Read Online Dust of the Damned (9781101554005) by Peter Brandvold - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Peter Brandvold
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cage.”
“Why?” The warden bunched his wiry brows and loosed a couple more smoke puffs as he gave a condescending gaze to the jail wagon driver. “So you and your lowly ilk can watch the bloodletting, hear the screaming, bet on how long it takes Charlie to clean up his mess?”
“Well, hell, Warden,” said Schwartz, his features creasing indignantly. “Ain’t that what we’ll all be doin’ come Sunday?”
Mondrick stretched his lips back in a faintly abashed smile. “Touché.” He looked into the wagon, where Curly Joe, Lucky, and One-Eye slouched as before, returning the warden’s glare. “Oh, well, I suppose I could let you boys have one for this evening. But save the other two for Sunday. You know how Mrs. Mondrick and I and the Considines from the Chain Link Ranch enjoy our Sunday festivities.”
“Warden Mondrick!” an English-accented voice called from high above. “Come on up here, Warden. I wish to speak to you about your bathing facilities! Not quite up to the Freeman-Johnson Regulatory Agreement Regarding the Incarceration of Non-Humans, are they?”
Mondrick lifted his head to one of the casement windows in a tower high overhead, in the main part of the castle.
“Shut up, Hannibal. You just got here two weeks ago, and you’re already getting on my nerves!”
“Send up one of your big-breasted peasant bitches, will you?” Poking his head out the one-foot‑by‑one-foot window casement, the swiller named Hannibal James jerked his round, pale face toward where the washerwomen were boiling clothes. “I’m thirsty—and
horny
!”
He snapped his fangs, snarling.
Several of the washerwomen looked up at the castle wall with expressions of great revulsion.
Warden Mondrick glanced at one of the men crouched behind a Gatling gun in the tower to the right of the closed drawbridge. He jerked his chin toward the swiller, and the Gatling gun belched, spitting smoke and flames from the end of its six-barreled canister. The bullets hammered the stone wall around the swiller’s window a quarter second after the immortal beast had pulled his head inside. The rocketing lead blew up rock slivers and dust.
The Gatling’s swivel squawked as the gun was again aimed down at the jail wagon. Warden Mondrick turned his attention back to the new prisoners then, too, and the pipe fell out of his hands to bounce off his right boot, gray tobacco ash smoking.
“Holy shit!” cried Murphy and Schwartz at nearly the same time, widening their eyes at the jail wagon in which all three prisoners continued to slouch as before.
But, unlike before, they were no longer men slouching with their hands cuffed and ankles shackled.
They were wolves.
The blazing wolf-red eyes and the fangs curving down like sharp, miniature sabers from their upper jaws set the warden’s heart to pounding so hard he thought it would literally explode from his chest.
All three sets of pulsating red eyes and grinning teeth were focused on him.
Murphy was slapping the covered holster on his right hip, trying to get his gun out, and screaming, “Holy Christ, they’re
spooks
! They’re spooks, Schwartz—
shoot ’em!
”
As the warden stumbled backward, swinging his gaze toward the Gatling guns in the guard towers and trying to find the words to the orders he was trying to shout, Schwartz fumbled his Henry rifle up.
Wolves?
he was thinking beneath the thundering of the blood in his ears.
It ain’t even dark yet!
Levering a shell into the chamber, he pressed the butt to his shoulder and took aim at the wolf you could still recognize as Curly even if you didn’t know where he’d been riding in the wagon—something about the facial features and eyes.
Schwartz fired too quickly, and the first slug ricocheted off one of the iron straps on the door and hammered Murphy’s right shoulder, tearing his coat and squirting blood from the driver’s back. As Murphy stumbled backward, grabbing his shoulder and grunting, Schwartz fired two
“Why?” The warden bunched his wiry brows and loosed a couple more smoke puffs as he gave a condescending gaze to the jail wagon driver. “So you and your lowly ilk can watch the bloodletting, hear the screaming, bet on how long it takes Charlie to clean up his mess?”
“Well, hell, Warden,” said Schwartz, his features creasing indignantly. “Ain’t that what we’ll all be doin’ come Sunday?”
Mondrick stretched his lips back in a faintly abashed smile. “Touché.” He looked into the wagon, where Curly Joe, Lucky, and One-Eye slouched as before, returning the warden’s glare. “Oh, well, I suppose I could let you boys have one for this evening. But save the other two for Sunday. You know how Mrs. Mondrick and I and the Considines from the Chain Link Ranch enjoy our Sunday festivities.”
“Warden Mondrick!” an English-accented voice called from high above. “Come on up here, Warden. I wish to speak to you about your bathing facilities! Not quite up to the Freeman-Johnson Regulatory Agreement Regarding the Incarceration of Non-Humans, are they?”
Mondrick lifted his head to one of the casement windows in a tower high overhead, in the main part of the castle.
“Shut up, Hannibal. You just got here two weeks ago, and you’re already getting on my nerves!”
“Send up one of your big-breasted peasant bitches, will you?” Poking his head out the one-foot‑by‑one-foot window casement, the swiller named Hannibal James jerked his round, pale face toward where the washerwomen were boiling clothes. “I’m thirsty—and
horny
!”
He snapped his fangs, snarling.
Several of the washerwomen looked up at the castle wall with expressions of great revulsion.
Warden Mondrick glanced at one of the men crouched behind a Gatling gun in the tower to the right of the closed drawbridge. He jerked his chin toward the swiller, and the Gatling gun belched, spitting smoke and flames from the end of its six-barreled canister. The bullets hammered the stone wall around the swiller’s window a quarter second after the immortal beast had pulled his head inside. The rocketing lead blew up rock slivers and dust.
The Gatling’s swivel squawked as the gun was again aimed down at the jail wagon. Warden Mondrick turned his attention back to the new prisoners then, too, and the pipe fell out of his hands to bounce off his right boot, gray tobacco ash smoking.
“Holy shit!” cried Murphy and Schwartz at nearly the same time, widening their eyes at the jail wagon in which all three prisoners continued to slouch as before.
But, unlike before, they were no longer men slouching with their hands cuffed and ankles shackled.
They were wolves.
The blazing wolf-red eyes and the fangs curving down like sharp, miniature sabers from their upper jaws set the warden’s heart to pounding so hard he thought it would literally explode from his chest.
All three sets of pulsating red eyes and grinning teeth were focused on him.
Murphy was slapping the covered holster on his right hip, trying to get his gun out, and screaming, “Holy Christ, they’re
spooks
! They’re spooks, Schwartz—
shoot ’em!
”
As the warden stumbled backward, swinging his gaze toward the Gatling guns in the guard towers and trying to find the words to the orders he was trying to shout, Schwartz fumbled his Henry rifle up.
Wolves?
he was thinking beneath the thundering of the blood in his ears.
It ain’t even dark yet!
Levering a shell into the chamber, he pressed the butt to his shoulder and took aim at the wolf you could still recognize as Curly even if you didn’t know where he’d been riding in the wagon—something about the facial features and eyes.
Schwartz fired too quickly, and the first slug ricocheted off one of the iron straps on the door and hammered Murphy’s right shoulder, tearing his coat and squirting blood from the driver’s back. As Murphy stumbled backward, grabbing his shoulder and grunting, Schwartz fired two
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