There was a light on inside the tavern. She hadn’t expected that. A single candle stood on a table in the middle of the room, flickering with a yellow light that dazzled her eyes.
She was expected, she realized. Someone was waiting for her in here.
In the light of just the candle the room was full of dancing shadows. It was worse than darkness, she decided, so she blew out the flame and watched its orange spark dull and finally die. She didn’t turn on her flashlight immediately—she wanted her vision to adapt to the darkness first. So she stared into the dark and listened to nothing but her own breath. For a while that was all there was.
Then she heard music.
The sound of a fiddle playing a lively tune. It was so appropriate a sound for the ancient tavern that for a moment she wondered if she’d been sent back in time.
If only, she thought.
She climbed to her feet. The music was coming from above her, from some room higher up in the building. She heard another instrument as well—a flute? A recorder? No, it was a fife. And underneath, pounding out an uncomplicated rhythm, she heard a bass drum.
There was nothing forcing her to investigate the music. If she wanted to—and she really did want to, she knew that it was herself thinking this—she could just stay downstairs until dawn. She would be safe enough there in the tavern. She could defend herself. Shoot anything that tried to come through the door.
Keep her back to a stone wall that even vampires couldn’t break their way through.
She could just sit there and listen to the music all night. If she wanted to. And she wanted to.
There was only one problem. Arkeley would have wanted her to go upstairs. She knew exactly what he would do in her situation. She knew he was right. Vampires loved to play tricks with your brain. It was one of their chief joys. It was also one of their few weaknesses. If you walked right into their traps, if you defied the obvious logic of their illusions, more often than not you could catch them on a bad footing.
So she switched on her flashlight, found the stairwell, and headed up.
The room at the top of the stairs was maybe fifteen feet on a side, with a low ceiling and lots of windows. Beyond that she had no idea what it really looked like. What she saw up there, in that room, couldn’t possibly be real.
Men in blue uniforms, well tailored and lined with polished brass buttons, stood against the walls holding steins of beer or cups of punch. Their faces were ruddy with health and good cheer. A few of them were playing the instruments she’d heard, making a raucous, happy sound. Along one wall stood a groaning board loaded with roasts and cakes and an enormous punch bowl. Bunting hung from that wall, golden cloth printed with the message:
WELCOME BACK, ALVA
“our hero return’d”
The floor of the room had been cleared away—a thick rug had been rolled up and shoved in a corner.
On the bare floorboards two soldiers danced a spirited turn to the fiddle’s tune. Their faces were bright with sweat and excitement and they laughed as they turned and kicked around each other.
One was dressed in a tattered uniform of dark blue cotton and his face was torn and bloody, the skin hanging in ragged strips. He didn’t seem to mind, judging by how he laughed and clapped to keep time.
His partner looked in far better shape. He was a giant of a man, maybe seven feet tall. He was dashing in a green frock coat and tight gray trousers, his shoes shined to a high luster. The chevrons on his sleeve were picked out in gold embroidery. A shaggy mane of hair and a thick beard shot through with traces of gray framed a tanned, slightly lined face. His eyes were deep and soulful and very brown.
None of the room’s occupants seemed to notice Caxton as she clomped up the last risers and into the square room. They were too busy watching the wild dance, too absorbed in drinking and eating their fill.
Even as she raised her patrol rifle and tried to get a bead on one of the dancers’ hearts, not a single eye tracked her.
Then she fired—and everything changed.
92.
They came at us all at once. That is called Pickett’s charge now, but at the time we did not know who had called the advance. At the time it was only a wall of gray, sweeping toward us, as if some dam had been burst open and floodwaters were rushing uphill right at us. They screamed as they came, even as our mortars blew them to bits, even as General Berdan’s Sharpshooters picked them off one after the other. Still they came, our muskets blazing, and still they came, with banners flying. They pushed up against us, spun and died as they ran athwart our bayonets and still they came!
They broke our ranks. We pushed them back and they pressed us harder. The guns spoke volumes, the smoke so thick I could suddenly see nothing, and wandered mazed through a world that had lost all color and definition. I brushed up against the flank of a horse and muttered a pardon. The rider leaned down to get a look at me. It was General Hancock. “Have your men ready, sir,” he said, his eyes wide. “Make them ready!” He dashed off into the gloom and a moment later I heard him cry out. Had he been struck by enemy fire? I learned later that he had, and most grievously, but that he refused to leave the fighting. By God, even the generals were not safe that day!
I rushed back to where the coffins lay, watched over by a small guard of wounded men. I would have thrown them open at that very minute, and bid Griest and his men come forward and do battle, but time was against me. Despite the black pall over the sky the night was still far off.
—THE PAPERS OFWILLIAMPITTENGER
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99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale v-2 Page 27