CHAPTER ONE
1
The general store was filled to the brim with filthy men.
Sweaty, vulgar, drunken men, covered in grime.
Ashley Hahl knew how to handle such men. Her big sister was a singer and dancer at the local saloon. Filthy men were in ample supply in any saloon, if the Rocky Top was any indication to the nature of saloons throughout Gunsmoke.
These men, however, were different from her sister's customers. These men moved as one, a pack of rabid hyenas on the verge of self-destruction. They dressed in ratty green uniforms, undoubtedly stolen, probably antiques from the home world, brought by Gunsmoke's original settlers a century and a half before. Most wore rounded helmets with a narrow spike at the top.
The mob tore through the general store precisely as they had come into town: drunken lunatics who believed they owned the world. They were men of varying sizes, short and tall, fat and muscular, bulky and lanky. None bothered to even look in her direction as they trudged through the aisles of her store, grabbing anything and everything in sight until they could carry no more. From the way they moved, Ashley doubted they had any intentions of paying for their selections.
One, a big man in a ten-gallon hat, stood, silhouetted in the front entrance, towered above the rest. A single step brought him out of the morning light. He was tall and heavyset, his shoulders twice as broad as most men. A scowling face, plump and callous, revealed dark intentions. His chin unshaven and his bushy mustache was white as cotton. He was actually rugged, handsome, which was more than she could say for the goons surrounding him. He wore a grim expression as his gaze stole silently about the store. He looked to be about seventy years old, though he was built like a man thirty years younger. Ashley wondered why his mood was so vastly different from his men. If indeed he was their leader.
Ashley thought well enough to wait behind the counter, close to the register, where she could see the whole store. Her father had warned her to stay away from strange men that might come into the store. Serve and observe at the same time, he'd once said. If anything got at all iffy, get out. The back door to the store was off to the right, at the end of the counter, only a single thought and few paces away. If she had to, she could make a run for it.
A slender weasel of a man crept toward the counter, his crooked nose wrinkling here and there as his beady, little eyes darted about the room. Soon, he lay a slender hand on the counter, the tip of his tongue whittling out of the corner of his mouth as the rose slightly in a sly smirk.
Ashley almost smiled for him, but she couldn't. Her concern had started to grow into apprehension.
His eyes found the jars of candy. The smirk grew as he bared his teeth, stained almost black with tobacco juice. His hand went slowly to the jar as Ashley watched him. He pulled off the lid and stuck a hand in, taking a fistful of lemon drops.
"It's a double-dime a dozen," she said, forcing her sweet smile for him.
"Cuff it, Red," he spat, and tossed a few drops into his mouth. "I'll take what I want, if that's quite all right with you." Ashley's face flushed as her smile vanished. Now, not only did she know these men did not intend to pay her, she was frightened as well. The Weasel grunted and tossed another drop into his mouth. "Not bad, Red. Now…where's the licorice?"
Her eyes slid to another jar on the other side of the register. He followed her gaze and grinned his maniacal grin. She pushed the jar toward the edge of the counter. "It's three double-cents a piece," she said quietly.
The Weasel—she had already started to think of him as "The Weasel"—fixed her with a sly smile as he lifted the jar off the counter and pulled the lid off. "Tell ya what, Red. How 'bout ya put 'er on my tab?" He reached into the jar and pulled out a big handful.
Stuffing the candy into his mouth, his dark glare stole quickly about the store. Finally, his eyes came to the glass case in the counter to his right. Biting his lower lip, he inched closer to the case. His eyes widened, and she could swear that he was drooling at what he saw.
The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Oh, dear God… She stood in stone-cold fear as he lifted the weapon high over his head and brought the handle down as though it were a hammer. The glass shattered upon impact. Every head in the building turned suddenly to the clamor. Ashley didn't dare move as she watched the man's hand start for the weapon that caught his fancy. Her heart was pounding in her ears. Already his companions were coming forward. Some sets of eyes had landed on her. A single bead of sweat dribbled slowly down her temple.
They moved in waves, three to four at a time, sliding through the aisles toward her. Ashley's eyes searched for an escape, and fell on the back door. Her breath caught at what she saw. One of the men had found his way to the door and slid behind the counter.
"Hey, chica," he said, voice low and eyes narrowed as he fixed her with an intense stare. "Come on oveh heh and lemme get 'a good look at ya."
Ashley froze. The man was short, with bulging biceps, a skull and crossbones tattooed on his left shoulder, and a cobra on the right. He wore an eyepatch over his right eye, with a brutal, white scar on the right side of his face, from beneath the patch to the edge of his unshaven jaw. His sun-darkened skin was covered in sand. His dusty uniform clung loosely to his muscular frame. He was armed to the teeth, a Tommy gun in one arm, barrel pointed to the ceiling, and a sawed-off shotgun in the other, aimed directly at her chest.
"What'sa matteh, chica? Ain't neveh seen a man with guns befoh?"
Ashley swallowed. Things were getting worse by the moment, and now there was no escape rout. She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and watched him nervously. "Well, no…" She swallowed and fought to maintain her composure. "Is there anything I can do to help you gentlemen out? I mean, you must 'a been traveling a good long time. You must be terribly hungry."
He slid his tongue slowly across his yellow teeth and along his upper lip. "You can say that again, chica." He took a step closer, sliding his eyes along the length of her. Ashley shuddered at the look on his face. "Wiggle yeh bottom for me, chica. Just a li'l taste, if I might."
He poked her with the end of the shotgun. Ashley brought her hand about to slap the gun away. Angry, he brought the Tommy gun down on her shoulder, hard. Pain shot through her arm; tears stung her eyes as she backed away. A hand gripped her wrist and spun her about.
The first man was leaning against the counter, waving the weapon he'd stolen in front of her face. He smirked up at her with his repulsive smile. "Bullets," he said.
"I'm out," she said in a weak voice.
"Bullshit!" he sneered, wrenching her forward by her wrist. The pain of it brought a yelp of surprise. "Where are they!"
Without warning, the front door of the general store wrenched open, the slender silhouette of a tall woman filling the doorway, a dark shape flapping in the wind behind her. Ashley gaped in shock as the woman held up a long stick and placed it to her shoulder. It took a moment for the realization to sink in. She was holding a rifle.
The strange woman in the pulled the bolt back and took a moment to tip the fedora on her head back and peer about the room. The shadow cast by her silhouette made it impossible to see her eyes, but the long, lush mane that spilled away from the hat and cascaded over her shoulders in golden waves. Ashley blinked and tried to clear her head.
Just what was it she was seeing?
"I hear you wanted a bullet," the woman said in a silky-smooth voice. She brought the weapon up and squeezed the trigger. Immediately the man let out a yelp of pain and collapsed to the ground. One leg thrashed about wildly as he clutched the knee of his other. Leaning over the counter, Ashley could see blood seeping through his fingers. For the longest moment, the only sound in the in the whole store was the sound of screaming. Ashley stiffened at the sound of the bolt being ripped back off the gun, flinging away the spent cartridge, before the woman pushed it back into place. Slowly she brought the weapon around, waiting.
All at once, men were drawing weapons. Ashley dropped down below the counter.
Bang! Another scream. The bolt was pulled and pushed back into place almost instantly. Bang! Again, and Bang! After the woman's fourth shot, realization seemed to click into the minds of the biker mob, and they filled the air with hot lead.
Ashley trembled in place, refusing to move, to make a sound. She doubted she would be heard anyway, considering the terrible noises that had erupted just on the other side of the counter. She prayed for it to end, longed for finality. She knew she should have stayed in bed…
A hand skirted her shoulder. Then it cupped over her mouth and wrenched her head back violently. The stench of hot breath, accompanied by a spray of spittle, wafted into her face. "Don't move," a voice hissed. She felt a blade resting against her cheek, and knew without a doubt that the man who held her was not bluffing.
A firefight drowned out all other sounds as they sat there, him at her back, holding her to himself with a knife right next to her face.
She could only count the seconds, and pray to the Lord above that her time had not yet come.
There was simply far too much to live for.
2
Karma Saverem was untouchable.
The moment she emptied the last of the bullets from her rifle, she dropped the weapon, stopped skidding to the side to avoid return fire, and darted forward. With a flick of her wrist, two long blades, daggers that she had hidden in the sleeves of her jumpsuit, sprang free of the fabric. She clenched the hilts of each weapon and darted forward.
Her blades were sharp, and flesh was abundant. She knew how to cut flesh, knew where to cut flesh to immobilize. Where to cut for a killer blow. Most important, in a room filled with gun-toting drunks, she knew how to disarm. Just the right slash on the side of someone's hand could sever the flexor and render a finger or thumb useless.
Karma was a blur, a white shadow amongst a pack of stumbling, panicking brutes. In a world of chaos, she was order. Amongst trembling fools, she was a steady hand. Men fell to the floor in writhing, screaming, heaps, clutching their blood-slick hands and fingers, or wounds in the upper arms where she had severed muscle tissues, and occasionally the tendons in their wrists and along the elbow. Several times, when she dropped to the floor to avoid bullets that whisked by just overhead, she thought enough to slice her blades through the ankles of her enemy. They dropped to the ground like sacks of grain.
The screams of the fallen filled the general store.
She peered about as she came to her feet. A quick count assured her that ten of the bikers were down. She turned to the door just in time to see two scramble out into the street toward their bikes, screaming at one another to get out of the way, each striving against the odds to be the first to evade the devil-woman who had struck down so many of their comrades.
That accounted for twelve of them.
She started toward the counter, kicking a gun clear of one of the fallen bikers as she peered over the counter. A gunshot came at her face; she tilted her head to one side, the bullet so close she felt the heat of it as it brushed just past her ear. She could see three wide eyes peering up at her. The man with the eyepatch still clung tightly to the pretty young thing with long, strawberry-blonde hair. The gleaming blade of a switchblade was pressed against the smooth flesh of her left cheek. Her eyes shown with fear, both at the uncertainty of the strange woman standing over her, and the man clinging to her with a knife. If there was anything Karma had grown to understand since her mother's death, it was fear.
Karma moved like a wisp of smoke in the darkness. The man clinging to the girl released her with a blood-chilling scream. The knife clattered to the floor as streams of blood pulsed from fingers, nearly completely severed from his hand, a diagonal cut just above the first knuckle of his middle and ring fingers.
Returning her knives to the sheaths hidden in her sleeves, Karma reached down to take the girl's hand. Terrified, the young woman gripped her forearm; with a powerful heave, Karma pulled her to her feet, wrapped an arm about her waist to pull her up and over the counter, and made a beeline for the door. She stopped just long enough lean over and scoop her rifle in her free hand.
Once outside, Karma plopped the girl onto her feet. "Get home. And send help."
"Help…?"
"Go!" Karma was certainly in no mood for questions right now.
Already, as the slender young woman bolted down the street, Karma was pulling a seven-shot magazine from her belt. A brief scan of the town about her revealed that she and the woman she had just saved were the only visible souls on the street. Karma drew a slow breath as slid the magazine into place on her rifle, and then pulled the bolt free to slide a single cartridge into place.
Behind her, someone stumbled out onto the wooden walk in front of the general store. Karma spun about and took aim. One of the bikers, bleeding from a deep slash on his left arm, which hung limp at his side, leaned against the doorframe. He held up his right hand, showing he was unarmed, and slid to a seat there in the doorway.
She could remember taking him out. He'd held a switchblade, standing back away from the counter. He hadn't exactly been prepared to strike, but she couldn't let him come after her when turned her back on him. She'd sliced the back of his thumb he'd used to hold his weapon, and disarmed him. He didn't look like the others. He was a handsome man, young. Probably about her own age. He really didn't look like a battle-hardened thug, like so many of his comrades. His black hair was long in the front and combed back out of his face.
Karma knew she couldn't allow herself to show compassion. Compassion would only show weakness, and weakness could tempt confidence in her enemy. With that in mind, she planted the heel of her boot into his shoulder, pinning him back against the doorframe.
"Name?" she demanded.
No response. She pressed her heel deeper into his flesh, against the bone. He winced, but held in his scream.
"Name!"
"Bowen," he gasped. She eased the pressure, but only a little. "Jay Bowen. Of the Matadors."
Karma blinked in surprise. "Matadors?" She started to pull her boot away, but thought better of it. "Who do you work for?" This time, she thrust her heel in as she asked the question.
His scream echoed through the streets. "The Watchman!"
After she had removed her boot, Karma pulled off her fedora and brought her masked face to within inches of Bowen's. His eyes were wide as he stared back at her. She knew she must be intimidating. He couldn't see her expression at all, as she wore dark goggles over her eyes, and a mask that conformed perfectly to the contours of her face. Not to mention the fact that she had just incapacitated ten of his comrades, not to mention himself. She supposed she didn't blame him for being scared shitless.
In silence, she watched him, trembling beneath her hateful glare. She found herself wondering if it seemed more like cold calculation to him. After all, he couldn't see her expression; she was wearing a mask.
Karma rose to her full height. Again, she peered both ways along the empty street. She studied the dirt road until her eyes came to the mass of bikes that sat near the general store.
Three of the motorcycles were gone.
She'd seen two escape. Ten other men lay bleeding inside.
Thirteen of fourteen accounted for. The Watchman, maybe?
Where was lucky number fourteen?
3
Eric the Watchman lit a cigar and watched the target from the window of a building across the street. A small smirk touched the big man's lips. He brought his arm up and ran a powerful hand through his thick, white curls.
She stood over the rookie. Doc Alias, they called him. Not even a rookie, really. Just a punk from a few towns back who caught a ride with the most feared gang of the western territories. The Watchman saw a lot of potential in the lad. If only there was time. But there never was time. Not a single rookie recruited over the past year had made it through a vigorous initiation…primarily because there was not time to prepare one properly.
Done on the fly, initiation meant death for a rookie. Most times, anyway.
But, the question remained: who was this masked blonde? Judging from her slender, curvaceous frame, and the golden waves flowing from beneath her purple fedora and clashing brilliantly with her purple cape, Eric thought she must be quite beautiful. But, was she truly the target? Not telling, really. Nobody with the Matadors had a clue as to the origins of this stranger, the stranger he had followed from the city of December since she had been discovered.
Already a legend in her own right, the Phantom Mistress, as she was called, had arrived seemingly out of nowhere. If this wasn't who he was looking for, she was still worth a look.
The Watchman lifted a comm-link to his mouth. "Watchman to Dark Horse. I have a piece of information I was hoping you might find interesting."
4
"Hold still! How do you expect me to patch you up if you keep squirming around like that?" Doctor Hank Finney gave his patient's shoulder a squeeze, pressing the severed flesh together as he formulated a plan of attack. The man gave a yelp of pain despite the morphine running through his system and tried to twitch away. Because he was drugged, not to mention his injuries, Hank was too strong for him.
It had been a long time since any real excitement had come to the small town of San Alamos. He didn't recognize these men, the Matadors, they called themselves. A traveling gang, probably, searching for hidden wealth in his peaceful, desert town. Amazing, the young doctor thought, that anyone could take down so many men, spill so much blood, and yet not bring finality to a single life. There had been no deaths, and now, with all of the life-threatening injuries meticulously treated, the worst of the danger had passed. For these men. If the woman in white chose to let them live.
But why not kill them in the battle, he decided, only to kill them after they were already down. No, whoever she was, she had no intentions of killing these men. They were just fodder left in her path. The sheriff would take care of them. Whoever the woman in white happened to be, she was no executioner. Not that Doc Hank Finney could see.
This was perhaps the most interesting thing he had experienced in eighteen years. By far more blood than he'd seen in his entire life. Oh, there'd been the occasional accident. He'd also been there for every San Alamos birth in the past twenty years. Gunshot wounds, knife wounds, or bloody noses were all that uncommon back at the Rocky Top. But he'd never had to deal with more than two or three patients at a time.
The woman, whoever she was…incredible! Hank had to grin when he thought about her. She wasn't exactly small, but slender, with a curvy, six-foot-two-inch frame, with long blonde hair, a mysterious and beautiful figure all at once. Who was the woman beyond the disguise, he wondered in silence. In all his twenty-five years, he'd never seen anything quite like her.
"Well, Doc?"
Hank cast a quick glance over his shoulder. Standing there in denim jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, pale blue with thin, violet lines running vertical in the fabric, and a leather vest. The Sheriff—Ray Bolenski, dubbed the fastest gun west of December—had his arms crossed, peering about the stretchers lined up outside the general store. Several large trucks were waiting in the road to load up the injured and hall them down to Town Hall, the largest building in San Alamos. Hank's office was there.
"Took care of the worst here. Just a few more abrasions to patch up. A heck of a lot of bumps and bruises, but nothing life-threatening." He grabbed a sterilized needle and started knitting flesh to flesh. His patient let out a pitiful cry, but his restraints held him down. "It'll be all right, son. Just relax." Hank peered up to Ray with a tight smile. "Little lady knew what she was doing, all right."
Ray nodded. "Yeah." He wiped his wet brow and peered up to the steadily rising suns. Hank mused about his friend's decade-long career. Even though the day had only just begun, so much had already occurred. The incident eighteen years ago had resulted in several deaths before the battle itself had drifted away from the town and into the desert. More than any other time since long before he had even taken the badge of office.
"I've never seen such skill," Hank continued as he stitched his patient together. "She knew right where to cause the most amount of pain with the least amount of damage. But she was brutal too. Anyone who might have been a threat the moment she turned her back…" He shook his head and gave a low whistle through his teeth. "Flat out crippled them on the spot."
"I want to talk to her. Where did they take her?"
"Foster's place," Hank replied, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder to the house behind the general store. Ray bit his lower lip, and then nodded. He was hesitant to head up there, and Hank knew why. After his affair with Tina, Joseph Foster's daughter, and the granddaughter of the man who had built San Alamos from the ground up nearly half a century ago, his relationship with the Foster family had evaporated.
Hank had seen the disappointment in the sheriff's eyes from the very beginning. He'd been only the fourth sheriff to support San Alamos in its near fifty-year history, and since he was a boy he'd enjoyed the friendship of Joseph, his wife Shauna, and their children for as long as he could remember. A forbidden love that had blossomed out of uncontrollable passion had ended the relationship.
Joseph had explained it all to Hank Finney in the simplest of terms: "Tina is my daughter, the daughter of Shauna Peirce-Foster. The girl deserves only the best in life, and I intend to see that she gets just that. The Peirce-Foster bloodline mustn't be tainted by the seed of that second-rate, ingrate."
Hank was a doctor. A damn good doctor, too. And he highly doubted even he was good enough for 'Daddy's Little Girl.' More than once, he'd told Ray the same thing.
If his friend heard a word of it at all, he gave no indication.
"I need to pay our guest a little visit," he grumbled, and started off up the rocky hillside to the old house overlooking the town. For a time, Hank watched him go, only to turn back to his work with a heavy sigh.
The kid he was sewing up—actually a young man of about sixteen or seventeen years old—let out a yelp of pain.
"I told you to be still," Hank told him with a pleasant smile on his face.