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Scryer's Gulch

Episode 15: What's in Its Pocketses

Scryer's Gulch

Annabelle opened her eyes to a scratching at the bedroom window. How had she ended up sitting on the bed? She held the codebook in one hand, and a letter in the other. Someone had lit the lanterns against the night, and the coal fire burned in the little sitting room stove. She must have fallen asleep, but apart from where she sat, the bed was undisturbed. A chill struck her.

Episode 14: Waste Not the Hour | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

From the front window of the Hotel LeFay, Anthony Bonham watched Miss Duniway and John Runnels exchange pleasantries. He knew the look on the man's face; Miss Duniway had fallen afoul of the Sheriff's crime-fighting instincts. What could he suspect the schoolteacher of, besides being beautiful, and that was no suspicion. Outwardly, Tony eyed her dispassionately. But within him, he formulated plans. A young woman, all alone in a town like this--she was bound to be lonely. He could use that.

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Episode 13: Messages | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

The wretched Rabbit woke up at dawn inside the wire cage, naked and shivering. "John?" he called weakly.

"Sheriff's asleepin," said Aloysius. "Hey! Runnels! Wake up! Yer brother's lost his fur!"

John scrambled up from his cot, instantly awake. "Sorry, Rab, sorry! I'm coming." He opened the latch on the cage and helped Rabbit to stand; he wrapped his brother in the still-warm blanket from the cot. "Are you all right?"

"Did I scratch or bite?" said Rabbit. "I'm so afraid I'm going to bite you some day, Johnny--if I ever brought this on you, I'd throw myself in the river!"

Episode 12: Creature of the Night, Pistol on the Right | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

John rushed to his brother's side, whipping off the bandanna around his neck. To Annabelle's astonishment, he stuffed it in the deputy's mouth and guided the gagged and sobbing man gently to the floor. "It hurts, Miss Duniway, and he screams a lot," said John. "I'm here, Rab, I won't let go, I promise!"

"'M srry!" whimpered Rabbit around the bandanna.

"Not your fault!" said John.

"What's happening, Sheriff Runnels?" demanded Annabelle. "Should I be going for the doctor?"

Episode 11: Moonrise | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

In Mamzelle's boudoir, the madam and the cat were still embroiled in their murderous heart-to-heart. "But I do not understand, chéri," she said. "Why would you not wish me to keel your master?"

"Two reasons," Misi answered loftily. "For one, I can't reciprocate. You'd have to maneuver your master into a situation where he became a direct threat to my master."

Mamzelle laughed. "You underestimate me."

"Oh, I doubt that. But for me the more important reason is the second. If anyone kills my master, it's going to be me," he growled. "I've been plotting it for eight years, and no one is going to deny me that pleasure."

Episode 10: A Jailbird | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

The door of Simon's ethergraph office banged open, and a breathless Georgie stampeded in. "Simon! Can I hide here?"

"What have you done now? Close the door, madcap!"

The door banged shut. "Nothin--well, they think I've done somethin, but I haven't, I swear I haven't!"

Episode 9: Rabbit's Time of the Month | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

Misi had almost fallen asleep in Mamzelle’s lap, when she said, “Well?”

“Well what?” yawned the demon cat.

“‘Ow are we going to keel our masters?”

“Ah. That. Yes.” Think fast, old boy. “Yes. There’s a problem with that.”

“Eh?”

“I’m under orders...general orders...not to kill humans.” It’s even true! he thought, though it hurt his pride to confess to such a weakness. It’s so humilitating, being owned!

“Any human?” said Mamzelle in astonishment.

Episode 8: Plots | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

Annabelle felt the same tingle at her wrist the next day when Georgie and Jamie entered the schoolroom together. Jamie's grim face and Georgie's flushed one told her the boys had been arguing.

When it came time for the children to go home to lunch, she asked Georgie to stay behind. "I don't know anything about it!" he blurted as soon as the other children were gone.

"Don't know anything about what, Georgie?" she said, narrowing her eyes.

"The school, miss. That's why you wanted to talk to me, weren't it?"

"'Wasn't it,' Georgie, and no, that's not why I wanted to talk to you. But as long as we're on the subject, what is it about the school that you don't know?"

Episode 7: An Accusation | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

As soon as they entered, Annabelle's bracelet pricked at her wrist; she hid her surprise. "Children, please sit down. Little ones to the front, older ones to the back. I'll return in a moment."

"Wonder where she's going," she heard Georgie whisper to Jamie.

"Maybe she's gotta pee," said Harry Lockson. Georgie and Jamie guffawed. "But maybe she does!" Harry repeated in earnest concern.

Annabelle rolled her eyes, and walked quickly up and down the street, as if looking for errant pupils; her bracelet made not a tickle. The schoolhouse stood off to itself enough that she knew nothing came from a nearby building. No, it was in the schoolhouse, and it came from either Jamie or Georgie.

Episode 6: One-Way Cat Fight | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

While Misi stood on the windowsill at Hopewell's worrying about Annabelle, she herself was still visiting students. She'd met Jamie Runnels and the Prake twins, and the two children of L.L. Lockson, publisher of the Voice of the Gulch. Now she walked back up the boardwalk toward the great mansion on the hill to acquaint herself with Lily Bonham.

Just past Prake's Hardware, her detector bracelet buzzed and pricked at her wrist. She returned to the store, masking her excitement as she pretended to windowshop; the sensation faded. She strolled back up the street until the pricking became nearly unbearable: it came from the ethergraph office.

Episode 5: Most Honored Cat | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

Mamzelle stood on the second floor balcony of the Palace, sipping her afternoon cafe au lait as she watched the hurly-burly crowds below. More than a few men tipped their hats to her; she gave them a lazy wave of her elegant hand, and a curl of her cherry lips that at a distance could be taken as a sultry smile.

Before Jed Bonham enslaved her, she had only the disdain for humanity carried by all her kind. But now, she hated the men below her, and this town, with all her black cherry heart, and Jed most of all. The day she was free was the day she would kill them all and burn Scryer’s Gulch to the ground.

Episode 4: Detectors and Detectives | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

While Annabelle waited a day for the schoolhouse repairs, the best use of her time would be to visit her students in their homes, get a sense of them. That’s what a real schoolteacher would do, she decided the next morning, and it gave her a chance to scan for the anomalies she’d been sent to investigate without raising suspicion.

“What exactly are we looking for, anyway?” said Misi from a perch atop the wardrobe. “You might have said,” he added sulkily.

Annabelle looked up at the demon cat as she buttoned up her bodice. “Daniel asked me to wait as long as possible before telling anyone anything, including you.”

“Who’s Daniel?”

Episode 3: Near-Revelations | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

Agent Duniway was not one to swoon when confronted with a shock, but Annabelle decided Schoolteacher Duniway should feel a little faint at the sight of the vandalized schoolhouse. She staggered gently into Mr Prake, who caught her elbow with a concerned murmur. “There now! Do you carry smelling salts in your reticule?”

She never needed them, and so, unlike most respectable women, she didn’t even own any. “Oh dear...left them at the Hotel, sir!” she faltered. She made an immediate plan to find a vial somewhere, even if she had to order Misi to steal one.

Episode 2: Redeye Gravy and Fellow Travelers | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

It’s not that hermetauxite was unpleasant to a demon. Quite the opposite. Take catnip, thought Misi absently as he made his way unnoticed along the rooftops. When he was a cat, he found catnip nigh-on irresistible. He’d roll around, ecstatic and humiliated, in the little piles Annabelle would offer him. Hermetauxite was a thousand times more so; it took great force of will to resist it. All that kept demons from digging it out themselves and rolling around in it, so to speak, was that it made them vulnerable. If you were in a hermetauxite frenzy, and a nearby human had strong enough magic, boom, there you were, captured and enslaved. His mind went back, as it always did, to the trap Annabelle had set for him, how he’d howled and threatened as he tried to escape from her bonds until she’d said, “Be quiet!” and he found himself unable to utter a sound. Eight years of it. I’ll get free some day, and then I’ll kill her, he thought as he did every time he remembered that moment. Then a whiff of Annabelle’s scent came to him across the breeze, and he softened, as he always did. Maybe I’ll hold her captive for a while, roll around in her for a bit, and then I’ll kill her.

Episode 1: Annabelle Arrives | Scryer's Gulch

Scryer's Gulch

Annabelle found her rooms just as Hopewell had promised: a clean, modestly but decently appointed sitting room and bedroom, on the second floor of a little addition to the side of the building. Hopewell’s own apartment was on the ground floor, and her rooms were directly above. It was quiet, and private--perhaps not as private as she’d hoped the schoolhouse would be, but it would do. And there were measures she could take, after all. She thanked Hopewell, pressed some coins into Ralph’s hand for carrying her luggage into the bedroom, and closed the door.

Once alone, she carried the cat’s cage to the bedroom and put it on the bed. She took a pair of small, elegant goggles from a case in her breast pocket, and held them up to her face without bothering to strap them on. She scanned the rooms, looking under furniture, inside all the drawers, into all the corners, until she was satisfied the rooms were unobserved; she was unsuspected.

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