Jack Wilson stepped close to Price, placed the Schofield against his forehead, and squeezed the trigger. The back of Price’s head exploded in a brilliant vermilion splash. Price teetered a moment, then thumped down sideways in the rocky scree.
His father went for the bone saw, but Cody grabbed hold of his pant leg.
“What?” his dad yelled.
Cody nodded at the crashed coach, said, “Look.”
The large figure rose among the unmoving forms of the horses. Cody’s stomach gave a lurch when he realized why the horses had been bucking and neighing so wildly.
Penders had been feeding.
The huge man turned and leered at them, the entire front of his massive body slicked with horse blood.
“Come on,” Cody said, rising and dragging his father toward the gate.
Jack Wilson gestured toward Price. “We’ve gotta kill this son of a bitch while we’ve got the chance.”
“What about the women?”
Jack Wilson froze. He twitched his head from side to side, scanning the shadowy ranch for signs of Gladys and Marguerite, but neither woman was visible. Neither were Willet or his mother.
“Where the hell—” his dad began to say.
An answering scream told them more than they wanted to know.
It came from the largest barn, the one to the left of the house.
It came from Gladys.
Cody knew he’d talked his dad into forsaking Adam Price in order to save the women, but even as they burst through the open gate he began to question his own argument. Penders was already recovering from whatever wounds he’d sustained in his violent collision with the four now-dead horses and the Concord coach. The man’s ursine form trailed after them as they made for the barn, Penders moving with an unsettling species of foggy agility. True, he kept yawing left and right as he ran, but those glaring orange eyes never seemed to blink, the toothy grin festooning the bearded face as fixed as some evil constellation. Cody felt a pressing desire to glance over his shoulder to make sure that Price was still down, but he worried that if he did, Penders would overtake them.
“This was a mistake, son,” Jack Wilson said, panting. “You shoulda let me at least put another couple in him with this Schofield.”
They were nearing the barn.
“Bullets wouldn’t have hurt him, Dad. I saw Penders—”
“Who’s Penders?”
“The one behind us,” Cody said and jerked a thumb. “You know, the one looks like a mountain? I saw him and Angela get shot more times than I could count and still get back up again.”
They’d reached the open barn doors.
Jack Wilson made to push inside, but Cody barred him with an outstretched arm. “Careful, Dad. They might be waiting for us.”
“Murdering bastards,” his dad said, his light blue eyes darting about the murky barn. Since the weather had been clear for a good while, all the cattle were grazing in the pasture, which at least meant it was quiet enough to hear. That was, if Cody could hear. The ringing in his ears sounded like New Year’s Eve.
His dad waded deeper into the darkness. Cody aimed the gun at the doorway behind them, ready to put one in Penders’s forehead the moment the big son of a bitch stumbled through.
Turning, Cody gasped and grabbed hold of his father’s shoulder. “Watch where you’re walking,” he said.
Jack Wilson looked down at the harrow he’d almost stumbled on top of.
“Thanks,” his dad said.
They walked a couple more paces, but saw no movement save a plover that had been sheltering on a rafter. With a surly chirp and a flutter of wings, the plover disappeared the way they’d come in. Cody threw a glance back at the doorway, but Penders had either faltered or decided to attack them from a different direction.
“Wait a minute,” his dad said, stopping. “You hear that?”
Cody shook his head, was about to explain that he couldn’t hear any sound unless it was made by a cannon. But then it came to him, something that reminded him of hogs at slop time.
Oh shit, he thought.
Cody followed his father’s gaze to the hay mount. The noises were coming from up there.
“You sons of bitches!” his father shouted. Jack Wilson started up the ladder. Nervelessly, Cody climbed after him. When his dad reached the top, Jack Wilson stopped climbing. Cody hung onto the wooden rungs, waiting, terrified that Penders would come barreling through the door. Then the huge vampire would leap up and snatch him off the ladder as easily as a well-trained dog snags a thrown stick from the air. And then it would be over.
And what about Marguerite, a voice asked him. You remember her, Mr. Self-Absorbed? The gal who rode fifty miles just to save your sorry hide?
The panic in Jack Wilson’s voice froze Cody’s blood. “Get away from her!”
Illuminated by the scant glow filtering through the single upper window, his dad climbed into the hayloft. Cody hustled after him, and when he’d gone a few paces, he realized why his father’s voice had sounded so tortured.
Willet and Mrs. Black had Gladys splayed out in the hay, each of them supping from one of her slit wrists.
Cody’s stomach sank, but he reached for the Colt anyway. Faintly, he wondered where Marguerite had gone, but he didn’t have time to consider the thought for long. His dad was rushing at Willet Black, who was nearest to them. Jack Wilson aimed his Schofield, fired. The top of Willet’s head disappeared, though one big flap of hair pirouetted in the air a moment before landing on a bale of hay. Willet himself went somersaulting backward before coming to rest in a tangle of scrawny limbs.
Cody noted with mounting dread that Gladys did not look up or even twitch at the sound of her husband’s gun.
But Mrs. Black did. Hissing, she hurtled at Jack Wilson, her claws flashing in the faint morning light. Cody’s dad fired at her just before she hit him, and her head jerked backward as the slug rammed home. She landed in a convulsing heap at Jack Wilson’s feet. He immediately went to Gladys’s prone form and began speaking to her in harsh, imploring whispers.
But Cody could’ve told him it was too late. What blood the vampires hadn’t imbibed had soaked into the loose hay and the wood dust. Gladys would never move again.
Unless it was as a vampire.
“Goddamn them,” Jack Wilson growled, body shaking. “Goddamn them!”
His father began to weep.
From outside came a sound Cody couldn’t at first place. But when he did, he doubted the veracity of what the sound suggested. He rushed to the window and peered out.
The black coach had wheeled around and was moving away down the trail. Cody couldn’t quite make out who sat the box. The shape was oddly slumped. Was it Price? Marguerite?
He returned to stand over his father. The man’s sobs were horrible to hear. Cody longed to soothe his dad, to place a comforting hand on the back of the man’s sunburned neck, but he knew it would be a feeble gesture.
Cody bit his lip. He fidgeted with the knots on his head, unable to keep still. He kept glancing over at the top of the ladder, expecting at any moment for Penders’s big, shaggy head to appear. And then the eyes glowing like hellfire…the gleaming razor teeth…
“Let’s get inside, Dad.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Jack Wilson answered thickly. “Go down and get my scythe off the wall.”
“We don’t have time.”
“We will if you hurry.”
“But you didn’t do it to Price,” Cody argued. “Why do it to them?”
His dad whirled and glared at him with fierce, wet eyes. “Price didn’t murder my wife, now did he?”
Cody’s muscles were knots of tension, his body seeming to calcify with his fear. “Dad, if we can get inside, the sunlight might—”
“Get my scythe now, boy. I’m not going to ask again.”
Cody did as he was told, knowing as he angled toward the ladder he was reverting back to his childhood self, before he’d begun to rebel, befor
e he’d started finding ways to hurt his father without realizing that’s what he was striving to do or how wrong it was to do it.
He reached the ladder, bent to put his foot on a rung.
His foot came down on Penders’s hand.
Cody shot a horrified look down at the huge vampire.
Penders leered up at him.
Grasped him by the butt of his pants and yanked him backward off the ladder.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cody twisted as he fell, the compacted barn floor racing up to meet him. He landed well enough not to break anything, but the wind was still pounded from his lungs. Unable to breathe, his sternum, balls, and knees on fire from landing face down, Cody’s terror was nonetheless powerful enough to compel him to his feet just before Penders landed on top of him. As it was, Cody was shuffling forward with a blundering, pained gait when Penders hit the barn floor. A shot sounded from somewhere in the barn, and for a wild second Cody was sure Penders had decided chasing him was too much trouble and had opted to simply shoot him in the back to save himself the trouble. But the gunshot had come from somewhere above Cody, and as he advanced into the darkness toward the opposite barn wall, he realized it had probably been his father’s Schofield, his dad putting one of the vampires in the loft down while he waited for Cody to return with the scythe.
But to accomplish that, Cody’d not only have to make it to the other side of the barn, he’d have to locate the scythe among the numerous hanging tools, lift it from the wall, then either fight off Penders or make it past him without dying.
The odds weren’t good.
A moan sounded up ahead, but Cody couldn’t immediately place where he’d heard the voice before.
Then he remembered Marguerite.
A barrage of thoughts assailed him. If Marguerite was here, that meant Price had taken the black coach away. That would have filled Cody with joy, but he knew Penders would be upon him within moments. He could hear the big vampire back there, huffing closer. But Marguerite’s moaning swept away all other thought, even his desire to find the scythe.
When Cody reached the opposite barn wall and the array of tools hung on either side of the door, he understood why Marguerite was moaning.
And he found the scythe, too.
Mrs. Black and Willet had somehow lifted the dark-skinned girl ten feet in the air and used the scythe to fasten her to the wall. How the hell they’d managed it, he couldn’t begin to guess. There was a stepladder nearby, but…Jesus, Cody thought. They must’ve been desperate to save her for later. The handle of the five-foot-long implement had been hammered horizontally into the wood with a long nail, the tip of the blade slammed into the wall to hold it there.
Marguerite’s throat was pinned to the wall by the curved blade, which was embedded deeply enough to brook no escape. The aperture between wall and blade was scarcely large enough to accommodate her neck, much less her head should she try to slip it through the gap. But as he reached her, Cody saw with a leap of hope that her bootheels were scrabbling against the wall to push her higher and thus spare her throat the bite of the gleaming scythe blade. She was bleeding a little, but her hands were gripping the scythe, pulling desperately against it to keep her throat from being savaged by the blade.
Marguerite was gazing mournfully down at Cody, but then her eyes shifted to something right behind him. Cody whirled, the Colt out and firing.
He only had two bullets left, but they were enough to bring down Penders. He fell a mere six feet away, his hands pawing at the holes Cody had opened in his gut.
Cody hustled over, grabbed the stepladder, positioned it below Marguerite, and climbed up. Halfway up, he spotted a short box saw and on a whim lifted it off the wall, thinking he could perhaps use it as a pry. When he reached the top, his father’s gun went off three more times. Must have reloaded, Cody thought, then tried not to linger on the fact that he himself was no longer armed.
Now that he was closer to Marguerite he could see how the blade had sunk into the soft flesh under her jaw, how the blood had begun to leak down her throat and stain her bosom. He got his arms around her midsection, began to lift her, but she made a strangled, protesting noise, clearly wanting him to rip the scythe out of the wall instead.
“But you’ll fall,” he said.
Rather than answering, she stared back at him fixedly. Absent of a nod, of which he knew she wasn’t capable, it was the clearest confirmation she could provide.
Grimacing, Cody tossed the box saw to the floor and got hold of the scythe handle with both hands just before the wood became steel. He looked at her. “When this thing comes loose, you’re gonna fall. Try to land on the top of the stepladder, all right?”
She watched him steadily.
Cody heaved a sigh, put one boot against the wall, and yanked. At first, there was no give. Whoever had slammed the blade tip into the wall must have done so with incredible force. But as Cody strained, putting his whole body into it, the blade gave a little jerk. He heard Penders’s breathing on the floor behind him, knew the huge vampire wouldn’t stay down much longer.
Knowing he couldn’t possibly land with any kind of grace or safety, Cody planted both his feet against the wall and heaved backward. The blade snicked free. Cody plummeted into the dark and landed on something that grunted.
Penders.
He heard Marguerite clatter against the stepladder, saw the whole thing canting sideways, then watched her leap off it with catlike agility. Penders was stirring. For all Cody knew, his falling on the vampire might have been what roused Penders. Before Cody could gain his feet, he saw Marguerite cross to the downhanging scythe blade. She adjusted the stepladder, climbed up, grabbed hold of the wooden handle with both hands, then stepped off the ladder so her whole weight would exert itself on the scythe.
It worked. The scythe handle popped free of its nail.
“Cody!” his father’s voice called from the loft.
“Come on,” Cody said to Marguerite. “Give me the scythe.”
But rather than obeying him, Marguerite stepped around Penders’s immense body, braced her feet far apart, and swung the scythe in a swooshing arc.
The vampire’s hand shot up, caught the top of the handle.
The blade stopped mere inches from Penders’s throat.
Penders laughed up at them, his mouth congealed in a menacing grin. Penders ripped the scythe out of Marguerite’s grip. He chopped down at her with the scythe, but she dodged it at the last moment. The force of the swing buried the blade tip deep into the wood of the barn wall. Furious, Penders strained to yank it free. Cody took a step toward Marguerite, his toe bumping something on the floor. He glanced down frantically and saw what it was.
The box saw.
Cody retrieved the saw, stepped behind Penders. The vampire ripped the scythe free, but just as he did, Cody grasped a handful of Penders’s shaggy hair and dragged the saw’s rusty teeth over the big vampire’s eyes.
Penders roared. He let go of the scythe and rolled away from Cody and Marguerite, bellowing in agony. He clamped his great paws over his eyes, but twin gouts of bloody sclera oozed from between his fingers. Marguerite was on Penders in an instant, the scythe whistling down at him like grim death. The blade embedded itself in his shoulder, then wrenched free when Marguerite held on and Penders continued to roll. The big vampire stumbled to his feet and began shambling in the direction of the barn opening, moving, Cody was certain, almost entirely by memory. If Penders wasn’t totally blind with his mutilated eyes, he was close to it. Marguerite pelted after him, looking like some artist’s depiction of female vengeance. Her flowing black hair swished behind her, her white dress torn in several places but still hauntingly beautiful on her strong body. She aimed another stroke at Penders, this time parting the shirt and the flesh between the vampire’s broad shoulders. The blood he’d drunk from the horses poured from the gash in swollen rills.
Cody realized he’d been standing and watching after them, gaping at Margu
erite like a slack-jawed suitor. He took off in their direction just as his father’s voice sounded from above. “I’m almost outta ammo, Cody! Where the hell’s my scythe?”
Penders was slowing now, Marguerite’s blows taking their toll. Something just ahead of Penders glistened in the growing dawn light.
From above, his father was screaming for them to Hurry, goddammit, hurry!
Cody shouted to Marguerite, “Take the scythe up to my dad. He’s got two vampires in the loft.”
She glanced back at him, a pained expression knitting her pretty brow. “But we have to finish this one.”
“We will,” Cody said, shoving her past Penders, who was staggering forward like a soldier dazed by a too-near blast.
Marguerite bared her teeth a moment, clearly anxious to finish off Penders, but she did as Cody had requested, hustling over to the ladder and beginning the climb toward the loft.
Cody circled around Penders. “Come on, Stevie,” he said. “Follow my voice. I’m gonna whup your sorry ass.”
Penders roared, perhaps forgetting for a moment his tremendous pain, and shambled toward Cody.
“That’s right,” Cody said, guiding him. “Come on, big guy.”
Penders’s boot caught on the front of the harrow, and before he could catch himself, he crashed down on top of it, the multitudinous steel spikes skewering his huge body like knives sliding into an enormous block of cheese. His chest, his gut, his meaty thighs, even his arms were punctured. One hard iron spike crunched through his teeth, pierced the back of his mouth, and split through the hair at the base of his skull. Penders wriggled on the harrow like a baited minnow, the horse blood flooding the barn floor beneath him as though someone had thumbed on a hundred spigots.
From above came shouts, the sounds of a struggle.
Blocking it out as well as he could, Cody fitted the box saw between two harrow spikes so that its teeth met Penders’s flesh just below the hairline. Cody began to saw feverishly, the blood splattering his knuckles, his forearm, his face. But he kept at it, listening for his father or for Marguerite, and by the time he’d made it through, he’d begun to hope they’d had the same good luck up in the loft.
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