The Gunslinger's Man

by Helena Maeve

  The fall knocked the breath right out of him. Pebbled, dry soil scratched his cheek. Humiliation hurt worse.

  Asher flattened his palms and pushed himself up again. This time, he made it half the distance he’d covered on his first attempt before he was tripped.

  In his peripheral vision, he noticed that the other two Riders hadn’t moved from the porch, the glowing ends of their cigarettes giving them away.

  Halloran was nowhere to be seen.

  “Bastard,” Asher choked out in provocation.

  Halloran’s snort was as good as a lit beacon. He could have torn Asher’s spine out if he wanted and put an end to his ambitions in a more permanent fashion. Instead, he preferred to toy with him, a particularly large tomcat entertaining itself with a feeble mouse.

  Nettles and weeds stinging his hands, Asher fumbled for purchase in the dust. What he found was far better. The ground was littered with the remnants of desiccated trees. He seized a branch not much thinner than his forearm, grasping it tightly as he staggered upright.

  Halloran lunged, striking him between the shoulders with a broad fist. As he fell, Asher whirled and swung out with his makeshift club.

  For such a big man, Halloran proved surprisingly agile. He tipped back just as Asher made to bury the makeshift stake in his throat. The jagged end merely scraped his skin, opening a trio of lacerations that closed in an eye-blink. Only the red-black blood beading on freshly-healed skin revealed the hurt.

  Asher’s triumph was just as short-lived.

  Halloran grabbed his wrist and wrenched hard. Pain exploded behind Asher’s eye. The rest of his body turned with the pull, joints resisting the violent twist. His slapdash weapon tumbled to the ground a second before Asher landed there on his knees.

  He shouldn’t have done that.

  He shouldn’t have fought.

  “Are you done?” Halloran growled.

  “Let me go,” Asher spat. “Fucking let me go!”

  Another bolt of pain shot up his arm as Halloran applied pressure. The pain was far less of a challenge than feeling Halloran bend over him, breath hot on his ear when he spoke.

  “Best get it through that thick skull of yours, boy. You’re mine. You don’t move a goddamn muscle without my say-so. You live ’cause I allowed it… Now, are you done?”

  Asher knew what he was expected to say. He had a pretty clear picture of what would become of him if he didn’t toe the line, especially before an audience.

  He turned to Halloran and spat in his face.

  * * * *

  “I can’t tell if you’re touched in the head or just half-witted.” Romero sighed as she lowered herself to the edge of the mattress. “Goddammit, boy. You were on the mend last I saw you…”

  “So you were here.” Asher rolled his head on the pillow. “Thought I dreamed you up.”

  “Some dream.”

  No matter how gentle, Romero’s hand on his shoulder sent a sharp twinge of pain into the abused joint. Asher heard himself whimper before he could marshal the noise.

  It didn’t feel any better when Romero let him be.

  “There ain’t much I can do for you. Don’t look like he broke any bones, at least.”

  “He will.”

  “If you keep twistin’ his arm, sure.”

  Asher glared at her through his one unswollen eye. “Why did he let you see me?” Why not Uncle Howard? Unless— “Are they all dead?” he blurted out, aches receding before that very real possibility.

  Romero pursed her thin lips. For a beat, she appeared set to deliver the news, bad or good, but then she settled on another chastisement. “You’ll never find out if you don’t wise up, kid. You brought Halloran here…though what you was thinkin’, doin’ that in the first place is beyond me—”

  “Is it?” Asher winced, trying to get comfortable on the too-hard mattress. He had only so much room to maneuver with one arm cuffed to the headboard. “Suppose you like being property of Ambrose Solomon.”

  “Oh, and you’re the big man who was gonna save this town?” Romero scoffed. “How’s that worked out for you?”

  “Poorly.”

  “Damn right. There ain’t no sense goin’ against the way things are. The way they’ve always been.” Indignation thrumming through her, Romero tugged a hand over her face. Unlike the ladies at the Pony Inn, she didn’t rouge her lips and her face was bare of powder. “When I think of everything you could’ve done with your life… You could’ve run your uncle’s shop. Married Connie Pinkham. Two of you made such a pretty couple, everyone said so—”

  “Connie’s engaged.” It wasn’t the gravest objection Asher could bring to that idyllic future, but it was the first to come to mind.

  Connie couldn’t marry him. Connie had chosen Gene Crawford, who already had property of Ambrose Solomon all but stamped across his forehead.

  Romero was silent for a long beat. “Was.”

  Asher met her eyes. “Oh.” He had asked. He’d mistakenly thought he could handle hearing his worst fears confirmed. “And, uh, what about…” What about Uncle Howard?

  The door swung inward before he could force the words out.

  “Halloran says time’s up.” Blackjack stood on the other side of the threshold, his features no softer in daylight. His nose had been broken and healed badly a number of times before he was given the bite.

  Romero rose without quibbling. “I’ll come again. Try not to do nothin’ stupid?”

  “Make no promises,” Asher answered without taking his eye off the vampire.

  He couldn’t blame Romero for the choices she’d made. She was afraid, like everyone in Sargasso. Asher was afraid too. But he’d sooner chew sand than make nice with monsters.

  Halloran and his bald pal may not have killed Connie with their own hands, but they were responsible.

  As the key turned in the latch, locking him away with his thoughts, Asher swore vengeance.

  Chapter Four

  The worst thing about being a prisoner had little to do with the absence of freedom. Asher’s mind had never wanted for outside stimulation to keep itself busy. He was used to fashioning escape plans only to discount them in favor of better alternatives. Now he simply added ‘killing every single Red Horn Rider in new and innovative ways’ to his list of fantasies.

  The worst was the knowledge that even if he did succeed, he’d never make it all the way to Ambrose.

  Despondency crept slowly into his thoughts. Being visited by Halloran’s cohorts didn’t help. They treated Asher indifferently, for the most part, though the bug-eyed one who went by Nyle couldn’t resist a verbal volley and Blackjack wondered aloud what he might taste like when he brought Asher’s supper the day after that.

  No one touched him. No one asked why he didn’t help himself to the bread and cheese they brought up. His wounds healed slower without the added benefit of vampire blood, but no one offered that, either, nor tried to force it down Asher’s throat.

  The first time he asked for a chamber pot or a bucket, Blackjack had the nerve to feign surprise. Of course they’d make him beg for it. Or worse, let him soil himself. It would make for a great big guffaw.

  But a bucket appeared beside the bed when Asher woke after a troubled doze, along with a pail of water and a bar of soap. No doubt that was a vampire’s way of saying he stank.

  The bucket was within easy reach, mercifully, but when Asher made to strip off his nightshirt, he discovered that it couldn’t be done while he was tied to the bedframe. Likewise, the copper basin that should have served as a tub was too heavy to drag over with his toes. Whoever had brought it in hadn’t considered how he might make use of it.

  The Riders seemed such inept jailers that Asher began to suspect they didn’t keep bloodbags around for long. But if that was the case, why make an exception for him?

  At the sound of a key in the door, he stowed the enigma and dragged his nightshirt down as low as he could manage with only the use of one free hand.

  Hallo
ran stalked over the threshold. “Why don’t you eat?”

  Asher recoiled, the memory of Halloran’s blows still too vivid to feign bluster. “I don’t want to,” he lied, even as his stomach growled disloyally.

  Halloran’s gaze bounced up and down his body.

  So much for lies. Asher tried again. “You think I trust you not to poison me? You’d feed me arsenic just to amuse yourselves.”

  “Why would that be amusing?”

  Asher didn’t rightly know, but Octavian had done it with every dog in town not long after Ambrose turned him. It was certainly a unique way to celebrate becoming a monster.

  “You can’t force me to live,” Asher retorted, wishing his pulse didn’t spike as he said it. He didn’t want Halloran knowing he was terrified.

  Halloran smoothed his features into a contemplative smile. “Can’t I?”

  Asher read between the lines. Compulsion was just another weapon in the vampire arsenal, but an imperfect one that only the more ancient members of the species could wield to any great success.

  It was why Octavian still relied on guns and loyal henchmen to get his way.

  Halloran had to be bluffing. If not, then he was at least three times older than the thirty or so years Asher had given him.

  “Obey me,” Halloran said, “or you’ll find out just how persuasive I can be.”

  The threat was enough to rout Asher’s appetite. It didn’t help that Blackjack picked that moment to bring up another plate of hardtack and cheese, as if he’d been waiting in the hall for Halloran to finish intimidating their prisoner.

  Asher considered the fare. He’d eaten poorly all his life—and not at all when Ambrose’s feuds with neighboring towns disrupted trade—and it wouldn’t be tonight that he developed standards. Reluctantly, he helped himself to the wedge of cheese.

  It tasted sharp, as though it had been aged a little longer than strictly necessary, but he was hungry. He took another bite.

  “Good,” Halloran said, not content to let his victory go by unacknowledged. “You’ll bathe next.”

  “Can’t,” Asher shot back with a full mouth.

  Halloran seemed faintly revolted. “Don’t tell me you’ve made friends with the lice in your hair.”

  He was one to talk, with that thick auburn beard.

  Asher swallowed down the lump of barely chewed cheese and reached for the cup of lukewarm water on the bedside table. He’d woken up twice now to find it refilled. “I may be long in the leg, but I ain’t long enough to reach the tub.”

  Already on the warpath, Halloran seemed even more annoyed to be denied another quarrel. He flexed his jaw.

  “Figured that was some game of yours,” Asher volleyed, unable to leave well enough alone. “Make the human break his arm or something—”

  The washbasin slammed into the bedside table so hard the soap bar rattled dangerously close to the edge. Halloran’s kicks had lost none of their strength since he’d pounded Asher into the dirt.

  Asher snapped his mouth shut.

  “Bathe,” Halloran snarled, his voice low and menacing. He turned and stalked out with the same lumbering gait with which he’d entered the room.

  Asher contemplated throwing his plate at the door by way of response.

  Hunger got the better of him—hunger and fear, two sensations he knew well.

  It wasn’t until he’d finished both cheese and bread, and chased the leftover crumbs with a spit-damp finger, that he realized Halloran had made no mention of a change of clothes for his torn and dirty sleep shirt.

  * * * *

  “Is Nyle your name?” The question blew Asher’s cover, but trying to deceive a vampire into thinking him asleep when he wasn’t had little chance of success anyway.

  The bug-eyed Rider cocked an eyebrow. “What’s it to you?” He balanced the copper basin effortlessly in the palm of one hand as though it weighed nothing at all, the grayish water sloshing perilously close to the rim.

  Asher shrugged, the threadbare blanket moving with him. “Just curious to know who Halloran’s got doing his dirty work for him.”

  “Tongue like that, it’s no wonder you got yourself into this mess.”

  Asher bristled. “That’s not why.”

  “Oh, we know. You’re all anyone’s talking about in this here valley. The dimwit who thought he could pit vampires against each other…”

  “Always knew I’d make the papers.”

  “Best cautionary tale in half a century,” the vampire agreed. “Best get some sleep. Halloran’s promised us all a taste after he’s finished with you.”

  Asher’s insides seized. “What?”

  But his jailer was already at the door, snickering under his breath. “Oh, and by the by?” A hopper window in the hall cast his copper hair alight with streaks of orange and gold. “It is Nyle. But you can call me Nine Lives. All the whores do.” He winked. “I’ll be seeing you later.”

  Not if I can help it.

  Asher sat up as soon as the door had snagged shut. The cuffs around his wrist were solid steel, warmed from contact with his skin but far from malleable. He pulled first one, then the other, gritting his teeth when the joint of his thumb arrested all progress. If only he’d had something to oil his hand with. If only he could fashion a lock-pick.

  Animated by the prospect, Asher scanned his surroundings. Bed linens, bedside table, cast iron headboard and drooping picture frame. Not much hope in any of those. He stared balefully at the rest of the room, tables and chairs so far out of his reach, all concealing the promise of a needle scattered somewhere, a loose nail poking out of the floor, ready to be snapped up and repurposed. Frustrated, Asher returned to trying to wriggle the handcuffs over his hands.

  Uncle Howard had once joked that Asher’s hands were better suited to farming than watchmaking, but only brambles and hardy shrubs grew out of the red rock that surrounded Sargasso, so watchmaking he would have to learn. So Asher had, poring over tiny mechanisms under a magnifying lens until his eyes ached, trying to understand how each gear slotted into the next.

  Fat load of good it did him now.

  He took a deep breath. There was nothing for it but to try again. And again. And, as the sun began to dip below the edge of horizon, casting his cell in warm hues, again.

  The door opened shortly after evening had settled over the valley. Although he’d heard the creak of floorboards as Halloran negotiated the stairs with his heavy tread, Asher still startled at the sight of him. His pulse quickened.

  Neither of them spoke. Halloran wasn’t one for greetings, but the few times he had come up to see Asher, he’d barked orders, growled threats and made a general nuisance of himself.

  This stock-still, vaguely perplexed figure who wore his face seemed altogether alien.

  The moment passed before Asher could think up a lie unpleasant enough to ward him off. Halloran closed the door behind him with a surprisingly gentle click. The silence thickened, bearing down on Asher like the inhuman force that had curtailed his escape attempt.

  Animal panic hummed in the pit of his stomach like a plucked chord. Between the cuffs binding his wrists and Halloran stalking slowly toward the bed, he had nowhere to go, no hope of escape.

  He flinched like a tenderfoot when Halloran raised a hand, the gesture aborted mid-motion. In the semidarkness, Halloran’s eyes seemed to swallow up what little moonlight spilled through the windows. A flicker of confusion twisted at his features as he reached around Asher to touch his bound arm.

  “What happened here?”

  “Nothing,” Asher said, struggling not to give into the full-body shivers that threatened at Halloran’s touch. He was acutely aware of his nudity, the blanket having long slipped off, the dark only doing so much to preserve his modesty.

  “Don’t lie.” Another threat.

  It was almost enough to trigger a flash of exasperation. “Or what? You’ll give me another thrashing?” His bruises no longer troubled him when he tried to sleep, but he felt them
if he changed position too abruptly. He had seen them in the daylight, dappling his body like spots on a piebald pony.

  With a low growl, Halloran released his arm. “Did you talk back to your last master too?”

  “I didn’t have a master,” Asher retorted, which wasn’t the same as claiming he’d been obedient. “Unless you count Ambrose—”

  “Which you obviously didn’t, given you paid us to show him the true death.”

  Of course Halloran would bring that up now, when Asher couldn’t run from the gravity of what he’d done. “My mistake,” he admitted, thrusting his chin out defiantly, “was thinking there might be honor among vampires.”

  If Halloran took offense, he hid it well. His callused grip on Asher’s shoulder only turned punishing when Asher tried to resist being rolled to his stomach. He had big hands, the sort that said he liked to ride hard and put his mounts away dripping wet.

  No. Fear pitched in his gut, sour like vinegar. The shock of it stopped his tongue. With his free hand, he tried to grab at Halloran, who seized his wrist and effortlessly twisted the arm behind his back.

  Asher did cry out then, a piercing ache racing up his shoulder as the barely healed joint tensed in protest.

  Through the white hot blur of pain, he thought he felt Halloran go still against him. It must have been his imagination. Pain was what vampires dealt. And as if to prove it, Halloran grazed his neck with razor-sharp fangs.

  Asher sucked in a breath, tensing.

  Halloran bit down.

  Chapter Five

  Blood flecked the sheet, but if Asher kept the covers pulled high and his body twisted slightly to the left, there was little risk of anyone noticing.

  “You’re quiet this morning,” Nyle remarked, when he came to bring his breakfast.

  The fare was as modest as ever—a torn-off piece of hardtack, a little cheese—but this morning a cup of coffee also steamed on the tray, taunting Asher with the bitter-dark scent of the brew.