The last man to die by Ulric's hand fell to the wet dirt with a weighty 'thunk.' A startled look froze upon his face, and broken twigs protruded from his right side. Esmund's muscles shrank to their normal state and size, and the muted colors became vibrant as he looked around at the mayhem they had caused. Birds chattering songs soon filled the sky, raising the question of whether they had even stopped in the first place.
Esmund pulled his blood-drenched shirt away with a grimace and let it plop against his torso. He muttered a curse and turned his attention to the mutilated dead men. "Why do these situations always happen when there isn't a river or lake nearby?"
Ulric grinned wide, the first genuine smile Esmund had seen on his brother's face for a week. "I'm pretty sure you ask that every time."
"That's because every time we get into these situations, there's nowhere close by to wash up."
"I'll be sure to plan the next one near a river, just for you."
Letting out a heavy sigh, Esmund turned his attention to the dead men. "We should probably figure out if they were McCreedy gang members or just a bunch of idiots causing trouble."
"Let's just say they're idiots and leave it at that," Ulric murmured, walking up to the first corpse. He rolled the body onto its back with a nudge of his toe and curled his lips in disgust. "This one's Gus Huckleberry. I'd recognize his face anywhere."
A short burst of laughter escaped Esmund. "No, you wouldn't. He's so ugly that his face is never used on his wanted posters."
Ulric snorted and settled his hands on his hips. "True, but we ran into him three or four months ago in Boulder Lake. I'm pretty sure he got this scar on his cheek after getting too physical with those two doves."
Esmund's brow creased for a moment, smoothing when he grinned and said, "How did I forget about Tildy?" He waggled his eyebrows as he said, "She tried to compromise me three times after my show of muscle, you know—she might have even succeeded if my self-control wasn't as mighty as Zeus. Who was the other one?"
Ulric smirked, "Starlicia Moonshine. Makes you wonder how she came up with that name."
"Why didn't we arrest him?"
"I think by the time we figured out who he was," Ulric said with a shrug of his left shoulder as he moved to the next body, "he'd already skedaddled out of town."
They searched the other six bodies and were able to identify four more as McCreedy gang members without too much difficulty. Still, the damage was too excessive to the remaining two faces, so they looked for other distinguishing features.
Esmund knelt and began searching through bloody coat pockets, grumbling when he found nothing. Seconds later, he smiled as he pushed the outlaw's sleeves up to the elbow. Esmund whistled to Ulric and held the outlaw's right wrist up to show the birthmark resembling a strawberry. "Isn't it Cock-eyed Bart who has this?"
"Yep," Ulric grunted as he stood and pointed to the corpse he'd been searching. "And this one's Two-fingered Liam." Suddenly, his brow creased, and he turned in a slow circle, tilting his head to the side. "Do you hear that?"
Esmund frowned and listened. It sounded like a wounded animal crying out in pain. He turned in a slow circle as he tried to discern the direction of the noise.
"Eeoourphue...ungh...oh no, my dress!"
"Is that Elsie?" His eyes widened, and he took a few steps toward where they'd left her. "I can't believe we forgot all about her."
"I can. These last ten minutes have been the most peaceful out of the past four hours of my day so far."
She groaned.
Esmund frowned in concern, "How are your doctoring skills? Any improvement since Gunnar broke his nose?"
Ulric grunted, "We both know after that little fiasco I possess no doctoring skills."
"You're just being modest. All I'm good for is a pat on the shoulder and a 'there, there.'" He quickened his pace to a jog.
Exhaling a long-suffering sigh, Ulric trotted alongside Esmund back to where the woman in question was struggling to sit up. She grumbled under her breath as she stood and dusted off her dress before she turned and faced them, settling her hands on her bony hips.
The bloodstain covered her entire middle around a large bullet wound, but she acted unharmed. Perhaps it was just a superficial flesh wound, not something serious, as he had first believed.
"Those scoundrels, it was extremely rude of them to start shooting at us. What if we had been their friends? How typical of men to shoot first and then apologize—not that they could apologize now that you've killed them, which further proves my point, I believe."
Only six feet separated them, close enough for Esmund to stare in disbelief at the wound. He walked closer and bent low, blinking several times. What he saw didn't make sense.
It was physically impossible.
Except the proof was staring him in the face. A misshapen but otherwise round hole marked the spot where multiple bullets had entered, blazed a clean path through her clothing and body, and exited.
Sunlight streamed through the hole as though to proclaim its unnatural presence and laugh at his confusion.
Esmund stood to his full height of six foot three and looked from her face down to the hole and back up again to meet her gaze. "I don't want to cause you any alarm..." he glanced back down at the ray of sunlight piercing through her body and looked at Ulric, "Are you seeing this?"
Ulric nodded and turned a suspicious eye on Elsie. "What are you?"
Elsie blinked and frowned at Ulric. "Excuse me? What do you mean 'what are you'?" She looked at Esmund and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Well, I'll put it this way." Esmund pursed his lips and rested his hands on his hips. "You may want to avoid bodies of water for the foreseeable future, or at least until you won't have to worry about getting waterlogged and sinking."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
He motioned to the wound, "I should think it was rather obvious."
She shook her head. "I don't think it is; otherwise, I wouldn't have asked."
Esmund scratched his head and blew out a breath. Was he too subtle? "You have a damn hole in your body, lady..." He glanced at Ulric, who shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest as he frowned at Elsie. Esmund continued, "You have a hole where you shouldn't have a hole—where you didn't have a hole until being shot just now, and it's in a location I'm certain should have killed you." He motioned to her middle. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but generally, when you can see sunlight piercing through a person's body, it's considered bad."
She frowned and tilted her head to see. "Oh, that," Elsie clucked her tongue and waved away his concern. "Don't worry about that. It happens; the good news is that getting shot only hurts initially. By morning, you'll never be able to tell it happened—well, except for the hole in my dress, I suppose, but physically speaking, there won't be a mark left for you to see. Not that you'll be seeing any part of me because I'll be properly clothed, of course."
"It happens?" Esmund repeated dumbly. Was he the only one who believed this situation was alarming? "Are you saying this has happened before?"
Elsie swallowed and gave a hesitant nod. "Yes, but only once before...of course, it would depend on if you counted the events where I've found myself in this type of situation or if you're only counting the bullet wounds in both that instance and this one. In which case, it could be—" She snapped her mouth closed and stared at them with wide eyes before she whispered, "More."
Esmund glanced at the wound and back to her face as Ulric repeated his earlier question, "What are you?"
She covered the hole in her stomach with her hand and backed away, "I don't care for your tone, mister, and I certainly don't know what you're talking about."
Ulric quirked a brow and stepped forward, "I don't give a flying fig if you like my tone, missy. The fact remains you should be dead—or dying at the very least, not carrying on a conversation as though nothing was wrong."
"You're very rude! Nothing is wrong...I just explained I'm perfectly fine and in no pain whatsoever, not even a little bit. Although now I think of it, I do feel a bit of a draft, but I think that should be expected, what with my ruined dress...not that it was very warm, to begin with, but it does beat being practically nak—" she snapped her mouth shut and looked away.
Esmund frowned. He was quiet for a minute before turning to Ulric. "Two years ago, Mike McMurtrey told me a tale I was certain he had made up about a woman he'd come across. He said she was a 'feminafeles' or something." He stared at the hole, "She'd been shot six times by an angry husband, but minutes later stood up and walked to the sheriff's office and had the husband arrested for attempted murder."
Ulric and Esmund stared at Elsie; fear darkened her eyes and blood drained from her face.
Elsie gave a weak attempt at a smile and shrugged her shoulders. "I did tell you this has happened before, although I should mention it was my uncle, not my husband, who shot me. I've never been married, but not for lack of trying on my uncle's part. It's what led to him trying to kill me in the first place, if you must know."
"I don't blame him," Ulric muttered under his breath.
Esmund stared at her, a mixture of fascination, horror, and shock warring within him. How was such a thing even possible? Was she even real?
He must have spoken his question aloud because Elsie heaved a deep sigh, "Don't you think the same could be asked of how Berserkers are possible? My mother warned me this might happen if I was what she thought I might be and wasn't careful. Although she never mentioned this exact situation—how could she? It wasn't as if she could see the future like Ingrid—but now it's happened, and they'll kill poor, poor Piper because I've thoroughly ruined everything by getting shot and not dying as a normal person would have done."
Ulric grabbed Elsie by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. "What the hell are you?"
She gulped and looked to Esmund for help as she tore away from Ulric. "I'm simply me. I don't know what else to tell you because I've always been this way. At least I think I have," she shrugged, "No one's ever shot me in the stomach before—well, other than the previous time, which we've already touched upon. But that was higher up, more in the chest, and as I said, there were more bullets, so—"
"What's a 'feminafeles'?" Ulric interrupted as he studied her.
Elsie swallowed. "I don't know. This is the first I've ever heard that particular word. My mother used to tell me stories about women in our family centuries ago who had the unnatural ability to die and come back to life nine times. Technically, I suppose it would be dying eight times and coming back to life nine times because the ninth death doesn't technically count, you see. "
Esmund frowned and pursed his lips. "Why? What happened after the ninth death?"
"Well, no one ever survived the ninth death."
"Like a cat?" Ulric said, raising a brow. "Aren't they rumored to have nine lives?"
Her eyes widened and brightened as she smiled, "Yes, exactly like a cat. I think my mother referred to them as 'Femina Feles,' which I believe means 'cat women,' but those were stories meant to capture a young child's imagination because my mother said it was a trait rumored to have died out a long time ago."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Esmund murmured.
Elsie's lips stretched in an awkward smile as she clutched her hands at her waist, covering the bullet wound, and looked around. "Where did those silly horses run off to? Oh, there they are, right over there. They look lonely..." Her words trailed off as she walked toward Frisky, Toots, and Chester, standing forty feet away.
Ulric's narrowed gaze met Esmund. "I know a quick way to know for sure if she's one of these 'femin afeles,' which would also give us some quiet."
"You're saying it wrong," Esmund snorted. "And in any event, we're not going to kill her, Ulric."
"But, we'd know what she was if we did, and I know how much you hate unsolved mysteries."
"True," Esmund said with a grin. "However, she might not appreciate our method of deduction."
"You never like my ideas." Ulric gave a short whistle for Toots as he turned to Esmund with a look of irritation. "Let's get out of here. The sooner we find her friend, the sooner we can get rid of Miss Feminafeles, or however you say it."
Esmund laughed and whistled Frisky over, watching Elsie trying to haul herself up into the saddle on Chester. "I've never seen you this anxious over a woman before—this wouldn't be some cleaver ploy of yours to distract me away from ulterior motives you have where Elsie's concerned?"
"You got me," Ulric said with a cynical twist to his lips. "I'm fighting against the urge to unleash my Berserker and discover if I can claim her as my true mate."
"What should we do about the bodies? Leave them here and gather them on our way back, or try to round up a few of their horses and bring them with us?"
Ulric appeared to mull the question over for a few seconds before he shrugged and settled his hands on his hips. "There's a chance if we leave them, nothing will remain but bones, and we won't be able to collect the reward."
Esmund nodded sagely, "True, but their smell might ruin any chance we have for a surprise when we catch up with the remaining McCreedys."
A wicked glint came to Ulric's eye, "Their smell could also buy us some precious quiet time from a certain cat lady in our company. I vote we bring them along and worry about any problems they pose later."
Esmund's answer spilled from his lips with a giddiness that surprised him, "Go get your tarps. I'll get mine."
Ulric's bark of laughter filled the air as he jogged the remaining distance to Toots and removed the roll of canvas tarps behind his saddle. Esmund tossed his three tarps to Ulric before he set about locating the dead men's horses.
Scattered twenty feet from where the men lay dead, there were four horses—two dun mares, one dark bay gelding, and a buckskin mare tied to three different trees. They munched on grass and watched Esmund with unconcerned eyes as he approached them, giving no resistance when he took their reins in hand. Ulric had made short work of wrapping up each corpse when Esmund led the horses over to him.
Elsie finally succeeded in mounting and straightening her skirts before taking up the reins and nudging her mount over while the men loaded the seven mutilated remains onto the new horses' backs and tied a lead to Esmund's saddle.
She gave the corpses a wide berth before coming to a stop in front of Esmund and Ulric as they finished tying the last body on the pile. "Do you suppose they reek because they're dead, or is it due to poor hygiene while they were alive? I'm inclined to believe it's a combination of both, although if that's the case, I am surprised bodies would begin to smell so quickly after becoming dead."
Ulric closed his eyes and muttered several curses under his breath before he vaulted onto Toot's back. Waiting only long enough for Esmund to mount, Ulric resumed his previous position in scouting out the trail, leaving Esmund to fend for himself with Elsie.