Sunset Specters: The Fifth Jonathan Shade Novel by Gary Jonas

Author:Gary Jonas [Jonas, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Denton & White
Published: 2015-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

“We’re being followed,” Kelly said.

“I noticed him too,” I said.

“Want me to get a closer look?” Esther asked.

“That won’t be necessary,” I said, thinking fifteen feet wouldn’t make much difference and that the man was such a terrible tail, we wouldn’t need any additional information to handle him.

He was big guy, and as I turned a corner, he dodged into an open doorway to a saloon. The place had batwing doors, so he damn near fell ass over teakettle. He windmilled his arms, grabbed the jamb, and staggered forward into the street. A man on horseback ran right into him, knocking him to the dusty ground.

It was all I could do not to laugh, and after the day I’d been having, I needed a laugh.

The man climbed to his feet, brushed himself off, and took a moment to get his bearings before turning his head this way and that to figure out where we were.

“Did Winslow sic this guy on us?” Kelly asked. “The tong wouldn’t use a sloppy-ass white guy.”

“Gotta be Winslow, and he either had to grab the first guy who came along or he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel around here.”

To the left, I saw a building with a sign that read, Doctor Jordan’s Museum of Horrors. “Shall we have a discussion with him in here?” I asked, gesturing for Kelly to lead the way.

“We could just face him here in the street.”

“Oh, come on. This is a museum. Let’s give him some culture,” I said.

Inside, a young man informed us that they had the head of the notorious outlaw Joaquin Murrieta on display. I paid the man, and we entered the narrow hallway and checked out the small rooms, each one jam-packed with strange little odds and ends collected from who-knows-where.

We wandered from room to room, making sure we didn’t lose our follower. We looked at iron maidens, a variety of weapons, odd curiosities such as a cow’s eyeball, a severed horse’s penis, two human fingers in a jar. I wondered if the fingers belonged to Three-Fingered Sam, but the sign didn’t say.

“You take me to the best places,” Kelly said.

If that reads sarcastic, it shouldn’t. She was serious. Her eyes lit up. I think she, too, needed an escape from the day’s events.

There were wooden carvings and amulets I recognized as being used in various magical ceremonies. Some were rare, most were real, and more important in my view, they’d been used in actual rituals. I could see the tinges and burns of magical power on the edges.

That said, the real draw was that severed head.

Joaquin Murrieta may have been the inspiration for the fictional character Zorro. Think a Mexican Robin Hood, only he kept the riches for himself. He died at the ripe old age of twenty-one, after eluding the crooked law enforcement agents for some time.

The head was in pretty good shape for its age. They kept it in a jar of formaldehyde, and a few gaslights illuminated its gruesome features. The face still had taut skin stretched over the skull.

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