Chapter 16

The sound of Covenant’s nightly chorus rumbled eerily through the town, its gentle rhythm surging in and out. In and out.
It was like the lapping of waves. The buildings creaked and swayed on their foundations like raptured gospel singers in a choir.
The sound crawled up West Street, past the guttering torches that burned by the side of the road and creaked its way infectiously up the steps of the porch and into the Grande hotel. The ornate chandelier in the lobby swung pendulously as the ceiling flexed slightly, and the sound rumbled on through the building.
In the great dining hall, the creaking of the ceiling prompted a shower of dust that glittered in the candlelight as it fell. Watching it settle around her, Madison felt like a bauble put in a glass dome and shaken up: a pretty thing for someone to admire. She wore her best dress – a special thing that was her own, not Bethan’s – and around her throat hung a necklace of pearls that Nathaniel had loaned her for the evening and which she suspected had been given to Bethan to wear on nights like tonight as well.
Nathaniel wore his best suit and had trimmed his moustache and smoothed back his hair. But for the naked hunger in his eyes, he looked the picture of a perfect gentleman.
Beyond the flickering circle of candlelight, the room lay in shadow and it seemed as if the two of them shared a world that was cut off from the rest of existence. The whole scene felt dreamlike, although that was possibly because Madison was a little bit drunk.
‘More wine?’ Nathaniel refilled her glass before she could answer, topping it generously to the brim. Chastity had been given into Whisperer’s care for the evening, freeing Madison to ‘indulge herself,’ as Nathaniel had put it. She was well aware of what he had meant by that and was not entirely objectionable to it. Sex was a weapon that she had often used to get what she wanted from a man. She did not make the mistake of confusing it for love.
‘I will have to congratulate Whisperer tomorrow on an excellent meal.’ Nathaniel said. ‘He really has surpassed himself considering the paucity of our supplies.’
Madison wiped her lips with a napkin. ‘It reminds me of my mom’s cooking,’ she said.
Nathaniel let her comment pass without acknowledging it. He had made it clear from the start that he was not interested in anything she had to say; all he wanted was for her to be attentive and beautiful, to laugh at his jokes and agree with his opinions. It suited Madison just fine. Although she had resigned herself to sharing Nathaniel’s bed that night, her heart was heavy with thoughts of Kip and she did not feel up to the task of maintaining a lengthy conversation. She just wanted to get the night over with as quickly as possible.
She feigned interest as he launched into another long-winded story about his travels around the world, this time telling her about Africa and the time he had spent with the boccor sorcerers of Dahomey. While he spoke, she absent-mindedly played with her wine glass, stroking her fingers up and down its stem in a deliberately suggestive manner. Nathaniel could hardly fail to notice it and, after a few minutes, he decided to cut his story short. ‘Who do you think will win the tournament?’ he asked her.
‘I don’t know,’ she mused. ‘Either Chastity or Shane, I suppose.’
‘Pick one.’
From the look in his eyes, Madison guessed that he was testing her. It was clear that he wanted her to pick Chastity and it was almost certainly in her best interests to do so, but a rebellious streak in her nature had not forgotten the way he had struck her earlier and she longed for a bit of revenge. ‘Oh, Shane Ennis then,’ she said. She kept her expression neutral.
‘You are as narrow-minded as Buchanan.’ Nathaniel muttered irritably. ‘Everybody assumes that Shane is the better fighter because of his reputation, but it is Chastity who will win this tournament, you’ll see. I will stake my reputation on it.’
He sounded very sure of himself, and Madison wondered what secrets he knew that made him so confident. There was too much about the tournament – and about Covenant itself – that did not make sense to her. It occurred to her that if she wanted answers Nathaniel was probably the best person to ask. Her curiosity overcame her caution.
‘How did Chastity get to be so good?’ she asked. ‘She doesn’t seem to be able to do anything else.’
A cruel smile twitched the corners of his mouth. ‘Your boyfriend never explained it to you?’
She shook her head.
‘Interesting.’ Nathaniel remarked. ‘I wonder if he even understood it himself.’
His implied criticism of Kip made Madison bristle, but she resisted the urge to say anything in his defence.
‘Allow me to enlighten you.’ Nathaniel continued. He drew his bone-handled revolver and held it up for her to see. ‘Have you ever fired a gun before?’ he asked.
Madison had fired plenty of guns – she liked them almost as much as she liked the men who carried them – but that wasn’t what she suspected Nathaniel wanted to hear. She politely shook her head.
‘There is a great deal of scientific method to firing a gun properly. Are you familiar with the principles of trigonometry? Let’s say that you choose to shoot a man who is standing 20 yards away. You fire your revolver but your aim is off by a couple of degrees. Every yard that the bullet travels carries it a fraction off course. By the time it has travelled 20 yards, those few degrees of error will have caused your shot to deviate far enough to the side that you miss your man completely.
‘A tiny deviation like that is all it takes to get you killed. It could be that your hand shakes a little or that you squeeze the trigger too hard and pull the weapon off target. A gunfighter learns to hold his body completely still at the moment he fires. He stands properly with his feet grounded and he grips the revolver in the most efficient manner, and squeezes the trigger with the minimum amount of force required. He even holds his breath when he fires so that the movement off his chest does not confer into his arm and lead his hand to shake.
‘To the very best gunfighters, such actions are as natural as breathing. They treat their revolver as if it is a part of their body. Some of them even say that they can hear it sometimes like a voice in the back of their mind, telling them what to do.’
Madison smirked a little, but Nathaniel was being serious. ‘It is not as stupid as it sounds,’ he said. ‘There is a belief that predates Christianity that all things – whether they are alive like you and I, or inanimate things such as a gun – possess a spirit or a soul. It is a belief that is found in every part of the world and is still practiced in some remote places. There are holy men that can communicate with these spirits. The gunfighter, Nanache, was one of them; as is Whisperer. Chastity has a similar talent. Because she has no will of her own, a spirit may enter her body and control it as if it were its own. When you confronted her this morning, the spirit of the gun she held was controlling her, riding her like a horse as Whisperer would say.’
He returned the gun to its holster. Madison stared at him, unsure what to make of what he had told her. It sounded ridiculous and if she had heard it from someone outside of Covenant she would have dismissed it as a fantasy. But there were things about Covenant that she could not explain and she found its atmosphere unsettling. Given the circumstances, she was prepared to accept that everything Nathaniel told her could easily be the truth.
‘To an extent, every man who calls himself a gunfighter invites the spirit of his gun into his body when he shoots.’ Nathaniel continued. ‘It is how the very best become that way. Guns are not like people; they do not have the freedom to choose what sort of life they will lead. A gun is built solely to kill and that is all it is good for. Such single-mindedness gives it incredible focus and skill.
‘Whether deliberately or otherwise, men have let the spirits of the gun ride them during combat for as long as there have been guns to wield. In the beginning, they were quite simple-minded but as guns have developed, so have their spirits. The recent invention of the revolver and the cartridge bullet has made them almost as clever as we are. Buchanan speaks rather poetically of it sometimes and I am given to understand that the union between man and revolver is not unlike the embracing of lovers. There are some men who even go so far as to shoot themselves out of devotion. A gun, you see, doesn’t care who it kills just so long as it kills somebody.’
He took a sip of wine to moisten his lips and Madison leaned closer towards him, eager to hear more. ‘When Jacob Priestley came to Covenant in 1879, he was inspired to do so by his guns. Priestley put a curse upon this town. What he did here went far beyond a simple massacre. He killed the town. Not simply its people, you understand, but the town itself. That’s why you’ll not find it on any map these days. Covenant is half way between Hell and Earth.’
The building creaked ominously, making Madison shiver. She fancied that there were eyes in the darkness, watching her as Nathaniel continued to explain:
‘Priestley wanted to make his union with the gun permanent. What he did to Covenant prepared the way. Killing himself was the next step. Death is not the end of existence. All those stories you were told in church about Heaven and Hell are not very far from the truth. In Hell, Priestley joined with the spirit of his guns and became a Cordite. Think of it as a kind of demon. The Cordites are the true Fastest Guns. The six men who won the first tournament joined Priestley and became Cordites too. For them it was the ultimate prize.’
Madison recalled how, in his opening speech at the start of the tournament, Nathaniel had said that recognition as one the Fastest Guns was the prize for whoever won. She had not understood what that had meant until now. It explained why there had never been any talk about prize money. The fighters had not come here for money; they had come to prove their worth in the hope of becoming a Cordite. Kip had never known that. It made her wonder how many of the others who had died in the first round had known what they were fighting for; and how many of Nathaniel’s invigilators understood it either.
‘How does something like this stay secret?’ she asked. ‘I’ve heard lots of stories about the Fastest Guns, and they never mentioned anything like this.’
‘Would you have believed it if they had?’ Nathaniel replied. ‘Men hear rumours that they do not believe or that they are too small-minded to comprehend, so they change the story into something they are more comfortable with and the truth becomes distorted. In Britain they call their smokeless powder: cordite. It is not a coincidence. The name is whispered in the minds of every man who ever builds or fires a gun, but the real truth can only be discovered by those who search for it.’
‘Like you?’ Madison asked him.
He nodded. ‘I have been a student of the occult for many years. The Cordites have something that I want and this tournament is how I am paying for it.’
Madison wanted to know but dared not ask him. He reached out and took his hand in hers. ‘All of my life I have searched for the secret of eternal life,’ he explained. ‘It is within the Cordites’ power to grant me that gift, with the added advantage that any man who is embraced by them cannot be harmed by bullets. They have a saying: he who lives by the Gun cannot die by the Gun.’
It was a saying that Madison had heard once before, years earlier, but she had never understood its significance. She felt overwhelmed by what he had told her. It was like she had lived her whole life so far in a tiny room and somebody had just opened the door, but she was not sure that she liked what lay outside.
Nathaniel patted her on the hand. ‘Everything will be alright,’ he told her. ‘You are safe so long as you are with me.’
Madison did not believe him for a second but she was grateful for his reassurances all the same. After all that he had told her, the town felt even more sinister than it had before and she was glad that she would not be spending the night alone.

The sound of Covenant’s nightly chorus rumbled eerily through the town, its gentle rhythm surging in and out. In and out.
As the noise crept inwards along West Street, it did not travel alone. A furtive shadow crept in its wake, ducking out of sight whenever the patrolling invigilators came near. It moved with infinite care and patience and made its way to the rear of the Grande. There the figure stole to the door and entered the hotel unseen.
The building creaked around her as Vendetta made her way silently along the hallway and into the lobby. She was uncomfortable skulking about like a common thief or assassin but, considering all that she had done in the name of revenge already, it was much too late for her to start having qualms now.
The lobby was dark. A faint moonlight filtered through the tall, dirt encrusted windows and made dancing shadows as it fell through the gently swinging chandelier. Vendetta moved to the foot of the stairway. The balcony above seemed to rear before her, ominously dark.
Sounds drifted down from one of the upstairs rooms: a woman’s voice raised in the throes of an exaggerated passion her body did not share.
It was not the only sound that Vendetta heard. From behind her came the creak of a floorboard as a stealthy foot was lowered. Reacting on instinct, she whirled about, hand reaching for her gun.
But she was too late.
A figure stepped from the shadows opposite her. His gun was already drawn and the grin that exposed his teeth to the murky light told her plainly that he would not hesitate to use it. Vendetta left her gun holstered and slowly raised her hands in the air in an admission of defeat.
‘I’m disappointed,’ the figure said. ‘I’d expected you to put up more of a fight.’
She did not need to hear his voice to know who he was. Castor Buchanan was the only man in Covenant who carried a gun in his left hand. She cursed herself for not having seen him earlier. It was stupid to have come all this way only to have her revenge cut short now. She was so angry with herself that she could not find the words to speak but simply glared at him instead.
‘I was wondering when you’d come looking for me,’ he said. ‘What did he offer you? The secrets of the Cordites, or another way to kill Brett?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Just curious. I’ve known since this morning that Shane was trying to get you to help him, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was he’d offer that would bring you around. For a time I thought he couldn’t do it, but then Shane can be a silver-tongued devil when he wants to be. He has a knack of getting inside your head. Trust me, I should know.’
Vendetta did not have the patience to deal with his taunts. ‘If you’re going to shoot me, do it already.’
Buchanan sighed. ‘That’s the problem with women. Always jumping to conclusions. I don’t want to shoot you darling; not unless you make me. This here gun is purely for my own protection. You did come here to kill me after all.’
He fished the key to Shane’s cell out from underneath his shirt and dangled it by its chain for her to see. ‘This is what he sent you for, right?’
Vendetta neither confirmed nor denied it.
‘If I wanted to kill you,’ he continued. ‘I’d give you this key and let you take it back to him. He’ll kill you as soon as he’s finished with you, or hadn’t you realised that? Oh no, wait. Of course not, because you wouldn’t be here otherwise, now would you?’ He laughed harshly at her. ‘He’s playing you, bitch! He’s putting your life on the line to save his own and it’s lucky for you that I know what he’s like, because I’m willing to look the other way for you, just this once.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ he echoed nastily. ‘Because it suits me to, that’s why. I’ve got a lot resting on this tournament, darling, and I don’t want Shane fucking it up. Now I could kill you. I could haul your ass up to Nathaniel and let him know what you and Shane have been planning.’
Vendetta clenched her fist.
‘But frankly that would just be a waste of time,’ he continued. ‘You’re fighting Chastity tomorrow and, I’m sorry darling, but that’s a death sentence for you for sure.’ He took off his hat and laid it against his chest as if mourning the dead. ‘Pity really, nice girl like you.’
She curled her lip in anger. ‘Fuck you, Buchanan.’
He grinned malevolently and walked over towards her, his gun still pointing at her. Vendetta edged backwards but she had her back to the wall and could not go far. He trapped her, putting his bad hand up on the wall next to her to cut off her escape. He leaned his face in next to hers and sniffed her hair, enjoying the discomfort he caused her.
‘Nice,’ he whispered. ‘You know, tonight’s probably your last night on Earth. It’d be a shame if you spent it alone.’
Vendetta looked him straight in the eye. ‘Unless you want me to break the other two fingers on that useless stump of a hand, I suggest you get it out of my way,’ she snarled.
Buchanan laughed and stepped aside. ‘Time of the month, huh?’ he said. He gave her a small bow and gestured towards the doorway. It took all of Vendetta’s nerve to maintain her composure. She stepped away from the wall and forced herself to walk slowly.
‘If I see you around Shane again I’ll know you’re up to something,’ he told her.
‘Shane Ennis can rot in Hell,’ she replied. She had never much cared for Shane’s promises anyway.

It was an hour later that Shane first began to suspect she wasn’t coming.
From the window of his cell he had watched Vendetta creep out of the hotel and slink away into the night, but after that there had been nothing, not a sign.
Something had gone wrong.
He returned to his bunk and sat down, wrestling with his disappointment. He cautioned himself to be patient, that perhaps everything was not as bad as it seemed and that the problem was only a temporary setback. But his pessimism would hear none of it.
Haunted with bleak thoughts of failure, his mind turned in on itself and dredged up memories of the past.
He remembered the sun and how it had beaten down on the blasted white landscape, how the rocks had shimmered in the heat as if they were on fire and burned with invisible flames. He remembered the slow pace of his horse, the dry taste of dirt in the back of his mouth and the angry throbbing of his head from the cut where Grant had struck him.
It was the morning after the day when they had fought the cowboys at the spring. Every step his horse took sent a jarring pain up his spine, igniting fireworks in his skull, and Shane was in a foul temper even without the heat and his thirst to contend with. He stared at Grant with a murderous look in his eyes and Grant stared back at him with equal venom.
Fletcher could hardly have failed to notice the tension between them but he was worn and tired and no longer seemed to care. He rode on ahead, spying out Buchanan’s tracks in the dusty land and left them both to their mutual hatred of one another.
They travelled deeper and deeper into the wasteland, well beyond the civilised reaches of that place and far from the known watering holes. Grant suffered the heat worst of all and that night, as they settled down to camp, he tipped his waterskin to his lips and only a small trickle came out. Shane and Fletcher were down to less than a quarter skin each but, on Fletcher’s command, they redistributed it equally. Later, as Grant lay sleeping, his face bathed in sweat, Shane approached Fletcher and told him: ‘We aren’t going to last long if he keeps drinking all our water.’
‘If it comes to it I’ll give him yours and you can go without.’ Fletcher replied unsympathetically.
‘We’d be better off without him.’
‘Don’t even think it, Ennis.’
‘Send him back to San Alejo. We don’t need him.’
But Fletcher was adamant. ‘He stays with us.’ And that was the end of the discussion.
They were able to collect some water from the morning dew but it was barely enough to wet their lips with and the following day started hot and thirsty. They walked their horses for most of it, leaving the animals to carry only the weight of their baggage so as to conserve their strength. The day grew hotter as the sun rose higher and nowhere was there any shade or any water.
Grant fell behind. At first he lagged by only ten or twenty paces but later the distance grew until Shane and Fletcher were waiting for him to catch up. As time went on, he got slower and slower and they had to wait longer. Shane again suggested that they abandon him but Fletcher would hear none of it and, when they discovered that Grant had drunk all of his water, he redistributed all they had left again, further depleting their already meagre supply.
They saw buzzards circling in the distance and went to investigate. A man lay facedown in the dirt; the victim of a short and one-sided conflict. Fletcher scared the birds away and bent to examine him. ‘Shot,’ he pronounced. ‘At close range.’
Shane held up a cartridge that he found in the dirt. ‘.44 Russian,’ he said. ‘Buchanan did this.’
‘It could have been anyone.’ Grant scoffed.
‘His cartridge; his style.’ Shane said. ‘He shot him for his water.’
Fletcher had been studying the tracks. ‘He’s got a couple of hours on us.’
‘Then take these cuffs off me. We can be on him by nightfall.’
Fletcher said nothing, merely took the reins of his horse and set off towards the horizon. Shane swore irritably but followed him nonetheless and their journey resumed. In very little time, Grant was lagging behind again. In less than an hour, they had lost sight of him and had to wait.
‘We’ll never catch up with Buchanan at this rate.’ Shane warned him, but Fletcher had become adept at turning a deaf ear to what he said. They waited until Grant caught up and Fletcher asked if he was okay. Grant nodded. At the time, they both assumed that he was keeping his silence out of shame because he knew that he was slowing them down. Twenty minutes later they realised it was worse than that when he collapsed and failed to get back up again.
Fletcher hurried back to where his friend lay barely conscious against some rocks. Shane followed him, but at a more casual pace. He had been patiently waiting for this to happen all day and his only regret was that it had taken so long. By the time he joined them, Fletcher was crouched at Grant’s side and trying to force water down his throat. Grant retched and brought it all back up again.
Seeing him arrive, Fletcher held out his hand to Shane expectantly. ‘Give me your water!’
‘It’s all we’ve got left.’
‘Damnit, I don’t care! He needs it.’
‘Not for much longer he won’t.’
Fletcher swore at him and drew his revolver. ‘I’m not asking you, Ennis. Now give me your goddamn water.’
Reluctantly, Shane untied his waterskin from his saddle and threw it into Fletcher’s waiting hands. He watched as the old man used it to wet his friend’s lips, letting him drink it slowly so that he wouldn’t bring it up again.
‘I hope you like the taste of piss because that’s all we’ll be drinking from here on.’ Shane said.
‘We’re going back.’ Fletcher said.
Shane had expected this. ‘What about Ben?’ he asked solemnly.
‘Ben wouldn’t want any of his friends to die for him, not like this. No, this manhunt’s over. We’re taking Alan back.’
‘Ben was no friend of mine.’ Shane argued. ‘I’m sure he won’t care if I die out here. Take these cuffs off and let me go after Buchanan on my own. I’ll make better time without you anyway.’
‘I’m sure you would.’ Fletcher said harshly. ‘And when you find Buchanan you’ll join up with him again and the two of you will go on after Hunte. I’m no fool, Ennis.’
‘Sure you are. Hunte’s a dead man whether I kill him or not. Even if he makes it all the way to Washington, somebody there will put a bullet in his heart. You did your bit to help him, Fletcher. Be proud of it, but have the sense to know that it’s time you left it alone.’
‘I said no, and that’s an end of it!’ Fletcher snapped. He was getting angry.
Shane gave an insolent shrug. ‘Have it your way,’ he said, and he stood back and watched while Fletcher tried to lift Grant onto his horse. ‘You’re making hard work of that,’ he said after a while.
‘Shut up!’
Fletcher’s back was not what it had once been and he was forced to lower Grant back to the ground. While he did so, Shane surreptitiously wandered in the direction of Fletcher’s horse, where his guns were stashed in a saddlebag. He had not made it a few steps when the cocking of Fletcher’s gun warned him to go no further. ‘Get over here where I can see you.’ Fletcher warned. ‘You can make yourself useful.’
He gestured towards Grant’s unconscious figure. Shane groaned in protest but did as he was told. Stooping, he tried several times to lift Grant onto his back but each time he failed. ‘This would be a whole lot easier if you took these cuffs off,’ he said.
Fletcher considered it. The sun was beating down on them, sweating the water from their bodies and it was only a matter of time before they both ended up like Grant. Against his better judgement, he threw Shane the key to his handcuffs and let him set himself free. Shane bent to lift Grant again, finding the job much easier now but, with his hands free, he no longer had any need to do what Fletcher told him. Grant had a revolver slung from his waist and Shane drew it, turned and had Fletcher in his sights in one fluid movement.
He resisted the temptation to simply pull the trigger. ‘Lose your gun, Fletcher. I could have killed you already if I wanted to so don’t do anything silly. There’s no need to make this worse than it is.’
Fletcher cursed him, ashamed that he been caught out so easily. He reluctantly allowed his gun to fall to the ground and kicked it away at Shane’s prompting. Shane walked over to his horse and retrieved his Colts, then stripped their baggage of every gun and cartridge and added them to his own. When he was done he had an extra two revolvers, a Winchester rifle and Grant’s twelve bore shotgun. It was a good-sized arsenal, but Shane would have preferred a skin full of water instead.
He turned to Fletcher: ‘If you’re smart and you don’t waste time coming after me, you might make it to Amberville. That way,’ he said, pointing. ‘It’s probably the closest town from here.’
‘Don’t play games with me,’ Fletcher muttered. ‘If you’re going to shoot me just get it over with.’
Shane shook his head. ‘You haven’t been listening to me, Fletcher. I don’t want to kill you; I never did.’ He could not begin to explain how hard he had tried to keep Fletcher alive, or what it meant to him to have done so. Fletcher would not understand. Hell, Shane was not even sure that he understood it properly. Nothing was as simple as he liked it to be any more.
He walked over to where Grant lay in the dirt. With no more feeling than if he was putting an old dog out of its misery, Shane pressed the barrel of his gun to Grant’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
Fletcher swore at him. ‘You’ll pay for all this one day, Ennis. Mark my words: your sins’ll find you out.’
But Shane was not listening. He seized his horse by the reins and led her away into the wasteland. Somewhere up ahead, Castor Buchanan had water and Shane intended on finding him and making him share it.

The sound of Covenant’s nightly chorus rumbled eerily through the town, its gentle rhythm surging in and out. In and out.
Save for where the torch fires burned and smoked, the town lay in absolute darkness. Dawn was still a good many hours away and not even the brush of false light touched the horizon; the sky was smooth and black as a sheet of obsidian.
The invigilators of the night watch were used to feeling uneasy in the town’s strange environment. They were familiar with the half-heard sounds, the shadowy figures sometimes glimpsed in the distance, and the ever-present sense that they were being watched; but tonight they felt a new uneasiness disturb them. A presence, unseen by all, moved through the town, cloaked behind a veil of shadows. It moved, wraith-like, from the door of the Grande hotel to a place near the edge of town, where an old clapboard house creaked and groaned in time to the town’s sombre melody. The hem of his long coat brushed in the dirt as he crossed the threshold, making a soft noise, like a whisper.
Once inside the house and out of sight from any passing patrol, the figure doffed his veil of shadows, shedding it like a skin. It broke into pieces as it fell away from him, each one temporarily assuming a vaguely humanoid form before it melted properly into the dark with a faint and despairing wail. Whisperer paused to straighten his collar before venturing deeper into the house.
They were waiting for him as he had expected they would be.
Three had deigned to answer his summons and they stood with their backs to the wall: tall, dark, wraith-like figures, their bodies bathed in a nimbus of grey smoke that shone with a gloaming light. Their faces they hid beneath the wide brim of their hats but Whisperer recognised them by the guns they wore.
He began to speak: ‘I am honoured that you agreed–’
‘Spare us your flattery.’
The speaker’s voice rumbled like distant gunfire.
‘We grow tired of your rituals,’ the Cordite on the left hissed.
‘Why have you called on us again?’ the middle one asked.
The three demons smelled bitterly of gunsmoke, dust and decay. With untold years of experience behind him, Whisperer was able to sense the demonic power that radiated from them. It was something raw and untamed. There was nothing certain in dealing with them but still, he had come this far; he could not turn back now.
‘It is time we agreed on my fee,’ he said.
The one in the middle raised his head slightly, allowing eyes that burned like smouldering coals to be seen beneath the shadow of his hat. He was the most powerful of the three. Jacob Priestley glared at Whisperer and his voice rumbled from the pit of his throat: ‘The terms of our agreement have already been made.’
‘Not so.’ Whisperer argued. ‘We have not properly agreed on the number of souls that I will receive for my services.’
Priestley’s breath rasped harshly in his dry lungs. ‘We agreed to spare you your existence. That is all you have any right to expect. We are not Faustians to be bargained with.’
‘It is only that we have no use for the souls you desire that we offer them to you at all,’ the Cordite on his left said.
Whisperer had observed during his previous dealings with them how they spoke as if sharing a common mind. Shane Ennis had good reason to fear becoming one of them.
The one on the right offered him a sneer, parched lips stretching back to expose yellowed teeth that were long as fangs. ‘We feed you our scraps, soul-monger. Like the dog you are.’
Whisperer kept his expression neutral. A certain degree of taunting was to be expected from the one on the right. He was Michael Brett, the man that Vendetta had come to kill, and his death in the first tournament had done nothing to improve his angry disposition. Besides, the Cordites were young and inexperienced in Hell’s ways. They had no idea of the value of what Whisperer was taking from them, had no idea that he was robbing them blind.
‘I have brought you Ennis, and the girl, Chastity,’ he said. ‘I’m sure that by now you have had chance to see that she is worthy of your attention.’
Their silence was proof enough.
‘I believe that twenty souls is not an unreasonable finder’s fee.’ Whisperer said.
Priestley breathed out, expelling a cloud of noxious-smelling grey smoke. ‘Name them,’ he said.
Whisperer did as he was bade, reciting the list that he had committed to memory. He did not really want them all. The only man whose soul he really wanted out of the deal was Nathaniel’s.
When they had first met on the battlefield at James Point in 1861, Nathaniel had been an unremarkable officer, keen to make a name for himself. Whisperer had been stalking the countryside, scavenging among the dead and the wounded for souls to steal. He had struck a deal with Nathaniel. He had offered to turn him into a great man and had promised him money and power and all of his worldly desires. All he had asked for in return was the blood sacrifice of sixty men. To his immense satisfaction, Nathaniel had eagerly agreed.
Whisperer had tutored him patiently since then, encouraging him to delve deeper into the Satanic Arts and uncover more of its mysteries. Every demonic pact, every gift he accepted from the Underworld, had increased the value of his soul and now Whisperer was ready to trade it in at Hell’s markets and make a very good return on his investment.
The other nineteen names were just the icing on the cake, and Whisperer would just as happily dispense with them if it became necessary. The only reason he named them at all was to disguise his interest in Nathaniel. He knew that if the Cordites ever found out how much Nathaniel was worth to him they would try to keep him for themselves.
He almost smiled as he named the last name on his list. ‘Castor Buchanan. That is, if you allow it.’
‘Buchanan means nothing to us,’ the Cordite on the left replied.
‘You may take him.’ Brett said.
‘Thank you. I should like to take five of the ones who are already dead now, as a show of good faith.’
Priestley nodded his assent. He did not even seem interested in trying to haggle, which made Whisperer suspicious that they were plotting to double-cross him. It was not surprising given the Cordites’ nature and their inexperience with Hell’s laws. He could only hope that they continued to underestimate him long enough for him to get what he wanted and escape.
He kept an even expression as he thanked Priestley for his co-operation. The Cordite’s eyes burned into his malevolently. ‘Do not seek to cheat us, soul-monger,’ he said.
‘Or you will learn the limit of our patience,’ the one on his left finished.
Whisperer bowed to them obsequiously, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts. One by one, the three Cordites melted back into the shadows. Whisperer left the house and returned to the Grande in secret.