by Helena Maeve
They were too slow and the blaze too swift. Their vampire masters were nowhere to be seen.
No one paid Asher any mind as he raced to Ivan’s door and flung himself over the threshold.
“Connie!”
A pair of women wrestling a rolled-up rug between them jostled him in their haste to get out. Another came after them, all but hidden behind a silver platter packed high with porcelain. Precariously balanced cups tumbled off the tray and shattered on the hardwood floors. The woman staggered on as though she couldn’t feel the shards pricking her bare feet.
Commotion swarmed the house, yet no one was making their escape.
“Asher!”
Connie’s familiar voice diverted Asher from the madness unfolding around him. She emerged from a room at the rear of the house, relief written large in her eyes.
“What’s happening?” Asher blurted into the warm curve of her shoulder. “Why isn’t anyone fleeing?”
“Ivan told them to save his treasures. I tried to convince them it’s no use, but…” Connie pulled away, her expression grave with worry. “It’s Sargasso, isn’t it? They’ve come to take us back.”
Asher had no comfort to give on that score. “We have to find the others.”
The goal was simple enough, but negotiating the bustle outside slowed them down. They wove between lost cattle and panicked horses about as speedily as they circumvented the knots of men and women still in their nightclothes, looking around with the mute terror of domesticated animals suddenly let off into the wild.
Sibyl and Darlene would be among them, left to their own devices by a master who’d disappeared into the convulsing pandemonium. The reason for Moreau’s sudden departure became apparent when Asher and Connie turned into the town’s main drag.
Fire engulfed the closed gates of Redemption, timber crumbling in chunks of blazing ballast. Those who ventured too close to the blaze ignited like papier-mâché dolls. Flames rushed through the widening breaches like a portal opening to let in the malevolent force on the other side.
Asher recognized the mounts before he recognized the men riding them.
Seven bandits, armed to the teeth and wielding torches. And, between them and Redemption, a sea of fire, as if the valley itself had ignited.
“Come on.” Connie tugged furiously on his hand. “Come on! You can gawp later…”
Asher shook himself, but the image of the Red Horn Riders was imprinted on his eyelids. Surely nothing within the burning town could be as breathtaking.
Then the timber houses on either side of the street began to buckle.
* * * *
Heat slashed Asher’s cheeks as he ran from one ruin to the next. Screams filled his ears, agony and fright boiled together in a maddening cocktail, but no answer to his desperate calls.
“Uncle Howard! Wesley!” He was beginning to grow hoarse from shouting. Bringing his cupped hands to his mouth served only to fill his lungs with smoke and the smell of char.
He felt as if he’d been darting around for an hour. At first only debris stood in his way, but soon the fire began to snatch at fluttering nightgowns and flammable house coats. He saw a man not much older than he was struggle to beat out the fire licking at his slippers and succeeding only in fanning the flames. He saw a woman with hair so red it matched the conflagration that consumed it.
For the longest time, Asher had thought Sargasso to be another word for hell. It was here, in Redemption, that he saw death in its purest, most humbling form.
Connie knotted a hand in his shirt sleeve. “Asher, is that them?”
He turned, wary to take it on faith alone, and all but choked on the embers in his throat. Behind the saloon, Wesley had somehow managed to corral three horses. They startled when Connie and Asher ran toward them, but Wesley had their reins in a firm fist and he spun around with a gun in the other.
Asher held up his hands. “Whoa, there! It’s only us.”
“You son of a bitch,” Wesley wheezed. “I thought—”
The rest was lost to Connie’s embrace. “Thank God you’re unharmed!”
Wesley winced, his gaze slanting sideways. Asher followed it. His heart all but stopped at what he saw leaning against the wall of the nearby saloon.
“Don’t give me that look, boy,” Uncle Howard grumbled, holding his midriff. “It’s only a little burn.”
The ‘little burn’ had torn through his shirt and waistcoat, melting the fabric into his skin. Rosy flesh was visible underneath, horrific to behold.
“How?” Asher gasped.
“Lucretia’s blood,” Uncle Howard gritted out. “Her boudoir caught flame. As she was dragging me out, she generously forced her blood on me.” His smile was tight. “She healed what she could.”
“Where is she now?” Connie asked, glancing up and down the alley as though expecting Lucretia to manifest into their path at the mere mention of her name.
“No idea. Moreau gave the call and they all went.”
“To the gate?” Asher guessed. The few vampires there had been bolstered by humans who even at great speed couldn’t do much to put out the blaze.
A thunderous clatter overrode the cacophony of desperate cries. Asher flinched, his hand flying to the pistol at his belt. Wesley already had his thrust out, the muzzle veering between sky and ground like the needle of a broken compass. The roar became a molten hiss followed by a deluge that spread through the streets as if it had been poured from a bottomless cup.
The water tower. A season’s supply of gathered rain spilled into the thirsty town in one last-ditch attempt to put out the fires. Black water sloshed Asher’s ankles. The horses whinnied and tossed their heads. Wesley’s arm was wrenched up so fast Asher heard the joint pop. Somehow he almost held on to the reins. The one that slipped his grasp belonged to Halloran’s mount, which reared up on its hind legs and bolted away in fright.
“God damn it!” Wesley swore.
“We’ll double up,” Connie resolved. “Howard, you first…”
Asher braced his uncle while Connie held the piebald cob still beneath him, murmuring softly into its flicking ear.
“All right, you next…” Connie had learned to ride before Asher and didn’t need him to give her a leg up. It was a symptom of how dire their circumstances had become that she didn’t waste breath chastising him for it.
Wesley slotted his pistol into the waistband of his trousers. He wore no belt. He seemed to have dressed in a hurry.
Questions crammed into Asher’s throat—where had he found the gun? Did he have any silver bullets? Had it been as horrific as Wesley had feared, to be at a vampire’s mercy? There was no time to ask any of them. Once Wesley was safely in saddle, Asher slipped his pistol free and made to hand it over.
“Think this is yours.”
A rare smile twitched on Wesley’s lips. “Much obliged.”
“Asher.” Trepidation hummed in Uncle Howard’s voice. He’d put out a hand to help Asher mount up even though it clearly hurt him to bend. His fingers twitched. His gaze was trained on a point far over Asher’s shoulder.
Moreau stood at one end of the alley, his scorched face barely recognizable.
“Rather rude, to be leavin’ without saying goodbye to your host…” His smile was murderous.
“Go,” Asher breathed.
Connie choked out a protest. Uncle Howard tightened his grip on Asher’s hand, but the burn on his torso had sapped his strength.
The horses paced behind Asher, restless. They feared the predator eying them as much as the blazing inferno singing the crisp evening air.
Asher planted his feet. “Wesley, you have to go.”
Now. Before I lose my last shred of courage.
“Fuck… Fuck!” Wesley didn’t need to be told twice. With a yell that nearly drowned out Connie’s cry, he sent his horse flying out of the alley.
It took Asher a moment to realize that Wesley still held the reins to Uncle Howard’s mount. The piebald whinnied but had little c
hoice save to follow.
Uncle Howard shouted his name, albeit in vain.
The receding throb of pounding hooves faded into the furor of the siege.
Moreau hadn’t moved a muscle. It wasn’t Connie and the others that he wanted. “Did you shoot Sibyl like you promised?” he asked conversationally.
Asher swallowed hard. His finger twitched on the trigger of Wesley’s pistol. He couldn’t remember how his mouth worked.
“I see… Didn’t have the guts or didn’t have the bullets?”
Good question. Between fleeing Moreau’s and finding his friends, Asher hadn’t thought to check if the Colt was loaded. Sibyl had surprised him before he could dig around the pantry for ammunition.
“Well, aren’t you quiet?” Moreau taunted, when Asher kept silent. “I’d feel offended if you weren’t the very reason why my house is burning.” He sucked in a deep, unnecessary breath. “As it is, you’re not my favorite person anyway… Tell me something. Did you know you were bait when you left Sargasso or did it just dawn on you tonight?”
Bemusement must have shown on Asher’s because Moreau let out a sharp bark of laughter.
“Oh, you didn’t know! Ambrose played you.” His smile slipped off. “Of course, he’s played every vampire I know, so why not some insignificant little bloodbag?”
Asher raised the pistol in a trembling grip. It took both hands to steady it. Although unmoving, Moreau drifted in and out of the gun’s sight like a pendulum.
“I am not,” Asher bit out, “insignificant.”
Through the film of smoke drifting into the alley, Moreau bared his fangs. “Your friends are gone. You’ll never make it out of this town alive.” He smirked. “And let’s face it… Neither will I.”
He was standing still one moment, his taunts as sharp as needles. The next, Asher saw him twenty feet closer and racing for him. The barrel jammed against Moreau’s rib cage so hard its impact rattled Asher’s bones. He squeezed the trigger.
It was like slamming a hammer into rock. The vibration of the shot rippled through Asher’s arms and into his cranium.
For a beat, the alley was silent. Then Moreau’s snarl morphed into a moue of astonishment, as though he couldn’t believe Asher had actually shot him. Asher could barely believe it himself.
But surprise didn’t last. Even as he fell, Moreau swept his arm up, fingernails sharp like talons in Asher’s throat. His legs folded under him. His body convulsed, a horrible, twisting mass of bone and skin giving way to the scorch of an inner fire. Silver burned him from within. His flesh peeled off in ashen strips. His eyes were still staring up at Asher in his final moments of agony.
Knees quaking, Asher stumbled back. One step, two. The alley listed around him. He spun when he thought he heard footsteps, and fumbled the Colt with shaking hands. The cylinder slid open easily, revealing no more bullets. It was no use cocking the pistol again, even if he could somehow get his fingers to obey. There was no sense in trying to fight back.
Asher made it to the mouth of the alley before his body betrayed him. The siding of the saloon wall couldn’t hold him up. As his vision began to blur, then pinhole, he slid to the muddy ground. Dimly, he noticed that his shirt stuck to him, cold and wet in spite the breathless heat. The dark stain eating into the once-brown fabric might’ve had something to do with it.
He tried to order his thoughts into making sense of what his eyes reported, to no avail. The others got away. I saved them.
The Colt threatened to slip from Asher’s fingers. It didn’t matter if he was weak now. He had nothing left to defend. Redemption’s fires would soon burn their last. The night was gaining again, filling Asher’s sight with comforting black.
He thought he heard someone speak in the distance, then saw a shadow looming over him. He was too spent to fight, but he lifted the pistol anyway.
The hammer clicked, dull and harmless, before oblivion swarmed in.
Chapter Eighteen
Voices whispered beyond the veil.
“I don’t know what can be done. He’s lost far too much blood…”
“What if he can’t be saved? There are worse things than dying young…”
“You’d know.”
“Can’t you use my blood?”
The sound of doors banging open, shut, then open again filtered through the gloom. A whirring of metal saws echoed.
“Christ Almighty!”
Someone heaved. The smell of blood and sick, of antiseptic choking out the breath in lungs that should’ve long stopped working, became noticeable then vanished once more.
“Why bother?” A gruff question. “We’ll find you another—”
“No.” Merciless denial rasped into the hollow between one scoff and the next.
Silence settled, too tense to be natural.
A honeyed voice picked up the slack, creeping through the soup of darkness. “What Halloran is trying to say is…”
“Save him.”
* * * *
Light pricked Asher’s vision. He tried to turn his head away from it only to find the motion arrested by an unyielding metal wedge pressed to his neck. He swallowed against it, uneasy. The light was still bothering him.
“I think he’s waking up,” Romero said, too loud to be a whisper.
Asher groaned. Oh, good. Halloran must have called her to give Asher another lecture about keeping his head down and playing nice with bloodsuckers. What was it he’d done this time? Spoken out of turn? Rolled his eyes at Octavian’s pomposity?
Fire. Blood on his hands, blood on Wesley’s pistol. Redemption reduced to rubble and smoke.
Recollection slammed into him like ballast. And with it, panic.
Asher jackknifed on the bed—or would have done so but for the implacable straps holding him in place. Leather belts cut across his body from chest to ankle, sparking fresh terror in his breast.
“It’s all right,” Romero told him, her lined face swimming above him. “Kid, it’s all right!”
Two broad hands clasped Asher’s cheeks, stilling his flailing. Halloran resolved out of the hazy candle glow. “Stop.”
“Where,” Asher choked. He was hoarse, though it must have been a while since he’d last opened his mouth to scream. “Where… Willow…”
Halloran shook his head. “Safe. For now.”
“I’ll get the doctor,” Romero said. Her chair scraped the floor as she rose, the sound loud enough to make Asher wince in pain.
Rather than take her seat, Halloran settled on the edge of the mattress. The bindings securing Asher to the bed pulled tighter, briefly curtailing his breaths.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Halloran asked.
“Moreau.” Betraying him. Being attacked by him.
Killing him.
Had it actually happened or had Asher made the whole thing up?
Halloran flattened his lips into a thin line. “Couldn’t find him. We know a few of his lackeys got away, though…”
Asher considered adjusting that version of events but he didn’t trust his voice any more than he trusted his memory. “Why the…” Beneath the coverlet and the belts, he could feel all his fingers and toes, which struck him as a good sign but didn’t explain the need to truss him like he was possessed.
Unexpectedly cautious, Halloran took a moment to pick his words. “You were badly hurt. When we found you, you’d lost a lot of blood.”
That would be Moreau’s parting gift, one last swipe at Asher’s much-bitten neck, digging clawed fingers into flesh he’d already bruised.
Asher blinked away the memory. “You, uh. You had to…”
Halloran shook his head. “You were too far gone for my blood to help.”
Like Uncle Howard. Lucretia had dragged him back from the brink of death, but her life force was no match for the amount of damage Howard’s body had taken.
Had his uncle and his friends been found? The question rose to the tip of Asher’s tongue. He choked it back down, his mind emptying
of thought when Halloran combed gentle fingers through his hair. “We lost you for a few minutes. You don’t remember?”
A near-death experience wasn’t enough to stop Asher’s tongue. “You never had…me,” he got out, each word husky with effort.
Halloran snorted, curling his lips into a half-smile. “You ain’t well enough to flirt yet.”
He straightened as the door creaked open. However odd it was to be petted, Asher felt oddly bereft once Halloran pulled away.
“This is Doctor Matheson,” Halloran said. “He brought you back.”
The quack was a tall, blond scarecrow of a man with a pinched mouth—no one Asher recognized. He took Halloran’s spot on the bed and proceeded to peer at Asher’s neck while ignoring the rest of him.
Asher tried not to shudder as something was moved and adjusted, aware of a bandage being stripped off his skin, yet nervous because he couldn’t see what it was supposed to be holding together.
The number of restraints holding him prisoner did not bode well.
“What’s wrong with me?” he gritted out, when he could suffer in silence no longer.
For the first time, Doc met his eyes. “You suffered a tear in your carotid artery. We were able to repair that, but thanks to Mr. Halloran here, half the tissue in your neck had become necrotic. I can only assume your body’s defenses were compromised by a combination of two incompatible strains of vampire blood—”
“Moreau must’ve…” Asher couldn’t recall being made to take Moreau’s blood, but he’d spent enough time in his bed that it could have happened.
Doc acquiesced with a nod. “That would do it.”
“Why the…why the ropes? What did I do?” Asher would’ve blamed his most recent captivity on actually putting a bloodsucker down with his own hand, but Halloran seemed ignorant of that accomplishment. And if he didn’t know, then chances were high that no one else did, either.
“It’s more a matter of what you might do,” Doc corrected. “As I said, your flesh became necrotic. I had to debride significant portions—”
“Amputate?”