The crow stood motionless on the lowest branch of the oak.
Its wings were folded inward, as birds do when not in flight, but these wings were so abnormally long their tips jutted well below the branch. To Whiskey Nelson, they gave the crow a barbed, carving-knife appearance.
The creature would have been invisible in the night, had Whiskey not held one of the burning torches used on Raines’s orphanage. In the firelight, he could see the crow staring at him, its eyes black as gunpowder, peering into his mind.
The P’mola, the Reverend Rose called them. A name derived from the Abenaki tribes who had once welcomed him into their villages—till the Reverend’s lust for power betrayed their trust. The P’mola were his emissaries, the darkest of all creatures. When the Reverend had awakened in the Palace of the Thunders, they were the first things he had created.
You lost the amulet shard, the crow said now. The words were not spoken aloud, but came to Whiskey as a terrible rasp—the Reverend’s rasp—deep inside his head.
“I’m sorry, boss,” Whiskey muttered. He had fallen to his knees to address the crow. “It won’t happen again.”
No. It will not.
Whiskey had taken his gang southwest down an all-but-forgotten Indian buffalo trail. It would be the quickest route to the village of Whistler, the location of the nearest graveyard, according to information acquired from one of the P’mola. The gang had only half a day’s ride to reach Whistler, and with any luck, the resting place of the Char Stone.
You let a boy defeat you, the crow said.
“The kid’s a green bean,” Whiskey said. “He splashes in rivers and plays with sticks.”
He was raised by Isaiah Raines, taught the ways of the Enforcer.
“And I took Raines down,” Whiskey said, then promptly regretted the boast. To speak to the messenger crow was to speak to the Reverend, and the Reverend cared little for arrogance.
In response, the crow flapped its immense wings. Careful how you speak to me, Nelson. I could have this P’mola tear you limb from limb.
“The boy’s just a pup, boss.”
The crow cackled. You fool. The boy is Blackwood’s son.
The voice in Whiskey’s head was terrible, but hearing that old name—Blackwood—was somehow worse. His entire body went rigid at the sound of it. “That’s impossible!” he croaked.
When Raines fled with the Char Stone, he must have taken the boy as well.
Whiskey fell silent. His good eye dropped to the dead leaves swirling between his boots. He could hardly believe it. The foolish pup with the claw hammer was the son of Screamin’ Bill Blackwood.
The crow shifted slowly upon the oak branch. After a moment, the Reverend’s terrible voice raked across Whiskey’s mind again.
You failed me.
“No, boss, I’m close!”
The crow screeched. You have dined on my vitality for too long, Nelson.
“I just need to raise more thralls!”
I gave you the Prime. I taught you the Black Verse. And you failed me.
“We’ll have the Stone by next nightfall, boss!”
The Prime is mine for the giving. You are no longer worthy.
Whiskey felt the stone of his heart skip two beats. “Boss, no! Don’t take it!”
The P’mola screeched again, an agonizing noise that speared Whiskey’s brain. This time a cold, watery sensation trickled through his veins, filling his body with hollows. Memories from his childhood flickered, and then snuffed out, lost forever. He wobbled upon his knees, struggling not to pitch over.
He knew what had just happened. The Reverend had begun to drain the invisible essence that kept him whole, the force known only as the Prime, the darkest of all the chaos magics.
Terrified, Whiskey remembered the happiest song from his youth, the song his father had taught him when he was a young boatsman on the Mississippi. He clung to the memory as if it were gold treasure:
How happy the soldier who lives on his pay,
And spends half a crown on six pence a day;
He fears neither justices, warrants nor bums,
But pays all his debts with a roll of the drums …
The song began to slip. He tucked it down, his only possession, his only connection to the old life.
The Reverend Rose could enter a man’s head, round up his thoughts, and burn his sweetest memories to ash. The Reverend Rose could tread on a man’s soul and cut it to ribbons with the rowels of his spurs.
But Whiskey could not let the Reverend have everything.
“Don’t drain me, boss!” he pleaded. “I’m sorry! I’ll make it right!”
The crow cawed, then took flight, rising high above the oak tree, high above the Missouri forest, and vanished into the wild darkness.
Whiskey climbed back to his feet. He took a tall breath to calm his mind.
“Master?”
Whiskey spun, his hand dropping instinctively to his Dragoon. The speaker was Dixon, one of the first thralls he’d ever raised. The other thralls lurked behind him.
“I thought I told you all to stay on the trail.”
“Yessir, it’s just that—” The thrall grimaced in the torchlight, as though scared to continue. “Them dead’uns we rounded up are startin’ to stiff up. Your stallion and the packhorses don’t like it none. Want us to go ahead and bury ’em?”
Whiskey said nothing at first. The Prime was seeping from his bones, but the power to raise was still inside, pulsing just under his flesh. The Reverend Rose had left him just enough to get the job done.
“Bury ’em,” Whiskey said. “Be sure to leave no sign.”
Dixon lowered his head, obedient. “And Raines? Want us to bury him, too?”
“No, leave him,” Whiskey said. “I’ll see to him later.”
“Yes, Master.”
The thralls began to ramble back through the woods.
“One more thing,” Whiskey called.
“Master?”
Whiskey raised his voice. “You all failed me. You let the pup escape and lost the shard.”
“Not me, Master!” Dixon whimpered. “It was the others! I wanted to find ’im!” The other thralls shuffled back, hoping to avoid Whiskey’s wrath.
“I’ve told you worms the amulet cannot come together. Thanks to yer blunderin’, Raines’s shard is still in the wild. An example must be made.”
Without raising a finger, Whiskey pulled at the invisible ropes around Dixon’s mind. The thrall gave a choking sound. He raised his hands to pry at his throat, but Whiskey forced the arms back down to his sides. There was no other struggle. Dixon dropped to his knees.
“I give, an’ I take away,” Whiskey growled.
The thrall crumpled to the ground, and was still. Bad Whiskey looked at the other thralls and sneered, “Go.”
The thralls hurried away.