From Hell (12 page)

Lucifer waved me over to the empty
chair set out before his desk, alongside Baalth. I hopped into it,
all smiles. It wasn’t often I got to sit at the big kid’s
table.

“
How did you get Scarlett
to agree to rescind Heaven’s claim on our wayward killer?” my uncle
asked.

“
I have a way with
women.”

Lucifer chuckled, but Baalth only
shook his head. My uncle was more willing to believe my bullshit,
or at least pretend I wasn’t lying my ass off. He wasn’t real
concerned with justifying the means as long as the end worked out
the way he wanted it to. Collateral damage was an art form in his
world view.

“
Regardless how you
managed it, you did well. I’m proud of you.”

I couldn’t help it, but my smile grew
until it stretched my cheeks. Uncle Lou was usually thumping my
skull for being a dumbass. This was pleasantly different, and I was
gonna bask in it as long as it lasted.

Besides, it’s not like figuring out
what to do with Jacky was all that big a deal. I simply gave her
what she wanted. Too bad for her, Uncle Lou doesn’t take too kindly
to foolish Devil worshippers mucking up his plans for subtle world
domination. At least she finally got her face-to-face with Lucifer,
and we figured out what the hell she was trying to do up in
London.

Apparently, she’d been born to a human
mother after a demonic liaison gone wrong and had been abandoned on
Earth as a child. She’d never had any contact with her own kind,
and definitely had no idea who or what she was supposed to be. It
was pretty clear she was different, but it wasn’t until she’d
hooked up with Kelvin and his bunch that she’d learned what she
really was. Well, sort of.

Seems Kelvin got his claws into her
early and, as humans are known to do, he got everything wrong. He’d
apparently convinced Jacky she could summon the Devil and be
returned to Hell through ritual sacrifices. Kelvin, of course,
thought he’d get something out of the deal, too.

Well, he was sort of
right. Jacky got her one-way ticket to Hell plus one, her buddy
Kelvin dragged along to keep her company. And while I don’t know
what happened to either of them after Baalth led them away
to
chat
with
Uncle Lou, I didn’t think we’d be seeing them again.

“
Proud enough for a
reward?” I asked. If the udder’s dangling right there, you gotta
milk it for all it’s worth.

Baalth leaned back into his chair with
an amused snort.

Lucifer smiled, showing off his
fixation for perfect dental hygiene. “Most definitely, Frank. You
deserve a reward for your success.”

“
Really?” I hadn’t
expected it to be so easy.

“
Certainly,” Uncle Lou
said. “First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll send you to the New West
to sow your wild oats, no expenses barred.”

I couldn’t help but grin.
“Yeah?”

Lucifer nodded. “You need only do one
little thing for me while you’re there.”

Baalth chuckled low in his throat, the
sound sucking all the happiness from my face. I slid into my seat
and met my uncle’s twinkling gaze as he rose from his
desk.

“
Be sure he’s ready,
Baalth.” Lucifer nodded to us and left the room.

“
Another job?” I asked
after my uncle had left.

Baalth grinned. “Hard work is its own
reward.” He hopped up from his seat and patted me on the head. “Now
go and pack your bags. This one’s going to be tough.”

About the
Author:

Raised on a diet of Heavy Metal and
bad intentions, Tim Marquitz writes a mix of the dark perverse, the
horrific, and the tragic, tinged with sarcasm and biting
humor. He looks to leave a gaping wound in the minds of his
readers like his inspirations: Clive Barker, Jim Butcher, and
Stephen King.
A former grave digger, bouncer, and dedicated metalhead, Tim is a
huge fan of Mixed Martial Arts and fighting in general.

He lives in Texas with his beautiful wife and daughter.

www.tmarquitz.com

Follow Tim on
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/tim.marquitz

Twitter: @Marquitz

Read on for a preview of THOSE POOR,
POOR BASTARDS, the first volume in the all-new Old Western
Action-Horror series, "Dead West." From the deranged minds of Tim
Marquitz, J.M. Martin, and Kenny Soward.

'THE WALKING DEAD AND HELL ON WHEELS
COLLIDE!'

September, 1868...SOMEWHERE IN THE
SIERRA NEVADA, during the expansion of the Central Pacific
Railroad, Nina Weaver and her pa, Lincoln, trundle into Coburn
Station with a wagonful of goods they're looking to barter. Of all
the rotten luck, their world—and the future of the American West—is
forever changed when a sudden swarm of zombies invades town on the
hunt for some human-sized vittles.

Those Poor, Poor
Bastards

Book 1 of

Dead West

Copyright 2013

Marquitz, Martin,
Soward

All rights reserved. This book or any
portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner
whatsoever without the express written permission of the authors
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Worldwide Rights

Created in the United States of
America

Designed and edited by J.M Martin |
Nine Worlds Media

http://www.nineworldsmedia.com/

Photography: AFREEMAN
Photography

Cover Model: Meagan
Williams

Add'l stock: Stocked_N_Loaded, Boris
Ryaposov, NastiaOsipovaStock

Textures: Leona Windrider,
tExTuReMaTtIc, Alegion_stock

Brushes: Falln_Stock,
dbszabo1-d54jerq, darkonelh

http://www.tmarquitz.com/

http://www.nineworldsmedia.com/

https://www.facebook.com/officialkennysoward

One

“
If one of them colossal
swarms come you’d hear that low rumbling noise…then jump for your
horse, get to them before they scattered to hell and gone. Then you
ride at a dead run in the dark if you got to, with cut banks and
prairie dog holes all around. Ending up with your neck broke in a
shallow grave is a damn sight better than what they’ll
do.”

— “
Teddy Blue”
Abbott,
We Rode Dead West & Away From
Hell

Nina Weaver tucked an errant strand of
hair beneath her hat and walked around to the rear of the wagon.
Her boots squelched in the mud and the stench of horse shit burned
her nostrils. She didn’t want to be here, hated towns, but they
were a week past broke and needed the cash.

The spring thaw had turned Main Street
into a mess of manure and mud, a wagon trap, a thick river of
organic slop only a pig could love.

A pair of stinky traders
passed by on the wooden-planked walkway, each with a string of
carcasses slung over their shoulders. One nodded at Nina. She
nodded back, keeping her brim low. On a bench next door, a couple
of old-timers cackled and spit tobacco as far as they could into
the street. Across the filth-ridden lane, two whores hawked
themselves in front of the Pussy Palace, flirting with their lips
and stockinged legs, lifting their dingy dresses sky high. Another
whore tossed a bucket of piss from the second story window while
one of her
sisters
priced her cunt to a man on the boardwalk below.

Hammers banged wooden frames together
at the far end of Main Street, real structures to replace the tent
city that had originally accommodated the growing town. Dogs
barked, pots and pans rattled against the sides of wagons, and men
shouted at one another as if they were in a competition to see who
could wake the fucking dead.

Coburn Station. Ass end of nowhere.
Nina shook her head and leaned against the rear of their covered
wagon. She pulled a rolled cigarette from the top pocket of her
denim overalls, lit it, took a puff, stifled a cough. Too much damn
smoke. She covered her mouth to hide her discomfort.

Not only did she hate towns, she hated
cigarettes, too.

Nina’s job was to watch the goods
while Pa, always the crafty salesman, worked his magic on the
proprietor of Smith & Towne’s Antiquities. If things worked
out, they’d take their earnings to the general store and purchase
some supplies. They needed salted pork, bread and cheese, a fruit
or two, and a new ax; if they had enough left, maybe they’d procure
a few sketchy items, as well, from the back alleys and shacks
around town. Those would take special arrangements, meetings under
the cover of darkness, and a shit-ton of balls. Death waited on
every corner in Coburn.

Another part of Nina’s job was to not
look like Nina. That is, a half-Injun with a decent pair of tits
and long, fuckable legs. Natives had been raiding U.S. patrols
along the Snake River for a couple years now. Nina and her pa
wanted no part of that. They’d not seen her mother’s people in
years, not since her spirit had passed on from this world. If
anyone recognized her as anything other than imported help, she
might just be raped or shot or both.

Nina took comfort in the Colt 1861
Navy bulging beneath her coat. Pa’s gun, but she could shoot it,
and she’d not hesitate if any cocksucker gave them trouble.
Speaking of which, she spotted a man watching her from across the
street as folks bustled past. His feet crossed in front of him, he
leaned against a pole in front of the Nugget Saloon and acted as
casual as could be. He held a cigarette by his waist between draws,
and made no attempt to hide his curiosity. He wore his hat tilted
forward, shading his eyes, but Nina could make out the shadow of
stubble framing his jaw and a thick, dark mustache over his upper
lip.

“
Where you from,
stranger?” Another man came around the side of the wagon and
stopped two paces from Nina, a big-eared, screw-mouthed fella. He
flicked ashes into the mud and put his cigar between his teeth.
“I’ve been in Coburn forty-some days. Ain’t never seen you
around.”

Nina knew the accent.
South.
Deep
South
. She’d been to Alabama once.
It was the kind of drawl that made her think of cotton fields and
black, sweaty faces. So, it didn’t surprise her that this man,
after noticing her copper complexion, had come to see what he could
fuck with. Or maybe he was just being neighborly. Never could
tell.

Just another day in Coburn fucking
Station.

Nina spoke in her rehearsed tone, the
deepest baritone she could muster without sounding like a put-on.
“Just rolled in. Gettin’ supplies.”

“
Ah, yeah. Common enough
intent. But what
kind
of...supplies you lookin’ for? Might have some things can’t
be found at the general. And especially not at this fuckin’ Jew
cunt’s place.” He motioned at the antiquities shop behind
them.

Nina’s stomach flipped. A
trap. If she pursued his offer, he could turn her in to the law.
Maybe he
was
the
law, although he didn’t look the part, with his threadbare jacket
and cotton trousers. She couldn’t see evidence of a gun on him, but
that didn’t mean he was unarmed. If she told him to fuck off, he’d
have even more reason to be curious about her.

“
Been coming here for
years. Off and on.” She chanced a glance at him, just as he glanced
at her. His eyes were that dangerous combination of ignorance and
predatory hate. He was the sort of mean man Nina and her pa had
experienced many times in their travels.

Nina might be in a bit of trouble with
this one.

She hoped he couldn’t see past her
dirt-rubbed cheeks and tar-blackened teeth, the disguise she wore
whenever entering the white man’s world, but her confidence was
shot to pieces when the man pulled his cigar, gave a greasy smile,
and rolled his tongue out over his lips.

Definitely in trouble.