John Hattaway

Cassandra sat up in bed, suddenly awake, and pushed aside the thick blanket covering her. She could hear the sound of her governess sleeping a room away, her snoring slow and rhythmic. Slipping off the bed, Cassandra hit the floor in her bare feet and then felt around for the slippers before putting them on.

What was it that awakened her?

She made her way, slowly, through her room to the door. The door squeaked, when it opened, or shut, Cassandra didn’t want to wake her governess, but suddenly couldn’t imagine staying in her room when there was something far more interesting, and possibly exciting, on the other side. At least, that was how she felt at that moment. A feeling that seemed rather persistent and got her in a lot of trouble. Grasping the brass knob she turned and firmly pulled at the door, cringing when it made a noise, pausing to listen for the governess’ snoring. There was no change to the rhythm. Cassandra pulled the door far enough open so she could sneak into the house.

Her heart was racing. She knew that if she was caught she would be punished. First by her governess who would withhold desert and make her spend more time studying schoolwork and needlepoint and embroidery – all activities that proper young women should know and use.  Followed by her father who would make her sit through another lecture of what it meant to be a young lady and how she needed to mind her governess more than she currently was, complete with promises of being sent off to a finishing school.

In either case, right then, Cassandra did not care. She had to know whether or not the reason she was awake was worth investigating or if it could simply be ignored. Obviously, it was not something that could be ignored, since she was awake and quietly making her way through the house.

She didn’t know, really, where she was going. There was a feeling that seemed to draw her toward her fathers study, a room she was definitely not allowed to enter; but a room she enjoyed more than any other for its weapons – guns and swords hanging on plaques, and books, maps, and paperwork that existed there to be seen but never touched. At the times when her father allowed her to enter his study, she was often too enthralled to listen or pay attention to the reason she was there because she was enchanted by a life she had no way of understanding – her father’s life.

Her favorite part of his study was not the weapons or the books; rather, her favorite part of the study was the cabinet he had in one corner to the left and behind his desk in a spot where he faced away from it when he was working, and a place he could get to at a moments notice. That cabinet, wood nearly as dark as black with a polish that seemed to reflect and absorb light disproportionately to both the color and shine.

Of all the things that were in his office, that cabinet enchanted Cassandra.

The sensation that drew her along, though, did not seem to be drawing her to the office. She thought it had, or would, but she continued her slow pace through the house, past her father’s room, past her mother’s suite of rooms, and down the stairs, slowly, making sure not to make too much noise as she went down the stairs. At the bottom she might wake the cook, but that was less dangerous than waking the governess or her father.

At the bottom of the stairs she turned completely around once to gain her bearings, the feeling almost completely leaving her. This was a bit surprising as she’d been following something and now she wasn’t. Shrugging her shoulders and adjusting the nightgown she was wearing, Cassandra looked back up the stairs and thought about sneaking into her father’s study before returning to her room when she felt a flash of light from behind her. She nearly spun on her heel only to be greeted by an old rough wooden plank door set in the wall where no door had been before.

Cassandra found herself drawn toward it. She stopped just short of touching the door, seeing a light flicker from a burning lamp illuminate several inches of the floor in front of the door. Her hand came away without feeling warm. She placed her ear next to it and listened to see if someone was inside. Hearing nothing, she looked over her shoulder toward her fathers study, and looked at the door with inset glass panels covered by white curtains to block anyone from seeing inside. There was no light in that room.

She reached out and felt for the knob. Instead of finding a knob she discovered an old metal latch that felt especially cold in her hand. She pulled away from it and rubbed her hand on the nightgown, feeling that it was somehow covered in ugliness and death. Sucking in a deep breath, rolling her narrow shoulders back, she reached for the latch and lifted it to the sound of a soft click of metal leaving metal from the other side of the door. Her other hand pressed on the rough wood surface of the door exposing a small room.

The room was occupied by a tall stand mirror in a plain wooden frame and a small oil lantern sitting in the center of the floor – the source of the light from the room. Cassandra quickly entered, shutting the door firmly behind her, before turning her attention on the contents of the small room. The wood from the frame of the mirror was dark, almost black, and seemed to be of a similar origin as her father’s cabinet. Almost immediately, Cassandra became aware of the sweet, acrid smell of the lantern, a smell that was very different from the kerosene used in most lamps she was familiar with.

Angling herself into the room so she was standing in front of the mirror, she looked at her reflection. Instead of seeing a short, thin, dark haired girl wearing an off-white nightgown with some embroidery on it, she saw a woman, slightly taller than herself, wearing canvas pants and a cotton top with strings lacing it together from mid-belly to three or four inches below her neck. The woman in the mirror was clearly older, more of an age with her mother, except more round at the hips, a thinner waste, more defined torso, and less matronly. The woman wore a pair of holsters hanging over each hip complete with too large .45 Colt Peacemakers and dozens of additional rounds in loops on the outside of the belt. Her feet were covered in leather moccasins that were laced up with leather cords around ankles and calves and tied at the top at mid-calf over her canvas pants. The most distinct difference between the woman in the mirror and Cassandra’s mother was the sun-bleached blonde hair.

Cassandra looked at the woman in the mirror. She reached toward the glass without touching. “I want to be her.”

“Why?”

Cassandra took a step away from the mirror when she heard the voice. The voice was deep and resonate and sounded like it had come from right behind her. She turned quickly, expecting to see one of her professors, teachers, standing there. The room was empty, except for herself and a small lamp that did not smell of kerosene.

She moved slightly to her right so she could see behind the mirror, in case someone was standing there, and then back so she could see the image in the mirror. Cassandra noticed that when she moved the woman in the mirror moved as well. “Maybe I imagined it,” she said to herself.

Staring at the mirror, Cassandra started to move her arms and hands around. The lady in the mirror did exactly what Cassandra was doing. After several moments of experimenting with the woman in the mirror, and discovering that Cassandra didn’t have the ability to get the reflection to pull her guns.

“She won’t do that,” the deep resonate voice said.

Cassandra spun around, more quickly, hoping to catch whoever was speaking. There was no one there. The air in the room did not move, which meant that the door did not open or close. She was alone.

Or, it appeared like she was alone.

Turning away from the mirror, Cassandra slowly worked her way around the room. She looked at the walls. Whenever she came across something that didn’t look like it belonged she stopped and investigated it, cracks, slivers, holes. After making a complete turn around the room, she made her way back to the mirror and looked at the plain wooden frame it was held in. There were no markings on the frame on the front or back.

“What are you looking for?” the deep and resonant voice asked.

Cassandra looked up at the ceiling. She was not tall enough to actually look at the ceiling, to get close enough, to see if someone was in the rafters looking down at her.

“I don’t know. Maybe you. Who are you?”

“No one of interest.”

“Then why are you watching me?”

“Because you are looking at the mirror.”

“What does my looking at the mirror have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with anything,” the deep resonate voice said. “If you can see yourself in the mirror exactly as you are, then you don’t belong. However, if you see someone else in the mirror, someone you would rather be, then you are the one I am looking for.”

Cassandra turned her attention back to the mirror. The reflection in the mirror was certainly someone else; someone she would rather be. She reached toward the mirror, but stopped short of touching it.

“Why are you afraid to touch the mirror? It’s just a piece of glass in wood.”

“Where are you?”

The deep and resonate voice said, “In front of a campfire.”

Cassandra sniffed the air.

“I smell no smoke.”

“Just because your senses are not attuned to where I am, does not mean I am not in front of a fire. You cannot see me, and yet I can see you.”

Cassandra looked up at the ceiling. “You could be watching me through a hole or a small window.”

“I could, but I am not. The room you’re in is designed to stop people from looking inside.”

Cassandra returned her attention to the mirror. There was the same woman copying her actions as before. Her hand, small, was in her hair, limp, but on the other side of the glass the woman had her hand, small, in her hair, large and full of body and curl. The woman on the other side of the mirror was everything she wanted to be, she was the image she saw in dreams.

“She is you.”

Cassandra looked up and then at the mirror. The voice was coming from inside the mirror. It was coming from behind the mirror. She walked around to the back of the mirror and looked at the wall again. There was nothing she could see that would allow someone to hide and see her. Not with the mirror in between the wall and her. She was, effectively, alone in the room except for the mirror and an old lamp.

“You should believe I am in front of a campfire right now,” the voice said. Now it came out of the other side of the room, on the other side of the mirror. She hurried back around and placed her ear next to the wall. There were no sounds coming from inside.

“Why should I believe a voice I’ve never met before?”

“You have met me before,” the voice said. “Your mind doesn’t remember.”

Cassandra turned around, quickly, hoping to catch some glimmer of a hint where he could be spying on her from. All she saw was the beautiful woman in the mirror staring back at her. Her cotton top settling from the speed of her spin, even her holsters and guns had to settle back down over her hips. She approached the mirror and got as close to the glass as she could without touching it.

She stared into the glass. Past the woman’s eyes staring back at her. Past the blonde hair. Past everything that was obvious. Cassandra blurred her eyes a little and stared deep into the glass.

And saw the smallest flicker of the smallest fire in the middle of nothing.

She reached up, without thinking about it, and touched the glass. There was a bright flash of light….

Cassandra woke up feeling cold and sore. The sky was dark, except for the millions of stars, and she could hear, a short distance away, a small fire crackling and popping. The fire smelled of cedar and cow patties. That smell was disgusting.

“Damn,” the same deep and resonate voice said. “Where’d she go?”

Cassandra sat up and looked toward the voice. The sound came straight from where she could hear the crackle and pop from the fire. Sitting just to the side of the fire was a large shape. A large shape that was standing up.

She rolled over onto a cactus and started when the prickles went through her rough blouse and into her belly. Stifling a scream, but not before a small peep came out, she lifted herself up into a crouch.

The dark shape stood quickly and turned toward her.

“I know you’re out there.”

She didn’t respond.

He started walking toward her. Cassandra scurried away from the far in a long arch, trying to keep the flames to her right. The man started walking straight to where she’d been laying.

As she moved she reached down and felt the prickly pear leaf still attached to her blouse and stomach by its stickers. Clamping her mouth shut she yanked it away from her body. She wanted to scream but didn’t. Tossing the leaf away from her, away from the fire, back toward where the man was quickly approaching where she’d been laying, she reached her left hand down and eased the pistol in its holster.

The man turned to the sound of the cactus leaf landing on the ground. Its landing was almost imperceptible, his movements and speed threw Cassandra off. She crouched lower to the ground. He sniffed the air and, she thought she could see it, smiled.

“You’re bleeding.”

Cassandra touched where the needles were still sticking through her blouse and could feel a very miniscule amount of warmth. So what? She reached her left hand down and pulled the gun out of its holster. The man started walking toward her. She felt like they were playing cat and mouse… though, at the same time, she didn’t know if she was the cat or the mouse.

“You should trust me, Cassandra,” the man said. “I’m the one that brought you here.” She kept her mouth shut and crouched even lower to the ground.

“I have your mount,” he called out.

She still didn’t say anything.

“There’s food.”

Nothing.

“You will need rest after a trip like you just took,” he said. Stopped. Then walked, slowly and carefully, back to the fire. Once he was at the fire he sat down, again, picking up a stick and stirring the fire with it.

“Who are you?” Cassandra asked. She stopped. Her voice was different. She lightly touched her thought to see if something was different about her. She couldn’t tell anything was different.

“My name is Roy,” he said, “Roy Bean.”

Cassandra moved, slowly, toward the fire.

“We need your help,” Roy said. He continued to poke the fire. “I will send you back once we’ve done what we need to do. But, for now, I need you to trust me.”

She continued to move toward him. Cat. Mouse. She was the cat now. She was certain of that.

“There’s a man in El Paso that needs taking care of,” Roy said. He shoved the stick deep into the fire sending sparks into the sky. The sparks swirled upward caught in a mini-vortex, the embers burning out but not before the vortex left them in a circular patter over their heads. Cassandra thought she heard him mutter something but couldn’t hear him.

Out of nowhere, she found herself leaping forward, at Roy, he gun held out in front of her. Roy stood up, with his stick, bring it high over his head. He yelled, “Illuminate,” and then brought the stick down, hard, on her left hand. At the same time, the sky went from black with millions of stars to very bright. Cassandra was blinded. Before she knew anything had happened, she was lying on her back, again, staring at the sky, the burnt image of the bright light in the sky burned into her corneas, as she lay panting on the ground.

Roy was sitting in front of the fire, poking at the embers, trying to make the coals come back to life.

“Your saddle bags and blanket are over there,” he pointed with his stick to the other side of the fire. “I probably broadcast our location to every mage, shaman, and witch within a hundred miles from here. Never, never in all the years I’ve known you have you ever listened to what someone has told you.” Roy stopped speaking and continued to slowly rebuild the fire.

–

Cassandra woke up the next morning to two things. First, the sun glaring at her from just above the horizon; and second, a horse looking down at her while occasionally licking at her face.

She sat up and then wished that she hadn’t. Her stomach felt like someone had jabbed several sharp knives into her, and then pulled them out before putting them back in and taking them out again. Roy was still sitting where he’d been when she’d awkwardly sat down next to her bags, a saddle, and a wool blanket. Laying her head on the saddle, she’d pulled the blanket over her.

“I pulled the cactus needles out while you slept,” he said.

Roy was turning a spit with a couple of small rodent shaped pieces of meat sitting over the fire. Cassandra had never seen anything like that before – someone cooking the meat of an animal still on the bones over an open fire.

“Breakfast will be ready soon,” he said. “You will need to eat. We have a long ride ahead of us.”

Cassandra looked at Roy and then down at herself. She was definitely different. Her guns, the woman’s guns, were still at her – the woman’s – waist. She was still wearing a rough cotton blouse and canvas pants tied at the waist with a flax rope.

Rolling out from under the saddle blanket, Cassandra pushed the horses head out of the way, and watched as it looked a bit sad before wandering off toward another horse eating sage grass several yards away.

“Not a good idea to offend your familiar,” Roy said, there was an imperceptible nod of his head toward the horse that was wandering away. “I realize you don’t remember the animal… not yet, anyway… but he is your mount, your familiar.”

Cassandra turned, sharply, and looked at the horse. The horse was light brown and white. In her mind she was calling it a paint. The horse was a paint. She knew it and didn’t know how she knew it.

“Finding you this time was a real bitch,” Roy said.

“This time?”

“Yeah. I saw that you was supposed to be born to a whore in San Jose, but she was shot dead and you died in the womb. I also saw you was supposed to have been born to a cattle rancher and his wife, but Indians got her. It twern’t pretty. Guess I was pretty lucky to find you at all. Who’d’a suspected that Cassandra West would be born to hoity toity rich people in Boston, of all places.”

“What are you talking about?” Cassandra was inching closer to the fire. She realized that her hand hurt, reminding her of what happened the night before. She subconsciously started to rub it.

“I’d remember that hand,” Roy said, pointing with a long stick at her. The end looked like it had been used, more than once, to stir the coals of a fire. Roy picked the spit out of the flames, pulled one of the rodents off, and tossed the dripping rodent at her.

More out of instinct than design, Cassandra caught the animal in mid-air and then brought it down, level with her face, to look at it wide-eyed. “I’m not eating this.”

“Then you will probably die, again, before we make it into El Paso. The bastard there has people watching the roads. He knows I’ve been looking for you. There’s a good chance he’s the one what caused your various incarnations and mothers to die prematurely. I had to start working backward to find you. Eat the meat.”

Cassandra brought the dead, burnt and dripping rodent to her mouth. She took a very small bite of the meat. And then, after allowing it to settle on her tongue and not retching, she took a slightly larger bite into the meat. Before she knew it, the meat was gone and her hands and face were covered in the grease from the animal fat. She tossed the bones into the fire and then looked around for something to wipe her hands and face on

“Look in your bags,” Roy said.

She moved over to the saddle bags she’d used as a pillow, and opened one of them. At the top of the contents of the bag was a cloth napkin that she pulled out and wiped her hands and face before folding it and placing it back into the bag.

“Saddle your mount,” Roy said as he stood up and whistled once. The other horse, a black one with a white stripe down its left flank, looked up, snorted, and then started walking toward him.

“She is as ready to go as she’s going to be. No sense waiting around here for ??? to get curious and send out his henchmen to find us.”

“Who are you talking to?”

“My horse,” Roy said. “You don’t think he don’t understand what we’re saying, do you? I told you, your horse is your familiar. Mine is mine. We’ve been discussing you for some days, now.”

Cassandra’s horse made a loud snort.

“I was getting to that, Thomas,” Roy said to Cassandra’s horse. “Your horse showed up a few days ago looking to see if I’d found you. He’s been a bit pissy since you died the last time. Hard to be a free-range animal when all of the Indians are looking for mounts, and then there is the Mexican army, and don’t get me started on mages and wizards who want a useful familiar to use… it’s always easier to change the loyalty of a trained familiar than to train an animal. The smarter the animal, the harder it is to make relationships with the creature you are trying to turn.”

“Then how can this be my horse?” Cassandra asked, motioning to the horse that had ambled its way back over to her.

“Long story,” Roy said and laughed. For some reason, Cassandra didn’t feel comfortable with his laugh. “You’d better saddle him. We need to get going quickly.”

Cassandra found her thighs hurting, bad. She was on the back of Thomas and he was at a full gallop. Roy looked at her and said, “He’s pretty upset. I’d at least try to hear what he has to say.”

She looked over at Roy, who seemed as comfortable in the saddle as he was sitting around the campfire. He still had his stick with him, which seemed weird to Cassandra, but not enough that she was willing to say anything to him about it. As for Thomas, he’d whinnied and nickered his way around her, and even tried to bite at her heels before giving up and letting Roy saddle him. Cassandra found herself in the saddle more out of instinct than out of design, and they were off.

Roy had been right about her needing to eat. They didn’t get more than an hour away from camp before she was hungry and felt as though something were eating a hole in her belly.

“You have some hard tack in the bag there,” Roy said, pointing at the same saddle bag she’d pulled the cloth napkin out of earlier, “never could understand those bags. But then, you was always one to keep secrets.”

Cassandra looked over at him and glared. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was having fun being in a grown up body; while, at the same time, wishing she were back home in her father’s house wearing her nightgown and worrying more about getting in trouble and what the cook would do if she stole another piece of bread.

Every once in a while Thomas would neigh and Cassandra thought she understood what he was saying, “I wish you’d listen to me,” and, “I don’t know whether or not I would trust him,” and, “You’re heading into El Paso… you didn’t fare so well the last time you were there.”

Every time Thomas neighed, Roy would say, “You don’t have a say in this,  you stupid horse.”

Then Thomas would neigh again and Cassandra thought he said something like, “I am royalty you stupid pain in the saddle burr,” and then the noise would stop for a while.

After another couple of hours Cassandra looked over at Roy and said, “Why are we going to El Paso?”

Roy put his attention on her. “There is a mage in El Paso that wants to gather the energy from battle. He is gatherin’ armies that is being designed to take over most of the Mexican territories. Word is, he plans to move to the United States after.” As Roy spoke, he gently rubbed his stick and turned his attention back on their ride.

“He knows we’re close,” Roy said after several minutes of silence.

Cassandra walked Thomas along a dirt road. Roy had slowed them down. “We’re close. We need to be careful now.”

As they road Cassandra kept her eyes on the road and watched both sides, sometimes it seemed like she was seeing all angles of the road at the same time. Before she knew it, they’d come around a bend at the base of a hill and there, in front of them, was El Paso. A city in the middle of a desert. Seeing the city Cassandra felt uneasy. Thomas neighed.

“You can feel that you shouldn’t be here,” she thought he said.

“Yes,” she whispered. The whisper seemed to catch Thomas off guard and he made a stuttered move that seemed to almost be a leap. Roy’s mount made a noise and Thomas snorted. Alicia didn’t think she understood either of those noises.

Roy looked at her and Thomas before placing the stick across the cantle. Cassandra watched him do this and then found herself jumping off the opposite side of the saddle from Roy, pulling her guns from the holsters, and pulling the triggers as fast as she could while pointing them in two different directions. As she pulled the triggers, Thomas reared up and then turned and raced off behind them. Roy sat in his saddle and watched.

As the smoke cleared, Cassandra looked around and noticed there were six men standing on either side of the rode. Each one was holding a different hand. There were guns lying on the ground around those men. A couple had blood running from their hands, but Cassandra was certain that none of them were mortally wounded and even the blood she could see would clot and go away relatively quickly.

“I got the two back here,” Thomas said from behind her. She turned around and looked to see two men lying prone on the ground. Dirt and hoof marks covering their backs. “Neither of them will die,” Thomas said. “I assure you.”

“Good work,” Cassandra said and then turned to look at Roy. “You didn’t feel it necessary to assist?”

“You do good work,” Roy said. “I’d just get in yer way.”

“Great,” Cassandra said and began walking, slowly, toward the men. She looked down to see that her hands had begun popping out spent shells and placing them into the same loops on her belts she was taking new bullets out of. By the time she was standing in front of the men she had two reloaded weapons.

“Cassandra West,” one of the men said. He looked frightened.

“That’s right,” Cassandra said. “Why did you try and ambush us?”

None of the men would look at her or speak. They were all standing there practically shaking in there boots. As Cassandra looked them each in the eye, they all turned to look away from her, to Roy.

“They ain’t gonna talk,” Roy said.

“Why not?”

“Because you scare shit out of em,” he said and laughed. His laugh was not one of mirth. “They thought you was dead. Sure taught them.”

“They seem to be looking to you for something,” Cassandra said.

“Yeah, I get that,” Roy said.

“They work for him,” Thomas said. Cassandra looked at Thomas, her face suddenly hard, she understood him. She understood what he meant as much as what he said.

“How do they work for you?” Cassandra asked.

“Well, not so much me,” Roy said, “as someone a lot like me. A double really.”

“A double?” Cassandra asked and then looked to Thomas. The horse had moved closer to Roy and stood between Roy and his mount.

“Well, a spell gone bad, really,” Roy said. “I was lookin fer something.”

“And?”

“And now these men is lookin’ at me hoping I is the me they work for.”

Cassandra looked at the men. They didn’t move. They did stand there staring at Roy. And Roy didn’t look at anyone, especially they men.

“What can I expect here, Roy?” Cassandra asked.

“A lot of shit,” Roy said. “People are gonna lie to ya. They are gonna cheat ya. And in the end, if you die, you will be born to some whore who will beat ya and whip ya, and not care one bit what ya want or think or need. Only that you turn tricks for her when ya get old enough.”

Roy spat on the ground right in front of Cassandra.

“That’s what you can expect,” he said. “Life and death. Someone will bring ya back again and again until every one of you is dead.”

He spat again. This time closer to Cassandra’s boots.

“Don’t let his spittle hit you,” Thomas said.

Cassandra looked at Thomas and then at Roy. “I think,” she said, “it’s time we go into El Paso. What do you think?”

Roy looked like he was going to spit again, but stopped as Cassandra moved her hand closer to one of the guns on her hips. He was still holding his stick, and Cassandra was aware of it, weary of it, really, but for some reason, as they stood there looking at each other, Roy was not willing to do whatever it was Thomas had warned her against.

“Just because he may have brought you here,” Thomas said, “and he may want you to succeed on some level, doesn’t mean he is going to be the best of allies.”

Cassandra turned to the men still standing a little way off. She looked at them with different eyes. She could see that some of the men were there and would kill her given half the chance, she could also see that one of the men, the tallest of the bunch, was scared. If he had less control over his body, she realized, he would literally be shaking in his boots and standing in a puddle of his own filth.

To that man she said, “Go. Tell your boss I am coming. Tell him Cassandra West is coming into El Paso.” She motioned with her hand as she turned back to Roy. “Get on your horse,” she told him, “we’re heading in.”

“I cain’t be trusted,” Roy said.

Cassandra looked at him, her site changing again and seeing that something was wrong about Roy. “I don’t care,” Cassandra said. “You are leading us into the city.”

–

Roy rode first through the streets of El Paso. He was leading them down a street that ended abruptly at a large white house. A very large white house. Cassandra had loosed both of the guns in both of the holsters. She was hoping to be ready for anything, but then, Thomas had spent the entire ride from the ambush to El Paso whispering things at her about Roy, about El Paso, and about the vaqueros and bandits that were in the area.

“How do you know so much about this stuff?” she asked, in a similar whisper to Thomas’s.

“When they killed you the last time,” Thomas said, “I spent my time along the border. Word among the horses was that Roy was looking for the keyhole to bring you back.”

As they neared the large white house, Roy brought his mount to a stop. He turned, slightly, in his saddle, just enough to see Cassandra, but not enough that he was facing away from the house, “That’s where he is,” Roy said. “That’s who ya want ta kill.”

Cassandra looked at the house. She tried to change the way she looked at the building, at Roy, but couldn’t. Earlier, she’d seen things around him, tendrils or snakes or something, an influence she was certain he could not control, but now there was nothing.

She gave up trying to look at the house as she’d seen Roy and the bandits on the road, and just looked at the house. It was a lot like her father’s house in Boston. Large. There was a large brick and iron fence that surrounded the property the house sat in the middle of. For a moment, she thought there was a reason for the house to be built that way, but when she tried to think about the reason, it felt like she was grasping for a wet bar of soap under water, the thought kept slipping away.

Getting past the fence was going to be a chore. Well, more than a chore. There was no clear way through the fence and Roy had become more and more distant the closer they got to the house. She had no idea why he even led them this far without trying to run away.

“He is interested in saving his hide,” Thomas said.

Cassandra looked down, surprised that Thomas knew what she was thinking, and tried to remember if she’d been thinking out loud or if her horse really was that intuitive.

“Get us past the gate,” she told Roy.

He rode toward the house and then turned left and made his horse walk a lot slower until they got to a specific spot in the iron. A spot that looked no different, to Cassandra, than any other spot on the fence. However, as she watched Roy there was a different feeling to where they were than where they’d sat in front of the house.

Roy rode his horse through the iron and to the other side. Cassandra patted Thomas on the mane and followed him through. As they passed through the iron a shiver of cold raced down her spine and up her torso and they were on the other side. “I hate that,” Thomas said.

Cassandra looked around. The white house was gone. In its place was a tall castle. A tall grey castle made of stones that had once been bleached white by the sun. “What? Where are we?” she asked.

“We’ve arrived,” Roy said. He pointed to the front of the castle, a drawbridge that was extended down over a mote. The mote was filled with water and in the water were large fish with very large teeth.

“Barracuda,” Thomas said, and shied back a little. “Those are not natural barracuda.”

Roy led the procession through scrub trees, cedar by the smell, and old campfires until they reached the drawbridge. As they arrived the man that Cassandra had sent away was standing, with his back to them, on the other side. His arms hung down on either side and he was slumped into himself.

“Damn, that’s wrong,” Roy said.

Cassandra looked at the man again. As Thomas moved toward the drawbridge, she could see that he was held up by a pole. The pole was sticking up into his chin and head, it was covered in blood.

“I’m a mean sumbitch,” Roy said, “but I ain’t never been that mean.”

Cassandra looked at Roy and willed herself not to sick up. Not on Thomas, not in front of Roy, and not as she was riding across a drawbridge, over a mote filled with massive barracuda’s.

As they passed through the portcullis into the main courtyard of the castle, Cassandra came up short. She looked ahead, and in front of her on pickets were the heads and bodies of men and women. Some she recognized, though she didn’t know how she recognized them, other’s she didn’t. In all cases, each body made her more and more angry.

“I said he needs to die,” Roy said. He stopped his horse and dismounted. Cassandra looked at him from on top of Thomas. “You ain’t gettin that horse to where the Mage is at.” Roy started walking across the courtyard to another opening on the other side. He held his stick in his hand.

Cassandra threw her leg over the cantle of the saddle and slid down, face away from Thomas’s flanks, to the ground. Her hands were on the handles of her guns as she started to walk across the courtyard. “If I don’t come back…”

“Get out of here,” Thomas said. “I wish that were the first time I’d heard those words.”

She hurried up to Roy and walked a step behind him and a little to the left. He led the way through the castle, up stairs, and down hallways until they were standing in front of a pair of large wooden doors. “That’s the place,” he said and pointed with his stick.

Cassandra looked at the doors, looked at Roy, and then looked at his stick. For some reason, she was certain she’d been in this situation before. “Why did you bring me back?” she asked without moving to touch or open the door.

“Same reason you is always brought back,” he said. “You is the only one that can take down the mage of El Paso.”

“I am always brought back for the same reason?”

“Well, you git the idea,” he said. “You is brought back to take care of things no one else can do.”

She looked at the door again. It was wooden. There were figures and words carved into the door. Looking at the figures and words there seemed to be something significant in the way they were arranged. Something she should know but, like trying to remember the significance of how the house sat, she couldn’t seem to grasp the meaning.

“Open it,” she said.

Roy didn’t move.

“Open it,” she repeated.

“I’m afraid only one person can open that door,” Roy said and turned, suddenly. “That’d be you.”

Cassandra stepped back. Again, her site changed. Again, she saw the black snakes or whisps that surrounded Roy. Again she knew she should know something about what was happening but couldn’t force herself to remember it.

She stopped thinking. Her hands moved down to the butts of her guns on their own accord. Roy lifted the burned stick he always carried and started to point it at Cassandra. Cassandra pulled from her holsters the pair of guns and fired them, at the same time, at Roy.

The bullets ripped into his chest and through the chest into the wooden doors behind him. They impacted with a couple of the figures in the wood, breaking them. She watched as splinters leapt out of the wood and, as though in slow motion, watched as those splinters found a home in Roy’s back.

He fell to his knees and then fell onto the floor in front of her. The arm holding the stick he carried in front of him. Cassandra walked closer to the door. She looked at the figures and words and then kicked the doors at the base where the two doors come together. She willed the doors to burst into the room and they seemed to explode away from her.

On the other side of the door, as she looked into the room, was a large high back wooden chair that looked like it was made of the same wood as Roy’s stick. Sitting in the chair was a man that looked an awful lot like Roy. He had two trails of blood running down his chest, but he was still sitting up right, he had a smile on his face, and a maniacal look in his eyes as he looked straight at Cassandra.

“Check and mate,” he said.

Cassandra looked at him. She held her guns out in front of her. The man did nothing. “Roy?” she asked.

“The one and only,” he said, “and soon to be dead. You could’ve shot that one sooner.” He moved his head to indicate the dead Roy on the ground behind Cassandra. She didn’t bother to turn and look at the body. Her instincts told her he was dead.

Cassandra watched the man in the chair. He started to laugh. “It was you who was supposed to die,” the man said. “I’ve been tracking you and your births since before the first time you’d even heard of me.” He spit some blood. “I killed you four times already. Every time you died, I was able to grow my army. We were going to take over the world.”

“Why me?” she asked.

“You’re Cassandra West,” he said. More blood spilled out of his mouth. “The Cassandra West. No one else would’ve done. Had my other self bring you back, again and again. He was getting good at predicting you. I was going to have him killed last and then I would’ve had enough power to take over Mexico, Texas, and most of the Kansaw and Missouri territories. I was meant to be king.”

Cassandra felt herself grow sick. Something was happening. She didn’t know what. She couldn’t tell what. Instead, she looked at the Roy sitting in the large wooden chair and shook her head. “You deserve to die,” she said. Turning, she began to walk away.

“I will kill you again,” Roy said, his voice rising significantly in pitch. “Death is not always the end.”

Cassandra stopped. She turned slowly. Her boot kicked the stick in her Roy’s hand. She paused. Her guns went back in their holsters as she bent down to pick the stick up. Looking at it, for the first time she could see very finely carved animals and plants along the stick. There were smaller words, though she had neither the time nor the patience to really look at them.

“I am not afraid of you,” Cassandra said. The stick, in her hand, was now hers.

She pointed the stick at the Roy in the wooden chair and then turned and walked back down the hall, down the stairs, and across the courtyard. Thomas was the only horse in the courtyard. Even the bodies on pikes were gone. “You killed Roy,” Thomas said.

“I killed them both,” she said.

“We need to get out of here,” Thomas said as Cassandra threw her leg over the saddle and settled in. She looked at the stick and then looked around. “Put it in the saddle bag,” Thomas said as he turned and started a hard gallop out over the drawbridge and moat and then across the yard past the scrub cedar and through a clearly delineated opening in the iron and stone fence that was in a different spot from where Roy had brought them through.

Thomas continued to gallop, hard, through the streets of El Paso until they were on the outskirts of town. Only then did he stop and turn to look back at where they had been. There was a plume of smoke rising over the city. A very large plume of smoke. Cassandra looked at it.

“That was the castle, the house,” Thomas said. “It started coming down, probably about the time you killed Roy. The bodies disappeared. I sent Roy’s horse out of the castle. He wasn’t very happy about losing Roy. Most familiars hate losing their companions.”

Cassandra pet Thomas’s mane. “The other Roy told me he was going to be back to kill me.”

“I’d imagine that was probably true,” Thomas said. “Death doesn’t mean what most ordinary people think it means.”

They continued to watch the fire, it burned and spread, slowly, across the residential area of El Paso. After a while, with a lot of commotion and people running about, Cassandra took up the reigns, turned Thomas away from El Paso, and said, “How do I get back to Boston?”

–

Cassandra sat on Thomas and looked out over the Mississippi River. Neither of them moved. “Your home is that way,” Thomas told her.

“I know,” Cassandra said. “I can’t cross this river can I?”

“I don’t think so,” Thomas said. “I’ve been across the river before, but with you on my back, I can’t cross it either.”

Cassandra looked out over the river, again. She stared at the water and the bank on the other side. The river was legitimately wide, but made wider by the fact that no matter how much she willed herself or Thomas to cross, her body would not obey. “I want to go home,” she said, quietly.

As the sun began to descend behind them, Thomas turned and started walking away from the Mississippi. “You’ll find a way,” he said, “eventually.”

Cassandra thought she heard sadness in his voice, but wasn’t certain. She let Thomas have his head as he walked back the way they’d come.

“Someone has to know how to get me back to Boston and my life,” she said after a while. “I just have to find the person who can help me.”