Dust Devils

by Janz, Jonathan

  It was Willet, Cody now realized, who had saved him, Willet who had dragged his spitting mother off of Cody. Despite the size difference, Willet managed his mother easily, grasping her around the waist and holding on to her until she calmed down. But she was only calm for a moment.

  Then she noticed Cody’s blood.

  Her orange eyes suddenly slitted with yearning. She lunged for him again, but this time Cody anticipated her. Sprawled on his back as he was, it was easy for him to kick her ghastly face when she darted at him. But though his bootheel caught her square in the nose, the blow didn’t seem to faze her. She clawed at his legs again, snarling, but again Willet restrained her. The boy looked the same as he had that morning—that was the painful part—yet his strength surpassed even the stoutest of men.

  It was Adam Price who changed Willet, Cody reflected. That’s why he’s already so powerful. He was bitten by the king vampire.

  Cody had no idea if this was so, but it made sense to him. Now the boy was muttering something to his mother about the master’s plans, about holding off a trifle longer.

  Cody said, “Don’t worry, Willet. She’s good at following the master’s directions. She’s just like Horton up there—a mindless slave.”

  A dark shape sprang into the coach and filled Cody’s vision. It was Horton, the young vampire’s cockiness buried under red strata of wrath. “You’re gonna die the worst death imaginable, Wilson. You realize that? I’m gonna stick it in your wife while the others peel your flesh from your body. You’re gonna watch your daddy scream like a little girl while Penders eats him alive.”

  “Two of you are dead,” Cody reminded him. “And I’m still here.”

  Horton’s hand flashed and a scalding heat sizzled in Cody’s right ear. As Cody fingered the bloody area, Horton dangled something small and pink in front of Cody’s face. “Here,” Horton said, “taste for yourself.” And before Cody could react, Horton had shoved the severed earlobe into Cody’s open mouth. For one awful moment, he gagged on it and was certain it would choke him. Then he dislodged it and spat it onto the floor. The bloody chunk of meat landed with a sick plopping sound. The moment it hit, Willet’s mom dove for it, stuffed it into her maw and gobbled it down. Cody glanced up at Willet, who was looking on miserably.

  “That what you want to be, Willet?”

  Willet stared back at Cody with what might have been sorrow. “It’s what I am.”

  “What if there’s still a choice?”

  Willet’s voice was inflectionless, defeated. “There ain’t no choice.”

  “The boy’s smarter’n you,” Horton cut in. “Course, that ain’t sayin’ much. I been alive more’n fifty years, and you’re the dumbest sonofabitch I met yet.”

  Cody looked at him, amazed. “You’ve been the same age for that long?”

  “Eternal youth,” Horton said and tipped him a wink. “Live forever and get all the pussy you can handle.”

  “You’ll never have a family though,” Cody said, and as he said it, he realized it was the truth.

  Horton scowled. “These folks are my family.”

  “They’re not family,” Cody said. “They’re parasites squabbling over fresh meat. You and Penders and the rest.”

  Horton leaned forward, the tendons in his neck taut and straining. “Don’t test me, boy.”

  “You’re maggots,” Cody persisted. “Only that’s too generous. Maggots become something else. They can beget life. You’ll never make anything but death.”

  “I helped turn your wife into one of us. I’d call that bein’ a daddy.”

  “That’s just infection,” Cody said. “You’ll never be a father. Your seed dies with you, Horton. You can only bring death to others.” Cody inhaled Horton’s sickly sweet breath. It smelled like rot, like decay. “You’re lower than the worms.”

  Horton roared and grasped Cody by the shoulders. Cody was propelled upward, his head cracking against the ceiling. His vision swam; his hearing turned muzzy. He was jerked forward to find himself touching noses with Horton, who’d changed almost instantly into his bestial form. The vampire shook him violently. He heard Horton’s huge jaws yawn open, smelled the reek of putrescence closing over him.

  A voice thundered, “ENOUGH!”

  Cody realized he’d shut his eyes. He opened them now and saw how close he’d been to death. Horton’s dripping jaws were poised an inch from his throat.

  “Put him down, Billy,” Price said in a quieter voice that was no less stern.

  Horton obeyed, dropping Cody roughly onto the seat. Horton receded across the coach until his legs abutted the opposite bench, but he did not sit. Price climbed into the coach and stood between Cody and Horton.

  Price smiled cordially. “I see you’re making friends, Mr. Wilson.” Price glanced first at Horton, then at Mrs. Black. Both vampires were glaring at Cody with unbridled hatred. “You do have a talent for incurring the wrath of my brethren,” Price said. “If we don’t alter the traveling arrangements, you’ll not make it to your father’s ranch alive.”

  “You won’t make it there by sunup,” Cody said.

  “We’ll arrive in Escondido with time to spare,” Price said and turned to Horton. “Billy, you take Martha and her son to the Concord. You’ll relieve Penders of his duties and allow him to rest inside.”

  Horton’s voice was deep, more the rumble of a wolf than the voice of a human being. “Who’ll drive you?”

  “I will,” Price said.

  “Sir—” Horton began.

  But Price cut him off. “Go, Billy. And tell Angela that she’ll ride the rest of the way with her husband.”

  Some new emotion rippled over Horton’s vampiric features, and after a moment, Cody realized what it was: jealousy.

  “Sir,” Horton said. “I don’t think—”

  “She’ll be quite all right, Billy. Your amorous activities will not be affected.”

  “But she’ll kill him, sir.”

  For the first time, Price glanced over at Horton. He pursed his lips, thinking. Then, he gave a little nod. “Tell her to come to the black coach, Billy. If she kills him, I will be disappointed, but at least there will be closure.”

  Horton shook his head, licked his lips with a serpentlike tongue. “I don’t think she should—”

  “Bring her, Billy.”

  Horton glowered at Price a long time. Then he dropped his gaze and went out. Willet and his mother followed, and for the first time since the jail cell, Cody found himself alone with Adam Price.

  “Anything you’d like to ask me, Mr. Wilson?”

  Cody experienced a delirious mixture of revulsion, fear, and loathing as he looked up into Price’s dark eyes. “I’ve got plenty of questions, but I doubt you want to answer them.”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Wilson. This might be our last opportunity for discourse.” Price’s eyes danced with impish humor. “I suspect we’ll find ourselves quite busy when we arrive at your father’s ranch.”

  “Why didn’t you show what you were back at the valley?”

  Price smiled. “That was before you killed Dmitri. We hadn’t shown our true forms for many months and had no reason to do so. Until you claimed one of our own, that is. At that point I told the others that they were free to let their true natures come forth.”

  “What’s the difference? You still killed people.”

  “The difference,” Price said, sitting on the bench and interlacing his fingers, “is the risk we take when we become. You don’t think we’d last very long if we went around changing in front of everyone, do you?”

  “You roasted the old man,” Cody said. “Willet’s grandfather. Why’d you do that if you live off the blood?”

  Price frowned. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  Cody grunted. “In the bar, you guys drank like—”

  “Blood is a restorative, Mr. Wilson, but we also crave the taste. As far as Willet’s grandfather is concerned, we still need to eat, don’t we? So why should we have al
lowed perfectly good meat go to waste?”

  Remembering the gamey odor of the old man’s roasting flesh, Cody suppressed a wave of revulsion.

  “Now, Mr. Wilson,” Price said, leaning forward and placing his hands on his knees, “are these the answers you truly seek? Quizzing me about our eating habits and our reasons for changing? Think of the opportunity you have! How many men get the chance to learn about my kind?”

  Cody drew in a deep breath, blew it out slowly. “Why’d you turn Willet?”

  “You care about the boy.”

  Cody bared his teeth. “Not in the way you told that bastard Bittner.”

  “A means to an end, Mr. Wilson. I used the man’s twisted psyche to achieve my desired effect. And as you saw, it worked well.” A shadow crept into Price’s face. “Up to a point.”

  “You mean the point where I used Bittner to kill your friend?”

  Price favored Cody with a soft, patient smile, the look of a veteran schoolteacher dealing with an impudent but tractable child. “You’ll not bait me again, Mr. Wilson. Though I do have to give you credit for doing to me what no man has done for quite some time. I rarely lose control.”

  “But you see the beauty in it, don’t you?” Cody said. “Bittner and Dragomir were filled with poison, so both of them got what they deserved.”

  Price nodded. “There was a certain symmetry in the moment. That I won’t deny. Nor can you deny the irony of bringing death to the man who gave you life.”

  Cody felt some of his confidence fade. “Or it’s just you being sadistic.”

  “You idolize your father, Mr. Wilson. Even when you despised him, you idolized him. Like Ahab, you sought to strike at the face of God. Or in your case, your earthly father. That’s why you hurt him by marrying a tart.”

  “That’s a mean way to talk about your new concubine.”

  “I know what Angela is,” Price said.

  “If you did, you wouldn’t have taken her with you.”

  “But you did,” Price said, eyebrows rising. “You struck at your father in the cruelest manner possible. Not only did you marry a woman certain to bring you to ruin, but in doing so you deprived him of his only child.”

  Cody looked away. “I made a mistake.”

  “Indeed,” Price agreed. “As for Angela, she will serve her purpose for a time, whether that’s luring prey to our group or satisfying our carnal urges. But she is just one of many. There have been harlots before her, and there will be harlots in the centuries to come. It is the nature of women.”

  “Horseshit.”

  Price drew back, surprised. “You disagree? I’d have thought you, above all men, would hold the fairer sex in contempt.”

  “I was hurt and ashamed and more embarrassed than any living thing has a right to be. So I suppose over the past several days I’ve harbored some mean notions. But that’s changed now.”

  “Let me posit a guess. It was your lovely barmaid who disabused you of this prejudice.”

  “Part of it was Marguerite,” Cody allowed. “But most of it was Dad. He didn’t raise me up to demean women. He taught me to honor them. To respect them. Which I guess is why I was so nice to Angela. Why I didn’t see what she was.”

  A voice spoke up from the open door of the coach. “Cody loves and hates his daddy more than any boy ever did.”

  Angela climbed into the coach, her pallid flesh bulging sensuously over the bodice of her white dress. “Cody talked about Daddy all the time. Some of it was good, some of it wasn’t. But if I ever said anything against the old bastard—” Angela rolled her eyes and made a whistling sound. “Jesus, you’d’ve thought I’d burned the Bible by the way he hollered at me.”

  “I never raised my hand to you,” Cody said.

  “Of course you didn’t,” Angela said, sitting across from him. “You were too much of a coward to do that.”

  Price regarded his shoes in embarrassment. “I can see you two want to spend these last few moments discussing your differences.” He hopped agilely out of the coach and addressed Angela. “We should be there within the hour. Say what you want to him before he dies. But don’t let him goad you into violence.”

  Price grasped the door, appeared about to close it, but paused, a thoughtful expression on his face. “He’s smarter than I at first thought. Much smarter, it seems. Had events transpired differently, he might have been very useful to me. He might have even made a powerful ally. But we’ve long since passed that point. He must die, and he must die in agony. We will make his father’s ranch a place of horror, a warning to all who seek to oppose us in the future.” He stared intently at Angela. “Please keep your head. Please allow me the pleasure of his screams.”

  With that, Price closed the door.

  Angela looked at Cody and arched an eyebrow. “Would you like to make love to me one last time?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Cody stared at her across the coach, her pale cleavage trembling with each bump on the trail. “Would I like to what?”

  “Make love to me. Surely you remember how?”

  Cody laughed. “You are a piece of work, Angela. You think I’d touch you after all you’ve done?”

  Angela leaned forward, her breasts bunching against the décolletage. “I could make you.”

  “You’d have to kill me first.”

  There was smoke in her gaze, her voice a low purr. “You know you want to.”

  Cody clenched his jaw. “You let that bastard Horton screw you right on the stage. You probably let all of ’em have a turn on you. Penders, Price, even the twins.”

  Angela’s gaze was unwavering. “They’re not here now.”

  Cody noticed how her legs were crossed, the left one positioned over the right so the slit in her white dress opened all the way up to the cleft between her legs. Against his will, Cody’s eyes went there, took in the white satin triangle of underwear covering her cleft.

  His voice husky, he said, “You’re the worst kind of animal. You take what you’ve been given…” His eyes flicked to her crotch, then roamed over her bulging breasts. “…and I don’t deny you’ve been given a lot. But you take what could be a special thing, a beautiful thing, and turn it into something unnatural.”

  Without a word, she reached up, unlaced the bodice of her dress.

  “The hell are you doing?” he asked in a tight voice.

  “You know,” she said. The laces loosened, the ample breasts pushing free of their strictures. They sagged as the dress opened up, but they didn’t sag much.

  Jesus, Cody thought. Price says it’s women who’re animals, but they’re nothing compared to men. For me to even consider what this monster is proposing…good God, I’m no better than a dog in heat.

  Angela appeared to catch the drift of his thoughts. Her lusty grin grew triumphant, a wanton glaze seeming to envelope her. She shook loose of the shoulder straps—she wore no brassiere—and was suddenly, horribly, naked to the waist. Her tummy was a trifle plump, the smooth flesh there adorned with a soft, colorless sheen of down. Cody remembered the way she used to let him play around down there. When he begged her to let him. He remembered the color of her pubic hair, dark blond and seeming to prickle to attention when he’d run his tongue through it.

  “That’s right, baby,” Angela coaxed. “Imagine how it’ll be. Imagine how I’ll taste.”

  Cody did. God help him, he did. He remembered those rare times when Angela let him act like a man and have his run of her body, permitted him to give her pleasure without complicating it with her insults and her games. He wanted to spread her legs, he wanted to prime her, prepare her. And dammit if he didn’t want to impale her and rut like an animal, go wild with this woman, slap bellies with her until his basest desires were quenched.

  Once again, she seemed to hear his thoughts. She stood, wiggled a little as she pushed the dress over her hips. He caught a glimpse of her dark blond thatch, but it was the sight of her belly that gave him pause. Her tummy was distended a little, but tha
t wasn’t what bothered him. What bothered him what was in her belly, the reason why her stomach was so round.

  The dress slithering down her legs, Angela said, “It doesn’t matter, baby. Come over here and give me what I need.”

  But it did matter. Dear God, it did. For in that belly were the digesting remains of at least five people, and that only counted the ones Cody witnessed Angela killing and eating. Who knew how many lives she’d taken that night, how many gobbets of flesh she’d torn from screaming victims and chewed up like some unfeeling lioness?

  There was no tenderness in her voice now. Only steel. “Get over here,” she commanded.

  Cody wetted his lips, felt icy sweat bead on his forehead. “Uh-uh. I’ve seen all I need to.”

  “I won’t tell you again,” she said, her voice deepening. “Get over here and lick my cunt.”

  Cody looked up at her, his face grim. “Lick your own cunt. That new tongue of yours ought to be long enough.”

  The change started. “You little sissy.”

  The coach began to slow. Cody shot a glance out the window, spotted the mountains rising in the distance. Had they reached the ranch, or was Price stopping to delay Cody’s death one last time?

  Whatever the case, it better happen quickly, Cody thought. Angela’s eyes had begun their weird color change, orange sparks beginning to flicker in her irises. Their shape altered too, the eyes transforming into vertical and faintly crocodilian lozenges.

  Angela’s speech was impacted by the pallid spears now sprouting out of her gums, but Cody made out the words well enough. “You were never a man,” she said, stepping toward him and out of her dress, which lay pooled on the floor. “You expected me to be a proper lady, but you never set me up like one.”

  Cody knew he should stall, should somehow put off her change by making nice, but the words were out before he knew he was going to utter them. “Your nature is corrupt, Angela. Always was. I was beguiled by your looks, but I never took the measure of your heart.”