back over his head, trying to strike his ambusher. "Leggo!" he snarled.
"Sorry, orders," Rose said, dodging a strike from his poisoned barb and hoisting him into the air as her feet left the ground.
"Wha - fuck!"
"Hey, sheriff promised me I could beat him flat," Kay complained.
Rose was startled at how strong the man was. His hat tumbled off, and she was surprised by something else. Not only was he completely bald, but his head was covered by some kind of glossy shell - like a scorpion's hide, she figured - on which no hair would ever grow. "You wanna join the party, I expect Sheriff's not gonna say no."
Another strike from his tail hit her in the shoulder, but her skin proved as impervious to oversized scorpion stingers as it had to cannonballs when she was younger. It did feel like a heavy punch to the body, though, and she almost was forced to let go. Whirling about a few times in the air, she built enough speed to toss him several yards down the road, forcing him to land in a tangled heap.
"You - little - bitch!" Striker growled, slowly getting to his feet. He looked hurt, but his tail came forward with impossible speed and squirted a noxious green liquid at Rose. The poison was slower than his tail was, though, and she dodged it before flying forward and hitting him in the chest with both fists, sending him onto his back again.
"Make some room, depity!" Kay crowed as she came up behind her and tackled the scorpion as he was getting to his knees. She was off him lightning quick and got onto his back, straddling the base of his tail where it met his back like it was a saddle. She wrapped both arms around his tail and pulled back and forth. "Looks like we got us a right good rodeo!"
"Get offa me!"
"Fuck off," Rose said before she planted her foot on the back of his head and drove his face into the dirt. "Now that we got him, what the hell do we DO with 'im?"
"We help him to his feet," Raven said.
The two women looked at her.
"Don't look at me, deputy, you just introduce our guest's face to your feet a few more times," Raven said.
"Right, Sheriff," she said apologetically before she started kicking Striker's face in.
"Thomas, you take Rose's powers, because she's the strongest here," Raven said. "Then you and Waylon hold his arms and get him standin'."
"Sure thing, Sheriff," Waylon grumbled as he came forward. A rainbow-like light surrounded Thomas briefly before it stretched out and touched Rose. The light didn't dim as Thomas joined Waylon and easily pulled the Gang member to his feet. Kay held the tail in place, still yanking on it like she thought she could pull it out like a splinter. Maybe she did, Raven thought. Maybe she even could, but there were easier ways to kill a man.
"You sure are ugly, Striker," Raven said as he struggled vainly against four people whose combined strength dwarfed his. His tail squirted poison uselessly, as Kay kept it directed away from everyone else. "What is that shit on your face? The mayor would know the word. Bug skin, I call it. Guess that's why the Army couldn't just put a bullet in your face."
"You just keep your jawin', you blue bitch," Striker snarled at her. "Fuckin' muties you may be, but you ain't got muties like we do! We - "
"Yeah, yeah," Raven said, reaching forward and grabbing his nose in her fist, squeezing.
Striker's head shook as his cheeks turned an even brighter shade of red, and then he inhaled loudly.
As Emma had observed, Raven brought leadership, shapechanging, and a VERY fast gun to the table. Of course, Emma had also noted that bullets didn't seem to do much good against the Charnel House Gang.
Raven wagered bullets could good when the gun barrel was in Striker's mouth before he could close it. "Rose, you mind movin' your head?"
"Whatever you say, Sheriff."
She moved her head to the left, but it wasn't necessary. Raven fired four times, and not one of her bullets came out the other side.
Waylon whistled.
"Ain't so special," Raven said. "How you doin' on the inside, Striker?"
He didn't answer her. Blood bubbled from his mouth and his ears as she drew her revolver out.
"Drop him," she commanded, and when they hesitantly let go, his body hit the ground fast.
"His brain ain't bulletproof," Raven added.
"Dayamn," Kay said. "We just done killed one of the Charnel House!"
"Yes," Raven said. "Now we have to stay calm, and NOT get any stupid ideas about how easy it'll be to kill the other four!"
"Maybe they'll leave if they see he's dead, Sheriff?" Thomas asked shyly.
Raven paused. "You know, Thomas, that ain't an entirely bad notion. Rose? Your arm good as ever?"
"Takin' a while, dontcha think?" Wolf said as he lounged against the train engine. "Think he found something nice, don't want to share?"
"Or perhapsss he found sssomething not ssso nice?" Forktongue replied.
"Hell, Forktongue," Whale blustered. "You think it'd be so quiet if there was fightin' going on? The dumb fuck townsfolk probably sent twenty boys to move that rock onto the tracks so they'd have more time to clear out."
"Thossse twenty boysss would have been better ssspent moving the dumbfuck humansss out of town, eh?" Forktongue sneered. "And if the town isss empty, then where the hell ISSS he?"
Whale looked away. "Don't see why you gotta be so mean today," he whined.
"Of courssse you do not. You are ssstupid. If you were sssmarter, you would sssee. Or at leassst you would know to shut up when you do not know what you are talking about. Of courssse," Forktongue continued cruelly, "if you were sssmarter, then you would know what you are talking about in the firssst place. Ah, if only you were not ssso fucking ssstupid!"
"That's it," Whale roared. "I'm havin' barbecued snake meat tonight if you don't shut your fangs pronto!"
"I will ssswallow your bloated corpssse like one of thossse sssnakes in the jungle," Forktongue hissed, "and you will ssspend daysss dying as I digessst you!"
The sound of the train's bell being rung startled them both, and they looked up.
"If we're going to talk so much," Palmetto said, one eye spinning madly in its socket, "then can we talk about why Wolf has to be the first to stick his cock into every woman in every town we go to!"
"You don't even like fucking humans, Palmetto," Wolf grunted.
"Yes, but I want to argue too!"
"Fuck'ssssake," Forktongue muttered. "Perhapsss I should have risssked sssomeone elssse's neck!"
It was then that Striker's neck, along with the rest of his body, fell from the sky, clipping the telegraph office as it descended. It crashed to earth, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The Gang stared for a moment.
"Woo-hoo!" Palmetto finally shrieked. "I want to see that agin!"
"What the hell just happened?" Wolf asked, stunned.
"Looks like Striker done got kicked outta town!" Whale blurted out.
"Kicked, thrown, catapulted, it makesss no difference," Forktongue hissed, nosing Striker's corpse. "What mattersss isss he died. SSSomeone in that town accomplished what no army could before. I wish to meet this perssson." He sneered at Whale. "Unless you suppose twenty able-bodied men did this?"
"They got machines that can throw things like that," Whale grumbled. "I seen 'em in books."
"Then I wish to meet the perssson who killed a member of the Charnel Houssse Gang, ssso I may remind people that thisss doesss not happen twice!" Forktongue whipped his tail at Whale's hand, as the hideous bulk reached out for Striker's body. "And he isss not for eating!"
"The vultures'll git him anyway!"
"They will not get him here! You will bring him with usss. Drag him if you like, but we are going in. Including you, Palmetto."
The alien creature looked fretful. "The train – "
"Your choo-choo will be fine," Forktongue sighed. "You can ring the bell when we return."
Raven couldn't quite believe the situation they were in. She was with Kay in the saloon, just like they were not fifteen minutes ago. The plan was still in place.
They'd just killed one of the Gang, that was all.
Her heart was racing. She wasn't nervous. She was just – fuck, she was starting to believe they might make it OUT of this!
"Human!"
Raven and Kay both started. The voice had been loud, but dry and animalistic. Not even Waylon could have shouted like that.
"Mutie! Whatever you are! Come out!"
Raven tightened her grip on the sandalwood holster of her gun. What was approaching down the main street was a sight she'd seen only once before, and hoped never to see again. A giant serpent that pulled its body across the sand. A two-headed white wolf that walked on its hind legs, its enormous shaft swinging in plain view. A horribly bloated man whose short legs supported his weight only because they were built like tree stumps. A misshapen creature that she knew was covered with short bristles like fur, its antennae standing straight.
Seeing them together like this was the only way to appreciate the Charnel House Gang in all their awful monstrosity – the worst creatures to walk the earth, brought together by a desperate Confederacy.
And it WAS the entire Gang, Raven saw. Striker was being hauled unceremoniously along the dirt by his tail, gripped in one meaty fist by the Whale.
"Christ," Kay whispered. "Them's the most awful things I ever seen."
"You want to run?" Raven asked, more harshly than she intended.
"Not enough, Sheriff."
"Well, hopefully the others don't want to run enough either," she said.
The rattlesnake said something to the Whale, and he tossed Striker's corpse out in front of them. Then he opened his mouth again. Raven was close enough that she could see the poison dripping from his fangs.
"Nobody doesss thessse thingsss to the Gang and getsss away with it!" Forktongue roared. "Only the Gang doesss asss it pleassses."
Then he grinned slyly. "However, sssince we appear to have a vacancy, we would like to extend an invitation to join! Then you too will be Gang, and you can get away with thisss after all!"
Raven stared. Of all the things he could have said, this was the most unexpected.
"Thisss isss not a trick!" Forktongue promised. "You think I require vengeance? He meant nothing to me, to usss! He wassss a nuisssance! And he will know not even a quiet grave. Whale?"
"My pleasure," the fat man said. He took a step forward.
Raven had seen him do this once before, but she hadn't been able to repeat it for the benefit of the townsfolk. Her other imitations had scared them enough. Still, she should have shown this to her deputized posse.
Whale's mouth dropped, and dropped, until his chin almost brushed the earth. His cheeks spread as his mouth grew wider as well, until it was almost a perfect circle several feet across.
Then he took a deep, prolonged breath, and Raven could FEEL the boards of the saloon where she rested one hand tremble. The Whale, she suspected, could have inhaled a horse at fifty paces with a breath like that.
Striker's body was much less than fifty paces, and it disappeared halfway into Whale's mouth before the tail hooked on his cheek. Whale impatiently used his hands to cram the remainder of his corpse into his gullet until it was all gone. Then his jaw snapped upwards with a clacking sound like a gunshot. He patted his stomach and belched loudly.
"You sssee?" Forktongue asked triumphantly. "You have done usss a favor. Let usss repay you. Be one of usss, not sssome farmer or shopkeeper! We will even ssspare thisss missserable town! Sssave your family, before you sssay goodbye forever!"
"Eat shit, monster," Raven murmured as she aimed her gun at the enormous target presented by Whale's belly.
"Sheriff, look!" Kay gasped, grabbing her by the arm.
Raven turned her head slightly, and her yellow eyes widened. "What the fuck is she DOING?"
Deputy Rose floated out of her hiding place and hovered in front of Forktongue. "Ah'm the one who tossed him," she said calmly. "How about we get out of this Hicksville and make for Tombstone?"
To be continued . . .
