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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 3604830" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter One-hundred-seventy-three, “One More Vampire”, Thursday, June 15th, 6:15 P.M. The dynamite shed exploding has the entire town rock with the equivalency of a major earthquake, causing glassware and ceramic pottery to fall from shelves and break throughout the community. The shed itself disintegrates into smaller pieces of brick and mortar which along with several tons of dirt and gravel from what had been the eastern end of Silverbell Hill rain down over a quarter-mile radius. Glass in nine out of every ten southbound facing windows becomes either broken or shattered due to raining debris, as do seven out of every ten westbound facing windows on the eastern two-thirds of town. Silverbell Hill takes on a new shape, with the mine shafts and tunnels of the Breakheart Mine taking considerable damage. The timing of the blast was fortunate, as the miners were leaving for the day as it went off, with the only serious injury coming to Shamus O'Hara who sustains a broken collarbone and arm from a falling support beam near the entrance. Atop the hill the Breakheart Stamping Mill and Smelter take considerable damage as well, with the building being pushed back from it's foundation due to the shifting earth below. Quick action by supervisor Boston Harker has the 'Emergency Stop's switch thrown, shutting down all machinery and preventing permanent damage to most of the machinery. Outside, the water pipes providing water to the building fall off their moorings although the cutting of power prevents the pumps from drawing more water, thus averting a flood. In the nearby Boot Hill cemetery three dozen grave stones and markers fall over. To the east, the shaft and corridor supports at the Lucky Deuce mine completely give way. Thankfully to three owners and workers had stopped working five minutes earlier when the fireball had struck their hill, heading up to investigate. They were at the doorway of the minehead when the explosion occurred, sustaining only minor injuries other than the outcome of death had they still been below. With the storage shed's wooden doorway gone the brunt of the flaming explosion had flowed eastward, obliterating the wooden outhouse and two-story home that had belonged to Sam Slade who was thankfully still working at his store two blocks to the north. The five closest buildings also take considerable damage. The southern wall of the wooden Liberty Party Headquarters is pummeled by debris, with the man who was standing just outside the doorway being fatally speared through the chest by a jagged board that had been part of the wooden outhouse ten feet away. Part of the southern wall of the building falls in, knocking over tables, chairs and a large stuffed bear inside and leaving part of the second floor exposed. At the corner of the building Jake Cook is stuck by rocks and brick fragments. Hamilton Fisk's house is made of brick and remains standing although the south door and south and east windows are all blown in. Chester, Kate, Minerva, Tomlinson and Nakomo all loose their footing and fall down. The building partially protects Ray Singer's wooden house east of it, although the building's tin roof is blown off. Hamilton Fisk's wooden storage shed behind it is flattened, revealing it filled with wooden furniture most of which becomes broken as well. Further east Ruby Baines brick butcher shop, house and smokehouse remain relatively undamaged. Elsewhere throughout the town over one-hundred people are injured by either flying debris of flying glass. For the next hour Doctor Eaton, Father Valdez and Mother Jiminez will be busy treating injuries sustained, almost all of them thankfully minor. The two more serious injuries are those sustained by Billy Glass of Wells Fargo who gets a broken leg when a horse that he was tending falls onto him and town blacksmith Henry Weller who receives burns to his leg when a forge full of hot coals falls over. The only other serious injuries come to the pair caught inside of the explosion. Immediately prior to the explosion the wizard named Vaughn Palmer had attempted to stand again to run but his attempts to heal the leg had failed and he only got two more steps before collapsing again. His world then came to an abrupt end as his body was ripped to shreds by the explosion, leaving no evidence of his existence behind smaller than a dime-sized bone fragment. The other one caught in the immediacy of the explosion is Wyatt Earp, still clutching inside his hand the enchanted artifact that prevented bodily harm to him.   However, he was still impacted by the combination of the ground beneath his feet disintegrating and a force the equivalent of a one-hundred miles-an-hour freight train striking him. The former Town Marshal is lifted up into the air and flung back 125 feet to the northeast, his forward momentum stopping as he strikes the bricks of the second-floor of Rudy Baines's home. The magical artifact prevents bodily harm from the impact but the suddenness of the stop has the involuntary reaction of him opening his hand and the object falling from it. Earp falls fifteen feet to the ground, striking hard and falling into unconsciousness due to the injuries sustained from the fall.As she was thrown to the ground Kate covered her head with her hands and scrunched up her knees, trying to make as small a target as possible.  Her ears were ringing from the sound, so when she stopped hearing glass falling she lifted up her head to see the others were alright. On the floor but unharmed. She slowly pushed herself up and moved to the door to look for Jake.Immediately before the blast Jake had turned fast in an attempt to shoot the man coming out the door before he can get his rifle aimed at him and instead is thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion. Bleeding in any number of places and bruised in twice as many he staggers to his feet.  "Mierde," he states simply. He coughs up a trace of blood, "I believe, cough, cough, that I got him." He bends and picks up his treasured Colt, blows the dirt off it and sets it in the holster. He limps to the back of Fisk's house, throws himself back on the ground, and surveys the wreckage of the Liberty Party headquarters.   Inside the building, Chester collapses to the ground from the force of the blast. He says, "Oof," as the wind gets knocked out of him. He shakes his head to clear it, then calls out. What in blazes just happened? Is everyone OK?" The deputy crawls to his prisoners to check on them, then gets to his feet.A crater where the dynamite shed used to be that is forty feet in diameter and twenty feet deep in the center stands an answer to Chester's question. Elsewhere throughout town hundreds of other begin asking themselves the same question and heading outside to investigate.   By the gods!, "It sounds like the gates of Hades have been blown wide open!!" Minerva shouts as she leaps to her feet and runs to the window. Her mouth drops open when she see's the smoldering crater.   "Meirde!" is all she says. Before running down the stairs past Chester and into the street in search of Jake.   Nakomo also rushes down the stairs. "Chester, is everyone here o.k? We have to find out what happened to the other creature!"   Chester rubs his head and looks around. "Yeah. We're OK. Just a couple bumps and bruises. How are you and Minerva?"   Nakomo replies, "We're much the same." Kate pretended she hadn't seen Jake flop himself down close to Fisk's house and ran out to kneel next to him. "How bad are you hurt? What in Hades happened?"    Jake answers Kate “"I have been hurt worse, just not in so many places at the same time." He cracks a smile and winces. He removes his Colt and begins emptying spent shells and loading it with normal rounds from his belt. "Slade's dynamite shack exploded. Right after I shot at Madson-Vaughn Palmer a fireball exploded nearby and blew the door to the shed open." He shrugs and winces again. "I thought I had a little more time before it went off after I saw the door blown in. Guess I was wrong. I could have that many bricks thrown at me again today and survive. However, I am fortunate that there is only one dynamite shack in town."   With a groan he gets back to his feet. He is covered in dust and dirt, clothes torn in several places, traces of blood escaping in most of those places and a few others. Though he still has his hat. "Hard to imagine that either Palmer or Earp survived." He coughs and wipes his lips with a sleeve. "The whole damn town will be here shortly," Jake is saying as the others emerge from Fisk's house. "We need to move fast if we want to get at the last vampire before town folk arrive. Daylight is failing too. Nakomo, could you run and fetch my damaged pistol before we leave? It has sentimental value for me." No leaving any unnecessary evidence behind. "We have dealt with most, if not all, of the Cowboy gang that were standing between us and the vampire in that building. Chet should get those prisoners out of Fisk's house and off to jail somehow. The rest of us good Samaritans should move quickly and search the Liberty building for survivors from this terrible event." Jake winks. "I will live, but I am hurt and mostly out of ammo that can harm one of those creatures. I would be hesitant to use anything explosive in that building given its current state." He wipes some grime from his face. "I will be with you all and will keep you from ordinary trouble, but I am afraid someone else needs to put an end to Mortimer Turner."  He accepts his badly charred pistol from Nakomo, and with a look of some sadness places it in his left side holster. Looking tired and sore he forces a bright smile to his face. "This is what we came to do. Just one more to go.""Hold up a second." Nakomo says to Jake and places his hand on him to heal some of the wounds. The Indian says, "There, that should help a little. Let's go."     Minerva rounds the corner as Nakomo is healing Jake. She nods her approval to her apprentice and the group makes their way to the Liberty head quarters. "I know you would like to take care of Turner yourself after what was done to Ruby. If you would like me to, I could heal you more and offer some protection from him.""I would?" Jake stops and looks dumbfounded. Recovering he says, "No, I do not want any of the glory. He is not even the same Turner. I will be satisfied regardless of who gets to end his menace." Jake looks a bit sheepish. "Really." He coughs and wipes a faint trace of blood of his lips. "Besides those stakes give me splinters."  "I did not believe glory to be your motivation. It certainly isn't mine. But never mind. "she shrugs her shoulders. "I will do it myself. I am not afraid of a few splinters and will revel in the moment of his destruction." she says and walks on toward the headquarters.Kate stayed with the others, unsure she should even be entering this building. She hurried next to Kevin Tomlinson and tried not to think about the consequences of all this chaos.  Tomlinson says, "Mr. Cook is correct, we should go in now while we can still use the excuse of searching for survivors. This building will be out of the direct sunlight in another twenty minutes or so, after which time our foe will be able to leave on his own. Deputy Martin, bring those two prisoners out and turn them over to whichever of your law associates arrives first then stay by the back door in case we need you."  Chester replies, “OK, Tomlinson. Don't you get into too much trouble without me." Chester half-drags the two men outside. "Revel away," Jake bows follows behind Minerva into the damaged building. On the way he scouts for another serviceable rifle or pistol one of the gang may have dropped.  “Jake, you said you're almost out of ammunition?" Kate handed him the pistol she'd picked up. "It's Moore's. It's either magical or there is magical ammunition in it."   He says, “Thanks. Out of magical rounds, I have plenty of regular rounds." He tucks it in his belt. "I will attempt to have a care with it, not knowing what I am firing for rounds."   She looked around the building. "Are there still stairs up somewhere?"   The first floor has overturned chairs, tables and the large stuffed bear strewn about all over the floor, as well as large quantities of dirt, rubble, brick pieces, mortar pieces and splintered parts of wood that had previously been part of the south wall. The staircase up to the second floor looks to be relatively intact although the railing post at the bottom is damaged.   Jake cautiously leads them up the stairs, testing each one for soundness as he goes.  Kate started carefully up the stairs. "I can't imagine he was resting here on the first floor."The staircase ends in the center of the east wall of the second floor with a hallway down the center to the left wall. There are four shut doors along the hallway, two on the right and two on the left. Those to the left would be along the south wall, where several of the clapboards are now missing, letting in the remaining light of the setting sun.  She states, "Let's try the southern rooms first. Maybe we'll get lucky." Kate firmed up her grip on the wand, the only defense she now had.The first door is locked. The next one is not, and opens into a room with three double-bunk beds. There are hooks on the wall, one with a longcoat, on the floor in the corner are two more longcoats and five hats, apparently blown off the hooks by the blast. There are wooden boxes on the floor near the base of each bunk bed, each of which has minor personal belongings such as socks, dice, cards, loose change, handkerchiefs, matches and cigarettes.  A few loose clapboards on the wall to the other southern room are down and they see it is a room similar to his but with two double-bunks instead of three. That room also has no casket or any furniture large enough to conceal a body.Kate says, "Well, we won't have to put a vampire down in full view of the entire town." Kate kept to the back of the group as they moved to the right hand doors. "We'll want to get the windows open."   Both doors on that side are locked. Tomlinson says, "It is too bad we don't have John Harbrace with us now, he has skills with lockpicking."   Jake replies, "I have none. Unless I can talk it open, or challenge it to some poker where the loser opens up, we are going to have to make some noise." Jake listens to each door in turn.Kate says, "I'm out of tricks. It's brute force this time."   Minerva looks at Kate in puzzlement. "You can't make this open? Hmmm. It could be trapped." She turns to Nakomo, Before we waste our time kicking in the wrong door, perhaps you could ask the gods for a little assistance in determining which is the correct one."  Nakomo steps forward and focusing on the doors, he prays.   As Nakomo tried to sense the creature's presence, Kate explained, "I've exhausted my magical energies. Right now I couldn't light a candle magically without an item of some kind." Nakomo senses the door to the left (west) has a concentration of evil behind it.Outside, Berg arrives on the scene with Jeff Mills and some of the fire brigade.  Berg asks, "What in blazes happened out here, Deputy?" He looks at the crater. "Slade's shed blew up again? And who are these men?"   Chester says, "This here's Elmer Koontz, wanted for robbing Condon's Bank last January. Mad Dog Moore was helping Elmer hide out in Fisk's house." The newspaperman Chumbley is nearby and hears Chester's summary while taking vigorous notes in his notebook.   Marshall Berg tells Chet to keep an eye on the prisioners as he heads up Silverbell Hill to inspect the damage to the stamping mill, smelter and mine and make sure there are no serious injuries there.   Chester replies, "Yes, sir. Looks like Liberty Party headquarters didn't make out so good." Jeff Mills and his fire company put out the buring blankets and curtains that had been previously thrown out the windows of Fisk's house as well as small brush fires caused by the previous fireball.   A small crowd has gathered further west down by Baines Butcher Shop. Chester sees the members of Arcade's Gang over there. Marshal candidate Hank Hill notices Chet and starts to head over in his direction.   Deputy Marshall Chester looks down at the prisoners to note where they are, then he looks up at Hank and waves. "Coming out for all the excitement, Hank?"  Hank says "Yep, I hear that Sam Slade was careless with his dynamite again. Looks like this building took quite a beating. You have things under control over here?"Chester nods. "Something like that. He's going to have to store that stuff outside of town from now on. That's twice this year." He nudges the unconscious Koontz with his foot. "These two aren't giving me any problems. Looks like the Liberty Party is having some problems, losing their house and all.”   Hank kneals down and looks closer at the three dead bodies near the door, recognizing one as Marshall candidate Charlie Villars and another as council candidate Porter Norris. "These guys weren't killed by the dynamite, those are gunshot wounds. Looks like Earp decided to take out the Liberty Party. I wonder if he was the one who blew up the shed to try to cover up his handiwork?"   "Hard to say. I was inside when the shed went up. If Earp did this and he's still around, the other Liberty Party guys should stay out of sight." Chester thinks to himself “Jake must have seen Earp back there. This vendetta of his has got to stop. Sooner or later he's going to kill an innocent man.”Hank tells Chester, "Oh Earp is around, my friends have him. I'll bring him over to the jail right now."  Chester does a double-take. "They... what? Uh, yeah, bring him by. I'm going to take these two in now." Chester hauls Moore to his feet. He slaps Koontz in the face. "Let's go, you two. Time to go."</blockquote>

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