Crucible, by Nindulgence
Title: Crucible
Author: nindulgence
Characters: Samuel Colt
Summary: Thirteen pieces of silver.
Disclaimer: None of the following ever happened to the historical Samuel Colt.
Crucible
As midnight approached, Samuel laid the pistol to one side, cleared the centre of his worktable, and covered it with a plain, thrice-washed altar cloth, on which he set his crucible.
Loosening the silk ties of the hunter's black felt bag, Samuel reached inside and pulled out Emily Stanton's brooch.
It was plainer than most of the fashionable brooches designed to commemorate Halley's comet--just a sharp silver arc of a tail, with a pale moonstone set into the round head. Carefully, Samuel pried out the gem and circled the crucible with it three times.
He looked up to see yellow eyes burning in the darkness beyond the furnace.
"Nice place you've got here, Sammy," grinned the demon. "The atmosphere...why, I find it downright homey."
Samuel felt sweat beading on his skin from something other than the heat--but a quick glance at the floor showed his pentagram and salt lines unbroken.
Arms akimbo, the fiend was examining them too. "You've gone to a lot of trouble to keep me out, Sammy boy, and I'm stumped if I can tell why. You don't think I disapprove of your grand enterprise, do you? Your modern arms manufactory with its efficient machine-tooling of death?" It prowled the edge of the circle, gesticulating gleefully, orating like an actor. "On the contrary, Sam: I've always held that when a man gets a notion into his head to kill another man, it's only right that he should have the ability to shoot a half-dozen bullets into him with as little time as possible to think it over...so, you see, I'm mightily in favour of your clever revolving guns. I can't imagine why you'd think I'd interfere with you making one."
"Can't you?" said Samuel, resisting the impulse to reach out and cover the pistol with a protective hand. "Hell's minions not as up to trap as you'd have us believe?"
"Oh, snipsnap, Sammy," snorted the demon. "I know who commissioned that weapon from you and I know why. And what you need to know is that it won't work. You can carve as many pentagrams into it as you like, engrave it with a Bible's worth of Latin for all the effect it will have on me and my kind."
"Then why are you here?" asked Samuel. "Why are you shying round the edge of this circle, streaked as a cat before a thunderstorm? Why are you watching so intently to see what else I'll pull out of this bag?"
"You don't mean to say you have more gimcrack mementoes bundled in that poke? Have you been picking up pawnshop gewgaws, Sam? Did it feel odd to be on the buying end of the transaction for a change?"
"These aren't from pawnshops," said Samuel. Silently, he laid beside the brooch a silver thimble case, a silver whistle, the frames of two silver hairbrushes, a silver candlestick, a silver rosary, an intricate silver ring, a silver button, three silver christening spoons, and a silver locket.
"Oh, Sam," said the demon, shaking its head and sighing. "You have come down in the world. Sifting for trinkets in the ashes of respectable houses like a rag-and-bone man?"
"Some respectable houses," said Samuel. "A few not-so-respectable. Two orphanages. One lighthouse. One tipi."
"Trumpery souvenirs of people who simply weren't very important in the scheme of things. Not a speck of power in them."
"Not to your way of thinking, perhaps. But modern manufacturing, now--it assembles insignificant-looking parts into formidable wholes every day."
For just an instant, the demon looked taken aback. Samuel wondered, not for the first time, how old it really was.
"There's not a spell in existence can accomplish that."
"I'm an inventor. I'll invent one."
Reaching again for Emily Stanton's brooch, Samuel lifted it into the cold shaft of light angling down through a knothole in the roof overhead. "By this rare fire in heaven, I, Samuel Colt, craft singular vengeance for hell's cruel fires here on earth. Thirteen bullets for thirteen innocents--from bright silver and memory I make them--"
"What, no Latin?" mocked the fiend.
"Emily Stanton," said Samuel, placing the brooch into the crucible. He followed it with the thimble case, and the whistle. "Irina Kulkova. Mary Cruickshank."
"Magnificent lungs, Mary Cruickshank. So many steps she ran up that night to find me."
"Elizabeth Gilchrist. Helen Gilchrist," said Samuel, picking up the hairbrushes.
"They did everything together."
"Father Patrick Donnelly."
"Unfortunately conscientious. So many men of God would consider it charity enough simply to house the foundlings, but no, Father Patrick had always to be checking in on them at night when they cried."
"Katherine Hale. Pauline Little Thunder."
"Do you know how tricky it is to pin a woman to the roof of a tipi? Especially that one--what a termagant."
"Mary Greeley."
"You're including housemaids in this invocation? Really, Sam, this is getting ridiculous."
One by one, Samuel picked up the silver christening spoons and placed them in the crucible. "Mary Colt. Sarah Ann Colt. Margaret Colt."
The fiend fell silent, its brimstone gaze flickering from Samuel's face to the final piece of silver lying alone on the linen cloth.
Samuel's eyes were dry, his hands steady. He reached for the locket and held it aloft, bright argent white-lit by cometshine. "Sarah Caldwell Colt," he said, and glanced again at the demon.
But the demon was gone.
~~~
ETA: slightly edited.
~~~
Author: nindulgence
Characters: Samuel Colt
Summary: Thirteen pieces of silver.
Disclaimer: None of the following ever happened to the historical Samuel Colt.
Crucible
As midnight approached, Samuel laid the pistol to one side, cleared the centre of his worktable, and covered it with a plain, thrice-washed altar cloth, on which he set his crucible.
Loosening the silk ties of the hunter's black felt bag, Samuel reached inside and pulled out Emily Stanton's brooch.
It was plainer than most of the fashionable brooches designed to commemorate Halley's comet--just a sharp silver arc of a tail, with a pale moonstone set into the round head. Carefully, Samuel pried out the gem and circled the crucible with it three times.
He looked up to see yellow eyes burning in the darkness beyond the furnace.
"Nice place you've got here, Sammy," grinned the demon. "The atmosphere...why, I find it downright homey."
Samuel felt sweat beading on his skin from something other than the heat--but a quick glance at the floor showed his pentagram and salt lines unbroken.
Arms akimbo, the fiend was examining them too. "You've gone to a lot of trouble to keep me out, Sammy boy, and I'm stumped if I can tell why. You don't think I disapprove of your grand enterprise, do you? Your modern arms manufactory with its efficient machine-tooling of death?" It prowled the edge of the circle, gesticulating gleefully, orating like an actor. "On the contrary, Sam: I've always held that when a man gets a notion into his head to kill another man, it's only right that he should have the ability to shoot a half-dozen bullets into him with as little time as possible to think it over...so, you see, I'm mightily in favour of your clever revolving guns. I can't imagine why you'd think I'd interfere with you making one."
"Can't you?" said Samuel, resisting the impulse to reach out and cover the pistol with a protective hand. "Hell's minions not as up to trap as you'd have us believe?"
"Oh, snipsnap, Sammy," snorted the demon. "I know who commissioned that weapon from you and I know why. And what you need to know is that it won't work. You can carve as many pentagrams into it as you like, engrave it with a Bible's worth of Latin for all the effect it will have on me and my kind."
"Then why are you here?" asked Samuel. "Why are you shying round the edge of this circle, streaked as a cat before a thunderstorm? Why are you watching so intently to see what else I'll pull out of this bag?"
"You don't mean to say you have more gimcrack mementoes bundled in that poke? Have you been picking up pawnshop gewgaws, Sam? Did it feel odd to be on the buying end of the transaction for a change?"
"These aren't from pawnshops," said Samuel. Silently, he laid beside the brooch a silver thimble case, a silver whistle, the frames of two silver hairbrushes, a silver candlestick, a silver rosary, an intricate silver ring, a silver button, three silver christening spoons, and a silver locket.
"Oh, Sam," said the demon, shaking its head and sighing. "You have come down in the world. Sifting for trinkets in the ashes of respectable houses like a rag-and-bone man?"
"Some respectable houses," said Samuel. "A few not-so-respectable. Two orphanages. One lighthouse. One tipi."
"Trumpery souvenirs of people who simply weren't very important in the scheme of things. Not a speck of power in them."
"Not to your way of thinking, perhaps. But modern manufacturing, now--it assembles insignificant-looking parts into formidable wholes every day."
For just an instant, the demon looked taken aback. Samuel wondered, not for the first time, how old it really was.
"There's not a spell in existence can accomplish that."
"I'm an inventor. I'll invent one."
Reaching again for Emily Stanton's brooch, Samuel lifted it into the cold shaft of light angling down through a knothole in the roof overhead. "By this rare fire in heaven, I, Samuel Colt, craft singular vengeance for hell's cruel fires here on earth. Thirteen bullets for thirteen innocents--from bright silver and memory I make them--"
"What, no Latin?" mocked the fiend.
"Emily Stanton," said Samuel, placing the brooch into the crucible. He followed it with the thimble case, and the whistle. "Irina Kulkova. Mary Cruickshank."
"Magnificent lungs, Mary Cruickshank. So many steps she ran up that night to find me."
"Elizabeth Gilchrist. Helen Gilchrist," said Samuel, picking up the hairbrushes.
"They did everything together."
"Father Patrick Donnelly."
"Unfortunately conscientious. So many men of God would consider it charity enough simply to house the foundlings, but no, Father Patrick had always to be checking in on them at night when they cried."
"Katherine Hale. Pauline Little Thunder."
"Do you know how tricky it is to pin a woman to the roof of a tipi? Especially that one--what a termagant."
"Mary Greeley."
"You're including housemaids in this invocation? Really, Sam, this is getting ridiculous."
One by one, Samuel picked up the silver christening spoons and placed them in the crucible. "Mary Colt. Sarah Ann Colt. Margaret Colt."
The fiend fell silent, its brimstone gaze flickering from Samuel's face to the final piece of silver lying alone on the linen cloth.
Samuel's eyes were dry, his hands steady. He reached for the locket and held it aloft, bright argent white-lit by cometshine. "Sarah Caldwell Colt," he said, and glanced again at the demon.
But the demon was gone.
~~~
ETA: slightly edited.
~~~