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trouble she’d just put them in with her sense of duty and loyalty toward Kat. However misplaced it was.

    “Get into the cellar, and lock the door. We’ll take care of this.” Kat cocked her gun. “Make sure it’s one of us before you come out again.”
    Leucothea rushed from the bedroom doorway and wrapped her arms around Kat, nestled her hands up under her jacket. She nuzzled her face into Kat’s neck. Kat could feel the liquid of her tears on her skin.
    “I’m sorry.” Leucothea sobbed. “I wasn’t thinking.”
    Kat patted her on the back and then pushed her away. “This is exactly why being with me is dangerous, Thea. We’ll be lucky if any of us survive.”
    Turning from the girl’s tears, Kat checked her gear to make sure she was fully stocked. Knives strapped to legs, throwing stars on belt, shotgun loaded, and extra shells in jacket pocket.
    Smiling, Kat thought of one more thing she needed.
    She rushed into the bedroom and found her pack. She brought it back out into the kitchen, setting it onto the kitchen table. Digging into it, she came away with her latest toy. Something she had acquired from a Raider who didn’t know when to quit while he was still alive.
    Unfurling it like a coiled-up snake, she ran her hand over the oiled leather.
    Hades shook his head. “What in hell is that?”
    “A bullwhip.”
    “Do you know how to use it?”
    With the handle gripped tightly in her hand, Kat lowered her arm and then brought it up quickly, flipping the long whip back over her head. Then she snapped her wrist as sharply as she could.
    The leather coil whipped ahead with a resounding crack; the tip snapped the log wall and formed a gorge in the wood.
    Kat glanced at Hades and smiled smugly.
    “Okay, good answer.”
    Although that had been the first time the motion had worked just as she had planned, Hades didn’t need to know. Kat wrapped the whip around her hand and fastened it to her belt. She hoped she’d get a chance to use her new weapon before the Dark Dwellers swarmed them and ate them alive.

4
    M arching up the single dirt road from Hades’ cabin toward the marshal’s place to round up a few more needed gunmen, Hades eyed Kat warily. Every once in a while she grimaced as though in pain. He wondered if sensing the approaching Dark Dwellers triggered that or if she was fighting with something else deep inside. He hated himself for it, but he was afraid of what she could turn into. And not because he feared for his life—no, he and death were friendly acquaintances—but because he knew he would have to kill her.
    When they neared the marshal’s door, Hades could hear the marshal’s old hound dog growling and barking wildly from his perch on the worn, sagging porch. Hades wondered if the dog, too, could sense the approaching slaughter. Animals had that keen sense of impending doom.
    Just as they reached the bottom step, the door opened with an audible creak. The old, grizzled marshal stood in the doorway, his rifle cradled across his arms as if he already knew they were coming.
    “By the looks of you two, I’d say there was trouble brewing.”
    Hades took another step up to the stoop and leaned casually against the railing, mimicking the old lawman’s stance. It wouldn’t do to raise a panic. Through conversations with Mary about the town, Hades knew the man had suffered his fair share of hard times and battles. The two men weren’t close, having spoken maybe four times since Hades’ arrival six months ago. He had a feeling the lawman knew on a subconscious level that Hades was not the kind of man who was into swapping stories and reminiscing about women they had bed.
    “How many men in the village with guns?” Hades asked, getting to his point quickly and succinctly.
    The marshal’s eyes widened at that. “Ten, maybe eleven.”
    “Round them up.”
    “Wait….”
    Kat interrupted him. “I suggest you also round up all the villagers, and put everyone in a central