Angela was moaning, and so was Horton. Evidently they’d abandoned the vampire angle of the scene. They were no more concerned with Adam Price and Dragomir Seneslav than they were with contracting venereal diseases. Cody turned to his right and noticed with grim disgust that Sheriff Bittner had also removed his hat, but that he’d done so to conceal the hand he’d snuck inside his trousers. Cody looked quickly up from Bittner to spy Slim Keeley still leaning against the carved post, still smoking a cigarette. The man behaved as though there was a live sex show at Marguerite’s every night.
Cody’s thoughts turned again to Marguerite. What had they done with her? Was it possible they still planned to use her in this abominable farce?
After an interminable session of fucking, the stage lights winked out.
At first there was only dry-mouthed silence, but soon a scattered applause began to sound. It didn’t take long for the applause to swell, and before Cody knew it, the whole assembly had risen in a bellowing, hat-tossing ovation.
Good God, he thought. They act like they just witnessed something wonderful. If they only knew the truth about Angela and Horton. If only they knew that both of them were monsters.
The clapping began to dissipate. Cody realized at once he’d missed a potential opportunity to escape. When would the lights be out again, the whole audience distracted? He chided himself for his inaction. He turned and had begun to measure the distance to the door when he became aware of someone watching him. Cody narrowed his eyes to peer through the murk until he distinguished who it was.
Slim Keeley. Of course. The tall man was watching Cody as though he knew everything that had gone on since the devils first arrived in Tonuco. Was it possible? Could Adam Price and the rest have spilled everything to the sheriff and his deputies just so they’d know how agitated Cody might get when Angela performed her whore routine again?
It was entirely possible, he now realized. Likely even. Goddamn them. Goddamn Price and Horton, goddamn Keeley and Bittner. They were all against him. They didn’t care about Willet. They didn’t care about Marguerite.
With another nasty jolt, Cody realized that Keeley probably knew about Cody’s crush on Marguerite too. How? Who the hell knew? But the knowledge in that gaze was more than sheer mockery—it was gloating. Sneering, unmitigated gloating.
“And now,” a voice interrupted, nearly making Cody cry out in surprise, “we introduce a new actress into our production. A lovely young thing with whom many of you will be familiar…”
And here it is, Cody thought. This will make it perfect. Marguerite will come out and Penders will bang her or Price will or maybe even Angela. Who gives a damn? I’ll be dead soon anyway. Why not get it over with now before they inflict yet another degradation on me?
Cody had started to rise when a new figure sauntered out onto the now-illuminated stage, but he froze halfway to his feet.
“Sit yourself, Wilson. Before I whup your skinny ass.”
Cody scarcely registered Bittner’s words or the rough grip on his forearm. His mind raced while he struggled to calculate how this new development altered things.
“I said sit down, boy. Before I shoot your ass dead right here.”
He hasn’t noticed, Cody thought. He hasn’t even looked yet.
Boom Catterson leaned across Cody and said in a low voice, “Bobby?”
“Shut up, Boom,” the sheriff spat. “This pissant is hard of hearin’.”
“But Sheriff—”
“Goddammit, Boom!”
“Atta girl, Eliza!” a voice from the crowd called, and Bobby Bittner finally turned toward the stage. His mouth fell open.
The one named Eliza, the barmaid whom Marguerite had dubbed Bittner’s favorite, was strutting across the stage toward Penders.
And unbuttoning her dress.
Chapter Sixteen
Bittner got up immediately.
“Show us them titties, ’Liza!” another patron called.
Moments later, she did, the front of her light green dress peeling open to reveal small but lovely breasts. They were damn near phosphorescent in the glare of the limelight.
Luke Lind whirled and leered at Sheriff Bittner. “It’s about time the rest of us got to see those sweet little dugs!”
Bittner balled his fists. “Shut yer fuckin’ mouth, Luke.”
Cody glanced beyond Bittner’s tensed form and saw that Keeley was eyeing the sheriff too, a pensive look contracting Keeley’s features. Not worry, but something more guarded and alert than Cody had seen in the man’s face thus far.
Penders met Eliza in the middle of the stage and took hold of the dress, which was bunched around the young girl’s slim midriff. Cody figured her for twenty at the oldest, likely younger. She wriggled happily as Penders dragged the dress down her legs, revealing a nubile white body that showed no sign of Sheriff Bittner’s slimy depredations.
The men in the crowd hooted at sight of the girl’s scarlet thatch of pubic hair, her tight little bottom. Many of them stood, gesticulating toward the stage as though confirming for their companions that what they were witnessing was in fact real.
Bittner stood immobile, his mouth working mutely. He cast unbelieving looks at the men around him. Cody sank back into his chair, eyeing the Walker six-shooter on Bittner’s hip. The damn thing was a flap holster, else Cody would’ve been able to remove it easily. Still, he wondered if Bittner would even notice, so great was his bewilderment.
More of the men stood up, and more delighted whoops erupted from the audience. Through the shifting crowd of men, Cody could see that Penders had the young girl draped over a table and was ramming her from behind. She cried out as he thrust into her, but she didn’t sound unhappy.
Bittner, however, was livid.
John Ebright stood and made as if to hold the sheriff back, but Bittner shouldered past him with a muttered oath. The sheriff waded forward, knocking a wooden chair over and shoving Luke Lind out of the way. Lind bumped into a man nearly as big as Penders and whose shaggy head of hair reminded Cody of the illustrations he’d seen of grizzly bears back in grade school. Lind threw up his hands, palms outward, to mollify the big brute, but Grizzly seized him by the shoulders, pivoted and hurled him into a group of unsuspecting audience members. Cody reckoned Lind’s flying body took out at least four men. The ones who’d been knocked down collided with several others, which of course led to half a dozen scuffles.
Bittner stalked forward, oblivious of the pandemonium he’d created, until he’d jostled his way to the stage. Now that the path had been cleared, Cody could clearly see Penders tupping the red-haired girl with barbaric abandon. Eliza was howling with pleasure. Or perhaps it was agony. From the sounds she was making, it was difficult to tell. And despite the scattered brawls that had broken out, most of the men in Marguerite’s saloon were still transfixed by the sex show.
Cody tensed as John Ebright came forward to stop Sheriff Bittner. Boom Catterson sat there in mute dismay. Without further consideration, Cody whirled and climbed over the wooden chair he’d been sitting on. The men behind him parted wordlessly as he passed, too entranced by the sight of Eliza to notice the prisoner escaping. Cody had gotten past the back row of men and was preparing to sprint toward the front door when a shape materialized to his right. Cody didn’t even get an arm up to fend the man off before Slim Keeley slammed him against the wall, one of the man’s forearms pressed against Cody’s chest, the other holding his long-barreled Colt Peacemaker to the underside of Cody’s jaw.
“Bittner gets distracted too easily,” Slim said in a low, drawling voice. The circular tip of the Peacemaker dug into Cody’s flesh. “Pussy can do that to a man.”
Cody struggled to breathe. “You gotta let me go.”
Slim’s hateful face swam nearer. “I’m listenin’.”
The pungent odor of tobacco smoke surrounded Cody like a shroud. He searched Slim’s face for some trace of human emotion, some semblance of compassion, but all he found was the same deadly
calculation he’d seen in the man’s features all evening.
Still, Cody had to try. “Don’t you care that they’ve got your ex-wife?”
A venomous smile twisted Slim’s scar of a mouth. “Is the fact that you pine for her supposed to make us buddies or something?”
Cody shook his head, grappled for the words. The gun in his jaw bit deeper.
“Naw,” Slim said evenly. “I don’t think you two did sleep together. You wouldn’t have been man enough for Margie.”
“They’ll kill her,” Cody said. “They turned my wife into something…” God, he thought. How to phrase it and not sound deranged?
But he realized Slim wasn’t even listening.
“You want to hear what kind of a lay she was, boy? Whether Margie likes it rough, wants you to slap her around a little?”
Beyond Slim’s sneering face, Cody saw Bittner climbing onto the stage. There was a roar of protest from the crowd, and a dozen sets of hands pawed at the sheriff to impede his progress. Penders was slapping Eliza’s milky buttocks now and thrusting into her with such force that he appeared to be trying to kill her rather than merely to couple with her.
Bittner’s voice shrilled above the crowd for them to Get back, get back, but the men refused to relinquish their hold on him. Bittner lashed out, caught one man in the forehead with the butt of his Walker. Someone suggested that Bittner be shot. No one drew on the sheriff right away, but someone did land a wild haymaker on his jaw. Stunned, Bittner pistol-whipped the man, splashing blood against the stage front, and then several patrons went for Bittner. Bittner was demanding that they leave him alone, but his voice was swallowed by the angry mob. Someone pulled a knife. The cacophony was great enough now to draw Slim Keeley’s gaze away from Cody.
With one motion Cody ripped his head away from Slim’s Peacemaker—the steel notch of its sight carving a narrow rut in Cody’s jaw—and pumped a knee into Slim’s groin. The tall man doubled over, but rather than scurrying for the door, Cody swung both elbows down into the middle of the man’s back. A gunshot exploded and Cody lunged away instinctively, sure the shot had come from Slim’s Colt. But as Slim hit the floor and his gun skittered away under the chairs, Cody heard another shot and looked up to see Bittner firing into the crowd. One man had already fallen, gutshot by the sheriff, and another was pinwheeling his arms as he staggered backward into the stupefied cluster of onlookers. Onstage, Penders had stopped punishing Eliza and was now striding toward Bittner, who had his back to the huge, naked man. Eliza was standing erect, watching after Penders in what might have been disappointment but making no move to cover herself. Bittner fired again, and a third man went down, but now Cody could see others in the crowd reaching for their pistols, their shock at the sheriff’s jealous rampage having begun to abate.
As the man sworn to protect Mesquite’s populace began to massacre innocent townspeople, everything went haywire. Penders neared Bittner. Evidently remembering her former allegiance to Bittner, Eliza darted at Penders, perhaps to prevent him from harming the sheriff. The red-haired barmaid slapped Penders in the middle of the back, but the moment she did, the huge vampire whirled, seized her by the throat and began to squeeze. Eliza’s bare legs scissored wildly, her face going a brilliant red. Like it was nothing at all, Penders wrapped his free arm around her waist, jerked up on her neck, and then her head was tumbling from her body like a weed someone had yanked. Her headless body slumped against Penders, a happy fountain of blood bathing the front of the huge man’s naked body.
Several men screamed in terror.
But like many of the patrons, Bittner was too busy to even notice Eliza’s death. Bittner shot another man in the throat, caught another in the forehead. From the crowd to the sheriff’s left emerged a little man with a black handlebar mustache. The man’s eyes were huge and murderous, but he was having trouble extricating his gun from his leg holster. Just as he jerked the gun free and made to end Sheriff Bittner’s odious existence, another shot exploded and the left side of the little man’s face disappeared in a scarlet haze. A splatter of flesh and bright red blood hit the burnished wooden stage, and the little man fell. On one side of his mouth, the handlebar mustache still sprouted like a furry caterpillar; on the other his tongue lolled out of the yawning cavity of his missing cheek.
Everyone in the bar turned to see who had shot the little man. Cody just had time to glimpse John Ebright’s surprised face before spinning and hustling toward the door.
Cody knew Slim Keeley was scuttling toward the Colt, knew that Slim would recover it any moment and turn it on him. Cody was two strides from the door when he saw that someone else had gotten it into his head to leave before the violence got any worse. But the blond-haired man staring out the window next to the front door wore a look of horror. He was backpedaling now and had both arms out in a warding off gesture. Cody nearly slammed into him. He looked up and saw what had spooked the man so badly.
Angela’s elongated, vampire’s face chortled at them through the window. Cody dropped to the floor just as the Spencer rifle she was pointing went off and the blond-haired man flew backward.
Movement in Cody’s periphery jerked his attention away from the twitching blond-haired man. Slim Keeley had indeed retrieved his gun, and he was absolutely coming for Cody when he saw the blond-haired man’s chest open up and the Spencer rifle on the other side of the window that had done the shooting. Cody thought for sure that Slim would shoot him anyway, though he had a fleeting hope Slim might instead turn his Colt on Angela.
But Slim did neither thing, opting to take cover behind one of the ornate wooden pillars instead. And a good thing too, for the moment he ducked behind the post, Angela fired again and nearly took off Slim’s face. The splintered wood and sawdust kicked up by the Spencer’s slug blinded Slim for a moment, which gave Cody time to scuttle into the crowd again. That’s the first nice thing you’ve done for me in a long time, Angela, he thought. Thanks for your help, you unholy bitch.
Cody crawled forward as another gunshot erupted. He gained his feet in time to see Grizzly pistol-whipping a man adjacent to the stage—poor Luke Lind—and then hulking toward Sheriff Bittner, who was now training his gun on Penders.
Evidently deciding that the sheriff would have to deal with Penders and Grizzly on his own, John Ebright had taken cover within the crowd to the right of the stage. With a strident yelp, Boom Catterson sank to all fours and clambered under his chair. Another gun fired, but Cody had no idea from whom the shot came or if it hit anyone. Rather than scattering or heading for the exits, the majority of the audience had simply hunched down so they could still view the goings-on without being killed, while others had followed Boom’s lead and taken refuge under their chairs. There were three or four fistfights raging, but what nobody apparently realized was that the real villains were not the ones with guns. That is, unless you counted Angela. The ones the men should have been worried about had just appeared on either side of the stage: Dragon Seneslav and Billy Horton.
And of course, Steve Penders, who was beginning to transform.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Sheriff Bittner asked, finally noticing the vampires and Eliza’s headless body.
Then the limelight winked out.
And the screaming began.
Though the stage lights had been extinguished, there was still enough illumination from the scattered kerosene lamps to see Penders reach down for Sheriff Bittner. In the faint orange light put off by the lamps, Steve Penders’s blood-slicked face was now a grisly mixture of anticipation and implacable hunger. He no doubt would have killed Bobby Bittner at that moment had someone not fired a gun at him from less than ten feet away. The slug caught him in the throat, and though the tissue there reacted the way human skin was supposed to, the blood that trickled forth from the wound seemed too sparse. And too dark.
Penders glanced at the man who’d shot him, and through the darting figures Cody was able to see that Boom Catterson had finally crawled out from h
is hiding place to defend his sheriff.
Wrong time to find your courage, Cody thought in the moment before Penders leaped.
Cody couldn’t help remembering the night before, the manner in which Penders had clambered up that almost sheer rock face to grab at him and Willet. The huge man’s agility was uncanny. Then again, Penders wasn’t a man, was he?
When his body slammed into Boom Catterson, the absurd bowler hat went tumbling sideways and the short fat man was driven back more than a dozen feet, smashing into chairs and an onlooker who’d taken too long to get his ass moving. Boom opened his mouth to scream, but before he found his voice, Penders buried his monstrous, goblin-like face in the man’s throat. The only sound that escaped the convulsing deputy was a meaty gurgle, but that might have been Penders’s animal noises as he tore through the man’s windpipe.
Briefly, Cody toyed with the idea of going for Catterson’s gun, which lay a few feet from where the deputy was being eaten, but at that moment, the guy who’d gotten knocked down by Penders and Catterson began to squeal in pain or terror or both. Screwing up his eyes, Cody saw why.
Without looking up from Boom Catterson’s ruined neck, Penders had shot out a hand to seize the man before he could scuttle away. The poor bastard, who’d been trying to sneak to safety on hands and knees, shrilled out a scream that would have been comical under other circumstances. Penders dragged him backward by one skinny ankle. The screaming man flopped over on his back and began kicking at Penders with his free leg. One kick caught Penders in the side of the head. Penders swung his bloody face up and roared. The man’s screaming devolved into hysterical sobs. Then Penders reached out, grasped the man’s tongue and ripped it out of his mouth. The man jittered in a paroxysm of horror, a tide of bloody froth spilling from his lips. Instead of consummating the poor bastard’s injury and ending his suffering, Penders took a bite out of the tongue very much the way a normal man would chew on a chicken leg. Meanwhile, the man choked on his own blood.
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