Chapter Text
“Keep your eyes peeled. We’re not too far from collecting our pay and celebrating a little.” Kima stretches a little, trying to keep limber even as the miles roll by on the back of her horse.
“If we can tell the mirages from real people riding this way.” Sirus unties his bandana and wrings it out letting drops of sweat fall from the fabric before drying it, and fanning himself with his hat.
Kima, Sirus, and Drake were currently at the head of the caravan and watching the dusty landscape that stretched for miles and miles in every direction.
“If you can’t tell that then we’ve got bigger trouble.”
“Relax. By this time tomorrow, we’ll be in Los Angeles and we'll drink till we’re all sick.”
“With how dehydrated you look that won’t take long.”
Drake sighed heavily in his sadly. “It’s a long way to listen to you all complain.”
“Just think,” Kima said, tossing him a water skin
“When we get there you can get away from all of us.”
“That’ll keep me going for a bit.”
“Lag a bit and see if the others need anything. We’ll probably make camp in a few more hours. At least long enough to get the fire going before it’s dark.”
“That’s one thing I like about here more than the mountains,” Drake said as he signaled for his horse to slow and turn towards the back of the six wagons trundling along, “the sun doesn’t set so early. You can make more distance in a day.”
“There you go. Think positive.”
The sun was still high, and starting to get uncomfortable. They could have made the distance in two days or less if not for the wagons loaded down with goods, gold, and silver. But then there wouldn’t be any money in just seeing how fast they could wander through the desert between Tucson and Los Angeles.
Kima couldn’t wait to be back in a proper city with a bar, music, and more than likely a few pretty girls. She’d struck out in Tucson when Maybelle had dumped a glass full of whiskey on her head and lied to the cute brunette she’d been chatting up saying she had something even the local physician couldn’t fix.
She scanned the horizon for the telltale haze of an approaching party of raiders or natives but saw nothing. Even a party trying to ambush them would kick up dust that would hang in the air for a long while after they stopped. A quiet trip would be good. All the money and much less hassle.
She listened to the men driving the wagons talk about the prices they’d sell their food for. Woven blankets, dried meat, odds and ends that they’d gotten from places as far flung as Florida or Quebec. Places she’d never go and in all likelihood never bother with.
Slowly the sun started to sink and she started to think about how they’d divvy up sleeping shifts so that someone was keeping an eye at all times. Maybe she’d volunteer for the middle one so the others could get some decent sleep on the last night on the road.
Like a crack of lightning, a shot from a gun rang out. Kima jumped having gotten used to the noise of over a dozen horses plodding and six creaking wooden hulks. Heart pounding she drew the pistol on her right hip and hissed in pain as she tried to draw her second with her left hand. She looked at her arm and it was limp with red blood flowing fast down her sleeve and her shoulder looked wrong. Knocked forward out of place.
She’d been shot. The bastards had been waiting for what? Hours? Maybe more than a day? And they’d shot her. She hadn’t been shot in years, but it didn’t burn this time. Her hand tingled but that was about it.
Another shot, only seconds after the other, and the shocked panic turned into chaos as the wagon drivers piled in for cover and tried to grab what weapons they had on hand.
She could hear what she thought was Dohla calling off orders and Sirus whooping as he maneuvered to signal to the others where he was relative to them.
She saw a huge man, how in the hell had they not seen him, start charging down a slight rise with a bright red coat. He clinked as he rode and she could not figure out how he made so much noise until she noticed three other people on horseback following close behind and that they all somehow were covered in metal, maybe gold from the looks of it and it made one hell of a racket as they charged.
All hell broke loose as both sides started trading fire making her ears ring and only when Ghenn charged past her, rifle in one hand and an iron rod in the other, did she shake her head and try to get into the fray.
She raised her right arm and holding her horse still she held her breath and shot. Through the puff of smoke, she saw the lead red one fall forward on his horse. Not dead, since he didn’t fall, but she’d definitely shot him somewhere.
She tucked the hot and still smoking pistol back and drew her second. If she got one of them they could loot the shine off them. Serve them right for shooting her.
Her hand shook as she raised her second pistol and her left shoulder was starting to ache like nothing else. She wiped her brow and blinked trying to bring their assailants into focus without success.
She fired and her palm was so sweaty or maybe her grip was failing and the recoil took it from her hands. The world was hazy around her. Was there a dust storm kicking up? And as she tried to look around her head smacked hard on something. She was looking up at a horse, confused as to how it got so tall, when her vision finally blacked out.
Kima looked up, eyes wild with fever, and saw an angel. Her lips, her eyes, even the wispy little hairs sticking out of the braid she had pulled her hair into seemed to glow. She stood out brilliantly against the blankness that is all around. It was so dark and so unbelievably hot. Maybe she was saving Kima from hell. If this was what heaven was like she’d repent for every little thing right then and there.
She nearly gagged as her mouth was filled with something bitter and vile. Her eyes slammed shut and for long, excruciating moments her existence was only comprised of this bone-melting heat, and the foul taste in her mouth. And then, as abruptly as the flash of consciousness, nothing.
Kima woke up and groaned with pain. Her shoulder was in agony and her head and throat weren’t far behind. It was an act of sheer willpower to turn her head and look to see where the scratching noise was coming from.
At a table not far away was a young woman maybe in her mid-20s writing in a book of some sort with one hand, grinding something with a mortar and pestle with the other, and checking on something written in another book propped up to stay open to the correct page.
Kima stared for the longest while trying to piece together who she might be and if she knew her from somewhere. She turned to look at Kima and nodded her head with a small smile as she turned back to her work. She was no one Kima had ever seen, but she was familiar somehow.
“Where am I?” She croaked, throat dry and tight.
“California. In the town known to local people as Los Angeles though the exact name is much longer.” She paused her writing, but kept grinding with the pestle as she turned to look at Kima.
“California? We were in the Arizona territory… the other day? What happened?” Kima sat up and couldn’t stop a pained groan from forcing its way out of her throat. Her back was tight and she had to take shallow breaths to keep lights from popping off behind her eyes.
“You got into a shoot out and the other person was a much better shot.”
“Lucky. Not better.”
“If that’s how you would like to phrase it. Would you like some water? My concoctions tend to leave a person’s mouth dry.”
“Have any whiskey?” Kima raises an eyebrow hopefully. That would get her on her feet in no time.
“Not for recently shot people, no.”
“When’s recent done? I need something stronger than water.”
“When you’ve had a few glasses of water you may have some of my whiskey. How is that for a compromise?”
Kima glared at her, which normally scared people into leaving her alone and giving her what she asked for, but the blond just stared at her with a raised eyebrow, entirely unconcerned.
“Fine. Give me the water. Where is my gang?” She looked around, suddenly thinking of them, as if they might materialize out of the woodwork.
“They left you here while you recovered to claim the pay for the job.”
“We have plenty of time to do that. We were going to wait for a return caravan to guard. Get paid both ways.”
She shook her head and finally stepped away from her workstation, wiping her hands on a towel tucked into her belt. “Today is the 15th. You’ve been in and out of consciousness and battling a fever for four days. Not including the time it took them to get you here. Drake said they needed to get back to claim the money.”
“What the hell?” Kima put her head in her hands and groaned as it shook her shoulder.
“You were in a very bad way. If you had been much further or if I were less skilled as a healer you’d have been dead.” She stepped closer and Kima saw her eyes were a strange purple color. Striking and distinctive and the vision of the angel came back to her. Here she was in real life, beautiful in her simple blue work dress with a smart white apron to keep any nasty stains from her skirt.
Kima stopped mid chug of the water she’d been handed.
“You’re on the mend now, but it was a near thing.”
“You’re the angel that saved me. You’re the one that came to me and saved me.”
She laughed at that. “My name is Allura. I’m not an angel. Quite far from it in fact.”
“Oh, I doubt that, Miss Allura…how much do I owe you for the treatment?” She almost hated to ask, but it was necessary and likely going to be a problem given that the others had run off with all their money.
“You don’t owe me money, but I have told Drake that you and your crew owe some work done as payment. You’ll have to go handle a windego when they get back.” She said the name of the monster as if it was nothing, but the look she gave Kima said without a shadow of a doubt it was a litmus test.
“A w—A wen—why would you need something like that killed?” She’s heard of the horrible rotting things. Endless hunger that clung to bones and would kill anything with warm blood in its veins. Claws, teeth, bloodshot eyes, and wearing the skins of its meals. You couldn’t live close to the edge of the civilized world and not hear about some of the monsters the natives told stories of, and Kima had traveled more than enough to know that quite a few of them were real creatures.
“Because it has made a woodland that I like to use for gathering herbs and things for its territory, and I don't want to be eaten the next time I need supplies. It was my price and Drake already said he would pay it.”
“Alright then. Doesn’t leave much room for argument.” Kima finished the water skin suddenly wondering if she wouldn’t rather have tried her odds with the bullet. “Why do you need in the woodland?”
Really that was what made no sense. Thinking people stayed well away from undying monsters that liked to kill them and eat their flesh and bones.
Allura looked at her for a moment and decided something before she spoke. “Because I am a witch and sometimes to make my potions or poultices I need ingredients.”
Kima blinked. “So definitely not an angel then.”
“Decidedly not.” Allura crossed her arms and lifted her chin a fraction of an inch in challenge.
“Well….you’re the prettiest witch I’ve ever seen.” She couldn’t think of what else to say but it seemed to do the trick as it made Allura laugh.