Free Dust of the Damned (9781101554005) by Peter Brandvold

the two human-shaped shadows moving among a few mesquites and desert willows.
    About fifty yards away from Angel’s position, she realized they had to be part of Rafael Ortiz’s band, who’d been robbing banks and raiding ranches throughout Colorado Territory for months. The living demons, who could occasionally pass themselves off as humans despite their long noses and close-set eyes and the fact that they were no more human than a rattlesnake, which made them particularly hard to run down, had left clear signs south of Leadville. Some said the hobgobbies were theoffspring of the Devil himself, and Angel, who’d had plenty of experience with the wretched vermin, had found no reason to contradict the theory.
    There they’d robbed the second bank in their monthlong raid, after enjoying a show at the opera house, oddly enough. Judging by their southward bearing, they were probably intending on returning to Mexico, where the devils were welcome if they had pocket jingle, and if they limited their desecrations to the Apaches and relatively defenseless peons, both a bane to the current Mexican government. Also, the Mexicans were more tolerant of hobgobbies because they were natural enemies of the werebeasts that were as nettling south of the border as north of it, and they were more effective than Mexican bounty hunters at thinning the renegade packs.
    Angel had tracked them along with her partner, Deputy Dwight Curry, who had been gunned down six days ago. Angel and Curry had been so intent on the hobgobbies’ trail that they’d made the mistake of not keeping a close eye on their own backtrails, and several of the band had swung back and flanked them, killing Curry but not before he’d taken out one of the devils and wounded one other. Angel had dispatched the other two before burying Curry and getting back after the main band comprised of the remaining five riders, heading as due south as possible in this demon’s playground of towering ridges, slanting mesas, and the maze-like, rocky, snake-infested slashes of canyons.
    Angel Coffin had been a deputy U.S. marshal for six years and was as respected as any of the men in a profession that, since the War, did not discriminate against women because, due to the depredations of the ghouls, women outnumbered men onthe frontier nearly two to one. There simply weren’t enough men any longer to fill all the traditional male occupations, which gave women the opportunity to fill them. Angel had honed her skills and was confident, though not overly so, that she could handle the Ortiz bunch well enough solo.
    Still, she didn’t like that moon coming up. Not only was it too damn bright, but she should have known better than to night hunt during a full moon when anyone with any sense was holed up in a werewolf-proof cabin. She’d been so eager to run Ortiz’s bunch down, however, that she’d lost track of the lunar calendar—an embarrassing, tinhorn mistake that was too damned dangerous to make twice.
    Ortiz was out here, though. Maybe he knew something about the hunting habits of the wolf packs in this area. Maybe the werewolves were sticking close to their home country again and dining mostly on Indians, wild horses, and ranch cattle.
    Just thinking about one of those spooks getting on her scent out here made Angel shudder—something she took pride in rarely doing. The deputy marshal was no hothouse flower, but even a man like the notorious Uriah Zane, her sometime lover and trail partner—a moody loner who hunted the devils for a living—shied from the thought of a pack of the howling hordes cutting his trail. Werewolves were hardly ever outrun or dissuaded. In fact, Angel had never heard of anyone surviving a werewolf attack unless they were somehow able to make it to a stout-walled shelter with a wolf-proof, iron-banded door.
    The deputy marshal pressed her tongue to her lower lip as she peered over the rocks to her left, trying to get a fix on whoever was over there.