The Inventor (The Legend Chronicles) Read online

  “I’d like to kill you, just to prove a point to Cyrus, but Rathe said to bring you back alive.” The stranger’s breath stank so bad of sulfur it made Colt’s nose burn and his eyes well. “’Course, he didn’t say I couldn’t have a little fun first.” The unnaturally icy pale blue eyes glaring at him turned violent crimson, the vertical pupils widening with anticipation. Colt’s heart stopped beating for a second.

  Everything seemed to blur as his eyes bulged with pressure. The next instant, the stranger shoved Colt beneath the water of the horse trough that had been ten feet away. Glimmers of sunlight streamed in from above as the water seeped into his nose and he fought to hold his breath.

  Colt dug his fingernails into the hands holding him down, kicking and squirming, anything to get a sip of air into his burning lungs. The stranger pulled Colt from the water at the last moment, before blackness clouded his vision completely.

  “Where’s the Book?” His voice was hot against Colt’s ear.

  Colt coughed and choked, the water rasping his throat.

  “Tell me.”

  All Colt could do was shake his head and gasp. He didn’t know what the stranger meant.

  The water closed over him again. Colt wanted to scream, but he didn’t dare. There hadn’t been time to take a deep breath. He fought hard against the iron hold keeping him beneath the water. Panic turned to outright terror as he realized he was going to drown.

  Suddenly, above the shifting surface of the water, the stranger bucked forward, his head arching back, his mouth a rictus of pain. He lifted Colt from the water and flung him to the ground with a crunching thud, then whipped around, the axe stuck firmly in his back.

  Pain ripped fire through Colt as he gasped for air and scrabbled backward, his gaze darting to Winchester, now behind the stranger. His older brother leveled the barrel of his shotgun at the stranger’s head. Winn was smaller than the stranger, a young man on the cusp of twenty. But the look in Winn’s cool blue eyes said he’d seen plenty.

  “Go to Hell,” Winn said, his voice tight and gravelly.

  The stranger’s mouth widened into a reddish slash in his pale face as he twisted his arm back and around, ripping the axe from his back with a wet sucking sound. His gaze flicked briefly to the glistening blackness oozing off the blade. “Already been there.” The axe flew in a wide arc directly at Winn the same instant the gun exploded.

  Colt screamed as Winn fell to the ground.

  The stranger evaporated into nothing but a dark swirl of smoke.

  Colt scrambled to his brother, ignoring the burning ache in his ribs and the rivulets of water still streaming down his face. Sod and dust burned his eyes and stung his nose as he slipped and stumbled across the ground to reach Winn. “Winn! Dammit, Winn, you still alive?”

  The axe blade quivered in Winn’s upper thigh, bright red blood gushing everywhere. Lord, that must hurt like hell. It had clearly struck bone. Winn’s breathing was shallow, his face greasy with sweat and pain. “Don’t just sit there. Tie it off.”

  Colt ripped off his wet shirt and tied off the limb as tight as he could to stem the flow of blood. He didn’t dare try to remove the axe. He wasn’t big enough to haul Winn to the cabin by himself. He swore under his breath and shivered, his skin tight with cold and fear. Winn’s left eye cracked open.

  “Don’t swear.” The words came out a bare puff of breath. Any other time the rebuke would’ve stung. Now Colt was grateful because it meant his brother was still alive. He glanced up, scanning the horizon for a sign of his pa and other brother Remington.

  He looked down at Winn, who was now almost as pale as the stranger had been, beads of sweat making his face shine, his lips tinting blue. “They’re coming. Just stay with me.”

  He glanced nervously at the axe head and gulped against the bile rising in his throat. There was so much blood he was sure Winn was bleeding to death. “This is bad, real bad.”

  “Pa will know what to do. Just keep talkin’ to me. I don’t want to pass out.”

  “What the hell was that, Winn?” Colt hated the tremor of fear still in his voice.

  “Vampire. Demon. Something unnatural.”

  Curiosity bit him hard and wouldn’t let go. For years he’d wondered what was so all-confounded important that he’d be left alone days at a time. But when his father and brothers returned, they’d never tell him where they disappeared to or exactly wha Kr ealone dt they’d done. “Is that what you and Pa have been hunting?”

  “And others like it.”

  The thumping of running feet caused Colt to look at the tree line. Pa and Remington raced on foot toward their homestead. Pa got there first, easily outrunning Remy. He eyed Colt for a second, not bothering to ask for an explanation. He grabbed Winn’s hand and gave it a hard squeeze. “This is gonna hurt, boy.”

  Winn’s jaw jumped as he gritted his teeth. “Do it. Fast.”

  “Get your brother a leather strap to bite on.” Colt knew he was talking to Remy, as his middle brother sprinted into the cabin to fetch the strap.

  Inside Colt’s stomach was an oily mess of anger and guilt. Somehow he shoulda known what that thing was. He shoulda been able to fight it off. But he hadn’t. And now Winn was hurt bad. Likely as not, he’d lose his leg. Possibly even die.

  “What can I do?”

  Pa leveled a steely blue gaze at him. “Stay out of the way.” The words were gruff, but laced with concern.

  And that was the way it always was. Ever since Ma had died when Colt was seven, Pa and the two older boys had banded together and Colt had been left behind. He’d done everything he could to prove he was as worthy as his two older brothers to be included, but Pa had always turned away when he’d asked what they were hunting.

  Remy came back, then crouched beside Winn to shove the strap between his tightly clenched teeth as Pa pulled the axe from Winn’s thigh. Winn’s scream pushed past the strap as he reflexively forgot to bite down in anguish. Holy crap. His piercing scream went through Colt like an electric charge he’d once gotten from one of his pa’s weapons hidden under the bed, stinging and sharp. It sliced through his skull and echoed in his head, making his insides curl in around themselves away from the gut-wrenching guttural sound.

  Blood gushed out of the wound, saturating Winn’s pant leg in scarlet. Winn started panting through what was surely agony as Pa carried him into their cabin. Colt didn’t bother to follow. He knew he’d only be in the way. The single room wasn’t hardly big enough for four of them.

  Hours later he heard the stiff scrape of Pa’s boots in the soil behind him. Pa’s hand, broad and thick, settled on his shoulder, giving him an awkward pat. The metallic scent of blood, Winn’s blood, tainted the air. “He’ll live. It’s not your fault, Colt. Winn knew what he was dealing with. You didn’t. And that’s my fault, boy.”

  Colt turned, gazing up at his father, whose dark blue eyes were now bloodshot and shining with unshed tears. His ma used to say they were so like Winn’s it was kinda eerie. “I was trying to spare one of you boys from the life. I figured it should be you, being as you were your mama’s favorite and the youngest. But I guess those bastards won’t let me.”

  Colt fisted his hands against the damp cotton of his pants, his face heated. So many times he’d asked and been put off. He didn’t dare believe the little leap of excitement in his gut or the light-headed feeling in his head. “Pa, you’re not makin’ a lick of sense.”

  His father shook his shaggy head, the dark hair thick and unkempt as all his boys’. His hand grazed over the three days of stubble along his square jaw. “Colt, it’s time for you to learn exactly what you are.”

  Chapter 1

  Arizona Territory, 1883

  K

  He’d finally managed to wash the dark, sticky, tar-like blood off his hands. There’d been no hope for his clothes.

  He’d had to burn them.

  A man couldn’t be too careful. For the likes of Colt Jackson, a Hunter born and bred, danger lurked everywh
ere, even in a place as innocuous as a worn-out bar that reeked of old tobacco smoke laced with the eye-watering fumes of rotgut whiskey. But neither of those blotted out the telltale stink of sulfur. Something supernatural lurked close by. He’d bet his gun hand on it.

  Everything in the little mining town turned ice hub in Arizona Territory seemed coated with a ghostly layer of grit, even the chipped crystal chandeliers overhead. He felt the grit in his lungs and in his nostrils. It stank of putrid eggs and worse, probably from the smokestacks billowing white outside against an endless cerulean sky. He picked up his smeared, nearly empty glass of ice water, leaving behind a dark ring in the pale dust on the scarred, liquor-sticky table.

  Hell, the only reason he’d stopped in Wickenburg in the first place was for the ice. Ever since the mines deep in the desert had flooded out and ingenious businessmen replaced the old rock crushers with steam-powered freeze machines, ice had become one of the most profitable commodities next to copper, gold, and silver in this special little sizzling corner of Hell on earth. He glared at his glass. The ice water had cost him almost as much as a good whiskey.

  The lithe blond saloon girl he’d been eyeing since he walked in strolled toward him across the warped wooden floorboards worn smooth from the sand of so many boots. Her hips swayed to the sound of the out-of-tune piano plunking away near the stairs that led up to the rented rooms on the second floor. The cheap glass beading on her dark blue off-the-shoulder dance-hall dress flashed in the illumination of the gaslights overhead, creating sparkles to dance along the curves of her pale cleavage.

  “Would you like some company, sugar?” Her smile didn’t reach her heavily kohled eyes. She was anywhere between sixteen and thirty. How many men had she had? Worse, did he really care? He wanted the comfort of someone who smelled sweet and womanly. Someone in whose arms he could forget, if only for a few hours, who and what he was.

  Colt smiled wide. Enough women had told him his smile was dead gorgeous that he’d learned when to use it to his advantage. He’d dressed with more care than usual tonight, in clean black trousers, a starched white shirt, and a black brocade vest threaded with a pattern of silver and blue he’d been told matched the blue in his eyes. Seemed the effort had been worth it. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She cuddled up beside him, throwing a long, smooth leg, bare to the thigh, over his. “So what brings you to Wickenburg, cowboy?”

  He slid a hand over her smooth thigh. “Hunting.”

  She let out a husky laugh, full red lips tilting up in a come-hither pout. “Most men here are lookin’ to strike it rich in ice. But I knew you was different the moment I saw you. In fact, I’ve seen your face before. What’s your name?”

  Colt tensed. He worked fairly hard at keeping a low profile, but every now and then a completely unwarranted wanted poster tended to circulate with his likeness. “Colt Jackson.”

  “Relax, handsome,” she said, rubbing her hand over his chest, delving beneath the edge of his vest. He felt the heat of her hand through his shirt as her soft fingers stroked right over his heart. “We get outlaws in here all the time.”

  Yeah, but Colt seriously doubted Kousstroke they were anything like him. Her constant kneading touch began to drain the tension out of his shoulders, but only a little. His gun hand had started itching the moment he’d stepped into the bar, and his instincts had never steered him wrong before. Something in this little town wasn’t right.

  “So, are you famous? Are you dangerous?” she asked, her fingers threading through his shock of nearly black hair as she wriggled on his lap. Her perfume was way too strong, and verging on unpleasant. Her skin under all that makeup looked dirty. Her blond hair felt stiff and brittle beneath his fingers and he dropped his hand to her waist, feeling whalebone and crisp satin, not silky skin.

  “Not exactly,” Colt muttered, finding her less appealing by the moment. “Really more like a modern Robin Hood.”

  Glossy ruby lips pouted. “It’s so much more fun when you’re dangerous.” He realized that it didn’t matter how much he wanted or needed a woman right now, a tumble wasn’t going to give him what he truly wanted and could never have—a home, a place where he belonged. No matter how delectable she looked, she wouldn’t satisfy the deeper craving.

  These days nothing could. There wasn’t a way to feed the hunger that gnawed deep down, belly-deep. It bit into his bones and wouldn’t let go. Hunting was like a drug. Once a man knew supernaturals existed, he saw the Darkin everywhere. Once a Hunter knew that those creatures were the cause behind deaths no one else could explain, duty lay heavy on his shoulders.

  Once a Hunter started hunting, he couldn’t just stop.

  Evil didn’t take a holiday. Hunting wasn’t a profession, it was a way of life.

  For an instant he wished he could be like his older brothers, Winchester and Remington, upstanding citizens who didn’t run from place to place even if they too were named after his pa’s favorite guns. While the Jackson brothers looked a lot alike on the outside, with their pa’s jet hair and wide shoulders and their ma’s blue eyes and winning smile, they were different as could be on the inside.

  Winn was a solid, steady, ordinary man. Remy straddled the line, looking respectable but hunting on the side. But being like Winn and Remy wasn’t Colt’s destiny. No, Colt had every intention of living up to the family legend his pa Cyrus “Black Jack” Jackson had started as one of the most notorious outlaws of the western territories, rather than living it down like his brothers. That was the life of a Hunter. Tracking down supernatural monsters one at a time and killing them to make the world a safer place.

  Winn and Remy might have shirked their responsibilities to the Legion of Hunters, but he never would. Because once Pa had trained him, he’d revealed something to Colt he hadn’t to Winn or Remy.

  There would come a time when the far-flung pieces of the Book of Legend would have to be brought together or humanity would perish. This grimy ice hub was just one more stop in his three-year search to uncover the hiding place of his pa’s portion of the Book to prepare for the showdown with the Darkin, if and when it happened.

  “So tell me somethin’, mister. If you’re a gunslinger, where’s your gun?” She snaked a hand down to wrap around the inside of his thigh, rubbing suggestively at his groin and wriggling her bottom into his lap. That got his attention. It’d been a long time since he’d rested long enough to find a woman. If he’d been a less focused man, all the blood would have drained out of his brain right then and there regardless of how she’d looked.

  With practiced ease she slipped one leg over the far side so she stra Ke shere ddled him. The damp heat of her seeped right through his britches. He let out a ragged breath and she pressed forward, her soft breasts pushing against his chest as she skimmed the tip of her soft, slick tongue along his neck.

  Then he heard it. Right next to his ear. The distinct sudden flick of a vampire’s fangs being extended. He caught a sudden whiff of sulfur so strong it burned.

  Colt reared up from the chair, but the vampire clung to him, her smooth legs firmly gripping his middle with the strength of a metal handcuff. Knowing he had only seconds to act, he shoved an arm between them, pushing her away from the blood pumping hard and fast in his neck.

  Her face was warped beyond recognition, the brows protruded and bent, the eyes red, feral and hungry, her fangs twin white daggers bracketed by stretched ruby red lips. “Now, Hunter, you will die.”

  He looked her straight in those red eyes and didn’t flinch. “Ladies first.”

  With his free hand he pulled the sting shooter from the holster at his hip. A high-pitched keening sound split the air an instant before he shot her point-blank in the stomach.

  Zzzot.

  The arc of bright blue electricity catapulted her to the floor with a thick thud. She writhed and bucked on the floor like a beached fish, smoke curling in a black wisp from between her red lips.

  The piano abruptly stopped. Half a dozen screams echoed in
the bar as people came up from their crouch on the floor and stared at the barmaid, then at Colt with accusing eyes. Her face had already returned to its human shape. Her fangs retracted as she lay on the floor in a spreading, glistening black pool that leaked from two charred and smoking holes seared straight through her.

  Shit. He hadn’t intended for it to kill her, merely stun her senseless. That would teach him to use one of Marley Turlock’s inventions before it was fully cooked. Marley was a brilliant inventor, but sometimes his ambitions outpaced his execution.

  Colt knew better than to wait until the townspeople could get their hands on him and string him up on the nearest tree. So he did what any sensible Hunter would do. He ran like hell.

  Five days later he still hadn’t stopped running, but he knew he’d have to stop soon. His eyes were gritty from too much time awake in the saddle, and his clockwork horse, Tempus, was making funny grinding sounds. He wondered if perhaps he’d gotten a small stone or some other object accidentally lodged in the intricate workings of gears and springs that filled the copper belly of the beast, or just pushed his machine too hard across the dusty terrain without stopping to properly oil it. Marley would know.

  Tempus clicked and whirred beneath him, the brass hooves kicking up small puffs of dust with every step through the main street. People glanced curiously at him and moved on their way along the wooden walkways.

  To the untrained eye, Tempus looked like a black-and-white paint. The cowhide covering not only protected Colt from the copper getting too hot to touch if he rode in the sun too long, but also protecting the clockwork inside from rain and dirt. Only the horse’s brass hooves, solid shining silver eyes, and mechanical noises gave it away. Being as Marley lived in town, the locals were probably used to seeing his contraptions of one kind or another.

  Colt pulled the reins, steering the horse up the narrow, winding, dusty road that led up a steep hill to Marley’s house. From a distance the house perched on the bluff overlooking the valley resembled a praying mantis mor Kng s before than a proper house. Various cranes and gadgets stuck out like multiple legs and antennae from the main building, and they often moved at odd intervals.