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The Only Rules That Matter: Legacy (Corsair and Madam Mim)

Jackie stared at the gold as the other women talked. It called to her, not in any sort of definite words but in a sort of nostalgic tug at her soul. She jumped as Sam slammed the lid home, withdrawing her hand from her own pocket as she did so.

"Let's just get outta here. This place is giving me the heebie jeebies."

Doc LaMonte nodded in agreement before leading the way down the corridor, back to Beckett's room. "Merde!"

"What?" Jackie didn't speak French, but it hadn't sounded like a good word.

Anne Marie gestured to the bed, where his bonds had been severed. "I left him tied up. He must have called for help when he realized I was not coming back." She withdrew her own pistol and carefully stuck her head out the door. "The corridor is clear, but I suggest we proceed with extreme caution."
 
“If it ain’t one fuckin’ thing, it’s another,” Sam sighed, shifting her grip and wishing she could draw her revolver. But a chest full of gold was heavy, and the fact that it was Aztec cursed gold didn’t change that fact one whit. “You good, Alice?”

“Yeah,” The other woman gasped. “But... can we leave off jawin’ an’ get haulin’?”

Sam chuckled, nodding. Alice looked strained, but she wasn’t giving up. Good for her. “All right. Let’s get.” She nodded at Anne Marie. “You first, Doc, since y’got yer gun out.”

They stepped into the main hall, Sam’s nerves crawling as the boards creaked with each step. Where was everyone? Where was Beckett? Surely they couldn’t be this lucky? There had to be something going on. But then they were in the front hall, and Jackie was reaching for the front door handle, and...

And one of the Ranger haints stepped through, waving a frantic warning.

“Get down!” Sam lept as the door opened, letting the chest fall and smash a floor board. She tackled Jackie, sending them both to the floor and rolling as the first gunshots echoed and the first bullets blasted craters into the whitewashed walls. “You... you all right?” Sam asked, frantically checking her liver.

“Madame La Zorrita!” Beckett called from outside the house. “You and your accomplices are trapped! But if you send out the Ranger and his whore now, I’ll let you and your house nigger live!”
 
Curse words were muffled by gunshots and the smashing of wood and plaster. Jackie struggled for breath but nodded. "Knocked the damn wind out of me," she gasped as she sucked for air, "that's all."

"We are well too," Madame LaMonte called tersely from the doorway of the parlor she had ducked into. She had pulled Alice down with her, and now helped her to a crouching position. "Your concern is touching."

"Madame La Zorrita!" Beckett called from outside the house. There was a taunting lilt to his voice. "You and your accomplices are trapped! But if you send out the Ranger and his whore now, I'll let you and your house nigger live!"

Nostrils flaring, Anne Marie stepped carefully into the parlor and opened a window to call back. "A gentleman would not use such language," she admonished before pressing her back against the wall to avoid any gunfire that came her way. When she was certain the coast was clear she leaned toward the window again. "You are a vile beast, Beckett, for trapping your men so. Innocent men! And I'm afraid you have greatly overestimated your definition of a trap." With that she ducked back into the hallway and crouched on the floor with the others. "Well?"

"Well what?" Jackie pushed herself into a sitting position, having gotten her breath back.

"Do we have a plan?"

She gawped. "You mean you just taunted an immortal asshole and you ain't got a plan in mind?" At Doc's expression she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Alright, alright just gimme a second." After a moment's thought she sighed and shook her head. "Nothin'. Apart from just running out and rushing him, but chances are he's got us outmanned and outgunned."
 
“A plan? Fuck. Sneakin’ outta here was th’ plan,” Sam grumbled. But then, as Anne and Jackie squabbled, she felt a chill at her left. When she looked, she saw the spectral face of one of the dead Rangers. “Whaddya Want?”

“Call us,” the dead man said. “Call to us, and we will aid you.”

“Right.” Sam grimaced. “An’ how th’ hell do Ah do that?”

“You know,” the dead man answered.

She hesitated, wanting to argue. But even as the words formed she knew she did know. And that knowledge was terrifying. But not as terrifying as maybe dying here. Or worse, not dying. “Right,” she finally muttered. And then she drew her knife and sliced her left forearm.

“O you door-keepers who guard your portals,” she intoned, watching her blood drip onto the wood, “who swallow souls and who gulp down the corpses of the dead who pass you by when they are allotted to the House of Destruction.”

The ghosts appeared, drawn by the scent of her blood. She flicked her arm, splashing them with her blood and watching them gain strength and substance. “May you guide me,” she snapped out, glaring at them, “may you open the portals for me, may the earth open its caverns to me, may you make me triumphant over my enemies!”

The six dead men stared at her, the floorboards creaking under their weight. “Command us,” declared their leader

“Blast us a path,” Sam orders, pointing out and beyond the door. “Kick their asses an’ make us a way out.”

The leader nodded, tipping his hat first to her and then to the other women. As Alice croaked our a weak “What the hell?”, he kicked the door open and stepped out, firing away with a pistol in each hand. The others followed in his wake, shooting and shouting.

“Right,” Sam grunted. “Let’s get goin’.”
 
Jackie frowned as she watched Sam mutter to the thin air over her shoulder. She believed her about the haints, really she did. Really. It was just...difficult to remember that they were real, at least to Sam, at a time like this. And then she pulled out her knife.

"Sammy!" She gasped and reached out futilely to stop her, then clamped her mouth shut as Sam started muttering. It was almost like a sort of half-chanting, and though Jackie couldn't quite make out the words she knew better than to try and interrupt something like this.

"What is she doing?" Anne Marie demanded in a whisper, to which Jackie could only shake her head.

The question was answered a moment later when six men appeared from thin air. Dull, dead eyes stared out from deep-set sockets, their sallow cheeks thin and papery. Jackie's stomach churned at the sight, but she didn't question it as the leader demanded a command, a purpose. Her eyes darted to the floor, where their weight made the boards creak. She wasn't sure what she had expected of ghosts, floating or something probably, but what seemed to be the most surreal of all was that they had actual substance to them.

"Right," Sam grunted. "Let's get goin'."

"Wait." Jackie reached out and caught her arm. "We can't make a clean getaway, not with the chest." She jerked her head over to the offending stone weight. "It's too heavy. We're gonna have to leave it and come back for it later. Not like we can just start shoveling gold into our pockets to keep it away from him."

Doc nodded in agreement. "She is right. Is this a risk we are willing to take? Everyone out there will have to die if we are ever to get our hands upon it again."
 
“Fuck,” Sam hissed. “Yeah. Everyone out there’ll hafta die fer us ta git this close again. ‘Cept, they can’t die, not unless we...” Her voice trailed off. “We get all th’ blood we needed?”

“What do you mean?” Alice asked.

Sam grabbed Jackie’s hand, talking fast. “We done got th’ cursed gold, right? So we dump th’ blood in, an’ they ain’t haints no more! An’ then we each grab a coin, see.”

“What? No!” Alice barked out, shying away from the chest.

“Yes!” Sam shot back. “Then we kin kill ‘me all. Or, hell, he’d walk on out wit’ th’ chest. If’n we’re dead women walkin’, they cain’t kill us nohow!”
 
Madame LaMonte looked dubiously at the chest. It wasn't much of a plan, in her opinion...but it was more than anything else they had at the moment. With a muttered merde she reached forward and grabbed a gold piece. "Only one, oui?"

"Dab'll do ya," Jackie confirmed. Then, with a guilty sort of half-smile, she pulled a coin out of her pocket and rolled it across the backs of her knuckles. "Guess I'm ol' Cap'n Jack's great-great-granddaughter after all," she admitted sheepishly. "I couldn't let...I mean it ah...it called to me..."

"Psychologically fascinating as it is, I'm afraid we will have to examine your family's ties to cursed gold later," Doc said impatiently before looking to Alice. "Mademoiselle, there is no shame if you wish to wait inside. You are not a killer." She smiled softly at this. "But unfortunately now is a moment of truth: will you stand with us, or will you guard the chest?"

"Guarding the chest" was a simple way of putting it. If Beckett and his men got past them far enough for Alice to have to defend it, then it was already lost. But it sounded better, less accusatory, than "will you fight or will you hide?"
 
Sam slapped the coins out of Jackie’s and Anne Marie’s hands, barking “first things first!” as she did. Then she pulled out the vials if blood and the bloody cloths they’d collected. “Anything special we gotta do?” She asked glancing at Jackie. “No? All right, then.”

She dumped everything in, then watched. Nothing seemed to happen. “Ah... well. Ah don’ rightly know what Ah expected. But... here’s hopin’ they’s all livin’ now.” With that, she picked up a coin.

Everything changed.

She could no longer feel her own breathing, her own heartbeat. The feel of her clothes on her skin or her boots on her feet. She couldn’t taste her own tongue any more, a thing she’d never noticed to have a taste before. She could still see and hear, but nothing more. “This... Ah don’ like this. Not one damn bit.”

Her attention turned to Alice. The negro woman hesitated, staring at the gold with mixed dread and fascination. “Well,” she said slowly, “Ah’ve come this far. May as well.” Closing her eyes, she snatched up a coin with a convulsive gesture. “Shit!” she gasped, jerking back from the chest with a convulsive motion. “Oh, oh shit.” Her eyes flickered around frantically, and she drew her borrowed revolver with a shaky hand. “Let’s... let’s get this over. Quick as we can.@
 
Scattering the blood across the gold was...anticlimactic. But then again, the old family story went that nobody had been able to tell the difference until the pirates--the evil pirates--got shot and one of them actually died. Jackie stared at the gold, then looked up at Sam and shrugged.

"I mean, makes as much sense as anything else." Before Sam could swipe a coin, Jackie cut her forearm shallowly and smeared her blood on the coins. She had stolen one before they had even left the room where it was kept, after all.

One by one the other women picked up their gold pieces. Sam looked...disturbed, to say the least. Alice's reaction was rather more animated. Doc LaMonte frowned, clearly suspecting they were overreacting, before reaching out and taking her own.

"This..." She stared at the chest. A cold, tingling feeling crept across her scalp and though she could no longer feel her heartbeat, she could feel a rush of blood. "This is what death feels like, is it not?" Doc's voice was hollow, almost scared. After a few moments of staring dazedly at the chest, she took a deep breath that didn't fill her lungs--it was more a gesture of habit then of need now--and pulled back the hammer on her pistol in her offhand. Uncoiling the whip in her right hand, she stood. "Jacqueline?" She looked at the Indian woman, still crouched on the floor next to the chest.

Jackie stared. Judging from LaMonte's reaction before, the curse hadn't been broken on the ranch hands. Now that it had been, things might feel different. But as she stared at the chest, she still heard whispering as though from the next room. All she could make out was her own name, and pleas for her to come home. Come home. Join us. With a deep breath she shook her head and reached out, carefully selecting one specific coin.

Unlike the others, her reaction was neither shock nor fear. No, she couldn't feel her heartbeat or her clothes, or Sam's hand in hers. Couldn't taste. The vague hunger that had been gnawing at her belly, having skipped both breakfast and lunch, grew suddenly stronger and implacable. But she couldn't find it in herself to agree with Anne Marie. This wasn't what being dead felt like...it was what life felt like. It was like home. As she closed her eyes and flipped the coin end-over-end across her knuckles she could feel them, all of them. Every single Sparrow reaching back to the original Captain Jack, tied to this treasure. This was what the touch of Destiny felt like; an instant compulsion, an addiction that she had no desire nor intent to quit. Jackie flipped the coin into the air and caught it in her fist with a grin.

"Well what're we waitin' for?" she demanded, rolling her shoulders back and unholstering both of her guns. "We've got some immortal ass to kick." Energy and an unprecedented confidence zinging through her body, Jackie skip-stepped toward the door and kicked it open with her heel, a wild, manic grin as her foot came down and she came out firing.
 
“Ah ain’t kickin’ a damn thing,” Sam sneered, dredging up bravado to hide how unsettled she was by her transformation. Instead, she focused on thumbing back the hammers of her revolvers and tried hard not to think about how she couldn’t feel the cool metal. “An’ Colonel Colt made damn sure Ah wouldn’t have to.”

She followed Jackie out the door, trying hard to ignore the blood-and-black serpents she could see writhing through her lover. The same ones that she saw crawling through her own body. Instead, she brought her Peacemaker up and fired. One of the ranch hands, a burly Mexican who’d started charging towards them, went down with a cry and a splatter of blood.

Gunfire cracked in response, peppering her and Jackie both with lead. Sam watched three holes get blown through her jacket and shirt, and saw two more erupt through the back of Jackie’s blouse. But still she felt nothing more than the chill of the grave and the gnawing emptiness. “That all y’all got?” she laughed. “Shee-it, boys. Y’gotta try harder than that!”

Stalking forward, the haints of the dead Rangers gathering around her like a pack of wolves, she fired twice more. Two more ranch hands went down. “Better try real hard,” she taunted. “Cause y’all look ta be a damn sight better at dyin’ than Ah am!”
 
The haints helped, that was for certain. They had done their best to blast a path, but half a dozen dead men were too much for nearly thirty living ones. Jackie came out firing, laughing as she charged into the fray. She felt the impact of the bullets, more pressure than anything, but there was no pain. Between the two of them and the dead men, half were down in a matter of minutes. There was something weirdly exhilarating about the whole thing that she didn't really think to be disturbed by as another hand went down only a few yards away.

Behind her, Anne Marie stuck with Alice. She could certainly hold her own in a firefight, and while guns weren't her favorite weapon she was still a fair shot. She had more concern for the waitress who looked as though she had never held a gun in her life before today. Living alone and making a living as a black woman in Texas was certainly no mean feat, but there was a difference between handling rough customers and killing them. Still, she got three down before getting shot herself. A movement out of the corner of her eye and Anne Marie's whip curled around the arm of a man who had been rushing them, about to tackle Alice. She jerked him around and leveled her pistol, squeezing off a single shot between the eyes.

No ammunition wasted, Anne Marie.

"Yes, I know," she grumbled as Algernon's voice floated to the forefront of her mind.

Finally the smoke cleared. The corpses of 29 men lay in the dust around them. Who knew how innocent they may have been, like Sam's brother? They deserved better than this. As they looked through the bodies, though, there was one distinctly missing. A slow clapping broke the stillness of the night after the echoes of the gunshots had faded.

"Brav-o ladies," Beckett drawled. "The Ranger I would have guessed to be a fair shot, but really you three did surprise me."

A single gunshot.

Beckett's smirk faded as blood trickled down his forehead and into his eyes. He looked stunned for a moment, then looked up as though he might be able to see the wound. "You see, this is the precise reason your people are nearly extinct," he said, directing his words at Jackie while he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. "There was a cease-fire, I was in the middle of a compliment, and you shot me. Very unsportsmanlike, I must say." With little telegraphing at all, he drew and shot Jackie squarely in the face, causing her to stagger from the force and blowing away half her face.

As she did so, the clouds uncovered the moon. It was full and bright, and its light revealed them for what they now were. Even as Jackie's skin began to grow back, to heal itself, she was bathed in moonlight and revealed to be nothing but a ragged skeleton.
 
"Son. Of. A. Bitch!" Sam breathed, watching Beckett utterly fail to die. But then Beckett shot Jackie in the face, sending her lover crashing to the ground. And even though she knew that they were undead at this very moment, the shock of it cast a haze of red anger over her vision. "You son of a bitch!" she screamed, firing her pistol as she charged the man's position. Beckett staggered as slug after heavy slug crashed into his chest, and then Sam tackled him to the ground. "Ah," she roared, pinning him down and raising her empty pistol like a club, "will fuckin' kill you!"

"There's..." Beckett managed to get out, and then anything else he might have said was lost as Sam smashed the butt of her pistol into his face. "My dear sir..." he managed, before Sam's pistol hammered into his mouth. Spitting blood, he twisted and bucked beneath her in an effort to get her off his chest. For his troubles, Sam smashed the butt into his forehead. As she raised her revolver for another blow, Beckett twisted free enough to drive the barrel of his own weapon into her face and fire. There was a roar and a blast of flame, and Sam lurched sideways and crashed to the ground. Beckett shot her three more times as he clambered to his feet, the damage to his face healing as he did.

"Now then," he said, shooting Sam once more, "perhaps we may talk? Like civilized people?" He fired once more, then cracked open his revolver and began reloading. "At least, perhaps you and I may?" he added, glancing at Anne Marie. "I doubt your savage and your thug here are capable of such behavior, and there's certainly no need to involve the help in the affairs of their betters."

"Who you callin' the help?" Alice snarled.

"Whym you?" Beckett answered, looking surprised. "The negress house-lady of..." A roar of thunder interrupted him as Alice shot him in the throat. He stumbled backwards, and fell over.

"Shit," Alice muttered. "I was tryin' so shoot him in the heart."

Slowly, Beckett climbed back to his feet. "Would it be too much," he asked, wiping a smear of blood from his throat, "to ask you to make your servant behave?"
 
"Sammy!" Jackie's face was mostly healed as she scrambled in the dirt over to the Ranger. Already her lover was healing, but he'd blown her face off and put another few rounds in her chest for good measure; she might have felt at home with this new state of being, but that didn't mean that she was intuitively comfortable with Sam being that way. Their skeletal nature barely registered as she pulled Sam's torso into her lap and smoothed away the hair. "You alright? Need me to..." She plucked vaguely at the tatters of her shirt, then raised her eyebrows a bit in surprise as the bullets began pushing themselves out of her chest. "Huh...Lookit that..."

As Beckett approached, Anne Marie scoffed. "And what have you and I to talk about?" she demanded, folding her arms across her chest and shifting her weight to one hip. It was an effort not to jump in surprise when Alice shot him, and when she muttered that she had been trying to shoot him in the heart Anne Marie patted her hand. "That's quite alright my dear," she assured her. "In any other situation, he would have been just as dead either way. Not everything needs to be a dramatic shot to the heart, and honestly the throat is a rather more assured kill." She smiled kindly. "Perhaps you would care for some marksmanship lessons after this?"

"Would it be too much," Beckett asked, wiping the smear of blood from his throat, "to ask you to make your servant behave?"

"Hm?" Anne Marie raised her eyebrows mildly. "Oh, I see. Monsieur Beckett I had taken you for a much more intelligent man than this; can you not see that our entire visit was a rouse? Really the only thing you're doing now is embarrassing yourself." She cocked her gun and the leather of the whip handle creaked in her hand. "There will be no negotiations, you understand."

"She's quite right about that, Cutler." They hadn't been there before. Anne Marie knew they hadn't. Or at least, she hadn't seen them walking up...which was quite the trick, considering the flatness of the terrain. Nonetheless, they weren't there and then they were: a man and a woman stood behind Beckett, partly lit by moonlight though their faces were still hidden in shadow by the brims of their hats. "Negotiations've already been done, y'see, and I'm afraid rent's come due." There was a shadow of a smile beneath the brim of her hat.
 
Sam clutched at her left eye, hissing at the burning pain she felt. What had that bastard done? The other bullets hadn't hurt at all, just dull impacts against numb flesh and hollow noise as they tore meat and cracked bone. But her face was agony, like a coal had been shoved into the socket. "Fuck," she hissed, pushing herself up on one arm and letting Jackie help her. "What's goin' on?" And then she saw the two new arrivals.

To her right eye they were more or less normal looking. A man in a slouch hat and a duster, and a woman wearing a hooded cloak. But to her burning left eye, through the skin and bones of her hand, they were... terrible. The woman was somehow the sea itself, implacable and unforgiving and powerful. The man was tied to her, a dread angel of the vast deep. "Jackie," she hissed, "we ain't..."

Cutler blanched at the sight of them, then rallied to cover his fear with bravado. "Why are you here?" he demanded. "I honored the terms, and remain far from the sea!"

"Honored the terms?" the man laughed, taking a step towards him. "I think..."

The woman raised a hand, and he fell silent. "Cutler Beckett," she said with a laugh that made Sam's skin crawl, "there were no terms to honor. That makes it sound like a bargain. And we struck no bargain."

"I didn't..." Beckett began.

"It was a curse," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "Punishment, for trying to enslave me. A way to meditate upon what you had done, and seek forgiveness." She looked at the four women, and at the dead Rangers, and at the scattering ranch hands. "Tell me, Cutler Beckett. How is this a way for you to seek forgiveness?"
 
Beckett set his jaw, rolling his bottom lip over his teeth over and over again in barely-contained fury. How dare they? How dare they welch on a deal after cursing him with lifeless immortality? His free hand opened and closed, while the other set its index finger over the trigger. It would do no good, he knew, and it likely wasn't a good idea. But if nothing else, if worst came to worst it at least might distract them long enough for him to make a run for it.

"A man must make a living," he argued, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears. He tried to suppress a cough. "I've stayed away from the sea, my life and livelihood. Something had to replace it.

"So you choose to replace it with enslaving man instead of the sea." It wasn't a question. The man narrowed his eyes, his lined face crinkling like old parchment as he sneered in disgust and spat into the dust. "You deserve no less than the Locker."

"I've no cause to seek forgiveness from you!" Beckett argued shrilly. He pulled out a handkerchief. "Either of you! And the Locker is for (cough) sailors which, you'll notice, (cough cough) I no longer am."

"Because you would seek to imprison the things you love," the man snarled as Beckett extracted a handkerchief, pressing it to his mouth as he coughed harder, "and are capable of loving only your foolish mortal self. You were given a chance for contrition, and you threw it away! We've no more patience for the likes of you."
 
“Does anyone,” Sam hissed, hand still clenched over her ruined eye, “have any idea what th’ fuck is a-goin’ on?” Her eye - hell, the whole left side of her face - hurt like a bitch. Why did it hurt? Getting shot in the chest hadn’t hurt. She was dead right now. So why did her eye hurt so bad?

you are in the presence of gods, whispered a dead Ranger.

“Great,” she muttered. “So...?”

“So?” Beckett demanded, barking a laugh that ended in a bloody coughing fit. “What more can you do to me, Calypso? Here is a desert, away from your source of power?”

“I can...” Calypso began.

“You will do nothing, sister,” Sam declared, rising to her feet. “This is my domain, not yours.”

“As you say, White Painted Woman,” Calypso agreed, inclining her head. “But Beckett is mine, and his punishment is mine.”

“Of course it is,” Sam agreed, her blue eye blazing like the noonday sky. Flame flickered in her empty socket, and the gore from the wound streaked her face like warpaint. “And I will not harm a hair on his head.”

“What.,, What in Earth is going on?” Alice asked.

Sam smiled, then sauntered towards Beckett. The man flinched back from her. “Not a hair on your head,” she repeated, stroking his cheek. “I shall even leave you Calypso’s gift of immortality. Ranger Wilson?”

yes? The dead man replied.

“Take Cutler Beckett to Four Suns Lodge,” she instructed, “and leave him there, tied to the great stone in the center, to contemplate his deeds.” She turned her attention back to Calypso. “When he is able to leave, then I will return him to you for judgement. Is this acceptable, sister?”
 
“Does anyone,” Sam hissed, hand still clenched over her ruined eye, “have any idea what th’ fuck is a-goin’ on?”

"Perhaps not," Anne Marie murmured quietly, "but I think it best we not intrude.

Jackie paid her no mind, but instead pried gently at Sam's hand. " Let me see it," she insisted quietly. "We might could patch it up." But Sam wasn't relenting. Her nostrils flared in irritation. "Please, Sammy," she pleaded, "I know you're a tough little bitch, but even you've gotta get help sometimes and--"

“You will do nothing, sister,” Sam declared, rising to her feet and ignoring her lover's attentions as though she had never spoken. “This is my domain, not yours.”

Jackie blinked. "What?"

"As you say, White Painted Woman."

"What?"

The gods ignored the mortals left crouching and confused in the dust. Instead of answering any of their questions the one called Calypso smiled and nodded once.

"This is acceptable," she acquiesced. "But in the end of days at the coming of the Eternal Mother, he is mine." A quiet fury burned in Calypso's eyes. "And he will be bound in the Locker where he belongs." She watched dispassionately as Ranger Wilson dragged Beckett through the dust by his collar as though he were no more than a child.

"You can't do this!" he shrieked. "You have no dominion over me! None of you!"

Jackie would not be able to accurately describe in the future what she saw. It was as though reality had just...split. Unzipped. A rift appeared in space that had no dimension to it, a doorway with no other side. Through the rift she saw a scorching desert, sapped of nearly all saturation, as though the sun had bleached away all but the most tenacious color. In the distance, across the pale brown-yellow sand, over the nearly-bleached scrub and tumbleweed, was a jagged stone as tall as the sky. Buzzards circled it eternally, never landing, and venomous-looking lizards skittered across its face. If they looked small from this distance, they were likely to be enormous monsters up close. A dry, hot wind that brought no relief from the sun threw sand into the air and against the face of the stone. Near the edge of the rift a beautiful grey coyote with clever yellow eyes waited patiently, its tail flipping sedately back and forth. Beckett's protests turned into shrieks of terror as Ranger Wilson dragged him through. The Coyote trotted after the pair, mouth hanging slightly open in eagerness, tail twitching with excitement. Beckett's boot heels left a pair of twin tracks in the dust.

With a gust of dry, hot wind and a burst of sand that irritated their eyes, the portal closed, leaving them light-blind in the early evening dark even with the light of the full moon. Jackie rubbed the sand out of her eyes, and when she opened them neither the strangers nor Beckett were anywhere to be found.

"Sammy...?" Her voice sounded small and quiet amongst the crickets.
 
“Sammy...?" Jackie’s voice sounded small and quiet amongst the crickets.

Sam turned to face her lover. Cerulean fire blazed in her pupil, and in the ruined socket of her left eye,, and a smile touched her lips as she stepped forward. “No. That’s not who I am, Tsidiiligai. Not right now.” She reached out, cupping Jackie’s cheek. “But I will be again, and soon. Once this curse is broken.”

Smiling, she looked past Jackie to Anne Marie and Alice. “Gather the coins, daughters. You are all young and strong, and this living death is not for you.”

“Who are you?” Alice demanded. “And what did you do to Sam?”

“You know who I am,” Sam replied.

Alice started at that, brow furrowed as if recalling something. “You’re… Oshun,” she stated hesitantly. “From gramma’s stories.”

“Her sister, anyway. And I am merely… borrowing Sam.” Her burning eyes focused on Alice. “Or, to use your grandmother’s word, riding her.” Still smiling, she clasped Jackie’s hands. “But not for long. You must break the curse, Tsidiiligai. Break it, and be ready. Your Dahteste’s wounds are magical, and she will need care when I leave.”
 
Not-Sam reached out and cupped her cheek, and Jackie couldn't help but flinch. Ancestors, gods, spirits...she had gone along with the rituals, the traditions, if nothing else to keep alive out of sheer cussedness what white settlers had tried so hard to destroy. But had she believed in them? Not particularly. Maybe back when the world was young and magic flowed more freely, but even as a child she had always counted them for what they were: bedtime stories. Fables to make children behave and teach lessons about foolishness or wickedness. White Painted Woman was just a fable to explain puberty; certainly something spoke to them all during their Sunrise Ceremonies, but obviously it had been exhaustion and dehydration....hadn't it?

Even so, she knew before White Painted Woman said it that it wasn't Sam. Without realizing it, she leaned her cheek into her palm as she might have her mother's at the end of a long, exhausting day. Her stomach churned and she just wanted to be held by this Mother of all. Jackie squeezed back gently when they clasped hands and nodded.

"I don't know how to do that," she admitted when Changing Woman told her that her wounds were magical and would need care. "I'm not my mother. I'm not a healer." Her throat clenched with unshed tears, feeling useless in the knowledge that Sam would be in agony when she came back to herself.

"Jacqueline." Doc spoke softly, and when Jackie looked she saw her and Alice's palms were already wrapped with handkerchiefs while Doc held the delicate silver-handled stiletto out to her.

It felt like someone else reaching for the knife. Jackie watched her skeletal hand as it reached out for the knife in the moonlight. Fully exposed to the light, Anne Marie was still beautiful as corpses go, but still a corpse. Flesh rotted from her face, and her silk dress was in tatters as though she had been buried in it six months ago, the fabric floating serenely on some un-felt wind of the Other World; polish chipped on what had, in the dark, been perfectly manicured nails and her long fingers appeared less graceful without flesh attached. Some indiscernible expression crossed her skull as a large, heavy ring clattered along the proximal phalanx of her left ring finger and for a moment it looked as though she might let it drop off the bone and into the dust...but clenched her fist at the last moment as Jackie took the knife from her.

"I...I need her blood too." Jackie spoke softly and took Sam's hand gently, cutting it and pressing the gold into her palm before tossing the coin carelessly into the chest. She took a deep breath. No. She tried to take a deep breath. Her sternum still rose and fell as if she still had lungs, but no air moved through her body. She winced slightly as she cut her own palm and stepped into the shaft of moonlight, clenching her fist around the final coin as she stood over the box. "Done by blood, by blood undone," she murmured solemnly, reciting the old spell from her daddy's bedtime stories.

"Jacqueline..." Anne Marie said again, though now she was no longer in the moonlight her queer expression was easier to read as she stared somewhere around Jackie's midsection.

But whatever her concern, it would wait. The final coin dropped among its brethren and they felt their lungs fill with air, their hearts began to beat once more, blood coursed through her veins. Jackie had a massive headache.

"Sam!" She turned to her lover, rushing to her side to catch her as White Painted Woman returned to wherever she had come from.
 
Sam watched it all from a distance, all sensation cut off by the curse she'd taken upon herself and by the White Painted Woman. She watched disinterestedly as White Painted Woman allowed Jackie to take her hand and slice the palm, watched dead blood ooze from dead flesh to coat a gold coin of uncertain origin. At a distance she could hear Doc LaMonte's call Jackie's name, could hear Jackie recite something. But her attention was elsewhere, directed inward. She could hear the soft voice of the White Painted Woman. She sounded like the mother she'd never known.

She watched with idle, uncaring curiosity as the bloody coin tumbled from her hand.

"You must awaken, Dahteste."

She shook her head. "No. Ah don' wanna. Ah wanna stay..."

The whisper of a hand caressed her cheek. "You will return, in time. But for now, you are needed here."

The coin struck it's fellows. It bounced, then fell flat. Sam stared at it uncomprehending, wondering distantly if it had worked. Then sensation returned, and she drew a deep breath and screamed in agony as she collapsed against Jackie, clutching at her left eye, No, at the bloody ruin that had been her left eye. Blood streamed from a lacerated cheek and forehead and wept from... from...

Pain, and the horrible gooey emptiness of her left eye sent her to her knees, one hand still gripping Jackie's shoulder as she vomited. "Ah... ah Gawd..." she moaned weakly, trying to close the ruined eye. God. There weren't any eyelids there! "Oh... Gawd. Jackie..."
 
The effect was instantaneous. The moment the coin fell into the chest, Sam began screaming. Jackie clutched her to her chest, stroking her hair as she screamed.

"I know, I know..." she murmured in as comforting a tone as she could manage. But she didn't know, couldn't know. She'd never lost a piece of herself like that. Jackie winced when she vomited, shying involuntarily away and feeling guilty for it. This was her mother's area, not hers. She could do blood and guts all day long, but the moment the digestive tract got involved her stomach turned threateningly.

"Oh...Gawd. Jackie..."

"I know baby." She tried to rub Sam's back soothingly, averting her eyes until the sound of an emptying stomach was gone. "It's uh...we need to...Doc?" She looked desperately to Doc LaMonte for help, but she shook her head.

"Not that kind of doctor," she reminded her ruefully, before handing over a handkerchief.

Jackie took it and gingerly pressed it to Sam's ruined eye. "Hold this." She grabbed Sam's hand and pressed it to the cloth. "Hold it. C'mon, we gotta get you to a proper doctor to patch y'up." She pulled Sam's spare arm over her shoulder and heaved her up.

"He's got a wagon," Anne Marie said, hovering and feeling quite useless as Jackie helped her lover stagger back toward the house. "Alice, come ahead with me and help me ready the horses, oui?" The two jogged ahead and by the time they had reached the stables the wagon was ready with Anne Marie in the driver's seat. "Make her comfortable," she instructed over her shoulder. "I shall endeavor to avoid bumps but I make no promises. And Jacqueline?" She looked over her shoulder at the Indian helping the Ranger into the wagon. "Once she's patched up you may want to be examined as well."

Jackie wasn't certain what Doc had meant, but it didn't matter. She heaved Sam into the wagon as carefully as she could, still trying to comfort the moaning Ranger, before following. The ride into town was...long. As soon as they saw lights, Jackie and Alice jumped out and ran ahead to bang on doors until they found someone willing to help while Anne Marie drove the wagon.
 
Later…

“Well,” the doctor said, emerging from his office. “She’ll live.”

“We knew that,” Alice scoffed.

“No, you didn’t,” the doctor replied, taking a seat. “There was a significant risk of infection, and there still could be. There was charred bone in her eye socket, young lady. Powdered bone, mixed with ash. I cleaned it out and packed it with clean cotton. I couldn’t save her eyelids, though.”

“Can we talk to her?” Alice asked.

He shook his head. “Until the morphine wears off, it’s best to let her rest. I wouldn’t even have let her redskin friend back there, but she wouldn’t let go of her hand. Held it all through the operation.” A fond smile creased his lips. “It’s nice to have a friend you can count on.”

-*-

It was dark in the room. The doctor had blown out the lamps when he left, so the only light was the starlight filtering through the windows. That suited Sam just fine. The shot the doctor gave her was making her sleepy and dizzy, and all she wanted to do was lay here and hold Jackie’s hand and rest. But the damn full ache in her left eye was interfering with that.

“That… weren’t… so bad…” she murmured, squeezing her lover’s hand. “Guess… it looks… worse’n it… feels?”

Jackie was a shape in the darkness, silhouetted by the window. But… she was also softly glowing, like a rainbow shot through with threads of lightning. With another glow in her stomach, tiny and bright and pure white. “Gawd, yer pretty,” she grinned. “You… an’… an’ th’…”. She let go of her hand, and rested her fingertips on Jackie’s stomach. “An’… whoever… this… is…”. The last word trailed into gentle snores.
 
"She's still a little out of it," Jackie announced after closing the door softly. "Keeps talkin' bout something shiny."

They'd been hunkered down just outside Night Vale for about a week while Sam recovered, following the doctor's instructions carefully to avoid infection. She was lucid most of the time, but other times--mostly at night--she became feverish and started talking about spirits and lights, continually referring to "someone" inhabiting Jackie. A ridiculous notion, to be sure, but she wasn't in any mood to fight with a delusion. During the day Anne Marie usually returned to Abeline to do...whatever it was she did. Something to do with her practice, certainly...maybe seeing patients? But she still returned every night, usually with supper for the lot of them. Several times Jackie had caught her and Alice talking with their heads together in low voices, stopping abruptly whenever she came in the room. It was queer, but maybe they were starting to get cozy too?

Now was one such time. Doc Lamonte straightened and tried to pretend that nothing was wrong even as she slid a paper into her lap under the table where they were sitting. "But she is on the mend? You expect a full recovery?" When Jackie nodded, so did she. "Bon." She hesitated, then cleared her throat. "Jacqueline..."

"Jackie." A frisson of irritation went through her. She'd corrected Anne Marie many times at this point.

She nodded. "Oui. Jackie...Alice and I need to speak with you." She took the paper out of her lap and gestured with it. "I've written to a friend to secure passage aboard his ship and...well, we are leaving." She paused to allow for Jackie's mildly surprised expression before pressing on. "I came to Texas for a number of reasons, to escape a number of problems, and I have come to realize that I cannot outrun those problems. Not in Texas, not anywhere. I am, in short...homesick."

Anne Marie sounded surprised as anyone at this revelation, that she even could be homesick. "So you're going back to Paris?" Jackie asked.

"Oui. Mademoiselle Henry has agreed to accompany me." She gestured to Alice. "My friend will make port in New Orleans by next week. I'm afraid we must leave in the morning."

Jackie sucked in a breath. Everything was changing, ending, and doing so too fast. Anne Marie's business in Texas was done. The Rangers had been put to rest. Soon Sam would be well enough to travel. What now? Instead of verbal vomiting all of this onto Alice and Anne Marie, she simply nodded. "Well, bon voyage then I guess." She ignored Doc's wince at the American butchery of the French saying. "Thanks, Doc. For everything. We really couldn't've done any of this without you."

Anne Marie smiled a little. "It certainly was quite an adventure, wasn't it?"
 
“That it was,” Alice agreed, nodding her head enthusiastically. “Ah don’t quite know what Ah was expecting when Ah asked to come along, but it was pretty wild.” She opened a bottle of beer and took a pull, then chuckled. "Naw. Now that Ah think of it, Ah was expecting to swing a pickaxe an' pretend to be a fancy French lady's maid. Not that Ah regret it or nothing," she added, miming cocking and firing a pistol. "Sure as hell beat getting groped by white men, an' getting called a nigger whore when Ah told 'em off."

"Cause y'all wouldn't let 'em grope yeh?"

Alice looked up as Sam spoke, then rose as the wounded woman shuffled towards the couch. "Here. Let me..."

Sam waved her off. "Nah. Don' need help. Mah eye's gone, not mah leg." She groped for the back of the couch, missed it, then stepped closer and tried again. Confident of the distance, she sat down and leaned against Jackie. "Couldn't sleep," she muttered, resting her head on Jackie's shoulder. "Eye's hurtin' somethin' fierce tonight." She snorted, then winced. "Mebbe th' weather's changin', an' Ah got me a weather eye?"

Alice sat down, looking from Sam to Jackie and then bak. "Did... did you hear what Madame LaMonte said?"

"'Bout Pay-ree? Yeah, Ah heard." Sam sighed. "Pity, that. Ah was hopin' y'all'd stay round fer a few more months." She snuggled into Jackie's arm, then rested a hand on her belly and smiled. "Till th' baby's born. He's beautiful. Jes' like his momma." She rubbed Jackie's belly, and yawned. "Ain't yeh?"
 
"Mebbe th' weather's changin', an' Ah got me a weather eye?"

Anne Marie smiled a little. "Keep a weather eye on the horizon," she said. "This is what my friend tells me when all does not seem to be well." Kieran had a number of sayings and superstitions common among sailors, but that advice had served her well.

"Did...did you hear what Madame LaMonte said?" Alice asked.

"'Bout Pay-ree?" Anne Marie winced at the butchering of her language. She'd never quite gotten used to it. Sam sighed. "Yeah, Ah heard." She snuggled into Jackie's arm, expressing regret that they wouldn't be staying until the baby was born.

Jackie choked.

"I'm sorry, what??"

"He's beautiful," Sam continued. "Jes' like his momma." She yawned and rubbed Jackie's belly. "Ain't yeh?"

"Fucking what??" Jackie repeated, pressing the back of her hand to Sam's forehead. "Let's get you back to bed Sammy. Y'all talkin' some straight nonsense."

"She is right." Anne Marie held her gaze as Jackie froze halfway to standing. "When we were..." She trailed off and shook her head, shivering. She didn't like thinking about that awful emptiness she had experienced among the ranks of the undead. "When we took the gold out of the chest to fight Beckett. You were in the moonlight, and I...I saw something there. Among bone and organ. I thought it might be something more nefarious--cancer, perhaps--but if your partnership is not...exclusive," she gave them a significant look, "then a child would make just as much sense."

Jackie laughed. "S'a good theory," she admitted, "but I ain't like that, Doc. I ain't never--" But that wasn't entirely accurate, was it? She had been with a man. Once. B.D., those months ago. She went cold and still inside and her eyes widened. She could feel her pulse in her throat and shook her head. "No," she said with a little laugh. "Naw, not fuckin' likely. I..." She tasted metal, and felt sick.
 
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