The Imp Prince Read online

  As Bobby and Quint walked away, Quint said, “Do you think you can show me where the rest of the boys are hiding? I have a job for them, too.”

  As word spread among the boys, they sought Quint out. “Ya’ want us to dig a whole trench around the town?” Biggs asked. As the tallest of the remaining group of boys, he spoke as their leader.

  “Not a whole trench, no,” Quint said. He counted the boys. “There are thirteen of you. If you each dig a shallow pit about this big, that will be good.” He held up his hands to give the boys a rough idea of how big the fire trenches should be. “With the entire south side of the town covered in smoke, we’ll force Fury to head to the north side of the town where we’ll have the tactical advantage. What do you think of that plan, Genny?”

  “How’d ya know I was there?” Genny demanded as she stepped out of her hiding spot

  “You aren’t as quiet as you think,” Quint said. He felt himself smiling at the girl and wanting to tug on one of her braids like a boy. He shoved his hands in his pockets in an effort towards self-control.

  “Can I help, Mister Quint?” Genny asked.

  “You sure can, ma’am. Can you and one of the girls get some green wood? We’re going to set up a smoke barrier for the Baron.”

  “Won’t the wind blow it any which way? What if the buildings catch fire?”

  Quint shrugged. “That’s a risk we’ll have to take. If I had more time or more resources, maybe we could come up with a better plan. But this is the one I have and we’ll go with it. Now, go get the wood. I have to see if anyone can shoot.”

  Quint walked back to the Silver Dollar Saloon. Peaches caught him by the sleeve. “You have to get Plum out of here,” she said. “If Fury gets her, there’s no accounting for what he’ll do to her, or us.”

  “Fury will not get her,” Quint said. “Look at me, Peaches.” Her large doe eyes met his in the waning light as dusk approached. “I will not fail and before the moon rises tomorrow, this land will be free of at least one more evil soul.” His boots echoed with hollow determination on the weathered stairs. He put his hand out. “The derringer, please. I have an idea.”

  The gunslinger’s gang pushed the tables and chairs together in order to share the feast the ladies set for them. “Does everyone know their job?” Quint asked as he finished his second can of peaches.

  “An hour before dawn, the boys ‘n me will light the fire trenches,” Biggs said. “If they still try to get in on that side of town, we’ll light a rag in a bottle of whisky and toss it at the barrier wagon.”

  Quint nodded and turned his blue eyes to Diana. “I have the other wagon hid between the jailhouse and the feed store,” she said.

  “I’m hiding behind the gravestones with your Colt,” Bobby said. “I’ll cover ya, Mr. Q. I swear.” His dark eyes filled with tears. “I won’t let ya’ down like I let my pa down.”

  Quint nodded and blinked back tears. Realization of the pain this group had gone through humbled him. Now, more than ever, Quint knew he had to make sure Fury never hurt another person.

  “It’s sacrilegious,” Loretta complained with a sigh. “Those poor people need to rest in peace.”

  “And Loretta and I will be in the church spire with our shotguns,” Plum said.

  “Oh, if God could see us,” Loretta muttered.

  “We work in a saloon,” Plum said. “I don’t think saving our lives is going to send us any further down the line to perdition.” Loretta simply harrumphed in response.

  “He wants Plum,” Quint reminded the group. “Our best bet is to keep her at high ground. He won’t want to burn the church down because she’ll go up with it.” He paused for a moment as he looked at the members of his rag-tag little gang. “Unless he decides she’s no longer worth it. And then he will burn us to the ground and the wide expanse of desert that surrounds us will bury us in anonymity.” They nodded and looked at each other with solemn intent. “This is our last and final stand,” Quint said. “Whatever happens, it will begin before the sun is high in the sky.”

  “What about us, Mister Quint?” One of the boys appeared in the shadowy depths of the saloon. “We went to help, too.”

  “I don’t have extra guns,” Quint said. He set all four legs of the chair back on the floor. “Any of you have peashooters or slingshots on you?”

  The boy’s eyes lit with interest. “Sure do,” he exclaimed. “I’ll get the others,” he said. “We’ll get those bad guys and keep Miss Plum safe and sound,” he vowed.

  Quint pulled his pocket watch out and checked the time. He closed his eyes and sent his spirit into the moonless night until it found Fury. “He’s camped out on the south side of town. Looks like we’ll need to set those fires in a few hours.” He turned to Loretta and handed her his watch. “Let me sleep until midnight,” he said. “After that, I’ll take over.” Loretta nodded.

  Quint unrolled his bedroll in the storeroom and rested his head against his forearm. He let the sounds and scents of the saloon settle over him and got comfortable. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift into a light sleep.

  “Quint?”

  Quint opened one tired eye and watched as Plum slipped into the backroom. “We do have beds upstairs,” she reminded him as her boots sounded gently on the wood floor.

  “This is fine,” he said. “Keep me from falling too deep into sleep.” She was quiet for a moment so Quint spoke up. “Is everything okay?”

  “I just wanted to say thank you,” she said in a rush of words. “For what you’re doing. We’ve all been so afraid these last few days.”

  Quint nodded, his eyes growing heavy as he drifted off.

  “Fury is a cruel man,” Plum whispered beneath the sounds of everyone else settling in for the night. “If I thought for a minute he’d trade me for my friends, I would do it. If I thought giving myself up would have saved my town, I’d have done that, too.”

  Quint sat with his knees slightly spread. He rested his wrists against them and looked at his scuffed boots for a long minute. “It’s done. Fury’s time will be over before the sun rises in the east. One way or another, he will be dead.”

  “I don’t understand,” Plum said. “How can you be so sure?”

  Quint opened his mouth to explain but a loud shout from just outside of town brought him to his feet. His right hand sought the reassuring feel of his Colt before remembering he had given it to Bobby. “They’re attacking tonight,” he said with a rush.

  Quint’s long legs ate up the distance between the backroom and the bar. He whistled sharply between his teeth to get everyone’s attention.

  “Fury is attacking early. We’re going to plan B. Biggs, take the boys and light those fires. Now.” He turned to Loretta. “Take your shotgun and the women and head to the wagon.”

  “And you?” Plum asked, her wide brown eyes showing the first signs of fear.

  Quint reached out to touch the soft skin at the back of Plum’s hands before lifting it and slowly touching her cheek. One last time, before he died, he wanted to feel the soft beauty of a woman’s skin. “I’m stopping Fury,” he vowed.

  He grabbed a lantern from the wall, lit it, and strode out into the black of night.

  As Quint stepped into the night, chaos exploded around him. The wagon at the north end of town exploded with enough force to stop a train and enough power to light up the town brighter than midday.

  “And who is this? Did my sweet Plum find herself another protector?”

  Quint stopped in his tracks, every muscle taut and prepared. “Furibon,” he said, his blue eyes taking in his cousin’s bloated appearance. Cruelty and sadism rolled off Furibon in waves.

  Furibon’s eyes flared open in mild surprise. He took in Quint’s steady blue eyes and casual fighter’s stance. “As I live and breathe, I do believe it’s my dear cousin Léandre.”

  “It’s Quentin, now,” Quint corrected him. “I left my father’s name when I was forced away from my father’s plantation.”


  Furibon tsked at his cousin. “Always the southern gentleman,” he mocked. “I don’t know how you got into my town, Léandre, but I suggest you find your way out of it.” Fury strolled around and called into the saloon. “Oh, Plum, darlin’. I will forgive you this transgression if you come out now, little one.”

  “You can’t own her,” Quint said, his eyes narrowing with intent.

  “And how do you think you’re going to stop me? You couldn’t stop me from partaking in all the sweetness the girls had to offer back on Twin Oaks. What do you think you can possibly do to stop me now?”

  “I didn’t know of the curse that drove our mothers before,” Quint said. He smiled mockingly. “I didn’t realize why I couldn’t hurt you.” He stalked his cousin with intent. For the first time, fear appeared in Fury’s eyes. “I know the secret now.”

  Fury’s fear began to permeate past the smell of smoke on sand. Quint opened his mind to his cousin’s and listened to the cascade of curses and anxiety inside Fury’s mind. He closed it again, sealing it tight. “Where are your men, Baron?” Quint asked sarcastically.

  “How do you know?”

  “Never mess with a man whose soul is lost to the devil,” Quint said. “You made me and out of the furnaces of hell I was forged to be the weapon of your destruction.”

  “With what?” Fury mocked. He waved his hand at Quint. “You aren’t even wearing a gun.”

  “Quint, don’t,” Plum said, rushing out onto the porch. “If the Baron promises the safe retreat of you and my friends, I’ll go with him.” Plum bit her full lips and lifted her chin as she bravely offered herself as a sacrifice. “I don’t want any more death in my name.”

  Cruel satisfaction shown on Fury’s face. “Of course, sweet Plum,” he said, his voice oily and obsequious. A voice Quint remembered so well from his childhood.

  Without taking his eyes off Fury, Quint said, “You don’t really trust him, do you, Plum? I can assure he has no honor and few morals left.”

  “Like you would know, dear cousin?”

  “Cousin?” Plum said, her voice rising in shock.

  “Oh come, Quint. Join me. I may even share my… treasures.”

  Tension rose and one by one, Quint’s newly appointed friends encircled them on the tiny street in the middle of the Western Territories — a deserted town in a barren landscape.

  “Let us go, Baron. You have no need for us,” Loretta said as she smoothed the barrel of her husband’s shotgun.

  “You can’t kill him,” Quint warned. “Only I can.” At Quint’s steadfast words, the overwhelming stench of urine washed over them. “Oh, look. My cousin finally figured it out and wet himself like a boy in swaddling cloths.”

  Quint felt his accent deepening as his bottled-up anger swirled like seltzer left out in the New Orleans heat. The humiliation of being tied up and abused at Furibon’s orders. The howling rage at finding his mother’s broken body. The desolation of exile.

  He’d tried to kill Furibon at fifteen, but hadn’t the skill or the knowledge.

  “I don’t understand,” Plum said.

  “Furibon and I are linked, Plum,” Quint said. His gunslinger eyes watched his opponent with intent.

  “Stop it!” Fury shouted, his eyes beginning to glow with otherworldly hatred. “You won’t do it. You wouldn’t do it before.” His snake-oil salesman charm began to fade and his true, hideous nature appeared.

  Peaches gasped and hid her face in her sister’s shoulder. Biggs and the boys shouted and ran. Bobby came closer until he stood next to Quint.

  “I didn’t know the secret before.”

  “What do you have to do?” Bobby asked between the shrill banshee-like screams that were pulled from Fury’s throat.

  “Our mothers were sisters,” Quint explained, his voice growing progressively calmer as Fury’s screams increased in speed and intensity. “Overjoyed when they announced their pregnancies at the same time. And so they made a pact. Sealed it in blood. A blood oath that linked their sons without their knowledge or consent.”

  “What did they vow?” Plum asked, as she stood amidst the women, trembling.

  “That so long as one son lived, so, too, would the other. They wanted to make sure nothing would come between us. That, like them, we would always have each other. What they hadn’t counted on was the evil that began to unfold in Furibon.”

  “You were the one who sold his soul to the devil, Léandre. Not I.”

  Quint nodded. “And in doing so, I sent my soul to hell. In coming here, in stopping you, I have had the opportunity for redemption. I learned you hadn’t changed. You were still intent on destroying anyone who stood in your way. And from that, my salvation was born.

  “I saw a mom who died to protect her son; a woman who would kill her own sister for her son; and a boy. A boy so angry and alone and full of vitriol that it laid out in front of him an evil path. I saw it. And the path was a circle, round and round. And I figured out how to change it. The circle might begin with the boy but it ended with me.” Quint took his eyes off his prey for the briefest of moments. Just long enough to say goodbye to all of his new-found associates. His new friends. His family.

  “Take care of each other,” he said. He glanced down at Bobby. “Take care of that Colt. It’s seen me through my roughest days.”

  “No,” Furibon screamed. His eyes opened wide in alarm as he tried to rush his cousin and stop his actions. Quint lifted the small derringer out of his pocket. He fitted it inside his mouth.

  And pulled the trigger.

  <<<>>>

  Léandre Quinton Gagnon had always thought heaven should have been full of the sounds of butterfly wings and hummingbird songs. Instead, his ears were full of the enthusiastic, if off-key, rendition of an unrecognizable western ballad. Genny was at it again.

  He frowned, running through the last events in his memory. Sunlight pushed against his closed eyelids and he blinked once. Twice.

  He was in the backroom of the Silver Dollar Saloon.

  “You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?” Papillon the angel said. “Now you need to earn your wings.”

  Quint rubbed his eyes and sighed. “In a saloon?”

  “Can you name a better place? Or one that will be full of men and women in need of saving?”

  Quint had to admit – he couldn’t. It had the added bonus of allowing him to stay and watch over the people who had become his friends. The first friends he’d had since leaving Twin Oaks at age fifteen.

  “There is only a dozen or so residents. Not many people to work with.”

  “It will grow,” Papillon predicted. “But I think your first order of business is to dust off that east coast finishing school education and teach Genny how to play piano.”

  Genny hit a particularly sour note and Quint winced. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Purgatory in a saloon couldn’t be all that bad, right?

  At least not once he tuned the damn piano and taught Genny to play.

  Introduction to The Demon of Darkwood Keep

  Grief and desperation are powerful motivations. They can drive someone to seek powers and solutions that are dangerous and even destructive in the long term. The hope of short-term advantages are balanced off against the dangers associated with dealing with demons in this next story.

  As the author explores the twisted motivations and the deadly traps that dealing with darkness encapsulates, the evocative prose allows you to experience the spine tingling emotions of his well-drawn characters.

  The Demon of Darkwood Keep

  (A retelling of The Imp Prince)

  by Ryland Thorn

  Part 1: Ferdinand

  Chapter 1: Bedchamber

  The mood in Darkwood Keep was even more bleak and somber than usual. Lady Ivy lay in the middle of her massive bed, a tragedy propped up by crimson and black cushions.

  She was a tiny, withered woman with skin so pale it was almost white, made sallow by the flickering light. Her ch
eeks were sunken, her lips were pale and thin, and her hair was no longer the thick, sable glory it had been in the past, but was instead faded and wispy.

  She was still young enough that there were few lines to mar the smoothness of her skin. Yet her neck showed a fragile thinness that none could call healthy, and the circles under her eyes were more than just shadows.

  Her eyes were closed. In her delicate, almost skeletal hand that rested on top of the embroidered bedspread, she clutched a lace kerchief that had once been purest cream. She had been using the kerchief to dab at her nose and the corners of her mouth, and now it was speckled with red fading to brown where the blood had started to dry.

  She was dying, and there was nothing further to be done. There were no more elixirs to be tried. The unguents had proven ineffective. The leeches and machinery of medicine had all been removed, to be packed carefully away in the physician’s case.

  Perhaps she had a day left to live. Perhaps she had as much as a week.

  But no more than that.

  Her servants had done all they could to ensure her comfort in her last days. The light hurt her eyes, so they closed the thick, blackened curtains to block out even the perpetual gloom that surrounded the Keep, and kept the lamps burning low. The chill that stole through the old stone walls made her shiver, so they piled her blankets high. Loud noises pained her, so when they spoke, they did so in whispers and strove not to make any sound even as they sneered at her in hidden distaste.

  They hated her for the many small horrible things that she had said and done.

  Even so, when she rang the bell and called them together, most had gathered along the faded walls without overt complaint.

  They stood there now, hands clasped in front of them and eyes downcast, exuding sorrow and grief and hiding their boredom and triumph and spite. They ignored the smell of mustiness and damp, and did their best not to turn from the sickly sweet odor of human rot and decay.