The Gunslinger's Man

by Helena Maeve

  It didn’t work. Lucretia hissed and tightened her grip, grinding the bones in his ankle against each other. On his sixth or seventh attempt, beginning to tire, Asher remembered what he’d seen Halloran do in the church and aimed his kick at her forearm rather than her hand or face.

  Vampire bones were still bones. Lucretia’s cracked like snapped kindling.

  Asher crawled away on elbows and knees, dragging himself to his feet against the wall of the church. By the time he braced for Lucretia’s next attack, there was no longer any need. Halloran stood above her, a pistol in his hand.

  A thin filament of smoke rose from the barrel. Asher hadn’t even heard the gunshot.

  Lucretia’s body shriveled in those horrible, final throes. The other vampire, the one Halloran had been wrestling with, was already a steaming puddle of viscera.

  Halloran glanced up at him, gaze intent. “All right?”

  Asher mustered a nod. Lucretia had barely scratched him. He was fine.

  He had to look away from the thing that had once been Lucretia before he retched. The flurry of vampires darting in and out of sight served as distraction.

  The worst of the fighting seemed contained around the town hall, though now and then someone would crash through a shop window or wind up jettisoned from a rooftop. It took Asher a moment to realize that Malachi had placed his men at altitude precisely so they could pick off the enemy as it blew into town. His loyal human thugs were as good as cannon-fodder for the surviving bloodsuckers who’d left Redemption before it had burned to the ground. His vampire acolytes seemed to be faring a little better, when they weren’t fleeing.

  Someone whistled from across the square. Asher caught sight of moonlight reflecting off a shaved head.

  “Blackjack,” he gasped in relief, and pointed.

  All it took was a split second’s inattention.

  “No!” Halloran shouted.

  A pistol went off—had gone off—and by the time Asher cut his eyes across the square, Blackjack was already slipping from his saddle.

  Even boosted with steel and copper, Asher’s human legs were still too slow to cover the distance. Halloran reached Blackjack first, gentling his fall before he hit the ground.

  “Where is it, where is it—Asher, did you see where—”

  “His chest…I think.”

  Halloran took him at his word. Fabric tore beneath his hands, baring a near-hairless chest crisscrossed by a plethora of scars. Black blood gushed out of the space beneath his right lowermost rib.

  “H-Halloran…” Blackjack raised a trembling hand.

  “I got you, buddy. I got you, you’re gonna be fine. You’ll see,” Halloran panted, grimacing as he struggled to widen the wound. Vampire flesh wanted to seal together around the bullet, not knowing that it was silver. Unable to tell the difference between easing pain and sealing the poison inside, where it would spread outward as fast as flame over hooch.

  “H-hh…” Convulsions seized Blackjack, agony twisting his features. The hand he’d raised quaked as though it took the very last of his strength to keep it up.

  Asher followed its direction. The horse? The saddle? A sawed-off Spencer carbine hung from a strap. Asher seized it and checked the magazine. Seven rounds.

  Seven silver-capped rounds.

  Blackjack choked on a wet breath and let his arm drop to the ground.

  “No. No, no, no… You’re not done yet. I got it out. I got it out!” Halloran grabbed Blackjack by the shirtfront, the silver bullet smoldering in his fist.

  Blackjack’s head lolled back, no longer supported. The stench of charred meat filled the air.

  “Halloran.” Asher squeezed the rifle with both hands. “Halloran, come on.”

  “No, I can bring him back!”

  “He’s gone!”

  Another shot flew maybe an inch from Asher’s left ear. He heard the bullet slice through the air before it embedded itself into the hitching post.

  Blackjack’s horse reared up in fright. Asher made to grab the reins when he saw the shooter on the roof of the saloon. He didn’t think. He took aim with the carbine and squeezed off two rounds.

  The first one missed. The second did not.

  Asher allowed himself a moment of gratification. But there would be others. If one set of enemies didn’t get them, Malachi’s men would.

  “Halloran, we have to go.”

  There was no response. He saw why as soon as he turned.

  Where Blackjack had been a moment ago now there was only dust, blood and entrails. And Halloran, thrumming with a rage Asher would’ve quite happily died without ever encountering.

  “Halloran, please…”

  Their eyes met. Halloran bared his fangs.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Goddamn it,” Asher swore under his breath. “Halloran!”

  There was little point in calling out to him. The evening gloom had swallowed Halloran up, his innate speed fueled by whatever had been in Uncle Howard’s smuggled vials.

  Grief did the rest.

  Asher scrubbed a hand over his brow. Beads of sweat slid down his temples. He had only five rounds left and no idea how many vampires still to shoot. No idea where they were, either. Now and again a scream pierced the night, making his blood run cold. The silence was worse.

  Worst of all, he was on his own.

  Staying here ain’t helping.

  He’d taken shelter behind the trough outside the saloon, his back to the town square because he couldn’t stand to see the place where Blackjack had fallen. The view down Main Street wasn’t much better. The bodies of those trampled in the stampede had been left to rot in the open like road kill. Flies buzzed over them, audible in the dark.

  The shadow of death hung low over Sargasso. Even the moon didn’t dare show its face.

  Asher flexed his hands around the rifle. Should have taken Blackjack’s horse when I had the chance. Should’ve fled. But the animal had torn free of the hitching post and vanished into the night, robbing him of the opportunity. Different horse, same problem.

  Halloran had disappeared, too, likely on a rampage through the dark alleys.

  The scrape of boots on creaking floorboards distracted Asher from the lure of self-pity. He pricked his ears, every muscle locking in anticipation. Two sets of footsteps, he surmised, moving slowly through the saloon—human, because no vampire he’d encountered tonight had been so circumspect. Another couple of feet and they’d be on the wrong side of the swinging doors.

  If he was quick on the reload, Asher would have one shot at each. If he wasn’t—he wasn’t going to think about that.

  He twitched a leg under him and did his best to quell fear with clear-headedness. He hadn’t made it this far for Malachi’s men to shoot him dead.

  The saloon door swung open with a creak of hinges.

  Asher pushed up with his knees, swinging the carbine at his targets. His half-metal finger danced over the trigger. He only barely aborted the impulse to squeeze down when he registered Connie’s familiar face.

  Uncle Howard hadn’t been telling tales. She was alive. She was here. Relief slackened Asher’s grip on the rifle.

  “Connie—”

  Beside her, Wesley raised his pistols high, muzzles pointed straight at Asher. He didn’t waver.

  Two bursts of gunfire echoed near simultaneously. Asher flinched, but it was too late. Something wet and warm splashed his back. He only saw the vampire once he’d spun around.

  The creature had been less than two feet away and about to grab him. It no longer had hands to do it with.

  “We need to get off the street,” Wesley growled. “There’ll be more where that came from.”

  “How?” Asher blurted, words refusing to unstick themselves from his throat.

  When he failed to move fast enough, Connie grabbed him by the hand and tugged him along. “I’ll explain later.”

  “Or, novel idea, he could start by explaining what the fuck he’s done to this town,” Wesley m
uttered, reloading as they ran.

  “Is it true that Ambrose is dead?” Connie panted.

  That question, at least, Asher could easily answer. “Yes.” Dead, gone and replaced by his equally psychotic progeny. “Don’t thank me yet.”

  “Wasn’t goin’ to,” Wesley snorted just in time to avoid a burst of glittering glass shards. “Shit!”

  “They’re on the rooftops,” Asher put in, grabbing for Wesley’s gun. “Here, use this!”

  The carbine had shoddy aim at a distance, but it beat a revolver. And Asher could reload it faster.

  Wesley braced against the telegraph office door and took the shot. “Always said you had girlish hands.”

  “Damn you very much.” Asher thrust one of the pistols into Connie’s hands as they scrambled inside. He couldn’t load both guns at once.

  His growl seemed to amuse Wesley. “Where’s lover boy?”

  “Halloran?”

  “Yeah, him… Woulda thought he’d be chasing after you through this hell.”

  He was. Asher shook his head. Part of him wanted nothing more than to crumble to the ground and wait for Halloran to find him as he always did. The rest knew that would be a death sentence. As long as rabid vampires were about, no four walls were cover enough.

  “Don’t suppose you got any more ammo?” Wesley asked, focusing at last on what mattered. “We’re runnin’ a little low.”

  “Still some bullets in the shop.” But that was all the way across town, on the far side of God only knew how many more critters. “What’re you gonna do? Try and shoot your way out?”

  Wesley snorted, the dirt and dried blood caked on his face cracking like a mask. “Hear that, Connie? Shoot our way out. That’s funny. That’s real funny.” A mad sort of excitement burned in his eyes when he looked back at Asher. “Nah, boy. We’re ridding this town of bloodsuckers once and for all.”

  Asher swung his gaze to Connie, who wasn’t laughing.

  “We’re not fleein’ again,” she said, resigned but firm.

  “But—”

  “Here we go!” With the butt of the rifle, Wesley carved himself a makeshift embrasure out of the grimy telegraph office window.

  The ruckus was much too loud for the two vampires brawling it out in the street not to hear. One snapped its head up.

  It was the last thing it ever did.

  Connie’s hand didn’t even shake as she picked off the other with a generous three shots to the chest.

  Asher flinched from the shrieks that followed. “Christ! What’re you—”

  “This is war,” Wesley snapped. “And it’s what you wanted.”

  “Reload that,” Connie added for good measure, helping herself to Asher’s pistol.

  He stared at the back of her head in utter bemusement. Where was the girl who’d once taken him to task for chasing lizards? Where was the Connie who’d consented to be the wife of a man whose greatest ambition was to bow and scrape before Ambrose?

  As if aware of his wayward thoughts, Connie shot him a glance over her shoulder. “We got a problem, Asher?”

  “No… No problem.” This was what he’d wanted. A Sargasso without vampires, without thugs like Octavian to frighten the population into submission.

  Yet when he closed his eyes, it wasn’t Ambrose he saw but Blackjack, trying to help his friend with his very last ounce of strength. He saw Nyle, twisted up by other people’s games.

  “Anybody notice how quiet it’s gotten?” Asher asked. “All over town, there ought to be people screaming and running for their lives…”

  “Like in Redemption,” Connie recalled.

  “That’s right.”

  Sargasso was as mournfully silent as the valley it dominated. Tumbleweed could be heard rolling down Main Street between the odd scuffle between the few remaining vampires. Malachi’s human gunmen must have been dealt with by now and any who’d escaped would be laying low if they had half a brain between their ears.

  “Maybe everyone’s dead,” Wesley grumbled.

  Connie smacked him over the head so Asher didn’t have to. “They’ve gotta be in the church.”

  “I just came from there,” Asher said, determined not to think about the hours he’d wasted feeling sorry for himself, deluded into hoping that Halloran gave a damn.

  “Then, where?” Connie scowled out the window. “Town hall?”

  “Maybe. It’s big enough.” All those rooms and stairwells could easily conceal some two hundred people, as long as they didn’t mind being squeezed like sardines.

  With the threat of annihilation looming over them like the sword of Damocles, that’d be the least of their problems.

  “Great.” Satisfied that there were no more targets to shoot at, Wesley slid down against the wall. “Then we get the ammo from your uncle’s shop and we finish this thing.”

  “You wanna kill everyone that’s left?”

  “Everyone that’s already died once, yeah,” Wesley snapped. “We do it now, while they’re weak—”

  “Guys.”

  “We end Malachi like you did his pop and—”

  “Guys!” Connie seized Wesley by the shirtfront. “There’s smoke rising from town hall.”

  Wesley and Asher couldn’t scrabble to their feet fast enough. The broken window only overlooked a narrow wedge of Main Street, but around the corner, around the balconies of the Pony Inn, a thin gray filament stood out against the night sky.

  “Fuck,” Asher swore. He hadn’t finished reloading the Colt but he grabbed it anyway. His own ancient revolver was long gone.

  “Connie, wait!” Wesley caught her by the wrist. “We don’t know how many are left—”

  Connie yanked her arm free. “My parents are in there!”

  Fire or not, there was no holding her back now. Asher didn’t think twice about following.

  They bolted through the streets, their footsteps both too loud and too slow, the racket inconsequential. Ten feet in, Asher heard Wesley swear a blue streak and take off after them.

  If they made it through tonight, he made a mental note to sit his friend down and make sure he understood that if he didn’t fess up to his feelings for Connie, then he obviously had nothing under his hat but hair. Big if. Bigger still, once the half-dozen vampires brandishing torches came into view between them and town hall.

  One would’ve been bad enough. Asher’s neck stung with phantom pain as he remembered Lucretia’s fangs opening his flesh.

  “Hey!” Connie shouted, aiming her revolver with both hands. “Remember me?”

  The tall, reedy vampire closest to the saloon snarled. It was Ivan. Someone had taken a swipe at him and left him missing an ear, but it was definitely Ivan.

  Asher remembered what Uncle Howard had insinuated—that the vampires from Redemption had been blundering through the valley for some time. No wonder weren’t healing properly. They’d been without bloodbags since the attack. They weren’t as strong as they’d been, but they were still five to their measly, human three.

  Connie squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet went wide. Running on empty or not, Ivan’s reflexes were still better than a mere mortal’s. He dodged the first shot as though it were child’s play. The next one struck the dirt, courtesy of Connie’s fraying temper. She emptied the clip without a single lucky shot and when that didn’t work, she lunged at him like a stray cat pouncing on a mouse.

  Asher made to follow, but the other vampires had finally twigged on to the attack. He nailed one in the shoulder, more by accident than design, and still it came at him.

  They slammed into the ground, metal grinding against bone, against vampire flesh. From the corner of his eye, Asher glimpsed Wesley faring little better with his targets. Someone shouted farther up the town hall steps.

  A red flare arced into the sky.

  Like Redemption, like every other border town, Sargasso was all timber and dirt, flammable when exposed to a lit torch.

  Asher got his pistol between his chest and the va
mpire snapping at his throat and fired. At point-blank range, once was enough. Black blood stung Asher’s eyes as he rolled out from under the quivering creature. He didn’t look. He knew what he’d see if he did.

  His friends needed him to keep his head.

  “Fire!” someone yelled. “Fire!”

  The cry was picked up by a chorus of other voices, all choked with fear and thickening smoke.

  Asher barely managed a step forward before the town hall doors blew open. Men and women barged through the narrow gap, stumbling and falling, and picking themselves up again. Fleeing one source of terror only landed them in the open maw of another.

  The remaining four vampires stood between Asher and his friends and neighbors. He recognized Connie’s parents in the frightened throng. Uncle Howard, always a little farther back, seemed to have been carried outside by mob. He cut a sharp contrast to Romero, her hair a riot around her head, frozen in her tracks at the foot of the porch. A brass fire stoker gleamed in her hands. She’d been the one to force the doors open.

  The roof of the hall blazed behind the press of wild-eyed townspeople. Someone inside was shouting for calm. Asher thought he recognized Malachi’s voice but couldn’t be sure.

  With a savage, suicidal bellow, Romero swung her makeshift weapon. She fell upon the vampire nearest to her like a woman possessed.

  The creature parried the blow with a torn-up hand. Even weakened, it was stronger and faster than a mere human. But Romero struck again and again, fury boiling in her eyes. She was the first to attack.

  She was not the last.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  When the dust cleared and morning dawned over Sargasso, the wealth of destruction became impossible to ignore. Furrows in the ground marked the graves of fallen vampires. Their blood had eaten into the dirt, both nourishing and scorching as it evaporated. The dead humans were no less obvious, lying in tortured, unmoving heaps in both street and house.

  Those who’d been trampled by the cattle were the first to be buried. The unnaturally warm day that followed the fighting made it an imperative. Humans and vampires alike dug graves behind the church, trading shovels and trowels to crack the hard earth. The carpenter had been killed, so they made do with placeholder crosses cobbled together from broken chair legs and window frames, no two grave markers alike.