by Helena Maeve
“They’re not fighting, are they?”
Angelita could sense vampires the same way she could drive humans into submission. She’d know the answer. She could confirm Asher’s suspicions.
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.” Asher found her gaze. “You know, one of your maids is in my shop. Dead.” Broken, he’d almost called her, like a pocket watch that failed to keep time or a cuckoo clock that only chimed once in a blue moon.
A shadow passed over Angelita’s features. “Yes, I… I heard.”
“Someone stabbed her.” Someone strong, he had assumed at first—a vampire looking for easy entertainment, a human with an ax to grind—but strength came in all forms.
That familiar brush against his psyche made Asher tremble where he sat. “I ain’t gonna rat.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Angelita protested, but the eerie caress inside his mind flinched away as if she was deliberately granting the reprieve.
“It’s Matheson, isn’t it? The stuff he’s feeding you?” Those vials on her dresser weren’t filled with restoratives. If it was human blood alone she needed to get better, Ambrose would’ve had the whole of Sargasso drained. He seemed to value her a great deal, like any gunslinger fond of a good pistol.
Angelita slid her hands over the railing and tipped forward until she balanced over the open chasm of the stairwell. Her voice, when she spoke, was almost wistful. “Two men face each other across a stretch of road. They don’t know they’re facing opposite directions because all they see is each other. Do you understand?”
“Not even a little,” Asher was happy to report. He’d always believed he wasn’t entirely bereft of smarts, but Angelita had talked circles around him before. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe he didn’t want the kind of brains that kept a woman in cahoots with men like Ambrose and Malachi.
Blood pounded against his eardrums twice, the vibration driven by some other force than his own pulsing heart.
“Try this, then,” Angelita said, and leaned forward a little more. “In a land where nothing grows, the only seeds that sprout are in the mind.”
“Gotta be some other land than this one,” Asher offered tepidly. “If we had any sense ’round here, we’d do for Sargasso like your pals did for Redemption, and set up shop somewhere kinder.”
Slanting a pitying glance at him, Angelita dropped her voice to a whisper. “We tried.”
“Yeah, thanks for the reminder.” As if Asher didn’t know that it was all his fault. As if he needed Angelita of all people to pass judgment over his failures.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Angelita sighed. “You plant a seed and you let it grow. It may not grow as fast as you wish, but it will grow.”
Asher snorted. That was some bald-faced crap.
“Sargasso is more fertile than you think,” she went on. “It’s just…we grow facing opposite directions.”
Another clang upstairs sent Asher to his feet. “Your philosophy’s real interesting—”
“Ambrose thinks something is coming.”
That caught Asher’s attention. Halloran had said something similar once, in the depths of a dream. It hadn’t made much sense then, either.
Angelita drew her bottom lip between her teeth as if in thought.
“Why are you telling me this?” Asher scowled. “You’re his pet.” I’m the guy who tried to kill him.
“He changed you.”
“Yeah. Me and the maids,” Asher drawled, humorless. “Are you going to tell me what happened to Dorcas?”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Two men face each other across a stretch of road. They both have blood on their hands… Do you understand?”
Asher swallowed hard. He would’ve been happier if he didn’t. “I’ll see you around.”
Every last ounce of strength he possessed went into forcing his mechanical body into motion. He braced for Angelita’s invisible hand snagging at his throat, but there was no hook, no anchor in his bones. With no one to stop him, he took the stairs two by two and shoved open the front door.
Ambrose’s thugs eyed him warily but whatever orders they’d been given with must not have involved keeping him trapped inside.
The notion stung. Even Ambrose, who had the most reason to fear him, had come to believe that Asher was effectively neutered.
“Hey, do you see that?” one of the goons stationed on the porch asked his pal.
Sunlight stinging his eyes, it took Asher a moment to notice what he meant—a black smudge in the distance, the sky shimmering above two orange flares.
The other gunslinger used the hilt of his rifle to push himself to his feet. “The hell is that?”
“Fire,” Asher breathed, feeling as though he’d been punched in the chest. “Fire at Willowbranch…” And that inky blur racing toward Sargasso at break-neck speed could only be the cattle.
Whatever relief might have sprung up at the sight was quickly quashed by the presence of horsemen accompanying it—the ones closest to the herd and the ones trailing a long way behind, their pistols raised high.
Gunshots echoed over the valley, spurring the animals on. One of the figures in the first group slumped over his mount and didn’t sit up again.
“Raise the alarm!” Asher shouted. “Go!”
Confusion gripped the town as men and women going about their business heard the commotion. Mr. Pinkham poked his head out of shop. Dr. Matheson, fresh out of the post office, nearly dropped the parcel under his arm when Asher brushed past him.
The church bells began to chime just as he stumbled into Uncle Howard’s shop. With Dorcas forgotten on the worktable, it looked more like a funeral home. Asher didn’t let himself dwell on it for long. His heart pounding a frenzied tattoo, he dove under the desk, gratified when he found the pistol still there, still loaded. It wasn’t much of a shield against harm, but if Redemption had taught him anything, it was that to be armed was better than the alternative.
Dizzy with the déjà-vu, Asher slid the remaining bullets into his back pocket and levered upright. He nearly lost his footing when the ground began to shake beneath him. In more than seventy years, Sargasso had never known a single earthquake. It hadn’t been trampled by cattle, either, whose hooves stirred clouds of orange dust, blinding themselves and everyone around them.
Gunshots echoed close by. No sooner had Asher made it to the door of the shop that a rider raced by so close Asher had to duck back over the threshold. He thought it might have been Charlie, but the haze swallowed him up too fast for Asher to be certain.
Another horse strode past, this one with a limp burden on his back that slid to the ground some twenty feet away. Tangled in its reins, the animal whickered and stopped a back hoof.
Its rider had been human, judging by the way it had kept its form. It was also dead, or dying. Keeping low to the ground, Asher hurried toward it.
The cattle pounded an almighty ruckus. Screams accompanied them somewhere on the far side of Main Street. Men and women who hadn’t been quick enough to race for cover found themselves caught in the throng.
Another cavalcade swung past. Asher pressed himself against the wall of the leatherworks and raised the pistol. His hand hadn’t trembled when he’d shot Moreau, but Moreau had been coming straight at him. Moving targets were a different story. His flesh ached where Malachi had sunk his teeth. He pressed against the wood to keep the sting alive. His penchant for pain had always worked against him. Perhaps it was time to use it to his advantage.
On your feet, Asher. Get up.
With a sharp breath, he launched himself another five or so feet toward the fallen rider. The back of the man’s head was a mess of brain matter and blood. The front had once belonged to one of the ranch hands from New Morning. Asher wished he’d learned the boy’s name.
He ducked back as another horseman galloped out of the flurries of dust, aiming his rifle straight at Asher’s head. They locked eyes over the edge of a kerchief tied a
round the rider’s mouth and nose.
Asher thought he spotted a flash of recognition, but the dust haze swept the bandit up just as quickly as he’d emerged. Asher chalked it up to his overworked imagination.
He wouldn’t be so lucky the next time someone pointed a gun at his head.
Whispering a prayer for the ranch hand, Asher hastened to untangle the reins and draw the horse away from the stampede. The herd had begun to spill into the narrow side streets, seeking shelter, seeking a way free from the clamor that had frightened them in the first place. Asher climbed into saddle. If he didn’t go now, the way would be blocked.
A burst of gunfire rang up ahead.
Town hall. Ambrose.
Asher did his best to calm his panicked mount, wincing as a warm, furry body trapped his ankle between it and the horse’s flank. His heart throbbed with dread.
Halloran.
He would be fine. He was a vampire. He’d faced worse.
The bovine form pinning Asher in place tore itself free with a wail and ran on. Asher tried not to think about the bodies strewn on the ground, the ones he could see now and again peering through the throng of horned beasts. Pulped bone and crimson viscera spilled clean across the hard-packed dirt.
To head back toward the heart of town was to risk that same fate.
“God damn it,” Asher swore and nudged his heels into the horse’s heaving belly.
The animal sprang into motion as though whipped. Its speed came as little surprise. It, too, wanted out of this bedlam.
The herd’s forward momentum carried them a while, the dust blurring Asher’s vision. He couldn’t see any farther than the cob’s upraised ears. And the gunfire kept coming, closer now, pounding his eardrums.
Something—someone—emerged out of the yellow fog just before his horse’s front hooves. Archer squeezed the reins back, and by some miracle managed to hike his mount over the figures wrestling on the ground. He thought he spotted Blackjack’s shaved head and one of Ambrose’s men. He twisted in the saddle for a second look, but it was no use. The fog closed in around them.
A gunshot rang out. The cob reared again. This time, Asher wasn’t ready for it. He lost his footing in the stirrups. His center of gravity shifted over the horse’s back.
He landed badly, on the arm that was more metal than flesh, the impact rattling into his brain.
A deep breath stirred another puff of orange-gold dust into the air. The herd had begun to thin or else they’d have trampled him already.
Asher scrabbled for the pistol stuck in his belt, gratified to discover that it hadn’t rolled away in the fall. Thank God for that.
“You again,” a voice growled above him.
The muzzle of a pistol met Asher’s skull when he made to turn his head.
“Shoulda known this was your doing—you and your traitorous friends! You ungrateful piece of shit!”
Lustrous congress gaiters resolved about half a foot from Asher’s nose. Only one man in Sargasso had dough to waste on keeping his shoes buffed to a sheen.
“Ambrose,” Asher breathed.
“Damn right, boy. The last name you’ll ever speak.”
The threat washed over Asher. He’d heard worse. He’d had worse done to him.
Warm metal singed his cheek. He had to squint to make much sense of Ambrose’s features. In this yellow mist, he was a photograph. He didn’t seem quite real.
“Do it.” Asher bared flat, human teeth. “What’re you waiting for?”
A cry rose out of the fog, raw and violent, as if torn from the earth.
Ambrose swung his gaze toward it—swift for a human, slow for what he was. Halloran slammed into him, bearing them both into the ground. A stray piebald cow wailed in fear as they cut off her trajectory.
Asher barely had time to cover his head with his arms as the animal careened toward him. A hoof jammed into his shoulder. Another stomping into his chest. Pain exploded behind his eyes, worse than any he’d endured at the hands of a vampire.
The notion forced out a dizzy, irrational guffaw through dry lips.
He zeroed in on the sounds of a scuffle with some difficulty. It seemed to take him ages to twist around. His blurry vision latched on to Halloran and Ambrose, now moving too fast, now locked in a hold neither of them was strong enough to break.
Halloran’s attempts to reach Ambrose’s pistol were thwarted at every turn. Worse, with the stampede no longer there to fuel it, the fog had begun to clear. Figures emerged from the gloom. Asher couldn’t tell if they were friend or foe. He couldn’t risk it.
With fumbling hands, he drew his ancient revolver from his belt. It was too heavy. He clamped his useless hybrid fingers around it but drawing back the hammer took an age and a half.
Ambrose grasped his own gun and brought the hilt crashing onto Halloran’s face. Blood doused the street. The fleshy echo turned Asher’s stomach.
Red filled his vision.
“Hey!” he rasped. “Hey!”
Cuts already scarring over on his brow and nose, Ambrose swiveled a wrathful snarl in his direction. His features slackened when he saw the pistol.
“Shoulda killed me when you had the chance,” Asher slurred. He squeezed the trigger.
One last gunshot rang out over Sargasso.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Come on, Asher. You gotta help me out.”
Fingers in his hair, in his mouth. Someone lifting his head up.
Asher winced. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? He was so tired. His legs were already asleep. If they stopped shaking him a minute, he could maybe fall asleep. He needed the rest.
“Drink,” someone told him. “Come on, I know you can do it.”
He couldn’t. He didn’t want to.
He grimaced at the bitter, viscous liquid that poured into his mouth. The taste was going to make him retch.
“Pinch his nose,” the voice said.
A third hand pressed Asher’s nostrils shut. Panic arced through him. Between the gag in his mouth and the clamp around his nose, he was going to suffocate. He jerked, trying to get that point across, and found himself choking back the ichor filling his mouth.
It burned as it went down. It reminded him of whiskey, the first time he’d imbibed any. It reminded him of Halloran’s blood, decanted down his throat to repair the body Ambrose’s minions had broken.
Ambrose.
The stampede.
A single gunshot made to count.
Asher jackknifed upright, shaking off the hands that held him, and doubled over.
“It’s all right. You’re gonna be all right…”
Halloran’s voice seemed to come from very far away, a whole fanfare’s worth of drumming in Asher’s ears. He blinked back tears as he coughed, trying to dislodge the fire in his gullet.
They were still in the street. The dust had settled again, no sign of the cattle or gunmen anywhere. A jagged path of briny blackness puddled on the hard-packed ground between the fallen, proof that vampire casualties ranked among the humans.
“Asher, look at me,” Halloran demanded.
It seemed a strange thing, to want to obey him now that the strings holding them prisoner had been obliterated at last. Asher turned his head. He meant to do as he was told, but the man kneeling beside Halloran in the dirt caught Asher’s eye.
I must be losing my mind. “Uncle Howard?”
For a hallucination, Asher’s uncle was rather dusty and worn down. A tear in his sleeve exposed a grimy white shirt underneath.
“Hello, nephew.”
“What…what are you…?”
Halloran darted to his feet, startling in his speed, and rounded to face the town hall.
At the top of the porch steps, on the raised dais, Malachi leaned on his father’s wolf’s head cane. “Twenty-five dead. Willowbranch Farm razed to the ground. All our cattle gone… And one of you three murdered our protector.”
“It was me,” Halloran said. “I did it.”
Twenty-five vampires might have been lost in the flurry of the stampede, though not trampled, but enough remained to encircle the wounded townspeople barely struggling to their feet. From the corner of his eye, Asher spotted Charlie fumbling his sleeve open to offer Blackjack his blood. Maud was wrestling her rifle from under the body of a fallen horse. She seemed all right, but with just her and Blackjack to back him, Halloran wouldn’t stand a chance.
“No,” Asher gritted out.
Malachi flicked those dangerous grey eyes of his in his direction. “Something to say?” He seemed more amused than dubious.
“It wasn’t—”
“You really gonna to take the word of a bloodbag over mine?” Halloran balled his hands at his sides. His fists bore the smear of Ambrose’s blood. He’d been close enough to come to blows with their mayor. That might count against him.
“You word meant more before I found you entertaining traitors,” said Malachi.
Uncle Howard thinned his lips but offered no defense.
“And since I trust neither of you, I’ll have it from someone who always speaks the truth.” Malachi turned and gestured into the house.
Matheson and Angelita were marched out at gunpoint. Enough of Ambrose’s human puppets had outlived him that Malachi still had lackeys to order around.
“Well, sister?” Malachi cocked his head. “Father always said you were full of insights.”
“I don’t…”
“Speak up!”
When Ambrose shouted, his voice boomed like a clamp of thunder. His townspeople were trained to fear that roar early in life, the better to try to avoid it in adulthood. When Malachi did it, glee slithered through. It made him sound not quite sane.
Angelita narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Then you’re of no use to me, are you?” Malachi waved a hand.
The clangor of a gunshot jolted Asher back a step.
The button-down bodice of Angelita’s day suit darkened to a deep emerald, then to black. Her fingertips came away red when she pressed them to the stain.
Asher made to race for the dais as Angelita’s knees crumbled beneath her, but Halloran’s arm shot out, stopping him mid-motion.