Dawn in Damnation

by Clark Casey

  “Ah, nothing finer than a beer and a plate of well-done overland trout,” Red said looking a little misty-eyed after he finished eating. We sat patting our bellies and sipping beer in agreement.

  “There’s one thing I don’t get,” Whiny Pete said. “If Ms. Parker didn’t kill her baby when she drowned herself, why’d she end up here? There ain’t nobody in Damnation that deserves to be picking grapes in God’s vineyard.”

  “Quit beating around the bush,” Red hollered. “Put it plain!”

  “She musta done something wrong. Otherwise, she’d be in heaven, right?”

  “Hmm, guess so,” I said. “Reckon she got a story she ain’t ready to tell us yet. Maybe she will when the time’s right.”

  “Maybe it’ll account for why little Martin didn’t drown like a normal baby woulda,” Sal added. “And why Nigel didn’t feel no hunger for the little tot.”

  On hearing the child’s name, Nigel got up suddenly and stormed out the door.

  “What’s botherin’ him?” Pete asked.

  “Damn moody vampire,” Sal said. “Who knows.”

  An after-lunch lull set in. Everyone was too tired to drink or play cards, so they stared out the window into the dusk, which might very well have been dawn, and thought about their old lives. Some men had been dead so long they could hardly recall what their mammas and their sweethearts looked like. Things didn’t pick up again till later in the evening when folks got their second wind and gave up thinking about the past.

  The floorboards creaked loudly, and we looked up to see a large man in the doorway. He had long yellow hair, even longer than Nigel’s. You might’ve taken him for a lady if he wasn’t so tall and broad. He was nearly the height of Stumpy, but not so skinny. He wore a long dark duster even though it was hotter than blazes, but he wasn’t even sweating. Looked as cool as a gator that just crawled out of the marsh. He certainly didn’t have the scare in him.

  “Think he’s a wolf?” Whiny Pete asked worriedly. It was a fair question. The last men to come in without the scare in them were the two werewolves looking for Ms. Parker. The time before that, it was John Wesley Hardin, and he was worse than a wolf in some ways.

  “Could be a gunslinger,” I whispered. “Mighta been expectin’ it.”

  Sal approached cautiously and placed a glass of whiskey in front of the man. He just glared back without touching it.

  “What’s your name, friend?” Sal asked.

  “Luther,” he said coldly.

  “Better get Nigel,” I told Whiny Pete.

  “Why?”

  “Just get him.”

  “But what’ll I tell him.”

  “Tell him a tall fella named Luther just came to town. It’s the same name as the vampire that kilt him, so that oughta get his attention.”

  THE DEAD INDIAN WARS

  Keep reading for a preview of the next title from Clark Casey

  Coming soon from LYRICAL UNDERGROUND

  Immanuel Kant Quote

  “Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.”

  —Immanuel Kant

  Chapter 1

  Luther

  “Hey, blondie!” one of the soldier boys called out. The stripes of a colonel decorated his sleeve and, judging by the pain-in-the-ass tone of his voice, he reckoned that still meant something. All afternoon he’d been teasing the other newbies, and now he figured the big fella in the duster was due for some good-natured ribbing. Even a large newbie was easy pickings. Usually. The colonial strolled up with his shit-eating grin and said, “What’s with the—”

  Before he could finish his question, the fair-haired giant palmed his face like a grapefruit. His long fingers stretched from ear to ear and nose to scalp. In a single motion, he drew the colonel in and cradled his neck. Yellow fangs, much longer than Nigel’s, dropped below his lip. His gumline was high, like a mare that’d seen more winters than nature intended. He pierced the soldier’s flabby sunburned neck and sucked hard. His eyes immediately widened in horror. He spit out the cold blood, then collapsed to one knee in a coughing fit. Some of it had slipped down his throat and was cutting up his insides like shards of glass.

  “Scheisse!” he yelled, then tore open his shirt and began beating on his chest in desperation. Men dove under tables, fearing he might explode.

  “I see you have endeavored to sample the local fare, old chap,” a voice teased from the doorway.

  “Nigel!” he gasped for air. “So that would mean I’m… Is the dark one here?” he asked nervously.

  “No, he is absent. I believe we are just short of his domain—though you may still reach it.”

  Nigel suddenly dashed forward, closing twenty paces as if they were one, then hammered his fist into Luther’s chest with a thud that sent him to the floor. The big fella wasn’t down for long. His eyes glowed angrily and he popped to his feet, then charged. He lifted Nigel on his shoulder like a bull between the horns, and the two of them struck the bullet-ridden wall. They broke clear through to the other side and tumbled into the road. As soon as they stood, they began trading blows.

  Luther had the advantage with his reach, but Nigel wasn’t weakened from drinking cold blood. He crouched low and worked away at Luther’s midsection. Finally, Luther got fed up and smashed his knee against Nigel’s face, then gripped him by the slack in his shirt and heaved him through the air. His body landed some ten feet away on the boardwalk. Luther quickly grabbed Nigel’s legs and dragged him back to the center of the road to finish him off. Nigel managed to take a piece of wooden plank with him, and when Luther flipped him over, he met with the two by eight. A twisted nail poking out from the board had pierced his forehead, and blood poured over his face.

  They both lunged for each other’s throats at once. Nigel’s short powerful forearms were locked inside of Luther’s, both squeezing with all their might as they hissed breathlessly. Neither would release their grip to try to save their windpipe from being crushed. It was clear that whoever could hold on the longest would be the winner.

  There was no way of knowing how the outcome would affect the town, if the new fella would be better or worse than Nigel. We’d gone from bastards like Jeremiah Watson running things to worse bastards like Jack Finney. Buddy was about the nicest top gun we’d ever had. Nigel usually let folks be, but this new vampire might be more of the meddling sort. On the other hand, it looked possible that they might both suffocate each other at once.

  Just then, the clouds shifted. From the corner of the sky, the blanket of gray slipped back to reveal a sliver of the brightest light I had ever seen. Everyone had to shield their eyes. The years of dusk had made us too sensitive for anything brighter than candlelight. I squinted up, but it hurt too much to examine directly. A single beam shined down on the two vampires. Their clenched hands immediately began to smolder. Then a flicker of blue flames shot across the length of their interlocked arms. They had to release their grasps to pat it out, but it kept spreading over their bodies. The skin on Luther’s cheek melted like lard in a frying pan. He threw his duster over his head for shade. Nigel had already put his arms over his head with his back to the sky. Their closest escape from the light was the saloon. They both bolted for the hole in the wall and dove through it at the same time, breaking off bits of wood to make it even larger. A moment later, the clouds shifted and the sky darkened.

  The blisters on Nigel’s face looked like they’d heal, but Luther hadn’t fared as well. Smoke was still rising from his blackened skin. It made his blond hair look even lighter. Much of his jawbone and teeth could be seen where the skin had melted away.

  “That was for killing me,” Nigel said after dusting off his singed lapel, then extended his hand. Luther stared at him silently for a moment.

  “I suppose I had it coming,” he admitted and took Nigel’s hand.

  “Two gins,” Nigel called o
ut. Sal hustled from the back where he’d been hiding and put the bottle and two glasses on the bar.

  “Odd, isn’t it?” Nigel remarked. “To feel such pain. Those blows would have been like mosquito bites when I was alive and well fed.”

  Luther rubbed his battered ribs. “Also, you put up a better fight than last time. Prost!” He lifted his drink, and they knocked glasses.

  The two vampires sat chatting cordially in the room they’d just destroyed. Everyone gave them a wide berth, but I situated myself just within earshot and scribbled some notes with my head down so as not to attract their attention. Luther had a funny way of talking, but not in the same way as Nigel. Wasn’t as proper-like.

  “Hear that?” Luther asked.

  “What?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  Nigel smiled knowingly.

  “These men have no thoughts for me to hear,” Luther said.

  “Yes, I find it a welcome silence.”

  “It is rather nice,” Luther agreed, “especially for an old vampire like me.”

  “If not for the hunger and boredom,” Nigel said, “it might make this place bearable.”

  “So none of them have warm blood then?” Luther asked anxiously.

  “Tell me,” Nigel changed the subject, “Who finally defeated the Scourge of Saxony?”

  “The council turned against me,” he replied bitterly, pushing his yellow hair out of his charred face. “We disagreed on ideology. They wanted to permit mixing with the humans.”

  “Still a hardliner, huh?”

  “Speaking of that, is your woman here? The one you killed your brother for.”

  “No, I suppose she went someplace else.”

  “So you’re not going to hold it against me then, what I did to you?” Luther asked.

  “Ah, you were just doing your job,” Nigel replied a little too breezily. Luther studied his face. He didn’t have much practice in reading a bluff since he was accustomed to hearing thoughts. “Besides,” Nigel added, “it can get rather boring here when there aren’t any gunfights to watch. The Americans are no great conversationalists. They lack our European sensibilities.”

  “Ja,” Luther agreed.

  “So why did the council finally decide to allow relations with humans?” Nigel prodded delicately, like he was hunting for something.

  “They believe it is inevitable, the next stage in evolution.”

  “And you don’t agree?” Nigel was surprised. “I suppose you wish to keep our bloodline pure, not muddied by those human traits you abhor.”

  “I don’t abhor humans. In fact, I’m looking out for their best interest. I want to spare them from our offspring.”

  “You fear the mixed-breeds’ appetites would cause our kind to be discovered.”

  “No,” Luther scoffed. “I fear the hunger of the mixed-breeds could bring about our starvation. They consume too much! If one of them can dispose of an entire town in a matter of hours, what would a dozen do, or a hundred? Let alone thousands! The only way to keep up with their demand would be to farm the humans, keep them caged and continually reproducing. They’d be nothing more than sacks of blood. I wish only for them to remain free as nature intended, and happily ignorant of us!”

  “But only one in a thousand mixed-breeds become vampires.”

  “It is still too risky. Ah, but now we are both beyond the world where such things matter. So you say the dark one is not here?”

  “Not openly, but I’ve sensed his presence,” Nigel said hesitantly. “I was never a believer when I was alive, and the last hundred years have given me little reason to think otherwise, but there have been signs recently.” Nigel became very serious. “Like that blast of light that separated us.”

  “The dark one using light!” Luther scoffed.

  “I never would’ve thought it possible, but things are different here. Even the human priests kill in Damnation.”

  “Is that the name of this place?” Luther bowed his head solemnly and made the sign of the cross in reverse order.

  “Oh, don’t get so high and unholy!” Nigel teased. “The name was given in jest. Just after I arrived, some cowboy asked me where he was and I told him Damnation. He got shot the following day, but the name stuck. They have no idea it is the name of our Eden.”

  Whiny Pete barged in the saloon just then. He nervously eyed the hole in the wall, wondering if he should scatter. Nigel looked at him expectantly. He nodded eagerly, perhaps a little less subtly than Nigel would have liked. Luther took it all in wordlessly.

  “What’s that all about?” Sal whispered to Pete.

  “The vampire asked me to move Ms. Parker and Martin to the general store.”

  “You think that other vampire can smell the warm blood in Martin?” Sal asked.

  “If Nigel can smell it, he probably can, too,” I said.

  “Think he’ll wanna drain the child?” Pete asked.

  “Why else would Nigel have you move ’em?” Sal barked. “Better get the word out that nobody should mention the kid in blondie’s presence.”

  “Ain’t gonna be easy with all the loudmouths around here,” I said.

  “Then we gotta put the fear of hell in ’em.”

  After it was scrubbed down real good, Luther moved into Ms. Parker’s old room, and Buddy was left in the room between the two vampires. Everyone reckoned the new vampire was going to cause a big hoopla, but nothing much happened right away. Since he wasn’t accustomed to going without warm blood, it made him real tired. For the first few weeks, he slept pretty much around the clock. But there were other things to worry about aside from the new vampire.

  Chapter 2

  The Unknown Soldier and the Apache Woman

  “Am I dead?” a new soldier asked as he sat down at the bar. Wedged between his shoulder blades was a tomahawk with greased goose feathers dangling from the grip. The hollow stem of a pipe was attached to the end. Presumably, the owner didn’t find occasion to bury the hatchet in the earth and smoke in peace with the fella. The edge of the blade was peeking out from the front of the soldier’s sternum, where chunks of heart muscle had been pushed out. They clung to his shirt like dinner scraps. His arms were red from trying his damnedest to push the blade back out the way it came.

  “Yup,” I told him. “You’re as dead as a doornail, but twice as useless.”

  “Figured I was done for when they ambushed us.” Judging by the silver strands in his beard and the metals on his tits, he’d been soldiering awhile. “This hell?” he asked matter-of-factly.

  “Nah.”

  “Then why’s there so many dang Indians outside?”

  On account of the wars, more and more of them were coming to Damnation every day. They marched out from the dust with the feathers of their headdresses swaying in the wind. Some came whooping and hollering atop dead-eyed ponies, still rallying the bucks with war cries. Others were shot in the back, likely on the run from larger forces. They built teepees outside of town with scrap wood from old covered wagons. The barren flatlands between the buildings and the dust cloud quickly filled with their camps, and eventually we were surrounded. The tribes might not have gotten along so well when they were alive, but in Damnation the Navajo, Cherokee, and Sioux all banded together. Their ideas about the spirit world were somewhat vague, so when they wound up in a place with tumbleweeds, horses, and a few white men, they figured it was close enough.

  “I suppose them Indians wasn’t good enough for heaven,” I told the soldier. “Nor bad enough for hell—like yourself—so they were sent here. Some miner called it ‘hell’s sifter.’ Thought that God was giving us all another look-see to check if any of us might be worth saving from the fire. Another man thought that if you could manage to keep from shooting anyone for a whole year, the gates of heaven’d open up for you. Nobody’s managed it so far. The truth is, I ca
n’t say for sure where we are. Alls we really know is you can stay here and play poker as long as you like. But if you get shot, you don’t get to see your cards.”

  An Indian brave on horseback came riding by, shrieking and howling at the window, then threw a rock. It shattered the pane of glass. Wasn’t meant to be an attack or anything. He just wanted to let us know he was out there and didn’t care much for us. The soldier took it as an omen though.

  “Should’ve known what we done’d come back to haunt us,” he said uneasily. “Government gave ’em land, but it weren’t near big enough and the soil no good for growing nothing. Meat rations were slim and often spoilt. Lost ten men in my battalion when they finally revolted. Guess I was the eleventh.”

  A breeze blew the doors open, bringing with it a mess of dust and rattling the rusty fixtures. Nigel burst in like a twister and stopped in front of a toothless man huddled in the corner. A shiny tin star was fastened to his lapel. As sheriff, Nigel found he could make good on his promise to look after Mabel while still remaining impartial. His wounds from the fight with Luther had healed up good as new, though every passing day without warm blood made him weaker. He was still a far shot stronger and faster than any man or wolf in town. Just not the other vampire. Luther had healed, too, except for his blackened skin and the cheek that had melted away. Nigel might have missed his only chance to take out the big blond in a weakened state.

  “This is a child’s toy, sir. Not a derelict’s.” Nigel yanked a wood-carved rattle out of the toothless fella’s hands, then tore out of the saloon as quick as he’d come.

  “Who was that?” the soldier asked.

  “The sheriff,” I told him.

  “How’s he move so quick?”

  “He’s a vampire.”