by Helena Maeve
Was he certain?
There, at least, Asher had been able to convince them.
The Red Horn Riders were in town, asking after Ambrose. He wouldn’t have done it so openly, had he been walking in their shoes, but he was a watchmaker’s clerk and courier. All he knew about gunslingers was what he had read in the newspaper and gleaned from traveling merchants. The accounts were surely embellished to draw an audience, but without them he couldn’t have come this far.
With a halfhearted punch to his pillow, Asher rolled onto his stomach and willed anxiety away. As the saying went, worry was as good as a rocking horse—something to do without getting anywhere. The money had been spent months ago, passed from Asher to a middle-man and into the capable, gloved hands of the bandits themselves. Either the Riders kept up their end of the bargain or they went out in a blaze of glory.
Please, God. Let them succeed.
The prayer became a mantra, became a silent hymn lulling Asher to sleep. Anticipation burned itself out beneath its cheering repetition.
In his dreams, Sargasso was no longer a divided town. Asher saw the town hall in ruins, the ruin covered with sand and stone, Main Street turned into a playground for children no mother would have let out of her sight before. He walked from one end of town to the other with no one to stop or look askance at him, unafraid that some mudsill would run to his masters to say Asher Franklin was making a run for it.
And he was running all of a sudden, his boots eating up the dirt with every footfall, the sun beating down on his back like a bolstering caress.
Octavian was gone. His goons would never again hold a gun to Asher’s head.
Somewhere at his back, thunder roared over the valley. It wasn’t enough to stop Asher. He was running, he was free—he was falling, his feet pulled clean from under him.
He came to on the hardwood floor, light from the lamps still on in his uncle’s workroom prickling his eyes. Through a gap in the boards, he glimpsed movement—Uncle Howard crumpling against his desk, tools and fine little gears spilling over the edges. Blood on his uncle’s face. Blood on his clothes.
A fist knotted in Asher’s hair and yanked him back.
He shouted in pain, his scalp stinging as he fetched up against the bedframe. His left elbow took the brunt of the impact, but the pain that shot up his arm soon had to contend with a more overwhelming sensation.
Five men converged on him. The room was not meant to hold so many souls, the space around the bed too narrow to avoid stepping on each other. But that was what they’d come for.
They laid into him with fists and steel-toed boots, trampling him like a rat.
Between blows, Asher recognized Octavian among his attackers, but none of the others. He couldn’t risk more than a glance before someone aimed another kick at his face. He tried to duck, to bring his arms up to his head. Doing so only exposed the soft flesh of his stomach, his bare thighs where his sleep shirt had ridden up.
Pain exploded in his skull. He should have told Octavian what he wanted to hear. He should have said Angel Eyes had run off to Florida. Anything to spare himself this agony.
No matter how much it hurt, a small part of Asher’s mind was aware that they were still holding back.
They’re not allowed to kill me. They’re not allowed to do permanent damage.
Although how Octavian could be expected to estimate that, Asher wasn’t sure.
One particularly strong kick to his stomach made his vision white out. The air in his lungs evaporated.
Someone was shouting his name. It could only be Uncle Howard.
“Get him up,” Octavian commanded. His fangs had dropped, flashing in the moonlight like a pair of knives.
Asher made a valiant attempt to lock his knees, but his muscles wouldn’t obey and he slumped in the grip of two particularly unfriendly-looking vampires, their features unfamiliar. Their hold tightened around his arms when he made to recoil.
“Ambrose wants you alive,” Octavian growled, up close and snarling like a dog. “For now.”
“A-Ambrose?” In agony, Asher scrambled to understand. What did Ambrose have to do with Angel? Had Octavian somehow convinced the mayor that Asher was involved in her disappearance?
Octavian chuckled mirthlessly. “Did you think he wouldn’t find out? He’s going to make an example out of you.” The prospect seemed to broaden his grin. “You miserable waste of space. You’re gonna regret bein’ born.”
With a jerk of the head, he sent Asher’s captors in motion—down the stairs, past Uncle Howard with no explanation given. The gas light hurt Asher’s eyes, but no more so than the stricken expression his uncle directed his way. Incomprehension filled his expression. A bruise had already begun swelling on his cheek, and his glasses were askew.
Chaos in the shop was usually comforting, but tonight it bore the evidence of a brawl. That couldn’t be. Uncle Howard always kept his head down. He was among Ambrose’s protégés.
It wasn’t until Asher was dragged, stumbling, into the lane that he saw the rest. Doors gaped open in every house up and down Main Street. Worried faces filled the windows. Some townspeople were crying, others had taken to pleading for mercy from the bands of vampires holding them back. Torchlight ringed a makeshift pen in the center of the road, where the dried-up fountain still stood.
Asher’s stomach sank into his knees as he was tossed in with the other prisoners. He knew them all. Wesley Foley was a cowherd up at the New Morning Farm. Brent Turner had moved to Sargasso with his forty-niner father after the Rush. Austin worked on the railroad. The reverend was there, too, bleeding from a vicious bite that had taken off most of his right ear.
“What…” Asher started, but couldn’t find it in him to see the question to the end.
“One of you bastards talked,” Wesley growled, his gaze mutinous.
A few protesting murmurs attempted to shoot down the suggestion. It was unconscionable. Trust had been their only commandment. With that gone, they were as good as dead.
“Look around you,” said Wesley, which was how Asher realized he’d spoken at least a portion of his thoughts aloud. “Whoever ain’t here, that’s who killed us.”
Despite himself, Asher cast his gaze over the beaten, bleeding faces around them. It was easier than glancing up to see Uncle Howard holding up the shop doorframe, pleading with one of Octavian’s brethren to understand that this was a mistake. Asher was blameless.
Asher would never conspire against their rightful leader.
In short order, the remaining six members of his group had been dragged out of their homes and thrown in with their fellow criminals. Asher caught Connie Pinkham when she tangled her feet in her nightshirt and came down hard into his lap.
“They know,” she whispered fervently, her cheeks damp with tears. “Oh God, they know—”
“Shh. It’ll be all right.” Asher wrapped his arms around her, heedless of the impropriety of holding a woman so close when she wasn’t even wearing a corset. He and Connie had grown up together, as close as siblings for the better part of their lives. Now was not the time to let decorum claim the upper hand on their friendship. “It’ll be all right.”
“How?” Connie wheezed, her voice muffled by the crook of his neck.
Asher cast about for an answer, but all he could see were blazing torches and vampires in their dozens circling them. They didn’t even need to hold back the weeping mothers and fathers looking on. Sargasso was all about knowing one’s place.
Pounding horse hooves shook the ground. Asher was reminded of his dream as he turned, Connie tearing free of his embrace.
“This all of them?” Ambrose Solomon’s mount was as black as his glare, but between the tip of his lit cigar and the torchlight, the silver in his hair and beard stood out.
Asher had the stray, absurd notion that he could pick out every wrinkle on the mayor’s face from this angle. What he should’ve done for a good view of their tyrant was kneel a bit more often.
“
Seems like,” Octavian answered jauntily. “Caught their mastermind myself.”
Whatever praise he’d been hoping for was denied. Ambrose puffed his cigar. “Sorry bunch.”
“What do you want us to do with them, Father?”
“No suggestions of your own, Little Brother?” Astride his own horse at Ambrose’s right, Malachi grinned down at his nest-mate. He was older than Octavian in vampire years but his junior in years lived as a human. He seemed about Asher’s age, maybe twenty-five at most, and his silky black hair almost suggested a family link with the mayor. Almond-shaped eyes dominated his features, constantly narrowed with delight.
He was striking. Even dangling above the precipice of his own mortality, Asher could admit that. He supposed it was the reason why he didn’t notice the Red Horn Riders among Ambrose’s suite until their leader spoke up.
“If it’s suggestions you want, I got one for you.”
Asher’s blood turned to ice in his veins. The Riders were here, standing beside Ambrose as allies.
Wesley had it all wrong. None of the men and women who’d believed in a future free of vampires had spilled their guts to the enemy.
They’d trusted the wrong people.
Asher had doomed them all.
“I’m all ears,” Ambrose said around the end of his cigar.
“I’ll take the boy off your hands. Make sure he don’t get no more bright ideas.”
Ambrose frowned at the ringleader. “Which boy?”
As if he’d been thrust back into his impossible dream, Asher watched the ringleader point a finger straight at him.
“Isn’t he the one who paid your way?” Malachi asked sweetly.
“He is.”
Asher did his best not to flinch. He wouldn’t beg for mercy. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Let Sargasso know what he’d been willing to do for them. Let them watch him go to his death for a purpose.
“Hmm. Interesting.” Malachi glanced back and forth between them, his feline smile growing wider.
“Interesting? He’s a goddamn quisling!” Octavian contended, spittle flying from his mouth. “You gotta make an example of him, Father!”
Ambrose’s gaze hardened, an almost imperceptible tightening around the eyes that instantly deepened the wrinkles he worked so hard to hide. “When you run this town, boy, then you can tell me what to do. We clear?”
Silence fell over the street.
Under Ambrose’s heavy stare, Asher fought to corral a bone-deep shudder.
Don’t look away. Don’t cower.
“Have him if you want, Halloran.” Another indifferent puff on the cigar. “But don’t come cryin’ to me when he tries to stake you in your sleep.”
A smattering of laughter rolled over the gathering of vampires without quite settling into full-blown glee. They would be short for their dinner.
“No,” Asher bit out, when Octavian gripped his arm. “No, let me go!” It hurt to breathe, to speak, but all his aches were inconsequential if they meant he had to watch his friends die. “He-he’s right! I’m the one who orchestrated all of this—I’m the one you should—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ambrose spat. “Shut him up already!”
A broad fist cuffed him over the ear once, twice. The world swayed madly in Asher’s blurring vision. Pale and drawn in the torchlight, Connie and Wesley’s faces materialized briefly from the fog. Asher caught sight of his uncle slumping heavily in the doorway of the shop.
Octavian’s raised fist was the last thing he saw before oblivion encroached and everything went blissfully dark.
Chapter Three
Asher blinked in and out of consciousness. The first time, he found himself upside down, brown fur against his cheek and the smell of hay and manure in his nostrils. The second, he saw a poorly papered wall and the trim of brass filigree twinkling in the sunlight. He woke up once just to lean over and be sick all over a frayed rug.
Someone swore when he did that, but it didn’t seem to matter.
A day or a week later, he became aware of his mouth being forced open and something slick and coppery being poured down his throat. He gagged, though less for the taste than the realization that Halloran had his wrist jammed right against his teeth. Between panic and revulsion, Asher’s lungs ceased working. He choked on the blood in his mouth, Halloran’s face floating above him. Curses echoed in his ears.
It didn’t feel much better with Halloran pinching his nose shut, but at least the blood went down. He was allowed to cough. His air-starved lungs filled with air.
Halloran grasped his chin in a meaty hand.
Not again. Asher braced to fight him off, foolish idea that it was, only to discover his hands bound behind him. The best he managed was an awkward wriggle, a pitiful moan.
“Stop that, you little bastard.”
Romero?
The sound of her voice distracted Asher long enough for Halloran to squeeze another trickle of blood down his throat. The flavor triggered another convulsion.
“It’s an acquired taste,” someone snorted in the background.
Asher had already stopped listening. His every muscle was on fire. His ribs seemed to be snapping apart in his chest. Asher cried out in agony, his vision whiting out.
This was why Halloran had claimed him. The son of a bitch wanted to finish what Octavian had started.
* * * *
Darkness receded slowly. Asher blinked in the faint spill of moonlight through the windows, his vision gradually adjusting to the low, white gleam. He didn’t recognize the room around him, but he could tell the metal bedframe had seen better days. The scored wooden floorboards had weathered many footsteps. Ornate fabrics upholstered a trio of armchairs arranged near the window, all unoccupied. The way to the door was similarly open.
Asher pushed himself upright, surprised when his arms could hold his weight. His hands were free, no rope burn around his wrists. He was certain he’d been in fetters before, but just how far back was before?
The ornate oval mirror opposite the bed revealed his drawn features and sunken eyes. His blond hair seemed gray in this light. Good. It was bad enough that he was still alive. He had no business looking hale and hearty.
He’d failed. Worse, he had condemned his friends even as he somehow cheated fate.
No. Not somehow.
Halloran was to blame for this.
Asher didn’t need to puzzle over his intentions to know they were wicked. What vampire wasn’t? He winced as the floorboards creaked underfoot, but it was only ten paces from bed to window. He covered them with his heart in his throat.
The landscape outside was a vast blue-black plain, blessedly familiar. Here and there the valley offered up a toothy cliff, the red rock drained of all color. Vegetation was scarce out here. No human settlement pocked the wilderness for miles and miles.
Seventy years ago, Sargasso had sprung out of the dirt as a collection of rickety shacks meant to form a watering hole at equal distance from the three vampire-owned ranches in the valley. Asher was most familiar with New Morning Farm, where his friend Wesley worked. He discounted Crossroad Grange on account of it being overpopulated with work hands already.
That left Willowbranch—the oldest and least profitable of the lot, nominally under Malachi’s purview but practically run by one of his human servants. Malachi himself never strayed far from Sargasso or the mayor’s side. He wouldn’t have dispatched men there just for Asher’s sake.
Paint stuck the ancient frame shut.
Asher gripped the upper edge of the sash window and put his back into it. Nerves made his hands quake. He had to get out. He needed to escape. The bitter tang of vampire blood in the back of his throat lent urgency to that burning desire.
The wood gave a protesting squeak and slid up an inch. Then a little more. Every bit of progress was hard won and accompanied by far too much noise. There was no way Halloran wouldn’t have heard, but the longer he took to burst into the room, the more confident Asher f
elt that he could do this.
He was only one floor up. The dirt below seemed soft enough.
Shivering, he squeezed under the windowpane and sucked in a breath. Don’t think, just jump. He swung his legs out as he pushed away from the sill.
His knees trembled with the force of impact, but he was still on his feet when he landed. Still in one piece.
Still, he noted with some dismay, in his goddamn bloodstained nightshirt.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” said a grave voice in the darkness.
Asher spun around.
Halloran was watching him, immobile in a rocking chair that appeared too small and rickety for a man of his stature. Two of his coterie flanked him—Blackjack, a colossus with a shaved head, and a shorter man with curly black hair and toad-like eyes.
Three vampires against one human. Not the best odds.
“You’re not,” Asher gritted out, “me.”
Vampire stillness had never struck him as eerie before. At most, he’d always thought of bloodsuckers as lizards warming themselves in the sun. Halloran was different. Even his companions displayed micro-expressions—the tightening of a jaw here, the twitch of a smile there—but with no breath to move his broad shoulders and no cigarette to occupy his mouth, Halloran was more like a grizzly in a circus cage.
And there was no grille between him and Asher.
“I’m a forgiving a man,” he proclaimed, “so I won’t make you climb back up the way you just got out. Door’s right here,” Halloran said, pointing to his left. “Do yourself a favor and go up of your own accord.”
Asher clenched his fists. “No.”
“I ain’t asking.”
Stupid, to think he could escape a vampire’s preternatural senses, to think he had a chance. But it wasn’t the first stupid thing Asher had ever done. It wasn’t the last.
Asher rounded on his heel and bolted.
He was barely five feet from the house, not even certain that he was headed in the right direction, when a powerful shove sent him to his belly in the dirt.