Tornado Joe strutted comfortably past the shantytown dwellers as they came out into the walkway, having heard the commotion. They watched him, holding their loved ones in fear. Joe knew that the Skinwalker would attempt to escape and recoup. Having had the ladies put up their barrier, he knew it was locked in. The only answer for it was to hide. It could change its appearance and become any one of them. He also believed that this Skinwalker was capable of spoofing its magical signature, if it had evaded so many Six-Guns over time. He was starting to feel like he had been lucky to find it the first time. He was right to have Somner say nothing, even if all these people were in danger.

  It could not alter its smell, however. It was now covered in vanilla smoke, a scent Tornado Joe had no problems tracking with his nose. He entered a Resolute state, focusing on the smell of vanilla. Almost immediately, he found a concentration of it in a larger home made of scrap wood, with a tarp roof. He slammed open the door.

  Sitting at the table was a family of three; a very nervous-looking man in overalls, a homely blonde woman with worried eyes, and a young child hunched over a bowl of gravy. The child reeked of vanilla. The man and the woman remained stiff, shivering anxiously. Blue eyes glowed through the dark of the doorway, one the triangle shape of the Delta.

  “You didn’t think you could hide, did you?” Tornado Joe stepped into view, that smug grin on his face. He raised his pistol, cocking the hammer with his thumb.

  “You really are a pain in the ass!” The child morphed out of the chair, bones cracking and flesh squelching. It lunged at Joe, stretching itself to an extraordinary degree.

  He saw the Critical Moment, but his attention was focused on something he hadn’t seen before. As the Skinwalker extended itself a little too far for its size, he could see a magical core barely come into view. The complicated magical structure of the shapeshifting Skinwalker hid this core from him, until it was too stretched thin to do so. His eyes wide, Joe realized he had discovered its heart. He was knocked back through the dwelling, into the dirt yard. He tried to keep his feet, sliding in his boots. The poncho flowed out in front of him, partially blocking his view. The Skinwalker stepped out in front of the home, seeing all the people who had gathered around. Men, women and children all stood in awe of the creature in front of them.

  “Now, pretty little cowboy!” The Skinwalker glowered down at him as it shifted, “I’ll kill you and everybody here, just to show you how insignificant you are in my presence!”

  The sound of bones crackling and crunching continued as the Skinwalker became a massive, distorted porcupine in front of him. It hunched over into a ball, jagged spines flaring outwards in all directions. The people gasped and hollered. Bonus Army veterans forced people down onto the ground, everyone they could. They tried to shield the children from the spines. Major Somner himself grabbed one of the kids and hurled her to the ground to protect her.

  Tornado Joe raised his index and middle finger in front of his face, curling his thumb to mimic a pistol. The Rite of Release signaled his use of the magical technique that Billy Baird had taught him again. He gathered his Resolve.

  “Try me, I’m all yours.” Joe’s voice was pregnant with wild malice. He was unable to stifle a grin.

  The Skinwalker shot out every spine with extreme force, each one enough to impale a man. The deltas all became clear to Joe at once. The Eye of the Delta flashed bright on his face as he bared his teeth in a jubilant grin.

  At the Critical Moment, Tornado Joe expended a tremendous amount of energy to reduce the delta between the deadly flying spines and the ground, all the way to zero. They all froze in place, an immaculate scene. The townsfolk, still waiting for death to take them, decided to look and see. They witnessed the spines all captured like a photograph. Joe, blood running from his nose, let off his technique. The influence of his delta manipulation was cut off from the spines. They fell to the ground harmlessly as if they had been dropped in place.

  “I… I… I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!” The Skinwalker screamed. It launched out of its porcupine form, stretching as it had before.

  This attack left its heart exposed again, as Tornado Joe expected. He dove to his right, Resolve rock-steady as he focused in on the heart. The Critical Moment found him and he leveled his pistol. He pulled the trigger and felt the recoil of the .458 Comet round as it left the barrel and struck its target.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The heart shattered, exploding with the incredible force of the Six-Gun round. The destruction of the magical core forced the Skinwalker to revert to its original form. A witch lay bleeding on the ground, a hole in her chest. Her black hair and tattered clothing was sprawled across the dirt yard. She gasped and sputtered, trying to pump blood through a punctured heart.

  Joe once again picked himself up, wiping down his sleeve. He stepped slowly over to the witch. The pistol remained in his hand. His thumb pulled back the hammer and the gears spun the cylinder into its next position.

  “Human after all…” He spoke slowly. “I don’t think we’ve ever struck one of your hearts like this before.”

  “You… do not deserve… to exist in my presence…” The witch coughed up some deep black blood. “I could have killed you… a thousand times over.”

  Joe leveled the pistol to her head, standing over her. His eyes dimmed, he didn’t need Resolve for this shot. She looked up at him, the moon in the sky beyond his silhouette. She couldn’t see his cold eyes in the shadow of his hat. Joe wore the disgust on his face.

  “You couldn’t even kill me once.”

  He pulled the trigger and blew her head to pieces. The gathered townsfolk jumped as the crack of the gun resounded.

  Tornado Joe flipped the pistol around his finger, showing off for the kids, then slid it into the holster on his hip. He gave it a tap with this hand for good measure and smiled at the children. Major Somner stepped up to him.

  “Is that… is that it?” He looked confused, unsure of how to interpret what just occurred.

  “That’s it. This is the Skinwalker. She’s gone.” He tapped the limp witch’s arm with his boot, to no response. “Hey, sorry about all the stuff that got destroyed.”

  “Is anybody hurt?” Somner asked.

  “No sir” Winona floated over. The purple fireflies drifted about the place, soaking up the malevolent energy of the Skinwalker. “We made sure of it. And Tornado Joe was careful.”

  From the destroyed home, the family who had been sitting with the Skinwalker emerged. Their child, the one whose identity had been assumed by the shapeshifter moments prior, was standing with them holding onto his mother for security.

  “I saw what you did here.” Somner looked Joe in the eye, “That was incredible. I thought everybody here was dead. I.. I need some time…” He ran a hand over his face.

  “It’s fine. We were just leaving.” Joe started for the gate. He gestured with a hand for the witches to follow after. Winona and Ivy nodded to one another before teetering off behind him. Winona snapped her fingers, releasing the Blue barrier and destroying the runes. Getting rid of the barrier was much easier than erecting one.

  As they exited the Hooverville, another figure came into view. The familiar profile of a Six-Gun caught Joe’s eye.

  “Pretty professional work, Tornado Joe.” The deep voice beckoned him forward.

  Joe stepped towards him, stopping about ten paces away. The two faced one another in silence. The Six-Gun in the street flapped back his poncho, clearing his right hip for a draw. Joe accepted the challenge by raising his hand to his own right hip, hovering over his pistol.

  Sensing the tension in the air, Ivy gasped. “Wh…what the Heck? Are you guys really going to fight?”

  Winona rolled her eyes. She had to remind herself again that she was once this green too.

  The air was heavy as both Six-Guns entered a Resolute State. Both watched the flow of life in the world around them. They studied one another’s Resolve, combed each other’s mind for the Critical Moment. Both sucked in air as the clang of the Critical Moment could be heard in their ears. Their intent sliced through the flow of the universe. Both men drew guns at virtually the same time.

  The Gun in front of Joe was faster, however, by a sliver of a second. Joe heard him clear leather first. No trigger was pulled, no shot resounded. Had the triggers been pulled, Joe would be lying dead in the street.

  “Predictable.” The Gun chuckled.

  After a moment, both Six-Guns laughed. Joe holstered his pistol and strutted over to the other Gun. “Louey Cobb! You’re fast as lightning, man! How you doing?” He clapped Louey’s hand in his.

  “Fantastic!” Louey was in an equally jovial mood following their mock duel. “You’ll catch me one day!”

  “You didn’t wanna jump in on the whole Skinwalker job, since you were in town?” Joe raised an eyebrow at him quizzically.

  “I figured you and your two girlies had it.”

  “Just the one is mine, but yes I suppose we had it.” Joe sighed, “But I gotta tell you this Skinwalker was smart. It took a lot to bring it down.”

  “You’ll live. I couldn’t cross the barrier anyhow.” The older Gun waved a hand glibly.

  Joe rolled his eyes, “So why are you hangin’ around here, just to remind me you can outdraw me?”

  “Actually, I need your help. It’s about the Yellow Cult. I have a personal stake in getting to the bottom of this problem now. You think you can run with me a while?”

  The air around them was chilly, the November night delivering promises of a tough December to come. Joe felt the breeze on his cheek as he listened to Louey.

  “Just what constitutes a personal stake?” His eyes studied the senior Gun closely.

  “I brought a boy back to the Smokies. The Cult afflicted him with some kind of mark. Madeline says there’s Yellow magic in his body now.”

  Joe tapped his chin, “Well, what’s done is done. Surely they are gonna have him destroyed.”

  “No.” Louey shook his head, “I convinced them to keep him. He’s under watch, but he’ll be a Gun if he can stomach it.” He looked at the Hooverville entrance for a long moment. “I suppose if they get scared of him they’ll have to scrub him. But I don’t want that. He’s just a boy.”

  “Why you care so much about this kid, Lou?” Tornado Joe shot him a quizzical look, “And why would he wanna become one of us?”

  Both questions had the same answer.

  “Well, this is Billy Baird’s son.”