The Demon Road Trilogy: The Complete Collection: Demon Road; Desolation; American Monsters

“Put the gun down. You know it can’t hurt me.”

“That’s not exactly true, though, is it?” said Milo. “It can’t kill you, no, but it can hurt you. Might even put you down long enough for us to take those cuffs off of Amber’s wrists and put them on to yours.”

“One more step,” Shanks said. The cold steel pressed harder into Amber’s head. “Take one more step.”

Milo stopped walking.

“Good doggy,” said Shanks. “Now toss the gun.”

“Can’t do that, I’m afraid. Against my upbringing.”

“Toss it or your ridiculous Irish friend dies first.”

“Glen is not my friend,” said Milo. “And the moment that gun moves away from Amber’s head, I pull my trigger. I’m a pretty good shot, I have to warn you.”

“Then Amber will be the first to die.”

“You kill her, I pull my trigger. Whatever you do, this trigger gets pulled.”

“Unless I give up,” said Shanks, “in which case you still put me back in that prison. You think you’re giving me options, but they all end the same way. The only difference is how many of you I get to kill. Well, Milo? Which one will I start with? The rude Irish boy, or the red-skinned demon girl?”

Milo didn’t answer for a moment, and then he spread his arms, taking his finger from the trigger. “You got me,” he said. “Don’t hurt either of them. I’m putting my gun down.”

He laid his pistol on the floor and straightened up, his hands in the air.

Shanks shook his head. “I’m actually disappointed,” he said. “I thought we were headed for a showdown.”

Milo cracked a smile. “Like in High Noon, you mean?”

Shanks pushed Amber to her knees beside Glen, but kept his gun trained on Milo. “Something like that.”

Milo didn’t seem particularly worried. He was so casual, he shrugged. “Ah, I was always partial to The Wild Bunch, myself.”

“Me too,” said a voice behind them.

Shanks turned to see a shotgun levelled at his chest, and then Ella-May blasted him off his feet.

Shanks hit the ground, the front of his shirt obliterated. He rolled like a rag doll.

Milo holstered his pistol and ran to Amber, the handcuff key in his hand. She reverted to normal instantly, but Ella-May wasn’t even looking at her.

Shanks chuckled, and stood.

Ella-May racked the shotgun’s slide and blasted him again. And again. Each blast threw him further back, turned his clothes to rags, mutilated his flesh. But, every time he stood up, his skin was unmarked.

The fourth blast hurled him backwards through the door. Ella-May followed him out, and Milo, Amber and Glen followed.

Shanks got up, smiling. “You can shoot me all you want,” he said, “you’re not going to kill me. It’s not going to change anything. Look at you. Ella-May Roosevelt. You got old.”

“Maybe a few grey hairs here and there,” Ella-May said.

“You look like them, you know. Your daughters. The ones I killed. Just like I killed your husband. You’re not so smart now, are you, Ella-May? You led them to me all those years ago when you had your whole life ahead of you … and now look. You’re old, with your life behind you, and I’ve taken every last one of your family from you.”

“You took Christina,” said Ella-May. “But that’s all you’re going to take from me.”

Shanks narrowed his eyes and looked down at the street, where a blood-drenched Heather was helping a blood-drenched Teddy into the back of the cruiser.

“We Roosevelts are a hardy lot,” Ella-May said, and blasted Shanks in the back.

For a moment, he flew, his spine arched and his arms flung wide. Then gravity found him, gripped him, yanked him down, hard, into the concrete steps. He bounced and twisted and tumbled and finally flipped, hitting the sidewalk with his head turned the wrong way round.

Milo walked down the steps after him, and calmly cuffed his hands behind his back as he lay there, unmoving.

A car pulled up and a man leaped out, carrying a black bag.

“Doc,” Ella-May said in greeting as she handed the shotgun to Amber, “good of you to come so quickly. I need you to see to my husband and daughter while I drive us to Waukesha Memorial.”

The doctor stared at the scene. “What the hell happened?”

“Heather has a stab wound to the abdomen,” said Ella-May. “As far as I can tell, it missed the major organs. Teddy has had his throat cut. No arterial damage. Both have lost a lot of blood.”

The doctor glanced down at Shanks. “What about this man?”

“He doesn’t need your help,” Ella-May said. She hurried down the steps and guided Heather into the passenger seat.

“Dad first,” Heather said. She was corpse-pale and covered in sweat. “His pulse is barely there.”

The doctor didn’t ask any more questions. He climbed in the back and Ella-May got behind the wheel. She reversed away from the sidewalk and swung round.

“Guess you’ll all be gone by the time I get back,” she said through the open window.

“We will,” said Amber.

“Good,” said Ella-May, and she floored it, the cruiser’s lights flashing.

Milo watched her go. “Passed her and Heather on my way here,” he said. “Figured if she was half as tough as her daughter, giving her the shotgun might not be a bad idea.”

Shanks moaned. His bones cracked and his neck straightened.

“Welcome back,” said Milo, hauling him to his feet.

The streets were quiet in Springton. This didn’t surprise Amber, not after the stories she’d been told. Tomorrow the townspeople would discuss the gunshots and the alarms and all this blood, and they’d let the theories settle in beside the legends and the myths they’d already stored up. She wondered what Walter S. Bryant would make of it all.

“What do we do with him?” asked Glen, keeping a respectful distance from Shanks as Milo forced him to walk.

“We’re taking him with us,” Milo said.

Shanks grunted out a laugh. “Are you inviting me to join your motley crew? I’ll say yes, but only if I can be leader.”