Hidden inside him
Music for the dark


They say if you press your ear to a tree in a storm, you can hear the storm howling inside it. Madison had never done so, but she could hear and feel the peals of the Dead Tower in the burning city whenever she got close to Perpetual Misery. In fact, any bell tower bore the same effect on the woman. A bone-thudding tolling, that rang right through her upon sighting the structure.

But, she likened the feeling to the feeling of wrongness. How it too could roll through the bones. How she felt, this very night. How she had, since the outlaw had made his way from Redemption. And as she walked to the bell tower, she recalled other times the bells of warning had wailed through her soul. She recalled the stories after Elijah had been found hung from the clock. How the whole of West End was cast in fear and an unspeakable pall. How Shylah had reacted when Andy Jacob made his slant-wise recommendation that the woman turn her eyes high. Elijah had been missing for a time and the Norse was worried. Madison had wondered often of that tale; whether Shy had ever had a hunch that something had gone wrong, and what passed through the old rancher's head in the minutes for his death.

They'd never spoken her and he, so it was by mere association that Madison felt the prickling discomfort that lingered in the wake of his death - seeing the look of Shy's face. There was no name for that emotion. It was its own breed. Like there is no name or emotion to wholly capture the crushing, unimaginable terror and pain and world-destroying, soul-slaying of a child's death.

Madison had seen that look on Shy's in her own face, on that day in the yard when the missive came with the sheriff that Elijah Donaldson was dead. Her husband, who she'd been waiting on faithfully; not only in his fidelity, but his life. She hadn't ever sensed he was gone, but how could she doubt the words? There was no reason to devalue what had been delivered. To deny it was to deny the death, and he, she told herself. But then he'd walk back into her life years later, as alive as a man could be - skinnier, his hair almost as long as hers, and wild and the colour of sunlight, and his eyes looked like eyes that had seen something they hadn't forgot. She thought of those eyes, and Shylah's face, because she had seen those expressions in the mirror countless times.


So when she opened Douglas' note to meet him at the tower, it was with the same unsayable, assailing mood and instinct that the haggard hound was indeed a thing of substance. It said, that with this path, was a probable ending. Madison wasn't afraid of his pulling the trigger. She wasn't afraid of his denying her again. Her love for him was hers, and even he couldn't take that away, even as every day passed saw the outlaw as a ghost and less a being of flesh and blood, of compassion and affection. She had been there, where he stood - a different road to be sure, but she'd been there. Spectral, faded, mad. Ardently, she had tried to forget. Really, she had only been scared. She saw it beneath his actions. It was simply the reason why she could not let go - love, or not.


At long last, the desert, the dust, the dreams behind her, old boots drew up in the cold-stone shadows. Passers-by would see Madison had come dressed as a woman might should she be wandering into some innocent meeting, some summer-evening stroll - in jeans, a cameo-pink short sleeved blouse that tied into a bow at the collar, and lace-up elk-skins. Gloves and a thin leather jacket warmed her against the West End's chill, and some buffer should anything become ugly. All this observed, most curious of all, was the absence of iron. Just meeting a friend. Nothing on her to speak of smoke and death. Her eyes burning against the dark, as she sought out his face in its reaches. Her shadow hadn't followed her here, though it stretched wide and strong in the light of day. But here, in the gloom, it was scarce. Her hat askew, she righted it, pinching the age-smooth brim between gloved fingers as she turned a circle. "Round and round you turn, Glenn Douglas." His name a frayed whisper in the night.


His letter, like her eyes, burned in the back pocket. Words had the power to scold, to set alight, to burn a woman alive. Suppose it was that Glenn Douglas might be the last man she love, and yet the first to love her and threaten her death. Yet there was a likeness, to the ash & cinder history. Why was it that time stretched like a line until it curved back again. Was Glenn sentenced the same pattern to run the lines of his soles against, to travel along, like her? Dust scattered in the wind.


"Come out, come out..."

She looked up along the facade of the tower to its peak. The moon sat just behind, its pure silver reflecting off the surface. It was quiet. Too-still. She breathed out. Lowered her eyes. Listened for the stir of steps. The song of scales. The presence of a dead man.


Quick round every turn
Within your frame
My sister
They are endless three
Yet in the mirror of the knife
I see only me





((lyrics transcribed from Cowhawkin Road, D.E.E))

Madison Rye followed him, shadows crossed. A hand to the wall, old stone and crumbling, and she looked over watched as it flaked to their feet. Then, her eyes were drawn ahead and above. Around them shadows spiralled around the face of a curving stairway. She furrowed a brow at the hungry and lean outlaw, and placed a hand on her hip. The chaos and the iron was all around them. Cleaved to the dark.

Inside the tower was a maze of dust and machinery. A rickety wooden staircase rose up along the wall, spiralling over and over to different scaffoldings and platforms for a maintenance crew to work. It had been a long time since anyone did any upkeep. All the metal cogs were rusted and thick with cobwebs. A scattering of rats littered the floor, mostly dead, along with trash and remains of food brought in. The place smelled of must, rotting wood and decay.

Madison look back up that wall of dust and uncertain treads that circled to the pinnacle of the dead tower. There was a feeling of vertigo, of falling, like when she stared too long at the sky. Like the soul was leaving its cage. This place was a vast echo of a place and a time, one that had not perished from either of their minds, and did seem to hammer peals in the wake of their dangerous steps. There was movement above. A shadow out of place amongst the other. The slightest whisper of a footfall. In here, everything was a superimposed version of itself. The stillness yawned with any sound that touched it and broke. From the second most platform within reach of the bell itself, came an imposing, square shadow, and in the shattered moonlight that crept in through the slats of the roof, malformed from abandon, was afforded a stark red-haired stranger. A beard, wild and itchy, and stumps where hands used to be. He wore a blue ribbed singlet and trousers fit for a workman. Thick steel-toes brought him closer. His shrewd eyes inspected them both - perhaps for gold or steel. What made them. What to make of them. Up and down, and he nodded.

"Ho, there" he exclaimed. What were left of his arms was all grease smudge and unusual ink. Poetry from hell. He descended the last groaning stair and lifted his large arms. As if welcoming home two prodigal children. In a way, they were.

"Glad ya both could make it. Name's Charlie. Now let's get to it. Time's got teeth." He gestured for them to head up the stairs. Shadows raced like dark wings across the sky. As they passed, all that was lit went grey. The air went cold, and tasted like ash.

"No kidding", Charlie bark-laughed up the stairs, his hulking frame carrying him up. "Why he cut em off."

He looked between the pair. He smirked. He saw a story. He saw a man who was free and wild, and he saw the woman who loved that about him. The way her eyes lingered on him for that bit too long. A friendship, to be sure. But one riddled with bullets.

"Pearce", he went on to explain. "I did Morgan's tatts. Maybe you will best ask him about this whole charade. About why things are as they be. But we're here now. And you know what to do." His voice boomed off the walls, and he lowered it. He didn't know his own strength at times.

Madison looked back to the redhead as they climbed, then to the leg ahead of her as it stepped up. She saw a ghost of a glass of whiskey being placed by an office door. The glitter of a broken window in his smile, as he bit his words harsh down his shoulder to Lucre. She could smell the danger and the want. Blue eyes met blue eyes. Brilliant and fierce. So many things lived in a glance. The blood bad or no - some things did not have endings. They were circles and on this, four boots and a fate that though crooked as their painting might hang on a hall, would not crack.

"That's the cog Morgan showed me", she acknowledged, with a sweeping glass over the machinery. She glanced at the men, then back. "Looks like we've no choice but to follow the line."


In the dead city, a bell did begin to tick-tock its dirge. A funeral procession. Or a way to awake a world, and the threads of that fate so interwoven in each their lives. Their blood thrummed with it. Charlie nodded and stepped forth, pulling the thick peeling-leather of the rope, and charged the bell with a wail, like angels screaming.

As their ballad started up, and Charlie Lucre's finished, Madison sucked a breath. "Small world."

She watched the man tumble down, heard the brittle crunching of bone, like sticks snapping underfoot. Then Glenn's words breathed into her. Her smile lines creased deeper as she brought her eyes again to him. A claw of lightning felt between the gunslingers, and it rolled like thunder in their dark heads. That smile spread its horizon wide, and she took her place beside him. The rope creaked at their backs, swinging with dead weight. Madison Rye reached around Glenn's side and drew from the greased leather the second gun. It filled her hand and her arm and dare it said, her heart, with a bold thrill so rich, she vibrated all over with it. Her eyes still on his.

"Would I", and shoulder beside his, she clicked the hammer into place and rose the gun in the direction of the stairs. Around them the building was violent with each shuddering tone from the heavy brass.

"Come get it you a**holes." As coyotes trotted in from the streets. And behind them, whistling shrill, walked Ol' Pearce. A cigar in one hand, and in the other a sack of two severed hands.

Paws were quick up each stair. As the first of the fifteen of them reached the threshold, she whispered aside to the outlaw. "Don't forget to dip me low when we're done." She was still smiling.



In Cossol, a burned out old tower sang with angel's screaming.

Cinders and ash blew in the wind.

"Best you work up a full appetite", she quipped, eyes trained on the staircase. Wood splintered and curled. Glass shattered and rained down below. Pearce was a man amongst his dogs on the staircase, moving side to side with those long legs, to trouble their range, to shake the fragile steel of the bridge that took him up. In Madison's mind, it was all clicking. The snakeskin ink. Morgan's sigil. And so a cog fit into place and so too did all the pieces fit perfectly together. Her stomach was clenched at the spark of the realisation, and at being beside him like this. Of the vital fear and excitement of seeing the Hexx again, having them in their sights. To her mind, she sometimes felt they were like a bad dream. But now that Pearce was here, no longer a tattered rumour on a midnight thought, there was a gravity. As the first of her slugs travelled through canine, she felt as much as she heard the second resonance, clanging in the West. A verse she never did think would be written again.

Pearce mounted the final stair. Hat low and eyes wicked. He held up the sack. "Where's my boy Charlie?!"

"Heh....?" Then, over their shoulders, he saw the rope, and hearing the creak, he nodded. He looked at them strangely. "You killed my artist? Ha. And I was comin' here to be all solicitous. Was gonna give the man back his hands. You got in the way. Your kind always seems to do that.

You won't let up."


Madison's gun moved to hold a fixing on his stomach from where she stood. Arm extended straight out, her chest turned towards Douglas. Her eyes moved briefly to the outlaw, watching his profile with question.

Pearce's smirk was a wicked thing as he watched the pair interact. His fingers twitched and a veritable sea of coyotes came spilling from the stairs around his legs, swarming. There were more of the Hexx there than Glenn could shoot, that was for sure. But that wouldn't stop him from trying. He took aim and with a bang shot one between the eyes. It yelped and fell heavily, but another simply crawled over the body to take its place. They yipped and howled and snarled like the beasts they truly were and all the while, their ringleader stood there seemingly safe behind them.

Until Glenn pulled the trigger again, that is. That bullet ripped through the air and caught the man in the shoulder. Inhuman, he was knocked off balance for only a moment. Like a scarecrow caught in the wind. He rocked back into place and laughed. Glenn didn't have any words for Madison, no time for that. He simply prayed that she would follow him for a little while longer. She'd come this far, after all.

He turned and fired another shot blindly behind him. Wood splintered but no blood was spilled. He climbed onto the old wooden rail meant to dissuade people from doing exactly what he was and he reached for the the rope that was now weighed down by Charlie's dead body and jumped. The rope burned his hands, he slid more than a few feet and let out a bestial snarl.

Thunder crashed and something boomed even louder than it outside. The windows shattered and a furious gale sent those shards of glass every which way like a hail of bullets and arrows, piercing wood and fur and flesh alike with impunity.

A howl echoed in the wind.

The howling grew louder and louder as Madison Rye fought for her life. The walls were shaking. The earth rumbled. The wind lashed furiously at the windows. She escaped the tower and outside all was calm, like it existed inside a different place in time. Glenn Douglas was there. He watched her run out and then stepped back through those doors and closed them behind her. A large, heavy beam slid into place to lock it. He turned and looked up at the dead body hanging from the rope and said a silent prayer for that poor man's soul.

"Hope you manage t'crawl yourself back from hell a second time, Charlie," he said as he loaded up his old six shooter with a few more rounds. He could hear Pearce stumbling around upstairs, becoming the monster he truly was. He could hear those coyotes whimpering in fear, men stepping away. Some were still down there with him, too scared to act.

Glenn killed them.

He stepped under the hanging body and counted the seconds between flashes of lightning and furious thunder.

"Pearce, you sorry sack of sh*t. Get that ugly face down here so I can blast it off one last time. Been too long since I put you down!" he called up with a madman's laugh. That snakeskin was creeping up over his jaw, winding through his veins. He could feel it boiling in his blood, the poison. It was crippling.

All along the walls were cracks and lines, dark and faint and reaching ever upwards. They seemed to grow with each crash of thunder.

Something dark and oppressive loomed overhead, leaning past those beams. It had three heads. He shot at each one but it just snarled and hissed and leapt through the air. Just as it did he loaded up that last bullet and the beast came tumbling down. He put the gun to his temple and his lips moved in silence. Time seemed to slow as Pearce came down upon him, the monsters heavy body sent him collapsing. He pulled the trigger.

Lightning flashed and thunder boomed an instant later and the whole tower shook. The dust came pouring down like streams of water and through the ground level windows came a sudden torrential burst. Waves kicked the feet out from under the Hexx and sent them sliding across the floor. The walls began to crumble and the bell sounded in uneven, frantic bursts like it was crying out for help.

?You play nice now, ma?am, and I won?t have to put a bullet in you. God knows we don?t want that, do we??

The beast looked up as it towered over Glenn's sprawled out and broken body. The sound that it made was something fearful, terrified.

?You have a face that makes me think twice about taking everything out from under you, but a man has to make a living the only way he knows how, don?t he? You understand. Right, sweetheart??

"I got you now, you son of a b*tch," Glenn sneered weakly up at Pearce. Blood leaked from his head, he shouldn't be alive anymore. But here reality wasn't what it seemed. It was broken.

"What'd you do, boy?" the beast asked in three different voices, each of them terrified. Above him the bell came crashing down. It moved slow, but Glenn knew that it would kill them both in the end.

?Some places are just aching to be broken into. It looked boring, like you needed some excitement in your life. What do you say, Annie?? his grin returned, wicked and amused. ?You getting that thrill you need now? Or is there something else I can help you with??

Then the tower fell.