A Lust For Lead (26 page)

The clock tower of the town hall reared against the skyline, its pale, round face gleaming like an enormous baleful eye. Beneath it, the crossroads were knee-deep in smoke that writhed and boiled with currents of its own formation. The familiar, dark buildings were ominously still and silent.
The fighting had all spilled out onto the edge of town and Shane crossed the street unmolested and went around the back of the Grande. He tethered the horses to a tree in the yard and entered the crooked building through the kitchen door, the two saddlebags slung across his shoulder.
The hotel had already acquired a dead feel to its musty halls, the memories of its occupation turned to ghosts now that the Cordites had reasserted their dominance. Shane followed the directions that Madison had given him and found the locked door. He tried the keys in the lock until he found the right one and the door swung open upon a small, dark room.
The two panniers lay on the centre of the floor. They were locked with stout padlocks but Shane broke one open by prising the blade of his knife under the hinges and applying leverage, tearing the screws from the wood. The box was filled with money, which he hurriedly began to transfer into his saddlebags.
He had emptied one box and was working on getting the other to open when he became aware that a lengthy silence had fallen across town. He paused in his work and cocked his head to listen.
The shooting had stopped.
Shane felt a cold chill of fear gush through him. The silence could only mean one thing: that the last of the invigilators had been killed and that Whisperer was either dead or had escaped. Shane was the only man left alive in Covenant and now the Cordites would be coming for him.
He abandoned the second box. His saddle bags were swollen with roughly ten-thousand dollars and that was enough. He slung them over his shoulder and started for the door only to find that his way was blocked.
A tall, dark figure stood in the doorway, wreathed in pale grey smoke. ‘Reduced to the level of a common thief,’ it said. ‘This is beneath you, Shane.’
Shane stood his ground against the demon that had once been Jacob Priestley. His hand fingered the hilt of his knife wonderingly but, the moment he tensed to step forward, Priestley drew his gun.
The weapon was aimed and ready to fire before Shane had a chance to move, but Priestley did not shoot. He grinned, exposing teeth that were long and sharp and stained like a dog’s. ‘We knew that you would come to us in time,’ he said.
‘I’m not here to join you.’ Shane replied.
The demon chuckled. It was a vile sound, like a man choking up blood. ‘You are one of us, Shane. Why seek to deny it?’
‘Because it’s not what I want!’
‘Your mouth says no, but your heart pleads yes.’
Priestley turned the gun around in his hand so that it was no longer pointed at Shane, but was instead presented to him as a gift.
Shane yearned to take it. He craved it with an emotion that was rooted deep inside his soul. He had to fight to resist it.
‘You will join us.’ Priestley said. ‘Even if you leave here today, you will one day come back to us. You cannot escape; this is where you belong.’
Shane clenched his fists to stop himself from taking the gun. It felt as if his mind had split in half and that his will was pouring out through the resulting chasm. He thought about the last six years of his life: the weakness, the constant burden of fear, the fights that he had been forced to run from because he had not possessed the power to defend himself. And against that he considered the years that had gone before it, the years in which he had been a legend, the years in which the name of Shane Ennis had been synonymous with Death.
There was no contest when he asked himself which of those times he would choose to live in if given the choice but, when he looked to his future, he saw that there was a third option. He had ten-thousand dollars and the rest of the world thought he was dead. He had an opportunity to start afresh.
He brought his eyes up level with Priestley’s and looked at him straight. The two of them stared into each other’s souls.
And Shane stabbed him.

Priestley bellowed with a sound like mortar fire as the blade sank into his arm. His hand spasmed and he dropped his gun and Shane barged into him, driving him up against the doorframe before punching him in the face.
Shane did not waste his time prolonging the fight but charged on by, pushing his way briskly into the hall. He turned towards the kitchen but another Cordite stood at the end of the hall. It reached for a gun and Shane pushed sideways through an unlocked door. Bullets chewed up the doorframe in his wake, flinging jagged splinters of wood across the room.
He heard footsteps in the hallway. The Cordites were closing in for the kill and he rushed to a boarded-up window and kicked through the boards. He cleared himself enough space to climb through and tossed the saddlebags out before scrambling after them. The Cordite entered the room behind him and fired a blaze of shots, but by then Shane was safely through the window.
He ducked his head and rapidly skirted the outside of the hotel. Figures rose up out of the gunsmoke on the crossroads and began to advance on him. He ducked around the side of the building as a shot was fired.
The horses were where he had left them. Shane thanked his good fortune that the Cordites had not killed them. He unwound his reins from the crooked tree and vaulted into the saddle.
At that moment, the kitchen door swung open and a Cordite stepped out into the yard. Shane was caught in its sights, helpless to do anything but stare at it.
It was not too late to change his mind, he thought. He could still join them.
He wavered in his indecision for a fraction of a second before the fear that he might actually submit galvanised him into action. He savagely yanked on the reins, sawed his horse’s head around, and laid his heels into her flanks.
The Cordite took aim as he galloped away but a gnarled hand closed upon his wrist. The Cordite turned and stared questioningly into the face of Jacob Priestley.
‘No.’ Priestley said, his eyes fixed on their fleeing brother. ‘He is not leaving us. He is only delaying the inevitable.’
The other Cordites gathered in the street to watch as Shane escaped. One by one, they faded away into the smoke until only Priestley remained. He shimmered, becoming insubstantial as a ghost.
‘We can be patient,’ he whispered. And Covenant breathed a sigh as if in anticipation.

The noise trembled through the ruinous buildings, a soft whisper of creaking wood and disturbed dust that spread outwards from the centre of town and chased at Shane’s heels as he galloped for safety.
He rode like a madman, kicking back his heels and hunching down in the saddle. His frightened horse was only too glad to be fleeing the town and galloped with all the speed she had, her hooves kicking up a thick cloud of dust in their wake.
Shane did not expect to make it. He felt certain that they would shoot his horse out from under him, but the Cordites did nothing and he rode out into the desert without any sign of pursuit behind him. Even then he did not believe that he was safe. He rode hard and did not curb his horse until the town was far behind him, a dark and brooding thing on the horizon.
He caught up with Madison in the early hours of the dawn. ‘You made it,’ she said happily.
Shane tossed her carpet bag to her, then threw her one of the saddlebags. She caught it and her eyes widened when she looked inside and saw the money.
‘Your cut,’ he said. ‘Like we agreed.’
She ran over and threw her arms around him. Her lips were on his before he had chance to realise what she was doing. She kissed him and he drew her close, feeling her firm young body pressed against his. She was a poor substitute for what he had turned his back on in Covenant but she would suffice, he thought grimly.
He disengaged himself from her and lifted Chastity into his arms. The girl rested her head sleepily against his shoulder and sobbed quietly. There were tears on her cheeks.
‘I don’t think she wants to go.’ Madison said. ‘Will they come after her?’
Shane honestly did not know. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘One day.’
‘What about you?’
Shane did not answer. He could still hear Priestley’s words in his ear: ‘You are one of us.’ That was why they had let him escape; he knew it. They were sure that they would have him in the end.
But Shane had bought himself some more time, and maybe that was all he needed. Given another thirty or forty more years, maybe he could find a way to break the chains that bound him to them. He could not undo the crimes of his past, but perhaps half a lifetime spent well could even the score a little, and maybe in the end he would cheat the Cordites of their due. Maybe.
He climbed into the saddle and seated Chastity in front of him. ‘What’s your surname?’ he asked Madison.
‘It’s Dorney,’ she said. ‘Why?’
According to the newspaper that Buchanan had shown him, the rest of the world believed Shane Ennis to be dead.
Shane Dorney, on the other hand, maybe had a future.