I Travel by Night

by Robert McCammon

  McGuire cocked his head to one side, as if to get a better view of his visitor. “All right, what’s your business ought to stay your business…but I’m damned if I can figure out what this is about.”

  “I need to go to Nocturne.” Lawson was already reaching for the gold coins. “That’s all you have to know. I’ll return the boat when I can. I’d also like you to draw me a map of how to get there. I’ll pay extra for that. Oh…one other thing: the name of the young man who founded Nocturne. Would that name be Christian Melchoir?”

  “That’s right,” said McGuire. “How’d you know?”

  “I suspected. It seems Mr. Melchoir has an affinity for the place he created. He wants to give it..shall we say…a new life.” Lawson walked forward and placed the coins on the table. “One hour,” he said. “I thank you for your help.”

  “Thank me when you get back.”

  Lawson left that statement unanswered. He departed McGuire’s cabin and, walking warily with an eye to the shadows and his hands ready to draw his Colts, he returned to the boarding-house. It didn’t take him very long to get ready. He had what he needed, and what Father Deale had secured for him. Everything was in the saddlebags and he had two folded-up black window curtains. He would need these, if he was caught by the daylight out there. The thought didn’t disturb him too much; if he was contained by the sunlight, so would they also be. He left the boarding-house and returned to McGuire’s cabin, where the old logger who knew the punishment of God was waiting for him out front with a flaming torch. They walked together along the dock to where a few battered skiffs were tied up amid the larger workboats and barges, and McGuire pointed out the boat Lawson was to take. At its stern was a wooden socket where the torch could be placed. McGuire slid the torch in and put two oars in the oarlocks.

  He climbed back up on the dock. He looked out into the darkness. Behind them and at a distance, the fiddler was still playing at the Swamp Root. Lawson heard the laughter of men and women who lived in another world.

  “You sure you want to do this?” McGuire asked.

  “I’m sure I have to do it.” Lawson turned and scanned the vista of the dirty little town at his back. He was being watched; he was certain of it. Maybe one of the Dark Society was here, checking his progress. He stepped into the boat and put down his saddlebags and the folded black curtains. He didn’t bother to remove either his coat or his Stetson, because even though the night was sultry and the swamp steamed, he no longer broke a sweat. He settled himself on the plank seat and took up the oars.

  “Good luck,” said McGuire as he untied the skiff’s rope that bound it to the dock.

  “Thank you, sir,” Lawson answered, and then he began to row between the larger workboats toward the great dark expanse of the swamp. The torch burned at his back, but whether the light was welcome or not was an open question. He kept rowing slowly and steadily, as the town fell away behind. The fiddler’s music and the sound of civilization faded away. The humming, chirring noise of the swamp—a true nocturne—rose to meet him.

  He had a map drawn by McGuire in his coat pocket. He’d already looked it over, but there was time for further study later. In another few minutes the channel curved to the right and the last lights of St. Benadicta were hidden by the tangle of underbrush and moss-draped cypress trees. Lawson paused to let the boat drift and to light up a cigar using the torch. He exhaled smoke with his dwindling breath. He noted swarms of mosquitoes, but none would bite him; he wasn’t warm enough for their tastes, and he figured that for the biting insects here he already exuded a smell of the dead.

  His time, he realized full well, was running out.

  He continued rowing, as the swamp enveloped him.

  Something keened from a tree to his left. The darkness pulsed. Lawson smoked his cheroot and stared forward.

  Shapes seemed to emerge from the night. They were the phantoms of what had been. He saw his boyhood home in Alabama and a favored dog that used to run with him. He saw a lake near his house where the fishing was always good. He saw a patch of forest and a cemetery where his ancestors lay, and who might have ever thought that he had a chance at eternal life if he only gave up his humanity and joined completely and totally with the Dark Society?

  It was the stuff of nightmares, this death in life.

  He had twice gone to visit his wife and daughter, after the events at Shiloh. He had twice gone to the house in Montgomery, in the concealing night, to press himself against a window and wish himself back with his loved ones. The first time, in a driving thunderstorm, the flash of a bolt of lightning had revealed him, and Cassie must have awakened and seen him through the glass, for her scream had sent him running. The second time, years later, he had followed Mary Alice on an evening in May, and noted that she had aged and was walking more slowly, and under the paper lanterns at a festival in the park she met the young woman Cassie had turned into. Also at that park was a handsome young man who held Cassie’s hand, and Lawson’s daughter held the hand of a little blonde-haired girl in a pink frock, and perhaps this was among the most cruel moments because everyone was so happy and the brass band’s music was bright and the world had kept turning while Lawson fought the demons.

  He had not stayed long at the festival. He had not let himself get very close to Mary Alice, or Cassie, or the young man his little girl had married and the child who was his grand-daughter. He had stayed far apart, in the darkness, and he had shivered because he smelled so much warm blood and he was so in need. And at last he had fled that scene of happiness and torture, and thought that somewhere in the family cemetery his gravestone was probably there but his grave was empty, for he was one of the more than three thousand missing or captured soldiers at Shiloh who had never come home.

  That night he had almost drained to death a vagrant at the trainyards, but he had stopped short of killing the man. After that, he had to find out how strong he was, and how much he could endure, for he was not a monster and did not intend to become one.

  Lawson kept rowing, and as the dark water chuckled around him and the insects flew about him but did not bite for his ichor was a bitter wine, he knew he was on his way to an evil destination where evil creatures sought to destroy him with a young girl’s life in the balance.

  But he travelled by night. It said so on his business card, along with All Matters Handled. He had been a lawyer, a husband and father, a soldier, and now…a vampire fighting to hold onto what remained of his humanity, and by doing so putting himself in harm’s way for many humans who needed his help, for he was truly an ‘adventurer’ now, to keep his wits and his mind sharp and what remained of his human heart beating.

  He would not give up the rest of himself to Christian Melchoir or any denizen of the Dark Society without a battle that would fracture the world. When he passed away from this earth, he desired to die as a human, and there was only one way.

  Grim and determined, Lawson travelled on toward morning.

  Seven.

  He heard the boat coming long before it reached him. He heard the slide of the oars and the movement of the green water. He waited, wrapped up in his black shrouds in the shadows of the cypress trees, as the boat neared. In another moment he smelled above the foulness of the swamp the aromas of lavender, leather, lemon soap and hot blood. He knew then who had been watching him last night, and now following him. He waited, one hand on the Colt with the rosewood grip, for her to bring her skiff nearly alongside. Then all was silent except for the gurgle of gas bubbles rising from the bottom and the croaking of hundreds of frogs in their slimy soup. He knew she was sitting there looking at him, trying to make heads-or-tails of this. He tensed only a little bit, when he heard her slide her six from her holster and cock it, but she noted the movement.

  “Come out of there,” she commanded.

  He yawned under his veil.

  “Did you hear me? Come out!”

  “It’ll take me a minute or two,” Lawson answered. “You won’t let that shooter go off, wil
l you?”

  “Just do what I say.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Forgive me if I’m a little cranky. This is not my best time of the—”

  She fired a shot into the air that made birds shriek in the trees and for a few seconds silenced the frogs.

  “Day,” Lawson finished. He released the Colt’s grip, winnowed his hands out and began to unwrap himself. Though he was covered by deep shadow, the glare of sun off the water was painful to him. It was, at best, a needles-and-pins sensation that grew more painful by the minute and at worst was the sensation that his flesh was being burned off his bones. He moved slowly and carefully to free himself, as his joints were sore. His temples throbbed and his teeth ached. When his head—minus his Stetson—emerged from the shroud, he saw the young woman draw back through the dark-tinted goggles that gave a measure of protection to his eyes. Even with the dark lenses, he had to narrow his eyes against the glare; they felt dried-out and tormented by small pieces of grit.

  Lawson got his shoulders and the rest of his arms free. He sat up in his boat, which was roped to the nearest cypress. The pistol in the girl’s hand was aimed at his chest. She had on the same clothes and dark green jockey’s cap she’d been wearing in the Swamp Root, except now they were wet with sweat. The eyes in her otherwise attractive face were the same hard bits of coal. She was wearing her pair of black leather gloves to guard her hands against the rough wood of the oars. She was the type of woman, he mused, who came prepared. “Well,” Lawson said, his vision filmy in the glare. He worked up a smile from the tight muscles of his pallid face. “Here we are.”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “That’s all? You’re not going to ask me why I’m wrapped up like this and sleeping in my boat at…what time is it? Ten o’clock?”

  “Near enough.”

  “I’ll ask you some questions, then. You fired a shot that broke the gambler’s knife, yes? And then shot the hat off his head? Very good shooting. You must be an expert. But why do that? Because you thought he was going to kill me? And you wanted me alive? Slow me down if I’m going too fast.”

  “You’re on the tracks,” she said.

  “Your name is…?”

  “Annie Remington.”

  “Hm,” said Lawson. “That’s a Remington Army pistol in your hand. I’m suspecting that’s a professional name. You’re a trick shooter? Travel for the company?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Your real name is…?”

  She paused for a moment, but Lawson already knew what she was going to say. “Ann Kingsley.”

  He nodded. “Eva’s older sister. I saw her portrait. You do resemble each other. Your father told you everything? So you came here to make sure of exactly what?”

  “I came here,” said Ann Kingsley, staring directly into the orbs of Lawson’s goggles, “to find out what kind of game you’re playing with my sister’s life.” The Remington pistol never wavered. “How you got my father—a sensible man—to agree to this, I have no idea. But I’m not letting you out of my sight. And I sure as hell didn’t want that gambler killing you last night before I had a chance to kill you…if I have to.”

  “I see,” said the vampire. He scratched his smooth chin. “You think I had something to do with Eva’s kidnapping?”

  “I don’t know what I think. I just know I’m burrin’ to your saddle.”

  “That’s a complication I’d rather not have.”

  “Do tell.”

  Lawson considered his position. The gunshot would hurt and might break a bone or two, but he’d survive it. He could rush her and take the gun, if this sunlight wasn’t sapping his strength and speed. He could send his Eye into her head and command her to hand the pistol over, but he thought she might put up some strong resistance. He would win, in the end, but still…

  Maybe she ought to keep her little piece of power, he decided. Could be useful, before all was said and done.

  But still…

  “You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” he said, which sounded like the most hackneyed statement ever made but was in this case horrifically true. “You don’t want to stay around me, Miss Kingsley. And you surely do not want to go to Nocturne.”

  “Do tell again,” she replied, with a derisive curl of her upper lip.

  “Mercy me,” Lawson said. “I suppose you won’t take it on faith that I had nothing to do with all this, and that I intend to pay the ransom and return your sister unharmed?” Relatively speaking, he thought. What she’d witnessed might have already driven her mad. Or…she might have already been turned.

  “I don’t have that much faith. Or stupidity. Explain to me why you of all people were asked to take that ransom money in. Why?”

  “Lucky,” said Lawson.

  “Don’t think that’s just it. Think there’s a whole lot more you’re not telling.”

  Lawson reached for his hat and put it on, because even in the shadow the sun was scorching his head. His skin was prickling, getting painful. “I’m going to wrap myself up again and go back to sleep. If you’ll leave me alone, I’ll wake up around sundown. Then we’ll talk some more. Agreed?”

  “No.” Her gaze studied the black curtains. “Why aren’t you sweating?” she asked. “And why are you…sleeping in the daytime, wrapped up in those?”

  “A long story,” was the answer.

  “I have time. So do you.”

  “No, I really don’t.” He managed a grim smile. “You see, I’m in pain right now. It’s still manageable…but I’ve got to get covered up. My skin. It’s not suited to the sun. The longer I stay exposed—even in this shade—the worse the pain becomes.” He paused to let that sink in. “Will you show me a little understanding?”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Ann said. But then some of the hardness left her eyes and she lowered the six. “You’re very…strange,” she offered.

  “Strange. Tired. And hurting.” He removed the Stetson and began to fold himself back into the black wings. “Please don’t take it on yourself to go any further from here. You need me more than you know.” It had occurred to him that though the citizens of Nocturne were also nightwalkers and were surely in their own cocoons and hiding places until sundown, there might be snares in the swamp left ready to trap the unwary daytime visitor, be it a curious logger or a politician’s daughter. He would hate for someone as pretty as Ann Kingsley to wind up with a faceful of metal spikes. “Swear it,” he added.

  “I’m not swearing anything.” Even though she’d said it with force, she immediately softened her tone. “I said I’m not letting you out of my sight. I meant it.”

  “That’s good.” Lawson had almost submerged himself into the shroud again, except for his goggled face. “I hope you enjoy fighting off mosquitoes until sundown. If I were you, I’d go back the way you came and leave this to me.”

  “I’ll stay,” she said, “and fight.”

  “No doubt you will. You might want to get some sleep, if you can. It may be a long night.” So saying, he folded the curtains over his face and left Ann Kingsley to her own designs.

  He slept in the way of vampires, one part deeply tranced and gathering strength for the night, another part on edge, senses questing, fearful of the pain of sunlight like a darktime insect. He’d had much time to think, and considered that this pain was as much mental as it was physical; it was the pain of a body losing its fluids and withering up toward the death in life, yes, but it was also the pain of separation from light and life, and the more religious the person had been the more the shame and agony of what he or she had become.

  Lawson shifted in his edgy trance, his senses telling him that time was moving and the sun also but that Ann Kingsley was still there, dozing in her skiff and swatting with a gloved hand at the bugs that bit her face. In the haunted halls of his own memory he saw the little ruined town where the creatures had taken him that night after the battle at Shiloh. He saw the farmhouse where they took him down into a root cellar and roped his wrists
and ankles to an iron bedframe and a thin, gore-stained mattress, and standing back they allowed the evil angel in red to approach with a single candle that illuminated her vulpine face. Sitting beside him on the mattress, she had traced with a fingernail his jawline and the slope of his nose, and she had leaned forward and whispered in his ear in her French-accented voice of dead reeds and dust, “I am called LaRouge, and I have lived for a very long time. Do you know how long?”

  Of course he couldn’t answer. He had been nearly bled dry already. He made a noise like the bleat of a sheep, but no sense.

  “One hundred and forty-one years,” she’d said, defying the fact that she appeared to be no more than twenty. Her bruise-colored tongue had emerged from her mouth, shivered like the tail of a rattlesnake and scraped like sandpaper along his cheek. When she was done with that, she smiled at him with her blood-crusted lips and her eyes shone green in the solitary light. “I have enjoyed many,” she’d confided, whispering yet. “I have turned many, from what they were to what I wished them to be. Oh, some gave themselves to me willingly, for the gift I could return to them. Some fought, as you did. But you see…it’s a losing battle. What is your name, soldier?”

  He couldn’t speak his name, and wouldn’t even if he had had the power of speech.

  It was then he felt her Eye enter his head and roam the mansion he had built of his life, and he writhed because she was everywhere, all the scenes of his life had her in them somewhere, as if she had been there all along but an invisible presence even at his own birth, when he walked the roads of his childhood, at his wedding, at the birth of his daughter, when he worked in his office scribing legal documents on a dark blue blotter, when he had gone to the Court House and volunteered to fight for the South. She was there when he wrote his name on the crisp piece of yellow paper.

  “Trevor Lawson,” whispered LaRouge, her crusted lips up close to his ear. “You’re a very handsome man. You’ve had a fine life, haven’t you? A very noble life. Well, Trevor…I’m going to make you my finest creation.”