Love in Vein

by Poppy Z. Brite

  And then they were alone. The party sounds were a world away. But those sounds were nothing worth hearing—they were dead sounds compared to the music secret lovers could make. Matched with the rustle of her skirts, and the whisper of his fingers on her tender thighs, and the sweet duet of hungry lips, the sounds locked up in the big stone house were as sad and empty as the cries of the damned souls in Dr. Seward’s loony bin, and he drew her away from them, and she pushed him away from them, and together they entered another world where strange shadows met, cloaking them like fringed buckskin, like gathered satin.

  Buckskin and satin. It wasn’t what you’d call a likely match. They’d been dancing around it for months. But now the dancing was over.

  “God, I want you,” he said.

  She didn’t say anything. There was really nothing more to say.

  She gave. She took. And he did the same.

  He reined in the horses just short of town. Everything was black but that one circle of white hanging high in the sky.

  He stepped down from the driver’s box and stretched. He drew the night air deep into his lungs. The air was dry and dusty, and there wasn’t anything in it that was pleasant.

  He was tired. He lay down on top of the big black box in the back of the wagon and thought of her. His fingers traveled wood warped in the leaky cargo hold of a British ship. Splinters fought his callused hands, lost the battle. But he lost the war, because the dissonant rasp of rough fingers on warped wood was nothing like the music the same rough fingers could make when exploring a young woman’s thighs.

  He didn’t give up easy, though. He searched for the memory of the green scent of England, and the music he’d made there, and shadows of satin and buckskin. He searched for the perfume of her hair, and her skin. The ready, eager perfume of her sex.

  His hands traveled the wood. Scurrying like scorpions. Damn things just wouldn’t give up, and he couldn’t help laughing.

  Raindrops beaded on the box. The nightwave was breaking.

  No. Not raindrops at all. Only his tears.

  The sky was empty. No clouds. No rain.

  No lightning.

  But there was lightning in his eyes.

  Two

  The morning sunlight couldn’t penetrate the filthy jailhouse window. That didn’t bother the man in black. He had grown to appreciate the darkness.

  Sheriff Josh Muller scratched his head. “This is the damnedest thing, Quincey. You got to admit that that Stoker fella made it pretty plain in his book.”

  Quincey smiled. “You believe the lies that Buntline wrote about Buffalo Bill, too?”

  “Shit no, Quince. But, hell, that Stoker is an Englishman. I thought they was different and all—”

  “I used to think that. Until I got to know a few of the bastards, that is.”

  “Well,” the sheriff said, “that may be… but the way it was, was… we all thought that you had been killed by them Transylvanian gypsies, like you was in the book.”

  “I’ve been some places, before and since. But we never got to Transylvania. Not one of us. And I ain’t even feelin’ poorly.”

  “But in the book—”

  “Just how stupid are you, Josh? You believe in vampires, too? Your bowels get loose thinkin’ about Count Dracula?”

  “Hell, no, of course not, but—”

  “Shit, Josh, I didn’t mean that like a question you were supposed to answer.”

  “Huh?”

  Quincey sighed. “Let’s toss this on the fire and watch it sizzle. It’s real simple—I ain’t dead. I’m back. Things are gonna be just like they used to be. We can start with this here window.”

  Quincey Morris shot a thumb over his shoulder. The sheriff looked up and saw how dirty the window was. He grabbed a rag from his desk. “I’ll take care of it, Quince.”

  “You don’t get it,” the man in black said.

  “Huh?”

  Again, Quincey sighed. “I ain’t dead. I’m back. Things are gonna be just like they used to be. And this is Morrisville, right?”

  The sheriff squinted at the words painted on the window. He wasn’t a particularly fast reader—he’d been four months reading the Stoker book, and that was with his son doing most of the reading out loud. On top of that, he had to read this backwards. He started in, reading right to left: O-W-E-N-S-V-I-L-L…

  That was as far as he got. Quincey Morris picked up a chair and sent it flying through the glass, and then the word wasn’t there anymore.

  Morris stepped through the opening and started toward his wagon. He stopped in the street, which was like a river of sunlight, turned, and squinted at the sheriff. “Get that window fixed,” he said. “Before I come back.”

  “Where are you headed?” The words were out of Josh Muller’s mouth before he could stop himself, and he flinched at the grin Morris gave him in return.

  “I’m goin’ home,” was all he said.

  There in the shadows, none of it mattered, because it was only the two of them. Two creatures from different worlds, but with hearts that were the same.

  He’d come one hell of a long way to find this. Searched the world over. He’d known that he’d find it, once he went looking, same as he’d known that it was something he had to go out and find if he wanted to keep on living. His gut told him, Find it, or put a bullet in your brainpan. But he hadn’t known it would feel like this. It never had before. But this time, with this person… she filled him up like no one else. And he figured it was the same with her.

  “I want you.”

  “I think you just had me, Mr. Morris.”

  Her laughter tickled his neck, warm breath washing a cool patch traced by her tongue, drawn by her lips. Just a bruise, but as sure and real as a brand. He belonged to her. He knew that. But he didn’t know—

  The words slipped out before he could think them through. “I want you, forever.”

  That about said it, all right.

  He felt her shiver, and then her lips found his.

  “Forever is a long time,” she said.

  They laughed about that, embracing in the shadows.

  They actually laughed.

  She came running out of the big house as soon as he turned in from the road. Seeing her, he didn’t feel a thing. That made him happy, because in England, in the midst of everything else, he’d thought about her a lot. He’d wondered just what kind of fuel made her belly burn, and why she wasn’t more honest about it, in the way of the count. He wondered why she’d never gone ahead and torn open his jugular, the way a vampire would, because she sure as hell had torn open his heart.

  Leonora ran through the blowing dust, her hair a blond tangle, and she was up on the driver’s box sitting next to him before he could slow the horses—her arms around him, her lips on his cheek, her little flute of a voice all happy. “Quince! Oh, Quince! It is you! We thought you were dead!”

  He shook his head. His eyes were on the big house. It hadn’t changed. Not in the looks department, anyway. The occupants… now that was a different story.

  “Miss me?” he asked, and his tone of voice was not a pleasant thing.

  “I’m sorry.” She said it like she’d done something silly, like maybe she’d spilled some salt at the supper table or something. “I’m glad you came back.” She hugged him. “It’ll be different now. We’ve both had a chance to grow up.”

  He chuckled at that one, and she got it crossed up. “Oh, Quince, we’ll work it out… you’ll see. We both made mistakes. But it’s not too late to straighten them out.” She leaned over and kissed his neck, her tongue working between her lips.

  Quincey flushed with anger and embarrassment. The bitch. And with the box right there, behind them, in plain view. With him dressed head to toe in black. God, Leonora had the perceptive abilities of a blind armadillo.

  He shoved her, hard. She tumbled off the driver’s box. Her skirts caught on the seat, tearing as she fell. She landed in the dirt, petticoats bunched up around her waist.


  She cussed him real good. But he didn’t hear her at all, because suddenly he could see everything so clearly. The golden wedding band on her finger didn’t mean much. Not to her it didn’t, so it didn’t mean anything to him. But the fist-sized bruises on her legs did.

  He’d seen enough. He’d drawn a couple conclusions. Hal Owens hadn’t changed. Looking at those bruises, that was for damn sure. And it was misery that filled up Leonora’s belly—that had to be the answer which had eluded him for so long—and at present it seemed that she was having to make do with her own. Knowing Leonora as he did, he figured that she was probably about ready for a change of menu, and he wanted to make it real clear that he wasn’t going to be the next course.

  “You bastard!” she yelled. “You’re finished around here! You can’t just come walkin’ back into town, big as you please! This ain’t Morrisville, anymore, Quincey! It’s Owensville! And Hal’s gonna kill you! I’m his wife, dammit! And when I tell him what you did to me, he’s gonna flat-out kill you!” She scooped up fistfuls of dirt, threw them at him. “You don’t belong here anymore, you bastard!”

  She was right about that. He didn’t belong here anymore. This wasn’t his world. His world was contained in a big black box. That was the only place for him anymore. Anywhere else there was only trouble.

  Didn’t matter where he went these days, folks were always threatening him.

  Threats seemed to be his lot in life.

  Take Arthur Holmwood, for instance. He was a big one for threats. The morning after the Westenras’ party, he’d visited Quincey’s lodgings, bringing with him Dr. Seward and a varnished box with brass hinges.

  “I demand satisfaction,” he’d said, opening the box and setting it on the table.

  Quincey stared down at the pistols. Flintlocks. Real pioneer stuff. “Hell, Art,” he said, snatching his Peacemaker from beneath his breakfast napkin (Texas habits died hard, after all), “let’s you and me get real satisfied, then.”

  The doctor went ahead and pissed in the pot. “Look here, Morris. You’re in England now. A man does things in a certain way here. A gentleman, I should say.”

  Quincey was sufficiently cowed to table his Peacemaker. “Maybe I am a fish out of water, like you say, Doc.” He examined one of the dueling pistols. “But ain’t these a little old-fashioned, even for England? I thought this kind of thing went out with powdered wigs and such.”

  “A concession to you.” Holmwood sneered. “We understand that in your Texas, men duel in the streets quite regularly.”

  Quincey grinned. “That’s kind of an exaggeration.”

  “The fact remains that you compromised Miss Lucy’s honor.”

  “Who says?”

  Seward straightened. “I myself observed the way you thrust yourself upon her last night, on the terrace. And I saw Miss Lucy leave the party in your charge.”

  “You get a real good look, Doc?” Quincey’s eyes narrowed. “You get a right proper fly-on-a-dung-pile close-up view, or are you just telling tales out of school?”

  Holmwood’s hand darted out. Fisted, but he did his business with a pair of kid gloves knotted in his grip. The gloves slapped the Texan’s left cheek and came back for his right, at which time Quincey Morris exploded from his chair and kneed Arthur Holmwood in the balls.

  Holmwood was a tall man. He seemed to go down in sections. Doctor Seward trembled as Quincey retrieved his Peacemaker, and he didn’t calm down at all when the Texan holstered the weapon.

  Quincey didn’t see any point to stretching things out, not when there was serious fence-mending to do at the Westenras’ house. “I hope you boys will think on this real seriously,” he said as he stepped over Holmwood and made for the door.

  There was a Mexican kid pretending to do some work behind the big house. Quincey gave him a nickel and took him around front.

  The kid wasn’t happy to see the box. He crossed himself several times. Then he spit on his palms and took one end, delighted to find that the box wasn’t as heavy as it looked.

  They set it in the parlor. Quincey had to take a chair and catch his breath. After all that time on the ship, and then more time sitting on his butt slapping reins to a pair of swaybacks, he wasn’t much good. Of course, this wasn’t as tough as when he’d had to haul the box from the Westenra family tomb, all by his lonesome, but it was bad enough. By the time he remembered to thank the kid, the kid had already gone.

  Nothing for it, then.

  Nothing, but to do it.

  The words came back to him, echoing in his head. And it wasn’t the voice of some European doctor, like in Stoker’s book. It was Seward’s voice. “One moments courage, and it is done.”

  He shook those words away. He was alone here. The parlor hadn’t changed much since the day he’d left to tour the world. The curtains were heavy and dark, and the deep shadows seemed to brush his cheek, one moment buckskin-rough, next moment satin-smooth.

  Like the shadows in the Westenras’ garden. The shadows where he’d held Lucy to him. Held her so close.

  No. He wouldn’t think of that. Not now. He had work to do. He couldn’t start thinking about how it had been, because then he’d certainly start thinking about how it might be, again…

  One moment’s courage, and it is done.

  God, how he wanted to laugh, but he kept it inside.

  His big bowie knife was in his hand. He didn’t know quite how it had gotten there. He went to work on the lid of the box, first removing brass screws, then removing the hinges.

  One moments courage .. .

  The lid crashed heavily to the floor, but he never heard it. His horror was too great for that. After all this time, the stink of garlic burned his nostrils, scorched his lungs. But that wasn’t the hell of it.

  The hell of it was that she had moved.

  Oh, she hadn’t moved. He knew that. He could see the stake spearing her poor breast, the breast that he had teased between his own lips. She couldn’t move. Not with the stake there.

  But the churning Atlantic had rocked a sailing ship, and that had moved her. And a bucking wagon had jostled over the rutted roads of Texas, and that had moved her. And now her poor head, her poor severed head with all that dark and beautiful hair, was trapped between her own sweet legs, nestled between her own tender thighs, just as his head had been.

  Once. A long time ago.

  Maybe, once again…

  No. He wouldn’t start thinking like that. He stared at her head, knowing he’d have to touch it. There was no sign of decay, no stink of corruption. But he could see the buds of garlic jammed into the open hole of her throat, the ragged gashes and severed muscles, the dangling ropes of flesh.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw Seward standing stiff and straight with a scalpel in his bloodstained grip.

  And that bastard called himself a doctor.

  There were shadows, of course, in their secret place in the Westenra garden. And he held her, as he had before. But now she never stopped shaking.

  “You shouldn’t have done it,” she said. “Arthur is behaving like one of Seward’s lunatics. You must be careful.”

  “You’re the one has to be careful, Lucy,” he said.

  “No.” She laughed. “Mother has disregarded the entire episode. Well, nearly so. She’s convinced that I behaved quite recklessly— and this judging from one kiss on the terrace. I had to assure her that we did nothing more than tour the garden in search of a better view of the moon. I said that was the custom in Texas. I’m not certain that she accepted my story, but… ” She kissed him, very quickly. “I’ve feigned illness for her benefit, and she believes that I am in the grip of a rare and exotic fever. Seward has convinced her of this, I think. Once I’m pronounced fit, I’m certain that she will forgive your imagined indiscretion.”

  “Now, Miss Lucy, I don’t think that was my imagination,” he joked.

  She laughed, trembling laughter there in his arms. “Seward has consulted a specialist. A European fellow. He’s said
to be an expert in fevers of the blood. I’m to see him tomorrow. That ought to put an end to the charade.”

  He wanted to say it. More than anything, he wanted to say, Forget tomorrow. Let’s leave here, tonight. But he didn’t say it, because she was trembling so.

  “You English,” he said. “You do love your charades.”

  Moonlight washed the shadows. He caught the wild look in her eye. A twin to the fearful look a colt gets just before it’s broken.

  He kept his silence. He was imagining things. He held her.

  It was the last time he would hold her, alive.

  Three

  Quincey pushed through the double doors of the saloon and was surprised to find it deserted except for a sleepy-eyed man who was polishing the piano.

  “You the piano player?” Quincey asked.

  “Sure,” the fellow said.

  Quincey brought out the Peacemaker. “Can you play ‘Red River Valley’?”

  “S-sure.” The man sat down, rolled up his sleeves.

  “Not here,” Quincey said.

  “H-huh?”

  “I got a big house on the edge of town.”

  The man swallowed hard. “You mean Mr. Owens’s place?”

  “No. I mean my place.”

  “H-huh?”

  “Anyway, you go on up there, and you wait for me.”

  The man rose from the piano stool, both eyes on the Peacemaker, and started toward the double doors.

  “Wait a minute,” Quincey said. “You’re forgetting something.”

  “W-what?”

  “Well, I don’t have a piano up at the house.”

  “Y-you don’t?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well… Hell, mister, what do you want me to do?”

  Quincey cocked the Peacemaker. “I guess you’d better start pushing.”

  “You mean… you want me to take the piano with me?”

  Quincey nodded. “Now, I’ll be home in a couple hours or so. You put the piano in the parlor, then you help yourself to a glass of whiskey. But don’t linger in the parlor, hear?”

  The man nodded. He seemed to catch on pretty quick. Had to be that he was a stranger in these parts.