Rustkiller - A Science Fiction Western Adventure (The Coilhunter Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  “Well,” Nox said, looking down at the metal ruin. “I hope I never see your kind again.”

  He walked off, casting the metal heart up and down in his hand. If only there was a Wanted poster for that.

  3 – THE SEA OF SORROWS

  It took a long while to fix the tracker on his wrist, and far longer to wait for his monowheel to arrive. The sun was beating down bad, taking advantage of the situation, hoping to take one more sucker out before the night got it too.

  Nox drove to the nearest rum-hole, the so-called Sea of Sorrows, a ramshackle establishment that was a bit too close to the Rust Valley. You'd think no one'd make that trek out there, but then here was Nox, tired and thirsty. The others at the bar weren't there for bounties. They were there for the moonshine and the sundazzle, the kind of stuff that burned real hot and knocked you out cold.

  No one flinched when he entered. Normally they would, but everyone there was too far soaked. Maybe they saw four of him, but it seemed more likely they weren't seeing much at all.

  Only the barman, Swill Roberts, seemed surprised.

  “H-h-howdy,” he said, straightening up his waistcoat. “I hope you're not here for t-trouble. We're an ace-high establishment here, so we are. Even got the registration.” He pointed to a warrant on the wall from the Good Gullet Gang, which marked him as an “authorised trader,” under their protection.

  Nox shrugged. “Well, you ain't under mine.” He pulled out a stool and sat down. “But I'm not here for trouble.” He pointed towards the bottles of whiskey stacked neatly on the shelf behind. “I'm here for that.”

  The relief was visible on Swill Roberts' puckered face. He fumbled with a glass, then paused. “You sure you wouldn't want something … stronger?”

  Nox looked at the men on either side of him, most of them face-down on the bar. He clutched the hair of one, lifting up his head just enough to see the drool, then let him collapse back down again.

  “I might be here to drown my sorrows, but I don't wanna drown myself as well.”

  “As you like,” Swill Roberts said, filling up the glass with his finest whiskey. You could tell it was his finest by how high up it was, and by the ornate bottle. It took him a while to get the cork out. It must've been a long time in there. “Wet your whistle on that, Nox, and tell me it isn't the desert oasis.”

  Nox lifted up his mask, shielding the scars on his face, and had a quick sip. The burn was a soothing kind, unlike the burn of everything else in the desert. It felt good to have a glass in his hand instead of always having a gun.

  “That's somethin' fine all right,” Nox said.

  Swill Roberts smiled and topped up the glass. “Rough day, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Though it wasn't quite as bad as the day Strawman Sanders had.

  “Out catching bad guys, I'd wager.”

  “Well, that ain't much of a wager, now, is it?”

  “You won't find any in here, at least. Too drunk to do any bad.”

  “Too drunk to do any good either.”

  “We can't all be bounty hunters.”

  Nox forced a smile, forgetting that the barman couldn't see it. “Yeah. Someone has to be hunted.”

  He pulled back his mask again, taking a larger gulp. He noticed Swill Roberts watching his every twitch, staring at his hand as he gripped the glass, watching it like a gunslinger. There were some who came up with the codes you live by out here in the wild, but someone must've gunned them down before they got to write them up. One of those rules was that you always drank with your gun hand, to show you weren't planning anything funny. But for the Coilhunter, well, both hands were his gun hands, so you never knew what he was planning. Chances are, though, he was planning your death.

  But someone had already died that day, and maybe he wasn't supposed to. Nox still had the poster of Strawman Sanders in his pocket, all crumpled up. Normally he'd drag the body back to the Bounty Booth on the eastern edge of those unclaimed lands. Normally he'd cash in. And normally he'd feel good about it. Another criminal down. A thousand more to go.

  The whiskey was quenching his thirst, but not his conscience. He started eyeing up the bottles of liquid death inside the glass cabinets behind the bar. They had the kind of warning symbols on them that matched the star-shaped badge on his chest. Just one shot. That applied to the drink, and it applied to him.

  Swill Roberts must've noticed, because he cocked his head and showed his yellow teeth in what he probably thought was a smile. He was waiting for Nox to ask for a glass. Boy was he tempted, but boy did he know it'd be a bad idea. He didn't have enough fingers to count the things the criminals would do to him if they found him dozing at the bar, and chances were he'd have a few digits less by the end of it. He couldn't afford the luxury of forgetting who he was or how he'd got there, no matter how much he wanted to forget. No, he'd have to stick with the good old mountain dew.

  He tapped the rim of his glass, and the disappointed barman topped it up. Maybe he liked seeing what his poison could do to a man, but the Coilhunter was looking to be more than that. He needed to be a spectre, haunting every piece of scum that went to the Wild North looking to con and kill. He could only be in so many places, but the fear of him could be everywhere.

  “What brings you this far west?” Swill Roberts asked. “Or should I say: who?”

  Nox pulled the Wanted poster out of his pocket, along with the mechanical heart.

  “Strawman Sanders,” the barman mused. “Never heard of him.”

  “Well, you won't hear of him now.”

  “Is this … his?” Swill Roberts pointed at the clockwork organ.

  “It's a little trophy from the Rust Valley.”

  “Is that so? Only other man I know who's got anything from there is Batty Budford down in Edgetown. Says he wrestled a … a machine to get it. Mind, he's on the sundazzle by then.”

  “You'd wanna be if you wrestled with those things.”

  “So, you think they're real?”

  “Oh, they're real all right. I seen 'em with my own two eyes.”

  “Thought they were just another scary story.”

  The Coilhunter smirked. “We're in the Wild North. All the scary stories are real.”

  4 – HELP

  Swill Roberts was polishing up a glass, and Nox was polishing up his own, when the door burst open as if from a storm. There, panting and wheezing, was a girl of about fifteen or sixteen years, her blonde hair a mess, her eyes wild with terror.

  “Help me!” she screamed, drawing the attention of anyone who wasn't giving their full attention to the table. “Please! They took my brother. I need help!”

  Not a soul stirred. Swill Roberts kept on polishing, expressing a bit of sympathy at best. You see, sympathy was free. Sympathy didn't get you killed. Acting on it did.

  The girl hobbled over to a table of men playing a drinking game, who didn't even give her that complimentary sympathy. She pawed at the arms and shoulders of one of them, who shrugged her off. She was lucky he didn’t do worse.

  “Please, sir,” she begged. If they had to drink every time she pleaded, they'd have been out of alcohol real quick.

  She stood in the centre of the room, arms out, looking as bedraggled as the worst of them, though maybe she had more reason to be. Her white shirt and black jeans were blood-splattered, though it looked like it was dried in well. “He's just a kid,” she sobbed. “He has seizures. They'll … they'll kill him. They don't even know. He's been through so much. We've been … will no one help us?”

  You could bet good money that she'd gone to the wrong place to look for help. She should've went far south, away from that God-forsaken place, and even then it'd have been a gamble.

  “Will no one help?” she asked again. And, for quite a long moment, it looked like no one would.

  Then Nox stood up. The gamble paid off.

  He turned, adjusting his mask, which sent out a plume of smoke, like a signal fire. The girl froze, staring at him. He could see the fear in her e
yes, could see her calculating if she should push her luck or run. Most people who pushed their luck in the Wild North ended up dead.

  “Girl,” the Coilhunter crooned. “Who took 'im?”

  “I don't know,” she said, reefing through her hair, which was part up and part down, and part in her hand. “Some gang.”

  That could've been anyone. There were so many gangs there, there weren't enough people for them to rob and murder. They often had to settle for taking out each other. Nox didn't mind that so much, except that innocent people often got caught in the crossfire. Innocent people like this girl and her brother.

  Nox glanced at Swill Roberts and reached for his pocket, where the coils of past bounties clanged together like bones.

  The barman held the glass up and nodded. “Consider it a … gesture of understandin'.”

  Nox knew what that meant. It meant turning a blind eye to whatever was happening there. I scratch your back, and you don't stab mine.

  “Yeah, I don't think so,” Nox said, flicking two full coils over to the barman. “I pay for what I owe. If you owe anything, you'll pay for it too.” He left the clockwork heart as a tip.

  He didn't wait for the barman's response. He wasn't a man of conversation. He was a man of action, and right now, he felt he had to act. It was like his conscience calling. You kill one, then you gotta save another.

  He grabbed the girl by the arm and pulled her close. “I need more details. What were they wearin'? What'd they call each other? Where were they headin'?”

  The girl racked her brain. She was in such a frenzy she probably couldn't think straight, couldn't remember the things that'd actually help her out. Maybe she didn’t expect that someone’d help either.

  Nox grabbed both of her wrists, knowing how much time was of the essence. “Think!”

  “I … they had a truck. I didn't really see 'em. It was night.”

  “Where were you when it happened?”

  “About a mile east of here. We … we had a campfire.”

  “Where'd they go?”

  “North-east, I think. I … I'm not sure.”

  “The truck. Did it have wheels or landship treads?”

  “Treads, I think.”

  That wasn't much to go on, but it was enough for him. He had an eye for detail. He'd find those tracks if he was quick, if he got there before the shifting sands did.

  “You wait here,” Nox said, making for the door.

  “No! He’s my brother. I'm coming with you.”

  “You wait here or I won't go at all.” Then Nox glanced around the room and saw one too many grinning faces. They were paying far more attention now that he was leaving. “On second thoughts, you better come with me.”

  They headed outside, where Nox clambered aboard his monowheel and ushered the girl into the box on the back. Normally you didn't want to sit in there. It was where he stored the bodies. He didn't tell her that.

  “Can you save him?” she asked.

  “Sure I can.”

  He didn't have the heart to tell her that the kid was probably already dead. But that didn't mean he'd stop trying. He knew all too well how bad the Wild North was, but he also knew it didn't have to stay like that. Bullet by bullet, he'd clean it out. It wasn't just a job. It was a mission. It was his life.

  5 – TRACKS

  Nox powered up the monowheel, which ran on a diesel engine, and rolled off. The giant treads that rotated around the outer wheel were perfect for the unsteady sands of the desert, but they left behind some pretty noticeable tracks. He was counting on the same for the truck.

  The girl clung on behind him, hugging his oxygen tank. She should've been clinging to hope, but in Altadas hope had a way of slipping through your fingers like it was butter. Now, vengeance—that was something you could hold onto. Hell, if you let it, it'd hold onto you.

  He heard her mutter something, but it was muffled by the wind. The sands were kicking up fierce now. It was like they knew he was on the hunt. They just couldn't let it be easy. No, in the Wild North, nothing came easy, except maybe death. You didn't just have to look over your shoulder. You had to look down to the earth beneath, and keep a wary eye.

  He tilted the monowheel, making a sharp turn as he caught sight of the trail. He felt the girl's grasp tighten as she was thrown around in the back. She gave an involuntary grunt. Normally the passengers who sat back there didn't mind at all.

  He leaned down on one side, scooping up a fistful of sand, just enough to see the half-buried track beneath. The whirling winds tried to blind him, so he kept the brim of his hat low. He knew they were scrubbing the path behind him too, burying his own trail. Maybe that way no one'd find him. Maybe one day they'd bury him too.

  He pressed on through the haze and the grit, his own body shielding the girl from most of it. He wondered what her story was, and maybe if he was a different kind of guy, he might have asked. He tried not to know too much, tried not to get too close. He couldn't shield people from everything. He'd learned that all too well. Life had made a lesson out of him.

  He halted at an abandoned campsite, where the girl hopped off and scoured the area. He stayed on his monowheel, feeling the humming engine beneath him, knowing they wouldn't find the boy there, knowing that with the sun bobbing low, they mightn't find him at all.

  “His bag!” the girl cried. “This is his bag!” She held up a small threadbare satchel with one buckle broken. It'd seen better days, and maybe the boy hadn't seen any of them. A well-chewed pencil slipped out of the satchel, and the girl fumbled about for it in the sand.

  “Come on,” Nox said. “He's not here.”

  She hurried over, cradling the little leather bag. Nox didn't like the look of it. It reminded him too much of two little satchels just like it. He had them back at his hideout. For a while, he cradled them too. Then he locked them away, just like the memories.

  They drove off again, against the flailing winds, which helped fill up that little satchel in the back. You never quite got used to the itch of the sand. You just learned to put up with it, learned to wear it like you wore your skin.

  The tracks were faded, but the good thing about the shifting sands was that they kept on shifting. They might have buried things, but if you watched long enough, you'd see them uncover something else. Nox followed instinct more than anything, letting the periodic glimpse of the tracks confirm that he was heading in the right direction.

  Then he spotted a light far ahead, so he killed his own. He parked the monowheel, hearing far-off voices as the engine's thrum died down. The wind whistled through it all, as if to say: nothing to see here.

  “Is that them?” the girl whispered, crouching down beside the Coilhunter.

  “Maybe.” He ushered her back. “You stay here. And I mean it this time. No point rescuin' one of you if the other gets caught.”

  He stalked forward, feeling a different kind of itch in his fingers. Just like the mask now felt like it was a part of him, he could feel those pistols strapped to his thighs. This time the enemy was made of flesh and bone. This time he'd get to use them.

  6 – THE NIGHT SLAVERS

  There were three open-top trucks parked in a triangular formation, shielding a group of men in the middle from the lash of the wind.

  “Quiet night,” Oddman Rensley, a Rounder of the Night Slavers, said. “You sure we haven't been here before?”

  “As sure as sunlight,” Tinhead Tom, replied. He knocked on the metal plate welded into his skull, as if he thought it meant a promise. Nox knew well that the only thing about promises they knew was how to break them.

  “As sure as dark, ya mean,” Plump Podge corrected with a snicker. “We ain't no Sun Slavers.”

  They laughed their boisterous laughs, which the howling wind couldn't hide.

  “We can't go back empty-handed,” Oddman Rensley said. As a Rounder, he was used to rounding up as many as a dozen in a good night's work. It was his job to make sure the slaves kept coming in. Coilcountin' Lawson wo
uld get rid of them—preferably for a chunk of change. If not, well, someone else'd get rid of those.

  “Well, it's Moonlit Jones' fault we've got this God-damn route,” Plump Podge said.

  “He wouldn't have given us it if it weren't for yer yammerin',” Tinhead Tom replied. “It ain't yer fat belly that gets us in trouble. It's yer fat mouth.”

  The look on Plump Podge's face was priceless. Tom must've thought he'd struck a real nerve there, but Podge wasn't looking at him. He was looking up at the top of one of the trucks, where the Coilhunter was perched like a hawk.

  “And what about yours?” Nox asked, before firing a single shot that gave Tinhead Tom another bit of metal in his head. “Well,” the Coilhunter croaked. “I guess you won't be talkin' now.”

  Podge and Rensley scurried about inside the little prison they'd built for themselves, caught off guard, too clueless to reach for their guns. Not that it'd matter. The Coilhunter'd disarm them soon enough.

  Podge struggled with the door of his truck. Just as he got it open and crawled inside, Nox swooped down and dragged him back out. The way that man squealed was a kind of justice in and of itself. Well, he'd never make another squeal just like him. Nox saw to that with a bullet between the eyes.

  He heard the click of a hammer behind his head, but before Oddman Rensley could fire, he swung around, bashing the gun away with his own. The bullet pinged off one of the trucks and ricocheted off the others. Nox ducked just in time, but Rensley floundered as the little lead nugget pierced his shoulder.

  Nox turned and leapt at him, pressing him against the hull. He felt Rensley already begin to slip. He was losing blood quick. It was a special kind of justice to die to your own bullet. In many ways, Nox felt that was how everyone went out in the end.

  But not yet, Nox taught. Not till you squeal for me too.

  Rensley groaned as the Coilhunter pressed his thumb into the wound. It wasn't just to hurt him. It was to stem the flow of blood. The slaver wouldn't look at him, kept bobbing his head away. It was no surprise that he didn't want to see the man who'd send him to his maker.