cried out. The stone wall finally stopped him, and Chee, from no more than five feet away, fired and fired, until the gun was completely empty.
Malachi staggered toward Chee, and Hollister took careful aim and shot him in the eye. He dropped to the floor of the chamber. Hollister shot again trying for the heart, and again and again, and then he pulled the trigger and his heart sank as he felt the hammer land on an empty chamber. He pulled the trigger again and again. It was no use: the gun was empty.
Malachi looked up at them from the stone floor.
“You’ve done well, humans. I will grant you that small satisfaction. You’ve killed far too many of my people and no one has damaged me to such a degree in centuries. But you cannot kill me. I will leave here and heal, and raise more followers; then I will kill all of your kind. Every last one of you. Remember… in a few short days I shall have lived for fifteen centuries. Nothing will stop me then,” he said.
With a degree of strength Jonas could not fathom, he climbed to his feet. He backhanded Chee, who tumbled backward onto the ground and was still. He was upon Hollister in an instant, pressing him against the wall of the chamber. His hand closed around Jonas’s throat. Somehow, through it all, he had maintained his grip on his blade; he thrust it into Hollister’s gut and Jonas remembered thinking that he should have told Pinkerton to go fuck himself when he’d come to Leavenworth that day. Digging wells was far better than having your guts strung out by this pompous asshole. Malachi pulled the blade out. Hollister clutched his gut, blood seeping out of his stomach, as he slowly slid down the wall toward the floor.
“You will all die,” Malachi said “Remember that…”
But Malachi died first, as Shaniah rose behind him, swinging her blade with all of her might, connecting at the spot where his neck met his shoulders, and his head came cleanly off his body.
His face had one last instant of surprise and shock as it rolled onto the chamber floor.
“You know what, Malachi? Go fuck yourself,” Hollister said as the head rolled to a stop a few feet away from him, the empty eyes taking on a curious look of amazement.
Chapter Seventy-seven
Shaniah stood over Malachi’s dead body, holding her Archaic blade. Jonas pressed at his wound, but the blood still seeped through his fingers. He’d seen enough wounds like this in the war to know he wasn’t going to make it.
She secreted the blade in her boot and rushed to his side. Dog came to then, standing on unsteady feet and shaking his head. He went to Chee and licked his face, but Chee didn’t seem to respond much.
Shaniah held Hollister’s face in her hands. He was gravely wounded, but she knew a way to save him. The blade Malachi had stabbed him with lay on the ground a few inches away. She picked it up, and drawing it across her palm, she opened a cut.
“I thought you told me your blade was all you needed,” he said.
“I lied,” she said.
“Hmm. Lied about a couple of other things too, apparently?” he said. “You forgot to mention the whole married to the evil mastermind thing.”
“Would it have mattered?” she asked him, putting her hand on his cheek.
He tried to focus on her face but it was hard. It seemed like someone was taking great pleasure in making the world spin. He finally found her, with one eye closed. She was still beautiful.
“No, it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference,” he said.
She held her hand, the cut seeping blood up to Hollister’s face.
“You need to drink this,” she said.
Without warning there was a gun against the side of her head. Chee stood there, his Colt pressed against her temple. Dog was next to him, growling. How she hated that goddamned dog. Chee pulled back the hammer on the pistol.
“What are you doing?” Shaniah said.
“Don’t move,” Chee said.
“He’s going to die,” she said.
“He might not,” Chee answered back.
Hollister was losing blood and getting the giddy, nearly drunken feeling one can only experience with too much blood loss.
“What are you two doing? You need to stop arguing and start getting along. And stop calling each other witches. I mean it,” he said. Then he giggled, slightly delirious.
“Archaic blood can heal him. He only needs a little,” she said.
“Better he dies than turns into one of you,” Chee said.
“He won’t. He can’t become… he won’t turn. He has to be bitten first, then he has to drink the blood of the one who bit him, the sire. That’s the only way it works. But this will keep him alive, it has healing powers.”
“I don’t believe you, Brujana,” he said.
“Chee,” Hollister said. His voice was weak. “It’s all right. Let her do it. It might work, it might not, but I’m done otherwise.”
Chee stared at Shaniah hard. Dog still looked like he wanted to see if he could fit her entire head in his mouth.
Finally, he lowered the gun. “Dog, off,” he said. Dog stopped growling instantly and sat on his haunches.
Shaniah pushed her bleeding hand to Hollister’s mouth. She pulled open his lips and squeezed blood into his mouth. She kept at it until his face was covered with it. He slipped into unconsciousness.
“What now?” Chee asked.
“We wait,” Shaniah said. They waited several minutes. Chee checked Hollister’s pulse.
“Shit,” Hollister said, his eyes open again. He had slumped over onto the floor when he had gone unconscious, and now he came to, staring face to face with Malachi’s dismembered head. Staring at the head locked in a death grimace, he said, “Remind me never to make you angry.”
“You’re alive,” she said, falling to the ground beside him and taking his head in her hands.
“Either that, or we’re all dead. Can dead people talk to each other? Chee, you know a lot about dead people.”
Chee shook his head. “I don’t know, Major.” But he smiled. Glad that Hollister was alive.
The color slowly returned to Hollister’s face. “All right. I think we’ve killed everyone we were supposed to, so let’s get out of here. Help me up.”
Chee and Shaniah lifted him slowly to his feet.
“Getting stabbed sure does hurt,” he said. “Got stabbed a couple times in the war and it always hurt more than getting shot. Which always surprises me.” Hollister realized he was babbling, but he was so happy to be among the living he didn’t care.
Shaniah laughed. They slowly left the chamber behind, Dog in the lead, Chee and Shaniah on either side of Hollister, holding him up.
“Wait, I forgot something.” He reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out the two bundles of dynamite. There were six sticks in each bundle and the fuses were wrapped around the bundles.
“What do you say we make sure old Malachi stays put?” Hollister said.
“Keep going, I’ll back up and set the charges,” Chee said.
Every step brought Hollister searing pain, but he could also tell he wasn’t going to die anymore. Shaniah’s blood was bringing him some relief. They were a few feet away from the entrance when Chee came sprinting back.
“Probably best if we hurry,” he said. He took Hollister’s other arm and they picked up the pace, wanting to be outside before the dynamite went off. Twenty yards or so ahead of them, Dog starting barking and growling, sniffing the air ahead of him, the hair on his neck standing up.
Chee racked a round into the chamber of his Henry. Shaniah took hold of her blade with her free hand. “You
