by Helena Maeve
Wesley filled canteens while Connie spread out their provisions on the ground and took stock of what little inventory they had.
“We couldn’t risk packing more,” Uncle Howard explained, when he caught Asher observing Connie’s efforts. “It would have attracted suspicion.”
There was very little food and even fewer guns and ammunition. Uncle Howard’s pack contained a flask, though, which they passed around to ward off the cold.
“To be honest, I’m surprised you even have this much… How did you get away?” Asher asked, then promptly shook his head. “No, scratch that. How are you still alive? I thought… I thought you were all massacred.”
“Some of us were,” Wesley confirmed, staring balefully into the flickering light of the small campfire he’d been able to coax out of twigs and bunchgrass.
“Ambrose wanted an example made of the conspirators,” Connie explained, “but he couldn’t afford culling too many of us. The rest were made to watch as he went biblical on the unlucky few.” She hugged her sides, shuddering with some other sensation than the cold. “Then he sent us back into our homes. I don’t think anyone’s had a good night sleep in Sargasso since.”
“Who was it?” Asher bit out.
Uncle Howard sighed. “My boy, there’s no sense in torturing yourself—”
“Who?”
His uncle’s objection gave way to a downturned mouth. It was Wesley who rattled off the names. Twelve in total.
Biblical, indeed.
“One for every rider,” Wesley said, “and the other five for you.” His sharp gaze cut Asher to the quick.
Asher looked away first. His throat had locked tight, which was just as well. The last thing Wesley and Connie needed was his apologies.
Uncle Howard clasped his shoulder with a soft, careful hand. “It’s done now. Ambrose is a monster. All of Sargasso knows it. No one can blame you for wishing to rid us of him once and for all.”
“Can’t they?” Asher muttered into the neck of the flask. It was nearly empty, but there was enough left to douse the feverish, angry hurt in the pit of his stomach.
“There’s no hope in Sargasso.” Wesley’s tone vibrated with self-assurance. “We may be the first ones to flee, but we ain’t the last.”
“What about your families?” Asher glanced at Connie. “Your father? Shit, your fiancé!”
“My fiancé?” Connie threw her head back with a mirthless laugh. “Oh, my dear, beloved Eugene thinks Ambrose is a good vampire taking a firm stand against rebels. After everything we witnessed, he actually wanted the mayor to officiate our wedding.”
“I’m sorry,” Asher said, because he was. He might have envied Eugene his good fortune in catching Connie’s eye, but he’d never wished for them to break off their engagement. Connie had been so happy.
Well. As happy as anyone’s ever been under a madman’s boot heel.
“My father knew the risks,” Connie went on, as if she hadn’t registered Asher’s show of regret. “My mother all but encouraged me to go. I tried to convince them to join us… They wouldn’t.”
“Aren’t they afraid of what Ambrose will do?”
“They may be,” Connie said and the shadow that flickered over her features revealed how much it had cost her to leave them.
“We had to go,” Uncle Howard insisted, emotion thick in his voice. “We had to get you out. I can’t tell you what a relief it was when Mr. Wheeler got word to Wesley that you were alive. I thought—I knew I couldn’t fail you again, my boy.”
Guilt pinched at Asher’s insides. “You never failed me. I’m the one who—”
“Hush. None of that. What’s done is done.” Uncle Howard took him by the shoulders. “We’ve left that horrible place behind us so we could look to the future. And Redemption.”
A brief flicker of hope ignited and just as quickly expired in Asher’s chest. “Redemption? But that’s…” Another vampire-run town. Another nest crawling with vipers.
“Their laws are different,” Uncle Howard said, his weary, care-worn features animated by the bright glow of conviction. “They treat our kind as family, not animals.”
That alone would make it a vast improvement on Sargasso, where all humans born within city limits were Ambrose’s property to dispense with as he chose. Knowing full well that blood ties were about all Sargasso’s populace had going for them, Ambrose seldom exercised his right to offer his loyal minions the gift of a human pet. Instead, he restricted himself to using those poor, unfortunate souls who fetched up in Sargasso by accident.
Women like Octavian’s Angel Eyes came to town looking for work and fled in fear for their lives. Men were lured into service as Ambrose’s daytime guard dogs and, much like Connie’s former fiancé, came to believe in their patron and protector.
“The Red Horn Riders have been harassing Redemption for at least a fortnight,” Asher pointed out. “What’s to say we won’t fall prey to their attacks?”
“These.” Wesley held up one of only two pistols Connie had liberated from their packs. “I loaded ’em up with silver bullets myself. Cost me a fucking fortune, but they’ll be worth every penny if we run into those bastards.”
“Where did you get them?”
Wesley rolled his shoulders listlessly. “You think you’re the only one can make a good trade?”
“After you were taken,” Connie told Asher, her manner gentler than Wesley’s, “we had to scrap all the old plans. Abandon the hideouts and caches…”
“You thought I’d talk.” Somehow that discovery hit Asher harder than the roster of the dead.
Pity shone on Connie’s face. “We didn’t know… But yes, there was a chance that once they started torturing you—Asher, we don’t hold it against you. If any of us went through the same ordeal, I’m sure we’d say whatever we could to make it stop.”
But you weren’t. And neither was I.
Asher nodded, shoving the complicated memory of Halloran’s body against his to the back of his mind, where it wouldn’t interfere with revulsion.
* * * *
At dawn, they set off again.
Wesley took the lead and set a faster pace than Asher thought he could keep up with. Yet much to his surprise, Halloran’s stallion was far less content to be left at the rear of the herd this time.
He bounded forward and in a few short strides, he was giving Wesley’s black cow pony a run for its money.
Wind whipped Asher’s cheeks as they raced each other, sticking his lashes with tears and kindling something closer to joy than he had felt in better than a month. His last time on horseback, Asher had been Halloran’s prisoner, transported from one vampire nest to the other. It had barely been a month. It felt much longer.
He felt like a different man.
Canyon gave way to valley on its far side. Another mountainous ridge loomed to the west, sketched beneath the clear blue skies in a foggy blur. In the middle distance, Redemption resolved itself into the solid palisade of a surrounding wooden wall. There were no rooftops high enough to peer out across the valley, no winding rail tracks feeding into the heart of town.
Asher had been to Redemption before—a few times, on Uncle Howard’s errands, the last time to put in place his own hare-brained scheme—but he had never spent more than a night there. He’d never taken much notice of the men that patrolled its square, armed and dangerous, nor felt a quiver of fear at the long, lingering stares that greeted his arrival.
Redemption was a changed place, warier than he remembered.
Horses safely hitched to the post outside the town’s one and only chapel, Asher took his uncle’s elbow. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”
Uncle Howard glanced to where Connie and Wesley had all but made their way to the saloon. “My boy, what other idea is there?”
“I don’t know, but…” Something doesn’t feel right.
They were being watched, and not with vague curiosity, either. The more Asher thought about it, the more certain he f
elt that the spikes that surrounded the town hadn’t been there on his last visit.
“Perhaps we ought to say we’re just passing through before we commit to anything.”
“If you wish.” Uncle Howard made it sound like a great concession.
Maybe he was right. No one came at them with cocked pistols as they crossed the square. No one barred the saloon door. Inside, the bar was every bit as dusty as Romero’s, though the figure fetching drinks was a young man.
“Howdy. What can I get you, sirs? Ma’am,” he added, with an incline of the head toward Connie.
“An answer, first,” said Connie, leaning her elbows against the bar. “Where might we find the mayor of your fine town?”
A bone-deep shudder skittered through Asher. The sense of déjà-vu shook him. He’d been sat in a saloon much like this one when Halloran came to inquire after Ambrose. He’d been just as fearfully optimistic then.
Had he learned nothing?
The barkeep cocked his head, glancing from Connie to Wesley, at her side, to Uncle Howard and Asher standing a few steps back. “What might you want with him?”
The saloon had grown so still that Asher thought he could hear every breath in the joint.
Every breath but one.
Connie shifted her weight from foot to foot and, stealing a quick glance at Wesley, said, “We’re hopin’ to have a talk with him. About maybe findin’ lodgings in Redemption.”
“Where did you folks say you were from?”
“Connie,” Asher bit out, but it was too late.
“Sargasso,” she said. “Do you know it?”
The barkeep grinned. “Oh, yes.” His lips parted, stretched by a vaguely predatory smirk until they revealed a pair of sharp, gleaming white fangs. “I know it well.”
Chapter Twelve
Crows circled overhead, their black wings carving narrow crescents into the backdrop of an indigo sky. Their swooping and diving almost made it seem as if they were waiting for Asher’s fire to die out before they descended for the feast.
Shivering, he snapped another desiccated twig in half and fed it to the blaze. His supply had all but run out. The flames barely offered enough heat to warm his freezing toes.
It would be a miracle if he made it till morning.
Probably won’t. Probably have a better shot of become bird feed by then.
Asher pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders. He never should’ve stopped running. The vast red waste stretched out around him, interminable and daunting, and yet a part of him still clung to the stubborn conviction that salvation lay somewhere out there.
It certainly wasn’t here, in the corner of no man’s land in which he’d made camp.
His eyes stung from the firelight. He closed them and tried to think himself elsewhere. How had he gotten here? How had he lost sight of Connie and Uncle Howard? When precisely had Wesley stolen his horse?
The crows calling to one another in the skies above made it hard to think.
“That’s one way to do it,” a familiar voice drawled from the shadows.
Startling, Asher nearly fell into the campfire in his haste to face his demon.
Halloran moved into the hazy, wavering light with slow, measured steps. The red dot of his cigar glowed brightly as he loomed over Asher. If he wanted to, he could have blown the smoke into his face.
“Decided this is the way you want to go, is it?” he asked instead, hitching his eyebrows in a show of interest.
Asher swallowed hard. “What are you doing here?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” Halloran clucked his tongue and resumed his pacing. His duster swayed with every step. The spurs on his boots scraped the ground, jangling as he circled all the way to the other side of the campfire. “You’ve an uncanny ability to make a mess of things, you know that?”
“It’s been said.”
Halloran snorted and blew out a puff of smoke into the cool evening air. “Ambrose is furious. He nearly sent out a search party to bring you back.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Domestic troubles.”
“So he just sent you.” Asher tightened his grip around the blanket draped over his shoulders. It didn’t do much to keep him warm, but at least it offered the illusion of protection from Halloran’s piercing brown eyes. Vulnerability was all in the mind, someone had once told him.
Someone who was now dead, incidentally.
“You don’t have any idea where you are, do you?” Halloran crouched down, cigar propped between two fingers. Firelight illuminated his angular face.
“Obviously.”
“Or how you got here?” he pressed.
“I ran away.”
Halloran arched his thick eyebrows. “All by yourself?”
“Yes.” Asher wasn’t about to be responsible for any more deaths.
“Stubborn little shit…” Halloran sighed. “Look around. Does any of this seem familiar to you?”
Asher gritted his teeth. “’Course it does. I grew up in this fucking valley.”
“In Sargasso.”
“You catch on quick,” he retorted. Between the crows, the icy night and Halloran having found him, chances were high he wouldn’t live long enough for impudence to cost him.
“So where is it?” Cigar clutched between two fingers, Halloran directed his gaze over the barren nothingness around them. “Where’s your beloved hometown?”
Between starlight and the reflective red rock, Asher could see for miles in every direction. He did recognize the scenery, bland and dismal as it was. He had seen it plenty of times as he wandered through Sargasso.
His campfire should have been the heart of town. Halloran should have had his back to Ambrose’s ugly mansion.
“It ain’t real,” Asher breathed. His heart skipped a beat. “None of this is real. You ain’t—”
“Oh, I’m here.”
“In my head?”
“In your blood.” Halloran rolled his eyes. “Or the other way around.”
The pinch of nerves in Asher’s chest threatened to suffocate him. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”
“As long as I’ve got your blood in my veins, I can see into your head.”
“Even when I’m awake?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Thank God. All the vicious, mortifying thoughts that routinely flitted through Asher’s mind were not meant for public consumption—let alone that of a vampire. Another puzzle piece slid into place. “You’ve been in my head every night for weeks?”
“Never needed to.”
“But you could.” The last time Asher had been so horrified he’d been made immobile and dumb at Ambrose’s get-together. How could he have spent his life among vampires and still know so little of their abilities?
“Focus,” Halloran grunted. “You can turn hysterical all you like once you wake up. Right now, you need to tell me where you are.”
Asher looked up, perplexed. “Why would I want to do that?”
Halloran’s aggravation made itself known with a growl. “We have small window to claim you were taken against your will, but it’s closing fast. Once it does, I won’t be able to help you.”
“I wasn’t.”
Firelight reflected in Halloran’s eyes, twin flames burnishing in the depths of his inky pupils. “You don’t say.”
“You can’t ask me to turn my friends in just so you’ll preserve your precious spot in Ambrose’s good graces.”
“Ah, that’s your source of confusion. You thought I was asking.”
Perhaps it was the cold sweeping over Asher so fiercely it allowed no other sensation to take seed. Perhaps it was that his dormant courage had chosen this moment to awaken. Whatever the reason, Asher didn’t look away beneath the weight of Halloran’s glower. Nor did he rise to the bait.
“Don’t be a fool. Wherever you are right now, it ain’t gonna be for long. Ambrose will send someone to bring you back.”
“And if he doesn’t,”
Asher surmised, “you will?”
“You’re leaving me no choice.”
“Seems to me you’re the one holding all the cards. Ain’t no one forcing you to do anything you don’t wanna do… Only I can think of you’re doin’ Ambrose’s dirty work for him is ’cause you’re really hurtin’ for money.” Either that or Halloran was every bit as rotten as the rest of his kind.
His expression frozen in a sort of half scowl, as though astonishment had paralyzed his muscles, Halloran clucked his tongue. “You truly believe that.”
“I do,” said Asher, willing his voice not to waver. “And I’ll take my chances out here.”
“Then why aren’t you waking up?”
“What?”
“Asher, wake up!”
Halloran’s snarl slammed into Asher like a stick of dynamite, flattening him to the ground. But when his vision cleared, it wasn’t Halloran looming above him and it wasn’t the crow-pocked sky.
“You all right?” Connie asked. “You were talking in your sleep…”
Wooden walls and wooden roof resolved around Asher in swift order. The bedding under his hands was a far cry from the coarse wool blanket he’d clutched to his shoulders mere seconds before. His heart throbbed against his ribs.
It was just a dream. Nothing more. A dream of Halloran, sure, but harmless in every other way.
“Didn’t say anything good, did I?” Asher asked, mostly joking.
“Mostly mumbled some shit,” Wesley answered from across the room. He had found a perch in the window and when he wasn’t glaring at Asher, he was snatching glances through the lacy curtain into the street outside.
The hotel they’d been brought to was nicer than anything Sargasso had to offer. Brass-trimmed furnishings inspired a sense of wealth in the suite and the bed’s thick mattress had been effective in lulling Asher to sleep. Uncle Howard, presently dozing, seemed to have found the recliner by the window equally comfortable.
Asher righted himself as Connie backed off to give him room.
“How long was I out?”
“An hour or so.” Connie dropped gingerly to the edge of the bed. “No one came, though I heard footsteps on the landing.”