Earp’s eyes flickered. “I’ve seen the type before.” He glanced at the German.
The German sat in exactly the same place he’d settled hours before. The man had his eyes closed—but he smiled faintly, as if aware of Earp’s gaze on him.
Earp turned back to me. “What happens to Mr. Page when you catch him?”
“He will be fairly tried, and then, I expect, beheaded for his crimes.”
Earp examined the fingernails of his right hand. “A real fair trial?”
“The evidence against him is damning,” I said. “But fair enough.”
Earp lowered his hand again. It fell very naturally to the grip of his gun. “I’d never want me one of those, if I could avoid it,” he said.
I knew what he meant. There were times I didn’t care for the sorts of things it had been necessary to do to deal with various monsters, human or otherwise. I expect Earp had faced his own terrors, and the dirty labor required to remove them.
Such deeds left their weight behind.
“I wouldn’t care for one myself,” I said.
He nodded, and we both sipped coffee for a while. Then he said, “Once this is wrapped up, I think I’d like to buy you a nice dinner. When you aren’t on the job.”
I found myself smiling at that.
I was an attractive woman, which was simply a statement of truth and not one of ego. I dressed well, kept myself well, and frequently had the attention of men and women who wished to enjoy my company. That had been a source of great enjoyment and amusement when I was younger, though these days I had little patience for it.
But Earp was interesting, and there was a tremendous appeal in his lean, soft-spoken confidence.
“Perhaps,” I said. “If business allows for it.”
Earp seemed pleased and sipped his coffee.
THE TOWN HAD gone black and silent, even the saloons, as the night stretched to the quiet, cool hours of darkness and stillness that came before the first hint of dawn.
The witching hour.
We both heard the footsteps approaching the front door of the marshal’s office. Earp had belted on a second revolver, had a third within easy reach on the desk, and rose from his chair to take up a shotgun in his hands, its barrels cut down to less than a foot long.
My own weapons were just as ready, if less easily observable than Earp’s. I’d marked a quick circle in chalk on the floor, ready to be imbued with energy as a bulwark against hostile magic. The sword at my side was tingling with power I’d invested in it over the course of the evening, ready to slice apart the threads binding enemy spells together, and I held ready a shield in my mind to prevent attacks on my thoughts and emotions.
And, of course, I had a hand on my revolver. Magic is well and good, but bullets are often swifter.
The footsteps stopped just outside the door. And then there was a polite knock.
Earp’s face twisted with distaste. He crossed to the door and opened a tiny speaking window in it, without actually showing himself to whoever was outside. In addition, he leveled the shotgun at the door, approximately at the midsection of whomever would be standing outside.
“Evening,” Earp said.
“Good evening,” said a man’s voice from outside. This accent was British, quite well-to-do, its tenor pleasant. “Might I speak with Mr. Wyatt Earp, please?”
“Speaking,” Earp drawled.
“Mr. Earp,” the Briton said, “I have come to make you a proposal that will avoid any unpleasantness in the immediate future. Are you willing to hear me out?”
Earp looked at me.
I shrugged. On the one hand, it was always worth exploring ways not to fight. On the other, I had no confidence that a member of the Thule Society would negotiate in good faith. In fact, I took a few steps back toward the rear of the building, so that I might hear something if this was some sort of attempt at a distraction.
Earp nodded his approval.
“Tell you what,” he said to the Briton. “I’m going to stand in here and count quietly to twenty before I start pulling triggers. You say something interesting before then, could be we can make medicine.”
There was a baffled second’s silence, and the Briton said, “How quickly are you counting?”
“I done started,” Earp said. “And you ain’t doing yourself any favors right now.”
The Briton hesitated an instant more before speaking in an even, if slightly rushed, tone. “With respect, this is not a fight you can win, Mr. Earp. If the Warden were not present, this conversation would not be happening. Her presence means we may have to contend with you to get what we want, rather than simply taking it—but it would surely garner a great deal of attention of the sort that her kind prefer to avoid, as well as placing countless innocents in danger.”
As the man spoke, Earp listened intently, adjusting the aim of his shotgun by a few precise degrees.
“To avoid this outcome, you will release our companion unharmed. We will depart Dodge City immediately. You and the Warden will remain within the marshal’s office until dawn. As an additional incentive, we will arrange for the new ordinances against your friend Mr. Short’s establishment to be struck from the city’s legal code.”
At that, Earp grunted.
I lifted an eyebrow at him. He held up a hand and gave his head a slight shake that asked me to wait until later.
“Well, Mr. Earp?” asked the Briton. “Can we, as you so pithily put it, make medicine?”
Something hard flickered in Earp’s eyes. He glanced at me.
I drew my revolver.
That action engendered a grin big enough to show some of his teeth, even through the mustache. He lifted his head and said, “Eighteen. Nineteen …”
The Briton spoke in a hard voice, meant to be menacing, though it was somewhat undermined by the way he hurried away from the door. “Decide in the next half an hour. You will have no second chance.”
I waited a moment before arching an eyebrow at Earp. “I take it these terms he offered were good ones?”
Earp lowered and uncocked the shotgun and squinted thoughtfully. “Well. Maybe and maybe not. But they sound pretty good, and I reckon that’s what he was trying for.”
“What was he offering, precisely?”
“Bill Short went and got himself into some trouble with the folks north of the tracks. They want to clean up Dodge City. Make it all respectable. Which, I figure, ain’t a bad thing all by itself. They got kids to think about. Well, Bill’s partner run for mayor and lost. Fella that won passed some laws against Bill’s place, arrested some of his girls—that kind of thing. Bill objected, and some shooting got done, but nobody died or anything. Then a mob rounded up Bill and some other folks the proper folk figured was rapscallions and ran them out of town.”
“I see,” I said. “How do you come into this?”
“Well, Bill got himself a train to Kansas City, and he rounded up some friends. Me, Bat, Doc, a few others.”
I glanced at the lean man and his casually worn guns. “Men like you?”
“Well,” Earp said, and a quiet smile flickered at the edges of his mustache. “I’d not care to cross them over a matter of nothing, if you take my meaning, Miss Anastasia.”
“I do.”
“So, we been coming into town to talk things over with this mayor without a mob deciding how things should go,” Earp continued. “Little at a time, so as not to make too much noise.” He opened the peephole in the office door and squinted out of it. “Got myself redeputized so I can go heeled. Been over at the Long Branch with Bat.”