The Dead Throat Coven

From: Issue 3

— North Texas Frontier, The Banks of the Trinity River, 1866 —

Dead Throat Dalila cast a protective circle with her pistol. She moved deosil—clockwise with the movement of the sun and watched it set low over the Trinity River. Her coven surrounded her, hats and bandannas removed out of respect, but she could hear the impatient crack of their knuckles. She stopped and holstered her weapon.

“I’m gonna need everyone’s participation,” she said.

The coven glanced at each other. Dalila had gathered the worst, grittiest women she could find. She had murderers and jewelry thieves, prostitutes and bootleggers, abused girls turned man killers and wives who opted to be widows. There were twenty-five total. They were the Dead Throat Coven, a name forced on Dalila by the papers. She hadn’t planned on calling them anything at all.

Dalila’s neck was leathered by the sun but against her chapped, dry skin the imprint of two red handprints circled her throat. They were finely detailed, with each swirl of the fingerprints and line of the palms clear as daylight. The hands squeezed Dalila every morning, afternoon, and night. She removed a silver chain from her neck and passed it to the woman on her left.

“We’re looking for someone,” she said. “Him.”

They passed the chain around the circle until it came back to Dalila. She tossed it into the dirt.

“Nothing fancy,” she told the coven. “I just want to know which way down the river to follow—to Dallas or Fort Worth. Ask and the goddess will answer.”

The day went quiet. The river went still. The sky darkened. Dalila could feel the thoughts coming off her coven like dust beating against her brow. They were slight and small, but incessant. They wouldn’t give in and eventually, they would wear away the world the way water wears away stone.

She closed her eyes. She saw a man. Stocky and strong, arms and legs coiled like rope, a hat low over his brow. He was tanned like a hide, stretched over muscles and bones and a face harsh and reddened by the Texas sun. His sleeves were white under a grey vest. There was a silver star pinned to his chest. It used to have a chain. He rolled up his white sleeves, and his hands and arms were maroon up to his elbows like they’d been dipped in ink. Or blood. When he moved to mount his horse, Dalila could see faces in the redness swirling like smoke as they climbed up his arms toward his chest.

The wind picked up and Dalila opened her eyes. The coven watched her scan the river. A curl of red smoke appeared on the horizon, unattached to any campfire. It danced above the water toward the west and vanished.

“Fort Worth,” she concluded. She hadn’t been back since the day she met Maybelle.

“Let’s ride,” she said to her coven. They broke their protective circle, saddled their horses and rode west.

— Blackwater Plantation, South Carolina, 1854 —

Maybelle cast a protective circle with a kitchen knife. She traced a pentagram in the dirt at the north most end, placed a bowl of water at the west, a candle at the south, and a feather at the east. She moved widdershins—against the cycle of the sun. It was unnatural. She shivered.

She went to the center of the circle with a silver cup she’d stolen from the dining room in one hand and the knife in the other. She raised the knife toward her wrist but hesitated. She was unfamiliar with blood magic. Its power was not pulled from the goddess, but from the darkness between worlds. A circle was meant to protect her from these forces, but would it also block her spell? But if she opened it, something else might slither in.

Maybelle set the cup down. Gray Spanish moss hung low in the trees that surrounded the banks of the Black River, swaying with the breeze. There was no moonlight. She’d chosen this night as a fresh start. She wasn’t used to casting in darkness. She picked up the kitchen knife and opened a hole in the circle between the south and west. The candle flickered.

“Stay calm now, May,” she whispered.

She dug in her apron pocket and unfolded a white lace handkerchief and laid it at her feet, throwing a ruby necklace and a small pink bow on top of it. She almost reached for the bow again, but didn’t. It was the end of a legacy, she told herself. It wasn’t enough to kill the master and the mistress. The heiress had to go too.

Maybelle knelt in the dirt. The river lapped against the shores, a dull throb that she focused on to drown out the scream of cicadas. She bobbed to the rhythm of the river as she lifted the knife and pressed it against her forearm. She cut slow and deep, feeling the sting of the blade. She drowned the handkerchief and the necklace and the little pink bow in her blood, and then she dripped more into the silver cup. She dropped the knife. She closed her eyes and started to chant words she couldn’t hear. She saw the master and mistress on the porch steps, drinking lemonade Maybelle handed them as slaves were whipped in the fields. She saw the little girl in her white dress and bright pink bow point accuse little boys in rags. She saw them dragged away from their momma’s arms like foals torn from mares. She saw strong men beaten down with words and whips. She saw her man hanging from a moss-covered tree on the banks of the Black River.

Maybelle took the candle and lit her blood on fire, filling the silver cup with red flames. She tilted it and the fire dripped like liquid onto the items. They shriveled into themselves, edges tinged with black and red, until they were dust. A quick wind blew the dust toward the east, and as Maybelle turned to watch it, she saw a man staring back at her.

He was naked. White. With eyes like smoke and a sharp smile that didn’t move as Maybelle jumped to her feet. He inclined his head and stepped toward her, and his gaze followed the line of her invisible protective circle, stopping where the gap began. His eyes drifted back to hers. They flickered red. He started to run.

Maybelle dove for her kitchen knife. He was ten yards away, but she was still on her knees as she retraced the circle, starting at the beginning, her words fumbling. She called on the goddess to guide her and the quarters to protect her.

“I call on the soil of the north to ground me!” she cried. The man dropped to all fours, throwing up dirt as he ran.

“I call on the breath of the east to watch over me!” The red in his eyes was the only light after the blood fire went out. They grew larger.

“I call on the fire of the south to guard me!” His ragged breaths filled the air. He crawled over a fallen tree, pulling himself over hand over hand.

“I call on the waters of the west to wash me clean!” The circle closed.

The man stopped. He didn’t slide or stumble. He was still on his hands and knees, crouched in the dirt, breathing through his toothy smile. He stood up and Maybelle clutched the knife to her chest. He was inches from her; she felt his hot breath on her face, thick and wet. She waited for him to reach for her, but he turned on his heel and walked toward the plantation.

Maybelle stayed awake in her circle all night. She prayed to the goddess, her knife cutting into her palm as she squeezed it, but she couldn’t make herself let go. The sun started to rise and in the bright light of a new day she found the courage to open her circle. She didn’t let go of the knife. She walked along the riverbank, sometimes half in it, not feeling the cold of its winter waters, only the sting of her open wounds and the feel of his red eyes.

She broke through the trees. The white house on the hill marked the owners of the plantation. It shown bright against the blue morning, and Maybelle looked down at its white cotton fields. They were drenched in red. Bodies lined the fields. Slave bodies, limp and bent with their heads turned backwards, their elbows inverted, knees pulled up to the chests and snapped. Their white eyes stared into the blue skies. Their necks were bright red.

Maybelle stuffed her hand into her mouth to stifle her scream. She fell against a tree. The white house’s doors were open and she could see a pale, severed arm against the dried brown blood that slathered the doorway. It was a small arm. A child’s arm.

Maybelle bit her lip as a boot kicked the little arm out of the way and the demon stepped onto the wide wrap-around porch. He was clothed now, a southern gentleman in a black jacket and shiny boots. He slid his fingertips along the brim of his hat. His hands were red, and Maybelle thought he hadn’t yet wiped the blood from them, except the red swirled like smoke.

The red-handed demon whistled over his shoulder and the master came out. He wore silk pajamas. He was barefoot. The demon said something to him that Maybelle couldn’t hear. The master’s cheeks were wet. He looked at the limp, pale arm, and the demon lifted it above his head and threw it into the field. Then he grabbed the master by the throat.

The master’s neck turned black, then red. He grabbed the demon’s wrists, his eyes bulging. The demon smiled his toothy grin again. He dropped the dead master, and as he turned to look over his shoulder, Maybelle ran.

— Fort Worth, Tarrant County Seat, 1860 —

Dalila sat in the Tarrant County jail for attempting horse thievery. She’d sat in that same position plenty of times before in different counties: waiting patiently with one hand swung over the bars for the sheriff to take pity on her and send her off with a fine she’d never pay. It’d been 22 years of different jails in different counties since her father’s death, moving up the state and not getting closer to anything except Oklahoma.

The sheriff was a fat man whose wandering hands made Dalila give him a warning kick to the groin when he’d brought her in. She was sure that was the real reason she’d been jailed, since the horse had never actually left the pasture, and she worried this time she wouldn’t get off so easy. If she got out at all.

The sheriff had brought her a new neighbor late last night. She could hear them breathing, but their face was distorted by the long shadows of the bars. Dalila tilted her head and saw that she was a black woman with dust in her hair and her head in her hands. Dalila leaned against the bars between them, trying to ignore the woman’s heavy breathing. It filled the tiny jail and Dalila ran the toe of her boot across the floor and tried to tune her out.

“Hey,” she said finally, unable to stand it. “You want to keep it down?”

The woman’s head shot up. She was maybe in her 30s, older than Dalila but not by much, and she had eyes that were narrowed from too much sun and too many horrors.

“Where am I?” Maybelle said. She stood up. She wore tough, dark denim under a dress that had been ripped above the knee. Over that she had a vest and holsters for two missing weapons that had been confiscated by the sheriff.

“Fort Worth,” Dalila said. “North Texas, west of Dallas. You don’t know where you are?”

“I’ve been running for a long time,” Maybelle said.

Dalila looked her up and down. “You a runaway?”

“That’s none of your business.” She sat down on a stool in the corner, using her sleeve to wipe the sweat from her brow.

“They don’t like runaways here,” Dalila said. “I hear they’re gonna take the side of the Confederacy. You should’ve headed North.”

“I’m not running from slave catchers,” Maybelle said. She leaned forward on her knees, hands clasped before her, staring into the straw coated floor like it could snap her up and like she would pay for the pleasure of that calm, quick death. “There are worse things out there. You ever seen the devil up close?”

“Only far away,” Dalila said with a smirk. Maybelle turned to her slowly, her old eyes narrowing. Her hands shook, but the rest of her was still and stern. Dalila’s smirk fell away. “No, I haven’t. I’m Dalila.”

“Maybelle,” she said. “That’s what I’m running from.” She stood and turned on the spot, examining the tiny cell. She jerked her head toward the front door. “You want to get out of here?”

Dalila sized the woman up in her dirty denim and torn top. Her boots were rugged and worn and her face unwashed. Soil from across the south was rubbed into those boots and skin and stuck in her hair. Dalila wondered how well she could shoot the guns that belonged in her empty holster. She didn’t particularly want to find out, because she worried Maybelle was one of those people who stuck around. She had that look about her, the one lonely people got when they were almost off the rails. But Dalila wanted to get out of the jail.

“Yes,” she said. “What’s your plan?”

Maybelle took off her holster. “Which way is north?”

Dalila pointed over her shoulder. “That’s east towards Dallas.”

“Good enough,” Maybelle removed her holster and dropped it to the floor. She went to the corner where Dalila had pointed, stepping with one foot directly in front of the other as if measuring her paces. “You got anything that has to do with water?”

“What?”

Maybelle snapped her fingers. “Water. You got a bottle or something?”

“If I had a bottle, I would’ve knocked the sheriff out by now.”

The woman dug in her pocket and set a piece of broken glass at her feet. “That’ll have to do. What about fire?”

Dalila passed her a burnt up match from her pocket, which Maybelle put in a different corner adjacent to the broken glass. She put a wilting feather in another. She counted out the steps to the bars between Dalila and her cell and removed a pendant from around her neck. At its end was an iron star, but it hung upside down on the leather strip. Maybelle set it on the ground and returned to the center of her cell.

“Now, girl,” she said as she picked her holster up again, wrapped it around her hands, and clasped them together in front of her. “I want you to listen and listen good because this is your first lesson.”

“Lesson in what?”

“Witchcraft, girl,” she said.

Dalila raised an eyebrow. Witchcraft was the Devil’s work, or so her Catholic abuela told her back when Dalila was living near the border. It was dangerous to get mixed up with women like this who worshipped the darkness openly. But Dalila had always questioned abuela’s sanity, and she was curious to see what this woman was about to do.

“I cast this circle between worlds—a protective place to call and create. I banish what might tempt my fate; creatures are thrown from this sacred space. I am between worlds, but in a safe place.”

She spun as she spoke, gesturing with the holster at each object for a split second. When she came back to the pendant, she unwound the holster and dropped it at her feet.

“That’s called drawing a circle,” Maybelle explained. “To protect yourself when you cast magic.”

Dalila could feel abuela warning her from the grave to stay far away from this woman. “Protect yourself from what?” she asked.

“From the devils,” Maybelle said. “The next is calling the quarters. You need each direction and element. They’re the power of the world.”

Maybelle faced each corner, where the objects were, and asked for the cardinal directions and the elements to come forward. When she was done, Maybelle sat down in the middle of her circle. She closed her eyes. Maybelle’s lips moved but Dalila only heard her breathe. The witch opened her eyes and the cell door behind her swung open. Dalila took a step back.

She waited to feel afraid of the witch, but she went forward instead, her hands wrapped around the bars between them as if she could slip through and join her. It had to have been a coincidence, but Dalila had seen the sheriff lock that cell up tight.

“You gotta show me how to do that.” The words were out of Dalila’s mouth before she realized. Dalila felt the hair on her arms and legs rise. The air felt alive like she might be able to reach out and grab a handful. There was something else in the county jail with them, lingering with a glimmering energy. It was power and Dalila wanted it.

“I will,” Maybelle said as she picked her items up off the ground and put them into her pockets. She went to the sheriff’s desk and pulled two pistols from a drawer. She holstered one and aimed the other at Dalila’s cell door. “But you got to promise me something first.”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Dalila said, but she had to force the words out of her mouth. She wasn’t good at making promises and she was worse at keeping them. But the glimmer in the air was gone and her fingers itched to hold it again. She could imagine the sheriff’s face when he came back and she was gone, his power over her extinguished with the snap of her fingers. Dalila would throw herself in with Maybelle for as long as it took if it meant she could have moments like that whenever and wherever she wanted.

“You sure?”

“Anything.”

“What if I ask you to kill a man?”

Dalila snorted. “I’ll kill twenty men.”

Maybelle shot the lock off the cell door and it swung open.

“What if I ask you to kill a demon?”

— North Texas Frontier, 1861 —

Maybelle told the same story every night after dinner without any warning or introduction, even if Dalila was in the middle of a sentence. That night Dalila sat at their campfire and slurped her soup and let her thoughts drift to an inn with a bed instead of the cold ground she was destined to sleep on. She jolted back into the present when she heard Maybelle’s gun cock.

“Are you going to shoot me?” Dalila asked. Maybelle threatened her with it nearly once a month these days. It was starting to lose its power.

Dalila had learned a lot about Maybelle, which she hated. And Maybelle had learned a lot about her, which she hated even more. They almost had a routine: practicing magic by day, where Maybelle would share secrets about the goddess who made the world and lived in the moon and gave magic to her followers, and ignoring each other at night. Except when it was time to tell the story of the demon.

“No,” the witch said, sliding it back into her holster. “But I wanted your attention.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m telling you a story.”

Dalila slammed her bowl down, cracking it and spattering soup across their boots. “I’ve heard it. I’m sick of it. I’m going to sleep.”

The witch grabbed her wrist. Her sharp nails dug into Dalila’s skin. “You need to listen to me this time. You need to know why.”

Dalila wanted to throw her hands up, but Maybelle’s grip was like a manacle and as cold as iron. The campfire shook as the witch let go, the flames spitting sparks like a lizard trying to catch a fly.

“There’s war coming,” the witch said.

“We all know that.”

“Will you shut your damn mouth and listen to me for once?”

The flames coiled in the air, hissing and spitting, and Dalila slumped against a tree.

“War that will define this land and all the lands beyond. A war for freedom and we have more of a role in it than anyone else. Because it was me that started it.”

Dalila wanted to speak but she bit her tongue, aware of how high the campfire flames were getting.

“The night I summoned that thing, it brought something else with it. It came straight from the darkest forces of this universe, a place where the goddess’ light doesn’t reach, and from its hole poured out all the hatred and fury that’s making up the South. And as soon as that thing came into this world, the hatred came streaming out of all of us.” Maybelle spit the last words and had to wipe her mouth with her sleeve.

Dalila sat up straight. “But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? A war to end the hatred? To end slavery?”

“War can’t end hate,” Maybelle said. “It breeds it. Only love can wipe out something as powerful as that. The goddess demands balance. I brought hatred into this world and I started a war. I don’t regret it, not even a little bit, but I have to end it. I have to bring balance back. Because there’s more hatred against people like you and me than there is against anyone or anything else, and if we don’t stop that thing, we won’t be able to bring the love back. It must die so we can win.”

Dalila pulled her knees to her chest. “You’re telling me you summoned a demon to start a war?”

Maybelle ran her tongue over her lips and cracked her neck. “Yes, I did.”

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Dalila said, but she was grinning, and when Maybelle looked over, she grinned too. “How’d you know the hate will stop if you kill the demon?”

“I don’t,” Maybelle said as she sipped her soup. “I just know we won’t stand a chance if it’s allowed to live.”

Dalila didn’t care what happened to the demon, but its death was the price of Maybelle’s instruction in magic, so she’d stick around long enough to kill it. But hate, Dalila figured, was inevitable.

— Tulsey Town, Oklahoma, 1862 —

Magic was a wild thing and no amount of persuasion would convince it to bend to Dalila’s will. All she could do was ask for its help and hope the goddess would oblige.

“What happens if she doesn’t?” Dalila asked. They were hidden from the main road that led to town by the hills of Oklahoma. Maybelle lay in the grass, her bare feet propped up by a tree stump. She’d pulled the brim of her hat low over her eyes and she used one hand to wave in Dalila’s direction. A sharp breeze blew past her, so quick it cut her cheek. Dalila raised a hand to stem the blood.

“You gotta know how to speak to power like that,” Maybelle said. She didn’t remove her hat. “She’s listening to you always, but she’s not always in a mind to give a damn. Let her know what’s in your heart and she’ll give you exactly what you need. No more, no less.”

“Where was she that night you conjured that thing?” Dalila muttered, turning away as she rubbed the blood out of her cheek. A shot rang out, piercing the stillness, and Dalila hit the grass. She reached for her weapon, but Maybelle pressed the heel of her boot into her wrist. Smoke drifted from Maybelle’s drawn pistol.

“What the Goddamn hell!” Dalila screamed. She tried to wiggle free but Maybelle pressed her arm hard into the dirt.

“She was there that night,” Maybelle whispered. “But I wasn’t listening to her. I banished her.”

Dalila rolled and swiped Maybelle’s legs out from under her and the woman fell with a shout. Dalila jumped to her feet, but Maybelle didn’t stand back up. She threw her hand over her face and laughed, her temper suddenly gone.

“It’s tough love, girl,” she said. “You’re gonna need it.”

“If that’s what the goddess is all about, then maybe I don’t want any part of it,” Dalila said.

Maybelle sat up, wiping grass from her sleeves. “Oh, you want it,” she said. “Because without it, we women are nothing. You think this world gives two shits about you and me? A slave and a Mexican girl from the border?”

“Former slave,” Dalila corrected, though she wasn’t sure why. But it made Maybelle smile.

“Former,” she agreed. “No, it doesn’t. Magic is all we have. The goddess is the only one looking out for us.”

“Then how come she won’t help me?” Dalila asked. “Why can’t I do this right?”

“Because you’re asking all the wrong questions,” Maybelle said. “Magic is about balance. The elements balance the world, that’s why we call on them when we cast, and the goddess blessed us with her magic so that we can balance out evil.”

“So?”

“So, don’t ask her to help you. Ask her to put things right in the universe. Try again.”

Dalila closed her eyes. She wanted to do something simple that would get the witch’s attention, some revenge for that warning shot. That was putting things into balance, right? Dalila called for the goddess with her mind, and for the winds of the east, but the breeze she conjured was weak and brittle and barely knocked Maybelle’s hat from her head. It was nothing like the wind that had cut her cheek.

Dalila kicked at the grass, throwing her hands in the air. “I don’t know what you mean!”

Maybelle sighed. “Until you do, you won’t be able to cast a thing. Try again.”

“Screw this,” Dalila said. “I’m going to town.” She turned on her heel, ignoring Maybelle’s calls at her back, ordering her to return within a reasonable hour.

“I’ll return when I want to return,” Dalila muttered. She walked through the trees, falling into a steady pace once she found the road. She’d been with Maybelle for longer than she’d been with anyone. Her father had stuck around until she was eight, but he’d been shot by a Ranger who mistook him for someone else. And her mother and grandmother followed him not long after, taken by a disease that Dalila didn’t even know the name of. Dalila had grown distant from the touch and the warmth of others after that, struggling through a few months with one gang or the other for safety as she made her way North. But they always left her when she told them too; riding out of small towns on clouds of dust while she went the other direction. Maybelle was the only one who insisted that Dalila follow her, and it was only because she was desperate to kill the demon she’d summoned.

Dalila had never seen the demon. The way Maybelle described it, it was a colossal beast that could devour them with a look, but Dalila found that hard to believe. She’d seen hate before and was used to brushing it off her shoulder like dust. If that’s all this demon was made of, and if there was only one of it, how strong could it truly be?

Dalila walked toward the bend in the road and heard the roar of the train in the distance. The tracks went through Tulsey Town’s Main Street, contributing to its sudden boom in population. Dalila and Maybelle had come to the town to try and determine which direction the demon was headed next and whether they needed to catch a train to get there. The rumbling of war had started in the deep south, and Maybelle was certain the demon was the one spreading it like an infection.

Dalila could see roofs against the horizon. A sharp breeze, strangely warm, knocked her back a step. She froze and watched the people running from Tulsey Town. They rode and screamed and held onto one another as they bounded up the path. Dalila drew her pistol. She ran against the masses, pushing her way through. But when she reached town it slipped from her fingers.

Bodies lined the street. Strewn in pale mobs outside the general store, stacked like logs against the saloon, face down along the road in the dirt. Their eyes were gaping, their lips open in mid-scream, and red handprints circled their necks.

Dalila picked up her gun. Her hands shook. She knew those hands; they had been described to her every night for two years. People stopped running, but she could hear shutters slamming in windows and shrieks inside houses. A shadow was moving through the town, jumping from building to building. The screams of the people indoors circled Dalila like a clock, starting beside her at the old bank, and coming to rest at the church at the end of the street. She cocked her pistol, and the door to the church opened.

A man stepped out. He was short and stocky with eyes hidden by the low brim of his hat. He had spurs on his boots, two guns on his belt, and wore a grey vest over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The skin of his arms was maroon, and it swirled like blood mixed with faces. He raised his head and the sun lit up the shadows of his face and he met Dalila’s gaze with red eyes. They squinted when he smiled.

Dalila cast a protective circle with her pistol. Circles, she knew now, were more than just protection against demons. They were protection against everything. Lines between worlds wavered during casting, and a circle was the only thing that kept out the creatures that crawled across dimensions. This time she did it faster than she ever had before, twirling with the pistol stretched out like a shield. It was quick, but it was the first time she’d ever felt like it was complete. She came back around to where she’d started and the demon was inches in front of her, having traveled 30 yards in the time it took her to spin, leaping over the bodies of his victims. His eyes glowed like fire, and she could hear the soft cries of the faces that swirled in the red of his arms. He smelled sour and dry—like an apple left out to rot.

She waited for him to speak. His smile stayed stuck. The voices painted into his skin screamed and cried, growing softer and softer until they were silent. His eyes dropped to the pistol in her hand. She followed his gaze and she saw the silver star fastened to his chest, connected to his inside vest pocket with a silver chain. She couldn’t read the words etched into the metal before he looked up again. His smile was wider. She blinked and he vanished in a puff of red smoke.

The street was quiet. The bodies gazed open-mouthed at the sky. The screams of the survivors drifted away on the wind. Dalila stood silently. She needed to move but she couldn’t make herself do it.

A shot rang out and Dalila dropped to the ground. Her hand was hot. The demon was gone but her pistol was smoking. She hadn’t realized that she’d fired it. She stayed in the dirt for one breath, then two, and on the third she jumped up and started to run.

Her gun was still in her hand. She ran faster than the citizens of Tulsey Town, pushing down panicking women and crying children and frozen men. She left the road, headed back toward the clearing. She broke through the trees, branches scratching and clawing for her lips and cheeks, and saw Maybelle’s throat in the hands of the demon. Dalila moved without thinking, raised her pistol, and fired; the bullet embedded itself in the tree trunk behind Maybelle’s head.

The red-handed demon dropped Maybelle. Her throat was coated in his red prints but her chest still heaved with life. She reached for Dalila, gasping, but his foot pressed her into the dirt.

“What do you want?” Dalila said. Her voice was scratchy. She swallowed and repeated herself.

The demon raised his red hands.

He dove to the ground on top of Maybelle. Dalila screamed. She could see the red slipping out of Maybelle and into his hands, oozing from her pores in a slow stream. Maybelle’s eyes left the demon and met Dalila’s, but they weren’t pleading. They were sure. She nodded, her tongue bulging between her lips. Dalila tried to feel the way Maybelle had taught her. She felt for the air and the dirt and the mist and the heat of the sun. She felt for the goddess. Dalila stopped shaking. The bullet left her gun in a golden stream, guided by an invisible hand. It passed through the demon’s hand and into Maybelle’s neck. Red poured from both of them.

The demon leapt back screaming. The red that dripped out of him wasn’t blood; it was souls. They slipped and slid through the hole in his flesh, soaking into the earth at his feet. Dalila heard their soft sighs as they hit the ground and vanished into the dirt. The demon got on his hands and knees, trying to scoop them up again, but they slipped through his fingers. There was red in his eyes, fear or rage Dalila couldn’t tell.

Dalila ran to Maybelle. She leaned over her, brushing blood from the corner of her lips, and two hands grabbed Dalila’s throat.

The demon laughed. It was a soft chuckle that started deep in his chest and vibrated against Dalila’s back. It rose into his throat and came out of his lips like a hammer pounding a nail. It was all she could think about while her head went foggy and her eyes got tight and her lips parted to a bulging tongue. Her head was going to pop like a cork in a bottle. She stopped clawing at the demon’s fingers and her hands drifted to Maybelle’s gun. She took it without a thought, raised it behind her head, and fired. The demon’s hands fell away. The pressure in her head was lifted and she dropped over Maybelle’s body like a gutted fish.

Maybelle’s eyes were closed, but her chest still fluttered. She took hold of Dalila’s wrist and drew her close to her lips.

“Love,” Maybelle said, her voice barely audible. Red seeped through her lips. “You need love. I thought I was enough on my own.”

“On your own for what?” Dalila asked.

“Defeating it. It can’t be done alone. That’s why I found you. You were my beginning.”

“But I’ve never been loved in all my life,” Dalila said. She wiped tears from her cheeks, but she didn’t know where they were coming from. The woman on the ground hadn’t loved her. She’d trained her. “Where do I find it?”

“You build it.”

Her hand fell away and her chest stopped fluttering and bubbles of blood stopped at the corners of her mouth. Dalila didn’t know why she was crying.

In the grass she saw something glint in the sunlight. It was a silver chain, and she lifted it carefully and draped it around her neck, wincing as the metal touched her red throat. She stood up, wiping her tears as she turned away from Maybelle, unsure if she should bury her or not. In the end, she burned her, and her body went up in a cloud of golden smoke. It was in the cloud of gold that Dalila felt the goddess for the first time.

— Outside Fort Worth, Texas, 1866 —

The Trinity River ran through the heart of Fort Worth, guiding travelers from the better-known streets of Dallas to the wild edge of the west. Dalila stopped her horse at its banks and listened to the lapping of the water. It chilled her to her fingertips, though the sun had just set and the sting of the summer heat was still in the air. She dismounted, patting the neck of her horse as she slung her holster over the saddle.

“You gonna keep an eye on these for me?” she asked. The horse grunted in response.

The silver glow of the full moon reflected in the gray waters. Dalila pulled a bundle of newspaper clippings out of her jeans’ back pocket. They were stories about a mass-murdering gang who wiped out Tulsey Town, about women led by a tattooed outlaw from the border, about a group of whores and murderesses who roamed Texas looking for good men to kill and who branded their dead with red throats. That’s where the Dead Throat Coven had gotten its name. The single-column stories had grown over months into front-page news, and Dalila had saved every clipping. No one seemed to notice that the women didn’t show up until after everyone was dead. Dalila threw the clippings into the river.

She removed her boots, then her vest, then her jeans and stood in a shirt and a hat looking out at the river.

“This better work,” she said to no one, but her horse grunted again anyway. She took off her hat and shirt and waded naked into the river.

It was colder than it should have been. She shivered, and bumps rose along her skin. She walked until the water was lapping against the red handprints on her throat. Then she closed her eyes.

She didn’t need to cast a circle. She was safe with the moon shining down on her. The goddess existed in its touch. She looked up.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She waited, but the beams kept beating down on her and the water kept brushing past her neck. She took a breath. “I’m sorry but I still haven’t figured it out.”

She waited again. She thought she saw the light flicker, but the blinding whiteness of the moon didn’t diminish. “I need your help,” she said to the moon. “I did what Maybelle said.”

It had taken everything Dalila had to do it too. She’d found her coven, but every time she got close to one of her girls, she felt in her gut that she should run. Instead, whenever she had that feeling, she gathered the coven together around a campfire and told them Maybelle’s story and about the war their coven had started.

“I found a coven and I found it. But now what?”

The moon blinked. It went out like a match and then shuddered back into existence. It formed a perfect, silver circle on the surface of the water. When Dalila leaned over it, she saw herself staring back. She raised her hands beneath the water, cupping the circle in her palms and bringing them to eye level. Metallic, mirrored droplets slipped through her fingers until she held a silver bullet.

The moon went out again and she was standing naked in a cold river. She closed her eyes and she knew what had to be done.

— Fort Worth, Texas, 1866 —

The Dead Throat Coven rode into town. Doors and shutters slammed shut and the streets cleared until they were the only ones left. The skies were blue and clear and the sun beat down. Dalila stopped fifty yards away from the front steps of the courthouse and her coven fell in around her.

“Where is it?” said one witch, and she spat out a wad of tobacco.

“It’ll come,” Dalila said. She had the urge to raise her hands to her neck, but she fought it. She could hear the others drawing their weapons and the nervous whinnies of their horses. They calmed the horses easily—some with spells, others with gentle hands.

Dalila dismounted and drew her pistol. The rest of the coven joined her in the street, drawing their own weapons.

“Where are you!” one of her members screamed at the courthouse. Silence answered, blown on a dusty wind that whipped their hair in their eyes. Dalila tied hers up with the bandana she used to cover her neck, and it was like the display of her maroon throat was the signal to begin.

The demon exited the courthouse. He wore all grey, like a confederate soldier, and a black hat tilted back to show his face. He had a grey vest with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbow. The red seeped up his arm and Dalila could see it peeking out near his collarbone. It was starting to drown his chest.

The Dead Throat Coven waited for the demon to speak. He never did.

Dalila shot once over his shoulder, shattering the glass pane in the courthouse door. The demon looked back at it and when he faced them again his smile was gone.

Dalila heard the cock of twenty pistols behind her. The demon came down one step. Her finger itched for another shot, but she lowered her weapon.

“You can’t win this one!” Dalila shouted. Her coven shifted, surprised at the outburst. She had to tempt him further. “There’s too many of us. You always knew I was coming for you.”

The demon tilted his head. His hand lifted to remove his hat and he motioned it toward her, like he was inviting her inside for a glass of lemonade.

“I’m the one who’s gonna kill you,” Dalila said. The coven started to move away from her. She kept her eyes on his.

The demon came down another step. “I’m not alive.”

His voice was unnaturally sweet—a ripe Georgia peach. Dalila wondered where he’d picked it up. But it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be saying anything soon.

“Why don’t you come down here and find out what we’re going to do you?” she said.

The demon ran his red tongue over his teeth, pulled up his sleeves even further, and jumped the last few steps of the courthouse. He landed on all fours and started to run like an animal, pushing up dirt with his knuckles.

“Now,” Dalila said, but the coven was already on the move. They ran with pistols drawn. He didn’t stop running even as they raised their weapons in unison and began to draw a circle.

Dalila joined them. She faced the north and called on its quarter, and then the east. She moved with the cardinal directions, but she never left the demon’s eyes for long. She could see the snarl on his red lips, the saliva dripping from his chin. The faces in his arms were becoming clearer. There was fear in their eyes, but she swore that in one or two she also saw something hard. On his hand was a black dot of scar tissue, the size of a bullet hole. It made her laugh, and she was laughing as she and the Dead Throat Coven called on the goddess and completed the circle. She laughed as the demon struggled to stop himself, and she screamed in delight as he crashed into the protective circle and was thrown back to the center. He was trapped by the coven. His hair and his eyes smoked.

He picked himself up slowly, shaking his arms as if he could shake off the coven’s hold.

“You can’t keep me in here forever,” he said. The snarl was back.

She could feel the pull of the circle in all of her girls. They were connected by a thin, wavering energy. It took everything in them to stand upright and tall, their pistols extended to hold its shape. They wouldn’t last long, but she didn’t need long. Dalila holstered her weapon and stepped into the circle. The demon’s snarl disappeared.

“You’ll let me finish what I started?” he said, raising his hands and wiggling his red fingers.

Dalila put a hand on her pistol’s grip. “We’re gonna play my way.” She nodded at the gun on his belt. “You carry that around for looks? Or do you know how to shoot?”

He started for the weapon, but Dalila raised a hand to stop him.

“My way,” she repeated. “The old-fashioned way.”

“You’re playing with fire, little witch.”

She pointed at the scar on his hand. “I gave you that and this time, I ain’t gonna miss.”

His chest inflated. His red eyes bulged. “You are nothing.” His accent was gone. His voice deepened, a drum beating against the ground. It sent vibrations up Dalila’s legs and she could feel it in the hearts of her girls. “My people have enslaved yours for millenniums.”

“And now your time’s up,” Dalila said.

The demon’s red fingers clenched into fists. He snarled.

“You can never truly get rid of me,” he said. “I am everything to you.”

“Yeah? Prove it.” Dalila patted her weapon.

His hand unclenched. It hovered in the air, not yet committing to a draw.

They circled one another. Dalila felt the pulsing spirit of her coven as she passed them; their energy feeding the twitch in her fingertips and the lift of her step. They were together as one heartbeat, yet she could feel each individual too. Dalila let her shoulders fall and gave into it. Her movements were no longer her own.

The demon cracked his neck violently so that he was almost looking at Dalila upside down. But he righted it with a smile.

“You need me,” he said. “You want me in your hearts.”

Dalila didn’t feel her hand draw her pistol. She watched it from a distance. She saw the demon reach for his at the same moment. She reached behind her to grab the extra pistol stuck through her belt. It was loaded with the silver bullet that had been forged by the loving light of the goddess. She raised her weapon with her coven, and all of them squeezed the trigger in a single pulse. The bullet flew and Dalila counted each millisecond that it took to break through the demon’s chest. As it touched his skin, a ripple went through him, and his body ceased its immortality. He watched with blank eyes, the smile gone, as it pushed through what was now mortal flesh, pierced mortal muscle and sinew, and cracked a mortal chest in a cloud of broken white fragments.

The circle broke. The Dead Throat Coven roared, shots firing wildly into the air. Dalila replaced her weapon, shaking out her hands to return feeling to her fingertips. She approached the demon, kicking aside his leg to watch him bleed. As he drained into the dirt, his arms went pale, the souls he’d captured released back to where they had come from. Soon he was nothing but a white corpse with a hole in his chest and no blood left to give to the earth.

Dalila removed the silver star from his chest. “Sheriff” was etched in swirling script across its surface. She pocketed it. Somewhere a war was rumbling and soon it would explode, but now she knew the goddess’ love stood a chance at winning.

© 2020 Amelia Dee Mueller

From: Issue 3

About the Author

Amelia Dee Mueller is a resident of Dallas, Texas and is constantly disappointed that the Old West isn’t as present as you’d think. A communications coordinator in local government by day, she spends her nights writing, reading, losing trivia nights at breweries, and streaming superhero movies with her cats. Y’all can learn more about her work by following her on Twitter: @AmeliaDMueller.