Hell's Marshal Read Free Page A

grime caked his straw-colored hair.
    A circle of blood stained the white cotton shirt in which they’d buried him.
    “What are you doing to my body?” Frank asked.
    “This isn’t your body,” the old man said. “Your real body’s been rotting in the ground in Tombstone for two years now. Extensive damage. This is an underworld representation of how it used to look.”
    “For what?” Frank narrowed his eyes at the old man’s hunched back.
    “I’m making a pattern, so it’ll know how to rebuild itself when you possess it again.”
    As he turned around, Frank reached for the six-gun he didn’t have.
    The old man had the face of a fly, with giant, shimmering eyes of blue, green, and silver. The stubble on his jawline covered much of his face, consisting of thick, black hairs. And his mouth was made up of long, rigid mandibles, suitable for shoveling slop or rotten things inside.
    He offered a hand—a normal, human hand. “Name’s Thaddeus Slater. But most folks call me Buzzy.”
    Frank shook his hand, unable to take his eyes off the hideous face before him.
    “It isn’t polite to stare,” Buzzy said, not turning away.
    “Sorry,” Frank said. “Just…”
    “Yeah, I’m ugly as Hell. Literally.”
    Uncomfortable, Frank changed the subject. “So, I’m using my old body in the living world?”
    Buzzy nodded. “Your…prey used a living body, but you can’t do that. Judges’ orders. So you’ll be placed back in your old, rotting corpse. Your body won’t really be alive, at least not as you know the word. We call it ‘reanimated’ instead. It’ll rebuild itself in a few days, faster with rest, but you’ll have to keep covered up or out of sight until it does. You think I’m ugly, try looking at someone who’s been dead two years.”
    Frank shrugged. “I ain’t goin’ there to dance with the ladies.”
    “You don’t want to stand out. People see a corpse walking the streets, word’s likely to get around. Giving Mr. James advance notice won’t help your odds.”
    Frank saw his point. “Anything else?”
    “Don’t eat. Your body will rebuild its exterior to match this pattern, but it won’t function right. Eating will hog-tie your insides. It’s your soul maintaining the re-animation, not normal body functions, so eating will only make a mess of things. You’ll breathe just to maintain appearances, but your heart will never beat again.”
    “Can’t drink?”
    “Not even water.”
    “Damn, I was hoping for a whiskey.”
    Buzzy darted to a cabinet, Frank following.
    “You can’t bring back his soul without some help.”
    He jerked open a door on one of the closer cabinets. Inside sat a box of Colt .45 caliber bullets, a rope, a set of shiny steel wrist irons, and a cheap-looking bottle of whiskey with a hooker on the label. Buzzy picked up the rope, tying it quickly into a lasso.
    “All these items are made to help you send Jesse James’ soul back to the underworld, where the judges can deal with him.” He spun the lasso’s loop over his head, bringing it down around Frank’s neck. “If you can rope him with this lariat, it’ll pull the spirit from the host body, keeping it hostage until you get back here.”
    “I’m no rancher. I can’t use one of those.”
    Buzzy’s hands flew over the rope in blurs.
    “You might be more familiar with this knot.”
    Frank lifted the rope from his shoulders, frowning at the hangman’s noose the older man had tied.
    “Won’t that kill the host?”
    “They all kill the host. Only exorcism keeps them alive, though usually not much more than a potted plant.”
    Frank turned to hide his grimace, but the other man had seen it.
    “Oh, did you think you’d be saving the victim? Whoever they are, they’re already good as dead, Frank. A shell of who they used to be, nothing more than an empty husk holding his soul. Once you’re tainted with that kind of evil, nothing can save you.”
    He pulled the whiskey bottle out and handed it to